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She makes these noises in her sleep: high, desperate whimpers mixed with mumbled pleas for mercy. Sometimes she flails, sometimes she twists her body as if dodging a blow, but often she simply remains still, accepting her dream beating as stoically as she had accepted her actual beatings.
It takes skins of wine for Robb to sleep on those nights, the guilt gnawing in his gut, bile rising in his throat as he recognizes Sansa would not have experienced so much unkindness if he had just traded the Kingslayer when the opportunity had presented itself.
Girls, even sisters, hadn't been important enough for King Robb of Winterfell to make such a trade.
As he slips into wine-soaked sleep, he has never been more grateful for the loss of his crown and a return to a life where Sansa can be his sole priority.
Sansa doesn't like Braavos with its towering titan and references to gods of death. They have both seen more than enough death, so when she asks if they can please go somewhere else, Robb marches down to the docks and they board the first ship which is willing to take on a female passenger.
Robb is not sure that their parents would approve of Lys, but their parents are gone and they are alive, and, when Sansa sees the beauty of the city, she gives the first smile Robb has seen since he stole her from the Vale.
"Let's be happy here," Sansa suggests, sounding so young and innocent in that moment he could almost believe the past few years hadn't happened at all.
All Robb wants is to see Sansa happy, so he vows to do whatever his sister asks to make it so.
He finds work as a sellsword, but Sansa becomes so upset at the idea of him being injured, Robb agrees to find something else. His talent for sums leads to working for a merchant, keeping his books, and it is work far beneath the station of a man like Robb Stark.
But he is not Robb Stark anymore; Sansa christened him Mikael and he named her Ruby, and they are not the son and daughter of the Lord of Winterfell but two souls with no one else in the world.
Sometimes, when he has had too much wine, he calls her Sansa, and she twists her lips into this smile which reminds him that she is not a little girl anymore, that she is a woman and a beautiful one at that.
"That is not my name," she'll breathe, her blue eyes silently pleading for him to forget who they used to be.
Sansa Stark was a victim of too many men, left at their mercy by her brother who did not know how to balance power with his family. That is not who Ruby ever wants to be.
Mikael would never disappoint Ruby the way Robb had disappointed Sansa.
She starts curling and perfuming hair like the other Lysene women, starts wearing silks so sheer and light he can make out the soft, round curves beneath them. Robb does not know how old Ruby is, but Sansa is six-and-ten now, as tall as he is and drawing the eye of every man who passes.
He finds himself burning with jealousy on the nights she flirts with suitors, on the nights when the silks reveal too much warm, pink skin and the hardened peaks of her breasts, on the nights she purrs in a voice so low and throaty it makes him stiffen in his pants.
"Are you a maid?" he demands one evening when he has had too much wine and the scent of her hair is driving him to distraction.
"Are you?" she counters, and she doesn't sound like the woman he shamefully imagines while taking himself in hand but rather the little sister from Winterfell who could put anyone in their place with the sharp blade of her tongue.
"Men will think you're asking for it."
"Asking for what?" she goads, leaning in so closely he can feel the heat of her body.
"Sansa - "
She presses her fingers against his mouth, eyes blazing as blue as a flame. "My name is Ruby. Remember?"
Robb Stark was Sansa's brother; it would be a sin for Robb to share a bed with Sansa.
But he is Mikael and she is Ruby, and that is the lie he tells himself as he thrusts between her thighs.
Her belly swells, and so does his guilt. Robb doesn't know if she feels the same; Sansa refuses to ever discuss what came before, who they were and what happened to House Stark. Instead she seems to blossom with her pregnancy, glowing with happiness; her waist expands and her breasts become flush with milk, and every time the baby moves, she grasps his hand and presses it against her middle.
"Do you feel it? That's us, my love."
Robb wants so desperately to be happy for this, but all he can think of is his father, who would disown him for bringing such dishonor on his sister; he imagines what his mother would say if she could see Sansa heavy with her brother's child. He starts spending much of his time at the merchant's shop, coming home late and oftentimes drunk. One evening he comes home to find Sansa nowhere to be found, and it sends him into an utter panic. For hours, he stalks the streets, stopping those he knows to ask if they have seen Ruby, but no one has. When he finally returns to their small cottage, he finds Sansa crying on the patio, the blanket she has been embroidering for the baby on her lap.
"Where have you been? Are you hurt?"
She shakes her head, wrapping her arms around his neck; her tears are hot against his neck, and Robb finds his hand dropping to rest on the swell of her middle, the child inside kicking languidly. It is only then Robb notices the half-finished direwolf on the blanket.
"I needed grey thread, but there is none left just as there are no more wolves. All the wolves are gone," Sansa sobs, and Robb feels his heart break for them both.
"That is not true, sweetling." His hand rubbed her stomach as he kissed her forehead. "We have a cub arriving any day. We will make a new pack."
Their daughter arrives with a full head of auburn hair and big, blue eyes, and Robb is certain he has never loved anyone or anything as much as he does the little bundle nursing at Sansa's breast. For three days the baby has no name, and then, on the fourth day, he wakes up to the sound of Sansa singing in her sweet soprano.
