A/N: As usual, I don't own a single thing. This fic was originally posted on AO3 under the same user name. I figured I'd post it here as well because I love both platforms and was my first love.

Hope you enjoy it! Please let me know what you think.


He always knew that if the gods were real, he'd go to some kind of hell for the things he had done. Sandor Clegane had not been a good man when he was younger, everything that every sacred book said not to do, he had done, well maybe not every single one. But he had killed, he had cursed every god old and new, had a dirty mind and even a dirtier mouth, had stolen, had deceived, intimidated the innocent to his own benefit, he had cheated people and maybe even death. He was a veteran, he had traveled the world and seen its misery, he had also seen its wonders, but nothing would ever compare to the agony and delight that would be waiting for him back home.

There was a fraction of a second between the moment a grenade was pulled, and it went off in which, according to the military, it was in that portion of time when heroes were made. To Sandor, that split of a second was no place for heroes; it was the moment in which a man's true colors showed. It didn't matter how many times you rehearsed, or how many times you told yourself over and over that you'd lay your life for your brothers. It was at that moment in which you went back to instincts, in which a man ran and took cover or launched and tried to save lives. He had been doing rounds, clearing a perimeter during one of his deployments when he heard it, the slight almost indistinguishable click of a grenade, he had turned just in time to see the shiny metal before it was thrown directly at his men from a window. He had shouted and flung himself to get Giantsbane out of the way; the thing exploded a second later, the expansive wave throwing them further away from the building. He didn't know if he was knocked out for a second or a minute, but he opened his eyes to his ears were ringing and excruciating pain on the left side of his head. The first thing he did was take out his gun and fire in the direction from when the fucking grenade had been thrown. Bullets came and go, the smell of gunshot powder and iron filled his senses, his vision blurred and the drowned sounds of screaming, cursing and dying filled his ears. At that moment he knew that when he died, that was exactly what hell would be like, everything went dark after that.

The first time he opened his eyes he was on a stretcher in the back of a vehicle, he couldn't open one of his eyes but there was a big blotch of red hair that might have been talking to him or maybe at him. The second time he woke up it was to the smell of bleach and disinfectant, a hospital for sure, silence surrounded him but he didn't know if it was because he was deaf or because he was alone, so he went back to sleep. Hours, maybe days later, he woke up again; things got back into focus, sounds were distinguishable again, and he was so hungry he could eat a cow. His first visit was Giantsbane, the ginger thanked him for saving his life, told him they were practically roommates as he had needed surgery to remove some of the shrapnel too. His second visit was Snow, he brought a few things with him, his thanks for saving most of the platoon, Sandor's personal belongings from camp, the confirmation of an honorable discharge and finally, the invitation to a ceremony in which he'd be receiving a medal for his courage.

"Can we expect you there, Clegane?" - Jon had asked as he cut his visit short.

"Fuck the medal, fuck this war."

Later he learned that the explosion had thrown shrapnel to most of his upper left side, he had surgery after surgery to make sure that all the metal was out and then another one to reconstruct the damage on his face. He had never been a handsome man yet despite the doctor's excellent work; there were still scars that would always remind him of that day in hell. On top of the recovery from multiple surgeries, there was the need to readjust to the civilian life, which had proven harder than he thought. Being in the military, every single one of his actions had a purpose, he wasn't the most friendly guy but he was respected by his peers and his subordinates, either for his rank or his fame but no one would have dared to stop and stare at his face as civilians did when he tried to do the simplest tasks.

Eventually, things got better. He moved out of the capital, a place too noisy and smelly for his recovery. He found a quiet apartment in a near small city, a new therapist and started sleeping better; he even enrolled in some classes a the community college. It was on pure chance that he ran into Tormund on a Wednesday night as he nursed a drink, they hugged in the way only men who have faced death together could, sat down and talked for hours. It might have been the alcohol, or maybe it was the sense of belonging and order that Tormund reminded him of, but Sandor ended up offering his couch to the ginger giant who was apparently just visiting before deciding if he was staying or not.

