And so he marries Sansa Stark less than a week later, in front of the weirwood tree in the godswood.
The ceremony is small and pulled together as quickly as Sansa can arrange it; the maester and a few of her ladies and her brother, sitting silently at the back like he always does. Just enough people that no one can question the truth of it happening, although it's over so fast that afterwards, Sandor isn't sure even he could attest to what happened. As he sits beside her at the feast later, he wonders if he imagined the whole thing. Wouldn't be able to say one way or the other, if the ground hadn't left dirt stains on his knees from where they knelt and spoke their vows.
Sansa's dress is stained too from the dirt, but she doesn't seem to have noticed, fingers tracing absentmindedly over the trim on her bride's cloak as she looks out over the small group gathered at the tables beneath them. Mostly servants and guardsmen, the blacksmith and his family. Not a noble in sight other than Sansa and Bran and himself, he supposes, although that hardly counts.
"Not the wedding feast the little bird would've picked for herself, I imagine," he says flatly. He feels an overwhelming urge to be cruel to her to stave off any other emotions that might want to fight their way to the surface. The memory of her voice forming around the words ' I am his', and the way she looked at him when she said it, is too fresh for comfort.
She looks at him the same way now; slow and thoughtful and with something dancing just beneath the surface of her eyes. "That depends. Is it the wedding feast the Hound would pick for himself?"
He tries not to stare at her. Tries not to think about how this is infinitely better than anything he would've picked for himself.
"The Hound would prefer to be drinking alone in his room." To prove the point, he finishes his cup of wine. Sansa just laughs.
"Have you been to a northern wedding before?"
He shakes his head. "It was short. That's one thing you northerners got right, at least."
"I imagine they couldn't be much longer or in winter half the guests might freeze to death." Light flickers across her face as she smiles. She looks the same as she's looked every day since he arrived at Winterfell, and yet she still looks different: more beautiful than he remembers her being before. Perhaps that's what it feels like to look at a woman who has professed to be his until the end of days. "We're lucky it didn't snow. Snow's a bad omen at weddings. Means the marriage bed will be cold."
He chokes on his wine. Glances at her and that glint in her eyes is brighter, like she knows exactly what she's said and is enjoying making him squirm. He sits in sullen silence for the rest of the feast.
He loses count of how many more cups of wine he downs before the tables start to empty and Sansa gently takes his hand to lead him upstairs to her room. Their room. He scoffs at the thought.
She made it clear to him a few days earlier that consummation of the union was one aspect that was not optional.
"There can't be any room to contest the validity of the marriage. I'm sorry," she had said, as if he was the one who might be unhappy at the prospect of having to bed her. Had even said haltingly that if that changed his mind, she would understand. He had waved her off at the time, but standing alone with her only a few feet from the bed, he wishes he had given changing his mind a little more thought.
Sansa looks as nervous as he's seen her as she removes her bride cloak, hanging it over the back of one of the chairs. The black embroidered hound's head stares at him from where it hangs, snarling at him for even thinking of doing what he's about to do to her. He wonders again if perhaps he's dreaming this entire thing.
"You'll need to help me with the laces." Sansa gestures to her gown. It's much simpler than the dresses he thinks Sansa would've wanted to be married in. Something one of her ladies bought from a seamstress in the winter town at the last minute, more pale grey than white, and with a few flowers embroidered on the sleeves as the only embellishment.
No doubt Joff would've had her in some gold and red monstrosity if she'd ever had the misfortune of actually marrying that cunt. Probably would've looked beautiful in it too, same way she no doubt looked when she married the Bolton bastard. But he's glad her dress is simple. Glad their wedding was short and attended by a maid and a fucking blacksmith. It makes it their own in a way something grander wouldn't have been.
"Come here, then." His voice is gruff. It's nerves, like some pathetic green boy, and he wishes he had more wine to quell them.
He makes quick work of the laces, even though he wants to let his fingers linger. To draw in the warmth of her skin and dwell in the way that she shivers, almost involuntarily, when his finger strokes along the bare skin of her shoulder.
She smells like lemon and wine and that elusive, soft scent of woman that he's never been able to describe. He thinks about burying his face in her neck. Wonders if she'd mind that, given she's his wife now, but at the last second thinks better of it.
Sansa takes her own shift off, barely even looking at him. He's barely looking at her either. Unsure where to place his eyes, or where he's allowed to look. At the soft flare of her hips, or the rounded weight of her breasts, or the thatch of auburn curls between her legs. Every part of it's more beautiful than he managed to come up with in his imaginings. In the end, though, his eyes settle on the scars that crisscross their way across her thighs, still angry and red even though they're years old. A remnant of her old marriage that will make its way into their marriage bed despite both of their wishes.
He looks away quick enough, but not before Sansa sees him looking. He worries that she'll turn away to try and hide herself, but she doesn't, looking back at him with something like a challenge in her eyes.
