Sansa's Confession
“The only prayer I know is you.”
Sansa caught her breath stunned by the pounding in her heart. Somehow this was what she longed to hear. She had wanted words like this all her life from someone who would love her without need for alliances or politics. Without hesitation over her past. Someone who would love her regardless of everything that had shamed her. And she was hearing these words from her half brother. Wish that the gods would strike her dead now, so she would have at least one moment of happiness, since they rode away from Winterfell, so long ago.
In the cold and snow today, she remembered watching Jon walk down the steps at Castle Black and she thought, Never… never has anyone come to me with open arms. Never was I willing to run into those arms and be held forever until now. Would that he could hold me and the past disappear, if I closed my eyes and heard only his breath. Please, don't let me go. Jon, don't ever let me go. At that moment with the snow falling around us, I knew that winter would arrive soon. I knew that if there was anyone in this world I should trust, that I could give my soul to, what little I still had left, it would be Jon. I didn't know how to say it then. Words fail me still. My brother, my brother, only half my blood. Blood of my father, blood of the Kings of Winter. Even as children, I knew there was good in him, no matter what they said about bastards. I was so young. He was never mine. Jon belonged to Robb and Arya. Now the man I see beside me, the man who made me Lady of Winterfell, the man who is King in the North; he is a true Stark. Does the last name even matter? How many have I had? Stark, Lannister, Bolton, and Stark again. Imagine the cycle of the moon, it begins and ends repeating the same over and over. He is as true a man as I could ever wish for, to stand beside me. There is no one who could rule the North save Jon. I don't know how to tell him that I am proud to stand beside him as Lady of Winterfell. If this is wrong, by the gods, perhaps it is true we have lived beyond the gods. Perhaps, it is my wishful thinking. Every time our eyes meet, he holds my gaze trying to tell me what is in his heart. I know he cannot because he feels the same. Do we both want what we should not have? There are no other Starks. Rickon is dead. Our baby brother, I can remember Jon bouncing him on his knee. All I wish, with all my tears, is that one day I will hear laughter again in Winterfell. A child's laughter in the solar and I will turn to see Jon bouncing our own son on his knee.
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