Oh my GOOOOOOOd, I SWEAR I didn't realize it had been almost a year. You know when you keep thinking 'I'll do it next weekend' and you don't realize that like that you let a freaking lot of time pass? Well, that's what happened to me.

Also, I had quite a few distractions. I started studying Anthropology as well as the other two majors that I was already studying, and making it all in under four years with good grades is a bit hard, and the professors assign a TON of homework each day. Not to mention that, while that was my distraction for the academic year, during the summer I could barely write because, even though I was catching up (I managed to update my Gendrya fanfic then) someone in my family became very sick all of a sudden. Cancer is a son of a bitch, isn't he? But he got beaten up like Joffrey did in the last chapter, ha!

Also, love came knocking on my door and I answered, so that took the rest of my time away. Oops. Blame the guy, not me!

Also, there was my own book to focus on while I had some free time. It's in Spanish, but I'm trying to have it translated. I'm not doing it, though, I've had enough with writing it in one language already.

ANYWAYS, have another chapter here! I readily hope you are all still here with me, and that you leave me nice comments and don't hate me. Love y'all!

58. After All This Time I'm Coming Home To You.

The city was in complete chaos. Police, ambulance, and firefighter sirens combined were the deafening noises that muted the panicked screams of the people that had witnessed the explosion that followed the battle inside the presidential mansion. The scorching flames still burned furiously, creating a wave of heat that hit them all with the force of a tsunami and made them all feel like they were in the depths of hell. Everything felt like they were truly in the depths of hell, from the dead bodies on the ground to the screaming of the people that had been cheering mere seconds before, to the colossal cloud of black smoke that rose to the sky…

The police managed to make the people move away to let the ambulances pass. There were several of them, and the paramedics wasted no time transporting the injured inside. The ambulances were filled with the bodies of the men that had been shot down; it didn't matter if they were Faceless Men or Aegon's men or part of Joffrey's security team, the paramedics were trying to save all the lives they could. Joffrey's screaming self was carried in a stretcher to one of the ambulances; his burns were so terrible that the slightest touch, the slightest movement, provoked him an agony worse than the most painful of tortures. His screams could be heard above all the noise around him, but no one felt any pity towards him.

Rickon was carefully taken into one of the ambulances. He was still alive, but very weak, and so the paramedics took all the care in the world to avoid any fatal harm. Sandor had to help the paramedics practically force Sansa into the same ambulance as her brother. She was struggling, horrified by the sight before her. She screamed her sister's name, as if that would somehow make Arya emerge from the flames. Finally she gave in when a particularly powerful contraction hit her. She realized that she had to go to the hospital, and quickly. The paramedics carried her to the ambulance, and Sandor stayed behind to help Gendry, who was in shock. Sandor thought that it would be a struggle to make Gendry join them in the ambulance, but Gendry didn't even protest, he just followed the man with an empty gaze. Sandor had never seen him -or anyone else for that matter- looking so lost, so broken. He took one last glance at the destroyed and burning mansion where they had last seen Arya before they got inside the ambulance and the doors closed behind them.

The injured were taken to all the closest hospitals in the area with available surgeons to operate immediately. Those with lesser injuries were taken to the furthest away hospitals, while those that needed immediate medical attention were taken to the closest hospital. Sansa, Rickon and Joffrey ended up in the same hospital. Sandor jumped out of the ambulance to leave room for the paramedics to take out the stretchers where they had put Sansa and Rickon. Rickon went first, as the bullet wound on his chest was extremely dangerous and needed surgery immediately. He had lost a lot of blood and his face was extremely pale, awfully resembling a dead body. He had fallen unconscious while on the way to the hospital, although the paramedics had done everything they could to keep him awake. The doctors immediately took him into the hospital, and Sandor stayed behind and waited while the paramedics carefully took Sansa out of the ambulance.

