Summary: The North returns home wounded. Robb Stark survives King’s Landing, but Sandor Clegane disappears amidst fire and death. As fear slowly consumes her, Sansa begins to understand that what binds her to the Hound is no longer simple tenderness or gratitude, but something far more dangerous.
Chapter Warnings: graphic injuries, blood, fever/infection, battle aftermath, emotional pain, near death, mentions of death
A/N: This chapter hurt to write in the best possible way.
Masterlist
Thanks @vase-of-lilies for the banner
Winterfell welcomed the return of the Northern army in silence.
No one sang.
No one cheered.
The gates opened slowly, allowing men stained with blood, mud, and ash to enter. Many horses returned without riders, and many of the banners of the North appeared torn or burned.
Sansa watched everything from the courtyard, her heart tight in her chest.
She searched immediately for her brother.
And then she searched for him.
But Sandor Clegane was nowhere among the men passing through the gates.
It was only when she saw Robb suddenly slump forward on his horse, supported by his men, that panic truly seized her.
The King in the North was quickly helped down from his horse. Blood stained his clothes around the abdomen, and his face was as pale as snow.
“Call Maester Luwin!” someone shouted.
Sansa pushed through the men, still searching desperately for the Hound among them, but there was no trace of him.
And that was when fear truly began to consume her.
Robb was immediately taken to his chambers. He had a fever and a fairly deep wound along his abdomen, one that could easily become infected.
Maester Luwin came and went from his rooms, while his mother Catelyn, his wife, and his sister Sansa remained outside, waiting for good news. His younger brothers were constantly informed of what was happening, but their mother did not allow them to wait there.
Sansa would have liked to ask Robb if he knew what fate had befallen Sandor, who seemed to have vanished into thin air, but her mother would never have allowed her near him. He needed to rest.
She waited three days.
Then, when their mother finally left, Sansa seized the chance and slipped into her brother’s room. Light filtered through the window, and she saw Robb lying in the middle of the bed, his face ghostly pale, beads of sweat glistening on his high brow, his eyes closed and his lips slightly parted.
His sister approached him as gently as she could and took his hand. He opened his eyes at once. He studied her, and when he realized it was Sansa, he smiled.
“Hello,” he whispered.
“Hello,” Sansa returned. “How do you feel?”
“Tired. Could you give me some water, please?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered simply, pouring him something to drink and bringing the cup to his lips. He took a couple of slow sips, then let his head fall back, breathing heavily.
“How is Jeyne?”
“She is well. She went to rest.”
Robb sighed in relief. “Good.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “You want to know about him, don’t you?”
Sansa did not answer her brother’s question, but Robb knew. He did not wait for her reply.
“He left suddenly one morning at dawn. One of my men saw him going to the Red Keep alone. When we got there, we didn’t see him. The battle was destroying our men, and we couldn’t tell whether Clegane was alive or dead.”
He paused and coughed.
“When it was all over, there was fire and death everywhere. The only thing of his we found was his helm. But what became of him… I don’t know.”
Robb finished, breathing with difficulty.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a different answer.”
Sansa lowered her head, her expression dark.
“It isn’t your fault. Rest now, all right? Try to heal quickly. Winterfell needs you.”
He only smiled, and Sansa withdrew, leaving his room.
When the door closed behind her, Sansa thought that the time had come for her to resign herself and consider the possibility that he — Sandor — had not survived the clash with his brother.
He had been ready to die. He had told her so.
She was the one who was not ready to know him dead.
Sansa squeezed her eyes shut, then went to the battlements. There, snow had piled up along the sides, leaving a passage for the guards defending the stronghold.
Sansa looked toward the horizon, her heart swollen with grief and sorrow, her hair tangled by the cold wind. Small flakes of snow were lifted from the ground by the gusts, spun for a few feet, then fell back down, breaking apart like water on grass.
She was about to go back inside when, a little farther away, one of the men left to guard Winterfell blew a horn and shouted:
“RIDER APPROACHING! LOOKS TO BE ALONE!”
Other soldiers joined Sansa on the battlements and readied their bows and arrows. They had to be prepared for anything. Her mother’s orders.
At first, Sansa felt her heart quicken with fear. Then she realized the horse was a black stallion, black as pitch. She narrowed her eyes and saw that the man on its back was practically clinging to the dark mane of his destrier.
Sansa recognized Stranger at once.
She ran breathlessly downstairs, nearly slipping more than once, but when she reached the gates, the horse was still galloping toward the entrance.
A few steps from her, the man fell heavily into the muddy snow with a dull thud.
Sansa ran to him, even though someone tried to stop her in order to protect her. But she had no use for protection in that moment.
She reached the man and saw him.
Sandor was there.
She threw herself beside him and looked at him. He was covered in blood and wounds; his face was almost unrecognizable between what had already been ruined before and what had been done to him not long ago.
“Sandor,” she called, struggling to lift his upper body. “Sandor.”
His hair clung to his head like a second skin, and his clothes were soaked with blood, rain, and mud.
“Please, open your eyes,” she said, shaking him gently.
“Lady Stark,” someone called behind her.
Sansa turned and shouted, “CALL MAESTER LUWIN! TAKE HIM INSIDE!”
