Fic: When We Were Young 4/9?
Title: When We Were Young 4/9?
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Sansa/Sandor
Word Count: 2244
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to GRRM
A/N: Modern AU set post ADWD. Special thanks to Kimberlite8 for her help with this!
Warnings: A bit of violence and a well deserved death in this part.
Chapter Three
In the morning, Sansa will board a bus to New Mexico, to the Brothers at the same Mission that once saved him, helped him to become a better man. He hopes that perhaps she might be able to find some measure of peace there just as he once did.
She is to wait two weeks for him there, no more. If he does not return to her by then, he is either dead or compromised and she will have to make her own way forward. Sandor writes a note for her to give to the Brothers asking them to look after her, writes another with the details he knows regarding her sister for her to keep, telling her to memorise it all on the bus ride just in case. He hands over most of whatever cash he’s carrying to her, knowing that she will need it if he doesn’t make it through.
“But this…” she starts to say, and then looks at him, as if wondering what he might want in return.
He cannot blame her, for a long time any grace that she has received has come with a proviso, some hidden cost that she did not realize at the time but had to pay later.
Perhaps the last one to show her any true kindness with no expectation of anything in return was him, and he showed her little enough.
But she has forgotten what such kindness looks like, and she will not understand it from him now, so instead he gruffly says. “I’ll take it back from you when I return. If I don’t, then money’s of no fucking use to me if I’m dead.”
This she can understand, and so she accepts.
It is when the time comes to sleep that he is sorely tested, because suddenly there she is standing before him, visibly nervous but with a hand outstretched to touch him. Does she think that he means to hold her to her offer right now? Perhaps she feels that he’ll want to claim his end of the bargain tonight in case he really does end up dying in the attempt. He almost laughs at the thought.
But no matter how much she tempts him, he will not break her further.
“Go to sleep, little bird.” He tells her instead, “We’ve both got a long journey ahead of us tomorrow.”
Sandor settles himself down on one side of her mattress, his back turned to her and closes his eyes. He listens as she walks to turn out the light before she settles herself in, her position mirroring hers. Through a lifetime of habit he falls into a light sleep quickly.
It is a few hours later and still dark when he wakes and aware of some difference he concentrates, listening for any sound that could have disturbed him. It is then that he hears her whispering.
He does not know how much time has passed, but Sansa has rolled over so that she is now facing him, has edged herself closer so that she must now be in the middle of the mattress. She is whispering and he holds himself still, in order to listen to what she says before she knows that he is awake.
“I thought that you were dead.” She whispers. “I thought you were dead, and I wished, I wished that I had gone with you. I wished I’d made another choice.”
There is silence, and then, “I thought you were dead.” She whispers once more, and he wonders if she is talking to him or herself. “Once I realized… I used to pray that you would come for me, you were the last hope I had, the only one who ever told me the truth, and then I heard you would dead and I knew… I knew…When I saw that you’d come for me even after all this time, that you’d come for me…”
She does not finish the sentence and eventually he hears her settle and her breathing deepen into that of sleep.
Turning himself over, he places one arm over her casually before pulling her closer.
This time it is she who pretends not to have awoken.
**
In the morning he watches as she packs, stuffing her pitifully few belongings into her backpack, the money he’d given her hidden near the bottom. He sees her glance at him as she hurries to place one item in, something that appears to be leather, but she is too fast for him to realize exactly what it is that she’s trying to hide.
Finally she stands, hefts the pack onto slender shoulders, takes one last look around the room that she’s called home the last few months and nods to tell him she’s ready. She leaves the door unlocked and a note on the counter to say she’s left, moved on, so that her coworkers might not worry.
It is still early when they make their way downstairs to his motorcycle, the sun not yet fully risen and the air chilly. He climbs on and waits as she buckles up her helmet before settling herself behind him. She winds her arms around his waist and holds on tight.
The journey is short and they arrive early to the town that her bus will leave from, he buys them both breakfast after they’ve purchased her ticket, eating in silence in a diner not so different from the one he found her in.
