Sansa

"You visit me less these days."

"Maybe it's because you're starting to forget about me."

"Never," she shouted vehemently, as loudly as she could in what she supposed was another dream. The Queen in the waking world sat upon a small bench in the courtyard, where she remembered sitting in idyllic days long passed, while she'd watched her betrothed then, still very much a child at the time, chasing Lady Whiskers or Ser Pounce nearby. At the time she'd found herself bored and restless, consigned to playing with children so soon after she'd played the game perfectly and crowned a King. That was her mistake, she understood so long ago, in missing from her vision the people whom she did not believe at the time counted in her game, so she would pay so devastatingly the price of her negligence in the years to come.

"You've taken on another lover." It was just a statement, there was no jealousy in his voice.

She nevertheless had to ask. "Does that upset you?"

"I just want you to be happy. They don't make you happy, I don't think."

"I need distractions sometimes, he's just a squire for one of Bronze Yohn's knights. He'll be returning back to the Vale in a fortnight, I'd imagine." She paused. Standing off to the side by a small tree, he seemed more distant from her than ever. There'd been times when he'd sat on the bench next to her, and she could almost remember the sensation of holding his hand in hers, forever soft in her memory. "He looks like you, more and more. Your golden lion of a son. He likes his play sword...I'm dreading the day I'll have to send him to the master-at-arms."

The ghost nodded, his eyes ever serene. "I was never good at fighting, I'm glad he'll be better than me. Joanna?"

"They say she'll look like me, when she gets older."

"She'll be beautiful then." The ghost furrowed his eyebrows gently. "You don't seem happy about that."

The girl shook her head. That's what she looked like right now, she imagined, a girl who hasn't been a girl in what, three lifetimes by now? She'd lost count since the Long Nights.

"She's a sweet girl. She's too sweet, too shy. I worry...Jo's too much like the girl I used to be."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Tommen countered. His green eyes sparkled in this land of eternal sunset, like a proper lion's, in a way she'd never noticed in life, and she would give the world for him to come closer, so that she could feel his breath as he talked. "You could teach her better. But you don't want to."

"Nor do I want her to go through what I went through, to change me." The girl sighed. "I wish she had a bit of...Arya's fight in her. Or even my mother's."

"I'd always thought if we had a daughter, I wanted to see her wedding day, to walk her down the aisle and give her away. It broke my heart, our day in the Great Sept, when there was no one to walk with you." The ghost seemed apologetic. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you sad."

"I told myself, I didn't need anyone. But that didn't mean I didn't want someone...father. Or even Robb, or Jon."

"You should forgive him."

"If I had your heart, I would have already. The things you've forgiven me for..."

"I'm your husband, Sansa. Or was. I swore a vow to protect you...but we both knew I'd be useless at that. The least...the most I could do for you was to love you, for who you are, to be there for you, to be faithful to you, to believe in you. Not judge you."

The winds blew quicker, the dust rose ever steadily from the bed of dirt surrounding the eternal garden of pale violet roses that never was, or never will be, in her castle once she woke, and Sansa knew she was running out of time with him.

"When will I see you again?"

"I'm always with you, you know. And our children. There's nothing stopping you, but you."

The dust cleared, and a different lion stood in her departed husband's place, a much less pleasant Lannister.

"I see you've relieved the Westerlands of their tax obligations."

His hands were clasped sternly behind his back, just as she remembered in life.

"Spring came later west than anywhere else," she defended reflexively, wondering just why she still felt the need to justify herself to the dead man. "Aren't they your people anyway?"

"I've been known to be harsh to my own people. How else do you earn respect, except by starting in your own home?"

A light scoff, she was used to these lectures by now, this would be Hand of hers from beyond the grave. "You do remember, wherever you are, that their lord's your own son?"

"Of course I remember," the ghost chided. "You ought also remember, girl, that I know my son."

"Do you?"

