A/N: I've decided to take a bit of a break between City of Cinder, City of Ash and her sequel Our Life in the Northern Town. Too much heavy, too much angst... so I wrote in-universe happy ending fic! I also have a larger project (about 15k words, also in universe) coming up within the next week, which if you follow me on tumblr you know as Learning to Fly. Previews are over there under the appropriate tag (Learning to Fly or my more generic 'fic' tag). Consider this fic my thank you to all the lovely people who reviewed City. :)

Title taken from Iron and Wine's Passing Afternoon, which also serves as the one-hit soundtrack to this fic, if you like to read with music. Inspiration take from the lines: there are things we can't recall / blind as night that finds us all / winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls.

It is silence that announces her. The din of the after-battle quiets, suddenly, and instead of the jeers and blood-drunk, blood-lusting yells of soldier he hears the sound of small feet crossing over hard-packed snow.

All Sandor Clegane can hear are the winter winds rustling through the trees and the sharp sound of blades creaking in their sheaths and the slide of the skin on the hands that rest on their hilts. The crunch of snow beneath shifting feet. His own heartbeat.

Why did he even come to this contended land of the neck?

Your grace, they murmur, and he can hear them going to their knees- the rustle of fabric, the laying down of swords, the sound of weight crunching down into the snow.

He struggles to shift his weight onto his other side, turn his face to look at her, but the cloying pain in his ribs suddenly flares upwards and downs and bites down, and all he can see is black in a world of white.

"Little bird," he chokes out, not sure if it is voice that comes out of his chest, or a death rattle.

In the darkness, she kneels down beside him, cold gloved hands pressing against his face. Her voice is strong, and distant.

"It's alright," she whispers to him. "I'll protect you. I'll save you. I can protect you now. Just go to sleep, my lord."

He awakes to silence and to a steely pounding in his head. His chest burns and he coughs violently, his head reeling, yielding to the dainty hands that help him upright, bring a metal cup of water to his chapped lips.

"Drink," a woman's voice says, a woman with hands too soft, too gentle to belong to any woman working at an inn.

Sandor forces his eyes open, to look upon her as she is. She smiles sadly, tipping water into his mouth as a fire mounts in his chest and throat. "Hush, my lord."

He cannot breathe, tasting blood in his mouth as his chest heaves it out of his belly.

But gods, she is beautiful, his Queen in the North.

"I know," she speaks idly, as if people are not swarming into the room, helping her hold him up, mixing droughts and preparing bandages. Her thumb strokes his chin. "I know, not a lord. And the Dragon Queen has even given away your land. Everyone thought you dead. But you're not. You just need your rest."

Her coloring has not much changed, but her hair is darker now. But her face is womanly and her voice is womanly and her hair is wild and loose and the untamed North (she is the untamed North, he thinks, has been all along) a bronze and iron circlet on her head, looking unnaturally right amongst her riot of auburn waves.

Someone hands her a pewter goblet, and she brings it to his mouth.

"Drink, and rest."

And the world is black again.

The world is black when he awakes. Sandor is more aware of his surroundings, this time, blearily taking in the contents of the room. There is the bed he is laying on, which is covered in firs and fine linens and it is all very strange because the room is fine and much better than a dog like him should be staying in.

His eyes are drawn to the beautiful white cloak folded over the back of a chair, and then sheaves of parchment open on the table.

Sandor groans, the pain in his chest still present, but dulled.

How much time has passed? he wonders. And where is he? Where is she?

How much time has gone since he came across the gold cloaks on the road? He was heading for the Northern army, had been trying to catch up with them for weeks. As soon as she had raised her banners, as soon as it became apparent that the Vale was not where she wanted to be—he left.

Sansa Stark could take either his sword or his head—this was to be his absolution. It was what he told the Elder Brother. It was how he left. He owes her more than he'll ever owe any gods of men.

(Sansa Stark is the only person he chose to protect. She is who he deserted. She is the only one fit to punish him. She is the only one left.)

The Northern army found him anyway. As did the Northern Queen.

The darkness washes over him again, and he is pulled under by the sudden wave just as suddenly as he was pushed into the light.

"You are doing much better, I am told. I am glad of it."

He flinches, and then raises a hand to grab as his chest, and the tightening there, eyes squeezing shut against a wave of nausea at the same time a weight dips onto the bed beside him. A cool cloth is pressed over his eyes, and the backs of soft fingers stroke down the unscarred side of his face.

