Alayne runs. (Sansa runs.)

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She should have smiled her cool court smile and denied it. Should have been Alayne, like she has lived Alayne for years now. But she didn't. The assault on Doree and the meeting afterwards left her shaken, left her angry and-

(This is a disaster.)

Robb is following her. Again.

He catches up to her in the garden. Alayne has picked a somewhat secluded spot, because now the confrontation is inevitable. Her running is all the confirmation Robb could ever need.

She is so unprepared for this, despite fearing it for as long as she has been running. She has imagined any and every kind of discovery possible – from Arianne finding out before Alayne told her the truth, to her father realising the truth and sending for her, to Baelish somehow hearing of her and having her brought to him. She has even had nightmares of ending up on her knees, humiliated and broken yet again, before the Iron Throne and the Bastard King.

Upon hearing that Robb would be leading the delegation to Dorne, she has of course imagined how an eventual showdown between them would go many times. This is real, though. There are no take-backs now. And how does she explain her resentment for Dead Robb, to this living Robb? How can she justify her flight, when nothing at all happened? In all her make-believe confrontations, she never did solve that problem.

Now here they are, face to face. Robb reaches out with a hand, plaintive, and Alayne steps back. A hand is a trap. Her shoulders are tight with tension. She wants him to keep his distance. She is very aware of how much stronger than her he is, despite her being a tall woman.

"It really is you, right? It's been so long, Sansa," he says.

"…yes," she replies.

"We thought you were dead! How did you get here?" he bursts out. "Are the Martells holding you hostage?"

"No. I ran here."

"But why?"

Here it is. She is slamming up against that wall. How can she reply?

"I was afraid."

"Of what?"

Alayne remains silent. She doesn't want to explain.

"Sansa, please! We buried you! We mourned you! Why did you run away? Why here, why hide, why keep hiding? Even when I came here? You didn't say a word!" Robb sounds more agitated with every question, his voice growing stronger and more strident. Then suddenly he tenses and goes very, very still. Obara Sand has come up behind him.

"Is Lord Robb bothering you, Alayne?" Obara asks. "Because if he is…"

"No. No, thank you, Obara. It is fine," Alayne says and relaxes. Robb being caught off-guard has somehow settled her, and Obara's hostility on her behalf warms her. "We have private matters to discuss, but I think we'd better move to my chambers for that. You can tell Princess Arianne that I'm speaking with Lord Robb about that issue. She'll know what I'm talking about."

Alayne paces. Back and forth, back and forth before the windows. Robb is seated by her sewing table, surrounded by Martell-orange silk. A gown for Arianne.

"You died, Robb. Everyone died. Winterfell burned. I couldn't live it again," she says at last, and the whole ugly story comes tumbling out. She doesn't try to hide her bitterness, or the distrust. She has already well and truly alienated her family. Why try to pretty it up? All she is waiting for now is the backlash, the condemnations of insanity and betrayal.

None come. Instead Robb stays silent, deep in thought. To Alayne it feels like the silence drags on for an eternity.

"I'd have though you mad, but some of the details… You couldn't possible have known them, living here for so many years. Just…" Robb sighs wearily. "Sansa…"

She meets his eyes.

"What happens now?

She looks down.

"You'll have to come home, of course. Mother and father will be overjoyed. Mother was inconsolable when we buried you and-"

She backs up, bare unscarred back flush against the cool stone wall.

"I can't. I won't," she says. "My life is here. Arianne is here!"

Robb looks at her, surprised at her sudden vehemence. He visibly composes himself and draws breath to speak when Alayne deliberately steps away from the wall and cuts in.

"I won't leave Dorne, and I won't leave Arianne! My life is here. Everyone knows Sansa Stark is dead; let her stay that way! I'm just a bastard girl who's done well for herself. I'm useful to those I care about here, Robb. I'm valued by the Martells. I love and I am loved, and I am free! I won't go back to living in fear and at the sufferance of men, always less. You are a fool to think I would in the first place, Robb Stark!"

While Alayne was speaking, Arianne has quietly slipped into the room. She walks up to stand beside Alayne, who pulls Arianne into an embrace, Arianne's back against her front, her arms around Arianne's waist, crossed under her chest.

