Hot Coffee Part 29
Title: Hot Coffee Part 29
Author:Louisa
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Pairing: Sansa/Daenerys
Trigger warning: Mention of past violence and near sexual assault. Non-explicit.
Distantly, I wish I had a coffee or a hot chocolate or something, more for the comfort factor than out of any real appetite, but I know if I don’t do this now I won’t do it at all.
And I… I *want* to do this. I do. So I take my own advice from earlier and start at the beginning.
Well, *a* beginning.
“I met him back in secondary school. He always seemed very popular - lots of friends and hangers-on. I didn’t really know him that well, but he was…” I want to say ‘handsome,’ but the word sticks in my throat like a stone. “Lots of girls seemed to have crushes on him,” I say instead. I remember thinking… He seemed so witty and charming, so… so chivalrous. God, how stupid *was* I? “I never really spoke to him much until… Before what happened with Jeyne. We didn’t really… I guess we didn’t frequent the same circles.”
Jeyne never did like him, whispers a voice from the back of my mind. Not him and not his friends. She said they were bullies, and she didn’t care to associate with bullies.
(Another voice, darker still, whispers that it was *because* she didn’t like him. That I only ran to him because I was running from her. That everything that happened afterwards was all my own fault.)
“So, what happened?” Daenerys’ voice, soft though it is, makes me start a little. I realise that I’d been drifting, as caught up in my own past nightmares as she’d been in hers. I have to remind myself that they *are* in the past; that he isn’t even in the same *county* at the moment. That he can’t torment me any more.
(Although a part of me - a black little corner of my soul - wants to see him try it in front of Daenerys, or Asha, or Shae, or any of my new friends. Something tells me that would not end well. For him.)
(But… no. That’s not who I am. It’s why I haven’t told Daenerys his name, after all.)
“It started when I was trying to give Jeyne some space. Things were… awkward… between us.” And that’s an understatement and a half. “By extension, things were a bit weird with the rest of our usual crowd. They knew something was wrong, but neither of us would tell them what it was. Well, I’m assuming Jeyne didn’t say anything. Not then, anyway. They certainly didn’t *seem* to know, judging by how much they kept asking. I sort of… kept my distance from all of them, a little bit. I hoped things would… settle down.”
I only just stop myself saying ‘go back to normal,’ but I learned my lesson last time. I won’t make that mistake again.
“Anyway, J-“ Whoops! “*He* started… talking to me. Started including me in his conversations, inviting me to his parties; that sort of thing. He seemed… He seemed *nice*.”
My voice cracks almost in two, so I have to clear my throat and try again. Daenerys makes a wordless, comforting noise and shifts position on the sofa. I’m momentarily bereft as she releases my hand, her feet no longer pressing against my thigh; my skin, even under my clothes, feeling her absence as keenly as it would any touch. But then the moment passes and she puts her left arm around my shoulders, reaching to clasp my right hand in hers. The clamouring sense of loss immediately fades away, replaced by feelings of warmth and safety.
(I feel safe in her arms.)
“I was lonely, and he was charming.” I give a little shrug, aiming for a tone of wry humour. I miss by a country mile, instead sounding almost forlorn. “It was a deadly combination. He, well, courted me I guess. Paid me compliments, gave me little presents. That kind of thing. I thought he liked me. And I…”
Liked him too? No, that’s not true. Not quite. I mean, he *was* charming, when he wanted to be, and I guess he was considered handsome, but…
But.
“I convinced myself I liked him too.”
(Because liking *him* was a perfectly normal thing for a girl of my age to do. Other girls fancied him; why not me? And if I did like him, then anything else I might have been feeling - like for Jeyne - obviously wasn’t real, and obviously didn’t mean a thing. And Jeyne would realise she was just confused, and we would be friends again, and everything would be just *fine*.)
(It would all be fine again.)
(And all *I* had to do was like him back.)
(I could do that, couldn’t I?)
“And did you?”
“Not…” (Not the way I liked Jeyne.) “Not the way he wanted me to. But, as I said, he seemed nice. And I thought that was…” I tried. I really tried. “So when he asked me to go out with him…” Upstairs at one of his parties, the room spinning a little from the drinks (so many drinks, and it would have felt rude to refuse them) he’d pressed into my hand. “I said yes.”
I tilt my head a little to look at Daenerys, half-fearing to see disgust in her eyes, but the only thing I see there is friendship, pure and true. And her voice is rich with compassion as she asks:
“How long did it take for him to show you his true colours?”
I laugh. I can’t help it; can’t keep back that harsh bray of a sound, even though nothing about this is even remotely funny. Except, in a twisted kind of way, it sort of is.
“That’s the stupid thing,” I say. “The really, really stupid thing. He didn’t even wait a whole day. Heck, he didn’t even wait five minutes. We were kissing, and that was okay, I guess, but-” I bite off the word, shaking my head. “Actually, no. It was pretty awful.”
So slobbery, teeth clacking together, his great slab of a tongue forcing its way between my lips. I’ve had better kisses from *dogs*. And when I think about kissing Margaery… (Or Jeyne.) Awful is doing him a *kindness*. Back then, I just put it down to the fact that it was my first time. (Even though it was technically the second and Jeyne’s kiss was so gentle in comparison.) I just assumed that any awkwardness was due to my inexperience, or our lack of familiarity with each other.
“Anyway, he wanted…” I drop my gaze, suddenly not able to look her in the eyes. Instead, I focus on our linked hands, her long, tanned fingers intertwined with my pale ones. (I can’t help noticing that we make a striking contrast.) But I can’t procrastinate forever, and it’s surely a testament to her patience that she’s let my hesitation go on this long without even attempting to prod me into further speech. “He wanted to go further than just kissing,” I say, my voice sounding oddly monotone in my ears. Like some kind of automaton.
The thought of his hands - pawing, groping, roughly squeezing - makes me want to shower, scrubbing away at my skin as if I can wash away even the memory of his touch. I try in vain to push the sensation aside, to fight my way free of its clutches, but the memories rise up like a tidal wave, the past consuming the present like wildfire in a dry forest. I’m drawing in great, gasping, heaving breaths - like I’m drowning somehow, even right here on dry land - but it still feels like I just can’t get enough air.
Like there isn’t enough air in this room, in the whole wide world, to chase away memories that cling to me like thick black oil; that feel every bit as toxic as oil.
But then Daenerys’ voice cuts through the panic, her embrace surrounding me like armour, like a shield.
