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WEEK ONE
Brienne didn't even look up from the paper when the front door banged closed – probably just Loras back from dragging Renly around the park in the name of healthy exercise. That usually happened after one of Loras' horrible parties, after all, so it wasn't really worth remarking on, barely even worth an acknowledgement.
She did permit herself a tiny smile at the knowledge that in approximately fifteen seconds, Sansa would be screaming bloody murder at the boys for waking her so early after such a heavy night.
Three minutes passed, and no screaming Sansa. Odd.
Odder still was when, after seven minutes, Loras and Renly rambled into the kitchen in, respectively, boxers and woolly jumper, and pyjama bottoms and a string vest, of all things.
“Morning, Cheese,” Loras yawned, ruffling her hair as he passed on his way to the fridge. “Someone at the shop annoy you so much you had to take it out on our poor front door?”
“I thought that was you,” she said honestly. “Well, I assumed it was you – it can't have been Sansa, can it? What was she doing out so early?”
“Or,” Renly offered from shoulders-deep in a mug of tea, “where was she that she's only getting in now? Not like our Sansa to be out all night like that, is it?”
It wasn't, especially not this past few months since she'd broken up with that awful boyfriend of hers, which was why Brienne found herself outside Sansa's door, a tray of tea and toast balanced on her arm as she knocked.
“Go away,” Sansa shouted, and she sounded like she was crying, which wasn't like her either. Sansa never cried, really – she got teary over ridiculous rom-coms, and puppies and the children on those ads for all the different famine relief charities on the telly, but she never actually cried.
“Are you okay?” Brienne tried, which earned her a despairing wail, so she left the tray on the hall table beside the lamp and went back downstairs to summon Loras, who had been Sansa's friend since they were tweenie twits (their words) together.
“I'm coming in, Sanny,” Loras sang, swinging her door open and slamming it shut behind him, but not before Brienne and Renly caught a glimpse of Sansa lying face down on top of her bed, still wearing her pretty blue dress and ridiculously high cream shoes from last night.
“She never had a one-night stand, did she?” Renly whispered incredulously as they shambled back down the stairs. “I mean, she's Sansa, she doesn't do things like that!”
“She was fairly hammered, last I saw her,” Brienne admitted. “She was dancing with... One of the Martells, maybe? Quentyn?”
“Nah, no matter how hammered she was, I can't imagine Sansa fucking someone she hadn't been going out with for ages.”
“Seems you don't know her that well,” Loras said from the door of the kitchen, “because she just ran me out of her room while screaming about how she left her knickers behind after she fucked my brother last night, and that she wants to die. Seeing as how Garlan's in France visiting Pop, and he's embarrassingly happily married, I can only assume that the brother she got up to shenanigans with is Willas, which is going to make this even more shocking and complicated than it already is.”
Brienne and Renly looked at one another, and then Renly sat down at the kitchen table.
“I am far too hungover for this.”
*
Tyrion hummed to himself when he heard the shower in Will's room shut off – he'd been in there an age, which either meant his visitor was still about or she'd left him covered in lipstick and sundry other substances, and either way...
He looked determindly at his newspaper when he heard someone coming down the stairs, and was more than a little annoyed when it was only Ed.
“Not like you to be up before noon when you don't have work, Tully,” he said, and Edmure just grunted and tipped half the sugarbowl into his mug of tea. “Hoping to catch Tyrell sneaking his new friend out the back door?”
A thumbs up across Edmure's absurdly broad shoulder, and it was all Tyrion could do not to cackle.
Will appeared soon after, dressed for the day and with a towel over his head, which was either a genuine move – possible, given Will's tendency to wear his hair long enough to show how curly it was, which meant it actually needed to be dried, sometimes – or a ploy to avoid Tyrion and Edmure's watchful gaze. It didn't much matter either way because, once he'd hobbled back into the kitchen on his crutches and discovered that Ed was standing in front of the hall door and Tyrion had the back door key hooked on his finger, he gave up and sat down at the table.
“Your friend have to leave early?” Tyrion asked innocently, and was surprised by how annoyed Will looked.
“She was gone before I woke up,” he admitted. “But I'm hoping to catch her at home before she flees the country, so if you'd both be so kind as to fuck off and let me out of the house, that would be wonderful.”
“You know where she lives?” Ed asked in genuine shock, leaning forward across the table. “What did you do, root around her bag after you shagged her brains out?”
Will's cheeks flushed bright pink, and he muttered something that sounded like lives with but that was too indistinct for either Tyrion or Ed to catch.
“Lives with who?”
Will looked very hard at the table.
“She lives with my brother,” he gritted out, pushing back from the table. “I've known her for years, alright? I didn't ever intend on sleeping with her, though, so I have to go and set things right. Am I permitted to leave, now?”
“There are only two women who live with your brother,” Ed said carefully. “One is that Brienne, who I know for a fact you've only known since Loras started going out with Renly, so it's obviously not her.”
“Edmure, listen-”
“The other is Sansa, Willas. Do I need to remind you that Sansa is my niece?”
*
Loras handed over a cup of tea and sat down opposite Sansa at the table.
“So he just... Apologised?”
“And we agreed that it would never have happened had we not been so smashed,” Sansa said, pushing her glasses up her nose before taking a sip of her tea. “We just- God, Loras, I was completely blotto last night. It's lucky it was Willas and not some randomer that I ended up sleeping with, right?”
“I would probably agree if you hadn't fancied Will since the year dot,” Loras pointed out, leaning back and looking at her carefully. Love bite under her right ear, red patch lower down her neck on the other side that could be from teeth, beard burn absolutely everywhere, general dishevellment characteristic of a damn good fuck. He hadn't seen her like this since before Harry shipped out, before she started seeing that Joff prick. “But you have fancied Will since the year dot, so I d'know, it's probably a shade more serious than you're letting on, Stark.”
“Shut up,” she groaned, pitching forward suddenly and burying her face in her hands. “I haven't fancied Will in years, Loras, just shut up you complete twat-”
“I'm taking this outburst as proof that you do still fancy my fairly recently single big brother, and given that he was never one for random sex, I'm going to assume that there's reasonable chemistry between you both, which means he likely asked you out to dinner – am I right?”
“I said no,” she informed him, not lifting her head. “Joff's still hanging around like a bad smell, remember? I'm not subjecting anyone to that, no matter how good they might be with their tongue.”
The silence was momentarily deafening.
“I'd rather not know any details of my brother's sexual prowess, thanks,” Loras said. “But come on, Will's a big boy – he could scare away the Blonde Buffoon with the threat of Pop and Malora if that stink eye of his doesn't do the job, Sansa.”
*
“I did ask her out! And she said no!”
Ed looked half mollified, and then nodded sharply.
“Yes, well. Right she was, too. She's far too good for you, anyways.”
Will pulled a face and took his sausage rolls from the microwave.
“Look, Ed, we were both absolutely hammered last night, and we left Loras' party and went down the Filly for a couple of quieter drinks and ended up doing shots. When I offered her a bed for the night, I didn't mean the one I was sleeping in – I was going to sleep on the couch, I swear.”
“What did she say when you admitted not remembering most of it?” Tyrion asked, torn between laughter and worry, because Ed looked like he wanted to be furious, which was hilarious, but Will looked just about as down in the dumps as he had when he'd appeared on their doorstep six months ago with a suitcase in his hand, the rest of his things stuffed into his car, and an offer to take their empty third bedroom with six months rent in advance provided he was allowed move in immediately.
“She doesn't remember much either,” he admitted, and he sounded oddly relieved about that. “She got about as far as me nearly falling back down the stairs before she came up blank. I got as far as the front door.”