That had been three years ago, which meant that he had known Sansa Star for two years and nine months, not that he was counting. It wasn't as if he could remember the exact date in which he met her, December 7t, Tormund's birthday. Or that he often thought of how easy it had been to have a conversation with her after she had found him hiding by the end of the bar playing darts. Or the way in which she had smiled at him so prettily and lightly touched his arm before saying it was a pleasure to meet him and bidding him goodnight like a polite little lady before leaving the bar with Jon Snow, who turned out to be her half-brother. No, Sandor didn't think about that often, he didn't think about her either, and he definitely did not question how the hell had they ended up being friends.

After Tormund's birthday party he had thought of Sansa as Jon's pretty sister, they had talked and laughed, but he hadn't asked for her number, and she hadn't offered. For two months he had cursed himself for being such a coward, but a part of him already knew how things would turn out: she'd give him her number, he wouldn't know what to say. After a while he might call her, she wouldn't remember who he was and he'd have to remind her, they would maybe meet for coffee, without the alcohol, she would get bored, she would make polite conversation and then tell him goodbye forever. Girls like Sansa Stark, pretty girls with trust funds and kind hearts, did not befriend former murderers who used to have bounties on their heads in countries they probably didn't even know existed. That was why two months later when a voice called out his name in the middle of a hospital waiting room, he was surprised to see it was her. She told him that she was picking up some results from a routine check up and asked if he was free to grab some coffee, still a little stunned that she wanted to hang out with him, Sandor had agreed and followed her to the cafeteria.

Once they had their coffees, Sansa smiled and asked him what he was doing in the hospital, as if it was the most common of places to run into someone, she must have seen the discomfort in his face because she added that he didn't have to answer as almost an afterthought. He remained quiet for a minute measuring out his options, he could lie to her, tell her he was donating blood or something but he hated liars, and his doctor had once and again told him that there was no shame in receiving treatment. So he told her the truth, that he was there for an appointment with Dr. Aemon, who was helping him with his PSTD. She didn't say a thing. Instead, she smiled warmly and drifted the conversation in her way, sharing how the firm where she worked had just opened an office in town and she was excited to be moving to a smaller city. She talked about the little apartment she had found downtown and how it had an extra bedroom for when Jon finished his deployment. They couldn't have talked for longer than thirty minutes but before she got up to leave Sandor had offered to help her moving in, saying Tormund alone wouldn't be enough to move heavy stuff and then she had ripped a piece of paper from her planner and written her number in girly handwriting telling him to text her so she could send over her address.

Tormund had given him hell the entire moving day. He mentioned how he had never volunteered to help him move, making loud comments of how the fearsome Hound: the man who has feared in every city across the Narrow Sea, the man who had killed a Dothraki screamer, an Unsullied soldier and a Dornish sand snake all in the same week had been disarmed by a pretty lass and was now using his deadly abilities to assemble a bed that he wouldn't even be enjoying. Lucky for Tormund, Sansa had not been in the room when that comment was made, or he would have had the need to use his skills on removing blood from surfaces after he killed the man.

After that day something resembling a friendship had been formed. They would hang out when Jon was in town, or Tormund would invite Sansa to join them for a beer after work on Fridays. Sometimes they would have coffee on Sunday mornings if Sansa needed help with some computer stuff or Sandor needed help with some contract they would have lunch during the week, they never had alcohol when alone, not that Sansa hadn't proposed meeting in a bar or having a beer with lunch. No, Sandor didn't entirely trust himself with her in an intoxicated state and being near Sansa in itself was almost like being drunk or high or drunk and high. When he first met her he had found her pretty: long legs and slender features; when they had terrible hospital coffee he discovered that she wasn't just pretty, she was beautiful, any girl who could manage to look good under the damn fluorescent lights of a hospital was sure to be something else. And as they started meeting more, in different places and environments, he discovered that while he had been drawn to her body, it had been her gentle eyes and kind heart that had sealed his feelings for her. He tried to not fall for her, he really did, he used his fame for being a loner as a shield and pretty much avoided her for a month, turning down every invitation which could even risk the possibility of bumping into her, if he didn't see her, he would eventually just forget her, right? Forget the little things he liked about her… he had never been a romantic man, but he had always been a mindful one, in his job you had to have an eye for details, and that very same skill that had kept him alive for so long seemed to become what would be the death of him.

