"Remind me to toss you off the top of this mountain if I don't die before we get there," Sansa grumbled as she and Robb made their way over another steep incline of rocks. Sansa hated rocks. And hiking. And sweating. And she especially hated Robb laughing behind her.

"We're almost there, I promise," Robb said encouragingly.

"This wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I said we should spend some time together."

"When we get to the top it will have been worth it."

"If this mountain doesn't kill me first!"

Robb laughed again and after another fifteen minutes of climbing they finally reached the top. And they were alone. For a long while they just stood out over the top of the mountain and looked over the city of Winterfell.

"Worth it?" Robb asked and grabbed her hand.

"Maybe," Sansa said, but she was smiling. "Now feed me."

They found a rock to sit on together and Robb opened up the backpack he'd carried up and pulled out a couple apples, a couple Cliff Bars, and a couple peanut butter sandwiches. They had both water that they'd carried up with them.

They ate in silence for the next twenty minutes and when they were done, Robb put all the trash in the backpack and they just sat together on the rock, looking out over the view. Robb wrapped an arm around her and pressed a kiss to her temple.

"Did you get a hold of Arya before we left?" Sansa asked as she leaned into Robb and rested her head on his shoulder.

"I did. She was with Brienne still. She thought she might sleep over there again tonight. Did you get in touch with Bran and Rickon?"

"Bran was going to be home to eat something for dinner and then he was taking off with one of his friends and probably spending the night again. Rickon, unfortunately, is going to be home."

Robb sighed. "Well, there goes our alone time."

"Things could change," Sansa said. "You never know."

"Let's hope."

It was in moments like this where Sansa could see Robb's point in wanting to go abroad and start anew. When Rickon had said he would most likely be home, Sansa had felt the crushing weight of disappointment. She'd been looking forward to having another night with Robb. And, she knew that she and Robb couldn't exactly steal away and hang out in his room just in case Catelyn asked what everyone had been up to that weekend, specifically what Robb and Sansa had been up to. Even an off-handed, "Oh, they just hung out in his room" would be enough to send up red flags.

Of course she wasn't about to tell Robb anything of the sort. She didn't want to get his hopes up that she was considering his suggestion because she wasn't. She just might have imagined it a little.

"Robb."

"Hmmm?"

"Do you think if either of us had been born to another family we would have still found each other?" she asked.

He smiled and nodded. "Absolutely."

She smiled. "Absolutely, huh?"

"You're my other half, Sansa, no matter what form you take."

"You're such a romantic. Hey, Robb?"

"Yeah?"

"How did Mom get you to tell her what was going on?"

"She confronted me after the accident. I was…I didn't handle it well, you being in a coma. I was beside myself. She didn't think it quite so…brotherly, and told me basically that she knew something wasn't right between us. She brought up the fact that she'd noticed an intimacy between us that was obvious in couples that were having relations with each other."

"Did she use that word? Relations?"

"Yes."

"What did you say?"

"I denied it of course, but she wouldn't let it go. She said she had found it funny when we'd both applied to the same school in California, but hadn't really thought much about it until she saw us that night on the couch and had gotten a bad feeling that something was going on. We applied to other schools, too, but just for show. I told Mom that you had inspired me to go back to school and that we'd made a contest out of applying to the same places."

"Wow. So we were really good at weaving stories," she murmured.

"We had to be. You know how Mom is when she has something set in her mind. She doesn't let go of it."

Sansa sighed. "I know. And she's crazy intuitive. There was one time Arya snuck out of the house to be with her friends and Mom just woke up and somehow knew."

"Well, it was the same kind of thing after the accident. She told me she knew you weren't really interested in Joffrey and said she found it interesting that you'd started dating him shortly after she'd confronted me the first time about our relationship. I was too wrecked worrying about whether or not you were ever going to wake up to also keep her suspicions at bay. I broke down and told her." He sighed. "And then you woke up."

Sansa looked at him sadly. "With amnesia."

"Yeah," Robb said softly. "And everything changed. Southern California might not have been the only place you'd applied to, but it was the only one you never learned about after Mom threw out the acceptance letter. She pushed me to go, and pushed me to go early in the hopes that my not being around you wouldn't trigger a memory."

"I'm sorry," Sansa said and put her head back on his shoulder.

"Don't apologize. You woke up and that's all that matters."

"So you left and what happened?"

"I lived my life, which wasn't much of one. I missed you every day and tried to tell myself that maybe I was sick and had to get over it. I dated, I slept around, and I even half convinced myself I could fall in love with a couple women."

"What happened to them?" she asked softly.

"I sabotaged them both. They wanted much more than I could give them. When push came to shove, it turned out I didn't love them at all and wasn't even close to it."

"I always thought that my aversion to dating was because of the accident and how it came to be with Joffrey," she said. "Maybe it was because subconsciously I was waiting for you."

He pressed a kiss to her temple again. "See? Meant to be."

