A/N: This has been sitting on my hard drive for over a year now, and with Season 3 right around the corner I decided now was the best possible time to touch it up and put it out here. I think every fandom writer for Game of Thrones eventually wants to tackle this scene, and this is my offering to the community. No plot here, folks. All work belongs to its original creators, the only thing I get out of this is reviews!

THEN

He grabbed her from her window as the world burned green and orange around them. It no longer mattered who won the battle; he had lost the war long ago. He could smell the summer wine on her and fear and a flowery smell under the stench of smoke that choked his senses. Quicker than she could scream he pressed a hand against her mouth, blood from his fingers smudged black on her cheeks. The soft pliant warmth of her was, for a moment, bliss. "If you scream, I'll kill you." Not that anyone remained to hear, or cared to come to her aid. She'd be just one more in the pile of dead meat.

She quivered under his stare, in his grip. Her eyes wide and glassy, she nodded and he released his hold on her face. He was uncomfortably aware of her small chest heaving as she fought for her breath; the small motions of her breasts and the delicate tendons in her neck utterly consumed him. He drank from the flagon he had abandoned on her dressing table, wine to wash away the smoke; wine to wash away his obsession. He spoke without listening to his words, without listening to her chirping responses. He could devour her here, right on the stone floor where she stood. Wash away the smoke and pain and blistering heat with her skin and her smell and her cries in the throes of fucking.

Her question cut through his raw fantasy of fisting her soft hair in his hand, staring into her wide blue eyes and pressing his cock past her warm soft lips into her hot wet mouth. "Why are you here?" Her voice was tiny, tired, and afraid.

To break you into a thousand little pieces, he wanted to say. To take everything you might have given a prettier man. To ruin you past any hope of redemption; make you like me. "For the song you promised me." Lies, lies, and more lies. He was here because he couldn't be anywhere else.

She whimpered, but he was too drunk, too base, to feel like a monster anymore. "Look at me. Look at me!" Watching her stare at the air beside his head was like burning all over again; shame gnawed at the edges of his temper. He pulled her close, so she had no choice but to steady herself against him or stumble, and he curled his hand around her neck, bunching his hands in her fraying braid, forcing her face upwards. "I could keep you safe." From everyone but myself. "They're all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I'd kill them." Why not get on your knees and swear your sword to her, you stupid fucking romantic bastard? He's drowning in the sweet wine-y smell of her breath, and for one wonderful moment she was staring right at him, not his ruined face or twitching mouth. She could see right through him and she didn't look away. Then her eyes shut and he wanted to hurt her. Hurt her or kiss her. He shoved her roughly onto the bed rather than make that choice. "Still can't bear to look, can you." It hurt to be uglier than bloody Ned Stark's decapitated head. "Sing, little bird. Sing for your life."

He wasn't entirely sure when he pressed himself on top of her, pinning her with his weight and size; nor did he remember drawing the dagger at his waist to kiss against her neck. His hand trembled ever so slightly, and he cursed the armor that dulled the sensation of her twisting beneath him. The long silence stretched between them, and for a moment he wondered how to make good on his threat when the prayer began; soft and hopeless.

Gentle Mother, font of mercy, teach us all a kinder way

The words were like water, a shock of icy cold, then sobering. Carefully he returned his dagger to its home at his waist, mesmerized by the pale pretty face beneath him bathed in sickly green light. More than anything he wanted to be the answer to that prayer, as she answers his. If this were a song she could redeem him here and now; tame the anger, cool the burning. Too fucking bad life didn't work that way. There was neither mercy nor redemption for big ugly brutes. Only war and death.

He shied from her hand, warm and damp with fear-sweat, startled. The touch was so perfectly foreign, perfectly divine, that he was almost undone right then and there. He wanted to beg her to come with him; his life hers. Her fingers trailed along his jaw, tickling, against his neck. She didn't belong in this twisted burning hell. He'd get her out, if only she'd forgive him his folly tonight. If only she'd say yes. But she said nothing, and he won't ask again, so with a reverence he never found for anything else in life, he pressed her palm against his mouth, kissing it gently before pushing himself off the bed and away from her.

He ripped the dirty white cloak from his back, wishing desperately that he could cast off his ugliness the same way. He would always be an ugly man, an angry man, but he would be so honestly. Let the evil men of the world dress in white and swear falsely the vows of chivalry and goodness. He was done with that shit. Then he left, door slamming shut behind him. He didn't look back but he couldn't help himself hoping to hear the soft sound of a lady's slippered feet running after him.

NOW

It's a different night and a different man looking out that window, though the view hasn't changed significantly. The sky burns with celebratory dragon fire and the city streets are lit with a thousand-thousand fire-flowers. Moonlight glows on scaly hides and in the streets a cheer goes up for the newly anointed queen and the dragons she calls her children. It wasn't his victory and this isn't his celebration, despite the blood he shed for her.

