EPILOGUE

The day was overcast with clouds and the dampness made his leg ache. Still he walked along the sand in his bare feet with his trouser bottoms rolled up as the tide began to come in. His limp was barely noticeable anymore, and he was more comfortable now in bare feet after so many months in sturdy shoes with crutches or a cane.

The beach was deserted in the chill and he shivered despite the heavy fisherman's sweater he wore. The wind blew gusts strong enough to bend the high grass that grew in big tufts just above the line of wet sand and rolling dunes. There were purple wildflowers jumbled in the grass too. He liked that, the wildness of it: the Oregon coast was nothing like the sunny, crowded beaches of Los Angeles that were completely cleared right to the edge of the road, leaving only enough room for hot dog and ice cream stands and parked cars.

Here he could be alone with his thoughts.

He finally stopped when he spotted a rock large enough to sit on and lowered himself onto it slowly; sticking his bad leg straight out in front of him. After a moment, he reached into his back pocket and took out the letter. He held it for a while between his palms before opening it up, almost as if he were warming it; or letting it warm him. The letter was on fine paper, crisply folded and the cursive handwriting was slanted and elegant, like a proper lady's hand.

Dear Sandor,

I hope you don't mind that I call you 'dear'-

"No, girl: I don't mind," he said out loud as he read.

I also hope this will be the letter that you finally receive and answer. I'm fairly certain now that I understand why you sent me away: I know you think you did the right thing, and I love that you wanted to do what you thought was best for me…even though I still think that you were wrong.

"Stubborn little bird," he muttered, but he smiled to himself.

Well, despite that I have put my time with my family to good use. I finished school with the help of a tutor, and with recognition from Miss Mordane's School back in San Francisco. Now I am enrolled in college in New York City: Barnard College. My great-uncle thought I should leave the (wild) west and have all the advantages of a very proper Seven Sisters' education. Funny, but I probably would have wanted the same for myself once. Long ago. But not anymore.

I almost cannot bear to be among the young people my own age. I'm not used to them anymore since there was only myself and Rickon and Bran at the ranch. There were boys there for them to play with but I hadn't anyone, which was fine really; I wanted the quiet, and time to myself. I do love my brothers and I miss them now. You were right about that, Sandor-

"Told you so," he rasped.

-and I am grateful to be their sister again. But these kids at college, well, I have nothing in common with them. They are so innocent and naïve, just like you once thought I was. Girls in my dorm giggle and gossip over dates and dances and being pinned (that means a boy giving a girl his class pin to wear…not what you think) and I'm not sure if I pity them or envy them. It's such a pristine world, Sandor; I just don't belong here. Well, at least I study hard; for want of anything better to do. I have gone out exploring in the city though sometimes; I think you might like it too.

I wish very much that I could be with you. I wish I knew where you are, Sandor:. I know that you are not at your apartment anymore because the letters that I sent there came back to me. I could not believe that you would simply send them back unopened. This time I have tried the police department in Los Angeles, hoping that they could forward them to you somehow. I only want to know that you are well and happy, Sandor. I have been well, and content anyway, to be with my family. But I miss you, Sandor.

"I miss you too, girl."

It had been almost a year and a half since he had last seen her face, in the hospital with her great-uncle leading her out by the arm. In his heart, he still believes in was the right thing, the best thing for her.

Sometimes, I like to think that you are in Oregon, like we had planned-

"Not quite like we planned," he noted regretfully.

He stared out to sea now, remembering the long road he took to be here. He had stayed in hospital until he was able to walk again with crutches and to manage living on his own. There were regular sessions of rehabilitation at the veteran's hospital and since every task from bathing and dressing to climbing stairs was arduous and time-consuming, he either was constantly occupied or completely exhausted.

But then he started to get better; and as he did he had time to think. He had far too much time to think: he didn't have work, he didn't have any kind of a life or purpose, and mostly, he didn't have Sansa. And so he drank. Nothing Elder brother said or did could help him this time and he determinately wallowed in his pathetic misery and waited bitterly to die. But instead of washing up on the beach this time, he had instead woken up one morning on the front porch of her landlady's boardinghouse, disheveled and brutally hungover from a days-long bender. Unfazed, the crone took him in and fed him breakfast and poured him strong coffee.

