You Can't Go Home Again

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/31423265.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: F/M
Fandoms: Game of Thrones (TV), A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, A
Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Alayne Stone
Characters: Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, Alayne Stone, Myranda Royce, Mya Stone,
Harrold Hardyng
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Half-Sibling Incest, Forbidden
Love, Implied/Referenced Past Abuse, Denial of Feelings, Reunions,
Angst with a Happy Ending, a little smut
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2021-05-21 Completed: 2021-06-04 Words: 6,302 Chapters:
3/3
 You Can't Go Home Again
by EstherRuth

Summary

She stiffened, but only for a moment. She turned to face him, and the shock of recognition
passes through her remarkably fast. Almost as if she somehow knew he was on his way here,
for her. Sansa plastered on a smile. Not the Sansa smile of childhood and Winterfell.
Something different. “No. I’m sorry, you must have confused me with someone else. I’m
Alayne,” Sansa said, nodding her head minutely to her nametag.

Jon narrowed his eyes. Did she really think he wouldn’t recognize his own sister right in front
of him?

Half-sister.

Still.
---

Jon finds Sansa living as Alayne. But can he convince her to give Alayne up and return
home?

Notes

My modern Jon and Sansa/Alayne fic I've been working on in bits and pieces for a while
now. This isn't going to be a very long story and it should be posted pretty quickly since it is
almost done already, save for a few edits I might make. I hope you enjoy this little story.

See the end of the work for more notes

 Chapter 1

He finds her waitressing in an all-night diner. It’s absurd, Jon thinks. As absurd as her now
brown locks and the nametag that says Alayne.

But Jon would know Sansa anywhere no matter how unlikely, knew her by her face and those
crystal blue eyes from her mother’s side of the family. She’s wiping down a table when he
enters, collecting her tip money, the ring of the bell as he slips inside doesn’t lead her to turn
her head toward him. “Sit anywhere,” Sansa said amiably. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Jon is already making his way over to her. “Sansa,” he whispered at her shoulder.

She stiffened, but only for a moment. She turned to face him, and the shock of recognition
passes through her remarkably fast. Almost as if she somehow knew he was on his way here,
for her. Sansa plastered on a smile. Not the Sansa smile of childhood and Winterfell.
Something different. “No. I’m sorry, you must have confused me with someone else. I’m
Alayne,” Sansa said, nodding her head minutely to her nametag.

Jon narrowed his eyes. Did she really think he wouldn’t recognize his own sister right in front
of him?

Half-sister.

Still.

But no. Sansa and Jon both knew, he could tell by the way her eyes bore into his—begging
him not to blow her cover—that she would go on with the charade here. There were some
employees back in the kitchen, and two waitresses who seemed to be outside for a smoke
break. “Why don’t you take a seat and think on what you want. I’ll be back in a moment to
take your order,” she said, again with her new, affected smile.

“I’ll just have a coffee, thanks,” he said, sliding into a vinyl booth.

“How do you take it?” Sansa/Alayne asked, notepad in hand.

Like she didn’t already know. She was good, he had to give her that.

“Black,” he said.

Sansa rushed off to get his order. Some of the waitresses got back to work so Jon took his
opportunity when she came back with his coffee. Jon lightly grabbed her wrist, the booth
hiding the contact from others.

She looked at him testily. That look, he remembered.

“When is your shift over?” he asked quietly.

Sansa pulled her wrist from his hold. “Twenty minutes. Are you going to wait?” she asked,
almost disbelievingly.

“Obviously,” Jon said. What the hell did she think he was here for, if not her? None of this
had gone the way he thought it would.

Sansa sighed and went back to work.

---

When Sansa finished her shift, Jon noticed her two women coworkers casting glances toward
them both, and suggestive winks at Sansa. Jon’s ears grew warm for some stupid reason.

They don’t know who we are. Of course they think it’s some kind of pick up.

“Do you have a car with you?”

“Not here,” Jon said. He’d left it at the hotel he was staying at. Honestly, the place was not
great, and he hoped she’d let him stay at her place.

She breathed deeply through her nose. “Alright, c’mon,” she said, pulling out her keys and
heading toward a small blue car.

They didn’t speak for the drive.

They got to a small apartment on the other side of town, up two flights of stairs before
reaching Sansa’s door. They walked inside the dim room, a soft yellow light from the kitchen
area casting shadows around the foyer.

