Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

All she knows is cold. And pain. Burning ripples of pain that cascade across her like never ending waves crashing against the shore. There was not a single part of her that didn’t hurt.

Burns.
Cuts.
Slices.
Tears.
Bites.

She had borne them all silently. It was worse because she didn’t cry, but he had already taken so much from her that she no longer gave him the satisfaction of hearing her screams.

She gave them freely at first, but now he had to rip them from her teeth.

“The North Remembers.”

Ramsey tells her this when he tells her of Reek.

“I’m sorry for killing your brothers.”

Ramsey makes Reek tell her this, and it’s just another way for him to break her. She doesn’t let any emotion show on her face, however, and she pays for it later in blood and pain. Reek watches her pay for it in blood and pain. The anger he feels breaks Theon Greyjoy out of the cage he was locked in.

“They weren’t Bran and Rickon!”

Hope is born inside her. Hope that gives her the strength to grasp Theon’s hand as tightly as she can and jump from the wall of Winterfell.

“We can’t stop.”

They run.

“We can’t stop.”

The coldness of the river water nearly kills them both. Theon has to pull her forward, through, and out. She thinks she will never stop shaking. Theon pulls her close, rubs her back, but she can’t get warm, and the hounds are coming.

“Go North,” he tells her, “Only North. Jon is Lord Commander. He will help you.”

She bites her fist to keep from crying out as the hounds draw ever closer, but she cannot keep in the scream as they pull her up by the arm Ramsey had carved up the night before.

Then the woman is there. The tall one, blonde like the Lannisters, but with far more honor. She has a boy with her, and they cut down the Bolten men as if they are made of cheese. One of them nearly kills the boy, but Theon kills him instead. Sansa hides behind a tree, only coming out when Theon urges her, standing protectively in front of her.

The woman-Brienne, she remembers-lays her sword at Sansa’s feet. She speaks the vow to Sansa that she had spoken to Sansa’s mother.

“Lady Sansa, I offer my services to you once again.”

Why hadn’t she listened the first time?

“I will shield your back and keep your council and give my life for yours if need be.”

Ramsey had carved up her back. There wasn’t much left of her to shield, to be honest.

“I swear it by the old gods and the new.”

There are no gods here.

Reek nods when she glances at him. Brienne looks hopeful. She needs to go North.

“And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth.”

She stumbles over the words as they cross thickly over her tongue.

“And…”

She does not remember the rest, and feels a panic rise inside her.

“Meat and mead at my table,” the boy supplies.

She repeats his words gratefully.

“And I pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor. I swear it, by the old gods and the new.”

Brienne smiles.

Theon smiles.

“Arise.”

Theon builds a fire. Brienne tells her why she didn’t come, tells her of Arya. Arya is alive.

“She wasn’t exactly dressed like a lady.”

Sansa smiles. “No, she wouldn’t be.”

Brienne turns serious. “What happened at Winterfell?”

Burns.
Cuts.
Slices.
Tears.
Bites.

Sansa’s haunted eyes tell the story that will never cross her lips. Brienne looks down.

“I should have gone with you while I had the chance,” Sansa tells her regretfully.

“It was a difficult choice, my lady.”

They both look at Theon.

“We’ve all had to make difficult choices.”

Theon is shaking as Podrick tries to start a fire. Sansa goes to him.

“We shouldn’t be lighting fires, it’s not safe.”

“Once we’re with Jon, Ramsey won’t be able to touch us.”

He’s never touching me again.

“Jon will have me killed the moment I step through the gate.”

Sansa doesn't want to admit it, but he’s right. Jon will kill him for what happened to Robb, for what happened to Father, for what happened to Winterfell and Rodrick and all the rest. Learning about Bran and Rickon will only make the death a little less painful and a little more quick.

“Take the black and he might forgive you.”

“I don’t want to be forgiven.”

It’s then that she realizes.

“You’re not coming with us.”

He doesn’t look at her.

“I would have taken you all the way to the Wall,” he chokes out, “I would have died to get you there.”

They cry together. She makes Brienne give him a horse, and watches as he rides away.

Getting to the Wall takes weeks. She’s weak as a newborn kitten even as all of her wounds close. Brienne sucks in a breath when she sees them for the first time. Sansa would have preferred that she never see them, but they need to be cleaned. She can’t afford for them to fester.

As it is, she only lets Brienne see the ones on her back and arms. The scars and brands between her legs are her own, and no one will ever see them. He carved his name on her right thigh, his house sigil on her left.

“They will know who you belong to,” Ramsey had told her as he cut and burned her away.

Podrick took to disappearing for a little while whenever they stopped. It wasn’t hard to notice how badly Sansa shook whenever he was near. Brienne and Podrick kept looking at each other with sad eyes. They didn’t think Sansa would notice, but she did. She noticed everything now.

Castle Black was a welcome sight. The Wildlings within its walls shocked her, however. There was a big man with hair as red as her own staring at Brienne like the gods had fallen from the heavens. Sansa knew that look. It wasn’t as dark as Ramsey’s, or Petyr Baelish’s. It amused her.

She slid down from the horse, well aware of everyone staring at her. No one in the courtyard was anyone she knew, or anyone she wished to see. She looked to the right, and there he was.

Gods, it’s father made over.

He steps back from the railing once he catches sight of her. Their eyes meet, and she can’t look away as he walks slowly down the stairs. He approaches her, stopping not five feet from her. A sob catches in her throat, and she launches herself at him. Jon clutches her close and Sansa gasps as his hands press against her still healing back. He smells like home.

Sansa faints.

Chapter Text

She wakes up in a bed covered with furs. Her back feels sticky, and she realizes that some of the cuts opened again. Whether it was from the ride, or the excitement, or how tightly Jon had held her, she wasn’t certain. The back of her dress was open and she could feel the tightness around her chest that meant even though the cuts were still bleeding, someone had cleaned and bound her back. She hoped it had been Brienne, though in complete honesty she wasn’t certain.

Jon didn’t know Brienne like she did, and there were Wildlings at the wall he obviously trusted. But then again, Jon didn’t know Sansa anymore either.

Sansa wasn’t even certain she knew herself anymore.

There was a weight on her hand, and she looked down the bed to see Jon sleeping in a very uncomfortable position in a rickety looking chair. He is clasping her fingers firmly even in sleep, his legs stretched out to the side and his head thrown back over the low back of the chair. He is clutching at her like he was afraid she would disappear, but Sansa knew that was impossible.

You had to be human to be able to vanish.

She twitched and Jon shot up as quickly as an arrow shot from a bow. He turns gray eyes (father’s eyes!) towards her, a quiet worry and sadness sitting in his gaze. His hand reaches up and he strokes her cheek.

“Are you hungry?” he asks her, and gods, his voice is deep and warm.

“A little,” she manages to choke out.

“Come on then.”

He helps her up from the bed, steadying her when her knees shake. He reaches for an object hanging from the bedpost, and Sansa realizes that it is his cloak. He doesn’t look at her back when she turns around for him to throw it over her shoulders, covering the part that is open. She understands why they can’t lace her dress up, and makes a mental note to burn it the second she has something else to wear.

He takes her gently by the hand and leads her to the fire burning on the other side of the room. There’s a chair sitting directly by it, lit in the dim light. She looks to a nearby window and realizes that it must be night. She’s not sure how long she was asleep, but she supposes that it doesn’t matter. She’s here, with Jon. She should be safe.

So why is she trembling?

Jon drags the chair he was sleeping in over next to her, but not too close. He’s noticed how she shakes. Reaching down to the edge of the fire, he pulls a stone bowl from the edge and places it in her outstretched hands. It’s warm, but she’s freezing even with the heat touching her skin.

“Soup,” he says, even though she can see what it is.

“Thank you.”

Weeks of being starved and then having to mostly eat raw food on the road (they barely dared to light fires and barely stopped to eat as it was) make her grateful that it’s mostly broth.

“It’s good soup,” she says quietly after she sips at it for a moment. Sansa is caught up in a memory, “Do you remember those kidney pies Old Nan used to make?”

Old Nan, who is dead like all the rest.

“With the beets and onions?” Jon replies, nodding with a smile.

Sansa gives him a small grin even though the thought of eating meat at the moment turns her stomach and causes bile to rise in her throat. She sips at the broth again, hoping it will prevent her from being sick. She notices a faraway look in Jon’s eye as he turns back to the fire.

“We never should have left Winterfell,” he tells her.

Tears rise up in her eyes, but she doesn’t let them fall. She understands what he is saying better than he does, she thinks.

You never should have left Winterfell, is what he means, Father should have never left, Robb should have never left.

He’s right, of course.

They never should have left their home. Now all that’s left of the Stark family is the three of them, her, Jon, and maybe Arya (wherever she is), and a pile of bones they will never get to bury. Rickon and Bran may be out there, somewhere, in the wilds, but truthfully Sansa doesn’t hold out hope for them even though she knows they might be alive. Hope has cost her time and time again, and it is no longer a price she is willing to pay.

“Don’t you wish we could go back to the day we left?” she asks him.

He doesn’t answer.

“I want to scream at myself,” she confesses, shaking her head, “‘Don’t go, don’t go you idiot.’”

He glances at her, “And how could we know? We were children with hopes and dreams and no true concern about what they might cost us.”

Sansa glances at him out of the corner of her eye. He’s scarred, and bearded, and he’s not the boy she knew anymore, he’s a man. But she supposes (no, she knows) she’s not the girl she used to be either. Gods, how stupid she was. They are family. They are Starks.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about what an ass I was to you,” she confesses quietly.

He grins at hearing her curse.

“I wish I could change everything.”

Jon shakes his head, “We were children.”

She can tell he’s trying to brush off her apology, but she needs to do this. Something besides blood needs to absolve her of her sins.

“I was awful,” she presses on, “Just admit it!”

He laughs, “You were occasionally awful. I’m sure I can’t have been all that great either, annoying and always sulking in the corner while the rest of you played.”

Her expression turns playful, and it’s the first time in a long time she might describe herself as being almost happy.

“Forgive me?” she asks.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he insists.

“Forgive me!” There’s the demanding lady she had once been.

“Alright, alright,” he accepts her apology, “You’re forgiven. I forgive you.”

There’s silence for a moment. She looks over at the cup in his hands and smirks, holding her arm out to him with a challenging glare. When he meets her gaze she wiggles her fingers, still smirking. He looks down at the cup in his hands and back up to her eyes. She looks at her own wiggling fingers with a knowing glance. His face tells her he doesn’t think she can drink it, and just to spite him she manages to choke down an extra deep draft of the ale before she chokes on it. He laughs at her before taking the cup back.

“You would think after over a thousand years that the Night’s Watch would learn to make a good ale.”

His face grows somber.

“I’m not staying here Sansa.”

She’s not stupid. She heard the whispers at the farms and villages they had passed in the weeks it had taken them to ride there.

The Commander is dead, they had said, killed by his own men.

It had sent a panic racing through her until she heard the other whispers.

He came back from the dead. The Red Woman brought him back. Jon Snow lives again.

She wasn’t certain what to believe, smallfolk were always known to gossip. But sitting here, now, in this moment, looking at the haunted and drawn expression that was painted over Jon’s face even when he smiled, she thinks there might be some truth in what was being said.

“Where will you go?” she wants to know. It seems she came all this way only to be left behind.

“Where will we go,” he corrects her, “If I don’t watch over you Father’s ghost will come back and murder me.”

Warmth spreads through her. “Where will we go,” she agrees.

“Can’t stay here, not after what happened.”

What did happen?

She wants to ask him, but she stops herself. Sansa isn’t honestly sure she wants to know what put the haunted look in Jon’s eyes. She thinks for a moment, and a small bloom of hope runs through her chest. But she can’t do this on her own.

“There’s only one place we can go. Home.”

His face turns incredulous, and he looks at her, then at her back, then back at her face. “What, shall we tell the Bolton’s to pack up and leave?”

He’s seen it, then. He knows a little about what has been done to her. He’ll never know everything, though. He’ll never know. At least he didn’t lump her in with the rest of the Bolton’s. She’s still a Stark in his eyes.

“We’ll take it back from them.”

“I don’t have an army.”

Yes he does.

“How many Wildlings did you save?”

His eyes widen.

“I’ve heard a lot of whispers on the road Jon. You saved the Wildlings and the Watch killed you for it. How many of them owe you their lives?”

Jon shakes his head at her angrily, “They didn’t come here to serve me.” He sets the cup on the floor and clasps his hands together, leaning towards the fire.

“They owe you their lives,” she reminds him fiercely, standing up to set her bowl on a nearby table, “You think they'll be safe here if Roose Bolton remains the Warden of the North?”

Father was Warden of the North. Robb should be King in the North. They should have never gone South. Northerner’s don’t last in the South, as history has proven.

“Sansa…”

No. No. So much has been taken from her already. So much has been lost already. They can’t stay on the Wall, that much is certain. But they have nowhere else to go. Nowhere else is safe for them but North.

He has to understand.

“Winterfell is our home. It’s ours. And Arya’s. And Bran’s. And Rickon’s. “

His head shoots up and his eye fills with tears, “Sansa, that’s not fair. It’s not fair to use our dead brothers and sisters to manipulate me."

Dead brothers and sis….oh….

“Jon. They’re alive. They’re all alive. I don’t know where they are, but they’re not dead.”

He slams his hand on the arm of his chair. “ENOUGH!”

He’s right.

“YES, ENOUGH!” she screams back, “Enough death and blood and pain and tears. I’ve been raped in my childhood bed and watched years ago as the insane boy I thought I loved cut off our father’s head. Our brothers and sister are alive, Jon, and we are Starks, and there must always be a Stark in Winterfell. It belongs to our family and we have to fight for it.”

“I’m tired of fighting!” he cries out, “It’s all I’ve done since I’ve left home. I’ve killed Brothers of the Night’s Watch, I’ve killed Wildlings.” Tears are falling down his face, “I hung a boy who was younger than Bran.”

His voice grows quieter. “I’ve fought. And I’ve lost.”

“So have I.” She grabs his hand tightly and moves herself in front of him. His fingers stroke hers gently. “If we don’t take back the North, then we will never be safe. I want you to help me, but I will do it alone if I have to. I will never get back some of the things the Bolton’s took from me, but Winterfell is something I would die for.”

He pulls back from her. “This is the Lord Commander’s Room. My old room. You can sleep here until we decide what to do.”

She watches as he leaves, the door closing softly behind him.

Chapter Text

Supper is a quiet enough affair. Sansa has to resist the urge to laugh at the glances the big wildling keeps sending to Brienne. He looks at the blonde woman like she’s a feast just waiting to be eaten. Brienna curls her lip up at him, and Sansa represses another smirk. Picking up her fork, she eyes the meat stabbed on it with a queasy feeling in her stomach. Across from her, Jon, Edd, and the Wildling all dig in as if this might be their last meal, and it doesn’t help the feeling in the pit of Sansa’s stomach.

It’s not helped by the tightness of her gown. She had refused to come out of the room until it was laced up, and she was regretting that choice. It felt too tight and pressing against everything.

Edd sees the look on her face and how she’s picking at her plate. “Sorry about the food,” he tells her, “It’s not what we’re known for.”

Sansa smiles wanly at him, “It’s alright. There’s more important things.”

More important things like home. Edd grins at her.

Any further conversation to be had halts due to the arrival of one of the Night’s Watch. He bows slightly as he walks through the doorway, approaching Jon.

“A letter for you, Lord Commander.”

Sansa watches as Jon’s expression changes. “I’m not Lord Commander any more.” he tells the messenger flatly.

Edd looks down at his plate and the rest of them shift around uncomfortably on the bench. After an extremely uncomfortable pause Jon finally reaches out to take the scroll, dismissing the man with a wave of his hand. Sansa’s breath catches in her throat when she sees the seal on the parchment.

It’s a flayed man.

She should have known Ramsay would have guessed where she had gone.

She should have known nowhere would be safe.

She risked everyone’s lives by coming here.

She’s risked Jon’s life by coming here.

Gods, what has she done?

Sansa can’t catch her breath.

Brienne looks at her in concern, but Sansa keeps her eyes on Jon. Jon slides the seal off of the scroll and opens it, beginning to read it silently to himself. He feels the weight of five glares heat up his skin, and he sighs, continuing out loud this time.

“To the traitor and bastard, Jon Snow,”

He would start with that, wouldn’t he.

“You’ve allowed thousands of wildlings past the wall,”

What, was he supposed to allow women and children to die?

“You have betrayed your own kind, you have betrayed the North,”

Jon was the son of the true Warden of the North, the brother of the former Northern King. He had more Northern blood in his veins then Ramsey Snow did.

“Winterfell is mine, bastard, come and see,”

Ramsey would watch as she took back what was hers.

“Your brother Rickon is in my dungeon.”

Sansa’s heart sank down to the floor, and her breath caught in her throat. Any color she might have gained in her cheeks faded away. Jon’s terrified eyes met hers before dipping back down to the parchment.

“His direwolf’s skin is on my floor, come and see.”

Gods, had he felt Shaggydog die? Had a piece of his heart been ripped out of him, like hers had when Father killed Lady?

“I want my bride back. Send her to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you, or your wildling lovers.”

She would kill herself first.

“Keep her from me, and I will ride North and slaughter every wildling man, woman, and babe living under your protection.”

Unshed tears fill her eyes and she watches as the table bends slightly from the force of the Wildling man’s grip.

“You will watch as I skin them living, you will watch-” Jon’s voice catches in his throat and he swallows heavily.

“Go on,” Sansa urges him.

What else is Ramsey going to do to them?

Jon turns away from her, rolling up the scroll quickly. “It’s just more of the same,” he tells her roughly, but Sansa doesn’t believe him. She snatches the letter from his hands and he looks up at her in trepidation.

Her voice shakes as she reads, “You will watch as my soldiers take turns raping your sister.” As if he hasn’t already done that, “You will watch as my dogs devour your wild little brother.” She will not let another Stark die before they make it home, “Then I will spear your eyes from their sockets and let my dogs do the rest. Come and see. Signed, Ramsay Bolton, Lord of Winterfell, and Warden in the North.”

She wants to spit on his grave.

Ghost, who had been living up to his name, comes up from the corner by the fire and bumps her free gently. She cards her hand through his fur, taking comfort in the familiar feeling of it. When she is sitting down he nearly comes up to her head, and she wonders if Lady would be this big now if she had lived.

She throws the scroll back down on the table, resisting the urge to burn it. Right now, it’s their only proof that Rickon is (possibly) alive. Gripping Ghost is giving her strength.

Jon is shaking in anger, “Lord of Winterfell, and Warden of the North?” He looks up at Sansa.

She knows what her bastard husband has done. “His father is dead,” she says with conviction, “Ramsay killed him. And now he has Rickon.”

“We don’t know that,” Jon tries to reassure her.

“Yes, we do,” she snaps back, “Ramsay is a lot of things, but he’s not a liar. He kept every promise he ever made me and he never lied.”

They don’t have to ask her what she’s talking about. Jon’s eyes are filled with a pain that is no doubt reflecting in her own.

“How many men does he have in his army?” The Wildling (Tormund, she finally remembers) wants to know.

Sansa looks up at the ceiling, trying to remember the snippets of information she heard while living with the Boltons. “I heard him say….five thousand…once. When he was talking about Stannis’s attack.”

It had only been a few weeks ago, and yet it felt like a lifetime.

Jon turns to Tormund, “How many do you have?” he demands.

“That can march, and fight?” Tormund muses, “Two thousand. The rest are children, and old people.”

It’s not enough.

Jon is already sinking back down, looking discouraged and defeated. Sansa can’t stand it.

“You are the son of the last true Warden of the North,” she bites out angrily, “Northern families are loyal and they will fight for you if you ask.”

His expression doesn’t change, and she knows she’s losing him. She’s losing Rickon. She snatches his hand and yanks his arm across the table, holding his fingers tightly. Jon meets her eyes.

“A monster has taken our home and our brother. We have to go back to Winterfell and save them both.”

There’s a long pause, and Sansa despairs that she will be doing this all on her own before Jon finally nods. She can’t stop the great sigh of relief from leaving her lips, and she leans down to kiss his hand softly, a tear or two sliding down her cheeks. The feeling in her stomach tightens just then, and she pushes Ghost away from her just quickly enough to empty her stomach on the floor. Once she’s done being sick, she sits up and wipes her mouth.

She should have realized this before.

Everyone is staring at her in horror, but she doesn’t have the time for that. She begins to speak, her voice cold as ice, “If there is one thing Ramsay believes, it’s that I’m his legal wife, and maybe I am. And if there is one thing that Ramsay wants, it’s a trueborn heir that he can snatch from the cradle and mold to be exactly like he is. He has something that I want, and I have something that he wants.” Her eyes become steel, “Let’s see how long Ramsay chooses to threaten us once he realizes I am willing to kill the one thing that he will ever love in this world.”

Chapter Text

It's not until later when Job bursts through her door that she regrets her little outburst over the dinner table. Jon stays inside the doorway waiting for her permission to enter, and she supposes she has to thank him for that at least. He stares at her, his eyes wild, and a part of her regrets flouncing away from the table the way that she did, without saying a word to anyone. None of them will ever understand exactly what Ramsey Bolton did to her, and none of them will ever understand how far she is willing to go to take back Winterfell, to take back Rickon. Truthfully, if she wasn't in the possession of so powerful a bargaining chip beneath her dress, she would take the loss of Rickon with a calm sense of grace that she has learned to portray these last few years of her life. But she is in possession of a bargaining chip and she has the power to use it. 

There is nothing but silence between the two of them, the only sound that crackling of the fire and the rustling of Sansa's skirts. She tilts her head slightly to the side and he takes the quiet invitation she offers. Jon takes a seat in front of the fire, staring into its flames with unseeing eyes. Sansa smooths her hand down the front of her dress, the heavy Northern fabric a comfort to her even though the wool feels rough. Maybe she can borrow some clothes from a wildling woman, they would no doubt be far more comfortable then a half open dress with a cloak across the back. 

Jon's eyes don't leave the fire as he speaks, "Is it true?" 

Sansa sits down next to him and grasps his hand gently, ignoring his gasp of surprise when the skin of their palms meet. His hand is warm and his skin is roughened from years of sword work. She can feel a small scar on the edge of his wrist, and she remembers the time that he thought he could draw Father's bow and cut himself for his trouble. Pulling him to sit forward, she lays his hand down on her stomach and makes him press against her, feeling the firmness beneath both of their palms. Sansa wasn't far enough gone to be showing yet, but it was only a matter of time with how slight and slim she had become during the months of her captivity. 

"I knew it was more than possible," she explains quietly, "And for a long time I suspected. But it's been three months since I've had my courses, and I don't think I can lie to myself anymore. This child will be our chance, Jon." 

She watches a sea of emotion crash over his face, and wonders if this fluttery feeling of nervousness was what her mother felt every time she told their father another child was coming. Jon needs to understand how important this is. If it wasn't for Rickon, Sansa would most likely be seeking other means by which to....handle the situation, for lack of a better term. She didn't know how she would handle carrying a piece of Ramsay inside of her for all these months, didn't understand why she had to suffer even more pain on the birthing bed, but there was truly nothing that she could do. Not if she wanted her home back. Not if she wanted her brother back. 

"Chance for what, exactly?" Jon wants to know. 

"Ramsay wants nothing more than to have an heir to establish his legacy. It was all he talked about every time he took me and even in between. His mistress was fond of telling me how I would be treated once I had served out my usefulness and given him sons. Don't ask me to tell you what they said they would do to my daughters. But he will want this child, and that will be how we win." 

Jon turns his face towards her, pulling his hand back. "You truly are no longer the girl you once were. I think I almost miss her compared to the person you have become. I don't understand how you can even consider what you are about to do, what you are about to threaten." 

Sansa's face takes on a cruel smile. "Many will miss the girl I once was. She was easier to kill." 

Jon leaves quietly, and doesn't speak to her for several days after that. 

Sansa almost feels relieved when she gets handed a note with Baelish's seal pressed into it. Even though Jon is angry at her, even though he's not speaking to her, she still stitches at the gift she feels that he needs, thinking that if he sees what she has made him it will be the thing to push him over the edge and finally agree without question to what she is planning. Is it manipulative of her? Absolutely, but then she learned at the feet of the best minds in Westeros how to get exactly what she wanted. She breaks the seal under Brienne's watchful eye and lets out a small breath as she reads the words on the parchment. Rolling it back up, Sansa looked to her companion. 

"How far is Mole's Town?" Sansa asks. 

Brienne protests heavily, even going so far as to threaten to tell Jon, but Sansa reminds the woman that first and foremost, Brienne had sworn herself to Sansa. This was how the large woman found herself leading her smaller charge out of the safety of Castle Black and into Mole's Town, nearly half a league away. Sansa wears her cloak like an armor as she sweeps into the abandoned building Petyr had told her about in his note. Beneath her skirts was the small (but thankfully still not visible) curve of her stomach and the back was laced as loosely as it possibly could be. Vainly, she had thought to try to make a paste for her face to hide the yellowing bruises under her eyes, but in the end she had decided against it. Let the bastard see his own handiwork. 

The snake turns around as soon as he hears their footfalls. His smile is wide as he catches sight of her, and it was only Brienne's hand on her sword that keeps him from sweeping her up into his arms. Sansa could tell. She knows that look. 

"Sansa," his voice is relieved, and Sansa has to resist the urge to curl up her lip at him, "Lady Brienne." Brienne did not resist the urge, however, and meets his greeting with a sneer and a nod of her head. 

Sansa stares him down with a cool eye at the man who was the cause of all of her current troubles, at the man who had sold her like a pig was sold to the butcher. She didn't say anything, reveling in how uncomfortable she was making him. 

"When I heard you had escaped from Winterfell, I feared the worst," he began, "You have no idea how happy I am to see that you're unharmed." 

Sansa hears Brienne suck in a sharp breath and the rustle of armor tells her that her sworn-sword had very nearly pulled her blade from its scabbard. Sansa is frozen in a white-hot rage of fury, feeling it boil and fester beneath her skin. She twitches her fingers back and felt as Brienne settled, her hand still not leaving the hilt of her sword. 

"Unharmed," Sansa says slowly, letting the word roll around her tongue, "Why are you here?" 

Petyr gestures behind him slightly, "I rode North with the Nights of the Vale, to come to your aid. They're encamped at Moat Calin even as we speak." 

Where were they when I needed them? Where were they when I truly needed aid? 

"To come to my aid?" Sansa's tone is hard, unmoving, and demanding, "Did you know about Ramsay? About the monster of a man you sold me to? If you didn't know, you're an idiot, and if you did know then you're my enemy." 

Sansa watches as Petyr's face falls and his expression changes to sorrow. It gives her a grim sort of satisfaction to watch him suffer, and so she decides to twist the knife in even further, "Would you like to hear about our wedding night?" She keeps her tone light and airy, almost as if she was speaking to other noblewomen about a truly happy occasion instead of something that still gave her night terrors. 

Sansa continues to watch as a small amount of tears gather in the eyes of Petyr Baelish. "He never hurt my face. He needed it. He needed the face of Ned Stark's daughter. But the rest of me....well.....he did what he liked with the rest of me. It didn't matter what he did with the rest of me, so long as I could still carry his heir. What exactly do you think he did?" 

Petry lets out a shaky breath, "I can't even begin to contemplate...." 

"No! What do you think he did to me?" 

He doesn't move, his eyes never leave her, and all he can do is stare at her. Sansa twitches her fingers back at Brienne, who draws her sword partway out of its sheath. 

"My Lady Sansa asked you a question." 

Petyr sucks in a wet, shuddering breath, "He beat you."

She nods, "Yes, he enjoyed that. What else do you think he did?" 

"Sansa, I don't-" 

Again, she doesn't give him a chance to finish, "WHAT ELSE?"

Petyr closes his eyes for a brief moment and lets out a sigh. Opening them again, he cocks his head back and up and takes a good long look at her. "Did he cut you?" 

There's something in his tone that tells her that it truly isn't a question, and she blinks slowly as what she had feared all this time becomes a truth in her mind. She gazes at him coolly, "Maybe you did know all about Ramsay." 

He shakes his head frantically, "I didn't know, Sansa, I swear it." 

She laughs at him, "I thought you knew everyone's secrets." 

They haven't moved an inch since they entered this little room, and Sansa can feel an ache beginning in her bones from the cold and the pain. She doesn't let it stop her, however, and she chooses to ignore it, much like she chooses to ignore Brienne's warning looks as footsteps come and go all around them. Petyr is still pleading with her. 

"I made a mistake, a horrible mistake, I underestimated a stranger." 

It makes her sick to see him plead, and she wants to break him the way that she was broken, "The other things he did to me, ladies aren't supposed to talk about. But I imagine brothel keeps talk about them all the time." 

She sees the first crack in his expression, and she chases it, "I can still feel it. I don't mean 'in my tender heart it still pains me so', I can still feel all of what he did to me. In my body, on my body, standing here right now I can feel my flesh knitting itself together from where he separated it." 

"I'm. So. Sorry." 

Sorry isn't enough. 

"You said you would protect me." 

"And I will. You must believe me when I tell you that I will." 

Sansa shakes her head, "I don't believe you anymore. I don't need you anymore. You can't protect me." She smirks cruelly at him, "You won't even be able to protect yourself if I tell Brienne to cut you down." 

Petry only has to take one look over her shoulder to see that she's speaking the truth. 

"So why shouldn't I?" Sansa wants him to beg, the way that she had been begging for gods only knew how many weeks. 

Petyr meets her challenging gaze head on. "You want me to beg for my life?" 

Yes, I do. 

"If that's what you want, if it's in my power, I will." 

Could she really do it? "And if I want you to die, here and now?" 

"Then I will." 

Sansa shook her head, "You freed me from the monsters that murdered my family and you gave me to other monsters who murdered my family." 

Sansa was many things, but a killer she was not. 

"Go back to Moat Caillin, my brother and I will take back the North on our own, and I never want to see you again." 

She can see in Petyr's eyes that he's going to try one last time, "I would give anything to undo what has been done to you, but I can't." He sighes, "Will you allow me to say just one more thing before I go?" 

"Your mother's uncle, Brynden, has rallied what remains of the Tully forces and retaken Riverrun. You might consider seeking him out, for the time will come when you need an army loyal to you."

"I have an army," Sansa snaps back. 

"Your brother's army." 

He begins to walk away, but stops when a voice from the doorway addresses him. "That's half-brother, Lord Baelish. And it is Sansa's army, for they follow me, but I'm following her." 

Jon appears in the doorway, his face firm and cold. He walks forward, putting himself between Sansa and Petyr and Sansa realizes that he most likely heard every word that was spoken. Jon holds out his hand to her. 

