A/N: Hello there! So, to be honest this is complete wish-fulfillment on my part. I was watching the show the other day and realized I really needed an ending in my brain that wouldn't dropkick me in the chest. So, I made my own. It's short, but I figured, why not post. There's some swearing and such, so if that worries you, be warned. I didn't think it was overall bad enough to be an M. Also, there might be some out-of-characterness and there is definitely some messing about with time. But really, can anything but AU be considered happy in this fandom?

Anywho, welcome to my little slice of Westerosi happiness. Thanks so much for reading, review if the desire takes you, and I hope you enjoy! :)


Grey eyes blazing, she turned back when she was halfway to her mother and brother during her ransoming. Not caring if they wouldn't take her seriously, if they saw her as a stupid, young, noble girl, she bit out a promise for every Brother without a Banner to hear, "If they kill him. If you sold him to his death, I will slit your throats. I will watch every last drop of blood leave your bodies and you will know that winter has come for you. No fire or god will save you from me."

Leaving Dondarrion and Thoros silent behind her, she strode to her still waiting but decidedly quieter family members.

Sensing her mood, neither Robb nor Catelyn moved to touch the youngest female Stark as she climbed up onto the rider-less horse they'd brought with them. Nodding for one of his men to step forward with the gold, Robb could only watch as she wheeled her steed about and began to ride away.

He and his mother exchanged a worried glance before doing the same. From the back of his horse, he surveyed his little sister, marveling slightly in the fact that he had gotten both of them back in less than a week. Sansa had been brought back, escaping the Battle of Blackwater Bay months before with the Hound of all people. Their journey to reach the Northern army had been a long one. And Arya…well, there that was. He was about to give one of them away, but that they were back was the most important thought in his mind.

She was different, though. Arya had always been a headstrong child, doing what she wished when she wished it and with whomever she wished. When that involved her sneaking out to have weapons lessons or hiding her hair under a cap and wearing old clothes to spar and play with the peasant children, he'd rather admired it about her. He'd also always remembered a smile lurking beneath the surface, no matter if she was insulting you or threatening you.

That smile was gone. The teasing was gone. The little laugh that sprang up when she threatened harm upon anyone was decidedly gone.

He suddenly wondered what exactly it was his sister had seen. And who was this 'he' she was willing to kill for.

The girl of fourteen at the lead, he allowed his thoughts to overtake her for nearly half an hour into the ride before his mother closed the distance and finally greeted her youngest daughter. Even though she finally smiled, hugged her mother back and answered all manner of questions about her health, he could still see it. Murder and darkness remained in her eyes.


"I…I thought it would be different."

Curled up in front of their tent's fire beneath a large blanket with her sister, Sansa glanced down at the brunette. Though Arya didn't look away from the flames, she knew what she meant. Letting out a sigh, she let her temple rest on the top of her sister's choppy hair, "So did I."

Arya had been returned to them three weeks prior and her restless spirit had failed to settle. Though, if Sansa was telling the truth, neither had her own. It didn't help that Robb had called the both of them into his royal tent that afternoon to sit before him and their mother and tell them that one of them was being given to a Frey. He claimed that he would give whichever one of them he chose at least a month to get used to the idea, but that in order to win the war and take back Winterfell, the alliance had to be consummated… literally.

Sansa was under the distinct impression that the only reason Robb had settled upon Arya was because of the murderous look on Sandor's face. It had been subtle—the Hound's feelings always were—but a wise man could tell when her protector was angry with him.

She wasn't sure which was more terrifying, angry Sandor or angry Arya.

Though they had never gotten along as children, the two sisters had become inseparable after Arya came back. She could only explain it by attributing their new bond to shared trauma, to hurts that ran deep but stayed invisible to all others that they both secretly harbored. They'd been there. They'd both seen it happen, the swing that ended their lives as they knew them. Where they had gone from there had differed, but their souls recognized each other as wounded and blackened and close to breaking.

That bond led them to sitting before the fire in the middle of the night, both already awoken by nightmares, both reaching for the two things that made them feel safe. That explained the dagger clutched in Arya's hand beneath the blanket and the Hound sitting across the room, unabashedly staring at the elder sister, having had his large arms wrapped about her moments before, whispering to his little bird whatever she needed to hear.

After Sansa had declared him the only guard she would tolerate and that nothing Robb did could take him from her, others had stopped commenting on how he was always in the elder sister's company. The cruelty of Joffrey was well-known and none had yet had the courage to bring it up to her. If they were too afraid to ask, then she would not correct them that she kept Sandor around because she'd grown to love and trust him, not because she feared a faraway wretch of a king.

Arya hadn't taken well to his presence at first, but she'd accepted him after a few days for her sister's sake. Initially, she had drawn a sword on him, screaming to all in Robb's tent that he was on her list and she was going to kill him. Not a single soul had doubted her resolve.

Only Sansa stepping in front of him, holding out her hands in a placating manner, had given the younger girl pause. She'd only put down the sword when Sansa begged her to give him a chance, for whatever love she bore her to not take him away from her.

Robb's face pale, Catelyn's narrowed in worry, and nearly every other taken pause at the mouse of a maiden they had thought they knew before her departure for King's Landing. In that moment, the two sisters had seen it in one another: they were not the girls they had been before.

