A/N: Sorry it took a while to update. I got stuck on this chapter and it took some time for me to work through it. No flashback this time. In the first part of this chapter we're gonna step away from Oldtree for a while to see what all's happening in Winterfell. Hope you all like how I depict Bran, Arya, and Rickon as adults. And after that a little Sandor angst followed by some SanSan love. Enjoy! ;-)
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize from the books or the show ain't mine.
Arya arrived in the Great Hall covered in sweat and dirt, her short hair hanging in front of her eyes. She'd been toiling alongside the laborers when she received her brother's summons, clearing away the rubble in preparation for rebuilding the heavily damaged keep. Her hands were covered in nicks and scrapes and there was a tear in the right knee of her trousers. She hoped whatever it was Bran had to say wouldn't take long. She was anxious to get back to work.
The Great Hall had been relatively untouched when the Greyjoys and the Boltons sacked Winterfell. The furniture all had to be replaced, of course, but the walls remained as solid as ever. Arya's brothers were already seated at the new table, Bran in his Lord's chair at the head, Rickon at the place to his right. Their direwolves, Summer and Shaggydog, lay in a furry mound together beside the great hearth. Nymeria was nowhere to be seen. This was not a surprise to Arya. When she and her direwolf were reunited years ago, she quickly realized their bond was no longer as strong as it once was. Nymeria often vanished into the wilderness, sometimes for months at a time. But she always returned eventually.
Arya plopped down into the chair to Bran's left and rested her elbows on the table. "Alright, what's this about?"
In adulthood, Bran bore a striking resemblance to their late father, Lord Eddard. Especially with the beard that now covered the lower half of his face. His build was more slender than their father's, but his arms and shoulders contained a wiry strength. His legs were thin from disuse, but not as much as they could have been. Bran had his legs exercised each day, to prevent them from withering. He was under no illusion that he would ever regain the ability to walk, but he did not want to be seen with two grotesque twigs dangling uselessly under him. So far, his daily regimen was succeeding.
Bran held up a long strip of paper, a raven scroll. "A message just came from Jon."
Rickon perked up. "News from the Wall?" he asked eagerly. He loved hearing stories from north of the Wall. The only thing better, in his opinion, were stories featuring the queen's dragons.
"He's not at the Wall," Bran said, then his handsome face split into an excited grin, "He found Sansa."
His siblings gaped, then both started spouting questions at once. "She's alive?" "Where is she?" "Is she alright?" "What happened to her?"
When Bran finally got them to quiet down, he told them what he knew. "Jon says she's been living as a commoner in a Northern village called Oldtree. He also says that she's married and has four children, a daughter and three sons."
"Seven hells!" Arya exclaimed.
Rickon asked, "How'd she get away from the Hound?"
Bran chewed his lip, suddenly uncomfortable. "Well...that's where it gets interesting."
"What do you mean?"
"Apparently Sandor Clegane is the man she's married to."
This time, the stunned silence lasted several moments. Then Arya blurted, "You can't be serious."
Bran held the message out to her. "You can read it yourself. Jon was very clear on that."
She snatched the paper from him and scowled at her half-brother's writing. The longer she stared, the deeper her scowl grew, until she finally crumpled the message and flung it across the table.
"Hey, I wanted to read that!" Rickon picked up the paper and started to smooth it out.
"He must have forced her into it," Arya snarled, "There's no gods damned way she would ever willingly marry a monster like the Hound."
Bran quietly replied, "Jon said she's happy."
"She must have lied. Maybe she wanted to protect him from the Hound."
Rickon scoffed, "He has Ghost to protect him. Not even the Hound can stand up to a direwolf."
"Jon isn't easily fooled." Bran steepled his fingers in thought. "Though we could find out for ourselves. We can't leave Winterfell just when we're starting to rebuild, but I could send a group of men to bring Sansa and her family here."
"You want to bring the Hound here?" Arya asked, incredulous.
"He's our sister's husband."
"Allegedly," Arya grumbled.
"Where the hell is Oldtree, anyway?" Rickon asked. The news of Sansa's unexpected marriage didn't provoke the same gut reaction as it did his older siblings. He was very young the last time he saw his eldest sister, so for him she was little more than a handful of faded memories and recited stories.
"The message mentioned House Larch of Ironoak as their lord banner," Bran replied, "It should be on a map somewhere. I'm sure our men can get directions from there."
"I'm going, too," Arya declared.
Her brother sighed. "Arya-"
"I want to see for myself," she interjected, face set in a stubborn glare, "I want to look in that dog's eyes and see what kind of man he really is."
