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orangeflavoryawp · 1 year

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Jonsa - “Cat’s Cradle”, Part 5

Yup, finally did it. Enjoy, lovelies.

“Cat’s Cradle”

Chapter Five: One String at a Time

History is, after all, just a repetition of turns in a game for keeps.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 fin

* * *

"To set in motion what needed setting."

Sansa mulls over Bran's words as she sits in her solar, a lone nail tapping along the desk in front of her. The shock of his return is still vibrant beneath her skin, the joy still lingering dully in the pit of her stomach, and yet, there's an unexplainable dread winding round and round the quiet of her mind.

They had all decided to keep up the pretense of Bran being Gilly's wounded and bedridden brother, sequestered in their guest quarters, with only Maester Wolkan being alerted to the situation, as Sansa had demanded Bran be seen by a healer. Jon and Arya could not calm her until Bran had relented to Wolkan's attentions. Later that same night, Bran had gone into more particulars about his absence these last few years, and it only served to unsettle Sansa further.

These cryptic lines of his, the way he speaks, the things he knows, it's not... it's not normal. This Three-Eyed Raven, and his tales of the Children of the Forest, everything is just... just too much.

She only wants her brother back. Her little brother.

Her chest tightens at her innocent need. She fears he will never fully return to them. Not as he once was.

(But have any of them returned as they once were?)

Sansa shakes her head, eyes shifting closed on an exhausted sigh.

What had he meant? What needed to be set in motion? Ever since word of Bran's 'assassination' had made it to them with Arya's return, Baelish had become more impatient, more reckless. As though he saw an end to his manipulations in the near future, all his plans coming to fruition, just within reach. Is this what Bran meant? That Baelish would hasten his plans, that he would slip, that he would be too blind to their machinations in his own desperation?

But then why keep her and Jon in the dark about his survival? Why have them experience such pain, when he must know how news of his death would devastate them?

It comes unbidden to her then, the memory of her and Jon in the godswood. A mess of strings in her hands, the grief lodged in her throat, and his warm hands along her face, his comforting words breathed into her skin, and his kiss – their kiss –

Sansa's hand ceases its tapping, a sharp breath sucked between her teeth. She lurches forward in her seat.

No.

No, Bran could not know. And even if he did, he would have no reason to... no disregard of the gods to...

It plays through her mind in instant, bewildering flashes – Jon's mouth pressed firmly to hers in the godswood, her confession in his chambers, his refusal of the lords' marriage proposals, the moment in her solar before Bran's arrival, when he was nearly hers and she was nearly his and nothing had ever felt more intoxicating in her life.

No.

This cannot be what Bran had meant to set in motion.

Even if she has made her peace with loving her own brother, Bran would have no reason to sanction such a union, or to encourage such feelings in either of them. It's senseless. Against the order of the world. Gods, she's said as much to herself before!

And yet...

She cannot find a reason for his deception. Not to them. Not to those who love him most.

What game is Bran playing?

A knock sounds at the door, startling Sansa from her thoughts.

"Come in," she calls, straightening in her seat.

Arya opens the door.

Sansa nods stiffly at her, her frustration with her sister still ripe and untouched.

Arya closes the door behind her, shoulders pulled back. She makes her way to stand before Sansa's desk, her hands wound behind her back. It's an image Sansa has grown familiar with these last several weeks, and yet, somehow detests. It's not that it's her sister, not that she seems strong and confident and fierce. Rather, it's that... that she seems so lonely.

Sansa realizes suddenly – acutely – that she misses the Arya that needed her.

Or perhaps more accurately, she misses being the Sansa that her sister needed.

"I saw Lord Royce's entourage earlier," Arya greets.

"Yes," Sansa says, "He arrived this morning."

Arya pulls a deep breath in. "So, tomorrow it is, then?"

Sansa looks carefully at her. "Yes. Tomorrow."

Arya cocks her head. "Are you nervous?"

"Should I be?"

Arya glances to her desk, a frown marring her face. "Baelish may have contingency plans we don't know about," she says uneasily.

"None that you may know about," she corrects.

Arya glances up at her.

Sansa leans back in her chair, hands coming together over her lap. "Believe me, I would not set this in motion if I wasn't absolutely sure of his escape routes. He has none. Not for this," she promises.

Arya gives her a concerned look, her hands tightening behind her back.

Sansa offers a reassuring smile. "Only when he trusts you fully will his fall be possible," she tells her, quoting Baelish's words from long ago. "This is what he believes. And for once, he is right."

"Baelish trusts you?" Arya asks warily, a single brow cocked. "Completely?"

"He trusts that I have no way of revealing his crimes without also implicating myself," she answers. "And he would be wrong."

Arya considers her a moment, nodding. Her gaze shifts over to the far wall, her throat flexing with her anxiety.

Sansa watches the expression curiously.

"Is Lord Royce prepared then?" Arya asks.

Sansa nods. "I've already spoken to him this morning. As well as Jeyne." Her voice softens at the end, the memory of her reunion with Jeyne still lingering in her mind. Their hesitant embrace, Sansa's sigh along Jeyne's hair, Jeyne's tightening arms around her waist, the way they each barely managed to hold back the tears, the way Jeyne's eyes shone determined and alive again, when Sansa cupped her cheeks in her hands and smiled at her.

Jeyne needs this as much as any of them do, she realizes. And she deserves it, probably more than any of them do.

If it means granting her friend peace – if it means granting her aunt, and her cousin, and her mother, and her father, and all of them peace, then there is nothing that can stop her now. Nothing that can save Petyr Baelish.

"When they've tried him for his crimes against our cousin, when Royce has stripped him of his status as Lord Protector, then I'll have Brienne bring you in as Gareth Stone, and we can level our own charges against him before the Northern court. Are you ready?"

Arya nods, remembering the plan they'd laid out the night before upon Bran's arrival. "Yes. I've already prepared a body," she tells her.

Another of Baelish's nameless spies. And perhaps Sansa should be worried at her sister's body count, but then, none of this would be possible otherwise. She swallows down her unease with a practiced sense of resignation.

"When you're finished interrogating me," Arya continues, "Brienne will take me out for the 'execution'. We'll make sure to burn the body we've prepared in place of Stone."

Sansa nods, her lips pursed tight. "Well, then. We're all set."

Arya chews on her lip. "Yes."

"I'll see you in the morning then," Sansa tells her, her dismissal clear.

Arya hesitates a moment, before she steps back, turning for the door.

Sansa's chest is still tight, her longing still acute.

Arya stops halfway to the door and Sansa's breath catches at the sight.

It's several moments, long and drawn-out, or perhaps only a second later, that Arya turns back to her, stalking up to the desk, her brows dipped into an anxious crease. "I'm..." She swallows it back, chest heaving with her sudden agitation. And then she bites down on her lip, a frustrated breath escaping her. "I'm sorry," she says.

Sansa blinks up at her.

Arya's shoulders slump with it, her whole form sagging beneath the weight of the admission. She looks desperately at Sansa. "I'm... I'm so sorry, Sansa. For keeping it from you. I didn't... I didn't want to. I didn't mean to, but then – but then what Bran said – and with Baelish – and all this trouble about who's claim is the right one, and not knowing where you or Jon stood, and... and..." She squeezes her eyes shut, breathes deep. "And not knowing what to do..." Her voice cracks at the end there.

Sansa's throat closes up, her little sister's desperation so keenly familiar, so painfully intimate. King's Landing is brilliant and golden and deadly in her mind once more, the memory hot at the base of her skull.

"I don't know what to do," she cries, terror-stricken, just a girl.

(I'm just a girl, she wants to wail.)

Sansa stares at her sister, chest throbbing, lungs aching. She stares at her.

(She almost reaches for her.)

Arya opens her eyes, meeting Sansa's gaze with a hung head. "I didn't know what to do," she says brokenly. "At first, I thought... I thought Bran did it because he didn't trust you." She stops, swallows, lets out a trembling sigh. "But now I know he did it precisely because he does trust you. Both of you."

Sansa looks off toward the far wall, licking her lips in her trepidation. She swallows it down quickly, hands clenching in her lap. "I still have questions," she tells her.

Arya takes an eager step toward her from the other side of the desk. "I'll answer them," she promises.

Sansa looks at her once more.

"I'll answer all your questions," Arya whispers, her eagerness waning slightly as she meets Sansa's gaze.

Sansa takes a moment, tries to quell the memory at the root, tries to hush the terror of remembrance that still visits her dreams sometimes.

Her father's head, tumbling down the muddy steps. Joffrey's sneering from his throne on high. A gauntleted slap across her face, cheekbone cracking beneath the force of it. Cersei's taunting whispers at her ear. News of Mother and Robb's gruesome deaths. An empty, golden room, but for her sometimes-husband, sometimes-captor. And the loneliness.

Gods, but the loneliness.

Sansa sucks back the unexpected sob along her tongue. She stands swiftly, hands stiff at her sides.

Arya opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes.

More than anything, she realizes, she wants to be Arya's Sansa again. She wants to be the Sansa she needs.

She only hesitates a moment, and then she gathers her skirts in her hands, striding gracefully over to the twin cushioned chairs settled before the hearth. "Come," she tells her.

Arya follows obediently, quiet and rigid.

Sansa allows herself a small, contented smile when she catches sight of the bundle of string along the side table. She settles into one of the chairs, taking the strings with one hand and motioning beside her with the other. "If you're so apologetic, then repay me with a game. I'm in need of a partner as of late."

Arya watches hesitantly for a moment. "I'm a bit rusty," she offers as a paltry excuse.

Sansa pats the seat across from her. "Then I shall have to help you, won't I?"

Arya stares at her a moment, lip caught between her teeth, before she cautiously rounds the chair and settles into it.

Sansa leans over her knees toward Arya, stretching out the familiar web of strings between her fingers. She gives her sister an expectant look.

Arya stays perfectly still a while, just watching her, and then her gaze shifts to the strings, a tremble lighting along her chin, a sheen of wetness over her eyes, before she's blinking it back, reaching for the strings herself.

Sansa walks Arya gently through her stumbling, and so, quietly and slowly, they begin again the game from their childhood.

Turn after turn, Sansa's understanding grows. She misses this, she finally registers. Misses her little sister. Misses the person she is when she's with her little sister. Misses her home and her childhood and those that left her. Misses everything. Misses all of it. Misses even herself.

But she's tired of missing that which will never return. And tired of fearing that which now remains.