The way Will was staring so ferociously at his sausage rolls told Tyrion that he remembered a great deal more than that, but it wasn't really appropriate to tease him about it with the girl's uncle sitting at the kitchen table.
“I'm glad she said no,” Will said suddenly. “She doesn't need my baggage on top of her own, right? I don't even really know how to talk to women who I'm not related to or who aren't- Well. Her.”
The name Tyene Martell was not to be mentioned in Will's hearing. Ever.
“Might've done the two of you good,” Tyrion mused, wondering if Ed ever wanted to strangle him because Sansa Stark's baggage was Tyrion's nephew, in all his gold-plated shit splendour. “A distraction. Sex is a wonderful distraction, in my experience.”
*
WEEK SEVEN
“Sansa was supposed to meet me at twelve on the northern quad, by the Geology department,” Loras said, ignoring his coffee in favour of frowning across the corridor. “She's never late, but I waited twenty minutes and she didn't show – what's going on with her lately? She's been all over the place!”
“I don't know,” Brienne admitted, looking up and waving towards someone behind Loras. “But you can ask her now, if you'd like – she's just after coming out of Hall L, heading this way.”
“Do you think it might be some period-related thing? Doesn't that sort of thing play havoc with ladies' moods and things?”
Brienne thumped Loras squarely in the middle of his chest, and considering the signet ring she always wore on her right ring finger, it was a thump that would likely bruise – although a thump from Brienne was always likely to bruise, signet ring or no.
“I'm so sorry, Loras,” Sansa blustered as soon as she was within earshot, her glasses crooked and her hair half fallen out of her bun. “I had a doctor's appointment, and I got held up – I'll cook dinner tonight to make it up to you. Beef and peppers in black bean sauce, yeah? Your favourite.”
Loras blinked, stunned, and then frowned.
“You don't need to make up for getting held up at the doctor's, Sansa,” he said, stepping closer to her. “Is everything alright?”
She pushed his coffee away from her, covering her nose and mouth with her other hand and looking a little green.
“Kind of?” she tried, and then shrugged. “I'm not sure if I'd say it's alright, but at least I know what's going on now – speaking of which, there's somewhere I need to be right now, but I'll pick up the stuff for dinner on the way home, I promise.”
“Sansa-”
“Must dash!” she announced, leaning up to kiss first him and then Brienne on the cheek. “Don't forget to collect Lady's drops from the vet, please!”
Brienne folded her arms and leaned against the wall beside Loras, watching Sansa go.
“Something's really gotten to her,” she said firmly. “The backseams on her stockings were crooked – Sansa wouldn't leave the house unless they were perfect, usually.”
*
“So, funny thing,” Ed called as Tyrion pulled the front door closed behind himself and Will. “There I was, going down Vet to see if my friend and housemate had any objections to enchiladas for dinner, and who do I see having a very serious conversation with him but my niece, who he recently defiled and then promised me he'd stay away from-”
Tyrion wasn't surprised that Will's expression shut Ed up. It had shut him up, after all, something that was notoriously difficult to do.
“Christ, mate,” Ed said, flicking the switch on the kettle. “You look as if someone's died.”
Will sat down very heavily at the table, and then barked a sharp, short laugh.
“Quite the opposite, Edmure,” he said, the first words he'd spoken since Tyrion had gotten into the car. “Exactly the opposite. Christ.”
“What in the world does that mean?” Tyrion demanded. “Have your brother and his wife had a baby that they managed to keep a secret from your grandmother?”
Will just shook his head, still looking entirely shell-shocked.
“It's not Garlan that's going to be a father,” he said, sounding as though he couldn't actually believe his own words. “It's me.”
*
“So let me get this straight,” Loras said from his seat on the coffee table, bowl of beef and mixed peppers in black bean sauce over egg noodles in his lap, opposite Sansa, on the couch with a mug of milky tea because everything else had turned her stomach, and Lady's massive head in her lap. “You have lots of sex with Joff for years, often without protection because he's a complete cockhead and wouldn't wear a skin unless you refused to put out, and you never get pregnant. You have sex with my brother once-”
“Twice. At least. I think. Possibly three times. He's very... Thorough.”
Loras' nose wrinkled, and Renly and Brienne sniggered into their dinners.
“You spent the night with my brother once,” he amended, “and now you're having a baby. His baby. My niece or nephew.”
“Well done on bringing it back to yourself, Loras,” Brienne said dryly, passing Sansa a packet of cream crackers with a sympathetic smile. “And it does happen – maybe Joffrey's incapable. It would be better for humanity if he were, I think.”
Sansa cracked a smile, sipped her tea and nibbled on the edge of a cream cracker.
“I don't even know if Will wants to be involved,” she admitted, looking very worried indeed. “I mean, I'm keeping the baby regardless of what he wants to do, but I mean, what if he doesn't want anything to do with it? What if he doesn't want to be a father? He just sort of said “Oh” and sat there when I told him. What does that even mean? Surely any man would say more than oh on hearing he's been part of the bloody miracle of creation.”
Loras shook his head, setting aside his food for long enough to take Sansa's free hand in both of his.
“Will's wanted the whole wife, house and two-point-five kids thing since he was a child, Sansa,” he assured her. “And you may not be wife, and neither of you live in a house of your own, but hey, you're two-fifths of the way towards that average number of children, which is a start.”
“Loras!”
“What? You fancy him, he clearly fancies you because you made him forget her for long enough to have sex with someone else, you're having a baby. You're doing it a bit arseways, I suppose, but how long will it be before your sister starts singing Sansa and Willas in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-”
“Enough!” Sansa said, and everyone was surprised by how upset she seemed. “Just stop it, Loras, and drop the whole thing about me fancying Will, alright? Just- Just stop!”
She stormed up to bed, whistling for Lady to follow her, and her bedroom door slammed behind her.
Loras moved into her vacated seat on the couch and pouted.
“She does too fancy Willas,” he muttered.
WEEK EIGHT
“So... Should I round up Jon and Bran and beat him up?”
“No Rickon?”
“Nah, he bites – we won't want to leave any lasting marks.”
Sansa raised an eyebrow, and Robb grinned.
“C'mon, Sanny, I'm your big brother!” he laughed. “It's either threaten violence or accept the fact that you're a big girl who can make her own choices, and how likely am I to do that?”
“I'll be twenty-seven before the baby is born, Robb. I am a big girl, you complete twat.”
He looked at her over the lip of his glass, pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes to make her twitch.
“You've started wearing your glasses again,” he said, surprising her. “No more pretending contacts don't hurt your eyes? Good. Are you going to be yourself again, then? Then again, Tiny Stark is a very not-you sort of a surprise, I suppose, but I mean, at least it's not Tiny Joffrey.”
“I have no idea what any of that was supposed to mean.”
Robb thought about it for a couple of minutes.
“You know what? Neither do I, I don't think. But basically, so long as you're happy, and the baby isn't Joffrey's, I'm happy. Speaking of which, who is the sperm donor?”
Sansa blushed bright red, which was always a bad idea with hair the colour of theirs, and toyed with the beer mat she'd been shredding since she'd arrived.
“Will Tyrell,” she said at last. “Loras' oldest brother.”
“The one who can't dress himself and walks with a cane? Really?”
“He can too- Yes, that's him. He lectures in equine science of some sort.”
“And raises damn good racehorses,” Robb added. “And supposedly does some pro bono vet work for the Martells.”
Sansa pursed her lips. Bad news to come? Was Loras' brother involved with a Martell? Oh, shit, he was, wasn't he? The fair-haired one, what was her name, her mother'd been a nun everyone said-
“Will doesn't have much to do with the Martells anymore, apparently,” she said quietly. “So Loras tells me, anyways – he and Tyene had a messy break up and it sort of soured everything, I think.”
