"Enter," Sansa called from her chair by the window at the knock on her door, thinking it some of the servants come to make pallets for those with whom she'd be sharing her room. When the door opened but no one spoke a quiet greeting, she looked up from her stitching and over her shoulder.

He stood in the doorframe, an inscrutable expression on his face like he was trying to read her and failing.

"Sandor," she said in mild surprise. "Is something the matter?"

It was pleasure and worry warring inside her now. He'd never come to visit her in the light of day when propriety and watching eyes might have prevented it. "Is something wrong?" she asked when he said nothing, only watched her like he might a deer he'd spotted on the hunt.

"You'll not be alone again," he said.

"What?"

"You're to share your room," he said, "aren't you?"

"Yes," she said, setting aside her stitching to stand and look at him fully. "With Brienne, Meera, and Arya in my own room, a few more ladies in here."

He nodded, still not moving to stand within the room, his eyes heavy on her.

"What is it?" she asked, her voice softening a bit in concern.

He only shook his head, and then, as if finally realizing he'd left it open, he moved further into the room and shut the door. He did not turn back to her, only kept his hand on the latch.

"Please… is there something the matter?"

"You're not doing so only to prevent me from coming to you?"

She stood for a moment, mouth half-open, stunned into silence. When he looked over his shoulder at her, that same blank expression on his face, she shook her head, soft at first and then harder, as if by doing so she could kick her brain to motion again. "No—no, of course not. I do it out of example for others, and to make more room within the walls. I… I did not know when I suggested it that you wished to come to me. Even if I had known, I could not expect others to do so if I would not. I—" She cut herself off to stem the flow of words, took a deep breath. "I did not know that you wished to come to me, then. Do you… do you still?"

He turned fully to her, watched her with that half-wary expression. "Do you want me to? You did not invite me last night."

She found she could not answer with her voice and so only nodded, a slow hitching motion, feeling as though her eyes were round in shock and her face afire.

He came nearer in slow, even steps, skirting the chairs they'd sat in together, his footsteps muffled by the hearth-rug, his grey eyes hard on hers. He watched her as if she might startle and bolt, but onward he came until she could nearly reach out to him. "And if I did come to you again, what would you want of me?"

She felt her color rise a bit higher as she thought of his hold on her the night before, of their quiet moments in dawn's first light, of things yet imagined. "Your company."

"Just that?"

"Sandor—"

"Answer me, my little bird."

She took a deep breath, tried to settle herself. "No, not just your company."

He nodded and took a step closer and the instinct to reach for him caught her. Her hands shook slightly on his chest, but then he was holding her too, his lips coming down on hers, hard and rough and, oh, wonderful.

She bent against him, her body arched like a bow to press nearer, and she marveled at how he towered over her, though she was as tall as Jon. His arms wrapped about her waist, exaggerating the arc of her back, and she wondered if he could feel her heart pounding against him like so many arrows fired into his chest. She could feel his heart. She moved her hands up to his shoulders, further, further, to wrap her fingers around the back of his neck. Closer, closer.

His tongue brushed hers, cautious, exploring her just as his hands had explored her that morning, and she reveled in it. She wondered, far off, whether she looked as though she were floating. She felt she might be.

"Sansa," he said, pressing his forehead to hers, his eyes shut tight as if he were avoiding her gaze. "Sansa, we need to stop this."

"Why?" she asked.

"You're not meant for me, my little bird," he rasped, sounding pained.

"And who decides that?"

"You cannot want this—me."

"I can," she said, brave in the face of his hesitation, pressing her lips to his, "and do."

"Why?"

"Why not?" she murmured, running a thumb along his unscarred cheekbone.

He opened his eyes to stare into her for a long moment, his grey eyes searching her depths as if looking for something lost. Gently, so gently she thought tears might spring to her eyes, he reached up to cup her cheek and pull her in, leaning down into a long, searching kiss that left her toes tingling. "I don't know," he finally managed, his voice brushing gooseflesh across her skin. "But you deserve better."

