Chapter Text
The announcement drops on a Thursday morning.
Sansa Stark just settled into her seat at the Northern University Library, armed with a lukewarm latte and her psychology notes, ready for a productive study session, when her phone buzzes with a single, glorious notification:
DAENERYS TARGARYEN - STORMBORN WORLD TOUR: NEW DATES ANNOUNCED.
KING’S LANDING. ONE NIGHT ONLY.
Sansa kinda forgets how to breathe.
She clicks the link with a trembling finger, nearly spilling her coffee as she frantically scrolls through the ticket options.
Sansa Stark prides herself in being a reasonable human being, who wouldn’t abandon everything at the drop of a hat, but when Daenerys Targaeryen comes to Westeros for the first time in five years you do what you have to do.
The Daenerys Targaryen. Platinum-haired goddess of pop, breaker of genre boundaries, ruler of the Billboard charts, and Sansa’s not-so-secret obsession.
Sansa has posters taped to the walls of her childhood bedroom. CDs and vinyls. Limited edition merch she spends way too much money on. A small fine line tattoo of one of her lyrics inked on her body.
And now, the queen herself is coming to Westeros, to King’s Landing, for one night only.
Winterfell is only a six-hour train ride away from King’s Landing. Sansa doesn't even hesitate. She knows she'll spend whatever amount of money it takes to get to see her.
The tickets go on sale on Monday morning, (which of course means she will miss her favorite class with Professor Tarth, but those are sacrifices she's willing to make), and so she has about three days to convince at least one of her friends to go with her.
It's going to be so easy.
—
Turns out, it's not easy.
It is not easy at all .
She asks Jeyne, but her best friend says she really can’t take time off work, but that she would have loved to go with her were it any other day. Which is very nice of her, but not helpful at all to Sansa right now.
She asks Margaery but she laughs in her face and tells her she can't stand Daenerys’ ass. Sansa knows , but she pouts cutely, hoping to sway her, and she tells her it is for Sansa, that she can even wear earplugs and won’t have to listen to her music at all! But Margie reminds her that the exact day of the concert is also Loras’ birthday and the last time she missed one he didn't speak to her for a week.
She asks her sister, and that somehow goes even worse.
She asks her brother Robb, because he used to have a crush on Daenerys, even though he always denies it, but he says he wouldn’t be caught dead in the crowd of one of her concerts.
Her friends and family are an overdramatic bunch, that much is sure.
She even asks one girl in her Statistic class, they sometimes chat and talk about Dany's latest music release or her newest boyfriend, but she tells her she can’t afford to spend three hundred dragons on a single ticket, plus the rest of the expenses. Sansa almost tells her she will pay for everything before realizing it would not only make her sound desperate, but also completely drain her savings account.
On Monday morning she's not yet sure what to do.
She is so close to giving up.
But. Why should she give up on the possibility of witnessing the concert of one of her favourite artists ever just because no one is available to go with her?
Her mother’s voice echoes in her head. “ You’re not seriously considering going alone, are you? ” Catelyn Stark would die if she knew what her daughter was considering doing.
Going to a concert alone should not be a taboo. It may be scary, but she is Sansa Stark goddammit, and she can do it!
When ten am rolls around she’s made up her mind.
She waits not so patiently on the TicketMaster site, refreshing every three seconds, and then she’s in the queue. There are only four hundred people before her, and she knows that soon she’ll be inside the page of the map of the stadium, and she’ll have to quickly select the ticket she wants before it disappears in front of her eyes.
She doesn’t know which gods to thank but she does it, almost effortlessly. Within minutes, she secures a ticket, spending far too much of her savings but justifying it with a fervent you only live once .
Arya would roll her eyes at her, but Arya isn’t here, her utter lack of interest in electropop royalty being a gigantic pain in Sansa’s ass.
And yet, that didn’t stop her.
She is going. Alone .
Excitement buzzes under her skin until she closes the tab of TicketMaster and opens another one to book a hotel for her brief stay in the capital, and realizes the true cost of her spontaneous devotion.
Everything half decent in King’s Landing is already sold out.
