Sansa isn't sure who they're fighting anymore, only that everyone will die should they breach the walls. Yesterday, it had been Bolton men. The day before, wights. She crouches at the doorway of what had been the throne room when Robb had been alive, the dagger that Arya had given her held tightly in one hand. She runs her fingers over the strange curved blade, nothing of western make, and wonders how many people her sister had killed with it. She had barely recognized the beautiful, harsh girl in black and white when she had arrived with a group of swordsmen and her friends, the smiling one with the odd hair and the grim blacksmith.
It hadn't come as much of a surprise. She barely recognizes herself anymore.
She can still hear the screams as they echo from the battlefield, mixing with the clash of steel against steel and the wolves' snarling. She shivers, pulling the cloak around her shoulders closer.
(No one knows why she wears such an old cloak, a ragged thing with its thick white wool stained red with blood and scorched black by flame. They do not ask, and she does not answer.)
The battle cry of one of the wildlings reaches Sansa's ears, followed by a shriek of pain. The smile that flickers to her lips is bitter rather than satisfied. Must so many die, she thinks, so that we can live?
She is not the only one in the hall. Others unable to fight were hidden away here as well. Lady Brienne and the wildling woman who had arrived with Rickon stand guard at the door. Rickon is here as well, with a sleeping Bran and the Reed girl. Jeyne Poole, her old friend, sits in the corner farthest away from her with some crude little pin clasped in her fingers. She stares at the piece of iron as if it the only thing that matters in the world, and even from the other side of the room Sansa can see her mouthing a prayer. They aren't so different in that way. She hopes that whoever she is praying for makes it out of the battle alive.
She brushes her fingers against the scratchy cloth and closes her eyes.
The wolf pack outside howls as one, hundreds of voice chorusing together in one long note that chills her to the bone. No one knew when or why they had arrived, a pack numbering in the hundreds with Arya's direwolf at the head. Ser Jaime—or was it Lord Jaime now that he had left the Kingsguard and declared for the North?—had laughed and said that it was fitting that wolves had finally returned to Winterfell when they were needed most.
She hears the sound of footsteps approaching her, and she looks over to see Rickon standing beside her, tears bright in his Tully-blue eyes. "Shaggy's hurt," he whispers, and Sansa doesn't questioin how he knows. Her siblings have a special connection to their wolves, she knows, something stronger and more profound that anything she had shared with Lady. She takes his small hand in hers, and he sits down beside her, leaning into her slender frame.
With her arms wrapped around her brother, Sansa feels a flicker of something. This could have been her future, if she had decided to marry Harry the heir, but it would have been her own children she would comfort instead of her younger sibling.
But she hadn't, had she? She had left with him, leaving Lord Baelish and the Hardyng boy and the cold mountains of the Eyrie behind. There had been no wedding, no cloak of protection draped over her shoulders, no sandy-haired lordling in her bed that night.
(And Sansa has never been happier than when she left the mountains on that black destrier.)
Another scream echoes down the hall, closer this time, and the red-haired girl looks up. The curved blade gleams as it catches the candlelight. She sees Brienne tense, and the wildling woman readjusts her grip on the spear. No one would pass through the doors and leave again with their lives. She hears the battle cries of the great northern lords and the war whoops of the free folk. She can hear the men of the Wall shouting instructions and Jaime Lannister rallying his troops. The taunts and challenges of her sister's men could be heard, Valyrian and Braavosi and a hundred other languages, and the ominous baying of the wolves rise above it all. Sansa wonders when the last gathering of peoples this different was. They will write songs about us, she muses, and the smile almost reaches her lips.
The cry that goes up is not one she understands, a shout in one of the eastern languages, but the meaning is unmistakeable. She barely dares to believe it. As if to squash any of her doubts, a triumphant roar fills the air. Sansa's hand flies to the dagger as the doors are pushed open, but she relaxes just as quickly as her half-brother enters. "We've won," Jon says, and she stands and rushes to give him a hug.
We've won, she thinks, still lost in the momentary daze of relief and happiness. We're safe.
But for how long? The bitter voice at the back of her mind brought her back down to earth quickly, and she pulls away from Jon's surprised reciprocation of the hug. "Where's Arya?" she asks. "Where's Uncle Brynden?" The riverlord had only arrived days ago with half the Tully bannermen in tow. She attempts to look over her half-brother's shoulder at the crowd that was quickly flooding in behind him, trying to ignore the anxiety beginning to gnaw at the back of her mind. Where was he?
"They're fine," Jon assures her. "Arya went to check on her Lorathi fellow, and the Blackfish was with the Greatjon when I last saw him." He frowns slightly. "Sansa, are you alright?"
She isn't listening anymore, and pushes past him and into the swarm of people hurrying off the battlefield. She doesn't answer the greetings of lords and smallfolk again, barely notices Jeyne Poole launch herself into the arms of a gaunt man with white hair, doesn't even think when she sees the bloody blue-and-white cloaks scattered across the ground. She only has eyes for the giant of a black warhorse and the fallen rider it drags along the ground. Dark gray armor catches the light of the dying winter sun. The knife nearly drops from her fingers, and Sansa starts to run. "Sandor," she whispers, unable to raise her voice any more.
