When Sansa awoke it was night, but there was warmth and light surrounding her. With a start, she realised there was a fire, and a few paces from her Clegane sat on the ground with his armour off, doing something with a saddlebag. Groggily she sat up, wondering why he hadn't woken her.

"How long were you gone?" She croaked, then coughed with embarrassment.

"Some time," he said.

"Why didn't you wake me when you got back?" She asked, stretching a little. The movement made her sense the moisture between her thighs and remember what she had done while he was gone. The heat of a blush crawled up her neck and face. Thankfully it was still quite dark, despite the fire. Clegane shrugged.

"Had things to do," he grated out. "Mostly some waiting around, making sure I wasn't followed. Not much point having you pestering me for that."

Sansa ignored the barb, feeling grateful for the extra rest. Clegane continued rummaging through the parcels he had, then threw her a rather unripe-looking pear.

"Here, eat something."

She missed her catch and had to retrieve it from the ground, giving it a wipe with her skirt. She was about to bite it ravenously when she remembered her earlier vow. She looked up at the Hound with twisted lips, unsure of how to phrase her worries. His eyes narrowed.

"It was paid for, and far more than it was worth, too," he spat. Sansa was relieved, and began to eat it with relish despite the lack of juice or flavour. Clegane watched her, with a look of satisfaction and triumph. She smiled at him reflexively.

The relaxed mood and refreshment had her in a better state than she had been in days. Idly she wondered if this was a good time to talk to Clegane about what was going on.

"Do you think we were pursued, then? By the gold cloaks, I mean," Sansa asked.

Clegane nodded. "Not the gold cloaks. It'd be Lannister men," his grin was suddenly queerly savage. "My former men. Haven't noticed any sign of them for quite some time now, but that's no cause to get comfortable."

Sansa was impressed. Just he alone had outwitted and escaped from the Lannister forces. No wonder he was made Kingsguard. How foolish of the queen and king to so repeatedly degrade and misuse him. If he had been her father's vassal, she knew he would have never been so disrespected that he felt willing to break faith with him. If he had been my father's bannerman, she thought morosely, his brother would never have gone unpunished and given a knighthood, and maybe he wouldn't be such an awful man. She wondered what he would think of that notion. Probably it would make him angry.

Thinking about his feelings made her want so badly to ask whether he had been affected by the cruel ordeal. There was a pressure in her breastbone to speak. Sansa knew she had no real intention to lay with him again, how preposterous, but it would bring her some degree of comfort to know his mind on what had occurred between them.

This was a topic, though, about which it seemed impossible to have a polite conversation. Should she ask how he was feeling? No, that was too formal, he would just assume she meant from the fatigues of the journey and nothing would come of it.

With great reluctance, Sansa acknowledged she would have to be direct. It went so against her sense of comfort that she fidgeted and twitched trying to rally herself. She was mortified to see Clegane giving her an odd look. She bit her lip just as Arya had always done and forced the words out of her mouth.

"Did it make you sad, what the queen did? Made us do?" She knew it was impolite, but she couldn't raise her head to look at him. No matter what his expression was, she would lose her nerve if she saw it. He made a noise it took her a moment to interpret as a scoff.

"I'm not a tender maid, girl," he said flippantly.

"So you didn't hate it?" She pressed further. She hoped it hadn't horrified him as it had her. That maybe, he had even found some enjoyment in it as well.

"I hated doing it to you," he hissed into the darkness. The roughness of his voice made it sound very cruel.

He hated doing it, because it was her? Because it hurt her? Or because he had no desire for her, if it was not the act that offended him, but her participation in it? The thought fell on her like a heavy bearskin, weighing her into a dark mood. She knew she was young and didn't have a full woman's body, but she was beautiful. Everyone said so. Isn't that what drove men's passion? In a fit of spite, she decided to drive the nail of misery deeper into her heart.

"Would you have preferred laying with the queen then, instead of me?" She asked petulantly, now keenly watching his reaction. The Hound's head snapped up, and the rage was momentarily gone from his eyes as they filled with bewilderment. It was only brief, and then he was angry again.

"What in the seven hells is wrong with you?" He sneered, lips pulling back from his teeth. It was lopsided, showing different proportions of teeth and gum at each side of his mouth. The effect was to make him look like a snarling dog. No wonder he had that helm made, the thought occurred out of nowhere.

