Hello everyone, thanks for stopping by!

This is an idea that has been floating around my head in one form or another since the end of Season 6. The more disappointing the show got, the clearer this story became. I'm putting this chapter out to test the waters a bit so please let me know if you're interested in seeing this continued and what I can work on to improve!

I do have this story planned out in full - in fact I have three books planned out in the series (0.o) - so hopefully I can get this done without life getting in the way.

I hope you enjoy!

I own nothing.

Cross posted on AO3

UPDATE AS OF JANUARY 12TH, 2020

I have been getting a lot of questions regarding pairings in this story so I thought I would address that here.

This story does not focus on pairings. Romance may appear in the background in later chapters but either because it had been established in Canon up to the end of season 6 or because it drives the plot forward. I find platonic relationships much more interesting to write.Without spoilers, I can say that Jon will NOT be involved in a romantic pairing in this story.

Nor will Sansa.

They're a bit busy trying not to die.

Daenerys, likewise, has other things on her mind and will not be involved in a romantic pairing.

I know that 'ships' and pairings are essentially the currency in fanfiction, and I understand that I will be losing out on a large portion of my potential audience by not focusing on a popular couple but that's just not what I am interested in writing.

I hope that answers your questions and that you continue to enjoy the story!

Prickly

Sansa I

THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING

. . .

The shouts and merriment of men celebrating victory and the naming of a new king followed Sansa as she excused herself from the great hall. Jon had left some time before her, never one for the ruckus of festivities and especially not when they centred around him, but Sansa had wanted to stay to watch and listen as lips got looser thanks to drink and food and loud company. Still, there was only so much drunken boasting she could stand. She moved through the castle toward the Lord and Lady's chambers which she had taken as her own with an ease born out of years of practice. Winterfell may have been ravaged by the Ironborn and Boltons alike but nothing could stop it from being her home, of that she was determined, and no one would ever take her home from her again.

As the din of the great hall died away, moans of pain, coughing and the occasional cry filled the halls. The battle against the Bolton's forces had claimed many casualties, more than she dared to think about, and Maester Wolkan had been granted all the able-bodied they could spare to assist him in getting the wounded settled and treated in any available chambers. Jon had insisted on treating all the injured men they could find, not only their own, citing the need for 'as many living bodies as they could get' and Sansa would wager that the wounded outnumbered those still fit. Outside the castle walls she knew the remaining Wildling fighters were gathering all the dead into funeral pyres to be lit come morning. They'd started long before Jon had given the word for others to help them, grim determination on their faces.

Sansa knew that she would have to send someone down to the kennels to fetch whatever scraps of Ramsay the dogs may have left and add them to the pile, but found herself in no rush to do so. She would happily leave him to rot down there, forgotten, until he was nothing but a stain on the stone floor but if she was truly going to believe that the dead could rise it would have to be done. The thought of an undead Ramsay Bolton, however ravaged, was not something she was willing to consider. Perhaps she'd just burn the kennels down, there was nothing worth saving there, and she realized she couldn't know the number of human remains that had been left to the hounds since the Boltons captured Winterfell.

"A wise choice, my Lady, outstaying your brother amid the celebrations."

Sansa paused, allowing herself to indulge in the briefest moment of pride at not having startled at Baelish's arrival, before turning to face him. "Lord Baelish," she greeted, "Hardly a choice at all, Jon is well known for his dislike of such things."

Littlefinger smiled, stepping out from the shadows and approaching her with an ease that set her teeth on edge. She had told him no once already, but she was uncertain he would accept it a second time. In that respect he and Ramsay were uncomfortably similar.

He stopped in front of her and took her hand in his own, bringing it to his lips. "Of course," he agreed, as if he knew the first thing about Jon's temperament, "Still, many a spurned sibling would have forgone the festivities altogether."

"Spurned sibling?" Sansa repeated, surprised by the lack of caution if not the observation but careful not to let on, "A treasonous statement, My Lord."

