SANSA

Her reunion with Sandor Clegane had not gone at all as she hoped it would. She knew he would be resentful to a degree that she had rejected his offer long ago to protect her, but she had hoped that by acknowledging all he had done for her family, he would at least consider becoming a member of the Winterfell household. There were so few people left from the life she had once known and despite all the atrocities that had befallen her after meeting him, the Hound was one of those people. But he didn't want to belong to House Stark and spitting her offer back in her face was likely the last word she would have from him.

There had been tension, so palpable on the air that she could taste it. He had gazed at her, hungry and curious for the duration of the conversation much the same as he had when he had last seen her. She had made him laugh, made him smile, which was something no one else in all the Seven Kingdoms could claim. He was a bitter, angry man, emotionally shut off from the world and she was most likely the only person he had had a proper conversation with in years during those brief interactions when he would corner her on a staircase deep within the Red Keep. There was a triumph in seeing him change, however little, now that she could speak to him whenever and however she liked and though he had never tread lightly around her, he had spoken to her differently than she remembered. She knew that the way he looked at her had matured as she had and that he had wanted her to offer more than her friendship when she joined him at his table.

She had watched the serving girl offer herself to him and he had all but bitten her head off, so she knew he wasn't starved for a woman. She knew this from the moment she sat down but she had tried to keep the subject matter as far away from that as possible and succeeded, though it resulted in him storming off most likely to drown himself in wine. She couldn't feel sorry for him in that regard; he had to know that she could never give him what he wanted.

And what did he want? Her. Not her titles, which he despised, and even then, he had wanted her when her claim to Winterfell was forfeit since her mother and brother were traitors to the crown. Not her land, a monument to the dead army. He wanted her.

Arya had told her as much, told her that when Brienne cut him down and he lay bleeding, he had fired every verbal weapon in his arsenal to get Arya to end him so that he wouldn't suffer more than he already had. He mocked her friend, the butcher's boy and offered to sell her hide for a sip of wine. He taunted her with his lust for Sansa's body, but those were the words he had meant. He would have taken her maidenhead eventually, even if not then and there that night the Blackwater burned. He might have taken her gently, but she was not his to claim and never could be.

She had given him the chance to apologize and admit his unkind words, but he didn't walk through the door she had opened for him. So she had thanked him for the good things he had done for her family and he hated her for it because she didn't tell him what he wanted to hear. What more could she say to him that she hadn't already? She had thanked him as a true friend would, hadn't she? Grasped his hand, looked him in the eye, smiled at him, and said thank you for her life.

Her life, several times over. He had stopped her from murdering Joffrey on the walkway beneath the display of decapitated heads, her father's and Septa Mordane's among them. Had she succeeded in killing the king, she would have been executed after being tortured. He had saved her maidenhead from the men who sought to take it in King's Landing. He had cut down the wight that had overtaken her in the crypts.

The crypts where she had held the dagger Arya gave her and been unable to do anything with it. A strategist and a schemer she might be, but not a warrior, and she could not face this undead enemy of her ancestors. She ran, weighed down by her furs and skirts and felt the wight tear into her dress, pulling her down. In a last ditch attempt to defend herself, she had thrown up her arms to shield her face and screamed at the eyeless sockets and skeletal grin of a Stark long dead when it collapsed on her, unmoving.

The fire from a shattered lantern had filled the caverns with smoke which stung her eyes and made it difficult to see, but from out of the grey came her Hound, sweating, bloodied, and frightened of the flame and the dead. He was not as tall as she remembered, but then again, she had grown. His hair and beard had grown wilder and now that she saw him clearly, she had actually mistaken him for a wildling to begin with when he rode in with Jon and Queen Daenerys.

Her last look upon him had seen a man in mourning with a mind to do nothing but flee from this place he hated but this man before her had the madness of battle etched into every line and scar on his face. His hand reached to her and though the danger was far from over, she found courage in it as she once had. He would let nothing harm her so long as he was alive to defend her. And stupidly, she had thought to fight alongside him with the tiny dagger that was dwarfed by his enormous axe. He'd chided her for it and ordered her to run but she had made her first ever combative kill, even if the thing that she killed was already dead.