(There's no point in calling him "my lord" anymore, not now after he's saved her more times than she can count and, perhaps, she's saved him a time or two.)
She crouches beside him, trying to rouse those dark gray eyes into opening. Her voice is low, urgent as it is soothing. "Sandor, Sandor, please." Over her shoulder, she screams, "Help! I need to get him in the castle!" She brushes her hand against his scarred cheek, afraid to hurt him anymore than she already had, and his eyes open.
"Little bird," he whispers, and Sansa isn't sure if she is crying of relief or fear.
Help finally arrives, Arya's blacksmith and Jon Snow carefully carrying him into the throne room. They suggest that she move away, and she refuses. Sansa clings to his hand as he is carefully placed on the cold stone of Winterfell's floor.
"I found him hiding in the back, surrounded by all the best swordsman," Sandor murmurs as they remove his armor to assess the severity of the wound. A younger, more innocent Sansa would have cried or vomited at the sight of blood gushing from the hole in his stomach, but now she only squeezes his hand and pulls her cloak closer.
"Bloody coward, he tried to run," he continues as the healers begin to swarm around them, breathing quick and shallow. "I killed him, little bird, but he cut me first." His other hand, the one she isn't holding, is clenched into a fist as it moves towards her to give her something. She holds out her free hand, and he drops the lump of metal into her palm.
The tiny piece of silver is tarnished and missaphen, drenched in blood. The needle-sharp pin that would have fastened it to a cloak pricks Sansa's finger, drawing blood. She wipes away some of the scarlet liquid with fingers she forces not to tremble, and even in its broken, twisted shape, she still recognizes the mockingbird it had once been. She thinks of clever green eyes and and oily snake's smile, and Sansa wonders if Lord Baelish had smiled as he had died.
If Sansa had not already loved Sandor with her entire heart, she would have loved him then. "Why?" she asks, her voice cracking. In a way, she already knows, but she needs to hear him say it.
He coughs, and Sansa sees the blood fleck his lips. His gray eyes are glazing over even as he speaks, the Stranger stealing him away from her when she'd only just gotten him back. "Because I love you, little bird," he whispers. "Bugger the rest of the world; all I want is you."
She leans down and brushes her lips over his, finally getting the kiss she has waited for since Blackwater Bay, the night he had left her. She can feel the eyes on her, watching in startled silence, but for once, Sansa doesn't care about it not being proper. All the world's fire and ice can fade to ash and melt to ocean because bugger the rest of the world; all she wants is him.
She feels him draw his last breath as she finally pulls away, and his chest is still when she opens her eyes. The tears pool in her eyes. "A hound will die for you, but never lie to you." He had spoke truly, hadn't he? She presses a gentle kiss to his scarred cheek and lifts her head to see the others who had watched their final goodbyes, daring them to say something.
Arya steps forward out of the group that had gathered, shooing away the healers that still hovered about his body with a few harsh words, and her expression as she regards Sansa is the gentlest her sister has ever seen her wear. "Sansa, come on," she says quietly.
"No," the red-haired Stark replies firmly, holding tight to Sandor's hand as she speaks. Her blue eyes are chips of ice, cool and unforgiving. "I'm staying with him." Just leave it, Arya, she wants to beg. Please, don't try to change my mind.
Her sister hesitates for a moment before turning and walking away, and the rest of the crowd quickly follows. Sansa breathes something like a sob and pulls his cloak of protection closer, the cloak she has never forgotten.
(It is dark outside now, and Sansa finds it appropriate that the light leaves her when he does.)
It is later that night, when all but the wolves and few guards have long since retired, that Sansa is woken by the sound of movement beside her. Her eyes snap open. Her hand flies to Arya's dagger resting beside her as she sits up, and her gaze is met by a pair of icy blue eyes.
Sansa knows of wights just like any other child raised in the North, nightmares spun by Old Nan on the darkest of summer nights. She knows they are dangerous killers, but she does not move to flee as she stares at Sandor, taking in his whiter-than-snow skin and those horrible blue eyes where gray should be. She remembers another night, this one lit by the bright green of fire. He promised he would protect me, she remembers, and again, "A hound will die for you, but never lie to you."
All it would take was one scream, and the entire castle would be upon them. The soldiers would quickly take her away from the wight, and they would kill Sandor all over again, burning his body when it was all does. She wouldn't consign him to the flames that he had hated so much in life.
Sandor does not move to attack, only staring at her sadly with those hollow eyes. Jon spoke of wights at times, but had he ever had to kill one that he'd loved? Had he stared into a face he knew and had to realize that it wasn't theirs anymore? Her hands do not tremble as she lifted the strange curved knife to her throat, a small smile gracing her lips.
"I love you too," she murmurs, squeezing his ice-cold hand. A spark of recognition shows in his face, a tiny recollection of the man he had once been, and she smiles. Sansa Stark closes her eyes and slashes the blade across her throat.
(They will write songs about us, she thinks, and she smiles.)