"It be a pleasure to have you back in Last Hearth, milady," Berena tells her kindly but wearily.

"I thank you, Berena," Sansa tells her warmly, though it is still a shock to her to see the older woman finally showing her age after being away for so many years. She has slowed in her movements and her voice is not strong. Lyanna and Smalljon have needed another nurse for their sons in these past years, though Berena still oversees their upbringing and counsels Lyanna on matters regarding her pregnancies and in nursing her babes. Sansa fears now that it may be the last time she sees her friend again.

"You would have been proud of Serena: she learned her courtesies as much from you as from me, Berena. She will do well as the lady of Castle Cerwyn; though she is young, still," she tells her.

Berena smiles proudly now. "I'm sure she were a lovely bride, milady: your girl grew up so like you…though she be her father's child as well. And you did your duty well as Lady of Last Hearth though you were but a girl then; and so will your child."

"She was lovely…she was so beautiful, Berena," Sansa replies. "I wished so much her father could have seen her; he would have been so very proud and happy; though sad to let her go, I imagine."

"I imagine he would: he loved her fierce. Your lord…forgive me, milady; her father left her a fine dowry, and Lord Jon did his duty handing his sister over to Lord Cerwyn. The young lord lost his own father, long afore Lady Serena did. I curse the Others for all the Northmen they took from us," she notes sadly.

Sansa knows that the old woman is thinking of the Greatjon's youngest sons by his first wife: young men that she had known since birth, more than she was thinking of the late Cley Cerwyn.

"Yes," Sansa agrees, thinking of her brother Robb, "we are fortunate not to have lost so many to the pale mare. The South lost many more from sickness than the North had to the Others."

The South of Westeros had been badly devastated by the pale mare: the sickness was thought to have killed over half the population of Kings Landing, rich and poor alike. And as Sandor had predicted, the port cities in the South were hit hardest. The Martells had closed both the harbor and the city walls in Planky Town, as had the Citadel in Oldtown, so that no ships entered the harbors and no one could enter or leave afoot or by horse. But despite precautions the sickness had reached villages and countryside as well. Septs had been overwhelmed with the care of the living, and the Silent Sisters had been burdened with the care of the endless dead. Finally bodies had needed to be burned when no one and no place was left to bury them. The situation had been similar but mercifully less dire in the Westerlands, Riverlands and the Vale. It did not end until the hot Summer finally ebbed: a short Summer of less than five years, but no one lamented its passing when the cooler temperatures brought a respite in the spread and severity of illness. In the North, only White Harbor and the Dreadfort had suffered badly. Lord Manderly had contained the spread of the pale mare by shutting up White Harbor; and soldiers from Hornwood, Winterfell, Karhold and Last Hearth had ensured that none left the Bolton lands for other parts of the North. Those that did not die of sickness had sometimes starved instead.

Through it all, it was thought that Tyrion Lannister, the Imp, ruled in Queen Daenerys' absence. When a year passed without word from Dragonstone, she was presumed dead; and the council invited Lord Renly to resume his place on the Iron throne. He agreed, and by the Autumn he returned to Kings Landing at the head of an army. Only after order was restored and safety secured did his queen, the Lady Margaery, and their children take their place at court. It was then that Rickon sent a raven pledging his fealty and renouncing his inheritance to the title of King in the North if the king would pardon his sister, the Lady Sansa Umber, for feigning her own death, and forgive her family for protecting her. It had been done for love of her children, Rickon explained; and not from Northern rebelliousness against the throne.

Renly accepted and granted Sansa and all those who had hidden her pardon, including Sandor Clegane; and Margaery sent cases of Arbor Gold to welcome "her dearest friend Lady Sansa" back to life again. The Northerners had been astonished but happy to learn the truth, and many commoners had flocked to the side of the Kingsroad when they heard that Lady Sansa and her children and protector were passing from the far North back to Last Hearth to be reunited with her son. She was celebrated as a heroine for defying the dragon queen and staying near her family; and the singers hastened to write new songs of the life of their brave and selfless Lady Sansa.

