Ok, I seriously have no idea how this chapter ended up being so damn long. Seriously, this chapter was supposed to be 4000 words long, tops. And it ended up being 11000+, I don't even know how. Where did the words go?! I don't get it!
Anyways, I hope you enjoy my lengthy chapter. It's one I've been waiting to write for long ago, and even thought it turned out a bit different than expected, I guess I'm happy with the result.
Ignore grammar mistakes, it's my autocorrect trolling me. And I'm so overly tired, it's not even funny. My eyes are all messed up! But oh well xD anyways, the mistakes will be fixed later, promise!
Enjoy! I will go back to more cozy SanSan fluff later, it's time for some other kind of stuff now for a little bit.
Btw, Jaqen speaks in a normal way in this fic because the whole "a man this, a man that," is for other situations.
Please, review? Reviews make me want to write more, and they make me very very happy!
As soon as Sansa started running up the stairs of the mansion towards her bedroom, Sandor started running behind her.
"Sansa!" he called her. "You are not going!"
"Yes I am!" she insisted, entering her bedroom and running towards her closet to take out some shoes and a jacket from it. She sat on the bed while she put on and laced her boots.
"It's a trap."
"No it's not. That's my sister's handwriting, and she wants me to go and see her. She's here, Sandor! She's finally here, after so long… I didn't even know if she was alive, I need to know what happened to her!"
"It's her handwriting alright, but have you forgotten what happened the last time you saw your dear sister? She tried to kill a man in front of thousands of people," Sandor rasped, remembering how he had pushed joffrey out of the bullet's way. "Only a very skilled assassin could have pulled off that kind of shot, Sansa."
"So?" she asked. She was now putting on a black jacket to protect her from the cold night breeze.
"You know she had more than enough reasons for what she did," Sansa hissed, silencing Sandor. He hadn't hear her talk in such an aggressive tone in quite some time, since before they got to the island, and it took him by surprise to hear the anger and the distress mixed in in her voice. "I don't care about what you do tonight, but I have finally received news from my sister that come directly from her reaching out to me, instead of... Instead of because I saw her in some back street of King's Landing, carrying a gun and getting into a car after attempting murder. You can stay here if you want.
"I won't let you alone, and I won't let you go either."
"And how are you going to stop me?"
"That won't be difficult," he warned her, and she sighed defeated.
"Sandor, please!" she begged, and her eyes started to be filled by tears. She was angry and happy at the same time, sad and excited, relieved and mortified. It was the strangest thing that Sandor had ever done, and yet he was having a lot of difficulties keeping saying no to Sansa. It was something that he just had forgotten how to do since they were in that place, and se had never ever before begged for something like how she she was begging at that moment.
She was just told him the story of her family not even an hour ago. He had listened with interest as she told him stories or her sister Arya, the same one that had tried to kill Joffrey and was now trying to reunite with Sansa. She must have spied on Joffrey after her failed attempt at killing him and discovered that Sansa had left with Sandor to Tarth, and then she must have followed them there. Sandor knew that Sansa deserved to see someone from her family again, and he wanted to give in to what she asked from him, but it wasn't so easy. Who the fuck knew what the younger Stark's intentions where?!
"What if they made her write the note?" he asked then, trying to make the little bird see why it was a bad idea to do what the note said.
She looked at it for only one second and shook her head.
"No. Trust me, Sandor, I know what I'm saying. We will be safe!"
She sounded so convinced. But how could it be true? Everything was just too bloody strange and made him feel uneasy. He didn't trust that man that had come to deliver the message, he didn't trust the damn message, he sure as hell didn't trust the little Stark psychopath that had written the message, and he doubted that he could trust Sansa's judgement.
"You are just emotional right now, you are not thinking clearly," he rasped, trying to make her understand him and his worry for that whole situation. "You want to walk straight into the wolf's den!"
Sansa scoffed.
"I'm not afraid of wolves," she said. "And besides, I'm in a lion's den already, what's the difference?"
"I'm not going to let you get killed!"
"No I won't. And if anything had happens, I know you won't let anyone hurt me, you promised," she said, walking up to him and taking his hand between hers. She lifted his hand and tenderly kissed it, and then she put it against her cheek and closed her eyes. Sandor felt like he was melting. How could he say no to her? He couldn't. And maybe she knew that already. "Sandor, please..."
"Sansa..."
"You read the note. If we are not there by midnight they will come for us, and they will hurt you."
"Let them try."
"Sandor, please!" she begged again, and a tear ran down her cheek and fell on Sandor's hand.
He wanted to pick her up and lock her in a room until he could knock some sense into that stubborn head of hers, but he knew that would be no good and would help him in nothing. For a couple of silent seconds he contemplated his options, finding them extremely limited. Fuck.
He sighed and ran his other hand over his face, trying to make a decision. He tried to avoid staring into Sansa's eyes, because he knew that those blue celestial pools would defeat him more easily than any deadly weapon.
I can't believe I'm doing this, he grunted in his mind before rolling his eyes and throwing his hands in the air in exasperation.
"Fine!" he exclaimed. Sansa had won, he couldn't deny her going to see her sister, not when she was looking at him with eyes filled with so much sorrow after being separated from her family for so long. Even though Sandor had succeeded in avoiding looking at her eyes, her presence alone was just as overwhelming for him as her stare. She wasn't sobbing, but he could feel her pain just as well as if she had been crying her eyes out. "Follow me. I need to figure out a way of getting out of this fucking mansion."
Sansa's eyes lit up immediately after he said those words, and a radiant smile appeared on her face. Sandor sighed when he saw that smile, and he hoped for both their sakes that what happened later tonight was worth that smile. If anything went wrong, just as he believed from the beginning and still suspected, he would not forgive himself. Lately he was being an idiot and a fool in a lot of things, but he couldn't really help it.
He tried to think positive. It was the little bird's sister that they were going to see, she wouldn't hurt Sansa.
Just in case, he wanted to be ready. He had promised Sansa that he would keep her safe no matter what, and that was what he was going to do.
