"Yay! Dress shopping!" Talisa said excitedly from the backseat of Catelyn's car.

Sansa forced herself to smile. She waved her fists in a half-hearted celebratory manner, "Yayyy!" She wanted to ask what Talisa was doing tagging along on what she assumed was strictly a mother-daughter outing. But, since she wasn't really feeling the whole dress shopping thing she thought maybe it wasn't really that big of a deal.

Well, aside from the fact that Talisa naturally reminded her Robb. Robb, whom she hadn't heard from in three days and was actually worried about.

Sansa opened the car door and slid inside, and off they went.

When they got to the first shop Catelyn had picked out, Sansa wondered if it was possible that the sight of so many wedding and bridesmaids dresses could make her break out in hives.

"I remember looking for my wedding dress," Talisa said wistfully. "I kept trying to picture Robb in my head and how he'd react seeing me in it for the first time at the altar."

Sansa forced herself not to react. "And?" she asked. "How did he react?"

Talisa smiled. "He cried."

Sansa wondered now exactly what those tears meant.

"I hope you don't mind that I've tagged along," Talisa said.

Sansa shook her head. "Not at all. It's fine." Albeit a little awkward considering the conversation she and Robb had had the other night over text. She felt bad for Talisa…whilst being jealous of her too, which was quite odd. The woman had no idea that her husband was in love with someone else, and that the someone else was his sister. She had no clue of the turmoil Robb expressed feeling being married to her.

God, it made Sansa feel awful. It also made her wish that there was a way, some way for them to get past all this and find some happiness with their significant others. There had to be a way, there just had to be. How could this be it? How could this be their life?

"Sansa, come look at this dress!" Catelyn said from a few feet away, standing in front of a row of dresses.

Come look at this dress is what she heard for the next hour. The hour after that was spent trying on dresses. At one point, Sansa just sat down on the bench in her changing room and sighed. She was tired. Exhausted, really. Her phone buzzed in her purse and she dug it out and keyed in her code.

How's the dress shopping going? was the message that came up from Robb.

The tulle is beginning to chafe, she wrote back.

Is it that or knowing you're marrying a man you don't love?

That's a bit heavy handed, don't you think? she typed with a frown. Hey, Talisa said you cried when you saw her in her wedding dress. Did you really do that?

The three dots disappeared, and then came back. Yes, he replied. Because it was too late to back out at that point. There was only one woman I wanted to spend my life with.

With a smirk she typed, You were never going to get Britney Spears.

No response. The three dots didn't even appear. With a sigh, Sansa got up and attempted to peel the dress off her when the message came through.

I know you're making a joke out of everything because this whole thing makes you uncomfortable. You don't want to marry Willas, Sansa. You're not in love with him. You're in love with me. Marrying him won't make what you feel for me go away. It'll just make it all worse. I know that better than anyone. Make your jokes now, and hide if that's what you want, but when you're ready to actually talk to me, I'll be here. Just make sure it's before your wedding date.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Fucker. He knew her too well, and knew just what to say to stop her in her tracks and make her feel like shit.

"Sansa, honey, do you need some help?" her mother called through the dressing room.

"No, Mom, I've got it!" Sansa called back, perhaps a bit too quickly. She wiped at the tears that fell and quickly deleted the messages on her phone. She changed back into her clothes and departed the dressing room, announcing that she was maxed out for the day.

Her mother seemed a bit disappointed that they hadn't found "The Dress", but Talisa assured her that these things took time and Sansa would know when the right one came along. Since that statement worked on a whole other level, Sansa didn't bother to comment on it.

xxxxxxxxx

When Sansa got home, exhausted physically, emotionally, and mentally, she was faced with an excited Willas who had called The Mile Away and was able to book their barn for the reception.

It was about then that Sansa thought she might throw up. The room had in fact begun to spin.

"San?" Willas asked, helping her to sit down when she gripped the back of a kitchen chair. "What's wrong? You okay?"

"I'm starving," she said. "My blood sugar is super low. I didn't eat much before my Mom and Talisa took me dress shopping for two hours."

He immediately went to the fridge and rummaged around. He pulled out a brick of cheese. He then went to the cabinets and came back with a small plate, a knife, and crackers. He placed it all down on the table before her and started slicing the cheese for her.

Sansa burst into tears. He was good to her. So good. He loved her. Willas loved her.

All this confusion and heartache – it was Robb's fault. He'd returned home and had stirred it all up those old feelings again. If he had just stayed away, they wouldn't have fucked again, and she wouldn't feel like an animal trapped in a cage. While she understood the reasons for her his return, she wished he hadn't bothered. She could take care of their mother, she didn't need him to help.

