Disclaimer: Characters and the whole world of Westeros belong obviously to GRRM and no-one else.

Author's Notes (updated around Chapter 31): When I started to write this, I wasn't quite sure where I was going, and estimated this to be 20 chapters or a bit more... Well here we are, and only now I can see exactly where this is heading!

In the first place this is a love story about Sansa and Sandor. However, this also contains a slightly unusual twist with the addition of Jaime, who is struggling to find himself and his place in the triangle and in his world. My original inspiration was the Arthurian stories and the complex relationship between King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot – for some reason that triangle has always fascinated me.

Yet most of all, this is a story about longing, about human condition and emotions one human can feel for another...

I am hugely in debt to my learned and wonderful beta Wildsky, who has patiently helped me to improve my writing and made this story so much better! And as for most of us writers who do this for love, not money, comments are always appreciated and play an important part in creating inspiration to keep going on...

Warning: This story contains some references to Petyr's sexual misconduct towards Sansa and can be a trigger to some. In Chapter 3 I have listed specific warnings and markings in place concerning some more specific descriptions. The few other references to Sansa's past, scattered here and there, are not graphic in nature but may still repel those to whom the mere concept is distasteful.

Summary: The intensity in Sandor's voice when he demanded to know what the Kingslayer was doing escorting her both scared and thrilled her.

Jaime

The Lion was tired.

He felt more tired than ever in his life – he felt like a puppet whose tightly-wound strings had finally been cut and the puppet had collapsed. The weight on his cord, his puppet master, was now lying on the ground in front of him wrapped in heavy furs, long eyelashes fluttering as she was drifting towards sleep.

Beside her lay the dagger that had cut the strings. He too was wrapped in furs as the night was freezing and they had no true cover.

Jaime's sole responsibility for the maid's well-being having been lifted and the ties loosened, he needed sleep more than ever. He contemplated where he should lay himself down. Next to the highborn maiden, enveloping her between two rough men, or against the broad back and shoulders of the dog?

The Hound had caught up with them that day, riding like the Stranger himself on his huge black courser. He had murder in his eyes as he saw the Lion of Lannister, and probably would have cut him down then and there if not for the soft words of his companion.

Jaime saw her talking to him earnestly, urgently – they were gesturing in his direction and he saw the Hound's fist clenching and unclenching around the hilt of his broadsword. Finally he seemed to settle down and let go of the weapon.

The rest of the evening passed in thick silence, heavy glances passing between the three of them. They ate their meagre supplies of hard bread and cheese and briefly established why each of them now found themselves in a small clearing between the Eyrie and the Neck.

Jaime and Brienne - the stubborn, honourable Warrior Maid of Tarth - had finally located Sansa Stark, the last remaining heir of the line of Kings in the North. A chance remark at the inn in Gulltown about the beautiful and impeccably-mannered bastard daughter of Petyr Baelish had alerted them. The remark had led them on an arduous journey to the base of the mountain, to the Gates of the Moon. Winter's cold fingers were grabbing at them and chilled them to the core, but they had pressed on through the bleak landscape driven by a mutual quest – for what? Not only for the Princess in the North. For Jaime, his lost honour. For Brienne, the oath she had sworn to a woman who was now dead and undead at the same time. Luckily for them, the cold had also assured that the target of their mission had descended to a place more easily accessible than the impenetrable Eyrie.

Brienne had entered the castle first, announcing herself openly while Jaime had waited outside the walls. Littlefinger had done his usual devious best, side-stepping Brienne's questions while keeping his own options open. Yet even he had been taken by surprise by how quickly Brienne had whisked his bastard daughter away. The master of subterfuge had been defeated in his own game, the girl having learned from the master how to lull him into a false sense of security. Why would she want to leave her good father, who had just promised her a marriage with Harry the Heir, the future Lord of the Vale? Nevertheless she had done so, smiling sweetly at Petyr in front of Brienne but later coming to her in the middle of the night packed up and ready to leave. She had been covered in an old white cloak of the Kingsguard, charred and splattered with faint brown bloodstains, clutching the bag filled with her few belongings. They had ridden out that same night and Sansa had not looked back.

It had not been easy to pass the land patrolled by the Vale soldiers, but they had made it without being caught. Nevertheless, after only a few days of riding Brienne had stopped. Her scarred face had borne an expression Jaime had learned to recognise well: she had decided to do something honourable, righteous and stupid. He envied her for that: the self-assurance that deluded her into believing that she always knew what the right thing to do was.

