it's a planless fic!

Oh my god, this was so great! Thank you!

Pod’s staring at his phone and he almost walks straight into Myranda as he is coming out of the bathroom.  “Woah.  Sorry,” he says, his phone slipping out of his hand and...and of course it lands in her cleavage.  Myranda’s shorter than he is, and very curvy, and his hand twitches while he waits for her to hand the phone back to him.

“Sorry.  Didn’t see you. Thanks,” he says, and he makes to move around her, but Myranda grabs him by the arm.

“Whatever it is you’re doing, stop it now.”

Pod blinks.  He doesn’t even know how to respond to that.  “What do you mean?  What I’m--”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”  Her voice is hard.

“I don’t--is this about yesterday, because if so, I already--”

“It’s not about yesterday.  You know it.”  Her voice drips with derision, and Pod remembers Mya saying She’s all smiles and laughs but don’t cross her.  She’s brutal. 

“Then I don’t--”

“You’re spending time with her, and you should know better than to do that.  She’s taken.”

Pod freezes, his head whirling.  She doesn’t know, beats out Is she saying... by just a second.  “We’re friends, Myranda.  I know she’s dating Harry.”

“Do you?  Because  you’re spending a lot of time with her.”

“Friends spend time together.”

“Oh please.”

“And guys and girls can be just friends.”

“You’re lying in wait, you prick.”

“I am not,” Pod insists, his voice squeaking.  He’s not.  He can’t be.

“I don’t believe you.  And you had better keep your distance.  I don’t want you all up in her mind and all over her fucking album.”

“All over her album?”  But Myranda’s let go of him and has already flounced off, determined to have had the last word. 

All over her album?  He remembers Alayne humming, her fingers drumming against the table during lunch, a quiet smile on her face.  I’ve got a new song in mind, she’d told him.

Alayne doesn’t fucking call him, and he can’t say he gives a shit.  It was about me, you know?  “Don’t Need It.”  It was about me.  Her bumbling fucking moron friend Pod didn’t seem like such a bumbling moron while she’d been in the bathroom.  His face had gotten hard and what was Harry supposed to do if not throw a punch at him? 

Alayne doesn’t call him.  Maybe she’s still at the precinct.  He’s not sure he cares.  He moves up his flight so that he’s leaving for London tomorrow.  He’ll go back home and lick his wounds.  Anya’s already trying to keep the fight off the gossip blogs, but he doubts that’ll happen.  He knows that they eat this shit up. 

“Daddy?” Alys says when he calls her from the airport.

“Coming home soon sweetheart,” he tells her.  It only makes him angrier.  Alys was only starting to feel comfortable around Alayne, and now she’s not even fucking calling.  People call him a bad dad, but whatever.  Fuck them.  It’s not his fault his girlfriend doesn’t give a shit.  If this is it, what’s he supposed to tell Alys?

He stews on the plane.  He downs a sleeping pill and some champagne and before he knows it, he’s in Heathrow and Alayne’s halfway around the fucking world.  And she got mad when I didn’t text her.  Fuck her.  Fuck her hypocrisy.

When he turns his phone off airplane mode, it’s been three days since the fight and there’s a text from Myranda Royce.  He opens it, half-expecting her to make some excuse for Alayne.  He’s never understood their friendship, but he’s angry enough that he’d assume Alayne might ask Myranda to do that.  Alayne hates taking responsibility for shit.  She’s horrible at it. 

Have you heard?

Heard what?

There’s a bubble that pops up with three little dots and Harry stares at the screen.  What’s she typing?  He doesn’t know.  What’s taking her so long. 

Part of him wonders if something happened to Alayne.

It’s a mess

That didn’t take almost a minute of typing to saay, and Harry almost shoves the phone in his pocket but he doesn’t because there are three more dots.  Myranda’s typing again.

She’s at the center of this abducted child case that’s been cold.  I don’t have more details than that.  But it looks like it was a fake identity the whole time.  Alayne Stone doesn’t exist.  She’s someone else.

Harry stares at his phone.  How many times had people on twitter called her fake? 

He switches the phone conversation to the last text he’d sent Alayne before they’d gone out four nights before.  In a cab on my way.

His fingers hover over the screen for just a moment.  What does he even say? 

You’re not Alayne?

Her computer makes a noise at her and she switches to her gmail. 

“What the fuck’s this?” she asks Hot Pie.

“Just read it,” he says.

She clicks the link which takes her to Buzzfeed.  You won’t believe this conspiracy theory about Alayne Stone.

