Jon Snow & Sansa Stark - Game of Thrones Fanfiction

A Stark to me

Jon didn't look back while he walked away from Winterfell. He didn't turn around when his father yelled that he couldn't leave whenever he wanted. He didn't even bother looking over his shoulder when his mother said something he didn't even want to repeat in his mind, let alone out loud. He needed fresh air, even though the summer was slowly nearing it's very end. He needed to not feel worthless for at least a second.

"I see I'm not the only one who fled the castle." Sansa curled her lips up into a slight smile. Her dark hair curled around her beautiful shaped face and her dress twirled around her legs every time the wind blew.

"It's not like anyone would miss me anyway." Jon's slightly reddish hair glimmered in the sunlight and he took a deep breath while he sat down next to his half sister. "I'm sure they mean well, but I sometimes get the impression they're trying to turn me into a Robb."

"You'd say that one Robb is more than enough already." Sansa turned her head towards Jon and her eyes met his for a short moment.

"Don't get me wrong. I love Robb. I wouldn't know what to do without him, but..."

"You're just not him. I understand." Sansa nodded and for a few minutes she stared into nowhere. Even though she was technically not a lady, she was clearly born to be one. She moved with a certain grace Arya had never even tried to learn and Sansa always had her back straight and her chin high. "I don't think it's easy being him though."

Jon frowned his reddish eyebrows and he let out a deep sigh. Of course he knew that it wasn't easy being Robb either. And even though the thought had been tempting at times, he wouldn't want to trade places with the heir of Winterfell. He wouldn't want to be trained his entire life to rule the castle. He didn't even want to think about everything his father and mother would have screamed at him if he had been their first born son.

"I do think that being you is still better than being a bastard, though." Sansa's glance hardened a little. "If I try my very best, they use me to tell Arya that even a bastard can do better than her. If I don't try my very best, I hear that I'm living up to the expectations." Her voice sounded cold and a little distant. "Sometimes I allow myself to dream that one day I'll mary a high born lord and will laugh in their faces. Then I remember that no one will allow their high born son to marry a bastard girl."

Jon stared at his half sister once more and the longer he looked at her, the more he considered all those parents idiots.

Sansa Snow was probably a bastard, yes. But she had inherited all those Stark features and the beauty everyone associated with Lyanna Stark.

Jon had known her only briefly, way too short to remember what she looked like, but he had heard the whispers about Sansa, how Lyanna had been even prettier. But Jon could barely believe that. He couldn't find one single thing he didn't like about his sister. He liked the way she laughed, when Arya did something no lady would ever do without regretting it. He liked the way she looked at him when he showed his older brother how to actually use a sword. He liked how sometimes she seemed to be the only one in this castle knowing a little what he felt like, even though he had not the slightest idea what it was like to be her.

"But that's life, isn't it?" Sansa shrugged her shoulders and despite her disappointment she didn't drop her shoulders and didn't bend her head. "And it could have been far worse."

"It shouldn't be." Jon shook his head. "You shouldn't be less than anyone simply because father couldn't stay true to mother." Jon licked his lips. Even though he loved his father and knew that Ned did more than he should do for Sansa, there was a part of him that couldn't understand why he had done it. Of course. Jon knew the stories of those endless wars. He knew that all those men were away from home for a very long time. He knew that sometimes instincts were stronger than anything else. But he had always believed his father to be honorable, to be a man of his word.

In all those years, for as long as Jon could remember, Ned Stark had never broken a vow, had never broken a promise, had never done anything that could explain why he had not been loyal to his marriage.

"And you shouldn't have the feeling that you're less than Robb, even though he's the eldest." Sansa shrugged her shoulders once more. "We can't change rules older than our parents."

"We can try?" Jon interrupted her for a moment. "We can try to find you a nice young man to marry. We can try to give you a future no one ever thought you would get, a future some even believe you don't deserve."

"I know that I deserve that future." Sansa raised her eyebrows. "I know that I'm much more of a lady than Arya will ever be, luckily." She smiled and for a moment Jon tried to imagine his youngest sister as a well behaving lady.

For the first time today he let out a hearable laugh. One of the reasons he liked being around his sister, was this, exactly this.

She managed to make him smile when no one else could. She managed to make him feel better, even though he had the worst day ever. She managed to make even him believe that maybe life wasn't this bad.

"I wish they would arrange my marriage. I wish they would send me to a far away castle, to unite our house with some other house. I wish they would use me to create alliances and not her." Sansa swallowed. "But no matter how perfect my embroidery is, she will be the one living my life and I will be the one forced to live hers."

Jon let the thought sink in for a moment and even though Sansa made him feel enough, made him feel loved, he felt powerless and useless right now. He couldn't give her the knight in shining armor she was dreaming of. He couldn't give her the life she should have. He couldn't do anything to change her fate.

Only the King could and only their father or Robb, when he would inherit the castle and his father's title, could ask him to do so.

"I will try to talk to Robb about it." Jon didn't know why he said it out loud. Especially because he knew that he was probably giving Sansa false hope. But maybe false hope was better than no hope at all. "There has to be something he can do."

"I don't know." Sansa smiled however. "But thank you for trying."

"I just want you to be happy, sis." Jon leaned towards her and he pressed a soft kiss on her forehead. "Maybe you don't carry the Stark name, but you are a Stark to me and you'll always be."