"Forgive me, My Lady, I meant no offence. I am certain Jon Snow will make a fine king and represent House Stark with honour."

Sansa studied him, making sure to keep her face impassive. "As am I," she replied firmly, "Good evening, Lord Baelish."

He took the dismissal in stride, his smile still in place as he gave her a short bow. "Sleep well, Lady Sansa."

Sleep well, indeed, Sansa thought dryly, watching the Lord Protector of the Vale disappear in the direction of the continuing festivities. She may have been a fool once, but she was one no longer and found herself almost insulted by Baelish's lack of subtlety. He knew very well that she had favoured her mother as a child and shared her view on most matters, and he was most certainly aware of Catelyn Stark's feelings toward her husband's son. And now that boy had been named King, despite his name… Sansa sighed. Petyr expected her to be angry, ashamed at being passed over in favour of the Bastard of Winterfell even while she sat at his side, and the truth was she was.

We know no King but the King in the North whose name is Stark.

She was a Stark, quite possibly the last Stark, and yet they had picked her brother in her stead. Half brother, as Baelish would surely point out if he were privy to her thoughts. Sansa had never been more glad that he was not. She was angry, slighted even, and she acknowledged that but Petyr seemed to expect her to overlook the fact that her position as a Stark had been called into question because of the marriage he sold her into. The Boltons had left a stain on her that the rest of the North could not ignore.

More than that, Sansa knew that her childhood preference for her mother's Southern culture must have been noted by the Northern Lords long before she had left Winterfell for the first time. She had never made any secret of her desire to marry into the, seemingly, more glamorous world of Southern lords and knights and ladies after all. In truth, while the choice insulted her, when she put emotion aside, she did understand. From looks to temperament, Jon had always had more of the North in him than she had.

Littlefinger was a master at the game, but in this one instance Sansa knew that she understood something that he simply couldn't. She was no longer the key to the North, she hadn't been since the day Jon Snow had been freed of his Night's Watch vows.

When she reached the Lord and Lady's chamber at last, Sansa stepped inside and was engulfed by a wave of memories and safety and warmth that seemed to lift all the weight of troubles and responsibilities away. This was her mother and father's room. The place she used to hide when the summer storms howled at the castle walls. The place she and Robb and Arya and Bran and even little Rickon had sat with their parents and listened to tales of Riverrun and Winterfell in years past. The place they would gather, just the seven of them, to exchange gifts on Name Days. The place where her mother would braid her hair before a feast while she had confided all the worries of her silly, naïve little world…

Sansa stepped further into the room, her hand trailing over the pelts which covered the bed almost in reverence until a small bloodstain on the wooden headboard caught her eye. This was her mother and father's room. The place where Ramsay had fucked Myranda while she was locked, bruised and bloodied, in another room.

Her hand jerked away from the furs as though scalded. No. This was her mother and father's room. This was warmth and safety. This was home. But it was too late, the echoes of Ramsay's blade played across her inner thighs and danced its way playfully toward her cunt while his phantom cock pressed against her ass, and she bolted from the chamber before it could go any further. Breathing shakily she let her feet carry her through the familiar halls once more as the contradiction between safety and terror threatened to bring her to tears.

This was her home. Her home. She could not, would not, let Ramsay take that from her. But the reminders of his 'affections' — still painful and only just beginning to heal — begged to differ, and she resigned herself to wandering the halls alone once more. It wasn't until she found herself standing outside the door to Jon's childhood room that Sansa realized her feet had had a destination in mind. Despite her offering the Lord and Lady's chambers to Jon, her brother had insisted on returning the room allocated to him during their youth, located close enough to the Lord's chambers to be socially acceptable yet far enough away dissuaded any notion that he was truly one of the Stark children. The thought sent a pang of guilt through her chest.

