Stalwart and Steady and True

Sansa’s mind shut down. The man had said that they were all dead, every one of them, and that it was the future and that her family was dead. Her breath hitched, knees began to tremble. Her bottom lip quivered and the man was still talking to her. She couldn’t hear him though, not through the shrill ringing in her ears but it wasn’t a ringing, no, it was a creaking like ice freezing and breaking apart and Sansa’s breath hitched and hitched and hitched and-

“-best you come with us, Sergeant. SHIELD will help you get settled in, help you adjust-“

-and hitched and hitched and there was a creaking in her ears and any moment now Arya would be shaking her shoulder to take over the watch but that wasn’t right because this wasn’t like any nightmare that she had ever had- and hitched and hitched-

“-You need to take a breath, Sergeant. I understand that this is a lot to take it, but you have to-“

-and hitched and hitched and hitched and and and creak like the bolt-action of Bran’s Springfield M1903 going off again and again and her breath hitched because any minute now Arya would be shaking her awake and telling her that all of the prisoners were dead and that Sansa had been lost behind enemy lines, out in the cold, for ten days not for 70 years because how could it have been 70 years without Arya waking her up for her turn at watch but that was because this man had said that had said had said that-

“Sergeant, you need to calm down-“

-and hitched and hitched and hitched and tears were welling up in Sansa’s eyes and they were about to fall, they kept threatening to fall but they wouldn’t because they felt frozen inside of her and they were creaking inside of her like the bolt-action of Bran’s rifle but this man had said that they were all dead.

Sansa brought her eyes back to the man with the eyepatch, made herself breath. She drew in air and for a terrifying moment she thought that it would freeze inside of her lungs, and then she let it out. The tears were still clinging to the precipice of her eyelids and they wouldn’t fall and Sansa couldn’t force them to. The man’s eye was trained on her, squinted up and the lines of his mouth were hard and downturned. More agents had surrounded her and even though their weapons weren’t raised, Sansa could tell that they would be ready to in a moment’s notice. The man just had to signal and they’d shoot her.

 Sansa almost didn’t care. It was tempting to make herself a threat, to make them raise their weapons, to make them kill her. At least then she wouldn’t be out of time because she should have died anyway but then she looked closer at the man. She took in exactly the way he was looking at her and the air around her creaked again when she recognized the glint in his eye. It wasn’t concern, far from it. It was appraisal. The man in front of her was searching Sansa for weakness. To him, she wasn’t a soldier coming in from the war, she was still a weapon. He wasn’t going to let her die.

“Who are you?” she asked, forcing her voice to stay even.

“My name is Commander Mance Rayder. I’m the director of an organization named SHIELD; Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistic Division,” his mouth quirked up in something that looked like it was meant to be amusement. “A bit of a mouthful, I know. Your brothers wanted to make sure it spelled shield.”

Sansa forced her breath not to hitch again, forcing the words out: “My brothers…”

“Bran and Rickon helped found SHIELD in 1965 after the SSR disbanded,” Rayder said, that sickeningly kind tone back in his voice.

“And, and Robb?”

He didn’t say anything, his eye not leaving hers. The tears came back up but not over and this time Sansa couldn’t stop the break in her breath. “Sergeant, I really think that it would be best if you came back with us. SHIELD can help you get back in the world.”

“I-,” Sansa began, and then stopped because she had no idea what to say. She didn’t want to go with SHIELD because she didn’t want to be an asset, she wanted to be more than that. She wanted to go back, even if that meant going back to sleeping in forests while it snowed, or back to clearing White Walker bases, she’d even go back to foxholes and trenches if it meant that Arya would be waking her up for her turn on watch.

But Sansa was a realist and she knew that either she could go with this man and SHIELD or she could break through the ring of agents, run through the New York crowd from Times Square to the Five Points and from the Five Points to the docks and from the docks she could get on a ship and go wherever that took her and then from there get to some lost, lonely corner of the world, maybe somewhere in Ireland, in the homeland, and forget everything about this brand new, empty world without her family.

