Author's Notes: I first wrote this story in the 2nd round of LJ's sansaxsandor Sansan Russian Roulette for Starbird1's prompt "Sansa catches Sandor shedding manly tears, circa KL, pre-BBB". The challenge had a world limit and the original entry topped exactly 700 words. However, the story refused to go away and just stirred and churned inside me - it simply demanded for something more and I just had to write it…

So here it is, coming in four chapters. Please heed the tags – this is not all rainbows, kittens and sunshine…

Sandor

Sandor couldn't tell how much time had passed. In the impenetrable darkness of black cells – how aptly were they named! - whether it was day or night made no difference. All that surrounded him was dampness, smell of rotten straw, faint sounds of creatures of the night rustling in the corners of the small room, and an overbearing air of desolation. Had it been days, weeks, months?

In nothingness his head was filled with memories and regrets. Questions too. He wished there had been something else – even pain and torture – as nothing could have caused him more agony than to face his own thoughts. What the fuck had compelled him for such monumental madness? What a bloody fool had he been in rushing to save her – and why?

All his life the Hound had taken pride in his pragmatism. He did what he was told, or if following his own counsel, what needed to be done. No rash actions or follies other men fell for whether it was in their quest for honour, search for a cunt or because of their greed. No, not the Hound. He didn't care about things that drove other men. He laughed at the pitiful beings who showed their need openly. Fools! Only a man who didn't crave for anything was free.

So why had he let all that go on that faithful day when everything the Hound represented had dissolved into dust in one senseless moment?

He had known that the Northern girl was up to something from her intense stare that hadn't even bothered to hide the hate she felt towards her tormentor. That, and the determined look on her face had woken the Hound's finely honed instincts and had stirred him to move even before she had. He could be surprisingly fast for a man of his size when he wanted to, as many opponents he had taken by surprise in a battle could have testified, had they still been alive. And that one intuitive step had made all the difference.

Sandor could still see the whole scene playing in front of him as in a slow motion; the girl throwing herself against Joffrey's chest almost as to embrace him, but instead pushing them both over the ledge. Joffrey's stupefied face and his astonishment turning into shock when he lost his balance. The swirl of the girl's skirts, a long wisp of her auburn hair whirling in the wind, her narrow shoulders hunched as she concentrated all her force towards one goal and one goal alone. To kill. The girl was a wolf for certes.

Sandor had reached for them – for her – and yanked her to safety at the last moment by her arm. It had felt thin and fragile in his hand but he had grabbed it hard and squeezed it until the girl had yelped from pain. A sickening thump had conveyed Joffrey's fate and he didn't even have to look over the parapet to know that the newly crowned king was dead. He did that anyway, and saw his charge lying in a slowly growing pool of blood. How well matched was his attire of red and gold with the dark crimson that was bleeding his miserable little life out of him, Sandor remembered thinking at the time.

Soon enough Sandor had found himself in the dungeons, Cersei's screams still in his ears. "I want him dead, I want him hanged, I want it NOW!" No wonder; he had failed his duty in the most spectacular way and deserved to die. What good is a sworn shield if it doesn't shield from harm? Not that he had ever given any vows to Cersei or Joffrey, not even to the head of House Lannister. Lord Tywin had been wise enough not to press him and so it had been. None of that of course made any difference when the lioness wanted revenge for her cub, vows or not.

Yet it didn't matter - nothing mattered.

Except that he had saved her.

Sandor didn't want to dwell on his reasons too much. They mattered neither. Yet as time passed and he had tried and miserably failed to clear his mind of everything, little trails of thought started to make their way into his head. How she had looked the first time he had laid his eyes on her on that cold northern day in the main yard of Winterfell. An excited girl-child, a highborn's get and undoubtedly as brainless as all the young maidens at the court, hardly worth a second glance. Yet he had looked at her again. And again. And again, all those long days on the Kingsroad, and later in King's Landing.

In the beginning he had been curious. How someone could be so completely devoid of guile had intrigued him. He had suspected it was just a ruse and he had watched her in an attempt to catch her, to be able to sneer at her and judge her to be the same as all stupid girls.

