Chapter Text
1.
“What do you want?”
He tells her, and Sansa is not the slightest bit surprised, and when he leans towards her, she doesn’t stop him.
They are wed in the godswood a fortnight later, beneath the weirwood just like her and Ramsay. That’s the only thing her two weddings have in common. It is a simple affair, just a handfasting with a septon brought in from the winter town, and Jon present as witness. There is no cloak exchanged, no audience. Jon’s displeasure at this union is apparent, as he carries all his emotions so clearly on his face. She doesn’t put much stock in it, though. Uneasy as their relationship may still be, he knows better than to chastise her.
She stays in her parents’ room, Petyr in his, and their marriage remains unconsummated. Nobody comments on this. She suspects most of the northern lords are happy about it. Makes it easier to annul their marriage, should it come to that.
Their days also stay much the same. He was her advisor before he became her husband, and that’s how things continue to be. The only difference is that she is now Lady Baelish.
Jon leaves to meet the Dragon Queen, and Sansa stays behind to govern in his stead. She may no longer be a Stark but she remains the Lady of Winterfell. She finds herself spending more time with Petyr, inviting him to her solar where a second desk is brought in, and they work in companionable silence.
Her nights are a different matter entirely. When Jon was there, they would often sit together, working on castle business into the wee hours of the morning until they were too exhausted to sit upright. She had her demons to contend with, he had his. Working until their eyes fell closed was their way of dealing with them.
Now, she sits alone in her room. Alone with her thoughts. She half expects Ramsay to step forth from the shadows, and sleep eludes her.
Finally, after a week, she finds herself at Petyr’s door in her nightgown. She stands there an awfully long time until she raps her knuckles against the wood, pushing it open at his call. He is sitting on his bed, propped up on a pillow and with a book on his hand. He marks his page with a finger, his eyebrow rising as he takes in her lack of proper clothes.
“What’s the matter, sweetling?”
“I...” She fidgets, feeling like a child. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He studies her a moment longer, his stormy eyes unreadable, until finally he smiles that half-smile of his and pats the bed beside him. “I gladly offer you my company, my lady.”
She slides under the blankets and furs, her cheeks hot, her hands cold as ice. She can feel his gaze on her back, until he settles back against his pillows, the page of his book rustling as he turns it. There are no words between them. None are needed.
The stars are beginning to wink out when she awakes, screaming and covered in a cold sweat. For a moment she thinks it’s Ramsay’s hands gripping her and she screams louder, twisting away and lashing out, until she smells mint and remembers where she is. The fire has burned down to embers and in the twilight, she finds temples streaked with grey, and dark eyes, brow furrowed with concern.
“It’s me, Sansa. You’re safe now.”
She takes hold of his hand, and doesn’t let go.
It becomes a habit. She will dress for the night in her own room, and when the castle has quieted down, she goes to his, slides under the covers next to him. Her nightmares don’t disappear. But they are somehow easier to handle when she knows that someone who bears her no ill will – loves her even - is right there.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
And then one day she is called to the gate, and there is Bran, who doesn’t return her embrace and seems to hardly take part in the things that happen around him, who looks at her with eyes that give nothing away at all.
Arya, next, down among the dead. “Do I have to call you Lady Stark now?”
Sansa shakes her head. “No.” At Arya’s questioning look, “Lady Baelish.” She laughs when Arya blurts out a disbelieving, “What?!”
It feels good to laugh.
Jon has been gone for more than a month. A raven arrives, asking Sansa and Petyr to come to King’s Landing. She sends Brienne in her stead, Brienne who so steadfastly distrusts Petyr and makes no secret of it. In the end, her knight bows to her order, leaving with Podrick.
Sansa watches them leave, until she can’t make out their forms in the swirling snow any more. Petyr takes her hand in his, and she allows it.
The siblings are sitting in Sansa’s solar as she reads the many letters the ravens bring. Arya is balancing a knife on her fingertip, something Sansa can barely stand to look at, and Bran sits by the window, looking out into the yard, silent as always. Silent, until...
“He held a knife to father’s throat.”
The sisters startle at Bran’s voice, Arya almost dropping her knife. She just catches it by the hilt. “Who did?”
He looks at them, with eyes entirely devoid of emotion, and a chill that has nothing to do with the cold runs down Sansa’s back. “Littlefinger.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She finds him in his – their - room, working, and she slams the door behind herself, leaning against it, her palms flat against the wood.
“Sansa?” There is apprehension in his eyes, and she trembles with rage.
“Is there any member of my family whose blood isn’t on your hands?”
He meets her gaze steadily, the slight movement of his fingers curling more tightly around his pen the only outward sign of tension. And finally, he shakes his head ever so slightly. “No.”
She grabs whatever is closest to her, which happens to be a pitcher of water, and she hurls it at him with as much force as she can muster. He ducks, avoiding getting hit in the face, and just ends up drenched as the jug shatters on the wall behind him. Sansa screams at him, screams until she is hoarse and her throat raw with it, and he just sits there and lets her yell at him. He looks absurd, with water dripping from his beard and hair, and she finally collapses on the bed, her shoulders shaking with sobs.
His chair scrapes across the floor as he gets up, and the bed dips beneath her when he sits down next to her.
“I will not try to make excuses for what I did. I am, ultimately, to blame for their deaths.” She wipes at her face with her sleeve before looking at him. He’s looking down at his hands. “How long have we known each other now?”
Sansa fiddles with the hem of her cloak. “Six years. But I feel… like I don’t know you at all.”
He laughs at that, and she is this close to hitting him. “Does it honestly surprise you how involved I’ve been in everything that has happened? I didn’t think I had been that successful at pulling the wool over your eyes.”
She has no response to that because of course it doesn’t surprise her even a little bit. The knowledge does nothing to calm her anger, to dull the pain in her chest. “I should have you executed.”
Petyr’s smile is sad, and it looks almost genuine. “If that gave you satisfaction, my love.”
And there it is, his trump card. If there is one thing Petyr Baelish isn’t, it is a fool. He knows lying to her in this would effectively eradicate any trust she has in him. He may be a little too confident, too in love with his own genius, but at least in this, she has no reason to doubt the truth of his words. If she commanded it, he would hand her the dagger himself and kneel at her feet to accept the sentence.
It would also mean Sansa would be alone again.
She wipes the last tears from her cheeks before she turns to him. Her voice is steel when she speaks. “You knew what he was, and you gave me to him. You know what he did to me.” His face is unreadable, a mask, and she has to look into his eyes to see beyond the cover. He knows exactly what happened to her, and she thinks it may be the one thing he actually regrets. His hands ball into fists in his lap, and he nods.
Sansa feels like she is watching herself from outside her body when she leans forward, until there is but a hand’s width between their faces, and he moves towards her, until she can feel his breath against her skin.
“I expect you to make it up to me, Lord Baelish.”
His eyes widen ever so slightly and she almost laughs. His right hand uncurls and he lifts it, gently running his fingers through her hair, and she can’t suppress the shudder that runs through her. “Say the word, my lady. I am at your disposal.”
Her heart is in her throat all of a sudden, and she points at the floor at her feet, arches one eyebrow at him, and he slides off the bed without hesitation. Kneels before her on the cold stone, his head bowed, and Sansa feels something rush through her, something she struggles to name.
Power. Control. Satisfaction. It’s heady, and she leans forward and slides her hand into the short hair at the back of his head, grips it tightly and pulls, until he has to look at her.
There is a knowing smile on his lips, and she tightens her grip. “I suppose this is a start.”