Jon Snow & Sansa Stark - Game of Thrones Fanfiction

Godswood

Whenever Jon had been looking for Ned, he had always found him here, in the Godswood, facing the wise old tree. As a little boy he had always wondered how someone could spend so much time with a boring tree that didn't answer and didn't react, but the older he got, the more he started to understand what Ned had been looking for.

Right now the tree was a calm in the storm. The courtyard of Winterfell was filled with soldiers and dragons. People were screaming, children were crying and horses were trampling around, terrified of the smell of death that lingered in the air. But here in the Godswood it was quiet and empty. It was the only place where the commander of the hugest army in the history of Westeros could think clearly.

Not that the huge amount of thinking he did lately got him anywhere. The army of the death was huge and endless. Whenever one of the living soldiers would fall, they would come back on the opposite side. At first they would simply fight stranger, nameless people with blue eyes. But then they would fight acquaintances and then they would fight friends.

It terrified him. Jon Snow, King in the North, dragon rider and the one living person who had seen death and lived to tell the tale, was terrified of what was to come. Not because he was afraid of dying himself. He had faced death way too often to still fear it. He was afraid of his loved ones dying. He was afraid of his friends and his family dying and not being as lucky as he had been.

But he was mostly afraid for her. He was afraid that somehow, at the end of the war, he would still be standing and she would be a corpse he would have to burn to death or fight to death.

"Jon?"

He looked up when he heard her voice, only a couple of inches behind him. When she placed a hand on his shoulder, he placed his hand on top of hers.

"Your army is waiting for you." She whispered. Whenever she stood in front of the crowd, right next to him, she always looked fierce, her chin up and her back straight. But whenever they were alone she lowered her guards and showed the softer side he had thought had been destroyed by the monsters she had met. "They're getting restless and they need someone to guide them."

Jon let out a deep sigh. "And how should I be able to put them at ease?" He looked at Sansa and her bright blue eyes stared straight into his. "We all know that people are dying. His army is growing. And we're here, doing nothing but waiting until he's close enough to fight him." He tensed all his muscles and clenched his fists.

"I know." Sansa nodded. "We talked about this often enough." She squeezed his shoulder. "I know how hard it is for you to stay here, knowing that horrible things are happening outside these walls. But if we scatter the army, we don't stand a chance. We only have a chance if we fight as one."

Sometimes it seemed only yesterday that Sansa had been this pretty maiden giggling with her friends and dreaming of a prince charming to swipe her off her feet.

He had often thought her to be shallow and naive. And just like everyone else he had simply underestimated her. He had not seen her calm, her strength and her intelligence. He had never seen how amazing she truly was and he had been a fool not to see it.

"But all those people rely on you, Jon." She cocked her head slightly. She was taller than him, but somehow looking up at her was one of his favourite things to do. "They have no idea what's coming for them and what they will face. But you have and you have to remind them what we're fighting for." Sansa swallowed. "We're not fighting for a throne or power. We're fighting for Westeros and for the living to stay alive."

"You should have been the queen." Jon tucked a strand of strawberry blond hair behind her ear. "You'd be able to encourage even the most hopeless man."

Sansa smiled and curled her fingers around his wrist to press the palm of his hand to her cheek. "Are you hopeless, Jon Snow?"

He didn't know. Could he do this if he truly felt hopeless? Could he rally an army and lead it straight to their deaths if he believed it was hopeless? Could he ask people to fight a battle if he had no faith that there was a chance, however small, that they would win?

"We have a good strategy." Sansa stepped towards him and she pressed her forehead to his. "All we have to do is kill the night king to kill them all." She firmly believed that, even though he had told her over and over again that it was nothing but a theory, a theory that could cost thousands of lives if proven wrong. But she seemed to believe in him, in the theory and in their chances to survive.

And so he believed too. Maybe not so much in himself, but in her. "If we win this war..." Jon cleared his throat, but Sansa grabbed his lips and kept them shut before he could continue.

"When we win this war." She spoke firmly now and she placed her other hand on his chest. "Winning this war is not an if. It's a when."

Jon smiled at her and she let his lips go again. "When we win this war, I will make you the queen you deserve to be."

"The queen in the North?" Sansa wrapped her arms around his neck and her lips brushed his.

"No..." Jon shook his head and kissed her firmly. "The queen of everything. The North. Westeros. The world." He paused to kiss her again. "But most of all the queen of my heart."

Sansa buried her hands in his hair. "Are you implying now that I'm not the queen of your heart yet?"

His arms circled around her waist and he pressed her as tightly to his body as possible. "No..." He lifted her up. "You already have my heart." He slowly walked away from the tree in the Godswood, towards the courtyard and the castle. "You already have my everything." He ignored everyone staring at them. "And you already are my everything."

"You have soldiers to command, King Jon Snow." Sansa whispered, but Jon only smirked back.

"I don't." He used his foot to kick the wooden door open. "I have love to make."