Sorry guys. Uncomfortable chapter. Warning for violence, but not much. The name of the chapter comes from the song Made of Stone by Evanescence.

40. Don't Wanna Play Your Game Anymore.

11 months later.

Almost a year passed in relative peace, with few changes. Things didn't get much better, but at least they didn't get any worse.

The country was being governed by President Robb Stark, who, for the surprise of everyone, fulfilled the promises that he had made to the people of Westeros during the electoral campaign. Everyone had known since long ago that Robb Stark was a capable politician and a man of his word, but it was seldom that a politician could be found that actually fulfilled all the promises that he made. But President Stark didn't want to let his people down; he was just like his father, a man of honor. And as such, he fought with all he had and did all he could to make sure that everybody got everything that he had promised. That upset many politicians, specially those that cherished power over everything else. Joffrey was among those politicians, but none of them said anything nor did they protest to the things that President Robb was doing during his mandate.

Meanwhile, everybody was going on with their lives. Sansa Stark continued being married to Joffrey Baratheon, but between his responsibilities as Vice President and her job as an actress and a singer they rarely saw each other, which was a relief. During those months Sansa worked in the filming of two movies and three video clips, and she recorded her new album, which had been released to the market a couple of months ago. She had concerts to go to, and she was currently preparing a world tour that she would leave to in the month of November.

Sandor still watched over her as her bodyguard, following her like a shadow. They kept hiding their relationship, but as time passed it became a little bit easier because they had gotten used to it. They didn't speak at all in front of people. They didn't even look at each other in public since Sansa's younger brothers had found out about them so easily, they thought that it would be too risky. So they basically ignored each other during the day, but when night came whenever Sansa was staying in a hotel because of her job, then she and Sandor would be together. They took all the chances they could have to be together, and they didn't really care what they did. Sometimes they just held hands, sometimes they talked, sometimes they kissed. Sometimes Sandor just slept in the same bed as Sansa, holding her in his arms and guarding her sleep. And other times, in thy could get enough privacy, Sandor made Sansa scream his name while making love to her.

However, the fact that things were a little better then they were before didn't mean that Sandor was happy about their situation. He wanted Sansa miles away from her husband and his family, and he knew that she wouldn't be completely safe until she was divorced and out of Joffrey's reach. Sandor had wanted to take Sansa to the Red Keep mansion hundreds of times, so that she could finally confess to her brother Robb the truth about Joffrey and her fake and horrible marriage. Sansa never let him take her to her brother, she didn't want to tell the truth. Well, she did want to tell the truth, but she was so scared... Sandor always told her that he would protect her, but still Sansa refused to run to her brother. She insisted that she would resist for as long as she could, and so far she was resisting. Sandor hated it, but he knew that he couldn't act against Sansa's decisions. And so eleven moths had passed, and there they were.

That morning of mid-September, Sansa woke up in Sandor's arms. She blinked several times when the light of morning that came through the windows hit her in the face. She felt tired, for she hadn't slept that much that night and she was exhausted from the previous day. It had been the last day of her short tour around Westeros, and after a long concert that lasted almost four hours she went to the hotel. Sandor had snuck into her room in the middle of the night and they had slept together, trying not to make any noise so as to not alert anyone of the fact that Sansa wasn't alone in her room. Sandor often snuck back into his room around an hour before dawn, but that night he had fallen profoundly asleep and he hadn't left Sansa's room. While Sansa became more and more awake with each passing minute she noticed that Sandor was still asleep, even though it was late.

She looked at his face. The burned side of his face was resting against the pillow, which left his good side in plain sight. Sansa stared at him lovingly, and she smiled when she heard him snoring a little bit. She rested her head on his rising and falling chest and entertained herself by listening to the beat of his heart and caressing the strong and powerful muscles of his chest with her hand. Sandor stirred a little bit under his touch.

"Sandor..." she whispered in a sing-song voice, and then she kissed his chest. "Sandor."

