Author's Notes: MILLION APOLOGIES FOR SCREWING THIS UP!
I mean, in my last update I somehow managed not to post the actual Chapter 69, but instead rushing ahead and posting Chapter 70 already...
LOL- maybe it doesn't make a huge difference - but if anyone wonders how the jump from Chapter 68 ("Only One Way Up") to 'so-called' Chapter 69 ("Not Forgotten") was a bit jarring, now you know why!
Anyway, I am now removing the wrong chapter 69, posting the correct chapter and also re-posting Chapter 70 in its rightful place. I am very sorry about this oversight, clearly I need a break... :-)
Million thanks also to kind Gefionne, who is still sacrificing her valuable time for betaing this monster!
In the previous chapter (i.e chapter 68): To her relief, Sansa's actions haven't changed her world irrevocably. She tries to reconnect with her friends and embrace life while also trying to find her peace with the past, but it's getting harder and harder, and eventually, she slides into depression. Sansa's decision to finally open up to her brother, and Bran's subsequent succinct advice help her to see the next steps forward: she has to go to the places of her past and make the connections that way, with an aim to say her goodbyes to what was.
Sansa
To Sansa's pleasant surprise, the hostel at Visenya's Hill where she had stayed on her last journey was still there. She remembered it also from her journey across the city after she had escaped the Red Keep - then new and pristine, now old and faded.
She had considered long and hard whether she should try to avoid the places from before, afraid that they would only bring back painful memories she had worked so hard to suppress. Yet discussing it with Bran had made it clear that if the purpose of her trip was to face those memories head-on, work through them, and hopefully make peace with the past, it didn't really make sense.
So she had booked two nights at the inn - but ended up staying a week.
On the second day, she went to the Red Keep.
Red Keep Confidential tour company didn't exist, nor did she see signs of Layla, but she found another tour that was very similar to the one before, with a restricted number of participants and thoroughly knowledgeable guides.
Red Keep Private and Rosella – also a recent graduate of history – gave her a tour that would have been perfectly enjoyable had it been without the emotional baggage she was carrying. Most of the keep was as she remembered from her previous visit, and any changes she noticed were minor.
The exhibition halls, naturally, were full of different content, particularly when it came to the history of the players of the War of the Five Kings. Just like before, Jon and Daenerys Targaryen were portrayed prominently, but this time Tyrion Lannister had a place or prominence as well. Eddard Stark had his own entry too, and although his image didn't have much true likeness, Sansa stared at it for a long time, longingly.
Most of what she saw she knew already, so there was nothing truly groundbreaking on that visit for her – until she stopped in front of a Perspex box containing the Hound's helmet. Then, Sansa recoiled and a sharp pain pierced through the heart. This was not a neutral object or a piece of information she already knew, but something else - something profoundly personal.
Staring at Sandor when he was wearing it in the court, trying to catch a glimpse of a man she had already discovered under that menacing exterior. Handing it to Sandor when he was donning his full armour on their journey from the Quiet Isle towards the inn at the crossroads. Laughing at him when he insisted on polishing it himself rather than handing it to a squire. Seeing it hovering above her when Sandor made love to her during one of their make-beliefs of the Hound and the little bird…
Rosella – their guide - saw that something was wrong and came to her, concerned. Sansa resisted her instinctive reaction to avoid processing her emotions by refusing Rosella's kind offer to sit down, making an excuse of a headache making her feel off, which earned her an understanding nod.
After Rosella left, Sansa forced herself to look at the helm and not bow down. It was still just a replica, but this time the plaque in the box gave a correct reference of it having belonged to Sandor Clegane, a Kingsguard member to King Joffrey, who later joined House Stark and became a lord in his own right – and that the original helm could be found in the museum of Winterfell in the North.
Sansa stared at the helm, its threatening canine teeth and narrowed eye-slits, its smooth curves and fine craftsmanship. It was him, and yet it wasn't.
She blinked her eyes to keep tears at bay.
Sandor.
After a while, the pain went away – or maybe she just refused to give in to it. Her group had already moved on and Sansa followed, weary but oddly calm.
When she walked past Sansa's old room she slowed down. The room was empty, most people rushing ahead towards the other, more significant rooms of more significant people.
