A Face in the Flames

by PaintedViolin

Alternatively Subtitled: Kissed and Cursed By Fire. The fire took half of his face, leaving him thirsty for the chance to repay the favor but she is persistent in preventing him from conquering his last enemy, knowing what the outcome would mean...Full summary in 1st chapter. M for gore, violence, language, and everything that makes GOT the way it is.

1. Chapter 1: The Hound That Bites

Summary: The greatest army of the undead has fallen and the only enemy that remains is the one in King's Landing. His only purpose was to live to die later until his little bird sang her songs again to make him stay away from that which would surely end him and he kindled hope that there might be a victory yet to be won, but even she cannot quench that thirst that has left him dry since the fire took half of his face./She has seen the desire in his eyes that she did not understand as a child, but she cannot give herself to any man after how she had been broken before./He is the survivor that should not have been, thrice saved from death to return to his queen but sent to serve a greater purpose with a lesser man. Sandor, Sansa, and Jorah POV

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|Author's Notes/Disclaimer: With only one more episode to go ever of Game of Thrones airing in less than twenty-four hours, I'm finally, finally mustering up the courage to start a story. It's only taken me eight years after I first picked up A Game of Thrones and decided to read it. And after SPOILER…the death of two of my favorite characters who made it through eight grueling seasons only to die here at the end, I need a major pick me up in the form of blissful fanfiction so let's give it a whirl, see where we land. Rated M for the obvious adult content that Game of Thrones is infamous for. Takes place during and after the Battle of Winterfell with some deviance from TV canon as to how the battle played out and who survived. Also, a certain ship between two characters had sailed, following both the look of the show and the subtle clues of the books, as evident in the story summary, so if you don't like it, you're welcome to get off.|

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SANDOR

His last night in this world should have been spent looking for her, seeking her out and demanding another song, stealing another kiss, and then fucking her into the floor but instead he had spent it drinking with her sister and a damned living miracle several times resurrected. After they had left him to his own devices, his thoughts returned to the Lady of Winterfell, the woman who had once been a child before him. She hadn't even noticed him upon his return with the Dragon Queen and Jon Snow. Perhaps she chose not to, or simply was otherwise preoccupied with the dead on the way to the castle. What was a reunion between old acquaintances when the army of undead was hours away, bringing the worst of winter and the Long Night with them?

Her indifference or obliviousness toward him did not prevent him from imagining all the ways in which he could take her. He had cursed himself for thinking such things of a child, for wanting to enjoy a child but he had banished those self-chastising words when he convinced himself that by the time he had actually pleasured himself to the image of her, she would have been a woman, six-and-ten years at best. Yes, by the time he had thought to touch himself by conjuring her likeness she would have been a woman grown and so his desire was not so damnable. And now she certainly was a woman, deflowered in the worst way, the way he had tried to protect her from in King's Landing.

If anything, it only made his want for her stronger now that she was obtainable in a woman's body and he had gone onto the battlefield sulking that he never got the chance to touch that body the way he wanted.

With his insides warmed by the amount of wine he had consumed while on his watch, he was starting to feel both nauseated and terrified as the realization hit him like an anvil to the head that he was going to die, not by a man's sword, not in any humane way, but by an onslaught of unliving bodies. Facing but a portion of the army beyond the Wall, he had considered throwing himself into the frozen lake to drown rather than be ripped apart and stabbed endlessly as they threatened to overwhelm the small retrieval party. In the pale dawn, he could see his enemies coming for him but this night, he could see nothing beyond the catapults facing away on the northern side of the castle. He had never had cause to fear the dark before, for it meant the absence of fire and he had known that only men or animals could come from the darkness to kill him but here, he could see nothing and the dead lurked just beyond.

The horn had sounded as the scouts declared the dead within sight of the castle and he had risen from his place on the battlements with half a mind to flee, grab a Dothraki horse and make a run for it, far from the North. The thought passed and he took up his dragonglass axe, joining the masses of wildlings and Northerners who would make up the right flank. No one had assigned him that position; he took it up on his own. Standing to attention on the field, he stared at a wall of horse's arses, as the Dothraki were positioned at the front line. Dondarrion, the lad Gendry, Tormund Giantsbane, and the remainder of the Night's Watch stood beside him, all of them as unsettled as he.

The night was eerily quiet, silenced by the snowfall that came without wind. Never had it been so cold as this night, not even on the frozen lake as they had all stood shivering and waiting for an absolution that they were sure would not come. If he had not downed over half of his wineskin, he would have been shivering, but it kept his insides boiling now even though his fingers were going numb at the tips in anticipation of what would surely be his last fight. He flexed them to bring some feeling back into them and Dondarrion took his fidgeting for nervousness.

"Steady, Clegane," he had said.

It was all well and good for him to say so calmly; he had died several times over as a pastime.

Somewhere on the wall, the Lady of Winterfell was watching and Sandor had tried to pick her out among the many faces between the parapets but it was impossible from this distance with so little lighting.

As tall of a man he was, he could not see over the horses and so when the Red Woman had approached the Dothraki horde from the northwest, he only knew that something had drawn their attention far off to the left. Then their arakhs took on the flame, sweeping through them in a tidal wave of fire that gave off enough heat for Sandor to feel standing several lengths behind them. He had taken a step back, an act that did not go unnoticed by Dondarrion who had said yet again, "Steady."

