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01.
When she first got to King's Landing, Sansa never strayed too far from her quarters and her father's solar. There were too many twists and turns, and she was always afraid of running into the queen. She still hadn't shaken the grip on her heart, and she cried for Lady every night. She knew it was just as much Joffrey's fault as it was Queen Cersei's, but she didn't blame him. She didn't even completely blame the queen. It was her fault, too. She lied, in spite of her sister's protests. Maybe if she had told the truth, Lady would still be alive.
Her lord father knew that something was wrong and assumed correctly that it was residual grief from the death of her direwolf. He made no mention of his daughter's nastiness towards him, nor did he ask her for an apology. He understood her grief because it plagued him, too. He couldn't help but feel that he had slighted the gods by killing Lady. He should've set her free somehow. He should've provoked her to attack and then loosed her; Robert could frown at him for losing the wolf, but what more? He should have done more. Sansa thought so, too, but as the weeks drew long, her reminders quieted down to icy looks and forced, tight-lipped smiles.
The moon had been up for a long while, but Sansa found that she could not sleep. She had looked forward to being in King's Landing, wearing pretty dresses and having handmaidens, spending time in court and preparing for her royal wedding. The reality of it was terrible, although she wouldn't admit it to anyone. She spent as much time as possible beneath her blankets, hiding out from the queen, from Joffrey, from her father, from Arya. If she could have, she would've hidden from herself. The door creaked open and she started, her head snapping around to see who was disturbing her so late at night. Didn't they know she could have been sleeping? Expecting to see Arya or her father, a million rude things sprang to her lips, but as soon as she laid eyes on Joffrey's face, they melted away. It wasn't because she didn't want to say them, but because her ingrained sense of duty and honor told her it was neither wise nor ladylike to snap at her future husband, and the prince of all Seven Kingdoms besides.
“I hope I've not disturbed you, my lady,” Joffrey said, his voice lower than a whisper. Sansa had to strain to hear him, even in the thick silence of her room.
“No,” she said, her voice its normal tone, but flat and resigned. She felt older, beyond her years. Did all future queens feel this way? Alone and sad and always cold? “I'm still awake.”
“Yes, I see that.” There was a slight bit of acid in his tone when he spoke, the purring whisper faded away. She was growing used to that, had learned how to hide how anxious and uncomfortable it made her, but she hadn't learned to like it or even understand it. He seemed hateful at the best of times, but when she looked around at his family, she couldn't really blame him.
“Come,” he said, the venom mostly gone now. It was back to the purring for Joffrey.
“Come where?” she asked. She glanced at her bed, swallowed hard, and then looked back to Joffrey. A small smile played on his lips, like he had a secret and was waiting for the perfect time to let it burst free.
“You'll see.”
Sansa's curiosity got the better of her. She put a silk robe over her chemise and her tiny feet in slippers and followed him into the hallway. Even their quiet shuffling echoed, and Sansa was fearful that they would be caught by Janos Slynt or the Hound or Ilyn Payne. Joffrey led her through hallways, up and down staircases, outside and inside and back again, through small doors, through tall doors, through wooden doors, through iron doors, through places so dark that he had to grab a torch from the wall before they went any farther. He led her under the castle and around the walls of the castle, where the sentries posted didn't seem to notice or mind them running and laughing. Nobody told them to slow down or stop or go to bed. He named each place as they walked by or through, and Sansa began to build a map of the castle inside her head, although she was sure everything would look different once there was sunlight streaming through the windows.
They ended up in the kitchens, sitting beneath a large, wooden table covered in flour and sugar. Their faces and hands were sticky with sweet pastry dough. Sansa's robe and chemise and slippers were coated with all manner of muck and grime from walking around beneath the castle, and Joffrey's clothes—the same ones he'd worn to court earlier in the day—were just as dirty. She took another wooden spoonful of pastry dough and laughed as Joffrey told her of a time when his Uncle Jaime had been caught playing the lute and singing a sad rendition of Hands of Gold.
