Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7039951.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Game_of_Thrones_(TV), A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire_-_George_R._R._Martin
  Relationship:
      Petyr_Baelish/Sansa_Stark
  Character:
      Petyr_Baelish, Sansa_Stark
  Additional Tags:
      Older_Man/Younger_Woman, Alternate_Universe_-_Modern_Setting, Oral_Sex,
      Dubious_Consent, Masturbation, Orgasm_Delay/Denial, Rough_Sex
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-05-31 Updated: 2017-10-12 Chapters: 6/18 Words: 17905
****** Devil in the Next Room ******
by arrhythmic
Summary
     To get revenge for her family, Sansa Stark is willing to do anything.
     When her powerful Uncle Petyr offers his help, she agrees to do
     whatever he wants—but what he wants is more perverse and twisted than
     she could have ever imagined. (Modern AU)
Notes
     Take heed of all the warnings, as innocent as the opening chapters
     may seem.
***** Family *****
Sansa believed in fairytales once, like most precious little girls did. She was
especially pampered, the kind of girl that daydreamed about princes with stars
in her eyes and wanted nothing more than to be loved. And she was
loved—protected dearly by her two handsome older brothers, Robb and Jon, and
her doting father. They sheltered her in a way that they didn’t even shelter
her little sister, Arya, who had no problem with brawling with the boys and
returning home covered in dirt and mud.
“You’re the delicate one,” her mother used to say to her as she brushed Sansa’s
hair. “The kind ones are the ones who get hurt the most easily.”
And hurt she did.
The eulogy was coming to a close, the coffins were being lowered into the
ditch, and Sansa’s eyelids flickered open. Her face was pale as a sheet, bright
white against her plain black dress. If only she had dyed her hair to be as
dark as she felt that day. As the hired men rolled up their sleeves and
shoveled dirt over the caskets, Sansa counted them one more time.
One, for Ned Stark, her beloved father, who had been driving as carefully as he
could have that evening as they returned home from their family trip.
Two, for Catelyn Stark, in the passenger seat, who had been pierced by shrapnel
in the collision when Joffrey Lannister had taken a wrong turn and plunged into
the back of the Starks’ car, forcing it into the path of an oncoming truck.
Three, for Robb Stark, her beloved elder brother, and four, for his fiancée
Talisa, whose body was wrapped tightly beneath his protective arms when she was
found.
Five, for Jon Snow, her adopted brother, who she should have loved more and
teased less when she still could.
Six, for Bran Stark, the little brother that was wise beyond his years, the
genius of the family, and seven, for little Rickon Stark, still so young and
finding his way in the world, and now he would never get a chance to.
And finally, eight, for Arya Stark, her sister, the wild one, the strong one,
the one that could have changed the world. She was the fighter that should have
survived, Sansa thought bitterly. She would have sought revenge till the ends
of the earth.
But instead, who remained? Sansa, weak little fragile little princess Sansa,
who could do nothing but cry and dream of her family to come back to life,
though they never would. The only reason why the number was eight and not nine,
was that Sansa’s mandatory school trip had been rescheduled at the last minute,
and she insisted that the rest of the family leave without her so they could
enjoy the trip they had already paid for.
As she watched eight coffins, eight lives disappear inch by inch beneath
shovelfuls of earth, she wondered what the Lannisters were doing at that
moment. 22-year old Joffrey was most likely plotting with the corporate lawyers
his mother Cersei hired for him; paid, no doubt, with his grandfather Tywin’s
money. Sansa always knew that heading the biggest financial firm in the world
had immense benefits, but she hoped that killing without impunity would not be
one of them. The trial was in a month, leaving the Lannisters plenty of time to
prepare.
The two families had known each other for a very long time, due to Ned Stark’s
friendship with Cersei’s husband, Robert. However, since Robert passed away,
contact had ceased almost entirely between the Starks and the Lannisters.
Animosity had been building between Catelyn and Cersei, and Sansa herself had
slighted Joffrey’s sexual advances multiple times. It seemed like far too much
of a coincidence that Joffrey would be behind the wheel of the car that killed
her family.
“Should I comfort her?” she heard whispered behind her from some distant family
friend. “But she’s not even crying. At her own family’s funeral.”
Sansa swallowed and looked straight ahead, the sun’s glare in her eyes. None of
the screaming and sobbing in the world would bring her family back. Tears have
been useless. As the clouds grew thicker overhead, and the workmen smoothed
over their work with the backs of their shovels, the only desire that burned
deep within her was to see Joffrey go to jail for the rest of his life for
murder. She had only just turned 16, and there was nowhere to go but the
foster-care system. She had no grandparents that lived, and her father had been
an only child. Her only known living relative, her mother’s sister, had stopped
speaking to her the moment she turned 18 and left home.
Around her, old friends and acquaintances drifted about like ghosts, whispering
a word of comfort or two by Sansa’s ear before dispersing. One woman was
different. She had stood awkwardly the entire time, closer to the front than a
stranger should be, but without a shred of mourning in her thin face. She was
clad in a tight robin egg blue dress that was too gaudy for the occasion, and
stuck out like a sore thumb in the corner of Sansa’s eye no matter how hard she
tried to ignore it.
Only when the rest of the guests had departed, and Sansa alone remained
standing in front of her family’s grave, did the woman approach her with a
crooked smile, and rest a gloved hand on her shoulder. “Sansa, dear, it’s so
good to see you.”
“I’m sorry…do I know you?”
Only when Sansa saw the woman’s auburn hair peeking out from underneath the
brim of her feathered hat did it dawn on her that she might not be a distant
friend. “No, you don’t, my dear. But we’re family.”
And that was how Sansa came to be under the care of her Aunt Lysa.
 
===============================================================================
 
Given that even her mother had not seen Lysa since they were teenagers, Sansa
had no expectations for the state of her home. In truth, given the woman’s more
than gaudy appearance Sansa imagined the worst. Surprisingly, she found herself
admiring the view from her aunt’s Porsche, as they swerved through a wealthy
neighborhood and pulled into the driveway of a modern three-story mansion. The
exterior consisted of mostly sleek right angles and floor to ceiling windows
that revealed snippets of the tastefully minimalistic décor inside. Sansa
admired the stretch of cerulean pool by the house, and the sprawling oak
bookcase she spied through the second floor windows.
“It was your uncle Petyr’s home when I married him just a month ago. One of the
rooms is kept empty just for your cousin Robin, whenever he comes home from
boarding school,” Lysa boasted as she took Sansa by the arm and dragged her to
the living room. “Lovely isn’t it?” As they entered, a man that had been
lounging on the couches looked up, and stood with a smile, approaching them.
Sansa’s mother always said Aunt Lysa had never had much luck with men, and yet,
here he was in the flesh, handsome and lean in a crisp blue dress shirt,
wedding ring still fresh on his finger. “It’s very nice to finally meet you,
Uncle Petyr.” Sansa says, but she inadvertently flinches when he takes her
hand.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Sansa. I really am.” The entire time he speaks, he
keeps her hand in his, and his eyebrows are twisted in empathetic remorse,
smiling in a way that’s gentle and mournful at the time. “But don’t worry.
You’ll be living in our home from now on. And we’ll keep you safe.”
“We will,” Aunt Lysa quips, and she pulls Petyr against herself, rubbing her
cheek against his shoulder, breathing in his scent. “Who could take care of you
better than your own family?”
'Family,' Sansa thinks, perplexed. An estranged Aunt could still be considered
family, perhaps. One that Sansa’s mother had some choice words for over the
years, whenever she was mentioned—jealous, was one of them, and insane was
another. But still, they shared the same blood, and it was Aunt Lysa who had
snatched her out of the cold and put a roof over her head when she needed it
most.
But Petyr Baelish—she thinks this as Aunt Lysa presses her lips against his
neck, and Sansa turns her eyes away from the inappropriate display—Petyr
Baelish was a different story. He was a stranger she had never met, who she was
now forced to call uncle. He continued to smile, whispering sweet words to her
aunt, but his eyes never left Sansa, and she shivered under his cold gray gaze.
Most unnerving of all was the way his smile never reached his eyes.
“If you ever need anything, Sansa,” he says. “Please do let me know. I’ll help
you in any way I can.”
Petyr Baelish was no family of hers.
 
===============================================================================
 
“And this is where you’ll be staying,” Aunt Lysa smiled sweetly at the end of
an exceptionally brisk house tour. She had walked Sansa down multiple hallways
on the second floor boasting a variety of lavishly furnished studies, bedrooms
and even a room devoted entirely to a grand piano, and now they had arrived at
what Sansa had thought was a closet from afar.
It seemed as if the room truly had been a closet, but had been disguised as a
bedroom at the last minute. Even the door was small, of unpainted yellowing
wood and a simple brass knob. The room barely had room for a humble bed and a
desk, and the single square window was too high for anyone to reach and open.
‘It looks like a jail cell,’ thought Sansa bitterly. Most of all, she hated
herself for getting her hopes up that things would get better.
“Are there any spare rooms on the third floor?” Sansa tried, but instantly
regretted it when Lysa’s smile twisted into a scowl.
“Why? Is this room not to your liking?”
Sansa’s expression stiffened. “No. Not at all, Aunt Lysa. It’s wonderful. Thank
you very much.”
With that, the corners of Lysa’s smile slowly crept back up. “Good. I hate it
when people are ungrateful. We’re taking you in out of nothing but the kindness
of our hearts, you see. And no, you won’t be staying on the third floor, you
sweet little thing.” Here, Lysa laughed, as if the very suggestion was
ridiculous. “That’s where Petyr’s rooms are, where he does his business, you
see. It wouldn’t do for us to disturb him. He spends more nights up there than
even in our bedroom. Except, of course…” she winked at Sansa, putting her hands
on the younger girl’s shoulders. “When he needs a little distraction, then I’m
allowed up there. Only me.”
“I understand, Aunt Lysa,” Sansa said quietly.
Lysa leaned in closer to her, even pinching a lock of Sansa’s hair between her
fingers, rolling the strands between them. “Your hair,” she murmurs. “I was
always jealous of Cat’s hair, you know. The color. We were sisters, but her
hair was always prettier. Brighter. Softer. But yours…why, the copper in it
puts even Cat’s hair to shame.” Sansa breathed slowly and held her tongue as
Lysa ran her fingers through her hair, her eyes transfixed. “Pretty young
thing,” she said, and then without warning she violently grabbed a fistful of
it, yanking Sansa’s head downward as the young girl let out a cry. Lysa held
her head there, Sansa breathing heavily, facing the ground, and she leaned in
close to Sansa’s ear and spat in a low whisper: “I always hated your mother.”
At Sansa’s silence, Lysa finally released her, and Sansa stood back up straight
slowly, but kept her eyes on the floor. Lysa’s voice returned to being high and
sickly-sweet. “But I know you’ll be a good girl, won’t you, Sansa? You won’t be
a little slut like your mother was. Now go to sleep, poor girl. And if you need
anything…” Lysa pointed to the ceiling, as Sansa hesitatingly looked upward.
“Petyr and I will be right up there tonight. All night long." 
As Lysa disappeared around the corner, a flash of navy blue caught the corner
of Sansa’s eye. It was Petyr, in a crisp dress shirt, rolled up to his elbows,
just down the hall, leaning against the wall. ‘How long had he been there?’
Sansa wondered.‘He must have seen what happened.’ For a moment, hope built in
her chest that he would offer her a word of comfort.
He looked at her, smiled, and walked away.
 
