Author's Notes: Well, this chapter packs in a lot – and for Sansa, quite important stuff, and some surprises too! So I hope I'm forgiven for the delay. (Well, still only 2 weeks since the last update…)

As for the ending... yikes! What now? In the next chapter, we see how things pan out for Tyrion, who is as surprised as anyone ...

As for the ring in this chapter, the image is from a Finnish company Taigakoru, the ring being appropriately called Wolf Head ring ( (/)product(/)541(/)wolf-head-ring) (Gods they make it impossible to add the links here! Well, imagine the usual three letters at the beginning, followed by the word "taigakotu", then a dot, then "eu", then the rest - without parenthesis, of course... Sheesh!).

Thank you again, Hardlyfatal, for sticking with this story and betaing it like a boss!You can also find me in Tumblr a href=""ladytp/a!

In the previous chapter: Ned catching Arya kissing Gendry brings him and Catelyn together as parents and spouses despite the chasm between them. Finally, after a heartfelt discussion, he and Catelyn reconcile. They also conclude that the only way to prevent the budding but inappropriate relationship between Arya and Gendry is to send Gendry away –not as a punishment but only for a special task. Gendry and Arya accept his fate stoically. To Ned's surprise, Arya even seems to encourage Nymeria to go with Gendry when he departs Riverrun.


Sansa

The game of cat and mouse in the Elder Brother's solar continued, neither Sansa nor the Elder Brother giving or gaining ground. Sansa was determined not to let her opponent get away with the vague statements he had offered so far, pressing the matter further.

"What you say about the visiting maester sounds very intriguing. Was he trained in Oldtown?"

"Why do you want to know, dear child? It was a while ago, I don't remember that much of it anymore, to be honest."

There. Classical avoidance tactic. However, it wouldn't work, not this time.

"What do you remember, then? I would be most interested in hearing all you can." Sansa clasped her hands demurely and leaned back in her chair, shooting an enquiring look at the Elder Brother. He had to understand that Sansa was not going to let the matter drop.

"He came to us already sick. He did come from Oldtown, I recall now, but he had been expelled from the Citadel and had spent a long time in the countryside, wandering from village to village offering his services to anyone who needed them. A solitary man."

The Elder Brother leaned over his desk and spoke in a confidential tone. "A somewhat delusional man, too. His mind had started to wander. But he was still a man of learning, and while I cared for him, we had many discussions about wisdom and knowledge. It was then that he told me about this matter, too."

Sansa's heart was bounding. A learned man thought to be crazy, ostracised by the society, choosing to live on his own… It must have been yet another time-traveller! How much had he told the Elder Brother, did he know about it?

Did she dare to raise the topic?

Sansa considered her options. If the Elder Brother knew something more, maybe he could tell her, too? It was worth the risk to push on.

"Did he by any chance talk about…the future? About time, and…" she stopped, not sure how to formulate her question in a way that wouldn't raise suspicions if the Elder Brother was unaware of the matter – if the maester had indeed been just someone with a wandering mind.

The Elder Brother stiffened, his posture becoming as rigid as steel. He frowned and studied Sansa intently. She wanted to squirm under that hard gaze, but instead, firmed her resolve and stared right back at him.

"Now I really have to ask – why do you want to know? Why would you ask such a thing?"

Sansa was sure, then. She took a deep breath.

"I may know something about those things too. If I tell you what I know, will you tell me all about this man and his wisdom?"

The Elder Brother didn't look convinced, the deep furrows on his forehead a telling sign of his doubts. "What do you know? Pray tell, what could you know about such matters as the future and time?"

Sansa took the gamble and dived straight in.

"Because I am from the future. I have travelled through time to be here –just as I suspect this maester had. And I suspect he told you about it and you know more than what you have divulged so far. Please, it is important for me to know all there is – I need it."

The Elder Brother's mouth fell open and he stared at Sansa, this time in astonishment. He shook his head slowly from side to side as if denying what he had just heard.

"You?"

"Yes."

The Elder Brother stood up suddenly, pushing the table forward. He walked to the sideboard where he kept a jug of ale and poured a drink. His hands trembled slightly, Sansa noticed.