She glances at him from time to time, looking up from her pancakes, but she does not speak and he struggles to find something to say. Too many years have passed and all of the things he once told her are no longer necessary. She has taken his advice and applied it over the years, taken all of his advice perhaps a bit too strongly to heart.
He is not sure whether to regret his harshness with her or not. Did he contribute to her transformation into this broken girl, or has everything he told her in that time served to keep her alive?
She is not ready yet to hear what he would tell her now, and perhaps it is better that she does not anyway. Not yet.
When they are done he walks her to the bus terminal, carrying her bag for her while she follows him, quiet and listless. Sandor uses the opportunity to scan the other passengers for potential threats, and quiz her on the route she’s to take to ensure that she has the details memorized.
It is when the bus pulls up and he moves to help her board that she grabs his arm tightly, a sudden urgency in her.
He lowers his head to look her in the eyes, a question in his.
“Don’t go.” She blurts out, “I shouldn’t have asked you to. Come with me instead. I’ll… I’ll… whatever you… but come with me instead.”
He shakes his head sadly, looking down at her and reaches out to cup her cheek.
“You can’t have it both ways, little bird.” He tells her quietly. “If he’s to die then I have to leave you, and he does need to die. We won’t be safe otherwise.”
“But what if you don’t come back?” She asks, so quietly it is almost a whisper.
“Then I’ll be dead.” He tells her matter of factly, “And you’ll still be better off than before you knew I was alive.”
She’s shaking her head but the bus driver is looking at them impatiently and Sandor holds out the bag for her and gives her a gentle push in the direction of the bus. “Go on now, little bird.” He tells her, “I’ll come back, you’ll see.”
She nods once and seems to steel herself, her mask of calm slipping back into place.
“Go on now.” He repeats, nodding towards the bus. He will be back, he knows it. Petyr Baelish poses no challenge for him.
She moves forward suddenly and reaching for him, raises her face to his, kissing him hard upon the mouth.
Her bag forgotten, he drops it and presses her against him, deepens the kiss and allows himself to taste her before he lets her go, conscious of the eyes of the entire bus upon them.
“One real memory.” Sansa murmurs, “Just one real memory.”
Then she’s darting into the bus, making it to her seat before they close the door. He watches her until she’s out of sight, raising his own hand in goodbye in reply to hers.
Sandor climbs on his bike and leaves to kill Petyr Baelish.
**
Two days of surveillance and then he makes his move.
It has been years since Sandor last killed and yet it is extraordinarily simple to dispatch Littlefinger’s household guards. A silenced gun, four shots and he’s wiped out the men patrolling the house. It’s extraordinarily little protection in Sandor’s opinion but he’s not going to rue his good luck.
A quick cut of the wire on the security system and he makes his way upstairs without the alarm, quickly reaching the room that Sansa has told him is Baelish’s. There is a child in the house, Sansa’s young cousin, and though he might be locked in his room at night with a nurse, Sandor doesn’t wish to alert them to his presence.
Baelish’s room is not locked when Sandor turns the handle, he supposes that the man feels he has nothing to fear within his own house. He’s concocted his schemes so carefully that most of his victims have never even realized who their true enemy was. Sandor opens the door quietly, steps in and turns the lock to trap them both inside. They’ll die together if need be, but Littlefinger will not escape him.
His eyes already adjusted to the dark, he can see Baelish sleeping. It would be the easiest thing in the world to put a bullet in him now before he wakes up, but Sandor has promised Sansa that Littlefinger will know who is responsible for his death before the end, and he will not lie to her. So he walks forward, feet silent against the carpet and turns on the bedside lamp.
His target is startled awake but sits up sluggishly, and Sandor guesses that he might still be under the effects of too much drink.
Baelish spots him where he stands by the bedside with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, the man’s eyes widening in surprise and a fear that he quickly tries to hide. Instead, Petyr Baelish collects himself and regains his composure, a slight smile coming to his face.
“Clegane, I heard you were dead.” Baelish remarks, “And yet here you are in my bedroom like a ghostly apparition.”
Sandor grunts. “I’m alive, as you can see.”
