Songbirds

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/53713387.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: F/M
Fandoms: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire &
Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow & Lyanna Stark, Jon Snow & Samwell
Tarly
Characters: Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, Lyanna Stark, Samwell Tarly
Additional Tags: Background Sam x Gilly, set in the 80s, Alternate Universe - High
School, Jon and Lyanna are not Starks, Quite possibly fluff, I had way
too much fun picking what musical references to use, POV Jon Snow,
Probably some anachronistic things so don't think too hard about it, Silly
and sweet and wholesome
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2024-02-14 Words: 9,198 Chapters: 1/1
 Songbirds
by Eruherdiriel

Summary

Jon doesn’t know why he came to the game. Everything about the high school gym is
overwhelmingly loud—the squeak of the players’ shoes across the floor, the yelling of the
teams and fans, the rock and synth-pop songs that blare over the loudspeaker anytime there’s
a break in the game. Last school year, you couldn’t have paid him to come to one of these
things. And yet—

“Why are we here again?” Sam asks.

“School spirit.” It’s a terrible excuse, one Sam sees through easily.

*
Jonsa Valentine’s event prompt fill. Types of love: Storge, Agape, Philia, and Ludus.

Notes
See the end of the work for notes
It’s the end of the first week of school, and Jon is already exhausted. He pulls his car into the
short, gravel driveway in front of his mom’s prefab home, parks, turns off the Volvo, and
leans his head on the steering wheel with his eyes closed, listening to the cricket songs
drifting through his open window.

After a minute, he lifts his head as he unbuckles his seat belt and cranks up the window, then
heads inside the house, pulling open the screen and testing the front door. He sighs when the
handle turns freely. Mom didn’t lock it again. Where she gets her sense of security, he isn’t
sure.

“I Think I Understand” is coming from the record player in the living room, and Lyanna is
singing along with Joni. She knows every word of Clouds, and so does Jon at this point; his
mom says the album helped them both stay sane when he was first born, and she never
stopped playing it.

“Hey, sweetie,” she calls. “There are pierogi on the table for you.”

“You didn’t lock the door again,” he calls back.

“Well, I was expecting you.”

“I have a house key.”

Jon hangs his keys and grabs the plate, popping it in the microwave for a minute and then
leaning on the counter and watching the food spin as it heats.

“You’re welcome,” his mother says. She’s behind him now, in the entryway to the eat-in
kitchen.

He looks over his shoulder, then ducks his head. “Thanks.” The microwave beeps, and he
takes the plate out.

“Long week?” Lyanna doesn’t join him at the table, just stands and watches Jon sit down and
eat.

“You could say that.”

“You don’t have to work so much, you know, especially if it’s going to affect your grades this
year.”

Mom wants him to go to college right after graduation—that’s why she fought so hard to get
him into Winterfell Prep, after all—but Jon thinks it would be more practical for him to work
a few years first. They’re avoiding confrontation about it, though. It can wait.

“It’s just the first week. I’ll adjust,” he says through a full mouth.

“It’s okay if it’s too much. You’re still a kid. You should have time for some fun, too.”
“I’m not really into the stuff my classmates like to do to amuse themselves, so I don’t mind.”

His mother cocks her head at him. “And what are your classmates into?”

Jon shrugs. “Who’s popular and who’s not, who’s going to the latest dance or party or sports
game.”

“As opposed to the things you care about, which are …?”

What he says is the first thing that comes to mind. “Making it through the year without trying
to kill Thorne.”

The callous old history teacher and Jon didn’t get along last year, and now Jon has him for
homeroom, too, which means they have to be in the same room for an hour and a half every
single school day. Sam is in the same homeroom, which makes the situation better because
it’s nice to see Sam, and worse because Thorne is even more of a dick to Sam than he is to
Jon.

Lyanna half chuckles, half chokes.

“I can agree with that one. No need for you to be kicked out of school, let alone go to jail.
Did you get enough to eat?”

Jon looks down at the empty plate before him and wipes his face with a napkin. He had a
sandwich at work, so the pierogi were a second dinner. “Yeah.”

“Good.” His mom disappears for a moment, then returns, hands behind her back until she
deposits a box of condoms on the table and sits across from him. “We need to talk about
this.”

Shit shit shit, he thinks. What he says is equally nonsensical. “What are those?”

“Jonathan Snow,” his mother says, in a tone that is reminiscent of rolled eyes. “Don’t play
stupid with me. I found these in your closet when I was putting clothes away for you since
you were having a busy week and I’m such a good mother.”

Jon resists the urge to squirm in his seat. “I haven’t used them?” he offers.

Lyanna grabs the box and shakes it. “It’s open. Try again.”

What he said is true; he hasn’t actually used them with anyone. Jon bought the box back in
the spring, when he thought Ygritte and his make out sessions would turn into something
else, something more. It had made him feel grown up, walking into the drug store and
grabbing them off the shelf; now he feels painfully childish.

The thing with Ygritte had never gone farther than sucking face in the alleyway outside the
grocer while they were on their breaks. And then at the beginning of the summer, she had
skipped town, only stopping by the grocery store to return her apron and name tag and tell
Jon she was off to somewhere “more interesting” than Winterfell.
He should have thrown them out when he realized the condoms weren’t going to be used
anytime soon, but it was too easy to pile his clothes on top of the box and forget about it.

“Okay, I, uh.” He winces. “I opened one or two to practice. But that’s it.”

Lyanna isn’t easily phased, but Jon thinks she suppresses a shudder in response to his
admission. Then she eyes him for a minute before nodding slowly.

“I believe you. And I am glad you’re thinking of being responsible. But, Jon, you’ve never
even introduced me to a girl you like or are dating. I know these things feel … sacred and
private, but if it’s serious enough for sex, it’s serious enough that you should acknowledge its
existence to other people.”

“I know,” he says.

