Chapter Text
Sansa
The feast after the battle was a raucous affair, as only the north knew how to indulge in. Drink and kisses flowed freely and no one judged anyone for anything that night. All past sins were washed out by the blood of the fallen, all our terrible histories buried for the night in a haze of unlikely survival, ale and wine.
I smiled and laughed with the rest of them, though my feelings were slightly reserved, as always. As they would be for the rest of my life. Too much had happened for me to ever trust a moment of unbridled joy. When a broken thing is put back together, it’s fixed along ruined edges. And I don’t care how skilled the one who mends it. Or the renewed strength of a reinforced seam. I will always feel those edges.
Rough, ruined and just a little sharp.
Like smiling while swallowing glass. Even if the shards are small enough now that I don’t always notice them.
As I crossed the feast hall, my ears picked out the lamenting voice of Tormund Giantsbane. “We’ll drown our sorrows, Clegane,” the wildling suggested, as he brought his arm around one of two pretty, lowborn girls who were willing to be a little reckless with their affections. This was followed by Sandor Clegane’s grim reply, muted, nearly growling—his familiar voice settling in my ears like an old song.
My eyes flickered across the feast hall, finding the Hound, and lingering. I watched him snarl at the wildling. And then I watched him refuse the second girl, with her dark eyes and sultry words, who made the mistake of sitting down beside him.
She visibly jumped when he growled. He was like an angry dog, intent on driving her away. And it worked, as she left his side in a hurry. I didn’t watch her go, didn’t notice her path or which battle-weary soldier of the Long Night would next receive her attentions, perhaps with a more willing reception this time.
My eyes were fixed on Sandor Clegane, who seemed intent on nursing his ale and his darker thoughts in miserable silence. His grip tightened around the goblet in his hand and the pitcher he poured from, filling it up again. His scowl simmered, his dark hair and rugged features thrown into sharp relief by the surrounding candlelight.
Would he chase me away as easily? I wondered, a hint of a smile tempting my lips as I guessed the answer. The wine had made me confident. And slightly impulsive.
I decided to find out if I was right.
He noticed as I approached, his head snapping up, ready to rage again. But I caught him off guard and I watched his eyes go just a tad soft with sudden recognition, though his gaze soon dropped again. To his hands, to the glass of ale. The words on his tongue, cruel, raging things I’m sure, left him and he was left speechless as I slid onto the bench across from him.
I folded my hands before me and brought my lips together, my eyes never leaving his face. I studied the burned side without cowering, noting that the patches of ruined skin were not nearly as widespread as I remembered.
Does it still hurt? I knew the wounds his brother gave him were old, scabbed and scarred over many years ago, but I wondered just the same.
After a moment, I murmured, “She could have made you happy. For a little while.”
“There’s only one thing that would make me happy,” he answered with another glower. But the glower was directed at his hands. Not me. And with less fire this time. He was unable to keep his flames of anger as hot as he had with the others.
“What’s that?” I wondered, curious.
“That’s my fucking business,” he grumbled, but finally lifted his gaze back up to mine, holding it steady. As a dare to myself, I didn’t look away. I saw candle flame reflected in his eyes, dancing over dark irises. And I watched his mouth soften further, though his words remained hard-edged and sharp as ever.
I said nothing in reply, drawing him out with silence. I had a feeling that Sandor Clegane craved silence.
“There was a time you couldn’t look at me,” he said those words flatly, hiding any feelings he might have on the matter behind his drink and the miserable mood he seemed intent on keeping close.
But I knew his bark was worse than his bite. And he didn’t frighten me. Not for a long time.
You won’t hurt me.
No, I won’t hurt you, little bird.
“That was a long time ago,” I tipped my head slightly, hearing a slight coolness in my tone. He knew what had happened to me since last we met. And I knew what had happened to him.
We were both many-times broken.
I added, “I’ve seen far worse than you since then.”
“Aye,” he muttered, again. He shifted, leaning closer across the table with a sudden energy, his mouth twisting into something cruel again. I knew he would taunt me and try to chase me away like the others. I knew he would say things to injure me and I steeled myself for it, making myself a promise.
I would answer his fire with fire.
I watched the words form in his throat. I saw the light in his eyes flame alive on a blunt phrase that he knew would hurt me the most. Cut deep. But then…an errant draft blew out one of the candle flames at just that moment, shifting the harsh light in his eyes by a degree. The wick smoked as it cooled.
He suddenly swallowed those words back, whatever they were, thinking twice. He said nothing, not yet, taking another drink of ale instead.
“None of it would have happened if you’d left King’s Landing with me. No Littlefinger. No Ramsay. None of it.” He mentioned after a long pause, his tone grim. There was an accusation in his voice, that I stayed, but regret too, that he fled. Without me.
He could have forced me from the city. He was far stronger than me. He could have thrown me over his shoulder and taken me north, even as I pummeled his chest and begged to return to my captors, like a little fool.
But he could have done other things too. He could have pushed Joffrey off the castle walk that day I saw my father’s head mounted on a spike. He could have been a true knight, despite the mangled scars on his face. He could have told me that some men aren’t killers. That some men love and heal and protect and keep the women they love safe. No matter the cost. And to the very last.
All delusions, all nonsense. A stupid, little girl’s fantasy. But he could have said it anyway.
You won’t hurt me.
I will never hurt you.
“If I left with you, I would have died with my mother and Robb at the Twins so there was no happy ending for me anywhere,” I exhaled on the bitter, bitter words. “No one escapes their own fate.”
He huffed on a bitter laugh, knowing the truth in my words.
“Perhaps I would have kept you for myself?” he tried cruel words again, as this was his natural way and he would never be able to shake it off completely. Not without years of practice. He grumbled, “Perhaps I would have been worse than the rest of them together?”
I considered it. Arya told me what he said as he lay dying on that hill in the Riverlands. Even near death, he spit only fire and sour vinegar.
And your sister. Your pretty sister. I should have taken her, that night the Blackwater burned…
He was crass, cruel and rough-hewn. A true monster. With a monster’s hideous features, dread-worn voice and unfeeling hands.
But I looked at his hands then, remembering how those hands pulled me back from pushing Joffrey from the ledge, how those hands threw his white cloak around me in the Throne Room after Meryn Trant tore my dress and struck me with his sword, and how they lifted me from the dirty floor of that alleyway in King’s Landing. He couldn’t save me from what came later. But he saved me then.
Sandor Clegane may be a monster. But he was mine to command. Then, certainly. Now? Well, perhaps.
“You would never have hurt me,” I replied, those same words still dancing through my head. It was no question.
The dawning realization in his features revealed much. The memory of a night long ago. Of words spoken. And remembered.
“No,” he lingered on the simple word, treating it more like a reluctant vow as he muttered, “I would never hurt you, little bird.”
His lips twitched on the old nickname. And then his gaze dropped to his hands one more time.
For he couldn’t look at me for long. Just as I couldn’t look at him once upon a time. Our roles had been reversed. I could guess his thoughts easily.
Unworthy, unloved…
But I found I wanted him to look at me. More than that, I wanted…
It was impulse again, but I found I couldn’t stop myself. My hand slid forward and came to rest on his own, the one that lay so quiet on the table between us. My fingers slid over his large knuckles, reaching towards his wrist, my thumb caressing his callused skin like a whisper.
Sandor Clegane’s eyes flickered up, unsure. He looked afraid. As if faced with a wall of fire.
I nearly smiled on the idea. That I could instill fear in the Hound.
“Come with me,” I told him.