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The first night in Winterfell, Sansa was lying in her childhood bed, unable to sleep. The candle had burned low in the time since she had retired. She had thought that falling asleep would be effortless. She was back in her childhood home—in the chambers of her youth, of her innocence. There were still dolls in the trunk at the foot of her bed, buried beneath blankets. Mayhaps that was what was preventing her from falling asleep. These rooms belonged to a different little girl. Not the maiden she was.
When the flame guttered, Sansa wrapped herself in a fur and opened the door. She wasn’t sure yet if she was looking for another candle, someplace she would finally be able to fall asleep, or even yet, the girl she had been when she was last here. Only, once she was in the corridor, Sansa was faced with all of the other doors—the ones that had once belonged to her siblings, to her parents.
All gone.
All dead.
All empty.
No, she supposed that wasn’t true. Jon slept in one of them. After they had both refused the lord’s chambers, Sansa had gone to see that her old rooms were made ready. She was unsure where Jon had chosen to sleep. His old rooms, or mayhaps Robb’s or Theon’s? Or was he out in the barracks with the other soldiers? He had been adamant when she had suggested that the lord’s chambers should be his—he was as responsible for them reclaiming Winterfell as she was.
No, she thought, turning away from what had been her brothers’ rooms, he wouldn’t have taken anyone’s rooms, save his own.
It was late, she knew, and their days had been beyond tiring since she had run into his arms at Castle Black. He will be asleep, and when he doesn’t answer, I’ll try Jeyne’s rooms, Sansa thought, even as she raised her fist to knock.
She held her breath, counting a minute out in her head, then she would find Jeyne, or a candle, or somewhere else she could fall asleep without being haunted by the past and all the empty chambers.
Only the door swung open, revealing Jon, still looking as if he was beaten half back into the grave, in only a tunic.
“Sansa? Are you all right?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I…” Sansa tightened the hold she had on the furs that were covering her shift. “I just…couldn’t sleep.”
Jon opened the door wider and Sansa saw the candles burning on the table beside his bed.
“I… I don’t think I’ve been in here before,” she whispered as Jon closed the door behind her.
“No, I don’t believe you would have been.”
In the months since their reunion, Sansa thought she had grown better at reading his face. Even with how guarded his expressions were, even with his face bruised and half cast in shadow, she thought she’d be able to tell what had his voice going quiet, low, and the simple comment. They hadn’t been playmates as children, leastwise not once they had all left the nursery.
“Did I wake you?” she asked, looking at the rumpled bedclothes.
“No. No, you didn’t wake me.”
“Do you find it strange, being back here? Finding that in some ways, nothing has changed, and in others, everything has?”
Jon glanced at her sharply. “More than you know.”
Sansa turned, studying the chamber she had no memories of. It was nearly identical to hers, to all of the chambers in the corridor. The same stone walls, same featherbed, and yet it felt so different. In her rooms, she had sensed the presence of the girl she had been like a specter. Here, she didn’t feel the same foreboding feeling of haunting.
“You can sit,” Jon said, motioning to the bed. Draping the furs around herself, Sansa did.
“Do they hurt? Your bruises, wounds?”
Jon shrugged. “Not any worse than others I’ve gotten.” He was quiet, sitting in the wooden chair across the room from her. “Were you afraid? Was that why you couldn’t sleep?”
“Afraid? No,” she mused. “Haunted, more like, by the girl I’d been.”
“The lord’s chambers may help to remind you that you’re not,” Jon murmured.
“They are a lord’s chamber, not a lady’s,” Sansa said, a bit of cheek slipping into her tone, despite the hour, despite the circumstances.
“I’m not a lord,” Jon said in that same low tone he had used prior.
“You could be. Stannis is sure to grant you the title, the keep, and make you Warden of the North after that battle.”
“Daughters come before bastards.”
“Stannis would only allow me to be Lady of Winterfell if I were a widow.”
Sansa knew that Jon’s eyes were grey—the same grey as their lord father’s, as Arya’s, but in that moment, she would have sworn that they glimmered like rubies.
