Sansa looked up as the front door opened and her mother came in, carrying a few bags of groceries. Sansa got up to help her. "Any more in the car?"

Catelyn smiled. "Yes. And what perfect timing that both my children are here to help!"

"I'm home alone," Sansa said, brows furrowed.

"Your brother just got home. He's grabbing some bags to help."

"Which brother? I have three."

"Robb."

"Ah, okay then." Sansa went to the door where all their shoes were in a pile next to it and was about to slip on her flip-flops when Catelyn stopped her. "Honey, I need to speak with you about something," she said.

Sansa affected a nonchalant attitude – at least she hoped she was. Inside she was a bit tweaked out. Was her mother onto her and Robb? Was she going to ask her something Robb-related? Memory-related?

"What is it?" Sansa asked and went to the counter and busied herself in helping her mother unload the bags.

"I ran into Jon at the supermarket."

Fuck, Sansa thought. "Oh?"

"Yes, and I asked him why we haven't seen him around much and he said because you two broke up."

Sansa shoved some canned goods in the cabinet and turned around. Catelyn was watching her expectantly. "Yes," Sansa said. "We broke up."

"May I ask why?"

Robb came in the door then and stopped when he saw Sansa and Catelyn looking at each other. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked.

"Sort of," Catelyn said. "Are there any more bags, honey?"

Robb placed the bags in his hand on the counter. "Nope. That's it. Is, uh, everything okay?"

"Everything's fine," Catelyn said. "But do you mind giving me and your sister a few minutes alone?"

Robb nodded and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Of course."

He strode away without looking back and Sansa had to stop herself from watching him go. It was pathetic, really, how addicted she was to him.

"I wasn't…feeling it," Sansa said. "I liked Jon better as a friend than as a boyfriend."

"You looked so happy at the company picnic," Catelyn said.

Sansa shrugged. "I guess…I just liked being Jon's friend better. There wasn't any…chemistry."

"Sometimes chemistry is overrated."

Sansa effected a laugh. "Mom, are you telling me that I shouldn't want to be with someone that makes my heart race?" And oh boy, does Robb make my heart race, she thought.

"No, that's not what I'm saying…well, I guess in a way, but no. You should be with someone that makes you feel excited and makes you get butterflies in your belly."

Robb does both, Sansa thought.

Catelyn sighed. "I suppose I just got excited that you were dating someone. Previous to Jon, you hadn't shown any interest in it since after your accident."

Sansa shrugged. "I'm not averse to the idea. I just hadn't meant someone that got my motor revved."

"Why did you keep it from us?" Catelyn asked. "I mean the fact that you two broke up."

"Because I know how much you like Jon. At first I just thought I wanted a break to figure stuff out and didn't really want to get into it with anyone because I knew how much you all liked him. But then Jon got tired of waiting for to figure stuff out and was actually the one to officially end it."

"Do you think you'll be able to be friends again?"

Doubtful, Sansa thought sadly. I will probably never see him again. "I'm sure in time," she said. "I think he just needs a little more time than I do to process."

Catelyn sighed and pulled a carton of eggs out of one the reusable bags. "Well, I'm very sorry to hear about this, Sansa. And I wish you would have said something. If you didn't want to talk about, we didn't have to talk about it. It's just nice to be kept abreast of what's going on. I felt like a bit of a fool when Jon told me you'd broken up."

"Sorry."

"Meanwhile, your father tells me that Margaery has completely done a one-eighty at work. He says she's become quite reserved these days. Do you know if this has anything to do with your brother?"

"It totally does," Sansa said with a roll of her eyes. "She's completely obsessed with getting him back. It's kind of gross."

"Gross? How so?"

"Well, because she's trying to completely change herself for him. You should never do that for a guy. And how she is trying to change herself is very un-Margaerey like. It won't last."

Catelyn smiled and nodded. "I see. Very wise of you, by the way. You are right. One should not change themselves so drastically to be with someone. Compromises are expected, but not to the point that you lose who you are."

