Sandor - The morning of the battle
The next day, Snow and Brienne were still disgruntled about the payment he had demanded, and confused about Sansa's capitulation to it. Why would she agree to wed this uncouth, hideous, scarred beast of a man? What if he hurt her, as Ramsay had? They had no way of knowing how she was the fatal weakness he'd never been able to purge, how he'd been helpless to keep from protecting her, even from herself.
They were also disgruntled by his flat refusal to fight on the battlefield, or down in the keep yard, or anywhere but at Sansa's side. They felt he would be an asset in their front line. He felt they were very stupid.
"How," he said with grim, deteriorating patience, "am I supposed to protect her when I'm nowhere near her?"
"You'll protect her by defeating the army of her enemy," Brienne said in clipped, icy tones. "We need every able-bodied man out there, not sitting in here by the fire."
Davos took a deep breath and tried to be placating. "We just think your talents will be wasted in the keep, here. A warrior of your caliber can do the work of twenty lesser men. You are a very valuable resource that should not be squandered."
"And if I fall?" Sandor challenged him. "Who else can keep Sansa as safe as me? I've not seen you fight, nor Snow or the Wildling, so I don't know how good any of you are. I know she can do it—" he jerked his head in Brienne's direction, causing the woman to startle at the inadvertent compliment— "because I'm one of the best fighters on this continent, and she beat me. So I'll compromise in this way only: either I stay here, with Sansa, or Brienne does."
Snow huffed out, exasperated, and turned away to pace back and forth, searching for the right words that would change Sandor's mind. Brienne just narrowed her eyes, contemplating.
"What if," Sansa began, "Sandor or Brienne stayed with the forces to remain in the keep yard? If the Bolton forces make it past the main body of soldiers, they will still have to contend with those here. It will be like protecting me, but without sitting idle as I chew all my fingernails off."
"And if we fall?" Sandor gritted out. "What then?"
"If you fall, it hardly matters if I have a guard in the room with me. If you fall, our cause is lost, and I'll be dead by my own hand in short order."
"If Brienne stays back, so will I," rumbled Tormund from his corner.
Brienne shot him a look of pure irritation and reached up to rake her fingers through her hair, looking like annoyance was goading her to tear it out in handfuls.
Sandor liked his idea— if he couldn't be there, then having Brienne and the Wildling madman to protect Sansa would not be terrible.
"Done," he said. Brienne sliced a look at Sandor that should have slit his throat, but Tormund just grinned wildly, as if she'd accepted his offer of marriage.
"I'm glad that's decided," said Davos from the window, "because it appears the time has come to fight."
Sansa came to stand beside him; the others crowded up behind. There, amassing in the distance, was a black line crawling along the distant horizon, ever shifting and thickening as more joined its ranks.
The Boltons. Five thousand of them, apparently. This was going to be a slaughter, and no mistake. Sandor pressed against his betrothed— his betrothed!— a mite closer than strictly necessary, but if this were as near as he'd ever get to her, if he died in the upcoming battle as he suspected he would, he wanted to at least have this one fleeting impression of her when he went.
Brienne sighed heavily. "I'll go get my armor on."
Tormund followed her out the door. "I'll help you."
"There's no need," she told him impatiently.
"Be that as it may," was the Wildling's placid response, his voice fading as they left the room.
"They're even more unlikely a couple than you two," Snow said lightly as he turned from the window, but his brow was creased with concern. "About that… Sansa, you are sure?"
Sandor held his breath, waiting for her answer.
"Yes, Jon. I'm sure."
He nodded and left them, Davos on his heels. Alone, they faced each other. Sandor had no idea what to say to her. He was not a man good with words, only with killing.
"Why do you want to marry me?" Sansa asked suddenly.
If ever there were a time for honesty, this was it. "I want you."
She did not appear offended by his bluntness. "Enough to marry me?"
"Yes." His voice was just a rasp now, barely more than a growl. "Enough to marry you, or more."
She gave a disbelieving little laugh. "What is more than marrying me?"
"Death," was his immediate reply. "I want you enough to die for you."
She looked surprised. She probably wasn't used to men making sacrifices on her behalf, was probably accustomed to just the opposite, of men sacrificing her for their own purposes.
"No one will ever hurt you again," he told her gravely. "I will die before I let that happen."
"You talk much about death."
"It's all I know."
"I'll have to teach you something new."
Was she… flirting with him? It was inconceivable, but that faint smile, that toss of scarlet hair over a narrow shoulder… yes, somehow, she was. Could he… flirt back? He decided to try.
"If we survive this, you may teach me anything you like."
Sansa was quiet for a long moment before saying, "I suspect there is a lot you can teach me, too."
And desire stabbed through Sandor like a spear-thrust. He'd felt it for her, before, and always had it been accompanied by a rare pang of guilt. She had been so, so young, in mind as well as body. He had always despised those who violated young girls. But Sansa had lived a lifetime since he'd left her. Her body was a woman's, now. And her mind… her mind was a crone's, ancient and knowing.
He, however, was just as damaged as ever. It had been his nameday, recently, and it had shocked him to realize he was only twenty-eight years old. He felt like he'd aged a dozen in the past year alone. He could not inflict his broken old self upon her.
"I would not force you to accept me as your husband," he told her. "I will fight for you without exacting a price. You don't have to pay me a copper. I'll fight, and when it's over, I'll go." One way or another, he'd leave her to find some joy for herself.
"I thought of you often," she said after a moment. It was not an answer to his statement, he didn't think. "I wondered where you were, if you were still drinking too much wine." She darted a tiny smile at him, at that. "I used to wonder if you had kissed me, that night of the battle, before you left. I hoped you had."
