A/N – YOU GUYS! I broke 300 reviews last chapter. I honestly never imagined this story would be so popular, especially since it's a smaller fandom, so thank you all so much for your continued support!
Also, this chapter is a San x San interlude. It takes place the same night of the previous Arya chapter.
Warning: This chapter contains some physical violence.
Sansa pulls the stolen key from her purse and slips it into the locked door of Baratheon Corporations. The key is a spare that Joffrey keeps hidden in one of his bedroom drawers. If he finds out that Sansa stole it, he'll be furious, and even worse, he'll be suspicious. But Sansa knows he'll be racing Arya until at least one in the morning, so she has a few hours to work with.
The lock clicks open smoothly, and Sansa tugs the ski mask down further on her face. The material is warm and scratchy, but the Baratheon Corporations building is full of cameras, and they'll be too many questions if Sansa gets caught on one of them.
It's ten at night on a Sunday, so the building is completely deserted. From her year as an intern, Sansa knows that even the cleaners take Sunday night off of work. The building is silent and almost pitch-black. A few security lights pave the way to the stairs and elevator.
Sansa heads towards the stairs. Usually, she works on the top floor of the building, but tonight she's headed down to the basement. She's going to dig through old files until she finds something, anything, that can pin blame on the Baratheons.
The heavy door groans when Sansa opens it, and her shoes make soft, thumping sounds as she quickly treads down the stairs. She has to slide a small flashlight out of her pocket and flip it on so that she can see where she's going. She tried to avoid the basement as an intern- it's cold and dusty and full of thousands of files- so she isn't very familiar with the layout.
As soon as she reaches the bottom step, an automatic sensor turns on and floods the room with bright light. Sansa stifles a scream, and she quickly spins around, heart racing, wondering if anyone is behind her. But there's no one there. It must have just been a motion sensor.
For a second, Sansa considers turning around and heading back home. If she gets caught here, she'll be done for. But I can't, Sansa thinks, I came here to find evidence, and I'm not leaving until I get something good. After taking a calming breath, Sansa flips off her flashlight and heads back into the stacks of files.
They're everywhere. Enormous boxes filled with receipts, tax printouts, legal documents- anything and everything that has been filed in paper form over the past few decades. It's overwhelming. Not knowing where to start, Sansa wanders down a random aisle and starts glancing over the felt marker titles on each box: Tax, September 2005, Annual Reports August 1998, Refunds January 2002.
"I could have planned this better," Sansa says aloud. She knew how many files were down here. What made her think that a couple of hours on a Sunday night would give her enough time to sort through anything?
Well, better get started then.
Sansa starts to pull down box after box and thumb through paper after paper. Her eyes quickly scan over each document, not sure exactly what to look for. Most of the information is dull and routine. Every now and then she comes across something that looks suspicious, but whenever she takes a closer look, she realizes the information is useless.
After almost two hours of searching, her back is sore, her eyes are tired, and she's found absolutely nothing that will incriminate the Baratheons. She glances at her watch and realizes she only has about an hour until Joffrey will be home. She needs to get the key back to his apartment before then.
Sighing, she stands up, places the last box on the shelf, and heads back up the stairs. As she's walking through the lobby, a fleeting thought passes through her mind.
Why would they keep anything dangerous in the basement? In a place that everyone has access to? If there's something incriminating in this building, it's probably in Robert's office.
Again, Sansa glances at her watch. She only has an hour to get home but checking Robert's office shouldn't take long. The man barely works these days. He lets his son, his brother-in-law, and the rest of his employees take care of the business. Robert's office has been clutter free for years now- the search won't take long.
Making the impulse decision, Sansa heads to the elevator and takes it up to the top floor. The doors ping open, and she heads straight to Robert's office in the back corner of the floor. Her heart begins to race with excitement. She can feel it in the pit of her stomach- she knows she's about to find something good.
The office door isn't even locked. Sansa can't help but laugh softly. The Baratheons are so arrogant; they would never suspect their own staff of working against them. Sansa shuts the door behind her and immediately begins to rifle through drawers. Like she suspected, they're mostly empty, but the bottom left drawer has a tiny lock on it.
Sansa tries to open it anyways, but it's locked shut. She reaches up into her hair and extracts a bobby pin. A long tendril of auburn hair falls into her face, and she tucks it behind her ear.
Years ago, Arya would steal Sansa's things, like her make-up or underwear, and hide them all over the house. Finally Sansa decided her sister needed a lesson in karma, so she learned how to pick a lock. One day when Arya wasn't home, Sansa picked open the lock to Arya's 'secret safe' and stole every last trinket inside. She refused to give Arya her things back until Arya promised to never steal again.
The treaty lasted about three months before she had to steal Arya's things again, so over the years, Sansa got very good at picking locks.
Sansa slips the pin into the tiny keyhole, jimmies it around a bit, and smiles broadly when it click open. "Glad to see I haven't lost my touch," she says aloud.