"You drink, Policeman. You miss girl. Why you not go find her?"

"She belongs with her family. They'll take care of her," he rasped hoarsely as he clutched the coffee cup in his shaking hands.

"All girl leave family for man. Good man who marry and take care of her. You take care of girl before; why you no take care of her now?"

He groaned feebly. "Because I can't. Look what happened to her…to me."

She scoffed good-naturedly. "You feel sorry yourself. You blame yourself for what another man do. Not good man," she screwed her face up at the mere passing mention of the dead Marine. "Not your fault."

"In real life…the monsters win," he rasped darkly.

"Pfft," she waved his words away with a flick of her gnarled hand. "I have seen monsters, policeman, and run and hide from them. Run to America. So I win," she boasted mildly but with a warm determination in her eyes. "What monsters win? Money. Land. Hurt others. This is no win." She leaned in to him now with her shrewd, wise face and patted his arm kindly. "No one love monster. Not girl. Not children. Not even dog love monster." She nodded and poured him more coffee.

He didn't stop drinking; not then, though there were no more lost days and night running into each other. But her words haunted him. Sandor had no love, no girl, no children; not even a dog. He may as well have been a monster, a monster like his brother. He didn't want to be a monster.

Then one morning he had just had enough: he sobered up and left a letter for Elder brother and another for his ex-boxer landlord. Then he gathered up what little he had in the way of clothing and papers and a dog-eared copy of A Farewell to Arms that he had bought and carried to the Pacific and back. He stuffed it all into his old Marine duffel and drove his Buick up the coast. He had meant to visit his old friend in Salem but he pulled over to the side of the road one night to sleep in his car and when he woke, he was met with the beginning of bright sunrise in a clear sky that turned bluer with every passing moment, just as her eyes used to turn bluer when she looked at him. He had left his car and walked towards the ocean, remembering curiously the night he had walked into the same ocean to die. But now, on this breathtakingly beautiful morning, he drank in the quiet and the beauty and the vastness of the Pacific and felt an odd lifting, a release of his pain and anger. He didn't want to live with that pain anymore, and he didn't want to die either; he wanted to live in this quiet, untouched world. Sandor sat in the dunes and looked out at the sky and the ocean for a very long time, until he grew hungry. He climbed back in the Buick and followed the road and signs to the nearest town. The welcome sign read Coos Bay, Oregon. He sat down in a diner and ordered scrambled eggs and black coffee, followed by lemon meringue pie.

Sandor stayed. He found a garage apartment on the outskirts of town. He sold his Buick for an old pickup truck with running boards and found odd jobs, jobs that he could just manage with his stiff leg, until he got work with the local police force as a night dispatcher. He took calls about fights and break-ins and car wrecks and passed them on to the squad room and patrol cars, and in between the ringing of the telephone and the squawk of police radios, he relished the silence and read books from the public library. The other officers laughed at him at first, then began asking what he was reading.

Once silence and idleness had caused his memories and his unhappiness and what he believed to be his failures to drive him to drink; now silence had become his refuge. He slept most days until his shift began and then often spent the mornings at the end of his work hours near the waterfront. If the world were quiet enough and he was still enough, he could sometimes just hear the echo of her laughter.

Sandor paused from reading her letter long enough to tilt his head back and breathe deep and listen for that sound of her rare happiness: the happiness that made him happy. He could almost hear it; then he felt a nudge at his knee.

"Find anything, pup?" he rasped.

Sador looked down now at the Labrador that a patrolman had brought in one night after having responded to a messy fatal car accident. Only the pup had survived, in a crate with blankets in the back of a family car, and so it had sat in the police station trembling and whining and pissing on day-old newspapers until Sandor took pity on it and brought it home with him. The dog, who he had never called anything but 'pup', shook the water and sand out of his coat now and licked Sandor's hand as he reached to scratch between his ears.

"Go dig. I'm still reading," he counselled but the pup sat at his feet and stared expectantly.

-or maybe you've gone someplace you like better instead, someplace that you never told me about. We hadn't much time together, to find out those things people know about each other. I don't know your favourite foods, or if you like music, or books, or movies. I don't know why it is, Sandor, but whenever I try something that I like, or hear something funny, or learn something new or interesting, it's you I want to tell. I feel like you are the person who knows me best, and always will. Do you ever think of me, Sandor?