“Little bird…” he slurred, barely opening his eyes. “Didn’t remember your song being so… so… loud.”
She looked at him, trembling, as he tried to raise an arm as if to touch her face, but he could not. He was exhausted.
He closed his eyes again, and someone carried him inside.
“Sansa.”
The girl turned. It was her mother.
“What is happening?”
“Sandor… the Hound has returned,” she answered.
She turned, trying to follow the men and Maester Luwin into the room where they had taken Sandor, but her mother stopped her.
“And where are you going?”
“To… I want to make sure he is well,” she answered.
“Sansa, he is neither your husband nor your betrothed. It is highly improper to go in and look upon a wounded man, drenched in blood,” she reminded her. “You will see him later.”
“But later may be too late!” Sansa exclaimed.
“My daughter, please, do as I say. Go and change. You are filthy. Preserve at least a little dignity, please. Remember who you are.”
Sansa looked at her mother in shock, then at the door behind which Sandor lay, but she had no choice.
Angrily, she pushed past her parent and changed as she had ordered.
Her heart was galloping wildly in her chest. She had memorized the cracks in the wooden door. She could hear the muffled voices of Maester Luwin and his apprentice, a young man named Jonah, and the drops of water that, every now and then, broke the silence growing darker and heavier in the now-deserted corridor.
Sansa sighed deeply. She did not know whether to knock or simply wait for someone to give her some kind of news, however vague, about his condition.
But no one told her anything.
No one came out.
No one went in.
Outside, the wind began to blow, and the direwolves of Robb, Bran, and Rickon howled loudly.
The girl began pacing up and down the corridor, but she did not leave.
The sun had long since set when Maester Luwin and his apprentice came out, closing the door behind them.
“How is he?” Sansa asked, almost attacking the maester.
“He has many wounds, Lady Sansa. Some unlike any I have ever seen. He has a very high fever, surely due to the many wounds all over his body. I have tended them, but… I do not know whether the treatment I gave him will truly be effective in his condition.”
“Will he survive?” she asked, barely breathing.
The man sighed mournfully.
“We must pray. I have never felt a man burn so fiercely with fever while bearing wounds like those. I repeat, I do not know whether my remedies can bring him relief or benefit.”
Those words delivered the final blow to Sansa, and she collapsed there before him, falling to her knees…
Maester Luwin gave her milk of the poppy to ease the terrible pain pounding through her head, and so Sansa slept for nearly the entire day. When she finally woke, she remembered where and why she had fainted. She remembered Sandor’s return, remembered that Maester Luwin and his apprentice were tending to him, and remembered the maester’s troubling words.
Sansa rose from the bed, though her head spun faintly, forcing her to steady herself against the wooden desk beside it. Then—with some effort—she reached the door and opened it.
She took a candle and lit it from the dim lantern flickering outside her chamber. Closing the door quietly behind her, she stepped into the dark corridor. She knew every hallway and hidden corner of that place. She did not fear the darkness or its winding passages nearly as much as she feared her mother seeing her and forbidding her from visiting Sandor.
Still, gathering all her courage, she continued on.
Sansa could hear the soldiers’ laughter echoing from the courtyard below. Some laughed loudly, others spoke of the terrible clash at King’s Landing, while a few sang new songs in honor of her brother.
When she reached the corridor leading to Sandor’s chamber, she carefully looked around—to the right, to the left, toward the stairs—to make certain no one was coming. Then she dared approach the door and slowly pushed it open.
The room was lit by the fire burning in the hearth. At its center stood a canopy bed upon which Sandor lay sprawled. He was completely naked, save for the blanket folded several times over his hips.
Sansa stepped closer and saw his massive, muscular body covered in cuts and scars. Some wounds were pink, others pale white, while others carved deep lines across his skin, black and jagged like marks painted by a drunken artist. Thick bandages wrapped part of his side.
His face was swollen and torn by several fresh wounds. The side already ravaged by fire seemed to pulse angrily, and in places the ruined flesh had split and lifted once more.
Sansa let her gaze travel slowly over the body of that brave—terribly brave—man, and with the utmost gentleness she took the hand resting limply beside him.
“Little bird…” he murmured.
Sansa lifted her gaze, but quickly understood he had not truly heard her. He was dreaming—and perhaps dreaming of her.
She might have smiled had his body not looked so terribly ravaged. Instead, she remained serious and squeezed his large hand softly.
She was there.
And she wished somehow he could feel it.
“Princess?”
She startled awake.
She had fallen asleep.
It was morning now.
And Maester Luwin had found her there, in Sandor Clegane’s chamber, with the young lady’s hand wrapped around the warrior’s.
“Maester Luwin!” she exclaimed, not even knowing what to say.
“My lady, you should not be here… it is hardly proper… a lady should never see the body of a man who is not her husband.”
It sounded painfully like her mother.
“I know. But I needed to see him. I needed to know how he was.”
The old man raised his brows faintly.
“He is a warrior. That much is clear. Some of his wounds had already begun to heal, but there is one… along his left side… I would not advise you to look at it. It appears to be infected and may well be the cause of his fever.”
She nodded. “Thank you. And… I’m sorry if you… if you saw me in an… ambiguous situation.”
