2000

There was a little girl sitting on the steps to the small brick house, bent over two dolls she had placed at her feet. Her red hair hid her face from his view; it was a slightly darker shade of red than he remembered Sansa's being, it looked more unruly, curlier.

"Hello, young lady."

She raised her head and let the doll slip from her fingers. With an irritated movement, she pushed a strand of hair out of her face. It was longer than he'd first thought, it tumbled down her shoulders and fell down to her elbows. She eyed him with a curious look on her face.

For a moment, he wondered if he could really take how much she looked like her mother - and so much like Cat had when she was young.

"You mean me?" she asked, in a clear, high children's voice. There was a faint trace of an Irish accent and for some reason that stung.

"I don't see anyone else," he answered and pushed his hands down his coat pockets so she wouldn't see them clenched into fists. The sight of it had to be scaring her, surely, but he didn't know how else to maintain his composure. He wasn't too sure if the smile on his lips was convincing - and he really wasn't used to that feeling.

"Are you a friend of my mum?"

This time, he could feel the smile dropping off his lips for just a second before he could fix it. "I, well, I'm not sure she would put it that way. Is she inside?"

"She's at work."

"And left you all alone?"

She pulled a face. "No, she told me to stay with Uncle Edmure, he lives just next door."

"Then where is he?"

"I snuck out, he never notices. Hoster always wants to play with my dolls, but he does it all wrong."

He nodded, fighting down a smile. "Understandable. D'you think we can wait for your mum together?"

She frowned a little. "Mum always says I mustn't talk to strangers."

"You are talking to me right now, though, love," he pointed out with a smile. "Don't worry. I won't hurt you, promise. I just really need to talk to your mother and I've come a long way, I've got nowhere else to go."

"Okay," she said slowly after a moment of hesitation.

"Thanks," he muttered and sat down on the top of the stairs next to her, as far away from her as he could.

"What's your name?"

"Petyr," he answered softly.

"Alayne."

"Yes, I know," he gave back without thinking, then asked a little more cautiously: "So, she work a lot, your mum?"

"Like every other nurse," she answered in a slightly irritated tone, like he'd just asked her a completely superficial question.

A thought crossed his mind, a stupid thought. Masochistic. Don't ask. Don't. For fuck's sake, Petyr, don't-

He couldn't help it. "What about your father, Alayne? Where's he?"

She shrugged and picked up one of her dolls. "Don't know. He lives in America, Mum says. I've seen him once, but I can't remember. I was a baby."

"Couldn't you write him a letter or something?"

"Doesn't look like he wants to know me," she answered with another shrug.

"That what your mum says?"

She nodded and repositioned the ragdolls with utmost care.

He bit his lip, steadying his slightly out of sync breathing with some effort. Told you it was stupid.

"I don't think that's true, Alayne. He probably has his reasons."

"It's okay," she reassured him with a faint smile and looked up at him for a moment. "We're good, Mummy and me. We don't need anyone else."

He felt another rather pained smile twitch around his lips. "'course you don't."

"Are you related to Mum or something?"

"No. No, just... only on a piece of paper."

"Then how d'you know her? She doesn't have friends like you."

"Oh, I hope she doesn't," he muttered and shook his head. "No, your mum and I met in America. Before you were born."

"If you've known her for so long, why are you only visiting now?"

"I... I did some things to your mum that weren't very nice. I'm not sure we're still friends."

She nodded and started moving her dolls about again, then after a while she put them down and looked him straight in the eye. It felt disconcerting, being looked at with those bright, curious eyes that managed to look exactly like his and completely different at the same time.

"Do you have a family?"

He had no idea what to say. Of course, to her, it was a perfectly simple question, but it wasn't simple at all. Did he? Just because he'd written his name on some legal form with a cheap, almost empty pen; just because half of this little girl's genetic material was his? He'd spent a total of maybe 45 minutes with her, of the roughly 2,5 million minutes that she'd lived so far. The local dentist had probably spent much more time with her than he had. He didn't know her, and he had neither seen her mother nor talked to her in more than four years.

