AUTUMN
September
Sansa had assumed that her learning about the truth behind the flowers would cause their delivery to stop but she still found a flower resting on top of her bag after every shift she worked with Margaery. Now that classes were back in session they were working together three mornings a week. Sansa's new favorite part of the day was the early morning when it was just her and Margaery getting the shop ready for opening.
Much to her surprise things between them didn't feel awkward. In fact, Sansa felt like they were on much more even footing now that their feelings were both out in the open. True to her word, Margaery wasn't trying to push Sansa into going on a date with her now and seemed content to wait. Sansa couldn't help but admire her patience. She didn't think that there were many things in the world she'd be willing to wait a year on. Although in a way she was waiting a year to date Margaery, albeit it was by her own choice.
Her classes were much harder than they'd been last year and Sansa could definitely tell that this school year was going to be much more difficult than her years of the past. Two weeks into the semester and she already felt like she was buried up to her elbows in homework. It seemed that she was not alone in that feeling as the students that crowded the coffeeshop were nearly all hidden behind piles of textbooks. Even her coworkers seemed more stressed than they had last semester. Sansa thought that part of it was readjusting to school after the summer mostly off but that didn't stop her from taking late night trips to the library. The more work she did now the less catchup she had to do later in the semester.
Late one evening Sansa was juggling an armful of books and trying to balance a cup of coffee on top of them when the sound of familiar laughter caught her attention. She stopped halfway up the library's front steps to look back over her shoulder, not at all surprised to see Margaery heading in her direction.
"Would you like some help with all that?" Margaery asked, her eyebrows arched in amusement as she closed the last few steps between them.
"Yes please." Sansa sighed gratefully as Margaery took the cup of coffee out of her hands leaving Sansa finally free to balance the books in her arm in a way that didn't make her feel like she was going to topple over backwards.
"What are you working on tonight?" Margaery asked curiously as they headed up the stairs together, trying to eye the titles of the many books in Sansa's arm.
"A paper for my women in literature course." Sansa said as she pushed the door open with her foot for Margaery to head through. She tried, and failed, not to look at Margaery's backside as she walked in front of her.
"That sounds interesting." Margaery said, perking up as she spotted the copy of Frankenstein at the top of Sansa's pile. "At least more interesting than what I'm working on."
"What are you working on?" Sansa asked as she led the way to the stairs, Margaery following after her in soundless agreement. Sansa's favorite study room was on the third floor. It was much quieter up there as most of the students working on group projects tended to stay on the bottom floors.
"The different types of algae found in the bay." Margaery said with a sigh. "I've been looking under a microscope all day, my eyes feel like they are going to explode."
"Are there many different types of algae here?" Sansa asked curiously, she'd never been much for science. It was fascinating but it had never held her interest as much as literature or languages. But when Margaery talked about it Sansa suddenly found that nothing could hold her attention more.
"Oh tons." Margaery said as she pulled open the door to the third floor for Sansa. "That's the problem."
"That's not the topic of your thesis project is it?" Sansa asked in a whisper, mindful of the other students trying to study at the desks crowding the space before the rows of books started.
Margaery shook her head as she pointed to a dark study room in the corner. They headed that way as Margaery whispered, "No, I'm doing a study on rose crossbreeds for that. The algae project is for my marine botany class."
Sansa made a noise of curiosity as she flipped on the light for the study room. The rooms on this floor consisted of a small table and two chairs to accommodate single students and small group projects. Sansa set her books down on the table with a relieved sigh as Margaery shut the door behind her. The room suddenly felt much smaller with the door shut and Sansa swallowed hard as she realized how completely alone they suddenly were. Sure, they spent time alone together every morning they opened the coffeeshop but that was different. They were working and there was always something that needed to get done. Not to mention there was a lot more space at the coffeeshop than there was in the study room. This was the first time since Sansa had found out about the truth of the flowers that they were completely and utterly alone.
Not even the fact that there was a room full of students on the other side of the door could make Sansa's racing heart calm down. She opened her mouth to say something but she couldn't seem to get any words to come out. Margaery seemed to notice the change in her because she looked back at the door before glancing back at Sansa with a worried knit between her eyebrows.
"I can open the door again if you'd like." she offered softly, placing Sansa's coffee on the table next to her books.
