Sansa II

"Why do you have your feathers all ruffled up, Little Bird? What happened?"

Sansa was brought back to present by Sandor's deep voice. She was so lost in her thoughts that the herbs she has been grinding became almost a thin powder. They were at the little kitchen of the cabin, the fire providing them a much-welcomed heat. Winter was approaching fast, so even in broad daylight there was a chill in the air. Sansa was standing by the big oak table that occupied much of the kitchen, a handful of herbs, vials and potions lying in front of her. Sandor was sitting in a wooden bench that was way too small for his big frame. Trying to calm down her raging mind, Sansa sighed and turned to Sandor, answering.

"It has been a week since we left the Isle. Lyara should be here right now. I am worried something bad might have happened to her"

"Like what?" he asked, while he sharpened a sword, he got from one of the soldiers from the Vale. Normally it would be oddly calming to Sansa, just watching him run the whetstone through the metal, the course sounds a reminder of his steady presence in which nothing bad could happen to her. But she realized not even he could shake away her worries. Something inside her was restless, and it felt like a foreboding. She shook her head and answered honestly:

"I don't know. But you have to admit it; we are living in dangerous times. What if she was attacked on the road? What if she fell from the horse and got hurt?"

"Little Bird, we always lived in dangerous times. You were just too sheltered to realize it before"

His words hurt her more than she cared to admit. Of course, he was telling the truth: she was a sheltered little girl before, loved and protected by her family. The ugliness of the world was something she only met when she found herself at the mercy of the Lannisters. Still, his words were a painful reminder of her past naivety, and it bothered her to no end to think that he still saw her as a pathetic little girl.

"You don't need to remind me that. I am well aware of it" she said, and retorted to silence. Sandor grunted, but said no more for a while. After a few moments he sighed and said:

"I don't think you have cause to worry. Maybe she is still at the Isle, tending to the girl. Maybe she got herself more sick people to treat. In any case, I will go to the Quiet Isle tomorrow, and see what happened"

She realized he was trying to make amends. "As usual" she thought, angrily. "Always trying to make amends after barking and biting" Not bothering to look to his side, she answered:

"You shouldn't. You're not strong enough to ride yet"

Sandor gave a humorless laugh before replying:

"I am sturdier than you think, girl. And you should know by now that a mean bastard like me doesn't die easily. I leave in the morrow" he said, walking out of the kitchen into the courtyard.

Sansa sighed and put the herbs aside. "Why does it have to be so hard?" she thought. Sometimes she and Sandor shared a quiet and comfortable camaraderie, talking about harmless subjects, she grinding herbs and mixing potions, him tending to the horses or sharpening the sword. Sandor recovered quite quickly, and started to do some chores to help her in the house. In the past couple of days, they settled in a domestic companionship. While Sandor was tending to the animals, she would be tending to the garden. And when he gathered firewood or gutted fish, she would prepare their food and clean the house. Anyone seeing them would picture Sansa and Sandor as husband and wife, and that thought made Sansa shiver with something she couldn't quite place. But there were other times, like now, that he upset her to no end with his hateful remarks and his overall rudeness, and when that happened, they wouldn't talk for quite some time. Sandor would drink and be mad and Sansa would be either annoyed or saddened. She didn't really know how to behave around him sometimes. She wanted him to acknowledge that she wasn't a little girl anymore, but a woman grown. She wanted him to realize that the stupid highborn girl that fancied Lords and Knights was buried, and a confident and resourceful healer took her stead. But how could she do that?