“If you won’t take the lord’s chambers, you could stay in here, if you wish,” Jon offered, voice soft.
Sansa tightened her grip on the furs.
“Where will you sleep?”
He shrugged. “I’ve slept on worse surfaces than the floor.”
Sansa looked to the bed again. It was not as large as the bed in the lord’s chamber, no that had been a martial bed, but it was larger than others she had shared with Arya, and with the little lord Robert.
“It’s large enough. We could…” she trailed off, seeing Jon’s stricken expression.
“I’ll be fine, Sansa. Don’t worry about me.”
“I do though, Jon,” she whispered. “I do.” Sansa curled her feet beneath her.
“I worry about you, too,” he breathed.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.” Sansa moved over on the bed, leaving half of it open for Jon.
Jon hesitated for a long moment, long enough for Sansa to consider returning to her own bed, before he stood. His movements were slow, cautious. As if he was giving her time to reconsider, change her mind. He blew out all of the candles save one.
Jon sat beside her, still seeming undecided as to whether or not he would actually lie down beside her.
Sansa settled into the bed, her head on the pillow. It shouldn’t have been any different from her own chambers, from her own bed, and yet, with that candle still burning, Jon still sitting beside her, Sansa could feel her eyes growing heavy.
Sliding her hand from beneath her furs, Sansa wrapped her fingers around Jon’s red knuckles.
“Thank you, Jon,” she breathed, just as sleep claimed her.
The following night, Sansa tossed and turned in her own bed, the candle again burning low. She had thought that it was only because it had been her first night that she had been unable to sleep in her own bed. She had slept fine in Jon’s bed, why not her own?
When the candle was too low to offer much light, Sansa blew it out and wrapped a fur around herself before stepping into the corridor.
Again, when faced with Jon’s door, she hesitated. Would he allow her to spend the night again? She hadn’t asked how he had slept—he’d been gone when she had awoken, though the bed was still warm where he had been. Had he slept at all, or had he lain awake all night so that he was sure to be gone as soon as she had begun to stir? Was that why she had slept so soundly, fell asleep so quickly, with his hand holding hers?
Was she asking too much of Jon?
Sansa thought she might be, but it was late and she was so, so tired.
She knocked.
When the door opened, Jon looking unsurprised, Sansa was relieved when he let her in without comment or question. He didn’t ask her what she was doing there or mention that she may sleep better in the lord’s chambers.
“Thank you,” she whispered, just as she had last night, her hand in Jon’s gentle grip.
Every night, when Sansa retired, she went to her own chambers, each night intending to sleep in her own bed. She would lie in bed and watch the candles burn down, feeling restless and wide awake.
Every night, when the candle indicated that she’d been lying there, staring at the flame for hours, she’d finally retreat to Jon’s room, where she would fall asleep almost instantly.
Sansa didn’t understand what it was about Jon’s room or Jon’s bed that put her so at ease, that made it possible for her to sleep soundly.
Jon, every night, tried his damnedest to fall asleep as soon as he laid down. To be asleep by the time the knock sounded at his door.
Jon knew he could never say no to Sansa, so each night he hoped to fall asleep so that he wouldn’t have to.
When Sansa had come to him that first night, Jon had understood. Neither of them had been back since that day they had both left. It was strange being back, when he had never thought to return. Stranger still, to be safe and warm for the first time since leaving Castle Black. He too had been unable to sleep in his old chambers, old bed.
When Sansa knocked that first night, it had made sense to Jon. If he had had more courage, he may have sought her out. It may have been better if he had, Jon thought, because then they wouldn’t be in the situation they were now. If Jon had gone to her instead, she would have never offered for him to sleep in her bed, to sleep beside her. It would not have become a nightly occurrence, a routine for Sansa to knock, to fall asleep beside him, holding his hand as though she was terrified that he would leave her. Mayhaps he would have, if she hadn’t fallen asleep too quickly with his skin against hers.
