Chapter Text
Sansa Stark set the book down on the table next to her and redirected her attention to the countryside flashing by. Her train had left King’s Landing early that morning and it was now approaching hour thirteen of her journey. It wouldn’t arrive at Queenscrown until almost midnight, but the last stop had been Torrhen’s Square and Sansa knew it wouldn’t be that much longer until they reached Wintertown.
Daylight lingered long up here in summer – far longer than in the South – affording Sansa the opportunity to appreciate the lush green gardens that would, in a few short months, be covered in the deep snows of winter. Homestead after homestead could be seen for a while, before giving way to vast, open expanses of nothing but fields and forests.
She appreciated the calmness of her First Class carriage. The passenger numbers had dwindled around the time they’d passed through the Riverlands and she hadn’t shared her table since the last of her companions disembarked at Barrowton, not long after they crossed the Neck. It would be a full and hectic summer and Sansa appreciated the peaceful solitude of her journey after the busy loneliness she’d encountered in King’s Landing over the previous twelve months or so.
Sansa glanced again at the book she had set down. Bael the Bard: Myths and Romance in Northern Literature. It was a book she’d encountered briefly in her final year at Wintertown High. Back then, Sansa had overlooked it disdainfully, dreaming of all the Southron literature she’d be able to study at KLU. What a fool she had been. A romantic fool, but a fool nonetheless.
After a year in which she felt increasingly homesick and alienated from both her choice of course and fellow students, Sansa had taken the books she no longer needed (finally, after completing her second year she was free of compulsory electives) to a thrift store she knew some of the scholarship students frequented. It was there she had seen the Bael book.
Sansa no longer looked at this book disdainfully, but instead regarded it as an old friend she had somehow lost touch with. She’d quietly bought it and packed it away in her carry-on luggage for the trip home to Wintertown for the summer holidays. Three whole months in which she would be home and free to indulge in a love for Northern literary traditions she had all but forgotten.
Most of her things had headed home in boxes Harclay Haulage had picked up the night before her train. Sansa had the option to fly home, but when her mother had spoken about booking plane tickets……..the romance of this train journey appealed to Sansa. It had given her time to think clearly, free as she was from both home and college.
Sansa had been perusing the online syllabus at WHU idly between King’s Landing and Rosby. By Maidenpool, she had e-mailed the Admissions Secretary, Marna Locke, to enquire about the possibility of a transfer. Her elder brother, Robb, had just completed his first year as a post-grad there. White Harbour was close to home, but still far enough away that Sansa felt she wasn’t exactly running home to her parents at the first sign of trouble.
At WHU, Sansa would be able to act on the love she had for her homeland and its history. She would be able to return to her roots and hopefully fill the hole that had been tearing away at her insides for so long now.
Sansa yawned, remembering her dawn start, and marked the page in her book. She could finish it tonight, or over the next few days. Her mother no doubt had plans for the two of them after the separation they’d endured since Easter. Arya would be starting college next semester, but would remain in Wintertown, and so there was little to do in terms of organising her move. Sansa wasn’t sure if her sister’s decision to remain so close to home was down to their Fencing reputation, continued proximity to her boyfriend, Gendry, or a little bit of both. Arya would never admit it, but Sansa suspected the latter.
Gendry was sweet. He adored Arya and treated her like a princess. Sansa had not been so lucky when it came to the offspring of Robert Baratheon, their father’s oldest friend. Where Gendry was kind and considerate, Joffrey had been cruel and spiteful. Where Gendry had the level head of a young man brought up by a single mother who taught him right from wrong, Joffrey had inherited the wealth and ambition of his socialite mother’s kin, the Lannisters.
She’d expected another Gendry when her father had mentioned one day that Robert’s son would be enrolling in her class at KLU, and Sansa should look him up. Sansa had, in retrospect, taken her father’s advice on that one occasion she really should’ve ignored it. She’d fallen into his circle and then his arms. Prickly arms they were, she soon found, as prickly as his temper.
For months, Sansa had endured silently the taunts and jests Joffrey landed upon her. She hadn’t wanted to worry her parents, who had fretted over her moving so far away (hence, perhaps, the suggestion she seek out Robert’s son), and after being the darling of Wintertown High, Sansa had found life different there. It had been a strange transition from being a large fish in a small pond to being a small fish in the largest pond she had ever encountered.
Fiddling with the sports cap on the juice bottle she’d purchased from the dining carriage, Sansa closed her eyes and recalled Joff’s wormy lips as he framed those insults she’d come to know and expect. The light pinches he had passed off as foreplay. When she’d finally found the strength to leave him it had quickly become clear just how much their friends were really his friends.
“This train is for Queenscrown”, came a voice Sansa had become accustomed to. “The next stop is Cerwyn. Would all passengers disembarking at this stop please remember to take their luggage and rubbish with them when leaving this train.”