They’ve had this conversation, or some version of it, multiple times the last few years. “Be
safe and considerate. A yes is only a yes if it’s enthusiastic; anything else is a no. Don’t rush
it. Wait until you’re ready.” And then there have been a slew of decidedly less serious
comments. “You think this is awkward for just you? Conversations like this sometimes make
me wish you were born a girl.”

His mom breathes in deep and sighs. “I suppose I should be glad it wasn’t that Ygritte
character.”

“How did you—”

“A mother has her ways.” She taps the table and stands, glancing at the oven clock that reads
quarter to 11. “Time for bed, I think.”

“Yeah, I’m just going to shower first.” His eyes shift back to the box on the table.

“Go on, take them,” his mother sighs, gesturing at the table. “I don’t particularly want to
touch that box again. I just want you to—”

“Talk to you,” Jon finishes with a groan. He doesn’t pick up the box, though, until his mom
leaves the room, puts away the record, and shuts the door to her bedroom.

The next week, he stays late after school to work on a project for his practical sciences class.
They’re building circuits, which Jon is surprised to find he enjoys—enough that maybe he
will go to a trade school and become an electrician after graduation. The only way his mom
would go for that, though, is if he also goes to business school so he can have his own
company. She wants big things for him, things Jon isn’t sure he should entertain.

He pushes through one side of the double doors exiting the science wing of the school and
begins walking around the brick building toward the student parking lot. It was warm this
morning, but clouds moved in around lunch and added an early fall chill to the air. Feeling it,
Jon rolls down the long sleeves of his black Scorpions shirt.
As he approaches the cafeteria building, he notices a girl standing in front of the payphone
there, digging through her book bag and crying. She’s in a purple checkered dress and clear
jelly shoes, and her crimped auburn hair is pulled half up with a purple scrunchy. Aside from
the tears, she’s the picture of high school girl chic.

It’s Sansa Stark.

Jon looks around, and seeing no one else, winces and walks toward her.

“You need a copper star?” he asks when he’s close.

She stops audibly crying and goes still. Then she blinks several times, flicks her eyes in his
direction without turning her head, and shakes it.

“I’m fine.” It comes out high and faux bright.

He looks around again. If it was just him she won’t accept help from, that would be fine, but
there aren’t many other students left on campus. Plenty of faculty are still in their classrooms,
but the doors are locked, only allowing people to exit the school after hours, not enter. Sansa
would have to wait by a door until someone comes out.

“I have a bunch of change in my car,” he says. “It’s not a problem.”

This time, she actually looks over at him through her tear-rimmed eyes. “Okay.”

Jon nods and starts walking again, right past her toward his car. “I’ll grab some.”

For some reason, she follows him, the slap of her plastic shoes against the pavement
sounding like a sharp, out of tune drumbeat behind him. He opens the door to his tan sedan
and reaches under the driver’s seat for the bag of coins.

“Actually, um, if you’re headed home, could you drop me off at my house?” Sansa asks.

The Starks live a few streets over from Jon and his mom, who live right on the line between
the haves and have nots in Winterfell. He hasn’t been to their house in years, but he
remembers the way, and it’s not inconvenient for him to take her. That doesn’t make the
request any less disconcerting. He’s not about to turn her down, though; the closest train stop
to her house is almost two kilometers away, and she doesn’t seem to have another way home.

Jon straightens slowly and looks over at her. “Sure.”

“Thank you,” she sniffs.

While she walks around to the other side of the car, Jon slides in and pulls the lock so she can
open the door, then grabs the stack of unused napkins off the passenger seat and shoves them
in the glove box. As Sansa opens the door and slides in, keeping her bag on her lap, he
becomes acutely aware of the permanent stain on the seat cushion, his Aldi apron in the back
seat, and the faint, lingering smell of the kebab he picked up on his way home from work one
night last week.
“Sorry, my Audi is in the shop,” he tries to joke, but it doesn’t land.

He holds in a groan, starts the car, and drives out of the lot.

“Do you need directions?” Sansa asks.

“Only if you’ve moved.” But Jon knows she hasn’t. The Stark house has been in the family
for generations, almost the same amount of time they’ve been in Winterfell, passed down
from one generation to another. Robb will probably take over the sprawling estate when he
has a family and his parents get too old to manage the grounds themselves.

Sansa shakes her head no, and they ride in awkward silence for a minute before she says,
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I was crying?”

A few minutes ago, she was pretending not to be upset, and her acknowledgement of it now
surprises him. He shrugs, trying to be casual and not make her defenses go up. “Do you want
me to ask?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“Okay.” He waits for a few moments, then asks, “Who were you trying to call? Why did you
need the phone?”

She faces him, looks intently for a time, then slowly turns her head forward again.

“I needed a ride home.”

Obviously, Jon thinks. “School ended like an hour ago. Were you waiting that long? And why
didn’t you have a ride in the first place?”

“I did. And then it didn’t work out.”

He glances over and sees her face has slid into an expression that’s hard to read—a cool,
practiced nonchalance, and it reminds him of her voice earlier, high and bright and fake. Jon
drums the steering wheel as they drive through the center of town, with its small mom-and-
pop stores interspersed with row houses and apartments.

The radio button taunts him. He could turn it on or push in a cassette, drive Sansa Stark home
to the sounds of the Clash or Bruce Springsteen instead of this unsteady conversation, but her
indirect answers taunt him as well. Is it a game? Does she want me to keep asking until I get
to the real question?

“Why didn’t it work out?”

“Because Joffrey Baratheon is a jerk.” She juts out her chin as she says it, like she’s daring
Jon to fight her on that. (He won’t; Joffrey always seemed like an entitled twat to Jon.)

The other thing he thinks is, Of course it’s about a boy, and the mayor’s kid at that. He sighs
and considers the radio dial again but doesn’t reach for it.
“He your boyfriend or something?”

