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geekprincess26 · 6 years

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The Snow: Chapter 10

This poor fic has sat for months waiting patiently for its author to overcome her writer’s block and health problems, and finally, she did. I’m thrilled to be returning to this story as it’s one of my favorites, and I’d like to thank @goodqueenalys for all of her help!

Half an hour later, Sansa was still sorting through the voicemails now stored in her newly activated phone. Margaery and her mother had left several apiece, and Sansa deleted all but the one or two that had come in after she had last spoken to each. Hannah, her publicist, had left one the day before, and Sansa quickly returned the call to let Hannah know that she was quite all right but still stuck in York, and that she would alert the other woman as soon as she returned home.

Several other voicemails had originated from the same number. Sansa did not recognize it, but she could tell by the first few digits that the number belonged to someone who lived in York. Her finger hesitated over the “play” button on the newest message before she finally pressed it to the phone’s touch screen.

When a gravelly male voice identified itself as belonging to Officer Glover of the York Police Department, Sansa nearly dropped the phone. When she heard the officer state that he was following up on all of his earlier messages, she set it on the bed and leaned forward onto her arms, which had begun to tremble. So thoroughly had the events of the past few days engrossed her that she had barely thought about the car accident that had brought her to Jon’s flat in the first place, but it was the only thing she could think of that would have precipitated such a call, unless she had done something over the course of that night to run afoul of the law.

Sansa’s arms shook harder as her mind’s eye returned to the night the blizzard had begun. She could see the snow falling thicker and faster, the vehicles swerving closer and closer to the road’s edge and the cars that had already skidded onto it. She could hear the voice of the hulking man who had stood next to her and helped her direct traffic, which had begun as a booming roar and hoarsened thickly as the minutes had dragged into hours. She could see the woman in the blue Ford Focus again, eyes wide and brown and so empty that Sansa had turned away horrified after only a few seconds, even then, before she had known for certain that the woman was dead. Perhaps Mya would have said Sansa had focused so thoroughly on Jon because her mind had been trying to block out the images of life and death flashing before it. Perhaps she would have had some advice for what Sansa could do when they returned. But Mya was not there, and Sansa’s rapid-fire blinking was doing nothing to remove the resurgent memories, so after a few more moments of shaking, she did the next best thing and hit the callback button on her phone.

Not a minute later, Officer Glover’s voice was assuaging Sansa’s most immediate fears. She was in no trouble, he assured her; he merely wished to ask her a few additional questions about the car accident, and she could come by the police station when she liked, although the sooner the police could generate their final report, the better. Moreover, her car had been towed to their lot, and she could retrieve it when she stopped in to see him. Sansa managed to reply that she would come as soon as she could before her shaking finger pushed the button to end the call. She dropped the phone back onto the bed and wished very much that she could join it, but she knew her mind would probably only insist on unspooling its every recollection of the accident. No, scratch that. Her mind would play that trick regardless, but at least she could get up and go to the police station rather than lie huddled up on the bed forever. She picked up the phone again and forced herself off the bed and onto the stairs, and had made it halfway through the living room before she remembered to bring up the phone’s browser and search for the nearest cab company. After all, Jon was still recovering from his fever and should not be out in the cold, and she had inconvenienced him too much to reasonably expect him to drive her – or have his driver drive her – anywhere at all.

Twenty minutes later, Sansa padded down the stairs and past Jon’s room. She heard the sounds of Pink Floyd emanating from it and sighed with relief. No, bothering Jon right now would not have been a good idea, she thought as she slipped out the doorway and began the trek up the building’s winding private drive to the main road. She had instructed the cab company to send its car to the address two driveways over on that road – it was, after all, the least thing she could do to safeguard Jon’s privacy, especially if the cab driver recognized her – but she was still shivering and sneezing by the time she got there. Gods, she hoped she wasn’t catching a cold.