The ambulance that had parked right next to them was the one that was carrying Joffrey. His agonizing screams could be heard even from inside the vehicle. Sandor saw the paramedics opening the doors and unloading the stretcher, and the screams became even stronger. From afar at the grounds of the mansion Sandor had been able to see how horribly burned his former boss was; the burns reminded him of when he himself had been burned many years ago, he felt sick to his stomach when the stench of burned flesh reached his nose. From that distance he could see for real how much worse those burns really were. There was nothing left of Joffrey, just… twisted, blackened flesh. Sandor was sure that he could even see the bone in some parts, like in Joffrey's hands and jaw. Sandor didn't know what he felt. He didn't know if he regretted that Joffrey hadn't died, or if he was delighted by the terrible suffering that Joffrey was now a victim of, a suffering that would make anyone wish to be dead.

Maybe it was a good thing that Joffrey wasn't dead. He deserved to suffer after all the evil he had done. He deserved to feel what everyone else around him had suffered because of him.

Joffrey disappeared behind the doors of the hospital and Sansa's stretcher was finally unloaded from the ambulance. Doctors and nurses rushed towards them. Sandor was extremely surprised to see that his own sister, Michelle, was there.

"Sandor!" she exclaimed, relieved to see he was fine. He wasn't with her when he left to the Red Keep mansion, but as soon as she had heard the news of what was going on she knew her brother would have gone there as quickly as possible. "Are you all right?!"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine…" he mumbled, still too shocked from all the recent events. "Sansa… The baby…" he tried to explain, but Michelle already knew. She and the other nurses and doctors carried the stretcher with Sansa on it inside the hospital and towards the maternity ward. Sandor followed them closely.

"Sandor," he heard Sansa calling him, and he quickened his pace to be right next to her. She had one hand on her belly and the other hand reaching out towards him, and Sandor took it in his own. It wasn't long till they reached the maternity ward, but one of the nurses tried to stop him from coming into the room with them.

"I'm sorry, sir, only family are allowed inside," she told him, but he glared angrily at her.

"I'm the father!" he informed the woman. She was stunned and looked at him with disbelief. The woman knew quite well that Sansa was the First Lady and that Sandor had been Joffrey's bodyguard for many years, everyone in the country knew that. But, even though most of the shit that had happened in the Red Keep mansion had been revealed to the world, it hadn't yet be unveiled that the child Sansa was expecting and about to deliver was the bodyguard's child. "Let me in!"

"I'm sorry, but-" the nurse insisted, having recovered from her initial shock. However, before she could finish the sentence Michelle spoke from inside the room.

"He's telling the truth, Irene, he is the father. Let him in, it won't be long now."

Although still hesitant, the nurse Irene stepped aside and allowed Sandor to come into the room. Before he could rush to Sansa's side, who was having the epidural injected before it was too late, he was handed blue hospital clothes that he had to put on before he could go stand next to the mother of his child. The mother of his child. How strange those words still sounded in his head, yet how much joy they brought him! He quickly put on those ridiculous clothes and rushed to Sansa's side and took her hand again like he had done in the hallway. He knelt on the floor so that he could be at the same level as Sansa and leaned forward to kiss her forehead.

"I'm here, Sansa, everything is going to be fine…" he whispered in her ear, and he could see her smiling, even though her face was twisted in pain. She felt better now, though, thanks to the epidural.

Sandor had never been a very religious man, but ever since Sansa came to his life like a hurricane that shook everything on its path he had found himself very often praying for many reasons. He prayed often, begging for their hell to come to an end. He had prayed, thanking God for the miracle that was to love Sansa and have her love him. Whenever he had been too scared, too desperate, too helpless, he had found himself praying for Sansa's safety, especially in those months that he had been forced to stay away from her. He had prayed to see her, to hold her in his arms again and to meet his child, who he was sure would be just as beautiful as her. He wasn't very sure if God was up there listening to his prayers, but he was with Sansa again, she was safe in his arms and he would not only get to meet his child, but he was also being granted the gift of being present at his or her birth. It was truly a miracle. They had to suffer a lot to get to where they were, but they had endured, they had survived, and everything was just as it should be. He couldn't be more grateful.

