In which Sandor faces his fears, Stranger behaves like a loyal dog, and all wrongs are soothed and corrected. Because it’s fan fiction, dammit, and I can do what I want.
They fall. With one eye, Sandor meets his brother’s gaze; enraged and undead eyes glare back at him. Gregor never needed words to convey his meager thoughts. “This is fitting,” Sandor admits to himself, “I got to do it. I took him out of this world.”
The fire surges up to greet them and faster than Sandor thought it would happen, Gregor’s skull lands with a sickening crush. He feels his evil brother’s spine snap in several places and dark, inhuman blood seeps from Gregor’s crushed head. It makes delicate spray patterns all over the ashen bricks and rubble. Sandor thinks, “This is death.” Then remembers that the dead don’t think; at least he doesn’t believe so.
His ribs ache - he knows at least one is broken. Gregor’s enormous, monstrous form cushioned him just enough to survive. The Hound would’ve laughed grimly at that fact but Sandor is more afraid than he ever remembers feeling. Because now he has to get up.
It’s impossibly hot. The smell of Gregor’s rotten blood and burning skin is nauseating. As he tries to crawl away, Sandor realizes his left leg is broken, twisted incorrectly. And he’s still struggling to adjust to his limited sight, the blood of an empty socket seeps all the way down his neck.
There is no where to go; the fire is everywhere, dancing around and under and over them - but the dust of the shattered walls of the keep extinguished the fire directly where they landed. At least for now.
Panic sets in and Sandor feels himself freeze, knowing he will Burn, burn again, burn forever. “This is hell,” he thinks briefly, “one of seven. And I’m trapped here with Gregor in the fire.” With one eye, he desperately scans the gray and smoky sky for any way out, anything to climb, but there is nothing.
Nothing but a bird, some carrion creature, circling the Red Keep. “Gregor is dead and I am alive,” he thinks. And realizes with a sad, disgusting sob that he never planned for this, never hoped for it.
Everything is burning - but there’s something beyond those flames, more death, more destruction, and somewhere, a very angry woman on an enormous dragon - but there’s more beyond all that. There’s peace and quiet. There’s a bird in the North and a wolf-girl in the melting city.
So Sandor runs, well limps, to the edge of the circle of rubble, flames already eating away at the dust and bricks, and launches himself off an outcrop of rocks, straight through the flames and down a landslide of ruins.
Fire eats away at his skin, at his clothing; he doesn’t know if he’ll pass through it or become part of it. And just as quickly as they fell, he is through it, tumbling down a collapsed wall, hitting his bad leg and burned skin on the way down, extinguishing flames almost as soon as they touch him. And everything is dark and quiet. “Finally,” he thinks, “this is death now, and no fire and no Gregor.” He makes his peace with it.
Sandor comes to dizzy and confused, laying on and half-covered by an avalanche of rubble. Gregor is dead, he remembers. And Sandor does laugh this time and coughs at the smoke in his lungs. His arms are covered in terrible red burns but it doesn’t hurt as much as he thought it would.
He drags himself away from the worst of the fire and ruins into a small alcove, miraculously upright. There’s a pile of wood he breaks up, fashions into a splint, and grits his teeth as he snaps his leg the right way into place. He lets himself scream and cry. There’s no one alive to hear him, not this close to the Red Keep.
Next, he hoists himself up, against the wall, struggling on one foot, with one eye, and only one arm working at his commands; the other shakes and twitches. There’s blood seeping into his eye too, or perhaps out of his eye, he isn’t sure. He feels a gash at the top of his head and abrasions and burns all over his neck, shoulders, and face.
He grabs another piece of wood to use as a crutch and readies himself to move. He will have to go quickly and quietly and find a sword or spear. The further he walks, there are more and more soldiers and people screaming and a dragon circling, angry and vengeful, overhead.
He can’t move near as fast as he knows he should and he can’t figure out where he is, everything is broken and burning and crumbling. The ringing in his head drowns out everything but the loudest screams and closest blasts of dragon fire. Mercifully, people ignore him and scatter in all directions through what’s left of the streets.