Sansa closed her door before abruptly throwing herself into Jon’s arms.

For a moment, he stills from the shock of it. This was the kind of reunion Jon had expected.
But Sansa was waiting until they were somewhere truly private. He would need to unpack
what that meant later. For now, he wrapped his arms around her, crushing her even closer
against him. He can feel her whole body sag against him and he holds her like that. He
rubbed a hand up and down her back, trying to soothe her.

Jon wasn’t sure he was ever very good with that.

He felt a hot puff of her breath at his shoulder. “Jon,” she sighed brokenly.

“Sansa,” he croaked, feeling himself tear up along with her.

Eventually, Sansa pulled back, but not before he could memorize the feel of her against him.
A warm familiarity—some kind of home.

She cupped his face in her palms, eyes flickering across his features. Jon’s fingers wrapped
lightly around her wrists as his own eyes studied her face. Now that they were alone. Now
that they could.
“What are you doing here?” Sansa asked, eyes wide like when she was a little girl. That, he
remembered too.

“What do you think? For you, Sansa. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for
you?”

Sansa smiled sadly, then pulled away from him. She took off the jacket over her waitress
uniform and tossed it onto the sofa. The Sansa he knew would not be so careless with her
clothing. He decided this must be an Alayne thing. She turned on a lamp in the living room,
dug her keys from her pockets and dropped them in an empty candy dish by some pieces of
unopened mail on a side table.

“That’s the whole idea. Not to be found,” she said, looking back at him.

“I get that, I do. But it’s not like you were trying to hide from me or Arya or Br—”

She held up a hand, squeezing her eyes shut, silencing him abruptly. Jon understood. Neither
of them wanted to speak the names of their siblings—ones they didn’t know were alive or
dead. To speak it was to conjure up the fear and the undeniable grief.

“It’s not like you were trying to hide from me,” Jon corrected.

“No, I wasn’t. But if you found me then who else?” She took off her nametag and set it next
to the candy dish. She undid the tie that held back her brown hair, letting it fall in soft waves
down her back. Sansa had always had beautiful hair. She still did, though he preferred the
natural auburn. She collapsed onto the couch and patted the seat next to her.

All of this was next-level weird. To be here, sitting like this with Sansa. In Sansa’s apartment
in Sansa’s town after watching Sansa where she worked. Yet, that wasn’t Sansa but Alayne.
After all this time, finally he’d found her.

“That doesn’t matter, Sansa. Because we’re not staying here,” Jon told her.

Sansa smiled at him bemusedly. “What, do you think I’m going to just pack up and leave?”
she asked softly.

“Well, yeah. I mean, you can’t be planning to stay here.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Sansa, you’ve got your hair changed, and you’re working at a dead-end diner
under a fake name. How long did you mean to keep this up?” Jon asked.

She shrugged and shook her head, as if she’d given the matter little thought. “However long I
can.”

Jon looked at her incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”

Sansa squinted her eyes at him. “Why would I not be serious? I can take care of myself.” Her
arms crossed her chest defensively.
“That’s not what I—” Jon paused and took a breath. Even now, it seemed very easy for them
to misunderstand each other.

And why is that? A little voice inside asked, but Jon ignored it. It’s not that Jon and Sansa
didn’t get along as kids. It’s just that they never had much in common. Out of all his half-
siblings he was probably the least close with Sansa. Sometimes conversations were stilted,
and other times, they’d talk right past each other. But none of that mattered. They were
family and they loved each other.

“That’s not what I meant. Sansa, I’m getting Winterfell back.”

Now she was the one to look at him as if he grew a second head. “What?”

“I came into some money,” he began.

She pinched her temple, confusion scrunching her brow. “The Boltons—”

“Roose and Ramsay are dead, murder-suicide, or they might have killed each other, police
aren’t sure,” he said, reveling for a moment in delivering this bit of news. The police had
never been able to prove the Boltons were behind the murders of Ned, Catelyn, and Robb,
nor the disappearances of their younger siblings. Yet Jon knew they were behind it—all the
calamities that felled their family. Roose, their father’s erstwhile business partner turned
betrayer who reaped profits from the deaths of Ned and his heir, taking their home. Ramsay,
his mad dog of a son who likely did most of Roose’s dirty work.

