It was almost dawn by the time Sandor had finished telling his tale. He'd explained how he was captured by the Brotherhood, taking the young Stark girl captive, the fight that incapacitated him (he left out the fact it was a woman who had done it - he know Thoros would laugh himself sick if he heard), and how Brother Ray has saved his life.

Maud was mostly quiet throughout, asking the odd question but the majority of noise came from her chattering teeth. They'd taken shelter in a half tumbledown shed, sitting with their backs against the wall. As time had gone on, they'd shuffled closer together for warmth, and now Sandor's large left arm was tight against Maud's right arm. It reminded her of when they used to wake up side by side in bed. She wished she'd stayed with him. Things could have been so different.

"Has the cold made you deaf?" Sandor said, breaking Maud out of her stupor.

"What? No! I - what?"

"I said it's your turn," Sandor repeated.

"Right," Maud said, hands suddenly a little sweaty despite the cold. "Well, as you know, the last day we were together I went for a walk-"

"Went off in a huff," Sandor interrupted, under his breath, snorting a laugh as Maud slapped his leg.

"I went for a walk and I came across the Brotherhood. They offered me the chance to join them and I said no. I went back to the inn, but when you hadn't come back a few days later I thought you'd left me. So I found the Brotherhood again. And then four or so years later, you found us again!" Maud ended brightly.

Sandor cocked an incredulous eyebrow "I reckon there is a little more to the story than that, lass," he prodded. "Like, how you got that ring on your finger, for example?"

Maud twiddled a lock of her hair. "Fine. Fine," she said softly. "I went to join the Brotherhood. I knew Anguy from years back, and they offered me a home, and a chance to fight against the Lannisters. So I joined them. The first few weeks I mainly settled in - I told Anguy about what happened to Jonython and Horace, and together we mourned. I didn't have a chance to properly mourn them before, you know?

"Not long after that, I started going on patrols and was allowed to join the guerilla fighting. It felt good to help. As we were both archers, I was with Anguy a lot, and one thing led to another."

"Your husband is that fucking archer twat?" Sandor said in disbelief.

"Was," Maud corrected quietly, spinning the ring on her finger. "I'm a widow."

Sandor's stomach contracted. Was that a twinge of happiness? It felt like it, but he didn't have them often enough to tell for sure.

"What happened?" He asked. He didn't want to ask how long ago - if it was just a few days and she began weeping and wailing he wouldn't know what to do.

"It was about a year ago. We heard that the Karstarks caught young Rickon Stark and handed him over to that monster Ramsay Snow - the Bolton bastard. A lot of the Brotherhood were Stark men originally, so they weren't happy at this."

Sandor nodded. He remembered when Eddard Stark inadvertently set up the Brotherhood, when he ordered Beric Dondarrion to find his brother. Of course Stark men were at the heart of the group.

Maud continued her story - how a group of them wanted to fight in the battle that was going to ensue. Beric had said it wasn't a matter for the Brotherhood, but allowed those who wanted to go to join the North, including the Starks, for the battle. Of the two dozen who left for the battle, only four came off the battlefield - Anguy and Maud among them.

"I was lucky," Maud explained. "I was sheltered for most of the fight. Anguy was in the first line of archers."

"You said he survived?" Sandor checked.

"He did. But he was shot by one of those bastarding Boltons, in his left shoulder."

"Gangrene," Sandor nodded. He'd seen small wounds take men down if it became gangrenous.

But Maud shook her head. "No. It didn't get the chance. The arrow tore through a nerve, he couldn't feel his arm. He wouldn't be able to hold a bow, hold anything, ever again. The choices were to keep it, and never use it, or amputate."

Amputation gone wrong? Sandor winced at the thought.

"Well, I thought those were the only two choices," Maud said, with a bitter laugh. "The next day I woke up and Anguy wasn't there. We went looking for him and found he'd killed himself. Left a bloody note saying he was an archer, and without that he had nothing. I mean, what was I, chopped liver?"

