messy buns and velvet stilettos

It’s just another morning she tells herself as she sinks deeper into the warm, rose scented water of her bath. “Just another morning,” she mutters, closing her eyes as she breathes in deep, the floral aroma of the bath water her only comfort in this single moment. 

The door to her room opens and there is Shae, her ever faithful handmaiden, returned to her some months ago in the aftermath of the war. “My lady,” she greets with a simple curtsy, knowing it was likely the last time she’d ever call her such a thing again. After this day, everything would change. “You must get out now if you are to be on time to your own coronation.” 

For a long moment, they hold fast to each other’s gazes, before finally she sighs, and Shae calls for the other maids she’s left waiting at the closed door. They enter and suddenly the room is bustling, as one comes forward with a warmed sheet, wrapping her in it as she rises up from the bath. Another is coming with yet another sheet, this one spritzed with more rose water, to wrap her long hair in so it might begin to dry. “You need to eat,” Shae commands as another maid sets down a plate of fruit and dried meat at the place Sansa takes at her table. Sansa cannot help but to let out a giggle at her handmaiden’s words, for surely she’s heard them more than once before. “Go on,” Shae continues, gesturing towards the plate as the same maid pours her a goblet of spiced wine. 

“Where is Jon?” Sansa asks, speaking finally, thinking of little else than the man who had snuck out of her rooms a short while before Shae had arrived to stoke the fire. 

“Ensuring the preparations are finalized, of course,” Shae replies, watching as the maids across the room lay the beautiful coronation gown across the bed. She knows her lady thinks she did not know that very man stayed the night in her rooms the night before, but she would never allow any question to her honor, nor would probably a single soul in Winterfell, she’s come to learn. Never were there a more loyal bunch, than these Northerners. “Should I send for him?” She asks next, turning back to the young woman before her, looking every inch a normal woman for perhaps the last time. 

“No… I suppose not…” Sansa replies, sinking her teeth into a piece of bread, hoping of all things, it would be the thing to calm her racing nerves. 

[ x x x ]

The moment has come. 

She stands outside the double doors that will ultimately lead her down the path that will forever change her fate. This moment has always been just within reach, Jon always did say it would be hers one day, but it always just seemed a far off dream. A dream far different than the one she once had of a golden haired prince and a golden crown. 

“Sansa.” 

She startles, turning away from the doors, only to find the very man she’s been thinking of standing there before her. His gray eyes, usually so solemn, are dancing in the torchlight, his grinning lips grounding her into the moment. “Jon.” She breathes, taking in the sight of him there, finely dressed in his black doublet and furs. “I thought…” She gestures towards the doors, indicating she had assumed him to be inside the hall already, waiting for her arrival. 

He cannot believe how beautiful she looks there in the hallway, her coronation gown made from what he knows to be hours of her own hard work. Every piece of it was a piece of the family they had lost, of the family they had gained. “I couldn’t let you do this before…” Jon says quietly, stepping closer, far closer than he’s ever dared in such an open setting before. He reaches for her hands, drawing them close, pressing a long kiss to her knuckles. Another moment passes and when he lowers her hands, Sansa can see the tears gathering in his dark eyes, the sight bringing a wave of emotion through her own body. Jon leans in then and kisses her, long yet gentle, his hands shaking ever so slightly as they slide into place on her cheeks. When he draws away, he’s smiling once more, though his hands remain where they are on her face, mesmerized in that moment by how perfectly she always fits into his palms. “I had to kiss you one last time before everything changes…” He says and she nods, a tear streaking her cheek. “I love you, Sansa,” he leans in one last time, forehead to forehead, knowing in a short while he will bow to her as his queen; in some ways, he’s wanted that more than anything else. 

Before she can answer, the door creaks open and Brienne is there, coming to find the soon to be queen, who has yet to come through the doors as expected. Jon takes a step back from her only then, his hand lingering one final moment on hers, giving it a tender squeeze. And then he’s slipping past Brienne, into the hall, where he will wait and watch her become the queen she’s always been meant to be. 

Suddenly full of courage, Sansa turns to face the doors and she knows… 

It was time. 

[ x x x ]

In the aftermath, there is dancing and laughter and joy. 

Cheeks pink and a glass of spiced wine in her hand, Sansa can’t say that she’s ever felt happier than she did right then, right there. Though the crown she wears is heavy, she knows that she will never fail her people, she will never fail the North- after all they’ve been through, after all they’ve done… No… She will lead her people without hesitation, without fear, and somehow she knows it will be a golden age indeed. 

“Your grace?”