"If you tell me to be steady one more fucking time, I'll push you out in front of me when the dead come," he had snapped.

The Dothraki had charged toward the distance sound of rattling breath and inhuman snarls with their flaming weapons creating a light as strong as the sunrise on the plains. Some all at once, some one by one went out as they collided with an unseen force but for the first time, Sandor was not comforted by the disappearance of fire. They were all but wiped out and it took no master of genius to come to that conclusion, meaning that the next in line to face the dead were the Unsullied and the two flanks.

Lone horses came stampeding back toward the castle, some with their masters still atop their saddles but most were riderless. Ser Jorah Mormont was among the survivors, already bloodied and looking grim at the outcome of their charge. He and Sandor had a silent exchange which told Sandor to prepare for the worst.

As if he could have expected anything else.

They were coming in fast, their guttural noises deafening after the silence that preceded them. Someone called out to stand firm and the Unsullied dropped into fighting stance as one uniform being.

"Shields up, pikes in front!" shouted Dondarrion and those who had shields closed in front of those who didn't, locking their shields together to form a defense and sticking their lances between the intentional gaps.

Sandor hefted his axe high, aware of every thud of his heart madly trying to escape his chest.

Dondarrion touched his arm. His mouth formed the word: steady. This time, Sandor heeded him.

The former knight's sword came alive with flame, illuminating the line of wights crashing in on them. The front fighters were massacred on impact and the recovery line went down seconds later. Sandor could only swing and cut through anything that moved with no victory in any of his kills, for every wight he felled, a hundred took its place. He battled until his limbs cried out for mercy, his lungs sobbed for air and even then, he kept swinging, for it was death to stop.

Even with the Dragon Queen and Jon Snow burning through the dead, they were outnumbered and losing dozens of fighters every second so that by the time they sounded the retreat to fall behind the trenches, almost half of their forces had been lost. The dead clawed their way through the blockade as if it didn't exist, impaling themselves and continuing on, impervious to the sharpened staves. The signal to light the trenches and hold their enemy at bay was not received by the Dragon Queen who had taken flight high above and not come back down. With the wights coming in too quickly to chance opening the gate so as to salvage some of the fighters, Sandor found himself backed against the barred gate with the wildling chieftain on his left and Jorah Mormont on his right with Dondarrion and the boy Gendry completing the line. Tormund's nose was clearly broken Mormont had been cut badly across the cheek, Gendry had lost half of one ear, and Dondarrion was three fingers down on his left hand, but they fought as madly as they had on the frozen lake, the survivors who had first borne witness to the dead army. They had not died then but were surely about to meet any existing gods now.

Sandor blocked a thrust meant to impale Mormont through the throat and Gendry finished the wight off, retreating back into place to keep the line strong.

An overwhelming burst of heat made Sandor's facial scarring twitch in recollection of the flames that had licked away at it as the trench burst into a rippling wall of fire, blocking the dead from coming any closer. Some wights tried to crawl through but were incinerated by the fiery tendrils while the rest stood by mutely, their shimmering blue eyes watching without seeing. Skeletal faces were illuminated in the orange glow, combining Sandor's two nightmares into one.

He couldn't stand to be near either any longer and led the withdrawal into the castle as the little Lady Mormont called for the gate to be opened. He had found his way to the godswood entrance and flattened himself against the cool stone, welcoming its bitterness after all but feeling the flames on his skin again. When the dead crossed the trenches, he was still there and when the dead had scaled the walls and broken through the gate, he was still there. Dondarrion and Mormont called to him to do something as if his blade would make a difference against an unbeatable army.

A wight came within kissing distance of him, only to be stopped by Mormont who had cloven its head off and then shoved Sandor in an attempt to rouse him.

"Clegane, if you don't fight, you may as well take your axe to your own throat and die but don't stand there and do nothing!"

It would do no good to do either and with everything burning, burning so brightly and fiercely, he couldn't bring himself to approach the flames. He couldn't face it anymore than he could during the Blackwater. Some excuse for a warrior he was.

"Clegane, we need you!" Dondarrion hollered. "You can't give up on us."

Ever the optimist, the opportunist to preach the Lord of Light's work and the duty of all men to be honorable until the last, Dondarrion had annoyed him for the last time.

"Fuck off!" Sandor thundered, spittle flying from his parched lips. "We can't beat them. Don't you see that, you stupid whore? We're fighting death; they can't beat death."

Of all things, it was the simple word spoken by Dondarrion that brought him back from the brink of suicide. He considered them all fools for continuing to fight when they could so easily end it all without pain and he had had a mind to do the deed himself when Dondarrion pointed his flaming accursed sword to a point above them.

Her, he had said. Tell her that.

The Stark girl, the cold-hearted little bitch who he had shared a drink with him in his last hours, who he had fought for before and with no damn good reason because what was she to him? A girl. A girl fighting the dead with no hope of winning, but who fought with everything nonetheless—and she was in dire need of help.

He had given it to her, fully expecting to die in the process, but inside the castle the flames did not exist, only the dead and the lesser of two evils did not frighten him nearly as much as the combination of them. Death did not come for him inside the castle, nor did it come for the girl. It did, however, finally come for Dondarrion, and it kept him.

