A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Svenson, a new follower of this story. I hope this chapter is to your liking, Svenson, and all you other lovely readers who have shocked me with your intense response to this story!

On a different note, I published my novella a few days ago! I'd really appreciate if you'd consider getting a copy! Details are on my profile, and if you use the coupon code JE64M, you can get 60% off until 11/26/2012. Thanks for your support!

-C

Wren awoke to find Sandor watching her from a chair on the other side of the room, a thoughtful look on his scarred face. She sat up a bit on the pillows, her hair shifting on her shoulders as she blinked the sleep away from her eyes.

"Is something the matter?" she asked him tiredly. "You seem pensive, like something's wrong."

"Nothing is the matter, exactly," he sighed. "Not yet, anyway. The problem is how we're going to sustain a life here until the war is over."

"Oh," she said softly. "I see."

That was something she hadn't thought of. This village they were in, it wasn't their home. They were living in an inn, but without any source of income, and no assets available to them but whatever Sandor had brought with them. She'd not thought about it before, but he was right. If the war went on very long, they might need to get creative.

"Have you got any ideas, husband?" she asked, getting out of bed and feeling her stomach turn in an almost pleasant sort of way as he watched her uncover her body, which was wearing naught but her smallclothes. "Any suggestions for how we get by?"

He blinked at her for a moment as she found a dress to pull on.

When she'd adjusted her dress and done up the laces on the front, he cleared his throat slightly and said, "I was talking to some of the women in the common area, actually, while you were sleeping. It seems that all of the fighting men are off at the war, and so they're completely left open to brigands in this little village. From the sound of things, they get enough for me to have steady employment as the protector and rebuilder of the village until the war is over. The women assured me that they would all contribute whatever they could to make us comfortable while we're here..."

"I think that's a wonderful idea," Wren said, frowning down at her laces. Her fingers were clearly still sleepy as they fumbled with the laces.

"Here," Sandor said gently, taking the laces and doing them up with his surprisingly deft fingers. Perhaps he'd had to do a lot of tying things as a soldier, maybe when he was learning how to deal with wounds. "There's a woman who said would look at your head, as well. Apparently she's an excellent healer. The other women swore by her expertise. I wouldn't want any less dealing with your head, Little Bird."

"When will we go to see her?" Wren asked, turning to a looking glass to straighten out her hair.

Sandor stood behind her, watching her fiddle with her hair as he replied, "As soon as you've had breakfast, Little Bird. Are you hungry?"

She hadn't realized until he'd said so, but she was actually starving. She nodded, and he held out his hand to help her to her feet, and then followed her down to the common area.

The innkeeper put out some indistinguishable sort of gruel in front of her, and a glass of some sort of red wine... Or at least, she thought it was wine.

"It's more appetizing than it looks, I promise," a woman said with a smile. "What did you say your wife's name was, Sandor?"

"Wren," Sandor said gruffly. "Wren Clegane."

"Yes, I'd figured that bit," the woman said teasingly. "Oh, yes, we'll have to get her to Meg soon for that head. How many days ago was it?"

"Several," Sandor said gruffly.

"Meggary," the kindly woman explained to Wren. "She's a woods witch, and a very good one. I'm Lyra, if it please you, m'lady."

"I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, Lyra," Wren said sweetly and truthfully.

"Meg will patch up your head quite well, m'lady, even being as old a wound as it is," Lyra assured. "I will leave you to your breakfast, but I'll be out with the horses when you're finished and I will take you around the village."

"To the woods witch first, of course," Sandor pressed gruffly.

"Naturally, m'lord," Lyra said with a nod as she left the in to check on the horses.

"I like her very much," Wren said, wishing she could say the same about her food.

"She seems honest," Sandor said softly. "That's all I care very much about."

"But surely we're safe here," Wren muttered, sniffing what was probably her wine before taking a sip of the sour red liquid.

Sandor did not answer, merely watched her drink the wine as she tried not to show on her face how bitter the taste was. She was apparently not very good at hiding her feelings, for she thought she saw amusement twitching at the corner of the unburned side of his mouth. It looked strange on him, almost grim in a way, but she decided that she liked it anyway.

What she didn't like was her breakfast, but she managed to swallow it down anyway, not wanting to worry her husband about her appetite when it was simply unappetizing food. Perhaps he wouldn't mind, but until she knew more of the sort of man he was she didn't want to risk it.

"Finished, then?" he asked. Wren nodded. "All right, out to the stables we go, then."