He must have heard her, because he stopped snoring and murmured her name in his sleep. Sansa smiled and kissed his chest again.

"Sandor, wake up."

He didn't open his eyes, but Sansa was patient. She continued softly calling his name and kissing his chest. She also kissed his jaw, and his neck, and his arms and the hard muscles on his stomach. She was again kissing his chest when she finally heard him speaking in a low and sleepy voice.

"If I continue sleeping, will you keep kissing me?" he asked, making her chuckle. "Because I can keep sleeping for all eternity, I don't mind."

Sansa grinned, and kissed him one last time while she caressed him with her hand.

"Wake up, silly," she murmured. As soon as she said those words Sandor suddenly rolled to his side, putting himself on top of Sansa on the bed. She squealed, and Sandor silenced her with a kiss.

"Who are you calling silly?" he asked with his lips still pressed against hers.

"You! ...Silly."

Instead of kissing her like he had done before, Sandor decided to attack Sansa with tickles. As soon as he started tickling her she squealed and laughed and twisted underneath him, making him grin mischievously.

"No, no, stop!" Sansa laughed with tears in her eyes. She couldn't stand tickles, she was extremely sensitive, and Sandor knew it. "Stop! Please!"

"Not so silly now, aye?" Sandor rasped, but he was still grinning.

"Yes! You are still silly!" Sansa giggled, and Sandor tickled her even more. Sansa almost kicked him. "No, stop! They are gonna hear us!"

Realizing that was Sansa was saying was true and that her loud laughs could give away Sandor's presence in her room, he decided to silence her by pressing his mouth once again against Sansa's lips. For a moment she was able to forget about the awful tickling and she focused only on Sandor's lips against her mouth, on the tip of his tongue touching her lips, on the weight of his body on top of hers...

But then she started laughing again, and she couldn't take it anymore. She started laughing again, but Sandor was too focused on the kiss and on his hands caressing Sansa's body, so he was caught off guard when Sansa suddenly pushed him off her. He ended up falling on his ass to the floor, but he took the bed sheets with him. Sansa didn't mind, for she immediately got off the bed and walked towards the bathroom to go to the shower. Right before going in she looked back and glanced at Sandor, who had climbed back on the bed. She smiled at him, and he felt an extreme desire to run after her to the shower. He knew he couldn't, because if he did neither of them would get out in time to catch a ride to the airport, and that would be bad.

Sandor sighed as he watched Sansa disappearing behind the door of the bathroom, and then he stood there on the bed with his eyes staring at the closed door. He wanted to kick the door down and take Sansa in his arms and make her his once more, but he had to resist that strong urge. Once again, their little time in paradise had come to an end, and they had to go back to King's Landing that same day.

"There we go again..." he muttered to himself as he got off the bed and gathered his clothes from the floor to dress himself before leaving Sansa's room.

Tywin and Kevan Lannister watched Joffrey in silence as he stood behind his desk. He was glaring at the newspaper that was on it. The front page featured a huge picture of Robb Stark meeting with the President of the United States during the latter's diplomatic visit to Westeros. Below the picture there was a long article praising Robb as a great politician and a great President. The article also talked about the meeting between both Presidents, which had ended with an strengthened diplomatic relationship between both countries.

Joffrey's hands turned into fists which trembled with fury. He hated Robb Stark, and he hated that he was doing such a good job. He hated that people loved Robb Stark, that he was succeeding in everything... Meanwhile, Joffrey had to stand aside and pretend to be happy with his brother-in-law's success, while he was forced to be in the background, always a secondary character in the history of Westeros.

He wanted Robb Stark out of the picture, and he wanted him out now.

"Shit," he muttered after finishing reading the article. He was sick of how satisfied everyone was with Robb, and of how much that newspaper was kissing his ass.

"You can't really be upset, the man is earning that praise," Kevan Lannister commented. "So far, he has done everything that he promised he would do."

