Sandor

The ride back to the castle was long and miserable. There were no more soldiers hiding in the forest, but Sandor was cautious and slowed down his horse to avoid walking them into an ambush. Sansa had gone quiet apart from the occasional sniffle, and that suited Sandor just fine because he had taken a couple of hits earlier while fighting Joffrey's knights and wasn't feeling at all talkative.

Between those wounds and the cold wind on his freshly-scarred face, he was sure he wouldn't have been able to carry any kind of civil conversation with Sansa. If he tried to talk, he would have ended up snarling abuse at her, and then she would run away again. So they rode in silence until they passed the castle's drawbridge.

Sandor helped Sansa dismount, but his leg was injured and so when he tried to get off the horse himself his grasp wasn't firm enough. He slid off the saddle and fell on the ground with an undignified grunt.

Sansa gave him a concerned look and knelt down next to him to help him get back on his feet, but Sandor brushed off her hand. "It's nothing," he said, trying to sound gruff instead of in pain. "Go to sleep, you can take any room in the castle," he added.

She didn't seem to believe him when he said he was fine and started to protest. Sandor felt even more pitiful, since he wasn't even able to fool a girl who until a few hours ago was convinced that Prince Joffrey was the best person ever in the whole world, but he really didn't feel like arguing.

He turned his back to Sansa and pretended to be busy retrieving Lady's body from the back of the horse, and then leading the horse to the stables and grooming him. His wounded leg made the work go painfully slow, but finally Sansa gave up and walked away.

Sandor finished dumping some food in front of the horse and limped back into the courtyard. The body of Sansa's wolf was lying in a corner away from the snow, where Sandor had dragged it. There were small footsteps next to it. Sansa had stopped there on her way to the castle. Sandor had no idea what to do with the body, he only knew that he didn't want Joffrey to take the wolf's head and hang it on a wall next to his other hunting trophies. The wolf didn't deserve that, she had been trying to protect Sansa.

He was still thinking about the wolf as he climbed the steps leading to the castle and pushed the door open. It was a few hours before dawn and the corridors were dark, lit only by a few flickering torches here and there. Sandor jumped when he felt a hand on his arm.

"For the love of the Seven!" he exclaimed, stumbling back against the wall. "Do you want me to die of fright?"

"I'm sorry," Sansa said, looking hesitant and almost as spooked as Sandor. "But you don't look fine, you're hurt, and you should let me tend to your leg..."

She trailed off and stared at her feet. Sandor noticed that she had some linens in her hands and was wringing them nervously. She must have searched the castle for bandages while he was in the stables, and, failing to find any, she'd torn great stripes from some bedsheets. If she'd been stubborn enough to stumble around in the dark, Sandor thought, she wasn't going to give up until she got what she wanted.

"All right," Sandor said with a shrug, and let the girl lead him back to the great hall. Some embers from the fire were still burning in the fireplace, and Sansa poked them to rekindle the flames while Sandor sat down in front of the fire and propped his leg on the bench in front of him.

Once the fire was roaring again, Sansa placed a large basin full of water on the table next to the makeshift bandages, and dragged a stool across the room so she could sit next to Sandor. Then she stared at the basin and the linens and Sandor for a long while.

"You have no idea how to treat a wound, do you?" Sandor asked eventually, to which she went pink and shook her head.

"I haven't," she replied in a small voice. "But Maester Aemon says that it's important to clean wounds so they don't fester, and I've watched Mother bandage Arya's knees when she scraped them by wrestling with Nymeria in the yard..."

Sandor snorted. He would have complained this was nothing like a scraped knee, but that would have meant admitting that his injury was indeed serious. Instead he rolled up the leg of his trousers to expose the jagged cut just below his knee. Sansa stifled a gasp and struggled not to look away from it.

The wound was an angry red welt from a spear that had come very close to smashing Sandor's knee, and it was made even uglier by the caked blood and mud from the forest. There was no doubt that Sandor was going to add another scar to his growing collection, but more than that he was worried that the leg wouldn't heal properly. He should have had a Maester treat it, if there had been one at hand. Instead, he was alone in the castle with a girl who was too repulsed by his appearance to look at him, so Sandor grabbed the nearest piece of cloth and dropped it in the basin. "I'll do it myself," he said.

Sansa pursed her lips, then took the basin away from him, spilling some water in the process. "No, I'll do it," she said. Her voice was shaking but her hands were steady as she started dabbing the wet cloth at the edges of Sandor's wound.

Sandor cursed aloud when it touched his skin. "It's icy cold," he said through gritted teeth, along with a string of profanities that made Sansa jump back and drop the cloth to the floor.

"I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. "I got the water from the kitchens, I didn't realize." She looked at the basin in her lap as if she was hoping to warm it by willpower alone, and Sandor sighed under his breath. When Sansa figured out that no magical servants would appear, she got up and managed to heat some of the water.

When she started cleaning Sandor's wound, he had to grab the edges of the table and remind himself that she was only trying to help; otherwise, he would have snarled at her. Her fingers were soft and she only touched his leg gingerly, but she was still poking around an open wound. Sandor felt as if there were stars dancing in front of his eyes.

Eventually Sansa gained some confidence and started chiding him for squirming too much. Sandor glared at her. "But it hurts!" he complained, forgetting for a while that he was pretending to be stoic and not affected by pain.

Sansa just pouted. "If you'd hold still, it wouldn't hurt as much," she said petulantly.

"If you hadn't run away, this wouldn't have happened," Sandor snapped back.

"If you hadn't frightened me, I wouldn't have run away," Sansa replied. Sandor tried to think of a good comeback, but nothing came to his mind. "Now hold still."

Sandor grunted as Sansa rinsed the cloth in the basin and dabbed at his wound again. The wound looked much better now that it was clean. Then Sansa, apparently satisfied with her work, took a clean strip of cloth and started bandaging Sandor's leg.

"By the way," she said as she finished knotting together the edges of the makeshift bandage. "Thank you for saving me from Joffrey."

"You're welcome," Sandor replied after a long pause. "And thank you for..." he added with a vague gesture towards his leg.

He didn't finish his sentence, but Sansa understood and nodded. Then she gathered the basin and her other things and hurried away. Sandor stared at the fire for a long while before pushing himself to his feet and limping to his room. He collapsed on the bed and fell asleep without even removing his boots.

Author's note: Some of you wonder if I'll leave this story unfinished... Don't worry, I'm still going to finish it! I'm just posting a little more slowly. I also have no idea where the idea of turning Sandor into a wardrobe comes from. Spoiler alert: it's not happening. The Red Enchantress (aka Mel) made it clear that she prefers to burn people rather than turn them into furniture. Plus, if there's someone who should be turned into a wardrobe, I think it would be Brienne.

"Lady Sansa, I think you need new clothes. What about that one? This color went out of fashion ten years ago, you say? Oh no, that bodice is so revealing, your lady mother wouldn't want you to run around like that... Are you sure you wouldn't rather wear something practical, like riding leathers?"

And then Sansa wouldn't have a pretty dress for the ball. This is why we shall have no talking wardrobe in this story.