Warning for a description of rape and violence against women which happened in the past, not graphic but still.

Sandor – day 4

He woke well before dawn with a taste of promise in his mouth.

His dark blue shirt was a smudge on the floor, as was her fancy yellow dress. The two garments were entangled as the two of them in bed. He didn't want to move not to disturb her breathing.

He didn't know where any of his guns were, and that, in itself, was much more disturbing. It hasn't happened in two decades, ever since he started his training with the service. Sandor Clegane stared at the stuccoed white ceiling of the Martell mansion wondering, wondering... Sansa's head was stuck under his missing ear, one perfect cheek on his large shoulder, warm as summer evening. The morning after tasted much more intensive than his secret fantasies; peaceful, domestic, quiet. She is at ease with me, he thought. Unbelievable. He wondered what she would do if he kissed her awake.

He supposed it was a pity that their arrangement would not last. She was a grown-up girl and she must have wanted some fun. It wouldn't be the first time that a woman went to bed with him to satisfy her curiosity.

But none of them ever fell asleep leaning on the missing, melted half of his face.

Grey predawn gloom conquered the garden when a faint knock came from the door. Sandor bolted. Seated in bed, he took a good whiff of the surroundings. Sansa immediately stirred.

"Hey," she murmured so softly, grabbing him from behind. Slender arms curled around his chest. Bony chin pressed on his naked back, eyelashes batting on his shoulder. Sandor smiled involuntarily, forgetting how hideous the gesture would make him. "What's up? Who is it?" she asked, drowsily.

An even softer, fragrant voice smelling of danger passed through the closed door. "It would be my honour to be your witness in the coming duel as we agreed last night, Mr Clegane," Varys said for all the ears listening. The hollow closet stank of them, two pairs at least.

"You heard Mr Blackfyre, my dear," Sandor rasped, gaining consciousness that the only thing he wore was a wide, ugly grin. "Time to answer the Prince's challenge." As gently as he could, he set her hands aside, ashamed of his fantasies about the girl who was only his unlikely partner for this task, soon to be gone from his life.

In several spare movements of his large exposed body over the scarcely furnished room, he burrowed into the bathroom with a change of clean, black clothing under his arm, terribly embarrassed to face any of them; his bosses banging on the door, the Martell infantile spies in the wardrobe, and Sansa most of all.

When he emerged out again, somewhat calmer, Sansa was clutching the sheet up to her neck. Her normally pale face turned whiter than the bed linen, with the exception that it was still better smelling. The sheets caught the odour of the two of them, shamelessly so. The Hound was immensely glad that Varys's and Aemon's olfactory senses were nowhere near as acute as his own.

"A sabre, if I may make a suggestion," Varys said to Aemon over Sandor's head as if he hadn't been there. The very old man was dressed as an old woman in repulsive muddy greens, in unpleasant contrast with his aged blue-violet eyes. The good thing of the disguise was that no one would recognise Aemon Targaryen, a venerable celebrity in the world of spying.

"There are several fine specimens of curved sabres from the Ottoman Empire right above us. The sharpest ones are those widening towards the edge of the blade," Aemon approved the notion, adjusting his wise voice to his old lady cover. "The 15th century one in purple scabbard would do admirably, I think."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Sansa inquired politely.

"Oh my," Varys said. "The lady is awake. You know your husband, my dear. What do you think will happen if he chooses a pistol, let's say?"

Sansa, the clever little bird, lowered her big blue eyes. "I see," she said.

"Fine with me. A curved sabre," Sandor voiced his agreement.

"Honey," Sansa said and he could hear falseness in her voice. It made him bitter. "May I have some privacy now?"

"Sure," Sandor muttered and politely forced his bosses out in the corridor.

Aemon lifted his greenish purse. It said "no more casualties" on the bottom. Varys reproachfully moved his wounded shoulder. Faster than it appeared, Aemon's instruction was gone. The bag looked very expensive, handmade, most likely of snake skin. Sandor wondered why the old Targaryen would wear such a thing. Surely there were cheaper accessories the service could provide.