“Okay,” Sansa pushed the word out of her throat. Rayder almost looked surprised but he nodded and beckoned her toward the large black car behind him. She made herself walk toward it, the agents in black falling into formation behind her. They were guarding her as if she was going to run away. As if they hadn’t yet realized that she had nowhere to go.

Sansa paused with her hand on the door handle, giving herself one more moment to believe that maybe, oh please dear lord maybe, Arya was going to shake her awake. She pulled the door open and slid into the car, two agents following her, and then Director Rayder sat down across from her, and Sansa let out the breath she hadn’t known that she’d been holding. The car door slammed shut.

Sansa couldn’t make herself look at Director Rayder and his accessing eye and chose to look out the window instead. New York had barely changed. Maybe the buildings were taller, made of glass, and it had somehow gotten even more crowded and there were more cars than there possibly could have been. And maybe it was louder, and more garish, and maybe it was faster, but it was still undoubtedly New York, the same frenetic chaotic energy thrumming through the streets. Sansa’s hand curled into a fist.

The car slipped down the crowded streets, back the way that Sansa had run from, bringing her into Lenox Hill and out of the theater district. Even now, Sansa knew this city like the back of her hand, Brooklyn-born-and-bred as she was, knew that she could still break out of this car and lose herself in her city. It was a small comfort, the assurance of escape.

She wanted to lean her head against the car window and close her eyes but she couldn’t afford it, not when she was so close to breaking. She didn’t trust Rayder and she didn’t trust SHIELD and she didn’t want them to see her break down. Instead of letting herself give in to the panic racing through her, Sansa forced herself to watch her city slip by.

“We’ll set you up with a room at SHIELD HQ for now. We’d like to run some tests, assign you a therapist to help you adjust,” Rayder said, drawing her attention.

Sansa nodded, remembering the SSR testing that had been just short of torture. That she could do, but therapy- “I won’t do electroshock,” she said, voice hard to hide the fear under it. There had been a boy in their neighborhood, Patchface, they’d called him Patchface.

“No worries, Sarge. We don’t do that anymore,” the director seemed to be trying to reassure her and Sansa let him believe that it was working. “You’ll be meeting with a therapist and talking. Just talking. Then, once you’ve been cleared, you’ll be set up in an apartment; SHIELD paid for and furnished.”

“Can it be in Brooklyn?” Sansa asked, because if she had to be in this empty future than at least she could be home.

“We’ll see what’s available,” Rayder said and Sansa recognized it as a dismissal. He would put her wherever she would be most convenient for him and his organization. She hadn’t expected anything more.

The car drove past the building she had run out of, pulling around the corner and stopping in front of a different entrance. She was led through two giant glass doors and into a marble lobby. In the center was a statue made of brass; all of the Howling Commandos with their guns at the ready, Captain America at the center with his shield raised high above his head. The sculptor given each of them stern steely eyes and grim expressions and they looked everything like the Captain, the Crow, the Wilding, the Direwolf and the Little Bird and nothing at all like the people that she had loved her entire life.

Sansa cut her eyes away from the statue and squared her jaw. Walking through the lobby felt like a processional. The other agents in the building, all dressed in some kind of navy uniform, were watching her and trying their hardest to act like they weren’t. She was on display and as much as she wanted to curl in on herself and finally break apart, Sansa kept her shoulders stiff and her chin out.

The room that Rayder led her to was a chilling white, gaping and empty. There was a bed in the corner, a desk in the other with a lamp and chair, a closet and a bathroom off to the side. It looked sterile. Sansa hid her grimace and stepped inside. As far as cells went, she had had worse.

The director followed her through, motioning the other agents away. “Agent Baratheon will be here soon. She’ll give you some new clothes and other necessities and answer any questions you may have,” he paused for a moment as if waiting for her to say something and Sansa turned to look at him.

She slipped a mask on her face: “Understood, sir.”

For a moment, he looked almost frustrated, taking a step towards her. “I understand that this is hard for you, Sergeant, but SHIELD is going to do everything it can to help you feel safe.” Sansa wanted to laugh. She couldn’t imagine feeling safe any time soon.