Brienne had been the first to bring forth the news from the Hound. Once she had escaped the clutches of Lady Stoneheart, she had remembered the tall, limping grave-digger and returned to the Quiet Isle, challenging the Elder Brother about the truth of Sandor Clegane's death. The old man wouldn't have revealed anything but the grave-digger himself had stepped forward, wanting to know who was after him and why. Brienne had not succeeded in getting much out of him but had been able to convince him that she was not after him – only the Stark daughter who had last been seen in his company. Hearing the truth about which daughter it had been, was why she had now stubbornly decided to go back after the younger one. Brienne's oath encompassed the safe return of both daughters of Catelyn Stark, so despite a heated argument between her and Jaime, she had left.

Brienne. Jaime missed her, but wasn't sure as to why. Was it because she was a reflection of the worthy knight he now desperately wanted to be – or because she was the hand that guided him on the narrow path of honour? Or did he miss her broad shoulders and comforting presence? She was like no woman he had ever met – and best of all, she was nothing like Cersei. Nobody is like Cersei.

Over the next few days Jaime and Sansa travelled alone. She was initially clearly suspicious of him and his motives, glancing at him as if unsure of whether she should try to outrun him or not. In the evenings they conversed, at first only about necessities, but gradually they started to share more. Jaime started to reveal to her some parts of the long journey he had undertaken from being the arrogant, golden heir of the arrogant, golden house to the deserter of his own family and his king – his own son.

Not that he admitted that much to her. There were still things that were better to be left unsaid. Did she understand why he was chasing this most elusive thing of all, the honour he had lost so many years ago? He couldn't be sure but eventually Sansa seemed to make her peace with his company and little by little, Jaime thought he started to see quiet acceptance in her features as she was scrutinising him silently.

From there on, their travel had been quiet and contented, both deep in their own thoughts. Once she had asked about Cersei and he had spoken of her last letter pleading for his help. After telling her how he had thrown it into the fire, he could have sworn there had been pity in Sansa's eyes. It had made him uncomfortable and he had cut the discussion short. He didn't feel like her saviour at that moment and the thought of this young woman feeling sorry for him was too much. It was too raw and too close to the truth.

Jaime had thought he would need to go through the same arguments and prolonged battle of wills as he had with Brienne about sharing the furs. Yet Sansa had not even questioned him when on the first evening he had listed his reasons about why it would be the most sensible thing to do if they didn't want to freeze to death. She had simply looked at him, long and hard, seemingly coming to a conclusion in her mind before nodding and sliding in next to him like it was the most natural thing in the world. She was small and slim, not at all like Brienne, and he noticed he missed the warrior maid's strength beside him. He missed her muscular arms and the chest which hardly felt womanly at all with her barely-noticeable breasts, and the feeling of companionship they shared. On some nights she had rested her head against his shoulder, on some nights he against hers. With Sansa he was afraid of leaning towards her and felt it too intrusive to pull her closer to him, so they settled into a warm but chaste side-by-side arrangement. When he was looking at the stars far above them on a cloudless night, he was wondering why he didn't feel moreexcited. She was the most beautiful woman he had seen for a long time and her body was soft next to his. But she is not Cersei.

One evening, Sansa asked him: "Why do you do this when you don't have to? You could be in King's Landing right now, in a high position in King Tommen's court."

Jaime looked at her, wondering how ill-prepared he was for this question. After all, he should have known it was coming sooner or later.

"Why do I want to retrieve the shreds of my honour, however feeble that attempt may be and doomed to failure? Or why did I choose you, of my many failures, as my redeeming cause? Which one you mean, my dear lady?" He tried to keep his tone light, behaving as if he was still the untouchable knight and as if nothing mattered.

"Both, I suppose. Why me? What do you want to achieve?" Her eyes did not leave his face to allow him time to consider.

Jaime pressed his eyes closed, trying to decide whether the question required a flippant answer or a truthful one. What was the truth anyway, what had made him do this? Search for his honour? He had nothing else left in this world to anchor him; no parents, his brother disappeared and hating him with the passion, his children not his children – and Cersei…not Cersei anymore. He couldn't care less about the power and wealth, the position of Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, but lately he had found that his peace of mind was something worth pursuing. He dreamt of a future when he could get up and go through the day feeling an inner calm and a sense of satisfaction. Funny how the lack of it never used to bother him.

Finally he replied: "I would like to find the feeling I had when I was fifteen and newly knighted again. I would like to find the feeling of knowing what is right and wrong and know that I am doing the right thing. Whether I will find it in this foolish quest, I don't know, but I have to start somewhere." They sat in silence for a long time, but eventually he felt a small touch on his arm. Sansa's hand was resting lightly close to his stump for a moment and when he raised his eyes to hers, she smiled gently.

