Chapter Thirteen

Thankfully, Margaery was in when Sansa arrived back at their room. She shut the door behind her and pressed her back to the door as she looked at her friend who was flipping through Cosmo on her bed.

"I know you're upset with me," Sansa began. Margaery looked up at her. "But I need your help."

"It's not that I'm upset with you so much as really worried, Sansa," Margaery said. "I know I do a lot of crazy shit when it comes to guys, but not as crazy as what you're doing. A relationship with your professor? I mean, do you see this as a fling? You're not really the fling sort. Or as something serious? What exactly do you know about him? San, you've never had sex, you're not…experienced with that aspect and I'm sure Dr. Lannister is. Are you planning on doing it with him? Does he knew he'd be your first? Do you even want that?"

Sansa's mind was buzzing with all these questions and concerns. She heaved a sigh and held up a hand. "Can we get to all of that in a minute so I can ask you the favor first?"

Margaery sighed. "Okay, sure. What is it? Please tell me it's not lying for you to Jon or whatever so you can sneak off with Dr. Lannister."

"I just came from seeing Jon and he wants me and him and Ygritte and Drogo to hang out on Saturday. It's really important to him that Ygritte and I get along. I obviously can't invite Drogo…"

"So you want me to go."

"Please, Margaery, please," Sansa begged. "I can't spend a day with the happy couple alone."

"Sansa, you do realize that if you are planning on continuing down this path of dating your professor you are going to have to at some point tell Jon?"

"His head would explode."

"No doubt. He'd also probably rally a mob to burn Dr. Lannister at the stake."

"So, I can't tell him. Not yet," Sansa said. Not ever.

"When then? When you graduate? And while we're on the subject, what the fuck kind of screwy relationship is this if you can't ever be seen in public? It's like you're his dirty little secret – which you are because you're nineteen and he's like what, forty?"

"Thirty-eight."

"Close enough. Sansa!" Margaery exclaimed. "He could literally be your Dad."

"If he had me at like nineteen…"

"It's possible and you know it! Does he have a kid? Several kids? Was he married?"

"He was married," Sansa mumbled. "I don't know about the kid issue."

"What do you know?"

"We're still learning about each other!" Sansa said defensively.

"Yeah, he's still learning how best to get in your pants."

"Margaery, will you come with me on Saturday or not?" Sansa asked, letting some of her annoyance bleed through.

"Yes," Margaery said and snapped her magazine shut. "Only because I want to meet this Ygritte and see why Jon still has his head up his ass about you."

"Oh, for the love of God, Margaery!"

"I'm serious, Sansa. That boy is in love with you. He just doesn't get it yet and I want to know what hold this little bitch has over him that he hasn't fucking figured it out yet."

Sansa sighed. "Okay, well, thank you for deciding to come."

"I'm serious though, Sansa. I'm not comfortable with this relationship you have going with Dr. Lannister. And the fact that you kept it from me and Jon tells me you don't think it's right either."

Sansa sighed and wondered what Margaery would say if she told her friend she was beginning to sound like her mother.

xxxxxxxxx

Jon hadn't realized just how much he was dreading seeing Sansa with Drogo until it was Margaery she showed up with. Relief flooded through him and he hugged her so tight she complained she couldn't breathe.

"What happened to what's-his-face?" he asked her.

"He couldn't make it," she said simply.

"Is what's-his-face your boyfriend, Sansa?" Ygritte asked. "I thought you didn't really have one."

Sansa primly tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "I am seeing someone."

Ygritte smiled. "Oh, well, that's nice."

"Isn't it?" Margaery drawled and looked at Ygritte with an arched brow. Jon wasn't sure what that was about, but he didn't know much when it came to some of the things Margaery did.

"Shall we?" Jon asked and looked at Sansa.

"Sure," she said and fell into step beside Margaery while Ygritte came up beside him. He strained to hear what Margaery and Sansa were talking about behind him while Ygritte said something to him that he didn't hear.

"What?" he asked her.

"I was just wondering if we could stop at Dunks in town."

"Sure." He looked over his shoulder. "San, Dunk run first?"

"But of course," Sansa chirped behind him.