"Come on," he tells her, still eyeing Petyr, "It's cold." 

Sansa follows him. 

Chapter Text

Sansa wretches pitifully into the chamber pot with hardly anything present in her stomach, painfully aware of Brienne's presence behind her. Her sword sword is pulling back Sansa's long red hair, trying to keep it out of the way of the sick. Even with the meager and bland provisions she was becoming accustomed to, food was beginning to turn Sansa's stomach no matter what form it took. Tears creep into her eyes almost silently, but she does not allow them to fall. She cannot allow herself to cry. Not when Brienne is behind her, Jon on the other side of the door, and an entire castle full of men who cannot see her be weak. 

It's all for nothing if they see her be weak. 

Jon had been furious when he pulled her away from Baelish, but she hadn't offered him any explanation or reasoning. He didn't deserve it, and she was too tired to give it. She had allowed him to lead her back to Castle Black, not speaking the whole way there. She had retired to her rooms for the evening and not said a word. Straightening so suddenly that she startles Brienne into taking several steps backwards, she strides to the door as quickly as she can and yanks it open. Jon very nearly falls on top of her as she does so. 

"What?" Sansa demands. 

Jon stands up slowly, brushing himself off as he stretches out. 

"I will follow you wherever you wish to go." 

"You've already said that," Sansa snaps back, "But what good does it do? The Free Folk will never truly be ours, and we don't really have an army." 

"Tormund and the others will follow us if we promise them safety." 

Sansa's expression turns skeptical, "And just what safety would we be giving them?" she wants to know. 

Jon gets a peculiar look in his eye. "What do you remember about the stories Old Nan used to tell us?" 

~~

Truthfully, Sansa isn't sure if she should believe him. But he is also the proof of his own words. They had stabbed him, killed him, yet there he was next to her. Escorting her down to the hall where the others were waiting. He had risen from the dead, so the whispers said, so why was it not plausible that there was an army of the undead crawling slowly towards them on the other side of the wall. 

White Walkers. Night King. 

Sansa wanted to cry. Her dreams were haunted enough at night without these new things to think of. 

Edd, Tormund, that Red Woman, and Ser Davos were waiting on them, a map stretched out before them on the table. They began to speak of strategy, of warfare, of battle movements. All things Sansa was less than familiar with. She was quite lost until Jon stood up, slamming one of the wooden map markers on the table. 

"We can't defend the North from the Walkers and the South from the Bolton's! If we want to survive, we need Winterfell. And to take Winterfell, we need more men!" 

Tormund sat down on the other side of the table across from her, and Sansa took comfort in the fact that she was not the only one who could not understand the map the rest were currently studying. The current leader of the Free Folk eyes the paper in front of him dubiously, a look of confidence only appearing whenever he catches Brienne's eye. Sansa resists the urge to snicker every time Brienne notices his attentions, which only causes Tormund to preen even more. 

"Aside from the Starks and the Boltons," Ser Davos says, "The most powerful houses in the North are the Umber's, the Karstark's, and the Manderly's. The Umber's and the Karstark's have already declared for the Bolton's. So we're not doing so well there." 

Sansa feels a stabbing of rage at his words and clasps her hands together to avoid hitting something. "The Umbers gave Rickon to Ramsey," she bites out in a hiss, "They are our enemies and I will see them hang." 

Davos and the others glance at Jon at her words but he simply nods in support. Sansa smiles slightly. 

"The Karstarks, on the other hand, declared for Ramsey without knowing they had another choice," she continues, "We may find allies there." 

Davos doesn't look so certain. "Forgive me, my lady, but your brother Robb cut off Lord Karstark's head. The current Lord Karstark is not likely to forgive you for his father's death, so I don't think we can count on them either." 

Sansa rolls her eyes up and silently curses Robb for his haste and poor choice of punishment. She also wants to throttle Davos for his ignorance of the North and its people, even though she knows it can't be helped that he knows nothing of her people. 

"How well do you know our kingdom, Ser Davos?" she asks. 

He shruggs his shoulders, "Precious little, my Lady." 

"Father used to say that Northerners were different, more loyal. Suspicious of outsiders."

"They may be loyal," Davos agrees, "But how many rose up against the Bolton's when they killed your family?"

Sansa can't answer that. 

"I may not know much about the North," Davos continues, "But I know men. They're more or less the same in any corner of the world, and even the bravest of them don't want to see their wives and children skinned for what they think is a lost cause. Jon's got to convince them to fight alongside him, and he has to make them believe that it's a fight they can win. 

Jon stands behind her suddenly, studying the map with a critical eye. "There's more to the North then just those houses. There's two dozen more, at least, and their numbers would be equal to those of the Manderly's, Umber's, and Karstark's. We can start there, start small, and work our way up as our numbers increase." 

"'The North Remembers'" Sansa quotes her house words, "They will remember what has been done to us, and risk everything for our vengeance if we just give them the chance. The Stark name means something to us, to these people."

"But Jon doesn't have the Stark name," Davos points out. 

"No," Sansa cuts back, "But I do. And Jon is every bit my father's son just as Ramsey is Roose Bolton's." 

"Forgive me, my Lady, but you're a Bolton wife with a Bolton baby." 

"And what does that matter? I'm not the first Northern woman to have a baby and I won't be the last. It's of no consequence." 

Brienne looks at her with pity, "You may think that, but others will not. And you know that, my Lady." 

Sansa shakes her head, "Worries for another day." She gestures to the map, "We don't just have to focus our efforts on Northern Houses. The Tully's are my mother's family, they will come if I ask. My Uncle the Blackfish has managed to retake Riverrun with his reformed army." 

A gleam appears in Davos's eye that hadn't been there before. He stands up suddenly, running his hands over the map without touching it. Jon's hand comes to rest on the back of Sansa's chair and they watch as Davos mentally calculates with the information he has just been given. 

"Stark, Tully, a few other houses...." He looks up at them, "We might actually have a chance." 

Chapter Text

"What are you going to do about Petyr Baelish?"

"What are you going to do about that babe you carry in your belly?"

Sansa knows that Jon means for his barbed comment to sting her, and she would be lying if she said it didn't. It cuts her nearly as deeply as Ramsey did, this reminder of the fact that she will never be allowed to forget what has been done to her. What if it's a boy? What if it has his face? Will she never truly escape the torture and the torment she has endured?

Jon still doesn't understand.

"I bear the brands and the scars and I will never stop bleeding inside for what I have faced," she snaps out, "Let me worry about the bastard in my belly."

They're in the Lord Commander's rooms, in Jon's rooms, packing up what little they plan to take with them. Sansa has been at Castle Black for nearly a month now, and they haven't spoken of Baelish or Ramsey or the bastard (she refuses to think of it as anything else) she is carrying in the three weeks since he found her in Molestown. Jon rears back at her words, almost as if she had slapped him, and a part of her wishes that she had.

Tormund's daughters have been taking care of her, Brienne always lurking close by and keeping a careful watch as they work silently. Myrwen and Yrya are only a little older than Sansa and they've worked as healers in their tribe nearly all their lives. The first time Jon had sent for them he had whispered to them how bad he thought it was, and Brienne had taken care to tell them that it was far worse than even Jon knew. There were two of them, half the size of their father the Giantsbane but no less fierce. They had exchanged looks with each other the first time they had helped Sansa strip and bathe and watched her eyes white over as she drifted away from herself. They had rubbed ointments and balms and various other things into her skin and the flesh was finally knitting itself together. Sansa feels so fragile though, as if she is stretched so thin her skin will snap from her very bones.

The growing roundness of her middle doesn't help matters.

"If you don't want to talk about it, then we won't."

Jon sets down the bundle he is wrapping and reaches for her hand. Sansa lets him take it, lets him stroke her fingers, and basks in the fact that she knows he will never hurt her. She's safe here, with Jon.

"I'm sending Brienne away." She sees his look of surprise. "She won't like it, but it needs to be done."

The sworn shield in question is standing outside of the door and Sansa has spoken lowly enough that only Jon can hear her. Sansa turns his hand in hers to clasp it tightly. "You'll keep me safe." she tells him before handing him another bundle and gesturing for him to leave. She knows that he's relucant to, that there are a million words that need to be spoken between them, but seven hells, she can't think about all that right now.

She's right. Brienne doesn't take it well at all.

"Send a raven, do not send me!" Brienne of Tarth exclaims once Sansa lays out her plan.

"We need an army. My uncle has an army. I can't send a raven that Ramsey or one of his men shoot down and intercept. It must be you."

Brienne has a look on her face that Sansa can't decipher. "What is it?"

"I don't like leaving you here, alone."

"What, with Jon?" Sansa asks as she packs the last saddle bag and sets it off to the side.

"No, not with Jon. He seems trustworthy enough, if a bit moody." Her eyebrows crinkle as she frowns, "Though I suspect that can be understood. I doubt I would be in high spirits if I had been stabbed in the back, the front, and all the way around."

Sansa sighs heavily at the image that invokes, a picture of Jon lying in the snow and bleeding out slowly with the cold. She casts it from her mind as Brienne begins to pace.

"The others though," the blonde woman spits out, but Sansa cuts her off.

"Let me worry about the others. Let Jon worry about the others. You need to ride for Riverrun as soon as you can manage it. I need my uncle. I need his army. I need my home, and you can help me get it."

Brienne observes this girl of only fifteen summers, one who has known more horror than some men experience in a lifetime, and she knows she can't argue with her.

"Very well Milady."

There's nothing else to be said, and Sansa watches as she strides out the door.

Chapter Text

Between the two of them, they hardly have anything to pack. Brienne is gone, off on Sansa's mission to Riverrun. The only ones following them are Podrick, and maybe the Wildlings, and Davos. A motley little crew if there ever was one. Four months have passed by since Sansa and Theon jumped off of the walls of Winterfell, and there is a distinct roundness to her middle now that wasn't there before.

She doesn't let herself think about it.

She will have to, at some point, but for now what lies ahead for her lies in Winterfell.

What lies ahead for her is home.

She closes the door on the room of the Lord Commander for the last time, a bundle clutched tightly in her arms. She's dressed in a new kind of armor now, the light and airy dresses of the South and that Ramsay preferred she where long gone in favor of a traditional Northern dress. A dress she should have learned to appreciate in days past, when Mother and Father and Robb were still alive and the Starks were home in Winterfell instead of scattered to the wind.

Jon notices her first when she walks down the stairs to the courtyard. "New dress?"

New cloak as well. "I made it myself, do you like it?"

He points to where she had painstakingly embroidered their house sigil the night before. "I like the wolf bit."

She's glad. "Good." Sansa holds out the bundle. "Because I made this. For you."

Jon takes it from her and looks down at the furs with wonder in his eyes. "I made it like the one Father used to wear." She pauses, remembering. "As near as I could remember, anyway."

She thinks back to the day she stumbled into Castle Black, how for a brief moment she had thought she'd seen a ghost, Ned come back to haunt her, but it was only Jon reaching out to catch her as she fell.

"Thank you, Sansa."

This might just be the nicest conversation that they've ever had. She smiles.

"You're welcome."

It's Tormund who helps her mount her horse.

"Did you have to send the big woman away?"

Sansa can't help but smirk. "She'll be back, soon enough," she tells him teasingly.

Jon embraces Edd one last time before mounting his horse next to her. He leads, and she follows, and together they leave Castle Black behind.

There's only one place they can go from here, and that's the Wildling camp. They're met by the leaders of the clans, what few that remain. Sansa is shocked to see a giant sitting next to the fire, shocked nearly silent. She stays back and let's them talk to Jon, for it is Jon they know and not her.

"We said we'd fight with you, King Crow, when the time comes, and we meant it. But this isn't what we agreed to. These aren't White Walkers and this isn't an army of the Dead. This isn't our fight."

"If it weren't for him, none of us would be here," Tormund cuts in, "All of you would be meat in the Night King's army and I'd be a burned pile of charred bones just like Mance." He looks around the camp, diminished as it is in size, "Remember Mance's camp? Stretched all the way to the horizon, and look at us now."

"And what will happen if we lose?" the first Wildling fires back, "Dozens of tribes, hundreds to generations, reduced to a mere three-thousand or less in the blink of an eye. We do this, and we're done for. We'll be the last of the free folk."

"That's what you will be anyway even if we lose and you're not beside us! The Boltons, the Umbers, the Karstarks, they all know you're here, and they know that you're few in number. Once they've finished with me...."

"With us." Sansa cuts in quietly, but loud enough to be heard. Jon turns back to look and her and she meets his gaze without flinching.

"With us," he agrees, "Then they'll come for you. I shouldn't have to ask this of you, shouldn't ask you to come to Winterfell. You're right, this isn't the deal that we made. But I need you with me if we have even a slight chance in hell of beating them and we need to beat them in order to survive."

There's a beat, and then Tormund is speaking again. "The crows killed him, because he spoke for the free folk. When no other southerners would." He steps up to Jon, lays a heavy hand on his shoulder. "He died for us, and who are we if we are not willing to do the same? If we don't, then I say we are cowards. And if that's what we are, then we deserve to be the last of the free folk."

Sansa steps up next to Jon, looking around the camp for a brief moment. Their eyes are all on her now, waiting for her to speak. "Jon and I need you in order to take back Winterfell. In order to fight the Dead, we need to take back Winterfell. If we don't do this, we might as well lay down and let them come and kill us. I escaped Winterfell, what's left of it anyway. I shouldn't have had to run from my home, but I did. And now I'm running back." She squares her shoulders, "If you do this, if we win, I will sign the Dreadfort and all its lands and holdings over to you."

"What claim do you lay on this land, that you think to gift it to us?"

Sansa shakes her head, "Not my claim. The claim of the bastard in my belly. Ramsay Bolton is Lord of the Dreadfort as well as the Warden in the North, or so he claims. I carry his child. I will sign their rights away."

Tormund looks at her warily, "And what will your child say about that when they come of age?"

"They won't have anything to say about it," Sansa snaps back, "They will be a Stark of Winterfell. This child will never bear the Bolton name, not so long as I'm alive." She turns back to those gathered around the fire. "The Dreadfort in exchange for your help."

They don't get a chance to reply. The giant stands up and utters only one word, "Snow."

And that's the end of it.

They all shake hands, and they have an army.

Chapter Text

"Did you mean what you said?"

Jon stops short when he sees the position Sansa's in.

She's not in any particularly innappropriate position, just sitting in a chair illuminated by the lamp glow in her tent. She's dressed in a plain tunic that stops just below her knees, no doubt given to her by one of Tormund's daughters. He can see the faint littering of red lines that adorn her calves and shins and he winces slightly, wondering at what else exists across her body.

She's cradling the small bump on her middle, looking at it with an odd look in her eyes that Jon can't place. He's not sure if he twitches, gasps, or makes some other sound but she looks up. The expression on her face reads like she's been caught doing something forbidden.

But Jon won't be deterred, not even by her surprise. "Did you mean what you said?"

"About what?" Sansa asks softly.

"About the Dreadfort. Giving it to the Wildlings. Did you mean that?"

Sansa nods slowly.

"Sansa.."

"I want nothing to do with that place!"

"And what of your child?"

Her features grow sharp. "What of it?"

"Sansa, the Dreadfort is its' birthright. If we win, and you bear a son, it will be lord of the Dreadfort. The new Bolton heir."

He notices the look on her face and presses forward.

"You know I'm right."

She doesn't answer.

"Sansa, you can't run away from this any longer."

She still doesn't answer.

"Sansa."

Nothing.

"SANSA!"

He finally gives into his ire, grabs her, shakes her, and she still doesn't make a sound. In fact, she hardly moves, and it's only when he sees the trembling in her shoulders and a lone tear streak down her cheek that he even realizes she's still breathing. Another tear streaks down her face, and then another, and another. She crumples into his arms, and together they slide down to the floor until he's cradling her like a babe. Her hands are wound tight around her belly. He rocks slightly, back and forth, humming a lullaby that he faintly remembers Lady Catelyn singing to Bran and Rickon a lifetime ago.

Sansa quiets then, and there's a faraway look in her eyes.

"Do you ever remember being happy?" she wants to know. Jon doesn't answer. "I don't. It's far away, with Lady, and Mother, and Father, and Robb. Before we were stupid enough to go South. Starks don't do well in the South, you know. I should have remembered that, should have remembered what happened to Grandfather, and Uncle Brandon. That's why Father never went South, except during the Greyjoy rebellion all those years ago."

She sits up slowly, still leaning against him, and all Jon can do is listen.

"I think I felt it move."

He stifles a gasp and watches as another tear flows down her cheek.

"I treated you horribly when we were children."

"Sansa-"

"No, Jon, let me speak. I treated you horribly because I was copying Mother. And she was wrong, I know that now. I'm still young and foolish but maybe I'm a little older and wiser than I was. Maybe."

She's silent for a moment, and Jon watches as the fire flickers over her skin. "I know she was wrong, but I also understand why she couldn't let herself love you. I feel like I can't let myself love this child."

Her hand strokes over her stomach, almost absentmindedly. "I've more scars then I know what to do with now. More scars and more pain and a body that continues to betray me." She looks up at him, tilting back her head on his shoulder where they're sitting sprawled on the floor. "They offered me something to get rid of it, you know."

Jon coughes, surprised, "Who?"

"Tormund's daughters. When they saw my scars, and understood a little of what's been done to me, once it was known what was growing inside of me, they said they could help me get rid of it."

"Why didn't you?"

Sansa's eyes grow bright with a sort of wry amusement. "Because I'm playing the game. I was taught by the best you know, and it's a game that never ends, so you're always playing. 'Always keep your foes confused, if they don’t know who you are, what you want, they can’t know what you plan to do next.' That's what Petyr Baelish taught me. And maybe I've let the words confuse me, maybe I've let what's happened affect me more than a little too much." She sits up, pulling herself away from him.

"I told her. 'If I'm going to die, let it happen while there's still some of me left.' I thought maybe I could claw my way out of hell, but now I feel as if I've been pulled right back in. And I don't know what to do Jon."

"Ramsay was a bastard, Sansa, I'll grant you that. But he was legitimized."

Sansa turns Tully-blue eyes, cold as ice onto him, "Legitimized by a Baratheon who is truly a Lannister. Such words are just paper, Southern paper at that. And no one this side of the Neck gives a damn about the Baratheon king."

She shoves herself to her feet, nearly falling over thanks to a new center of balance within herself.

Jon tries to change the subject, "You felt it move?"

"I think I felt it move." She strokes a hand over her middle, "I think. Maybe. I'm not sure. It might be too early. But there was a flutter, and or maybe there wasn't. Maybe I imagined it:." Her voice drops to a whisper. "Maybe I imagined it."

His hands itch to reach for her, but she's still shaking and he doesn't want to startle her.

"Mother hated you, and maybe I understand that a little more now. But I also wonder how she could hate you, something so small and innocent as a newborn babe." Fresh tears streak down her cheek again, "I fear something is broken and bent inside me that will never be fixed again. And I don't know how to unmake myself, put myself back together again. All I know is home, and Rickon, and Winterfell, and that's it. And this." Her hand shifts to cradle the bottom of her bump, curving her clothes around it, "This thing inside me that I hate and don't hate all at the same time. But if I blame this child for its' father's sins then I'm no better than Mother. But if I love this child, a part of that means forgetting everything that happened to me. No, not forgetting. Accepting it, at least. And I don't know if I'm ready to do that."

"Sansa." Jon watches as she glances down at him where he's still sitting sprawled on the floor. "We have to talk about the Dreadfort."

"It's Ramsay's." The words are stuttered, halting. "He's probably killed them by now. His step-mother, her son. He wouldn't let any claim against his stand."

"Yes. And it will be your child's."

Sansa shakes her head. "I want nothing to do with the flayed men, and neither will my child."

"Sansa," his voice is gruff, it has to be to make her see, "That's not the way it's done."

"Why can't it be?" She demands, and Jon's reminded of her when she was younger, "Why not, Jon? Fight Ramsay. Win. Become Lord of Winterfell. Take the Dreadfort, burn it to the ground. Give the land to the Wildlings, and let me stay home where I belong. Give me back my name. It's been stripped, beaten, burned from me. Give it back. You can do that, as Lord of Winterfell. Consummated or not, I married a bastard and a madmen. I was a fool. I see that now. Win this war, kill him. Ramsay will be dead, and we will be the Starks in Winterfell."

He's shocked speechless.

"And if anyone has anything to say about the father of my child, they can ask me directly. And I'll tell them the truth. My child was sired by a monster, and will be raised by wolves."

Her eyes shine with a something hope. "Win Jon, win for us. Let my child be a wolf child, and I'll play the game for you and worry about all the rest."

Chapter Text

Jon didn't give her an answer.

He leaves without another word, Ghost remaining in the doorway staring down at her. Sansa can't meet the direwolf's eyes. Coloring aside, he reminds her so much of Lady.

Sansa almost feels drunk on uncertainty, on the wonder, on the worry but she stamps it down. She has to stamp of down. Rickon is in Winterfell. Ramsay has Rickon.

"I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell. This is my home, and you can't frighten me."

So many things frighten her now.

I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell.

I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell.

Her family is all she has left.

Winter is coming.

Sansa Stark is a Northerner, a daughter of the Warden of the North, a descendent of the First Men. She's been married before the New Gods, and the Old Gods, one consummated and one not.

And she's useless.

That's being kind. She knows that. Sansa is nothing like her siblings, the fighters, the warriors, the climbers. She's nothing like Arya, nothing like Jon. She can sew and sing and pray and weep. Sansa was raised to be a lady, and she had never before thought of being a wolf like the rest of her family. Hadn't wanted to, not until she had already lost them. What was it the smallfolk said? The grass was greener on the other side of the fence? That had been Sansa's thought. Who needed to be a Lady when she could be a Queen?

How foolish she had been. How young and stupid and foolish.

But Sansa was born a Stark with Tully-blue eyes as cutting as a sword. She had learned how to play the game, in the worst ways, with the worst teachers. Who she had been, a silly little girl with silly little dreams had been stripped away from her. The North in her blood was all that remained.

She barely remember when Arya was born. Bran was something she remembered, though. Remembered hiding under a bed and listening to Jon and Robb and Theon telling stories to cover up Catelyn's screams while Bran tore her apart. Catelyn had nearly died with Bran, then touched the very doors of death with Rickon. Her mother hadn't woken for over a month, and Sansa had mothered Rickon. Held him every moment of that month except when he needed a wet nurse. She had been worried about Rickon the most in those moments, worried that he might die without his mother ever even meeting him.

They were all motherless now.

What had Father said, all those years ago?

"The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives."

Was this the future her parents had imagined for her?

Her fingers dive beneath her shift to stroke the brands Ramsay pressed into the flesh of her thigh. His marks are everywhere, on her, in her.

Is she going to let him ruin the rest of her life?

No.

Marriage or no, she is the daughter of Eddard Stark.

Starks do not turn their faces.

Chapter Text

Sansa tosses and turns on the cot in her tent. Her clothes are wet, plastered to her body with sweat and she's panting heavily. Her eyes, closed in sleep, tighten and jump as a dream rushes through her.

She can hear the sound of a scared horse in the distanace.

The wind is whipping through the trees and her feet pound roughly against the cold earth.

Her brothers and sisters are calling out to her in the distance.

Above her is the light of the moon and all around her are the woods.

She knows the woods.

She trusts the woods.

The woods have kept her safe.

The woods have kept them all safe.

The lone wolf dies but the pack survives.

There's a yelp in the distance, and she watches as one of her sisters falls, her grey pelt gleaming silver in the moonlight.

Another pelt, grey and large, falls as well.

She can't stop, won't stop.

She has to move forward for those still living.

In front of her, a black figure darts forward, calling out to her.

She can hear him, but she can't reach him.

Their home is just in sight, and her brothers and sisters that remain call out to her.

But she falls face first into the snow and fades away.

Sansa jerks away with a scream.

"What is it?" Jon calls to her from the other side of the tent. They had taken one together, being grateful to have been given one at all. A curtain of furs split the space down the middle, giving an illusion of privacy. Sansa's stomach rolls and she leans over to be sick in a bucket sitting next to her cot.

"Nothing," she says once she's finished, "Just a dream."

Sitting up, she lays her head in her hands and lets out a sigh. She still feels a little queasy even though there's nothing left in her stomach to toss up. Something wet and cold nudges her hand, and her fingers twine themselves into Ghost's coat. The wolf presses himself against her and lets her use him to leverage herself up. She pulls herself out of her soaked night clothes and into her black gown with the wolf stitched into the front.

Jon comes out from behind the curtain, dressed in all black, with the cloak she made him thrown across his shoulders. Sansa gives him a small smile and turns around so he can tie the top of her dress shut. It's something they've done for several days now, ever since Brienne left. Ghost plants himself between them once they're done, and Sansa slings on her own cloak before they emerge from the tent.

There's a fire roaring in front of them, their companions all around.

"CROW!" Tormund bellows out once he catches sight of them, "Come and have a bite. Or two." the red-haired wildling lets out a harsh laugh, "That's just about all we can spare."

They sit down and Tormund eyes Sansa as he hands her a small piece of meat. "Baby still turning yer belly?"

Sansa shrugs as she bites into the food. "No more than usual."

"Tell my girls," he says to her, "They'll find you something to settle you." He glances to her side and turns harsh eyes to Jon. "First you let her send the big woman away, then you don't even give her a dagger to defend herself with?"

"I've got Jon," Sansa protested, "And Ghost, and you lot, and that's enough, don't you think?"

"No," Jon suddenly agreed, "It's never enough. I'll get you a dagger, you'll have to have a guard. The Bolton's will want you back, half the country wants you dead." He looks around at those gathered around the fire. "We have to decide what we are doing."

Tormund shifts where he's sitting on the ground. "You gave Mance Rayder mercy. You brought us through the Wall and took more than one dagger to the back in return for the gift you gave us. We'll follow you, wherever you choose to go. You don't need to make us promises of land or titles. We're free folk, and we'll always be free folk. But we came together to follow Mance, and what's left of us will stay together to follow you." He looks at Sansa, "Crow and his sister, kissed-by-fire. Aye. We'll follow you."

"But where are we to go?" Jon asked.

"To any of father's vassal lords left living," Sansa told him, "I sent ravens out before we left, to all of them. To the Glovers, and the Mormonts, the Manderly's, and all the rest."

She doesn't tell him about the raven she sent to the Umbers. Or the Karstarks. Or about the promises within the letters of what happened to oath-breakers and child-stealers.

"We go to them, and either they swear to us or they don't. They fight for us, or they don't. But we have to try."

Jon is looking at her funny. "What else did you do, Sansa?"

They all turn to look at her, watching as a crafty little grin cuts across her cheek. "I used them all."

"All?"

"All the ravens. I sent them out to the vassals, and also to every hold from here to King's Landing. In these letters, I detailed exactly why our father was executed, exactly how Robb and my mother were killed, and exactly what crimes the Bolton family committed against our family. Ramsay wanted me to know, and he didn't skimp on any of the details. Roose Bolton betrayed our family in exchange for control of WInterfell and being Warden of the North. He's the one who stabbed Robb, Roose was. Ramsay delighted in telling me that, rather like a child on his nameday with a present."

She's sick to her stomach again, thinking of the first time Ramsay told her how his father had carved her brother up like as easily as skinning a freshly-shot deer.

Davos is looking at her like it's the first time he's seen her. "He'll be angry about that. You've exposed him, publicly, called him guilty without a trial, aired his horrors without so much as a by-your-leave."

"I of all people understand what it's like to be frightened of Ramsay Bolton. But if we let this continue, let this fear of him rule us then we might as well fall down on our swords and kill ourselves now because it means he's already won."

"And what about the baby?"

Sansa's hand moves down to cradle her stomach. "It's mine just as much as it is his." she says quietly, "Gods willing, it won't have to grow up with a madman and kinslayer for a father. After that, well, honestly, I'm not sure."

They finish their meal in silence. Ghost sits proudly beside Sansa, and she leans into his warmth. From behind her, something strokes against her hair and she jerks forward suddenly, memories of Ramsay flashing before her eyes. It's only Tormund's voice that soothes her.

"It's alright, kissed-by-fire, it's just a wee-one."

Sansa looks over her shoulder at the little child standing there with a scared expression on her face, her hand outstretched and her small fingers stretching out. Slowly she leans back, and lets the child touch her hair.

"Kissed-by-fire."

Will her child look at her with such wonder?"

Chapter Text

The first stop they make is with House Glover.

Their first mistake was taking a contingent of wildlings with them.

"I've served House Stark once," Lord Glover tells them harshly, "And now House Stark is dead."

He spits on the ground, curses her brothers name, and she slaps him dead across the face.

"I am a Stark of Winterfell," Sansa hits back, "There isn't a person alive who can take that from me. The North remembers."

They leave Lord Glover in the mud, his men with their swords half-drawn, uncertain of whether or not to attack.

Sansa and Jon move as one, on horseback or on foot. Jon eyes her carefully the whole time, but Sansa pretends not to be bothered by the journey even though her feet ache and her stomach grows heavier with each passing day. Sansa also pretends that several of Petyr's little spies haven't joined the outskirts of their camp, that they don't linger around the campfire and send messages back to the Vale.

The next stop they make is to the mountain clans. Or rather, the mountain clans find them on one dark night. They surround them, sneak quietly inside, and wake Jon with a sword at his throat. They line them up, and the Wildlings only settle when they see Sansa with a blade pressed to her belly.

"Who is it that crosses our paths?" One of the clansmen wants to know.

"Sansa, of House Stark. Jon Snow, son of Eddard Stark."

"Ned Stark is dead," comes the response, "Dead, and his children dead or married and no longer Starks."

Jon's eyes flash white with anger, but he knows better than to struggle.

Sansa holds herself stiff as the one holding her traces a path on her stomach with a blade. "This one's the Bolton Bitch. The Bolton Bitch with the Bolton baby. The Bolton's helped to kill the ones at the Twins. My brother was one of the ones at the Twins."

"Our brother was killed at the Twins, same as yours." Jon spits out.

Jon's eyes flash white again, and then there is Ghost, ripping the throat of the one who held Sansa. Once the wolf is finished eating he plants himself in front of Sansa, his white fur stained red with blood. Sansa reaches out and winds her fists in his fur.

"I was married to the Bolton against my will," she says firmly, "and given his baby against my will as well. The Bolton's are turncloaks, traitors, and murderers. They flay those who threaten their rule. The head of their house stabbed my brother, stood by and watched as they hacked off his head and replaced it with his wolf's. But we are Starks, and we do not turn our faces. My brother and mother will have justice. All the families who lost at the Red Wedding will have justice."

"All the families?" the one holding Jon wants to know.

Sansa nods, "All."

The addition of the mountain clans adds another thousand fighters and much needed supplies to the army of Jon Snow and Sansa Stark.

