In the previous chapter: Sansa wakes up in a hospital bed, disorientated and hooked onto a drip. She remembers Bran's assurances that all will be fine – but why does she feel like crying, then?

Author's Notes: Poor Sansa! Poor Sandor! Poor readers! I really do sympathise with each and everyone who was expecting a happily ever after in the past, when Sansa and Sandor seemed to settle down into a domestic bliss... Sorry for spoiling it for you! 😞😔

Yet this turn in the story is something I have planned from early on since I started to write this fic, and has become an integral part of it – so I hope you bear with me for a little bit longer along this path… There is a method in my madness – I hope!

More of how Sansa will fare in this old and yet so new world will be explored in the next chapter; how does she reconcile her past with her present; her newly found family and love with her previous; her hopes for the future in the past with her hopes for the future in the present? Not as easy as picking up from where she left…

Please don't be shy to let me know your thoughts about this turn of events – I am genuinely curious (and will brace myself)!

Sansa

The next time Sansa surfaced from the bottom of the pit of darkness that had engulfed her, she found herself staring into the eyes of someone very familiar.

"Sansa! Are you awake? Can you see me?" Alessa Tully gasped. Her eyes were bloodshot, as if she had been crying.

"Mother?" Sansa croaked, her voice hardly a whisper. Her throat was still too dry and painful for anything smooth.

"It is me! Oh, dearest Sansa, when they called us to let us know that you were waking up…" Her mother lowered her head and tears fell down her face, dropping on the sheet that had been pulled high up Sansa's chest.

Sansa watched them fall and the pattern they formed where the fabric absorbed the moisture. Her head was still dizzy and she found it hard to focus, but she saw it, saw her mother. And she was real.

"Sansa, dear gods, Sansa." Edmar Tully, her father, stepped closer. He looked dishevelled and his face was pale, but when he took Sansa's hand, his touch was firm and gentle.

"Father?" This time her voice sounded a bit more natural.

Her mother looked at her again, wiping tears away with her hand and attempting a vain smile.

"Water?" Sansa rasped next.

Both her parents rushed towards the glass on the side table, but it was Alessa who placed it to her lips and tilted her head gently so she could sip from it.

"Drink, my dearest. They have increased fluids in your drip, but the doctor warned us that you would be thirsty when you woke up."

A small sip at a time, the cool relief of the liquid felt wonderful. For a while Sansa concentrated on the sensation, being greedy for more. Her mother held the glass for her until it was empty and Sansa's head fell back on the pillow.

"Where am I?" she whispered after her mother put the glass back on the table.

"You are back with us, praise the gods, old and new," her father said. "In White Harbor General Hospital, to be precise." There was a slight tremor in his tone as he spoke. Sansa remembered her father as someone who was always calm and in control of the situation, and hearing him so anxious was unusual.

"How long…" Sansa asked, although she already knew the answer.

"One year and 2 months since they found you in the Red Keep." She could still hear tears in her mother's voice.

"Nobody knew what had happened," said her father. "Your mother and I flew over immediately, and you were examined for weeks in the King's Landing University Hospital. They found nothing to explain what was wrong with you, but your EEG showed there was no permanent brain damage, so eventually you were moved here so we could be close to you. Then we -"

"She doesn't have to hear all the details right now, love, there will be time for that later," her mother interrupted. "The main thing is that she is here now, awake."

"How do you feel, Sansa? Do you… do you recognise us?" Her father looked worried. It touched Sansa deeply – as if she could forget!

"I do," she murmured. "I feel weak. And thirsty. And hungry."

"All those are very good signs indeed!" Her father's face split into a relieved smile and he patted her hand. "Doctor Darry will come to talk to you as soon as you feel up to it. They have taken all kinds of tests and assure us that all your vitals are good."

"They will do more tests now that you're awake, and if all goes well, we can start talking about rehabilitation. You have been lying here for so long that your body has no strength – but you will get it back. We will be with you all the way; don't you worry about a thing."

Sansa knew her mother loved a challenge and she saw her practical mind already starting to focus on the task of getting her daughter well again. Her heart swelled with love towards them both - they had always been there for her and were not going to let her down now.

"Bran – how is he?" Sansa asked next. Not seeing him too made her uneasy.

