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Part Five

Sansa tells herself that the rift between them is necessary; that there must be obstacles to tackle, tension to overcome. Everyone faces hardships of some kind in the movies; it's what makes the endings a worthwhile payoff. That's what she tells herself when they stop to relieve their bladders on the side of the road before he chops most of her hair off while barely saying a word to her.

It's just over a day later when they're finally slipping into a trailer while thunder booms and rain beats down on them. The storm started up suddenly as they were nearing the old trailer park where an old associate used to live; late summer storms around Vegas are rare but not unheard of. It'll likely be over by the time they're ready to head into the city.

He pushed the beat up ORV to reach Las Vegas as quickly as possible; thankfully it worked, without any hiccups (like cops patrolling for speeders on backroads and lonely highways). He's exhausted and cranky, and he knows he's snapped at her too many times - but they made excellent time.

Still, the little bird smiles at him tentatively once they're inside.

He doesn't smile back, just sets down the flimsy plastic bag with the local drugstore's name in big, bold letters on it before checking the water. Still running; good, considering the payments he's been secretly making to keep it up in case of emergencies (though this emergency never once crossed his mind until it happened).

"Sandor?"

"Water still works. The storm will be over in a few, and then you can-"

"Sandor."

He doesn't look at her. The ride here was mostly silent; he snapped every time she tried to start up conversation, each and every time she tried to ask him any questions.

"Please?"

It's embarrassing, the way her voice pleading out one, little word cripples him. A grown man of fucking thirty-three, and he's brought down by a seventeen year old girl begging him to look at her. As if Sansa Stark should ever have to beg anyone to look at her (it should be the other fucking way around).

"What is it, girl?" he asks - words too curt and voice too harsh, but he looks at her like he knows she wants.

It must be enough, because her tentative smile returns. "It's just...we need to talk." She doesn't give him the chance to argue - because it's obvious how much he does not want to talk, and hurriedly adds, "This man we're going to see, he...you know for certain you can trust him?"

Sandor almost barks at her that of course he can't fucking trust the Spider, but she's a just a girl. A good girl, honest and innocent, and even after everything she's still so naive about so much of this world he lives in. So instead he closes the distance he put between them and gently cups her chin to make her look at him (though it's entirely unnecessary). "Not exactly, little bird. But there's no love lost between him and the Lannisters, I can promise you that. I know how to make sure he helps you, though, don't worry about that."

Sansa slowly nods, though she appears uncertain. She leans in closer to him. "How do you really know he'll help us?"

Us. Sandor had worded his last sentence rather specific, but she didn't even listen. Us.

"It's not us he'll be helping," he mutters under his breath. He hadn't wanted to tell her. He knows it will worry her, upset her; maybe make her fight this and get stubborn again; but it's time to face the music. His hand drops from her face. "He'll help you because I'm going to help him. A favor for a favor."

"What do you mean?"

He turns away from her again and reaches for the drugstore bag. Turns away because there are accusations in her eyes; she looks at him as if he's betraying her, as if doing whatever he can to make sure she's safe and sound and that the Lannisters can never hurt her again is wrong. He tells himself it's only the fear of being alone. He doesn't see how she could be that attached to him after yesterday.

(But he remembers three nights ago; her warm body under him and her mouth on his and her arms cradling him while he came, too selfishly caught up in his own pleasure to give her enough back. He remembers little moments since then, and how she smiles and curls up into him and touches his hair and seeks out his hand every chance she has. He remembers the night before Trant and Blount ruined it all - when they were tired and cramped, and she was too sore, but still they touched and kissed and tasted, and Sandor knows that was the sweetest night of his fucked up, bloody life; what scares him is the memory of her sighing happily in his arms and drifting to sleep like that was where she belonged.)

"You're going to get a new life, little bird. A new name, a new going to go somewhere safe, somewhere far away. You'll have a quiet life, and you'll find yourself a good man," he explains and grips the flimsy, blue plastic bag as if it's that unknown man's neck. "You'll have a full, happy life. But you can't do that if you remain Sansa Stark, and you can't have that if I stay with you."

She rushes towards him, closing the distance he put between them, and slaps him. Hard as she can, he's pretty damn sure, with her fingertips curved inward so that she leaves red scratches on the good side of his face.

He admits to himself, he hadn't been expecting a reaction quite that violent.

She's crying abruptly, her other hand over her mouth as she sobs (she hasn't cried since the night he fucked her). She slaps him again. She tries for a third time, and he catches her wrist, half expecting her to start hitting his chest. But she doesn't; she pulls back, pulls her wrist free, and yanks his jacket off of her. The little bird throws it at him. She cries like she's been bracing for this and failing miserably.

Sandor honestly doesn't know what to do. He wants to shake her and curse her and tell her to be an adult. Stop her fucking crying, she's always crying - he hates it when she cries. (Hates feeling helpless because this isn't what he's good at, comforting and soothing, no, that's not him at all.)