The Umbers write back to her, pleading for mercy, telling her they had no choice. Ramsay has the littlest Lord Umber in his clutches and the Smalljon had no choice but to turn over the one thing he had to bargain with in exchange for his son's safety. Sansa can read both the truth and the lies in the message and doesn't even bother to respond. She shows Jon the message and lets him stew over it. There's no point in responding. There's nothing they can do about it now.

Sansa dreams nearly every night now. It's always the same. The wind in her face and snow beneath her feet, running with her brothers in the wood. They don't scare her as much as they once did, and she no longer wakes up in a sweat anymore. Jon stays with her, and if not Jon, then Ghost. Tormund's eldest daughter, Magda, appoints herself Sansa's personal maid and guard and never strays far from her at all.

They travel to all the smaller houses in the North, getting closer and closer to Winterfell as time passes. Their final stop is Bear Island. They leave the others behind on the boat, and Jon holds tightly to Sansa's hand as they climb the stairs up to the Mormont Keep.

"Do you think they will join us?" Sansa asks the same question every time they approach a keep.

"We'll see." is always Jon's clipped response.

They enter Mormont Keep together and are met with a young girl of no more than twelve, sitting at the head of a table with her advisors on either side of her. In her face Jon can see Jeor and it makes him smile a little.

"Lady Mormont," Jon says quietly, bowing his head slightly.

"Welcome to Bear Island."

Jon looks out of the corner of his eye to Sansa. She's the brains, he's the muscle, and she's the one who always does the talking.

"I remember when you were born, My Lady. You were named after my Aunt Lyanna. They said she was a great beauty, as I'm sure you will be."

"I doubt it. My mother wasn't a great beauty or any other kind of beauty. She was a great warrior, though. She died fighting for your brother Robb."

Sansa's smile may not have met her eyes, but it fades once the little she-bear mentions her brother. Jon lets out a small cough, and she glances over at him. He knows her now, perhaps better than anyone else, and he knows she is more than a little annoyed at the little girl sitting before them.

"I served under your uncle at Castle Black, Lady Lyanna. He was also a great warrior and an honorable man. I was his steward...."

He's not allowed to finish. "I think we've had enough small talk. Why are you here?" Lyanna Mormont demands.

Sansa is reminded that it has been a long time since either of them have ever had to deal with Northmen.

Jon's ire is up, "Stannis Baratheon was garrisoned at Castle Black before marching on Winterfell and was killed. He showed me the letter you wrote to him when he petitioned for men. You said…"

"I remember what it said. Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark. My mother Maege died alongside Robb at the twins, and my sisters are scattered to the winds. They still haven't come home, if they're even still alive. Four sisters, lost to me, and I remain the Lady of Bear Island."

"You aren't the only one who lost their siblings," Sansa reminds the girl, "House Stark was scattered to the winds until I found Jon. Until I learned that Theon Greyjoy had not killed Bran and Rickon. Arya is also out there, somewhere, and she will come home someday. It's just a matter of waiting." Sansa squares her shoulders, "House Mormont is pledged to the service of House Stark, and has been for hundreds of years. Our forefathers fought alongside each other, and your mother died alongside my brother at the Red Wedding. House Stark calls for House Mormont. Will you answer the call?"

Lyanna gave her advisers a quick glance before leaning in close and speaking with them quietly. Her face was stern when she turned around.

"As far as I understand it, you're a Snow. And Lady Sansa is a Bolton. Or is she a Lannister? I've heard conflicting reports." Lyanna glances down at Sansa's stomach. "Either way, that baby in her belly is enough to prove that she's not a Stark anymore."

Jon has to grab Sansa's arm in order to hold her back. "I'm no more a Bolton than Cersi Lannister's children are Baratheons."

He pulls her tight to his chest and strokes his hand soothingly up and down her side. He glances at Lady Mormont with a firm glare. "Sansa has had to endure things that would kill some people. She's had many things taken from her, but I won't let her name be one of them."

"Thank you," she said to him, swallowing hard before turning back to Lady Mormont.

"I have done many things in order to keep my head where it belongs, Lady Lyanna. But I am Sansa Stark. I will always be a Stark. It's the one thing that no one can steal from me."

Lyanna looks confused, "You married a Lannister. That should make you a Lannister. Then you married a Bolton, with a Bolton baby. So now you're a Bolton. You can't still be a Stark."

Sansa steps away from Jon, moving up until she's level with Lyanna and looking her dead in the eye. "I've held hostage, beaten into submission, raped until I bled, carved and cut up like a piece of meat, and yet here I remain. Men can take many things from me, Little Mormont, but they will never be able to take who I am unless I let them." Sansa lets a triumphant grin cross her features. "And I never let them. Do you understand? I never let them."

Lyanna turns her face away, but turns back when Sansa is done speaking. "What I understand is that I am responsible for Bear Island and all who live here. Why should I sacrifice one more Mormont life for someone else's war?"

Sansa continues to stare at Lyanna Mormont. "I've sat at the feet of Cersi Lannister and served as the apprentice of Littlefinger for a time. I've heard a great many stories of a great many houses. I've seen firsthand the truth of House Bolton and what they do to both their allies and their enemies. We cannot allow the Bolton's to remain in the North. Not unless we want them to flay every man, woman, and child who stands against them. The current Lord Cerwyn is only the current Lord Cerwyn after Ramsay killed his father, mother, and brother in front of him. Would you like to know what he did with the bodies?" Sansa cocks her head slightly.

Lyanna nods her head, eyes filled with uncertainty.

"He strung them up in Winterfell, just in front of the gates, so that everyone could see them and no one would think to cross him." She moves ever closer to the table. "I sent ravens to every keep they could reach, and Bear Island is in that number. You know what they are capable of, just the same as everyone else. You know they cannot be allowed to remain in the North."

Sansa's eyes become cold as steal. "Any House that does not honor it's pledge to House Stark is an oath breaker, and has no honor. So tell me, Lyanna of House Mormont, are you with us, or against us?"

Chapter Text

Sansa stares into the fire with eyes unseeing. Ghost sits at her side, Tormund and Magda at her shoulder. Jon is next to her sitting on one of the larger logs they've arranged around the fire. Their camp is small but packed full of the ones who chose to follow them. All the smaller houses, including the sixty something men from Bear Island. Little Lady Mormont Jon slurps some soup from the wooden bowl in his hands and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. He glances up and sees the lack of expression on her face.

"What is it?"

Sansa doesn't respond.

He leans forward and rests a hand on her shoulder. "Sansa."

Pulled out of her fog, she jerks back with wide eyes before she comes back to herself and realizes it's Jon. She gives a sheepish smile.

"What is it?"

Sansa reaches a hand out to stroke Ghost's fur.

"Cersi told me something, once. 'Tears aren't a woman's only weapon.' I understand her better now, I think." Her voice catches slightly, "I think I'm becoming her."

"You are nothing like Cersi, Sansa."

"Aren't I? I use my words as weapons, the same as her. She preached from the top of the Red Keep, screaming that her children weren't bastards born of incest. I have nearly worn out my own throat proclaiming myself a Stark when everyone around me insists that it's not true. Tommen is king because Cersi declares him Robert's son. Robb became King because men declared it so. But I can't even take back the bits and pieces that were stolen from me simply because someone fucked me and married me." She turns watery eyes to Jon. "If that doesn't make me Cersi, I don't know what does."

Sansa stands, skirts swaying in the cold winter wind. "I'm not a boy, I'm not a man, I'm not the son of Ned Stark. I'm his daughter, a piece of property, something to be traded to strengthen the North. I'm a former selfish, spoiled little girl whose stupid actions got her father killed. I've been raised at the skirts of Cersi Lannister and taught how to play the game by Petyr Baelish." Haunted eyes meet Jon's face. "I just want to go home, Jon. But the game never ends, and you never learned to play, and I must play for the both of us."

She looks North, the direction of Winterfell. "I just want to go home."

"We're going home, Sansa."

She turns back to him, quirks an eyebrow. "We're not there yet, are we?"

Later that night, she presses a message into Podrick's hand, begs him to ride as fast as he can.

"Where am I going, Lady Stark?"

Sansa smirks slightly. "Ride as fast as you can for the Eyrie. Give this to none other than young Lord Arryn himself." She produces another small scroll from the folds of her cloak. "Give this one to Petyr Baelish."

Podrick bows to her, and then he's gone.

Sansa sleeps better that night than she has in weeks.

The next morning finds her in the main tent with Jon, and Tormund, and Magda, and all the rest of the wildling leaders, and all the leaders from the smaller houses who've braved the wrath of the Bolton's and their allies to join them. They're camped at the very edge of the Wolfswood, in the very same clearing Stannis Baratheon had burned his daughter alive in.

"Stannis camped here, on his way to Winterfell," Davos says from his place at their little table.

Stannis, who burned his daughter alive and lost his army and his life.

"That's a good thing?" Sansa asks skeptically.

"He was the most experienced commander in Westeros. He chose his camp for a reason," Davos explains, ignoring Sansa's tone, "Those mountains are a natural fortification, there's a stream down there for the horses."

"What about food for the men?" Sansa asks, "The trees give us enough wood for fires so long as we keep them burning, but with nothing to eat we're as good as dead. That's one of the things Ramsay knew, which is why he burned the supplies."

Lady Mormont nods her head. "We've brought a cart of wheat, a cart of potatoes, and another two of frozen meat. The rest we will have to hunt and forage for here in the wood, if there's anything left."

"We'll make do," Jon says quietly, "After all, it's all we can do. We won't be here long anyway. Another storm could hit at any day."

"Aye. Snow defeated Stannis as much as the Bolton's did." Davos agrees.

"Stannis's army couldn't stand the cold because they were southerners," Sansa points out, "Northmen can. Our armies can."

Davos shakes his head, opens his mouth, but Jon cuts across before they can truly start arguing.

"We have to march on Winterfell now, while we still can."

"We need more men," Sansa points out, "We need more time."

"We're out of time!" Jon shouts, and Ghost lets out a bark, "Rickon is out of time."

Sansa sucks in a breath and purses her lips in displeasure, but she knows he's right. "Brienne should be back with the Blackfish soon," she tries again, but Jon's had enough.

"We can't wait for them anymore. We can't wait for anyone anymore." Jon's hardened gaze turns towards her. "Winter is coming, Sansa."

Unable to do anything else, she nods. Sansa understands. Jon is everything a Stark is meant to be, everything their father was, honorable and just. Sansa was everything her father was not. But there was one thing that drove her now, one thing that she knew and understood.

The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.

The baby inside her turns suddenly and she huffs as it kicks her smooth in the ribs. A small hand touches her arm.

"Are you alright?" Lyanna Mormont wants to know.

Sansa nods her head gently. "Just running out of room." She runs a hand over the girth of her stomach.

"We will ride out in the morning," Jon declares, "No sense in putting off what can already be done."

In agreement, they retire for the night.

Chapter Text

Sansa watches, her face blank and expressionless, as Ramsay Bolton and his bannermen ride out of the gates of Winterfell and directly towards her and Jon. It's hard to wipe her face with pure terror coursing through her veins. She had done everything possible to run from this place, and here she was. It was her home, and she wanted it back, but now there were new memories within those walls. Memories that made her sweat, and shudder, and scream in the night, the nights that she wasn't dreaming of wolves.

The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.

Unconsciously her hand reaches for Jon on his horse next to her and grasps his fingers tightly. He looks at her pale white face with concern.

"You don't have to be here."

The horse shifts beneath her.

"Yes I do."

He holds her fingers tightly and doesn't say anything else.

The Flayed Man banners fly as he grows ever closer.

"My beloved wife."

She can't let herself be sick in front of these people.

"I've missed you terribly."

Missed fucking her. Missed cutting her. Missed terrorizing her.

"Thank you for returning Lady Bolton safely."

She was going to cut out the tongues of anyone else who called her that.

"Thank you for the safe return of my heir."

She would die before this monster touched her child.

"Now, dismount and kneel before me."

She had knelt before him before. Never again.

"Proclaim me true Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North."

Not while she still drew breath.

"I will parden you for deserting the Night's Watch. I will pardon these treasonous lords for betraying my house."

You have no house.

"Come, bastard. You don't have the men."

That makes Sansa want to smirk. If only he knew.

"You don't have the horses. You don't have Winterfell."

No, they don't. But they will.

"Why lead those poor souls into slaughter? There's no need for a battle. Get off your horse. Kneel. I am a man of mercy."

Sansa had received his mercy too many times to count. Her horse senses her unease and shifts beneath her.

Jon smiles. "You're right. There's no need for a battle. Thousands of men don't need to die. Only one. Let's settle this the old way. You and me."

Sansa feels hot, and everything around her is spinning. She can't be sick, not now.

Ramsay smiles, laughs, and it's all teeth. "I keep hearing stories about you, bastard. The way people talk about you, you're the greatest swordsman who ever lived. Maybe you are that good." He shrugs, "Maybe not. I don't know if I'd beat you. But I know that my army will beat yours. I have six thousand men. You have, what, half that?"

Less.

But he's taken the bait.

"Half the North already knows what you are," Sansa says harshly, "I made sure of that. No one follows you out of respect, or loyalty."

She looks at the Karstark lord, then at the Umber before looking back to Ramsay. She doesn't have to say another word. Jon does it for her. "They follow you out of fear. That makes them worth far less than any of the men who follow us out of loyalty. They have something to fight for. But when your men find out that in addition to being the monster that you are, you could have saved them painful deaths but didn't?" He smirks, "No one will follow you anymore."

"Your bastard brother is good, wife." Ramsay's eyes drift down to her belly. "Good enough to bring back my wife. Bring back my heir. I hope it's a boy, I've only one use for girls."

Her grip on the reins and Jon tightens until her fingers turn white.

"Will you truly let your little brother die because you refuse to surrender?"

Sansa already knows that Rickon would be dead in seconds if they did surrender. Ramsay should know her better than that. Smalljon Umber looks ashamed of himself. But Sansa has to be sure.

"How do we even know you have him?"

Shaggydog's head is thrown at her feet. Jon very nearly yanks her off of the horse as tightly as he holds her hand. Gods, had Rickon screamed when his direwolf died? Had it torn a hole through him the same way that Lady's death had nearly killed her?

Ramsay needs to understand just how desperate she is.

"Some people have said that House Stark is dead. House Stark is not dead. House Stark lives in me, in Jon, in Rickon, in Bran, in Arya. In any of Ned Stark's children left living. Winter is coming, and Stark is a house of many winters. The North remembers, and I will remember. I will remember every house that stood with us, and every house that stood against us." She points behind her to the Stark banners that she had sewn just that morning, "I will burn their banners and wipe their houses from the face of the earth, even if I have to tear them down brick by brick."

Her tone promises venom, vengeance, and mercilessness. A tone she learned from Cersi Lannister, from Littlefinger, from life.

"Something you need to understand. Winterfell is what I have left to lose. Rickon is what I have left to lose. And any harm comes to him will be visited on your children tenfold."

"On my children?" Ramsay smirks, "You mean our children."

"I will wipe your house from the face of the earth or die trying," Sansa promises, "This child will never know you as their father. They will know where they came from, they will understand when they're older, but you will never meet them. You will never be allowed to touch them."

She lets go of Jon's hand just long enough to inch her horse forward a little more.

"You're going to die tomorrow, Lord Bolton. Sleep well."

She leaves him with that and rides away. To her credit, she isn't sick until she reaches the camp.

Chapter Text

Jon finds her in their tent, Magda outside of it guarding her faithfully. He nods at the young woman before slipping inside. Sansa is sitting there in nothing but her shift on, sitting on her cot cradling her stomach. Tears are running down her face but she isn't making a sound. Jon's noticed that. Sansa only cries out in her sleep. Her whole body is shaking from the force of the sobs racking her small body, and suddenly he feels very young watching her. Even after months of steadier meals and a baby growing inside of her, Sansa is nearly skin and bone with how thin she is. She's all belly, rather like somebody stuffed her dress with a ball of rags and she looks so tiny and small and helpless.

Ghost weaves into the tent from behind him and curls his body around Sansa, who buries her hands in his fur as she cries.

"Give me a dagger, Jon." She chokes out.

"A dagger?"

Tully blue eyes meet Stark grey. "I won't go back there, Jon. I won't go back there alive."

He knows her well enough to know that she's not asking, not lying, that this is truly what she wants. He pulls the small dagger from his boot and hands it to her, hilt first. It will have to be enough, he doesn't think he can spare anything else with the coming fight on the horizon. He doesn't tell her how to use it, certain that she knows enough to accomplish what she wants.

"Do you think we could actually get Rickon back?" Jon asks her. He needs her to calm down, he needs her to focus. She's going to make herself sick again if she doesn't.

He watches as Sansa lets out another heaving breath. "I don't know, Jon," she confesses, "I don't know. Ramsay will do his best to kill him. He's smart, he lays traps, he plays with people. He's playing with us now. You're a bastard, I'm a girl. Rickon is Ned Stark's trueborn son, which means that Ramsay doesn't have a true hold on the North as long as he lives. So he can't let Rickon live."

Jon closes his eyes, and presses his fingers to his face, hard, in an attempt to stave off his anger. "You've known this since the letter arrived."

Sansa doesn't deny it.

Jon reaches out, grasping a nearby stool and throwing it against the wall of the tent. He lets out a yell which is practically a roar and curses, curses, until he sees Sansa shake even harder. He kneels at her feet.

"You know I'd never hurt you. And I promise no one will ever hurt you again."

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

He sighs, rocking back up to his feet. There's a hollow feeling in his chest.

Sansa cocks her head to the side. "Do you ever wonder how fucked we are?"

He doesn't answer her or stop her, so she just keeps going on, "A bastard and a broken girl, clawing and screaming for their childhood home because it's one of the few things left in this world they have to care about except for each other. I look in the mirror and I don't know the person staring back at me."

She runs a hand over her belly, unseeing eyes staring at the tent wall. "Half the things I say, I'm not even sure what they mean. I think they come out of my mouth because I'm bent, twisted, broken, and I'm trying to cling to some form of control or sanity that seems like it's just within reach. But every time I try it's snatched out from under me and I wish I could send myself back to that day when we left and yank us both behind the gates of Winterfell, locking them tight, and never letting anyone in our family to go South."

He understands her better than she thinks. "We're going home, Sansa."

She flicks her eyes back to him, "What did I tell you about making promises that you can't keep?" She winces and runs a hand over her stomach.

Jon watches her, curious. He was the Bastard of Winterfell, older than all of his siblings save Robb. He had been there for every announcement made by Ned and Lady Catelyn. Had watched as his father's wife grew bigger with each child, had listened to her screams as she brought all the rest of the Stark children into the world. But he was the Bastard of Winterfell, and he knew his place. He had never gotten to press his hands to her stomach to feel the babies moving, had never gotten to lay his head there to listen. That wasn't his place, and he understood that. But now, here with Sansa all these long months and he had gotten to watch her stomach grow. Had been there nearly every morning to hold the pot for her while she was sick. He's seen enough of her while she was still healing to have a rather good idea of where all her scars were thanks to the blood that soaked through her clothes a time or two. He's watched as she flinched every time someone comes up behind her without warning, or when someone touches her without her knowing it was coming.

"Does it hurt?"

She gives him a wry smile, "Only when I think about it. So all the time."

She leans back against cot, an unreadable expression on her face. "I've something to tell you, Jon."

She pats the bed next to her and waits for him to take a seat.

"You died for the Night's Watch."

It's not a secret, everyone knows this. Even so, she has yet to see his scars.

"You died for the Night's Watch, you fought for the Night's Watch. And while you were fighting for the Night's Watch and Robb was raising an army to avenge our dead, I was in King's Landing. I was stripped, I was beaten, I was terrorized. Every time Robb won a battle, I knew. I knew because they'd beat me for it. Even before Ramsay I was covered in scars. But I learned a great many things while I was in King's Landing. I learned how stupid I was, how young, how foolish. How selfish."

She leans against his side and instinctively he wraps his arm around her shoulders. It shocks him to the core when she relaxes into him.

"I learned about the great game. The game of thrones. Everyone is playing, whether they know it or not. You're playing it, I'm playing it, all the people outside our tent, they're playing it. Father played it, Mother played it, Robb played it. But they didn't play it well, and they died. That's what happens, Jon, when you play the game of thrones. You win or you die. And I've learned how to play it well. And I will play it for you, and for Rickon, and for any Stark left living. Because I don't give a fuck about politics, or anything else but our family and home and the people that we've promised to protect."

There's a feeling in the pit of his stomach that he can't explain. "Sansa, what have you done?"

She buries her head into the spot where his shoulder meets his neck. "If you want to be accurate, I've done three things."

"What three things have you done, then?"

She sits up and away from him so that she can look him directly in the eye. He feels her grasp his hand tightly. "I've written to Robyn Arryn. Little Sweetrobin, who is not so little anymore. I've asked him out of love for his cousin to bring a portion of the Vale Army North."

Jon's hand moves to curl around her wrist, and he marvels for a moment at how tiny it truly is. Sansa is the tallest of them all, he thinks, but she's still so small and breakable.

"I sent a second raven to Smalljon Umber. He told me they turned over Rickon in exchange for the life of his son, and I reminded him what kind of man Ramsay is, reminded him that he makes promises he never intends to keep. His wife and the rest of his children are joining us here and we're going to do our best to see that Ned Umber makes it out of this alive."

His breath catches in his throat. "In exchange for what?"

"Rickon's life."

"And how are they going to do that?"

"I don't know," Sansa admits, "It's too dangerous to send another message to him now."

He wonders if they should even let themselves hope. He can see it in Sansa's eyes, the same way he had seen the despair as she told him Ramsay wouldn't let Rickon live. The hope seems a little more desperate, a little more fierce. He suspects he knows where the third raven (for of course it would be another raven) went.

Jon has to know. "The third raven?"

Sansa eyes narrow. "Littlefinger. He has more control over the armies of the Vale then Robyn does. He will make sure they come. I don't know when they're coming. But they will come."

"Can you trust him?"

She laughs again, "I can only truly trust myself, and you. Everyone else wants something from us. It's all a matter of finding what they want, and giving it to them."

He had said it once, and meant it. Sansa was no longer the girl she once was. In her place and in her body was a new cold and calculating young woman. In her own way, she also wanted him to become like her, but Jon doesn't think he can. There's enough active players in this game and he thinks he's content enough to be her pawn if that means that they get to go home, if Rickon gets to live. She's the brains and he's the brawn, he understands that much. He's doing this for her, for Winterfell, for the Starks.

"What if they're too late?" Jon can't help but ask.

"Then they are too late." Sansa says quietly, "And we won't be alive to see them arrive."

"What did you promise him?" Jon spits out roughly, "What did you promise to give him in exchange for his alliegence?"

He watches as Sansa's face turns thoughtful, "I didn't promise him anything," She half-whispers, "But he might think I did."

"You shouldn't try to cross Littlefinger," he can't help but chastise her, "He's sold you once already."

"Maybe I shouldn't," Sansa agrees, "But what's done is done."

Jon isn't angry with her. How can he be? Still... "You don't think we have enough men?"

Sansa laughs, a cold and harsh sound, "I know we don't. I know Rickon being alive isn't something Ramsay will allow. I know he has every intention of killing both of you in the morning, in whatever manner he can. As dishonorably as he can. I know that the Vale armies might not arrive in time, but I have to hope they will." Her eyes slide over his face.

He thinks about those outside, this cobbled together band of miscreants, wildlings, Northmen, mountain clans, and all the rest who answered the call if they could. Maybe they have half a chance. Maybe they don't. They'll find out in the morning, he supposes.

Sansa helps Jon into his armor the next morning, pulling the mail over his head, fastening the straps. Making sure his Stark sigil plates are in full view. At his questioning look she tells him, "I want the last thing they see when they die to be the wolf." She looks back up at him, "And I want you to die old in your bed, surrounded by family. So try not to die, please."

He catches her hands in his. "I'll do my best. But I won't make promises I can't keep."

Sansa smiles sadly back at him. "You're learning."

He nods.

"Don't forget the lesson."

She watches him nod again before she leans over to slip on her cloak. Jon looks at her in confusion.

"What are you doing?"

Sansa fastens the straps. "I'll be at the back, at the edge of the wood. I need to watch, Jon. I need to know if and when we win or lose. I'll be waiting."

She's glad he doesn't even try to argue with her.

"The Vale men?"

Her smile fades. She shakes her head.

"Well then," Jon says, "We'll just make do with what we've got."

As if they have any other choice.

She reaches for the table next to them and picks up Longclaw, slightly shocked at the weight of the blade. Jon takes it from her and she's almost jealous at the ease he handles it with. She helps him buckle the strap around his waist.

"Do you think the Umbers will come through for us?"

"I think that they're are only hope to get him out alive."

Jon nods curtly.

Sansa reaches a hand out and beckons Ghost to her. The direwolf had been laying in his pile of blankets and jumps up as soon as Sansa crooks her fingers. Standing he comes up past her shoulder. Ghost nudges Sansa on the shoulder lightly and practically wraps himself around her.

"You'll keep him with you," Jon tells her, and it's not a question.

Nothing was left to be said, and so they leave the safety of the tent. Before they mount their horses Jon pulls her to him and presses as kiss to her forehead.

"Winter is coming," he tells her.

She looks around them at the army they have gathered. "Winter is here."

Chapter Text

In the end, it's one day. One day that defines the rest of their lives. Jon gives a speech before they ride out. The men cheer and bang their swords against their shields in a deafening roar. Sansa sits at the edge of the wood on her white horse with Ghost, Podrick, Magda, and a few other Wildling women at her back, the Little Mormont to her side. They watch as the men march past. They watch as the line forms up. They picked this area for a reason, dug the trenches for a reason. It's been nearly a month since Sansa sent Brienne after the Blackfish, nearly two weeks since she sent the last raven to the Vale. If either of them arrive today, it would be a miracle. Something stirs inside her, and she's not sure if it's worry or the babe. Jon seems to think this battle will be won by force or might, but Sansa knows better.

The game is played with more then force. And there is more than one way to win a fight.

She's heard them in the camps. They're calling this the Battle of the Bastards. The old Sansa would have laughed and thought it was funny. This new Sansa burns with the insult of having Jon compared to Ramsey. Jon is nothing like Ramsey. People follow Ramsey out of fear. They follow Jon because he is Jon. They follow him out of loyalty to his father, and to the name of Stark (even though he doesn't bear it).

Many smaller houses answered the call. Many came to fight alongside Ned Stark's children. But still, they are outnumbered. Their combined forces account for less than half of Ramsey's. But loyal men are worth more than cowards. This day will be remembered one way or the other.

When dawn breaks Sansa awakens to find Jon already gone from the tent. Magda is laying on a cot next to her and rises as soon as Sansa sits up. Tormund's daughter reaches for one of Sansa's plain dresses, but stops when the younger woman shakes her head. From beneath her covers Sansa pulls out the small project she has been working on. A heavy pair of trousers and a tunic, reinforced with leather and steel in some places, tailored to accommodate her growing midsection.

If Sansa had existed in another life where all her dreams came true and she got to ride off into the sunset with her prince (or knight) then she would have been one of the mothers to glow whenever she was expecting. As it is, after months of being starved and beaten (and worse) her skin had turned pale and her figure had changed. Even now, having spent nearly five months with Jon, she's still pale, wan, and thin. Her belly sticks out as if someone has sewn a bundle into all of her clothes, and her cheekbones carve a path across her face. All her skin stretches over her frame. Her meals might be more regular now compared to when she was with Ramsey, but it's still not the frequency she needs. Jon had born the worst look of guilt last night when the retired and he had grasped her by the wrist to lead her in the darkening light, only to realize that his hand wraps all the way around her thin wrist. A twitch and he could probably break her bones. She's never seen him look quite so stricken (expect maybe when she first arrived in Castle Black).

Nothing to be done about it.

The wind whips through her hair as she rides to the tree line. She watches as the armies form up, as the Northmen and the Wildlings take the positions they had only agreed upon last night. She watches as Ramsey brings his armies. She watches as Ramsey (for even from this distance it could only be Ramsey) dismounts, grabs at something behind his horse, and pulls them forward.

He's pulling Rickon along like a dog.

Sansa can barely see him, but she can already tell that he's so much bigger than he had been. Rickon had been all but a baby when they left Winterfell, had only been three. He was seven now.

Ramsey leans over to him, holds up a blade. Sansa holds her breath. The blade comes down, and Rickon is running, running, running. Though she can barely see him Sansa can't tear her eyes away.

It's all a game, she remembers, and Ramsay loves to play games.

Looking back, this is one of the only parts of the battle she remembers clearly. Each moment stretched into an eternity. Sansa knows it's not possible, but she would swear she could hear the sound of the bowstring releasing with each arrow that flies past. Rickon had always been good at hiding, but here there was nowhere to hide. All he could do is run.

Jon's racing towards him at breakneck pace, but something inside Sansa tells her that he won't reach the boy in time. She bows her head, lets out a heavy breath. It's over.

And then Ramsay's shot goes wide.

There's a line of Umber men racing behind Rickon, dodging and darting, weaving around. Someone who could only be the Smalljon is fighting with Ramsay. Sansa lets out a wet gasp as tears begin to coat her cheeks. Smalljon Umber is dead within minutes, struck in the back by one of Ramsay's men. But his men are still running, even though at least a dozen archers are raining a hail of arrows in their direction.

Jon needs thirty feet.

Then twenty.

Then ten.

Then he has him.

The Umber men are all dead, struck down by the archers, but it's enough. Their sacrifice was enough.

Jon has Rickon. Sansa spurs her horse forward, uncaring of the risk. Magda and the other wildling women shout behind her, but she doesn't care.

Another minute, maybe two, maybe ten (she's not certain of anything right now) and she's in the middle of the army scooping her baby brother into her arms. Jon is staring at her with wild eyes. "Go."

She turns back. Rickon shakes in her arms. She stops the horse in the same spot they were waiting before and yanks his face up to hers, running her hands up and down his back and cursing how thin he feels. But he doesn't flinch, doesn't wince or moan as her hands brush across the rags he's wearing for clothes.

He's terrified. But he's safe and looking up at her with wonder in his eyes.

"Mother?"

Sansa chokes back a sob as the battle rages in front of her. "No, sweet, it's Sansa. Remember, love? Your sister, Sansa."

"Sansa?" Rickon says her name like he's rolling it around in his mouth, "Where's Father?"

Sansa doesn't even bother holding back the sob this time, "Father's not here anymore, Rickon, remember? Father died a long time ago."

"No he didn't!" Rickon insisted, "Father just saved me! He gave me to you, just now, Sansa, don't you remember!"

