EPILOGUE

The crypt looks very much like the last time he saw it, he supposes; he had not given it thought again after the time he found her down here talking to him. She had taken his hand then, he remembers, and left with him and so he had never followed her down here again; though she visited every time they had come to Last Hearth. He made his peace with that long ago; or rather she made his peace for him.

It is cold, and damp: he can feel it in his bones, the ache in his shoulders that comes from standing straight like a damned soldier still, despite being close to seventy years now. His dark hair is grey, and the weathered wrinkles of his face from sun and cold have the odd effect of making his burn scars seem less severe. Might be he just doesn't give a shit anymore. Age does that; or maybe it was all that love she had shown him that made it not matter anymore. These Northerners, and especially those Thenns and wildlings: the bloody buggers actually seemed to admire his scars. Sometimes it made him wish he'd known them all his life, but if he had then he would never have known the little bird.

"A pretty little talking bird," he rasps now as he gazes on the stone slab.

Lady Sansa UMBER – born of House Stark

"Sandor?'

"Lord Eddard," he replies without turning from the grave. "Where's Aregelle?"

"She is with my wife and our children. I told her that I would come to look for you. I knew where you were and I did not want her to come down here again today: she is too distraught. It cannot be good for her condition."

"Aye, that's true…" he replies.

"Sandor…are you certain that-"

"I said I was certain since we brought her here from Blackthorn; I'm not like to have her dug up again like some bloody shrub needs re-planting," he rebuffs him harshly. Now he turns to looks at Sansa's grown son and softens somewhat . "She was a Stark, and a lady: the Lady Umber of Last Hearth…this is where she belongs," he tells him with some resignation.

Lord Eddard Umber comes to stand beside him and gently claps a large hand on his shoulder.

"Mother was your wife for over twenty years, Sandor; longer than she was married to Father," he acknowledges respectfully. "Certainly Littlejon would allow that to be graven onto the stone…that she was once of House Clegane?"

Sandor looks up at him: the man is an Umber and as big and strapping as the lord brother they called Smalljon who died last Winter and the new Lord Umber who was his eldest son; near-giants, the lot of them, and covered in hair like pelts. Only Eddard has the auburn hair of his mother. He has a full beard now as well, and the little bird had said that he wore it like his father and uncles and cousins.

"Eddard, you may be as big and strong as your late lord father but you have your mother's kindness," he begins now.

"My father was kind too," Eddard interrupts him firmly, "he would not have grudged you either. You loved my mother, and you protected her…just as he had."

"Not enough," Sandor rasps darkly now. "I warned her not to go off to some croft where they all had the fever. Told her to send someone else with those concoctions and remedies of hers; but she wouldn't hear of leaving the family to fend for themselves…" His shoulders sag visibly now and his lip twitches.

"Mother could not have done differently," Eddard chides him mildly. "Father said about Mother that her kindness was her greatest strength. But I saw her take a man's head once, and then she defied the dragon queen and lived in the woods like a wildling when she'd been born a lady. She learned to be a healer; and she lived and worked with us at Blackthorn, though she could have lived an easier life here at Last Hearth, or at Winterfell. She was strong in other ways as well."

Sandor grunts bitterly: "By the time she let on she wasn't strong or well, it was too late. Even Aregelle couldn't help her."

Eddard squeezes his shoulder in comfort now. "At least my sister was with her, and she was with you and I, at the end, Sandor; it will be days still before Aranna arrives and mayhaps a sennight before Serena reaches us from Castle Cerwyn; She brings Gretel with her and they ride with Uncle Rickon from Winterfell . My grandmother, Lady Catelyn, is too frail to travel. You'll stay with us until then, won't you? Mayhaps you will reconsider my suggestion," he nods to the grave now.

Sandor shakes his head wearily. "This is House Umber's crypt. I don't belong here; and there is no House Clegane…not anymore. Might be it's for the best too; Gregor the Mountain saw to that: we were up-jumped servants sworn to the Lannisters. That had meaning once, and pride even, under my father and grandfather; but not anymore. Not for years and years."

Clegane's Keep in the Westerlands had long since passed to another family, after Sandor had been sent into exile; and he had made no attempt to claim it again. Sansa and Sandor's twin daughters had married: Aregelle to a grandson of Tormund Giantsbane, and so she bore the name Tormundson; and Aranna had married a Flint of the mountains, a younger son of Black Donnel of the First Flints. Both girls had studied herblore and midwifery with their mother, and were skilled healers. They were Northerners: they had the dark hair and grey eyes of the Starks though they'd got them from Sandor; and they showed no desire to live any differently than how they had been raised at Blackthorn, or to live anywhere but in the North. Their pups were wolves, he'd told the little bird countless times: more wolves than dogs. She would smile at him then, and say she liked dogs just fine because they would die for you and never lie to you. Then she would kiss him…every time. Might have been why he told her so often.