Yet, at the end, Sandor was still breathing. He had to repeat it to himself, place his hand upon his breast and feel that recovering heartbeat to know that he had not died in the hours following the battle. As if in a dream, the survivors had converged, devastated by the corpses littering the ground. It had taken the words of Jon Snow to finally revive them from their dreamlike state of mind and call for them to look for the wounded. The dead could wait.

Those not shouting for assistance or crying from their wounds were silent. Those who did not need to speak didn't and even with sparse words uttered here and there to dress an injury or move a body, it was quiet. A hollow victory had been won, an unachievable feat, yet one that had taken all sense of humanity with it. Yes, they had survived, but to what end? How could one ever recover from seeing such devastation? How could one ever drown out the screams of the dying, the rasps of the dead?

Sandor had seen battle and death. He was used to it, unfazed, but this—this was a monster of a different sort.

Most of the night had been spent waiting and the battle itself had occurred in the early hours of the new day so that dawn came as they first set about their work. Throughout the day, they continued to go about with the collection of the cadavers, separating their own from those that had come from beyond the Wall until some quite literally fell over in exhaustion and had to be carried inside to find an hour's worth of rest if they were lucky. The survivors peeled off one at a time to find a place to try and sleep, working through the day in shifts, into the night, and the next morning when they had completed their task.

They built pyres upon pyres, hastily constructed but serving their purpose nonetheless. The bodies almost had to be stacked upon each other to make room for them all for even now with the Night King and his horde dead, no one trusted a body to remain so unless condemned to the fire and they had no energy to dig a mass grave. Among the dead were the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, the little Lady Mormont, Dondarrion, the Greyjoy boy, the young maester-in-training, Tarley-Something-or-Another, and Brienne of Tarth.

He couldn't claim to know any of them well, though he knew Dondarrion longest. They were beloved by many, evident in the tears shed for them, quiet tears that did not spout open sobs and shivering shoulders. Openly weeping for the dead required more energy than any of them had left to spend, so it was only the tears that came. He saw the Lady of Winterfell kiss the Greyjoy boy's head before she lit the pyre beneath him. He saw Jaime Lannister stone-faced and dead to the world give Brienne of Tarth a knight's honor while Tormund wiped impatiently at his eyes. He watched the Stark girl stand in sorrow and bewilderment over Dondarrion who had given her the window of opportunity needed to end the battle for all of them.

Yes, the fallen would be missed by those who remained and Sandor thought dully of where he might have lain on the pyres had he fallen, too. Would he be piled in the masses or given a special place of honor near the front? Who would light the fire that would finally claim the rest of him after it had tasted him as a boy? Would anyone care? Would anyone weep? Not likely, not that it mattered.

The feast following the cremation could not be considered a celebration, yet those around him toasted, drank, laughed, and began to bugger as if they had not been witness to an undead army massacring their companions, their friends and family. It was an empty, desperate way to block out the crushing wave of despair, their only gateway to keep from descending into insanity. If that was their way of forgetting, so be it, but the victory seemed empty to Sandor. The dead could only kill him but the battle yet to be won would involve someone who would make his death last for days, maybe even weeks if given the chance.

He would gladly face the wights again if it meant his brother would drop dead without Sandor ever having to go near him, but thanks to the Stark girl, there were no more dead to use on that front, so he would have to do this alone. The notion didn't thrill him, but it gave him purpose.

It was all he could think about as they set fire to their own dead and the flames made a bonfire of the bodies. It was all he could think about as he tucked into his stew and listened to the boy Gendry ask after the Stark girl (and the thought of those two fucking brought a sour taste to his mouth). It was all he could think about as the wildling chieftain sobbed over Brienne of fucking Tarth and it momentarily left his thoughts when he realized that a woman had her hand on his cock under the table.

He had never been less aroused than at this moment and he bared his teeth at her which sent her scrambling for cover. What a fucking fool he was for turning a woman away for coming to him for the first time, ever, but she only wanted the glory that came after announcing to the rest of her little whore friends that she had slept with a warrior and survivor of the Battle of Winterfell. He was willing to bet that she wouldn't even be able to look him in the face as he fucked her.

"She could have made you happy for a little while," said a voice he knew well, though it was deeper with maturity now. Then she was there, red hair, heart-shaped face still the same but with the body of a woman and the eyes of something else entirely. In the crypts she had been layered in furs and the heat of battle had blinded him to her appearance anyway, but now she wore only a ceremonial garb that hugged her figure and as his eyes traveled upward to meet her, he couldn't help but linger fleetingly on the natural curves of her body.

She had seen much, been through more, and it was far worse than anything that had happened to her in King's Landing. Her eyes reflected that, the pain and horror she had been subjected to since he had last seen her all those years ago. The sight of him surely brought back those painful memories.

She sat down opposite him and for a moment, words failed him. What was he supposed to say to her when every dream not plagued by the undead image of his brother or the now extinct wights or fire was centered on her? He had imagined that their eventual reunion would involve him coming to her with blood on his face, battle weary as he had been when he last saw her, and instead of cowering she would give in to him and then he would have her open her legs to him and accept all of him. He did not see himself sipping wine after having just turned a woman away, sitting lost in his own dark thoughts and entirely at a disadvantage.

"There's only one thing that will make me happy." The same thing that would have given him a happy memory to cling to had the Stark girl chosen to end his life out on the plains but he could have that memory now before he left Winterfell behind, have it in the form of a matured woman who would willingly take him to her bed, if he was so lucky.

