I'm sorry, I know you all wanted Gendry... But I've been ignoring Sansa, and I have to have her in here, because her story line is important for later =/ But the next chapter is a Gendry chapter!

Sansa

The cut above her eye was healing, the flesh pulling together under the scab. Soon there would be no scab, only a scar. Joffrey would like that, better then a scab. Scars were easier to hide, and she was prettier without dried blood caked to her forehead. Joffrey liked her pretty, that much had been obvious.

"Just give him what he wants," the Hound had told her after Joffrey forced her to look upon her father's frozen body.

'How can I give him what he wants when he keeps beating me?' To Sansa, the logic seemed flawed. But then again, Joffrey never was one for logic.

Sansa stared at herself in the mirror, the girl in the reflection blinking back at her. She was such a stupid thing, Sansa thought, the girl in the mirror. Stupid and broken and battered. At one time, the girl in the mirror had thought her life was dull. At one time she had thought pimples made her perfect face ugly. What she wouldn't give to trade a blemish for a scar.

She checked her watch. Joffrey had said that she needed to be down in the casino for dinner. That always meant trouble. Sansa had seen a few of Joffrey's men coming in earlier, no doubt bringing news. One man looked particularly disgruntled as he got out of his white car, scowling furiously. And if he was scowling... Joffrey must be scowling too. A scowling Joffrey was something Sansa both feared and loathed.

She looked nice, she decided, despite the cut. She was wearing Joffrey's pearls and a flowing lavender summer dress. She felt cold in it, strangely, though the South was always warm and even then, Cersei made sure that the casino maintained a certain perfect temperature. It was probably because Sansa hadn't worn dresses in a while to hide the bruises.

She tried to do up her hair in a way that would best hide or at least draw attention away from the cut, but it was fruitless. Joffrey should see it anyway, she decided. If he didn't like the way the cuts looked, than he should stop having her beaten.

Knowing that Joffrey hated her to be late, Sansa stood, brushing herself off, her knees trembling. She ordered herself to be calm. Lannisters could sniff out weakness. They could smell fear, and they feasted on it.

Gracefully, she walked out of her room and down the hall, turning and walking down the steps, her hands clasped together in front of her, her palms sweating. Already she could see them gathered below, Joffrey, sitting on the stage where the band usually played, his mother Cersei next to him and his men standing and sitting around him. They had been talking about something, she knew. Something bad, because as soon as they caught wind of her, their voices fell into silence.

"Sansa," Cersei stood, but she was the only one. Tall, proud, and with long, beautiful blonde hair, Cersei had been Sansa's idol when she came to King's Landing. Even now she was beautiful, wearing a black blazer and a pencil skirt, the perfect picture of acute and sharp loveliness. But there was a certain poison oozing from her now, and Sansa could see the monster underneath the make-up.

"Mrs. Baratheon," Sansa said, nodding her head respectfully. She dared not use Cersei's maiden name. Not with the rumors going around that she and her brother had...

There was a swelling silence and Cersei sat. Sansa began to fidget with her hands, picking at one of her nails.

"You wanted to see me?" Her voice quivered out, and she hadn't meant to sound so frightened but she was so tired and... And she was frightened, despite herself.

Cersei looked towards Joffrey, and Sansa dared not even raise her eyes to him. She feared what she might find there.

"I was wondering if you would like to accompany me to dinner this evening," Joffrey said in a silky voice. "The casino's just about to open, and we have a lovely little sitting area up above. Just the two of us."

Sansa felt her heart jump, and her palms were sweating but she smoothed them out against her skirt. The last thing she ever wanted was to be alone with Joffrey and she was frightened of what it meant and what he wanted. But then she remembered how much Joffrey relished her fear, and how he would know she was afraid and prey upon it. She did not want that to happen. She would not give him the satisfaction.

"I would like nothing better," she heard herself say, but her voice betrayed her.

Joffrey smiled.

"Excellent," he said, standing up and clapping his hands. "Gentlemen, you may open the casino. As for you, Sansa, you're coming with me."

He walked down the steps and offered her his arm. Sansa squirmed, in spite of herself, but she took it all the same. Joffrey's smile had all the appearance of being genuine... But Sansa knew that the smile hid a monster. She was not so naive now as to think that a smile from Joffrey meant anything.