However, Sansa did not cough or sneeze during her interview with Officer Glover. It was perhaps the only good thing about the meeting, during which Sansa racked her brain for every detail she could recall about the night of the traffic accident. The face of the dead woman – Sarah Mordane, a grandmother of five, according to the officer – had begun flashing in front of her mind’s eye during the cab ride, and now trying to remember everything else was like trying to wade through three feet of snow mixed with wet concrete.

The woman’s brown eyes had stared vacantly at the ceiling of her car. The car had a navy blue carpet interior. There had been a brown stain, perhaps from coffee, on the passenger’s seat near the gearshift.

Sansa could not remember the colors of any of the other cars involved in the accident, and it took a moment for her to think of the color of her own vehicle.

The groceries had splattered out of the three white plastic bags on the passenger’s seat. Sansa could remember the style and color of the writing on them.

She had to think for almost five minutes before she could remember even the genders or rough ages of any of the other drivers who had stopped to offer their assistance, except for the man who had helped her to direct the traffic until the police had shown up.

She didn’t even remember his name.

Officer Glover was very patient at first, offering her coffee and telling her to take her time when her mind refused to focus. He was also clearly exhausted, though, and as the interview wore on, he yawned more and his questions grew sharper. He caught himself a couple of times and rephrased a question or reassured her that she could have a break if she wanted one; but the dark circles under his eyes told Sansa that he longed for home, a shower, and proper sleep even more than she did.

Eventually, Sansa’s mind wandered past the car of the dead woman and into the road and onto the neon-pink hats worn by two of the young women who had stopped to help her and the other traffic director, and onto row upon row of headlights and taillights stopping and starting carefully along the road and through the next intersection. By the time Officer Glover stopped the interview and thanked her for her time, she felt more exhausted than she looked, although she could still see Sarah Mordane’s eyes staring at a navy blue ceiling.

But remembering the other woman’s car made her think of her own, and she asked Officer Glover to direct her to the impound office before she left. There she spent fifteen minutes filling out paperwork that she normally could have completed in five, and another fifteen minutes waiting for an officer to escort her to the impound yard. She cringed when she saw just how badly the back of its left side had been crumpled by the truck that had hit it, and she cringed again when she turned the key in the ignition and got only a faint whine before the motor stopped. She let out a very long sigh as she rested her forehead against the steering wheel.

“Would you like to call for a tow, Ms. Stark?” The cheerful voice of the officer who had brought her to her car, an officer whom Sansa thought looked younger than most university students, revived her enough for her to turn her head and sigh again.

“I’ll have to, I suppose,” she said at length. “Do you recommend any particular towing company or shop?”

The boy shrugged. “Haven’t lived here long enough to say,” he replied, “but I could ask some of the other officers for you.” He gestured back across the lot. “Come on in. I can get you more coffee while you wait.”

Half an hour later, Sansa was sipping the last of her coffee. It must have been her sixth or seventh cup that day, she mused, but she had needed every drop of the caffeine in order to stay upright. As it was, she found herself barely able to give the tow men the address of one of the few car shops open this late at night. Fortunately for Sansa, it had also gotten the second-highest rating on her phone’s Yelp! app, which she had spent most of her wait time scanning; and fortunately, the woman manning the shop’s counter was quite friendly, even though she did not appear to recognize Sansa.

“They’ll have it looked at tomorrow morning,” she said as she handed Sansa the intake receipt. “We should be in contact before noon with the diagnostics and estimate.”

“Thanks.” Sansa gave the girl a weary smile and trudged back out into the cold. The wind had picked up, and she scurried along the sidewalk to the first open shop she could find, which turned out to be a 24-hour diner. The interior was a bit run-down and the odors of grease and coffee clamoring loudly for dominance, but it was warm, and that was all Sansa cared about for now. She collapsed into a chair at one of the corner tables, and before she could stop shivering, a waitress stopped at the table and asked if Sansa wanted coffee. Before she could stop herself, Sansa answered, “Yes, please,” and chided herself as she watched the girl stride away. At this rate she would never get back to Jon’s flat, let alone sleep. But perhaps at least the latter was for the best, she thought. If she could only remember Sarah Mordane in flashes in her waking moments, she was bound to get much worse in her dreams, which had a history of turning ugly when Sansa was suffering from severe stress.