"You don't like scars, my lord?"
A laugh tears itself from his lips, unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome. It shatters some of the frosty awkwardness that's settled between them. "Any more jokes from you, girl, and you'll be funnier than your own court fool."
He's quick in removing his own clothes too, Sansa's eyes following closely. She's silent as she watches, standing there bare as her name day and he's already hard just from looking at her. Knows she sees it, too, from the way her eyes linger as his hands unbuckle his belt. Wonders if it disgusts her, although she doesn't look disgusted.
When he's down to just his trousers, she turns away, moving over to the bed. Sansa moves like some kind of apparition, delicate and floating, pale skin catching the moonlight that spills in through her eastern window. Then she kneels on the bed, leaning forward so she's on all fours, and his hands falter, heart lurching up into his throat. The sight has him rock hard straight away, the girl presenting herself to him like that, his for the taking. It's fucking obscene, even though he's seen it hundreds of times before. It's how he fucked the redheaded whore in the winter town, before he got his wits about him enough to stop doing that. It's not how he planned on fucking his wife for the first – and maybe only – time, though.
"What are you doing?"
Sansa sits back up. There's a flush colouring her cheeks, uncertainty writ large across her too pretty face. "What do you mean?"
"Just because I'm an old dog, doesn't mean I'm going to fuck you like one."
"I didn't know there was a different way. This was always how..."
She doesn't say the boy's name, and Sandor says a prayer of thanks to the Maiden for that. It might be the only thing that lets him keep the rage that bubbles up in his chest from spilling out. He wants to kill that bastard. To resurrect him from the bloody, messy grave she put him in just to do it to him all over again. It's an anger he hasn't felt in a long time, and he could happily dwell there for hours, turning the different things he would do to that boy over and over in his mind, except that Sansa Stark is still naked on the bed in front of him, looking at him with more and more worry on her face with each silent second that passes, and there are plenty of things he wants to do to her that are much more pressing. That's what he should be thinking about.
"Turn around, girl." His voice is tight, and he tries to relax. "On your back."
Sansa lies on her back, legs open just enough that he can see the curls between them and any thoughts of the Bolton bastard disappear quickly enough after that, in favour of wondering what it would taste like if he buried his face there. In his dreams, it's always been the sweetest thing he's tasted in his life.
She stiffens as he settles in between her legs, nerves radiating off her. Like she's a maiden on her wedding night, and even though it is her wedding night, Sansa's no maiden, so the nervousness confuses him.
He kneels back for a moment, looking down at her, trying to unpick the curious expression on her face. Is it revulsion? Is that why her fingers are gripping at the bed sheet, knuckles turning white? "We don't have to do this, you know? Just say we did and none of those cunts will know the difference."
"We'd know."
"What does that matter? I've drunk so much, I doubt I'm going to remember it even if we do." It was meant to be comforting, but Sansa doesn't look amused like he thought she would.
"I want to do it." She swallows. "Just should've had more wine for the pain."
He frowns. "It's hardly your first time."
"There's always pain," she says back. Not afraid, so much as wary.
That anger flares back up, coupled with something else this time. Sadness. It hits him full in the chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. He's imagined fucking Sansa Stark one million times, in one million different ways. None of them had involved him being breathless for this reason. He wants to reach a hand down and cup her cheek. To do something tender that can remind both of them that there's softness in the world, sometimes. But his hands aren't soft, like the lordlings Sansa no doubt wants to imagine he is. He settles for words instead, although he's never been good at making those soft either.
"No, there's not, girl. Not if you do it right."
Sansa chews her lip. "You know how to do it like that? Right?"
He snorts. "Aye, well enough."
"Show me?"
So he does. And he's worried he might have oversold himself, but after the second time Sansa comes around his fingers, gasping a word that sounds almost like his name as it happens, he's pretty sure he's done it right. When he pushes into her finally, her moan isn't one of pain at all.
She has the Maester write to all the Lords of the Seven Kingdoms announcing the marriage before the bed is even cold. She writes the letter to Jon herself, though, humming a tune he doesn't recognise as she does it.
"Won't be humming so prettily when the Dragon Queen flies up here to burn us to death for you insulting her guard dog," he points out, but even that isn't enough to break Sansa's triumph.
"I told him we were so madly in love there was no other choice. He can hardly be too angry, given love was a good enough reason for him to bend the knee."
But they were actually in love. He rolls the words around at the back of his throat, stopping them before they come out. He hasn't seen Sansa smile so much since she was a child and he knows saying that would ruin it, without really knowing why.
He's not the only one to notice her improved mood. He hears a few of the kitchen maids gossiping about it a few days later.
"Always knew she'd warm right up once she got a man. Even one with a face like that."
"Must know what he's doing. Roslin said you can hear her from the other side of the castle some nights."
