Sandor let his mind drift back to the moment that had set his world off-kilter.
The day after they had returned to Winterfell, Sandor had woken up mid-morning. He'd made his way bleary-eyed to the main hall, wanting only to silence his growling stomach before collapsing back into his bed. His progress was stopped mid-stride when he saw a woman silhouetted against the window at the end of the hall. She was tall with a slender waist and, Sandor swallowed hungrily, ample breasts. Her hair was pinned up, showing off a graceful neck, and her profile was feminine and delicate. She was talking to someone, but he couldn't have said who. This was a proper lady. He could tell by the elegant way she moved. Sandor's arousal was immediate and intense. Fucking a woman like that would go a long, long way to making him forget about the capital. His eyes ranged over her curves and his hands shook, so badly did they want to dip into the bodice of her gown. His cock twitched, eager to plunge inside the tight, warm depths of this woman's delectable body.
Just as Sandor's tired mind was starting to parse who she could be given the noblemen currently at Winterfell, she turned toward him. Sandor snapped his gaze to the floor and resumed making his way to the hall entrance.
"Sandor!" a familiar voice cried.
Sandor looked up, wondering where Sansa had come from, and was astounded to see the proper lady walking toward him was Sansa. He was overcome with guilt and confusion. What had he been thinking? Pretty as she was, he'd never felt a pull toward her. Not in this way. She'd always been a child. Now she was most definitely a woman. A desirable women. He hoped she didn't see the want on his face, knowing full well it shouldn't be there at all. He rubbed at his eyes and blinked. "Lady Sansa," he said in a forced monotone.
"I'm so glad you're home! I didn't see you yesterday!" she enthused as she welcomed him with a hug. Sandor put his hands on her waist to stop them from trembling while she threw her arms around his neck. Her chest pressed against him and his lungs constricted. He held still as she kissed his cheek and said some words about praying for his safety. It took all his resolve not to turn his head and catch her lips with his. He could always pretend it was an accident, but he wouldn't subject her to something so cheap. She was a lady, after all, and there was no reason for her to want such a thing from him.
"The day we received word you were returning, it stormed and stormed. We were all hopeful the weather was fairer to the south."
"Aye," Sandor replied distractedly. He was trying not to eye the plump curve of her breasts. Where had this body come from and, gods be good, why was it affecting him so? He knew with absolute certainty that Sansa would not appreciate the direction of his thoughts and, for his part, he felt mortified by them.
"Father told us of the terrible things that happened. Jory -" she frowned in sadness.
Jory's killing had happened weeks ago. He'd been a good man and Sandor was sorry for his death, but the shock was past for him and he was reeling from Sansa's effect on his mind and body. He wanted to get away from her as soon as he could.
"Aye. Terrible. Are there still eggs?"
Sansa opened her mouth but then seemed to switch tacks. "If there aren't, I'll have them made for you."
"Don't trouble yourself. I'll eat whatever's at hand."
"It's no trouble."
Fortunately, there were eggs to be had and Sansa left him to his meal. He kept his head down and shoveled in eggs and bacon and bread and small ale. He was reaching for more ale when he felt a light punch on his arm. He turned to find Arya standing there.
"You're back," she observed.
"You've always been smart," he said through a full mouth.
Arya laughed and plucked a slice of bacon from his dish. "Tell me what happened," she requested over her chewing. "Father wouldn't say much."
"Another time."
Arya smirked. "How about now?"
To Sandor's relief, she was as annoying as ever. And completely unappealing. He gave her a brief rundown of everything that happened that he thought she had a right to know and hoped she'd tell Sansa so he wouldn't have to talk to her himself. He knew Sansa had only let him go because he was hungry and keeping him would have been discourteous. But he also knew she would seek him out to find out what had happened in King's Landing. She'd always done that whenever something happened, and Sandor had always done his best to relay things to her in a way that was honest yet reassuring.
Except, concerned or not, he didn't want to talk to her. He wanted to avoid her. The last thing he needed was his treasonous body reacting to his lord's daughter in ways likely to generate an introduction between Ice and the back of his neck. Her sudden maturity was a surprise but, Sandor reasoned with himself, that's all it was. A lot had happened recently, most of it bad, so an attractive woman was, of course, going to make him take notice. Still, it was Sansa, so avoiding her seemed the best course of action.
