So I thought I'd try my hand at ASOIAF. I only recently finished book four, and I am so enthralled that I wish this stuff came in intravenous form and I could get an IV drip for it. Not to mention a subscription to HBO.

This is an AU for the Blackwater Battle scene – I think this is a prerequisite for every Sansan lover out there, so I'm just adding my voice to the mix. I actually have a storyline for this, one that diverges greatly from the books, but I don't know if I'll actually get any of it down. For now, just take it as is: in all its unbeta'd, caffeine-and-sleep-deprivation-induced glory. Lyrics are from Poets of the Fall, "War."

Do you remember standing on a broken field;
White crippled wings beating the sky?
The harbingers of war with their nature revealed,
And our chances flowing by.

I have no wish to die.

He laughs at her, as she knew he would. Everyone dies, girl. Be it man, woman, child or little bird, everyone dies.

His breath is hot on her skin as she holds her hand there, trembling, up against his scars. I know. Ser Ilyn is to have my head, should Stannis win this night.

That stops him. She does not know why she has told him this, except that she feels he should know before he takes leave of her. She feels the flex of muscles in his jaw as it tightens, but he says not a word.

The hour grows late. If you are to go, you must hurry.

In the dying light of the wildfire, his eyes burn, the only part of him she can see clearly. Even that small piece of him is nearly overwhelming. She feels him touch her again, taking hold of the hand that cradles his face in the darkness. Callused fingers chafe against her skin as they weave through her own. You think to be rid of me so easily, is that it, girl? Think I can just up and walk out after you tell me these things? The raw depth of his voice is, as ever, at odds with the gentleness in his touch.

Her brow furrows in quiet confusion. I have no wish to be rid of you. But you are going.

Those strong fingers dig into her palm then, squeezing. He laughs once more, and the sound is wretched and hollow. A place in her throat, just underneath that nonexistent wound where his blade had rested mere moments ago, tightens in sympathy. Am I?

That little knot of fear residing in her belly loosens a little. Are you? She hears herself murmur, and her fingers curl into his, nails rasping softly against the twisted flesh of his cheek. He inhales sharply at the gesture, and dips his head so that his mouth is pressed into her palm. She cannot tell whose hand it is that is shaking; if the tremors she feels all the way down her arm are her own, or his. Her fingers slowly unfurl once more so that she is cradling his face again, feeling the scratch of his scarred mouth as it moves across her open hand. Wetness slips through her fingers and down her wrist; it is not blood that he sheds now.

Before she can stop herself her other hand reaches out and slides across his jaw, smoothing its way up his face, feeling her way in the dark. She can feel the tension in the set of his jaw, the tightness around his eyes as they fall closed. His hand drops away as her own small, soft ones sweep across him, thumbs smoothing out the furrows in his brow, the crows' feet that gather above his cheekbones. Tears and blood and soot cling to her skin, sticky and damp, but she pays no mind to it. His head remains bowed, his breathing ragged and hoarse, the only sound in the darkness of her room.

He leans into her embrace, and she feels the fight leave him, gone between one breath and the next. With it flies the last of her lingering fears, and it is easy, so laughably easy, to look up into the shadows where his face lies, and speak truth.

I cannot leave.

I know.

I wish you would stay.

He does.

He waits by the door, longsword across his knees and a hand on the hilt, baring an inch or two of steel. She thinks that perhaps she will not sleep, but as she lies shivering atop her blankets, eyes wide and unseeing, she hears him stand and move near, and then something settles across her. She plucks at the edges, drawing the once-white cloak around her, breathing in the scent of it. Sansa feels her eyes fall shut of their own volition, the tang of fire and blood and sickness and him comforting her in a way that incense from the Sept never could. She drifts away, finally overcome.

She does not comprehend that she is awake until she realizes what has woken her; the singing of steel being unsheathed vibrates through the still room. The girl bolts upright, the cloak pooling around her waist with the movement. She can barely make out his silhouette across the room where he is standing – sword in hand, a few feet to the inside of the door, where no one will see him should they open it. The room is just now lightening; the wildfire has all but died, and the glow that just touches the skyline is a natural one. Dawn is near.

Fear takes hold, and she opens her mouth to ask what is happening, but even as the words form in her throat the door is thrown open and a figure steps in.

In the space between one stuttering heartbeat and the next the fear is exchanged for violent, aching relief. As Ser Dontos stumbles his way into the room the Hound steps into the shadow of the open door, blade at the ready, making not a sound.

The fool is so drunk that he takes no notice of his impending doom, instead reaching for Sansa. She is plucked from her bedding and spun 'round and 'round, him laughing all the while. Sputtering, she questions him, and his answer is so incredible that for a minute she forgets the Hound entirely, gaping and gasping and trying to remember how to breathe.

It is not until Dontos sweeps her up into another giddy embrace that she looks over his shoulder, only to catch the Hound's eye as he ducks around the open doorway, about to take his leave. Something nameless passes between them then, and she thinks that perhaps she should go to him, say something, anything. But the world does not stop long enough for her to decide; the moment is lost like all the others, and she buries her face into her Florian's padded shoulder.

When she looks back up, the Hound is gone.

Fin(?)