Disclaimer: some dialogue taken from Lois McMaster Bujold's Barryar as a tribute. I do not own the Vorkosigan Saga or The Song of Ice an Fire, but it would be fun to see Tyrion and Miles meet up and compare notes.
What Sandor's brother did to him as a child makes it impossible for him to believe in songs and stories and real families, until he sees how Lord Stark treats his daughters on the kingsroad. The man's no knight. Not many north of Moat Cailan are, but it's the first time he really notices it, realizes it in his bones.
A family like that he would sell his soul to grow up in. He compares it to the one he serves, and asks himself for the seventy-seventh time if he feels wasted being the sworn shield of that pompous little gobshite Joffery and his witch of a mother.
It'd be different, thinks Sandor, If I could guard Tommen. Could shape any of them.
Sandor suspected he would be counting the days until the other two Baratheon children woke up one day and decided to be thoroughly rotten. So one day, along the road he decided to stop caring, to stop doing anything more than he was commanded to.
After that mess with the Butcher's Boy, the Stark Daughters their direwolves and Prince Joffery, the little shit, Sandor just shakes his head and brings the butcher's boy back alive.
He watches the lies and insults between the two girls, and love between them and their father despite it. He would have killed for that, and as he sees the Queen shooting calculating looks at the three northerners, Sandor realizes he might have to destroy them.
That fact saddens him somehow.
There is little he can do during Stark's takeover and Littlefinger's betrayal. He decides to wait for the plotters to turn on each other. They don't notice him. He's beneath them, too stupid to be a threat to their schemes.
When Barristan is dismissed, Sandor spurns the white cloak. "A dog ain't fit for such finery, Your Grace." he says.
The child-King smirks with the pride of new power, appointing another Kettleblack, basically an empty suit of armor instead. Sandor still stands by his king though, being known as the "Black Eighth" of the Kingsguard, and weighing the daily cost to his battered soul as he watches and performs executions, tortures and mutilations on the King's orders.
He notices how Littlefinger stares at Sansa Stark with hunger in his greedy eyes.
He will always remember the day he makes his choice.
Joffery is bleating loudly about Robb Stark's latest victory, and demands that Sansa be summoned to account for her brother's "witchcraft."
The King has Ser Meryn strike her for impertinence before he commands Sandor to bring her to a quiet part of the walls as he shows her the heads of her father, Septa, and family retainers, spiked one after another.
He sees the King gloating on the walkway, with his back turned to Sansa.
Watches as she gathers herself and steps forward, and he now knows how Jamie Lannister must have felt on the day he murdered Aerys, for he does nothing but smile as the girl shoves, too hard, losing her balance as Joffery falls first, too surprised to scream.
One long stride and he is behind Sansa, holding her cloak and stopping her from going over as well. She turns to look at him, terrified, until he smiles and places a finger to his lips.
"How would you like to go home, little bird."
Sansa's eyes fly over to the tarred head of her father.
They turn to chips of stone, and she nods, her jaw now as firmly set as her little sister's had so often been.
Sandor motions her to stay where she is, walks up behind Ser Meryn standing guard at the door, and stabs him through a small, exposed spot between his helmet and chestplate.
Ser Meryn dies quickly, quietly, and with little blood. Sandor sits him in a chair with a flagon of wine, and his cloak hiding the wound.
He looks over at the older Stark girl and is bemused when she beckons him down the nearby stairs.
"The stables are the other way, girl. We have little time."
"Patience, Ser Sandor, this won't take long, and I have need of your blade." She starts down
the stairs. "And that piece of parchment on the table." She says, pointing at the battle report that so infuriated Joffery.
"I'm no Ser." he says angrily as they reach the bottom of the wall.
She just stares at him with an even, evaluative gaze so similar to her father, "You're a better knight than any of the men at court with the title."
Sandor just snorted, "You don't know me very well then. Some of the things I've done..."
Sansa smiles warmly, "Some of the things you just did, that you're going to do. Your life's not nearly over yet."
The girl produces a half-finished pillowcase from the folds of her dress, embroidered with the Lannister Lion prancing with a Stark Direwolf. Sandor remembers her working on it enthusiastically during their trip along the kingsroad. How silly she must feel holding it now.
She passes it to him. "I'll need his head in here, please."
It seems an appropriate, if ironic container.
Sansa folds the parchment in half before sealing it with wax from Joffery's belt pouch and the heat of a nearby torch, stamping the seal with the King's signet ring while the Hound cuts off Joffery's head.
"Now can we go to the stables?" he asks, passing her the heavier, dripping bag.