Murderous look remaining in her eyes, Arya had bit out, "Well, your brother is still a cunt and I plan to give him one."

Laughter rising up in his eyes as Lady Stark stepped forward to chastise her daughter for such language, Sandor had inclined his head, "I'll help you with that plan myself, runt, and make us square."

When he had come to silently hold Sansa that night after her trembling nightmares began, Arya had stopped questioning. The look of longing in her eyes, of the loss of someone terribly precious, had been all too clear on her face. Understanding came along with it and she'd promised to not breathe a word to anyone else, for it was not her truth to tell.

The two had come to an increasingly more amiable truce after that.

Whispering despite the silence that allowed her two companions to hear her, Sansa murmured, "I…I always thought that things would be right again after I got back. Once I got away from Joffrey and Cersei and the beatings and the fear, that everything would just go back to the way it was. Even without father, everything would just be fixed. But everything is different. I'm different and Robb and mother don't want to see it. I…I thought they would understand, but…"

"Me, too. I never thought past getting back home. Everything was supposed to be wonderful." Arya was silent for a long while, before stating decisively, "I won't do it. I won't marry a Frey or any other lord Robb picks. I won't marry an anybody, not until I love them and I actually want to be with them. I never was a lady; I'm not going to start now. I won't be sold for a fucking bridge."

His voice rough against the silence of the night, the Hound noted harshly as was his way, "Your kingly brother won't even get the fucking bridge. The Freys haven't forgotten what he did. They'll not take a princess and a lord when they were offered a princess and a king. I wouldn't be surprised if they just killed him and his wife, kept you to make little heirs they can call the King of the North, runt. He might believe he's a man of honor, but that doesn't mean anyone else even tries pretending."

Looking back at him, Sansa nodded, "I thought the same. I told Robb, but he won't see it. He says our uncle is still a good prize for them. That they're too afraid of our forces."

Both Arya and Sandor snorted unkindly. It was sometimes scary how alike their reactions to things had become. Sansa was continually trying to think of ways to bring the both of them out, to release what smiles and happiness they had. The effort kept her from burying her own too deep.

Bringing her hands up and running a finger along the blade of her dagger, Arya shook her head, "A man wronged doesn't care about prizes and forces. He only cares about revenge."

"Don't start being gender-specific about killing and revenge now, runt." Despite her best efforts, his dark humor had the girl laughing.

Looking at the two people who had come to mean the most to her in the entire world, Sansa paused. She had long ago stopped worrying about titles and comfort and the future. They were nice to think of, but they no more kept her alive than made her happy. Home had become a foreign thing to her too before she realized that it was not a place, but people. Home was her family.

Somewhere in the last two years since she had left Winterfell a fourteen-year-old girl waiting to flower so that she might literally wed her charming prince and sitting in a tent with the rain falling outside with her wild, wounded sister and the man with a scar taking up half his face but who still made her heart speed up and ache for him more acutely than any knight in all the Seven Kingdoms, this had become her family.

These were the people who understood her, who loved her, who would let her grow and who would stay to the very last if they could, would never willingly desert her. They were home.

She was not going to let it be taken away. Not by a Frey. Not by her brother. Not by a war. Not by her duty as a fucking lady.

Her father had always lovingly referred to Arya as a she-wolf, but she was just as much a Stark as the rest of them. Arya was a she-wolf, but she was a den mother and she had found her pack. She'd never let them go.

"We'll leave."

The two turned to stare at her with questioning eyes, but she ignored any doubts.

"We'll leave. We'll warn Robb of what we fear will happen and if he still won't listen, we'll leave. He gave you a month, Arya. We can plan an escape in a month."

Leaning forward in his chair, sword across his knees, Sandor questioned gently, "And where would we go, little bird?

"Essos, Braavos, the Reach, Dorne, Seven hells over the Wall if we have to! Anywhere that we'll be safe. I don't care if I'm a lady or a forest wife. I don't care if I have a castle or a damned shack. I don't care if I have to share a room with my stupid little sister for the rest of my life, as long as I am somewhere with the both of you where I don't have to worry about being beaten or sold or used or murdered for my fucking womb!"

Her conviction rang in the air for a long moment until Arya actually smiled. Squeezing her sister's hand, it grew into a full-blown grin, "You might not mind sharing a room with me forever, but I think he might have some objections to that. Pretending I find sitting outside the tent incredibly interesting while the two of you hide in here at various times during the day will only work for so long."

Though a smile was clearly itching to peek through, the Hound pointed his sword at the younger girl, "You shut it, runt."

"Hey, you should be nice to me. My blessing is going to be the only one you get if you don't watch it."

His glare remained in place, but it softened as Sansa began to laugh. It was true enough, because she was going to marry him. Even if he kept repeatedly telling her that he wasn't good enough, that she deserved a lord and all that went along with it. How he only said such things after he'd spent his time kissing her breathless rather retracted from the effect of the words.

"Seven hells, between the two of you I'm going to lose my head…"

Smiling back over her shoulder at him, Arya shook her head, "Only if you anger Sansa. You're part of our pack now, pup. Get used to it."

He seemed singularly pleased at her statement, though he didn't say so aloud. "Some pack we are with a dog, wolf, and a bird. What else do we need?"

Though neither Sansa nor Sandor understood at that moment, Arya breathed out with no hesitation, "A bull. We need a bull."