Chapter Text
Sansa is seven when she decides she’s going to marry Jon Snow.
She tells him to his face the first time he comes over to the house. It’s a Friday after school; there’s a bunch of other boys with him, all of Robb’s other friends, but he’s the only new face among them.
“And we’re going to live in a pretty castle,” she lets him know, because his long, dark curly hair makes her think of the handsome princes in her favorite stories. So she's going to be a princess in a pretty castle with a tower, and he’s going to be the beautiful prince who loves her. They’re going to live happily ever after.
His cheeks go red in embarrassment. “Uh…”
“Sansa,” Robb, her older brother, groans as soon as he sees her. He’s just coming back into the living room after Mom called him.
She and Arya are supposed to either be in their playroom or respective bedrooms; they've been banned from the living room because Robb complained that they always steal his time with his friends when they come over. So mom put her foot down and said they have to respect Robb’s time with his friends.
“You're not supposed to be here. You can't keep making us play dress up or tea time. We want to do other stuff.”
She gives him a pout. Mom did tell her that, but she doesn't understand. She thought they liked it when they played with her. They always tell her she's the prettiest princess and that she makes the best tea in all of fairytale land.
“Oh no, you can't pull that face on me, it's not going to work. I'm not Dad.” She doesn’t move at all, just to prove it does work on him. It works on everyone. It takes a whole minute before he sighs. “Fine. I'll play with you later once they leave, okay? We'll do tea time and dress up. Just not now, okay?”
“I don't want to play with you,” she says with arms crossed. She wants to, really. Not even just dress up and teatime, but all the games, especially pretend games. Because her big brother is the best at playing the dragon who guards her tower, he lets her brush his hair and make him pretty, like Arya never wants to.
Not right now, though. Right now there’s something more important for her to do. She links her arms with her handsome prince and proclaims, “We’re getting married.”
Robb rolls his eyes. ”No, you're not. Leave my friends alone.”
“Yes, we are,” Sansa insists, turning to her groom. “Right?”
“Uhhh,” his gaze flickers from her, to Robb, to the other boys who are giving him mocking kissy looks, some of them even laughing. The worst of them is Theon, who’s always been the most annoying of them all. She feels tears starting to build in her eyes; she doesn’t understand why they’re making fun, and it’s making her sad.
When her prince sees this, he makes a face before saying, “Right. But let’s get married later. I promised my friends we’ll play. Is that okay?”
All the other boys laugh and tease him some more, but he just frowns at them and tells them to shut up.
All despair leaves her and she beams at him. He really is just like the princes in her favorite stories. “Okay,” she agrees easily. She has to get ready anyway, so she’ll be the prettiest when they wed.
“Great. Go back upstairs for now,” Robb says.
Before she does, she realizes something and asks her prince, “What’s your name?”
“Jon Snow,” he answers a bit shyly.
“I’m Sansa,” she replies even though he didn’t do the polite thing and ask. Mom says you should always do the polite thing.
“I… yeah, I know.”
She frowns at him. That's not right. “You should tell me my name is pretty.”
Again, his friends laugh, again he blushes, before mumbling, “Your name is pretty.”
Her smile returns and she’s just about to hug him for being the perfect prince when Robb grabs her arm and drags her away. “Okay, up you get,” Robb says, lightly pushing her towards the stairs. “I’ll bring him to you later, now leave us alone.”
***
They don’t get married later that day. Mom forces her and Arya to go on naptime, and Robb says she was asleep by the time they were done playing, and Jon’s mom came to pick him up.
She cries when she finds out, completely inconsolable. Not even Mom can coax her to stop. It’s Dad who finally manages, but only because he says something that makes Sansa frown.
“Oh, sweet…” Daddy puts a hand to his chest in surprise when he finds out why she’s been crying. “You’re too young for that, sweetheart.”
Sansa glares at him. “No, I'm not. True love comes to everyone with a pure heart.”
Dad chuckles softly, then he presses a kiss to her forehead. “Of course it does, my sweet girl, but if it’s True Love, then it can be patient. It can wait until you’re older and know more of the world.”