Not just the five star places Sansa likes to romanticize staying in, but also the crumbling bed and breakfasts and the shady hostels she wouldn’t touch even in desperation.
Panic sets in.
Sansa is usually extremely prepared, evidenced by the fact that she is trying to book the hotel right after buying the ticket, but apparently there are people even more prepared than she is. Who in their right minds books a hotel for a concert before they are even sure if they’re going to be able to purchase the tickets?
Psychos, that’s who.
She opens the Airbnb app.
There are not many listings left, certainly not any private apartments, but one catches her eye. It’s a single bedroom in a shared apartment, just a ten minute walk to the venue, reasonably priced, and with several five-star reviews praising the host’s cleanliness and quiet demeanor.
The host's name is Jon Snow.
Sansa clicks on his profile.
The photo shows a man in his late twenties, dark curly hair, unshaven jaw, wearing a flannel and looking like he would rather be anywhere else than in front of a camera.
She doesn't think he looks like a murderer, at least.
She hesitates. She stares at the photo. Then stares at it some more. And clicks through the reviews again. A lot of “ nice guy, ” “ very respectful ,” and “ good accommodation in a great location, ” “ the dog is beautiful, sweet and super well-mannered! ”.
Still, her finger hovers over the Book Now button.
She would be alone. With a strange man. In a city she barely knows.
But the concert…
Sansa takes a breath, she closes her eyes, imagining herself in the crowd, lights pulsing, Dany’s voice rising like a siren song above the roar. She can almost feel the beat in her chest already.
Click.
She books the room.
Now all she has to do is wait. And then survive a weekend in King’s Landing with a stranger named Jon Snow.
—
You have a new email from AIRBNB:
Hello Sansa, thank you so much for the reservation!
If you have any preferences for when to check in, let me know. I am available for most of the day. If you need any information, just ask :)
Have a nice day and I'll see you soon,
Jon.
—
Three months pass in a haze of anticipation.
Sansa counts down the days on her calendar with quiet excitement, the golden circle around the date growing closer with each cross of her pen on the day that just passed. The day of the concert. The day she will finally see Daenerys Targaryen live.
She packs the night before. Her suitcase is small, but what it carries feels sacred. Nestled between her travel makeup kit, her day clothes and her phone charger is the outfit she’s been planning for months: a soft brown dress, minimal in the front but dramatic in the back, where the fabric parts to reveal smooth skin. Holding the open back together is a delicate, dragon shaped clasp in gold. It curls around the nape of her neck, just like the one Dany wears on the Dracarys album cover.
It’s bold. Bolder than anything she’s ever worn in public. But it feels good, when she tries it on, she feels sexy, she feels electric.
Still, the thrill of the dress doesn’t completely silence her nerves.
She stares at herself in the mirror as she double-checks her train time. 9:35 AM to King’s Landing Central. Nonstop. Six hours. She tucks a strand of red hair behind her ear and sighs.
The apartment situation still gives her a flutter of anxiety, but things got better.
After she booked the room, she and Jon exchanged a few emails. At first, it was just the basic stuff: check-in times, how to get the spare key, whether she was allergic to dogs (she wasn’t) because sometimes people booked without reading the whole description of the house.
But gradually, the messages grew longer. He had a quiet way of writing, short sentences, to the point, but oddly polite. He told her she could use the kitchen, warned her the water pressure in the shower was a little moody, and even gave her restaurant suggestions when she asked.
It was strange. She still didn’t know him. But the awkward wariness she felt in the beginning dulled into something closer to cautious optimism.
Still this is not like her. Sansa Stark does not stay in strangers’ homes. She doesn’t travel alone to strange cities, or book concerts without backup, or wear dresses that make her blush in the daylight. But maybe she’s done being the girl she used to be.
She arrives at the station early, anxious she might miss it. As the train pulls away from the platform, she looks out at the familiar Northern hills and whispers a small goodbye to Winterfell under her breath.
On the train ride she listens to her favorite playlist “ mother of dragons ”, containing all of her favorite songs from Daenerys’ seven studio albums, because it seems like the most fitting thing to listen to.
