Thank you to everyone who is following! (Caddaren, you make me feel like I have a fan.) I realize the story is a bit of a slow-burner. If you are feeling insatiable, you can check my profile for a lemony SanSan story I wrote earlier this year.

Really big ASOS spoilers here! I suggest you just skip this if you haven't read that book yet.

CHAPTER 11

SANSA

Sansa woke up earlier than usual and long before the Hound, who kept one arm around her the entire night. He growled when she slipped away from him and she moved more slowly so as not to wake him up.

His armor was scattered around the floor and Sansa used the rag and bowl to wipe the dirt and blood off of it. His clothes were on the floor, too, and she found his breeches torn where he'd been cut above the knee. She searched the hovel and found a box with flint, tinder, and a bone needle. She lit a torch to see by and hemmed the tears in his clothes. Afterwards she stacked her work near the bed and packed their saddlebags, and thought no harm would come to her if she stepped outside for a moment to ready their horses.

It had snowed in the night. She set the torch in the sconce at the entryway and walked over to the horses tethered outside. A day's rest had done Lady some good, but Stranger was asleep on his feet. Sansa was afraid of the ill-tempered horse and was as careful not to wake him as she had been its rider. She patted Lady on the nose and saddled her, speaking softly, but before she was done Stranger had his eyes open and his ears flat against his head. Sansa thought that she would chance brushing him since he looked so worn.

She didn't really like sticking her hand out to let him sniff the brush she used on Lady because she was worried he might try to bite her, but he just flared his nostrils and snorted. Sansa brushed the loose hair, blood, and dirt from his neck and back.

A man's hand on her shoulder pulled her away from the horse. She thought that was invasive of Sandor, and turned around to tell him so, but it was not he who had grabbed her. It was the Red Chief.

"What are you doing? Let me go!"

Timett kept his fingers locked around her arm. "You will stay with us. We will take you to the halfman for ransom ourselves."

"No!" she screamed, trying to pull away. "You promised us safe passage!"

He threw her on the ground and she landed on her hip with a yelp. "You will be safe enough once I get rid of your knight." He headed for the doorway.

"No!" Sansa yelled again. Sandor had heard Sansa screaming and was coming out. When he saw Timett he punched him in the mouth and the Red Chief fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Drag him inside! Before someone sees!" Sansa shrieked. She was in a panic. How long until the Burned Men realized Timett's plan to capture her had failed? I have to do something!

She grabbed the torch near the doorway and threw it on top of the roof. The flame erupted in a whirl and Sansa was overwhelmed by the smell of burnt hair when it jumped to the side of their neighbor's hovel. They were all made of timber and covered with dry grass and animal skins and in only a few minutes the entire row along the mountainside was aflame. But Sansa didn't see this, because she ran inside.

"Sansa! What the fuck is going on!" Sandor was putting his chainmail on over his tunic as smoke billowed in from a corner of the room.

"Just hurry!" He didn't have the plated armor for his shins and arms or his helm. She jumped over Timett's body to grab them. They were hot to the touch. "Here!" She handed him the pieces and noticed his hands shaking as he put them on.

Outside people were yelling, "Fire! Fire!" The clansmen hurried to throw snow on it and save their homes. A strange thought jumped into Sansa's mind as she stood so near the flaming hovels. This is the warmest I've been since I left the Eyrie. The horses were pulling at their tethers, especially Lady, her eyes rolling back in her head to show the whites. Sandor finished saddling Stranger, threw Sansa on, and cut the horses loose.

Lady ran off, but Stranger held steady long enough for Sandor to jump onto his back. No one stopped them as they galloped out of the camp, but they didn't slow down for over an hour. There was a deep, fresh snowfall that Sandor pushed the horse through. When they were deep in the mountains and she couldn't smell the fire anymore Sansa leaned back nervously and asked, "Where'd Lady go?"

"She's right behind us."

Sansa twisted in the saddle to see if it was true, and there she was, keeping close even though she wasn't tied. "I want to ride her," Sansa said. Sandor's armor dug into her skin when she sat ahorse with him like this.

"You can, but keep up! The clansmen might be chasing us."

Sansa frowned; when was she ever slow? She started to dismount, but Sandor pulled Stranger to a halt and got ready to help her get down.

"I can do it myself!" she insisted. He was acting like she couldn't take any care of herself at all. She thought she'd done all right at the Burned Men's camp, and even had some bruises to prove it. But as she slid off Stranger's back she lost her grip and fell on the ground.

"Ow," she winced, bruising her other hip.

"Seven Hells, Sansa!" Sandor landed next to her as light on his feet as she wished she had been, his knees crunching into the snow. He picked her up gently, but his armor still pinched at her clothes.

"You're hurting me," she whined.

He practically threw her over the back of her horse. "We don't have time for this."

"Are you mad at me?" she asked, struggling to right herself in the saddle.

He didn't answer and kept their horses moving at a run. Sansa tried to shift her weight to keep it off her bruised hip, but it didn't really help and by twilight there were tears running down her cheeks. Sandor wouldn't stop for the night, saying that they needed more distance; it was too easy for the clansmen to track them through the snow.

By morning Sansa was exhausted. She didn't feel like she had a body anymore, more a bag of tenderized meat. They stopped that night, but when Sansa begged him to make a fire, he refused.