Biologically, legally, yes. He had a family.

But if family meant love, trust, understanding or whatever sentimental shit people associated with that term -

"Well, I..."

He was saved by the bell - though saved was probably a pretty ambiguous term in that situation.

"Petyr?"

A young woman stood on the sidewalk in front of the house. Her thick red hair was pinned into a lose bun at the nape of her neck, there was a shopping bag in her left hand and a large handbag in the other. The look on her face was gradually changing from complete shock to cold fury.

Alayne jumped to her feet. "Mummy!"

"Hi, sweetie," she said, putting a smile on her face, bent down to her and pushed the red hair out of the little girl's face. "Have you done all your homework?"

"Not yet," she said sheepishly.

"Well, then you better get started," she said with a very faint trace of authority in her voice, and gently directed Alayne towards the house. "Off you go."

"Yes, Mum," she drawled and slumped up the stairs, waving stealthily at him as she passed.

Sansa watched her go, then spun around and took a step towards him. "What are you doing here?"

"Came to see you, but you weren't home," he gave back softly. "Ran straight into the young madam and got interrogated."

"For how long have you been talking to my daughter?" she said sharply, her blue eyes very cold.

"Easy, love," he said, raising his hands, "I didn't do anything, I hardly even said anything."

"Do you really think you can turn up here like that? After, what, four years? Four and a half? Think you can just come here, after all this time - how dare you talk to Alayne without me? What did you tell her?"

"Nothing. Sansa, Jesus, calm down, what d'you think I'm gonna do to her?"

She scoffed. "Yeah, what would you do to a naive girl with red hair that looks like your childhood love? I couldn't possibly imagine."

"You - what, I... for Christ's sake, Sansa, you think - You think I - God." He shook his head and stared at her, lost for words. "She isn't even six years old, bloody hell, what do you think of me? I'm not a fucking paedophile. My own - my own child, Jesus Christ, this girl looks at me with my own fucking eyes and you think I could- "

"Like you ever cared," she hissed. "After you got us well out of the country with a nice lot of money to keep me quiet I never heard another word - don't get me wrong, I think that was probably the best thing that could've happened to Alayne-"

"I spent six months in bloody prison just to make sure you two got out of the country. Good to see that appreciated," he bit back, hating himself for letting his voice give away so much. Get a grip. Jesus. How can you still be so stupid around this girl after all this time?

"Prison? You?"

"Well, I had to keep the Lannisters out of your hair somehow, right?" he asked softly, calmer now.

"I know you sold them to the cops, but what the hell did you do in prison?"

"Protective custody, Sansa, they built their whole case around my statement."

For a moment she was silent, then she seemed to put herself together. "Still, you had four entire years to write, call, show me, in some way, that you give a damn about your biological daughter. You didn't, and after all this time you have no right to be in her life. I might have been screwed up enough myself to want you around, but I will not allow you to hurt my daughter. You stay the hell away from her, Littlefinger."

Littlefinger. Hearing that name hadn't hurt in years, and yet -

"Sansa-"

"No. Piss off. You corrupt everyone around you, you make people care for you when they should want to scratch your eyes out, you do horrible things and you use people and then you make them feel like they deserve it. Like they can consider themselves lucky you even put up with them. You're a manipulative, emotionally crippled puppet player and you can't even help it. I would rather die than let someone like you near my daughter."

"Our daughter," he corrected softly.

"No. You've got no idea how to be a father. You never had a proper parent, Petyr, you never loved anyone, you just don't know how."

He tried for a smile. "I wouldn't know if you don't let me try, Sansa."

"You think I'd put Alayne's innocence - her happiness - on the line, just so we can see if you screw it up or not?"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Right. Right. Could we at least sit down at a table like civilised people and talk this through? You owe me that much, I've had a bloody long flight and need I remind you that you are living off my money?"