"Well, you said you hated doing it to me," she explained.

"And?" He snapped. "What does that have to do with the bitch queen?"

"I was merely wondering who would you have preferred?" She spoke with a levity that made it seem she was asking what kind of cake he would prefer for supper. All her efforts to keep the discussion civil were for naught, as he seemed to only grow madder.

"I forgot I was talking to an empty-headed bird," he growled, turning away from her. Sansa frowned.

"There's no need to be unkind," she admonished, knowing it was fruitless. Unkind was his state of being. She was curious why the topic had vexed him so strongly. She knew it would be beyond rude to pry, but he was rude himself, so it would simply be a taste of his own medicine.

"Did you ever have a wife?"

He snorted and began pawing through a satchel.

"I was Kingsguard, use your head."

Sansa winced internally at making such a silly mistake.

"Then, did you have a lady lover?"

He turned back to her, but this time it was slow and menacing.

"If you keep talking," he said with a low, gravelly rasp, "I'll bind your mouth shut." He drew his thumb across his lips threateningly. Sansa cocked her head to one side, considering. Would he? He had threatened her in the past, and it had sounded sincere, but none had actually come to pass.

He was obviously deeply affected by her question, though. She hadn't meant much by it, just trying to find out what sort of woman interested him, but now she realised there may be some history there that was painful to him. She had assumed he had no lady - who would ever have romanced with this man? But his reaction spoke differently.

"So you did? Did you have to leave her behind to help me?" That would be terribly painful, to realise she had deprived her saviour of his one source of comfort in life. He must be planning to return to his woman, which meant he would not stay with her when they reached Riverrun. That was sad, also. He deserved an important position in her brother's army. Rather than answer her, Clegane got to his feet and walked over to where the horses were tied.

Sansa sighed, and pulled her knees up to her chest. She wondered who this secret affair of his had been with. Thinking of the ladies she knew from the Red Keep brought none to her mind that had ever spoken fondly of the Hound. She supposed it could always have been with one of the smallfolk or servants.

If that were so, he could have brought her with them, since no-one would miss her. Ah, but this was a dangerous journey. As long as no-one knew she was the Hound's woman, it was better to leave his beloved safe in the city, rather than expose her to the hardship of the road and possible capture by the gold cloaks.

Her tale-weaving was interrupted by Clegane approaching her again, and she looked up to see what he was about. To her shock, he was holding the length of rope that had bound her gelding to his stallion, and his face was murderous. Startled, she jumped to her feet.

"Wha… what are you doing?" She quavered.

"I warned you," he said menacingly, "to shut your mouth or I would shut it for you."

With a cry, Sansa stumbled away from him. The Hound reached out and caught her, snatching her tight to his body with the rope pressed painfully between them.

"I'm sorry!" Sansa immediately began whimpering apologies in an attempt to calm him.

"You're not sorry! You're a stupid girl with a head full of damn foolish stories. How is it possible after everything; Lord Stark's execution, the beatings, the rape, you can still be such a fool?" He shook her, but his words shook her more. With a high pitched sob she broke into tears, uncaring of how ugly it made her look or how improper it was. She was horrified to see that her crying only raised his ire further, as he began snarling with his teeth bare again. She hiccupped and gasped in an attempt to stop the flow, but it was for naught.

"Dogs with ruined faces don't have lady lovers, you witless bird," he hissed, and the anger had flushed his face a shade of red that matched his scars.

"So if there's no-one else, why don't you want me?" She wailed. She didn't really want to know the answer, but something compelled her to ask anyway. It had felt so good! Hadn't it been good for him as well? Had everything he'd done really been under duress, with no desire of his own?

He should have been overjoyed to touch me. He should desperately wish to do it again. It was madness for her to be so upset, and she bit her tongue to make sure none of these thoughts turned into words. The Hound seemed half mad himself.

"What sort of demented vanity is this? Why do you care what I thought of you?" He threw his arms up into the air and turned, stalking away, then back towards her as though he would strike her. Then he turned sharply on his heel, but stayed where he was. "I was just there to torture you since the queen doesn't have a cock of her own. I suppose she's always used the Kingslayers' for her every need." He turned his head and spat into the fire. "What a pity for you that golden knight wasn't there instead of myself."

