Sansa soaked in the hot bath reflecting on her earlier argument with Jon. After she told him that they should go home he had dismissed her words. He didn't believe that they could do it. He had replied sarcastically to her suggestions as if she wasn't aware of the fact that they needed to rally an army first. But she knew how vital it was to take back the North. To destroy the Boltons. The evidence was displayed all over her skin.
She looked down at her bruised and discolored body, unable to tell which bruises resulted from jumping off the battlements and which ones were gifted by Ramsay. She had avoided looking at her body since the marriage because she didn't want to deal with the evidence of what he did to it. How he defiled her from the inside out. She shuddered as silent sobs raked her body. Crying and crying until her head was pounding, her throat was raw, and her nose was burning, but she felt much better once she was done.
When she finished bathing and oiling, she slipped into her nightdress and then crawled into bed; falling into an exhausted sleep within minutes of her head hitting the pillow.
The next morning she quickly dressed in her chamber, unsure of what the day would bring. She hoped that Jon wasn't upset with her over their disagreement. But she truly did intend to do everything she could to gather an army on her own if he declined to help. She didn't want strife between them but the way that she saw it, this matter was completely non-debatable.
It was too dangerous to back down and be compliant as the Boltons continued to destroy the North because the consequences were too unpredictable. She knew that Ramsay intended to come for her sooner or later and she didn't have any intention of sitting meekly by and allowing that to happen.
Sansa was aware that Jon would never hand her over, but she also knew that without an army he would be powerless to stop Ramsay if Ramsay was to charge Castle Black with several thousand Bolton men and demand his bride back. Jon's Night's Watch brothers might even grab her and hand her over themselves. She had to do everything to change his mind.
Sansa was almost relieved when a letter from Ramsay arrived that morning as they were breaking fast in the Common Hall. It was as if The Seven were helping her along. She would have thanked them if she still prayed. She anxiously waited as Jon read the letter outloud. He had to see now.
She waited for him to continue after he took a pause in reading, but he just started scrolling the roll back up. Sansa sighed in frustration as she grabbed the scroll from him. Jon was treating her like a delicate thing. She wished that she could tell him that she was not. Her skin had evolved from porcelain, to ivory, to steel. She had escaped her biggest monster and now no one else could hurt her. She wouldn't let them.
Sansa picked up from where he had left off. "You will watch as my soldiers take turns raping your sister. You will watch as my dogs devour your wild little brother. Then I will spring your eyes from their sockets and let my dogs do the rest. Come and see. Ramsay Bolton, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North." She tonelessly finished reading the letter then set it aside as she looked up at Jon and awaited his response.
He still put up resistance at the idea of fighting against the Boltons, but she could tell that his resolve was weakening. The letter had provided the fuel that she needed to further her cause, and if she played her cards right she could manipulate Jon into taking the only acceptable course of action.
She grasped his hand fiercely as her eyes drilled into his. "A monster has taken our home and our brother. We have to go back to Winterfell and save them both."
The hall was silent as everyone's focus turned to Jon who was still struggling to make his decision. Finally his gazed lifted and met Sansa's. A small nod was all he gave but she knew that she had won. She held back the satisfied smile that threatened to take over her face.
After her victory, she wanted to dedicate more time to bonding with Jon, so she asked him to take her to the top of the wall. He agreed to as soon as she put on warmer clothes, which Sansa quickly complied with before Brienne escorted her back to him. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were alight with anticipation. She hadn't realized how genuinely excited she would be.
Her desire for adventure was greatly questioned when Jon led her into the winch cage which would lift them to the top of the wall. The swaying of the cage made her nervous and she wondered if this idea had been a smart one to pursue so soon after eating.
Jon pointed out the different towers to her as they ascended. The Lord Commander's tower and the King's Tower. That's where Tyrion Lannister had stayed when he visited the wall, he revealed.
Sansa hadn't even been aware that Tyrion had ever met Jon. How little she knew of her former husband. Soon she caught sight of a little village in the distance. Jon informed her that it was called Mole's Town. A majority of the village was underground. A network of underground cellars connected by tunnels. It was the only village that she could see anywhere close by.
The cage came to an abrupt halt and then slid sideways, causing Sansa to nearly lose her balance. She squeaked and grabbed at the bars, then shot a glare at Jon who was chuckling at her expense.
He opened the cage door and helped her out onto the ice. "Be careful," he cautioned. Jon gave a nod to the man operating the winch then led Sansa down the walkway.
It was wider than she would have expected.
"Gravel was freshly scattered over the footpaths so they won't be slippery, but I don't want you anywhere near the edge." He was completely serious.
"I won't go," she promised.
They stopped a few feet away from the northern parapet and Sansa took in what Jon described as the haunted forest spread out below. She would bet that it looked really creepy at night time. It was somewhere in that forest that her Uncle Benjen had gone missing so many years ago. She wondered if his bones were buried somewhere between those dense trees, lost under several years worth of snow.
She stared out at the world below her, marveling at how small and insignificant everything looked from such a height. But looks could be misleading. They stood in companionable silence until Jon noticed her trembling with cold and insisted that it was time to go back inside. Sansa silently agreed.
That night as she lay under the covers, Ramsay's letter ran through her mind. She wondered if her and Jon would be able to amass an army in time to stop him. Sleep was a battle for her. The letter had triggered a fear in her that she had tried to keep hidden ever since arriving at Castle Black.
When she was on the run, the nightmares had kept at bay, as if knowing she wouldn't have been able to handle the added stress. And yesterday, sheer exhaustion had allowed her a deep dreamless slumber. Now that she was safely tucked in bed with Jon nearby, the nightmares came flooding in. She couldn't help the trembling that seized her, or stanch the tears that leaked from her tightly shut eyelids; whimpering and moaning as the demon that she had managed to run away from found her and tortured her in her sleep. And in the end she had to bite her pillow to keep her screams from filling the room.