"More than you know, girl," he rasped hoarsely. Pup tilted his head curiously.

Maybe I'm selfish but I like to imagine that you do, if you are at the beach maybe, or stop at a coffee shop for black coffee and pie. Did you ever eat that Italian 'arm' dish again, the braciole? I can't bear to; not without you there to laugh with me.

Even if you don't want me anymore, won't you please take pity and let me know how you are? Has your leg healed? I worried so after leaving you in the hospital alone like that. You once said I could write to you but you never said that you would answer, I know; but you did say that we could be friends so, please Sandor, let this old friend know how you are doing. You can write without a return address and I will keep sending my letters to the L.A.P.D. if that is less bothersome to you.

It would mean so much to me.

Love,

Sansa

"I did say that we could be friends, didn't I?"

Pup looked up again, his eyebrows quirking.

"It's a lot farther from Oregon to New York City, but it might be friends would be alright, pup."

Pup wagged his tail.

It sounded like she could use a friend; though in truth, so could he. He would be her friend, and tell her the truth. But he wished she would make the most of her situation, like her great-uncle wanted. College in the city was not something to give up lightly: there was a whole exciting world out there for her, a world of beautiful things that she had once loved. Sansa Stark should shine in that world. He couldn't let her give all that up to live in a garage apartment in Coos Bay and pour coffee in a diner again, could he?

But she had said that she no longer wanted any of that; and certainly that life had not given her all the beautiful things she had dreamed of as a girl in Hawaii, so long ago. That life had nearly ruined her; very nearly killed her…or might be it was the other life, the one as Alyane Stone that had nearly killed her. Sandor wasn't sure anymore; he was only sure that her life went wrong when others had wanted to decide for her and even control her.

She had said that she wanted to be a nurse, not so long ago; just like the girl in A Farewell to Arms. She had said that they were good for each other, and Sandor had never been able to argue with that. But she had needed the quiet of her great-uncles' ranch; as he had needed the quiet of Coos Bay. They had both needed time.

Maybe, in time, if he saved enough he could buy a small house in town. She could have finished with her school and have become a nurse by then, and she could work for a local doctor, or the hospital. No need to pour coffee and add up bills and scrape by on tips like she had to do on her own. He thinks she would like pup too. As for him, he would always want her. He had told her that once and he had meant it; and he knew it to be true now more than ever. But he could wait; or he could let her go, as long as it was what she wanted.

In the meantime, they could be friends; just friends. Friends had to be better than how they had begun the last time; but there was no point in regret, just as he had told her that there was no point in tears. Might be there was no point in looking back now; might be the only way for either of them to go was forward. In the meantime, he could become the kind of man she might truly want, a man who would protect her and give her a good life; not fancy but simple and decent and hopefully happy.

Sandor folded the letter now and brought it close to his face and closed his eyes. He almost brushed his lips against the paper but instead he turned awkwardly and reached into the tall grass behind him. He plucked a purple wildflower and carefully re-opened the letter and placed the flower inside.

"You say you don't care for money but I'll bet you still like pretty things, girl."

He stood with a slight groan and steadied himself before starting to walk back down the beach. Pup stood as well, wagging his tail and letting his tongue loll out as he trotted along beside him.

"Come on, pup," he rasped. "Let's go home."

FINIS

BONUS: For those who wanted happily-ever-after, an addendum to the epilogue.

Sandor dozes with his arm across his eyes. He is still working night shifts and soft daylight fills the room despite the pale curtains at the window. He is woken from a light sleep when he feels a weight settles on the bed.

"Down. Off the bed, pup," he mumbles.

"Oh, is that any way to talk to the woman who loves you?"

He twitches a smile before opening his eyes. He reaches out for her even before he can see her. When he does look, she is hovering over him with her auburn hair loose and a sweet smile of her own.

"I should have known," he rasps. "Pup never wakes me until it's time for his walk."

"I already took him out," she murmurs and leans in to kiss him gently. Sansa lingers momentarily and then pulls back from him to sit up again.

He sees she is wearing rolled dungarees and his fisherman's sweater and is both charmed and irked by her presumption.

"What have I told you about wearing my clothes, girl; do I prance around in your dresses on my time off?"

