Sansa wondered what the chances were that she and Willas could just not tell her mother and Robb that she and Willas had set a date. She was pondering how not to tell them, and how to tell Willas to keep it locked up while they drove over for to Cat's for Sunday dinner. There was just no way to ask that without having to explain herself. And how would she explain herself? Perhaps she could tell Willas she just wanted it to be a surprise. And she almost convinced herself she could pull that off. Yet that would mean robbing her mother of helping her plan a wedding and she couldn't do that.

Fucking hell. A wedding.

She felt as though she was on a roller coaster going up the first hill and it was too late to get off.

The alternative was to be alone...like Robb would ever let that happen. Like she would be able to resist him.

Keep moving forward, she told herself. Think about Willas and the life you two could have. How wonderful it could be. How sweet and kind he is...

She thought about Robb sliding inside of her, holding her in his arms, smiling at her - and she was lost again. Feeling trapped.

"So I think we should tell them at dessert," Willas said. "What do you think?"

She nodded, forcing herself to smile. "Great, honey. Sounds good."

Willas beamed, and Sansa felt like shit.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Sansa couldn't look at Robb, not directly anyway. And she kept her distance, busying herself with helping prep food and make sure everyone had what they needed. She delivered drinks to Robb without even talking to him. If avoidance was an Olympic sport, she would have won the gold medal. This worked on several levels and not just avoiding Robb for an afternoon.

To cope, she had a few glasses of wine more than she usually had. She wasn't a big drinker so she was a bit of a lightweight to begin with. Two glasses and she would be pleasantly buzzed. Sansa had four and was on her way to drunk. Robb was, of course, the one to notice when she stumbled into the house with the dishes from dinner.

"You're drunk," he said after she'd laid the dishes in the sink.

"No, I'm not," she said defiantly. " 'm fine."

"Is this how you deal with me and family dinners now?"

She turned, leaning against the sink for support. "Oh, give me a shmall - small - break. A girl can't drink once in a while?"

He sighed. "This is the first time all day you've looked at me. And I can't help but think you needed liquid courage to do it. Why?"

Her eyes welled up in tears. "I'm getting married."

"I know that."

"No, Robb, we...we set a date. We're getting married in, like, five and a half months."

He looked as though she'd punched him. Sucked the life out of him. Ripped out his heart with her bare hands and ate it in front of him. It was how she felt when she'd learned he was getting married.

"Sansa, no," he rasped and staggered toward her.

The sound of the sliding glass door opening propelled Sansa to the fridge to grab the whipped cream and discreetly wipe her eyes. Robb didn't move.

"Oh, good, dessert time!" Catelyn said happily as she grabbed the strawberry rhubarb pie off the counter. "Follow me with that whipped cream, San!"

Sansa passed by Robb behind Catelyn. He grabbed her arm, and she looked at him. His eyes pleaded with her not to do this.

"Sansa, Robb, you two coming?" Catelyn called from the deck door.

"Coming, Mom!" Sansa called back and pulled her arm from Robb's grasp and headed outside. There was another glass of wine with her name on it.

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Talisa helped Catelyn cut the pie for everyone. Robb declined a slice and instead grabbed a beer from the cooler. He stood off to the side against the railing of the deck behind Sansa and Willas. He wasn't anywhere near her, but he may as well have been breathing down her neck for how Sansa felt about it.

Sansa had just bit into her slice of pie when Willas said, "So, we have some news."

Sansa nearly choked on rhubarb. He wasn't going to give her a heads up that he was going to do this now? Sure they'd agreed on dessert but it still felt too soon. She tensed, swearing she could feel Robb tense behind her too.

Catelyn and Talisa looked at them expectantly. Willas smiled and looked at Sansa. She forced a smile around rhubarb and strawberries. "We set a date!"

Catelyn and Talisa descended on them with a flurry of questions and Sansa let Willas take the lead, keeping her mouth full of either wine or pie.

"We'll need to go shopping for a dress. My treat," Catelyn said.

Sansa was about to tell her how she didn't need to pay for her wedding dress when she saw the expression on her mother's face and stopped cold. There were tears in her mother's eyes, and she looked so goddamned happy. What was hard just became harder because how could she take this away from her mom? The chance to help plan her daughter's wedding. To help pay for it as she and her father had promised so long ago.

"Of course," Sansa said, her eyes welling up in tears.

Her mother must have mistaken Sansa's tears for happy ones for she hugged her tight and whispered to Sansa just how delighted she was by this news.

She glanced at Robb who was still standing against the railing. Their eyes met, and he looked away abruptly and took a long pull of his beer.

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Sansa laid in bed later that night, staring at the ceiling while Willas snored softly beside her. Despite the fact that she was exhausted, she couldn't sleep. She kept seeing Robb in her head, how wrecked he looked when she'd told him she and Willas had set a date. Then she kept seeing her mother's face, and how excited and happy she'd been.

Her phone vibrating against the wood of her nightstand startled her, and she knew without even looking at the phone that it was Robb texting her.

She picked it up, and sure enough there was his text: You awake?

She contemplated ignoring him, but found herself typing a response instead. I am.

The next text didn't take long at all: What the fuck, Sansa? What are you doing? You know this isn't going to work. It can't!

Furious, Sansa got out of bed and padded out of the bedroom and down the hall to the kitchen. She typed back: Says the married man!

Robb: Yeah, and I'm living proof that it's not working. I'm fucking miserable. I love one woman, and she's not the one I'm married to.

Sansa: Because it's illegal!

Robb: Don't marry him. You can't marry him while you still love me. Let's work this out, Sansa, and find a way.

Sansa: There is no other way. We talked this all out before, remember? It's why you went away. Why we agreed to part ways. We knew there was no happy ending for us, at least not one in which we end up together. We have to make do with what we've got. Besides, you saw Mom today. She's so happy!

Robb: I can't live like this for much longer. I have to picture you in order to have sex with her!

Sansa dropped the phone on the table as though it had burned her. She stared at it.

Sansa? he texted.

With shaking hands, she picked up her phone and typed: You had sex?

The three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then appeared. Then disappeared. And then, finally: Yes.

Was it good? she couldn't help herself from asking.

Robb: Jesus Christ. What the fuck kind of question is that?

Sansa: Well? Was it?

Robb: It was sex. In my head, sex with you, though I knew the whole time it wasn't you. Did you and Willas have celebratory sex when you set a date?

Sansa (with a triumphant smirk): No. I told him I had work to do.

Robb: Don't you think it's telling that you didn't have sex with your fiancé on the night you set a date, Sansa? Do you plan to put him off on your wedding night too?

Sansa didn't have an answer for him. Instead, she shut her phone off and went back to bed. She slipped her phone into her nightstand and lay down, staring up at the ceiling again.

She rolled over when tears sprang to her eyes. In case Willas woke up, she didn't want him to see her cry over what had been, and what would never be again.