Anticipation courses through her as she slowly opens the drawer. This is it, she thinks, I know it.
The only thing inside is a thin, manila folder. Sansa's heart drops a little with disappointment, but she extracts the folder and lays it out on Robert's mahogany desk. She opens it and finds about a dozen, hand-written memos, all from the law offices of Tyler & Durden and all addressed to Robert Baratheon.
Sansa quickly scans over the memos:
A dozen reports of axels fallen off... three deaths this week alone... faulty steering... into a lake... another death today... trying to keep it quiet...
Her hands start to shake as she realizes what she's holding. This is it. Evidence. Criminal evidence. According to these memos, it looks like the Baratheon Corporation, or at least Robert, tried to cover up hundreds of faulty cars that led to at least ten deaths. They didn't even pull the cars from production until a year later.
I can't believe it, Sansa thinks. She knew the Baratheons were terrible people, but she never imagined they would actually endanger the lives of hundreds of innocents all to avoid an expensive lawsuit. It looks like they doled out money to the victims, but only a quarter as much as they would have spent if the case had gone to trial. They paid the victims to keep their mouths shut and keep the profitable, yet dangerous car on the market.
A mixture of hatred and relief floods through Sansa. This is it. If she's smart, she can use this to bring them down. If she's smart, she can hopefully use this to help her father. She just needs time to think about the best way to do it.
Sansa shuts the desk drawer, slips the manila file in her large purse, and quickly exits the building. Her watch reads 12:45. Hopefully she'll beat Joffrey home.
Just as Sansa is slipping the key back in Joffrey's drawer, the front door slams open and angry footsteps sound down the hallway. Sansa's heart starts racing, and her throat goes dry. She has no reason for being at Joffrey's apartment at one in the morning, and to add to it, it sounds like he didn't win the race.
Sansa turns around, desperately trying to think of an excuse, but Joffrey's footsteps are getting closer and closer. And when she steps into the hallway, she collides with him. He let's out a surprised scream and takes her harshly by the shoulders, staring into her eyes with a furious, almost manic, expression.
"What the hell are you doing here?" He screams. "Trying to give me a heart attack?"
Sansa tries to calm her racing pulse, tries to think of all the moves Sandor has been teaching her this past week, tries to remember the fact that she now has dirt on the Baratheons, but all she can think about is Joffrey and how his sharp fingers are digging into her skin and bruising her shoulders, and how her cheek still throbs with dull pain from where he last hit her.
She opens her mouth, but no words come out.
"I said, what the fuck are you doing here?"
"I-"
"I know you're slow Sansa, but try a little bit harder, and you won't come across as such a fucking idiot all the time. Thank god you're not half bad to look at because that's about all you have going for you." Joffrey releases her shoulders but then shoves her harshly against the wall.
Sansa stays there, shaking softly. He's even angrier than usual.
"Well?" Joffrey crosses his arms. "Are you going to answer me or not?"
"I, I thought I'd just come by and say hello."
"Come by and say hello?" Joffrey laughs harshly. "When the fuck have you ever done that? And at one in the morning?" Joffrey takes a step closer to Sansa. She can feel his warm, acidic breath washing over her as he speaks. "No. You're up to something. I can practically smell it on you."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Joffrey."
"I'm talking about the fact that you're sneaking around my apartment in the middle of the night, and you look guilty." Joffrey grabs Sansa wrist and squeezes it tightly, twisting it at a painful angle. Tears well up in Sansa's eyes. "Now tell me what the fuck you've been doing."
"Nothing!" Sansa screams.
"I don't believe you."
Joffrey drops her wrist, and then, just as she's about the rub it, Joffrey lashes out and slaps her hard across the face. The force of the blow almost pushes her to the ground, and a sharp pain shoots through Sansa's head.
"Stop it!" She screams. The fear is dissipating, and the anger is welling up within her. Sandor's lessons come back to her, his words coiling up like a snake ready to bite.
Being angry is a good thing...funnel your anger...
Sansa's hands curl into fists, and as Joffrey goes to slap her again, Sansa ducks out of the way, spins around, and hooks a hard punch to his left cheek. The sound of the punch is hollow and sharp, and Joffrey shouts with pain. Sansa's knuckles will be bruised tomorrow, and she smiles with satisfaction.
"I told you to stop it," she whispers, her voice dangerously low. "You'd better start listening to me, Joffrey."
When Joffrey stands up, there's a boiling fury in his eyes. His cheek is sliced open from her ring, and blood is trickling down onto his shirt.
"You're a stupid, stupid girl," Joffrey spits out.
He lunges forward and tries to grab Sansa by the throat, but she spins out of his reach. They start to grapple at each other, each punch and kick becoming more and more clumsy as the bruises start to form, and as the sharp pain grows more and more intense. Joffrey aims for Sansa's cheek, but instead, hits her in the temple, clouding her vision with severe, constricting pain.