He started immediately. Hiding from a girl was pathetic but that didn't stop Sandor from walking more slowly through the hallways, listening for the sound of her voice so he could head off in another direction if she was near. He avoided the parts of the castle where she was most likely to be. He took Stranger out for long, pointless rides. He overstayed his welcome with Farlen in the kennels. He took meals in his room until Ser Rodrik insisted the time for mourning was over, which gave Sandor the double shock of realizing not only that people were paying attention to his actions but also that they were attributing them to sappy sentimentalism.
He still avoided Sansa in the halls, Ser Rodrik be damned, but began eating in the great hall again. This was difficult. He couldn't stop looking at Sansa. At first, he looked at her just to gauge his own reaction, but then he couldn't look away. She'd always been pretty but now she was captivating. He studied her, squinting as though trying to remember how she'd looked two years prior and trying to square the girl he thought she'd been then with the woman she was now. Her faced looked a little fuller, though her cheekbones were still prominent. Her eyes were bright and sparkly. Her hair was still the same rich auburn color it had always been. She smiled pretty much constantly. No, she didn't look materially different from the neck up so that left her body. Sandor ground the food in his mouth. She had no more control over that than he had over his scars, and he felt a different kind of guilt pervade his mind. Sansa was a nice girl. Sandor knew well the filthy things men sometimes said about women when in all-male company – the kinds of things that would have made Sandor draw his sword had someone said them about Sansa. Yet here he was thinking along those same lines, discounting everything that made Sansa Sansa and considering only the physical enjoyment the union of a pretty face and a succulent body could provide him. He clenched his jaw. His usual protectiveness made him nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing. No good can come of this, he thought.
"What's Lady Sansa done to you, eh?" a man-at-arms asked him one evening when Sandor had taken his thousandth furtive glace at her.
Sandor gave the man a savage look. His heart started trying to pound its way through his ribcage. "What -"
The man laughed. "You're looking at her like she's done you a wrong. Relax, Clegane. No need to scare the poor girl!"
Sandor fought the urge to punch him. "I wasn't looking at her. I was trying to remember something."
The man laughed again and clapped Sandor on the shoulder as he got up. "Try to remember something that doesn't make you look like you want to kill someone, would you?"
Go bugger yourself with a hot poker, Sandor thought, though he let the comment go. He was more concerned with the fact that someone had caught him looking at Sansa. When had everyone gotten so damn alert?
His campaign of avoidance wasn't working. Sansa was everywhere. Despite the circumstances of their return, she persisted in being cheerful and tried to lift everyone's mood with her own. If others were concerned about the political storm brewing in the capital, Sandor didn't share their interest. The whole of King's Landing could sink into the sea for all he cared. It was festering with rot and Westeros was better off without it. He was content to be in the north, as far as he could get from the capital, save for taking the black, which gave him another idea.
I've been without a woman too long, Sandor thought to himself. At his very next opportunity, he saddled up and rode down to the winter town and tumbled a whore. And then another one. He tried not to think about Sansa as he pumped himself dry but, the harder he tried, the more pervasive thoughts of her became. This troubled him to no end. He'd never been uneasy around her before and this newfound weakness for her gnawed at him. Though Sansa sometimes referred to him as another brother, like Jon, he'd never really thought of her as a sister. He'd always appreciated Sansa's warmth toward him, but he felt more protective of her than related to her. He wasn't a Targaryen (or, if the rumors were true, a Lannister), after all, so at least he could rest easy on that score. Besides, he already had a sister and he guarded her memory closely and privately.
Going to the winter town had been a terrible idea, even apart from the fact that he'd run into Sansa as soon as he'd returned. Of course. He'd felt sated and drowsy and, there she was, looking so young and ripe and guileless. His skin was sticky with dried sweat and he was fairly certain he reeked of sex and wine. Sandor felt filthy and unfit to be in her presence.
"Where have you been all day?" she asked with a smile as she made to walk along with him.
"I went for a ride."
"I've barely seen you since you came home."
"Been working, little bird." Gods, why was his room so far away?
"You're not right now. Maybe we could -"
"I need to get cleaned up before I go on shift. Maybe later." Not happening.
Sansa frowned but nodded. "Maybe later."
Sandor booked it to his room, took himself roughly in hand, and satisfied himself again despite feeling agitated and guilty over his lack of control.
Sex after a lengthy dry spell had only increased his desire for more and the mental images to which he'd treated himself only inflamed his curiosity about how Sansa might be. Could be. Naked. With him. What if she was willing? What might she let him do? What if she liked it and wanted more? What if she wanted him as he much as he wanted her? Could she? Seven hells, he wanted her plenty.
