Sansa

"Who holds Harrenhal now?"

Robb looked uncomfortable as he answered. "Roose Bolton."

"Tywin Lannister won't give him further cause to betray you, not that you should trust him by any means."

"I never will again," Robb said, as they wandered the gardens of the Keep. The capital seemed rejuvenated, with even Flea Bottom joyous having avoided a war, four great Houses making their peace before all the realm. The arrival of the Tyrells overshadowed the absence of the many handmaidens and attendants to the former queen, most of them having already been sent back to Casterly Rock, but Sansa imagined the Keep to be a dull place once it was only Stannis and his court. "Why do you ask of Harrenhal?"

"There is a man, Qyburn. They banned him from the Citadel."

Robb frowned. "Why?"

"I never knew, to be honest," she said, of Cersei's Hand. "Call him to the capital, and ask King Stannis to take him into his service." With his crown secured, the new king seemed to give little thought for the girl who'd arranged it for him, so she would speak to him through her brother. "Tell Stannis he's not to be trusted, but that he'll be loyal."

"I saw him," Robb said. "The Lannisters killed most of the smallfolk there, but we found him, clinging to life. What's his significance?"

Her own brother had saved the future Queen Cersei's Hand? She wondered if that had happened the first time around too, or whether this was a new change, wrought by her actions.

"Scorpions."

"Scorpions," Robb asked.

"He'd make them stronger and faster than they'll ever be." She frowned. "On second thought, the Dragon Queen must not know of him, or his creations. Better I ask Lord Tywin to take him in...I trust him with the secret more than Stannis."

"You're ruthless, aren't you?" There it was again, that look, that his little sister was a stranger to him, and more than a bit horrible, and there was little admiration in his voice as he spoke to her, just like Jon, when he'd compared her to Cersei.

"How do you think I survived so long?"

The words she left unsaid, why do you think you didn't survive?

"You don't think you can betray the Dragon Queen, can you?"

"It's hard to fathom," Robb said, sighing in frustration, and Sansa had a feeling he could prove just as difficult as Jon, "she saves the realm, we use her, and her dragons...and we stab her in the back?"

"She'll massacre millions," Sansa cried, before lowering her voice, looking around the empty gardens. "Jon thought the same way as you, and he died for it! She burned both your sisters alive, and you won't avenge us? You were ready enough to kill Joffrey."

"Joffrey won't save the realm," Robb argued. Nearby, she saw her mother approaching, already listening intently to their conversation from afar. "I don't deny, she did horrible things in your life. But we can't punish her for crimes she hasn't committed, just like I can't punish the Boltons or Freys for crimes they haven't..."

"You're not going to punish the Boltons and Freys?" Exasperated and surprised, she looked towards her mother, surely she'd understand.

"What will the lords of the North think if I execute a man I claim will betray me, with no evidence except my sister's word?"

"They'll fear you, as they should!" She stopped, knowing this not the way to win over her brother. "Perhaps Tywin Lannister's word? That Roose Bolton did not refuse his offer of treason?"

"Roose will deny it. I'd lose all respect, if I held a phony trial for him, the outcome already decided, the Warden of the North putting more faith in Tywin Lannister's words than his own bannerman's."

"Robb, your sister's right," their mother said, stepping in. "They won't betray us for the Lannisters this time, but for them to do so once before...the grudge is there, the seeds are there..."

"He raped me, his bastard," she could barely hold from screaming, "and that was the beginning of what he did to me!"

The former King in the North buried his head in his hands, as if he were a child, Sansa thought. "I'll summon their servants. If what you tell me about his bastard is true, then he'll have committed crimes against the King's law long before he took Winterfell from Theon."

"And Roose Bolton will deny knowledge of them," she said. Faraway, she saw Lady Margaery and her grandmother...losers this time around in the game, far earlier than they'd lost the last time. But perhaps this time they'd get to keep their lives, though they'd never realize it.

"What would you have me do," Robb asked, impatient, though he didn't have a choice but to listen to her if he wanted to survive.

"Kill every Frey with a cock on your way back North, and raze the Twins. Flay Roose and Ramsay Bolton alive, and reduce the Dreadfort to rubble."