No one was more surprised than she, but her victory was short-lived as he told her again to run after instructing her on how to fight if he should fall and the thought was not comprehensible to her. He would not fall; of all the soldiers and warriors defending the castle and the realms of men, he would be the one to survive. She wanted to say something to him then, anything that he could take to heart, anything to help him find the valor and strength to battle on, but nothing came to mind, so she ran.

And after, he did not seek her out as she thought he would. He busied himself with the bodies and she did the same in assisting Maester Wolkan. He did not rise to toast Gendry as he was made a Baratheon or Arya, the hero of Winterfell, though she caught him smirking with his stew spoon in his mouth. She had watched him throughout the celebration but he never looked her way, too lost in the horrors he had witnessed and the guilt of survival that all the fighters were experiencing though he chose to deal with his in solitude in the way he had turned the serving girl away.

It was no secret that he had gone to whores from time to time in King's Landing, but the gossip that came by Sansa's ear had given her a number that she strangely could not forget: the number of women who had accepted his coin. Four. That was all among the dozens if not hundreds of women who could be bought; only four let him near enough. Sansa could not say if she pitied him for that meager number, for she did not approve of men who turned to a different woman every night for the sake of pleasuring their manhoods, though she did not begrudge women the jobs they took to put food in their bellies. But four women in all of the Seven Kingdoms was nothing at all. Maybe he could have bought more but chose abstinence. Maybe he truly was that unlucky. But why did she care? Did she care? She had to, to some degree, for her to linger on the number and feel—something. Which woman had been his first, how old had she been? Was she frightened of him? Was he gentle with her?

She had been with exactly one man, one who had made her swear off all men to follow, but for as many times as he had forced himself into her and bruised her, left her bleeding when he finished, he might as well have been a hundred men.

Still, she could not bring herself to think of Sandor Clegane in such a way even if she thought endlessly about the other women he had been with.

When he stalked off in a high dudgeon, she tended to her emotional wounds with a fresh goblet of wine and returned to the high table where Daenerys took Jon's unoccupied seat beside her.

"No stomach for festivities," said the queen.

Sansa still had her mind on the melancholy Hound's hooded eyes and had to ask Daenerys to repeat herself.

"I meant that while our people find a way to celebrate that they are still breathing, we cannot find joy in it. You lost a dear friend in Theon Greyjoy, a protector in Brienne of Tarth, and an ally in Lyanna Mormont, among others. For our grief, it might as well have not been a victory at all."

Sansa had no desire to discuss her dead friends with the queen who didn't know them, but she inquired after the queen's sword shield to be courteous.

"How fares your man, Ser Jorah?"

"He grieves for his cousin, but your maester worked wonders on him and he came to my table not moments ago to show me that he is able to stand and walk with no consequences. He does not yet have the strength to sit and be merry with the rest of us, but he is alive, and he will recover. For that, I will give your maester anything he so desires that is within my power to bestow."

For a woman who claimed to love Jon, Daenerys put much stock in her knight who was nearly as loyal as a dog himself. But Sansa held no ill will toward the man; he was of the North and had returned to the North to serve his people.

"The man you were speaking to just now, you two have history," Daenerys observed.

"That is the best thing to call it, yes." History. Complicated and confusing and full of misunderstanding.

"How do you know him?"

"He served the Lannisters as a sworn shield to King Joffrey. After my father was beheaded, the king often made public sport of me, but Sandor Clegane came to my aid. He was blunt and truthful and frightening, but he never hurt me, the only person in King's Landing who never did besides Tyrion. He wanted to take me with him when he abandoned the king, but I wouldn't go. I don't know why I didn't, but that was the last I saw of him until he came with you back here to Winterfell."

"Why do you let him talk to you in such a manner?"

"What manner is that?"

"He was brash with you, I might dare call it disrespectful in his expression when he spoke to you. You upset him and he saw fit to tell you off for it. Of all men, why would you let him get away with that?"