Sansa looked at him with wide eyes. “What about Dom?”

Jon frowned. Domeric was the eldest son of Roose. Domeric wasn’t awful like his father and
brother, and before the Boltons’ betrayal he’d even dated Sansa for some time, but Jon
always disliked him. He disliked the familiar way Dom fell from Sansa’s lips still after all
these years. “Domeric begged off to Essos, renounced all claims to the Bolton fortune and
lands.”

“That sounds like him,” Sansa said with a soft smile.

Jon scowled and tried to get back on topic. “The point is, we don’t need to run or hide like
this,” he said, gesturing to her dark hair. “Not anymore with the Boltons gone.”

Sansa didn’t appear convinced, and he had to wonder if there was something else she might
be running from. “You said you ‘came into some money’?” she asked skeptically.

“Yes.”

Sansa looked at him warily.

“I took care of this elderly man at Castle Black, Aemon. He never married or had kids, and it
turned out he accumulated a small fortune. He left it to me when he died.”

Sansa reached for his hand. “I’m sorry.”

Jon squeezed her hand in his. “Thanks. But the good news is we can go home. I put in a bid,
so they won’t be auctioning the estate.”

Sansa shook her head. “I can’t go back, Jon. There’s too many memories.”

“You can. You won’t be alone. We’ll be there together, Sansa,” he told her.

“My name is Alayne now. And Winterfell means nothing to Alayne,” she said with a blank
expression, pulling her hand from his.

“Horseshit, Sansa,” Jon said emphatically. “And I’m not leaving without you.”

Sansa narrowed her eyes. “You really mean to stay here until you convince me?”

Jon shrugged. “I’ve got the time.”

He could see Sansa hadn’t expected this. Eventually she sighed. “The couch is a fold out,”
she said, motioning to the cushions beneath them.

Well, that was something. She wouldn’t fight him about it. Not now, anyway. And he was
exhausted. Jon did have the time, and he would bet his stubbornness would win out against
hers eventually. Sansa stood and helped him pull the couch out into a bed, and brought him
some sheets from her closet.

It was around four in the morning when they were finished talking. Before heading to her
own bed, she doubled back and hugged him again. “It really is good to see you, Jon,” she
whispered.

The words do something funny to his chest. He hugs her tighter to him, not wanting to let her
go, as she presses a kiss to his cheek. He stares up at the ceiling once it’s dark and quiet,
unable to sleep, still feeling the warmth of her lips on his skin.
 Chapter 2
Chapter Summary

It’s just that his half-sister has forced various aspects of herself into different personas,
and she shifts between the two so deftly—so naturally—that Jon finds it frightens him a
little.

How did they end up here?

Chapter Notes

A brief moment of non-consensual groping in this chapter.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Jon spent the next few weeks observing her, trying to learn the differences between Sansa and
Alayne, what this might tell him about her, and how he might use that knowledge to get her
to return home with him. He hates it—hates what he and Sansa have been forced to become.
Hates himself for using those skills of reading people so he might manipulate them on Sansa
of all people. But he will not return to Winterfell without her. Now that he’s with her, Jon
won’t settle for being apart from her. He refuses to be alone like that anymore. And so, he
swallows back his self-loathing and observes.

Sansa is proper. Alayne is sarcastic. Sansa is quiet and considerate. Alayne is feisty and a
little impulsive.

Where Sansa is soft, Alayne puts up a hard wall around herself.

It tells him that deep down, Alayne is soft too.

It tells him that, in truth, Sansa and Alayne are not separate. It’s just that his half-sister has
forced various aspects of herself into different personas, and she shifts between the two so
deftly—so naturally—that Jon finds it frightens him a little.

How did they end up here?

She’d always been good at compartmentalizing, but this was something different.

He prods her to tell him her stories. Sansa (no, Alayne) raises a challenging brow at him,
turns his questions around on him.
Jon’s lips curled into a smile around his beer bottle. “What do you want to know?” he asked.
They were sitting by her fireplace one evening, him on one end of the sofa, she on the other.
He was feeling boneless and relaxed, maybe from the beer or maybe from the fire.

Sansa shrugged. “Anything. Everything.”

“The beer’s better here than at Castle Black.”

Sansa snorted in response—half amusement, half exasperation.

