Chapter Text
Saturday had arrived. It was Game Day. Go Time. D-day? Sansa woke up all snuggly wuggly in her bed and stared at the ceiling thinking about how Jon had kissed her and confessed his feelings for her. She hadn’t done much but think about it since he’d done two days prior.
She swore she could still feel his lips on hers or at least conjure up the memory of it so well that she could still feel how sweetly and yet passionately he’d kissed her. His lips had been soft and yet he’d applied just enough pressure. It had been an amazing kiss and her heart raced just thinking about it.
“You want me to pretend on Saturday that I’m in love with you, and I want to warn you that I won’t be pretending.”
She shivered, though it was far from cold in her bedroom.
Jon loved her. Jon was in love with her. Jon loved her. She still hadn’t wrapped her head around it.
When she thought back over their past she thought about how Jon had been Robb’s friend first. Jon had been part of the Stark household since he was a kid. Then, sometime around high school, if she remembered correctly, Jon and Sansa had started to get close while Jon and Robb had drifted apart. They were still friends and all, but as Jon had said – Robb was his oldest friend, but Sansa was his best friend.
Jon had brought up how she’d been there for him when Val had announced she was pregnant. Sansa remembered she’d really had a hard time when Jon had even started dating her. Sansa had been with someone at the time herself, but it had driven her crazy when Jon had taken up with Val.
She’d been jealous.
There, she admitted it. She’d been jealous. And it had felt like a punch to her gut when Val had gotten pregnant. Jon said she’d been there for him, but Sansa distinctly remembered needing some time away from him to process the fact that Jon was going to be a father and someone else was going to be the mother of his son.
When had she even started to imagine herself in that position? She didn’t know when, but she did remember how depressed she had been over the prospect of that never happening for her.
By this account, that had to mean she felt something for Jon that went beyond friendship. Yet, somewhere along the way, she had shoved all of that down and away and carried on as if that episode had never happened.
Now he was making her remember. Now he was calling up old feelings by expressing his own.
This time, Sansa didn’t have the luxury of a few days to process. She had a barbeque to attend and a part to play.
xxxxxxx
Jon was dressed simply – a white t-shirt with buttons at the top that were all undone so his shirt was actually a v-neck, gray jeans, and sneakers. Sansa would have normally not paid any attention to how Jon was dressed, but today, armed with new knowledge and feelings, she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
“Hello, beautiful,” he greeted her.
Her heart raced at that and she was quite happy she had taken the time to dress herself that morning. She had chosen an outfit that said ‘I’m-a-Mom-and-yet-I-can-dress-nice.’ She wore jeans that were actually capris and a light black ruffled tank-top. She wore a simple gold bracelet and gold-hooped earrings and black sandals.
She was about to tell Jon to save those endearments and compliments for later when Balerion came running to the kitchen. “Hi, Mommy Sansa!” he exclaimed.
Sansa laughed and bent down to hug him. “Hey, kiddo. My, don’t you look handsome.”
“Daddy said I had to look nice.”
“Well, you do.” He wore simple khaki shorts and a black t-shirt with some kind of purple design on it. “We almost match.”
Balerion beamed. “Can I bring some toys?”
“Of course. Though you will have to share probably.”
Balerion considered this. “I’ll bring one.”
He ran off to grab said toy and Sansa felt Jon’s hand glide down her bare arm. “Have you been thinking at all about what I said?”
She swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“And?”
“And I’m still processing.”
He looked disappointed and Sansa’s heart clenched. “Jon, no matter what happens, I don’t want to lose you. You and Balerion are important to me.”
Jon kissed her quickly, and it was enough to steal her breath and her knees. “You won’t lose us. We need you. I need you.”
Anything Sansa could have thought to say was gone when Balerion came back with a toy motorcycle in hand.
It was time to go, and Sansa was doubly nervous. Not only did she have a role to play in front of her co-workers, but she now had Jon who had made it clear that any “acting” done on his part today would not be acting. What exactly did he have in store for her?
xxxxxxxx
“Here we go,” Sansa muttered as she, Balerion and Jon climbed out of Jon’s truck. She held a grocery bag with the makings for Strawberry Shortcake in her hand. Balerion took her hand and smiled up at her. “Don’t be nervous,” he said.
“Thanks, B.”
Jon took Balerion’s other hand and the three of them headed to the backyard of the white Ranch in front of them.
Jeyne Westerling, Math teacher, was the first one to spot Sansa and she rushed over from beside who Sansa assumed was her husband at the grill, and rushed over. “Hello, Sansa! We’re so glad you could all make it.” She stood back and looked at Jon and Balerion. “My, what a lovely family. I’ve heard a lot about you both. Balerion, right?”