Sansa had wondered about the possibility of going back – of course she had. She had nothing to guide her in it, though, all Rufus Hightower's notes being in the past—unless they had somehow miraculously been preserved in some obscure archives. It didn't matter though, as even he hadn't really known anything for sure, but only speculated. And he had been wrong too – most spectacularly about the importance of timing when it came to returning, as Sansa to her chagrin had experienced.
Would she want to go back?
Where would she end up, if she did?
Could she go back to where she had left?
Would it be fair to real Sansa, to Sandor, to herself, to her family?
Sansa had no answers to any of those questions, so she had pushed the notion out of her mind. Now, in the place where it all had started, she, however, couldn't shut the voices in her head anymore.
Do it.
What do you have to lose?
With no plan, no consideration, no doubts, no heartfelt wishes or really, nothing in her mind, Sansa stepped in.
And nothing happened.
She stayed there for a long time, walking between the window, the bed and the door before finally settling down on the bed. Against her better judgment, she even ignored the rules forbidding touching the exhibitions, being so overtaken by her nerves.
And still, nothing happened.
Sansa ignored the security announcements through the loudspeakers warning people of the imminent closure of the keep for the day, but she couldn't ignore the security guard who stuck his head into the room and frowned when he saw where Sansa sat, announcing that it was time to go.
So she left.
Sansa wasn't done with the Red Keep though. The next day she marched into its administrative office, procured all her memberships and her research appointment and asked for any information they might have about the disappearance of the people from the keep. Her excuse was that one of the people suspected of having done so was one of her own family members, and after showing the clerk her copy of the 'Genealogy of Houses Stark and Tully', she was allowed into the archive.
She also visited the Police Headquarters in King's Landing, and after being directed through what seemed at least half a dozen different offices, ended up at the Missing Persons department. Her credentials and the initial notes she had made at the Red Keep archives were accepted without protest, and once again she buried her nose in old folders and boxes of miscellaneous information.
What she discovered was mostly mundane and inconsequential, most of the reports being straightforward cases of people simply taking off without telling anyone, or people having lost their lives, but only after visiting the Keep, not while they were there – in other words, unremarkable and unsensational tales of human lives. It seemed that much of the sensationalism associated with the disappearances was just that: baseless hype.
The two people she was most interested in, though, Sansa found.
Red Keep archives had kept records also of all the people who had died in the keep in modern times, and from there, she found Rufus Hightower.
A respected professor of physiology at the University of Oldtown, a bachelor and avid historian – the face of a gentle-looking middle-aged man peered at Sansa over his glasses in the picture associated with his file. He had died of a suspected heart-attack during his visit, collapsing towards the end of the day in one of the more obscure tower rooms. He had been found only the next day – it had been a low season – when he had still been alive, but despite intense attempts by the doctors to resuscitate him, he had died a few days later. His death had been declared not suspicious and his body had been flown back to Oldtown to be buried there at the Citadel cemetery.
Sansa stared at the picture, once again trying to imagine what he must have gone through. She didn't find notes about relatives, and in a way, it was a relief. It was not as she could have marched up to someone and declared that she had news about their lately departed relative – fantastical and completely out-of-this-world news. No, it was better to let sleeping dogs lie, and she put the notes away.
She found Pod, too, and his story was much more heart-breaking.
He had been initially recorded as missing, due to no tracks having been found of where he could be. From what Sansa could piece together, he had wandered into forbidden parts of the cellar, collapsed there when he had transitioned, his body then having been buried under rubble generated by critical repair works the builders had been doing at the time. It had been found only several years later when further repairs had revealed the grim truth.
His file, too, had a picture, of a young boy smiling at the camera, holding a football in his hands. He looked so young and so innocent… Sansa cried over Pod's fate, although she knew that by the time she had left, Pod had been living the adventure of his life across the Narrow Sea with Tyrion. He was one of those characters of whom the history books didn't write, just a small cog in big machinery. How did his life turn out? Sansa had no way of knowing, and all she could do was to hope for the best.
The Red Keep private collections had more information about Jon and Daenerys and the period of their rule—original manuscripts, letters and drawings—and leafing through firsthand accounts did indeed make them come more alive. Sansa read notes Jon had written to his wife and between the lines, written in a bold hand, she detected genuine affection and love, which made her happy. She found no mention of Jon's wildling lover and all she could hope for was that their story had not ended in a tragedy but in mutual agreement. Yet that was something she would probably never know, and she had to settle at that.