"Lowering the cost of higher education, providing health care, encouraging the creation of jobs, enforcing trade treaties with the rest of the world..." Tywin Lannister murmured, carefully watching his grandson's reaction. Joffrey wasn't liking anything of what he was hearing, even though he already knew all that, naturally. "People love him. And I have bad news for you."

"What?" Joffrey snapped, finally rising his head and looking away from the newspaper, just to glare at his grandfather.

"I am afraid that if Robb Shark continues down this path of being the perfect President, he will win in the next elections. I know for a fact that he plans on running for office again in three years."

"A lot can happen in three years," Joffrey said, but his grandfather shook his head in disapproval.

"Not with Robb Stark. Will you risk losing to him in the next elections... Again?"

"I won't lose."

"You said the same thing last time. You will lose, and it won't be because of just one point."

Suddenly Joffrey slammed his fist against the table, knocking down a glass of whiskey that was on it. The glass fell to the floor, and the whiskey soaked and stained the carpet that covered it. Joffrey didn't care, he didn't even seem to have noticed it. He looked again like a wild beast. His green eyes were narrowed and had a savage and vicious look on them; his whole expression was aggressive. He breathed hard and clenched his jaw, trying to contain the anger that he felt. He had been trying to keep calm in the last months, but lately it was becoming harder and harder to do so.

"If I can't win against him, then I will have to find some way to get him out of my way!" he exclaimed, looking at his grandfather and at his great-uncle. "There must be some way... Some scandal, anything that will get him kicked out of office!"

Tywin Lannister scoffed. He seemed amused by Joffrey's words.

"A scandal? Ned Stark had more chances of provoking a scandal than his son, and Ned Stark was the most honorable man that ever walked on Earth. No scandal will ever get Robb Stark out of your way, and neither has he ever done anything illegal. He is the perfect President. And he won't leave on his own choice, no matter what happens or how bad things get. The Starks never give up on anything."

"You simply can't get rid of him," Kevan said.

Joffrey wasn't looking at them anymore; his eyes had returned to look at the picture on the newspaper. He repeated Tywin's and Kevan's words in his mind, and then he slowly shook his head.

"There is always a way..." he murmured in a low and sly voice, more to himself than to the two men sitting in front of him.

Tywin and Kevan looked at each other, wondering what on Earth was going on inside Joffrey's head. It was obvious from the young man's expression that he was thinking of something... He was planning something. And when Joffrey planned something it was never something good.

The two older Lannister men waited in silence to see if Joffrey shared with them what he was thinking, but he did no such thing. Instead he dismissed them, and Tywin and Kevan left after a brief and cold goodbye.

Joffrey remained standing behind his desk, with his hands on the wooden surface at each side of the newspaper. His glare full of hate and rage and envy was fixed on President Robb Stark's face in the picture. Joffrey had hated Vice President Eddard Stark with a passion, but he hated Robb Stark even more. Joffrey remembered all the things that he had done to Ned Stark when the man had dared to stand in his way, and he wished he could do the same to the younger Stark. Robb Stark was worse than his father. Not only had he stood between Joffrey and what he wanted, but he had also taken those things away from him and claimed them for himself. Joffrey had always wanted to be President. He had been so close, and then Robb Stark had appeared and he had dared to snatch the power away from him. All of Joffrey's ambitions had been out on hold because of Robb Stark...

But Joffrey wasn't going to give up. He never did... He would get the power that he so much desired, one way or another...

He heard footsteps coming closer from down the hallway outside his office, and he knew that Sansa had come back. He had known that she was going to return that evening from her tour, but he had forgotten all about it until that moment. He ignored her approaching footsteps because he couldn't take his eyes off Robb Stark's picture. Feeling an explosion of rage within himself, he suddenly grabbed a letter opener and yelled. As he did so, he stabbed the newspaper with the letter opener.

Right after he did so, the door to his office opened and Sansa walked into the place, looking pretty as always, with her long auburn hair falling down her back in beautiful and bright waves. Joffrey looked away from the newspaper and stared at her with narrowed eyes.

