Hello dear readers!

Sorry to keep you waiting! Lots of stuff happened. I promise that I won't make you wait for the next chapter, I have it almost finished!

I hope you all had a great New Year! :D

Thanks again to awesome beta DGMSilverAirHead03 for her wonserful job! ^^

Enjoy!

There was instant chaos in the city square. The thousands of people that were standing there, admiring their leaders just mere seconds ago, were suddenly screaming and running away in all directions, wanting a way out and pushing people down and stepping on each other in the process.

Sandor was still holding Joffrey down against the ground, protecting him with his body like a shield. The shooter, whoever the fuck it had been, could try to shoot again if he got a chance. When that didn't happen in the next three seconds, Sandor stood up as quickly as he could, dragging Joffrey up with him. Sandor put his back in the direction that the bullet had come from, and he put Joffrey right in front of him, still covering him like a shield. It was his job.

"Move!" he barked, knowing that he had to take the Governor away from that place right now, before it became impossible to get away or the shooter decided to give it another shot.

Governor Renly Baratheon's body was lying still, lifeless on the floor a few feet away. He was completely surrounded by a pool of thick, red blood. His lifeless eyes looked surprised; he didn't even know what had hit him. His face was still smiling, like he always had.

Governor Robb Stark had already been taken away by his own bodyguards, and all the Starks were gone, driving off to safety. As Sandor and Joffrey ran down the steps of the Sept of Baelor, the bodyguard could see that all the other bodyguards were hurrying to take all the families to safety as well, making them hurry inside the limos. Loras Tyrell, however, was refusing to leave. He screamed, mad with grief and shock, and tried to run up the steps in an attempt to get to his dead lover's side. Renly's bodyguard, a huge blonde woman, grabbed Loras and stopped him from running away, but the man was still struggling and screaming. He no longer cared if the whole world knew the truth about him and Renly, he just wanted to get to his side... But he couldn't. His sister Margaery was yelling his name from inside the limo to urge him to stop trying to get himself killed and go with the rest of the family, but he wasn't listening.

Sandor stopped looking at them; he had his own problems to solve. He had to take his boss to safety; after all, it was at Joffrey's head that the bullet was aimed, not at Renly's. The other bodyguards, Meryn and Boros, were waiting outside the limo for them, holding the door open.

"Is everyone else inside?!" Sandor asked, yelling so that he would be heard above all the screams that came from the panicked crowd. Boros nodded, and Sandor pushed Joffrey roughly inside the limo and jumped in after him. Meryn and Boros followed him, they closed the door, and the chauffeur started driving away as fast as he could down the street and away from that place that had just turned into hell.

Myrcella was sobbing on her seat, and hugged her brother Tommen tightly. They were both very scared; they had after all just seen their favorite and beloved uncle killed during a failed attempt to murder their own brother. Cersei was as white as milk, and she kept mumbling things under her breath. She was shaking, but then she hugged her older son, relieved that he was alive. Joffrey was also in shock and breathing hard. He looked infuriated; his face was red and the veins in his throat pulsed furiously, looking like they were about to explode...

"I want to know who it was..." He hissed after a few seconds. "I want to know who it was, and I want his head served to me on a silver platter!"

"Joffrey, calm down... You are safe now," his mother started saying, but it only made him angrier.

"I WON'T CALM DOWN! Someone tried to kill me, I want him dead!" He yelled. "I want them all dead! Who do they think they are, trying to kill me?! ME?!"

Myrcella shot him an accusatory glare.

"Don't talk to mom like that!" she exclaimed, in a sudden fit of bravery. "The police will find that person and deal with him like they're supposed to, not like you want! And they could have killed you if Sandor hadn't realized what was going on, you idiot!"

"SHUT UP!"

