Chapter Four
Robb walked in the house a few days later to the sound of his sisters doing what they did best: arguing.
"You saw that I was doing something, Arya, and yet you came in here and started blaring the TV!" Sansa shouted.
"The family room is for watching TV, Sansa. Do your homework in your bedroom," Arya said calmly. Robb knew Arya well enough to know that she played at calm when she just wanted to piss Sansa off.
"There is a desk in here; it's not like it's just a family room meant for watching TV. I've seen you do homework in here."
"You've seen me do homework I don't care about in here," Arya said matter-of-factly.
"God, you're such a bitch."
Oh, that was not good. Arya was going to flay Sansa alive. Robb practically ran to the family room just in time to see Arya start after Sansa. Sansa stood her ground. She didn't move. She just stood there and waited. Robb remembered a time when Sansa would come at Arya, ready to defend herself by flailing her arms and fists about.
Now she stood with her hands on her hips almost looking as though she dared Arya to hit her. Arya stopped in front of her sister and they stared each other down. Robb wasn't sure if he should intervene or just see how this shook out.
Arya took a step back and Robb inwardly sighed with relief. Arya turned and saw him standing there. "Robb, tell me what you think. Is it fair that I should have to wait until Sansa is done with her homework before I turn the TV on?" she asked. "Or should Sansa go somewhere else if she expects peace and quiet while she's doing her homework?"
"You have a TV in your room, don't you?" he asked pointedly with one brow arched.
Arya growled and threw up her arms. "Nothing has changed, has it? You still take Sansa's side in everything!" she shouted and marched off, pounding the floor hard as she stomped up the stairs. Robb winced when he heard her door slam.
Sansa just rolled her eyes and picked her laptop up off the couch. "I cannot even with her," she muttered. She looked at Robb, laptop in hand. "Is that true?"
"Is what true?" he asked and stepped fully into the room.
"Did you always take my side in everything?"
He laughed softly and shook his head. "No. And you would get pretty mad at me when I took her side."
"Everyone takes her side," Sansa muttered. "She's the favorite."
"Why would you say that?"
She sighed. "I don't know. It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
"I'm just cranky today. I didn't sleep well last night."
He shoved his hands in his pockets. He was no stranger to sleepless nights. He hadn't slept well at all since he'd been home. The night before he'd almost convinced himself he could just go to Sansa's room and have a chat with her before going back to bed. Not knowing exactly what to say and fear of his mother catching him kept him from leaving the basement.
"What's on your mind?" he asked gently.
She looked at him sharply and Robb held his breath for a second. It felt very much as though she was saying "You" with that look. But then her gaze skittered away and she shook her head. "Nothing. Just school and…school."
He wasn't buying it, but they weren't yet at the point where he could push it. Sansa was still quiet and uncertain around him. "Why don't we go somewhere?" he suggested. He hoped she said yes. And he hoped she agreed so they could leave before their parents returned home. Their mother was diligent about making sure he and Sansa were never left alone in the house together. No doubt she knew Arya was home right now and so felt she didn't have to rush right home from work to baby-sit them. What, Robb wondered, was she going to do when he got his own place and Sansa (hopefully) wanted to visit? Forbid her? Sansa would wonder why. So would Arya and his brothers.
"Where?" Sansa asked.
"Anywhere you want."
"Could we go to a movie? I want to get lost in a movie."
"Sure, we can do that," he told her.
Flashback
Sitting side by side in the movie theater, Robb watched the couples on dates around them and felt himself glaring at the lot of them.
"Stop giving the stink eye to everyone around us," Sansa said and poked him in the leg. "What's wrong with you?"
"It's not fair," he said quietly.
"What isn't?"
"Everyone here gets to be honest about what they're doing. They get to show how they feel to the people they're with. I can't even hold your hand." Even sitting in the way back tucked into the corner and with no one else in their aisle didn't guarantee privacy.
"I know," she said softly. Now she looked sad.
"I just want to be able to hold your fucking hand."