Balerion nodded. “Yup. This is my Daddy and my Mommy.”
Jeyne laughed. “Come on, Balerion, let me introduce you to the other kids.” She pointed at the bag in Sansa’s hand. “What did you bring?”
“Strawberry Shortcake.”
“Excellent, if you want to bring it in the house and put it in the fridge – Margaery! Show Sansa inside?”
Margaery Tyrell, social studies teacher, jumped up from beside the man she was talking to, probably her husband, and greeted Sansa and Jon and led them inside. Sansa and Margaery made small talk as Sansa placed her dessert offering in the fridge. Then Margaery showed Sansa and Jon where the bathroom was and then they all headed out. There were people there Sansa didn’t recognize, and only a handful of people she did from school.
Sansa took Jon’s hand. “Let’s see if there’s some beer?”
A man in pink board shorts and a white tank top with a palm tree on the front came over and held out his hand to Sansa. “I’m Renly, Margaery’s husband. I’ve heard a lot about you. Sansa, right?”
Sansa took his hand and smiled. “Yes. Hi, Renly. This is my, ah, Jon. My husband Jon.”
Jon wrapped one arm around Sansa while extending his hand to Renly. They shook hands and then Renly told them what was in each cooler. Sansa went straight for the beer for her and Jon and then they found a chairs to sit in near everyone else. There had to be about fifteen people in attendance. Jeyne introduced them to everyone, but Sansa knew that outside of the people she worked with, she would not remember anyone else’s names.
“I’ll be right back,” Jon said as he placed his beer in the chair’s cup holder. “I’m just going to check on B.”
Sansa nodded and smiled up at him. He surprised her then by giving her a peck on the lips before going to check on Balerion.
xxxxxx
“So, how did you and Jon meet?” Jeyne asked Sansa after they were all settled in and the kids were off playing.
Jon grabbed Sansa’s hand and kissed the back of it. “I was friends with Sansa’s brother Robb as kids.”
“Oh, how sweet! So you’ve literally known each other your whole lives!”
“Yes,” Jon said. “We started dating in high school. And all through college. Right, sweetling?”
Sansa just looked at him and smiled. She felt like laughing. They didn’t really have to come up with a story. They had one already. “Yup.”
“And you still have the glow of newlyweds,” Margaery said.
“Some days it just still feels all new,” Sansa said with a smile.
When the food was ready, Sansa sat with Balerion at the picnic table with him and the other kids while Jon readied his plate. Balerion told her all about the fun games he was playing with his new friends, and when Jon came over with his food and set it down before him, Balerion dug in with the exuberance of a kid that had been running around all afternoon and worked up an appetite.
“What do you want, sweetheart? A hamburger?” Jon asked her.
Sansa stood. “I can get it.”
“Let me take care of you,” he murmured and kissed her. It was short, sweet, and family friendly, but it still did things to Sansa.
“Hamburger,” she croaked.
He grinned and was off and Sansa found a spot at the adult table for her and Jon.
Everything was going great. After the kids ate, they ran off to play again and the adults sat around chatting. Conversations broke off into groups and then Jon and Sansa found themselves in a quiet conversation of their own.
“Let’s go for a little walk,” he murmured and kissed the back of her hand. He had been holding it most of the afternoon.
Sansa bit her lip. “To?”
“Let’s go look at the roses in the front of the house that Jeyne’s been boasting about.”
Sansa agreed, though part of her knew that as soon as they were alone, Jon was most likely going to kiss her for real.
And, she realized, she wanted him to. Badly.
They both stood and informed Jeyne they were going to check out her roses. As they walked away, hand-in-hand, Jon practically dragged Sansa to the front of the house. When they finally arrived, he took her face in his hands and kissed her and kissed her until Sansa could do nothing but cling to him to keep herself from falling over.
“I’ve wanted to do that all day,” he breathed. And then he trailed kisses along her jaw and then down her neck. He nuzzled her there and Sansa breathed his name. He lifted his head and looked at her heatedly. “What are you thinking? What do you feel?”
“I—I think I want you,” she said and kissed him.
He groaned. “Oh, sweetheart, I have wanted you for so long…” And he kissed her again.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” she asked softly.
He replied in between soft kisses to her face. “Because I was afraid to.” He looked at her steadily then. “I was afraid to ask you to be with a ready-made family. I didn’t want to hold you back. You’ve talked over the years about starting a family one day and I couldn’t give you all the firsts the way a man untethered by a kid could.”
“But… but Jon, it’s you and Balerion. Not some schmoe off the street with a kid. I’ve been with you and him since he was born. Didn’t I show you how to change his diaper the first time?”