She nods, and takes it without a word.
Sandor throws Sansa some ratty squire's clothes and she changes them in a horse stall as he
saddles Stranger and a lively brown mare.
She comes out in boy's clothes, but her hair could still betray her.
"I'm sorry girl, but something's got to be done about your hair."
Sansa looks briefly horrified before glancing at the bag she is holding, and remembering what she ordered.
"Do it then."
With a grimace, a few cuts with the dagger that ended Ser Meryn, and the addition of some lamp oil and mud, and Sandor is staring at a skinny boy with black hair in loose clothes.
It has been twenty minutes and the alarm has not been raised.
That fact and the bluff of the sealed letter are what get them out through the Mud Gate without incident as Sandor silently bemoans the sack of golden Dragons from the Hand's Tourney left in his quarters.
Once out of sight of King's Landing they begin to trot, and Sandor compliments Sansa's horsemanship as he leads them off of the Kingsroad onto smaller, lesser-known paths.
Short weeks later they arrive in the Renly's camp. Thinner and bedraggled, but alive.
In that time, Sansa has learned to set a snare, skin a rabbit, and has a new sworn shield.
Sandor has learned to darn hose, burn his food less and and managed to extract the promise that she will never again address him as "Ser."
He has a fierce sort of pride as they move towards the spot where Renly, Stannis and her mother are treating.
Sansa throws herself into her mother's arms, and requests the privacy of a tent for the lords and ladies to speak in.
"I was shopping on the Street of Silk," she says, glancing at her mother, and speaking as demurely as a woman twice her age,
"As is customary for any good Southron Lady," says Renly. Stannis is silent, and the red woman with him is silent as well.
"Do you wish to see what I bought?" she asks.
"Gods be good Girl, we haven't the time for your fripperies." Stannis rumbles.
Sansa raises an eyebrow, and upends her velvet bag.
The putrified head of King Joffery falls to the camp table with a thud.
"I paid too much for it." She says in the same tone.
Renly sees past her deportment, noting her close-cropped hair and ill-fitting clothes, remembering the women of the North who live alongside their men, fighting Iron Islanders and Wildlings as well as the battle of the birthing bed.
"That too," He replies thoughtfully, in a quiet voice, "Is customary."
The Hound, who has stood like a statue these past minutes nods, and watches the lords.
"This changes things." Stannis says, dark features confused.
Black iron may not bend, but a gate of the stuff may open.
"Indeed it does." Renly says, his eyes narrowing.
Copper may bend, but it can still be sharp enough to kill a man.
He sees Catelyn Stark look on her daughter as if she is seeing her for the first time as she speaks again.
"My lords, I suggest you negotiate with each other and my brother's representative while he still feels reasonable. I fear I am in no fit state to say the same for myself."
Sansa leaves the tent and the Hound follows her out.
Renly glances at Catelyn. "It would appear your daughter has obtained quite the loyal retainer."
Stannis stares pointedly at the head on the table, and then at the entrance to the tent.
"Brave man." He says, as his lips quirk into a brief grin for the first time in decades.
It takes Renly a minute to realize that his humorless older brother has just made a jape, and he waits calmly for the world to end before dissolving into a gale of laughter.
The Red Woman leaves unnoticed, and Catelyn Stark excuses herself to welcome her daughter as the two surviving Baratheon brothers start to mend their quarrel and prepare to win a war.
Together.
-END-
Author's Note: My first Game of Thrones story, and I'll freely admit it was written mostly because the Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark ship squicks me right the hell out.
Leaving aside the creepy age difference, vastly differing personalities and motivations, the only sort of functional relationship I see the two having is one in which him deciding to serve/rescue her as a retainer is a way he can find inner peace and redemption. Not as a segue to creepy sex-related shenanigans.
This story was inspired by Sergeant Bothari in the Vorkosigan Saga, a man who is forced to do terrible things in life until he finds someone deserving of his loyalty. His request at his death is to be buried at the feet of his lady's eventual burial plot, like a good dog.
Here's the quote that inspired it:
"He becomes whatever is required of him. Not a conscious process, I don't think. Piotr expects a loyal retainer, and Bothari plays the part, deadpan as you please. Vorrutyer wanted a monster, and Bothari became his torturer. And victim. I demanded a good soldier, and he became one for me. You . . ." his voice softened, "you are the only person I know who looks at Bothari and sees a hero. So he becomes one for you. He clings to you because you create him a greater man than he ever dreamed of being."
— Aral Vorkosigan to Cordelia about Bothari, Barrayar