“No. I think my dad is trying to set us up, though. He’s friends with Joffrey’s dad. I was
going to go with him—I thought it couldn’t be that bad of an experience—but then I heard
him saying gross things about Jeyne at lunch.”

“What things?”

Her forehead furrows. “Things that are mean and untrue. And if they were true, they’re not
things you should spread around.”

Jon can guess what was said—probably something about Jeyne being a slut, that she came on
to Joffrey and gave herself to him in an unlit movie theater or somewhere else this summer.
That’s always how guys like to frame it. “She would have done it with anyone; I was just
there and convenient. It’s not my fault.”

“But that’s not why I was crying. Or it wasn’t the only reason.”

And there it is—an open door after she made Jon jump through windows.

“Okay. Why were you crying?”

She doesn’t answer right away, just stares out the window.

“Because I was angry. Angry that Joffrey would say that about Jeyne while trying to get close
to me, angry that my dad thinks he’s a good kid just because he’s friends with Mayor
Baratheon, and angry that no one wants to stand up to guys like Joffrey.”

Jon flicks on his turn signal, stealing a glance at Sansa as he does. Her cheeks are tinged pink
and her lips clenched shut as if she’s trying to hold back the words she already let spill out.

“You did,” he says.

“What?”

He can feel her eyes on him. “You stood up to Joffrey. You must have if you didn’t go with
him.”

“Oh,” she says, sounding like she didn’t realize that is what she had done.

They ride in silence for a few minutes, the still-leafed trees beginning to wave at them as the
wind picks up outside. Jon feels a clench in his stomach, the one he gets when something is
slipping through his fingers. It is the end of summer, the start of a new school year that will
be painfully similar to the last. Autumn will burst in vibrant colors against grey skies and
then everything will die for the long, cold winter. Year after year it happens, and soon he
won’t have school to briefly disrupt the monotonous rhythm of life.

“You aren’t like I remember,” Sansa says, cutting into the silence.

“Well, I was 11 then.” What do you remember? he wonders.

“Hmm.”

It’s been years since Robb and Jon stopped hanging out, after grade five and a summer spent
running through the fields and woods of the Stark estate, kicking around a ball and playing
pranks on the younger Starks. Jon misses that, but their lives wouldn’t fit together anymore,
so he supposes it was for the best that the friendship fizzled before circumstances forced them
apart.

Sansa’s mind seems to have taken the same turn, and she asks, “How come you and my
brother don’t hang out anymore?”

Jon shrugs. He can’t explain it, so he falls back on what would have happened even if the
friendship went beyond age 11. “I work at Aldi.”

“Since when does having a job mean you can’t have friends?”

“It means I don’t have time for football practice every day after school and entire Saturdays
spent playing Galaga at the arcade.”

“Robb doesn’t do that either. He’s on the team, but he worked with my dad all summer.”

“Good for him.”

Without seeing her, he feels something in Sansa’s demeanor shift.

“You really don’t like people with money, do you?”

Jon scoffs and feels his ears get hot. “When did I say that?”

“You didn’t have to. But it’s hypocritical. We go to the same private school.”

“I’m on scholarship,” he grits out.

They’re almost to her house. He can see the long driveway that isolates the Starks from both
neighbors and the road. He grips the steering wheel too tight and tries not to notice the pit
settling in his stomach.

Sansa says nothing else as they turn and wind up toward her house, not until he parks behind
her brother’s red Datson.

“Well, thanks for the ride.”

“Look,” Jon says. She is touching the door handle, but she doesn’t pull it yet. “I’m sorry. It’s
not about rich people. It’s what they do with money, how they treat other people.”

She nods slowly. “Okay.”

“I liked your brother. Sometimes things just end, though.”

She looks away, blinking fast. “I think that’s sad. For both of you.” Glancing back at him, she
adds, “Thanks again.”

And then she is gone, leaving only her words rattling around in his head and the faint smell
of her flowery perfume mingling in the air.

Sansa Stark is good at volleyball. He’s not sure why he’s surprised, except that she never
struck him as particularly sporty. You don’t know her at all, he reminds himself.

Jon doesn’t know why he came to the game. Everything about the high school gym is
overwhelmingly loud—the squeak of the players’ shoes across the floor, the yelling of the
teams and the fans, the rock and synth-pop songs that blare over the loudspeaker anytime
there’s a break in the game. Last school year, you couldn’t have paid Jon to come to one of
these things. And yet—

“Why are we here again?” Sam asks. Jon dragged his best friend along; there was no way he
was going to show up to one of these things alone.

“School spirit.” It’s a terrible excuse, one Sam sees through easily.

His friend eyes him suspiciously. “You’ve never had school spirit before.”

“Did you see that Gilly Craster is running the bake sale?” Jon asks.

“Sure, tell the fat boy to go get pastries so you can gaze at Sansa Stark in peace.”

Jon’s stomach flips, and he tries not to let it show on his face. “Just thought you could seize
the moment, impress her with your charitable heart.”

“Impress her with my face-stuffing skills is more like it.”

The teasing is gone from Sam’s voice, so Jon looks at him, really looks. Samwell is no longer
watching the game but is glancing between his shoes and the bake sale table. Jon taps his
Converse against his best friend’s Adidas shoe.

“Hey, all you can do is talk to her.”

“Oh it’s easy, is it?”

“Just trying to be helpful,” Jon says.

“I know,” Sam sighs.

A cheer goes up from the crowd around them, and both boys look back out over the court.
Sansa is slapping hands with another girl, who then makes the rounds with the rest of the
team. She must have been the one who scored.
Jon doesn’t understand all the rules, and he gets the feeling the rest of the crowd doesn’t
either, which makes the turnout and excitement all the more surprising. Throughout the game,
he picks up on some of the draw: boys snickering about girls in tight shorts, beleaguered
parents willing to do anything to get their younger children out of the house, and sports buffs
happy to finally have a winning team to watch. There is the “attendance in exchange for
social status” crew, girls and guys who showed up to the game because of who else is here.
Sansa herself is a draw, of course, and her friend Margaery Tyrell, even more popular than
Sansa, is in the stands with a gaggle of girls.