Sansa was out in a second. Sandor didn't know women could actually dress that fast. She took his hand and squeezed it, her palm sweaty as it had never been before, since she started the habit of holding his hand.

"I had fencing lessons in my youth, I'll be fine," he told her. It was the last thing his father did for him before he died. Sandor was not six years old yet, but his father lied at the club that the boy was eight. Everyone believed it because of his size so they took him in. Gregor continued paying for the lessons for two years, mostly because he was too stupid to understand all the bills he was getting. But as soon as Gregor figured that his little brother was having those fancy lessons, he stopped the payment, and that was the end of it. The Hound never practised again.

Sandor wished to say something else to Sansa, something... encouraging... but he couldn't think of anything. Why? She doesn't care for you. She only wanted some good time. Mostly such motivation was fine with him. A good fuck was all he was interested in. Was it?

"Oh," Sansa sighed. Sandor startled as if she could have heard the rubbish of his thoughts. "It's good to hear you had those lessons," she added, as if it was actually good to hear. And she wouldn't let go of his hand all the way to the bloody garden, performing a loving wife farce to the extreme. He blinked and wished it was all true. He imagined she loved him and squeezed her hand back. It was almost as good as the real thing.

Oberyn was already there, pacing impatiently up and down, with Anders Yronwood at his side. The man was almost as tall as the Hound. Varys hurried to communicate the choice of weapon to Oberyn's huge witness and the Martells' servants hurried to the second floor to fetch the blades. There were dark blue circles under Oberyn's eyes and he looked as if he hadn't slept since he came to Italy. I should be able to knock him down, Sandor thought. It should be a piece of cake.

To Sandor's surprise, Prince Oberyn was given a long spear, some kind of traditional Dornish weapon. It was in the paperwork Varys had given them, no doubt. A six foot long pole of wood with a sharp iron tip. The steel glittered in the shy pink light of the early morning. The Hound's boss instantly complained. "Shouldn't His Excellency wield a sabre as well?" Complaining sat well with Varys. He was a natural.

Oberyn retorted with disdain. "I took Mr Clegane for many things, but not for a coward."

Sansa never let go of his hand, palm manifestly shaking now.

"Have it your way," Sandor grunted, giving in to the rapidly growing demands of his ego. Angered, he plucked his hand out of Sansa's.

Aemon rattled the snake purse noisily, and got out a comb for the three white hairs growing behind his ears, under the silly green female hat he wore. Unnecessary, Sandor registered, wondering about the purpose of the gesture.

I should be able to cut his spear in half and end this, Sandor thought, unsheathing the sabre. The scabbard reminded him of the purple casing of Sansa's laptop. He chased the deconcentrating thought away and focused on his opponent. His Buggering Excellency will change his mind when it's the end of his little life we're contemplating, and not mine. He had witnessed so often how courage faded in the face of death.

You could also tell him what he wants to know, a timid inner voice suggested in his head. And for the first time in Sandor's life his consciousness sounded like another person. Like Sansa.

He turned around to see her standing between Aemon and Baelish, as far away as possible from Varys and Yronwood. You can actually trust Varys, he wanted to shout at her, but he couldn't. There were too many guests watching, and more were coming out from the palace with every passing moment. Early breakfast held no interest for anyone, it seemed.

Prince Oberyn Nymeros Martell and Sandor Clegane the Hound stood alone in a broad circle made of people, on the crossing of the two wide main pathways in the middle of the garden. The ground was sand and minuscule cobblestones under their feet, firm enough to fight on. There was just enough light, even if the sun was still invisible, its face hanging very low in the sky, hidden behind the mansion walls.

Shit, he remembered. I never told Sansa I had found her in Baelish's car in Venice. It was not that he didn't want to. Well, maybe he didn't, at first, fearing a hysterical reaction about the betrayal of her mother's friend. But later on he shared most of his work related thoughts with her, yet he had totally forgotten to mention that rather significant detail. Varys should withhold half of my yearly salary, or simply fire me, he thought. I'm getting old and careless. There must be younger lads in the juvenile prison waiting for a chance to prove their worth and commute their sentence for the community service.

