DISCLAIMER: Characters etc. belong to George RR Martin; I'm just having some fun and expect nothing out of this other than my own amusement at placing my favorite ship exactly where I want them.

Phew. I originally started this before I ever thought up my first long SanSan fic (An Opportune Escape). In fact I started it as a semi-AU/semi-FutureFic. It is still the latter, but because it does involve a storyline that many others have taken up I wanted to try to make it a bit…different. So there is some information that may be not truly canon (okay, probably simply isn't canon, heh), as I wanted to play [mostly] with the characters and [a little bit] with the setting despite this being an oft-repeated futurefic storyline. Please don't hate me for it? :) I suppose I'd describe this as fluffy, at least what I've written so far, and possibly also sort of crack!fic.

ALAYNE

She wrapped her cloak tight about her shoulders and steeled herself. Though it was much warmer here at the Gates of Moon, winter was still in the air. Winter is coming, she thought automatically, but quickly pushed those words out of her head. Those were another girl's words, a highborn girl with red hair. An orphan girl. "Dear Father, could I have a moment?"

"Yes, Alayne?" Lord Petyr looked up at her, obviously exasperated, his emphasis on her name pointed, harsh.

As if I often bother you, Alayne thought. In truth, the more time she spent in the Vale the more she also attempted to avoid her father. His unwanted kisses were rare enough, she supposed, and maybe also something of a tax for his rescuing her...but then she caught him lookingat her sometimes, and remembered him saying "Only Cat", and then a shiver would run down her spine...

"Alayne? Did you need something?"

"I - I'm sorry, father. I was distracted..."

"Obviously."

Alayne armed herself against Lord Petyr's sarcasm. "Father...I was hoping I might...be able to go into the valley. To ride a bit, to get some fresh air before it snows again."

"Alayne...you know that would not be wise. It is not safe to wander in these times...it is especiallynot safe for you to do so."

"Father, I promise not to wander far. I will even take Mya with me, if it pleases you."

Lord Petyr leaned back and eyed her warily, but she could tell that he was thinking. It seemed hours before he finally shrugged and leaned back over his letters. "Fine. I will be leaving the Vale in two days' time - I have business to attend to in the Riverlands, before it becomes even more treacherous to travel. You may ride with me the morning I leave. Mya willattend you, and I will be sure to send someone to collect you before dinner."

"Yes, Father, yes, thank you!" Alayne cried, rushing forward and kissing him on the head. She turned to leave and he grabbed hold of her wrist, pulling her into his lap.

"You'll be a good girl, then?" he whispered, tracing her jawline with his fingertip. She did her best to not shudder, knowing that if she did it likely mean the end of her day of riding. She had never enjoyed being on horseback before, but just now it seemed like the last freedom she was like to have for quite some time.

"Of course," she said fiercely. "I may be naive, Father, but I am not stupid."

"Thanks to me," Lord Petyr grimaced. He pushed her off his lap and shooed her away with a wave of his hand. "Now leave me, before I change my mind."

Alayne forced herself to curtsy politely before she left the room, but once she was out of sight and earshot she practically ran to her chambers. She had been stuck up in the Eyrie for so long, and then here at the Gates of Moon under her father's constant watch. She blamed the fact that she rarely slept well on her restlessness, but really it was the dreams that kept her awake at night. Dreams...or nightmares. She'd long ago lost touch with which they were. More often than not she dreamed of King's Landing and the Battle of Blackwater Bay...and the Hound.

How many times had she asked herself, Why didn't I go with him? She knew why she hadn't immediately said yes - his drunkenness and his hideously scarred face had frightened her, of course. But then she sang to him, and he cried, and she thought that if she touched him she wouldn't have to say the words...

