Author's notes:
This chapter took forever to write. I already had some bits and pieces and they just refused to fit together. I deleted, wrote and rewrote anything what felt like ten times although when all is said and done, nothing much of anything is happening in this chapter, it only sets the stage for the final act of the story.
I hope you'll still get some enjoyment out of it.
Thanks for all the nice messages and reviews, they are as always very much appreciated.
Chapter 21
More than just exhausted from severe lack of sleep, Sansa spent more time than usual with her morning toilette. Applying some powder to hide the dark circles under her eyes and pinching her cheeks until they glowed rosily as a fresh apple.
A cheerful smile complimented the mask she wore to the breakfast table, only to find Tyrion brooding into his teacup, just as unhappy as he had sounded during the night.
Again, the thought to tell him that she knew of his infidelity crossed her mind, but then again, what purpose would it serve. He had been very clear during their wedding night that he would use other women's services as long as she denied him and there was no way he would grant her the same liberties as he took himself.
"You seem troubled," she tried when he failed to reply to her wishing him a good morning.
He looked up at her and gave her a half-hearted smile, his mind clearly still elsewhere.
"Just a few matters of state," he said, waving his hand dismissively, "nothing you should concern yourself with."
Sansa gritted her teeth and kept smiling. Harmless and clueless. A stupid, little bird, chirping her courtesies.
"I am sure you're right, my lord," she said. "And I am equally sure you have everything well in hand."
His eyes flicked to hers once more, the green gaze sharping on her for a long moment as if he sensed something in her tone.
Sansa smiled even more brightly.
His gaze slid away again and he grunted noncommittally.
"I was planning on taking a walk this wonderful morning," she said after a while, an idea forming in her head that hadn't come to her during her frantic search for a solution during the night.
"Do you want Bronn to accompany you?" Tyrion asked.
"No, thank you, my lord," she said sweetly. "I prefer the solitude and if I should wish for company, I usually only need to walk by the training yard."
Again, Tyrion's eyes measured her for a long, uncomfortable moment.
"Yes," he said slowly. "I am sure they are falling all over each other to vie for your attention."
Sansa widened her eyes in what she hoped passed for innocent surprise.
"My lord isn't suggesting that one of those fine men…"
Tyrion flicked his hand impatiently.
"No, I am not suggesting anything, of course," he said with a pained face. "Just… be careful. You've been at the tender mercies of knights like Trant before, surely you know not all of them are chivalrous."
Sansa's smile deserted her and she had to look down at her plate for a moment to school her face to the blank look of innocent friendliness she had resolved to wear for him.
Tyrion might be preoccupied with his paramour and certainly with quite a few matters of state, but he was not stupid. He knew she wasn't as innocent anymore as she was trying to pretend. He'd seen first-hand how much of her ideals she'd lost already at this court.
Fooling him would be indefinitely more challenging than fooling Joffrey had ever been.
…
As she had told Tyrion, Sansa had walked alone for a while, deliberating if her course of action was wise but finding no fault with it.
Should she walk by the training yard and a knight, or someone who wasn't a knight, should offer to keep her company for a while in full view of the whole court, no one could have any objections to it.
She didn't need to be alone with Sandor to talk with him, or - and as recent experiences suggested - being alone with him was actually a detriment to talking.
When she reached the training yard, her hopes of just showing herself to Sandor for a short moment so he would know to catch up with her a few minutes later quickly dispersed.
A gaggle of onlookers had formed around a part of yard from with the clanging of swords could be heard. If she stepped any closer, it would not escape anyone's attention that she was here.
'Well,' she thought and lifted her chin, 'in for a copper...'.
The spectacle that captured everyone's interest involved - not very surprisingly - Sandor and one of the knights of Highgarden whom Sansa did not know by name.
Ser Loras, his white armour like a beacon in the crowd, was watching as well and Sansa brazenly stepped to his side, but was ignored since Loras' attention was on the fight.
