Wind

"Yes, you can lose somebody overnight, yes, your whole life can be turned upside down. Life is short. It can come and go like a feather in the wind,"

Shania Twain.

Eddard Stark can only stare.

It is not often that he is taken aback, not truly. A by-product of his naturally reserved nature, of horrors, early suffered, Ned was not one to be stunned. How can something shake me when I have already lost so much, so early? He prided himself on his composure, for the most part. On his ability to take the information given to him, no matter how shocking, and keep his reaction close. It had served him well since he had ascended into his role as the Lord of the North.

But now, for the first time in a long time, he is taken aback.

And he can only stare at Sansa, mouth slightly open in his surprise.

"The North Remembers."

It takes him a moment to understand the words that left his daughter's lips. The North Remembers? It takes yet another to be taken aback by the way she said it. For it is said fiercely. Passionately and with a surety that sounded out of place from his eldest girl. She was prone to sweet fantasy, to be highly excitable, but Sansa was never one to speak in such a manner. She spoke quickly and high, she spoke adamantly and with a giggle on her lips, but she never spoke like this. With her Tully eyes narrowed and brimming with something he found familiar, but could not name in her. Her small teeth were bared in a smile that was more of a snarl, fitting for any Stark, perhaps, but never for his little Sansa. Sansa was his most innocent child. With her dreams of Summer filled days South, with a handsome husband and a thousand babes at her feet. She believed in Knights, and in Songs, with all the wisdom of her age, with an innocent adoration that he found it hard to begrudge her of them. How can I break such innocence, how can I expose her to the cruelty I know she will see with time? But not for a while yet, not while I live, not while she is with me.

"The North Remembers," she repeats again, voice brimming with emotion. These words sounded foreign in her voice, does not sound like his Southern child, the clearest reflection of her proud Tully mother. The North Remembers... But what does it remember? How can she say she is from the future? 'I closed my eyes in the year 305 in a fire...' Prone to fantasy as she is, that is not something Sansa would say.

Sansa was always the most foreign to him, he can admit. He did not love her any less than any of his other children. But she was the hardest for him to connect with, the hardest to interact with as a result. Her loves and pastimes were things he had little experience in, little patience for. And in return, his eldest girl was the most uninterested in the land that had borne her, the one most likely to leave the North. And much as it pained him to think, the one least interested in him. Oh, she asked for attention, for praise in her pursuits, but she did not relish it from him, not truly. Her gaze more often than not drifted to Cat, to her Septa, to the other gentle girls that sat in her circle. With many young children to care for, he admitted that Sansa tended to not hold much of his attention in return. His gaze drifted to young Robb and morose Jon, to try and instill responsibility to his eldest boys. It went to sensitive Bran and his reckless climbing, and to fierce Arya and her mischief and her frustration of failing the pursuits his wife implored her to learn. Her wild defiance like that of another beloved girl, with her grey eyes and brown hair. It looked to little Rickon, just beginning to form his own self. It moved to posturing Theon, seeing his first forays into manhood, wondering how he had held him since boyhood...

It did not often go to the quiet, dutiful child that Sansa was.

Despite this divide, Ned loved his most delicate child. And he knew her, as well as a father knew any of their children. Knew her enough to know when joy lit her eyes when frustration curled on her lips. When tears filled her eyes when she was ready to wail if her siblings pushed her too far. She was his most expressive child, the first one to laugh her joy and cry her sorrows. Now, something was strange in her face.

Her expression was not one he knew Sansa to have.

She was a stranger in front of him, with that expression.

Her face is as it always is a miniature of Cat, touched with Northern features of his own house; red-haired, long and if perhaps in disarray as he had not seen it in many years, skin pale as snow, round with youth and beauty. But there is that fierce curl to her mouth, pearly teeth exposed over dry lips, a furrow to her brows. And her back- her back is straight, not the attempt of a child in perfect posture or practice of a Lady, but in confidence, in defiance over something he cannot name. And her eyes. Her lovely Tully eyes, framed with thick copper lashes... Her eyes. Her eyes, blue and normally as soft as Summer skies, are hard, gleaming with darkness. A darkness... A darkness that I've sometimes see in the eyes of men that have seen war.