Maud hung her head, embarrassed. She'd loved Anguy - or she thought she had. She still wore his ring, after all. But he'd left her, without a second thought. And that made her angry and humiliated. She couldn't have been much of a wife if he couldn't live with her - and now Sandor knew. Would he hate her?

Sandor didn't know what to say. He didn't know what he'd do if he lost an arm, or a leg, but if he'd had a wife? He'd have stayed. For her.

He cleared his throat, wanting to change the subject. "So. What does the Brotherhood do for fun?"

Maud smiled shyly, and began to tell tales of wild, drunken nights...

An hour of random chatter passed, both not able to feel their toes but unwilling to give up their time together.

"So what do you see in the fire?" Sandor asked, as Maud explained why she now followed the Lord of Light.

"You," Maud said, with a hint of a smile. "The vision I saw first was you, looking up at a man hanging from a half-built sept. That's why I asked about it the other day."

Sandor nodded slowly. If he hadn't seen something in the flames himself he wouldn't have believed her. As it was - "So you were thinking about me?" He said in a voice that almost sounded teasing.

"I was worried about you," Maud corrected, "Who knew what issues you'd get up to without me to help you?"

Sandor laughed. "Still thinking about me, lass." She punched his arm playfully, and he grabbed her wrist. As she looked into his eyes, he saw a tremor of something. "I thought of you, from time to time," he admitted, enjoying the smile that lit up her face at that. "Thought of what a pain in the ass you were," he couldn't help but add, laughing as she squealed and smacked him again.

He caught her arm again, this time tugging her so instead of sitting beside him, she was sitting across his legs. Her face grew serious, searching, as they both considered the same thing.

And then they were kissing. His coarse beard scraped her face, her teeth clanked against his, but neither cared as they took in each other.

They pulled apart, breathless, and gasped for air for a second. Sandor felt like a drowned man - it had been so long. So long since he'd felt another's touch like this.

For Maud it had been a year - long but not as long as it had been for Sandor. And still, it had felt so different: with Anguy it had been brisk, matter-of-fact. Kissing was just perfunctory, a task. With Sandor, it was deeper. It was hungrier. Only half-thinking, she moved so she was straddling the man where he sat, before placing her mouth on his again.

Gods she felt good as she sat there. Whether deliberate or not, Maud was gently grinding against him as they kissed, and he could feel himself harden at the sensation.

"Careful," he growled, "Keep doing that thing with your hips and I'll take you right here."

Maud's insides melted and she decided there was nothing she wanted more in the world than Sandor inside her, right now. She wanted him to take her, hard, against the wall, to bite his shoulder as he pounded her.

Heart racing, she sent a teasing hand down his chest, before lightly palming his hardness through his trousers. His head tilted back as he groaned and Maud leant in to lick the column of his neck.

"Fuck," Sandor cursed. He was seconds away from turning this tease of a lass round and exacting revenge for this. "You're a bold one," he managed to mutter.

"Aye, she's that," an amused voice interrupted. The pair looked up in shock to see Thoros standing near the tumbledown entrance, a smirk on his face. "We're leaving. Do you two love birds need a minute?"

Maud shot out a few choice terms that Sandor fully agreed with. The mouth on her! She hadn't been that bad when she was in his chambers- the Brotherhood has obviously taught her some new words.

Thoros walked off, cackling with laughter, as Maud slowly got up off Sandor, brushing snow and dirt off her legs.

"Soon," Sandor muttered to her, as he stood up beside her. Her stomach erupted in butterflies.

Author's Note: it's the anniversary of the final episode airing! I was so sad about Sandor (I might have screamed when the Mountain went for his eyes) so thought I'd post something a bit nicer.

Also, I know that the Battle of the Bastards happened very shortly before Sandor joined the Brotherhood, not a year before, but I wanted Maud to have had time to grieve so she could move on...say with a gorgeous tall man with a facial scar?