"And what's that?" she asked, though he could tell that she was humoring him. Either she knew already or thought he was toying with her but Sandor didn't feel inclined to tell her until more had been said between them.

"That's my fucking business," he said with a trace of a snap. She looked disappointed in his response, sad even, though he couldn't imagine why. This was how he had always spoken to her, wasn't it? Had she expected different?

"I've always heard men saying that women are the one thing that can make them happy after battle. And to survive the battle to end all battles, I expected that you might want the same."

"Women don't make me happy, never have," he told her truthfully, watching her intently and waiting for the moment that she would look away from his hideousness.

"That hardly makes sense," she said as she set her goblet down between them.

"It would if you had to pay women for every kiss and fuck. Women don't want to be seen with this," he gestured at his face.

"She wasn't asking for pay."

"And I wasn't asking for her. She saw me covered in blood after the fighting was done and since I was one of the last standing, it made her wet. Wet for a warrior, but not the man. She'd want pretty tales of my gallant deeds in battle and you know how I despise empty-headed girls."

"You didn't despise me," she pointed out.

"No, I was annoyed by you. All your songs and stories, all those courtesies you recited to me over and over like some bard that won't shove off. You weren't convincing anyone but that you had the gall to say it to me was infuriating. You knew I wasn't buying any of it. I hope you realize that now."

"I have nothing to fear now in telling you the truth and you'd know if I'm lying anyway. Even Cersei had trouble telling at times, but not you."

She was still watching him and her eyes hadn't yet left him even for a second. There was an intensity there that there never had been before. She had trembled to look at him for too long and had certainly never lingered on his scarred side. Her doleful little eyes had seen a monster, so what did this woman before him see?

"Used to be you couldn't look at me," he challenged, giving her every opportunity to cast her eyes down, but she leaned forward with a shadow of a smile.

"That was a long time ago. I've seen much worse than you since then."

And she had, hadn't she? Kidnapped by Petyr Baelish whose enemies ended up bloated with poison, raped bloody by Ramsay Bolton who enjoyed setting his dogs on children. A man with a scarred face was hardly enough to trouble her when she'd been through both of those men.

"Yes, I've heard. Heard you were broken in. Heard you were broken in rough."

For all the times he let his tongue wag about and cast curses, he couldn't bring himself to say the word rape to her just now, nor could he offer his apologies that it had happened in the first place. Such things had always been wasted on him so never felt that he could genuinely deliver his sympathy to anyone.

"And he got what he deserved," said the little bird quickly to cover the obvious hurdle he was attempting to get over, though he could tell that she was grateful he refrained from saying it. "I gave it to him." He waited for her to tell him how she had ended the little cunt that had taken her maidenhead, not because Ramsay wanted her but because he wanted to see the pain it caused her. If the bastard hadn't already been killed, Sandor would have relished killing him; it was always a pleasure ending tormentors.

"How?" he prompted, now starting to become slightly uncomfortable that she wouldn't look away. He didn't like being stared at for his scarring, but she was staring at him and he liked that even less. There was something he had enjoyed from her earlier years when she would glance fleetingly at his face and then at his neck or chest, unable to meet his eye for long. There was power in not being able to command one's gaze but now that she refused to look anywhere else, he felt vulnerable.

Her small smile grew slightly wider. "Hounds."

His name, his title, what he had been and what he still was—to some. The little bird's direwolf had been killed, but she had set the next best thing on her rapist and if Sandor had been there to fight for her, she could have set him on Ramsay too. Her one-worded response gave him cause to believe that she had thought of him when she had the dogs kill the Bolton bastard and it was enough to earn a chuckle from him.

"You've changed, little bird. None of it would have happened if you had left King's Landing with me. No Littlefinger, no Ramsay, none of it."

He gave her this small opening to press the subject of what could have been if she had come with him, what could be now that they both emerged on the other side.

"There are many things I should have done, but we will never know what might have happened if I had. The same could be said of you. Where would you be if you hadn't kidnapped my sister and tried to ransom her? What would have happened if you had gone on alone, wandering the wilderness? Arya would be dead and by that token, we all would be. It's a great achievement, to save the person who saved the Seven Kingdoms."

Compliments never sat well with Sandor. He didn't know how to take them, so more often than not, he didn't. He rebuked them, as was the case now.

"She would have been fine. She left me to die anyway and she still found her way back here without my help."

"Yes, she told me that as well. She told me that you tried your best to get her to kill you."

Shit.

If the girl had told her sister what Sandor had said to goad her on, the little bird knew his deepest desire and if she did, why was she here talking to him? Had it disgusted her? Had she come to his table to deliver harsh words and warnings to stay away from her?

Her hand rested upon his and he had to exercise great care to not flinch. No one touched him like this. No one had ever touched him like this and it was nothing more than a gesture of comfort, but he had been starved for it without ever realizing what he hungered for. Now, however, he was terrified of it and asked her through expression only if she was comfortable touching him since he certainly wasn't comfortable with her, ironic given how much he wanted her.

"I wish you had asked to see me when you came back. I didn't know you were here until the crypts…"

Was she trying to hint at more than she was telling? Could he be stupid enough to believe that?

"It wouldn't hurt you to take up the sword when you can be bothered with it, little bird, that way I won't have to come barging in to save you every time."

