His days were filled with work: crime scenes, belligerent suspects and tearful victims, endless interviews and reports and even one court appearance. But his sleepless nights were full of thoughts of Sansa: not the auburn-haired girl she had been, with her prim manners and dainty smiles and love of everything beautiful; but the dark-haired temptress with the husky whisper and lush naked body that bucked beneath his when he had taken her. Might be she didn't want him around but she sure as hell made him want to see her again.

Days passed before he could not help himself anymore. On a Saturday morning he drove by the coffee shop only to be told by the night cook, Hodor, who was leaving in the early hours, that Sansa, Alayne he remember to call her, had the day off. When he parked out front of the boarding house later, he saw her sweeping the front porch in the morning sun. She wore a faded yellow and white checked dress with a full skirt and sleeveless top. Her hair was twisted and pinned again. She was barefoot, which made him grin stupidly. He got out and started up the walk.

"And why are you working on your day off?" he rasped.

She turned and hesitated, wondering how he knew; then resigned herself to his presence.

"I help the landlady clean," she replied, "she's elderly, and it keeps the rent down."

"You have a trust fund, girl. Why are you sweeping floors in a boarding house and slinging hash at a diner?"

She stopped sweeping and closed her eyes a moment. "Sandor-" she began softly.

"Ah, you policeman come back," the landlady opened the front screen door with a jarring screech of rusty hinges. "You find man who hurt her?"

Sandor squinted to look at her and back to Sansa. "I will," he replied firmly.

Sansa looked to him warily. Clearly, there was a great deal about her that she did not want him to find. So instead he looked her over from head to heels with a twitch of a smile. "You look like you should be at the beach."

"Ah, good idea," the landlady enthused brightly. Sandor was starting to like her. "You go to beach, Alayne. Is beautiful day. You work too hard," she scolded mildly. "Pretty girl needs fun, yes?"

"Pretty girl needs rent money." But she smiled self-deprecatingly.

"You paid up this month," the old woman patted Sansa's arm. "You go. You no worry so much."

Still, she hesitated. She'll fuck me but she won't trust me, Sandor thought grimly.

"I'll leave you to your sweeping then," he answered more harshly than he had intended and turned away.

"Go," he heard the landlady whisper urgently to Sansa. "He good man. He like you."

"Sandor….wait!" He turned back to her. She sighed audibly. "I'll just be a minute," she promised and went through the screeching screen door.

When she came back out on the porch, he saw that she had unpinned her hair. She was wearing harlequin sunglasses and rope-soled sandals that wrapped around her ankles. She carried an old straw bag with faded cloth flowers on the handle. She looked poor and shabby. She looked good enough to eat. Sandor remembered the exclusive yacht and beach club in Hawaii, with the candy-stripped pavilions for changing, the paid attendants who parked cars, handed out towels and locker keys and served drinks on silver trays. He used to sit at a bar in a room reserved for other members of the help: chauffeurs, nannies, secretaries. They were a long way from those days; he knew that he didn't give a rat's ass but he wondered if somewhere deep down the girl did. He didn't think she'd be like to tell him though; any more than she'd be like to tell him anything…unless he put her in handcuffs. But that image was suddenly exciting to him and so he wrenched his mind away.

He held the car door and she slid in gracefully, her well-bred habits so ingrained that she likely didn't know there was any other way. He still puzzled over her seedier behavior: the bar, the drink, the easy sex. Maybe it wasn't such a fucking mystery as he thought it was: these were the things people did to kill their pain. But he didn't see it helping her any more than it had helped him.

And she was determined to stay hidden, to live the rest of her miserable life as Alayne Stone. Sandor flipped down the eyeshade against the glaring sunshine, turned the key in the ignition and headed towards the nearest beach.

On the way there, he pulled over at a busy diner and came back with wrapped turkey sandwiches and two bottles of lemonade. It was windier at the beach and so she helped him to spread out the tartan blanket in the sand and then took a yellow kerchief from her straw bag and tied it around her hair. They unwrapped their lunch and Sandor uncorked the bottles.

"Sunny days," he toasted as he clinked his lemonade with hers. She laughed at him. "What?" he rasped.

"Sandor Clegane, the Hound, toasting sunny days at the beach," she shook her head and took a dainty bite of a dill pickle.

"Sansa Stark in a worn dress and cheap shoes, struggling to pay the rent," he shot back bitterly and she dropped her eyes penitently.

"Alayne Stone, you mean," she countered softly after a moment. "She's never known better…so don't cry for her, officer; and don't try to save her either. Alayne Stone gets by very well on her own."

"We can debate the 'very well' part, girl; but you work hard," he conceded now. "Never would have thought you'd had it in you but you don't even complain, do you?"

"There wouldn't be any point, would there?" She challenged mildly. "And you shouldn't be surprised: my father built his own life and business-"

"Sansa Stark's father built his own business," he retorted firmly. "Your great-uncle has his people running things now," Sandor continued. "Running things until your brothers come of age. Your father's bastard is on the GI bill, studying to take over, I'll wager; and the cripple is sharp too, they say."

Sansa was quiet a long time as she stared out at the ocean.

"I'm happy for Jon; for my father's sake. We were never close but he deserves a better place in the world. And Bran was always clever," she said without looking at him. "The accident took the use of his legs, not his brain…or his spirit. My mother always said so."

He waited before speaking again. When she did not go on, he told her about Elder brother.

"A chaplain in the vet's hospital used to quote an army doctor who worked with amputees; he'd say: ifyou want sympathy you'll find it in the dictionary…somewhere between shit and syphilis."