“How long have you been living here?” Jon asked, gesturing to the apartment around them.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that, Jon.” Sansa said, but her smirk at him as she
collected the empty bottles and takeout boxes off the coffee table let him know she was
mostly joking.

Jon sensed a glimmer of something from their childhood, even if he couldn’t quite place it.
Something about Sansa’s teasing smirk before she sauntered off into the kitchen. She always
had this way of toying with him, twisting him up, maybe for her own amusement. It wasn’t
malicious, he had always known that. Really, it was in many ways his own fault, Jon had
made it so easy for her.

Jon is sure that Sansa and Alayne are two pieces of a puzzle.

He just has to put those pieces together.

Jon followed her into the kitchen. “It must have been a while, if you don’t want to leave.
You’re attached,” he said casually.

Sansa leaned her back against the kitchen counter and tilted her head to the side. She studied
him, but said nothing.

This had become a game.

How it had started, why he was playing, all of those were questions he couldn’t answer fully.

But Jon needed to win. To bring Sansa home.

Hoping to draw her out, Jon continued, still taking a disinterested tone as he absently went to
her refrigerator and pulled out another beer. “There must be something keeping you here—
friends, museums, nightlife…boyfriends?” He looked over at her as he closed the fridge door.

There was no way she had a boyfriend, Jon thought. She had said nothing to indicate the sort
—plus she was so closed off as Alayne.

But as Jon trailed off, he found himself strangely anxious about her answer. He couldn’t
afford to lose Sansa, after all.

Sansa (or Alayne) smirked at him, and he knew he’d dug enough with his questions that
she’d won this round. “It’s the rent control,” she said dryly.
Jon chuckled.

Her face turned contemplative. “Why is it so important to you? That we return to

Winterfell?”

At least she is thinking of us as “we”, Jon thought. Still, he was flummoxed—thrown a little
by the question. “How is it not important to you?” he countered softly.

She bit her lip. “It was another life,” Sansa said.

“No, it really wasn’t,” Jon argued. “It was our life, our family’s. You can’t erase it.” He took
a drink of his beer before he said something stupid. They were edging along playfulness, but
he feared an argument if it kept going this way.

Sansa sighed and folded her arms across her chest, as if she were hugging herself. This was
the vulnerable Sansa he remembered. “You can’t bring it back either.”

Jon didn’t know what to say to that. Because a part of him feared that she was right. If
Sansa/Alayne was right, he wasn’t sure where that would leave them.

They begin to develop a routine. At night, they linger as if reluctant to part. Sometimes Sansa
will sit with him on the sofa’s pullout mattress, and they’ll watch television when they can’t
sleep. Sometimes, Alayne falls asleep next to him. She’ll roll over and unknowingly curl into
him, and he’ll wrap an arm around her or gently hold her hand in his, watch the crease
between her eyebrows smooth at the warmth of his touch. Perhaps, she doesn’t sleep well
alone. In the mornings, she usually slips away before he wakes. When she doesn’t, they pull
apart awkwardly until one of them finds the courage to speak.

We can make a new home, Alayne/Sansa tells him that night in the dark, the blue light of the
tv splaying across her long limbs. Could they really? Jon is worried, because he isn’t sure
who is convincing whom anymore.

---

What happened to you?

That’s what he really wants to ask her. But Jon can’t work up the nerve.

He watched her get ready for a party she was taking him to at a friend’s house. Sansa said he
needed to get out more. Jon would have happily ignored that, but if he could gather more
intel on her life here, he needed to do it. She was putting on lipstick in front of her full-length
mirror. Occasionally her eyes would dart to his in the mirror before her glance went
elsewhere. He couldn’t tell what those glances meant and it made him nervous. She wore a
lacy, low-cut black tank top and a hot pink mini skirt.

Jon wondered who she was trying to impress. Or what she was trying to prove. Because
Sansa would never wear such a risqué outfit, at least not the Sansa he knew.

Alayne, her name is Alayne, he kept the mantra on repeat in his head. He didn’t want to call
her by her real name in front of the other people at the party. Could anyone truly be Alayne’s
friend when she didn’t even feel safe or comfortable enough to share her real name with
them?

The party is at a girl named Myranda’s house, and Jon recognizes the woman and another,
Mya, as the other two waitresses in the diner the night he’d found Sansa. The place is
cluttered and too full of people in a small space. It made Jon feel claustrophobic, something
he’d never felt when he was younger but had become a growing problem as he got older. The
music blasted and Jon could feel the floor vibrate to the beat.

