For such a huge man, Sansa has found her husband to have a remarkably delicate touch.
"Are you warm enough?" he asks quietly, unlacing her gown and easing it down her shoulders, leaning down to press a kiss to the back of her neck. "I can stoke the fire if you're not."
She shivers at the touch of his lips, but she shakes her head.
"I'll be warm soon enough," she says, glancing back over her shoulder as he pushes her gown at her hips, lets it fall to the floor. He's already stripped down to his breeches, and she likes the play of the firelight on the brownish-blonde hair on his chest and arms as he guides her to her dressing table and sits her down so he can undo her hair.
"Aye," he agrees. "I suppose you will."
Words do not come easily between them, even now, after near a year of marriage - easier than before, yes, just as laughter is more common between them now, but still not easily, and Sansa wishes just a little that they were as easy together as Robb and Alys are.
Her hairpins ding into the little bronze dish on the dressing table when he drops them in, and when all of them are out he combs her hair with slow, even strokes, rubbing at her scalp where he knows it will be sore from the long day of her hair being pinned up high.
She stands without a word, takes his hand and lets him lead her to sit on the edge of the bed, running her fingers through his hair when he kneels at her feet and rolls her stockings down her legs - thick, practical woolen stockings, but tied high up her thighs with bright blue ribbons to match her eyes. His hands linger on the tops of her thighs, the backs of her knees, the insides of her ankles, and she can feel how flushed she is when he looks up at her, lit from behind and almost beautiful, really.
His mouth tastes like spiced cider when he leans up to kiss her, hands resting on the bed at her hips. She likes this, likes kissing him, likes the soft rub of the beard he keeps short (for her, because he knows she prefers it short), loves the sounds he makes just before he pushes her back down against the mattress.
His boots hit the floor - thud, thud - before he climbs up onto the bed with her properly, and then he kisses her harder, lifts her up into his arms and lays her down against the pillows. Now, he's lit up from the side, the fire casting strange shadows on his skin, and he lets his eyes drift shut when she reaches up a curious hand to trace his jaw, down the side of his neck to the oddly delicate jut of his collarbone. There should be nothing delicate about him, this massive husband of hers, but there is, in surprising ways.
He brushes her hair back from her face then - he loves her hair, plays with it constantly unless she pins it up, and the brush of his knuckles against her temple makes her eyelids flutter.
He kisses her again, then, and she twists one hand into his hair to hold him close, while the other trails down his neck, over his shoulder, fingers digging into the hard muscle of his back when he explores her as she is him, when he cups her breast and lets his fingers drift over her nipple.
He murmurs something in the Old Tongue (she asked his brother, and Torrhen said it means beautiful, words learned from their mother) when he moves to kiss her neck, nuzzling under her chin and making her breath catch, the way it does only when they are abed together. It thrills her a little, because exposed though she is he is just as much, in the way he whispers those sweet words and the way he gasps her name into her hair (never my lady when they are together like this, always Sansa).
His hand slips under her shift, warm and firm and careful against her bare skin, and she arches up into his touch because it's good, everything is good when they lie together, and that's why she knows that it is right that she take the hand twisted into his hair and let it drift down his chest and his stomach to his breeches, unlacing one side and then the other of the placket.
"Take them off," she breathes against his ear, and when he rolls off her to slide his breeches down his legs, she takes the opportunity to pull off her smallclothes before kneeling at his side and pulling her shift over her head.
He likes it when her hair falls down over her breasts, she knows, so she makes no move to push it back over her shoulders. She likes the way he looks at her too much, likes the heat in his eyes as they skim across her body.
She climbs astride him when he pulls her mouth back to his, because kissing him is wonderful but the heat of his skin against her own is something else altogether, especially when he sits up so she's in his lap and she can press against him fully, the hair on his chest deliciously rough against her nipples, his hands huge and gentle when they cup her bottom and press her closer still.
She very much likes the feel of his fingers between her legs, likes it almost as much as she liked his mouth there, the few times he kissed her there, so when he touches her she rocks against his hand, lets him know how good it feels because if she tries to tell him with words, it will go wrong, she knows it will.
Lying with him is as easy as anything, just a slow, hot slide and the feel of his mouth trailing down her neck, teeth tugging softly on her nipple while he holds her up with his hands on her hips, while she strokes herself to release with one hand and knots the other back into his hair.
She finds her pleasure first - she often does, between the teasing of his mouth and the tight-stretch of him inside her and the movement of her own hand - and cries out just once, high and sharp and his name, and he tumbles her easily onto her back and moves hard and fast and finishes with a moan of her name into the hair behind her ear.
She follows him when he rolls off her this time, curling against his side with his heart thudding under her hand and his chest rising and falling under her hand.
They cannot find words for one another, but this, at least, seems to work.
He's gone away to fight wildlings before - he is an Umber of Last Heart, after all, that is what they do - but this is different. This is terrifying.
"Sansa," he says, kneeling at her feet and folding his hands in her lap. "I will return, you know that, don't you?"
She looks over his shoulder into the fire, resting her own hands on the heavy swell of her belly, and shakes her head.
"If what they are saying is true," she whispers. "If the White Walkers… You may not return, my lord. It may be that none of you return."
He leans his brow against her belly and huffs out a sigh before winding his arms around her. He is so warm, so big and warm and firm and alive, and she does not want him to die. She does not want him to leave, and that feeling is so new that she does not know what to do with it. She blames it on the babe - she cannot control her feelings at all since he got her with child - but she cannot help but doubt that it truly is the child's fault.
"I will, though," he promises, not looking up at her, and she wishes she had words to express what it is she feels now. "I swear to you, I will come home, Sansa."
