Sandor helped her take his breeches off, and then shifted under her wide eyes. She could do nothing but look at him, there, sticking out at an angle, and tried to smother a smile.

He raised his eyebrows at her. 'Are you laughing at me?' She bit her lip, shaking her head. He put his palms up, blameless. 'I can't do anything about it. Not when you're standing there like that.'

Sandor put his hands on her shoulders and walked her to the bed, sliding in after her under blankets so chilled that they made her shudder. He worked an arm underneath her ribcage and pulled her to him, tightly, and she felt him hard against the base of her back. He wasn't making any advances, though - it was if he was just hanging onto her for dear life. Sansa could feel his apprehension.

Her toes were growing numb. She wriggled round to face Sandor, and stared at him, his face half in shadow. He looked haunted. She put her finger at his collarbone, and down his breastplate through his chest hair, past the scar on his side, and to the hair at his belly. She smoothed the back of her hand over his stomach, and he breathed in sharply and drew it in, leaving a space. She placed her forefinger on a mole on his upper arm muscle, and traced it with her nail to another, and another, as if her finger were a quill. It left pale white lines on his skin, a strange diagram. Sansa shivered, an uncontrollable tremor quivering through her and down to her feet.

'It's freezing,' she whispered.

'Right then,' he said, as if about to undertake a great challenge, and grabbed her around her thigh, pushing her over onto her back.

Sandor straddled one of her legs, and scooped her up towards him to kiss her, deeply. She clung onto his neck and whimpered slightly into his mouth. She felt like she was going to cry. He was balancing the whole of her upper body on one hand, and as he kissed her, he gradually began lowering her back down onto the bed, leaning over her. He began kissing her neck, and then her breasts, kissing their sides, kisses like flakes of snow, putting his mouth over her nipple and gently biting it. As he moved his face down her body, the blankets went with him and she lay, utterly chilled. She was an ice queen, ancient, before the First Men, before the Children of the Forest, some strange northern ghost-maiden with no soul.

His fingers and warm mouth went between her legs, and she put her hand to her face and bit on the side of her forefinger, hard, not being able to stop a smile. He began to explore her with a finger, just a little, and use his tongue. The candle flame was making great shadows on the wall, crones and spirits. Sansa clamped her thighs around Sandor's ears, then quickly released them, embarrassed, thinking she'd be squashing him. How could he breathe down there anyway? He looked up, kissed her on the inside of her thigh, and continued, gently pressing her leg up to his ear again. She listened to her halting exhalations, as if something was tumbling down a staircase. He slid a finger, or maybe more than one, deeper into her, and she heard herself make a strange, little animal noise. She felt a rush of warmth, and tilted her hips downwards.

There were little distant bursts of sweetness, and she arched her neck and opened her mouth to gasp, then thought of the old man next door and promptly shut it again. She wanted that feeling she'd had before to come again, and soon. It seemed far-off still, but then he moved his tongue slightly higher and she had a sensation almost like a pain, and put her palm out on the mattress. She was still freezing, goosebumped, everywhere but there. Sansa wondered how long he could keep doing that for, and whether he minded too much. He was making a guttural sound like he was drowning. She could smell that putrid farm-stench.

She felt another small surge, and widened her leg, and then suddenly all she could think about was that feeling, which was getting closer, she thought, and then not, and then closer, and definitely closer, and there. It was more sudden than last time, and she gave a sort of shout and grabbed Sandor's head to quickly move his mouth away afterwards. She held him there, her hands at his cheeks, hovering just above her. She felt like she was molten wax, all over.

Sansa let him go and flung herself back on the bed. Sandor kissed the inside of one thigh, then the other, and then brought himself up towards her, kissing her stomach, and between her breasts. She could feel him hanging there, against the top of her hip, and shifted herself up on her good elbow to touch him. Sandor gave a strange sort of shudder, and made a rough sound in his throat. She reached down put her fingers around him very gently, not really sure what she should be doing, and tried to look down.

'Look at me.' He tipped her chin up, and stared at her earnestly, as though he was trying to make her really listen, and really believe him. 'It hurts, you tell me.'