"Fine. Can I get changed first? I've done a nine-hour shift." She threw him a cold look. "Pub down the street. I'll meet you there."

"Alright," he answered softly. "I'll wait."

"She is my daughter. My signature is on her birth certificate, on all those goddamn papers, and if the Lannisters ever find any of them, they will have my head for it. I knew that, and I did it anyway. I made a statement in court, sold them to the police, they sat right across of me-"

"You want me to pity you?" she cut him off, making her voice and her eyes as cold as she could.

"No, I want you to give me some kind of reason why I did this," he replied, his voice still unreasonably calm.

"Like what?"

"Like a chance to let me see my child. She's my daughter as well-"

"I don't care."

"Sansa, I have a right to-"

This conversation wasn't going anywhere. "After four years, why would you suddenly want to know her? All those damn years, Petyr, you could have called." She really, really hoped her voice didn't give the hurt behind these words away – that hurt that she was so ashamed of, but that just wouldn't go.

"Right, and tell them where you are?"

"I don't believe that's your reason."

"Sorry, it's all I've got, sweetling."

"Don't call me that," she hissed, almost grateful he'd got her angry again. "You never cared. We both know you never cared. And besides - I was a just a kid back then myself, but you were bored and lonely and you didn't give a damn-"

He had leaned back, swirling the drink in his glass slowly, and looked back at her with an utterly neutral expression."You were of age, sweetling, stop trying to make me look like a creep."

"No need for that, Petyr, you made yourself look like one. I was a child and you were an adult and you should never have touched me and you know it-"

"I distinctly remember taking in a defenceless girl to keep her from harm, and I distinctly remember said girl coming to me for comfort. It wasn't myinitiative to kiss you, Sansa, and it wasn't me that took off your clothes. That first time, and the second as well, that was all you. Do try to remember that next time you want to present yourself as the hapless victim."

She hated him. How could a person be this cold? Why wouldn't he even get angry?

"I needed you on my side and you made that the only way."

"You tried to use me and I played along and that is all that happened."

"You're a self-righteous heartless liar," she said softly, icy calm in her voice. "I'll never forgive you for what you did to me-"

"I didn't ask you to."

"... and I'll let you near my child when hell freezes over."

Now he was smiling. Goddamn bastard. "We both lied and we both used each other, sweetling. What makes me the monster? Why are you to be excused?"

"I was a stupid child who fell in love with the only person who didn't want me dead. You were a smart, grown man in full possession of your wits and entirely in control of the situation. That's the difference."

He looked at her, those gorgeous deep sharp green eyes that still saw right through her bearing into hers, so much darker and colder and sadder than Alayne's, until she faltered and looked away.

"You know that's not quite true, though. You know you did have control over me, Sansa," he chastised gently.

She said nothing, just continued to stare at her drink and wondered how after everything he'd done, he could still make her feel bad about lying to him.

It was pointless. She couldn't even fight him, not even after all these years, he was still playing her like a stupid puppet -

"Also, do you really think you know me well enough to tell if I've loved you or not?"

His voice had gone very quiet, with an unusually harsh tone to it.

That almost made her laugh in disbelief. "You really would say anything to get what you want, right?"

He threw her a very bitter smile and drained the rest of his scotch at once. "Yes, anything. Even the truth."

He's never looked at Cat like that, she heard Edmure say, very softly, years ago at the airport. She hadn't been supposed to hear.

She couldn't shake the tiny nagging doubt in her head, that little voice asking if maybe he wasn't lying, maybe it wasn't all a lie, maybe he did care –

But no. She'd had enough of this. It had already cost her too much of her life.

This one time, she wouldn't let him win.

"Get out."

"Think on it," he said, all his charm back in his voice as if it had never been gone. "I'll be right here."

"Go. And stay away."