The hour they passed on Stranger's back was filled by Sansa with chattering, empty conversation. It was clear from the Hound's responses that his fondness for banal pleasantries had not grown since King's Landing. But Sansa carried on talking anyway, because talking wasn't thinking, and thinking now would be dangerous. Too many unanswered questions swam around in her head. And underneath those lay the questions she had resolutely refused to ask herself, questions which she was afraid she knew the answer to and had buried for weeks now. Longer, probably.
She was glad of the dim evening when they dismounted, so as not to have to meet the glinting grey eyes with all their narrowed calculation. But as he lifted her down from the saddle, she was caught instead by their surroundings.
"Oh." she whispered, a little warily. "Do you think this is best?"
They had come to rest at a bare, rocky peak, open to the wind and naked of any growth except a little yellow moss. When she turned to look at the Hound, all she could make out of his face was the glint of his teeth.
"Down there, girl." He turned her head, pointing to a rough-looking thicket of gorse and brambles.
"Underneath." The word answered the unspoken question in Sansa's gaze. Crossing to the bushes in three long strides, he lowered himself to an unseen shelf of rock and from there pulled aside the undergrowth.
"Here." he held out a hand. When Sansa paused nervously, he motioned wordlessly, beckoning to her. Obediently, Sansa moved to the little precipice and looked over, to see that a steep path of mud and rubble proceeded from the bushes. The drop had been negligible to the Hound, but the darkness and the height of it made Sansa nervous. As she bent, examining it from each angle, Sandor seemed to grow impatient and, making an amused disparaging noise in the back of his throat, scooped her up around the waist and lifted her down to stand next to him on the little step. Unstable, Sansa brought out a hand to grip his forearm. The size of the boulder forced them flush against one another.
"Hop down, Little Bird," Sandor rasped after a moment, taking the lead as he spoke. In the dark, they fumbled against each other as they made their unsteady way down the track. It was little more than a stoney slide towards the bottom.
"On you go," said Sandor, nodding. "I'll need to take Stranger round the long way. It's safe enough, I slept here three nights ago," he responded to the question in her gaze, letting go of her clammy hand as he spoke.
"I'll be back before you get down there, I'll wager, the rate you're going at." He did not smile, but his tone was soft enough, receding as he made his rapid way back up.
When she was sure she was alone, Sansa gave up all pretence of elegance and lowered herself to a near sitting position, using her hands to slide down the dry dirt. The stones cut into her palms and the earth smelt musky and old, but landing sooner than she expected on flat ground, Sansa stood up to find herself in a tiny, overgrown hollow, overhung on one side by a great stone shelf with a trickle of water running down it, and protected on the other by two huge, gnarled trees whose branches intertwined at their crowns, to leave only a peek of midnight-blue sky winking at the top. Thick moss carpeted the ground she stood on, and bushes insulated her from the chill wind. Brushing off her hands and skirts absentmindedly, Sansa gazed around in pleasant bewilderment.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Sandor's return, having tied Stranger up out of sight. "It's warm," she said in surprise, casting off her cloak and stretching her arms out.
Sandor nodded. "An old woman told me of it when I was with the red priest," he growled. "It's hot water under the ground. That's how the trees grow."
Sansa gave a quiet cry of joy. "We had a pool like that in Winterfell, in the godswood, you could bathe in it even if it snowed, it was beautiful, and sometimes-" She trailed off, the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia wrapping around her throat."It was very nice," she continued in a different tone.
Sandor dropped his glance from her face, and said nothing. The silence suddenly seemed to ring in Sansa's ears, and she turned to pick up her cloak and fold it neatly against a tree trunk. When the Hound cleared his throat, she steeled herself for some remark on how naive she was, to still be thinking of things like that.
"Your father was a good man. That's why they killed him." his voice seemed a little forced, but his tone was solemn. Sansa turned to stare at him, wide-eyed. When he said nothing else, she made herself speak.
"It was my fault. I told Queen Cersei what he planned to do, because I thought it would make them love me."
Sandor snorted. "They knew. Cersei knew. Ned Stark was too bloody honourable not to let them know." He cleared his throat. "You were a child. The fault wasn't yours."