“Oh. Is he all weird and hung up on her, or are you two taking it slow until Tiny Stark is born?”
“You're not allowed to call my baby Tiny Stark, Robb.”
“Why not? It is tiny, and it's your baby so it's a Stark. I can't be calling it it all the time!”
“You're just not allowed,” she laughed, shaking her head.
“I'll promise not to call it Tiny Stark if you answer my question – are you and the sperm donor taking it slow, or what? I suppose you know each other pretty well as friends, which is something-”
“We're not- Will and I aren't together, and we have no intentions of getting together. Which of course thrilled Mum and Dad to hear, because they think me and the baby are going to end up like Lya and Jon did, all cast out of polite society and shamed or whatever. I don't even know. I think they're just a bit surprised, really. They always thought it'd be you of the two of us who'd have an accidental baby, I imagine.”
*
“So Dad was all Well, we'll see what your mother has to say about this!, and then Mum walked in and said About what, dear?, you know, the way she does when Dad's in trouble? And Dad got all flustered, and I just sort of... Told her?”
Loras ran a hand through his hair and shrugged.
“She probably congratulated you and then said something nice about Sansa, didn't she?”
“And encouraged me to court her, because she's a lovely girl,” Willas agreed in a disturbingly decent impression of their mother. “I can't- I'm not letting Sansa get dragged into my mess, Loras. There's too much crap going on at the moment, and now...”
“I still think you should just wait until Tyene's at work and have all the locks changed,” Loras said. “It's your bloody house, Willas, and she's just a flaming freeloader.”
“We're not talking about that now,” Willas said. “I am happy right now, Loras. I'm going to be a father, y'know? In what, seven months? I'm going to have a child.”
“With Sansa. My best friend.”
“Who is a lot younger than me, I know. Dad gave me a big talk about the age difference and stuff.”
“I was going to say “who has her own shit to deal with,” because I hadn't even thought of the age difference, to be honest. It's only five years, Willas. It's not that bad.”
“Six,” Willas corrected, worrying at his lower lip. “And Sansa is a lovely girl, that's the problem.”
“She's a lovely girl who's having your baby,” Loras said, completely nonplussed. “What does her being a lovely girl have to do with anything? Look, you and Sansa are clearly attracted to one another, which, yeah, bit weird for me, but okay, I can live with it, but you've both got a lot of things to work out for yourselves, and now that you've got a time limit because of the baby, you might actually do it. No more moping, Willas – time for some action.”
*
“Here, Cheese,” Renly whispered, “you're a woman, what kind of things should I not cook for Sansa now that she's in the family way?”
“You know, Renly, there's this wonderful thing called the internet, and on the internet there is a wonderful thing called Google, and it will answer-”
“Oh, stop being annoyed at me for a minute,” he laughed, swinging himself over the back of the couch and thumping down beside her. “Come on, Cheese, we've got a yummy mummy in the house now – what kind of things will she find yummy?”
“Renly, do you understand why those ladies on the television are called “yummy mummies”? It's because they're attractive and, more importantly, middle-aged. Sansa is not a yummy mummy.”
Brienne watched in some amusement as Renly digested this information.
“Right then,” he said at last. “Some other nickname will be chosen, of course, because she's gone and gotten herself ruined, and Will's not making an honest woman of her. What's the name of a famous – oh, Jesus' mum!”
“You want to give Sansa a nickname relevant to the Virgin Mary? Renly-”
“I haven't gone to any form of religious ceremony unless it was a wedding, funeral or christening since I was about three, Brienne. Cut me some slack, please.”
“My dad'd have your head for even contemplating that, you great twat.”
“Yeah, well, Selwyn and me have never seen eye to eye on matters of a theological bent, have we? I love your dad, Brienne, but only Monday to Saturday, excepting holy days of obligation. Seriously though, what shouldn't Sansa eat?”
“I remember something about shellfish?” Brienne hazarded. “I've never had a baby, Renly – this is kind of outside my area of expertise.”
“But you've got medical training,” he said, as though that meant she had recently won the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
“I'm an EMT, Renly, not on obstetrician. Either use the internet or ask Sansa – I'm sure she'll only be too happy to do everything she can to keep the baby healthy and happy and all.”
Renly sighed heavily, but he got up and mooched over to Loras' laptop, left characteristically unguarded on the coffee table.
“I bet his password is KnightOfFlowers17,” he grumbled. “It's his COD username, the prat, and he's always used his COD name for his password. Says it's too obvious and nobody'd ever guess it.”
“He's not updated Chrome,” Brienne said, standing up and switching off the telly. “Remember to change his wallpaper, yeah? Something with kittens, I think. Maybe in lilac this time – pink's a bit obvious.”
WEEK TEN
“So here's a thing,” Loras said, trying to eat his cornflakes, drink his coffee and brush his hair all at once, and succeeding in none of his endeavours. “I thought pregnant women were supposed to spend every morning chucking their guts up.”
Sansa rolled her eyes and sipped her tea – coffee, as far as Brienne could see, was one of the very few things that seemed to have an adverse effect on Sansa's stomach – and took a bite of her toast, layered extremely generously with honey, before responding to Loras. It was a habit they'd all learned, else they'd never get to eat a thing while sharing a meal with him.
“Morning sickness doesn't affect every woman, Loras,” she said, slowly and clearly, as if he was a child (or an idiot). “I'm lucky that I don't seem to have been too badly done in by anything, really – although I've probably jinxed myself now, having said that. Besides, there're six and a half months of pregnancy left. Anything could happen, dear.”
Renly rolled in, bleary eyed and stupendously insensate for a man who was somehow upright, and grunted his way towards the kettle.
“Tea,” he sighed, breathing deep as he added five sugars to his mug. “What have I missed so far?”
“Sansa says she's not going to vomit every morning, but she might have other things. Mood swings, cravings, crying jags, insomnia, that sort of thing,” Brienne said brightly, leaning back in her chair to smile at Renly over her shoulder and thanking God for the miracle of corrective orthodontics. “Loras is considering this in unhappy silence. I had a lovely feta and spinach omlette, and I made enough for you to bring with you, it's in that little box over there, and as I'm off until next Tuesday I'll be making dinner tonight, so yum for you.”
Renly looked from Brienne to Sansa to Loras and back before grinning.
“Marvelous on all counts,” he announced, swallowing his tea all in one go and dumping his mug in the sink. “Especially that bit about you cooking, Cheese – I do love your cooking.”
“You'll hit traffic on Wellington Road if you don't leave now,” she told him, and he checked his watch before making a noise that was not a squeak, because Renly was a manly man, scooping up his box of omlette and darting out the door with his tie loose around his neck.
“Five, four, three...” Sansa sang under her breath, turning the page of her book and smiling just a little when Renly slammed back into the house to grab his briefcase. “Bye, Renly!” she shouted, and those still at the breakfast table shared a smug snigger at their friend's expense.
“Plans for the day?” Loras asked, tipping up his bowl so he could drink the leftover milk, leaving himself with a magnificent moustache. “Aside from informing young minds and creating culinary masterpieces, of course?”
Sansa hummed and got up to feed Lady, her enormous Husky (Husky my arse, Renly had said, that's a fucking wolf, but Loras had insisted on Sansa as their second lodger and so they and Brienne had gained a pet dog-wolf-bear-tiger thing).
“Bills and things,” Brienne said with a shrug. “Visit Dad, probably, ensure him that living in a den of iniquity hasn't made me sinful, that sort of thing. Sansa?”
“I've an appointment at the hospital at lunchtime,” she said absently, peppering the massive dog's massive head with kisses, putting her face much closer to those massive teeth than Brienne would ever be comfortable with. “Don't know after that – but I might not be here for dinner, Brienne, I hope you don't mind.”