Once they were in the car and on their way off campus, Sansa leaned forward between him and Ygritte from the back and said, "Please, please can I hook up my iPod? I am so not in the mood for complaint rock."

"It's The Smiths," Ygritte said, as though that should mean something to Sansa. It didn't, and Jon knew it.

He smiled at Sansa. "Yes, you can plug in your iPod."

Ygritte looked at him sharply and Jon wondered exactly what he'd done wrong. Was changing the music that big of a deal to her? He wasn't a huge fan of Sana's pop music, but he liked when she sang along because in his opinion, she had a beautiful voice. He kept waiting for the day she would switch her major from undeclared to music.

Sansa was practically in the front seat at that point and he could smell the perfume she'd scented herself with. He inhaled, thinking that Sansa always smelled good. Ygritte never scented herself with anything.

An old eighties tune started that Jon recognized only because Sansa had played it before and she sat back in her seat. Then Sansa and Margaery began to sing together. Jon was used to it. At times he found it humorous, too. Ygritte didn't seem to feel the same way.

When the song was over, Sansa leaned forward again and turned the volume down and then asked Ygritte if she liked Vampire Weekend. Ygritte wasn't a fan so Sansa rattled off a bunch of other bands that Jon knew she had on her iPod. Ygritte wasn't a fan of any of them.

Sansa seemed to give up at that point and so she unplugged her iPod and plugged Jon's back in. "Sansa, you didn't have to do that," Jon said.

"It's fine," she said with a smile and kissed his cheek before settling in the back seat once again.

Sansa must have kissed his cheek a million times before, but today it was different. It felt different. He swore his cheek tingled after and he caught himself looking in the rearview mirror at her instead of paying attention to the road until Ygritte shouted, "Jon!"

He looked back to the road and slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of him which had stopped.

"Aren't you like the ten and two guy?" Margaery asked from the backseat.

"You okay, Mario Andretti?" Sansa asked and leaned forward to rest her chin on the top of his seat. He could smell her perfume again.

"I guess I need a coffee," Jon muttered. "Sansa, put your seatbelt on."

"Okay, Dad!"

He shot her a look and she grinned cheekily at him.

Finally, they made it into town and parked in the parking garage. On the way out, Sansa and Margaery walked ahead of him and Ygritte and Jon found his gaze repeatedly landing on Sansa's ass in the gray jeans she wore.

"Jon?" Ygritte said and slipped her hand into his.

Jon looked up guiltily. "Yeah?"

"You seem lost in thought. You okay?"

Jon nodded and smiled. "I'm fine."

Ygritte leaned over and kissed him and Jon focused on her and not Sansa's perfectly round ass. He had no business noticing her ass. First, this was Sansa, his best friend, and besides he was with Ygritte.

Their first stop was an old record store that Jon liked to find rare albums in and Sansa liked to look at the album artwork. Ygritte wanted to see if they had any old Smiths records and so she flipped through the racks with him.

But Jon couldn't keep from seeking out Sansa with his eyes. It was like he had to know where she was at all times. Had to know what she was doing. When she laughed at something Margaery said, he smiled. Sansa's laugher and her smiles were always so contagious. She was so full of life and love and laughter, and it always lightened his often broody demeanor.

"Oh, look at this one, Jon," Ygritte said, pulling his attention away from Sansa.

He focused on Ygritte, because that was what he was supposed to be doing. And then they both went back to looking through the records before them.

"Jon."

Jon looked up at the sound of Sansa's voice and found in place of her face was an album cover with a giant eye on the cover. "Do I have something in my eye?" she asked. And then she moved the album away and dissolved into giggles. Jon laughed and she bounded off back to Margaery.

Minutes later he looked for her again and found her and Margaery in the listening booth with the door closed, dancing around to some song they played.

"Jon," Ygritte said and placed her hand on his arm. "Come here and see this."

Jon followed her, but what he wanted to do was join Sansa in that booth.

xxxxxxx

"Okay, I got it," Sansa said as Jon helped her climb over the rocks down near the water's edge. This was one of their spots. Whenever they went into town together, it was near the water they ended up. Ygritte and Margaery were sitting on a bench watching Sansa and Jon traverse over the rocks out to the water.

