Chapter 21: Sandor 11

Sandor didn't remember how long he stood at the door, or how he came to be lying in the bed; he didn't remember much of anything, truth be told. Not in detail. Everything bled together in his stupor just as much as his vision did. He'd been sick half a dozen times, and he felt he would be sick again as the world spun and swam and blurred around him, unrelenting.

She was right to leave. When had she become so right? Wasn't it he who had lived longer, he who knew more things? Why was he so wrong, and how was she so right?

She was wrong not to blame him, that much was certain. But I shouldn't have been harsh to her, either. Shouldn't have gotten too arseholed to follow…Now that she had woken, he realized for the first time just how entirely blind with drink he was, and how very tired, and nauseated besides. He wanted to die.

He had already caused her enough pain, and had only caused her more. She shouldn't be out of bed. I shouldn't be the one laying in it. I shouldn't be here at all.

He didn't want to sleep, and he fought it with all the energy he had left to him. In truth, he wanted her to come back, didn't want her to make good on her threat...but he also didn't want to dream. His eyes betrayed him, however, and they soon slid closed against his will. He found he was unable to open them again. I shouldn't be here, but I am. I should've protected her, but I didn't. I should've been there for her, but I wasn't. He wasn't capable of doing the right thing; he never had been. Stupid, selfish hypocrite.

Sandor was in his white cloak, watching them beat her. He was forcing her head up, relishing the fear in her eyes as much as loathing it. He was piss drunk again, forcing her to sing for her life. He was in his Novice's robes, shoving his cruel tongue in her mouth. He was at her bedside, a hot poker in his hand, burning her, burning her, burning her…

Each moment looped back on itself in turn, again and again, reliving his crimes. Crimes he never atoned for, and never could. Crimes he couldn't stop repeating. Over and over again. Red hair, brown hair, black hair...it didn't matter. He would never stop hurting her. It always ended up here.

He did not know how long he had been stuck in his loop when the paradigm shifted. He was burning her again, her agonized cries filling his ears and the scent of flesh in his nostrils, when he heard a hushed voice from behind.

"This is what you see?"

He turned to look at her, and suddenly he wasn't on the ship anymore. They were in King's Landing; the turmoil all around them was familiar. He stood, confused. She went to stand next to him, pointing.

"Look through my eyes now," She said softly, taking his hand.

It was a strange sensation, watching himself from this perspective. Through the crowd of angry peasants he saw another version of himself slice a man's arm off—the one pulling at a duplicate Sansa's arm—before he pushed her back in the saddle and challenged anyone else to try him.

The scene shifted in an eyeblink, and now they were at the ramparts, Ned Stark's head mounted upon the wall. Sandor's other self knelt before her and dabbed blood from her broken lip, before she could reach the King and forfeit her own life.

Now they were in the throne room. "Someone give the girl something to cover herself with," the Imp was saying. Without hesitation, his double stepped forward and tossed his cloak at the half-naked girl on the floor, and she clutched at it like a starving man might clutch at a heel of bread.

Everything was happening so fast. The scene shifted again, a tourney now. They were spectating, and there were two versions of Sansa standing next to him—the new and the old. The taller of the two watched him directly, while the smaller one watched the version of himself in the tilt, eyes wide and fearful. When Jaime Lannister was sent rolling in the dust, he heard the latter let out a breath: "I knew the Hound would win."

In the Great Sept of Baelor, the girl was alone, praying among the rest of the commoners who filled the hall. "He is no true knight, but he saved me all the same," she was whispering. "Save him if you can, and gentle the rage inside him."

And now they were in her bedchamber, the sky a dull green outside. He wasn't there in duplicate this time, however. It was only her; he watched as she climbed down from her bed and found the tarnished cloak bunched up on the floor. She wrapped herself up in it, shivering.

Sandor blinked, and the scenes began to shift more rapidly now. Alayne Stone walking away as she clutched a wooden sparrow to her chest; the sounds of muffled weeping filled the air as they held each other in the sept; Sansa was declaring her lack of fear as she pulled his face down on hers; he looked upon his own nakedness as the color drained from him; his voice was soft and gentle as he tended to her wound...

It was all too much to bear. "Stop it," he moaned, sinking to his knees and clutching his head. "Stop it, I'm not that man..."

She bent down before him, taking one of his hands in hers and holding it to her chest. "You are," she breathed. "And always were, I think...deep down...but you won't let your wounds heal properly. Please, I want to help you. As my suffering is yours, your suffering is mine."