*
Edmure surveyed Sansa carefully, holding her at arm's length and frowning as he looked her up and down.
“You don't look pregnant,” he said at last, and behind him, Will sighed in exasperation.
“She's only ten weeks along, Ed,” he groused, and Tyrion hid a smile behind his menu when Will rolled his eyes for Sansa's benefit. “Leave her alone, will you? Where'd Roslin get to?”
Tyrion had, with the sort of gleeful malice expected of good friends who really do have your best interests at heart, invited Will to bring Sansa along on what Will had always termed “Date Night,” which meant those nights that Tysha and Roslin insisted on he and Edmure bringing them out together, on a sort-of-but-not double date. Will had protested admirably, but Ed's surprising interest in seeing his niece and his best mate interacting had made him a powerful ally for Tyrion, and in the end they'd worn Will down. He had accepted his defeat with the best sort of bad grace, most of which seemed to be directed at Ed, to Tyrion's relief.
“She'll be back in a minute,” Edmure said, waving Will aside and letting go of Sansa for long enough to pull out her chair. “So, they proved that there's a baby in there, then? With this scan?”
Tyrion had been expecting it, kind of, but he was still taken aback by the sheer happiness on both Sansa's and Will's faces, eclipsing even Will's grumpiness.
“We heard the heartbeat, Ed,” she said softly, dewy-eyed and probably, in Hollywood terms, glowing. “It was magic, I swear.”
Tysha's smile was a little thin, but Tyrion didn't think anyone else would notice – he squeezed her hand, though, just to be sure, because he knew full well that she was happy for Sansa and Will, she really was, it was just that she was sort of guiltily jealous of them, too. Tyrion felt the same way, after all.
“They look like a smudge at this stage,” Roslin put in, appearing back from somewhere trailed by a waiter carrying their drinks on two trays. “I remember going in with... Oh, one of my sisters, I think it was Ami or Walda or I don't remember, doesn't matter anyways, but she was expecting to see a tiny baby and was chronically disappointed that it was just a blurry little smudge.”
“Yeah,” Sansa agreed, grinning, “but it's my blurry little smudge, isn't it?”
She smiled over the table at Will, and Tyrion couldn't help but think that it was a miracle they weren't holding hands. They certainly looked at one another like a pair who should be holding hands.
WEEK FIFTEEN
“I'm showing and none of my clothes fit,” Sansa had complained, and somehow that had translated to “I've already guilted Jeyne into it, now come shopping for maternity clothes with me because I'm your sister and you have to.”
Arya sat down in the middle of the way in the changing rooms in Monsoon, Sansa's accumulated nine bags around her feet (there was one enormous bag from Marks and Sparks, where Sansa usually didn't buy her underwear, she was a La Senza girl to the backbone, but apparently M&S were very good at soft bras), and waited patiently for her sister to emerge from behind the lavender-panelled door. She'd learned to be very patient over the years, because Sansa had always been a big fan of spending time in changing rooms in shops like Monsoon.
“What do you think?” she asked when at last she opened the door, and Arya was so surprised that she didn't have time to police her own big mouth.
“What would you ever wear that to?” she asked incredulously, standing up and stepping back to take in the full vision of Sansa in floaty pale green patterened with slightly darker green... Well, it was a willow pattern sort of pattern, but it was prettier than Gran's old dinner service, she supposed.
“I've got the formal thingy at the end of the year,” Sansa pointed out. “I'll need something nice for it, and this doesn't drag too much on the ground so I'll be able to get away with flats.”
“But you actually like wearing heels,” Jeyne said, appearing in from the shop itself with a massive cream felt hat dangling from one hand. “Your ankles aren't swelling already, are they?”
Sansa pulled a face and lifted the hem of the pretty green dress to show that yes, her ankles were indeed already swelling.
“They hurt like a bitch,” she complained. “So I've got to get some nice flats for work – I'm thinking a pair of Oxfords or something? I don't know, they have to fit the dress code and that, too.”
“Poor thing,” Jeyne said sympathetically, and then she tilted her head. “You'll need a shawl or something with that – they have lovely goldy coloured Pashminas in Zara, did you see them? We should pop back and pick one up, and I bet you anything we'll find nice flats in Primark – and as for Oxfords, I'll nip into Clarks while you're getting changed back and grab a pair of those pretty cream ones with the lace panels in the sides, yeah?”
Arya was always more than willing to hand the reins on this sort of thing to Jeyne – her sister-in-law read all kinds of magazines about clothes that nobody would ever wear, like Vogue and Mode (no, wait, that was Ugly Betty) and all those things, and that seemed to have given her a supernatural talent for finding exactly the sort of clothes people would wear. Robb had certainly been better dressed since he'd married Jeyne, even Arya could see that.
Jeyne disappeared off, stopping only to buy the enormous cream hat with its equally enormous pink bow, leaving Arya to help Sansa with zips and things.
“You're only barely showing,” she said, standing behind Sansa in the changing room after helping her lift the pretty green dress over her head. Sansa's underwear was, of course, very pretty and perfectly coordinated, and Arya ignored the feeling that she should find fault with her own deeply unglamorous appearance (and approach to underwear – Ned never cared a damn if it was nice to look at, so long as it didn't have a fancy clasp that made her bra hard to get off). “Tiny Stark really is tiny.”
*
Tyene slipped into Gardener's stall, where Willas was brushing the big horse down, and cleared her throat delicately.
Willas ignored her entirely.
“Don't be like that,” she sighed. “Come now, Willas, surely you're in no position to bear a grudge-”
“You're trespassing,” he said, voice tight and knuckles white on the brush. She'd hoped that he might have cooled down, given that nearly ten months had gone by since they'd broken up. Apparently not. “Please leave, Tyene.”
“Willas-”
“Tyene,” he said, still not turning to face her. “Leave.”
“Fine,” she said. “Fine, I'll go – but before I do, I hear congratulations are in order. Egg had the news from Desmera – Daddy Willas.”
His shoulders tensed visibly, and she smiled just a bit.
“How lovely for you,” she said, feeling more satisfied that she'd managed to annoy him than she maybe should have done. “I should have known you'd find a means to your end, Tyrell.”
*
“Mum has offered the cot we all had,” Willas was saying as Loras slipped into the kitchen. “Um, it's a big clunky old thing, but it's solid and the side is sort of adjustable, so it can be changed about depending on how old the baby is.”
“My mum's done the same,” Sansa laughed, and Loras tried desperately to fade away into the wallpaper as she poured tea for herself and Willas, who looked more at ease than Loras had seen him in months and months. “Stop hiding behind Brienne's house plant, Loras, and get whatever it is you're looking for. Kettle's just boiled, if you're wanting coffee.”
There was an awkward silence as he rooted out his coffee and his favourite mug, which was ridiculous, because Sansa had been his best friend for years and Willas was his brother.
“So,” he said. “Babies. Baby furniture?”
“We'll be needing two of everything,” Sansa told him, and he could see how that worried her – were baby things expensive? Maybe he should chip in. It would be his niece or nephew, after all. Maybe a buggy – they couldn't be too pricey, could they? “You know, because we're not. We're not co-habiting.”
“You should kick Tyene out of the house and move Sansa in,” Loras said to Will. “With you, I mean. Seperate bedrooms, for now, I suppose, but there's lots of room up there – five bedrooms, isn't it? More than enough room for the two of you and Junior and another couple of accidents, just in case.”
The sort of fury that had scared animal cruelty out of many students of the veterinary sciences in the past four years burned in Willas' eyes, but Loras was entirely immune to it by dint of being his youngest brother and most irritating sibling. Margaery had always been a peach with Willas, and Willas and Garlan had always been as close as twins, and so Loras had enthusiastically fulfilled his brother's quota of sibling arguments while growing up. He was glad to see that he hadn't lost his touch. He'd always been good at pissing Willas off into doing something he didn't want to do.