She had spent their childhood making certain that Jon was well aware of their difference in standing and mimicking her mother's behaviour toward him. They rarely spent time together, and she realized only now how little she knew of her older sibling. At her insistence he had forgiven any past conflicts back at Castle Black but all the same… Did he actually want to go to the Wall? She had always assumed he did, but perhaps he hadn't been given a choice. What style of fighting did he prefer? Robb had always excelled on horseback, and she had dreamt of watching her gallant brother ride in tourneys and bestow his favour upon her when he won, while Theon had invariably preferred a bow and bragged of being the best marksman in all the North. Her father had seemed most at ease with a sword in his hand and his boots on the ice, simple and without extravagance, yet deadly. But what about Jon? She had no idea. What did he prefer to eat? She knew that Arya would often sneak into the kitchens with Jon's help and hoard her stash of dried meat in her room, but what did Jon take for himself?

How could she share her home with someone for thirteen years and know almost nothing about him?

The answer was obvious, of course, she had been a self-centred little girl who wanted to be a princess and a bastard brother didn't fix into that fantasy. Perhaps the Gods were getting a laugh at her expense by creating a reality where that same brother ended up King? True, she had very few memories of being outright cruel to Jon, but that was more because of how rarely they interacted. They had got on fairly well at Castle Black, at least she thought they had, and Jon had gone out of his way to help her without question, but she knew it was perfectly likely that he would not appreciate spending his first evening as King playing big brother to a sister who had never cared for him. Not until she needed him, anyway.

How long she stood there, undecided, Sansa couldn't say, but she was pulled from her thoughts by a muffled thump and a quiet exclamation of pain from behind the door. Concern flooded her, leaving no room for fear or guilt, and she rapped on the wood sharply.

"Jon?"

There was no reply, but Sansa had never intended to wait for one, and she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Jon was sitting on the edge of his bed, bare chested with a sodden cloth in his hand and a bowl of water next to him. He gazed up at his sister with a wide-eyed expression that would have been comical if not for the state of his body. Bruising had turned his torso and arms into a patchwork of blues, blacks, purples and reds which only served to highlight the deep stab wounds marring his chest.

"Jon…" Sansa let the door fall closed behind her as she moved to his side.

Jon grimaced and reached out to retrieve his tunic from where it lay to one side. "It's nothing, Sansa."

Sansa refused to dignify the platitude with a response, stilling his hand with her own instead while the other traced the angry, raised edges of the gashes. "This is how they killed you."

It wasn't a question but Jon nodded all the same, looking anywhere but at his sister's face.

"I assumed they were healed when the Red Witch did… whatever it is she did," Sansa continued softly, tendrils of horror winding their way through her, "When you said you didn't want to fight, I didn't… I'm sorry, Jon."

Jon shook his head. "I'm not. You were right. And this…" he gestured vaguely toward his chest, "This isn't why I was hesitant."

Sansa tucked that piece of information away for later. "Do they hurt?"

Jon gave her a wry smile. "Not as much as they should."

Sansa frowned but again chose not to push the matter and returned instead to studying the wounds. "I'll send for Maester Wolkan, these will need cleaning and sewing up…"

"No," Jon's hand caught her wrist, the action and sudden strength in his voice startling them both. "Sansa, no."

Refusing to pull away or back down, Sansa replied with equal force, "There's corruption in some of them, Jon -"

"These are killing blows," Jon interrupted, dropping her wrist and sagging back as though the uncharacteristic response had drained him completely. "The fewer people who know…"

Sansa sighed but conceded that her brother was right, neither of them knew Wolkan and the type of sorcery that had been used to return Jon from the dead was beyond either of their understanding. Frankly, it was something she would rather not consider at all. "Let me tend to them, at least," she relented.

