Raise your hand if you wish real life could just slow down a bit so that you had time to do the things you actually WANTED to do instead of just what you NEEDED to do! Yeah, me too.

The song for this chapter is I See Fire, Burn mashup by Megan and Jaclyn Davies. So good.

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Disclaimer: A modern Sansa and Tyrion fic? Does that mean that copyrights exist and are now mine? No. GRRM knew what he was doing when he claimed them for his own. Clever little bastard.

Chapter Ten: I See Fire Burn

Sansa sorted through the papers in front of her again, frustration and confusion fueling her ire. It wasn't all adding up but she could not seem to find where exactly the discrepancies were occurring. It was clear that Joffrey or someone equally as powerful was misallocating funds but every time she felt close to finding out how and where the money was going, her leads disappeared. She was determined to find a way out of Stag's plan to liquidate Valeryian Steel if it killed her. As the last thought occurred to her, she wondered if she wouldn't be the first. Joffrey was crazy enough to be the kind of person who had a guy for that. She was almost positive that he was behind the fraud. But without credible proof, she couldn't shut him down. Not without lots of planning.

"You know seeing you work so hard almost makes me feel guilty," a bemused voice said from the doorway and she smiled at the papers in her hand, glancing up at Tyrion briefly.

"Only almost? I must not be working hard enough then," she teased.

"Yes, well, as much as I would like to spend my time pretending to do something," he said, moving further into the room and climbing into the chair across from her desk, "I would much rather come watch you be productive."

"And here I was hoping my diligence would inspire you. Apparently, attempting to be productive only earns me snark from my boyfriend," she said with false regret.

"That's not all it could earn you," he offered suggestively and she burst into giggles.

"I've said it once and I will say it again: Hell will freeze over before I have sex with you in this building." Tyrion frowned in disappointment, snapping his fingers dramatically.

"One day I will catch you off guard."

"Not here," she muttered distractedly and his jovial mood lessened. He knew what she was doing, what she was looking for. He knew that she was determined to find it and that talking her out of it was impossible. He'd already warned her against the dangers of digging into something that whoever responsible was determined to keep secret and hidden. He was about one hundred and ten percent sure that Joffrey was behind the thievery but he knew better than to accuse his nephew of anything untoward. Cersei alone would make his life a living hell for suggesting that her child might not be the innocent child she treated him as. Not to mention his father's penchant for ignoring anything he had to say and punishing him for existing. He often wondered why his mother had ever agreed to marry his father. He had to have always been an evil tyrant. The fact that she was still with him despite the way he treated his children was another thing that boggled his mind. He'd asked her, after Tywin had killed his career as a teacher and forced him to come here to be miserable and useless. She told him that she didn't believe in divorce and that despite the negative feelings and actions between he and his father, Tywin only wanted what was best for his son. Tyrion knew it was because he was a dwarf. He wasn't stupid: his father saw it as a deep weakness, one that he couldn't hide behind the wealth and power and weight of the Lannister name.

"… could just find out where the money is going, I could expose everything," he heard Sansa say and he pulled his attention back to the beautiful woman in front of him. He admired her tenacity, her fearless attitude in the face of obvious danger. It scared the living hell out of him though. He didn't want anything to happen to her. Ever. Between the backward negativity from her father and brother –they still hadn't spoken and she had no interest in mending bridges and neither did they –and the threat that certain members of his family posed to their relationship, he was worried that loving him was going to cost her everything. He felt sick as he thought of them years from now when she was eaten up by bitterness, abandoned by her family and reduced to the scorn and condescension of his sister, father and nephew. He shook himself from those thoughts before they could pull his mood down entirely. Sansa loved him and unlike most women, she had no allusions as to what his family was like. The rift between her and her family could eventually be patched with understanding from both sides. And honestly, a woman like Sansa wouldn't sacrifice who she was for a man like him.

"Tyrion? Are you even listening?"

"Huh?" She rolled her eyes at him.

"Daydreaming about taking me in the copy room again," she teased.

"No, actually, I wasn't. I was thinking that I want you to meet my mom." She froze and stared at him. "Don't look like that. My mother is easily the sanest, warmest person in my family."

"You do realize that that statement was not at all reassuring."

"Yeah, okay, you have a point. My mom is the exact opposite of my father or sister. She's the sweetest woman you will ever meet. I think she'd love you. And I think you'd love her too."

"When," Sansa asked dubiously.

"I'll call her. Maybe we could go this weekend, before that benefit gala." Sansa hesitated, staring at him calculating and he knew she was weighing the probable outcomes in her head.

"Okay," she said finally. "But if things get weird or mean, I think we should leave. Quite honestly, I can only take feuding with so many family members at a time." She said it so nonchalantly but he could hear the sadness and exhaustion in her voice. He always knew what she was hiding.

"Promise. If my sister shows up, we can throw eggs at her." That earned him a burst of laughter and he smiled triumphantly at relieving, even briefly, the levity of what their relationship cost her.