It was unearned praise; he hadn't been back to Sansa's bed since their first night together.
In a moment of weakness on their second night of marriage, he had thought about it. Had been poised at his door, with a hand ready to open it. Had almost succeeded in convincing himself that the first night between them had been something more than duty; that maybe she had actually enjoyed it. But then he had remembered her words: nothing needs to change between us. Imagined the look on her face when he turned up at her door, expecting to fuck her, when all she wanted to do was sleep. Perhaps she would laugh at him. Or worse, perhaps it would prove that all her worst imaginings of men were completely right; that even her trusty Hound, who she had married precisely because he wouldn't try and claim a place in her bed, had gone half-mad after a single taste of her.
He'd spent himself in his hand that night instead, the smell of her still lingering on his fingers. Then he had put the thought of ever returning to her bed firmly to the back of his mind.
Uncharacteristically, Sansa is wrong about one thing: some things, at least, do need to change between them now they are man and wife.
He's not allowed to guard her for one. Not officially, at least. For a while, he follows her around anyway, the same way he's grown used to doing, but unofficial guard duty feels ridiculous. Like he's a lost puppy, sniffing along behind his master. She never says as much, not seeming bothered in the slightest by his presence, but it's only a couple of days before he gives it up in favour of turning his attentions to drinking the Winterfell cellars dry.
He spars with the guardsmen sometimes, but even that's not the same as it was. All of them scared if they hit him too hard, he might have their heads removed from their shoulders, or something equally as stupid. As if he couldn't have done that just fine before becoming the Lord of Winterfell. Even the thought of that title still makes him laugh.
"Should have never let you talk me into this fucking marriage," he says to her that night, as they take their evening meal together in her rooms – yet another thing that's changed.
Sansa's face crumples. He hadn't thought anything he could do anymore could actually hurt the girl, and guilt rises up sharply when he realises he was wrong about that. That on this point, at least, there's a crack in her icy armour. He spits the next words out quicker than he intended to, eager to fix whatever he's just broken, despite his better instincts.
"Not allowed to guard you. Not meant to fight with the men, can't take watch on the gates. I'm about as useless as the cripple thanks to you."
Thankfully, the words are enough for the frown to slide part of the way off her face. "I'm sure we could find you other things to do. My father always had plenty to keep him busy. Gods forbid, if you're truly desperate you could consider spending some time with your wife."
Hearing her refer to herself as his wife still makes his heart falter. He doubts that will ever change. He takes a bite of his bread more viciously than is necessary. "What would you call this?"
"A start, I suppose. Some people make conversation over dinner."
"Didn't realise you were expecting witty small talk out of the arrangement, too."
The frown is gone now, replaced with a gentle mocking. "I wouldn't say I expected it to be witty."
He snorts at the same time as a smile stretches its way over Sansa's full lips.
He had still never kissed those lips. Not during their strange, northern ceremony, which didn't call for kissing, and not afterwards, in their marriage bed, either. He'd come damn close, buried deep inside her with his forehead pressed to hers, close enough that he could practically taste the wine in her mouth, could feel her moans brushing against his cheek. Gods, had he thought about it then. But her comfort in that bed had been hard won, and there had been no point ruining it just to get a taste of her on his lips. And kissing her would've ruined it, he had no doubt. Consummation, she had said, was not optional. Kissing was. And optional, in their marriage, meant off the table.
But looking at her now, he thinks of it again.
Sandor's never had a wife before, but if he had – if she had been a wife in truth, not just one on paper like Sansa – he imagines this would be the moment when he would put his knife down, pull her out of her chair and kiss her. Wouldn't even bother carrying her to the bed either; he'd push her skirts up and take her right on the table. She'd been so wet the first time he fucked her. Would it be like that again?
He realises abruptly that he's been staring at her. No doubt, his thoughts are writ bold across his face, because Sansa's cheeks are flushed as she looks back at him. She's biting that lip, and he's already half hard because of it.
He looks down faster than he's ever looked anywhere. Wonders not for the first time how he let her talk him into a situation where the one thing he wants is dangled just close enough to make it impossible for him to forget that he wants it, but not close enough that he can have it.
Sandor makes a mumbled excuse to leave as soon as he can.
"You don't need to rush away," she says, still chewing on her lip.
It's all he can do to bite out a sharp, "Good night, little bird," before beating his retreat.
There haven't been hounds at Winterfell since the Starks reclaimed it. It's the first task Sansa sets for him in her attempt to keep him occupied, not that the steward says as much when he comes to ask for Sandor to accompany him to a nearby farm where a litter of pups has just been birthed.
"The lady says you have some expertise on the matter, my lord. I thought you might be better placed than myself to pick out a few strong pups."
It's hardly lord's work, riding to the winter town to look at dogs, but he enjoys it all the same. Takes his time looking over each of the mutts at the farmhouse the man takes him to, inspecting their teeth and their hind legs the same way his father used to do when he was a child.