“Sansa, it’s alright,” she says, her voice calm and even. “You’re safe here. I’ve got you. He can’t hurt you now, not while I’m here.” There’s a fierce edge to her words, a feeling like standing too close to an open flame, as she adds: “If *anyone* tries to harm you, they’ll regret it. I’ll make sure of it.”
I feel strangely torn. Most of me is happy to snuggle into her arms, to revel in the trust I feel, the absolute certainty that she means every word. As long as I’m with her, I know that I’m safe. And yet… And yet there’s a part of me that flinches back from the violence implicit in her tone, from even the idea of a conflict happening over me. Because of me. More than that, it reminds me that the capacity for violence, for anger - even when directed against someone who’d harm me - could still turn against me. (If I do something stupid, or wrong, or clumsy. If I do something to deserve it.) If I…
No.
No, I will *not* give into that poisonous little voice at the back of my mind. I refuse. Daenerys isn’t going to turn against me. She certainly isn’t going to hurt me. She wouldn’t! And even if she did - which she won’t - that bloody well doesn’t mean that I’d ever deserve it.
I don’t deserve it.
I *didn’t* deserve it.
Just like that, I’m calm again.
“I’m okay,” I say softly, even managing a small smile. “I just got a little… lost… for a moment or two. But I’m alright now.”
“You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” she says, worry plain in her eyes.
“I think I… I *want* to talk it,” I say softly, surprising myself. But as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realise it’s true. “If you don’t mind,” I add. Because heaven knows my sad little story can’t be much fun to hear.
“Of course I don’t mind,” she says, and even though there’s a thread of ‘how can you even say such a foolish thing?’ running through those words, it doesn’t send me spiralling through endless loops of doubt and self-despite. It doesn’t feel… It’s not like she’s *judging* me or anything. It’s more like… reassurance.
I straighten my spine and pick up the thread of my account.
“I told him I wasn’t ready,” I say. “I told him to stop. And he did,” I add hurriedly, because I can all but sense the question starting to form on Daenerys’ lips. “But he wasn’t…” Happy with that? No. Why dissemble? “He was furious with me. He shouted, called me names; said the most horrible things.” Some of those things start to push their way to the front of my thoughts, the homunculus he left in my head ever-eager to remind me of his choicest words.
I imagine muzzling that hateful voice of his. Muzzling *him*.
It actually feels good. Petty, but good.
I hope that feeling can carry me through this next part.
“He hit me,” I whisper, and it feels like a confession. Without meaning to, I find myself looking at our joined hands again.
She mutters something I don’t understand. It’s in Berber, I’m pretty sure - at least I know it’s not English or French - but I don’t need to understand the words to figure out the sentiment behind them. Her tone - low and angry; words spat forth like bullets - speaks volumes all by itself.
I reach blindly up with my left hand, aiming to reassuringly pat the arm wrapped around my shoulders. Instead, I overshoot a little and end up cupping what feels like the smooth skin of her cheek. She starts noticeably against me, and I almost rip the offending hand away from her skin, but something makes me linger a little, lightly stroking my fingers along the curve of her jaw as I let it fall slowly free. She starts again, and then relaxes.
(I can’t help worrying that I’ve overstepped a line, but she doesn’t say a word about my little faux pas. I resolve to myself that as long as she doesn’t raise the subject, I won’t either. That’s probably the least awkward course of action.)
“It’s alright,” I tell her, somewhat amused at the thought that I’m reflecting her own words back to her. “He didn’t hit me hard. It was just a slap. It shocked me more than it actually hurt.”
“Of course it’s not alright!” She turns a little, angling us so that I have to look at her face, have to see her eyes overflowing with more emotion than I know what to do with. “Sansa, that kind of thing is *never* alright. It doesn’t matter whether it hurt or not. It matters that he fucking hit you.”
“I know,” I say, hating the way I sound so… placating.
“Do you?” she flashes back, quick as a whip.
“I think so. I mean, I do. Yes.”
I know he shouldn’t have. I know it wasn’t right. I do know that. So why do I sometimes still half-feel (maybe even more than half-feel) like I deserved it? Even though I didn’t. And even if I had, somehow, done something wrong, he still shouldn’t have hit me.
He shouldn’t.
“Yes, I do know that,” I say, and this time I actually sound like I believe it.
I think I really do believe it. At least I do right now.
(Later is… Well. I’ll worry about later when it’s later.)
She nods once, like she’s finally satisfied with my answer.
“Good,” she says, settling back into her previous position. (I don’t know whether to be relieved or sorry that I can’t see her eyes any more. My eyes drift back to our hands, still joined together.)
“Anyway, so.” I let out a sigh. “After he… After that happened, I just left. I didn’t even say anything to him; I just grabbed my bag, opened the door and ran.”
I still remember that run in my nightmares. Making my way through a house that suddenly seemed all shadows and strange angles, like it was actively *trying* to stop me escaping. The faces of the other guests - not a single one of my own friends among them, I suddenly realised - funhouse-mirror twisted, leering and jeering wherever I looked. Mocking laughter dogging my steps like a bean-sidhe’s wail.
“I couldn’t find my coat, so I just left it behind. Eventually I managed to find the front door.” Well, I guess it couldn’t really have been that long, but it certainly felt like an eternity at the time. “I headed down the drive - the, I mean, his family had a big house - and then just kept on walking.”
“What happened then?”
“I called Jon and asked him to come and get me.”
“One of your brothers?” Daenerys asks.
I nod. “The second-oldest.”
I remember hesitating for a long while over who to call. Mum and Dad were obviously right out. Rob… I very nearly did call him, but he would have wanted to know all the details; why I was leaving early, why I seemed so upset, who he needed to go and have ‘words’ with. Jon, though… Jon wouldn’t prod at me to talk about it if I didn’t want to. And he knew how to keep a secret. When I asked him not to tell anyone, just to come and get me, I knew he’d do it.
And he did.
“What did he say about your face?” she asks after a moment.
“Nothing. There wasn’t anything to see. It wasn’t hard enough to bruise, and I guess my cheeks were pretty red from the cold anyway. He did ask why I was wandering around without a coat, but I just said I’d forgotten it.”
He gave me the spare duffel coat he had stowed in the boot of his tiny car. Who on earth even *has* a spare duffel coat? Not to mention what looked like full camping gear, tent and all. And a box of protein bars, or whatever they were. I guess he really does believe in being prepared.