Her fingers brush through his hair, and she bites her lip to stop from weeping when he looks up at her.
"You'd better," she warns him, and then she lets him carry her to bed and hold her the whole night.
He leaves in the morning, kissing her hands and her belly before they leave their rooms, and her hands again before he mounts his horse and rides with the rest of the Northern host for Castle Black.
It is late in the night when the man arrive at Last Hearth - scouts arrived not long after noon, but there are many injured to be brought for care, and travel is slow with the deep winter snows.
Sansa is awake when they arrive, feeding the babe, and she has only just set her daughter back in her crib when Torrhen bursts into the nursery in search of her.
Jon is one of the injured, and he's not well at all.
Jon wakes slowly, head throbbing almost as much as his side. He feels wretched - muzzy and tired and his mouth tasting like shit - but Father's sitting by the bed, and when he looks to his other side Sansa's curled around his arm, holding on tight, her little foot hooked around his knee.
"She's been with you the whole time," Father says quietly. "Tended you herself when the fever peaked. Never thought I'd see that wife of yours cry, but she wept bitter when she thought we were to lose you."
"Oh," is all Jon can say, still looking down at Sansa. She's so peaceful in her sleep, pouty mouth and eyelids that are just this side of lavender and pretty pink cheeks and her hair all mussed, and he reaches across his body to pet her hair down without thinking.
She jerks upright when he hisses in discomfort, looking confused for only a moment before she realises he's awake.
"How do you feel?" she asks, touching his cheek, his mouth, the edge of the bandages wound around his torso.
"No pain," he says. "I just stretched too far."
And then she does something that frightens him as much as it flatters him - she lays down mostly on top of him and weeps into his neck, fisting one hand in his hair and holding tight.
"The babe!" he says in sudden realisation, tugging gently on her hair to get her to lift her head. "The babe, Sansa-"
"She's well," Sansa assures him, sniffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve. "She's beautiful, she's - oh."
"Oh what?" Jon asks, confused. "Have you not named her yet?"
"I- yes, I have, Minisa, for my grandmother, I hope you don't mind-"
"What's wrong, then?" he asks, trying to sit up and crying out because gods, fucking gods, the pain is worse than he anticipated.
"Lay back," Sansa orders, pushing him by the shoulders and reaching across him for a little cup of what he thinks is poppy's milk, when she makes him sip from it. "We may talk when you're better."
Sansa is sitting in the chair at Jon's bedside when he awakes the second time, Minisa in her arms - she's a big child, not so large as her father, thank the gods, at least not according to the maester, with scruffy, tufty hair the colour of Jon's but Sansa's eyes.
"Is that…?" he asks, voice hoarse and thick from sleep, and Sansa nods. He will be disappointed, any man would be for his firstborn to be a girl, Sansa knows that she has failed him. "May I hold her?"
Sansa was not expecting that, but she nods, lays Minisa on her side of the bed and carefully helps Jon to sit up, eyes flickering between her husband and their daughter.
Minisa looks so tiny in Jon's massive arms, but she gurgles up at him and he smiles, laughing when she takes his finger in her little fist.
"She's beautiful," he breathes, shifting his hold on her to bring her closer to his face, so he can look at her better. "Why were you worried?"
"I thought… She is a daughter, my lord. Not a son."
"Our daughter," Jon corrects, still looking down at Minisa with that amazement in his eyes. "We are hardly a greybeard and a crone that must count the days to worry about more children. She is perfect, Sansa, why- why are you crying?"
"I thought you would be disappointed," she admits, scrubbing the back of her hand over her cheeks and sniffling, feeling silly. "But then, I have a habit of misjudging you."
"Father told me you stayed with me," Jon says, looking up at the ceiling.
It's warm, here, in his and Sansa's bed, her sitting up against the pillows with her sewing in her hands and the fire banked low and glowing hot in Sansa's hair, warm and comfortable and good. He likes sharing a bed with Sansa beyond lying with her, likes the softness of her skin against his, the scent of her hair, the funny little kittenish mewls she makes when she wakes and stretches and blinks open her eyes.
Part of him wishes that Min's crib was here, too, so he could listen to her snuffly breathing when the pain wakes him at night without getting out of bed and going to the nursery next to his and Sansa's room, because he has yet to get out of bed in the middle of the night without waking Sansa.
"Of course I did," Sansa says, shrugging and not looking away from her sewing. There's a candle lit on her nightstand, edging her face in soft golden light and catching on the silvery threads in her embroidery. "I am your wife, and you had need of me."
"Is that why you wept?" he asks quietly. "When I awoke? And before, when you thought I'd die?"
He can't be certain in the shifting light, but he thinks she might be blushing.
"There is no shame in it," he says, wondering why it is words are always such clumsy, awkward things between them when they both find them so easy a thing with everyone else. "Had I returned, and found that you had- that birthing Min had-"
He'd been living in terror of her dying in childbed since the moment the maester had confirmed that she was indeed with child, imagining how difficult it would be for her to birth a child with his size considering her narrow hips.
When he looks to her again, she's set aside her sewing (a blanket for Min, stitched all with pretty little flowers) and is blowing out her candle, and suddenly he has a lap full of Sansa and the tumble of her lovely hair all around his face as she leans down to kiss him.
"I know very well there is no shame in it," she says breathlessly when she sits back up to pull her nightgown over her head. "You are my husband," she tells him sharply, taking his hands and pressing them to her skin. "You are my husband," she says again, and there are tears in her voice and her eyes when she leans back down to kiss him again. "The father of my child, my husband, and you were brought home half-dead-"
He wraps his arms around her, pulls her down into him, and wonders if ever he will find words to tell her he loves her.