“Big old pile up on Park Avenue,” he said to Sansa, smiling widely and trying not to laugh at the way Willas' ears were turning red. “Lovely place, all bay windows and high ceilings. You'd love it, Sanny, really your sort of thing.”
“Loras, so help me-”
“Mum'll scalp you if you lay a finger on me,” Loras pointed out levelly, and Willas subsided a little – for all their father had always been the shouty authoritarian, it was the threat of their mother's displeasure that had always kept them in line. “Honestly, though, I'll have Garlan dig out the deeds for you if you're forgetting that it's your bloody name on them, not Ty-”
Willas stood up very quickly, which of course meant painfully, but he was apparently too angry to remember that his left knee should be buckling right now. Damn. Maybe Loras had pushed him a little too far.
“I am fully bloody aware that it is my house, Loras,” he said through gritted teeth. “You, however, seem unaware that because Tyene and I were together in that house for so long, we were technically partners in a common law marriage, which apparently gives her some bloody entitlement to the damn house, and because I walked out I now have to wangle it back from her legally. You don't really think I gave up a million-and-a-half house just because I can barely stand to say her name, do you?”
Sansa made a small, concerned sound, and Willas blushed, deflating suddenly.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “We're actually wrapping things up – seems that because I bought the house entirely out of my own money and there were no repayments for her to contribute to, it's not something she has a right to. I don't know. Something like that, Mal tried explaining it to me but my eyes sort of glaze over and my brain switches to Radio Three when she starts talking legal.”
“Happens to the best of us,” Loras said bracingly. “Although I remain more a Radio One man, despite your best efforts. So what that means is that you'll have a lovely five bedroom house on Park Avenue before the baby is born, with that nice room looking out over the back garden that you always put Mum in when she was in town for something that's just begging to be made into a nursery?”
Willas blinked.
“Oh. Yes. I suppose I will.”
Loras made his coffee and brought the bourbons with him, leaving Sansa and Willas to discuss nursery furniture and rocking chairs and educational murals and musical mobiles.
He came back down to the kitchen once Willas was gone to find Sansa nursing a cup of one of her smelly herbal teas and looking contemplative.
“How did Willas ever manage to afford over a million pounds for a house, Loras?” she asked after letting him make a pot of coffee. “That's- and he said there were no repayments, how could he have managed that without a mortgage?”
“Well,” Loras said, “He bought it years ago, and it was a wreck – him and Tyene spent years doing it up, mostly with Willas' money, I suspect. Granddad left a massive big lump of money to be split between the seven of us – us four and Aunt Mina's three, I mean – and then Mum's mother left a fortune in trust for Willas and Garlan and possibly Egwene, Malora's daughter, because they were the only ones born when she died, so that's two huge great inheritances. He got a big payout from the Martells' insurance after his leg was buggered, and then there was the settlement when the hospital fucked up his surgery. Yeah. I wouldn't say he has much in the way of savings, really, but he has got a lovely house and some beautiful horses. You should ask him to take you out to the stables, so you'll at least know where to look when he's teaching Junior to ride before it can walk.”
“I always forget how rotten you are with money.”
“I personally am not,” Loras said firmly, setting the sad remnants of the packet of bourbons on the table in front of Sansa. “I personally am limited to the income of a lecturer who also happens to coach several sports teams and gets a little bonus for that. Our family is, on both sides – but yours is the same, so don't pull that, Stark.”
“Do you really think he'd let me take a spare bedroom? It'd save a lot of coming and going, and everyone says babies need routine, and... Well, Park Avenue is such a nice run to work. It'd be lovely to not have to leave the house at seven to get to the university at nine.”
“If he is getting it wrapped up, and if Mal is the one handling it, he'll have you well moved in before Junior is born, don't worry. Biggest problem'll be getting Tyene's things out of the place – worse hoarder than Renly.”
WEEK SEVENTEEN
“Everyone's talking about it,” Sansa said sourly. “Old Karstark was all Oh, I heard you'd gotten yourself into a spot of bother, and it took Loras and Renly to hold Brienne back from hitting him.”
Robb frowned.
“What were Renly and Brienne doing there in the first place?” he asked curiously, because Renly worked with his older brothers, which seemed to involve an awful lot of time spent stopping them from killing each other, and Brienne was probably the best paramedic in the world because she had a way of jollying people along that got even traffic to move when she wanted it to. Neither of them really had any business being up at the college.
“Meeting me and Loras for lunch,” she explained. “We were both heading home for the weekend, so... Actually, we were only gone for two nights. I don't know why we even bothered. That's irrelevant, besides. I'm going to murder half the faculty before I give birth, I swear to God.”
“Watch those mood swings,” Robb warned, smiling at the waitress as she set their food down. “Jeyne near lost her job because she ate the head of her boss when she was having Edwyn.”
Sansa pulled a face, and when Jon slipped into the empty chair to Robb's left he looked worried.
“I didn't mean to be late,” he protested. “I swear, I just couldn't find anywhere to park-”
Sansa's hand on his mouth stopped him from fretting, and Robb poured him a glass of orange squash.
“I was pulling a face because Robb was being a condescending twat,” she said primly. “We got you the BLT, that alright?”
“Yeah, fine,” he said, clearly relieved. “So how are you? Sorry I haven't been to see you before, but work has been hectic.”
Jon worked with their uncle Brandon, running a security company that was only kept entirely legitimate because Brandon, despite being the eldest, lived in a state of constant sheepish shame, caused by his younger siblings' silent and unexpressed disapproval. Their youngest uncle, Benjen, was somehow involved too, but the specifics had long escaped Robb. He suspected Jon felt similarly about the steelworks that Robb helped his and Sansa's father run, and that he would probably inherit a majority share in someday.
“Don't worry about it,” Sansa said. “I don't even look that pregnant yet – Rickon keeps telling me I should hurry up and do something exciting, like have the baby kick, or go into false labour.”
Robb and Jon exchanged a glance.
“We'll talk to him,” Robb promised, wondering in what universe his baby brother, recently turned twenty-one, had thought that it would be alright to suggest that false labour might be something Sansa would like to try, just for entertainment purposes. “He means well, for all he's an idiot. Maybe Bran should talk to him. Bran's good at things.”
“Bran's good at things,” Sansa mocked. “Coward – don't you think Bran's got enough on his plate, Robb? He's training almost non-stop at the minute.”
“Don't I know it,” Robb groused. “I've not seen the little brat in months.”
“Really? I had lunch with him on Monday.”
“Yeah, well, you two were always thick as thieves, weren't you? You were always his favourite-”
“Now, children,” Jon broke in, not even pretending that he wasn't laughing at them. “We are in public, and Sansa is pregnant, Robb – your mother'd slap you both for fighting like this.”
*
“But what if I'm bad at it, Mum? At being a dad, I mean.”
Alerie Hightower had always been a very patient woman, but this sudden crippling self-doubt in her eldest son was wearing on her nerves (because it isn't sudden at all, it's ever since he broke it off with Tyene so suddenly because of something he won't even talk to Garlan about).
“Would you ever consider harming this baby or its mother, Willas?” she asked sternly, pouring tea into a big solid mug from a big solid teapot. None of the bone china her mother-in-law adored because of its capabilities in producing violent anxiety in people, thank you very much.
Willas looked suitably horrified, she was satisfied to see.
“Of course not!”
“Well, that's a step in the right direction, isn't it? You've a little less than five months, assuming the baby arrives on his or her due date, so you can read up on parenting, if that will put your mind at rest, dear. Or perhaps you might talk to the most readily available parents you know of, hmm?”