She disapproved of that for a queen such as herself would not be talked down to by anyone and those who dared challenge that would be dealt with accordingly. Had the Hound talked to the queen as he had talked to Daenerys, he would be confined to a cell, not allowed to walk away from the table in victory of the argument. He, however, was Sansa's friend and one she still had trouble taming and the queen could disapprove all she liked but she would not be dealing with him.

"I allow him to speak to me as he does because it doesn't harm me to have him do so. He listened to me recite lies and he hated it. I would hate it if he bowed and groveled to me. That's not who he is. He will obey, but not without a curse."

"He fancies you."

Sansa wanted to reprimand her for even daring to say such a thing, but as a beautiful queen, the mother of dragons desired by half the world and hated by the rest, she would know when a man lusted after a woman. Her own sworn shield Ser Jorah Mormont clearly was taken with her and his utter devotion to her did not stop when she took Jon as her lover. She would know, especially if she was watching Sansa as carefully as Sansa was watching her. And Sansa could not deny it because it was true, though nothing would come of it.

"Yes, I suppose he does," she admitted.

"You suppose? You know this man better than anyone here and you suppose that he fancies you?"

"I know it," Sansa corrected herself, loathing the woman beside her. "But it changes nothing. He has always known that there is naught to be between us and has been honorable enough to not pursue me. He is my friend, and he will accept that and nothing more."

"And if he doesn't?"

"He has to; there is no other option."

Daenerys wore her civil smile, false and forced as she rose and put what was meant to be a friendly hand on Sansa's shoulder. "I'm not sure he knows that. It's best to tell him while you still can, while his heart can still mend after you break it."

Though malicious in delivery, Daenerys knew what it meant to tell a man that she could not love him in the way he loved her and Sansa suspected that Ser Jorah was the man who had had his heart broken by his queen. But the Hound did not love Sansa; he wanted one thing only and she had already denied him that, evident in how their slow conversation had gone from tender to hostile. He knew she was not gifting him his desire without her ever telling him no and he had removed himself from the humiliation of it.

Nevertheless, he had a destructive nature and she could not allow him to bring harm to himself over this matter. She was hardly a woman worth getting upset about and if there were women who offered themselves to him, he had a hope of finding a wife, making a living for himself away from the tyranny he had grown up with. She would offer him that chance again and remind him that there was more to life than lusting after women.

The Great Hall gave host to a rambunctious lot, none of whom noticed as she slipped away in search of her wounded Hound. She asked after him, but no one sober had seen him and those deep in the drink were too far gone to remember. Inspecting the usual haunts that lent aid to those seeking solitude, she found nothing, no sign of him. She was starting to worry after a near hour of searching for him, wondering if he had taken a horse and ridden South to complete his last deed, but the stablemaster had not seen him and all of the horses were accounted for.

She climbed the stairs to the dilapidated tower, arriving out of breath with no reward for her trouble since he was not here either. Now thoroughly disheartened that he had most likely drank himself into obliviousness and was lying in the mud somewhere, she made her way back to her chambers, hugging herself against the cold as she walked the outer balcony that overlooked the courtyard. It was just a short walk from here to the lord's chambers that had once been her father's—

He found her. Of course he did. Inebriated and well past forgiveness, he didn't so much as stumble into her at the balcony than trample her, appearing from the shadows and looking surprised to have met up with her. He was swaying unsteadily so that she had to stabilize him lest he go over the railing. His breath had enough fumes to make her dizzy and though he still had a firm grip on the bottle in hand, it had to be his third or fourth to affect a man of his size. She wrestled it from his grasp and tossed it out into the courtyard, though she doubted that he noticed.

"I'll take you back to your chambers so you may sleep this off," she offered, putting her hand around his waist to help him stand.

"Don't have chambers," he slurred, trying to bring her into focus. "Sleep in the stables."

The man was doing everything possible to become a social recluse and if she hoped to mend what had been undone tonight, she needed to start by making him sleep like a human and not an animal.

"Not tonight."

"Making an offer, are you?"

She almost let go of him and allowed him to fall to the floor for making the suggestion that she was inviting him into her bed. This was why she could not tolerate drunkenness; the acts people committed, the words they slurred out were all done without knowledge but it bared people to their core so that their true selves could be seen. She didn't like Sandor Clegane's true self one bit because it was crude and so very unlike the man she knew—or thought she knew.

