Chapter Text
There’s a pharmacy at the corner of her new house. (Drugstore, Sansa remembers. Here in the South they call them drugstores.) Whatever the name, that was the first thing Sansa noticed about the neighborhood, and thought that was a good thing, that she could get the medications Bran would need within less than fifty yards and ten minutes from her door. But on her first night in King’s Landing, she’s not buying her brother’s medicine. She’s buying tampons.
Which, all things considered, renders her neighborhood just as handy.
“— I said to Loras that you were back and he was so excited,” Marg says on the other end of the line. Sansa has her phone trapped between her cheek and her shoulder, a basket in her right hand as she searches through the shelf with her left one. “There’s a new hair product store downtown. They only use biobased feedstocks from local sustainable sources in the free cities—” it’s hard to listen to Marg like this, though, so she lets the basket slip to the inner bend of her elbow, throwing a package of Tampax into it and grabbing the phone. “— and of course, we can find a new color for you. Maybe blonde? You look so sick in black, sweetie.”
Sansa grimaces to no one, twisting her nose as she looks at the tag prices below the painkillers section. She’s already feeling the beginning of cramps twisting her lower belly. “I don’t have money for this kind of thing yet, Marg,” she says, quietly, taking a box of Advil anyway. There’s no one at the drugstore and her every word sounds so loud. She looks at the clock, ticktocking above the cashier: it’s 11:57 p.m. “Maybe I’ll let the red grow back.” Like mother’s, but no one needs this kind of nostalgia at this hour. Her voice sounds wistful even to her own ears. That’s the city’s fault, she can’t help but muse. King’s Landing always does that to her. And winter.
Sansa takes three boxes of the cheap hair black dye, just in case; Margaery misses her melancholy. “That’s a good idea. You had amazing auburn hair. People pay hundreds of dollars to get that color, you know that? You lucky bitch.” Sansa snorts through her nose (it sounds tired; she’s so tired but so awake. She hates time zones.) “Anyway, don’t buy hair products in the drugstore, Sansa! I mean it!”
Sansa looks at her basket. “Of course not,” she mutters. “I have to go, Marg. Thanks for calling. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
There’s no one in the line. Sansa puts her products over the counter, hiding her cellphone in the pocket of her sweatpants while the woman behind the cash machine scans her buyings without looking up, flatly saying “it’s 47,83 dollars, ma’am.”
She seeks in her pocket again, feeling the shape of her cellphone and the cut metal of the key’s edge; she flounders through the other pocket, but it’s empty.
Shit, Sansa thinks.
“Shit,” she doesn’t realize she’s saying out loud until the cashier’s eyebrow curls to her. Sansa sighs. She can almost picture her wallet, forgotten over her unpacked suitcase in her new, empty house. “I’m sorry. I forgot my wallet at home.”
The woman doesn’t look convinced.
“Oh, no! I mean— I’ll go home and bring it back,” Sansa says. She gives the worker a shy smile. “I live just at the corner, it will take only a minute.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we close at midnight,” the cashier says, bored, pointing up to the clock hanging on the wall above her head. Sansa feels a drop in her stomach before she can even check: it shows 00:02 a.m.
“But,” Sansa falters. The complete lack of empathy of the inhabitants of King’s Landing always renders her speechless like a little girl. “When I said at the corner I meant it literally,” she explains, “it’s here in this same street.”
“As soon as you’re out of the store, we’ll close,” the woman says.
What do you think it means when a woman leaves her home in the middle of the night to buy TAMPAX? she screams in her own head — she’s wearing socks, for gods’ sake — but instead: “Can I take this home and I’ll pay you first thing in the morning tomorrow?” She proposes, politely.
“Absolutely not, ma’am,” she replies. “No product can leave the store unpaid. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“That’s okay,” says a masculine voice behind her. Sansa turns around, and then looks down: the man steps ahead, puts a box of Skyn (lubricated, non-latex, extra large) and black Halls over the counter. “I’ll pay for it, it’s all right.”
Sansa feels her cheeks as warm as the sun as the cashier accounts for his condom and his drops and says “68,73, sir,” in the same constantly flat, emotionless voice of a woman who’s seen too much and is unmoved by the pain and the sorrow in the world.
Sansa swallows dry, watching as the stranger takes his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. The man is of small stature; he’s blonde and wearing a tight white shirt, the first two buttons out, a navy tie, a navy wool overcoat, open, golden buttons. Dark jeans, Italian shoes. A careless stubble covering his jaw, a nice scar across his right cheek. He’s beautiful in a raw, wild way, like a storm or a thunder. “You don’t really have to do this,” she murmurs, crossing her arms as if to shield her shame.
He looks at her with a gentle gaze, but his smile is mischievous. “I think I do,” he says, giving the woman a 100. Perhaps it was his voice that made her think of storms or thunder. It has that rumbling timbre, like it’s deep and vast at once. Oceans, Sansa thinks: waves, hurricanes. “But hey, everyone has midnight emergencies, right? It’s fine, really.”