But he can't do that, doesn't want to do that; he wants to hold her. He wants to go with her, and stay with her, and fuck her. Over and over, every day until he dies, and he could die happy that way.

"You promised!" she sobs. "We're still alive, Sandor! We're both still alive, and you promised! I'm yours! You're mine!" Her entire body shakes violently. It's that day, the day they ran; she's crying so hard she might vomit, and she won't look at him.

He grabs her, holds her while she slaps him again and tries to yank away. He wrenches her away from the door when she tries to grab the doorknob and pulls her in close. "Sansa! Listen to me!" he yells. One hand moves to her hair and grips it tightly and tugs harder than he should. He hates the way she's glaring at him with wet, bloodshot eyes. "Fool's folly! You hear me, girl? It was a silly promise that meant nothing. Didn't anyone ever tell you a man will say anything when he's lust drunk?"

Sansa's glare turns from hurt and angry to shocked in seconds. And then she's shaking her head, clutching him, cupping his face. "No, no - don't. You meant it. I know you did! You meant it then and afterwards, right up until Meryn Trant and Boros Blount found us!"

He could call her a fool - and she is. But in this instance he'd be lying. He already is lying. He hates it, hates lying to her, lashing out and hurting her. It used to feel good, when he'd say something just scare her or startle her or offend her. He used to enjoy watching her squirm, because it was the only reaction he could get from her. Getting close enough so she would stop shying her gaze from his face, close enough so she would stop fearing him - it was too risky.

(He should have remembered that.)

"Do you want to die, girl?" he asks her coldly.

Sansa pulls at him, and despite his better judgment he leans in. "I want us to be happy."

Fuck.

He has plenty enough cash that they could run far, far away. He could track down other sources - none as good as the Spider, but close enough. They could get far away without a solid trail. But his face will always give him away, and the Lannisters would never let this go.

Sandor cannot shake the thought of Gregor touching his pretty, little bird. He rarely sees his brother; rarely sees the aftermath but everyone's heard stories. Sandor remembers meeting his second sister-in-law once, at a dinner party Tywin Lannister was hosting. He remembers the empty, vacant look in her eyes, the shadows of bruises under make-up, the way she body trembled constantly because Gregor never stopped touching her in some way.

"You can be happy without me."

She flinches and clings to him, pressing her mouth to his. "Don't, please don't leave me. I've lost my family, don't leave me too. I love you," she says, like a stupid child. "I love you."

"You don't love me, girl, you're terrified and grateful," he rasps out while his hands shake with the need to crush her to his body. He tells himself she's a child; she doesn't know what she's saying. He reminds himself that she's seventeen and thought she loved Joffrey until the brat and his family had her meddling father killed and started taking out the rest of her relatives. He reminds himself that she's grateful; he saved her life and took her offered virginity, and she's delusional and emotional and a silly teenager caught up in some elaborate coping mechanism.

"I do love you," she tries to convince himself.

"You don't even know me! You think yesterday was bad? I've done worse, for less!"

Sansa closes her eyes and lays her head on his chest. "I know that," she whispers in surrender. "I know. I don't care."

He can't help snorting at that. "Like hell you don't."

"Stop telling me what I think, or how I feel!"

Sandor sighs and gives into the urge to stroke her hair. He holds his little bird in his arms, her wet face pressed to his chest with tears soaking through his shirt. He wishes - and he can't even remember how often he's wished this since finally making the right decision to flee with her - that he would be happy to just hold her forever. Nothing else mattering besides this, besides them. It's the first decent thing in his life since he was a child, since his dreams were burned and melted and his sister died trying to get him somewhere far away from Gregor.

Now he'll probably die trying to keep Sansa Stark far away from the Lannisters and all their men.

"You'll love again, little bird. Someone nicer than me."

She wipes her eyes and looks up at him. "My father told me, not long before he died, that I deserved someone better than Joffrey."

The words strike closer to home than the girl could possibly know; she still thinks I'm a better man.

"I'm not much of a step up."

She smiles, and for a moment she looks older - like a woman grown. Mature and wise and too jaded, too jaded to be Sansa. "That's not the point. You're good for me. Because you care about me. You can protect me. Joffrey never truly liked me, not really."

Sandor brushes her hair back from her face. "You're right, little bird. He never did. And I...you're right, I do care. Which is why I can't stay with you. Fuck's sake, girl. I'm thirty-three and a killer. You saw what I'm capable of. I'm a butcher - I killed both those men without a single fucking regret except that you saw some of it. I killed them, I mutilated them and burned them so they could never be identified. Leaving you is the best protection I can offer."

Her lip trembles and her fingers clutch at him; his beautiful, little bird. It's as if the world itself is out to make her cry.

Damn it all to hell, he meant those words that night.

"You're mine," she whispers in unknowing agreement.

"I said if we make it out of this. We've yet to make it out of this, little bird."

There's too much at stake. Even with her hair cut short, even after she dyes it a deep, dark chestnut brown, he'll stick out like a sore thumb. They'll see him, and then they'll look at her. There's nothing to be done about his ugly head, no dye job will ever make him invisible or harder to recognize.