Sansa shook her head as she took a deep breath and settled into a chair. They'd both been controlling themselves for months now, a closed door wasn't going to suddenly change that. She pulled a book close to her and breathed through her mouth so that the scent of Margaery's perfume wouldn't cut through the remaining dregs of her self control.
XxX
Though neither of them had spoken of it Margaery and Sansa began to meet up every other night at the library in the same study room as the first night. They studied together in a companionable silence and as the days went by Sansa no longer felt like her heart was going to beat out of her chest when the door shut.
With their study sessions and work they were seeing each other nearly every day and Margaery had taken to bringing her a flower to their study sessions as well. One night Sansa got to the room early and when Margaery showed up she placed a red rose on top of Sansa's open book without a word.
"You know you don't have to keep bringing me flowers, right?" Sansa asked, unable to shake the guilty feeling from her stomach as she ran her fingers along the soft petals.
"Oh, I like bringing them to you." Margaery confessed as she settled down across the table.
"But they must be costing you a bit of money." Sansa protested doing a bit of quick math in her head. At this point Margaery had left her hundreds of flowers. That couldn't have been cheap.
"They don't cost me anything." Margaery admitted with a grin as she leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially. "I get them all from the campus greenhouses and they are close to overflowing with flowers. No one even notices they're gone."
"Really?" Sansa asked curiously, picking up the rose and pressing it to her nose so she could breathe in the heady scent of it. "I've never seen the campus greenhouses."
Margaery seized onto that as hard as she'd seized onto the fact that Sansa hadn't gone to the Rose Festival before. When it came to flowers Margaery was even more obsessed with them than Sansa was. That wasn't all too surprising seeing what her major was. "Well we can't have that. Are you free Sunday? I'll give you a tour." She realized quickly how that sounded for she quickly amended, "Not like a date or anything."
"Of course, not like a date." Sansa agreed, trying severely to ignore the thought in her mind that she was cheating her resolution by spending even more time with Margaery. If she was going to start counting hanging out with her as cheating the resolution than these study sessions would have to stop and she'd have to switch her work schedule around.
"You could bring Arya if you'd like." Margaery offered hastily, clearly still seeing the look of worry on Sansa's face no matter how hard she was trying to talk herself out of it.
"I think Arya's pretty much done with being my chaperone this year." Sansa admitted with a cringe.
"Well we will find someone else to go with us then. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable." Margaery suggested, reaching forward to put her hand on Sansa's comfortingly.
"You don't make me uncomfortable!" Sansa assured her quickly, resisting the urge to turn her hand over so that she could thread her fingers through Margaery's.
Margaery smiled at the look on Sansa's face. "I know I don't. But I don't want you to feel like a trip to the greenhouses stopped everything you're doing this year."
Warmth pooled in Sansa's heart at even more proof of how seriously Margaery was taking her resolution. She'd said she was okay with waiting but every time she proved it Sansa still couldn't help falling for her a little bit more. "It won't. We've been controlling ourselves for months now, I don't think one afternoon will break us."
XxX
The university had three greenhouses, all of them located on the far west side of campus behind the building where the majority of the plant science classes were housed. As Sansa had only taken the minimum number of science classes to fill her prerequisites she had never been inside the building let alone the greenhouses. She'd passed them a few times on walks or runs around campus but she'd never tried to go inside before. She'd barely made it three feet inside the first one before she realized that had been a mistake.
They'd come early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day; the all glass walls had a way of making the whole place feel like you were baking in the sun according to Margaery. The greenhouse they were in was the one that housed flowers, the other two consisted of rare breeds of plants not native to the area and vegetation. The perfume of so many different types of flowers left a thick scent in the air and Sansa spun in a slow circle to take in the sight of so many flowers in such a small place.
She felt like she was back at the Rose Festival for a moment and she couldn't help but try to place names to as many flowers as she saw. She wasn't surprised to recognize most of them, Margaery had given her a bloom from nearly every plant Sansa could see. She began to pick her way forward around the tables housing potted plants, careful not to bump into any of the hanging baskets or ivy seemingly growing wild. Even though it was early on a weekend there was still a small handful of students milling about the room clearly getting a head start on projects. Judging by the way most of them said 'hello' or waved to Margaery Sansa wagered that they were all graduate students like her.