"I still do not know what to call you," she says. "You are not a ser, nor a lord. I have called you 'the hound' inside my head for so long, too. But you are not a dog."

He opens his mouth and tries to speak, but instead it is a choked sound. He is perhaps happy for it, because he does not know what he would have told her.

She laughs then, self-deprecating. "Hush, my… see? Do not try to talk. You took a blow to the throat and now it is very much injured. As is your chest. We were so very lucky to have come across you when we did. I do not wish to know what the Lannister men would have done to you if we didn't."

Why is she being kind to him? He came here for her judgment. Not her kindness.

She pulls the cloth from his eyes, and he can see her once again. The crown is gone, and her hair is bound back loosely, still falling over her shoulders. It is to her waist now, almost her hips. Her mouth is wider, lips fuller. She purses them, searching him over.

"The maester told me check your eyes. Make sure that they're even." Her blue eyes meet his, and despite the pain hiding behind both of theirs, Sandor feels somethinglike… something akin to hope, instead of a death knell. Her eyes widen briefly, and then flicker away.

She is what, seventeen, eighteen now, he thinks. And still acts like a girl around him. As if he was in any shape to get off the bed and threaten her. He did hold a knife to her throat, the last time they met. It is only right…

Why hasn't she killed him yet? He is a westerman, a deserter, far from home and his liege lord. By all rights, Sansa Stark should have taken his head.

Her eyes soften, focusing on his neck. He wonders what a sight he must be. Although the Queen of Winter is what they call her. The Queen of Ice, who ended House Frey and House Bolton and laid out Stannis's army to their grave. She would not be afraid of an old, crippled hound.

Her hand grasps his, and he feels a twinge of nervousness. "Does your head ail you?" she asks. "Just incline your head yes or no."

He shakes his head. It no longer ails him. Only his neck, and his chest.

"But your chest?" her voice quivers, and he thinks it a mistake of his hearing. Her brow furrows, hair falling forward to curtain her face.

Sandor nods.

"We are lucky you have stayed with us," she whispers, her fingertips hesitating above his torso, clenching against her palm in retreat instead of touching him. "The maester was not sure if you were to make it through the first night. But you have survived a week."

A week? Bloody hells.

"You need your rest," she says, words tumbling out of her mouth in a rush, fluttering off the bed. He looks at her properly for the first time this way. Looks at the woman she has become without him. She returns with the pewter goblet, and he tries to fight against her but she looks down sternly at him, eyes wavering with some uncodified emotion—

And he lets her tip the medicine into his mouth, and gladly swallows the bitter drink.

She chirps to him. It becomes apparent to him that this is the room in the inn that she's adopted as her solar, the place she retreats to in the mornings and evenings before bed. Perhaps she once slept her, he thinks, and finds a womanly scent in the bed linens, before he remembers he's been here more than a week and stops searching for her in his pillows.

(But he thinks he found a red hair in the pillow next to his, once.)

She speaks to him of war and politics and of her commanders and her small council and of her uncles and philosophy and history and sings to him, and he does not know what to make of it, as he is given less and less of whatever she is told to put in the pewter goblet and begins to question why she comes to him and why she is the one more often than not tending to him.

Why she did not leave him to die, or better yet, put him down like a dog. But his throat is still injured, and even though he tries, he cannot speak.

Sandor watches her open the curtains in the morning and then pull them closed at night, watches her write letters and read them, watches her tend to her own fire and mend her own things. No one else comes in and out of the room, except for an old maester who rarely addresses him and generally the whole state of things leaves him uneasy and confused.

"Once we fortify the neck and install my Uncle Edmure back at Riverrun, we will turn North again and make for Winterfell," she tells him one day, hands quickly moving a needle through a tear in the hem of one of her heavy, winter-made dresses. "If you are well enough, you will return with us. Unless you wish to do otherwise, of course."

Does she not realize that he is here on her terms? The foolish little bird. He is hers to do with as she pleases. She is the Queen of these lands, as she took them the hard way. Not just by right, but by battle.

And still she sings him a song.

She is prattling on to him, one day, in a way that is quite unlike a Queen, when his voice returns to him.

"Your grace," he says, voice no longer stymied by fever or pain and remembers that she is no longer his little bird, but ruler of half the continent. At least in name, at least so far as he has heard. But perhaps the
tales are just tales and the Queen of Winter is just a front.

It would break something inside of him to hear otherwise, though. He thinks. Maybe. It feels right for the little bird to have grown up into the fierce wolf Queen her bannermen call her. But Sandor Clegane knows how to be disappointed.