Sansa finds him in the kennels as he unloads the two pups they've bought back with them.
"They look almost sweet when they're small like that."
"I'll start training them soon." He tosses the fresh sheep bone he fetched from the kitchens onto the ground for the pups to gnaw on. Sharp teeth sink into scraps of meat on the bone with a wet sound, blood smearing across the smaller hound's nose. "Won't be sweet for long."
She makes a soft noise, which he mistakes for disappointment for a moment. When he looks at her, though, she looks pleased. With herself, no doubt, for finding a way to stop his complaining.
"Wouldn't have thought you'd want hounds here again." She only speaks of Ramsay in fragments, but she's told him enough for him to piece together an ugly picture. Knows barking of dogs must be one of the sounds that plagues her in her nightmares, although those seem to be fewer and much further between these days.
Sansa just smiles, though. "I've never had a problem with hounds."
After that his days at Winterfell take on a new routine. Different from before, but just as good. Better, perhaps, if he dares to let himself think it.
He trains the hounds most days, journeying to the winter town or to the farms on the outskirts of the Wolfswood every so often to look for additions to the pack. Takes meals with the men sometimes, drinking more than he should. Other times, he eats with her, and grows better and better at not thinking on how soft her lips look pressed against a goblet of wine.
Every so often, he finds himself standing on the ramparts with her there too, side by side watching life move by them. Some days she stands so close her arm brushes his and she fills the crisp air with talk of one thing or another. Some days, the cold seems to overtake her and she stands a little apart, wrapped in furs and silent but seemingly in need of the company. Those cold days grow rarer as time drifts onwards.
It's not the marriage he thinks either of them imagined having. He still has never kissed her. They still haven't coupled again as man and wife after that first night. And although he can't pretend the want for that never crosses his mind, it's the companionship that he really craves from her. The thought is equal parts calming and terrifying to him.
Sandor knows terror. Knows things dark and ugly and painful. Knows that the times between, when there's no pain, are just holding patterns while you wait for the next painful thing to come along. He's never let himself sit in one of those holding patterns long enough to get comfortable with it, until now. Now he sits alone in his room at night and tries to remember all the ugly things from before, and sometimes he can't. And the further away they get, the more he worries that when they finally do come back, he won't survive it.
The feast is her Maester's suggestion. To celebrate the arrival of summer in the North, he says, but really it's some pathetic attempt to appease the northern lords, who haven't taken too kindly to not receiving an invitation to Lady Stark's recent wedding.
"Tell them I pumped a babe in you by accident and we had to wed before you pushed out a bastard. Surely that'd appease them well enough." Bringing up bedding her is a mistake. It drags up thoughts in him he's been trying to push down. If it brings up the same thoughts in her mind, the slight downwards twist of her mouth is the only sign.
Like he knew she would, Sansa sees through the gruffness in his voice easily enough. "They won't stay long. It'll only be a few nights, then you can be back with your dogs and it will be like they were never here."
The words stir up a thought that hadn't even occurred to him before. "Suppose you'll want to put on a proper show for them, then? Can't have your lord husband spending more time with the hounds than his wife."
"It would help, given the purpose of our wedding, if we did seem to be happily married." Her face is even more apologetic than her words.
"Seem to be? You're saying you're not happily married to me, girl?" It's exactly what she's saying, but he's in a particularly cruel mood to call her out on it.
Sansa doesn't rise to the bait. "It will rather confuse Maester Dargood's assertion in his letters that we wed for love if we aren't sharing a bed. The northern lords may not be a match for Littlefinger in their political maneuverings, but even they'll notice something like that. I'd prefer not to give them any cause to whisper about the marriage."
"They'll be whispering about the marriage either way," he says, but they're empty words. She's barely asked for anything since they were wed, this one's an easy enough one to give her, even if sleeping so close to her and not touching her might drive him mad.
Sansa puts her hand on top of his own. It's gentle, even though her eyes are firm. "Then I'd prefer they whisper the right things."
He thinks back on the maids he heard in the kitchen. Thinks of Sansa's bannermen muttering about him bedding her in the same way, although he doubts any of them will have anything nearly so complimentary to say. The lords won't like the thought of a dog bedding their Lady Stark any more than the Lady Stark likes the idea herself. And unlike her, they'll no doubt have no concerns with voicing it. He hardly needs to tell her that, though.
"So we're agreed?"
He finishes his wine, which she takes as approval whether he meant it that way or not. "Don't think for a fucking second I'll be dancing with you at this feast."
Her mouth twists into a wry smile. "I imagine I'd have a better chance of talking Bran into that, husband."
His things are moved into her room silently and without any fuss the day before the first of her lords arrive. As if they've always been there. He doesn't fit nearly so comfortably into his new role.