“Sir.”

Rayder looked at her a moment longer before sighing, realizing that he wasn’t going to get anything more out of her. He turned to leave and Sansa made herself call out to him, dredged up the question: “What’s the date, sir?”

“May 5, 2012.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Sergeant,” Rayder said with a nod and walked out of the room.

She closed the door behind him and leaned her head against it, finally allowing her eyes to fall shut and then her breath hitched and hitched and even though her tears wouldn’t fall even though they were right there at the edge of her eyes and Sansa was 92 years old.

 It didn’t feel real, none of it. She’d been forcing herself to stay together until this moment and now she couldn’t fall apart. She wanted to, she felt like she should. That she should be collapsed on the floor with tears bleeding out of her and howling but she couldn’t. Sansa was so tired, the weight crushing down on her because she was 92 years and how could this even be possible? Arya had said that she was supposed to be able to come back but Sansa had never expected to.

She’d gone into that war and then after the trenches she’d never really thought that she would live. There had been hope, dreams, thoughts of getting to watch fireworks on her birthday again and dance at the Aladdin and go back to the small, horrible apartment with Arya but she’d known, oh she’d known, that it would never be possible. Even if she had lived Sansa knew that she’d never get to go home.

A bitter laugh bubbled its way out of her throat because she had been right. Back in New York and 67 years later and alone and how could her family be dead? They’d been alive last night, had been alive twenty minutes ago and she was supposed to go dancing with Willas if the mission had gone well and she hadn’t even thought of Willas until right now and the mission hadn’t gone well so she wouldn’t get to dance with him.

Sansa had missed 67 years and lost everyone she had ever loved and she was so tired of losing people. So damn tired of it and she still couldn’t cry, even as the pain started wedging itself in the pit of her stomach. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick and Sansa laughed again. Was there anything in her stomach to even throw up? She hadn’t eaten for 67 years and the last thing she’d eaten had been army rations and those were always horrible coming up but 67 years was a long time for food to last.

For Sansa to last. She’d outlived them all and there was no one coming to rescue her from this. She remembered thinking that they had all of them been in it up to the neck and now she really was. All the way up to her neck.

It’d been 67 years and Sansa had never imagined that she could be left out in the cold for so long.

**

Sansa stayed leaning against that door until someone knocked on it. The knock was quick and efficient; sharp. Sansa pushed herself off the door and opened it, revealing a woman on the other side. She was tall and lithe with ink black hair tied in a secure bun. Her face was scarred and pock-marked on one side, reminding Sansa of the people in her neighborhood who had caught smallpox. Sansa had seen similar scars in the ward where her mother had worked as a nurse.

For a moment, the two women sized each other up. Sansa noted the tight coil the woman held herself in, ready to burst into action. Sansa was the same. The agent’s eyes were a deep brown and while they were not hard like Director Rayder’s had been, they were piercing and knowing.

Whatever the woman saw in Sansa must have satisfied her because she smiled suddenly and thrust a duffle bag at Sansa: “My name is Agent Baratheon. I’m supposed to help you settle in.”

Sansa slipped a smile on her face, more a mask than anything genuine. She backed into the room and deposited the bundle on the desk chair before turning back around to face Agent Baratheon. Sticking out her hand, she said, “Sergeant Sansa Stark. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The woman took it, smiling back. For a moment, she looked almost…sad and then she schooled her features again: “Likewise.” After a moment, Agent Baratheon gestured towards the package she’d brought. “They’re clothes. Shoes too, and some toiletries. SHIELD will get you more tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Sansa murmured, turning back to the desk. She found a zipper on the side of the duffle bag and opened it. Inside was a uniform like the one the agent was wearing as well as a pair of black boots and socks. It was a dark navy and seemed like some sort of a nylon blend. It was sturdy and well-made with an eagle logo on the side. Beneath that were a pair of soft trousers with a drawstring, something that looked like a camisole, and beneath all that were the undergarments.