"There's a chill, Sandor," she reasons, "the leaves have already started turning. Besides, I still have not unpacked all my things; I have no dresser yet," she observes as she looks around the room.

He knows she is right. Their little house is largely bare but for a table and straight-backed chairs in the kitchen and the wrought iron bed in their bedroom. Their belongings are scattered in half-opened boxes in corners. Their life is a work-in-progress, and they sometimes feel they are playing house.

They have been married two weeks. They had decided to put their savings towards the house rather than a honeymoon trip, and they both returned to work after ten days of what Sandor had jeeringly termed "fucking and fixing". Sansa also works nights, at the local hospital; she walks the wards and checks on patients and helps in emergency cases. She cooks dinner in the mornings and breakfasts at night before they leave together in Sandor's truck. They like their days together: sleeping and living while the rest of the world seems busy and far away. Their little house had an elm out front and evergreens in the backyard and Sansa wants to plant flowers in the spring.

"What have you got there?" Sandor asked when he notices that she is clutching a letter in her hand.

She holds it up now. "It's from Margaery," she tells him.

"Tyrell? How is the cosmetics' queen faring with your money?" he rasped sourly. In truth, he did not mind that Sansa had invested her trust with her friend; he had once said he did not want her money and he had meant it.

"She's doing well, Sandor," Sansa enthuses. "She expects that she will be able to take the Golden Rose brand to a national market within two years and that I'll have a return on my investment. She is selling well in department stores in the southeast and-"

Sandor laughs at the business talk, which is what most of their girl-talk has become. "I expect that girl could run the country if someone let her."

Sansa laughs as well. "I don't doubt it, though it is her brother Will who has won the congressional seat for their family's district. "

"The boy who lost his leg?"

Sansa sighs. "He's hardly a boy, Sandor: he's only a little younger than you are. Don't be that way…"

"Hmph," he snorts as he puts his arm back over his eyes.

Margaery Tyrell had reached out to Sansa when she learned that she had returned to her family safely and they had corresponded while Sansa was at college, first in New York City, then in Portland where she transferred after Sandor had replied to her letter and finally confessed that he had indeed settled in Oregon. They had been secretly visiting back and forth between Portland and Coos Bay until Sansa earned her nursing degree, but since Margaery was unaware, she hinted frequently that Sansa should meet her older brother, Will Tyrell. Sandor had suspected the ambitious Tyrells wanted Sansa's famous name and her trust fund but he kept silent. He was still determined then that she make her own decisions about her future, even if it meant he were excluded.

Thank Christ she had never given up wanting a life with him. He still cannot believe his luck some days. As she leans to kiss him again, he realized this was one of those days.

"Mm," she hums as she kisses him. "Would you like some lunch?"

Sandor caresses her face and pushes back the heavy but incredibly soft auburn waves. "I'd like some of my wife, girl," he rasps hoarsely, "so take off my damned sweater and come back under these sheets."

With a coy shyness, Sansa shifts on the bed and peels off the dungarees first. Sandor tosses them onto the floor and sits up. Slowly, Sansa lifts the sweater over her head. She is naked underneath: no brassiere, no shirt and she is holding her arms over her heads to show off her firm breasts to their advantage. She turns slightly to drape the sweater over the wrought iron railing of the end of the bed.

"Minx," Sandor mutters and rears over her, pressing her back onto the bed. He crawls out from under the sheets and blanket and settles on her, tugging her panties off as he does. She wriggles and twists beneath him, and he tosses her underwear over his shoulder.

"Hm, that's better," he murmurs as he feels her warm skin beneath his and watches her eyes turn that deeper blue he loves so much. He pulls up one of her knees and secures her folded leg under his arm; he rests the elbow of his other arm on the mattress over her head.

Sansa giggles after a moment. "What are you doing?" she asks because he is in fact doing nothing.

"I'm looking at you, girl," he tells her firmly, "and I never get tired of it."