She will never be the person she was years ago. Neither will Arya. For that matter, neither will Bran, or Jon, or Jeyne. Bits of them may remain, in glimpses. Familiar smiles and familiar pains and familiar dreams. But there are things in each of them to be learned anew.

She could never have loved Jon when they were children, in the way she does now. Perhaps, then, it's alright to love Arya a little differently as well. Perhaps, this is how one sets aside their longing, their missing of the past.

Sansa looks at Arya, catches the sight of her brow creased in concentration at their game. She allows herself a soft smirk. "You were always much better at this game than you gave yourself credit for."

Arya snorts across from her, eyes never leaving their game.

Sansa piques a brow her way. "I mean it. You had the hands for it, you know. I could see it in your sewing."

"My sewing was shit and you know it."

Sansa allows herself a chuckle. "Only because you never truly tried." She takes the set of strings cleanly from Arya's hands.

Arya stares at the strings, gauging her next move in silence a while. "It wasn't me," she says finally, so low Sansa almost misses it.

"No, I suppose not," Sansa muses. More silence pervades the room as they take their turns. She peers at her, watching the way Arya focuses so intently on their game, her fingers deft and sure. "But you've more a touch for it than you know. You just wield a different sort of needle now, I suppose."

Arya glances up at her, and then continues her turn quietly, mouth tipped into a frown.

Sansa sighs softly. "I guess I never really understood that – why you were the way you were. I still don't, truth be told. These... skills of yours, now. This... profession." Sansa swallows thickly. "I may never understand it, or your need for it, but if it makes you happy – "

"I'm not happy," Arya interrupts swiftly, voice resigned, like a noose she's spent too many years carrying round her neck.

Sansa looks up at her, hands stilled over the net of strings.

Arya's gaze is resolutely downcast, strings held taut between her trembling fingers. "I'm not happy, Sansa," she gets out in a quaking voice, swallowing tightly. She looks up. "But I'm home," she says roughly, blinking furiously against the wetness dotting her eyes.

Like a noose cut open at the knot, frayed ends splaying wide.

Sansa watches her, silent and still.

Arya clenches her jaw, looking at her hands. "What I've learned – what I've done..." She shakes her head, voice wavering. "I can't say it's brought me happiness, but it has brought me home." She flicks her cautious gaze back up to meet Sansa's. "And I think that's as good a first step towards happiness as any," she whispers shakily, keeping her eyes fixed to Sansa's.

Sansa licks her lips, blinking away the sudden moistness at the edges of her eyes. She clears her throat, resuming the game with a gentle touch. "A very good step, I'd say." She takes the web of strings from her sister's hands with surety.

Arya peers up at her with a guarded gaze, hands settling limp along her knees.

Sansa sighs, the game halted between them. "And I'm proud of you for taking it – that first step."

Arya's eyes wet instantly, her mouth tightening with her waning control, lips trembling.

Sansa leans toward her, never letting her look away. "No matter what, I'm proud of you," she says fiercely, chest constricting with the words.

Arya's face crumples suddenly, a sob hitched in her throat, before she's sucking it back with a heavy inhale, a hand going to her face. She blinks furiously up at the ceiling, sniffling back the tears, looking back down again after a single, steadying breath, the heel of her palm dug into one eye, the heavy, lingering wake of a too-long second spilled out between them, and then she's leaning forward swiftly, taking the strings from Sansa, distracting her with another turn, still sniffling back her unspent tears.

Sansa almost laughs. Instead, she tucks the sound quietly between her ribs, lets the warmth nestle there. She bites her lip to hide her smirk, following Arya's cue and taking her next turn in silence.

Arya tries to discreetly cover her sniffles, and Sansa lets her.

Another turn passes in silence, before Sansa cocks her head, her smirk settled more firmly along her face. "I'm still going to win this one, though," she says confidently.

Arya barks a laugh, tear-laced, leaning back in her seat as she wipes her nose on her sleeve. "You always do," she says.

Sansa beams.

She finds that maybe, more than the girl she used to be, more than the girl she thought she should be, more than everything, more than all of it – she misses the woman she wanted to become.

"Your turn," she tells Arya.

Perhaps that realization is as good a first step toward happiness as any.

* * *

Bran stays resolutely quiet. Jon urges him to join the court, to let them announce his survival. It would mean Bran taking his crown, of course, but Jon's already made peace with that. He'd intended the crown to be Sansa's though, once news of Bran's death seemed indisputable. Yet, oddly enough, Bran only continues to repeat his first assurances of abdicating, and his need for secrecy about his presence in Winterfell until Baelish is disposed of.

"I must go South," he tells Jon when he visits his younger brother the day after his arrival, while Arya visits with Sansa in her solar following the meeting with Yohn Royce. "Once the throne of Winterfell is secured, once Baelish is dead, once the Others are dealt with – I must go South. There is much to do."

Jon stares at his bunched hands, sitting along the edge of Bran's bed. He can't deny the part of himself that feels relief at Bran's decision. The chance to remain Lord of Winterfell, King in the North. All he's ever wanted, really.

It feels wrong though. Far more wrong than it did before.

He thinks about the bundled scroll lying atop the bedside table – Robb's will.

He hasn't the heart to read it yet, though Bran has already shared its contents. Maybe because reading the words in Robb's own hand makes everything more real, more permanent. Maybe because it finally validates his desires. Maybe because it means another thing stolen from Sansa.

Jon sighs heavily, glancing up at Bran.

His brother is looking at him evenly, head canted, hands held limply over the blanket covering him. "You have a choice," he tells him.

Jon furrows his brows at him.

"I've given you the tool you need to cement your rule in the North. Will you take it? Or will you heed Sansa's claim instead?"

Later that same day, after he's made his way down to the crypts, that conversation plays over and over in Jon's head. He stands before the stone statue of his father, eyes fixed to it, taking in a lungful of needed air. Down here, there is a clarity he cannot find elsewhere.

"It's your choice, what you do with it," Bran had said, when he placed the worn scroll of Robb's will into Jon's open palm. "Though I hope you wait until Howland Reed arrives. There are things you should know before you make your choice."

Jon wipes a hand down his face, sighing, before he turns from the stone visages of his dead family and makes his way back toward the entrance of the crypts.

First, they deal with Baelish. Then they settle the succession of the Northern crown. One step at a time. There are enough battles to choose from, after all.

And Jon only wants to protect.

"Your Grace," Jon hears upon his exit from the crypts. He turns toward the greeting with a sneer, finding Baelish waiting for him past the stone markers.

Littlefinger nods at his notice, coming up beside him. "I pray you are not too troubled, Your Grace. I know the crypts of Winterfell have long provided solace to the Starks," he says pointedly, a nod sent behind them as he follows Jon in his trek away from the crypts.

Any other time, Jon might have lashed out at the man's audacity to approach him, but there's an even calmness blanketing him instead. He wonders if it's the presence of Robb's will at his breast, tucked beneath his tunic, beneath the weight of the cloak Sansa had sown for him herself.

(He would laugh at the irony of it, if it weren't so cruel.)

Or perhaps it is the certainty he feels about their meeting with the lords the next morning that pacifies him. The day they enact their plan against Baelish, just past the dawn. He thinks it should have him restless, uneasy, anticipatory. Rather, the knowledge of Littlefinger's impending downfall (though hardly assured) keeps him tranquil, at ease.

No more whispers in Sansa's ears, no more subtle touches, no more lingering shadows.

Sansa will be free, and so will the North. Free of his treachery.

Jon can endure another tiresome conversation with Baelish one last time, he figures. It may be the last the man ever speaks to him, after all, before his throat is slit.

A final mercy, if you will. The thought almost makes Jon compassionate. But not quite.

Jon continues to stalk down the halls toward his quarters, Baelish in tow. "You didn't come find me to inquire about my troubles, I'm sure," he scoffs, glancing at Littlefinger over his shoulder.

The man offers a perfunctory smile, tight at the edges. "No, Your Grace, you are correct there."

Night falls heavy around them, the fire in the sconces along the walls flickering orange slants of firelight across their forms as they walk.

Baelish clears his throat. "I wish to speak to you of the Lady Sansa."

Jon stops abruptly. The weasel is wearing Jon's mercy down already. With a thin frown, Jon turns fully back to him, a challenging brow lifted when he tells him, "I believe I already informed you not to speak of my sister to me ever again."

Baelish nods with acknowledgement, and Jon doesn't miss the way he swallows uneasily, a hand going to tug at his collar briefly, before smoothing his palms over his tunic, the memory of Jon's hand around his throat clearly fresh in his mind.

Jon can't help the dark smirk that tugs at his lips at the reminder.

"Again, you are correct."

Jon stares at him. "Then why are you still here?"

Baelish lifts his chin slightly. "It seems my concern for her well-being overrides even that for myself."

Jon wants to roll his eyes at the comment, his teeth grinding in his skull. But he won't give Baelish any ground the night before his trial. "Speak," he nearly barks. "And quickly. Before I change my mind." He flexes his hand at his side, a warning.

Baelish seems to notice, the slight curl of his lip signaling his distaste just half a second before he hides it behind a deferential smile. But Jon has grown to recognize the man's tells.

"I was surprised at the sudden arrival of Lord Royce," he begins.

Jon's shoulders tense at the words, but he says nothing.

"I had known of Lord Arryn's feebleness, of course, but I hardly expected him to decline so quickly. The news Lord Royce brought with him was disheartening to hear."

Jon eyes him cautiously, licking his lips. "Yes, we were all sorry to hear of the boy's sickness."

"Hardly warrants a journey to Winterfell, though. A raven would have sufficed, don't you think?"

Jon gives him a deadpan look. "What I think has never been of interest to you before, Lord Baelish."

Littlefinger smiles then. "No, I suppose not, if we're being honest."

Jon raises his brows at that. For a moment, a brief flicker of trepidation lights in his gut at Baelish's easy admission.

Baelish smacks his lips, straightening his shoulders as he takes a step toward the sconce along the stone wall beside them, eyes following the flame. "I do, however, suspect you have an inkling as to why Lord Royce made the journey himself. Not that I expect you to tell me." He raises a couple fingers to run along the ash-lined rim of the sconce's frame, frowning, and then flicking away the dust – disinterested.

"Then why bother asking me?" Jon gets out lowly, watching him with an eye of caution.

Baelish glances back to Jon, fingers rubbing together to clear the smudge of ash. "You were so adamantly against Lady's Sansa's marriage. I must wonder why."

Jon is momentarily thrown by the change of subject, but he doesn't let the surprise bleed into his voice. "I don't see how the two are connected."