Sansa dragged him to the kitchen and they got drinks, but Jon insisted on holding Sansa’s
drink whenever she meant to leave it, and she rolled her eyes at him.

Why did it seem like she resented him trying to protect her?

Her friend Myranda eyed him like a piece of meat, and he wanted to squirm, uncomfortable
under her gaze. She raised an eyebrow at Sansa/Alayne.

“Where have you been hiding him?” Myranda asked.

Sansa demurred. A friend, she said with an air of disinterest he found false.

Jon held back his discomfort with her friends and the party—barely.

Until some douche with blond hair and a blue polo shirt made his way over.

“Alayne,” he greeted warmly, not giving a second glance to Jon at Sansa/Alayne’s side.

Jon wanted to shove the man away—he immediately had a bad feeling about the guy. On the
inside though, his mind was replaying their previous conversation when she’d never
answered him about the boyfriend. He hadn’t thought about it again. He didn’t think he
needed to.

But she’d never really answered, and Jon had wondered who she was trying to impress and
the way this man was gawking at her…

“Hello, Harry,” she said flatly, and suddenly clung to Jon’s arm. “This is Jon,” Sansa/Alayne
told him in a more chipper voice.

Harry narrowed his eyes at Jon. Jon felt his chest puff up, oddly pleased at the way she had
pulled him to her. But soon Harry looked back at Sansa/Alayne again with a lecherous grin.
“Save me a dance for later, then?”

He and Sansa responded at the same time.

“I don’t think so.”

“Of course,” Alayne said sweetly, sending a warning glance to Jon.

It’s later when Sansa/Alayne is dancing with Harry that Jon loses it.
It was a closely tethered thread of control—it had been for who knew how long. But then—
Sansa (no, Alayne) is dancing with Harry and as uncomfortable as it is to watch his sister
with such a man, he means not to make a scene—Harry’s hands wander to Alayne’s (no,
Sansa’s) ass and she stiffens in his hold, looking like she wanted to break free from the cage
of his arms. She made no other move, though. It scared and infuriated him to see her so
passive. And that thread of control snaps.

Taut as a wire, Jon lunged straight for him.

Distantly, Jon could hear Sansa (Alayne?) screaming for him to stop—but the sound is
nothing compared to the blood rushing past his ears, to the rage in his belly as he punched
Harry, who in a vain attempt to keep from falling had grabbed onto Jon’s lapels, resulting in
the two of them crashing into a table and knocking red solo cups all across the living room
floor.

Someone pulled Jon off Harry and pushed them apart.

Myranda no longer looked at him like she’d like to bed him, and instead turned to Sansa and
demanded Sansa/Alayne get her friend out of the apartment.

Sansa dragged him out muttering in anger, but he hardly caught anything she said.

“Have you lost your mind?!” Sansa demanded as she stormed into her apartment.

“His hands were on your ass,” Jon bit back at her, slamming her front door closed.

This fight had been brewing beneath their interactions for weeks now. He wasn’t sure what
would become of them when it ended. Part of him dreaded this moment, yet now there was
also a thrill running through his blood. Somehow, he enjoyed their self-imposed walls
crumbling around them. He wanted Sansa’s rage and pain and whatever else simmered under
Alayne’s quips and biting wit—her passion and honesty.

“And what business is that of yours?” she said, hands on her hips as she turned to face him
once more.

“You wanna tell me you wanted that? I saw how you reacted!”

“I can handle myself!”

“Because you’re doing such a great job of that!” Jon shouted. “Here on your own. No real
friends. No real relationships. Trusting no one, living off tips and letting jerks like that—"

Alayne marched across the room to him and jabbed him in the chest with her finger. “You
don’t know a damn thing about me, Jon!”

“Alright well tell me then! What happened?”

What happened to you?

“No! You don’t get to come here, come into my home, and screw up my life because you
think I’m some little girl who needs to be protected!”

“That’s not what I think and that’s not why I’m here!”

Little girl? This fierce woman in front of him—no. She was too close to him. Jon was
shaking, and he wasn’t sure how much of it was anger.

“Why don’t you just go back to Winterfell and leave me the hell alone?” Sansa said angrily
before walking away from him.