Her father smiled. "He's fine, waiting at home. The doctors told us we mustn't overwhelm you and let only two of us in. He is very eager to see you, though, so he'll come tomorrow."

"Yes, please, I'd like to see him too," Sansa whispered.

Then she remembered and reached for her mother in a desperate plea. "Mother, I need to know…"

"What? What do you need to know, my darling?" Her mother leaned closer, looking at her expectantly.

What was she going to ask? Was House Stark decimated after the War of the Five Kings? Had Jon Targaryen ruled with Daenerys Targaryen after conquering the Others across the Wall? What had happened to Sansa Stark, daughter of Lord Eddard Stark, Warden of the North? What about Sandor Clegane?

Sansa swallowed. She couldn't ask any of those questions, not now, as they would make no sense to anyone and would only make people worry about her mental state. For now, she needed to concentrate on the thought of having her whole family around her – and nothing else.

"There are many things I need to know, having been away for such a long time," she finished weakly. "Could I get a laptop here, and an Internet connection? Or a phone – just to browse through what has happened since I… left."

"Don't you worry about catching up with the news just yet. Things haven't changed that much." Alessa Tully's smile was brilliant, her teeth flashing. She must have taken Sansa's interest in contemporary matters as a good sign.

If she only knew…

"We will get you what you want, but not just now. You have to get a bit better first." Edmar Tully agreed with his wife. "I promise we will get you up to speed in no time."

Sansa gazed around the room. It was plain and white, a typical hospital room with a window overlooking a parking lot and a small park. Her mother seemed to read her mind.

"This is a private room – all yours. You can have a TV too, and a radio. Tomorrow, if the doctors think it wise. If all goes well, you'll come home soon and then you can have everything you desire."

Sansa knew they were right: her head was still spinning and she couldn't even lift it up from the pillow properly. TV or radio was unlikely to give her the answers she needed, though. She needed access to real information, real history.

All she could do for now was to wait – and hope.

Things must have gone better this time. They simply must.

"As soon as possible, then, even just for a short time. I promise I will not exhaust myself. There are a few things I need to look into…" Her voice trailed off. Suddenly Sansa was so very, very tired. Her eyes were filling with tears and she closed her eyes, not wanting her parents to see them.

"You look like you need rest. We have already stayed longer than the doctor recommended, so we'll be leaving now - but we'll be back tomorrow." The last tight squeeze of her mother's fingers around her own, a soft kiss on her cheek. Then sounds of receding steps, door opening and closing.

And Sansa was free to cry, silently, without a sound.

Slowly, Sansa started to settle in to being back. She underwent a series after series of tests before the doctors were satisfied that she was on the road to recovery. A rehabilitation program with a strict nutrition and exercise plan to strengthen her withered body was drawn and a specialist nurse assigned to her case. She went through a psychiatrist's evaluation, followed by sessions with a therapist to help her adjust to her new reality.

While still in the hospital, she also received what she had requested: a tablet computer and a pre-paid internet connection she could use to do her searches.

With trembling fingers and heart pumping loudly against her ribcage, Sansa tried to decide what to look for first, and where. In the end she decided that Wikinotes was an as good place as any to give her a quick overview of what had happened. Before her sudden disappearance, it had been a relatively new online encyclopaedia website, created and maintained as an open project by volunteer contributors.

She typed keywords into the search bar: "Eddard Stark".

Slowly the page opened in front of her eyes and she skim-read the lines eagerly as they emerged.

…Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North… one of the first houses in Westeros declaring to the returning Targaryen rule under Daenerys Targaryen… uncle and protector of the future king Jon Targaryen… followed as a lord by his eldest son Robb Stark…

A deep sigh of relief escaped Sansa's lips.

I did it.

From the link in that page she jumped to "Jon Targaryen".

… initially thought to be Lord Eddard Stark's bastard… son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen… the Second Targaryen conquest…co-ruled with Daenerys Targaryen…

Sansa closed her eyes. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Whatever had happened, whatever details of history had been changed due to her actions, at least she had ensured the survival of House Stark without messing with the second Targaryen era.

Gradually the pace of Sansa's heart returned to normal and she took a deep breath. She had a million more questions– but the next was the most important.

Going back to Lord Eddard Stark's entry and skipping past most of it, she scanned it for any mention of his children.