It was trying to forget her that Sandor met Daisy. She worked a job as dull as she was, something in the lines of assistant to the junior accounting assistant of some small magazine thing. They met at his least favorite bar in the city, after a particularly crappy day, he had sensed her staring at him, women used to stare at him fairly often because of his build, but once they got a closer look at his face, at his scars, they tended to scatter. She hadn't though, she had walked up to him, already a little tipsy, and boldly asked him to buy her another drink. One drink turned into two drinks and then into three, and before he cared to figure out what happened, he was pressed against the wall of a dark corridor with a girl all over him. They had made out, viciously, his hands roaming through hair that wasn't copper coloured, that looked softer than it actually was, his lips rough against chapped ones that belonged to a mouth that was saying empty words; the girl was clearly drunk when she suggested taking the party over to her place but he agreed to take her there. She was all over him the second they got in his truck, she fished for his phone in his pocket, making him jump when her fingers brushed against something that was not his phone and then she busied herself with pressing buttons and whatever.

He had never intended to take advantage of her, he wasn't that kind of man, but he did agree to a little more kissing, stealing a few more bases, before finally pushing her in the bed, pretending to go to the bathroom and giving her enough time to pass out. Two days later his phone rang just as he finished his workout, he didn't recognize the name that popped on his screen, but curiosity got the best of him, and he picked up. It was Daisy, from the bar she had said, she wanted to buy him coffee or a sandwich or something as a thank you for… well, for whatever that night had been and he agreed. It lasted two months before he got tired of her; she asked too many questions, and never the right ones, she talked too much but instead of chirping courtesies she whined, her laugh didn't seem genuine, her eyes weren't warm… the sex was okay, the kisses not half bad, but it wasn't what he wanted, she wasn't who he wanted, and once the novelty wore off and his body got its share of action, far from turning his mind away from Sansa, it merely made him think of her even more.

Sansa Stark had been a mystery to him, a puzzle he could not put together, a bomb he could not put apart. He had been called the Hound in the army because he could smell a bomb from one hundred feet away; because he seemed to stretch that fraction of a second between a trigger and an explosion and yet he had failed to notice the depth of the impact this girl would have on him.

Little by little he got to know her better, to see past the facade of a pretty young girl born into money with the perfect courtesies, solid GPA and a job waiting for her. He learned about her family and the hardships she had faced at such a young age. He learned of the horrible relationships she has entered or been pushed into in the past. He learned her favorite dessert, how she liked her coffee, her inability to change a tire or take her car to the mechanic. He learned how Jon had taken care of her and that now she took care of him. For the first time in his life, he was jealous of the pretty boy; he wanted to be the one who took care of Sansa and maybe if he could have one good thing in his life, learn what it would feel for her to take care of him.

It had been in that longing to care for her, in his own way of trying to make her happy, that he had agreed to what he now considered the closest notion of hell on earth. Closer even than that day under the burning sun of a forsaken town in the Free Cities in which he had almost died for probably the hundredth time.

Sansa worked for an NPO that provided funds for women who had suffered domestic abuse and girls who could not afford their education. She was a lawyer and a damn good one at it, and she had the biggest bleeding heart that Sandor has ever met. He could still remember the big smile on her face as she told him how some corporate office had agreed to donate money for every person her NPO managed to sign up for a marathon they would be hosting in a few months. She had registered on impulse, being one to lead by her example and then encouraging her peers to join her and tell their friends to support them too. Sandor couldn't help but smile at the ridiculousness of it all, it wasn't that he didn't support her work, he did, but Sansa Stark was no sportswoman, she had confessed to him that she was blessed with great genetics and a superior metabolism.

