Days pass and Sansa heals more as the maester removes the splint from her leg and makes her bend her knee and then her ankle and twists them every way before declaring them sound. He prompts her to stand and she finds she is weak and stiff and she takes a few halting, awkward steps before he bids her rest again. He calls for hot compresses and when he leaves Berena replaces them with frozen water skins full of ice and Sansa cannot but smile at her subterfuge even as she mourns her loss.
The Greatjon comes to visit her but he is still sad and he seems distant and Sansa apologizes again for her carelessness and their loss, which he waves away as he pats her hand or her head and once absently her foot and she feels again like he treats her as a girl and that they are once more bound only by duty and their vows in the godswood. He cannot forgive me, it seems, and she realizes that she also mourns the loss of the time they shared together when she thought that he loved her, and she wished with all her heart to love him back.
He brings their children to see her now though, and tells them to mind their mother because she has been hurt. She curls her one good arm around her daughter as young Eddard tells her more every day about his training and about how he is going to kill wildings one day and Sansa furrows her brow and tries to smile for him but tells him that he must only kill if it is necessary, that it is his duty to keep others safe but not to like killing.
"But they come onto our lands and steal our food and our animals and our women, mother: I have to protect you and Serena," he tells her with wide, innocent eyes.
I'm honest. It's the world that's awful. Her boy would needs live in that world, and be strong to survive.
"Of course, Eddard, you are right. You must do what you needs do to protect your family and our people. You father will teach you. My own father once said he knew of no man so fearless as your father," and she smiles up to her husband who smiles back for her faintly. She remembers when he would smile at her with his whole face and she would dutifully smile back for him; now she feels he is the one being dutiful.
Gods be good: have I not been punished enough? Please let him love me again; I will do anything for him. I will never betray him or hurt him again, only do not let him not look upon me as though I have failed him. But she had.
….
"Lord Umber sends word that there are visitors in the castle, my lady," her maid tells her, and Sansa lets the girl brush her hair and dress her in her deep blue wool robe with a silvery fur collar and she sits up in bed and waits. She touches her sore cheek with the pads of her fingers and feels the swelling is gone and prays that she looks presentable. Berena brings her children then and she smiles in delight even as she feels foolish for having expected anyone else. Her husband will laugh at his fine jape, she hopes, and maybe smile for true again. Young Eddard climbs up to sit next to her and the nurse hands her daughter to hold and she begins to sing to them when suddenly the Greatjon comes in with a dark-haired man dressed all in black from his fur-lined cloak to his leathers and heavy quilted breeches down to his high boots. It takes her a moment to recognize her half-brother Jon Snow: Sansa has not seem him since the day she left Winterfell for Kings Landing, the very same day he left with their uncle Benjen to join the Night's Watch, and she is so happy: it is so sweet to see him again. He is grim and serious as befits the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch but she wonders if his look is because of her: she was never close to him like Arya was, never treated him as her real brother, and because by her selfish actions she took the only parent he once had. But he smiles at her now, showing lines of worry in his young face, and his words are kind.
"Sansa! Look at you: you're still beautiful…more even." He stares at her with a strange almost-longing and she realizes that he is looking at her hair. "Kissed by fire they would call you north of the Wall. I'd forgotten…" he trails off and his expression is pained. He shakes his head and comes around and stands next to the bed. "I'm off to Winterfell to see Robb. The king has called a council of his lords and I'm to attend as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch; the Smalljon attends in your lord's stead and will ride with us. Arya is to be wed while we are there," he smiles to speak of her, his favourite sister though she knows that is her own doing: he has reason to love Arya. "You know she weds Harrion Karstark; and Bran will be there from Greywater Watch," he adds. Bran had been warded to her father's friend, the crannogman Howland Reed, and he had become close to his two children. "I'm sorry you will not be able to attend, Sansa. We'll all miss you," he says now.
"I miss you all as well," she tells him sadly, "I have not seen Winterfell since I came here to be wed."
He looks sadly back at her and then half-smiles and leans forward as though to speak confidentially. "Too busy making Umbers, I see," he jests mildly, referring to her children. "Motherhood suits you, Sansa: you were always a lady, now here you are the Lady of Last Hearth. I- I'm sorry for your accident…and your loss," he adds somberly and glances to her husband as well.
"Thank you, Jon," she replies softly, "…or shall I call you Lord Commander?" she teases him now and he smiles genuinely. "I- I'm very proud of you, Jon," she tells him sincerely, "and pleased for you that you have done so well. Father," she begins and her voice catches, "Father would be proud of you too," she finishes in a whispery voice.
He stares at her grimly again and she feels chastened. He feels I have no right to speak of Father, she tells herself.
"My Lord," he says now as he turns to the Greatjon and speaks respectfully but with authority, "might I have a word alone with your lady wife? I have a family matter to discuss."
Sansa knows that her husband can insist loudly that he is family now as well, in fact she almost expects it, but something in Jon's voice gives him pause and he reaches his arms out for his daughter and takes her from Sansa. "Come young Eddard," he calls him and the boy slides down off the bed. "Your mother needs talk with her lord brother; let's take Serena back to her nurse and we'll work with your sword." Sansa watches them go and wonders when they can be as a family again.
