Sansa

"Do you want me to kill him for you?"

It shouldn't have surprised her, given what Arya had done at the Twins barely a fortnight ago, but the cavalier offer still rendered Sansa speechless momentarily. She lowered her goblet from her lips slowly and stared at her sister levelly to see whether she was speaking in jest or not.

Oh no, Arya was dead serious.

"If the knights of the Vale found out that we had Littlefinger killed, they'd tell Robyn and he'd go back to the Eerie in a second. That's if he kept his temper and didn't order them to attack us out of vengeance. Which he might."

"They wouldn't find out."

She said it with such confidence, it made Sansa's heart race. Could it be possible? Could she do it? Sansa had just seen what her sister was capable of – had just seen her take off a face as one might strip off a coat.

"It would need to look like an accident."

Arya nodded, still serious.

"It would."

Sansa's heart was hammering as she stared at her sister, so much more contained than she used to be but somehow so much more violent. She thought of Petyr Baelish, who'd saved her from Joffery only to hand her over to a tormentor who was even more vindictively focused on causing her pain. Petyr Baelish who lusted after her for her resemblance to her mother. Who would expect her to warm his bed even as he married her off to a petulant weakling of a child. Who would stop at nothing to wrest power from those who'd mocked and doubted him. Who through it all, seemed to honestly and truly believe that he cared for her. Could she live with herself if he was killed at her request?

Yes, she thought, yes I could.

But it was more complicated than that. There was someone else they needed to account for.

Jon.

She'd told him she wouldn't act anymore without telling him first, and there is no way he'd allow Arya to assassinate Littlefinger, no matter how badly Jon wanted to kill the man himself. He was too honorable for that, even after everything that he'd seen. He'd never condone such a killing, and he'd never forgive Sansa for ordering it without telling him, not after these last few weeks.

Steeling herself for the answer she was sure Arya would give, Sansa sighed and locked eyes with her sister once more.

"Could you do this, and not tell Jon?"

Arya's eyes narrowed slightly and she cocked her head to the side considering.

"Why not?"

"He's the King. He wouldn't approve of you killing Littlefinger without his permission."

"He's not my King. Not yet, at least," Arya said, as if it would be unreasonable for a King to expect her refrain from murder before she'd explicitly consented to be ruled by him.

"Please Arya, he cannot know. He'd never trust me again."

"I could let you chose when to tell him—"

"Never, Arya. I love Jon but he's… set in his ways about some things. I just can't risk losing him, not when we have so little family left. He'd forgive you, I'm sure he would, but me… I'd rather we not go through with it at all, than to have Jon decide he's done with me because of another deception."

Arya held her gaze for a long time, her silvery eyes boring into Sansa despite the drink, as if she was hoping to see straight into her soul. Then she nodded slowly, seeming displeased but determined nonetheless.

"I won't tell him. Even if he asks, because I know it's important to you, and it'd be stupid to let Littlefinger continue to threaten you."

Sansa nodded, more grateful to her sister than she thought she'd ever been in her life.

"But that's just this once Sansa. I've no problem going against Jon when he's being stupid – King or not – but I don't want to lie. I've done enough lying."

They went to bed not long after, laying down back to back in the bed that had once belonged to their parents. Sansa felt warmer and more secure than she'd had felt in years, despite the weight of what had passed between them. She'd always resented the occasions where she had to share a bed with Arya when they were children – hating her sister for her wild energy and her almost deliberate tossing and turning. All that was gone now though, Arya lay still and quite as the grave, with nothing but the tension in her shoulders revealing that she was in anything but a dead sleep. There was still so much more they needed to discuss, so much she needed to know about the woman her sister had become.

With that on her mind she slipped into a deep but dream-filled sleep. Her mind whirled with scenes of Arya making her way through strange lands and far-away cities. Of Arya rushing through the woods on the King's Road with the shouts of unknown men coming behind her. Of Arya coming up behind a Petyr Baelish in the dark and stabbing him in the back, only to have him transform into Jon as he fell and began to bleed out into the crisp white snow.

She woke with a start. She couldn't do it. She couldn't ask her sister, her wild and magnificent and fucked-up sister to slay her demons for her. Not only should she not be taking advantage of Arya's willingness to spill blood, but she shouldn't be coming between her and Jon before they'd even had the chance to see each other again. Littlefinger was her problem, and she could either kill him herself or live with the fact that he had her under his thumb once again. She turned in bed, intent on telling Arya what she'd decided and then going back to bed and sleeping well past dawn.

But Arya was already gone.

Littlefinger

For how much time he'd spent in the company of whores, Petyr Baelish really didn't get all that much enjoyment out of partaking in their services. Sure, he'd fucked his fair share of them, but for him, getting secrets out of them had always been far more enticing than shoving his cock into them. And that was precisely what he intended to get out of this particular night's venture.

It was nearly midnight when they left the great hall, despite Sansa's uncharacteristic early departure, and he'd managed to wrangle up quite a gathering of men to visit the brothels in Wintertown. He had, of course, seen to it that some excellent and loyal whores were installed in the brothels there in the hopes of gleaning as much information out of his Northern comrades as possible, but as of yet the men were proving entirely too honorable for his taste. So alas, he had to take it on himself to see that this gathering of high lords did not go to waste. He would have the wine flowing and the bodices opening and, gods willing, get tongues wagging before sunrise.

And so he herded the Manderly's and the Glovers, the Knights of the Vale, and a fair few of the Wildling commanders (though not Jon Snow's redheaded companion who must have gone to sheath his cock elsewhere) into the courtyard prepared to strike out despite the cold. Some sandy haired stable boy had offered to act as his squire and their guide into Wintertown (most likely the lad was hoping he'd get to see his first pair of teets if he stuck close) and in less time than he'd expected their horses had been saddled and they were making their way out of the castle gates.

