SANDOR

When he woke in the mornings these days, he was rested and even - dare he think it - something like happy. Nothing could have prepared him for this life, Sandor knew; he could only be glad that he'd fought against his own terrible instincts and stayed with his little bird.

Sometimes he cursed the seven buggering gods, though, for the infamy his actions had brought upon him. It seemed as if everyone knew their story now; how Joffrey had wanted his dog Sandor Clegane to spy on his uncle Tyrion and good-aunt Sansa...how instead, Sandor had fallen in love with the beautiful Stark girl and had whisked her away from King's Landing. The truth of their travels to Dorne, to Volantis, to Meereen, and eventually back to Westeros, seemed to be stretched more and more with every telling, and lately he tended to merely scoff at those who tried to praise him for standing up to the Dragon Queen, for somehow refusing to bow to her prejudices against his own family and that of his wife. Though no one else seemed to care, Sandor knew that the only reason Daenerys Targaryen hadn't had him killed was because she needed men of Westeros - loyal men, as Sansa had pointed out - when she returned to take back her throne. He'd fought in her ranks alongside the likes of Barristan Selmy and Jorah Mormont, and endured not a few tongue-lashings from that damnable dwarf.

Those, at least, he could laugh at. Tyrion had lost Sansa, and Sandor had her now. Had her, and wasn't going to ever let go of her.

More oft than not, he believed that Sansa Stark - and the life they had somehow, against all odds, built together - were the only reasons he had kept his sanity for this long. And so he remained by her side, her loyal dog, though she never let him refer to himself as such.

SANSA

These days when she dreamt, it always seemed to be of the happiest days from her past. Snowball fights with her siblings at Winterfell, sitting in front of a mirror there while her mother lovingly brushed her hair...the first time she and Sandor had kissed, their wedding aboard the ship, the first time they had made love...her triumphant return to Winterfell to sit at her brother Rickon's side and help him rule the North...so many wonderful memories replaying themselves over and over again in her head.

And when Sansa awoke, Sandor was there. Perhaps not beside her, as he often rose with the dawn to practice swordplay in the yard - but always nearby. She'd feared for him when he was fighting for Daenerys Targaryen, though he'd promised that he would come home to her. "I won't give you up that easily, little bird," Sandor had said. "Either of you."

He'd made it back to her naught but a fortnight before she gave birth to their first child, a son who she named Eddard.

Sansa laid her palm on her growing belly. It was a girl this time, she was sure of it. Catelyn, she thought, and smiled.

She was free, free and happy, a wolf with a growing pack of her own. She knew herself, and she knew her husband, and there was no room for fear in this life that she was living.

(For anyone who recently started reading this fic or has re-read the prologue and the first 7-8 chapters, you may have noticed a lot of echoes of Sansa and Sandor's first real time "together" in chapter 40, as well as a lot of echoes of the prologue in the epilogue...yes, that was very much on purpose ;) )

And that's all she wrote! :D