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Chapter 3

Sansa woke abruptly when a large hand covered her mouth and another held her down. Frantically she tried to shake him off; he was too strong, she could barely move.

"You will wake your babe if you keep squirming," a voice rasped in the heavy darkness.

Her fear instantly subsided, although her heart did not slow from its heavy pace. Sensing her body becoming still, the Hound let her hands go free.

"What are you doing here?" She whispered furiously. "Are you mad?"

"No more than you," he whispered back. "No guards? Not even a bloody man in the house?"

"This is an orphanage, the home of the queen's wards. No one would dare harm the children."

"Little bird, you are true fool."

"The city watch patrols this way."

"A lot of good they have done you tonight."

Sansa crawled closer to the voice; she couldn't even see him properly in the darkness, the small fireplace hardly giving any light. He had been next to the bed she was sure, but somehow he had slipped from her sight and was now shrouded in the dark shadows of the room. She slipped from the bed quietly, wanting to feed more wood to the dwindling fire. She was held back by a gentle hand on her forearm.

"No."

"I can hardly see you."

A bitter laugh escaped him. "Count yourself fortunate."

He drew her further into the shadows, away from the warmth of the fire. The hand on her forearm slowly slid down, until it was no longer touching her, leaving a trail of fire in its wake despite the heavy sleeping gown she wore.

"I thought you knew no better about proper behavior, I am starting to believe you knew very well the proper way to go about things and strive to do the very opposite, my lord."

He couldn't see his face, but she could imagine the burnt lips twitching, his form of a smile. He smelled like soap, as if he had just bathed, and surprisingly there was no wine of his breath. She wanted to see him, she realized, wanted to see his stormy grey eyes, that hooked nose, the roughhewn features, the scarring, everything.

She felt her mood shift unexpectedly as it had done since the trial, from being thankful that he was alive and free to sudden anger at his disregard. Had she meant nothing else to him but a pretty girl to lust after? Had he all but forgotten her once he had left the city?

"You should have let them take my head."

"What purpose would that served? Killing an innocent man, there has been enough of that in the past. We need no more of it."

"What purpose do I serve now? Tell me?" The whisper came out full of rage.

"You are to take the black. There is purpose in that."

"Aye. I leave on the morrow."

Her heart gave a painful lurch. "I wish you good luck, Ser."

"You and your fucking courtesies, you can drive a man to want to drown in ale. Speak plainly, little bird, for once. Tell the truth, why did you do it?"

He would mock her if he knew, laugh at her, and tell her she knew nothing of life. But the anger was still simmering inside her, and the words came out recklessly, angrily, through the harsh whispers.

"You never came for me! Never. You took a song and kiss from me and you never came back. I thought you had come back for me, that you were making your way to winterfell for me. You were going to the wall!" She fisted her hands tightly to pound on the Hound's massive chest. It was like hitting a stone wall. "Go to take the black and rot!"

She went back to the fire, this time he did not stop her. She felt ashamed now. Sansa had always thought of the Hound, and at the end, when her very survival seemed unlikely she had dreamed of the Hound coming for her. She had thought nothing and nobody would dare hurt her if the Hound was with her. What a foolish little bird she was.

"I stole no kiss from you."

"You did," she said.

"I remember that night as clearly as if it had transpired only yesterday. I stole no kiss."

"You did too. I-" What did it matter? "Leave."

The hound came to stand before the meager fire, the flames licking up his face, transforming it into a nightmare. "You could not stand to look at me. Was I to rush to your side, knowing all that awaited me was scorn and disgust? What if I had played the fool, where was I to find you? You disappeared."

"But afterward-"

"You became Harry the Heir's wife."

"Harry has been dead for eight years," she said softly, remembering the young handsome boy that had been her husband for a less than half a year, slain in a hunting accident orchestrated by littlefinger. "You could have stolen me. We could have run away where no one could find us."

"Dreams, Sansa, you know it to be so."

"Yes," she said. Foolish dreams from a foolish girl.

"Did you cry, when you heard of my death?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Mayhaps I was too young to understand then, but there was something between us. Don't deny it."

"There was fear on your part and lust on mine."

"Yes that and more."

He turned his face to gaze at Emelin sleeping on the feather bed. "The child can be no more than five, is she little finger's get?"

"No. She was abandoned by her mother for being born a girl."

"You have no children?"

"No," she said softly, barely audible, remembering the life she had carried inside her for so short a time. "Leave," she said again, I have no wish to speak to you anymore. Leave for the wall. I care not."

"The truth, Sansa, this night you speak the truth."

His face was fierce, his eyes two orbs of need, his mouth drawn tight across his face. He had shaved and cut his hair, she could see now in the light. His hair fell only a little passed his shoulders and was still moist from his bath. She longed to touch him as she had that night so long ago.

"What do you wish for me to say?"

