Sandor worked with the villagers, cutting down and stripping trees, using Stranger to drag them to the palisade. It was long, hot work. Even when the wind blew and the air grew chill he would be drenched in sweat by sundown. Sansa took up some work also, helping the village women with mending and sewing. He found himself rubbing the cramps from her fingers each night before he took her. Sandor didn't know what the little wolf did with herself each day, but whatever it was left her a mess. Some evenings, he would come back to their rooms and find his little bird angrily chirping at the girl for being as dirty and sweaty as a man. He easily ended each argument by dumping the child into the bathwater, clothes and all.
At night, after supper, he expected Sansa to continue her same sleep patterns as before, alternating between his bed and her sister's. On their second night in the village, he was more than a little startled when she forwent her sister's smaller bed to sleep beside him again. And she did it again the third night and fourth and on and on. All questions would flee him, though, at the feel of her lips. In the mornings he would find her naked and wrapped around him. After enjoying her mouth and skin again, they would dress and wake the sister before going down to break their fast.
It was her kisses when they parted for the day that he began to look forward to most. As he would begin to rise from the table, she would gently touch his arm or shoulder. When he leaned down to her level, Sansa would place a tiny kiss to his lips. Nothing was ever said by Arya or the villagers. As he worked during the day, he could feel her lips on his until he saw her again.
The villagers themselves gave him a wide berth. They did not ask for his name or his history, and he did not volunteer the information either. Few could look him in the eye but they used his strength readily enough. The horses ate well and were groomed regularly. The war for the throne had not come to this remote little village and their only concerns seemed to be raids from the mountain clans.
Hidden away like this, Sandor thought he could keep his little bird and the wolf girl safe.
"It's nice here," Sansa said as she climbed into bed a fortnight after they had arrived.
Sandor grunted "hm" as he pulled her naked body to straddle his stomach and started to rub the base of her thumb. He noticed her muscles were not as tight as when he first started to rub them.
"It's peaceful," she continued, stroking her own fingers through the hair on his chest. "Like being hidden in a safe little world."
She bent down and kissed him when he finished her hand. He deepened the kiss as he cupped one hand behind her head and wrapped the other arm around her waist. With a twist and a roll, he was laying above her. He leaned on one arm as the other caressed her, thumb crazing her nipple, fingers squeezing her hip. Her leg hooked around his waist and he slid into her far too easily. A madness took him at the feel of her wet warmth.
"We could stay." The words spilled from his mouth as he kissed her neck. He gave a thrust. "They think you're my wife. We don't have to tell them you're not."
Sansa's nails scraped his scalp and she met his thrusts. "What about Arya?" she sighed, the name sounding forced.
"We'll say she's my daughter." An image of Sansa with child, his child, flashed behind his eyes and his thrusts became more needful. His teeth scraped against her collarbone. "And I'll give you more, if you want them. We could be a family, hiding away from the kings' war."
Her lack of answer caused him to raise his head. Her mouth was slack and eyes shut tight, a flush spreading to her breasts and up her cheeks. Suddenly cured of his madness, Sandor rose to his knees and gripped her hips tightly. With a few quick, rough thrusts he was near release. He reached between them and rubbed her sensitive nub above their joining. Whomever she was imagining must have been handsome because Sansa moaned and her walls tightened around him in release. His own was not far behind and he spent with a grunt. He ground against her through the last of his release.
Worn, Sandor rolled off the little bird and pulled her back to him before pulling the covers over them. With a start, he realized he had spent in her without the sheath, that his seed had been left inside her. He struggled to remember where he now kept it, when they had last used it. A sinking feeling told him how long it had been.
"I would like to stay with you," she whispered before he could say anything. "I would like to be your wife and give you strong sons."
He pulled her close, hand splayed across the flat of her stomach. He tried to tell her with a kiss to her shoulder he would take anything she saw fit give him.
His thoughts of staying were dashed in the morning, though, when he approached the village elder.
"We've heard of King Joffrey's dog," the old man said over breakfast. "Man like you brings blood."
"When your mountain clans come, might be you need a dog like me."
He saw the old man hesitate. "Might be. But we've also heard you lost your belly for fighting, and that you stole the king's future bride to whelp your craven pups."
Sandor gritted his teeth when the elder's eyes darted towards the girls, waiting just out of earshot. It was foolish of him to think the village hadn't heard about the battle, about him and Sansa. Foolish to think he could make a safe home for her and her sister. So long as people knew who he was, knew he had run and stolen her, they wouldn't be safe or wanted.
"Pay me, then, and we'll be gone," he growled.
The purse was a few coins heavier than the original agreement thanks to Sansa's work, and he traded the long axe from the Twins for a second sword. Arya helped him saddle the horses and they left by midmorning.
"Where will we go now?" Sansa asked as the village disappeared behind them.
"We could go to the Wall. Jon's there," the little girl piped up.
Sandor laughed. "What would you do on the Wall? Join the Night's Watch?" The wolf girl just glared at him. "The Wall's a thousand leagues from here. We'd need to fight through the Freys just to reach the Neck. There's lizard lions in those swamps. And if we did reach the north with our skins, there's ironborn in half the castles and northmen."
"Are you scared of them? Have you lost your belly for fighting?"
So they had heard.
"Sandor is very brave," Sansa interjected. "It was very dangerous to get me out of King's Landing. And he protected us at the Twins."
"Don't defend me, little bird," he growled. "There's nothing wrong with my belly. Going north's a fool's errand we won't be going on. We'll figure it out when we reach the Kingsroad." He only hoped that was true.
