Author's Notes: As you must have noticed, I have taken some creative liberties and changed the timeline of some events from the canon. So for example Sansa's public humiliation was not the result of the battle of Oxcross despite similarities it bore to that, but rather because of some other unnamed displeasure of Joffrey's. Also, clearly Yoren is still in King's Landing, rather than having left soon after Ned's execution as in the books. Overall the timeline from Ned's arrest and execution to Sandor rescuing Sansa is only a few months and happens during the lull when Rob is in Riverrun after having sent Theo to the Pyke and Catelyn to Renly to seek alliances. I hope you forgive me these minor deviations!
Sandor & Arya
"Wake up!"
"Mmmmm?"
"Quiet now, little wolf. If I take my hand away, promise you won't scream murder."
"Uh?"
"We are leaving. Now."
"We? Hey, does it mean you'll be coming as well?"
"Aye, I will. We don't have much time though. Here, take this coin, get up and go to the last stables just inside the King's Gate. Ask for Donnay, he should have the horses and supplies ready. Take them and ride out, and we'll meet outside the tourney grounds."
"You'll get Sansa out safely?"
"I am not lying to you. I can't say it will be safe and I can't say I will definitively bring her. Hells, I can't even be sure I'll be coming with her. If I – if we – don't show up, just take the horses back to the stable, keep the supplies or sell them, and come back here. Then go find a man called Yoren in the Golden Stag Inn, tell him who you are and he'll take you to the North."
"No, don't act as it will not happen! You will find her and you both will come to the meeting place!"
"I'll be sure to do my damnest, believe that."
"Not only for me, but for her."
"Just be where I told you to be – but remember the name. Yoren, in the Golden Stag."
Sansa
Sansa hardly slept a wink that night – not only the promise of an immediate escape, but also her startling new discovery robbing her sleep. The Hound. I like him. She tasted the sound of his true name on her lips. Sandor. The first syllable as soft as her own, the second so hard and masculine. '-dor'. As the man himself.
Sansa stared at the ceiling, unblinking. Her mind sprouted a series of images in her head, all the way from the first moment she had seen him until that very same evening. She remembered her shock of seeing his horrible face and her anger about his uncouth behaviour, then how her curiosity had been awakened when she had learned more about that mysterious man. The unexpected gentleness she had witnessed in him a few times. Her realisation that he had been so deprived of human compassion that a simple touch and some kind words had made him tremble – him, the strongest warrior of them all!?
Sansa sighed and turned to her side. She wasn't sure what she should think. She had thought herself to be in love with Joffrey, but that had been only a foolish girl's infatuation. After it had worn off, and especially after she had seen his true colours, she had thought she would never make the same mistake again.
The notion made her smile despite her anxiety, summoning a small curve of her lips she couldn't prevent. Sandor Clegane couldn't be further away from Joffrey by looks, stature, character, prospects or by any other imaginable trait. The smile continued and for the briefest of moments she was not the wretched captive of the crown but a young maid contemplating one of the oldest emotions in the world: The one that is reborn anew in the mind of every youth who experiences it for the first time. Then she very nearly giggled, remembering Sandor's bewilderment and uncertainty when she had touched him, the way how his broad shoulder had tensed under her fingers.
Nonetheless, the moment of gaiety passed almost as soon as it had arrived and she sighed deeply, burying her head under the pillow and willing herself to fall asleep. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.
Yet sleep didn't come.
It was almost midday when he finally came. Sansa had broken her fast in the Great Hall but pleading feeling unwell she had excused herself and returned to her room. Cersei had looked at her sharply but nodded her head in acquiescence. Joffrey was nowhere to be seen and for that Sansa was grateful.
The familiar soft rasp at the door and her heart stated hammering so hard that she had to take several deep breaths to steady herself.
"Yes?" she whispered.
The Hound – Sandor - looked focussed and hard, clad in his full armour, his white Kingsguard cloak pillowing behind him when he slipped in through the door, closing it quietly behind him before turning to look at her. No greetings, no acknowledgment that this was probably one of the most important days of her life; her escape from King's Landing.
"Ready?" he rasped.
Sansa had rushed to the door and now found herself facing him, hardly half a step separating them. He was so close that she could feel his imposing presence with every fibre of her body. It made her skin shiver in prickles and raised the fine hairs on her arms. Her thoughts from the previous night came back to her and she found herself tongue-tied, unable to think or say anything. San-dor.