In his own eyes when he looks into a mirror.

They are a stark contrast to Jon's eyes -promise me, Ned- wide, round with youth and though slightly shadowed, are not the coldness and grief and pain of someone who has seen too much. But that is not Sansa. That is not his daughter. But he cannot deny that is what is looking at him from his daughter's eyes.

She has just had a nightmare, he tells himself, as he takes in that queer expression his daughter holds. His babe has had a nightmare so dark it has frightened her in a way she has never been before. She has had a nightmare. But her eyes, her eyes tell a different story then his mind can tell him. This is beyond a bad dream, something whispers to him. Something cool pools down his spine, unease, and fear for his daughter starts to press into his heart. Fear for things he cannot understand start to press into his mind.

Ned Stark was not one to believe in fantasy, in the unnatural. There is enough horror in the world to see creatures in the dark. But in Sansa, I can almost-

"Sansa," and that is Cat, mouth agape, eyes wide.

But Sansa is not finished. She raises her hand, a still, graceful gesture of command. Automatically, no matter how comical it may seem coming from a girl of ten name days, and Cat stops speaking. More stunned than anything at the gesture, he is sure but stunned enough to stare at Sansa with wide, shocked eyes. Sansa lowered her hand, a measured breath escaping her. She then stands, slowly, measuredly in a graceful movement. It should have been comical, her standing in her mused sleeping shift, with dirt and tares lingering in the pale linen where she had slid against the polished stone in her mad dash across the family wing of Winterfell. She should have looked like a babe mimicking her mother, with the way she moves.

But there is true, soft beauty in the motion. In the way her legs flex, the way her chin moves, parallel to the ground the entire time. It is strange, for Ned to see, so used to such movements being disrupted in Sansa, her chin wobbling in her excitement, her back slouching in fatigue for holding itself for too long. She moves perfectly, however, easily, with not a flaw that one so young should have. Even her expression shifts from the almost savage happiness to that of serenity. Poised. Lips relaxed, brow soft.

She does not let go of Jon's hand, even as she guides him into her vacant chair. It's a tender gesture, one that Sansa has stopped displaying with any of her siblings, so intent on decorum and proper behavior of a Lady. Her hand lingers on Jon's arm, and Jon is so confused at the attachment from his most distant sister, as is Ned. He is not blind at the stilted indifference she had begun to display towards Jon for the last few years, approved by his wife, nor the hurt in Jon's gaze as he looked after her. Her eyes linger on his face, even as she untangles her hand from his. Those blue eyes, as crisp as frost, follow the planes of his face. The dip of his furrowed brow, the confusion lingering in his grey eyes. The softness of his cheeks still rounded by youth, something Ned thinks disguises his father's high cheekbones less and less every year. Sansa's hand lifts up, small fingertips grazing across high cheekbones, cupping the side of his face slightly. Cat, seemingly unconsciously, makes a stilted noise of protest.

Sansa's expression stays clear of any real emotion, but something in her eyes shifts, as they flicker to Cat. Her small hand falls, but only after she gives Jon's cheek a soft squeeze. And it lands firmly on to his bare shoulder. Jon is visibly startled by the gesture, eyes locking onto it, but he makes no move to remove her hand. Sansa turns to Ned, her lips parting slightly in what seems to be an inaudible gasp. They close, softly. A polite, easy face looks at Ned.

"Father, Mother, Jon," Sansa said. Her voice seems to relish their names, seemingly savoring them on her tongue. Dips and moves in a cadence that is a gentle glee. She almost sings the names, pronouncing each syllable with a reverence that has him blinking, "Please, I am afraid I have come to you from an impossible place."

"Sansa... what was it that you said, that you come from the year 305?"