After downing his drink in a few big gulps, he came back to stand next to Sansa.

"Is this really true, my lady?" He was in control of himself again, his tone calm.

Sansa craned her neck to look up to him and nodded. "It is. I came here a few months ago from a time far ahead in the future; seven hundred years and some. I have hidden it, of course, and with success, it seems. But if there is something you can tell me about this man, something that could explain why this happened and what it means, and if I can ever get back to my own time, I would surely appreciate it very much."

"To have met one such person… for a long time, I thought he was only rambling. A part of me may still think so, and yet here you are now, another proof that life may not be as we think it is." He was almost talking to himself now, staring at a point above Sansa's head. Then he shook his head, slowly, and walked around the desk to fall heavily on his chair.

"Very well, my lady. I will tell you all I can. If you would do me the honour of sharing your experiences, I promise I shall treat your secrets with utmost confidence – as I have done his." He smiled at Sansa, bashfully. "That was what I was trying to do when you started asking questions. Maybe I have now betrayed his trust –but he has been dead for many years, by now, and will not be hurt by these revelations. Nonetheless, if they can help you, I am sure he wouldn't mind. He was a good man."

"Tell me about him, please." Sansa settled in comfortably, excitement starting to bubble inside her. This man's story was going to be different than Pod's, she knew. Pod had been only a child when he had come over and didn't seem overly concerned about whys and wherefores, whereas this man had been older, and seemingly a learned person too.

During their stay, Sansa had had a few more opportunities to talk with Pod, and they had established where and when exactly both of them had lived in their own time. They had spoken longingly of the things they missed and of people and connections they grieved for. It turned out that one of Pod's cousins lived in White Harbour and ran a popular restaurant there, one that Sansa and her family had frequented. Yes, Westeros was a small place, after all.

Yet Pod hadn't sounded as if he desperately wanted to get back. With Lord Tyrion, he had a better position than before and a reasonably good life for someone from his humble origins, and from some of the things he said, Sansa gathered that he truly liked his witty master.

"He came to me, as I said, already a sick man. This was more than five years ago, on a warm and sunny day," the Elder Brother started his tale.


Later that evening Sansa was still trying to process what she had heard, working to fit the pieces together using her own knowledge and the Elder Brother's story to make sense of it all.

The man, Rufus Hightower was his name, had almost certainly been a professor of physiology at the University of Oldtown, she had gathered from the specifics of the story. He had arrived some eight years earlier, and just like her and Pods, his transformation had also taken place in the Red Keep. He, however, had ended up in the Citadel in Oldtown, finding himself as one of the senior maesters teaching there.

Apparently, Rufus hadn't taken the transition too well, baulking at it and causing all kinds of trouble by insisting to tell his story to the disbelieving Conclave. The confused archmaesters had listened to him politely but then declared that such a thing was not possible and Rufus must have gone mad. He had been offered a small pension and a chance to live quietly in retirement alongside other retired maesters, but he had refused, choosing to leave instead.

As the Elder Brother had already attested, Rufus had then spent several years travelling, serving under one minor lord or the other, or anyone who offered him food and board and some coin. Eventually, he had become ill and had sought out the Elder Brother, having heard of him in his previous life.

At that point Sansa had interrupted the Elder Brother and declared that she, too, had read about him and had been his avid fan for a long time, that being the reason why she had insisted on visiting him in the first place. The Elder Brother had been embarrassed but also pleased, not to mention astonished, how it was possible that his modest legacy had endured so well when that of many kings had not.

Rufus had spent the last months of his life on the island, eventually succumbing to an illness he had called 'cancer', the meaning of which Sansa fully understood.

Sansa had then told her own story, all the way from that fateful day at the Red Keep to the present day. She had tried to describe how it had felt to be more or less 'inhabited' by another person – the other Sansa – and how confusing it had been to sense the boundaries of her own self to be so changing. According to the Elder Brother, Rufus hadn't spoken of similar experiences, and Sansa wondered if that might have been because of his older age, and his previous life experiences already having taken so much room in his soul, leaving less space for the 'real' Rufus.

She hadn't said anything about Pod to Elder Brother, having decided she couldn't do that without his approval.

