SANSA

If I could be any animal I would have chosen a hound. Sansa grinned as she read this, and then skimmed through the rest of his email. I would be a wolf, she typed.

Sandor had upheld his promise and wrote her often, to her delight. She'd just finished sending a reply email to Sandor when Uncle Benjen told her they were leaving. Her uncle was taking her shopping since the majority of her clothes were still in California and she was running short on outfits.

"Coming!" Sansa called, jumping up from her chair. She already had her shoes on, so she shut down the computer before meeting up with him at the front door. "Ready," she announced.

The uber was parked out front waiting for them, the door already held open by the doorman who gave her a kind nod when she arrived in the enormous lobby. Sansa returned his nod before getting into the car.

"When are my things being brought to New York?" she asked as the car merged into the flow of traffic.

"As soon as the police are done with the place. I will hire some people to pack up everything of yours and transport them here," Uncle Benjen told her.

"But I want to pack them myself," Sansa protested. "Strangers aren't really going to know what I want to keep."

Uncle Benjen looked at her. "Being back there won't bother you?" he questioned worriedly.

"No," Sansa answered truthfully. The house itself didn't harbor any bad memories for her, even though thinking of Petyr was still unbearably painful. But as the police report and Detective Tarth's words sank in, she was coming to realize the extent of Petyr's role in the demise and scattering of her family.

One day it won't hurt so much, she promised herself.

"Then once the police wrap up, we will fly down there so that you can take the time to look through your belongings and decide what you would like to keep," Uncle Benjen amended.

"Okay," she agreed, with an approving nod.

Shopping with Uncle Benjen turned out to be an interesting experience, with the two of them both in disagreement over what qualified as acceptable or unacceptable for a fifteen year old.

"That doesn't even look nice," Sansa told him as he held up a grandma looking overall, and then she giggled at the face that he made at her. "Oooh, I like this," she later marveled, holding up a soft velvet shirt with a cutoff midriff and slightly drooping neckline.

The shirt earned an immediate "no" from Uncle Benjen who maintained that it was not age appropriate.

"You don't even know what fifteen year old girls wear," Sansa pouted.

"I know what they shouldn't wear," he rebuffed, before going to look for outfits that he approved of.

After several more terrible clothing choices from him, she finally made up her mind. "I'll pick out the clothes," Sansa insisted, afraid that her uncle would have her looking like a third grader or a grandma.

The clothes that he picked out for her looked like clothes only a grandmother would approve, and the ones that she picked out he immediately complained about.

That's too short. That would show your belly if you raise your arms. That's too tight. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was only Petyr that didn't mind when she wore things like that.

They finally compromised on the clothes that she could get. Nothing too baggy or babyish and nothing too short, tight, or racy.

"It's a miracle," Sansa declared when they successfully completed the shopping process. "Four whole bags of clothes without killing each other."

Uncle Benjen chucked her beneath the chin as he said, "it's a good thing you'll be the one to carry all of them."

"I think not," she replied. But there was no need to worry about carrying them because Uncle Benjen picked up the bags with ease and transferred them into the trunk of the uber that he had called.

When they arrived back at the condo, Sansa put away her new clothes while Uncle Benjen picked up his ringing phone. He was just ending the phone call as she stepped into the great room.

"Someone's going to be here next week," he told her. "Well two special someones."

"Bran and Arya?" Sansa guessed excitedly.

"Next week," Uncle Benjen replied.

Sansa squealed as she ran out onto the terrace. She absolutely couldn't wait! She flung herself into one of the oversized chairs already imagining having her siblings back. It would be me and Arya and Bran and Jon. The fact that she still had a living family seemed like a dream to her sometimes. And she had to pinch herself to believe that it was real.

"Uncle Benjen," she said as he stepped out onto the terrace and plopped down on one of the lounge chairs. "Will they live here too?" She stared at him, hoping to hear a yes, but his quiet "I'm afraid not, love," dashed her hopes and filled her with aching disappointment.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because their adopted families have legal custody now. We can't just take them," Uncle Benjen explained.

"But they're our family. My brother and sister. And I love them and I want them back," Sansa protested.

"Believe me Sansa, more than anything I want to have them live with us too," Uncle Benjen told her. "But now they have adopted families that also love them very much. And by law their adopted parents have all legal rights."

Sansa jumped up fuming and holding back bitter disappointment. "I love them more!" she cried, before running to her room.