Yronwood spoke firmly. "One more step back Mr Clegane, please."

He moved to the required distance to start the duel. He faced the main wing of the palace. Oberyn, on the contrary, could see the garden, the niches and the great fountain where the lanterns had burned in the night for dead Prince Doran, murdered in cold blood, and bloody far away from the hot sands of his home. It was for the good. Sandor didn't think that the glimpse of the bench where he started loving Sansa would help his concentration. Not at all.

Varys gave a signal that they could start.

Sandor launched forward ferociously with a curved wide end of the ancient blade he was using. He started for the wood close to the top of the spear, anxious to hack the iron tip off. Oberyn darted swiftly aside. The prince wore only scarlet red today, a ridiculous pair of tights and a tunic. A flimsy mantle of long stretches of thin red fabric was streaming behind his back and flapping over his thighs. It hid the place where his body should be, if Sandor were aiming for it. Which he was not.

In another rush, the Hound almost succeeded to cut the spear in two, but in the last second, Oberyn danced away. The tip of the spear grazed Sandor's black long-sleeved T-shirt on his shoulder, but it didn't penetrate the skin.

Or rather, the iron did not, but the smell did. It invaded the dog's senses with its strange sweetness. Unnatural as Sansa's head resting on his scars. A rare poison, the Hound suspected. He rapidly brought a sabre to the place where his shoulder had been. The spear retreated. Sandor jumped away, sweating.

So it was most likely snakes and not lost treasures our prince had been searching for in South America, Sandor thought. He attacked again, pretending to be careless, to test the theory. Oberyn avoided the blow, and lowered the spear. Instead of trying to kill him, or best him in any imaginable way, he merely tried to push the tip in Sandor's bad leg. Sandor stumbled, feigning to be stung.

What is it, Oberyn, that you want to inject me with? he wondered. An extraordinary poison or an illegal truth serum to ease your tortured mind? He staggered, falling to his knees, to see how his opponent would react. He felt the half healed wound on his leg tear open again from the brusque movement. There must have been blood trickling down his trousers. Oberyn eyed the Hound's leg with utmost satisfaction, and then he spoke.

"Admit your crime, and I shall spare you. I shall deliver you to your country justice, you have my word," Oberyn said with the unforgiving, judging, pig-headed righteousness Sandor simply hated in people. And His Excellency had more on his mind. "I know what you did. You raped my sister!" he accused Sandor.

It was a wrong thing to say. Sandor lurched forward like a wounded bear even if the only thing hurt had been his feelings. I am no monster, he thought. I just look like one, thanks to Gregor.

A whirlwind of offended muscle and bone, the Hound tossed the sabre away, passed under the spear of his opponent and roared. A beast on the loose, the Hound pushed his head and one of the shoulders in the mass of scarlet textile in front of him. Oberyn collapsed in the thin garden dust, and Sandor was right on top of him. He plucked the spear from the hands of the Dornish prince as if it were a toothpick, threw it away, and sat on Oberyn's chest.

"Don't say that ever again!" he spat, hands seizing His Excellence's tiny, noble neck with tremendous fury. He wondered how it would feel if he squashed Oberyn's head to the point of bursting.

"You raped my sister," Oberyn whispered stubbornly with the air that remained in his lungs. "Admit it."

I need to shut up his lying mouth, Sandor thought and squeezed harder. His mind was in a blur, harbouring a single certainty. I never raped anyone. That was Gregor.

"You raped my sister," Oberyn squeaked. His olive coloured face darkened. It turned bluish like a mist that still hung over the garden grass. Sandor took a moment to admire the hue before he felt fat powdered hands clutching his shoulders from his back.

"Mr Clegane," Varys said, his voice perfumed as his hands. "Sandor... it has been quite enough." But the Hound wouldn't listen. He needed the light to go out of the lying prince's eyes.

