I promise that this is the last episode where the characters are going somewhere by a road vehicle in this story :')) The thing started in my head as a standard parallel Blackwater universe where SanSan ride out together and meet trouble on the road. But this is over after this part. Please review.

Sandor

The Hound's phone rang as soon as the scam ceremony was over. He was glad he remained dry in Venice, or the expensive thing would have been ruined, and he'd have to resort to desperate measures to contact the service.

This way, it was a piece of cake.

"Yes," he answered. Be as brief as possible, the drill words sounded in his head.

"There you are... we wondered," an old frail voice said in the distance. The Hound's blood ran faster picturing the wise man behind it. Aemon was one of the heads of service. He never called unless the situation was dire.

"We found the priest," he stated.

"Good," Aemon rejoiced. "We wondered about that as well."

"We need transport," Sandor said, embarrassed to bother his superior with the technicality, but then again, it was he who called.

"In the third street more or less parallel to the longest façade of the City Hall," Aemon said fast. "There is a shoe shop ran by Mr Stokeworth, I believe you've met him..."

The phone beeped and in less than 60 seconds the conversation was over. You could never be too careful. Sandor Clegane put it back in the inner pocket of his suit jacket. He was tired as hell. He'd love to wear a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Even the tourist shit Sansa was wearing would be much more comfortable than a half ruined too tight suit he was stuck with. He'd like a shower too. Advanced senses nature saw fit to give him informed him on the height of almost seven feet that his own feet stank badly. And the stab wound bandaged by a local mechanic, who posed as barber's grandson and almost a doctor, didn't smell too good either.

It will hold, it has too, Sandor thought stubbornly. It was not the first nor the last time he suffered a minor injury in his 15 years of service. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, his father used to say. Then again, he did get killed in the end. By his own offspring at that. And Sandor had very early had the misfortune to learn that the stupid statement of his father's was more accurate than not.

Lost in his past for a second, he woke to the world where Sansa was holding and examining his phone. She must have snatched it from his pocket without him noticing.

"Nice work," she said, admiring the device.

"Not mine," he said. He'd never take a credit for what he didn't do, like Joffrey. "Have you ever considered a career in pickpocketing... Mrs Clegane?" the desire to snap at her was strong. The only stronger one being the desire to kiss her, whether their cover required it or not. She smelled way too deliciously for his liking, and even if she wore a plastic tablecloth she'd be the best looking woman he had a chance to meet. Or lay your paws on, an inner voice suggested, challenging his rational mind.

"Honey," she told him sweetly and patted his chest while returning his phone in its place. He noticed Stannis's wife staring at them from behind and one more time resisted the urge to kiss Sansa senseless as a response. "Shouldn't we be looking for that transport now?" Sansa continued. "Prince Doran's party starts tomorrow, and the guests are supposed to arrive today. It's not too far away from Padua, but it is too far to walk..."

"Alas," little shit interrupted as usual. "I will not be joining you for your walk, dear friends. Cousin Lancel and me will be accompanying aunt Selyse and cousin Shireen to Rome. Mrs Clegane, you do understand that this is another really important mission. Unlike the party you will be attending. I hope you will enjoy your honey moon, Mr and Mrs Clegane..."

The Hound stole an inquisitive look at Sansa. It irked him that he could read no expression whatsoever on her regularly shaped face most of the time. Joffrey's comments in the past hours must have hurt her feelings, they would have hurt the sensibility of any normal woman.

What if she wasn't a normal woman?

He could bet that she liked his too impulsive kiss after the so called wedding, and that she didn't tremble with fear when he had devoured her hands earlier that morning. She had been shocked, but not in a negative way. Do I have to hide in your bed to get a reaction out of you... Mrs Clegane? He shivered from feeling like a sick fuck. What kind of thoughts were those? It would seem he was not that far off from his brother as he wanted to believe.

"I wish you lots of success in your important task of accompanying ladies, Mr Baratheon. Their honesty surely requires protection from Father Lancel. I heard he had been a very close friend of your mother's," he said cynically instead. His irony was not lost on Joffrey who looked at him with something akin to hatred. It made the Hound's day. Making certain people loathe him was always very satisfying.

"Good-bye... Joffrey," Sansa surprised him by saying in that perfect voice of hers. "It was a pleasure meeting you. We should be going now."

Before he knew it, she was out of the false church door in flip-flops and damn sexy shorts. All he could do was follow her like a good dog.

To his bewilderment and in the same calm manner she used for speaking, Sansa stood at the side of the road and phlegmatically started hitch-hiking.

He'd never get a ride with his face, he knew. He opted for going along with her solution, keeping low profile and pacing up and down ten steps away from her, so that the cars coming would not have him in their line of sight. The second vehicle stopped.

It was a small truck with only two places in front, both occupied, and a pile of sand for construction as a bulk load in the back. Alarmed, Sandor noticed that the hairy man driving was missing a nose. His bald ugly colleague unbuckled the seatbelt and got out. He grabbed Sansa and hissed. Sansa tried to back off, but she could not. To her credit, she didn't scream.

"That's the American, Biter," the driver said with a thrill in his voice.

