A/N: I did read every one of your comments :') multiple times. Thanks for the encouragement!

So... this story could go in so many different directions, and at the moment, I'm not sure which would be best. I came to a compromise for myself at the moment and have two more chapters to give y'all. You can either a) read all three chapters as a complete short story, b) consider this the prologue of a longer story that I will add to later, or c) just stick with the first chapter as a complete one-shot.

Either way, comments are very appreciated still, especially if there is a direction you'd like a longer fic to go in. Honestly the ASOIAF world is just so big and has so many different paths to go in that it's a bit overwhelming. I do want to challenge myself a write a full on novel for this but it will take lots of planning lol.

Anyways... thanks for reading! 3


Lady Catelyn was still asleep by the time Sansa awoke the late next morning. She vaguely remembered, in the same way one recalls a dream, that birthing Rickon had been difficult on her mother. It had taken several moons for her to fully recover and resume her duties as the Lady of Winterfell.

What a terrible daughter she was, to find relief in such a situation now.

Of course she loved her parents. It seemed as if all the happiness in her short life had vanished the day her father was executed. Sansa would forever hold guilt for that, for being the one to alert the Lannisters to his plot for their escape.

Her mother, though…

Sansa had no misconceptions about her mother's fierce love for her children. But a dark and bitter part of her that had festered during her confinements wondered if that was why her kingly brother and lady mother had never come for her.

This brief reprieve due to her mother's need for recovery also allowed Sansa time to adapt to her new surroundings as well. To remember how things had been in the times before.

Arya had already left the room by the break of dawn, and Jon had looked as if he could use the sleep. Sansa slowly got dressed, running her fingers over the scars that now adorned her younger body—by the Gods, if Rickon had just been birthed, then she was now only nine years old.

The three of them had stayed up into the witching hours of the night, discussing what they had been up to before. They went in a circle, each divulging one secret at a time. There were many interruptions on all of their part, with an excess of swears and tears from all of them.

It was a way for them to truly explore if what had happened to them was true and real, even if most of the evidence of their memories were gone.

"I went beyond the wall," Jon said. "I was ordered to desert the Watch and join the Wildlings. They call themselves the Free Folk. When I rejoined the Watch… I betrayed them all."

"They say I killed King Joffrey," Sansa whispered. "That I did so because my husband Tyrion Lannister ordered me to. It was Littlefinger and the Queen of Thorns, truly, but the poison came from my hairnet."

"I was at the Twins when they killed Robb and Mother," Arya spoke in a monotone. "I saw them kill Grey Wind and sew his head to Robb's body. They threw Mother's body into the river in a mockery of House Tully's rites."

"I saw a dead man rise as if alive and attack the Lord Commander. I learned wights can be defeated by fire, Valyrian steel, and dragonglass." He shivered despite the roaring hearth next to them. "We must once more burn our dead… have it done before their eyes turn blue."

"I told Cersei Lannister when Father tried to have us leave the capitol," Sansa admits. "The Hound wanted me to escape with him during the Battle of Blackwater Bay, and I stayed. Littlefinger finally spirited me away, and I became trapped to his whims. I saw him push Aunt Lysa out of the Moon door, and I said nothing."

"I was Tywin Lannister's cupbearer at Harrenhall. I had three kills gifted to me by a Faceless Man and I used them to help us escape. Valar morghulis," Arya intones.

"I loved a Wildling," Jon said. "Ygritte. Her hair… it was fiery like her. She died trying to kill me."

"Littlefinger sold me to the Boltons. I married the bastard, Ramsay. He…" Sansa trailed off, and her siblings waited patient minutes for her to speak again. "What he did to hurt me was nothing compared to what he did to Theon. Theon helped me escape."

"I trained in the House of Black and White. With the Faceless Men," Arya clarifies when her siblings look at her in confusion. "But I never lost my Needle," she smiles proudly at Jon, like she had as a child.

"Your needle?" Sansa had been confused by that.