"Let me get this right, you impulsively signed up for a marathon... you... Sansa, when was the last time you actually exercised?"

"I went to a free yoga class last month! And I do that eight minutes ab workout almost every day... so, yesterday?"

He couldn't help but laugh, a part of him was ready to receive her scolding but he also knew that she wouldn't call him off, she didn't really have the right to do so and she knew it. So instead she waited for him to finish laughing and then looked at him with her big blue eyes and he knew he was fucked because she only looked at him like that when she wanted to ask something, and he had yet to master the art of denying her.

"Okay, okay, I know. But Sandor, that's where you come in. I need you, Sandor, these girls, these women need you."

Alarms started going off in his head, he knew where she was getting at, and he didn't want her to go there. She was deliberately choosing her words, picking the ones that would have the most impact on him, *I need you Sandor*, if only that were true, he thought. Encouraged by the sudden silence, Sansa had gone on.

"You're an active man; you're probably the fittest man I know... definitely one of the most disciplined too. I need your help; I need your guidance, I need to be held accountable. You could help me train! I'd be your padawan!"

"Who would have thought that a pretty little bird like you would be such a nerd" - he had mumbled under his breath before sighing - "Running a marathon requires commitment, girl, and if I did agree to help you, which I'm not agreeing to, you'd have to mold your schedule to mine, I really don't have any spare time for you to take at your convenience."

Her eyes lit up a little at his words, at the sole idea that he wasn't plain out rejecting her. She told him how she would commit to it, how she would show up at five in the morning if need be, how she would schedule every single one of their sessions in her agenda and stick to it through thick and thin. And then she smiled at him, bright and true. She smiled the smile she reserved for when Jon went back home after deployment, for her when her rowdy sister shared her life stories with her; she smiled that smile that he had seldom received, but that made it seem as if life wasn't so bad and he agreed.

He found an 18-week plan that seemed doable and emailed it to her that same afternoon, he agreed to run with her thrice a week to keep her accountable, but the training plan also demanded her to do some cross training during the week and was accompanied by some suggestions on her diet. He told her it would be entirely up to her to get ready for the marathon; he was only her running partner, not her fucking personal trainer. Finding for a way out of it, Sandor scheduled their first run for Monday at six in the morning, knowing that Sansa was not a morning person at all, he figured that she would show up late and he'd be able to count her first strike. He was wrong. On Monday morning, a soft knock on the door caught his attention just as he finished stretching a little; he opened the door to a very sleepy Sansa who was all but leaning against the frame in an attempt to not fall back asleep. Taking her lack of attention to his advantage, he took her in: hair perfectly pulled into a high ponytail, one of those fancy running t-shirts and shorts… shorts that showed off her incredibly long legs, legs that had some freckles on them; freckles that he had never seen before and he should have never seen in the first place because he was sure that he'd be thinking about them for the rest of the day.

"Morning" - she said softly, breaking his trance, her eyes looked a bit more awake, a smile forming on her make-up free face - "Ready to do this?"

He wanted to say no, he wanted to tell her this had been a mistake, that he could send her text messages asking if she had worked out and that she did not need him as a running buddy. He wanted to go back inside and close the door, forget he ever saw her looking so good at six in the morning, wondering how it was possible for someone, anyone, to look that good so early. But he didn't, he just nodded, stepped outside and went over some basic stretching before telling her they'd be running three miles and to try to keep up.

"They say it takes thirty days to develop a new habit" - Sandor had said after they finished their first run, as he tried and failed to not look at Sansa while she stretched up - "If you stick to your training and not miss any days for a month, I might consider running that marathon with you."