He lifted a heavy arm, brought the hand behind her neck to bring her closer to him. His hand rubbed softly at her nape. His touch was as gentle as she remembered. "Say it."

"Black does not become you, my lord,"

He laughed loud and strong waking Emelin with a start. "Lady," the child called out, fear evident in her groggy voice, ready to start wailing.

"I'm here darling," she soothed the girl while the hound retreated back into the shadows. She sang the child a song, a sweet lullaby to calm her. She could feel his eyes on her, it made her voice shake and her hands tremble. It took but a moment for the child to drift back to sleep.

Sansa stayed with her on the bed, holding the child, unwilling to face the hound again. He came to her, towering over them, but his hands were gentle when they brushed a light brown curl away from the tiny face. "Motherhood becomes you, Sansa," he whispered.

"I am not her mother."

"You are. No one looking at you with the babe in your arms would claim otherwise."

Sansa nodded numbly at his words. Her own little babe, it was true, she realized. Emelin was the closest she had ever come to true love. There was no one dearest to her heart. Yes, the girl was hers; it made no matter that it had not been her that had brought her forth into the world. The hound had a way of sniffing out the lies, even the ones she told to herself.

He left without another word, a dark giant hidden in the shadows.

She was to leave soon, but as always, Arya was drawn here, to this supposed sacred ground. She could still hear the crowds roaring at her father's spilled blood, gleeful. She could smell the arid air filled with filth, rank body order, and rotten food. Sacred ground, she thought, as she stood on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, reviling every stone upon which it was built. Sacred. She wanted to weep and laugh the same time.

Laughter won over when she saw a hulking figure exiting the Sept that could only be Sandor Clegane. She ran up a couple of stairs to reach him, still laughing at the absurdity. He looked wearily at her, with bloodshot tired eyes that spoke a sleepless night, no doubt spent whoring and drinking. She had forgotten how physically imposing he was until that moment, dwarfed by his height and brawn. Her head barely reached his shoulders, and she had to crane her neck to look him in the eye. Instead of doing that, she climbed three stairs to be above him.

"Do not tell me you have become devout."

"What do you want, wolf-girl?"

Arya looked at the entrance, filled with commons and highborn alike praying on their knees for gold or health or love. How could they still believe, after the wars, the sackings, the deaths, the hunger and suffering? Arya Stark stopped believing in the gods the moment the crowed cheered at her father's decapitated head.

"A thank you would be appreciated. Your head would be on a spike if I had sung a different song."

"I owe you nothing. It was your sister's doing that you did no proclaimed me guilty of every wrong done onto you and yours, starting from your butcher's boy. The high Septon's word would have been enough. It is your sister I need thanking, not you."

He could not picture this beast with her lady sister. Although Sansa's beauty and courtly manner hid a stronger core, she was kindhearted and still trusted too easily. "Be gentle with her, if you have it in you to be so."

The hound nodded imperceptibly. "Is that all?"

Truth, she did not know why she had gone to him. Sansa was a woman grown and would not apprecite her meddling. She answered by giving the hound her back, facing the place where her father had been executed. She saw him descend the steps through the corner of her eye, limping ever so slightly from the wound that had provided her chance to escape him. Arya stayed at the Sept a while longer, gazing at the bloodied stone floor.

Surely if the god's existed, they would have struck down Joffry for wanting to spill blood upon their house. Instead they let her father, a just an honorable man, be murdered upon their steps, his death cheered by the bloodthirsty commons.

He had learned quickly enough after his release from the black cells that his little bird had remained unmarried after being widowed by Harry the Heir. Little finger had tried to wed her next, but was thwarted by the dragon queen, who not only took back the vale into the crown, but took little finger's head as well. Rickon Stark had emerged sometime later, reclaiming Witnterfell for the Starks.

Sansa had not gone back, choosing to stay at court to pursue her ladylike interests. It was no until the second year of the new peace that Sansa started frequenting the orphanage, or so a steward at the Red Keep told him drunkenly at the Queen's Inn. The little bird was no longer seen at court, or at balls nor feats, although she was a favorite of the queen. Rarely did she leave her orphanage at the edge of the king's wood.

No matches had been set for her, some claiming she was cursed due the unfortunate demise of the men she had been betrothed or married to, starting from Joffry and ending with little finger. There had been some noise several years back, with a young dornish knight, but nothing had come of it. Some claimed she was barren as she had failed to produce children with either of her two husbands.

He stared at her now, at his little bird, more beautiful that he could have ever imagined, surrounded by a dozen children outside her glass gardens. She was teaching them their letters with the little one in her lap. She was clothed in common garb, a rough spun wool dress that only emphasized her uncommon beauty. He entered through the woods, as he had the last time, and watched her from afar, hidden in the trees.