***
Sansa doesn’t wait. The next time Jon comes over, she drags him up to Rickon’s nursery to stand in front of the Hearttree painted on the wall there, and his friends and her siblings bear witness to their union.
Sansa doesn’t actually know the words they’re supposed to say; all her favorite stories breeze through this part to get to happily ever after. They just kneel in front of the tree, and Jon doesn't even need instruction to give her the Winterfell Direwolves jacket he’s wearing.
“There,” he says once they’re standing again, “We’re married. Can my friends and I go play now?”
“But you haven’t kissed me yet.”
At this, the boys make kissy sounds and some make vomiting sounds, which Sansa chooses to ignore. Instead, she leans up towards Jon, mouth puckered, but instead of her lips, he just kisses her on the forehead.
She frowns. “That’s not how a husband kisses a wife,” she whines, crossing her arms indignantly.
He laughs softly. “Well, that’s how it’s gotta be. My mom says I’m not allowed to kiss anyone that way until I’m thirty.”
She frowns. Sansa’s not great at math, but that sounds like a long time to wait for a real kiss. “But why?” she whines, stomping her feet.
He just shrugs. “I don’t know. But I’m sure there’s a good reason.”
She wants to argue against it, but they hear Rickon starting to make a fuss, so they all quietly sneak back out before Mom finds them there.
***
Eventually, Jon starts to come over more frequently than Robb’s other friends. Stays later, too. Most times, he stays over for dinner before his mom can get him.
The first time he does, she drags him to the front door as soon as she hears the jingling keys from outside.
“Daddy,” she greets when the door opens to reveal her father.
She moves forward to hug him, and he leans down to press a kiss to her cheek. “Hey, sweetheart,” he greets back, before his twinkling eyes turn on Jon, who instantly squirms at the attention. “Who’s this?”
Sansa steps back and grabs Jon’s hand again. “This is Jon, my husband.”
Her dad lets out a surprised huff of laughter. “Cat,” he turns behind Sansa as Mom approaches. “I thought I said our daughter is to stay unmarried until she’s of age?”
“It’s just pretend, sir,” Jon says quickly, eyes wide with panic.
“No, it’s not,” Sansa argues instantly, glaring at Jon. “We got married under the Hearttree, Jon. The old gods saw it, so it’s real.”
“But -”
“It’s not pretend, Jon,” she insists, stomping her feet. Why is he saying this all of a sudden? She pouts, frustrated, because he should be making promises to Dad that he’ll take care of her and that they’ll live happily in their castle.
Jon gives her a long look, then sighs. “Alright, fine, it’s real if you say so. Just don’t cry.”
Dad chuckles, and Jon looks frightened again, even when Dad moves to ruffle his hair. “So you’re the young man who stole my little girl’s heart.”
Jon swallows, hands stiff at his side. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Dad grins. “You promise to take good care of her, yes?”
“Yes, sir. I promise,” Jon confirms with a nod.
“Good man.”
Dad turns his attention to Mom then, shaking his head. “I curse whoever said I wouldn’t have to worry about this until she’s much older.”
Mom laughs softly, accepting a kiss of greeting from Dad. It makes Sansa smile, then she sighs with a sideways glance at Jon. “See, that’s how a husband and wife kiss.”
“I told you -”
“No kissing,” Dad says suddenly, a look of horror on his face. “Absolutely no kissing between the two of you.”
Jon nods quickly, back straightening. “Yes, sir.”
Sansa huffs. “Jon’s not allowed to kiss until he’s thirty, anyway.”
***
Sansa decides that Jon is the best husband ever, except when he’s the worst. Like today, when he refused to play with her because he wants to play the dumb new game Robb got. She cries to her mom about it, but mom just sighs and tells her to let the boys be.
The next time he comes over, he agrees to play dolls with her as promised. But only for an hour because he wants to play video games with Robb, too. She doesn’t mind it too much because Jon lets their dolls kiss like husband and wife, and she floats in the air, imagining it’s the two of them for the rest of the day.