"I know you can push him, as you have already, slaughtering so much of his kin with nary a clue from him. I know he doesn't have it in him, to start a rebellion all on his own. Keep showing the lords weakness, and your son won't have a throne, or a mother, when the time comes."

The Queen in the waking world scoffed coldly. "Trust me, Lord Tywin, the few lords who are still foolish enough to believe me weak won't be lords much longer, or alive." The old man always looked younger than she remembered of him, when she'd first met him after the Blackwater in one lifetime, during her own Great Council in another. Sometimes, she wondered whether the gods, or perhaps Lord Tywin's will himself, would satiate her curiosity of what the man looked like in his youth, when he'd been wise enough to rule a realm and cruel enough to drown women and children in their own home. "Yes, I can push Jaime. Or I can trust him, that he'll pay his debts, like all the Lannisters before him. In the meantime, his people don't have to starve to death. I've been plenty cruel, at least let there be a good reason for my cruelty, so that I can afford myself to be kind, when it's deserved or needed."

Crossing his arms, the old man regarded her with almost amusement, she thought. The Throne was hers, the realm was safe, happy, and prosperous. Why did she still feel the need to defend herself before him?

"Don't give me that look, girl. It's not my fault you've left only lions in your dreams. Not enough dead Starks in this world you've made."

Was that a joke? She'd never heard him speak a joke in real life.

"What are you going to do about Randyll Tarly?"

Did he know the old Lord of Horn Hill was trying to build a scorpion because he was an actual ghost, or because she herself knew, since Bran informed her earlier in her waking day?

"He'll have to be taken in for treason," she admitted. "I can't kill him, he's too powerful and his crime not serious enough, so I suppose I'll send him to Sunspear to be kept a captive of the Martells."

"To keep his sons happy." She figured she knew how the old man felt, though Sansa reminded herself not even Tywin Lannister was rash enough to wipe out every enemy family entirely.

"Dickon will become Lord. He'll have little reason to protest his father's charges, building scorpions is against the Queen's Law."

"Reason's never stopped any rebellions from breaking out."

"I'll send Samwell to Horn Hill to serve as Maester. They like each other, and Sam will keep his brother away from more malicious whispers."

"Hmmpff." The ghost puffed his chest. "Seems you have little need for my help."

"Have I ever asked for it?"

"No, because you've always known yourself what needs to be done to be strong, to stay strong. But there's a difference between knowing, and acting."

"Perhaps I know better than you when to be strong, and when to stay my hand."

"You may think you do," the ghost said, seemingly ever ready for a lecture, and she sympathized with the Kingslayer, who had to endure a lifetime of this. "You should know better than to mistake your more...unnatural talents, and allies, for skill in actual statecraft."

"I'll keep that in mind, Lord Tywin," she said half mockingly. "Any more wisdom your departed Lordship would see fit to bestow me with, before I wake and forget all of this?"

"Mind your tone girl, you promised me we'd rule the Seven Kingdoms together."

"And you'll collect your debt, won't you, even after I betrayed and killed you."

"I never figured you for hypocrisy," the ghost mocked, "Your Grace. Since when has death kept you from getting what you want?"

Jaime

"I miss you, brother." It was a small statue he stared at. Appropriate, Jaime thought. Tyrion would have laughed at the appropriateness of it. "I'm sorry. For not being a good enough brother. For not being there for you in the end."

For not trusting you. For doubting your loyalty to our family.

"I burned the fucker. Wished I had split him open with my sword, they'd mock him for that, losing to a lame Kingslayer. But I suppose the Stark girl's right, burning's a lot more painful. And he suffered much more than you did, I promise you that."

He looked away. A wind blew through the crypts below Casterly Rock. Which meant he had a visitor, because he remembered shutting the doors when he'd entered. Which meant he was running out of time, alone with Tyrion, or what was left of his brother.

