Their morning together was more subdued, though Sansa felt vindicated when she cooked them fluffy scrambled eggs and made Sandor strong black coffee for breakfast. She openly kissed him goodbye in the front seat of his Buick when he dropped her at the boardinghouse and the elderly landlady waved to him from the porch, blithely aware that the girl had spent the night with him. Since Sansa was helping the woman with the cleaning on her one day off, Sandor offered to take her out to dinner in the evening.

She wore same the lavender dotted dress again, straightforwardly telling him it was her best of the few dresses she owned. She seemed determined to prove to him that she could, and would, live with less. But Sandor knew there was a slinky, form-fighting dark number in her closet somewhere; might be the Marine had bought it for her though her doubted it. He doubted the cheap hustler had ever even taken her to dinner; only to cheap motels. He hoped never to see her wear it again.

The restaurant was Italian, a small place run by a married couple; there was no menu but only a nightly special listed on a chalkboard. They ate stracciatella soup, spinach-stuffed raviolis in a cream sauce and servings of rolled steak filled with cheese and parsley and covered in tomato sauce. The Italian woman told them it was called braciole and that it meant 'arm'.

Sandor poked it with his fork when she walked away from serving them.

"Better not have been anybody I knew," he deadpanned.

Sansa giggled. She'd had a full glass of the Chianti that had been set at their table in a decanter and was pink-cheeked and glowing in the candlelight. "Mmm," she closed her eyes when she savoured her first bite, "whoever he was, he's much tastier than my pork chops. I should learn to make this."

"Or have your great-uncle's cook learn," he replied flatly.

Sansa's smile faded and she set her fork down. "Have you written to your friend, Sandor? I would still like to go to Oregon…even…even if you won't come with me."

He paused and then nodded. "I promised I'd write and I did," he replied. "They'll take you in. He'll ask around town for work for you. His wife is expecting so-"

"I can help," she chirped earnestly.

He was about to remind her that she's said she didn't want family, though she was clearly fond of children. That was when she was stuck with the Marine, he told himself; her life would be better now. It wasn't worth the dig.

"I know you can," he replied instead.

Inside his apartment door, she went down on her knees for him; then she had lain back on his kitchen table with her legs over his shoulders. She had licked her finger and circled her own nipple to excite him and it had worked; but his lust was tempered by the feeling that she was hoping to entice him into leaving L.A. with her. When she latched onto him and kissed him repeatedly in his bed, he finally turned her over, propping up her ass with a pillow under her hips instead of having her on all fours; but he found himself thrusting roughly and stopped when he heard her whimper.

"Sansa?"

She looked over her shoulder. "I'm alright. You're not hurting me," she whispered breathily. "I- I like it."

He kept on fucking her, uncertain at first but as she whimpered more and gasped and arched her ripe bottom to him he knew she was not pretending. She liked his tenderness well enough but he realized he did not always need to treat her delicately, for she was no longer delicate about such things. When she curled up contentedly with him afterward, he stared a long time at the ceiling before drifting off.

He opened his eyes when he heard her whimpering again. It was hot and dusty and he could not seem to move, or even get up. The sun was glaring and he couldn't see at first. He realized he was on the ground, the reddish earth patchy with dried grass that he remembered from his youth. He turned his head now towards her sobbing and saw she was on the ground as well, hog-tied and naked and Gregor was fucking her, he was raping her, hurting her terribly and Sandor couldn't move. Help her, you promised to keep her safe; but he was paralyzed and could only watch helplessly. Gregor had her by her hair in a tight fist and he kept pumping her savagely, making her cry and beg for mercy, which only made the big bastard smile and laugh cruelly. Finally Gregor gave one last brutal thrust and came with a deafening bellow of triumph, then plunged a red-hot branding iron into her soft flesh. She screamed as Sandor heard the sickening sizzle and then the smell hit him, the same smell as when his own face had burned: a smell like roasted meat.

He sat up with a heart-wrenching start and bolted for the bathroom where he vomited the last of his Italian dinner into the toilet. He gasped and spat then vomited again, gagging weakly before he pulled the toilet chain and rested his forehead on the cool porcelain.

"Sandor?" the girl called softly.

"Go back to bed," he rasped.

Instead he heard the tap running at the sink and she handed him a glass of water. He rinsed his mouth and spat again. Then she kneeled before him, in all her naked beauty like a sensual angel, and wiped his face and brow with a cool washcloth as she looked at him sadly.

"Is it the fire, Sandor?" she whispered to him as she put her soft hand on his scarred face. "The fire that took your family?"

He closed his eyes and wished at first to push her away just as he had always pushed everyone away. He told people curtly their house had caught fire and in a manner that brooked no further questions. No one knew the truth but him and his family, and Gregor had eliminated them one by one; only Sandor had made it out alive, so it had not been entirely a lie.