Jon smiled. “You did.”
“I was there when he ate solid food for the first time.”
“And the first time he crawled.”
“And the first time he walked.”
“We are already a family,” Jon said softly. He looked at her in earnest. “I love you, Sansa, so much. Please tell me you love me, too. Or tell me that you could grow to. I have wasted so much time trying to be noble, when really I was just being stupid. Tell me I have a chance.”
The sound of Balerion’s crying rent the air and both Sansa and Jon snapped into action and went in search of him. They rounded the house and found him walking with Jeyne right towards them. Sansa got to him first and went down on her knees. “What happened, B?”
“I fell down,” he said through tears. “I hurt my knees.”
Sansa looked down. He had scraped his knees and had thin ribbons of blood on them. She got up. “Come on, let’s go get cleaned up.”
“There is a first aid kit under the sink in the bathroom,” Jeyne told her. “If you need anything just let me know.”
Jon took his son’s hand and they all three marched into the house and then into the bathroom together. Sansa had Balerion sit on the closed toilet seat while Jon got out the first aid kit. Sansa cleaned the scrapes on both knees and Jon applied band-aids. By the time they were done, Balerion’s tears had subsided and he was ready to go back out and play.
He tore out of the bathroom as soon as Jon declared him fit enough to play again. Sansa had just put the first aid kit away when Jon had her back in his arms and was kissing her soundly. His hand slipped under her tank top and slid to her back, pushing her into him further. Sansa wrapped her arms around him and played with curls at the nape of his neck.
They were utterly lost in each other when the sound of someone clearing their throat made them part. Red-faced, Sansa found Margaery smirking at them both.
“I am so jealous,” she said.
“We’ll just be out of your way now,” Jon said and grabbed Sansa’s hand. He pulled her with him out of the bathroom and into the kitchen where he kissed her again before they headed outside.
It dawned on Sansa as they joined the party again that she had been worried about this day for nothing. First it had been how they would act as a couple together and whether they would be believable, and then she had worried that she wouldn’t be able to act natural while Jon made his intentions and feelings clear to her all day. And now, she realized, she had worried for nothing because kissing Jon, being with Jon – it was what she wanted.
Her heart swelled with love, right there in the middle of the barbeque. She loved Jon. And, like him with her, she knew that she had loved him for so long that she didn’t remember a time when she didn’t. It may have been pushed down for one reason or another, but there wasn’t any reason for it to be now.
Sansa wanted to tell him. And she wanted to tell him now. “We forgot to bring out the dessert,” she blurted out.
Jon looked at her and must have seen the look of urgency on her face because he said, “Oh, okay, let me um, help you with that.”
“You need both of you for that?” Jeyne said with a smirk.
Sansa reddened and dragged Jon inside the house with her. Once there, she turned to him and kissed him. “I love you,” she said hurriedly. “I love you and I want to be with you, too.”
Jon looked at her in wonder first, and then he broke into a joyous smile. “Really? You do? You want to make a go of this?”
She nodded. “Yes. I—I’ve been in love with you for a long time, too,” she said. “I was just too afraid and unsure…if you want me, I’m yours.”
“Oh, God, Sansa, you’re all I’ve ever wanted,” he moaned and kissed her.
“Yep, I’m so jealous.”
Another interruption. Sansa and Jon looked over at Margaery who had emerged from the bathroom. She pointed at Sansa. “So, Jon isn’t really your husband then?” she asked.
Sansa opened her mouth but no sound came out.
“And yet it worked out for you,” Margaery said and gestured between Sansa and Jon. “You guys are actually in love even though you’ve clearly been pretending all day to be married?”
“Yes, well—” Sansa began.
“Don’t worry about it,” Margaery said. “I get it. I did the same thing. Renly out there? So not my husband. I’ve been asking him to pretend to be my husband for the past year. Unlike you though, Sansa, I don’t have a shot in hell with him. He’s gayer than the day is long.” She shrugged. “It’s okay though. I love him anyway. We were talking about staging a divorce soon.” She sailed past them and smiled. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”
Once she was gone, Sansa and Jon just looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“I told you statistically speaking not all of them were married and with kids,” he said.
“Oh, shut up,” she said and then kissed him.
“Let’s make it an early night, hmm?” Jon murmured against her lips. “Call your Mom; can you bunk over?”
Sansa laughed. “Yeah, I think that can be arranged.”
“And tomorrow night as well? And the night after that? And the night after that?”
She smiled. “You want me that long?”
“Sansa, sweetheart, I want you for forever.” This time, no one interrupted them as they had one long make out session in the kitchen.
The End