"You are going to sleep in the chambers that previously housed Lyanna Mormont until you are suitable to appear before the war council, which you are now to attend due to the part you took in going beyond the Wall."

"When did a foot soldier earn the right to be in a war council?" asked the Hound in genuine confusion.

"When I deemed him worthy to be. Now, let me take you to your new quarters."

"You're changing the subject. To Seven hells with the bedchamber, girl. You know why I said it. I was looking for your quarters anyway, trying to see if you were in the mood for something other than talking," he said in sluggish speech.

"You can't—"

Draping an arm across her shoulders, he relied on her for support but also pushed her into the closed doorway behind her so that any retreat she had in mind was cut off. His eyes burned and though his mind was clouded by the drink, she knew that he could see her clearly and knew how close he was to her. "You knew it, knew it the whole time you were talking to me. You could see it and you taunted me with it, damnable girl."

"I don't know what you—"

He pounded his fist on the door, rattling it in its frame. "Don't lie to me. No more lies, ever."

She had not been this panicked that her words might bring her to an ugly outcome since before Ramsay. The Bolton bastard would hurt her regardless of what she said to him, but in the presence of Joffrey and Cersei, she had had to guard her tongue well, afraid of the punishment she could potentially earn for herself. With the Hound, true as she told him, he could always tell when she was lying—when she was a girl, not that she had tried especially hard to conceal her falsehoods around him this night. If she truly had wanted to make him believe her lie, she could have, but his proximity to her had hindered her ability to play the game at the moment.

"Sandor, you mistake my intent. I joined you tonight at your table as your friend, not to hurt you."

"You did anyway though, didn't you?" His admittance of her words bringing him pain was not something he ever would have said without the influence of the drink. The Hound did not admit to being a man that could be harmed by words or wounds. He claimed only to be a dog with the baser human needs, but as surely as Sansa had become a woman during their time apart, he had become more of a man and less of a dog.

"Didn't you?" he said again. "Because even now, you won't confess to what you see in front of you. Does that terrify you, little bird, knowing that you're a woman grown and that I stand at full mast for you, rock hard for you?"

Yes, that terrified her and she hated hearing him say it, drunk as he was. She had feared as much when she mustered the courage to speak to him in the Great Hall, but for him to say it, she was disgusted, by his inability to keep a level head enough to avoid drinking and by the drink itself. The last time she had seen him, he had been well on his way to this point, but not there yet and this intoxicated monster was the part of his personality that the Hound struggled to hold back.

"Please, don't say things like that."

"Because it does frighten you, doesn't it, knowing that a man who you thought you knew wants to fuck you?" he asked, though his eyes were focused on a splinter in the door framework so that she couldn't be sure if he knew what he was saying.

"Because it's cruel, even for you, and if you were of a sound mind, you would not say such things."

"I would; I just haven't been alone with you to say them. Finally have you alone, but you haven't started running yet, have you? Just standing there, listening to me say all of these foul things."

Gods, let this be a nightmare.

She glanced under his arm, wondering if she could duck underneath it, if she was still small enough to him that he couldn't grab her if she tried. The wine might actually work in her favor…

"Look at me," he commanded.

One of two commands he ever gave her: look at him and don't lie, neither of which she had been able to follow through on. She had prided herself with becoming more, becoming a woman who could match the Hound's ferocity with her goodness and level head but he was proving her wrong on all fronts tonight.

"Look—at—me."

He was coming out of his drunken state, if only ever so slightly, and his grip on her was strong, rooting her in place. He had grabbed her in such a way several times before, growling harsh truths at her and all but calling her a stupid little girl to her face to make her understand. Now, however, there was no anger at her insolence, only primal need.

"The little bird doesn't have a voice to tell the dog to back down and return to its kennel."

