AN: This is a WIP reposting from my AO3 account, Sanva. This is one will have sporadic updates compared to my other GOT WIP. The formatting on all the fics I'm uploading today is weird because I haven't used this site in years. Apologies if I messed something up in my haste to upload to head off more plagarism when someone uploaded my fic White Wolf, Red Fox to this site.

Jaehaerys is Jon's name in this fic not Aegon. I started this before S7 and don't care to rewrite it. Especially when there is a possibility that Jon's half brother shows up in my stories (not necessarily this one). I use a mix of book and show canon. Don't like, don't read.

The crimson leaves of the Heart Tree rustled in the wind as Sansa blinked her eyes open, squinting up at the sky. Patches of grey clouds peaked between the branches and leaves. She took in a deep breath and winced at the ache pulsing through her body. Coughing, she rolled to her side and attempted to push herself up, but her fingers and arm shook.

Reality rushed back to her and she widened her eyes, casting a frantic look about. She was in the Godswood of Winterfell and it was snowing, little flurries of summer snow flitting about in the air. Some drifted over the pool in the middle of the clearing, hitting the steaming water and melting instantly.

"Jon?" she choked out and then started at the sounds of her own voice. It was hoarse, scratchy, but also higher than her ears were used to. Her fingers clenched in the grass beneath her and Sansa stared down at herself as she managed to push up on her shaky elbows. Her arms, body, chest were all slimmer than she was used to. Sucking in a breath she twisted her head and upper body around, casting about for— "Jon!"

He lay feet away from her, near the foot of the heart tree on his side as if he'd been kneeling to pray when he lost consciousness. His furs, clothes . . .

Sansa sucked in a breath and dragged herself over to him, barely managing to use her feet to push herself along. His form was flecked with melting flakes of pure white snow, large enough to see with the naked eye. "Jon," she breathed as she reached him, pressing a hand to his shoulder to roll him, pull him towards her.

His hair was short, shorter than even after the red witch resurrected him, curls brushing just below his ears and over his forehead. With a shaky hand, she brushed one tendril away from the pale, unscarred forehead. He was so young. Worry coursed through her suddenly and pressed her hand against his cheek, relishing the warmth even as she patted gently. "Jon!" A light peach fuzz, patches of stubble pricked her palm. "Jon!"

Jon's eyes shot open and he gasped, jerking, as he stared up at her. His dark grey, wine flecked eyes—once she'd realized dark violet hid within the grey she could never unsee it—stared up at her, widening. "Sa—San—Sansa," his voice came out harsh, rough, but lacking the deep, rough quality he gained with age. His brow furrowed and he tried and failed to lift his right hand.

"Give it a moment, love," she murmured, lips quirking slightly. "It worked." Her hand pressed against his skin, over his heart. She could feel a sting in the skin over her own. "Gods it worked."

Jon took a shuddering breath and finally forced his hand, still shaking, up enough to cover hers. "Did it? Are you sure?"

She wet her lips and pressed up a bit more, settling in a half-seated position and carefully untied his jerkin down to his mid chest with shaking fingers. Then she pushed it and the tunic beneath aside, baring the pale skin of his chest and his left pectoral to the cool air.

Sansa Stark stared back at her, a perfect match to the Old God's script, silver lines traced across skin with dark shining red, red as the crimson leaves and sap of the Heart Tree, outlining it.

A gasp left her throat as she touched it, fingers pressing against his warm skin. "It's there," Sansa confirmed and then bit her lip. She sat back and fumbled pulling the front of her dress down as far as she could, having to untie bits of it with shaking fingers. It took long enough that Jon was able to help her, until they bared her smallclothes and then her left breast to the cool air.

Jaehaerys Targaryen stared back at him and he reached out to touch it with quaking fingers.

"Gods," Jon breathed, relief flooded through his body. "It worked . . . soulmates. We're soulmates."

"We are," Sansa nodded and covered his hand with her own, pressing his warmth into her breast. "We are."

They hadn't been before—before they came back. They'd married before the Old Gods, though, cutting their hands, pressing their cuts together, the sap of the Heart Tree drizzled upon their joined hands. Their marks had been gold before, a sign of two people, willing and in love—mind, body, soul—with one another. Joined for the rest of eternity. Their souls marked, destined to long for one another for the rest of their days.

Jon's brow furrowed and he drew his hand back. "How . . . this is before. Before the King came." His eyes darkened, turning near black. "Joffrey," he spat. "He—None of them will touch you."

Sansa's hands framed his face and she pulled him to her, resting their foreheads against each other. They were sitting face to face, legs curled to the left, both of them. Dirt stained both their clothes, but especially the front of her pale green wool dress.

She pressed her lips to his and Jon responded instantly. The kiss was sweet, but passionate, switching quickly from soft, chapped lips pressed tight to slick tongues teasing each other. Pulling back, she ran her thumb gently across his cheek. "The God's willed it."

"But you," he paused, the skin of his cheeks flushing slightly, "your first—first blood . . . didn't happen until after . . ."