**********
By the time Sansa is eight, pretty much everyone in Winterfell knows that Jon is her husband. All the older folks laugh in amusement and call them The Snows, and Jon’s mom even fondly calls Sansa her daughter-in-law. But Alys Karstark in Jon’s grade is a new student, and she’s sitting alone at the cafeteria, so she must not have made any friends yet and doesn’t know.
Sansa sits at her table with a friendly greeting, “Hi. You’re new, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I am,” the girl confirms with a nod.
“I’m Sansa,” she introduces. “You’re in Robb’s grade, aren’t you?”
“I don't know who that is.”
Sansa looks for her brother’s group in the cafeteria and finds them a few tables over. She points to Robb and says, “That's my brother, Robb. He’s nice. He’ll help you out if you need it. Next to him is Jon,” She turns to Alys with a toothy smile. “Doesn’t he look so handsome? He’s my husband.”
“Your what?” Alys laughs in surprise.
“My husband,” she repeats, then just to confirm it, she calls loudly, “Hey, husband, come over here.”
Several heads turn to her, loud as she is, but only Jon turns to her with a sigh before making his way over to their table.
“I’m not a dog,” he grouses as he sits next to her.
Sansa only beams, giving Alys a proud look. “See?”
She introduces them then, and Jon offers for Alys to join their group since she hasn’t started eating yet. Alys agrees, and Sansa thinks that’s mission accomplished and returns to her own friends.
**********
When Sansa is nine, she takes a relationship quiz she finds online and comes to the realization that she doesn’t know Jon that well. She makes him come over on Friday after school so he can answer all the questions she’s listed down for him.
“Number ten,” she reads off her notebook before turning to Jon. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Jon scrunches his nose. “I don’t know. Something that’s meaningful, I guess.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” he groans out this time. “But my mom says that every job is annoying, so I should probably pick one that at least means something. Like mom. She’s tired all the time, but at least she’s helping people get better.”
His mom is a nurse and she works at the hospital. She looks super tired every time she comes to pick Jon up at the house, and she barely has free time, which is why Jon’s over at theirs a lot. Sansa frowns. It’s the same as dad, who also never stops working. What’s the point of having a job that means something if you never have enough time with people you love?
“You should choose a job that’ll make us rich instead. That way we can just hang out all the time and do fun things,” Sansa decides, which makes Jon laugh.
Mom is drinking her coffee by the sofa. From the corner of Sansa’s eyes, she can see her trying to stifle a smile as she listens in.
“What do you want to do then? When we’re older?” Jon asks.
“I want to make pretty dresses,” she answers, writing down ‘be rich’ in the job section of her list of questions. “Next question, where are we going to live?”
Jon lets out a loud and long sigh, flopping further on the couch out of boredom. “Where do you want to live?”
**********
Sansa dares him to kiss her when she’s eleven. They’re at the Cerwyns for Cara Cerwyn's birthday. Well, Sansa is. Jon, Robb, and the other older boys are there because they’re friends with Cara’s older brother, Cley.
They’re not playing with them, either. But Sansa sees Jon head out of the bathroom and drags him to join their ongoing game of truth or dare, hoping the bottle would land on him on her turn.
With all her effort, it takes her three rounds to finally get the bottle to land on him. And the wide grin on her face makes his eyes narrow in suspicion as she says, “I dare you to kiss me.”
Everyone around them giggles and Jon just groans as if he knew that’s what she was going to say. “You didn’t even ask me to choose between truth or dare,” he complains.
“I chose for you as your wife. Now kiss me on the lips, I dare you,” she says with a mischievous glimmer in her eyes.
“That’s not how the game works.”
She rolls her eyes, holding onto his arm to pull him closer. “Come on, Jon, stop being a terrible husband.”
The group around them laughs, which they both ignore. She’s so used to that reaction by now that it barely registers; she only pouts at Jon and it makes him roll his eyes. Then, with a long-suffering sigh, he leans in and presses a kiss to her forehead.
She huffs, especially when he stands and says he’s going to go back to playing with his friends.
**********
Getting over Jon Snow happens so slowly that she doesn’t even realize it.
She stops being interested in spending time with him whenever he stays over, she stops referring to him as her husband (everyone in Winterfell already knows it, so there's no use), and she stops looking for him in every room she enters.