He left the bedroom with Sansa walked behind him and went to his bedroom, or at least the bedroom that was supposed to be his before he started sharing Sansa's bed every night. He walked to the furniture, opened one of the drawers and took his gun from out of it. It was completely loaded, but Sandor took extra bullets in case they were necessary at some point, which he hoped not. He put the gun in his belt, and turned around to find Sansa staring at him scared. He frowned.
"What?"
"You are taking the gun?"
"Of course I am!" he grunted. "The last time I saw that crazy sister of yours, she was carrying a gun fucking bigger than her. I'm not taking any chances of being unarmed in her presence."
"But... maybe the gun will provoke her," Sansa murmured, biting her lip with worry.
"Then you are admitting that she is dangerous."
"No. Well, maybe, but she's not a threat to me, I've already told you that she would never hurt me, and she says that she thinks that she can trust you. But the men that are with her might be different."
Right, those guys. Sandor remembered the men that had been waiting for Arya Stark in the SUV parked in the streets of King's Landing, and wondered how many "friends" there were going to be there with her while she had her little reunion with her older sister. He knew for sure that the pizza guy, the one with the fucking stupid red and white hair (the letter said his name was Jaqen?) was going to be there. He didn't look particularly dangerous to Sandor, but he knew better than to judge people by their appearance. He hoped that there would only be that man there and that was it.
"Precisely because your dear sister is not going to be there alone is why I'm taking the gun," he said, and then he grabbed a flashlight and told Sansa to move and get out of the bedroom. They walked down the stairs and Sansa followed him to the French windows that led to the backyard of the mansion.
"How are we going to get out?" Sansa asked. "I know that we can't walk through the front door because there's a camera there, right? Joffrey could find out and ask questions..."
"That's why we are not going through the front door."
"But isn't a camera in the back too?" Sansa asked, worried.
"Yes, but it isn't working," Sandor answered, recalling that morning when he had go to the surveillance room and the monitor hadn't been working, and he hadn't been able to fix it. "But the back hate has a sensor, and I don't have the fucking code to turn it off. If we open the door even an inch, the alarm will go off and we will have the cops on us in a minute. And believe me, then Joffrey will fucking know what we were up to."
"Then what are we going to do?!" Sansa exclaimed, still following him as he crossed the backyard towards the walls that surrounded the mansion and the garden and kept the place isolated from the outside.
Sandor shook his head, pointing towards the eight feet talk wall. Sansa immediately understood what he meant by that.
"You want us to jump over that?"
"Aye. It's easy! And the camera can't record is, so it's all good."
Sansa hesitated, but she didn't say anything. They reached the wall together, and that was when she protested, looking up at the wall that was way taller than her.
"Sandor, I can't!" she cried, alarmed at the height of the wall. It wasn't that tall, really, for a jump, or at least it wasn't for Sandor. But if Sansa fell from that height she would be hurt, that was for sure.
"Yes you can, little bird, I'm here to help you," if they were going to so that stupidity that they were doing, at least Sandor was going to make sure that they finished what they had started, and he wasn't going to let Sansa give up at that moment. It would be easy to turn around and walk away and forget about everything, but he knew that they would regret that decision later in some way or another. "Here, climb on my shoulders. Just sit on them."
He bend his knees to lower himself to the ground and allow Sansa to sit on his shoulders. Again, she hesitated, but after a couple of seconds she did as he told her and sat on his shoulders. She was so light weight that Sandor almost didn't feel the extra weight, and he had no trouble at all carrying her. Before getting back up he grabbed her long legs with his big hands to keep her in place and make sure she didn't fall. She gasped when he stood up again, shocked by the sudden ascent to a greater height than her own, and she accidentally grabbed a lock of Sandor's hair and pulled from it when she held on to the first thing that she could find, afraid that she would back backwards. Sandor hissed and she let go of him.
"Sorry!"
"Don't worry about it... Now you have to get up on the wall, Sansa. It's ok, I got you. I got you."
Feeling more confident thanks to his assurance, Sansa put her hands on the too of the wall, which was wide enough for her to sit on it and not fall down to the other side, and with Sandor's help she moved from his shoulder to the top of the wall. He grabbed her waist with his hands and held her up as she held on to the wall and pushed herself up to climb to the top. Because Sandor was very tall, almost seven feet, and Sansa was talk as well, doing that wasn't very difficult.
It was Sandor's turn now. Even though the wall was only a feet taller than him, he needed to jump in order to be able to hold on well enough to be able to sit on it. She gained some impulse and then jumped, holding on with his arms to the top of the wall and pushing himself up with his feet on the wall, and in a second he was sitting next to Sansa. He met her eyes with a smile.
"Good. Now let's get down."
The smile disappeared from Sansa's face, and she looked down, turning pale. The distance from there to the floor seemed a lot greater.
"It's okay, Sansa," Sandor assured her again, and she nodded.
"I know, I just don't like heights. But I know. Can you go first? You can catch me when I jump."
"Aye."
With little effort, Sandor jumped from the top of the wall and landed on the ground outside the mansion. He looked up to look at Sansa and held his arms up, waiting for her to jump so that he could catch her. He didn't want her spraining her ankle or something in the fall. He didn't have to say anything to her that time, she already knew what to do. She slides off from the too of the wall and fell down into Sandor's waiting arms, but her elbow accidentally hit him and threw him off balance. He fell on his back on the floor, taking Sansa with him. He grunted, and she squealed.
Even though he had fell on his back and the impact against the ground was hard, he didn't let go of Sansa. His strong arms held him tight against his chest, preventing her from rolling off him and falling to the ground too. Her body was pressed against his and he could feel her heavy breathing. Sansa's face had ended up being too close to Sandor's, and they could feel each other's breaths. Sansa's eyes peeked at his lips for a brief moment before looking back as his eyes.
"Thank you," she murmured.
"You are welcome," he replied, lifting his hand to move a red stand of hair away from her face and put it behind her ear. His fingers brushed her skin while he did so. His eyes moved to her lips just like hers had done seconds ago. "Do I get a kiss for saving you?"
Sansa smiled and slowly shook her head.
"You'll get your kiss after I see my sister."