They stared at each other, then she watched to her dismay her brother break out in laughter, before then realizing that she wasn't joking.

"Perhaps not as harsh as your sister says," Catelyn said, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, "but you must do something about them."

"Let me handle them then," Sansa said, knowing that if Robb didn't kill them outright, if he tried to play the game with them, he might get himself killed regardless. She looked at their mother. "The Freys I'd worry less about, though I'd tell Uncle Edmure to keep them distant. But tell Stannis to call the Boltons to the capital. He'd understand, he'd know they're traitors, and we'd get rid of them eventually."

"You want Ramsay near you," Robb asked, petrified.

"I don't, but seeing as you won't do anything, someone has to protect this family."

"Sansa," Robb cried out, excruciatingly, "you forget sometimes that you're a little girl!"

"No," she replied. "You forget that I'm not."

If he's not willing to punish the Boltons, how can I ensure he'll turn against Daenerys, when the time comes, much less Stannis?


She'd been expecting this summons from Lady Melisandre, after admitting in effect during the council to lying to her at the parley. Still, most of what she had said was truth, and they still both sought the same goal...but she knew better than to play with fire against this most dangerous and most trusted of Stannis's advisers.

"You lied to me," the witch accused her, though she did not appear angry, merely curious still. "You swore by the city gates that Stannis is the Prince Who Was Promised."

"It was truth, in a way," Sansa replied. "King Stannis will play his part, as will the many others I spoke of. And he's King now, is he not? Accepted by the Lannisters and the Starks, because of me. I saw him die, were he to give battle at King's Landing, before he ever wore a crown. He lives, and he will lead the realm against the dead, because my...bad...visions will not come true. Is that not what you want?"

"And you want Stannis as your King?" It seemed appropriate that the Red Woman would interrogate her in Cersei's old chambers.

"I do," she said. Not all truth. Not all lies.

"You seem very adept at getting what you want, Lady Stark."

"Do I," she asked, taking a seat across from her. "I want to kill white walkers and dragons and their Queen. None of that's happened just yet."

"But you believe you've set such things in motion?"

Sansa looked around, wondering whether Stannis will force the priestess to vacate the Queen's chambers once his own wife arrived from Dragonstone. She wouldn't bet on it.

"It's the best chance, Starks and Lannisters and Baratheons working together."

"I believe you," Melisandre said, proclaiming her verdict. If Ser Davos were to be the new king's Hand in name, then this woman would wage equal power in the shadows. "But out of all you spoke of in the Great War, I know there's something you haven't told me."

"You see it," Sansa asked, wondering what visions the Red Woman glimpsed since they first talked. If she saw of a Godswood, Sansa begged with her eyes that she speak not of it aloud.

"I don't," she admitted. So the Lady Melisandre was not a liar. Unlike her. "But I see you."

"He sees too," Sansa said in a hushed whisper, "the Night King does. He may even be able to see the two of us talking now, listen in while his body lies leagues beyond the Wall. If I speak of it to you, he may hear." They both exchanged a knowing look. "It's as I said, Stannis is the Prince Who Was Promised."

A knock on the door, bearing one of Stannis's sworn swords. "Lady Melisandre. Lady Stark. The King has received visitors."

"Whom," Melisandre asked.

"Lord Beric Dondarrion, accompanied by Thoros of Myr." The words startled her, they were all wrong. "They claim they bring the Lady Sansa's sister with them, safe."


"Arya." They hugged. They were glad to see each other. Yet...

You should not be here.

"I tried to save father, I really did," Sansa whispered to her in the throne room. Robb and mother were present also, the first to greet her arrival, alongside King Stannis. Later, she would tell Arya of what she truly knew.

"Lord Beric," Stannis said, "I thank you for bringing Ned Stark's daughter back to us."

"You have my eternal gratitude, my lord," Catelyn said, not understood that these fools could have doomed them all.

"The war is over," Stannis said to Beric. "Your...brotherhood, there's no need for it now. You should all return home."

"The war isn't over," Beric replied. "The true threat..."

