It's all right inside my head.

The words that I should have said.

And as I drown in my regrets.

I can't take back the words I never said.

"Have you talked to her?"

Roose Bolton basked in the silence of the deaf son across him. The only sound that dappled his ears were the slapping of snow against the semi-leather tent that concealed them. The wind had been unruly by late afternoon they had to start building camp. And all the while he had been stealing glimpses at Ramsay since the portcullis rattled chains and their horses fumbled through. He noticed the imbalance on his son's shoulder, how he tries not to put force on the arm that tethered to it. A wound, father supposed. From where? Ramsay was a boy of delinquent fights. He'd been a subject to broken noses and fits of wounded, purpled eyes growing up with Domeric. Sometimes it intrigued him, most often he didn't care.

He eyed the capon frozen on its gravy in Ramsay's untouched plate. It almost looked like man's flesh within the shadows that filled their space, with a pale light coming from the cracked glass lamp on the corner of the small table. The only thing that roused Ramsay was the chalice on his fingers. He'd almost looked ridiculous in the silence that filled his shell, staring at a void in front of him, with the rim of the goblet between his lips for hours now.

"I supposed not, or if it was so, it didn't went well..." Roose sighed as he washed his mouth with mulled wine and forced a burp, his small eyes squinting almost looked like lines now. The wine was cold as the air around them was freezing too. The wrinkles on his temples creased deeper in the dark. "You've been at that goblet like it had lips against yours."

Now where did that come from? How painful would it be to be denied? Roose was never denied. Only one woman denied him, and had he not forced himself on her, he wouldn't be facing this boy in front of him now. He remembered his pregnant butterball of a wife and for a moment felt worried for her.

Ramsay's mouth pursed and moved the goblet away from his face, his eyes acquainted with indifference but Roose detained the glint of sadness the way his son blinked twice. He wanted to talk the boy out of it, yes, he wanted to. He wanted to know what colors paint the misery in his blue eyes. But he didn't want the customary awkwardness that would fall on him when he'd feel the anger surge in. And well, what else to put both of them off the ugly stillness but their route before reaching Winterfell?

"I suppose you still know your purpose why we're taking the long circuit, Ramsay?" Roose told, "Making an heir isn't your onl—"

"—Crystal clear."

Roose's shoulders fell as his gaze nailed on the face that seemed to bear a century's worth of war. Ramsay still never returned the look, and instead he stood with the goblet still warm between his fingers. Groggily would be the best word to fill him in. He never took his cape from where it lay crumpled over his bow, and Roose felt the huff of ice that blew in his face when his son pulled the tent covers to free him off the space. To piss? To fuck? None of it mattered. Roose wouldn't have minded anyway. He realized that when Ramsay's warmth finally perished.

She tightened the furs around her when the door of the litter creaked and the gush of cold wind breathed in. The fire from the lamp flickered and danced and Sansa watched the shadows displace themselves instead of gazing at the figure that stooped in. Her nose cringed at the smell of ale and she could hear her stomach churn instead. She didn't tip her head to where the shaking of the litter came from, and instead kept staring at the tendrils of ice on the dull window glass. They almost looked like fingers overlapping each other, concealing the darkness that tended the outdoors. When the howling of wind was muffled and the figure that entered the litter settled across her side, she wanted to disappear.

He cleared his throat, and the sound sent a minor jolt on her shoulders. She only wished he hadn't seen it behind the furs that she was heavily wound in. He loved seeing her frighten.

"...Are you not..." Ramsay's voice was deep and almost, Sansa bit her tongue, almost sorrowful. Oh she feels the same. An ache pounded in her stomach, something she pulled out from yesterday morning when he...

"Are you not really going to ask where we are...?"

She swallowed without looking at him. "I know. Deepwood Motte." Stop staring. Stop it. She breathed out, almost trembling but hid it with a movement of her knees being drawn nearer towards her chest. She felt the room vacuumed off air and she fancied clawing out of the litter and be buried in snow instead. In the corner of her eye she saw him wipe his face and heard him inhale sharply. Leave some air for me, you selfish brute.

"I...need to do this first. Then I could take you home."