"It's time. Sansa?" Michelle was the one who spoke, talking to Sansa with the same tone that a sister would. Sansa was delivering her nephew or niece, after all. "Sansa, I need to take a very deep breath and start pushing, okay? Take a deep breath, that's it, very well… Now push!"

Sansa held Sandor's hand so tightly that it almost hurt while she pushed. He didn't complain, all he cared about was that everything went well. While Sansa pushed he couldn't help but wonder what his child would be. A boy? A girl? What would the baby look like? He didn't care at all, all he wanted was for the baby to be healthy and happy.

"One more push, Sansa, one more!"

"You are doing great, little bird," Sandor told Sansa, whose face was red from the terrible effort and covered in sweat.

He had no idea how much time passed; he didn't notice the clock ticking away the seconds and the minutes. All that Sandor cared to notice was how Sansa pushed while holding his hand, how she screamed, and how just moments later a loud cry filled the room, announcing the coming into the world of a new life.

"It's a girl!" Michelle exclaimed with joy.

Sandor tore his gaze from Sansa from the first time since he had knelt to her side to immediately look at the baby, but the nurses had already wrapped her in a smooth white blanket and taken her away to clean her up before showing her to her parents. The baby girl was still crying quite loudly. She's got a good pair of lungs, was the first thing Sandor thought. He didn't look away from the table where they had taken his baby. After everything that had happened he was paranoid that anything could go wrong at any moment, and he was ready to jump in a second if he saw any signs that they were taking his baby away. But all his fears proved to be just paranoia; he had nothing to worry about. Michelle was the one that took the baby girl when she was ready and brought her to her parents with a huge smile on her face. She too was excited to meet her niece.

"Here's your baby, Sansa," Sansa was waiting impatiently to have her daughter in her arms. She, just like Sandor, had been unable to take her eyes off the nurses while they attended to her baby and she was anxious to finally have her in her arms. Michelle carefully placed the baby, wrapped in a new and soft pink blanket, in them, and Sansa held the baby like she was the most precious treasure in the entire world.

"My baby," she sobbed. It was a happy and relieved sob. Finally Sansa had a reason to be extremely happy, despite everything that had happened. "Look, Sandor! We have a daughter…"

This is too good to be true, Sandor thought, but he immediately pushed that thought away. Of course it was true. Both he and Sansa deserved some happiness after everything they had to endure for years. All their pain had been rewarded with pure joy in the form of their healthy, beautiful daughter.

She was really beautiful. Sandor had never imagined he would have children, but in the extremely limited occasions in which he had wondered about that very unlikely possibility he had always thought that any child of his would be just as ugly as the father. But no, the baby was beautiful, undoubtedly thanks to her mother. Most newborns looked like a potato, but the baby was a very pretty potato. She had round, pink cheeks and little pouty lips, and Sandor found himself amazed by her tiny hands and feet. He had never seen anything more precious and delicate in his whole life, and for the first time ever since he met Sansa he realized that there was a person that he would love just as much as he loved her, or maybe even more. Was that even possible? He couldn't wait to find out.

The baby girl had a small tuft of dark brown hair on the top of her hair. She had stopped crying and was now peacefully resting in her mother's arms. Sansa was just as mesmerized by her daughter as Sandor was. She kept sobbing softly, feeling happy because her baby was safe. Her daughter had made her forget all her sorrows for at least a few minutes, and even though that moment wouldn't last forever and reality would hit her again soon, for the time being Sansa allowed herself to not feel any pain at all, not even a little bit.

"She's perfect…" she whispered.

"Just like her mother," Sandor said before kissing her lovingly on the forehead.

He looked at the baby again, and placed one of his fingers right next to the baby's hand. The tip of his finger was bigger than the baby's whole hand! The baby's tiny little fingers closed around Sandor's finger, and just then did he realize that he was shedding a few tears. He was crying, damn it! But he felt no shame, for those were the tears better spent of his whole life.