She'd been wrong. He'd gone then, and left only his cape behind. His cape...and the memory of his kiss. And the more time that passed, the more she thought of him, of that night, that kiss, that invitation. She'd long ago forgotten why he'd frightened her so, long ago stopped seeing his scars as something ugly. Joffrey had been a monster...Tyrion had been kind to her, but he was half a man...Harry was supposedly handsome, but he was also lecherous, if the stories she heard were true. The Hound may have been scarred, but he was tall and muscular - he had a build even the best knights would envy. He would have been able to protect her, and in his own way he had even almost been kind to her at times.

And so she dreamed of him. She dreamed of him more and more lately, in fact - often while she was sharing a bed with Randa. The other young lady had dragged it from Alayne that she had been kissed once; ever since that admission Randa had felt it necessary to instruct Alayne in regards to men and to the making of love. Though at first Randa's stories and advice had made Alayne blush and stutter, as of late she had found herself listening intently, even asking questions, and filing the information away. If you are to be a bastard, best know the things a bastard would know, she told herself, but deep down there was also a part of her that was curious about these things. And that curiosity had to be a large part of why her dreams of late had featured more than her memories of wildfire on the Blackwater and the Hound's lips on hers; rather, the Hound in these new dreams went much farther than a kiss and she would wake with an aching and a wetness between her thighs...

Alayne pushed all of them - Littlefinger, Tyrion, Joffrey, Randa, and the Hound, the Hound, above all the Hound - from her mind. She had something to look forward to now; there was no use in looking back, looking into the life of the girl she was no longer supposed to be.

As the small group - Lord Petyr, Lothor Brune, a small contingent of guards and of course, Mya - made their way from the Gates of the Moon, Alayne tipped her head back and drank in the bright, almost warm sunlight - the same sunlight that had lit the Eyrie during the day, yet it was so thin and weak up there. She liked the sun, the smell of the grass and trees, even the feel of the shaggy mountain pony between her legs. Or at least she told herself she did. But this wasn't true freedom. She could only ride so far, and soon one of Lord Petyr's men would return to bring her...home. The word felt bitter on her tongue, even as she tried to make it sweet. This is not your home, a little voice reminded her - constantly.

Her reverie was broken when she heard her father instructing Mya to keep an eye on his daughter. Brune was watching the dark-haired, blue-eyed girl, and Alayne thought he almost looked to be blushing when he said his own farewells. "Don't let that wild little pony run off with you," Lord Petyr joked, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling. Mya snorted - Alayne was already not exactly thought to be forward or brave, especially when riding - but Alayne herself noticed that Petyr's eyes were not twinkling. It was a false jape, what he said, but she smiled prettily, just as she was supposed to do.

"Of course not, father. Safe travels yourself, and I hope to see you return soon," she said.

"Very soon, I think, daughter. Now go have your fun but do not ride too far - someone will come for you before dusk, remember."

Alayne nodded obediently. She and Mya watched the men ride off toward the Bloody Gate, just barely visible in the distance. As soon as they were out of sight, the other girl grinned wickedly.

"Speak for yourself about being careful and not riding far," Mya said. "If it's all right with you, I'm going to have myself a good run. This may be the last time I get to do so." Alayne rolled her eyes, but inside she thrilled a bit at the idea of being alone.

"Of course, do not worry about me. Meet back here later, I suppose?" she suggested.

Mya nodded. "Just don't let it get back to your father that I left you by yourself. I've never met a man so concerned with his bastard daughter's whereabouts." The corner of her mouth twitched a bit, but Alayne did not take Mya's comments personally. Mya was a bastard herself and no father had ever come asking after her; it was only natural that she should be amused at Lord Petyr's obvious interest in his own bastard daughter. She nodded and Mya whipped her own pony around and galloped off. For her own part, Alayne was content to let her own mount trundle around at its own will. The animal apparently did not care to wander far - neither back toward the Gates of the Moon nor closer to the Bloody Gate. Eventually she let the reins go slack and tilted her head back again, wondering when the skies would go grey for good and how long winter would last.

