A/N: This is, for the most part, a thought chapter. Because Sandor is moody and perpetually brooding. I apologize for that. There is a considerable chunk of dialogue at the very end, but that's pretty much it. And, in case anyone's curious, the place they stop is Windward Ruins. It's west of Dawnstar. And...enjoy reading! Just so you know, I'm super busy this week because my first date is coming up, so I may not get a chapter out next Monday. Just in case I don't, I'm apologizing in advance. Many thanks to my beta reader (and sister) GrowlingPeanut. Reviews are appreciated.

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. It all belongs to Bethesda Softworks and George R. R. Martin. Specifically, the story told at the end belongs to GRRM, it's just slightly paraphrased at times by me.

Rating: M for strong language, sexual references, and the consumption of alcohol.

After her flight, the little bird didn't come back in an hour as Sandor had expected her to. She didn't come back when he hobbled into the forest and announced that her supper was getting cold. It wasn't until she still hadn't returned by nightfall that he began to wonder if he had let his ransom just run away. Half of him said good riddance. The other half still wanted the gold. And her.

It came as a complete surprise when he woke at dawn to find Sansa sitting beside his dwindling fire as though she'd never left. She looked up when he raised his head and met his gaze with an unreadable expression. "Good morning, my lord." Her tone was polite, but cautious.

Sandor remained silent. Even if he'd wanted to speak, he wasn't sure what to say. Instead, he found his eyes drawn to where one of her teeth tugged absently at her bottom lip.

Her lips had felt nothing like he'd imagined they would. The reality was far better than anything else he'd ever dreamed about. They were soft, warm, full, and seemed as though they fit perfectly against his own.

Although her kiss had been the fulfillment of the tamest of his thoughts regarding the young maiden, it only served to make him bitter and angry. He knew she had only been fueled by the adrenaline of battle and was simply trying to make herself forget her experience by replacing it with one just as horrifying. If he had taken advantage of the situation, he would have been no better than his brother.

"Is your leg feeling any better?"

Sandor glanced down toward his thigh, roughly bandaged by the strip of cloth he'd torn from the sleeve of his tattered tunic and bound over his breeches by additional linen. Sometime during their kiss, her magick had done its work and the wound had sealed at least enough so as not to reopen with his first step. The pain was still there, but it was more of a dull ache than the sharp stabbing sensation he was used to from previous arrow wounds.

He grunted. Sansa lapsed back into silence.

They broke their fast on the remainder of the food they'd found in the shack they had stayed at in the woods. The stale bread and bruised tomatoes did nothing to improve his mood.

Sansa was still picking at her food when he managed to struggle to his feet and limp over to Stranger. Even if it meant reopening his wound in the process, he was planning to ride as hard and fast as the road permitted. At the right pace, it would only take two more days to reach Windhelm.

"Will we reach Dawnstar today, my lord?" Her tone suggested that she didn't care if they would or not.

Sandor merely shrugged, waiting for her to gather her things and join him beside his courser before lifting her up and roughly setting her down in the saddle. She moved toward the front but stilled when he impatiently waved her back and climbed up to sit in front of her. He didn't want to have to spend another day with her sitting there in front of him, close enough to smell the faint lavender of her hair and more than close enough to feel the heat of her body as she sat between his legs. He wanted to forget that he'd ever wanted her; and that he still did.

He could hear her sigh behind him as he nudged Stranger forward and her thin arms reached hesitantly to wrap around his chest. Her breath was hot against the back of his neck.

The day seemed to drag by, their pace slowed by the falling snow that grew in high slopes as they ventured farther north. Each hour passed in silence between them, sullen and suffocating, until finally, Sansa spoke.

"Winter is coming."

For once, the words of her house were relevant. Stranger was doing his best to keep up the pace that his master had set, but the snow was causing enough resistance to slow the courser to a brisk walk at best. And it was getting bloody cold.