Sansa strokes a hand over his head. "No, Rickon. That was Jon. Our brother, Jon."

"Jon?" Rick is confused again.

"It's alright, sweetling. It will all be over soon."

She turns around to watch, pressing Rickon deep into her cloak. Jon had turned around as soon as he passed Rickon off, and now he's back at the front of the line. He's fallen off his horse and stands alone against the wave of Bolton men coming at him. He's probably going to die today. The same promise she had made to Ramsey.

Sansa prays. Prays to the old gods, to the new gods, to any fucking gods who will listen.

Bring him back to us.

And then she can't see him anymore. He's surrounded on all sides. And then they are all surrounded on all sides, Stark men and wildlings forced into a bubble. She presses Rickon closer to her. Even if she can't tear her eyes away from the carnage and death that she caused, her little brother doesn't need to see it.

"Lady Sansa."

She heaves out a breath. "Lord Baelish."

He pulls her horse to his, as close as he can. "We came as quickly as we could."

She doesn't bother to dignify him with a response. Instead, she devotes her time to studying the field once more. The Vale knights easily outnumbered all the rest, and broke through Ramsey's line without so much as a by-your-leave. Though it's only been moments the Bolton forces have already been cut almost in half. And there is her brother, easy enough to spot thanks to the fact that he's running alongside Wun Wun and someone else in the far distance.

Who is she to thank for this?

She prays to any fucking gods who will listen.

Ramsey is seated on his horse once more, too much of a coward to do anything but watch. They're close. They're so close. Winterfell is only a breath away. But it's still not yet over. The Vale horn blows. Jon isn't even paying attention to his army, the army she helped him to create. It's then that she finally realizes the truth of it all. This hadn't been about Winterfell, home, or winning back the North. Jon wasn't in this for the same reasons that she was. Jon wanted two things: Rickon (who they now had) and Ramsey Bolton's head on a spike.

But it does not belong to him.

Wun Wun is who truly wins them the Battle of the Bastards. Yes, the wildlings and the Stark men fought to the last, yes they came and rallied to the cause of the Stark children, yes the Vale knights came for Sansa Stark. But none of them matter when the gates of Winterfell close. This was a castle built to weather a thousand storms, to last a hundred sieges. It was not, however, built to withstand Wun Wun. All it takes is a few punches and the door crumbles like twigs underfoot. As soon as the door breaks, Sansa spurs her horse on down the hill. There is nothing left of the Bolton men on the battlefield, they've all either died or surrendered. At the castle, those not fighting on the ground are taken down by wildling arrows. She can hear Baelish following her, can hear Rickon's whimpers and feel his heartbeat beneath her fingers. And then she's riding through the gates. And then she's home. She slides Rickon down first, not daring to let him go until his feet are firmly on the ground. Then she kicks her leg over and slides down to stand beside him, clasping her to him once more. Wun Wun is just inside the gate, leaning up against one of the walls and breathing heavily.

They're all breathing. There's Tormund, and his sons. Madga is behind her, always behind her now. And Jon is in front of her.

Bolton men surround them, shields and swords dropping down, men dropping down to kneel. The only sound in the courtyard is the rough grunts coming out of her brothers mouth, the squelching sounds of Ramsey's blood and flesh being ground into meat beneath Jon's fist. The blows fall, again, again, again. Ramsey is laughing through his blood-filled teeth. Jon isn't Jon in this moment, he is a wolf, blood thirsty and hungry, feasting on the pain of his enemy. But he is still her brother. Ghost is there next to her suddenly, blood soaked nose nudging under her hand with a low whine. It's this whine that seems to snap Jon out of his stupor. Jon's eyes meet hers, and though they are black with his anger and his rage when they connect there is recognition burning within them.

Stop, she thinks, this is not your kill.

They are wolves and they know how to speak without words.

He can't.

It's not his kill.

"Jon."

It's over.

And it was. Sansa never realized it before, but there's a scent to a battle that really can't be described. It's piss, and blood, and shit, and fear, and the hot smell of freshly dead flesh all mixed together. There's fire from flaming arrows and dirt from freshly dug trenches. Looking up, even with the flashing swords she can see the burning racks, and knows that there's a flayed man hanging from each one. Ramsay told her once that fear was his greatest weapon and he was always going to use it to his advantage. He was trying to use it here, but she was done being afraid of what Ramsay Bolton could do to her.

It's over then. It's all over. They've won.

They've won.

"Lady Sansa."

She's yanked out of her jumbled mind by Yohn Royce, commander of the Vale armies.

"What are we to do with the wounded, my lady?"

She eyes the blood ridden field beyond the gate with a critical eye. "Our men need attention. The Bolton men, bring them inside, but don't treat them."

"Why save the Bolton men, Sansa?" Petyr wants to know. He's taken a place at her side, almost as if he thinks that he belongs there. She knows that's exactly what he thinks. "It's better to put them out of their misery."

"If they live," Sansa says slowly, "We will need them. Try them for treason if we must, if their crimes and lack of honor demand it. Give each one an opportunity to explain themselves. Were they serving the Bolton's because they wanted to? Or because they were afraid?"

"We tried to come sooner," Littlefinger tries to tell her, "but..."

She cuts him off, "I think you arrived exactly when you meant to."

Looking down, she wants to smile. Ramsay is nothing but a bloody, pulpy mess of shit by now. He's a mess, but it's a good kind of mess. The kind that proves that they've won. She looks up at the inside of the gates and marvels that she no longer has to fear what's inside these walls. Ramsay coughs and spits out blood, leaning up to give Sansa a toothy grin.

"Hello, wife."

Chapter Text

It fills Sansa with an unexplainable amount of glee to have her spearwives (for they are hers now) force Ramsey Bolton to his knees and drag him down into the kennels. They sleep outside that night, one last night under the stars while the fires are put out and the rooms in Winterfell are opened, aired out. Sansa thinks that it will be a hard task, getting the Bolton stench out of her childhood home. She gets Rickon settled on a pallet of furs at the end of her cot. Ghost sleeps next to them in the tent, and she dreams of running through the forest with the pack at her side. It's a dream she has every night now. It seems fitting to have this dream outside the walls of WInterfell. She wakes to the child in her belly turning and twisting.

One of the spearwives, Dara, holds her hair back this morning as she empties her stomach outside the tent.

"Kissed-by-fire!" Tormund shouts, "My daughter treating you well?"

Dara made a face at her father even as Sansa bent over to empty what little remained in her stomach. She straightened herself slowly, wiping her mouth in a most unladylike manner.

"The Crow wants you."

Sansa looked up at Tormund. "Where is he?"

"Inside the castle."

She looks back inside the tent where Rickon is still sleeping.

"I'll watch the little Wolf."

It doesn't take long to find him, her brooding brother standing at the top of the battlements. It takes longer for her to climb the stairs than it does for her to spot him. They stand together in silence for a few heartbeats, looking out at the expanse of snow-covered land that belongs to their family once again.

"I'm having them prepare the lord's chambers for you."

Sansa glances at him, perplexed, "Mother and Father's room?" she shakes her head, "No, you should take it."

Jon turns back away from her. "No, I'm not a Stark."

Not a Stark.

Not a Stark.

She's a Lannister.

She's a Bolton.

Not a Stark.

You are what you make of yourself.

"You are to me."

She watches as Jon's shoulders heave up in a sigh. "You're the Lady of Winterfell. You deserve it. We're standing here, because of you. Rickon is alive, because of you. The battle was lost until the Knights of the Vale road in, and they came because of you. You trust Lord Baelish..."

"Only a fool would trust Littlefinger."

He looks at her then, looks directly at her. "You hid it from me. You hid so many things from me."

Jon's stare is so much like Father's that it makes her squirm. "I'm sorry."

His eyes are sad. "We are a family of bastards and broken things. We need to trust each other, now, when we have so many enemies and no time to fight between us."

She holds perfectly still as he reaches up to cup her cheek, bends her head down, and lays a kiss on her forehead that makes him look so much like Father that it hurts.

"What are you going to do with him?" She knows exactly who he is speaking of.

"Would you like to see?"

He nods.

"Jon, you may not like it. You may not like me. But it is what I am owed. This is mine, and mine alone."

Jon will not take away her spoils of war.

They have him chained in the kennels, bound hands and feet tied to a chair. He's still covered in the blood, shit, and piss from the Battle of the Bastards. Jon stands off to the side while Sansa stands directly in front of him. Sansa watches as he wakes, listens as he calls her name. Watches as the wave a realization of what is about to happen crosses his face.

"Our time together is about to come to an end. That's alright." He gives a pointed look to her swollen belly, "You can't kill me. I'm part of you now."

Sansa runs a hand over her stomach, feels her child kick. This child will never know Ramsey Bolton as its father.

"Your words will disappear. Your house will disappear. Your name will disappear. All memory of you will disappear."

It's less a promise to Ramsey and more a promise to her child. This child will never be a Bolton, never bear the Bolton name.

"I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell. This is my home, and you no longer frighten me."

Ghost lives up to his namesake, and appears out of thin air from just beyond the door to stand at her side. There is a growl from just behind Ramsey, and she has the satisfaction of watching his skin turn pale even under all the shit that covers it.

"My hounds are loyal."

"They were, but now they're starving."

"You will never escape me. You will never be rid of me. I will haunt you to the end of your says."

His words send a flash of white-hot anger coursing through her veins, and the Ghost is on him, biting between his legs, ripping, and tearing.

No. It can't end that quickly.

"Ghost."

She's not sure how he heard her through the screams, through the moans, but he heard her. Ghost steps back, muzzle dripping with blood. Ramsey is heaving, and gasping, and cursing, and Sansa flashes back to their first night together, the night he had her in front of Theon. Minus the cursing. She was a lady, after all. Ladies did not curse.

She was a lady, but she was also a wolf. Hounds answer to wolves. Ramsey's hounds stalked out of the darkness and fall upon him in a minute. They hadn't been fed in over a week, they were starving, they were desperate. She hopes that Ramsey feels every single second of it. She revels in it. When it's all over, she steps out of the hall, looks at Jon, and gives him a small smile. He smiles back.

"I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell."

Chapter Text

"You're sure you want the little Crow in here with you?"

"He's been lost to me for years, Magda. Four long years. He can stay with me for as long as he wants to."

Sansa glanced at Rickon. The boy was curled at the other end of the room, leaning against Ghost, who lay beside the fire like a silent sentinel. Rickon hadn’t spoken much—his words clipped to “yes” or “no,” if he spoke at all. He flinched every time they passed the kennels. He flinched every time someone came around a corner unexpectedly. He flinched nearly every time someone spoke around him. Sansa’s lips curled in disgust. If she could rip Ramsay apart all over again, she would.

Magda raised an eyebrow. "Well, kissed-by-fire, if you're sure. Though I don’t think he’ll be so sure once the small one comes and the crying doesn’t stop."

Sansa’s belly twinged at the reminder. She shifted her weight, one hand resting instinctively over the firm swell beneath her dress.

"Three months, maybe a little less," she murmured.

Magda snorted. “That’s what I said with my last one. She came a full moon early and louder than a warhorn.”

Sansa smiled faintly. "You say that like it's meant to comfort me."

The Wildling woman shrugged. “It’s meant to warn you. The little ones come when they want to. Not when you’re ready.”

Sansa looked toward the fire, where Rickon was curled beside Ghost. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”

Magda’s face softened. “You’ve already made it this far. You’re standing, walking, planning wars and rebuilding castles. That’s more than most women can say at six months gone.”

Sansa gave a bitter laugh. “I’m not most women.”

“No,” Magda agreed. “You’re not. You’re a Stark. And Starks don’t break easy.”

Sansa blinked, surprised by the lump that rose in her throat at the quiet fierceness in those words. She brushed her hair behind her ear, voice tight.

“Let’s just hope the child is nothing like their father.”

Magda didn’t flinch. Her gaze was steady, solid as stone. “They won’t be. Not if they’ve got even a spark of you in them.”

Sansa swallowed, throat tight. She didn't respond—just gave a small, almost imperceptible nod and turned back toward the fire, her thoughts chasing the flickering light across the stone floor. Her gaze drifted to Rickon, still curled up against Ghost, his small frame rising and falling with slow, even breaths. Something fragile settled in her chest.

When she spoke again, her voice was softer.

"He can stay for as long as he wishes," she said.

As you say."

"Rickon?"

He looked up, alert at the sound of her voice.

"Want to go outside?" When he reached for her hand, she smiled. "Ghost."

Ghost rose without a sound, his massive form unfolding from the floor in a single fluid motion. He padded to her side, pressing his shoulder lightly against her thigh. Sansa sank her fingers into his thick white fur, letting them tangle there, grounding herself in the quiet strength of him. She closed her eyes for half a breath and let herself wonder—really wonder—what her life would be like if Lady had lived. Would she be softer? Warmer? Would she still know how to laugh without guilt curling in her chest? Would she still be a girl at all?

Her gaze shifted to Rickon just as Magda gently draped a thick cloak over his shoulders. He didn’t protest. He just stood there quietly, blinking at the light like something half-wild.

He needs a cloak of his own, she thought. One made for him—not borrowed or handed down. Something Stark-gray, with the direwolf stitched on the breast. Just like Jon’s. Just like hers. They were Starks, after all, even if the world kept trying to carve that out of them.

When they stepped into the courtyard, the cold slapped her cheeks like an old ghost. It was sharp and clean and full of memory—but it didn’t bite. Not really. And it didn’t seem to touch Rickon either. They were of the North. Descendants of the First Men. Winter ran through their blood like an oath. It would take more than frost in the air to break them now.

The courtyard buzzed with motion. Free Folk mingled with Northern bannermen. The walls of Winterfell, half-ruined just days before, were already rising again under busy hands. The glass gardens were being repaired. Trenches were dug. The keep, piece by piece, was becoming a fortress once more. Children raced past, kicking snow and shrieking laughter into the air. One little boy paused when he spotted Rickon. He stepped forward with an outstretched hand.

Sansa leaned down and whispered in Rickon’s ear. “Don’t you want to go and play?”

The boy was one of the Free Folk, and though the old Northern houses had sworn their loyalty again, Sansa felt more at ease letting Rickon near the Wildlings. They didn’t care about names or titles. They wouldn’t turn him into a pawn. But Rickon only pressed closer.

"I want to stay with you, Mama."

Sansa’s smile faltered. She’d corrected him more times than she could count, but Rickon still called her “Mama.” It slipped out so easily, so hopefully, like it was the only name for comfort he remembered. And if it gave him that—then let him have it.

A voice behind them cut through the quiet.

“Sansa.”

Her arm shifted slightly, resting across Rickon’s shoulders in a quiet, claiming gesture. Ghost let out a low, warning growl beside them.

“Lord Baelish.”

"I promised you Winterfell," he said. "Promised to get you home. I've done that, haven’t I? Kept my promise?"

Yes, she thought, but at what price?

He looked her over slowly. “The North suits you.”

Sansa held his gaze, her expression serene. “Most people thrive when they’re allowed to return home.”

Baelish smiled faintly. “And yet so few ever get that chance.”

“Then they shouldn’t waste it when it comes,” she said smoothly.

His eyes flicked to her belly, calculating as ever. “I only meant that you look stronger here.”

“I am stronger here.” Her voice was light, almost pleasant. “The North remembers how to make its daughters steel.”

Baelish tilted his head, as if weighing her words. “And some would say you’ve become a queen in all but name.”

Sansa didn’t blink. “Let them say what they like. Words are wind. The walls of Winterfell are real.”

Baelish’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And yet even stone can crack. Where is your bastard brother, I wonder? Shouldn’t he be watching over you?”

She didn’t have to look to sense the shift behind her—just the faint tightening of breath, the hush of movement as Magda and Dara bristled, alert. Sansa let her fingers trail lightly along the folds of her cloak, a quiet signal, nothing more. The tension behind her eased.

She met Baelish’s gaze again, steady and unreadable.

“Jon is overseeing the reconstruction,” she said coolly. “He could be inspecting the outer walls, in the armory, down in the crypts… he moves freely here. As do I.”

She tilted her chin just slightly. “This is my home.”

The words were calm, but they struck like a closing gate.

“There’s nothing here that can hurt me. Not anymore.”

Her smile was precise, the kind that didn’t touch her eyes. “Thank you, Lord Baelish. Without the knights of the Vale, my brothers and I would be dead. Or worse.” A beat. “So—for that—you have my thanks.”

He smiled. Too soft. Too smooth. "No thanks necessary. Consider it a repayment… for the state I caused you to be in." His eyes dropped pointedly to her belly.

Sansa’s fingers tightened in Ghost’s fur. The direwolf growled again, louder this time, and Baelish had the good sense to step back.

“There you are,” said Jon’s voice, cutting clean through the tension.

Thank the gods.

She didn’t move toward him, but some part of her spine—tight as a bowstring—unwound. As if his presence alone eased something in her that she hadn’t even realized was bracing.

Baelish turned, offering Jon the barest nod. "Lord Snow."

"Lord Baelish," Jon returned, clipped and cold. Sansa watched him stew. He made no effort to hide his anger.

Curse him, couldn’t he pretend better?

“How go the repairs?” she asked quickly, stepping between them before steel or sharper words could be drawn.

“Well enough,” Jon muttered. “Everyone seems to be getting along, at least.” His gaze turned darker. “Though that won’t help when the Long Night comes.”

He’d told her of it before—the White Walkers, the Night King, the truth beyond the Wall. She hadn’t wanted to believe it. But the fear still curled through her anyway. She remembered how her stomach had hurt after. Not from sickness. From dread.

Val had laughed when Sansa told her. “That’s what being a mother is,” she’d said. “It doesn’t go away. Not ever.”

Sansa hadn’t found it comforting. “We don’t know when it will come,” she said gently now. “But it will. And we’ll be ready. Until then—we eat.”

Rickon’s head popped up. “Food?”

Sansa laughed. “Are you hungry, my little lord?”

“Yes!”

“Well, that’s an easy fix, isn’t it?”

She turned to Baelish. “Good day, Lord Baelish.” He gave a low, shallow bow and stalked off—predictably—in the direction of the rookery.

Jon followed her gaze. “Should we be worried about him?”

Sansa was quiet for a long moment. “No. Not yet.”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “As you say.” He nudged her elbow, gently.

“Come on. Let’s feed the little lord.

Chapter Text

Baelish hadn’t approached her since the hall. Not in public. Not in private. Not at all.

It had taken him nearly a week to make his next move.

She wondered if it had been restraint or calculation that kept him away. Perhaps both. Either way, it was never hesitation.

The godswood had fallen still beneath the snow.

It drifted in soft, silent curtains between the ancient trees, muffling sound and softening the edges of stone and root. The flakes caught in the red leaves of the heart tree, clinging there like blood against bone.

Rickon sat cross-legged at its base, nestled into the gnarled roots like he belonged there. He hummed to himself—a strange, aimless melody—and used his fingers to trace shapes into the frost. His face was calm, almost blank, but his eyes never quite stopped flicking toward the edges of the trees. As if waiting for something to come out of them.

Ghost lay nearby, paws tucked under his chest, tail curled like a question mark. He watched through half-lidded eyes, the way only predators did—still, but never sleeping.

Sansa stood a little ways off, wrapped in a charcoal-gray cloak lined with dark fur. One hand rested lightly against her belly, the other gloved and holding the corner of her cloak where the wind kept trying to tug it loose.

She breathed in slowly. The godswood always smelled the same: like cold earth and iron-rich sap, like damp stone and bark softened by snowfall. And something older—like fire that had gone out a long time ago, but never really stopped burning.

She didn’t come here for comfort. Not anymore.

She came because it was honest. Because the trees didn’t lie to her. Because this was the only place in Winterfell that hadn’t been touched by blood, not hers anyway.

The baby shifted beneath her ribs, and she adjusted her stance with a small sigh. It wouldn’t be long now. A few more months, maybe less. Her body felt strange—stretched, reshaped—but she was learning to move with it. To breathe with it. To endure it.

A little farther off, just beyond the old birch ring, Magda stood at ease with her back to a tree, one leg slightly bent. Snow dusted her shoulders and the top of her hood, blending her into the landscape like a watchful statue. The spear slung across her back caught a sliver of morning light, the polished metal dulled only by frost.

She pretended to be distracted—watching the snow drift down through the branches, or maybe just keeping one eye on Rickon—but Sansa knew better.

Magda had been her shadow since the day Brienne left for Riverrun. She never said much. She didn’t ask questions. But she was there—when the pain flared, when the cold cut too deep, when the lords asked too much.

It was a strange thing, to feel protected again. Stranger still to accept it.

Rickon giggled suddenly, the sound muffled but bright. He had found a squirrel track in the snow and was carefully trying to match it with his own handprint. Sansa smiled despite herself.

There were still moments like this—quiet ones. Almost soft. Moments that hadn’t yet been ruined by politics, or power, or memory.

She let her eyes close for just a heartbeat and listened: the rustle of fur as Ghost shifted, the whisper of frost breaking under Rickon’s fingers, the subtle creak of Magda adjusting her stance.

And then… another sound.

Not snow. Not wind. Not one of her own.

Boots.

Measured. Intentional.

Not loud enough to startle Rickon.

But loud enough for Sansa to know exactly who they belonged to.

“You’re far from the fire,” said Lord Baelish, his voice smooth and low as he stepped into the godswood, snow crunching faintly beneath his boots.

"I’m warm enough here," Sansa replied without looking at him. “The snow’s quieter than the hall.”

“A difficult feat,” he said mildly, coming to a slow stop a few paces behind her. “Given how loudly they hail your brother.”

She didn’t rise to it. Not yet.

Instead, she kept her eyes on Rickon, who was now stacking small handfuls of snow into uneven towers beneath the heart tree. Ghost shifted beside him, lifting his head in a slow, deliberate motion. The direwolf let out a low sound—not quite a growl, but close. A subtle warning. Or maybe just a reminder.

Baelish stopped moving. Just outside the reach of roots, outside the circle of quiet power.

“I see you’ve taken to spending time among the trees,” he offered after a beat.

Sansa turned then, slowly and deliberately. Her cloak settled around her in soft folds, the fur at her collar catching flakes of snow that hadn’t yet melted.

“They don’t ask for anything,” she said evenly. “They don’t pretend to.”

The corner of his mouth curved in a half-smile. “You’ve grown strong.”

“I had to.” Her eyes held his. “There wasn’t much choice in the matter.”

Petyr studied her for a moment, head tilted like she was some delicate piece on a board he hadn’t quite figured out how to move yet. His gaze lingered just long enough to make his next step feel like a performance.

“Strength can be dangerous,” he said. “Especially when others begin to fear it.”

Rickon hummed softly behind her, oblivious, still lost in whatever little game he was playing in the roots. Ghost had not looked away.

Sansa’s fingers curled loosely over her belly. She could feel Magda at her back—present, patient, and steady as stone.

“Only the guilty have reason to be afraid,” she replied calmly.

Petyr’s smile grew wider at that, but still, it didn’t touch his eyes.

“Wise,” he said. “But lonely. And it’s a long winter, my lady.”

“What is it you want, Lord Baelish?” she asked at last, folding her hands over her stomach.

Her tone was mild, but there was nothing soft in her posture.

Petyr took a slow breath, the kind meant to suggest consideration. But Sansa knew better. He’d rehearsed this.

“I want the same thing I’ve always wanted,” he said softly, reverently, as if speaking of something sacred. “Everything.”

Her eyes didn’t narrow, didn’t even flicker. She merely waited. "And what part of everything do you think belongs to you today?"

“The Iron Throne,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “With you at my side.”

As if he was offering a gift. As if that had always been the plan.

Sansa blinked slowly, expression smooth as glass. “You want to rule the Seven Kingdoms.”

“With you. As Queen.”

Rickon shifted by the heart tree, stacking a clump of snow on top of another. His fingers were red with cold, but he didn’t seem to notice. Ghost lifted his head higher, ears flicking, his body still as stone but fully awake now.

Sansa didn’t move. She kept her stance composed, effortless—but her fingers curled more tightly against the swell of her belly beneath the cloak. Her nails pressed lightly into the fabric.

She took in Baelish’s face—the faint smile, the hungry gleam buried beneath his polished charm. He looked at her like a man admiring a crown he believed already fit his brow.

“And what makes you think I’d want that?” she asked, her voice even.

“You already have the North,” he replied, gently. “They look to you. They follow you. Your brother may have won the battle, but it’s your name they remember. Your courage. Your survival. You’re the heir of Eddard Stark—and a symbol of something stronger than blood. You’re hope.”

Sansa felt something cold unspool in her chest. He said the words with such conviction, such skillful reverence, she might have believed them—once.

But not anymore.

He took a half step closer, slow and deliberate, testing her silence. “The realm needs a queen with a name it trusts. A face it remembers. Not just in the North. Everywhere.”

“You already are a queen, in all but name,” he said. “The people love you. They follow you. They believe in you.”

Sansa didn’t smile. She only shifted her weight—half a step back, calm and quiet, the smallest movement. Not retreat. A line drawn.

“And do you believe in me?” she asked, her tone light but unreadable.

Petyr didn’t hesitate. “More than anyone ever has.”

He moved closer, slowly, delicately—as if she were made of glass. His hand lifted, fingers brushing the edge of her sleeve, then drifting toward her cheek.

She stopped him with a graceful catch of the wrist.

“No,” she said gently, almost kindly. “Don’t.”

The silence that followed was soft, but full. It landed between them with weight.

Petyr recovered quickly, withdrawing his hand without complaint, his expression returning to careful neutrality.

“I’ve declared for House Stark,” he said. “I brought the Vale’s knights. I answered your call when others hesitated.”

“And that has earned you gratitude,” Sansa replied, her voice smooth as silk. “Few have dared more.”

There was no warmth in the praise. Just enough civility to keep him guessing.

“That was the past,” he said.

She turned from him, slowly, as if considering the snow-draped trees instead of him.

“I’m looking toward the future,” he continued, following her by half a step. “And you, Sansa… you are that future.”

She didn’t stop him. But she didn’t stop for him, either.

“You’re Ned Stark’s daughter,” he pressed on. “The blood of the North. The name they trust. The face they remember.”

Still, she walked.

“The lords follow your brother now, yes,” he said. “But for how long? He’s a bastard. Born in the South. He doesn’t carry your name. He doesn’t carry your father’s name.”

That made her pause.

But she did not turn.

Petyr's voice softened. “Who should the North rally behind? A Snow raised in exile… or a trueborn daughter of Winterfell?”

Snow fell softly in the hush that followed.

From somewhere behind, Ghost gave a quiet growl—low, and not quite threatening.

Sansa spoke at last, her voice composed. Steady.

“Jon is my family,” she said. “And the North remembers those who stand by their own.”

She started walking again.

Petyr didn’t answer. Maybe he was weighing her words. Maybe he was searching for a new angle.

She gave him none.

And she didn’t look back.

The warmth of the solar was a welcome contrast to the chill outside, though Sansa barely felt it anymore.

Jon stood near the hearth, one hand resting on the carved stone mantel, the other still wrapped around the edge of a parchment scroll. He looked up when she entered, snow still melting in her hair and on her lashes, Rickon trailing beside her with Ghost pressed close to his side.

“You’ve been out a while,” he said softly.

“I needed the air.”

Jon’s eyes flicked to Rickon, then Ghost, then back to her face. “Everything all right?”

She nodded. “Littlefinger finally spoke his mind.”

That was enough for Jon to understand more than she said.

He didn’t ask what had been said—just set the scroll down and crossed the room to meet her.

Rickon moved straight to the rug in front of the fire, curling against Ghost without a word. The direwolf let out a quiet exhale and tucked his nose close to the boy’s side.

Jon’s eyes followed the pair, his expression softening. “He’s more settled with you here.”

Sansa’s hand drifted to her belly, her voice low. “He thinks I’m his mother.”

Jon was quiet for a moment. Then: “Maybe he’s not wrong.”

She glanced at him.

“I’m not trying to erase her,” she said. “I just… I don’t correct him anymore.”

“You don’t have to,” Jon said gently.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Only the soft crackle of the fire filled the space between them.

Then Sansa broke the silence. “He said the lords would never follow a bastard. That they’d follow me instead.”

Jon’s jaw flexed. “He would.”

“He’s testing the walls. Looking for the cracks.”

“We’ll hold,” Jon said.

Sansa studied him—this brother, this almost-stranger who felt more like home than any place ever had.

“I know we don’t talk about it much,” she said, her voice low, “but I’m glad it was you I came back to.”

Jon’s eyes flicked toward the fire, as if the words had burned more than warmed.

When he looked back at her, he smiled—but it was tired at the edges. “I’m not our father.”

“No,” Sansa agreed. “But you’re still a Stark. The North remembers. And so do I.”

She stepped closer, resting her head briefly against his shoulder. For once, he didn’t pull away.

Rickon stirred by the fire and muttered something in his sleep. Ghost didn’t move.

Outside, the snow still fell. But inside, for now, there was stillness.

Chapter Text

The great hall of Winterfell was colder than it used to be.

The fires burned in every hearth, fed constantly by servants who moved with the urgency of people trying not to be noticed—but the heat never quite reached the stone. The chill lingered, seeping through boot soles and into bone. Snow clung stubbornly to the narrow windows, and the breath of the assembled lords curled in the air like ghosts.

Outside, the world was frozen white. Inside, it was all smoke and tension.

Sansa sat high at the dais beside Jon, spine straight, shoulders set, every inch the Lady of Winterfell. Her hands rested lightly over the curve of her belly beneath her pale gray cloak. The fabric shimmered faintly in the firelight, lined with white fox fur, stitched at the collar with threads of silver. She wore no crown. She didn’t need one.

Below her and to the right, Rickon sat quietly on a cushioned bench—smaller than the seat made for him, smaller than anyone remembered. His feet didn’t quite touch the floor. His legs swung slowly back and forth beneath him, restless but not impatient. He watched the room the way other boys watched dogs in a fight: warily, as if the wrong movement might bring it all down on him.

Ghost lay curled behind the boy like a living shadow, massive and pale, his head resting between his front paws. His eyes—dark red, calm but sharp—tracked every man who raised his voice. He didn’t growl. He didn’t need to. His presence alone quieted more than one argument before it began.

The boy was a Stark in name, in blood, and in bearing—though the lords of the North had yet to decide what to make of that.

He rarely spoke. But when he did lift his head to look at the men who argued across the floor, they often faltered mid-sentence. His eyes were solemn, deep-set, too old for his age. His cheekbones still soft with childhood, but the lines of Ned Stark’s face were already forming there.

A ghost of a ghost.

He was the last trueborn son of Eddard Stark, and though no one said it aloud, the weight of that truth sat heavy in the room. The North remembered him. Or tried to. Most had not seen him since he was a toddler. Some had never seen him at all. But they remembered his father. His brothers. They remembered what the name Stark used to mean.