Sansa gave a short snort of laughter. "Were you wounded, Sandor?" she asked now.

"Not a scratch," he muttered. "Don't seem hardly fair."

"I don't expect life to be fair," she replied curtly. "How did you know this chaplain?"

He paused. "Tried to off myself," he told her truthfully, hoping that it might make her trust him, "after the war. First with drink," he continued, ignoring her stare from behind the harlequin glasses, "then finally tried to finish myself once and for all around here somewhere." He glanced up and down the beach. "Walked into the water with no intention of coming out again; not alive anyway."

Sansa's mouth tightened and he saw her wring her hands together.

"I'm sorry, Sandor; truly. I- I'm glad you didn't succeed."

"Are you?" he wondered archly. "You wouldn't have me bothering you if I had. Reminding you you're Sansa, not this Alayne girl…"

"And so they put you in a- a hospital?"

He thought about it. "I was in a ward while I dried out," he answered, "dry heaves, shakes, nutty ramblings," he shrugged dismissively. Elder brother asked about the name Sansa; Sandor had told him it was something a dying Jap had whispered after Sandor had found him. I put him out of his misery, he muttered darkly and the chaplain had not asked again. "After that he set me to helping other guys: pushing wheelchairs, organizing card games and movie nights, reading books and newspapers to the blind vets," he mocked now and trailed off.

"And you became a police officer?"

"I did."

"No wife and family though," she mentioned neutrally.

"Never any time," he rasped. "Maybe someday." He looked back at her.

"Not for me." She spoke with the same level finality she used when she refused to discuss her family.

"So sure, are you?"

"I am." She busied herself wrapping up their lunch leavings.

He gave up…for now. "Come," he offered is hand as he stood. "Let's walk."

She picked up her bag and he draped the blanket over his arm so that they would walk hand-in-hand down the beach. Isn't that what lovers did, he wondered; if that was in fact what they were now. At least the girl didn't pull away.

They passed old couples and families with children and despite her reticence and cynicism, she smiled to see them. They passed bright kites and beach balls and sandcastles and Sandor stopped to buy her an ice cream from a shack on the boardwalk. He got hard watching her lick at the dripping vanilla cone and she dropped her eyes when she saw him staring. When they stood to walk again, she was the one to take him by the hand.

As they walked, they talked about the Cold War, as they were now calling the tensions with the Soviets, and about the Truman doctrine. They talked about the Black Dahlia, which made Sandor's guts clench when he looked at her dark hair. They talked about Jackie Robinson. They talked in circles about anything and nothing until they came to a deserted part of the beach with a cluster of leaning, weather-beaten change huts. Sansa chose the furthest one and drew Sandor in by the hand.

Inside, she took the blanket from him and let in drop before kneeling at his feet and unzipping his trousers. He was still hard. She kissed and tongued the head of his cock expertly, making him even harder; then she looked up into his eyes as she drew his thick shaft into her mouth.

"God, girl," he groaned. She held the base of him as she bobbed her head up and down his cock, sucking from her cheeks and flicking him with her tongue. He sank his hands into her hair and leaned back on the wall of the hut, hoping it would not collapse. He caressed her hair and face as he panted and grit his teeth to keep from crying out. Finally she pumped faster and hummed loudly and the vibration sent him over the edge.

"Stop, girl: I'm coming," he rasped.

But she kept on working his cock and so he grasped both sides of her head and thrust into her mouth until he came like gunshot and her mouth closed tightly as she sucked deep and swallowed. His mind reeled and he struggled to stay standing until he felt her slide her mouth away. He eased his grip on her head and let go.

Sansa was searching through her bag, her head bent. Sandor reached into his pocket and handed her a handkerchief. She took it without looking at him and wiped her mouth and dabbed under her eyes.

"There's a mirror up there," he told her and she turned to look. There was a broken shard of mirror still hanging from a nail but Sansa swiped it with the hankie and examined her face before reaching back into the flowered straw bag and twisting a lipstick. She applied the peachy-pink color and rubbed her lips together.

"Oh dear, I think I'm sunburned," she murmured now, touching her nose.

He pointed. "Your arms too," he added lamely. He guessed she did not want to discuss her four-star blowjob skills, or how she got them. He picked up the blanket and shook sand out of it. "I-"

She turned to him. "What?"

He nodded vaguely toward her skirt. "I can do for you, you know," he rasped.

She smiled her practiced coy smile. It left him cold. "I'm sure you can," she murmured seductively. "But I need to get back," she added, trying not to sound too dismissive.

"Right," was all he said.

When he dropped her off, he didn't get out of the car. If she noticed, she pretended that she didn't. "Thank you for a lovely day," she told him and he nodded brusquely.

He stopped the Buick at the corner for some kids on bicycles and his eyes flickered to the rear-view mirror. A soldier, a Marine, had appeared from nowhere and stopped her before she went into the boardinghouse and had her by the arm. He saw that her smile was strained and that, judging by his size, he was the same man from the bar when he saw her for the first time. He was only slightly taller than Sansa but he was broad and thick in the neck, arms and legs, like a bull. Though the soldier's hand dug into her arm roughly, she turned to him and spoke earnestly; without her usual evasiveness. Now he saw her nod in agreement to something he had said and the man let her go and walked away, turning to look at her again with narrowed eyes before walking up the street and climbing into a tan Ford. Sansa waited until he had left and went up the rickety steps to the porch and disappeared into the boarding house.

He didn't climb so fast in the police force by not trusting his instincts. He trusted them now.

Sandor didn't like what he saw; not one bit.