That smile is back, sickly sweet. Baelish looks again to his dirtied fingers. "Lord Arryn is young. He has not an heir of his own, you see. The heir apparent – at the moment – is the Lord Harrold Hardyng." He lowers his hand finally, linking it behind his back with his other one, turning fully to Jon. "The man I represented when the court last spoke of Lady Sansa's marriage prospects. The man you refused without so much as an introduction."

"I've already given my reasons for delaying Sansa's marriage. I'll not repeat myself."

"Hmm, yes," he says. "'Delaying', as you say."

Jon takes a step toward him, face dark.

"But considering you usurped her rightful claim to the Northern crown, is it not only right that you secure her future for her? As Lady of the Eyrie?"

Jon barely restrains the snarl at the back of his teeth in response to his boldness. "You're very quick to discount your lord's possible recovery."

Baelish squares his jaw. "I'm not unfeeling, Your Grace. Simply practical."

Jon does scoff then, a rueful chuckle following the sound. "I beg to differ."

Baelish purses his lips. "Even still – "

"Even still, you want to secure your influence," Jon interrupts, a note of disgust lining his words. "If Sansa can't have my crown, then she will have another, is that it? A crown you can control."

"I only want what's best for her."

"Do not presume to think your greed has gone unnoticed, Lord Protector. You want what's best for yourself, and that's all. You care nothing for Sansa," he snarls, the heat rising in his chest, unbidden. He swallows thickly, trying to smother it.

Baelish's eyes flash at Jon's quiet outburst, a knowing smirk spreading slowly over his lips. He keeps his hands linked behind him, a tilt to his chin when he tells him, "I see the way you look at her."

Jon's chest constricts, that flicker of trepidation flaring brighter, harsher. His gut curls at the sensation. "And how is that?" he manages through grit teeth, eyes never leaving Baelish.

Littlefinger is quiet a moment, lips pursed in contemplation, an oily smirk tugging at the edge of his mouth. "Much the same way I look at her," he says lowly, a glint in his eye.

Jon's chest heaves at the words, his growl choked back when he takes a step forward, hands already fists at his side.

Baelish's smirk curls into another sickly sweet smile. "With devotion," he finishes reverently, before Jon can say anything in response.

Jon sucks a ragged breath though his clenched teeth, turning slightly to face down the hall, a hand wiped over his mouth in his ire. "My position is unmoved," he growls out, not even daring to meet Baelish's eyes, for fear of what he will do to the man. "There will be no more discussion of my sister's marriage. And considering recent events, I think it best you direct your devotion to your ailing master, instead, Lord Baelish." He sends a glare toward the man, eyes narrowed and unflinching. "You are the Lord Protector of the Vale, not my sister's keeper. Perhaps you should start acting like it."

"I daresay I'm not the only man playing your sister's keeper."

Jon stills, glare never leaving Baelish. "What?" he gets out tightly.

Littlefinger only smiles. "But then, I suppose you are simply just an... affectionate brother. Rather affectionate, wouldn't you say, Your Grace?"

Jon's nostrils flare at the insinuation, his skin thrumming with alarm. "I could have your head for such implications," he says on a deadly exhale.

Baelish gives him a baffled look. "I have implied nothing, Your Grace."

"You've really no care for your life, then, do you?"

"And you've no care for your allies, is that it? Because if the Lord Arryn should hear of such threats on my life..." He shakes his head with feigned concern, brows furrowed. "If your own lords heard such threats, just weeks before your Vale allies were needed most in this little war of yours?"

"This 'little war' is a concern for the entire realm, and I'll not have us splintered by your poisonous words," Jon seethes.

"Good," Baelish says. "Then we are agreed."

Jon is practically shaking with his fury. "Agreed?" he asks mockingly.

"That the Lady Sansa should wed Lord Hardyng, keep our ties strong, keep us from... splintering," he finishes meaningfully, with a cock of his head and an impish smile. He winds his hands together before him.

Jon lets out a bark of laughter, clipped and menacing. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the minute flinch of Baelish's hands at the sound, the subtle twitch along his jaw.

Good, he thinks. The man still fears him at least, even when he's grown adept at not showing it.

Jon thinks instantly of Sansa's caution.

"You're rather determined, aren't you?" he asks derisively, bottling his rage as best he can.

Baelish pulls his shoulders back. "I think my determination is one of my more positive traits, actually."

"Personally, I don't think you have any positive traits, Lord Baelish," Jon says evenly, no longer bothering to hide the look of distaste on his face.

Baelish clears his throat. "Be that as it may – "

"Be that as it may, I tire of your grating voice," Jon clips, taking one last step closer to the man, a deadly calm overtaking him, a dangerous stillness. "And I tire of your presence beside my sister. Rest assured, when I return from our venture North, yours will be the next head my blade sets to rolling."

Baelish swallows thickly, his smile wilting into a sneer, not even pretending any more. "Then I shall pray for your safe return, Your Grace," he quips.

Jon raises a hand, reveling in the wince Baelish tries to hold back in response, just before he lands his calloused palm along his shoulder, squeezing it tightly. He leans in. "Good man," Jon whispers, dark eyes shifting between his menacingly, a slow smirk forming along his lips, before he releases him, turning and stalking back down the hall toward his chambers.

He keeps his fury smothered in his chest, thrumming just beneath his skin. He never looks back.

When he finally makes it to the hallway holding his chambers, after long moments of trying to ease his breathing back to normal, to wash Baelish from his mind (for just one night, for just one night more he reminds himself), he finds Sansa standing before his door with her hand raised as though to knock.

She turns when she notices his presence, offering a smile.

Jon sighs heavily, resuming his infuriated stalk to his door and ignoring her look of concern when he grabs her by the elbow, though gently, and leads her into his rooms.

"Jon?" she asks, stumbling past him when he latches the door closed behind them.

He takes both hands to his face and scrubs, an exhausted sigh leaving him. "Baelish," he growls out, as though it is answer enough.

Sansa gives a soft 'oh' of understanding, before reaching for his wrists and dragging his hands from his face. She peers up at him. "What has he said?"

"Well," Jon begins, a tick at his jaw, "For one thing he threatened to tell the lords of an 'indecent' relationship between you and I."

Sansa frowns, her brows bunching together. "He said that?" she asks sharply.

"Not in so many words. But I can understand his meaning. He means to discredit me with the lords if I move against him."

"Against him on what?"

Jon's eyes flick between hers. "On your marriage to Harrold Hardyng,"

Sansa is quiet, her touch rescinding from around his wrists. He misses the warmth instantly.

"Sansa..."

She turns and paces across the floor of his solar, hands winding together, one thumb pressed into the opposite palm. "It is, of course, still on the table," she says carefully, glancing at him over her shoulder.

Jon only frowns at her.

She sighs, turning fully to face him once more. "Jon, you know it must be. At least... until we have dealt with Baelish, but even then, once you return from the war, there will still be talk of my marriage. It's not something we can ignore."

"I know!" he snaps, regretting the heat in his words instantly. He softens then, shoulders slumping. "I know," he says again, this time only in quiet resignation.

But he will not think of that now. He cannot. Not if he wants to last the night.

Day by day he must bear this burden. Day by day he must fight this need. He knows he hasn't the strength to think of the 'after'.

Releasing another sigh, Jon walks to his desk, dropping into the chair unceremoniously. "I just can't... I can't bear to hear him talking about you like you're a... a... "

"A pawn?" she supplies sadly.

He meets her eyes. "Aye."

She offers him a reassuring smile, small as it is. "That's exactly what I am. At least to him. And that's exactly how I need to remain in his eyes, for this to work."

Jon nods mutely, resting his elbows along his knees.

Sansa makes her way toward him, slipping into the space between him and the desk, leaning back along the edge of it. "Did he speak of anything else?"

"He believes the story we spun of your cousin's ailing health, though he suspects an ulterior motive to Royce's arrival."

"Of course he does."

"No mention of Jeyne though. We've hidden her well enough."

Sansa releases a breath of relief, a hand going to her chest. "Good. We need to keep her safe until morning."

"I have only my most trusted guards at her door," he tells her, reaching for her hand. He rubs a tender thumb along her knuckles in reassurance.

Sansa nods, looking down at where he holds her hand. She takes a steadying breath in.

Watching her, Jon feels his chest tighten, his eyes riveted to her face. He releases her hand swiftly, licking his lips as he looks away.

Sansa stays silent a moment longer, and then she's smiling again, looking up at him once more as she leans her hands back along the desk's edge. "Then we're almost there."

"Aye," he says on a disbelieving exhale.

"And once Baelish is disposed of, you can make Robb's will public, solidify your claim."

Jon snaps his gaze back to hers. "Sansa," he begins in resistance.

"Most of the lords supporting my claim are traditionalists," she reminds him. "The Stark name means everything to them, and with Robb's will, they'll finally see you as I do – as a Stark."

His mouth goes dry, his words sinking back into his gut as he stares at her.

"It's the way it's meant to be, Jon," she says softly, already knowing his mind, it seems. "It's okay."

"But it should be yours," he chokes out, straightening in his seat, remembering those late-night conversations when she'd finally admitted to her hurt and resentment of Robb when she was held hostage in King's Landing, when their brother hadn't thought her valuable enough for a trade. He remembers those nights, when she rubbed the tears from her cheeks and still – still, after everything– professed her love for Robb, sobbed over how much she missed him. He remembers being disappointed in his brother for the first time he could ever recall. Jon clears his throat, watching her with saddened eyes. "Robb only legitimized me to keep the North from falling into Lannister hands, or any hands that would use you. You've said it yourself." It doesn't make it hurt any less. And so, he shifts closer to her along the edge of his seat, stares imploringly up at her. "But I promise, Sansa, they cannot use you anymore. I promise. I would notlet them," he vows heatedly.

She sucks a shallow breath between her teeth at his fervency, a trembling smile touching her lips. "I know that," she says solemnly, one of her hands reaching for his jaw. She brushes a delicate thumb over his bearded cheek with a tenderness that nearly rends him. Her smile is something singular and sacred. It makes his heart clench uncontrollably. "But I also know you'll keep our people safe. They'll follow you anywhere, Jon." She takes a tremulous breath in, her hand hesitating at his cheek a moment, before she withdraws it. "As will I," she whispers breathlessly.

Jon opens his mouth, a ragged exhale leaving him. "Sansa," he sighs.

Her smile returns, that wisp-like, wonderous thing.

He stares at her, something filling him he hasn't a name for.