"I have not heard you sing in years," he mumbles as he works his way towards consciousness.
"Cat likes it."
"Cat?"
Sansa's eyes find his and she nods resolutely. "Cat."
Robb wonders if Sansa has needed another Cat in her life.
One evening he sits on the patio, watching as the sun sinks into the ocean. It is winter in Westeros, but there is barely a chill in the air in Lys; Robb is grateful there is no snow here, no grey to blot out the sun which makes gold dance in Sansa's hair. When Sansa joins him, Cat swaddled and placed in the cradle Robb made with his own hands, he watches hungrily as she reaches behind her, finding the flimsy ties which hold her gown in place; the silks slither to the ground with ease, revealing long legs, the auburn triangle between her thighs, firm breasts still heavy with milk. As she pulls the pins from her hair, sending curls bouncing over her shoulders, Robb inhales sharply, captivated by her beauty.
"It's your name day," she breathes against his lips, her hands slipping beneath his tunic to pull it up and off. She scratches at his chest lightly, her nails sifting through the hair there, playfully pinching his nipple. Her lips were soft as she kissed down his body, her nimble fingers undoing his laces, stripping him as she came to kneel between his knees. Wrapping a firm hand around the base of his cock, she drags her tongue up the underside of him, kissing the tip even as he moans.
"One," she says before repeating the stroke 22 times, counting out each one; he fists his hands in her hair, trying to get her to take him fully into the moist heat of her mouth, but she stubbornly resists, clucking her tongue in reprimand, pressing her hands into his hips.
“Please,” he finally begs, and Sansa laughs, high and free, as she straddles him, taking him inside her body as she has done a thousand times before; he grasps at her arse, squeezing, urging her to move, and Sansa complies with a shudder, catching his lower lip between her teeth.
“Robb,” she gasps, her fingers biting into his shoulders.
He freezes for a moment; they have never used their true names when they are like this, never acknowledge their true relationship. And then he chokes out, “Sansa,” liking the way she trembles at the syllables, the hunger in her kiss and the snapping of her hips.
Robb chants his sister's name like a prayer, keeping his eyes upon her face which is so much like his own, and he wonders if this is what it was like for Cersei and Jaime Lannister, if they had also known it was wrong but couldn't help themselves.
After they peak, Sansa collapses against his sweat-slick chest, her warm breath misting across his collarbone as his fingers stroke through her tangled locks. “I love you so much, you know.”
“I love you more,” Robb states.
She twists her head to look up at him, her blue eyes bright with unshed tears. “Promise me we will never be apart ever again. Promise me you will always come for Cat and me.”
“A thousand armies could not keep me away from you.”
As they remain nude beneath the full moon, Robb wonders if Sansa will ever truly forgive him for not coming for her sooner.
Ned is born on Sansa's name day, as russet-haired and blue-eyed as the rest of them. He is a big baby but easy to appease, and Sansa laughs at how fascinated Cat becomes by her younger brother. Robb finds himself often telling stories to his infant son, talking about Winterfell, his upbringing alongside Jon, the adventures he used to have in the North. Some nights, he sits with Ned in the crook of his arm, Cat perched upon his knee, and he tells the stories Old Nan used to tell, Sansa smiling as she mends their clothes or reads by the firelight.
There are days when Robb forgets: forgets that Sansa was ever his sister, forgets that Westeros exists, forgets anything but how much he loves her, how much he loves their children. On those days, he is truly happy, truly free; those are the days he is insatiable for Sansa, the days he takes Cat down to the water's edge to play.
But there are days where all he can do is remember: remember what it felt like to hear that Joffrey beheaded their father, remember the sight of those damned Frey and Lannister men murdering his men, Grey Wind, his mother, remember the sweet girl with brown eyes he called wife abandoned at Riverrun. Sometimes he could hardly breathe beneath the weight of his guilt. His decision to send Theon to Pyke lead to Bran and Rickon's murders; his selfish impulsivity with Jeyne at the Crag had lead to the Red Wedding. And Sansa...
“How do you not hate me?” he finally asks one afternoon as the sun streams through the windows and Sansa rests while the children nap.
“Why would I hate you?” she asks without opening her eyes, her head tilted back and resting against the back of the chair.
“Because I left you to the Lannisters.”
Her breath catches for a moment at the invocation of their old enemy's name before she lifts her head, her eyes hard as stone. “Do not do this.”
“Sansa - “
“I shall only say this once, so you had better listen closely: I suffered no more and no less than any other member of our family. At least I escaped with my life, which is more than can be said for our siblings or our parents, Gods rest their souls. I don't blame you, Robb.”
“But if I had come sooner, Joffrey would never have been able to hurt you the way he did.”
“And if I had not told Cersei how our father planned to leave King's Landing, they all might still live.” A single tear rolls down her cheek, but she bats it away almost angrily. “We cannot live in the past.”
Robb is not sure if the past will ever release its grip upon them.
Cat is two and Ned is one when Daenarys Targaryen takes back the Iron Throne. Robb returns home midday, startling Sansa as she mashes fruit for their children's lunch, stuttering and sputtering before finally blurting out the news. Sansa freezes for a moment before starting to laugh. It is such a wholly unexpected reaction, Robb can only watch as his usually poised sister devolves into hysterical laughter, tears pouring down her cheeks.