She hadn’t gone a day without nightmares between her father’s death and the year after she and Jon had divorced. That thought alone was enough to make her shiver again and snatch up the cup of coffee practically before the young waitress had set it down on the table in front of her.

Once her fingers had been sufficiently warmed, Sansa removed her phone from her purse. If she was going to spend the next several hours fighting off both sleep and Sarah Mordane, not to mention the tears that threatened to gush out of her at the thought of the poor woman’s children and grandchildren, she could at least use them productively. She clicked her e-mail app and spent the next hour or two sorting her messages, as well as checking her remaining voicemails. Myranda Royce, her agent, had left her four or five of the latter, all consisting of requests that Sansa contact her about a potential project or two. Sansa entered a quick reminder into her phone to contact Myranda the following day and returned her attention to her e-mail inbox, where her message to Jeyne Westerling was sitting in the drafts folder. Tired as she was, she had to read it through three times before she had caught up with her own trail of thought, but focusing on her phrasing meant focusing away from her memories, and so she began typing another paragraph. The going was slow and interrupted by Sansa’s frequent trips to her browser app to pick through the Solicitors Regulation Authority website and the newest online edition of its Code of Conduct publication. After all, she did not want to come off as completely ignorant and uninformed in her e-mail.

After two more cups of coffee and two scones, Sansa could barely stack one coherent thought on top of another. She saved the draft of her e-mail and pulled up a game of Pac-Man on her phone. Two or three rounds, she thought as she reached up to cover a yawn, and she would think about returning to Jon’s flat. She lost the first round so badly, however, that she decided to try a game that would require less of her flagging coordination skills. Maybe a round or two of solitaire instead, with the card backs set to that lovely pastel pattern that soothed her eyesight just so…

An insistent buzzing noise, accompanied by a vibration jarring her shoulder, pushed Sansa bolt upright against her seat. She had to gaze at her phone for a few moments before realizing that it was ringing and she had fallen asleep against the table, pinning it against her shoulder. And judging from the silver glow of the sky outside her window, she had been asleep for some time.

The still-buzzing phone lost its balance on the edge of the table and crashed to the floor. It stopped ringing just as Sansa bent to pick it up. Shit. She turned it over and saw the screen peppered with text messages from Margaery Tyrell.

Are you OK? Call me, babe. I’m getting worried.

Sansa, just checking to make sure you’re OK. Let me know for real, so I can get Jon and Ash off my back, OK?

Oh, double shit. Nope, triple shit.

If Jon had noticed her absence and gotten worried enough to contact both Margaery and Ashara Dayne, who served as publicist to them both, to get them looking for her – right, how about shit times a million?

Sansa sighed heavily. Yesterday’s truce had been more than a bit awkward after their years of estrangement, but it certainly beat fighting and tears and praying like crazy that Jon would snap out of the fever that had overwhelmed him the day before that. She sighed again. Jon was no doubt fit to be tied at this point, and Sansa did not have the energy for another argument. She wanted a warm shower and her bed. She wanted to forget about Sarah Mordane and the accident and the fighting and, hell, everything about the past week. Well, not quite everything, her mind amended, thinking of the brooch and Jon recovering and helping her up and laughing with her. And never cheating.

Sansa blinked hard and swiped the home screen on her phone to return Margaery’s call.

“Good gods, you better have had one hell of a night out,” said Margaery as soon as the line connected, but she sounded almost as panicked as Sansa had felt upon finding Jon sick with his fever three days prior. Sansa sighed.