He looked mildly embarrassed.
“Well, yes, but you and Dad are just good at parenting!” he said, waving his hands and looking surprised when she pressed a little jam tart into one of them. “Thank you, but honestly, I don't even know- I don't even know how to hold a baby! What if I drop it?”
“I spent years before you were born wandering about with Baelor,” Alerie reminded him. “Climbing volcanos and poking about in rainforests and all sorts of exciting things, looking for rare plants and insects – do you honestly think I had the faintest idea of what I was doing when your father and I had you? I was terrified, silly boy! I was convinced I'd break you!”
He leaned back a little, blinking in surprise.
“And as for holding a baby, the most important thing is to support its head – they have such delicate little necks and such big heads that they need help.”
“Oh. Alright.”
“And as well, darling – don't you think you ought to be discussing this with the mother of your baby, as opposed to your own mother? Just a thought.”
WEEK TWENTY-ONE
“Ignore Rickon,” Bran advised, landing neatly and gratefully accepting a bottle of water from Sansa. “He doesn't think before he speaks – ever. Seriously, he told Mum she might want to cut back on her carb consumption because she's getting doughy around the hips.”
“You're not serious.”
Rickon had always had a big mouth – less tact than Arya, or even than Brandon – but surely even he wouldn't have been so stupid as to comment on Mum's hips?
“He did tell you that false labour would be entertaining, Sansa. Nothing is beyond our bouncing baby brother.”
Bran left Sansa to take advantage of the air conditioning and chairs with excellent lumbar support while he cooled down and went for a shower, doing his best to be quick – Robb and Jon had both guiltily admitted to being late to lunch with her in the past few weeks, and Arya was never on time for anything except work and matches and training and dinner at home, because Mum would eat her alive if she was late for that, and Bran was firmly of the opinion that Sansa would be best to remain out of Rickon's company until she'd had the baby, Rickon's mouth being what it was. With all that in mind, he had no intention of keeping her waiting any longer than he absolutely had to, so his hair was still dripping wet down the back of his neck when he skidded into the lobby and offered her his hand.
“So,” he said, once they were settled on the bus. “How've you been this week?”
“Teary,” she admitted. “And um, I was getting lunch with Will yesterday and we sort of... We walked into Joff.”
Bran hated Joffrey Baratheon more than anyone in the whole world – he knew their whole family felt the same way, knew that their father had cut all ties with Joffrey's father, who'd been his best friend since childhood, over the whole mess – and the thing he hated most about the bastard was the way he just wouldn't leave Sansa the hell alone.
“And?”
“And Will... Will told him to fuck off, Bran. And he went.”
“I assume there was more to it than that, surely? I mean, Joff never travels without his goons, and I can't see them being put off by Will Tyrell – no offence meant, Sanny, but you know I'm right.”
“I know – he threatened Joff with his uncle.”
Bran considered this – Joffrey had four uncles, Bran knew this because he'd been as close to Joff's brother Tommen as Arya had been to his sister Myrcella before the mess, and while Renly Baratheon was a few years older than Sansa, putting him about Will Tyrell's age, there was nothing about him that would intimidate Joff.
“Why did Edmure never think of using Tyrion?” Bran demanded, disgusted that their uncle hadn't thought of that – he'd been Tyrion Lannister's friend since they'd started school! “God, he can be useless-”
“He wasn't thinking in the same terms as Will,” Sansa broke in softly, and Bran only then noticed the way she was smiling down at her bump, which was already noticeably bigger than it had been when he'd last seen her, just two weeks ago. “A niece and a child are two very different things.”
Bran watched Sansa for most of the rest of the way into town, amazed at how much calmer she was – not that awful long ago, she would have been a wreck for a week after bumping into Joffrey, but now she seemed okay with it.
“I cried all over Will afterwards,” she admitted as they were getting off the bus. “He took it pretty well, to be honest, but I was mortified – I kept faffing about and going “Hormones! Hormones!” and that seemed to settle it, but I just... It was nice to have someone stand up for me like that, Bran, y'know? To not have to do it all myself for a bit. I don't know. It was... It was nice.”
WEEK TWENTY-SIX
“No, Dad, we are not finding out the sex of the baby, and you aren't to call the hospital and try to bribe it out of the sonographer.”
Brienne watched in considerable amusement as Will expertly guided his father away from Sansa, who was keeping firmly between her sister and Will's.
Loras, of course, was being determindly unhelpful to all involved, and to her as well – mostly, he was getting in the way and stealing food, which was all he ever seemed to do when Brienne offered to cook for a big group, but at least his being in the kitchen meant Renly was less likely to wander off from his post as kitchen boy.
“Why does your dad want to know the gender so badly?” she asked Loras while swatting his hand with a soup ladle.
“He's picking out a horse for the baby,” Loras explained as he examined his fingers to ensure she'd done no lasting harm. “Willas wants to strangle him for it, because he gets jumpy whenever Dad goes anywhere near stables anywhere, but especially if Willas bred any of the horses in those stables, which he did back home – most of them, really. I wouldn't trust Dad with a pet rock, never mind one of Willas' horses, so I suppose I can't blame him.”
“Why is your father picking out a horse for a newborn baby?”
“Something about growing up together,” Loras said, rolling his eyes. “I keep telling him a dog would be better, especially considering Willas won't let a child near one of the really good horses until it's old enough to know how to look after the animal, and considering Sansa's got Lady and loves dogs anyways.”
“Dogs are less likely to stand on a baby, too,” Renly offered over his shoulder, which earned him a kick in the arse from Loras and a thump in the arm from Brienne. “Oh, come on! Your dad's half mad when it comes to stuff like this, Loras – remember when he wanted to get us a gazebo for the garden as a housewarming present?”
“We promised never to speak of that,” Loras said gravely, or at least as gravely as is possible around a mouthful of chopped red pepper. “But yeah, we're having a time of it trying to talk him out of a horse for the baby – he intends on male for male, female for female. I don't even know, it's better not to ask with Dad.”
Sansa's mum leaned around the archway dividing the kitchen from the sitting room with a smile, Bran trailing behind her with his hands in his pockets.
“Anything we can do to help?” she asked brightly, and raised a hand to Loras. “Don't dare ask me to shut your father up, Loras Tyrell – I know you too well, before you deny it.”
“Come on, Cat,” Loras groaned. “Willas' head'll explode if you don't do something!”
“”Ask your own mother, dear,” Mrs Stark laughed, shaking her head. “If you need any heavy lifting done, Brienne, Bran would be happy to help.”
“I'll be working this off for a month,” Bran lamented cheerfully. “But Sanny insisted I take the night off, and who am I to risk the wrath of our newest moon?”
“Brandon Stark!”
Brienne deposited a stack of soup bowls in Bran's arms and pointed to the dining table, extended to its fullest and bracketed on one end by the table from Will, Edmure and Tyrion's, and the other by the table from Sansa's sister's place, just so there'd be enough room for everyone. “Go, set out, return for the pot. Mush.”
Bran did as he was told – he was good like that, always willing to help out when he visited Sansa, which was more often than ought to have been possible, given his training schedule – and soon enough, everyone was ready to sit down to dinner.
Which was eventful, to say the least, because theoretically nobody around the table actually liked each other, thanks to family rivalries. Sansa's brother had dumped her uncle's girlfriend for his own wife, her cousin had had a fling with Will and Loras' sister that ended badly, the Starks and the Tyrells had long since been fierce rivals, and then there was Tyrion, who was a Lannister, which would never sit well with the Starks,and Sansa's sister had the youngest Martell boy with her, because her boyfriend hadn't been able to make it and she'd laughed at the idea of coming alone, which wasn't going to go down well with the Tyrells... But somehow, nobody comitted murder by banquet, and they got all the way thrugh the meal without any casualties.