When the three hour long playlist is over, she takes her earphones off and fishes for the tuna sandwich she prepared at home and stored into her bag. She eats while she scrolls through her phone, she answers a text from Robb asking her if train ride is ok so far, replies to a meme Arya sent her, and listens to a voice note of Margie complaining because she has nothing to wear at Loras’ birthday party tomorrow.
By the time she reaches King’s Landing, she’s exhausted, the hours spent on the train starting to wear on her. She steps off the train with her suitcase in one hand and her nerves in the other, following the directions Jon sent to his apartment in the old quarter near Flea Bottom, not as sketchy as the name suggested, he assured her. (Or at least, not anymore.)
When she reaches the building, a narrow, sand-colored townhouse nestled between a wine bar and a tattoo shop, her heart does a little flip.
She rings the buzzer.
A second later, a gruff voice comes through: “Yeah?”
“It’s Sansa Stark,” she says, adjusting the strap of her bag. “I booked the room?”
A pause.
Then: “Of course. Top floor. Door’s open.”
The door buzzes, and she pushes it open, climbing up the narrow stairs. The building smells like clean laundry and old stone. When she reaches the top, she hesitates in front of the door.
She knocks lightly, just in case, but instead it creaks open.
And there he is.
Jon Snow looks exactly like his photo, tired, brooding, and unfairly attractive. He wears a black t-shirt and jeans, his hair tied loosely at the nape of his neck. His dog, a massive white husky, stands at his side like a guardian.
“Hi,” Sansa says, suddenly feeling small under both of their gazes.
“Hey,” he says, voice deep and raspy. “You made it.”
He steps aside, letting her walk in, and just like that, she is officially in King’s Landing, standing in a stranger’s apartment.
Sansa glances around the apartment, still holding onto the handle of her suitcase. The space is clean but lived-in, there’s books on the shelves, dishes drying on a rack, a big blue couch in the corner with a wool blanket tossed carelessly over the arm. The windows are open, letting in the distant hum of voices and King’s Landing’s streets.
Ghost, the hulking white dog, sniffs her suitcase, gives a single approving huff, then pads back to a faded rug and flops down with a groan.
Jon watches with arms crossed. He doesn’t seem like a man who talks a lot, but it feels almost like a relief after the rush of so many hours of travel and nerves. He only politely asks her how her trip was, and when she replies that it was good but very long, he gets the hint.
“You can drop your stuff in the room at the end of the hall,” he says, nodding toward the hallway. “There’s fresh sheets on the bed. Towels are on there as well. And, uh, the lock on the door works fine. Just in case.”
“Thanks,” Sansa says, pulling her suitcase behind her and glancing around.
“You’re lucky you got it,” Jon adds, heading toward the kitchen. “Some people book way in advance for this weekend.” He glances over his shoulders and offers her something to drink, and she graciously takes the glass of water when he hands it to her.
A few weeks after Sansa purchased her concert ticket, she discovered that Daenerys Targaryen wasn’t the only reason why King’s Landing was bursting at the seams that weekend. While the Stormborn Tour had certainly drawn thousands of devoted fans to the capital, the city was already bracing for its annual Spring Festival, a sprawling, chaotic celebration that transformed every square and alleyway into a carnival of music, food, and excess.
“Yeah, I noticed. I found out why a little too late, though,” she says, after taking a sip of water. “I checked every hotel in the city first. Total madness.”
Jon gives a quiet laugh, just a breath of air through his nose. “Daenerys concert, right?”
Sansa blinks. “Yeah. How did you—?”
“Well, you said you didn’t know about the festival,” he explains. “And the city’s been crazy in preparation for the concert too, plus my apartment is pretty close to the stadium. Put it together.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks are warm. “Yeah, that’s tomorrow night. I’ll probably be back late, like really late. Sorry in advance if I make noise coming in, I don’t want to wake you or anything.”
She doesn’t want to bother him too much, even though she’s paying for her stay, she still doesn't want to be rude or impose too much on him. She wants to be the perfect guest, like her mother taught her when she was young and started having sleepovers with her friends.
He leans against the counter, arms still folded, one ankle crossed over the other. “Don’t worry about it,” he waves her off. “I’m a deep sleeper. You could throw a war outside my door and I wouldn’t wake up.”