"And who would that be?" she asked, enjoying the feel of his nose nudging hers, the whisper of his breath across her lips, the way he leaned against her as if she were the one supporting him.

"Fuck if I know," he muttered. "Your damn Florian; someone."

"Did you ever think that you are my Florian?" He scoffed at that and she smiled. "They'll write songs about us."

"Do I look like I want a bloody song written about me?"

"Has that ever stopped a singer?"

"A sword will."

That made her laugh, once, quick, as she shook her head slowly. He let the hand on her cheek slide back into her hair, holding her closer.

"That would have made you horrified once," he said.

"Horror has a new meaning, now," she said, only slightly bitter when he was so close.

"I'll never forgive myself that," he said.

"I will," she said. "It was not your doing."

He kissed her again, for just a breath, his hand tightening minutely in her hair as if to hold her closer still, though there was less than a hair's breadth between any point of them.

"What are you doing?" Arya's voice cut through the moment, and Sansa's eyes snapped open, found Sandor's grey ones in a state of panic.

"She'll kill me," he muttered.

"No," Sansa said, then pulled back to look to her little sister, red-faced and wide-eyed by the door. "What does it look like we're doing?"

"He—he—" Arya sputtered in a fit of confused anger. "He said he wanted to rape you. He—"

"When did you say that?" Sansa asked Sandor, who'd closed his eyes again and looked tired.

"We were in the Vale, I expect," he said quietly.

"He was trying to get me to kill him!"

"I expect that's why he said it," Sansa said calmly, then looked to Sandor for confirmation. "He never did anything of the sort, only asked for a song."

"Sansa, you can't—"

"Can't what, Arya? Can't make my own decisions?"

"No, it's just…"

"What?"

"He killed Micah—"

"You already put me on trial for that," Sandor said.

"—and he was Joffrey's lackey, the queen's man!"

"He left them, Arya. And he never hurt me doing their bidding. Not like the others. He saved you." He would have saved me.

"I would have saved myself!"

"Do you really believe that?" Sansa whispered.

"I made it far enough on my own, with Gendry—"

"Then how did you end up with the damned Brotherhood, girl? They were going to sell you to the highest bidder!" Sandor said in a low growl.

"So were you!"

"Aye, but at least I was only taking bids from your family. They might have shipped you off with Lannister men eventually. Would you have liked that any?"

Arya screwed up her face in frustration. "You wanted to kill that farmer and his daughter."

"I only stole from them. To feed you, if you remember."

"We could have hunted! They were already poor; they could have died!"

"They did," Sandor said in a hoarse rumble. "I buried them."

"What?" Arya asked, the word choked.

"On my way north, with Beric and that damned priest. We were passing by their cabin, needed shelter. Thought it was abandoned, didn't recognize it. They were dead, holding each other but dead. I buried them together."

Sansa laid a hand on his arm. "You didn't know winter would come so soon. They had no time to grow another crop. If they had, they might have recovered."

"Maybe. Your sister's right, I could have left them something."

"See? Even he knows he's awful."

"Arya, would you look at me for a moment?" Her sister clamped her jaw tight, widened her stance, took on a rest pose. Sansa took a deep breath. "Do you remember what you said to Jon? About it breaking him?" Arya nodded stiffly, her eyes wary. Sansa took another deep breath. "I broke the night of the Blackwater, even if I didn't know it then, even though it was my own fault."

Arya opened her mouth to argue again, Sansa could see the fire in her eyes, prepared for the torrent of words. And was shocked when Arya paused, closed her mouth, tilted her head. "Really?"

Sansa nodded.

Arya looked between them for a second. "I don't understand it."

"I don't understand what the bloody hell either of you are saying," Sandor said, but Sansa didn't explain. How could she when he didn't believe her in plainer terms?

"Does Jon know?"

"Does Jon know what?" Sandor muttered.

"I don't believe so," Sansa said. "You didn't."

"Will you tell him?"

