#jonsas

Y’all want buttons?

I was feeling crafty and have no chill. 🤦🏾‍♀️

He became the light, the heat, the glow in the fireplace of her bedroom in Winterfell. He didn’t burn, but gave security, he protected, he was native and familiar — Sansa trusted Jon unconditionally, and in him was the flame that she had read about as a child.

the kind she thought she would never truly experience,

and his light stirred her beast.

He, warmed and tamed by Jon now, but before him so charred and hunted, suddenly raised his head, not wanting to fight, but feeling the need to protect what belongs to him. And there he go again: baring his fangs, growling, preparing to torment the Targaryen Queen as Ramsay's hounds had gnawed his enemies, in a greedy desire to possess.

Sansa feels jealousy, as a wolf senses blood boiling in her veins. And she's not ready to back down, not ready to let go.

Not her Jon into the dragon's mouth, which will blow through and spit him out.

Here’s an epilogue for you.

Spring flushed in the North, high and full.  At first, it came in slow; greens put their fingertips out of the snowy soil.  Then, overnight everything sat stalk upright, like a sleeper waking.

Sansa felt it inside her long before it showed: a broadening and an airing out, as if someone had opened a window.  For thirteen months they waded through the winter.  Jon had been pardoned for ten of them.  Still, she didn't send for him.  He would come back in his own time.

excerpt from Chapter 1

Read all of it from the beginning here.

Air moved through the open windows of the bedchamber, mingling with the smoky fire, determined to steal its breath away.  Jon bent over the table eating quietly but with great appetite.  Sansa, sitting across from him, watched with upturned brows; noted every tear of teeth in bread.

"What took you so long?"  The question was plaintive, not accusing.

His chewing slowed.  He swallowed.  "I had things I needed to do first."

"I needed you here."

He looked at her from beneath his brow.  "Am I your subject, then?"

She glared, but he did not withdraw.  Their familiar stalemate.

She sighed, deflating.  Looked about the room as she spoke, as if help could come from the rushes and the rafters.  "You're no more my subject than I was yours when you were king."

His brief laugh knocked loose some of the tension, and she smiled.

"But I do need you.  I was never meant to do this alone."

Jon took a deep swig of ale.  "You look like you've done fine to me."

She scoffed.  "I had to make do.  That doesn't assuage the fact that my kinsman--and the person I trust most in the world--was holed up at the forsaken wall all winter for crimes for which he should not even be held accountable, while I had to fumble my way through ruling."

"I'm your most trusted adviser now, am I?"  The glint in his eyes was not from the fire.

She huffed, a typical response to this type of banter.  "Don't be stupid...of course you are."

Jon sunk into his chair, his plate now clean.  Sansa took notice of this and jerked into motion, going to to refill it.  "Eat more."

He sat up again, and touched her wrist to leave off.  "Sansa, I'm not sure how long I'm staying here."

Her manner plummeted.  "What are you saying?  This is your home.  This is where you belong."

Jon put his face into his hands and leaned into them.  When he came away, he said, "I'm tired, Sansa."  They were back in Castle Black again, with the old wounds fresh and bleeding.  "I've fought and died and fought some more.  I'm not a Stark, not a Targaryen.  I'm not alive, but I'm not dead.  I don't belong anywhere any more.  I never really did."

Her lip trembled.  It hurt worse that she tried to bite it away.  He put his hand out and reached for hers where it rested on the table.  Her palm turned upward to grasp his.  "You can do as you wish," she said, quietly.  "You've more than earned it, Jon.  But don't say that it is because you are not a Stark -- because you are -- and do not say that you do not belong -- because you belong with me."

He heaved a sigh, closed his eyes, and nodded.  She squeezed his hand.  Standing, Sansa leaned over the table, planting a dry, lingering kiss below the line of his hair.  "Rest now.  No harm will befall you here."