"Well what do you think?" Margaery asked curiously as they reached the end of the greenhouse which was covered with different colors of carnations.
"I can't believe you get to come here every day." Sansa admitted, running her fingers softly over one of the petals closest to her.
"It's not closed off to other students you know. You can come here whenever you want too." Margaery reminded her with a laugh.
Sansa smiled sheepishly at that. "It would feel like I'm intruding."
"Don't be silly. Beauty like this is meant to be shared." Margaery sighed as she picked a loose petal off of the table beside them. "Honestly I can't imagine not getting to see this whenever I want too. I've become spoiled by it."
"Where do you think you'll go when you graduate?" Sansa asked her curiously, trying to ignore the reminder that Margaery was finished with school at the end of the year.
"I haven't decided honestly." Margaery confessed, leaning back against the table with a wistful sigh. "Part of it depends on where I get a job of course, but I think I'd like to live in a smaller city. I don't think I'll go back to Highgarden but I'll probably end up somewhere in the Reach."
Sansa made a noise of agreement as she fought down the pain of their numbered days. Even if they did begin dating in January and even if things went well with them they'd only have a few months together before Margaery graduated and moved off. But, Sansa reminded herself, they'd already been waiting so long to be together if things worked out between them they could totally handle long distance.
"Do you think you'll go back to Winterfell?" Margaery asked, the wistful look on her face suddenly replaced by curiosity. "What brought you all the way down to King's Landing anyway?"
A bitter laugh escaped Sansa of its own accord. That wasn't a question that she really liked answering. "Well the reason I tell people is that I got offered a scholarship that was too good to turn down."
Margaery's eyebrows quirked up at her phrasing. "What's the real reason?"
"I followed a boy." Sansa admitted with a cringe. She still couldn't believe that she had actually been foolish enough to follow Joeffrey across the country.
"Don't look so upset about that fact." Margaery said with a laugh at the pinched expression on Sansa's face.
"Why not?" Sansa asked with a self-deprecating grin, "He's terrible."
"Oh, I don't doubt it but if you hadn't done that we probably never would have met." Margaery countered as she bumped her arm against Sansa's causing a real smile to cross her face.
It was hard to argue with logic like that.
October
Between her study sessions with Margaery, school and her job Sansa had let the shredded remains of her social life fall through the cracks. One of the few people she still saw on the regular was Arya and that was only because she'd fallen into the habit of showing up unannounced on Sansa's doorstep a few days a week. Even though she knew she would never say it Sansa was beginning to suspect Arya was homesick. Sansa was honestly surprised that Arya hadn't transferred to a school closer to home once the last year had ended.
The thought of Arya leaving and the fact that she herself would be done with school in two years had left her with several thoughts of what her future held. She couldn't seem to get Margaery's question out of her mind, where did Sansa plan on going after graduation? The thought of returning to Winterfell filled her heart with happiness but the thought of going and picking a new city and discovering a new place made her feel the same way. She still had two more years to figure it out of course, nothing had to be decided on today. Even with knowing that Sansa couldn't seem to shake the question from her mind.
She wanted to talk about the idea of her moving back to Winterfell after graduation with someone but she didn't want to broach the subject with any of her family members and get their hopes up. She'd only been back home a handful of times since she'd started college and everyone was always getting on her to come home more. Sansa liked to believe that she didn't go home as often as she should because she was too busy with school but the reality was that until this year it had mostly been because she'd wanted to stay in King's Landing over break to hang out with whoever she was dating at the time.
Sansa knew that if she were to even bring up the idea of her moving back home, or really anywhere in the North, her family would decide that meant she was definitely moving back after graduation and proceed to tell everyone that. They would be so excited by the prospect that they wouldn't be able to help themselves. And then if Sansa changed her plans that really weren't even plans yet they would all be so disappointed in her. Probably as disappointed as they were when she decided not to attend her mother's alma mater in the Eyrie.
After a few days of rolling the idea over and over in her mind Sansa started to feel that if she didn't discuss it with someone she was going to explode. That was how she found herself after class one afternoon scrolling through her contacts list for someone to bounce the idea of moving home off of.