“I didn't picture your Uncle Jaime as the musical sort,” Sansa said.
“No, neither had I, but my father swears it happened.”
When Joffrey laughed, Sansa felt her heart leap to her throat.
02.
Sansa hated him. She hated that he didn't know what mercy and kindness were. She had begged, and he had promised, but her father was still dead. After it had happened, she'd been sent to her quarters, until Joffrey had come to fetch her so he could show her the heads lined up along the wall, her father's and her septa's. She returned to her room after, her lip bleeding and her heart broken. She couldn't make it to her bed and instead slunk down into a wooden chair and cried until there was a large, dark tear-stain on the table. She fell asleep on the table, after crying and screaming herself into a state of exhaustion and deliriousness, and when she awoke again, she was in her bed. Her hair had been brushed and her clothes had been changed, and she'd been tucked away carefully, like she was some fragile, breakable thing.
Joffrey was asleep in the wooden chair, which he'd dragged to her bedside. His arms were crossed tight across his chest, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle, and his head drooped forward, his breathing slow and steady. The candle burned low, and Sansa had a fleeting thought of grabbing the candle and its wax-filled tray and flinging it onto him. He is my king, and he is to be my husband, she reminded herself, and then tears welled up in her eyes again as she thought about how unfair it was. She wanted to go back to sleep, but she felt uneasy with Joffrey sleeping so close to her bedside. She pushed the covers back and made to get up, to sit by the window or to read a book at the table, but her rustling roused the king and his eyes opened slowly, clouded with sleep.
“You're awake,” he said, inhaling sharply and adjusting in the chair so that he was sitting properly. Sansa stared at him, unblinking, unmoving, feeling nothing but hate and contempt and disgust. There were a thousand things she wanted to say and none of them would earn her anything more than another slap to the face.
“Where are your guards?” she asked, pulling the covers up again. It was the only way she could put distance between herself and the king.
“Waiting without. I wanted to stay until you woke up.”
“Why?” she asked.
“To make sure you were okay.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, with genuine surprise and confusion that caused Sansa to furrow her brows. “You were crying and screaming and throwing things, they said. They said you threw a vase and then cut your feet walking over the shards.” Sansa wiggled her feet and felt a throbbing ache start up in her left one.
“It wasn't deep,” she said, although she had no recollection of screaming or throwing things. She just remembered crying. She wanted to tell him to leave, to get out, to never come back, to leave her alone for the rest of her days, to hold her prisoner in a dark dungeon but never to speak to her again.
“I'm glad you aren't hurt terribly, my lady,” Joffrey said, quietly.
“But I am,” Sansa said and quickly felt sorry for it. But Joffrey seemed to understand. His eyes turned sad and he turned his face away to hide a guilty, regretful expression, although not quick enough, for Sansa still saw it.
Joffrey shifted in the chair again. “It was wrong of me.” He paused, seeming to struggle with what to say after that. Sansa did not feel up to forgiving him. The queen had probably put him up to these apologies, anyway. “Just, all of it. It was all wrong of me.”
“Will you get me a book?” Sansa asked. It was the only response she could muster. He stood from the chair and lit a fresh candle, then went to the bookshelf and ran his fingers over the titles until he came across a book of stories about dragons and knights and fairies who lurked in the rolling hills of the Riverlands. Instead of giving her the book, he sat down on the edge of her bed and opened up to one of the stories, reading the tale to her. He even did voices, and as much as Sansa wanted to hate it, wanted to snatch the book away and shove him from the side of her bed, she couldn't bring herself to do it. She laid there, just a little dove, trying to puzzle out the king. This was not the cruel boy who had called for her father's death on the steps of Baelor's Sept. This was not the vengeful, angry, hateful king who had dragged her to see her the heads of those she loved and who then commanded her to be slapped. She didn't understand and was too tired to try.
After the story was finished, Joffrey closed the book and made to leave the room. He blew the candle out, letting the moonshine provide natural light, and tugged open the heavy wooden door. Sansa could just make out the shape of the Hound; she admired him for a brief moment, for the fact that he must have been standing outside her quarters, waiting, for hours.