"Joffrey, I'm back-" Sansa had started saying, but the words died in her mouth as soon as she saw what her husband had been doing. Her eyes went wide with poorly hidden horror when she saw that Joffrey had stabbed her brother's head in a picture with a letter opener. She took a step back, feeling a wave of fear wash through her. She looked away from the picture in the newspaper and looked at Joffrey with watery eyes. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, dear," he sneered, still gripping the letter opener with so much force that his hand was trembling, and the blade of the letter opened cut a bit hole in the picture right in Robb Stark's forehead.

Sansa gulped. In just a second all the fear that had disappeared while she was on tour away from King's Landing came back to her, and she hadn't been in the mansion for more than half an hour and she was already shaking like a little defenseless girl in front of a terrible monster. She couldn't take her eyes off the picture of her brother that Joffrey had stabbed with the letter opener, and images of her father's death flashed in her mind. She took another step back, hitting the door behind her.

Joffrey let go of the blade then and he walked from behind the desk, approaching Sansa with slow and short steps.

"Sansa, come here," he told her, eyeing her like a hungry predator.

She shook her head. "No," she whispered, and then she turned around and walked out of there.

"Sansa, come back here!" she heard Joffrey saying behind her, but she didn't listen to him. She kept walking towards her room in the third floor of the mansion, blocking out Joffrey's voice and the way in which he demanded her to go back to him. She didn't want to go anywhere near him, and he couldn't make her do it. She just wanted to go to her room and be alone.

"Joffrey, I'm tired, it was a long flight," she protested when she saw that he had followed her back to their bedroom.

"I don't care," he hissed. "You have been away too long."

"I was working," Sansa murmured, feeling like she had lost her voice. "Joffrey, I'm tired," she repeated. "You can go back to stabbing pictures of my brother if you want, but please leave me alone..."

Joffrey grabbed her arm then and pulled from it to bring her closer to him. Sansa gasped as body became pressed to Joffrey's. She tried to move away from him, feeling disgusted by the closeness between them. Oh, how she hadn't missed her husband in that time that she had been away from that hell of a place. Joffrey sensed that Sansa was trying to put some distance between them again, so he put his other hand on her waist to keep her from doing that. He was glaring at her, and in that closeness Sansa thought that he looked like a snake, dangerous and venomous, waiting to jump and attack her.

"Ow, you are hurting me..." she whimpered, but he twisted her arm and made her whimper even more. "Ow! Joffrey!"

"I don't like it when you leave for such a long time," he hissed between gritted teeth. His face was so close to Sansa's that she could feel his hot breath on her, sending cold waves of disgust through her. "You make me miss you."

"You lie," she said. "You never miss me. Just as I never miss you!"

Joffrey ignored her words and tried to force a kiss on her, but Sansa moved her face away. She didn't want to kiss him. She always forced herself to kiss him to keep him happy with her, to try to avoid trouble, but she was too tired from the flight to put up with him. She was also too tired of having to put up with him. She had had enough.

"Leave me alone, Joffrey!"

She had had months of peace. She had had months of him leaving her almost alone... But like most good things, that truce had come to an end.

Joffrey, further enraged by her rejection, raised his hand and hit her.

Five minutes later Sansa was running through the hallways of the mansion, rushing for the stairs. She was breathing heavily and shaking without control; her legs felt like they were made of jelly, but she couldn't stop running. She wanted to scream and call for help, but who was going to call for help in there? She was surrounded by Lannisters, and they would all help Joffrey, not her.

She could hear Joffrey shouting her name in a mad rage, completely infuriated. After he had slapped her he had thrown her to the bed, where he had pinned her down with his own body on top of hers. Joffrey was too strong for her to fight, so there wasn't much that she could do. She had slapped him back and she had scratched his neck, which had only infuriated Joffrey even more. Then, as he was about to hit her again, Sansa had extended her arm to grab the lamp that was on the bedside table, and she had hit Joffrey's head with it with all her strength. The lamp had shattered and Joffrey had screamed. He had rolled off Sansa and fallen off the bed, and Sansa had taken the opportunity to get up and run.