Sandor grunted in protest but Sansa ignored him. She pushed herself up to her feet and then Sandor did the same. He looked at her while she stepped the dirt off the bottom of her pants, and then he inspected the surroundings. It was very dark there, because there weren't any neighbor mansions or houses around; there was only the road that led to the town at one side and to the airport at the other side, and the only light came from the streetlights at it's side and the moonlight from the sky.
"Where are we going?" Sansa asked, looking around as well. "Are we following the road?"
"No. It would be safer, but the letter says to go two miles North. The road would lead us somewhere else before we reach the meeting point, it doesn't go straight." He took the flashlight that he had grabbed before in his bedroom out of his pocket and he held it up and turned it on to get rid of the darkness in front of him.
Even with the flashlight it was very difficult to see, because there was vegetation everywhere.
"Sansa, don't get too far away from me. The last thing I fucking need is that you get lost in here," he said, and he started to walk. Sansa was behind him, so he couldn't see her but he could actually hear her steps on the ground. She followed him in silenced, staying close to him just like he had said. Apart from the sound of their footsteps there was little to hear, except for the crickets and nocturnal birds and the breeze moving the leaves of the trees above them. He smirked. "Aren't you afraid?"
"Why would I be afraid?" Sansa asked then behind him, and he shrugged.
"Didn't they tell you stories when you were little? About ghosts and monsters that stalk little girls in the night?"
"I'm not a little girl!" Sansa exclaimed.
"Well, the monsters that stalk grown women like you are much worse," he grunted.
"I'm not afraid," she retorted. "The darkness doesn't scare me. Not anymore."
"Is that so? Why?" he wanted to know. "Don't you believe in ghosts anymore? And fierce monsters that are eager to take a bite of you and drag you into the night with them?"
"No," she responded firmly. "I've got you with me. What is there to be afraid of, then?"
He was surprised by her answer, and he felt pride and worry filling him up inside at the same time. He was proud because the little bird felt safe with him, when she couldn't be safe anywhere else. But he felt worry precisely because of the same reason. If she felt safe with him, did she expect him to be able to protect her at all times? He had promised her that he would keep her safe, and he had every intention of keeping the promise. But what would happen if any day he couldn't be there, if she needed him and he wasn't there to safe her? He didn't have enough power to create a perfect fucking happy world for her forever. Once they were out of Tarth and thrown back into the real world again, how could she still feel safe with him? And even if the Lannisters were the real enemy in King's Landing, Sandor was no piece of jewelry.
What if I'm a worse monster than all the others? he wanted to say, but he never got to do so because before any words could escape his mouth, Sansa's hands reached out to him and took his arm.
She held on to him, and Sandor turned his head to stare at her. His gaze was met by a shy and little smile on Sansa's perfect face, and her eyes were full of hope and trust. He sighed and didn't say anything, and Sansa just got closer to him while he led them through the woods of the island.
By midnight, they started arriving at the meeting point where the letter had told them to be. Before they got there Sandor was forced to free his arm from Sansa's hands and take the flashlight with his left hand, while his right hand was ready to take out his gun at any moment and shoot if need be. He wasn't going to take any more risks than the ones he was already taking.
"Okay, little bird, we are almost there..." he rasped. "This better be fucking worth it."
"It will, Sandor," she murmured, though her voice was trembling. Maybe she was starting to have doubts? "You'll see, everything will be fine."
"I hope you are right, Sansa, because if not we are fucked."
Of all the bad ideas I've had in my life, this is the dumbest fucking one, was his last thought as he and Sansa walked into the clearing where they had been cited.
They stopped they and waited, looking around while they waited for Sansa's sister or anyone else to show up. The woods had become awfully quiet there, and not even the crickets and the creatures that roamed the darkness could be heard. There was not a sound. Sandor felt Sansa clutching his arm tightly, perhaps finally intimidated by the darkness that engulfed them and the silence that fell over them. He heard her heavy breathing and he could swear that he could even feel her shaking. He wanted to soothe her and tell her that everything was okay, but he didn't want to make any sound. Instead he looked at her briefly and gave her a quiet but clear nod that she could see thanks only to the moonlight, because he had turned off the flashlight in case they attracted any unwanted attention; that nod was meant to assure her that everything would be fine, he wanted to transmit to her the same security that she had given him when they were leaving the mansion.
"You came."
A stranger's voice broke the silence of the night, startling them. Sandor grabbed his gun but didn't take it out of the belt, and he search everywhere around him to see where that voice came from and who it belonged to. He didn't find anyone until he heard the voice again, and this time he easily recognized that it came not from around him, but from above.
"I definitely didn't expect you to do it," the man that was speaking was right over their heads, standing on the branch of one of the trees that surrounded the clearing. He was standing on his feet like a cat, with his arms folded and looking down at them.
Sandor narrowed his eyes, trying to see the man better, but he only got a glimpse of red hair. He turned on his flashlight again and directed the light towards the man, and found that it was the pizza delivery guy. The man wasn't wearing his stupid uniform anymore and instead wore black clothes that made him almost invisible in the dark of the night, and made him definitely look more menacing. Sandor felt uneasy in his presence, specially because of the smirk that had appeared in the man's face upon seeing them there, and he pushed Sansa behind her to hide and shield her with his massive body.
"Why did you think we wouldn't come?" Sandor asked, not sounding the least bit intimidated by the man. On the contrary, his rasp was just as menacing and aggressive as always.
The man shrugged.
"You gave me the impression of being a man with common sense," was the simple answer, and Sandor scoffed.
"So you thought that I would think that this was only a trap?"
"Yes."
"So what, then? Was I right or no?"
The man's smirk widened, clearly amused by Sandor's aggressive tone. He raised an eyebrow before saying:
"So you did think this was a trap."
"I am a man with common sense."
"Not when it comes to women, you are not," the man said, shooting an amused look at Sansa, who was still hiding behind Sandor but was sneaking a peek from his side. "You've chosen a very dangerous woman to mess with, surrounded by very dangerous people. That is not a lot of common sense, in my honest opinion."