He's been in the great hall with her more times than he can count, but there seems to be an insurmountable difference between standing behind her chair and sitting beside her. Eyes are on him in a way they never have been when he stands guard over her, or when he trains the hounds in the kennels. It makes his skin itch; makes him want to slide beneath the table and crawl out of the room.
Surprisingly, it's the stony glares from each northman who arrives that makes the experience almost tolerable. Being hated, at least, is something he knows how to do well, and there's no shortage of hate for him amongst their guests.
"Thought that letter was in jest," Lord Glover says when he arrives and sees the two of them seated at the front of the room.
Sansa takes the words unflinchingly, like she does everything. "Did you think our letters requesting aid in the Great War were in jest too, my lord? That would explain much."
"Didn't expect you to marry another Lannister man, my lady," the little Lyanna Mormont says pointedly, staring at him with a scowl on her homely face.
"My husband is as much a Stark man as any northman, Lady Mormont. I had expected the lady might be pleased to finally have a northern lord who comes some way towards rivalling her own ferocity."
"Does he?" The girl's eyes take him in frostily, narrowing when he snorts at the ridiculousness of being sized up by a child. Sansa's fingers tighten almost imperceptibly on her chair, and despite himself he swallows down the retort that had been forming on the tip of his tongue. He wonders if Sansa knows how much he holds his tongue now on her behalf.
The Umber boy doesn't have anything rude to say, even if the congratulations that he offers sits awkwardly in his mouth. When he mumbles a "my lord," to Sandor, the boy barely dares a glance at him and Sandor thinks again how terrible a husband this soft boy would've been for the hardened woman beside him.
Tormund arrives last, well after the hall has emptied of people so it can be readied for the feast the next night. He finds them in the courtyard and, unlike the others, offers no words aside from hearty laughter at the sight of them. Although Sandor glares at him, he can hardly blame the wildling.
"So this is why you wanted to come north, Hound." His eyes flick to Sansa. "You don't look anywhere near as fat as my women did when they were pregnant. Swelled up like great mammoths, each one of them."
"Easily explained by the fact that I'm not with child, I imagine, my lord."
"Why did you marry this ugly son of a whore, then?"
It's a perfectly reasonable question. Too reasonable. Perhaps that's why it irritates him more than all the frosty pleasantries that have been thrown their way. "Just because no woman would be fool enough to marry a ginger cunt like you."
The wildling's laugh at that is twice as loud as before, echoing off the stone walls and up into the quickly darkening air. "Men who marry are the real fools, my friend. Who wants to bed one woman for the rest of their life?"
He feels the unscarred side of his mouth twist downwards, without really meaning it to. Being fool enough to agree to only bed one woman was one thing, let alone agreeing to bed no women. That seems to be the arrangement he's signed himself up for. Sansa is looking at him when he chances a glance at her.
"That wasn't so terrible, was it?" Sansa asks as she lies beside him in bed that night.
She's worn a paper-thin shift to bed, and he spent twice as long as he needed to fiddling with the ties on his boots to avoid having to look at her until she was safely tucked away under the covers. Even then, there's no escaping the soft scent of her lingering in the air around him, or the memory of exactly what he was doing to her last time they were in this bed together.
He had never fucked anyone gently before that first night with Sansa. Even then, gentle probably isn't the right word for what he did to her; scarred flesh pressed against her throat, his teeth sinking into her shoulder as he finished to avoid grunting out her name. But it was as gentle as he knew how to be, and she hadn't seemed to mind it too much.
He casts the thoughts out quickly, before Sansa catches the look on his face once more and decides to throw him out of the bed entirely.
"You didn't mind the wildling calling you fat, then? And that stony little bitch implying you were a traitor to the north?"
"I've had worse." Sansa's lips quirk up at the edge. "Besides, he didn't call me fat. If I recall correctly, he specifically said I wasn't as fat as his children's mothers. How many children do you think that is, anyway?"
"Never asked him. I'd say there's probably tiny ginger giant-killers scurrying all over the place north of the wall. As if anyone needed more reason to avoid that place like the plague."
"Kissed by fire."
"What?"
In the dim light, he can't tell if her cheeks are flushing slightly or if it's just a shadow. "Jon told me that's what they call people with red hair north of the wall. Kissed by fire. They say we're lucky."
He thinks of the sight of her descending the steps from the keep down to the courtyard at dawn. Of the way the light had caught the red in her hair just right, and how he had wondered if he would ever see anything more beautiful in his life. It's the only time in his life he's seen something the reminded him of flames and didn't hate it. It's a good name for you, he wants to tell her. Good, but not good enough. Instead, he lies down and closes his eyes.
"Can't be too lucky, or you'd be married to one of the pretty little Tyrells, telling him about how lucky you are while he feeds you lemon cakes, 'stead of being stuck here with me."
"No," Sansa says softly in reply. He doesn't know if she's agreeing with him or not.
