Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They met in Wintertown. 

Actually, he nearly plowed her over on the sidewalk of Main Street, Wintertown. She liked to point that part out, whenever they told the story, to their families and their friends and later, to their children. 

It was only the first week of November, but this far North, it was already about as cold as it could get, and so Jon was bundled up to the eyeballs in multiple coats, a fur-lined hat, and a scarf, and it was the scarf that he'd pulled up to protect his face against the frigid, dry wind that he would blame for blinding him so badly that he ran headlong into a woman as she walked out of one of the side shops and straight into his path. He tried to throw himself backward at the last second, but unfortunately, he only succeeded in tangling the two of them together and bearing them both right down to the ground, the wind being knocked completely out of his body when she landed on top of him. 

"Oh!" said the woman, pulling back, and Jon grunted when he was hit in the face with a large amount of red hair, tasting hairspray when he tried to inhale. "Oh, fuck, I'm so sorry!" she yelped, scrambling off of him, accidentally elbowing him in the sternum as she did. 

Jon shook his head, dazed, before climbing to his feet. He brushed the snow and sleet off of himself, his entire body throbbing and sore. He had spent the last twenty hours running drills for his firefighter training, and he was so physically exhausted that he kind of wanted to cry. Instead, he looked up at the woman he'd collided with and almost swallowed his tongue. 

She was beautiful - his age, or thereabout, wearing an all white winter ensemble, red hair escaping from beneath her hat, and her eyes were a brilliant sky blue as she blushed and straightened her own clothes. She looked a lot less angry than Jon would have expected.

"I'm sorry," he said, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I didn't see you."

She snorted. "Obviously," she laughed. Her smile made him flustered. He'd gone to an all boys school, and he still wasn't used to pretty girls. His ex, Ygritte, had been the first and only girl he'd ever successfully managed to flirt with, and even then that had only been because she'd approached him. "Did I hurt you?" she asked, gesturing at his snow-covered coat.

"No," he lied. Ironically, he would probably have to go home and take an ice bath. He wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but still - pretty girl. "Did I, uh, hurt you? I really am sorry for running into you."

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and Jon couldn't help but notice how long and graceful her fingers were. And her legs. "No," she blushed. "Don't worry, I'm used to falling. I'm a dancer." She gestured to the door she'd just come out of, and Jon realized it wasn't a store like he'd thought, but a tiny, hole-in-the-wall ballet studio named Pointe. The woman had a pair of pink shoes dangling from one hand, and a gym bag in the other. 

"That's… nice," he said awkwardly. He realized that they were probably taking up too much space on the sidewalk, and stepped backwards as a woman with a stroller walked passed him. "Anyways, uh, I'll…"

"See you later?" said the woman dryly. Her eyes really were beautiful, he thought, blue and dancing with good humor. She was very, very pretty. She shrugged, smiling a little. "Maybe you will," she said lightly, and took off down the street. 

Jon stood there for a long moment, unable to help himself from turning to watch her walk away, the pink ballet shoes fluttering at the end of their ribbons as the wind blew. 

He didn't stop thinking about ballet shoes for the rest of the day, every flash of pink he saw making him blink twice. 

Chapter Text

The next time he saw her was almost two weeks later at the grocery store. He’d just come off a forty-eight hour shift of training at the firehouse, and he was barely conscious of what he was doing as he stumbled around the store, picking up enough food to last until his next day off a week and a half from now, and his bleariness lasted right up until the moment he approached the checkout counter and recognized his cashier as the woman he’d literally run into a few weeks ago, the pretty ballerina with the crazy long legs and the marvelously red hair. She wasn’t wearing the white coat this time, or carrying the ballet shoes; she was dressed in the standard navy store uniform and khaki pants, and on her shirt she had a nametag pinned: Hello, my name is: SANSA. The name jiggled something at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t parse the memory. Maybe he read it in a book or something. 

Unbelievably, she was even more beautiful than he remembered, which made the memory of crashing right into her twice as unbearably mortifying. 

He didn’t say anything as he slid behind the checkout counter and fumbled his credit card out of his wallet, only mumbling a yes when she said, without looking up, “Did you find everything you needed, sir?”