Most of the contacts she scrolled right past easily, although she did pause to delete a few numbers from her phone in the process. She hadn't realized she'd still had Harold's number but she made sure to change that quickly. She debated calling a family friend Brienne but ultimately decided against it. No matter how tight-lipped Brienne was Sansa didn't want to risk the possibility of it getting back to her mother.
Near the end of her contact list Sansa was beginning to feel a little bit desperate. Her finger was hovering over Theon's name even though she knew it was a disastrously bad idea. Not only was he sure to spill to Robb (who couldn't keep a secret from their father to save his life) but Theon gave notoriously bad advice. Sansa was about to bite the bullet and call him anyway when a name at the bottom of her screen caught her eye.
Chewing on her bottom lip Sansa let desperation lead her to push the call button, holding the phone up to her ear and not letting herself pause to think this decision through. Honestly, she was more surprised that she still had his phone number (when was the last time she'd cleared her contact list?) than the fact that she had actually pressed the call button.
Despite the fact that she had called him Sansa still found herself silently praying that she'd be sent to voicemail but he answered on the third ring.
"Sansa Stark. To what do I owe this honor?" even though she hadn't heard his voice in over three years Sansa found that she could still recognize the amusement in his voice.
"Hi Tyrion, is this a bad time?" she fought to keep the hopefulness out of her voice but she didn't quite think she succeeded.
"Not at all." she could practically hear him getting cozy and she could imagine him sipping a glass of wine as he pondered over the possible reasons of her phone call.
Tyrion Lannister was a lot of things, Sansa knew that. She'd never heard a Lannister say anything good about him, with the exception of his brother Jamie, but he had always been kind to Sansa. He'd leaked family business secrets to the press last year effectively shutting down his father's company but everything Sansa had ever said to him had stayed between them. He was the first person who pointed out Joffrey's cruelty to her that she had actually believed and the last terrible night that she had ever been inside of the Lannister mansion he'd caused a diversion so she could slip out unnoticed.
It suddenly dawned on Sansa that they hadn't spoken since that night which made her doubt calling him even more.
"How have you been?" Sansa stalled, chewing on her nails in a habit she had mostly broken accept for when she was extremely nervous.
"I've been well." she could hear the chuckle in his voice as he continued, "But I think we both know that you didn't call me up to catch up."
"Uh no, you're right I didn't." Sansa admitted, running her hand through her hair. She'd called him for a reason after all, she might as well get to it. "Actually, I was wondering if I could bounce an idea off of you?"
She'd originally called Tyrion because she didn't have anyone else in her contacts list to talk to but in the end, Sansa found that she was grateful for that fact. He was able to bring up points about moving closer to home that she hadn't thought of as well as disarming the majority of her fears and misgivings. She didn't come to any kind of a decision but she felt a lot better just from having talked about her options with someone who took the conversation seriously.
What she had expected to be a five-minute phone call at best somehow turned into nearly two hours. After they discussed her potential futures after college Tyrion filled her in with all the nitty-gritty details of the lawsuit his father had tried to file against him. He also told her about the new woman he was dating which of course led to a discussion about Sansa's love life. She found herself admitting to him that she wasn't dating and then after he asked why she spilled everything, from the resolution to the flowers to Margaery. The more they talked Sansa found herself wondering if all those years ago that Tyrion hadn't just been her ally but her friend. She made a silent promise to herself that she would start calling him every month so that another three years didn't go by before they spoke again.
In the end no grand decisions were made but Sansa felt ten pounds lighter just getting some of the things she'd said off of her chest to someone who would just listen without judging her. She could hear a lightness in Tyrion's voice that hadn't been there at the start of their conversation as he bid her farewell so he could get ready to meet up with his date. He left her with one last bit of advice before they parted ways, "Just remember Sansa, you have to follow your heart in all of this. You've always been good at that."
XxX
Sansa's original plan for Halloween was to hang out at her apartment and hand out candy to the few kids who lived in the building and stopped by her door on their way out to trick or treating. Afterwards she was going to curl up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and B-list horror movies that she would watch with the lights on. However, she wasn't even fifteen minutes into the first film of the night when rapid knocking on her door drew her attention.
Sighing, Sansa stood up to go and let Arya in but when she opened the door she was surprised to have Jeyne be the one pushing past her into the apartment. Sansa couldn't help but wonder what it was about her house that made no one wait to be invited in.
