iv: alive and together

"I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald,More Than Just A House

"How do we know that he really has Rickon?" She hers herself ask after a moment of tense silence. She breathed deep and folded the letter and passed it to Petyr who sat at her left, instead of giving into the impulse to tear it in half.

"We don't." Willa Manderly said before anyone else could. "It's more likely that the Boltons are lying, your grace."

Willa's grandfather had not been able to contribute any men, seeing that they would be meeting the Manderly forces in battle soon. Whether they would be fighting with Sansa's forces or the Bolton's she still did not know, despite Lord Manderly's promise that his men had orders to yield when the wolves came. Perhaps it had been to prove this point that Wylla had insisted to come with her, along with some of her cousins and loyal men. They had offered themselves for what amounted to voluntary hostages… or perhaps spies, Sansa thought, looking to Littlefinger. He'd kept a close eye on the Manderlies, she knew.

"And if he's not lying? What if we attack, and Roose Bolton kills my brother?"

"Our people inside Winterfell say no new prisoners have been brought in for weeks, your grace." Robett Glover said, his deeply lined face serious. "Our people inside Winterfell say no new prisoners have been brought in for weeks, your grace." Robett Glover said, his deeply lined face serious. "Before that, no one had heard so much as a whisper of your youngest brother. If he had managed to capture the prince, Bolton would have announced it for all the North to hear."

"Still no word from Sir Davos, however." Wylla said, sounding even more despondent than usual.

Sansa sighed.

The rest of the meeting was spent discussing troupes and supply lines. She was told of the position of their forces, of the men and women joining them as they marched and Sansa listened closely, though she did not understand all of it. It was hard not to be overcome: she had expected to retake her home by force, but it seemed that the whole of the north wanted a Stark back in Winterfell almost as desperately as she wanted to go home.

Over the table she met Petyr Baelish's eye. Maybe she would not owe to him as much as she thought she would.

More often than not she looked to Jon. He spoke little but when he did, everyone listened. The northerners treated him with respect, where she could feel that their address to her was more out of courtesy. She could understand why: they did not expect a girl to be able to understand their talk of military strategies, and perhaps they were right. She knew nothing of how one should go about winning a battle on the ground. About how to choose where to make a stand, how to engage one's enemies in an open field or anything like that. But she did know about tactics; she knew how to go about winning engagements with beyond winning battles.

She knew for instance, that they had to watch themselves as they marched north, and make sure that Moat Cailing remained well manned, because once the Ironborn were done with their Kingsmoot, they would start to raid. When she pointed this out and got a fierce smile from Alysanne Mormont.

"There is another matter to discuss, your grace." Robett Glover said just as the council came to a close. Sansa looked away from the map of the north where their troops and their position has been laid out.

No one had called her by a royal title, until the northerners did so. It had been Petyr's idea, and Sansa understood why. It had been famously known that it had been Robb's own bannermen that had crowned him, declaring independence. No one but the north could crown her queen - or should - if she wanted her rule to be as legitimate, certainly not the Lords of the Vale. They could declare for her, if they so wished, but they could not name her.

Sansa straightened and linked her fingeres together on top of the table. "Yes, lord Glover."

"I must first beg pardon for the offence I am about to give." Lord Glover said then, dark eyes meeting hers.

Sansa felt Jon stifen by her side and resisted the urge to look at him.

"Speak freely, my Lord." Better to have it out, Sansa thought.

"Before I left White Harbour, I received a raven from my brother Galbart, who sailed into the Neck with Mage Mormont. They had orders from King Robb to take back Moat Cailin."

"I am already aware of this." Sansa said when Glover paused. They had just spoken of this, she thought as she glanced at Alysanne Mormont. She too had acted under the same orders, from her mother.

"My brother also told me that the late king made a will before he left for the Twins."

Sansa stiffened. She had been expecting it to come up, she had been prepared; but not like this.

"In his will, the King in the North legitimised Jon Snow, who was also named heir after him."

"And he wrote me out of the line of succession, because I was forced to marry Tyrion Lannister." Sansa said stiffly. "Is that right?"

Glover clenched his jaw. "Yes, your grace."

"My mother wrote me the same." Alysanne Mormont said then, her tone apologetic. "Your uncle Edmure and the Blackfish were witnesses, as well as the Greatjon and Jason Mallister."

Sansa turned to Jon, whose face was as if set in stone. She could not tell if it was because of anger or any other emotion. She could not read him, but then he looked at her and when he spoke, his words left no room for interpretation.