"I doubt you care about that, wherever you are now, you were never one eager to inflict suffering upon another." He felt his voice choking, his eyes welling. When did he ever cry, except down here? As horrible as Tommen's death was, he hadn't even cried then, much less for Joffrey. As for his father...he'd mourned...there was less tragedy, he supposed, to man like Tywin Lannister dying, especially at the age he'd survived to. But Tyrion...Tyrion was nothing like their father, and he'd never been forced to keep his distance from the brother he'd loved all his life.

"I hope the wine is good. And the women...Margaery found Shae a place in court. Not King's Landing, obviously, but Highgarden. The flowers and the temperate climes do her well, she tells me."

Hearing gentle footsteps approaching him on the opposite end of the dark corridor, he thought hurriedly towards what last words he could offer his brother, though his mind heavily doubted that there was an afterlife for Tyrion to hear him from.

"I have an heir now," he laughed nervously. "You know that already. Tyrin's hair's turned auburn before I left King's Landing, same color as his mother. He takes after you, I think, he already loves his grape juices. Nothing against you, brother, but I hope he doesn't inherit Mace Tyrell's height..."

The inevitable interruption came. "Ride a fortnight to come home, and you waste all your time talking to the dead?"

Spinning towards his sister, he regarded her, a tumult of hate, love, and desire all swirling in his heart at once. His face remained stone cold, and while his stern demeanor was enough to scare most, he reckoned, it was far from enough to hide himself from Cersei.

"He died for us, for our family," he snarled at his twin sister. "Sometimes the dead are better company."

She'd cut her hair short, in protest of her confinement, he guessed. He was certain Cersei never stopped scheming, but she had little room to do so these days, her only fellow conspirators the castellans and stable masters of Casterly Rock. Was her hair some kind of statement of protest to him, that she'd join the silent sisters if he didn't let her have her way? Did she think him enough of a fool to believe her bluff?

"You still blame me?"

"Of course I blame you," he mouthed bitterly.

"I did what I did for our family," she insisted, as she always did.

"Your grandson's the heir to the Iron Throne. Seems our family's doing pretty well, despite what you did."

"Yes," Cersei hissed, "Eddard Stark, the gallant Wolf King of Westeros."

"Only because your stupidity killed the last Lion with a claim to the Throne!"

Why did he ever return to Casterly Rock anyway, only to argue with his sister? Certainly he did not need a statue and a vault to remember his brother with, and his uncle Kevan was definitively capable enough of running the Westerlands in his lordship's absence.

Her cool emerald eyes spat at him. "What would father think?"

"Father trusted Sansa more than he trusted you, that's what I think." When the words didn't move her, he wondered just how far he could push her, hurt her. "Tommen loved her more than he loved you...he died for her, I doubt he would've ever died for you."

He would pay for those words, Jaime knew, if he shared her bed tonight. He didn't want to, he'd kept away from her for almost a year after Tommen's death, and his abrupt marriage to the Lady of Highgarden shortly afterwards, playing the part of the faithful husband for as long as he could. But the Lord of Casterly Rock could not well keep from Casterly Rock forever, and he sensed not too long into his marriage that his wife cared little for the matter of his fidelity, so long as the proprieties of their marriage stood set in name and stone.

"Fuck you."

"You want to," he taunted her. Why did he taunt her so, when he should just ignore her?

"You think too highly of yourself," she said, taunting him back, dancing her dance.

"No," Jaime replied with gritted teeth. "I think quite little of myself. And even less of you."

Forcing himself to look away from her, beautiful even as she aged so gracefully in a way a woman like Cersei Lannister did not deserve to, he willed his brother's statue, or ghost, or whatever Gods kept him them company in the dark passageway, to avert his eyes from his sister as she stormed slowly away from him. If he were a smart man he'd ride back to King's Landing that night, he figured, rather than find himself in his spending the night in his sister's bed yet again, giving her further cause to gloat over him the next morning.

Or Horn Hill, he reminded himself, there was a would-be Tarly rebellion to nip in the bud, after all. With any luck, the old man would surrender himself the moment he heard the scorpions were making their slow progress south along the Ocean Road.

