Chapter Text
When Sansa sees Seabluff Keep, solitary and windworn against the lead-gray sky, dread fills her chest until there’s little room for air. It must show too, for Jon knocks thrice on the wall behind him in a wordless command for the driver to stop the wheelhouse. Outside, winds cold and briny almost bowl her over. Cloak snug around her, she moves to the lee side and leans her back against the dark wood.
Jon’s followed her, now watches her with worry lining his brow.
“They haven’t said anything,” he says. “Not a word.”
“I’m damaged goods. This is the kind of match I should expect. You know it as well as I do.”
Refusing to take the bait, Jon only shakes his head with a sigh. Since receiving the invitation for Lord Ivertusk’s weeklong nameday celebration, they’ve gone through this. Repeatedly. Jon’s grown sick of having different versions of the same conversation, of endlessly assuaging her, but she can’t help it. Her name is never needed on any invitation; the king brings whomever he likes and he always brings her. People know this. They expect her by his side. So why did the invitation make it clear the Ivertusks were eager to welcome not only the king but his lovely cousin the Lady Sansa Stark as well?
It’s all she can think about. The fear builds and builds until it becomes unbearable and then her mouth opens on its own to spill out at least some of it.
Silent, Jon’s looking at her lips. He’s expecting another outpour, she knows, but he’s standing so close to her when rants usually drive people away. Close enough to do something for which she’s long since stopped hoping. She can’t stop the longing, though, can’t stop her thoughts from painting a different life where the prospect of losing her forever would’ve spurred him into acting on feelings he only has in her fantasies. He would never pull her close and kiss her right here, on the windy headland, in front of the driver and the guards and the carriages holding the rest of their retinue.
“Your lips are turning blue,” he says.
He wouldn’t kiss her at all.
Sansa ducks her head, staring at the yellow grass. “It’s cold out here.”
“Would another promise get you back in the wheelhouse?”
“It wouldn’t hurt.”
Jon gives another sigh and positions himself next to her, so close their arms touch, so close she could rest her head against his if she wanted, maybe hug his arm as well. But they don’t do that anymore. At least not in public. Not since the truth spread across Westeros, by raven, by word of mouth, until highborn and lowborn alike knew the name he never wanted.
“I don’t understand why you keep doing this. I’m not your father, Sansa. You’re not mine to give away.”
If I were yours, she thinks, I’d wish for you to keep me. I’d wish you wanted to keep me.
She wishes it either way. She keeps staring at the yellow grass.
“You are my king. If Lord Ivertusk’s offer is good enough, you could command me to marry. Think of all the good you could do with his gold.”
After all, his riches are their reason for attending, despite her fears, despite Lord Ivertusk's sapling of a family tree. A whole week of showering Ivertusk with the king's attention will surely make the man become his most generous self.
“Aye, our coffers would love it. But you’d hate me forever.” Jon shifts the smallest bit closer, the pelt of his cloak whispering against his beard when he turns his head to her. “I like it better when you don’t hate me.”
She resists the impulse to lean closer too, to feel his breath against her cheek, against her lips, to finally sate the longing.
“Sansa,” he murmurs, his voice sweet and dark and maybe if she turns her head after all, maybe – “Do you still believe I only let you stay at Winterfell because I owe you? I thought we’d moved past that.”
Sansa exhales disappointment she shouldn’t feel anymore.
“We have,” she says. “I know you like me, but… The North needs that gold more than I need my freedom–and you’re the king. You have to think about what your kingdom needs. Davos would tell you as much. He probably already has.”
“The North will be fine without Lord Ivertusk’s gold. But you–”
“Robb would’ve done it.”
“I’m not Robb, either.” Jon turns fully toward her now. The heat of his body calls to her, turns her despite it all so that she faces him too, moves her gaze from grass to him. He’s looking into her eyes so deeply, so sincerely, she’s pathetic enough to feel a bit weak in the knees. “I would never do that to you.”
His voice is even husky.
Bitterness rises within and she fashions it into armor, cocking an eyebrow, lifting her chin, straightening her posture so that he has to tip his head back to look at her.
“Go on, then,” she says. “Give me another promise. Swear it. One last time.”
Once, her childish behavior would’ve frustrated him. He would’ve said she was starting to sound as if she wanted him to betray her. That maybe part of her wanted her mistrust to be proven right. They would’ve bickered, maybe even argued, raised voices and all, until one of them left in a huff. Now, he only stays calm.
“All right.” He scoops up her hands and holds them in both of his, the warmth of his skin chasing away the iciness of hers. “I promise. You will not leave this place betrothed. You have my word.”
Then he lets her go.
She doesn’t want to return to the more turbulent days–truly, she doesn’t–but it gave a sort of release his new calm doesn’t. It comforts and soothes, yes, but it leaves her wanting too.
It’s never enough.