Sandor never caught her out. And after escorting her from the Hand's tourney and experiencing her reaching into his world, things had changed. He was not a watcher anymore, not an outsider lurking in the shadows, but her recognition of him and his pain had drawn him into her sphere whether he willed it or not.

Still he didn't know what it was that he sought of her. That he could never get anything, he knew perfectly well - the Hound was not a complete fool. Yet even a want not fulfilled is a want just the same. He never figured out what it was and in the end, who cared if he did?

Sandor was convinced that the Stark girl was too valuable hostage to be punished. Aye, Cersei's fury would fall upon her and the Queen would want her penalised in a most horrid way, but Lord Tywin was much too shrewd to allow a loss of such a precious pawn. What had happened, had happened, and Lannisters still had another whelp to put on the throne.

Yes, the little bird would be severely reprimanded, have all her privileges taken away and be confined in solitary captivity for a time. And eventually she would marry King Tommen, as the North had to be kept close to the crown by any means necessary.

Oddly the thought gave Sandor comfort. Tommen was a sweet boy, nothing like his cruel brother. Better him than Joffrey.

Tossing on his thin bedding in a futile attempt to get sleep Sandor found himself imagining her in years to come. First she would be betrothed and then married as soon as Cersei could be managed not to sabotage her son's wedding with her wrath. It would take a few years before Tommen would grow up to fulfil his duties as a husband. Would the little bird get restless while waiting to become a woman for real? She had already flowered and had curves in all the right places. Her head was probably still filled with songs and chivalrous notions of courtly love for now – but would the harpies in the court whisper into her ear about the other ways of love? Would she become curious and seek to satisfy it by explorations with other young maidens?

Sandor had heard some noble ladies doing that when growing up in a bawdy court and yet being constrained by their position. He hardened at the thought. He had never cared for young girls and in brothels he had always sought out older, more experience whores. That some men wanted young ones, even children, he had never understood and regarded those men with contempt.

Yet the notion, once it had entered his head, was difficult to get rid of. Despite the grim surroundings the urges that usually hadn't interfered with his life any more than any other bodily functions - like pissing when one's bladder was full - suddenly demanded his attention. What did he have to lose? What did he care?

Sandor was disgusted at himself and yet he revelled in the intense pleasure of taking himself in hand while picturing her. The girl was a woman, for Stranger's sake, and ripe for plucking! That it was to be sweet Tommen who would have the pleasure of taking her maiden's gift was a double-edged sword; better him than Joffrey or some other heartless bastard, but as ridiculous as it was and as well he knew that he would be the worst possible choice for the girl, Sandor couldn't help wishing it could have been him.

As he spilled his seed on a sodden mattress he reflected on the fact that never again would he lay his eyes on her, and never could she even imagine that she had been his dirty secret in the dungeons of the Red Keep. Sandor sneered at that. Mayhap she would remember him differently? He liked to think so and conceded that he could even live with a notion of being mistaken for a noble knight rescuing fair maidens, if it meant that she would sometimes turn her thoughts on him. The nasty hound she once petted and which rescued her life in return.

Then he remembered his predicament and choked a mirthless chortle. Don't have much time to live anyway.

Usually after Sandor had reached his grim satisfaction he found himself once again imagining the girl's future. She would become a woman and Tommen would be kind to her – that boy couldn't hurt a fly, and if he showed even half the kindness to his lady wife than to those blasted kittens, little bird would be well served. In time her belly would swell and she would give birth to babes with red and golden hair and big blue eyes. She was bound to be maternal type with all her concerns and kindness towards even those who didn't deserve it – like a vicious dog who had only barked at her.

Yes, she would find her joy in the love for her children and their love for her. Time would heal the wounds and although she could never forget or forgive the cruelty of the Lannisters towards her and her kin, she would find satisfaction in her domestic life. Cersei would never stand for another woman usurping her influence as the queen so the little bird would likely be left in peace, forgotten in her rooms with her growing brood. After all, the royals would have a claim and link to the North through her and that was all they cared about.