"Oh." Sansa stops, and pales drastically, rushing to his side. "How are you feeling?"

He croaks a laugh.

"Of course," she nods; reaching for what he hopes is a glass of wine. He pushes himself up against the head board, and takes the goblet from her hands and brings it to his lips. It is. It is strong, but sweet, and red. She has grown, he thinks, and has a grown woman's taste in wine. "I hope it helps you. You must still be in very much pain, I would think."

"Thank you, your grace." He falls back easily into the pattern.

Sansa blushes very prettily, taking the goblet back from him and letting it rest in her lap. "You needn't address me as so."

He coughs. "Then how must I address you?"

She hesitates, fingertips tracing the fine filigree etched into the stem of the goblet. "I am afraid, my lord, that I must ask you a favor."

He relaxes—this he is familiar with. He will serve her. She has not brought him here out of generosity, or kindness. She will treat him like a dog and there will be boundaries.

"I need…" she laughs at herself, turning to place the cup onto the bedside table. "I need…" Sansa covers her face in her hands, looking like the girl he once knew and blushing deep into the roots of her hair.

He barks a pained laugh. "What do you need, girl?"

"Seven hells," she swears, shaking her head. "This is going to… I have no right to expect this of you, but I must ask it."

"Ask, my queen," Sandor urges her with a harsh, manic laugh, pain beginning to creep further and further up his chest. She recognizes something in his voice, meeting his eyes and helping him the best she can to lie back down. "Tell me your price for letting me keep my head, so we can be done with this."

"No!" Sansa cries, paling. "You musn't think of it like that—I would have—you, you were kind to me once I would not have—I mean, my smallcouncil did not think—but I—"

"Spit it out," he grits, now wishing that she would say her piece and be done with it, and hand him the milk of the poppy spiked wine that he knows awaits him in the pewter goblet. "And be done with it."

Sansa grabs the goblet, half-frantic. He realizes that this is the first time he has seen her act as anything less than regal since he has seen her here, at the inn. She lifts his head forward and tips the wine into his mouth. "I have told my smallcouncil that you and I are married by the common law, so that they may not pressure me into binding myself with any… unfavorable suitors."

He chokes on the wine.

She blushes. "Oh goodness, swallow, please. Don't die on me now, not when I have them convinced."

"That," he gasps, "Is your fucking price? How?"

"How did I convince them that we were married by the common law? It is simple—all the man must do is give his lady his cloak and swear a vow of protection and then the two must—must consummate the deed."

She blushes deeply, avoiding his eyes. Sandor squirms, tired and in pain and drugged, barely able to catch the fact that she has raised one of her hands to his face, her fingers tenderly stroking his scars. "I kept your cloak, that night. And you did say that anyone who would seek to do me harm would die by your hand—that is a vow of protection is it not?"

He snorts, his mind slowly convincing him that the notion of a marriage to Sansa fucking Stark of all people is all but a drug-induced dream, and that he will wake up on the morn face-down in a puddle of his own vomit.

"Consummation?" he gasps.

Sansa blushes harder. "That is more… tricky, shall we say. But no, I am not… it was easy to lie to them when they could not prove it wasn't you."

Sandor laughs, deep and booming before it dies down into a weak, sickly cough. "Little bird… little bird got her wings."

Her face stills. "You're not… angry."

"About that?" he murmurs, eyes falling shut. "No. Why? This fucking marriage bullshit, however…"

Sansa shushes him, placing her index finger on his lips. "Sleep. We'll discuss it in the morning."

"There's apparently nothing left to discuss…" he mutters, rolling slightly onto his side. He thinks he's hallucinating when he hears something like a giggle or a snort as the sweetsleep takes him quickly and gently.

"You are still graceless, my lord," she tells him, sitting behind her desk as the maester and two burly sellswords swing his feet out over the side of bed. Sandor swears profusely, sweats profusely, and tries to refuse any aid. "You'll need help; you've been abed for almost a fortnight."

He growls at her. She raises an eyebrow. "Do you think I fear you? Sandor Clegane, all bark and no bite. I've had quite the few years and quite the few unsavory suitors to figure that out." She looks up at the men brought in to sit him up and smiles sweetly, truly. "That will be all for now. I will ask you for your assistance with my lord husband later in the evening."

He waits until the men leave the room and shut the door behind them before he speaks.

"Laying it on a mite thick, little bird," he hisses, feeling at his sore ribs with his hands.

