Chapter Text
They say your life flashes before your eyes right before you die.
But that’s not what happens to Sansa. Instead, there’s nothing - just fear, and one single thought. I’m going to die.
To be fair, she doesn’t actually die - just almost.
Sansa scrolls through Instagram, checking her likes and mentions. There’s a few DMs for brand deals that she skims, but her attention is pulled from her phone before she can see if any are worthwhile.
“What?” she asks, looking over to the driver’s seat where Joffrey sits. He’s got his camera face on - big grin, that look in his eye that means something’s about to happen.
“I asked, do you think I can get this baby up to a hundred here?”
For a moment she doesn’t understand, but then she feels Joff’s Lambo pick up speed, and her eyes widen, looking out the windshield at the highway in front of them.
“Joff, there’s too much traffic,” she says as quietly as she can, hoping the recording doesn’t pick it up. Joff doesn’t like to be challenged when he’s on camera, especially when he’s livestreaming.
Sure enough, his face twists into a frown for just a moment, before he turns around to look at Meryn in the backseat, who’s holding Joffrey’s phone up so everyone on Twitch can see.
“Wah, Sansa’s too scared,” Joff tells his audience in a mock whine, before he and Meryn and Boros start laughing.
Look at the road, she wants to say, but she grits her teeth and holds it in. She knows better than to tell Joff what to do. It’s best if she stays quiet. Usually he’ll get bored of a joke if she doesn’t react.
“Chat is saying you should do it,” Boros snickers, reading the Twitch chat on his own phone.
Beneath her, the purr of the Lambo’s engine revs, and her heart starts to race along with it. There’s too much traffic, it’s raining, slow down, slow down, slow down- She wants to scream it, but all she can do is grip the door handle tight, willing herself not to react. Joff wants a reaction. He always wants a reaction. She knows Meryn likely has the camera on her.
“I don’t know,” Joff taunts, that grin back on his face. “I don’t want to upset my girlfriend, guys.” At that moment, he jerks the wheel so that they swerve briefly into another lane, before he corrects back into his own, and Sansa can’t help it - she gasps, all her muscles locking up, preparing for impact.
When it doesn’t happen, Joff laughs, delighted. He always likes when she gives good content.
She tries not to be in his videos, but he’s been filming almost constantly these days that it’s hard not to be. And he’s usually careful about how far he takes things with her on camera, but they had a fight last night over DMs she’d found on his phone, and she knows he’s still angry.
“Let’s find an open road,” she tries to suggest, making her voice soft and placating, trying not to look at all the cars around them. “Then we can go as fast as you want.”
“Hear that?” Joff says, glancing back to look at the camera again, taking his eyes off the road. “She wants it fast.”
The Lambo picks up speed again, and he starts to weave in between cars, darting around anyone that dares to go slower than him. Her whole body feels frozen as horns blare around them and rain pelts against the windshield, as she watches the speedometer - 72, 73, 74 -
“Joff, please,” she says, her voice strained. The air feels thin, she can’t seem to get enough into her lungs. “Joff, please, slow down.”
“It’s okay, baby,” Joff grins, but she can hear the bite beneath. He’s still angry. “You’re safe with me. But if you need a distraction, I’ve got one right here.” He gestures down at his lap, before turning to give the camera a grin. “A nice, big distraction.”
Normally, he’d expect her to laugh. She’s always supposed to laugh at his jokes, even if they aren’t funny. But it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t now, because Meryn and Boros are here to do it for her, and they laugh and repeat it a few times, just to make sure the audience really understands they’re making a sex joke.
Her eyes focus on the road ahead, the other cars.
“Joffrey, please. Please slow down,” she begs. She can hear the fear in her own voice, and for a moment, she wonders how many people are watching the stream and laughing at her.
Joff opens his mouth, cutting back into the left lane, but before he can say anything, something changes. His eyes go wide, both his hands grip the wheel, his foot slamming on the brake, and there’s something different about the way they move. Something weightless.
It’s a brief thought, barely a second, before the world starts spinning around them, making her stomach lurch. All Sansa can do is close her eyes.
I’m going to die.
It’s the last thing she thinks before everything goes dark.
The Northern countryside rolls past, but she barely sees it. She stares listlessly out the window, swaying with the motion of the car. The only thing that truly grabs her attention is a herd of horses in a field that seem to gallop along with the car, and she feels her lips lift into a smile for the first time in nearly a week.
Then a sign comes into view, and she realizes they’re at Cassel’s Farm, where Arya used to ride, and her smile drops. Cassel’s isn’t on the route from the airport, and it dawns on her that dad has stuck to back roads on the way home.
Annoyance makes her chest feel tight, and she looks up front, only to catch mom watching her in the rearview mirror. Mom’s eyes quickly avert, but it’s too late.
“I’m not traumatized,” she snaps. “You could’ve taken the highway.”
It’s dad’s turn to look into the rearview mirror at her, and his voice is steady and calm when he responds. “Traffic is brutal this time of day. These roads are nicer.”
He’s lying, but she doesn’t have the energy to argue. She doesn’t even have the energy to stay annoyed, and so instead she leans forward and reaches into her purse, wincing when the action jostles her other arm. As she digs into the inside pocket, she feels nothing, and she’s reminded that her phone isn’t in there.