Joffrey was now running after her, and Sansa did not dare to look behind her to see where he was, for she felt that if se saw him he would catch her quicker.

Her long and fast strides took her to the library in the first floor, and she rushed inside of it without checking first if there was anyone inside of it. She immediately closed the door to lock herself in the library. She went to lock the door, but found that the door did not have a lock.

"Damn it!" she cursed, half hissing and half crying.

Joffrey arrived at the door then and tried to push it open. Sansa screamed and jumped in the air, scared, but she managed to hold it together and she threw all her weight against the door to try to keep it closed.

"Sansa!" Joffrey's voice came from the other side of the door. It didn't seem like his voice anymore, but rather the hysterical howl of a hungry and vicious wild animal. "Sansa! Open the fucking door!"

She wasn't going to open the door. She couldn't do that. God knew what he would so to her in that moment if she allowed him into the library. She had barely escaped him in the bedroom, and he was only furious back there. Now he was completely crazy.

Her arms ached as she tried to push the door to keep it closed. Joffrey was stronger than her, that had already been proven many times, and he managed to open the door a bit. Sansa screamed when she was forced back by the impact of Joffrey's body against the door, but she stood her ground and she didn't fall to the floor. She tried with all her strength to shut the door again, but she couldn't. It was too much. She was going to have to give up.

Right before she did that, though, someone appeared at her side and pushed her out of the way, making her fall to the floor. She gasped as she hit the floor and rolled on her back to see who had done that, and she was shocked to find Sandor there. With one simple push Sandor shut the door close, forcing Joffrey back into the hallway.

Joffrey continued pushing and crashing against the door to make it open, but Sandor put all his weight against the door to keep it closed. Sansa could see that Sandor was actually making a big effort to keep the door closed, because the veins in his neck were swollen and his face was red. Sandor was much stronger than Joffrey, but in his rage Joffrey was very strong. The young man kept trying to break the door down, and they could hear him yelling with frustration when he didn't manage to do it.

"Sansa!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. She was sure that the entire mansion could hear him. "Open the door! SANSA!"

Joffrey crashed against the door one more time in a particularly violent way, and the door opened a few inches for a few seconds before Sandor closed it again. He almost cursed, but he fought the urge because he couldn't let himself be heard. Instead he mouthed a few curses between his gritted teeth, and then he finally raised his gaze to look at Sansa for the first time since he had appeared to save her. She was still sitting on the floor, almost breathless, not knowing how to react. She was trembling with fear.

Sandor looked at her for a few seconds, and Sansa was not able to identify the emotions in his eyes. He was angry, very angry. But he wasn't angry at her, unlike Joffrey. Instead, Sandor was afraid because of the panic that he was seeing in Sansa's face.

Then he made a quick moment with his head, pointing towards a piece of furniture that was next to the door. Sansa understood him and stood up from the floor. She rushed to one side of the big and heavy piece of furniture and pushed it towards the door. Sandor moved out of the way and helped her by pulling the piece of furniture until they placed it right in front of the door, blocking it and making it unable for Joffrey to open it, though he was still trying.

"SANSA!"

Sandor took her hand and led her to the window of the library, which led to the front yard of the mansion. He opened the window and went through it out to the front yard, and then he helped Sansa out the same way. He didn't even give her a moment to catch her breath after that intense and stressful moment she had just escape, and not did he stop to take a breath himself. He ran towards were the one of the family's black Mercedes was parked, and he took Sansa with him. Sandor had the keys, so he opened the car and made Sansa go inside of it. He closed the door after she went inside the car, and then he went to the driver's seat. He started the engine with the key, and before either of them put on the seat-belts Sandor rushed out of the parking lot of the mansion, nearly throwing Sansa against one of the doors of the car. He raced the car out of the gates of the estate in which the mansion was, and he drove far, far away from there.