He gently shook his head.
“I watched you come into this world. I care for you deeply, my young princess. I would simply hate to see you break traditions that have endured for generations because of…” He hesitated. “Forgive my frankness… but because of someone beneath your station.”
Sansa felt her heart tighten painfully.
To everyone—without exception—social standing seemed to matter more than anything else. But was there truly no room for feelings? For love?
Deeply shaken by his words, she rose and left the room.
The moment the door closed behind her, she realized that staying away from him—from that man now fighting so fiercely to survive—had never cost her so much.
For the first time in her life, being a lady felt unbearably heavy.
At that moment she would have given anything to be a common girl, or even to live as Aerys had lived. No one would have forbidden her from staying beside the man she…
Only then did Sansa truly understand that what stirred within her was not merely concern or tenderness, but something far stronger, far more consuming than simple affection.
The realization made her heart race.
She had believed herself in love before: first with the knights from songs and stories, then with the Knight of Flowers, then with Joffrey, then with the knight from Seagard—but none of what she had once believed to be love compared to what she felt now.
It spread through her mind, her heart, her body.
Everything inside her seemed to cry out his name—that name she had once feared with all her soul and which, on that day, she realized she loved deeply.
She wanted to be with him.
To stay beside him when he awoke.
To care for him. Dress his wounds. Encourage him.
She would do anything for him.
Anything with him.
And when he recovered, Sansa would tell him everything she truly felt. She had already told him I love you, yet now those words no longer seemed enough. It was impossible to contain what she felt within only two words.
It was passion.
And she would fight to make him understand it.
But she would also fight so that neither her brother nor her mother could stand in the way of what she felt for Sandor Clegane.
The following day she visited her brother, who seemed considerably better. Robb had regained some color, though the fever still lingered.
“I’m feeling much better,” he answered when she asked after his health.
She smiled softly. “I’m glad.”
Robb glanced sideways at her before asking, “Sansa… how is Sandor Clegane?”
She lifted her eyes to meet his. “Maester Luwin says he’s still fighting. Some wounds are harder to heal than others. One in particular seems to be causing the fever to persist.”
He nodded simply, then smiled faintly.
“You seem very informed about him.”
Sansa parted her lips, though no answer came, and so she remained silent.
Robb’s smile widened slightly.
“Relax. I’m not judging you.” He studied her face. “And don’t be angry with him… Maester Luwin told me that… well, the other morning you were with him.”
“Why should I be ashamed of it? It’s true—not a lie.” She swallowed before adding, “I know he isn’t… suitable for someone like me. But I had to do it. I have to.”
Robb frowned slightly before smiling again.
“It’s the first time you haven’t proudly called yourself a lady. You said someone like me. Don’t you want to be noble anymore, Sansa?”
She sighed softly.
“Robb, all I know is that because I’m noble, everyone keeps telling me what is proper and improper. What I truly want is freedom—freedom to say and do what I want. I wish I could…” She sighed again. “These past days I’ve found myself missing the freedom I had in the woods. I was alone, yes… but I was free. I could simply be anyone.
There were no noble titles there. No castle protecting me. No need for the graceful manners Septa Mordane taught me.
There… I was simply Sansa.”
She fell silent and watched the pale light spilling through the windows while silence settled over the room.
Then Robb spoke.
“I don’t think you need to say anything more.”
Sansa looked toward her brother, who seemed terribly pale in that cold light.
“I think you’ve discovered the sweetness—and the overwhelming force—of love, little sister.”
Her heart stumbled painfully.
“I never respected him much. Never even liked him. But he saved me more than once—and not just me, my men as well. First when you warned us about the Bolton conspiracy. Then when he led men to rescue you. Then again at King’s Landing. But above all… he always found a way to bring you home.
Because of him—and because of you—I’m alive. And because of him, you are here too.
So yes, both of us owe him gratitude… but especially me. He could have taken gold and left, you know. I offered it to him shortly before your return from the Dreadfort prison, but he refused. He told me money no longer mattered most to him.”
Sansa nearly stopped breathing.
“I think he feels something for you too. I don’t know whether it’s love… or merely desire. But you certainly aren’t indifferent to him. Only a blind man could fail to notice how your face changes whenever you speak of him—or how fiercely he fought to save you from Roose Bolton’s bastard.
And I understand, Sansa. More than anyone. I married a woman from a noble house whose riches had long faded away. I did not marry her for titles, lands, or alliances.
I married her for love.
Only for love.”
What was her brother trying to tell her?
“And Mother? What did she say?”
“You know her.” Robb smiled faintly. “She gave me a very long look… an impossibly long one… but eventually she gave in. After all, I’m a man. And now, in a way, I’m head of the family.”
Sansa lowered her gaze.
Of course. He was a man. He was allowed to choose.
She, as a woman, was expected to bend to the will of father—or brother—and accept whatever future they decided for her without complaint.
She sighed and rose to leave, but Robb stopped her with one final question.
“Are you going to him?”
She turned back toward him.
“It’s where I want to be.”
Robb nodded slowly.
“If that’s what your heart wants… then go.”
Sansa allowed herself the faintest shadow of a smile before leaving her brother’s chamber to go to Sandor.