(And I don’t think he’s ever given up the worry that he’s just going to be kicked out onto the street, no matter how much Dad always tried to reassure him.)
“So what else did you tell him?”
“Just that I’d had a fight with a friend and couldn’t stay at the party any longer.” Which was sort of, maybe, true; from a certain angle. From a certain point of view. The second part definitely was, anyway. I’m pretty sure he realised there was more to it than that, but he didn’t press me for details. Instead, he just… “He took me for ice cream.”
I can feel my face softening, lips curving from their tight, tense little line into something that might even be a smile. I spent so much time determinedly not thinking about the bad times that I’d forgotten the shining jewels of the good ones. (None of which involved *him*, of course.)
“Ice cream? What time was this?” From the sound of her voice, I can tell Daenerys is arching her eyebrow quizzically.
“Not that late. Maybe ten, ten-thirty pm? But there’s an Italian ice cream parlour in the city centre that has really late hours. I think it’s because of all the students. The owners once told me they sometimes don’t close until the small hours of the morning. It’s one of my favourite places in Sheffield. They do the *best* chocolate gelato, and their lemon sorbet deserves an epic poem in its honour.”
I carefully avoid mentioning that a certain person not too far away from here may have written just such a poem. When she - I - was younger, of course. Much, much younger.
I hope the place is still around. I haven’t been there in a little while, and Rosa did say they were thinking about retiring… I immediately make myself a promise that, if it’s still open, I’m dragging my siblings there when I go back to Sheffield for the holidays.
I wish I could just lose myself in all the happy memories I made in that ice cream parlour (giggling with Jeyne as we stole spoonfuls of each other’s ice cream until eventually we just swapped bowls altogether), but I can’t. My story isn’t anywhere near finished yet, and I did promise Daenerys I would tell her about…
“Anyway,” I say, feeling my whole body sag a little as my thoughts turn back to *him*. Daenerys rubs my arm lightly, which feels… comforting. She really is very tactile. I’m not, usually, but with her it just feels natural. I think I could get to like it. (I think maybe I already do.) “The party was on a Friday night, so I was pretty much a mess the whole weekend.”
“Wasn’t there anyone you could talk to?” Daenerys asks, but she sounds like she already knows the answer to that one.
“No,” I reply anyway. “I’d alienated all my friends, and as for my family…”
I imagine how they might have reacted, cringing inside at the thought of the tidal wave of fury telling any of them would have unleashed. I think Arya might just have taken her fencing sword and stabbed him through the heart. Mum and Dad would have wanted to talk to his parents - well, his mother - and maybe the school board. And if *he* wasn’t pulled out of that school, I’m pretty sure I would have been. Rob and Jon might have just waited for him in a dark alley. Bran would have supported the whole vengeance thing, and Rickon was just too young to understand anything other than the fact that his sister was upset. He probably would have offered me one of his well-chewed, drool-dampened plush wolves - yes, Stark children get wolves, not teddy bears; it’s a tradition - to cuddle.
“I didn’t want them to know.” I half-expect her to ask why, but all she does is sigh softly. I clear my throat and continue. “But Monday came around, and when I saw him at school… It was like nothing had even happened! He called me his girlfriend, asked if I had a good weekend, and was generally… nice. He said he hoped I was feeling better. Some of his friends said the same thing. As if I’d left the party because I felt ill or something and not because he… He even said he’d been keeping my coat safe for me. I was so confused.”
“And you started to doubt your memory of what happened.”
“Yes, exactly. I thought… maybe I was mistaken. Maybe it was just some strange combination of alcohol and misunderstanding. And I hoped… I *wanted* to be mistaken; I wanted to so very much. So I just… I guess I just went along with it.”
My eyes are burning, but I press on the lids with my free hand. I am so sick and tired of crying over him. I won’t do it now. I *won’t*.
“I won’t bore you with all the details,” I say lightly, or try to. My bravado sounds painfully hollow to my own ears. God only knows how fake it sounds to Daenerys. *She* knows what real bravery sounds like. “But we ended up going out for over a year. I met his *mother*.”
“Not his father?” she asks.
“His father died,” I explain. “It happened a couple of years earlier. I don’t really know the details.”
Not the true details, anyway. There were… rumours, of course. Some people said Robert Baratheon drank himself to death. Some said he crashed his car while intoxicated. Some said he fell down the stairs while blitzed. So many different rumours, and the only constant was the alcohol. And the whisper that, however it happened, maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t entirely accidental. Certainly, I heard more than one person call Cersei Baratheon - no, Lannister; she went back to her maiden name pretty much as soon as he passed away - the Black Widow.
Just… not to her face.
(Although a part of me can’t help thinking that she would rather enjoy that nickname, at least a little.)
But I’m letting myself get distracted.
“Things seemed… good… for a little while,” I continue.
“Long enough for you to convince yourself you were mistaken,” she murmurs.
There are so many things I could say to that, but in end I settle on a simple: “Yes.” I wait to see if she has anything else to add, but that seems to be it for the moment.
“And then things started getting… less good.” Ungood. Double-plus ungood. “It didn’t happen overnight, but… he started criticising me. Started telling me what to do. My friends… Well, he and *his* friends didn’t like them at all. They said some pretty awful things to and about them. I tried to stand up for *my* friends. For Jeyne. I *did*. I really tried.”
It’s important to me that she believes that. That she knows I at least tried. I didn’t just give up on them without a fight, no matter that we were barely even speaking to each other.
“I know you did,” she says soothingly, rubbing my arm again. And maybe she’s just being polite, maybe she’s just saying what she thinks I want to hear in an effort to keep me calm, but I don’t care about that right now. It’s enough that she says it at all.
Panic releases its stranglehold on my throat, allowing me to breathe again. I hadn’t even realised I’d stopped. I take a deep breath, and then another.
“That’s when he hit me for the second time,” I say. “But not for the last.”
“Did he…” She stops, draws in an audible breath. I can feel her trembling against me and I wonder if it’s too much for her. If my account is reminding her too strongly of the monster in her own past. Or, not past. Not the same way that *he’s* in mine. After all, her tormentor was her own so-called brother.
I start to ask if she wants to change the subject, but she interrupts me.
“Did he try to rape you again?”
I freeze; complete mental and physical paralysis. Rebooting my mind into something even close coherent consciousness feels like it’s a herculean act of will. I resist the urge to shake my head, lest it seem like a negation. A denial.
“It wasn’t… I mean, he stopped before… So it wasn’t really… I mean…” I run out of words.