He put his large hand over hers and pressed it to his scars now.

"There was no house fire," he rasped bitterly as his breath came in steady pants. "My brother pushed my face into the embers of a rubbish fire when I was seven years old, for taking his toy and playing with it. When I screamed, he laughed at me."

Sansa gasped in horror but he continued. The truth seemed to want to pour out of him.

"He killed our sister the next year. Ran her down in the road like a dog in a truck borrowed from the ranch where he worked. No one suspected him because he wasn't old enough to drive but they'd taught him at the ranch: I knew because he bragged about running down dogs and leaving them to die in pain. He hated her because she protected me and she loved me," his face twisted in rage and pain now. "My father was killed a few years later on a stake-out. They had a man surrounded in his tar-paper shack and my father was shot but it was from behind. No one saw it, so they said a bullet must have ricocheted. But it was my brother, I know it was: he was just old enough to inherit the house and had been made a full-time ranch hand. I had to leave or he would have killed me, do you see? Do you, Sansa? The world is full of killers. That's why I want to help you, to keep you safe. I know I can; because I know these monsters."

"Yes, Sandor," she told him in a quavering voice. "Let me help you, please." She reached to help him up from the floor and he realized he was shivering violently. Her deep blue eyes were full of tears and her lovely mouth was turned down: she looked so sad.

"Why are you crying?" he asked confused.

"Oh, Sandor," she whispered and her tears rolled down her cheeks.

She led him to the bed and lay him down and pulled the blanket up to his shoulder. He reached for her hand suddenly and she lay down next to him under the blanket.

"I'm here," she whispered softly. "Sandor, I'm here. We're safe together."

She put her slender arms around him and held him close. She put her head on his shoulder but did not sleep. He turned to her and gazed at her, at her overwhelming loveliness and sweet gentleness that was still there inside her, despite the harm done to her. How could that be? He could see the pulsing of her heartbeat in her neck and he reached to touch it, fascinated. He traced his finger over her throat, touching her heartbeat and her life's blood. Softly, she began to sing to him: a childhood lullaby he remembered vaguely from school about mothers keeping their children safe. But they didn't have mothers, not anymore; and they hadn't been able to keep them safe anyway. The thought almost made him want to cry: for her and for himself. He closed his eyes tightly and rested his head under her chin and listened to her beating heart. Sansa was still singing. When she stopped he pulled away. He felt utterly drained and weak.

"I should take you home now," was all he could say.

….

He dropped her at the boardinghouse again. He ducked his head when she tried to kiss him but she gently kissed his scarred cheek anyway. The wipers of the Buick squeaked and flapped as they cleared the tiny raindrops off the windshield in the early dawn.

"Shall I wait to hear from you then?" she asked tremulously.

Squeak, flap. Squeak, flap.

"I'll be in touch," was all he said and then he released the parking break. In the rearview mirror, he saw her run up to the porch in the rain.

Later that afternoon, Sandor sat miserable and exhausted at his desk in the squad room. A suspect had been brought in for beating his wife and children. All but the youngest one were in hospital. The man was big and fat and red-faced and he had kept shouting over and over that they were his, that they had no right to arrest him; that he could do what he wanted with his own property. Sandor had seen red and punched him hard in the gut and other officers had joined in until the chief had stepped forward to break it up.

"How did you like it?" Sandor rasped angrily as the bruised and cowering man as he was led away to a cell. Other cops patted him on the back and shoulder for a job well-done but Sandor felt disgusted with himself and wanted a drink.

"Need to take some time off, Clegane?" the chief asked neutrally as he stopped by his desk.

"Might be," he'd answered in the same neutral tone. "Might be the bastard just needed a taste of his own medicine."

"Think about it," the chief had said carelessly as he walked away.

Thank about it. The girl had said the same to him but he hadn't really. Despite the plans he was making for her, he was still hopeful that she would return to her family, one day anyway. And where would that leave him? He didn't even have to look up at the room: the ringing phones, rough talk and vulgar jokes, an endless parade of suspects and victims and reports, reports, reports that did little good. Some went to jail or even to prison but there were always more the next day, the next week and the next month. The monsters were winning. It made him feel weary and useless. He wanted to stop those who hurt people but they just kept coming no matter what he did.

This would be his life without Sansa in it. There was a secretary downstairs he fucked when her husband was away, and a cashier at that new supermarket where he sometimes bought food who spread her legs if you bought her dinner or took her to a movie, but who was he kidding: he'd never go back to them after having the girl in his arms and his bed. Was it really so wrong that she should want to fuck him and make him happy; that she wanted to cook and clean for him? He wanted to fuck her and make her happy, to care for her and keep her safe. Isn't that what lovers did? They were good for each other: she had said so herself.