Cerwyn. That name brought such delight to Sansa’s heart. It meant the next stop would be Wintertown.
Home.
Sansa was looking forward to it more than she ever had. The last year and a bit had been so, so lonely for her. Well, other than when she’d been at home. At first she’d been nervous her father would be disappointed at her split with Joffrey, but Arya had been quick to assure her that was not the case – their father had known soon after a surprise visit to King’s Landing that Joffrey was no Gendry – but when she reconnected with her school friends and siblings and attended Robb’s graduation, it had calmed her somewhat.
Back in King’s Landing, she’d been assigned a new dorm-mate in Mya Stone. But Mya spent most of her time with her on/off boyfriend, Mychel, and so Sansa was alone more often than not.
Home.
Noise and laughter and Rickon running through the house like a bundle of human energy. Bran, grounded physically by his chair, but talking nineteen to the dozen about a new computer app he was working on or the latest conspiracy theory he and his friend Jojen were obsessed with. Arya, training in the gym their father had been forced to turn one of the out-buildings into, and hosting movie and video game marathons in the basement room turned over to the Stark offspring as a sort of den when Robb turned ten.
And Robb……..her elder brother, her first friend and protector and hero. He would be there. He’d followed their father into the legal profession and was just finished his first year at White Harbour Law along with his best friend, Jon. Robb would no doubt be interning at their father’s practice as she was. They could have lunch together and catch up on everything they’d missed out on in their twice weekly video calls.
Yes, Sansa was so excited to be coming home.
There was just the complication of her final two years of study. She knew her father was on good terms with Wyman Manderly, Chancellor of WHU. She knew it would take a phone call and her e-mail with Marna Locke would be forgotten about, seen as unnecessary, and her transfer from KLU would be seamless. But Sansa wanted this for herself. And so she resolved not to say anything until she’d at least heard from Ms. Locke.
-
It was a little after eight when the announcement was made over the tannoy proclaiming their approach to Wintertown Central. It was still light outside, but there had been country mists since Cerwyn that had dismayed Sansa, who had wanted to see the outskirts of her hometown as the train approached it.
She gathered her things together, carefully placing her book into the daffodil embossed carry-on bag she’d brought with her, and slipping her empty juice bottle into the recycling bin behind her seat. Looking out onto the platform when the train rolled into the station, Sansa’s heart skipped a beat when she saw her father standing there under the Platform 2 sign.
All the worries that had plagued Sansa on her journey fell away a little as she pressed the bright button that opened the train doors and leapt out into her father’s arms. He smelled of pine trees and woodsmoke. He smelled of home.
“We’ve all missed you so much, sweetheart”, he muttered into her hair. Sansa hugged her father tightly, not caring if this was her making a spectacle of herself in public as Joff and his friends would’ve scoffed. She had missed her father just as much – if not more so.
“I missed you too”, she replied. “All of you. Did you come alone?”
“I did”, Ned Stark confirmed, wordlessly relieving Sansa of her carry-on bag and allowing her to slip her arm in his as she’d loved to do as a young girl. “Your mother is preparing what I can only describe as a feast to celebrate your return – and I have it on good authority there are lemon cakes from Mordane’s Bakery for afterwards, so have that in mind when you eat – “
“Lemon cakes?” Sansa could feel her mouth water at the mere mention of her favourite treat. For some reason, they just weren’t the same down in King’s Landing.
“Lemon cakes. I might forget to take my share.” Sansa smiled up at him. “As for the others – Rickon is grounded for smashing the conservatory windows after being a little over-enthusiastic during a joyride on Arya’s quad bike, Bran was last seen on video chat with Jojen debating whether or not the Children of the Forest ever existed, and Arya is out in the gym with Gendry.”
So, all was normal then. Just as Sansa had hoped it would be. There was a constancy to her home life that had always made her feel so safe there, among her kin.
“When is Robb home?” Sansa asked. She felt her father stiffen. They had reached his car, and her father said nothing until they were seated, belted and ready to leave. “Father?”
“Your mother is a little upset. Robb will be home in a couple of days. But he’ll only be staying for a week.” The smile on Sansa’s face fell at the sound of that. She’d been counting on her big brother and their lunches and silly jokes and him taking her out for the odd drink on a Friday or Saturday night.
“Oh.”
“He’s lined up an internship at the Farman & Associates branch in Lannisport. Robb wants to spend the summer with Jeyne and she has something lined up with a hotel chain based there. I’m sorry. I know how much you were looking forward to seeing him again.”
Sansa coughed. She turned and looked out the window and saw they were moving out of the station car park onto the main street in town. There were signs advertising the upcoming town fair. “Never mind. We can still video chat like we do when I’m in King’s Landing. Mother must be upset, though, as you said.”