By the time Sandor reduced the speed of the vehicle, Sansa was quietly sobbing in the backseat of the black Mercedes. She had her head resting against the tinted window, and her eyes were lost in some far away point of the road. She was trying to control the way in which her body trembled. After a few minutes in silence, Sandor cursed under his breath. Sansa could notice the anger in his voice.

"Fuck, Sansa, are you okay?" Sandor asked them, shooting her a worried glance through the rear view mirror. Sansa nodded her head quietly. "Don't lie to me. Look at me."

Sansa was still resting her head against the window, and her loose and long and now messy hair covered her face. It had covered it before also, so Sandor hadn't seen her yet. Sansa didn't want to look at him, and she didn't want to look at herself in the mirror. Her face hurt.

"Sansa, look at me," Sandor demanded, and Sansa did as she was told. She moved her head away from the window and looked at Sandor through the rear view mirror, and her hair moved away from her face. Sandor saw her and cursed again, this time more angrily. "Fuck! I'm going to kill him!"

He slammed his hand against the steering wheel, making the car honk. He received angry honks of protest from the cars around him, but he paid them no attention.

Sansa looked at her reflection in the small mirror. She was a mess. Joffrey had hit her only once, but that one slap had been enough to leave was huge dark red mark around her eye and over her cheek. It would probably turn purple soon. She sobbed again.

"What the fuck happened?" Sandor asked. He had no idea how that had happened. The only thing that he had seen was Sansa struggling to keep the door of the library closed to keep her psychopath of a husband to burst in a beat her to a bloody pulp, but he knew no more. He didn't really care what had caused the fight; no matter what the reason had been, he would still want to go back and murder Joffrey.

"I walked in and saw him... stabbing... a picture of my brother," Sansa mumbled with trembling lips. Her voice was low, broken, barely a whisper. "I went to the room... but... he followed me... I hit him... so he hit me."

She sobbed again, but Sandor made quiet and soothing noises, trying to all her down.

"It's okay. It's okay, little bird, don't cry... Don't cry... It will all be over soon, I promise."

Over? That was never going to be over. Sansa almost laughed, feeling bitterness in every cell of her body.

"It won't end," she said, shaking her head. She stopped sobbing and wiped the tears off her face with her hand, but more tears streamed down her damp face. "He'll be waiting for me when I come back..."

"I won't take you back," Sandor rasped then, earning a confused look from Sansa through the read view mirror.

"What...? But I have to go back... I can't run away!"

"I am sick and tired of this situation. I am sick and tired of seeing you suffer like this. I am sick and tired of having to just stand aside and let him abuse you!" Sandor raised his tone of voice until he was almost shouting, and Sansa almost cowered in the backseat because of the wrath in his voice. "I won't allow it anymore! I should have... I should have stopped it over a year ago. Fucking hells, I should have stopped it the first time that I saw him slap you!"

"Sandor..." Sansa murmured, but she didn't know what to say. What could she say to him that she hadn't said before? There was just no way out of her situation...

She was going to try and explain it to him for the thousandth time, but the words never got to leave her mouth, for she had looked out of the window of the car again and she had seen that they were in a very familiar road...

"Sandor, what are you doing?" she asked, confused and alarmed. She got no answer. "Sandor, where are you taking me?!"

"There's no fucking Tywin Lannister that can stop me this time," Sandoe rasped, saying every word slowly and clearly so that there was no doubt of what he was saying. "And if he tries it, I swear I will put a bullet on his brain. No fucking Lannister will stop me this time, no one will... And neither will you!"

"But-!"

"No fucking 'buts!'" he barked, shouting Sansa up. "I am done watching you sacrificing yourself, it's going to get you killed someday! So don't try to stop me. I am taking you to your family. You will tell them the truth, and your brother will deal with Joffrey. And that will be the end of it."