"Ser Loras," she said, inclining her head just a little, "so nice to meet you."
Loras gave her a cursory glance but then bowed deeply.
"Lady Lannister," he said. "The pleasure is all mine."
Since it was abundantly clear Loras would much rather watch the fight than converse with her, Sansa thought it not impolite to turn her own attention back to Sandor.
They were fighting with two-handed greatswords, blunted training weapons from the dull look of the blades, but a direct hit with one of those wickedly heavy weapons could cause serious injury all the same.
Watching the sparring, Sansa marvelled at the pure raw power that Sandor exuded with every movement. The strength of his body gave him not only the ability to do what other men couldn't, much more importantly, it gave him the ability to do things other men could, but much more easily - much more gracefully.
While his opponent had visible trouble directing the heavy weapon's direction, oftentimes just heaving it upwards and then let it fall where it would, Sandor controlled it, directed its movements to fit his own and could even manage quick parries and skilful half-turns with it as if the sword that Sansa was sure she wouldn't even be able to lift weighted nothing in his hands.
"What a riveting fight," she said, almost to herself.
"An unfair one," Loras commented sourly.
"How's that?"
"Look at their difference in stature," he explained. "Wielding those heavy weapons comes naturally to a man like Clegane."
"I see," Sansa replied. "You said something similar before when your brother lost against him."
A muscle in Loras' jaw jumped but he had no reply for her. It seemed like all their exchanges were fated to end in disagreement about Sandor's worth as a gallant fighter.
It took only a few minutes more before Sandor's opponent surrendered the fight, but Sandor had barely time to wipe the sweat from his brow - much less to scan the crowd and see her - when Loras stormed towards him.
"Clegane," he called out. "How about a more interesting fight?"
Sansa had followed in Loras' wake and immediately Sandor's gaze flew to her but quickly settled on Loras again.
"More interesting?" Sandor rasped. "How?"
"No plate, left hand tied behind your back, light one-hander, no shield," Loras said quickly. "First blood wins."
A lazy smile lurked in Sandor's eyes and in the corner of his mouth, invisible to anyone but her.
"Against you, I presume?"
"Of course."
"Training swords?"
"Real ones."
The smile stayed and Sansa was sure Sandor would gladly accept the challenge, but then he shook his head.
"Sorry, boy," he said. "Not gonna happen."
Loras visibly fumed at the insult and - as Sansa surmised - at Sandor's high-handed refusal.
"So you're a coward after all," he sneered. "How disappointing."
Sansa prayed that Sandor wouldn't be provoked that easily. Getting into trouble over Loras wasn't fitting into their plans at all.
But Sandor's hidden smile only turned into a real, albeit very condescending one.
"Sounds too easy," he said slowly. "Besides I have no desire to explain to His Grace the king why I injured his favourite knight."
A pulsating vein appeared on Loras' neck.
"Then name your conditions," he spat.
Sandor's gaze quickly flicked to Sansa again and she suddenly realized to her acute discomfort, that this whole scene only played out like this because of her.
For some reason, now both men thought they had something to prove.
"Both hands free for you, training sword for me, first blood or first one on the ground."
Sansa gasped and could only barely keep herself from walking over and hissing at her husband what he thought he was doing.
He was putting himself at a severe disadvantage against an opponent who was more agile already only to prove something to her?
Luckily, no one in the crowd had heard her outburst, since everyone else had gasped as well.
Once again Sandor looked at her but this time his eyes held hers a second longer and she could only see very relaxed amusement in them.
'Do not worry,' his gaze seemed to say but she angrily determined that she would worry as she saw fit and while she watched how a few men helped Sandor out of his plate armour and bound his left hand to his back, she decided it was time to be very worried indeed.
She was only vaguely comforted by the fact that this was no fight to the death.
What followed - however - proved that her worries where indeed completely uncalled for.