"Soon. Not today."

"Before the Others come." When Sansa said nothing, Arya continued. "You have to, Sansa. You said it yourself, if he's gone…"

"I know. I know—" Sansa bit off her curses. She hadn't thought that far ahead. Marriage, again? A third marriage, and to a man most people hated for one reason or another? And this man, unlike her first oft-hated husband, did not have the benefit of a powerful name. "I know," she repeated a third time, looking to Sandor, who watched them with something like suspicion in his eyes.

"What in the bloody hell are you two on about?"

"Nothing," the sisters said together.

"Do you want me to leave you?" Arya asked finally, looking uncomfortable about the prospect.

"No," Sandor said, surprising Sansa. "No, I only came to ask your sister a question."

"And do you have your answer?" Sansa asked him, her words quiet as she searched his face.

"I do. I'll leave you to your stitching," he said.

"You could stay."

"She'd not want that," he said, nodding at Arya.

"Stay," Arya said, surprising them both. She shrugged. "If Sansa wants you to. I know what it's like to be broken."

With that, her younger sister swept into the bedchamber and shut the door, the bag Sansa recognized as holding the faces in her hand.

"What did she mean?" Sandor asked, and Sansa smiled tiredly.

"Bring a chair to sit by me; I'll tell you." She lowered into her chair again, retrieved the green cloak and laid it across her lap. He stared at it for a moment then went to retrieve one of the hearth chairs and sat it across from her own. She'd pulled Jon's cloak back onto her lap and was picking up the needle when he settled.

"I should be doing something useful," he muttered.

"This is of use to me," she said gently and had four stitches done when he finally prompted her.

"Well? What did she mean?"

"Jon was telling us of his betrothal to Daenerys, and Arya was upset he'd be following her to King's Landing when the wars are over. He was trying to explain how it would feel if the queen were to be lost to him. Arya told him that she knew, that it would break him."

"You told Arya that you broke the night I came for you," he said.

"I broke the night you left me."

He held the silence for a moment. "Did you mean that?"

"I did." She pulled the needle through and looked up at him. He was watching her, his expression inscrutable again. "I also said I knew it was my own fault."

"You were scared of me," he said.

"I was."

"When did you realize you were broken?"

"Too late," she said. "Probably around the time I started 'remembering' you kissing me."

"I should have," he said. "Maybe you'd have left with me then."

"Maybe," she said. Then repeated the question he'd asked. "When did you realize you were broken?"

He watched her for a long moment, seeming to debate. "About the time I told you about my scar."

She blinked at him. "I'd not pushed you away then."

"No, but knowing you were to wed that mongrel… that was like being left behind, only worse because I had to be a part of it." She reached for his hand and held it, though he looked away from her. "I should have killed that swine, Meryn. Ser. He was the worst of them."

"I killed him," Arya said from the now-opened bedchamber doorway. "He was a swine. He liked beating little girls."

"I know," Sansa said. "I was one of them. But of all those monsters, I always hated Jonos Slynt the most."

"And I killed him," Jon said from the main doorway, surprising them all, though he appeared to have been leaning against the doorframe for a time. He eyed Sandor's hand in Sansa's. When Sandor tried to pull away, she tightened her grip.

"Did you?" she asked him. "When?"

"After the battle with the wildlings at the Wall. Gilly found him hiding in the storerooms instead of doing his sworn duty. I took his head for it."

The thought sat well on Sansa, though she hadn't known it would. "He threw Father down when Joffrey…" She stopped that thought, looked at Sandor. "You saved me then too, though I hated you for it."

"They'd have killed you for getting in the way."

"I was watching in the crowd. Yoren made me look away," Arya said softly. "He was gonna take me home, or to you, Jon. We didn't make it."

"We wondered what happened to Yoren," Jon said.

"Ser Amory Lorch happened. He's dead now, too."

That settled over them, held them all silent. So much death, Sansa thought, looking at Sandor's fingers in her own. And so much is changed. "Did you come for the cloak, Jon?" she finally asked.

