Snow crunched under her feet as she made her way to the godswood. She could hear him approaching behind her. She was glad they might finally be alone. Maybe she could finally demand all the answers he'd failed to provide her.

"Sansa, I-" he began but he couldn't finish his thought.

She waited a moment and then spun around, presenting him with her Lady of Winterfell mask. She was stone cold - as frigid as ice and as vicious as the winter wind. When his eyes met hers, she saw hurt there. Jon wore no mask with her, and they both hated that she had put hers on to greet him, even here alone as they were.

"Why?" her voice was calm, like the calm before a storm.

"We need her dragons and her armies if we are going to survive this fight. We need powerful allies-"

She cut him off, "Don't give me the same explanation you gave our liege lords, Jon. Tell me why. Tell me the truth."

Jon looked down, and when his eyes met hers again, he took three stride forward. Their faces were inches away and his voice dropped low. He was still afraid of being overheard, even here, where the Stark children - and Littlefinger when he'd been alive - only ever ventured, "Everything I did, I did for the North, for... our family."

"And yet you still won't explain exactly what you did," she was growing impatient, the bite in her tone frustrated him.

"It might be better if you don't know some things," he said with eyes to the ground and brow furrowed.

Her tone was accusatory now, "You said that we needed to trust each other, Jon. I need to know why you gave away your crown. Why you gave away the North's independence. The independence Robb and my mother died for. Why you gave away our home."

Anger flared up in him, "Do you think I wanted to, Sansa? I tried to persuade her. I tried to play the game like you wanted me to."

"No, what I wanted was for you to never go in the first place. Then we wouldn't be in this position," she retorted, her own anger rising.

He sucked in a deep breath and narrowed his eyes at her, "You know I had to go. You know we didn't have enough men on our own. You know we needed the dragon glass."

She was about to snarl something back at him. But there was a look in his eyes that stopped her. There was one small moment that pleaded with her to see his side. She looked off to the side and reset her face. "Fine," she said, turning back to him. "So you bent the knee to get the dragons and the dragon glass then?"

"I..." he began. "I already had the dragon glass."

She raised an eyebrow, "You know what some are saying of you, your grace? That you bent the knee to the beautiful foreign invader because you're in love with her. They say you're a lovesick fool."

He scowled. His gaze averted hers. The way he shifted uncomfortably, she knew she'd struck some kind of truth.

She huffed, "Honestly, Jon? Do you not listen to me at all? Robb-"

Jon's head jerked to face her. He leaned in closer with intensity, "I do. I do listen to you."

She laughed in his face, "I don't recall counseling you to bed the dragon queen."

"I did what I had to do..."

Suddenly Sansa felt cold, cold from the inside out. Her body felt frozen. The confirmation from him. She'd assumed, but... knowing it was truth, somehow it hit her harder than she thought it would. She felt a deep hurt overtaking her, and she didn't quite understand it.

In a rush it was replaced with a boiling hot rage, an anger, and something possessive... something that felt strikingly similar to jealousy. But she didn't have time to qualify her feelings, and instead she lashed out, "Yes, I'm sure it was rather unpleasant to fuck a beautiful woman."

If he was shocked at her use of foul language, he didn't show it, "She wasn't going to help us. She'd seen the Night King and his army and still she wouldn't listen-"

"So you whored yourself out to her?"

"I was a prisoner there, Sansa! She had burnt others alive for not bending the knee!"

The ragged look in his eyes. The desperation pushed her back into those long-forgotten memories of her time in King's Landing. She'd been a prisoner once before. She'd been forced to betray her family - Arya had seen the letter she'd written calling Father a traitor. She remembered calling Joffrey her beloved, reassuring others that she was loyal to her king always. Sansa knew in her heart she'd never meant it; she'd always been a Stark.

And Jon was a Stark, at least to her.

Her gaze softened. She felt stupid for not realizing before. She had hoped he had played the game, but when Sansa saw how familiar their new queen was with Jon, she'd feared the worst.

The anger seemed to slowly dissipate out of him, leaving someone broken behind. If Jon had been a prisoner, he hadn't wanted the dragon queen. He had been forced to bend the knee. He'd been forced to give up his pride, his honor to save himself and his people.

She reached out to him suddenly. Her Lady of Winterfell mask was gone, and it was just Sansa and Jon. She embraced him tightly.

He pulled her even closer. With his arms wrapped around her, she didn't feel cold at all anymore. His beard scratched her cheek lightly. She nuzzled his neck as he let out a very shaky breath.

"I'm so sorry, Sansa."

"I understand now," she said simply, rubbing his back comfortingly.

"There was no official pledge of fealty. And with the war to come... it's likely I won't make it anyway," he explained to her.

She pulled back a little to see his face, to tell him that wasn't acceptable. He had to make it out alive. She needed him. But she couldn't find the words, and he smiled down sadly at her.

Then he kissed her forehead, like he'd done before. With his hands gently holding her face and his lips against her forehead, Sansa felt loved.

He pulled back. There was a question in his eyes and then a flash of something else. Jon tried to pull away from her. But she held him close.

His hands wavered near her hips, but they didn't touch her. Her hands clung onto his sides. They were inches apart. Her breath mingled with his as their eyes bore into each other.

Sansa didn't know why her eyes flickered to his lips, but she saw his eyes on her own lips as well. She could feel something in the air. Anticipation. Without even thinking about it, the distance between them began to close. Her eyelids fluttered closed...

"Jon," a voice called.

They both started, almost jumping away from each other. Jon turned away and kept his eyes trained on the ground. There was a blush forming on his face. His brow furrowed, and he didn't even look to see who had called to him.

Sansa regained her composure easier. Her heart raced beneath her chest at the scare. But she'd put her Lady of Winterfell mask on quickly. From the lack of contact, she felt cold again, colder than she remembered feeling.

It was Arya who had interrupted them. She watched them with careful eyes and a blank face, "The dragon queen has been asking after you."

Arya eyed the pair of them, shifting her gaze from Jon who looked noticeably guilty to Sansa, "Was I interrupting something?"

Sansa knew this game. Arya's game of faces. She knew she couldn't fool her sister. But Jon hadn't spent a lot of time with the new Arya, the assasin who was their sister, the young woman who had slit a throat without so much as a blink. The one who had come for House Frey.

"No," he said even as he averted his gaze. Then he let out an unintelligible cross between a huff and a growl and made his way out the godswood back to the dragon queen.

Sansa didn't watch him go. She stared down her sister, hoping that maybe she could be a good enough liar this time.

But Arya did watch Jon leave, and she turned to Sansa with a frown, "Lie."