Chapter Three: Connection

Sansa was being carried by a pair of strong arms, gently jostled in rhythm with the footsteps of the man carrying her.

Then, her father's voice, sounding angry. "Hound! What did you do to her?"

"Nothing!" Sandor Clegane's voice was part annoyed, part defensive. "The prince told me to escort her back. She fainted on the way. I had nothing to do with it." That was an untruth, but he probably didn't know it.

She was laid down gently on something soft- her bed. The warmth of the man who had been carrying her was retreating. Sansa forced her eyes open despite the dizziness. "Stay!" she cried, grabbing her savior's wrist. "Don't go yet!"

"Sansa, what happened?" her father cried.

"What is it, little bird?" asked the Hound.

She was not sure if their distress was a reaction to the fact that she had fainted or to the fact that tears that had begun to roll uncontrollably down her face from the moment she regained consciousness.

"The little girl," she whispered, turning to the Hound. "She was me."

He gaped at her for a moment. "Shit," he said emphatically, and he lowered himself heavily into the nearest chair, resting his head in his hands.

"What little girl?" Ned Stark was becoming agitated. "I don't understand."

"Father," said Sansa softly. "Do you remember the first time we came down south, just the two of us? I had wandered off and was accosted by a large boy, a younger boy distracted him and saved me, do you remember?"

"Aye," said Ned slowly.

"You wouldn't tell me what happened to the boy that rescued me, you said I was too young and that it would give me nightmares. I know now, though, what happened to him. He was burned, wasn't he? The other boy pushed his face into the fire."

Her father moved to look from her to Sandor Clegane. "Shit," he said too.

There was a long silence as each person was absorbed in their own thoughts.

"I should have known," her father said heavily, finally breaking the silence. "It had happened on Clegane lands. And Jory told me how the boy had half his face burnt off. I should have seen it immediately. I thought you had died, though," he said, turning to the Hound.

"And what made you think that?" The Hound's voice was mocking.

"I'd left a note to be given to you once you were well enough. A message with an offer to squire at Winterfell, or any other reward you would ask for. When I got no reply, after a few months, I assumed that you had succumbed to your injuries. Of course, I thought then that you were a commoner boy from the village, to whom the opportunity to become a squire would mean a big advancement in prospects. You probably already knew that Lannister would take you as squire, though. You had no need of such an offer. Still, an open offer of anything from Warden of the North. Was there nothing I could give you? Why did you never request a reward?"

"Didn't get the letter, now, did I?" the Hound replied irritably.

Sansa's father frowned. "I gave very clear instructions that a message was to be left for you. I recall being told that it had been done."

"My father could hardly let me read such a message," the Hound replied, the bitterness from earlier, when he had been telling his story, seeping back into his tone. "Couldn't risk me deciding to squire with some lord who knew what actually happened. Not when he had worked so hard to cover it all up."

"Cover what up?" Ned asked, eyes narrowed.

"The boy who attacked me was Gregor Clegane, Father," Sansa offered.

"Aye," the Hound growled. "His own son. With a war on the horizon and his big strong son set to fight among the best and bring the Clegane family some prestige, my father could hardly allow such an unfortunate little incident bring Gregor disgrace and derail that plan. He told everyone that I had been playing recklessly around a bonfire and had fallen in. Gregor went out, fought, and got knighted as planned. Not that my father got any joy of it in the end. He died soon after under suspicious circumstances. At least when he died, he had the pleasure of knowing that the son who killed him was a 'Ser'."

"He was no true knight," said Sansa softly.

The Hound laughed loudly at that, but Sansa did not see anything funny about it. Neither did her father. "He ought to be stripped of his knighthood," he said. "I shall speak to Robert about it."

"He won't do it," the Hound snorted. "As long as the Lannisters find my brother useful, they'll make it very unpleasant for the king to get rid of him. And Robert Baratheon doesn't do anything if it's unpleasant to him."

