"What do you think he did to me"

The question hung between them like a guillotine, waiting for him to step forward, to take the bait. Petyr didn't move, instead he stood, eyes transfixed on her face. Once round and young and beautifully innocent, Sansa Stark stood before him now not the child he had known but a woman made of hard angles and lines, and yet still more beautiful than anything Petyr had ever seen.

"Lady stark asked you a question"

The unfamiliar voice of Brienne cut through the intimacy of the moment and Petyr felt a surge of anger, irrational and burning in his stomach. He quelled it quickly- no need to step into the path of a blade in a moments rage. To undo all his work-no- that was a fool's move, and would benefit no one, least of all himself.

He would endure the invasion of Sansa's brute, if only as long as it took him to persuade Sansa of his… The word innocence did not quite seem fitting he thought as he looked again at her beautiful, torn features. Good intentions, then, he would settle for. The pressure in the room was rising, and the imaginary guillotine began slowly to close in above him. He would have to give her something, show her somehow that he felt something, anything in the shape of remorse. Little did she know. Little girl, who never could lie. But Petyr could, he had always been a good liar. He would not break here, a place that in spite of just the 3 of them felt as public as an arena. No. Sansa would have her apology, but not like this.

"He beat you?"

"Yes what else?"

The rapidity of her reply shocked him. Its open aggression and demanding hostility was deeply unfamiliar to him, and suddenly he felt strange and lost- and above all uncertain. Would Sansa truly kill him, as she had threatened, here, in this tent. Cast him aside like a dog, at Catelyn had so many years ago. Petyr winced visibly before composing himself. He was a proud man, despite his humble beginnings, and he would not be cajoled here, not by anyone, especially not the daughter of Catelyn stark.

"Did he...cut you?"

As soon as he spoke the weight of his words settled upon him, and his indignance and pain and humiliation faded once more to be replaced with a far deeper and more immovable sorrow. He could not change what had happened, and in truth no amount of answers would ever capture the horrors Petyr had played out in his mind a hundred times over between Sansa and that sick monster. He wanted to tell her, to beg and plead with her. To kneel my cloaks and yet at the same time to hold her close to his chest like a child and again to kiss her, hard and fast on her mouth, pulling her into him where she could come to no more harm.

"Maybe you did know about Ramsay all along"

The words punched through his visions, scattering them around him like glass. Outwardly, he showed no more response than a sharp intake of breath however, eyes locked with hers, startlingly blue against the grey and white of the snow.

"Sansa, please. Let us speak alone"

He watched her response, her eyes narrowing slightly, crimson lips shrinking into a thin pressed line of suspicion. But something was preventing her from immediately refusing him, and Petyr seized his opportunity.

"Sansa please, not here" his voice reached a strange pitch at the end of his appeal, quivering with some need unknown to either of them. He was not sure what he would say to her once they were alone, only knew that without that privacy, that chance of intimacy he could never express any of the many emotions boiling his breast. Her dark brows lifted briefly at his voice, and after a long, stony pause she nodded slightly, as if to herself. Evidently however Brienne perceived the gesture, for, albeit reluctantly she turned on her heel and exited the tent.

They stood there, metres apart for over a minute in complete silence, Sansa staring at him and him staring right back. The guillotine had gone, replaced with a king of current, or the crackling of a log fire spitting sparks across the tent, each one threatening to set the thin canvas fabric alight in a blaze.

"Show me"

He didn't know where the words came from, or how they formed from him but they escaped his lips before he could prevent them. They were more than an instruction, and not a request. Sansa sparked, her chin lifting instinctively as if to regain some of the authority that had escaped her when Brienne left.

"I didn't know that was what pleased you, Lord Baelish."

The biting sarcasm in her voice was stony and still painfully formal, however it had lost the threatening tones it had possessed a few moments ago. She paused a moment, drawn up to her full height before seeming to visibly sag in submission. Something about him made her feel that if she only followed his instructions she would be safe. It was a dangerous feeling, and a false one at that. And yet it still lingered in her chest, like a fond and distant memory- the warmth of safety.

Slowly, fingers trembling she moved her hands to the clasp of her cloak and, after a moments fumbling, let the thick material fall down, pooling at her feet. Her dress was plain and surprisingly thin. Once adorned with jewels and fine silks, bound up in corsets and forced into the figure of a woman in King's Landing here she stood, no lacing needed to shape her now. In the brief time since Petyr had last seen her hips had widened, her chest developed into a round bosom. She had flowered, blossoming into womanhood. Petyr's eyes widened, almost as though he had not really expected her to a quest. He moved towards her and she flinched, drawing back like a frightened animal, like a bird ready to take flight at any moment. Little dove.

Petyr froze, and, as if to assure her he meant no harm, gently lifted his palms to his chest in surrender. Gradually her body relaxed, and her shoulders fell back into their natural position, proud and square, the carriage of a queen, for within her he knew beat the heart of a queen. Of his queen he had oftentimes dreamed, in spare moments between the schemes and plots and deceptions of his day, he had pictured little Sansa Stark, sat at his side by the iron throne, that bloody crown atop her head, startlingly gold against the firey red.

Seeming to accept his gesture of submission she reached her hand below the neckline of her dress and pushed it down, revealing her left shoulder. She winced as the other side of the dress rose up and dug into the bruises around her neck, bruises made by hands and ropes and sometimes even metal collars, specially made for her degradation. But that was nothing, the shoulder revealed the beginnings of the real brutality. Clear against the pale skin were the red marks of teeth, sunk deep into flesh with the intent of removing it, of consuming. Petyr could not look away, struck with a kind of awed horror both at the intimacy of her reveal and the hideous gruesomeness of her secret. And he could tell from her eyes that until now they had been her secret- she had told no one, shown no one in shame of it. She had finally broken eye contact, and was staring somewhere beyond him, focused on something else far away. He began to move again, slower this time so as not to alarm her. She did not focus her eyes on him again until he was less than an arm's reach from her, where he stopped, arms by his side helplessly staring at her mutilated shoulder. And then something strange happened. She reached out her hand, taking his own in hers and drawing it to her bare flesh, placing his thumb over the partially healed wound, still rough from abuse. Instinctively he stroked it, feeling the changing texture as it went from soft skin to scab and back again, over and over again and before he could prevent it she was in his arms and he was kissing her, and it was not like he had imagined, not hard and urgent but soft and deep, either one of them cautious of the other- he that he might break her further and she that he would open up her old wounds, and for new games pour salt into them.

But neither seemed to happen, and rather the two melted into one another as Petyr's hands moved gently from shoulder to waist and resting upon her hips...

So its 3 am here and I have 3000 words of academic material to write tomorrow so unfortunately bed must happen, but if this gets good responses I'll definitely write more (steamier ;) ) stuff

It's a bit ruched and ill formed, but I hope you guys enjoyed the story!