His daughter opened her eyes then. They had the greying color that most newborn babies had. It was impossible to tell if they would change with age and become some other color, or if she had inherited her father's eyes. Whatever the case, Sandor's breath caught in his chest when he saw his baby's eyes. Everyone knew that babies were blind at first, but he could swear –and damn everyone who dared deny it!- that his daughter was staring at him directly.

In that moment he promised himself and he promised the entire universe that, even though he had failed to protect Sansa from evil like he wished he could have done and he hadn't been able to stop that same evil from tearing them apart, that no harm would ever come to his daughter. No matter what, he promised he would never be separated from his daughter.

He was with his family now, and that was where he would stay.

Sansa had been moved to a private room to recover from giving birth. Sandor left her side only once she fell asleep, but never before. Sansa, although still happy about the birth of their daughter, was a little depressed at the moment. It was normal, given what had happened. She had managed to finally escape, yes, but at what cost? Her brother was injured, and her sister was dead. They had all seen how Arya hadn't come out of the mansion, and the building had blown up and burned as if it was made of paper. Nothing had been left or it or of the people that had been inside at the moment of the explosion. Joffrey had barely escaped with his life, but he would have been better off dead. Sansa was grieving her sister, just as she was still grieving all her loved ones who had been murdered over the past few murders. She needed to grieve in order to heal. She needed to feel all the pain before she was able to put it in the past, where it belonged.

While she slept, exhausted after all that had happened in just one day, Sandor left her room and walked down the corridors. There were security guards on the door to keep her safe, just in case. The city was in complete chaos, and the authorities had assigned security to all the survivors of the attack. The hospital looked more like a police station or military headquarters than an actual hospital, but at least the place was quieter now than it had been before. The hospital was still chaotic, with more patients arriving as time passed by, the emergency rooms were completely full, the doctors and nurses were overwhelmed, and on top of that more and more journalists and reporters kept arriving every minute to try to sneak in and get some information on the President, the First Lady, and the other survivors. Luckily security had managed to keep them away for the moment.

Sandor was walking down the hospital corridors with his newborn daughter in his arms. She still didn't have a name, and she looked even tinier in his arms than in Sansa's. She looked the size of a mouse, almost, and Sandor felt like she was made of glass and he held her with all the care in the world. He had been nervous when the baby had been handed over to him, of course but he had taken her with expertise. He had held many babies during his life and he wasn't afraid to drop her. He would never let that happen. The baby was comfortably sleeping in his arms. There was something Sandor had to do while Sansa slept, and he hadn't wanted to leave the baby there unattended while he left the room. He was sure that nothing would happen, but he just didn't want to let his baby go or stop seeing her for even a second.

"Where can I find Rickon Stark?" he asked a nurse in the hospital lobby. The last news he had had about Rickon were that he was being operated on in the ER, and that his state was very serious. He hadn't heard anything since then, and he was terrified that he would have to deliver his little bird terrible news.

The nurse looked at her computer screen and typed something before answering. "It seems he's already in the recovery room."

Sandor couldn't be happier to hear that. He immediately went in search for the room Rickon was in, and when he arrived he found people standing outside the closed door. One was Gendry, but Sandor was surprised to find Tyrion Lannister there as well.

"I came with Myrcella," the dwarf explained. He looked devastated; his brother had been killed, after all. Sandor had never liked Tyrion much, or Jaime for that matter, but they weren't his enemies, his fight wasn't with them. Not only did the man look devastated over the death of his dear older brother, but he also looked quite shaken from the whole experience he had lived. He could have been killed, and his hands were shaking, though he tried to control it.

"Is she inside?"

"Yes. They allow only one person at a time. We came as soon as we heard, she was hysterical and she wouldn't be quiet until she saw him, so I brought her here to see him."

"Did Cersei come too?"