Jon didn’t want to tell her no, to sleep in her own room or the lord’s chambers as he had suggested that first night. He was incapable of telling her no, but he was unsure how long he could allow this to continue. How many more nights he could watch her face relax as she fell asleep, her soft, warm hand in his.
Jon wasn’t sure what about the situation worried him the most. If it was the notion that any of the guards or servants could see her slipping into his chambers in naught but a shift and a fur in the dead of night. If it was the rumors that could spawn from that sight. Stannis and his men were already mistrustful of Sansa, still referring to her as Lady Lannister, though her husband hadn’t been seen in King’s Landing for months. The Northern Lords were wary and suspicious of him, for being a bastard, for bringing armies of Free Folk so far past the Wall. Some had heard the rumors of the mutiny, of his death. Some had seen, no doubt, how his eyes sometimes went as red as Ghost’s. How his way of fighting was more wolf than man. They thought him an abomination or some type of demon.
He would only confirm their beliefs if they knew the other reason Jon didn’t want Sansa sleeping beside him any longer.
He was growing too used to it. She wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t sleep until her hand was in his. He started wondering if her palm offered such comfort and security, what could holding her do? If he held her body in his arms, instead of only her hand with his fingers, would she be enough to fight the nightmares he had every night?
And if she was enough to combat the horrors he faced when he closed his eyes, Jon would never sleep without holding her.
What would happen when she remarried, when it was some other man’s bed—some other man’s arms—she would be expected to sleep in? And if she didn’t—if she still slept beside him, in the bed of her bastard brother whose eyes sometimes looked red when he was wrathful—what would the rumors say then?
Jon sat on the edge of the bed, braced for the knock that was coming. His hands were curled into fists and his eyes were fixed on the door.
When that quiet knock—still so timid after all these weeks—sounded, Jon didn’t move. He waited, counting his heartbeats, daring himself to not answer it. It was the same as he did every night since he started to realize that he wouldn’t be able to sleep without her beside him. Every night, he tried to make it a few seconds longer, telling himself he wouldn’t answer it. That it would be the only way for the both of them to learn to sleep on their own.
But every night, Jon imagined Sansa on the other side of that door, wrapped in a fur, and how she would look waiting there, realizing that his door wouldn’t open. Every night, that was enough to get him open the door.
He could deny himself, Jon had come to realize, but not Sansa. Never Sansa.
Jon opened the door and hated that little bit of relief he felt when Sansa smiled bashfully at him.
It was wrong, them continuing to share a bed, to sleep with held hands. If they had been children still, a sister finding comfort in her brother, half or otherwise, might be considered acceptable. At their ages, Sansa sharing his bed would look like more than comfort between siblings.
Jon knew that, and yet he did nothing as she took the side of the bed that had become hers in the last weeks.
“Thank you, Jon,” she whispered as she did every night when she took his hand. Jon bit his tongue, saying nothing. He never knew what to say when she thanked him, as if he didn’t need her just as much. As if he didn’t want this more.
Sansa fell asleep quickly, as she always did, her hand warm in his. Jon lay flat beside her, staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep and for the nightmares. He focused on forcing his body to be still. To not roll into her the way he wanted to do every night. To not pull her into him. Holding hands was all he allowed. Holding hands was innocent. There was nothing improper about it, truthfully.
You wouldn’t thank me if you knew what was in my head, Jon thought, turning just enough to see her peacefully sleeping face. If you knew what was in my head, you would never knock on my door again.
Sansa started awake.
The room was dark.
At first, Sansa thought it was the dream that had woken her. It was the same one she had been having where she was alone in Winterfell. She didn’t notice anything amiss at first—until she realized that her hand was empty. Jon’s hand wasn’t in hers anymore.
Sansa sat up, reaching for Jon and found the bed cold.
“Jon?” she whispered, rising.
With trembling fingers, Sansa lit a candle.
Jon stood braced against the desk, his back rigid. In the dim light, she could see how white his fingers were on the edges of the wood.