“You can change in the restroom,” Agent Baratheon said, gesturing towards the door off to the side.

“Thank you,” Sansa said, closing the door behind her. She stripped methodically and as strange as the styles were, Sansa had to admit they were much more comfortable. She was surprised to find that the uniform was a single piece, not unlike the flight suits the RAF used. There was a zipper up the front and as she pulled it up, the jumpsuit fit itself to her body.

There was a mirror in the washroom and she’d been trying to avoid it. She caught glimpses of herself; flashes of her red hair, an expanse of pale skin. Smoothing down the fabric of the uniform, Sansa forced herself to finally look at her reflection. She hadn’t known what to expect but she’d expected at least something to have changed. Nothing had. Not a single thing.

And Sansa broke. Gasping, she wrapped her hands around the porcelain rim of the sink. Her breathes came short and her eyes welled up with tears but they wouldn’t fall. She wanted the tears to fall so bad because wasn’t she supposed to cry? Her fingers griped harder and distantly she was aware that she’d broken the sink, plaster crumbling in her fist. With a howl that ripped itself out of her throat, Sansa thrust her fist against the mirror, shattering it.

The washroom door flew open and Agent Baratheon barged in, her body alert. Adrenalin pumping, Sansa fisted a large shard from the mirror and rounded on the agent, not registering that the other woman wasn’t a threat. Her chest heaved and her vision was blurred from her tears that wouldn’t fall and she held the shard in front of her like a last line of defense.

“Sergeant Stark, I need you to take a deep breath.” Agent Baratheon’s voice was calm but her eyes were panicked. “Please, Sergeant, put down the weapon and breathe.” The words didn’t mean anything to Sansa because she was alone and nothing made sense and-

“Stand down, soldier!” The agent’s voice was sharp and it cracked across Sansa’s mind like a whip.

The words clawed Sansa out of the mud in her mind because she could hear Robb yelling it again and again and again, and endless mantra in her head to stand down soldier stand down. Her breathes still ragged, Sansa squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to drop her make-shift knife. It fell with a clatter and Sansa fell with it. She was vaguely aware of tiny bits of glass beneath her knees. Absently, she ran her hand through her hair, not even noticing the blood and dust it left in its wake. She wanted to laugh at it all but stamped the urge down. It would have come out a scream anyway.

When she finally wrenched her eyes up from the floor, Sansa took in the state of the bathroom and the controlled look on Agent Baratheon’s face. She’d managed to rip a large chunk of plaster off of the sink, the sides sporting matching craters from her hands. The mirror was completely shattered, a hole behind it were Sansa’s fist had broken through the wall. Sansa let herself fall back against the wall, her legs spilling out in front of her. With distant amusement, she noticed that her feet were still bare.

Hesitantly, Agent Baratheon crouched in front of Sansa. She gestured wordlessly for Sansa’s hand and Sansa gave it. The cut wasn’t deep and it would heal within the next few hours. Still silent, Agent Baratheon moved to wet a towel in the broken sink. Coming back, she gently pressed against the slice in Sansa’s palm.

“Sorry,” Sansa mumbled, looking away. “I’m usually not so-“ violent, but that was a lie, “uncontrolled.”

Agent Baratheon just nodded, continuing to dab at the wound. Sansa could already feel her skin start to stitch itself back together. After she was done, Agent Baratheon moved to sit beside Sansa, her shoulder brushing against the glass shower stall. They sat there for a moment, each staring ahead. Sansa tried to let herself relax but her mind kept getting stuck like a record on the thought of 67 years going by.

“Do you spar?” Agent Baratheon asked, finally breaking the silence.

Sansa picked up her head from where she’d placed it on her knees and nodded at the woman beside her.

“Want to go a couple rounds?”

“Please,” Sansa whispered.

**

Sansa slammed the agent onto the map, the woman barely managing to dodge her next punch. In a moment, Baratheon was back on her feet, landing a kick against Sansa’s ribs. The fight calmed her in a way that would have sickened her years and years ago before the war. But she’d learned to take comfort where she could find it.