At the end of the meeting, the Elder Brother had gone to a heavy trunk stored in the small room next to his study, unlocked its formidable padlock and from among the books and papers inside it, dug up an old journal. Its pages had been sewn together with pieces of string, the handwriting in it was small and compacted, and its pages were littered with side notes, crossed-over lines and additions. He had handed it to Sansa.

"This is Rufus's journal that he kept when he was here. It is a fascinating read, but I'll admit I didn't understand all he wrote. Maybe you will do better, and maybe it will help you to understand your situation more."

Sansa had held the piece in her hands marvelling the chance to connect with a fellow time-traveller even if in such a one-sided way. She had carried it back to his hut with reverence, hardly being able to wait to devour it, page by page.

She traced her fingers across the first page and the heading it contained.

"Notes and observations from the longest travel, by Prof. Rufus Hightower".


If Sansa's days had been busy before, after the Elder Brother's surprising revelations they were even more so. Her sessions with Shae continued, as did her rounds to attend the sick and injured, followed by discussions with the Elder Brother afterwards. She told him all she could remember about modern medicine, and although some concepts and cures were beyond their reach due to lack of suitable equipment, analysis methods and medication, he took note of all she said with great interest.

They discussed Jaime's case especially, and Sansa shared her belief that it might have been only swelling of muscles and tissue around Jaime's spine that had pressed on the nerves and caused the paralysis, and now that the swelling was decreasing, the nerves had a chance to start work again. She couldn't be sure, of course, not being a real doctor – but she had read about it and heard some cases of it mentioned when she had worked at White Harbour Central Hospital during summers.

She drew a rudimentary map of spine and nerves and how the site of damage affected how badly the person's limbs were affected. Jaime's damage had happened relatively low in the spine, thus allowing his hands and bodily functions to work unencumbered. The Elder Brother was fascinated, and although his diagnosis of Jaime had been more or less the same, he hadn't known exactly the physiology behind it. His treatment advice of making sure that Jaime exercised with caution to improve his chances of full recovery made sense to Sansa, and excited by the prospect she chose to share the news with Brienne – all, of course, presented as the Elder Brother's wisdom.

Brienne didn't say much to that, but Sansa could see from the determined set of her jaw that if she was going to be able to aid Jaime's recovery, by the Seven, she was going to give it her best shot.

From the little snippets Brienne shared with her about what went on between her and Jaime, Sansa concluded things to be as well as they could be. She still rued the rigidity of times that prevented two people so clearly in love with each other to truly be together – but at the same time, she didn't fool herself thinking that love could conquer all. This was not a fairy tale, after all, but real life, in real times, with real ties and obligations pressing heavily on both of them. Life simply wasn't fair.

When Sansa observed the Elder Brother's child-like excitement and the way he wrote down notes after every little thing she could share with him from the future, going back to his old cases and studying them anew, she was glad she had been able to pay him back in some form, at least.

Sansa even suggested the Elder Brother to start cultivating different molds in a hope of discovering penicillin a few centuries earlier than it had happened. From there on, increasingly confused brothers brought every rotten piece of bread, meat or vegetable they could find to the Elder Brother, and the windowsill of his solar transformed into a makeshift fermentation unit.

As for Sandor, Sansa told him everything and even showed him Rufus Hightower's journal. He was interested, naturally, but Sansa suspected it had more to do about seeing how excited she was about the discovery than the merits of the case itself.

It was just as well, as Sansa deliberately wanted to divert focus away from her and her origins in order to delve deeper into the mystery of who he was and what had made him the way he was, and to finally get behind that impenetrable wall he had built around himself. Sansa relished the opportunity, and on many evenings she asked Sandor to tell more about his life. She started with small, inconsequential things, only practical matters and straightforward enquiries. After he answered – and he mostly did, only a few times refusing to be drawn into the topic – Sansa asked some more, bit by bit. It was slow progress, but after every session, she thought she had discovered something new of her lover.

Yet a big chunk of her time was taken by trying to decipher Rufus Hightower's text. It was hard to read, not only due to the small size of the writing but because of all the references, side notes and text being crossed over and replaced with another, that were scattered throughout the pages. Through it all, she started to feel kinship and affection towards that intelligent but ultimately traumatised man, who had never been able to quite accept his fate. It was slow going, but the more she laboured, the more she was rewarded with new fascinating insights.