Sansa cut him off with another kiss and then pulled back, dropping one hand to press against her lower stomach. She could feel the ache, the curling pulse of pain drifting from her front in tendrils to her lower back. The dampness about her and her smallclothes. It was familiar and much too soon. They had prepared themselves for this. They had planned for two scenarios, Bran hadn't been sure which would be the result of the spell they wove, but the paths he had seen only went two ways. Either they would arrive separately, Jon in the North, Sansa in King's Landing, the day she first bled, or they would arrive the first time she bled—days after her arrival in Castle Black to her relief—after meeting him again.

They wouldn't arrive earlier, they had assumed, for they were using the magic of the marks as an anchor and marks never appeared before a woman's first blood. That was why betrothals existed; they gave the woman the right to wait until her mark either came or didn't before finalizing a marriage. It was an old tradition from the days when the First Men roamed Westeros alongside the Children. Men weren't quite so lucky, but the laws of the North, at least, gave a couple the right to annul a marriage should the man gain a mark. In such a situation, the woman was afforded the right to re-marry as if a maid and any children they had together remained in the line of inheritance of their father's house.

"The God's willed it," she repeated softly.

Jon's eyes were staring at her hand, pressed against Sansa's stomach and he swallowed thickly. Their plans were dust now, they would have to come up with new ones. New ones that would take into account the inevitable problems his name would cause.

"What now," he murmured, more to himself than anything as his mind searched for the details they would need to deal with in this new scenario.

"Now," Sansa breathed, pulling back to stare at him with crystal blue eyes. Memories flashed before her mind, before his mind, memories of her father's head rolling from his shoulders, images painted from the words of others of Grey Wind's head upon Robb's shoulders, of Lady Catelyn's neck cut to the bone, of Rickon's heart pierced by an arrow . . . of their child stolen from them by the poison that weakened Sansa to the point that—along with two fallen dragon's, the loss of Daenerys, the final dragon stolen by Euron, and the army of dead marching to the Neck and sieging Winterfell—they had given up. Sansa nearly died and had remained nearly unable to leave her bed. It had all led to the moment they had weaved the spell that brought them here. She lifted her chin and grinned wildly. "Now we kill them all."

Twelve and fifteen, that was how old they were, they realized later. Sansa felt so young, so small. Jon was over a head taller than her, their age difference being much more obvious now than it had been when they first came together in the future.

They had to plan things out, knowing the approximate timeline of things; she had carefully hidden the fact that she bled from the servants and her mother. Jon burned her small clothes in his hearth; the dress luckily had but a tiny spot of blood that Sansa had easily cleaned away. It had taken some doing, but they managed to keep it hidden, once, twice, thrice and then once they were sure, Sansa let the blood stain her sheets and cried for her mother.

Jon, who had avoided losing his shirt for several months in the training ring and about the other lads, for his part made his way to Lord Stark's solar that same morning.

"Father," Jon said, lips pressed together and brow furrowed in a mess of confusion, "I—I need to speak with you."

Ned tilted his head, brow furrowing as well when he surveyed Jon, his eyes catching on Jon's hand where it pressed against his left breast. "Come in, Jon," he said, stepping back to allow Jon in.

Dropping his gaze, Jon's hands shook as he untied his tunic, more nervous of the lies about to drip from his tongue than of the situation itself. "I—I have a soul mark," he managed, fingers fiddling with the edge of his collar and dropping his gaze to the floor.

"Gods, Jon," Ned breathed stepping around him. "It has been . . . three generations since House Stark was honored by a mark." By a soul reborn. There might have been others, but marks only came to those that bonded eternally with another and, as the theory went, only if both souls were born and lived to maturation.

Jon bit his lip and nodded, clenched his fingers into fists, then released them. He sucked in a breath and then pulled his shirt aside, eyes still locked on the floor.

He heard the sharp intake of breath, the stuttered step closer, and then the weight of a hand on Jon's shoulder.

"How?" Jon asked, voice but a whisper. To the world, Jon and Sansa shared a father. Soulmates were never siblings. The Gods had always rejected giving the bond when siblings or even half-siblings tried. The sap of the Heart Tree turned black. It was one reason why so many left the North when Torrhen Stark knelt to Aegon Targaryen, leaving for Essos to from the Company of Roses. He lifted his gaze to meet Ned's.

"I—your—" Ned stopped. He took a deep breath and then released it; his eyes shutting for a one long moment. "You're not my son," he admitted finally as he opened his eyes.

"Whose then?" The question slipped from Jon's lips.

"My sister Lyanna," Ned told him, hand squeezing Jon's shoulder gently. "She was your mother." His jaw clenched for a moment. "Rhaegar . . . Prince Rhaegar Targaryen was your father. They—He was her soulmate."

Jon's eyes widened with genuine shock. That was a detail they had never learned, not even Bran had known of it. Bran had seen so little of the past, precious little, his control not nearly as good as perhaps it should have been. "You said . . . you said its been generations!"

Ned looked away for a moment, sighing. "No one knows but I and one other . . . and now you."

"Were you ever going to tell me?" Jon asked when Ned finally looked back at him again. "Tell me that I am not your son?"