…War for the New Dawn… peace with wildlings…strengthening of the North as a military and economic force…

Her eyes danced over the lines until she found what she had been looking for: a simple table at the bottom of the page, "Marriage and issues".

For marriages it contained exactly one entry: Catelyn Tully of Riverrun, daughter of Hoster and Minisa Tully.

The list of issues was considerably longer: Robb Stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Brandon Stark and Rickon Stark. Only Robb's name had a link to a new page, but what arrested Sansa were one-line entries about the Stark children's marriages.

Robb Stark m. Roslyn Frey

Sansa Stark m. Sandor Clegane

Arya Stark m. Gendry Baratheon

Brandon Stark - unmarried

Rickon Stark m. Shireen Baratheon

Sansa's hand flew to her heart and she closed her eyes, just for a second. Then she returned to the second entry.

Sansa Stark m. Sandor Clegane.

In a moment of absolute ridiculousness, she felt a pang of jealousy. She knew she should be happy that Sandor and Sansa had found each other, and that her sudden departure hadn't screwed things up. And she was, she really was! Yet… it hurt.

Sansa let out a shuddering breath.

It should have been me. I chose to stay. He was meant to marry me!

She put the tablet away, too emotional to concentrate on anything else.

That night in her narrow hospital bed she dreamt of Sandor's face, his rare smiles and the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he found something amusing. She could almost feel the touch of his calloused hand on her hip, her stomach, her thigh – but when she woke up, sweaty and aching, the touch was gone.

All Sansa could do was to lie there and stare at the ceiling until the shadows of the night were swept away by the new dawn, too afraid to fall asleep again and be tortured by what she had lost.

When Sansa returned home, her mother took a few weeks off work to stay with her. Her rehabilitation nurse, a good-natured woman called Ellara, visited her twice a week to monitor her progress. Together those two formidable ladies made sure that Sansa completed her exercises, ate well, had plenty of fresh air and overall crawled her way back to life as she had known it before.

Sansa couldn't deny the benefits of their tough love. From being weak as a newborn kitten, escorted from the hospital in a wheelchair because her legs couldn't support her weight, workouts with the help of a personal coach gradually changed her into someone who could actually run around a block without having to stop for breath every few minutes. Her strength and muscle tone improved as well, and although she had never before warmed towards weight training, it was a great sensation to be able to lift increasingly heavier bars and feel the strength of her arms and legs. Her skin and hair, so dry and dull after months in hospital, also started to get back their lost vibrancy. She had a haircut, a manicure and a pedicure, and to some extent, felt reborn as a new woman.

But only outwardly – inside it was a different thing altogether. Sansa's program provided her with a routine to follow, and she didn't need to think too much – and that was exactly what she needed during those first bewildering weeks. Her sessions with her therapist continued, but as she was unable to tell her what truly troubled her, their value was limited.

Everyone seemed to assume that her main concerns were about the time and opportunities she had lost and that she might feel alienated from her friends who had continued their lives when she had been left behind. In reality, Sansa couldn't have cared less about any of that, her real burden being torn apart from her life and loved ones so suddenly. Yet, to whom could she tell that?

For a while, Sansa played with a thought of telling her parents the truth. Surely they would understand? She even started to make preparations for it, trying to find information about what had happened to her, first online and then in the library. If it had happened to her – and Pod and Rufus Hightower – surely it had happened to others as well? There must be some records and studies about it, which she could show to her parents as proof that she wasn't making it all up?

She came up with nothing. She used all the search terms she could think of: clinical terms, scientific terms, religious terms – everything that could be related to time-travel, reincarnation, soul migration and such. She did find an abundance of sci-fi and fantasy, philosophical works, ramblings of dreamers and futurists, religious and cultist texts – but nothing that made sense and actually could be linked to what she had lived through.

In time, Sansa gave up her efforts. She knew she still had a choice of opening up about her experiences, but in an eerie comparison to her experiences in the past, she found that she was afraid to. Would they believe her? What would they think of her? Her parents were so happy to have her back and were so full of optimism about her future, Sansa didn't want to kill their joy with complications as messy as that.

Besides, in an irrational way, she cherished the notion what happened to her was hers only – her own secret.