"You will find it, I'm sure of it."

Jaime shivered and made his decision, lying down next to the Hound and sliding under the furs. The big man startled but settled down quickly as Jaime pressed his back against his. They had both been in enough campaigns in freezing cold conditions, where the only thing protecting you from the chill in the night is the warm body of your fellow soldier. And he was warm – a big, solid wall of warmth, like Brienne had been when they had travelled together. Unlike Sansa, she had initially resisted sharing the furs, but after a night in the open when both of them had lain awake with their teeth chattering, she had finally relented. So they had huddled together from thereon but it had always been chaste. Jaime wanted her close, wanted to hold her or to be held by her, but no more than that.

He thought about the campaign from his youth when he was still an untried boy. His father had sent him to learn about warfare in one of the frequent skirmishes with the Ironborn. He and an older soldier, who had been assigned to protect him as his shield, had fallen into the sea in heavy storms and been separated from the rest of troops. Soaking wet and ice cold, they had reached one the small, rocky outcrops. With cold winds blowing across the bare rock and no fire to warm them, they had done the only thing they could in order to stay alive; they had stripped their wet clothes and huddled against each other behind the low lip of a rock. For two days and nights they had stayed there. Eventually their clothes had dried, but it was still the warmth contained in the cradle of two naked bodies pressed against each other, covered with the layers of their clothes, that had kept them alive.

Jaime remembered how his companion had told him stories to while the time away. Stories of his other campaigns, of his childhood home in a little village near Lannisport and many others, too numerous to remember. While murmuring them in his low voice, he had rubbed Jaime's back with long, sure strokes. He had laid his golden head against his broad chest, listening to his slow and steady heartbeat, and had felt warm and secure.

At the end of the second day their ship had returned on a search mission and they had been rescued. Afterwards they never talked about the time in the rocky island and never shared the blankets again. Only later, when he had seen more of the soldier's life, had he started to think about the experience in a new light. He had learned that some men found themselves a shieldmate to comfort them in their long stretches away from home. For some men it was only a temporary arrangement, ending as soon as they were back with their wives or camp followers, but for others it was the only way they knew how to love. Those men often stayed with their shieldmates, even after retiring from army life.

He couldn't ask his old protector about any of this, even if had he wanted to, as he had been killed only few weeks after the incident. Jaime remembered he had had no wife and no camp followers accompanying him. There had been times when he had been enraged about this possible insult to his lordly dignity – he was the heir of Casterly Rock, after all. Yet there had also been times when he dreamt of strong arms and a flat stomach pressing against him, the murmuring of a low voice in his ear. These dreams had made him even more confused and in the end he had simply given up trying to understand how the experience had made him feel. He never told Cersei, which was unusual as otherwise they shared absolutely everything. Although you never told me about Lancel or the Kettleblacks.

Sansa

When Sansa saw the Hound riding towards them, she had been surprised – at first. Ever since she had heard from Brienne that he was not dead, not wandering Westeros as a broken man, not journeyed across the sea to join a sellsword company and most definitely not the butcher of Saltpans – all fates people assumed had befallen him – she had had a strange feeling that their paths would cross again. Why that would be, she could not explain. She only knew that something had been left unsaid between them, something that needed to be resolved.

It soon became clear that Brienne's visit to the Quiet Isle in her mission to find Arya had sent Sandor on his way. Precious Brienne – she might not have intended it that way but Sansa was grateful to her just the same.

The intensity in Sandor's voice when he demanded to know what the Kingslayer was doing escorting her both scared and thrilled her. His expression then had been the same as in King's Landing – fury in his grey eyes, his scarred face contorted in a scowl. After she had succeeded in convincing him that Jaime was not doing this for the Lannisters but for his own reasons, they suddenly found themselves wordless. The memory of their parting on the night of the Battle of Blackwater Bay was still too raw.

Once she had started to gain maturity and perspective away from King's Landing, Sansa had spent a lot of time thinking about him, trying to understand what had driven him to be the man he was. Now she wasn't sure whether she had only succeeded in creating a distorted image of the real Hound in her mind or whether she really had become closer to unravelling the mystery. All she knew that the man so often in her thoughts now felt like a complete stranger.

Once she retired to her bedroll and the Hound had lain down next to her, she felt vulnerable. Not afraid – she had been childish to be afraid of his looks and the anger in his eyes when there were so many much more terrifyingthings in the world. Yet if she withdrew from him now, it would serve only to remind them both of the times she had shied away from his face. No, she would lie just so and if Jaime came to resume his position between them, it would be his doing, not hers. Thinking about it, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.