"No, I'm the last of my line," Sandor tells Eddard decidedly now. "Bury me at Blackthorn. It's the only real home that I have had: the home I had with your mother and sisters."

Sansa and Sandor had lived with their girls in the hunting cottage as the tower at Blackthorn was being built. Eddard had decreed that it should remain as it always had when his father visited there, and so the walls had been built around it and it stood near the main door to the keep and across from the long hall built from logs that adjoined the kitchen. A smaller hall built onto Sandor's old cabin housed some of the garrison that he commanded; the rest slept above the stable or armoury. Once the family moved into the tower, Sansa and her daughters used the cottage to dry and store and mix herbs, and to treat the sick and injured. Blackthorn was too small a keep to house its own maester; and so the soldiers and commons had come to them for care, or sent for them when they had need.

Eddard nods thoughtfully. "It pleases me that you think of Blackthorn as your home, Sandor; and I pray you know how grateful I am that you and Mother have lived there these many years. It made it more of a home for me, to have her there, so that I could also protect her as my father wanted. He- he told me when I was a boy that the Lannisters had hurt Mother, and that the King in the North had sent her to him to keep her safe. He honoured his pledge very seriously, even after his king was gone," he looks from Sandor to his parents' tomb. "And he loved her too."

"She loved your father as well," Sandor tells him curtly, "told me so herself once. Marrying me never changed that; I'm sure you know."

"I did know, Sandor; but I also know that you and Mother were happy; and so I was happy for you. I know Serena was as well. We neither of us wanted Mother to be alone all her life, not once we were old enough to understand. We wanted her to love, and to be loved. Everyone loved Mother."

"Aye," Sandor rasps, "and she wanted to be loved, and to be kind and for everyone to be happy. There were those who tried to frighten it out of her, to beat it out of her even. I think they would have wanted her dead to keep her from believing that…but they couldn't poison her no matter how they tried. She stayed sweet; and so your father was right that it was her greatest strength: she kept on believing in love and kindness."

They pause now in silence. There seems nothing more to say.

"I- I would like to have a memorial to Mother at Blackthorn…mayhaps a stone marker in the garden. She loved the garden."

Sandor nods thoughtfully. "Aye…aye, she did," he rasps.

"And I will ensure that it graven with wife of Sandor Clegane, first commander of the garrison at Blackthorn."

Sandor looks at his wife's son now. He unable to express his gratitude with words; he has never been good at words of affection or gratitude, like the little bird, and so he nods curtly.

Eddard smiles mournfully and takes his hand off Sandor's shoulder. "Well…I'll leave you with her now. Goodbye, Mother," he says hoarsely as he reaches to rub the stone gently. "I'll be back to visit you again, and I'll bring Serena with me." He nods once to Sandor and walks away.

When he is gone, Sandor steps closer to the tomb and reaches tentatively to touch it as young Eddard did.

"Well, here you are, little bird. I've brought you back here, where you're safe…and loved," he acknowledges. "Never thought it would be me to go last but…things haven't always turned out right in this life, we know that. He kept you safe when I couldn't, and so I'm trusting him to do it again. Don't know if I'll ever come back here; our girls might want me to go live with them, but I'm like to stay on at Blackthorn…and think of you there with me. We were happy, weren't we? I tried, little bird; I tried to make you happy because you made me happy. Might be I didn't tell you enough, but you did. I loved you, just like you wanted to be loved. Damn me if I ever thought I'd get the bloody chance; thought I'd lost you for good and would never see you again. You didn't just let me love you either: you…you loved me back…and I never thought that would happen neither. I was wrong; they were all wrong about you: though you only loved pretty things, that you had an empty head and no true heart. Well, you showed them all, little bird: you loved an old man and a dog; and we loved you back. You deserved it, you earned it…so you rest now."

His cloudy grey eyes stray now to the Greatjon's name on the stone: Jon Umber – Lord of House Umber.

"You watch over her, you hear me? You honoured your word to her brother so now honour the same pledge for me. I know you can protect her, because you did for Gregor. Well, I owe you for that; and so I've brought her back to you. Make sure you love her. I know you can do that too."

He lingers a long moment with his hand flat to the cold stone.

"Little bird," he murmurs one last time.

Then he lifts his hand and turns to walk away, his booted feet scuffing against the hard stone floor as he leaves.

FINIS

Phew! That's it, that's all. Apologies if the epilogue seems anti-climactic but I felt I needed to wrap up the 'theme' of love-poison-sweetness-strength to which I have been trying to refer since I drastically changed the direction of this story from how I started. I also wanted to honour the Greatjon.

Also please let me say how incredibly grateful to all the ladies who followed and commented on this story from the start and even later. I loved and appreciated the feedback.
I want to give a special appreciation shout-out to Littlefeatherofhope for the wonderful picset she created on tumblr to accompany the fic: thank you, lovely.

'Til next time: thank you again!