Sandor took his eyes away from all of them. Everybody was hysterical, as was obvious, but he couldn't stand to be in a closed space with them right at that moment. He rubbed his eyes and then he blinked and looked around inside the limo, searching for the only person that he cared for at that moment. He wondered if the little bird was alright. He hadn't seen her yet, but he imagined that she must be scared to death just like everybody else was. Maybe she would be even mad with him because he saved her stupid boyfriend's ass. Sandor had to fight the urge to laugh under his breath when that thought passed through his mind. However, the urge to laugh left him once he searched through the interior of the limo; he didn't see the little pop star anywhere. He did a double take, just in case, but he hadn't seen anything wrong.

Sansa wasn't there.

"Where is Miss Stark?" He asked, maintaining the sudden fear away from his voice and trying for sound as neutral as possible.

Joffrey looked around the limo, realizing just then that his fiancée wasn't there. He hadn't given her a single thought until his bodyguard mentioned her, and that infuriated Sandor, though he didn't let it show. Then the young politician shrugged, and Sandor could have punched his fucking teeth in.

"You said that everyone was inside!" He yelled to Meryn and Boros. They pretended that they didn't know what he was talking about.

"She's with the Starks," Cersei said then. She wasn't hugging her eldest son anymore because he had pushed her away, so her hands were back to being a trembling mess.

"Are you sure of that?" Sandor asked, trying to feel a bit calmer, but he couldn't. For some unknown reason he felt like he was suffocating; never before had he ever felt like that in his life.

"Where else could she be?!" Cersei exclaimed, clearly having no idea what had happened with his future daughter-in-law, and clearly not caring.

"Where could she-! She could be back in the city square, with the shooter and all those thousands of panicking people that could kill her!" he barked.

"She wasn't with us, she must have been with the Starks!" Cersei insisted. "She's not important right now! The target was my son, we need to take him away from here and into a safe place!"

"If they kill her, the Starks will have your head!" Sandor warned Joffrey, pouting a menacing finger at him. The young Governor wasn't listening and didn't care anyways, but he did shoot Sandor's menacing finger a disapproving glare.

"Why don't you call them?" Myrcella asked then, and they all looked at her. "The Starks, I mean."

Finally, someone with brains! Sandor thought.

"How? I doubt anyone here has Robb Stark's cell number?" He asked, but then to his surprise Myrcella reached inside her purse and fished her iPhone out of it. She dialed a number, and when she saw everyone's disconcerted eyes fixed upon her, she shrugged matter-of-factly. "I have Rickon Stark's number!"

Joffrey almost choked, while Cersei frowned while looking at her only daughter, clearly not happy.

"Why do you have Rickon Stark's number, young lady?"

"Ugh, Mom, I got it once while we were in Winterfell, gosh! I've known him for years..." She fell silent when the phone started ringing, waiting for the call to he answered. The seconds felt like hours to Sandor, who just wanted to snatch the phone away from Myrcella's hands and make the call himself, as if time would go faster. It seems like no one was going to pick up the call when suddenly Myrcella's eyes lighted up. "Rickon! It's me, Myrcella! ...Yes, we are all okay, but listen... Is your sister with you?"

A few seconds of silence, and then Myrcella looked at Joffrey and shook her head. Joffrey snorted, clearly immensely irritated by the entire situation, and Sandor almost whimpered. Sansa was not with the Starks. Where the fuck was she?!

He snatched the phone out of Myrcella's hands, ignoring her initial protest, and took it to his ear, the one that wasn't burned.

"Mr. Stark, I need to speak with your brother," he said without bothering to introduce himself. He was in no mood and had no fucking time for politeness. Rickon Stark didn't say a word before handing the phone over to his older brother, who answered the call with an altered and shaking voice. Before Governor Stark spoke, Sandor quickly told Tommen and Myrcella to call the Lannisters and the Tyrells to see if Sansa was with any of them.

"Hello?" The voice of Robb Stark came to him from the other side of the line.

"Governor Stark?"

"Who is this?"

"This is Sandor Clegane, the bodyguard of Governor Baratheon... The one that is alive, that is," he said. "Is your sister Sansa with you and your family?"

Sandor knew that Myrcella had just said that Rickon Stark had confirmed that Sansa was not with them, but he had to be completely sure...