None of it was real, anyway, she thinks when the realization that she’s over him comes. She’s thirteen now, so she knows everyone was just playing pretend the whole time.
And, really, it’s a relief. Sansa can’t have her first kiss at twenty-eight. She’ll be ancient by then. At that age, she wants to be married, maybe with two kids and another on the way. She can’t be having a first anything at that point.
***
Loras Tyrell gives her a rose on Valentine's Day and she falls madly in love with him.
It’s her first real crush, she thinks.
Maybe she should count Jon as first, considering she proclaimed herself in love with him from the first moment she laid eyes on him. The problem is she doesn't remember; can’t recall the swooping sensation low in her belly, the heat on her cheeks every time he’d smile at her, the inability to look away from his beautiful face - she feels it all now with Loras.
He’s a new student, a transfer from Highgarden, and a year older than her - she thinks she’ll finally get her first kiss with him.
***
She doesn’t.
Jon beats her to a first kiss.
She learns this one Friday when she overhears the boys teasing him about it. Still, she waits to catch him alone before bringing it up.
“Jon Snow, what is this I hear about you breaking a promise to your mother?”
She catches him in the kitchen, hands occupied with four cans of cola, so his friends must’ve made him come down and grab them drinks.
Jon’s brows furrow. He wears his hair shorter these days, so she gets a full view of his adorable confusion. It makes her smile. “What are you talking about?”
“Your first kiss, fifteen years shy of thirty,” she teases, leaning over the counter. “Who was it?”
He groans. “Not you, too.” Then with narrowed eyes, he adds, “Don’t you dare tell my mom.”
She gives him a mischievous smile. Sansa’s crush on him may have already faded, but she still wants to know who finally got stubborn Jon Snow to kiss them. “Tell me who you kissed first so I can decide if I feel jealous enough to tell on you.”
He rolls his eyes, then sighs because he knows she won’t leave him alone until he gives her a name. “It was Dacey.”
Sansa gasps, somewhat impressed. “You’re dating Dacey Mormont?”
“No. We just did seven minutes in heaven,” he explains, his cheeks turning rosy. “Now promise. I don’t need my mom to give me another sex talk.”
She wrinkles her nose at that. Mom’s given her that talk, too, because she’s apparently at an age where she might get curious, and Mom doesn’t want her doing anything she isn’t actually ready for. It was a mortifying conversation.
“Fine, I won’t tell,” she promises, then scoffs, “But I am offended you’d kiss her when you refuse to kiss your wife.”
Jon laughs, shaking his head as he starts to leave. It’s so hard to get him to laugh that she’s grinning proudly as she follows behind.
**********
Jon’s mom gets sick. It’s bad enough that he would stay at their house for weeks at a time.
He has an uncle who comes by every once in a while to help out, but the man has his own family in Torrhen’s Square, so Mom and Dad volunteer to watch Jon whenever his mom has to stay at the hospital.
Sansa’s fourteen, she’s not a baby that wouldn’t understand the meaning behind the looks she sees between the adults in her life, so she knows it’s gotten really bad when her parents set a weekend for the family to visit Aunt Lya at the hospital.
When they get there, Arya runs to hug her like a heathen, which makes Mom hiss her name even though Aunt Lya only laughs as she lifts her arms around Arya. Robb approaches Jon, who sits by his mom’s bedside with puffy eyes.
“Is that my beautiful daughter-in-law?” Aunt Lyanna asks next, her voice rough as she speaks. Her toothy smile is also a huge contrast to how gaunt she looks. Sansa tries to return her smile, but all it does is make her want to cry.
Sansa’s known her for years, by now it feels like she’s known her forever. She used to complain to her about Jon whenever he was being annoying, and they would talk about how clueless boys are. Their families have celebrated several holidays together, and they even once went on vacation to White Harbor together. Before she got sick, she would take Sansa to the cinema when there were good romance movies showing because they both love it and Mom thinks those types of films are terrible.
Aunt Lya is family. Maybe not a mother-in-law, but practically another mother figure in her life.
