S8E1 "Winterfell" brought us many reunions; all but one. Hopefully, we'll get to see it at some point further into the season, but until then, here is mine.

Carrying herself tall and straight in her intricately embellished winter robes, Sansa Stark neither stops nor shifts when the imposing figure, leather-clad and shadowy, emerges from a parapet. The Lady of Winterfell's ice blue eyes remain coolly adrift as her course along the rampart takes her ever nearer to the deserter Kingsguard sworn shield. In drawing near to pass, Sansa makes allowances for the most reserved of acknowledgments, "Clegane," and continues on.

The thick-browed, massive combatant turns after her, his heavy raspy voice forged with cynicism, "Oh, so it's 'Clegane' now. You used to call me 'Ser.'"

"You're not a knight," she answers starkly. With dispassion, the beauty turns then to face him. "You always took such trouble to tell me."

A wry, indiscernible glint sparks somewhere behind those clear, fathomless russet eyes of his. "The little bird's sharpened her talons."

"I was never a bird." Her retort is flat and impassive. Sansa Stark turns to walk away.

"She-wolf then," he retorts. "'Lady Stark of Winterfell.' Or is it 'Lady Bolton'? Or 'Lady Imp Lannister'?" Sansa stops. Fractionally she turns back. His watchful eyes never leave her. "They say it was you who out-strategized that bastard Ramsay. Say th' Battle o' th' Bastards was all but lost; your brother and his wildling friends left to drown in their own shit and entrails if it weren't for Lady Stark." Ever stoic, Sansa blinks; her long auburn lashes betraying the temperance of her porcelain features. Credit for what she'd done had been minimal, overshadowed by the outcome. Overshadowed, no doubt, by her skirts and the heroic resurgence of the reborn former commander of the Night's Watch and newly declared King in the North. It is always said that 'The North Remembers', but she wonders if in years to come the ballads will sing her part. If there are still songs to sing. If there are still years to come. "You're a killer, now," he tells her brusquely. "Every bit as much as that bitch sister of yours with her 'needle'." The line Sansa's lips create across her inscrutable face tightens. "You smartened up."

"It was you," she speaks gradually, his eyes fixing on hers, "who told me to get used to looking at killers."

Sandor Clegane stops. He looks at her, this pretty ginger-haired girl he'd thought of more than once. The girl he'd rescued more than once. The girl who'd only ever seen him as a dog at the foot of an inbred bastard cunt. The years had changed her. No doubt time spent with the Lannisters, Boltons, and that preening whoremonger Littlefinger had changed her. She'd needed to get harder, to wisen up about the world and the men who rule it. To look at her now it's clear she has. He doesn't mourn the transformation, save for the absent songbird lilt in her girlish voice when long ago she would 'Ser' and 'My Lord' him with that wide-eyed coquettishness of hers. No girl other than she would ever have dared to treat him so prettily, nevermind she'd been afraid. He remembers viscerally the way her waifish body, not yet thick at hips or breast, would tremble next to his. But this beauty — stoney and cold like the frozen tundra of her homeland — is no longer a girl. She is a woman grown, twice married. And though her blue quartz eyes are not so wide as once they were in her girlhood, they are open; seeing this world for what it is. Awful. And filled to the hilt with killers and the dying. She sees the world, and she sees him. And this time, the burnt and broken man detects no flinching at the site of his molten scars. Perhaps, he thinks, she likely now has scars of her own. His chest pangs. He longs to once more feel her body trembling next to his.

"Killers enough here," he rumbles in his rough and grizzled baritone, pulling his attention away from her. "The whole ballless horse-fucking lot of 'em."

Sansa, not in the least fazed by the coarseness of his words, turns from him and looks beyond the battlements to the sprawling acres of encampments. "Too many to feed; not enough to fight."

"Enough to die."

Sansa looks to him. "You've seen them. The White Walkers, their army."

"Aye. I have."

"But you stayed. Though you're not a Northerner."

"No, I'm no Northerner, but I am flesh and breathing."

Sansa lets her gaze fall away. "I heard what you did."

When Sandor Clegane next speaks it is on a new tenor, gruffly burking any admiration she'd meant. "And when that fight comes," he posits, "and if Winterfell stands, and Lady of Winterfell with it — what then? Marry another high-born and whelp a litter of pawing pups?" Once more he looks at her, speaking again before she has the chance. "Course, you must know by now there's nothing in being 'high-born'. Nothing in being a knight, or any of the rest of it in your old faerie songs. All of us nothing more than animals. Your first husband was a monkey, your second a raptor. What, I wonder, will be your third." His brow furrows. "You won't be a Stark."

"I am a Stark," she answers soundly. "The She-Bear retained her family name."

The fighter laughs caustically. "An' that's what you are? 'She-Wolf of House Stark'? Surviving the war against th' dead only to barrel out babes to another worthless husband."

Sansa stares him down. He awaits her rejoinder but the lady swallows what was on her tongue. "I will do my duty."

"'Duty'?" he mocks. "T'was 'duty' that kept you tethered to that Baratheon twat."

"Joffrey wasn't a Baratheon."

"He was a fucking twat. And anyways he's dead now." Below them, the bailey bustles with preparations. "Some say it was you."

"It wasn't," she answers coolly.

"Wager it was a pretty sight. They say at the end he was purple as a Targaryen's eyes."

"It wasn't pretty," she answers plainly. "It was awful." She hasn't said this as though the 'awful' had been unpleasant, or unwelcome. Sandor Clegane smirks. Sansa remains in place, silent — unmoved and unyielding.

In time, and not until he's shifted to take his leave, Sansa breaks her reverie. Behind him, now that he'd turned to part, her eyes have no way of finding his. "Ser," Lady Sansa of Winterfell speaks softly. In the tender echo of her young voice, the man of solid muscle flinches in spite of himself. "Perhaps—" she continues. "Perhaps I should have left with you. During the Blackwater."

"You survived," he remarks in his coarse and gnarled grunt.

"I did," she affirms, her inflection reclaiming its wintery frigidity.

"I would have protected you."

Sansa nods. "I know."

Feeling too raw, the towering man obfuscates and self-deprecates. "A dog has no call to break its word."

"... I've seen a dog turn," she answers back, her eyes never straying from their fixed point on the horizon. "Several. And you're no dog. Not anymore."

For want of occupation, his mighty gloved hand mindlessly finds the hilt of his nameless longsword. "You've got your pack now. House Stark and your direwolves. No need for a hound."

"Hounds can be ruthless," Sansa counters. "We'll need ruthless, if the North and the living are to win. If any of us are to survive." Tiny flurries of snow begin to fall, melting under the touch of their breath, or the heat of their skin. "Dogs," she speaks, "are not so very unlike wolves."

I wanted to definitely see them together again and wanted to see if I could lay the groundwork for the possibility of an eventual pairing. I don't know if I got there. I would so welcome feedback for what to strengthen or rework, or if, in the end, it ended up working out. Thank you! 3