===============================================================================
 
That night, she cooed herself to sleep, trying desperately to tune out her Aunt
Lysa’s obscene screams. Whatever Uncle Petyr was doing to her, she either loved
it or was in horrible pain, Sansa thought dryly. She wondered if Lysa had
placed her in the room right below Petyr’s bedroom on purpose—Sansa could swear
even the ceiling was shaking from Lysa’s inhuman noises.
Tonight, there was no tripping over Rickon’s toys and asking her little
brothers to quiet down so she could study. No family Skype sessions that gave
glimpses into Robb and Jon’s college dorm rooms. No Arya, screaming at Sansa to
quit doing her hair so she could take a piss.
For the first time, she felt truly alone.
***** Friends *****
The sun had barely risen when Sansa awoke to a torrent of ice-cold water. She
barely had time to react when Lysa ripped the drenched sheets from her body,
singing: “Rise and shine, little one, you have a big day ahead of you!” She
cried out as her aunt pulled her to her feet by the front of her nightdress,
still shivering uncontrollably from the cold. “Hurry or you’ll miss the bus. Go
and make some breakfast for us, and put this on,” Lysa said as she threw a
dingy gray dress at the bed. “I threw out the rest of your clothes. They were
all whorish, and I won’t be raising a whore.” She paused for a moment to gauge
Sansa’s reaction, but the girl bit her lip and said nothing.
Satisfied, Lysa departed, and Sansa peeled off her soaked nightdress with her
trembling hands, lips quivering. The short-sleeved dress Lysa gave her was thin
and scratchy, shapelessly covering her body from the base of her neck to her
knees. Flinging open the modest closet in the room, Sansa was crestfallen to
see that indeed, her Aunt had removed all of her own clothing while she was
asleep, and replaced them with a handful of outfits all as equally hideous as
the dress she had on. Her stomach twisted as she imagined her first day back at
school—she hadn’t attended since her family’s accident. And now she would be
returning in gray rags.
She had no towel, so her hair was still dripping by the time she crept into the
kitchen, but she dragged her socks as she walked so as to not leave a watery
trail. The kitchen was empty, save one Petyr Baelish, hair perfectly combed. He
was still in his sleeping attire, a dark cashmere robe wrapped round his lean
body. He looked up from his tablet as she entered, one hand still on his coffee
mug. Even the kitchen was the picture of modern opulence, and Sansa took in the
dangling lights, the pristine marble countertops, and the glossy black
cabinets. Her uncle was seated at one of the barstools lined up in front of a
kitchen island, looking far more like a wealthy bachelor than a married man
with a stepson.
“Good morning, Sansa.” His eyes met hers before he looked away, sipping his
coffee. If he noticed her shabby appearance, he certainly made no comment on
it. She pondered how she looked to him right now, this well-dressed gentleman
having breakfast in the same room as some little girl in castoffs.
“Aunt Lysa told me to make breakfast,” Sansa stammered, standing by the
refrigerator. “What would you like?”
“Thank you for offering, Sansa, but I’ve my own breakfast." He stood up,
putting down his mug, and made his way to her side. She recoiled ever so
slightly as he reached his hand towards her, one corner of his lips tugged
upward, but she stiffened her body when she realized he was only reaching for
an apple from the counter behind her. She watched as he brought it to his lips,
but tore her eyes away quickly as his white teeth sunk into the fruit.
“What do you do for a living, Uncle Petyr?” His expression seemed to stiffen,
but it quickly settled back into an unassuming smile.
“Finances, mostly. Things little girls needn’t concern themselves with." He
dabbed away a dribble of apple juice at the corner of his lip. “And a few side
businesses, as well.”
She paused. “What sort of businesses?”
Lysa chose to walk in before Petyr could answer, and Sansa quickly whipped open
the fridge door and busied herself.
“Oh you sweet thing,” Lysa said in a sing-song voice. “Making breakfast for us?
How nice of you.” 
‘You commanded me to,’Sansa thought, but said nothing as she cracked a few eggs
into a frying pan. It would not be wise to slight the only person standing
between her and the foster care system. She glanced at her uncle, but he seemed
to be absorbed in his tablet, save the hint of amusement she thought she saw in
the crinkle of his eyes.
“And you look lovely in that dress, Sansa,” Lysa quipped, taking a seat beside
Petyr at the kitchen island. “Very proper.” She whipped her head towards her
husband, and used one hand tilt his tablet away from him to get his attention.
“What do you think, Petyr? Doesn’t she look lovely?”
Sansa froze and she could feel her cheeks heat up in humiliation, watching
Petyr from the corner of her eye. She felt his gaze taking in her wet tresses,
her shapeless shift, her damp socks. He looked back to his tablet. “She is a
lovely girl,” he smiled, eliciting a flash of a scowl from Lysa.
But she quickly turned her attention back to Sansa. “Have a wonderful day at
school, Sansa. I’m sure your friends will all be happy to see how well you’re
doing.”
 
===============================================================================
 
As much as Sansa told herself that nothing could faze her after her family’s
death, she still could not shake the feeling of hundreds of curious eyes
observing her as she walked through the halls of her high school. She could
hear snippets of conversation, most along the lines of either ‘I feel so sorry
for her,’ or ‘what on earth is she wearing?’
She had not spoken to anyone since she dropped out of school. She had always
been close with her few friends: Myranda, Jeyne, and the girl who brought them
all together—Margaery, in all her elegance and charm. Jeyne and Myranda had
sent Sansa a few concerned texts after Sansa stopped going to class, but they
had ceased quite quickly when they received no response. A part of her wanted
to have anyone to confide in, even just a little. But the rest of her never
wanted to see any of them again, and for one very good reason: Margaery and
Joffrey had been dating for months. Their relationship had started when the
Stark family was still alive and well, and the fact that Margaery had stayed
with Joffrey in the aftermath had effectively ended her friendship with Sansa
for good. Perhaps Joffrey was feeding her lies about the incident, though
Margaery was far too clever to fall for them. Sansa was sure their relationship
hinged on the fact that the Tyrells’ real estate ventures required the support
of Lannister loans.
During classes, the teachers offered her sympathetic glances and made no
mention of her grades. Her arithmetic teacher patted her on the shoulder and
told her to “stay strong”, to which Sansa could think of no proper reaction but
a mumbled “thanks”. 
She breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the lunch bell rang, and began making
her way through the throngs of students. As she entered the cafeteria, her
blood ran cold when she glimpsed a flash of aristocratic blond hair, undeniably
belonging to a Lannister. But as quickly as a mob of students had obscured her
vision, a petite brunette had grabbed Sansa by the shoulders and pulled her
aside. “Sansa! It’s been so long,” the girl fretted.
Sansa swallowed. It truly had been a very long time. “Hello, Jeyne.”
Jeyne looked nervously around her, glancing at the corner where Sansa spotted
Joffrey. “Let’s talk somewhere quieter, okay?” She pulled Sansa into the
nearest bathroom, and checked all the stalls to make sure they were alone. When
she was finally satisfied, the first thing she did was look the redhead up and
down and say: “I’m sorry but…you look awful.”
“I feel awful,” Sansa admitted.
Jeyne bit her lip and nodded, awkwardly fiddling with her hair. “Of course you
do. I mean, I can’t imagine that…where are you staying?”
“With family.” It was the truth, though it felt like a lie.
“Right, of course. I…I hope you feel better.”
“I’ll be fine,” Sansa said firmly. “What is it that you need from me?”
Jeyne was taken aback by the redhead’s candor, but she composed herself
quickly. “Margaery wants you to know that she’s terribly sorry about what
happened to your family,” she said. “But…it was just an accident, you know. And
she thinks it’s terrible what you’re doing.”
Sansa’s raised one eyebrow. “What I’m doing?”
“You know…trying to get Joffrey for murder. I mean, Jesus Christ Sansa, he
could go to jail. For life.”
‘He deserves a lot worse than that.’
“Margaery’s been dating Joffrey for a while now, and…you know, it just wouldn’t
make sense for her…I mean, any of us to be hang out with you anymore.” She
pulled Sansa into an awkward hug in a staggered, hesitating motion. “I’m
really, really sorry Sansa. I hope you understand.”
“I understand completely,” Sansa said with finality.
After the pair parted ways, Sansa resolved to avoid the cafeteria. She would go
without lunch everyday if she had to—anything so she wouldn’t have to see a
Lannister. They must have paid off the school to turn a blind eye to Joffrey’s
upcoming criminal trial without so much as a suspension. As she turned around a
corner, her face made impact with someone’s shoulder, and she yelped in pain,
covering her mouth and nose with both hands.
“Are you alright?” She looked up to see an athletic boy with sandy blond hair,
and eyes a deeper shade of blue than her own. She recognized him immediately—he
was always on the front page of the school newsletters, winning swim trophies.
“I’m fine,” she said, though her face was still burning.
He paused for a moment. “Have we met?”
“No, we haven’t.”
“I’m Harrold. Harrold Hardyng.”
“I know,” she muttered. Dipping her head, she pushed past him, though his gaze
followed her figure until she vanished into the crowd.
 
===============================================================================
 
She had hoped to slink into her humble room without attracting her aunt’s
attention, but the moment she closed the front door behind her with a
conspicuous click, Lysa called for her: “Sansa, dear, won’t you come to the
kitchen for a moment? There’s a treat for you.”
Sansa crept warily into the kitchen, seeing no one but Lysa at the kitchen
table, staring blankly in front of her at a tray of pale yellow pastries. The
corners of her lips were turned up, but Sansa knew by now that her aunt was a
volatile woman, to say the least. Lysa shifted her gaze to the young girl,
gesturing for her to sit. “Please, come here, have one.”
She obeyed, taking one in her hand. “These are…”
“Lemon cakes,” said Lysa. “Please, eat, eat." At her insistence, Sansa took a
bite, then another. As she finished the first cake, she even licked up the
crumbs on her thumb with the tip of her tongue, eliciting a chuckle from her
aunt. “They really are your favorite, aren’t they? I wasn’t sure.”
“They are. How did you…?”
Lysa cocked her head to one side, and leaned in uncomfortably close. “I didn’t.
It was Petyr.”
“But how…?”
All of a sudden, her aunt pushed the tray aside, two pastries tumbling from the
table in the process, though she paid them no mind. “I don’t know, Sansa. I was
hoping you would tell me.”
“I…I don’t know, Aunt Lysa. I’ve barely ever spoken to Uncle Petyr…”
“Oh, it’s not speaking I’m worried about. Tell me, Sansa...” She grabbed
Sansa’s hands, squeezing them painfully in her own, her fake nails digging into
the young girl’s skin. “Did Petyr try to fuck you? Did you let him?”
She was tearing up now from the pain, racking her brain for the right words.
“No, Aunt Lysa, I swear it. I’m his niece, he would never...he loves you, Aunt
Lysa, you know that. He’s not the slightest bit interested in me!”
Lysa breathed heavily for a few moments, but released her grasp, opting instead
to pick up the fallen lemon cakes and walk them to the rubbish bin. “I know you
wouldn’t lie to me, Sansa,” she said calmly. “When I first decided to take you
in, I wanted to treat you like my own daughter. I never wanted to send Robin
away…but I couldn’t refuse when Petyr spent so much time and money getting him
into the best boarding school in the country. I thought, maybe, you could fill
the void.”
Sansa stayed silent as Lysa approached again, stroking her hair, gently holding
Sansa’s head to her chest. “But I want you to understand something," she
continued, her voice lowering to an almost raspy whisper. "I’ve loved your
uncle for a very, very long time. I’ve always loved him, even when I was with
my first husband. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted. That’s the kind of desire a
little girl like you wouldn’t understand.” Sansa nodded meekly in her arms,
afraid to utter a response.
“But there was always…something. No, someone in the way. And sometimes…you
remind me of that someone. Though you’re just an innocent girl, aren’t you?” At
this, she looked into Sansa’s eyes, her own wide and unblinking. “I want to
love you like my own child. But you’ll have to love me like your own mother. I
might not be as pretty, as her, I’m sure you know…but I think I’ll do. Don’t
you think?”
“Yes, Aunt Lysa,” is all Sansa managed to whisper as the woman rubbed her
shoulder. This only lasted for a few moments before she grasped Sansa’s
shoulders and pulled away from her with a small smile.
“Now. Why don’t you start by scrubbing the floors? A good child does her
chores.”
 