Luckily Sansa's connection with Bran helped her to overcome some of her frustrations. To her surprise, she really could talk to him - not about everything, but enough, so that he knew how lost Sansa sometimes felt in a world that had oddly shifted. Or rather, not the world, but she had changed, floating aimlessly and without direction.

Spending more time with Bran, once again Sansa was struck by how much her brothers here and in the past resembled each other—if not in looks, in spirit. While Sansa had lain in a coma, Bran had graduated from high school and started to study philosophy in the White Harbor Academy of Literature and Arts. His already introverted nature had developed into even more thoughtful and stoic approach to life, which allowed Sansa to talk with him about concepts rather than specifics. They talked about feelings of loss in a philosophical sense, of being rooted away from the very base of one's being - things like that. What also helped was that Bran accepted her emotions as they were, not trying to cheer her up like most people around her did. Everyone did it with good intentions, Sansa knew, but still it didn't help.

Sansa knew she should focus on her future, not in her past. Yet she couldn't help herself.

At home, where she had fast internet and the latest model laptop – a homecoming gift from her parents – she had a chance to study in more detail the events of the 'new' history and what had happened to people from her stay in the past.

It was a heart-wrenching experience, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes frustrating – and sometimes so painful she had to push the laptop aside and either curl on her bed to cry, or find some mind-numbing entertainment to force her thoughts away from what she had discovered.

For the most part, what she read was good news. What she had started – no, what they had started – had by all accounts progressed as planned. Lord Stark had been instrumental in forging peace between age-old enemies, the Night's Watch and the Northerners with the Wildlings. At first that peace had been fragile and suffered from occasional setbacks, but once the threat of the Others had grown stronger, all enmities had been forgotten and people of the North had stood united against their common foe.

Tyrion Lannister, after being disinherited by Lord Tywin, had sought out Daenerys Targaryen, who at that time had been little-known entity: an exiled daughter of a royal family fallen so low they had been thought to have been wiped out altogether. What had made Tyrion seek her out was a topic of much conjecture and speculation among historians. Some argued that he must have had insider knowledge, acquired perhaps from his father, who had maintained a network of spies across the sea. Others argued that it had been pure luck and that the original purpose of Tyrion Lannister's trip to Essos had been simply to evade capture by his father's men.

Sansa chuckled reading the speculations – if they only knew!

Whatever the reason had been, where all historians agreed was that the meeting of Tyrion Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen in Meereen had been monumental in shaping the future of the whole of Westeros. What followed hadn't been easy, and it had taken almost a year before Daenerys had sailed across the sea to claim her birthright, Tyrion Lannister by her side.

She had chosen her timing right – it being generally attributed to both Tyrion Lannister, and as it soon turned out, to the clandestine support of House Stark. The Lannister rule had still been unsettled at the time with the deaths of Tywin Lannister and Joffrey Baratheon, the throne being occupied by the underage King Tommen.

Sansa read with interest that Lord Tywin had died almost in the same way as in the first version of the history she knew: killed by a crossbow. But not by Tyrion, but by King Joffrey. Apparently the young king had grown increasingly frustrated by his grandfather's authoritarian control over his kingship and one fateful day had snapped and sent a bolt through Lord Tywin's heart. Chronicles of the time had declared it an accident, and with the statements of the few witnesses – and disappearance of the others – it had been the accepted truth for a long time. Only letters written by contemporary witnesses at the time, discovered a few centuries later, had helped to unravel that mystery.

King Joffrey had, however, not enjoyed his independence for long, having been poisoned during his own wedding feast only a short time later. The perpetrators of that crime were soon revealed to be his new in-laws of House Tyrell.

Again Sansa stopped her reading and considered the implications of the events at the time when they had taken place. Joffrey dead, exactly as she had predicted based on her 'greendreams'. She had no doubt that it would have impressed those who had been privy to her prophecies. Especially Tyrion, who had regarded her with healthy scepticism, must have taken note, wherever he had been when he had heard the news.

Sansa stared out of the window for a long time. Instead of the library parking lot with its lampposts shedding their dim light into the falling dusk and rows of neatly parked cars, she saw the high walls of Meereen, shapes of its distinctive pyramids framed by a setting sun in the background. She had been there once, walked its narrow alleys and breathed in its heady air filled with scents of spices and exotic flowers. To imagine Tyrion and Daenerys walking and talking there, planning to overtake Westeros… How she hoped she would have been there to hear Tyrion spinning his tales about it afterwards!

