Serena leans closer to her mother and whispers: "Where is the privy, Mama?"
"Oh…there is a chamber pot, and a screen," Sansa tells her, and her daughter wrinkles her nose. "Serena, I fear if you would stay with us you will needs become accustomed to some hardships. We do not live in a lord's keep here, I am afraid. Ready yourself for bed now, and I will brush your hair for you…and you too, Gretel."
"I can brush Gretel's hair," Ivy offers, "and plait it too."
"Is Eddard sleeping in the burned man's cabin?" Serena asks her warily.
"His name is Sandor Clegane, Serena; and he has offered Eddard and Great-uncle Hother his cabin while they are here. Sandor will sleep in the stables." She pauses as she brushes her daughter's hair in the firelight and admires the luster and thick softness of the tawny brown fall down her back. "Does he frighten you, Serena? There is no need to be afraid. Sandor is a hard man; he has had a hard life…but he would never hurt you. He protects me; and you, my little bird, are so precious to me." She hugs her impulsively now. "Come and sleep."
Ivy shares her bed with Gretel, and they are already curled up and Ivy is whispering stories to the little blonde girl. Sansa holds her daughter close beneath the fur cover and strokes her soft hair.
"You have your father's hair," she murmurs to Serena and she feels her daughter's breathing hitch.
"I- I am forgetting him. Mama," Serena tells her miserably with a voice full of tears. "I forget Da…and you are gone too."
"I am right here," Sansa holds her tighter and croons comfortingly to her, "I am right next to you, my little bird; and you are always in my heart," she tells her as Serena sobs softly. "Sh, it's alright, Serena. I lost my father when I was young, and I sometimes forget him…but then it comes back to me. You will remember again, I promise: you will remember how he loved you…his little Umber girl."
"Tell me, Mama; tell me about Da," she whispers now.
"Oh, your Da was so big and strong, and loud," she laughs softly, "and he loved you so very much. He was kind and generous and, well, your Da had a temper too, though never with you: he was always gentle with you. He had a beard and …and a great big laugh that made you want to laugh with him. He wore furs in Winter, and when you were a babe he would hold you in his great big arms and you would turn into him and clutch your small hand to his furs, like a little cub. You were so very small in his arms, and he would smile and laugh at your little nose and your pink cheeks and say you were his pretty little Umber girl. He would lift you high in the air, and you would giggle and wave your little arms. Then when you were learning to walk, he would set you down and hold out his arms to you so you would come to him…you would never come to me, or to Eddard; you only wanted your Da. Who is my good girl, he would ask; and you would say me so proudly…" She kisses Serena's forehead now. "Oh, he was so proud of you: when you recited your lessons, and when he took you out on your pony and when you danced. Do you remember dancing with your Da when your brother brought Lyanna to Last Hearth?" she prompts her.
"Yes," Serena looks up at her now in the dim firelight, "and I remember him dancing with you, Mama: you looked so happy, and Da was so funny. He smiled and drank from a big horn and he kept shouting for everyone to dance but he danced with you the most, Mama; and everyone cheered when you did: I remember."
"There now, you see: I told you that you would remember."
"Do you miss Da, Mama?"
Sansa smiles again and strokes her daughter's soft cheek. "I do, Serena; and I wish we had more time together. I wanted him to see you and Eddard grow up and have children of your own, and I wanted to grow old with him," she tells her wistfully. "But I like speaking of him to you," she says and she realizes that does. "It…it was hard at first, and for a very long time to think of your father. It hurt so very much; but now that you are here with me I want to tell you everything about him, Serena."
Serena hugs her closer and turns her face into Sansa's shoulder. "I like to hear about him, Mama."
"He would always lift you up when you ran to him," Sansa continues, "and tell you that his girl was getting bigger. Sometimes he would turn you upside down to hear you laugh…"
….
Sansa lies awake and stares at the rough ceiling of the cottage with its water stains from leaks in heavy rains and from being buried under snow in Winter. Serena sleeps soundly beside her, and Sansa's heart fills to hear her deep breathing and feel her gentle warmth next to her. She had whispered to her about her father, and they had laughed softly and sighed at their shared memories until Serena had begun to yawn tiredly. But Sansa finds sleep elusive this night. She is excited to be with her children again, and she feels strangely elated to have spoken so much of her husband. Her mind is filled with moments and memories that she wishes to share with them; and for once they do not make her want to weep with grief and longing but instead have made her happy.
We were so happy, my love; and I wish that we had more time, or that I had not wasted time feeling unhappy.
Her infidelity haunts her even now, because it is time she cannot have back. Still, when she remembers the girl she was, and the secret her husband and family kept from her about her marriage, she wonders how it could possibly have been different for her.
It was wrong: you knew it was wrong, and yet you did it anyway because you wanted to feel loved.
"Everyone wants to be loved."
"Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same."
Curse her, she thinks of Cersei: her nemesis even now.