"No, they didn't let her leave the police station," Sandor was glad to hear that. He didn't want Cersei Lannister anywhere near Sansa, his daughter or himself. "Tommen is with her. She is hysterical too, because of Jaime…" pain crossed Tyrion's face when he said his brothers name, "and Joffrey."

"Your father is dead," Sandor told him. He didn't care to say it in a less blunt way. Not that Tyrion cared about his father, anyways.

"I know."

"So Rickon is alright, then? He's safe? He was shot, he was unconscious…" he had been afraid that the lad would die, or that he would enter a coma.

"Yes, he is perfectly safe. He's a surprisingly tough boy, he will make a quick recovery."

Sandor was glad, now he would be able to deliver his little bird some very much-needed good news. He looked down at his sleeping daughter, and Tyrion seemed to notice her for the first time and stood a bit on the tips of his toes to see her, and a faint smile crossed his lips.

"Is that Sansa's baby?" Sandor nodded, smiling as well while he looked down at his beautiful Littlest Bird. That smile was something extremely odd that Tyrion had rarely seen, a smile on the bodyguard's face. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

"A girl. We haven't decided what to name her yet."

Gendry reacted for the first time since Sandor had arrived. He had been leaning against the wall all that time, with his gaze lost in some invisible point in space, his expression void of all emotion. There wasn't even grief in his eyes; it was as if he had turned to stone and he couldn't feel anything, not even pain anymore. Arya had taken it all away with her after the explosion that had taken her as well. But he had just seen the baby, and it was the first thing that had managed to pull him out of his world of misery that night. He moved away from the wall and took a few hesitant steps towards Sandor while he looked at the baby, the niece of the woman he loved, and a little bit of life seemed to return to his eyes. The ghost of a smile appeared on his face, but it soon vanished.

"Is Sansa ok?" when he spoke, even his voice was broken. Sandor nodded.

"Aye, she's sleeping. She was exhausted. It's been a… tough night," he felt awkward talking to Gendry. The young boy had lost everything, while Sandor had gotten Sansa back and now he had a beautiful daughter to double his happiness. He wouldn't blame Gendry for hating and envying him. But, though there was envy in Gendry's eyes, there wasn't hate. Not even a bit of it.

"You two have to get out of the country. It's not going to be safe in Westeros for a while, it's going to be chaos, even with Joffrey gone from power. Politicians will tear each other apart, and there's no way of knowing if there are more people like Aegon out there. You have to get out, at least until things calm down."

Gendry was right, Sansa couldn't stay in Westeros, and wherever she went Sandor and the baby would follow. Sandor didn't care where they had to go. They could hide in a fucking island in the middle of fucking nowhere and he would be happy, so long as they were together. So long as they were family.

"I can arrange for safe passage," Tyrion intervened. "My nephew might have managed to drag the family name through the mud, but at least I have some power left of my own. There are strings I can pull, I might make things faster than they would usually be in these circumstances."

"Thank you," Sandor said. He would have to discuss that with Sansa later, though, he didn't want to make any decisions without her, but that could wait a few more hours until she was awake and fully rested. "Speaking of your nephew… Where is that fucking bastard?"

"He's in the ICU. I haven't seen him."

Sandor said goodbye to Tyrion and Gendry, and decided he would go back to check on Rickon later, while Gendry et him know that he would go to see Sansa soon. Sandor left that corridor then, but he didn't go back to Sansa's room. Instead he took the turn to the ICU.

Technically he wasn't allowed there. Nobody could visit Joffrey –not that anyone would want to, except his mother and she wasn't there- but because of all the chaos in the hospital that night no one noticed when Sandor found the room in the ICU where Joffrey was staying and sneaked inside.

Again, he was unsure of what he felt. He had wished for Joffrey's death for a long time now, but what he saw when he went into the ICU room was a hundred times worse that death could ever be. If he hadn't known that the disfigured shape of twisted, blackened, blistered flesh was Joffrey he would never have known it was him. Even though he knew it was still hard to believe it was him! That wasn't a person laying on that bed, it was… a monster. Sandor had been alienated, judged, distrusted, and looked at with disgust his whole life because of the scars of his face, but there were a mere flea bite next to Joffrey's burns.

