Author's Notes:Here it is finally - the sequel to my fic "The Look"! I wrote that over 2 years ago and have been contemplating a sequel pretty much ever since– after all, Sandor deserved to get his comeuppance someday, didn't he? My bad that it took this long, but better late than never…

This grew a bit longer than intended, so I am breaking this into 3-4 chapters. Do share your thoughts about this – don't be shy! :-) (Also posted in AO3)

Warnings: Dubcon, nudity, subjugation

"Well?"

"Pardon?"

"Did you do as we agreed, girl? Or did you just come here to chirp?"

The voice was low and raspy, just as she had remembered it through all these years. It was a voice from the past she had buried so deep that hearing it now was like an old wound being prodded open – already healed and forgotten but the pain then returning in familiar waves. Or maybe she had never truly healed, only covered her wound under a thick scab? Sansa took a deep breath and fisted her hands, trying to gain control of herself.

His form too was as big and formidable as in her memories even though he was hunched on a long wooden bench his back against stone wall, long legs stretched out before him. He was shackled by his ankles and wrists into iron cuffs and looping metal chains bound him to the wall. Somehow, as restrained as he was, it was as if he filled the whole room with his presence and sucked the air right out of it - suddenly Sansa felt she was suffocating.

The Hound.

She released the latch carefully not to make any noise and stepped fully inside, pulling the door softly close behind her. She placed the thick bundle she had been carrying on a counter near the door and tiptoed around the room lighting torches on the wall from the candle she carried. She still couldn't get around the fact that the Hound was alive and here, in flesh and blood. Not dead. Not a ghost. Yet otherworldly dread of being in the presence of a shadow made her hands shake. Sansa tried to hide it by squeezing the candle tighter – she couldn't let him see how much his presence affected her.

"I did. I didn't."

Before she wouldn't have had the courage to talk to him like that, but much had happened since the last time they saw each other. The timid girl was gone, having shed her skin and emerged as Alayne, the witty bastard daughter of Lord Baelish the Lord Protector of the Vale.

"So?"

"I have the key to the chains, a change of clothes and I have opened the side door at the end of this very corridor. It will lead you out of the castle to the bailey. If you keep your head down you should be able to find your way into the stables, take a horse and be on your way before your escape is discovered. Just be sure to wait until the darkest hour, when the keep is most quiet."

Only a grunt greeted the news but then, she hadn't expected effusive declarations of gratitude.

"The rest of the Brothers are also leaving at first light. You may meet them on the road."

"I may have been stupid to get caught, but I am not that stupid. They will be the first ones scrutinised after my escape is noticed, them and the Quiet Isle. No, I better go anywhere but there."

Sansa shrug her shoulders and laid the items she had brought out one by one. A simple dagger, the longest and sharpest she had found. The largest tunic and breeches she had been able to pinch from the seamstresses' rooms were made for a much fatter person and were sure to be too short in arms and legs but that couldn't be helped. She was glad she didn't have to try to locate boots as well. Although the Hound had been stripped off all his belongings, at least all his clothes were left in the room. Not that it was much: just a simple garb of a brother of Faith, a rope-belt, the aforementioned boots and simple rough-woven undertunic and light breeches he wore.

The last item she placed on the counter was a cloak. It was the only piece suited to his size; it had been white once but was now faded and dirty, stained with blood splatters and ashen soot smeared into its weave. She had had it with her ever since that night, stored in her trunk under her summer silks. It had given her strange comfort on cold nights when only memories of past kindnesses had kept her going – even if they had been in the form of an odd gentleness from a bitter soul.

"Why are you doing this?"

The question surprised Sansa, but something in its cautious tone made her stop and think before replying. Yes, why?

She had immediately noticed the brother head and shoulder taller than the others in the newly arrived group from the Quiet Isle. It being him she however could never have imagined. The news of the death of the infamous Hound had reached the Vale some time ago, and upon hearing them Sansa had felt queer emptiness inside her. Later, for reasons unclear even to herself, she had shed burning tears for the man she had hardly known in the quiet of her rooms.

And then she had dried her eyes and buried the cloak even deeper. After all, he was only one more in the long list of people whose life had touched hers and who were now gone from it forever.

It had been his loud gasp of surprise when Sansa had walked to the dais that had turned everyone's attention to him and led to his arrest. Petyr had ordered him to be kept under lock and key until he decided what to do with him. 'That man is dangerous and I must not underestimate him. I don't know why he is among the Brothers of Seven but I will find out' he had responded to Sansa's queries about his actions.

Yes, that's it. It was my fault he was arrested and it is my duty to help him to get out.

Was that then the reason why Sansa had crept into this cell the previous night? Or her desire to get the confirmation of her own eyes that sometimes people indeed did come back from death? Whatever it was, he had received her with his usual derision but the difference was that now she could see through it. She had seen so much in her life – too much – that she could recognise that the hate he had carried on him like an armour had never been directed specifically at her but at life in general. And yet… the air of loathing that used to surround him, not differentiating whoever came into its sphere, seemed to have diminished. Back in King's Landing she had been an easy prey for it, but even had he still carried it, she would have not been so prone to its effects. Not anymore.

So she had offered him her help and he had accepted it.

"Because you saved my life once," she said out loud.