He leaned closer and still, she did not push him away or tell him to stop. Why didn't she tell him to stop? Not as his left hand moved away from her shoulder to caress her collar bone through her dress or his right nestled under her chin and then cupped her cheek, pulling her closer to him. His breath was foul and sour with wine, but he was actively trying to not breathe into her face. Then his whiskers were tickling her jaw, his rough, cracked lips pressing just above hers, not quite making contact either from lack of dexterity or because he couldn't fully commit to the deed. He held himself there and she became aware of his presence now more than ever, how enormous he was in comparison to her, how he had always been this massive size no matter her age, how he was very much a man in all meaning of the word. He could break her so easily, snap her in half or crush himself to her and have his way with her.

She found herself holding her breath for an eternity, not daring to let it out so long as his lips were so close to hers. His right hand left her face and slammed against the wall as he pressed his torso against her and his uncoordinated lips finally managed to find at least one of hers and claimed it with heated need. He let out a heavy breath of urgency but she didn't dare move or look down, knowing what she would see and she couldn't bear it. The thought of seeing what she did to this man-it would forever mar her image of him as a gruff, brutally honest, but loyal protector. If she looked, if he continued, he would be nothing more than all the rest of the men who had used her at their leisure.

But she had a sinking feeling that she was about to be exposed to his arousal any moment now because this kiss had gone on for too long and now that she was a woman, he had no restraint. He wanted her and he would take her and she could either scream for help and have her guards beat him senseless, thus ruining any trust in her she had rebuilt, or she would let it happen to her as she became his little bird again.

The notion brought tears and a choke to the surface. This man whom she had trusted, considered a friend, thought highly of—was going to force himself on her and not just because of the wine. He was going to ruin himself and her in the process unless she made the choice now to tell him to stop.

His lips parted from her with a gasp, the back of his palm going to his mouth as if he had just swallowed something mildly unpleasant. He witnessed her standing there, chest heaving with the breath she had been withholding and her hands flattened against the doorway in the pose of someone who had been cornered against their will. The sentient part of him knew what he had done—and almost done—and he muttered a frustrated, self-loathing, "Fuck," before he pushed her aside and pitched forward over the railing, vomiting spectacularly into the courtyard below. The snow muffled the splatter that would have followed, but he wasn't finished and Sansa listened to him empty the entirety of the contents of his stomach. When nothing but bile came up, he sank onto his knees, resting his forehead on the wood of the railing and dry heaving.

She knew she should help him, but after what had transpired between them, she was ashamed to admit that she feared him once again, feared how he might react after he realized what he had drunkenly done to her, feared that he might take out his anger on her. This was not The Hound of King's Landing but Sandor Clegane, a man she knew nothing about except his lust for her.

But he stopped himself. He should not have kissed you, but he had the restraint to stop on his own.

"Oh, Gods," the Hound moaned. "Don't ever let me drink that much again on a full stomach." He attempted to stand and wobbled with the movement, bending double to throw up what might have been blood. "Fuck me, what's left?"

She ought to leave him here as punishment, let him sleep on the balcony and awake to a throbbing head and twisting stomach and when he remembered—if he remembered—what the drink had driven him to do, he would beg her forgiveness. Or would he? The Hound never would have, but what would Sandor Clegane do? From what she gathered of this man, he would steal a horse and exile himself in shame, though he would never give name to the feeling.

He was a man in need, having lived a solitary and neglectful life. He didn't know how to ask for help and never would, but he needed it so very badly right now at his most vulnerable. If Sansa didn't give it to him, no one ever would.

"Can you walk?" she asked when she found her voice.

"Not prettily," he responded.

She stepped in under his arm, letting some of his enormous weight lean against her. "Come, you need rest."

"Think I can't battle an army of wights right now?" he challenged with bile clinging to his beard. "Think I'm not worth a shit?"

"I know you are, and I know you can. I've seen you in battle, but you are drunk and you'll not be sobering up in the stables. Lean on me, now."

"I'll only squash you."

Sansa took half of his weight, feeling her knees start to tremble with the effort of him but when he saw how she stubbornly insisted on doing this herself, he started walking with her, sliding his hand along the walls as a guide. Winterfell was not a large castle by the standards of others such as the Eyrie and Highgarden, but it had enough corridors and back ways that Sansa was able to avoid being seen escorting the drunken Hound to his new quarters. Lyanna Mormont's chambers were once Rickon's and her meager worldly belongings had not been disturbed as Sansa pushed open the door.

