A/N: Yup, another Modern AU. What can I say? This was just an idea that popped into my head and never meant to go farther than this. I wished it would have, but after I got this down, I was just... done. No more came out so here it is.
Title taken from another E.E. Cummings poem, of the same name.

He sees her for the first time in years in a coffee shop on the wharf. Its so ridiculously mundane and ordinary and cliché that it fucking hurts. And she shines. Shines brighter than any sun and it burns hotter than any fire he's ever been thrust in and he thinks that maybe this is one he might not mind being consumed in.

Its a warm and clear September morning, so unusual for the Washington coast that's usually dripping in rain and thick gray clouds. He's just gotten off his graveyard shift working security for Manderly, but he's got another shift of hauling shit starting in hour and caffeine is one of the addictions he hasn't and is never intending to give up. He's let go of drinking himself into stupors though sometimes its only the whiskey that can chase away the nightmares and the cigarettes are going to kill him one day, but coffee, thick and black will go with him to the grave. Like her tear filled blue eyes.

He's never thought to see her again. Not after he left her to the fucking Lannisters. Thought he'd burn in eternal Hell for the crime of leaving her there and not going against her wishes. Probably still will. But it feels like a step towards redemption when he sees her across the crowded little shop, all long full lines, thick auburn hair like a fiery waterfall and sweet beauty. Her big blue eyes, once so innocent and now not quite so naïve, are staring at him with wonder, wide with the impossibility of seeing him. Full rose lips parted in surprise and fuck, when did she turn into a young woman instead of a little girl?

He's got thoughts of making a run for it, of slipping out the door and her life and running to some other place far away where he'll never see her again and it doesn't make sense in the way it does. All he wants is to stand and go to her, apologize for leaving, beg for her forgiveness. Sink his bloodstained hands into all those fiery strands and lick the taste of whatever girly beverage she's got in her hands out of her mouth. But he has a history of giving into his impulses and having them tear him apart and he's learned a better way now. He knows he's nothing good for her and it would be better to pretend he didn't see her even as he packed away his meager belongings and threw them in the back of his ancient pickup. Drove across the country or fuck, even left the buggering continent. It'd be for the best and he's got plans laying in his mind before he even moves, but they combust and blow away in the wake of her walking towards him. All tremulous smile and shaking hands and he thinks maybe she hasn't grown as much as he first thought if she's still so afraid of him. He'd never hurt her, never, but he knows he never talked pretty to her or was easy on her no matter how hard he tried. Tried harder at that than anything else for all the good it did him. She still chose Joffrey and the Lannisters over him. He'd still been the worse monster even though he had tried so buggering hard to be better.

"Sandor?"

The hesitant broken whisper of a question tears him away from his thoughts and to her, standing so close above him. He wonders how his name can be question with an ugly mug like his. There's sure not to be some one else who looks like him.

"Little bird," he rasps and wishes that hadn't come out sounding like a prayer. Feels vulnerable just sitting there with her standing so tall beside him, so he rises. Still so big, so deadly, utterly made for destruction with his ruined face and his strong body that he worries he'll break her. But she's taller than she used to be and fuller in her figure though still so slender with her creamy skin that looks like porcelain. "You've grown." The comment holds more than it should. More than a notice of her height, her figure.

The faltering smile finally takes root and blooms wide, like a rose unfurling even as tears fall from her eyes, prettily sliding down her cheeks. "Its been a few years."

Time he thinks he might have been able to measure to the minute if asked and it scares him how clear the memories of her always are. "Yeah."

"Its been years," she whispered. She's staring up at him, still tearful, still smiling. But there is sorrow in her very soul. He can see that in the clear window of her eyes. "I thought you were dead."

His snort of derision is an old familiar sound, one of the things that has never left him no matter how much that holy fucker tried to change him. From the man he was into the man he had wanted to be when he was a child before Gregor destroyed him. He's not there yet, but he's been getting closer though he knows he'll never be one of those handsome charming men that this little bird loved so well. "Not yet."

The tears still and some of the sorrow eases from those blue iris'. "I'm glad."

Something tears within him at her soft proclamation. Its ugly and its painful but its a good sort of pain. Like bruised and bloody knuckles after a good brawl. "Are you, little bird?"

"Yes." There is no hesitation, no wait before her answer and he can detect no lie. He remembers she never could tell a lie to save herself and he wonders if its still the same. If that part of her has stayed true when so much is different. Like the way she looks at him.

He doesn't know what to say, what to do. Nothing in his life has prepared him for the way she seems to be glad he's made it through, intact or not. No one has ever been happy for his life, not since his sister now long dead. But her words make him remember the way she looked at him when he waded through the crowd at that stupid fucking party of Joffrey's and dragged her to safety. She'd been glad then too. "Little bird," he murmurs, helpless.