===============================================================================
 
It was late in the evening by the time Petyr slipped back into the house. Lysa
had long retired to her bedroom, tired of waiting up, though she made sure that
Sansa had more hallways to wipe clean before she did. When the girl had tried
to grab a mop, Lysa insisted that doing it by hand was the only way to get it
done right. 
Petyr stopped briefly on his way to the third floor when he caught sight of her
in the hallway outside her room, still in her gray dress, on her hands and
knees and clutching a grimy washcloth. “Good evening, Sansa,” he said simply,
loosening his tie.
‘There it is,’ she thought with boundless irritation. It was that glint of
amusement in his eyes, so faint that he could trick her into thinking she
imagined it. “Good evening, Uncle Petyr,” she said coldly, averting her gaze
and focusing on the task at hand, scrubbing furiously, hoping he would leave
soon and cease bearing witness to her humiliation. She was certain a maid had
gone over the same spot earlier in the day—a man of Petyr Baelish’s wealth had
no need for children to do chores.
Still, the man said nothing, did not question her actions, did not mention
Lysa. All he ever spouted was meaningless small talk; his words were pretty
enough to keep Aunt Lysa happy, but never gave Sansa any answers. She glanced
up from her work for a glimpse of a moment, finding to her bewilderment that he
still stood there, watching her in silence. Her heart beat a little quicker in
her chest—in anxiety, in confusion.
She wanted him to either help her or hurt her. At least then she would know
what he wanted. Suddenly, she remembered what he told her when they first met.
“If you ever need anything, Sansa, please do let me know. I’ll help you in any
way I can.” But she steeled herself and walked briskly to her room without so
much as a 'good night', clicking the door shut behind her. She had had enough
of depending on others. 
As if on cue, a familiar jingle broke her from her thoughts, and she scrambled
for her iPhone to find that it was the prosecutor calling. “Hello? Brienne?”
“Hello, Sansa. I’m so sorry for calling so late.”
“No, don’t worry about it, please. Is it something urgent?”
“I have some fantastic news. I finally convinced Mr. Dontos Hollard to agree to
testify. He saw exactly what happened on the road that night—and I can assure
you, what he’s ready to say in court will be damning for Joffrey’s case.”
“That’s…that’s fantastic. I can’t thank you enough.”
“There’s no need for you to thank me. Just rest well and be ready for the trial
in three weeks. I know you’ve been waiting a long time for this, Sansa. Don’t
worry. You’ll see him rot in jail.”
Sansa hadn’t slept that well in months. As she drifted to sleep, she thought of
justice and blue-blooded aristocrats receiving their comeuppance. Her dreams
were free of sandy-haired boys, of jealous, auburn-haired terrors. Most of all,
her dreams were free of green-gray eyes that always glimmered, but never
smiled.
***** Witness *****
When Brienne suggested that Sansa meet Dontos at her office, she hadn’t
expected to see this stuttering and nervous mess of a man. Brienne previously
told her that he had been extremely reluctant to give his testimony, sometimes
claiming that he hadn’t seen the collision clearly in the dark, other times
claiming he was simply too busy. In any case, he didn’t seem to be an easy man
to work with, and now that Sansa was meeting him in person, she was beginning
to understand why.
Brienne’s office was modest, and needed to be tidied—a far cry from Petyr’s
immaculately furnished and organized studies, but Sansa felt bad for thinking
so. She was clearly an overworked woman, with hints of purple under her eyes
and her blouse blatantly un-ironed. The cabinets were overflowing with papers,
and the files for Sansa’s case were scattered all across her desk. Dontos was
nervously fiddling with the buttons on his jacket, staring at his feet.
“Thank you so much for coming, Mr. Hollard,” said Brienne, frantically stacking
up some of the loose sheets on her desk. “I apologize for the mess.”
Dontos looked up and murmured something inaudible before his eyes darted back
to his feet. Sansa shifted uncomfortably in her chair, trying not to think
about how the man before her was her only hope in the upcoming trial.
“This is Sansa Stark,” said Brienne.
“You have all my gratitude, Mr. Hollard. All I want is justice for my family.
It’s all that has kept me going in this difficult time, and it’s all thanks to
you that the truth will finally come out.” In response, Dontos merely gave a
few timid nods, still refusing to make eye contact.
After he departed, Brienne did her best to reassure her. “He’s still very
nervous about taking the stand. But don’t worry, it happens to a lot of
witnesses. I’ll have him all sorted out by the trial.”
Sansa hoped so. “What did he see, exactly?”
“Well…he was walking home that night, just across the road from where it
happened, when he saw Joffrey’s car. But this is when it becomes very unusual.”
“…unusual?”
“He stopped to look because he saw a Porsche—Joffrey’s—behaving very strangely.
The road was pretty empty, and it had been slowly tailing behind your family’s
car, when it started to speed up.”
“And then what happened?” Even as Brienne spoke, Sansa could still imagine it
in her mind, her family packed in their van, joking and laughing.
“He thought it would stop, but…it rammed straight into the back of your
family’s car. Joffrey’s car wasn’t going quickly at all. There was plenty of
time for him to stop. It was as if…”
“As if it was deliberate.”
“Exactly. And the truck your family’s car rammed into, it was a bit too much of
a coincidence that it was right there when the impact happened. The rear-ending
wouldn’t have caused much damage at all, given the slow speed the two cars were
going at, had your family’s car not been pushed into the truck’s trajectory.
Unfortunately the truck driver didn’t survive the impact, or we could’ve had
more information.”
Sansa pursed her lips, trying to process what she had just learned. “But how
can we prove Joffrey’s motive? I know that our families had grown apart in
recent years, but this…I just don’t understand why…”
Brienne shook her head. “I don’t know either. Your father and your brother,
Robb, though, were small shareholders in the Lannister banking business. But
that hardly seems like a reason for murder…” She sighed, rubbing her temples
with her fingers in frustration.
Sansa nodded, lightly patting the older woman’s shoulder. “Thank you again,
Brienne. I know you must be so busy, and yet you’ve spent so much time on my
family’s case…”
Brienne looked at her with a sad smile. “Anything for Cat. She was a dear
friend to me. Putting Joffrey in jail and helping you is the least I can do.” 
 
===============================================================================
 
She had managed to avoid Joffrey entirely for days at school, but it seemed as
if her luck had run out. She had glimpsed them—Joffrey, Margaery, Jeyne, and
Myranda—in the corner of her eye as she crossed the courtyard during lunchtime.
They were camped by some trees, Margaery whispering and giggling into his ear,
clad in a delicate lace skirt. Sansa distinctly felt Jeyne and Myranda raking
her outfit of the day with their eyes, a t-shirt and jeans, and a pair of well-
worn sneakers that Lysa decided was ugly enough for Sansa to keep. She could
hardly remember those times when the most important thing in her life was
dolling up every morning so she could impress her stylish friends. Those things
seemed so trivial now.
Within moments Joffrey’s gaze upon her, though Sansa resolved to keep walking.
“So I hear you’re doing pretty well for yourself, you little lying bitch.”
She stopped and considered whether she should answer. “And what do you mean by
that,” she hissed slowly.
Margaery was rubbing his shoulders, coaxing him, telling him to stop, but he
shook her off. “You think you can pin me for an accident?”
“It wasn’t an accident, and you know that.” Her eyes flashed in subdued anger.
“Better off dead, if you ask me. They always getting in the way, criticizing
the way my uncle did things. We’re more successful than ever now that they’re
gone,” he sneered, despite Margaery’s frantic attempts to shush him. “You think
you can go up against me? Not even your uncle will be able to help you.”
“My uncle has nothing to do with this.”
“You’d have me believe that you’re living with one of the most powerful men in
the country, and he’s not helping you with your little case? Don’t fucking kid
with me.” Sansa knew Petyr had money, considering his lavish mansion—but if
even the Lannisters, and the most idiotic one at that, recognized his influence
then he must have been a far more prominent figure than she thought. “Next time
I see you, you’ll be put behind bars,” Sansa seethed with as much conviction as
she could muster before turning her heels.
“Really?” Joffrey was unfazed, smirking as she walked away briskly. “You think
so?” 
 
===============================================================================
 
Petyr was rarely home and spent the bulk of the day at work, usually not
returning until late in the evening long after both Lysa and Sansa had gone to
bed. On occasion, he would have a later start and Sansa would happen upon him
with his morning coffee in the kitchen. However, those meetings were brief and
Lysa was almost always present. Even when he didn’t have to go to work, he
spent copious amounts of time on the third floor of the house working from
home, and even Lysa rarely disturbed him then. Yet, Sansa could never really
forget his presence. She could occasionally hear him shifting through the
ceiling in the room above her, his light footsteps keeping her on edge.
This evening was one of those rare occasions when she would chance upon him
alone after work, while Lysa was either busy or asleep. Sansa had ventured
downstairs for a glass of water, and found him lounging on his leather sofa,
his back to the stairs where she stood. In his hand was a delicate glass of
deep red wine.
From where she stood, she could smell the faintest trace of his cologne. It
seemed he had just returned from work, and he was still in his work pants and
shirt, though he had tossed his tie and jacket aside and unbuttoned his collar.
She struggled in deciding whether or not greet him or to slip past him quietly,
but he noticed her first, turning to her with a slight smile at the corner of
his lip. “Good evening, Sansa. What brings you out of bed?”
He always offered her a smile, but she reminded herself it didn't mean much,
considering he had just as many, if not more, for her aunt as well. “I was just
getting some water. And you?”
“Just having a drink after a long day.” He took a sip, seemingly in thought.
“The trial is coming up soon, isn’t it? I hear you met with Brienne today.”
She was surprised he remembered, given that Lysa hadn’t mentioned it even once.
She wondered how he knew about her meeting with Brienne as well—she had stolen
out of the house without even telling Lysa that morning. “Yes. The trial is in
just a few weeks.”
“I see. I hope it goes well, Sansa.”
Even though it was just a small comment, she truly appreciated the sentiment.
Other than from Brienne, she had become more used to abuse than support. “Thank
you Uncle Petyr. I’m sure many people would be happy to see Joffrey in jail.”
His only response to that was an ambiguous smile. She retrieved her glass of
water from the kitchen, and began making her way back up the stairs with it in
her hand.
“Sansa,” he said suddenly, causing her to pause and look back. He wasn’t
looking at her, simply swirling his wine in the glass.
“Yes, Uncle Petyr?”
“Do you like it here?”
She wanted to know what his intentions were behind the question, but from where
she stood, all she could see was his shadowed profile. “Yes, Uncle Petyr. I
like it very much,” she replied stiffly.
“Good,” he said, sounding pleased. 
 
