Fic: Cut it Out and then Restart 6/?
Title: Cut it out and then Restart 6/?
Rating: PG
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Word Count: 2100
Summary: She is singing when he returns.
Warnings: None
She is singing when he returns, sitting by the bedside of some poor bastard who has probably been dying for weeks now. A hymn to the mother, her voice is sweet and gentle and he does not doubt that it is a comfort to men in pain. The few patients remaining in this tent are all doomed, only lingering now against their inevitable end.
Before she can spot him he dismisses the guards within the tent quietly, intent upon being alone with her for some time at least.
“I’ll have a more cheerful song than that from you when you’re done,” he rasps and she starts, spins quickly to face him.
There is a happiness on her face when she sees him that is almost alien, he has never been one to inspire happiness before. She rises quickly and crosses to meet him, stopping a couple of feet away.
“I am so relieved to see you returned safely,” she tells him sincerely. “My brother told me yesterday that you were on the way back but I had not looked for your arrival so soon.”
“Aye, a smaller party rode ahead to give notice of our arrival.” He admits, “I’ve just come from reporting to your brother.”
He has shed his armour but is still in the same clothes, doubtless stinking of sweat and blood and dust besides. He should have cleaned himself up first before coming here but for two weeks he has thirsted for a sight of her, longed for the smile she might give him on his return.
Not for the first time, he curses himself for a besotted fool.
She is looking him over as if searching for something and he sees her eyes pause at his arm and side, where blood stains his tunic. “Are you injured?” she asks him softly, taking another step closer.
“Just a couple of scratches,” he admits, “Nothing to worry about.”
A couple of scratches inflicted by overeager Lannister bannermen, eager to claim the reward that Joffrey’s bitch of a mother has placed on his head. He will need to have his dog’s head helm melted down to make something less conspicuous for the field if he wants to lessen further attempts. He’s just about had enough of men screaming “Turncoat” and “Craven” at him as they try to ride him down.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she tells him primly, “I will not have the treatment of my sworn shield neglected. Lift your tunic and let me see.”
He laughs at her ordering him about and shakes his head at her but moves to comply anyway. He shows her his arm first, and then lifts his tunic partially for her to see his side. She pulls the bandages down and tuts at the wounds, inspecting them thoroughly and he can’t help but feel a rush of pride to see her so confident in her work.
She has grown while he has been away, grown more surely into herself.
“The wounds are clean and has been bandaged well, they are already healing.” She announces when her inspection is over, “But if I were to stitch the one on your side it would mend faster and the risk of infection would be lessened.”
“Don’t have enough people to practice your embroidery on already?” he grumbles, but he does not mean to refuse her.
“Go and get cleaned up and change your clothes first,” she tells him, her tone brooking no opposition.
“Anything else, m’lady?” he mutters under his breath but he has to struggle to suppress a smile when he compares her to the girl she used to be, too frightened to even look at his face.
So he does as she commands and finds himself some fresh clothes before heading to the bath house to wash two weeks’ worth of dust and sweat from his skin. He leaves the bandages for her to unravel, knowing enough of healing to know that it’s best.
He returns to her washed and clean, his hair still damp where it hangs over his face half obscuring the burned side and he wishes…
“There, much more presentable.” Sansa teases, beaming at him and for a moment he forgets that he will never truly be presentable in any way.
She has been busy while he was gone, laying out her tools on a small table. Needle and thread and boiled wine, his little bird has learned a new song to chirp.
She gestures for him to sit on a spare pallet and takes her own seat beside him, a careful distance still between them.
“Lift your tunic,” she instructs him, ever so primly and he moves to obey before a part of him rebels, lifting the tunic off completely and throwing it aside.
She stares at him wide eyed for a moment before averting her eyes and blushing prettily.
“What? Never seen a man’s chest before while you were stitching him up?” he challenges her, “I’ll wager it’s no harder to look on than my face is. If you think I’m going to sit here holding my bloody tunic up while you take your time with your stitches then you’re daft.”
She bites her lip but turns to face him, eyes lowered from his face and cheeks still red. She unwinds the bandage from his arm first, cleaning the wound again and then re-bandaging it. Her fingers are feather light as she does so and deft and he can’t remember…
“I’ll have that song from you now little bird, to distract me as you sew.” He rasps and she looks up finally, fixing deep blue eyes upon him and nods, giving him a tiny shy smile.
She begins to sing as she unwinds the bandages around his torso, some song about knights and fair maidens, and he allows himself to relax, watching her at her work.