Then there’s Joffrey Baratheon and his gang of friends. Jon scowls when he notices them
walk in halfway through the game and wonders what they are doing here. Sansa has rebuffed
Joffrey again since the day she was supposed to ride home with him, or so Jon has heard.

Eventually the game ends, the Direwolves winning handily, and “Rebel Yell” comes on. The
stands begin to empty, but Jon and Sam stay seated for a few minutes to wait for the crowd to
thin. When they do walk down the bleacher seats, the teams are dispersing after their
postgame huddles. Jon’s eyes find Sansa again, and he risks staring, risks falling on his face,
as he goes down the steps.

She’s laughing about something with Jeyne Poole, who then scans the remaining spectators
before whispering in Sansa’s ear. Jon almost stumbles down the final step when Sansa turns
her head, meets Jon’s gaze, and smiles. She raises her hand and gives a little wave, too, but
he can’t wave back.

Instead, he claps Sam on the shoulder and says, “You still coming over?”

Sam nods. “Tonight, the whole weekend, however long you’ll have me.”

“Randyll is being that much of a prick?”

“The new school year has a way of reminding him of all the ways I’m a failure.”

“Asshole,” Jon mutters, loud enough for Sam to hear him but low enough for him to pretend
he didn’t if that’s what he needs tonight. “Come on, my mom finally got Return of the Jedi
from the video store. We can watch that tonight if you want.”

They turn left beyond the bleachers toward the exit out of the gym, and only then does Jon
risk a glance over his shoulder. Sansa is gone. It’s better that way; he can convince himself
the wave wasn’t for him or never happened—something, anything, to quash the strange pull
he feels toward her.

“Hey, Jon.”

The sound of his name almost makes him drop the jar of pickles he’s shelving—but not so
much his name as who said it. He’s been thinking about her voice too often since it filled his
car that Monday afternoon two weeks ago.
By the time he has turned to face her, though, Jon thinks he’s got himself under control.

“Can I help you find something?”

Sansa’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m working; that’s my job.”

She mutters something under her breath that sounds like, “I guess I should be glad you didn’t
call me ‘miss,’” before sighing and saying louder, “You came to my first game. And when I
waved at you, you ran off.”

Ran off. I did no such thing.

“You waved at me?” he asks, scratching his chin. “I guess I thought you were looking at
someone else.”

“Jeyne says you were watching me.”

“I was watching the game. Besides, how would Jeyne know? She was playing too.”

Sansa shakes her head. “She was benched most of the game. Sore ankle.”

Shit. Jon didn’t notice, because he was only really watching one person play. Unsure of how
to get out of this one, he shrugs.

Her face clouds. “Well. I’ll leave you to your pickles.” She turns.

“Wait.” Once she’s facing him again, he continues, “Are you sure you don’t need help finding
something? That is part of my job.”

He hates when he can’t read her face, like now, hates how she looks at him so intently, like
she is trying to open him up with her eyes.

“Where is the milk?” she says, straight-faced and even-toned, no lilting question at the end.
Jon would call her tone deadpanned if he thought it was in Sansa’s repertoire. Maybe it is.
His lips twitch.

“Right this way,” he says, and starts walking. “Miss.”

Beside him, Sansa lets out a breathy scoff.

They walk down the aisle, past the jars of sauerkraut and other canned vegetables and sauces,
and Jon wonders how far he can take this. He’s not sure where the line is with someone like
her.

“First time in a grocery store?” he tries.

“Oh, yes, and I’m completely lost,” she says, suppressing what Jon thinks is a grin. “And
now you’re my only hope, Jon Kenobi.”
“Why do I have to be the old guy who dies? Can’t I be Luke?” he asks, ignoring the part of
his brain screaming at him to not be a nerd in front of a girl.

“You want to be the guy who kisses his sister and loses a hand?” Sansa wrinkles her nose.
“Please, your whole schtick is grumpy old man.”

“I am not grumpy,” Jon huffs. “And it’s not a schtick.”

“Sure,” Sansa sing-songs.

They stop walking, having come up to a wall where the refrigerated meat is stored, which
means they walked past the milk, though just barely.

Jon feels his cheeks heat. “Uh, this way.”

He brings her to the shelf and watches her contemplate which one she wants. There are only
two brands, each in two sizes, and it takes longer than it should.

“Anything else you need help finding?”

“No, thank you,” she says, shy all of a sudden. “But, um, Robb is having a party this
Saturday while my parents are at a gala for my dad’s work. You could come?”

She says her “dad’s work” like he isn’t on the Winterfell council. That and the word “gala”
remind Jon how different their worlds are.

He rubs the back of his neck. He’d heard about the party but never considered that he might
get invited. “I’ll have to check my work schedule.”

“You could come after. The party starts at 7:00, but it will go on for hours if Theon has his
way.”

Well after the store closes, she means. Then Sansa adds, “You could bring Sam Tarly if you
want, or some of your other friends.”

“Okay,” Jon says. “Yeah, okay, I’ll try to make it.”

She smiles, says goodbye, and turns away again, and then Jon gets an idea.

“Hey, do you know Gilly Craster?”

Sansa turns and nods slowly. “My year, brown hair, kinda mousy and shy?”

“Yeah. Can you invite her to the party, too?” When Sansa’s face twists, he rushes to add, “For
Sam. He likes her.”

“Oh. Okay. Consider her invited.”

“Cool.”

“Bye, Jon,” she says, and turns away a final time.

 *

Theon Greyjoy answers the door to the Stark’s house the night of the party.

“Who even rings the doorbell!” he yells as he yanks the front door open. “Oh, Snow. Who
invited you? And who invited the fa—”

“One more word, Greyjoy, and you’ll find out what my fist to your gut feels like.”