"I'm ready,' Jon said.

"Kate Beckinsale—"

"Underworld Kate Beckinsale?" he asked.

"Duh."

He grinned and held out his hand to help her over the next big rock. She jumped down and joined him and said, "Charlize Theron."

"Mad Max or…?"

"Pick one she was super hot in."

Jon nodded. "Okay, got it."

She grinned. "And Betty White."

Jon looked at her in horror and shook his head. He climbed over the next boulder then turned and helped Sansa again. "Sansa, I can't fuck Betty White."

"Now, that's not true. You could."

"And I can't marry her."

"Again, you could."

"And I certainly can't toss an old woman off a cliff!"

She giggled and stood upon the rock with her legs apart, her hands on her hips and her chin held high. "I am the champion of fuck-marry-kill," she declared and then looked down at him. "So? You have to choose, Jon."

He sighed. "This is hard."

"That's what she said," she said and dissolved into laughter. Jon rolled his eyes and laughed. She wobbled on the rock and Jon reached up and placed his hands on her hips to steady her. "I'm fine," she told him, but he didn't let go until she had her feet planted on the ground with his. She pouted when she saw how much further they had to go. "Okay, I don't want to go any farther. Can we just be done now?"

Jon grinned at her. "Yes, sweetling."

She sagged into his side and rested her head on his shoulder. "Thank God."

Jon just wanted to turn his head and kiss her on top of her head. And he might very well have done that had he not been consciously aware that Ygritte was somewhere behind them and possibly watching them. He started to wrap an arm around Sansa, when she straightened and then sat down on the boulder behind her. "Well?" she asked. "Who are you going to fuck-marry-kill? Choose wisely, because I don't think you want to kill a national treasure like Betty White."

He sighed. "Well, I guess I'm gonna have to marry her. But I'm not going to have sex with her."

"You do realize that you can only fuck one of the other two once, right? This isn't the kind of deal where you can just keep having sex with one of them."

Jon made a face. "All right, let me think about this some more."

"If you decide to kill Betty White I'm so going to call you the Octogenarian Killer. Remember that while you're deciding."

Jon laughed. "Something tells me you're going to call me that no matter what."

She smiled. "Yeah, you're probably right."

He sat down beside her and resisted the urge to grab her hand and twine their fingers together. What was going on with him today? Where were all these random impulses coming from? Was it just because they hadn't seen much of each other the past week? Yes, that had to be it. He just missed her.

"So, what do you think of Ygritte?" he asked softly.

"She seems really nice," Sansa said a little too quickly.

He looked at her and resisted yet another urge. The wind had picked up and some of her hair was blowing across her cheek. He wanted to move it. "Sansa."

She looked at him. Her luminous blue eyes pierced him and he felt it right in his heart. He wanted to kiss her. Abruptly he stood up to get some distance. What the fuck was wrong with him today?

"What? She is!" Sansa said defensively. "The few times we've spoken she's been very cordial."

"You don't like her."

She sighed. "Jon, I do. I really do."

But she didn't, and he knew it. "When will I meet Drogo?" he asked.

She cocked her head to the side. "Why? So you can dislike him right out the gate?"

Jon didn't want to tell her that he already did, and he didn't have to meet the guy to know it. It didn't make sense, and he wasn't the sort to dislike someone he'd never even met, but it was someone that took Sansa from him…

Someone that got to touch her in all the ways he'd wanted to today. Someone that got to kiss her and know what those cherry lips tasted like. Jon's heart started to thud hard in his chest. It was someone that could make love to her. Jon knew that Sansa had never had sex before. They'd had a conversation about it once, an awkward conversation because she felt self-conscious about it. This guy could be her first.

"Have you had sex with him?" Jon blurted out, and then cursed himself for asking something like that so bluntly.

"No," Sansa said slowly. "Not um…not yet."

Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. The words went round and round in his mind. Why was this bothering him so much? The idea of some guy he didn't know touching his Sansa?

His Sansa.

His.

"Hey losers, we're hungry!" Margaery called out.

Sansa jumped up as though she had been waiting for an out in this conversation. She started back, climbing over the rocks without his help. It was like she hadn't really needed him after all and the thought of that twisted his gut into knots.