And mayhaps it was the smell of the earth that so reminded her of Winterfell, or the fact that she had never voiced that fear aloud before now, or simply that she missed them all so much, but his words sent the tears spilling down her cheeks. There was little room in the hollow to move away, but she turned hurriedly to hide them, wiping her jawline with her sleeve where they dripped. She heard Sandor turn too, and walk away to unpack the horse.
It's a strange thing, this thing with this man. Strange that two people could spend so many hours together and say so little, and say so little and learn so much. She was different now for it. More thoughtful. More cynical. Stronger, too, maybe. Had she changed him?
Faintly, she heard the sound of water splashing from the direction he had gone. When he returned, his hair was wet and he wore only a tunic of linen above his breeches, with the sleeves rolled up to show the burnt flesh of his arm. Despite herself, Sansa blushed.
There had been no need to light a fire in the warmth of the hollow, with their bellies full. The ground beneath them heated their bedrolls, cramped close together in the small space afforded by the rocks and trees. It felt safe here.
Even with the warmth and the dusky stillness of the night, Sansa lay awake for longer than usual. "I'm sorry about your arm," she whispered eventually.
Sandor chuckled. "Had worse."
Sansa took a breath.
"I didn't want to go with Lem and the others, it was… they wanted the gold."
The Hound made no reply. After a few minutes of listening, Sansa's eyelids became heavy, and she gave herself over to sleep.
Some noise or movement startled her awake. By the patch of sky visible it was clear that the hour of the wolf had not yet passed, and there was a sharp, chilling bite in the air now. The stars blinked at her as she blinked back, lying on her side with her face turned slightly upward and her hair in a russet pile above her head. By the sound of his steady breathing, the Hound was asleep. She listened to his drowsy, snuffling sounds as she lay. But after a moment he gave a strange huff, louder than the others, and there he rolled over, and suddenly his mouth was on her ear and his arm was flung sleepily across her chest. Embarrassed, the breath caught in her throat. An accident. But his sigh was hot and persevering and she could not make herself move away, letting it warm her inside and out as she lay frozen under his arm. For the night is cold, and so am I. She was half asleep, she did not know what she was doing. And then the arm lifted slightly so that she rolled back into him a little, and she wasn't expecting it; she couldn't have stopped it, and now his lips were on her neck and she did not wriggle away. Frozen in the tingle of loneliness, she stayed. The feeling awakened her. Under his arm, under his mouth, she stayed. He was breathing hard and heavy. He's asleep he's asleep he's asleep no he isn't.
The arm moved. Down. It gave her a rolling, jolting feeling as it curled around her belly, lightning and a rearing horse. The jolt shivered down to the bottom of her torso and continued, shuddering into her depths. Sansa did not know that she wanted it to stop. And still he could be unconscious. Mother have mercy.
In the pitch dark of the night, it would have done her no good to look into his face, even if she had been able to. Experimentally, Sansa shuffled half an inch backwards, closer to him. She hardly knew what she was doing, only that the feeling that had been building for so long felt heavier than ever before, close to bursting.
The mouth on her throat was half open, and the breath no longer came steady. Closing her eyes and shakily swallowing, she allowed the harsh lips to travel up behind her jawline, and she could not tell herself that he was asleep now. Her mouth fell open as she felt his pant against her, and when his teeth scraped her earlobe she let out a half-smothered little whimper of surprise that could barely have been audible even to him, close as he was. With that he grunted, and pulled her hard against him so that her back pressed into his torso, never allowing his lips to move away from her. Her hair came down over her neck and forehead, and when she moved her hand to push it away it collided with his. Gently nudging her arm above her head as he swept the strands from her face, Sandor pushed himself up so that he leaned on his forearms over her. She felt dwarfed by him. His hair tickled her cheek as he bent again into the crook of her neck, and still his lips had not touched hers.
When he ventured toward her chest, she made no move to stop him. Instead she tilted her head back as his fingers hooked in to the hem of her bodice, her bosom heaving a little in discomposure. His hand cupped one breast as the other wrapped around her back, pulling her closer.
Without warning, his movement stopped, as though the Hound had thought better of his actions. After a heartbeat, he leaned upwards and away from her; and the hand on her breast travelled up to her throat, one strong thumb pushing her chin upwards to face him. In the dark, she could barely make out the angles of his face or the glint of his eyes, though she felt them search her. Almost without realising what she was doing, she reached her arm up to curl her fingers at the back of his neck, twitching slightly in a clumsy caress. This seemed to be answer enough for the Hound. With a suppressed groan he brought his frame back down, and his lips found her face, and then collided with her mouth in a forceful kiss that robbed Sansa of all breath. His mouth was hard without being harsh, the burnt corner rougher but not unpleasant. His tongue pushed tenderly into her own, wet and warm.