Enough! Sandor tore off his dog's-head helm and threw it at a squire before snatching up a flagon and guzzling it as sweat poured off his body. Exhausting himself in the yard had been his next idea. Every free moment he had, he spent battering some poor fool. Sansa had walked by and that had been enough to make him half hard. She hadn't even turned her head. He'd been simultaneously so focused and so distracted that he hadn't heard Robb say, "Yield."
"Everything alright, Clegane?" Ser Rodrik asked.
"Why wouldn't it be?" Sandor snapped.
Ser Rodrik hesitated. They'd always gotten along well enough. Ser Rodrik had limited patience with Sandor's temper, but Sandor worked hard and fought fairly, so he had the older man's respect. Quietly, Ser Rodrik suggested, "You've been training near constantly lately. Maybe you should take a night off. Get some rest. You'll concentrate better for it."
Sandor nodded vaguely but hope was welling up inside him. Why hadn't he thought of this before? Sansa was damn near impossible to avoid during the day, but she slept at night! Sandor immediately started taking the night shift whenever he could switch with someone when he wasn't assigned to it himself. Finding someone to switch with was easy. No one wanted to be on watch through the long, cold night. Despite the several hours of relative peace this afforded him, the quiet also gave him too much time to think. To wonder. To upbraid himself for thinking and wondering. Besides, his shift was still bookended by Sansa since shift changes were aligned with meal service. So, he would see her, go on shift, torture himself with thoughts of her, and then his shift would end and he would enter the great hall filled with an unmentionable hunger. After a few weeks of hardly seeing the sun, he gave it up. Avoiding something only made you want it more. He had a better plan.
Sandor now felt certain that seeing Sansa all the time would lessen whatever this untoward fascination with her was. He'd grow used to her again and things would be as they were before. He kept his regular schedule but went out of his way to try to be in her company. This was more difficult than he'd thought it would be. When he wanted to avoid her, she was inescapable. Now, her schedule was suddenly full of lessons, music and voice classes, and these sewing circles that seemed to go on forever. Once, he'd lingered in the hall near an embroidery marathon in an attempt to stage a casual run-in. When at last the doors opened, the women filed past giving him suspicious, sidelong looks. A few of the younger women burst into laughter as soon as they'd rounded the corner and Sandor felt himself tense, certain they were laughing at him and, worse, that Sansa heard them, too.
"Lady Sansa," he'd said, hoping to sound nonchalant.
"Hello, Sandor," she replied.
"Sewing again?" He groaned internally.
Sansa smiled. "Every day."
"That must be tiring."
"No more so than training in the yard, I'd imagine."
"I'd have to ask Arya to know for sure."
Sansa laughed.
Then Sandor noticed she was holding a basket. "Can I carry that for you?"
"No, thank you. Lucy will be along in a moment. I'm –"
Just then, Lucy and a young girl appeared.
"Ah," said Sansa, "thank you both for straightening up. Lucy, would you put this back in my chambers, please?"
"Yes, my lady."
Sansa handed off her basket to her maid, who nodded to them both and left, and turned back to Sandor. "I was saying, I'm off to meet my mother and the seamstresses."
Sandor stared at her.
"Dress fitting. More sewing." She gave him a quick grin. "I'll see you this evening."
Sandor was too slow to offer to escort her and just stood there feeling foolish as she walked away.
After she disappeared down the hall, he became aware of the presence of the tiny girl standing to the side. A junior maid, no doubt. She looked up at him, her head cocked to the side, like he was an unimaginable oddity.
He cast her humorless look. "Something on your mind, girl?"
"Are you lost, my lord?"
Sandor muttered an oath and stalked off.
Not only was Sansa more beautiful, her confidence made him feel incredibly stupid and ungainly in her presence. He found it hard to have a conversation with her. His comments on the weather seemed like lecherous entrapment when, not moments before, he'd been picturing her astride him, head thrown back as she rode him with abandon. Worse, he felt conspicuous.
"What's with you?" Arya asked him one day.
"Nothing. What do you mean?"
"Since when do you go on walks?"
"Since Lady Sansa asked me to." That wasn't quite true. He'd asked if he could join her. And then Jeyne had come, and he'd felt stupendously out of place.
"Uh huh."
"I'd do the same for you, Lady Arya." That should get her gone, he hoped.
