#chochxng

“So that’s her, huh?” Yara spoke up, walking to stand next to him, her arms folded across her chest as she looked up at the girl in question. “The girl who made you whole again.”

Theon’s lips were tight together and he said nothing. How could she reduce Sansa to just that? She was… so much more. It had been so long, but she had become everything to him. Yara had taken that spot, but they had rescued her, and she was amongst her brothers again.

Now Theon looked up at the girl who’d been the beginning of his redemption and he wanted to cry.

She looked out, then, towards them, her blue eyes finding his through the snow between them, and Theon felt like all the air had suddenly left his chest. Gingerly, he lifted a hand in greeting.

Sansa turned, immediately, and rushed across the castle to the stairs, her hair trailing behind her like a blaze of fire as she ran to him. She ran to him, and Theon moved closer, stepping forward to meet her in the middle of the courtyard until she all but jumped into his arms, throwing her own around him and burying her face into his neck.

“Theon,” she breathed his name out like a prayer.

His hands only tightened at her back, shutting his eyes as he allowed a wave of emotions to flood through him. She smelled sweetly, and her cheek was pressed to his own and hers was so warm.

“I’m so happy you came back,” Sansa rushed to tell him, pulling back to look at his face, her hands hovering at his elbows. “Jon said–I feared that I might never see you again.”

“I needed to save my sister,” he told her, searching her eyes and seeing only genuine affection in them. It was a look that he had not had directed at him in so long that it felt foreign.

“Lady Yara,” Sansa seemed to have realised that they weren’t alone, and she stepped back to greet her. “It’s good to finally meet you. I wish it were under better circumstances.”

Yara stepped up with a nod. “Yes, gathering in the North to fight the impending Great War against the dead is not what one would call a happy reunion.”

Theon felt happy nonetheless. It was also a strange emotion; one that seemed to belong to somebody who had died a long time ago. Someone who should have died in the Red Wedding with Robb Stark.

Still, there was something about Sansa Stark standing in the middle of the Winterfell courtyard with flecks of snow in her hair that made him happy.

He got lost in the conversation between the two, but Yara was suddenly walking off, back to the Ironborn who had escorted her here, directing them, and Theon looked back to find himself alone with Sansa again.

“We’re all on the same side now,” she pointed out, reaching over gently to slip her arm under his own, starting to walk across the courtyard. “It’s a relief, really. Not about Jon, that’s… another problem. But it’s a relief that we only have one problem to face now. All of us together.”

Theon nodded. “I know what you mean.” It had felt for so long that he had nobody that to suddenly have allies everywhere he turned was an eerie sort of comfort.

They came to a stop in the weirwood. Theon had always felt out of place here, with the white trees with bleeding eyes. This was where Ned Stark came to pray. Theon Greyjoy had never been welcome with the old gods.

Sansa, meanwhile, looked like she belonged here. She stood in front of him, her face relaxed and soft, eyes shining. The last time he had seen her she had been sullen and starved and bruised. She looked like sunshine, now.

“How are you?” Theon asked, and found himself reaching over to take her hand between his own.

Sansa didn’t pull away. But she did smile. “I’m very well. I’m home and it feels like home.”

“Jon is… a good brother to you. He cares about you,” he added, his brow furrowed together seriously. “I’m glad that you have someone like that.”

The snow was getting in his eyes a bit, and Theon blinked it away to keep looking at her, as Sansa smiled a little more and placed her other hand on top of his own. “I already had someone like that,” she told him quietly. “I have you.”

She said those words like one would say ‘I love you’ and Theon felt his throat tighten and his stomach turn. He swallowed, hard, because if he didn’t he might say something he would later regret. Still, Sansa had to know… she had to know what she meant to him. 

He gripped her hand a little tighter between his, stepping closer with earnest eyes. “Always,” he croaked a bit, urgently. “Always.”

The Lady of Winterfell moved her hand up to his cheek, framing it with her palm, warm and soft, and she gave him a smile to melt ice caps. “I know,” she told him.