Oh Ramsay...Sansa closed her eyes. She loved the taste of genuineness sprinkled in his voice she almost wanted to lick it off his throat. The fondness of home had overwhelmed her. Winterfell. But still she couldn't deny the sudden gush of nostalgia that washed over her at the bite of home he let her in when, for the first time immemorial, he had been intimate with her. Intimate...as in lemon-cake-at-home-intimate. Her childish soul had taken over her again, and why not...it had been a million years ago when that childish soul waved goodbye but has detoured to her. But she had to contain it nonetheless. This is a dangerous feeling. He's playing with you, Sansa. He'll bait your trust and sooner will lock you in a dungeon for the rest of your miserable life. She shuddered. "Do what, exactly?"

Sansa didn't want to, but she did as if her eyes automated themselves to clutch a split-second sight of him and oh gods, the sparkle on his lips caused heat around her neck and she swiftly stole the glance away. He burst in a quick exhale and she heard him crack his fingers, trying to answer in the best possible state.

"This Lord Glover, he..."

She materialized the sigil. Silver fist glove on scarlet. A house sworn to Winterfell. Lord Robett and Sybelle Glover. What happened now? Ah yes, over that dinner with the lesser lords, she recalled them mumbling over his incredulity and scepticism towards the Boltons taking over the North. She swallowed.

"My father..." Ramsay continued, cutting off her thoughts. "He wanted to have that gloved fist smacked on their throats."

An execution. Sansa quickly stiffened and her skin turned into a mat of ice. Winter has befell on her heart and the ashes quickly recovered the Sept of Baelor, the sticky drops of red on Illyn Payne's sword, the riot and the joy in Joffrey's sadistic smile. When the first fill of tears threatened her eyes she clenched her teeth and breathed in sharply. "Why?"

She grasped the stunned aura of Ramsay at her question. She sounded more like a knight than a lady this time and for that he was taken back.

"They're the only house left who hasn't recognized our power. What do you expect?"

"They're sworn to Winterfell."

"They're sworn to the Star—"

She pinned him the look of angry approval. "Yes, Ramsay. They are. And you go over killing those who have the stiffest knees and questioning a loyalty that you should be impressed about and go courting instead."

Several seconds of gauche silence reigned over. Sansa was every inch the queen she was groomed, and even she was beginning to be afraid of herself. She looked at Ramsay Bolton, the man who had been stealing bits and pieces of her sanity through her body parts, and recognized the ill discomfort of himself on such a stature. The man is a brute, and a rapist yes, but he isn't stupid. Back in Dreadfort she heard him often on discussions of attack tactics. She sees him running fingers on the map and plotting points over mulled wine. He is a bastard, but he can be a king, with the right manipulations...and affection.

"What better way would you suggest, then?" He finally sought her. Now he's talking. She looked far through the snow-dirtied glass window and for a time the blood of her Father coursed through her. Better be loved. She recalled Father's words. Better be loved than feared.

"Forgive."

The wind whispered malady outside and she could hear it clearly. It wasn't a word that the Boltons are accustomed to. It wasn't an act that enlists in their sigil. For years and years Dreadfort had been a home of unforgiveness. Would Ramsay be the first to break tradition? Sansa closed her eyes and in a fill of surrender, she wished he would be. Her husband. Her forgiving husband. A forgiving Bolton.

And yet her hopes melted like snow in summer when she heard his sarcastic chuckle. The same sound from his throat whenever she whimpered and pleaded for him to stop at nights he was too drunk to slow himself down.

"And what would I have from that, eh? They'd think me a fool for loosening the noose around a traitor's neck."

Her mind flared. "A traitor? You call a house loyal to Winterfell, a traitor? Oh Ramsay." She looked at him, grasped the sight of him swathed in pale light and his blue eyes almost greying. "Beware the friends you made so easy...those houses that had the softest knees have the softest bend of loyalty. Forgive. You will be surprised how it turns out good for you." And with that she moved her sight away again, disheartened and melancholic. A soft sad queen who, at a dire moment, ached for his trust...and arms.

Sansa closed her eyes and felt the litter shake as she envisioned him leaving. She heard the door squeak and close, and left a void of want deep within her soul.

Bastard.

A/N: What else to say but Sorry? It were truly death-defying months that passed. I am hopeful the loads will be lighter this time. Thank you for the encouragements. I've posted two chapters today. Valar morgulis.