Tyrion stared at Sansa Stark.

They were all gathered in Baelish's office. How ridiculous they were in their costumes on an occasion like this. Littlefinger sat behind his desk dressed as a bandit (appropriately enough), face unreadable save for his snapping eyes. Tyrion sat beside him, dressed as one of those numerous Valyrian sun gods. Selmy in sharp contradiction wore his usual strict black uniform, standing in front of Sansa Stark. The young septa without a habit sat in the center of the room pale and frightened.

Behind Tyrion and Baelish near the window stood Varys, so still and silent it was easy to forget his presence. Like Selmy and the Hound, he wore no costume.

By the door behind Sansa stood the Hound, for who knows what reason, Tyrion thought. The head stagehand closely resembled his moniker, as if he'd treat anyone who even looked at the girl wrong to a vicious mauling.

Tyrion wondered faintly if Sandor Clegane, the opera's cynical, emotionless guard dog had fallen in love with the pretty little singer.

Once upon a time, such a thought would have engrossed Tyrion, amazed him.

Now he only felt dull.

Now he only stared at Sansa, trying to imagine her as a killer.

The killer of his sister.

He stared at her stunned blue eyes. He heard her shallow breaths. The girl looked like hell.

No, he decided. No, this girl could not have possibly killed Cersei.

Cersei….

Selmy finished presenting Sansa with the dry facts: Cersei had claimed possession of some sort of evidence linking Sansa to Joffrey Baratheon's death, with a possible accomplice. Not an hour later, Selmy turned to find Cersei propped up as if waiting for afternoon tea in the chair behind him, dead from what early examination thought either heart failure – or poison.

Selmy was stern but not unnecessarily harsh. "Young lady, I would like to hear what you have to say."

It was the Hound who spoke. "She doesn't have to tell you a damn thing. The woman hated her, would say anything to get her arrested. Sansa Stark didn't have anything to do with this."

Selmy sharply addressed Sandor. "And tell me, sir, how are you so certain? Why were you and Miss Stark in such a rush to leave earlier?"

Sansa opened her mouth. "I" –

"Is it against the law to leave a party full of drunken animals?" Sandor barked. His eyes were red with anger.

Selmy would not back down. "Or perhaps we do not have to leave this room to find Miss Stark's accomplice" –

"Oh, bloody hell" –

"Sandor." Sansa was the wolf again. "Let me tell them."

Tyrion cocked an eyebrow at the look of panic that entered the Hound's hard eyes, tight lips. "Girl" –

Good gods, could Sansa Stark actually have had anything to do with this? With her lover the Hound as accomplice?

He shuddered.

"It's all right," she said in a softer voice. "I won't have them accusing you." Voice and expression surprisingly steady, she turned back to Selmy and the others. She told them. Told them everything.

Her eyes glowed with honest fervor. Her voice cracked as she spoke, but never faltered.

And Tyrion felt a deeper wave of shock, of pity than he ever had before in his whole life.

Mad. The poor girl was mad.

He stole a glance at Baelish. The impresario was obviously holding back some biting fury. Selmy was very quiet, very grave.

Varys did not turn from the window.

The Hound looked as if she was stabbing him with each word.

Tyrion could take no more. "Gentlemen, enough. As the murdered woman's brother, I think I have the right to say the girl is suffering from some sort of mental turmoil. She can't be responsible."

"You do not think that very mental turmoil could in fact lead to violence?" Selmy rejoined.

Sansa looked desperate. "I'm not lying! I'm not! I'm not mad!"

She looked at each man. She turned around. "Sandor?"

He stared at her with suppressed sympathy but said nothing.

All of them…even him. They all thought her mad.

A hot fury consumed her. She would not take this lying down. "You don't believe me? Go ahead, then! Take your men below, Officer! See if I'm wrong!"

Her heart skipped a beat after she spoke, instantly regretting her words. It was bad enough she'd been forced to reveal Rhaegar's secrets, but to urge an invasion of his lair by the police?

Baelish stood then. "My dear, you know how fond of you I am. I can assure you there is no madman beneath the opera house; certainly I would know about it, wouldn't I? I advise you to rest."

Selmy looked speculative, however. "My men are searching Ms. Lannister's house as we speak, madame. If they do not find the evidence of which she spoke, we do not have enough reason to arrest you."

Both Sansa and Sandor released breaths they hadn't realized they'd been holding.

