Chapter Text
Sansa Stark opened her eyes. Or, at least, she thought she had. It was pitch black and the chamber she had found herself in felt close, oddly stifling, but strangely, cold. She did not rightly remember how she came to be in this place or where exactly this place was.
All she could recognize at that moment was a feeling of pain: pain in her head, her back, and extreme pain in her left arm. She was also feeling numb in places and curiously damp. And, on top of that, to make things worse, she felt pressure on her chest and had a great deal of difficulty taking in a lung full of air. She tried to move out from under—whatever she was under that was pinning her down and pressing deeper and deeper into her chest.
A feeling of both dread and confinement consumed her—it terrified her and she was suddenly certain that she was suffocating. Tears filled her eyes and she immediately panicked when she heard what sounded like a small, skittering animal… no multiple animals near the side of her face… she felt herself scream but nothing came out. Something is crawling on me—I feel it--it’s in my hair—oh gods, oh please, get it off me, please get them off of me—oh Father …Mother …Warrior… and then she felt nothing.
---***---
“Sansa, will you stop arguing and take a look?”
Exasperated, Arya Stark pressed the large, glossy, and colourful calendar into her elder sister’s reluctant hands.
Sansa, incredulous, re-read the title. “I have no idea why you think I could possibly care about--The Fire Fighters of Kings Landing?”
Arya sat down beside her on the bed, excitement clearly in her eyes.
“Just look at Mr. February, that’s all I ask.”
Sansa flipped a few pages and studied the handsome young man. He was dark and had astonishingly blue eyes and, apparently, he never missed Ab Day. And someone, it would seem, had “helpfully” sprayed down the shirtless man to make him glisten while standing in--Sansa, a proud Northerner, scoffed audibly--the snow. ‘What do these Southronders even know about snow,’ she wondered.
Already over it, Sansa closed the calendar abruptly and held it out to her sister to take back.
“No, read what it says about him. Read it!” said her sister, her eyes brightening just a little more as if she had discovered a great secret which she couldn’t wait to share.
Sighing tiredly, Sansa flipped the calendar back to February to read the bio in the bottom corner of the page. “Gendry W likes long walks on the beach—gods, Arya: Long walks on the beach? Would it be considered cliché if I actually barfed because of a cliché?”
Arya’s look turned from smug to stern. “Keep reading!”
Sighing, Sansa just shook her head but pressed on.
“—long walks on the beach, mixed martial arts, and collecting ancient weaponry—Oooo, he’s just your type, said Sansa, sarcastically, smiling just a little.”
At Arya’s angry look, Sansa continued. “Gendry is with Squad 78 of Firehouse 9 on the southside of the city. Outside of his regular duties, Gendry is a Tactical Specialist with the White Knights Rapid Response Search and Rescue team, an elite, world-renowned--.”
Sansa had gone very still. Arya, satisfied that she had finally astonished her sister into silence, smiled broadly.
“See, I told you it was good. So, we’ve found one of them, which means once we talk to this one, we will easily find your guy.”
“I didn't even know the name of the rescue team. Where did you even—how did you--?”
“Gods, Sansa, it is called the Internet. Plus, I have an alert on my phone, so any time these White Knights are in the news or mentioned on social media—” Sansa’s eyes were growing round as saucers causing Arya to stand and pace. “Look, I know it sounds creepy, but it’s not really stalking or anything—they do actual good in the world and good like that gets reported on and I thought I should keep track of them and--.”
Sansa’s face had grown very pale and she fidgeted. She always fidgeted when she thought about that span of days in the previous year. She still could not tolerate confined spaces. And extreme darkness set her teeth on edge.
“Yes, but you know what my therapist says: contact with your—”
“—is discouraged, I know, I know. But Sansa, you said it yourself, you connected with him; he was special, and how you keep going on and on about wanting to thank him. But I know how you are. You are so proper and lady-like and would never break a rule, so I thought, since I am, happily, everything that is the opposite, that I would be your middle woman and find out all I can. That way, I could keep a lookout and know when an opportunity to find him might arise.”
“But Kings Landing, though. It’s so far away! We’d have to fly. And I can’t be confined in a plane--I j-just can’t!”
“Who said anything about you going to Kings Landing? No worries: I already have a plan and my plan requires me to go alone.”