"I've already told them I don't want it. Any of it."

She would be lying if she said that did not surprise her. Perhaps she should not have let her confusion show, but she could not help it.

"Truborn children come before legitimized bastards." His grey eyes blazed and his mouth was set in a harsh line. Yes, he was angry. "You are here and Rickon may yet be found. Until he is, you are my queen. I will swear my fealty in front of a the first heart tree we come across, if you like."

Sansa shook her head. That's not what she'd meant at all, but she could not say that in front of all these people. She could not take his hand, and ask him what was the matter.

… She dearly wished this utter refusal did not make her so suspicious of him, but that was not how she had been trained to think.

"You heard the man. Besides, Queen Sansa was never truly married to the Imp. She did not consent and apparently neither did he, and the union was never a true one." Mychel Horton says, a little more loudly than he should have. Harry, who was sitting next to him and who was Mychel's friend, Sansa knew this, nodded but had the sense not to speak.

"Surely the north does not mean to be beholden to Lannister scheming!"

"As an independent kingdom, should the North even recognize the authority of the seven over their Queen? Most of the country does not keep to the seven at all." John Royce said then and there were more noises of assent from the men around her. Beneath the calmness of Royce's voice however, Sansa could feel his irritation. She'd known of course that the Vale men would support her claim over… over Jon's. She was promised to the heir of the Eyrie; speaking of her as married was an insult to their faces.

Sansa looked at the Lords around her, and into Petyr Baelish's eyes as well. He was watching her without blinking. He knew better than to intervene for her here.

"Lord Glover, what is your opinion?" She finally asked, interrupting the discussion around her.

"I am here to fight and die, if need be, to see a Stark back in Winterfell." Glover said, pale eyes fixed on her. "To avenge the Red Wedding."

Mailed fists hit the table hard.

Sansa tilted her head a bit to the side. "But?"

"But, I also believe King Robb's will is his last command. I cannot pretend i don't know it, and I cannot brush it aside."

Sansa nodded faintly. "No, you cannot. And neither can I."

From the corner of her eye she saw Jon turn to look at her. She'd startled him - and not just him.

"Sansa-"

Sansa put her hand over his arm. "I heard you, Jon, but this is not just about what you or I want. Robb was king, his will has legal repercussions. It has to mean something."

"Robb made that will under circumstances that forced his hand." Jon turned to look at the men and women around him. "The queen was a prisoner, when she was forced to marry. Her family did not consent. She did not consent. The ceremony was not executed in the eyes of our gods and now there are two armies, the Neck, a direwolf and myself between her and anyone mad enough to try to pursue the validity of this union. Circumstances have changed."

"My queen." Wylla Manderly said, speaking over the buzz that Jon's words had created.

"My lady."

"Did I understand the lord correctly, before?" She asked, looking at Mychel Horton. "Did the Imp also not consent to the marriage."

Sansa held back a smile. Wylla Manderly was smarter than Sansa had thought. "He did not."

"Is that why the marriage remained unconsummated?"

Under her hand, Sansa felt Jon's arm flex with the strain of keeping still and silent to such a a question. It was only then that she realized that she had not moved her hand away, and once she did, she slowly withdrew both hands on her lap.

"Wylla! If your grandfather were here, he would remind you one should not speak to one's queen in such a way." Alysanne scolded, but Wylla Manderly kept looking at Sansa, undeterred. The question was crass enough, but asked with wide eyes and a note of honest curiosity that would make one dismiss it for mere naivete. Sansa knew better.

"If my grandfather were here, he would want to be precise."

"Would he want you to be impudent?" Lord Norrey asked then.

"Others will ask too. It is in the mind of half the men in this room, though they dare not say it. We might as well just have it out."

"Others may ask, Lady," Jon said slowly. There was something exceptionally cold about his face and the way it was set in anger. Sansa almost did not know him. Almost. "But since the queen has already answered, I would be bound to demand to fight any man who would doubt my Queen's honor by asking again, and then let the gods decide the truth of it."

Wylla Manderly grinned in the face of Jon's threat. "And do you plan to fight all the northern Lords that don't want a woman to lead them, Lord Snow, even if she is Ned Starks truborn daughter?"

The table erupted in shouts, and Sansa was sure she was the only one who heard Jon's quietly spoken 'If I have to.'

Yohn Royce rose to his feet. "I would rather fight and die for Ned Starks daughter, than any lord or King alive."

"I will not have my honor question by an insolent child!"

