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It's been too long, the newly-crowned Queen in the North thought as she entered the godswood at Winterfell for the first time since she'd left for King's Landing with her father and Arya all those years ago. It was spring now, after such a long winter, and the trees were finally starting to grow leaves again. But as she neared the weirwood, she realized she wasn't alone. A familiar face sat at the edge of the pool, his feet dangling in the water.
He was different, she thought, not the same boy who had smiled and kissed her in this same godswood all those years ago. He had kissed Jeyne Poole, she had told him, and it was only fair that he kissed her too. It hadn't meant anything to him, she knew, he probably didn't even remember it. He had always gone around kissing serving girls and heading into town to meet up with girls at the tavern, but it had been her first kiss and she would always remember it.
"Theon," Sansa said softly. He hadn't been smiling before, just staring at the heart tree wearily, but when he saw her, a small smile crossed his lips.
"Your Grace," he said, rising from the ground. He held himself a bit differently, like he was in pain, less sure of himself, almost scared. And when she looked down at his hands, she realized all the horrible rumors of what had happened to him at the Dreadfort were true.
"Oh, Theon," she said, running to him and throwing her arms around him. "You don't have to call me 'Your Grace' when no one's around. I'm still not used to hearing it myself." To be honest, she still wasn't used to being Sansa Stark again, she'd been Alayne Stone for so long.
Theon pulled back and looked at her, and she could almost see tears forming in his eyes. "Sansa," he started. "Bran and Rickon...I didn't...it was the miller's sons, but I couldn't...with the wolves, they ran..."
"I know," she whispered. Her men had told her of the raven from the Skagos that had stayed Stannis' hand, from one of Stannis' men who had found Rickon there with Osha, but she didn't truly believe it until she looked into Theon's eyes and saw he was telling the truth.
"I just...I had to do something...I had to prove myself. To my father. To the Ironborn." Sansa reached for his hand to comfort him but he pulled away from the gesture. He turned instead to the weirwood. "I feel like they haunt me when I come here. Your brothers and the miller's sons, all of them. I don't know why I keep coming back." He paused, remembering. "I gave Jeyne Poole away here. To...to him. They had me do it. I should have helped her when she asked me the first time, I should have realized..." He sank to the ground, overcome with emotion. and Sansa followed him, wrapping her arm around him as tears rolled down his cheeks.
They sat for a minute in silence under the weirwood, with Sansa alternating between rubbing his back and stroking his hair, as her mother had done for her when she had been upset. "He can't hurt you now," she whispered softly. "No one will."