“Yes, you are.” Baelish remarks, and Sandor can well see the nervousness in him though he tries to hide it. “Why exactly are you here?”
“To kill you.” Sandor tells him simply, with no preamble. “I’ll make it quick, which is more than you deserve.”
The fear is more apparent in Baelish’s eyes now, but so is a calculation that Sandor recognizes well. “Now, I know I’ve never harmed you personally, Clegane, so you must be here on someone’s behalf.” Littlefinger starts, in a reasoning tone of voice. “Whoever it is, I can offer you more than they have. If you’d be willing to join my service then I can give you more riches than you could imagine, all the whores you could ever want as well.”
Sandor lets out a low barking laugh, enjoying seeing the other man squirm. “I’m not here for money, Baelish, and I would’ve killed you while you slept if I didn’t want you to know who was responsible for your death.”
“And who is it then?” Littlefinger asks him, still calculating, still wondering how he might turn this around.
“The little bird that flew away from your nest. Asked me to kill you, asked me to ensure that you knew it was her who caused your downfall. All your careful planning all these years, and in the end a little slip of a girl you thought you could manipulate got the better of you. She’ll have her revenge for her family.”
“Sansa Stark…” Petyr Baelish murmurs, a sudden understanding coming to his eyes and a deeper panic than before. He’s begun to realize that he can’t talk his way out of this one. “What did she promise you? She’s a lying little bitch and she’ll screw you over as soon as she’s gotten what she wants from you just like she did to me. Whatever tale she’s told you isn’t true, I protected her, saved her from the Lannisters, I never…”
Sandor cuts him off with a raised hand, “She promised me the chance to kill you for what you’ve done to her, and that was good enough for me.”
Petyr Baelish opens his mouth to say something, to yell perhaps, but Sandor is too fast for him. In one swift motion he brings the knife up to slice through the other man’s throat. He watches as Baelish gurgles and gasps, wraps the knife up before putting it into his jacket, the better to present it to her.
“For the little bird.” He murmurs as he watches the other man die.
May no man ever harm her again.
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Sansa/Sandor
Word Count: 2244
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to GRRM
A/N: Modern AU set post ADWD. Special thanks to Kimberlite8 for her help with this!
Warnings: A bit of violence and a well deserved death in this part.
Chapter Three
In the morning, Sansa will board a bus to New Mexico, to the Brothers at the same Mission that once saved him, helped him to become a better man. He hopes that perhaps she might be able to find some measure of peace there just as he once did.
She is to wait two weeks for him there, no more. If he does not return to her by then, he is either dead or compromised and she will have to make her own way forward. Sandor writes a note for her to give to the Brothers asking them to look after her, writes another with the details he knows regarding her sister for her to keep, telling her to memorise it all on the bus ride just in case. He hands over most of whatever cash he’s carrying to her, knowing that she will need it if he doesn’t make it through.
“But this…” she starts to say, and then looks at him, as if wondering what he might want in return.
He cannot blame her, for a long time any grace that she has received has come with a proviso, some hidden cost that she did not realize at the time but had to pay later.
Perhaps the last one to show her any true kindness with no expectation of anything in return was him, and he showed her little enough.
But she has forgotten what such kindness looks like, and she will not understand it from him now, so instead he gruffly says. “I’ll take it back from you when I return. If I don’t, then money’s of no fucking use to me if I’m dead.”
This she can understand, and so she accepts.
It is when the time comes to sleep that he is sorely tested, because suddenly there she is standing before him, visibly nervous but with a hand outstretched to touch him. Does she think that he means to hold her to her offer right now? Perhaps she feels that he’ll want to claim his end of the bargain tonight in case he really does end up dying in the attempt. He almost laughs at the thought.
But no matter how much she tempts him, he will not break her further.
“Go to sleep, little bird.” He tells her instead, “We’ve both got a long journey ahead of us tomorrow.”
Sandor settles himself down on one side of her mattress, his back turned to her and closes his eyes. He listens as she walks to turn out the light before she settles herself in, her position mirroring hers. Through a lifetime of habit he falls into a light sleep quickly.
