Chapter Text
Sansa finds herself nervous as she waits for Willas to join her. She had to talk herself out of changing her dress three separate times. They are going to sit in the same room and engage in their own pursuits. She doesn’t need to wear an elaborate gown for the occasion. Still, as her attention is called away from her book for the sixth time, she wonders if perhaps the dress she is wearing is too plain.
She stands, sets her book on the table next to the chair she had been sitting in and crosses to the other side of the room. Her legs itch with unexpelled energy. Her shoulders shake and there is a faint tremble in her hands.
She is being ridiculous again. She is going to spend the evening with her husband. She did not find herself in such a state when she was brough to the sept to witness her father’s execution. Of course, she did not intend for herself to live past that day. Is that the difference? She was composed in the face of an ending, but this is a beginning.
No, it is a potential beginning.
She has her entire life to look toward, and the gods seem to intend it to be a long one. It means she is invested in it being a pleasant one. Tonight will determine whether she and her husband will work together toward mutual happiness or if they will continue to be estranged and grow bitter as the years pass.
“Lady Sansa?”
Sansa whirls toward the sound. In her state, she hadn’t noticed the door open nor her husband’s entrance. He is here, alone, no Prince Oberyn at his side, no squire shadowing his heels. He remains near the door, as if he’s once again worried he is intruding.
“Forgive me,” Sansa says. “My mind was elsewhere. You have had a pleasant day?” She isn’t sure what the protocol is here. She invited him for a quiet evening. Should they go immediately to their own pursuits? Should she make quiet conversation first? She bunches the fabric of her dress in her hands before she realizes what she’s doing and smooths the fabric out again.
“My day was fine,” Willas tells her. He stays where he is, but his gaze is as sharp as that of the falcons he raises. “And yours, my lady? You seem upset.”
“I am—” Sansa’s polite fictions and clever obfuscations die in her mouth. She knows how to deflect attention, how to deftly redirect a conversation, but those are court tricks. She has no need of them here. Isn’t the entire point of this enterprise to build trust and familiarity with her husband? It means she must be honest, as frightening as that prospect is. Sansa smooths out her skirts again. “I am nervous,” she admits.
“You—” Willas seems to need a moment to digest this information. “Nervous, my lady?”
“I have not been a very good wife,” Sansa tells him. “I would like to be. I am nervous you will rebuff my efforts, or that I have behaved so intolerably there is no coming back from it.”
Willas crosses the room to where she stands. He cannot move quickly, and so she has plenty of time and warning to move, but she doesn’t. She remains where she is, and she allows Willas to take her hand. He rubs his thumb over the back of it. “You have had a difficult time, and I do not blame you for your reluctance to entwine yourself with my family or your hesitation to be open and trusting with me.”
“I—” Sansa doesn’t understand why the truth sticks to her tongue, as if it’s reluctant to be spoken. “You caught me off guard when you told me you wanted to wait for children, because I was raised to believe that my primary purpose in marriage would be to give my husband heirs. And I do agree with you, that it is safer to wait, but when I was engaged to Joffrey, Queen Cersei told me not to waste love on my husband, to give it all to my children instead. I am already so alone here in King’s Landing, and the thought of having to wait years before having a child to hold…”
Sansa trails off. She feels the familiar burn of tears, but she doesn’t fight them this time. She allows them to well in her eyes and then spill over. She is glad when Willas doesn’t speak, as if he knows she still has more to say.
“I have you,” Sansa says softly. She takes a handkerchief from her pocket and dabs at her eyes. “I do not have to be alone. And if we spend two years living separately, then we will be strangers when we have and raise our first child, and I do not want that. I want to use this time to learn you, to know you.”
Now, her silence is because she has finished. Willas leans his weight onto his good leg so that he can let go of his cane and wipe the fresh tears from her cheeks. He is so gentle with her, so tender, it brings more tears to her eyes. She tries to stop, because she knows men do not like weepy, hysterical women.
“I will not rebuff any efforts you wish to make,” Willas tells her. He cradles her face in his palm, and he does not have the large hand of a Northerner or the callouses of a knight, but she feels safe and protected all the same. “I will even meet and match them with my own. I have been reluctant to pressure you, because I know you have had a difficult time. I don’t want you to think my reluctance is a sign of displeasure with you.”