Theon sneers and opens his mouth to retort, but someone calls his name and he turns away.

“We shouldn’t have come,” Sam moans. “Why did I let you drag me here?”

“Because Gilly is going to be here.” Jon tugs Sam inside the house and shuts the door behind
them.

“How do you know? I don’t get the feeling this is her usual scene.”

“She’ll be here,” Jon says, though he doesn’t actually know. He asked Sansa to invite Gilly,
but maybe Sam is right and she won’t be here.

They leave behind the high-ceiling entryway with its lantern chandelier and weirwood-carved
cuckoo clock and move toward the sounds of the party, walking down the hallway, through
the kitchen where a few people have congregated by the drinks, and out the back of the house
where there is a stone patio encompassed by bushes and a rolling, pristine lawn stretching out
beyond it. A wave of memories hit Jon as he and Sam look out across the grounds, shadows
growing in the dying daylight. He remembers laughing at 6-year-old Arya making faces at
him across the breakfast bar, playing manhunt at Robb’s 11th birthday party, and hearing
Sansa playing her harp upstairs in her room while he and Robb watched cartoons in the living
room, all things he hasn’t thought about in years.

“Is the whole school here?” Sam asks. The kitchen had relatively few people in it compared
to the backyard, and Jon can see more spilling out of the basement door at the bottom of the
hill that slopes down from the garden and around the house.

“Just about. In or out?” Jon asks.

Sam shifts on his feet. “Out. But I feel silly just standing here.”

“I’ll get us drinks.”

Sam’s eyes go wide. “Don’t abandon me.”

“You’ll be fine. Hey, there’s Pyp over there.” He nods in the direction of their friend, who is
having an animated conversation with a few other boys. “I’ll be right back.”

Jon walks back inside to the kitchen, and there is Sansa, in black tights, a denim skirt, and a
silver sequined shirt, scooping out punch for her friends, Margaery and Beth. He swears she
brightens when she sees him.
“Jon, you made it,” she says, and now he’s certain her smile is bigger. Then she holds out the
cup in her hand. “Punch? Or I could get you a beer. Robb has some in the fridge.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Margaery says, snatching the container from Sansa. “That one is mine.”

Sansa blushes and reaches for another cup to fill.

“Thanks. I, uh, can get myself some, but I’ll take a beer for Sam.” Jon drove, and he’s not
sure how long he and Tarly will last at this party; plus, Sam needs the liquid courage more
than Jon.

He scoops some punch, then takes the pilsner from Sansa when she returns from the fridge.
“Thanks.”

“I’m not supposed to be passing these out, but Sam is a special case,” she whispers to him.

Her friends are staring at them, and Jon hates how they have an audience. In addition to
Margaery and Beth, everyone else passing through the kitchen has a nod or a remark for
Sansa. She doesn’t seem to know what else to say to him in this scenario either.

“There are games and snacks in the basement. And music,” she says, twisting her hands in
front of her.

“Maybe dancing later,” says Beth. “That your kind of thing?”

Jon shrugs. It’s not, but he’ll make do if it needs to be his thing tonight. At the least, he’d like
to see the setup they have for spinning records. He can hear the light whine of a synth beat
coming from below them, then it fades and a loud drumline starts up.

“Oh!” Sansa says. “Gilly did come. She was at the snack table the last I saw her.”

“I should tell Sam,” Jon says. “Thanks.”

Back outside, he has to wander a bit to find Sam in the increasing dark, but when he does, the
site makes him smile. Sam and Gilly have found their way to each other all by themselves,
though Pyp is with them too.

“You didn’t get me anything?” the other boy asks when Jon hands Sam the beer.

“Hi, Gilly,” Jon says, ignoring Pypar. She has a drink in her hand and a plate of snacks
balancing on a rock behind her, or else Jon would drag Pyp off under the guise of fetching
something for her.

She smiles at Jon, but quickly refocuses on Sam, who is so deep into a speech about space
exploration that he barely acknowledges the drink Jon handed him, not until he stops to take
a sip and then almost chokes.

“Oh!” Sam coughs. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Yeah, I got you a beer,” Jon drawls.

Gilly giggles, then reaches behind herself for a napkin to give Sam. “Here you go.”

“I’ll drink it if you don’t want it,” Pypar offers.

“No,” Jon says, before Sam can agree. “I got it for Sam.”

“I know Sam is your lady love, Snow, but you really could have thought about—”

Jon drains his cup, sets it down, and cuts Pyp off by grabbing him by the collar and mussing
up his hair.

“Hey!” Pypar yelps.

They stumble away from Sam and Gilly, wrestling as they go until they both fall onto the
grass. Jon holds Pyp down halfheartedly until the other boy gets control of his limbs again
and shoves Jon off him. Then he sighs and brushes a hand down his shirt.

“Sam is going to have a girlfriend before either of us, isn’t he?”

“Probably,” Jon says, running a hand through his hair. He thinks about going back to the
kitchen to see if Sansa is there, but he knows how that would look, so he doesn’t. “Let’s get
snacks.”

Just outside the door to the basement, though, Jon grabs Pyp’s arm and pulls him into a
corner. Two girls are a few meters from the door, standing under the porch light and arguing.
Sansa’s back is toward the boys, and she’s facing Margaery Tyrell.

Despite “Major Tom” playing loudly inside the basement, Jon can just make out what the
girls are talking about.

“Why is he even here, Margy?” Sansa says. “I didn’t invite him, and Robb certainly didn’t
either.”

Margaery crosses her arms. “Oh come on. You can’t just not invite the mayor’s son to a party
the rest of the school is attending.”

Joffrey must be here.

“It’s my house! I don’t have to invite people who are rude.”

“Just because you decided not to like him doesn’t mean the rest of us have to feel the same.”