Maybe that was selfish of her, God, she knew it was. But she didn't care. Robb had ruined everything. Before he'd come home she had been…comfortable. She had been prepared to marry Willas. Any feelings she had for Robb were pushed away, shoved down – she simply did not acknowledge them. She had not been so much resigned, but accepting of her life. If she felt she lacked passion for Willas, she didn't consider it a problem. She didn't need passion; she could live without it. Live without the headiness, the rush of desire, and the need that tugged and demanded attention, the giddiness of being with the one that made your heart race…

She didn't need it. It was all chemical anyway – she'd done a lot of reading on the subject of love after. She had thought if she could break it down into tiny bits and make it all logical and scientific, she could dispel any leftover feelings for Robb.

Denial and avoidance, she learned, worked just as well.

"Why are you crying?" Willas asked, clearly alarmed. He shoved cheese on a cracker at her. "Baby, what is it?"

"Don't call me baby," she whimpered. "You know I hate that."

"Why are you crying?" he asked again.

"I – I couldn't find a dress today," she lied.

He looked bewildered. "How many places did you go?"

"One."

"There are more, aren't there?"

She nodded.

"Sweetheart, it's not a big deal that you didn't find a dress on the first day you went shopping for one."

He continued to attempt to soothe her, and Sansa half-listened. It wasn't as though she could tell him the truth, that she felt as though a tremendous Robb-sized weight was weighing on her, that all those years of denial and avoidance had caught up with her, and now that she and Willas had set a date, she felt as though she couldn't breathe.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," she said hastily, and shoved the crackers and cheese in her mouth.

"Why don't you take a bath and relax? I'll get dinner ready, okay?"

She nodded dumbly and got up.

"Why don't you take the crackers and cheese with you," Willas said, handing her the plate.

Sansa took it, grabbed her phone out of her purse, and then headed upstairs.

She went upstairs to their bedroom and placed the plate down on the bureau along with her phone. She then went into the bathroom to draw herself a bath. She felt numb now that she'd sobbed. Listless.

She just didn't know what to do anymore.

She went back to the bedroom and grabbed her phone, intent on texting Robb and telling him this was over. It had to stop. Now.

But then she couldn't bring herself to do it, and so she shut her phone off completely and went to take her bath.

xxxxxxxx

Three days.

That was the last time he had heard from Sansa. She wasn't returning his calls, or his texts. It was as though she'd fallen off the planet. Had it not been for his Mother keeping him abreast of how she'd been really busy with work and planning the wedding, he would have thought she had.

He was in hell. Between hearing about her wedding plans from both his mother and Talisa, there was Talisa who seemed intent on recreating the romance of their engagement. She couldn't seem to keep her hands off him.

He hated it. Especially since all that romantic shit hadn't been real. He'd gone through the motions, that was all. He'd had an idea of how a besotted fiancé was supposed to act, and he'd done what he thought he was supposed to do.

Finally, one afternoon at work, he snapped. After a class in which he thought he did in fact make a student piddle on the rug, he canceled his next class, and went in search of Sansa.

She couldn't avoid him forever, dammit.

He drove to her house first. She wasn't there. Then he drove to their mother's. She wasn't there either. He went back to her house, intent on waiting for her.

She pulled in right behind him. He could see her in his rear view mirror, just sitting there staring at his truck as though she couldn't believe he was there. Her hands were on the steering wheel still and he wondered if she'd even shut the car off yet. Would she drive off to avoid him?

Finally, she got out and he followed suit.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, not having moved from her car door. He stayed where he was, by his own car door, afraid to scare her off. "We need to talk, Sansa," he said.

"I don't want to."

He sighed and shoved his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. "Well, that's just too fucking bad, isn't it?"

"I don't have to do what I don't want to do."

"Why don't you want to talk to me?" he asked.

"Because I'm marrying Willas."

Robb ignored the jolt of pain that statement caused, and he nodded to the house instead. "Maybe we should take this inside."

"I think you should leave."

"No, I'm not gonna do that, Sansa. This avoiding me? It can't go on."

She pursed her lips together and seemed to be mulling it over in her head. She finally nodded and looked at him. "You're not allowed to touch me."

He nodded in agreement, though he wasn't sure that was something he could adhere to. His hands were already itching to touch her. He couldn't be close to Sansa and not want to touch her. But if this made her feel somehow safer…he would agree.

She led the way inside, and he made sure to keep his distance. When he got too close, she visibly tensed. She reminded him of a rubber band about to snap. He understood that feeling all too well. He felt the exact same way.