She is too agitated to sleep, and so she slips from her bed, careful not to wake her daughter or the wildling girls in the next bed, and lets herself out of the cottage and into the night air.
The waxing moon and the stars are bright in the cloudless sky but Sansa does not look up. Rather she is looking at the ground and thinking of the Greatjon, and of his first wife and marriage.
He did not love her because she was not what he wanted; then I did not love him because he was not what I wanted. We were unhappy when we wanted to be loved, but then were happiest when we gave love.
Sansa stops and thinks. Mayhaps that was the poison of wanting to be loved: the wanting for yourself; wanting some idea of what you thought love should be. She thinks of the love that she gives her children, freely and generously, because she wants to, and how happy that makes her.
She sighs audibly. She knows it is not enough: no amount of giving him what he wanted had ever made Joffrey love her, or would have helped her to ever love him. She is certain that generosity could not have made her love Prince Oberyn or Tyrion Lannister or whichever lord Queen Daenerys might have commanded her to marry. She has known love, but she is still not certain why, or how.
"Aren't you happy, little bird?"
Sansa jumps and gasps though she knows the rasping voice can only be Sandor's. He seems almost to take from out of the darkness and she feels a sense of discomfiting familiarity
"Forgive me, you startled me," she tells him, "and of course I am very happy to see my children again. There is nothing else in this world that could have made me happier."
"I meant aren't you happy to get your wish: you're a lady in a song now," he jeers. "Girls all over the Seven Kingdoms are crying tears over Lady Sansa's broken heart."
She shakes her head slowly. "I would much rather have stayed with my children than had reason to hide away and let the world think that I am dead. I would much rather have kept my life and my freedom, and my name."
He belches under his breath and Sansa sees his mouth twitch in the moonlight.
"Yes," he seems to agree but his tone is harsh. "There is no greater name in the North than Stark."
"I am Lady Sansa Umber," she reminds him.
"'Course you are: the Widow Wolf … And if the dragon queen should be a queen no longer, Lady Umber, will you live again, or will you keep giving your heart to a dead man?" he demands angrily.
Sansa is stunned. "Oh," she breathes, "how can to ask such a terrible question? I loved my lord husband truly…and so I mourn him truly as is right," she tells him firmly. "Why should I forget him; and why should you resent him? He was a good man-"
"He was great man!" He jeers again. "Is that not what they all say? The mighty Greatjon Umber, who captured the Lannister gold mines, killed the terrible Mountain in single combat and took his head to the King in the North who rewarded him with the hand of his lady sister and won her heart. Loved and mourned by all," he spits. "He got to kill Gregor, he got to keep the gold, he got to bed the girl," he rasps bitterly, "and I got exile."
Sansa takes a deep breath. "Sandor…I am sorry-"
"I prayed to your bloody tree gods to watch over you," he interrupts suddenly, "when I heard that you had been wed to him. Thought you were just being used again like a prize, to have been given to an old man like that. I remembered him from Pyke all right: big and loud and rough and drunk… Never thought-" he breaks off now and looks away from her.
"You never thought what, Sandor? Please tell me," she says softly. She remembers how Bran had told her that he had seen Sandor Clegane through the heart tree. He says: If you're there, watch over her.
He still does not look at her, and so she cannot see his full face but only a sliver of his burned skin and his ruined ear through the dark hair that falls over it.
"I told him what you did for me…in Kings Landing," she tells him, "and so he was prepared to offer you a place at Last Hearth, if you should have returned to Westeros. He was grateful to you for having protected me."
"And you?" he rasps harshly.
"You know that I am grateful: I said so before the entire court; and I said so when we met again, and I meant it," she tells him simply.
"He protected you too," Sandor notes dully.
"He did: that…that is why they wed me to him, to keep me safe after Kings Landing," she confesses now. "Only, I did not know that for some time; and so I did not love him for some time…though he was kind to me, and gentle. I also thought that I had been a prize; but he cared for me from the very first." She bows her head penitently to remember. "I wish that I had known."
"Why?" he asks her now and she raises her eyes to his because he is looking at her again. "Why did you…care for him, then?"
Sansa knows with all her heart that he wants her to care for him, mayhaps even to love him; she has known this for some time. She did not realize that he was envious of her Greatjon for having won all that he had once wanted, and wanted still. She knows that he needs an answer, and when she thinks of how she came to love her husband she cannot help smiling wistfully.
"I think…it was because he let me love him: he was kind and generous and gentle, with me and with our children; he did not demand anything of me though…though I was always a wife to him," she drops her eyes to say so. "In time, he stopped keeping himself from me, and this way I learned that he loved me; and so I learned to love him back. He gave me himself, and he gave me time," she says now and steps closer to him so that he is startled and steps back from her and his eyes sweep over her warily. She reaches out a gentle hand to touch his arm lightly and feels the hard strength of his muscle and bone through the woolen shirt.
"I need time, Sandor," she tells him feelingly, "and even so, I cannot say for certain how I will feel; I just know that I need time." She does not say that she needs for him to give her more of himself, for she sees from his guarded expression that he understands too well.