Sansa nods. His words don’t quite pierce through her nerves. Trust is not an instant process, but she feels more at ease than she had before. This is a good first step. And with each evening they spend together, they will take another and another, until perhaps, one day, they will have found love within their duty to each other.
“You said you wanted to read this evening?” Willas prompts.
“Yes,” Sansa answers, even though she doesn’t think she’ll be able to concentrate particularly well. “Do you have something to occupy yourself with?”
“I have a whole collection of books I brought with me,” Willas tells her. He drops the hand from her face, and Sansa doesn’t think it’s only her longing that made it seem as though he was reluctant to do so. He re-grips the cane he rested against his leg and goes to fetch a book of his own.
Sansa settles herself back in her chair and opens her book again. If Willas is such a voracious reader, perhaps she will embroider a set of bookmarks for him. Ones with roses on the border, of course, but perhaps hounds or falcons or even horses in the central position. Or, if he has particular favorites, she could embroider a scene or even a popular line from the book.
As she suspected, she doesn’t make much progress in her own book, too busy thinking of all the things she’s learned about her husband so far and how many there are still left for her to discover.
#
On the second evening they pass in each other’s company, Sansa spends more time reading. On the third, she even ventures a question or two about the more personal history of the place Willas grew up. It leads to Willas telling her about his childhood, and she finds herself eagerly listening to his stories.
It means that on the fourth night, Willas is waiting for her in the solar, an almost boyish excitement on his face as he ushers her to the large desk in the corner. There are enough candles to light the large scroll he has opened and held at the corners with ornately carved paper weights.
It only takes her a moment to realize what she’s looking at. “Your family history,” she says, trailing her fingers over names.
Willas pulls a second chair closer and sits beside her. “You have told me a secret of your family. I’m going to tell you one of mine. It’s not quite as secret, but it still isn’t common knowledge.” He taps Olenna Redwyne’s name.
Sansa leans forward, curious about the Tyrell matriarch. She knows Lady Olenna married into the family but also, that she is the one who makes decisions, even if Lord Mace continuously attempts to make his own moves and plays.
“Her father had a Targaryen picked for her to marry, but she didn’t want him,” Willas says. With their heads bent so closely together, his voice is quiet, and it makes the moment feel more intimate than it is. “It was her sister who was betrothed to Luthor Tyrell, but grandmother pretended she was lost and ended up in his room and seduced him.”
Sansa’s mouth falls open in a most unladylike manner. “She what?”
Willas laughs and nods, as if he knows Sansa doesn’t need him to repeat what he said, only confirm it. “She saw a better future for herself with Lord Luthor of Highgarden, and she ensured she would have it.”
“Her own sister’s betrothed?”
“Grandmother has always been ambitious,” Willas says, with no lack of fondness in his tone. “But not always in the way people assume. She could have married a Targaryen and been positioned close to the throne. Certainly closer than she would be by marrying Luthor Tyrell. She wanted happiness, and she knew she wouldn’t find it with her intended. Hearing her talk now, you’d think nothing has ever pleased her in her life, but I know she loves me and my siblings. And for all her scheming and positioning, she wants us to be happy.”
Willas’s finger touches Margaery’s name, and he taps it once. “Margaery will not marry Joffrey,” Willas says, his voice barely more than a whisper now. “If Grandmother could manage it, she’d marry Margaery to Stannis and support his bid, but he’s married and despises our entire family. This—this game of thrones, she will withdraw before it threatens our family.”
“The throne is not her ultimate ambition?” Sansa asks, her voice equally quiet.
“She would not turn it down.” Willas laughs softly, and his breath is warm against Sansa’s cheek. “But she would not ruin us in pursuit of it.”
Sansa turns to her husband. Their faces are scant inches apart, and it feels as though it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to press her lips to his. His lips part on a gasp, surprised perchance, but he kisses her in return. He slides a hand into her hair, and she’s grateful for the connection when he breaks the kiss.
For a moment, she’s afraid she’s overstepped, that he’s pulling away, but he has a hand in her hair, and he drops a quick, second kiss, on her lips before he eases back again. It is not a rejection, which eases her worry.
