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Jon looked over at Sansa as their flight descended back into Winterfell. She hadn’t spoken to him during the flight home, and she had barely looked at him.
He couldn’t really blame her. He’d hurt her after all.
Instead of spending their last night in each other’s arms as he’d originally imagined, they’d instead discussed how they would handle things once they returned home.
Jon thought it best that they take some time to let things settle before doing anything. He expressed that he wasn’t a fan of office entanglements, and that he feared what people would say considering her age and her position as his assistant.
“So, basically you want to take a break,” Sansa had monotoned.
“I think it best, yes.”
“You want to take a break from something that hasn’t really even begun?”
When she put it that way…
“Yes,” he said resolutely. “We might find it temporary madness once we’re home.”
And that’s when she told him to leave her room.
Jon hadn’t wanted to, but he understood. He was being a bit of a dick - he was aware of that. But he couldn’t stop himself from doing it. He had a strict professional code. He didn’t like entanglements in the workplace.
And, if he was honest with himself, after he’d taken Sansa like some kind of animal in the elevator, he felt a little bit out of control. He had caught true feelings for this woman, and his inability to have any kind of control over himself rather rattled him.
He wanted her. Badly. But he wanted to have some semblance of control, too. He needed to clear his head, and gain some perspective (read: he wanted to see if he could temper the feelings he had for her).
Apparently, Sansa hadn’t felt the same way. He wondered if she’d jumped ahead to them dating already, but when he asked her if she had, she had replied that she knew he was going to have reservations. Not an answer to his question, but he’d known then that she’d put some thought into it.
Sansa wasn’t the sort for a fling. She was the sort of woman you settled down with and took home to Mom. And, as it turned out, she was also the sort you did crazy things with in bed. She was the total package and that was a little daunting, wasn’t it?
His mother would argue it was time to think about settling down. Jon would argue that he didn’t have a lot of time and had yet to meet the woman he wanted to devote himself to.
Until now.
So yeah, it was an utter cliche that he should feel compelled to take a step back (run!) and take a breather (run like the wind!) and see if there truly was anything there (who the fuck are you kidding with this anyway, Jon?)
So, yeah. Sansa was upset and Jon didn’t know how to make it better. This was another mark in the “Why I Don’t Do Relationships” column. He wasn’t so great at communication.
When the plane landed and they disembarked, Sansa all but ran away from him. Jon let her go, stopping himself from running after her and asking if he could see her later.
Instead, he went about his business at the airport and then went home.
Alone.
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Weary from the trip, lack of sleep the night before, and crying, Sansa made her way to work. She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Jon, so she found a way to deal with her thoughts: with every step in her dressy flats she thought “dick dick dick dick dick dick dick.”
She made the coffee in the staff room, put her lunch away, and then went down the hall to her office. She unpacked all the things she needed to from the trip and turned on her computer.
“Hey.”
Startled, she looked up and over to her door. Jeyne was in the doorway. He friend frowned. “You look like hell.”
“Thank you,” Sansa said flatly.
“Did he work you hard?”
It was like a line out of a RomCom or some sitcom. Cue audience laughter. “No more than usual,” Sansa said, trying to inject some cheerfulness in her voice.
“Ugh, I can’t imagine going on a trip with him. He’d probably be on you all day and night.”
More audience laughter.
“It really wasn’t that bad,” Sansa said. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“Yeah, because he likes you,” Jeyne said, sounding a bit bitter. “How do you do it?”
Can someone shut the fucking audience up now, please?
Sansa shrugged. “I just do my job.”
“I did my job,” Jeyne said, a bit defensively.
Sansa looked at her. “It wasn’t a criticism, Jeyne. You asked what I did to keep him happy and I answered. I just do my job the same as I did for Davos.”
Jeyne sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just feeling a little grumpy this morning. I guess it just still bothers me that he was such an ass to me. I mean...how am I still so attracted to an asshole?”
Sansa looked at her sharply.
Cue audience gasp.
Jeyne looked sheepish. “Yeah, so there’s that…” They both froze at the sound of the door downstairs opening and closing. “I bet that’s him. Nine on the dot, right? See you later.” And she practically ran down the hall.
