DISCLAIMER: Characters etc. belong to George RR Martin. No copyright infringement intended.

SANSA

Sansa followed Tyrion to their bedchamber, wishing that she could just melt into the cold stone floor. The wedding ceremony had seemed to drag on forever and the last thing she wanted was to poke through seventy-seven courses at the feast. But she must, she must, because tonight her Florian was taking her away from this place, taking her home. She stopped and fingered the silver hair net that the Queen of Thorns had just clucked over. That was the other reason she must go to the feast - Margaery had been so kind to her, too kind really, and it wouldn't do to upset the new Queen. Even if Sansa wasn't going to be here much longer.

After dawdling on the steps, by the time she entered the room Tyrion was nearly finished dressing. "I'm going to the kitchens for some wine," he announced. "I mean to be good and drunk at this damned feast. Change your gown and be quick about it." He was gone before she could do anything other than nod in reply.

Shutting the bedchamber door behind her, Sansa heaved a sigh and sat on the edge of her bed to remove her slippers. It was then that she heard a soft click, followed by the rumble of stone against stone. She looked to the door - though she knew that wasn't the sound it made - and when she saw it still closed the taste of fear rose in her throat.

"My lady," someone spoke up from behind her. The voice was breathy and familiar and she turned toward it with relief.

"Lord...Lord Varys?" she enquired, but the rest of her question caught in her throat. It was the eunuch, to be sure, but he wasn't alone - with him was a very large man, robed in black, his head bent as if to hide his face from her.

"Never mind him," Varys said kindly, stepping forward. "My lady, I've come to help you escape."

Escape? she thought. Dontos had told her nothing of those he worked for. Of course she had suspected Varys, but something told her that the eunuch would have admitted first thing that he was here as part of that particular plan. "But...the feast..." she replied weakly.

"Dear, the feast is the last place you should be. There is a plot about to poison the king, and I've heard whispers of hope that you will be blamed, though of course you have no part in it." Varys eyed her shrewdly, but Sansa was so shocked that surely no one could have seen her face and thought she truly was involved.

"Poison...poison Joffrey?" She was confused and scared and a thousand thousand other things she couldn't describe.

"Yes, yes, it's terrible I know..." Varys admitted, but she saw that he stifled a nervous giggle before continuing. "Really, my lady, you must hurry and come with me."

Sansa couldn't help but eye the tall robed stranger as she squeaked, "With you?"

It was if the man could sense her stares. "With us," he rasped, and though Varys tittered nervously and shushed the man, suddenly Sansa was transported to another time when that voice had asked her to go with him. Green fire in the sky and wine on his breath and tears on his cheeks; a stolen kiss...there was suddenly so much that she wanted to say, had to say, but she knew, of course, that there was no time. So she stood.

"Yes."

"Good girl," Varys smiled in relief. He took mincing steps around her bridal bed and threw a cloak over her shoulders. "Come."

"Wait!" she cried suddenly. "I need...my things..."

"There is no time, my lady! Have no fear, I have provided for you-"

Sansa raised a hand to cut off the eunuch's pleas. "No, just...one moment, please..." She fell to her knees and pulled a long slim dress box from under the bed. The robed man scoffed and she cut her eyes at him before prying open the box and removing just three things - a necklace, a present from her mother and father, something given to her in a different lifetime. A prayer book, battered and bent, that had once belonged to poor dead Septa Mordane. And a cloak, burnt and torn and stained with blood, which had kept her safe and warm as the Battle of Blackwater Bay raged around the city. She wrapped the cloak around the necklace and prayer book and stood. "I'm ready."

"You best hold my hand," Varys instructed. "Where we will be going the floors are not smooth and the steps are uneven." Sansa gently placed her thin hand in his plump one, and the eunuch pulled her behind the large standing wardrobe and through a low narrow door. She turned and saw the robed man duck and squeeze through behind her, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

And then the door slid closed and left them in blackness.

"Ah, yes," she heard Varys mutter. He bent, nearly pulling her down with him, and she heard the sound of wood striking stone before a torch flamed bright before her eyes.

"How did you...?" she said in awe.

"A spider never reveals all of his secrets, my lady," the eunuch winked, before turning away and leading her down a claustrophobic passage.

"Lord Varys?" she said after a long moment.

"Yes, dear?"

"Why are you helping me now? I...I thought there was another who would be..."

Varys turned and eyed her briefly, a sad look about his face. "No, my lady." His back was to her again as he sighed and said, "I know you have been meeting Dontos. You may have been careful about your trips to the godswood, but he was a drunk and bumbling fool in every sense of the word. I...I hate to admit that I do not know all of the players involved, but he was certainly one of them. My choice was to help you escape, or leave you to die...and the latter I simply could not do. You are an innocent child."

Sansa started in anger when she heard the man behind her snort, a sound that was half laughter and half anger. Her body tensed with the desire to turn and slap him across his presuming face, but she didn't think it would do to be so ungrateful when she was finally, finally leaving King's Landing for well and all...still, she turned toward him with a retort on the tip of her tongue - but he placed a large, steady hand on her shoulder and growled, "Watch your step, my lady." She felt Varys tug her hand and realized that they were about to descend a set of stairs. Narrow, rough-cut and steep, they disappeared into a black hole that chilled her with its depth.

One, she counted as she took the first step down. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. She made it all the way to one hundred and seventy three before she finally stopped bothering with the number of stairs, and it seemed that she must have taken at least three times that many steps before her feet finally came to rest on a small landing. Her knees trembled with exhaustion as she eyed her surroundings, but there were only three choices - back up the stairs, a path to the right that disappeared into more blackness, and to the left a very small door just big enough to crawl through. She started when she felt Varys remove his hand from hers and place it on her face.

