Arya Stark may not have been the most feminine of girls in the 21st century. She might not have been the most feminine girl of any century. But this did not mean that she had a sense for personal hygiene... however lacking it might be. And though her room probably wasn't going to win medals for being exuberantly clean, she liked to think that the bathroom of was an appointed area that should remain clean.
Arya would admit that this acknowledgement for the cleanliness of the bathroom only started due her traumatic experience which occurred on an ordinary Monday night.
She had been in the middle of washing her body bending down to scrub her feet and remove gunk from her toe nails when she spotted it.
Arya looked. Stared. Gaped. Recoiled.
She felt her naked back press back to the warm slick tiles of the shower wall, speechless with disgust. A tremulous shudder ran down her spine and she breathed heavily in an attempt to assuage her disgust.
What was that? What was that! What on God's good green earth was that!
Mustering her courage and strength she bent back down a little further to observe her findings.
There in the drain, was a horrifying, matted black clump of hair.
Choking on bile Arya raced out of the shower dripping wet. Only until she had composed herself did she look back at the nefarious belongings in the drain of her shower.
"Eugh"
In all of her 16 years on this planet, her bathroom had always been sparkling clean- not thanks to her but definitely thanks to Sansa, the girls had to share a bathroom for as long as she could remember and Sansa never failed to keep it gleaming and radiating with cleanliness. How could she have missed that!
Black hair though Arya, Sansa and I don't have black hair- who the buggering hell has been using our bathroom! None of the boys used their bathrooms ever since Robb had dubbed it to be full of 'girl's germs' when they were younger and she remembered the one time Jon used it when he desperately needed to pee Robb had teased for a week calling him 'infected'. Her father and mother wouldn't have any need to use their bathroom; they had an en suite of their own complete with a luxurious spa with advance technological features and a toilet which flushed by itself.
Dumbfounded Arya decided to put it away from her mind, dried herself off and left, hoping it would disappear on its own.
The next morning Arya went straight to the bathroom. The hideousness was gone and all was good in the world again...
...till the next Monday night...
Arya had gotten home from fencing that afternoon. No one else was home but Sansa acting as the house wife cooking dinner for when the rest of them would return. Mum and Dad worked late on Mondays, Jon and Robb would be working as well while Bran would be at Meera and Jojen's house at their little fortune telling club and Mum would have dropped off Rickon at Osha's for tutoring. There was no other soul in the house.
She put her fencing bag on the table with a thump and checked to see what Sansa was cooking.
"Arya take that off the table it's nauseating!" Sansa complained. Arya shrugged dipping her finger in the cake batter than Sansa was making for dessert.
Her sister had no idea what nauseating was. Nauseating was what she had found in the bathroom drain last week.
"Have you washed your hands?" Sansa asked her hitting her fingers lightly with a spoon.
Arya shrugged in reply.
"I'm going to shower" she merely replied and dashed off.
This time the shower was perfectly fine. Just as usual, it was spotless and gleaming. Arya couldn't help but smile, she never realised how much she appreciated a clean bathroom and all it's worth. She would thank Sansa afterwards- her sister would like that, Arya might even get a surprised reaction at the sudden courtesy she would give.
Arya dried herself of and put on a pair of trackies and a tank top, she opened the drawer and reached for her brush. She looked at the poor thing. It was covered in dark brown hair that she had left there not bothered to clean it.
Thinking for a moment, Arya decided to clean it after all. Sansa did her part in keeping the bathroom clean, she should have some respect for it herself.
Arya opened the sink cupboard to pull out the waste bin that they kept there. She was halfway through tearing out the hair in matted clumps before she realised something.
In the bin was a small square foil pocket. Arya didn't need to look twice to realise what it was. And it definitely wasn't hers.
Arya had never had a boyfriend. The only boys that were even willing to get close to her were Gendry and he knew she didn't like to be treated like a girl and Jaqen her friend from fencing who always flirted with her but sadly never did anything more than kiss her brow.
Arya quickly tore all the knotted hair out of the brush and arranged it to cover the obscene findings in the bin.
Sansa has a lover she declared in her mind, Sansa has a lover.
And then it all became clear. No one was home but Sansa during the hours of 4 to 6 in the evening on Monday nights. That was plenty of time to rendezvous with a secret lover without anyone noticing.
Arya mulled over it a bit more. She supposed Sansa was eighteen now and Arya knew a large group of people at school started things like sex around her age, but she couldn't figure out who it could be. Sansa hated Joff ever since he started to treat her like horse shit and there was no other person that she had seemed interested in since. Arya remembered the time a guy called Harry was trying to get Sansa to go out with him but she had flat out rejected him.
Black hair... Who had black hair that I know? Arya wondered but she didn't know too many of Sansa friends.
I'll keep her secret she decided, she obviously doesn't want to be found so I won't tell... as long as the bathroom remains clean.
The following week Arya tried to ignore any subtle hints of Sansa's liaison. The rumpled bed covers in her Sister's room. Several more foil packets in the waste bin. Her sister's exuberant mood when she arrived back home. Arya put up with it all. Her sister need feed her and she guessed she should do something back for her.
Until she saw it again.