"With us? She was supposed to be with you! We thought she was with you!"

Fuck!

"Where is my sister, Clegane?!" Robb Stark was shouting at the other end of the line, panicking. He was probably thinking the worse, just as Sandor was starting to do. He wasn't a man to easily lose his nerves, but he was feeling anxious indeed. When he didn't reply, Governor Stark shouted again: "Where is she?! Is she not with Joffrey?! What has happened to my sister?!"

Sandor could hear the voices of the rest of the Stark family near the phone asking what was going on, what was happening with Sansa. He could understand their uneasiness, he was feeling almost the same; he took a deep breath to calm himself down, and then he spoke again.

"I'm going to find her."

Without waiting for a reply from Governor Stark, he hung up the phone and he threw it back to Myrcella. Tommen had called the Tyrells, and he said that Sansa wasn't with them. Cersei had called her father, and he had said that the singer wasn't with them either. That only meant one thing. Sansa was still in the Sept of Baelor, in the city square, alone and surrounded by all those thousands of panicked people, which could end being fatal.

"Fuck!" Sandor cursed out loud, shouting and startling Cersei, Myrcella and Tommen, making them jump on their seats; Joffrey still didn't give a fuck about anything, so he didn't even flinch. Sandor looked to the front of the limo, to the driver: "Stop the fucking car!"

"Clegane! You are in no position to give orders!" Cersei Lannister exclaimed, but he silenced her with a deadly glare.

"Do you want to be in all the newspapers with the headline saying that you left Sansa Stark alone to die?!" he barked, playing with what he knew that would make the Lannister bitch agree to what he wanted. Cersei didn't want a scandal, and she didn't want a conflict with the Starks; she knew that she would have both of those if anything happened to the Stark girl under their protection. When Cersei didn't say anything again, Sandor barked the order again to the driver.

"Now!" he added.

The chauffeur obeyed and stopped the car, allowing Sandor a few seconds to open the door and get out to the street. As soon as the door of the limo was closed again, the vehicle drove off, leaving him alone next to the road. He didn't linger there for a second longer and started running up the street, back towards the Sept of Baelor. It took him fifteen minutes to reach the city square, which was still crowded with the panicking multitude. They were all trying to run in all directions, creating a tangled mess of human bodies that blocked the streets. Not giving up by that sight that could appear terrifying to anyone else, Sandor entered the city square in front of the Sept of Baelor and moved against that giant mass formed by thousands of bodies with the forced to crush and suffocate hundreds of people.

He had no fucking idea of where to start looking. The first thing he had done was move as close as possible to the steps where he had last seen Sansa, but she wasn't there. She couldn't be inside the Sept either, because all the doors were completely sealed and no one was able to get in. There wasn't anyone on the steps either; the only things there were the four podiums and Renly's body, left abandoned. At some point, a photographer climbed the steps and started to get dozens of pictures with his camera of the chaos that was forming in there; he was probably thinking of all the money the newspapers would give him for those pictures, instead of focusing on running like the other people were.

Sandor tried to search for Sansa in between the crowd, but that was almost impossible. The black dress that she was wearing made it hard for her to stand out in the crowd, so Sandor could only hope to see her hair, with its uncommon color... He turned around in between all those people, trying to see Sansa somewhere, anywhere! But nothing, he couldn't find her...

"Sansa!" he called her. His voice was silenced by the screams of the people around him, it would be a miracle if the girl managed to hear him, wherever she was! But calling her, shouting her name was one of the very few options that he had. "SANSA!"

There was an entrance to a small street a few feet away. He moved in between all the people that pushed him and crashed against him, running like scared sheep away from a big bad wolf. Couldn't they see that there hadn't been more shootings?! The shooter had failed, Joffrey had run away, he was the target, and that was it! They would be safe, if only they were able to stay calm. Their own fear was what was going to get them killed!

"SANSA!" he called when he was finally at the entrance of the narrow and somewhat dark street. He got no reply, as was expected, and there was no sign of Sansa being there. He turned around to look at the square again. The crowd was starting to slowly disappear, allowing a better look at the people in there, but the mess was still too big. They were moving in all directions, pushing and pulling and throwing each other to the ground in their desperation to get away from there. Where were the fucking cops to keep order when they were needed?!