And for some, it meant possibility.

Sansa watched them watch Rickon—some with guilt, others with hope, a few with calculation—and reminded herself that protection didn’t always look like armor. Sometimes, it looked like distraction. Sometimes, like silence. Sometimes, like letting them forget just how important he might become.

For now, he was just a boy beside the fire.

But winter had a way of changing children fast.

And the North remembered more than just names.

The tension in the great hall thickened. Frost clung to the flagstones beneath the lords’ boots. The torches hissed softly in their sconces, throwing long shadows across fur-lined cloaks and broadsword hilts. Outside, the wind howled against the walls of Winterfell, but inside, it was quiet—too quiet.

Then Lord Yohn Royce’s voice sliced through the hush, sharp and metallic. “We’re expected to sit beside wildling invaders now?”

His words dropped like a hammer, the emphasis on “invaders” curling with disdain. A few lords murmured, shifting their weight, glancing at one another as though testing how far the sentiment would travel.

Tormund stepped forward from where he leaned near one of the stone columns, his wild red beard crusted with snow, his greatcoat lined with the pelts of animals hunted in colder places than this. He scratched at his jaw and tilted his head, unimpressed.

“We didn’t invade,” he said, his tone as casual as it was dangerous. “We were invited.”

There was a pause—just long enough for the insult to settle in.

“Not by me,” Royce snapped back, stepping further into the circle of firelight.

Tormund’s eyes narrowed just slightly, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Would’ve gone better if we had.”

There were scattered snorts, the kind that might’ve been laughter if the room hadn’t been so tight with old wounds and older pride.

Sansa didn’t laugh. Her gaze flicked toward Jon, who stood beside her on the dais—not quite rigid, but coiled. Controlled.

He hadn’t spoken yet. Not a word. His expression was unreadable, but she knew the signs. The steady inhale. The slight twitch of the jaw. He was weighing his moment. Waiting for exactly the right time to cut through the noise.

She’d come to admire that about him.

He didn’t rise to the bait. Not yet.

Jon Snow stood like the snow itself—quiet, watchful, inevitable.

Sansa’s fingers curled lightly over the edge of her armrest, the weight of her child pressing gently against the inside of her ribs. From the corner of her eye, she saw Rickon sit up straighter on his bench below, his small hands tightening in the folds of his cloak. Ghost raised his head beside him, red eyes gleaming like embers in the dim.

The lords were circling a decision they hadn’t yet named. But Sansa knew what was coming.

They were looking for a leader.

And some of them were already starting to see one.

Jon’s voice was low but steady. “The Free Folk. The Northerners. The knights of the Vale—we fought together. We fought bravely. And we won.”

He looked around the hall, gaze sweeping over Royce, over the gathered lords who were still clinging to the illusion of order in a world that had already changed beneath their feet. “My father used to say that we find our true friends on the battlefield.”

The words weren’t loud, but they carried.

Sansa watched the ripple they caused—like a pebble dropped into a frozen lake. Faces shifted. A few heads bowed slightly. Some avoided looking at him at all.

Jon’s eyes didn’t plead. They didn’t accuse. He just spoke truth, plain and hard.

“He was right,” Jon said, turning slightly to take in the room. “We didn’t win because we had numbers. Or titles. We won because we stood together. And those who stood with us—Free Folk, Vale knights, Northern men—they bled like we did. They died like we did.”

Silence answered him, heavy and uncertain.

Then Lord Cerwyn stepped forward, pulling his cloak tighter around him. The edges were still edged in ice, the corners spattered with old mud and salt from the road. He looked young. He looked tired.

“The Boltons are defeated,” Cerwyn said. “The war is over. And winter has come.”

He glanced toward the tall, narrow window, where snow spun and piled in fine, white drifts against the glass.

“If the maesters are right, it will be the coldest winter in a thousand years,” he continued. “We should ride home. Wait out the coming storms. Protect our own.”

Nods followed. Cautious. Relieved. Men who wanted to be done with fighting. Who wanted to believe the worst was behind them.

Jon’s voice was firmer now—measured, but unmistakably clear.

“The war is not over,” he said. “And the true enemy—the one that doesn’t care about houses or banners or bloodlines—he won’t wait out the storm.”

He took another step forward, until he stood nearly at the center of the hall, the firelight drawing hard shadows across his face.

“He brings the storm.”

The murmurs hadn’t yet died when Jon spoke again.

“I know what some of you are thinking.”

He turned slightly, glancing toward the dais—toward Rickon, still seated quietly beside Ghost, his small hands curled into the sleeves of his cloak.

“I am not the rightful heir of Winterfell.”

The words struck the hall like a sudden shift in wind—cutting and clean.

“I never claimed to be,” Jon continued. “My name is Snow. My blood is Stark, but my name is not.”

He looked to Rickon again—quiet, steady.

“The trueborn son of Eddard Stark still lives. You’ve seen him. He sits among us now. My brother.”

Some of the lords turned to look, as if noticing Rickon for the first time. The boy didn’t flinch under the attention. Ghost rose behind him, just slightly, as if reminded of his purpose.

“Rickon is the last son of our father,” Jon said. “The last true heir to House Stark. And when the time comes, the North will rally behind him—as it should.”

Sansa watched the ripple move across the room again. It was a different kind of silence now—not resistance, but recalibration. Some eyes softened. Some narrowed. A few darted toward her, and she felt the weight of that attention settle under her ribs.

Jon wasn’t asking for power.

He was taking responsibility without claiming the reward.

“And that’s why I speak now,” Jon said. “Not as heir. Not as lord. But as a man who has seen the darkness coming.”

He swept his gaze across the banners, the flickering shadows, the aging warriors and young sons standing shoulder to shoulder.

“The war isn’t over. The true enemy is not behind us. He’s coming. For all of us.”

He stepped back then, not retreating—but making room for the silence to stretch into meaning.

Sansa inhaled slowly, careful not to let it show.

Jon’s words had landed softly—but they struck like hammer blows just the same. By naming Rickon the heir, he had stripped himself of claim while giving the North something undeniable: legacy. Blood. A Stark born of Winterfell, with Ned’s face and his mother’s eyes. A child too young to lead, but too important to ignore.

The lords would think on that.

Some would see stability.

Others would see a seat worth waiting for.

She watched them—all of them—watching Rickon. The boy’s face was calm, but his fingers fidgeted with the edge of his cloak now. He didn’t understand the weight Jon had just laid at his feet. Not fully. Not yet.

And she wasn’t sure if she should be relieved... or afraid.

Jon had taken the fire out of their hands and handed them an ember.

Sansa’s gaze drifted toward Petyr Baelish, half-shadowed near the side wall. His smile was slight. Polished. Calculating.

Of course he’d already started his math.

But before anyone else could speak—before that silence could twist into something else entirely—

A small voice rang out, sharp and unmistakable.

“My lords.”

Lady Lyanna Mormont stood. She stood without hesitation—barely more than a child, but somehow larger than anyone in the room. All seventy pounds of Northern fury wrapped in bear fur and bone-deep conviction.

Lyanna Mormont’s voice cut through the heavy silence like a blade through fog.

“Your son was butchered at the Red Wedding, Lord Manderly. And still—you refused the call.”

Wyman Manderly flinched. The folds of his cloak seemed to grow heavier around him. Shame bowed his head before he could speak.

Lyanna’s eyes moved on, sharp and unrelenting.

“You swore allegiance to House Stark, Lord Glover. You made an oath. But when you were needed you most, you refused the call.”

Glover bowed his head, his jaw tightening.

She turned again.

“And you, Lord Cerwyn. Your father was flayed alive by Ramsay Bolton. You saw what kind of man held Winterfell. And still—you refused the call.”

The words were simple. But they struck like thunder.

None of them answered.

Because there was no answer.

Only the truth.

Lyanna’s chin lifted. Her small hands curled into fists at her sides.

“But House Mormont remembers. The North remembers.”

Sansa felt it then—that electric shift in the air. The stillness before the crowd moves. The breath before a howl.

Lyanna turned, slow and deliberate, not to Sansa or to Rickon.

She looked directly at Jon.

“We know no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark.”

She let the words hang, sharp and final.

“I don’t care if he’s a bastard. Ned Stark’s blood runs through his veins. That is enough for me.”

Her voice dropped, but lost none of its strength.

“He is my king. From this day, until his last day.”

Silence gripped the hall.

Sansa didn’t breathe. She didn’t need to. She could feel the room shifting beneath her feet—like ice cracking on a lake in spring. Everything was about to move.

Wyman Manderly stepped forward, cloak trailing behind him like a shadow.

“Lady Mormont speaks harshly,” he said, voice thick. “But she speaks truly.”

He took a moment to look at Jon—not with judgment, but with the weariness of an old man who had made one too many mistakes.

“My son died for Robb Stark—the Young Wolf. I didn’t believe we’d find another king worth following in my lifetime. And when you called, I turned my back. I feared more Manderlys would die for nothing.”

He lowered himself slowly to one knee.

“I was wrong.”

The scrape of his sword being drawn echoed through the hall.

“Jon Snow avenged the Red Wedding,” he said, resting the blade flat before him. “He is the White Wolf. The King in the North.”

A ripple, then a wave.

Lord Glover stepped forward, eyes heavy with regret.

“I did not fight beside you on the field,” he admitted. “And I’ll regret that until the day I die. A man can only admit when he’s been wrong. And ask forgiveness.”

Jon inclined his head. “There’s nothing to forgive, my lord.”

Glover turned to the room.

“There will be more fights to come. Worse than what we’ve seen. And House Glover will stand behind House Stark, as we have for a thousand years.”

He drew his blade and knelt beside Manderly.

“And I will stand behind Jon Snow.”

Swords scraped against stone.

And then—

“The King in the North!” one voice shouted.

Another joined.

Then another.

Until the whole hall erupted.

Swords raised.

Fists pounded against tables and shields.

“THE KING IN THE NORTH!”

Steel clanged against stone.

“The King in the North!”

The banners overhead trembled from the sound—the direwolf of Stark, the bear of Mormont, the falcon of the Vale. All of them swaying in that roaring cry.

Jon stood still in the center of it. Not triumphant. Not exultant. Just still.

Like a man who had heard this once before in a dream, and never expected it to find him in waking life.

He turned, slowly, to the dais.

His eyes found Sansa’s.

And in that moment—surrounded by steel and fury and firelight—she smiled.

But it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Because she saw what came next.

Her gaze swept the hall, scanning the banners and the blades, the eyes shining with loyalty—and ambition.

And there he was.

Petyr Baelish.

Half-shrouded in torchlight, half-lost in shadow.

Watching her.

Smiling a smile that had nothing to do with loyalty.

Sansa didn’t look away.

Instead, she turned to Rickon, still seated quietly beside her, his face pale and wide-eyed. He looked up at her, confused but reverent, clutching the edge of his cloak in both hands.

Instead, she turned to Rickon, still seated quietly beside her, his legs drawn up beneath him. He wasn’t looking at her—he was watching Jon, eyes wide but unreadable, his expression distant in that way children sometimes slipped into when they were trying to understand things too big for them.

His fingers flexed against the carved wood of the bench. Not scared. Not unsure. Just silent.

Sansa reached over and rested her hand at the back of his neck, grounding him.

“He is the king now,” she said gently, though he hadn’t asked.

Rickon blinked slowly, still watching the room.

Then he whispered, “Is it over?”

Sansa followed his gaze toward the crowd, the swords, the roaring chant that filled the hall like wind through the weirwoods.

“No,” she said. “But we’ve won something tonight.”

He nodded once, leaning into her without a word.

Ghost rose beside them, silent and steady, red eyes watching the hall with something far older than instinct.

Above the thunder of voices and the clash of swords against stone, Sansa kept her eyes forward.

Jon stood in the center of it all, a banner without needing one, crowned not by ceremony, but by fire and blood and need. Around him, the North roared. Behind him, ghosts stirred.

Beside her, Rickon leaned into her side—quiet, watching, alive.

And in the shadows, Petyr Baelish watched with that knowing smile.

The great hall trembled with the sound of unity.

But Sansa Stark knew better than to mistake sound for peace.

Because while Jon wore the crown tonight—

She would be the one to keep them all alive tomorrow.

And the game, as ever, was still in motion.

Chapter Text

The celebration burned itself out before midnight.

What had begun with fire and fury had ended in slumped shoulders, slurred toasts, and the slow, uncertain shuffle of men who weren’t sure if they’d just crowned a king… or inherited another war.

Now, only silence remained in the great hall—save for the hiss of dying embers and the occasional clatter of a falling tankard. The banners overhead no longer stirred with movement but hung heavy, soaked in firelight and smoke. The air reeked of spilled wine, sweat, and old blood.

Sansa had left before the last song was sung.

She stood now at the upper balcony, high above the courtyard, her hands resting on the rimed stone parapet. Snow fell in soft flurries, steady and soundless, settling into the fur of her cloak and the braids in her hair. The chill kissed her cheeks and nose, but she welcomed it. She needed something sharp to remind her she was awake.

Below, the yard was near-deserted. A few guards lingered by the gates, shifting their weight in silence. The stables had gone dark. The smithy cold. And Winterfell, for the first time in weeks, seemed to exhale.

Sansa didn’t move.

She listened—to the wind curling through the eaves, to the soft creak of snow beneath distant boots, to the beat of her own heart, still echoing with chants of The King in the North.

The wooden door behind her creaked open.

She didn’t turn. She didn’t need to.

“You should be resting,” Jon said.

“I could say the same to you.”

He stepped beside her, close but not touching, and leaned both hands against the stone wall. His cloak was still half-clasped, the silver pin loose at the shoulder. His crownless head bowed forward slightly, as if the air was heavier tonight than it had been yesterday.

For a long while, they didn’t speak.

The courtyard below flickered to life as a lone stablehand lit a lantern near the outer gate. The flame danced, barely holding against the wind, but it stayed lit.

Sansa followed its movements with her eyes.

“They love you,” she said at last.

Jon exhaled, white breath clouding the space between them. “They love the name Stark. I’m just the one standing under it right now.”

“They love you because you stood when no one else would,” she said. “Because they remember the boy who bled for them, even when no one asked him to.”

“I’m not a boy anymore.”

“I know.”

He looked at her, something unreadable behind his eyes. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“You didn’t have to. That’s why it was given.”

Jon let his gaze drift upward, toward the snow swirling in the pale torchlight. “I keep thinking of Robb. Of how they must have chanted for him. How he must have felt when they did this to him.”

Sansa’s throat tightened. “And how it ended.”

He nodded. “And how it ended.”

The quiet stretched between them like thread pulled taut.

“Your going to name Rickon the heir,” she said softly. It wasn't a question.

Jon’s jaw worked once before he answered. “Because he is.”

“He’s still a child.”

“So were we,” he said. “When you left with Father for the South. When the ravens stopped coming. When the world got colder.”

Sansa turned toward him, searching his face for the thing she couldn’t quite name. “That’s why you did it? To protect him?”

“To protect the North,” Jon said. “To give them something they can believe in when the snow starts falling harder and the dead don’t stay buried.”

Sansa looked down at her gloved hands on the frost-slick stone. “And what happens when they start looking to him instead of you?”

“They will,” Jon said. “Eventually.”

“And you’re all right with that?”

He turned his body to face her fully now, brow furrowed. “I don’t want to rule, Sansa. I never did. I don’t need a crown to know who I am.”

“You keep saying that,” she said quietly. “But you keep putting yourself in front of the fire.”

“Because someone has to.”

Her eyes searched his. “And if it burns you?”

“Then it burns me.”

Sansa wanted to argue. To tell him that they had all lost enough. That she couldn’t lose him, too. But the words lodged somewhere in her throat—too raw, too close to something she didn’t have a name for yet.

Instead, she said, “Don’t talk about dying. Not tonight.”

His features softened, the tension in his jaw easing. “All right. Not tonight.”

They stood there for a moment longer, the snow falling between them like ash.

After a time, Jon asked, “How did he take it?”

Sansa blinked. “Rickon?”

Jon nodded.

“He didn’t say much,” she answered. “But he watched everything. The swords. The shouting. You.”

Jon looked down toward the darkened yard. “I was never meant for this.”

“Neither was he.”

Jon’s lips curved into the smallest hint of a smile. “That makes two of us.”

She turned her head slightly, watching his profile—the snow in his curls, the shadows under his eyes.

He looked tired. And older. And entirely alone, even while standing beside her.

“We’re Starks,” she said. “We weren’t meant for easy things.”

“No,” he agreed, quiet. “Just the hard ones.”

She reached over then, without ceremony, and rested her gloved hand against his forearm.

They didn’t speak again.

Not until the wind changed.

Not until the flame below flickered—and went out.

The light had changed by the time Sansa returned to her chambers.

Pale blue crept in through the cracks of the shutters—dawn not fully broken, but already beginning its slow, quiet siege of the night. The sky had the color of melted glass. Cold, cloudless, endless.

Inside, the fire had long since guttered out, the last embers swallowed into ash. The air hung damp and sharp, the stones beneath her boots radiating cold from their core. She didn’t relight the hearth. Let the chill stay. It suited her.

She moved slowly, unfastening her cloak with stiff fingers. The silver clasp caught once, and she had to work the pin free before letting the cloak fall across the back of the carved oak chair. The weight of it slid from her shoulders like a second skin she no longer needed.

Crossing to the edge of the bed, she sat down with a sigh she didn’t mean to make.

Her hand drifted to the round curve of her belly, the wool of her dress warm from where the child pressed.

It shifted—a small fluttering movement low in her abdomen, more ripple than kick. It stilled her.

In the corner of the room, Magda and Dara sat like sentries molded from patience and bone. The hearth’s cold hadn’t stirred them; they’d wrapped themselves in their cloaks, hoods down, weapons close but sheathed. Neither had spoken when she came in. Neither needed to. Their presence was quiet armor. She trusted them. That was rare.

She didn’t try to sleep.

Sleep meant dreams. And dreams hadn’t been safe for a long time.

Instead, she rose again, pulling her robe tighter as she walked to the window. Her fingers trailed along the sill—cold stone slick with frost, rough where the mortar had cracked and been mended.

Outside, Winterfell stirred.

A kitchen girl trudged across the yard with a wooden bucket in each hand, steam rising from their brims. A pair of stablehands rolled open the outer gate with care, wood creaking against wood. One of the ravens cried from the rookery tower. The snow had lightened into a lazy drift, falling steady and slow like time stretched too thin.

It was a beautiful, dangerous stillness.

Soon, the halls would fill again. Lords whose cups had been too full the night before would bring their demands with them—land, men, titles. Questions about who held what. Whispers about Rickon. About the child. About her.

Some would smile when they spoke to her.

Others wouldn’t.

Either way, they would look to her.

And to Jon.

She needed to be ready.

She turned from the window and moved toward the wardrobe, unhooking her night robe and reaching for the heavy one with the quilted lining. Her hands moved automatically. Belt. Ties. Folded layers drawn tight across her middle. Every motion a habit now, a shield she slipped on without thinking.

She was halfway through lacing the bodice when a knock broke the quiet.

Soft. Tentative.

Magda stirred instantly, rising without sound, spear already in hand before the second knock came.

Sansa held up one hand. “It’s all right.”

Dara moved to the door and cracked it just enough to peer through.

The hallway creaked.

“A page,” Dara said, stepping back.

A boy entered, no older than eleven, cheeks pink from the cold. His hair was damp with melted snow, his boots scuffed with frost. He held out a small folded piece of parchment sealed in familiar wax.

“For you, my lady,” he said. “Lord Baelish said it was private.”

Sansa didn’t answer.

She simply took it with careful fingers.

The boy bowed and left without waiting for a reply. Dara closed the door behind him, slowly and without sound.

Sansa turned the parchment over in her hand. The seal was unbroken. The wax was grey—not the silver she would’ve used—but pressed with the mockingbird sigil nonetheless.

It was neat. Precise. Designed to be opened and remembered.

She broke it.

No title. No greeting.

Just one line.

Power does not always wear the crown. You should know that better than anyone.

Her pulse didn’t quicken. Her breath didn’t catch.

But something in her spine hardened.

She read it again. Once. Then again. The writing was steady. Deliberate. Just the right shade of ominous.

He was reminding her of what they both already knew: that the throne Jon sat on was made of loyalty—but hers was made of leverage.

And Petyr Baelish had always known how to test the weight of a throne.

Sansa stared at the parchment for a long moment, her thumb brushing the edge.

She didn’t crumple it.

She didn’t burn it.

Instead, she folded it carefully, tucking it into the inner seam of her sleeve.

She would keep it.

As a reminder.

She moved back to the window and watched as Winterfell exhaled beneath her, smoke curling from chimneys, snow stacking higher on the rooftops. The sky had brightened from grey-blue to bone white, and the wind picked up again—soft, but steady.

The North was awake now.

And so was she.

Chapter Text

The banners above the great hall didn’t seem to move.

They hung limp from the blackened rafters, weighed down by frost and memory. The fabric of House Stark—grey direwolf on white—looked more like mourning cloth than a sigil of power today. Threads of condensation clung to the seams. The torches lining the walls hissed in protest, their flames flickering low as cold crept down the stones like ivy.

The warmth of celebration had burned out with the fires the night before. No more music, no more laughter. Only the scuff of boots across stone, the muted murmur of low voices, and the occasional groan of old benches under the weight of armored men already returning to politics.

The crown had been placed.

Now came the silence that followed.

The side door opened.

Sansa entered, cloaked in pale grey fur, the color of frost-smoke and early snow. Her boots were clean. Her chin high. The sound of her arrival broke through the morning haze like a fresh gust of wind.

The lords of the North rose. One by one, some slower than others. But they stood. Not because they were forced.

Because they remembered.

Magda followed close behind, silent as ever, her spear resting against her shoulder like a warning unspoken. The hush that followed their entrance stretched, heavy and deliberate, until Sansa crossed to the long table near the dais and nodded once—cool and measured.

Only then did they sit again.

Their eyes followed her still.

Some with loyalty.

Some with hope.

Some with calculation.

She took her place at the table with the quiet confidence of someone who had learned how to survive every room. She did not look to the high seat—Jon’s now. He had not yet arrived. That was fine. She preferred to see the board before the first move.

Rickon was not with her. He remained in the solar, tucked beneath furs still warm from the fire, Ghost curled around him like a living shield. Let him sleep. Let him dream while he could. Because if Winterfell would not protect him, she would build a wall of silence and steel around him herself.

“Lady Stark.”

The voice was smooth. Too smooth.

She did not turn right away.

When she did, Petyr Baelish was already there—close enough to speak, too close to be invited. His hands were folded neatly in front of him, his expression measured into something just short of reverence.

“Lord Baelish,” she said, her tone light but unwelcoming. She made a small motion with her hand for Magda to remain where she stood. “You’re up early.”

“A habit I’ve found hard to break,” he said. “One doesn’t survive long in court by sleeping late.”

“This isn’t a court.”

“Not yet.”

Her gaze narrowed, but only slightly.

He leaned in, his voice dropping low enough to pretend it was for her ears alone. “But it will be. You know that.”

“I know you think so.”

“I think many things. But I act only on the ones worth betting my life on.”

Sansa tilted her head with icy grace. “And which bet brings you here this morning?”

He smiled—thin and quiet. The kind of smile meant to be heard, not seen.

“To offer you clarity. And counsel. The North may have crowned Jon, but crowns are not always made of iron.”

“I thought we’d finished this conversation.”

He shook his head, just once. “Last night was the theater. Today is the strategy. The Vale knights remain on my word. The Northern lords… they look to you as often as they look to him. And Rickon—”

Her head turned sharply.

“Rickon,” she said, her voice like a drawn blade, “is not yours to name. Not yours to imagine. And not yours to use.”

Baelish did not blink. But his smile faltered. Only slightly.

“I meant no disrespect.”

“You rarely do,” she replied. “Not aloud.”

A silence fell—dense and sharp.

Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, he said, “Your child will change everything.”

It was not praise. Not warning. Simply fact.

Sansa didn’t answer. She folded her hands, lifted her chin, and said nothing at all.

Because that was the answer.

The heavy doors at the far end of the hall opened with a groan, and wind swept through like a curtain being drawn. Men straightened. Words died in throats. Jon entered. Wrapped in black and grey, the furs of the North clinging to his shoulders like shadow. No crown. No sword. But every eye turned. The lords stood.

Baelish stepped back with a bow—not quite low enough.

And across the stone floor of Winterfell, in the pause before words began again, Sansa Stark sat straight and still. Jon paused just inside the hall, his presence enough to still the air without a word.
He crossed to the dais, standing before the high seat with both hands resting on the carved wood of the table. He did not sit.

“My lords,” he said, voice steady. “Last night, you raised me up. I didn’t ask for it. I still wouldn’t have. But if I’m to carry the weight of your trust, then I’ll speak plainly.”

The lords leaned forward. Some with anticipation. Some with dread.

He turned to face them fully.

“There are truths we’ve carried quietly for too long. And I will not lead the North in silence.”

His eyes flicked to Sansa, just for a breath.

“Lady Sansa Stark is the rightful daughter of Eddard and Catelyn Stark. She is not the wife of Tyrion Lannister. Nor the widow of Ramsay Bolton.”

A murmur rolled through the hall. Uncomfortable. Sharp-edged.

“She was given to Lannisters in chains,” Jon said. “And to Boltons under threat and lies. Neither marriage was truly freely made. Neither will be recognized by this house. Nor by this North. The man who claimed her last—Ramsay Snow—was no true lord. He was legitimized by a southern king who wore a stolen crown, sitting a stolen throne. A bastard knighted by a bastard king.”

He let that hang in the air.

“The North does not answer to southern decrees. Not from Baratheon pretenders. Not from Lannister traitors. And not from any hand that flays.”

That landed. Even the most skeptical among them gave way to silence.

“I name Ramsay Bolton what he was,” Jon said. “Ramsey Snow. A usurper. A torturer. A coward. And no true husband to any woman—least of all my sister.”

He turned again to face Sansa.

“I declare those marriages null. And I name her what she has always been: Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell. And from this day forward, what she will always be. I name Sansa Stark to be Hand of the King.”

The room broke like ice under pressure—gasps, shifting feet, sidelong glances.

Then the voice came: “She carries his child.”

Lord Norrey, standing red-faced at the center table. “The bastard’s child, born of forced marriage. You would give that thing the name Stark?”

Sansa stood.

She did not rise quickly. She rose with purpose—unhurried, unshaken, and unbowed. Her fur-lined cloak fell back from her shoulders as she stepped forward, revealing the curve of her belly beneath soft wool and silver embroidery. The hush in the hall grew sharper, the air colder.

She didn’t need to raise her voice.

She didn’t need to say much at all.

“The ladies of Bear Island have long taken bears to their bed,” she said, her tone cool and measured. “No one questioned their right to name the children they bore.”

A few of the older lords exchanged glances. They knew the truth of that. The Mormont women had ruled Bear Island with steel and scars for centuries—and often without husbands.

Sansa moved another step forward, her boots silent against the stone.

“One of those women now commands more respect than any man in this room.”

That earned a low ripple of acknowledgment.

She turned her head—just slightly—toward Lyanna Mormont, who sat still and unblinking at her place near the front.

“She is small in stature, younger than most would believe fit to lead. But she commands loyalty without apology. And no man here has dared question her right to rule.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd—not defiant, not mocking, but thoughtful.

Sansa rested her hand on her abdomen—not in shame, but in ownership. Her fingers splayed lightly over the child she carried, as though anchoring the words to her own skin.

“I carry a wolf’s child,” she said. “Conceived in darkness, yes. But not born of shame.”

Her voice gained strength—not louder, but deeper, rooted in bone.

“This child will be raised in the North. It will speak with our tongue. Know our gods. It will carry the blood of Eddard Stark. And it will know the difference between silence and strength.”

She turned her gaze to Lord Norrey, whose eyes had flickered away the moment she stepped forward. Now, she made him face her.

“You may call it what you like,” she said, voice cold enough to sting. “Bastard. Bolton. Shame.”

She stepped even closer.

“But I will call it mine.”

Norrey looked down.

The hall was silent save for the soft crackle of the fire.

And then—movement.

Lord Wyman Manderly rose, slow but certain. His cloak trailed behind him, heavy and lined with silver merman embroidery.

“Let the child bear the name Stark,” he said, his voice carrying not anger, but gravity. “The North remembers who suffered. Who bled. And who endures.”

Sansa breathed once, slow and steady.

And Jon stepped forward to stand beside her, shoulder to shoulder. “The child will be raised in this house. As a Stark.”

Sansa turned her head and met his eyes.

There was no hesitation.

No need for thanks.

Only understanding.

And this time, she did not look away.

Sansa lowered herself into her seat again. Her movements were deliberate, controlled, the same way one might lower a blade into a sheath—not because it had lost its edge, but because it no longer needed to cut. Magda stood just behind, her presence a quiet perimeter. She hadn’t moved once through the exchange, except to subtly shift her weight when Lord Norrey had spoken. Her knuckles still sat white on the shaft of her spear. Her gaze hadn’t left Baelish since the moment he entered the hall.

Jon stayed standing.

He didn’t step back. Didn’t return to his seat yet. He remained where he was, letting the silence linger just long enough to settle.

Then he spoke.

“We have enemies beyond our walls,” he said, his voice no longer just the voice of a brother, or a commander—but of a king. It carried not just weight, but expectation. “The cold is coming. Not just snow. Not just hunger. But the dead.”

A ripple moved through the room—not scoffing, but cautious.

“You’ve heard me say it before. Some believed me. Others do not.”

He let his gaze sweep the hall—Lord Glover, stiff and silent; Yohn Royce, arms crossed and frowning in thought; Lady Dustin, leaning slightly forward, eyes sharp with interest.

“But the storm comes, whether you believe it or not. And we will not survive it if we are divided.”

He paused.

“This house is led by Starks. Not by whispers, or doubt, or past sins thrown at our feet like stones. We need unity. Not just in banners, but in will.”

He looked toward Sansa then—not for approval, but for clarity.

“And I won’t hold you by fear or threats. But I will hold you to truth. We stand together, or we fall apart.”

There was a beat of stillness.

Then Lord Cerwyn cleared his throat. “The western granaries haven’t been refilled since the siege. We’ve begun sending for barley and dried root from Deepwood Motte, but the roads—”

“Snow's making the passes near impassable,” Lady Dustin added. “House Ryswell has preserved meat. Smoked and salted. I’ll release stores to Winterfell under oath of return.”

Jon nodded. “Good. Put it in writing. Keep account of every barrel.”

The council shifted. The air, still chilled, began to circulate with motion—logistics and supply taking precedence over judgment. Lords leaned in to confer. Dusty ledgers were unrolled and quills dipped. The rhythm of ruling returned.