“That’s not a ‘no’,” she observes. There’s something in her voice, something I can only describe as dangerous. I can’t help thinking that I would not want Daenerys Targaryen to ever be truly, vindictively *angry* with me. Fortunately, I don’t think that’s ever likely to happen.
No matter what the voices in my head try to tell me.
She’s not like *him*. She’s not like him at all. And, the more I think about it, the more I start poking through the things I’ve been keeping imperfectly locked away all this time, the more I’m starting to think that the only person like him… is *him*. And what he was… was pretty messed up.
Suddenly, I feel utterly and completely calm. Dry eyes, steady voice. My hands aren’t even shaking. I wonder if this means I’m in the eye of the storm; if the tempest is poised to rip me to shreds as soon as I pass through this false lacuna. But maybe it isn’t false. Or, if it is, maybe Daenerys can protect me from its fury. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I’ve started this, and I have to finish it.
I’ll worry about afterwards when it happens.
“He tried, yes,” I say. “A couple of times. Not that often.” She makes an odd, strangled noise. Maybe a sob? Is she… crying? Over this? (Over me?) I’m afraid to look. “He did stop, though,” I hasten to reassure her. “Even though he wasn’t very happy about it. He said…” And now I feel my artificial composure start to crack a little, letting some of raging storm inside my place of sanctuary. “He said I owed him. That I…”
“Bullshit!” she snaps. “That is absolutely not true. You didn’t owe that little shitheel *anything* except a good hard kick in the bollocks. Maybe several. But you *certainly* didn’t owe him sex, no matter what he told you.”
“But… But what if I gave out the wrong signals or something?” I hate the way my voice sounds now, so timid and tremulous. I try to strengthen it, try to wrap my composure around myself like armour. (Like her embrace.) Like it can keep me safe from the slings and arrows he can seemingly hurl at me even now, when he isn’t even here. “What if he thought I wanted him?”
She shifts position again so she can see my face.
I never realised that eyes so brightly, brilliantly blue could seem so dark. A thought drifts through my head, a fragment of a line from my still-unfinished, still untitled paranormal romance epic: ’and doom was writ within them…’ *His* doom, if she ever finds him.
For her sake - and *only* her sake - I hope she never does.
“It doesn’t matter if he thought you were begging him to take you right in the middle of your classroom,” she says, her voice somehow, miraculously level despite the roiling fury in her eyes. “You always have the right to say no. *Always*. And he wasn’t *entitled* to a damn thing. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but…” I sigh. “It’s more complicated than that, isn’t it? Yes, you can always say no, and that should be respected, but… Well. People talk about girls ‘asking for it’ all the time, don’t they? So, maybe he thought I was…”
“Sansa, no,” she says, and now her eyes are pools of endless sorrow. “The people who say things like that… They’re wrong. They’re *always* wrong. And it doesn’t matter what so-called ‘signals’ you might have been giving - not that I think you were - or even if you said yes, but then changed your mind. No. Means. No. And *no one* gets to make you feel guilty for saying it. Anyone who feels differently about it can go fuck themselves sideways with a *shovel*.”
The incongruity of hearing one of Asha’s phrases from Daenerys almost makes me laugh out loud.
The very next moment, I think I might start crying and never stop.
“Don’t you remember what you said to me about Drogo?” she continues. “How angry you were with him for something that was more ignorance than malice?” I bristle instinctively at the reminder of what he did to her. Somehow, somewhere, I find some hidden core of strength I didn’t even know I had, opening my mouth to take issue with her implication that ‘ignorance’ lets him off the hook. Unfortunately - or, fortunately? - she doesn’t give me the chance to speak. “Why can’t you see that it’s just the same for you?”
The question floors me.
“It…” I start, and then stop. I try again. “It…”
It wasn’t the same for me. It isn’t the same for me. It…
Wait.
*Why* isn’t it?
Because… Because he said it was my fault, and I believed him. I’ve believed him all this time. That I was unwittingly leading him on, somehow. (That I was acting like a slut.) And that gave him a right to… To…
He told me one thing, but Daenerys is telling me something else. And I… I…
Why the hell would I trust his word over hers?
Why would I trust the word of someone who seemed to live to put me down? Who smiled when he hurt me? Who laughed at me when I was scared half-out of my wits by the thought of what he might do to me the next time we were alone?
Why would I trust the word of a… a… spiteful little *shitheel* over the best and truest person I’ve ever known? The best friend I’ve ever had? Someone who I… I…
Fuck. That. Noise.
Fuck it sideways with a *shovel*!
I sit up straight and meet Daenerys’ gaze squarely, even levelly. For the first time since I started talking, I feel - *really* feel - like I’m not in imminent danger of being swept away by the past. I’m here, fully here, in the present. With Daenerys. My *friend*.
(I think there’s no place on earth that I’d rather be.)
I take a slow, measured breath giving myself a moment to put my thoughts in order before I answer her question.
“By that point I was convinced I deserved everything I got,” I say. “Everything he said, everything he did to me. I was convinced I was worthless, that my friends had only ever spent time with me out of pity. That I was completely and utterly alone. Except for him.”
Daenerys searches my face, looking for… I don’t know what she’s looking for. Whatever it is, though, I think she finds it. Seeming relieved, she simply asks:
“What changed?”
I shrug. “I did, I suppose. He seemed… After we’d been going out for a while, he just seemed to take it for granted that I’d do what he said; follow his *orders*. Bend over backwards to make him happy. And he started talking about… about celebrating the end of the school year. By…” Even as calm and composed as I am, I still can’t bring myself to say it. “Well, you know,” I temporise.
Daenerys draws in a sharp breath. She looks as if she’s about to say something, but I hurry onwards before she can speak. Now the end is in sight, I just want to get this over with. Over and done and safely returned to the annals of history where it belongs. Not a part of my present. Not a part of who I am now. Just a thing that happened, once, but is now done. Finished. Irrelevant.
“But the thing is, that wasn’t even the final straw. It was when he was talking about *next* year. About afterwards. And I could see it all stretching ahead of me.”
A shudder wells up inside me at the thought of what might have happened. Of still being with him even now. I try to suppress it, but I’m not sure I’m entirely successful. Daenerys tightens her arm around me, giving my hand a squeeze, and suddenly I’m okay again.
Because it didn’t happen that way.
Because I *have* escaped him, even if I haven’t escaped his voice.
Because even if he does, somehow come back into my life, things are different now.
I’m not alone. I have friends. I have *Daenerys*.