She turns from Lord Royce, with whom she’d been speaking, smiling as Jon’s face comes into focus, his gray eyes as bright as the fire that burns in the great hearth at the end of the hall. “Jon,” she says, giggling as she extends her hand for him to take and kiss, like any courtier might. His kiss lingers a moment longer than perhaps another’s might, but she finds the moment is sending chills down her spine- delicious chills that remind her of the night before. 

“Might we take a walk?” He asks and she nods, uncaring of the eyes that watch as she slips her arm through his, just as they had once done before the war had ever even begun. Together they disappear through the doors she’d once walked through and out the double doors and into the crisp, winter evening. It was cold, but not nearly as cold as it had been several weeks before, in truth, it was almost as if spring was close at hand. But, even so, her breath escapes in a soft cloud of white and Jon is putting his furs around her shoulders before she can protest. “I needed just a moment with my queen alone,” he says as she falls into his warm embrace, face buried into the crook of his shoulder, her favorite place to be. “You are breathtaking.” He says next when she’s stood straight, her head tilting, red hair falling across a shoulder. Every moment he thinks she cannot be more beautiful, more wonderful, she proves him wrong. “My queen…” Those two words, simple enough, have never felt more right on his lips than they did now. 

“Do not forget I am more than just your queen,” she quips good naturedly, blue eyes twinkling in the moonlight. Jon chuckles and nods, reaching out to tug gently on a lock of her red hair. It is only in the privacy of one of their rooms that he ever sees her hair in such a state and he finds himself longing to run his hands through it as he does in the dark. The crown she wears is not the golden one she once dreamed of, he knows, but it is magnificent all the same. “I’m still me.” 

“I could never,” he assures her, slinging his arms around her waist, drawing her in close. 

This was the moment, she realized, the moment that mattered the most out of all of them that day. 

Warnings more than lists really. 

On the first day of the private high school he’d won a scholarship for, he pulled out his brand new notebook and scrawled on the inside cover, don’t fuck it up.

When he managed to follow that rule, he tried the repeat for university, adding one more, don’t take it for granted.

Grad school meant yet another, with years of schooling taking their toll and a little less brittle determination to prove himself it was necessary to constantly be reminded don’t get distracted.

And when he graduated, somehow ended up with a good job, he really thought that would be the end of it. He’d kept his head about him, worked hard, got hired by a great firm. There was no reason to suspect anything could go wrong. He was no longer the illegitimate child of a struggling single mom, he was a lawyer. Everything should have been smooth sailing. He really thought it would be until he walked into the office of the senior lawyer he’d be supervised by and met Sansa Stark. Imagine a beautiful the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen in-person. That’s who wanted to chit-chat over his internships, that’s who had questions about some of the articles he’d written, that’s who was sitting there, trying to help him find his footing and welcoming him to the firm. Kind, astonishingly competent, and kinda his boss. 

Well, long story short, it’s about three weeks into his new job that Jon pulls out one of his trusty yellow legal pads to make another list. Sansa laughed that he still used them when everything is digital now, and when he admitted he liked to mark the briefs up by hand she’d laughed even harder, only to show up the next day with a stack of legal pads and some high-end highlighters and with a smile, set them on his desk. 

You see how difficult she made it? Thoughtful on top of everything else.

So that’s why, years after his last to don’t list, Jon plops a legal pad onto his desk and writes down a new rule to live by: 

don’t stare at Sansa with heart eyes. 

Only, for the first time in his life, the list doesn’t go as planned. He’s certain that as meticulously professional his behavior is, his adoration must be showing in his eyes which is why, two years later, he digs that legal pad out of the bottom drawer of his desk, scribbles over the first item and tries again:

don’t fall in love with San—

He stops. If he’s at the point of telling himself not to, he knows he’s too far gone. Also, it’s about time he comes to his senses and takes the list home. It’s also where Sam enters the picture. Yelling. 

Now, it isn’t the yelling that leads to Jon standing on a poorly lit street corner, half a block away from Sansa’s apartment with a gently-purple orchid in his hands and without a condom in his wallet. But it isn’t not because of it either.

You see, Sam found The List. 

Jon wasn’t sure why Sam couldn’t grasp the idea at he reiterated it a third time. “It’s a to don’t list, so I remind myself of things not to do. Not that it’s any of your business. Stop going through my stuff.”

Okay, so maybe it isn’t Sam’s fault that this is happening, maybe it’s Jon and his adoration of Sansa problem. If at one point he had dismissed it as a crush that was years in the past. Everything Sansa did these days was fuel on the fire. She brought some of the homemade treats she’d made for Lady to work so he could take them home for Ghost, and he’d been rendered so breathless by the gesture he’d struggled to say thanks. 