Randyll Tarly's no untested boy, he thought. He'd need good men were this expedition to devolve into serious battle.

Or women. The scorpions traveled slow. Maybe he'd have time to send for Ser Brienne in Winterfell, on behalf of their Queen's orders.

Jon

The Queen's Hand was one of the prettiest women he'd ever seen in his life, if he were completely honest with himself. His own wife was beautiful, to be sure. And the Dragon Queen had certainly been beautiful, if in a rather harsh and cruel sort of way. Other than that, being a former man of the Night's Watch he hadn't seen much in terms of beautiful women in his life, which made the whole experience of his visit to his sister's castle and city more than a bit overwhelming for the young man.

"It looks like him."

"I wanted them to get his face right this time."

A statue stood in the very spot where his father was killed. Eddard Stark's sword, cut from stone rather than ice here in King's Landing, seemed larger than most men he'd seen, the statue as tall as any giants he'd known across the Wall. On the opposite side of the square, where apparently once stood a statue of Baelor the Blessed, stood instead a statue of a young man, who'd married a future Queen, and fathered yet a future King-to-be.

"Do you visit them not often?"

The Queen shook her head. "It gets too crowded here."

Jon could sympathize. Though her Kingsguard and knights alike had formed a small circular barrier around the square so that they could have their privacy, he could see thousands craning their necks for a chance to see with their own eyes their beloved Queen and her beautiful Hand, though certainly not some obscure half brother she invited over from the North.

"I wish I could have a likeness of him somewhere more private, just for me," Sansa continued, "but Prince Tommen belongs to the people too."

They walked slowly towards the third statue in the grand square, furthest from the Sept of Remembrance which, like Baelor's former statue, like many of the monuments of the Seven Kingdoms, had seen their Targaryen names slowly removed one by one since his sister had been crowned Queen Regnant, in the shadows of the Dragon Queen's death at the end of the Long Nights.

"The King Who Led," Jon said, reading the inscription marking the late King Stannis's likeness from below.

"In all the years I knew him," Sansa said next to him, "I saw him wear that crown maybe once or twice."

He claimed and won the war I was supposed to win, Jon thought, knowing better than to speak the truth of his sister's dual lives out loud, not with Margaery Tyrell so close within earshot. He wielded my sword.

He's dead. I'm alive.

"A keeper of the Old Gods," Sansa remarked sardonically while he continued studying the features on the former King, his sword pointed upwards at the sky, "a champion of the Lord of Light, and a child of incest."

"Your sister has a keen sense of humor in how she honors the Seven," the Lady Hand remarked, a sparkle in her eye, and Sansa gave him a knowing look.

"Keep away from my Hand," his sister had chided him upon his arrival. "I'd let her devour you alive, if it weren't for Ygritte. Don't think I won't tell her either, just because you're my brother."

"Fuck the Seven," Sansa whispered, looking around at the distant crowd, knowing how shocked and disappointed they would be in hearing their oh so proper Queen uttering such blasphemy. But apparently Sansa had as much confidence in Margaery keeping her sacrilegious secrets as she did her brother. "And lest we not forgot, the blessed Baelor Targaryen himself was the child of hundreds of years of incest."

"By the time your sister is done with the Citadel," Margaery remarked with a smirk, "I'm confident every Targaryen in history will be painted a slithering lizard in the eyes of all the realm."

"There's some good ones," Sansa said, pointedly looking at Jon. "Credit where it's due, House Targaryen forged Seven Kingdoms into one with Fire and Blood. I just want to make sure those who suffered their fire, and bled because of them, are duly remembered."

They'd talked about this too, his sister urging him not to take personally her rather personal campaign against his birth father's family. "Every dynasty flourishes not just by how it tells its own story, but how it tells of those who came before."

"Speaking of incest," Margaery frowned, "my Lord Husband writes to say he's rather busy, and won't be able to return from Casterly Rock for another fortnight." Her eyes twirled in his direction, too seductively, he thought. "A shame."