"It never snowed in Solitude. Not like it did at home anyway. Robb and Arya and Bran and Rickon and I used to go out and play in it when we were little. We would create forts that we could hide in and then we'd pack it into balls and throw them at each other."

Sandor snorted. When was it that Robb Stark went from playing in the snow to staining it with Imperial blood, he wondered. Of course, he knew the answer. He had been there on the day Eddard Stark was executed.

"Did it snow where you were born, my lord?"

He only answered the question so she wouldn't ask again. "No." The lands south of Markarth were always green and fertile. And, as he was quickly learning, its inhabitants were sorely unprepared for the weather in Northern Skyrim. She was right: Solitude has never been like this.

"Where were you born?"

That question, he avoided. The thought of his childhood brought back too many painful memories.

When she realized he wasn't going to answer, Sansa fell silent again and sighed heavily. The road to Dawnstar was clear of other travelers and only the shrill whistle of the wind and an occasional hunting snow fox remained to keep them company.

It was a few hours from nightfall, judging by the position of the slowly setting sun, when Sandor's leg went stiff and the pain in his thigh became too much to bear. Steering Stranger toward a small ruin on the side of the road, he nearly fell out of the saddle and staggered into the shelter of the crumbling stone walls. Sansa's footsteps followed shortly after.

"Are we going to continue on tonight? Or should we set up camp here?" she asked, leading Stranger to lie inside where they were blocked from the wind.

"Here," Sandor replied, digging through his saddlebag until he found the wineskin he was looking for. He drained the few drops inside it with a muttered curse and then tossed it aside and leaned his head back against the wall behind him. As if being confined in close quarters with the girl wasn't enough, he was out of wine as well. He was beginning to think the gods were finally damning him for all of the souls he'd sent to Sovngarde.

Sansa settled down cross-legged in front of him and smoothed their leather map out between them, slowly running her finger across the inked in cities and landmarks.

Her hair fell over one shoulder as she bent down and her breasts pushed against the snug fabric of her gown with each labored breath of cold air. Sandor forced himself to look away.

"I think there's a stream nearby, my lord," she said after a moment, tapping one of her long fingers against a blue smudge beside their general location in relation to Dawnstar. "I could fill that with water." Her hand gestured vaguely toward his discarded wineskin.

Sandor snorted. "I don't want fucking water," he grumbled. "Bring me wine."

A look of frustration clouded her pretty features for a moment before she regained her unemotional mask of disinterest. "If I had any, I would give it to you, but since I don't, water is all I have to offer. I would also like to bathe, particularly since we'll be reaching another town tomorrow and I look horrendous."

There was something he liked about the way she deliberately tried to keep the annoyance from her voice. It showed a brief and refreshing weakness in her highborn courtesy.

"Do whatever the fuck you like," he muttered in response, trying to clear the image of her bathing from his mind. If he couldn't keep himself away from her, the rumours of her rape that had spread so quickly would come true. Her thrice damned kiss hadn't helped any either; stupid little bird making him think she wanted anything more from him than protection.

"Could you accompany me, please? I'm not sure what might live in the forest here and it wouldn't do you any good to tell my brother that your lack of care for my safety got me killed by a wolf while I was walking to go bathe."

Sandor glared at her for a moment. Now she was just being insolent. As if he could protect her from anything in his state. He couldn't even ride a horse.

Getting to his feet, he waved her out of the ruins and gestured for her to lead him to wherever she had seen the stream of which she spoke. She stomped off toward the east, her boots crunching in the snow beneath her feet with each step she took. Sandor limped along at a more leisurely pace. If a wolf or a sabre cat did jump out and maul her, so be it.

The stream proved to be close by and even Sandor had to admit that the clear blue water was a welcome sight. He wouldn't mind washing up a bit himself.

"Once I'm finished, you should clean up too." She looked back at him as she pulled off one of her boots and then tugged at her stocking. "You stink."

