Author's note/disclaimer. I own nothing; this is for entertainment only. Please don't try to use Wynn's remedies. They could be harmful to the health of any non-Westerosi.

Thank you, for the faves, followes, and reviews! I can only hope that I what I write is what you've been wanting to read.

I personally have an abhorrence for stories in which prior sexual trauma is somehow magically healed by some good smut. You won't find that here. I hesitate to spoil a storyline, but I do understand that trigger warnings need apply. There is no rape/sexual assault in this story, beyond possible references to things already in canon. Wynn's backstory, however, does include domestic violence (nothing Ramsay-level), and Sandor Clegane's backstory is traumatic as well, as already established. But all that being said, you can't cure PTSD with a penis. If you find you are sensitive to themes including references to past domestic violence, child abuse, and the eventual fallout from such trauma, this might not be the fic for you, going forward. This is GoT, after all.

Wynn

He said I'd be safe here, she thought as she stared at the septon, every muscle tense. You said I'd be safe, and then the words were tumbling from her mouth and she couldn't stop them, the mask had fallen, and she could hardly see him through the tears that had welled up in her eyes, could barely see him as she advanced on him.

"You said I'd be safe here. You said I'd be safe, and that no men would come here, and I wouldn't have to worry," she said, choking on the words, grabbing his shoulder only to push it away. "You said I could heal here, and then you bring me this?" A sob left her throat and the tears streamed down. "You bring me the Mountain? Is this my penance, my punishment? You bring him into my house, into my BED?," and her throat rasped as her voice rose into a scream at the last, and she ran from the cottage and found herself at the small river a few moments later, staring at the water as it rushed past.

She sat on the bank and shook as the tears fell. Not safe, not safe, not safe, reverberated in her head and she knew she couldn't return to the cottage that had been home for two years, knew it wasn't safe anymore and she had nowhere else to go and no coin to get there, knew she was trapped in this hell, taking care of the most hated man and feared man in the RIverlands, the dreaded Mountain. Stupid, stupid, should have known, a tall, large man like that, chest like two men, should've known, those huge arms and legs and he asked for his sword and he had the armor, should've known.

She cried and she waited, knowing he would come and hating him for it. A twig snapped and she barely startled before turning. "You said," she gasped.

"Yes, I said," he answered. "He's not the Mountain."

"What?" she asked into the fabric between her upraised knees.

"He's Sandor Clegane, called the Hound. Not the Mountain. Second son, once a member of the Kingsguard, but he... Left that service. And he doesn't appreciate his brother's activities. You need not fear him."

"As if I'd trust him."

"No, I'm not saying that. But I'd trust him enough to leave him where he is. And you can trust him enough to tend his wounds. I don't think he'd hurt you. Has he? I thought he could stay."

Has he? echoed in her head. No, he hadn't. Not really. She'd helped battle-scarred men before, and he was the same. He didn't want her touching anything that brought pain before, but she understood that. He'd only lashed out when he was half out of his head with pain or fever. He'd been still today. Has he? and she remembered being crouched by the small strawtick on the floor. But he hadn't known what she was doing, and he'd laid still afterwards. That forearm to the belly, throwing her backwards, he hadn't shoved it with full force, not even the force he could have found from the bed. Just enough to shrug anyone off but not enough to hurt. Not enough to hurt her.

She still didn't want him in her house.

"I'll see to him, but as soon as he's well enough, I want him gone. House him with someone else, one of the other men."

"Fine. He seems fevered, though. I thought you said he was on the mend?"

"He was," she said, getting up with a frown. "He didn't look feverish this morning."

They walked back, past the small pen where her goat bleated at her, to the cottage door where she hesitated a moment before going in. Ray followed her after she nodded at him. She approached the bed warily, her trained eye noting the sheen of sweat across his forehead, the tension in his body. His eyes were closed, but he wasn't asleep, and his breaths rasped in and out in uneven hitches. He had his head turned on the pillow, though he was still on his back, the burned side facing upwards with the hair pulled away. What had Ray called him? She couldn't remember.

"Clegane?" she asked, hesitating before pressing her palm to his forehead. It was too hot, and she drew breath between her teeth and she pulled aside the opening of the tunic to show the shoulder wound, where red lines had begun to show moving up towards his neck and down towards his heart. The abscess she'd noted the day before was larger. His eyes opened, and she could see the fever-glaze as he stared at her.

"Woods witch?" he answered.

"I'll have to reopen it. I may have to burn it out. The infection is-"

"No fire," he rasped.

"The infection is spreading," she said quickly. "I have to reopen it. Medicine or fire, it's going to sting and burn either way."

"NO FIRE!"

"Medicine, then, but it'll burn almost as badly and may not work."

His eyes closed once more and she turned to look at Ray, shaking her head. She darted outside to pick thyme, roots and all, and back in to stir up the fire and begin the process of extracting the oils from the plant, boiling it to make a decoction of the roots and stems, along with the leaves. Ray watched from the corner. She added more wood, wishing it would heat faster, and then drew a whetstone down her best knife methodically. The healer in her was taking priority, the woman beneath banished.

"l may need you to hold him down, if you can. I'd feel better if he'd let me burn it, but it may be too late, even then," she said.

"Can you not just burn it anyway?"

"He said no, Ray. Would you have me do it against his will?" She pulled the pot of thyme extract from the fire and poured it into a bowl to cool. "He's been burned before. I won't do it to him again unless I have to, and at this point, either method could save or condemn him. It's up to the Seven."

Ray didn't answer her. She gathered bandages, cloths, all the freshly laundered linens she'd pulled from the drying line earlier in the day, and looked at the man laid out on the bed. The scars from his first burning shone livid in the afternoon light as she tucked linen behind his shoulder and used the knife to first cut the stitches holding it together, and then the wound itself. The pus ran down and she pressed her fingers against the pouch she could feel, pressing it so that all was expressed. She set the knife aside and pulled the wound open, looking at it, then picked the knife back up and began trying to find the edges of the thin membrane that held it, delicately excising the sac. It was exacting work, and she had to flush it with the thyme mixture repeatedly as blood seeped in to obscure things and as her own vision (never the best for close sewing) blurred, and she pulled away to try to focus on the small tendrils of tissue attaching the membrane to his flesh and cutting each. When it was done, she washed the wound repeatedly, trying to to remove any remnant of blood or pus from the area, and then cut away the flesh that looked dead already. She sprinkled geranium root powder liberally over the area and ran bandages over it, around his neck, and under his arm.

"You're not going to stitch it?" asked Ray. He'd stood ready the entire time, but the man on the bed had hardly twitched and he hadn't had to hold him down as she'd asked.

"No. It'll have to heal from the inside out, since it wouldn't from the outside in. The edges won't meet now, so there's nothing to stitch, and would just trap corruption at this point," she answered, moving to the fire and heating plain water. She washed her hands in a bucket and turned back to look at him.

"You're sure?" she asked. "That he won't hurt me, that he's not like his brother?"

"No, not entirely sure," he answered. "I know what I've heard and what I've seen. He's one of the best swords in the country, but he refused to take a knight's vows. I don't understand how he became Kingsguard without them. Or how he comes to be here now. When I asked... he wasn't forthcoming," Ray answered. "His estrangement from his brother is well-known, though, and I've never heard tell that he was needlessly cruel or violent, just... very accomplished in battle, and very loyal to the crown. But he apparently doesn't serve the crown anymore."

"I'm not sure how he can serve anything in this state," she answered.