Winterfell, Massachusetts
Sansa Stark sat at her kitchen table looking up curtains to order for a client when she heard her fiance, Willas Tyrell, calling for her. She sighed, annoyed at being bothered, and got up. She made her way down the hall of the home they shared (he'd moved in with her; it was her house), and found him trying to mount the shelves he'd built onto the walls of their shared study.
"Little help?" he asked. "Just need you to hold the other end up."
Sansa nodded, trying to shake off her annoyance, and held up the shelf while Willas hammered the other end into the wall. She really should not be so annoyed; she had asked him to make these for her and he had after all.
"You okay?" he asked her.
She sighed. "I am. Just Senorita Cranky Pants today."
"Well, you've been under a lot of stress lately. Your Mom just had a heart attack and a couple stents put in. Being the only Stark around to take care of her, it's a lot to deal with."
Sansa felt tears prick her eyes at just the thought of it. She'd lost her Dad a few years ago, she could not lose her mother too. There was no rhyme or reason to it, either. Her mother had always seemed as healthy as a horse. But, nothing in life was guaranteed and it made no sense to her how a woman that ate everything organic and exercised consistently could have a heart attack while someone else that ate McDonald's every day and smoked did not. Such was the mystery of life.
It had fallen to her to help her Mother out since none of her siblings lived in the same place anymore. Her younger sister Arya was currently in Montana shacking up with some guy named Gendry. And her younger brother Bran was in Seattle with her other younger brother Rickon. Rickon was attending school there. Robb had been in Minnesota with his wife.
Except that soon her older brother Robb and his wife would be moving to Winterfell.
This, for Sansa, was another stress.
"But she's okay now," Willas continued. "And we'll make sure she stays that way. Plus, now your brother is moving back home..."
Sansa cleared her throat. "Yeah."
"When is he due to arrive?"
"Tomorrow," Sansa said and moved out of the way so Willas could nail her side to the wall.
"That's a good thing, right?" he asked.
"Yep."
Willas glanced at her before nailing the shelf in on her side. "I really need you to take the excitement down a notch."
Sansa sighed. "I just have a lot on my mind."
Willas stepped back and nodded to the now hung shelf. "What do you think?"
Sansa looked at it without really seeing it, her mind on Robb returning to Winterfell with his wife. "It looks great."
Willas nudged her with his elbow. "So, tell me again – you and Robb had some kind of falling out before he moved away?"
"No, we just lost touch with each other when he moved away," Sansa replied. "So I suppose seeing him again will be like seeing a stranger." Robb had been gone from home for six years, though she had seen him briefly three years prior. But since that had been when their father had passed away and all of them had been in some kind of daze, she wasn't sure that counted.
Even if they had fucked the night before he left to return home.
However, in the time Robb had been away he'd had gotten married, and she'd started a career and was now engaged. Their lives were different now. Just as they'd planned.
"So I'm going to go get some fabric I need for the house I'm decorating this week," she said, breaking herself out of her thoughts.
"I'll have dinner ready."
Sansa now felt even worse for focusing on Robb returning to Winterfell instead of on her soon-to-be husband. She wound her arms around Willas, noting how safe he made her feel. He was a good man, so kind and sweet. He worked hard (he was a contractor), and he was so handsome (short dark hair and beautiful brown eyes).
She needed to focus on that, and the fact that her brother was married to a wonderful woman, instead of on the past. It wouldn't do any of them any good to think about that.
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Robb stared at the boxes that covered the first floor of the condo he and his wife Talisa were moving into. God, he hated moving. There was nothing fun about it. The only bonus was this was his hometown and so he knew his way around. It wasn't like when he moved to Minnesota and had no flipping clue where he was going.
"Honey, where do you want the bed?" Talisa called out from the second floor where their bedroom was.
"In the bedroom?" he called back.
"Robb, can you come up here, please, and stop fooling around?" He rolled his eyes at her inability to take a joke, but they were both tired. Moving was never an easy thing.