It was the last thing he said. The Hound still had two guns, and a truck could be driven for a short distance with a broken side window, no problem. Cars got broken in every day anyway. In Italy as in England, it mattered little.

Getting to Biter was more difficult. The man sensibly put Sansa in-between, but the cowardly tactics never stopped the Hound. He visibly dropped the gun he used and leapt towards them, pretending he would use his bare hands to attack. In a second, the Hound had Sansa by the shoulder. Biter caught her neck and she would have screamed then, the Hound could tell, if she wasn't being choked. In the next second he grabbed one of Biter's hands and broke it like a dry bone. Sansa got some air. She waved her arms towards the Hound, and he managed to push her down. Long enough to get the second gun in his hand and finish the job he started.

While he was dragging two fresh corpses to hide them in the pile of sand in the back of the truck, cleaning up as he could, a bit, not too much, he thought, Sansa made good use of the time available to her to daintily throw up her dinner and the cappuccino she had at the gas station. The daisies growing on the side of the road got watered and fertilized, the Hound guessed. When he was done, she climbed on the passenger seat next to him, stiff and proud like the Princess on the Pea. Until they arrived close to the centre of Padua, she didn't say a word.

The Hound was getting more and more impressed with his little wife. Well, little. Nearly as tall as Jaime's new girlfriend. When they were not too far from the centre, judging by the density and the vaguely historic looks of the urban tissue, he opted to abandon the vehicle and walk the last part. The city was waking up. There was smell of coffee, and fresh bread, and people moving in many directions. It turned out Sansa knew how the City Hall looked like and after a bit of asking they found the damn building. With its several superimposing rows of old arches under a high roof, even Sandor Clegane had to admit that it was an impressive construction. The square in front of it was getting busier and busier, just like the streets around it. Sansa sighed.

"I wish I had my purse with me," she said. "I'd like to make a photo of it."

Spontaneously, he offered her his phone. He'd never given it to anyone. He'd never used it for anything else other than purely professional purposes.

"Thank you!" she said, pleased and surprised in equal measure. There goes another way of cracking her armour of formalities, he thought, oddly happy, satisfied to watch her taking all the photographs she wanted with precision he rarely witnessed in a woman. An organised little thing, he thought, that's what she is. Even when she pukes, she does it neatly.

"I'm done," she said. "I emailed them to myself, I hope you don't mind. The communication from this device is untraceable anyway. Your location is hidden and probably all that goes in or out is encrypted in a rather peculiar way. I don't know how exactly it was done without further exploration of your settings, but I'd like to learn."

"Darling," he couldn't help saying. "You can explore all you want once we get to that splendid party"

"Why do you have to be like that?" she complained. "We've already concluded that neither of us wants this. We will just go through with it and go home, right? There's no need to be hateful. Where is that transport of yours?"

"We should go shoe shopping," he said, and her face dropped down.

He understood he had somehow offended her. "What?" he said.

"You disapprove of my choices in that department, don't you?" she asked quietly. "I'm not your doll to dress up as you wish," she affirmed with more stamina.

"Who said anything about that? You could wear a potato bag and still be hot as hell," he said without thinking.

"Oh," she said. "Okay," she squeezed out of her pretty throat, pulsing.

They continued walking to Mr Stokeworth's shop in blessed silence.

"Mr and Mrs Clegane," Bronn Stokeworth greeted them from the porch. The shop itself was well hidden in the shadow of another arched corridor flanking the street. They all looked similar to Sandor Clegane, but the Hound could luckily spot and smell the differences. Or they would be lost before long. Many different models of probably classy female shoes stared at them from the shop window. The stench of leather and rubber was almost unbearable. They all looked the same to the Hound, just like their exaggerated price tags.

"We have no time to exchange pleasantries," the Hound said, wishing to go out as soon as possible. Into something resembling fresh air in a polluted city. "Let's get down to business." The dog needed a run, even if his leg would not allow it for a few days, at least.

"You will be happy to know that all your stuff has been brought from Venice and loaded in the car four blocks from here," Bronn said without hesitation. "Here's the map to find it, and the keys. I have to close the shop and pick up my wife. We are invited as well."

"Could you wait a bit, Mr Stokeworth, please," Sansa said slowly.

Half an hour later they were out of the shop, and Sandor Clegane found himself dragging five boxes of shoes in three large bags, glad for having survived the olfactory onslaught. He was tempted to sniff Sansa from close by to help his recovery. "One pair for each day," Sansa explained. "And you were probably right about my poor choice of footwear. It didn't rise to the occasion."

Mr Stokeworth shouted after them, as an afterthought. "If I were you, I'd not put on the radio before you arrive to Vicenza! Just enjoy your honey moon!"

"We will, Mr Stokeworth, thank you so much," Sansa said.

The car was a new black Mercedes, latest edition, as far as he could tell. It smelled of factory, and nothing else, thank goodness. A laptop in a girly cover was protruding under the back seat. Pink, with purple flowers. A horrible thing, really. Sansa immediately sat in the back, retrieved it and opened it with more enthusiasm than she ever showed towards Sandor Clegane since they met. The Hound wanted to unplug the navigation and squash it, hoping to end his frustration with her as well, but he decided against it. Whoever wanted to find them could just as well go to Prince Doran's party. It wasn't a big secret where they were going. And with some luck nobody would know what car they were driving before they eventually arrived.