Summary: Eleanor Winters has to hide herself. Joel Miller is broken. They'll meet each other in Jackson. Will Eleanor put a completely broken man together and will Joel bring light into Eleanor's life?
Series Warning: angst, alcohol abuse, hints of domestic violence, dirty talk, violence, smut, and if I miss smt let me know.
Masterlist
Thanks @vase-of-lilies for the banner
That’s when you need someone, someone that you can call
The door wasn’t completely closed.
Joel had never been good at shutting things all the way. Not doors. Not conversations. Not the past.
Sarah pushed it open without knocking. The hinges made a soft, tired sound, and for a moment she almost turned back, surprised by how ordinary everything looked inside. The table. The chair. The quiet.
Joel was sitting there, elbows resting on the wood, his hands loosely clasped as if he had been thinking about something for a long time and hadn’t reached a conclusion.
He looked up.
Not startled. Not defensive.
Careful.
“We need to talk,” she said.
Her voice did not tremble. That was the first thing he noticed. The second was that she did not call him Dad.
He straightened slowly, as if sudden movements might break something fragile between them. “Okay.”
She remained standing, keeping a deliberate distance between them, as though crossing it would mean committing to something she was not ready for.
“Is it true?” she asked.
Joel knew exactly what she meant. There was no confusion in her eyes, no vagueness in her tone. The question had weight; it had history.
He could have asked her to clarify. He could have pretended not to understand. Instead, he drew in a slow breath and let it settle in his chest before answering.
“Your mother told you I hurt her.”
It was not phrased as a question.
Sarah’s jaw tightened slightly. “Everyone says you did.”
There it was — the verdict of a town that remembered everything and forgave very little.
Joel lowered his gaze for a moment, not in shame, but to steady himself. He had imagined this conversation so many times over the years that it almost felt unreal to be living it.
“I don’t want you carrying something you shouldn’t have to,” he said quietly. “There are things you don’t need to know.”
Sarah’s expression hardened, but not with anger — with clarity. “I’m not a child anymore.”
That landed harder than the accusation.
He looked at her then, really looked at her, and saw not the little girl he had once lifted onto his shoulders, but someone who had already been forced to grow up in ways he had not witnessed.
“You’re right,” he admitted.
Silence stretched between them, not hostile, but heavy.
“I found out she was seeing someone,” he said at last. The words came slowly, not because he was searching for excuses, but because he refused to hide behind them. “It wasn’t a suspicion. It wasn’t gossip. I knew.”
Sarah did not interrupt. She did not soften.
“We argued,” he continued, and there was no attempt to make that word prettier than it was. “I lost my temper. I let anger take over before I could stop it.”
His hands, resting on the table, tightened slightly.
“I grabbed her. I shoved her. I shouldn’t have. There’s no version of that where I’m right.”
The room felt smaller, as if the walls themselves were listening.
Sarah swallowed, but she held his gaze. “So she didn’t lie.”
“No,” he said. “She didn’t.”
There was a pause, and then she added, “But she didn’t tell the whole story either.”
Joel hesitated then, because this was the point where he could shift blame, could redirect the weight of the moment. For years, he had told himself that silence was the nobler choice, that refusing to defend himself was a way of protecting her from the ugliness of it all.
Now he understood that silence had its own kind of violence.
“What I did is on me,” he said carefully. “Whatever happened before doesn’t erase it. I should’ve walked away. I didn’t.”
Sarah’s eyes flickered at that — walked away. The words seemed to echo beyond the room.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she asked, and this time there was something softer underneath the question, something almost like hurt.
“Because it would’ve sounded like an excuse,” he answered. “And I didn’t want you thinking I was trying to justify it.”
“And were you?”
He held her gaze.
“No.”
The honesty in that single word settled between them.
“I thought you were a monster,” she said after a long moment, her voice no longer sharp but stripped of pretense.
Joel nodded once. “I know.”
“But monsters don’t say what you just said.”
He did not smile. He did not reach for her. He simply stayed where he was.
“I’m not a monster,” he said quietly. “But I’m not innocent either.”
That was the closest he would come to asking for anything.
Sarah looked down, absorbing the weight of it. The world had handed her a simple story. This was not simple.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” she admitted.
“You don’t have to do anything,” Joel replied. “Not today. Not for me.”
He did not try to close the distance between them. This time, not reaching out was not fear — it was respect.
She turned toward the door, then paused with her hand on the frame.
“Did you ever think about coming back?” she asked without turning around.
Joel did not answer immediately. The silence was not hesitation; it was memory.
“I could have,” he said at last. “There were… options.”
He didn’t need to explain what that meant. Supervised visits. Neutral rooms. Scheduled hours under someone else’s watchful eyes.
Sarah slowly turned to look at him.
“Then why didn’t you?”
Joel drew in a long breath, as if the air itself resisted the words.
“Because every time I saw you like that,” he said quietly, “it felt like dragging you into a courtroom that never ended. Lawyers. Accusations. People measuring every word I said, every look I gave you, as if I was on trial even when I was just… your father.”
He ran a hand over his face, not to hide, but to steady himself.
“I told myself that staying away would hurt less. That distance would protect you from the noise, from the tension, from having to choose between us.”