Ned's question lingers in the air. Impossible, madness, to claim such a thing. But he knew he had not misheard Sansa. My daughter claims to have come from ten years in the future. He tries not to let his thoughts move to the fact that she nods, firm. Her eyes blaze with more emotion, desperation, and what he thinks is hope as she looks at him. Her hand on Jon's shoulder, trembles, and squeezes so hard that his son flinches. At the movement, Sansa relaxes her grip. Drops her hand completely, and lets them fall primly in front of her in a perfect clasp. Jon's grey eyes follow the path of her hand, and his hand half lifts to reach for Sansa. Sansa steps forward, closer to Ned, not noticing Jon's lingering hand that falls to his lap.

"I beg for you to believe me. I… I have lived for the next ten years already. I have… I have been graced. By the gods or something else, I cannot say. But I have lived until my twentieth name day, and I died… Only to awaken in my old bed today. I have come back."

Tears linger on copper lashes, but Sansa blinked them away. Perhaps she did hit her head. I cannot think of a nightmare that claims the life of ten years.

"Sansa, how can we believe you?" he says, quietly. He is tempted to dismiss her. To call for Maester Luwin.

But something stops him nonetheless. Something tells him to wait. Listen. So Ned waits.

The girl's eyes dart to Jon before she looks back to Ned. Her expression does not shift, does not change, not as far as he can see. But he can almost see a flicker of emotion in her large eyes. It is unsettling, to suddenly see Sansa stoic, and so composed, especially when she had been so emotional before.

"Father. I know things. Things about both of you that I the child that went to bed last night did not know."

Her eyes flicker to Jon once again. More cold seeps into his spine, and he straightens sharply.

'Promise me, Ned.'

"Oh," and Cat speaks, soft and worried, "Sansa what could you possibly-"

"I know who Jon's mother is."

No. Let it all be a lie. Let it all be that Sansa simply has had a bad dream.

His wife straightens, as does Jon, eyes wide as his wife's eyes narrow. Sansa only looks at him, steadily, surely. Her expression, serene, shifts, falls softly. Sorrowful, a painful thing to see in a child that young, especially because to him it does not look right on the Summer child he knew. This was not the sorrow of a ruined dress, or of excluded from her siblings' rougher playing. It was a deeper sorrow, darker, unbefitting of his innocent daughter.

"Father," she says, and her voice softens, gentles in a soft reverent tone that he has only heard her use to speak of knights and songs, "You promised to protect her son when she laid dying. You swore to her because you loved her so much, that you have done what no one thought you can ever do. You lied."

She knew.

Impossible. No one can know, no one-

"Promise me, Ned," she whispered, his daughter, and it was an echo of his little sister.

An impossible echo, words she could not possibly know. She even pitched it as Lyanna had, desperate, pained as if she was gasping for her laugh breath. Blood and blue roses. Blood red hair and blue eyes stare at him, eyes of his eldest daughter, they are not innocent. They are worn and used, so impossible old. He stands, suddenly, turning violently around, tears stinging in his eyes. Cat only falls limp, against his desk, as a high keening sound of grief escapes him. Tears come to his eyes.

"You cannot know this," he gasps, bracing himself against the mantle of the fireplace. Stares into the ashes of the grate, so early that he had yet to make a fire...

An ill-thought tourney. A young woman who was so sure the future given to her would be horrible... Stubborn pride and readiness to right the wrongs of the world no matter how reckless. A forgiving, coveting, stupidly enamored Prince. A hopeful sister who saw escape and love like a song.

"No. No, I cannot. Unless what I have said is true. I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell, dead in the year 305, revived in my body in this year of 295. I have knowledge of things the Sansa of your yesterday could not possibly know... Things that until today only you, Father, and Lord Howland Reed knew. Please, father, believe me."

He turns again, chest heaving, as he stares at his daughter. He cannot say a word. He is stunned at the fact that she knew of Howland, he is stunned by the steadiness of her gaze.