“In any case, Robb will be here for a week, and he’ll be back before the semester starts up again. I suppose it will be useful for him to gain some experience working within the Southron legal system.” The North had given up some of its independence and customs with the union of the crowns centuries ago, when the Seven Kingdoms had united into the Westeros of today. There remained, however, a separate legal system beyond the Neck.
“That’s one less person I shall know at work over the summer, then.” Her father had arranged – as he had the previous summer – for her to work at Stark & Sons, for him. She would file, answer telephones and assist the interns with their research. It wasn’t the most challenging work in the world, but Sansa enjoyed the research and felt it had helped her craft her own study methods.
“You’ll know Jon.”
“Jon? Jon Snow?” Jon Snow was Robb’s oldest and closest friend. They had both gone to White Harbour for under-grad, though they had pursued different routes there to the Law School attached to the college. Robb had studied Business Administration with Political Science, and Jon had opted for History. “Did he ask you for a place?”
“No, he didn’t. In fact, he entered through the Intern Programme we have. I spoke to him when I realised, but he simply shrugged his shoulders and said he’d wanted to get in on his own merits rather than through preferential treatment as a friend of Robb’s.”
Her father’s firm held a blind admissions essay test for their coveted summer internships. The partners – her father included – were given a stack of coded entries from prospective applicants with no idea of their name or place of study. It was competitive and Sansa could tell from her father’s tone of voice how impressed he was.
“That sounds like Jon.” Sansa smiled. She had known Jon for so long, even if they had never really been close. And she had overheard his conversation with Robb during their final year at Wintertown High, when they’d discussed Jon’s scholarship application. Robb had suggested their father could speak to Mr. Manderly on Jon’s behalf (Sansa knew a scholarship was the only way Jon could afford college) but he’d turned him down. He would succeed or fail on his own merits. Jon had been stubborn about it, though Sansa now had the utmost respect for him over it.
Maybe it was part of why she didn’t want her father making a call to Wyman. After seeing how things were done in the South and how a phone call to the right person at the right time could change the course of events in a heartbeat, she wanted truth and honesty and merit to reign.
-
When they reached Winterfell, the large, creaky old Stark home that Sansa had grown up in, she set all thoughts of safety aside and was out of her seatbelt and opening the car door before her father had finished parking. She ran inside and through to the kitchen, where her mother was checking something in the oven.
Sansa watched as she shifted a few things around and then closed the oven door. And then, almost as if a sixth sense had come over her, Catelyn Stark spun round and ran over to Sansa, pulling her eldest daughter into her arms.
“Sansa! Oh, how I have missed you!” Her mother pulled back and looked at her critically, leaving Sansa feeling a tad exposed. “Hmm, in need of feeding up, I think. You’ve been studying too hard. No matter. We have a bit of time before you begin work to pamper you! I made reservations at Wolfswood Spa for us – and Arya, if she wishes to come – for early next week.”
Wolfswood Spa had always been one of Sansa’s favourite places to go for a treat.
“That sounds amazing”, Sansa admitted heartily. She took a deep breath in and her nostrils were filled with the smells of home. Of the dishes her mother always made on special occasions. “I can’t wait to eat. Dinner smells as fantastic as always.”
“You must be starving after that long train ride. The quality of food on that service is not as it once was. We’ll be late eating, but nobody minds. Not with you coming home. Your room is ready for you – your father and Rickon even gave it a fresh coat of paint last weekend – and I stopped off at a certain bakery – “
“Dad said”, Sansa interrupted with a grin. She presumed the painting had been part of Rickon’s punishment for the broken glass (Sansa could see all of the windows in the conservatory boarded up and wondered idly just how badly he’d crashed) but appreciated the gesture nonetheless. It had been on her to-do list for the summer.
“And you must let me know if you want any of your college friends to come and stay. Three months can be a long time to be separated and in college you can build such close relationships.”
Sansa forced her face to remain open and happy. She half-wondered if this was her mother fishing to see if there was a man in her life. “No, that won’t be – most of the people I know at KLU will be working all summer. And the rest will travel. Abroad. To Essos, or the Summer Isles.”
“Ah, well, thank goodness for video calls then.”
“Hey, Sans.” She turned to see her youngest brother enter the room and quickly pulled him into a tight hug. Bless Rickon for his timing!
“Oooft!” Rickon was twelve and probably felt himself too old for such hugs from his sister, but Sansa didn’t pay any mind to that. She hadn’t seen him in person for months. “Geez, Sansa, have you been lifting weights like Arya or something?”
“No. I just missed my baby brother is all.”