He was about to dive back inside the crowd and risk being crushed by all those thousands of people in hopes of finding the Stark woman somewhere. He had to find Sansa as soon as possible and take her somewhere safe, if she hadn't been already crushed to death... He was going to head to the statue in the middle of the city square when suddenly he felt something vibrating inside his pocket. It was his fucking phone.

He immediately reached inside his pocket and took his phone out, because it could be important. Maybe someone had already found her, even though he didn't see how that was possible!

He frowned when he saw the number, for he did not recognize it. However, he picked up the call, still believing that it could be important.

"Hello?" he said. He thought that he could hear a faint voice, but the noise around him was too loud and did not let him hear. "Hello?!"

This time he could hear.

"Sa-Sandor..."

His eyes opened wide with disbelief. It was Sansa! It was the little bird called him! She was alive!

Never ever in his life had he ever been so happy and relieved to hear someone's voice over the phone.

"Sansa!" he exclaimed, overjoyed, thought his rough steel-on-stone voice didn't make him sound too positively excited. "Seven fucking buggering hells, girl, where are you?!"

He heard her sob over the phone, and all of a sudden he wasn't so relieved anymore. Fuck! Was she hurt? Had anyone done anything to her?

"Little bird, where are you? Tell me now and I will go and get you right now."

"B-but you all... left..."

"No, Sansa, I'm here. I'm here, I came back. Now, where are you?"

She sobbed again and stayed silent for a few seconds before mumbling loud enough for him to hear:

"I'm lost. I don't know where I am, I'm not in the square anymore, and I don't want to go back!"

"No, little bird, you don't have to do that. Just tell me what you see around you, and I'll go and get you," he said, trying to calm her down. "Little bird, what do you see?"

There were another few seconds of silence before the little bird started telling him what she saw: there was a shop in front of her. She said that the name on the sign was Tobho Mott. That was all that Sandor needed to know precisely where she was, for he had been around there multiple times.

"Alright, Sansa. Listen to me. Stay there and don't move, I'm going to be there right now-"

He couldn't finish talking, because at that moment a group of people ran into him like animals on a stampede and crashed into him. Had it been only one person, it wouldn't have bothered Sandor, but six fucking people crashed into him suddenly, desperately trying to get away from the city square the through that extremely narrow street. They threw him off his feet and to the floor with a grunt, and he accidentally dropped his phone. The group of people stumbled to the floor with him and looked at him scared of his size and his burns. He glared at them but paid them no further attention. They ran away as soon as they saw that they were not in trouble, and Sandor went to pick up his phone. He had lost the call with Sansa, but at least now he knew where she was. He didn't even have to cross the city square to go to another street to get to where she was; he just had to follow the street he was in already.

Sandor starting running up the narrow street and turned left when he reached the corner. The streets just seemed to narrow even more every time that he made a right or left turn, they became smaller and smaller as he entered the inner parts of the market zone of the city. It was a very old city, and the design of the zone was very antique and medieval. After a few more turns which led him farther away from the city square and closer to Tohbo Mott's shop. Soon, he arrived nearly breathless at the street where the shop was, where he was supposed to find Sansa waiting for him...

...But she wasn't there.

Sandor stopped dead in his track and stared for a second in disbelief at the empty spot in front of Tohbo Mott's shop. There was no one there, why wasn't Sansa there?! She had told him over the phone that she was there, he had told her to wait there for him, that he was on his way! She couldn't be inside the shop, because it was closed. And she couldn't have possibly tried to flee somewhere else, because she was lost and had no idea how to get anywhere from there...

...Unless she hadn't left... Maybe she had been taken away...

Right after that thought occurred to Sandor, he reached for his gun immediately and pulled it out from inside his jacket. He raised the weapon in front of him, prepared to shoot anybody if need be. If anyone had dared to take Sansa against her will, Sandor would put a bullet inside that pour soul's brain without even blinking.