She sighed and started mixing the herbs to make a good poultice to dress his wound. Sandor was healing well, that was a fact, but she figured it would be good to give nature a helping hand, especially if he was determined to leave in the morrow. He shouldn't leave, that's for sure, but Sansa figured that given his stubbornness there was no way in hell she would convince him otherwise. He would be risking his life once again, and for what? "For me" she thought, as realization struck. Sansa stopped what she was doing and recalled their recent conversation. "He is doing this for me, because he can't stand to see me worrying about Lyara. And then, when he offered to go after her even when he shouldn't, I snapped at him, like a 4-year-old girl denied her favorite doll" She has been so stupid. She wanted Sandor to see her like a woman, and yet there she was, behaving like a child. Maybe figuring out their relationship was as hard on Sandor as it was on her, and yet she wasn't making it any easier for him. "I have to act like a grown woman" she thought "and maybe he will see that I changed." Sansa wasn't sure exactly why she wanted so badly to have Sandor looking at her in a different way. She never realized his approval meant too much to her. "It's just because I respect his opinions" she thought, and decided to leave it like that. Sansa resumed her earlier activity, mixing the plaster. When she was done, she gathered her basket with some of her tools and left the cabin to look for Sandor.

It wasn't hard to find him; there was only one place he went whenever he was sulking and wanted to be alone. Sansa found Sandor combing Stranger's black mane, with steady yet delicate strokes. It made her remind how his hands once pressed a knife to her throat, and how his lips touched hers, in a hasty but gentle kiss. She shook those thoughts aside and cleared her throat to make her presence known. Sandor looked at her direction and grunted in response. After a few moments of silence, Sansa said:

"I brought a poultice. To dress your wound." she said

"There's no need for it" he answered roughly. Sansa sighed and decided to make good on her compromise to be more comprehensive and mature. Instead of snapping at him like a child - or worse, feeling offended and leaving in tears - she only said:

"Please, let me do this. I know you're strong and you feel fine, but I'd like to help. Let me."

He paused, considering her words for a moment. After a while he nodded, stepping away from Stranger and approaching her. Sansa motioned for him to sit upon a nearby bench, to which he obliged.

"Take off your shirt" she said, gathering everything she needed from the basket. He smirked and said:

"I never imagined Sansa Stark would ask me to take off my clothes"

She considered his words for a minute, before replying:

"Many things have happened that we never imagined"

"Aye, it would appear so." He answered, taking his shirt off.

Sansa kneeled before him and examined his wound carefully. It was healing nicely, but it would definitely leave a scar. She soaked a cloth with wine and cleaned the wound, trying to be as gentle as humanely possible. After it was done, she applied some of the poultice into the wound, making him wince.

"I am sorry" she said "I know it stings a bit"

"It's alright" he answered. "I had worse"

Sansa nodded and resumed her work, applying the rest of the plaster and bandaging him with a clean cloth.

"It's done" she said "Give it a few more days and you will be as good as new. It will leave a scar, though."

Sandor started to laugh bitterly, before replying:

"Yeah, that would be a shame, right?" he said, with anger barely concealed. Sansa realized too late her mistake. She knew that his scars were a nasty subject between them. Yes, she admitted that once upon a time she would cower and hide from his ruined face, like the little empty-headed girl she was. Once upon a time she would surround herself with everything beautiful and if by chance something ugly caught her eye, she would either dismiss it or try to shine another light at it, to make it look better. When she first met Sandor Clegane, his hideous scars scared her, but she made up in her head a story about how he got them valiantly, in battle. As she got to know him, and finally when he told her the ugly truth about his scars, Sansa didn't know what to make of it. But by that time, she was slowly coming to understand that beautiful things sometimes hide a monstrous nature, and that the opposite sometimes is also true: the ugliest face could belong to the most devoted protector. She learned that truth in King's Landing, when the mean dog and the impossibly ugly dwarf were the only ones that ever tried to protect her from handsome sweet-tongued and golden-haired monsters. But Sandor never believed she changed, and seemed to think she was still disgusted by his scars. She sighed and said:

"I am sorry. I didn't mean to imply…"