“I don’t even listen to Alayne Stone,” she says.  That’s Bran who does.

“Just read it, ok?” Hot Pie says, and Arya scrolls down, and reads aloud,

“There’s some people on Youtube who think that Alayne Stone is Sansa Stark, a high-profile missing person’s case that’s over a decade old.”  Arya snorts.  “Jesus Christ, youtube conspiracy theories.”

The Buzzfeed author has placed a picture of smiling Sansa next to a tumblr gif of Alayne smiling in one of her music videos.  She does look kind of like some old photographs of mom, Arya thinks, But her eyes are the wrong color.  No one in her family has green eyes.  Not even close.  Grey and blue, but not green.

“Someone needs to get their head checked, I think,” she says, and copies the link out of her gchat and texts it to Bran.

A few minutes later, her phone buzzes.  Bran shouldn’t be awake, she thinks, but he’s only barely replied.  :-P  God, if only.

Then she comes in with no hair and Pod can’t help it.  He knows he’s not supposed to talk to her--it’s for the best.  Keep distance while Brienne sorts out some more details with her, keep his head down and his contact with the case through reports.  But she comes in with a headscarf to cover her scalp and sunglasses to hide her face and Pod grabs her arm.

“Sansa,” he breathes.  “Did you...did you cut your own...”

She nods from behind the huge black sunglasses.  “Last night.”

Her voice is dry, but surprisingly light.  Smooth.  She knows how to pretend.  It’s a thought that’s chilling.

“Sansa,” he says again, and he reaches up and pulls the sunglasses off her face.  She doesn’t stop him.  Her eyes are red--bloodshot.  She didn’t sleep.  She’d been crying.  Her hair is gone.

Pod glances at Brienne who is pretending not to be watching closely, and Sandor who isn’t pretending, then he takes Sansa’s hand and leads her into the  lounge.  It’s empty, thank god.

“You’re not fine,” he says, thinking quickly.  “That’s more than understandable.  I’d be the same, I’m sure.”

“Would you?” Her head is cocked and she’s watching him.  “How would you know.  Have you lived a lie for the last ten years?  By my count it’s only been a few months.”

It stings.  She sounds like Sandor. 

“Have you slept?”

“No.  I can’t.”

“Have you taken any sleeping pills?”

“It’s all I can do not to swallow a bottle of them.”

Pod looks at her, alarmed, his mouth dropping open and before he can even begin to think of what to say next, tears fill her eyes again.  “God damn it,” she says, and her voice is thick.  “I thought I was done crying.”

If she were Alayne, and he were still silly bumbling Pod, he’d hug her.  If they were sitting on his couch watching Battlestar Galactica, or if he were chilling in her practice room while she noodled on the piano, he’d have pulled her into a bear hug.  But he’s a cop and she’s his case so all he can do is put a hand on her shoulder, and he shouldn’t even be doing that.

“You spoke with your uncle yesterday?” he asks her. 

She nods.  “Yeah.  Edmure.”  She presses the sleeve of her sweatshirt to her eyes.  

“How was it?”

“Hard.”

That was a dumb question, he thinks.  She went back to her hotel and shaved her head.  Of course it was hard.

“Are you...are you going to see them soon?  Are they coming out?”

Sansa pulls out her phone.  “Randa’s booking a flight for me to go out this weekend.” She says.  “As if they’re not all going to hate me.”

“They’re not going to hate you,” Pod says.  “They’ve been assuming you’re dead.  They’ll want to see you.”

“And what will they see?” she asks and she sounds hysterical now.  “Who will they see?  I’m not...” her voice breaks and she lets out a strangled sob and fuck it, he’s hugging her.  He pulls her close and she sobs into his chest, clutching his shirt and he’s squeezing her so tight.  She’s warm, and shaking, and alive.

“They’ll see you,” he says.  “The same way I see you.”

“You don’t--” Sansa begins, but he cuts her off.

“I see someone who tries to make major songs sound sad because minor songs can sound happy if you do that right, but no one tries to make major songs sound sad.  I see someone who likes lemon cakes, and who wishes she could draw and who knits her way through meetings to give herself something to do with her hands.  I see someone who listens, who is thoughtful, and caring, and passionate.  And you don’t see her right now because you think she’s Alayne, but she’s not.  She’s you.  And maybe there are parts of Alayne that aren’t you, but I’m willing to be that not all of her isn’t you--just as not all of her isn’t Sansa.”

She’s still trembling, but she’s not sobbing quite so intensely. 