But then she looked up and caught his eye while scanning a loaf of bread, and he saw, to his mixed horror and secretive delight, recognition dawn on her. “It’s you!” she said, grabbing and scanning a box of dry pasta without looking. Her hair was pulled back in a bun, but it was just as red as he remembered. Her face twisted with concern as she stared at him. “Wow. What happened to you?”

His hand flew up to touch his eye, and he blushed furiously. He and Pyp had been doing hose training today and Jon had fumbled when he was supposed to catch, and the heavy metal end of the huge firehose had slammed into his cheekbone. It was already red and swollen and he’d probably have a hell of a black eye by morning, and of course, of course it would happen on the day he ran into the woman who he’d been weirdly obsessed about ever since she had smiled at him.

“Er,” he said. Did your dad never teach you how to talk to girls? Ygritte always snickered whenever they hooked up. I never had a dad, Jon always said. “It was a training accident at work.”

She - Sansa, he thought, glancing back at her shiny brass name tag - made a sympathetic sound. “I get it,” she said, “last year I worked at Macy’s during the winter holidays, and I swear I got five thousand paper cuts at the gift wrapping counter.”

Jon nodded awkwardly. She was still smiling at him for some reason, blue eyes twinkling beneath the harsh store lights. 

Sansa reached the bottom of his shopping cart and made a delighted sound. “Oh, you have a dog!” she said, using the hand scanner on the extra large bag of dog food he’d barely remembered to pick up for Ghost. She grinned up at him. “What kind?”

Jon rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous habit he’d picked up from his stepfather. “Uh, Ghost is a husky. Albino.”

She smiled. “I love huskies. If I hadn’t picked out a Northern Inuit I think I would have picked a husky. They love it up here in this weather.”

Jon smiled at her stupidly. For some reason, the idea of this polished, put together ballet dancer paired with a giant wolf-looking dog made him want to laugh. Sansa was a strange, contradictory kind of woman. “Ghost loves it here,” he said, instead of something embarrassing.

Sansa finished up his order and checked him out, and their hands brushed when she handed him the receipt. Her smile was more than just a polite customer service smile, he was pretty sure. “Have a great day,” she said, something teasing in her grin.

His face burned. “Thanks, you too.”

He left the store feeling much more awake than when he walked in, thinking I’m really never going to stop thinking about her now, aren’t I?

Chapter Text

It was the third time they met that really surprised Jon, because this time, it was Sansa who ran into him, and not the other way around. He had the afternoon shift at the firehouse - he was just a volunteer since he was still in school and wouldn't graduate for two more years, but volunteering gave him a huge amount of crucial experience and gave him a leg up for when he could finally be hired, which is what he reminds himself every time the certified firefighters came up with another way to haze him and the other newbies - and he was organizing some of the med bags when someone said from directly behind him, "Excuse me?"

Jon dropped the roll of gauze he was holding and jerked around in surprise, and when he saw Sansa - whose name he still somehow remembered - he gaped at her in shock. When she saw his face, her own eyes widened in surprise, and a startled smile flitted across her face. "Oh!" she said. "It's you!"

"What - what are you doing here?" Jon spluttered. 

She grinned, holding up a paper bag. "My brother volunteers here," she said. "Robb? He forgot his lunch and asked me to bring him some on my way to class."

Oh. 

That's why her name had been familiar, why there'd been something so recognizable about her. She was that Sansa, Robb's little sister…. Robb's little sister, the one he often bemoaned about having the worst taste in men and how he'd made an actual plan to kill the last boyfriend after he found out the guy had hit her. 

Fuck.

"Ugh," he said, when he realized that she was probably expecting an answer. "He's out running drills with the Captain, but you can leave his food here if you want. I can take it to the kitchen."

She smiled again, walking towards him, and he felt his heart beat faster when she approached him. She was wearing a green scarf and a matching beanie, and there were snowflakes melting in her auburn curls. She handed him the back, and he flushed when their hands touched. "It's a sandwich," she told him. "You should probably put it in the fridge if he's going to be a while."