"Lies beyond the Wall," Melisandre repeated. "I've heard of you. Of what's happened to you." She looked to Thoros. "Of what's been done to you."

A small smirk from the man, who'd seen death and lived to tell the tale.

Beric Dondarrion. Jon Snow. Sansa Stark.

Why me?

"The Lord has seen fit to watch over me, for reasons I know not."

"The Lord chooses you for a reason," Melisandre said. "The Great War is not your own to fight anymore. Our king understands it's his war also, and we will serve the Lord and fight it together."

Beric bowed. "My Lady. Your Grace."

Melisandre looked to Thoros, body swaying even in the King's presence. "And we will talk."


"They say you're like her now," Arya said, gesturing her head up at the Red Woman, who watched them in the gardens from above. "A witch, or something."

"Not a witch," Sansa replied. "Not quite like her. But I do know things." She looked at Robb and mother, who she'd never seen so happy, two of her children returned to her, two more reassured of their survival from Theon Greyjoy. She whispered to her sister. "I'll tell you all of it, when it's just us, tonight."

"I can't believe you fooled Tywin Lannister," Robb said, with a laugh. It would seem the former King in the North's brain was near breaking, hearing of all his sisters' ordeals.

"It's a Stark trait," Arya replied, a proud gleam in her eye. "They spoke of you at Harrenhal, at his war councils, as if you're a legend already."

"Battles are nothing to be celebrated over," Robb said, a darkness in his voice, eyes withdrawn into his head. He had been a legend, but Sansa never saw until now how much his legend took away from his soul. "I did what I had to do. We all did."

"Mother," Arya asked, with a nervousness Sansa had not seen since the first time her father died, "my friends...you promise they can come with us to Winterfell?"

"Of course they can," Catelyn answered warmly. Though she was not apt to take strangers into her home, refusing her daughter was beyond their mother's willpower at the moment. "We'll have need of a good smith, and if the boy..."

"Hot Pie."

"...Hot Pie's...well, hot pies are as good as you insist, maybe Robb will finally fill in his armor."

"My armor fits me just fine," Robb said with a grin, their earlier argument forgotten. But, as happy as this familial scene was, Sansa needed to break it up, because Arya could not return home.

"Did you get the coin," Sansa asked, eliciting a startled look from her sister, who broke out in a grin.

"So you saw that as well."

"He gave it to you, then." Another thought occurred to her. "Did you see Sandor?"

"Clegane," Arya asked, confused. She shook her head. "Why would I see him?"

That wasn't good. Arya needed the Hound. She needed to learn from him how to be cold, and how to kill.

"You can't go back to Winterfell," Sansa said, squeezing her shoulder. "You have to go to Braavos."

"What do you mean," their mother asked, and Sansa could sympathize, losing her daughter so soon after finding her again. "Arya will stay with us, she'll return home..."

"She needs to learn."

"From Jaqen," Arya said, understanding. "Why?"

"Who's Jaqen," Robb asked.

"To protect our family," Sansa said cryptically, as they walked up to the Red Woman, eyes transfixed on her sister as well. "Lady Melisandre, a request for the King."

"An important one, I sense," Melisandre answered back.

"Very important," Sansa replied, in a way only the two of them could understand. "Send men to find Sandor Clegane. Tell him he'll receive the Crown's pardon, so long as he can take my sister safely to Braavos."

"Not him," Arya cried out, a familiar rage building in her eyes, a look Sansa had missed so much, despite what it meant. Did she die with spirit, with defiance, when the Dragon Queen killed her? "I hate him, he killed Mycah!"

"He was following orders," Sansa replied, remembering her own role in that ghastly incident by the river, the first of many they both endured. "The boy who gave the order is dead."

"Why the Hound? Why would you force me to go with him?"

Sansa smiled. "You may find that he'd kill for you too, one day."

"You're determined on this, aren't you," Robb asked, furrowing his eyebrows. Sansa knew that, though he believed them both, Robb Stark did not yet truly understand the threat beyond the Wall, focused as he had been on his own war. But who could understand, until they'd seen the dead with their own eyes. She dreamed still of that night, standing on the battlements, hearing the awful sounds coming for them in the darkness.