===============================================================================
 
The next morning, Lysa announced that he would be gone for a business trip for
the week. At the time, Sansa felt neither relief nor disappointment, given the
man’s decidedly ambivalent presence in her life. Though her aunt did seem to
control herself better when he was present, Sansa was equally relieved that she
would not have to listen to Lysa’s bedroom noises again for some time.
Before he left, Lysa made sure to make a show of kissing him thoroughly, as
Sansa averted her gaze in both discomfort and disgust. “You look absolutely
dashing,” Lysa exclaimed while running her hands up and down his torso, clad in
a crisp designer suit. He always did, Sansa had to admit. The man knew how to
dress and groom himself, unlike the sweaty teenage boys she was used to seeing
at school. He was slender and toned, with age only emphasizing his mature
charm. Women probably fell for him left and right; why he chose to marry Lysa,
Sansa couldn’t possibly fathom, which only added to her suspicion of him.
“Take care, my sweet wife,” he said with one of his half-smiles. He glanced at
Sansa for an instant before heading out the door. “Be good while I’m gone,
Sansa.” Lysa watched him with a dreamy look in her eyes until his Rolls Royce
was out of sight, and then promptly went back to commanding Sansa to do a
multitude of pointless chores. She was rarely allowed out of the house, only
for school and for matters related to the upcoming trial. Other than that, Lysa
kept Sansa in the house, and she was ever-diligent in doling out mindless tasks
for the girl to complete. While she was unsure how Lysa would punish her if she
refused, she wasn’t willing to risk it. She knew better than to act rashly in
her current situation.
Having exceptional social awareness had always been one of her strong points,
or so her parents told her. Whereas Arya would have preferred to kick the shit
out of anyone that wronged her, Sansa knew that in her current circumstances,
in a world of complex problems and politics, she wouldn’t be able to do the
same. Grace and courtesy certainly didn’t sound dangerous, but Sansa had
learned from experience that they were often the wisest weapons. At that
thought, the image of Petyr’s disarming smile floated in her mind, but she
shook it from her mind quickly. It was unthinkable to her that she had anything
in common with her uncle. 
 
===============================================================================
 
By the time she had finished the laundry list of chores Lysa had cherry-picked
for her that day, the sun had set, and the home was quiet. It was far too large
for three people, Sansa decided. The Stark family home was also large, but it
always felt full, with her family members all around. The Baelish residence, in
comparison, was stifling in its silence, particularly when Lysa was preoccupied
in one room or another and Sansa was roaming the halls alone, dusting or wiping
this and that.
Tonight, she stood at the stairs leading to the third floor, the thought just
settling in that Petyr would not be home. Joffrey’s words that day had rattled
her, but had also piqued her curiosity about her uncle greatly. Every time she
asked him about his profession, he would brush her off as being too childish to
understand what he did, which struck her as extremely questionable
behavior.‘Perhaps’, she thought suddenly, ‘he knows more about my family’s
death than he’s letting on.’ Sansa steeled her resolve. If she wanted to find
out these answers for herself, now was the time, while Lysa was still in her
room, presumably sleeping. With tentative steps, she made her way to the third
floor.
She was unsure what she had been expecting, but she was relieved that at first
glance, it looked identical to the second, with pristine white halls and rows
of mahogany doors that were all closed. Sansa put her hand on the first knob,
took a deep breath, and turned.
Locked.
With frustration, she tried the next door, then the next.
Locked. Locked.
One by one, she tried all the doors in the hallway with urgency, but not a
single one of them yielded. Finally, she arrived at the last door in the
hallway—and realized that this was his room. That is, the room that was right
above hers, and the source of the sounds that kept her up at night.
She turned the knob, and to her surprise, it opened.
Unsurprisingly, it was a bedroom, and unsurprisingly, it reflected Petyr’s
sense of décor, with a modern black and white scheme and glossy surfaces. There
was a standard desk of dark wood, with a few pens on its surface. The bed
looked lush and inviting, with dark sheets. She shuddered, trying not to
imagine her Aunt Lysa in them. Unlike most bedrooms, there was a mock bar area,
displaying bottles of expensive liquor and dangling wine glasses. The floor-to-
ceiling windows encompassed an entire wall, but the view was obscured by heavy
drapes. There was even a large sofa, a coffee table, and an adjacent bathroom.
Sansa took a quick peek to find a Jacuzzi tub with clawed feet, and a waterfall
shower.
The place was spotless, she soon discovered. She felt stupid, then. What had
she expected to find? Incriminating evidence in every drawer? He was
undoubtedly a clever man who kept his secrets well-hidden.
“Sansa!”
Lysa’s shrill voice called suddenly from the floor below, sending chills up her
spine. ‘Fuck.’
“Sansa, where are you? I need you to re-dust the piano room. You did an awful
job the first time.” With haste, Sansa scurried out of the room—but not before
she spied one of Petyr’s jackets, draped casually on the desk chair. “Sansa!
Sansa, you better respond to me soon. What are you up to now, you little
wrench?”
Sansa faltered for a moment, but sped to the chair, shaking the jacket upside
down. “I’m coming to your room, and you better be in there,” Lysa’s voice
called, the tone now dark and furious.
Plink.
Finally, something fell from the jacket pocket to the floor. A card, and when
she picked it up, she realized there was also a photograph. With no time to
inspect it, Sansa fled down the stairs, pausing before entering her room to
slow down her breathing and fix her hair.
“Aunt Lysa,” she said as calmly as she could. “I was in the bathroom. What do
you need?”
Her aunt turned to her, nostrils flared, but she calmed down, seeing the girl
still in her nightclothes, duster in hand. “Don’t frighten me like that, Sansa.
I was so worried something had happened to you.”
“Don’t worry about me, Aunt Lysa. I’m just fine.” 
 
===============================================================================
 
Finally, when Sansa had a moment alone, she gingerly retrieved the card and the
photograph from her back pocket.
It was the photograph that shocked her first, because she recognized the
subject immediately—it was her. But it wasn’t a recent photo. Judging by what
she was wearing, she deduced that it was probably taken two years ago, when she
was fourteen and just entering high school. What really disturbed her, though,
was that the photo was taken candidly when she was walking in front of her
school, and she had no memory of it being taken.
Next, she inspected the card. It was a plain white business card without any
words. All that was printed on it was the picture of a mockingbird, one that
she had seen occasionally in the décor of Petyr’s home. She squinted her eyes
and looked closer, and discovered that a QR code was printed on the bird’s
chest. Upon scanning it with her phone, a website popped open.
Like the card, the website's design was minimalistic. It was dark, with golden
mockingbird accents. The Mockingbird, it said elegantly at the top. There was a
selection of options: drinks, parties, events, and reservations. Sansa was
still underage and had never been to one, but clearly this was a nightclub. She
did a quick Google search, and was flooded with articles about royal and
celebrity sightings at the club, including—she found to her disgust—Joffrey
Lannister.
The Telegraph ran a piece that piqued her interest: “Petyr Baelish, CEO of
Mockingbird Group, Inc., and the man behind The Mockingbird nightclub.” The
article featured a large portrait of her uncle in an Armani suit, and a few
shots of the nightclub’s luxurious interior. The article mentioned that he was
a very private man, but included a few tidbits on Petyr’s life: places he liked
to vacation, his favorite clothing brands, and a picture of him with his arm
around Lysa, wearing an unfortunate tangerine dress. His wife, Lysa Arryn, is
the interim head of The Vale Unit, inherited from her late husband, Jon Arryn.
Mr. Baelish himself is a board member of the unit.
Confused, Sansa pressed on in her search, this time Googling “The Vale”. To her
surprise, it brought up a familiar Wikipedia page: the page of King’s Landing
Group, Inc., in other words, the Lannisters’ business. She always knew her
father and Robb had played a part in King’s Landing as minor stockholders, but
they always claimed they were minimally involved other than occasional board
meetings and collecting dividends. She clicked into the page.
King’s Landing Group, Inc. is a multinational banking and financial services
firm. It is the country’s largest bank by total assets. The hedge fund unit of
King’s Landing Group, The Vale Unit, is the second largest hedge fund in the
United Kingdom.
Under “key people”, it listed Tywin Lannister as Chairman, CEO, and President.
Predictably, the two CFO’s were Cersei Lannister and Joffrey Lannister. It was
a shame that the two more scrupulous Lannisters, Tyrion and Jaime, were not
listed. Tyrion had long been denied a share in the business, and Jaime himself
chose to remain in security services rather than become a banker, to Tywin’s
disappointment. The last Sansa had heard, Tyrion was still abroad in America,
living it up with his father’s money.
Her head was already spinning with this newfound information. She had thought
her aunt and uncle were detached from the drama of her previous life, but it
seemed all of the people around her were part of a complex tangle of
relationships. If Lysa truly had such influence within King’s Landing Inc. as
the head of its hedge fund unit, then perhaps Sansa had finally found the real
reason for why Petyr had married her. Maybe he had obtained his board position
in the unit through her. But it seemed that he himself had considerable power,
given that he ran the most exclusive nightclub in the country. More
importantly, was Petyr in with the Lannisters? The articles with sightings of
Joffrey and Margaery in the club certainly seemed to suggest so. But then why
did he take her in? Why did he have that photo of her?
She slept that night with more questions than answers.
 
===============================================================================
 
She woke up early the next morning to her ringtone, and found Brienne calling.
“Hello? Brienne?”
Brienne’s voice was grim. “I’m sorry for calling so early Sansa, but we have a
problem.”
A sense of dread passed through her as she braced herself for bad news. “What
happened?”
“It’s Dontos.” Sansa’s heart stopped. “…he’s dead.”
***** Justice *****
Chapter Notes
     Notes: Thanks for all the interest and support, your comments are
     what encourage me to keep writing! :)
“How?” was the only word that managed to escape Sansa’s lips in the moment.
“They said it was an armed mugging,” Brienne continued sullenly. “The mugger
shot him and ran…they’re still looking for him.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. It was the Lannisters. It had to be.”
“The Lannisters didn't even know there was a witness, much less who he was or
how to get to him.”
“I…I don’t know how they did it,” Sansa confessed, “But they’re the Lannisters.
They have their ways.”
“Maybe. But we can’t prove it.”
It was then that Sansa’s stomach dropped, her fingers trembling even while
clutching her phone. She could sense it in Brienne’s voice. It was hopeless.
“We’re not going to win, are we?” Sansa asked softly.
“…don’t think like that, Sansa. We can still try.”
“I don’t want to try,” she hissed in spite of herself. “What I want is
justice.”
 