Not a one of them was sober, and a few seemed in danger of losing their saddles, so they made their way slowly and boisterously though the night, singing lewd songs and tossing half empty wine skins back and forth. The only person who seemed remotely sober, besides himself of course, was the skinny, sandy-haired page riding in the front with the lantern. Littlefinger considered, not for the first time, that he really should take a page out of Varys' book and do what he could to recruit children to be his spies. This page, between the serving in the halls and the stables, was likely to hear as many snippets of information as even the best whore. Perhaps he'd pay for the boy to get a glimpse of some whore's cunt after all, and see if he could pick his brain about all he'd heard during the course of his duties at Winterfell. He was going to have to diversify, realistically, if he wanted to find out more about the new King in the North – Gods know that self-righteous bastard was too high and mighty to seek the companies of even the most discrete of whores.

His mind was flitting through a series of disparaging thoughts on the new King Snow, when they arrived at the bridge that leads into Winter Town. The bridge was little more than four roughly hewn icy logs, split down the middle and laid flat to create a ford wide enough for one rider or two men walking abreast to cross at a time. Beneath the paltry excuse for a bridge the Wolfswood tributary of White Knife frothed and swirled mercilessly. Despite the cold, the river ran fast enough that its surface had not all frozen over. Even so, the rocks which formed the rapids and stuck out like jagged teeth were all covered with a few inches of icy coating. Seemingly oblivious to the perilous sight, the page boy plodded ahead, leading his placid mare onto the bridge unconcernedly. Inwardly curing the obstinate and unnecessary recklessness of Northerners, Littlefinger pushed his own horse forward behind the boy, refusing to let the Northmen – or Gods, the Wildings – he was with see his apprehension at crossing the icy overpass.

He was about halfway across when the boy reached into his saddle bag. Without looking, and without letting the torch that was in his other hand falter, the boy drew his hand out, clutching something in a queer fashion. His hand, which was cast into shadow by the angle, appeared to have suddenly become wrapped in something, as if in the span of a less than a second he'd twisted a short, thick cord about it. Littlefinger peered at the page's hand curiously, an alarmed feeling going off in his chest as if his body was reacting to some danger his brain hadn't quite registered yet. Then he saw the cord constrict of its own accord and he had a split second of clarity before the boy flicked the snake he was holding at Littlefinger's horse's feet. It wasn't enough time to cry out, or enough time for Littlefinger, poor rider that he was, to prepare himself as the gelding reared up in terror and flung him into the icy river raging below.

The icy water hit is body like a thousand frozen knives, robbing him of his breath and shocking him so profoundly that he hardly registered the pain of his shoulder dislocating as it connected with an ice covered boulder. The water swept his body along ten feet before his head resurfaced, and he came up with a gasp. Shouts of confusion were coming from his drunken companions, who'd clearly missed the trick with the snake in the darkness. To them it would just seem as if he'd mishandled his horse and been thrown by a skiddish gelding. Even in his pain and terror he could see the genius of it.

"I'm coming milord!" The voice of the page boy rang out through the night and he watched through waterlogged eyes as the boy dropped the torch he was carrying, plunging the night into almost complete darkness.

From the cries of "Oy! Lad!" and "You'll get yourself killed!" Littlefinger realized what must have happened. The boy – whoever he was – had dived in after him. He was coming to finish the job.

He tried to focus, tried to get himself to figure out which way to go to swim to the banks, but only succeeded in getting his body smashed up against a rock that jetted out of the darkness unexpectedly. The blow caught him in the side, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to inhale a mouthful of the icy water. He choked and sputtered, momentarily stopping his in his efforts to tread water, and his head was swept under the frigid surface of the water once more.

Stars erupted in the corners of his eyes and he felt the strength leaving him limbs as he fought his way pathetically towards the surface of the water. He hadn't let himself think it until that moment, not even as he'd been thrown from his horse, but suddenly the thought exploded in his mind, momentarily distracting him from the burning in his lungs.

He was going to die.

With that terrifying thought playing on refrain in his mind, he gathered the last of his strength and, leveraging his foot on a rock beneath the surface, jettisoned himself up towards the surface of the water once more. He broke through long enough to gasp in one tortured breath before his head was pulled back under by the tug of the current. His panicked mind was just beginning to realize the terrible finality that his exhaustion meant, when a small hand reached grabbed him by the collar and pulled his head above the surface.

He gasped and opened his eyes to find a girl, her dark hair slicked back from the water peering down at him with round silver eyes. She was both darker and paler than his beloved, but her heart-shaped face and sculpted brows were a copy of her mother's. It's a pity he didn't see the resemblance when she was younger, he might have made more of an effort to find her as well as Sansa.

"Arya Stark." His voice was weak and trembling from the near drowning and the cold, and he hated to hear how much it sounded like a beg.

"Lord Baelish." Her voice on the other hand held no tremble. She seemed almost oblivious to her soaking clothes and the frigid temperature of the air and water.

Perhaps the Starks did have ice running through their veins after all.

"You were not on my list, originally, although I'm sure that's only because I don't know the extent of your involvement in my father's trial and execution."

"Child, please let's not start on such—"

"But then I saw the scars on Sansa's back that that monster Ramsay put there after you gave her to him as part of one of your little games…"

"My dear I had no idea, had I known—"

"And I decided, that even if she change her mind—"

"Arya, for the love your mother bore me please—"

"—I'd kill you myself."

Before he could get out another word the hands that were holding him up by his neck shoved backwards violently, smashing the back of his head against a rock. Clouds of blackness began to fill his vision as those hands, those small delicate hands, so like Cat's, forced his head back beneath the icy water.