"You are not wearing that tonight." Jeyne said before she was even all the way in the door as she eyed Sansa's pink pajamas with cats printed on them with distaste.
Sansa crossed her arms and fought down a smart remark since Jeyne was wearing a tight black jumpsuit with cat ears perched on her head. She'd thought she'd seen a tail as she'd walked past as well.
"What's wrong with my pajamas?" Sansa chose to ask instead as she shut the door behind her.
"You can't wear that to a party!" Jeyne cried in outrage.
"I'm not going to a party." Sansa reminded her calmly. They'd had this discussion three times this past week alone. Sansa just wasn't in the mood for parties anymore. They no longer felt like her scene.
"Yes, you are." Jeyne said forcefully, placing her hands on her hips and glaring at Sansa with her eyes narrowed. "You didn't go out with me at all last semester. I know you've got this whole all study and no play thing going on right now but enough is enough girl! You need a night out."
"I really don't." Sansa said with a sigh even though a small part of her was heavily agreeing with Jeyne. They were already on the second month of the semester and she hadn't gone to a single party or even a bar. She'd gotten used to going to other places by herself but for some reason she just couldn't get herself to go to those. She'd didn't think that she would be tempted to do anything with anyone, her heart was set on Margaery no matter how much she had tried for it not to be.
"Yes, you do." Jeyne said in a no-nonsense voice that was usually reserved for her little brother. "You have to have something that can pass as a costume." Jeyne called over her shoulder as she headed in the direction of Sansa's bedroom.
Still mumbling protests Sansa hurried after her, mainly to prevent Jeyne from turning her room inside out than to get out of going with her.
XxX
Despite Sansa's many protests and complaints, she still found herself following Jeyne up the steps to a house so overflowing with people that there were people hanging out on the front steps that they had to push themselves around just to enter the building. The inside of the house was no better, Sansa felt like she was being squeezed in on all sides as she wriggled her way through the crowd cheering on a game of beer pong in the front room. She had to fight down a flare of nausea as so many strangers' sweat brushed against her. Sansa pulled down on her dress nervously as she followed the path Jeyne cut through the crowd to get to the makeshift bar in the kitchen. She pressed a plastic cup filled to rim with beer into Sansa's hand and Sansa accepted it gratefully. The mass of people around her had once been something she'd grown accustomed to but after so long apart from it she felt like her heart was jumping out of her skin in time with the beat of the music.
Sansa followed after Jeyne the best she could to the dance floor and after she finished her first cup of beer she was beginning to feel more relaxed. By the time she'd nearly reached the end of her second she didn't even mind when Jeyne wandered off to flirt with a boy from her statistics class. She'd had a feeling that despite all of Jeyne's assuredness that she was dragging Sansa out for her behalf it was mainly because she'd needed a wingwoman for the night.
"Nice costume." A voice shout whispered into her ear and Sansa turned in surprise to find Margaery grinning at her from under the brim of a black witch hat.
Sansa pulled self-consciously at the short white skirt of her nurse's costume that Jeyne had unearthed from the back of Sansa's closet. She did not remember it feeling this short when she'd worn it freshman year.
"Thanks." Sansa shouted back in order to be heard over the electronic music pumping through the speakers. Dimly Sansa wondered how much longer the neighbors would wait before they called in a noise complaint. "I like yours too."
Margaery grinned and tipped her hat at Sansa as she stepped closer to be heard better. "I'm surprised to see you here."
"My friend dragged me out." Sansa admitted looking around with a shrug. Jeyne was nowhere in sight. "I don't even know whose house this is."
Margaery tipped her head back and laughed at that. "It's Loras's and Renly's. Well them and four other people."
"Well that explains why you're here." Sansa said with a grin. She suddenly felt much more at ease knowing she at least knew some of the hosts of the party. Margaery's presence didn't hurt either. "Where are they? I should say hi since I'm crashing their party."
"They're probably off making out upstairs." Margaery dismissed airily with a wave of her hand, nearly stumbling into Sansa as the dancing crowd behind them surged wildly as the tempo increased. "This place is packed. Want to go somewhere a little bit quieter?"