Only when she saw him nimbly moving to parry or sidestep Loras' attacks, when she saw how he effortlessly anticipated every thrust, every feint, did she fully understand why he was considered one of the most dangerous warriors of the kingdom.
He was as light on his feet as Loras, but had an efficiency of movement that the younger man lacked and he could apparently read his opponent like an open book, certainly owing to years of experience.
He was incredibly quick, graceful and quite simply breath-taking. At least her breath was completely taken away as she watched him.
"Astounding," she heard a familiar voice next to her and only now noticed that Bronn had somehow materialized next to her. "Built like a bull, but he moves like a cat."
Then he snorted with laughter. "And the young Tyrell is the mouse. Look how he plays with him."
Sansa didn't know enough about sword-fighting to see what Bronn saw, but she did notice that Loras, despite his best attempts, was easily foiled in every one of his attacks, while Sandor had so far not even attempted an attack of his own.
Until Loras, red-faced and angry, came at him with full force, spun into a pirouette and moved his sword in a quick uppercut that was probably meant to catch Sandor by surprise. Sandor spun with him, almost as if they were dancing, pushed Loras sharp blade lightly aside and upwards with his training sword, not quite parrying, but left one foot on ground before he had completed the turn.
Loras, his forward momentum not halted by either a hit or a parry, had to take another step forward to regain his balance and at that precise moment, Sandor aimed a kick at Loras' leg and sent him sprawling into the mud.
The crowd erupted into cheers and laughter and beside her, Bronn was whistling and laughing as well.
Loras ignored Sandor's outstretched hand as he tried to help him up, straightened and stalked off without a backward glance.
Sandor gave a deep bow to the applauding crowd and then advanced towards her as if it was the most natural thing to do.
Next to her, Bronn's amusement quite noticeably turned to wariness and he stepped closer to her side, drawing himself up to his full height.
"Lady Lannister," Sandor growled at her, eyes twinkling, "I am honoured to notice you watched this little... diversion."
Sansa tried to shoot daggers from her eyes. What business did he have calling her that? He could very well call her 'Lady Sansa' without anyone batting an eye.
"You performed quite admirably, Ser Sandor," she gave back somewhat tartly.
His smile faltered for split second but then he minutely inclined his head.
Touché.
"Thank you, my lady."
"Would the champion of the training yard like to accompany me for a walk?" she then asked, deciding that as long as everybody has seen them talking already, she might as well use his momentary fame to make it look as if she was granting him a favour. "I'd very much like to hear the finer points of how you managed to defeat Ser Loras."
"It would be my pleasure," he drawled, bowing again with perfect courtesy and then cut a sideways look to Bronn. "If your current escort has no objections, that is."
Bronn nonchalantly lifted both hands.
"Just here by coincidence," he said, exaggeratedly stepping away from her side as if afraid.
Sandor offered his arm and Sansa took it, walking towards the gardens with him in full view of several dozen spectators.
So much for an inconspicuous meeting.
…
"Showoff," was about the first thing she said to him when they were out of everyone's earshot, but there was much less heat to it than she had intended.
If she was honest, her worry and subsequent anger at him for bringing himself into unnecessary danger had long since given way to thrilled delight that this indomitable fighter, this force of nature was hers and hers alone. Sharp steel and strong arms might not the only things ruling the world, as he had once claimed, but it certainly couldn't hurt to have them at her side.
He laughed quietly.
"I should feel insulted that you had so little faith in me."
She peeked up at him with an apologetic smile.
"I had no idea you could move like that."
He lifted his uninjured eyebrow and now looked really offended. "Must have been doing something wrong all this time."
A rush of heat shot from her chest upwards to under the roots of her hair when her brain saw fit to supply her with a wealth of memories to illustrate that, yes, she should have known exactly how deftly and efficiently her man was able to move.
"It's my right to be worried for you," she said stubbornly, fanning her glowing face.
It seemed to her as if he was drawing her a little closer at that.