“My head won’t stop hurting,” she says at last.  “I’ve taken so much ibuprofin, but my headache won’t go away.”

“Probably because you’re not sleeping.  Are you eating?”

It’s the only thing she can think.  I’m going mad.  I’m losing my mind.

“Sansa?  It’s...It’s your uncle Edmure.”  Her throat is too dry to talk.

you could be my uncle, couldn’t you? no sansa.  it makes custody much harder.  better that i’m your father.

“Are you there?  Hello?”

yes.  no.  can you be my daughter? i’m alayne father, who else would i be?

It feels like ripping skin off--layers and layers of skin.  Is this her true skin?  Or is that?  Is she a snake?  Is she an onion?

She stares at herself in the hotel mirror.  Blue eyes stare back. Mom’s eyes.  Bran’s eyes.  It’s your uncle Edmure’s eyes.  Blue eyes and brown hair.

My father has brown hair.    Her father, or her dad?  She can’t remember.  She can’t                   think. 

“Are you there?”

yes. no.

Sansa.  Alayne.  Sansa.  Alayne.  Her head hurts.  Pictures of Bran and Arya and Rickon on a manila folder.  Podrick’s face--serious and his eyes sad.

She looks in the mirror and blue eyes brown hair it’s so confusing because she’s both right now.  She’s both.  She has auburn hair she gets it colored once a month when the roots start to come in, she has auburn hair, but she just got it colored and so it’s Alayne’s hair with Sansa’s eyes.

Her skin is coming off.  Her skin is coming off because what’s true and what’s not?  What’s just another lie she told herself to pull through, and what does she say when it’s her uncle Edmure on the other line, asking her if she’s there, because is she there?  Is she really?  How about now?  How about now?  Because she looks at herself and she’s not there.  She’s not anywhere at all.  Is she there?  How about now?  How about--

She grabs the razor and turns it on and the little spinning heads begin to buzz.  Her hand is oddly still even though the rest of her is trembling as she raises the razor to her head and watches as brown hair falls into the sink.  Brown hair.  Alayne’s hair.

And when it’s gone, she has Sansa’s eyes and no hair anymore.  She starts to laugh.  It isn’t funny, but she’s laughing anyway.

Maybe I’m going mad.  Or maybe I’m not.

Alayne rereads the text message three times, and tries to ignore that sinking feeling in her stomach.  “He’s not coming,” she tells Myranda, who looks up from her laptop.  

“Oh?” 

“Yeah.”

Myranda doesn’t say anything, and Alayne can tell she’s pleased.  She is happiest when Harry’s not around.  Though this will probably mean some photos in the magazines of Harry out and about in New York, wondering why Alayne’s not with him if he’s stateside.  Because Alayne doesn’t like New York.  It reminds her of someone she isn’t.  And gives her a headache.

She hopes that this time, at least, there won’t be photos of him with some blonde girl on his arm, speculating that he’s cheating on her.  

Her fingers hover over her phone screen.

will you be out tomorrow, then? she wants to ask, but she knows Harry will blow off that text.  He always does.  So instead, she types oh.  that’s too bad.  have fun tho. xoxo

It’s how Alayne finds herself alone in her condo at 9pm, wishing she could find a show on netflix that would carry her into the next day.  But she’s antsy.  She looks at her phone, scrolls through twitter and tries to see some sign of Harry.  But she can’t.  No, she thinks.  Don’t do this to yourself.  It’s not worth it.  She closes the app, and feels her face crumple.  I’m alone.  I’m alone.  

She could go out dancing--text Mya or Myranda, or just go to some bar and down a few whiskeys.  But she’s sure Myranda’s busy, and Mya never replies to texts in the evening, and the idea of drinking whiskey on her own is just as unappealing as thinking about what Harry is doing without her right now.

Her fingers hover over her phone for a moment, then she texts Pod.

You doing anything tonight?

Almost immediately, she sees the little bubble appear that indicates that he’s typing, but it takes a few moments before the reply comes across.  Trying not to bumble in his text, she thinks fondly.

Not really.  Trying to decide if I should watch Battlestar Galactica the way Mya’s always telling me to.

Want to do something? she asks.

You’re dating someone, she thinks.  You shouldn’t be suggesting doing something with another guy.  But she’s alone, and she hates being alone.

I think yours and my budget for an evening out don’t look anything alike.

It’s such an honest answer that Alayne’s heart swells, for all she feels suddenly guilty.  We could watch Battlestar Galactica together, she suggests.

