A/N: This is part of a Modern AU retelling of ASOIAF (with lots and lots of SanSan) that I started, but I never got farther than this. Still hope to finish it one day, but we'll see. Anyway, its supposed to be set in Europe, but my knowledge of their different criminal justice systems is highly limited at this point so I'm sorry if stuff is incorrect or just plain vague. No actual Sansa in this, just Ned and Sandor. :)
This chapter is most definitely rated R for language. Its Sandor we're talking about after all.

Title taken from "Forget" by Queen of the Damned found over on Poem Hunter.

They accused him of murder and locked him up, postponing the trial dates further and further as they stumbled after evidence. There wasn't any to be found except for his reputation and the horror that was his brother. Second hand, circumstantial. Its all laughable, really. They know he's a monster and yet they can't prove it. He doesn't give two flying fucks. Prison life agrees with him. Its cold and its brutal and there's nothing pretty about it, not even false trying at it. Its how he sees the world anyway and no ones lying about it here. Its a constant fight for survival and all about hierarchy and fighting to be top of the food chain. In here, he can become the lord of all. In here, sheer strength and intimidation rules. He's got plenty of both. Enough to get everyone to leave him the fuck alone.

sansansan

Ned Stark comes to him a year later and he's not the man the Hound remembers. He'd been a quiet man, a stern man, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, but there had still been joy in his eyes. Warmth when he looked upon his prodigious amount of children and beautiful, elegant wife. Now those gray eyes were hollow, dead and defeated. He'd lost much in the last couple of years. His best friend, that drunken fool Robert, was the first to go. Wasn't long after that his family was torn apart. One of the boys in a devastating accident that only a fool would believe that's what it had been. The youngest girl gone without a trace, the second slipping away not long after. His family's ancient wealth stripped bare nearly and most his friends abandoning him. He'd dared to stand up to the Lannisters and they always repaid their debts. In blood or gold, the choice was open to the receiver, but Lord Eddard Stark was a man of principles and he spat upon their blood money. Lot of good it had done him. He was broken for all his trouble and honor, holding onto what was left of his family with shredded fingertips.

They sat opposite of each other, a heavy metal desk between. One dressed in a simple gray suit, the other prison regs and chains. Both broken in different ways. Different men from different worlds, but life had kicked them both until getting up again was almost impossible.

"You look well, Clegane," Stark opened. Noble hands clasped together and resting on the desk as he hunched forward.

The man that had been known as the Hound for most of his life, laughed. Steel on concrete like when the chair had been dragged back and he'd been chained to it. "And you look like shit," he rasped back, sprawling back as much as the chains would allow. His hands were cuffed as were his feet, a chain running between them.

Stark frowned. "This is madness," he murmured more to himself than the giant of a man.

Sandor snorted. "Aye." His voice was a rough rasping Scottish burr, a contradiction to the older man's refined English accent. "Why are you here?"

Ned Stark watched him through cool gray eyes, measuring, and it makes the younger but bigger man squirm. Its a familiar gaze he realizes, though the color is all wrong. His daughter had had those eyes, in the end. Ones that frosted over and saw the world for what it was and not simply what they wished. It made Sandor angry. Furious as he remembered the girl he hadn't let himself think about and done nothing to save.

"I'm here to make you a deal."

Again the sound of derision. "Let me guess. Roll on the Lannisters for my freedom. Go fuck yourself, Stark."

The other man ignored him, mostly. "Not at all."

Sandor felt wariness creep up on him. That idiot Prosecutor Dondarrion had only been spouting one tune since he'd been arrested. Roll or rot in prison until they found enough evidence to convict him of the murder he'd been accused of. Sandor was half tempted to confess just so he could keep his comfy lodgings, but he figured he'd wait a while to see what the little prick would do. Now this... Stark wasn't in with Dondarrion though the two of them should have got along like two peas in a fucking pod with all their spouting of truth and justice. "What do you want?" He snarled.

"My daughter."

It wasn't what he had expected and yet it made sense. "I haven't got her." And damn me and that stupid little bird for that. I could have. I could have kept her safe. I would have.

"Not yet."

For a man who had lost his mind, Ned Stark was disconcertingly calm. "Make sense or fuck off." He did not like this game one bit and wanted out.