And then she clears her throat, rocks along the edge of the desk before him. "Bran will support it. I know he will. And you'll have Arya and I. We're a pack, now, remember? We protect each other." She levels him with a determined look, her ice-blue eyes glinting. "I promised, didn't I? That I would protect you."

He remembers, suddenly, that first night they retook Winterfell. He's there again, instantly, soot filling his lungs, grime beneath his fingernails, muscles raw and aching from the fight and then there –

There, beneath a once-white sheet –

Rickon's arrow-riddled body, taking up all the air in the room, all their words, all their fractured hopes.

They've won the battle, but the victory is a hollow one, when their brother lies dead before them.

In his memory, Sansa glances across the room to the body beneath the sheet. She swallows thickly, eyes glazed over. "Do you remember his face?" she asks, voice hollow and soft.

Jon looks up at her, elbows along his knees, hands clasped tightly between them. He doesn't answer. Doesn't even rightly know what she's looking for when she asks it.

Sansa tears her eyes away from their dead brother, meeting Jon's gaze. "I don't remember," she says in lieu of his non-answer.

The words linger in the air between them – an honest and unclean truth.

She turns away.

And the rub of it?

He doesn't remember either.

There's a vague image where the memory of Rickon should be. Auburn hair. Ruddy cheeks. Toothy smile. But it's just pieces. Nothing whole. Just parts of the boy they used to know. His face is still unclear, still out of reach.

Perhaps that's just what happens after so many years. Perhaps Rickon simply hadn't lived amongst them long enough to cement his permanence in their memory. Perhaps that's just what happens when you're apart from someone longer than they've even been alive.

Jon grits his teeth at the wrongness of it.

He wants to remember his little brother. He wants to remember.

Sansa sighs across from him, and the sound steals his attention so acutely, his breath nearly stills in his chest.

"I suppose that makes me a terrible sister," she says, voice cracking. She slumps back in her chair, both hands pressed to her face, a hitch in her breath signaling the first sob.

But it never comes.

It's a dreadful silence instead. One where Jon imagines he should go to her, stride over and kneel beside her, draw her hands from her face, tug her into his chest, hold her like the sister he'd missed, even when it hurt too much to think it. He imagines he should tell her she's not alone. That he doesn't remember either. That he misses Rickon even still.

That it's okay if she does as well.

He imagines he should brush her tears away with gentle thumbs, cradle her face in his calloused hands, stifle her sobs with soothing words. He imagines he should be her comfort, as she has so lately been his.

But he also imagines that he is not the brother that can give her this.

So instead, he simply watches her. He keeps his distance. He clears his throat. "I don't think you're a terrible sister," he finally manages, voice rough with disuse.

She peeks through her fingers at him, breath held tight in her chest.

He clears his throat again, licks his lips. "I think we just... missed our chance with him."

Sansa draws her hands down her face, watching him with red-rimmed eyes, the sheen of wetness over them evidence of her precarious control.

Jon sighs, hands releasing their white-knuckled grip as he leans back in his chair. He shoves the sudden guilt down, down, down. Tries to smother it with reason.

But there is no reason enough to excuse... this.

Their baby brother, dead beneath a sheet – the pristine white of it stained with blooms of red. The figure beneath it is far taller than Jon remembers, like that of a young man, and not the boy he knew instead. It only hurts worse at such a thought.

(It shouldn't have been Rickon.)

Sansa surges from her seat suddenly, sucking a tight breath between her teeth. She exhales roughly, hands wringing themselves as she starts to pace across the room, past Jon's seated figure, the body on the table at her back. She stills when she makes it to the far wall, turns back stiffly, eyes fixed to him. "I don't..." She takes a deep breath, one thumb pressing into the opposite palm. "I don't want us to be the last of the Starks," she says quietly, tears lining the edge of her words.

Jon blinks at her admission, at the seamless and instinctual way she says 'us'. He thinks back to just earlier that morning, atop the ramparts.

"I'm not a Stark."

"You are to me."

Sansa purses her mouth into a frown, taking a single, confident step toward him, her shoulders pulling back. "Like you said, we have to trust each other. We have to... we have to protect each other. And Bran and Arya, wherever they are. We'll find them. We'll protect them. And..." She bites her lip, taking another step toward him, her hands held tight before her, her back immeasurably straight, like the lady he's always known her to be, even all those years ago.

(Even just months ago, when she came through the gates of Castle Black snow-beaten and weary from the journey, a trail of Vale soldiers at her back.)

"And I'll protect you," she promises firmly, eyes never leaving his. "I swear on the memory of our father, I will protect you, Jon."

(It's strangely the safest he's felt in a long, long while.)

Looking at her now, many moons since that harrowing day, as she sits along the edge of his desk, a confident smile gracing her lips, her eyes only for him (for him, after everything) – he recognizes just how determinedly she has kept that promise.

It unlatches something within him – a door opened, perhaps never to be closed again.

His eyes wet instantly, a sound of longing caught in his throat, and he knows now – irrevocably and without warning – that he will never love anything so dearly as he loves her.

He reaches for her.

A short yelp of surprise breaks from her when he wraps a hand around her wrist and tugs her down to his lap, his other hand bracing along her thigh to hold her there, and she falls against his chest, knees hung over one side of his legs, tangled in her skirts, her free hand grasping for his shoulder to steady herself. She blinks wide eyes at him, stilling when her nose brushes his, his hot breath splashing across her cheeks.

Jon's chest rises and falls steadily against hers in the silence that blankets them, his mouth parted as his eyes rove her face, his grip over her wrist trembling.

"Jon," she manages breathlessly, hardly daring to say more.

His brows crease, his jaw tightening. It seems so suddenly and incredibly... easy, now – to give up the fight.

Everything comes spinning down into a clear, pinprick focus.

Just her.

Just Sansa.

The one who wants him unabashedly and unreservedly. For him. Just as he is. The one who protects him, even against terrors she has been fighting herself for years. The one who so easily names him a Stark, even when he wears her crown. The one who never stops fighting for him, sacrificing for him, embracing him.

The one, the one, the one.

The only.

Jon's chest aches, his heart thudding against his ribs.

He knows they don't have time – or the gods – on their side. They have only each other.

(But that is enough for him. He knows that now.

And he wants to believe that such a love could never be wrong.)

Jon releases her wrist, reaching for her cheek instead, a shaky thumb arching over her cheekbone as his eyes flick between hers. "Sansa," he exhales against her lips, like a surrender.

She swallows thickly, watching him, her chest heaving beneath anxious breaths.

His hand glides up her jaw, fingers slipping into the hair at the nape of her neck. She sucks a shallow breath between her lips in response, and he glances to her mouth, the hand still supporting her along her thigh gripping tighter, shifting her slightly atop his lap. She arches subtly into him, almost unconsciously.

Jon meets her gaze once more.

This time, it will not be grief. It will not be loneliness or confusion or fear.

This time, when he kisses her, it will be on purpose. It will be with meaning.

He leans in.

"What are you doing?" she asks tremulously, barely breathing, the warmth of her words felt at his lips when he pauses just a whisper away.

She's strung taut like a pulled bow, teetering on the edge, ready to crash against him with only the right words.

They come to him unbidden, a rueful smile in their wake.

"I'm redrawing the lines," he tells her, and she has only a moment to blink at him in surprise, before he takes her mouth with his own – firm and decided.

Sansa sags against him, her tear-laced sigh swallowed by his heady kiss, her arms slipping around his neck as he pulls her into him, slants his mouth over hers, his tongue pressing hot and fervent against her own. Her breath floods his mouth and his urgency only grows, his mouth moving desperately over hers, swallowing her delicious whimpers.

Jon presses harder, a groan of impatience escaping him when he drags her over his lap, needing her closer, needing her, needing her – the heavy tangle of guilt and self-control and exhaustion coming undone in his gut. It washes through him violently, like a release. Like a dam breaking beneath the surge – the floodgates blown wide.

He doesn't know how he ever stopped it before. Doesn't think he ever could again. Not when she's this warm, and this close, and this indisputably his.

Not when he knows how she tastes now. How she tastes when he isn't fighting it, when he isn't fighting her.

And yet –

Jon rears back from her, panting, chest heaving, his hands fumbling for her waist, and then he's hoisting her up with a grunt as he stands, dropping her back atop the desk and stumbling into her. Sansa manages to keep one arm around his neck through the jostle, her other hand hitching up her skirts a bit at one knee to accommodate him when he settles between her legs.

And then he stops, one hand braced against the desk beside her, the other settled at her waist, just at the curve of her hip, and he hangs his head at her shoulder, a delirious pant of disbelief escaping him, every muscle in his body coiled tight, and he squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head, begs her –

"Tell me again."

Sansa stills with her hand at the nape of his neck, fingers sunk into his curls. Her swollen mouth parts silently in confusion.

Jon opens his eyes, lets the dam break further. "Tell me I'm a good man," he asks of her, voice finally cracking.

Sansa doesn't even hesitate. She pulls her hand from his hair, cradles his face with both palms now, raising his head so that he meets her gaze – that ice-cut, ardent blue. "You are a good man, Jon," she tells him, eyes wet, yet unblinking. "The best I know," she gets out breathlessly, a shaky smile branching across her lips.

Jon's eyes slip shut once more, his chin trembling with his control, his throat tight. "I'm in love with you, Sansa," he tells her. He gasps a needed breath at the end of the words, his tongue heavy with them. He shakes his head, his voice breaking as it leaves him. "I'm in love with you."

"Jon," she urges, her thumbs brushing his cheeks.

He opens his eyes, meets her unhindered gaze. "But you deserve – "

"I deserve a love returned in kind," she says firmly, her hands still gentle over his cheeks. "So," she begins, eyes softening on his, "Will you love me? As I love you?"

Jon takes a sharp breath in, and then he grabs for her face, kisses her with a fierceness he has never known, his whole body aching for her, for her nearness, for her words. He presses closer, his chest braced against hers, so needful and so forceful and so finally unrestrained that he pushes her back along the tabletop, his weight settled atop her, panting against her mouth as his hips pin her to the desk, that heat between her legs, that heat, cradling his growing hardness, one of her heels steadying herself along the back of his thigh as she kisses him back with abandon, her hands dug into his curls. He breaks from her with a heated breath, a sob hooked along the end of it, one hand trailing along her jaw, the other gripping frantically at the skirts at her thigh, fingers flexing with barely held control. "I will love you more," he gasps out, a fervent promise, this madness like a fever running through him. He presses his forehead to hers. Breathes her in. Breathes her out. Feels her pulse beating steadily beneath his touch.

She smiles.

(He swears he can feel the warmth of it against his mouth.)