"Who the fuck asked you for your fucking opinion?" Sandor growled, irritates by the man's words. He took a step forward and clenched his jaw. "Come down from that buggering branch and we'll see if you are a brave man as well as one with fucking common sense," he spat.
"Sandor," Sansa whispered behind him. She pulled from his arm, trying to prevent him from doing something stupid. Up in the branch the man (who was clearly the Jaqen mentioned in the letter) scoffed.
"I don't have time to lose, big man, and neither do you. I have to take you to the Stark girl, and you have to go back to that pretty mansion of yours before Governor Baratheon finds out about your little trip."
He jumped from the branch and landed graciously on his feet, like a cat. Sandor and Sansa observed him better then, paying attention to the way in which his dark clothes did make him in fact almost invisible. The only thing that betrayed his presence was his pale skin and his bright red and white hair, which was like fire and ice on his hair beneath the moonlight. Jaqen greeted Sansa with a polite nod of his head to which she shyly responded, and he ignored Sandor. Not that he fucking cared anyways, he didn't like that man and he couldn't wait until the moment when he didn't have to see him again. While Sandor glared at him, Jaqen lowered his grey-blue eyes to Sandor's belt, where his hand was ready to take action in any minute.
"I wouldn't take that out if I were you," he murmured. "My friends don't like people who aren't very friendly... Carrying weapons is not a good thing."
"Fuck that, I bet you are loaded with weapons."
Jaqen grinned. His face was charming just as it was cold at the same time.
"A host always has to take care of his guests and make sure they are safe. You are our guests now. Carrying our own weapons is the way of making sure you are safe..."
"Yeah? Well, Sansa is my guest, and I'll fucking protect her as well. I'm not letting go of my fucking gun."
The man signaled them with a movement of his head to follow him, and so they did when he started walking and leading the way out of the clearing. Sandor didn't know where he was taking them, and he didn't ask questions. He just followed that man, Jaqen, in silence and checked the whole time on Sansa to make sure that she was alright. When he noticed that she was starting to be cold he stopped holding the gun and left it in the belt so that he could safely put his arms around Sansa and keep her close to his body, giving her at least a bit warmth. She shuddered at first but then she looked up at him and smiled gently. The look in her eyes was questioning, clearly afraid at the same time as excited by what was about to happen. It was understandable, her sister had disappeared off the face of the Earth after her father's murder, and she was just now finally being able to see her. Sandor understood that Sansa hadn't been able to think of anything else besides the possibility of seeing her sister when she made the decision to do what the letter say and force Sandor to go with her. Sandor didn't feel any family love with any relatives, nor had he ever felt something similar to sibling love ever in his life, but he could comprehend the pain that Sansa had been feeling during that tragic year, and he felt happy that she could finally have some relief. The fact that the man hadn't attacked them yet, when he clearly could have done it long ago, have him some comfort and he started convincing himself that everything was definitely going to be alright.
After seeing that look in her face, Sandor tried to cheer her up.
"We are almost there, little bird."
"I know, but..." she said, taking a deep breath, "I'm scared..."
"I know. Don't be afraid. You feel fear because you are almost there and you feel that you are not going to make it, but you will."
"Maybe not. Maybe I should have listened to you. What if they hurt you?"
Suddenly Sansa sounded very anxious. It felt like she was about to turn around and run away all the way back to the mansion, but Sandor grabbed her arm to hold her in place, careful to not hurt her. He made her look at him.
"Nothing is going to happen to me, little bird," he said.
"He's right, girl," Jaqen said then, looking back to stare at them. "If your sister wanted him dead, he would already be, there'd be no need for all this."
Though she wants very sure about it, Sansa didn't protest anymore and continued walking with both men in the direction that Jaqen was taking them. It wasn't long till they started hearing a rumbling noise that became stronger and stronger as they kept walking, and they soon found that they had arrived to a small lake with a waterfall. Tarth was famous for the impressive blue color of its water, which was still just as beautiful in the dark of the night, but the moonlight have it a silver glow that made it appear like an image taken straight out from a fairy take. Sandor hated fairy tales, but he guessed that Sansa, even though she was a grown adult, loved them. He confirmed that when she was the dreamt look of awe in her face and all her worries gone. Some fireflies flies around the place, making it seem even more magical than it already was, and even Sandor had to admit that it was a beautiful scenario. Of only he could have enjoyed with Sansa in more private and less urgent circumstances, maybe he would like it even more.
"Where are we going?" Sansa asked then to the red and white haired man, who pointed with a finger towards the waterfall.
"There's a cave behind it," he said. "We have to cross it."
"Are you crazy?" Sandor snapped, but before he got an answer Jaqen whistled. After a couple of seconds three ropes came flying out from behind the waterfall, splashing water all around, and landed on the edge of the lake at their feet.
Jaqen grabbed two of the ropes and threw then to Sandor, who caught them easily.
"Tie them around you. Like that the force of the water won't carry you away."
Sandor tied Sansa's rope first. He made sure that it was right enough and that it wouldn't let go of her, but at the same time he was careful not to hurt her with it. She murmured a soft "thank you" and then he tied his own rope. Jaqen had already also tied his own rope around his waist, and when he saw that they were ready to go he whistled a second time.
For a couple of second nothing happened, and then all of a sudden someone pulled from the ropes from behind the tall waterfall. Sansa gasped, taken by surprise because of the pull, and she squealed when they stepped inside the lake and got soaked. Sandor even cursed under his breath; the water was fucking freezing! No one could protest much more, because soon they were completely submerged in the water and mere seconds later they were under the waterfall. The force of the impacting water that fell on them was indeed very strong, and it pulled all three of them underwater and moved and tossed them around. Sandor reached out and took Sansa's hand in his, refusing to let her go and drown or hit herself against a rock or something. Once he had her had in his he tried to swim to the surface; there was no need for it, because immediately whoever was at the other end of the ropes started pulling again and took them to the surface again. When Sansa's head came out of the water she started coughing and Sandor patted her gently in the back a few times until she stopped. He out his arm around her waist and swam to take them both out of the water. He barely noticed that couples of stranger hands grabbed them and helped them get out of the water until they were standing in a firm rock floor.