Meanwhile, rumours abounded throughout the rest of Westeros that she had fled to Essos and hidden in a brothel; or that she had lived with the Nights Watch, disguised as a young man like brave Dany Flint. Others said she had lived with wildlings and still others whispered that she had fled to the Frozen Shore and lived beyond the Wall and was coming back as a wight. It is a marvel that they do not accuse me of regicide, thought Sansa, so far-fetched were the stories about her. No trace of Dany or her last dragon had been found on Dragonstone; and so her disappearance was thought to be the gods' revenge for her treatment of Sansa and the deaths of noble wards at court during the sickness.

But if Sansa and her daughter and her wildling ward were warmly welcomed back by everyone at Last Hearth, the same reception was not afforded her armed guardian. Most still knew Sandor Clegane as the Hound, and as the brother of the horrible Mountain and the sworn shield of the bastard King Joffrey. Everyone fell silent when he dismounted his horse, and when he entered the hall and then the family solar.

"Would have found it warmer at the bloody Wall," he grumbled to Sansa. But neither she nor Eddard would hear of him leaving her side.

"You protected Mother, and Serena and Gretel. Your place is with them, Sandor," young Eddard insisted, "with us. And when I come of age, I will ask Smalljon to build my seat at the hunting cottage, and you can join us there."

"Eddard," Sansa asked him, "are you quite certain? Surely your brother will need you here."

"Smalljon has four sons, Mother, and all of Father's brothers have sons and they live south of Last Hearth; we should have an Umber lord closer to the New Gift to protect our own people. They are sparse now, but there will be more when I settle there and we can trade with the Thenns and wildlings. We can clear land to plant and for grazing. And I will have a seat to take a bride, and have sons of my own," he tells her importantly. "That is what Father would have wanted; that is why he left us the gold. Do you not agree, Sandor?"

Sandor stands taller to have Sansa's son respectfully ask in his opinion, and he nods in agreement. "Aye, Lord Eddard: you should do what your father would have wanted you to do."

"I've even chosen a name for my seat, Mother," he smiles proudly to tell her, "I will call it Blackthorn…after the leaves you gathered there for me. But…but first, I wish to travel. I-" He hesitates and looks strained but he continues. "I- Mother, my friend returns to his father in Highgarden and…and he invites me to go with him. I have never left the North, Mother, and…and I would see some of the world before I take my seat. We cannot build before Winter; and we cannot go there to live without building and so…and so I wish to go South…for a time."

Sansa's heart tightens to hear him speak, to hear him express all the yearning to see the world that she once felt as a girl. What good has ever come of a Stark going South, his father had once asked, and their son is half Stark.

"Eddard," she breathes at last, "I understand that a young man would wish to see more of the world but…" But she cannot think of a reason to deny him save for her own fears; and she knows this is not enough. He is his father's son, and an Umber and he is almost a man. Fearful she may be; but he must not be, not if he is to be lord of his own seat one day.

"But…but you must try to use some of your time to learn…if you will be master of your own seat one day. You needs learn from your travels, to be a good lord of Blackthorn. It is a fine name for a keep: strong and Northerner, like-" Like your father, Sansa thinks but instead says: "-like you, Eddard." She sees Sandor Clegane watching her, and he nods slowly.

"It's normal for a boy to want to want to make his own way, to feel like a man, little bird," he tells her some time later as he lifts her to her saddle and onto her horse to take her and Serena for a ride in the forest.

"I know," she replies quietly, "but I had hoped to spend time with him once we returned to Last Heart; not to have him leave for so long to go so very far away. I think now that mayhaps…yes, I think we should visit Winterfell. I have not seen my family in many years; and Serena can see her cousins and grandmother again. And Gretel can come with us… After all, we have all been so long hidden from the world."