He wanted her to know that he could still tease her, that he hadn't forgotten the small things that could make her smile.

She grasped his fingers tightly and he put a firm leash on his manhood as it threatened to be his undoing despite the stern talk he had had with it to behave itself the moment she sat down. How weak of flesh he was to be stirred by the touch of her skin.

"Sandor."

He could not recall the sound of his mother and sister's voices, being that they both had died when he was still quite young, but he supposed they were the only females to ever call him by his birth name unaccompanied by his house name. Just his name. Perhaps they had said it with love in their voices; he would never know. To hear his little bird refer to him as such, not the Hound, not 'ser' as she was often prone to forgetting that he was no such thing, not Sandor Clegane. Only his name. That was a mighty leap for her to take, daring to call him something so plain and familiar.

And seven hells, it was so godsdamned arousing to hear his name fall from her lips. How he had longed to hear her say it, scream it as he took her in every way imaginable. She had never called him anything apart from ser and he had never spoken her name either, so they were at an impasse now that she had said it first.

"Without courtesies and titles and formalities, I wanted to thank you for what you did for Arya, for Jon, and for me. The Starks are alive today because you have more humanity in you than you care to admit. And you didn't do it for reward or recognition, at least, not after you found out that my Aunt Lysa was dead. You fought with Jon, you fought for Arya, and you fought for me just as you've always done. We are forever indebted to you and it can in no way repay you, but you are always welcome in Winterfell as a friend to the Starks."

The Starks. She couldn't find the courage to speak her mind even now. She couldn't extend her gratitude on behalf of herself; she had to hide behind her siblings. Nothing had changed.

"That'd be a generous notion if I had a mind to ever come back once I leave," he said bitingly.

What had he expected from her? Her thanks was the same as it had ever been when he saved her from the mob and just because he had saved her siblings, just because he had come for her in the crypts didn't mean she was going to spread herself on the table and ask him to fuck her. The window he had opened for her had been slammed shut and barred by her rehearsed gratitude and he couldn't stand it. A lady she may be, but she still couldn't say more than what was expected of her. If she had wanted to thank him heart to heart, she would have said so, made it personal, but she was as detached as ever and this expression of thanks was one she had practiced. No true expression of gratitude was forthcoming, so he didn't feel obliged to return it.

"You're leaving?" she asked blankly.

"Aye, and I won't be coming back. Fuck the cold, fuck the North. I'd rather sweat my guts out than freeze my balls off."

"Where will you go?"

"That's my fucking business, isn't it?" he reminded her, withdrawing his hand from her.

"Don't do that," she said, suddenly stern. "Don't speak to me like I'm too stupid to know what you're doing."

"You do know what I'm doing, though. You know where I'll go and if I asked you to come with me, if I told you that you'd die here, you'd still stay because you haven't learned shit."

"Sandor—"

"No," he said, slamming his hand down on the wood and upsetting her goblet so that its contents spilled maroon between the cracks. "Your pretty words won't change my mind, little bird." He stood up, but she remained sitting, now looking like the frightened child he remembered. She may not be afraid of him, but she still feared his rage. "You have other warriors and heroes to attend to, best attend to them."

"You have always stormed off when I've tried to reach you or say a kind word, but you'll not do so this time, Sandor Clegane," she said boldly, rising to meet him.

"I'd like to see you stop me, girl," he challenged.

That shut her up. She knew she couldn't and if she called to her guards to hold him, it would cause a scene, bring attention to a subject she didn't want projected to the other survivors around them. So he walked away, keeping himself level so as not to draw the gaze of anyone who happened to be watching. He snatched a fresh container of wine off of a serving boy's platter with nothing on his mind other than to find someplace where he could take care of this raging erection that had grown into an unbearable state of arousal.

The snow was falling, gentle in the aftermath of the storm that had come two nights before. Was it only two nights ago? Two nights prior he had been in this very spot, under the archway leading to the godswood where Dondarrion had called upon him to come to the younger Stark girl's aid. His fear of flame momentarily forgotten, he had crashed through battling duos to get inside and find her, though even now, he could not say why he had been driven to such madness. When the dead flooded the corridors, he knew only to run and she happened to be in the way when he did, so he had swept her up and slung her across his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. And after she had spoken to the Red Woman, she had disappeared, leaving him to guard the priestess and Dondarrion's body from the wights attempting to break down the door. A few of the dead had made it into the room, but he had fought them off, ready for each wave of foes to be his last, ready to be cut down, fighting a war he had no part in instead of battling his brother as he believed his ultimate fate to be.

Then the Red Woman had seen him standing over his kills and approached him, her gaze reminiscent of the flames she had conjured on the Dothraki blades and in the trench as she observed his scarred flesh. She had tried to touch him there, but he flinched away at those fingers that had given birth to fire.

"The Lord of Light blessed you at a young age, Sandor Clegane, perhaps too early. He will do so again before you leave this world, but you will bear it this time and be born anew."

"Oh, fuck off," was all he could think to say to her. He was so bloody sick of hearing about the Lord of Light after spending months with Thoros of Myr and Dondarrion and with both of them dead, she had come to take their place as this lord's ever-grating mouthpiece. And for her to call his brother's attempt to melt off his face a blessing, it was the final insult. No fucking god would bless a child with a face that frightened all who beheld it.