“Sorry, Marg,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to set off a three-alarm fire – ”

“Um, try five,” Margaery interrupted her. “If not six. My dear, do you realize how many bottles of wine Ash will require as a bribe for having her beauty sleep interrupted at three in the morning? Not to mention the storage upgrade I’ll have to get my phone just to hold all the texts Jon’s been sending me since then?” Her voice shook over the last few words, and Sansa heard a distinct gulp on the other end of the line. She was not fooled in the least when Margaery covered it with a cough.

“Sorry,” she offered after a pregnant pause. “I really didn’t mean to scare everyone. I just had an interview with the police about the accident that stranded me here, and then I got my car taken in to be fixed. I figured I’d get back to the flat before Jon knew I was gone.”

“Then what happened? You are OK, right?” This time Margaery did not bother concealing her concern.

“I’m fine,” Sansa answered. “I just stopped at a diner to grab some food and fell asleep.” She cut off the reply she could hear Margaery starting to utter. “Really. I fell asleep. That’s all. I was just tired.” She sighed. “You can let Jon know I’m coming home right now, as soon as I can get a cab. And tell him I said to stop bothering you.”

Sansa could practically see her friend’s eyes rolling on the other end of the line. “No shit,” she replied. “He’s a bigger pain in my ass right now than Ash. And that’s saying something.” She paused. “Which, really, he hasn’t been this way, I mean this worried about you, since before – well, in a few years.” Another pause. “Maybe – well, you’re sure things are OK with you two?”

Sansa gritted her teeth. Clearly Margaery was relieved of enough worry to start prying again, and Sansa was in no mood for prying.

“It’s fine, Marg,” she sighed. “I’ll be back at Jon’s shortly, OK? I’ll even text you to let you know. Pinky swear.”

That got a giggle out of Margaery. Good. No prying. “You’d better, darling,” she said. “And really, stay safe, all right?”

Half an hour later, Sansa swung her legs, which felt more like stones by now, out of the taxicab she had called immediately after hanging up with Margaery. They had not yet recovered from her night of shoveling the snow away from Jon’s patio door, and fatigue had rendered them even less capable. It was cold, and the light of the rising sun reflected off the snow into Sansa’s slitted eyes, but even those things would not speed the slow trudge at which her legs had contented themselves. Sansa did not blame them, for she was in no hurry to face Jon’s worry or, more likely, anger. She did not have the strength left to fight either. So when she heard Jon calling her name, she looked up, startled, to find herself already only ten yards from the bottom of the stairs leading to Jon’s flat’s main door. When she saw Jon himself perched at the top of the steps with nary a coat or hat on them, she gulped and stopped in her tracks.

Then Jon sprinted down the stairs and, before Sansa could react, engulfed her in his arms. He lifted her so that her feet dangled a couple of inches off the ground. Thrown off balance, Sansa clung to him and emitted a startled squeal, which was muffled by his thick sweatshirt. Then she felt his cheek against hers and his warm breath on her neck and heard his stuttered gasps of Sansa, oh, God, Sansa, Sansa, sweeping past her left ear. His arms trembled around her in tandem with the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and every time they did, the lump in Sansa’s throat grew. Sansa, oh, Sansa, he muttered, and she squeezed her eyes shut and clung to him even more tightly. One of Jon’s hands reached up to cradle the nape of her neck, as he had done when her father had died, and when one of the massive overhead lighting fixtures had crashed right next to her during a shoot for one of her films and she’d been unable to stop shaking afterwards, and when Lady, the dog she’d had since the age of thirteen, had died. Tears rolled out of Sansa’s eyes and froze on her cheeks, and she tucked her head further down into Jon’s neck. She inhaled the smell of cedar and salt and Jon and cried harder. His other hand rubbed up and down in a slow rhythm on her back until her tears subsided.

At length, Jon set her back down, but they clung to each other for a few more minutes before Jon drew back and cupped Sansa’s face in his hands. Her eyes widened when she saw how bloodshot his were, and how dark the circles under them, as though he had not slept a wink.

“Jesus, Sansa,” he gasped. His hands were still trembling. “What in bloody hell were you thinking? I – are you sure you’re not hurt?” His eyes darted downward to check for any sign of injury on her. Sansa shook her head.

