Arya went steadfastly further north until, at last, she found herself only a few days' travel away from Winterfell. It hardly seemed possible, after all that time— so many deaths, some of them at her own hands— that she should be returning.

She kept to the woods, off the road, to ensure she didn't have to deal with anyone. Odds were equally good of her meeting brigands, enemy forces, or Stark allies who'd waste too much of her time joyfully reminiscing about the good old days. As far as Arya was concerned, the recollecting the old days only made the shite of the present day all the worse.

She began noticing the tracks of a group of horsemen the closer she traveled to Winterfell, until she caught up to them a mere day from her home. They set an unusually sluggish pace for a small group such as they were; she doubted there were more than a dozen of them. Providing they were all hale, and only one man to a horse, they should have remained apace from her the entire trip rather than being so slow she could match them.

"Ho! Let's stop here for a rest," called the one in the lead, and the company slowed to a halt, everyone dismounting and stretching tired thighs and necks. From so far away, even Arya's keep sight could not focus on any one face, although one of them, far taller and more brawny than the rest, moved in a way that was… familiar.

Unpleasantly familiar, if the recognition teasing at the edges of her mind was accurate.

She circled around them at a fair distance before dismounting. She tied her dappled gray to a tree a quarter-mile from where they had started a small fire from scavenged branches and stood, warming their hands before it.

She would not be able to get close. They'd chosen their spot well; the clearing was plenty big enough to hold them, their horses, and leave plenty of empty space to ensure they'd see any attackers well before they were reached. Arya crept closer, using the shadows cast by the close-set trees to assist in her concealment, and strained to overhear the men's discussion. Needing to stay hidden, she could only advance as far as the nearest tree, but it was close enough that she could hear them clearly, now, and with a sinking feeling in her belly, she saw that she had been correct.

The large fellow… was the Hound. Her hideous old nemesis, crude bastard that he was, and thorn in her side for far too long before she'd been able to rid herself of him. Often she'd wondered if he'd lived or died, and long ago had decided that he had to have died. His injuries had been terrible, and it would have been a true miracle for anyone to have found him, and even more of a miracle for that person to help him, ugly and smelly and bloody as he'd been.

It looked as if a miracle had indeed occurred, twice over, for there was no mistaking that scarred visage, the long dark hair blowing all over, that massive body. He was wearing clothes, instead of armor, and she didn't recognize the sword-hilt jutting from his scabbard.

The balding one with the weird knot of hair at his crown, Thoros she thought she remembered his name might be, held his hands out toward the fire they'd just lit.

"This is a welcome bit of warmth," he said as he sat on one of the fallen tree trunks some of the other men had dragged to a perimeter around the fire. "Eh, Clegane?"

The Hound- and wasn't she still amazed to see him, not only there, but in that particular company- slanted him a narrow look and busied himself with unstrapping his sword belt, offering no reply.

The third man, Beric, took a swig from a wineskin and offered it around. Thoros drank but the Hound did not, and Arya was amazed again: since when did the Hound refuse wine?

"It's a waste of time, stopping to rest now," the Hound growled, peering up at the cloudless sky. Arya knew he was assessing the position of the sun in the sky, and that he could tell it was mid-afternoon. "when we'll just have to stop again at sundown."

"The horses are tired," Beric said mildly. "Taking an hour to rest them won't delay us too badly."

The Hound just tossed him an unfriendly glance and rested his elbows on his knees, dropping his gaze to the fire, pointedly ignoring the both of them.

But then the tension in his huge shoulders relaxed and his gaze unfocused. The other men immediately sat up a bit straighter, peering closely at him.

"What do you see, Clegane?" Thoros asked softly.

"She's surrounded, all of them circling her. Like wolves, but-" here, he gave a contemptuous laugh, "-nothing like as fierce. I know real wolves.

"She's all alone, except for that big bitch. That one can fight, but not so many at once. They're back-to-back, watchful…"

The Hound reared back, lips curling back in a snarl.

"Now he's approaching, all smiles and coaxing and smooth, empty words. Vicious cunt, he is. Littlefinger," he hissed. "She doesn't realize, doesn't know what he's done… she doesn't trust him much, but it's just enough for him to get close."

His voice had lowered to a subterranean rumble. His scars, lit by the fire, were more gruesome than Arya had ever seen them.

"He slides a knife into the big bitch and then puts his arm around her-"

"Which her?"

"The only her that matters," the Hound sneered.

Beric and Thoros exchanged a knowing glance.

"Ah, that would be the lady Sansa, then," murmured Thoros.

Arya jerked in surprise, almost losing her balance, crouched as she was on the balls of her feet. What?

"He puts his arm around her, and leads her away… toward a cliff. The cliff the big bitch tossed me off. He's smiling, pouring his weasel words into her ears. Smiling, smiling, he's got shark teeth, and he guides her right off the cliff, and she falls, and her- her wings, the little bird's wings are gone, he clipped them long ago, and she can't fly anymore."

His big hands, dangling between his knees, were shaking.

"She falls. She lands, just where I landed, when I fell. She's broken. He looks over the edge of the cliff, smiling… smiling..."

He clenched his eyes shut. Those big hands tightened into fists that could hit like an anvil, as Arya could attest. Abruptly, he stood.

"We don't have time for this. We have to get to Winterfell as soon as we can."