Sansa thought of that last night at King's Landing, and how close his face had been to her then, and how afraid she'd been. She nodded.

He drew back, his knees pressing into her thighs, and used his hand to guide himself into her. Sansa tried desperately to relax, and be calm. Sandor pushed himself into her, just a little, and then withdrew, not quite all the way. He stroked her stomach, looking carefully at her, as if bracing himself to leap away at any moment. He moved in again, a little more, and she could feel him against her, like cave walls expanding, and then she couldn't tell what it felt like. Liquidy, and dangerous, and so intimate that she couldn't quite believe that he was doing this to her and that they were so close. She lifted her hips up to him slightly, and she saw a tremor pass through him, though he tried to quell it. He was being cautious, she could see. She didn't have that flash of pain this time. It felt strange, and it still hurt, but nothing like before.

Sandor had a hand at her hipbone and the other under her buttock, and she moved into his palm. He gave a big sigh then, and lowered his torso towards her, an elbow by her side, sliding in deeper. Sansa had a different, hazier sensation of pleasure as he did so, and exhaled sharply. He glanced at her, almost surprised, and put a hand under her hair. She felt his hips move against hers, more constantly.

There was a slick sound that seemed very loud in the quiet house, and the legs of the bed were shifting against the stone. Then Sandor was kissing her, and making a noise that was a breath and a sigh and a grunt every time he breathed out, and she could feel a vague, kneading feeling low in her belly that was like ink being blotted. His shoulder wound was at her cheek. He moved faster, and tightened his fingers around the back of her neck, and seemed to freeze, his body crushed tight against her, gripping her all over.

Sandor lay still, and still inside her, for some moments, as if lost in thought.

She touched his face, and he looked up at her. 'You're – I'm a bit squashed.'

He gave a muffled, apologetic response and slid out of her and onto his side, his hand slung across her ribs, his leg over hers. She could feel the prickle of sweat from him. She looked down at him, feeling tall. Older.

His head was resting on her shoulder, and he raised his eyes, deep lines forming on his forehead.

'You are – ' Sandor didn't finish. He just stared up at her, and then spread some of her hair out on the pillow.

Sansa watched the shadows, now dark grey on black. Sandor began to make almost imperceptible, jerking movements. There was a little spasm in his thigh, and one in his upper arm. A sudden puff of breath burned her shoulder. Maybe he was part-dragon, she thought, grinning a little. It was better than being a dog. It seemed ridiculous to her that he had called himself the Hound. He was the bravest man she'd ever met. One who never lied and who understood her. She wanted so much to be with her family, but the thought of what lay ahead the next day filled her with something nearing dread.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

It couldn't have been much later when Sansa woke. The candle must have been nothing more than a stub, emitting the merest glimmer of light, a dull, low glow. She had turned to face him a little more, her head at his chest. She listened to their inbreaths and outbreaths crossing, as if trying to reach for each other's hands, and just missing. She put her hand on his chest and he shifted, swallowing dryly, and looked down at her.

'I don't want you to leave.' He didn't say anything. 'You promised you wouldn't.' She knew how he'd answer.

'Until I got you home.' She could feel the words resonating in his chest. 'To your family.'

Sansa took a big, cheerless breath in. 'Can't you stay?'

He touched her ear. 'And do what? Be your manservant?'

She took his hand off and held it. 'Can't you – serve Robb?'

He gently rubbed her middle knuckle with his thumb, the tiniest movement. 'I'm done serving, Sansa.'

'Don't you care about me?' It came out in a tightly forlorn whisper. She sounded like a child. He stopped moving his thumb. She wanted him to curse, shout, drag her outside and wheel her around in the mud. 'Not talking is not the same as telling the truth,' she said in sudden frustration.

'Don't,' he said, very quietly.

Sansa understood exactly what he was doing, and what he meant. She couldn't bear it. She had to tell him. 'Sandor, I – ' She hesitated, tears coming.

'Don't,' he said again under his breath, almost dangerously.

She squeezed her eyes shut, furious at the tears, trying to banish them.