Sandor scowled and turned to go when he was stopped by her voice, quieter and more gentle than before. More like the girl she had been until that buggering kiss had fucked things up.

"Don't go," she murmured, her voice betraying the blush across her pale cheeks. Sandor raised his eyebrow and she continued, turning to face the stream. "I need your help again. With the laces."

Of course. What had he expected? He simply had to serve as her maid until she arrived safely in Windhelm and abandoned him to his undoubtedly grisly fate, nothing more.

He stepped forward and brought his hands to the back of her gown, quickly untying the bow she had made near the top of the dress. His fingers weren't as clumsy as they had been the first time and he made short work of the laces on both her gown and corset, trying to keep his eyes from the gradually exposed skin of her shoulders and back as he worked.

As he raised his gaze back up the length of her spine, he felt the sudden urge to set his lips against the gentle slope of her long neck, wanting nothing more than to hear the quiet gasp he expected she would make.

Never having kissed or been kissed before her, aside from whatever had happened between he and Sansa, the thought was surprising and he took a few steps back, the laces falling from his parted fingers as he retreated.

Sansa cast him a curious glance over one of her pale and unblemished shoulders and he swallowed down the lump in his throat, stumbling back until he was able to lean against a tree for support. Their eyes met for a long moment before her blush deepened and she looked down at her feet.

"You can leave now, my lord."

Not having to be asked twice, he retreated back to the ruin, but not before hearing the soft thud as her gown hit the snow and the splash of the water as she stepped into the stream. The image in his mind made him wish even more for a bottle of wine.

He briefly considered taking care of his quickly growing problem himself while she was bathing, but the thought of her walking in on him stopped his hands before they reached his breeches. If she caught him, he wasn't sure if he would be able to hold himself back.

It took the better part of an hour for her to clean herself up and when she returned, her gown clinging tightly to the curves of her wet body, Sandor swiftly got up and made his way over to the stream, hoping that the chill of the wind would distract him from the sight of her like that. Gods damn it, did she have any idea what she was doing to him?

Peeling off his dirty and sweat-stained tunic, he tossed it into the snow and carefully removed his trousers, avoiding the bandage on his thigh as best as he could. His smallclothes were added to the pile and he gingerly lowered himself down onto the bank, gritting his teeth against the cold water that washed over his legs.

He removed the cloth around his thigh as carefully as he could, swearing under his breath when it ripped at the dried blood beneath and reopened the wound. This time, he wouldn't be able to ask Sansa to close it. The last time she'd offered had turned into something he was seriously regretting letting her do. It wasn't as if he couldn't see the look in her eyes before she'd leaned forward. Behind the usual disgust at his burns, there was a look of hesitation, enough at least for him to realize what she was planning a split second before she had pressed her lips against his.

The cold water washed away the flowing blood and stained it a deep red, marring its former crystalline quality. Using the tunic he'd discarded as a rag, he cleaned out the wound to the best of his ability before moving it across his long legs and back along every inch of dirt-streaked skin that he could reach. As he dipped it back into the water before wiping it under his arm, he remembered Sansa's comment and snorted. As if she smelled any better herself.

Once he decided he was thoroughly washed, he stood back up again and bound his thigh before redressing and trudging at a slow limp back toward the ruins they'd settled for the night.

When he ducked back into the alcove they had set up camp inside, he was half-relieved to find that Sansa had lit a fire and immensely grateful to find a bottle of wine sitting beside it. She looked up from the book she was reading when she heard his footsteps and met his gaze without her usual smile of greeting, her eyes lingering for a long moment on his bare chest as he dug through his saddlebags for a dry tunic. When he found one, she dropped her gaze.

"All we have to eat is another loaf of bread and a piece of eidar cheese," she said as she resumed reading, her feet swinging back and forth in the air above her smoothly curved back. "And I found that bottle in one of the saddlebags. Under your helmet."