If matters had gone better for her family she would be married now to some high lord, to the Tyrells maybe, or a Dornish princeling. Still, he could not believe that it was by choice that she managed the orphanage. The clothes she wore were one step above a servants', nothing at all like the fancy gowns she used to favor. How different she was, and yet there was a sense of familiarity he recognized in her. Her courtly manners, her clear trusting blue eyes, but she feared him no longer.

He waited until nightfall to follow her into her room. It was so easy, he thought with disgust, nobody but young maids and a few young boys that helped with the glass gardens. When he entered, she was pacing with her babe in arms, humming a softly. The little girl, raised her head at his entrance, and stared at him curiously with big round eyes. Sansa wore almost the same exact look.

"You are shameless, my lord," she declared, but with a hint of a smile after her befuddlement vanished.

"I would suggest guards to prevent uninvited guests, Sansa. I told you."

"Oh, is that why you are here, to inspect my defenses?"

His lips twitched involuntarily at her sauciness. Something else that was new. "I leave tomorrow at first light."

Her little smile instantly fell from her face. "I thought-"

"Give me something to come back for."

"Once you take the black, we can't… that is, you do not come back from the wall."

"I do not intend to take the black. It is to the Westerlands I journey to. Now a token, Sansa, to entice a man back to King's landing."

He didn't think she would, not really, and was set to ride to the wall despite what he had told her. When her lips touched his all his plans dissolved, and all that mattered was her. She smelled sweet, like rosewater. Her lips were soft on his, tentative. On the burnt side of his face he felt another pair of lips, wetter, clumsier and smaller. "Kiss, kiss," the babe said, making smacking noises as she puckered her lips.

He stared at the curly haired child in bewilderment until Sansa's giggles brought him out of it. The little brat started following the mother's example and started howling with laughter as well. Sandor wiped the drool from his face as the two giggled to their hearts content.

"Em, I have told you not to be so loose with your affections, you hussy," she scolded the girl, good humor still lacing her voice. She switched the girl to her other hip, obviously flustered.

"That was not enough."

Sansa pursed her lips. "I dare not, not with my child in the room."

"I was asking for a token, my lady, not the whole purse, but it is a pleasant surprise to find you so willing."

Her lips thinned out again, in what he was coming to know as a sign of frustration or anger. He remained where he stood, a few paces from her, willing her to come to him again. To show him that she no longer feared his face, that she was not disgusted by him. She did not disappoint and he sank into her kiss with a loud groan he could not contain.

She brought her body close, or as close as she could with the child latched on her hip. Her kiss was sweet and strangely inexperience for twice-widowed woman, but it was sweeter than anything Sandor had experience before. When her tongue snaked out shyly to lick his lips, he brought his own hands around her and the babbling child to bring her closer, opening his mouth for her to explore. It was even sweeter from then on. "Enough," he said, knowing he was at the very edge.

"No."

She placed a hand on his shoulder when he would have pulled away to bring him down to her once again. Torture, he thought, at the sweet pleasure of her kisses. Surely, she could feel his cock straining against her belly. "Enough," he said again, when she started to nuzzle his neck. 'More of that, little bird, and you will have me rutting between your sweet legs tonight."

"I only wanted to give you a sufficient token, my lord," she said, vying for flirty but sounding breathless instead. Sandor could feel her heart thundering insider her.

He took her jaw in his big hand, "It is more than sufficient."

She gave him a tremulous smile. "You will come back, won't you?"

"I will."

The girl babbled some words happily, and bounced on Sansa's arms. Her skinny arms rose to clamp about his neck, startling Sandor to no end. She was trying to wiggle out of Sansa's grasp. "UP! UP!"

"Oh, you little hellion. This is all Arya's fault," an obviously mortified Sansa exclaimed. "Would you terribly mind lifting her up? Only for a moment if you please."

Sandor looked dubiously at Sansa, while trying to ignore the drooling, babbling clinging little animal around his neck. Sansa had brought his arm around to support the little chit, and for the first time in his life, Sandor was holding a baby.

"Do no look so scared," Sansa said, "As the child squirmed like a slippery fish in his arms. "Place your hand under her arms, yes, like that. You can lift her up now. Yes like that."

"UP!UP!"

The girl squealed, her little feet kicking in the air gleefully. He gave a small laugh, at the situation, at his own embarrassment, at the image he must make. He brought her down gently; conscious of the child's fragility, to Sansa's waiting arms.

"More," the girl said, her arms outstretched toward him.

"No," Sansa, said firmly. "No more." She placed her on the floor, where the child continued to sulk. In his experience with the royal children, this was about the point were they would start screaming and crying, throwing themselves onto the floor until they got their way. Joffry and Tommen had been that way, but to his surprise the child did no go into a tantrum, instead played quietly with a rag doll Sansa provided her.

"Have a safe journey my lord."

"Bye, bye!" the girl on the floor said, waving her little doll.

... and the flimsly plot trudges slowly on...

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