===============================================================================
 
For the rest of the week, Brienne kept Sansa updated on the case, though most
of the developments involved Lannister lawyers preventing pieces of key
evidence making it to the court. Petyr slipped home one night without Sansa
noticing, and she stumbled upon him in the kitchen the next morning. 
Even lounging at home he was perfectly put together, his hair styled neatly,
the white streaks above his ears tucked into place, looking cozy in his
favorite robe. “Welcome home, Uncle Petyr,” she said with restrained formality.
Immediately, she set to work, wiping down the kitchen counters and the sink
before Lysa could walk in and chide her.
He glanced up from his tablet and smiled. “I’m glad to see you, Sansa.”
The silence was stifling, so she continued the conversation, mindlessly
swabbing the already stainless fridge. “How was work?”
“A little bit more difficult than usual,” was all he said.
She remembered what she had discovered regarding his involvement in King’s
Landing, and reminded herself to be on guard. After Lysa had gone back to sleep
that night, she had returned the card and the photograph to his jacket pocket,
and hoped that he wouldn’t notice anything was amiss. He had never harmed her
in any way, but she had also never crossed him, and she would rather not risk
the unknown. At the moment, she could still try to extract more information
about his work while they were still on the subject.
“What sort of difficulties did you have, Uncle Petyr?” she said as casually as
possible. She peeked at him, but whipped her eyes away when their eyes met,
cursing at herself immediately afterwards for how unnatural that had been. She
didn’t realize he had been looking at her.
“There was someone causing me some trouble. But I managed to take care of it.”
Her breath hitched when she felt him beside her, fiddling with the coffeemaker,
standing so close that his arm brushed against hers as he worked. She could
feel his soft sleeve slide against her bare arm, and smell the musk of his
cologne, a scent that was both masculine and refined at the same time. She
thought to herself that it suited him well.
She almost drew back when he looked at her suddenly with amusement. “…I think
that fridge is plenty clean by now, don’t you?” She reddened, realizing that
she had been scrubbing the same spot for a good five minutes, and quickly put
her towel to work at the table instead.
By the time Lysa arrived, Petyr had already left for work, and she griped about
not being able to give him a morning kiss, completely unaware that he had
interacted with Sansa at all.
 
===============================================================================
 
Sansa had been doing a fantastic job of keeping to herself at school, and kept
it up for another few weeks. Unfortunately, she had not realized that this
would be jeopardized by something else that she had been neglecting: her
grades. Specifically, in honors chemistry.
She looked at the C minus on her midterm with subdued misery. Just a few months
ago, even a B plus would have sent her crying. She was so used to being the
good girl, getting pats on the head for bringing home A’s and playing the role
of the refined lady, enjoying the admiration. Now, it all seemed so pointless.
There was no one left to impress. ‘Come see me after class,’ Mr. Luwin had
scrawled at the top.
When she did, he looked distraught, and she almost felt guilty enough to run
home and start studying immediately. Old habits died hard. “Sansa, I understand
that you’ve been going through a very difficult time. And it’s not that you’re
failing. But compared to what I know you’re capable of…I’m just worried that
you need some help.”
“I’m sorry,” she said abruptly. “I’ll try harder for the next test.”
Luwin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I have another solution. I’d really like
for you to give it a try.”
Just then, she realized they weren’t alone. A familiar blond youth had been
observing them from the back of the room, and he approached them now,
stretching his hand towards Sansa with a flash of straight white teeth. “I
believe we’ve met before, briefly. I’m Harrold. You can call me Harry.” He
reminded her of her father and Robb, who were both tall and athletic.
Certainly, he was taller and had broader shoulders than her slender uncle. She
grimaced internally at the thought. When had she started to compare all the
boys she met to Petyr?
Mr. Luwin cleared his throat when she made no move to shake Harry’s hand, which
hovered there, unreciprocated. “He’s one of my best students, and is also a
volunteer tutor in multiple classes. I’m sure he can help you get back on
track, catch up with the material you’ve missed.”
Slowly, she slipped her hand into Harry’s awaiting one, and shook it gently.
“I’m…Sansa. Sansa Stark.”
Mr. Luwin didn’t notice Harry’s eyes widened in surprise. “I’ll leave you two
alone so you can talk through the details. Thank you again, Harry.”
“No problem, Mr. Luwin,” Harry said as the older man left the classroom,
leaving the two teens standing by his desk. He turned to her then, and shook
his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe that youwere Sansa Stark all along.”
At Sansa’s confused expression, he continued. “I know your Aunt Lysa. Her late
husband, Jon Arryn, was my great-uncle.”
‘So he’s connected to the Vale Unit,’she realized. “She’s never mentioned you.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “Well, she doesn’t get along with my parents very
well, especially after great-uncle Jon died. I haven’t seen her since then. I
never realized the Stark girl she took in was you.” Sansa nodded in tacit
understanding. It would be difficult for anyone to deal with Aunt Lysa, it
seemed. Anyone except for Petyr; he had Lysa eating out of the palm of his
hand. 
“I’ve seen you before, you know,” Harry commented, interrupting her thoughts.
“Pardon?”
“Well, I think most people have. I recognized your face, because you were
always with Margaery, and her flashy friends.” He scanned her outfit of the
day: jeans with a gray hoodie zipped up all the way. “I see you’re trying
something different nowadays.”
“Legal fees don’t leave me much for buying Prada and Chanel,” she retorted
snappily.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just…I just meant that you caught my eye, because
you suddenly looked so different.” At her incredulous frown, he added quickly,
“Not that being different is bad. It isn’t.” He laughed endearingly, and raked
his fingers through his sandy hair. “I’m not making a great case for myself, am
I?”
“…don’t worry about it,” she said guardedly. 
He changed the subject, noticing her discomfort. “What do you think about
Fridays afterschool? We could stay in the library, or you could come to my
place. My mother makes a terrific peach cobbler.”
She considered it fleetingly, but quickly shook her head. “My Aunt is…very
protective of me. She wouldn’t let me stay out.”
He arched an eyebrow. “On a Friday afternoon?” She pursed her lips. At her
silence, he nodded empathetically. “Well, then. Your place it will have to be.”
While her instinct told her to isolate herself from anyone involved in King’s
Landing, Harry was just a boy, and she doubted he played any role in his
distant relatives' political affairs. Besides, flunking out of high school
would definitely not help her gain independence from Lysa. Finally, she nodded
with reluctance. 
“I’ll see you this Friday then?” he asked.
“No. Let’s do next Friday,” she said grimly. “There’s something I have to
finish this week.”
 
===============================================================================
 
It had been a lengthy fight. But it had been a pointless one.
The jury foreman was timid and skittish as he read out the verdict. ‘The
absolute picture of someone confident that they had made a just decision,’Sansa
thought sarcastically. She finally allowed tears to roll down her face—not of
sorrow, but of wholehearted rage. Joffrey turned to leer at her, taking genuine
pleasure in her tears. The rest of the Lannisters were there as well: Tywin,
Cersei, Jaime, and surprisingly, Tyrion.
Tywin and Cersei were both smiling smugly, though Jaime looked like he couldn’t
care less throughout the entire trial. This didn’t come as a surprise. Jaime
notoriously hated underhanded Lannister politics, which is why he chose to stay
out of it all. Cersei, on the other hand, had no qualms about testifying
against Sansa’s character with plenty of lies. She accused Sansa of always
being an emotional girl, calling her hysterical in the wake of her family’s
death, looking for someone to blame. Most egregious of all, she suggested that
Sansa had always wanted to date Joffrey, and was trying to enact petty revenge
on him for choosing Margaery over her. “I hope she gets the help she needs,”
Cersei had said, fake concern all over her face as Sansa had resisted the urge
to throw her chair at her.
In any case, it was all over, and people began filing out of the courtroom.
Brienne grasped her hand gently, and passed her a tissue. “Sansa,” she said
softly. “We can appeal. I promise you. We still have a chance.”
Sansa thought of all she had seen over the past week of testimony. She had seen
forensic experts with shifty eyes, key evidence that was mysteriously deemed
inadmissible in court, and most damning of all, the lack of a living witness
who could prove Joffrey's guilt. Brienne had tried her best, she knew. But she
realized it wouldn’t matter how many times Brienne tried her best. It wouldn’t
matter how much Sansa tried to play within the rules. The world was ruled by
money and power, she thought bitterly, not justice.
“Don’t bother.” Sansa stood, pausing for an instant. “Thank you again. For
everything,” she said softly before leaving Brienne, her failed protector and
her only friend, sitting alone in the courtroom.
By the time she reached the parking lot, she realized she was not alone.
Whirling around in fear, she relaxed slightly when she saw that it was only
Tyrion, alone and seemingly without ill intentions. “I’m sorry," he said. "I
didn’t mean to frighten you. I just needed to speak with you alone.”
“Shouldn’t you be celebrating with your nephew?” she responded coldly.
Tyrion shook his head remorsefully. “I wanted to offer you my condolences. I’m
sorry, Sansa. I know you don’t believe me, but I truly am. Your father was a
good man. And your mother—I’ve never met such a strong woman. I still remember
when Robb and Jon were little boys…”
“Enough.” She said it in mistrust, but also to suppress the profound sense of
loss that welled in her when her family was described so tenderly. “What is it
that you want from me?”
He paused uneasily. “I want to offer you my help, Sansa.”
“Help?” she said incredulously. “From a Lannister?”
“I was never truly a Lannister, Sansa,” he said firmly. “You know that.” At her
skepticism, he sighed and pressed his business card into her hand. “I know I
can’t do anything to get your family the justice they truly deserve, but I at
least want to help you recover from all this. I might not have political power,
but there’s one thing I am good for—money. And a lot of it.”
“Money isn’t what I want,” she spoke bleakly.
“Money isn’t what anyone wants. But it can get you things you want. You can’t
be happy here, surrounded by the people responsible for your family’s death.
And I highly doubt Lysa Arryn has been treating you well as your guardian.” She
paused, and he knew he hit a nerve.
“You could leave this city. Hell, you could leave England altogether—buy a nice
condo, transfer to a good school. Leave all this behind you, and never see
Joffrey again, or Lysa for that matter.” She shook her head, but he continued:
“Please. Think about it. Call me anytime, Sansa. I really mean it.”
As she walked alone to the bus stop, she mulled over his words. She knew he was
right. Money could be used for a lot of things, and she was definitely lacking
in that department at the moment—she wouldn’t inherit the small Stark fortune
until she turned eighteen. With Tyrion's money, she could get her own
apartment, and find a part-time job. Then she could be free of Lysa’s clutches,
and from whatever Petyr’s intentions might be. She touched Tyrion’s card
hesitantly. But Lannister money was dirty. It was blood money. And even if she
escaped the Baelish household, she still wouldn't be any closer to getting
revenge.
She could endure two more years of Lysa, Sansa decided, just until she turned
eighteen and could move out with her family's money. Just two more years of
pretending to be meek and obedient, and then she would be free without the help
of a Lannister. She crumpled up the card in her pocket.
 