The game was over. He lost.

No, no. Jon would not let it end like that. He went after her and pulled her by the arm to face
him again. “I’m not going anywhere without you!” Jon said, matching her fury.

Sansa stared at him for a beat too long and he started to pull away, fearing he’d scared her.

But then Sansa grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him.

And here’s the thing:

It’s not like Jon hadn’t known.

Jon had tried to ignore it over the years. It wasn’t normal—the anger he felt toward her
boyfriends, the way he admired her red hair, pale skin, and sky-blue eyes. It wasn’t normal—
the way he vaguely pictured her in his arms. The way he woke up in bed like the other side
was empty.

It wasn’t normal and so he had folded those feelings in on themselves as much as he could,
pushed it into some dark corner of his mind that not even Jon himself dared venture.

But all the while—he had always known. Jon just pretended he didn’t, even to himself.

Now Sansa’s lips were on his and there was no way he could tuck it into that corner again.

So he kissed her back fiercely, like he wanted to devour her, tongue hungrily seeking hers.
His arms wrapped around her waist and crushed her body into his.

And it was the most glorious moment of his life.

“Sansa,” he said as he nibbled her bottom lip.

“Alayne,” she corrected him instantly.

“San—” he tried to argue but she wouldn’t let him.

“No,” she said curtly. She kissed him and pushed his coat off his shoulders. “Alayne. I’m
Alayne,” she said, her eyes pierced through his being and cut him to the core.

It was then that Jon understood. Sansa was his sister. Alayne was not.
 He could (finally) have her. But only if he’d give her the out and do what she wanted.

Jon started to ruck up her tank top, the bare skin of her waist beneath his fingertips making
him shudder. “Alayne,” he said, before crushing his lips to hers once more.

Chapter End Notes

Things just got a bit more complicated for these two...

 Chapter 3
Chapter Summary

It was a tight squeeze to his heart, those words. With his last bit of concentration, he
asked: “Who loves me? Sansa or Alayne?”

“Does it matter?” she responded.

More than anything, Jon thought.

Chapter Notes

So I would have posted this chapter sooner but I kept second-guessing myself for
awhile. This fic felt like a bit of an experiment for me, and I'm not 100% sure it turned
out exactly as I wanted it, but I really enjoyed writing it and hope you enjoy this final
chapter! (Just a note that there is a bit of rough sex here, not like really rough but just in
case that makes you uncomfortable).

See the end of the chapter for more notes

You can’t bring it back either. Sansa’s words kept echoing in his head.

You can’t bring it back.

Is that what he was trying to do? Was Winterfell just a phantom he was chasing?

You can’t bring it back.

Is that what Sansa was trying to do—by starting this… thing between them?

Jon spends those next few weeks learning Alayne’s body and bed intimately. Each time he
kisses her and swallows her gasps, each time he runs his teeth lightly along her neck, each
time her legs wrap around his waist—it becomes harder to call her Alayne and not Sansa.

But what choice did he have? You could not have sex with your own half-sister, an accusing,
self-loathing voice taunts in his mind. The truth is: he feels absolutely powerless to resist her.

After all this time, after everything, how could he have possibly walked away? Refused her?

Sansa was Jon’s weakness.

“What do you want?” Jon asked her one morning, pressing feather light kisses to her
shoulder. He suspects she knows he means more than just sexually—what she wants, what
she needs, how he can make her happy—but she doesn’t acknowledge it and for now he
doesn’t push.

Instead, she got on all fours on the bed that had become theirs and Jon’s cock twitched at the
sight of her. He swiftly moved behind her, nearly embarrassed at his eager anticipation.

“Pull my hair,” Alayne instructed as he pounded into her from behind. She was confident in
stating what she wanted, and it set his blood afire. Jon grabbed a fistful of that dark hair and
used it for greater leverage with his thrusts, causing Alayne to moan and arch her back. “Yes,
Jon. Like that!”

It wasn’t fair, he thought dimly, that she got to call out his name, but he couldn’t call out her
true name back, like he wanted. Yet as his hips loudly slapped into her perfect ass, and her
sweet hot cunt pulsed around him as she came, he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

---

He slips slowly, he thinks.

Or maybe fast—maybe all at once. Jon isn’t sure. He only knows he’s been ensnared.

