It was early on a Saturday when Sansa's phone rang, waking her up. Most of her friends usually texted her rather than calling and she answered without glancing at the screen to see who it was, assuming that if someone was calling, it was probably important.

"Hello?" she inquired sleepily.

"Hi, uh, this is Sansa?" It was a man's voice, one she'd never heard before.

"Yes, speaking," she clarified.

"Uhm Hi, my name is Jorah, I'm a friend of Dany's…"

"Okay…"

"Dany is in labor right now and wanted me to call and ask you to come," he told her.

Sansa's heart lept. Rhaego was coming! She told Jorah she'd come as soon as she could and asked him for the details of where they were. After she'd written everything down, she quickly dressed and waddled downstairs, grabbing a breakfast bar to eat and walking to Sandor's as quickly as she could manage with spreading hipbones and swollen ankles.

He was asleep when she got there, but she quickly woke him up and told him she needed a ride to the hospital. He quickly got out of bed at that and rapidly began throwing clothes on, at which point she realized he'd misunderstood her and thought that she needed to go to the hospital for her own medical reasons.

"Oh, Sandor! You don't have to hurry that quickly!" she told him. "My friend Dany is having her baby right now and she wants me to be there for it."

He grumbled something about why hadn't she said sooner, and grew lazier with his pace. He grabbed some food for himself and then followed behind Sansa as she walked out to his truck. He helped her up and then went around to the driver's side and hopped in. He drove them to the hospital and dropped Sansa off at the entrance, going to park the truck himself. Sansa walked in and found her way up to the maternity ward where Jorah said he'd be waiting for her.

It was strange and scary for Sansa, sitting and holding Dany's hand as she gritted her teeth in pain, knowing that Sansa herself would be going through this same ordeal in a few months time. Sandor waited in the waiting room and Jorah was nervously standing in the hall and Sansa wondered what his relationship to Dany and her child was, but thought that now was, perhaps, not the best time to ask. Sansa hadn't expected herself to cry when Rhaego was finally born, but she did – it must have been all the hormones from her own pregnancy.

Dany's son was beautiful. He was perfect in every way from his dark, dark hair and tanned skin (which Sansa assumed he got from Drogo) to his violet eyes and perfectly formed face, which he had clearly inherited from his mother. He barely cried when he was born, instead looking around and setting his eyes straight on his mother after a quick glance around the room. Sansa had never seen Dany look so overjoyed and smiled brightly at her friend. She gave her quick congratulations and excused herself from the room. In the hall, she told Jorah that the boy was fine, as was his mother, before rushing to the waiting room to find Sandor. She couldn't believe that in mere months they would be going through the same thing themselves and it set her stomach tickling with butterflies – even though she knew they wouldn't be keeping their child.

"Oh, Sandor! He's so beautiful," she exclaimed excitedly once she had found him. "He's so cute and he looks just like his parents. Do you think ours will look like us?"

Sandor pulled her into his arms and rested his chin on her head, stroking his fingers through her hair.

"Don't think about it Little Bird," he told her quietly. "It will just make you sad to think of. I'm sure the child will look passably like your brother and his girlfriend and that's all we need to worry about. It's theirs, remember?"

Sansa sighed sadly and nodded. "I know… I just… I was excited – I am excited."

"It's fine to be excited and all, but just remember you can't keep him, okay?" he said, still stroking her hair. "The most we'll ever get to do is visit or maybe babysit sometimes. I don't want you to be sadder than you have to or for this to be harder on us than it already will be."

"You're right, of course you are. Let's just go see Rhaego together, can't we?" Sansa asked, pulling on him. He nodded and let himself be led onto the ward and into Dany's room where everything had been cleaned and taken care of and she was sitting in bed holding her son as she conversed with Jorah.

Sandor was abnormally quiet when they returned home in his truck later and Sansa wondered why.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"I'm just worried," he confessed.

"About what?"

"If we're going about this in the right way." Sansa waited for him to continue, and after a pause, he did. "I think it would be easier to just put the baby up for adoption and have good people we'll never meet take him and we'll never have to see what should have been ours. It'll be hard just having to watch as someone else takes care of our son. It's hard anyway, but having to see it…"

"You don't have to," Sansa told him with a frown. "If you want, once he's born you can pretend nothing ever happened and just go on as though you're no one's father. I want this, though. I can't take care of him, but I love him enough that I can just be his aunt or however Jon and Ygritte feel most comfortable with me being in his life. Jon is my brother, not yours, you don't have to be there for any of it."

"I don't mean – I just want you to be okay with everything that happens. It's just you that matters."

"You matter too. If this is something you can't do, it's okay. I'll have the baby and you never have to see him again if you don't want. It's really okay with me Sandor."

He nodded and was quiet the rest of the way back to her house. He gave her hand a squeeze before she jumped out of his truck and watched him drive away feeling confused. Upon arriving inside, her father was waiting for her. It was early evening, but she'd been gone all day and hadn't told anyone where she was.

"Come speak to me in my office," he told her and she followed him up the stairs.

"Where have you been all day?" he asked, sitting into the chair behind his desk and beckoning her to sit in the chair in front of it. It felt like an interrogation.

"I was with my friend Daenerys. She had a baby today," Sansa explained. "She's new around and I'm one of the only girl friends she's got."

"How did it feel watching someone give birth?" Eddard inquired.

"It made me nervous – but also kind of excited. Sandor is worried about it though. I think he's afraid it's going to be too hard to let the baby go and let Jon and Ygritte be his parents instead of us. He told me he thought it would be easier if we just gave him away to people we didn't know and never saw him again," Sansa told her father.

"And what do you think about it?"

"I want to watch him grow up. I know Jon and Ygritte will be his real and legal parents, but he'll still be of my blood and I think it's important he be a Stark and stay with his true family. That's what you did with Jon… wasn't it? When his mother died, instead of giving him away you kept him even though it made mother mad"

"You are so much like your mother, but sometimes I can really tell that you are indeed my own daughter, too," he told her and Sansa smiled. "If you think you can handle being around your son like that, then I'll support your decision, especially if that boy can't handle it or doesn't want to."

"I think it's mostly that he's never had much of a family life and he's worried that being that close to actually having a family without really being a family would hurt him. I think he'll be able to come to terms with it, though. Even if he can't… I still want to be with him. I just won't bring him around if Jon's over with the baby if he can't deal with it."

"You're stronger than you look Sansa," Eddard told her pensively before sending her off to bed.

Hey all! I'm going to be updating super a lot this next week or so as I leave on Friday to Toronto for a few days and then will be gone for 40 days on an extensive road trip through the lower 48 + BC and AB. Soo… yeah, no posting or writing during that. As such, you should expect a daily update of this story, yaaay! But please don't forget to keep reviewing so I can do some quick edits and polish everything up.

After chapter 9, a lot of you reviewed and said that you really wanted to hear more about Sandor's feelings on the pregnancy and adoption and such. The last time I actually read this chapter was when I wrote it (weeks ago) and miraculously I apparently anticipated that it was a good point in which to insert Sandor's feelings, so, wish granted! (even though I'd already written it in and had just forgot about it)

Thank you to every one of my faithful readers and also to all the awesome new ones who are only just now joining!