"Best you accept some might prefer that I stayed that way, little bird," he growls in warning to her.

Despite Sandor's misgivings, they journeyed to Winterfell at the end of Autumn and arrived in time to attend Rickon's wedding to Elena Glover. The celebration is well-attended by Northern lords and their families, and all are delighted to see Sansa and to meet her daughter, though some are heard to grumble either about her wildling ward or Sandor or both. But Rickon makes it known that they are welcome, and so they are. It is during the celebrations that Gawen Glover, his uncle Galbart's her to Deepwood Mott, asks for the hand of Robb and Roslin's eldest daughter; and it is when the young Cerwyn heir first dances with Serena.

Sansa's heart fills to see the shy glances and blushes behind their courtesies, and she remembers how it once felt to be young and yearn for love and to hope that it came with a pretty face and kind words; but she also knows that it is not enough. Her mother senses her concern, and reassures her.

"Cley Cerwyn's son has spent much time here at Winterfell, Sansa; Castle Cerwyn is but half a day's ride from here. He lost his father at a young age, much as Rickon did; and his mother, Lady Cerwyn thought they might make good companions for each other. He is kind and brave: he will make a good lord…and a good husband," Lady Catelyn tells her.

But Sans is still hesitant. "He is young, Mother, and so is Serena. Let them wait. If they should come to truly care for one another, they can wed when she is six-and-ten…and not before. I will ask her brother, Lord Umber to withhold his consent until she is of a proper age to be a wife."

Her mother's face looks vaguely hurt as she replies: "As you wish, Sansa; she is your daughter."

Sansa takes her mother's hand and squeezes it now. "As I am yours, Mother; and I wish to do right by Serena, as you wished to do for me."

She is walking in the godswood with Sandor the next day when she recounts her words to her mother.

"I'll make bloody sure the boy never harms her: I've grown right fond of your little bird, little bird. But she and your little wildling already know that life is not all tourneys and gallantry; and I'll lay odds they can spot a fool and a liar."

"I expect that you are right, Sandor; but I fear that I shall always carry the memories of the very hard lessons that I have learned from that time…and after," she remarks quietly. Then she stops before the heart tree. "My father would sit here, and I have prayed here myself." She quirks a smile to remember Bran's words about Sandor: how he said that he could see him through the heart tree asking the old gods to watch over her. She turns to him as he steps up to the weirwood.

"Had one of these in Pentos," he tells her. "The house we were given by Renly had been built for a Northman sometime after the Dance of Dragons."

Sansa looks surprised, and then not. "Of course, my ancestor Cregan was Hand to King Aegon III…for one day. They call it the Hour of the Wolf. Many Northmen who marched South with him stayed there after he returned to Winterfell, to spare their families having to feed them during Winter. Some were rewarded with positions for their service. One must have been set as the king's envoy to Pentos."

Sandor snorts in derision. "Another Stark. Bloody figures: it made me think of you, that old tree…especially those red leaves," he says as he reaches to touch her hair but then stops himself. He has forgotten for the briefest moment to be guarded with her, as a shield should be with a lady. Sansa looks at him expectantly, but he takes a step back from her and jerks his chin. "You should put your hood up: it's bloody cold out here. I shouldn't have to think of these things for you," he chides her roughly, "you're the bloody Northerner." And he walks away from her.

Late that night as she makes her way silently through the torch-lit hallways of Winterfell, she remembers a time after her son was born when she went to another man's bed to be a wife to him, though she did not love him. Now she goes to a man's bed because she loves him, though she is not his wife. He is stunned when she lets herself in and he tries to send her away, but instead she moves closer to him anyway and puts a slender hand against his cheek like she did the night the Blackwater burned. Sansa has not lain with man in many years and, though she wants him, she trembles; but so does he. His hands shake when he reaches for her, and his fingers over her skin are tremulous. But his kisses grow hungry and he pulls her closer and Sansa clings to him and whispers fevered words of love and want to him. There is pain, and it is over quickly, his want for her is so great; but she stays with him and strokes his hair and his skin and runs her hands over his hard limbs and body with its numerous scars and then she climbs onto him and takes him as a woman grown who has known love and wishes to share it with him. His grey eyes gaze at her in the firelight, and his callused hands roam her body, gently at first and then firmly as he helps guide her to her peak and his. When she collapses into his arms, he speaks plainly:

"We'll needs marry now," he tells her bluntly, but she hears the tentative question in his harsh voice.