She helped him to the bed where he placed his head between his legs and gave a telltale cough. Sansa just had time to retrieve the chamber pot from beneath the wooden bed frame and stuff it between his ankles before he vomited again and she could not mistake the blood this time. If his breath had smelled sour before, it was nothing to the putrid fumes coming from the chamber pot now and Sansa pinched her nose to avoid inhaling the worst of it as she kicked it back under the bed out of sight.

Pouring him a goblet of water, she forced it into his unsteady hands and ordered him to sip at it as she went to the fireplace.

"Don't," he called after her. "I don't want it."

"You'll freeze in here."

"There's enough blankets."

"The fire can't harm you from across the room."

"I said no, girl."

Girl. That was the Hound she knew. Girl, child, little bird, all of them names that suited her no longer, but old habits died hard and he was not so ready to address her as his lady as she had been to call him by his name. He could be so bold (or perhaps so drunkenly mad) to kiss her, but he couldn't call her anything other than what he had when she was a maiden.

Admitting defeat with the fire, she left the hearth as cold as it had been upon her entry and took the furs from the floor to drape across the Hound's shoulders. He struck a dejected figure, hunched over his knees with his stomach's fluids dribbling down his beard. A man who had survived the most notorious enemy to ever walk the earth did not look like this but then again, he had never had the hero's appearance; he despised it and went out of his way to avoid it.

Sansa dipped the cloth for the wash basin in the water, wringing it until it no longer dripped, and went to him, uncertain of how to proceed. He had made himself familiar to her in the way he had touched her tonight, but besides the friendly grasp of his hand at dinner, he did not accept her touch in return on his bare skin.

Standing over him and not quite sure if he was coherent enough to know that she was there, she extended her hand to mop up a trickle of vomit at the corner of his beard. He let her get one good wipe in and then pushed her hand away without looking at her. She took the untouched goblet from his hand and pressed the cloth to them instead so that he could attend to the mess on his face himself.

He made sloppy work of it, wincing as his left hand dabbed at his whiskers. His arm had hidden what Sansa should have noticed much earlier, but he was bleeding through his tunic. She moved in quickly so that he couldn't reject her help and pulled aside the leather padding at his waist to see that the blood ran from just above his hip to his outer thigh.

"What're you doing?" he asked groggily.

"You're hurt."

He saw where her hands were examining him and scoffed. "Patched myself up just fine."

She had no more patience for his lack of cooperation and pushed him down so that his injured side faced the ceiling. He swore at her, but she was past caring as she moved the leather further up his torso and pulled his tunic out of his breeches to expose the wound which had pus building up around the edges and dark maroon blood oozing out of it. The cut went down past his waistline and she didn't care to expose that much more of him, but she knew that his wound was infected and his self-negligence had helped it get this far in only a few days.

"Why didn't you go to someone to help you clean this out?" she demanded.

"Didn't think it needed cleaning."

"That was stupid, even for you."

"I didn't think about it all," he said with more lash to his voice. "Was too busy looking for survivors and piling the dead, wasn't I?"

"If I send for the maester, will you let him treat you?"

"No fire," he said incomprehensively.

"That's for him to decide on the best way to handle your—"

Grasping her wrist with need and not ferocity, he pulled her until she was almost bending directly over him. "You promise me, girl, no fire."

"Will you let him treat you without it?"

"Aye."

"Then you have my word."

At ease now, he slumped back with her wrist still trapped in his large fingers. "Shouldn't have done that," he said mournfully.

"Done what?"

"Any of it."

He let go of her and she helped him lift his legs onto the mattress but leaving him lying there even for the small amount of time it would take to find Maester Wolkan did not bode well with her. His next words, however, made up her mind for her.

"Don't come back with him. It won't be a pretty sight."

"He may need help."

"You've done enough, little bird. Quite enough." She moved to the door when he said his last to her, full of remorse and longing. "I should have taken you anyway, whether you wanted me to or not. Shouldn't have asked you to come, just should have grabbed you and dragged you along. We both would have been happier for it."