"Then I was right," she says. "I can never regret loving you." She kisses him then. Kisses him, and kisses him, and holds him. Her touch is a revelation. Like spring sprouting beneath every graze of her fingertips, like a garden blooming beneath his skin.

The frost of winter slips away.

And she is the one, the one, the one.

His only dream of spring.

* * *

She's imagined this for many moons now. She barely hears Davos' updates on the war preparations, or the interjections of the lords. She barely acknowledges the slow waning of morning light through the windows lining their Great Hall.

"If that is all, then, Your Grace," Baelish says in request for a dismissal of their gathering.

It isn't until these words are spoken that Sansa comes back to herself. She stands gracefully, swallowing her trepidations behind a cool mask. "That will not be all, in fact, Lord Baelish."

The lords grant her an audience of silence, waiting for her to continue. Littlefinger raises an attentive brow her way.

Sansa takes a deep breath, stems the urge to reach for Jon's hand beside her. She feels his presence though, knows he's there, watching her, backing her. She knows he's there.

It is all the strength she needs.

"As some of you may know," she begins, voice ringing out in the silent hall, "Lord Royce of the Vale has recently made the journey to Winterfell. He brings urgent news, and I've asked him to take the floor in addressing the court this morning." She nods at Yohn Royce where he sits along the edge of the gathered lords with his retinue, ignoring Baelish's curious eyes.

Clearing his throat, Royce stands with a raised chin, a disdainful look sent Baelish's way. Littlefinger glances toward Sansa, his jaw tight, eyes narrowed a moment, before looking back to Royce.

"Many thanks, my lady," Royce begins with a sonorous voice. "You are as gracious as ever, and my lord sends his regards, as well as his gratitude for granting us the stage to unmask this serpent."

Mumbles of confusion blanket the hall. Sansa keeps her gaze determinedly away from Baelish.

"In short, there has been an attempt on my lord's life," Royce continues to the crowd.

Cries of outrage sprout from the gathered lords, demands for further explanation.

Baelish steps further into the open space between the head table and the seated lords. "Lord Royce, you did not mention this when we spoke upon your arrival yesterday," he says urgently. "Is this true?" His eyes are searching upon the other man's, his posture still carefully unperturbed.

Royce gives him a look of derision. "Yes, Lord Baelish." He puffs his chest out, hands resting along his belt. "Though you knew that already, didn't you?" Murmurs sound through the hall at the accusation.

Baelish blinks at him, the minute quirk of his lip revealing his confusion, and his dread. His eyes flick toward Sansa briefly.

She does not reward him with a look in return.

Baelish clears his throat and steps further onto the floor, his attention returning to Royce. "I'm afraid I don't understand your meaning," he says tightly.

"You understand my meaning precisely, Lord Baelish, as you were the one to order his poisoning."

Shouts echo through the hall at Royce's words, Lord Cerwyn standing from his seat with a fist pounded into the tabletop. "This is an outrage."

Baelish narrows his eyes on Royce, a sharp breath leaving him. "That is a heavy allegation, my lord. Be careful who you accuse of what," he warns.

"Then I suppose it's good I carry the proof of it," Royce answers back with a lifted chin, his face reddening in his indignation.

Baelish swings wide eyes to Sansa then, and she is ready for it, even as the chaos in the hall grows. She keeps his gaze with a steady look of calm, knowing he cannot condemn her without also condemning himself. She watches the way he bites his tongue in frustration, the way his throat flexes with his control, his breathing growing unsteady. She offers him the slightest lift of her lips in acknowledgement, watching his eyes grow wider, before she turns to Royce. "You may continue, my lord."

Baelish's head snaps toward Royce, watching as he gives Sansa a grateful nod. Littlefinger licks his lips, his hands flexing as he steps closer to Royce, head bowed somewhat. "My lord, if we could talk elsewhere, perhaps I ca – "

"Perhaps you can explain your treachery, is that it?" He keeps his voice booming for all to hear.

Baelish's mouth snaps shut, his breaths coming heavy now. "This is... this is...preposterous."

"It's treason, is what it is!" Royce bellows.

Baelish's face screws up in poorly veiled anger. "Mind your tongue, Lord Royce," he bites out, eyes flickering to the crowd behind them.

"Lord Royce, you spoke of proof," Sansa interjects.

"My lady," Baelish pleads, his head whipping to her. When she only gives him a raised brow, Baelish swings his frantic eyes toward Jon. "Your Grace, please, this slander is unworthy of your court."

"I believe my sister has the floor, Lord Baelish," Jon says cooly from his seat beside Sansa, leaning back in his chair. "So, you'll submit to any of her questions, should you truly respect the 'worth' of this court," he quips nonchalantly.

Baelish's mouth dips open, only for him to clamp it shut. His wide eyes swing back to Royce.

The Vale lord gives a great huff at Littlefinger before standing aside to usher Jeyne Poole to stand beside him. She rises from her seat unsurely, the hood pulled back from her straw-like hair, fingers trembling as she settles the material around her neck. She never meets Baelish's eyes.

He's too stunned to react, regardless, but Sansa won't let herself feel any satisfaction at the reaction just yet. There's still work to be done, after all.

Over murmurs at the young girl's appearance, Sansa's voice rings out steadily over the hall. "Identify yourself for the lords, my dear."

She swallows tightly, nodding at Sansa. "My name is Jeyne Bolton, formerly Jeyne Poole. My father was Vayon Poole, Lord Eddard Stark's steward."

More murmurs spread through the crowd.

"And how did you come to be Jeyne Bolton?" Sansa asks gently, her throat flexing with her control. She keeps the tears at bay.

Jeyne raises a shaking arm, a slender, accusatory finger pointed at Baelish, eyes flashing in pain and hatred. "That man sold me to the Boltons after forcing me to impersonate Lady Arya."

"I did no such thing," he denies vehemently, stalking toward her.

"You will restrain yourself, Lord Baelish," Sansa snaps, and he halts instantly, glancing up at her. She motions toward the guards along the wall. "Or I will have you restrained."

In unison, the guards all brace their pikes to their chests, a clang of armor resounding in the hall.

Baelish takes a cautious step back in place, swallowing thickly as he watches.

A guffaw sounds behind them from the crowd, another's holler, another's rebuke.

Jon raises a hand to silence the crowd. He glances at Jeyne from his seat. "Is there anyone to corroborate your story, Miss Poole?"

Sansa smiles to herself at how Jon addresses her friend, remembering their agreed decision to annul her disgusting marriage to the Bolton bastard.

"Aye," she says, her hand settling back to her side. She nods toward Barbery Dustin, seated amongst the other lords. "Lady Dustin was present for the course of my imprisonment, before I fled Winterfell and shed the false name."

Dustin shifts in her seat uncomfortably, but she gives a silent nod of acknowledgement, her mouth a thin frown.

"Then Lord Baelish is the one to blame for your treatment after Ned Stark's execution?" Sansa asks her, bringing the attention of the lords back to the accusations at hand.

Baelish scoffs. "That is hardly – "

"Yes, my lady, he is," Jeyne answers swiftly, hands wringing themselves, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. "He brought me into dishonor, attempted to smear Lady Arya's name, and aided the Boltons when he sold me into cruelty beyond imagination."

Baelish wipes a hand along his sweat-slicked brow. "These are baseless lies, my lady," he pleads, looking at Sansa. "And regardless, I don't see how any of this slander has to do with Lord Arryn's poisoning." He gives a meaningful tilt of the head, a warning flashing through his eyes.

But Sansa is well past caring for any of his warnings.

"Because when I finally escaped to the Vale, when I finally thought I was safe," Jeyne continues, voice shaking but urgent over the mutterings of the seated crowd, "I found I'd only fallen back into his clutches. He threatened me, hurt me. He knew Lady Sansa had asked me to care for her cousin, Lord Arryn, so Littlefinger knew I had access to him, and that's when he gave me the poison. Threatened to kill me if I didn't follow his instructions, or worse – throw me back into the hell he'd first dragged me into." She was trembling at this point, her whole body shuddering in her fear, her eyes riveted to Baelish's, her lip held tight between her teeth.

Sansa wants to pull Jeyne into her embrace once more, to hold her dear friend like she used to, to wrap her arms around her and comfort her, the way Jeyne used to do for her.

Her hatred of Baelish only boils hotter beneath her skin.

"I never gave you any such orders, girl," Baelish snaps, "Nor any poison."

"Then explain why Maester Colemon says that's exactly what's been happening to our Lord?" Royce demands.

"What are you talking about?" Baelish snaps, flexing a hand nervously at his side.

Royce raises a sealed scroll in his hand for the gathered lords to see. "I have here the sworn statement of Maester Colemon attesting to Lord Arryn's poisoning, after inspecting his blood and his symptoms. Explain this, Lord Baelish. If you didn't give the poison to the girl, as she freely admits, then how do you explain Lord Arryn's condition?"

Littlefinger bites his tongue, a dangerous glare sent Sansa's way. He heaves a single, frustrated breath, his trembling hands smoothing over his tunic in a measure of control. "I cannot," he bites out, eyes slipping back toward Lord Royce.

Sansa lets the first breath of relief rattle from her lungs, cautious in its release.

"But this reeks of falsity, my lords," Baelish beseeches the crowd, turning to take them in. "I have been nothing but loyal to the Vale. And this girl admits to the poisoning herself," he says, a hand motioning back to Jeyne. "This is simply an attempt to escape punishment, by throwing the blame elsewhere. She has falsely named me as the arbiter of her fate since the honorable Ned Stark's execution, and so she must continue the farce! Where better to place the blame, than at my feet?"

"I admit to my part in the plan," Jeyne interrupts, grabbing Baelish's attention back, "But only because I could not do it any longer. I could not harm Lady Sansa's kin, not after everything her family has done for me, not after everything they have been through." She swings imploring eyes on Sansa. "Please, forgive me, my lady. I was at threat of death. But I just... I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't let that man hurt you or your family again."

"You lying whore," Baelish seethes between his clenched teeth, a step taken toward Jeyne, but Sansa's voice stops him once more.

"Lord Baelish, you will stay where you are," she snaps. "I will not repeat myself."

Baelish twists his neck in his ire, his jaw working. "My lady," he grinds out in acknowledgement.

Sansa turns her attention back to Jeyne. "We thank you for your service, Jeyne. I know it wasn't an easy decision, and I know what you must have risked to confess to Lord Royce. I promise, you have my protection, as the Lady of Winterfell. Is this agreeable to you, Lord Royce?"