She saw Tyrion's original marriage certificate confirming what she already knew; that he had married a Dornish noblewoman when he was already quite old and settled, and together they had had two children to carry on the legacy of Lannisters in King's Landing. Sansa hadn't been surprised that he hadn't married Shae – she knew Tyrion was a practical man and his status as a statesman had called for a more respectable marriage. The notes mentioned his wife being a dark beauty, quick-witted and sharp-tongued, and Sansa couldn't help smiling thinking that must have been exactly why Tyrion had chosen her.
She visited the monument that had been raised in Tyrion's honour at the outer yard near the main gate. The sculptor hadn't tried to hide his form or the shortness of his limbs, of which Sansa was grateful. It felt almost like a stab at Tywin Lannister – who didn't have a statue of his own anywhere in the keep – to show that his dwarf son, so reviled and underestimated, had become one of the greatest statesmen of his time and had overshadowed his father manyfold.
Sansa visited a nearby flower shop and after much deliberation and discussion with the shopkeeper, bought a bunch of purple and blue irises to lay at the foot of Tyrion's statue. According to the florist, they symbolised eloquence, wisdom and compliments, which she thought were quite apt attributes for Tyrion.
When not studying, instead of burying herself in her room, Sansa forced herself to go out and meet the world head-on. Art galleries, festivals – which were always plentiful in that vibrant capital - restaurants and bars; she went to them all. She had promised Bran that she was going to give life a chance and she honoured that promise.
It was not as bad as she had expected. She didn't know anyone, but that didn't bother her – quite the contrary, actually. Nobody knew her story and there was no need to brush off well-meaning condolences or answer queries about how it had felt waking up from such a long coma. For her new acquaintances, she was just another young woman holidaying in the capital.
She befriended the hostel desk clerk, a buxom girl of about her age, who took her shopping and clubbing. She met a local artist at the opening of an art exhibition in a gallery where she had wandered in purely out of curiosity, and under his tutelage, she visited many other galleries, meeting also his wife, a fellow artist.
One night at a restaurant, where the head waiter had directed her to eat at the counter because she was a solitary diner, she was hit on by a young man. Good-looking and pleasant, he had an air of ease about him, and Sansa enjoyed his company enough to go out with him the next evening as well - but that was as far as it got. She was certainly not ready for a relationship, and she was not going to rush into anything meaningless and casual either.
Most of the time she enjoyed her own company and reflected back on her experiences, trying to let them go.
While still in King's Landing, Sansa made good on her plan to take a side trip to Tarth. It was only a small plane ride away, after all—a rickety seaplane landing at the airstrip of Evenfall just in time to let her marvel at the setting sun and the wonderful orange and purple hues it coloured the landscape all around.
Brienne had often talked about the beauty of her home island and now Sansa could see why. The next few days were a study of beauty in nature, the view from her room at the edge of the harbour offering her amazing views over the sparkling blue waters of the Shipbreaker Bay.
However, even among all that beauty, she didn't forget the purpose of her trip.
She visited Evenfall Hall, part of which was open to the public, the rest of the keep still being reserved as a private residence of the family – descendants of Jaime and Brienne. The local museum had a good collection of local history as well, which she trawled through with the assistance of a patient curator. She was probably grateful for some change in her routine, allowing her to dig into many rare collections of documents.
What Sansa found was again mostly following the trail of knowledge she already had – but here, too, she found small mementoes, objects and notes directly from the past. A small detail often overlooked in formal histories but which touched her especially was to find out about the unusual arrangement Lord and Lady Lannister had had after Brienne's father had died: the couple had spent half of their time in Casterly Rock, half at the Isle of Tarth, with their growing brood of children in tow, of course.
The fact that the couple chose to remain together rather than to spend time apart, was what made it unusual. The chroniclers and bards of the time had at first not taken kindly to the marriage of two so unlikely people, but later the tone of the poems and songs had changed from mocking to something resembling admiration – a piece of information Sansa cherished highly.