"Sansa… I- Say it," and Cat hisses, her voice hoarse fierce, "Tell me that woman's name."

Sansa looks at him, brows furrowed before she looks to Jon. She touches the boy's face. Gentle, small digits caress a soft gesture. She reaches downward and clasped his hand again. Squeezed it softly, gently in a loving way.

"Only if Jon wishes for you to know, Mother," Sansa replies, calmly.

"Do not tell him!" he pleads her begs his eldest daughter because he promised. And he will not risk anyone else's life, nevermind that his eldest daughter seems to know the darkest, deepest secret in him, "No one can know Sansa-"

Hard eyes flash, and she moves away from Jon, storming to Ned, that small, lithe child of ten name days, holding herself tall and she pushes him, as hard as she seemingly can. It is not a hard push, as she is such a thin, reedy child, but the action stuns him all the same, sends him tumbling to the ground.

"You died without telling him," she hisses, and those hard Tully eyes gleam with rage and sorrow as she looms over him, "You died without telling him or anyone. You died at the hands of a mad boy in front of me. I saw your head roll. I saw them force it upon a pike, as that mad boy cackled and jeered and made me watch. Eddard Stark, the Quiet Wolf, you cannot leave Jon to not know the truth of himself. Of his parents because you have done it before and no good came of it. He ran off to the Wall and left his family. The lone wolf dies."

"Sansa have you completely lost your mind?!" screams Cat, straightening from the desk.

His eldest daughter turns, a queenly grace he realizes, dazed, as she looks at him. Lips pull back, gleam white and for a moment he swears his most graceful child snarls like the direwolf upon their sigil, even more fiercely than before. She is not even near her mother's height, but she seems to stand taller nonetheless, staring her down.

"Catelyn Stark of House Tully. You doomed us all. With your brashness and impulse, you threw the Kingdom into a civil war that ravaged the lands. And all because you trusted the wrong man… That man took me. Molded me. I thought he was saving me, helping me escape from being a hostage. But he was just another jailer. Who touched me, kissed me, and would have raped me if it was not better for himself to sell me off to a man who did. Who destroyed me and made me small and into pieces."

"Sansa," whispers Jon, pale, eyes wide, and the girl stills, wide-eyed as she stares at the boy.

"Jon, oh Jon, I'm so sorry," she whispers, and her face crumples, her eyes, already red-rimmed, shine with tears, "You are innocent and young. I should not speak of this in front of you."

She breathes, deeply, dabbing at her eyes with hurried fingertips, before she looks at Ned. She holds out a hand.

"Father."

He stares at her and takes her small hand. Smooth, soft, and uncalloused. She heaves him up with a lot of effort, even as he does the most work.

"Sansa… Say the name," he whispers, soft, hesitant, but as he looks at that small face, he realizes that what she says could… Could be true, "Say her name and I will believe you. In everything."

If she could just say the name then he would know for sure. She breathes, deeply, chest still heaving, as is his. She squeezes his hand, looking up at him. Tully eyes soften. The hardened face of someone who has lead others relax, and it turns into a mummers show of youth and the daughter that had gone to bed the night before. She looks at Jon. Who eye's flicker to Cat before he gives a hesitant nod.

"Lyanna," she says, clearly, and something in Ned howls, as she turns back to his nephew by blood, "Jon. Your mother was my Aunt, Princess Lyanna Stark who married Prince Rhaegar Targaryen in a handfasting ceremony, a second wife to the Prince. They… Loved each other. So much. And it cost them everything. As she laid dying, your mother made her brother swear to protect her son, Aegon Targaryen at all costs from Robert Baratheon. Father swore it. He took you as his own, called you Jon Snow to protect you from the fury of a man that smiled at the death of your half-siblings."

Jon falls back, into the chair. He goes paler still. And Cat. Oh his Cat, stares at him, mouth open.

"Ned," she whispers, voice hoarse.

