Author's Notes: Apologies for a longish break…also for the unusual order of the events in this chapter – I promise this is the last one of those! I wanted to trial a story where the action is immediate, and the introduction to the situation comes afterwards. The first chapter described it with Sandor, now it is Sansa's turn.

Summary: She deliberately refused to think about the rage in his eyes, his rude words and the dagger he had held against her throat, as none of it fit into her fantasy world. Of course she knew that the Hound of her dreams was not real, but especially after the news of his death had reached the Vale, she didn't care anymore. He became the epitome of everything knightly, and if that was nothing but a stupid fantasy, what of it?

Sansa

All Sansa could think of was the Hound and the way he had brutally attacked one of his captors. What is he doing here? Where has he been?

Even the needlework she forced herself to do couldn't pacify her and she got up, moving around the tent, lifting things, dropping them again, trying to make some sense of what she had just seen.

She took a deep breath. Should I reveal myself to him? Or should I hide?

He looked the same as the last time she had seen him, except for the absence of drunkenness. The rage was still in him, the violence exuding from every pore of his body. It was almost a slap across her face to see him like that, so raw.

Sansa sat down on a wooden trunk and buried her face in her hands. She tried to calm her breathing and still the rapid pace of her heart. After a while she felt better. Why am I being such a fool? He is just an angry man and a deserter.

Yet deep in her heart she knew exactly why she was so affected.

Over time she had thought of him often. In her captivity – as that's what it was, despite Petyr calling it 'protection' – she had often escaped into her own little world, one that she had made up in her head. There were not many things she could change about what had happened in the past, but recalling how the Hound had been the one person in King's Landing who had been kind to her in his own crude way had made it possible for her to build him anew in her mind. Instead of a coarse warrior who loved killing, he became a brave knight protecting an innocent maiden.

Oh yes, she knew very well how foolish her dreams of knights and maidens were; she had seen enough to realise their falseness. Regardless, whenever she had wanted to flee into a world where she could feel protected, and not reminded of how everything that she had held dear in her life had been taken away from her, she had thought of the Hound. He had saved her that day on the battlements when she had wanted to kill Joffrey. He had rescued her from the riots. He had tried to save her from the humiliation of being stripped in front of the whole court. He had offered to take her with him to the North and kill everyone who tried to hurt her.

She deliberately refused to think about the rage in his eyes, his rude words and the dagger he had held against her throat, as none of it fit into her fantasy world. Of course she knew that the Hound of her dreams was not real, but especially after the news of his death had reached the Vale, she didn't care anymore. He became the epitome of everything knightly, and if that was nothing but a stupid fantasy, what of it?

Sansa took up her sewing again and sat down on her pallet. It was just a rough homespun tunic, but she was glad that she had something to while the time away with. Without the repair work the women of the village gave her she would have gone mad for sure. She sewed the tear in the cloth with neat little stitches and the monotony of the work allowed her thoughts to wander back to the Hound of her dreams.

Sometime later Timett came to see her. Sansa had been relieved to notice that he didn't seem to want her as so many other men had. She had learned to recognise well enough the hungry gaze they directed at her, but she couldn't detect that in Timett. He had a woman of his own and it seemed that Sansa was not his type anyway as his woman was dark, strong and voluptuous. Besides, even mountain men had honour.

She welcomed her host warmly, not forgetting her manners.

"The man they caught today, you know him?" Timett asked, settling himself on the best seat in the tent. Sansa couldn't describe him exactly as a warm and jovial host, but he still had lots of respect for Tyrion, the man who had given him and his clan so much, and he had treated his wife well – so far.

"I knew him a bit. He was Joffrey's sworn shield and a member of the Kingsguard," Sansa replied warily. "What do you plan to do with him?"

"Kill him. First I find out if he knows anything about the Lannisters or Littlefinger's plans, or anything that may affect the clans. After that I can't just let him go. You saw him, the rabid dog would turn and bite us in the arse."

"Could you take him into your service? He is a strong warrior." Sansa didn't know what made her say that. What was it to her what they did with the Hound? She would still have the imaginary version of him in her head, and it was much safer that way.