“A little less of the baby”, Rickon complained. He’d once told her that he couldn’t wait until she and Robb started having kids of their own because it’d mean he wouldn’t be the baby of the family any longer. Sansa laughed, feeling so much lighter now that she was back at Winterfell and surrounded by family.
-
When she finally crashed out on her bed a couple of hours later, Sansa found herself both exhausted and relieved that the day was over. After her reunion with her mother and Rickon, Arya and Gendry had wandered in from the gym outbuilding looking as if they’d spent the afternoon in a sauna. When their mother had pointed out that a simple “Hey” was no way for Arya to greet her sister, she’d simply shrugged and replied that she stank and was covered in sweat and Sansa wouldn’t thank her for a hug.
Bless Arya! After the blend of false courtesy and passive aggressive rudeness Sansa had encountered in King’s Landing, she felt more and more comfortable on each return home around her sister’s blunt honesty. Arya always called a spade a spade and where she’d once despaired of her sister, Sansa now loved and admired her for it.
Dinner had been simply wonderful, if about three days of meals crammed into one, and after a couple of glasses of wine Sansa had begged off and made her way up to the newly brightened bedroom that had been hers since she was a toddler.
One of the four walls was painted a beautiful lemony yellow, bright as the sunshine that would catch it each summer morning provided the weather was good enough. Her carry-on luggage was sitting where her father had left it, at the end of the bed, and Sansa pulled out the nightwear and change of clothes she’d packed for the following day. Her boxes from King’s Landing were due to be delivered in the morning, and the only clothes Sansa ever left in her closet at Winterfell were those suitable only for a Northern winter.
It felt strange and comforting at the same time, now she thought of it, lying on her own bed with her favourite daffodil embossed duvet cover. Only that morning she’d woken up alone in her dorm-room, Mya having spent her final night at Mychel’s before their planned return to the Vale. But now, she could hear the sound of Arya and Rickon arguing over what DVD to watch or game to play (Gendry having returned home), a piece of classical music her mother loved echoed through the hallway from the family bathroom, and the song of the night birds who flitted about outside her open window.
Sansa got up and pulled her curtains shut. They were the summer ones, meant to block out the light and prevent her from being woken at four thirty when daybreak fell at this time of year. Her thoughts were interrupted, however, by the sound of her phone buzzing lightly.
A smile filled her face when Sansa saw the message was from Robb. She had texted her brother before dinner to say she’d arrived safely and was looking forward to seeing him soon. As much as she had liked Jeyne Westerling, the girl Robb had brought home for Easter break, it was hard for her to hide her disappointment at how little they would see of each other in the next three months.
At least if she ended up being able to transfer that would be something positive to come of it all – she would get to see so, so much more of Robb. That thought filled Sansa with happiness as she opened the message.
Fantastic as always to hear you are on the right side of the Neck! Jeyne and I are looking forward to seeing you and the rest of the fam very soon. Out at the moment for a final farewell at The Wolf’s Den with Jeyne, Jon and some friends. Sleep tight little sister. Love, Robb.
Little sister. Sansa let out a soft snort at that. Since not long after her sixteenth birthday, she had been taller than Robb! The Wolf’s Den was her brother’s favourite pub in White Harbour and Sansa wondered just how long her brother had been ensconced there, in the corner Jon had once told her the two of them favoured as it was in close proximity to the pool table and vintage arcade games the owner had installed to entice the student population into his establishment.
Excited to see you both too! Start preparing your bellies now for mum’s welcome home dinner – I’m still stuffed from mine and probably will be when you get here. In the meantime, have lots of fun and remember to drink water before bedtime. Love, your Younger and Taller Sister, Sansa.
She added a smiley face and a wink emoji before hitting the send button and set the alarm on her phone for a little after nine. As exhausted as she was from her travel, Sansa knew she couldn’t let herself fall into a sleep pattern of late nights and lie-ins. Not when she was starting work in a little under a fortnight.
Sansa stripped off the dress she’d travelled in and set it aside with her underwear, before pulling on a light cotton camisole and baggy pyjama bottoms she’d picked up in a sale not long before the end of term. After studying Jonquil and Florian for six hours, her eyes had started to see spots and Sansa had known it was time to take a break. There was late night shopping on Wednesdays in some of the stores near campus and she’d come across this pretty but practical set.
It was too hot to lay under anything other than the duvet, and as Sansa did so she looked up to the ceiling and heaved a heavy sigh. She was relieved to be home and among her family again, but at the same time she was well aware this would not be an easy summer. Her mind turned to the e-mail she’d sent earlier that day, to WHU Admissions.
How would her parents feel about her transferring? Would they and everybody else see it as yet another of Sansa’s failures to live up to her promise as the perfect golden child who would live a simply perfect life? Would she even be able to transfer?
She closed her eyes and tried to put it from her mind. Hopefully she would have a response in the morning. It could be dealt with then.