Sansa didn’t speak for several minutes.

She didn’t need to.

She’d spoken already—and every man in the room was still hearing it.

The balance had shifted. She could feel it beneath her boots, like packed snow hardening beneath the first light frost. It wasn’t deference. Not yet. But it was recognition. A pause in the old instincts that once dismissed her.

Not the sister of a king.

The Hand of one.

A servant entered, quietly announcing the midday meal had been laid in the solar for the king and his advisors. Jon stood and dismissed the council with a nod. The gathered lords rose, some more reluctant than others, cloaks swirling around them as they filed out with tired, low voices and heavier thoughts than they’d come in with.

Jon lingered just long enough to glance back at her. A question in his eyes. She shook her head once, just slightly—go on—and he did.

The great hall emptied, one voice at a time, until only the echo of footsteps remained.

Baelish was the last to move.

She didn’t watch him leave. She let him know by her stillness that he was no longer part of the conversation.

Magda stepped forward at last. “The hall’s clear, my lady.”

Sansa rose.

Her legs ached faintly, a dull weight she hadn’t noticed while seated. She pressed a hand to her side and exhaled slowly, letting the tightness ease.

“See that Rickon eats something,” she said. “And that Ghost stays near him. I want him rested.”

Magda nodded. “He’ll be safe.”

Sansa nodded, brushing a loose strand of hair back from her cheek.

She moved to the center of the hall, now empty and vast. The banners overhead hung still. Grey and silent. Watching.

At the base of the dais, she looked up at the seat Jon had occupied.

She could still see the line of his shoulders, the weight he’d carried there.

She had no crown. No sword. No title that the South would recognize. But she had the North’s eyes. Its questions. Its grudging hope.

And she had the fire.

Not the kind that blazed. But the kind that stayed—hot beneath the skin, banked and ready.

She turned her gaze to the high table, then beyond, toward the darkened archways where secrets used to slink.

They would again. She knew it.

But not today.

Today, she had stood, and the room had not flinched.

She let that be enough.

For now.

Chapter Text

The table in Jon’s solar was scarred and stained from war plans, ravens, and spilled wine. The carved map of the North lay across it, parchment curling at the edges. Stones weighted the corners, and pins marked key points—some black, others red, and one silver wolf at the center for Winterfell. The fire in the hearth popped gently, more for light than warmth. The air in the room was cold, despite the stone walls being thick as tree trunks. Snow clung to the windows like lace, veiling the outside world in frost.

Sansa sat at Jon’s right, a deep grey cloak falling over her shoulders, the Stark direwolf stitched into the hem in silver thread. Her hands, steady and bare, rested on the edge of the table. Her eyes missed nothing.

To Jon’s left sat Davos, eyes drawn and tired, but alert. Lord Glover was across from him, arms folded over his chest, his fingers clenching tighter whenever Tormund opened his mouth. Lord Royce sat beside Glover, straight-backed, stone-faced, too proud for a room that smelled of steel and smoke.

Magda and Dara stood at attention near the windows, snow still melting from their furs. Tormund lounged like he owned the place, one leg kicked out beneath the table, his axe within arm’s reach. Lyanna Mormont was settled stiffly in a high-backed chair near the hearth, watching everyone like a hawk in the trees. Val stood near the fire, quiet, but not withdrawn—her presence deliberate, her gaze unblinking.

Jon leaned over the table, his knuckles pressed to the edge of the map. “We need reports from every house within four days' ride. Supply. Weapon stores. Livestock. Men of fighting age. If the dead march, I want no one surprised.”

Lord Glover was first to speak. “Most of our grain stores have already been stretched at Deepwood Motte. We sent barley nearly two weeks ago, but the southern pass is clogged. Nothing’s moved for three days.”

Davos looked toward the window. “Snow’s falling harder near Barrowton. We had word from a rider—two days late.”

“It’ll take weeks for proper roads to reopen,” Royce added. “And longer still for wagons to carry anything worth the effort.”

“We can’t afford to wait for the spring thaw,” Sansa said, her voice low and certain. “It could be years before the changing of the seasons, even longer with the Long Night looming. We build sled trains and send smaller loads more frequently. It’s slower, but steadier. We won’t lose as much to wolves or weather that way.”

Royce raised a brow. “And who’s to drive these sleds? The women?”

Sansa didn’t flinch. “The ones who know the roads better than your sons do, yes.”

Royce’s mouth tightened.

Tormund laughed. “She’s not wrong. I’d trust a Free Folk widow with a sled over half your knights.”

Lyanna snorted. Royce cleared his throat but said nothing more.

Sansa nodded to Magda. “Status on the Wolfswood?”

Magda stepped forward, her voice calm and deep. “Cleared the deadfall near the old logging trails. We’ve burned all the fallen trees. Dara and I scouted as far as the ice pool. There’s room to move, but it’s narrow. We’ll need runners more than drivers.”

Jon nodded. “Send for lean horses. No wagons.”

“We’ll take it,” Val said, finally speaking. “My people move faster than most of yours. We don’t wait for gates to open.”

Royce opened his mouth, but Lyanna spoke first.

“You question the Free Folk again,” she said, “and I’ll question how many letters you wrote while they were dying for your keep.”

The room froze.

Sansa looked over and met Lyanna’s eyes. The girl gave her a single, slow nod. A line of steel passed silently between them.

Royce said nothing more.

Jon exhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate. The firelight caught the edge of his jaw, flickering shadows playing across the worn lines of his face. He looked around the room and something settled behind his eyes, like a sword finally driven into the earth. “There’s no room for pride anymore. Anyone who wants to measure worth by bloodline can take it to the graveyard. They’ll find plenty of company.”

The silence that followed was heavy, with the thought of bodies buried in the snow, banners burned, and children born with nothing but the cold in their lungs.

Then Tormund slapped the table with a laugh, the sound sharp and sure in the hush. His wild red beard shook with the motion, and his eyes sparkled with something fierce and proud. “Now that’s a king’s voice.”

Jon ignored the jab. “Val, take five runners north to the Watchtower at Knife Hill. Sansa—” He turned slightly toward her. “You’ll coordinate the numbers. Every house. Every storehouse. I want the full picture before the week’s end.”

Sansa didn’t blink. Her spine straightened just a little more as she met his gaze, the chill of the hall forgotten. “It will be done.”

Davos spoke again, his voice lower, more cautious now. “If the southern kingdoms hear word of this—if they see the North rising—”

“They already know,” Sansa said.

That brought a hush to the room.

Chairs stilled. Boots no longer shifted on stone. Even the fire seemed to hold its breath.

Jon looked at her.

She didn’t look back.

“They’ll know by now,” she said, her voice calm but edged with steel. “If not from a raven, then from one of Baelish’s many whispers. And let them know. Let them whisper. Let them wonder why the North rallies to one name.”

She finally turned to face Jon, her chin lifting. “They think this is about crowns and ambition. About pride. But they’re wrong. This is about the North standing behind the only man who has faced the darkness and returned. Jon is our King—not by blood, but by right." 

There was nothing left to say to that. Only a new silence. Thicker than the last. It settled in the bones, in the frost-laced air, in the memory of every hall burned and brother lost.

Jon rested his palms on the table once more, grounding them all. “This council will meet again in three days. Send what you know. Bring what you can. Anyone who comes late to winter will come late to survival.”

The council rose slowly. Tormund rolled his shoulders and stretched like a bear waking from a nap. Glover and Royce exchanged a glance but said nothing. Magda and Dara fell into step behind Sansa as she rose. She was tired. She didn’t show it. Val passed her in the doorway, offering a small nod.

“You speak like one of us now,” she said. “The ones who remember the cold.”

Sansa smiled—just a little. “I never forgot.”

The corridor outside the solar was cold, long, and lined with arching windows that filtered the morning light into pale blue streaks along the stone floor. Frost clung to the inner corners of the panes. Somewhere far below, a smith’s hammer rang in short, steady beats—steel on steel, always preparing.

Sansa walked alone. She moved slowly, her fingers grazing the carved wooden rail of the stairwell as she descended the first curve. Her thoughts buzzed with everything said—and unsaid—in the war council. The maps, the doubts, the calculations behind every glance. The North was stirring awake, but not all of it had decided whether to stretch or strike.

Behind her, she heard footsteps. Not hurried, not heavy—but unfamiliar. Her shoulders stiffened.

She paused at the mid-landing, her fingers tightening on the rail. The stone beneath her palm was cold, worn smooth by centuries of hands that had passed the same way. She didn’t turn. Not yet. Whoever it was behind her clearly wasn’t a threat—Magda and Dara would’ve warned her if they’d sensed danger. And the footsteps, though measured, weren’t hunting her. Just following. Just watching.

Only when the boots slowed did she speak.

“If you’ve come to argue,” she said coolly, “I suggest you do it in daylight.”

The steps stopped. A familiar voice answered—rough, quiet, and tinged with weariness.

“No argument, my lady. Not from me.”

She turned. Davos Seaworth stood several paces behind, arms folded loosely across his chest, a respectful distance between them. His weather-worn cloak bore the stains of ash and salt, and the lines at the corners of his eyes seemed deeper than the night before—as though whatever rest he’d managed hadn’t settled in his bones.

“Forgive me,” she said after a beat. “I didn’t recognize your step.”

He nodded. “Good. Means your guards are keeping you sharp.”

She glanced past him, down the long, dim corridor. It was empty. Cold. Winterfell’s bones were old and full of echoes. She could almost hear the past breathing in the walls.

“You walked softly for a man with nothing to hide.”

“I’ve lived a long time by knowing when not to stomp.”

She offered the ghost of a smile. Not wide. Not warm. But real. Just enough to acknowledge him.

He stepped forward, slow and measured, boots brushing the stone without hurry, until he reached the same landing. His eyes swept the hall ahead, then the windows, as if taking its measure—not for beauty, but for strategy. For threat.

“I didn’t speak in there,” he said. “Because you didn’t need me to.”

Her arms crossed, one hand brushing the curve of her cloak as it wrapped around her. “You approve of how I handled it?”

“I do,” he said. “Which is why I didn’t say anything.”

Sansa studied him for a moment, her gaze keen, eyes narrowed. “You’ve known many kings.”

“Aye.”

“And many hands.”

He looked faintly amused. “Too many.”

She leaned slightly against the stone archway, the chill creeping through her layers. It didn’t bother her. It grounded her. Her voice dropped. “Do they all hide so much from everyone else?”

“Only the good ones,” he said. “The bad ones just shout it and dare someone to disagree.”

That startled a soft exhale from her—dry and sharp. Almost a laugh. Almost.

Davos turned to face her fully now. He didn’t posture. Didn’t hedge. Just stood as he was: unvarnished, weathered by both sea and war.

“He trusts you, you know.”

Sansa looked away. “He shouldn’t.”

“I think he should.”

Her jaw tightened. “I’ve made mistakes.”

“So has he. So have we all. But he listens to you. And he should. Because you don’t speak to impress him. You speak to move the board.”

She turned her gaze back to him, searching his face. “Not everyone hears me that way.”

“They will,” he said. “In time.”

The quiet stretched between them again—still, but not empty.

“And Baelish?” she asked. “Do you think I’ve left him too much room?”

“I think he’s looking for a foothold,” Davos said. “He’ll try to wedge it wherever he can.”

“He’s been quiet.”

“He’s planning. Or testing. Waiting for someone to trip.”

She looked back out the nearest window, where the rooftops of Winterfell were just beginning to steam beneath the pale rise of the sun. The snow hadn’t stopped—but it was finer now, soft as sifted flour, swirling like breath from the gods.

Davos shifted beside her. “You’re not like your father,” he said. “You’re not like Catelyn either.”

“No,” she said, and it didn’t hurt like it once did. “I’m something else.”

He nodded. “Something they don’t know how to reckon with yet.”

She let the words linger in her chest, felt them settle—equal parts warning and promise. Beyond the walls, the ravens were beginning to stir. Their calls rang out across the towers—sharp, urgent, alive.

“When the south comes,” Davos said, “they won’t do it with swords first. They’ll send parchment. Promises. Diplomats. Friendly faces with hidden hands.”

“I know.”

“They’ll try to divide you. From Jon. From Rickon. From the child.”

Sansa’s hand curled around her cloak, fingers pressing over her belly like a quiet vow.

“I’ll be ready,” she said.

He turned to go.

But before he did, he paused at the threshold.

“One more thing,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “The North will remember this morning. What you said. How you stood.”

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing with curiosity. “What will they remember?”

“That it wasn’t Jon who claimed the North today,” he said. “It was you who gave it to him.”

And then he left her there—alone in the quiet corridor, frost creeping across the glass, her breath a pale cloud against the air.

The training yard was muffled in white. Snow fell in slow, deliberate spirals, piling in corners, softening the outlines of swords and boots and practice stones. Winterfell’s inner walls loomed high and dark above the bright yard, the sky behind them iron-grey and indifferent.

Sansa stood beneath the edge of the overhang, the hem of her cloak brushing wet stone, her gloved hands clasped before her. The cold crept through the soles of her boots, up her calves, but she didn’t move. She’d been there long enough to forget the discomfort.

Across the yard, Rickon stood alone inside the practice circle.

He was small for his age—thin from the years spent running and hiding, with limbs just beginning to remember what it meant to grow. His tunic was too big, the sleeves folded twice and bound at the wrists with twine. His wooden sword—half the weight of steel, but still too much for hands that had never been trained—dragged in the dirt behind him.

Ghost lay nearby, as he always did. The direwolf didn’t hover. He watched. Head resting on his paws, white coat streaked with snow, red eyes half-lidded but never sleeping. He had followed Rickon out of the solar that morning without a sound, padding down the corridor and through the courtyard as if he’d known where the boy needed to be before anyone else did.

No one had told Rickon to train. He had asked.

No demands. No tantrum.

Just a quiet, simple request over breakfast, barely above a whisper.

“I want to go to the yard.”

And so he had.

Now, two older wildling boys circled him in the training ring—rangy, broad-shouldered, all wiry limbs and scraped knuckles. They were older by at least three years, maybe more, and towered over him like wolves testing a pup. One had a jagged scar across his chin, the other a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. Their movements weren’t elegant, but they were fast—lean muscles trained by survival, not ceremony.

They weren’t cruel. But they weren’t coddling him either.

They struck with the flat of their wooden blades, sharp and sudden. They feinted low, only to jab high. They swept at his feet with quick, practiced kicks, grinning when he stumbled. Once, they knocked his legs clean out from under him and he hit the packed earth with a thud that drew a collective wince from the onlookers. Another time, they batted the practice sword from his grip, sending it skittering across the ring.

But he never cried.

He didn’t shout. Didn’t curse. Didn’t look to the edge of the circle for help.

He just got up—quiet, red-faced, but unbowed. Dirt clung to his knees and elbows. Blood welled where a strike had split the skin just below his collarbone, but he didn’t flinch when the blade came again.

He didn’t speak at all.

Sansa’s breath caught as the wooden blade connected—just under Rickon’s ribs, a sharp tap meant to test more than harm. But the boy was slight for his age, and the hit, though controlled, knocked him off balance. He staggered two steps back, his foot slipping in the churned-up earth of the ring.

From the edge of the courtyard, Ghost stirred.

The direwolf had been lying flat in the snow, still as stone, his crimson eyes half-lidded in that eerie, ever-watchful way. But the moment Rickon faltered, Ghost’s head lifted in one fluid motion. Ears pricked. Muscles coiled. A sound rose in his throat—low and rumbling, like ice cracking beneath heavy weight.

It wasn’t a growl. Not quite.

But it was enough.

The wildling boys froze mid-motion, blades hovering in the air. One shifted his weight back, instinctively stepping away. The other flicked his gaze toward the direwolf and then toward the shadowy stone balconies above—looking for permission, for reprieve, for anything that might tell him whether to run or stay.

“Hold,” said the guard at the edge of the circle—Old Thorn, one of the few left who had served under her father. “That’s enough.”

Rickon lowered his sword with a small grunt and blinked snowflakes from his lashes. His scarf had slipped from his shoulders, and he pushed it back up without being told.

The boys dipped their heads in a bow—awkward, sheepish—and mumbled apologies under their breath. One of them cast another wary glance toward Ghost before turning away. They backed off quickly, blades still in hand, retreating to the water barrels at the edge of the yard. Their breath came in pale clouds as they splashed the icy water over their arms and faces, letting the cold bite away the tension.

Sansa didn’t speak.

She descended the stairs with deliberate grace, each step quiet but certain, the hem of her cloak whispering across the stone like trailing smoke. Snow clung to the fur lining at her shoulders, catching in the folds of midnight-blue wool. The courtyard, moments ago loud with training calls and bootfalls, had gone still.

Rickon turned.

He had felt her before he saw her—some unspoken tug, a presence more than a sound. He looked up and found her halfway across the yard, her eyes already on him.

But he didn’t run to her.

He didn’t smile.

He just stood there, breathing hard, his chest rising and falling beneath the too-big leather jerkin he wore. His cheeks were flushed, both from the cold and from effort, and his curls stuck damply to his temples. There was a smear of dirt across one brow, and a faint mark where the wooden blade had landed.

She crossed the final distance with slow, measured steps and crouched a few feet away—not low enough to diminish herself, but low enough to meet him on his terms. Close enough that he wouldn’t have to crane his neck to find her eyes.

She said nothing at first. She just watched him.

And waited.

Rickon’s little voice piped up before she could speak. “Did you see when I almost got him in the leg?”

Sansa blinked. The question came out of nowhere—proud, breathless, hopeful.

“I did,” she said, her lips curving faintly. “You nearly had him.”

He beamed, just for a second—but it faded quickly, replaced by a small, frustrated frown.

“You did well,” she said softly.

He looked down at his boots, scuffing one against the packed dirt.

“I lost.”

“You didn’t run.”

He frowned again, confused by the weight of that.

“They didn’t go easy,” he mumbled, like he wasn’t sure whether to be proud or ashamed of it.

“I’m glad,” she replied. “You don’t need easy. You need real.”

His brows pinched together, working through her words the way a much older boy might puzzle out a riddle.

Snowflakes landed on his lashes. He didn’t blink them away.

She reached out, touching the edge of his sleeve where the seam was coming loose. “Why today?”

He shrugged. Then, after a pause: “I heard them talking. About kings. About who comes next.”

Her breath hitched.

“And I thought… if I was gonna be one, I should learn to hold a sword.”

Her chest tightened. She swallowed. “You’re not going to be king.”

He looked up at her, startled. “But I’m Father’s son.”

“You’re a Stark,” she said firmly. “That’s more than enough.”

His eyes dropped to the practice sword in his small hand. “Then what happens to me?”

“You live,” she said gently. “You grow. You learn. And when the North looks your way, you’ll be ready—but only if you want to be.”

He was quiet for a moment, turning the wooden blade over in his hands like it might give him an answer.

“I thought you were the queen,” he said.

She smiled at that—just barely. “No, sweetling. I’m not a queen.”

“You sit up high like one.”

“Well,” she said with a light laugh, brushing snow from his shoulder, “that’s because I’m the Princess of Winterfell.”

His eyes widened. “So I’m the prince?”

“You’ve always been.”

He straightened a little, chest puffed out, sword clutched tight.

Then his face turned serious—too serious for a five-year-old.

“But if Jon dies,” he said, “I’ll have to be king, right?”

She froze.

“Where did you hear that?”

“I hear things,” he said, not quite meeting her eyes. “And I heard about the cold men. The ones with no eyes. They’re coming.”

Sansa’s throat went tight.

“You’re not going to be king for a long, long while,” she said firmly. “Jon’s strong. The Wall is strong. We’re stronger together.”

Rickon didn’t nod. Didn’t argue.

He just looked up at the grey sky, brows drawn, face still pink from cold and effort.

“Still,” he said, “might be sooner than you think.”

And just like that, he turned and walked toward the water barrels—small, steady steps through snow too deep for his boots.

Sansa watched him go, her heart caught somewhere between pride and dread.

Prince of Winterfell.

Too young to carry such words.

But old enough to understand what they meant.

The wind along the ramparts had teeth tonight.

It bit at Sansa’s cheeks, sharp and insistent, painting her skin in streaks of red. It tugged loose strands of hair from the tight braid at her crown, whipping them across her face in fine, stinging lashes. Still, she didn’t pull her hood up. The cold was a kind of discipline. It kept her alert. Present. Her hands rested against the battlement’s edge, stone biting through the worn leather of her gloves. It was rough beneath her fingers—ancient, pitted, and cold as the grave. But it was real. Solid. Steady. She let it anchor her.

Below, Winterfell breathed.

The last light of day hung like smoke on the horizon, bleeding through the courtyard in long strokes of grey and brittle blue. The stone buildings cast long shadows that stretched and twisted as torches were lit along the inner walls. Servants moved between doorways in brisk, silent lines—baskets on hips, buckets sloshing, cloaks drawn tight around shoulders. From the kitchens came the faint clang of iron and the smell of broth. Smoke curled from chimney stacks in soft ribbons, catching in the wind and scattering like memory.

She watched it all—measured each flicker of firelight. Each gust of wind. Each pause between breaths.

And then came a sound, soft but sure, boots on stone behind her. Familiar. She didn’t turn.

Jon came to stand beside her without a word, his steps slow, deliberate. He had only startled her once, and that had been enough. He had been more than careful ever since. 

They stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder, the wind pressing into them as if testing their resolve. Below, the gates creaked shut for the night. Horses stamped in the stables, their breath rising in clouds. The sky turned inkier by the minute, clouds gathering low on the horizon—thick with the promise of more snow. Still, neither of them spoke.

There was no need.

Sometimes silence was the truest language they shared—the space between commands, between glances across a war table, between moments like this when words would only scatter and vanish in the wind.

Sansa’s fingers flexed once against the stone. Her eyes didn’t leave the yard. And Jon simply stood with her, his cloak brushing hers in the wind, as the cold deepened and the last remnants of daylight slipped quietly behind the walls.

“I saw Rickon in the yard today,” Jon said finally, his voice low.

“He asked to train,” Sansa replied, her breath curling in front of her like smoke.

Jon nodded slowly, watching the last of the torchlight flicker along the snow-dusted rooftops. “He looked… small.”

“He is.” There was no denial in her tone. No defense. Just the unvarnished truth of it.

“But he didn’t stop,” Jon said.

“No,” she agreed softly. “He didn’t.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was thoughtful. Laden with ghosts.

Jon’s jaw tightened, his breath fogging with the cold. She could see the muscles in his throat working as he swallowed whatever memory had surfaced. Maybe it was Robb—taller than all of them, laughing through bruises. Or maybe it was Jon himself—bracing under Ser Rodrik’s barking corrections, trying not to wince when the practice blade found his ribs. Trying to prove he belonged. Trying to prove he was a Stark, even when no one said he wasn’t.

Sansa felt it too. The ache that came from watching Rickon, barefoot and wild not so long ago, now squaring off against boys twice his size as if bravery alone might be enough to hold the world back. As if he understood already that no one was coming to save him. That if he wanted to live, he’d have to be sharper than his fear.

“He asked me if he would have to be king,” she said.

Jon turned to look at her, his brows drawing together. He didn’t interrupt. Just waited.

“I told him he didn’t have to be anything but himself,” she continued. 

Her voice caught slightly on the last word. Not from doubt—but from the weight of what it meant to say it aloud.

Jon was quiet for a long beat. Then: “That’s more than anyone ever told me.”

His voice held no bitterness. No accusation. Just a distant kind of truth—like something he’d unpacked long ago and folded away, too worn to rage over, too familiar to name.

Sansa looked over at him. Snowflakes clung to his lashes, to the dark curls at his temple, half-melted already. His face was unreadable in the twilight, but his eyes—the Stark eyes—held something quiet and painful and proud. They stood together while the wind shifted again, drawing their cloaks tight around their bodies. Snow danced through the air in slow spirals, catching in the torchlight like ash.

“I worry for him,” Sansa said, her voice barely louder than the wind. “He’s too quiet. And too smart for his age.”

Jon huffed softly, a puff of air curling from his lips. “Sounds familiar.”

That earned a faint smile from her, but it was fleeting. She glanced at him, then turned her eyes back to the dark horizon. “You’re doing well.”

Jon didn’t respond right away. He shifted his weight slightly, gloved hands resting on the cold stone of the battlement, his gaze distant. When he finally spoke, it was with a half-smile that never quite reached his eyes.

“I don’t feel like a king.”

Sansa tilted her head, watching the side of his face. “That’s good,” she said. “The ones who do usually shouldn’t be.”

His exhale was nearly a laugh—wry, tired, honest. It vanished into the wind as quickly as it came.

“I don’t want him to be afraid of me,” Jon said quietly. “Rickon.”

“He’s not.”

Jon’s brow furrowed slightly. “I used to be,” he admitted. “Of your mother.”

That surprised her. She turned, just enough to face him, her expression softening. He didn’t look at her—just kept his eyes on the far edge of the walls, as if seeing something only memory could conjure.

“She wasn’t unkind,” he said, his voice low and even. “But I always felt like I didn’t belong in her world. She had this grace about her—like everything in her life made sense. I’d see her in the solar or in the godswood, hand resting on her belly when she was pregnant. Calm. Still. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.”

He paused. The silence between them filled with the distant clatter of hooves and the faint snap of banners in the wind.

“And I’d watch from the corridor,” he went on. “Always at a distance. She never once called me over. Never asked me to feel the baby kick or sit beside her. And I didn’t blame her—I never blamed her. But I used to wonder what it felt like, when a child moved inside someone. Not out of envy. Just… because it felt like something real. Something warm. Something I couldn’t get close to.”

He shook his head slightly, as if chasing off the thought, a flush creeping into his cheeks that had nothing to do with the cold. “I’m sorry. That’s strange.”

“It’s not,” Sansa said gently.

She didn’t offer pity. Didn’t reach out. But her voice held a softness that made the words feel like shelter. The silence that followed was heavier than before—but not sharp. Not brittle. It wrapped around them like a cloak, intimate in its stillness. Neither of them moved. And then, with no warning at all, the baby kicked.

Sansa startled slightly, her hand flying to her side.

Jon stepped back, his posture shifting into concern.

“What is it? Are you—?”

“No,” she said quickly, a smile curling faintly at the edges of her mouth. “It’s fine. It’s just…”

She paused.

Then reached for his hand.

He froze. But he didn’t pull away.

She brought his hand to her belly, pressing it lightly against the place just beneath her ribs.

“Wait,” she said.

He did.

Then—there.

The movement was small, but sure.

A soft push beneath the skin. Not a flutter. A declaration.

Jon’s breath caught. His hand didn’t move.

His expression shifted—some combination of awe and grief and wonder flickering all at once.

“I…” he started. But the words didn’t come.

Sansa didn’t speak either.

She let him stand there, one hand on her belly, the other curled loosely at his side.

“You’re the first,” she said. “To feel it.”

Jon blinked. “I… don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

They stood that way for a long time, until the baby settled again and the cold crept back in around them.

Sansa lowered his hand slowly, let it drop between them.

And for a moment, the world outside Winterfell didn’t exist.

There was only this.

Wind.

Stone.

Snow.

And something warm and alive between them.

Chapter Text

A week later and still the snow hadn’t let up. It pressed against the windows in slow, relentless waves, blanketing the world beyond in a haze of white. The storm blurred the rooftops and walls of Winterfell into soft, formless shadows, like the keep was drifting through another world entirely—one made of silence and cold. Inside the solar, the fire crackled low in the brazier, offering more light than warmth. Candles guttered in their holders, their wax pooling slow and thick. The air smelled of ink and ash.

Sansa stood near the flames, arms wrapped in a heavy shawl draped over her fur-lined cloak. Pinned just over her heart, the silver hand of the King’s Hand caught and scattered the firelight—a symbol as sharp as the blade sheathed beneath it. Some days it felt like armor. Others, like a mark.

Maester Tybald hunched at the writing desk, fingers mottled with cold as he shuffled through messages. Ravens came slower now—some with torn feathers, some arriving half-dead, their claws trembling from the cold. The scrolls they carried were warped with damp, their ink often smeared.

“House Reed confirms they’ve sealed the causeways,” Maester Tybald said, squinting through the fogged lenses of his spectacles as he held up the stiff parchment. “Their marsh-runners are watching the treelines. Pickled frog, root, and fish stores underway. Enough to last them until spring, if they ration carefully.”

The parchment crackled as he set it aside.

Sansa didn’t look up right away. She stood near the brazier, one hand resting lightly on the rim of the iron bowl, absorbing the heat without seeking comfort from it. Snow lashed against the windowpanes, the wind pressing hard enough to rattle the glass in its frame.

“They’ll hold,” she said quietly. “They always do.”

The Crannogmen had never wavered. Not when the Boltons rose. Not when the wolves fell. In their stillness and silence, they endured—and that made them more dangerous than most realized.

She stepped forward and reached for the next scroll in the pile, brushing soot from her gloves before she took it. The parchment was creased but intact, sealed with faded ink.

“Set aside the letters from House Glover and the Mormonts,” she said, skimming the text quickly. “I’ll answer them before supper.”

“Yes, my lady.”

The maester dipped his head, his quill scratching faintly as he took note of her instructions. The firelight danced across the smooth surface of her cloak, catching now and then on the silver Hand’s pin gleaming over her heart. Its shape, unmistakable, drew the eye like a blade left exposed in plain view.

Sansa paused, then reached for a clean sheet of parchment from the side stack.

“And remind me to speak to the smiths later,” she said, her tone carefully casual. “I want a commission begun. Quietly.”

Maester Tybald looked up, brows rising. “May I ask what?”

“A crown,” she answered, smoothing the parchment with her palm. “Bronze and iron. Patterned after my brother’s—the one the Riverlands forged for Robb before they called him King in the North. No gold. No jewels. The weight of the North should be plain. Earned.”

She didn’t need to look up to feel the shift in the air.

The maester’s quill paused mid-stroke.

“For the King in the North,” he said, his voice careful.

Sansa adjusted the edge of her cloak, her fingers brushing the silver hand pinned there. It glinted briefly in the brazier’s firelight, a quiet flare of steel and symbolism.

“For Jon,” she said. “He’ll never ask for it. That’s why he must have it.”

The words fell into the quiet with the certainty of a blade driven into stone.

She saw the flicker of understanding in Tybald’s eyes—the realization that this crown wasn’t just about ceremony. It was about stability. Legitimacy. Message. It was about drawing the line for those in the North still watching from a distance, waiting for someone else to lay claim. And for the South, where banners still measured blood in gold.

The maester bowed his head. “I’ll draft the order.”

Sansa nodded once. Then turned back toward the fire, her face still, her heart steady.