"And then she'll gut him," Rickon quipped.
"No, she won't," Bran snapped. He turned to his sister. "If I agree to let you go, I want your word you will control yourself. I don't want you flying off the handle because of your personal vendetta."
Arya crossed her arms and slouched in her chair. An old habit from her childhood whenever Septa Mordane subjected her to another lecture. Bran frowned. "Arya, I want your word."
He was using his Lord Bran voice. Arya knew from that tone that her brother would not relent. "Fine," she huffed, "I swear to the Old Gods and the New, I will not attack Sandor bloody Clegane."
Bran nodded, satisfied.
"But if he attacks me, I won't hold back from skewering him like a pig."
"Very well. I'll summon you once I've chosen the men you will accompany."
Arya rose from her seat and left the Great Hall without so much as a backward glance.
Bran and Rickon shared a look once their sister was gone. "Are you sure letting her go is such a good idea?" Rickon asked.
The Lord of Winterfell sighed. "You know her. If I hadn't said yes, she would've gone anyway. At least this way I was able to wring a promise out of her."
"You mean that promise not to fly at the Hound with sword drawn?" Rickon snorted, "You really think she'll stick to her word?"
"For the longest time, her word was all she had," Bran reminded him, "She'll keep it. She'll hate me for it, but she'll keep it."
Rickon leaned back in his chair, an amused grin stretching across his youthful face. "Sandor Clegane, our brother by marriage. The gods have a wicked sense of humor, don't they?"
Bran glanced down at his useless legs and had to agree.
Arya was seething, so she went straight to the smithy. She always stormed into the forge when her hackles were up. It was the only place where she was guaranteed to find a sympathetic ear. Or at least an ear willing to humor her by listening to her piss and moan over the latest injustice inflicted on her.
"Alright, Arry?" Gendry didn't even glance up from his anvil. He was currently pounding away at a glowing piece of metal, probably making some sort of tool to help with the rebuilding. In the years since he and Arya first met, the bastard blacksmith had grown even broader and more muscular. His thick black hair hung to his shoulders, and an equally thick black beard covered his cheeks and chin. Though he did not know it, he now bore a strong resemblance to the father he never met, the late Robert Baratheon.
Arya plonked herself down on a three-legged stool with an angry huff. She spent the next several minutes telling Gendry all about the meeting between herself and her brothers in the Great Hall. About Sansa, the Hound, and the journey she would soon take to bring them back to Winterfell. And the stupid promise she had to make to Bran. When she was done, she fell into a sullen silence.
"Sounds like it'll make for a nice reunion," Gendry remarked, "Long lost sister 'n all." He shoved the glowing metal into the quenching trough, raising a loud hiss and a cloud of steam that almost hid his imposing form from view.
Arya scoffed. "Didn't you hear what I said? Sansa married the Hound."
"Oh, right, the Hound," Gendry widened his eyes in mock horror.
"Oh, shut up!"
"Well, what d'you expect me to say?" the blacksmith shrugged, "All I know of Clegane is from stories, and we both know what stories are worth. I don't think of him one way or the other. I never met the man."
"Well, I did," Arya got to her feet, too worked up to stay seated, "He killed my friend, Micah. Just rode him down. And he was there when my father was beheaded."
"Really? He swing the sword himself?" Gendry knew damn well he didn't. Arya told him all about that day, every detail. It was Ser Ilyn Payne who wielded the sword that removed Ned Stark's head.
Arya glowered at her friend. "He deserves to die for what he did."
Gendry sighed, set his tools aside, and gripped her arms in his powerful hands. He towered over the slightly-built young woman, yet there was nothing fierce in his expression. Only sympathy. "What about what you deserve?"
She frowned in confusion. "What I deserve?"
"You keep holdin' on to your thoughts of revenge and all it does is make you miserable. That's no way to live. Ya need to figure out a way to move on."
Arya pulled away from him. "You don't know what you're talking about," she grumbled in that way that told him he'd struck a nerve. For years the only thing that kept her going was the thought of taking vengeance on everyone who wronged her and her family. She recited their names one by one every night before she slept. Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, Tywin, the Mountain, the Hound... Some names had to be discarded over time, due to their untimely deaths which often left her feeling cheated. But they were soon replaced with other names, other slights. The list grew and grew until she nearly went mad with reciting them hours at a time. It wasn't until she was finally reunited with her surviving brothers in Riverrun that she managed to regain her equilibrium. She learned to strip down her list to the bare essentials, ignoring the petty grudges that kept piling up and focusing her rage on those who truly deserved it. Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, Lord Tywin, the Mountain, the Hound.