He met her eyes fully now.
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought if I stepped back, you’d grow up without carrying my mistakes on your shoulders.”
A faint, tired exhale left him.
“I was wrong.”
He did not rush to fill the space after that.
“I never stopped thinking about you,” he added, softer now. “Not once. I just convinced myself that love, from a distance, was safer than being there and making things worse.”
Sarah didn’t answer immediately.
She stayed there, her hand still resting on the frame, as if the house itself were the only solid thing she could lean on. Something in his words unsettled her, not because they were dramatic, but because they were simple. There was no defense in them, no attempt to turn himself into a victim. Just a man admitting he had chosen distance and called it protection.
“That wasn’t your choice to make,” she said at last.
Her voice wasn’t raised. It was steady, and that steadiness carried more weight than anger would have.
Joel nodded slowly. “I know.”
“You decided what I could handle,” she continued, taking a step back into the room without realizing it. “You decided I was better off without you, and you never asked me.”
There it was — not fury, but accusation grounded in clarity.
Joel didn’t interrupt. He let it land.
“I thought I was sparing you,” he said quietly.
“And instead you just disappeared,” Sarah replied.
The word hung there — disappeared.
She wasn’t trembling anymore. She wasn’t even visibly angry. What she felt was more complicated than that. The image of him shrinking in the grocery store earlier that day resurfaced in her mind, clashing with the version of him she had carried for years.
“I don’t know who you are yet,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I can trust you. But I know that choosing for me again would make this worse.”
Joel absorbed that without flinching.
“I won’t,” he said. And this time it wasn’t a promise meant to soothe. It was a boundary he was setting for himself.
Sarah studied him for a long moment, as if measuring the difference between the man in front of her and the one she had been told about.
“You don’t get to protect me from the truth anymore,” she said quietly. “If I’m going to figure this out, it has to be with everything on the table.”
Joel inclined his head. “Then ask.”
That was the first real opening.
Sarah hesitated. Not because she was afraid of the answer, but because she understood that once she asked the next question, there would be no returning to ignorance.
And for the first time since walking into the house, she felt the weight of adulthood settling on her shoulders — not as a burden, but as a responsibility she had chosen.
Sarah let out a slow breath, as if she were steadying herself before stepping into cold water.
“Were you ever afraid you’d do it again?”
The question didn’t come out accusatory. It came out honest.
Joel didn’t look offended. He didn’t even look surprised. He looked… tired. As if he had asked himself the same thing a hundred times before she ever had the chance to.
“Yes,” he said.
There was no hesitation.
“Yes,” he repeated, more quietly. “That’s what scared me the most.”
Sarah’s fingers curled slightly at her sides.
“After that night,” he continued, “I didn’t trust my anger. I didn’t trust what I could become when I lost control. And I didn’t want you anywhere near that version of me.”
She absorbed that in silence.
“So you left,” she said.
“I stepped back,” he corrected gently. Then, after a beat, he shook his head. “No. I left. There’s no softer way to say it.”
Sarah swallowed.
The man in front of her wasn’t denying what he’d done. He wasn’t rewriting it. And somehow that made it harder, not easier.
“You don’t get to decide who I can handle,” she said at last. “You don’t get to disappear and call it protection.”
“I know.”
The house felt different now — not smaller, but clearer. Like dust had been shaken into the air and was finally settling.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Sarah did something small but decisive: she crossed the distance between them. Not to hug him. Not to forgive him. Just to stand closer. Close enough that she could see the lines around his eyes, the way his hands stayed open on the table instead of clenched.
“I don’t forgive you,” she said.
Joel nodded once. “You don’t have to.”
“But I don’t think you’re a monster.”
That was not absolution.
It was something more fragile: revision.
Joel’s jaw tightened slightly, not in anger, but in the effort of holding steady.
“That’s more than I deserve,” he murmured.
“No,” Sarah replied, and for the first time there was a faint tremor in her voice. “It’s just… more complicated than I was told.”
She stepped back then. The distance returned, but it was different from before.
“I need time,” she said.
“You can have all of it.”
And this time, when she walked toward the door, she didn’t pause to ask another question.
She left it open.
Joel didn’t move at first.
He remained where he was, hands still resting on the table, listening to the faint sound of her steps fading down the porch. The air in the room felt different now — not lighter, not easier — but altered, as if something that had been frozen for years had finally begun to thaw.
The door was still open.
A thin strip of evening light cut across the floor, stretching toward him in a quiet line. He stared at it for a long moment, almost afraid that if he blinked it would disappear.
She hadn’t forgiven him.
She hadn’t called him Dad.
She hadn’t promised to come back.
But she had stayed long enough to listen.
And she had left the door open.
Joel stood slowly and walked toward it, stopping just short of the threshold. He didn’t step outside. He didn’t call her name. He understood, finally, that chasing was not the same as being present.
Instead, he placed his hand against the edge of the door.
Not to close it.
Just to steady it.
For years he had lived as though every ending was final, as though silence meant judgment, and distance meant protection. He had convinced himself that shrinking was safer than standing his ground.
Now he knew better.
Hope, he realized, did not arrive in grand gestures. It came quietly, in unfinished sentences and doors left ajar.