"Is my Master of War back to fucking his sister again," Sansa asked, rolling her eyes.

"Maybe his wife the Hand might turn her eyes towards...getting to know your new Master of Ship, Your Grace."

Sansa laughed lightly, and Jon wondered whether their discourse was always so...unladylike. Not that he was one to lecture them on etiquette, a man of the Wall and those who roamed beyond it.

"I doubt the Prince Trystane will stray from his pretty new wife, who just happens to be your good daughter." The Queen winked at Jon while she spoke. "Though we should keep quiet that last part."

Jon laughed. "Maybe I should ask for a place on your Small Council, sister. Seems it's more interesting than a Wall of ice."

"A seat at large, perhaps," Margaery suggested, "though they say Lord Davos may retire his position as Master of Laws within a few years."

The Queen patted him lightly on his shoulder. "You know you're always welcome here, and your voice always welcome in my court. But it would greatly sadden me, and hurt the realm, to hear of Ygritte placing an arrow through the hearts of both my brother and my Hand."

Jon coughed uncomfortably. "I don't see why she'd ever have reason to do such a thing."

"I'm sure," Sansa replied, her tone still amused. "Though I do look forward to Lord Jaime's return to the capital." Margaery shrugged. "Not that it'll make that much of a difference."

They whispered behind his back at the Wall that his sister's court was filled with licentiousness and intrigue, even Edd ribbed him about that, though Jon could detect the jealousy in his voice as he spoke. And so the rumors weren't that far off, he could see, but all along the ride down to King's Landing the smallfolk seemed happy and well-fed, not in the least because of the stores of excess grain his sister's Hand had shipped throughout the kingdom through the frigid depths of Winter. So what did the rest matter?

Margaery regarded him humorously, and gave him a knowing wink, as if she were reading his mind. "I do wonder whether we're scaring the poor boy, Your Grace..."

"Boy," Jon interrupted. "I believe I'm practically the same age as you, my Lady Hand."

"It's not that bad," Sansa said, lightly amused herself. "As ruggedly handsome as Davos Seaworth is, husband aside Lady Margaery's had the good judgment to keep her...courtly relationships outside the scope of my Small Council."

Approaching their wheelhouse for the ride back to the Keep, he observed both women walk towards the line of knights and greet some of the smallfolk in turn, the Hand following in her Queen's footstep. Sansa seemed friendly, protected by Ser Podrick Payne beside her, whom he remembered from Winterfell, perfectly ladylike and polite as she whispered and sympathized with the city's poorer inhabitants, and he overheard both of them asking the people their names, their trades, the names of the children they brought to receive the Queen's blessing, and so forth. Margaery seemed to enjoy the salutations more, while Jon thought his sister's smile rather grimly forced, worn solely for the sake of her duty.

The space the Kingsguard gave them in the square was but an illusion, as the crowds beyond the barrier showed evidently, and Jon gave thanks that Sansa had assumed he'd never think twice to pursue the rather strong and legitimate claim he had upon her Crown. He'd told few the secret except Robb, Arya, and his wife, the latter of which he regretted the most, seeing how she never stopped mocking him as "me Dragon King" whenever she had the chance. The city, whose smells seemed to even occasionally permeate his sister's gardens within the castle's walls, held little appeal to him, nor did all the courtly intrigue or the affairs of state they discussed on the ride back.

"We should do something about this High Sparrow creature," Sansa said, making a face as she tried vainly to brush off some of the commoner sweat from her dress. "I've been hearing more and more word of their acolytes spreading into the city."

"My brother hears whispers in Highgarden that the Sparrows have the support of the Hightowers," Margaery said of the other Kingslayer whom Sansa had allowed to return home south, so long as he renounced any titles or claims to his name for the rest of his life.