Joffrey was murdered on his wedding day. Poisoned, most said, during the wedding feast. Many blamed his uncle Tyrion for the deed, while others said it was his bride, Margaery Tyrell. Arya didn't really care. She just wished it had been her, or at least that she was there to watch the little toad choke.
Cersei committed suicide shortly after her firstborn's death - though some claimed it was only made to look like suicide. Her body was found hanging from the chandelier in her chambers, the noose made from one of her sashes. Arya thought it was nothing less than she deserved.
Ilyn Payne was killed during the Battle of Blackwater. Someone had removed his head with his own executioner's sword. Considering where the body was found, it was unlikely the culprit was one of Stannis Baratheon's men. Ser Ilyn was killed deep inside Maegor's Holdfast, where none of Stannis's men had managed to reach. There was a popular rumor that the Hound himself was the killer. That Ser Ilyn tried to stop him from escaping with Sansa Stark. The idea bothered Arya greatly. She didn't like the thought of one of her enemies doing her a favor, however unwittingly.
Tywin Lannister died in his sleep. It was said that when the servants found him, his face held a look of such terror that even the Silent Sisters were hesitant to prepare his body for burial, thinking perhaps the ghosts of those he'd wronged had finally come for him in the night. Arya hoped so, otherwise his death would be disappointingly anticlimactic.
The Mountain, Ser Gregor Clegane, was killed in a simple duel. A tiny nick from a poisoned blade. It pleased Arya to hear that he died slowly and in great pain. After the horrors she witnessed committed by him and his lackeys in Harrenhal, he deserved nothing less.
Which left the Hound. When he disappeared from even outrageous rumor, Arya fantasized that he died alone somewhere in the wilderness, his bones picked clean by scavengers. But now she knew it wasn't so. The Hound was alive, and he still had her sister. Gods only knew what all he did to her over the years. Arya imagined Sansa trapped in a filthy hovel, slaving away for her brutal "husband" while pushing out his evil spawn one after another. It made Arya's blood boil just to think of it. She might not have gotten along with Sansa, but they were still family, and if there was one thing she learned since that fateful day King Robert dragged them and their unwilling father to King's Landing, it was that family was the only true thing in this world.
Arya ran her fingers through her short hair and forced herself to meet Gendry's sympathetic gaze. "Father had Sansa and me sent to our rooms at the inn when he was forced to go out and kill Lady. I remember hearing Sansa crying in the room next to mine, and I went to the window and leaned my head out to try and hear less of her. That's when I saw Clegane return. He was on foot, leading that big horse of his. There was something lying on the horse's back. I thought...I don't know, that it was a bundle of supplies or something. But then the butcher ran right past the Hound and dragged the bundle down from the horse. He sat there in the dirt cradling it in his arms and I knew...I knew it was Micah." She swallowed, her throat growing tight. "I thought Sansa's crying was awful to hear, but it wasn't anything compared to the butcher wailing over his son's body. Micah was a good person. He never did anything wrong, except let me talk him into playing 'knights,'" she spat bitterly, "He didn't deserve to die like that."
Gendry reached over to give her shoulder a comforting squeeze. "It wasn't your fault, Arry."
"No," she said stoically, "It's the Hound's."
Sandor had the dream again. The one that haunted him his entire life. The one where he relived the moment when Gregor shoved his face into the hot coals, only it wasn't just his face that burned. The fire spread all over, engulfing his entire body. He felt his blood boil and his insides cook. He saw the flesh melt away from his charred bones like tallow. Yet he was still aware, still in agony, still screaming...
He woke with a choking gasp, his eyes darting frantically around the room until its familiarity sank in and his heartbeat began to slow. He shivered, wiped a hand across his brow and found it clammy with fear-sweat. It was quiet in the bedchamber. All Sandor could hear was his own labored breaths. That was good. It meant he hadn't screamed out loud. He looked beside him and saw that Sansa continued to sleep, peacefully unaware of her husband's turmoil.
Sandor rose from the bed, careful not to disturb his wife's slumber. Despite the near-blackness of the room, he navigated his way with easy familiarity. The floor was cold beneath his bare feet, in spite of the numerous rugs. Sandor was glad of the cold, for it helped further banish the lingering thoughts of his nightmare. He approached the crib where Zander lay. The baby was little more than a misshapen silhouette, but Sandor could easily imagine the child lying on his back with his little fists curled up beside his head, perhaps sucking his thumb. Sandor envied the child his simple, happy dreams.