That Stannis Baratheon, agreed by all historians to have been singularly stubborn and rigid in his quest for the throne, hadn't tried to capitalise on the opportunity to renew his bid for the crown by raising another assault against the capital, had been a surprise to many. An even bigger surprise had been that he had actually been the second head of a great house to bend the knee to the Targaryen queen, right after House Stark.

At that, Sansa had to again put the book down and mull over what might have made him change his mind. She had never met the man, but she had heard of him and his stubbornness. Could Lady Catelyn have influenced that stern man so profoundly, knowing what she did? Sansa would have loved to have known what had happened during the dragon glass expedition, but alas, history books were mostly silent about it, only mentioning it as a footnote and an explanation to where the vast supplies of dragon glass to assist in the War of the New Dawn had been obtained.

Even more curious to her was the fact that Stannis Baratheon's only daughter Shireen had married Rickon – baby Rickon! Also, Gendry having been declared Baratheon… Stannis must have given his taciturn approval to that, or how would he have otherwise allowed Shireen to join the family?

It frustrated Sansa at no end that she was never going to find answers to those and many other questions. No dusty library book or even the most advanced website could provide her with answers, and night after night she left the White Harbour Manderly Memorial Library with more questions than when she had arrived there, or closed the computer lid with a deep sigh.

One of the many people she had met on her journeys, however, she had no trouble finding information about: Jon Targaryen was well-documented in all history books and the topic of many histories and biographies. Next to him, another story was always repeated: the tale of an exiled princess who hatched the first dragons in centuries and conquered a nation to become its queen and ruler alongside her nephew, her lover and her husband.

The two had met for the first time after Daenerys's fleet sailed to Dragonstone, where Jon had been waiting. He and Robb Stark had brought along the Northern army to join Daenerys's mixed forces of Unsullied, Dothraki and sellswords from the Slaver's Bay, and together they had marched to King's Landing, joined along the way by the armies of the Vale and the Riverlands. The Dornish had already been waiting for them there, and – to everybody's astonishment – the arrival of Stannis Baratheon's army from the Stormlands had sealed the fate of the Lannister rule for good.

Sansa was glad to read that young King Tommen and his sister Myrcella had been granted a pardon, allowing them to retain their freedom on the condition of exile from the court. Cersei Lannister had been refused the pardon and had spent the rest of her life in a forced exile in the North, as a prisoner of House Umber in the Last Hearth.

Sansa couldn't help feeling vindicated, but at the same time also a smidgen of sympathy for Cersei. It was true that much harm had been averted by her incarceration – no more Mad Queen Cersei rousing the Faith Militant and sowing discord in the realm - but there was sadness in the fate of that lonely, ageing woman separated from everything she had held dear.

Sansa's exploration of Lannisters inevitably took her to Lord Jaime Lannister, the lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West after his father – and his wife, Lady Brienne of Tarth, Evenstar of the Tarth.

Their marriage was recorded as Sansa knew it to have happened, and soon after Lord Tywin's death, by then a fully recovered Ser Jaime announced himself and his wife and took up his birthright as the Lord of Casterly Rock. Later, he declared for Daenerys Targaryen and was pardoned for his crimes against her house. He and Brienne had four children together: three boys and a daughter – a notion Sansa had a hard time wrapping her head around. At first, she couldn't imagine Brienne being heavy with a child, breast-feeding or running after a toddler – and yet, after remembering her sweet nature and capacity for love, the thought didn't strike her as so odd after all.

After the death of Brienne's father, she became the Lady of Tarth and Evenstar in her own right. After the death of their parents – at the ripe old age, Sansa was relieved to read – Jaime and Brienne's eldest son inherited Casterly Rock and the second son became the new Evenstar of Tarth. Both family lineages had continued as an unbroken chain throughout centuries, and even in modern days, both Lannister and Tarth families could trace their lineages back all the way to Jaime and Brienne.

As fascinating as it was to learn what had taken place after her departure, Sansa's main passion was to find out everything she could about the lives of Sansa Stark and Sandor Clegane. However, the sources were disappointingly scarce about them and their life, probably because they had not played such an active role in the big historical events as the others.

