"I don't want your heart it leaves me cold
I don't want your future
I don't need your past
One bright moment
Is all I ask."

He had heard their footsteps coming to him, hers the slow strides and careful steps of a woman heavy with child, his brisk and nervous. He could not see her in the corridor but he could feel her presence.

She hadn't seen him yet, but he knew she could already tell who was behind the large wooden headboard. He was facing the opposite direction towards the window, the fire blazing against his cheek which caused small beads of sweat to drip from his gray-lined brow. He was sitting up, propped lazily against too many down pillows for his liking.

His usual graceful legs were useless to go to her as he desperately wished, so he just rested there, waiting in uncomfortable torment. The air was thick with silence, and he could sense her confusion. In his mind he imagined every crease of her brow, every wrinkle in her nose, and every twitch of her enticing lips as she wracked her brain for answers.

He knew she was combing through every moment of the last week, trying to find what she had missed, what subtle hint in one of their conversations she had not noticed, or an expression on his face that she had misread. He knew that his Lady Wife was not going to take this news very well, and honestly he thought it may be the end to any kind of affection or intimacy they may have shared, but it was a choice that had to be made, a quiet move on the board. He knew there was no other way their plan was going to be successful.

"Petyr….." he heard her whisper. It wasn't even a question, his name taking her breath away.

Sansa couldn't breathe. His name was caught in her throat, and it was as if her lungs had closed themselves off. Her heart was pounding uncontrollably in her chest as she slowly inched over to the bed. She wondered why he hadn't gotten up yet. Was he that much of a coward that he could not face her? She finally reached the simple, but large oak headboard, and propped herself against it. The baby could feel her excitement and kicked. Her hand came quickly up to her lower belly for support.

The bed was close to the fire, and she could feel the intense heat radiating from the hearth. The cloying essence of mint and lemons with small undertones of the putrid scent of sick still lingering in the air. She thought it may be more than she could bear to look directly upon him. It was just too hard to comprehend that he was still alive, that he hadn't left her here to fend for herself, and that she had been completely fooled by him….again. So she chose to stay where she was, unready for the truth.

"I…." she heard his rasping voice try to say something, and then he stopped as if he couldn't come up with anything useful to announce.

"How could you do this to me?" She asked him pleadingly, still not rounding the bed to face him. To her satisfaction, her voice did not falter. It stayed smooth and even as she asked the question.

"It had to be done, my lady. You will see. This was the only way." This was all he offered her as a reply.

She held back her tears now, but her voice still gave no hint of emotion away. All her thoughts came tumbling out at once,

"I entered into this marriage contract with only the slightest notion of who you were. I knew you were the Master of Coin that owned all the whores in King's Landing, and you weren't to be trusted even with all your smiles. I knew nothing of men or the politics of marriage, or what it met to be your wife. But in time, I saw hints of Petyr flicker through the mask you kept for all others. I do understand what it was my mother saw in you years ago, and why she protected you from my brute of an uncle. I thought my eyes had opened to who you really were, and imagined that you saw something in me no one else cared to. You made me feel as if I was strong, and you were going to help me overcome the Queen. I didn't care whether it was for your love of my mother, or just as a way for you to further yourself in the game. What I didn't realize was how complicated marriage and my emotional ties to you became, especially with your baby growing inside me."

There was nothing but silence from behind the bed, nothing but the crackle of the fire giving rhythm to her words.

She continued, "To everyone else, it probably seemed a great relief that my older and social-climbing husband passed, giving me a chance to find someone better suited for the daughter of Ned Stark. But I have to admit this to you…I didn't realize it before I thought it was too late. But even with all that's happened between us, I think you deserve to know my truth. I was standing there looking at your lifeless form, no hint of expression on your features, your skin icy to the touch. It was in this moment that I realized that I loved you, all of you. That I didn't want to live this life without you. Of all the people in the entire kingdom, it was you Petyr."

She paused, her voice faltering only slightly at her affirmation, the pain forcing through her feigned cold demeanor.

"But in the end, the songs others sang of the mockingbird were true. You betrayed my trust, the same as my father. I know now that someone like you could never truly love. Only possess."

And with that she raced from the room before he could utter a response, without ever peering into those grey-green eyes, now full of life. Those which she still desperately longed to see.