Sandor pulled Sansa into a embrace, covering as much of her as he could with his body to try and give her a little bit of warmth. She was shaking terribly because of the stupid water, and the last thing Sandor needed was her catching pneumonia. The same strange hands that had helped them threw some blankets over their shoulders, and Sandor helped Sansa wrap herself in her blankets. Ignoring her protests he took one of his blanket off and added it to Sansa's blankets. Sandor was stronger and tougher, he knew that Sansa needed it more.
"Are you ok?"
"Y-yes," she said before turned her head to the side to look around, and Sandor did the same.
They were standing in a huge cave that was lit up everywhere by people carrying torches and fires made in the ground with dry wood. The people were dressed with black clothes, just as Jaqen, but their faces were covered with black and white featureless masks. Truth be told, they were spooky and weird-menacing looking, specially because they were all also carrying weapons of all kinds. They were all looking at the newcomers, and Sandor glared at them, silently daring them to do anything to his little bird. He didn't care if he was outnumbered, he would rip them all apart.
He couldn't help but wonder why all those people were there, and who the fuck they were. They definitely didn't look like the kind of people that a Stark should be hanging out with, but they did seem to provide an explanation for Arya Stark's latest murderous tendencies.
Jaqen looked somewhere at the back of the cave, where it was dark.
"I've brought them."
No one moved at first or even made a sound. All the masked people looked at the newcomers with their faces still hidden behind the mask, and the torches they held cast sinister shadows onto the rock walls of the cave. Sansa shivered at Sandor's side, frightened. None of them were expecting to find such a large group of people, and the creepy masks weren't helping.
What the fuck is this place? Sandor muttered in his mind, trying to figure out in what kind of shit had the younger Stark sister gotten herself involved with.
Then, the masked people that were directly in front of them stepped to the side, letting another masked person that had been standing in the back walk to the front. That person was shorter than the rest, and Sandor could tell that it was a woman. Sansa gasped at his side, immediately recognizing her sister even though she couldn't see her face.
"Arya!" she cried.
Arya didn't slow ledge her sister back immediately. It wasn't even clear of she was looking at Sansa, because not even her eyes were visible behind the mask. She stood there for a couple of seconds, observing them both, until she decided to pull off her mask, revealing the same face with the hard and cold expression that Sandor had seen in the streets of King's Landing. Her grey eyes were angry and filled with an undying thirst for revenge, but there was something else in those eyes too. Sadness? Before Sandor could read further into the girl's expression, she pulled out a gun out of nowhere and pointed it directly to his head.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blow your brains off right now, Hound," she hissed.
The threat was real and present in her voice, she wasn't playing around. Realizing that he was fucked, Sandor immediately pulled out his own gun and pointed it back at her to at least try to have a chance to defend himself, and he pushed Sansa behind him to protect her. Right after he pulled his gun out, absolutely everyone inside that cave was pointing a gun at his head.
Fuck!
"Will you kill me in front of your sister, Stark?" he barked to the young woman in an accusatory tone. "You could have spared us the bloody trip here and come directly to the mansion to put a fucking bullet in my head."
"And risk being seen?"
"Arya, no!" Sansa screamed. She ran from behind Sandor to go and stand in front of him, putting herself between the bodyguard and her sister. If any of them fired their guns, they would shoot her.
"Sansa, what are you doing?!" Sandor barked. "Move away!"
"No!" she screamed again, terrified but stubborn. She wasn't going to move out of the way and let them kill each other. She looked at her sister with tears in her eyes. "Arya, please! He's good, he's not one of them! He has nothing to do with it!"
"He's Joffrey's bodyguard," Arya muttered.
"But he didn't know about the things Joffrey has done!" Sansa cried, defending Sandor even though there were guns being pointed at her at that moment for doing precisely that. She didn't care, she was still not going to move away.
"Sansa, move away!" Sandor shouted at her. He was feeling even more nervous than the day he had had to look for her in the crowd in the city square in front of the Sept of Baelor. He really shouldn't have brought her there, he shouldn't have listened to her! "Sansa, please! Move! You are going to get hurt!"
Sansa shook her head.
"No..." she whispered. "Arya would never hurt me... Would you, Arya? I'm your sister..."
"I don't want to hurt you, Sansa," Arya said, but she kept her eyes on Sandor. "Why are you defending him? He works for Joffrey, he's keeping you prisoner."
"He's not! He's protecting me! And in your letter... you said you trusted him! Arya, please don't hurt him!"
Sandor was impressed by the ferocity with which the little bird was defending him in front of all those armed people. Didn't she realize that she could just let them kill him, and maybe then she could be free and run away with them, flee away from Westeros and be free from Joffrey? Wasn't that what she wanted, an end to her torment? Then why was she still standing in front of him, begging her sister not to shoot him?
Does she really care that much about me?
In all those days, even though Sandor had seen that Sansa was definitely very attracted for him, he had never even dreamed that she would care so much for him. It was ridiculous, why would she even care about him? He was nothing, worthless! He was to be forgotten once they left the island, so why even bother protecting him? What was the point?
Sansa backed into Sandor, and once her back was pressed against his body, shielding him in a protective way, she held his arms with her hands. She had a fierce lion in her blue eyes that seemed to be challenging everybody in that cave to try and dare to take a step forward. After glaring at all the faceless masks that surrounded them, Sansa set her eyes on her sister's. Arya was still holding up the gun in front of her with a defiant look in her angry grey eyes.
"What will you do if I shoot him, Sansa?" she asked.
"I will never forgive you."
"Good."
When Arya Stark said that, Sandor thought that that was it, she was going to shoot him and she wouldn't care about anything that Sansa said. His only regret was that he hadn't known how to protect the little bird better.
But no one shot him. Instead, all the masked people started lowering their weapons, Arya included. Sandor frowned, and Sansa sighed with relief when she saw Arya smiling. Some of the anger in her eyes had washed away, and even though they were still angry there was some lighter emotion in them. Her smile was happy, and she was no longer looking at Sandor. Her attention was in Sansa now. Arya put her gun away and then she opened her arms.