Tell him, the inner voice said. Tell them.

He could feel curious eyes of the guests on his ruined face, eager to witness another murder. "They arrested an innocent man for killing Prince Doran," someone said. "My husband confessed yesterday," Cersei Lannister said, offended. "Here's the murderer," a woman's voice said, sounding like the cow Baelish had for wife.

"You... raped..." the Dornish prince was about to lose consciousness. Tell him, Sansa said in Sandor's head. Baby, she pleaded with the Hound. She had called him that the night before when she had let him love her. You're better than that.

"...raped..." the prince peeped, barely audible.

Sandor's grip on his throat relented although he didn't let him go. Prince Oberyn sucked some air in his lungs and opened his mouth to repeat the accusation.

"I never raped anyone!" Sandor bellowed out loud for all to hear before Oberyn could speak again. The ghost was out of the bottle, and there was no way of stopping the words which have laid down buried for too long.

"When I was a twelve years old boy, I was helping with security in Tywin Lannister's dog food industries as you well know. My late brother, Gregor, he was thirteen years older, and he was head of security by that time. Your late brother, Doran, wanted to invest in that company. To differentiate his assets in the west. Only it was the wrong company to buy. But Doran couldn't have known that, could he? You see, Mr Lannister, he hates immigrants and he hates foreigners. He would've never let his company be bought by one such as Doran Martell. No matter how noble, or how rich. So he decided to teach Doran a lesson. Your sister, Elia, she came to England to study anthropology, or some other such unimportant subject. She could afford it, so who cared if her studies were useful or not. She was young. She came from London to visit Lannister dog food industries, to seal the business deal Doran proposed. Only that there was no deal, but she didn't know that, did she?

Old Tywin was not even there. He told Gregor to scare her in such a way that Doran would back on his offer. Elia would then return to her country where she belonged. Tywin didn't know what Gregor did to scare women. How could he? Few people had known and I was one of them.

All this I figured later on... Because on that day I was twelve and I had no idea what was about to happen. It was lunch break and I was alone at the reception desk when Elia came looking for Tywin. I let her in Tywin's office and brought her a lemonade. She couldn't quite look at my ugly face, but she thanked me all the same.

I returned to the desk and waited. An hour passed by and I was bored. Tywin had another entrance to his office, one that wouldn't involved passing me. I don't know why I even looked at the security camera showing Tywin's office, I was not supposed to look at that, ever. What I saw set my blood to boiling. I took a gun I was not supposed to carry either, but there was always one hidden in the desk, and I knew how to use it since I was ten.

When I came to Tywin's office, Gregor had his hands around Elia's neck. Just like my hands are now on your scrawny throat, Your Excellency," Sandor spat out the honorific title and paused to gain breath.

"He dwarfed her as I am dwarfing you. He was about to throttle Elia as soon as he would finish that other piece of business he troubled himself with between her legs. That's what he sometimes did to whores, you know, kill them, or try his best to kill them while he was at it. But Tywin Lannister hated whores as much or more than he hated immigrants so he never bothered to know what Gregor did to them. And my late brother was so intent on what he was doing that he never saw me coming.

I aimed squarely at his big, ugly head and pulled a trigger. I wasn't strong enough to stop him in any other way, believe me, and I have never missed a shot. Not then, not now.

Elia screamed when Gregor's head turned into ruin. It was good, it meant the air was coming back in her lungs, just like it's now coming back to yours."

The Hound released his grip on Oberyn completely. Lost, he sat on dust next to the nobleman of Dornistan. He couldn't see Sansa from that angle. Drunk on memories, he couldn't stop talking if it meant his life. And the life in Oberyn's black eyes glittered like a falling star.

"I dropped my weapon and ran to Elia," the Hound said, letting himself remember, after all the years. "I pulled Gregor's body away from her while she was still screaming. I only wanted to help her, nothing else... At first, she gave me her hand. But then she saw my pretty face from close up, just like you admired it a moment ago.