"The Night King will raise a new army of those already slain as well as those long-dead. The crypts are not safe."

And like the fool he was, he thought of the little bird, trapped underground amidst an army of long-dead members of her family, come to life again to kill her. He found the hole the girl had squeezed through to exit the room and he made it larger to accommodate his size but it was still a tight fit. He plowed through whatever stood in his way, not waiting to see if anything followed him as he ran for the crypts. Fire rained down on him from failing outer structures but he kept on, knowing that if stopped to count himself lucky, something else would kill him. Outside the crypt doors, there was a heap of bodies, those who had tried to break in and failed as the dead fell upon them.

Swinging his axe wide, he cut through the door, though he was surprised to find that it was already weakened. For good measure, he piled up a stack of bodies inside so that no one and nothing else could force its way through, then he staggered down the steps, fumbling with his footing in the darkness. Halfway down, he heard the screams, heard the dead, and prepared himself for what he was about to see, though he had a hope that he would recognize her scream if he heard it and he hadn't yet. Cracked, dusted bodies broke free from their tombs, grabbing any living being they could. A child let out a gurgling choke as a wight bit into its neck.

A lantern overturned, spreading its flame in front of him and effectively blocking him from going any further. He would have to call for her if he had any hope of finding her alive in this chaos, but would she answer to him, would she know his voice?

The flames burned white and orange, throwing light upon a mane of red as she ran with a wight in hot pursuit. Sandor kicked the dirt underfoot over the fire before him, dousing it momentarily and giving him just enough of an opening to jump through. He would not reach her in time; he knew that as soon as he started running. Praying to any gods that might be listening that his aim was true, he tucked his arm back and hurtled the dragonglass axe where it stuck in the wight's back and felled it. He snatched his weapon back up, meeting the little bird's eyes from where she had fallen after being tackled by the wight. She looked the same as when he had pulled her would-be-rapists off of her in the back alleys of King's Landing. On her back, arms by her head, swallowing a dry sob at being so close to harm, and she had been relieved when he came for her. He could see her gratitude behind the shock, but she never had thanked him properly by simply saying the words without some ninny-washing courtesy to follow.

She hadn't known that he was here in her home, by the shock he registered on her face. He didn't know if he should feel hurt because of that; he didn't have time to feel anything as he offered out his hand to her and hauled her to her feet.

"Run, girl!" he shouted at her, using his body to block as much of the passage as possible. Only, she hadn't. She had unsheathed a dragonglass dagger that she had picked up gods-knew-where and stood beside him, clearly inexperienced and ready to flee but idiotically refusing to.

"No, you don't, gimme that and run like I told you!"

She never spoke, only told him without words that she wouldn't go. Then she screamed again as a wight ran at them, driving her knife forward into its empty eye socket. She had been lucky, but that luck wouldn't hold.

Sandor snatched the dagger away from her, turning it blade downward. "If they get past me, then you can use this. Hold it this way, handle on top, and don't miss because you won't get another chance. Now run, girl."

He handed the dagger back and she clutched it to her chest with a thousand words left unsaid, perhaps to thank him or wish him well but he gave her no chance, shoving her away from him.

"Now, dammit!"

She ran, her mussed red hair the last he saw of her as he took up position at the center of the path. The wights continued to break free from their stone prisons and all he could think of was how many fucking Starks were buried here that he would have to kill again.

The answer was over twenty-one, not many compared to the numbers he had felled on the battlefield, but enough to make him weary as the only warrior fighting for the defenseless down here. He ached, he was bleeding from a wound in his thigh that had cut right down to the bone, and he couldn't draw proper breath in the musty catacombs of Winterfell's finest corpses. It was a mark of how the battle had spent him in that he struggled to cut down what amounted to nothing more than walking bones, for these wights were not armed and had only their hands and rotted teeth to kill their victims. A tremendous crash told him that something had collapsed on the surface, a wall felled or a tower toppled.

He cut down the last of the crypt wights, spitting out something that tasted of copper and salt. An uneven pounding announced that the dead were breaking through his corpse barricade, and they would be upon him in minutes if not seconds. He had no strength left to fight them, having used up the last of his reserves moments ago. A vicious din grew louder with every breath he struggled to draw and then he saw them swarming the entire passageway. He raised his axe, spreading his stance firmly.

"Come on, then," he roared. "Come and fuck off, you bastards!"

The front-runners ran directly into his blade, giving him no time to swing back for another attack before they were on him. Sharp, rusted steel stabbed into his side with the full weight of the wight behind it, then it tore a line down his hip, pulling him to his knee as the wight dropped of its own accord with its hand still clutching the blade embedded in Sandor's side. The others fell all together, one giant corpse that suddenly ceased moving.

Picking the dirk out of his side, Sandor buried his axehead in the wight's skull for good measure. "Cunt," he spat.

All was quiet from above, the thundering of countless feet having halted and the roars of both living and dead dragons gone. He kept his axe in hand, none too ready to release it in case his senses lied to him and he went to the surface to find the dead patiently waiting for him. The Imp joined him first, wielding the little bird's dagger and poking at a wight experimentally with it.

"Are they all dead?" he asked.

"They all were already, weren't they?" responded Sandor.