Panting, Baratheon ducked low and managed to block the uppercut that Sansa threw: “I thought they only taught you boxing in basic.”

“I didn’t go to basic,” Sansa respond and managed to get the agent into a headlock. It didn’t last long and Sansa found herself on her back, rolling away from the attack.

Sansa was good. She knew that. Agent Baratheon was better. She moved like water, every movement fluid and rolling into the next one without break. It looked like dancing and Sansa loved it. “If you’ve got time,” Sansa took another kick to the gut, “it’d be great to learn how to fight like you.”

For some reason, that brought the sad look back on the agent’s face. “I’d be glad to teach you,” she responded and Sansa kicked her feet out from under her.

**

The mess hall was almost obscene. Sansa had never been to a buffet in her life, had never had the money, and here there were rows of food, some of it for stuff she’d never even heard of. “It’s like the Depression never even happened,” Sansa muttered as she slid her tray down the metal counter. Beside her, Baratheon laughed.

Sansa loaded her tray with anything that looked good, still marveling at just how much there was and how for once she’d be able to satisfy her supersoldier metabolism. She glanced at another agent and had to stop herself from calling her out when she threw out a plate that was still mostly full. “It’s like they’ve never had a sugar ration,” she said.

“They haven’t,” Baratheon answered her with a shrug. “The government hasn’t rationed anything in a long time. People can get whatever food they want.”

“Least ways if they can get the money for it,” Sansa said, spooning soup into a bowl. The Starks had only ever dreamed of meals like this. When Baratheon stayed silent, Sansa glanced at her. “I’m assumin’ there’s still people that have’ta make payday stretch.”

“Unfortunately.”

Sansa huffed. “They fix the sugar ration but not the economy. Figures. I take it the New Deal didn’t work out quite as well as people were hopin’ it would.”

“There’s still the pension program and labor regulation,” Baratheon said, her mouth quirked in a half smile.

Sansa followed the agent over to one of the tables at the edge of the room and removed from most of the other agents in the room. Sansa had been actively ignoring the looks that they were giving her, like she was some kind of exhibit. She sat with her back to most of them even though it meant giving them a tactical advantage. She didn’t like the feeling of the eyes.

“That’s good,” Sansa said, cutting into the steak she’d gotten (and wasn’t it a sight to see a slab of steak in a mess hall). “Does SHIELD have a library? I’d like to catch up.”

That made Baratheon laugh again, ducking her chin while she did it. The agent didn’t seem used to laughing. “I’ll introduce you to the internet after dinner,” she said, the smile still on her lips.

Talking to Baratheon was easy. The woman was simple and straight forward, a sharp contrast to Director Rayder. Mostly it was just small talk, something to fill the silence. It’d been a long time since Sansa had done small talk. She’d forgotten what it was like to just mindlessly talk. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was taking a lot of effort for Sansa not to squirm. The longer she sat there the more aware she became of the people staring at her. It’d be more tolerable if the other agents weren’t trying so hard to make it seem like they weren’t actually looking.

Sansa had thought that she was hiding her discomfort well but suddenly Baratheon stopped talking about new music and asked, “What’s wrong?” The wariness was back in her voice, along with the tightness in her muscles.

Briefly, Sansa considered not telling her. Taking in the apparent earnestness in the agent’s eyes, Sansa deflated, letting her shoulder slump. “People keep staring at me.”

Baratheon nodded, “Of course they are. It’s not every day that you see a legend walking around.”

Sansa raised an eyebrow, not really sure how to respond to that.

“All the Starks are legends. Probably the biggest in America’s history. We might have lost the war without out you- you do know we won the war, right?” She asked all of a sudden, looking unsure.

“I figured that one out when I didn’t see any swastikas or White Walker fists decoratin’ the walls,” Sansa drawled.

“Right, well,” Baratheon soldiered on, “Captain America and the Howling Commandos are basically the reason that we won. That plane that you and Arya stopped? It was a drone plane and if the White Walkers had found it…it had the power to kill millions at a time.”

