contrary to popular belief, sansa wasn’t an idiot. she wasn’t dumb. could play dumb, sure. but she had brought up in london, with the stark’s. education had been primary for catelyn, had insisted on it even with her eldest vying to try and get involved in something or another, her youngest daughter the same. sansa had listened, though. had sat through hours and hours and hours of classes, made notes of everything. retained information. point being: she wasn’t a fucking idiot. both academically and with common sense. thomas shelby is attractive -- but that’s an understatement, isn’t it? he’s fucking gorgeous, and everyone in birmingham knew it. perhaps, not the smartest decision for sansa to find him attractive, too, but she’d found herself in a nameless pub all too long ago. and then she hadn’t left. watched brienne and margaery go back home, and remained with the new one she had created almost overnight. stood behind the bar almost daily from there on out, cleaning glasses, red hair pulled back of her face, arthur checking books in the next room. tommy sits at the bar, distracted with something, and sansa hums as she works. it’s repetition mostly, but it’s easy. she enjoys it. it gives her something to do, and she helps. that’s all she wants, honestly.
but then, some days, it isn’t that same old routine. some days, tommy is gone. some days, all of them are. not back for days. she’s adjusted to having that in her routine, too. she isn’t a fucking idiot. she knows that, sometimes, things don’t go the way it's planned. that she has to keep her mouth shut and let polly take over. the woman always knows what to do, sansa envies it. if asked, she’d pretend she doesn’t remember the last time she saw thomas shelby stood in the garrison. has been there, each day, poured drinks and made mindless conversation when needed. it’d been six, and she could all but feel herself coming out of her skin. anxious, irritated. kept out of the loop. she wasn’t a shelby, was she? the fact never so obvious as it was now, with all them keeping their secrets and tommy being missing and sansa... sansa ignoring all of it. distracted with finn, distracted with john and esme, and insisting that she braided the latter’s hair. always working with her hands. always doing something. then it was another day, another night of sleeping alone. then the sun is out of the sky and doors push open of the garrison and she’s looking up, habit more than because she cares. but there he stands, a smile threatening to twitch up the corner of his mouth as she double takes. “oh,” is the first thing she says, to which he raises his eyebrows. there’s still a glass in her hand, half full, not her own. she doesn’t think twice as its placed onto the bar, and she’s rounding it. arthur laughs, loud, and her hands press either side of tommy’s face. kisses him, because she hasn’t in a week. hasn’t seen him in a week. she thought him dead, on day five. that none of them had the heart to tell her. “you prick,” she murmurs against his mouth, doesn’t mean it. is so fucking relieved. pulls back, after. goes behind the bar, as if nothing ever happened. he opens the door to the cub and she opens the windows to hand him a bottle, glasses. whatever he wants. “welcome home.”