"Exactly. They were all wrong for each other anyway. Margaery is a bit too wild for Robb. Plus, she was way inappropriate when we went on that double date. She groped him in public and it was just embarrassing."

Catelyn cocked her head to the side. "I wonder when we'll meet the new girl."

How about never, Mom? Does never work for you? Instead of saying this, however, Sansa just shrugged. "Who knows? It's still new and all anyway. Maybe he doesn't want to bring her around the madness just yet."

Her mother laughed. "What are you trying to say, Sansa?"

"The Stark family is nuts?"

"I suppose we are, but a good kind of nuts, right?"

Sansa smiled as she popped open a carton of strawberries and popped one in her mouth before closing it and putting it in the fridge. "Of course."

"So, you and Robb seem to be getting along well…"

Sansa looked at her in confusion. "Are we not supposed to be getting along?" Play it cool, Sansa, play it cool…

"No, it's just that when he returned home it seemed a bit awkward between the two of you, but that you were trying to get to know each other."

"Well, yeah, that's exactly it. I didn't really remember him all that much so it was like getting to know a stranger. A stranger that is actually your brother."

"And now?" Catelyn asked curiously.

"I think I accept him as my brother," Sansa said with a laugh.

"Have you remembered anything about him…?"

"Not really," Sansa said with a shrug. "At the park I remembered us playing on the swings and in the sandbox, but nothing else."

Catelyn frowned. "You didn't tell me about that."

"I didn't?"

"No. Does Robb know?"

"Yeah, I think I told him…it was just a flash of it, like a movie in my head. I wasn't feeling all that great that day anyway so…yeah." Sansa gathered the bags and placed them atop the fridge. "I'm gonna go sit outside and read for a while."

Catelyn smiled. "It was nice to have this talk, honey."

Sansa smiled and hurried off to her room. She sat on her bed and went over the conversation with her mother a few times in her head, looking for any place she might have said something wrong, might have given her mother something to be suspicious about. She came up with nothing, but would still run it by Robb later and see if he thought there was any cause for concern. Simple, innocuous conversations about her love life and Robb were now fraught with possible land mines and cause for second-guessing.

Her mind raced ahead to when she and Robb were together and away from the family and she felt equal parts fear and relief. She feared the fallout, she really did. And sometimes she felt torn in half with wanting to stay and wanting to go. Yet in moments like she just had with her mother, she knew they had no other recourse but to go. She longed to be free to be with Robb without having to lie and cover their tracks, and be several steps ahead all the time. It was exhausting and hard. And like now, when all she wanted to do was find where Robb was and just be with him, she couldn't.

And yet she feared what would happen to their status within the family. Would they be disowned? If so, would there be a chance for them to ever return? Could she live with it if their family turned their backs on them? What would happen if something went wrong and they needed help? Or what if something happened to their parents or their siblings – would she and Robb be told?

So many fears and doubts ran through Sansa's mind and she wished not for the first time that she had someone to talk to about it. Robb was ever the optimist and it annoyed her sometimes that he didn't seem to have the same concerns and worries. Or if he did, he wasn't sharing them with her.

With a sigh, Sansa grabbed her book of her nightstand and headed outside in the hopes that Robb would be out there, or at least find his way to her.

xxxxxxxx

"Sansa, the Greyjoy's came over and Mom and Dad both had wine. You know they are out for the count," Robb said later that night when Sansa had crept down to the basement to see him. She was sitting on his bed, her eyes peeled to the door and Robb was trying to coax her into relaxing.

It wasn't working.

"It's just that with her asking me questions earlier…" she murmured.

Robb wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her into him. She leaned into him and closed her eyes when he kissed her forehead. "It's okay, sweetheart," he murmured back. "She probably was fishing a little bit, but you gave nothing away."

Sansa closed her eyes and placed her hand over his heart. "Robb, do you ever think about what it will be like if we go and Mom and Dad disown us?"