She visited the private family cemetery of Evenfall Hall with the permission of the family members and spent a long time staring at the headstones on Jaime and Brienne's graves – as that was where both of them had been buried, again, quite unusually for the time. Two swords, fashioned from stone and bronze, stood at their grave side by side – as they had been in life.
Goodbye Brienne, my brave lady. You deserved all you received: the love of your husband, your beautiful children and the respect of your people.
She placed a single gladiolus at their grave, knowing it to symbolise a strength of character, faithfulness and honour – just like the two people whose bones rested in the earth had been, both in their own way.
On her way back, Sansa took a ferry to the Storms End and from there, a bus to Stag's End, the castle granted to Gendry Baratheon and his wife Arya Stark.
It wasn't open to the public, but armed with her letters, she had contacted the current owners and been allowed a private visit. They were not direct descendants of the Baratheon line, but the old couple, who welcomed Sansa warmly into their home, knew much about the history of the house where they had lived for the last forty years, and were happy to show Sansa around.
Her hosts couldn't say exactly what features of the keep were from which time period, but as soon as she was taken to the old smithy at the back of the house, since then converted into a garage, Sansa knew it must have been installed by Gendry. It was big and spacious and in a prominent place – the stories also told about the lord who preferred to do his own smithing from time to time. Some of his work was still left standing, including the gate into a former practice yard, over the years becoming a kitchen garden and then a formal garden.
The gate decorations wove wolves and snowy landscapes into its shape, and without being told, Sansa just knew it had been a gift to Arya in recognition of her roots. The practice yard where the gates stood had likely been where Arya had practised her water dancing with the aid of the tutor Tyrion had brought with him from across the Narrow Sea as he had promised – a small detail Sansa had seen mentioned in one of the books detailing Lord Tyrion Lannister's life and adventures.
Sansa couldn't visit Gendry and Arya's individual graves, as they had been buried in a family crypt, but she laid a protea flower on the steps of the crypt. She thought the flower represented both Arya and Gendry equally, standing for change and transformation, daring and resourcefulness, diversity and courage.
Goodbye, little sister. Goodbye, Gendry, my brother.
After departing the Stormlands, Sansa flew back to King's Landing and spent the next few days simply enjoying the adventure she had been supposed to have when she had first stumbled into past.
It was summer and she went to the beach, rented a bicycle and rode around the town, exploring also new parts of the city. Its architecture dazzled her, as did many parks and water fountains, and the overall vibrant and lively outlook of the city.
The recent visits and the associated goodbyes had been hard, but in their wake, Sansa found herself calmer and more settled than she had been for a long time. It must be a good sign, she thought, glad that Bran had pushed her to undertake this journey.
Every morning she woke up feeling a bit better, a bit calmer, embracing her life a bit more.
Her next port of call was Lannisport and Casterly Rock, and although she knew she wouldn't find Jaime or Brienne there, she was still curious to visit that stalwart monument to Lannister pride, past and present.
The old wealth of Lannisters had dwindled after their goldmines had run dry, but it hadn't taken many generations for the family to find new wealth in general mining. There were lots of minerals and valuable metals in the rock under Lannisport and in the Westerlands, and the signs of the most recent mining boom were still visible all over the city. New gleaming buildings, public hospitals and business centres, art museums and theatres.
Faithfully following her pre-planned program, Sansa visited Casterly Rock and once again gained entry to its private collection with a wave of her hand, showing off her credentials.
Little snippets of information about the times of Lord Tywin Lannister and his successor Lord Jaime Lannister gave her a sense of completion, although they didn't unearth anything drastically new about her friends.
What she did find, to her deep satisfaction, was news about Podrick Payne.
It turned out that he had served Tyrion Lannister faithfully during his tenure as the Hand of the Queen and King, but at Tyrion's retirement, Pod had been granted a house and lands near Casterly Rock as a reward for his good service. At one point, he too had married, while still living in King's Landing. His wife had been from a minor noble family in the Westerlands – but the piece of information that made Sansa chuckle softy was to find out the name of their eldest daughter: Brittany. An unusual name at the time, but one that had had a special significance to Podrick.
Oops, I did it again, Sansa hummed to herself, happy to have run into an old friend.
Sansa had been on the road for weeks already when she reached the Riverrun with her trusty old car. Her mother had been more than happy to give it to her for her journey, and the freedom it provided Sansa had been liberating.