He walked quickly towards the end of that short and narrow street, always holding his gun high in front of him, and keeping his eyes everywhere, alert to any single movement. He was ready to act quickly and shoot his gun if need be, if he found Sansa to be in any kind of danger he wouldn't hesitate, but he was wishing really hard that that didn't end up being necessary. He didn't want Sansa to see that, and he didn't want her to be hurt.

"Sansa?!" he called just as he reached the end of the street and turned right at the corner, with his gun still lifted in the air in front of him.

Just as he entered the new street, he heard a sob, and Sansa appeared running from behind another corner behind one of the stores. She didn't look hurt, but she was crying and her hair was a mess because of having been running in between the crushing crowd. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, and she was terribly scared. Sandor saw the look of happiness and relief in her face when she saw him, and he himself felt all the tension leaving his chest after seeing that she was safe; however, right then Sansa saw the gun and it startled her. She gasped and took a step back. After realizing what had scared her, Sandor hurried to lower the weapon and he put it back inside his jacket. With the gun out of sight, Sansa looked incredibly happy and relieved all over again.

"Sandor," she whispered, and she ran towards him. Once he reached him, Sandor pulled her instinctively in a tight and protective embrace (he never ever hugged anyone, but he hadn't even been thinking, he just made the exception with Samsa for the second time that day) and Sansa put her arms around him and placed her head against his chest. She was shaking. "You came back for me..."

"Aye, little bird, I wasn't going to leave you alone here," Sandor murmured. He was still holding her, but he looked around to check that there wasn't any danger anywhere near them. He didn't see anyone, so he relaxed. "I told you to wait for me right where you were. I thought somebody might have taken you!"

Sansa shook her head. She wasn't sobbing anymore, and she was shaking a little less. "I heard something on the phone and I thought something bad had happened to you. I-I got scared, I thought the crowd was coming o-or that the shooter had found you..."

"I'm alright little bird, nothing happened to me. And you? Are you alright?"

She nodded. Sandor put a finger under her chin and lifted her head to make her look at him; a part of him was furious with her for running away and not joining the Baratheons or her family in the limos, he was furious at her for putting her life at risk in such a stupid way. In the past, he might have yelled at her for that, for being stupid. However, now some newly found sense of tact inside of him told him that he shouldn't be angry with her or yell. Sansa was scared enough already without him barking at her face.

"Why did you run?" he asked.

"I..." Sansa struggled with the answer. She looked confused; maybe she didn't even know why she had run. She had just seen a person killed, and maybe that had been the first instinct to kick in: running for dear life. "I thought that they would go after the Starks... or that the shooter would try again. I was afraid to get in the car with Joffrey, I... I didn't want to die..."

Sandor raised his eyebrow and stared at her. Maybe she wasn't so stupid after all. She wanted to survive.

"Why didn't you go with the Starks then, if you were afraid they were going to attack Joffrey again?"

"Because... because maybe they would try to attack Robb as well," she mumbled, looking ashamed for having run. "And then as I was making up my mind everybody had just left and I had to run the other way."

"Well, you are alright now, little bird, you are alright," he said, rubbing her back in a comforting way.

"I'm so stupid..."

"No you're not," Sandor said. He had never been good at comforting people, nor had he ever cared to do such a thing, but he didn't want Sansa to feel bad about being scared.

He took his phone out of his pocket and called his partner, Boros. The phone ringed a few times before the other bodyguard picked up.

"Clegane?"

"I found her," Sandor rasped. "Send someone to pick us up."

"Alright, where?"

Sandor gave Boros the address where he wanted a car to go a pick them up. It would be hard for a vehicle to go and pick them up in the place where they were because of the narrow streets and all the people blocking some of them, and Sandor wouldn't be caught dead returning to the city square. After giving Boros the address for a suitable place, he hung up and put the phone away again.

"Come on, little bird," he said, letting go of her and giving her a gentle push to get her going, "we have to walk a bit."