And that changes everything.
Author:Louisa
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Game of Thrones
Pairing: Sansa/Daenerys
Trigger warning: Mention of past violence and near sexual assault. Non-explicit.
Distantly, I wish I had a coffee or a hot chocolate or something, more for the comfort factor than out of any real appetite, but I know if I don’t do this now I won’t do it at all.
And I… I *want* to do this. I do. So I take my own advice from earlier and start at the beginning.
Well, *a* beginning.
“I met him back in secondary school. He always seemed very popular - lots of friends and hangers-on. I didn’t really know him that well, but he was…” I want to say ‘handsome,’ but the word sticks in my throat like a stone. “Lots of girls seemed to have crushes on him,” I say instead. I remember thinking… He seemed so witty and charming, so… so chivalrous. God, how stupid *was* I? “I never really spoke to him much until… Before what happened with Jeyne. We didn’t really… I guess we didn’t frequent the same circles.”
Jeyne never did like him, whispers a voice from the back of my mind. Not him and not his friends. She said they were bullies, and she didn’t care to associate with bullies.
(Another voice, darker still, whispers that it was *because* she didn’t like him. That I only ran to him because I was running from her. That everything that happened afterwards was all my own fault.)
“So, what happened?” Daenerys’ voice, soft though it is, makes me start a little. I realise that I’d been drifting, as caught up in my own past nightmares as she’d been in hers. I have to remind myself that they *are* in the past; that he isn’t even in the same *county* at the moment. That he can’t torment me any more.
(Although a part of me - a black little corner of my soul - wants to see him try it in front of Daenerys, or Asha, or Shae, or any of my new friends. Something tells me that would not end well. For him.)
(But… no. That’s not who I am. It’s why I haven’t told Daenerys his name, after all.)
“It started when I was trying to give Jeyne some space. Things were… awkward… between us.” And that’s an understatement and a half. “By extension, things were a bit weird with the rest of our usual crowd. They knew something was wrong, but neither of us would tell them what it was. Well, I’m assuming Jeyne didn’t say anything. Not then, anyway. They certainly didn’t *seem* to know, judging by how much they kept asking. I sort of… kept my distance from all of them, a little bit. I hoped things would… settle down.”
I only just stop myself saying ‘go back to normal,’ but I learned my lesson last time. I won’t make that mistake again.
“Anyway, J-“ Whoops! “*He* started… talking to me. Started including me in his conversations, inviting me to his parties; that sort of thing. He seemed… He seemed *nice*.”
My voice cracks almost in two, so I have to clear my throat and try again. Daenerys makes a wordless, comforting noise and shifts position on the sofa. I’m momentarily bereft as she releases my hand, her feet no longer pressing against my thigh; my skin, even under my clothes, feeling her absence as keenly as it would any touch. But then the moment passes and she puts her left arm around my shoulders, reaching to clasp my right hand in hers. The clamouring sense of loss immediately fades away, replaced by feelings of warmth and safety.
(I feel safe in her arms.)
“I was lonely, and he was charming.” I give a little shrug, aiming for a tone of wry humour. I miss by a country mile, instead sounding almost forlorn. “It was a deadly combination. He, well, courted me I guess. Paid me compliments, gave me little presents. That kind of thing. I thought he liked me. And I…”
Liked him too? No, that’s not true. Not quite. I mean, he *was* charming, when he wanted to be, and I guess he was considered handsome, but…
But.
“I convinced myself I liked him too.”
(Because liking *him* was a perfectly normal thing for a girl of my age to do. Other girls fancied him; why not me? And if I did like him, then anything else I might have been feeling - like for Jeyne - obviously wasn’t real, and obviously didn’t mean a thing. And Jeyne would realise she was just confused, and we would be friends again, and everything would be just *fine*.)
(It would all be fine again.)
(And all *I* had to do was like him back.)
(I could do that, couldn’t I?)
“And did you?”
“Not…” (Not the way I liked Jeyne.) “Not the way he wanted me to. But, as I said, he seemed nice. And I thought that was…” I tried. I really tried. “So when he asked me to go out with him…” Upstairs at one of his parties, the room spinning a little from the drinks (so many drinks, and it would have felt rude to refuse them) he’d pressed into my hand. “I said yes.”
I tilt my head a little to look at Daenerys, half-fearing to see disgust in her eyes, but the only thing I see there is friendship, pure and true. And her voice is rich with compassion as she asks:
“How long did it take for him to show you his true colours?”
I laugh. I can’t help it; can’t keep back that harsh bray of a sound, even though nothing about this is even remotely funny. Except, in a twisted kind of way, it sort of is.
“That’s the stupid thing,” I say. “The really, really stupid thing. He didn’t even wait a whole day. Heck, he didn’t even wait five minutes. We were kissing, and that was okay, I guess, but-” I bite off the word, shaking my head. “Actually, no. It was pretty awful.”
So slobbery, teeth clacking together, his great slab of a tongue forcing its way between my lips. I’ve had better kisses from *dogs*. And when I think about kissing Margaery… (Or Jeyne.) Awful is doing him a *kindness*. Back then, I just put it down to the fact that it was my first time. (Even though it was technically the second and Jeyne’s kiss was so gentle in comparison.) I just assumed that any awkwardness was due to my inexperience, or our lack of familiarity with each other.
“Anyway, he wanted…” I drop my gaze, suddenly not able to look her in the eyes. Instead, I focus on our linked hands, her long, tanned fingers intertwined with my pale ones. (I can’t help noticing that we make a striking contrast.) But I can’t procrastinate forever, and it’s surely a testament to her patience that she’s let my hesitation go on this long without even attempting to prod me into further speech. “He wanted to go further than just kissing,” I say, my voice sounding oddly monotone in my ears. Like some kind of automaton.
The thought of his hands - pawing, groping, roughly squeezing - makes me want to shower, scrubbing away at my skin as if I can wash away even the memory of his touch. I try in vain to push the sensation aside, to fight my way free of its clutches, but the memories rise up like a tidal wave, the past consuming the present like wildfire in a dry forest. I’m drawing in great, gasping, heaving breaths - like I’m drowning somehow, even right here on dry land - but it still feels like I just can’t get enough air.
Like there isn’t enough air in this room, in the whole wide world, to chase away memories that cling to me like thick black oil; that feel every bit as toxic as oil.
But then Daenerys’ voice cuts through the panic, her embrace surrounding me like armour, like a shield.