"Well, Robb Stark, do you want your sister back, or do you want her happy? Because you cannot have both," Arianne says.

"No, actually you can't have either, because your sister is dead. I'm Alayne Stone of Dorne. I'm exactly where I want to be," Alayne says.

Robb closes his eyes and seems to gather himself. He still looks taken aback at her tirade. The sister of his memories had been a child, a meek, polite thing who would never tell a lord no. Alayne is courteous, certainly, but she doesn't efface herself.

"So I see," Robb says. "You really mean it, don't you, Sansa? That you won't come back?"

"Alayne."

"Alayne?"

"It's my name."

"Alayne, then. But please, will you at least keep in touch? Maybe consider coming for a visit? Your death nearly broke our family. You have a new little sister; don't you want to see her? And Rickon, he's grown lots."

Finally, Robb appears to accept, if not to understand. Alayne is relieved. It is good to see him, and now that the cat is out of the bag, she'll be able to speak to him about their home and their family. She steps forward, hand stretched out and pulls her brother into a hug.

Her confrontation with Robb was like lancing a boil, painful but probably neccesary. It feels like healing. She remains Alayne, but now she has a link to her past. She speaks with Robb as often as opportunity allows. He shares news of their family and the North, while she speaks of her experiences, both the life-never-lived, and her flight to Dorne. Mostly she speaks of her life here, though. He seems glad and relieved at her independence and happiness, though maybe a little mystified at how easily she has settled into Dornish culture.

When Robb speaks of what transpired after her suppose death it becomes clear that her absence somehow saved her family. Her death made them more cautious. It had been believed that wildings or outlaws had killed her, just as she had intended. Her family had reacted to that. Her father tightened security, increased patrols, and the general fervour made him start to refurbish Winterfell. They caught many more criminals and wildlings that way, among them an especially foul one called Reek - the first man Robb witnessed being sentenced and executed.

They also heard of a threat from north of the Wall from captured wildlings and deserters. At first everyone had been inclined to dismiss the tales of wights and Others as the ramblings of madmen desperate to escape a death sentence, but when the tale kept being told, in different ways by different people, her father investigated. Robb says that it is in part the fact that magic and the Others apparently are real, that made him accept her story so easily. He has seen many strange things in the North by now, her brother.

Alayne had never heard of the Others in her alternate life, but in this one there has been reports spreading from the North for years. Initially, she hadn't believed in them either, but then Prince Doran sent Prince Oberyn to Oldtown to see the wight's hand and head sent from the North with his own eyes. His account of death-gray skin, still-snapping jaws and rolling eyes convinced the entire Dornish court.

Anyway, Alayne is grateful for the apparent fire the discovery of the wights lit in the North. That preparedness had served them well in the war in the South. Robb's tale of the Court's visit to Winterfell line up almost exactly with her own memories. Bran still fell, tragically. Her father still went South. Obviously, Robb had still needed to remain at Winterfell, and Bran and little Rick along with mother. Only Arya could come South. Following the King's death and their father's imprisonment she had escaped and successfully made it North with Nymeria, living of the land and keeping hidden. When Arya turned up that was one less bargaining piece that the Lannisters held.

Robb had still been blooded in the brief war. This time, though, he'd had a more cohesive, well-prepared force to field, due to the threat north of the Wall. Other small changes ad also led to Jon coming with him, instead of taking the Black, and Theon entirely repudiating his family. (So now Alayne has two new distinctions to make. This Jon, versus Night's Watch-Jon. This Theon, versus Traitor Theon. She is glad.)

Without Arya and with Jaime Lannister captured, the Lannisters had been forced to trade their father. And so, the Starks and their bannermen had returned home and turned their gazes north of the Wall. Later they had come to seek allies in their fight against the Others. That part of the story Alayne is familiar with. What better to defeat eternal ice than dragonfire and Dornish spears?

Gods, but her death really had sent ripples across the waters of fate. Hearing Robb's tale she can finally begin to let go of her bitterness an old hurt. So far everything really has turned out for the best, both for her and for her family.

AN: And that's all she wrote. Hope it satisfies :)