Her eyes are wide, with the implications. At the realization that the shadow woman she has hated for so long is not a woman, he had been so in love with. He had loved her- loved her dearly, and it had been that love and the love for his wife that had kept his silence.

"I did not know you," he tells her, truthfully, "When I came back with Jon. All I knew was that you were meant for Brandon. And when I grew to love you, I could not doom you with the knowledge if it ever came to light. I was content with being branded a traitor if only you didn't fall with me."

Tears fall from his wife's eyes.

"But… I would have kept the secret Ned, you have bid me to be cruel and hate a child so dishonorably because of your 'protection'! Family, duty, honor!"

"Cat… Cat I am so sorry. Your disdain was his armor. His shield. I promised my sister on her deathbed to protect him at all costs."

"From Robert! Not from me!"

"Enough," and that is Sansa, sharp, and though her voice is high with youth, something in it makes them stop.

She walks, natural as can be, to Ned's chair. She sits and looks at all three of them. Cat and Ned, with their heaving chests and red faces, to Jon, who, Ned realizes with a start is wide-eyed and completely too quiet.

"Sit. Now."

They sit, Cat makes sure to be as far away from Ned as she can. Sansa shifts and he realizes that she looks all too comfortable at the head of the table of the Solar of Winterfell. Coldness seeps in his spine at the implications, because Robb, Bran, and even little Rickon are in front of her in the line of succession.

"I am sorry," she began, quietly, but there is command, grace, and authority in her voice, "I have come to you all from horrible times. I have taken your Summer life and blew it away like sand in the wind. For nearly all of my adult life I have lived in harrowing times, and I died because of it."

She looks at them, eyes focused, fierce.

"We all made mistakes. All of us. Father, Mother, Jon, and the Stark family suffered because of it. The pack scattered. And we all died for it," she started, voice high, still so impossibly sweet in her youth, but harder, darker in sorrow and what Ned realizes is true unrelenting grief.

Tears fall again, from her eyes, as she speaks in that soft, but firm voice.

"You, father, you were killed, the Quiet Wolf silenced. The Seven Kingdoms flew into civil war over your death, and the North rallied for independence for your unjust execution. Mother you- were killed. And Robb died with you, the Young Wolf, in his prime, first King of the North in centuries cut down by destroyed Guest Rights… Bran, Bran became something so… Other. Inhuman with his connections to the Old Gods. Lost to us, he became not a Wolf, but something else, the Three Eyed-Raven… Was not Bran anymore. Arya… Arya disappeared, into nothing, and came back harder, colder, an assassin trained in the way of death, the Invisible Wolf. Rickon, the little Wild Wolf died beyond the Wall. And Jon."

She looks directly at Jon, mouth softening, eyes as well. Summer skies return to Tully blue.

"You... You were the second King of the North. The Wolf Risen again. I was a prisoner for years and was used so horribly before I broke free and came back to you. And you… You helped me. Gave me the title of Queen and we took back the lost Winterfell, I am the Red Wolf because of you, I would become Queen of the North, under High King Aegon and High Queen Daenerys."

Ned's worst fears are confirmed, and he feels disbelief at the fate of his children and wife. Cat, Robb, and Rickon dead, Bran and Arya lost. And Sansa, he could tell, was changed beyond anything. A Queen looks at him from behind a child's face, and it sends shivers down Ned's spine.

"How… How did it all end?" he whispers, and he is the only one who seems to be able to speak, "If you were Queen, how did you die?"

Sansa looked to him.

"Winter came. The Others, they came back after eight thousand years. Jon died fighting them. Arya and I- Arya and I, well, we… We burned. We took wildfire and burned the last of the Northern survivors who could not fight as our army came back to us as Wrights or fleeing them. I took Fire over the death of Ice."

"Madness," whispers Cat, desperate, she turns to Ned, "My love, please, please tell me you cannot believe her. Please."

He looks to Sansa, Queen of the North, Red Wolf, sitting so regal, but so impossibly small in her young body.