The dress Sansa wears to the feast is the grand dress she might have worn to her wedding, if she had had more time to prepare, and if she wasn't marrying him. Snow white and covered in silver embroidery, with a square neckline that lets the top of her breasts peak over. When he comes to her room to collect her, the sight of her knocks the wind out of him. Not for the first time, he wonders if this entire marriage is a dream. If maybe he died in the great war, and everything since then has just been his own imaginings. It's the only thing that would explain his wife looking like this.
He's paused too long, because Sansa raises an eyebrow. "Too late to have second thoughts about the feast now, my lord."
"Only thing I'm having second thoughts about is going down there with you looking like that. Someone at this stupid feast you're trying to impress, girl?"
Sansa's mouth twists into a wry grin. "'You look nice, wife.'"
"What?"
"That's what most husbands would say, when their wife has spent the whole afternoon getting ready."
He holds his arm out, for something to do other than scowling at her words. He jerks his head at her sharply, beckoning her closer. "Can we go and get this fucking thing over and done with?"
She accepts the arm without any protest, letting him walk her down the steps to the great hall in silence. It's only when they're standing outside the great hall, about to walk in that he thinks to speak.
"You do."
"I do what?"
"Look nice." he grits out, ignoring the heat that wants to rise in his cheeks. He's almost grateful that the scarring hides any more human reaction from view.
He knows he shouldn't look at Sansa after he says the words. Knows she'll be laughing, and he doesn't need to see it. But he looks anyway, maybe because he likes to cause himself pain. Sure enough, she is laughing, but it's not cruel. It's a happy laugh that has made its way all the way up into her eyes. Eyes that are fixed on him as her fingers tighten against his tunic sleeve for a brief moment. "I'm pleased you think so, since it was you I was trying to impress."
The guards pull the doors open before he can decide if she's joking.
The feast is every bit as painful as he expects it to be, forced to sit between her and the Karstark girl for hours while the northern lords talk about crop storage for the next winter and whether the wall should be rebuilt and one hundred other things he couldn't give a shit about. He lets Sansa handle any questions that are thrown their way about the wedding, which are blessedly few and far between, since most of the northmen seem like they'd prefer to pretend he doesn't exist. He's more than happy to return that favour, refusing to speak to anyone except the serving girl who's spent the evening bringing him wine.
Sansa is back to her old frosty self, quipping out pleasantries and small talk in a voice that's all courtesy and no warmth. He sees it so rarely now he'd almost forgotten what it looked like. How much he hated it.
But then at one point, she rests her hand on his arm, on top of the table where everyone can see. He has to stop himself from clenching his hand into a fist when she does it, ignoring the way his stomach turns over at her touch like some blushing maid. No one except him even seems to notice it, and he forces himself to look away quickly. As though this is something normal that Sansa does all the time.
Even when she takes her hand away a few minutes later, the heat lingers. And despite the ice that's been in her stare all night, that same heat is there in her eyes too, when they flick back to him. The air stretches taut for a moment in a way it hasn't since they stood in the bed chamber together on their wedding night. The tension doesn't release when she looks away with her icy smile slipping back into place as one of the lords stands up, holding an arm out to her.
"Would my lady honour me with a dance? If his lordship doesn't mind, of course."
He doesn't even remember the name of the lord who's asked. Some small, frog-looking old man. There's no denying they're an ugly bunch, these northerners. Maybe Sansa really is lucky, after all; lucky enough to take after her Tully mother.
"It would be my pleasure, Lord Reed. You don't mind, do you husband?" She touches him again when she asks, lingering a second longer than she needs to. Whatever the thing is that's hovering between them, it stretches tighter.
He nods, unsure what his voice will do if he tries to use it. He's silently grateful when Tormund fills her seat after she's gone, bringing with him two more flagons of wine and a slurred observation that this feast doesn't have nearly enough whores at it for his liking.
Sansa's eyes find him again and again, as she's whisked around the floor by one man after another. He had imagined seeing other men touch her would anger him, but there's something in her look when she catches his eye. Something soft and private and only for his eyes, that makes him not give a shit if Lord Reed or Lord Cerwyn or whatever other fucking lords there are want to dance with her. That look, at least, is all his.
It's late and he's moved down to sit with the wildlings when she finally appears by his side. She gave up the dancing a while ago to sit with Lord Reed and her brother and a girl with the dark, northern hair he's come to expect from people in this place. For a while, speaking with them, she almost looked as soft as she looks in private. But they've all disappeared now, as has anyone who's not roaring drunk.
"I'm afraid all the dancing has exhausted me, husband." Loose strands of hair hang about her face and her cheeks are slightly flushed, if not from the dancing, then from all the wine he saw her consume after it. "I'll see you in our chambers when you're done here?"