He did not smile.
But for the first time in a long while, he did not feel condemned to stand alone in the dark either.
Summary: After finally reuniting with Gregor during the fall of King’s Landing, Sandor faces the brother who destroyed his life in a brutal and desperate fight inside the Red Keep. Meanwhile, far away in Winterfell, Sansa is consumed by fear, grief, and the unbearable uncertainty of waiting for news — until a raven arrives announcing Robb’s return… but not Sandor’s fate.
Chapter Warnings: graphic violence, blood and gore, brutal fight scenes, war imagery, references to rape/sexual assault, trauma, grief, emotional distress, religious crisis/loss of faith, death themes.
A/N: Into the Fire is also a small tribute to the Game of Thrones soundtrack piece tied to Sandor Clegane. It felt like the perfect title for a chapter where he finally walks straight into the thing that has haunted him his entire life.
Masterlist
Thanks @vase-of-lilies for the banner
Sandor stood only a few steps away from him.
From the brother he despised.
From the man who had ruined his face, ruined his life, the man who had condemned him to an existence filled with averted gazes and expressions twisted in disgust. The man who had taken everything from him until now.
It was Sandor’s turn to take something back.
His life.
They drew their swords at the same moment, steel crashing together with terrible violence. The Hound spun and struck for Gregor, but the Mountain’s armor absorbed most of the blow, barely scratched by his brother’s savage attack.
Gregor drove his blade toward Sandor’s chest, but Sandor dodged skillfully. He struck again, this time aiming for Gregor’s back and trying to plunge the sword deep, but Gregor was faster. He caught the weapon midair and shoved his brother away.
The Hound staggered back.
Gregor attacked again, this time aiming for his throat.
Sandor avoided the strike once more and slashed his brother’s arm. The armor split slightly, and Gregor roared.
Exactly as Sandor remembered.
A beast.
Whenever he was losing — whenever something of his was damaged — Gregor screamed and beat bloody whoever had dared take something from him.
Gregor tore the armor from his body, and even stripped of protection, he still looked gigantic and monstrous to Sandor.
Violent.
Deadly.
The Mountain swung his enormous sword again and lunged for his brother, but Sandor retreated and the strike missed. Gregor roared and hurled the sword aside before charging forward. Catching Sandor off guard, he smashed a fist into his jaw.
Sandor crashed to the ground beneath the brutal blow.
Gregor hit him again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
The younger brother’s face became a mask of blood, yet Sandor, screaming, slammed his head violently into Gregor’s and forced the larger man back. The Hound used the moment to rise and reclaim his sword, but Gregor kicked him savagely in the ribs.
Sandor hit the floor hard and spat blood.
But the Hound had no intention of surrendering.
Not like this.
He grabbed the sword again and ran, fully aware that Gregor would never let him escape.
He would follow.
And, as expected, the Mountain came after him at once, sword in hand.
Sandor ran through corridors he remembered all too well, turning right, then left, then right again. Gregor pursued him relentlessly, each time Sandor rounded a corner, the Mountain swinging for his head with murderous force.
Outside, the war still raged.
Explosions thundered in the distance. Screams echoed through the fortress. Flames and arrows tore through the sky.
War consumed both the inside and outside of the Red Keep.
Sandor climbed a narrow wooden spiral staircase. As he ascended, Gregor’s blade pierced violently through one of the steps beneath him. The first strike missed. The second too.
The third grazed Sandor’s leg.
He grunted in pain but did not stop.
Gregor struck again and again, but his blows hit only wood.
Sandor reached the top and realized the staircase led nowhere. He stopped abruptly, seeing only a narrow window beside the stairs.
Gregor caught up to him.
Another clash erupted.
Sword against sword.
Strike after strike answered in equal measure.
Cowardly, Gregor smashed his fist into Sandor’s mouth before striking him directly across the scarred side of his face — the mark he himself had carved there years before.
Sandor screamed and stumbled backward.
The older brother lunged to drive his blade through his heart, but Sandor was quicker. He kicked Gregor violently in the chest, forcing him back several steps.
The Hound rose once more.
The Mountain advanced again.
But Sandor knew what to do.
He knew he was faster with a blade than his brother, who cared only about killing him, no matter how.
Their swords collided so many times that eventually both shattered.
And then Sandor seized the moment.
He caught Gregor off guard, grabbed him with all the strength he had left, and hurled him toward the window.
The glass exploded outward.
Gregor fell— but seized his brother as he did.
And Sandor fell with him.
That morning, when her handmaid opened the curtains, a timid ray of sunlight kissed Sansa’s chamber and her delicate face.
It had been so long since Sansa had seen the sun, even such a weak one, that she smiled at the sight of it.
The handmaid remained silent.
Sansa noticed immediately and looked at her in concern.
“What has happened?”
“Your mother has just received a raven…”
Sansa heard only those words.
The rest vanished.
She threw on a cloak in haste and rushed from the room.
When she entered the great hall, the room buzzed with voices, but the moment people noticed her presence, silence fell.
The Stark girl crossed the room toward the long wooden table and reached her family.
Her mother was crying.
“Mother? What has happened?”