Joffrey lingered in the doorway for a brief moment and said something so quietly that she could barely make it out. It was only after she had been laying in the darkness for hours that she realized he'd said, “I wish I could take it back.”
03.
Sansa was walking through the gardens. She had gone to the godswood to pray and was going to return to her quarters but had decided to take a walk to clear her head. Her mind was constantly running, full of thoughts, one half of her dedicated to revenge and hating the Lannisters and another half of her trying to justify things and telling her heart that it was time to move on from the death of her father. She had tried to tell herself on so many occasions that it was all a big misunderstanding, that someone along the way must have lied or performed some trickery. Once, she had almost convinced herself that her father really had been a traitor, but then she had only cried and cursed herself for even thinking it.
The gardens were so lovely, though; it was hard to imagine anything going wrong here, and yet it had. She had just plucked a lovely, white rhododendron and put it in her hair when a kitchen maid carrying an iron skillet came striding up to her with some grim purpose. Sansa opened her mouth to say something and took a few steps back, shying away from the woman, but she reached a gnarled hand out and grabbed the necklace around Sansa's neck. She jerked so hard that the string snapped and the beads went tumbling to the grass and the cobblestone walkway, and Sansa merely stared in disbelief as the little pearls went bouncing and rolling.
“Your father's a good-for-nothing traitor,” the woman said and spat at Sansa's feet, holding up her iron skillet as if Sansa might attack in retribution. She shook her head, wondering what kind of hellish nightmare she'd been left in, and took her leave back inside the Red Keep. She was trying not to cry, but the tears came silently, anyway. She was all alone. Her father and her septa and Jory were all dead. All of the household guard her father had brought with him from the north, all of the familiar faces Sansa had known, were all dead. Jeyne and Arya were missing. Her mother was in Winterfell, and Robb was fighting Lannister lions in the field. She would have been glad for any friendly, familiar face, even Arya's stupid dance instructor.
She stayed in her room, doing needlework and staring at the wall, for hours, until a mousy little boy was sent to bring her to sup. It was almost an insult, sending some foul-smelling underling to come fetch and escort her, but she paid no mind to it. She had spent several weeks bleary-eyed and distant and was determined to show everybody that she was doing just fine. She entered the dining hall in the midst of one of Tyrion's jokes and was pleased to see that everyone was laughing. Perhaps the spirits would be high and she would not have to suffer some horrible torments while trying to keep her food down.
She took her seat at the table, greeting the Lannisters politely. When she looked down at her bowl, she was startled to see her necklace, the pearls and gems along a new string. Surely it wasn't the kitchen maid's handiwork. She picked up the necklace, daring to look around the table. Her eyes met Joffrey's at the head of the table, and he smiled softly, lifting up his goblet in a silent toast. She nodded a quick thank you, her head swimming.
She'd never been aware that he was watching her as she prayed and walked, let alone that he had stayed and gathered up every bead that had fallen from her necklace.
04.
Whether at Margaery's behest or the queen's, Sansa was called to the garden to sit with the king. She was newly wed and was trying to cope with a mountain of horrors that seemed to grow larger every few weeks. Tyrion wasn't half as bad as his siblings, though; he was a great deal better than his father, and if Joffrey had even a shred of his uncle's kindness, perhaps he would actually make for a decent king. Something about Margaery's presence had quieted his wrath, though, at least for the time, and Sansa was sure he was positively rapturous over the brother and mother's murders. Though it was Walder Frey and Roose Bolton to be blamed, there was no doubt that the Lannisters had been behind it. Which, Sansa was unsure.
“You wanted to see me, Your Grace,” Sansa said, stopping a few feet away from the king with a trail of bored handmaidens and lazy guards behind her. Joffrey waved them away and motioned for Sansa to sit beside him on the stone wall overlooking the Blackwater. It wasn't the prettiest sight, not anymore. Her lord husband was trying desperately to rebuild, but things simply wouldn't be the same as they were. Sansa was sure of that much.
