Sansa was conscious enough to be walking unsteadily again once they got there and Sandor helped her up the stairs into his apartment on the top floor. The small building was owned by an old ex-boxer and was run-down though clean. The man liked having a cop living there: between the two of them the other tenants caused no trouble.

She passed out again at the top of the stairs and Sandor lifted her and then set the girl down on top of the bed and spread a plaid blanket over her before going to the galley kitchen to make coffee.

She'll be hungover, he told himself; might be she won't even remember what happened.

He sat at the small table with its speckled top, staring out the open blind into the darkness of the alley. He thought about the girl; the girl and her family.

Her old man had been the second Stark son and so had struck out on his own from the family business to build his own fortune in lumber, land and the building trade. He was known for being scrupulously honest and though some mocked him, he had thrived enough to marry a Tully girl from a Colorado mining family: a beauty and wealthy in her own right. They had been a happy and successful family. The depression years hadn't ruined them though business had slowed. Stark's holdings had not been built on air from speculation and stocks but were solid, and his family was protected.

Maybe too protected, thought Sandor. He remembered the man arriving in Hawaii. As Baratheon's driver and bodyguard, he had taken Robert to meet his old friend who arrived on a ship with his daughter's in tow: a temporary arrangement, he planned to send them back to their mother before the New Year of 1942. The little dark one, Sandor had forgotten her name even before she disappeared, had been feisty and sullen in equal measure: always wanting to roughhouse outside with the native Hawaiian kids. Sandor could see Cersei sneering and forbidding her precious Myrcella and even her youngest boy Tom from playing with her. But Sansa…

Sansa had been polite and soft-spoken, with gentle ways and a precociously lady-like quality that enhanced her very feminine beauty. Despite her youth, men's eyes followed her. The girl smiled at them, cheerfully unaware of any evil or danger in the world. Her father saw though, Sandor was certain of it; and when the oldest boy Joffrey started sniffling around her, old man Stark moved up the day his daughters would sail back to the mainland. But before he could, another bodyguard shot him as he returned to the property late one night. It was hushed up and handled discreetly, of course. Right after Pearl Harbor, people were jumpy and looking for enemies and so what was officially deemed an unfortunate accident of an overzealously protective hired gun was not questioned too closely by anyone, at least anyone on Hawaii.

Robert died the next day in hospital when he was told. Stark had been visiting with him after he'd had a massive heart attack from drinking and gorging himself on wild boar at a luau. He'd wanted to give control of the company over to Stark, "until he recovered"; but he'd been dumb enough say so in front of Cersei who had wanted the company for her father, or, better still, herself. Robert had begun to suspect the children weren't his. Christ, thought Sandor now, he'd have to have been blind drunk not to have noticed before.

The girls were left with Cersei then; after Pearl there was a long wait to book civilian passage off the island, or so the bitch told their mother, and she was in no hurry to return the Stark daughters to their family. Cersei didn't much care when the little one ran off but she watched Sansa like a hawk and set Sandor to shadowing her. She had the run of the house and could ride on the estate but Cersei would not permit her to leave. She told the girl it was too dangerous now to sail to the mainland or even leave the estate; she wouldn't want to get killed like her father. Sansa understood the threat, though not the reason. She did not know that Cersei had only her father's money and that Tywin Lannister kept her on a short leash. Cersei wanted Sansa's trust fund or better still her father's company. Her older brother had joined the Marines the day after Pearl Harbor, just before their father was killed; and Cersei must have hoped he would die too and leave Sansa next in line for Winterfell Incorporated.

The eldest boy had died, and their mother too. They had travelled to Boston so the boy could marry his college sweetheart before going overseas and they had all burned to death in the Coconut Grove fire. The crippled boy was in a special school; the youngest was sent to boarding school by an aunt but he too had run off. But none of that served to explain why the girl had come to L.A., why she had dyed her hair and changed her name. He didn't think the Lannisters would be looking for her. And then there was what happened tonight. Clearly, the girl was on intimate terms with men; was that how she'd got away and come this far? Even if it was, he would not blame her; but surely she could do better now than drinking in dives and spreading her legs for deadbeats. And why would she have done so for him? He set his empty coffee cup down in the saucer.

He turned his head to the bedroom and then rose to go look. The bed was rumpled but empty and he could hear water running in the bathroom. The girl dried her hands and face on a towel and bent to re-attach her stockings to her garters. She ran her hands quickly over her legs to straighten the seams and check for runs; then she looked sharply in the mirror and smoothed down her dress.