Sandor didn't respond, but retrieved the food and wine in mention and ripped the loaf of stale bread in half before tossing her a piece and settling down to remove the spots of mold from the cheese with his dagger.

Their meal was devoured in a few bites and Sandor watched in silence as Sansa flipped idly through the pages of her book, humming under her breath.

When she got to the end, she closed the book with a thud and sat up, stretching her arms above her head before moving closer to the fire and staring into the flames. As she sat quietly beside it, Sandor reclined against the stone wall behind him, drinking the strong red wine in a failed attempt to forget how her lips had felt against his own.

His jaw was clenched and his deep grey eyes smoldered from the reflection of the fire. When he raised the bottle of wine to his lips again, he sighed heavily and shifted his outstretched legs. Sansa's gaze darted in his direction and she hastily looked away, staying silent for a moment before letting her eyes travel to the left side of his face.

"How did it happen?" she asked quietly.

His eyes flicked briefly in her direction before moving away again and then closing as he leaned his head back. He had never told anyone how he'd been burned and certainly didn't intend for her to be the first, but if anyone deserved to hear the tale, it was her. Perhaps it would finally shatter the illusion of the world she lived in.

"I was young," Sandor began cautiously. "Six I think. Maybe seven. My uh, my father, he was a lord. Not of anything grand; just a fort called Clegane Keep. It's southeast of Markarth. One day, a merchant happened by and to gain my father's favor, he decided to carve a handmade toy for both Gregor and I. I don't remember what mine even was. But Gregor...he got a knight. All painted up in our house colors, with movable joints so he could fight just like a real knight."

He paused and took a long drink before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I wanted it, and I knew he would never play with it so one day, when he was away, I took it. I didn't even enjoy it really. I was scared all the while that he would come back and find me. And he did. For a few seconds all he did was stare. Then, never saying a word, he strode across the room and picked me up under his arm."

Pausing again, he swirled around his bottle of wine and took a long pull. Sansa was watching him closely, her blue eyes wide and bright in the light of the fire.

"Gregor is five years older than me so he was twelve then, and already a squire. He was nearly six feet tall and muscled like an ox. There was a..." He stopped and took a deep breath. "A brazier, on the other side of the room. The fire had gone out, but it was still hot. So he carried me over to it and shoved my face down into the burning coals."

Staring into the fire with a faraway look in his eyes, he finished off his wine and sighed heavily. "All the begging, pleading, crying, and screaming I did wasn't worth a damn. It took three full grown men to pull him off of me, but by then it was too late. The fire had already done its damage. When my father found out what had happened, he told everyone that my bedding had caught fire and he sent someone off to a priest for some ointments."

He gave a snort of derision, and then repeated it in disbelief. "Ointments. Well, Gregor got his ointments too. Four years later, he was anointed with the nine oils of the Divines, he recited his knightly vows and High King Torygg tapped a sword to his shoulders and said, 'Arise, Ser Gregor.'."

He trailed off and stared angrily out into the night with his fist clenched tightly and resting on his thigh. No matter how many years passed, his hatred toward his brother was as permanent as the scars across his face. Neither would ever fade. He only hoped that when Gregor met his end, it would be by his sword.

It was silent for a moment before Sansa reached over and placed a hand on his knee. "He was no true knight."

Sandor looked over at her and laughed sharply. "No, little bird. He was no true knight."

After meeting her gaze for a few seconds, he narrowed his eyes. "If you ever tell anyone that story, I swear to the Gods you won't live long enough to tell it again."

Sansa nodded in understanding, and Sandor was surprised to find that his threat didn't seem to scare her. Instead of the fear he would have once seen in her eyes, she was gazing at him with a look of...pity. It made him hate her even more. He had meant to shatter whatever stupid, girlish desire had made her kiss him with the story of his past. Instead, he had rekindled it.

Whatever flame she felt for him burned anew as she met his stormy grey eyes and Sandor realized that for the second time in his life, he had been kissed by fire.