“I could kiss you all night,” Willas tells her. He uses the hand in her hair to tip her head back, and he kisses her again, but her jaw this time. Then just beneath it, then a trail of kisses down her neck. When he finds her lips again, she is eager to kiss him in return. It is her turn to kiss him and pull back, only to lean forward again, peppering a dozen kisses against his lips.
She smiles in the middle of it, unable to contain her joy, and when she feels Willas’s lips curve against her own, she can’t help but laugh. His laughter joins hers, and he rests his forehead against hers.
“You are very kissable, my lord,” Sansa tells him. She ghosts her lips over his cheek to prove her point.
“Willas,” he tells her. “If you would.”
“Willas,” she says, sighs more like. “And you will call me Sansa?”
“If it pleases my lady wife to be called by her name, then I shall,” Willas says, all gallantry and manners.
“I like Sansa and wife equally well,” Sansa admits. She’s sure her cheeks are scarlet by now, but Willas shows no signs of noticing.
“Then I shall refer to you as both,” Willas tells her. He brings one of her hands to his lips for a playful kiss.
She giggles and ducks her head until her hair falls forward and shields her from view. Willas pulls her hair back enough to kiss her cheek before he redirects their attention back to the family history. “Would you like to guess which cousins and other relatives you’ve met so far?”
Sansa finds Elinor Tyrell with ease. Megga and Alla are easy to find as well. She isn’t sure if it’s cheating, but she points to Garlan and Margaery. He helps her put names to some of the faces she’s seen, and they pass a pleasant evening studying his family.
When they part for their separate bedchambers, Sansa hesitates, unsure if she should offer to go with him to his.
“Not until you’re absolutely sure,” he tells her. He kisses her forehead, a gentle touch, one without any other expectations tied to it.
She goes to her room and even though she intends to sleep, she feels as if she stays up half the night thinking about Willas’s lips on hers.
#
Their evenings together become such a routine that when Willas doesn’t arrive at their usual time, Sansa grows concerned. She dismisses it at first, telling herself he is only running late and then, after more time goes by, that he had an evening appointment with Prince Oberyn or even his brother, Lord Garlan, and forgot to mention it to her.
By the time she’s wondering if she should be properly worried and send someone to find him, her husband returns to her. He limps into the room, leaning heavily on his cane. There is a gray pallor to his skin that she mislikes, and she hurries forward to offer him her arm to lean on.
“What happened?” she asks.
Willas shakes his head. Alyn, Elinor’s betrothed, along with Willas’s manservant, Varion, enter the room as well, and they replace both Sansa and Willas’s cane, almost carrying Willas through the solar and into his bedchamber.
Sansa isn’t sure if she is supposed to follow, but she worries at what’s happened, and so she takes Willas’s cane from where it fell to the floor and brings it to his room. Between servant and squire, Willas is stripped down to his small clothes and then eased onto the bed. Sansa fetches a blanket to wrap around Willas’s shoulders, so he won’t grow chilled and then she locates a bowl of water and a cloth, so she can wipe the sweat from his skin.
“You don’t need to fuss,” Willas tells her. She notes he doesn’t bother saying anything to Alyn or Varion, who both are attending to his leg. “It was simple overexertion.”
“I see,” Sansa says, noncommittal. She dabs at his forehead and then his neck. She has never seen Willas in this state before. He does not have such pride that he’d push himself past his limits. She’s curious what happened, but she senses he won’t speak of it with others present.
She watches as Alyn produces a salve that he rubs into Willas’s thigh before he begins kneading the muscle with his hands. Varion does the same except with Willas’s calf. She remembers him telling her that it is the surrounding muscles which lock up and give him pain, not the knee itself.
Willas grunts and grimaces at the treatment as if it is painful. Sansa is familiar with men rubbing out sore muscles. It was a common sight at Winterfell after the men and boys worked hard in the training yards. There is nothing she can do to ease the process, but she sits at Willas’s side and offers her presence.