===============================================================================
 
The Baelish home was oddly quiet when she returned. Usually at that time Lysa
was lounging in the living room, watching a soap opera or reading a magazine.
This time, the lights were all off, save a faint glow from upstairs. When she
made her way up, her unease grew. The light came from one of the bathrooms, and
she gingerly pushed the door open, hearing the sound of running water. Sansa
found Lysa sitting on the edge of the tub, dragging her fingertips slowly
through the water as she filled it.
The woman looked up. “You’re home,” she said quietly, before looking back down.
“The trial…” Sansa started, but Lysa cut her off.
“I know. Brienne told me. I don’t care about that.”
Sansa struggled to suppress her frustration. “My mother was your sister. And
her murderer was just set free,” she seethed.
Lysa turned to her, lifting her hand from the tub, letting the water drip onto
her dress from her long nails. The faucet continued to run as the tub filled to
the brim. “Do you know something, Sansa?" she said slowly. "I lied. I didn’t
want to take you in. I never did. I wanted to see you suffer.” She stood and
spat each word with venom. “I wanted to see perfect, pretty little Cat’s
perfect, pretty little daughter get reduced to nothing.”
“Then why…?” Slowly, Sansa took a few tentative steps back, but Lysa was
faster, reaching across and slamming the bathroom door shut behind her,
trapping them both.
Her eyes flashed in anger. “You know why. He insisted. MyPetyr. Now why would
he do that, Sansa dear? Tell me.”
“I…I don’t know.” She truly didn’t, even now.
“Oh, you know.” Lysa leaned in close to her, eyes wide, and she whispered: “I
saw it.”
Sansa barely uttered a “what?” in response, when Lysa grabbed her by the
shoulders and threw her to the tub violently.
“I saw it!” she screamed. Sansa tried to get to her feet, but by then the water
had overflowed, and she slipped on the watery tiles. “I saw your photograph in
his jacket when I was going through his closet this morning.” Sansa couldn’t
even dwell on how disturbing Lysa’s obsessive behavior was. Her head was
spinning as she scrambled for the edge of the tub.
Suddenly, Lysa grabbed the girl by her hair, and shoved her face-first into the
water, lifting her back out as she gasped for air. Sansa clawed at Lysa’s
hands, but the woman was deceptively strong. “P-please,” she sputtered, but
Lysa gripped her even tighter, with so much force that Sansa thought her hair
would be pulled out.
“Why,” Lysa screeched, “Why does he want a brainless, spineless little whore
like you?” She pushed the girl’s head into the tub again, this time keeping her
submerged until her vision began to darken.
She was going to die.
As that realization sunk in, something even more horrific crossed her mind:
that she would die, and Joffrey wouldn’t. That there would be no one left to
remember her father, her mother, her brothers and her sister, and what was
taken from them.
She struggled, her limbs flailing, but they weakened and ceased as she
swallowed and choked on the water around her, her face twisting in agony.
Lysa’s shrieks grew faint as her senses began to dull and fade away, and she
felt her eyes drifting closed.
It was Arya's face she saw then. She was smiling, the way she did when they
weren't yelling at each other and fighting. 
The next instant, she was sputtering on the bathroom floor, expelling water
from her lungs, heaving on all fours on the tiles. She cried in fear, in anger,
in pain, gasping for more oxygen. By the time she had enough strength to look
up, still trembling, she could see Lysa standing over her, unmoving.
The woman smiled. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson, dear,” she said with
glee.
 
===============================================================================
 
‘She’s psychotic.’
Sansa shivered as she huddled in her room, keeping her back on the door so
nobody could enter. She was still in her wet clothes, and she wiped her hands
dry so she could unfold the card she had stuffed in her back pocket earlier.
Thankfully, some of the numbers were blurred from drips of water, but were
still legible. With weak fingers, she dialed in the number, and waited for it
to ring. She had always known Lysa was unstable, but there was a difference
between being a little bit crazy and being murderous. Sansa realized now that
she was in danger every day that she stayed with her aunt, and if she died,
there would be no one left to avenge her family. She had no choice.
“Hello?” She recognized his voice immediately.
She breathed deeply and tried to speak rationally, but her voice still came out
shriller and more frantic than she had wanted. “Tyrion, it’s Sansa. Please. You
have to help me. It’s Lysa, I think she’s going to—”
“Sansa.” She stopped. His voice was somber. She had heard that voice before,
from others who had disappointed her. She knew what was coming. “I’m so sorry
Sansa. But I can’t help you.”
“...you told me you would,” she whispered hopelessly.
“Something’s come up,” he said quietly. “I’m so sorry. For…certain reasons, my
father has seized my accounts. He’s sending me to America. There’s nothing I
can do.”
Despite her frustration, she held her tears in. “Why?” she demanded, her voice
cracking. “Tell me.”
“…I can’t. Believe me, Sansa, I can’t. Throw away this number. It won’t be of
use when I’m gone.” There was silence for a moment, when all she could hear was
the quiet buzzing of background noise. “Please, let me just say one more thing,
and this is the most important thing.”
His voice was grave, and she could sense the weight behind his words as he
spoke. “Do not trust Petyr Baelish.”
 
===============================================================================
 
That night, Petyr returned home late in the evening as usual. He made his way
up the stairs and to his room at the end of the third floor. The house was in
utter darkness, though his eyes had adjusted quickly. Opening the door, he
flicked on the lights, and found her in nothing but her nightgown in his desk
chair.
She looked scared. She looked vulnerable. She had been waiting for him.
If he had been surprised, he didn’t show it. He casually set his briefcase
aside and removed his blazer, draping it over his arm as he leaned against the
doorframe. “What can I do for you, Sansa?”
Her eyes met with his, still glistening from her earlier tears. “Help me,” she
breathed. At this, the faintest smirk graced his lips.
“No.”
***** Price *****
Chapter Notes
     Last chance to read the warnings before things get darker.
“…I’m sorry?” She stood from his desk chair to face him, still visibly shaken,
and he closed the door quietly behind him.
“No,” he said again to her disbelief. “It is a pleasant surprise to have you
come to me like this, Sansa,” and the sincerity of his words was evident in his
smile as he approached her. “I was beginning to think you disliked me.” She
visibly flinched as he raised a hand to her cheek, but she breathed again when
he merely used the pad of his thumb to gently stroke her. “Sweet girl, you know
I want to help you…” She looked up at him with wide, hopeful eyes, allowing him
to softly skim her neck with his fingertips as his eyes followed his
ministrations. “But I can’t do it for free.”
“…what is it that you want?” It was the first time he had touched her so
deliberately since they had first met, and even with just a whisper of his
touch her stomach was in knots. His gentleness was soothing, but she refused to
let her sense of danger be numbed.
His eyes met with hers. “Everything,” he said slowly as he withdrew his hand.
“I can’t give you that,” she breathed.
“Oh…you’d be surprised, sweetling,” he murmured, almost inaudibly. “What would
you ask of me?”
“Aunt Lysa,” she began, and tried to examine his reaction but found it rigid
and indecipherable.
“You want her gone, is that it?”
“…no, of course not. She’s been so…generous to me.” While Sansa found her
utterly repellant, surely Petyr had at least some modicum of affection for her
if he had married her. Sansa decided to tread carefully with her words. “Lately
she has been more…physical, in disciplining me.” His smile seemed to falter,
but only for a moment. “If you could talk to her. Tell her there’s
nothing…between us.”
A moment of silence passed as the man seemed to contemplate the notion. “…and
what would possibly be between us, Sansa?” he asked with a twitch of his
eyebrow. His tone was serious, but the curve of his lip betrayed his mirth.
She furrowed her eyebrows. “You know.”
“But I don’t know,” he insisted, leaning closer to her. “Please, explain it to
me.”
Her eyes shifted, and she concentrated on the floor so she wouldn’t have to
meet his gaze as she spoke. “Like…kissing, or…”
“Or?”
“Having…sex.” She winced at how vulgar the word sounded coming from her own
mouth. She had never had a prolonged fantasy about him, but it was extremely
difficult to not picture it in her mind when she remembered Lysa’s bedroom
noises. She admitted to herself that she had wondered, shamefully, what a man
could possibly do to make a woman sound like that.
But Petyr was calm, unfazed. “What a shame.” He left her side, pouring himself
a glass of wine at the minibar, as she watched him cautiously from afar, still
standing by the door. She noted his preference for red. “You were doing such a
wonderful job of pretending to like it here. I was impressed…at your
potential.” She had been right all along. He knew; he had always known. He had
seen right through her pretense, and for some reason, found it enjoyable to
play along.
“Stop playing with me,” she snapped, suppressing her voice as best she could so
as to not wake Lysa. “If you don’t want to help me, then just say it.”
He chuckled—he had the nerve to chuckle. “Tell me, sweetling. Have you
ever…kissed anyone?”
“…yes.” He cocked his head and brought the brim of his wine glass to his lips,
urging her to go on. “My sister, and my little brothers.”
He smirked at her innocence. “No, my dear. Have you ever kissed a man?”
Her cheeks reddened involuntarily as she thought of how much of a child she
must have seemed to him, a foolish child that he could toy with. “No. Never.”
“I see.” He paused for a moment with his eyes on his drink, silently musing.
“Then, that will make a fine price.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll take care of Lysa for you. In exchange for your first kiss.”
 
===============================================================================
 
It would be a small price to pay, she told herself repeatedly. In fact, it was
barely a price at all, if Petyr could truly manage to prevent Lysa from
murdering her in her sleep. She had no money, no power, no skills. She had
nothing else to offer him. It was ablessing, she tried to tell herself, that he
would ask for something so simple. It just wouldn’t be the way she pictured it.
Her father had promised her she would marry someone brave, loyal, and handsome,
and she had believed him. She imagined he would be her age, maybe a little
older, but fresh-faced, strong and kind. He’d hold her hand and give her
flowers, and they’d be the envy of the entire school. When he’d kiss her for
the first time, they’d both be nervous, their hearts beating, his eyes bright
and clear without a single speck of gray in them.
Not unlike the ones staring across the kitchen table at her right now.
“Is something wrong?” Harry was handsome even in his concern, and she vaguely
remembered the brief daydreams she had about him when she was still a freshman.
Jeyne and Myranda gushed over him plenty, and even Margaery, always so
dignified, had given him more than a lingering glance. He mistook her silence
for confusion. “Don’t worry, I can explain it again.”
She shook her head. “No, I think I get it.” She quickly balanced the equation
in the workbook in front of them, and felt a bit proud despite herself when he
gave her a nod of approval.
“At this rate you’ll be caught up in no time,” he encouraged with a smile.
It was Lysa’s high-pitched voice that interrupted the pair, sliding a tray of
biscuits and small sandwiches onto the table. “Why not have a quick study
break, dears?”
“You’re very kind, Mrs. Arryn,” Harry said, taking a biscuit. “These look
wonderful.”
“You really don’t have to,” Sansa tried, but Lysa shook her head furiously.
“Nonsense!” She turned to Harry, leaning in too close for comfort. “You’re the
first friend she’s had over since she’s moved in. You must be very special.”
Harry managed a forced chuckle, edging away from her slightly. “I’m…happy to
help out.”
Sansa shuddered when Lysa turned to her, whispering into her ear with a grin:
“Tall, strapping, and handsome. My, you have the same tastes as your mother,
don’t you?”
After she sauntered off, Sansa could barely look him in the eye. “I’m so sorry.
She’s…a little…eccentric.”
“No worries. She’s exactly how I remembered her. Oh, you made a mistake here.”
He crossed his arm over hers, their wrists brushing for a moment as he scrawled
in a correction. When he finished, he looked up to see her in quiet thought.
“…you’re different, than I thought you’d be.” He didn’t seem offended, just
curious.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ve heard a lot of things about you. Being a great tutor wasn’t
really one of them.”
“And what kind of things have you heard?”
“That you’re…athletic. Popular. A trust fund kid.” And hot, that was talked
about a lot amongst the girls, but surely he knew that already.
“I guess being great at chemistry doesn’t make for good gossip.” His ringtone
cut through his laughter, and he excused himself as he took the call. “It’s my
girlfriend. You might know her, her name’s Saffron,” he said with a slight
smile. “She gets worried when I don’t pick up.”
One of the cheerleaders, if Sansa remembered correctly. She shook her head,
clearing her mind of any suspicion that he had been interested in her. At least
Lysa hadn’t had any episodes the past few days, and it seemed that meeting
Harry had helped. Sansa considered playing along and pretending to date him,
just so Lysa would stop suspecting her with Petyr.
On that thought, she remembered the man’s promise. She wondered if Petyr had
spoken to Lysa already—and if so, when was he going to claim his price? In the
back of her mind, she still harbored some belief that he had been joking all
along. But if he had been serious…then Lysa would have a real reason to try to
murder her.
 