Lord Stark steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. "I have the evidence now to convict you of murder. You'll be sent away for life, solitary most likely for most of it for a man like you. A life of constant supervision and orders and cavity searches."

Sandor barked another laugh. "You make it sound like that's what life hasn't always been." Those ice eyes regarded him silently again, so long that Sandor squirmed. "What do you want?" He rasped, low and angry.

"Like I said, my daughter."

"What the fuck do you want me to do about it?" He was no longer sprawling, but leaning forward in his wrath, body straining against the chains that held him down.

"Get her."

The man could have sprouted horns and shocked him less. "What?"

Ned Stark opened a brief case and withdrew several papers. "These say that the evidence against you was all circumstantial, that the witness could not be found to testify and that the DNA and ballistic evidence was circumspect and no longer admissible in court. Dondarrion has already signed off on them. All we require is your answer."

The wariness was in his bones now. "In exchange for what?" He asked quietly.

"You infiltrating the Lannister organization and extracting my daughter if she still lives. If not, gathering whatever evidence you can so I can bring them down."

Sandor stared at him for a moment before laughing in his face. "You've lost your fucking mind, Stark. You think I'm gonna commit suicide for you and your fucking stupid daughter? For what? Doing the right thing? Bugger that and you."

The older man splayed his hands hard on the desktop, pressing until bones and veins stood in relief with the pressure. "No, I do not expect it of you for those reasons."

"You've got no other reason for me to do it, do you, old man?"

Ned Stark leaned back in his chair, weary but calculating. "You've probably surmised that I've already sent men undercover into their operations?"

Sandor snorted again. "How'd that work for you? Too noble to send the type of scum needed for that work, am I right?"

The older man conceded this with a small nod. "Some did better than others. Lied better, actually flipped in one case, but they're all gone all the same. They couldn't find what I sent them for, but they had plenty to tell. About Sansa. About you."

The wariness had turned to churning guilt and rage in his gut. "Worried I fucked your precious little princess?" I would have, had she let me. Had she wanted me. Had she not cried. Fuck me, little bird, you kill me even when you're dead.

The words finally made Stark flinch. "No, though I do not doubt you wanted to."

That hit him hard and he knew it shouldn't have. "Everyone did. You threw a lamb into a den of lions, you fool."

Stark pressed his eyes closed. To seal away the words, the images his mind supplied of what might have happened to her. They both knew if the girl still lived, it would have been better if she had died. "I know. And you're going to help me get her back." His eyes opened to reveal gray steel, tempered in ice, and forged in determination.

"Why would I?"

"Because you hate yourself just as much as I do for leaving her there."

"What makes you think I give a fuck about some pretty little bird? There's many more out there for the taking with a lest costly price to pay."

"Because you call her little bird."

And Sandor Clegane's soul shivered.

"You never beat her, never raised a hand even when commanded. The first order you ever disobeyed."

He was fucked. He'd been caught and damn him if he could refute the words spoken. He knew he'd agree to whatever Stark asked of him in that moment. He'd run from his failure to the girl, the sweet red haired thing that had gotten under his skin and made a broken dog like him dream of something better than he had. He'd risen higher than himself to offer her freedom and she'd turned away. In fear of him, but it had been enough to smack him back down into his place. But he should have taken her anyway. It would have been the right thing to do. To save her. But he'd been too wounded and slunk off with his tail between his legs and got himself arrested for murder only a couple months later. And lived with the ghost of what he should have done as he languished in prison.

"Bugger you, Stark, and your fucking useless spies," he snarled. A rabid dog backed into a corner and not liking it one bit.

Stark merely smiled sadly. "You'll be cleared of all charges ever put against you, your choice of an estate in the America's and enough money to live in comfort until the end of your days. All I ask in return is my daughter."

"Small enough price to pay. I get exile in comfort and you get your Brady Bunch back."

"One that you will pay." It was not a question nor a command.

Sandor stared at him, long and hard and angry before he snarled. "Give me the fucking papers."

Stark slid them wordlessly across the desk and Sandor signed his life away. After all, it was likely he wouldn't make it out alive so it didn't matter two fucks what he agreed to. But he'd find the little bird before the Lannisters figured him out and brought him down.

A/N: Thanks for reading!

Peace peeps.