A/N: Hello. Just so you know, this chapter consists mainly of a letter, not from Sam again this time though. I actually had a lot of fun writing it. Anyway, it's basically just the aftermath of Sansa's admission of Sam's proposal from her point of view. The next chapter will be the same, but from Sandor's, and then after that, we'll get back to the story itself. The chapter title means 'grief' and, since there's basically no Hawaiian in this one, I'll give the translation up here: pupuka 'ēlemu means 'ugly ass'. And last but never least, thank you to Denali Direwolf, Mari88,and Vrna for their reviews. They were greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Her Interactive and George R. R. Martin, except for Samuel Collins.

He was on his feet before Sansa could even begin to think of the repercussions of what she had just said, his grey eyes cold and angry.

"He what?"

Suddenly afraid, she swallowed thickly and curled into herself, wrapping her arms tightly around her knees. "Asked me to marry him." It came out as barely more than a whisper.

"And what did you say?" His tone was short, his questions clipped and abrupt. It made her nervous. By now, she knew all too well what he was capable of when angered.

"I...I haven't said anything yet, but—"

"But what? But you might? But you should?"

"No, Sandor, I just—"

"What?" He yelled, finally raising his voice. She wasn't sure if it was a relief to actually see his anger or if things were about to turn very bad for her. "If you haven't answered to tell him to fuck off, then you're considering it, aren't you? What the hell are we then? Just trying to learn the ropes with my pupuka 'ēlemu so you can learn how to fuck your crippled husband?"

At that, Sansa could feel her eyes well up with tears and she scrambled to her feet, reaching out toward Sandor and letting out a sob when he jerked away. "How could you think that? I just wanted to tell you so that—"

"So that I would know to keep my hands off another man's property. Well, message received. You won't have to see me ever again."

And with that, he was gone.

Sansa was sure that she had never felt so miserable in her entire life. Once, when she was younger, Arya had managed to get her to cover for her while she stole a stick of gum from the convenience store down the street and she had thought that she could never feel worse than she had when their father had found out and ordered them both to return to the store and apologize to the owner. Whatever she had felt then paled in comparison.

She had eaten little since her fight with Sandor and slept even less. Unfortunately, since she was working extra to try and keep herself from thinking of what had transpired, her physical and emotional exhaustion was quickly catching up to her and when she fell into her bed to cry herself to sleep for the fourth consecutive night, she wondered if it would be so awful if she just never woke again.

Shae and Myranda had noticed her sudden listlessness and depression, and though both had tried to help her in their own ways, Sansa had remained distant and closed off, offering quiet one-word mumbles if she spoke at all. After a week, they gave up.

Every night, before the crying began, Sansa would take the letter from beneath her pillow, unfold its now worn creases, and reread it before briefly considering responding in a fit of anger, and finally succumbing to her grief and drifting into a fitful sleep plagued by nightmares of a comfortable life as Mrs. Sansa Collins.

After two weeks, she sat down at the cramped desk in the nurses' office and set about writing a letter. Not to Sam, as she was still unsure what her answer to him would be, but to her sister. It had been too long since she had heard from Arya and she wasn't sure who else she could turn to for advice.

The letter was brief, desperate, and stained with tears. It explained with far too little detail that the once perfect Sansa Stark who had nowhere to go but up had been stationed at Pearl Harbor, survived a deadly attack by the Japanese, and subsequently begun a relationship with a two hundred year old man who lived under a volcano and had recently burned down two nearby villages because Pele had told him to. Satisfied, Sansa sealed it, stamped it, and sent it out with the next weeks' post.

It had been nearly a month before she got a reply. By then, the calendars had turned, Valentine's Day had come and gone, along with another unanswered letter from Sam, this time more insistent and bit worried by the lack of a response, and Sansa had begun to recover. The ache in her gut still returned when she managed to walk outside of the hospital and her eyes sought out the line of the jungle of their own accord, and on occasion, her fingers still brushed lightly over her mouth, remembering how it had felt to be kissed by that pair of half-burnt lips, but she was coping.