No, her phone had been obliterated in the crash. They hadn’t even been able to salvage the SIM card. Better it than you, she remembers one of the nurses saying. She’d forgotten, and reaching for it had been an involuntary action.
Mom is turned around now, watching her root around in her purse. “Do you need something, sweetling?”
Sansa grinds her teeth, shifting her hand to a different pocket. “Chapstick,” she lies, pulling out the small tube. Whether mom buys it or not, she doesn’t say, she just watches Sansa uncap the chapstick and swipe it on, one-handed.
Her other arm is strapped to her chest in a sling. The cast is white - they’d offered her other colors, but she’d been too angry and refused to pick one. It seems stupid now, and she hates the off-white of it. It’s ugly and blank.
Blank, because none of her friends had even bothered to visit her in the hospital, even though she’d been there for days. The only person who had tried to come by was Joffrey, with his parents and his attorney. Dad had thrown them out before they could even get into her room. She’d pretended she hadn’t heard the yelling.
The reminder of Joffrey makes her throat feel tight and her eyes hot, and she looks back out the window before mom can see. “So Robb’s been taking care of everyone while you were gone?” she asks, trying to lighten her tone. “Will the house even be standing when we get there?”
Dad lets out a soft laugh. “Jon’s there, too, so maybe half standing.”
“Why is Jon there?” She thought the days of Jon practically living on Robb’s futon were over. She’s pretty sure she heard that he’d gotten his own place, but maybe she’s wrong. She honestly never paid much attention to Jon.
“He’s interning for me this summer,” dad says, like she should know. Maybe she should. Maybe someone told her and she just forgot, because it wasn’t relevant to her life. She wasn’t supposed to come home this summer. “He’s helping with the Rayder case.”
She lets out a hum. Dad’s been working on the Rayder case for months now, and he’s been so stressed about it, from what she’s heard. He’ll probably be even more stressed because he had to miss a week of work to come down and get her.
There’s a moment where she thinks about apologizing for being an inconvenience, but in the end, she says nothing at all.
Dad parks in the circular drive, right in front of the house. Before either one of her parents can get out of the car to help her, she’s got her door open, and she tries not to grimace as she gets out. Her whole body aches, the pain throbbing particularly sharp in her arm and head. Dad’s at her side in an instant.
She bites back the words that sit on the tip of her tongue, annoyance tightening in her chest again. She almost wishes Rickon and Arya had burned the house down while they were gone, because maybe then mom and dad would have something else to focus on. It’s been a week of their constant, worried frowns and the things they’d whisper to each other when they thought she was asleep and she isn’t sure she can handle much more of it.
They’re barely inside the door before Robb appears in the foyer, the same worried frown gracing his mouth. He looks so much like mom in that instant.
“Hey there,” he says, and she can tell he isn’t sure how to act. Normally when she comes home, he sweeps her up in a bear hug and swings her around. Now, he stands awkwardly in front of her, trying to pretend he isn’t being awkward.
“Would you mind getting our bags from the car?” mom asks, and Robb immediately nods, looking grateful for something to do.
He starts to head for the door, and calls over his shoulder, “come on.”
Sansa blinks, confused, until she realizes Jon is also there. She hadn’t seen him, and he gives her a nod, his eyes flicking up her forehead, before he ducks his head down and follows Robb out to the car.
“Let’s get you up to your room so you can rest,” mom says, and Sansa doesn’t bother arguing. Her joints ache and her head is throbbing and her arm itches and all she wants to do is take more painkillers and lay down and sleep.
Walking up the steps is the hardest part, the movement pulling at the stitches in her thigh. Idly, she wonders how bad the scar will be. How much she’ll have to edit her photos when she’s finally able to post again.
“When can I get a new phone?” she asks, as mom ushers her into her bedroom. The bed looks hastily - and poorly - made, and she can just picture mom texting Robb or Arya to put sheets on the bed. Because Sansa wasn’t supposed to be home this summer.
Neither of her parents answer, and by the time she’s sitting in bed, propped up against the headboard, she realizes they’ve been quiet for too long.
“Phone?” she prompts.
Mom sighs and shoots a look at dad, and Sansa tenses up. She knows that look.
“Sweetling,” mom starts, and Sansa narrows her eyes at the endearment. Nothing good is going to come after it. “Your dad and I were thinking that maybe this isn’t the time for you to be online. Maybe you should take a break for a little while.”
The words don’t register at first, and Sansa stares at her parents until they slowly sink in.
“Is this some sort of punishment?” she asks, her voice wavering in the middle.
“Not a punishment,” mom is quick to say. “But after everything, we think it’s best if you just focused on healing for now.”
“So I’m supposed to sit in this bed and - what? Stare out the window until you decide I’m healed enough?”
Amusement flickers in dad’s expression, but all it does is annoy her.
“You have so many books in this room,” dad says. “You used to love reading. And you’ve got a TV with all the streaming channels. Just… no social media. For now.”
“I’m an adult!” she argues. “You can’t ground me from the internet.”