“I didn’t decide not to like him,” Sansa hisses. “He proved himself to be—”

“I’m hungry, man,” Pyp whispers, but loud enough that Jon can’t make out the rest of what
Sansa says.

“Fine.” He’s heard enough. “But act casual.”

As soon as they move, though, Margaery sees them.

“Jon!” she calls, and he’s surprised she recognized him in the dark. Sansa spins around to
face the boys as well, then Margaery continues speaking. “Tell Sansa to lighten up and play
spin the bottle.”

Looking over his shoulder, he regards her coolly. “Sansa can decide for herself, I think.”
Then he walks into the basement, Pyp in his wake.

“Margaery Tyrell knows your name?”

“I might be a loser, but the school isn’t that big,” Jon replies.

The open-floor basement has a long, rectangular table at one end of the room that is covered
in a blue tablecloth and an assortment of snacks, which is where the boys find themselves.
Jon grabs a napkin, some pretzels, and a lemon square, while Pyp loads up with almost
everything available. They settle on a couch just outside the circle of teens starting to play
spin the bottle. Another group is dancing in front of the table where Dacey Mormont is
playing disc jockey, a crate of records next to the dual turntables she’s working from.

Jon isn’t on the couch long before he sees Sansa enter the basement, pulling a reluctant Jeyne
onto the dance floor. He tries not to watch—it makes him feel creepy—and then he can’t see
them at all, as Robb Stark’s muscular frame steps into his vision.

“Hey, man.”

“Hi,” Jon says.

Robb plops into the beige armchair next to Jon, his whole body leaned forward so he can
better face Jon. They chat idly for a few minutes, the most they’ve talked at once in years,
before Robb finally veers toward the subject he actually wants to discuss. His voice drops a
bit lower, no doubt not wanting to be overheard.

“Sansa blew up at our parents the other night,” he says, feigning nonchalance. “See, we all
thought she was into Joffrey Baratheon and that they’d spent some time together recently.
Turns out, she hates the little twerp almost as much as Arya does.”

Jon stops eating and balls his right hand into a fist at his side as Robb continues.

“So they start going at. ‘You have to be nice to Joffrey,’ Dad says. And Mom goes, ‘He’s
Robert Baratheon’s kid, your father’s friend and the mayor of Winterfell.’ And then Sansa
goes on about how he was mean to Jeyne or something. But that’s not the point. Eventually,
everyone cools off, and Mom goes, ‘Who brought you home the other day, Sansa?’ Guess
what she said.”

Jon doesn’t answer, just stares back at Robb, unblinking.

Robb shrugs. “Now you show up at a party. This some kind of play, man? Cuz if it is—well,
Arya is the one you’ll have to worry about. She’s grown defensive of Sansa after they bonded
over how they feel about the Baratheon kid.” He flashes his most charming smile, but there’s
more teeth to it than necessary.
“It’s not a play,” Jon says. “She needed a ride; I gave her one. She invited me to the party; I
thought it would be rude to refuse.”

Robb narrows his eyes. “Uh-huh.”

Then the smile is back, bright white and alarming. “Hey, how come we don’t hang out
anymore?”

Jon huffs and shakes his head. “Different worlds, I guess.”

The song that’s playing switches to “99 Red Balloons,” and Robb lets out a groan.

“No, absolutely not!” He shoots to his feet, turns from Jon without saying goodbye, and
walks toward the back of the basement where the DJ table is. “Dacey, I told you not to—”

The rest of his words are drowned out by the music he is protesting.

“Man,” Pyp says from Jon’s elbow, causing him to jolt. “Are you and Sam going to have
girlfriends before me?”

Jon scowls. “Sansa isn’t my girlfriend.”

“What was up with the chest puffing then?”

“He wasn’t.” Jon gets to his feet, tired of the crowded, loud, dark space. “Look, I don’t like
this song either, but you should stick around and play whatever game they’ve got going on
over there.” He jabs a finger toward where Margaery is now holding court.

“Like they’ll let me play,” Pyp sighs, but he gets off the couch anyway.

Jon sees Sansa over an hour later in one of those chairs usually found next to a pool. It’s tilted
all the way back, and she’s tucked under a blanket and looking at the stars.

“So Joffrey’s here,” he says when he gets to her side.

“Joffrey is here,” she confirms. “Not for much longer, I hope. Robb is in a mood tonight, so
maybe he’ll run him off.”

She pats the lounge chair next to her, and Jon sits. “Jeyne and I were dancing and trying to
ignore him, but I needed a break. It was too hot.”

“And now you’re cold.” He tugs lightly on the edge of the blanket and she hums.

“I might have stayed out longer than I intended to. I like looking at the stars.”

There’s no moon, and he can just make out the wonder on her face in the starlight. Her eyes
are on the sky, lips slightly parted, face soft and relaxed. Seeing her like this, so unguarded,
makes him realize how much work Sansa must put into how she presents herself to the rest of
the world. What does that mean, that she lets Jon see this side?

“You should talk to Sam. He was telling Gilly everything he knows about space the last time
I saw them.”

“I saw them, too.” She glances at him and smiles. “Look at us, bringing people together.”

They sit silently for a few minutes, both gazing up at whatever lies beyond the atmosphere—
gasses and hard matter, maybe a satellite or two, but most of it beyond human manipulation.
The sky is clear and crisp tonight, the temperature tolerable, making the conditions perfect
for stargazing.

“What do you think about when you look at the stars?” Jon asks.

“What’s happening at each one and if something lives out there. And I like to find shapes,
make up new constellations from what I see.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees Sansa prop herself up on her elbows, and the blanket
slides down to her waist.

There’s a fizz beneath his skin, a need to reach out and touch her, maybe slide his hand down
her arm to feel the goosebumps surely forming on the part of her arm now bare to the cool
autumn air. He shifts in the chair, considers shoving his hands under his body to control that
urge.