…what? His breath froze in his lungs.
"I made the friendship of blind old dog, at The Eyrie. He brought me much comfort. I thought he might have been sent by you, to remind me of when I'd had you to protect me. And when someone fought off a minstrel trying to… get too familiar, I thought it was you, back to save me once more. I wished it had been you."
Sandor began to back up as he shook his head. What was this… recitation? Why was she listing all the ways he'd been in her thoughts over the past months? Moreover, why had he been in her thoughts at all? She should have forgotten all about him the moment he'd left her in King's Landing, for the sake of her own sanity, if no other reason.
She was following his shameful retreat, pursuing him until his back was to a wall, and still she pressed on. It was only when the cloak he'd draped around her was swirling at his feet, dancing with the folds of his tunic, that she came to a halt.
"Once, I dreamt of you." Her voice was soft, her lips pink as they shaped the words, her summer eyes lit by the golden sunrise streaming through the little window. "I dreamt I was your wife, and you were joining me in our bed."
Speechless, he could only stare at Sansa. She stared back, no hint of a shy maiden's blush on her cheek, and the moment stretched, long and thick and honey-sweet. She brought up her own hand, her left hand, and she placed it on his grotesque cheek, the ruined snarl of melted flesh and scar tissue caused by his own brother and changing the course of his life forever. The damage had been deep, and he could hardly feel her touch, but he brought up his free hand and covered hers with it, pressing hers more firmly against him, starving for her.
"So you see, I have thought of you as my husband for many days now. I hope you will not leave me, when this is over, because then I would have to find myself another."
Another spear of emotion lanced his belly, this time not of desire but of protest, of denial and rage. No. He could not abide the thought of another bedding her, fathering her children. Just the idea hurt enough to kill him. This, then must have been the source of so much of his misunderstood fury and bitterness, back in King's Landing: a corrosive and impotent jealousy of Joffrey, then of Tyrion, for having all of her when he was panting for whatever mere scrap he could scavenge.
"I don't think I could find another man so brave as you, however."
"I told you, I'm not brave," he snapped.
Her gaze was unwavering on his face, looking and looking and looking at him. Why did she always look at him so? As if his ruined flesh and grotesque scars weren't even there? She continued as if he had not spoken at all.
"Nor one with a body so strong, nor a blade so sharp, nor a heart so true. You don't lie to me, Sandor, but you would die for me. And you won't hurt me." She gave him an impish little grin. "You're already a better husband to me than all the the others have been."
He became aware that he was trembling.
"Why don't you speak? You have never been shy about telling me your opinion before." Her smile widened, but it was gentle, not using him as its brunt, before fading. "Do you think I would not make you a good wife? Or that my situation is too difficult?"
She sighed. "You would not be wrong. The aftermath of this battle, should we win, will be a nightmare to untangle, and I must be in the thick of it, to help Jon with Winterfell and travel to King's Landing again, to decide what to do with it."
The more need she had for him, then. There was no way he would let her go among that lot of vipers without protection.
"I will stay and protect you. But I will not hold you to your promise to wed me."
A clatter at the door announced an armored warrior had arrived. It was Jon Snow, looking apprehensive about the upcoming battle. "Everyone's ready. We're about to go downstairs."
As one, Sansa and Sandor nodded at him, and he left. Sandor felt a moment's embarrassment to be observed pinned to the wall by a girl half his size, as captive as if she held a blade to his throat.
A blade. That reminded him. He had no aptitude for anything that she had thrust upon him, this roiling mess of thought and feeling in his belly, but he knew one thing he could do well: killing. "If we lose, if I fall, how will you do it?"
She knew just what he meant, and did not appear bothered to have him switch to such a gruesome subject. "I thought to stab myself."
"With what knife?"
From a hidden pocket in her gown, she drew a small knife. It was a pathetic blade, barely sharp enough to cut an apple.
"That little thing will take an hour to hack through anything important," he sneered, all contempt, snatching it from her hand and discarding it over his shoulder. He pulled his favorite dagger from his belt and held it out to her, a shaft of watery sunlight flickering on the wickedly sharp edge he'd honed just that morning, in case it were needed for this most essential task.
Sansa took it in both her hands, staring down at it. "How do I do it?"
"Best— fastest— is the throat." Sandor touched his fingertips to the pulse fluttering in her neck, warm and smooth as silk. "Go as deeply as you can manage. It will be quick. Won't hurt long."
"Jon says there's nothing after death," she told him, her gaze fixed on the knife in her hands. "Nothing at all."
He gave a short, bitter laugh. "I never thought there was."
"I had hoped…" she sighed, glanced toward the window where the sounds of shouting and neighing horses burgeoned. "I had hoped there was. That there was more than just how horrible living has been."
He wanted to tell her otherwise, give her something to anticipate, but he had nothing. His hands were empty, he had nothing to offer her.
Melisandre entered the room, and Sandor and Sansa stepped back from each other, as if they'd been doing something shameful, something besides staring at each other. His fingers could still feel the flesh of her throat. More time, why was there not more time? More time to become a good man, someone who might deserve her.
"I've been told that you are needed on the battlefield, ser," Melisandre informed him, "and that I am to stay here with you, my lady."
"I'm not a ser," Sandor said absently as he feasted his eyes on Sansa's face one last time, needing to hold its image in his mind, to give him something to see besides blood and death.
"Come back to me," Sansa told him, commanded him, and in that moment, she was every inch a queen.
Her sweetness was killing him, as surely as a Bolton sword might do in the next hour. He turned on his heel and strode from the room, and the blue of her eyes went with him every step of the way.