That I could do.  I’ll come over?

Sure.  See you soon.

MY HEART

She stares at the shape of herself, then pulls her phone from her pocket.  The battery’s almost dead but she turns on the flashlight and looks at herself again.  Pale face, dark hair, and eyes that are too light. 

She’s used to looking at her eyes. She has to when she puts her contacts in and everything.  But she’s never really looked at how the blue fits in with the rest of her face.  It doesn’t with my dark hair, she thinks.

She shuts off the flashlight and googles a hotel and calls.

She is at the precinct all night.  After Pod leaves, Brienne Tarth comes back in with a cup of coffee and a recording device and asks if she’d be willing to make a statement. 

Her eyes flit to the two-way mirror.  She’s sure Pod is back there.  She’s sure he’s still watching her.  Her stomach twists.  You were my friend, she thinks.  Was it a lie? 

Is it all lies, forever and ever and ever?

Pod isn’t supposed to be a liar.  He’s supposed to be honest.  The good kind of honest.  The kind of honest that made her feel safe, like when she was a girl, like when Ned--when her father was still alive. 

She swallows. 

“Sansa?” Brienne asks carefully. 

“Sorry,” she hears herself say.  It’s late.  She’s tired.  She’s upset.  She’s...she’s not sure.  She’s not sure of anything.  Not sure who she is.

“Of course,” Brienne says.  Good cop, bad cop, lying cop.  That’s what that team is.  “It’s late.  Maybe you should go home and come back in tomorrow?”

Is it even my home?  It was bought with his money.  And Alayne’s. 

Alayne doesn’t have green eyes anymore.

She nods, and pulls out her phone and...who does she have?  Who can she text?  She doesn’t want to go back there, and she can’t bear to face Mya, or Myranda, and...god, Harry.  Where is Harry?  She doesn’t even know if she can ask that right now.

“Sansa?”

Every time she says the word Sansa, she feels like she’ll cry.  I’m not, she thought.  Not anymore.  I can’t be.  Not again.

The door opens and she sees Pod come in.  He’s scruffy--not so much a five o’clock shadow as a three in the morning shadow.  Liar, she thinks, and her cheeks are wet.  Liar, but I’m here.  And they’re alive.

But am I?  Who am I?

I’m Alayne, father.  Who else would I be?

Pod’s crossing the room, and kneeling down next to her, and gently, she feels him take her hand.  “You’re not alone,” he whispers to her.  “You’re not.”

He’s so close, and he smells like his deodorant wore off hours ago, and it’s tangy in her nose.  He smells like Pod, and all she can think as she looks at him is how he’s a liar, but he’s not--not really.  He had a reason.  If she’s a liar, why can’t he be a liar too, and if he’s a liar, maybe he won’t hate her for lying the way everyone else will and--and--

She wants to hold him so close she can feel his heart pounding against her chest. 

“We’ll get you home safely,” Brienne says.  “I’m headed up towards Andersonville.  I’ll give you a ride, if you’d like.”

Thank you!! Everything I hoped and more.

“I don’t see how it’s a conflict of interest.”

“Mrs. Stark was your professor in college, Brienne.”  Professor Stark, Brienne corrects internally.  Professor of literature.  She focused on Arthurian mythology.

“So?  That’s not going to affect my search for her murderer.”

“Brienne...” Jaime’s face is somber.  “Brienne, it was a car accident.  There’s no way someone could have orchestrated it.  This is exactly what I’m talking about.”  Brienne glowers at him.  “It’s a closed case, Brienne.  Vehicular manslaughter.  No witnesses.” 

Brienne looks down at her hand, then through the plate glass window out into the bullpen.  She sees Edmure Tully there, Professor Stark’s younger brother.  He looked so young, his face was pale, and his eyes the same shade of blue.  Sitting on his lap was a little girl with a long face and dark hair.  Her eyes were grey and red.  She’d been crying.  Arya.  Brienne had met her when she’d been a baby. 

“What about Sansa?”

Jaime shifts uncomfortably.  “We’ve got a team working on her,” he says. 

“I want to be on it,” she says.  “That’s not a conflict of interest.  She’s actually missing.”  It is, but Brienne has to...has to do something. 

Nice!

Thanks

“I don’t know,” Pod’s voice is clipped.  “I don’t know.  I don’t have anything to back it up.  There are no hard facts.  Period.”

“But you’re still sure.”  Brienne sounds tired.  They are all tired.  They’ve been sitting here for the past three hours, and they’ve made no headway.  None.  