"Yes," she finally whispered and picked up her meagre belongings packed into a bundle from the floor.
"Here. Put this on." He handed her a bundled cloak of dark green and made of coarse weave. She took it from his hands and threw it around her, realising in the process that it must be one of his. It smelled of him and was much too big for her, but that only meant that it covered her well.
Without waiting Sandor turned and opened the door again and so they left; Sandor first, Sansa following behind, tugging desperately the too large cloak to settle over her shoulders.
He offered no explanations and Sansa asked no questions as they hurried along the quiet corridors, turning right here and left there. Soon enough Sansa had lost all sense of direction. Whether they were heading deeper into the keep or towards the outer keep she didn't know and didn't care. As long as he led the way, she followed.
Sandor seemed to know his way around the castle as he never wavered and the passageways they took were mostly deserted and only a few hurried servants passed them by, cowering when they saw the formidable Hound. Sansa wore the simplest dress she owned and had tied her hair back in a tight braid. Her head being now also covered with the large hood she hoped nobody would recognise her, at least easily.
Eventually they reached a low corridor and at the end of it, a door that led into an empty room with only a small slit window giving light into it. For a moment she was worried that they had reached a dead end, but Sandor walked straight into the middle of the room, to a wooden trap door on the floor. He had grabbed a burning torch from its sconce a while back, when the corridors had started to get deeper and darker, and now he handed it to Sansa.
While she looked on, he cranked the trap door open and gestured her to go first. Approaching it she saw a ladder leading into darkness and for a moment she shivered, reluctant to go into unknown. Then she looked up at her companion and the slight bow of his head encouraged her. Gathering up her skirts Sansa lowered herself on the first step.
Soon they were racing through ancient tunnels, Sansa following the light of the torch and the tall man carrying it. Those passageways must be the ones he had told her about a lifetime ago – when she could have never dreamed of needing to escape through them. On and on they went, finally to arrive in front of a gate of iron bars, through which she could see a grassy meadow and an outline of trees.
The lock in it looked rusty and unused but operated well enough when Sandor slid it open, making her wonder how long ago he had planned this escape route and made sure it was passable. It must have been earlier than the day before – so he had told it true about preparing for it. Not that she had really doubted him.
Sunlight blinded Sansa at first after a long time in darkness, but she had hardly adjusted to it when Sandor called for her. He was standing next to his horse and loading him with saddle bags from the ground. These preparations he must have done only this morning, as isolated and well hidden as the little clearing appeared.
"Where are we?"
"Outside the Red Keep, not far from the River Row. It is just behind those shrubs, and that's where we are going. Here, put these on, so that your maiden's thighs don't chafe so badly." He angled something out of one of the bags and held it out to her. A pair of breeches, Sansa realised when she grabbed them. Her brow furrowed. What…
"Just put them on, under your skirts. I'll turn my back if you are so bloody precious about it," he grumbled and true to his word, turned away.
Nervously Sansa rotated on her spot and pulled the unusual garment on. They were surely not his – they would have been much too large for sure – but were almost her size although still too loose. She tied the cord on the waist tight, dropped her skirts and turned towards the horse and his master.
"Come, let us waste no more time."
Sandor mounted his stallion first and then pulled her up by her arm as if she weighed nothing, positioning her to sit behind him. First Sansa was nervous about the prospect of being so close to that terrifying horse, but then she concluded that its back was probably the safest place to be.
"Hold on tightly. I better have my hands free – just in case."
Sansa nodded against his broad back and so they started their journey.
"Arya!"
"Sansa!"
Hardly had Sandor halted their pace when Sansa squirmed in her excitement to get down and meet her sister. Only the firm arm that gripped her prevented her falling head down, and still her dismounting was anything but graceful. And she couldn't have cared less.
Only after hugging her wild sibling fiercely to convince her that she really was here, alive and well, Sansa took a better look at her.
"Arya, your hair! And what are you wearing?"
The face that almost painfully reminded Sansa of their father broke into a wide grin. "I like it! No need to comb it or braid it and it never gets on the way. And didn't you know I was supposed to be a boy?"