“Jon?” Sansa stood beside him, terrified and helpless. Jon shook, his eyes squeezed tight. Sansa reached out, touching his shoulder.
Jon whirled, pinning her against the wall.
“Jon,” she breathed. With the light from the candle, she could see how his eyes glinted red.
Jon’s forearm was against her throat, but he wasn’t hurting her. Even in this state, he wasn’t capable of causing her harm, Sansa realized. His breath was ragged and his face shadowed, like she had seen on the battlefield that day.
Sansa wrapped her fingers around his wrist and pulled his arm down. Jon didn’t fight her, didn’t move, even as she took his face in her palms. Whispering his name again, Jon blinked rapidly before ripping himself out of her hands. His punch hit the wall across the chamber, far from her.
Sansa watched as he pressed both fists into the stone, his shoulders hunched. He had been shaking before, but he trembled now. When he didn’t move but to lower his head, Sansa took a few steps forward.
“Jon, are you all right?”
The silence while she waited for his answer was agony.
“Fine. I-I’m fine,” Jon said at last. His voice was coarse, raw, and low.
“You’re not fine,” she murmured, lying a hand on his back.
Jon shrugged off her touch.
“D-don’t.”
Sansa curled her hands to her chest.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, not turning his head.
“No. No, you didn’t hurt me.”
“You can go back to sleep. Don’t worry about me. I-I’ll be fine.”
Sansa stared at him, waiting for the fear to overtake her. The violence had come so easily; she should have been afraid. With any other man she might have been, but this was Jon. Even within the throes of his nightmare, he hadn’t hurt her. Jon had let her sleep beside him every night since they reclaimed Winterfell.
He had held her hand to keep her nightmares at bay.
But he had flinched when she tried to comfort him. He had fled to the opposite side of the room to keep himself from her. He told her to go back to sleep, to let him be, as though he had decided at some point since they had come back to Winterfell that Jon could save her, but he wouldn’t allow Sansa to save him.
“Let me help you.”
“It was just a nightmare.”
Sansa frowned. She had slept next to him for so long and she’d had no idea. Her hands were no longer clutched over her heart, but instead pressed to her stomach. How had she not known?
“Do you have them often?” she asked softly.
There was a long moment of silence. Jon seemed to hang his head even lower.
“Every night.”
“Every night?” she gasped. Jon winced.
“Doesn’t normally wake you.”
“You never said—”
“Not your burden.”
“Mine used to be filled with monsters in disguise. Before, in the Vale, I would dream of running to Winterfell, to Castle Black even, only to be either rejected or manipulated or used. By you, by Robb, or Bran. Senseless and silly, of course, but they would leave me petrified.”
Sansa had had other nightmares too, worse ones, from King’s Landing. Ones full of the violence of hungry men, angry men, the cruelty of princes and the brutality of knights. There were the other ones from the Eyrie too—of singers and great heights and unwanted kisses. Those nightmares had been worse, but she didn’t want to tell Jon about them. She didn’t want to invite them into Winterfell.
“Used to? What are they now?” Jon’s voice was still quiet and rough, his face still hidden. It wasn’t his fists he had pressed into the stone anymore, she noticed, but his palms.
“Lonely. Lonely and empty.”
Sansa’s nightmares were different now, after returning to Winterfell. Mayhaps it had been the thoughts that plagued her since their return that had shifted her dreams so. She knew that she would have to remarry, to produce heirs. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell, and she was the last of the known Starks. It was her responsibility to ensure that. In her dreams, she was searching the silent keep for a suitor, a husband. She begged for someone to dance with her, but there was no one. Winterfell was empty, save for ghosts. Sometimes, in the dream she would be in the crypts, dancing before the stone statues. She could never tell whose face she was before, who she danced for. Whenever she tried to look closely at the details, it was that moment that she would wake.
“You still have them?”
“Some nights,” she admitted. “Mayhaps that’s why holding your hand brings such comfort. If I’m holding your hand, I know that I’m not in my dream.”