Sansa nodded, her hands so petrified of idleness that she'd resumed sewing yet another dress along the short ride back to the Keep. "Bran says Lord Leyton doesn't give them coin directly, but remains willfully ignorant of their patrons in Oldtown. His son Baelor is less enthused, he's argued with his father that they're playing with fire."

"Kill the Sparrow, and let the old man die on his own?" It seemed more shocking to him actually, to hear the beautiful woman speak so openly of brazen murder, compared to the relatively harmless allusions to the affairs in her own bedchambers.

The Queen nodded her head, eager to match her Hand in ruthlessness. "We'll arrange for a prostitute or two to be present at the scene, so as to disillusion his followers." She frowned, looking outside with concern all the beggars of Flea Bottom calling out her name. "Spring is here, and the people are content. Too content, enough so to become restless."

"The mummers' festival we've discussed," Margaery suggested, eyes as eager as Jon had ever seen in her.

Sansa nodded her agreement again. "And those musicians from Pentos you heard about...we can hold it alongside a Grand Tourney, I suppose it's about time the realm saw another one of those." She turned to Jon. "Any suggestions as to where, brother? And don't say Castle Black."

"It would certainly cheer the men up." And probably cause poor Edd to faint.

"I'd say on the Trident, by the Ruby Ford, except it's too far north." Suddenly realizing the shared recognition as to the hidden meaning of her words, she looked at Jon sheepishly, before lowering her eyes back down at the dress.

"Perhaps the Stoney Sept," Margaery brought up gently. "It's further south, close to the Westerlands too. Your father accompanied King Robert in battle there, did he not? It's as fitting a reminder of the Stark-Baratheon Rebellion as the Ruby Ford."

Winking at Jon, Sansa chuckled. "You see why I keep her around, Jon?"

Sansa

"I'm sorry about that part, the Ruby Ford. I didn't think of your fath...Rhaegar at first."

Every time she tore down another Targaryen momument, she thought of Jon, hoping that he did not think it a personal slight against him.

"I never knew the man," Jon said, taking a sip of the Arbor gold she'd served him. "Father fought at the Trident too. On the winning side."

She could tell he had no real desire to delve too far into the matter either. Margaery wasn't wrong, if she had any personal goals to her Crown, other than the succession and well-being of her children, it was to wipe away whatever goodwill remained of the Targaryen name throughout the Seven Kingdoms. Her Seven Kingdoms. Which meant embracing the legacy of Robert Baratheon, drunk and foolish brute that he was, though that had the serendipitous side effect of strengthening her support in the Stormlands.

"Margaery thinks I should betroth Eddard to Argella now," she said, referring to the Princess Shireen's firstborn daughter.

"It seems...diplomatic?" The Queen had to keep herself from giggling, at the sight of Jon assessing courtly politics with her.

"It would seal forever the two dueling claims to the Throne following Robert's death."

"Under the Stark name," Jon remarked with a smile.

"They're too young...Argella's not even a year old yet. It's not the wise thing to do, I know, to delay, but I'd like to see them like each other first." Even as she spoke, Sansa could picture old Tywin Lannister frowning his disapproval towards her sentiments. Lost in her private thoughts, unused to company in her chambers at night, she didn't even realize her silence had left Jon in the lurch until he spoke.

"Any word of Arya?"

"Last I heard from Bran, sailing in the Stepstones." Looking around conspiratorially, satisfied they were sufficiently alone, she lowered her voice and whispered to Jon. "In the company of pirates, he says."

Laughing, Jon shook his head and took another sip of his wine. "Isn't pirating against the Queen's Law?"

"Very much so. Though I suppose I owe her a pardon, after that last...favor she did me." A very unpleasant thought, and thankfully noticed Jon wise enough not delve deeper upon that particular subject matter.

"I miss her."

"Me too." At least she lives this time. We all do. "She'll be back." She turned to her brother, who'd died twice in one lifetime, and thankfully seemed to have paid fully his debts to the Stranger in this life. "I don't doubt the Wall is next on her list."