"Join us? No, men like him don't care about us, they go to those who pay the highest wages. Besides, he has already deserted one master. What good would such a man be to me?"

Sansa had to admit it made sense. Out of the blue she heard herself saying, "Maybe I should talk to him first, tonight?"

Timett looked at her and pondered her words for a while, then shrugged his broad shoulders.

"If you want. Might be he will tell you something he may not tell us. Even if he doesn't, it doesn't matter. Just be careful, the Halfman will not thank me if I let his woman get savaged by a dog."

Sansa promised and Timett left, telling her that he was going to let the guards know to expect her.

After she was alone Sansa felt a calm come over her. She hadn't wished for this, but now that the opportunity had presented itself, she should take it. She knew that whatever was ahead of her, whether it was to be caught and taken back to Petyr and his bed, staying with the mountain clan or a perilous journey across the North in an attempt to reach Winterfell, she had to be strong. She could allow no softness in her, no more stupid little girl's dreams.

She sighed and squared her shoulders. Her last foolish dream was about a warrior, a killer made soft when he was anything but. It was time for her to crush that last silly bastion of weakness in her and face the world as it was.

Yes, it was time to meet the real Hound.

Gaining access to him was easy. Once in front of him she saw him to be as astonished as she had been about their meeting.

The Hound snarled, he growled, he was a brute as she had expected. The good old times, indeed! His laugh took her off-guard, and she hated his insinuations about Petyr. When he talked she took a good look at him. He looked older and the lines in his face had become deeper. The scars were as hideous as they had always been, but she found that she didn't need to turn her head away from them anymore. She had seen so much worse, ugly acts covered by smooth appearance. At least the Hound was honest about what he was.

There was still anger in his eyes but now that his captors were not near, it didn't burn as hot as it had done earlier – or in King's Landing. Up close his presence was almost suffocating; he was so tall and strong, his legs as tree trunks and arms and neck muscled like a bull. He had rolled the sleeves of his tunic up and loosened the laces in the front and she could see how his dark beard gradually merged with the thick hair on his chest. He was like an animal, an eye-catching and dangerous beast. Nothing chivalrous or gentle in him. Good. It is better this way.

However, when he mentioned Arya Sansa's heart stopped for a moment. She had to know more.

When the guard came back with the food she saw the two wine skins and decided that she might need them both. When the Hound offered one of them to her, she surprised herself by taking it and gulping down the strong, bitter liquid. She knew she was close enough for him to attack her if he so wished, but she felt no fear. His very presence overwhelmed her physically although he didn't even touch her, but she welcomed it. She had to be strong, she had to face life as it was. She was ready to face the Hound.

"As soon as you are ready, maybe it is time for you to fulfil your side of our bargain," she said, sitting down next to him.

Earlier that day

Sansa was doing the same thing she had done for the whole week; pacing restlessly in the lodgings they had appointed for her. Back and forth, back and forth, her steps took her around the small tent.

She was treated well, she couldn't fault that. Horror stories she had heard about what happened to those taken by the mountain men had chilled her to the bone when she had first realised the identity of their attackers. Their small group had been woefully unable to resist the horde of wild warriors when they streamed out of the woods shrieking like seven devils. Men of the Vale were brave, but there were not enough of them and the attackers were too many. In a few short moments the men defending her were dead or dying and Sansa's horse had been captured by a short, bow-legged man. As he had turned his head towards her and grinned a smile made grotesque by the fact that half his teeth were missing, a dread like no other had squeezed Sansa's heart.

Yet she had been taken swiftly to their leader, and they had recognised each other easily. How could Sansa have forgotten the scary one-eyed man who used to follow Tyrion wherever he went? Likewise, Timett had acknowledged that by some strange stroke of fate he had captured the wife of the man who had been good to him and his tribe. They owed Tyrion for their sharp new weapons, bags of gold and the many other trophies Timett and his men had brought with them from the capital.

