Fanfiction only. I own no part of Game of Thrones.
Home
Arya had already eaten and was nearly ready to retire for the night when Clegane finally made his way to their fire. He was plainly exhausted, though Arya thought his eyes brightened when he saw her. Whatever Clegane had seen in Eastwatch must have been significant, because the army didn't move that day. The King of the North had been sequestered with his advisors, apparently including Clegane. Arya knew she'd have been welcome amongst them, but she'd stayed away nonetheless. She glanced at Clegane and away quickly.
Finally, she ventured, "How was scouting?"
Clegane grunted and knelt beside her, warming his hands at the fire. "Quiet. Cold." Without looking at her, he concluded softly, "Lonely." He glanced up at her. "The army of the dead is on the march, and has breached the wall. We haven't moved because we need to find where they've gone and coordinate our forces with the dragon queen's."
Arya nodded her head and continued staring into the flames.
Finally, he asked roughly, "Are you alright? After . . . well, after. You don't seem like yourself."
Arya swallowed hard and nodded. "Of course."
Darkly, he muttered, "I shouldn't have left you alone."
She shot him a venomous glance. "Which time? When you went hunting, or when you went scouting?"
"Both. Neither. I don't know." Clegane pressed his thumb and forefinger deep into his eye sockets, trying to smudge away his exhaustion. "I'd never have forgiven myself if that fucking Thenn had hurt you. I'd have died trying to kill every last one of them."
Clegane glared defiantly at Arya when he continued, "I'm not sorry I didn't take you to Eastwatch, though. I didn't know what I'd find there, and there was a good chance I wouldn't come back. I was going to tell you, but with what happened that night and what you said after the Thenn . . ." He trailed off and stared into the fire moodily.
Stonily, Arya commented, "You could have said goodbye. You could have told me where you were going."
"There wouldn't have been a goodbye. You would have insisted on going with me, and I didn't want to risk taking you." He glanced at her. "I didn't want to say goodbye."
They watched the fire diminish in silence for nearly an hour, and when her eyes refused to stay open, she rose to retire. Arya paused behind Clegane, wanting to say something, but not sure what. She settled for squeezing his shoulder as she passed. At the last moment, he caught at her fingers, but only fleetingly before releasing her.
Something had changed between them in the days he had been gone. A sharp ache had started beneath her bottommost rib that had intensified the longer he had been gone. Now he was back, it was agony.
Her anger had ebbed away, leaving her feeling empty and slightly ashamed. Arya wished she could retreat behind the cool façade she'd learned playing the Game of Faces. It had cracked under Jaquen H'Ghar's questioning about the Hound, but it was shattered to the seven hells now. She felt naked without it.
The waiting and watching for Clegane had left her malcontent and exhausted. Arya rolled herself into the direwolf pelts and pushed the flap of the tent slightly open so that she could see him brooding into the flames. The icy air that filtered through the gap in the canvas tasted like fresh snow, and she fell asleep watching the firelight play over his features.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Arya woke when Clegane finally found his way to the furs she'd laid out for him. He laid on his back, his hands folded across his chest, but she could tell that he was no more settled after his hours of staring into the flames. Tentatively, Arya wrapped cold fingers around his thick wrist and drew his hand away from his chest. She laid back down so that her head was upon his shoulder and his arm was at her back. Arya inched closer until her body was pressed firmly against his side and she laid her arm across his waist.
Coldly, he rasped, "What were you going to say?"
"When?"
"What were you going to say to Jon Snow? What am I to you?"
Arya was instantly awake, and the ache beneath her ribs had been joined by a cold sensation writhing in her belly. Stalling, she squirmed against Clegane, burrowing her head into his shoulder, laying her arm first across his waist and then folding it up against his ribs so that her fist nestled beneath her chin.
Unable to put off answering him any longer, she sighed. "Most of my life, I've been afraid to fall asleep. What was it that priest with the Brotherhood used to say? 'The night is dark and full of terrors?'" Arya snorted. "I'm never sure that if I close my eyes, I'll wake up again. When you're here," she shifted uneasily against Clegane's side, "I can close my eyes and know no one will put a knife between my ribs."