'He smiled at me,' she thought as he lead her back up the stairs. 'He smiled at me and then killed my father.'

Her arm itched on his and Sansa squirmed again. It was as though his entire body was toxic, oozing some sort of poison, inflaming her skin until it burned itchy red. She forced her hand to remain with his, when her head screamed to pull it away and push him over the railing and down into the casino, where people were already starting to pool in. The fall wouldn't be long enough, however. All she'd do would be to irritate him.

"In here," Joffrey said, opening a thick golden door and then motioning for Sansa to go inside.

It was a fairly small room, but no less lavish than the rest of the casino. Decorated in fine silk, gold and red carpets, with a great window that overlooked what was going on below. There was a table and two chairs, and Joffrey led her to sit next to him.

Sansa sat down, her saliva thick in her mouth and put her hands under her thighs so Joffrey wouldn't see them trembling. Even if she couldn't stop her fear, she could stop Joffrey from seeing it.

"This is nice, isn't it?" Joffrey asked, giving her another one of his smiles.

Sansa could only manage a weak grimace in return.

"Just you and me, alone..."

Sansa swallowed, her mouth and throat dry. She coughed daintily.

"It is," she said, smiling at him. Her smile felt so strange on her face and Sansa realized that it had been a long time since she had properly smiled, so long that a fabrication of the act felt out of place and odd.

"You look lovely," Joffrey said smoothly, his eyes lingering too long in all the wrong places. Her skin itched even more feverishly, and her heart began to sicken as she involuntarily remembered the slimy, horrible feeling of his hand sliding up her shirt...

"Thank you," she said with another cough, summoning all her courage to look him straight in the eye.

"You're probably wondering why I asked you to dinner," Joffrey said as a waiter came forward and he ordered wine for both of them. Sansa knew better than to protest, but the thought of Joffrey drunk... And what he would do when he was...

"Not at all," Sansa said as the waiter returned promptly with the drinks. "We've hardly spent any time together in the past week. I missed your company."

"You did?" Joffrey asked, taking a sip of wine.

'No.'

"Of course," Sansa said. "We're in love."

Joffrey's smile sliced across his face. He had enjoyed that. Good. He liked it best when she was parroting to him, saying the things he longed to hear. It made her tummy sick to do it, but it was better than being beaten, and sometimes, when she said it, she liked to think of it as her own way of being cynical. When she said things like, 'we're in love', and really meant the opposite, Sansa liked to think that she, in her small way, was mocking Joffrey and he didn't even know it.

"As it happens, I haven't missed you," Joffrey said, "but I can see that not spending time with you has been a waste. We should really do this more often."

"We should," Sansa said with a smile, pretending to sip her wine. 'Never. We should never do this ever. You should just fall off a cliff and then send me home.'

The waiter came and laid out their silverware. Two forks, one probably for salad, and a knife. A thick, sharp stake knife. One that would cut Joffrey's heart out as though his flesh were butter. Sansa was gripped with a sudden madness to take the knife and do just that. She could see it, the blade driving in... The blood...

"Sansa? You're not listening to me," Joffrey snarled. "When I talk, I expect you to listen."

"Oh," Sansa said, snapping out of her trance, "I'm sorry. Please continue."

"I said that I have some good news," Joffrey said, looking slightly pouty, but smug non-the-less. Sansa didn't like that, Joffrey smug. It never led to good things.

"Good news?" She asked politely as the waiter brought their salads, but Joffrey waved his away, snapping that he hated salad. The waiter brought him a soup instead.

"About your sister," Joffrey said with a malicious smile.

Sansa's heart dropped. 'Dead,' she thought with horror, 'she's dead. Arya's dead.'

Tears threatened to explode from her eyes but she remained unmoving.

"Arya?" Her voice cracked.

"Yes," Joffrey said, playing with his soup, "turns out the little minx isn't as clever as she thought she was. We got her in the end."

"What did you do to her?" Sansa demanded, her fingers unconsciously curling around the knife.

"Nothing, for now," Joffrey said, sounding bored. "My grandfather found her, along with her protector, on the way to the Wall."

"Protector?" Sansa repeated, frowning.

"Don't play stupid with me," Joffrey snapped. "You're already stupid enough as it is. The man your father hired to take her home."