Gods, he hopes Arya got out alive before the worst of the ruins could swallow her. “Stranger is waiting,” he remembers, “I left him outside the gates.” He never thought he’d see his companion again so he’d set him loose but the horse had stood there, stubborn as ever. Sandor hopes he’s still standing there, unbothered by the war going on close by.
His head stops cooperating when he tries to clambor on top of Stranger. His one leg won’t bend, his arms are shaking, his empty eye aches, and everything is spinning and going black. He just wants to sleep.
So he gives up and sinks into dirt and grass and thinks, “At least I’m not dying in that bloody city. At least I finished it. At least there’s blue sky here.”
Seven Hells, but the Gods just won’t let him die. Everything hurts and that’s how he knows he’s still, somehow, alive. He coughs and a cool hand finds his forehead through layers of cloth. He can’t see anything. “Blindness seems a fair trade for Gregor’s execution,” he thinks calmly. And then light seeps through into his good eye and he growls in annoyance.
“Too bright?” A small man is gently peeling away layers of bandages.
Sandor grunts in response, sluggishly waves the man’s hand away, and tries to sit up. They’re moving, riding on some kind of cart. There are lots of people and horses, he can smell and hear them.
“Don’t try to sit. You’ve fractured a few ribs. There are splints.”
Sandor sinks back onto the makeshift cot. The bandages come off but the man leaves a layer over the missing eye. “That won’t grow back I’m afraid,” he says. “But your leg and ribs just might heal, given time.”
Was that a joke? This is going to be a long journey.
He learns they are riding North. He tries to ignore his heart pounding in his chest at the prospect of Winterfell - and her. He may not be a dead man, but he’s a broken one. Still, it will be good to see her face again, he decides.
Someone, Jon Snow he assumes, decided the injured soldiers should return to Winterfell and bring any refugees who would choose to follow. It would be a hard march, no denying, but there were plenty of people who had chosen to walk into the mouth of winter, rather than stay in the burning city.
One of the soldiers from the battle of the dead had recognized Sandor unconscious near his horse and dragged him along.
It takes them a long time to reach the castle, with all their wounded and the dead they have to bury along the way. Each day, Sandor limps a little further, bends his leg a little more, heals slower and slower it seems to him. He tries to adjust to seeing through one eye and not to think about he’s become even uglier, even more battered.
As the days pass, he peels away more and more layers of bandages. Half his torso and both arms are covered in burn marks now; not so deep and damaging as his original face burns, but ugly and wrecked all the same. It will be worth it all, just to see her again. Just to outlive his brother. Just to live at all.
Winterfell looms above them. Stranger has followed close to Sandor’s cart the entire trip, stubbornly refusing any rider and biting several men who tried to mount him. Now, Sandor feels strong enough to ride, if only his splinted leg will bend enough to let him lurch up. “Gods damn me, I don’t want to look any more pathetic than I already do,” he thinks.
But it’s useless. After a few struggling attempts, Stranger stamps a warning foot and huffs aggressively at him. “Guess I’m riding in the bloody cart,” Sandor admits, “Might as well make a fool of myself.”
It’s organized chaos inside the walls. Food and extra beds have been prepared for the influx of refugees from the south and several maesters and assistants take the worst of the wounded into their care.
It’s not hard to spot her auburn hair and mourning clothes; The Lady of Winterfell is all elegance and decorum as she hands out blankets and welcomes the people into her protection with grace and gentle words. His cart stops short of the mass of people and the men take the horses and goods into the stables and shelters.
Sandor grabs his crutch and does what little he can to be of use. Stranger disappears into a barn and the man who’d nursed him the whole way (a student at the citadel, he’d learned) hands him a heavy sack. “If you want to be useful, put this on your back and bring it to the infirmary.” He starts to help Sandor tie the bag to his back when suddenly he feels her eyes on him, even from yards away.
He freezes, forgetting the bag and the man and the chaos around them. There is only her, tall and proud, moving toward him. At first, she steps delicately in and around the crowd, then less politely as she starts to run at him. Sansa flings herself at him, nearly knocking him back onto the cart, and he drops the bag and his crutch, just to close her up in his scarred arms.
Kissed by fire, that’s what Tormund called her, and bloody hells is he going to prove him right.
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