She was celebrating the recovery of the one of the more grievously injured soldiers with her fellow nurses and other patients when Gilly found her and handed over the letter, the hospital's address scrawled across the front in the messy but familiar handwriting of her younger sister.

Excusing herself, she retreated to their quarters and sat down on the edge of her mattress, carefully opening the letter and reading through the response that Arya had given.

Sansa,

If the fact that you're writing to me in the first place didn't tell me you were crazy, the story you told in your letter certainly did. Perhaps you should be a patient in that hospital, not a nurse, eh? I always knew you'd crack eventually.

But you took the time out of your no doubt busy schedule to write to me for advice, so the least I can do is humor the mad ravings of my not always dear sister and respond as though what you wrote is true. As such, here's my advice:

First off, you're an idiot for being in this situation. I always knew those good looks of yours would get you into some kind of trouble. Call me 'Horseface' all you like, sweet sister; my life's been better than yours for that face of mine.

This Samuel Collins of yours sounds like a good man. Handsome, brave, very much smitten if you aren't over exaggerating his feelings for you. You always did have a penchant for the dramatic. But do you remember the last handsome man who fell for you? Do you remember the bruises that he gave you? All the times that he told that you were worthless, and that you were better off dead?

Mom and Dad may not have known what that monster did to you, but I always did, and as much as you and I may not have gotten along back then, I hated him for it. For what he did to you. Stuck up bitch or not, you're family, and I can't bear to see you hurt again.

But you learned after that, so if you so much as give him the time of day, I know he isn't like Joffrey. So then he means the best, and he would take good care of you and give you that swarm of little redheaded brats you've always wanted. He would certainly be able to provide for you after the war, assuming that we win. Your life with him would be safe, and maybe that's what you need.

But then there's the other side of this wild tale you've told me. This immortal monster ravaging the Hawaiian Islands when he isn't too busy ravaging you, from what I understand. Kāne 'Ōkala, was it? Sounds like you're hurling when you try to say it. Then again, so does German; take my word for it.

The way you wrote about him made him seem almost...perfect. Somehow, his centuries old burns aren't revolting, but alluring, and when he growls at you, it makes you wet instead of scaring you. I know the feeling.

Funny as it is to say it, I think we have more in common right now than we ever have before. I know what it's like to feel how you do. How can I agree with what the reporters back home are saying about the Germans when the one I wake up next to every morning is the kindest, gentlest man I've ever met? If I came back home, even Robb would call me a traitor for sleeping with the enemy. But how can it be treason to make love to my husband?

I'm not a Stark anymore, Sansa. And maybe you shouldn't be either. Maybe we're better suited as H'ghar and Clegane than we ever were as Starks. The shack that Jaqen and I live in feels more like home than that big old house ever did.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've realized from a short and very obviously hurriedly written letter what you haven't managed to wrap your little brain around in two months: you love him.

Simple as that; if you can call love simple. The Sansa I used to know would've written Petty Officer Collins back before the ink on his letter had even dried, telling him just how happy she would be to be the future Mrs. Samuel Collins. That ring would be on your finger so fast, and you'd be in some big, pretty church not long after. The fact that you haven't answered his letter says more than you think it does.

You don't want to be with him, even though you know that it's the only rational course of action because you're in love with another man. You, Sansa Stark, are deeply, madly, irrationally in love with Sandor Clegane. Now get off your ass, march under that damned volcano, and realize it for yourself.

Forever your little sister,

Arya H'ghar

By the time she had finished reading, the paper was wet with her tears and the hole in Sansa's heart that she had been so carefully mending had been torn open again, bloody and raw as she considered her sister's words.

Of course, Arya was right.

Ever since Kāne 'Ōkala had emerged from the jungle, she had been intrigued, and when she had gotten to know the man beneath the legend, the man that she had grown so close to, she had fallen in love. As Arya had said, she was deeply, madly, irrationally in love with Sandor Clegane, and she had been too afraid to admit it.

Steeling her resolve, she stood and smoothed out her rumpled uniform. She was going to find him, and she was going to tell him exactly how she felt, whether he wanted her to or not.