Rufus had developed many theories about the nature of time-travel, aided by his earlier research at the university and his study of old scrolls in the Citadel. As Sansa discovered through his writing, his speciality had been the physiology of out-of-body experience, induced by various traumatic events such as brain injury, near-death, drugs, and artificial stimulation of the brain. He had drawn his theories from his vast research and now, to her relief and delight, Sansa was the beneficiary of his wisdom.

Rufus had also studied the phenomenon of White Walkers and their companions, wights, aided by the Citadel's rich library, which had held many volumes of learning about those peculiar phenomena. Combining his modern knowledge with ancient texts and eyewitness accounts, Rufus had concluded that the modern theory especially for the existence of wights – a result of a devastating viral infection and physical colonisation of a body by unusual cold-metabolising bacteria – was the only plausible explanation. A terrifying disease, which, if allowed to spread, had no cure and no recovery and presented a great danger to mankind. The only thing that could kill the beings was fire.

Rufus hadn't found anything new about the origins of the White Walkers, and there, too, tended to rely on his modern belief that they were indeed an earlier form of humans, diverted from the phylogenic tree a long, long time ago. Interestingly, he had discovered that they could be killed by dragon steel, also called Valyrian steel, and dragonglass, also called obsidian, but not by normal steel. He hadn't been able to make sense of the reasons for it and had put it down as only one more of the many mysterious things he had discovered in his studies.

After reading that particular section, Sansa had to put the book down for a long time and think. The threat was still present, up in the North where she was going. What should she do?

In the end, any notions or doubts she might have harboured earlier about how she should react in regards to the Others solidified to a firm belief that she had to do whatever she could to help to eradicate such terrible pestilence... no matter the cost. The loss of a possibly ancient race of humans would be an unfortunate side-effect, but couldn't be helped. The threat to humankind was just too great.

Yet even more of interest to Sansa were Rufus's notes about historical events pertaining to the War of the Five Kings. Besides expertise in his own area, Rufus had apparently had a fascination for history as well. His arrival in times of such upheaval had inspired him to jot down as much as he remembered about the events as they had been recorded later: who were the players and who allied with whom; which events led to what outcomes, who were the winners, who the losers – as much as there ever could be winners in any kind of war.

Sansa was captivated by what she read. She already knew the broad outlines of general events, and a bit more about the history of House Stark, but to learn more details could only help her in her current position. Sometimes she read Sandor choice quotes from Rufus's notes, who listened in awe how the events, whose beginnings he had witnessed, had turned out later. Might have turned out, as Sansa reminded him. By then, they had already changed too many things for events to unfold exactly as they had before, and Sansa was determined to change them even more.

None of those topics, however, meant as much to Sansa as Rufus's notes about time-travel. It seemed that the concept of it had been heard in Westeros even at that time, but only by few, and stories of it had been buried deep and lying dormant in the libraries of Citadel until Rufus had started to investigate them.

It took several weeks for Sansa to decipher that treasure trove of wisdom, going through the thick book page by page and making notes as she went. Sometimes, after Sandor had left, she stayed up late in the night, reading by candlelight until her eyes grew heavy from the strenuous effort, but she just couldn't stop.

In the end, after re-reading and organising her notes, she concluded that although all of it was just theories, none of them proven, it seemed that time-travel was not quite as easy as she had started to suspect after first meeting Pod, then learning about Rufus. It required several conditions to be aligned perfectly for it to occur, something Rufus referred to as 'The Vale cheese model'. Sansa had heard of it in the context of assessing risks in the modern world, where multiple slices of cheese with their distinctive big holes had to be stacked one after another with holes aligned perfectly for anything to get through all layers.

Rufus attested what Sansa had also construed, namely that time-travel was not the actual travel of the body but of a mind only, to inhabit the mind of the same person's previous incarnation. Cohabiting, to be precise, although from his writing Sansa discerned that indeed, Rufus had been struggling with getting into terms with the real Maester Rufus, whose body his modern mind had inhabited.