Royce nods, stuffing the sealed scroll of Colemon's testimony back into his tunic. "It is, my lady, now that the true culprit is revealed."

"And have you any other instructions from my cousin?"

"I do," he answers with a growing smirk. He tugs his tunic into place with an air of satisfaction, turning to face the fuming Baelish once more. "By the decree of Lord Robert Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale, and Warden of the East, Petyr Baelish, you are hereby stripped of your status as Lord Protector of the Vale and named a traitor to House Arryn. Any lands and titles in your possession are revoked, and now property of House Arryn."

Baelish's face goes red with his rage. "You can't do that, you fat, incompetent oaf!"

Royce huffs his indignation at Baelish, a hand waved to his guards, and instantly, they rush toward the floor, two of them grabbing for Littlefinger's arms as he splutters his denials, tearing his arms away. "You can't – you can't do that, you – unhand me! Unhand me, you fools!" He struggles in their grasp, his arms yanked behind his back as he's forced to his knees. "My lady," he pleads, eyes wide as they fly toward Sansa. "My lady, please, you know I did not do this. You know. Please, my lady. Sansa! Sansa, please!"

She raises a hand to halt the commotion.

Everyone stills, the two guards on either side of Baelish still holding his arms behind him as they glance toward Lord Royce. He nods silently at them, lips pursed. They remain in their place as Sansa turns to address Royce.

"Before you haul him off to face these charges, Lord Royce," Sansa begins calmly, a sideways glance sent Baelish's way, "I have some things to say."

Baelish's shoulders slump in his relief, a heavy sigh escaping him as he shuts his eyes, the cautious hint of a grin etching at the corners of his lips.

It does not last long.

Sansa turns back to face Baelish. "I have some charges of my own," she finishes, watching in barely concealed delight as Baelish's eyes snap back open, his body going rigid.

"My... my lady?" he asks hoarsely, mouth parting anxiously.

"Of course, my lady," Royce answers, taking his seat, a hand along Jeyne's shoulders to usher her back to her chair as well. He doesn't bother to hide his satisfied smirk now.

Sansa settles the tips of her fingers along the table's edge before her, like an anchor. She taps one fine-boned finger along the wood tremulously.

Beside her, Jon shifts in his seat, a soft rustle of furs signaling the motion, and then he's trailing two fingers down the length of her cloak, slow and steady, obscured to the crowd before them by the table and the closeness of their chairs. It's a measure of comfort, of constancy.

It quiets the noise in her head, the pulse pounding in her ears. It sets her spine to rigidity, eases the heaviness of her tongue.

Just the lightest of his touches, even through their layers –

(She was undone by his touches just the night before, and yet now – now she is the steady, grey stone of Winterfell. Now, she is the surety of a coming winter. Now, she is the unbending North.)

Just a touch – but it's all she needs.

Sansa lets the hint of a smile tug at her lips.

"Sansa, what is this?" Baelish asks, all sense of false propriety leaving him.

She levels him with an even stare. "I have a witness claiming you tried to assassinate my siblings, and Ned Stark's trueborn heirs, Bran and Arya Stark."

Glover upends his chair with the vehemence with which he stands, face blotted red as he bellows his rage. "Treason!" He reaches for his sword instantly.

"What is this?" Manderly shouts from the next table, standing as well, roars of fury and indignation sounding in the hall around them.

"Quiet, all of you quiet!" Jon barks, standing as well, motioning for Glover to sheath his sword. "Lady Sansa is speaking,"

The crowd grumbles their acquiescence, Glover and Manderly slowly lowering back to their seats with murderous glares sent Baelish's way.

Littlefinger is sweating, for his part. It stirs a dark satisfaction in Sansa, watching him. He's still held on his knees, his eyes shifting frantically between her and Jon, Royce and his men against the wall, and the Northern lords howling for justice at his back.

"I don't – I don't understand," he mutters, looking up at her.

"I believe you know Gareth Stone," she continues, motioning for a guard to open the door at the far end of the hall where Brienne enters, dragging her sister behind her while she wears the false face of a half-beaten Gareth Stone. The lords along the benches and tables all stand to get a better look, talking amongst themselves, and Baelish shifts along his knees to watch their entrance, eyes narrowing in confusion, mouthing like a fish on a hook.

"He's the one you assigned to lead the party of assassins sent after my siblings," Sansa accuses smoothly.

Baelish shakes his head vehemently, his breaths coming heavy now. "I've no idea what this man has told you but he hasn't been in my employ in months. Whatever he's done was never at my behest," he defends, chest heaving.

"Lies!" the false Gareth cries as he and Brienne make their way to the open center of the hall before the head table, stopping beside Baelish. He wipes a hand over his bloody nose, tossing his head in Baelish's direction. "The lord here told me to make sure I was the one to gut the little runts personally. 'Make it bloody', he said. 'Make it hurt'."

"I never told you that!" Baelish denies on a shout, trying to rise, only to be shoved back to his knees, and he grunts beneath the force of it, hands going out to the floor to brace himself as the guards finally relinquish their hold of him. "This is ridiculous," he spits, looking up to Sansa from his hands and knees. "You know I never... you know I only ever meant to help you." He licks his lips nervously, fingers curling along the stone floor. "I sent men out to find Bran, not to kill him. You know that, my lady."

"I know you were concerned you would find him alive," she snaps, eyes heated suddenly, a hate so violent and gut-wrenching she cannot keep it contained any longer. "That's what I know," she seethes dangerously.

Baelish blinks at her, understanding slowly inking into formation behind his eyes.

She drags her hands from their precarious perch along the tabletop, clenching them into fists at her sides, her shoulders pulling back as she straightens. "We have his confession," she continues after a breath, a practiced iciness to her voice.

"He's... he's lying," Baelish begs, his head snapping toward Gareth suddenly, a venomous look overtaking his features. "Tell them, you idiot. Or I swear I'll – "

"And if the orders are in your own hand?" Brienne interrupts suddenly, the hand not holding Arya by the arm rising to show a crumpled missive between her fingers.

Baelish's face goes white, his shoulders slumping as he eyes the thin slip of parchment.

"We've read its contents already, Lord Baelish," Jon says from his seat with poorly veiled smugness. "It confirms your underling's confession."

Baelish balks at them, speechless, while the lords continue their shouts for justice behind him. Jon motions half-heartedly for them to quiet.

"I have your treason by your own hand, Lord Baelish," Sansa says tightly, the words suddenly catching in her throat. It all comes frothing to the surface. "And now every man here knows what you are." Her throat flexes with her control, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, salt-tinged and fierce. "You cannot whisper your filth to me anymore."

(Like the first breath after drowning. This is how it comes to her.)

Baelish slumps back on his haunches, his hands hanging limp in his lap as he stares up at her, mouth opening, and then closing. The confidence seeps from him instantly, his shoulders slumping. A quiet, slack-jawed disbelief settles over him.

"Let me see that," Manderly demands, moving toward Brienne. She hands him the missive, and the hall is quiet as he reads it, face reddening as the seconds pass. Glover leaves his seat as well, stalking over to them, grabbing the missive for his own eyes when Manderly is done with it. The other lords crane their necks around to witness the confirmation. A tense quiet overtakes the room as the missive is then passed round and round, Cerwyn reaching for it next, before Dustin takes her turn.

Sansa stays staring at Baelish from her place at the head table while the murmurs of the court grow, murderous curses stewing in the air.

Baelish nearly shrinks in on himself, his breaths coming shallow and quick now, eyes blinking furiously.

"Take him away," Sansa says to Brienne, motioning toward Stone. "You know my will," she says simply.

Arya makes a show of terrified pleading in Gareth Stone's skin. "Please, no! M'lady! M'lady, please! I've told you all I know. Please! Mercy, I beg you, mercy!" The shallow cries grow faint as Brienne drags her back through the door they first entered, a growing eddy of voices gathering around them.

Baelish watches their exit with dread, eyes never leaving their retreating forms. He stays still as glass, fingers curling into his palms with a fierce tremble. "Where is your sister?" he asks Sansa on a hoarse whisper. He clears his throat, shifts his gaze back to hers. "I'd like to hear the account from her." There's a note of defeat to his voice.

But Sansa will not let it make her careless.

"Don't worry, Lord Baelish. She's tending to a very special guest of ours, though I'm afraid you won't get the chance to meet him," she promises.

Littlefinger narrows his eyes in confusion.

Jon smirks proudly beside her.

"Lord Royce," Sansa calls out, turning once more to face the stout man.

He stands at the address. "Yes, my lady?"

"Lord Arryn gave you full authority on the matter of Petyr Baelish, did he not?"

"He did."

"Then, considering the attempts on the lives of both our liege lords, and considering my familial ties to each of them, have I your trust in the sentencing of this traitor? Will you honor my decrees?"

"I shall," he affirms. "Let it be known that the Vale cedes to the North's decision concerning the fate of Petry Baelish," he booms, turning to address the entire court. He looks back to Sansa, a short, reserved bow sent her way. "We know you will give us satisfaction," he adds, before taking his seat once more.

Sansa raises a brow at Baelish following Royce's words.

He only breathes deeply, his head still held high, though his chin trembles, words held tight behind his teeth.

"Have you anything to say in your defense, Lord Baelish?" Sansa asks primly.

He works his jaw, eyes glancing around the members of the court. He looks back up to her. "Only that it wasn't that fool Jeyne who poisoned young Robert."

She keeps her features schooled into passivity when he continues, knowing his coming words, recognizing his last attempts to lash out, to take her down with him.

"It was you," he spits.

Cerwyn stands swiftly. "You will swallow your slander, lord, or I'll have you swallow your tongue," he threatens on a bellow.

A resounding answer of support echoes throughout the hall, with fists on tabletops, several hands on swords, a few chairs upended when many of the lords stand in their indignation.

Baelish sneers up at Sansa, eyes never leaving hers.

She keeps her steady stance, keeps her face impassive. It is not an unexpected attack, after all.

"You're saying I poisoned my cousin?" she asks incredulously.

"That's exactly what I'm saying." He gives her a hateful look, his lip curled back, even as he swallows thickly, trepidation flooding his body. "You were so weak, so alone. You only needed a little goading. Only a little attention. And then you were mine. You listened to every direction. You trusted my word, never questioned my intentions. You were a doting, scared little girl, and you did everything I asked," he says darkly, a knowing look passing over his features, before he glances furtively toward Jon. The curl of his lip slips into full disgust. "And I see now just how closely you followed my instruction," he bites out.

But even now, he cannot touch this.