Sansa had no words to combat his verbal assault. She stepped forward and clung to him, clawing at his tunic and burying her face against his back. Her weeping renewed at an even heavier pace. He jerked away from her and she almost howled, but then his heat was back again, and his hands.

"Stop wailing, you'll bring everyone within a hundred miles down on us," he snapped, his voice tightly controlled. He scooped her up effortlessly and walked over to the closest tree by the fire, sitting down against it with her cradled by his side. She brought his cloak to her face and dabbed at it, managing to subdue her sobs to just hiccups.

"Makes sense you're deranged at the moment, I suppose," he said gruffly, one of his hands leaving her, so only an arm around her shoulders remained. Sansa put her face in her hands, digging in with her nails.

"Everything has gone so wrong, everything is ruined. What the queen did has made me ill with misery. But at the time, it felt so wonderful… and I just… don't want to be unhappy anymore." With deliberate slowness, Sansa took her hands from her face and placed them on his shoulders. The skin of her palms seemed to crackle like lightning. "I… I want to feel wonderful again. Make my misery go away," she begged, she commanded.

Sandor stiffened, and Sansa was amazed at all the individual muscles she could feel tensing under her hands. It sent a strange jolt from her womb to her neck, and she let out a heavy exhale. My body is hungering for him like it does for food, she realised. Do I need this from now on?

She was certain Sandor knew what she wanted him to do, yet he remained aloof from her. His eyes flicked around, avoiding her own, and his body remained stiff. It wouldn't be very seemly for him to require her to speak the words aloud. Gritting her teeth and gathering her courage, she let her right hand slip from his far shoulder and travel down his tunic. The landscape of his body was contoured but firm, almost unyieldingly hard in places. Sansa forgot what she had intended, so enthralled was she by the experience of touching a man so intimately.

It's as though his own skin and flesh is a suit of armour itself, she marvelled. Her gaze moved to his throat, which was bobbing furiously, and then fell to his chest, heaving up and down. If so, I wonder what it protects, and she lay her head on that broad rib cage, and listened to the beat of his heart.

His scent engulfed her; salty, sour and musky, but curiously Sansa felt herself relaxing. There must be something a little bit magical about hearing the rhythm of another person's life, she mused, and her arms lost their tension and lowered, one hand slipping between them to rest on his thigh, and the other falling to his hip.

Until this moment Sandor had sat as though part of the tree he leant against, but as her hands clapped onto his lower body, his whole frame suddenly jerked and shook. Sansa reared back in shock, then remembered that was how he had moved, during the… ordeal. Swiftly and almost involuntarily.

With that in mind she purposely lay her right hand back on his thigh, and was rewarded with a muffled gasp. If I cannot be bold with words, I must be bold with actions, she steeled herself, and laid her second hand next to the first. With weighty determination, Sandor finally moved, taking her wrists into his grasp and removing them from his leg.

"You're not in your right mind," he rumbled, like stones falling down a cliff face. Sansa's embarrassment warred with her frustration at being thwarted, and outrage at his insolent condescension. She looked up at his eyes and found the irises were completely black; with his twisted scars, his glare, he looked like the Stranger come for her.

Three times he has held steel to my throat, she remembered, yet still I live. Sansa pressed forward so her lips hovered over his, almost touching. He opened his mouth a little, whether to better breathe or prevent a kiss, she could not determine.

"Help me feel wonderful," she whispered into his mouth, and as her breath entered him, so too did her intent, it seemed, for he finally took her into his arms. Sandor's hands clasped to her hips, then roughly found their way up and down her body. Sansa felt him squeezing her, both where she was soft and where she was lean.

He almost seemed to move without purpose, spurred entirely by whatever desire gripped him in each instant. His erratic behaviour startled her, but the realisation he was desperate to touch her made her feel more alive than she had been in a long while.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. As his hands roamed her body wildly, the muscles of his shoulders writhed under his skin, and she had to clasp her wrists behind his head rather than hold onto him, or she may have been thrown back by the turbulence of his movement.

Sansa embarrassed herself by making a particularly silly keening noise as his left hand gripped her bottom and kneaded it. She tried to hide her face in his neck, but at the same moment he pushed her back from him and lifted her up. His free hand grabbed at the fabric of her dress and skirts and pulled them up towards her waist.