"I will," he said. He sat the bag on the table next to the med bags he was restocking. "Er, are you - going to stay, or…"

She had dimples, he noticed distantly. "I have to get to class." She smirked. "Don't worry, I trust you to give Robb his food without eating it."

His cheeks burned. "Uh, thanks."

She laughed brightly. "Sorry, growing up with siblings makes you tease people. My poor roommate still doesn't know I'm joking half the time."

"Oh," he said lamely. "I'm an only child, so…"

Her eyes softened. "It's Jon, isn't it?"

He blinked. "How - "

"Robb talks about everyone here," she laughed. "You the most, though."

"He's a good guy," Jon said. He and Sam were his favorite people here, easily, along with Captain Mormont. And now he was going to murder Jon for having dirty thoughts about his sister. Fuck, he was so glad he never participated in locker room talk, or he really would be dead. 

"He is," she agreed. Her eyes sparkled. "He's throwing a Christmas party in two weeks, did he tell you?"

"Uh, yeah, he invited the whole firehouse."

She bit her lip. "Are you coming?"

He hadn't planned on it, actually. He'd been hoping to drive up and visit his mom, but -

He couldn't help but notice that Sansa looked hopeful. Like she wanted him to say yes. 

His mom can probably wait another week. 

"Yeah," he said quietly, and Sansa's eyes crinkled at the corners when she beamed at him.

"Great!" she said, then frowned suddenly and glanced at her phone. "I have to go," she said, almost apologetically. "Class."

"Right," Jon said. "I'll see you at the party?"

She offered him a sweet smile over her shoulder as she turned to leave. "You better, Jon Snow."

He was going to have to let Robb kill him. He wanted to see her again. 

Chapter Text

By the time he showed up at the Stark house, Robb’s Christmas party was already in full swing. He and Pyp and Grenn all rode together, since everyone from the firehouse had been invited, and he was the only one of the three who wasn’t already pretty drunk before they’d even arrived. Ostensibly, he had chosen not to drink because he was one) underage for another month and a half, and two) the designated driver for the evening since Pyp and Grenn were both legal, but if Jon was being secretly honest with himself, it was because he didn’t want to act like a drunk moron when he saw Sansa again. 

Ygritte had told him on more than one occasion that he got “horny and stupid” while drunk, with her favorite example being the one time he had semi-seriously asked her to marry him while completely lit on tequila a few months into their friends with benefits arrangement. She had still yet to let him live that one down. 

The front door was open when they walked in, and Jon couldn’t help but quietly gawk at the inside of Robb’s parents’ house; growing up, he’d been raised by a poor single mother on welfare, with their water and electricity getting shut off every other month because his mother couldn’t scrape together enough for all of her bills despite working two jobs. 

The Starks didn’t have that problem, clearly. He’d known Robb came from a decently wealthy family, but he wasn’t expecting a grand staircase, crystal chandeliers, and elegant floral arrangements tastefully arranged around the buffet tables. 

There were already plenty of people mingling through various rooms of the house, so Jon drifted along, spotting people he recognized - friends from work, people he knew from the photos Robb kept tapped to his locker, and mutual acquaintances - and people he didn’t. Jon had never had an easy time in any social situation whatsoever, so he let Pyp and Grenn peel off to chat up their friends and quietly strolled over to the beverage table, careful not to make any eye contact lest anyone actually try to speak with him. He felt so incredibly out of place as he ladled himself a large glass (actual glass, he was at a party where they were serving fancy drinks in actual glass, what even was his life anymore) of mulled cider after sipping it to make sure no one had spiked it (no one had, another marker that this was a party for Adults, which he only counted himself amongst the ranks of about forty percent of the time.)

The cider was good, and he was halfway through his glass when someone said, “Jon!”

He glanced up and nearly choked on his tongue.

It was Sansa, of course. This was her house. He had come to this party with the singular hope of not-so-casually bumping into her, and yet somehow that left him completely unprepared for actually running into her.

She looked incredible. Stunning. She had her long, gloriously red hair flowing freely down her back, and she was wearing a sparkling emerald dress that made her glow softly in the casual lightning. Her face was flushed with excitement, her blue eyes glowing as she slipped between a group of firefighters and a gathering of giggling party girls to come over to his corner. 