She smiles again, like she knows. "Are you living here?" She pipes enquiringly.

The burnt side of his mouth twitches at her innocuous question. "Suppose so. And you, little bird? Why are you here, in this bumfuck little town?"

Her nose wrinkles at his language, but she serenely ignores it. "I'm here to stay with a friend, Wylla. Her grandfather manages my father's businesses here in Washington."

This time there is dark amusement in his sound of derision. "Does your father own every state that is fucking cold and miserable?"

Again the wrinkle of her nose, but she smiles with abashed amusement. "Mostly yes. He says no one else likes them so no one fights him for them."

He rasped a laugh and hated the rough sound of it next to her gentle chimes and cursed his brother again for how badly he wrecked him. He never would have been a handsome man, never anything the girls sighed over, but he wouldn't have looked or sounded like a monster if Gregor had never burnt him. "How is it your friends with Wylla? Seems some one your sister would more like approve of."

She seemed startled. "You know her?"

"Wylla? Yeah. I work for the Manderly's, fat as they are. Girl's half mad."

"Oh. She's not crazy just... different."

He snorted at her attempt to pretty the definition of the green haired girl. "Mad as a fucking hatter."

"Sandor!" She sounded scandalized and it made something that ached in his chest ease. Some worry that he didn't know he'd had until it was gone. "You shouldn't say things like that, especially when you work for her family."

He laughed outright. "Why not? I've said as much to her face."

She gasped. "No."

"Yes."

She stared at him nonplussed for long moments. Then suddenly she was in his arms, though he didn't remember catching her when she flung herself against his chest. Soft warm body pressed the length of him as she stood on tiptoes to press her face into his neck. Once more he was at a loss as to what to do. So many times he'd fantasized about having her in his arms, but it was never like this. It was never her reaching out to hold him first. But the hair he wanted to touch was tickling against the good side of his face and she smelled like summer and lemons. So he raised one of his big paws and pet down the flyaway strands and curled her a little tighter into himself because any moment she was going to come to her senses and pull away. This is all he'd have for the rest of his miserable life and fuck, it was better than anything he ever imagined or hoped for.

"I've missed you."

The whisper is so soft he thinks he might've imagined it until she lifts her head to smile at him.

"You're as fucking mad as that fucking girl," he grates out.

She giggled. Fucking giggled. "Perhaps. Better a crazy little bird than a stupid little bird though, right?"

He hated the sadness in those last words. "Sansa..." He thinks maybe its the first time he has ever said her name. Thinks maybe he's right when her eyes widen.

"I have to go."

His arms clench tighter when she pulls away, unaware and yet so much so that he still held her in his embrace. But sense kicked in and his arms fell away and he waited for her to run, but she stayed where she was. So close to him, still touching. Fuck, she was a crazy stupid little bird. He'd break her if she stayed to long.

"Will I see you again?"

He flinched away from her words. "I'll stay out of your way," he snarled, feeling the way the bad side contorted in his anger. He was unprepared for the soft white hand against the twisted flesh, the fingers curling to cup it in a soothing gesture.

"That's not what I meant." There's a steel in her voice that had never been there. A strength and a confidence and a sweetness that he'd known she was always meant to come into. It twists him in an ache at how she's changed even as it evens out a worry that she'd always be a scared little girl.

He catches her hand, so small, so delicate and long fingered, in his big paw, all thick and callused and rough and so very stained. Means to tear it away from him, but instead, simply rests it over hers. "No?"

"No," she affirms in her new voice, her new self. "I meant when can I see you again? I have to leave now because I'm late on meeting Wylla and she's going to worry, but I..." She falters off and he sees a glimmer of the girl she used to be, the one she's growing away from and yet still holding inside. "I want to see you again," she begins anew, steadier once more.

He has no answer for her because he does not know who he is anymore. Surely not Sandor Clegane, the man that did unspeakable shit for the Lannister's. No one would want to see him again, would they? Especially not a sweet little bird like her. But that's all he has ever been and there's no one else quite like him so she must indeed have gone crazy. Lost her mind in the cruelty of that fucking golden family dripping in blood. "Stupid fucking crazy little bird," he rasped.

He expected her to recoil, to pull away hurt and run away. But instead she smiled, wide and easy and indeed, mad. "Perhaps, but I'd very much like to see you, Sandor Clegane, and at some point properly thank you for everything you did for me."

He laughed helplessly. "Tonight, after six. The Green Dragon, its a tavern on the wharf. That lime haired friend of yours will know it, no doubt."

Her smile brightened, something he hadn't thought possible. It blinded him to her movements and he was unaware of what she was up to until it had already happened. A brush of her lips across his cheek, the burnt side, the bad side, the monster's side. Then she was gone and he was left to wonder if he'd really seen her at all. Only the lingering scent of summer and lemons told him that maybe, just maybe it was true.