The curt mentions she found focussed on bare essentials. They had married and had three children together: two sons and one daughter. When Sansa read the names of their children, a great sob escaped her lips. Edmar, Cregan and Alessa – two of the children named after her own parents! It couldn't have been a coincidence, as to her knowledge – confirmed by a quick search – neither of those names were traditional names in House Stark. Sandor had known them, as Sansa had told him about her family in the future - but for Sansa, real Sansa, to allow her children to be named after people she had no connection to… It must have meant that she had known.

At least Sansa hoped so.

The Cleganes had established a new noble house and a castle of their own along the banks of White Knife, halfway between Winterfell and White Harbor. Hounds Den – a nod to the historical Wolf's Den established by King Jon Stark before the War of Conquest - became a prosperous keep and an important meeting point throughout the years. What it became most famous for was its animals: horses and hunting dogs. Its strong and powerful war horses were traded throughout the whole of Westeros and later across the Narrow Sea as well, and over the years the prestige of owning a hunting dog from the Hound's Den became much sought after by the nobility.

Sansa felt a flutter of excitement when she read that, realising that the foal Blaze had been carrying on their journey to the North had been the first of those fine horses, followed by many more sired by Stranger and his offspring. Horses and hounds – what a perfect combination! Yet it also proved a distraction; many references she followed excitedly ended up being related to House Clegane animal breeding activities.

Sansa and Sandor Clegane had died within a year of each other when Sansa had been well past her seventies and Sandor over eighty years old. Their children had married into Northern families, their eldest son following his father as the lord of the castle. Their grandchildren had numbered ten and four, and they and their descendants had spread across Westeros and became ancestors of many great families.

What hid behind those prosaic numbers and details pestered Sansa day and night. Had they been happy? Had Sandor continued on his road to free himself from the nightmares of his youth? Had Sansa realised what a treasure she had in her husband? Had the others? Had their relationship with their children been good? How exactly had they died – the sources only referring to 'an old age'?

Even her Uncle Tobin couldn't help her.

Yes, Uncle Tobin lived and still had the same enthusiasm for genealogy and history of his family as before, but he was out of the country, fulfilling his lifelong dream of travelling across Yi Ti. Sansa had his book though, and the stories he had unravelled in 'Genealogy of Houses Stark and Tully' were vastly different from what he had written before.

No more demise of House Stark. This time the book was full of feats of that old Northern House, continuing long after the Second Targaryen Conquest. The lordship had been inherited by Robb Stark after Lord Eddard, then by his son, then his grandson, and so on and on. There had been several generations where the title and inheritance had been passed to the female line, some of them ruling independently, their husbands accepting the role of a consort. The current owners of Winterfell and hosts of the National Trust-maintained homestead were direct descendants of Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn – a thought that gave much comfort to Sansa. She only hoped Ned and Catelyn would have been able to know that, too.

Moreover, no more Sansa Stark disappearing from the history books, nor any of Ned and Catelyn's children. To Sansa's regret, Tobin's interests had been mostly focussed on the direct line leading to their most immediate family, so he hadn't done extensive research on all the offshoots of the family tree.

What did surprise Sansa the most was to find from whom her own family's branch had originated: from Rickon Stark, the youngest son of Lord Eddard Stark, and his wife Shireen Baratheon.

Rickon?

Just the thought of that chubby-cheeked child being a man grown and married, a father and a grandfather and an ancestor of her own, tickled Sansa. It seemed that the combination of red hair and blue eyes had been strong, many members in her direct lineage being described having those colours. Her resemblance to real Sansa must have been something else, however, something that couldn't be explained by terms of normal inheritance.

Something she was unlikely never to find answers for.

Sansa also discovered that Arya Stark and Gendry Baratheon had lived the rest of their life in Stormlands, in a keep granted to them by the Lady of the Stormlands, Shireen Baratheon. Despite her marriage to Rickon, she had ruled over her dominions in her own right, an arrangement that seemed to be accepted by all. Arya and Gendry had had four children, all boys, and three of them had become explorers, sea captains and adventurers, one of them staying to carry on the family legacy.

The circle of life, ever-winding around and around and around - and Sansa had not been part of any of it.

That was the hardest part of all.