@maxbetta - Writer's Block

She didn’t think it would be so lonely. Being Queen in the North.

No other Stark in Winterfell was left. Just her and the statues she had rebuilt in the destroyed crypt from the Battle. She’d had a statue of Theon built here.

She missed him. She missed them all.

And she missed the potential possibilities that had been burned away as much as the Dragon queen’s wrath had burned Kingslanding to smoky dust.

In the dim recesses of the cavernous crypt, a brighter memory came to her, of that celebratory night after the Battle of Winterfell. In the thick of it all she had sought out the man once known as the Hound.

She’d been all but oblivious to the inebriated merry making and the couples around them eagerly pursuing copulation, all too caught up in how he still managed to get under her skin. Years ago in the Red Keep she’d thought it was fear that made her pores tingle.

She’d had much time since then to learn what true fear was.

What she felt for him was not fear and that night, among those who may have glanced at them and surmised the Lady and the Hound would seem to be an unlikely pair, she knew he’d finally seen in her eyes what she wanted.

Yet she was still shocked when he followed her after she left him in the hall.

Elation rose in her swift but it was only after she led him to her chambers that the buried terror she’d tried so hard to hide had resuscitated itself once again.

He was not Ramsay, he would never hurt her, this she knew, but her body didn’t. She seized up. She thought he would be angry.

He wasn’t angry.

Worse than that was the deep sadness in his all seeing eyes.

He made to leave but selfish as she was she asked him to stay. To hold her. Could he just do that? Just hold me, she’d asked.

The thick walls of her chambers couldn’t block out the sounds of pleasure of the indulging couples throughout the castle but still he stayed. He stayed when he could have gained some measure of happiness, or at the very least, sated oblivion in another woman’s willing arms. He stayed and held her chilled body even when she couldn’t give him the warmth she wanted to.

For a moment she was angry that Ramsay still had this part of her. Yet he made her forget for a little while. He held her gently as she knew he would, both of them fully clothed but she could still scent his skin as if there was no cloth between them, that still familiar scent of leather and tangy red wine and him.

Slowly she’d begun to warm from his touch. She didn’t know when she fell asleep.

It was before dawn while the castle finally slept when he rose to leave. As his warmth left her side, she woke right away. She told him he would always be welcome in her home but he told her he had a debt to settle.

He was not coming back.

She had stifled down the questions, had suffocated the quiet hysteria his determined words instilled. She dammed up the flow of fear for him and instead thanked him for staying with her. For saving her. For keeping her safe.

He left as silently as he had all those years ago in the Red Keep on the night of the Battle of the Blackwater when the sky had been enflamed in green and the girl she’d been was no more.

He left and he didn’t come back, just as he said.

She felt her throat constrict, couldn’t breathe for a moment but the Queen in the North held her tears as flawlessly as she held her new court.

Once more, here in the rebuilt crypts of Winterfell, she lit another candle.

The touch of her fingers were soft as silk against the coarseness of his cratered cheek.

He shuddered.

She caressed his scars and it hurt.

It hurt that a beast of a dog like he would never deserve the gentle touches of this little wolf beauty.

He tried to cling to his rage, the rage he could always depend on to drown any need to feel more but the determination flowing from her gaze was a tide he could not fight.

Had such a sweet dream last night about Sansa and Sandor. I was merely an intangible bystander to it all. The dream must have been set far in the future; post-conflict, and there was a garden, cold but with the emergence of spring. Swear I could feel the spray of the breeze.

And in this garden was Sansa. Only this Sansa was older, dressed in white...but with a posture of demonstrable strength. I was awestruck.

So suddenly a groomed, yet battle-weary Sandor Clegane approaches her in this garden. Sansa's acknowledgement of him seems standoffish initially, restrained. Broke my heart. Clegane confesses he is exhausted of her enameled exterior, and he is exhausted of his own. The war is over. The war is done. He has done his service. And it has never been his nature to hold his tongue - he is leaving. Making a new life. Like the rest of Westeros.

Leaving, why? She asks.

Why? You know why, he says. You don't need to play puppet now. He wants to speak to Sansa as she is, not the silhouette she throws down for ceremony. Clegane is leaving because he loves her, you know it, I know it, has for longer than he'd like to admit. And you love me, he accuses - though you'd sooner spit on me than tell me that. He's come to understand that gives him no reason to say. He's no man's dog any longer - and no woman's, to boot.

He is done. He is leaving.

Then there's just this wounded silence between them that just engorges, but their gaze never parts. There's nothing but the acoustics of the spring garden. I'm on the edge of my seat.

Not unless you can show why I shouldn't, Sandor adds.

Sansa's jaw quavers.

Show me, Clegane pleads. Go on. Do it. You can say the words - just like I have.

But she says nothing, and for a second I'm screaming like Monica does after they lose the apartment to Chandler and Joey. Then Sansa steps in, all while Clegane watches, gathering himself in the turmoil of all this restrained anticipation. He is trying and failing to read her.

Sansa hesitates - then puts her lips to his.

No, Sandor manages. Their lips cling as he parts. Not this way. I want to hear you say it.

----- AND THEN I WOKE UP GODDDDAMNIT!!!!!

Anyway, this dream seems completely unprompted. So I can only hope it's prophetic.

Chapters: 26/? Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark, Sansa Stark - Relationship Characters: Sandor Clegane, Sansa Stark, Catelyn Tully Stark, Ned Stark, Arya Stark, Bronn (ASoIaF), Joffrey Baratheon, Cersei Lannister, Petyr Baelish, Margaery Tyrell, Willas Tyrell, Loras Tyrell, Tyrion Lannister, Gregor Clegane Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, UST, Violence, Lannistersssss, Did I mention UST, HOW ABOUT UST, Eventually to be resolved UST, Multi POV, Multi character - Freeform, Creepy Baelish, Modern AU

Chapter 25 of In Dreams is up! It has been a long, long time. I struggled a bit to get this chapter done, and it’s shorter than I would like it to be. But I do believe the muse is back. I hope people out there are still in to this fic :)