Sansa nodded gratefully, casting another look around for Jeyne to let her know where she was going. Not seeing her she followed after Margaery upstairs. A sudden surge of panic made her wonder if Margaery was going to lead her into a bedroom. Sansa highly doubted she could handle being in the same room as Margaery and a bed and not do something to break her resolution. However, Margaery walked past all of the doors on the second floor and instead lead the way up a ladder to what Sansa suspected was the attic. Climbing the ladder was extremely difficult in their dresses as Sansa had to use all of her self control not to look up as Margaery headed up before her. Grateful that no one was underneath her Sansa let Margaery reach down and give her a hand up into the room.
Judging by the slanted walls and short ceiling the room they were in had in fact once been an attic. It had been converted into a kind of game room it seemed, there were two couches shoved against one wall and a large television with several different game consoles against the other. Sansa was surprised that only a few people were in the room, she'd expected it to be overflowing like the rest of the house. A guy dressed up as an astronaut called out a welcome to Margaery as they came further into the room.
"The guys don't like people they don't know coming upstairs." Margaery explained to Sansa as she carefully stepped past the people playing videogames to the far side of the room. Sansa followed after her curiously, she'd thought that this room was their destination but Margaery made no move to sit on any of the vacant seats. She didn't come to a stop until she reached a small window that she unlatched and pushed open before shooting a smile over her shoulder at Sansa.
"Do you trust me?" Margaery asked, barely giving Sansa time to wonder over the question before she slipped out of the window.
Sansa felt her stomach bottom out and she suddenly felt very sober as she darted to the window and looked down, half expecting to see Margaery's broken body on the pavement far below them. Instead she found Margaery perched carefully on the slated roof, one hand bracing herself against the roof and the other reaching back for Sansa.
"You could have warned me." Sansa berated her before sitting on the edge of the window ledge and swinging her legs out into the cold night air. She tried not to flash Margaery as she did so but she had a feeling she wasn't quite successful. She let Margaery take her hand as she crept out onto the ledge, squeezing Margaery's hand and holding her breath as she dared a look over the edge.
"That's a pretty nasty fall." Sansa whispered breathlessly. She wasn't afraid of heights but the sight of the ground so far below them still left her feeling a little light headed.
"Good thing we're not planning on falling." Margaery whispered back as Sansa settled next to her. She waited a moment longer before letting go of her hand and Sansa felt her fingers brush against her palm as she let go. The noise of the party was much quieter up here and the voices of the people in the room behind them were only a distant hum.
"It's beautiful out here." Margaery whispered, looking out at the lights of the city.
"Do you ever miss stars?" Sansa asked curiously, craning her neck back to peer up at the dark sky. With so much light pollution around them Sansa could only see three, maybe four stars above them. Half of which she supposed were actually airplanes or satellites.
"All the time." Margaery laughed as she pulled her knees to her chest. "But the city is beautiful too. The lights are like their own kind of stars."
"I never thought of it that way." Sansa admitted as she cast another look out at the lights sprawling endlessly before them. She could see what Margaery meant, if she squinted the vast ocean of lights before them could almost pass for the night sky in Winterfell, just brighter and much closer.
"It's good to change our perspective of things sometimes." Margaery said, not taking her eyes off the city. "That's what my grandmother says at least."
"Well, like I've said she is very wise." Sansa smiled as she felt Margaery's gaze turn to her. She stared at the lights for a moment more before turning to face her. She'd tipped her witch's hat up so that it just perched on her hair and even with all of the dark makeup on her face Sansa still thought she was the most breathtaking woman she'd ever seen.
Tyrion's words from earlier that month about following her heart echoed in her head and Sansa knew in that moment that she would follow Margaery anywhere. Every time that she thought she had reached the cusp of her feelings for Margaery, that they couldn't possibly go any deeper than they already did, she would do something that made Sansa fall for her a little bit more. The noise of the party fell away as Sansa studied the planes of Margaery's face.
"You're staring at me." Margaery whispered, a smile toying at the corner of her mouth.
"You were staring at me first." Sansa whispered back shifting slightly closer to Margaery as a gust of wind stirred her hair up around her face. The fact that the ground was so very far below them had not left her mind and she wasn't sure if it was fear or Margaery's closeness making her pulse race like it was.
