Author's Note: Another short chapter but dedicated to Sandor/Sansa this time. The heartbreaking speech that Sandor recently gave to Arya in the show that explained his burns was actually a speech he gave to Sansa in A Clash of Kings. I'm keeping that speech the way it was in the book for this story, so Sansa has heard that heartbreaking speech herself.
Sansa talked a long while with Jon, each exchanging detailed stories of what had occurred to them since their family's parting. At first, there was an awkwardness of strangers between them as they related their tales to each other. However, as they continued conversing as the embers in the fire burned down to ash, Sansa felt the comfort between them grow.
As a young girl, Sansa had been too proud to truly accept Jon as her brother, no matter how her father treated them. The more she talked with him in the dying light of the fire, Sansa found herself silently thanking the gods that she was no longer that spoiled, foolish child.
She was a woman now, hardened by the trials life had thrown upon her. Though parts of her soul had hardened due to a need to survive, others had softened in contrast. Her attitude of superiority over her bastard brother now looked like a petty thing, the attitude of a girl who had learned to be selfish. Sansa was ashamed then to think of how she had treated him before.
To his credit, Jon never mentioned the state of their previous relationship. He showed the same warmth and compassion to her that he had shown for most his life. No apology was spoken in explicit words, but Sansa knew that he understood. All was forgiven between them. With only the two of them left to the Stark name, there was no longer any room for petty resentment.
Just as the last of the logs began to fall to the hearth in dying embers, Sansa noticed that the weariness in Jon's eyes looked more pronounced than before. "You must be tired, Jon," she said, touching his hand in a gesture of sisterly concern.
Jon smiled at her easy use of his given name. "I must admit I am. It's quite a journey to here from the Wall."
"You must sleep then," Sansa announced, moving away from the place where they had been sitting so closely together. She motioned for Jaime's squire Peck and commanded him to assist the Lord Commander for the evening. She had noticed the golden Lannister had disappeared promptly from sight following her cousin's departure hours earlier, and she very much doubted that the Kingslayer would require any assistance from his squire that evening.
Jon nodded his thanks for her help. "Good night, Sansa," he quickly spoke before dropping an affectionate kiss to her brow. "We'll speak more tomorrow."
Sansa smiled in response and watched him go with a fond expression on her face. After having known so much grief and despair, being abandoned in the capital as she had been for months on end, it was a pleasant change to find herself in the company of two people who cared for her so deeply, the cousin whose determination had removed her from the Vale and the brother with a gentle heart and forgiving spirit.
Looking away from Jon, Sansa found Brienne of Tarth still standing quietly in the corner with no hint of tiredness in her bright, blue eyes. "Brienne," Sansa started in the tall woman's direction. "Please inform Sandor Clegane that I request his presence in my chambers."
It was to Brienne's credit that only a momentary look of shock flashed in her eyes at the command. Immediately, she began to shake her head in denial of the order. "Your cousin – "
"Is in no position to lecture me on the propriety of having a man in my bedchambers," Sansa cut her off with a knowing look.
With that point in Sansa's favor, Brienne could only nod stiffly in agreement before following the command. As soon as the tall knight left in search of Clegane, Sansa began her way toward the place where she had requested a private audience with the hound. As her light tread echoed in the stone halls, she felt the beat of her heart quicken in anticipation of what was to come.
In truth, she didn't know precisely what she intended to say to Sandor to convince him to stay at Winterfell. She only know that she was more likely to persuade him to her way of thinking if they discussed the topic away from the prying eyes of others. She had no doubt that Brienne would mention the late night rendezvous to Amarah, but Sansa cared little for her cousin's opinion on the matter.
Most likely, Jaime Lannister was warming Amarah's sheets that very instant, leaving Amarah very little room to judge Sansa for a similar offense of proper conduct for an unmarried lady. She didn't anticipate much argument on Amarah's part, but she was prepared to defend herself should the need arise.
When she arrived at her chambers, Sansa dismissed Pia who had been attending her needs since the departure from the Vale. Almost as if she sensed the reason for her early dismissal, Pia gave her mistress a conspiratorial smile that cause a heated blush to cover the back of Sansa's neck and ears. Frustrated at herself for such a reaction, Sansa shut the door firmly behind the handmaid while reminding herself that she had not invited Sandor here to seduce him. She simply wished to talk.
With her back pressed to the door, Sansa considered her surroundings, dimly lit by the few candles that had not burned down to waxy little stubs. The room she had chosen was not one she familiar with. Her chambers that had housed her during her earlier life in Winterfell were practically in ruins along with the rest of the keep. Most of the men were sleeping in the stables and in the towers farther off from the main part of the keep. Sansa considered it a small miracle that she and Amarah had been able to find any rooms in the main keep that were inhabitable for living creatures other than vermin and rats.
Trying to throw off thoughts of rodents of any kind, Sansa spotted the trunk that she had requested be delivered to her rooms. Approaching the chest, she sank to her knees and lifted the top with little effort. Once it was raised, she delved her slim hands into the piled clothes and pushed them aside until she spotted her treasure.
Tugging the item from the other clothes that had intertwined with it, Sansa gradually managed to work it free. Once she did, she shut the lid and sat on it with her unearthed treasure cradled in her lap, almost as if she were embracing a sleeping infant. She was looking down at the precious item draped across her knees when the door to the chamber slammed back on its hinges, striking the brick wall with a loud bang of irritation.