"One day," she told him. She nudged him with her elbow. "Right?"
He forced himself to smile. "Right."
"You forgot something, Robb."
"What's that, love?" he asked and looked over at her.
She smiled. "We're seeing a horror movie. No one would think twice if I got scared and needed my big brother to protect me."
He smiled for real then. "Of course."
End Flashback
xxxxxxxx
Sansa wasn't sure why she thought hanging out with Robb was a good idea. On the other hand he was her brother so why shouldn't she hang out with him? Yet it was because of him and her unruly subconscious that she hadn't been able to sleep so well the night before.
She was a mess.
The night before she'd dreamt that her and Robb were just hanging out, watching a movie in his room. All they'd done was sit by side-by-side and held hands. Okay, so that was weird. And he would kiss her temple every so often, too. Also weird. However, it was the feeling she had in the dream. The feeling of loving him so much and feeling loved. Those feelings had been so strong that when she'd woken up, she'd ached with the loss of it. She'd never been in love – not that she remembered anyway – and so to feel that love and to feel it coming from someone else had made her feel…restless.
Despite knowing how wrong it was to dream of her brother like that, she had wanted to get back to sleep and jump right back in that dream just to feel that love again. But she hadn't been able to get back to sleep right away because she kept replaying the dream over and over in her mind and wondering what was wrong with her that it was her brother she was dreaming of in such a way.
By morning she'd convinced herself that what she was probably craving was a boyfriend. She didn't remember having one, certainly didn't remember Joffrey (and thank God apparently), and so it wasn't as though she had anything negative attached to having one. Granted, Joffrey had been the reason she and Robb had gotten in that car accident, but she didn't remember him or it enough to feel the need to swear off men.
As for why she'd latched onto Robb? Well, she chalked it up to the fact that he was…shiny and new? She didn't really know. Perhaps it was because Margaery hadn't stopped talking about him since she'd met him. She really had no reason for it;' she just wished her subconscious would give it a rest.
Now they sat together in a darkened theater and she didn't feel relaxed. She felt hyper-aware of him sitting next to her, and she had the urge to just touch him in some way. She almost felt like it wasn't just that she wanted to do it, but that she needed to do it. Like touching him, just even his arm, meant she wouldn't float away or something.
Christ, yeah. She should look into dating.
"We were close, weren't we?" Sansa asked him after the movie was over and they were making their way back home.
Robb tensed, his hand gripped the steering wheel tighter before answering her. Odd, that. "Yes," he said.
"Why does that upset you?" she asked.
"It doesn't upset you."
"It seems to upset you."
He sighed. "You don't remember me now. It's hard to…it's hard to remember how close we were when you don't remember it and we don't have the same closeness."
"I'm sorry," she said and felt her eyes well up in tears. She didn't even know why this was upsetting her so much. She didn't get this frustrated not remembering things when it came to the rest of her family.
He darted a glance at her. "Sansa, are you – are you crying?"
"I'm overtired. I get emotional when I'm overtired."
"I know," he said and then hit the steering wheel. "Shit, I'm sorry. That probably doesn't help." He pulled over to the side of the road and cut the engine. He turned in his seat and looked at her. "Sansa, please don't cry. I could never stand it when you cried."
"It's just frustrating, and I'm just tired…I'm fine, Robb. Really."
"What can I do?"
"Nothing. You can't make me remember. I can't make me remember."
"Do you feel pressured to…?"
"A little. I mean I just feel like…I feel like we were probably close. It's just this…feeling I get?"
He looked almost wistful. "You told me everything."
"I don't know that I tell anyone everything. Not even Jon and he's the closest one to me."
"You can always come to me, Sansa. I want you to know that." And then he took her hands in his and gripped them.
His touch comforted her. Made her feel…whole in some way. She gripped him back and stared down at their hands.
"What are you thinking?" he asked softly.
"I don't know," she murmured and looked up at him. He was watching her so intently. "I don't know," she repeated and pulled her hands from his.