Robb made his way to the second floor. Their bedroom was at the end of the hallway. It took up a rather large portion of the second floor actually. Talisa had the headboard leaning against the wall to the right next to a window. "Here?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No, over there," he said and pointed to the furthest wall in between the two windows.
She smiled. "Thank you."
He saluted her and started to head out of the room.
"Hey, are you forgetting something?" Talisa called after him.
Robb turned around and went over to her and kissed her. She smiled at him and he smiled back, though distractedly.
He headed back downstairs and pulled out his phone from the pocket of his jeans. He sent Sansa a quick text to let her know he and Talisa had arrived a day early. He put his phone down on one of the boxes and tried not to focus on it. He had unpacking to do so it wasn't a big deal if she sent him a text back right away or at all. He and Talisa weren't due until tomorrow, so she might not know exactly what to do with information. She might not even have her phone on, or near her. He really didn't know her texting habits; it wasn't as if they made a habit of texting each other. The most he'd heard from Sansa is when their mother had been in the hospital after her heart attack. They'd actually spoken on the phone then. Nothing personal, just about their mother, but still.
Robb picked up his phone again, muttering to himself. "I don't even think to text my mother to tell her we're here before I text Sansa?"
Just as he was about to dial his mother, a text from Sansa came through. He would be lying if he 3didn't say his heart started to race a little.
Sansa: Oh. Did you let Mom know?
Robb: I was just about to.
Sansa: Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow as planned then?
Robb: Yes. For dinner at Mom's right?
Sansa: Yep. See you then.
Robb: Yep.
Robb stared at his phone, at their conversation. It wouldn't do any good to think about a time when there wasn't a giant gulf between them. Would there ever be a time when they could interact normally without so many walls? They parted ways because it was the right thing to do; because they had to. It wasn't because they hated each other. On the contrary.
Very much on the contrary.
However, now, you wouldn't know it. They talked to each other as if they couldn't wait for the conversation to end – hell, they talked to each other as though they had never even wanted the conversation to start at all.
Once upon a time Sansa had been the one he'd told everything to. The one that had known him better than anyone. She had been his best friend.
Now…now he felt like he didn't know her at all. How much had she changed in the past six years? How different was her life? He knew she was engaged now. His mother had told him. He remembered getting blind stinking drunk when she'd told him about Willas. The same kind of drunk he'd gotten the night before he'd proposed to Talisa when he knew that in doing so it was well and truly the end for him and Sansa.
Now he would get to meet the boy. Size him up. Do the big brother thing and decide if Willas was good enough for his sister.
Robb already knew the answer to that.
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The day had come. The day Robb left home.
Left Sansa.
She stood in his doorway now as he placed the last bit of his life in Winterfell in a box. He wanted to look at her, but it hurt to look at her. He loved her so goddamned much he could barely think straight some days.
And this? This was torture.
But, they both knew that this was hopeless. They were related and there was no way for them to be together, not in the way they wanted.
"I got you something," she said.
Finally, he rested his eyes on her. She looked ready to cry. He felt ready to cry.
She handed over a picture frame. Inside were an amalgam of pictures of the family – Robb with Arya, with Bran, Rickon, their parents…with Sansa. He focused in on the picture of them. Their arms were around each other as the hammed it up for the camera. Robb had his tongue out, Sansa was cross-eyed. Both wore shorts and t-shirts. This was during one of their family vacations. This one had been in Hawaii when he'd been eighteen and Sansa had been fifteen. At that point they'd already started exploring their feelings for one another and Robb remembered the stolen moments they'd had on the trip, finding times to kiss and just be together.
Any picture of them would have been rife with memories, but he figured she'd chosen this one for the irreverence of it. To make it sting less.
He was afraid to speak. If he did, he was going to break down. He stared at the picture while tears blurred his eyes.
Sansa kissed his cheek. "I love you. Good luck." Her voice cracked and he knew she was losing it. She was gone before he could grab her and give her one last kiss.