She kissed his cheek and stood. "I need to stretch." And think. She needed a few to process all that Robb had told her.

She ambled over to a flatter rock and started doing some yoga poses to stretch out her calves and hamstrings. When she did Downward Dog, she heard Robb groan. She turned her head slightly and found he'd come closer.

"Are you trying to kill me, Sansa?" he asked and fondled her ass.

"Robb!" she scolded playfully and laughed. She righted herself wagged a finger at him. "Naughty boy."

He grinned wolfishly and looked completely unapologetic about that fact.

"I did promise to teach you some poses," she told him.

"Maybe when we get home. We should start heading back so we can sort out what's going on tonight."

"Yes, sir, Commander, sir!" Sansa saluted.

He laughed and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her passionately and ended the kiss with a soft bite and pull of her bottom lip. It drove Sansa wild. She responded by kissing him voraciously and he laughed huskily. "You liked me biting your lip," he said.

"Yes," she replied and nodded eagerly.

"Then I'll be sure to do that again in the future."

xxxxxxxx

Arya and Bran's cars when Sansa and Robb returned home. Sansa sighed. "Well, here we go," she said.

"We'll tell them that Jon was with us," Robb said before they climbed out of the car.

Sansa blinked. "What?"

"If they ask where we were. We'll tell them we went hiking but that Jon was with us. Okay?"

She nodded, hating all the subterfuge. Nothing like having to steal moments together and then lie about it to really kill the mood.

"Tonight, if Rickon ends up staying home, maybe we could go out?" she suggested. "I could say I'm going to Jon's and you could say you're going to Margaery's."

He nodded, but didn't say anything as he got out of the car. Sansa climbed out after him and they both went into the house.

The kitchen was a disaster and the TV was loud in the living room. Arya came bounding into the kitchen a second later. "Where were you guys?" she asked. "I tried calling you, Robb."

"Jon, Sansa, and I went for a hike," Robb said smoothly. "What's going on?"

"Can we talk in private? I need some advice on something," Arya said and darted a look at Sansa.

Sansa pursed her lips together and went into the living room without a word. It was no secret that she and Arya weren't very close, but it still stung to have Arya be so dismissive of her. Not that Arya listened to any advice Sansa gave her anyway. Perhaps Arya was just saving them both a lot of time and headaches (and arguing). Sansa went to the living room and found both Bran and Rickon watching some action movie.

"Hey guys," she greeted them.

They both lifted their hands in greeting, but didn't look at her.

"Okay," Sansa said slowly and headed upstairs to take a shower.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket just as she was taking it out and saw that it was a text coming in from Jon: Hey, how are you feeling?

Sansa sat down on her bed and replied with: I'm okay. Slept like the dead. How are you?

Jon: I'm okay. Are you busy? Do you want to do something?

Sansa bit her lip. Another person to lie to. I can't tonight, I'm sorry.

Jon: Sansa, are you okay? You've been acting kind of weird lately. Did I do something to upset you?

Oh fuck. No, she wrote back, not at all! I'm sorry. I don't mean to be weird.

Jon: You'd tell me if you were upset, right?

She frowned and wrote, Of course!

Jon: Okay.

Sansa put her phone down and just sat there. Jon had been her best friend before her boyfriend. She liked him a lot…she just didn't want him the same way she wanted Robb and it wasn't fair to him. Robb was right. She had a choice to make. She couldn't keep stringing Jon along like this. The last time she'd used a beard she'd ended up wrapped around a tree. This time, Robb was using one too and he ended up with a train wreck like Margaery.

Was it that when they were together people got hurt or when they were apart – even when being apart wasn't real and just meant to throw off suspicion?

Was she being stupid wanting this time with Robb? This time that she apparently wasn't going to get anyway. Was it something she just needed to get out of her system – would it eventually pass? Was it just lust?

She could have a normal relationship with Jon. There wouldn't be any sneaking around, no lying, no coming up with stories, no acting and pretending. With Robb, it was all of that all of the time.

But if they moved away….

She allowed herself a minute to imagine it. A little cottage in, say, some English countryside. She could work as an elementary school teacher, Robb would be an attorney. No one there would have to know they were siblings. They could come and go as they pleased. Sleep in the same bed. Share meals together, hold hands in public. They could make love whenever they wanted wherever they wanted in their little cottage. She could kiss him when she wanted to. He could hold her while they watched a movie.

She then saw her parents in her mind's eyes. Saw how they probably wouldn't accept it. Accept them. They might even disown them. What if they sought legal action to stop it? What if their mother or father (or both) had Robb arrested? Could they do that? Would they do that?

Okay, stop, she thought. You're spiraling.

Robb came in her room then and shut the door behind him. "Okay, Arya is going out for the night for sure. Bran is too, and Rickon is talking to a friend on the phone and it sounds like he might go over there."

He looked so excited that Sansa couldn't take it away from him with her maudlin thoughts. Instead, she smiled up at him. "Great."