“Good to know,” she says, smiling for real now.
Jon tilts his head slightly. “So, Daenerys. You a big fan?”
Sansa laughs softly. “Is it that obvious?”
That gets her a small smile from him, just the corner of his mouth, and Sansa thinks that he looks even more attractive like this. “Kind of.”
She shrugs, she used to be ashamed of it when she was younger but she’s learned to be proud of the things she likes. “I grew up listening to her. It sounds silly but she’s helped me through a lot. Breakups and heartbreaks, especially.” She doesn’t explain further, because she’s not looking to have her weekend ruined by ghosts of her past, and also because she is paying Jon Snow to stay in his home, not to listen to her trauma dump. “My friend and I used to listen to her songs and do her choreographies in the mirror. She’s… I don’t know. Something else.”
He nods, not judging, and she silently approves him in her head. She can't stand men who feel threatened by powerful and successful women, or by women liking unabashedly girl empowering music.
“Never listened to her much. My best friend Sam did, though. He used to live here before he moved in with his girlfriend and sometimes he would blast her music, so I know a few songs.”
Sansa sits on the edge of the sofa, relaxing bit by bit. “Oh. So this was his room?”
Upon her quick study of the house, she noticed a framed photo sitting on the bookcase: Jon, looking slightly younger than he is now, standing next to another man with dark hair and a wide grin. Sam, presumably.
“Yeah. My dad bought the place for me. Said it was better than paying rent forever. When Sam moved out, it felt too quiet. Airbnb made sense. Little extra money on the side, so I don’t have to get a job while I'm still in school.”
Sansa smiles, the tension in her shoulders easing slightly, the thought of him doing it for the money and not to have girls in his house, like she imagined in her worst nightmares, makes her feel better. “That makes sense. What do you do?”
“Med school. Final year,” he says, there’s pride seeping through the words, but mostly it’s the quiet, matter-of-fact tone of someone who’s been living inside a tunnel for years and can finally see the light at the end.
Jon glances over at her. “What about you?”
“Psych major,” she replies. “Northern University. Still a year to go.”
He nods, like that explains something. He’s looking at her, studying her with an indecipherable look, and Sansa feels something stirring deep inside of her at the focused gaze of his eyes on her.
“Well,” she says, standing him from her spot on the couch. “I should probably get settled in.”
“Absolutely, go ahead,” he says, clearing his throat, and shaking himself from his scrutiny. “I’ll be in my room, if you need anything just knock, okay?”
She nods gratefully, her suitcase wheels humming faintly against the floor, when she finally retreats into the guest room.
The bedroom is small but cozy. The bed is neatly made, it looks surprisingly comfortable, with folded towels and a small greeting card on the pillow that reads Welcome, Sansa . She smiles at the thought of Jon printing it out.
The walls are pale, there’s a single window with a narrow view of the alley below and a small desk she will probably use as a vanity table to do her makeup. The scent of lavender clings faintly to the linens, and she smiles again, knowing that Jon cared enough to make the space feel human.
Sansa sits on the edge of the bed and lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.
She is here. She made it. In King’s Landing, in a stranger’s apartment, and with a little more than twenty four hours to go until the concert of a lifetime.
She takes her time in the shower, letting the warm water wash away the stiffness left from the long train ride. Her muscles ache pleasantly, her mind buzzing in anticipation of tomorrow.
Wrapped in a fresh shirt and tight jeans, hair still slightly damp, Sansa grabs her bag and a light jacket, she makes sure not to forget the keys of the apartment and heads out the door.
She wants to go out and explore, maybe find something to eat too.
—
By the time Sansa steps out of Jon’s apartment, the sun is beginning its slow descent towards the sea, casting a warm, honeyed glow over the busy streets of King's Landing.
Sansa walks without a strict destination, she lets the winding streets guide her. The air smells of salty water, and the occasional scent of something cooking drifting out from open shop windows.
She passes bookstalls and flower carts, strings of lights crisscrossing narrow alleyways and little cafés with jazz musicians playing melodic music. Sansa wanders with a soft smile on her lips, phone in hand, eyes drinking every little detail.