===============================================================================
 
It was three days before Petyr fulfilled his end of the deal. It started with a
phone call at the dinner table. It was one of those rare occasions on the
weekends when all three members of their little makeshift family were present,
and as Lysa began to panic and shriek at the caller, he looked up from his
plate to give Sansa a knowing look. When the call was over and done with, Lysa
emerged from the living room, dejected and sobbing. “It’s…it’s Robin. They say
he’s been caught with…with drugs. They found it in his locker...and in his
room. Oh god, he was arrested and…he’s just a boy. How could this happen?”
“…you must go to him at once,” said Petyr, rising from his seat and sweeping
her in his arms in what Sansa now knew was false concern. She was the only one
who saw him wince, just for an instant, when Lysa’s tears and mucus stained his
shirt. “I’ll pay his bail,” he continued, his voice smooth and soft, coaxing
her. “You’ll want to be with him. Support him, until the trial.”
“But what about you? Please, Petyr, come with me! I need you.” Sansa turned
away uncomfortably, not wanting to see the woman clawing at his torso, pressing
herself against him in desperation. She wondered if she would ever feel that
way for a man; she hoped not. Lysa’s obsession was only leading her down a
hopeless path, and Petyr seemed to have no qualms about bringing her further
in.
“My sweet wife, you know I want to, but I can’t. I have to manage the business
for the both of us, and who will mind the house?”
Lysa whipped her head in Sansa’s direction, and Petyr’s eyes followed slowly.
“Then her. She’ll come with me.”
He tugged her closer, one elegant hand on the back of her head persuading her
to look back into his chest. “We can’t just pull her from school, Lysa. We’ll
be fine, here. Don’t worry for your sweet girl. Harry will take care of her.”
Sansa stifled her surprise. He knew about Harry as well. Somehow he knew
everything.
His words worked, as they always did. At the mention of the blond boy, Lysa
began to regain her composure, and Petyr easily whispered words into her ear
until her complaints softened, then died. She was but a puppet in his hands by
the time he was done with her, and then he was leading her up the steps with an
arm around her waist. Lysa was pressing her lips into his neck the entire way,
feverish, possessive kisses, and she did not see him glancing at the copper-
haired girl out of the corner of his eye.
For the next hour, Sansa held her knees to her chest on the living room sofa,
turning up the television until the vile sounds from above were entirely
subsumed.
 
===============================================================================
 
Again, she found her way to his room of her own accord late in the evening,
after she was certain Lysa was asleep in her own bed. He was at his desk,
wrapped in a white bathrobe, hair still damp, evidence of a shower. In spite of
herself, she glanced at his bed and found it fresh and perfectly made. She
would have gagged if she had found his sheets disheveled and spoiled. She was
the one who closed the door this time, and she could see his eyes light up in
intrigue as she locked it.
“Did you do it?” She would start the conversation this time; she would be in
control.
He swiveled in his chair to face her. “Yes.” A straight answer, for once. How
he had managed to frame a young boy for drug dealing, she couldn’t fathom. Like
she had suspected, he had power and connections that were beyond her
understanding.
“Why did you marry Lysa?”
“Why do men marry anyone?” He countered playfully. She averted her eyes when
the top of his robe loosened slightly, revealing unmistakeable nail marks on
his chest.
“Most men marry for love. But you don’t love her.”
He rested his cheek against one hand, his fingers drumming lightly against his
jaw. “Love? Is that what you really think?” From where she stood, she could
barely see the green in his eyes. “Why do men do anything? For themselves, of
course. To get what they want.”
“And how did Lysa get you what you want?”
“You still don’t know, after all that research you’ve been doing?” Of course he
would know about that too.
“You want the Vale Unit.”
He smiled. “That’s it. Clever girl.” The approval of a man of his intelligence
provoked a sense of achievement deep within her that she was desperate to
ignore.
“Then why did you send her away? I just wanted you to talk to her.”
“And how convincing do you think it would be, sweetling, when a man goes up to
his wife without provocation, and denies an affair with the pretty young girl
living with them? That’s naiveté, and that’s something we’ll have to cure you
of soon enough.”
“I’m not naïve,” she asserts a bit too quickly, a bit too ardently. He
chuckled, and she grew redder. “Why do you want a kiss from me? Even if you
didn’t like your wife, I’m sure there’s no shortage of women for a man like
you.”
His eyebrow arched in amusement. “A man like what?”
“…you're a brothel owner," she accused.
“I own a nightclub, my dear. A respectable establishment.”
“That’s not what the papers say,” she retorted confidently, attempting to match
his wits. “According to the celebrity scandals that go on at your respectable
establishment, The Mockingbird offers a lot more than just drinks.”
“Not that naïve after all,” he said, bemused.
“I’m sure you get plenty of satisfaction from your whores, and I’m sure you
have your pick of them. So why me?”
“So many questions.”
“Tell me,” she insisted, pressing her back against the door to keep herself
steady and tall. “Tell me if you want your payment.” She had no leverage and
she knew it, but she insisted boldly all the same. He let his gaze simmer into
hers for a long moment, as if testing her resolve. She kept her chin high, her
nerves only revealed by the rapid rise of and fall of her chest, heavy with her
anxious breath.
“Whores don’t interest me. I’ve never seen the appeal,” he responded finally,
bemused.
“…and underage girls do?” She regretted her taunt as his smile faded and he
leant back into his chair.
“That’s enough questions. Come here.” She obliged, walking slowly to where he
sat, stopping at his knees. Even there, she could smell his scent, musky and
alluring. But he beckoned her closer, stroking her waist with his hands.
“That’s it, sweetling,” he murmured as she inched into the space between his
legs. He was fixated on a tendril of her auburn hair that lay just to the side
of her breast, and he caressed it tenderly with his fingers.
She closed her eyes, waiting for it to come, but heard only his chuckling. “I
do believe I’m the one who’s owed a kiss, not you.” Her eyes fluttered open,
and she bit her lip as he examined her reaction, clearly entertained. But as
she stood, stupefied, his gaze hardened and she knew he wasn’t joking. “Kiss
me,” he commanded, firmly this time. His eyes closed slowly as she leant in and
pressed her lips to his, a dry little kiss that only lasted for an instant
before she pulled away, heart beating in her ears.
When his eyes opened again, they were the color of charcoal. She stepped back,
but his legs clenched around her, trapping her. He pulled her down to him by
her arms, and she cried out as she fell forward, her body collapsing against
his. Her panicked hands grasped his shoulders for support, fingers sinking into
the soft cotton of his robe. He positioned his lips by her earlobe, the heat of
his breath on her neck, sending a shudder through her entire body with his
whisper. “Did you think that would satisfy me?”
He took her face in his hands and kissed her again, the grain of his moustache
cutting against the softness of his lips. This time, there was no innocence in
the act. She could feel his tongue, warm and wet, gently sliding between them,
the tip slowly tracing her bottom lip, begging for entrance. “Part your mouth,”
he murmured against her, and she does, lost in his taste, the soothing flavor
of mint. He finds her tongue with his, sliding slowly against it until she
reciprocated in the motions, hesitantly at first. Soon, his movements grew
feverish, and their tongues danced together roughly, him withdrawing only to
claim her bottom lip with his mouth. She gasped for air as he sucked before he
dipped his tongue into her mouth again. The unwitting moan she released was
muffled against him.
Finally, he pulled away, eyes half-lidded. His hand was twisted in her hair,
breathing in her scent, feeling her heartbeat on his chest. His gaze harbored a
longing that could not possibly be meant for her. No, it repressed a desire too
deep, too intense to have been sparked by a girl he had just met.
He was looking at her, but seeing someone else—who, she didn’t know. But she
wanted to.
***** Deal *****
Chapter Notes
     Long time no see all, I am back and so grateful for everyone that
     remembered this little series!! After a long year of many life things
     I am finally getting back into literature, and of course, AO3. Now
     that a year has passed, I look back on this story and there are many
     things I’m dissatisfied with in hindsight, but this was always meant
     to be smut disguised in a thin plot anyways I have the rest of the
     series planned out and I’m determined to complete it before I make
     way for new projects.
     On the other hand, I’m still recovering from the S7 finale, though
     Aidan Gillen managed to make it perfect in his own way. That man is a
     gift to humanity. While I’m waiting for Martin to finish the books
     before I read them all, I’ll be writing plenty of fics to get my
     Baelish fix.
     P.S. This story is meant to be Dark!Petyr and Dark!Sansa, not
     Canon!Petyr and Canon!Sansa. Only continue reading if you enjoy
     cynicism and shameless smut.
For an entire week before Lysa’s departure, Petyr was ever-vigilant about
fulfilling her every need and whim, slowly coaxing her to book a one-way ticket
to her son. That meant foot rubs in the living room, feeding her pancakes at
the breakfast table like she was an infant, and God only knows what in the
bedroom. Occasionally Sansa would meet his eyes, and he’d flash her a hint of
that gleaming smile that never reached his eyes, and then return to tending to
whatever it was Lysa was demanding in the moment. Sansa wondered how many of
Petyr’s thousand dollar shirts Lysa had ruined with fuchsia lipstick stains.
He’d certainly received the short end of the stick in their deal, Sansa decided
with a shudder. Even now she wondered how the shrewd Petyr Baelish could have
fathomed that a kiss from a clueless virgin like her was worth the drudgery he
was putting himself through now. But then again, she would hardly be surprised
if Petyr himself had wanted Lysa gone even prior to Sansa’s request.
At the thought of the kiss, her stomach turned to knots, and she cursed that
even the memory of it could have such an effect on her. She had to admit that
not long ago she used to wonder why people even really enjoyed kissing, and now
she couldn’t get the sensation out of her mind. His velvet tongue against hers,
the cool taste of mint, and his breath, hot on her cheeks. Petyr Baelish was no
bright-eyed prince, though she supposed she was no princess either. Not all
kisses were magical, not like in the fairytales.
In any case, the kiss seemed to matter not at all. Petyr was nothing but uncle-
like to Sansa for a week, spending most of his time with his wife, to Lysa’s
great pleasure.
The morning of Lysa’s departure, Petyr and awoken bright and early to send her
off in his glossy black Rolls-Royce. Sansa stood at the door as Petyr ferried
Lysa’s many colorful suitcases to and from the vehicle, his eyebrow twitching
barely noticeably in irritation. The corner of one particularly heavy case
scraped loudly against the car’s perfectly lacquered surface as he hoisted it
into the trunk.
In the meantime, instead of offering to help, Lysa stood at the doorway,
swooning. “Isn’t he so strong?” she gushed more to herself than to Sansa, who
was sitting at the doorway, polishing Petyr’s dress shoes. Sansa stayed silent.
Neither answer seemed particularly safe.
Glancing at the girl’s handiwork, Lisa snarled: “You missed a spot,” before
turning her eyes to Petyr once more as he fixed the last piece of luggage into
place.
“Are you ready, my lady?” The man called with a smile, opening the passenger
door and motioning her over with a graceful sweep. Sansa wanted to hurl.
“Right away, my sweet!” Lysa screeched. Sansa inhaled sharply when Lysa
suddenly leaned towards her, and yanked at a fistful of the girl’s hair,
forcing Sansa to look into her eyes. “And if you so much as lay afinger on my
husband, I’m going to tear out your eyes and bake them into a lemon cake.” She
then released the girl, called out a, “Don’t miss me too much, Sansa!” and
practically floated to the car, face brimming with glee.
Don’t hit the door on your way out, Sansa thought sarcastically as she watched
the car vanish down the driveway. Her first kiss was a kiss well-spent indeed.
 