Sansa blushes impossibly redder, thinking about his own midnight emergency against her own. And what is it with his eyes, anyway?
It’s a quick exchange, in the end, and at least they’re given two plastic bags, one with his purchases, one with hers. They go outside and, under the yellow light of the poles of the street, she can see the dark bags of tiredness under his eyes, their breaths white over their faces. Sansa accepts her bag when he hands it out to her. “I was not lying,” she says. It’s one of those winter nights typical of the South: no snow, only harsh winds. She shivers. “I really live down the corner. I can pay you, if you have ten minutes to come with me.”
His wallet disappears on his backside again, and he looks at her, licking his lower lip as if he’s trying not to smirk. “Are you new in town, girl?”
“Yes,” Sansa says, though it’s only partially true.
“I see,” he nods cautiously. “Let me give you some advice. Don’t invite strangers to your house in King’s Landing. Ok?”
Her lips fall open as she searches for an answer. I know, she wants to say, I know there’s no kindness here, but.
But he’s being kind to her anyway. Sure thing, there’s something dangerous lurking in the corner of his smile, as if he’s mocking her, as if the joke is on her. But King’s Landing has always made her feel this way.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, slipping her hands into the pockets of her own coat. She looks up to the cloudless sky. “I just— I owe you money.”
“Non-sense,” he waves a hand in the air. “And why are you apologizing?” I don’t know, she thinks, habit? But he sounds rhetorical, so she keeps it to herself. “We’re all right, don’t worry.”
“Thank you, then,” Sansa says, and she’s so tired, and so far from home, and so jet lagged, that a lump forms in her throat and she has to swallow down tears, because crying right now would be the only way to add one last layer of foolishness over herself in front of the handsome stranger who just bought her tampons. “Thank you so much.”
The softness of his eyes reaches his mouth, at last, and his smile is kind. “Have a good night, my lady. And welcome. You’ll get used to it,” he points vaguely to the street. Sansa giggles — who calls women lady anymore? — but raises her hand and waves him goodbye.
He walks away, then, hands in the pockets of his coat, and Sansa turns around and heads home.
She’s already properly bathed, and has changed into her most comfortable pajamas, and has already taken one tablet of ibuprofen when Bran calls for her from his bedroom. There’s almost no furniture yet but for the basics; his voice echoes through the empty house. He’s lying on the bed, his wheel-chair right beside it. Sansa lost the bet they'd made in the airport about who would call them first (he said Arya, she said Jon), so he got to choose his bedroom. He chose the one with the bigger bed, which left Sansa with the bedroom with a private bathroom. But she would let him choose anyway.
They’re going to need to reform the house, of course, but Sansa’s not going to think about it tonight.
“Hey buddy,” she says, resting against the door frame. “Are you ok?”
“Why are you up?” Bran asks. “It’s late.”
Sansa sighs and walks to his bed, “I needed tampons and Advil,” she says, climbing onto the bed by his side as they both lie flat on their backs, staring at the ceiling. “There’s a drugstore down the corner, but it closes punctually at midnight.”
“It’s important to know those things,” Bran says.
“It is,” Sansa agrees, reaching out for his hand and holding it. They enjoy the silence for a while. “You know, I forgot my wallet at home and a stranger paid for the bill.”
“Seriously?” Bran asks, amused.
“Yep.” Sansa pauses for a second, “he was so handsome.”
“Sansa,” her little brother mutters.
“I swear, Bran. He had the oddest pair of eyes, and such a pretty voice. And he was there, paying for my tampons. I wanted to die.”
“You have tampons and painkillers.” Bran shifts on the bed, lying on his side and looking at her. Only his upper body moves; Sansa positions his legs comfortably and then lies on her side, too, facing him. “Look at the silver lining.”
“I like how you think,” she touches the tip of his nose, his face partially touched by moonlight and street lights. He chuckles. “How are you holding up?” She asks.
“Ah, you know. I’m okay. It’s like we’re on an adventure,” he says. He’s trying to feel excited, she knows, just as she’s trying to remain calm. They’re doing this for each other. “Do you remember when I was younger and I wanted to be an astronaut? And I had those stars on the ceiling that shone when the lights were off.”
“You can still be an astronaut,” Sansa murmurs. “You can be whatever you want to be.”
Bran nods and closes his eyes.
“It’s nice that someone was kind to you on our very first day. It’s like a good omen,” he declares.
“Do you think?” Sansa asks, genuinely curious.
“I do,” Bran promises her. “I think we’ll be fine.”
(The next morning she buys a box of Glow in the Dark Galaxy Ceiling Stars for Bran. The big box, with 500-counts: stars, a supernova, all nine planets, two moons, and the entire milky way. She believes in good omens too.)