She pauses in front of a mural on the side of a building, a massive, sweeping depiction of Daenerys Targaryen, hair swirling around her like a flame, her eyes made of mirror fragments.
The city clearly loves the Pop Queen, and so does Sansa. She snaps a picture, then another.
She finds herself pulled toward the harbor. The view opens suddenly, and she’s met with the sight of rows and rows of fishing boats, seagulls flying high and then abruptly diving into the water to pluck some food. The sun hits the water just right, throwing gold across the waves.
She stands there for a long moment, quiet and still, letting it all sink in. Breathing in the salty air, letting the light breeze ruffle her hair. She takes photos from every angle, and then she turns the camera around to snap a few of herself, with the sea behind her and the glowing skyline.
She sends the pictures to her siblings’ group chat.
sansa : [4 pictures attached]
sansa : survived the train!! kings landing is prettier than i expected
sansa : also i wanted to tell arya that i’m not dead yet
bran : You still might be. It’s only been a couple of hours.
rickon : bring me something cool pls
arya : mmmm and are u 100% sure that this jon guy is not a murderer
sansa : yes arya, i'm pretty sure.
arya : i'm just saying... if i have to come down to KL to avenge your death i'm charging you for the train ticket
sansa : 🙄🙄 thanks…
robb : Dont get kidnapped. Love u ❤️
Sansa rolls her eyes but smiles down at her siblings’ texts. She is used to Bran and Arya’s dramatics. And honestly, she understands it, she wasn’t totally sure about Jon either. But so far, he did not murder her, and he did not make it weird. In fact, he made her feel surprisingly safe.
Eventually, her stomach reminds her that she hasn’t eaten since that small sandwich on the train. She pulls up the email Jon sent her after her booking, the one with the list of ‘ Not-tourist-trap food recs ’.
If you want something low-key but good, try Meraxes on Sun Street. Tiny place. No tourists. Great food. I could eat their tiramisu every day and never get tired of it.
She types the name of the restaurant into her maps app and sets off, weaving through narrow back streets lit by warm, flickering lanterns.
Meraxes is an intimate place, dim and cozy, with weathered wooden beams, warm lighting, and mismatched chairs that make the place feel like someone’s dining room rather than a restaurant.
A hostess greets her with a nod and hands her off to a waitress, a girl in her mid-twenties with warm eyes, a silver nose ring, and deep red hair pulled up in a loose bun.
“Welcome,” the girl says, handing her a worn but clean menu. “Can I get you started with something to drink?”
“Just water, thanks,” Sansa says, as she sits near the window, setting her phone face down as she relaxes into the space.
She looks confident in that way people are when they know their space well. “Great. You want to scan the menu, or can I talk you into the grilled salmon right now?”
Sansa laughs. “Let’s go with the salmon.”
The waitress nods with approval. “Smart woman, it’s our special for a reason.” Then she tilts her head, eyes narrowing with curiosity. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Sansa hesitates, caught off guard. “No, just in for the weekend. What gave me away?”
“Accent,” she replies with a laugh. “We don’t hear many northerner accents around here.”
The waitress gives her a small nod and leaves to place Sansa’s order.
“Let me guess,” the redhead waitress tells her, once she comes back to her table, pouring Sansa a glass of water, “you’re here for Daenerys?”
“I am,” Sansa says, cheeks warming. “Just me, though. Hotels were impossible, but I got lucky and found a room on Airbnb.”
“Nice,” the waitress says, then adds playfully, “As long as the host isn’t secretly a murderer.”
Sansa can’t help but chuckle to herself. Is it everyone’s first instinct to assume Airbnb hosts are murderers? She’s definitely not innocent herself. She did the same exact thing, spending a solid hour zooming in on Jon’s photos, trying to decide if he looked like a serial killer or just someone who hated taking selfies. Arya immediately texted, you’re going to get chopped up , when she told them her plan. Even Robb raised an eyebrow. Now the waitress too?
“He’s not,” Sansa says with a small laugh, thinking of the small things Jon did in his apartment to make it more homey for guests. “At least, not yet. I was a bit scared but he and his enormous white husky seem trustworthy so far.”
