- A few months later -

"Ser Ilyn…bring me his head!" Joffrey hissed ignominiously.
"No!" Sansa screamed and tried to squirm away from knight who suddenly seized her. "Someone stop him!"
The blood was pumping violently in her veins with mere desperation and rage. She thought her father looked at her through the bloody waterfall that had dried on his face. The crowd was yelling, pleased with their King's inhuman decision. They sounded like hungry crocodiles, begging to eat their prey.
"My son, this is madness." Sansa heard the queen grousing to her son but it was no use.
"Put him down!" Joffrey commanded instead, ignoring the cries of despair and wretchedness of his betrothed.
Sansa wriggled and floundered but the knight didn't loosen his grip.
"NO!" she was yelling amongst the shouts of the crowd. "NO!"
"Traitor!" Everyone else was cheering.
Her father was on his knees. A metallic sound echoed as Ser Ilyn drew the large sword and lifted it on the air.
"Stop him! Stop!" Sansa shouted with anguish. Her knees were becoming weak and her eyes blurred with tears.
For half a heartbeat she glanced at the man who stood a step below her, next to Varys. A stranger in a brown tunic and a silver mockingbird on his collar, with black hair like tar; as pitchy as his soul. He whispered something to the bald lord next to him and looked at her over his shoulder. Their eyes locked for just a second; there was no concern in his emerald oculars; no compassion. There was only an abyss of darkness and apathy that made her heart choke and suffocate, before he turned his back to her again.
She looked at her father. His head was lowered and his neck exposed. Amongst her cries of desperation and agony there was a loud thud; a nightmarish slice, deep and freaky, that separated head from body. Sansa's senses abandoned her at the ghastly sight and she collapsed. Gloom engulfed her; the same gloom she had seen in his eyes and in his soul.

The third night after her Eddard's death came but the pain hadn't lessened. Joffrey had Septa Mordane murdered as well and forced Sansa to look at their heads nailed on spikes. The vile image had been haunting her ever since.
"Leave me" Sansa grumbled at the handmaiden that had been following her around for the past three days.
No doubt she is spying on me for the Queen, Sansa thought as the girl curtsied and walked away. How quiet the corridors were without Arya running around chasing cats. The youngest Stark daughter had disappeared the day their father was sentenced to death.
Sansa entered her chambers and shut the door soundlessly. The candlelight was dim and there was an aroma of oil dwelling in the air. She walked across the room and stood in front of the mirror. Her eyes had been foggy with tears ever since the recent loss of her father.
My father is gone, my sister is gone, my Septa is gone...I am all alone against Joffrey's and the Queen's abuse and torment...
A rogue tear flowed down the smoothness of her cheek and rested on the corner of her mouth so she could taste its salty flavour that carried all the heavy burden of sorrow and abandonment that had been cast upon her like a strangling shadow.
As she stepped away from the mirror, she noticed that there was someone standing at the balcony. She squealed with surprise and affright and pressed her hands against her bosom. Can it be Joffrey?
"Who's there?" she whimpered.
The night breeze blew with a shuddering hiss and scattered the curtain that separated the room and the balcony. The dark masculine figure responded to her call and came inside with slow prideful steps.
Her breath caught in her throat and her stomach turned. Could it be that grief had made her delirious?
"W-What are you doing here?" she blurted out breathlessly.
Petyr Baelish's posture was lordly and imperious. His grey-green eyes were void and his pupils reflected the feeble candlelight. He stood at a safe formal distance from her.
A stranger.
"I came to see you" he responded in a serene croon.
Sansa huffed and folded her arms over her chest defensively. Is he going to play the same game again?
"Well, here I am. What do you want?" A perfectly shaped auburn eyebrow perked skywards.
If her hostility had upset him, his face still remained blank like a white page.
"I wanted to see how you have been faring."
This time it was sarcasm and irritation that washed over her watchful figure.
"How do you think?!" She spat out at him and turned away, so he couldn't see the mist that had returned to her eyes.
She heard his boots treading lightly on the cold stone. His hand touched her shoulder but she flinched away, refusing to look at him before she had blinked away all the menacing tears.
"Sansa, I want to help you" he whispered soothingly but she was far from being mitigated.
"Help me?" she gasped and faced him.
Her azure optics were cold and crystal as ice; like her bruised heart.
"Help me?" she repeated, enraged like never before. "Haven't you done enough? You brought me here. You gave me to /him/. That monster." She cried out and succumbed to the tears of wrath and unbearable ache.
Petyr was now frowning, taken aback by her outburst. He came closer to her and wetted his lips, preparing to retort but in the end he said nothing. A torturous silence fell between them as they were left boring into each other's eyes. He appeared to be calculating her.
"Sansa, I didn't know what Joffrey was." He spoke quietly. "I did advise your father. He didn't listen. I couldn't know what Joffrey would do to him."
"I don't believe you" she exclaimed and clenched her fists until her knuckles turned white. Her vision was blurry with tears that carried on streaming down her flushed face. "You advised him, why didn't you save him? You could have."
"No, I couldn't nor did I know Joffrey wasn't going to be merciful." He argued, retaining his tranquillity.
"Oh, he was merciful. He gave my father a clean death. That's what he told me when he made me look at his head on a spike." This time Sansa's voice broke and her lips quivered.
