A/N: Hello strangers! I'm planning to finish this story over the summer, starting with this very brief, rather angsty update, born largely of exam procrastination. Hope it makes some kind of sense.

Chapter Twenty
Brothers and Sisters

Sandor woke in the master's chambers in bright winter sunlight. The slumber began to ebb from his brain, and he was irritated to find the wound across his shoulder still pained him. It stopped him from sleeping on his side and his back ached from four nights of sleeping flat.

Sleeping flat, and alone.

"We'll do this properly," she'd said quietly, and kissed his cheek. "You don't belong to me yet, and we need to stop pretending."

The little bird seemed unshaken in her resolve to stay with him, but things had changed between them after the night they burned Gregor. She'd gently (but firmly) barred him from her bedchamber, though by day she was as attentive and affectionate as ever. It was the "yet" that perplexed him. He didn't know what she was planning, and his thoughts were too chaotic for him to make much of a guess. She kept asking him how he felt, but truth be told he didn't know the answer; he'd brushed her off and she'd given him space accordingly. The last few days had passed in a whirl of aimless wandering, punctuated at intervals by meals and restless sleep in which he dreamt of snow and fire and blood.

Because Gregor was gone. Sandor didn't understand the sorcery that had brought him back, and was unsure how much of Gregor had remained in the creature he fought. Hour to hour he changed his mind about whether he was satisfied. Hour to hour he gloried in the victory, and then felt it diluted by necromancy, and then dismayed in the blood on his hands. Does this make me a kinslayer? Does it matter if I am? After all these years, after all the blood shed thoughtlessly by his hand, he was surprised by how much the white giant's bothered him.

After breakfast, he met Jaime Lannister on the stair by the hall; their eyes met briefly for the first time since the battle and he knew at once that the same questions were haunting the Kingslayer.

The little bird said he'd spent most of his time sitting with Brienne of Tarth, usually in silence. The maester had bound her broken bones and confined the lady to her bed for a week until they began to heal.

"We will make for the dragon queen's camp as soon as I'm able," said Brienne. "Ser Jaime means to beg Queen Daenerys to have mercy on young Myrcella."

A moon's turn ago I would have laughed outright. Instead Sandor said nothing, as much as he doubted Ser Stump's chances of finding favour with the Mad King's daughter. He accounted himself a lucky man to be so far removed from the game of thrones for the present, and retired to the solar to be alone with his thoughts.

That was where the little bird found him that evening. Her hands trembled as she passed him a sealed letter, and he frowned to see that it was addressed to 'Lady Sansa of Houses Stark and Lannister'. In the firelight he squinted at the unfamiliar sigil stamped into the scarlet sealing-wax: the three heads of the Targaryen dragon sprouting from a winged lion's body.

"The Imp?"

"It looks like his handwriting," she nodded.

Sandor handed the letter back and took a deep breath. "What will it change?" he asked.

"Everything." The smile on her face was the last thing he could have predicted. "'Houses Stark and Lannister' - don't you see? He's giving me a way out."

"Just open the damned thing and find out what he wants," he said gruffly. Jaime Lannister and his fucking ravens. They know exactly where she is now, and I can't drag the girl on the run again. Not with this wound. Not in winter. He shut his eyes, hearing a rustle of paper and the little bird's quick breathing.

"I've been summoned by Queen Daenerys," she said at last. A note of doubt had crept into her voice. "She means to take me under her protection. Tyrion says that for his part, he wants to see that I am well and make sure I'm safe. 'Until such time as our marriage can be dissolved,' he says - if I will consent."

Sandor said nothing, and the silence yawned between them.

She wrapped her arms around him. "I wonder who they mean to sell me to this time."

"You'll have to let them first," he said, returning the embrace.

Cersei of the House Lannister was laid to rest in the lichyard in the shadow of the Clegane keep, in an empty corner away from the other graves. The local septon droned the customary words as the sleet soaked into their cloaks. Sandor stood apart from proceedings; after fifteen dishonorable years in her service, he had few respects to pay to Cersei Lannister, and in any case his attention was drawn more intensely by the tomb nearest the sept.

I knew ending Gregor wouldn't bring them back, but I didn't think it would make me feel more alone.

As they squelched back towards the village, Jaime spoke for the first time in Sandor's hearing. "She's a Lannister of Casterly Rock," he announced, addressing no-one in particular. "I'll have her moved there when the war is over, if I can."

At noon he and Brienne saddled up. Ser Stump spent a long time taking his leave of Sansa; irrationally, Sandor felt a flare of jealousy when he kissed the girl's hand and turned away to help Brienne mount. The she-knight's right arm was still bound up in a sling and she sat awkwardly in the saddle, unbalanced.

"Not a decent sword-hand between the pair of you," called Sandor as Jaime mounted up. "Try not to get yourself killed, Kingslayer." He was mildly surprised to discover he meant it.

"And you, Dog," he said. "When you get to Harrenhal, come look for me in the training yard. If I'm not on a spike above the gate, that is."

Sandor nodded curtly. It was as close as they'd get to camaraderie. Sansa came to stand by his side as the odd pair rode off. "He says he won't mention anything to Tyrion. About, well..." she trailed off with a sheepish smile. "He said that's for us to deal with."

"I can't imagine the guardsmen be so discreet," grumbled Sandor.

"No," she said quietly. "But we can name it idle gossip. No-one at the Queen's court can know the truth."

"You still want to go," he said.

They hadn't settled the matter last night, and Sandor's misgivings were the same as they'd ever been. The Imp could install Sansa as his wife for true, or he could want her punished for abandoning him to the blame for Joffrey's murder. If he really wanted the marriage annulled, Sandor highly doubted it was for the sake of the little bird's happiness. The realm was still in turmoil with two kings and two queens claiming the Iron Throne, and if they could make Sansa an ally then offering the last known Stark of Winterfell in marriage would be a powerful bartering chip for any of them.

"She has two dragons, Sandor. I don't want to be on the wrong side when all this is over."

"You don't have to be on any side."

"Do you think the dragon queen will agree once she has the Iron Throne?" The girl sighed. "Tyrion is still my husband. He may well have his own reasons for scratching our marriage from the records, and if so then mayhaps I can bargain with him."

Sandor said nothing.

"You know I don't want any part of this war. I have nothing to gain; I don't want power or land or titles, but I am still Sansa Stark. I'll be caught up in things whether I like it or not. What if Littlefinger has gone there? Who knows what kind of poison he'll pour into the Queen's ear? No. If I'm to have any say in what happens to me once the war is done, I will have to play the game, just for a little while. Now is the time."

He mulled it over. "What do you want from me? I'm not going to let you walk into the lion's den by yourself."

"You're my sworn shield," she said archly, raising an eyebrow mischievously. "I'll want you by my side every minute. My name isn't the only one that needs to be cleared."

It was a fair point. When the war was over, some busybody might decide that the Butcher of Saltpans was a loose end that ought to be tidied up - and as long as he was an outlaw, he wasn't sure his right to the little keep was entirely legal.

"Have it your way, little bird," he said heavily. "But on one condition: I'm not going anywhere near those fucking dragons."