You’re the one who can come back come back come back Sansa almost laughed out of bitterness at the irony of the whole thing. Because Arya had been the hero, the one who jumped from the motorcycle to the plane to stop it. The one who sacrificed her life. Sansa had just followed.

“You’re heroes, all of you. And your brothers went on to do amazing things. You should be so proud. The world is never going to forget them.” Agent Baratheon looked so earnest it was almost painful to look at her.

“I’ve always been proud of ‘em,” Sansa said, trying to keep the heaviness out of her voice. “From Brooklyn to Europe, I was proud of ‘em. Best people I know-knew.”

Behind her, someone cleared their throat and Sansa turned and saw an agent standing behind her, reeking of nervousness. He looked young, barely 20 years old. It saddened Sansa to think that SHIELD started them that young. Not that her family had been any different though.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to tell you that it’s an honor to have you here at SHIELD,” the agent said and it sounded rehearsed for all that it was sincere.

Dredging up a smile, Sansa stood and stuck her hand out to the man who shook it like it was the most amazing thing he’d ever done. “Thank you, Agent…”

“Payne,” the man said quickly and then flushed. “My name is Agent Podrick Payne.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Agent Payne,” Sansa said, keeping that practiced smile on.

The agent flushed, “Oh, god, no. The pleasure is mine. Captain America is the reason I joined SHIELD and, just, meeting a Howling Commando- well, another one. I met Wildling-Agent Stark- once and he was incredible. And so are you-“

“Payne,” Baratheon spoke up, cutting him off. The words weren’t biting but he instantly fell silent; she was clearly the superior officer.

“I just wanted to say that it’s an honor,” Payne said, much more subdued. “I’ll leave you to your meal.”

“I look forward to meeting you again, Agent,” Sansa said, the manners second nature to her. He blushed again before making a hasty retreat, looking like Christmas had come early.

“Sorry about him,” Baratheon said after Sansa sat back down. “He’s just a big fan. Like I said, you’re a legend.”

Sansa nodded, feeling a little dirty. None of them had done it to become legends. They’d just wanted to help and then they got turned into a circus spectacle. Agent Payne had seemed nice enough, and his excitement was a little endearing, but the whole thing had left a sour taste in her mouth.

“Can I call you Sansa?” Baratheon asked.

Sansa looked up at her; “Why?”

“Most people are going to call you Sergeant. Or Stark or…or who knows. I thought you might want someone to call you by your name. You call me Shireen, I’ll call you Sansa.”

Sansa’s smile was sad and small; “I’d like that.”

**

Shireen left her with a laptop and a list.

               Manhattan Project

               Cold War

               McCarthyism

               Martin Luther King Jr./Civil Rights Movement

               Vietnam War

               John F. Kennedy

               Watergate

               9/11

She’d said it was a good place to start.

**

It is white and blinding and it is cold and you can’t move.

Around you, you can hear the ice creaking and in the whiteness, it is deafening.

You think you’re standing but it’s hard to tell in all the whiteness.

You try to turn your head and you can’t and you try to lift your arm and you can’t and you try to run and you can’t and you try to turn around and you can’t and you try to scream and your mouth won’t open and the ice creaks louder.

The white fades into your bedroom in Brooklyn.

You can hear Arya in the kitchen cursing at the broken radiator.

Relief surges through you and you try to run to your sister. You can’t because you still can’t move and snow is falling softly in the room and it is so gentle, leaving a thin coat on your bed and dresser. It keeps falling though and falling and you can see past the door, can see your dingy couch and Arya’s boxing gloves and you want to move so badly but you can’t even get the sob out of your throat.

The ice is still creaking.

Bran stands behind you, showing you how to hold the rifle.