Receptivity of the person was one thing, in both dimensions. The time of the year played a role too, Rufus speculated, times near the change of seasons being more susceptible. Then there were the magnetospheric conditions in the upper atmosphere of Planetos, needing to be just right to allow the mind to make the jump. He speculated there to be circularity in those times, some conditions and times being more suitable for individual people and being presented to them at regular intervals, likely happening once every calendar year.

Another unexpected factor was something concrete needed to bind the past and future self together at that precise moment: something tangible and real, an 'anchor' grounding metaphysical to the physical. It could be a piece of jewellery or any object, even wooden or fabric, as long as that same precise object had travelled through time in a conventional manner and was in the possession of the person at the same time in the past and in the future when the jump occurred.

After reading that part, Sansa put the journal down and stared at the ring in her left index finger. It was unremarkable enough: a wide silver ring with a stylised wolf's head with crudely formed ears, eyes and nose. When she circled it around her finger she realised she had never questioned its presence even though all her other belongings, including clothes and the earrings she had been wearing that day in the Red Keep, had vanished.

All but this ring… She had received it as a birthday present from her parents not long after their visit to Winterfell, where Sansa had first experienced that strange feeling in Sansa's chamber, and after which she had become interested in the history of her family. Her parents told her they had bought the ring from an antique shop in Wintertown, and the owner had assured them that it was a genuine article: the kind of ring typical to the members of House Stark as a recognition of the sigil of their house, a direwolf.

Sansa had loved the ring at first sight and had sworn never to remove it from her finger – and it seemed she hadn't.

Sansa touched the slanted eyes of the wolf with the tip of her finger. Had the real Sansa been allowed to wear a symbol of her traitor house even in the court of its enemies? As unlikely as it sounded, it must have been so, she wearing that very same ring at that very same moment – and that being one more thing in the string of events that had seen her whisked through the time.

Sansa shared all her findings with Pod, whom he introduced – with his approval – to the Elder Brother. She also asked if Pod remembered any item he might have had in his possession both at the modern time and at the time of his jump. After much pondering and rubbing of his brow, Pod recalled that he had found a small coin in the cellars of the Red Keep, buried in the dirt. He remembered picking it up and admiring its worn features, not recognising the image of the king in it, but surmising it must have been old, mysteriously laying there without being discovered by anyone else before him. And when finding himself as Podrick Payne, he had found a coin in a little pocket of his jerkin, never thinking much of it before Sansa told him about Rufus Hightower's conclusions.

Pod had lost the coin since then, using it for buying food after his benefactor had been hanged. After hearing from how, with such a little thing, his whole fate had so drastically changed, he had been quiet and subdued for the rest of their meeting. Sansa felt sorry for him, she truly did. However, she hoped that understanding a little bit more about the phenomenon that had seen them there would give him, too, some comfort.

Even more excitedly – and that was the part where Sansa's heart started pounding and she had to take several deep breaths before continuing – Rufus had also developed a theory how a person could return to his or her future form. It was pure conjecture, he not having found any examples of it actually having happened, but it sounded plausible enough to Sansa, and the manner of it explained why no successful cases had been discovered.

Firstly, the person in the past and in the future had to carry an 'anchor' that linked them between their times. Not necessarily the exact same thing that had linked them during the initial transition, but something that existed both in the past and in the future and was being worn by both incarnations of the physical person at the same time.

Secondly, the person to return had to be in a place that was conducive to such a jump, a 'shallow' place, where the veil of time was at its weakest. It was usually a place that held a big significance for that particular person, but sometimes places that had been significant to the fates of many people became so worn out that even people with no substantial links to that place could get through. However, one could enter in one direction only from one place, and for a mind to return back to the future, the person had to find another shallow place for the transition.

Sansa thought about Winterfell and Sansa's room, and then her room in the Red Keep. Yes, it all made sense – as did her instinctive hunch that to find a way to get back to her own time, she needed to get to Winterfell.

Thirdly, the time had to be right. Rufus speculated that the most likely time for the jump to being successful was at the anniversary of the original transition. Whether it happened in the first, second or twentieth, that didn't matter – but it all tied up with the original timing of the event.