He spoke more gently then. 'You'll have some flaxen-haired prince from the Summer Isles soon enough who's noble and honest and brave and all the things in those old songs of yours.'

'I hate those songs.' She turned her back to him.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

Sandor was wearing thick furs, looking as fierce as a black bear, and stood up to his calves in snow. His lips were almost blue, his hair whipping in front of his face. The wind became a black shadow, and the shadow became Joffrey, as tall as him, taller even. And then his fist was in Sandor's stomach, and he brought it back, pulling out his sword, which dripped, green and glowing.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

She woke up with an aching neck. Sandor wasn't there. Sansa could feel the heat still pressed into the bedclothes where he'd been lying, and huddled into it. It was light, and she heard Stranger harrumph. The old woman shouted something, and she heard him indistinctly reply, an assured mumble. She put the covers over her head, an airless cave, smelling the warmth and sweat of him. She wondered how long she could stay there before coming up for breath.

After a while, he came into the room, and knelt beside the bed, his hand on the covers near her.

'Sansa.' She wasn't fooling him. He knew she was awake. 'She's made you oatmeal.' Sansa didn't move. 'You have to get up.' She tried not to breathe, though her throat was beginning to grow tight. 'Sansa.'

'I don't want to,' she said in a tiny voice from under the bedclothes.

He put his hand on her head. 'You don't want to stay here. She's started on her brothers and sisters now. Your ears will fall off.' She nosed herself up through the covers, enough to blink, mole-like, out at him, and clutched the edge of a blanket. He was right there, dark beard and the corners of his mouth twitching. He looked at her so gently that she wanted to cry. He touched her nose. 'You don't want me around.'

'I do.'

He snatched up her hand and made her look at him. 'I've done horrible things, Sansa. I'm going to go on doing horrible things.'

'Why? Why do you have to?'

He shrugged, looking at her thoughtfully. 'It's what I've always done.'

'Just – kill people who deserve it,' she flung at him in a hopeless, impatient voice. 'Not winesellers and paupers and old drunks. Kill the things in the North. And Lannisters. And Theon.' He kissed her fingers.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

They had left more coin than they'd pledged with the old woman, who stood at her gate as they rolled away through the mud. She looked as slight as a reed, swaying in the wind, her ear cocked to Stranger's hooves as they squelched further away from her. Sansa pulled her cloak over her head. There was a rawness in the air.

Sandor had reckoned that they would just have to reach the brow of the long, shallow-sloping hill up ahead before setting eyes on the army's camp. They entered a wood, the papery leaves on the hazels beginning to lose their brightness. They were both quiet. There seemed to be nothing to say. Sansa was trying to imagine scenarios in which he'd have to stay, ridiculous things where she had lost the ability to speak, or forced him to become her sworn sword, or made Robb take him hostage. Maybe he would consider staying when he saw how kind Robb was. He could become his bannerman, swear allegiance, fight for him. Or maybe he would stay if she told him, really told him, how she felt. She only just knew, herself. She'd tried, but she'd never said, not properly. Maybe he just needed to hear it. He was terrified of being cared for. But if she could tell him -

A fox loped nonchalantly across their path, a scraggy, brown thing. 'I know a song about a fox.' Sandor squeezed her shoulders with his arms as he held the reins.

She didn't much feel like talking. 'You said you didn't know any songs.'

'I know songs.' He sniffed dryly and put his cheek to the side of her head, his voice low and teasing. 'I just said I wouldn't sing them.'

Sansa felt her ear burn. 'What if I make you?'

He put an arm at the front of her waist to pull her in towards him. 'And how are you going to do that?'

Sansa went to reply when a man stepped out onto the path and pointed a bow and arrow at them. Sandor reined in Stranger, sharply.

'Name your allegiance', called the man.

'What, or you'll shoot us both?' said Sandor, his upper arms tight around Sansa. 'You should have more care than to point that at a woman.'

There were crackling and rustling sounds on the low ridges all around them, and suddenly they were surrounded by five more men, all holding bows up.

A seventh man appeared from the undergrowth just behind them, and put a longsword up to Sansa's chest, a sardonic look on his face. 'How about this?'