They walked for a while in silence both of them savouring the unexpected joy of walking together in public.
"So," Sandor broke the comfortable silence after a while. "I guess there was a problem last night?"
"There was," she said with a sigh. "In the form of the man who is allegedly my husband fucking the woman who is my maid - allegedly - right in the very underground vault that I have to cross to reach the cellars of the holdfast."
She chanced another look at him and found him pressing his closed fist against his mouth. If it wasn't for the way his massive shoulders were shaking, one could've almost believed he was deep in thought.
She sighed and made a pained grimace.
"I found that hilarious, too," she said, "until I realized that this is their regular meeting spot and I have no idea how else to reach your chamber."
Sandor's mirth abated a bit but laughter still coloured his voice when he said, "Still glad we were wrong about the maid."
Sansa shook her head. "I am not," she said. "If she is his... whatever she is, she will tell him everything she learns about me anyway."
"Did they talk?" Sandor asked. "Did she tell him something?"
Sansa started to recount the bits of conversation she had overheard. Since Sandor still seemed to be in a light-hearted mood, he immediately picked up on something.
"So his wife is at the top of his list of worries?" he asked, chuckling.
She ground her teeth at the observation.
"I am sure it was an unsorted list."
"I don't know," Sandor went on. "Wives can be a real worry at times..."
Sansa surreptitiously kicked him. "If you start to commiserate now..."
He patted her hand and smirked down at her.
"Not to me, though," he said, smirking down at her. "I am really quite... satisfied with mine."
She had to bite her lip to keep a stern look on her face. Inside, though, she was glowing.
After all that had happened recently, this was what she had truly been needing. The lightness, the playfulness. The confirmation that things were still right between them.
"If I had known how much fun it is to tease you, dear wife...," he whispered, his tone sending a shiver of pure delight down her spine.
"Keep at it and it'll soon be the only fun you'll be having," she said, but the rejoinder lacked very noticeably in tartness.
Amusement still radiated from him in gentle waves and she couldn't help but smile at it. She still marvelled at how he was with her, how different from the dour, unsmiling brute everyone thought him to be.
"Winning a fight really seems to get up your spirits," she said.
He leaned in a bit, coming dangerously close to overstepping the boundaries of which distance from each other was deemed proper for a man conversing with a woman.
"My spirit isn't the only thing that gets up after a good fight," he murmured and another heated shiver ran through her, starting and ending between her legs.
"Stop it," she admonished him without much conviction.
Meanwhile, they had arrived at the overlook that afforded a view over the Blackwater Bay. To turn the conversation away from dangerous grounds, she asked him what else he thought about the things she'd told him.
He considered her question seriously for a moment, looking out at the water, the wind from the sea ruffling his hair.
"The Red Viper," Sandor said eventually. "Why is Tyrion worried about him? He's far away in Dorne."
He drew a sharp breath and then whistled quietly. "Unless..."
"...unless the Martells are coming to the wedding," Sansa finished his thought.
"Exactly," he said. "And the Imp is right to worry about that. There is bad blood between Highgarden and Dorne and as for the Red Viper, it's no secret he is out for blood."
"You think he wants to kill your...," she bit her tongue much too late.
Gregor Clegane was one of the subjects they had so far avoided.
"My brother," Sandor said between clenched teeth, rage apparent in the taut lines of his face, "had raped and killed Oberyn Martell's sister and had his men butcher her children. One might think he would have more right to revenge than I have..."
She put her hand gently over his, a risk surely, but she didn't know how she could not be touching him right now.
"What he did to you...," she whispered, looking up at him, purposefully letting her eyes roam over the savaged parts of his face, "cannot be weighed against the suffering he'd caused others."
Sandor shook his head, suddenly avoiding her gaze.
"It's not only about my fucking face, Sansa," he rasped after long moments of silence. "Gregor killed my sister, too."