Sansa did not really hear them. She was looking at Jon and he was looking back at her with an expression on his face she could not read. She doubted he could understand from her own silence how her heart ached to hold him, in that moment. She told herself to doubt all this devotion that came from nowhere, but he was her father's so. He was her brother. He too probably wanted to go home as much as she did. Who should he not be as devoted to their family as she was?

Sansa rose from her seat slowly. It took some moments for everyone to notice but they did, and she waited for them to quiet down so that she could speak.

"Thank you, my Lords." She said once they did. "The answer to lady Manderly's question, is that i cannot be certain of Tyrion Lannister's reasons for defying his father. I only know what happened, not why."

"I doubt he did it out of decency." Wylla grumbled. Some of the lords snorted at that, and Sansa allowed them a smile.

"I don't know if i could say so, lady Manderly, but out of all the Lannisters I knew, Tyrion Lannister was the only one who was not cruel."

"Well, then that really does mean the marriage is void, does it not?"

It was interesting how she had brought the discussion to this point. Interesting and terribly clever. No one could disagree without calling Sansa a liar, or asking for proof she was indeed a maid. Sansa doubted anyone would dare with Jon looking for all intents and purposes like he might murder the first man to speak of her that way.

Those green eyes on Wylla Manderly's face shone with more than just mischief.

"By all legal criteria, it does, my Lady." Littlefiger said, speaking for the first time.

"There is one last thing that I want to discuss before I leave you to your duties." Sansa said as she sat down again. She let a moment pass, so that everyone's attention was back on her. "Roose Bolton and Ramsay Snow. I want them both captured alive."

No one objected to that, at least.

"Ramsay is likely the one heading the bolton forces coming towards us, your grace." Norrey said, as he glanced back at the map laid out in front of them.

"Nevertheless, I want him captured alive, if at all possible. I do not want the likes of him or his father dying in battle." She explained. "All those they have hurt deserve to see them punished for their crimes, not just killed. The dead demand justice, my lords. And so do I."

"As the queen commands." Alysanne said.

ii

As all the Lords were leaving, Sansa caught Wylla Manderly's eye. "A word, my lady."

She was not refused, of course. Jon did not leave either, even as the others filed out of her tent and into the cold outside. Sansa waited for all of them to leave, before she let herself smile.

"That was very clever." She finally said, and Wylla grinned. Her teeth were white and though the front two were crooked, they did not take away from the loveliness of that smile.

"I am a clever girl."

Jon huffed. "If you'd been a man-"

"Yes, yes, you would have dueled me in front of the whole army and my head would have flown from my shoulders." Wylla said as she rolled her eyes at him, and Sansa bit her lip so she wouldn't laugh. "I understood you the first time, Jon Snow. But i think the queen would much rather I asked those questions, than any of those miserable lords out there, don't you think?"

She was looking at Jon, but it was Sansa who replied. "Yes, I do."

"See? Things were cleared out, there was no dueling and nobody died. I would call it a win."

Sansa looked at Jon and was surprised to find him looking unimpressed. "How very neat."

Wylla shrugged. "Not usually, but I can think on my feet. When I don't lose my temper, that is."

But then her face changed, becoming serious. Those round green eyes took on a light of their own.

"I know you doubt my grandfather, your grace." she said, voice low. "And you have reason, with Manderly men in Winterfell with the Boltons, and others about to come upon your army. I know you think you don't know who to trust, but I promise you, we are your men. Stark men."

Sansa nodded. "Yes, I'm starting to see that." She stepped forward and took one of Willa's hands. "Will you ask your cousins if they'd like to share my tent tonight? I would love to spend the night among you."

Willa Manderly's smile was almost wolfish. "They'll say yes."

"They will if you have anything to do with it." Jon grumbled.

"Oh stop being so dowr Jon Snow." She laughed. "If anything, today will finally put to rest all the questions about where you stand, since anyone will be too scared of you to bring it up again." Wylla curtsied. "My queen."

"My lady."

"Lord Snow." She added then, unexpectedly, with a smile that Sansa thought was almost flirtatious.

"Get on." Jon said, but it was not severe. If anything he sounded amused.

When the flap of the tent closed behind Wylla Manderly's dark grey cloak, Sansa turned to Jon with a raised eyebrow.

"That was rude."

"No more than she deserves."

She could have told him he needed to remember better manners among ladies, but instead she smiled at him. "I think she likes you, Jon."

He just blinked at her, like he did not understand. Sansa decided to take pity on him and not to tease him about the green-haired girl that might or might not want a kiss from him yet.