The waitress straightens at the mention of a big white dog. “Wait. You're staying at Jon’s? Jon Snow?”
Sansa blinks. “Yeah. Dark curly hair, grumpy face, was wearing all black.”
The girl laughs. “That’s him, all right.”
“You know him?” Sansa straightens in her seat.
“Know him?” She gives a crooked smile. “I used to date him. We lived together for, like, a year. I basically trained Ghost not to eat shoes.”
Sansa’s stomach does something weird. She is not sure if it flutters or flips, or even why it does.
“Oh.”
“Don’t worry,” the girl adds quickly, misreading her expression. “He’s a good guy. Quiet. Kind of awkward, but solid. He’d rather eat nails than make someone uncomfortable.”
Sansa relaxes. “That’s good to know.”
“Honestly, if I hadn’t dumped him, we’d probably still be together.” She grins, like it’s a joke, and Sansa brings herself to smile at her. “He’s very much a stay-in-and-watch-documentaries kind of guy. I wanted more fire, y’know?”
Sansa nods politely, forcing another smile. She should feel reassured. The ex-girlfriend clearly doesn't think Jon is a creep. That should make her feel better about the whole arrangement.
And it does.
Mostly.
But for some reason, she finds herself looking a little too closely at the girl’s red hair, vivid and wild, the kind that makes people turn their heads in a crowd, wondering absently how many types of redheads Jon dated, how many did he live with, and which red did he prefer. Is it his ex’s fiery red or maybe something more like Sansa’s soft auburn waves?
She doesn’t want to care, but something about knowing Jon has a history with this girl, someone so confident and effortlessly cool, digs under Sansa’s skin like a splinter.
You’ve known him for three hours, Sansa reminds herself. Stop being ridiculous.
And yet.
When her food arrives—grilled salmon with spiced couscous on the side—it tastes good, but not as good as it should’ve, not as good as it would’ve if she hadn’t talked to the waitress about Jon. Not with the odd taste of irrational jealousy lingering on her tongue.
—
She leaves Meraxes with a small white box in hand and the sinking realization that she might be actually insane.
Who brings tiramisu to a man she’s known for six hours?
Sansa stares down at the neat little container as she walks back towards the apartment, the pastry bag swinging slightly from her wrist. She can still hear herself saying it to the waitress, “Actually… Can I get a tiramisu to go? ”, like it was nothing.
Except it isn’t nothing. It is thoughtful. Intimate. Borderline weird, Arya would tell her if she was here.
She is also not entirely sure that the waitress didn’t see right through her. She used to be his girlfriend, she definitely knows it’s Jon’s favorite dessert and she knows she’s going back to his apartment, and oh gods, she really is insane.
But Jon mentioned tiramisu in one of their emails, one of those little throwaway details, the kind you don’t expect anyone to remember, except Sansa always remembers the small things. So now here she is. Bringing dessert to her Airbnb host, a man whose voice she only heard for the first time about six hours ago.
She nearly turns around twice. I’ll just eat it myself , she reasons in her head. It’s not weird if I eat it.
She could find a nice bench with a view of the city, take the tiramisu out of the bag and eat it while she stares longingly at the horizon, waiting for the perfect man and love interest to rock her world, like she’s the main character in a romantic comedy.
But she doesn’t, by the time she reaches the apartment, her feet have already decided for her.
She climbs up the stairs, heart pattering nervously. The box feels heavier with every step.
When she opens the apartment door, Ghost looks up from the couch, tail thumping once in quiet acknowledgment. From the kitchen, she hears the familiar clatter of fridge rummaging.
Jon is bent at the waist, peering inside the fridge with visible frustration.
“Anything good?” she asks, stepping inside.
He straightens, startled but not alarmed. His hair is messier than before, a curl falling over his forehead.
“Not unless half a jar of olives and expired hummus count.”
Sansa hesitates in the doorway, then lifts the white box. “I, uh… brought you something. From that restaurant you told me about.”
He blinks. “What?”
“It’s tiramisu,” she explains. “You said you could eat it every day, remember?”
Jon stares at her for a beat, like he’s trying to decide whether or not she is messing with him.