He raised his eyes to her, miserable. They were now out in a grassy field, no sign of the capital or of their duplicate selves. He could feel the laceration beneath the cloth, and he stroked it gingerly with his thumb. "You don't deserve this; and I don't deserve your help." I don't deserve you.

"I don't care what you do or don't deserve." Sansa said imploringly. "I choose you all the same, and you choose me as well...the Gods themselves have forged our paths into one."

"Gods," he spat, becoming suddenly irritated. "If this is the work of Gods, it's a cruel jape, nothing more. All paths I walk only end in someone getting burnt."

"I understand now," she said solemnly, not rising to meet his anger. "It's the fire that undid you, the same as before. I didn't see then, but I do now. Sandor...you burned me long before that," she took his face in her tiny hands, forcing him to look at her. "You gave me hope, restored my faith, loved me..." Her eyes were flitting back and forth as she attempted to look into both of his at once, searching him. "No one's ever done that. It set my heart—my whole world—on fire. I am thankful for this burn; your fire is cleansing, not cruel."

"How can you say that?" He shook his head, pulling roughly out of her grasp. He wouldn't allow himself to feel moved by her words; couldn't allow it. It was easier to call it naivete. There's no such thing as a good burn.

"It's not just the fire, girl," he said, speaking through clenched teeth. "It's all of it. I swore I would keep you safe, wouldn't harm you; I looked a man in the eye and said the words...the only vow I ever made, and I fucking broke it, and burned you in the process. Nothing else matters."

She looked touched, which irritated him further. "You swore?"

"Yes," He replied nastily. "For all the good it did."

Sansa sighed. "To protect me from everything would be to shelter me from the world itself. I wouldn't want that; I want to live. Truly live. I can take the pain."

"What about when it kills you?" Sandor asked darkly.

"I will take the bad with the good," She said firmly, "for it is infinitely preferable to cages. This is the first blow I've taken that didn't put a dent in my happiness, do you understand? I don't think Elder Brother would have expected you to prevent all my cuts and scrapes, either. I'm still safe and I still have your protection, and it wasn't you who harmed me. Nothing has changed."

"Except you're hurt. Badly," he pointed out. "This isn't a mere scrape, girl. That arm may never be the same again, you will wear that scar for all the world to see any time you wear one of your pretty dresses. And the world will know exactly who allowed that to happen. Maybe they would even write songs about it, you'd like that."

"I'm right-handed," she said brusquely. "and I will get used to the numbness in time. It's extraordinary how skilled I am at getting used to things."

She bit her lip then, thinking on what she wanted to say next. When next she spoke, it was with an expression set in stone. "When the world sees this scar," she began, slowly at first. "I will tell them it would have been much worse if not for Sandor Clegane. I'm alive, because of Sandor Clegane. That is because of you. Can't you see?"

Sandor had never felt so blind in his life. She saw the incomprehension on his face, and huffed. "If you were not here, neither would Stranger be. If you were not here, I might not have seen such swift care, if at all. The screams are what alerted anyone, after all. If you were not here, maybe I could have found a way through it on my own, but I also might have been hurt long before now, maybe worse. There was nothing you could do to stop this; it happened too fast. I'm glad you didn't. I will look at this scar and be reminded that you did something better than kill a man, and risk having our identities questioned. You looked after me. You healed me."

Sandor's mouth twitched. I'm never letting her near a Maester, lest she start thinking him a hero as well.

"Scars never heal," he murmured bitterly. "Not truly."

"Scars are forever," she agreed. "But the pain doesn't have to be."

Sandor snorted. "Pretty words from a pretty girl, but they're wind. Scars are a constant reminder of the pain that created them; they go hand-in-hand. The world certainly won't let you forget it besides."

She bowed her head at that, understanding. "Life has been cruel to you; but this scar wasn't forged from that kind of pain. And not all scars are ugly...not to me. I thought you ugly once, when you were hateful. But when you're kind..." She looked at him through her lashes.

"Don't patronize me," Sandor said thickly, moving away from her as she reached out for him again. "Not you."

Please, give me death before pity.

"I would never lie to you," she insisted. "I see you as you are."

"You see only what you wish to see," He remarked, feeling suddenly claustrophobic by the way she looked at him. "And you only have eyes for songs."

She sighed—it was a controlled sigh, not a frustrated one. It took her a long moment to work out what she wanted to say, and how she wanted to say it. She always took her time, but he had not always been so patient.