He reached for her but she backed away without second thought.
"Don't touch me. This is all your fault. You brought me to him. You gave me to him, you allowed this betrothal. You encouraged it. Look at me now. Are you happy now?" She outcried and glared at him.
Her whole frame was trembling with martyrdom and her lips were bloated from the sobbing.
If she hadn't known better, she would mistake Petyr's gaze for sympathetic; for empathetic, when all she could remember was the glance of apathy he had given her right before her father was decapitated.
"Sansa, I didn't..." he started but she cut him off by raising her hand.
"You know what. I wonder who the real monster is; the one who tortures me so awfully or the one who delivered me so easily to the hands of the beast...after pretending to care." Sansa swallowed thickly and stood her ground.
He stared at her intently. One would say he appeared surprised and...and wounded? He is not the sufferer. He got what he wanted. It is I who lost everything.
"Listen to me, Sansa" he began again and cupped her face between his palms.
"No..." She shook her head and tried to pull away but he didn't let her go.
"My sweet Sansa, listen to me."
She met his grey-green eyes with reluctance; she had forgotten how captivating they were. His thumbs brushed on her cheeks, wiping away the petrified tears.
"I didn't want this for you. I will fix it, I promise you. I told you..." He threw his net of affection at her but she didn't get caught.
"You told me what? That one day we will be together?" She puffed vexedly. "You haven't even spoken to me ever since we came here. You haven't even come to see me."
"I came now." He responded calmly.
"So my father had to die for you to visit me?" Sansa ached to tell him to stop; every word was another drop of poison on her wrecked heart.
He didn't answer. He furrowed his eyebrows and pressed his lips in a thin line but didn't speak another word. He only gazed at her in a manner that could be described as fond if it weren't for him.
Her disappointment and woe had exceeded their limits. She pulled away from the captivity of his hands and took a few steps back.
"I will fix this. I will get you out of this. I will take you away from here when the time is right" He whispered with a sigh.
"When the time is right" She repeated after him. "How many more people I love will have to die until then? My brothers? My...my mother?" She struck back at him, aware what a tough blow the mention of her mother would be.
He managed to cover his wince with a simple twitch of his mouth.
"I don't need more of your help. You have done enough. Now please go away." She hissed and turned her back to him. It was unbearable to look in his eyes any longer; the eyes that so successfully reflected hurt and regret.
But he didn't walk away. She felt his fingertips brushing along her spine smoothly and slowly.
"Sansa, I..." he murmured and clenched his jaw. When the next words were uttered, her heart stopped for a second. "I love you."
She turned around quickly so they were facing each other again. There was a sudden spark of hope in his emerald optics until she slapped it away. His face jerked to the side and his eyes momentarily closed. His cheek reddened from the force of the slap.
"How dare you say this to me..." She strived to sound determined but her voice betrayed her and broke. The moisture in her cerulean hues was renewed and tears of bittersweet heartbreak flowed down her face. Hasn't this been what I wanted to hear ever since that night?
"It's the truth." He sounded so tormentingly reassuring that she raised her hand to strike him again but he caught her wrist and stopped her before her palm met his cheek.
That took her by surprise. She gaped at him, feeling the ice in his forest green oculars creeping down her spine. His suave expression had been replaced by a menacing scowl.
"Don't ever do that again." He whispered ominously.
She gulped and glowered at him unfalteringly. His grip around her wrist tightened and he backed her to the nearest wall. He grabbed her second wrist and pinned them both to the cold solid surface behind her. She gasped but didn't oppose him. His warmth breath fondled her skin delicately as he leaned closer and closer until his lips crushed on hers hungrily. The familiar tantalising taste of mint was enough to crumble the stone that resided in her heart. A soft moan caught in her throat and her lips responded to his deep kiss. His tongue tasted her ruthlessly, mercilessly, and desperate longing arose. He guided her hands to join around his neck prior to occupying his own with ripping the thin fabric of her gown, leaving her lower navel exposed to his control and wandering touches on her warmth. Not even for a second did he break their fierce kiss, no matter how breathless they both were. He unlaced his breeches with haste eagerness and hooked her legs around his waist. With a hard thrust of his hips he buried his erected member deep inside her damp inner walls, making them both emit sighs of pleasure. Her dainty fingers slid through his short black hair and gripped it forcefully. His hips pounded against hers immensely and each one of his rough thrusts displayed fiery need and urgency. He was squeezing her thighs and she was pulling his locks violently as the night breeze muffled and carried away their loud moans of hedone. The erotic sensuality soon sent them over the edge and their amorous juices mixed, sealing their connection as one. There were left panting and sweating, with heartbeats incredibly rapid. Her fingers travelled down the sides of his face and her oceanic blue orbs searched his emerald ones. His hands soothed her quivering legs as he carried her away from the wall and laid her down on her bed. He freed her of the remains of her ripped gown and she tugged on his tunic which soon came off as well. He lied down beside her and she nestled in his long missed embrace. The ice was broken with fire. The anger was expelled and it was replaced by buried affection and longing that rose to the surface.
"Don't leave me" were Sansa's last words that night before she drifted off to sleep, her head placed on Petyr's chest, right above his heart. His calmed heartbeat sang to her a song of love and gifted her with impassioned dreams instead of beheading nightmares.
In the morning he was gone.