The screaming had stopped thanks to the painkillers, and he had been all bandaged up and he was so medicated that he was almost completely numb, but he still could feel pain. So much pain was impossible to take away. He was awake, and Sandor was glad for it. He just wanted to visit that room one time, and never go back. He wanted to turn the page and start over, and that was why he was there, to say goodbye to the biggest nightmare of his life. He hadn't suffered nearly a tenth part of what Sansa had suffered at the hands of Joffrey; had Sandor never fallen in love with Sansa, he never would have suffered at all. His life would have continued undisturbed, the same as always. But he was glad he had suffered. He was glad he had fallen in love. He was glad that his life finally had a meaning.

Joffrey glared at him. His eyes and his mouth were the only visible thing in his face, the rest had all been bandaged up. He was in for weeks and even months of agonizing healing. He was breathing artificially with the help of tubes and beeping machines; his lungs were damaged, and part of his nose had been burned off. His eyes were inhuman and would give nightmares to even the bravest of men. They were completely bloodshot, and he was almost completely bling in one of them. Sandor could tell that Joffrey to scream and yell at him, but he couldn't.

"You have lost," Sandor said, savoring in the tip of his tongue the pleasure that those words provoked him. "After all this time, you have finally lost. You have no power anymore, Sansa is free, all the Starks are free… and look at you. People might have looked at me with disgust in the past, but there was pity in them too… There will be no pity for you. Wherever you go whoever sees you will have nothing by cries of horror to mutter in your presence, and when they realize what you are the horror will be replaced with joy, because everyone hates you and they will know that you deserve this. Your outside is just as rotten as your inside now."

He smiled. He knew he probably shouldn't. He knew that the good guys were supposed to forgive and move on and they did not revel in their enemy's pain, because that was unworthy, dishonorable, and below them. But it wasn't below Sandor to do it. Fuck honor, and fuck being a good guy. He wasn't a good guy, never pretended to be one and never wanted to. He was ready to laugh at the top of his lungs at Joffrey's fate and he wasn't going to be guilty at all about it. His pleasure just augmented when the hatred in Joffrey's eyes intensified. Joffrey wanted to sit up in the bed, he probably wanted to jump on Sandor and claw his face off, but he was strapped to the bed and he couldn't move. Also, even the slightest of movements provoked him the worst of agonies, despite all the painkillers. He screamed and cried and looked pitiful, like a savage, wrecked wild animal. Sandor smiled and allowed his former boss to see his daughter then.

"You see her? She is the ultimate proof that we have won, and you have lost everything. We will be happy forever, while you… Well, I hope you have fun rotting in hell for the rest of your worthless existence."

He had nothing else to say, and he was glad because in that moment the door was opened and a nurse walked in and gave him a stern look.

"Sir, you can't be here!"

"Don't worry, I was already leaving."

Joffrey tried to shout, but he was barely understandable. Sandor left and left him screaming because of his physical pain and also because of his wounded pride. The door closed behind the ex-bodyguard, and in that hospital room he left his past behind.

Sandor was back in the room with Sansa, who had just woken up not too long ago. Sandor had been holding their daughter in his arms for hours without ever getting tired of it nor of constantly looking at her. The baby still didn't have a name, and Sandor had taken to calling her Littlest Bird while he cradled her in his arms and watched both her and her mother sleep. Now he had his Little Bird, and his Littlest Bird, and there couldn't be a happier man in the whole world.

The baby had woken up about at the same time as Sansa, and she had immediately started bawling, asking for food. It was only then that Sandor let her go so that Sansa could hold her and feed her. She was nursing the baby in that moment, and Sandor had just told her that her brother was completely out of danger and in the recovery room already. Those great news had made Sansa glow with happiness.