"Your panties are in my car," he rasped now. "I'll fetch them up for you." If the girl didn't remember what happened in the back of his car, she would surely realize it now.

She turned and looked at him and for a moment, as though she still could not believe it was him; and in that moment she looked vulnerable and uncertain. Then she set her mouth and shrugged one shoulder with a practiced carelessness.

"I'll go home without them," she replied coolly as she walked towards him now, "it wouldn't be the first time."

Blinded by jealous anger, he grabbed her wrists and pushed her to the wall. She blinked rapidly and looked down, as though expecting a blow. Instead he leaned in to her, drawn by her lovely face and that fucking dark hair. It cascaded down one shoulder in waves, like a starlet in a picture from LIFE magazine. He missed the glorious, rich red of her auburn but the dark dye gave her a mysterious air that aroused and disappointed him at the same time: it was her, and it wasn't.

"Are you not done with me?" she questioned tightly. "Is that why you brought me here?"

He released her wrists and ran his hands up her arms to her shoulders and neck. His eyes dropped to her breasts, heaving gently from heavy breaths as she struggled with her fear. She did not know what to make of him yet.

All of his questions could wait: she was so close, and even with her whisky breath and the lingering smell of smoke in her hair she was fragrant and sweet.

"No, girl," he breathed heavily, "I'm not done with you."

Seeing where his eyes had fallen, she reached tentatively to unbutton her dress. He watched as she opened it to the waist and pushed it off one shoulder. Beneath she had only a silky camisole, and so he stilled her hands and slipped one of the thin straps off her shoulder as well. She stared back at him steadily, almost challengingly.

Sandor stepped closer, pressing her into the wall behind her as he raised his hand to her exposed breast. He circled it with his fingertip, brushed it with his palm and then rubbed the dark pinknipple with his thumb. The girl bit her lip and trembled but kept staring at him: she was letting him have his way though she did not trust him. The excitement was making him incredibly hard.

Sandor returned her steady gaze now. His scarred mouth twitched as he reached under her dress and ran his hands over her bare ass beneath the elastic of her garter. He squeezed and groped her behind until finally Sansa raised her arms over her head against the wall. She closed her eyes and moaned from want.

"You like this, girl?" he breathe on her neck as he leaned even closer. "You want me to fuck you again."

"Mm…hit me," she whispered breathily.

"What?" His head came up to look at her.

"Hit me, hurt me," she murmured. "You know you want to."

Sandor grabbed her chin in his hand so that she opened her eyes and he looked at her angrily.

"What the fuck, girl?"

She was flushed and confused.

"You said that you should beat sense into me. Well, here I am: beat me!"

He stared at her in bewilderment.

She pushed him in his chest with the flat of her hands. "Go on!"

"Sans-"

She moved away from him warily. "You don't want me. What do you want?"

He grabbed her arm again. "Now, wait-"

She pulled her arm away and slapped him then and he backhanded her instinctively. Hard. She flew back from him and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap, her hair hanging over her face. There was a long, very quiet moment and Sandor stared in pained shock at what he had done. He heard her sniffle.

"Is that it?" she asked him flatly.

"Is that it?" he repeated, dumbfounded. "Sansa, I- I'm sorry." He walked to her and tried to help her up but she pushed his hand away without looking up. "Sansa I never wanted to hurt you, you of all people. Let me help you, girl."

"I'm not a girl," she muttered from behind her hair, "and I don't need your help."

Sandor kneeled next to her now. "Sansa, please..."

Her head whipped up and he saw the red mark next to her mouth and the bloody mucus dripping from her nostril. She would have an ugly bruise on that delicate white skin, Sandor knew; he'd seen her with many before this.

"My name is Alayne," she insisted. She fumbled to button her dress now.

"Fine," he sighed, "you're Alayne…at least let me take you home now."

"No," she replied simply. She stood slowly to steady herself and smoothed her dress again.

Sandor stood as well and towered over her despite her height and her high heels.

"Then I'll run you in for drinking underage…and when they check and find there is no Alayne they'll run a background-"

She closed her eyes and put her hands over her ears.

"Damn you," she nearly sobbed. "I gave you what you wanted. Why can't you leave me alone?"

He grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands away from her ears. "I did leave you alone once, little bird…and this is how it's turned out," he rasped.