He made for his horse, starting to put back on all the tack that had just been removed from the poor beast.

"We'll get there tomorrow, Clegane," Beric began. "A day's difference won't-"

"A day's difference could mean her death," the Hound hissed. Saddle and reins back in place, he stalked back to the fire and retrieved his swordbelt, buckling it back on with practiced moves borne of long experience. "If you won't come with me, you lazy cunts, I'll go myself."

Beric opened his mouth to reply, but Thoros forestalled him with a raised hand. "We'll catch up," was all he said, a keen look on his face as he stared at the Hound.

With one last contemptuous glance, the Hound hoisted himself astride and wheeled his poor beast into a trot, headed west.

Arya crept back to her own horse and mounted, spurring the gray in the same direction at a gallop until she caught sight of him ahead on the hard-packed snow that counted as a road. She veered off into the trees and followed, close enough to keep him in view but far enough that he couldn't hear the crunch of her mount's hooves in the snow and dead leaves.

The Hound rode for another few hours, until night had fallen completely. The night was almost moonless and if not for the paleness of the snow, he'd have been riding blind. But he kept going until a crofter's hut appeared at the end of a narrow path jutting off the road, and turned his tired horse toward it. Arya waited until she heard the thud of a door shutting, and then followed.

She tied the gray to a tree and tiptoed closer, employing the stealth taught to her by the Faceless Men to pass lightly over the crisp-shelled snow. The hut was windowless, but as she watched, a plume of smoke curled weakly from the lopsided old chimney.

From long experience, Arya knew the Hound would take about an hour to fall asleep, waiting until he was satisfied there was no danger to being unconscious, so she returned to her horse and removed his tack, giving him a brisk rub-down and feed from her dwindling supply, then covering him with his warm blanket.

"I'm sorry I've no snug stable to offer you," she whispered, petting his velvet nose. She hadn't seen the Hound's horse outside, so he must have brought the beast into the hut with him. It was smart thinking; their shared body heat would keep them both alive that frigid night.

Arya waited patiently, judging how much time has passed by the position of the moon and swinging her arms to keep her blood moving. When she judged it to have been two hours, and that the Hound would be deeply asleep, she picked her way forward and around the hut.

There was a second entrance in back, the door's boards crudely fitted and permitting a gap big enough for her to peer through. She couldn't see much over the bulk of his horse's rump as it lay rather like a dog, with its head on its forelegs. In the dying flames of the little fire the Hound had started, she could see him curled up by the hearth, close enough to feel its heat but far enough away that any thrown sparks wouldn't set him alight. She marveled, for a moment, at how relaxed he seemed- for him- to deal with fire, a distinct change from when she'd traveled with him.

Her only real risk was opening one of the doors, since she knew well how to silence her footfalls and calm animals so they did not betray her with their alarm. Scrutiny of each entrance showed her that the back door was near to rusted shut from disuse, and assuredly would screech when opened, so her only option was the front. She still wasn't too worried; the Hound was a light sleeper, but he'd still be muzzy from a sudden awakening, she was fully alert and far faster now than she'd been when he'd known her before.

And so it went. The door squeaked when she pressed it open, but she combined speed with stealth and had Needle's point under his chin before he'd fully sat up, his hand still hovering over his nearby scabbard.

They stared at each other for long moments, in silence. Then he barked a short laugh and lay his big ugly head back down on the leather pack serving as his pillow. He even went so far as to nestle deeper into his ragged bedroll, eyes falling closed.

"You didn't bother to kill me, last time," he muttered. "Come to finish the job?"

Arya did not reply. She had wanted to question him— to learn what he was doing, going to Winterfell in such a hurry, why Sansa's safety mattered to him at all, why he could see things in fire, by all the gods-

"Go on, then." His tone was grating, insolent. Challenging.

"I could kill you, you know. This time." Her hand was perfectly steady as it held Needle to his throat. "I was weaker before. I'm not, anymore."

He smirked, eyes still shut. "Saw you kill, before. You were plenty strong, then."

"I didn't mean physically."

The Hound's eyes opened and he stared at her.

"Yes," he agreed after a moment. "I see what you mean."

Arya wondered what he intended by that, but decided to press on to the matter at hand, and poked him in the side with Needle, none too gently. He grimaced and squirmed away from its point.

"What do you want, then, wolf-bitch?" he grumbled. "I'm too tired for a heart-to-heart, so ask your questions and fuck off, if it please you."

"It doesn't."

He rolled his eyes at her and she was suddenly hard-pressed to stifle a giggle, so comical an expression was it. She had before her incontrovertible proof that, against all odds, the Hound had… changed. Softened, somehow. Had acquired mannerisms that didn't have to do with violence or rage. It was bizarre beyond belief.

Suddenly, she felt as weary as he had professed himself.

"Fine," she said. "We'll talk in the morning. I'll bring my horse in, too."

"Oh, good," he said, not sounding pleased at all, and rolled away from her to face the fire. Before she even left the hut, he was snoring again.

Once her gray was settled comfortably by the Hound's roan, she wrapped her own blanket around herself and settled into the corner opposite her new, and old, companion, studying his face, noting how he looked a bit older, a bit more careworn. Her last thought, before falling asleep, was that he still seemed like the same old arsehole she'd known and hated.