Jon

He finds himself watching Sansa as she sleeps, just to be sure she's still breathing. The night they'd shared on the cot in the Last Hearth had provided Jon little in the way of rest, for various reasons; some he was unwilling to explore, even in his own thoughts.

Jon Snow knew death. Some could say it's all he'd ever really known. His first breaths had been his mother's last. He'd held Ygritte as the life shuttered from her eyes. He'd felt himself drain away and empty into the snow when he'd been murdered at Castle Black. He'd pressed a dagger into the belly of a woman whose lips he could still feel seared over his own.

Yet here was this small, pale girl with hair that reminded him of the sunset; this girl he'd watched take on as many names as he.

Sansa, his half sister.

Sansa, would-be queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Sansa, wife to the dwarf.

Sansa, wife to a monster.

Sansa, his Stark cousin.

Sansa, Queen of the North.

The idea of adding Sansa's name to the list of deaths he'd have to grieve was something he couldn't bear.

However, once her fever broke Sansa's health had returned as expected. She awoke the next morning with strength enough to eat a small meal and tour the crumbling and decrepit common rooms of the Last Hearth. Their footsteps echo softly through the empty castle as they survey what was once the seat of House Umber.

"It is a great shame to see what's become of this place." Sansa remarks, stopping to gaze at a ragged Umber sigil hanging haphazardly on the wall. "I remember visiting this castle as a small child. I begged Mother to let us visit often because the Umber cook baked the most delicious lemon posset and lavender biscuits."

Jon chuckles, and they both start walking again. " I don't know anything about that. I do recall a kitchen maid with hair the color of straw. She always made sure to save me an extra pudding."

Suddenly he feels a sharp smack on his shoulder, and Jon turns to see Sansa with a pretty red bloom on her cheeks. "What was that for?!" Jon asks, bewildered, and rubbing his wound. She may be a slight woman, but Sansa Stark could certainly leave a smarting slap when one wasn't prepared for it.

She doesn't even deign a glance in his direction, but her chin is tilted higher and her shoulders are tensed as she continues to walk ahead of him. "I remember that kitchen maid, alright." she says primly.

"What are you on about, Sansa?" Jon laughs, incredulous. "Is it so bad that she wanted to share her pudding with me?"

He remembers how particular Catelyn Stark had been about her children mingling with servants. Not that she cared either way what Jon did, bastard and all. Still, he could vividly recall her stern commands to "stay within your station", with a scathing glance in his direction.

Sansa stops at this, and Jon nearly collides with her as she doubles over with laughter. "Her pudding?" she manages between laughs. "Is that what they call it in the free folk village?"

Now well and truly confused, Jon stares at Sansa as she tries to regain her composure.

"Sansa, are you feeling ill again?" he wonders aloud, concerned her feverish delirium has returned. He raises his hand towards her forehead to attempt to check how warm she feels, but she swats his hand away and almost loses herself to hilarity again.

"I caught you…" she says between breaths, wiping tears from her eyes. "I caught you and that...straw haired girl in the stables. She was certainly sharing her pudding."

Realization strikes him, and suddenly Jon remembers the exact moment Sansa refers to. He'd been naught but a lad, only months before he'd first been sent to the Wall. The Umber kitchen maid had ambushed him in the stables one afternoon as Jon readied mounts for Robb and himself to take an impromptu ride.

"I always thought you were a 'andsome one, Jon Snow," the girl had whispered, planting sloppy kisses down his neck. Ever the gallant, he'd tried to pry the chit from himself, but she wasn't having it.

"I-I'm to be a brother." Jon had said feebly, backing away.

"I know ye brothers, Jon. Little lordling Robb acts like he's too good fer it." she says, smirking, her breasts nearly spilling out of the top of her bodice.

"Um, no. No, I mean I'm to be a Brother of the Night's Watch. I can't do...this... with you." Clearly irritated, the girl had made another attempt, this time more pointedly. "All the more reason to tumble me now," she'd said brashly, grabbing at his crotch.

At that very moment, the stable doors had creaked loudly, alerting Jon to someone's presence. He remembers praying it wasn't Father, or else he'd be disgraced from even the Night's Watch.

"So it was you!" Jon laughs, and Sansa's eyes narrow. "What were you doing spying on me, you little viper!"

" I wasn't spying!" Sansa returns hotly. They are outside now; the mid-day sun casts a warm glow despite the chill in the air, and her hair is spilling down her back in glinting waves. "The other children and I were playing sardines, and I thought I heard a suspicious noise coming from the barn. How was I to know you were doing something private in there?"

Jon gives her a sidelong look and nearly rolls his eyes. "If you must know, the straw-haired girl's affections weren't returned."

"Is that so?" she replies quietly, but there's a smirk playing on her lips.

Briefly, an unbidden image of Sansa in the Umber barn flashes in his mind. Her lips parted, her coppery hair tumbling over her shoulders as sun pours through the dusty old windows.

That's when he says something he shouldn't have said. Something reckless and entirely too foolish.

"Her hair wasn't quite the right color." he confesses, his voice low. The rubble of the Last Hearth is situated on a small peak, and they are overlooking the lands to the north, shoulder to shoulder. Sansa is gazing ahead, eyes squinted as if trying to see the frozen wall from so far away.

Jon looks at her for a moment, then turns and begins walking back towards the Last Hearth before uttering his last brazen words into the wind.

"I always preferred my women with hair kissed by fire."

A/N: Slow, I repeat, sloooowwwww burn.

Sorry, ya'll.

As always, I love reviews!