Once inside, Sansa moved to the far side of the kitchen and leaned against the sink, her hands curled upon the edge of it, looking as though she was prepared to hurl herself forward if need be. It was understood that Robb was to stay where he was near the door - apparently if he needed to leave in a rush or, as felt more accurate, was ordered out.

"You don't want to talk to me and you don't want me to touch you," he said, running a hand through his curls. "How's that going to work going forward? Am I to stay away from you every time we see one another? You don't think Mom or anyone else will catch on?"

"We have to get past it—"

"Still singing the same song then?" He moved forward and she tensed. He stopped and threw up his arms. "How do you propose we do that then, huh? Because I tried, remember? I fucking moved away. I got married for fuck's sake, and that didn't change anything. I tried to just 'get past it', Sansa, and I couldn't. Do you have any ideas how to do it now?"

Her face twisted as though in agony. "I don't know…I thought about moving, but I can't leave Mom—"

"You're not going anywhere, Sansa," he snapped.

"I just said that, but hey – you're not the boss of me."

"I'm going to divorce Talisa," he said quietly. "I can't do this anymore. She touches me and I have to stop myself from flinching."

"It's not like you hate her, Robb," Sansa said. "It can't be that bad."

"I don't hate her, but I'm not in love with her and I'm not even sure I like her…"

"You married her."

"Yeah, and I was stupid. She was the first one I took up with. I was so desperate to just move on and 'get past it' that I rushed everything. I loved her like a friend…and I thought I could learn to fall in love with her, but I didn't. Then she went and had that affair. I haven't been able to look at her the same since even if she was right – I did drive her to find love and solace with someone else because I am not capable of giving her what she needs. I don't have it in me to pretend to love and care for her the way I love and care for you." He shut his eyes as tears rushed to them. "It's killing me, Sansa," he said and looked at her again. "It's tearing me apart to pretend I'm in love with her when I'm not. Sometimes I think I hate her and it's not even her fault. It's mine. If you marry Willas, you're going to do the same to him."

"You don't know that."

"You didn't even have sex with him when you set a date, Sansa."

"You had sex with Talisa," she pointed out.

"And I felt dirty after."

Her face crumpled as though she was ready to cry. "Even if I don't marry him, Robb, there is no scenario in which this works."

He moved closer to her, and when she didn't move away or tense, he moved until he was standing in front of her. "We have to think outside the box a little, that's all. The alternative is… I can't do the alternative anymore, Sansa. Can you?"

She looked up at him helplessly. "But he loves me, Robb. How can I hurt him? And she loves you! How can you do this to her?"

"I've already done it," he murmured and tentatively reached out and ran the tips of his fingers along the side of her face. She flinched away and he leaned in, desperate for a connection. "Sansa, please…" He leaned in, pressing his nose into her temple. "Please."

Her jaw clenched. Her breathing grew shallow – she was practically panting for it. For him. Robb took a chance and slid a hand over her waist. "Sansa, I love you, sweet girl. I love you…"

She turned her face to his and that was it. Their lips collided and it was as though they thought to swallow the other whole. Robb yanked her against him, needing to feel every inch of her against every inch of him. She moaned and Robb cradled her face in his hands as he kissed her. He moved them so she was up against the table in the center of the room, and he lifted her up onto it.

"I need you," he gasped. "I need you so badly."

She went to the buckle on his dress pants. "Yes," she said halfway between a moan and a whine. "Yes, me too."

The sound of a car door slamming shut startled them apart. Sansa's eyes went wide as she looked up at Robb, and then jumped down off the table and rushed to the window. "Mom! It's Mom!"

With a curse, Robb hastily buckled his belt. "I need the bathroom," he said and rushed from the room while Sansa combed her fingers through her hair and adjusted her clothes. At least she didn't have the physical evidence of how turned on she'd been poking at the front of her pants as he did.

Once in the bathroom, Robb leaned against the door and shut his eyes, willing his erection down. "Fuck," he muttered.

When his erection finally went down, he forced himself to meander down the hall to the kitchen. Sansa was putting a tea cup in the microwave, and Catelyn was at the table. She beamed at Robb when she saw him. "I was just telling Sansa that I am so glad to see you two spending time together," she said.

Robb couldn't help it. He laughed and sat down at the table with his mother. "How ya doin', Mom?"

"I'm well, son. Do you have time for tea with Sansa and me?"

Robb looked at Sansa over his mother's shoulder, and when Sansa nodded, Robb smiled, a real smile. Sansa wanted him to stay. "Yeah, I can do that."