What lies between she and Jon.

He can never touch this.

At that moment, Brienne enters the hall once more, striding toward the head table to stand behind Sansa. She gives her lady a nod, and Sansa dips her head in acknowledgement.

Jon takes that moment to stand, the scrape of his chair along the stone silencing the angry lords in the crowd. He sets a hand to the small of Sansa's back. "Is this how you would defend yourself?" he asks Littlefinger incredulously. "By besmirching my sister? The one who's supported you all this time? All while you plotted treason behind her back?"

"I wasn't the one plotting behind people's backs, it seems. Or doing worse," he says meaningfully.

Sansa sucks a shallow breath through her teeth, bracing for it.

Baelish spreads his arms wide, taking in the court from where he kneels. "Shouldn't they be told, my lady?" he asks with a hint of delirium, voice rising. "Shouldn't they know where this sudden self-righteousness of yours comes from, hmm? This swift change of loyalty?" His eyes darken on hers, an unhinged laugh escaping him. "Shouldn't they know that it's because you've fallen into bed with your own brother?"

"That is enough!" Lady Mormont shouts from her seat. Several lords echo her sentiment. An uproar begins in the hall.

Sansa simply watches as the chaos ensues, the cries for Baelish' head, the way Glover steps out fully into the open space before the head table now, brandishing his sword at Baelish, the way Mormont shouts her derision at the accusations, how Cerwyn spits at Baelish's feet, the two Vale guards behind Littlefinger barely holding the fuming lord back from their charge.

She knows he wouldn't be believed. She knows he couldn't expect to have been either. And yet, that coil of unease still curls hot in her gut.

Because it's the truth.

Because she had fallen into bed with Jon. And because she'd fallen into so much deeper.

"Enough of your poison!" Manderly bellows amidst the crowd.

"Yes, enough of this madness," Mormont agrees. "Do not give him a stage to speak any longer!" A chorus of assent sounds around the room.

"Even with all the evidence against you," Jon begins, eyes narrowed on Littlefinger, "Even now, you spin your tales. You spew your treacherous lies."

Baelish laughs, his eyes wet. It's a crazed, yet saccharine sound. The kind of laugh that sees the end coming.

"It doesn't matter," he whispers harshly, licking his lips. "Nothing matters anymore." He hangs his head, hands curling into fists in his lap. Another coarse laugh escapes him. "Not without you, Sansa." It could be the promise of a lover with how ardently he says it.

Instead, it scrapes at the underside of her skin, stirs a sickness in her gut. She blinks at the sudden wetness along her eyes, her breath hitching in her chest.

She never wants to hear her name on his lips again.

(Never again, such repulsiveness.)

"Did you think you could share such vile confidence with me and I wouldn't reveal it?" she says disbelievingly, taking in a long, indignant breath, before exhaling it carefully. "Did you think I would let you plot treason against my family, against my kingdom? Did you think I would sit idly by and let you manipulate this court? Let you threaten my brother's rule, let you divide us? Did you think I would gladly swallow your poison?" The words snap from her on a heated breath. She's near shouting at the end of it, her chest heaving, the tears hot at the corners of her eyes, and it's only Jon's hand pressing firmly at the small of her back that calms her, his palm spreading warmth throughout her even through her cloak.

That anchor.

That steadiness.

Like their embrace that fist snow-lit afternoon, when she came through the gates of Castle Black – his arms around her winter-weakened form, his disbelieving breath hot against her cheek, her fingers curling in the rough leather of his tunic, at the nape of his neck, her feet lifted up, up, up off the ground, braced tight to his chest, and rocking, like a song, like a song she used to know, held there against him with all the force of ages-long yearning, and his choked-off laugh at her ear, her name expelled in his tremulous breath across her neck when he presses his nose to her shoulder and she is lifted and steady and spinning, all at once – all at once whole again.

His hand braced to the back of her head. Her tears warming her cheeks.

She'd found her home again well before she ever found Winterfell.

Now, she means to keep it.

There's a knock at the door nearest the head table, before Arya, now rid of her earlier disguise, opens the door and enters the hall, meeting Sansa's eyes when she turns at the noise.

Sansa swallows back the fervency of her recent outburst, nodding to her sister. "Arya, join us, please."

The raucous crowd dims slightly at Arya's entrance, watching her stalk across the stone floor, halting at the edge of the crowd in a ring around Baelish. She stares at him impassively, her hands held behind her back, shoulders pulled taut. "Brienne informed me of the progress of his trial," she says by way of greeting, her head canted toward Baelish.

A scoff escapes the disgraced lord. "Trial," he mocks, glancing up at her. "You shouldn't even be here," he grits out, eyes flashing.

Arya grins smugly in response. "You got sloppy, Baelish." She piques a brow at him. "Perhaps you should work on that. Though, it doesn't look like you'll be getting that chance now."

Baelish closes his eyes, a heavy breath rattling from him when he braces his head in his hands. "How is this... how is this even..."

"You'll forgive me, my lords," Arya addresses the court, "For not coming forward concerning Bran and I's attack earlier, but I was following King Jon and Lady Sansa's orders.."

"We could not risk her safety by revealing the attempt without evidence," Jon explains.

Grunts of acknowledgement sound about the room.

"And now that we have that evidence," Sansa continues, "I believe a judgement is in order."

The lords answer with shouts of support, a slow but thunderous rhythm of fists along the tables taking form.

Sansa lets the growing hum of bloodlust go uninterrupted for a moment, simply staring down at Baelish, watching as he drops his hands from his head, looking up at her in desperation, his mouth opening and closing like a gut fish.

Like something bloodied.

Gasping.

The thrill of his life in her hands is not something she thinks she may ever forget.

Sansa clears her throat, lifting her chin. She looks to her sister at the end of the head table. "Lady Arya, if you will."

Arya steps forward, striding slowly to the center of the floor, a hush gradually descending the riled crowd as she unsheathes the Valyrian dagger at her belt, holding it ready. Baelish watches the blade with widened eyes, a flicker of recognition lighting his face.

"This is the knife you sent with your man, is it not?" Sansa asks. "The one you ordered him to 'gut the little runts' with, yes? "

A cool, even quiet settles over the now still hall.

Baelish's eyes slip toward Sansa's with a distressed shake of his head. "Please..."

Sansa swallows tightly, unblinking. "Fitting that it be used now to gut you."

"Sansa," he rasps out, one hand reaching toward her.

Reaching.

And empty.

"It was your throat he aimed this blade at, Arya," Sansa clips out, eyes shifting toward her sister between them. "I do believe you should return the favor."

Baelish's hand drops back to his lap, a choked off sob escaping his lips, barely discernible.

Sansa turns to Jon beside her. "Is that fitting, Your Grace?"

Jon's hand slips from the small of her back. "Quite fair, I'd say," he answers darkly, gaze heavy on Littlefinger.

Baelish glances between them frantically, a hand pressed to his sweat-licked brow. "Sansa, wait, please – "

"In fact," Sansa interrupts, a raw lash of anguish catching in her throat, "This is the very blade you set against Bran's life the first time, isn't it? All those years ago, while he was lying comatose in his bed after the fall?" She grinds her teeth, her jaw quaking beneath the force of her control.

Swallow it back. Keep it closed. Don't let it to air.

(He can never hurt them again, she promises.)

It flares hot in her gut, the remembrance like a torch beneath her skin, her body trembling with it.

(Her father's head tumbling down the muddied steps. Her shriek lighting the air, all the dreams of her youth severed at the root, at the neck. Her world caving into muted darkness.)

Sansa sets her jaw, her nostrils flaring.

Swallow it back. Keep it closed. Don't let it to air.

(She hasn't let the light in since.)

"Pity you didn't also have it when you put a blade to our father's throat as you were betraying him," she bites out, voice as thin as ice.

Baelish goes still.

A beat of silence pervades the room.

He blinks at her, mouth parting. "What – "

"I did warn you."

The world tilts on its axis, teetering on a breathless edge, a great upheaval happening within her. Everything is loud and blaring and crashing inside her. But outside, she is –

Still.

Still as his breath.

Breaths that come out of him quickly now. Once. Twice. And then swallowed back. His chin trembles, his eyes watering. He shakes his head. "No," he groans out. He shakes his head harder. "No."

She sees the moment he makes the connection.

"I did warn you not to trust me," Baelish had said as he held his dagger to Ned Stark's throat in the throne room of the Red Keep, those many years ago.

(All the dreams of her youth severed at the root, at the neck.)

Baelish mouths at the air, eyes blinking furiously in his disbelief. "How... how do you know that?" he whispers out.

Sansa thinks of her conversation alone with Bran when he first arrived. "He chose power over truth," he'd told her, revealing the details of Baelish's betrayal concerning their father's arrest – details he had no way of knowing, like the many things he had no way of knowing and yet, does.

She thinks of the time she first showed Baelish her little game of cat's cradle. "I did warn you, my lord," she'd said, the mess of strings undone in his hands.

And then she thinks of Jon. She thinks of the night just before.

(She thinks of a love they deserve.)

They lay stretched out together before the fire, her bare shoulders peeking out from the furs covering their sweat-slicked and sated forms, his fingers running a path up and down her back as he holds her to his chest.

Sansa presses her mouth to the juncture of his shoulder and neck, inhaling deeply. She sighs into his skin when his hand trails down the length of her spine, settling at the small of her back. She tightens her arm slung around his waist, pressing into him.

He moans softly in contentment, his hum at her temple, against her hair.

"Jon," she says.

He pulls back just enough to watch her face, his hand curving over her hip. "Hmm?"

"Are you ready? For tomorrow?" she asks cautiously, her lip caught between her teeth.

Jon sighs, rolling onto his back fully, his hand still fixed to her hip. "Are you?"

Her gaze shifts down to his bared chest, eyes alighting on his scars. She brushes a gentle hand along the one above his heart.

Jon stays watching her quietly.

She lets out a slow breath. "I have to be," she answers finally, glancing up at him.

Jon's gaze shifts between hers, a furrow to his brow. "What are you afraid of?" he asks on a whisper. It isn't a judgement. It isn't said with any derision. It's warm, and caressing.

As if the words were open arms.

I'm here, they say.

Sansa sighs, pressing her face into his shoulder, eyes squeezed shut.

"Hey," he says, his hand rising from her hip to settle in her hair, brushing it from her cheek carefully. "Hey," he eases.

She pulls her face back, meets his gaze. And then she's sitting up on a heavy exhale, the furs falling from her bare form. She looks down at him. "I just... need to know that they'll be safe. That Bran and Arya will be safe."