"Sansa," she said, and that was all the invitation the auburn-haired woman needed to run away from Sandor and into her sister's arms.
Everybody watched in silence as the two sisters hugged each other with a loving embrace, and cried, and kissed and laughed. Sandor had never seen Sansa cry so much, but they were tears of happiness. It was so odd, to see the elegant and talk beauty and the short, tomboish and dark-haired girl dressed in some kind of military black suit together, greeting each other with such happiness. It was hard to believe that they were sisters, though it was easy to see that Arya was the former Vice President's daughter, she looked just like him.
"Arya!" Sansa exclaimed them, still sobbing. She pulled away from her sister's embrace and wiped her tears off her face; she calmed down before asking: "What was all that about?! Why did you try to kill Sandor? What is happening? What is all this, who are these people?!"
"Calm down, Sansa, I'll explain everything... What I said in the letter is true, I trust Clegane... Or at least, now I do. I needed to see if the information we had been gathering about you two was real or if it was just an act."
"Wait, what? ... Information about us?" Sansa asked, confused.
Arya nodded. "I saw you two in King's Landing a couple times when I was watching Joffrey before the attack, but he only really called my attention in the streets of King's Landing when he went to look for you."
"Y-you saw us?!"
Sandor was just as surprised as the girl was. Arya looked at him with an eyebrow raised.
"Lesson for you, Clegane. Everything that you can see can see you too."
After saying that to Sandor, Arya turned her attention back to Sansa again.
"Yes, I saw you then, when I went to the car. I didn't do anything I let you now because I didn't know much about your bodyguard then, but I did know that he had just saved Joffrey's neck," she muttered between gritted teeth, clearly not amused by the memory. "I didn't know of he would hurt you if I said anything then. Then I learned that he was going to bring you alone here, so... I followed you. And I investigated you. With everything that I found out... well, it was enough to make me believe that maybe Clegane could be trusted, given that you have be been so... close to him."
Sansa gaped in shock, and her face turned red with embarrassment. She covered her mouth with her hands, trying to stop herself from cursing.
"Oh my God, Arya, were you spying on us?!"
"No! Well, yes, but I never saw anything, I just found out that you two were messing around. That's why I had my doubts! I didn't know if you were just using him so that he would treat you well, or if you genuinely liked each other..." Arya sighed. "But after all the show that we've just had here, I have no doubts anymore. It was real."
"Did you seriously have to point a gun at him to figure that out?! Couldn't you just ask him?!"
"And if it had been the other way around?" Sandor intervened, feeling very angry now. How dared that wolf-bitch investigate them, and stuck her nose into they private things?! "What if I hadn't been trust-worthy? What if right after your little friend Jaqen delivered your message at the mansion I had called my boss?"
"You were being watched and listened," the man, Jaqen, informed him. "There were people hidden outside the mansion pointing guns at you in case you reacted badly. And there was a bug inside the pizza box, in case you hadn't noticed. Just as the letter said, there was no way in which the Lannisters would get to you before we did. It would just have been a lot messier."
"And I didn't want to kill your precious bodyguard and upset you without knowing how he truly was," Arya said. "I did want to kill him at first, though. After all, he did sabotage our attack in King's Landing..."
"Well, he does get paid to do just that, Arya..." Jaqen joked, but the girl ignored him.
"Wait a second..." Sandor said then he had also lowered his gun after everyone else put away theirs, and he was now trying to put all the pieces in the puzzle together. He didn't understand anything. "I get that our little friend here, Miss Stark, wants to kill my boss. He had her daddy killed after all, but... Who the fuck are you people? Wearing those stupid masks trying to look like some kind of comic superhero or something..." he rasped, sounding just as rude as ever. He got his answer from Arya.
"We are the Faceless Men."
Sandor paled. "You've got to be fucking kidding me..."
"Why, what's wrong?" Sansa asked, confused. She didn't know what the Faceless Men were, but Sandor did know.
"They are fucking terrorists, that's what's wrong!" Sandor had often heard about the Faceless Men. They killed many important people in Westeros and abroad. They came from Essos, the country neighbor to Westeros, and they were worldwide known as skilled killers and the best identify thieves, experts in falsification of documents as well as skillful with all kinds of weapons. They were one of the most dangerous group of people in the world.
"Hey!" one of the masked men exclaimed, offended by the term with which Sandor had referred to them.
Jaqen sighed and folded his arms.
"We prefer the term 'assassins'."
"Same fucking difference!" Sandor barked. "Sansa, come back here."
"Don't be stupid, Clegane, we are not going to hurt her," Arya muttered. "Besides, Jaqen is right, we are not terrorists."
"Tell that to fucking Europe and America, see what they think of it. They've both had big trouble with you."
"We are not terrorists, we don't go around putting bombs everywhere and blowing places up for the mere purpose of spreading fear," Jaqen said. "You pay us, you give us a name, and we kill the person. It's that simple."
"Yeah? And what about Joffrey Baratheon? Who paid you to get rid of the Governor?"
"I am," Arya said. "But I'm going to kill him with my own hands because I want to. It's what he deserves, after what he did to my father."
"He ordered his men to kill him. You are upset, I get it, but it's what politicians do, they get rid of their enemies!"
"Sandor!" Sansa whispered, hurt by his words, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't just say nothing when he was facing a groups of assassins that were viewed as terrorists by half the world, and not to stop them from creating chaos in King's Landing like they did the last time!
"Joffrey didn't just order my father to be killed," Arya hissed then, and her voice sounded deadly. She was shooting daggers through her angry grey eyes, and if looks could kill, Sandor would have been fulminated right then and there. "You don't know the whole story, so don't say anything. Do you want to know what your dear boss did? Do you really want to know what happened that night?"
"Arya, don't!" Sansa exclaimed, but Arya silenced her.
"He has to know, Sansa! Or he won't understand why I'm doing this. Joffrey is much worse than anyone thinks he is! He is a psychopath!"
"What do you mean?" Sandor asked, completely confused by that point.
"I saw everything. I saw it when my father was killed," Arya hissed with a murderous ring to her voice. "Sansa was there too, didn't she tell you?"