She shook her head wearily as tears brimmed in her eyes. She knew she had no choice.

"It's alright," he soothed her now. "It will be alright."

But Sansa…Alayne…closed her eyes tightly and shook her head again. "No, it won't."

….

He drove her home in silence. She had a room in a boarding house and the old woman who ran it looked at Sandor suspiciously when he helped her up the sagging porch.

"Alayne," the woman asked with a heavy accent, "this man hurt you?"

Sandor showed his badge. "Some man did," he replied easily. "I've brought her home. Can she have a bath?"

"Poor, sweet girl," the woman murmured concernedly. "You come sit; I run water. You no work today."

The girl smiled gently and wearily. "I'm afraid the coffee shop may not agree-"

"But your face," the old lady winced.

"Makeup will cover it," she answered like she knew which of course she did. She sat stiffly in the other ratty, weathered wicker hair on the porch.

"Coffee shop?" Sandor questioned flatly once the woman had left them.

Sansa smirked. "Sunnyside Coffee and Luncheon: open 24 hours." She shrugged that indifferent shrug again. "They were kind enough to take a chance on me. Girls' school doesn't prepare you for real life…though you knew that long before I did, didn't you?"

Sandor shook his head now. "For you sake, girl, I wish I'd been wrong."

She raised her head to look at him. "But you weren't."

"Your family-"

"Are gone. Please, don't talk about them." She gripped her hands together tightly and stared at the rotting plank floor of the porch. Her face was determined but her eyes were vacant and sad.

He took a deep breath and sighed out his nose. "How did you get away from the Lannisters?"

She examined her folded hands now. "Petyr Baelish," she replied quietly. "He said my mother's family had taken him in as a boy; he wanted to repay their kindness by helping me. Cersei had no use for me anymore by then; not after Joffrey got engaged to a Tyrell."

Sandor snorted with satisfaction. The spoiled boy had tormented Sansa after her father was killed; threatening to come to her room at night and having some of the other guards strike her for his own amusement when she would not smile readily enough for him. Cersei never stopped it; she felt it kept the girl in her place. Then Margery Tyrell had come to Hawaii from Louisiana to bring her wounded brother home but stayed when she met Joffrey. The night before their wedding he had gotten so drunk with his groomsmen that he'd passed out and choked on his own vomit. Cersei had tried to convince anyone who would listen that her precious boy had been poisoned but her father warned her if she did not stop making outrageous claims that he would have her committed to an asylum. Sandor wondered fleetingly if she was still there.

"I stayed in his home and worked at the canteen with the soldiers, serving them coffee and donuts and asking about them, where they were from and so on; telling them what sights to visit," she smiled wistfully. "There was a young man, a Marine from Alabama who wanted to call on me. I think he truly cared for me…" She dropped her eyes now. "But Petyr put stop to that. He wanted me to marry his first wife's son when I came of age: a sickly, weak boy, and plaintive but Petyr had control of him and his finances. It was my trust fund he wanted really, or perhaps even part of Winterfell Incorporated. When- when I told him I wouldn't marry a boy I didn't love, he- he locked me in his shed and left me there in the heat." She wiped at her bloodied nose with her fingertips. "He brought that Payne man from the estate, the- the one who killed my father, and had him beat me until I vomited blood and blacked out. 'Leave her face', Petyr had told him though; 'we want her pretty.'"

"And?" Sandor prompted when she faltered.

"It was Harry, the young Marine who found me. He'd come looking for me when I hadn't show up for days, and took me to the home of a family he knew. He told me to use his mother's name: Alayne Stone. He gave me all his money and told me to get to the mainland. He- he said he'd find me after the war but…he's gone now," she whispered faintly, "Iwo Jima."

"Many never even made it off the beach," Sandor rasped quietly.

"Where you there?" she asked him now.

"No," he answered flatly and paused. "Okinawa."

She turned to look at him now and nodded slowly.

Sandor thought of Elder brother, who had helped him when he had been in so much pain that he could no longer bear it. He realized that Sansa needed the same help. "You're young, girl," he rasped, "I know it's been hard and you've lost people but-"

"I've lost everyone. They leave me…and they don't come back." Her voice was faint and far-away though she sat across from him.

Sandor stood now and made to leave. He knew where to find her now.

"I came back," he told her. He crossed to the steps and started heading back to his car. "And I will again."