She straddled him on the sofa after they finished dinner one evening and they kissed until
their lips were sore. There was something nice about all this kissing without taking it further
just this moment, Jon thought. His arms were wrapped around her waist clutching her close.

“You know, this isn’t going to get me to change my mind,” Sansa said, though not unkindly.

Jon blinked. “You think that’s why I’m doing this?”

Whatever ways he hoped to bargain with her and persuade her to come home with him, this
certainly hadn’t been one of them. If he was honest, the more time passed here, the more
holding onto Winterfell felt like holding onto sand, always slipping through his fingers. He
still wanted Winterfell, but there was a chasm between wanting and having, Jon had found.

(Was it the same sort of chasm between wanting Sansa and having Alayne?).

Sansa shrugged and averted her eyes from him.

“Is that why you’re doing this?” Jon asked with trepidation.

“No,” Sansa said sharply, meeting his eyes again. Jon breathed a sigh of relief.

Jon had wanted to ask her from the beginning why she was doing this, why she would want
him. But he’d avoided asking directly, afraid if he did that she’d think twice about it and
change her mind. Jon wasn’t sure he could handle that, now that he had a taste of her.

Sansa began placing pecks to his neck as she leaned into him, and Jon groaned as he tightly
held her hips.
“I’m showing you I love you,” she explained as she took his earlobe with her teeth.

It was a tight squeeze to his heart, those words. With his last bit of concentration, he asked:
“Who loves me? Sansa or Alayne?”

“Does it matter?” she responded.

More than anything, Jon thought. But he said nothing, instead bucking his hips up into her as
she undid his pants, and he pushed her silk panties out of the way. He brought his mouth to
hers in a rough kiss, almost hoping she took it for the argument he wanted to have with her as
he began to move inside of her.

After—always after—there’s some patching over of wounds occurring. Some silent healing.
Jon may not know the details, but he knows this much. He traces her curves with the pads of
his fingertips. She shivers contentedly.

Jon knows—Alayne would never give him her body unless she trusted him with it. Sansa
would never kiss him and touch him unless she felt safe.

His resistance and resolve leak out of him, slowly.

(Or all at once).

---

Three months he’s been here. Three months in which he’s been holding the bid on Winterfell
while waiting to change Sansa’s mind. A phone call with his banker makes it clear he will
have to actually purchase the estate or let it go if he wants his money instead.

Jon really hadn’t thought it would take this long to convince her.

They sit at Sansa/Alayne’s kitchen table when he casually recounts the conversation to her,
makes it clear that he has to make a decision.

She bit her lip hesitantly and kept quiet.

Winterfell or Sansa? Winterfell or Alayne? Did it matter which way he worded it? He thought
back to her own declaration that it didn’t.

Who was she: his sister, his lover? Both?

But Jon still had some last gasps within him.

Jon had to muster them all to the surface as he stood up from his chair and looked down at
her in frustration. “Are you going to say anything?” he asked.

She was so calm when she looked up at him, it somehow made him angrier. “What would
you like me to say?”
Only the way her fingers drummed along the tabletop indicated there was some disquiet
within her.

“I’d like you to tell me whether I should buy Winterfell back and if I do, are you just going to
let me go without you?”

Silence.

It spilled out of him instantly— at least of this, he was sure.

“I’d like you to tell me what happened to you, why you’re living under a fake name like a
criminal when you know the Boltons are gone, what it is you’re running from. I’d like you to
tell me just what the fuck we are doing. What are we, Sansa? What am I to you?” he
demanded.

“You are Jon,” Sansa said simply.

He laughed mirthlessly. “That really clears it up, doesn’t it?” he asked angrily.

She stood and cradled his face in her hands. “You are Jon and I’m Alayne,” she said.

Jon shook his head. “Damn it, no. You are Sansa,” he said, pulling her close.

He was done playing this game. He kissed her before she could argue and took her to bed.

Jon laid her down on the mattress and caged her in with his body, kissing his way down her
torso. “Sansa,” he said defiantly. He pulled her pants and underwear down. She whined and
squirmed.

“Sansa,” he said, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to her thigh.

“Sansa,” he said, burying his face in her cunt.

“Alayne,” she corrected, fingers raking through his hair. He ignored her. After she’d come, he
moved back up her body and stripped his clothes off, kissing her and letting her taste herself
on his tongue.