"I can't help it." Margaery admitted, her voice soft, shifting an inch closer to Sansa. There hadn't been much space between them to begin with, the awning they were on wasn't exactly broad. Sansa's arm rested against Margaery's, the chiffon of her sleeves scratching Sansa's bare skin.
"Why not?" Sansa asked, tilting her head closer to hear Margaery's answer as a loud cheer drifted out the window towards them. It seemed someone had just defeated the boss on the videogame being played inside. Sansa felt like she was about to go fight her own boss level battle. Her wavering self-control versus the overwhelming urge to kiss Margaery on the lips she'd just licked.
"I was taught to always appreciate beauty." Margaery whispered, turning her head to face Sansa a little more as if she could hear the last few remaining shards of Sansa's restraint shattering into pieces.
Looking back on it Sansa would never be sure which one of them had leaned in first, just as she would never be sure who stopped first. She just knew that one second they were facing each other with a good half a foot between them and the next their faces were barely centimeters apart.
Sansa could feel Margaery's breath against her lips. Some of the hairs that had fall loose of her ponytail caught in Margaery's exhales and tickled the sides of her face. Sansa knew that if she leaned forward just a fraction of an inch her lips would finally be pressed against Margaery's.
Yet neither of them moved. Sansa felt like she could hear both of their hearts beating in the small space there was between them. This was nothing like when they had almost kissed back in June. That had been fueled by alcohol and lust, the closeness of the dance floor pushing them desperately together. But out here, it was like the rest of the world had fallen away and the beers Sansa had drank early seemed to have left her system. She had never felt more clear headed in her life.
This close to each other it was hard to get her eyes to focus on Margaery's but the sound of her voice tore Sansa's eyes from her lips up to her eyes which was looking at her softly.
"Kissing isn't dating is it?" Margaery breathed, her lips barely moving because if she moved too much their lips would be touching.
Sansa wanted so desperately to say yes to that. She wanted to bury her hands in Margaery's soft brown hair and kiss her until they were both breathless. But she knew that if she did that there would be no going back. Her resolution would be done and broken and she was so close to the finish line she could actually taste it. She'd never finished anything important like this before. Everything had always fallen to the wayside or been given up on. Sansa had never been this close to being able to keep her word to herself. She wanted to kiss Margaery so desperately she felt it like an ache inside of her but Sansa knew that she couldn't. Even if they did manage to just keep it to this one kiss Sansa would still know it had happened. She would still have let herself down.
"It would still feel like cheating." Sansa admitted, careful to not brush her lips against Margaery's as she spoke.
"On who?" Margaery whispered, her eyes searching Sansa's.
"Myself." Sansa shrugged, her fingers digging into her knees to keep herself from leaning forward even as she told Margaery the truth.
Margaery smiled at her softly before leaning back slowly like it was physically paining her to do so. "Well we can't have that."
Sansa didn't know how she managed to look so calm and possessed about the whole thing when Sansa felt like her own heart was beating a bruise against her chest. She swallowed down a sick feeling that she was disappointing Margaery as she ran her hands down her legs. They were covered in goosebumps and she didn't know if it was from the cold or the shivers being so close to Margaery was giving her.
"I'm sorry." Sansa whispered before turning and grabbing hold of the window ledge. It took her a lot more struggle to get back inside than it had coming out and only part of it was because she was doing it by herself this time. Sansa heard Margaery say her name behind her several times but she found that she couldn't get herself to look back at her. She ignored the curious looks the people in the attic gave her as she darted past them towards the ladder.
She wasn't being fair to Margaery. She deserved to kiss as many girls on rooftops as she wanted and now because of Sansa she wasn't getting too. Maybe Margaery didn't regret agreeing to wait for her yet but the feeling would be coming soon. That would have been the perfect spot for a first kiss and Sansa had just ruined it for them.
Swallowing her anger at herself Sansa made her way through the crowd scattered throughout the house and pushed her way outside. Taking a deep breath of the cool night air Sansa couldn't resist turning and casting a look over her shoulder as she approached the sidewalk. Margaery was still sitting on the roof where Sansa had left her. Even from this distance Sansa could feel her eyes on her and she knew the confusion she must be feeling. A deep pool of shame began to form in Sansa's stomach as she wrapped her arms around herself and headed off in the direction of home.