She holds him tighter for a moment, prepared that she may needs let him go. "You needs know, Sandor…there won't be children," she confesses sadly. "I understand if-"

He takes her face in his rough hands and makes her look at him. "You understand nothing, little bird, if you think that, or anything else, will make me change my mind."

They speak to Rickon in the morning, and then to Serena and Gretel. Gretel is happy; but Sansa sees the dismay is her daughter's eyes, though she forces herself to smile bravely. So she sends for her after a maid has dressed her and brushed her hair.

"Serena, please know that I will always love your father; but you also know that I was his second wife. Many people have lost someone they love, and some are fortunate to find love again; but that does not mean they have forgotten. I will never forget your father; and you may speak of him to me at any time. Sandor is fond of you; and he respects that you are your father's daughter, and an Umber." She puts a hand under her chin and raises her eyes to hers. "You are his little Umber girl, and mine…though not a girl anymore," she whispers because Serena has flowered and the Cerwyn boy keeps finding reasons to visit Winterfell despite the deepening snowfalls that slow his ride and make him show up late at the Great Hall in a sodden fur cloak, looking, as Sandor disparagingly remarks, like an eager muskrat who swam a moat.

And so Sansa's daughters and Robb's daughters, and Roslin and Lady Catelyn, and Rickon and his wife stand in the newly fallen snow in the godswood as she becomes Sandor's wife. He has only a plain cloak to drape about her shoulders but that is enough: his house is extinct but for him, and he cares nothing for formalities. He only wants her; and for the rest of the world to acknowledge that she is his. She is now Sansa Clegane.

They decide to stay in Winterfell until Eddard should return in the Spring, and they can make their home at the hunting cottage while his dream of Blackthorn is built. When Sansa suddenly misses her moon's blood, she decides it must be due to Winter rations: Elena runs a stricter keep than Roslin did, to Sansa's approval; and she knows from her studies that meager rations and weight loss and stop a woman's moon's blood. But her gowns grow tighter and then she is sick one morning, and then the next, and then she knows. Sansa has studied midwifery, but she does not understand how she can suddenly quicken again at thirty, and be a mother again at one-and-thirty.

Her eldest children are her husband's: her first husband's; of that there was no question for they could not have been anyone else's then. The child she lost she cannot ever know; she can only mourn its loss as she mourns the circumstances of its almost-being. Her ward is a child of wildlings who were lost to the Others and then to dragonfire: a gentle creature of no words but boundless love that she returns fiercely. Her youngest children are Sandor's. She had told him that there would be no children, but then she gave him two…at the same time.

"It's been known to happen, milady," Berena tells her now after she and Sansa have put her now three-year-old twin daughters to bed in Serena's old room at Last Hearth. "The wanting of children can strain the mind and body so much as to prevent the quickening; sometimes only after a woman gives up does it take hold again. Was it a hard labour for you…to bear not one, but two babes after so long?" she asks her delicately.

"In truth I had forgotten how hard labour can be; when I was once too young, I now feared that I was too old. But I am so happy, Berena. My brother Jon once reminded me that there were twins in our family, and now both my sister and I have been doubly blessed."

"I'm happy for you, milady. Goodnight, then."

"Goodnight, Berena."