“Sansa, it’s alright,” she says, her voice calm and even. “You’re safe here. I’ve got you. He can’t hurt you now, not while I’m here.” There’s a fierce edge to her words, a feeling like standing too close to an open flame, as she adds: “If *anyone* tries to harm you, they’ll regret it. I’ll make sure of it.”
I feel strangely torn. Most of me is happy to snuggle into her arms, to revel in the trust I feel, the absolute certainty that she means every word. As long as I’m with her, I know that I’m safe. And yet… And yet there’s a part of me that flinches back from the violence implicit in her tone, from even the idea of a conflict happening over me. Because of me. More than that, it reminds me that the capacity for violence, for anger - even when directed against someone who’d harm me - could still turn against me. (If I do something stupid, or wrong, or clumsy. If I do something to deserve it.) If I…
No.
No, I will *not* give into that poisonous little voice at the back of my mind. I refuse. Daenerys isn’t going to turn against me. She certainly isn’t going to hurt me. She wouldn’t! And even if she did - which she won’t - that bloody well doesn’t mean that I’d ever deserve it.
I don’t deserve it.
I *didn’t* deserve it.
Just like that, I’m calm again.
“I’m okay,” I say softly, even managing a small smile. “I just got a little… lost… for a moment or two. But I’m alright now.”
“You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” she says, worry plain in her eyes.
“I think I… I *want* to talk it,” I say softly, surprising myself. But as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realise it’s true. “If you don’t mind,” I add. Because heaven knows my sad little story can’t be much fun to hear.
“Of course I don’t mind,” she says, and even though there’s a thread of ‘how can you even say such a foolish thing?’ running through those words, it doesn’t send me spiralling through endless loops of doubt and self-despite. It doesn’t feel… It’s not like she’s *judging* me or anything. It’s more like… reassurance.
I straighten my spine and pick up the thread of my account.
“I told him I wasn’t ready,” I say. “I told him to stop. And he did,” I add hurriedly, because I can all but sense the question starting to form on Daenerys’ lips. “But he wasn’t…” Happy with that? No. Why dissemble? “He was furious with me. He shouted, called me names; said the most horrible things.” Some of those things start to push their way to the front of my thoughts, the homunculus he left in my head ever-eager to remind me of his choicest words.
I imagine muzzling that hateful voice of his. Muzzling *him*.
It actually feels good. Petty, but good.
I hope that feeling can carry me through this next part.
“He hit me,” I whisper, and it feels like a confession. Without meaning to, I find myself looking at our joined hands again.
She mutters something I don’t understand. It’s in Berber, I’m pretty sure - at least I know it’s not English or French - but I don’t need to understand the words to figure out the sentiment behind them. Her tone - low and angry; words spat forth like bullets - speaks volumes all by itself.
I reach blindly up with my left hand, aiming to reassuringly pat the arm wrapped around my shoulders. Instead, I overshoot a little and end up cupping what feels like the smooth skin of her cheek. She starts noticeably against me, and I almost rip the offending hand away from her skin, but something makes me linger a little, lightly stroking my fingers along the curve of her jaw as I let it fall slowly free. She starts again, and then relaxes.
(I can’t help worrying that I’ve overstepped a line, but she doesn’t say a word about my little faux pas. I resolve to myself that as long as she doesn’t raise the subject, I won’t either. That’s probably the least awkward course of action.)
“It’s alright,” I tell her, somewhat amused at the thought that I’m reflecting her own words back to her. “He didn’t hit me hard. It was just a slap. It shocked me more than it actually hurt.”
“Of course it’s not alright!” She turns a little, angling us so that I have to look at her face, have to see her eyes overflowing with more emotion than I know what to do with. “Sansa, that kind of thing is *never* alright. It doesn’t matter whether it hurt or not. It matters that he fucking hit you.”
“I know,” I say, hating the way I sound so… placating.
“Do you?” she flashes back, quick as a whip.
“I think so. I mean, I do. Yes.”
I know he shouldn’t have. I know it wasn’t right. I do know that. So why do I sometimes still half-feel (maybe even more than half-feel) like I deserved it? Even though I didn’t. And even if I had, somehow, done something wrong, he still shouldn’t have hit me.
He shouldn’t.
“Yes, I do know that,” I say, and this time I actually sound like I believe it.
I think I really do believe it. At least I do right now.
(Later is… Well. I’ll worry about later when it’s later.)
She nods once, like she’s finally satisfied with my answer.
“Good,” she says, settling back into her previous position. (I don’t know whether to be relieved or sorry that I can’t see her eyes any more. My eyes drift back to our hands, still joined together.)
“Anyway, so.” I let out a sigh. “After he… After that happened, I just left. I didn’t even say anything to him; I just grabbed my bag, opened the door and ran.”
I still remember that run in my nightmares. Making my way through a house that suddenly seemed all shadows and strange angles, like it was actively *trying* to stop me escaping. The faces of the other guests - not a single one of my own friends among them, I suddenly realised - funhouse-mirror twisted, leering and jeering wherever I looked. Mocking laughter dogging my steps like a bean-sidhe’s wail.
“I couldn’t find my coat, so I just left it behind. Eventually I managed to find the front door.” Well, I guess it couldn’t really have been that long, but it certainly felt like an eternity at the time. “I headed down the drive - the, I mean, his family had a big house - and then just kept on walking.”
“What happened then?”
“I called Jon and asked him to come and get me.”
“One of your brothers?” Daenerys asks.
I nod. “The second-oldest.”
I remember hesitating for a long while over who to call. Mum and Dad were obviously right out. Rob… I very nearly did call him, but he would have wanted to know all the details; why I was leaving early, why I seemed so upset, who he needed to go and have ‘words’ with. Jon, though… Jon wouldn’t prod at me to talk about it if I didn’t want to. And he knew how to keep a secret. When I asked him not to tell anyone, just to come and get me, I knew he’d do it.
And he did.
“What did he say about your face?” she asks after a moment.
“Nothing. There wasn’t anything to see. It wasn’t hard enough to bruise, and I guess my cheeks were pretty red from the cold anyway. He did ask why I was wandering around without a coat, but I just said I’d forgotten it.”
He gave me the spare duffel coat he had stowed in the boot of his tiny car. Who on earth even *has* a spare duffel coat? Not to mention what looked like full camping gear, tent and all. And a box of protein bars, or whatever they were. I guess he really does believe in being prepared.
(And I don’t think he’s ever given up the worry that he’s just going to be kicked out onto the street, no matter how much Dad always tried to reassure him.)