He doesn’t fold her into his embrace and kiss her brow, doesn’t hold her hand when they walk back to the wheelhouse door, doesn’t offer it when she climbs up the three steps when she’s a lady in distress and any well-mannered man would’ve offered without thinking (and she knows he would've done it had they been among his people rather than his servants). Once she’s seated, though, instead is sitting too, he hesitates before choosing his usual spot, opposite her. Oh, it was brief enough she would’ve missed it hadn’t she been aware of his every breath, but he did hesitate.
After he knocks on the wall to get the wheelhouse moving again, he picks up his book and resumes reading. She lets hers be.
Was he considering sitting next to her where he could wrap an arm around her and hold her for a moment, comfort her for a moment, without any whispers spreading?
In her wheelhouse, they’re almost always alone.
Once the wars ended and everything settled, they found themselves traveling more. Meetings, celebrations, festivals, fairs. Countless invitations Jon couldn’t afford to decline when the North still kept a wary eye on him. Sansa never complained about days on horseback and nights in tents, but Jon noticed her discomfort nonetheless. One day, despite the state of their coffers, despite her nameday being moons away, the wheelhouse stood in the courtyard.
“It’s yours,” he said, with that lopsided smile of his. “What do you think?”
She took her time inspecting it, while he trailed three steps behind like an eager-to-please dog hoping for pats and praise.
While the wheelhouses of wealthy southern families are painted and gilded, decorated with silk and velvet, double-decked and sleep a whole family, Sansa’s wheelhouse isn’t so ostentatious. It has a carved direwolf on the door, Stark grey upholstery, only one floor, and sleeps two people. It has two padded benches on either side of a cedar chest that functions both as table and compartment for books, cards, dice, knitting, and other things with which one can pass the time. And it has windows covered with lacy screens within for when it’s hot, and shutters without for when it’s cold.
It’s small and plain and to Sansa there’s none lovelier.
“It’s perfect,” she said, touching his arm. “Thank you.”
All abashed, he bowed his head as if to hide how pat and praise made his smile grow–and that made her hope grow too.
For a while, it kept growing. Every time they needed to travel, Jon chose the wheelhouse over his preferred way of traveling. He was only following Davos’ advice of looking the part, Jon claimed. He needs to show his people that he takes his role as king seriously, that it truly is the honor of his life, before he forever loses the trust he’s slowly rebuilding. And he does sit on a throne, now. One matching the wheelhouse in appearance, all dark wood, Stark grey leather, and direwolf carvings. He does wear a crown at petitions, banquets, weddings, and funerals. He does wear finer clothes.
But Sansa remembers Robert riding into the courtyard a thousand years ago. A king can arrive on horseback–especially when wearing a crown and a fine cloak. It can be a rather striking sight.
Still, every time they’re to travel, Jon follows her into the wheelhouse, opens the chest, grabs a book, and settles in on the bench that’s become his (while she often chooses to knit or sew for yet another babe that isn’t hers).
Whether Jon enjoys her company enough to endure the wheelhouse, or whether his conscience tells him he shouldn’t let her sit in here alone for hours (or sometimes days), Sansa can’t say. When she thinks about how he never was much of a reader before this, and how often hours pass without conversation, she thinks it’s the latter.
But they do talk as well. About the North, about their past, about books they’ve both read. He’s almost intense, then. Sometimes he’ll grab the book, sit down next to her, and find a page with a passage that moved him or annoyed him or confused him. He wants to hear her thoughts, wants her to hear his, all while being so close she can smell the oil he uses to groom his beard.
On occasion, the wheelhouse has rattled and he’s bumped into her, his nose poking her cheek. He always laughs, then, a bit breathily, and murmurs an apology while all she can think is: if I turn my head, will his lips find mine?
Jon could insist on her finally acquiring a lady-in-waiting and traveling with her. He could point out their sitting in here doesn’t negate whispers just because the sun is still up, and come night, they always sleep apart despite the two bunks in here.
Is it so foolish, then, to hope it’s the former? To hope he loves her just as much as she loves him? Some days, she even believes it.
The way she loves, though… Oh, in that she’s alone. If she turns her head the next time he bumps into her, his lips won’t find hers. He’ll shy away and return to his seat and shoot her suspicious looks for the rest of their days. She’s certain of it. Eighteen moons have passed since the wars ended. Nothing stops him from marrying her but a lack of desire to do so.
She glances at Jon, at his eyes moving over the page, at his fingers already prepared to flip the page. While her mind’s so full of him she wouldn’t understand a single written word, he has no such problem. If only she hadn’t noticed that hesitation. If only she could stop poring over the infinitesimal, pick up her book, and pore over the pages like he does.
The hope stopped growing long ago. Under the cold blanket of winter, it shriveled into a sorry little thing. Spring might be budding all around them, but that’s all that will.
Sansa leans her head against the wall and closes her eyes. She doesn’t demand much. All she wants is to stay at Winterfell forever, safe and protected, and never ever be married off to some lord.
She’ll never marry anyone.