She clapped her hand over her mouth, stifling a shocked gasp.
"I didn't know."
"No one does," he said evenly. "Maybe that's the worst insult to her. That she's forgotten. That no one besides me knows she even existed. That she lies in an unmarked grave. That everyone knows about Elia Martell, but no one cares about her."
Sansa tried to imagine a girl with dark hair and grey eyes. With the harsh features of her brother.
The face her mind came up with, however, was that of Arya, of her own lost sister. She might not ever be able to understand what Sandor must have suffered, but she knew enough to understand why he would not want his sister to be forgotten.
"What was her name?"
He heaved a great sigh and for a moment Sansa thought he might not answer, but then he turned and looked fully at her, his eyes like the sky on a rainy day.
"Elenor," he whispered, a wealth of sadness and regret in this one word. And a great deal of love, too.
To think she had once thought him incapable of feeling, had thought him hateful and crude, when in truth his heart was so big, his true torment might well be that he felt too much, too deeply where others felt nothing at all.
She looked away from him, too tempted to comfort him with more than just a glancing touch on the back of his hand. And even though they stood well apart, she felt somehow closer to him, as if something had shifted in the bond between them, once again changing by degrees what they were to one another.
"I wish I could take you in my arms ," she said.
"I wish I could do considerably more than that," he replied gravely and then cleared his throat.
"So, about Martell," he went on, apparently intend on changing the subject. "Knowing Tywin Lannister, he'll try to keep Gregor away from King's Landing and out of the Viper's reach. That, at least, is one less thing to worry about."
Sansa nodded.
"I'll see if Tyrion learns more once they are here."
"Be careful," he said, straightening and indicating he had to go. "And watch out for that sellsword, he's lurking somewhere behind the hydrangeas."
She laughed when she watched him walk away.
...
While their last meeting had left Sansa with lifted spirits and a new sense of purpose, it had done nothing to resolve the problem of them not being able to see each other. She could not risk being seen talking to him on a regular basis since that would raise far too many eyebrows. As it was, it puzzled her that word hadn't reached Tyrion already, especially since Bronn had apparently been nearby the whole time.
Or maybe Tyrion just had decided not to mention it to her.
After about a week, even Sandor showed clear signs of being decidedly unhappy with the situation.
The first time he decided to do something about it, he caught her completely by surprise.
She had been riding out with Margery and afterwards almost giving the stable-boy a heart-attack by expressing the wish to tend to her mare herself – something her father had always insisted she learned how to do.
On her way back, deeply immersed in her own thoughts, she had completely missed the huge dark shadow behind her until a strong arm wound around her waist and she was bodily dragged into an empty stall. Before she could utter even a squeak, his mouth was on her and so were his hands, greedy and ungentle, but then, so were hers and when his mouth left hers for both of them to get some much needed air, he brought his lips to her ear.
"Are you alright, little bird?" he asked, his hands all the while searching her body as if they could detect if anything was wrong.
"Yes, I am," she whispered back. "Now I am."
But that was a lie, because outside men shouted at stable-boys and stable-boys shouted at each other to the accompaniment to stamping and whinnying horses and the racket left no doubt that they would only have mere minutes before they'd have to part again, not nearly enough for them to quench the fire they had so thoughtlessly ignited.
"Something I need to know?" he rasped into her ear again and she had to forcefully keep herself from resenting the intrusion of reality into this short stolen moment.
"Tyrion is riding out the day after tomorrow to welcome the Martells to King's Landing."
He stilled his movements and took a deep breath. Then he nodded; a movement she only felt because she was still clinging tightly to him until he reached a hand behind him and pried her hands from his neck, turned around and exited the stall, leaving her to straighten her skirts and order her mussed up hair and swallow the tears that threatened.
Ever since then, she kept to the darker parts of passages and corridors when she walked through the keep. She always lingered in the stables under the pretence of grooming her horse or giving it treats.