Then a slow, disbelieving smile spreads across his face, it's quiet and genuine, like the sunrise slipping in under a door.
“I did say that,” he murmurs, looking extremely touched from the gesture. “Damn.”
She shrugs, self-conscious. “It’s not a big deal.”
He looks at her like he's thinking the exact opposite of it not being a big deal, but he doesn’t comment on it.
“That’s actually a pretty big dessert,” he says instead, accepting the box gently. “You wanna share?”
That sounds much better than her imagination. This is better than eating the dessert alone on a street bench at night, waiting for someone to come for her. She thanks her body for walking here on autopilot even when her mind felt it was an insane thing to do.
She smiles. “Only if you get two spoons.”
And he does. He closes the refrigerator door, opens the kitchen drawer and from there he takes two mismatched spoons, one is slightly bent and Jon chooses it for himself.
They sit at the kitchen table, both on the same side without even thinking about it, knees bumping lightly under the wood. He peels back the lid of the plastic container, the tiramisu looks heavenly, layers of cream, espresso-soaked ladyfingers, and a fine dusting of cocoa.
Sansa takes the first bite and lets herself sink into it. “Okay,” she says, after swallowing her first mouthful. “You weren’t exaggerating. This is the best dessert I’ve ever had.”
“Told you,” Jon says around his own spoonful, grinning.
“You really didn’t eat dinner?” Sansa asks after a few bites.
Jon shakes his head. “Studying. Time got away from me.”
They pass the container back and forth, the silence between them comfortable and warm.
Sansa licks a bit of cream from her spoon, then says, “ Meraxes’ food was really great, by the way. Thanks for the great recommendation.”
Jon looks up, pleased. “Yeah?”
“Your ex-girlfriend was my waitress,” she says, because apparently she has no self-restraint lately.
He pauses mid-bite. “Oh. Ygritte?”
“She didn’t tell me her name. Red hair. Confident. Sharp sense of humor.”
“That’s her.”
She fiddles with her fork. “She said you were a good guy.”
He looks mildly embarrassed, then amused. “That’s very generous of her.”
“She also said she dumped you.”
For gods’ sake Sansa, what exactly is your problem?
Jon snorts, dipping his spoon into the tiramisu. “Yeah. That part’s true.”
Sansa laughs, glad that he didn’t take the mention of his ex-girlfriend in a bad way, and Jon gives her a sheepish glance, as if to say what can you do?
That part’s true , he said.
But Sansa is confident that they both are—he is a good guy.
They keep talking.
She tells him about her family, about her siblings, about Arya’s ‘ Jon-is-a-serial-killer ’ theory (without mentioning that she thought about it too), about her classes and her friends, she tells him about her fantasies of one day living in the south, even though the North will always be her home, and how strange it feels to be in a city where no one knows her name.
He tells her about growing up right here in the capital, about his father and his half siblings, older and more rebellious than him, calling himself more quiet than the rest of his family, he talks about his best friend Sam and how he convinced him to adopt Ghost at the shelter years ago, and how when he was younger he once fainted at the sight of blood and then convinced himself he could never be a doctor.
Sansa studies him as he speaks, the way his voice carries memory with a kind of tenderness that makes her chest ache, the way his mouth curves when he’s amused and how he taps the spoon against the plastic dish before taking each bite.
Her elbows are resting on the counter, chin in her hand, smiling at him like they’re old friends. It feels… natural. Unreasonably so. It’s been less than a day, and yet she feels like she’s known him longer, like they met before in some other life and simply picked up where they left off. Or maybe it’s just that she wants to, there’s something rare about him that makes her ache to know him better.
She takes another bite of tiramisu and tries not to think about how romantic this feels, sharing dessert from the same dish, sitting side by side, sharing stories in the quiet apartment, the city humming softly outside.
And just before they finish the dessert, he looks up and says, “Thanks again. That was… really thoughtful.”
She shrugs, trying to play it off. “You said you liked it, and I was already there.”
“Still.” He smiles fondly, making her belly knot up. “Most people wouldn’t remember things like that.”
Sansa looks down at the plate, hiding a smile of her own.
Maybe she is a little crazy after all.