"Where will we go after this?" she asked then while she nursed the baby. Sandor had also told her that Gendry had advised them to leave the country for the time being and Tyrion was going to handle everything so that it would all be ready as soon as possible.

"I don't know. Where do you want to go?"

"I don't care, really. I think I will be able to call any peaceful place home," she sighed. The baby stopped feeding her, and Sansa rearranged her hospital robes to cover herself and patted her baby in the back to make her burp. When she did, it made them both smile. "She needs a name."

"I remember you saying that Katherine and Celine were your options for a girl," Sandor said, remembering that day months ago. "Do you still like those, or do you have any new ideas? Don't ask me for help, little bird, I fucking suck at naming things, much less my own daughter. I would leave her with Littlest Bird and call it a day."

"We can't name her that!" Sansa protested, though she giggled softly. "No, I still like those names, but…"

She didn't finish her sentence, and her smile faded while she looked at her daughter. It didn't take a genius to read her mind, and Sandor knew immediately what had darkened her mood all of a sudden. She was thinking of her dead sister, who had died saving her and Rickon, and who she wanted to honor. He didn't have any objections to it.

"I like that name," he said then, not reffering to 'Littlest Bird', but to the one Sansa was thinking of and not mentioning.

"If you two are thinking of naming her Arya in my honor there's really no need, I think there's more than enough with one of us in the family."

Both Sansa and Sandor immediately looked at the door of the hospital room, reacting to the voice in less than a second. They hadn't heard the door opening nor anyone stepping into the room, and they had been too focused on what they were talking about to notice the presence of the person that had just spoken. They both looked at hers expecting her to be a ghost, an apparition, a product of their imagination or of their traumatized minds. They looked at her expecting her to disappear, to fade into non-existence, where she belonged… But no, she stayed, just as real as they were and as the hospital that surrounded them. She had her arms crossed over her chest and was leaning against the wall in the cockiest manner possible. Her clothes were torn and burned and so was she, and wounded, but that didn't matter. It didn't matter at all.

"Arya!" Sansa cried in disbelief. Sandor picked up the baby in his arms again, leaving Sansa's completely free to hug her sister when Arya almost jumped on her.

There were tears and sobs and laughs and cried of happiness. No one asked how Arya was alive, it didn't matter. All that matter was that she was alive and well, beaten up and burned and bleeding and filthy and tired as she was. She had fulfilled her promise to her sister, and she had come out of it alive when it was impossible that she could have done that. While both sisters cried and laughed and hugged Sandor stepped out of the room. Arya had sneaked into the hospital without anyone seeing her at all, so when Sandor found Gendry the young man was still looking as miserable if not more than before. Sandor told him to follow him, and when they got to the room Gendry almost collapsed when he saw Arya in front of him. Only then did Arya let go of her sister and ran to Gendry and jumped to his arms. She kissed him so hard that she knocked him down on the floor. He wrapped his arms around her so tightly that it seemed he was never letting her go again.

"Never do that to me again!" he shouted when their kiss stopped, but then he was the one to pull her into another fierce kiss. "Never!"

"Did you seriously believe I would allow myself to die? You stupid bull!" Arya laughed, and kissed him one more time.

Sandor sat on the border of the hospital bed next to Sansa, and both of them looked at the happy couple with the brightest smiles in the planet on their faces. Sansa was crying once again, and this time there was no sadness at all in her tears, there was just pure bliss.

"Celine," she said then between happy sobs. Sandor looked at their daughter, then looked at her, smiled, and kissed her.

"I love it," he said, giving his approval, and he kissed her again. Oh, how he had missed the taste of her lips. How he had missed all of her! He had thought he would go absolutely insane in her absence. But now there was nothing pulling them apart. They were alive, Arya was alive, Rickon was alive… They could reunite with Bran and Ned and go somewhere far, far away, and leave all their troubles behind for good.

"We can go home now," Sansa whispered.

Yes, they could, wherever 'home' would be.

So, where should that new 'home' be?