"I can abide the pain, and even your cynicism," She began, drawing herself up to sit a little taller. "But I cannot abide you thinking me so fragile and naive. You do a disservice to us both by thinking it." She put a hand on his, still bearing the bruises from his episode. "You've withstood an incredible amount of pain in your life, but I have no pity for you." Sandor tilted his head, watching her carefully. She was chewing her lip.

"I know what it's like to feel that kind of pain, and to have to keep going. You faced your deepest fear for me...I don't know much, but I know enough to know that pity is the last thing you could need, short of more pain. I know what you need, for it is what I need: support, and respect. That's what you have from me, and it's what I expect from you. We're not alone anymore; I would like to get used to the idea."

Sandor was staring her in the eyes, and couldn't believe she could stand to look back into his. He wanted to find the chink in her armor—a glimmer of weakness to exploit—but he found no such thing. She stared back at him, defiant and sincere all at once. It wasn't her armor that was defective, but his.

He had told himself he would be the man she thought he was...where had he gone so wrong? He had failed her, it was true. Rather than do better, he had succumbed to it, drowned himself in it entirely. Just as he always did. Rather than rectify his mistakes, he always made them worse, just because he could. And the cycle never ends. Because he was a craven, and stubborn, and because it was easy. Things had been different on the Quiet Isle; so cut off from the real world, he'd nearly forgotten how to exist in it altogether. In any case, he always had Elder Brother there to rein him in. It had been so easy.

But he was different now. Wasn't he? He had to be. He never wanted her to stop looking at him. Was she his leash now? His tether to humanity? No, that wasn't right either; it's not her responsibility. Atonement is a path one must walk alone.

He couldn't change the past; he could only change how he responded to it, and how to proceed. He didn't deserve her, but here she was anyway, begging him to see her as his equal. She was right, she was not so fragile; but she was also wrong, for they were not equals either. She was better than him, and far stronger. Smarter and funnier and wiser and, Gods, so beautiful. It might have made him resentful once; as a dog obeying his master. But as much as he didn't feel equal to her, he didn't feel a slave either. It's not a dog she wants.

It was as though a dam was breaking. He was not her savior; she was his. She was everything he wanted, and everything he wished he could be. She didn't have a head full of songs, she was the buggering song. He would never have her, not truly; but he would never be ungrateful for her. He already had more than enough. She was alive, and in spite of everything, she chose him.

It struck him in that moment that he was dreaming, and it was the strangest feeling in the world. It changed his epiphany not at all, however. The source of his revelation mattered not—in this case, it was his own conscience—the conclusions drawn from it remained the same.

She was watching him, waiting for him to respond. He didn't have as much to say as her, but he hoped it would be enough.

"You won't see me like this again," he said, resolute. As a show of his sincerity, he returned to the habit of signing what he spoke. "I swear it." He would be sure to tell her in person as well. He would never give her cause to feel disappointed in him again, not if he could help it.

Her face split into the prettiest smile he'd ever seen. "Don't wake up," she said, also signing.

"I won't," he returned, laughing softly at his own sense of awareness.

She crawled over to him and lifted herself into his lap, straddling him. Arousal hit Sandor like a punch in the face; he had not anticipated such a reaction. "What happened to respect?" He muttered, putting the question to himself more than to her, even as he lifted his hands to embrace her. Sansa had the audacity to laugh.

"You love me," she said, running slender fingers through his hair. "Do you not?"

"Yes," Sandor confessed, low in his throat. "More than you could know, little bird." His entire body was on full alert, every nerve alive with the sensation of her as his hands slid up her back, feeling every notch in her spine. Little birds didn't have a backbone such as this. She is no little bird, he told himself, head swimming. Not any longer.

"Love is the highest form of respect," she whispered, her fingers finding the base of his neck. She pulled him forward, and Sandor didn't hesitate this time as she joined her lips to his. He was safe in his head, and he had been dreaming of kissing her for so long, with no relief in sight. And—Gods be good—the lucidity of it diminished none of its realism.

He slid an arm about her waist and put a palm between her shoulder blades, pressing her closer, kissing and caressing and whispering her name. She kissed his brow, his neck, each of his cheeks. Sandor returned every one, on every part of her face before returning to her lips, feeling her smiling into them. He smiled back; the screams and stench of burning flesh were forgotten, replaced by the smell of her hair and the sounds of her desire. He drank her in, enfolded her, loved her so ardently he felt his chest may burst.

Sandor wished he would never have to wake up; would never have to stop kissing her. He was on fire, and for the first time in his life, he was happy to burn.