He nodded and turned back around. They rode the rest of the way home in silence.
xxxxxxxx
Flashback
"Love, what's wrong?" Robb asked gently as he shut Sansa's door behind him and then lay down beside her on the bed. She was on her side, facing away from him, and he could hear her sniffling.
"You always take Arya's side," she said.
"I do not," he said and pressed himself against her back. She stiffened and scooted away from him.
"Sansa, love…" he murmured and pulled her back against him.
"She's your favorite."
He barked out a laugh. "Now I think you know that's not true." He pushed his nose against her bare shoulder and then kissed her there. "You're my favorite person in the whole world."
"Yeah, because I have sex with you."
Robb gripped her hip. "Sansa, don't you dare say that to me," he said sternly. "You know that's not true." He rolled away from her and got up. He went to the door and was about to leave when he heard Sansa say his name softly.
He turned and found her sitting up, her eyes a bit red. She looked apologetic. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean that."
"Then why did you say it?"
"Because I was upset that you defended Arya and I wanted to hurt you."
"Not like that," he said. "Never like that, Sansa. You make it…you make it something dirty and wrong when you say that. Like I'm using you."
"I know you're not, Robb. I'm sorry." She held out her hand. "Come here."
He shook his head and said, "No", and then he left.
Later when Sansa came to apologize to him again, he forgave her. But he wouldn't make love to her, even though she attempted to initiate it.
End Flashback
"I'm not sure I feel comfortable with the idea of you and Sansa spending so much time together."
Robb looked up from the book he wasn't reading and at his mother. "Excuse me?" He put the book down on the bed beside him.
"You and Sansa going to the movies…is that where you really went?"
Robb clenched his jaw. "You do recall that she doesn't remember anything about me still, right?"
She sighed. His mother looked a bit stressed. "I know. I just fear that if you two start spending more time together she will."
Robb opted not to tell her about his conversation with Sansa in the car. He wasn't going to push for Sansa to remember, but if she did…well, he wasn't going to stop that from happening.
"Are you going to ban her from spending time with me? I am her brother—"
"I'm not sure you can play the brother card, Robb. You lost that privilege when you came clean about what you and Sansa had been doing behind our backs."
"Don't make it sound like that. Like what we were doing was just dirty—"
"You're her brother," she hissed. "It was—is— dirty."
"I loved her."
"It was your job as her big brother to protect her, Robb!"
"And I did. I didn't rape her, Mother. We loved each other."
"Robb, are you listening to yourself? You can't possibly believe that you were in love with your sister the way a man loves a woman. It's not possible!"
"It is possible because that's exactly how I felt! I loved her as a woman she loved me as a man." He would give himself away now if he didn't stop. He was aware that he sounded like a petulant brat, but he knew what he felt – what he still felt – for Sansa. Maybe it was wrong to everyone else, but it wasn't wrong to him, and it hadn't been wrong to Sansa at the time. It was isolating to be nursing this very real, very broken heart, and have his mother tell him that it wasn't real at all because she thought it wrong. Coupled with that was the fact that Sansa didn't remember them and…God. He was going stark raving mad.
"What do you want from me, Mother?" he asked, his voice soft and low. "What is it you want me to do?"
"I want you to give your sister a wide berth, and maybe if you would consider finding a girl of your own...Your father says there is a woman in his office that seems to have taken a shine to you."
Robb sighed. "So you want me to date to prove to you that nothing is going on with me and Sansa."
His mother sat down next to him on the bed. "And to help you, Robb. If you date this girl and you end up really liking her you'll see how different it is. I should have encouraged you when you were younger to find a nice girl. I never thought your lack of interest meant…" she sighed. "Just think about it, would you?"
Robb nodded. "Sure." By think about it she of course meant do it. Ask Margaery out. Date her.
She kissed the top of his head and hugged him. "I love you, Robb. I want you to be happy. You know that, right?"
Robb nodded and feigned a smile. "I know, Mom."
She left the room and Robb cried his own tears of frustration.