"Winterfell needs eyes and ears," she lied again, "to protect against those who would betray us."

She sensed Melisandre could see through her lie, which was fine, so long as she did not speak of it.

Her mother was still not convinced. "Arya...she'll be safe? In Braavos?"

"Do you doubt your own daughter?"

"No," Catelyn sighed, relenting. "Neither of them."


The ship was a good one, and Sansa imagined the accommodations were an improvement over his last trip across the Narrow Sea.

"I trusted you," Tyrion grumbled. "You used me, and you throw me away."

"It's for the better," Sansa said, the guilt weighing upon her. "Shae will be safe, far away from your father. The two of you will be happy together."

"We will be," Shae agreed, not looking nearly as glum as her lover. "I fear the little man loves his politics more than he loves me."

"A ship, a girl, and a bag o'gold," Tyrion's sellsword remarked. Bronn, she remembered. "I'd kill to be you, and I mean it, I'll cut yer throat if yer beautiful lady would take me in your place."

"You wouldn't live to hit the water," Shae replied, half joking, half serious.

"Apologies you won't see my brother's wedding," Sansa said. It had been Stannis's idea, actually, the ceremony between the new Warden of the North and his wife before the King's court a gesture of unity for the realm. "My mother was in the wrong to take you, but I still don't think she would have wished to see you in attendance. And she would have had to invite you, were you still in King's Landing."

"I spit on your brother's wedding," Tyrion grumbled.

"So rude," Shae replied, slapping the imp playfully. She looked over to Tommen, who stood next to Sansa, dutifully following her around like a dog, whenever he could, since their engagement was announced. "You should ignore your uncle's rudeness."

"Though you're here to see me off," he admitted, looking at Tommen fondly. "That's more than I can say for the rest of my family."

"I'd hoped Jaime could have arrived in time," Sansa said, though she had no doubt the Kingslayer, freed from his duties, would be the first to visit his brother in Pentos. "It's a pretty city, from what I've heard," she added lamely.

The Half Man needed his exile in Essos. Once upon its shores, Sansa had no doubt that Varys would do the rest, bringing him before the Dragon Queen, same as before. It was not a question of if, but when, the new King's old spymaster would betray him, and Sansa needed them both by her side, to bring her to Westeros, and to talk her down from burning the realm immediately upon her arrival. To give her bad advice, as Tyrion had before, so as to keep her from winning over the realm and its lords. To temper her dragon, until Sansa found a way to kill them all.

"A pretty city with a pretty girl," Tyrion said, cracking a smile. "I suppose it could be worse for me."

"Yes. You could have died in King's Landing," Sansa replied, hoping he was coming around to hating her less, "Stannis's sword in your mouth."

"At least you're not this poor kid," Bronn said, winking towards Tommen. Next to him Podrick Payne, who seemed on the verge of tears, gave the man a puzzled look. "Pentos is a far better exile than Winterfell, with winter coming, no less." He looked apologetically at Sansa. "No matter how pretty his new bride is, no offense, my lady."

She'd made clear to Tywin and Stannis that, Lannister she would marry, they would spend at least six moons a year in Winterfell, the remainder of the time she'd suffer with Cersei at Casterly Rock.

"Tell me there's a reason to this...," Tyrion said, glimpsing quickly enough at the truth. "Tell me you didn't just do this out of spite."

Really, she figured, it was more his father he was mad at, for giving him up so easily, his anger at her a pale shadow comparatively.

"Lord Tyrion," Sansa replied sweetly, remembering her voice was still that of a child's, "have you ever known me to do anything not out of reason?"

He shook his head. "So I suffer, while the realm reaps the rewards."

"Oh, you'll suffer so much tonight," Shae said, rubbing his head affectionately with her hands, "and every night after that."

As they walked away from her, Sansa couldn't stop herself from calling out to him one last time.

"Lord Tyrion." He turned to look at her. "You've met his father," she said with a wink. "You'll soon meet the son."