So, the list wasn’t working, but he really didn’t think Sam yelling at him would either. 

Sam is determinedly defending himself from charges of nosiness, “First, it was on your fridge, hardly hidden which is dumb beyond words. Second, I’m a little worried. All of these are about—“

“Well, it just so happens everything I need to remind myself not to do involves her, so it tracks.”

“Sure, sure. It’s only…well, you’ve doodled your initials here, and drawn little hearts so it seems like it might be a little late to tell yourself not to fall in lo—“

“Hence the need for reminders about the rest of it.” 

“This doesn’t seem—“

“She’s been offered a great opportunity at a larger firm where there’s a path to becoming a partner, so she’ll be leaving soon enough. All I have to do is make it through next week, and the list will have served its purpose.”

“I think that’s worse. If you really feel this way about her, if you care about her, you should say something. Talk to her. Be honest with her. Just find a moment and tell her how you feel—“

“Well that’s not on the list, mate.”

“But you said these are things you aren’t going to do. You aren’t making any—“

“Sam, let me handle this, babe.”

Sam sighs in complete relief. “Thank the gods. Gilly, please, speak sense to him.”

Gilly tweaks Sam’s nose before she takes Jon’s hands in hers. “We love you. We want what’s best for you. You aren’t being a gentleman here. Stop telling yourself that. The reason you haven’t said anything to Sansa is that you have serious issues regarding intimacy and an intense fear of being abandoned because of your dad—“

“—Gilly! You can’t say that to him—“ 

“—which is why I think you need to say fuck it, fuck him, and fuck Sansa Stark.”

“You absolutely can’t tell him to do that!” Sam shrieks, jumping up from his seat on the couch. “He needs to be open and honest. He needs to be vulnerable about his feelings!”

Gilly plants her hands on her hips, a sure sign she’s tired of the nonsense. “You didn’t do that. I didn’t do that. And it worked out great! I fucked you and now look at us.” 

Jon’s eyes drift down to Gilly’s very pregnant belly. She has Sam there. 

“Sansa is interested. I’ve seen her hitting on him on three different occasions. Jon is just being a pussy. Let them fuck this out, and it will all work out in the end.” 

“But we didn’t fuck it out. We made love.” Sam says forlornly, as if he already resigned himself to the fact he’d lost the argument. 

Gilly’s large eyes soften, and she drops a sweet, quick kiss on Sam’s stammering lips before turning back to Jon. “Fuck her, kiss her, tell her, do something or I’m adding ‘grow some balls’ to that list and stapling it to your forehead.”

“Well, technically, it’s a to don’t list, so that’s not really in the spirit—“

Sweet Gilly glares at him so sternly Jon stops himself mid-sentence. “Unnecessary clarification. Tell her. Got it.”

Gilly squinted at him for a long minute. “With words, Jon.” 

“Right, of course. So you don’t think, uh, a gift  would communicate—“

“I’m too pregnant for this.” 

And that is more or less how Jon finds himself standing on the corner of Sansa’s street. He might be embarrassed by the uproar his ridiculous list caused, but Sam of all people loves him and wants the best for him. And Gilly wasn’t entirely wrong about why he’d been afraid to do anything, why he’d told himself not to do anything. So, when Sansa smiles sweetly at Jon in the break room after they’d quietly agreed their client was almost certainly guilty, and she’d shrugged with a beleaguered sigh and admitted she had it sorted regardless, they’d sheepishly laughed over their naive ideas about what practicing law would be, and he’d asked if she had plans for the night. Not even realizing it was February 14th. 

“No, I’m not seeing anyone at the moment.” She tucked one of her red curls behind her ear. “What about you?”

“Nope, no plans.” He gulped and told himself to stop looking into her eyes as if he’d never seen the color blue before, but then somehow he was looking at how she was nervously biting her bottom lip and it was so, so much worse than just looking at her like a dazed, but passably normal-ish colleague. 

“I meant, are you single, Jon?” 

“Yeah.” The way Sansa was looking at him left no doubt in his mind that Gilly was right, Sansa was interested, and lurking on his mind was the feeling that Gilly was right about his cowardice too. A thought that leaves him so discombobulated he offers the strangest string of words a man has ever uttered to the woman he’s secretly in love with, “But being single isn’t so bad on Valentine’s, right? More chocolate for me, no sharing necessary!” 