Sansa had no knowledge of this, but for some reason a bitterness set in her heart. If that was true, than their father had sent Arya away, with someone to look out for her, while he hadn't even thought of Sansa. Arya was to go safely to Winterfell, back home to their mother and Robb and Bran and Rickon, but what of Sansa? Had he even thought of her?

"Where is she?" Sansa asked, her curiosity greater than her hurt. "Are you going to bring her back here?"

The idea, when once it would have made Sansa annoyed, filled her heart with hope. She did want Arya to be safe, but if they had caught her, well then there was nothing to be done, was there? If she was caught, then they could be together. Sansa wouldn't have to suffer in complete isolation. She could be stronger with Arya, she knew.

"No," Joffrey snapped as their soup and salad plates were taken away, "my grandfather thinks it's a good idea to keep her at Harrenhal. She has no idea that he knows who she is, and it's better that way. That way my grandfather can watch her constantly, and besides, if she thinks she's trapped, she'll just run away again, and that we can't afford."

Sansa felt her heart sink. If only she could tell Arya to run, run far away. If only she could tell her that it was a trap.

"Stupid little bitch is more trouble than she's worth," Joffrey sighed.

"Don't talk about her like that," Sansa snapped, and then she gasped aloud. Joffrey turned and looked up at her.

"I'm sorry," he said slowly, darkly, "I appear to have misheard you."

Sansa opened her mouth to apologize, but found that she couldn't. She just couldn't. She was so sick of Joffrey, and sick of her life, and sick of being pushed around. She was tired of being porcelain.

"You're more trouble than you're worth too," Joffrey growled, leaning forward. "At least you're not ugly, like your little shit for a sister."

Sansa glared at him, but she held her tongue.

"I want you to say it," he said, picking up the knife and leaning over the table towards her, menacing. "Say the words."

She knew the words. My father was a horrible bastard. My brother is a psychotic killer. My mother and younger brothers just the same. My sister a, ugly little shit that's more trouble than she's worth. But, staring at him, even with the blade of his knife pointing at her... She couldn't say them.

Joffrey must have realized, because he dropped the knife and slapped her across the face. That's when something snapped. Something horrible and bloody and black exploded inside Sansa, and she leapt to her feet and slapped him across the face right back.

"I'll kill you for that, you little bitch!" Joffrey shrieked, grabbing the knife and snatching up a fistful of her hair, yanking her towards him as she screamed and thrashed, the table crashing over in a wave of knives and breaking glass-

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?"

Sansa and Joffrey both jumped and whipped around to see who had spoken. It was, to Sansa's great surprise, Tyrion Lannister, Joffrey's dwarf uncle. No, she shouldn't say dwarf, that wasn't the proper thing to say. It was little person. Sansa made a mental correction of that as she tried to get her hair from Joffrey's iron grip. Tyrion was looking absolutely furious, glaring at Joffrey with a surprising fierceness.

"Let go of her this instant!" Tyrion shouted, and Joffrey jumped again, but did as he was told. "And put that knife down before you cut yourself with it."

"Don't speak to me like a child!" Joffrey cried, pointing the knife at his uncle, who rolled his eyes.

"You're going to take out your eye with that," Tyrion sighed. "But it might improve your looks."

"What are you doing here anyway?" Joffrey snarled. "Shouldn't you be out doing... Whatever it is that you do?"

"I am here because your grandfather asked me to be here," Tyrion said. "Apparently, nephew dearest, you've been running this place to the ground."

"Renovations were necessary," Joffrey growled. "The place was looking like some sort of hunting lodge."

"Hmmm that reminds me," Tyrion said, "I noticed, on my way in, that you've really cleaned the place of your old man. I hope that was out of grief, though I suspect not."

Joffrey' face turned, if possible, a deeper shade of red. The vein in his forehead was popping out, as well as the muscles on his neck, and Sansa didn't know whether to be scared or to laugh.

"Why should I care about him? He didn't give two shits about me! Why should I care that he-"

"Died in an accident?" Tyrion said mildly, but there was a reprimand there, Sansa knew, under the indifference. "Or was it an accident? It's hard to tell these days."

