The evening sky was the purple of a new bruise. She lay on her back, staring blankly upwards. From a tree just beyond her sight, a flock of birds erupted suddenly, bursting forth into the night, and up, and away. I wish I really was a bird, free to fly. But there was nowhere to fly to now, and if she were a bird she would be a starling or a sparrow in a sky filled with hawks.

They had ridden hard for a time after they'd killed Gregor's men, the Hound supporting her as she slumped in the saddle. He'd tried his best to wipe the blood from her hands, but the rusted red lingered. When he'd found a mossy alcove, sheltered from the wind and the eyes of men by a great fallen tree whose roots spread over their heads, he'd pulled her off of Stranger, and carried her to the banks of the stream to clean herself. Sansa had watched dumbly as he'd scoured her palms with his rough knuckles, letting the water bloom pink before it was carried away by the current. A pity a soul does not clean so easily. Then he'd thrust a crumpled wad of cloth at her, and turned his back, telling her to change out of her dress. Sansa didn't realise why it mattered what she wore until the dress was off of her and on the ground, and spattered with the smiling man's gore. He'd made a fire and told her to sit, and pushed bread and cheese and wine toward her. She took the wine and picked at the cheese, her stomach roiling. The only human sound was Sandor's knife against the armour on his knee, scraping at rust - and then later, his quiet concentration as he cleaned it. They did not speak. When the Hound laid his bedroll under the uprooted tree, she placed hers neatly next to his, though she was warm from the wine and the fire.

She lay awake still, thinking abstractly, and pressing down images of the dead soldiers and of dead Starks. The Hound lay with his massive back to her, armourless for once.

The lone wolf dies but the pack survives. And now she had no pack because they had all left her, one by one. She wondered if her family were in some Northern heaven somewhere, comforting one another with the gentle wisdom that only the experience of death can bring. And it was worse than dying, she thought, to be left alone on the earth, because where was the nobility in that? Jon Snow was the closest thing she had to a pack brother now, she supposed.

Only he wasn't, because she had ever been cold and distant with him, trying to be a proper lady, and now he was on the Wall and had his own pack of black brothers, mangy as they were. So it was the Hound then, the great deep storm who lay beside her. He was all the pack she had, and even he didn't want her most of the time. But he had saved her, and washed the blood from her hands, and tried to show her the truth of the world before she could see it on her own. So she stretched out her hands anyway, and touched him - one on his shoulder-blade and one on his side. She was shocked when he turned, eyes open and molten silver, and faced her without a sneer. "Joffrey's dead." It lay there between them for a while, expectant.

"Oh," was all Sansa returned. That was what they meant before. The news didn't shrink the pit in her stomach any, though she supposed she ought to at least have felt some sort of vindication. But Joffrey didn't matter anymore, not since Winterfell and all the Starks had been crushed. He was only a child, really. A stupid, horrid child, throwing tantrums when he didn't get what he wanted. Sansa felt a hundred years old, and weary.

"What now?" She asked, afraid of the answer.

Sandor continued to study the leaves overhead. "Don't know. Could take you to your aunt in the Eyrie. Don't know."

"She won't know me."

"She'll know you," he said, looking her over, and didn't say that it was because she looked so much like her mother, though she knew. That made it worse. I am a poor substitute.

"I don't want to go."

"I know."

She didn't want to tell him, but the words came out nevertheless. "I don't have anyone now, not anymore. Only you."

In the dark, his eyes glimmered as they slid over her face. "I'm sorry for it," he said quietly. "It's a poor pack."

She turned away on her side, to hide the soft tears. "It's better than stupid falcons."

He turned the same as her, to face her back. The tears must have shone in the last of the light, because he touched one with a huge, calloused thumb. She looked her thanks at him through sad eyes. And then he dipped his head, and his rough mouth was on her neck, breathing hot, and his teeth scraped gently and he closed his lips against her skin. It was not quite a kiss, but there was comfort in it all the same, and plenty else besides.