Derisively, he answered, "I make you feel safe."
Arya took a breath and stared into the dark. "You feel like home. The way Winterfell did a long time ago."
"Hmph. Home. The fuck do I know about home? Only home I know is where people abuse you, neglect you, use you like a mindless dog, kick you, and turn you out when they've done with you."
Arya lifted her head so she could glance up at his face. "That's not home. Do you really think that's what's between you and me?"
Quietly, he answered, "No, that's not what's between us." Tentatively, Arya's fingers found their way across his chest, and she idly turned the clasp of his brigandine over between her fingers. He stilled her fingers by placing his heavy hand atop hers. He rasped, "What is between us, then?"
"A lot of dead men that would have put us into our graves had we not been quicker." Clegane snorted quietly in amusement, and Arya smiled into the dark. "I trust you. I mean, you've got a hell of a temper and I get sick of being called 'girl', but it's too quiet when you're not here to snarl at me."
When Clegane didn't answer, Arya started idly tracing around one of the small steel plates stitched into his brigadine.
"We're more alike than not. No one else likes me for who I am, rather than who they want me to be." She craned her head on his shoulder to look up into his face, but he stubbornly stared at the canvas above them. "I've seen the better part of you. You don't let anyone else know you, but I do. I think . . ." Arya took a deep breath. "I think maybe I could make you happy. If you would let me."
"Happy?" He spat the word, like it was vile on his tongue. "The fuck does that mean? You think you're happy here with me?"
The light was scant, but his eyes bored into her. She nodded slightly. "I'm home. It took me long enough to find it, but I'm where I belong."
Clegane snorted in disbelief and responded skeptically, "Nobody belongs here. 'specially not a highborn lady chasing the army of the dead through the snow." He muttered sullenly, "Crazy wolf bitch. Why the fuck are you here, girl?"
"I came for you."
Clegane's voice had risen, and she was sure that anyone still awake would hear his exasperated tone. "What does that mean?"
Arya sighed. "In the House of Black and White, we played the Game of Faces. They asked me questions, and they beat me when I failed to make them believe my lies. I could lie about anyone, anything, but not about you." She laughed bitterly. "Gods, the beatings I took when the waif found out I couldn't lie about some man I called the Hound! She questioned me for hours, and beat me unconscious more than once."
"What?" Clegane looked down at her sharply, anger and concern etched on his brow, but Arya ignored his question.
"I was so sure I wanted you dead for so long . . . then the Many Faced God took you from me, and I realized you were the only person in the world left that cared for me." Tears cut hot trails down her chilled skin, and she wiped them away angrily. "The Many Faced God didn't have to return you to me, but he did. I think . . . I'm supposed to stay with you now."
"Then why were you so angry when I came back?" He paused in the charged dark between them. "Why the fuck did you kiss me like that?" He turned angrily to face her. "For that matter, the fuck did you bite me for?"
"Because . . ." Arya's heart beat in her throat. It was hard to speak around it, and she couldn't get a deep enough breath into her lungs. "Because I was afraid the Many Faced Good took you from me again."
"And the rest of it?"
Seven hells, why did she do the rest of it? "I—" She huffed. "I don't know. I just needed to."
"So it didn't mean anything?"
Arya bowed her head and pressed her crown into the center of his chest. So softly that she barely heard it herself, she answered, "I didn't say that."
They laid in silence for a long time before Clegane growled quietly, "You didn't answer my question. What the fuck am I to you then?" When Arya didn't answer, he murmured, "I'm the worst kind of man, broken and mutilated, guilty of the worst kind of atrocities, and twice your age. The only thing I know how to do is kill, and you're damn good at that all on your own, or you are when you aren't distracted by what the fuck ever happens to you when we're together."
Arya ran her hands up the front of his brigadine and clasped the seams at the sleeve. She pressed her face into the leather and felt his heart thumping erratically beneath layers of linen, chain, small plate, and leather.