“Thanks for earlier. I would have played but …”

Jon shrugs. “It’s childish anyway.”

“What is?”

“Any of those games where you have to do something you pretend not to want to do in the
first place. Spin the bottle, truth or dare, all of that.”

“Do you realize you just called me childish?”

“That’s not—I didn’t—” he sputters, then notices the expression on her face. Sansa smirks
until Jon finds the right words. “I just think if you want to kiss someone, you should kiss
them, not dress it up in some game.”

What happens next surprises him. Sansa’s face becomes placid and unreadable for a moment.
Then she looks around, stands, grabs him by the arm, and leads him around the corner of the
house, ignoring his questions. Tangling her hands in his denim jacket, she leans in and kisses
him. It’s chaste, just her closed mouth against his, and then she leans back and says, “Like
that?”

“Yeah, uh, like that.”

She nods and starts to step back.

“Wait,” he says, and she stills. “Just one kiss?”

A smile splits her face. “Jon, if you want to kiss someone, you should, not dress—”

He snags her arms and pulls her toward him until he has backed himself against the ridged
clapboard siding of her house, but once her mouth is on his, he doesn’t feel the siding digging
into his back.

It keeps happening, and he thinks it’s supposed to be a secret.

Gilly and Sam don’t hide. They start going steady, all official, holding hands in the hallway
and even kissing at school when they think the teachers are looking the other way. Mr.
Thorne sees them one day, by the water fountain outside the bathrooms, and they each get
after-school detention for that.

“Worth it,” Sam says when he tells Jon, though he’s still shaking from his encounter with
Thorne.

Jon wonders why he doesn’t say anything about Sansa to Sam. He thinks her friends know,
Jeyne and Mya anyway, since they both have found him and Sansa together. But the girls just
giggle and drag Sansa away when it’s time for the next class or for her to go home, so Jon
doesn’t say anything.

They meet in his car, by the equipment shed near the bleachers, or in empty corridors,
wherever and whenever they can. One time, they go to the library after school to study and
only get lost in the stacks once because her little brother Bran shows up shortly after. Jon
thinks about leaving when that happens, thinks Sansa might not want Bran to know who she’s
“studying” with, but it’s too late and he realizes it would be even more awkward if he left
early. So Jon sits there, staring at his pre-calc textbook but barely seeing it, and tries to get
something done.

This is the only thing he knows—stolen moments with a girl where no one else can see them.
But it’s not only that with Sansa. He learns more about her in two weeks than he ever knew
about Ygritte. Sansa actually talks to him when they meet, about everything from her
literature class to the science teacher she thinks is creepy, from her prolonged fight with
Margaery to how she and Jeyne are befriending Gilly.

He goes to all the girl’s volleyball games unless he has to work. Not that he gets to see her
after—it’s too late, and there are always people around—but he likes watching, likes seeing
her let go and forget herself. Sure, her hair starts out perfect and wrapped in ribbons, and
there’s polish on her nails even as it chips throughout the game. But she yells to her
teammates and she sweats and her eyes get so intense that he sees who she truly is.
Underneath the makeup, pretty smiles, and perfect skirts is a girl who cares so much and
won’t back down from a fight.

Jon likes her, far more than he ever liked Ygritte, and that scares him. He didn’t know at the
time how shallow his feelings were for Ygritte, but it’s all too apparent now.
The weeks keep slipping by, and Jon opens his mouth to tell his mom about Sansa several
times, but the confession never comes. He does tell Sam eventually, who practically knows
anyway.

“I don’t get it,” Sam says. “Why would she be hanging out with you if she doesn’t like you?
Just ask her out on a real date.”

“Oh yeah, you have a girlfriend for a couple months and suddenly it’s all so easy.”

“Sansa is practically your girlfriend already.”

Jon huffs and shakes his head, but he vows to talk to Sansa about it soon.

After one of the last volleyball games of the season, against some team Sansa couldn’t stop
talking about the last time they were alone, he hangs out in the dark school hallway and waits
for the locker room to empty, light spilling out every time a girl opens the door to leave.
There’s laughter inside the room, and he tries to make out Sansa’s from among the
overlapping voices reveling in their victory.

When she finally pushes open the door, Jeyne and Mya are with her, and Jon considers
staying in the shadows. But his feet move and her name comes out of his mouth.

The girls turn, Sansa smiling when she sees him, Jeyne smirking, and Mya watching
curiously.

“I just wanted to say good game. All of you.”

“I’ll catch up later,” Sansa says to her friends, and then she’s right in front of him.

“You came.”

Jon nods. “You said this one was a big deal.”

“No, I know you’ve come to games before. I mean you came here. You found me after.”

He can’t tell from her tone if she’s pleased or upset or doesn’t care either way. “I’m sorry, I
shouldn’t have bothered you. You probably want to be with your friends.”

Sansa sighs and loops their arms together, leading Jon in the opposite direction from her
friends, deeper into the dark corridor until they’re around the corner from the locker room.
Then she kisses him, light and soft at first, then more needful, with one hand fisting the front
of his shirt and the other playing with his hair that’s grown down onto his neck. She is sweaty
and tastes like the oranges she ate before the game, and if you had asked him at the beginning
of this school year if Sansa Stark would kiss a boy in that state—especially a boy from his
side of town—Jon would have laughed. Now, it makes his stomach flip the way she isn’t
concerned about being prim and proper with him.

Eventually, she sighs into his mouth and pulls away slowly, almost backing into the bulletin
board behind her that’s covered in flyers for clubs, exam prep sign-up sheets, and the spring
play casting announcement.
“You know, I wouldn’t mind if you came along with me and my friends. It’s not you or them
for me.”

“You want me to come?” Confusion fills him.

“I don’t only like kissing you in empty hallways.” She blushes and looks down at her hands,
picking at the peeling nail polish. They’re a deep, sparkly blue this time, with grey wolves on
every other finger. “I mean, I’m not big on PDA, not like Sam and Gilly seem to be, but it’s
kind of weird we don’t spend any time together in public, isn’t it? Makes a girl start to doubt
herself.”