Jon doesn’t like chocolate, but he would absolutely love to share it with Sansa even if he did. Unfortunately, the way she’s staring at him right now assures him that will never happen, and he’s about to dash off to his desk before he says something even weirder or worse, drift closer than his self-imposed four foot personal space bubble around Sansa (of the upmost importance to maintain, once he stood too close and caught a whiff of her shampoo, nearly made him swoon), when Sansa asks, “Would you like to come over to mine after work? One last hurrah before I’m off to greener pastures? We could eat takeout and watch the Olympics?”

Jon stands there staring at her dumbly. Olympics? Eating? Her apartment? “Food?” He mutters weakly. 

Sansa’s cheeks turn a little pink. “And the Olympics. Figure skating is my favorite.”

“Figure skating.” He has never been rendered so unintelligent and ineloquent before in his life, and he’d been concussed twice in high-school football. 

“If you have time that is, don’t pressure. You have my address just drop in if you’re in the—“ She’s backing away with wide eyes, and he isn’t sure if the horror is because she thinks she’s overstepped professional boundaries in the work place (as if they hadn’t become friends too, getting drinks with either her siblings or Sam and Gilly pretty frequently over the last six months) or if he’s making a horrific expression (he truly has no idea what his face is saying), and he’s desperately trying to kick his brain into gear because he isn’t an idiot, he knows Gilly is right that he and Sansa have flirted and this feels like a move, he really should—too late. She’s already slipped out of the break room with one of her soft smiles, and he swears he can hear her mutter what the fuck under her breath as she walks away. 

There is only one thing a man can do in the situation. 

Jon rushes to the stairwell to call Sam. 

“Can’t talk right now, Jon, I have a surgery to prep for.”

“Sansa asked me to hers.”

“What?!”

“She did. She asked to me to come over today and eat and watch figure skating with her. Do you think figure skating is an innuendo?”

“What? No? That doesn’t—“

“What am I asking you for. I’m going to call Gilly instead.”

“Jon, I love you, and as much as I disagree with the bang it out approach Gilly suggested, she’s right about one thing. You’re so anxious you’re running away from made up scenarios in your head which is preventing you from living. Be honest with yourself and then go be honest with Sansa.” 

“Are you sure I shouldn’t just text Gilly and ask if watching the Olympics is code for something? Like Netflix and chill?” 

“I don’t care if it is. At some point you have to face the reality of your own feelings and have a conversation like this reasonable guy I used to know, Jon Snow. Maybe you know him?”

“So, you’re really stuck on the with words thing?”

Sam huffed, half laughing and half in annoyance. “Tomorrow we’ll do drinks to celebrate or drown your sorrows. But don’t call until you’ve settled this.”

Year one Jon had been convinced he could wait his pathetic crush out, but two years in, maybe Sam is right. Also, Sam didn’t know everything. Maybe watching figure skating is a euphemism. 

Which brings us back to Jon standing on Sansa’s street with a flower in his hands and a certain list in his pocket. Sansa had taken the leap and tried to make something happen, and he’d stood there and failed to reciprocate. Humiliating himself, well, being humiliatingly honest, was the minimum of what he could offer her in turn. So, when she opens her door and smiles, he doesn’t even let her say anything before he blurts out, “I have a list.” 

Jon is pretty sure those are not the words Sam insisted he say. 

“Of favorite take-out?” A baffled Sansa asks.

“No, it’s a thing that I—here, hold this.” He unceremoniously hands her the orchid and pulls the damn list from his back pocket. “You’re leaving the firm, so we don’t have to see each other again if this repellent rather than romantic, but I don’t want to Olympics and pine.” 

“Olympics and pine? Is that a thing?”

“I’ve been obsessed with you ever since I realized it was you celebrating everyone’s birthday with homemade baked goods and the Franklin case with that ridiculous argument —“

“Which had the case dismissed.”

“—obviously it was brilliant, but a ridiculous argument regardless, and the fact that you read the writings of a new hire and let me have so much independence with the cases—“

“—that’s my favorite way to learn—“

“—the best way to teach, absolutely, and honestly, there is nothing I don’t love about you. I love that you seems so calm and sweet and then write the most brutal arguments I’ve ever seen and positively delight in trouncing opposing council—“

“Well, how is being a lawyer fun if you don’t occasionally cut someone down to size—“

“—and I admire your intelligence and patience and kindness so much. Too damn much which is why my list is not working, and they used to serve me so well, and as I said, I wanted to just tell you, in case inviting me to watch the Olympics with you is some sort of come-on.” 

“But you stood there in the break room looking like you’ve never been more repulsed by a woman in your life.”

“No, I was confused and anxious, but I’m trying to be better. You know me, slow, old-school. Please, look at the list.” The last may come out as a sad plea, but he hands over his list unceremoniously before he can think better of it. 