===============================================================================
 
By the time Petyr returned from the airport, Sansa had polished every one of
Petyr’s shoes twice, and was scrubbing down the kitchen sink. He returned
wordlessly, and she noticed his presence only by the click of the front door.
She kept her eyes on her own hands, however, even as she felt him come up
behind her, the warmth of his chest against her shoulder. He placed a single
hand on her sponge-wielding arm. “You can put that down. You don’t need to do
that anymore.”
Later, Sansa returned to her room to find it locked. Perplexed, she made her
way to Petyr’s room on the third floor, and rasped his door twice, sharply,
with two knuckles. There was no response. A glance to the door next to it,
surprisingly, revealed it to be unlocked and slightly ajar.
She raised an incredulous eyebrow. Petyr Baelish, leaving one of his rooms of
dirty secrets unguarded? For two breaths, she listened for any sign of Petyr
responding to her knocks. Hearing only silence, she crept past the open door,
grimacing as it creaked behind her. Still, there was no sign of Petyr emerging
from his room.
What she came upon, though, appeared to be by all accounts a normal room—albeit
a very nice one. She had expected something different. A physical database of
shady financial transactions, maybe, or a sex dungeon used by his employees.
Instead, she was met by a velvety king-sized bed with six silken pillows in
assorted sizes, an elegant balcony overlooking the city, and, upon further
inspection, a walk-in closet complete with clothes and accessories that led to
a marble-tiled bathroom with a claw-footed tub. Everything was absolutely
lovely; this room put even her old cozy space in the Stark family home to
shame, not to mention the veritable broom-closet downstairs that Lysa had so
graciously provided her.
“A gift for you,” came the deep voice behind her, and Sansa whipped around to
see Petyr standing in the doorway with a smile. “You like it, don’t you?”
“I do. Very much,” came the honest answer before she could stop herself. “…I
didn’t realize Aunt Lysa’s departure was an occasion for a gift.”
He frowned a little. “Sansa, please don’t misunderstand me.” He stepped closer,
though she willed herself to keep her feet planted firmly in the hardwood. With
a gentle hand, he brushed away a few stray strands of hair that had been
resting on her cheek. “Your aunt is…a jealous woman. She is not well. I want
you to be happy here, but the more I intervened, the more danger you would have
been in.” God, she hated how he made sense sometimes. Really, everything he
said made sense, and if one weren’t careful, one could very easily believe
Petyr Baelish. That was the dangerous part. His hand had now drifted to her
shoulder. “Let me make it up to you.” He gestured to the walk-in closet,
completely free from Lysa’s assortment of gray rags. “In fact, I’ve had my
favorite shoppers pick up some outfits for you already. Are you fond of Hermes,
Sansa?”
She took in the closet’s contents. It was spacious, with several impeccably
pieced together outfits and dresses. They were age-appropriate, but far
classier and stylish than what Sansa was used to wearing. They could put even
Margaery’s sense of style to shame. Her eyes lingered on a pair of long suede
boots paired with a soft blouse and fluffy cardigan. Small shelves underneath
the clothes displayed boxes labeled with designer names. The materialistic
teenage girl inside her was drooling greedily. The old Sansa would have died to
own this closet, and here it was, presented right to her without her having
earned a single thing. At that thought, her eyes snapped back to Petyr, who had
been studying her reactions with amusement.
“Uncle Petyr, I can’t possibly accept all this.”
He raised a brow. “Not to your taste? My assistant does not make mistakes
often, but it does happen. I’ll give Olyvar a call.”
“…that’s not it.” She steadied her breath. “You said that you couldn’t help me
for free. Everything has its price. I can’t even imagine…what the price for all
this is.”
He looked amused. “Dear girl, is that what you were worried about?” At that, he
placed a chaste kiss on her lips. What she felt wasn’t quite disgust, nor
enjoyment, nor fear, nor lust. What she felt towards him was a little bit of
everything, and so she could not decide how to react at all, only standing
there dumbly as he rubbed her shoulders very gently. “This,” he said, gesturing
towards the clothes dismissively, “is nothing. Your happiness is far more
important.”
“Is it?” He smiled in response, encouraging her to press on. “Do you know what
would make me happy, then?”
“Please, do tell.”
She lifted her chin and held her head higher, hoping she looked more sure than
she felt. “What would make me happy is if Joffrey, Cersei, and Tywin Lannister
were behind bars. Or dead. Could you do that for me?”
He was not taken aback in the slightest. “I’m afraid it isn’t that easy,
Sansa,” he responded smoothly. “Cersei and Tywin are my employers. It certainly
isn’t simple to go up against people as important as they are. In fact…I would
be putting my life at significant risk.”
“You want them gone too, don’t you?” she challenged. “With them out of the way,
you’d have an easier path to the top.”
At this, a chuckle erupted from him. “Unfortunately, politics is a little bit
more complicated than that, Sansa. If it were that easy to make one’s way to
the top then the Lannisters would have long been done away with.” His hand
stroked her arm absentmindedly as he spoke, sending chills down her body.
“Power isn’t about how many people you can assassinate. Power is about saying
and doing the right things at the right time. It’s about knowing who your
enemies are, and how to move them…and preventing them from knowing the same.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “And how do you do that?”
“You put on a mask. And you hide your desires.”
“Why do you care about me at all? I’m just…Aunt Lysa’s niece.” A woman that
seemed to repulse him completely, with the exception of her financial holdings.
He paused for a moment, a solemn expression crossing his face, betraying his
honesty. “You’re not just Lysa’s niece…you’re Cat’s daughter.”
“Oh.” Oh. She was sickened, but at the same time, the pieces began to fall into
place. “Did she break your heart, Uncle Petyr?”
His smile returned, forever mismatched with his dark and somber eyes. “The
world broke my heart. Luckily, I have done quite well for myself without it.”
Had she her family by her side, Petyr Baelish to her would have been nothing;
nothing at all. She could have run into her parents’ arms, who would assure her
that she would never, ever have to see him again. But she was all alone in the
world, and there was no one to turn to, no one to trust. What she gleaned of
him so far was that he was a liar, yes; that he used her aunt’s love for his
own gain; that he wanted her in ways that an uncle should not want his niece.
But he had also never hurt her, not like Lysa, or Joffrey, or Cersei; he had
never demanded anything, only asked; he had, thus far, kept all of his
promises, which was more than she could say for most of the people that
remained in her life. He was powerful, resourceful, and he wanted something
from her, and only her, because she was her mother’s daughter.
She had glimpsed beneath his mask and was beginning to understand what he
desired. And in return, she knew he could be very, very generous.
“If you help me, I will give you what you want.”
“Oh? And what would that be?” One eyebrow cocked itself in curiosity.
Her face flushed, but she said the word: “Me.”
“Do you know what it is that you’re offering? Do you know what it is that men
want?” The gravel in his voice was scathing.
Her nails were pressed so hard into her palms that she might have penetrated
skin. “You can have me,” she said again.
He took a moment to himself, idly cocking his head to one side and rolling her
hair in his fingers as if carefully weighing her proposal in his mind. Finally,
he moved his gaze slowly to meet hers with an expression of self-satisfaction.
“You have yourself a deal.”
 
===============================================================================
 
The first night in her new room was nothing short of a dream. Sansa took a
long, hot bubble bath in the porcelain tub, then spent an hour sifting through
the designer goods Petyr had packed her closet with, too anxious to even try
anything on. Lying in a pile of feather-stuffed duvets, she idly wondered if
the thread count on her silk pillowcase was as high as Petyr’s shirts’.
Probably not, she thought with amusement. If there was one thing Petyr Baelish
knew how to do, it was how to dress well.
It was only when the sunlight filtered gently through the curtains that Sansa
awoke with a surprised little exhale, still unused to the lofty and pristinely
white ceiling of her new room. She made her way to the closet and longingly
fingered the expensive clothes she had dreamt of wearing her entire life. Yet,
she found herself unable to take any of the articles off the rack.
There was just something that felt wrong about accepting Petyr’s gifts without
reservation. She had quieted her own moral qualms about what she was doing by
convincing herself that it was necessary. She was using questionable means to
achieve undoubtedly honorable ends: avenge her family and assure her own
survival. But if and when she begins to enjoy herself…well, that would be
something entirely different. She wouldn’t be a martyr, nobly sacrificing
herself for a greater cause. She would be an indulgent little girl, who was
happily cuddling up to an older man for shoes, and dresses, and…
Her face turned red at the memory of Lysa’s bedroom screams, which had haunted
Sansa since her arrival. Would she become just like Lysa? Would she also allow
indulge herself in Petyr’s care and affections, to be used however he saw fit,
then thrown away?
Sansa straightened her back and marched away from the closet. She looked
herself head to toe in the mirror, still clad in the drab gray dress she had
slept in. It wasn’t a look that would fit in with the likes of Margaery Tyrell
or Myrcella Lannister, but it was a look that she could be proud of. She
refused to be as vain and foolish as her aunt.
Admittedly, she felt just the slightest bit of self-satisfaction at Petyr’s
look of confusion when he first glimpsed her at the breakfast table. His eyes
scanned her frame as he raised the rim of his coffee mug to his lips: “I
thought you would’ve thrown that away by now, Sansa. I didn’t think you were so
fond of Lysa’s…sense of aesthetics.”
She stiffened her lip and rummaged the cupboards for bread. “I don’t intend to
accrue debts that I can’t pay.” There it was—whole wheat, sliced. She fiddled
with the zip-tie absent-mindedly, eyeing her uncle with her peripheral vision.
He wasn’t looking at her, but was now immersed in his iPad. Probably looking at
his stocks, Sansa surmised, given the dizzying array of charts and graphs he
had pulled up on his screen. Feeling snubbed, she whipped her head back towards
her breakfast, carefully sliding her bread in the toaster and licking the dry
crumbs from her fingertips.
“You’re mine.”
She whipped her head towards him, certain she had misheard, though he was still
calmly swiping through his stocks. “…excuse me?”
“I said you’re my beloved niece, Sansa. We’re family. As long as that holds
true, you can have anything you want, given that I can provide it.” Finally, he
looked up at her, putting down his tablet and swiftly taking his place beside
her. One slender hand deftly found her shoulder, and his gray-green eyes easily
held her gaze. “Clothes, rooms, cars…promise me that you won’t think twice
about accepting such trivial things from me.” Her throat was dry, but she
nodded mutely, confused. He smiled gently, the sort of smile that seemed to
betray nothing but warm intentions.
“Good. Now, could you give your uncle a kiss?” So that was his game. He seemed
to like to play pretend, much like the mockingbirds he was so fond of. It
seemed that even the dirtiest things could be spun into something elegant when
it passed through his hands. Her willingness to play along seemed to please
him, and please him she must.
“Of course, Uncle Petyr,” she said obediently. She brought her lips to his
cheekbone and pressed them softly against his skin. As she pulled away, he
turned to her and took one of her hands in his.
“I want you to feel at home with me, Sansa. I want you to trust me.”
“I do, Uncle Petyr.”
“Good,” he said, as he brought her index finger to his lips. The tip of his
tongue flicked over her fingertip slowly, but with force, the same fingertip
she had licked moments ago. She bit her lip and stifled a moan. “Good,” he said
again, this time with a knowing smile.
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