Fourthly –and this was the most likely explanation why successful returns had not been recorded – the physical body of the person in the future had to still exist in viable condition. Once the mind left the body, it stayed behind, but still needed sustenance to keep it going. If none were provided, the body of the person suffered as a human body is wont to, dying of thirst and starvation within days. If that happened, there was nothing for the mind to get back to.

It all sounded far-fetched and impossible, the whole thing about mind travelling back through time, but Sansa herself was living proof that it did happen, as were Pod and Rufus. So maybe the rest of it could happen too? Sansa was cautious about not getting her hopes up, but she spent many hours contemplating what she had read. Could she… would that even be possible?

The last thing was the hardest. Her body had surely been found in the Red Keep soon enough by the staff, and likely been taken to a hospital. Sansa cried thinking of the distress of her parents after being told that their daughter had been found unconscious and unresponsive. They had likely flown to the capital that same day and had probably kept vigil at her bedside, pleading for an explanation for her state from the doctors. Her father might have demanded her to be examined by the best doctors in the country, and her mother and brother would have undoubtedly spent hours in the internet searching information about what could cause such sudden loss of consciousness and coma.

Yes, they would have stayed by her side for a time – but for how long? At what stage they would have made a heart-wrenching decision to say their goodbyes and turn off her life support? Sansa couldn't even imagine if there would have been any brain activity detectable during that stage – and if not, what reason would they have had to keep her hovering between life and death?

Had they perhaps even buried her body – did her real self now lay rotting in the family plot in the White Harbour, or would they have had adhered to her casually expressed wishes to be cremated? Had her mortal body already turned to ash and dust?

It was macabre to think of those things but think Sansa did, on long nights after Sandor had left and she lay on her bed, following the traverse of the moon from a small sliver of light beaming in through the smoke hole.

Then, even if her mortal body was still kept alive in a hospital somewhere, would she still be wearing her ring? Hospitals were strict about removing any jewellery from the patients, lest they interfere with the sensitive equipment used to study and monitor them.

Even so, was Sansa's room in Winterfell truly the shallow place she suspected it to be? Would she be there at the right time, exactly one year after her arrival? It was still over 6 months away – would everything go well and would they reach Winterfell – and stay there?

One more thought niggled at the back of her mind, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. Having found her family, having inhabited Sansa of this time more and more, having fallen in love with Sandor and found happiness with him…

…would she want to go back?


As much as Sansa hoped that time could have stayed still, allowing her to enjoy those intensive days of learning, companionship and love in the Quiet Isle, much too soon time for their departure approached. She had, after all, given her word that she would return to the inn by the time the Northern host with her parents and her siblings would be back on their way to Winterfell.

Only a few days from the agreed date of departure, she was breaking her fast in the guest hall alongside most of her companions. Brothers not being much of a company due to their vow of silence, the accord gained during the journey had persisted, the Lannister and the Stark troops mingling freely with each other.

Just as Sansa was about to comment to Brienne about her plans to go and collect herbs from the seaside of the island, the big doors of the hall opened with a bang. All heads turned towards it and to the group of soldiers walking in good order, two abreast, only to break apart after entering and continuing at a brisk walk along the wall. Before the diners had time to react, the hall was surrounded at all sides, the men then stopping and turning towards the middle of the room.

The soldiers wore the red and gold of Lannister, and Sansa's hair raised on her arms and nape. She glanced at Tyrion, who was sitting two seats away from her. Was this something to do with him? Yet he looked as surprised as the others.

The Elder Brother got up from his seat but before he had taken a step, one more figure entered the hall. A tall, slender, broad-shouldered man in his fifties. His head was bald but he had golden side-whiskers. He, too, was dressed in red and gold, his magnificent cloak speckled with mud.

Yet it was not his looks or attire that caught Sansa's attention the most, but the way he carried himself. He was clearly someone who was used to lead, looking around the room exceedingly confident with a commanding presence.

She glanced at Tyrion again, and from the loud intake of breath of both Tyrion and Jaime, she knew who the man was even before his words confirmed it without a doubt.

"Jaime, Tyrion – is this a way to greet your lord father?" Lord Tywin Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, Shield of Lannisport, Warden of the West, the head of House Lannister and Hand of the King, queried in the booming voice that carried across the room.