"Serena?" Jon repeats when the Greatjon leaves them. He looks at her bedside and she nods so that he sits to face her now. "Pretty name: is it a Stark name or an Umber name?"
"Both," Sansa replies. "That is why Lord Umber chose it. Serena Stark was daughter to Rickon and granddaughter to Cregan: she was wed to a Jon Umber…and then to another Stark."
Jon nods and smiles. "She was sister to Sansa; Serena's second marriage was to Edric Stark, and they had twin sons. You see: I do remember something of my lessons from Maester Luwin, and Old Nan's stories. There were other twins born to Starks as well, so mayhaps you will still be blessed." His smile falters and he looks down. "Sansa, there is something you needs know about Father…about your father."
Sansa looks at him curiously. Does he think I do not look upon him as my brother? "He was your father too, Jon-"
"No," he says quietly and looks up at her carefully now, "no, he wasn't."
When Sansa only stares, because she is not certain that she heard correctly, he presses ahead. "You father was not my father, Sansa; and I was never his bastard. I- I am Lyanna's son, and so he was my uncle, and I am your cousin not your half-brother." His mouth purses bitterly now. "I'm Rhaegar Targaryen's bastard."
"He kidnapped her-" she begins. And he raped her. But she could not bring herself to say it: to say that he was a child of rape by a prince. Her own mouth tightened bitterly now: she knew all about a prince's so-called honor. "Jon, how do you know this? Did Father tell-"
"Lord Howland Reed told me and Robb when he came to bury Fa- Lord Eddard's bones in the crypt at Winterfell. He said that Lyanna may have run off with the prince; said that she loved romantic stories and that she did not love her betrothed, Robert. I wonder if it is any better that my mother ran off and dishonored herself than if she were forced…but mayhaps, at least they loved each other. Would that be so bad, Sansa? Would it not be better somehow?"
Sansa's eyes are beginning to brim with tears. "Oh, Jon…" If you only knew, she thought. "Girls with romantic longings from songs and stories can find themselves in a great deal of trouble," she lamented. Songs had taken her to Kings Landing where she betrayed her father and to a tower room where she betrayed her husband. Her sister Arya may have their aunt Lyanna's looks and spirit but Sansa feels she has a strong streak of her doomed romantic ideas; only Lyanna's had cost her own life and Sansa's has cost her child's.
He reaches for her hand now and gives it a gentle squeeze. "I'm sorry for all you've suffered, Sansa. I hope- I hope your life is better now." But his brow furrowed and his smile was forced. "Your lord husband is a good man," he continues, "He will not leave you until you are well again. And he is a great warrior who will protect you. There's no other man who can lay claim to killing the Mountain; though I had never seen Gregor Clegane, only the other one who came to Winterfell."
"Sandor Clegane," she says softly, and she looks off above his head.
He squeezes her hand again. "I'm sorry Sansa, I didn't meant to bring back bad memories for you. I know he was…he was in the Kingsguard," he finishes, not wanting to mention Joffrey to her, she realizes. "I don't understand why Renly did not take his life with all the others," he questions aloud.
"He sent him into exile with Tommen and Myrcella. He said that his reign would not be founded on dead children, as Robert's had been on the murder of the Targaryen babes; and so he spared them and gave them Sandor Clegane as their shield and proclaimed that no man would gain his favor by harming any of them," she recalls to him.
"Renly was their uncle once…in name," Jon observes.
"As my father was a father to you. Is that why he lied Jon: to protect you from King Robert? He hated the Targaryens." She looks at him in a completely different light now. "You are a Targaryen, Jon: a dragon, if not the last dragon."
"But still a bastard. And there is another, legitimate heir: a girl called Daenerys, styled Stormborn. They say she married a Dothraki horselord, and conquered Meereen and freed their slaves. She has dragons…or so claim sailors from Slaver's Bay to the maester at Eastwatch."
"Dragons," Sansa breathes incredulously. "Gods be good." But somehow she does not believe it possible.
"I know," Jon nods and seems to be thinking absently.
"Will…will you seek her out, Jon: this girl who is your family?"
"The Night's Watch is my family," he says firmly, "and the Starks, I hope: you are the only family I have ever known…thanks to your father; and only the family knows the truth. Robb is not convinced that I would be safe with a Baratheon on the throne."
Sansa smiles fondly at him. "You will always be family to me, Jon. I – I wish I had been more of a sister to you…as Arya was. Please tell her that I love her dearly, and wish her every possible happiness," she chokes up to say all the things she has never said. "Will you stay with us on your return journey, Jon, and tell me everything?"
"Aye, of course," he replies, "I do not leave until morning, Sansa. Your lord is putting up me and my men for the night. I have a few of my brothers with me as guards and a young man who leaves us for the Citadel to become a maester: you would like him Sansa, Sam is well-read and loves songs as you do. That reminds me, if you would write messages to your family, I will carry them for you."
"Would you? I have gifts as well…for Arya: bedgowns that I have been embroidering for her, though mayhaps a seamstress will needs fit them to her," she muses aloud.
"I'm told she's grown taller," he tells her, "though not as tall as you."
"She was only a girl," Sansa says mournfully, thinking of a time when they were all together.
Jon looks at her steadily and replies: "So where you, Sansa."