He held out his arm to help her to her feet and she took it gladly, feeling some sort of thrill in the chivalrous gesture.

My husband is a kind man, whatever he looks like. He must love me to take such cares.

They reached the stables to find Lyra brushing Stranger and Stranger seeming to rather enjoy it.

"Well that's a sight," Sandor snorted. "Usually he bites whoever goes near him."

Lyra smiled.

"Sometimes horses react better to women than strange men, m'lord. Especially warhorses, whose knowledge of strange men is often that they are trying to do in the horse and rider both. I see you are done eating. Would you like to go through the village now?"

"Of course," Sandor said, and Wren noticed that he shifted slightly as though checking that his sword was easily accessible. For a man who had supposedly taken her somewhere safe, he didn't seem to feel very safe at all where they were. Wren wondered if this was because they really were in some sort of danger or if it was a habit from years of fighting or days of running.

She hoped it was the latter as Lyra led them through the village.

"That house," she said, pointing to a quaint but obviously unlived-in cottage a few houses from the in, "is empty. Brice went off to war, but we got word fast that he'd died before the fighting had even begun. And his wife, Arista, died not long after, of grief, Meg reported. She can't cure grief any more than a maester can, and if a woman wants to die... Well, it's not much and it's been without care for some time now, but if you care for it at all it's yours. It has been agreed. They had no children, you see, and no relatives in the area to claim it."

"We will look inside when we are done with healing my wife's head," Sandor said shortly. "But if it will serve, it will serve."

"I think that it will, m'lord," Lyra chirped, leading them along to the house at the very end of the village, where a woman who was probably a few years younger than Sandor sitting in front of a tree, eyes closed, with the look of someone listening intently.

Wren felt nervous looking at this woman who was not quite beautiful, but pretty in an unusual sort of way, with a very high forehead and long, graceful fingers which were feeling at the grass around her. Was this the woods witch?

"You've brought someone with an injury, Lyra," Meggary said softly, opening her eyes to reveal the pale silver irises that had been hidden as they had approached. Her common brown hair seemed out of place swirling around the silver eyes in the wind. Wren felt the urge to shiver, but fought it. "Bring her inside and I will start out learning about the wound. Then you will take her husband out so I can work in piece."

"I'm not leaving her side until it is finished," Sandor growled, and Wren felt a rush of affection for him once more.

Meg looked at him firmly with her eerie eyes and said softly, "You will leave her alone with me to be healed, or you will not have her healed. It is your choice."

/-/

Sandor kicked the leg of the chair. There was nothing wrong with the cottage exactly, he was simply furious that the woods witch had worked him into a corner that involved leaving Sansa unprotected, even though it meant her being healed.

Wren. Her name is Wren, and it's not good for anyone if you forget that, dog.

He'd told the woman what he'd done for the wound so far and then Lyra carted him off to the cottage that would become their home to keep him out of Meggary's way. In truth, he probably would have been in the way, attempting to pry the wench off of his Little Bird every time Sansa winced or gasped or-

Wren, not Sansa, you bloody idiot.

At least the cottage wasn't in total disrepair. He would patrol the town on waking and seeing that his wife had eaten, then he would patrol, work on his cottage, patrol again after lunch, then work some more and patrol again before bed, and there was an alarm bell should he be needed in the night. When the work was finished on the cottage, he would repair some of the other homes and buildings in the village, which had been damaged by brigands a few times throughout the war already.

I'll do the roof first. Then these beams need replacing.

He was resting his hand on a beam that he was sure was rotting. Even if the owners of the small house hadn't died, they would have needed replacing soon enough by someone.

"Everything works as far as I know," Lyra had said before going back to check on Meggary and S-Wren. "But you can check the stove and the like if it suits you. Let me know if there's anything I can do and I'll do my best."

The one thing he could certainly say for this village was that it had a solid advocate in Lyra, who knew everyone, what they needed, and found some way to make sure each family and woman in her village was provided for as well as possible, in spite of the war. Sandor had been relieved that she had been satisfied with his story of his wife and leaving King's Landing. She seemed the type to ask questions.

Sandor crossed to a small room that he knew would be the room he would be sharing with S- his wife. He recalled the sight of her bending over in naught but her smallclothes, looking for a dress to put on that morning as though he weren't even in the room and his cock stirred in his pants. Would they take much longer healing her? He found himself suddenly hoping it was a lengthy process when he could hear the voices of Lyra and S- Wren outside the cottage and growing ever closer.

He would have to deal with it later.