Jon was actually sheepish for once. "I gifted Arya a sword before we left Winterfell."

Sansa smiled as well, quiet laughter even escaping her. She couldn't remember the last time she truly laughed. Years ago, she would've scoffed and told Arya off for her behavior or run and tattled to their mother, but now it was a comfort.

They'd all eventually piled into Jon's bed, Arya sandwiched between Jon and Sansa's slightly larger forms. Despite her cool demeanor towards them initially, the strength of Arya's tiny fingers wrapped around their wrists told a different story once she'd fallen asleep.

"Jon?" Sansa had murmured as she fought the way her eyelids desperately wanted to shut.

"Yeah, Sansa?" His voice was rough with sleep despite the lack of brogue due to his newfound youth.

"I'm so sorry, for everything I said and did to you. I let my head be filled with so much nonsense by Septa Mordane and Mother—knighthood does not make a good man just as bastardry does not make an ignoble one."

It was silent for a moment, and her heart sunk into her stomach as she assumed the lack of response meant Jon held ill will for her. This was quickly disproved though as she felt his hand rest on top of her head and comfortingly stroke her hair.

"I never held it against you, Sansi," he replied using the childhood nickname he and Robb had called her when they first began toddling around the keep. "You've always been my sister."

The words still echo in her mind that morning as she leaves Jon's room and races back to the one she shared with Arya, hurriedly dressing herself before again dashing off to Father's solar.

She stops dead in her tracks when she opens the door and sees Robb.

Robb, who had been her favorite brother since they were young, when he would play knights and princesses with him. Robb, who had given her flowers and snuck her lemon cakes to make her smile.

Robb, who had never come for her in King's Landing.

Robb, who had died by the time he reached twenty years of age.

Sansa's spine straightens as she retreats beneath the courtly veneer she'd taken so long to master.

Father notices her entrance first and smiles at her from his seat at the small, circular table that the servants had brought in. "Good morning, Sansa. You're just in time to break your fast."

Sansa's smile is real but tinged with sadness. "Good morning, Father," she says before calmly walking in. Arya and Jon are already seated at the table, and she can see her sister's short legs swinging back and forth now that she cannot touch the ground from her seat in the wooden chair. Someone is missing, though. "Where is Bran?"

Father frowns, and Sansa's stomach drops with concern. "Your brother has come down with a chill," he says somberly. "Maester Luwin suspects it is from him falling into that snow drift while he was climbing the other day." He sees his daughter's expression fall and smiles kindly to reassure her. "Bran will be fine soon, Sansa. He just needs some rest."

"As you say, Father." Sansa stands on the tips of her toes and Ned Stark leans down indulgently so his eldest daughter can press a quick kiss to his cheek.

Arya quirks a brow at her from across the table as Sansa takes her seat. Although it is unladylike and her younger self would be told off by the septa if she did it in public, Sansa shrugs back.

Her eyes flit to Robb and find him watching her in curiosity and confusion. The old Sansa would've ducked her head and hidden behind her hair. This Sansa meets his stare with one of her own, as unflinching as ice.

Robb breaks first and looks away, towards Jon, who was always a few steps behind him at this time in their lives.

Jon is too busy watching every move their Father makes as if a spectre haunts his every step.

The meal is quiet and uncertain as the three younger Starks attempt to fit themselves back into a puzzle that their worn edges no longer align with, while the lord and heir struggle to understand how the trio seemingly changed overnight.

"Oh! It's been so long, I forgot how red your hair was, sister!"

Their utensils all fall to the table with a clatter at the sound of Bran's voice.

Sansa can't move as Bran races happily to the table, embracing her first. He'd been the baby of the family until Rickon came along, and Sansa had showered him with attention and affection in their mother's place.

This isn't the Bran she remembers leaving in Winterfell—not the lifeless boy confined to his bed or the happy boy climbing walls only days before his fall. This Bran seems far younger, but the words that spill past his lips prove different.

"I'm glad you all made it back as well! I missed all of you every day after you left me and Rickon at Winterfell."