"However, I remain suspicious. Suspicious of you both."

Sansa half stood in her panic. "I tell you, Sandor Clegane had nothing to do with this! He's just – been my friend throughout everything!" At Selmy's doubtful look, she continued, "Ask anyone present the night the chandelier came down! The voice everyone heard was a tenor, wasn't it? Mr. Clegane's voice, as you might notice, is about as far from a tenor as you can get!"

"Girl, calm down," Sandor said quietly.

"No. What do I have to say to prove he's innocent and that I'm not insane?"

Despite themselves, each man present was impressed by the steel in her look, her voice. Her eyes were overwhelmingly bright.

Selmy was silent for several moments, then said, "You will perform tomorrow night."

"What?" Sansa whispered.

"I've no doubt you've been through some sort of ordeal, miss. Whether or not you were involved in Ms. Lannister's death, I am sure some measure of coercion was involved. Whoever is behind these murders and the chandelier crash obviously knows his way around the opera house" – here he darted a vaguely accusing glance at Sandor, but then quickly relented – "Who, unlike Mr. Clegane as you say, is a tenor. And if you're telling the truth that whoever this figure is plans to carry you off after the performance tomorrow, we can hopefully apprehend him then – if you lead him to us."

She shook her head wearily. "No, it's no use. He hears what we say, he hears everything within these walls. He knows now."

Selmy looked as if he'd reached the limits to his patience. "Miss Stark, this is no game. If you want to help us clear your name, you will oblige us here. Is that understood?"

Sansa shivered at the severe authority in his tone. How could she say yes? But how to argue no?

Wordlessly she at last nodded, resigned.

There it is, then, she thought in an odd dreamlike way. I shall die. I know it.

Sandor never took his eyes from her. How to get her out of there, how?

Selmy outlined the plan: the officers that would line the rafters, the cellar doors, her dressing room. They would follow Sansa after the performance to wherever the madman was waiting for her. "Am I clear, Miss Stark?"

Sandor wanted to rip his face off.

"Yes," came her faraway reply. She looked like the corpse of herself.

Selmy murmured some finishing instructions to Baelish. He bowed crisply, then left.

"You are free to go, my dear," Baelish said. His voice was as warm as it always was when speaking to her, but his eyes were as cold as a lizard's. "Try to get some sleep."

Sansa stood unsteadily. She fidgeted, looking at Tyrion. "I – I know this might not seem appropriate coming from me, sir, but…I am sorry. I am so sorry for what happened to your sister."

She was so earnest in her awkward benumbed way.

Tyrion firmly believed in her innocence. She was a hunted lamb in a den of lions.

Cersei.

The image of his beautiful golden sister turned purple and cold in his mind.

He'd often wondered if he and his sister were more alike than either imagined. Each had a great all-encompassing hunger for unconditional love, acceptance, power. When denied that, they grew bitter and crafty, and took by force what they were not given freely. Each suffered under their father's thumb – their father, who loved only their mother's ghost and his remote eldest son.

Tyrion remembered staring at Cersei in awe as a younger child. His sister was the most beautiful, dignified girl in the world, and that made him both proud and shy. But she ruined the illusion with her cold glare, her haughty insults, and he added insult to injury by developing biting sarcasm to meet her barbs.

Yes, they'd been alike. If Tyrion hadn't killed his mother coming out of her, if Tywin had been a loving father, if others hadn't used her heart and his as stomping grounds, could they have been brother and sister in truth?

As it was, their common traits were what in the end separated them, made them enemies. Neither would budge. Neither would make the gesture.

Now the chance was gone forever, and despite his ire and bitterness, Tyrion couldn't help but feel he'd lost a part of himself.

And the children…what would become of them? Would they leave King's Landing and stay with Jaime, their - Tyrion swallowed - possibly their true father?

Or would they prefer to stay in the city they grew up in? With him?

The poor children.

"Thank you, Miss Stark." His voice was strained. "I'm sorry, too."

"Come on, girl." Sandor touched her arm.

He watched the unusual pair leave (what was the name of that old fairytale? Beauty and the Beast?).

Tyrion couldn't stand staying in the same room with Baelish and Varys right now. No secrets and lies for him at the moment. "Gentlemen, I am going to see to my niece and nephew then drink the night away. If you need me, I won't be available."

Without a backward glance, he left them.

Varys stared into the night outside the office window. Technically it was morning now, though the sky remained an oppressive black.