He knows what he should do. Should get up and leave this table of ugly, drunk men, and go with her upstairs. But that tension is still stretched between them, and he's drunk too much wine to be sure he's going to be able to keep the want off his face tonight, or to be sure what she'll do if she sees it there. So instead, he just nods. "Aye."
Sansa leans down and kisses him on the cheek. For a second, the delicious smell of her covers the stench of wine and sweat and piss that clings to the men around them. It's gone as quickly as she is, but the feel of her lips on his cheek lingers long after.
He sits drinking with the wildlings for another hour or two after she leaves, even though his mind is only half on the conversation. The other half is replaying the feel of her lips on his cheek and her hand on his arm and the weight of her eyes on him as she danced with other men. It's wondering if that meant anything more than he's been letting himself think it meant for the last few months.
"You're even worse company than usual." Tormund pushes a full flagon of wine over to him. He doesn't take it. If he drinks any more he's not going to be able to walk up to his room, and as tempting as the idea of passing out in the great hall and avoiding a night of not staring at Sansa is, he knows she'll be upset if he does it. Hell, she had come over to him specifically to make sure he wasn't going to do just that.
"You're just as bad company as always."
"Any man would seem like bad company when you've got a woman like that waiting for you in your bed. Don't know why you're still here. If I were you and that was my wife, I'd - "
"If I were you," he says slowly, fingers clenching around his cup too tightly, "I wouldn't finish that thought."
Tormund just chuckles as Sandor pushes to his feet and leaves the room. He half hopes Sansa's asleep so he doesn't have to worry about whether he's drunk too much wine to keep the heat out of his gaze when he looks at her. He doesn't know what the other half of him is hoping.
But Sansa's still awake when he enters the bedroom, sitting up, auburn braid curled loosely over her shoulder. She looks at him when as he shuts the door behind him.
"Don't you sleep, woman?" He tugs his tunic off, followed quickly by his belt. It clatters loudly on the stone.
"I was waiting for you."
He chuckles. "Are you my nursemaid now, too?"
But any more laughter dies on his lips, because Sansa is watching him undress and there's something on her face that he might think he recognised as want, if that didn't seem so ridiculous.
"You gonna keep staring at me like that, girl?" He pulls his shirt over his head. Sure enough, she's still staring.
"Do you mind it?" She keeps watching him, but her voice is tense. She would look away if he asks her to, he thinks, but he doesn't want to ask it. Doesn't want her to look away. Instead, he just shrugs and when he settles into bed beside her this time, that same thing that's been stretching tight through the air between them is back again.
"Thank you for doing that for me tonight."
"I'd do much worse than that for you, girl."
They must both be drunk, because Sansa puts a hand on his chest and says, with fear in her voice but heat in her eyes, "What you did on our wedding night... I think about it every night."
It probably speaks more to her lack of experience than any particular skill on his part, but still the words make heat rise sharply in his gut. He wants to snap something back at her, but all he can manage out of his constricting throat is a rough, "Is that right?"
"Will you do it again?" She pauses, fingers tightening a little in fabric of his shirt, the uncertainty in her eyes flaring for a moment. "I mean, do you want to do it again?"
He could laugh at the absurdity of those words. Can't decide whether it's more ridiculous that Sansa is asking him to touch her, or that she seems to think he might not want to. But he's not in a laughing mood. Not in the mood for anything, except sliding a hand under the covers to pull her legs apart and push her shift up out of the way, so that's exactly what he does.
She gives a small whimper, and he pauses, thinking for a second he's done something wrong. Something to scare her back into her shell. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Her hand comes up to push a loose strand of hair back off her face, her lips pulling into a nervous smile. "It's good. I'm happy."
His fingers find her entrance and it's not long before she's panting again, gripping at his arm and at the sheets, back arched up off the bed.
"Can I kiss you?" The words are an exhaled whisper, so soft he could probably just pretend he hasn't heard her. But he wants to be selfish now. He nods, leaning over her to press his mouth to hers. Her lips are open, breath nothing more than hot, short gasps, permeated by unintelligible whispers. He only means to kiss her lightly, but her hand wraps around the back of his head, pulling him in and the taste of her has him too desperate for more to stop himself from letting his tongue run over her tongue and her teeth and her lips. Kissing her like she's the only air in the room and he's suffocating. She kisses him back that same way, fingers clutching at him like he might slip away if she doesn't hold tight enough.
She finishes quick and hard, moaning out his name as she does. He swallows that sound down into himself as he kisses her; lets its wrap around his lungs and squeeze the air out, replacing it with something so raw and gaping that he doesn't know if he'll ever breathe again without thinking of her.
It's another few seconds before she catches her breath. He's still catching his when her hands grip his arms, trying to pull him on top of her.
"Don't have to do that," he mutters, even though he's rock hard and desperate to feel the wetness that's covering his fingers around his cock. To get so close to her that he can't tell where she stops and he starts.
"What do you mean?" She stops pulling. "You don't want to?"
