Sandor (and everyone else)

Sandor had liked Sansa, and for a time he'd thought she might like him too, even though he was ugly and scarred. But then Sansa had gone back to Joffrey. It didn't matter that she didn't like Joffrey much and had only gone to save her family. In the end she'd chosen a prince over Sandor. Sandor felt stupid for thinking, even for a moment, that he and Sansa might have lived happily ever after.

While the battle raged, Sandor remained in his rooms. He didn't care if men called him craven. It wasn't as if he had any honor to speak of, and he truly didn't care if Joffrey took back the castle.

However, when the enemy soldiers kicked down his door and attempted to seize him, Sandor drew his sword on instinct and killed them.

Sandor might have lost all will to live, but getting butchered by Joffrey's henchmen was a shitty way to die. So he ran outside to confront Joffrey. There was still fighting going on, but the castle was slowly falling to the prince's men. Arya and the few remaining defenders were outnumbered ten to one and wouldn't last much longer.

The prince was on the roof.

"I found you!" Joffrey screamed when he saw Sandor, even though it had been Sandor who went looking for him. Joffrey had been hiding from the fighting after Arya had almost chopped him to pieces earlier, and the roof seemed like the safest place. But Sandor was alone, so Joffrey figured he could take him. "Let's duel, dog," Joffrey said. "I've taken the girl and the castle, and now I'll take your head too."

As Joffrey screamed and rushed Sandor, a fire broke out in the courtyard below. Under normal circumstances Sandor would have made mincemeat of the prince, but his eyes were fixed on the flames. He barely remembered to raise his sword to parry. Emboldened by the fact that he had crossed swords with someone and he was still alive, Joffrey pressed Sandor back towards the edge of the roof.

Sandor stumbled backwards, the back of his legs pressing against the low stone parapet. The edge of his vision was tinted with scarlet and gold, like the flames ones that the enchantress had cast against him. Sansa was only a half-remembered dream. He almost didn't see Joffrey in front of him. The flames were his whole world.

It was then that reinforcements arrived. It might be useful to recall that Robb and Jon and Theon were in a faraway land for something that had to do with a glass slipper. One day, Walder Frey showed up with all his daughters, most of his granddaughters and even a couple of boys in drag, and he argued that the glass slipper was bound to fit at least one of his girls. Robb and Jon were afraid that he was right, so they told old Walder that he could have the glass slipper, and also keep Theon if he wanted, and ran for it.

They already had the best bromance ever, anyway, and didn't need any girl to make things complicated. Besides, Theon had been acting like an ass and everyone was sick of him.

The boys arrived home to find that everyone had gone off to the castle. It was easy for them to free Sansa and the other Starks, because they had an army. (Did I mention that Jon and Robb had an army? Because they had.) Their scouts gave them reports of the battle at the castle.

Sansa asked for news of the Hound, but nobody knew if he was alive or dead. "I must go see him," she said.

At first, Robb and Jon refused because they didn't want to put their sister in danger. Then they learned that Arya was at the castle too.

"We must go join the fight at once," Robb said.

"Yeah, I'm not letting her have all the fun," Jon said.

So Sansa and Robb and Jon and everyone even remotely important set off for the castle. (Except Theon, who was stuck with the Freys, but he'd been acting like an ass and nobody felt sorry for him.)

When they arrived, Joffrey's men were about to take over the castle, but it's amazing how quickly the tides of a battle can be turned by a couple thousand of soldiers. And two direwolves. And Robb and Jon themselves, who were being big damn heroes.

Joffrey didn't even notice that his army was running away. He had cornered Sandor and was about to kill him, and it was his first kill so he wanted to savor the moment because he was twisted like that.

Then Sansa arrived. "Sandor!" she called, bursting out of the door, a little breathless because there were a lot of stairs and she was a princess, not a marathon runner.

"You came back," Sandor said, hardly believing his eyes.

With a sudden surge of strength, he jumped to his feet and disarmed Joffrey. Joffrey whimpered as his sword flew away, and he shielded his face with his arms, but Sandor didn't care about him.

"I didn't marry Joffrey," Sansa said. "It was a stupid idea, I hate him."

"As if I wanted to marry you," Joffrey told her. Sandor snarled at him, his sword still pointed at Joffrey's heart, and the prince yelped and jumped back. "Please, don't kill me!" Joffrey hastened to say.

Sandor glared at him. The prince was nothing but trouble and Sandor would have liked to kill him, but Sansa was watching. So he sheathed his sword and said, "You're not worth the bother of cleaning the blade afterward."

Robb, Jon, Arya and everyone even remotely important joined them on the roof. Eddard Stark, the only one there who was actually a lord and also a stickler for procedure, began doing the Westeros equivalent of reading Joffrey his rights. Chiefly, they could be summarized as: he had a right to be thrown in jail for being a pain in the ass.

"I think we should kill him," Arya said. "Otherwise he'll turn on us at the first chance he gets."

She drew Needle and waved it under Joffrey's nose. Joffrey jumped back, as far from the sword as he could, but he had forgotten that he was on the edge of a rooftop, so he fell to his death.

They watched him fall and splatter on the pavement below.

"Whoops, sorry," Arya said, not sounding very sorry at all. "At least he won't come back to bother you in a badly-written sequel." Sansa gave her a reproachful look.

Then Sansa kissed Sandor.

There was a marked lack of sparkles, fireworks, sudden rushes of wind. However, if Sandor had any inclination to poetry, which he hadn't, thank you very much, he might have said that it was magical regardless. Sandor didn't turn into a prince, because this isn't that kind of fairy tale. He kept every single one of his scars. Thankfully, Sansa had gone through enough character development to appreciate that sometimes princes aren't all they're cracked up to be.

She smiled at Sandor, oblivious of the fact that she'd been snogging him in front of her whole family, and Sandor couldn't help but smile back.