Jon rises as well, shifting as the furs settle over their laps. He braces one hand to the floor beneath him, leaning on it as he cocks his head at her, watching her. His other hand lifts to cup her cheek. "We do this, and they will be. Baelish can't touch them again."

Sansa leans into his touch, eyes slipping closed. "And after? When he's dead? What then?" Her eyes shift open to catch his, a flicker of uncertainty stretching across her brow. "We still have a war to fight. And a crown to secure."

"Aye, we do," he gets out hoarsely, swallowing thickly.

Sansa simply watches him a moment, eyes wetting. And then she blinks it away, glances to the fireplace before them. "You'll leave me."

"Sansa," he says instantly, both hands cupping her face now, turning her gaze to him as he leans toward her.

She meets his gaze reluctantly.

But then his mouth is on hers – so urgent, so warm. She whimpers at the unexpectedness of it, her hands going for his wrists, anchoring there. She gasps at the heat of his mouth when he pulls away, his lips still close enough to brush hers.

"Sansa," he pants at her mouth, fingers curling along her jaw.

(But she thinks that neither of them could ever truly leave – not now. Not after knowing what they know. Not after loving what they love. Not ever. Not anymore.)

She doesn't let her sob escape her. "What are we supposed to do?" she asks brokenly, her forehead braced to his. "What are we... what can we possibly do?"

"We ensure your safety," he says confidently, his thumbs brushing over her cheeks as he leans back to meet her eyes. "And we make sure the North continues under the Stark name."

"But Bran – "

"He's told you his wishes."

Sansa quiets, her gaze drifting down. "He's father's last trueborn son," she says, unable to hide the resentment that blooms just behind her ribs.

Because it should be Jon's, even if that means she cannot be Jon's.

Robb's will can only make certain of that.

"And he doesn't want the throne," Jon tells her.

Sansa gives him a baleful look, shaking her head, and his hands slip from her cheeks at the motion. "He should," she says. "And if he doesn't, then it's you. It's you, Jon, and that's the way it should be."

"But it's not the way I can live with," he says with a surety that stills her. He reaches for a strand of her hair, brushing it past her bare shoulder, his eyes drifting down over her naked form. "And maybe... maybe part of it is because I don't want to be your brother for true."

She can't help the breath that she sucks between her teeth, a slow heat gathering in her gut at the look he gives her. She knows he must see the marks he's left along her neck, along her breasts. Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth, every previous thought banished at the lingering gaze he rakes over her now.

"Not after everything," Jon gets out breathlessly, his hand trailing down past her collar bone, just barely brushing the valley between her breasts before he draws his hand away. His other hand grips at the furs in his lap, his eyes rising to meet hers when he takes in a heavy breath. "I'd be lying if I said this wasn't part of it, even though I know it doesn't matter, not truly. But I'll take being your bastard brother over being your legitimate one, if it means you and I can – " He stops, swallows the words with a shake of his head.

"Jon," she whispers achingly.

"That's not how this works, I know that," he says, jaw squaring. "Just makes the guilt easier I guess." He heaves a sigh. "Even when it shouldn't."

She knows exactly what he means though, since there's a part of her that's always rationalized her feelings because they were ever only half-siblings.

It doesn't erase the sin. She understands that. Always has. But somewhere along the way, that 'sin' became her refuge, her guiding star. Somewhere along the way he just became... Jon.

Confirming that Robb actually legitimized him would pull the smokescreen back. It would make the truth undeniable.

Not simply that she was in love with her brother, but that nothing could ever truly come of that love.

(It's the only thing that haunts her anymore, even when she knows he deserves it – even when she urges him to claim it.

Because she knows he deserves it.)

Jon sighs, a hand raked through his curls. "Doesn't make a difference, in the end."

Sansa peers up at him with consoling eyes, one brow raised in question.

He watches her face when he tells her, "I made my decision long ago."

His words narrow her focus instantly, her brow furrowing. "What do you mean?"

He watches her a moment longer, mouth parting, and then he turns away, pushes himself from the floor. He walks to the desk beside his bed, and Sansa follows the naked lines of him, muscles taut beneath the flickering corners of firelight. She gathers the furs around her chest and stands to follow him. He takes a deep breath, his broad back rising with the motion, and then falling, his hand clenched around a rolled parchment.

Around Robb's will.

Sansa stops just behind him, a hand at his shoulder, eyes fixed to the scroll in his grasp. "Jon," she says carefully.

He turns to her.

Her gaze flits between his own dark eyes and the scroll in his fist. "Jon, what are you saying?"

"Once Baelish is dealt with, once Bran can safely reveal his presence to the lords, he's going to renounce his claim. And then I plan to do the same."

Sansa's eyes go wide, her breath hitching in her throat. She mouths a word, silent. And then she clears her throat, shakes her head. "Jon, wait – "

"I know what I'm doing, Sansa."

"But why?"

"Because it always should have been yours. I never meant to keep it any longer than it took to rid you of Baelish, to guarantee your safety. That's been the goal from the start."

Sansa licks her lips, glancing back to the will, and then to Jon. "But Robb legitimized you. We have the proof now. The lords will fall in line and there won't be any division anymore."

Jon grits his teeth, his dark eyes shifting to the will in his hand. He takes a deep breath, jaw working. "Then maybe such proof should never have been found," he says evenly, before he stalks back toward the hearth.

Sansa sees what he means to do just moments before he does it, and she flies toward him, the furs falling from her grip when she reaches for him, stops his hand just before he can toss the bound scroll into the fireplace. "What are you doing?" she cries, stumbling against him with the momentum, looking up into his face frantically.

Jon catches her with his free arm around her waist, his other hand halted in her grip. "I'm making sure your claim can never be contested."

"Jon, no, wait," she gasps, tears beading in the corners of her eyes. She sags against him, her chest heaving. "Wait, you can't – " Her voice breaks, and she swallows it back, wraps a hand around the back of his neck, anchoring there. "Jon, being a Stark is what you've always wanted," she says on a pleading cry, peering up into his face desperately.

Because she's always wanted it for him.

For him, for him, for him.

(Even when it means he'd be her brother for true. Even when it draws a line between them she could never redraw, not ever.

Even when it means there's no going back.)

Jon softens at her cry, his shoulders slumping. His wide hand spreads over her waist, the hint of a resilient grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. He dips his head to hers, meets her eyes unblinkingly. "Being wanted is what I've always wanted," he tells her, nose brushing hers. His hot breath fans her cheeks and her hand slips from his wrist unconsciously, the breath winded from her. Her eyes shift between his, blinking furiously.

"Jon," she whispers in the space between their lips.

His grin grows wider, a tenderness to it. "I have that now – because of you. And I didn't need to be a Stark to get it."

Her tears are hot along her lids now, threatening to fall. Her chest aches, her breaths coming short and shaky. "Are you certain?" she gulps out, words barely making it to air.

Because if he does this – if he does this –

"You may never get a second chance," she sobs out, her face falling, everything spinning, spinning – crashing.

Jon presses his cheek to hers, sighing heavily, his hand curling tighter around her waist, holding her to him, their naked forms a single, pressed line – seamless. "You are my second chance, Sansa." He presses his nose into her shoulder, the breath shuddering from him. "I don't intend to waste it," he promises into her skin, and then he tosses the will into the fire.

She doesn't have a chance to stop him, her intake of breath cut short by his own hot mouth, and then she's bundled in his arms, stumbling back beneath the force of him, pressed up against the sudden wall behind her, her sob caught on his tongue, and her gasp of his name is lost somewhere between their mouths, between his low groan, between her breathless whine, between the frantic, helpless way they reach for each other – limbs entangled like a mess of strings.

Between skin to skin. Between heart to heart. Between hope to hope.

She finds her own second chance – somewhere between his love and hers.

(She finds it, and doesn't ever plan to let it go.)

Sansa pulls a single, measured breath in as she cocks her head at Baelish now, that spinning, spinning, spinning from the night before finally settling into a slow rock, a smooth hum in the back of her mind.

A rhythm as fixed as the repetition of turns in this game for keeps.

The touch of a smirk lights upon Sansa's lips. "Would you like to play a game, Lord Baelish?" she asks, voice lilting girlishly.

Littlefinger goes pale, recognition blooming behind his eyes, the silent fall of his mouth a darkly satisfying thing to Sansa.

(She imagines the web of strings, the cat's cradle, pulling taut – threads bowing just before they give, coming undone in her hands.)

She glances to Arya with a graceful tilt of her head. Arya gives an acknowledging nod in return, starting to stalk a circle around their kneeling captive, dagger steady in her palm.

Baelish pants with a sudden terror, taking in Arya's gait frantically. "My lady," he stutters out, mouth trembling as he glances back up to Sansa.

"It's a game of foresight," she continues, ignoring his breathless plea.

Arya comes back around the other side of Baelish, boots halting along the cool stone just in front of him. A gurgled sound of desperation leaves his throat.

"A game of precision," Sansa clips out, eyes never leaving his. "Of control."

"Sansa, please," he begs, tears hot along his blotchy cheeks now, his hands wringing in his lap.

Arya raises the dagger, a single brow cocked his way.

Baelish shifts frantic eyes from Arya and the blade back to Sansa, and then to Jon, back to Arya, Sansa again. "Sansa," he gurgles out – small and worthless and writhing.

Sansa's lips press into a thin line. "A game of follow-through," she finishes.

Arya's wrist flicks out instantly, the blade catching smoothly along his throat, a wide arc of red spraying the stones at his feet. He cries out – or tries to, a hand jerking out toward her, reaching, grasping at air, and then he's falling, his other hand pressed to his slit throat as he topples forward, blood gushing over his knuckles, his wrist. He flails against the stones, coughing, eyes squeezed shut, legs kicking out.

It's a game of strings - one misplaced line, one slip of the hand, and it all comes undone.

Sansa watches with unblinking eyes, the warmth of Jon's hand returning along her back, the hush of the still crowd blanketing the hall.

Arya wipes the blood from her blade in one smooth, clean motion.

Baelish claws at his own throat, choking grotesquely, a pool of blood slowly spreading beneath his twitching form.

Sansa breathes deep, exhales slowly. She looks up at the rafters, at the long stretch of the hall's ceiling, the wooden beams crossing and webbing out.

She lets the first bloom of long-awaited relief flood her lungs.

"My turn," she whispers to herself.

(One string at a time.)

#cat's cradle #jonsa #jonsa fic #jon snow #sansa stark #my writing #got fanfic #jon x sansa #jon and sansa

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