"Will you come north too," Jon asked, her heart dropping at the opening she unwittingly gave him. When she did not respond at first, he pressed her further. "Family should stay together, you know."

The Queen of Visions, or so the many called her, shook her head, a lump growing in her throat. "I have work to do here."

"What, keeping tabs on who's fuc...who's sleeping with whom in your court? I'd assume the Lady Margaery can easily send ravens to keep you informed on those matters, much less Bran."

She looked towards the fire. "You know why I can't go back."

"Because of Robb? You know he's sorry...you know he has no power to keep you out of Winterfell, even if he wanted to..."

"I watched my husband burn, Jon," she nearly screamed, her voice as frantic as the morning Tommen had burned, "below the Walls of my own home, with the assent of my brother."

"That's unfair to him, you know he had no choice..."

"My children don't have a father, that's what's unfair." The Queen shook her head fervently. "I see no reason to bring them to the place where they murdered their father for no reason at all."

"They all miss you...your mother..."

"If my mother misses me, she can visit me here, as you did." Hearing herself breathing heavily, she told herself to calm down, and stop directing at her anger at Jon, who was just a messenger, knowing how hard it was for him to have to cite Catelyn Stark's wishes. "I'm sorry, Jon. It's not your fault, I shouldn't have snapped at you."

He was chastened, though not hurt, because he understand she did not hold him in blame for what she spoke of.

"I understand. It must still hurt. I'll let them know, when I return." More silence, this occasion more uncomfortable than the first time.

"I believe your mother asks whether you'll take another husband."

"And create a rival branch of the royal dynasty, and sow the seeds of wars between my children after my death?" She knew her history well enough, the preparations she'd undergone in her spare time in the Red Keep's libraries awaiting the horrible second coming of the Dragon Queen. "No, I think lemoncakes along with the occasional lover accompanied by moon tea will be enough to last me the rest of my days."

A mischievous look appeared on her brother's face. "I hear in the halls your new...ahem, favorite...is a Crakehall?"

"Gods no," she replied, almost choking at the morbid thought. "A Westerling boy."

Narrowing his eyes, Jon seemed to disapprove, unable to help from playing the protective older brother, Sansa noted rather adoringly. "I haven't met any Westerling yet here."

"He's not all that noticeable," she replied, taking a larger than usual sip of her wine. But then, neither had Tommen been that noticeable, nor gallant in any way. Perhaps that was why she favored slightly this new one.

"Does he have a name?"

"Symon, I think?" Of course she knew her latest lover's name, but she would not give him the satisfaction of appearing to remember it, even while he was absent, the secret of her acknowledgement safe between just her and her brother. "Rather empty-headed, rather boring after awhile...I don't think I'll tolerate him for much longer."

"Shame what happened to the last one. I knew his uncle, Ser Jarman, at the Wall."

"Jarman Buckwell...he died in battle against the dead?"

"Aye." Jon drank again, presumably to his fallen brother's memory. "That must have been...unpleasant...finding him at the bottom of the stairs."

"Yes," Sansa said, lips pursed carefully. "Quite a good fall he took."

The way she said the words caused him to frown his eyebrows, whether in concern, or horror. "You're saying...he didn't fall? It wasn't an accident?"

Taking another ample sip, she looked her brother cryptically. "He thought himself much more clever than he actually was."

Again he looked away, eager to move on to another subject, however uncomfortable. "I'm glad you kept pushing Ygritte and I." The Queen watched her brother milk the last of his wine before he spoke any further. "I wish there was someone who could do the same for you now."

"I've loved enough in two lifetimes," she said, her voice wavering, a rare occasion since she'd taken the throne. "I've hurt enough in two lifetimes."

"It doesn't have to hurt." Easy for you to say, having not known your other life. "Maybe not now. Maybe not for awhile. But you've helped me be happy, Sansa. As your brother, I love you, I don't want to see you close your heart to that forever."

Arya had suggested the same thing to her, the last time her sister stopped by the Keep. Did they not understand, that she could not afford her heart anymore hurt, not with having to worry so much already for Neddy and Joanna for the rest of her life?