She blushes. He thinks it a marvel that she still can; and then reminds himself all that is in the past, where it belongs. It was a long time before they bedded again, even after Sansa came to Oregon and they visited back and forth with each other. He slept on hard floors and cramped sofas while they talked and learned about each other again. He wanted her to like him, to trust him, and to want him. He told her about his childhood and the war; she talked about her family and school. They traded personal stories and discussed current events and exchanged opinions. They laughed and joked together and sometimes even argued fiercely: slamming doors and cursing. She ran along the ocean shore with pup racing after her as Sandor trailed behind or watched from the dunes, his leg never quite strong enough to keep up. She never minded though he did, but never complained. They sat quietly side by side with her head leaning on his shoulder and watched the sun set as the sky turned orange and pink and the ocean turned inky blue and black. She gave him Hemingway novels from Scribners; he consulted a bookstore clerk and bought her volumes by Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson that made her smile at his thoughtfulness. Finally, on a cold winter afternoon, they made love in his bed under the slanted roof of his garage apartment. Afterward, Sansa cried from both happiness and yearning as he held her in his arms underneath three woolen blankets.

"I- I never want to be away from you, Sandor; ever," she sniffled. "Please…please don't send me away again."

He held her tighter. "You sure you want this, girl?" he asked roughly. "You had better be damned sure…"

"Yes. Yes, Sandor, I'm sure. I'll move to Coos Bay so we can be together all the time. I- I-I'll find work," she stammered as she tried to convince him.

"You'll marry me…that's what you'll do, girl. I expect nothing less from you…and nothing more either; we'll live on what we earn, and not your trust fund. If you want us to be together, those are my terms: take it or leave it."

Sansa's crying stopped long enough for her to gasp in surprise and catch her breath before she sobbed openly from joy.

"Yes! Oh yes, I'll marry you, Sandor. I love you…I promise I'll make you so happy-"

"You already do, girl," he rasped quietly, "you already have."

And so it was settled, there under three wool blankets, and then on a unseasonably warm autumn day in a local chapel with her family present, including long-lost Arya, who now lived with Jon in San Francisco, and her brothers and the Blackfish. Chaplain John Elder officiated.

"Thank God," he could not help saying at the end.

She smiles at him in their bed now, his wife: Sansa Clegane.

"Look all you like," she whispers, "but I'm going to touch you."

She reaches to touch his face now, slowly tracing his features with her fingertips and then running them down his neck. She brings her soft hands over his shoulders to his chest and down his belly, making him draw his breath in sharply. Her fingertips circle the head of his hard cock, and trace feathery strokes over his shaft until she takes him in her gentle grip. She rubs the swollen tip of his cock against her opening, slowly back and forth so he can feel her wetness and warmth. He grunts faintly between clenched teeth and she laughs softly.

"I know you can do more than look, Sandor…are you ready?" she murmurs.

He nods quickly and she helps ease him into her. Her breath blows hot over his neck and she sighs happily.

"Oh yes," she whispers dreamily, "that is something you can do very well."

She reaches her arms around him now, running her hands down the smooth skin of his back before resting them on his bottom and pressing him into her when he thrusts deep and holds before pulling back again. He works her in this steady rhythm and watches her face flush pink, her lips tremble and her eyelids flutter. He shifts to let go of her bent leg and instead wraps both her long, slim legs around his middle. The iron bed squeaks loudly in the near-empty house. Sansa giggles and then catches her breath sharply. Her legs tighten around Sandor and she arches into his body. He quickens his rhythm.

"That's it, girl, give yourself to me," he rasps tightly.

"Yes, Sandor," she cries softly, "it so good with you." She arches even further and keens and clutches his shoulder and bottom as he feels her tighten and spasm around his aching cock and he thrusts and holds and bursts like floodwaters breaching levee in spring, filling her with his seed though he knows it is for naught. Two years, they agreed; for two years she will drink the tea that her landlady taught her to make, until they save enough between them to consider starting a family. They hope by then to be living a normal schedule, working days and sleeping nights and having furniture to fill their house…or at least a baby's room. He is fine with that, though he is near thirty years old. He has Sansa, and she has given herself to him; not because she needs him but because she wants him, as much as he has always wanted her.

He settles on her now, warm and safe and content; and they wrap themselves around each other and exchange kisses and smiles of pleasure.

"We're good now, aren't we Sandor?" she whispers and he knows what she means. They don't talk about the time before, the time when so much was wrong. They were so full of hurt and loss and desperate need and though they wanted each other it was still wrong somehow. Now it was right, it was good.

"Yes, little bird," he breathes out as he kisses her brow. "We're good now."

FINIS