Sansa does look at it. She traces one of her manicured fingers down the old, crinkled paper and sad doodles, “You do stare at me.”

“Yeah, I crossed that off the list because I realized there was no point in telling myself not to. I did it and wasn’t going to stop.”

“You didn’t even finish writing my name on the next one.”

“To be honest, by the time I realized I needed to make a list, it was a little too late to tell myself not to fall in love.”

“And tonight you just went and ruined the one about not telling me.”

“For most of my life I was pretty good about following my rules, Sansa.”

“Until me?”

“Until you.”

Sansa kisses him. The list in one hand, the orchid in the other, so he’s getting scratched by paper and poked by a plant, and he’s stumbling forward into her apartment because you know, the swooning. He’s engulfed by a lemony fragrance, and her warmth, lost in the kiss entirely. She pulls back just enough to giggle, a bright, surprisingly girlish sound for someone who’s intimidated him since day one no matter how kind she is. But she did kiss him, she practically jumped him, so he cradles her face in his hands, and kisses her again, stroking her cheek softly with his thumb.

Eventually, Sansa drags him fully in the apartment and says, a little breathlessly, “I’ve made you give up on everything else on the list, seemed like I needed to kiss you and scratch that one off too. Didn’t want to break my sterling record. Do you have a pen?”

“You know I always have two pens and a highlighter on my person at all times.”

Sansa squints her eyes, “Why isn’t one enough? And why don’t you just use your notes app?”

“Old school. It’s one of the things you like about me.” Jon laughs as he hands her a pen. 

“I do, I really do. I’m even charmed by this list.” She sets her plant down and clicks open the pen, strikes do not kiss Sansa Stark off the list. 

“Show me your scars.”

His voice trembles in only the slightest of ways, but it is his hands which shake as they trace every inch of her. Her breath catches as his thumb caresses her lip, those stormy gray eyes which she’s gazed into many times before smoldering in a new way. A beautiful way. 

“But why?” She whispers back, the hitch in her voice sending chills down his spine. 

They’ve been here before, yet it feels as new as the first time, as new as every single time before. She sits on the edge of her bed, her white nightgown a stark contrast to her hair which falls down past her shoulders, soft to the touch he knows, softer than any fine silk he’s ever touched. His thumb traces the outline of her rosy lips, imaging them as they’d once been- blackened by a fist. Those days felt so long ago, like a far off dream of sorts. “Jon…” She whispers, bringing him back, reminding him of what sat before him. He leans in, slowly, so slowly, until his lips find hers; she is warm.

Warmer than anything he’s ever known before.

She breaks away and looks up at him with those big blue eyes- eyes he swears are the color of the summer sky when it’s just rained. He thinks of those eyes, full of fear, full of anguish. He hates the men that have hurt her, but he hates himself more for never protecting her as he should have done. Those moments, when Robb had still yet lived, he could have gone for her… He could have  gone to King’s Landing and saved her and Arya both. Instead, he’d remained where he was and while Sansa lived, Arya was lost to them, perhaps forever. 

“I want to know how many times you needed me…” His teeth sink into the soft flesh of her ear lobe and she lets long a long, shaking breath. “And I wasn’t there…” His breath is warm against her neck and for once, she does not think of her last husband’s hot, stinking breath. She does not think of any man who’s put his hands upon her in a way no man should ever touch a woman. She does not think of the violence, the horror, the trauma of her past.  Instead, she thinks of how warm Jon is, of how gently he touches hers, how wonderful it is to have a moment such as this one. She thinks that at this moment, it’s as if her life has begun again. 

And so, she rises up, her hands reaching for the hem of her nightgown.

When she stands naked before him, Jon cannot even breathe, his heart skipping several beats as his hand hesitantly dips towards her chest. Her breasts are small, firm, warm, and he’s shocked to find how perfectly they fit into the palm of his hand. There on her collarbone, usually tucked beneath her high wool collars, is the proof of the violence she’s suffered. Jon doesn’t know it yet, but before the night ends, he will have kissed each and every scar he finds upon her. “You’re here now…” She murmurs and he looks up, their eyes meeting for a long, tender moment. He nods; he’ll be here forever, if that was what she wished. 

He draws her down onto her bed, slowly, gently, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face before he leans over just so he can kiss her once more. Long and slow, he takes in the taste of her, relishing in the softness of her lips, pleasantly surprised when he feels her fingers tangle in the curls on his head. He breaks away, drawing his lips down the angle of her jaw, further down to that first scar he found; when he kisses that scar, she breathes deep, her own lips curving with the slightest of smiles. In this moment, she knows true peace.

She knows love.