It did. Arya wrinkled her nose at him and skipped away. At 14, she lacked Sansa's deftness when it came to handling male attention. Plus, she was Arya. Sandor had never met a girl so disinterested in being a lady and the best way to get rid of her was to treat her like one.
Though Arya was easily deflected, Sandor knew he was making a fool of himself. He had to get Sansa alone to at least minimize the gossip fodder he was probably providing half the keep.
As soon as he was able, he planted himself next to her at the midday meal. He leaned over and told her in an undertone, "I did bring you something. From King's Landing. Remember I said I would?"
A smile lit up her face and gods help him if it didn't go straight through him. "You did?"
He smiled back at her. Finally, something was working. "I did." He chose not to give a reason why he hadn't given it to her weeks ago, say, immediately upon his return.
"That was kind of you. Shall we meet in my family's solar after this?"
Sandor nodded and bit whatever he was eating, he had no idea, off the tip of his knife. He went back to his room and dug the bag out of the bottom of his trunk. He'd never even unpacked it. As he brought out the sewing supplies, he felt his one cheek flush with embarrassment. What had he been thinking? How had he not realized that she'd be a woman when he returned? Hells, she was basically a woman when he left. The twinkly beads and ribbons he'd bought looked like something a child would be drawn to. He'd purchased some lace and satin trim, too, and hoped it wasn't out of style, whatever the style was these days. He could have kicked himself. Why hadn't he looked at what he'd bought before he'd mentioned it to her? Now he had to go to the solar and offer her these bits and pieces and watch her smile politely over his idiotic selections. The fact that the dog's head tunic was also in the bottom of the trunk did not increase his confidence.
When he was admitted to the solar, Sansa was already seated, and she patted the spot next to her and smiled at him. Feeling like a half-wit, he lumbered over and dropped down beside her. Only then did it occur to him that he should have wrapped the gift. As it was, he just had everything in his hands, which he moved toward her like he was cupping water for a dog to drink.
Sansa's eyes sparkled as she ooohed and ahhhed over everything.
If this is just her chirping empty courtesies, she's damn good at it, Sandor thought. He relaxed just a little.
"I've never seen beads like this," Sansa exclaimed. "I'll have to save them for something special. And this lace! It's gorgeous!"
"They're from the same shop the queen regent's seamstresses use." Sandor looked away and bit his tongue to keep from swearing. Braggart. And who wants what Cersei Lannister has anyway?
Sansa looked up at him, her inviting lips an O of surprise. "You went out of your way . . ."
Sandor shrugged. "You like to sew. Might as well have the best."
Sansa grinned broadly. "Thank you, Sandor. I love it all."
Sandor nodded awkwardly and made to stand but Sansa laid a hand on his forearm and said quietly, "You never did tell me what happened in King's Landing."
"That's old news by now, little bird."
"I'd still like to hear it from you."
He tried to downplay the treachery, but she got it out of him anyway. Somehow, though, Sansa still believed the world was a good and just place. Her faith in a better tomorrow was unshakable. She was pure in a world he'd learned was shit. He'd come home with something of a reputation and still she beamed at him like she could only see him at his best. Not even he knew what that was. He just knew he wanted to be it. For her.
That was the difference between the Stark sisters, Sandor realized. Arya accepted you as you were, whatever you were. Sansa expected more. That expectation made him stand up a little straighter. Try a little harder. Part of him wanted her to be as disgusted with the ways of the world as he was and was frustrated by her naivety, but a greater part of him wanted to shield her from those same ways of the world and let her dream her unspoiled dreams.
He should have left Winterfell that very night, when they were both happy. Lusting after her body was one thing. It was still wrong, but he was only a man. But it was more than her body. It was her sweet personality, her flawless manners, her concern for others, her warmth, her integrity, her faith and optimism. If he could fill himself up with her goodness, he'd never know another moment of discontent.
At 17, it was a miracle she wasn't yet betrothed. Of course, her father had been away for the past couple of years and now was wildly unpopular with the king and queen regent, which was all for the better as far as Sandor was concerned. If anything, Sansa's being of age only instilled in him a greater sense of urgency. He had to get to her before someone else did.
Not that he imagined himself worthy of her. He knew he wasn't. He knew it all too well. But he'd be happy with whatever she'd be willing to give him. He knew he had to try.
The damn singer was about to make his ears bleed. Sandor got up to use the privy. He noticed with a frown that his exit went unnoticed.