The women, children, and elderly crept forward behind him, encouraged by the unmoving remains of the buried Starks and wights. The little bird led them, her face still smudged with dirt and her hair still tangled from where the wight had taken her down. She didn't look to Sandor for confirmation that they were safe to leave the crypts; she looked to the Imp.

"Is it safe, Clegane?" questioned the Imp on her behalf.

"Figure we'd all be dead now if it wasn't," said Sandor with another glance back at the little bird.

He didn't give her time to speak a word to him. As much as he had wanted to hear her before, he only wanted fresh air now, to get above ground and observe the carnage. In the aftermath, he had helped pile the wights to burn and then attended the dead. It was he who found Mormont propped up against the outer bailey bleeding from his gut in the arms of the Dragon Queen, but he had taken the knight for dead even as he lugged him inside to be tended by the maester and any who knew the ways of healing. In this, he saw his little bird assisting but she never noticed him as he continued to stockpile the bodies to be sorted out by those who knew them.

Heading into the godswood, he swept the thoughts of battles and corpses out of his head, replacing them with the feel in his stomach when the little bird had grasped his hand. Taking a long and generous gulp of wine, he reached down to tug apart the laces to his breeches when he collided with someone.

"Watch where you're fucking walking, will you?" he snapped.

"I was, you didn't see me," replied the man on the ground and as he placed his hands to his stomach, Sandor recognized his face in the torchlight, heavily lined and miserable.

"Mormont."

"Clegane."

Feeling the fool for both knocking over and scolding the injured man, Sandor offered out his free hand to the knight who accepted it with a wince.

"I thought you'd been laid up with injuries. You bled enough when I found you."

"Not severe enough to confine me to a bed when I've been resting for the better part of the past two days, though it's still tender." Mormont lifted his tunic to check the bandages beneath it and swore quietly. "And they've gone and opened up again. Pardon me as I seek out the maester."

"You're one lucky fuck, d'you know that? Greyscale, fell off the damn dragon, survived the dead."

Mormont gave an impartial shrug. "Much the same as you, I would expect, after you'd been left for dead, except you didn't fall off Drogon."

"No, I caught you and you almost took me over with you," said Sandor. "You've got one bloody job when riding a dragon and that's to hold on, but you're shit at that."

"Which I never thanked you for—"

"You do and I'll pitch you off the dragon for real this time."

"You like to argue, don't you?" Mormont observed, almost with amusement.

"More than most," Sandor agreed.

Mormont shook his head, holding a careful hand to his side and it came away bloody. He excused himself again to go find the maester and Sandor considered going with him just to make sure he didn't die on the way until he remembered why he had come outside in the first place. His arousal had gone flaccid during his brief interaction with Mormont, leaving him unsatisfied and annoyed, so he turned to his wine with a mind to down it and several more by night's end.

He drank himself into a light stupor kneeling by the pool at the base of the weirwood tree with the fucking ugly face carved into it watching him through its empty sockets. His own face wasn't much more becoming as he regarded it in the undisturbed water. Seizing a rock, he hurtled it down into the glass surface, distorting his image so that he wouldn't be reminded of it. With his body bent over the water, he hadn't noticed the soft padding of footsteps behind him until he felt hot breath on the back of his neck.

Glancing over his shoulder with a shiver, he found himself matching gazes with a set of red eyes.

The wolf was bloody, half of its right ear missing, giant wounds in its hide, but it walked proudly, circling Sandor with either interest or hunger. The Starks had always trained their wolves well despite the beasts having minds of their own. They did not harm anyone lest their masters commanded them and this albino one was no different, yet Sandor knew he should fear it. But he was a dog, cousin to the wolf, and wolves had never given him cause to fear them for that reason.

Coming to a standstill on his left, the wolf sniffed him again and then lowered its head to his hand, licking at the grease from his lamb stew still on his fingers.

"Shove off, will you?" said Sandor irritably, pulling his hand out of the way, but the wolf leaned into him as if asking for affection. A Hound giving a wolf affection; the world truly had gone to shit.

"You should consider yourself an honorary member of his pack," said the voice of Jon Snow, appearing beneath the weirwood tree. "He only lets people he takes a liking to touch him."

"Fucking honored I am," said Sandor, draining the flagon.

"Yes, I see that that's your favorite word. Used it a lot when talking to my sister just now."

"Do you really have nothing better to do than to listen to other people bitch about their pasts?"

He knew he should be careful, talking to the Lord of Winterfell, but the wine had given him dumb courage and he couldn't guard his tongue. If Snow had heard Sandor speaking to his sister, he would surely have caught on to Sandor's double meanings even if the lord's sister hadn't.

"I don't care what history there is between the two of you, but she is your lady and you'll show due respect to her. From what I understand, you protected her in King's Landing as much as you protected Arya on the road. And she told me you breached the crypts when the Night King brought the long-dead back to life. We owe you much, but that doesn't give you leave to speak to us as you have been."

You'd care about our history if you knew I once had plans to take your sister's maidenhead.

"Nothing I say can scare her," he told Snow, wondering if that was indeed true after tonight.

"No, but you should guard your tongue nonetheless. Friends don't speak to each other in such a manner."

"Is that what she told you we are?"

"That's what Arya told me you were."

"She wasn't in King's Landing; she doesn't know shit."