"I did if you've finished it."

"Nearly. Would you like to see it?"

"I would if you don't mind." He walked across the room, Arya shadowing him. Sansa spread the black fabric across her lap, smoothed her fingers across the stitching.

"When did you have the time?" Arya asked, reaching out to stroke the fur at the collar.

"I worked when I couldn't sleep, a bit this morning as well." She did not mention that Sandor had been with her for most of it, and the man himself looked off out the window, hiding his own face.

"It looks finished," Jon said. "You said nearly done. What's left?"

"Just finishing a few stitches here, then lining it. What color silk?"

"Black," Sandor said, and when everyone turned their eyes to him, he shrugged.

"Do we have any?" Jon asked Sansa.

"We do, in one of the storerooms."

"I'll go fetch it then, and leave you to the last of the stitching. Thank you," he said and bent down to kiss her hair. "Come little one, Gendry was asking after you."

"I left him asleep only an hour ago," Arya protested, but Jon silenced her with a look and led her out. Sansa smirked after them and turned it on Sandor, who shrugged again.

"I don't think you need to tell him anything."

"You don't know Jon," Sansa said. "He was always rather oblivious when it came to these things."

"Hmmph," Sandor grunted in disbelief.

"It's true," Sansa said. "Half the girls in the castle and the Winter Town were mad for him, and he never looked at any of them, not once. The other half were mad for Theon and Robb."

"The queen looked at him," Sandor said.

"I'd wager he looked first, or he'd not have seen it."

"Family trait?" he asked, the words heavy with irony.

"Perhaps," she said and picked up her needle.

"Well?" Arya asked Jon a moment after he shut the door behind them.

"Well?" he repeated, ushering her to motion as he said it.

"Did you not see them?" she asked, keeping pace with him.

"I did," her brother—as she could only think him—said simply.

"And?"

"And?" he said, looking down at her and raising an eyebrow.

"Well, just that!" she said, thinking there was no chance Jon was still so blind.

"Is she happy?" he asked.

"She says she is," Arya said, following him down the stairwell.

"Then that is enough," Jon said.

"But…" Arya halted on the last step, and Jon turned back, waiting. "But, it's the Hound."

"He may be gruff, crass, even cruel," Jon said, and Arya blinked in surprise, wondering how he knew the man so intimately, "but he has an honor that—"

"Honor?" she spat, startled to words. "You know what he's done, who he's supported, and you can say he's honorable?" Jon studied her a moment and through the horror, Arya wondered how he could do that, how he could stay silent in the face of accusation.

"No," he finally said, "not in the way Father was honorable. But he does have his own form of it. It may not fit your definition or mine, but it's of a type."

"How…"

"How can I think that?" he finished for her. "From what I've heard from you, from Sansa, from others who know him, even from what little he's said himself, he has his own sense of right and wrong. He taught Sansa to shield herself, her core, from those who'd take advantage. He did what he could to protect her when no one else would, tried to set her free. He risked a charge of treason when he left the Lannister's employ. He helped you, defended you, didn't he? And he came north to defend the realm."

"He's killed innocents," Arya protested.

"Aye, likely. But then so have I. No," he said when she would have spoken again. "Do not tell me I have not when I know I have. Qhorin Halfhand did not deserve death by my sword, no matter that he asked for it. Neither did the wildlings I killed in defense of Castle Black when all they sought was safety."

"They weigh on you."

"You think he doesn't carry his own weight?" he asked, and when she only stared at him, wondering if he was right, held out his arm. "Come, little one."

She let him pull her into the courtyard into winter's hush. "I've killed innocents," she whispered.

"I know," he said calmly, and she felt a knot loosen inside her soul. They walked in silence through the snow, until Arya realized they were not heading toward the forge, but rather the storerooms.

"Is Gendry not in the forge?"

"He's likely wherever you left him," Jon said.

"But you said—"

"To get you to leave, little one," he teased.