This wound stings when she cleans it as do her stitches but apart from a couple of grunts he takes it well, and concentrates on her singing, her clear voice washing over him. She is finished before he knows it, too soon, a part of him whispers and as she winds fresh bandages into place.
She finishes her bandage and her song at the same time, but does not move away. Instead she allows her right hand to rest briefly on his body, her fingers soft on his skin just above the bandage she’s tied.
He breathes in sharply. It has been such a long time since anyone has touched him willingly or with such tenderness. Perhaps it has been never. He cannot help himself and he moves one large hand to cover hers, pressing it more firmly to his chest with an almost urgency. He can feel her fingers splayed against him now, soft as a bird’s feathers.
She looks up at him with a nervousness in her gaze and he can’t help but think that she must never have touched a man before like this, as innocent as it is. Must never have laid her pretty hand on anyone’s bare skin except to heal. It arouses a strange pride in him to think that he is the first for this at least.
He should move his hand, let go of her, leave and walk away but he cannot. He looks down at her instead and keeps looking, because she is gazing at him in such a way…
“And did you pray for me, little bird?” he rasps finally, and feels her fingers flex against his skin.
He lifts her hand from his body then but continues clutching it, unwilling to let go just yet.
“I did,” she whispers, looking down to where his hand clasps hers, firmly encircling her fingers. “I did not know which gods you keep so I prayed to both the old and the new.”
He laughs then and it is almost joyous. “I keep no gods, little bird.” He tells her, “Nor would they wish to save me if I did but perhaps they’ll look on your prayers more kindly.”
He lets her go then and she shuffles a little away from him on the pallet, suddenly shy. Sandor shrugs his tunic back on and stands, looking down at her as she studies her feet.
“It was a sweet song, little bird.” He tells her as he turns to the door. He does not see the small smile on her face as she watches him go.
**
With no battles to fight for the moment, Riverrun is soon once again busy with her brother’s forces.
There are knights in her brother’s camp, and lords too. Many are young and fair of face and brave as well to hear the tales told of them. Some attempt to gain her favour, seeking her out to praise her or offer her small tokens of their affection.
Her brother finds it amusing, her mother advises her to thank them but allow no familiarity.
Sansa wants none of them.
She thanks them prettily enough when she cannot avoid it but they are a year or two too late, a year or two removed from the Sansa who would have kept their tokens carefully and blushed at their words and chosen a favourite.
Now when she sees them she finds herself measuring them instead, and they all come up lacking. They would all have beaten me if it was asked of them, she finds herself thinking instead. They would all have lost their chivalry soon enough.
When Sandor is with her he steps back when the men approach, removing himself from the equation. He stays near enough to protect her if she should need it but she wishes that he would remain by her side, just a step behind, and glare at them as they delivered their lines or gifts instead.
“I am so tired of this,” she whispers one day when the latest knight has left. She feels ashamed at begrudging them a few courtesies when most likely at least half of them will die before this war is done but she cannot help it. Sandor has stepped back into place by her side and she looks up at him, meeting his eyes. She finds herself looking at him more often these days for no reason at all. He tries to keep his good side to her, but she has long since ceased to care.
“A bunch of mewling youths, but there’s no harm in them.” He grunts, “I remember a time when you liked nothing more than to receive a pretty knight’s tokens.”
He is talking about the Knight of the Flowers, Sansa realizes. She wonders idly if Loras Tyrell would also have beaten her if it was asked of him. She hopes not, there is still a part of her that wishes to believe that there are true knights in the world, good knights.
“Useless buggers it’s true, but they’re not all like the ones in King’s Landing.” Sandor tells her as if he’s guessed her train of thought. “Your brother will find you a good one someday.”
“I do not want a knight.” Sansa half whispers without thinking. She does not truly know what she wants anymore, only that she wants to be a different girl to the one she was before her father’s death. She does not know what she wants, though a part of her whispers that perhaps she does…
Sansa looks up to find Sandor’s gaze dark upon her, his expression odd. She cannot help but think of him as he was when she stitched his side; his chest bare, his skin warm beneath her hand, the roughness of his hands as he clasped her own. She remembers the way her heart had beat so madly in her chest that she was sure he must have been able to hear it. She still does not know what possessed her to touch him in such a way except for a moment of madness. If her brother or anybody else had seen them in that way then he might have been expelled from the camp.
“No, not a knight.” She repeats, looking intently up at his face. He reaches towards her for a moment and then seems to change his mind, his arm returning to his side. Instead he turns away and resumes walking towards the keep, giving her no choice but to follow.
No, she thinks as she keeps her eyes fixed on his broad back, knights are not what she dreams of anymore.
More than that she cannot yet say.