“You wanted to see me?” she repeated, with just a test of impatience in her words. If Joffrey could be venomous and cruel, she could be impatient and testy. After everything they had done to her—murdered her family, married her off to the Imp—she had that right.
“My uncle Jaime lost his hand,” Joffrey said, a quiet sigh leaving his lips. “Isn't it strange, the way the world comes around? He slew so many with that hand, and he wound up getting it lopped off.”
Gods be good, Sansa thought. He's going to push me off this wall.
“Sansa, when I die,” Joffrey began, his words slow and careful, “make sure that I'm beheaded and full of arrows.”
“A fitting death,” Sansa said, after a brief pause. “Fitting if the world comes around the way you say it does, Your Grace.” Joffrey looked pained for a moment and stared up at the sun, his nose scrunching involuntarily. Sansa knew that she had misstepped in her words, but there was a fire in her heart that nothing could quell. She hated the boy sitting beside her. She wanted to push him off the wall, and she would have, if she thought for an instant she could get away with the deed.
“Do you remember when I showed you around the castle?” Joffrey asked. “Margaery has her uses. She's interested in things you never were. She understands me, but her eyes glaze over every time I try to tell her the significance of a banner or show her a hidden room full of junk and dust. She won't step foot in any of those watery passages beneath the castle, either. She always has excuses and reasons why we shouldn't go down there. She doesn't want to get her dresses dirty; she's afraid of being caught.”
“I didn't want to get my dresses dirty, either,” Sansa said, overly aware of the woman tending to the rose bushes that lined the wide walkway. Whether she was a spy for the queen or for Lord Varys, she was unsure. She was sure even the king had his own spies, and she didn't doubt that the Tyrells had their share of people whispering information to them. She felt exposed and unsafe everywhere she went, even more-so when she was perched atop a wall next to a king known for his cruel, murderous tendencies.
After a silence, Joffrey said, “But you did get your dress dirty. You may not have wanted to, but your curiosity got the best of you, didn't it? You trusted me.”
Sansa pursed her lips and shifted a few inches away from him without realizing it. She supposed she had trusted him in that moment, on that night. But never again. She would never make that mistake again.
“I'm sure Lady Margaery trusts you, Your Grace. Perhaps it's merely the dark she doesn't trust. Of course, her dresses are quite beautiful.” Sansa was eager to get away from the conversation. She had no desire to reminisce with Joffrey and was sure he had called her there for more than simply that.
“I want her to love me, Lady Sansa. I want her to trust me, admire me, respect me. But most of all, I want her to love me.”
“There are plenty of people who love you,” Sansa said, surprised at how easily the lie came out, and how convincing and reassuring it sounded. “Margaery will see all of your strengths and virtues, Your Grace, and she will love you for them. I'm quite sure she already does.”
“You don't have to lie to me.” Joffrey sounded tired. “I try to be a good person. You know I do.” Do I know that? Sansa thought, although she said nothing and her features remained unchanged. “I've done some things that aren't very kingly, but . . . Well, I am the king, and he can do as he likes.” He had said those words before, on many occasions, reminding other people and himself, although he sounded weary of it now. “I want people to like my decisions, though. I want her to like my decisions.”
Sansa was at a loss. How was she to advise a boy she hated, one who had done almost no right by her? Was it even possible for him to be a good person? Did he have that in him? Sansa wasn't sure he did.
“Well, just be yourself,” she finally said, and the woman tending to the rose bushes, who had inched her way closer and closer, snorted and tried to cover it up with a sneeze. “And be kind to her. Tell her jokes. Learn what she likes and cater to that, like you did with me. I love pastry dough.” Her cheeks flushed as she admitted it.
“Really?” Joffrey asked. “Lucky guess.”
But in her heart of hearts, Sansa knew that he'd known it all along, even if he was feigning modesty just then. Her mouth twitched into something that was almost a smile.
It was hard to hate him on days like this.