Sansa was startled, but then glad he wasn't going to make her undress entirely again. The memory of his gaze on her as she was stripped made her face burn scorching hot. She remembered his expression had not changed; his eyes still had rage in them, but as layer after layer of her modesty had been destroyed, something else had entered them as well. It reminded her of the eyes of her siblings' direwolves, though not her sweet Lady, especially when they had watched fowls go past, and had to have a hand placed on them to hold them still. It had made her feel so small, and so vulnerable. Although logic told her it was Cersei she was powerless against, when his eyes were on her the queen had barely seemed to be present.

She could not look into them now for fear of losing her nerve, so she closed her eyes and held her skirts up for him, as he fumbled with her smallclothes. His progress was slow, because he kept pausing to run his fingers over her bare thighs, and lightly pinch the flesh of her inner leg. Sansa tingled with both delight and a little impatience. If she told him to stop one thing though, he might stop everything. She would just have to allow him to do as he pleased.

The first time he had only done what the queen pleased, anyway. She was curious to know what Sandor wanted when he had no commands. But with each scrape of nails and caress of her most tender areas, instead of growing more satisfied she became less and less sure of his intent. What if he didn't want to… put himself inside her at all?

Finally he pulled her smallclothes off her, lifting her legs and hips like she weighed nothing. Sansa felt light-headed, and she both heard and felt each beat of her pulse in her temples. This was without doubt that same peculiar sensation from the first time they came together. Her anticipation rose higher. Suddenly, his fingers found her flower, dipping between the petals firmly, but not too forcefully. The shock and perverse thrill tore a guttural groan from her throat. The Hound's hand snapped away from her, and she instantly straightened, mortified.

"I'm… my apologies," she stammered. Sandor looked shocked as well, but then he licked his lips and looked back down to her hips. Sansa's mouth dropped open in affronted surprise. Once more she had to restrain herself from rebuking him or directing his actions. It was uneasy giving him the lead.

He seemed to be either oblivious or ignoring her frantic desire to be overjoyed in her body, to counterbalance the anguish in her mind. His hands tugged loose her bodice, then reached inside like he was opening a gift. His fingers ran over her breasts, which were immensely tender under his rough skin. She gasped, and he groaned, and then his mouth was hot on her left teat. Sansa writhed in place, though not enough to pull herself out of his mouth. Her voice broke into a lower octave than she had ever reached before when his teeth pierced into her flesh. His head drew back sharply and then shook back and forth; Sansa couldn't tell if it was to admonish himself or clear his senses.

She almost wanted to pull his head back to her bosom, but she would sooner die than do something so presumptuous and coarse. Instead she tried to focus Sandor's attention where it was important, and wiggled her hips that were still placed atop his lap, leaning back and raising her legs slightly.

He certainly paid attention - grasping her thighs and arching forwards over her body, just as she remembered. But then his hands continued their game of roaming and grasping, with his mouth joining in once more. He hadn't made any effort at all to unclothe himself. Sansa tipped her hips again to meet his manhood, and she was quite certain she had found it. Nearly all of him felt the same though - rounded with muscle and unyielding to pressure.

One of his hands found its way into her hair and he grasped a handful beneath her nape, then used it to turn her head this way and that, kissing her ear, her throat, her scalp. It was overwhelming, but still frustrating. Why couldn't he do this while he was inside her? Why was he waiting?

His other hand moved back to her hip and he gently lowered her to the ground. Sansa fairly lifted off it again with anticipation. She even licked her lips, and felt dirty. Then the Hound licked her lips as well, and she felt dirtier. His hips pressed to her centre, where she had made ample room for him by shamelessly spreading her legs wide. Now she was certain what she felt was his manhood, and she panted like a wolf.

His hips bucked against hers like he was entering her, but he didn't, because he still had his breeches on. How can he not notice? Sansa whined to herself. She didn't want to have to ask him. He bucked again, making a deep sound of enjoyment. This is madness, Sansa thought, bewildered.Does he want to or doesn't he?

Finally, desperately, and with tears in her eyes for this fatal blow to her dignity, Sansa reached between them and groped him. Groped the Hound.