"Cut it, girl. Leave it at that. I am a scarred bastard, period. No need to worry your pretty head over it" he said, preparing to stand and leave. Sansa could see it happening all over again: he would sulk and drink, and avoid her like a plague again, like he always did anytime they had a misunderstanding, while she would be hurt and angry. Eventually they would make amends, but for the time being the slow progress in their tentative relationship would be ruined. She would not let it happen again. She would not let him fall into one of his tempers over a mistake. She placed her hands over his knee, to stop him from standing, and said with a steady voice:

"No. I won't leave it at that"

He looked at her with wary eyes, and started to speak:

"Look, girl…"

"No. This time you listen to me." She said, looking him in the eyes. Sandor tried to look away, but Sansa gently turned his head back to her, and continued with a softer voice:

"I won't deny that there was a time when your scars scared me, and repelled me. I know you hate liars, so I will not lie to you and try to sugar-coat it. Yes, your scars are terrible, and yes, I was frightened and appalled by them. But that was only in the beginning."

He was silent, his eyes locked on hers. She took it as good sign and continued:

"After some time, I got used to them, and then there was a time when I realized they didn't bother me anymore. Only your hate still frightened me, the anger that I could see in your eyes. There were times, most of them, when I thought your anger was bound for me only, until I realized that it wasn't really me. You were mad at the world." She said. Slowly, she started to caress his scars. He flinched at first, but didn't try to take her hand away.

"People judge you by these" she said "as if it made you into a monster. But you are not a monster, Sandor Clegane. You are a man, and despite your self-hate I know in my heart that somewhere in yours you are a good man. I am not blind or naïve, I know well enough that you did terrible things, but I also know that you saved me, time and time again, and that must count for something." She felt her voice cracking, and tears pooled in her eyes. She closes her eyelids, letting them fall, before continuing:

"You were once a little boy, young and innocent. I presume that you once dreamt of knights and damsels, like the old stories I am sure someone told you when you were a child. And I know that… that… the Mountain shattered all of these dreams when he did this to you" she said, caressing his wounds. He closed his eyes and sighed, and Sansa felt lightheaded at the proximity between them.

"But this is not who you are, Sandor. The world may think whatever it damn wants, we know the truth. I don't mind these scars, not at all. They don't matter to me. The only thing that matters is that I trust you. You are the man who saved me, who risked his own life for me and almost died. You are the man who never told me lies…" she said, and felt her voice wavering. Their lips were almost touching, her hands still on his face. She felt something wet on her fingers and suddenly she was transported back to the night of Blackwater. This time there was no song, no knife and no green fires, but the anticipation she felt was familiar. When she finally touched his lips with hers, she felt safe.

Their kiss was something very different from a song. It started timid, tentative, and escalated quite quickly. Soon he was devouring her mouth, his tongue tracing every path inside her. He kissed her with the longing of a hungry man, barely giving her time to catch her breath. His hands were traveling along her body and she felt giddy. Sansa noticed, scandalized, that she was kissing a half-naked man, and she felt embarrassed by her complete lack of composure or regret. It felt good, and it felt right, but it was too much, too soon, and she was afraid she was threading a path she wasn't fully ready to take just yet, so he put her hands on his chest and broke the kiss, catching her breath. He was still as a rock for a moment, but then he withdrew his hands from her, as if she was burning, and looked away. It was almost like he was ashamed, but Sansa took his hand in hers and said timidly:

"Please, don't be like that. I am not ashamed, nor do I regret it. It's just… it's too much." She said, with a soft voice, still holding his hands. "I mean, we both have things to discuss, issues to work out. We need time. But… don't drive me away. Please."

Sansa was afraid she sounded too weak and that he would again see her as a little girl and not a grown woman, but in the end he nodded and said:

"I won't, Little Bird."

He stood, and helped her up. She thanked him meekly and proceeded to scrub the dirt off her dress. He put on his shirt and strode away, leaving her behind, alone with the horses, her raging mind and her wildly beating heart.

"What in the seven hells is happening to me?" she whispered, to no one in particular. But from somewhere deep in her mind, a thought answered "I think you know".

Yes, she did. She was just too afraid to face it yet.