Usually, he doesn't find it too difficult to get to sleep in new and unfamiliar places, but tonight, Willas just cannot seem to drift off. He lies there open-eyed in the dark and wills the minutes to hurry along. In the next room, he can still hear the low murmur of voices; the occasional barely muted peal of laughter. Do they ever bloody sleep? At least they're only talking, now. Mind you, Garlan and Leonette make them seem quiet. Wouldn't think it, would you? The thing about trips like this one is that everyone's in each other's pockets all the time; their personal life is right under your nose and even if you look away, you can't ignore it. Willas now knows far more than he'd like to about both his brothers' relationships. He knows, from having heard Leonette telling Sansa and Margaery about it while they were waiting in line to buy the cider last night, that Leonette thinks Garlan is The One (what kind of ridiculous, dated sentiment is that, anyway?) and that she wants to have his children. He also begins to realise – with some surprise – from the way his expression darkens, a muscle in his jaw clenching, every time Renly jokingly flirts with Margaery, that Loras is actually the insecure one in their relationship. Willas foresees problems, there, and is a little disgusted with himself for finding that the idea makes him oddly satisfied. Things can't be perfect all the time.
He is thinking about all this; thinking about how he knows he should be happy that his siblings are happy, but somehow cannot summon the feeling, when over in the other bed, Sansa mumbles something in her sleep and turns onto her side. Now she is facing him; lying so that, were her eyes open, she would be looking right at him. Strands of hair have fallen into her face, partially obscuring it. He finds himself staring at the lines and contours of her still body; the way the thin sheet clings to the slight swell of her hip, and the dip of her waist. Awake, she looks older than she actually is – she's tall and willowy, and her high cheekbones and narrow features are not youthful. She's actually younger than Margaery, Willas knows, but she looks older. Asleep, though, she looks somehow different – there is a new kind of vulnerability; of openness to her that makes her appear younger.
He's still watching her, and beginning to feel weird about watching her, when her eyes snap open and she bolts into a sitting position with a soft, hastily muted cry. For a moment, she sits very still, trying to regulate her breathing. Her hands clutch at the sheet, and she stares fixedly at the opposite wall. Willas narrows his eyes so that they are almost shut, and wonders what she can have been dreaming of.
Then, very slowly and carefully, so as not to wake the still peacefully sleeping Margaery, Sansa eases herself out of bed. Her pyjama top has ridden up, revealing a pale stretch of flat stomach, and she tugs it down. He watches her pull on her jacket, slip her feet into her shoes and slip out of the room.
He waits only a moment before pulling back his sheets and getting up to follow her. He moves too quickly; the sudden weight on his bad leg makes him wince and almost cry out. Still inwardly cursing, he follows Sansa's lead and puts on coat and trainers, moving towards the door with an uneven, limping gait, putting most of his weight on the leg which is not stiff and aching.
In the short, wide, squarish hallway, he shuts the door quietly behind him and makes for the stairs, figuring that the only place Sansa would have gone is down. Sure enough, he reaches the top of the stairs just in time to see her disappear out of the front door. A bemused sort of frown knits his brow. What's she doing going out there in the middle of the night in just her pyjamas?
Against his better judgement, he begins to descend the stairs.
Why's he doing this? It's not his business if his sister's best friend wants to go off on her own in the middle of the night. And it's not as if she'll be unsafe – they're in a farmhouse near a little tourist-y village. And maybe she wants to be alone; maybe she needs time to calm down, after her nightmare...
All of these things, he knows. And still he proceeds to the bottom of the stairs, crosses the downstairs hallway and lets himself out of the door, which Sansa has left unlocked.
She sits near the middle of the field, surrounded on all sides by a grassy sea. Her back is to him, long hair tumbling down around her shoulders in soft waves. She's hunched over slightly, knees pulled up to her chest; arms tightly encircling them; head lowered. Willas thinks he has never seen anyone look so very alone; so very lost, as Sansa does now. It's the strangest thing... part of him is sure he's overanalysing; making something out of nothing; living in one of his stories. And then there's this other part of him that is absolutely certain something's troubling Sansa more than she lets on to anyone.
He just wants to make sure she's all right, he reasons, and begins to walk towards her.
She hears him approaching; he's not exactly quiet, much as he's trying to be, and turns to look at him; the moonlight might not be bright enough to show the tear-tracks on her face, but it makes her eyes glisten, and he knows she has been crying. She says nothing; only waits and watches.
"I can go away if you want – if you want to be alone, or something." He leads in with an awkward apology, as unlike any of his siblings as he could wish to be. "I just wanted to see if you were ok." He stops a couple of metres short of her, swinging his arms slightly to and fro.
For a moment, Sansa remains silent. Then:
"It was just a stupid dream," she waves a hand vaguely, "I'm alright."
Willas is dubious. Dubious and unsure how to proceed. You don't look alright, he wants to say, because she's shivering a little, and not from the cold, either, he suspects. What he says instead is, "What are you doing out here?" which is hardly that much better, really.
She takes a moment before answering. She's looking up at him, and the effect is that he feels somehow further away from her than he maybe ought to be. He wants to sit beside her, but the thought of how much his bad leg would protest at that is quite a strong deterrent.
"I just wanted to get out of that room," she tells him, "I felt all...boxed in, which is really silly, I know. But I just... I don't know," she finishes helplessly, "I didn't think I'd be getting back to sleep any time soon, so I thought I might as well get up for a while. Or something."
That's not all of it, he knows, but he doesn't press the matter.
"Sansa," he says, "Are you enjoying this trip? Honestly?"
He's not sure why, exactly, he asks. He gets the feeling that she's just as reluctant to be here; that she feels just as irrationally isolated, as he does. And in the weirdest way, that both comforts him and makes him feel something a lot like sadness, only not quite the same. A look flits across Sansa's face; she seems about to say something, but then she bites her lip and ducks her head again, seeming to change her mind.
"Of course I am," she says, fiddling with the ends of her hair, "It's an adventure."
This is so obviously parroted from Margaery that Willas lets out a derisive laugh before he can help himself. Sansa looks up at him sharply, and he clears his throat; back to being vaguely self-conscious. He's infuriated with his behaviour. Why can he never think of the right thing to say around her?
"Come on," he tries again, making his voice gentle, "Please, tell me what's going on. I know something is."
This has the complete opposite from the desired effect on Sansa. Her eyes go very wide and she presses her lips together. For a moment, she's very still. Then she scrambles to her feet and dashes past him, the long grass rustling. She lets herself back into the farmhouse without any regard for waking up everyone else; letting the door bang loudly shut behind her. Willas stares at the closed door, mind working furiously. He doesn't know her that well, it's true, but now he's more sure than ever that something is not right with Sansa Stark.