"Cat. She knew of Lyanna. And only two people in this world knew of it until today."

"Ned, please-"

"Mother… Petyr Baelish of the Fingers. He fought Brandon Stark for you. And the first Wild Wolf nearly killed him if not for you asking him to spare Petyr."

Cat stares, as that was something that was not common knowledge, seven hells, Ned had not known until Sansa had been born.

"You used to go swimming, naked, with Aunt Lysa," a distinct look comes to his daughter's eyes, "It was your secret, a pack between sisters to be scandalous and alone. But Petyr was always watching, always looking to you."

Cat flushes, then she blanches.

"What? How do you know that? How?"

"Petyr told me. He was quite drunk. He told me how he always wished you had asked him instead before he begged me to swim with him."

Understanding dawned on him, as it did to Cat.

"He… He's the man I trusted who caused my…Death? The man who wanted to rape you? Petyr, little Petyr?!"

A grim smile, that darkness he had seen comes back in full force.

"Oh, mother, he did not want to rape me. He has always wanted you. When you… Died, I was all that was left. We look so much alike, after all."

Silence came to them, and Sansa looked to Jon, her face softening.

"Jon," she says, and the boy jerks, "Go. You have learned much. Too much, in such a short time… And… Promise me, you will tell no one of what was spoken today."

His son, for he is his son, looks at his eldest daughter, dazed.

"But Robb-"

"Promise me, Jon. Robb will know in due time, he is the heir of Winterfell. But for now, it is between us three."

Ned winces.

"I-I- promise, Sansa."

Sansa smiles, sadly.

"Go."

The boy blanches again, before he nods, gives Ned one last look before he flees. Ned looks at Sansa, and she sighs.

"I have burdened him with too much. He is no longer my King," she whispers, looking to her hands in a nervous gesture that Ned recognized.

Some of my daughter remained, somewhere beneath this Queen, this hard woman is the girl that went to bed last night. I have not lost my Sansa. She has only come home older, wiser... And to save us.

Relief, beyond belief, hits him, despite all the implications of everything that has come to him this morning.

"Sansa… You needed him," says Cat and her voice is distant, in shock, "He… He saved you?"

Sansa looks up at his wife.

"Oh mother, he didn't just save me. He gave me everything when I thought I would never have anything again. He took this broken thing, piece by piece, and raised her up to be a queen, joint Queen of the North until he became High King with his Aunt. But… Jon is not that man. Not my King. And if I have anything to say of it, he will never become the man that gave me my crown ever. Not as I draw breath."

Ned sucked in a breath.

"What do you mean?"

Sansa smiles, savage, and knowing.

"Winter is Coming, father, and this time, this time the Starks will rise together instead of scattering upon the wind. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the Lone Wolf dies, but the Pack survives."

Ned looks at her, at his daughter, changed overnight, at those haunting Tully eyes that of a queen behind that young face. Those words… The words that were impossible for her to know.

The Summer child who loved songs and knights is gone. But… But she is still my Sansa.

"What must we do?"

EDIT: 27 September 2020

Notes:

1: I do think Sansa could not bring herself to tell her mother what happened to her. She may be a harder person, but that innocent and kind girl is still in there somewhere. And Lady Stoneheart is disturbing, and its a pity they didn't put it in the show. I can only assume that they were both saving time and avoiding the more fantastical bits of the books... Or maybe they were trying to avoid a different type of zombie? 'Cause ice zombies is enough I guess.

2: ... I know Dany wouldn't really share the title, but I tweaked it a little bit that Jon asked for Northern sovereignty to be recognized, cause, Dany doesn't even have the rest of Westeros and decided to just throw all of her will into the fight against the Others. At the end, of course, the titles were meaningless, but I believe they are important symbolically, which is why I had Sansa gain the title of Queen in the first place... *Cough cough hint because I have the head-canon that if Sansa is the Queen in Cersei's prophecy that it would be delicious karma-wise.*