Sandor looked as surprised at this turn of events as she felt, and for a moment they just lay there panting and staring at each other. Her fingers twitched as she wondered if she dared undo his lacings, or if that might anger him. Then he moved, whisking her hand away and replacing it with his own, jerking his member out without fanfare, his face still registering bewilderment.

Sansa sighed as happily as when Ser Loras had given her his rose, and felt fleetingly that the Hound was her champion as well, although he was going to give her something quite different. Her relief was replaced by worry once more when she realised Sandor appeared increasingly uncomfortable. She chastised herself for trying to direct events, wishing she had more patience.

Without saying anything, he picked her up and flipped her over, so that she slumped into the dirt on her hands and knees. The pose was grossly undignified, but Sansa barely had a thought for that. The last time she had been on her knees… Her stomach clenched with a sudden fear and the burn inside her began to be replaced by ice as the queen's face floated into her mind.

"No, no, not like this," she begged, and reared backwards and away. She fell sideways, onto her hip in the leaf and grass and dirt. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut to fight the queen's visage. "Not as the queen made me," she whimpered, knowing it was all over, her wish to suffer less only making her suffer more.

Sansa didn't struggle when Clegane picked her up again, pulling her onto his lap and holding her tight. Fear was still coating her insides, but it receded as he supported her upright; just grasping her gently, and demanding nothing.

And continued to demand nothing as she shook off her distress like rain droplets clinging to fine silk. She opened her eyes and could see his neck. His chin; ripped bare of skin but queerly comforting in its undeniable affirmation that it was him.

She would have felt guilty for being soothed by the sight of his burns, if she had not banished all guilt from her mind tonight, like the direwolves could be banished to the godswood.

She took her own turn to touch him, moving her hands across the tunic covering his shoulders and back, up his nape and even running her fingers through his messy, lank hair. There was no queen here, only the Hound, and that night the Hound had… he had…

He had kissed her.

She grew bolder and pulled his tunic up so his skin was pressed to her own where it could. His manhood was wedged against her inner thigh in an awkward, but painfully insistent fashion. Sansa shifted her hips to try and nudge it to the proper place, but the Hound pre-empted her by simply taking himself in hand and directing it to her opening.

His fingers were strangely cool on her flesh, which was slick with moisture, as it had been when she lay under the tree in his absence. But the memory was fleeting, because his touches on this intimate place were like touches on a wound – impossible to ignore, but lacking any pain. Each caress became her whole world in the instant it existed.

His other hand pressed her face close to his shoulder, so she was forced to shut her eyes. Like that, she could have pretended it was not another person who did this to her, but that she was alone, experiencing this by her own hand. Her attempt to convince herself otherwise was in vain; her body knew what was coming, and although they were strained with tension, her legs parted like petals under the summer sun.

She shivered with relief as it entered her, until it kept moving, and she understood it was only barely in. The hand between her legs moved to her hip and he guided her to sit up a little more, and then she could feel it change position inside her to be more easily accommodated, but as his hands pushed her hips down again, the pain from that first night returned.

Sansa bit her lip, and said nothing.

She had what she wanted, and even if it wasn't exactly what she'd hoped, well, when was anything in truth?

"Can I move?" The Hound barked tersely, wrathfully. He still crushed her to his breastbone so she could barely nod, but she managed to mutter something affirmative.

He slumped back against the tree, both hands shifting to clasp her hips unyieldingly, and she felt trapped, but also safe. He moved her then; pushing her, pulling her, rolling her hips back and forth, all of it disgraceful in the extreme, all of what she had hoped for.

She considered she could perhaps move as well, how it was most enjoyable for her. Or she could kiss him once more, or hold him close. But to do so, to participate, was beyond her. To begin this had taken the full capacity of her strength. Her pride had finally snapped like a thread pulled too taunt, leaving her limp.

She kept her face pressed into his skin, breathing him in, and then breathing him out audibly each time he impaled her.

It was slow and peaceful where the ordeal had been fast and brutal. Though his movements were only deceptively gentle; the final impact was uncompromisingly insistent, it simply took longer to get there. The pain thinned with every movement as well, just a faint echo now of her previous agony.

Someone was groaning, and lying breast to breast as they were, Sansa couldn't discern who it was. Nor could she care. There was just one more thing she wanted, one small thing but still so difficult right now.