Sansa saw them all off, waving from the door until her parents turned off the lane, and she looked so entirely wrecked that Brienne sent her to bed with a cup of chammomile tea for her and the big beefy bone she'd gotten in the butchers that morning for Lady. Loras and Renly grumbled good-naturedly and helped her with the cleaning up, which was less than it might have been because Brienne abhorred cooking in a messy kitchen and cleaned up obsessively as she went along, and then they cracked out the wine and Pringles and collapsed onto the couch.
“So,” Loras said, “I think that went well.”
“Ned Stark didn't kill Will for knocking Sansa up, and nobody seemed to notice the way Sansa and Will look at each other like they're madly in love and don't want anyone, even each other, to know,” Renly agreed. “And Cheese's cooking was as superb as ever, so brava, Cheese, well done and all that.”
“Sansa didn't eat a thing,” Brienne confided. “Well, she picked at a few bits, but her plate was nearly full – I don't think she's been feeling well this past couple of weeks.”
“But she said she wasn't doing the vomiting thing,” Loras said, looking annoyed. “If she's been pretending to be fine when she's actually sick-”
“Late term morning sickness,” Renly said. “Is that a thing? I think Selyse had something like that with Shireen, maybe?”
“Must be something like that,” Brienne agreed. “I'll ask her in the morning, see if she's gone to the doctor about it.”
WEEK TWENTY-EIGHT
“That went better than expected,” Ed said brightly, setting the kettle on the hob and leaning back against the worktop. “I was expecting more of a fight, to be honest.”
“Will wasn't the only one who lost a lot when him and Tyene broke up,” Roslin said, bumping her hip against his and settling beside him. “We don't know what happened between them, so don't leap on her and dump all the blame at her feet just because he's your friend, Edmure Tully.”
“I'd never,” Edmure promised, but when Roslin turned away he pulled a face behind her back to Tyrion, who could only shake his head in amazement – Ed was older than Roslin by two years, but he was about fifteen years behind in maturity, most of the time. “Where'd Willas get to, anyways? I thought he was just making sure he'd locked the car.”
“He was seeing Tyene off, you great lump,” Roslin sighed. “And don't give me that look, Edmure – I know he's having a baby with Sansa, but he and Tyene were together for years. That's going to take time to get over, especially when they ended on such bad terms.”
Nobody knew why Will and Tyene had broken up – there'd been no sign of anything bad, nothing at all, they'd been golden, just like they'd been since they were fifteen, and then suddenly he'd walked out and they were refusing to talk to each other. Not even her sisters, not even Garlan knew why they'd split, but it must have been something massive for there to be so much bitterness between them.
Will sidled back in, looking thoughtful, and that was that. There'd be no more talk of Tyene for the rest of the evening, not after the way he'd been so on edge with her in the room.
“I'll start moving in in the morning,” he said once they'd made their third pot of tea. “The furniture should be here by lunchtime, and Sansa's coming over to pick out a room and all tomorrow afternoon.”
“You're using the room with the windowseat for the nursery, I assume?” Tysha asked, and Will smiled the little soft smile that they'd labelled his Baby Smile.
“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “It catches the sunset lovely, and it's nice and warm, too, and it's right beside my room, so it should be perfect, right?”
“Should be,” Tysha agreed, and Tyrion took her hand. “Now then, do you have a bed made up for tonight, or do you intend on sleeping on the floor? I wouldn't, not with that leg of yours, and...”
WEEK THIRTY
“It's lovely,” Sansa sighed, and Arya was almost surprised that Sansa wasn't holding Will's hand as he guided her into the nursery. “Oh, Will, it's perfect, it really is.”
Lady and Nymeria wandered in and sniffed about – the whole room was painted a warm cream colour, but the walls were decorated with soft-looking animals in soft-looking colours, dancing and playing musical instruments and holding hands. There was a massive cot in one corner, almost as big as the one Mum had offered Sansa the use of, and a changing table that matched it, and a rocking chair and a bookcase against the opposite wall.
And there was a windowseat, looking out over a back garden that Aunty Lya, with her black thumb, would have given her right arm for, all flowers and neat little trees and a proper wooden swingset.
Sansa had one hand pressed into the small of her back, the other resting on her bump, and Will's hand hovered over the curve of her spine as if he wanted to touch her, maybe to do something to ease the pains that she suffered from all the time lately, but was afraid that he'd be intruding. Arya felt like telling him that after getting Sansa pregnant, he couldn't really intrude much more, but that might upset Sansa so she didn't risk it. She was not, after all, Rickon.
“What's that?” Sansa asked after looking at Will for a long time, during which he looked back very intently, and she pointed at a big box wrapped in stripey pink and blue paper, tied off with a silver ribbon.
“Bran dropped it off this morning,” Will said. “He told me we had to open it together.”
Because Bran was a thoughtful bastard who spent his time putting the rest of them to shame, he'd gone and bought Sansa one of those musical mobiles she'd been looking at in Mothercare – it was cute, even Arya would admit that, a Winnie the Pooh thing with little purple elephants and Pooh and Piglet and Tigger and the rest, even Owl, flying around slowly to a pretty tinkly sort of tune. It apparently had a projector built into the top bit that would leave little stars and moons on the walls, which Sansa seemed to think was a lovely idea, and Arya promised herself that she'd pummel Bran's inevitably smug face when next she saw him – although it was Sansa who seemed to see him most, after Mum and Dad.
It was apparently just the right size for the cot. The bastard.
*
“Why aren't they together?” Renly whispered over the lip of his mug, and Tyrion shrugged – it was confusing him as much as anyone else, especially when Sansa and Will were both so blatantly interested. Right now, they were standing close together at the kitchen sink, both of them with their hands pressed to Sansa's bump, laughing and marvelling at the feel of the baby moving. “I mean, they're a damn good fit for each other if nothing else, aren't they?”
Renly had gone to school with Tyrion, Ed and Will, too, knew Will about as well as anyone did, and Sansa a damn sight better than Tyrion did, so he was a better authority on this than Tyrion felt himself to be.
“They seem it, anyways,” he agreed anyways. “It's ridiculous, the way he thinks he owes it to her not to drag her into his mess with Tyene.”
“She feels the same about him and Joffrey,” Renly confided, pushing the plate of biscuits closer to Tyrion. “We've tried telling her – Loras knows the two of them better than just about anyone, but not a hope of her listening, of course. They seem to think they'll be able to carry on like this once the baby is born and they're living together in Will's place.”
“Pardon my French, but my arse,” Tyrion said bluntly. “I'd be amazed if they last a month without falling into bed once they're living together.”
*
Brienne tugged on Renly's hair when he squeezed Sansa.
“Pregnant women are not for squeezing,” she said firmly, pushing him away and hugging Sansa herself. “Remember, we're only twenty minutes away if you need anything, alright?”
“I know, Brienne,” Sansa sighed, leaning back and smiling. “And you remember that I'm only twenty minutes away if these two idiots get too much, yeah?”
“As if I won't visit my brother and my best friend every day now that they're shacking up together,” Loras called from the stairs, the last of Sansa's things in a big box that hid his face but, unfortunately, did little to muffle his voice. “And you'd better arrange your eventual married social life so I can babysit.”
“Loras.”
“What?” he demanded, pausing and managing to look around the box in the front door (and the middle of the way). “I expect to be godfather, you know!”
“Willas is picking the godfather, and he wants Garlan,” Sansa said calmly, motioning for him to bring the box out to the car. “You're going to be godfather whenever Garlan and Leonette have another baby, you know that, so stop fussing.”
“Cheese would make an excellent godmother, you know,” Renly offered as they followed Loras down the steps to the car. “She's responsible, makes wonderful cakes and could fend off any attackers with the baby in one hand and her other hand tied behind her back.”