"I don't suppose you'll let me be until you do," Jon tried to joke, but it fell flat to both of them, and he grimaced tiredly. "The lads at Castle Black sewed them up before you arrived, but the thread became corrupted. I took it out before the battle… I needed to be able to move…"

Sansa winced at the image Jon's words conjured up as she continued to inspect the wounds. "Gods…" she breathed, fingers ghosting over the damaged flesh, "They haven't healed at all…"

"Aye, I know. I'm not sure they will, there's no blood to them. It's as though they stayed dead while the rest of me…"

"That's an awful thought," Sansa sighed, picking up the cloth Jon had abandoned and soaking it in the bowl of water once more. Moving as gently as she could, she began washing dirt and corruption from within the wounds. She felt Jon's muscles stiffen as she worked, but he stayed quiet and didn't move away. "If it wasn't these that made you hesitate about getting our home back," she continued after a moment, choosing her words carefully, "What was it?"

For a time it appeared Jon wouldn't answer. Sansa glanced up from her ministrations and caught sight of his face, eyes closed and mouth pressed into a firm line, and thought perhaps she had pushed too hard.

"Why are you here, Sansa?"

The question caught her off guard, the insecurities that had plagued her in the corridor came flooding back in full force and Ramsay's knife nipped at her skin tauntingly. "I… I couldn't sleep."

"Because of Ramsay."

It was a statement and Sansa felt herself flush. She had been vague with Jon while explaining what had transpired upon her return to Winterfell, unwilling to relive her time as Ramsay's wife now that she had been free, and he hadn't pushed. Still, it seemed he had gleaned more from what she hadn't said than he had let on. She'd forgotten that Jon could be perceptive when he wanted to be.

Jon opened his eyes and smiled sadly at her, "War's the same thing. I remember everything. Every man I've killed. All the men I couldn't save. All the men I've led to death… I remember how war smells, how it sounds, the feel of climbing over another man's insides while he screams for someone to help him… And I hate it, Sansa, I hate fighting. But I knew why I was fighting, and I believed in that and in the people I was fighting for…"

"And then they killed you."

"And then they killed me," Jon agreed, "And I was lost. I didn't know any more. But then you came, and you pushed and forced, and here we are," He reached out and took his sister's hand, "I know why I'm fighting again. I'm fighting for the living. I'm fighting for the North. I'm fighting for my family. I'm fighting for you. And for that I thank you, Sansa."

Sansa broke eye contact first, the gratitude in Jon's gaze something she was unaccustomed to, and returned her focus to his wounds. "These are as clean as I can manage," she announced in a clumsy attempt to drag the conversation away from war and death and Ramsay, "I'll come back tomorrow evening with some boiled wine to wash them more thoroughly, perhaps talk to Maester Wolkan about some ointment — discreetly, of course," she added, catching Jon's look, "For now though, I think we should bandage your chest. That should help keep them clean, at least, and perhaps reduce the pain some."

Jon's face twitched with amusement at her tone, a little smile playing on his lips. "Yes, Lady Stark," he teased.

Sansa felt herself return his smile without realizing it and something uncoiled in her chest. "Do you have any clean bandages?"

Jon pointed them out and Sansa set to work wrapping his damaged torso. With that finished she helped him into a fresh tunic and, assuming he would now want to rest in peace, moved to leave him to it.

"Sansa?" Jon interrupted her exit, "I was planning on putting a few more hours into sorting through the North's finances and food stores, a second pair of eyes wouldn't go amiss…"

Sansa paused. "Are you asking for my help, Your Grace?" she questioned, using his new title to ensure he understood the implications of his request. A king going to a woman for advice…

"Gods, yes."

And for the first time in what had to be years, Sansa truly smiled. "What have you found so far?" she asked, moving to the desk by the window at the back of the room.

"I've gathered what I could," Jon stood up stiffly and moved to join her, "The castle has been through so much I fear a good portion of the records have been lost…"

Sansa hummed thoughtfully, her mind already buzzing with the challenge, "I suggest we start with any reports from before Robb marched South, and work out the discrepancies as we move forward…"

And just like that Ramsay disappeared — at least for tonight — beneath a North that needed saving and a brother's steady presence by her side.

Hey, if you've made it this far you probably have opinions! Drop me a review and let me know!

Thanks for reading!

Prickly