They lie awake luxuriating in the warmth of the hearth fire, the softness of the furs from their bed beneath them and the closeness of their still entwined bodies. Sansa sighs deeply and stretches her arm across her husband's chest and lets her slender hand rest over his heart on the matt of his thick grey hair. He runs his hand up her arm now to her shoulder and rests it there before speaking quietly:

"Are you quite certain that you are not hurting, Sansa?" he murmurs. "It had been some time since-"

"I am well: truly I am. It was only for a moment…then it passed," she whispers, "and then everything was wonderful." She presses closer into his side and rubs her lithe leg against his own big, hairy calf.

"I never wanted to hurt you again after…after the first time, Sansa. You were so badly hurt and bleeding…"

Sansa feels herself tense to remember that night and how frightened she was of him despite his attempts to be kind and gentle. She closes her eyes. It is better now, she reminds herself. You love him and he loves you.

"…swore that I would never give you cause to cry again; that I'd do anything to make you happy," he tells her solemnly now.

She thinks to how he left her to her own chamber and her own bed for well over a year, to all his gifts, his many kindnesses and his love for their children, and how he demanded that she be respected as his lady: the Lady of Last Hearth.

"You have," she insists gently. "You have made me very happy. I cannot but think of what my father said-"

He shifts now and looks down to where she is curled up next to him. "And what was that?"

"He said that he would make a match for me…with someone brave and gentle and strong." She needs pause as she feels her mouth quiver and her eyes fill. She takes a deep breath and continues. "You have been everything that my father wanted for me, and everything that I could have wanted for myself. " She presses her forehead into his chest and her tears come as she tries to blink them away. "Forgive me, I-"

"It's alright," he comforts her gently, "but you see? I have made you cry again," he teases her now.

"It is just that sometimes wish so much to see him again, my lord. I would love for him to know that we are happy; and to know young Eddard and Serena…and Robb's daughters and now Arya's first child. It is just so unfair," she whispers sadly. "My father should have had a long life and enjoyed his family just as…"

"As I have?"

Sansa pauses. "Well, yes, my lord. I know well that your life had not been without its sorrows but…but have you not been happy to see your daughter wed and your grandchildren born into the world? Please do not think that I resent your happiness because of my father's loss. The one had naught to do with the other; it is for the gods to decide which man will have a long life."

"Sansa," he intones and puts a finger under her chin so that she will raise her head to look at him, "the one did have to do with the other. Had your father lived…well, we should never have been married, I am certain of that; and being wed to you has been what has made me happiest these last years. I mourn your father truly, Sansa, he was my liege lord and my great friend and the most honourable of men; but I would not change a thing of all that has happened if it meant you would have never been mine. Is that very selfish of me, Sansa? I fear that it must sound terrible to you."

"We can never change what has happened," she replies dully, but she wonders if she would change her life now to have her father back, to have never suffered all of the pain and humiliation of her torment in King's Landing, and to have mayhaps been married to a young lord and never dishonoured herself with another man. Would I have been happier? I will never know. But she knows that she has made him happy because he has told her many times; and for that she is grateful. She only wishes that she had always been grateful. "I think mayhaps the gods send us trials and suffering to teach us what true happiness is, so that we may appreciate it while we have it…for however long or short a time that may be," she ventures thoughtfully.

The Greatjon strokes her cheek softly now. "You are as wise as you are beautiful, my Sansa; wise beyond your years, I should think, but then you have endured too much suffering for a young girl and a young woman. You have seen too much, and yet it has not ungentled you but made you kinder still," he tells her with sincere admiration and pride.

"You are kind as well, my lord; and have you not seen much and suffered a great deal?" she tells him but then sees his eyes harden and look off into the distance. "Forgive me, my lord. Mayhaps it is best not spoken of…not yet-"

"No," he tells her darkly, "not yet." He pulls her closer to him now, wrapping her in a tight embrace and bending his head to kiss the top of hers. "Not yet," he repeats. "Let us instead be happy now, Sansa: we are together now and we have each other…and we have time, as you have said."