It is a few hours later and still dark when he wakes and aware of some difference he concentrates, listening for any sound that could have disturbed him. It is then that he hears her whispering.
He does not know how much time has passed, but Sansa has rolled over so that she is now facing him, has edged herself closer so that she must now be in the middle of the mattress. She is whispering and he holds himself still, in order to listen to what she says before she knows that he is awake.
“I thought that you were dead.” She whispers. “I thought you were dead, and I wished, I wished that I had gone with you. I wished I’d made another choice.”
There is silence, and then, “I thought you were dead.” She whispers once more, and he wonders if she is talking to him or herself. “Once I realized… I used to pray that you would come for me, you were the last hope I had, the only one who ever told me the truth, and then I heard you would dead and I knew… I knew…When I saw that you’d come for me even after all this time, that you’d come for me…”
She does not finish the sentence and eventually he hears her settle and her breathing deepen into that of sleep.
Turning himself over, he places one arm over her casually before pulling her closer.
This time it is she who pretends not to have awoken.
**
In the morning he watches as she packs, stuffing her pitifully few belongings into her backpack, the money he’d given her hidden near the bottom. He sees her glance at him as she hurries to place one item in, something that appears to be leather, but she is too fast for him to realize exactly what it is that she’s trying to hide.
Finally she stands, hefts the pack onto slender shoulders, takes one last look around the room that she’s called home the last few months and nods to tell him she’s ready. She leaves the door unlocked and a note on the counter to say she’s left, moved on, so that her coworkers might not worry.
It is still early when they make their way downstairs to his motorcycle, the sun not yet fully risen and the air chilly. He climbs on and waits as she buckles up her helmet before settling herself behind him. She winds her arms around his waist and holds on tight.
The journey is short and they arrive early to the town that her bus will leave from, he buys them both breakfast after they’ve purchased her ticket, eating in silence in a diner not so different from the one he found her in.
She glances at him from time to time, looking up from her pancakes, but she does not speak and he struggles to find something to say. Too many years have passed and all of the things he once told her are no longer necessary. She has taken his advice and applied it over the years, taken all of his advice perhaps a bit too strongly to heart.
He is not sure whether to regret his harshness with her or not. Did he contribute to her transformation into this broken girl, or has everything he told her in that time served to keep her alive?
She is not ready yet to hear what he would tell her now, and perhaps it is better that she does not anyway. Not yet.
When they are done he walks her to the bus terminal, carrying her bag for her while she follows him, quiet and listless. Sandor uses the opportunity to scan the other passengers for potential threats, and quiz her on the route she’s to take to ensure that she has the details memorized.
It is when the bus pulls up and he moves to help her board that she grabs his arm tightly, a sudden urgency in her.
He lowers his head to look her in the eyes, a question in his.
“Don’t go.” She blurts out, “I shouldn’t have asked you to. Come with me instead. I’ll… I’ll… whatever you… but come with me instead.”
He shakes his head sadly, looking down at her and reaches out to cup her cheek.
“You can’t have it both ways, little bird.” He tells her quietly. “If he’s to die then I have to leave you, and he does need to die. We won’t be safe otherwise.”
“But what if you don’t come back?” She asks, so quietly it is almost a whisper.
“Then I’ll be dead.” He tells her matter of factly, “And you’ll still be better off than before you knew I was alive.”
She’s shaking her head but the bus driver is looking at them impatiently and Sandor holds out the bag for her and gives her a gentle push in the direction of the bus. “Go on now, little bird.” He tells her, “I’ll come back, you’ll see.”
She nods once and seems to steel herself, her mask of calm slipping back into place.
“Go on now.” He repeats, nodding towards the bus. He will be back, he knows it. Petyr Baelish poses no challenge for him.
She moves forward suddenly and reaching for him, raises her face to his, kissing him hard upon the mouth.
Her bag forgotten, he drops it and presses her against him, deepens the kiss and allows himself to taste her before he lets her go, conscious of the eyes of the entire bus upon them.