"What?"
"No!" Sansa cried. She stepped away from her sister and walked towards one of the walls of the cave, turning her back to all of them. She put one arm around herself and she covered her mouth with her free hand. Sandor couldn't hear her sobbing, but he saw her shoulders shaking violently. "Arya, please!"
"If he's going to protect you, he needs to know what kind of monster Joffrey is!" Arya explained to her sister, but Sansa just shook her head and sobbed out loud.
"What happened that night, Stark?" Sandor asked Arya, though he didn't take his eyes off Sansa. He was afraid she was going to faint, he had never seen her so upset.
"Joffrey had started being violent with Sansa weeks before our father was murdered," Arya hissed with a murderous ring in her voice. "Nobody knew, no one seemed to suspect. They still don't! But that night I thought there was something off with them. When I found them in the street arguing loudly about something, I started following them. Joffrey took Sansa to Flea Bottom, I don't know why. I hid and tried to figure out what was going on, why they were so upset, but I couldn't really understand what they were saying. Then he started hitting her."
"Arya, stop…"
The girl ignored her.
"Then father showed up."
"He should have never done that..."
"He saved your life."
"At what price?!" Sansa yelled, turned back around to face her sister in anger. "He is dead now! Because of me!"
Tears streamed down her face, and Sandor couldn't stand it much longer. In two quick steps he was at her side, holding her gently so that she wouldn't fall to the rock ground. She was a mess, her face was puffy and red and wet from her tears, and her breaths were short and shallow because she couldn't stop crying. Sandor had never been able to stand crying women, but seeing Sansa like that made him want to twist all those fucker's necks.
"Sansa. Sansa, little bird, you are ok," he tried to soother her unsuccessfully. She angrily shook her head.
"I'm not okay! Nothing is okay!"
"What happened, Sansa? Tell me, what did Joffrey do? What did your father do?"
Sansa was too upset to answer him, so he sighed and warped his muscled arms around her. He glared at Arya, Jaqen, and all those faceless fuckers for making his little bird go through that and relive painful memories. He hadn't known that Sansa had been present during Ned Stark's death, but now that he did know he understood why she was always so scared. The grotesque way in which the Vice President's body had been found had been all over the news, and it had almost made Sandor sick.
"H-he killed Dad because of m-me..." Sansa sobbed, burying her face in Sandor's chest.
"Don't say that," Arya insisted. "Joffrey never liked Dad. Dad knew that he was up to something bad, I heard it. He pushed Joffrey away from you and they started screaming. Dad told Joffrey that he was a monster, that he would call the cops on him and tell them everything that he knew."
"Knew of what?" Sandor inquired, but Arya shrugged.
"I don't know. But the next thing that happened was that Joffrey's other bodyguards showed up, and they pushed Dad away from him. They held him."
Meryn and Boros had showed up? They were the ones that had killed Vice President Stark?
"Mery held Sansa and Boros beat Dad up. At that moment I didn't know what to do. I was frozen, I couldn't move. I should have helped Dad... But before I couldn't step out of hiding Joffrey pulled out a knife and stabbed my father."
Sandor was seldom shocked by things he was told, but he couldn't help but open his eyes wide when he heard those words leaving the Stark girl's lips. It was one thing to know that Joffrey had ordered someone to be killed, and it was a completely different think to know he had killed that person himself... in front of the victim's own face.
Sansa... What has that bastard put you through?
Arya's face was the mask of pure hate. She was strong enough to hold her tears from falling down her face like a waterfall; maybe she couldn't allow herself to be weak in front of all those people, the Faceless Men. But her eyes, if their were angry when he first saw them, now were berserk with anger and rage and hatred. They were even darker with hate than Sandor's had ever been, and Sandor had known a world of pain and anger and hatred during his whole life.
"And then Joffrey stabbed him again. And again. And again. He did it over and over until my father was covered in blood, but he didn't kill him. I wasn't seeing it anymore, I had hidden even more because I couldn't watch that, I just couldn't. It was too horrible. Even hearing it was too horrible..." her voice had started shaking. "I still have nightmares of the memories of hearing my father being killed. I don't even want to imagine what it must have been for my sister to actually being forced to watch everything. It just got worse. Joffrey didn't want to kill my father quickly. After he had stabbed him, he cut his head off. He took the knife and started slicing my father's neck open, slowly... Slowly severing his head from his body... You can't imagine... the screams... And Joffrey's laughs while he did that..."
"He made me watch it," Sansa murmured then, her voice barely audible. Sandor held her tighter in his arms, wanting to protect her. He wished he could delete that awful memory from her mind, delete all that pain... "He made Meryn hold my face straight and keep my eyes open so that I would see everything. And when he was done he... kicked the head towards me, and he started mutilating the body with the knife."
Sandor really felt sick then. He wanted to throw up, but he didn't, he was stronger than that. He was... absolutely disgusted and horrified by what had just been revealed to him. He wanted to roar with rage and smash his fists into something.
For a long time since he met Sansa, he had been judging her for being with Joffrey even though it was clear she didn't love him. He had though that she wanted material things from him, and that she just was a expensive whore that was putting up with his bullshit because she didn't want to lose the benefits that came from being with him. And know he found out this... Joffrey was a monster. And Sansa... Sansa was the bravest woman in the fucking world. Because even though she might look weak in the eyes of other people who though that she should fight and get rid of Joffrey, she was instead putting up with all of his crap, his abuse, and the fear that one day he might hurt her just like he had hurt her father, and she was doing that so that the same wouldn't happen to her family.
She deserved fucking better than that. A deep fear settled deep in the pit of Sandor's stomach when he realized that there wasn't anything that he could do to shield her from those horrors. The damage that Joffrey had done to Sansa was far worse than the physical abuse that he was inflicting on her. It was the psychological damage that he had provoked her that was the real hell, the real torture, and Sandor couldn't take it away.
He wanted to console her, but words were of no fucking use. He knew that no matter what he said, what sweet words he spoke to her, the killer grief in her wouldn't disappear, nor would the fear. So he didn't say anything... he just held her right against his chest, giving her the warmth of his body, keeping her as close to him as he possibly could to try and give her some sense of protection... He hoped that would be enough, at least for the moment.