A crown forged in iron and memory. For the boy their people had followed to the death. For the man they needed now.

She turned to the next scroll—one that had arrived hours earlier and remained unopened until now. The wax was black, pressed with a mocking sigil: a mockingbird perched in profile.

Baelish.

Her stomach soured.

She broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. His hand was as smooth and elegant as she remembered—each line a performance.

I trust Winterfell remains cold, and your throne warm. News travels, and with it, concern. Southern ears grow sharp. Your child draws whispers. Your brother’s crown draws suspicion. Old blood still sits uneasy with new power. Do not forget: the South counts banners, not ghosts.

If I were you, I’d be careful where I place my trust—and whom you place in the line of succession.

The words slithered off the page. She stared at them, her jaw tight. He hadn’t asked for anything—not yet. But he never wrote without a purpose. He was reminding her that the South had not forgotten her. That he had not. And that he still had friends. She folded the parchment once, twice, then again.

Then she stepped to the brazier and dropped it into the flames.

The paper curled and blackened, the ink bubbling like venom drawn from a wound. When only ash remained, she turned back toward the desk, brushing her fingers once over the silver hand at her shoulder—a small act of defiance.

No one else needed to read it.

Not today. 

Not ever.

The stone floor of Winterfell’s great hall was barely visible beneath the tide of winter preparation. Crates stood stacked three high in uneven rows, some sealed, others half-open and spilling their contents—dried roots, shriveled apples, aged cheese wrapped in oilskin. Canvas bundles lined the walls. Sacks of oats and rye and dried legumes were piled between barrels of salt meat. Pelts were slung across wooden racks to be sorted by size and quality. Everything smelled of smoke and tallow, of damp wool and fish brine, of men and women who hadn’t stopped working in days. The high hearth blazed in the background, its smoke curling toward the rafters, half-lost among the dark wooden beams. The great windows let in dim morning light, filtered through falling snow.

Val moved among the chaos with a quiet authority that did not need announcing. Her voice was low and quick as she gave orders in the Old Tongue to several of the Free Folk women who had taken to sorting with her. Dara stood a few paces behind her, sleeves rolled, checking bundles as they were logged and redirected—fish to the cellars, pelts to the northern storage chamber, bones for broth and toolmaking.

Sansa made her way along the central aisle, her boots crunching softly on stray grain. The weight of her cloak dragged slightly against the floor, edged with frost from her earlier walk across the yard. Some of the Free Folk dipped their heads as she passed. Others met her eyes directly—wary, curious, never deferential. She didn’t expect them to be. She paused at a table where an elderly woman was wrapping dried herbs into cloth sachets. She offered a nod, and the woman returned it, her hands never stopping. It was not order, what they had built here. Not yet. But it was something.

A girl stepped into her path—no older than ten, her hair pulled into two braids, snowflakes clinging to the tips. Her eyes were grey-blue, and her cheeks flushed from cold and nerves. In her arms, she cradled a hand-woven sling, dyed with crushed berries and stitched with fine red thread in curling, almost floral designs.

“For the little one,” the girl said, voice thick with a mountain accent, her words careful but clear. "For the child of Kissed-by-Fire."

Sansa blinked, momentarily taken aback. She reached out and accepted the gift gently, fingers brushing the young girl’s.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

The girl gave a quick nod and stepped back into the crowd, disappearing as quickly as she’d appeared.

Before Sansa could move again, a familiar white shadow slid beside her. Ghost. His massive form brushed lightly against her leg as he passed, silent as falling snow. He padded through the mess of crates and sacks without hesitation, parting people like a slow-moving river. No one dared step in his path. Some stared. One man—an older Free Folk hunter with a scar across his brow—muttered a blessing under his breath. Sansa reached down and let her fingers slide into the soft fur along Ghost’s shoulder. The direwolf didn’t flinch. He simply looked up at her with those red, unblinking eyes, then continued his silent patrol around the edge of the hall.

A moment later, he paused near a cluster of firewood barrels stacked against the wall—where Rickon had vanished moments before. Ghost sniffed one, then nudged the rim with his snout. The lid teetered, then toppled with a hollow thud. With a surprising grace for his size, Ghost crouched low and leapt, squeezing his massive frame into the half-empty barrel like a cat curling into a basket. His head rested neatly on the rim, ears twitching. A few nearby Free Folk gasped. Someone laughed under their breath. But Ghost didn’t stir. He simply blinked once, slow and deliberate, as if daring anyone to say a word about it.

A small voice piped up from across the hall, high and unmistakably self-assured.
“Ghost! You’re not supposed to be inside!”

Sansa turned in time to see Rickon burst out from behind a stack of firewood, dragging a bundle of kindling nearly half his size in both arms. His cheeks were ruddy with cold and exertion, curls tumbling wild around his face, dusted with sawdust and snowflakes. His tunic was crooked, one sleeve half-pushed up, and his boots—two different shades of brown—thudded heavily as he marched across the floor.

He looked like a wolf pup pretending to be a soldier. Half-feral, half-prince. All Stark.

“Are you assisting with firewood now?” Sansa asked, lifting an eyebrow in mock formality.

Rickon dropped the bundle near a sorting pile and straightened his spine with practiced importance.

“I’m sorting it,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “The good pieces from the ones that smell like rot. Some of the southern logs are damp. They don’t burn right.”

“Ah,” she replied, the corners of her mouth curving. “A very important job indeed.”

He nodded solemnly, like he was holding the wall against invaders. “I told the steward. He said I could help. Dara says even princes have to work.”

“Dara is very wise.”

“I know,” he said, already scooping up another armful of wood with a grunt.

From behind the barrels, Ghost shifted and thumped his tail once against the wood. Rickon looked over and grinned. “He follows me everywhere now. He even tried to eat one of the bad logs.”

Sansa laughed, a soft breath in the cold.

“I hope you stopped him.”

“I told him it was stupid,” Rickon said matter-of-factly. “And he stopped.”

Of course he did, she thought, watching as the boy and the wolf resumed their quiet work—one sorting kindling, the other watching like a silent guardian nestled inside a barrel far too small for him. Rickon offered her a crooked smile before darting back into his corner.

Dara approached Sansa a moment later, her boots scuffing softly as she slowed beside her.

“There’s been… incidents,” she said under her breath. “Nothing serious. Yet.”

Sansa turned her head slightly. “Go on.”

“One boy was shoved hard enough on the stairs to crack a tooth. Another found a knife tucked into the firewood bundles. Could’ve been accidental. Could’ve been a warning. We don’t know.”

Sansa exhaled through her nose. “Free Folk or northern?”

“Both. That’s the trouble. Lines are blurring. They share the walls, but not the customs. Not yet.”

Sansa looked out across the crowded hall. Voices echoed off the stone—commands, laughter, shouts, the sound of a pail clattering to the floor. A stewpot hissed over the hearth, its scent barely cutting through the air thick with leather and smoke.

She rested a gloved hand over her belly, fingers splayed.

“Winter makes beasts of all of us,” she said.

Later, a fire snapped weakly in the hearth, casting flickering shadows along the stone walls, but it did little to ease the chill. The cold here wasn’t just physical—it had seeped into the bones of Winterfell, into its councils, its corridors, its people. A waiting cold. A watching one. The war room smelled of damp wool, melted snow, and old paper. Maps were spread across the long table, some curling at the corners from old heat. They were held flat by river stones, tankards, and the occasional rusted dagger. A dusting of snow clung to the floor near the door where the wind had snuck in, and someone had tracked it halfway to the center of the room. Ink pots and sand jars crowded the table's edge like a scattered game of strategy—only the stakes were far less abstract.

Jon stood at the head of the table, his black cloak damp at the shoulders, hair clinging to his brow. He wasn’t wearing his crown. He rarely did. He didn’t need it to hold the room.

Davos lingered at his side, one hand resting on the pommel of his blade, the other cupped near a candle’s heat. Tormund paced near the hearth, muttering to himself in the Old Tongue, his boots thudding against stone like a drumbeat no one else could hear. Lyanna Mormont stood perfectly still, her small figure unmoving, arms behind her back in military posture, chin high as though daring the storm outside to challenge her. Val watched from the shadows near the window, arms crossed, half-illuminated in orange firelight. She said nothing, but she was listening to everything.

The door groaned open again, and with it came a gust of wind that set the fire guttering. A rider from Castle Black stepped inside, cloaked in ice, eyes rimmed red from wind and cold. He looked as if he'd ridden straight through the teeth of winter—and perhaps he had.

Jon turned toward him without a word, the room falling still.

The rider bowed stiffly, then drew a scroll from beneath his cloak. His hands trembled slightly—not from fear, but fatigue. “Castle Black holds,” he said. “They’ve doubled the watch along the wall walk, reinforced the inner gate with fresh timber. Food stores are low, but they’re rationing cleanly. Spirits are wary, but... holding.”

Davos nodded once. “They’ll last the month, then.”

“Longer,” the rider said. “If they have to.”

Jon took the scroll, but didn’t unseal it yet. He was staring at the table, at the edge of the map where the Last Hearth met the fringes of the Wolfswood.

“No new movement beyond the Wall?” Jon asked.

“None confirmed,” the rider answered. “But the wind carries strange sounds.”

“Winds always do,” Tormund said from the hearth, voice low. 

“We’ve posted scouts from Deepwood to Last River,” Davos added. “If anything crosses the tree line, we’ll know.”

“We’ll know when it’s too late,” Val muttered.

No one corrected her.

The silence that followed stretched. It wasn’t the uneasy silence of tension, but the colder kind—acceptance. They all knew what was coming. They just didn’t know when.

The door creaked again.

Sansa entered, silent as snowfall.

She moved without haste, her cloak brushing the stone behind her, and came to stand beside Jon at the table. The Hand’s pin on her shoulder caught the firelight—burnished silver, sharp as ever. She wore no jewels, no braid, no armor. But she didn’t need them. Her presence cut through the room like a drawn blade.

“What have I missed?” she asked, her voice calm and controlled.

Jon handed her the scroll. “Castle Black stands. No movement beyond the Wall.”

She nodded as she read, her eyes moving quickly over the lines. “Then we focus south. White Harbor’s supply caravans are thinning. Less grain than promised. And House Cerwyn’s last raven was more insult than update.”

“They’re cold and hungry,” Davos said. “The words just come dressed in politics.”

“Desperation makes liars of even the loyal,” she replied. “And the weaker the food line, the louder the doubt. They don’t need to renounce us. Just... hesitate.”

Jon leaned over the map, his fingers brushing the eastern ridges. “Let them grumble. We reinforce the watch towers. Send ravens to the mountain clans and the barrow lands. If they can’t give men, they can give firewood, dried meat, salt—whatever they can spare.”

“Supplies are one thing,” Davos said. “Information’s harder. These roads are already closing behind us.”

“We’ll need riders,” Sansa added. “Ones who can move fast, blend in.”

“Wildlings,” Tormund offered, grinning. “We ride light. No colors. No southern customs. Just fur and bone.”

Sansa turned to Val. “Can your people handle that?”

Val’s arms were still crossed, but she nodded once. “They already are. Two left before sunrise. No one saw them go.”

“Choose six more,” Jon said. “I want reports from the edge of the Wolfswood to the banks of the Shivering Sea. I don’t care if they return with blood on their boots. I want eyes.”

He looked to Lyanna, who hadn’t moved from her place by the map.

“Bear Island has closed its ports, but your men know the northern coast better than anyone. If you can get a raven to Deep Cove—”

“I already have,” she interrupted. “Two, in case the first is lost to the wind.”

Sansa gave her a look of subtle approval. “Good. If they respond, tell them to prepare the smaller fishing halls as fallback shelters. Every hearth we can light before the frost deepens will be one less tent in the snow.”

Jon looked at her, then nodded toward the east. “We still need to cover the run from Moat Cailin to Flint’s Finger. It’s vulnerable.”

“I’ll send word to House Tallhart,” Sansa said. “They’re close enough to reinforce, but far enough to serve as a second line if the marsh freezes.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Davos asked.

“Then they become the last line,” she replied without missing a beat.

As the room turned again to logistics—beacon fire rotations, rider schedules, reserve planning—Sansa leaned forward over the map. Her gloved hand reached to mark a ridge along the Ghost Hills, but her fingers curled halfway through the motion.

She paused.

A tightening pulled low in her abdomen—deep, unfamiliar. Not pain exactly, but a pressure that made her breath catch.

Her other hand went to the table for balance, steadying herself.

She took a slow breath, then reached for a tankard and drank, masking the moment.

Jon’s eyes were already on her.

He didn’t speak. But his expression shifted. Concern, quiet and certain, settled on his brow.

Sansa looked up at him and gave the faintest shake of her head.

“I’m fine,” she said softly.

He didn’t argue.

But his stance changed—shoulders squared, back a little straighter. Outside, the wind rose again, slamming against the shutters hard enough to rattle the iron hooks.

The wind keened along the walls like a distant scream. Somewhere above, the old beams groaned as the storm pressed harder against Winterfell’s bones.

No one spoke for a beat.

Then Davos cleared his throat and shifted a few of the small stone markers on the map. “We’ll need to resupply the riders headed for the Broken Arm. If the ice closes the ford, we lose that path until spring.”

“We won’t get spring,” Lyanna said bluntly. “Not soon enough.”

Tormund grunted in agreement. “The woods east of the Kingsroad still have game, but the packs are moving closer to the villages. Wolves, crows, worse. The snow’s driving them out.”

“Then we tighten the perimeter,” Jon said. “Double the ground patrols in that quadrant. Rotate them by six-hour shifts. Anyone caught outside after nightfall gets marked as missing, not late.”

Val stepped forward now, finally uncrossing her arms. “I want weapons distributed to every Free Folk child over ten. Boys and girls. No more waiting. If they’re strong enough to hold a blade, they’re old enough to know how.”

Davos gave her a sidelong glance. “That’ll stir things.”

“So will a raid,” she snapped. “And the children won’t survive if they’re unarmed.”

Jon nodded once. “Do it. Quietly, if possible.”

The fire cracked behind them, casting the chamber into sudden gold and shadow. Sansa’s gaze flicked across the table. Each of them bore it differently—grit and pride and exhaustion all sewn into the lines around their mouths, the hard set of their eyes.

They were not ready.

But they were preparing.

That was something.

She took another slow breath and eased herself into the chair at Jon’s left. Her hand settled near the edge of the map, not on it, as if reluctant to leave another mark.

“We need to be honest about what’s coming,” she said. “Some of the small houses are already fraying at the edges. They sent grain out of loyalty, not surplus. If we keep drawing from them, they’ll starve in their own halls before the end of the season.”

“Then we stop drawing,” Jon said. “Redistribute from here. Winterfell can bear more.”

“It can,” she agreed. “But only for a time. So we prepare for what happens after. When the reserves run dry. When people start turning on each other.”

Tormund gave a low chuckle. “That’s when the fighting gets fun.”

Sansa arched a brow. “I doubt the mothers in the lower wards will agree with you.”

Jon leaned forward again, tracing a path down the Kingsroad with two fingers. “We set the timeline. Three weeks of steady rationing. If nothing changes by then, we reduce meat days to three per week. Less grain in the morning stews. Dried vegetables only.”

Sansa nodded slowly. “And we begin setting aside quiet burial grounds.”

The room went still.

Davos glanced toward her. “You think it will come to that?”

“I think it always does,” she said. “And I’d rather be prepared than scrambling for pyres in the snow.”

No one argued.

The fire hissed behind them.

At last, Jon pulled his hands from the map and stood straight. “The council meets again in three days. Before then, I want every householder accounted for. Any new travelers, any missing names, any unexplained absences. No rumors. Just facts.”

They nodded, one by one.

Sansa rose with him.

As the others moved to leave—Tormund muttering to Val about northern snares, Lyanna already snapping orders to her guard—Jon remained still for a moment longer, eyes lingering on the table, then on her.

“You’re sure you’re fine?” he said, voice low, just for her.

“No,” she answered quietly. “But I’m still standing.”

He didn’t smile.

But his hand brushed hers as they turned to leave the war room behind.

The godswood was nearly silent.

Only the sound of the wind threading through the upper branches disturbed the stillness, a whisper in the leaves long stripped bare. Snow lay thick on the ground, untouched save for a single winding trail of footprints—hers. Fresh. Alone.

The great heart tree loomed at the center, its pale bark catching the last bruised light of day. Red leaves trembled in the cold. The face carved in the trunk stared without mercy, its eyes streaked with ancient sap that looked too much like blood.

Sansa approached slowly, one hand resting just beneath the curve of her belly, the other steadying her cloak against the wind. The air was colder here. Sharper. As if the gods demanded clarity in exchange for their silence.

She sank to her knees in the snow without flinching. The cold bit through wool and linen, settling deep in her bones. But she welcomed it. She wanted to feel something real.

Her breath curled white into the still air.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said, voice quiet, a little tired. “We plan. We prepare. But half the time it feels like we’re just trying to look brave.”

The heart tree said nothing.

“I keep thinking about Father. About how sure he always seemed. How steady. And I wonder if he ever felt like this—like the ground was moving under his feet and he just had to pretend it wasn’t.”

She reached out and touched the bark, fingers cold against the smooth lines of the carved face.

“I miss them. All of them. Mother. Robb. Even Theon, gods help me.”

Snow drifted slowly down from the branches. She didn’t move.

“I don’t need wisdom. Just… I don’t know. Something. A sign.”

A soft shift in the snow behind her.

Ghost emerged from the trees, silent as a shadow, his white coat near invisible under the falling flurries. He padded forward and sat beside her, head level with her shoulder, breath warm in the cold.

Sansa let her hand rest in his fur. He leaned into her side without a sound.

“I don’t want to bring a child into this. Not like this. But I didn’t get a choice.”

The baby stirred.

Then came the pressure—deep and low and real enough to steal her breath. Not pain, not yet. But close.

She closed her eyes and waited for it to pass. When it did, the snow had thickened into a curtain of white, blurring the trees, softening the world.

Ghost didn’t move.

Neither did she.

“Not now,” she whispered to the child. “Not tonight.”

And so she stayed—kneeling in the quiet, her hand curled in Ghost’s fur, the other guarding the shape of what came next—as the snow fell and the gods watched on in silence.

Chapter Text

Snow fell lightly in the early light, soft as ash, settling into the grooves of the stone paths and catching in the creases of cloaks, braids, and fur-trimmed sleeves. The air was still, sharp with the scent of smoke and damp wool, but calm—like Winterfell itself was holding its breath.

The castle stirred slowly around her. A stable hand yawned as he led out a shaggy brown mare, steam curling from the animal’s flanks. From the smithy came the steady ring of hammer to anvil, a familiar rhythm layered beneath the muted clatter of wooden bowls and cutlery in the kitchens. Someone laughed, briefly. Somewhere else, a door slammed shut against the cold.

Sansa moved through it all with quiet purpose.

Her boots crunched against the thin frost dusting the flagstones as she crossed from the Great Hall toward the kitchens. Each step felt deliberate—steady, contained. A thick cloak trimmed in grey fox fur hugged her shoulders, but she didn’t pull the hood up. Her cheeks flushed pink from the cold, and a few strands of auburn hair clung to her temple.

One hand, she realized belatedly, had drifted again to her belly. She kept it there for a moment longer than she should have, then forced it to drop to her side.

Inside, the warmth of the kitchen wrapped around her like breath. The hearth glowed orange and steady, and the scent of fresh yeast and smoke-cloaked onions hung thick in the air. Baskets of root vegetables crowded the corners, and half a dozen loaves sat rising beneath a cloth near the fire.

Magda stood with her sleeves rolled and arms folded, beside Dara, who was inspecting a stack of inventory parchments with a frown.

“You’re out early,” Dara said, lifting her gaze. Her braid was half undone, flour dusted across one elbow.

“I needed air,” Sansa replied, brushing snow from her cloak. “And to speak with Cook about the winter allocations. We may need to stretch the meal rotas further.”

Magda said nothing at first, just studied her with the keen, quiet patience of a woman who had birthed six children and buried three. Her eyes narrowed a fraction.

“You didn’t sleep,” she said finally.

“I had enough,” Sansa answered, too quickly, too flatly. She turned away before either could press further.

She stepped toward a crate of dried mushrooms, lifting the lid and crouching to inspect the contents. Her balance felt... off. And as she shifted, a pressure flared—deep and low, threading through her spine like a hot wire drawn taut. She stilled, gripped the rim of the crate a little tighter, and let the moment pass.

Dara’s eyes didn’t miss it.

“You’re holding your breath,” she said quietly.

Sansa exhaled, forcing a wry curl to her lips. “Only because the mushrooms are foul. Mold’s creeping in from the bottom.”

Dara didn’t smile. Magda didn’t blink. But neither said what they were thinking.

They didn’t have to. Not yet.

Later, in the solar, Sansa resumed her daily rhythms with more force than calm. She stood by the narrow windows, giving dictation to Maester Tybald while her fingers drummed against the sill. Grain counts from the Hornwoods. Salted meat from the Umbers. Another delay from White Harbor. She crossed the room again and again, the hem of her gown whispering against the rug.

When Gage entered with a bundle of parchment and fresh seal wax, she waved him to the desk but didn’t sit. Her legs ached. Her back pulsed with a steady, quiet tension. She adjusted her stance, shifted her weight. Twice, she braced a hand against the edge of the table, gripping until her knuckles whitened.

No one said a word.

In the corridor beyond, she stepped aside to let Val pass. The wildling woman moved with the ease of a seasoned huntress—quiet, certain. But when she saw Sansa pause near the railing, her head tilted just slightly.

Her gaze traveled to the swell of Sansa’s middle.

Then back to her face.

The look wasn’t concern. It was recognition.

But Val said nothing.

And neither did Sansa.

She made it to her solar by the time the next pain struck—sharper than before, deeper, enough to curl her toes inside her boots and send a bead of sweat sliding down the back of her neck.

She gripped the windowsill and breathed through it, lips parted, jaw clenched.

Still, she told no one.

Not yet.

The snow fell in slow, soundless sheets outside the solar window, a pale curtain against the greying world. Frost feathered the glass in delicate ribs, and the light that filtered through was thin and wintry, like the day hadn’t quite woken up.

Sansa sat at her writing desk, rigid and still, her back as straight as the cold chair would allow. The pin of the Hand gleamed against her shoulder, fastened with care—another shield she wore without thought. Her fingers curled tightly around her quill, though the ink had begun to dry at the tip from disuse. She had been staring at the same line for too long.

To Lord Manderly—

Another contraction hit. Not a wave, but a rolling swell. It started low and crept higher, pressing deep and steady, like something ancient winding its way around her bones.

The quill slipped from her hand.

It fell to the floor with a quiet clatter, leaving a streak of black across the parchment like a crack in ice.

Sansa didn’t move. She breathed in slowly through her nose, out through her mouth, lips parting just enough to let the air whistle past clenched teeth. Her thighs trembled. Her belly went taut.

It passed—but not completely.

She leaned forward slightly, both hands bracing the edge of the table, steadying herself as she counted backward in her head.

Too soon. Still too soon.

A knock sounded at the door before she could gather her strength.

“My lady?” Magda’s voice was soft, muffled slightly through the thick wood.

Sansa inhaled, forced composure into her posture, and called, “Come.”

The door creaked open, and Magda entered carrying a basket of folded linens. She moved with the ease of someone who had seen war and birth and death—all of them more than once—and whose hands remembered every shape of need. She didn’t speak right away.

Her eyes flicked over the room. The fire burned low in the hearth, barely embers. The ink pot was open. The parchment ruined. And Sansa’s knuckles were white where she gripped the desk.

Magda said nothing about the quill. Nothing about the smear of ink.

She set the basket down, adjusted her apron, and said, “You’re behind on your breakfast.”

“I wasn’t hungry,” Sansa murmured.

Magda’s gaze rested on her face a moment longer than was comfortable. Not judging—just seeing. Measuring.

Sansa sat straighter, adjusted her cloak. “I’ll come down for the midday meal.”

“You should,” Magda said mildly. “You’ve had too many meals alone this week.”

She turned to tend the fire, poking gently at the ash until new sparks caught. She didn’t push. She didn’t ask.

But when she passed behind Sansa on her way to the door, she paused briefly.

“Would you like me to ask Gage to send tea to the Great Hall?” she asked. “The kind with dried raspberry leaf?”

The pain hadn’t returned yet, but Sansa could feel it stirring, deeper now, like something coiling up beneath her ribs.

She hesitated. Then, “Yes. That would be fine.”

Magda inclined her head. “I’ll tell him.”

And then she left, closing the door behind her with the same quiet dignity she always carried.

Sansa exhaled shakily. Not relief. Not quite fear.

The baby shifted inside her, a long drag of motion across her belly.

She placed a hand there, fingers splayed wide over the tight curve of herself.

Not yet. 

The Great Hall was warmer than usual, a dozen braziers glowing at intervals down the long chamber, their heat battling the cold that clung to every stone crevice. The midday meal had just begun. Baskets of dark bread and pots of turnip stew steamed along the trestle tables, and the sound of wooden bowls clinking against iron spoons rose in steady rhythm. Sansa moved slowly among them—no rush to her steps, but no lingering either. Her cloak hung open, heavy with fur, the pin of the Hand catching the firelight as she passed. She offered nods, brief words, a glance here and there. Her face was composed. Her spine straight. But the weight of the child pulled lower than it had that morning, and with each step she felt the shift—tight, grounding. Like the earth had thickened beneath her feet.

Rickon sat at the high table with Ghost curled at his boots, licking at a bone. Val and Lyanna were conferring quietly near the dais, and Dara handed out bowls from a wide pot that smelled sharply of onion and stock. Magda stood beside the wall, arms crossed, eyes following Sansa with the steady patience of someone waiting for the inevitable.

Sansa crossed to Maester Tybald, speaking briefly about the northern road—White Harbor again, grain again, the same reassurances exchanged. She did not flinch when the next pain came. But she stopped walking.

It didn’t feel like the others.

It built deeper, longer—like a slow split down the center of her. She stood, unmoving, breath held, head slightly bowed as if she were simply thinking. Her hand found the table beside her, and her knuckles whitened against the wood. No one noticed at first. Then she exhaled—too sharply. Her other hand snapped to her belly as her knees softened. One step. Then another, forward.

And then her legs buckled.

She did not fall. Magda was there before she could.

“Sansa.”

The name—not my lady—cut through the hum of the room.

Chairs scraped. Ghost rose from Rickon’s feet, hackles prickling. The great direwolf padded forward, low and silent.

“I’m fine,” Sansa managed, her voice thin. “It’s just—”

But then her breath hitched again.

Something broke. Heat and wetness flooded between her legs.

Gasps rippled outward.

“She’s bleeding,” someone muttered.

“No,” Magda snapped. “Her waters.”

Val was already crossing the hall, a blur of grey and red. Lyanna stood frozen at the dais, unsure whether to run forward or stand aside.

Sansa gripped Magda’s arm hard enough to bruise. “Not here,” she whispered.

But it was too late for grace. Her body had chosen its moment. And Winterfell watched as the Hand of the King bent slightly at the waist, one hand cradling the life inside her and the other bracing for what was to come.

“Clear the center. Now. Tables pushed back. Furs, water, clean cloth—move!”

The spearwives were already in motion. Women who had given birth in tents and caves and under stars knew the signs. They didn’t hesitate. They didn’t ask. They acted.

Benna shoved two benches aside with a grunt, her sleeves rolled past her elbows. Ygra tore down the nearest tapestry and spread it wide across the warm stone floor. A younger girl—no more than fifteen—ran for the midwives’ basket stashed behind the dais, kicking off her shoes to run faster. The sound of scattering wood and boots echoed through the vaulted space, but the work was clean. Efficient. Focused.

“Jon—” Sansa began.

“He’s coming,” Magda promised.

Ghost circled them once, then settled in the space between them and the nearest soldier, a white wall of fur and teeth.

And all around them, the North watched its princess go to war—not with sword or banner, but with bone and blood and the oldest strength there was.

Val’s voice cut through the hall, sharp as a blade.

Sansa sank to her knees. Not from weakness. But because her body no longer gave her a choice. A fresh wave rolled through her, sharp enough to pull a cry from her lips despite herself. Her fingers clawed the edge of a nearby bench, and she bowed her head, mouth open but silent. Magda dropped beside her, bracing her back, murmuring steady things in her ear—words with no shape, just tone. Low. Grounding.

Val was already spreading the makeshift bed with furs and linen.

“We birth her here,” she said. “No time to move her.” She glanced behind her at all the lords and ladies and guards and the rest standing and staring, "By the balls of the gods, unless you’ve pushed a child out or plan to catch one, get the fuck out.”

The hall erupted into motion.

Benches scraped against stone as nobles scrambled to obey. Some tripped over cloaks, others backed away so fast they nearly knocked into the barrels stacked near the hearth. A few lingered, wide-eyed and rooted in place, until Magda shot them a glare sharp enough to flay skin.

Dara and two spearwives—both tall, broad-shouldered women with knives at their belts—moved like wolves in a pen. “Out!” one barked, her accent thick with hill country. “You want the babe to come breach and blood because you couldn’t shut your mouths?”

The lords of House Cerwyn and Tallhart didn’t need telling twice. They ducked their heads and all but ran.

In the center of it all, Sansa writhed against the sudden tightening of her body, one hand fisting in the furs beneath her, the other grasping blindly for something—anything—solid. Her hair had come loose, sweat slicked her brow, and the cloak once pinned proudly at her shoulder was now soaked through and cast aside.

Val knelt at her side, sharp hands already tugging at fabric, checking progress, barking instructions to the midwives as they rushed in with clean cloths, towels, water from the kitchens. “The babe comes fast,” Val muttered. “Too fast.”

Magda returned with more blankets and crouched low, cupping the back of Sansa’s head. “Breathe, little bird. You’re not flying away from this one.”

Sansa couldn’t answer. The pressure inside her had turned molten, consuming. She barely heard the scuffle of boots behind her. The doors had slammed shut again, but one set had opened once more.

“Let him through!” Dara called.

And Jon was there. He moved with the force of a storm—hair unbound, cloak unfastened, snow still melting on his shoulders. Ghost slipped in behind him, low to the ground, tail flicking.Jon’s eyes went first to the emptying hall. Then to the women clustered on the floor. Then to her. He crossed the space in three long strides and dropped to his knees beside her, heedless of blood or furs or the war council forgotten.

“Sansa,” he breathed, his hand reaching for hers.

She didn’t speak, but her fingers curled tightly into his, clinging like he was the only steady thing in a world turned sideways.

Val didn’t look up. “She’s nearly there. If you’re going to faint, do it now.”

Jon squeezed Sansa’s hand. “Not today.”

“You can’t stay,” she said.