"Aye," Ned nodded, "when you were older . . . married or settled into whatever life you chose."

Jon glanced away. "What do . . . my mark . . . Sansa. I don't want to hide it. Is there . . . what do we do?"

"We'll," Ned breathed out, "it won't be easy, but I could claim you to be Brandon's."

"He died near a year before my birth," Jon bit his lip, "did he not?"

"Yes, bu—"

"Ned—" Lady Stark cut herself, and Ned, off after pushing into the room. As soon as she entered she froze in the doorway. Sansa stood behind her with a dress pulled hastily on, hair in a simple braid. Lady Stark's eyes locked on Jon as the words fled her, her usual look of disdain, anger shifted and her eyes widened.

Jon had turned to the door, shirt still pulled open, revealing the mark on his chest. He met Sansa's eyes and she played the moment well, gasping in shock, jaw dropping open.

Lady Stark strode forward, past Jon, straight to her husband and slapped him across the face once, twice, and then he grabbed her hand.

"Jon?" Sansa asked, voice tentative as she slipped into the room, shutting the door idly, eyes locked on her name on his chest, one hand fluttering out as if to touch before pulling back. She rung her hands together and raised her eyes to meet his.

"Sansa," he murmured as they tried to ignore the hushed, angry voices from where her mother had dragged her father to the other side of the solar.

"You bear my name," she said, voice quiet and filled with enough confusion and awe it was quite befitting the young, dream filled girl she once was.

"I do," he confirmed, letting his eyes drift to her left breast.

She bit her lip. "Mine . . . mine says Jaehaerys—Jaehaerys Targaryen."

"I," he paused, sucking in a breath. He glanced over his shoulder to where Lady Catelyn was still conversing with Ned in the same angry tone. "Father . . . Unc—Lord Stark says my mother was . . . my mother was your Aunt Lyanna. I guess . . . I guess Jaehaerys must be the name she gave me."

There was a momentary lull in their conversation and he itched to touch her, and she him, as they listened to the words shared between the other couple in the room. This moment was key to their plans. They needed the support of Lady Stark alongside Lord Stark. If one or neither chose to support their union . . . the road they traveled would be drastically more difficult.

It was a long moment before either of them spoke again.

"Should I call you Jaehaerys then?" Sansa finally asked, voice tentative as she reached out, this time letting her fingers brush her name on his chest.

"I think," he slowly reached up, tentatively seeming he hoped, and took her hand, tangling their fingers together and ducking his head, "I prefer Jon."

"Good," she said after a moment, tilting her head to look up at him, "so do I."

Sansa smiled and him and he smiled back, both of them stepping slightly closer to them, letting the draw of their bond pull them closer on instinct as they tried to listen in and yet ignore the argument burning nearby.

They stood there, waiting, hands held tight together, until her mother, still fuming, walked back towards them and looked at Jon, blue eyes dark and unreadable.

"I didn't know," she said shortly, eyes locking on their joined hands. "I never knew."

Jon glanced at Ned and then back to her; Sansa squeezed his hand gently. "I know. I didn't either."

Lady Catelyn shot a glance at Ned before looking at the two of them. "I will not lie and say this will be easy for me to accept." The South didn't place much stock in soulmates, rare as they were. Her thoughts on the Old Gods were terse, disbelieving, and Jon knew she'd never witnessed a bonding in this life. In the last it was rumored the first she saw was Robb's. As the story had went his attempt to bond with Jeyne Westerling after he'd already married her before the Seven had failed. The crimson red of the Heart Tree sap turning black as tar at the mixing of their blood. "But I will not stand against it." She reached out and grasped Jon's chin, nails biting against his skin as she forced him to meet her eyes. "You will be accompanied at all times until she is of age. There will be no bedding until the mark bleeds gold and you will not betray her."

"Never," Jon spoke, voice coming out in a rush, "I will never seek to be with anyone but her, not now," Sansa tightened her grip on his hand again, "I will never dishonor her. I promise."

Her eyes dropped to their hands again and she pursed her lips. "Sansa," she said, voice harsh, "we still have much to go over this morning. Come."

The door was practically slammed open as Lady Catelyn stormed out, her skirts rustling about her feet.

Sansa watched her for a moment before darting her eyes back to Jon. She bit her lip and lifted onto her tip toes to press a kiss to Jon's cheek before their fingers untangled and she hurried after her mother.

Jon watched after her for a long moment, painting a smile upon his lips he hoped was sick with love. He only averted his gaze when Ned shut the door to the solar and turned towards him again.

"Jaehaerys," Ned murmured with a sigh as he looked at Jon, "that the Gods went with the name your mother gave you . . . complicates things."

"What do we do?" Jon asked, true worry creasing his features.

"Now," Ned glanced over Jon's shoulder, eyes lost in thought, "now we must prepare for the inevitable."

Jon quashed the smile that wanted to burst its way across his face. The first tendrils of the plan he had Sansa had formed and seeded were taking shape. House Stark would rise and their enemies would burn.

Burn with the freezing cold bite of winter.