Author Note: One more chapter after this one. Thank you for going on this jaunt with me, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The winter rose did not grace Sansa's chambers again for several years. The next instance occurred after Ramsay was dead, she was Queen in the North, and Bran was King of the Six. It happened during the first morning of Bran's second annual visit to Winterfell, held to demonstrate the strength of alliance between the two crowns and keep favor with the Northmen. He'd brought most of his small council, the only exception being Bronn, who'd likely found some excuse to stay down south. "I'd rather sweat my balls off than freeze them off," he often said. Sansa had exchanged pleasantries with Tyrion the previous night of their arrival, but they had not had time for much more. As the King's Hand, he did not spend extended periods of time in Sansa's presence unless Bran was there too.

After it was all over, she had thought perhaps the secret admirer had been Ser Dontos. The timing aligned. It didn't answer her question about how he'd gotten the flowers to King's Landing, but she decided if it really was Ser Dontos, she would never come to know anyway. The conclusion popped into her mind one day as she walked among the glass houses at Winterfell. She had never thought of it again.

Until that morning, when she entered her chambers to retrieve a shawl for herself and found the brilliant blue flower waiting for her on her pillow. She picked it up calmly and examined it. It was not brittle as the last ones had been. Bringing it to her nose, her mind flashed to the last time, a petal dropping from Tyrion's hand. His nonchalance at the suggestion of them being from someone else. She shook her head at her blindness all those years ago. Of course it was Tyrion.

After Ramsay had done unspeakable things to her, and even before, she thought of Tyrion more often than she would ever tell anyone. She remembered their inside jokes in the gardens, their conversations that flowed effortlessly. The way he managed to get her to do things without forcing her. The gentle, attentive way he listened to her speak. If Joffrey had not been poisoned, she wondered how things would have turned out.

In hindsight, she supposed what she and Tyrion had was as close to love as she would ever get, outside the love she shared with her family. No one else had come along – a few hopefuls had asked for her hand, but she saw through them. They wanted her crown and lusted for her power. Love had nothing to do with those proposals. Thinking on it now, with several years of separation between her and the events that had made her who she was, she no longer felt disappointed. She had long ago given up her romantic dreams of her youth. She felt… something, when she thought about Tyrion, but she could not dwell on it in that moment. Sansa placed the flower back down on her pillow and left the room. She had more work to do in her solar.

Knowing the flowers were from Tyrion made her look at them differently. She had looked at him differently, too, ever since that night in the crypts when the whole world seemed to be ending. She'd felt a sense of recognition then, a sense of urgency that she might have acted on if they had not been fighting literal death. Then the world had not ended, more obstacles presented themselves, and so she went on much as she always had.

The next day, two more flowers found their way into her chambers. She picked them up, set them in a vase with water and placed them in her solar where she could look at them, and others could too. If Tyrion was testing the waters, she decided, he could know it was all right. She had a feeling that once he saw his gesture welcomed, it would not be too much longer.

The third morning, there were no flowers, and she knew he would come to her that night. After dinner and a late council meeting, her handmaidens Lylian and Alys helped her take her braids out of her hair and bathe, and she sent them away with the firm notion that she did not need them for the rest of the night. The two girls exchanged knowing glances before they left, but Sansa hardly cared. Once they were gone, she dressed in a gown of red and gold brocade. She still held no love for the rest of the Lannisters, but they had been his family.

Once she was ready, Sansa sipped at a glass of amber liquid stronger than wine to calm her nerves. The years of separation had made her feel shy again in his presence. She tried to read in her favorite chair, but found herself going back over the same sentence several times. Finally, the knock at her door came, and she placed her book aside.

Opening the door, Sansa smiled down at him as he held three fresh blue roses out to her, and she took them without a word. She moved aside so that he could enter her room, closing the door gently behind him. He sat across from her, and she studied him for a while. She could see him drinking in all the details – her dress, her mannerisms, the ways she had changed, just as she did the same with him. His wardrobe had not changed much; he still favored his leather jerkins and dark-colored breeches. He wore his changes on his face. It was not unbecoming.

"I always liked you best clean-shaven," she admitted, "but the beard is growing on me."

Tyrion chuckled. "Of all the things you could say, that's what you go with." He looked down at the flowers in her hands, then around the room. Sansa had made it her own, from the silk tapestries on the walls to the fiction books that lined her shelves. These contrasted greatly from her shelves in her solar – all politics, tedious volumes by various archmaesters, and history of the Kings of Winter, not a drop of leisurely reading in sight. Here, she could be herself. "I don't think I've ever seen this part of your home before. I like it."

Sansa let a beat pass as she observed him, the way his legs hung off the chair, his hands clasped tightly on his thigh. She needed to find some way to relax him. "Of all the things you could say, that's what you go with," she teased. "Would you like some wine, my lord? I have a sweet red from the cellars at Highgarden in here – it's quite good."

"No. Thank you." His mouth twitched into an almost-smile, and he patted his knee absently.

Curious, she thought, but gave him another smile and went to place the flowers in a vase. He said nothing. She felt no need to fill the silence just for the sake of filling it, though there was one question that burned at her. When she returned to her seat, she said, "I still haven't managed to figure one thing out. How did you get them all the way to King's Landing from here? And still relatively in one piece?"

"I didn't."

She leaned forward. She didn't know why, but she needed the explanation. It seemed important. Tyrion shifted in his chair, trying to make himself more comfortable as he settled in for his story.

"Remember, I told you about noticing the flowers when I came to Winterfell the first time, all those years ago."