Truthfully, it was most nights that she had some variation of the dream. Even while asleep, Sansa felt the isolation brought by the nightmare, deep and profound. It was only when she raised herself half into consciousness and she felt Jon’s hand in hers that she knew that she wasn’t alone. Winterfell wasn’t empty and her only suitors weren’t in the grave.
“What are your nightmares of, Jon?”
“Yours are haunting. Mine are all of blades and blood and screams. I don’t want me telling you of mine to replace yours. I’ll not be responsible for giving you new nightmares.”
“I’ll take them, if it would help you.”
Jon didn’t respond, nor did he recoil when she stepped forward. Slowly, she removed one of his hands from the wall, then the other. He kept his face turned away, even as she led him to the bed and sat beside him. This close, she saw the sweat on his brow, the tension in his body. Jon spared her a single glance, less than a second, before he squeezed his eyes shut again.
“I can’t allow you to do that.”
“Then I can’t allow you to permit me to sleep here every night.”
Jon’s eyes flashed to hers long enough for her to read the emotion in them. She had been expecting anger still, or mayhaps surprise at the steel in her voice. She did not expect fear.
“You’ll deny yourself comfort?”
“You are,” she challenged. Jon flinched again. It broke her heart, him pulling away. Jon had offered her half of his bed, his hand, every night for weeks, yet she had been completely ignorant of his suffering, right beside her.
“Unless…” she said slowly.
That might not be true, Sansa realized with a moment of sickening clarity. She found Jon to be a comfort, felt safe and home only with the skin of his palm against hers, but she didn’t know that Jon felt the same. She had said it herself—Jon permitted her to sleep beside him. She didn’t know that Jon sought the same sense of security in her presence.
When she didn’t continue, Jon’s eyes cut to hers. Sansa saw that while they were still ruby red, they were no longer feral.
“Unless you find me to be more of a nuisance than comfort,” she whispered.
Despite the stoic Stark face that Jon boasted, transparent pain and panic blazed in his eyes.
“No.” It was as wild and wrathful as his red eyes were. She saw his body still quivered. “No.”
“Then let me comfort you, Jon,” she whispered.
Jon turned his face away again. Beneath his beard, his jaw was clenched.
“Tell me how to comfort you.”
When Jon didn’t immediately answer, Sansa was sure he would refuse. If he did, would she still be able to sleep beside him? She knew he would never tell her to leave, but could she allow him to take her nightmares when he wouldn’t let her shoulder his? Could she share his bed when he was only allowing it out of some sense of duty?
Then Jon spoke.
“Hold me?”
His voice was quiet and broken, sounding younger and smaller than what belonged to the body of a man beside her. It was full of anguish and torment, alarm and terror.
Something fissured in Sansa at his voice, at those words. With gentle hands, she pulled Jon down beside her on the bed, fitting his body against hers. Jon began quaking as soon as her arms were around him and she felt gooseflesh rise on his bared skin as she traced soft patterns.
Sansa did not question if mayhaps she was holding her half-brother too close. Sansa did not wonder if the ghosts of her parents were looking down in revulsion as Jon Snow clung to her in bed.
Sansa did not care because holding Jon Snow felt more like home than the walls of Winterfell did.
How often had Jon wondered what it would be like to be held by Sansa? To sleep with more than just their hands touching? How many times had he pondered if her being closer would combat his nightmares?
How many nightmares had he had where he had hurt her? Scared her? Sent her running from him?
But he had woken her, had almost hurt her, and now he was in her arms.
The wolf within him that rose every time he was angry or afraid, that rose with every nightmare, retreated at last. With man more in control than beast, Jon thought he should pull away. To return to sleeping just holding hands, as they had been.
Jon couldn’t help, however, but savor in the tranquility that washed over him with every graze of her gentle fingertips.
Even as he trembled beneath Sansa’s touch, the humming Jon Snow felt beneath his skin finally quieted, as though that humming had been a cry for her touch that was finally sated.