"Why?"

"Back at the beginning, are we?"

"What?" she barked, and he laughed.

"Let them have this time, Arya," he said. "Despite all appearances and expectations, he makes Sansa happy. You did not see her before you came home; she was in danger of turning cold and cruel herself. If he can prevent that, let him. And you, little sister, were encroaching on perhaps their last moment of privacy."

"What?" Arya asked again, less sharply, but just as loud, making him laugh again.

"Come, little one, keep me company."

"I don't understand how you can just accept…" She shook her head, letting the thought dangle.

"Them?" he finished. At her nod, he seemed to think. "They make a good match if you look beyond the surface."

"How?" she asked as they entered the storage corridor.

"He has no masks. Sansa has plenty—arguably too many now. Where he is violent and rude, she is logical and diplomatic. They're a balance for one another. And," he said, dropping her arm when they came to the seamstresses' storeroom, "perhaps she won't lose her last bit of gentleness if he is there to be her shield."

"That almost sounded like poetry," she said after a moment and was rewarded with another laugh.

"Dany gives me that, I think," Jon said. "What does Gendry give you?"

At her silence, he looked over his shoulder and smirked, breaking his study of the folded silks they'd once imported from Essos. A luxury even then, Arya knew, but now…

"How did you know?" she asked.

"It's in the eyes, little sister," he said, then turned back to his task.

"I don't know what he gives me," she said after a few silent seconds, leaning against the doorframe. "Or what I give him. It's… new. I'm not sure what it is—for either of us. For me…" She shook her head, even though Jon couldn't see her. "I think I knew back when we were first together, before. I thought he knew, too, but…"

"Did he leave you, or you him?"

"Both. Well, he didn't leave, really; he just… he wanted to stay with the Brotherhood and I wanted him to go home with me. I was so mad at him, and then the Red Woman took him. The Brotherhood—some brothers they were—sold him. So I left—not for him, only for myself—and the Hound took me.

"I regret that some, not going after him," she finished softly. Jon said nothing, just pulled a length of black silk from the shelf, unfurled it. They said nothing as he inspected it, refolded it. Then he came back to her and cupped her cheek as he had when they'd still been children.

"You're both here now," he said and she nodded.

"He insists I'm a lady," she blurted out when they'd started retracing their steps, "he cannot get past it. It's why he didn't want to go with me, why he wanted to stay. He didn't want to have to call me 'my lady.'"

"Arya, you are a lady—not a proper one, maybe, but you have the title. To someone truly lowborn…it's everything. Can you not see his side?"

"But can he not see mine? The title is nothing. I'd have him for nothing."

"And if you'd told him that then, he'd have reminded you that you would have nothing if you'd had him."

"And now?"

"Well, that's up to you two, isn't it?" Jon asked. "Or perhaps Dany. He is the only male Baratheon left; she may give him a title."

"I don't want to be a lady, Jon."

"It would just be a title, Arya, it wouldn't define you."

"It would though, you know it would. 'Lady Arya Stark,'" she said with an intonation she'd only ever heard in King's Landing.

He laughed, but then Jon grew serious. "How would it define you? You think just because someone calls you Lady Arya, you're not a sword-wielding wild thing? Or that you must wear dresses and do needlework?" he asked gently. "If that were true, how would you explain Lady Lyanna, her mother, her aunts? You're not a child to be bid anymore; no one will be able to change you now, not unless you let them."

"But—"

"But nothing, little sister," Jon said, opening the door to the courtyard for her, gesturing her ahead of him. "If names or titles meant a damn, I'd not be here. They mean nothing, whether you have one or not. Gendry hasn't learned that, but you have. Could you not give him that?"

"You used to want a title."

"Aye, I did. I was also fourteen, and jealous. I know better now." He halted to crush her to his side in a hug as he might've done when he was fourteen. "Think on it, little one. Shall we give Sansa more time? I have other errands to complete."

"All right," Arya agreed and linked her arm with his. "Lead on, big brother."