Chapter Text
It was after lunch when Sansa heard the unmistakable shuffle of Boros approaching in the common room. Boros leaned over the table and she reluctantly looked up from her drawing. Embroidery wasn't allowed in Red Keep Penitentiary, requiring needles as it did, but one of the other girls had shown her how to use the same idea with paper and the precious colored pencils she'd worked for weeks to purchase with the little money she made for her work details.
"Come with me, Stark", he mumbled, too close. She could smell the eggs he'd eaten for lunch as he loomed over and her stomach turned. She narrowed her eyes at him. Her work detail wasn't for another hour. "Where are we going, ser?" she asked evenly. "Warden wants to see you." Ugh. Nothing good ever came of seeing Warden Baratheon. She briefly closed her eyes in dread before schooling her face into her mask, and gathering her pencils. She often thought of how odd it was that pencils were allowed, hard and sharp as they were, but this unit permitted some strange things while banning other seemingly innocuous ones.
Sansa followed Boros towards the hall that led to the offices and obediently waited while he unlocked the door. "Left," he muttered. "The wardens office is straight ahead, ser," she said as she paused in the dim light, heart suddenly pounding as he roughly shoved her towards the side hall. "Wants to see you in a room down here". She had no rights or freedom of choice anymore, of course, so swallowed and headed down the dim hall, Boros a step behind. "This door on the right," he said lowly. She stopped walking and tried to control her breathing. How could she have forgotten Gilly's shaking frame after she stumbled into their block last month, refusing to say anything but a warning to not go alone with the guards to the office block? But what could she do now, a convicted prisoner, alone in an empty hallway, with this awful man? She started to turn, calculating the distance to the main hallway, thinking she could drop to the floor and maybe duck under his arms, before he grabbed her, slow as he was. The door back to the common room would be locked, but maybe she could run towards the warden's actual office and the guard's locker rooms, where one of the more decent guards might be. Boros sneered, and
"Boros!" Brienne's voice bellowed from the hall around the corner. He roughly grabbed her elbow and pulled her towards the other guard's voice with a huff. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be watching the yard," Brienne said sharply as she came into view, glanced at Sansa and slightly nodded. Relief flowed through her even as he dug his fingers into her arm.
"Taking this one to the warden's office" he lied. "Just following orders."
"We'll see. Go back to your post. I'll take Miss Stark from here." He paused for a moment, and Sansa thought he might refuse, but then he seemed to remember that Brienne did technically outrank him. He twisted Sansa's arm a bit as he roughly let go, mumbling to himself as he waddled past them.
Sansa breathed out shakily, rubbing her sore arm. "Thank you, Brienne, I don't..."
"Gilly came up to me when she saw you leave with him, thought I'd make sure...well..."
"Yes. Thank you again". Sansa knew that Brienne had little power here, and none, really, with the Warden and his crooked guards, besides her rank, but did what she could to look out for her charges. She had told Margie that after marrying her wealthy husband, Jaime, who happened to be Margie's late husband's uncle, that she technically didn't have to work anymore, but didn't feel right leaving the women alone, at least until the pending corruption and abuse allegations were settled and hopefully a new Warden and guards hired.
"So the Warden didn't really want to see me?" Sansa asked, thinking she might as well make sure she wasn't going to get Brienne into trouble.
"No. He's out today."
Sansa shook her head and sighed. Brienne smiled a bit and gestured to come with her back to the relative safety of the rest of the imprisoned women. Most were in for trumped up charges of one kind or another, for pissing off the wrong official, with only a handful among them so-called violent offenders. And almost all of those few were jailed for acts against a husband or boyfriend, Sansa and her cellmate Margie included. Husband killers. Boyfriend bashers. Fatal fiancées.
"I wanted to tell you today anyway, Sansa, I have good news. Jaime and I found you a lawyer for your appeal."