He doesn't have any games left in him tonight. "Course I fucking want to. Hardly think about anything else."
"I told you," she says softly, pulling on him again and this time he lets her roll him over so he's settled between her legs, "Neither do I."
They're both still half-dressed and it takes a few seconds for them to fumble their way out of the rest of their clothes. Her soft hand tucks his hair behind his ear as he pushes inside her for the second time, immediately lost at the slick feel of her around him.
"My husband," she murmurs, almost to herself, the same way he's heard her whisper her prayers to the seven. Almost as though she's reminding herself.
My wife. He thinks it viciously, possessiveness coiled tight through his body. He kisses her instead of saying it, moving inside her. There are no more words after that, except for the moans and muttered curses that melt into the hot air around them. And if he thinks, while he spills his seed inside her, that he loves Sansa Stark, he doesn't say those words either.
He takes her again in the morning, after he wakes to find her wriggling her hips back against his. Pulling her tighter back against him so she can feel how hard he is, how much he wants her, before he mutters in her hair, "You want it?"
The rustle of her hair tells him she's nodding. "I want everything from you, if you want to give it."
He decides as its happening that he will only ever fuck Sansa Stark like this from now on; with her on top of him so he can see her breasts moving in time with the roll of her hips, her hair spilling over her shoulder, the light flickering across her face as she pants. Even after they're done, she stays there for a while, lying on his chest, face tucked into the scarred side of his neck like she doesn't even notice it.
It's the memory of that morning that sustains him through the painful hours farewelling her lords and ladies. That, and the way that every so often she'll look at him, and even though her face is cold, he can see the hunger in her eyes. It's all he's got in him not to drag her out of the hall and take her in the nearest empty room, when she looks at him like that.
He's expected to feel relief when everyone's gone, but they leave a kind of silence that is full of too many questions for him to be entirely comfortable.
As always, she's the one who breaks the silence, with just the right words.
"The servants were going to move your things back into your chambers." She pauses. "I asked them not to. Is that alright?"
"Aye, it's alright, little bird."
She doesn't smile. Neither does he. He's not even sure it's happiness that he feels; it's too expansive, and too aching for that. Like each of them has taken their first real breath after years underwater. The feeling is new and dizzying and the only thing that's tethering him to the ground is her, so he reaches out and takes her hand.
They stand there like that for what feels like an age, holding one another's hands, not speaking. The silence is even fuller than it was before, but it's not with questions anymore. It's with words they both think, but which they aren't saying. Which he doesn't think either of them really know how to say, just yet. But they have time here, in the cold, silent North, which has somehow unthawed both of them. Time to find those words, and maybe even others too. For now, this is enough for him.
"Shall we go and see your hounds?" she asks him, even though there are probably plenty of other more important things she needs to do.
"Come on then."
For the fourth and final time, everything changes. And at the same time, nothing changes at all.
Their days at Winterfell are identical in routine, but different in the way their eyes meet and in the way she touches him. In the way he touches her sometimes, even if he has to remind himself when he does that she doesn't mind it.
Their nights, of course, are the most different. Sweet and sweat soaked and better than anything he ever thought he might have. When he hears the kitchen maids gossiping about it again a few months later, as he fetches more bones for the hounds, at least the praise feels well earned this time.
Some nights, he still wonders if he's dreaming. If he'll wake to find her gone. Or if she'll wake suddenly remembering all the ugly things he's done and seen and been. If she'll realise then what a horrible mistake she's made, marrying him. On those nights, she feels delicate under his touch. A feather that could drift free at any moment.
On other nights, she kisses him fiercely and he falls asleep inside her and thinks he could never be more inextricably woven into another person as he is with her.
He still thinks on her words to him that day in the Godswood often enough, when he made the first of many vows he's made to her since. No one can protect anyone, she had said to him, back when she still didn't let smiles make their way to her eyes. He's not gone so soft in his old age that he thinks the words aren't true, but as he lies in bed with Sansa's head on his chest, he thinks that maybe that truth doesn't matter so much. That the point isn't to stay protected; it's to find something worth protecting and keep it safe as best you can.
It's what he's thinking about that night, when Sansa enters their chambers to find him staring blankly up at the roof.
"Is everything alright?" She sits down beside him, putting a hand on his leg.
He chances a glance at her. She looks tired, having spent the day with the castellan overseeing the rebuild of part of the southern wall. Even tired, and with hair escaping her braid and mud smeared across the bottom of her gowns, she's the best thing he's ever looked at.
"Fine," he says, not unkindly. And then, because it doesn't go far enough, he adds, "Everything's good."
- Fin
Author's Note: The end! Thank you so much for taking the time to read if you have made it to this point.
This one was a real labour of love for me - it took about three years to finish, despite only being 25k words - so I would really, really love to hear what you think of it and if you enjoyed reading it!