Sansa glanced at her companion who had also dismounted and gone to examine the wares next to where Arya had sat propped against a large tree. They were right outside the tourney grounds where Sansa had enjoyed her first tourney – in another time, in another life.
"No, he only said that you are safe and that you have food and shelter. Where were you?"
Before either of them had a chance to say more, an irate voice boomed behind them.
"Where the hells is the other horse? I told him two, two fucking horses! Can't he count?"
Arya turned to him and explained almost unnaturally calmly, "Donnay only had one for now. He said you wanted them ready for next week, and he had one in mind for then. I asked for a replacement, of course, but he had none to give."
Sandor huffed and cursed for a while, then seemingly accepted the situation from the way he pursed his lips together.
"You girls can share. Now let's get the fuck out of here before the Gold Cloaks get us."
Sansa's heart jumped. She was a passable rider at best, and even on the King's Road she had only dared to ride because the pace had been so leisurely. The idea of galloping across the countryside being pursued by soldiers was daunting, even if Arya was a better rider than she. On their way to the meeting place she had enjoyed the safety and security Sandor's big bulk afforded her, and the thought of clinging to her slip of a sister scared her. Before she could stop herself she called out loud what she really wanted.
"Can I ride with you? We could move all the supplies to Arya's mount to lessen Stranger's burden."
Arya seemed surprised but not nearly so as Sandor, whose eyes widened and who stopped what he was doing just to stare at her.
"With me?"
"Yes." Sansa's courage grew as she spoke. "I am not a very good rider and I am afraid how well I could stay in the saddle with Arya. And I know you wouldn't let me fall. And we need to be sure we can make a good time. And…" Her voice wavered when she ran out of reasons, wondering if she had just made a fool of herself.
He looked at her again, long and hard, and then shrugged his shoulders.
"Well then, let's load your nag. Move him closer," he addressed Arya and started to unbuckle Stranger's load. Sansa sighed in relief, but didn't miss a queer look Arya threw in her direction. So what?
Soon enough they were ready to go and she was lifted on the horse again. The sensation of those large hands on her waist was much too intense for what it should have been, and Sansa blushed at the intimacy of it, and what she knew was to follow. She only hoped that he didn't notice it.
They were still too close to the city to relax their guard and so Sansa rode behind as before. She didn't mind; she could lean against Sandor and wrap her arms around his middle. Despite cold armour covering his upper body and making it impossible for her to feel him truly, she could discern the way he tensed his thighs when giving directions to his horse. There was something decidedly improper in the way she sat here, her legs spread, so close to a man who was not her lord husband… However, she had stopped caring about the propriety so she only leaned closer and held him tighter. Among her struggles to keep her balance she once again wondered what made her now feel so comfortable with the man who had scared her so much before.
Their pace was indeed anything like the pleasant walk along the Kingsroad. Sansa held on for her dear life, but after a while she learned to adjust to Strangers gait and found out that by allowing her body to relax, rather than staying rigid, made the whole experience much more tolerable – not only to her but probably also to her companion and the poor horse carrying them both.
They travelled straight up the River Road first – the fact Sansa knew only because that's what he told her – riding fast for a good while, but eventually the snorting of their horses indicated that they had reached their limits. They left the road then and ducked into the woods.
Soon Sandor grudgingly announced that it was time for a break and so they halted and dismounted. Sansa was breathless and tired, her muscles aching from the tension of holding on. Silently she blessed the breeches she was wearing – she shuddered to think how badly her thighs would indeed have suffered without them.
Sandor and Arya walked the horses to the stream next to which they had stopped while Sansa almost fell on the ground, her legs buckling under her. She adjusted her back against a small boulder, letting the mild breeze to cool her flushed face and enjoying the first taste of freedom for a long time. She sighed deeply and smiled, closing her eyes for a moment – and then opening them to have a good look at her companions.
Sandor stood by the water holding Stranger's reins loosely in his hands. He had shoved his white cloak into his saddle bag and was now clad in the same shade of green as what Sansa wore. For a moment it appeared as despite his huge size he somehow blended with the landscape and became one with it. A giant of the forest.
The thought of being in the woods with him, the fate of both her and her sister in his hands, could have terrified Sansa at one time. It still scared her – but for completely different reason. Yes, she was nervous and her hands were clammy and there were butterflies on her stomach – but not because of fear.