“Yes,” Pod says.

“Because the little bird got a look on her face when talking about her mother,” Sandor snorts.  “Maybe she’s a bad liar.”

“No--it wasn’t a lie,” Pod says.  “Look, whenever she talks about Pansy Stone,” He jabs at the manila folder that’s full of Pansy Stone’s information--her birth and death certificate, even proof of some hospital visits she’d made while pregnant at the right time for her to be Alayne Stone’s mother.  “She gets this look on her face.  Like she’s in a war zone, or something.  Her face gets hard, her voice gets hard.  Like you’d better not ask her questions about it. A ‘you can’t handle the truth’ kind of thing.  Every time.”

“Of course.  If her mother was abusive--”

“But this time,” Pod hates talking over Brienne.  Hates it.  Brienne gets talked over enough by Sandor, but he wasn’t done with his point, and he knows what Brienne’s going to say.  “Her voice was soft, her face was soft.  She was remembering getting ice cream and playing dress up and she never remembers anything good about Pansy Stone.”

“So you’re running off a hunch,” Sandor says.

“Instinct,” Brienne corrects.

“Hunch.  Instinct.  Whatever.  This case explodes if we do it wrong, and do you really want Lannister up our ass about it?”

“I know that,” Brienne says at the same time Pod says, “Look--I’m still working on it, ok?  I am.”

“Yeah,” Sandor snorts.  “You are.”

Pod glares at him.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You get all starry-eyed whenever you talk about her.  You think she’s some damsel in distress who’ll fall into your arms when you rescue her?”

“Do you?” Pod snaps.  “That’s the first time anyone’s brought that up, Sandor.”

Sandor starts to growl, leaning forward in his seat.  “All right,” Brienne says.  “I’m calling it done for the day.  Meet up again tomorrow afternoon.”

“Can’t,” Pod says.  “Told Alayne I’d meet her after she’s finished her studio time.”

Sandor gives him a look.  Shut up, Pod thinks angrily.  Shut up shut up shut up.  He doesn’t like it when Sandor’s like this.  Or rather, he doesn’t like it when Sandor’s like this with him.  Sandor’s got an eye for this shit.  I know, all right?  he wants to yell.  I know I care too much.

“Sometimes I still remember putting on her dresses and jewelry and she’d tell me I was more beautiful than she could ever be,” Alayne had said.  No.  Not Alayne.

Pod stumbles and spills his coffee everywhere, and Myranda laughs.  “I thought you’d get less clumsy as you got less nervous,” she says, reaching over to the countertop and chucking a roll of paper towels at him.  Pod grimaces.

“I wish,” he mutters. 

“You ok?” Alayne asks.  He’s covered in coffee, and he’s plucking his blue t-shirt away from his skin. 

“Yeah.  Just stained,” he sighs.  He crouches down to pick up the shattered mug, and to wipe up the coffee with some paper towels.

Alayne crouches down next to him and rips up some paper towels as well.  “If it’s any consolation, I face planted on my first concert ever,” she says.  She tries not to think about that concert.  But that’s for other reasons.

“Really?” Pod asks.  He half-smiles.  “What happened?”

She should have expected that, and flushes.  I thought I saw my father in the crowd she wants to say.  It had just been the lights, she’d told herself later.  The bright stage lights will make anyone with a long face look like what she remembered of Ned Stark.  She remembers words coming out of her mouth, and singing, and her fingers on piano keys moving through well-practiced progressions, but the actual performance...she doesn’t really remember it at all.

“Alayne?”

“My heels got stuck in the floorboards,” she says.  “It was on this old wooden stage, and I thought I was going to be all grown up and wear stilettos,” she shudders and smiles at him.  “My father was worried I’d broken my nose, but I was fine.”

“Someone as graceful as you doesn’t trip up easy.”  Pod sounds jealous.  Alayne shrugs. 

“Happens to everyone at some point,” she says.  She feels chilly, she feels her stomach twist the way it does whenever she thinks of Ned Stark, and scared little Sansa, all alone.  No.  Stop it.  You mustn’t.

She looks at Pod.  His face is all sweet.  “Do you need a t-shirt?” she asks, glancing at his stained one.  “I probably have one of Harry’s you could borrow.”

A conflicted expression flits across his face, and she does her best to ignore it.  It’s all right that he doesn’t like Harry.  Not everyone has to like Harry.  It would be easier if he did, though.  She feels like Pod not liking someone is a condemnation.

“Sure,” he says at last.  “Thanks.”