Apologies for any spelling/grammar mistakes in this one. Was more than a little sleep deprived when I wrote it...

Also, imaginary cookies for anyone who catches the very blatant reference to my favorite rom-com in the history of ever.

Chapter 4: Waking Up

Reek had been kept in the kennels for weeks now. The serving maids would bring him some of the scraps that they fed to the dogs. But he hadn't seen his master. Part of him wanted to tell him about his fiancee's nightly visits. Ramsay would reward him and take Sansa away. But then again, he wanted to keep her secret, their secret, and keep seeing her and hearing the stories that stirred memories in him like fragments of a half-remembered dream.

Some nights he would try to disappear into a corner, praying she wouldn't come back, but then other times, if she was late or didn't come at all, he would press himself to the front of the bars, looking around and wondering where she was.

Alone in the dark he felt like he was going mad, with two different halves fighting for control of his mind. One was like a frightened animal, desperate and panicked, clinging to the reality he had now, and the other was almost a stranger, resurfacing from some unknown depths of the past. An old voice waking up in a new world.

But Sansa seemed to draw this voice out into the light, giving it strength. When she was with him, he wanted to remember, he wanted understand what he had lost. But the struggle was so hard. He wished she would abandon him to his existence, and let his mind go back to its numb sleep.

"I loved you"

Sansa stopped mid-sentence. She didn't move. She didn't even dare breathe. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and with that touch their unspoken rule was broken.

She turned around. The first thing she saw was his hand still frozen uncertainly in mid-air, halfway out of the bars of his cage. The last two fingers were gone, leaving only scarred stumps. She slipped her own hand, smooth and white as polished porcelain, into his and looked up at his face. It was thin and scarred, miserable and beaten, but she hardly noticed a single sorry detail, already captured by his eyes that were watching her, full of sadness and anger and love and memories.

"You did?"

"Yes, Sansa Stark, I did." He bit his lip and gave her a weak smile, "Or don't you remember that time in the Godswood?"

Sansa felt like she might burst. She wanted to throw her arms around him and never let him go again. She settled for pressing her lips to his knuckles and then saying playfully,

"Well, kissing a girl and then running off and not speaking to her for days is hardly the best way to tell her."

Theon groaned and leaned his forehead against a bar. "I'm aware of how much of an idiot I was, thank you." He looked at her again, "But I never did tell you where I ran off to, did I?"

"What?"

"Sansa, I'd been in love with you for years, and then I realised that just maybe, gods know why, you felt the same way about me. And I wanted to be be able to court you the way you deserved: to kiss you in the open, and hold your hand, and put my cloak on your shoulders. I didn't want to drag you into some sort of sneaking around behind people's backs with the traitor's son. I ran straight to your father, burst in on his council meeting actually," Sansa smiled. Theon moved his hand to her cheek and gently caressed it with the pad of his thumb. "You see, when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

"What did my father say?" Sansa asked, though she already knew the answer.

"What do you think?" Theon gave a short, bitter laugh, "No way was a Greyjoy a worthy suitor for his precious daughter. I don't think it was any coincidence that pretty soon after he decided to marry you off to Prince Joffrey."

"Of course... Joffrey." Sansa shuddered.

"You didn't seem to mind at the time." The minute the words were out of his mouth, Theon regretted them. He remembered hearing stories about how twisted the Prince was: Ramsay with a throne and a crown. Who knows what Sansa had been through...

"How was I supposed to feel?" Sansa said defensively, "The man I loved rejected me without telling me why, and was whoring his way through Winter Town. The heir to the throne didn't seem like a bad second best."

"I was just trying to get over you. My only other option would have been to sweep you up and carry you off without your family's consent, which would have meant sacrificing your honor and probably my head. It didn't work though, every willing girl I could find and enough ale to drown a horse and I still wanted to slit that little bastard's throat every time I saw you with him."

"I wish you had."

"It was that bad?"

Sansa bowed her head. Theon pressed himself closer to her and reached his arms through the bars to hold her as best he could. Sansa leaned her cheek against the cold metal, wishing it was his chest.

"It's getting light, you should go…" said Theon reluctantly.

She pulled away from his awkward, though comforting, embrace.

"Sansa," He spoke with sudden urgency, catching her wrist, "You can't marry Ramsay."

"I don't know that I have a choice." Her voice was dead, resigned to the reality she had been trying to escape by visiting Theon every night.

"Please, we'll figure something out. Together. Just, promise me?" He begged.

She knew she couldn't. She knew that as much as she wanted to run away with Theon, the truth was that by this time next week she would most likely be Lady Bolton. But everyone says stupid things when they're in love.

"I promise." Reaching up and twining her hand in his dull, limp hair, she brought his face down to meet her's between the bars where there was just enough space to kiss him tenderly.

Theon tilted his head to deepen the kiss and brought his arm around her waist drawing her to him, and accidentally pressing her rather painfully into the hard iron separating them. But Sansa didn't care, kneeling here on the floor in the dank, dark stench of the kennels with her chest being squished against metal bars, this was one of the most perfect moments in her life. Because it was Theon, because he had fought his way back to her, and because for just this instant, they were together.

"I always thought the Lannisters were the most disgusting family when it came to their choice of mates. I didn't realise the Stark girls liked to lie with dogs."

Theon and Sansa jerked apart, untangling themselves from each other and the barrier between them.

Ramsay Bolton stood in the entrance. Behind him, two of his men were holding a young girl, bound and gagged.

"And to think I was going to let you come on a little early morning hunt with us, Reek. I must say I'm very disappointed in you." Ramsay approached the couple slowly, shaking his head.

Sansa was frozen, her heart pounding. She knew there was nowhere to run. Theon shrank back from the approaching shadow. He could feel the urge to plead for forgiveness, to swear his loyalty and love for Ramsay and grovel at his feet rising in his chest. Sansa may have rescued his mind, but old habits die hard.

"Though I suppose it takes two…" Ramsay grabbed Sansa and pulled her to her feet, slamming her back into the metal, "Doesn't it, Lady Sansa?" His face was so close she could feel the spray of spittle on her cheek.

Keeping a vice-like grip on her arm, Ramsay turned to his men,

"I guess we're going to have to cancel our fun, boys. It seems my intended needs to be reminded exactly who she belongs to."

The rating will be increased to M when the next chapter comes out, in case you didn't already realise.

Thank you for reading and reviewing. Ramsay and Sansa will see you next time for some good, wholesome family fun!