"Clegane, I fought beside you beyond the Wall and I would have died to defend you as you would have done for my family, but you cannot speak with so much hatred in your voice to those who have not wronged you. You are a guest here in my father's house and you are always welcome, but I could see that your words were hurtful to my sister tonight. As her brother, I am inclined to come to her defense and find out why you argued."

"If you want to know, go ask her. My business is my business."

"She's your friend—"

"Do I look like I want friends?"

"No, but you look like you need one. Don't be so quick to discard those who have finally shown you kindness. We won't hurt you."

"You won't hurt me."

"No, little bird, I won't hurt you."

He hadn't wanted to hurt her, but taking her maidenhead would have hurt her and that was his intent when he had a mind to go to her chambers. He'd let himself into the kitchens and taken a wineskin and after swallowing half of it in one go to calm his nerves, he had decided that there was no greater reward for facing his fear than to go to the girl, tell her of his gallant deed, and claim her precious maidenhead. That had been his only objective but the more she spoke to him that night, the less willing he was to take her in such a violent manner. The offer he had made was his way of calling in a debt that she would have to repay with her virginity when he asked for it. He planned to take her far north and on the road, once she trusted him completely, he would call in that favor and she would have given it to him. Then he could have her as he wanted and though it would hurt, she would willingly have accepted the pain. He could have made her want him when she was still that moldable child but now she most definitely would not want him and he couldn't bear the sight of her, knowing that she would reject him if he asked. He didn't want her friendship or her sister's.

"We live short lives and then we die, Clegane. If you've survived this far, maybe you should consider finding one thing you don't hate."

"This conversation is something I hate." It sounded too much like something from one of the Lord of Light's bloody followers.

"Try to be serious about this. I don't want to have to order you."

"Then don't and leave me be."

He knew the young man wouldn't make good on his threat, not after all Sandor had done for House Stark, but his attitude bothered the Lord of Winterfell, though not as much as the fact that Snow had eavesdropped on Sandor's conversation with the little bird bothered Sandor.

"For as long as you are here, you'll treat Sansa as the lady that she is. If I hear you cursing at her again—"

"Wasn't cursing at her, just cursing for the sake of fucking cursing."

"Keep it to a minimum and remember who she is and who you are."

Rich coming from a bastard.

"As you command m'lord," he said, squeezing as much cynicism into his tone as possible.

Snow left him and called his wolf to follow so that Sandor could contemplate whether he should go looking for more wine or continue to mull over his impure thoughts. He dipped his hand into the pool, surprised to find it not bitterly cold but pleasantly warmed by the hot springs beneath it.

"I can't believe you turned down a woman who willingly wanted you in her bed."

"For fuck's sake, where do you Starks keep coming from? You and your bloody wolves," said Sandor as the Stark girl came to join him.

"Wolves have to be silent when sneaking up on prey; it's how we survive. I snuck up on the Night King in almost the exact spot you're kneeling."

"I'm overwhelmed. Piss off, girl."

"This is one of the only places where people aren't fucking; I'm staying here."

"Your blacksmith is looking for you," said Sandor, remembering in his hazy mind that the lad Gendry had asked after her and he recalled how ill it had made him feel at the time. Now it felt worse and he attempted to take a pull of wine from the empty flagon.

The girl offered him her wineskin and he gulped from it greedily, eager to drink himself into stupidity while the night was still young.

"I know he was looking for me, I've spoken to him already. And I'm staying here."

"Then I'm leaving," said Sandor, taking an unsteady step as he stood up from the pool's edge and made to leave.

"So we aren't going to talk about how you found me during the battle?" asked the girl, blocking his way.

"I found you during the battle."

What did she want to discuss? The Red Woman had already told her why Dondarrion had been brought back supposedly and gave her some sort of clue that led to the epiphany of her buggering off and leaving Sandor to wait out the storm The little bird had told her sister that Sandor came to the crypts after. There was nothing else to speak about.

"You almost pissed yourself when I tried to seal up that bite mark on your shoulder with a burning log. You went half mad fighting Dondarrion during your trial by combat because of his flaming sword. You ran during the battle as soon as the Red Woman lit the trenches. You hate fire and you do everything to get away from it. I saw you during the battle, watching everything burn and die and not doing anything about it. You froze, but you still found me."

"You know, I'm starting to wonder why I never sewed your mouth shut." He weaved around her, watching the ground ahead of him to keep from tripping over his own feet.

"Why did you come looking for me?" she demanded.

"I didn't. I found you because there was no fire inside and you ran into my corridor."

"You were standing close enough to Dondarrion's sword that your sleeve could have caught fire."

"Look, girl, are you upset about the outcome of the battle? Would you like to revisit it and this time I'll stay in the bleeding courtyard and not go looking for you if you're going to be so godsdamned irritating about it."

The girl came around to block him yet again, this time with the wineskin held out as a peace offering. "I'm trying to understand you because I don't, not at all. You aren't the Hound I left for dead."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"I just want to know what happened that made you abandon your fear."

"Hells, girl, I don't know, so will you shut up about it? Be grateful in silence and bugger off already."

She was dissatisfied in his answer, but he had no real answer to give her. If he did, if he knew why he had found the courage to brave the fire and find her, he would have told it to someone to help him make sense of it, but not her. She turned to leave, but he caught her by the wineskin straps.

"Leave that," he told her and she gave a revolted snort, shaking her arm free of it so that he could tip it to his lips and drink.