Robb

Sometimes it felt like he was losing his mind. He'd found his sisters, lost a kingdom, if not the war, and now Tywin Lannister was going to be a guest of honor at his own wedding. And his sisters...he swore, he'd half leave them again with the Lannisters, now that they were no longer the enemy, if his mother wouldn't kill him even if he said it as a joke.

Except he did believe Sansa, everything she said, just as he'd believed her when he received her letter, hours before hearing of Theon's betrayal. His actions baffled his own men, but he trusted her, when she told him he could not trust Roose Bolton. He trusted her, when she suggested that Bran and Rickon would survive...and she'd even anticipated Edmure Tully's mistake, which would have cost them him the war...except by reining his uncle in, he'd essentially defeated the Lannisters, enough so as to bring Tywin to the bargaining table by the time they reached King's Landing.

"How many wars are you going to have to win for me, Sansa," he muttered to himself. Not just the Great War, but the one his sister envisioned afterwards, against a girl with three dragons.

"Your Gr...I mean, my lord," one of his bannermen said, entering his chambers. "You've visitors."

"Not Rickard Karstark," Robb said, sighing, relief in seeing his mother walk in. "Good, it's you. I thought he was going to give me another chewing for ending the war without letting him kill any Lannisters himself."

Except though his lords protested that he gave up the North so easily, it was not with the vehemence that he'd expected and feared. They had won the war, to a certain extent, fathers watching their sons pad their family name with glory before their own eyes. Joffrey was dead, and as much as some of the lords wanted to press the fight, many more yearned for home...especially the few who believed him when he told of the threat beyond the Wall.

"Lady Brienne, actually," Catelyn said smiling. "And another."

Behind his mother's sworn sword emerged a smaller woman, and Robb ran forward to hug her. "Talisa!"

"My king," she replied, kissing him gently, in the presence of others.

"Just a lord now," he said back to her. He'd argued that, for those who did not want to bend the knee to Stannis, his terms were nearly the exact ones offered by Renly, which he would have accepted, the only difference being his own title, which he cared the least for. "I'm sorry you're no longer a queen."

"Ah, Queen Talisa of the North," she said with a giggle, "a title that died too soon." You don't even know. "I don't care, Robb. I just want you."

"You have me," he said, hugging her, thinking about what could have happened...what had happened, in a different lifetime. "Now, and forever."

"Lady Brienne," he said, bowing his head at her. "I know you have no love for Stannis Baratheon. I don't expect you to ask to serve in his Kingsguard. But I've bent the knee to him, as has my mother, as has all the realm. I don't ask you to forget his crimes, but I do ask, for my sake, and my mother's, that you refrain from acting...in a way which will put your own life in danger, and shame upon both our houses."

He could see the emotions swirling through her mind, and applauded in silence her restraint.

"My Lord Robb," she said finally, "you were a good king. Renly would have been a good king. The two of you are exceptions, I think, and it should come as no surprise that only the most rotten can win that damned chair. If the lords of the North can bend the knee, if you can keep your own sword blade from the necks of Tywin Lannister and his ilk...," she sighed, "Renly's death will not find justice...not from me."

"We do need him," a girl's voice echoed, as both his sisters entered the room, "for the wars to come. He'll be useful, for those wars." She bowed before the woman. "Lady Brienne."

She cocked her head, not recognizing the girl who'd addressed her, though Robb figured that Sansa must have met her already in her last life.

"You must be Lady Sansa. And Lady Arya."

"I'm not much of a lady," Arya said, looking admiringly at Brienne's armor. She smiled back at the girl.

"Neither am I."

"The Kingslayer," Sansa asked. "His hand is healing."

Brienne nodded. "There was a man at Harrenhal versed in those arts."

"Qyburn," Sansa asked, looking at Robb.

"I'll have him sent to Lord Tywin," he answered, remembering their earlier conversation, uncomfortable as he still was with this idea that the man was to be used for the purpose of a gross betrayal.

Both Arya and Brienne watched their exchange curiously, not knowing what was said between them before. Before they could ask questions, Sansa turned to Brienne.

"You suspect Jaime Lannister to not be what they say he is, don't you?"

Now it was Robb's turn to join in the confusion.

"My Lady, I'm not sure what you mean."