“Sansa,” he said nervously, licking cider from his lips.

“You came!” she said brightly. There was faint music playing - not Christmas music, thank God, he was getting tired of hearing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer ten times a day - and between that and the consistent murmur of everyone there, she had to step very close to him so that he could hear her. She beamed at him. “I’m so glad you made it! Robb said you might be busy.”

His mother hadn’t been pleased when he’d cancelled on her - at least no until she’d managed to wheedle out of him that it was because of a girl. Then she’d been thrilled. He’d almost cancelled coming to this party out of sheer embarrassment. “My plans changed,” he said.

Sansa touched his arm, and he felt goosebumps rise beneath his cheap blazer. “Good,” she said, voice low and sweet. “I was hoping I would see you again.”

“You were?” he asked, heart stuttering in his chest.

She laughed merrily. “Yeah,” she grinned. “I really was.” 

Chapter Text

"Did you find our house okay?" Sansa asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she grabbed a glass and filled it with cider, carefully picking out the cinnamon sticks and placing them back in the punchbowl. She licked a stray drop of cider from the rim of her glass before it could drip to the floor, and Jon felt his face grow hot at the sight she made, the flash of her pink tongue and soft, open mouth. He concentrated on his own glass, rubbing his thumb along the artful engravings that decorated the sides to distract his mind from dirty thoughts. Sansa sipped her glass, humming with satisfaction. "My friends always complain that this place is impossible to get to," she continued. 

Jon cleared his throat, still feeling warm. "No, I uh, I came with a few friends from the station, and we Google Mapped it."

Sansa smiled. "Good," she laughed. "It's always bad to get lost around here, especially this time of year. My dad says they find bodies trapped in cars buried beneath snow every single winter from people who get caught during storms, and I always think that must be the worst way to die -" she stopped abruptly, and her face turned red beneath the party lighting. "God," she said. "I'm so sorry, oh my God, I can't believe I'm talking about dead bodies at a Christmas party." She looked so absolutely mortified that Jon couldn't stop himself from laughing, and it made her blush more, swatting at his arm. "Oh, shut up," she muttered, red all the way to the tips of her ears, and it was so incredibly endearing that Jon had to take another drink of his cider to keep the goofy grin off of his face. 

"Don't worry," Jon grinned. "I work at a fire station, dead bodies are kind of a work hazard. It doesn't bother me to talk about it."

"I guess that's good," Sansa said, then winced. "I mean. It's not good that dead bodies are a work hazard, it's good that you can do it without it bothering you, oh my God I'm so  terrible at this." She sighed deeply, giving him an apologetic look that only made her look adorably distressed. "I'm usually better at all of this."

Jon smiled. "All of what?"

Sansa pressed her mouth together, cheeks turning pink again. "Talking to people," she said. "Making conversation without embarrassing myself, or talking about dead people."

"Well," said Jon. "That makes one of us. I'm terrible at talking."

Sansa grinned a little at him. "You're not that bad."

"You'd be surprised," Jon grimaced. "I can't even talk to my mom on the phone without putting my foot in my mouth. I think I accidentally called her old this morning."

She laughed, and some of the awkward tension in Jon's chest eased. He could do this, he thought to himself. He was doing it. He was flirting with a girl and she was laughing. Okay, so talking about dead bodies is a weird way to flirt, but he could make it work. Apparently. 

Man, his mother would be horrified at his social skills. 

Sansa drank the rest of her glass, then glanced around. "I'm going to put my glass in the kitchen," she said. "Can I show you around?"

Jon always felt incredibly awkward at other people's houses, but he also felt incredibly awkward at parties, too, and the chance to talk to Sansa away from the crowd (and hopefully away from Robb, who was still probably going to kill him before all of this was through) wasn't a chance he was going to let up. 

"Sure," he said, gesturing. "After you."

Sansa smiled at him, that same soft smile that made his chest feel tight. 

Maybe he might like parties after all, he thought, dazed. Dead-body talk and all.