The snow is a blizzard and how are you supposed to hit the mark on the tree if you can’t see it and can’t move to pull the trigger but now Bran is gone and your finger is moving, pulling back on the trigger and the shot rings out and Robb screams and falls and his blood is so blinding against the snow and you want to sob but it still won’t come out-

 You can hear the ice creaking and creaking and creaking and you can’t move because it is swallowing you whole and Arya is staring at you and she is missing an arm and half her face and she won’t stop staring and you still can’t cry and the ice is still creaking and the bedroom is full of snow and the walls are covered in ice and your finger is moving and you shoot your brother and your sister is bleeding out of a hole in her stomach and it keeps happening again and again and you keep shooting your brother and trying to scream and nothing moves but your trigger finger because Bran was wrong and wrong and wrong because you can kill everyone and you shoot Robb again and Arya keeps staring at you and the whole time the ice is creaking and all you want to do is move-

**

Sansa forced her eyes open and it was so much more difficult than it should have been. Her eyelids dredged up slowly, as if they had been crusted over for decades. Her lungs felt like stiff bellows, ones that didn’t want to expand, didn’t want to contract, a scream stuck down deep in them. With her eyes finally open, Sansa began to realize that her body was curled in a fetal position, her legs pulled to her chest, her chin tucked down against her knees, and her hands fisted in her hair and pulling tight. And she couldn’t move, could barely breathe.

Sansa could feel a chill settling itself into her bones, one that was nothing like the cold of being behind enemy lines in winter but also absolutely the same. Every time she closed her eyes, Sansa remembered the blizzard in her dream and her eyes flew open again because all of that cold terrified her.

She concentrated on willing her body to move, anything to get the ice out of her. She just wanted to twitch, to shudder, anything so long as she moved. With a whimper on her lips, Sansa forced herself to move her finger and if she could have wept from relief, she would have. She moved the finger again, uncurling it from her hair. She did it again and again until it was two fingers, three, four, and then her hand splayed flat on her head. Sansa kept willing herself to move and force the ice out of her. From her hands, then to her feet, her arms, her legs, until she wretched her body out of the bed, tumbling onto the floor, a gasp of relief punching out of her.

But the sob still wouldn’t dislodge itself from her chest. She could feel the tears just on the edge of welling in her eyes, her breath just a hitch away from the hysterics. But nothing came.

She knew that sleep was going to be impossible tonight. The horror of the nightmare was still clinging to her, the terror of the ice. Remembering the gym that Shireen had taken her to, small and out of the way, Sansa walked out the door of the white room. She didn’t bother to change from the soft pants and camisole that she’d been sleeping in.

It was easy to remember where the gym was and she found the doors open. She’d expected to be stopped on her way here, or for the doors to be locked. It made Sansa feel uncomfortable instead of free because it meant that Sansa was being watched and she didn’t know where the cameras were.

The gym was mostly dark except for a spot in the back corner. She could hear a man grunting, the familiar sound of fists hitting a punching back. Sansa considered leaving but the thought of going back to that cold, white room was worse than sharing the early morning hours with a stranger.

Sansa made her way over to the same back corner, stopping to drag a punching bag out of a supply closet Shireen had shown her earlier. She also grabbed some of the athletic tape. She may be a supersoldier but old habits die hard and her brother had taught her better than that. The other man hadn’t stopped his routine when she’d walked in and he didn’t even pause when she hooked up her own bag next to his. Nonetheless, she had the distinct impression that he was watching her. She’d felt his eyes on her; it was calculating and swift. An appraisal of her as a threat. Sansa looked back and made no effort to hide what she was doing.

The man was gigantic, bigger even than Rickon had been. His shoulders were broad and his waist was tapered down, turning into slim hips with strong thighs. The shirt he wore was tight and gripped at his muscles like paint. Sweat was dripping down his brow and darkened his armpits, dampening his brow and the loose bun his hair was in. He hit the punching bag with a fierce intensity, his eyes harder than the punches he was throwing. His movements were sharp, pointed, powerful, the lines of his body fluid.

His face made her pause for a moment, the right half of it mangled with scars. They made his brow droop over his eye and he’d lost most of his right ear. Sansa took in the hook of his nose, the jaggedness of his cheekbones and the firm jawline. She got caught in the hard glint of his eyes though, the ones that refused to look back at her. This man had been shaped by a world that was as cruel as it was ugly.