Baelish's words whipped out like a lash across the back. "I'd wager you regret rescuing your master now."

Varys breathed in then smiled gently. "Ah, but I am not the one who convinced him to let a Stark girl audition in the first place, my dear Lord Baelish."

Baelish simmered silently then laughed shortly. "What's the saying, Varys? Ah, yes. We're all fools for love."

Varys thought to himself that even with his own limited knowledge of love, Baelish had no clue what the emotion really was – beyond loving himself.

Sansa ran her hand across the skirt of Jonquil's village dress that she wore in the first scene. It would be the last time she wore it. It might be the last time she wore anything. She had no idea when Rhaegar would enact his revenge and kill her.

Save for Selmy and his men, the managers, and Sandor, no one knew of the danger tonight. She told Margaery and Olenna that she'd merely been questioned, since Cersei had suspected Sansa all along. Arya had hovered near her all night and into today, only leaving when Sansa entered the dressing room. Sansa was glad that the police wouldn't surround the outside until near the end of the show.

Sansa grabbed her sister's arm before Arya headed to the stables.

She stared at her younger sister with love swelling in her expression. She hugged Arya to her. She kissed her forehead. "You be good now," she said in a small voice.

Before Arya could respond, Sansa ran into the dressing room, closing the door behind her.

Now Sansa sat at her vanity, waiting for places. She tried not to think how that was probably the last time she'd ever see her sister, and that she'd never again see her family or Winterfell. Lady will look after them for me.

She repeated her wolf-dog's name aloud, in an attempt to comfort herself. "Lady..."

Slowly she stood and approached the full-length mirror. She stared into the glass with a cold bravery she was not aware she possessed. "Go on," she told the mirror. "Go on and do it now if you're going to. What are you waiting for?"

She watched for any sign, any sign at all. A quirk of the glass, a whisper, anything.

Nothing.

Except for a knock on the door.

She froze for a moment. Heart in her throat, she answered.

Sandor stood there. He was a grim giant from a dark song.

Please, please, not in front of him. Please.

"You shouldn't be here," she said in a thin voice.

"Don't care," he said gruffly, pushing himself in. His muscles kept twitching.

"What is it?"

"I've been thinking. About everything. This is no good, little bird. Let's go. Now. We'll head down to the stables, grab your sister and Stranger, and then head right to the train station. I've got money with me. Come on."

She couldn't help her sad smile. "So you finally believe me?"

She ached at the hurt in his eyes. "I don't know, little bird, I don't know. But I won't risk it. Fuck Selmy and the others, they can find out one way or the other without using you as bait."

She stared at his hunted eyes in his stony face. Barely aware of what she was doing, she reached out to tuck behind his ruined ear one of those locks of hair that always fell over his eyes and burns.

She'd never be this happy again, looking into his face - and even this happiness was sullied by her melancholic acceptance of the inevitable.

His voice was thick. "Well?"

Another knock on the door. "Places," a voice called.

Sansa closed her eyes, the spell broken. "No. No running." She opened her eyes. She stood on her toes and kissed him deeply.

Her hands were on both sides of his face. "Please always remember that I love you."

She swept past him out the dressing room. She left the man behind her strangled with impotent rage.

It was a nuisance that Selmy's men crowded the rafters, but Rhaegar bypassed them anyhow. He climbed up the ladder he'd installed behind the walls.

He reached the top, overlooking the stage. He perched unseen on the ledge there.

He clutched his burning chest.

The climb up the opera walls yesterday and this climb now…his chest hurt unbearably from the exertions. He panted.

The pains were getting worse each day.

This was not helped by the heavy sword he carried on him.

He made himself forget the pain as he paced the ledge, listening to the orchestra tune. He fingered the cool steel of the Valyrian sword.

He would wait until the last act, when she extended her hands to the sky begging the Mother for mercy.

He would swoop down, dip the sword in the fire from the torches onstage, and plunge the blade into Nissa Nissa's heart, as the Hound howled in sorrow.

He would keep Clegane alive. Once Nissa Nissa died, Rhaegar's transformation into Azor Ahai would be complete; so to fill the gap of the sorrowing Rhaegar Targaryen, why not the burned brother of Gregor Clegane? Rhaegar was forced to wallow in despair after losing those he loved, so why not the Hound?

He'd often felt a strange kinship to Sandor Clegane. He would watch him with interest as the large man made his rounds about the theater. There was a sad-eyed look behind the Hound's stoic façade that reminded Rhaegar of his own tragic loss encased behind his black mask.

