No beating has ever hurt this badly before; and Sansa cannot remember what she has done to make Joffrey so angry.
Robb must have won a very great victory, she thinks now and though she is happy for him, she wants to weep and whimper from the pain. Even my face hurts. He must have given them leave to hit my face; he always said he liked me pretty.
Mayhaps she isn't pretty anymore. That makes her want to weep too. She seems to remember there is a man who likes to look at her and who tells her that she is beautiful. He won't want to look at me anymore…gods, why is it so cold?
She suddenly realizes that she must be in a black cell, just like the kind where they had kept her father. Terror rises in her heart and she can feel it beating, so hard and fast.
They're going to take my head. They're going to execute me just like they executed my father. Robb: hurry! Help me, please; I don't want to die. I want to go home. Please let me go home: I'll do no treason, I promise.
But wanting to go home is treason to Joffrey. She is supposed to love him, and to want to be his queen and have his babies.
Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants.
That man tried to help her, and told her what Joffrey wanted; but it hasn't ever been enough somehow and this time the pain is nigh unbearable.
I don't want Joffrey anyway. I want another man: the kind man. I want to have his babies. Please let him come for me. I don't want to die here.
She does not know how long she has been in this cold cell. She hopes they have forgotten her, and then mayhaps someone will come in time to save her.
The next thing she knows is that someone is coming, many people are coming: she can hear their shouts and their running footsteps. She wonders if she is being brought up to die, and she hurts so much and is so very tired now that she almost does not care anymore.
"MY LORD! OVER HERE!" Someone is shouting over her and then she feels the someone is closer and leaning over her.
"My lady? My lady?" And the someone's voice is gentle and worried and…and…Northern, gods be good: can it be? And then her heart quickly fills with relief and elation but even that is unbearable and she feels all her pain at once and she is again lost in the lonely darkness of her black cell.
….
The mob must have pulled her from her horse and made her fall to the cobblestones because she hurts all over, and they are pinching her and kicking her and biting her though she has never done them hurt. She feels them hold her down now and she wishes the Northern man would come back and save her; but instead she tries to struggle to be free and they shout at each other to keep her down and their grip on her limbs is harder and they will not let her rise and run.
"Hold her still! I must tie the splint tightly. She must not move."
There must be a great many of them because they blot out the light and no one comes to push her back onto her horse. The women are there, the women like weasels, and they have the knives that tear at her and turn her into shiny wet ribbons of blood down there and there is so much blood that it feels warm and sticky and…no, please; please, no: the queen will see and they'll marry me to Joffrey and make me lay with him. Make it stop, please; make the bleeding stop.
"I fear there is naught I can do, my lord: the child is lost."
Yes, I'm a child. I'm only a girl; I'm not a woman yet. I cannot bleed so much and feel so much pain. Let me go, please. Let me go home.
A warm, strong hand brushes her hair back from her brow and someone kisses her forehead but she still hurts and bleeds. Now a softer voice says:
"She needs rest now, as do you. I will stay with her, milord."
Sansa knows that this woman will not hurt her. This woman helped her once, the other time she bled so much, and said that she was only a girl but that she would heal.
Yes, I will heal. Help me to heal.
….
It is so terribly hot. Sansa is so hot that she cannot bear it and yet she is covered with furs and a fire burns in the chamber and she feels dull and wet and heavy and she can scarcely breathe.
They are burning the kingswood, on Lord Tyrion's orders. Lord Renly comes to take Kings Landing. He defeated his brother Lord Stannis and he will defeat Joffrey and he will send me home.
"How did this happen, Father?"
"She…she fell down some stairs, it seems."
The stairs, the Serpentine, but I did not fall; he caught me. He saved me from the mob and he saved me from falling. He likes to kill people but he tries to save me. Why am I on fire? He hates fire.
"The north tower stairs? Will she…will she live?"
"The maester says the fever must run its course, but Berena… It's Berena I trust with her. Will you help us?"
They decide whether I will live or die! The queen must have sent them. She said she did not mean for Renly to have us alive.
They begin to pull at her and she wants to cry for help. The Northern man will come but these men are Northern, so why do they try to hurt me?
"That's it, Sansa, sit up now. Drink this, you must drink."