She deliberately looked away from him, eyes dropping down to tape up her hands before turning to her punching bag. It was swaying slightly from when she’d hung it and she put her hands out to steady it. It’d been a long time since she’d just hit a bag like this. It’d been since before the Howling Commandos, since before they’d left for Europe, since before her parents had been killed. Sansa swung her first undercut.

She fell into the rhythm easily. It wasn’t exactly familiar- she hadn’t done this has often as the rest of her siblings- but it was calming in a way that sparring wasn’t. Sansa could just let her body do the work, let it mull her over into exhaustion. Even though her pa had given her her first lessons, Robb had taught her how to find the rhythm in it.

She remembered how Robb had held the bag steady, gently correcting her until her fists hit steady and strong. Robb had always been so busy working at the docks and it had made Sansa savor the training all the more. He didn’t laugh often and didn’t smile nearly as much he had as a child, but that old gym in Red Hook had made him look lighter than he had in years.

Even then Robb had always been fighting, just back then it was for unions by helping to publish the Daily Worker, fighting along with all the members of the Radical Women’s League, an endless fight day after day after day and being Captain America hadn’t made it any better. Not when he was already so tired of carrying the weight of the world. He was exhausted most days even though he stood proud and faced it with his chin jutted out. It made him bone-weary but Robb had always believed he was going to win. He’d fought the fight but it had made him smile a whole lot less.

Sansa hit the bag harder, faster. She felt like she should miss Robb, miss all of them but she couldn’t. It still didn’t feel real because somehow she had died seventy years ago and they had all died but they had been in a pub last night singing about how they had to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive because there was a war on and tomorrow you might die and they did. Her knuckles pounded into the bag.

Sansa hit the bag and hit the bag and hit the bag and the bag ripped off of its hook and burst as it slammed against the back wall, sand spilling out of it. Sansa’s breath was coming fast again, sweat dripping off of her. Running a hand down her face, Sansa stalked back to the supply closet, picking up another bag. She hefted it above her, putting it on its hook. Sansa started again, this time hitting it with vicious jabs and roundhouse kicks. She knew her form was off and that she was using too much force and Robb would have corrected her but Robb was dead and she shouldn’t be here.

Sansa gritted her teeth. She knew that she should get a grip on herself. She was too strong to let herself lose control. The Stark siblings had learned the hard way what too much strength could do; a lesson learned in shattered mugs, broken jars and holes in the walls. She’d learned that lesson with Willas’ body and the way she’d kissed him too hard and in the bruises the shape of her fingers.

But her body kept moving like it would never stop and it was so much better than the ice so she caved into it. The canvas beneath her knuckles split and Sansa growled, changing her aim to compensate around the trickle of sand. When she broke through that part too she changed to her right jab. When that spot broke, Sansa bit down her shout and threw a haymaker. The bag ripped almost in half, spilling sand down on Sansa and making a mess on the floor.

The man laughed, the sound sudden and harsh in the dark gym. He was leaning against his own bag, slowly un-taping his hands. It wasn’t a happy sound; filled with mirth and something close to bitterness. Sansa cut him a glare and he didn’t flinch under it. Instead he pushed away from his bag and beckoned her over: “I’m done with this.” His voice was gravel with a Russian accent.

“Thanks,” she muttered, brushing some of the sand off before walking over. He stepped out of her way and she squared herself in front of the new bag. His eyes were still on her when she went back to using her hook.

“You have a good swing. Lot of force,” the man said.

She looked at him and threw another haymaker, this time more controlled and more aware of her strength: “Thanks.”

“You know how to say anything besides thanks?” Sansa lifted her brow at him. “Makes sense. The Little Bird and her manners.”

Sansa halted, turning on him: “You know who I am?”

He laughed again: “Everyone knows who you are, Little Bird. America’s darling,” he said, the bitterness back in his voice.

Sansa scowled: “America’s what?”

The man just shook his head and walked away. “Hey! Hey, I’m talkin’ to you!” She shouted after him but he was already going through the door, leaving her alone.

“Asshole,” she muttered, going back to the punching bag.