The picture of the girl, plump and matronly and babes hanging off her skirts, made the Hound grin. It was a lopsided sneer that was gone as soon as it had appeared.

As time went by in an unbroken tedium he found himself trapped in a never-ending cycle of thinking about the girl, her womanly shape and those luscious pink lips, followed by a feeling of strange longing to which he had no other way to relate but with a quick work with his hand. He grunted as he imagined it was her soft body he spilled himself into and not a flea-infested straw mattress. Afterwards he felt calm and serene and life made sense for a little while - until his mind drifted back to her. Sometimes she was young and maidenly, sometimes mature and motherly, but always enticing, a small smile playing on her lips.

"Time for your execution, dog!" The gaoler's jeering announcement was followed by creaking of hinges as the old door tried loudly to resist any attempts to push it open. Sandor blinked his eyes in the bright light of the lantern. He couldn't say if he had been sleeping or only lying listlessly on the floor as he did most of the time. It was all the same anyway. His joints ached from persistent coldness in the dungeons and he rubbed his feet with sweeping, steady movements to get his blood flowing. The man's cheerfulness didn't elicit any response in him – he wasn't sure if he would have even been able to croak anything intelligible after having been silent for so long.

He got slowly to his feet, feeling dizzy from having been forced to lie prone for the majority of his captivity, sustained on meagre portions. The cell had been too small for any exercise – and besides, why would he have tried to keep up his strength anyway? He knew better than anyone how unescapably forfeited his life was and how there was no future for him. Nonetheless it irritated him at no end how once mighty warrior had been reduced to a pitiful wreck shuffling slowly like an old man, hindered by the fetters the gaoler had adorned him with. Sandor cursed and swore that he would not falter at the scaffold. It gave him something to focus on and gradually as they wound their way from the lowest levels higher and higher, some of his strength gradually returned.

He wondered if she would be there, forced to watch him die? He didn't care the slightest what the manner of his death was or who were going to be in the audience, but one thought consumed him: Would he see her one last time?

Yet surely the dog's execution was going to be a hasty affair with only a small number of witnesses as required by law? He wasn't sure which he preferred; to see her once more or to be assured that she was not forced to face one more atrocity, when she had already seen too much for a lifetime. In the end he shrugged his shoulders – it was not for him to decide and his wishes were as futile as they had ever been. He might have wished for many things when he had been young – but he had grown out of it.

First Sandor was escorted into a bare room just below the ground level. Two other men were waiting for him there with scrubs, buckets of water and clean clothes. The stench of the dog must not insult the noses of the highborn, he reckoned darkly, though he didn't really mind. It was good to shed away the filth of his captivity and feel like a man again.

Their next stop was a low unadorned building next to the main courtyard of the Red Keep. He knew that to be where those sentenced to the gallows spent their last moments on earth – he had escorted many sorry bastards there himself. From the small window at the back of the stone-walled hut he caught a glimpse of a scaffold, so freshly made that wooden planks were still seeping dark sap. He was surprised. What had happened to putting a dog down behind the stables as it deserved?

He didn't care for his escort who had kept respectful distance all throughout their traverse. Yet now Sandor turned and searched the man's round face for an explanation.

"Once the sun is at its highest your heads will be chopped off with the same sword that did her father. Keeping it in the family," the gaoler heckled as he pushed Sandor inside and slammed the heavy iron door shut, the tremor of the impact reverberating through the small space for the longest time.

The fuck? Sandor's head swivelled to his left and there she was, a frail form leaning against the wall of the neighbouring cell. The two spaces were separated only by crudely forged iron bars reaching from the floor to the ceiling, and she was standing in the corner furthest away from him.

It was her, there was no mistaking it. Auburn hair, slim built and yet taller than most girls. Her face was thin and pale and her features drawn, and as he drowned into the deep blue of her eyes something inside the Hound broke.

Fuck!

A strange sensation burned like a fireball behind his eyelids and a force he was helpless against defeated even his tried and tested defences.

As Sansa Stark stared at him in muted surprise, Sandor Clegane wept.