"All good deeds will be rewarded, is that it? Fuck that girl, I did what I did with no danger to myself. Those rioters were only rats. But you have something to loose; what will your beloved Father say if he finds out that you pried his prisoner out of his clutches?" Sansa could practically feel the sneer in his voice. She looked at him but the notion of a change she had spotted the previous night was there again despite his tone. Something in him was different but she couldn't quite put her finger into what it was.

His features were the same; the hooked nose, weathered skin, hard features and long dark hair combed over the side of his burned face. His scars had certainly not diminished in size nor in appearance. That they didn't disturb her anymore she had registered already, but it told more about changes in her than in him. She cocked her head and studied the Hound so long that he started to shift uncomfortably and as in a gesture countering her move fixed his own gaze on her with equal intensity.

His eyes. The rage is not there anymore, Sansa suddenly realised. The deep grey pools were as guarded as before, but the barely restrained anger simmering in them was gone. They looked at each other for a long time, neither giving anything away. Then a moment of rare uncertainty flashed in his eyes and he addressed her.

"I could take you with me." The echoes of the last time he had made her the same offer reverberated in the room, both feeling them but as if by mutual decision leaving them unacknowledged.

"I can't leave little Sweet-Robin. If I leave…" Sansa didn't finish the sentence. What did the Hound care about her worries or her secret plans, slowly brewed over many months to find a way to get back to Winterfell, even if with dubious help from Littlefinger? In any case, although this time he was not drunk or mad from fear, going with a man like him would still be surely dangerous and outcome unpredictable.

So Sansa ignored him and moved to study his predicament in more detail. She had made subtle enquiries earlier that day and found out that the cell the Hound had been housed in was a relic of old; an interrogation room reserved for captured enemy who needed to be… persuaded to tell their secrets.

The key she had secured from the anteroom opened the lock holding a central bundle of chains that were linked to the prisoner's arms and legs in one end, and after looping via four hooks in the wall, attached to a heavy ballast in the other. One push of a lever mounted to the wall would see the weight drop and the prisoner's arms and legs stretched taut, neatly preventing any movement by the hapless victim. The purpose was not necessarily to harm the person - yet - but only to secure him and render him helpless to resist what was to follow.

Sansa shivered. It felt strange to have someone as strong as the Hound under such restraints. Just one movement of her hand and he would lie on that bench immobilised, unable to resist whatever harm was to be visited upon his body. She knew how it felt, to be helpless and under someone else's power. And in an ironical twist of fate it had been this very person she was helping now who had subjected her to that ordeal – and not only once, but twice.

Restless dreams, tossing and turning in her bed until sheets tangled around her limbs in tight coils and the heat almost suffocated her – except it was not the heat in the room but within her. HIS stare on her naked skin so forceful that it was almost like a touch; HIS warm breath stirring soft hairs on her body, the silken brush of HIS hair caressing her breasts, her thighs, her stomach…

Waking up in cold dread, green flames filling the sky, his weight pinning her under him, the stench of blood and vomit and wine engulfing them both. And then…wetness on his cheek that wasn't sticky as blood; his low murmur; retreating footsteps.

Sansa had dreamt of those times often. Not by choice, but she was powerless to prevent them invading her head time and time again. Sometimes her dreams were sensuous and she found herself drawn to them as if they were something desirable… And sometimes she woke up in cold sweat with a taste of terror in her mouth. Yet always she felt helpless – and she had learned to loath that feeling.

Sansa felt his gaze on her once again, heavy and expecting. Despite the Hound being the one imprisoned and restrained, his strength exuded from him in primal waves and dominated the room just like it had always done, and she felt weak because of it. All of a sudden she felt a twinge of anger. Why was he allowed to come back from death when her father, her mother, her brothers and sister were today as gone as ever? Why the Hound, who most certainly was not a good person, got to live, and her loving and caring family did not? It was so unfair that a slight sob escaped from her lips attracting the prisoner's attention. He lifted his head and threw an odd look into her direction but didn't say a word. Sansa pretended to have nicked her thumb and stuck it into her mouth to buy some time.

Having sorted out the order of the fetters Sansa attempted to fit the key into a central lock but her hands shook uncontrollably and it kept slipping away. Throwing a sideway glance at the Hound she saw him already stretching his arms in anticipation of his freedom.

She pulled the key out and weighed it in her palm. Just one turn of the rusty lock and he could remove the chains binding his manacles and he would be free - and the moment would be over. The moment when she, Sansa, had control over the Hound.

The night when Blackwater was on fire – his steel on her throat. 'Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life.'

A small voice whispered inside Sansa's head. Now is your chance. You can pay him back with his own coin. Almost without realising it she lowered her hand. A strange madness took over her and instead of the lock she reached for the lever.

SCREEEECCHHHH!

The rusty metal made a noise as thousand devils howling as the heavy coils clattered through the hoops. Too fast for the Hound to react. In just a few seconds he had been pulled prone on the bench, legs and arms extended exactly as Sansa had envisioned.

"The fuck, girl!? What did you just pull on me?" He sounded more surprised than angry – yet. Sansa stood frozen on the spot, hand still resting on the lever.

The Hound seemed too stunned even to struggle against his predicament, only flexing his arms as if for a tentative tug. The muscles on his forearm roiled under his skin as he pulled, but the ballast was too heavy. Sansa couldn't tear her eyes away from him, fascinated by his shock. Her heart pumped loudly in her ears. What have I done?