The irony that Sansa should fall for Rhaegar's mirror image mocked him.

He turned his attention to the stage. The curtain rose and the chorus sang.

For a moment, Rhaegar allowed himself to get lost in the music. This would be his last time surveying the opera as its ghost; he would be reborn soon. He would trade his small kingdom for a larger one: the world.

But let him soak in the grandeur and beauty of the palace he would leave behind. One last time.

She took center stage. She sang.

Rhaegar's chest burned so terribly he hissed.

Lyanna Lyanna Lyanna –

The Rhaegar from before fought with the Phantom in the present. How could he kill the vessel which held the voice of his beloved?

He remembered the day he first heard Lyanna Stark's voice. He'd been conferring with that fool Pycelle before her first lesson with him, when she stomped into his studio, complaining about the wait. He took in her long wolf face, her dark hair tumbling down her shoulders, the mane pinned at the side by a blue rose clip. Those gray eyes flashed out dangerously but good-naturedly. Hand on one hip, she announced that enough was enough and she planned to sing regardless if the great Rhaegar Targaryen was ready or not.

He'd of course been struck by her great beauty and wild charm, but it wasn't until she sang... Until she sang.

He could not quit her side.

When she died, she took that voice with her, and thus any light in his world. Gregor Clegane took his soul away.

Along with….

No, he wouldn't think of them.

He watched Sansa Stark. Here was Lyanna's voice in a body any man would go mad for. As much as he treasured hearing that voice again, he'd found himself intoxicated with Sansa Stark's beauty and soft expressions almost as much. She was the best of Lyanna and the best of womanhood in general.

She sang now more beautifully than ever before.

The wicked girl was trying him. Testing his limits.

She sang, she sang, she sang….

It was the end of the third act when he realized he couldn't do it yet. Her Jonquil was so vulnerable in her frantic torment about the illegitimate child, and what to do with it. She touched him.

No. No death, not yet. Give her one more chance. One more.

He glanced at the new chandelier the opera house hastily installed. He glanced next at the area of the stage near the trapdoor he knew she'd stand by in the last act.

Yes, one more chance.

She was mad, Sandor kept telling himself: assuring himself. She was mad, and nothing was going to happen to her.

Yet each flicker of movement in his field of vision, any cough from the audience had him on edge.

Gods, her voice. How could she sing like that, with everything weighing on her shoulders?

But he'd see her right. The minute the curtain dropped, he'd be by her side, along with Selmy's men.

The taste of her lips was still on his. He tried not to savor it. The little bird was afraid. She knew not what she wanted. Once she reached home and the safety of her parents and their respectable existence, he'd be but a painful reminder of her lowest time.

Therefore he wouldn't let her see the tenderness burning in his eyes. Better for her to think him cold and uncaring. Better for him to actually be cold and uncaring. He was before she came into his life, and he could be again.

She was a sweet little bird, but daft and young. She was a lovely dalliance, nothing more. So forget about it, Hound. See her safe. Let getting her home be the one good thing you do with your lousy life, then move on. Leave the opera, leave Tywin's employ, and just fucking…wander the Seven Kingdoms and beyond. Be your own man.

Not hers.

This conviction was harder and harder to keep the more she sang. Even if he ever did get over her, he still knew that voice would remain with him forever.

Still, he valiantly tried to keep her at bay. He looked at anything but her: the props, the set pieces, the audience, the officers.

Until that last act.

Who couldn't look at her? Her hair streamed down her bare shoulders as she sang out her very soul. She sang with even more power and light than that first thundering night when she brought King's Landing to their feet.

All mouths were open, gawking.

Her graceful arms were reaching upward. Her eyes were blue pools of ecstasy.

She sang the line that years from now would cause onlookers to shiver when they thought back.

"…Save my soul from hell I pray!"

She was endearingly supplicating. She was a lost soul called home. She was -

The lights went out and plunged the theater in darkness.

Before Sandor or anyone else had time to react, they came back on.

A hoarse cry escaped Sandor.

Loras and Beric Dondarrion as the Stranger stood gaping onstage, helpless.

Sansa was gone.

A/N: The line "never be this happy again" is paraphrased from the song "No One Else" from the electropop-opera Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812. It's one of the greatest love songs ever in my opinion, and makes me think a lot of SanSan in a distant sort of way.

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