But before he can get another hit in, she nails him in the stomach, and is satisfied to see that her punches damage Joffrey a lot more than they damage Sandor. The blow sends Joffrey to the ground, and Sansa, extremely lightheaded, realizes it's her time to exit. She jumps over him and quickly retreats down the hallway, one hand clutching the bleeding side of her face, limping, with her weight on her left leg.
"This isn't over!" Joffrey shouts from behind her, his voice edged with discomfort.
The pain has never been this intense. The abuse has never gone this far.
But as Sansa turns around one last time and sees Joffrey crumpled on the ground, body clenched in pain, she can't help but smile. She's not a caged bird anymore. Now she has talons as sharp as a lion's.
The lights are on in Sandor's apartment, and when Sansa tries the knob, the door swings open. She hesitantly steps into the room and shouts, "Hello?"
After the first session at the karate studio, Sandor decided to relocate the training to his own apartment. It was less of a hassle that way, and Sandor assured Sansa that Joffrey never stooped so low as to come by Sandor's home. Sandor also told her that if Joffrey ever got rough again and she needed help, to let him know.
Sansa isn't sure why Sandor told her that. She isn't sure why he wants to help. Maybe because he hates Joffrey as much as she does.
But now, it's two in the morning, and she's bleeding profusely, and she's not about to show up at Margaery's or Arya's place to ask for help. Her friend and her sister would spend too much time asking questions and not enough time checking to see if she needed stitches.
No. Sandor is a much better option. He's the most silent person Sansa knows.
"Hello?" She shouts again, this time a bit louder. She looks down and winces, noticing that she's dripping fresh dots of blood on the carpet. Her head feels woozy as soon as she looks down, and she has to grip the door for support. It was probably a dumb idea to drive here considering she's having trouble standing. It sounds like something Arya would do.
"Anyone here?" Black dots wave in front of her vision, and she has the fight back the queasy feeling coursing through her. Sansa's entire body seems to be throbbing in pain.
She takes a few steps forward, gripping the chair, and then the couch, as she makes her way further into the apartment. "Hello?"
Finally, a rough voice responds, "Who the fucking hell is in my apartment?" The voice sounds thick, coated with sleep.
Dammit, Sansa thinks. I woke him up.
A door creaks open and footsteps sound down the hallway. Sandor appears, wearing only a pair of boxers, and Sansa's stomach drops. Her eyes slowly graze over his naked torso, over thick and scarred muscle, before dropping down to his strong, bare legs. She bites her bottom lip and just barely manages to drag her eyes away.
When she looks up, Sandor is staring at her with an intense, yet unreadable expression. Her face flushes, and heat floods through her body. An unfamiliar feeling pulses through her.
Am I attracted to him?
The idea is foreign, almost laughable, but as her eyes quickly flicker back over his exposed body, she can feel her body course with desire.
"What the hell happened to you?" Sandor asks.
"I-" for a second, Sansa almost forgot why she was at his apartment, but then the pain hits her again with twice the force, and she has to lean against the couch for support. "Joffrey happened."
"I guess our lessons didn't get you far."
Sansa smiles. It hurts. "I don't know, Sandor, you should see him."
"Hmm." Sandor crosses his arms, and Sansa watches his bare muscles contract. "Is that right?"
"I left him bleeding on the ground."
Sandor nods, and his lips lift in a ghost of a smile. It's about as happy as Sandor ever looks. "Good."
She was hoping he would say something else. I'm proud of you. I knew you could do it. He'll never hurt you again. But this is Sandor she's talking to, and she has to remember that.
Sansa starts to move forward so that she can go to the bathroom and clean herself up, but she stumbles. Sandor's arms sweep out and catch her. He pulls her safely to his bare chest, and sharp lust instantly wells up within her. His body is warm, hard, and strong, and the blood-loss is making everything feel surreal. When she looks up into his dark eyes, so can imagine reaching up and pressing her lips to his.
"You're all right," Sandor says, his voice still throaty with sleep.
Sansa can feel her entire body flushing. Is he not feeling this too? Am I hallucinating?
"Come on, let's get you cleaned up before you bleed all over the rest of my floor." Sandor gently grabs her arm and wraps it around his thick waist so that she can lean on him as they head into the bathroom. The contact is overwhelming, and Sansa is tempted to ask Sandor to put a shirt on. But then he would ask why, and that's a question she doesn't want to answer.
When they get to the bathroom, Sansa sits on the closed lid of the toilet. Sandor runs hot water over a washcloth and then slowly wipes her face clean with light, measured strokes. Sansa closes her eyes and begins to drift away.
Somehow, despite all the pain, all the trauma, her body finally feels at ease, with Sandor crouched beneath her, with his warm, strong hands gently brushing against her skin.
A/N – Aw, I missed writing San x San. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. I hope this story isn't too angsty or anything. I'm really bad at gauging this stuff.
Thank you for reading and reviewing! I love to hear your guys feedback!
(also- did anyone get my movie reference? Hint: it's one directed by fincher)