Suddenly there was a rustle in a grove of trees nearby and her pony started, snorting wildly. Alaynes heart was in her throat but she found herself thinking, You are a wolf! Be brave!as she dismounted and tried to calm the animal. "M...Mya? Is that you?" she called, her voice thin and pinched. There was another rustle behind her and she clenched the reins in her fear, forcing herself to breathe, breathe, breathe.

And then a gruff voice said, "Little bird," and Alayne turned to see a ghost, or what must be a ghost because she'd been told of the Hound's death and yet here he was in front of her - more gaunt than she remembered, no longer clothed in the plain yet fine raiment he'd worn in King's Landing and before - but the Hound nonetheless.

Alayne fainted.

There were flashes of memory, and some of it was Sansa's and some of it was not. She saw the Hound enter Winterfell and felt herself draw back from his hideous visage, and then she saw herself through his eyes, eyes that took her in appraisingly...but then he balked at her revulsion and the scene changed...

This time she was watching him return from hunting down the butcher's boy on the kingsroad journey and wanting to scream at the needless violence that had been done to the innocent child...but then she was in his head and chasing Mycah down and it was not he who murdered the boy, but some unknown and unimportant Lannister rider. "What have you done?" the Hound exclaimed angrily. "Idiot! Lord Eddard will make sure you lose your head for this!"

"Cersei commanded us to take him," the man shrugged, his mean little eyes gleaming.

"Go," the Hound growled. "I'll parade him through camp and then I'm taking the body to his father. He deserves to know what happened to his son."

"If you take the glory, you take the blame too," the other scoffed.

"So be it."

And then the memories of King's Landing flew by; his gallant rescue of Ser Loras in the tournament, his kindess to her, his refusal to beat her the way Joffrey's other men did. And that night in her tower room when she sang for him, and she was in her body, singing and frightened, and then in his, angry and drunk. She sang, and he cried, and he removed his blade, tore off his cloak and left her.

The truth of the matter slammed into her like a battering ram - he'd never kissed her. She'd felt what he felt as he looked at her - lust beyond all imagining, then pity, frustration, and finally sadness. He'd known she wouldn't want to kiss him, so he hadn't kissed her at all.

When Sansa awoke, she was laying in a small clearing surrounded by brush and saplings. She wasn't hurt, that much she knew, and her head was resting on a lumpy bag. She sat up slowly and there he was - the Hound, herHound, leaning against a nearby tree and watching her intently. "How long..." she began to ask, when she noticed how dim the light was as it seeped through the canopy overhead.

"An hour. Maybe two," he shrugged. "You...you were dreaming."

Sansa cocked her head. "Something like that," she admitted. "Did I...did I say anything?"

The Hound looked away from her, which was unusual - in the past he had nearly always looked her straight in the eye, and while that had always frightened Sansa it also told her that he was being honest. This time, when he replied, "Nothing of import," she knew he was lying.

"Tell me."

He moved restlessly. "You cried out a name. Mycah. You whispered some of the Mother's song. And then you said, 'kiss me'."

"I said that?" He nodded, and Sansa blushed fiercely.

"Who is Mycah?" the Hound finally asked, still avoiding her gaze.

Sansa was confused. There was something in his tone that she was sure she'd never heard before, especially not from him. In fact, not from any man, though she had heard it from her Aunt Lysa when Lord Petyr was caught kissing her, and she'd seen it in her lady mother's eyes when she looked on Jon Snow, her father's bastard son.

Jealousy.

"Why, Mycah was the butcher's boy. On the kingsroad? The one you - the one who was killed by one of Cersei's men."

The Hound looked at her then, finally, and now he was the one who was confused. He shook his head and she could tell that he thought he'd misheard; she decided to drop that subject. "What are you doing here?" she inquired, tucking her legs underneath her and settling in for his story.

But the Hound was a man of few words, and his response was simply, "I've come for you."

Sansa knew she should be frightened, but suddenly she felt safer than she had in a very, very long time.