She could drive where she wanted, even turning to follow an interesting but obscure track on the countryside if she felt doing so. She could stop when she wanted and stay as long as she wanted – she had no schedule to bind her, bar her regular reports back to her family letting them know how she was faring: an easy enough undertaking in the modern times of mobile phones, internet and email.
She hadn't visited Riverrun before, so there was nothing binding her directly back to her time in the past, but she found it interesting to walk the halls Lady Catelyn had grown up in, and read and hear about stories of famous Tullys over the centuries. She was especially intrigued by Blackfish, the famed warrior and stubborn bachelor, and she wished she had had a chance to meet him.
Alas, that was not to be, and after a satisfying visit, Sansa left Riverrun behind her for her next destination: inn at the crossroads.
The old building still existed and had been renovated as a conference centre for meetings for distinguished audiences who preferred the charm of older days over modern sleekness.
Sansa stayed in the new motel but sneaked into the old house to admire the successful combination of old and new that prevailed in every room she had access to. She was mistaken as belonging to a meeting of a literary society, and for a while she went along with the accidental ruse, sitting in the small auditorium listening to a speech about symbolism of modern poetry, her eyes wandering around the room, trying to decipher what part of the old inn this room belonged to.
During the coffee break, she left the group and wandered for a while in the gardens, recognising the old herb garden outlines, now made into a rose garden and a lawn popular for outdoor weddings.
Memories flooded her once again; this place was where she and Sandor had first acknowledged their feelings to each other—where they had shared their first kiss in the attic. Where she had nursed him after the ambush of the Lannister soldiers…
Sansa didn't stay long, but enough to get a feel of the place and to satisfy her curiosity of what had become of it – and to reach yet another small milestone on her list of goodbyes.
The Quiet Isle had changed remarkably little. The small group of monastic brothers that had stubbornly continued to exist throughout the centuries was still there. Most of the island was overtaken by the fishing industry, its other inhabitants mostly fishermen and their families. It was a place time seemed to have forgotten, and Sansa felt a great sense of peace descending on her as soon she parked her car behind the small inn were she had booked a room.
As usual, she spent the first day exploring the surroundings by foot, calling in at the local visitor centre and charting what resources were available for her to do her 'official' research part of her stay.
The Elder Brother's legacy was still notable, he having been the most famous resident and leader of the Silent Brothers order. In a small museum dedicated to him (and the only place accessible to visitors) housed inside the order's walls, Sansa found herself face to face with that wise man in a painting made by a visiting artist in his later years. The likeness was astounding, and staring at the gentle eyes of the man who had been so good for her made it easy for Sansa to imagine what he might say to her now.
Everything has a purpose. It is not our duty to question it or find it, but to trust that things happen for a reason.
Sansa sighed. But for what reason did this happen to me? she would have asked him back. He wouldn't have had an answer, of course, but he would have made her feel better with his words of wisdom.
Searching those words, even behind the veil of time, Sansa bought the full set of collected words of the Elder Brother from the bookshop: a fine five-piece volume with illustrations. In the evening, at the comfortable dining room of the inn after a delicious meal of fish stew, she rifled through its pages. She knew that 'The Lament for the Hound' was not going to be there due to changes she had made in history – but still she had to look.
No 'The Lament for the Hound', but a short poem titled "Vagaries of Time" caught her attention. Reading it, Sansa knew it could have only been written as a reflection of the Elder Brother's experiences with Rufus Hightower and herself.
Seeing somebody recognising her experiences as true and valid, even if not naming or addressing her directly, was a great relief to Sansa. It had been real and it had happened to her, and it had been recognised and acknowledged.
Yet another piece clicked into place and Sansa felt a little bit more whole again.
Sansa squeezed the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned white. She didn't like admitting it, but she was nervous, her stomach full of butterflies. For a moment, she quite irrationally wondered if she should simply flee, turn the car around and not come back.
Get a grip, Tully, she muttered and focussed on steering, resolutely pressing the gas pedal down until the sign she had been waiting for came into view.
The Hound's Den
Stud and Kennel
Entrance 500 m
This was it. This was where Sansa hoped she could piece together the last pieces of the puzzle she needed to complete in her quest.