Realizing that he waited for her confirmation, she nodded.

"I chatted with your mother before things went… sour, before Bran's fall," he continued. "She seemed to be in good spirits that day. Somehow, the roses came up in conversation, and I conveyed my compliments. She offered some of the bulbs from the glass house, to take home with me, since I liked them so well. Looking back on it, I think perhaps it was not so much for my benefit as… well, I think she wanted her girls to have a piece of their home where they were going. Sadly, I never got around to planting them for that purpose." He waved it off; they both knew the story of what had happened next.

"After your mother captured me, I suppose I wanted to suppress any reminders of that… ah, that time in my life. The bulbs made it back to King's Landing with the rest of my belongings, and I shoved them into a forgotten cabinet and didn't think about them anymore. Until I learned I was to marry you. I knew you were less than enthused, and I was unhappy because I knew you were unhappy. But I thought, perhaps, I could make things better. You were young. A part of me saw you – us – as a clean slate, as a chance to not mess up for once in my life. I've always been a sucker for the damsel in distress. It's what got me into my first marriage." He glanced toward the vase she had set up. "I wanted them to be a surprise, my wedding gift to you. I knew I could give you anything in the world – Lannister gold, you know. But I didn't think that would mean very much to you." She saw moisture in his eyes, and he blinked it away before he continued.

"I had the bulbs planted in the hope that they would bloom by our wedding day. Alas, that wasn't to be. The rosebush didn't look half as good as the ones I had seen here. Not quite as full. The flowers, when they did bloom, did not have as much life in them. They resisted the climate, or perhaps there was something more to it. I've never been one for superstition or had much of a green thumb, so I couldn't say. I was afraid to make them too conspicuous when I planted them, knowing people can be funny about those things. Knowing how awful my nephew was and what he might have done if he thought you were happy. Do you remember the place in the garden where we met every day? They were planted near there, back in a small, hidden corner among the hedges that you could have noticed, but only if you made a point of noticing something different. You never did, understandably, and I wanted so badly to show it to you. I came close a few times to pointing them out, but I could never quite form the words. I wasn't sure how you might take it, if it would ruin what little we had, or make you think I wanted something in return. My sad attempt at making you feel more at home. I didn't know how to do it."

Sansa felt a lump forming in her throat, partly in response to his emotion and partly in response to what he was telling her. She let him go on.

"After I sent you the single rose, and Shae told me what had happened, I thought I had better tread carefully. And I did, until your brother and mother… To see you cry like that, starving yourself, shutting yourself away, I hated it so much. I had to do something. You didn't come to the gardens to see me anymore, so I took every pitiful rose off that bush and had them sent to you with my note. I wrote it with my left hand so that you would not recognize it as my writing. Cowardly of me, I know, but I still wasn't ready for you to know beyond doubt that it was me. Afterward, when we talked – it was a few days after the bouquet, I remember – I realized it was truly hopeless. I gave it all up. I still cared, but I realized my powerlessness in the whole situation. I could not love you, not even from afar."

A single tear fell down his face, over the groove of his scar, his beard, and plummeted from his jaw.

"You did not want my gifts any more than you wanted me. And how could you? Look at you." He gave a sad smile and held out his hand, gesturing toward her. "You never needed me, my promises, or my protection. Here you are."

Once he stopped speaking, Sansa became aware that her face was wet. She had not wept for longer than she could remember, but for once, she wept for joy. She gave something between a sigh and a laugh as she wiped at her face with her fingers. She remembered the day he talked about, the day she had thought about how badly she wished to hurt him. He'd been the only person in King's Landing she had the power to hurt, because he had loved her. She'd remembered Cersei's lesson about love – to love no one aside from her children, because love made one weak. Love made one do foolish things. Love made one vulnerable. As the memory came to her, it broke down her last barrier. If anyone deserved her weakness and vulnerability, it was Tyrion. She rose from her chair and went to him, knelt before him.

"Tyrion," she whispered, close enough for him to feel her breath on his face. "What if you're wrong? What if I do need you?" He remained completely still, his gaze not leaving hers. The look in his eyes was the way she had once wanted the prince of her dreams to look at her, before she realized that dreams never come true. "Would that still be all right?"

The corner of his mouth moved again, nearly into a smile, and he gave a slight nod. He leaned closer, but he left the decision in her hands as he always had. She brought those hands to his face, tracing her thumbs over his tears, his scar, his lips, his jaw. His features had grown sharper and harder through the years. She recognized the feeling rising within her then – she'd had it the night of the crypt, when he'd taken her hand so tenderly – the sense of wanting to be close with him somehow, close with him in a way she never had. She had time to explore it since they were not in danger. She brought her lips to his.

Sansa could sense Tyrion's overactive mind through his kiss. Some hesitance was there. Moments later, he broke the kiss, though her heart continued to thrum wildly with her desire for him.

"Sansa… I didn't mean… as I said, I don't want you to think this is what I wanted all along."

Sansa met his gaze, her own trailing toward his lips. She shook her head and pressed her finger to them. "I know all that now. You were right. I wouldn't have known it back then, but I do now." She touched her forehead to his and stroked his jaw again. She felt an overwhelming need to reassure him. She had never wanted a man this way and had stopped believing it possible. Her desire felt like it would burn her from the inside out, until nothing was left. A strange, new feeling. But she liked burning this way, because when she looked at him, she knew he felt it too.

She knew it was time. "You told me once that you would not share my bed until I wanted you to." She paused to kiss him again, a soft peck on his lips. Then she pulled back to look at him. "I'm ready now."