"I thought my heart died when I watched them kill father. Then I thought it died with the Red Wedding. Then I thought it died inside Ramsay's black soul. Then I thought it died with Theon, with you and Arya inside the flames of the Dragon Queen. With my own death. Then father died again, then Theon, then Robb disowned me..."

"And Tommen," Jon added, chastened. "I'm sorry I brought it up...I didn't mean to hurt you, believe me, that's the last thing I'd wish."

"I know," she said softly. "You're here. I'm grateful for that. I'm glad you came so far to visit me." She paused. "When Tommen died...when my family didn't even want me anymore...it was only my children who kept me going. And revenge."

"Against Daenerys." How strangely he spoke of the woman he'd once loved, as if her name belonged to a foreign tongue.

"Littlefinger too. And the Gods...all the world...it wasn't until then I decided I'd take this throne, because I deserve it, because I realized how easy it would be for me to take it...because what else was there left for me? I thought...without my family...without my husband...maybe...only Seven Kingdoms could fill the hole in my heart they left behind."

"You're family's still here," Jon tried assuring her. "We'll always be here for you, I promise you that. Me...and Ygritte, you know she's as much your family as any of us. Arya. Rickon, your mother. Bran...whatever he is." He hesitated. "Robb too."

"I know," she muttered, her voice low and guttural when she initially spoke. "I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I haven't lost my family, all of it, anyway, not entirely. And I have the Throne, I have Seven Kingdoms, they're mine, they'll be mine for as long as I live."

"But...?"

"It doesn't take away the hole." That was putting it politely, she thought. The chasm, the infinite abyss...

His eyes cried for her, she knew. And she wished she could hug him like she did at Castle Black the first time, a little sister enjoying the comforts of a big brother's warm embrace. But she was a Queen, and propriety dictated its limits, even within her own family. Jon seemed to understand, that there was only so much he could do to comfort her...and that perhaps it wasn't his fault, but that the fault lay within the limitations of her own soul.

"I'm sorry I can't stay long," he muttered. "Ygritte...our child will be due a few moons from now. S'pose that's a good thing, considering how poorly us Stark men do down here. I meant it though, Rickon misses you too, you saved his life after all."

"That was Jaime, not me."

"None of them would be here without you, me, Ygritte...Robb...all our family."

He meant it, she thought. And he didn't question just what that meant, thank the gods.

"Maybe he can visit me with mother," she said, forcing a smile back upon her face. "I'm sure some of my ladies would be eager to meet the only unwed brother of their Queen."

Aside from the Three-Eyed Raven.

Jon looked away, apparently not as eager in sharing with her somewhat false happiness. "Robb says he's sorry. I know you don't want to go back north but...he wants to make his amends...somehow...maybe there could be a way."

Of course he was sorry, she wanted to scream at Jon, she could see it in Robb's eyes the moment he knelt to her in Winterfell. But the chasm in her soul churned, that she wished to nurse her grudge for some time longer, perhaps forever, because without it, what else did she have left in her heart?

"I don't know what happened between the two of you," Jon continued, in the wake of her hardened silence. "Maybe he doesn't deserve your forgiveness. But...I..."

"Tell him he can send his children south."

He was surprised as she, the moment she said the words.

"His children? All of them?"

"No," the Queen, replied, gathering her thoughts upon her realization. "I've no wish to rip them all from Talisa at once. Lyanna first, for five moons, maybe. Then Talynna for the same amount of time, after Lyanna returns. Then Cregan. Then Lyanna again." Twirling her finger in a circle on the cool surface of her drink, she stared her brother in his dark eyes, feeling her resolve building, along with the seeds of a new and building purpose to her life. "House Stark will learn how to survive in this world, wherever it may be, north or south, man or woman. By all the gods, I'll be the one to make it so."

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And that's it. Thank you to all who read, reviewed, and supported this story!