Sansa could feel that joy building up inside, her limbs tightening in anticipation of it spreading through them. It just wasn't quite right, it wasn't yet…

She hauled one of her limp arms up and pushed it between them, to where they were joined. Her fingers were cold compared to the wet heat they met.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to his neck as she pressed her fingers against her own self, hard.

And there she was, overcome and suffering from pleasure, and Sandor went completely rigid underneath her.

A voice called out to the night plaintively, and Sansa accepted it was her, for surely the Hound could not sing so sweetly.

They lay under the tree together without speaking, but not in silence, as the cold night air was punctuated with heavy breathing. Her heartbeat was in her ears like a drum, and the heat flowing through her body showed she had indeed been burning in some way… burning but unharmed, unfevered. Tingles spread up and down her; she felt good. So good! Even fantastically better than the first time! So this was the secret portion of life kept from the ignorant misuses of children, and allocated only upon reaching responsible adulthood. And now she, Sansa, was an adult.

His skin against hers felt hot as molten metal, so she lifted herself up a little to move apart. As she did, she looked on his solid body, and his ruined face. His eyes were tightly shut, perhaps in exertion or perhaps so he wouldn't see her. As she took in every detail, she noticed his horrible scars seemed less horrible, the sharp angles of his nose and jaw less brutal. Something else grew in her then, and Sansa let it stretch its leaves unhindered. She hadn't felt this after the… the first time, but they had been pressured and interrupted. This must be part of the true act.

She was pleased to discover it was a gentle, peaceful mood, as she might have previously felt when her mother brushed her hair, or she sat reading a book in a comfortable chair. Sansa smiled in understanding. It was satisfaction. She lay down, feeling content. As she looked up into the stars the contentment dimmed in her a little, replaced by an urge to look at Sandor again.

Propping herself back up onto her elbow, she saw his face hadn't changed from before; his eyes were still shut too tight to be natural in sleep or rest, but he otherwise seemed relaxed. She wondered why that might be.

More curious, however, was that the peaceful satisfaction returned in full force. Sansa was intrigued. She closed her eyes, and as the moments passed, it drained away little by little. She opened them again. Just like the firelight flickering over his features, her eyes lit up on every little detail of his face and each one enamoured her bizarrely; made her feel that quiet pleasure. It was amazing!

Sansa knew she was a woman for true now. She would never have thought that a single act bestowed so much knowledge along with it. As she pondered it though, she reasoned that if one had never done it before, eating, drinking or sleeping for the first time would be a revelation of sorts as well. She knew now why her septa had admonished her so strongly that she was never to lie with a man besides her husband. Why hadn't they simply said it was like this, that a tender affinity was made with the man you bedded? So this was why mother always told her love would grow even with a stranger.

She wondered if it was just the first man, or if it happened with every man you lay with. How terrible that must be, to always hold a little piece of so many people inside you. No wonder women of vice were talked against so sternly. Though perhaps, with each man, the former piece faded a little, or was splintered down, until after so many strangers, you didn't feel much of any particular one of them. Or maybe each new one dislodged the old?

Sansa reasoned not, or the Queen wouldn't have thought to do it to her to spoil her future marriage. It was as though the Hound was the weapon Cersei had stabbed her breast with, and he was lodged within her now, somewhere in her chest. It wasn't like love, not at all, that beautiful tingle of happiness when the Knight of Flowers had handed her the rose, or when Joffrey… she squeezed her eyes shut tight.

So it was all lies, she realised. Love was a fleeting lie, the songs about it were lies. It was like a lemon cake. Delicious to eat, but you couldn't live on it. Maybe this new feeling, this quiet appreciation of someone, was what you were supposed to live on, in a marriage. She almost cried again thinking of what it would have been like for this to happen with Joffrey. To be always aware of him, and quiver a little to think of him being absent.

Well, the Queen made a mistake thinking she could ruin her future happiness; she gave Sansa to the wrong man. Sandor would keep anyone else from touching her, until she was found a husband. She rolled over, pressing her nose into his shoulder and inhaling a long breath. As his scent filled her head it brought a new wave of the queer relief with it, and Sansa knew she had become privy to previously hidden knowledge. Sleep pulled her eyes closed, and she felt wise.