'Cause you're the only Song I want to hear (part 2)

Keep your head up, keep your heart strong.
No, no, no, no.
Keep your mind set, keep your hair long.
Oh my darlin' keep your head up, keep your heart strong.
Oh no no, keep your mind set in your ways, keep your hair,
Keep your hair long.
'Cause I'll always remember you the same,
oh eyes like wild flowers, with your demons of change.

-Ben Howard - Keep your Head up -

He knows that something is wrong, as soon as she steps over the threshold. She wanders aimlessly between the shelves, barely looking at the records to her sides, just walking in circles.

He cocks his head and watches from his hiding place how she goes round and round, deep in thought. Her brow is furrowed and her front teeth are worrying her lip, something she does when she feels uneasy, he has learned over the past weeks.

(He knows he shouldn't be knowing so much about her, without having ever spoken to her, but he doesn't care. Instead he greedily gathers every little piece of information he can get and stores it away.)

He does not like it. His little bird should be smiling and humming, not frown and sigh like the world is about to end. For a moment he hesitates, frowning himself, then he walks to the back of the store, hastily sorting through the box with his favorites, afraid she could decide to leave before he has found the right one. He is vaguely aware that he is behaving like a bloody lovesick fool, pretty much like Jorah, he supposes (A thought that makes him cringe and almost puts his search to a stop. Almost.), but then he finds the record he's been looking for and before he knows it he is standing in front of the stereo, changing the tape. The song that is playing is the one of the day he saw her for the very first time, the memory of her in that moment still hunting his dreams and much of his waking time as well.

(It's almost unhealthy and it are those nights, when he is lying wide awake, breathless and sweaty, his heart still thundering, that dog sounds less than the compliment he always took it and more like the insult it was meant as. Just thinking about her makes him lose control completely… but he can't bring himself to stop, since it is all he will ever get of her. )

He bans those thoughts from his mind and returns to the front, looking for her. She is standing by the door, her head tilted, her eyes half closed. He has to fight quite hard to keep the ridiculous amount of pride he feels when a smiles stretches across her face at bay.

XXX

The smile does not stay. Most days he can make it reappear, but it's the fact that he has to, that worries him. More and more often he finds her running in circles, head down, shoulders tense, dark shadows under her eyes. He would like to know what is eating her, but for that he would have to talk to her and somehow it seems wrong to him to abandon the shadows now, after he spend so much time with them. And why should she tell him? He knows her (at least he likes to think so) but she has never seen him. And if she were to…

So he stays where he is and does what he does. Playing music he knows she likes and watching her. Sometime along the way he has gone from watching to observing to caring to guarding, something that made him laugh bitterly when he realized it. But old habits die hard and as long as she is here whatever her problem is won't reach her. He will make sure of that.

XXX

It takes only two days to find out that he can't, not really that is.

XXX

Very unusually for him, he has not noticed that she had been coming today and so he frowns, when he hears a muffled sound and follows it. It comes again, a bit louder this time, and leads him straight to the darkest corner of the store. Big shelves are blocking the sunlight and he has yet to change the light bulb, which died away last week. It's pitch black and so he almost doesn't see her, when he rounds the corner. But he does, and almost doubles back when he catches sight of fiery red hair and the vague outline of a body, curled against the bottom of the very last shelf. Her shoulders are trembling and he is sure she is sobbing, but he only hears a strange rolling sound, sharp and angry.

She still looks like a little bird, but this one seems to have fallen out of its nest. He is about to take a step closer (how could he ignore this), when suddenly her head shots up and she stares at him. She whimpers faintly, her back pressing against the wood behind her and the rolling sound dies away. Only now he realizes that it has been his own growling. He takes a moment to glance at her trembling form and wide eyes before he takes a hasty step back, ready to flee. Because even though she is flinching away from him, of course she is, he knows he otherwise won't be able to resist the urge to step closer. She needs someone to comfort her, but surely not him.

He is as good as gone, when a movement catches his eyes, her hand, her fragile tiny hand stretched towards him, and he hears her voice, barely above a whisper.

"Stay, please. I.. I'm sorry. Please, just stay. "

And so he stays, sliding down where he stands, until he sits on the floor at the other side of the dark corridor. She has stopped crying, but sadness and desperation still hang over her like heavy rain clouds he his fist clench at his sides. He has no idea what is bothering her, so there is nothing he can do (He ignores the quiet voice that tries to remind him that this is actually none of his business and that he shouldn't bother. That he never bothered before.) . So he just stays where he is, watching, listening, until he is sure she is asleep. Only then he gets up and turns the sign at the door before he resumes his guard.

A/N: Another tid-bit of my Musicstore-AU and obviously some time down the line from part one. Haven't written much from Sansa's POV for that one yet, so it's pretty one-sided for now, sorry.

BTW:

ASoIaF and all its characters belong to George R.R. Martin.

See ya, Mag~