#neverdonethisbefore

   Tucking another loose strand behind his ear, he opens the door and steps out into the familiar bedroom. Quickly throwing on the jacket to his suit, he grabs the keys to his car and makes his way down the hall and upstairs. Walking through the halls of the Stark estate reminds him of the good old days, when he’d first moved in with the Starks, of how Eddard and Catelyn had shown him the love and care no adults in his life had ever shown him before. He remembered the day he first walked through the door, with his single bag of clothes and possessions, all he owned by his side, walking just behind Ned with Robb hot on his heels. The two had met at school, and had quickly become inseparable. Eventually, Mr. Stark had offered to foster him upon learning of his previous experiences in the system, and suddenly he had a family. Robb was already his brother in all but name, but at the time he would never have imagined what the rest of the Stark family would come to mean to him. Eddard Stark was a kind and fair man, seemingly distant at first, but warm and supportive once one got to know him better. Mrs. Stark was hesitant at first, but after seeing how well he related to arya and helped to manage her wild streak, she too warmed up to him.

   Arya, if Robb was the brother he’d always dreamed of having, then Arya was the little sister he never knew he’d wanted. She’d taken to him immediately, following him and Robb around wherever they went, and Jon knew there was no one in the world, not even Robb, who understood him half as well as his wild little she-wolf of a sister. Bran and little Rickon were family as well, but due largely to their differences in age, he was not quite as close with them as their older brother and sister, yet still Jon counted them among those he loved the most. And then there was Sansa. Beautiful, brilliant, perfect Sansa. She’d been off at boarding school when he was growing up, often content to spend time with her friends or mooning over boys and fashion growing up. Add to that the way she had always treated Arya growing up, even going so far as to stand by as her friends bullied her little sister at school, and Jon had never had a very high opinion of her. In fact, he’d never had much of an opinion of her at all, having never paid her much mind until recently. Out of all the Starks, she was the only one he had  felt the most distant to. The two had never interacted much, with her off at school all year, and he and Robb away at camp most summers growing up. It had come as a surprise to Jon upon arriving home, when instead of the sweet, if somewhat selfish girl he remembered, he found the strong, supportive young woman she’d grown into. He could still remember the day he returned home, the biting cold, his bag stuffed to the brim with everything he could carry, standing at the foot of the drive leading up to the Stark estate.

   Not now, this is supposed to be a happy night, the worst thing you can do is get in your own head and ruin this as well. She deserves someone who can make her happy, distract her from all this, not remind her of how awful everything had been.

   Yet try as he might, his mind wandered back to the night everything had changed. It had all been so sudden, he’d been sitting at the bar all afternoon with his friends. Grenn had been trying yet again to prove that he could outdrink the other three combined, Pyp rattling away at the ‘hilarious’ events of the past weekend, while Sam sat by, content to listen along and interject every so often with a witty remark or correction. The four had gone out to ‘Celebrate Jon's freedom’, as Pyp had put it, yet he knew they had all liked Ygritte, so the attempt fell fairly flat. It had almost been a relief when his phone started buzzing, his mind immediately turning to his ex. How stupid I was to be upset about her. When he’d excused himself from the table to step away for the call, he’d even been thinking of the perfect line to tell Ygritte to go screw herself. But the second he read the caller ID that he began to get curious, “Arya? Why the hell is she calling this late?” He could still remember the way his stomach sank when he picked up that call and heard her sobbing.

   “Jon, its - somethings happened - he was driving and - Jon it's horrible!” Arya cried over the phone, barely making it three words without bursting into sobs.

   “Arya, calm down, tell me what's happened?” he asked, still not quite grasping how serious this must have been. Arya had always been strong, ever since she was a little girl, sneaking into the library of the estate, hiding away from everyone and everything in response to yet another of Sansa’s cruel remarks. She hated letting anyone see her cry, seeing just how much she cared. Even with Jon, the one person she opened up to, he could count on two hands the number of times she’d let herself cry in front of him. Yet here she was, sobbing over the phone, barely able to get a single sentence out. “Is this about that boy from your school, what was his name, Garlan? Glenndon? Grendel?” He asked, trying to make her laugh with the absurd attempt at names.

   “No Jon, its - its Father! He was, he was driving home from work and, and there was an accident, the doctors say - they say - he might not make it Jon!”

   Everything after that is a blur, him trying to calm Arya down, sprinting across the bar to grab his jacket, racing across campus to his place, packing as much as he could into a bag and calling a cab. He hadn’t even told Sam and the others where he was going, he just jumped in the car and sped to the airport. A the next night he found himself standing on the drive of the only place he’d ever called home, steeling himself for the worst. By then Eddard’s condition had stabilized a bit, and he’d been brought in for surgery, so the majority of the Starks were told to head home and return in the morning, while Catelyn had remained by her husband’s side. As he walked up the drive, boots tracing a path through the light layer of snow, Jon remembered the feeling as he pushed open the front door, stepping into the foyer of the estate, leaving his jacket on the rail as he walked into the enormous room.

   Gods, but how she’d changed, I could hardly believe it was her when I first found her that night.