She didn't dignify him with an answer, shutting the door behind her. He wouldn't want to hear her response anyway. They had hurt each other enough for one night.

Maester Wolkan had retired early, for he was no green boy, but at Sansa's insistent knocking, he had come to his door in his bed clothes and listened to her explain the Hound's wound. After telling him of the Hound's request to not use fire to clear out any infection, she sent the maester on his way.

Now thoroughly spent for the night, she made her way to her chambers, stripped herself of her clothes and donned her nightdress, glad that there was no more restriction at her waist. She lay down and found sleep almost instantly but did not even enter the realm of dreams when a tortured cry roused her. She knew the voice without pause to identify it; she had never heard him make a sound like that, but the cursing that followed was most definitely him. Snatching up a robe and digging her feet impatiently into a pair of silk slippers, she hastened to his room, curious as to how many people he had woken. It was a given that she would have heard him, for her father and mother had deliberately given Rickon a room directly below them so that they could find their way half-asleep if they so needed.

Outside the Hound's door, she found Jon and Arya, both of them also in their night clothes, though they had thought to pull on breeches and boots as well as arm themselves. Sansa let them all in to find Maester Wolkan on the floor with a lump forming on his temple while the Hound lay slightly propped up on one elbow, clutching a dagger in a maddened state verging on the point of rabid.

"What's happened here?" asked Jon.

"Bastard, I told you no fire, damn you!" shouted the Hound. He was still a mite drunk, but not anywhere near as helpless as he had been when Sansa left him and when his eyes found her, he growled, "Told you no fire, too, and the first thing this whoreson does is try to burn me."

"So you hit him?" asked Arya, helping the maester to his feet.

"I examined his wound and offered him milk of the poppy for the pain. He took it and I thought that he would be well under the influence of it when I sought to burn out the infection. The alternative to fire is far more painful, so I surmised that he would not mind but with the lateness of the hour, I must have misjudged the dosage to properly put him under, for he came awake as I stood over him with the iron and he pushed me away."

Jon moved to the other side of the bed to get a better look at the Hound's injury and concurred with the maester. "If you don't burn the infection out, you'll lose your leg and then your life, Clegane. He can give you enough milk of the poppy so that you'll sleep through the whole thing and never feel it."

"If you want to burn me, you'd best be prepared to fight me for it," promised the Hound.

"I could always knock you over the head," offered Arya.

"I'll gut you too, girl, don't think I won't. No fucking fire, damn the lot of you."

"You said there was an alternative method," said Sansa, appealing to Maester Wolkan.

"There is, but the dosage needed to put him under for that would kill him. He would have to be awake for it and I always recommend fire first."

"I recommend you shove that bloody iron up your arse—"

"Fire is not an option, Maester Wolkan. If you need assistance in holding him down, you will have it. Do whatever is necessary to clean the wound and seal it with the exclusion of fire."

Resigned, the maester opened his bag and rummaged about until he found several lethal-looking utensils. "You had best leave now, my lady, this is not for a woman's eyes."

In full understanding, Sansa prepared to make her exit, but lingered long enough to meet the Hound's gaze. She had hurt him again in the evident betrayal on his face. It had not been enough to tell the maester not to use fire; she should have ordered it and come to the room to ensure that he refrained from doing so. She had given the Hound her word and not seen it fulfilled but despite her error and his earlier command to stay away, he didn't want her to leave now. Her failure would not allow her to sleep anyway if she returned to her room and discovered that something else had been done to him against his will.

"I will stay and help, whatever you need of me."

"I need you and your siblings to hold him down for all you're worth. He's going to thrash and if he moves while I'm removing some of the putrid flesh, I could sever something more vital than surface skin. Do what needs done, even if you must sit on him."

"Give him something for the pain, as much as you dare," instructed Jon, and the maester obliged, offering the Hound a milky white vial which the latter did not take.

"I swear to all the gods: the old, the Seven, the Drowned God, the Many-Faced God, and the fucking Lord of Light, if you give me this now only to burn me while I can't fight back, I'll feed you to the fucking dragons after I've minced you into a thousand pieces with a dull spoon," he seethed.