“I’m not leaving.”

Another pain tore through her, and this time she didn’t fight the sound. A cry escaped—brief, broken—and she bit her lip to catch the rest.

“I’m scared,” she whispered.

Jon pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

“Then why does it hurt so much?”

“Because you’re not just strong,” he said. “You’re alive. And this is how the world begins again.”

Sansa blinked hard, her breath hitching, then nodded once.

Val crouched beside them. “It’s close.”

“How close?” Jon asked, not looking away from Sansa’s face.

“Close enough to see the head.”

Jon’s breath caught, but he held her hand tighter.

Sansa’s whole body trembled. Not from cold—though sweat slicked her skin and the air in the great hall bit like ice—but from the force of what was tearing through her. Her muscles locked, every nerve strung taut beneath the surface. Her arms ached from bracing herself upright, her thighs from bearing down against the weight of pain. Her breath came in ragged bursts—sharp, stuttering, and uneven.

She gritted her teeth as another contraction tore through her, harder and longer than the last. Her fingers clamped around Jon’s hand like a vise. She felt the tension in his forearm, the twitch of pain—but he didn’t pull away.

“Breathe through it,” Magda said, crouched beside Val now, her voice low and anchoring. “Don’t fight it. Let it come and go.”

“I am letting it,” Sansa growled through her teeth. “It’s still trying to kill me.”

“No,” Val countered, steel in her voice. “It’s trying to be born.”

Jon leaned close, brushing a damp curl from her face. “You’re not alone,” he whispered. “You’re not.”

Her eyes fluttered shut, her body fighting itself for air, for control. Another wave hit. Blinding. Searing. She cried out—no courtly silence, no measured breath—just a raw, guttural sound that echoed off the high stone rafters.

“No pushing yet!” Val snapped. “Not yet!”

“I can’t not push!” Sansa gasped, her legs quivering. “I feel it—I have to—”

“You wait,” Val said again. “If you push too soon, you’ll tear.”

“I’m already torn,” Sansa whispered.

The words dropped into the room like a blade. Jon stiffened beside her.

Magda stilled, her hands gentle and certain on Sansa’s hips. “Not like this, you’re not,” she said. “You’re not his anymore.”

But the pain was pulling her under—and not just the physical. In the dark, she felt it again: the chill of chains, the scrape of furs, the weight of Ramsay’s breath behind her ear. Hands where she hadn’t wanted them. A voice that never left her mind.

She whimpered and tried to twist away from the memory. “Don’t let him—don’t let him—”

“You’re not there,” Jon said sharply, urgently. “Look at me. Sansa. Look at me.”

Her eyes opened—glassy, wild.

Then something shifted.

She wasn’t in the hall.

She was in the woods.

Snow crushed beneath her paws—no, not her paws, but paws nonetheless. She could feel the world through them. Cold in the pads, blood in the air. Trees loomed overhead. A growl rumbled from a deep, unfamiliar chest. A shadow flickered across the snow, and the wind carried the scent of meat, of danger, of something ancient and watching.

Then—

A sharp pain snapped her back into herself, and she gasped. She sagged against Jon, shaking.

“You’re here,” he whispered. “You’re safe. You’re not his. You’re yours.”

Val’s voice cut back in, focused and firm. “Almost there, kissed-by-fire. The babe will share your red hair.”

Jon pressed his forehead to hers, his breath steady despite everything. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

“Then why does it hurt so much?” she whispered.

“Because you’re alive. Because this is how the world begins again. Through you.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks. She didn’t brush them away.

“Don’t let go,” she said.

“I won’t,” Jon vowed. “Not for anything.”

Val knelt, her hands ready, her expression all focus now. “Next wave, it comes. You bear down when I say. You only push when I say.”

Sansa nodded, her breath shallowing. Her whole body felt like fire and snow—burning and freezing all at once.

“Hold,” Val said. “Hold one breath longer.”

Sansa reached for Jon’s wrist and closed her eyes. Somewhere in the dark behind them, the storm howled—and far beyond the walls of Winterfell, a lone direwolf lifted its head and howled with it.

She breathed through the next pain.

And waited.

Chapter Text

The next contraction came like a hammer blow—swift, hard, and deep. It ripped through her without warning, punching the air from her lungs in a sharp, startled gasp that turned into a low, guttural sound she couldn’t contain. Her body folded forward on instinct, drawn toward the nearest anchor—Jon.

She buried her face against him, her cheek pressed into the solid warmth of his chest, the thick wool of his cloak rough beneath her skin. The fabric smelled faintly of snow, steel, and the salt of his own sweat. Her cry broke there, muffled in the dense folds, the vibration of her voice trembling through him as much as through her.

Jon’s arm tightened around her shoulders, holding her upright against the crushing force of the pain. She felt his hand at the back of her neck, fingers splayed wide, grounding her, steady as a post in a storm. The world beyond narrowed to the beat of his heart against her ear and the ragged sound of her own breath tearing through her throat.

Her eyes squeezed shut. The hall around her blurred into muffled noise: the shuffle of boots, Magda’s low voice murmuring something she couldn’t quite catch, the crackle of the braziers fighting the cold. Somewhere nearby, water sloshed in a basin. Linen tore.

The pain didn’t crest and fade like before—it stayed, a deep, grinding pressure that clawed up her spine and into her hips. She couldn’t tell if she was breathing until Jon’s palm moved against her back, guiding her shoulders to rise and fall.

She tasted copper on her tongue where she’d bitten it. Her fingers clenched in the folds of his sleeve, knuckles straining white. Every muscle in her thighs and belly trembled under the strain.

Jon’s breath was in her hair now, close and urgent. “I’ve got you,” he murmured. “You’re not alone.”

The contraction shifted, deepened—less like a wave now and more like the earth itself was bearing down through her bones. Her toes curled inside her boots. She bit back another cry, her jaw aching from holding it in.

And then—

The world shifted.

Cold air rushed over her face, not from the drafty stones but from open space—vast and wild. Snow crunched beneath her paws. Not her feet. Paws. She felt the cold in the pads, each grain of frost sharp and clear.

Scents hit her all at once: blood, pine sap, fur. Her ears—sharper now, pricking forward—caught the groan of a branch heavy with snow, the quick, frantic heartbeat of prey nearby.

A low growl built in her chest.

Somewhere, far away, someone was speaking her name.

She blinked hard, and the Great Hall swam back into view—Jon’s face inches from hers, eyes dark, searching. Another contraction tore through her and the world blurred again.

She saw the hall from lower down now, Ghost’s eyes catching the light, his body a tense wall of muscle and fur. Her muscles—his muscles—bunched, ready to strike at any who came too close. Her breath steamed in the air. She could smell the fear of those who lingered too near.

Back in her body, the scent lingered—sweat, iron, and the sharp tang of fear, but now it was hers. She gasped, clutching at Jon’s sleeve, grounding herself in the press of his palm against her back.

The wolf didn’t leave her entirely. It prowled just beneath her skin, ready to surge forward with the next pain.

“Now—bear down. Now!” Val’s voice sliced through the haze.

Back in her body, the scent lingered—sweat, iron, and the sharp tang of fear, but now it was hers. She gasped, clutching at Jon’s sleeve, grounding herself in the press of his palm against her back.

The wolf prowled just beneath her skin, ready to surge forward with the next pain.

“Now—bear down. Now!” Val’s voice sliced through the haze.

Sansa bore down, teeth gritted so hard her jaw ached. The pressure was unbearable, the burn blinding, her nails digging into Jon’s hand until she felt bone. The scents in the hall sharpened: the tang of blood, the acrid smoke from the braziers, the faint sweetness of new life hovering at the edge of the air.

“That’s it,” Magda murmured beside her, her voice low and steady. “That’s the work. You’re doing it.”

Jon’s breath was warm against her hair. “Almost there. Just hold on.”

A surge. For an instant, she wasn’t kneeling on furs in the Great Hall; she was driving through deep snow toward the shadow of prey, lungs burning, muscles singing with the strain.

Then the world slammed back into her, the cold stone beneath her knees, the heat of the braziers on her sweat-damp skin, the sharp tang of blood thick in the air. Val’s voice cut through it all like a whip crack.

“One more. Just one.”

Sansa shook her head, breath coming in shallow, broken gasps. “I can’t—” The words rasped out, raw and thin.

“Yes, you can,” Jon said, his voice low but unyielding, a hard anchor in the storm. His forehead pressed to hers, his hand tightening around her own. “With me, Sansa. Now.”

Another contraction surged, brutal and unstoppable, and the wolf lunged with it. Her vision tunneled—stone and fire replaced by white drifts, dark trees, the endless push of muscle and will driving her forward. The snarl rose in her throat before she could stop it, an animal sound that made the nearest midwife flinch.

She bore down with everything left in her. Her body trembled, every muscle locked in strain, her lungs burning as though she’d been running for miles. The pressure was blinding, the burn searing into a tear that stole her breath. For a heartbeat she thought she would split apart entirely—

And then it happened.

A rush of release, sudden and overwhelming, left her gasping. The wolf inside her gave one last, sharp exhale before slipping to the edges of her mind.

A cry split the hall—thin at first, then swelling, stronger, urgent, alive.

It cut through the air like sunlight breaking over the snow.

“A boy,” Val announced.

Sansa sagged forward, her forehead brushing Jon’s shoulder as she fought for breath. The tremors that racked her body weren’t from cold—though sweat chilled on her skin—but from the sheer violence of what had just torn through her. Her thighs quivered, her arms hung heavy, and her chest rose and fell in quick, shallow pulls of air.

Her mind, hazy and raw, didn’t go to the child right away. It snagged instead on the word Val had spoken. The sound of it still hung in the air, reverberating in her skull.

A boy.

Her head lifted slightly, just enough to meet the moment as if she could see the word itself drifting above them, solid and inescapable.

“A boy,” Val repeated.

The syllables landed like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples deep into places Sansa had worked hard to keep still.

Her fingers clamped down around Jon’s hand, the pressure almost enough to grind his bones together. Her breath caught—not with joy, not entirely. The instinct to protect was there, fierce and immediate, but underneath it curled a darker thought. She knew what men could become. What boys could be taught to become.

Jon’s eyes flicked to her, and something in them shifted. He felt the change in her body before she could hide it—the way her spine stiffened even in her exhaustion, the way her shoulders subtly drew in. His arm came around her then, slow, careful, protective without caging. He didn’t speak at first. He didn’t push.

Magda stepped into view, her hands steady as she took the slick, wriggling bundle from Val. Blood still streaked his skin, his small limbs flailing against the cold of the air. She moved with the speed of long habit, swaddling him in clean linen, folding and tucking until only a damp crown of dark hair and a crumpled, red-tinged face showed.

When Magda bent to offer the child to her, Sansa’s body reacted before her mind could catch up. Her arms twitched forward, an ancient instinct driving her to gather and shield what was hers. But just as quickly, another sensation flooded in—hot, acidic, and bitter. Ramsay’s hand gripping her chin. The cold edge of steel at her throat. The memory of how this life had come to be.

Her breath hitched sharply. The urge to draw the baby close fought with the equally powerful urge to push him away, to not let him root himself in her the way Ramsay had rooted his cruelty there.

Still, she took him.

The weight surprised her—heavier than she’d imagined, yet so small she could cradle him easily in the curve of one arm. He was warm against her chest, his heat seeping through the linen, searing into her skin. His tiny fists curled and uncurled against the blanket, his mouth opening in a thin, instinctive protest that trembled into silence.

Sansa looked down at him, her face a mask of composure that gave nothing away. She didn’t bend to kiss him. She didn’t murmur words of welcome or blessing. She only looked—long and unblinking—as though she were trying to decide whether to let him all the way in.

“I don’t have a name,” she said at last, her voice flat, almost too quiet to carry beyond the space between them.

“You’ll know it,” Magda said gently, tucking the cloth more snugly around the boy’s body, her hand lingering a moment on his chest.

Jon’s gaze moved between her face and the child, his jaw tightening with something unspoken. “It doesn’t have to be now.”

Her eyes stayed locked on her son’s, even though his lids were still closed in newborn sleep. “No,” she agreed, her tone clipped, edged with something that might have been caution. “It doesn’t.”

The hall still moved around them—boots scraping over the stone, furs being shaken out and folded, spearwives bending to gather soiled linens with brisk efficiency. The smell was heavy, clinging: blood, damp wool, and the smoke from the braziers that hissed as someone ladled hot water into a waiting basin. Voices murmured low, rippling through the long chamber in a mix of awe, relief, and the startled hush of those who had just witnessed something far more intimate than a battlefield victory.

Ghost paced near the dais, his great head low, pale eyes tracking every motion with quiet, unnerving intent. He moved like a shadow in reverse—white fur glowing against the gloom—and no one dared come too near.

Magda pushed herself upright with a quiet groan, wiping her hands down the front of her apron in long, practiced swipes. Her eyes found Val, and she spoke in the no-nonsense tone of someone who expected to be obeyed. “She shouldn’t stay here. The air’s too cold, and she needs to be off her knees before her legs give out.”

Val’s nod was sharp, her braid swinging over one shoulder. “Ready the bedchamber,” she called, raising her voice so it carried to every corner of the room. “Clear the way for the Princess! The kissed-by-fire has brought forth a son—strong, and whole. Make way!”

Her words rang against the rafters, drawing a scattered cheer from a few of the bolder voices in the crowd, though most simply ducked their heads, shuffling back to widen the path. Benches screeched across the floor, feet scuffed, and the sea of faces parted to let them through.

Jon crouched beside Sansa, his hand still clasping hers. His eyes searched her face. “I’ll carry you.”

For a heartbeat, she almost refused. The urge to rise under her own power, to show them all she was not broken, burned hot and stubborn in her chest. But the deep ache low in her belly, the raw pull in her muscles, and the tremor in her legs made the choice for her.

He slid one arm beneath her knees, the other bracing the length of her back. She drew the swaddled bundle closer, her arms tightening protectively around the linen-wrapped weight. As he lifted them both, the world tilted for a moment—the press of his chest against her side, the solid rhythm of his breathing, the fall of his cloak sweeping over them to shield her from the draught that slipped between the great doors.

A murmur swept the hall as they moved forward—some faces softened in open relief, others lingered on her with wary curiosity, and more than a few bent their heads to murmur blessings or muttered prayers under their breath.

The moment they crossed the threshold into the corridor, the noise of the hall dulled to a muffled hum behind them. The air here was cooler, touched with the scent of damp stone and torch smoke.

And then—just for an instant—something shifted.

The world seemed sharper. The torchlight glittered off the faint rivulets of melted snow along the flagstones. She could hear the quick, skittering dash of a mouse behind the wainscoting as if it were only a hand’s breadth away. The leather straps on Jon’s shoulder guard creaked with each step, steady and deliberate. Somewhere far off, a door slammed, and she knew without seeing that it had been thrown shut in haste, the vibration of it running faintly along the floor beneath them.

The sensation was gone as quickly as it came, leaving her to wonder if it was only exhaustion making her senses twist and stretch in strange ways.

Jon didn’t slow until they reached the stair, and even then, he shifted his grip only enough to make sure she and the child were balanced. The murmurs of the onlookers followed them up, but no one dared come too close.

Jon didn’t slow until they reached the stair, his steps deliberate and sure despite the added weight in his arms. The murmurs of the onlookers followed them, echoing up the stone as they climbed—half blessings, half whispered speculation. Somewhere behind them, Val’s voice rose again, this time sharper, scattering the few who lingered too close.

“Back to your business! The Princess needs her rest, and if I see anyone loitering outside her door, you’ll be scrubbing the great hearth until the thaw.”

That earned a few quick footsteps retreating down the hall.

They reached the upper corridor, where the air was warmer and quieter, carrying only the faint smell of the kitchens below. Magda was waiting there already, having taken the narrow servant’s stairs, her arms full of folded blankets and a bundle of steaming cloths.

“This way,” she said, her voice low, leading them toward the bedchamber.

Sansa’s head turned slightly as they passed the last of the guards posted along the hall. Their eyes tracked her—not just her, but the bundle in her arms—and she caught the way one of them straightened unconsciously, as though standing watch over something rare.

The fire in her chambers had been stoked high. Shadows danced on the walls, and the air was thick with the mingled scents of pine resin and the dried herbs hung near the mantle. The bed was piled with furs and warmed stones wrapped in linen, their heat rising in gentle waves.

Jon carried her straight to the bedside and lowered her onto the furs with a care that bordered on reverence. She sank into them, the softness catching at her aching body, the heat drawing a shiver up her spine.

Magda set her bundles on the table and came forward, her hands already reaching for the baby. “Let me check him over.”

Sansa’s arms tightened before she could stop herself, the instinct fierce and immediate. Magda paused, studying her face for a moment before nodding once and stepping back. “Then keep him close. You’ll both warm faster that way.”

Jon adjusted the blanket over them, making sure no corner of it hung too loosely. He glanced at the boy’s sleeping face, then back to Sansa. “Do you need water? Food?”

She shook her head, her gaze fixed on the small, still form cradled against her. The firelight made his features softer, the redness of birth already fading to a fairer flush. His fists were curled tight, his breathing slow and even. She wasn’t sure if she was memorizing him… or watching for signs of something she didn’t yet have words for.

“Rest,” Magda said again, more firmly this time. “The rest can wait until morning.”

Jon lingered a moment longer before moving toward the door. His hand rested briefly on the bedpost, his eyes locking with hers in an unspoken promise—he would keep watch, and no one would come near without his leave.

When the door closed behind him, the quiet felt heavy. Only the steady crackle of the fire and the soft breaths of the boy filled the space.

Sansa leaned her head back into the pillows, her eyes closing for a moment.

And somewhere, far beyond Winterfell’s walls, a young she-wolf lifted her head from where she lay in the snow, her ears pricking as if she’d caught a sound too faint for the human ear. She listened, her body still, the faintest thread of something familiar tugging at her to rise.

Chapter Text

The first grey light of morning seeped through the shutters, thin and pale as milk. Outside, the wind had calmed, the steady hush of snowfall muffled even the distant clatter of the courtyard.

Sansa lay propped against a mound of pillows, every muscle in her body heavy and aching. The furs pulled over her were warm but smelled faintly of smoke and blood; the scent clung no matter how many clean layers had been piled on her in the night. A shallow basin of warm water sat on the table near the bed, steam curling faintly above it, and the room still held the faint bite of boiled linen and ash.

Beside her, wrapped tight in fresh swaddling, her son slept. His tiny fists worked restlessly inside the cloth, clenching and unclenching as if even in sleep he refused to be still. His breath was quick and shallow, his lips moving in tiny, half-formed motions before settling again. The dark red down of his hair lay plastered flat from where Magda had wiped him clean.

The chair near the hearth creaked as Val shifted, one elbow resting on the arm, her long legs stretched toward the fire. She had been there all night, Sansa knew; she hadn’t heard the wildling woman leave even once. The flames painted her in gold and shadow, and though she seemed at ease, her eyes tracked every sound with a hunter’s instinct.

Sansa’s voice was rough from disuse. “You stayed.”

Val didn’t look away from the fire. “Someone had to.”

For a moment, they listened to the slow pop of resin in the burning logs.

“Thank you,” Sansa said quietly.

Val finally turned her head, her pale braid sliding forward over her shoulder. “Don’t thank me,” she said. “Thank the wolves.”

Sansa frowned faintly. “What do you mean?”

Val’s expression didn’t change, but her gaze lingered for a heartbeat too long before she looked back to the fire. “You’ll see. Maybe not today.”

Before Sansa could press her, the door opened a crack and Magda slipped in. Her sleeves were rolled, her hands scrubbed clean, though the faint smell of the birthing hall still clung to her apron. She moved to the bedside without ceremony, her eyes sweeping over Sansa’s face, her posture, the slow rise and fall of her chest.

“Pulse is steady,” Magda murmured, reaching for Sansa’s wrist. Her fingers were warm, her grip gentle but firm. “No fever. You’ll ache for days, but you’re healing.” She glanced at the bundle beside Sansa. “He’s warm enough. Strong cry when he wants something?”

“Yes,” Sansa said, though she hadn’t yet decided if that was reassurance or warning.

Magda nodded, satisfied, and poured fresh water into the basin. “You’ll need to wash before the day’s out. The body mends better when it’s clean.”

Sansa gave the faintest nod, her eyes drifting back to the sleeping child. His hand twitched, the smallest fingers curling in the air as if reaching for something unseen.

Val rose from the chair, stretching, and the fire popped again in the quiet.

Magda glanced meaningfully at the child. “He’ll wake soon. Best to feed him before the hall stirs for the day.”

Sansa’s gaze slid toward the bundle. The idea tightened something in her chest. She’d avoided it so far, letting Magda or one of the midwives tend to his cries in the night, under the excuse of exhaustion. It wasn’t untrue. But there had been more to it than that.

“He needs it,” Magda said, softer now, as if she could read the weight of Sansa’s hesitation.

The baby stirred as though he’d heard, a small restless sound pushing past his lips. His fists flexed under the swaddling, his mouth working in blind seeking motions. A tuft of red hair, soft as silk, caught the dim morning light—a burnished copper that seemed almost too vivid for the grey of Winterfell.

Sansa’s pulse stumbled. That shade was hers. Stark auburn, just as her mother’s had been, but brighter—unmistakably Tully in the fire of it. The sight pulled something taut inside her, both sharp and strange.

Val rose from her seat without comment and moved to the hearth, giving Sansa the illusion of privacy. Magda stepped back too, busying herself with the water basin.

Slowly, Sansa drew the child into her arms. His warmth was immediate, seeping into her like the glow of the fire. He rooted against her shoulder, his small head turning instinctively toward her chest, that bright hair brushing against her skin. His movements were impatient, and she felt the soft thud of his tiny fists against her gown.

Her throat tightened. “He doesn’t even know me,” she murmured.

Magda’s voice came from across the room. “That’s not true. He’s known your voice for months. Your heartbeat longer than that. He knows exactly who you are.”
Sansa looked down at him. His eyes were still shut tight, lashes damp and fine against his flushed cheeks, his tiny brow creased in a determined frown. She loosened the swaddling with careful fingers, layer by layer, until his small arms shifted freely against her chest. Her breath caught when she saw his hair again—deep red, soft as spun silk, catching the faint light like copper in fire.

She shifted her gown, fingers fumbling at the fabric, her movements deliberate and slow. The baby gave a small, impatient grunt, his head turning instinctively toward her, seeking without sight.

“It’s all right,” she murmured, unsure whether she was speaking to him or herself.

Guiding him close was not graceful work. His mouth brushed against her skin, missing his mark, his tiny nose pressing into her before he turned away with a soft, frustrated whimper.

Magda’s voice was gentle from where she stood by the basin. “He’ll find it. Give him a moment.”

Sansa adjusted her hold, her palm cupping the back of his head, thumb stroking the downy hair there. She tilted him just slightly, felt the brush of his lips again—this time catching where they were meant to.

The latch was awkward at first; he pulled too hard, then lost his grip, his face scrunching in protest. She shifted, tried again, and at last, he found what he was looking for.

The pull was strange—unexpectedly strong, almost alien—but not unpleasant. It startled her, the sheer will of it, the way he drew from her with absolute certainty that she would provide.

His small body relaxed almost immediately, the tension melting from his limbs. Tiny fingers flexed and curled into her skin as he settled into a steady rhythm.

Sansa stared down at him, her mind conflicted. She’d expected the act to feel mechanical, a duty to be endured, but there was something else here—small, tentative, like the first spark catching in damp tinder. Not trust. Not forgiveness. But the beginning of something she couldn’t yet name.

Val’s voice came from by the fire, low and certain. “He’ll remember this more than anything else. Warmth. Food. Safety. That’s how loyalty is made.”

Sansa glanced over briefly, brow furrowing. “He’s too young to remember anything.”

Val tilted her head. “Not in the way you mean. But the body remembers. The heart remembers. And what is loyalty if not a kind of remembering?”

Sansa didn’t answer. She looked back down at him, tracing the curve of his tiny ear with the tip of her finger, her gaze drifting again to that bright red hair. That color was a legacy she understood. The one thing no man—no matter how cruel—could take from her. The proof that he was hers before anything else.

“You see it,” Magda said quietly from the corner.

“What?”

“The resemblance.”

Sansa’s throat tightened. “Yes.” He reminded her of Bran, of Rickon, even touched on her faint memories of when Arya was a babe in their mother's arms. He looked like a Stark.

They didn’t speak of who he might resemble otherwise.

When he’d had his fill, he pulled back on his own, his mouth slackening, a small sigh escaping him before his face smoothed into the peace of sleep. Sansa adjusted her gown, rewrapped him in the linen, and brushed her lips—just once, and so lightly—against the crown of his head.

She kept him against her shoulder a moment longer than she needed to, inhaling his warmth, the faint, clean scent of him beneath the lingering smoke of the fire.

Only then did she realize her arms weren’t trembling anymore.

The door eased open without a knock, letting in a slice of pale light from the corridor. Jon stepped in quietly, the cold clinging to him in the damp edges of his hair and the frost still melting from his cloak.

Sansa adjusted her hold on the baby instinctively, the movement small but protective.

“I wasn’t sure if you were awake,” Jon said, keeping his voice low.

“We haven’t slept much,” she replied, glancing at the bundle in her arms.

His eyes followed her gaze. “May I?”

Her instinct was to hesitate—just for a breath—before she nodded. “Mind his head.”

Jon crossed to the bed, removing his gloves as he went. He reached for the baby with the kind of carefulness she’d once seen him use when handling a wounded bird. The transfer was awkward at first, her fingers reluctant to let go, his unsure how best to take the swaddled weight. But once the boy was in his arms, Jon adjusted easily, one large hand supporting the neck, the other steadying his small body.

“He’s… smaller than I thought,” Jon murmured, looking down at the baby’s face as if memorizing it. “And yet… he feels solid.”

Sansa tilted her head faintly, her eyes flicking down to the small, swaddled form. “He is.” Her voice was soft, but there was a thread of steel beneath it, as though she dared anyone to suggest otherwise.

Jon’s gaze lingered on the boy, studying him with the kind of care he rarely showed openly. A lock of red hair had wriggled free from the blanket, curling slightly against the baby’s temple. Sunlight slipped through the shutters, catching in the strands until they glowed like copper wire.

Jon reached out with his thumb, brushing the hair back into place with a touch so light it barely moved the down. His hand, weathered and scarred, seemed almost too big for such a small gesture.

“He’s got your hair,” Jon said quietly, almost to himself.

Sansa’s lips pressed together, her chin lifting a fraction. “So I’ve been told.” The words carried no pride, only acknowledgment—like she was cataloging the fact for the record.

“It suits him,” Jon said simply, and there was no teasing in it, only the kind of truth that didn’t ask to be believed.

Her gaze slid away, toward the fire. “He hasn’t a name yet.”

Jon adjusted his stance, the heel of his boot scuffing lightly against the rug. Without thinking, he rocked the baby in a slow, natural rhythm, the swaddled bundle rising and falling gently with each shift. “It will come. Sometimes the right one takes time to show itself.”

“That’s what Magda said,” Sansa murmured, her tone neutral, though her fingers had tightened in the fur at her side.

“She’s right.” Jon looked up then, meeting her eyes with a steadiness that could not be mistaken for politeness. “When it does, you’ll know.”

Sansa studied him, her eyes tracing the lines of his face, then dropping to the baby in his arms before rising again. “You sound very sure of that.”

“I am.” His gaze returned to the boy, his voice quiet but certain. “Names mean more in the North than in most places. They carry the weight of every man and woman who’s borne them. Best not to give one until you’re certain it’s earned.”

Sansa’s brows drew together faintly. There was a time she might have argued, but she let the silence stretch instead.

Jon’s thumb brushed once more over that glinting hair before he eased the boy back toward her. The exchange was smoother this time; she didn’t hesitate to take him, her arms closing around the small bundle with something that came closer to instinct than obligation.

“You’ve done well,” Jon said, his voice low, meant only for her.

Her eyes lifted to his, searching. She couldn’t tell if he meant the birth, the child, or simply the fact that she was still here to hold him.

Before she could ask, there was a knock at the door—light, uneven, and unmistakably small.

The door creaked open before either of them could call out. A small head of wild, dark hair peeked around the edge, eyes wide and hesitant, like a pup testing the air before stepping into unknown ground.

“Rickon,” Jon said, his voice losing some of its usual heaviness. “Come in.”

The boy slipped inside, closing the door behind him with a care unusual for his age. The wood clicked softly into place. He was barefoot, his small toes curling against the rushes on the floor. His tunic hung slightly crooked on his shoulders, as though he’d dressed in a hurry, and in his fist he clutched one of his carved wooden animals—a stag worn smooth and pale from years of being turned over in his hands.

“I heard…” he began, then faltered, his gaze darting from Sansa to the bundle in her arms. His voice dropped to a whisper, as if the wrong volume might shatter the moment. “Is he here?”

Sansa adjusted her hold, loosening the blankets just enough for the firelight to spill over the baby’s face. “He’s here,” she said softly, her tone gentler than she meant it to be. “Would you like to meet him?”

Rickon nodded, but his feet stayed planted for a few beats longer. His eyes were fixed on the tiny face, a strange mix of curiosity and wariness in his expression. It wasn’t fear, exactly—more like the instinctive caution of someone who knew small things could be fragile.

“Come on,” Jon urged gently, lifting a hand in quiet encouragement.

At that, Rickon crossed the room in a few quick steps, then climbed onto the bed beside Sansa with the easy familiarity of a boy who had never been told he didn’t belong there. He sat cross-legged, the stag still in his hand, leaning in just enough to get a proper look.

“He’s… little,” Rickon breathed, his voice barely above a murmur, as if the child might stir at the sound.

“So were you,” Sansa said, brushing her hand through Rickon’s unruly hair.

He wrinkled his nose but didn’t look away from the baby. “He’s got your hair.”

Sansa’s lips curved faintly. “Yes. And he has your stubborn frown, too.”

Jon made a quiet sound—half laugh, half hum—that made Rickon glance at him for just a moment before turning back to his inspection.

Rickon tilted his head, studying the baby with the seriousness of a lord judging a new sword. “Does he have a name?”

“Not yet,” Sansa said. “It hasn’t found him.”

Rickon considered this, chewing at the inside of his cheek. “Then I’ll help.”

Carefully, he set the wooden stag on the edge of the blanket, right beside the baby’s curled hand. The smooth wood bumped lightly against the tiny fingers, and almost at once, they stirred—unfurling just enough to brush over the stag before curling shut again.

Rickon’s smile was quick, bright, and fiercely proud, as though he’d been given proof of some private bond. He didn’t speak again, but his gaze stayed fixed, memorizing every small line of the baby’s face, the rise and fall of the swaddled chest.