When she thinks about Theon, it hurts.

The pain steals the breath from her lungs, it douses her in ice. She spends the long hours after the battle among the survivors- she stitches wounds, she cleans burns. She does anything that she can to keep him from her mind- but he always drifts back. It isn't until Lord Royce touches her arm and tells her to go rest that she realizes the sun has been up for several hours now.

And so she walks the crumbling halls of Winterfell, knowing the home she had only so recently gotten back was nearly destroyed. It would take months of rebuilding to bring Winterfell back to its glory. She recalls walking these same halls back when Ramsay had lived- the chambers he had kept her in were destroyed now and she was thankful for it. Those rooms she had not returned to since taking Winterfell back with Jon.

Jon... She thinks of him as often as she does Theon, though with a much happier state of mind. Jon lived through the battle and though injured, he would be well enough to rise from his bed later that day. The same went for Arya, for Brienne. And for that she was so very thankful.

Though she had promised Lord Royce she would go to her chamber to rest, Sansa found herself climbing the stairs to the floor above that still yet remained in tact. Up there in a hall to the east was a hidden door that opened up onto the battlements. Well, what remained of them, anyways. She needed just a moment in the snow; a cold moment of solitude that would clear her mind before she did indeed try and rest. But as she stepped out into the afternoon sun, she found she was not the only one who needed a moment to himself out there on the battlements.

He turns to her as she approaches, his lips curving with the smallest of smiles. It's a I'm so happy to see you sort of smile, it's a I'm so thankful you're alive sort of smile. One that she feels in the deepest corners of her soul. Without a single word, they understand each other. Sansa comes to stand beside him, their shoulders just barely brushing as they look out over the courtyard of their home. By now, it's begun to empty out- beds have been found for those too injured to be moved, while those with lesser wounds have been taken in wagons to Wintertown for care. Their own family members are inside somewhere, warm and tucked into bed, safe. Alive. "I'm sorry," Jon finally says and Sansa turns to look at him, brow arching with her silently posed question. "About Theon."

The world stops turning for just a moment and Sansa steadies herself upon the railing of the battlement. "He died a hero," is all she can say in response, blue eyes closing as she fights against the rising wave of tears. She won't cry. Not again.

It's a moment later that she feels Jon hand upon her arm. She turns back to him and Jon tilts his head as that same hand rises up to tenderly touch her cheek. "He did," Jon nods, knowing well that Theon had died to protect Bran. And he'd have died to protect Sansa, now and back then. What he'd done for Sansa alone had been all that kept him from killing him with his own two hands. What he'd done for Bran had merely cemented Jon's opinion of Theon. "I have something for you." He then says, reaching into his pocket for something. He extends out his hand and into her gloved palm he drops a direwolf pin. "It was found down in the crypts." It could have come from any one of the Stark graves down below and Jon thought it most fitting to give to the Lady of Winterfell.

Sansa clutches the pin tightly in her hand and for the first time in what felt like years, she smiles.

[ x x x ]

The following morning, she leans over Theon's body, wishing it had not come to this.

All around her, they are mourning their lost comrades. Sansa can't bring herself to leave him, not yet... Not yet. After all that had happened, after all that they had been through... Theon had left her alone. They had survived the worst of men, making it out from Ramsay Bolton with each other's help. She would never forget the day she first saw "Reek" and the feeling of red hot anger that had surged through her then. Anger at him for she still yet believed him to be guilty of murdering Bran and Rickon. But anger at Ramsay too, for destroying the once proud and arrogant Theon Greyjoy. It had not taken long for her to know the truth and that anger turned to sorrow, to pity. But then Ramsay began to hurt her and her pity turned to understanding.

Back then, all they'd had was each other. When everything was falling apart, they only had each other. And when she needed the courage to escape, to keep on living, Theon had given it to her. He would have died that day to keep her from going back with Ramsay's soldiers. He would have died in the godswood for her or for Bran or Arya or even Jon. Theon Greyjoy was as much a Stark as any of the rest of them.

All he had ever wanted was to belong to the family he'd been forced to become part of. All he had ever wanted was to be loved and respected as much as Robb. To have Ned Stark call him son, as he called all the others. Sansa reaches up for the silver direwolf pin Jon had given her the day before, pinned over her heart just that morning. Goodbye, Theon, she thinks as she slides the pin into place in the leather of his jerkin. For one last time, she smooths back his hair and then steps away to listen as Jon begins to speak.

When Jon has finished, she takes a torch from a man in Stark livery and returns to stand beside Theon's body. She takes a deep breath and touches the burning flame to the straw, taking a step back as the flame begins to take root. It grows bigger and bigger until she must take several more steps back, the flames overtaking Theon's body. She watches in silence as the flames consume him and all of the others, too; one by one, they say goodbye to their friends, their family.

It isn't until she feels the touch to her arm that she turns away. Jon is there yet again, reaching for her before all those standing there. He takes her into his embrace and Sansa loses track of how long they stand there together. But finally, Jon tugs her gently away from the funeral pyres and towards Winterfell, towards home.