Just then the man from records walked by his desk and nodded to him. Sandor nodded back. At first he wondered what the man was doing in the squad room, in his rolled shirtsleeves and horn-rimmed glasses, zig-zagging casually through the maze of desks as though out for a stroll. Then he remembered. When he looked down, he saw an envelope sticking out of a file folder that the man must have slipped him surreptitiously. Sandor tilted the folder so that the envelope slid into his lap. Resolved, he stood and pocketed it in the inside of his jacket.

….

A misty fog had settled over the city after the day's incessant rain. All the streetlights were on and the inside of the coffee shop looked overly bright in the early evening. Sandor peered through the windscreen and into the front windows of Sunnyside's but could not see Sansa. He got out of the Buick and was about to open the front door when he heard her laughter. He walked around the side of the building into the alley and saw Sansa sharing a cigarette with the big night cook, Hodor. She quickly flicked the butt away when she saw him and Hodor turned around. He smiled and nodded to Sandor and discreetly left them alone, going through the side door under a dully shining yellow porch light. Now it was Sansa's turn to smile at him.

"I- Sandor, I'm so pleased; I never expected to see you today," she said.

"Or ever?" he rasped.

She looked up at him yearningly. "Oh, Sandor…if I could only take your pain away…and help you as you have helped me," her voice was getting thick with those tears that were all too frequent for her lately.

"What have I told you about tears, girl? Here, I have something for you." He handed her the envelope he had taken from his desk.

She took it from him with a curious look. Inside he knew that she would find a California birth certificate and driver's license. He had not even asked if she could drive.

"I know I told you to pick a new name but-"

"Alice…Carstark," she read and smiled up at him.

"Thought you'd like it. I found it in records from around the time you were born and had the i.d. made It's easy with the name of a child born and died the same year," he offered. The baby girl had died of abuse and neglect when she had been left with her uncles but he saw no reason to tell Sansa that. Still, she suspected the worst: why wouldn't she?

"Poor thing," she murmured and tucked it all back in the envelope and put it in her pocket with her tips. He heard the change jingle. "Still, I think I'll quite like being Alice…will I be going through the looking glass, or down the rabbit hole?" she teased.

He leaned in towards her now. "You'll be going to Oregon… and so will I," he rasped with a half-smile.

Her eyebrows quirked up in surprise and he thought she would smile but instead a look of terrified horror came to her face. "No!" she cried.

Sandor was momentarily stunned at her rejection, then he saw movement from the corner of his eye through the mist but before he could turn a sharp and searing pain tore through his side that blinded him and sent him to his knees.

I'm branded, was his first thought, Jesus, it burns…why is there no smell? He fell over on his side onto the wet ground.

Instantly Sansa's face was near his. "Sandor? Oh God, help-"

She was snatched away from him then, pulled back with a vicious force that made her yelp sharply like a kicked dog.

"Bitch!" a voice shouted. "You lying slut-bitch! I'll kill you for this! See what I can do?"

It was the Marine, Karl Tormund, and he turned and kicked Sandor in his gut before dropping and plunging his knife into his leg and twisting the blade. Sandor yelled in agony now but little came out that he could hear. Blood pounded in his ears and he could only seem to breathe in short gasps of air. He tried in vain to get up but could not.

He heard two sharp slaps and saw Sansa's feet come off the ground. When he raised his eyes, he saw that Tormund had Sansa by the throat and was slamming her against the brick wall of the alley. He punched her stomach and let her drop before grabbing her by her hair and pulling her up to face him again. He put his knife to her throat now and Sandor could hear her frightened whimpers.

"Tor…no…please..."

"You like his ugly face, huh bitch? Slut. Bitch. I'll give you one just like it: I'll cut your pretty face so no one will ever look at you. Then I'll fuck you so hard you never walk again. You like that, huh?"

Help her: you promised. Keep her safe.

"I brought you down in the dirt like the rest of us, rich girl, and made you love it, so now you're a just another fucking whore!"

Sandor struggled to get up but his lungs screamed for air as the pain spread through his body, leaving him helpless. He tried even just to reach his hand to his holster for his gun but his arm was stuck beneath his heavy body. Braciole, he remembered from somewhere. He could not roll off it. Nor could he even speak. He was as dumb and useless as a pinned calf.

He heard tearing and saw the big Marine ripping Sansa's skirt and grabbing her pale thigh roughly. The knife was still as her throat and she was crying in soft hiccups. She had closed her eyes and put her hands up against the wall, submitting herself to whatever might come now. The soldier scoffed cruelly, satisfied.

"I'll bet you're wet, you slut," he muttered through clenched teeth.

Sandor was dizzy now and knew he was losing consciousness. When his eyes closed he forced himself to open them. He could barely focus. Then the dull yellow light over the back door was blocked out and he heard scuffling and grunts, and then the sickening crunch and crack of breaking bones. Sansa screamed. Then there was a dull thud of a weight falling to the ground and silence.

Sandor closed his eyes. After that there was only darkness.