“Your brother. Robb,” she answered through tears. “He is missing. What other tragedy must our cursed family endure?”
“Does it say anything about Sandor Clegane?” Sansa asked, tears already filling her eyes.
Her mother shook her head.
“They found only his helm, but they do not know what became of him either. Both of them gone.” Catelyn wiped at her nose helplessly. “I do not know what to do…”
Sansa broke into tears.
Her mother was right.
Their family had already suffered too much.
She had foolishly believed they might finally have peace, but apparently no one cared for the peace of a family already torn apart beyond repair.
She ran back to her chamber and locked herself inside.
Throwing herself onto the bed, she cried.
She cried until her head ached and her eyes could barely remain open.
Her handmaid, young Aerys, brought her supper hours later. Sansa lay clutching her pillow, staring at the window where nothing could be seen but darkness.
“My lady,” Aerys began softly, “I know this is a terrible time, but you must eat. At least the soup. There is meat in it — it will keep your strength while you pray for your brother’s return.”
Sansa looked at her.
“But which gods?”
Aerys hesitated.
“Yours. The old gods and the new ones. The ones you pray to.”
Sansa sat up slowly, the pillow resting across her lap.
“I no longer believe in any of them. If the gods truly existed, how could they allow my father to die? How could they allow Bran to fall? How could they allow me to be attacked in the woods and nearly raped? How could they allow Ramsay Bolton to violate me?”
Her voice trembled harder with each question.
“How could they allow Robb to disappear? How could they refuse a second chance to those who deserve one?”
She fell silent.
“We created the gods ourselves. That is all they are.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head weakly.
“I feel as though I’m losing my mind. I wanted good news… I would even have preferred to hear my brother was wounded but returning home. I wanted to hear Sandor Clegane was on his way back… perhaps injured too, but alive.”
She rose from the bed and moved to the window.
“Instead, all the gods have given us is silence and death.”
“My lady,” Aerys said gently, “you are in deep despair, and I understand that—”
“Was your family destroyed and scattered across the continent?” Sansa interrupted.
“My mother died when I was five. My father…” She lowered her gaze. “I never knew him. My mother told me he fought during King Robert’s Rebellion and was killed during it. So yes… I understand despair. And the need for good news.”
Sansa let out a heavy sigh before forcing down only a few spoonfuls of soup.
It was night when her mother burst suddenly into the room.
“They found Robb! He is wounded, but alive! He’s half a day from here!”
Catelyn was almost breathless with relief.
“I am going to have food prepared, inform Maester Luwin, and have the fireplaces lit in their chambers. The gods have answered our prayers!”
Sansa lifted her head at once, hope surging painfully inside her.
But when her mother left the room, she sat motionless on the bed.
Part of her rejoiced knowing her brother was returning.
But another part had hoped Sandor would be returning with him.
She shook her head slowly.
Perhaps no one could answer a prayer that complicated.
Summary: Sansa and Sandor find each other again for one fragile, aching night, but dawn brings another separation: he rides south to face his brother.
While Sansa remains in Winterfell, consumed by waiting and haunted by unsettling visions, Sandor reaches King’s Landing, where the war finally leads him before his demon.
Chapter Warnings: violence, blood/gore, war, trauma aftermath, emotional distress, implied past sexual violence, death/battle, sibling violence, nightmares/visions
Masterlist
Before to start... thank you to follow this story 🙏🏼❤️
Thanks @vase-of-lilies for the banner
He opened the door, and without saying a word she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. Perhaps he thought she had gone mad, or that she meant to mock him somehow, but Sansa hoped with all her heart that he would understand—at least a little—the torment burning through her soul and heart. Just as she began to believe he would push her away and throw her out of his room, he instead wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. She felt him relax all at once within that embrace. Sansa tightened her hold around him and breathed deeply as well.
Suddenly it felt as though she had finally cast aside a heavy armor she had never been able to free herself from, and could breathe again—could finally feel well again.
She did not know what to say to him or what she should do. She let her heart speak for her, if it needed to, or act if it deemed it right. Slowly, Sansa loosened the embrace and looked at Sandor. In the firelight she could only see the burned side of his skin shifting from black to shades of orange beneath the flames.
“Sansa,” he called softly, and she looked into his eyes.
“Sandor,” she answered, almost using the same tone as his.
He leaned slowly closer to her face. She could have pushed him away. She could have cried out. But she did not.
She allowed him to come closer, to brush against her lips first and then taste them slowly, gently. She clung to him as though afraid she might fall or fail to withstand that closeness, and he—almost understanding what she felt—drew her into his arms and held her in a firm, comforting grip from which Sansa neither could nor wished to escape.
Dawn came far too soon for Sandor Clegane.
He would have given anything to keep watching her sleep peacefully beside him, to look a little longer at her relaxed face and parted lips.
The night they had just shared had been the most beautiful night of his life. They had found their way back to one another, and that alone was enough for him—worth more than anything else. It was enough, even if he had not had her in the way he truly desired, because he understood then that loving someone did not necessarily mean possessing them. Sometimes it simply meant knowing she trusted him. And Sansa’s trust in him had only wavered—it had never truly broken.
He swallowed hard at the thought that the night they had just shared had also been their first and last.
