SANSA
Sansa awoke, her head pounding and her throat dry. She was lying in a hospital bed she realized.
Images from earlier started to come back to her. Petyr. Police. Ambulance. Hospital. Uncle Benjen. Jon. She groaned.
"Sansa?" Jon's voice.
"How are you, love?" Uncle Benjen's voice joined his.
They both appeared by the side of her bed, gazing down at her, pale faced and concerned.
"Are you okay?" Jon questioned.
She wasn't sure. Nothing felt okay. "Where's Petyr?" she croaked.
Her uncle and brother's faces darkened.
"He will never hurt you again." There was such venom in Uncle Benjen's voice, but he didn't understand.
"No," Sansa moaned. "Don't let them hurt him, please." She was whimpering. "This is my fault. I ruined everything."
"Sansa!" Uncle Benjen looked stricken. "None of this is your fault."
"Everything's my fault," she sobbed. "I ran away and now Petyr's in trouble!"
"Is that what he told you?" Jon was furious. "That you're to blame."
"No," Sansa whimpered. "I should have just waited. Then we all would have been happy and none of this would be happening."
She started sobbing anew and Uncle Benjen wrapped an arm around her. "There's someone that you need to meet," he decided, after a few minutes of comforting her as she cried.
Jon went to the door and opened it, providing entrance to a gigantic blonde woman. "This is Detective Tarth," he introduced.
Sansa was shocked. "Did you hire a detective because I left last night? I told you that it was my fault. Petyr's not to blame. Please."
"Sansa," Uncle Benjen's voice cut sharply through her pleas. "We know what he did to you. It wasn't your fault. You don't need to defend him. Nothing's going to happen to you."
She didn't want Petyr to get into trouble. But she also didn't want Uncle Benjen and Jon to know that she had said yes and allowed Petyr to do it. All she could do was curl into herself and sob miserably.
"What he did was wrong," Jon said quietly, as her sobs turned to sniffles.
After Sansa had blown her nose and calmed herself, the detective stepped forward.
"Sansa, I have troubling news to tell you about this man called Petyr Baelish."
Sansa wanted to scream as she listened to the words that poured out of the woman's mouth. She didn't want to hear what the giant lady was saying. Because it wasn't true. Petyr wouldn't do that to her. He wouldn't lie about something like that. Not about the most important thing in the world to her. Not about her family.
A howl of agony left her throat when she couldn't take it anymore. "Petyr wouldn't!" she cried. She looked around wildly. "Petyr wouldn't! He just wouldn't! He loves me! He wouldn't do that to me! I'm his special girl!"
The room was silent with only her crazed breathing audible in the tense air. Everyone was looking at her warily as if she might have to be subdued at any minute and it was too much.
Sansa flung off the covers, wanting to get away, but Uncle Benjen was there in an instant, laying a staying hand on her shoulder.
"Sansa," his voice was gentle but firm.
She reluctantly settled back on the bed, but when her eyes landed on the blonde giant, her words assaulted Sansa again, raising doubt in her head.
Petyr lied about Jon, a voice whispered. He probably knew about Benjen too.
"Go away!" she screamed, wanting to shut it up. Her world was spinning out of control and falling apart and she couldn't handle it. "Please. Please. Leave me alone," she sobbed.
And then Uncle Benjen and Jon had their arms around her, holding her tightly and she sobbed and sobbed, wishing that she could wake up from the nightmare that the night had turned into. But it was morning now, and it was still persisting.
"I just want to be by myself," Sansa whispered when the sobs had diminished and her tear ducts were as empty as she felt.
"We should have told you sooner," Uncle Benjen's voice was solemn and his eyes sad. "Then all of this could have been avoided. We left you unprotected, love, by keeping you in the dark."
"I want to see the police report," Sansa stated, looking at Detective Tarth. The lady handed her a file and Sansa received it with shaky hands.
The sickening information that the detective had revealed still flooded her head. Arya and Bran were alive.
Petyr had lied. He'd lied to her for so many years knowing how desperately she missed her family. But he was the one that sent her siblings away and told her that they were dead.
Tears spilled down her cheeks. She'd given Petyr something so special and it had all been based on a mountain of lies. As she read the police report her body shook. The brakes in her father's car had been tampered with.
She remembered the call from Aunt Lysa that night.
And Mother speaking to Father.
"Lysa said Petyr insists that we must hurry or the reservations that he made would be for naught," her mother's voice had sounded in her ears.
Father had huffed. "Baelish could bloody wait," he had exclaimed.
And then another phone call from a hysterical Lysa. Robin had been given too much medicine and was being rushed to the hospital.
"Hurry," Petyr had said taking the phone. "Speed if you must."
Mother had the phone on speaker and Sansa had heard.
And Father had sped.
Sansa remembered something that Petyr had said when he visited her in the hospital that struck her as weird.
"I didn't know you were in the car too," he had murmured. "I was told you were staying home, sick with the flu."
Now as she remembered everything, she felt sick to her stomach. She leaned over the side of the bed and emptied her stomach.
And then she didn't feel like talking anymore. She didn't feel like breathing really. Sansa lay back down on the bed and shut her eyes, wanting nothing more than for everyone to go away.