Sansa/Willas partners in dance class AU :D
Sansa begins to panic when the music starts and Will still hasn't arrived. He hadn't come to pick her up, which had worried her, but she'd assumed he was just running late.
"Hey, sweetheart," Ellaria says brightly, "looks like we've both been stood up, hm?"
Will, Sansa knows, knows Oberyn only slightly, but they seem to have hit it off, and it's no chore for Sansa to spend time with Ellaria. She likes the older woman, because she's clever and funny and daring in a way Sansa doesn't have the guts to be, and Sansa admires her for that. She likes dancing with Oberyn sometimes, too, when they're told to find a different partner, because she doesn't know anyone else and she feels safe with Oberyn, because Will trusts him.
"It's not like either of them to be late," Sansa says, looping her arm through Ellaria's and huddling close. "You don't think anything is wrong, do you?"
She winces as the instructors shoot them a look for talking while they are - the twins are terrifying, even if Oberyn and Ellaria and Will all seem to find something about them funny that Sansa doesn't quite catch - and tugs Ellaria out of the ballroom, into the corridor.
"It's not like them to be late," she says again, biting her lip. "Will was supposed to pick me up before class, he always does - do you think maybe they got called away on an emergency?"
"Could've been," Ellaria says, shrugging. "It's happened before - Oberyn and me did a salsa class last year, and he missed half the lessons because he kept getting called out. It happens, sweetheart, you get used to it when you're a doctor's girl."
Sansa's not used to it, not like Ellaria is, and part of her isn't even sure she is Will's girl, even though they've been dating for nearly a year now, because neither of them has introduced the other to their parents because, well, he is a lot older than her, and they both know that their families aren't exactly going to be pleased about that.
"I'll call Doran," Ellaria offers. "He might've heard something - Oberyn was going to drop by and see him before coming here."
Sansa sits down by the potted plant, hoping the carpet doesn't stain her skirt, and watches Ellaria feed coins into the payphone by the door - she always forgets her own phone, it's a running joke by now.
She doesn't listen to Ellaria's conversation with Oberyn's brother - she listens to the music bleeding out from the ballroom instead, and it calms her down enough that she stops fretting about how she's going to get home if Will can't pick her up. She doesn't have enough money on her for a taxi, and she doesn't want to get the bus at this hour of the night, so-
"Come on, Sansa," Ellaria says, taking her hands and tugging her to her feet. "We have to get to the hospital right away - seems the boys were in an accident this afternoon, and nobody thought to call either of us."
When they reach the hospital, the Martells grab Ellaria and drag her away before Sansa can even think to say she hopes Oberyn isn't too badly hurt - his nephews were waiting in the lobby - and that leaves her wondering what to do now. Will's family don't even know about them, so is she supposed to just go home? Act as if nothing's wrong?
"I'm sorry, are you Sansa?"
She looks up then (when had she sat down and put her head between her knees?) and nearly jumps out of her skin, because if the man standing over her wasn't blonde and his eyes weren't blue he could be Will's twin.
"I'm Will's uncle, Humfrey," he says, offering her his hand. "He asked me to keep an eye out for you."
She doesn't say a word to Will's uncle, terrified that he disapproves, but she lets him lead her up three flights of stairs to the intensive care unit and down a long bleached corridor to Will's room.
A room full up with Tyrells. Sansa feels like she's going to throw up when they all turn to look at her in askance, but instead she clears her throat and tries to smile.
"This is Will's girl," Humfrey says, pulling the man sitting on the chair by the head of the bed to his feet and ushering Sansa into it - Garlan, Sansa thinks, that must be Will's little brother, the older one - and then standing between her and the rest of the family. "Her name is Sansa."
She doesn't bother to fret much more over them, because Will looks like hell.
His leg is in a cast right up to his hip, almost, and that mercifully seems to be the worst of it, but his lovely face is a mass of cuts and bruises, and his arm - on the left, the same side as his hurt leg - is wrapped up against his chest in lots of bandages, and there are lots of bandages around his chest, too, like the time Robb cracked four ribs and had to be bandaged up for ages.
She wipes away the tears she thinks are about to spill over before anyone can see them. She's so afraid for Will that she doesn't care that his family are probably wondering who the hell she even is, but she does care that they might cause trouble, so she doesn't dare take his hand.
"How long have you and Willas been seeing one another?" a woman with Will's eyes and silver hair - his mother, Alerie, that's her name - asks, looking hurt and confused but nowhere near as angry as Sansa feared they all might be.
"Eleven months," she manages to force out past the lump in her throat. "We... Eleven months. But we've known one another longer than that. My aunt is a doctor at the hospital."
And even Lysa doesn't know about Sansa and Will, and she'd likely be twice as worried as anyone else because she knows what it's like to be in a relationship where one is so much older than the other, even if eleven years is a lot less than thirty-two.
"Will he be asleep for much longer?" she asks, not quite daring to meet any of their eyes. "I- What time was the accident? What happened?"
"Him and Oberyn Martell were coming back from town, a lorry ran a red light and hit them," Will's father says, folding his arms and tucking his chin to his chest just like Will does. "Willas took the brunt of the collision."
"His leg is pretty badly busted up," Garlan offers, "and he's got some cracked ribs and his arm is wrecked, but the CT came back clear, so the docs think his noodle's okay."
She nods, bites her lip to keep from crying, and nods again.
"Sansa," Mrs. Tyrell says quietly, leaning across from her chair on the other side of the bed, "would you mind me asking how old you are?"
She blushes, because they're all looking at her now, as if only just realising that she's quite clearly younger than Will.
"Twenty-four next month," she admits, and nearly winces at the surprise on Will's mother's face.
"You're very young to be thinking about marriage, in this day and age," Mr. Tyrell says, and now it's Sansa's turn to be surprised.
"I- I wasn't aware that I was," she says, looking from Mr. Tyrell to Mrs. Tyrell and back. "Why- I- why would you think...?"
She takes the tiny box Mrs. Tyrell hands her without saying a word, and she doesn't dare open it.
So it's my fault he's hurt like this, she thinks, and then she does cry.