Sansa responded to his silent efforts by holding on even more tightly to him, grabbing his shirt with shaking hands, and sobbing against him. He didn't mind. She had the full right to cry all she wanted, he wouldn't try to stop her. All that he could do was place a gentle and soft kiss on her hair at the too of her hair.
Then he raised his eyes again and stared into Arya Stark's eyes. Now his eyes were just as full of anger as hers.
"That's why you ran away with these people? To be able to have your revenge?"
"Yes."
"Are you going to try it again?"
"I don't know. We can't do anything without the boss's permission, and he has not given it."
"Who is the fucking boss?"
"He's in India right now. We don't know when he'll come back."
Sandor cursed under his breath.
"Sansa..." Arya murmured, worried about her sister. "Do you understand now why I had to go? I didn't want to leave you all alone, but it was the only way... Jaqen was a friend of mine before everything happened, and I ran to him and told him everything, and he helped me escape Westeros and become one of them... I'm sorry that you must have believed that I just abandoned you..."
"It's okay, Arya..." Sansa said. All the sobs had provoked her small hiccups, and she was having trouble breathing. Even though she was addressing her sister, she refused to let go of Sandor, and she still held on to him while she spoke."I-I understand and... I'm so glad you escaped. I'm so happy that you don't have to go through that..."
"What are you going to do now? What's the plan?" Sandor wanted to know.
"We have you wait," Arya muttered bitterly, clearly unhappy about that. "As I said, if we attack now our boss will be furious."
"No one wants to make the boss mad," Jaqen added. "We have only had one opportunity to get rid of the Baratheon man, and thanks to you, we got rid of the wrong one."
"I'm a bodyguard, what the fuck was I supposed to do? Have fucking mental powers to know the truth behind all that bullshit that had been going on?"
"No, but you are warned for the next time."
"If there is a next time."
"There will be one," Arya assured her very firmly. "But until then... we will have to wait. That's why I wanted you two to come here tonight, to explain to you, specially to Sansa, what was going on. I want you to understand, sister."
"I understand," Sansa nodded. She was now just sobbing quietly, and the fabric of Sandor's shirt and jacket had dried off the tears from her face. "And I suppose... you are going to disappear again?"
"I have to. No one an know the truth about me. Mom and Robb know that I'm alright, and now you do too, and that's all I wanted. I wanted you to know that I'm okay, and that I haven't forgotten you. I wish I could take you with us, but it would be too risky for everyone. You are better with Sandor, he can take care of you, I can definitely see that now."
"I don't want you to leave again..." Sansa whimpered, making a heart-broken expression appear on her sister's long face.
"I'm so sorry Sansa... There's nothing I can do right now, other than await orders. But we can stay in contact."
When Arya said that, Jaqen approached one of the Faceless Men and took an object out of the masked person's pocket. He then walked over to where Sandor was and handed him the brand new phone, but instead of a new model it was one of the old ones from years ago. Small, simple, easy to hide. Not one of those fancy bullshit with lots of useless apps and big ass cameras that were so easy to break and track.
"Sansa's got a bug in her phone, so you better use this one. It's prepaid. Use it only in case of an emergency if you need us, we don't want to call too much attention or be exposed too much. Nowadays this shit is too dangerous."
Sandor agreed and put the phone inside his pocket, closing it well enough to make sure that it wouldn't get wet on the way out of the cave. He stayed in silence as Sansa gathered her strength and dared to step a little bit away from him to face her sister yet again. Sansa ran to give Arya a goodbye loving hug, which Arya gladly accepted. After a few seconds the sisters separated, but they were still holding each other's hands.
"Promise me than everything will be okay, Arya," Sansa whispered, and Arya smiled a little bit and tilted her head to the side.
"Everything will be okay. Well go back home, with out family. Meanwhile we have to figure out how to being down Joffrey, and everyone else... Be strong, Sanda, I know you can do this. You are so brave... A true Stark!"
Sansa laughed, and after hearing her crying and sobbing and suffering so much, her laugh was a Merry welcome sound to Sandor's ears.
"You always looked more Stark than me..." she said, and Arya Stark shrugged.
"It was good seeing you, Sansa."
"Oh, it was so good seeing you, dear sister!"
"My friends will help you get out of the cave... There's a hidden tunnel in the back that leads West. It will not take you much closer to the mansion, but you won't get wet or lost."
Sansa nodded in agreement with her sister's plans, and she said her good byes. Both sisters looked at each other, their gazes lingering in their eyes, for they didn't know when the next time that they would see it other would be. Days, weeks? Months? Years? Everything was possible, even the terrible options.
After she walked away from her younger sister, Sansa walked back towards Sandor and he wrapped her up in the blanket that they had been given again to keep her warm in the cold and dark of the night. Sansa's hair was damp and her clothes climbed to her skin, wet. Sandor feared she might catch a cold in her deliberated state thanks to all the fucking emotions of that night. Sandor wished Sansa had been spared the horror of having to remember again what was probably the worse memory of her entire life, he had hated to watch her suffer that way.
He couldn't really take away her pain or amend the wrongs that had already been done, but he could do something. Slowly, very slowly, she turned around to face Arya Stark, and he pointed a menacing index finger towards her. Everyone watched them both in silence, waiting to see what he wanted to say. Sansa, Jaqen, the Faceless Men... Everyone's eyes were set on the huge bodyguard that they had never seen so enraged before. Finally, he said the words that he wanted to say to Arya Stark.
"You know that, because of what I am, who I work for... I will have to keep protecting my boss, aye?"
Arya nodded, but Sandor wasn't done.
"And you know that I will have to stop you again if you try again what you did at the Sept of Baelor, right?"
"Yes..."
"The next time that you try to fucking blow a hole in his brain, at least try to make sure that I don't see you," Sandor rasped those last words before turning around, putting his arm around Sansa's shoulder, and leaving that cage following the Faceless Men that were guiding them out of that crazy cave that was now full of dark secrets and terrors.