Speaking to that rhythm, rather than the man it sustained, she said, "I don't know. I know that the only place I feel like myself is with you. I know the only place I feel safe is with you." Arya's belly clenched around a ball of writhing worms. Though it terrified her, she was careening dangerously towards tearing down what remained of her defenses, stripping away the last of her masks. She took a deep breath and plunged on, "I know that nothing feels as good as when you laugh. When you've gone, I'm not sure where I belong." She snorted derisively. "I know I'd cut down anyone else that called me 'wolf bitch'."
She braved a look at him. His face was granite, his eyes jet, and the words nearly dried up on her tongue. "All I've done most of my life is run and fight and try to survive. By the gods, I'm tired. There's got to be more to living than killing Lannisters." She shrugged. "I don't know what this is, but if I have to, I'll die right here fighting the dead with you because killing is all I know . . . and you're the closest thing to home that I've got."
Clegane closed his arms around Arya. He haltingly lowered his face to hers, and when he pressed his lips to hers, it filled the emptiness within her, the space left vacant by the hating and running and killing.
When he broke away, he said, "Aye, but why did you bite me? You drew blood, you crazy bitch!"
She heard the smile in his voice, and she smiled back into the dark. "I was angry that you left me behind . . . you went out to tempt the Many Faced God, and you didn't take me with you."
Clegane squeezed her tightly, and she closed her eyes in relief. Arya pressed her face against his leathers and gripped his shoulder.
When he spoke again, his voice had sobered. "Arya. You're not a girl anymore. What do you want from me?"
Arya took a deep breath. "I told you . . ." She hadn't known it until she had said it, but it tasted like truth on her tongue. "I think I could make you happy if you'd let me."
Clegane spread his hands around Arya's face. "I fought for you to my very last breath, like you were my own whelp. I was broken and useless, and I wanted to die from the shame of failing you. I hated you for not killing me. I hated myself for leaving you alone."
Clegane pressed his lips together and shook his head slightly. "This, though, this is different. You're not a lost little girl anymore. You're hard and wild and a killer, and damn me, I'd still cut down the Stranger himself to keep you with me. The gods know I've tried to forget that you're a woman grown, but with you pressed against me at night and your blade at my back during the day, you're damn near the only thing I can think about." Raggedly, as though he'd choke on the words, he continued, "If you let me love you, and you leave me this time, you will kill me for certain."
Arya kissed him slowly, making her own breath from his. "I've been trying to get back home for half my life, and I've finally found the place where I can lay my head down and be safe. Where else would I go?"
"Maybe. Maybe you're just glad you weren't raped by a Thenn, and you're grateful I'm the one that stopped it. Maybe I'm just the only man you've ever really known that didn't try to beat you or rape you, so you think you love me." His words stung more than Arya wanted to admit, but Clegane opened her mouth with a deep kiss that she would know he didn't mean to hurt her. "Maybe you're not sure what you want, but I'll be damned in the lowest of the seven hells before I claim you being sure you want me. You're worth more to me than that."
Gently, Clegane turned Arya away from him and gathered her against his body. Wearily, he told her, "Go to sleep, little wolf."
Arya clutched his wrist. "If I go to sleep, will you be here when I wake?"
His answer was slow coming. "Aye, I'll be here." Tentatively, he pressed the bridge of his long nose into her hair and breathed, "Where else would I go?"
Arya didn't answer, but instead wriggled deeper into his body and clasped his arms tighter around herself. His warmth seeped into her, and she sighed with contentment. With his searing warmth and solid body wrapped around her, she melted into him. The ache that had built within her ribs had faded, replaced first by gratitude that Sandor had returned, and then by nascent tendrils of desire that unfurled pleasantly beneath her skin like wisps of smoke. Arya pressed her fingertips to her lips, as though to hold his kiss there, and she could still taste him. She dropped off to a deep sleep with his hand spread protectively across her belly and her head pillowed on his arm, completely without fear for the first time in many years.