"Lady Brienne, you may leave us." She said instead.

"Shall I send for some food, your grace?"

"Yes please, and for Jon also. And make sure you rest for the rest of the day."

Brienne startled. "Your grace-"

"I'm with Jon, and I'll have Ghost. There's no reason to worry. You can't watch over me all the time, Brienne." Sansa added a bit more softly. "Even you need to rest sometimes!"

"Very well, your grace." Brinenne bowed and left them.

Sansa reached for the pitcher on the table and poured some more ale before handing it to Jon.

"She seems devoted to you." He said as he took it. Once she sat, he took the chair closest to her, and for that she was grateful.

"She is. She saved my life back in the Vale."

Jon's eyes were steady on her, in a way she remembered from childhood. He'd always been so watchul, so quiet.

"Thank you, for what you did before." She said, voice so low it was almost a whisper. "You didn't have to."

"I did." He set the cup down and when he looked at her again, he was almost smiling. "If i don't protect you, Ned Stark's ghost might actually come back to murder me."

Sansa tried to smile, but couldn't hold it for long. Neither could Jon - the memory of their father must be as painful for him as it was for her. It had been years, but that pinch inside her heart had not gone away.

She leaned on the table, a bit closer to him. "Why don't you want to be legitimized?"

"I'd rather keep my name, if it's all the same to you."

It wasn't the words exactly, It was the way he spoke them. Like there was something beneath them that he was not telling her, some meaning she would be able to grasp if she could just lift the edge of the curtain and peak behind she did not know how to - she did not know him.

"Jon…" She looked down, to where her fingers were interlaced in front of her. She had the courage to look at him in the eye when she spoke again. "You must know that I would never resent you for Robb legitimizing you. You're my brother."

He winced and leaned back, almost as if he wanted to distance himself from this conversation, so Sansa rushed on, afraid he'd interrupt, needing to make amends, somehow. She had just found him - she didn't want to lose him.

"I know I wasn't the best sister when we were children-" she pressed on.

Jon seemed startled. "That's not-"

"But I promise to love you better, if you let me. If you can forgive me."

He moved as if he meant to reach for her hand, but then changed his mind halfway, hand closing into a fist on the table and then opening again. But his face was open when he spoke. "Sansa, there's nothing to forgive."

"Forgive me!"

He huffed a laugh. "As the queen demands."

Sansa pushed at his arm, smiling. "Shut up. I'm being serious."

This time he did really smile. The change it brought to his face was stunning.

"I will forgive you if that's what you want. But you said it yourself; we were children. I promise you, there's nothing to forgive."

Sansa snorted. "Oh yes. I was delightful, wasn't I?"

He did reach out then, catching the end of ehr braid between his thumb and forefinger. "Doesn't matter. You were a child, same as I. Younger than I."

He let go of her braid and wrapped his hands around his cup.

"I know it musn't have been easy for you, being called the bastard of Winterfell." The looked he gave her was startled. "I didn't know before, but I do now. I was a bastard for a while, too."

Jon's eyes went wide. " What ?"

"I thought of you often, during that time. It gave me courage." She laughed at his surprise. "Dine with me tonight, and I'll tell you about it. And you also must tell me everything."

She reached for the cup he was drinking from and he didn't hesitate to hand it to her.

"Everything? Are you sure you want to know?"

She took a sip and then made a face at the sour taste. She didn't regret it though because it made Jon chuckle to see it.

"That's wine you brought from the Vale."

"It is, but I never liked wine anyway." Sansa said as she cleared her throat and handed him back his cup.

"I think the point is to get drunk from it, not like it."

"Whatever the point is, i always seem to miss it. And yes, I do want to know everything. Starting perhaps with how you left the Night's Watch."

His face fell a little.

"I was dismissed. I have a letter from the Lord Commander to prove it, with the signatures of five witnesses."

Sansa took his arm. "I believe you. But I know that at some point someone is going to bring it up and dare to demand your head. I want to be precise in my wording, when I offer to take their head instead." she explained calmly.

He looked at her like he did not know what to make of her words, but Sansa only smiled in return.

"You've changed." He said then.

"Haven't you?"

Jon's nod was minute, but his eyes were so sad she wished she could take the words back.

"Tell me." she said instead, gently. There was something about him that told her she should be gentle. Beneath the hardness he presented to the world, there was a brittleness she felt. Something that was one brush away from crumbling. Perhaps if he shared it, they would carry that weight together - secrets hurt less once you shared them, Sansa knew that all too well.

And he told her.