Her parents exchange another look, and it makes her want to scream.
“You are technically an adult. But we pay for your phone bill, so yes, we get to decide whether you have access to it or not.”
“That’s bullshit,” she seethes.
Mom moves to sit on the edge of the bed. “Sansa,” she sighs, lifting her hand to smooth back Sansa’s hair, like she used to when Sansa was a kid - when she’d had a bad dream or a fight with Arya. Now, she jerks back from the touch, and tries not to notice the hurt that flashes across mom’s face. “We know you’re going through a lot right now, but being on the internet isn’t going to help. I know you have your followers and you care about that, but we care about you.”
Sansa looks from her mom to her dad, and says, “it was that psychiatrist, wasn’t it? The one that came in to talk to me.” Shae, she remembers, the woman at the hospital who had done an evaluation on her. She’d liked Shae at the time, but not anymore.
“She mentioned time away from social media might do you some good,” mom admits. “And we agree with her. So for now, just try to get as much rest as possible, and we’ll see where we are in a few weeks.”
“A few weeks,” Sansa sputters, but it’s too late. Mom is already standing, and she can hear footsteps in the hall.
Robb appears at the door hauling one of her suitcases and her carry-on, with Jon following behind with her second suitcase.
“Robb, they’re insane,” she says, reaching out for her brother. “They won’t get me a phone.”
Robb sets her bags down, then gives a little shrug. “Maybe it’s not the worst idea.”
Anger makes her feel hot. “Not the worst idea,” she repeats, throwing his words back at him. He at least has the decency to look a bit guilty for betraying her like this. “Get out.”
“Sans-”
“Get out,” she repeats, and when they don’t immediately move, she pointedly turns away from them to look out the window. The sun is bright outside, the leaves on the massive oak swaying gently in the breeze, feeling completely at odds with the simmering rage that sits inside her.
“Don’t be mad,” Robb pleads, and normally she’d soften at his tone. She always used to, but now all it does is make her angrier.
When she doesn’t answer and doesn’t look at him, there’s a sigh, and then movement. Suddenly, something soft is pressed between her good arm and her side, and she glaces down to see Lady, her stuffed dog.
“I’m not a child,” she snarls, taking Lady and throwing it as hard as she can at her brother. The angle is bad and she’s never had great aim to begin with, so it sails past him and almost hits Jon, before bouncing harmlessly off her dresser.
She was hoping for anger from him in response, something to match her own, but he just looks sad as he finally heads for her door.
“I’ll be back with something to eat and your medicine in a half hour,” mom says softly, before she disappears out into the hall, everyone trailing after her. Jon is the last one out, and he shuts her door behind him, leaving her alone. She can hear them retreat down the hall, and then there’s nothing but silence.
There’s a moment where she stews in her anger, but then her eyes land on Lady, and it all seems to crumble apart into nothing.
Slowly, she swings her legs out of bed and stands, limping over to the other side of the room and bending down to pick Lady up. Then she takes Lady back to bed and lays down and hugs her old stuffed dog to her chest.
A half hour later, there’s a knock on her door, but when she doesn’t respond, it opens anyway.
Instead of mom, it’s Bran carrying a plate and a cup of water and setting them down on the bedside table.
“Dinner,” he announces, like she can’t see. On the plate are chicken kebabs, which she assumes mom made specifically so it would be easy for her to eat with one hand. Next to them are her pain pills.
“I thought mom was going to bring it,” she says, adjusting to sit up more fully before reaching for a kebab.
“Pretty sure she thought if she tried, you’d skewer her,” he gestures at the plate. Sansa nearly rolls her eyes, biting a cube of chicken off the skewer. “So you’ve got me, because mom knows I’m your favorite and you’re more likely to eat and take your meds if I ask you to.”
This time, she does roll her eyes. “I don’t have a favorite.”
“Sure,” Bran agrees. Then, quieter, “how are you?”
She shrugs, keeping her eyes focused on the food as she bites off a pepper. “Dreading however long mom and dad decide to power trip and keep me off the internet.”
“I think you’ll survive,” Bran says dryly, and she can’t help but deflate a bit when he doesn’t take her side, either.
When she's done and Bran takes the dishes to go, he pauses, then leans in to press a kiss to the top of her head. “I'm glad you're home,” he says.
She has nothing to say to that, and silence follows Bran out of the room.
Later, she gets out of bed and hobbles to the bathroom, where she gets ready for sleep. There’s no way she can complete her normal skincare routine, and so she settles for a basic face wash, carefully avoiding the stitches in her forehead, fingertips featherlight on the bruise that spans her temple.
After rinsing her face off, she stands up and looks at herself in the mirror.
Her face is pale, and she's broken out along her chin, because of course she has. Why not. She has no idea where her acne patches are, because she didn't pack her own bags. It had been dad who'd gone to Joff’s place and done it. It probably wasn't too much of a hassle, since she was already half packed for Lys anyway.
There's a moment where she meets her own eyes in the mirror, and she realizes she's sick of looking at herself.
So she brushes her teeth and turns out the lights and goes back to bed, and she makes sure to turn on the new season of Bake Off so she doesn't have to fall asleep to silence.