“No – I mean, I’m not hurt, I’m fine,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be out for the night. I just – the police wanted to talk to me about the accident, and I had to get my car towed out of their lot, and I fell asleep.” Her shoulders drooped. “I just meant to be gone a couple hours.”

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose and huffed. He opened his mouth, but then closed it with another huff before letting out a long sigh and shaking his head, apparently unsure of whether he wanted to snap at Sansa or hold her again. Perhaps at one time she would have been able to tell. Now she simply waited until Jon sighed again and stabbed a hand through his unruly curls. He grimaced as one of his fingers hit a snag.

“Bloody hell, Sansa,” he said at last. “Just – I’d have taken you myself. You didn’t need to call a cab, for Christ’s sake, and not if you were that tired.”

Sansa shook her head. “I didn’t want to bother you,” she replied softly. “You were listening to your music, and anyway you’re not over your fever – you’re not even wearing a jacket, Jon.” She gestured at his sweatshirt. “Or a hat.”

Jon waved it off. “I’d still have bloody taken you,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to be out anywhere alone – God, if – Sansa, just – and to the police – what were you thinking?”

Sansa lifted her jaw. “It was only for a couple of hours, Jon,” she repeated. “I wasn’t even tired when I left. Besides, you never would have known I was gone. It was an accident that I fell asleep.”

“Exactly!” Jon retorted. “An accident, and if you’d fallen asleep in the wrong place and I hadn’t gotten Ash Dayne to get a hold of Marg so she could find you while I was – we were both thinking you might be in a ditch or snatched by some crazy – or in some hospital’s intensive care, or God knows where – ” His hand reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose again, but this time it was shaking, and so was the hand he stretched out to rub Sansa’s shoulder.

“Jesus Christ, Sansa,” he murmured, and drew her back into his arms. “Just – please don’t do it again, all right? Please don’t do it again.”

Sansa was still trying to form a coherent reply when a gust of wind blew her hood down. She stumbled over one of Jon’s boots when she reached up to fix it, and she would have fallen into the snow had he not swept her off the ground. Sansa yelped.

“Sorry!” exclaimed Jon. “I just didn’t want you to fall – here.” He bent to release her, but another gust of wind blew her hood clear down her back and whipped her long red hair in front of Jon’s face.

“Sorry,” she said, but Jon merely shrugged against her shoulder and turned to carry her up the apartment steps.

“No problem,” he grunted, and within no time he had swept her into the apartment and set her down in the hall.

“Thanks,” Sansa murmured. The rest of what she had been about to say dried on her tongue when she saw Jon’s eyes burning into her. They were wide and moist and frantic. His hands slid up from her shoulders to cup her cheeks. His fingers were trembling.

“Are you sure you’re OK?” he asked. Sansa nodded mutely.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered after a few moments. “I really didn’t mean to fall asleep or upset you.”

Jon sighed and shut his eyes, which made the dark circles underneath them all the more pronounced. Sansa wondered if he had slept at all the prior night.

“Just – ” Jon shook his head once more before opening his eyes. They had taken on much of the russet hue they got when he was sad, but this shade was darker and flickering and kinetic.

“Please,” he murmured, “if you need to go anywhere, just say it, all right, and I’ll take you wherever you need. Anywhere. Just – please, don’t go off like that again, sw – Sansa, please, just tell me first.” He raised his lips to rest near her temple, and Sansa felt them contract in a trembling half-kiss.

The lump had re-formed in Sansa’s throat, and this time yanked something from her chest cavity, like a rotten apple being pulled out of a bushel. Jon had not called her “sweetheart” or “sweet girl” in nearly three years, and she knew she had not imagined the beginning of both words forming on his lips.