When Alyn and Varion leave, with a murmured thank you from Willas, her husband looks exhausted. She helps him ease from a sitting position to be lying down in his bed. She remains sitting against the headboard, and she cards her fingers through his sweaty locks.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Queen Cersei wanted to update me on the state of the Stormlands,” Willas answers. “She insisted we walk through the gardens as we spoke. It’s rather more exercise than I normally get.”
“She did it on purpose,” Sansa says.
“Undoubtedly. Stannis and Renly continue to solidify their own bases of support. Word has it that they are attempting to negotiate with each other in order to present a united front. Cersei wanted my opinion on whether either brother would fold to the other. And then she spent nearly an hour updating me on her father’s own troop movements in the West.”
“Will there be war, do you think?”
“Tywin Lannister will defend his grandson’s throne,” Willas says. “Eventually, I assume Stannis or Renly will march on King’s Landing, but I could not predict when or what numbers they will have behind them.”
“If they found peace between them, Renly could lead an army while Stannis led a navy,” Sansa says.
“I’m sure Tywin Lannister knows the same and is sowing dissent in the Stormlands as we speak.” Willas’s smile is closer to a grimace as he shifts positions. “He has already called for the Reach to support the Crown. I suspect he has sent similar missives to the Riverlands and the Vale.”
“Do you suppose the Riverlands and the Vale will answer?” Sansa knows the North will not. Has Robb reached out to his family at Riverrun and the Eyrie to caution them again becoming involved? She supposes it depends on whether Robb sent Jon to Dorne in search of backing for a crown or not. Does Jon know what the true purpose of his journey is?
“They will answer enough to avoid accusations of rebellion and treason, but they will not throw their full strength into the mix.”
“What about the Reach?”
Willas’s smile is a little less pained. “We are fortifying our borders with the Stormlands in preparation for fighting to break out. Some Tyrell soldiers are being transferred to King’s Landing to protect King Joffrey’s betrothed, but most of our men remain in the Reach in case Dorne decides to attack while we’re vulnerable.”
So, like the Riverlands and the Vale, they are making enough of an effort to avoid punishment, but they are not truly supporting the Crown.
“What of Dorne?” Sansa asks.
“Dorne does what it likes.” Willas laughs and rubs at his thigh as if his leg still pains him. “Tywin Lannister knows better than to demand assistance from them, and the Crown would receive only a slightly less hostile response if they tried. If it wasn’t Baratheon armies rising up, Dorne might even have allied with them. The Martells blame Robert Baratheon and Tywin Lannister for what happened to Princess Elia and her children.”
“Will Oberyn be in danger here, then?”
“Danger or no, he will stay precisely as long as he intends to,” Willas answers. He shifts again before settling against his pillows. “Alyn gave me some milk of the poppy before he left. I’ll be asleep soon. You don’t need to stay.”
“And if I wish to?” Sansa asks. She knows Willas is in no mood to engage in anything with her tonight, but in some ways it makes it easier to offer to share his bed. There will be nothing expected except for them each to sleep.
“Sansa.” Willas loses the rest of his protest on a yawn. He covers his mouth, but when it’s over, his eyes have drooped to half-mast.
“Wife,” she reminds him. She bends down to kiss his forehead. “I would sleep by your side tonight, unless you’d rather I leave.”
“I would have you at my side this day and until the end of my days,” Willas says, an echo of the vows they made in the sept for their wedding.
She knows he is near delirious with pain and exhaustion and medication, but she still smiles at the sentiment. Because she has taken to spending evenings with Willas, she is wearing a simple dress that she can take off on her own. She drapes it over the back of a chair and then joins him in his bed, wearing only her shift.
Willas is already asleep, and so she leans over him to blow out the candle on the nightstand. She rests a hand on his chest and allows the gentle rise and fall to lull her to sleep.
#
Sansa wakes when Willas first stirs. From the dim light coming through the windows, she suspects it’s earlier than she normally wakes, but it’s worth it for the expression on Willas’s face.
“Sansa?” he asks, hesitant, unsure, reaching for her as if he thinks she’s a lingering dream.
“Willas,” she answers sweetly and presses her face into his palm.