She flinched, she took her hands to herself and covered her eyes. And then she wailed and sobbed. She sounded mad. She begged me to go away. She called me an ugly monster. She called me a twisted demon from some hell you Dornish believe in, who had come to rape her after Gregor was done. I don't know what she all called me any more, but none of it was nice, I tell you.

So I forced her down on her back, on Tywin's couch, to check that she was not wounded, as she screamed and screamed. Your sister was fortunate. He only forced her and I found them before he was done. I'm not saying that it was a nice, cozy thing he did to her, but at least he didn't cut her, or burn her as he often did with whores. I should know, I helped a few of them when I could.

Elia sobbed and called me a murderer when I called the ambulance. I waited to hear them coming, and then I left. I couldn't listen to her accusations any longer. I'm really sorry that it was not prince charming who came to save your sister. Only me. You should know the rest."

The words were all out and he had nothing more to say.

His hands hung limp next to his body, and a pair of black eyes so much like Elia's stared at him, unflinching, appeased. Varys and Aemon pulled the Hound jointly on his feet. Aemon's head bobbed and his wrinkled arms lacked strength in the past thirty years. They would never have succeeded if he didn't feel so hollow and abandoned that he let them do.

Legs clad in scarlet tights stood up as well, full of fresh vigour. "I didn't stab you, did I?" Oberyn inquired with genuine concern.

"I don't think so," he answered, feeling dizzy from his confession and fresh loss of blood.

"Come," Oberyn said and led the way forward.

They were taking him somewhere, in a maze of colours, smells, voices and emotions. The walls were glass. The apartments of the Martells, he realised. Varys and Aemon were left behind, on the outside. It was only him, and Oberyn, and Yronwood, Lady Nymeria and her twins in the room. Yronwood smelled wrong from close by. He attacked Lady Nym when we came nosing around after Prince Doran's death, Sandor realised, uncertain what to do with that new piece of knowledge. She knew him. Why?

"Here," a glass of red wine was put in front of him. He was not supposed to drink but he still did. It was sour and it tasted good. Three sips were more than enough.

"Nym, daughter, check him out", Oberyn commanded. "Both shoulders and both legs. We should administer the antidote immediately if I did touch him."

Sandor let himself be examined even if the lady's hands on his body were not the ones he so ardently desired.

"He's clean," Nymeria announced, "he has a nasty looking stab wound on his leg, but its a few days old, not made by you."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Prince Oberyn asked the Hound, perplexed. "It would have been beneficial for you."

"I don't know," Sandor said. Because no one would have believed a twisted ugly demon. They didn't believe the deformed little boy, why would they believe a grown lad? He took another sip of wine. "I tried to tell your brother in Venice," he added, remembering his attempt at the entrance to the ball. "Not in so many words, but I did. I said that what I did was to the benefit of your family. He wouldn't listen."

"Here," Lady Nym said, placing an open laptop next to the wine glass. "Our part of the bargain. You are logged in the network of our armed forces and you can look for clues."

Sandor stared at the blue screen polluted with some icons. Slowly, he turned around and measured the entire room.

"Not me," he said. "Not by myself. Where is my wife? I thought she would have followed us here..."

Prince Oberyn looked at the twins, and waved them out with a stern commanding gesture. Don't return without her, the black eyes had said, wordlessly. The twins bolted out to find Sansa. Sandor stared at the screen some more, waiting for the soft sound of her steps. She will be happy about this, he thought, but no one came for a long time.

A frightened woman servant was ushered in instead of Sansa at last. The same one who had found Prince Doran dead. The twins were hiding from Oberyn's wrath down the corridor, behind the open door.

"Your Excellency," the woman stuttered, "I wouldn't wish to be the bearer of bad news all the time, but..."

"Where is my wife?" Sandor interrupted, dreading the answer. How much time did I spend with my memories? he blamed himself.

"I don't know, sir," the woman shook her head. "We looked for her everywhere. But she's nowhere to be found."

A/N Thank you for the reviews. Please let me know what you think about this part if you like.