"Don't give up on him," she said, almost tenderly.

"Sansa, I don't know what you've seen," his mother said, "but Jaime Lannister may be the worst man in the seven kingdoms."

"And you let him free," Robb asked, still with a tinge of anger at his mother.

"I'm glad you did," Sansa replied. "One day he'll fight for us, for the Starks, for the North." She looked at Brienne again. "Give him time. He'll risk his life, as you'll risk yours...the two of you will fight side by side in Winterfell."

"Your sister is...something," Talisa whispered next to him, though Arya caught it with her ears.

"She'll be your sister soon," Arya replied, making a vomiting motion with her hands, even as Brienne continued to stare stunned at Sansa. "Good luck."

Both girls walked up to his soon to be wife, studying her, as if to judge whether she deserved a place in their family.

"I can see why," Sansa whispered into his ear, before clasping hands with Talisa. "It's so good to finally meet you, Lady Talisa. They tell me you have the kindest heart in all of Westeros."

"They tell me the same of you," Talisa replied, "and many other things." It seemed they liked each other, to Robb's relief.

"Then they speak falsely of me," Sansa countered strangely. "There's little kindness left in my heart. You should know that of me, because you're my family now. But where there was kindness, there's determination, to keep my family safe."

"There's peace in the seven kingdoms now," Talisa responded politely, managing to avoid the usual consternation at his sister's strange words. "I'd say you've done much to keep everyone's families safe."

"But not out of kindness." She looked at him, and hugged him again, and he hugged her back, knowing that, if he missed her because she'd been gone a year, she missed him because he'd apparently left her for a lifetime.

"I wish Jon were here," she said after, "for the wedding tomorrow." Arya nodded approvingly, but as he expected, his mother did not react well to her statement.

"Jon Snow's a man of the Night's Watch now. They're more his family than us."

"He's family, mother," Sansa said, defending him to Robb's surprise, though it sounded as if they'd become closer in her last life. "And he will be so strong for our family, and he will die for us, if he had to." She bit her lip, a rare moment of uncertainty from her. "It's not what you think, mother. Don't blame him. And don't blame father."

If Sansa were still a little girl, Robb would laugh and ask whether some tavern wench had forced herself upon their unwilling father after besting him in a fight, stripping him, and pining him down, but she clearly knew better. In fact...she knew, he realized.

"Jon's mother...you know?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why not," Catelyn asked sternly, unable to help herself.

Another rare hesitation from her. "It's very important," was all she said.

"Then you should tell us," Robb said, pressing her.

"May one day," she answered, not meeting his eyes. "After the wars are won."

.

.

.

.

.

.

.


Notes: A slower chapter, to catch all the characters up. Some responses to the comments.

I'd imagine that whatever "god" guiding Melisandre doesn't really care about the Throne per se, only the Great War...so let's hope that she doesn't see Tywin and Sansa backdealing. For Tommen's parentage, it's addressed explicitly in a following chapter, but Stannis has effectively disinherited him from House Baratheon, as his entire claim depends upon his illegitimacy. However, for the sake of compromise with the Lannisters, Stannis is allowing him to keep his Lannister name...and allowing his parentage to be an unspoken elephant in the room, so long as it doesn't threaten his own claim.

As for why Stannis wouldn't marry Tommen to Shireen...Tommen is basically a bastard who's not a bastard, and in his eyes, unfit for someone who will rule with, or for, his daughter. And he also wants to avoid Robert's mistake in giving the Lannisters such influence, tying them to the Starks instead for the sake of the peace, a daughter to a semi-bastard at that. But as he said, he didn't care who married whom, so long as there was a marriage between the two families.

As for why Sansa doesn't tell Robb about the wildlings, etc...she will in a future chapter. I broke it up a bit mostly for narrative purposes, so rather than having a whole chapter plus being just Sansa filling everyone in on everything, I interspersed it throughout with current plot movements to keep things moving forward.

Finally, I'd think Jaime is the last Lannister Sansa would want to marry, not because of any objection to him, but because Cersei will basically have her killed well before that could ever happen.

As usual, thanks to all who've read and reviewed!