Instead he thinks of the might-have-been queen he accosted long years ago in this room; pressed her against that bed, walked out through that door. That man had died in the woods outside Maidenpool, and the man who had followed him had died in the salted fields of the Quiet Isle. It didn't matter; all the men he had ever been and would ever be needed Sansa Stark the same. And he had left her here, to die or to live.

"What does a man of war do in a time of peace?"

He is so lost in melancholy, hypnotized by the golden-white fire slashing through the night that he did not hear the door open. It's a dizzying, mad moment before he can recognize her; they've been apart too long; the little bird with her child's face and child's softness grew up. "Lady…" It comes out a whisper, almost a prayer.

She raises her chin, inscrutable as any Dornish sphinx, as light from a fire-flower flickers blue and gold across her face. "Regent, now." Deliberately, slowly, she moves to the window with a whisper of silk. "What does a man of war do in a time of peace?" She doesn't look at him as she repeats herself; the question is meant as much to the city as to him. A question to her herself as well.

He's hyper-aware of her presence beside him: the airy stir of her silk sleeve against his tunic, the heat radiating from her body, the soft fresh scent of her hair. It's his greatest act of will to hold still, keep his eyes on the panorama spread before them. He doesn't want to admire the view with its lights and darks and music carried by a spring breeze. He wants to look upon her. "I don't know."

From the corner of his eye he watches her head bow to his answer. "I should have gone with you."

It's too much for him to bear and he turns suddenly, reacting to the apologetic whisper as much as the implication of her words, pulling her to face him. His hands wrap around her jaw, but she's already staring into his face, fear replaced by curiosity and something even more brazen that he is afraid to name. The intensity of her stare burns like the sun and as seconds stretch into minutes stretching into eternity, and still her stare bores straight into him. He breaks the gaze, loosening his grip and stepping away respectfully.

His patchwork restraint is ruined when she pushes his chest gently. "All this time and you've nothing to say to me?"

He gives her a baffled look; what could she want to hear after eight years, five kings and a thousand miles? I thought you were dead. I missed you. I'm sorry. I want you. I need you. Weak meaningless words, all of them. Empty words for pretty young men, not something he could lower himself to saying, even now. Not even to her.

She gives him an odd little half smile that reminds him uncomfortably of Littlefinger. "You ruined me, that night the Blackwater burned. Did you know that?" Her fingers drag down his chest, she steps closer, stretching so they are nearly nose to nose if he cranes his neck down. He doesn't know where to put his hands anymore; he's well and truly drunk on the feel of her breath across his neck. He wonders if she can feel his heart pounding under her hand, his arousal against her body.

"I didn't…" He's never felt so powerless in his adult life as now, for every step he retreats she advances until he's up against a wall.

"I know what you didn't. And I know what you did." Her fingers fist through his hair, pulling him down to her level and holding him in place as though he might stand up or run away. Her eyes are fever-bright, her lips tickling against the stubble on his upper lip and before his eyes something inside her slips loose and she presses her lips to his, raw and fierce with years of repressed feeling.

He responds with his basest instinct, cupping her flush against his groin, his chest, as he moves his mouth against hers, gaining entry and losing himself in the textures and tastes she offers. Her hands smooth over his skin, his clothes, leaving burning trails in their wake and she's all his dreams and desires and he wants her now; forever now.

But she has none of his impatience, damn her, and he's painfully achingly aware of how curious she is- observing his movements and mimicking them back, flicking her tongue over his lips, dragging her nails through his hair. He can't bear to think of this as a one time tryst, and doesn't dare to expect more.

She breaks away, looking up at him through her lashes as she toys uncertainly with the hem of his tunic. He stills her fluttering hands, lifting her chin with a finger. "What are you doing?" His bestial self rages at this delay, fearing her denial. He ignores it; no longer is he the man who bound himself to those feelings.

There's something wondrously Stark about her expression, fierce and proud and utterly determined as she undoes the sword belt around his hips. "I want you." The declaration steels something in her, and she pulls away from him, foiling his efforts to grab her and she stands just out of reach, tall and poised and perfect. Silhouetted against a flare of dragon-fire, she begins unlacing the ties holding her delicate gown shut.

He wants to be the one to untie the delicate ribbons at her sides, ease the silk off her shoulders. He wants to lead her to the bed and worship her body and fuck her senseless, as he so often dreamed. But he doesn't have the words to give his wants a voice, so he lets go of the fantasy as the robe whispers down her back onto the floor. He follows her meekly to the bed, drinking in the curve of her hip, the line of her back, fumbling with the ties on his shirt, nearly tearing the damn thing in his hurry.