She felt him stiffen a bit and then he sighed and said, "Yes."

"Does it scare you?"

"I have more or less come to the conclusion that it's a distinct and very real possibility. I've prepared for it."

She lifted her head and looked at him, her hand dropping to her lap. "Is that something you can really prepare for?"

He looked grim. "No." He then reached up and tucked some hair behind her ear. "But the alternative…what else can we do, Sansa? Being without each other is not an option. Doing more of this – this sneaking around and listening for footsteps and going over conversations again and again…Is that what you want?"

"No," she mumbled. "It's just that I can't help but have my fears and doubts. They are our family and this is such a big step. What if we run out of money? What if we end up homeless?"

"That will not happen, Sansa."

"How do you know that?"

"I won't let that happen to us."

"Robb, stop. You can't dig your head in the sand."

"I'm not," he said a bit tersely. "I think about these things, too. I do. I just don't want to voice them because I know that you're already thinking them. What is the point in both of us stressing about them? Nothing will get accomplished. I want solutions and answers, not problems."

"So you're saying I'm the one bringing the problems and your job is to come up with the solutions to them?" She shook her head and got up off the bed. "I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"I've had time – a whole other round of this – to get accustomed to the idea. I've also had the abject fear of never having you back to contend with. I've been away from home—"

"But you had Mom and Dad still. You knew if you needed them they'd be right there to help you. This time they might not be."

"Worst case scenario, no, they might not be. Sansa, we will figure things out as we go. We're both intelligent people; we will figure it out. Sometimes people leave home and they're disowned for a myriad of reasons. They don't all end up on the streets."

She sighed. "Okay, you may have a point."

He laughed softly. "Well, gee, thanks."

"But I still don't like that I'm the one that thinks up all the problems. Remember I did print out all that information to begin with."

He nodded. "Yes, I know. I didn't mean to make it sound as it did. I just know you have a tendency to get stuck in the loop of worrying at times."

"Well, you know it would be nice if you worried with me and together we found a way to sort it out. You see what I did there? I made it all very couple-y to have us work through problems together. Because that's what couples do."

Robb was grinning as he got up and came over to her. He leaned in and kissed her softly. "Yes, dear. We'll work on our worries together."

"And the 'yes dear' has already begun," she said with a little laugh and pushed at him.

"Hey, what are you guys doing in here?"

Sansa and Robb both turned to find Arya pushing Robb's door open. She stood in the doorway looking half asleep. Sansa's heart was pounding so hard in her chest she almost couldn't breathe. She felt as though everything was happening in slow motion as she checked the distance between her and Robb. No, they weren't standing too close. Granted, now Robb was moving away from her and going for the remote for his TV on the nightstand.

"Just having a chat," Robb said nonchalantly while Sansa wondered if it was possible to have a heart attack from this. "What's up?"

Arya shrugged. "I came downstairs to see if one of my shirts was down here and heard voices. Everything okay?" She looked right at Sansa then.

Sansa nodded and forced herself to smile. "I was just telling Robb about Jon."

"What about him?" Arya asked.

"Oh, we broke up."

Arya frowned. "That totally sucks. I really liked Jon."

"Yeah, everyone did," Sansa muttered.

"Who dumped who?"

"Well, I wanted a break, he got tired of waiting and then he dumped me."

"Why did you need a break?" Arya asked.

"I just wasn't, ya know, feeling it."

Arya shrugged. "I get that. I mean, maybe it was just hard to date your friend?"

"Exactly," Sansa said. This was the most her and Arya had ever talked civilly to one another. It was weird. "Anyway, I'm going to head up to bed. Night, Robb. Night, Arya."

"Night, Sansa," Robb said.

Sansa waited for Arya to follow her up, but then she didn't and so Sansa went up to her bedroom and shut the door. She sat on her bed and buried her face in her hands. Holy fucking shit. That had been close. Too close.

And now Sansa was back on Team Let's Leave and Make it Soon.