He sniffs loudly now, and pulls his arm away as a stern look returns to his face. "Don't know why I bloody asked; might be I'm not used to ale. You shouldn't be out here anyway. Go back inside," he tells her gruffly," before you get skunked. Polecats come around at night," he lectures her with a quick nod, "and make a stink that won't wash out for a fortnight."
Sansa holds her hands together before her and looks at him almost sadly. "Good night, Sandor."
She turns slowly and walks back to the cottage, shutting the door softly behind her.
….
The next morning, Sansa is sweeping away the cold embers of the heart fire when the sounds of clashing steel and loud grunts reach her ears. She hurries to the door and looks out and breathes a sigh of relief. Eddard turns and sees her there.
"Did we frighten you, Mother? We are only sparring."
Sansa nods in acknowledgement. "I am no longer accustomed to the sounds of morning training, Eddard; I feared that someone had followed you here and…" She throws open her hands to show that her concern is simply a part of her daily existence: she must live in fear of being discovered.
"That is why I train, Mother: so that I might keep you safe; and Sandor Clegane has offered to help me."
"That is generous of him, Eddard," she replies and looks to Sandor, "and kind. We will dress and gather eggs to cook so that you may break your fast when you are done. Come, my girls," she says to her daughter and the wildlings girls who have risen from their beds to look out at the men. "We have work to do as well."
When they are all at table, Eddard sets his knife down when he is done and speaks to Sansa:
"I will needs return to Last Hearth within a fortnight, Mother. Our family's wards are still at the castle, and my place is with them and with Smalljon. Father would have agreed that it is the right thing," he tells her firmly; and though he is but two-and-ten, Sansa swallows her trepidation and is proud of him.
"You are right, Eddard: your father would expect you to stay with our wards, only…only I hope you will all be safe and well. You must let me gather enough blackthorn bark to send back with you for a remedy if any of you should be stricken with flux. The woods witches from beyond the Wall know of this remedy, and so you can say that you have brought it from one of them."
Eddard glances at Uncle Hother who nods curtly.
"Thank you, Mother."
"Can we go with you to gather herbs, Mama?" Serena asks and next to her little Gretel nods in agreement.
Sansa glances at Sandor now. "If Sandor Clegane approves, you may accompany me. He decides how to best keep us safe here."
"Don't see why not," he fairly snorts, "if you keep quiet and keep your hoods up. Might be I'll go with you: the ground's rough in places and you don't want to fall into the stream and drown."
"Very well then," Sansa concedes to his surly concern. "Sandor will accompany us. After we clean up, you must don your cloaks."
Hother thumps his cup down. "Best you learn what it's like to live here, girls; so if you don't like it we have time to take you further North."
Serena looks to her mother and back at her great-uncle. "I want to stay with Mama," she replies resolutely, and Gretel nods quickly beside her.
"Can you handle them?' Hother asks Sandor. "Fine…but any whiff of trouble and I'm coming back to take you to your lady aunt with the Thenns. I'll tell Lyanna to send you more of what supplies you need. Don't know when it'll be safe to come back…for them or for you."
"Uncle Hother, I am just so very grateful to you for bringing them to me," Sansa tells him I a voice nearly-hoarse from emotion, and he waves her away impatiently. She drops her eyes, knowing he has no tolerance for her tears.
"We'll come back for you when it's safe, Mother; and if it's not…well, I know a way now that we can be together-"
"It was only idle talk from an ale-filled old man, boy: don't start giving your mother grand ideas," Hother grumps to Eddard, but her son ignores him.
"Father left us gold so that I might have my own household one day, and I shall build it here…on our lands; then I can keep you safe forever, Mother, like father would have wanted."
Sansa's tears well up again. Her son is so earnest and brave and pure-hearted; he does not know how the world truly is.
"Oh, Eddard…that would be lovely but I fear that I must needs stay hidden from the world, mayhaps forever…"
"It takes a many people to run a keep, boy, and a garrison to keep it safe: how will you hide your mother from them all?" Sandor asks him bluntly. "Wait until we know what her place in the world will be…before you go building castles out of thin air." He turns to Sansa now. "Might be he has the look of his father…but he thinks like you, little bird."
Serena furrows her brow at him. "I'm little bird; Mama says I am."
"Is that so? I've not heard you chirping: do you have a head full of songs?"
"Serena, Sandor Clegane called me little bird when we were in Kings Landing; I was a girl then and…and I wanted to fly away," she tells her. Though it is not the truth, it is also not a lie.
"Did Mama sing for you?" Serena asks Sandor now.
Sandor's stern face softens at her daughter's question, and he looks to Sansa now with a look of gentle yearning that tears at her heart. "Aye…she did…once."
"Will you sing for us tonight, Mother? Please," Eddard asks her.
Sansa bites her lip and nods slightly. "Yes," she tells him, and then she looks directly at Sandor with a ghost of a smile on her lips.
"I will sing for you gladly."