“Oh.” Jon feels stupid and elated at the same time. “I don’t want you to have doubts. I could
take you on a date?”

“Could you?” she teases as she looks up at him. “I’d like that.”

“I don’t think I’m ready to do the group hangout thing yet though. I have a feeling your
friends would eat me alive.”

“No group hangs for a while,” she says, nodding. “Got it. Anything else?”

Suddenly, Jon knows what he has to do, just like he knew he had to wait for Sansa tonight.
“You could meet my mom?”

Sansa raises her eyebrows. “You don’t want to hang out with my friends, but you want me to
meet your mother? How is that equitable?”

Jon snorts. “Believe me, it will be more painful for me than you. It doesn’t have to be
tomorrow or next week or anything. It’s just … it’s only the two of us, and my mom has a
way of finding things out about me before I tell her. But I’d like to tell her this.”

After studying him, Sansa says, “Okay. But meeting your mother will not be our first real
date. Buy me some currywurst and a milkshake?”

He doesn’t wait much longer to tell his mom about Sansa. It’s as though once the decision is
made, he can’t hold back any longer, though it probably helps that he knows better where he
stands with Sansa now.

Lyanna and Jon are working in the small kitchen together, his favorite way to cook despite
the space constraints. He is chopping and seasoning the potato wedges and green beans, and
his mom is just starting to put flour, egg, and breadcrumbs on the pork after pounding it into
thin cutlets. The oil is heating on the stove; soon the pan will spit at them as the meat cooks.

“So I think I have a girlfriend,” Jon says.

The first cutlet drops from Lyanna’s hand and into the pan.

“Oh?” she says.

“Yeah. Um, Sansa Stark?”

Her eyebrows raise, and she adds another piece of meat to the pan. “Eddard Stark’s daughter?
How did that happen?”

He shrugs and puts the vegetables in the oven while his mom stands aside. “We ran into each
other a few times.”

“I thought you went to that party to hang out with Robb.”

She assumed; Jon never said so, just, “There’s a party at the Starks. Can I go?”

“I went for Sam. I told you about Gilly, right? But Sansa is the one who invited us.”

“I see.”

Lyanna doesn’t say anything else for a while, long enough to flip the first two schnitzels and
start frying another pair, the hiss of the oil and the whir of the oven fan filling the kitchen.

“Sansa is younger than you, isn’t she?” His mother doesn’t need to say anything else for Jon
to understand the tension running under her question.

“Only a year,” he says.

“Hmm.”

He hesitates, cheeks burning preemptively. Might as well come out with it. “We haven’t, you
know—had sex.”

Lyanna blinks down at a partially battered cutlet, like she’s trying to keep tears away.

“Mom,” he says, but that’s it. What else can he say?

“Not yet, but someday you will and—” She looks away, then at him. “You know I worry
about your heart as much as anything else, right? And hers.”

“Yeah,” he says, though he isn’t sure he understood that until now.

After a beat, she nods and turns the meat in her hands over to cover the other side with
breadcrumbs. “So tell me something about Sansa Stark I wouldn’t know from a newspaper
clipping.”

He and Sansa study at the library after school the next Friday, then he drives her to his house
for dinner with his mom. After she climbs into his Volvo, she pulls out a stack of cassettes.

“What are those for?” Jon asks.

“We’re going to pick our song. I’m nervous about meeting your mom and need a way to
distract myself on the way over.”
“Our song?”

“You know, the song that makes us think of each other every time it plays.” Her cheeks have
gone pink and now her face falters as she looks up. “You think it’s silly.”

“No,” he says, and then coughs, something caught in his throat. “It’s not silly. What albums
did you bring?”

She shows him the sides, and it’s a good selection, except—

“Rumours?” Jon sputters. “Sansa, you do know that’s a breakup album, right?”

“So?” she says, popping out a different cassette. “It’s one of my favorites, and there are one
or two songs that could work.”

“For subliminal messaging, maybe.”

“Oh, Jon,” she says, patting his arm, “if I’m ever unhappy I’ll tell you, and not through song.
Like a mature person does.”

They go through the cassettes one by one, Sansa usually skipping to a specific song on each.
She even humors Jon and plays a couple of his tapes. They’re almost to his house when she
takes out Rumours.

“Give it a shot,” she says.

“I like the album, I just don’t think it’s going to have what we want.”

Sansa fast-forwards the tape a few times and stops on a piano tune Jon is less familiar with.
Then she stares resolutely out the window, avoiding any eye contact with him. They listen for
the rest of the drive, only a minute, but it’s enough.

“I like it,” Jon says as he parks.

“Really?” Sansa’s face lights up as she looks at him.

“Yeah.” He glances at the front door, then leans over and kisses Sansa quickly. “Don’t worry
about my mom. She’s going to like you. Just ask her what her favorite Joni Mitchell album is,
and she’ll completely forget to interrogate you.”

To his surprise, panic floods Sansa’s face. “I only know Blue! You could have told me before,
and I would have listened to all of them. Now I’ll look stupid about her favorite musician.”

That makes him laugh. He unbuckles his seat belt and opens the car door, Sansa doing the
same despite the worry still on her face. “She likes Fleetwood Mac, too. You can talk about
what song off Rumours you’ll use to break up with me.”

“I will do no such thing,” Sansa huffs.

Around the front of his car, they clasp hands just as the door opens and Lyanna smiles out at
them.
End Notes

“Songbird” by Fleetwood Mac.

One day, I will write Jon and Robb on better terms, but for now I have enjoyed playing with
the underlying tension in their relationship.

If you noticed that I pulled food and some musical references from a real region in the world
but the driving age maybe doesn’t match, mmm no you didn’t. It’s modernish Westeros and I
make my own rules.

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