Sansa bites her lip in apprehension: she fears that she has upset him to have made him recall his dead sons and his ordeal beyond the Wall. But she holds him closer as well now, and reassures him. "Yes, my lord."

….

The Greatjon coughs forcefully now and glances towards the hearth. "Have we any of that blasted oil left after…" he alludes to the previous night on their furs and Sansa blushes even as she smiles. She brings him the little earthenware bowl now and holds out it out to him. The Winter sun streaming into their chambers makes the surface of the oil shimmer brightly.

"Ah, good," he dips his big fingers into the bowl and rubs it between his hands and onto his throat and then runs his fingers through his beard and sniffs deeply. "Remind me to thank Prince Oberyn for his remedy…and his advice to you. Least had it been poison, I should have died a happy man," he laughs his great laughs now and coughs again.

Sansa fusses with a length of thick linen to wrap around his neck before he dons his woolen shirt.

"Are you quite certain that you should train in the yard, my lord? Your health has been improving and so I should hate to see you suffer a reversal."

"Fearful that I should be bedridden and keep you there with me?" he jests, his warm eyes twinkling at her.

She smiles up at him slyly: 'If I thought that you would agree to remain bedridden with me, my lord, I should push us both out into the snow wearing only our smallclothes," she jests in return and he laughs hugely and coughs again. Then she stills him with a hand over his heart. "The maester swears that you will recover completely if only you would limits your activities until-"

"Oh, blast the maester! A man needs train if he is to retain his best fighting form; and I have been fighting in the cold since I was a boy. The garrison needs to see me out there, Sansa: I am Lord of Last Hearth and it is my duty." He puts a hand under her chin, the hand with the missing fingers that always remind her of Grey Wind, and his tone is gentler and conciliatory now. "I promise to restrict myself, Sansa…for your sake and the children; only they don't needs know that," he tells her jerking his head towards their chamber door before leaning in closer to her and murmuring low: "I'm in no hurry to leave you, Sansa: we have many years left together, you and I."

She nods and smiles for him now. She knows how difficult it is for him to restrict himself in any way: he is such a great big and strong man and reluctant to admit weakness even to himself, much less to her; but he has done so to reassure her and she knows that is a great gift of his trust in her. "Thank you, my lord," she whispers, and reaches to tie the fastenings of his shirt. She starts to step back so that he can don his heavy furs but he stops her and puts his hands on her shoulders to still her.

"Sansa, I need to say this again to you because I saw your face, your beautiful face, this last midday when Serena asked for a sister. Don't," he says gently when she drops her eyes, "don't look away, Sansa; listen to me now: I am happy whatever the future should hold for us, and I would not have you brood over this anymore."

She cannot help herself now: "I wish-"

"I know," he interrupts firmly. "I also know that we are not given all that we wish for…as do you, Sansa. Do not let it make you unhappy. I would not see you unhappy."

"But Serena, my lord: she is unhappy," she tells him.

"She is a little girl, Sansa: she wants a sister now but if she gets one she will complain the girl takes her dolls and wears her hair ribbons. I've had daughters, and you had a sister: you know how it is, Sansa. We will have little girls for her to play with someday soon, be they our own or the wildlings...mayhaps both," he chuckles to reassure her.

She bites her lip and gazes up at him still.

"What is it, Sansa? Tell me."

"Do you not wish for another daughter, my lord?" she cannot resist asking him.

The Greatjon sighs resignedly through his nose. "Sansa, you are asking if I would be happy for you to bear me more children, and the answer is of course I would…but not at the cost of making you unhappy. We already have two very beautiful children: Eddard and Serena are more than enough for me."

"What would we name her?" she prompts him yearningly. "Please tell me…"

He leans to kiss her cheek and she thinks that he will not reply to her, but then he puts his mouth over her ear and whispers: "Arrana."

….