Forgetting what Bronn said, he switched on the radio to hear some music as soon as he started a car. The first acceptable tune he found was unfortunately instantly interrupted by a news programme.

He stared forward, ignoring the pain in his cut leg which increased with driving, until a piece of news positively shocked him.

"...Sansa Stark, 25 years old, red hair, blue eyes, American... approximately 1m 80cm tall, travelling in a company of a man well over 2m tall, Sandor Clegane, black hair, prominent facial scars, a convicted criminal from the UK... Miss Stark is wanted for questioning as a suspect in a murder case of Mr Osney Kettleblack, whose head was blown by a bullet inside a fire brigade van... The shooting took place in a restaurant on the motorway near the exit for Venice... Mr Luwin, the owner, survived by hiding under the bar. One of the other guests has been murdered and several badly wounded..."

The Hound switched off the radio.

Someone is after Sansa, he knew. The piece of news was not genuine. Even total amateurs in the police force would not be able to link Sansa to the man he killed in a van in Venice, and not on a bloody motorway. Somebody paid for the announcement and he or she paid well.

So maybe they didn't follow us due to our task. Maybe they just wanted Sansa.

He turned around. Sansa was silent in the back seat, her face covered in tears.

"Anything you wish to tell me?" he asked, trying to sound gentle.

"Look," she said, and pushed the screen of her laptop forward between the seats, so that he could see it without turning back. A sob escaped her and she did her best to silence it fast.

"What?" he snarled.

"My Facebok account," she said, desperate. "Mr Varys and me are now friends. And I have a new profile picture... And a new cover photo... Our... our marriage is announced on the cover... My friends and family are congratulating me.. My mother is a bit furious... My father luckily doesn't have an account..."

He looked at the screen and stared at Sansa's face in a dark blue dress she wore at the ball on her profile. Her hair style was perfect. The beautiful strand of auburn softness falling out of it was missing, revealing that the picture was first taken and than tampered with. The cover was worse. It was the two of them, dancing, rearranged to stand next to each other in front of an old fashioned window frame, as if they were just getting married. The top of the page said: Sansa Stark. And under, in smaller font: married to Sandor Clegane

It was Sandor's turn to sigh. Not again, he thought. "Do you mind clicking on my name there?" he said.

When she did, he confirmed the unavoidable. His dog avatar was gone too, replaced by a dull photograph of him wearing the damn suit. The scars were mercifully blurred and not that visible. He inwardly thanked the service for their kind consideration. It must have been either Jaime or his new girlfriend, the tall ugly one, who redesigned his image to fit the purpose. It was a little bit better than when his cover was rearranged to present him as a water polo champion several years ago.

"Didn't you hear the news?" he tried to ask, cautiously.

"I did," she said. "But I know that already since last night. Someone is after me. And no, I have no idea why if that was your next question. My family is wealthy, but I don't think they'd be that stupid to pay a ransom for me. Quite some kidnapping victims are still killed after the ransom is paid."

The girl was not stupid at all, he realized. And there she was, stuck with a monster in a monstrously black car, heading to meet the monsters Martells invited this year... She still didn't understand how badly someone wanted her and how much they were willing to pay. That's why she has me now, his thoughts went terribly astray one more time.

"Don't worry," he consoled her as he could. "Anyone else comes after you, I will kill them."

Sansa stared at him, speechless, than at her laptop again.

"And you are still more shocked by this Facebook thing?" he had to ask. "It's routine work!" he even bothered to explain. "The service fixed your profile to match the op cover for anyone who may be watching!" he realised he was shouting when it was too late.

"God, I was so stupid!" she exclaimed after seeing his page, pristine and empty as usual. His list of friends was luckily not extended and only the announcement of their marriage and a few pictures from the ball were added.

Sansa returned to her own page and scrolled down fast. "They deleted it, obviously," she concluded, knowingly. "I published a picture of Joffrey and you saying you were my colleagues... That is how Prince Doran knew we were not married! And I am supposed to be good at this electronic shit..."

The Hound laughed happily at her attempt to curse.

Everybody made mistakes. Especially in things people were good at. Sandor Clegane knew that better than anyone.

"What was your profile picture? The one you chose?" he asked, trying to make her feel better, not knowing why that was important to him.

She showed him, digging deep in her photo albums. A sweet yellow head of a lovebird with a few red feathers on top. It was now well hidden in her images folder.

"Little bird," he said. "It goes well with you," he told her after careful consideration. It was the truth.

"What was your profile like?" she asked with caution.

Probably expecting me to snarl at her again, he thought, his bad leg throbbing harder whenever his spirits sank further down. The body and soul really are one thing, the thought came unwanted and unbidden.

"I'll show you some other time," he said. "I'm a bit tired," he added. It was only half a lie. No way he was going to disgust his little false wife by the beast he kept as an avatar. "I should focus on driving."