He wasn't sure how long he stood there gazing down at his son before a slender pair of arms wrapped themselves around his waist. It said something about his state of mind that his wife was able to approach unnoticed. Sandor tensed for a brief instant, then relaxed into her embrace.
"Was it the dream again?" Sansa murmured.
"Aye," he answered, voice equally low. Neither of them wished to disturb the baby's slumber. "I'm sorry I woke you, Little Bird."
"Your absence woke me." She nuzzled the space between his shoulder blades, enjoying the warm feel of his woolen night shirt and the long-familiar scent of him. "Come back to bed."
"I'll not sleep," he sighed wearily.
"I know." She removed her arms from his waist and reached down to grasp his large hand. "Come," she gently tugged him back towards their bed.
They lay in each other's arms, Sansa's head pillowed on his chest, hearing the soothing rhythm of his heart. "I had my own recurring dream," she murmured, "After the riot. I kept dreaming of those men who attacked me, only you weren't there to stop them."
Sandor felt the anger rise in him at the memory of finding his Little Bird pinned to the filthy floor, about to be raped. He'd taken great satisfaction in killing those animals. He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head.
Sansa's fingertips traced over his chest. She imagined she could feel the springiness of the thick hair beneath the woolen nightshirt. "I was too innocent to really understand what they'd intended," she continued, "In the dream, they would stab me with knives. Over and over. And they laughed while they did it." She shuddered.
Sandor's arms tightened around her. "Don't think of it, Little Bird."
"It doesn't matter if I think of it or not. It still haunts me, just as your nightmare haunts you. Maybe it always will."
"I can barely remember a time when I wasn't haunted," Sandor said in a low voice.
Sansa abruptly rose up and straddled him. He could hear the smile in her voice when she asked, "Shall I help you banish your ghosts, husband?" Her delicate fingers scratched down the front of his nightshirt like kitten claws. Sandor shivered and sat up. He put his arm around her waist, reached up with his other to cup the back of her head in his hand, and drew her close. His mouth found hers, the kiss soft and slow. Sansa's hands traced his features. Burnt side or whole, she explored both with equal tenderness.
Sandor turned his head to hiss her fingers. "I love you, Little Bird."
"I love you, too." She rubbed her nose playfully against his. "My Hound."
Sandor nipped her throat with a quiet growl and Sansa uttered a faint laugh. They kept their voices low, ever mindful of the child sleeping in his crib. Sansa put her hands on his broad shoulders and pushed him back until he lay flat on the bed once again. He found this unusual show of dominance from his wife pleasantly arousing. He grinned and relaxed, letting her do as she willed. Her small hands slid beneath his night shirt. She scraped her fingers through the thick hair that covered his chest, eliciting another growl from him. Sandor reached under the hem of Sansa's shift and was pleased to find that, like him, she wore nothing beneath her nightclothes. He cupped the twin mounds of her bottom in his large hands, kneaded them while at the same time directing her to where he needed her to go. He felt the heat of her against his manhood, a delicious contrast to the chill air of the room. As she lowered herself onto Sandor's length he felt as if he might burn from the heat of her. But this time he wanted to burn. He wanted her fire to consume him, purify him, scorch away all the evils he carried.
"Shh." Her fingers brushed against his lips. It wasn't until then that Sandor realized he was groaning, only it sounded almost like whimpering. He sat up and clung to his wife, burying his face in her soft breasts. He trembled with the last vestiges of his dream while Sansa murmured gentle words and peppered the top of his head with sweet kisses. Gradually his trembling faded. He straightened to look into the faint shine of her eyes and, grinning, thrust into her with a sudden force that brought a gasp from her lips. He thrust again, and again, a hard rhythm lacking all gentleness. But Sansa only clung to him tighter, biting back the moans that would no doubt wake all the children, not just the baby sharing their bedchamber. Strangled whimpers escaped her while her nails raked her husband's back, hard enough to leave bloodied welts that would last for days after. Sandor barely noticed the pain, too caught up in the pleasure of her. He surged up onto his knees, wrapping his wife's legs around his waist. His hands gripped her bottom, opening her wider for him as he raised and lowered her onto his shaft. Sansa's whimpers were getting louder the closer she came to completion. As he felt her shudder around him, Sandor crashed his mouth into hers, muffling her cries as well as his own deep groans.
Sandor lowered them onto the bed and managed to pull the covers over them before exhaustion overcame him. His prediction proved wrong and he did sleep again that night, but thanks to Sansa's loving ministrations, the nightmare did not trouble him anymore.