He can't take her to the remnants of her family, they're dropping like flies like any other fool that trusted the police and the Feds to protect them from the Lannisters.

The only way she'll be safe is hidden far away while those who see her as a threat are being dealt with. Only way those bastards will ever be gone is if they're taken out, and the government will never manage that.

"Dye your hair. Then we'll go to the Spider."

She doesn't let go. She clutches tighter. She opens her mouth to speak, to beg or demand or try to convince him.

He kisses her. Hard and rough, his hands gripping her shoulders so tightly he knows they will bruise. "Listen to me, little bird. If I make it out of this alive, I'll find you. I'll hunt you down and make certain you're safe, and if you'll still have me, you can have me." He prays that this will be enough to make her cooperate.

"Swear it," she hisses, still stubborn and demanding, her eyes not dry yet but her expression hard and set in stone.

Sandor bristles. "You make me swear it, girl, then that means you're mine no matter what," he growls angrily. "So if I find you fucking some other son of a bitch, he's dead. Dead and butchered like Blount, like Trant, and you'll be fucking his killer the rest of my sorry life."

Her expression never changes though her body trembles at his words. "Swear it."

He stares. He can't help it.

Moments ago Sansa was the frightened Stark girl he stole away from Atlanta, from the Lannisters, from Joffrey. Fragile and lost; but she's dug her claws into him and she knows it. He'll never be free of wanting her, and she knows it. There's something almost crazed and desperate to her determination, but he's got no right to talk.

"I swear. If I'm alive when it's safe to find you, I'll find you. And you'll be mine."

She smiles then and kisses the melted corner of his mouth. "Yes. And you will be mine."

Fuck. No matter what happens, this girl will be the death of him. He knows it.

"The storm's over. Take care of your hair," he snaps. It frustrates him when she keeps on smiling and slips from his grasp to grab the hair dye.

She moves lighter now, a bounce to her steps. Just like a child. She's nothing more than a girl who's seen too much ugliness in the world, clinging to the only things she has left that she can paint in rose-tinted colors.

Sandor sits down while she looks over the directions. He watches her, her fiery hair short and choppy, exposing her long, elegant neck. He doesn't call many things elegant, but that's the perfect word for her sometimes. His little bird is elegant; like a girl always prepared for the spotlight.

She could have been a beauty for the whole, wide world to see, with all the world's beauty in the palms of her hands if Ned Stark hadn't let his nostalgia for a college friendship drag him down into the Lannister underworld. Instead she'll be a beauty tucked away from the whole, wide world, with all the world's horrors nagging at the back of her mind.

Damn it all to hell, he hates the fact. That he does makes him feel weak and pathetic, but he hates it all the same.

He looks at his hands and sees all the blood he's shed. If he closes his eyes and thinks of her in his arms, she's stained with it; invisible trails his fingers have left everywhere. He's no good for her. He's no good.

Better than Gregor. Barely. A lesser monster, but a monster all the same.

And she wants him. She wanted him three nights ago, she wants him now.

Sandor knows that if he does manage to come out of this alive, he should just slip away. Go someplace nice and warm and sunny, far away from where she's secluded and hidden away. Leave her to her daydreams and fantasies; let her make up some glorious fate for him. Something that he knows she thinks he's worthy of. But keep away and let her move on once she finally accepts the fantasy version of his fate.

He won't. He knows that if he survives, if there's ever a time when it's safe, he'll hunt her down. He'll kill any man she's let into her bed. He'll keep her, keep her his. He's not a decent sort of man, no matter how pretty a mental picture she paints of him. He's not Gregor, he's not Joffrey. That'll have to be good enough.

If he even makes it through the next few years.

It takes her roughly a half hour to wash, dye, and dry her hair. When she steps out of the trailer's tiny bathroom it's painfully obvious how self-conscious she feels, shifting from one foot to the other and wringing her hands while Sandor takes in her altered appearance. Now her hair is chestnut brown, showing off her slender neck and making her look paler while the blue of her eyes shines even brighter. It's so different that it pains him, but it doesn't change the fact that she's stunning.

"How do I look?"

"Different," is all he manages to grunt out. Like a fumbling, nervous teenager; fucking idiot.

Her face falls. "Am I..." she trails off and looks down. She's chewing furiously at her lip; probably thinking how silly the question is, but she can't help wondering anyway.

"You're lovely, little bird," he tells her. He isn't sure if he makes himself say the words or if they come out all on their own (when they shouldn't have come out at all).

But the girl beams at that and grabs his jacket (that show threw at him not too long ago), slipping her skinny arms into the far too big for her sleeves. "Thank you," she tells him - as always - and he grunts.

"Let's go."

She will not let him go; she will not. As she sits in the car and stares at the bright lights of Vegas, she clings to Sandor's promise, and thinks of all the times she's cried over long-awaited reunions in the movies. Hers will be no different; hers will happen.