Sweet girl, he’d murmured in kisses across her body the last time they’d ever made love. Sweetheart, he’d breathed into her mouth, which had still been gasping and gulping from the aftershocks of the peak his mouth and hands had wrought just seconds before, as he’d reached up to caress her cheeks. My Sansa, my sweet girl…

Sansa blinked away the memories. Only they and the habit, and possibly the worry, could have made Jon’s mouth form the odd fragment. Still, she felt the lightening sensation spread clear through the top of her head before she could manage to draw back and nod.

“I will,” she murmured. The flickering settled behind Jon’s eyes, and he let out a deep breath, and his fingers began to steady.

“Thank you,” he whispered and gathered her back against him, one arm encircling her body and the other hand reaching up to cradle the back of her neck. Sansa, whose heart and nerves were spinning in time with Jon’s still skipping heartbeat, buried her face into his shoulder and nodded. She twined her arms around his back and closed her eyes as his lips murmured comforting whispers into her hair.

Jon’s heartbeat had resumed its usual steady thrum for some minutes before he drew back. Sansa let out a startled gasp and stumbled forward again. Jon caught her at once and raised a concerned eyebrow.

“Are you sure you’re OK?” he asked again. “You’re still shivering.”

Sansa opened her mouth to tell him she was not. That was when she caught sight of her right arm shaking out of the corner of her eye. She tried to still it, but could not. She looked at her left arm and saw the same. Then she felt her teeth chatter. She bit her lip to try and steady them, but it was no use. Neither was wrapping her arms tightly around her middle in order to calm her trembling body.

“Here, Sansa.” Jon’s voice had gone gentle and his eyes, when Sansa glanced up at him, had gone gentler still. “I’ll get you a blanket and – um – some tea, here – ”

Before Sansa could move, he had swept her up in his arms, carried her to the living room, and set her on the plush beige couch where she had spent so much of her second night in the apartment. He immediately left her field of vision but returned just as immediately with a couple of blankets.

“Here,” he murmured again and draped first one, then the other over Sansa’s shaking body. “Do you want another one?”

Sansa shook her head. She tried so say no, but the lump in her throat would not allow it. Jon, looking even more concerned, opened his own mouth, but then shut it just as quickly.

“I’ll go get the water on,” he said on his second try. “You still like the chamomile, right?”

Sansa nodded, and Jon padded off to the kitchen. She could neither see nor hear him for what felt like the better part of an hour. When he finally returned, she was still shivering. Jon sank to his knees next to her head and reached tentatively to cup the back of her neck again.

“Any better?” he asked. Sansa shrugged. His hand was warmer than the blankets, though, and it felt so good when his thumb began rubbing soft circles at the nape of her skull. Part of the lump in Sansa’s throat loosened, and she inhaled deeply. She closed her eyes and let the air escape slowly, past the lump. Jon reached over to brush a strand of hair out of her face, and she took another slow breath, and then another.

The shriek of the teakettle brought Jon to his feet at once. Sansa squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the blankets more tightly around herself. When Jon returned, he had to say her name twice before she heard him.

“Tea?” Jon asked, but he still looked worried, and when Sansa just kept shivering, he reached down and slowly moved her till she was sitting most of the way up. He sat down beside her even more slowly, as though she might order him off the couch at any moment. Sansa, however, did not. Instead, she buried her head into the warmth of his shoulder and closed her eyes so she could better feel his heartbeat.

“Here,” Jon whispered again. He hesitated a few moments before encircling her in his arms. They were solid and strong and real, and Sansa clung to them as hard as she could. Sarah Mordane’s eyes looked a bit fainter in her mind now, and the lump in her throat a bit smaller. She kept trembling, but Jon kept holding her, and his heart kept beating. At first his pulse was almost as quick as hers, but they both slowed at length – probably about the time the tea went cold, Sansa thought later – and every now and then he would give her arm or shoulder a gentle rub.

The last thing Sansa remembered before she drifted into sleep was the sound of Jon beginning to snore.

#jon x sansa #jonsa fanfiction #jonxsansaff #jonsansaff #multi-chapter fics #my writing #angst #hurt/comfort #modern au #tw: divorce #fic: the snow

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