"Oh, drink it already, you old shit," said Arya and her brash words convinced him where Sansa's gentle ones could not.

The Hound tipped the vial to his lips, watching each of them in turn, distrusting them until his eyelids grew heavy. Sansa took advantage of this to remove the dagger from his hand and toss it out of reach. He fell back onto his pillows, alternating between blinking furiously and rolling his eyes into the back of his head as he tried to keep his wits about him.

Maester Wolkan approached with caution and prodded the Hound's leg, waiting for reaction. He poked him again with the same results and then pinched the skin just a finger's length above where the wound began.

"Stop that; I know you're there," said the Hound tonelessly.

"How is he still awake?" asked Jon. "Can't you give him any more?"

"He would never wake," said the maester. "A man of his size, it's always difficult to ease their suffering with remedies. He is drowsy now, but not incoherent, and that is the very best we could hope for. He feels me touching him, but the pain will be delayed."

"Fucking wine," the Hound rasped.

"No, you've had your fill of that for tonight and several nights after," said Sansa sternly. "Proceed, maester."

She, Arya, and Jon tensed as the maester took a peeling section of flesh in between two pincers and began to sever it with a hand-held saw. Sansa looked away, wishing she had thought to pull the chamber pot from beneath the bed for her own use, for she felt that she was surely going to vomit on the Hound's chest and he would be none too pleased with her for that.

The bit of flesh had been completely removed when the pain arrived and the Hound surged forward with his eyes still hooded. His teeth gnashed and he called the maester one of the most colorful insults Sansa had ever heard, but otherwise didn't move. They were not so lucky the second time around, for his legs kicked of their own accord and Jon had to flatten himself across them to save the maester's groin. On the third removal, Sansa and Arya knelt down on the Hound's arms and pushed their weight into his chest as if he were a bucking beast they sought to tame.

To give his unruly patient a moment of respite, the maester set his tools down and unlaced the Hound's breeches so that he could lower them on one side and expose the remainder of the wound that met his outer thigh. Sansa saw the generous, course hair dotting the Hound's lower torso and the way it made a neat, uniform line that disappeared under his breeches. If the maester pulled the material down any further, Sansa would have a glimpse of the thing that had frightened her so much earlier, so she looked away, determined to avert her gaze until he was properly clothed again.

The worst of the wound was the lower bit, for the blade that had cut him had twisted inside the flesh here and done considerable damage coming out. Fearful that the Hound might bite his tongue in two, Sansa asked Arya to stuff something in his mouth and Arya took Lyanna Mormont's hairbrush handle and stuck it between the man's teeth.

By now the entire castle must be awake, serenaded by the swearing and shouting of a man being tortured but Sansa was sampling it firsthand and most assuredly prone to go deaf afterward. Her muscles were tiring from holding him down, her legs cramping from kneeling for too long and a new pain lanced through her shoulder where the Hound had shaken his arm free and clutched at her, digging his nails in deep. She attempted to shake him off without having to tell him to release her but a particularly sharp sensation from his middle digit made her arch in pain.

He noticed this and with great effort, released her to lock his fingers around the spindles of his headboard instead. When the maester declared his work finished, there were sizeable depressions in the wood where his nails had scraped away at it. Sansa and Arya climbed off of him but he lay still, his face poorly masking his pain as he stared at the ceiling.

Now was the time to leave him alone so that he could release his tears of agony in peace and solitude, but Sansa voiced her concerns about leaving him unattended through the night, or what remained of it.

"There is no need to fear for him, my lady. I will return to tend him in the morning but for now, he needs only rest."

"I would say that battling the dead was easier than that," quipped Jon. "He's a tough old dog."

"And sinfully stubborn," said Arya.

"Come, let him be now," said Maester Wolkan.

Sansa was the last to the door, but she doubled back, pulling the cast-aside furs back up to his chest even though sweat was dripping from his forehead and staining his pillow. He would find sleep and awake with shivers eventually if she didn't take care to remedy the cold now. His eyes were all but closed as she left him, but he might have said something before she could close the door. A simple something, a quiet, mournful, "Little bird."