The voice is deep and kind and he wants her to drink and she is so hot and thirsty but the queen has sent him and so she must not trust him. He does not want her to go home to Winterfell.
"Drink, my lady, you will feel better."
Now someone holds her head and pinches her nose and they pour the warm liquid down her throat and she cannot stop them and she knows not what she is drinking: it is not water, nor wine…
Poison! They are giving me poison. Cersei said it was poison, a sweet poison but it would kill me all the same.
"That will do it, milord," the woman who heals says now but she has killed her by holding her head and pouring sweet poison down her throat.
That will do it.
….
Why is there a bear sleeping in my chamber? He is great big and furry and sleeps upright in a chair with his head to one side and he has a great big snore and she should be frightened but it is funny, like one of Old Nan's stories. The girl who woke to find a bear in her chamber; or mayhaps "The Bear and the Maiden Fair." It is a song and she loves songs. She starts to hum the song.
"Milady?"
Someone stirs next to her, not the side with the bear, and she sees the woman who helps her and she knows this woman. Yes, this woman is her nurse; no, that is wrong: she is her children's nurse. She has children. She has two children by the bear. But he is not a bear; he is her husband, and a Northerner. And there will be another child soon but not by the bear either-
"Sansa? Sansa, are you awake?"
The man who is her husband is next to her suddenly, he is sitting next to her and he is holding her face in his hands, his hands are so very big, and he is looking at her as though he is searching for something he has lost.
"M' lor'…" she tries to say but it hurts to speak, her throat is so dry; and her face hurts and she wonders why she cannot see properly, almost as though her eyes will not open completely but only a little.
"Can you hear me, Sansa?" he asks her gently. "Do you know where you are?"
She looks around as much as she can and wonders why he asks this of her. This is their chamber, they are at Last Hearth. It is his home, and hers. She nods slowly.
"Hurt," she manages to force out but despite her straining effort she can barely hear it.
"Yes," he tells her gravely. "Yes, my sweet, beautiful Sansa…you were badly hurt; but you will be well now. We will see to it, I promise you. You will not hurt anymore. Berena, she is hurting still."
Sansa turns slightly to the woman who helps her and her children and she is holding a cup in her hands and wants Sansa to drink it now.
"Poison," she remembers vaguely.
'Willow bark, milady: for your pain. Drink as much or as little as you can now."
Sansa tries to sit up but she has not the strength and so the man who is her husband helps her to sit up and takes the cup to hold it to her lips because she tries to reach for it but there is a stick of wood and some linens tied around her arm that they hold her arm straight so that she cannot bend it or use her hand.
"The maester will come to see about your arm, milady. Your leg too. We had to tie splints so that you did not-"
"Babe," she says now and they stare and do not answer and so she thinks mayhaps she did not speak clearly or out loud. They do not understand her.
"B-babe…bay-bee," she is trying to speak clearly but her face still hurts so she will asks for a looking glass when they answer her, but they don't. Why don't they answer me? She concentrates and tries to ask again but before she can her husband reaches to her with the hand that does not hold the cup and tenderly touches the side of her face that does not hurt.
"Sansa…" Her husband who is kind to her is looking at her sadly. She remembers that he looked sad once when people died and so she knows, she knows the babe has died and he is sad.
"'m sorry," she whispers to him. He is so sad. She is sad for him.
"Drink, Sansa; and you'll feel better soon."
Her husband holds the cup to her lips and she drinks the warm liquid and the warm tears run down her cheeks and she is still looking at him because she is sorry, she is so very sorry to have caused him this sadness. She finishes the tea and he smiles faintly and hands the cup to the woman and Sansa wants to touch him. One hand and arm are bound and so she cannot touch him, but the other hand can reach and so she slowly brings shaky fingers to the bearded face and she starts to cry. She cries because she is sad too, and empty; suddenly she feels so empty and she hurts and she wants him to hold her and he does. He holds her and she cries and whispers she is sorry and he pats her back and stokes her hair and she can feel him shaking under all the furs he wears. He really is a great big bear of a man and she wants to be his maiden fair but she is hurt and sad and empty so she cries instead.
"It's alright, Sansa. You'll be alright now. Rest now, Sansa, and you'll be well again," he reassures her but his voice is still sad.
AN: Thanks to Littlefeather who told me about willow bark in Native medicine.