"Are you suggesting-"

"Nothing," Tyrion said, waving off Joffrey's furious sputter. "Nephew please, you know how much I love my family. And I would never want to offend you, now that you're in charge. I can't imagine what would happen if I woke the lion."

He was making fun of him, that much was obvious. What was also obvious, was that Joffrey was murderously furious. Sansa wondered, for a moment, if Tyrion had taken things to far with Joffrey, but when she went to look at his face, she could see that Joffrey's uncle looked no more afraid of him than he did the pieces of lettuce on the floor. Sansa envied him.

"I think this meal has finished," Tyrion said pointedly, his eyes flicking to Sansa, and for a moment she thought she saw an empathy there. But that was ludicrous. Tyrion was a Lannister, and she would never trust a Lannister ever again. "Sansa, you must be tired."

It was the truth. She was tired. Exhausted.

"I am."

"But-"

"I think it'd be a good idea if you didn't escort her to her room, Joffrey," Tyrion snapped across his nephew's protests. "I don't want you to be tempted to scalp her again."

"She asked for it!" Joffrey cried. "She slapped me!"

"Did she?" Tyrion raised his eyebrows at Sansa. "Good for her. You most definitely deserved it. Sansa, if you would leave us."

Sansa didn't need to be asked twice. She practically ran from the room, rubbing her tingling scalp. As she passed Tyrion, she wondered if she should thank him, but instantly thought better of it. Stupid girl, what would Joffrey say? He'd scalp her then for sure, just out of spite. So instead of thanking Tyrion, Sansa ignored him.

"You can't do this!" She heard Joffrey screech as she almost ran down the hall, curving around to where her room was. She was so distracted by the sharp headache that was starting at her temple that she didn't even notice the figure coming towards her.

"Oh!" She exclaimed when she bumped into them. "Sorry I-"

"Wasn't looking?" Petyr Baelish finished for her, smiling at her with that unnerving smile of his. Sansa shifted uncomfortably. She did not know how she felt about Petyr, but something told her that she did not like him. He was a strange man. Short, and unsettling. Something about him made her want for a coat, though he had shown nothing but courtesy towards her, unlike so many others in the Red Keep.

"Err yes," Sansa said, nodding, and then making to escape to her room, but Petyr grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving.

"What's that on your cheek Miss Stark?" He asked, and Sansa wished he would let go of her arm.

"Is there something on it?" Sansa asked, feeling around, hoping that it wasn't some sort of soup that had splattered on her during Joffrey's attack.

"It's all red," Petyr said with a frown. "Did someone hit you?"

Sansa opened and closed her mouth like a fish, but Petyr seemed to have found the answer to his question, and he let go of her arm. Sansa tittered there for a moment, unsure of what to do next as the seconds stretched on for what seemed like hours. She wanted nothing more than to go to her room, but could she? It seemed like Petyr was not finished talking to her, but at the same time...

"You remind me of your mother, you know," he said after a long period of silence.

She did know. The night of the boxing match, when Arya had pulled her into the crowd, Sansa had found herself suddenly face to face with Petyr, who at that time was only known to her by his nickname, Littlefinger. He had told her then what he was telling her now, and again, she was left feeling as scattered and confused with a lingering sense of discomfort. She was not sure she wanted to hear this.

"She and I cared very deeply for each other, you know," he said, taking a piece of Sansa's hair that had fallen out and tucking it behind her ear. The pounding in her head increased.

"Yes," Sansa said, "you were like her brother."

A flicker of annoyance flashed across Petyr's face.

"Precisely," he said with a smile that did not reach his eyes, "my fondness for her carries itself out to you, I think."

What was Sansa supposed to say to that? 'Oh that's nice but sort of creepy as well?'

"That's why I'm going to help you get out of here."

Sansa's heart leapt into her throat and she stared at him, wide eyed and not daring, not even for a second, to believe it. She would not let herself be so utterly broken.

"King's Landing is my home," she recited, but Petyr laughed.

"Do not lie to me, Miss Stark, and I will not lie to you," he said frankly. "If you stay here, they'll eat you alive."

Sansa paused a long moment, searching his face, but she found nothing.

"How?" she asked finally. Petyr smiled.

"How is not the question," he said. "It's when."

I feel bad that you guys have to wait so long for Gendry, but does it feel better that I've written about three pages for his chapter already