“So what else did you tell him?”
“Just that I’d had a fight with a friend and couldn’t stay at the party any longer.” Which was sort of, maybe, true; from a certain angle. From a certain point of view. The second part definitely was, anyway. I’m pretty sure he realised there was more to it than that, but he didn’t press me for details. Instead, he just… “He took me for ice cream.”
I can feel my face softening, lips curving from their tight, tense little line into something that might even be a smile. I spent so much time determinedly not thinking about the bad times that I’d forgotten the shining jewels of the good ones. (None of which involved *him*, of course.)
“Ice cream? What time was this?” From the sound of her voice, I can tell Daenerys is arching her eyebrow quizzically.
“Not that late. Maybe ten, ten-thirty pm? But there’s an Italian ice cream parlour in the city centre that has really late hours. I think it’s because of all the students. The owners once told me they sometimes don’t close until the small hours of the morning. It’s one of my favourite places in Sheffield. They do the *best* chocolate gelato, and their lemon sorbet deserves an epic poem in its honour.”
I carefully avoid mentioning that a certain person not too far away from here may have written just such a poem. When she - I - was younger, of course. Much, much younger.
I hope the place is still around. I haven’t been there in a little while, and Rosa did say they were thinking about retiring… I immediately make myself a promise that, if it’s still open, I’m dragging my siblings there when I go back to Sheffield for the holidays.
I wish I could just lose myself in all the happy memories I made in that ice cream parlour (giggling with Jeyne as we stole spoonfuls of each other’s ice cream until eventually we just swapped bowls altogether), but I can’t. My story isn’t anywhere near finished yet, and I did promise Daenerys I would tell her about…
“Anyway,” I say, feeling my whole body sag a little as my thoughts turn back to *him*. Daenerys rubs my arm lightly, which feels… comforting. She really is very tactile. I’m not, usually, but with her it just feels natural. I think I could get to like it. (I think maybe I already do.) “The party was on a Friday night, so I was pretty much a mess the whole weekend.”
“Wasn’t there anyone you could talk to?” Daenerys asks, but she sounds like she already knows the answer to that one.
“No,” I reply anyway. “I’d alienated all my friends, and as for my family…”
I imagine how they might have reacted, cringing inside at the thought of the tidal wave of fury telling any of them would have unleashed. I think Arya might just have taken her fencing sword and stabbed him through the heart. Mum and Dad would have wanted to talk to his parents - well, his mother - and maybe the school board. And if *he* wasn’t pulled out of that school, I’m pretty sure I would have been. Rob and Jon might have just waited for him in a dark alley. Bran would have supported the whole vengeance thing, and Rickon was just too young to understand anything other than the fact that his sister was upset. He probably would have offered me one of his well-chewed, drool-dampened plush wolves - yes, Stark children get wolves, not teddy bears; it’s a tradition - to cuddle.
“I didn’t want them to know.” I half-expect her to ask why, but all she does is sigh softly. I clear my throat and continue. “But Monday came around, and when I saw him at school… It was like nothing had even happened! He called me his girlfriend, asked if I had a good weekend, and was generally… nice. He said he hoped I was feeling better. Some of his friends said the same thing. As if I’d left the party because I felt ill or something and not because he… He even said he’d been keeping my coat safe for me. I was so confused.”
“And you started to doubt your memory of what happened.”
“Yes, exactly. I thought… maybe I was mistaken. Maybe it was just some strange combination of alcohol and misunderstanding. And I hoped… I *wanted* to be mistaken; I wanted to so very much. So I just… I guess I just went along with it.”
My eyes are burning, but I press on the lids with my free hand. I am so sick and tired of crying over him. I won’t do it now. I *won’t*.
“I won’t bore you with all the details,” I say lightly, or try to. My bravado sounds painfully hollow to my own ears. God only knows how fake it sounds to Daenerys. *She* knows what real bravery sounds like. “But we ended up going out for over a year. I met his *mother*.”
“Not his father?” she asks.
“His father died,” I explain. “It happened a couple of years earlier. I don’t really know the details.”
Not the true details, anyway. There were… rumours, of course. Some people said Robert Baratheon drank himself to death. Some said he crashed his car while intoxicated. Some said he fell down the stairs while blitzed. So many different rumours, and the only constant was the alcohol. And the whisper that, however it happened, maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t entirely accidental. Certainly, I heard more than one person call Cersei Baratheon - no, Lannister; she went back to her maiden name pretty much as soon as he passed away - the Black Widow.
Just… not to her face.
(Although a part of me can’t help thinking that she would rather enjoy that nickname, at least a little.)
But I’m letting myself get distracted.
“Things seemed… good… for a little while,” I continue.
“Long enough for you to convince yourself you were mistaken,” she murmurs.
There are so many things I could say to that, but in end I settle on a simple: “Yes.” I wait to see if she has anything else to add, but that seems to be it for the moment.
“And then things started getting… less good.” Ungood. Double-plus ungood. “It didn’t happen overnight, but… he started criticising me. Started telling me what to do. My friends… Well, he and *his* friends didn’t like them at all. They said some pretty awful things to and about them. I tried to stand up for *my* friends. For Jeyne. I *did*. I really tried.”
It’s important to me that she believes that. That she knows I at least tried. I didn’t just give up on them without a fight, no matter that we were barely even speaking to each other.
“I know you did,” she says soothingly, rubbing my arm again. And maybe she’s just being polite, maybe she’s just saying what she thinks I want to hear in an effort to keep me calm, but I don’t care about that right now. It’s enough that she says it at all.
Panic releases its stranglehold on my throat, allowing me to breathe again. I hadn’t even realised I’d stopped. I take a deep breath, and then another.
“That’s when he hit me for the second time,” I say. “But not for the last.”
“Did he…” She stops, draws in an audible breath. I can feel her trembling against me and I wonder if it’s too much for her. If my account is reminding her too strongly of the monster in her own past. Or, not past. Not the same way that *he’s* in mine. After all, her tormentor was her own so-called brother.
I start to ask if she wants to change the subject, but she interrupts me.
“Did he try to rape you again?”
I freeze; complete mental and physical paralysis. Rebooting my mind into something even close coherent consciousness feels like it’s a herculean act of will. I resist the urge to shake my head, lest it seem like a negation. A denial.
“It wasn’t… I mean, he stopped before… So it wasn’t really… I mean…” I run out of words.