“Sansa,” he said stubbornly against her mouth, looking her in the eyes as he entered her.

“No, Alayne,” she said breathlessly, clutching at his back, digging in her nails.

He growled and bit her neck in retaliation. “Sansa,” he said again as he picked up the pace.

Her eyes narrowed at him. He held her wrists against the bed until her eyes rolled back and
she couldn’t glare at him.

“Jon!” she cried.

“Sansa,” he moaned her true name again and again with a feeling of triumph in his veins, her
protests falling into whimpers, her walls squeezing his cock. She couldn’t take this away
from him. Sansa—it was such a soft, musical name. Lovely and delicate, just like her. He’d
missed it: Sansa, Sansa, Sansa.

Jon couldn’t go back to Winterfell without her. What would Winterfell even be without her?
Not a home.

You can’t bring it back, she’d said.

But Jon too often forgot that half-whisper in the dead of night—

We can make a new home, she’d said.

He couldn’t be without her. It wasn’t just the forbidden attraction, and it wasn’t just fucking.
He was making love to her.

He was in love with her.

Maybe he always had been.

Sansa flew into her orgasm and he came with her, pouring what felt like all of himself inside
of her.

After, he held her against his chest. For a moment everything felt perfect, until he felt her hot,
wet tears. “Sansa,” Jon said in alarm, tugging her chin so she would look up at him. “Did I
hurt you?”

Sansa shook her head, eyes clenched shut. “No—that’s the problem.”

Jon’s right hand flexed in agitation. He wanted to feel dumbfounded at her words—but he
had seen enough in his life that he suspected he knew what she meant.

(In the morning, she will tell him about Petyr, the things he did to her and the things he made
her do. She will tell him that she took the name Alayne to hide from him. That she stays in
the Vale within 300 miles of his mansion because she expects him to search North, never
anticipating she’d remain so close. That she can’t go to Winterfell because she fears he will
find her).

But for now, Jon simply holds her in his arms, lets her cry quietly before they both fall into
sleep.

He heard her whisper just before he dozed off: “All of me—Sansa and Alayne—loves you.”

With a jolt, he realized: her words late in the night, before drifting to sleep, were her most
honest and vulnerable.

Jon withdraws his bid for Winterfell the next day. His heart is just not in it anymore. Instead,
he’s found his heart is with her.

She had always been his weakness.

 ---

Eventually, there is compromise between them. Jon can’t begrudge Sansa when he gives up
Winterfell, not now that he knows her reasons.

Not now when he knows home is no longer Winterfell but her.

But the Vale makes him restless. Jon doesn’t think he can call it his own comfortably.

After much deliberation, they take the money he would have spent on Winterfell and they
move to Dorne. It is sunny, warm, and more peaceful than he ever imagined a home could be.

Jon becomes a mechanic, and he really likes the work. Sansa opens a dress shop. They’re
happy.

They haven’t gone back, but they haven’t forgotten either. Maybe that was what he and Sansa
really needed all along.

We can make a new home.

Sansa had never stopped dreaming. That, he remembers too. That, he’d never want to forget.

He calls her Sansa behind closed doors and she even lets her natural hair return. Jon likes that
especially, likes coming home and wrapping his arms around her midsection from behind,
pressing his front into her back when she makes dinner in the evening. Likes tucking his head
into her neck and that red hair, soft as silk. But she remains Alayne to the outside world.

He can accept that quite easily, it turns out, when Sansa points out that Alayne Stone can
marry Jon Snow.

Chapter End Notes

A few things: The name Alayne is not attached to Baelish in any way in this AU. Sansa
picked it because she liked it. It was always my intention for the two not to return to
Winterfell, partially because they couldn't really be together there but mostly because I
wanted to give them a new place to hopefully start over, not forgetting the past but also
not beholden to it, if that makes sense. I hope no one is too disappointed with that
choice! Anyway, thanks for reading and I hoped you enjoyed it <3.
End Notes

I'm also working a *little* on a bit of a continuation of I'm Tired of Fighting as I was really
touched that several readers talked about wanting more! I'm not sure when that might get
posted and what it's going to look like, though. But I kind of worry I'm writing too many
modern incest fics--as weird as that might sound given the ship? I am hoping to write more
Jon and Sansa aren't related fics but the internal conflict is just so compelling for me right
now...

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