"Husband, it will be healed in three days," his little bird chirped as she crossed the threshold of the little cottage, and he had a sudden vision of a cloak draped around her, carrying her over that very same threshold in his arms, and over to the little bedroom he'd been looking at and...

If he didn't stop thinking like that she would see tent in his trousers.

She thinks you're her husband. She shouldn't find it strange.

But what would he do if she did or said something about it?

You don't deserve her, dog. Remember that. If she were to find out what you've done...

She would know he was doing it to keep her safe.

Aye, but did that make his lecherous behavior any less disgusting? She was sweet and innocent, even more so now that she didn't recall what had happened to her at King's Landing, Joffrey's torture, her father's death...

You don't deserve her.

He gave her head an approving nod and she explained in her happy, chirping voice the instructions this Meggary - Meg, she called the woman - had given for caring for it on her own.

Sandor had a hard time listening to the words, watching both young women begin cleaning the room they were standing in as though they'd been doing it all day, just picking up where they'd left off after a short break, acting as if of one mind.

Suddenly, he was thinking that being in a village with almost entirely women and children would be more of a headache than he wanted to take.

But it will keep her safe, so of course it is what you'll do. Because there's nothing you want more than her safety, is there?

He had a vision of him thrusting deep inside of her and her screaming his name, her pretty little head thrown black in pleasure.

Perhaps there was more that he wanted, but he couldn't bring himself to just take it as he had been so ready to do in King's Landing. For one thing, she was even more vulnerable now, not even knowing who she was. For another, he wasn't nearly drunk enough to hold a knife to her pretty throat, and he wouldn't be drunk enough if he was going to do his duty to keep her and the rest of the village safe as he'd promised.

For a man who wasn't much for oaths and vows, he was finding himself entangled by the oaths he'd sworn himself to keep his Little Bird safe, and he realized as he watched them cleaning that they'd become even more important to him than the vow he'd made to kill his brother, the Mountain.

Bloody girl has changed everything.

What was he going to do when she started noticing that he was being a distant husband?

Because he had to distance himself, no matter how badly he wanted to kick Lyra out, pull Sansa -Wren - into the bedroom and fuck her bloody, for both of their sakes. But mostly hers.

When Lyra finally did leave, to bring them a bit of food to start out with, which she assured Sandor that he didn't need to pay for up front, since he was being employed by the village now, Sandor watched his little 'wife' sit down in a nearby chair looking exhausted. He would have thought that after the days of hard riding this would feel relaxing to her, but then, her head wasn't fully healed yet.

Sandor sat beside her, wanting to take her little shoes off her feet and touch her sweet skin, to caress away the wear of the day. It was strange, the sort of thing he'd never wanted to do before, and so he decided it was a silly, fanciful thought, and he did not reach out for her at all. Instead, he watched her as she sighed, looking out of a nearby window to see if Lyra was returning yet.

"I like it very much here," she said nervously. "They seem very friendly."

"That they do," he grunted in agreement. He couldn't argue that, at the least.

She looked down at the floor for a moment before saying, very softly, "I'm sorry to be so much trouble, Sandor."

He blinked.

Trouble? How could she think she was trouble? He'd begged her to come with him. He'd...

But she didn't remember any of that. She knew nothing about how he'd told her that he was taking her away with a blade to her throat, that he'd forced her to give him a song...

"Little Bird," he said gruffly, "you have been no trouble."

"Please don't lie," she sniffed, her pretty blue eyes filling with unshed tears. "It was because of me you had to leave King's Landing. My head and my amnesia have caused all sorts of problems. I... I'm so sorry, Sandor."

No, it's not your fault. None of this is your fault, Little Bird. It is mine for thinking I could protect you, for thinking you'd be better with a dog like me than a monster like Joffrey. Was it right? What was the right thing to do? Your pretty face shouldn't be stained with bitter tears...

But before Sandor could do a thing she wiped them away, seeing Lyra approaching with bundles of food, and far more than Sandor had expected.

"Here we go," Lyra said breathlessly as S- Wren and Sandor helped relieve her of some of her burden, finding places to put the food that would last them at least a week. Sandor had the uneasy feeling that Lyra herself was going to be eating a bit less that week so that the new couple would have plenty.

He would have argued, but Lyra seemed the type to find excuses for forcing the food upon them, like hospitality, payment for Sandor's not-yet-begun services to the village, and even his 'wife's' injury. So he accepted the food and Lyra promised to walk with him through the rest of the village in the morning for his first rounds.

So all he had left to concern himself with was the silly Little Bird he had no idea what to do with.