She just nodded and followed him through the streets. They had walked through a few of them when suddenly they walked into a street with a big black park parked at the side, apparently waiting for someone. Sansa didn't seem bothered by the presence of the car and was just going to keep walking, but Sandor put his arm in front of her to block her path and stopped her. Sansa looked up at him confused, and was about to ask him what was wrong when he pushed her behind the corner in which they were, putting them both out of the car's sight.

"Careful, now," he warned her, knowing that there was something odd about that car. Many people might have not noticed it, but a long career of being a bodyguard and a soldier provided him with very good instincts to perceive danger. After all, that was how he had saved Joffrey's ass earlier.

"What's wrong?" Sansa asked in a whisper, alarmed.

Sandor didn't answer. He peeked a little bit around the corner, trying to get a glimpse of the black SUV. It was still there, and though the windows were tinted he could see that there were people inside through the open door. There were maybe three men inside, he wasn't sure, and they were definitely waiting for something or someone.

"What do you see? What's happening?" Sansa kept asking, and he shushed her.

What he saw was that the men were dressed in black clothes, and they were wearing masks that covered their faces and had only holes for the eyes. And in the hands of one of them...

"Oh shit," Sandor cursed under his breath, and stopped peeking around the corner. He pressed his back against the wall, next to Sansa. She was worried and anxious; she wanted to know what was happening, feeling impatient with Sandor for not letting her move. She was also frightened because of the bodyguard's expression of worry.

"What?! Sandor, what's going on? Who are they?"

"Sshh! They're the shooters."

Sansa's eyes grew wide as plates when she heard him say that. "What?! H-how do you know?!"

"Believe me, I know! Now shut up before you get us killed!"

He took his gun out again. They had to get away from there, and he couldn't stay unarmed. Those people, whoever the fuck they were, had tried to kill Joffrey... If they discovered them there, those people might as well try to kill them both. Sandor did not want to risk it.

He tried to urge Sansa to start walking back the way they had come, when suddenly they heard some fast strides approaching. They turned around to look at the street in which the car was again, and they saw a person (a woman, judging by the size and figure,) running from the left end of the street towards the car, carrying a big rifle on her hands. Sandor cursed under his breath again and pushed Sansa to hide her in the shadows of the street they were in and then he covered her with his own body, shielding her. He hoped that the woman would just run past the entrance of the street they were in and not notice them, and then they would be safe.

They were lucky, for the woman did just that. She passed in front of the entrance of the street Sandor and Sansa were hiding in, and she reached the car. She threw the rifle to one of the men inside the car, and then she turned around to look down the street and make sure that nobody had followed her. Even through she was also wearing a mask, Sanor could tell that she looked extremely pissed off, and he could perfectly imagine why- he had screwed up her plans.

The woman (who was definitely the shooter from the roof, the one that had actually pulled the trigger and accidentally killed Governor Renly Baratheon) apparently believed that there was no one near her to see her, took off the mask that hid her face. She was very young, she must have been even younger than Sansa, though not much. She had short brown her, cut a little above her chin, and she had angry grey eyes. Sandor had never seen such angry eyes in a woman so young; those eyes radiated hate and bitterness, but also sadness and sorrow. He knew that look perfectly well; those eyes had a dark hunger for revenge.

Sandor heard Sansa gasping in shock. Sandor took a step back to take them both farther away from the car's and the woman's sight. The shooter climbed inside the SUV, shut the door close, and the car immediately left.

Sandor took a step forward then and stopped shielding Sansa's body. He looked at her to see if she was ok, and he frowned, confused, when he saw how pale the girl had suddenly become. There was a look of horror and shock in her blue eyes, still fixed on the place where the car and the woman had been moments ago.

"Little bird?"

After a few seconds, she muttered with disbelief: "Arya…?"

Sandor frowned even more, not understanding what was happening.

"What?"

Sansa tore her eyes away from the now empty spot and she stared into Sandor's eyes. He still see her shock and horror. Her lips trembled and her eyes shone with unshed tears when she said,

"That was my sister!"