"Hmmm…" Sansa signs a proclamation with a flourish, smiling proudly at her handwriting. "This is an act and I must play my part. Also, if anyone inquires, everything had transpired the night of the Battle of Blackwater Bay. I was not coerced. It was my idea. I'd rather them think me a harlot than think me unwed."

He groans. She is cruel. She has grown older and cruel. Why else would she torment him so?

"What do you want from me, little bird?" he asks, voice harsh and stunted.

Her gaze softens. "Companionship, if you would give it freely. I am sorry that I have resigned you to this… task. It was… and opportunity I could not give up. There are many vying for my hand—were many, now—and I could not… I would not marry a man who I… I am a queen. There are responsibilities, but I also have my needs."

Sandor gives a gruff snort, letting his head fall into his hands. "I am no better than them, girl. Woman. Whatever you are now. I'm still a killer."

Sansa stands, and crosses the room to him, tries to pry his hands from his face. She sighs when he does not allow her to. "You are honest. And that is what I ask for, now. Honesty. But everyone here is a liar—you told me that once. I have learned to be better at it. But let me be honest now. More honest, then. We have not met for many years. The last time I saw you… you were viciously drunk and held a knife to my throat. You were cruel… and needlessly kind. We are not… friends. Nor have we ever been." She tries to lift his chin again, and he lets her, shocked to see tears clouding her perfect Tully blue eyes. "But I cared for you, once. Thought you the only honest man left in the world. And I think you cared for me, once. And that's more than a lot of people get."

She gives him a watery smile. She is going to break him-he can feel it settling in his chest. He will serve her. She will take him, body and soul. But she always has, hasn't she?

"My brother Robb died because of love. It was his tragedy. And who knows what his marriage to a Frey would have affected. I will… try not to make his mistakes. But I… this is not one of them. I was promised to no man. And now no one can touch me, with you by my side."

He huffs a laugh, it is pained and he takes notice when she wraps her arms around his shoulders. "Little bird, this will not end well."

"Do you not want me?" she whispers, voice high and reedy. All men want their prize-the North and the place between her legs and in her lineage. But who wants Sansa? He knew Sansa. She is lonely, he realizes.

Something very small and bright within him shatters at her plaintive tone, her short, sad words. He bites back a sob. She is his for the taking. She may have his head.

And his heart. "Little bird…"

"Sansa," she corrects him. "If I am to be your wife. My parents—they did not love each other. But they—they grew to. They did. I am not illusioned that their union was perfect. But we—"

"I died, once," he tells her. "In the Saltpans."

"I died, once," she answers. "In the Red Keep."

They both laugh.

"I do not love you," she tells him. He knows. He does not love her either. He loved Sansa Stark, the sweet summer child. The girl who killed the Hound. This Queen in the North is a new woman. She is bold and brave and wears armor into battle, under her banners. She is fiercer than his little bird ever was. She is the Red Wolf. "But I would like to be your friend."

He wraps his arms around her waist, pressing his face into the space between her collarbones and her breasts. "I will not fail you, this time."

Something that sounds like a sob rings from her chest.

It is silence that announces them, as they step into the snow-drenched ruins of Winterfell. He follows, two steps behind her as he has become accustomed.

Lord Clegane. She is still Sansa Stark, first of her name. But he is her consort, her advisor, a Commander of her armies and her only friend. He watches as she runs her hands over the handle into the great hall, brushes snow off the door, and pushes it open. Not a king.

The ceiling is half caved-in, entire patches missing. Gone. The stones are burnished by ash and ice-slicked soot. But she is unfazed as she walks through the ghost of her childhood, of the sweet summer child she once was. Snow falls softly through the eaves.

It is quiet.

And Sansa Stark clicks back into place with the girl he once knew—she becomes her again. She is still his Queen, the fierce Red Wolf, the woman who leaves a trail of blood in her wake. But she can make sense now. She can be whole.

It is strange, to be happy and to be happy for someone.

They both died, once. They were different people, before.

The sun is setting, each day grows shorter. Somehow they both know with a look that the other believes that it will not rise again in the morning. Winter has come. It has come for us all. We are winter's children, now.

They will survive.

"I will build it again," she whispers. To him. He knows her tones now, how she speaks. They have learnt each other like foreign languages. "I will build it and it will grow."

Maybe they will both live again—who was lost in King's Landing and who was lost in the Saltpans.

Maybe they could grow to love each other.

Maybe they could grow.

Reviews are, as always, very much appreciated.