The black clump of hair in her shower drain. It was unforgivable. Arya stared down the licentious object in her shower drain.
She had reached her limit. It needed to be stopped. She had been munificent already in putting up with her sister's incredibly annoying good moods on Monday nights, but this was too much. Making up her mind she fled the crime scene.
When Arya went to fencing on the Wednesday night she told her fencing master Syrio that she wouldn't be able to attend Monday afternoon club session.
"What's this?" asked Jaqen eyeing her curiously after her request, "A girl isn't seeing someone else behind my back is she? If she is maybe a certain man might take Monday off as well and offer a more pleasant afternoon with, no doubt more agreeable man"
Arya smiled and blushed slightly at his words, almost tempted to take up his offer.
"No, I'm just needed at home that afternoon" she said biting her lip at the lost opportunity.
That following Monday Arya went home straight away after school arriving back home at 3:30. There she prepared herself for the confrontation. She took a seat in the kitchen and watched from the opportune place to discover the identity of her sister's lover whilst not being seen until they at least moved three meters forward from the front door.
There she sat and waited until she could hear her sister's light steps climbing to the front door, the giggling of keys and a excited giggle from her sister's lips. She stared at the large figure through the clouded glass of the door.
Never knew Sansa would go for the muscle type- he's freaking huge! I thought she liked those skinny fancy boys that looked like they were from One Direction.
Arya took a deep breath in preparing herself as the door opened.
Arya felt her mouth drop to the floor and her eyes pop out.
"OH MY GOD SANSA! SANDOR CLEGANE!" she screamed.
"ARYA!" her sister screamed in return.
"YOU'RE SHAGGING SANDOR FLIPPING CLEGANE!"
"ARYA WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!"
"ISN'T HE LIKE FORTY OR SOMETHING!"
"I'm thirty-three..."
"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE AT FENCING!"
"HE'S MORE THAN TWICE YOUR AGE!"
"I'm thirty-three..."
"ARYA STOP SHOUTING AND LISTEN TO ME!"
"HE COULD BE YOUR FATHER!"
"I'm thirty-three..."
"ARYA STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!"
"HE'S SO OLD!"
"I'm thirt- screw this- BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP!"
Arya and Sansa clamped their mouths shut and stared at the towering man.
"Good" he said and exhaled heavily, "Now... I'm thirty-"
"Sansa what on earth are you thinking?" Arya said interrupting rushing over to them. Sandor groaned defeated while Sansa moved to close the front door.
"How on earth did you find out?" Sansa repressed her screaming.
"The Baratheon's body guard?" Arya continued her diatribe, "A man twice your age? Did you think that would ever work?"
Sansa stood silent, with tears brimming in her eyes as she pleaded silently with her sister. Arya just stood there with disbelief.
Clegane cleared his throat.
"I'm thirty-three..." he announced, "...just thought you should know..."
Sansa and Arya stared at him incredulously.
"Sansa, I can't believe that-"
"Arya I love him" Sansa declared her voice going faint towards the end of her speech, "And I know everything you're probably going to say; 'he's too old', 'I'm too young', 'We're from entirely different worlds', I know how it's all so wrong"
Arya looked helplessly at her sister.
"But I love him" Sansa finished, "And what can be more right than that?"
Arya observed her sister and her lover who was trying to look everywhere but them, excluding himself from the conversation. But he still held her hands stroking it soothingly and when Arya looked into his eyes she saw a glimpse of kindness and love. Maybe it was always there but she just hadn't realised it. She looked into those blue glistening eyes and sucked air into her lungs.
"Fine" Arya finally said, "I won't tell anyone"
Sansa breathed out in relief as did Sandor.
"If you are happy that's what counts" she said giving her sister a reassuring smile, "Even if it's with an old man"
"I'm th-" Arya shot him a look and he stopped and look down at the floor, "Never mind..."
Sansa smiled, her vision blurred by tears and she reached out to embrace her sister.
"Ah! But one thing!" she said pushing her sister away and staring seriously at her.
"What is it?" Sansa said still smiling, she would probably give Arya the world in order to keep her little secret.
Arya stood, feet apart and hands balled into fists. She eyed them sternly.
"Just because you throw away your- ...rubbish... doesn't mean it's gone and if he", she pointed, "Is going to use our shower I expect it to be spotless afterwards"
Sansa and Sandor looked at her quietly.
"Just because I know about you two doesn't mean that I want to be constantly reminded every time I go to the bathroom" she explained to them, "And you have to tell Mum and Dad one day, but if anyone else finds out I'm going to act innocent on this one"
They nodded at her. Arya sighed.
"Good. I'm going to go out now and won't be back until 6" she told them and walked out the house without another word.
She stood in the driveway and breathed out slowly.
What a mess! she thought but then she smiled. As odd as she thought it was and all her uncertainty in the back of her mind she had an image of a family with a few black haired and red headed children and a loving mother and father.
Arya took out her cell phone from her pocket and dialled.
"Hello?"
"So does a man's offer still stand?" she asked playfully.
"Lovely girl" and she could see him smiling in her head.
The next Monday night Arya took her time to observe the state of her bathroom and smiled, satisfied at the results.
All was well.
A/N: Back to what I'm good at- comedy.
Poor Sandor :P