The confusion melts away as he’s met with her solid form, and it’s replaced by a look of wonder and joy. She shifts closer to him and props herself up on her side so she can look her fill. He’s still only in his smalls and so, with the blanket around their waists, his entire chest is bare. She dips her head down to kiss his shoulder.
“Are you feeling better this morning?” she asks. She can feel the way his body tenses, and that is answer enough. “A hot bath, then? And then once the muscles are warm and loose, Alyn can repeat his treatment?”
“That will help,” Willas says after a pause.
“What about a kiss from your wife?”
Willas’s eyes crinkle as he smiles, and he guides her forward with a hand on the small of her back. He meets her lips with his, and their kiss is as slow and languorous as the early morning. Willas kisses her, parts her lips with his tongue and thoroughly claims her, before he urges her even closer, until she slides her body over his.
Careful of his injured leg, she straddles him, her knees on either side of body. When she leans in to kiss him again, her hair falls around them, a wall to hide them from the rest of the world. She braces her hands on his shoulders, but she slides her hands down to touch more of his chest, greedy for all the skin exposed to her.
He keeps a hand threaded through her hair to hold her close, as if she wants to be anywhere but here, poised above her husband and kissing him in his bed. His other hand rests on her hip, burning hot even through her shift. She doesn’t realize he’s encouraging her to move until she realizes she’s rocking gently against him.
It’s a lazy kind of heat that’s growing inside her, one that lacks any kind of urgency. It’s so very different from their wedding night, and she wonders if that is the difference between coupling at night and in the morning. She wonders what afternoon coupling would be like then. A mix of the two? Something entirely different?
She has just found the right angle to rub against the hard line of his cock when the door to Willas’s chambers opens and then a very embarrassed Alyn shouts, “I’m sorry, my lord!”
Willas groans quietly, barely loudly enough for Sansa to hear, before he says, “It’s quite alright, Alyn. Is Varion with you?”
Sansa shifts so she is sitting beside Willas instead of perched on top of him. She wants to duck under the blankets like a child, but she is a lady now, a wife, and it wouldn’t be proper.
“Here, my lord,” Varion says.
“I’d like to start my morning with a hot bath,” Willas says. “And will you let Lady Sansa’s maids know to come to my chambers to find her?”
“Yes, my lord,” Varion says and there’s something almost pleased about his tone, as if he’s happy for Willas.
“We could delay the bath?” Alyn offers, even though Varion has already left to carry out Willas’s requests.
“Alyn.” Willas grabs the dressing gown from the hook beside his bed and awkwardly wraps himself in it, so he isn’t quite so exposed. “You know every time you are alone with your wife or your betrothed you don’t have to,” Willas pauses for a moment, as if searching for the right word, “uh, finish, don’t you?”
“Well, not inside her,” Alyn says. “Not until we’re married.”
“Certainly not until you’re married,” Willas says with a bite that reminds Sansa Alyn is betrothed to one of the many Tyrell cousins here. Elinor, who is a pleasant enough girl. “But even then, it doesn’t have to happen every time. You can simply enjoy someone’s company.” He makes a frustrated sound and waves a hand as if to dismiss the entire conversation. “Ask Ser Maryvn, he can explain it better. And I suppose I should ask someone to talk to Elinor as well.”
“There’s no need,” Alyn says quickly, his words tumbling out in a rush. “I know she’s my betrothed, but that isn’t quite wife. I would never dishonor her.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” Willas says and though his tone and his words are light, Sansa thinks there is a threat in there as well. If the way Alyn gulps loudly and nods, she thinks he hears it too. “But there are things you can do, things that if done properly will be enjoyable for both of you.”
“I would be happy to talk to Elinor,” Sansa offers, because she and Elinor are not quite so far apart in years. And while she doesn’t know everything a man and a woman can do together, she knows some things, and she thinks it’s equally important to have someone to talk to as it is to actually speak to them.
“Oh, um,” Alyn’s mumbling is interrupted by the arrival of Sansa’s maids, and he looks positively relieved when Sansa is ushered out of the room in order to prepare for her own morning.
She glances over her should once, and smiles when she catches Willas looking at her. The smile he gives her is so gentle, so tender, she wishes she could throw herself into his arms and kiss him again. Instead, she gives him a smile and glides out of the room.