   He’d been headed to the kitchen, thinking to grab a cup of coffee before heading to Arya’s room to check up on her. Before he could even reach the kitchen, he heard the sounds of someone talking from the estate’s library, and gently pushed the heavy oak door open to see who was awake that late. To his surprise, it was Arya and Sansa, the younger sister sobbing into the shoulder of her older sister. He recognized the tune Sansa was whispering immediately, as the same tune their mother had sung to each of the children, himself included, growing up.

   “Gentle Mother, strength of women”, he voice was as sweet and clear and comforting as her mother's had been growing up, and in that moment Jon couldn’t help but to stand there and listen, the familiar tune helping to calm his racing thoughts. “Help our daughters through this fray”, the two were sitting on the couch to the side of the room, the pale moonlight from the window behind them the only thing serving to illuminate the otherwise dark room. She was holding Arya against her, her back to him, her auburn hair cascading down her back, hints of pale ivory shoulder peeking through from behind the wisps of hair. “Soothe the wrath and tame the fury”, he stood, frozen in the door, unsure if he should leave them to this intensely private moment, or make himself known, or simply wait and listen. “Teach us all, a kinder way”.  It wasn’t until the song ended that Arya stopped sobbing, looking up to see Jon in the door, her eyes going wide.

   “Jon!” She cried, springing from Sansa’s arms and running to him. Jon knelt, as he’d done so many times before, and caught his sister in a fierce embrace. “You’re here, I knew you’d come!”

   “Hush now little wolf, of course I came, we’re family, there's nothing that could keep me from being here” He sighed as she leaned into him, trying and failing not to yawn into his chest as she clung to him. “Ok, it’s alright Arya, it’s almost four, and we’re supposed to be back at the hospital to see your father first thing, so let's try and get some sleep before then, there will be plenty of time to talk in the morning.” he said, chuckling despite himself at the cry of indignation his sister made, even as she stifled another yawn.

   “I’m not a kid anymore Jon, you can’t just send me to bed because it’s late, I’m in the eleventh grade now!” she mumbled, even as he swept her into her arms and began heading for the door. “But maybe, I might be a bit tired, so I guess it’ll be ok” she whispered, “As long as you promise I can drive out with you tomorrow.”

   “Of course, we’ll head out first thing, maybe even beat Robb and the others to the hospital” he promised, already dreading the trip into the city the next morning. Wordlessly, Sansa stood and followed the two of them out of the library and down the hall. By the time they reached the stairs into Arya’s basement room, she was fast asleep in his arms, and Sansa stepped forward and to open the door for them.

   Gone was the selfish girl I’d known growing up, the woman I found taking care of her family is someone entirely different, someone stronger than the girl I’d known.

   “Thank you Jon” she whispered, careful not to wake her sleeping sister. The two of them walked into the dim room, Jon laying his sister in her bed, while Sansa pulled the comforter over her, making sure to tuck her in so that even if she rolled she would remain covered. “I’ve been trying to get her to sleep all day, she hasn’t taken a moment to stop since this all happened.” Sansa explained as the two of them walked up the stairs and back into the hall.

  “And what about you?” he asked as they reached the end of the hall and the foyer. “When was the last time you got some sleep? I know this is hard on all of us, but they’re going to need you, Arya, Bran and Rickon, even Robb, although I doubt he’ll admit it.” He said, surprising himself with how much he meant what he said.

   “Thank you Jon, but it’ll be ok, especially now that you’re back. Arya’s been quiet, tonight was the first time I’ve seen her react in any notable may, and Robb’s hardly said anything to any of us since he found out, he’s been so focused on making sure everything is taken care with fathers work and his clients, trying to show him that he can take care of everything while he’s recovering, that is, if he - if he even -” at that Sansa’s voice broke, and for a moment she looked ready to cry herself. As quickly as it had happened, she collected herself and reassumed her previous calm demeanor. “If he even wakes up. It’s good you're here, Jon, they’ll need you too, in a way they’ll never need me.” she finished as she began to walk up the stairs.

   “Sansa, I - I know this hasn’t been easy for you either, and I know we’ve never been particularly close before, but I meant what I said to Arya earlier. It’s like fath-, like your father would say whenever you and Arya would fight as kids, ‘When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives’. It might seem hopeless now, but we’ll get through this, together as a family. If you ever need to talk, to take a moment for yourself, I’m here for you.” he called after her, surprising himself of how open he was being with her.

   She seemed startled at this, almost as he was to hear himself say it, “Thank you Jon, perhaps I’ll take you up on that at some point. Oh and for what it’s worth, I’m glad you're here too.” She said, turning to face him as she did. If he closed his eyes, he could still picture her as she looked, standing at the top of the stairs, hair a wild mess, biting her lip ever so slightly as she smiled down at him, stunningly beautiful, yet haunting at the same time.

   Well, here we go. She’s Robb’s sister, she’s practically your sister you fool! This is just to make her happy. She used to love going to the new year’s ball as a kid, and you know she’d been planning on going with her shit of an ex-boyfriend. That’s all this is, a brother taking his sister to a dance to distract her from everything that’s been happening, all this tragedy. This has nothing to do with how you feel when she’s around, how she makes everything feel so much easier when she’s around. That’s why you’re doing this, there is no other possible reason. 

   With a deep breath, he knocked on her bedroom door. Despite thinking himself ready, the second she opened the door, his breath caught in his chest as he took a sharp breath inwards.