Sansa got up before Jon made it to the stairs (hers was at the very top of the landing), and shut the door. She wasn’t ready to see Jon yet. That begged the question - would she ever be ready?
She stared at the documents she needed to type up pushed them to the side as she opened her email on her computer. She stared blankly at it. Jeyne had a crush on Jon? Had she understood that correctly? After all the complaining she’d done about him?
Cut to ten minutes later and Sansa was sitting there just anticipating Jon knocking on her door instead of getting any actual work done. And also contemplating what Jeyne had told let slip.
She wanted to go home. She didn’t want to be here. All she wanted to do was go to bed and burrow under the covers and metaphorically stick her head in the sand.
Jeyne having a crush on Jon just made him right about what a mess it would be if they started dating, and all the things she’d be accused of. But she also didn’t want to come to work every day and see him knowing that she had real feelings for him.
She never should have had sex with him. She should have just said no and went on as she had been, being afraid of him. It was much easier than this, that was for sure.
“Sansa?”
Great. Time to face the music.
She got up and opened her door. Jon stood there looking all sorts of hot in a navy suit. “Hi. Just getting all the paperwork ready for Mr. Baratheon.”
He nodded, watching her closely.
She wanted to snap at him that he didn’t get to do that, he didn’t get to worry about her after he’d basically said that what happened in King’s Landing stayed in King’s Landing. Now she just felt cheap and used.
“I thought maybe I could take a look at them before you start? Just to refresh myself?”
She shrugged, a response so far off than what she would have had in the past and picked up the thick files and handed them over without a word.
He took them slowly and looked up at her. “How are you feeling today?”
“Fine,” she said.
He continued to stand there so Sansa put her back to him and went to her desk. “I have some emails to check.”
“Of course,” he murmured and she pretended to be engrossed in what was on her screen so he’d go away. He did, and she wanted to cry.
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Jon stared at the files on his desk and felt the urge to shout.
He was miserable. There really was no other way to put it.
He’d barely slept a wink last night thinking about how he would much rather be in Sansa’s bed or her in his, and how nice it would be to wake up to her in his arms. Then seeing her...the blankness of her expression when she looked at him and how she couldn’t seem to wait to get him out of her office. And she had never, never shut her door before. She knew he liked being able to call for her if he needed something.
And Gods...she was so fucking beautiful. She made his heart ache. Was it possible to already be so addicted to her?
Yes.
Yes.
The day dragged on and Jon let her be unless he needed something. She sent him emails of letters for him to approve instead of showing him a hard copy. We’re saving trees, he thought.
Then she left without saying goodbye to him.
Jon stayed late, past when everyone else left for the evening. And, when they’d all gone, he got up and went into Sansa’s office, wanting to be close to her in some way. He sat in her chair, he inhaled the scent of her still lingering in the air. He looked at her computer screen so that he could see what she saw every day.
He looked around, taking her all in. She had a photo of her big family and a dog on her desk. She had a Thank You card propped up from a client who had taken a real shine to her. Everyone took a shine to her; everyone loved her.
There was another picture of her and Davos at the Christmas party last year and they were beaming at the camera. Jon remembered Davos had been a little drunk at that party, and had felt horribly embarrassed by it come Monday morning. He’d formally apologized to everyone. No one had even noticed.
Jon swiveled in her chair. There were snow boots in the corner. An origami flower made out of the pages of a book in a small glass vase on top of a filing cabinet. There was a black wrap hanging on the hook behind her door, and though there were files everywhere, they were in neat stacks and there seemed to be some sort of system to them. He knew for a fact that Sansa was highly organized. She had to be to do what she did so well.
His eyes alighted on papers on her printer and he wondered if it was the letter she’d been working on that he still had to sign. He got up and snatched them off the printer and turned them over.
What he saw didn’t make him happy.
Her resume. Sansa had printed out her resume, which meant she had to be looking for a new job.
No. No. No. Jon didn’t want that. And he wouldn’t accept it.
Gripping the papers in his hand, he rushed to his office, grabbed his briefcase and coat and barrelled down the stairs. He locked up and made his way out to his car.
He was going to pay Sansa a visit.