It rarely came to more than a few stolen kisses and some breathlessly exchanged sentences that left them more dissatisfied than they were before and increasingly miserable.
…
Four weeks before Joffrey was to be wed to Margery, rain started falling over King's Landing as if meaning to drown the city.
As if circumstances hadn't been unfavourable enough already, the rain cut short any outdoor activities like wandering the keep or riding out, which further curtailed her meagre bit of freedom.
She was standing at the window, despondently watching fat raindrops run down the windowpanes, when someone timidly cleared his throat behind her.
"What is it, Podrick?" she asked, turning around.
As always, the boy blushed when she looked at him. If she had been in a better mood, she might have found it amusing how the boy who was nephew to the man who still had Sansa quake in her slippers when she saw him was so much different from his uncle.
"You have a visitor, my lady."
That came as a surprise. All the people she knew in the keep outranked her by far and would only ever summon her to visit them.
The man who darkened the doorway, however, was someone so completely unexpected, she failed to stifle a gasp.
Podrick straightened and his face suddenly took on an expression of determined courage.
"Shall I send him on his way?" he asked.
"No, Podrick," Sansa said hastily. "It is alright, I was only surprised, that's all."
Sandor stepped fully through the door, his eyes quickly taking in his surroundings and finally settling on hers with a bone-melting intensity.
Podrick remained where he was, apparently still intending to protect her.
"You may leave us, Podrick," Sansa said, trying to keep her voice firm while her whole body trembled.
Podrick fidgeted for a moment, but finally seemed to arrive at the decision that he couldn't do anything but follow her order.
"I have a message from Queen Cersei," Sandor began without preamble just as she was about to ask him if he had lost his mind. "It seemed a good opportunity, so I agreed to be her errand boy."
She swallowed and nodded. She felt as if made of glass, as if she would break should she move, or should she be touched.
"What does she want?" she asked around the lump in her throat.
"She wants you to visit her tomorrow night for a private dinner," he said, taking a step closer. "I suppose it's about the wedding, she is obsessing about it for weeks."
He was standing at arm's length and slowly lifted his hand to her face.
A tear slipped down her cheek when she turned her face away.
"I can't," she whispered. "Not here."
His hand curled into a fist and after an agonizing moment, sank to his side again.
She kept her eyes on the wall beside her, because she knew what she would see should she look at him. And she knew she would not be able to say no a second time.
"I am so tired of this," he whispered. "Having only a few minutes in the dark and lately not even that much."
Angrily, she wiped the tears from her face, suddenly disgusted at her own weakness and straightened.
"I know," she said. "I am too. But we made it this far, and it's only four more weeks."
"Sometimes I think I'd give my life just for having you in my bed for one more night."
The bluntness of the statement left her breathless for a moment, for one thing because Sandor wasn't a man given to hyperbole and meant things almost always literally and for another because she had entertained such thoughts herself at times.
"That would be quite a waste of a very valuable life," she said, trying to smile and defuse the situation.
"It'd be worth it," he insisted, stepping closer once again until only an inch of charged air separated them.
"I've fantasized about something similar," she confided in a hushed whisper. "Daydreamed about how it would be to just stay somewhere in a room with you, the whole night and the morning as well until they would look for us and find us, wrapped in a lover's embrace."
He leaned toward her but she took a little step back, intent on her tale, her voice growing in volume.
"And then we would be tried and sentenced to death and people would be sobbing at the heart-rending story of the star-crossed lovers, the deserter and the traitor's daughter. And they would throw rose petals on our way to the scaffold to where Ilyn Payne would be waiting.
"I would be standing tall and proud and blowing you one last kiss before placing my head on the block for my blood to be spilled on the same steel that had spilled the blood of my father and would spill yours right after."
Sandor had stilled, listening.
"I would die with your name on my lips and our song would be sung for centuries to come and everyone would be weeping when they'd hear it."
A question shimmered silvery in his eyes.