Sansa returns to her room alone. Gentle Gretel stayed with Serena at Castle Cerwyn, Sandor is with Eddard and they are helping to gather and prepare such supplies that they will take with them to Blackthorn on the morrow. When she turns to shut the door, she sees the old chest behind it in the corner and stops. After a moment, she opens the lid and sees that it is where she left it all those years ago. She reaches for it slowly, and feels the soft worn wool beneath her hands as she grips it tightly and lifts it to her face to inhale deeply. There is little trace of scent left, or else she has forgotten. She rubs the old brown tunic against her cheek and cradles it there. Then she puts it back gently and shuts the lid down again. Resolved, she takes her cloak from a hook and leaves the room.

The torches in the crypt sputter and waver as she passes by the vaults and tombs until she comes to the one she came to see. She tilts her head curiously to see her own name etched in the stone, as they would have needed to do to make everyone believe that she was truly dead and buried. LADY SANSA UMBER it reads beneath her husband's name; born of House Stark is in smaller letters below. She reaches out to the stone now.

"Hello you," she whispers tenderly. "I- I am sorry…I have not been to visit you for so very long…life…" She breathes a sigh and almost laughs. "Life has not been as I had thought it would be; but then it never has: you know that well. Our daughter is married now, my Greatjon… Oh, my love: you would have been so proud and happy to see her. She was so beautiful…she has your eyes, and your hair, and a wonderful laugh that I think must be from you. She is tall and graceful, but still willful when she wishes to be. She is in so many ways your little Umber girl, still; though she is Lady Cerwyn now. I told her how much you would have wanted to be there, to drape her in your family's sigil and walk her to her husband in the godswood," she sniffles, "and we both shed tears for missing you that day. Lord Jon did you proud as well, to bring her forth as a bride. She wore the very same cloak that you draped me in: do you remember? Of course you do," she relents, feeling foolish; and she wrings her hands together now.

"I am- I have married again. I do not think you will mind so much; you may like him in some ways: he is fierce and brave, and he protects us. He has no use for pretty words or fine manners," she laughs softly, "and…and he is good to the children; he respects that you are their father. He helps Eddard now to plan for his seat at your hunting cottage; and we shall live with him there. We have children of our own as well: two daughters; and I have named one Arrana, the very name that you liked, and the name I took for myself. Her sister is Aregelle: she was Stark who married a Cerwyn; Serena helped me to choose it. She has happy that I had finally given her little sisters..."

Sansa stops and bites her lip. "I am sorry….I am sorry that my failings should have hurt you as much as they hurt me. I wanted so much to give you more children, my love, I hope that I made it up to you in other ways. I tried, truly-"

She turns suddenly when she hears footsteps, and then she sees Sandor take shape out of the darkness.

"I went to check on the girls, and you weren't there. I couldn't find you," he rasps flatly.

"I came to tell Serena's father about her wedding; I did not think that you would mind," she tells him.

"Don't," he answers shortly but then his mouth twitches when he looks at the grave.

"They chiseled my name here after I left for the Gift from Karhold. Arya had said they would send a horse's bones back in a sealed case and claim that they were mine…though Lyanna says they never buried it here. I confess it is quite strange to look upon my own name here…when I am not here."

"Aren't you?" he asks with his grey eyes on hers.

She reaches for his hand. "I have a husband and children: my life is with them," she assures him gently.

"Hm," he barely replies. "I'll leave you to finish then."

"Wait," she says as she still holds his hand, and with the other she touches the grave again. "I must go. Gods grant you sweet rest, my Greatjon. I do not know when I shall return; but when I do I will come to tell you of Eddard and Serena again. I promise." She turns back to Sandor and smiles her gratitude for his love and his understanding. "I am ready now."

AN: I hope the timeline of this chapter is not too confusing: it starts in Last Hearth where they stop before returning to the hunting cottage in spring and then flashbacks to when Sansa 'came back to life' the previous autumn and then through their time in Winterfell during Winter and then resumes with Sansa and Berena still talking.

I have tried to wrap up a lot in this chapter since we are nearing the end.