On her way through the hallway of the castle, Sansa passes the wildling Tormund who smiles and bows his head to her respectfully.

"Your lord'd be training outside this fine morning, and I'm grateful we are on the same side now, har! I don't often meet my match in battle, but sure he'd be the one to beat, my lady."

"You are very kind to say so; though I suspect you are being modest Lord Tormund. Surely the Free Folk would never follow a man who was not fierce in battle," she tells him now.

"Har! She called me lord. You folks'd be warming to me, I'll wager; even that old sourfaced, one-eyed Mors told me to help meself to the ale he left in the solar. I'll soon be so used to your fancy ways that I'll want a castle of me own…complete with indoor privy!"

Sansa blushes. "Well, I do hope that you are enjoying your stay at Last Hearth. Please do look around and ask any questions of myself or my lord: you will soon needs manage affairs in the Gift for your own people, and we would be pleased to be of assistance to you."

"It's a fine help you are, like you Lord Crow brother; and I don't lie when I say we won't be forgetting either."

She smiles again and moves off and instinctively heads to a hallway with a window overlooking the training yard. She looks until she spots her husband among the soldiers and then opens the latch of the window to lean out and watch. She is pleased to observe that he is instructing men rather than fighting, and swings his greatsword only when demonstrating to them, and then observes them as they spar.

"He's in decent form."

"Better than decent, though slower than usual, it seems. Hard to tell when he don't spar against anyone."

"Do you think your lord might spar with a visiting Dornishman? Perhaps it is too soon to ask this of him."

Sansa recognizes the voices of the great-uncles, Mors and Hother, and Prince Oberyn from beneath the window. When she leans forward slightly, she sees that Lord Jon is with them as well. He holds his own sword and wipes sweat from his brow before taking a horn of drink offered by Crowfoot Umber.

"Best wait; I'll wager he's only strong enough to spar with his red wolf and so let him have her: it keeps him happy…and busy," Hother parries in his usual crude manner.

"A remarkable young lady," comments the Dornish prince, "and they seem to care for one another equally."

"That weren't always the case for her: thought herself too good for us," Mors sniffs," and for him."

"That does not seem to me her true nature; I remember that there was talk that the poor girl was badly treated in Kings Landing. My own daughters found her very sweet and polite but terribly withdrawn and guarded in her feelings. They feared there was truth to the rumours," Prince Oberyn ventures, "and it would explain her reticence?"

"Some truth…but not all. There'd been talk she was ravished by the bastard Joffrey, or his guards and soldiers… turned out it were horseshit though: she were a maid alright. The lord found that out the first night. Linens'd be all bloodied."

"And how do you know such things?" Crowfoot asks testily.

"I talk to the laundresses; I don't just fuck'em," he chides his brother.

"This talk of your lord and his lady is inappropriate," she hears the Smalljon snap sullenly to his great-uncles.

"There were talk of your father's rutting since he became a man, Smalljon: the castle's always been full of it, and after he wed the first time too. Before this one'd even come, they laid bets as to whether he'd needs be true to her just because she was a Stark and a princess; but when that girl rode through the gates and they saw her face, they were laying bets as to whether she'd be true to him."

Sansa very nearly gasps out loud to think those in the castle may have suspected or thought her capable of infidelity, and she wonders if any know the terrible truth. Her heart begins to beat wildly.

"And? Which side won?" Prince Oberyn asks with impertinent amusement.

"Oh, she's be good to her vows, that one," Hother interrupts over Smalljon's wordless exclamation of outrage. "You can see it in the faces of those half-wolf whelps of theirs: more him than her. 'Sides, he'd take his greatsword to any man'd look at her up-and-down or sideways, much less would take her that way," he nearly laughs. "There'd be no man with a cock left standing from the Bay of Seals down to Winterfell. The lord'd kill for his pretty red wolf."

"Aye, he would too," Mors agrees gravely; and Sansa sees him walk away purposefully.

AN: Arrana, like Serena, is the name of a Stark girl who married an Umber lord.