Is this was you want?
She shook her head.
"Someone once told me that life is not a song," she said. "And I don't want ours to be one. I want to live, Sandor. I don't care if the bards sing about us, I don't care what they think about us. May history call me a immoral bitch and you an opportunistic lecher who took the first chance to get into a highborn maiden's smallclothes, it doesn't matter."
He smiled as she poked her forefinger against his chest.
"Our story, Sandor," she said, emphasizing her point with another poke of her finger, "will not be sung by any fucking bards, because it will be ending happily with both of us dying of old age after having lived a full and happy life, do you understand?"
With the appropriate seriousness in his expression he nodded, but then the corner of his mouth curled once again.
"But since you are at Maegor's tomorrow already, maybe..."
With a smile and a disapproving shake of her head, she shoved at him, directing him towards the door. Before he opened it, though, she raised herself on tiptoes and brought her mouth close to his ear.
"Maybe."
…
SANDOR
He woke with a start from an uneasy sleep at the unsettling sensation of someone watching him. With his hand already at his weapon, body coiled and ready for a fight, his nose caught a whiff of lemon and ice.
Relief washed over him in one great wave.
He had pretty much giving up on trying to stay awake to wait for her during the past weeks, since it never happened anyway. Even though tonight he'd known she was with Cersei and would try to sneak into his chambers, chances were high she would be given an escort and thus unable to find an excuse to walk around the holdfast alone.
He relaxed back against the mattress, sharpening his senses to her movements, but didn't stir, didn't betray his wakefulness. If she had wanted him awake, she would have woken him by now.
Clothing rustled to the floor and then she tiptoed closer. After the blanket had slithered off his naked body, she carefully climbed onto the bed, onto him and he had to firmly leash his need to touch and to caress when he felt the smooth skin of her thighs against his.
Leaning forward, she brushed his face with hair that whispered like silk and smelled like lemon and ice and promised passion and fire.
Something very soft and very warm touched his eyelids, his cheek, his lips.
The tips of her breasts, he concluded, nearly undone at the mental image of how she might look now, gloriously naked, crouched over him, her lovely breasts brushing his face.
He smiled very slowly and opened his mouth to give back the gentle caress with his tongue and his lips.
She moaned into the darkness, but as he gently grasped her shoulders to pull her to him, she straightened and pressed her hips downward, the wet heat of her cunt demanding a response. A response his body delivered with a vengeance.
Her hands pressed against his shoulders forbade him to change position and he wasn't about to argue the point, not when she sank down on him, around him and it felt like the long awaited answer to a prayer.
In the total darkness of the room, with no words between them and the only sounds the harshness of their breathing and the moans and cries of pleasure, they rediscovered what had been so desperately missed.
Her skin was cool and silky under his hands, but her body was liquid heat where they were joined; a fire that raged and seethed until it consumed the both of them in a brilliant inferno.
…
"That was one nice way to wake up," he whispered into her hair some time later, when she lay curled up on his chest like an exhausted kitten.
She drew some pattern on his upper arm with her fingertip and he wondered idly how he could've survived for so long without her touching him.
"I had ample time to come up with an idea."
"Anything else you came up with?" he asked, not even trying to hide his delight at discovering how prominently he featured in his wife's thoughts and fantasies.
"Wouldn't be a surprise if I told you," she purred and pressed a kiss against his skin.
The thought alone cemented his determination to have her at least once more tonight.
"I barely survived this one, so I'd like to be prepared."
She didn't answer but instead kept caressing him until suddenly a shudder went through her and he pulled her closer into his embrace almost on instinct.
"What is it?"
"Cersei," she said and it occurred to him that he should've asked how the dinner had been. Knowing Cersei, he'd be surprised if it had been anything but awful.
"What did she say?"
Sansa snuggled even closer and he shifted their position to lie half-atop her in that way she seemed to prefer when she was unsettled or afraid.