“While I wouldn't want to deny Brienne's considerable merits, Renly, I do have a sister,” Sansa laughed, and then she kissed all three of them on the cheek, pressed her key into Loras' hand, and let Will, who'd been standing patiently by the car, hold the door for her.
“Rampant sex by midnight,” Renly said as they waved them off. “Tenner.”
“I'll call her at twelve-oh-one,” Loras agreed, slapping his hand into Renly's to seal the deal. “You want in, Cheese?”
Brienne rolled her eyes and went back inside – she thought Renly and Loras were a bit disgusting, betting on Sansa and Will's sex life like that, and even if she reckoned that they were fooling no one but themselves, it was poor taste to make a joke of them.
WEEK THIRTY-TWO
“Robb, I need you to call Willas and ask him to meet me at the hospital with my bag. Bran, you call Mum and tell her that I'll let her know as soon as the doctors tell me anything. Jon, please sit on Rickon's head so he doesn't say anything horrible.”
Arya slipped an arm around Sansa's back and helped her up as their brothers sat and watched in horrified silence.
“Don't worry about me and the baby,” Sansa said, her reassurances ringing brittle because Arya could feel how badly she was shaking, how terrified she was. “It's only a few weeks, we'll be fine, don't worry!”
Nobody was convinced, least of all Sansa herself, Arya knew, but that didn't matter – what mattered right now was getting Sansa to the hospital as quickly as possible, and even if Arya hadn't been the obvious choice to accompany her, given present company, she was the likeliest to get her there before the baby was born because she was the quickest (and, admittedly, least road-safe) driver of them all.
“Come on, Sanny,” she said briskly, stopping only when Sansa threw out a hand and gripped the edge of the table, looking surprised by the apparent pain she was suddenly in. “Hospital's twenty minutes away the way you drive, which means... I can probably get it down to twelve or thirteen.”
“It's too early, Arry,” Sansa whispered, hobbling alongside Arya with her arms wrapped around her belly, paler even than usual. “What if that means there's something wrong with the baby? What if there's something wrong with my baby?”
“There's nothing wrong with Tiny Stark,” Arya said firmly, even though she was far from an authority on such things. “Look, Robb will call the sperm donor and Bran'll call Mum and everyone, including you and Tiny Stark, will be fine. I promise, Sanny.”
Sansa let go of Arya for long enough for them both to get into the car, and then there was only narrowly avoiding three bollards and a speed camera while Sansa fretted and bit her nails.
*
“I never really realised how big Loras' family is,” Brienne murmured, leaning against the wall by the drinks machine because there wasn't really space anywhere else in the waiting room, Renly beside her. “I mean...?”
“Well, only the curly haired ones and the blondes are on Will's side,” Renly pointed out. “The dark haired ones and the gingers are on Sansa's side.”
“Her sister's boyfriend is a blonde.”
“Don't make this more complicated than it already is, Cheese,” he warned. “I have a hard enough time keeping track of Loras' mad aunts and uncles as it is.”
“At least Sansa's all look like her mum or her dad.”
“Her mum's sister isn't here,” he told her. “She lives in Switzerland or something-”
“She lives in the Peak District, Renly.”
“Mountains, peaks, whatever,” he huffed. “But yeah, she's not here, and I was going to say that Edmure mentioned that his not-a-Stark nephew is sick or something, so there's that, and only two Hightowers showed up, which is a miracle.”
The Hightowers – Mrs. Tyrell's elder brother and sister, Baelor and Malora, and her father, Leyton, and his wife, Rhea – were clustered down the far end of the room with Mr. and Mrs. Tyrell, Margaery, and crotchety old Olenna. They were an intense bunch, especially when Loras and his other brother, Garlan, moved to join them. They sat in a huddle of worried quiet, which was a violent contrast to Sansa's family down the other end, who fretted and tried to keep her youngest brother and oldest uncle from saying horrible things.
From what Sansa had told her, Brienne knew that it was a constant battle to keep her youngest brother from saying horrible things.
The assorted significant others were all hanging about awkwardly near Renly and Brienne – Garlan's wife Leonette, Robb's wife Jeyne, Jon's girlfriend Val, Margaery's partner Allyria, Arya's boyfriend Ned (who was apparently Allyria's nephew, for God's sake), Bran's girlfriend Meera (who was a swimmer, which explained why she didn't mind his training regime – she was working just as hard as him) and Edmure's Roslin, who was careful to remain as far from Jeyne as possible.
“How long's it been?” Leonette asked softly, glancing down to where Garlan was frowning at the floor.
“Long enough that some of you can probably get along,” Mrs. Stark said tiredly. “They won't want all of us crowding around them when all's done, believe me – come on, off you pop, some of you.”
Brienne straightened up and motioned for Renly to follow her, and they were followed by a stream of vaguely embarrassed and still incredibly anxious family and almost-family.
“They're going to be fine,” Malora Hightower said firmly as she led her father and stepmother away. “Alerie went into labour six weeks early with Willas, and conditions and things have improved since then, haven't they? They'll be fine.”
*
Sansa looked exhausted when Robb slipped in to see her, Bran and Arya trailing behind him – she was only allowed four visitors at a time, apparently, and the sperm donor had yet to leave her side, by all reports, so Rickon had gone with Mum and Dad to get a look at Tiny Stark in the neonatal unit.
“He's going to be fine,” she said, sounding so relieved it was a wonder she wasn't crying (to be fair, she didn't look far off). “Have you seen him? We just got back from seeing him, didn't we?”
The sperm donor smiled and pressed a glass of water into Sansa's hand, and gave her the sort of look Dad gave Mum when she was pretending not to be sick.
“He's beautiful,” he said, and Robb was pleased that Arya didn't gag – she usually did, when anyone said anything that could be described as “sweet.” “He's so small, though.”
“He'll grow,” Sansa said, and she was so determined that Robb absolutely believed her. “We decided on Leo, by the way – Leo Edwyn Tyrell.”
*
“He's so little,” Loras said, unable to hide his concern. “I can't hold that, I'll break it.”
“My son is not an it, Loras,” Willas sighed, rocking slightly and never looking away from the baby in his arms. “His name is Leo, as well you know.”
“Doesn't change the fact that I'm not holding him,” Loras said. “What if I break him?”
“I'll kill you,” Willas promised, and Garlan averted a crisis by taking the baby away from Willas. “And then I'll let Sansa get at you.”
WEEK FORTY-ONE
“I still think the whole christening robe thing is ridiculous,” Rickon said. “I mean, it's a dress. No bloke wants the earliest memories most people of him to involve a dress, does he?”
“Some might,” Mum said lightly, and then she shoved him up the steps into the church. “Now don't say another word until everyone is too drunk to mind what you're saying.”
Arya hung back with Ned and Bran and Meera, finishing as much of her fag as she had time for before Sansa and Will and Tiny Stark arrived, at which point she ground it under the wedge of the slightly-high shoes she'd worn as a concession to Sansa.
“You look beautiful,” she said honestly, and Sansa blushed and tugged at the hem of her top – Arya knew she was feeling conscious of the weight she'd gained while she was pregnant, but she really didn't need to be. “Come on, let's make the name official.”
*
Everyone went back to Sansa and Willas' place after the ceremony itself (it was funny, how quickly it had become their place, not just his, but Loras tucked that away with a smile and knew that he'd be winning the bet with Renly, who was convinced that Sansa and Willas would fall into bed together again, whereas Loras, who knew both of them better than Renly ever would, knew that they were more likely to flirt very carefully and then suddenly get married.
Which was why he never, ever expected to walk in on them kissing in the kitchen while Mum and Cat were looking after the baby.