"This is where I leave you, my dear, but you will be safe with our friend here. Won't she?" His question was directed at the robed man, who merely grunted his ascent.

Sansa placed her hand over Varys's and forced herself to smile through her fear. "I will be fine. It can't be much worse than staying here."

"True. True." The eunuch nodded as if to assure himself of his own words, but his eyes never left the other man. "There is a rowboat tied in the mouth of the cave. You know where to go." He finally turned back to Sansa. "Safe travels, my lady."

And just like that he was gone, disappearing down the path to her right and taking the light with him. "Through the door, now," the robed man insisted, and Sansa bent to crawl through it, almost slipping off the narrow ledge on the other side and gasping in fright before the strong hand was there again, holding her safe at first and then nudging her to the left as he squeezed through the doorway as well. "Careful," he warned, and she could hear something like mirth in his voice. This caused her to scowl.

"What's down there?" she forced herself to ask, though the stench rising from below was enough to tell her that deep down she knew what it was.

"Sewers. It's not a far drop, and the water isn't deep, but you don't want to fall in it."

"I wonder why," was her sarcastic response. Her companion chuckled darkly.

"Come, girl." He was walking to their right, and Sansa had no choice but to follow - to the left the cave was blacker than any night had a right to be, but they seemed to be heading toward a soft silvery light...

SANDOR

He stalked the ledge of the cave, not being nearly as careful as he should. The girl had spoken so little, at least to him, and it angered him. Of course he didn't know whether she had recognized him or not...not for sure. There had been a moment, when he first spoke...a flash of something in her eyes...but it had been quickly replaced by grim determination.

Or maybe there hadn't been anything at all. It was possible. He'd not been able to really look at her, or at anything in that room. His anger had been beating inside of him knowing that she shared her quarters, her bed, her body...with the damned Imp. Who, if the stories were true, was even more disfigured than he was nowadays...not to mention that he was half a man to begin with.

Gods only knew how Varys had found him. Since the fight with Beric Dondarrion he'd kept lower than low, though he'd followed those boys without banners (or whatever they called themselves) in hopes of taking back his gold, the chance stop he made at an inn had changed everything. He'd drunk deep and passed out in his cups, wondering how he was to pay for the ale in his belly - when he woke up, there was a heavyset innkeep hovering over him and shoving a letter in his face. "You've been asleep for half a day," she grunted. "I expect m'money for the ale now."

He'd torn the letter from her hand, but it was only addressed to "the Stranger". "How do you know this is for me?"

"No one else here," the woman shrugged, holding out her hand for her coin. Sandor shoved it away from him and tore open the note. He wasn't the best at reading but he caught the general gist - a plot to poison Joffrey that would likely lead to Sansa being implicated.

"You were kind to her at court," the letter said. "But not kind enough. Help me see her to safety."

It was signed by Varys and included a note for payment that Sandor scoffed at. He threw the letter in the fire and shoved the note at the innkeep. "This is all I have to give you. Take it or don't; no matter to me." His hand on the hilt of his sword seemed to convince the woman, and then he was out the door and on his way to King's Landing before he even knew that he'd made the decision to go at all.

The rowboat was there where Varys said it would be, tied to a ring and floating just inside the mouth of the sewer cave. Sandor turned and held his hand out to the girl, but she stopped short and he could almost see her stiffen in fear. "Take my hand. Or don't, but I can't guarantee you won't end up in the water if you go that route," he growled. She looked at him, her eyes wide and pale in the dim light, but finally she placed her hand in his and stepped forward, then down. He laid his free hand on the small of her back to steady her as she sat in the boat, and had to bite his tongue when he felt her shudder at his touch. He swung in neatly beside her, untied the rope and picked up the oars. Within moments the river's swift current was carrying them out to the bay, the blackened ruins of its banks sliding smoothly by in the bright moonlight.

"Wh-where are we going?" the girl whispered.

"Don't talk," he warned. "Sound carries on the water."

It was a warm night but she was shivering. Sandor forced himself not to look at her; if he did he wouldn't be able to quench his desire to smack some sense into her. Here he was risking life and limb to return to King's Landing and save her, yet she didn't even know who he was - and even then she was still afraid of him. He grunted his annoyance and picked up the oars again, putting all of his strength into rowing them toward a tiny dot on the horizon - the smuggler's vessel that would carry them north, though Varys had refused to reveal its exact destination. "Better not say," the eunuch had giggled. "If you're caught, the less you know the better."

Sandor knew Varys was right in that, but it still frustrated him. He had been charged with the girl's safety but knew no details of the eunuch's plan. When he'd asked Varys how long he'd be staying with the girl, the answer had been cryptic at best - "Through the sea voyage, at least. Once you've seen her safely to land again, you may stay with her...or not. That is of your choosing." At this point Varys had eyed Sandor with a look of sad understanding that brought forth a growl of anger. He'd stopped just short of backhanding the sniveling little man and only stopped at all because Varys was more of a woman than a man, really.

It was as if no time at all and yet far too much of it had passed before they finally reached the ship that awaited them. As Sandor pulled the rowboat next to it and shouted for a ladder, the distant sound of pealing bells drifted across the water. The girl turned back to the city with frightened eyes, but he reached forward and took her chin in his hand. "That is not your problem," he told her, as kindly as he could manage. "Now climb that ladder."