"It's not so much about what she said, but...," she shook her head slightly and then sighed, nestling even closer into his tight embrace. "The woman is mad. She drinks too much, she sees enemies everywhere, even in her own family. Four weeks seem a long time with her in charge."
"She is not in charge," he tried to calm her. "Tywin has her well in hand."
"I hope you're right."
She was quiet for a few moments and he thought she might still be thinking about Cersei, when she surprised him with her next question.
"What did you do... you know, that night?"
He snorted lightly, knowing at once which night she meant. What he didn't know was whether or not he really wanted to talk about what a pathetic wreck he'd been.
"Talked to a tree," he said finally, hoping she would drop the subject when she knew he'd been in the godswood.
"So you were in the godswood? What happened?"
No such luck, apparently. But her hand wandered gently over his upper arm and she kissed his chest and she smelled so good that he knew he would tell her everything she wanted to know.
"You'll laugh at me."
"I promise I won't."
"When I went there... I was done for. Empty. I'd given up."
She kissed him once again, an open-mouthed kiss to the spot over his heart.
"I think we both had at some point."
"And then... something spoke to me, reminded me of my purpose and gave me something back that I had almost forgotten I had."
She perked up.
"The gods really spoke to you?"
"I couldn't say, but... what else could it have been?"
For a while she was quiet, stroking him almost absentmindedly. His own hands were wandering as well, just for the pure pleasure of feeling the softness of her skin, for the certainty that at least for this moment, she was his to touch and to hold.
"Coming to the godswood...," she began eventually, slowly as if still sorting her thoughts. "...I think it's different than coming to the sept to pray, to ask the Seven for favors or beg them for protection or whatever is on your mind.
"To the godswood, I often just come to think. I feel closer to home when I am here, closer to my family, if that makes any sense. In a way, I feel closer to myself. Things are getting clearer when I think them over in the godswood."
He laughed when he realized what she was getting at.
"So you, the most pious girl I ever met, are telling me it wasn't the gods who spoke to me, but that I just came to my senses by myself?"
Shoving at his chest, she prompted him to move a little away and when he did, leaned up on one elbow to look at him with some amusement.
"Wouldn't it a bit presumptuous to think the gods have singled you out to talk to?" she said with a raised eyebrow.
A fiery tendril of red was falling into her face and he gently pushed it aside with one finger, marvelling at the glossy silk that slithered over the back of his hand.
"Wouldn't it a bit egotistical to think I managed to screw my head back on straight all by myself?" he asked quietly and then added, "And I don't think it's about me. I'm just a means to an end. I have a feeling they are watching over you."
Her eyes filled with tears and she leaned into the hand he still had on her face.
"If they've given me you, I have a lot to be grateful for," she said and then gave him a rather watery smile. "So I turned Sandor Clegane into a believer?"
With his finger, he traced a line from her temple to the corner of her mouth, then ghosted his fingertips over her lips. The urge to kiss her was almost an ache in his chest, but he savoured the knowledge that what he wanted so badly was his to take if he just moved a little and he could do it without risking her or his life for it.
"You made me believe in quite a lot of things," he admitted.
A brilliant smile chased away the unshed tears in her eyes and she lay back on the bed and he moved to hover over her.
"As there would be?" she asked, her fingertips tracing the silver chain around his neck and fleetingly touching the white stone.
He leaned down and kissed her as sweetly and tenderly as he could, hoping it would be answer enough.
…
The door to the chamber was opened very carefully and the slight shadow that flitted out, trailing a billowing dark cloak behind her, moved swiftly away on silent feet, leaving the subtle scent of lemons and the less than subtle scent of sex behind her.
From out of a corner, another shadow emerged into the torchlight, turning into the shape of a man who was scratching his chin.
"Now how to tell Tyrion," Bronn mused quietly to himself, waiting for another minute or two before he followed the scented trail the female shadow had left.
...
tbc