So he had treated Sansa with civility, asked about Tyrion and assured her that no harm would come to her. Sansa had muttered something vague about her husband's whereabouts, he having escaped across the Narrow Sea for the time being, to return from there when the time was right. So far Timett had been true to his word, but Sansa knew that her position was untenable in the long run. What could she do? Where could she go?

She sank onto her pallet and for the hundredth time tried to evaluate her position dispassionately. She was sure that by now Petyr would have sent search parties to find her; he was not a man who admitted defeat that easily. Besides, Sansa was important to him, in more ways than one.

She shuddered when she thought of him and his carefully wrought schemes. Since being whisked away Sansa had known that he hadn't done it out of the goodness of his heart, no matter how many times he tried to convince her of that. No, Petyr had plans and Sansa was central to them.

It hadn't taken long for her to realise that Petyr having lost his only true love, her mother, he had turned to the second best option - and that was Sansa. Sometimes it made her sad to think how enduring Petyr's feelings were, how pitiful it must have been to go through his life longing for a woman who didn't reciprocate his feelings. Had circumstances been different she could have felt compassion, could have even tried to console the man…yet he had destroyed all that by trying to use Sansa as a replacement.

He didn't touch her, at least in the beginning. Sansa knew that her maidenhood was safe until it served its purpose by allowing the annulment of her marriage and a new marriage with a man of Petyr's choosing. Herein was the other reason why Petyr had stolen her. He wanted power above all things; not for himself directly, but he wanted to be the puppet master behind those who wielded it, the one who truly decided the fates of the realms.

Hence Sansa had been sent to the Quiet Isle to secure the documentation releasing her from Tyrion. Then a wedding…and Petyr's bed.

Again Sansa felt cold chills traveling down her spine. Under the guise of a loving father Petyr had taken up a habit of patting her back and behind, giving her kisses, pulling her onto his knee and generally touching her in ways that were anything but fatherly. She had no illusions about what would await her – she only wondered whether Petyr had made a deal with her new husband, in which a noble wife and Winterfell were all he was going to get and Petyr would take the husband's rights?

Sansa took the needlework she had been doing and tried to concentrate on that for a while. The coarse fabric felt reassuring under her fingers, and soon her sharp eyes detected a tear at the front of the tunic. She took a needle and some thread from a small basket and steadied her hand.

Suddenly loud noises from outside startled her. She cocked her head and tried to make sense of what they were about; life in the village was normally subdued and peaceful, the wild ways of the clans seemingly being mostly limited to their interactions with outsiders.

She had stayed mostly in her tent on Timett's advice; although she had the freedom to come and go as she pleased, a young woman on her own among the men of the village would be an invitation to trouble. Timett had told everyone to leave her alone, but Sansa knew that she had to do her own part as well and she couldn't just walk around bringing the attention of hot-blooded young men on herself.

These sounds were intriguing, however; something big was happening. She heard shouts, something that sounded like cursing and lots of laughter. Her curiosity eventually got the best of her and she quickly draped her cloak around her, raised the hood over her head and slipped outside.

She soon deduced where the sounds came from and sneaking closer she saw a man; a huge man, tall and muscular and emanating the strength of a captured wild beast despite being tied and forced down on the ground. She witnessed his attack on one of his tormenters and she had to turn her head away from the brutality of it.

Hearing Timett's words shocked her profoundly. The Hound! Her heart lurched and for a moment she felt almost physically ill. Joffrey's dog. The Butcher of Saltpans.

Sansa had thought him dead – everyone had. After the atrocities of Saltpans the brute in a hound's helmet had disappeared never to be heard from again. Only whispers among the smallfolk told of his demise, how he would have been defeated in a struggle with some other outlaws.

Sansa wasn't ready to meet him - they didn't have anything to say to each other. Quietly she retreated to her tent, but as she did so, the Hound was pulled onto his feet and turned around, his gaze sweeping across the crowd. It went past her, Sansa knew, but she was already turning and trusted her disguise and her hooded cloak to shield her from him. Hurriedly she swept the tent flap aside and rushed into the relative safety of the interior.

Her heart was still thumping hard against her ribcage and for a while she had something else to think about than her current precarious position.