Thirty days went by in a blur. Thirty days of scheduled runs and some unscheduled workouts threw in a spur of the moment kind of thing. Twelve out of those thirty days she had been the first person he saw in the morning, sixteen out of those thirty days he had met her for either runs or coffee, twenty out of those thirty days she had sent him some kind of text message and thirty out of those thirty days he had thought of her more than he could care to admit.

Before agreeing to train with Sansa Stark, Sandor's days were pretty much all the same. He had a routine, he had a schedule and loved it; he loved the predictability of his days, the monotony of everything, the fact that no one was likely to jump out of a corner and try to kill or blow him up. Every day he would wake up at 5:30am and work out, there was an iron gym not too far from his place and so he would jog there, lift weights for about two hours and then go back home. He'd have a cold shower, years in the military and his unpleasant relationship with fire preventing him from really enjoying a hot one, he'd have a protein packed breakfast, a strong cup of black coffee and then he'd be out the door; and to the office.

After years of taking classes at the community college, he had learned enough about programming and software to venture to start some kind of small business, in truth, it was only him doing freelance jobs at the same room as Tormund worked on whichever project had captured his attention for the time being. He'd have lunch at 1 pm and go back to work until five or six, depending on how his work was flowing. Then he'd go back home, make himself some dinner, read a book or watch a movie, do some core exercises and shower again before bed. Every day was the same with the exceptions of weekends and holidays; those were the days in which he was lazy or scheduled his doctor appointments, those were the days in which he got completely wasted with his military buddies if they were in town or worked on whatever had broken down at home. Those were the days in which for a brief period of time he had driven to the city and had a cheap date with some girl before having bad sex. Very occasionally on Friday nights or during the weekend he would meet Sansa for coffee or maybe even a bite to eat but those were rare occasions. He didn't know how the girl ended up considering him a friend, though helping her move and fixing whatever broke down in her apartment or keeping away a few nasty guys at bars sure hadn't hurt either. But those days were gone, days in which his phone never really rang if it wasn't for work reasons, days in which the only messages he got were from old veterans like himself or a damn telemarketer trying to sell him something, that all changed the day he agreed to help Sansa.

His routine changed after getting roped in to train with Sansa, there was now an unpredictability to his days, the monotony had been slightly broken and every day would bring small surprises along the way. He still woke up at 5:30 am every day, but Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he would meet Sansa in the park, they would stretch, warm up, run and then cool down. When their runs were short, they'd clean up a little and then have breakfast at either her place or a tiny café that Sansa particularly liked, after coffee, they would go their separate ways. Those days they run together, he'd go on with his day and hit the gym around 9 pm, when the place was empty again. Every day after his morning work out, Sandor would get home and take a cold shower, trying to get his mind off the image of Sansa's long legs as she stretched or how he had discovered that her chest also had freckles. He would go to work and meet Tormund, who would always make some joke about how Sandor seemed happier on days he ran. Around lunchtime he would get a text from Sansa, he tried to play it cool, but whenever his phone rang during lunch, his heart skipped a beat in anticipation. It had started off fairly boring, a text telling him what she was having for lunch, her way of proving that she was serious about her training and that she had committed to improving her eating habits. After the first week she stopped sending texts and started with pictures of her food, sometimes he sent one back, some others he completely ignored her, but then as they entered week three, Sansa began to send pictures of her and her food. Those were the ones that made Sandor's heart skip a beat, the sight of her in her professional attires making faces at her salad or pouting when one of her co-workers was having a cheeseburger for lunch. Once or twice Tormund had caught him chuckling at her pictures and asked what was that about, both times he had sent the ginger straight to hell. Some afternoons she'd text him telling her that she had done a yoga class, something that Sandor did not need to know as it evoked rather interesting pictures of her and rose questions on her flexibility, some other times she'd just text him asking how he was doing, those where the texts that confused him the most.