Trigger Warning:
Sansa has not had a good life. Mentions of physical and verbal abuse, feelings of self-hatred, dissociative behavior, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts.
"... The Stark Queen was happy in the first one and ten- eleven years of her life. Everything changed when the Baratheon King came to Winterfell."
Chiyo let her speak her truth. Her past life.
"I was the eldest girl, and it was expected I marry the Crown Prince of the Seven Kingdoms."
It was a series of backtracking and complex history- cultural nuances and detailed explanations. If she had thought that Sansa had been exaggerating her memories of her past life, by the end of several sessions, Chiyo knows it as a fact that she remembers her all too short past life. Chiyo takes it all with a measured hand, drawings of maps and writing a measured chronicle of Sansa's previous world.
"I was of the North. But my mother or the Riverlands- I was raised in the tenants of her gods and manners-"
Slowly, Sansa explains the short sixteen-year-old life she had lived before. She sees Chiyo three times a week in this capacity and another for her general health. And she tells of a fantastical, tragic story.
"A ballad, an epic… A Song of Ice and Fire, that is Westeros before I left it."
"They would beat me in open court, strip me-"
"Shae was the closest thing I had to a friend-"
"I rebuilt Winterfell from snow, and was furious when stupid Robbin destroyed it-"
"I was only a pale reflection of my Mother-"
Sometimes, they instead speak of her ten-month kid-napping.
"He was just a boy, manipulated into his circumstances-"
"I am sad for the Man of Mist. He was destroyed from the inside out. Dead. But even in death he had kindness for a silly little girl, and so young it aches to think of him-"
Chiyo is sure it will take a lifetime for Sansa to come to grips with the trauma of reincarnation alone.
"I am not sad I died. I am glad of my Kin being safe and loving in the Dawn and Spring I brought forth. But I miss them. Even with a new heart beating in my new chest, I find it longing for them, nonetheless."
But Chiyo is willing to wait.
She is a Doctor. She has a duty to her charge.
And love in her heart. She is perhaps to close to this case. But Chiyo has always been good with being objective, even with those she loves. And she is the only physician that can be trusted with anything related to the girl she sees as a granddaughter.
Sansa cries. She often does now, when she talks about the Stark Queen and her kidnapping.
"Sometimes I cannot believe my happiness. My luck in returning to life. And sometimes I am so tired. Sometimes, I do not wish to continue. "
A warm hand, wrinkled, places delicately over Sansa's trembling clasped palms. Chiyo cannot remember moving. But she does not care.
"It is alright. It is alright to feel exhausted. Overwhelmed."
Sansa sobbed all the harder.
"The Stark Queen fought so hard to survive- And I, I tried so hard to evoke it when I was captured, but it was not the same- I fought for nothing, I am nothing- just a girl-"
"A girl has the right to live, same as a Queen with an eight-thousand year legacy. Shota-kun fought for you, and just a girl, Sansa. And you can't tell me it was not enough-"
"I was never enough! They never came for me. I waited. Waited so long for my kin to save me- The Stark Queen- but they left me. Her to rot. They didn't even try. They did not even try."
"You are angry."
"Furious- even the Lannisters started war for their kin, and yet I was left by my Mother and brother, stripped from the right of my birth, and than they were dead and it didn't even matter! I couldn't even be angry at them anymore-"
"But you are. And the anger is good, Sansa. It's the part of yourself that loves you. It is the part that is telling you that the Stark Queen, and the girl you are, deserved to be saved, cared for. It isn't a horrible thing to acknowledge that the people who loved you failed you, Sansa. It does not mean you love them any less. It is healing to know your emotions to yourself and the people around you. To the people you have lost."
Sansa whipped at her tears. Delicate, staving the flow but not stopping. She breathes. Chiyo feels her own eyes burn with her own tears. But she refuses to let them fall. This is not about her.
It is about Sansa purging herself of this in a healthy, constructive way.
"Lady Chiyo-sensei. I have nothing to be sad for. Nothing to be regretful in this life. I am… I am happy. I really am."
Chiyo smiled softly.
"Mental health isn't about getting happier. It is to get to a better place than where you are. You have gone through horrible things, Sansa. As The Stark Queen and as the girl that you are. You deserve to grieve, to be angry, to let go. You are well adjusted, but that is not everything."
Sansa sighs. Soft and tired.
"I will try."
"And I will be here, every step of the way."