Sansa gasped at such a disrespectful statement, but she could not help but think that he was right in his assessment of the king. Her father, though, had known the king many years ago as a young man and did not seem convinced. But rather than argue, he turned to the Hound looking very serious. "This injustice has stood for far too long, and I have my share of responsibility for it. I will not allow it to stand any longer, not if I can help it."

The Hound shrugged with apparent indifference. Sansa knew why; the institution of knighthood no longer held any significance to him. It had already been tainted, years before.

"I know that it is too little, far too late," Ned continued gravely. "But if there is anything, any boon which is in my power to grant I would wish to give it to you."

The Hound darted a nervous glance in Sansa's direction, and she tried to look encouraging, but in the end he said, "Don't need any bloody favors."

"Father," Sansa said quickly before the Hound could offend her father enough for him to forget his gratitude, "May I have a minute alone with..." She trailed off. She could hardly call him 'The Hound' to his face and under the circumstances, calling him by the same name his brother held seemed horribly wrong. "...with Sandor?"

Her father raised his eyebrows slightly at the request as well as the familiar address, but Sansa maintained a confident and firm countenance. What she had to say to Sandor, after what he'd done for her- it was deeply personal. She did not want even her beloved father there to hear.

Finally, after holding her gaze for a few long moments, Sansa's father nodded, and left the room without a further word.

There was a moment of silence, as Sansa tried to gather her thoughts into something she could articulate.

"Well then?" Sandor barked impatiently, before Sansa had even come close to finding the words. "What did you want to say? Out with it!"

"I just- I wanted to thank..." Sansa trailed off, feeling horribly aware of the inadequacy of the words to express the depth of what she was feeling.

He began to laugh. "You wanted to thank me, girl? Is that it? Save it. You don't know what you're saying."

"Of course I do!" Sansa said indignantly. "If it hadn't been for you-"

"Do you know why I laughed, little bird," he cut her off, "when you told me that Gregor was no true knight?"

Sansa shook her head.

"It was because I knew that you were thinking that I was one. Rushing in bravely to save you like that. I'm not who you think I am, though."

"How do you mean?"

"I regretted it," Sandor said quietly, not meeting her eyes. "After what happened, I lay there in my bed for days, in perpetual agony, disfigured for life, and cursed the moment I saved you. I wished I had never heard your distressed little cry, that I had never tried to intervene, that I didn't just let Gregor have his way. That's what they don't tell you in your pretty little songs," his tone suddenly became angry again. "No man who survives the horrors they do in stories can stay pure and noble after. That's why there are no true knights. The boy who saved you, the one you wish to thank- he died on the day we first saw one another. All you have left now, is a scarred hound, and he doesn't want your thanks."

He had walked over to her as he spoke, and was now looming over her, pushing his scarred face far closer to hers than politeness should allow. The anger in his eyes was overwhelming, and Sansa was suddenly reminded of why she had been scared of him before that night. She had seen the heart of him, though. He had given her a glimpse of it as he drunkenly poured out his story earlier that night, and Sansa could no longer be frightened of him.

"I don't expect you to be the same as you were," she said softly. "You were a boy, then, and now you are a man and many horrible things have happened to you in between." Then, boldly, she lifted her hand to caress the scars that had once frightened her, but now seemed to her the legend to the kind of man he was. The undisguisable evidence of his courage and goodness . "I'm just so happy," her voice broke. "That you are here, that you are still alive. I feel as if I will burst if I do not express it. You may not wish for it, but you will always have my gratitude, and you need not live up to some ideal in order to receive it or be worthy of it. It will simply exist, acknowledged or not."

When he finally spoke after a long moment of silence, his voice was as gentle as she had ever heard it. "Sweet little bird. You ought to get some sleep," and he straightened up and left the room.

Sansa remained, sitting on the bed, examining the hand that had cradled his scars, and the clear wetness that had appeared on it as she had spoken.