"No. Too easy for them to find us by the smoke," he explained, settling near a tree with his arms crossed to act as lookout for a few more hours.

She knew he was right, but she felt like he was making excuses. She was sore and cold, and she had seen his fingers trembling when they were in the burning hovel. Turning over in the bed, she managed sleep.

But if the Burned Men were tracking them through the snow covered mountain passes they would soon lose the trail, for in the morning Sansa and Sandor came to the western edge of the mountains where the grey stone dropped in sheer cliffs that shielded the woodlands from the mountain snowfall. They found a steep path down the side of a waterfall and walked carefully so as not to slip on the wet stone. Sansa gave a little sigh when they got to the bottom and could look up at the waterfall, frozen at the top but gushing from the middle with snowmelt that supplied the lakes and rivers west of the Vale with fresh water. There was even a rainbow formed by the spraying mist.

"Oh, Sandor, couldn't we stop here?"

He agreed. It was a good place to set up camp and regain their strength. There was fish in the river and the mist from the waterfall hid the smoke from their fire.

"Sansa, I've been thinking," Sandor said once they were settled into camp, eating what he had fished. "It's going to be a lot more difficult from here on out. Petyr Baelish and the Lannisters are looking for you, and Winterfell is just about the likeliest place to look. We don't even know who holds it, or if we'll be able to get past the Twins and Moat Cailin."

"So? Winterfell is mine by rights. We will win it back."

"You and me." He scratched the back of his neck.

"Yeah! We'll figure something out."

"That's not much of a plan."

"I guess not," she frowned. She had been so concerned with making it off the Vale and out of the mountains she hadn't given much thought to what they would do at Winterfell. "What do you think we should do?"

"Well, we don't have to go north. We could go south instead."

That puzzled her. "Why would we go south?"

"Well it isn't as cold, for one thing . . . and there will be more food. Maybe the Dornish will give you a castle," he suggested. "If not, it would be just as easy to take one from them as to take Winterfell."

Sansa gave an unladylike snort. "I don't think Prince Doran would give me a castle, and what right do we have to take one?"

Sandor shrugged. "His brother killed my brother."

Sansa's anger boiled up inside her. Where did he come up with ideas like this? Besides, Sandor hated his brother! Sansa threw the rest of her meal on the floor and screamed. "My castle is not in Dorne! My castle is in the north! We are not going south! We are going to Winterfell!"

"All right! Calm down. You're such a fucking princess."

"I am a Princess," Sansa muttered.

"All right then, Your Grace," his voice dripped with sarcasm, "what's the big plan to get us to your castle? Just walk up the Kingsroad?"

Sansa felt herself growing red. That was the plan as far as she had figured it. "Well, why not?"

Now Sandor turned furious. "We'll die, Sansa! That's why! You want to walk past The Twins after what they did to your brother? Those people want to murder you. They'll do you in just like they did him in."

"My brother Robb?" Sansa frowned. Sandor was talking about the Freys, who kept The Twins and had murdered Robb at her uncle's wedding.

"Yeah. 'The King in the North,'" he scoffed. "And you're the Princess. Do you think your title will defend us? It won't. It doesn't matter that your wolf is dead, they'll find a new head for your body. Probably mine."

"What?" Sansa asked. Why was Sandor talking about Lady? "What did they do to Robb?"

"Gods, you really are dense. Didn't I just tell you?"

"He was beheaded?" Like Lady. Like my father.

"No. The Freys killed him, then they cut off his head. And then they switched it with his bloody wolf's. So whenever you want to let me in on it, I'm ready to hear your brilliant plan to get us north."

Grey Wind, Sansa thought, and she started to cry.

"Stop it. You knew the Freys killed your brother."

But Sansa could not stop crying. The image of Grey Wind's head sewn to Robb's body was stuck in her mind. "Oh, Robb. Oh, oh, Robb," she cried, and sobbed anew whenever she said his name.

"I was just being mean," Sandor said several minutes later. "I was just kidding about the wolf bit."

"No, you weren't!" she choked out. "I know when you're being mean and when you're telling the truth!" She slumped to the ground, exhausted from sobbing. She could not remember the last time she felt so angry, lonely, and afraid. She knew then that she had mortal enemies who wanted nothing but for her to die.

"Sansa. I'm sorry."

She felt so weak. She could not go on. She could not even lift herself up from the ground, so she scratched at it, breaking her fingernails in the dirt. Sandor came over and picked her up and held her tight in his arms. She struggled against him but he wouldn't let her go, and held her long after she had no tears left but was still crying.

"Why?" she whimpered. "Why would they do that?"

"I don't know."

"Please, Sandor . . ." She clung to him fiercely, thinking that this was the last safe place for her. "Promise you won't hurt me."

"I won't. And I won't let anyone else hurt you, either."

She thought of all Robb's bannermen who had promised him the same thing, and he'd had many. For her, hopefully one would be enough.

The half-moon rose and somewhere out in the woods a wolf howled—too close, and it echoed off the cliff's walls. Sandor jumped like he'd been startled. Then a whole chorus of wolves joined the first one, so loud they might have been only a mile away from the campsite.

"Are you afraid, girl? Those wolves would like to eat us."

"No," Sansa said, settling against him. "No, they're only singing."