Sandor's large frame filled the doorway, silhouetted against the torchlight from beyond. Most would have found the sight terrifying, but Sansa did not. She knew that this man would never hurt her. No matter what threats or curses he might growl in her direction, he would protect her more fiercely than any other knight in the Seven Kingdoms.
"You may leave us Brienne," Sansa leaned over to catch sight of Amarah's knight standing just beyond Sandor's shoulder, an uneasy look decorating her face. She opened her mouth as if to argue but seemed to think better of it at the last moment.
Without saying a word, she closed the abused wooden door, and left the Hound and his little bird alone in the candlelight. "I don't know what you mean by calling me here," Sandor bit off, "but whatever you plan to do, it won't change my mind. I'm not a proper knight. I've said so many times before, but maybe now you'll believe it. I'm a Hound, a mindless beast, and I have no place around an empty-headed little bird like you. Being in the company of Starks has brought me nothing but trouble."
Sansa chose to overlook the comment about her being empty headed. The comment about her family causing him trouble would be pursued at a later time. At the present moment, she had other things to discuss. "I asked you here to show you something," she responded, ignoring most of what he had just said to her. "You gave me something once, and I wanted to return it to you."
The anger burning in Sandor's gaze receded momentarily as he dropped his eyes to the sight of his old cape covering Sansa's lap. The splotches of blood, his blood, still stained the white fabric, though they had now faded from bright red to the color of old rust.
Sansa continued to look at him, observe him, as he stared at his old cape of the King's Guard. It was a cape very similar to the one Jaime Lannister always wore attached to his golden armor, but it was very different from the Kingslayer's. This cape was not spotless white kept in pristine condition, but rather it was stained and torn, ragged and splitting at the edges. The cape was very similar to the soul of the man who had once worn it.
Sandor managed to wrench his eyes away from the mystifying sight and looked at her with an expression of such intense longing that it pierced her soul. Willing back the tears, Sansa spoke again before he could ruin the moment with another of those hateful remarks he used to keep her and the rest of the world away from his tortured soul. "When you gave me this cloak, you took something from me as well. Do you remember?"
"I took your song," he answered in a hollow voice, that haunted look still in his eyes.
"I sang you the only song I could think of," Sansa continued with the story, rising from her place on the trunk's lid and slowly approaching him as she spoke. "I didn't tell you then, but I had sung that song one other time that evening in the sept where I went to pray. I saw the altar of the Mother there, and I lit each of the seven candles, praying all the while that my life would be spared. Even as the words left my lips in request of my own safety, I recalled the face of the man who had saved me from the hands of the mob that would have torn me to pieces. I prayed then for you as well. I asked her to, 'Save him if you can, and gentle the rage inside him.' Then I sang my song, the one you had been demanding of me for so long."
"You sang for me," Sandor repeated what she had just told him, shock and awe replacing the anger in his eyes. It was the gentlest Sansa had ever seen him.
Sansa had finally reached him by now, though she approached him cautiously, as one would a frightened animal. Reaching out a hand to press the bloodied cloak to him, she sang his song again.
"Gentle Mother, font of mercy, save our sons from war, we pray. Stay the swords and stay the arrows, let them know a better day. Gentle Mother, strength of women, help our daughters through this fray, soothe the wrath and tame the fury, teach us all a kinder way."
By the time the last note had been sung, Sandor's ravaged cheek shone with a trail of tears that had begun to fall at Sansa's first sweetly sung word. She reached up to wipe the wetness away and was encouraged by the fact that he did not push her way. "The song was never stolen from me, Sandor. It was always yours to have. I had already given it to you."
He still stood there silently, looking down at the cloak in his hands rather than meet her eyes. Undeterred, Sansa continued on. "You don't have to be alone," she pleaded with him, her voice catching on the last words. "Your family might have betrayed you when your brother's horrible actions scarred you more ways than just the one everyone can see, but you don't need to be angry and alone. I know I mean something to you, and no matter what you think I might feel, you have to know that you mean something to me as well. I can love you."
Sandor had been avoiding her gaze till now but looked up at those last unexpected words. The wounded look in his eyes made Sansa want to weep tears of her own. "There's nothing in me to love, Little Bird," he said, the self-disgust evident in his sad eyes.
Without another word, Sandor shoved the proffered gift back into her arms before spinning on his heel and tearing from her room as if the devils of the seven hells were chasing him. At his abrupt departure, Sansa considered going after him but decided against it. She knew it would take him some time to come to terms with all she had revealed to him.
There had been a time when Sansa would have been crushed by his rejection of her heartfelt offer, but now she only found her heart stirred with the love she had mentioned moments ago. Sandor Clegane might have given up on himself years ago, but that did not mean Sansa would do the same. She could not allow it. She would not.
I had originally planned a different ending for this chapter but had a change of heart at the last minute. I don't think Sandor would be that easy to crack, but Sansa is too close to give up the fight now. And just incidentally, everything she says to him here about praying for him in the sept is straight from the books and George Martin himself. So, I think maybe San/San won't have to be restricted to fanfiction forever. At least, I hope not. Thanks for reading! Comments appreciated!