Sansa's fingers moved of their own accord to Sandor's face and neck. The Hound again moved his hands to her chest and back, working roughly at the laces there. It occurred to Sansa somewhere in the back of her mind that if she were going to stop him, she would have to do it now. She did not move. The dress was falling off her shoulders now and she was helping it, wriggling out of the sleeves as Sandor pulled the material down to her belly button. Seven save me. Her lips felt cold as the kiss broke, and his mouth moved instead to her breast.
She felt him touch it, felt it respond to his touch in the cold air and felt the flush up her neck as his mouth closed over it. Heart battering her ribcage, she let her hands move under the neck of his tunic to feel the taut muscles of his upper back. In response, she felt his left hand shift to her leg and slide upwards, taking the material of her skirt with it. When the fabric was bunched at her hip his hand travelled again up her leg, unbarred by material. His eager kiss spread freely across her chest and abdomen now, up her throat and back to her mouth, her ear, her chin even. Neither gave any pretence of composure: The breath rattled shakily out of Sansa as she trembled beneath the Hound, and a husky growl escaped him as his hands explored her.
She lifted her hips to allow him to remove her dress completely, steadying herself against his stomach as she did so. Their movement had wrinkled up his shirt and her fingers met bare flesh and hair, shocking her. An instant later the tunic was removed and now it was skin against hot skin in soft friction. His hands were knotted in her hair, but one broke free to slide to her hip and touch the fabric there. With a tiny nod, Sansa shifted, and the cloth was gone, leaving her naked under him.
Immediately, Sandor slowed his movements, running calmer hands over her. Minutes passed before he touched her lower abdomen, and more again before his thumb brushed between her legs. When it did, he sent a shudder through her unlike anything she had known before.
"Little Bird," he breathed, his voice little more than a gravelly whisper.
He lowered his mouth to her inner thighs, kissing the flesh there as his lips moved upwards. When they reached the point they sought, a quiet cry rose unbidden to Sansa's lips. She had not known it would be like this.
The Hound had one hand at his breeches, working at the laces, and the other behind her head, tugging her face softly toward his as he brought his kiss back to her face. And then she felt a hard weight fall against her open thigh, and his hand was on it, guiding it to her entrance, and he stopped his kiss to lean his forehead against hers. Closing her eyes, Sansa braced herself. The thrust was slow and gentle, but shocking all the same, and the pain was sharp and aching at once. It came again, and again, each time the pain swelling inside her, until she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood and a tear escaped. But with a final, acute pang the sting lessened, leaving only the pounding ache. Screwing her eyes up and nestling her head in the Hound's neck helped enough for her to bear it, and after a while the throbbing abated a little.
Sandor twined his fingers in her hair again, moving steadily, kissing wherever he could reach. As his movements quickened his breath came in heavy pants. It was strange, Sansa thought, that a man could be so disarmed, so like a wild animal and yet so tender in this. Her arms tightened around his neck. Still flinching slightly as he pushed faster than ever into her, she found herself breathing heavily too, unable to slow herself down. Just as she felt she could no longer take it, Sandor lifted his head.
"Sansa." His voice was raw, unlike she had heard him before. And then with one, final, slow thrust, he collapsed on to her, breath coming heavy in his great chest. Her hands came to his face, caressing his burnt and unburnt cheek, her thumb brushing his lower lip. He lowered his head and gripped her to his chest, hand running up her thigh past her buttocks and to the small of her back. He whispered something she couldn't hear.
Sansa wriggled out from under his weight, and turned to face him, the first grey light of the pre-dawn outlining his form. When she touched his chest, she found it slick with sweat and still heaving. Her fingers traced curiously over him, over each scar and each hard knot of muscle, and up to the features of his face. When she paused to look in his eyes she saw they were closed and, thinking that he had fallen asleep, she turned away from him, to curl up on the bedroll beside his. But his arms came round her, sheltering her from the chill, one hand cupping her breast and the other the flesh of her hip. After that it was easy to let sleep take her.