“Oh, my darling, come give me a hug,” Aunt Lya requests with a knowing look.
Sansa nearly runs to her, but she keeps to a normal pace until she reaches Aunt Lya and sinks into her arms.
It feels a lot like goodbye.
***
Sansa discovers that she’s right only three days later when Mom sits the family down and tells them that Aunt Lya passed away.
***
Jon refuses to come out of his room on the day of his mother’s funeral.
Sansa and her family came early to help with the preparations. From what she understands, Aunt Lya already took care of all the funeral arrangements, so Mom and Dad mostly help Jon’s uncle with ushering the attendees since he doesn’t know many people in Winterfell.
Robb comes down from the second floor of Jon’s house with a weary sigh. “He still won’t come down.”
Dad was the first to try, then Mom. Arya goes next, though she comes back down with an angry expression on her face. Still no Jon.
Sansa decides to try next.
“San, he's really not the nicest right now,” Robb warns, mostly because Arya seems like she's about to cry after talking to Jon, and Sansa’s the crier between the two sisters.
“I don't care,” she decides. Jon’s always had his mom. Now he doesn’t. He’s allowed to be the worst person to her if he wants to be. "I wouldn't be the nicest either if I were in his shoes.”
Sansa braves it and she’s not surprised when he rolls his eyes at the sight of her and the first thing out of his mouth is, “Go away.”
It’s not as mean as she was expecting. It sounds more tired than anything, she assumes he’s tired of warding people off. Still, it’s strange to hear him talk that way when Jon’s never been that angry when talking to her.
She walks further into the room, shutting the door behind her. Then she goes to sit by him on the floor, leaning back against the side of his bed.
He maintains a glare at her. “I don't want to come down. Are none of you going to leave me alone?”
“We could but why should we?”
“Because I don't need any of you,” he says harshly. “I don’t need anyone.”
The thing is, he didn’t lock his door. Not after dad came up to talk to him, not even after Arya. Maybe he doesn’t need it, but Sansa thinks he wants to have someone with him, even just someone to be angry at.
“That doesn't mean we can’t still be there for you,” she decides to say.
He huffs, turning his glare back to the ceiling. He doesn't try talking anymore and neither does she, at least not for a long while.
She can’t help it, though, not when he keeps letting out shaky breaths and it’s clear he’s trying not to cry. She doesn’t think he’s cried since his mom died, just switched off every other emotion other than anger.
Quietly, she says, “I’m so sorry, Jon.”
He doesn’t respond, and she follows it up with, “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. But I think you should.” He scoffs, glaring even harder at his ceiling. “I think you should be with her one last time. I think it’ll just make you sadder if you stay here instead.”
“Stop,” he warns, voice cracking. “Just leave me alone, Sansa.”
Again, she does the opposite and moves to hug him. He stiffens, but it doesn’t take any time at all before he collapses against her, head dropping to her shoulder as he begins to sob.
“I can’t go,” he cries out, voice hoarse. “I don’t want to see her like that.”
“I know you don’t,” she says.
She doesn’t think she’d ever want to see her parents like that, either. Just a body in a box. Lifeless. And Aunt Lya was always so lively; her laughter contagious, her smile lighting up every room. It’s strange to know they’ll all spend the rest of their lives without that, it must be infinitely worse for Jon. She wraps her arms tighter around him; she feels so bad that he has to go through this, that he’ll have to spend the rest of his life without his mom from now on.
She feels her own tears start to fall, sniffling quietly. They stay like that for a long while, with Jon crying quietly on her shoulder.
After some time, there’s a soft knock on the door. She looks up to find her mom there, “We’ll be leaving in a few minutes,” she says quietly.
Sansa nods, pulling away from Jon. She sees the panic of indecision on his face, clearly not sure what he wants to do. She decides for him, pressing a kiss to his forehead then grabbing his hand before rising from the floor.
He won’t meet her eyes, but he does let her lead him out of his room and down the stairs. She shakes her head when Robb opens his mouth to say something, clearly relieved that Jon’s out of his room, and they all just let Jon have his silence as they leave the house, his hand tight in hers.