As he watches Sansa's strange reaction, Cat rushes over, flinging herself at his legs. “Up, Papa! Up!”
Robb lifts his daughter easily, smiling as she presses enthusiastic kisses to his face, jabbering away as if she had not seen him only hours earlier; if they were at Winterfell, if Cat had been Jeyne's child instead of Sansa's, she would never call him “Papa” or play upon the floor. Those were luxuries afforded to peasants' children, not to a little girl who would have been a princess.
“Sansa?”
“Mama?”
Finally gathering herself, Sansa explains, “I am just trying to imagine Cersei Lannister's face when a dragon flew above the Keep.” Softening as she looks upon Cat, she asks, “Is there news of Tommen? Does he live?”
“As a hostage but yes.”
Sansa nods distractedly, moving closer, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his shoulder. “I want to go home,” she whispers. “I want to go back to Winterfell.”
“It was burned,” he reminds her.
“Then we'll rebuild it.” Kissing the underside of his jaw, she declares, “You are still the King in the North, my love. A king needs his castle.”
Sansa writes the letter to send to Daenerys Targaryen, the letter which will either return what has been taken from them or lead them to their deaths. Robb is not sure what he wants, but, as he watches his children sleep, he knows these may be the last days he has with them.
He and Sansa are in bed, her head resting upon his chest, when he says, “If we go back, things cannot be as they are now.”
“No,” she agrees, “they will be very different indeed.”
They do not say anything more.
Tyrion Lannister's letter arrives with the Dragon Queen's seal, granting their request to return to Westeros and reclaim the Stark family's seat in Winterfell. Robb begins to cry when he reads the words which say Jon Snow, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, and Rickon Stark all live, and Sansa weeps as she hugs the children. There is a postscript concerning Jeyne, who is grateful to hear of his good health and who is serving Queen Daenerys until his return. Sansa's face falls a bit at the mention of his wife, but she is so buoyant with the news of their family's survival, nothing can bring her down.
“We can go home,” Sansa sighs, her face wet with tears of joy, and Cat begins to dance around the room singing, “Home, home, home.”
They are both quiet for a long time after that, watching as Cat frolics about, a ball of pure energy, while Ned toddles after her on unsteady legs. Once upon a time, when the world still made sense, Robb had once lead while Sansa followed, but that world ended long ago.
He books passage to Westeros using all the extra money he has put aside; as it is, he still has to sell a dagger to afford it all. Sansa begins to pack all they will need, and Robb feels it starting to recede, the lives they built here, the identities they held. Mikael and Ruby are gone now, Robb and Sansa having returned, and all that remains from their years playing pretend are two happy children who do not understand why their mama and papa have barely looked at each other in the past fortnight.
On the night before they are to return to Westeros, Sansa says, “You can tell Jeyne the children are mine and only mine. I will not fault you.”
Robb stills, stunned. “I won't deny my children.”
“I simply thought - “
“You thought wrong!”
Sansa flinches from the volume and sharpness of his tone, and instantly Robb regrets it, moving to touch her shoulder. She hesitates for only a moment before going into his arms, her mouth hungry and desperate against his. He tears her gown in his haste; she scratches his back bloody. When they have finished, out of breath and aching, Robb murmurs, “We don't have to go back.”
“Yes, we do.”
He takes her three times that night, suckling marks into her throat, her breasts, her hipbones, her inner thighs; each and every time, all Robb could think of was how much he loved her, how much it was going to hurt to go back to being her brother.
“I do not regret a single thing,” Sansa confesses against his mouth, and Robb wonders if she can taste his tears.
She sings to the children as they cross the Narrow Sea, trying to soothe their seasickness and the useless energy building in their limbs as a result of being cooped up in their cabin. Her voice is as beautiful as ever as she sings about Florian and Jonquil, Queen Alysanne, the Mother, sings every song she knows and some she makes up on the spot. Some nights she holds Ned while Robb holds Cat, and she performs for them, voice clear as a bell and twice as beautiful.
In the morning they will reach Westeros, and Robb listens as she trills about love and true knights and all the silly fantasies of her youth. If he closes his eyes, he could almost imagine he is back at Winterfell, he and Jon stopping to listen as she sings to herself. But when he opens his eyes, little Sansa is gone, and all that is left is the woman who has taken her place, the woman he loves more fiercely than anyone on earth, the woman who carried his children, the woman who absolved him of the worst sin he ever committed.
When the coast comes into view, he and Sansa stand upon the deck of the ship, Ned and Cat balanced on their hips, and Robb can feel the anxiety coming off of Sansa in waves. He reaches blindly, finds her hand and clasps it tightly; she squeezes enough to provoke a pinch of pain, and, for the first time since they left the Vale all those years ago, Robb can see fear in her eyes.
He leans into her, resting his forehead against her shining hair, his lips brushing her ear as he sighs, “I do not regret a single thing.”
As King's Landing approaches, Robb holds his sister's hand, kisses his daughter's temple, and hopes the world has gotten kinder in their absence.