“One real memory.” Sansa murmurs, “Just one real memory.”
Then she’s darting into the bus, making it to her seat before they close the door. He watches her until she’s out of sight, raising his own hand in goodbye in reply to hers.
Sandor climbs on his bike and leaves to kill Petyr Baelish.
**
Two days of surveillance and then he makes his move.
It has been years since Sandor last killed and yet it is extraordinarily simple to dispatch Littlefinger’s household guards. A silenced gun, four shots and he’s wiped out the men patrolling the house. It’s extraordinarily little protection in Sandor’s opinion but he’s not going to rue his good luck.
A quick cut of the wire on the security system and he makes his way upstairs without the alarm, quickly reaching the room that Sansa has told him is Baelish’s. There is a child in the house, Sansa’s young cousin, and though he might be locked in his room at night with a nurse, Sandor doesn’t wish to alert them to his presence.
Baelish’s room is not locked when Sandor turns the handle, he supposes that the man feels he has nothing to fear within his own house. He’s concocted his schemes so carefully that most of his victims have never even realized who their true enemy was. Sandor opens the door quietly, steps in and turns the lock to trap them both inside. They’ll die together if need be, but Littlefinger will not escape him.
His eyes already adjusted to the dark, he can see Baelish sleeping. It would be the easiest thing in the world to put a bullet in him now before he wakes up, but Sandor has promised Sansa that Littlefinger will know who is responsible for his death before the end, and he will not lie to her. So he walks forward, feet silent against the carpet and turns on the bedside lamp.
His target is startled awake but sits up sluggishly, and Sandor guesses that he might still be under the effects of too much drink.
Baelish spots him where he stands by the bedside with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, the man’s eyes widening in surprise and a fear that he quickly tries to hide. Instead, Petyr Baelish collects himself and regains his composure, a slight smile coming to his face.
“Clegane, I heard you were dead.” Baelish remarks, “And yet here you are in my bedroom like a ghostly apparition.”
Sandor grunts. “I’m alive, as you can see.”
“Yes, you are.” Baelish remarks, and Sandor can well see the nervousness in him though he tries to hide it. “Why exactly are you here?”
“To kill you.” Sandor tells him simply, with no preamble. “I’ll make it quick, which is more than you deserve.”
The fear is more apparent in Baelish’s eyes now, but so is a calculation that Sandor recognizes well. “Now, I know I’ve never harmed you personally, Clegane, so you must be here on someone’s behalf.” Littlefinger starts, in a reasoning tone of voice. “Whoever it is, I can offer you more than they have. If you’d be willing to join my service then I can give you more riches than you could imagine, all the whores you could ever want as well.”
Sandor lets out a low barking laugh, enjoying seeing the other man squirm. “I’m not here for money, Baelish, and I would’ve killed you while you slept if I didn’t want you to know who was responsible for your death.”
“And who is it then?” Littlefinger asks him, still calculating, still wondering how he might turn this around.
“The little bird that flew away from your nest. Asked me to kill you, asked me to ensure that you knew it was her who caused your downfall. All your careful planning all these years, and in the end a little slip of a girl you thought you could manipulate got the better of you. She’ll have her revenge for her family.”
“Sansa Stark…” Petyr Baelish murmurs, a sudden understanding coming to his eyes and a deeper panic than before. He’s begun to realize that he can’t talk his way out of this one. “What did she promise you? She’s a lying little bitch and she’ll screw you over as soon as she’s gotten what she wants from you just like she did to me. Whatever tale she’s told you isn’t true, I protected her, saved her from the Lannisters, I never…”
Sandor cuts him off with a raised hand, “She promised me the chance to kill you for what you’ve done to her, and that was good enough for me.”
Petyr Baelish opens his mouth to say something, to yell perhaps, but Sandor is too fast for him. In one swift motion he brings the knife up to slice through the other man’s throat. He watches as Baelish gurgles and gasps, wraps the knife up before putting it into his jacket, the better to present it to her.
“For the little bird.” He murmurs as he watches the other man die.
May no man ever harm her again.