“That’s not a ‘no’,” she observes. There’s something in her voice, something I can only describe as dangerous. I can’t help thinking that I would not want Daenerys Targaryen to ever be truly, vindictively *angry* with me. Fortunately, I don’t think that’s ever likely to happen.
No matter what the voices in my head try to tell me.
She’s not like *him*. She’s not like him at all. And, the more I think about it, the more I start poking through the things I’ve been keeping imperfectly locked away all this time, the more I’m starting to think that the only person like him… is *him*. And what he was… was pretty messed up.
Suddenly, I feel utterly and completely calm. Dry eyes, steady voice. My hands aren’t even shaking. I wonder if this means I’m in the eye of the storm; if the tempest is poised to rip me to shreds as soon as I pass through this false lacuna. But maybe it isn’t false. Or, if it is, maybe Daenerys can protect me from its fury. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I’ve started this, and I have to finish it.
I’ll worry about afterwards when it happens.
“He tried, yes,” I say. “A couple of times. Not that often.” She makes an odd, strangled noise. Maybe a sob? Is she… crying? Over this? (Over me?) I’m afraid to look. “He did stop, though,” I hasten to reassure her. “Even though he wasn’t very happy about it. He said…” And now I feel my artificial composure start to crack a little, letting some of raging storm inside my place of sanctuary. “He said I owed him. That I…”
“Bullshit!” she snaps. “That is absolutely not true. You didn’t owe that little shitheel *anything* except a good hard kick in the bollocks. Maybe several. But you *certainly* didn’t owe him sex, no matter what he told you.”
“But… But what if I gave out the wrong signals or something?” I hate the way my voice sounds now, so timid and tremulous. I try to strengthen it, try to wrap my composure around myself like armour. (Like her embrace.) Like it can keep me safe from the slings and arrows he can seemingly hurl at me even now, when he isn’t even here. “What if he thought I wanted him?”
She shifts position again so she can see my face.
I never realised that eyes so brightly, brilliantly blue could seem so dark. A thought drifts through my head, a fragment of a line from my still-unfinished, still untitled paranormal romance epic: ’and doom was writ within them…’ *His* doom, if she ever finds him.
For her sake - and *only* her sake - I hope she never does.
“It doesn’t matter if he thought you were begging him to take you right in the middle of your classroom,” she says, her voice somehow, miraculously level despite the roiling fury in her eyes. “You always have the right to say no. *Always*. And he wasn’t *entitled* to a damn thing. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but…” I sigh. “It’s more complicated than that, isn’t it? Yes, you can always say no, and that should be respected, but… Well. People talk about girls ‘asking for it’ all the time, don’t they? So, maybe he thought I was…”
“Sansa, no,” she says, and now her eyes are pools of endless sorrow. “The people who say things like that… They’re wrong. They’re *always* wrong. And it doesn’t matter what so-called ‘signals’ you might have been giving - not that I think you were - or even if you said yes, but then changed your mind. No. Means. No. And *no one* gets to make you feel guilty for saying it. Anyone who feels differently about it can go fuck themselves sideways with a *shovel*.”
The incongruity of hearing one of Asha’s phrases from Daenerys almost makes me laugh out loud.
The very next moment, I think I might start crying and never stop.
“Don’t you remember what you said to me about Drogo?” she continues. “How angry you were with him for something that was more ignorance than malice?” I bristle instinctively at the reminder of what he did to her. Somehow, somewhere, I find some hidden core of strength I didn’t even know I had, opening my mouth to take issue with her implication that ‘ignorance’ lets him off the hook. Unfortunately - or, fortunately? - she doesn’t give me the chance to speak. “Why can’t you see that it’s just the same for you?”
The question floors me.
“It…” I start, and then stop. I try again. “It…”
It wasn’t the same for me. It isn’t the same for me. It…
Wait.
*Why* isn’t it?
Because… Because he said it was my fault, and I believed him. I’ve believed him all this time. That I was unwittingly leading him on, somehow. (That I was acting like a slut.) And that gave him a right to… To…
He told me one thing, but Daenerys is telling me something else. And I… I…
Why the hell would I trust his word over hers?
Why would I trust the word of someone who seemed to live to put me down? Who smiled when he hurt me? Who laughed at me when I was scared half-out of my wits by the thought of what he might do to me the next time we were alone?
Why would I trust the word of a… a… spiteful little *shitheel* over the best and truest person I’ve ever known? The best friend I’ve ever had? Someone who I… I…
Fuck. That. Noise.
Fuck it sideways with a *shovel*!
I sit up straight and meet Daenerys’ gaze squarely, even levelly. For the first time since I started talking, I feel - *really* feel - like I’m not in imminent danger of being swept away by the past. I’m here, fully here, in the present. With Daenerys. My *friend*.
(I think there’s no place on earth that I’d rather be.)
I take a slow, measured breath giving myself a moment to put my thoughts in order before I answer her question.
“By that point I was convinced I deserved everything I got,” I say. “Everything he said, everything he did to me. I was convinced I was worthless, that my friends had only ever spent time with me out of pity. That I was completely and utterly alone. Except for him.”
Daenerys searches my face, looking for… I don’t know what she’s looking for. Whatever it is, though, I think she finds it. Seeming relieved, she simply asks:
“What changed?”
I shrug. “I did, I suppose. He seemed… After we’d been going out for a while, he just seemed to take it for granted that I’d do what he said; follow his *orders*. Bend over backwards to make him happy. And he started talking about… about celebrating the end of the school year. By…” Even as calm and composed as I am, I still can’t bring myself to say it. “Well, you know,” I temporise.
Daenerys draws in a sharp breath. She looks as if she’s about to say something, but I hurry onwards before she can speak. Now the end is in sight, I just want to get this over with. Over and done and safely returned to the annals of history where it belongs. Not a part of my present. Not a part of who I am now. Just a thing that happened, once, but is now done. Finished. Irrelevant.
“But the thing is, that wasn’t even the final straw. It was when he was talking about *next* year. About afterwards. And I could see it all stretching ahead of me.”
A shudder wells up inside me at the thought of what might have happened. Of still being with him even now. I try to suppress it, but I’m not sure I’m entirely successful. Daenerys tightens her arm around me, giving my hand a squeeze, and suddenly I’m okay again.
Because it didn’t happen that way.
Because I *have* escaped him, even if I haven’t escaped his voice.
Because even if he does, somehow come back into my life, things are different now.
I’m not alone. I have friends. I have *Daenerys*.
And that changes everything.