Sansa

"You know, being queen makes it less easy for you to slip off unnoticed".

She smiled at the voice, not even slightly startled. It was impossible for someone so large and lumbering to approach silently. She liked it that way; she did not like to be surprised, not even good surprises. She found she took far more pleasure in knowing what was going to happen. Her ears buzzed in gentle happiness at his presence and for a moment she did not reply. Sandor, being Sandor, of course, had to take offence;

"I can go – if you wanted to be alone."

He was not actually as sore as it came out; he understood well enough- silence had settled into him over the years like warmth into a stone, and sometimes the press and clamour of people all around was too much for him, too.

"No," she said then, stepping back, finding his hand and taking it, still with her back to him. He knew her well enough to know that this was trust and not dismissal. Sansa faced threat head on, mask of calm in place, and sank backwards into comfort like a soft pillow. She showed her back like a small animal might show its belly – "I can be alone with you".

She had said that more than once before, he remembered, the first time not long after they were married. He had assumed then that this was a bad thing. He had realised since then there was nothing sweeter one could hear from their beloved.

It was not that she had been sad, far from it; or even that she was not enjoying having all her people around her. She was- indeed there was less that gladdened her heart more. But sometimes, just sometimes, when the noise was thickest, she felt the need for peace, just to go off and be alone and smile to herself at the pleasure of her life, her family, her world. It was what she had made it, and having learnt that she could be the creator of her own world, it never ceased to delight her that the one she had built up was so lovely. Sandor understood; he always did, without her ever having to say a word. He had taught her stillness, just as she had taught it to him so very long ago. Even in the midst of a happy ending they continued to fix themselves and each other in the constant symbiosis that was the bedrock of their marriage.

It seemed to Sansa, as she stood amongst the trees, that she was both alone and surrounded all at once. She could hear the shouts and laughs of the others roiling up on the breeze from the picnic site; she could even hear Jaime, who was starting to list a little into the tide of mead and beer, starting to lead the children in a rousing chorus of what should have been The bear and the Maiden Fair – but with somewhat more obscene lyrics of his own devising. She smiled to hear them and to still feel the crunch of leaves and twigs beneath her feet, to feel the breeze through the leaves and the sun dappling warmth onto her face. She felt part of everything today, her people and her world. She even thought she might be rather an important part, a thought requiring such confidence she rarely dared think it; but today she would.

Sandor leaned towards her ear then and she smiled widely in the knowledge that he was going to whisper something sweet. Actually what he said, in a very sweet whisper, was –

"Your sister's gone up a tree with your lemon cakes."

Sansa laughed; then she turned round, sat down on the ground, on the soft, dry moss and taking Sandor's hands, pulled him down beside her.

"I knew she would. I gave half to Hot Pie," she smiled – "Half the rest anyway, I ate so many already your little bird is going to become flightless if she's not careful. Are you quite sure your share of the mead is safe from Jaime?"

"Not even slightly."

"He's teaching the little ones rude songs, isn't he?"

"Apparently this is a brand new set of words he says his little brother invented – and when I say little –"

"Don't be mean!"

"Oh I know, why am I always so hateful?" Sandor rolled his eyes at her; he had never stopped reminding her of that – "Sorry little bird, didn't mean to slight your first husband, should I be jealous?"

"You shouldn't." She shrugged, he was just playing and so was she – "You will be. Anyway my first husband has re-married his first wife. You know that. He writes to Jaime often, that's the only reason I know. It's good that they're communicating again."

"You people," he shook his head – "Starks, Lannisters – you're all insane –"

"Mmm –" she pretended to agree – "Starks, Lannisters, Cleganes – strange, strange people."

She lay back on the ground, stretched out and looked up through the leaves, blue and gold and brown and green all woven together above them in a fabric no hand could ever replicate. She wished she could make it into a dress and wear the sky and sunlight, but she couldn't and that was alright. She smiled to herself; it felt like letting her brain off the hook for a while to allow it to roam free into the realm of fanciful thought. She had not even noticed Sandor lie beside her or realised that her hand was in his. It was too right, too much a part of her for her to notice it.

"What are you staring it?" She smiled, sleepy in the sunlight, turning over to look at him in the leaves and twigs of the forest floor.

"You," he said and her eyes pricked at the words beneath it and she could not help but feel beautiful. He kissed her, almost innocently, fingers chasing the streaks of gold in her hair;

"You taste like lemon cakes," he said and for a moment it was sweet, until he added, with a glint in his eye –

"I don't like lemon cakes."

She squealed at that, sat up and tried to fight him; he was longer picking the leaves out of her hair than they ever spent in fighting.

"You have to like lemon cakes," she laughed, as he combed out her hair with his fingers – "True lemon cakes," she teased. Several minutes later they re-joined the rest of the group, Sansa still saying, for anyone to hear –

"You are not allowed to not like lemon cakes."

She giggled when a lemon cake fell onto Sandor from the branches of the tree beside them, almost as though in agreement with her point, and shouted a thank you to Arya up in the branches.

_x_

("I've been waiting for a tree like this all my life! Sandor, you must ride forth every day and pick me the finest lemon cakes this tree has to offer!" He agrees, wearily and from every day onwards the children hide in the branches of a tree with plates of lemon cakes to make his gathering more fruitful.) My new headcanon!

So it started sweet, went a bit crack, can't be helped, I had trouble getting back into the zone to write this after crappy recent events on g.o.t. But I'm back, hello, have some happy Sansa to cheer yourselves up! Also, yes, Tyrion gets a happy ending too. :-)