He would leave with the Starks and ride south.
And in the South waited his brother.
There, everything would end.
He would have his revenge.
He looked again at the young woman lying beside him, now beginning to stir in her sleep. He watched every tiny expression crease her delicate face before her eyes finally opened. The clearest sky seemed to stare back at him through them, like a mirror of water in which he nearly drowned.
“Good morning,” she greeted him softly.
He had never wished her good morning before, nor anyone else for that matter, but that morning he made no exception. He offered her a small smile that twisted grotesquely across the scarred side of his mouth.
“Did you manage to sleep?” she asked gently.
The question struck him like a blow. He lowered his gaze, suddenly overcome with sadness, but answered simply, “Aye.”
“Is something troubling you?”
He looked at her for a long moment. “I should’ve told you last night, but… I’ll say it now. I leave today.”
She frowned. “For where?”
“For the place you escaped from.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “But why?”
“Your brother marches south, and he asked me to ride with him. And my brother is there.”
Sansa went pale.
“You always knew the thing I wanted most was to fight him and defeat him,” he reminded her.
But Sansa sat up so their faces were level.
“But… I…” She looked at him as though all the air had suddenly been pulled from the room. “I thought…”
“Well, you were wrong, little bird,” he said, shifting on the bed. “That was always my fate.”
“But he…” She fell silent for a moment. “He’s too strong and—”
Her breath failed her, but Sandor understood anyway. He smiled faintly and looked at her for a long moment before brushing his hand against her cheek in a slow, gentle gesture.
“I can defeat him.”
Sansa searched his face. “And if… if he kills you?”
She was trembling, and he could see it. He took one of her hands and answered quietly, “If he kills me, then it’ll all be over.” He paused. “But I’ll know I gave my life so yours wouldn’t have been lost there the way mine might be.”
Tears filled Sansa’s eyes. “N-no. Please…”
But Sandor continued. “And if I win… maybe I’ll finally be able to live again. Maybe I’ll finally take the Hound’s armor off my shoulders for good.”
Sansa lowered her head without replying. Her lips trembled violently as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“You knew,” he said quietly. “You always knew I’d face him someday.”
A broken sound escaped her lips. She could not answer the man beside her, the man who already felt as though he were slipping through her fingers like snow.
“I have something for you,” he said. “Or rather—it was always yours.”
He searched through his tunic, and Sansa saw her bracelet—the one she had sold long ago to pay for a room at an inn, the bracelet her father had once brought her from the Lands Beyond the Wall.
“I don’t know why I never gave it back before,” Sandor admitted, “but it belongs to its rightful owner.”
With tears still shining in her eyes, Sansa looked at the precious piece of jewelry resting in his hand. She sniffed softly and whispered, “This means you’re not coming back.”
It was not a question, and Sandor understood that. “It’s a way to remind you of the journey we shared,” he said quietly, “and that a dog looked after you and watched over you as best he could.”
“A man,” she corrected him at once. “You’re not a dog. You never were to me, Sandor.”
Sandor knew then that if he did not leave at that moment, he never would.
He would wipe away her tears, pull her into his arms, and the gods alone knew what else he might do.
But he could not.
It was no longer time to postpone the inevitable.
He dressed and fastened his armor piece by piece, throwing glance after glance toward Sansa’s storm-filled eyes, but he did not yield.
“I love you,” she told him just as he reached the doorway.
He looked at her for a long moment.
But he did not answer.
Not because he did not love her in return, but because he knew that if he admitted it aloud, he would never leave her behind.
And he had to.
It was time to face his demon.
Many moons passed after Sandor left with her brother Robb’s army.
Every evening, Sansa watched the horizon, hoping to glimpse a banner or some tangible sign of their return — of his return.
She could not bring herself to accept the idea that Sandor had met some ill fate.
It would not be fair.
Not after everything he had managed to do, to conquer, not after he had found and rediscovered his human side.
No, Sansa could not believe the gods would allow such an injustice. Not toward another person so dear to her.
If Sandor did not survive, she would probably stop believing in any god at all. If he died, then Sansa thought he had been right when he told her there was no merciful or good god to rely on: one could only rely on oneself.
Though Sansa no longer held the same faith she had as a girl, she still wanted to hope in some god, old or new, who might help Sandor in his purpose. It was not a noble deed, certainly, but Sansa did not care: Sandor had to live, for her, or she would die from it.
She had no idea when, exactly, that feeling for Sandor had begun, but she knew with certainty that it was a fire she had never felt for anyone before — and never so strongly, so completely.
The snow began to fall again, slowly covering once more the road that led to the castle. Another day without any news of Robb or of him.
Sansa wrapped herself in her ice-colored cloak and left her room. With quick steps, she made her way toward the entrance of the fortress: the gate was open, and beyond it stood the guards protecting House Stark and the other inhabitants of the stronghold.
The girl watched the sunlight abandon Winterfell once again. The snow shimmered and gleamed beneath those last rays of sun, and as she looked at the soft white mantle slowly forming beneath and around her, around her home and her people, she felt an abrupt emptiness open inside her.
Was this what it meant to love? To become more vulnerable?
Sansa felt naked without him, defenseless as a soldier without armor. She missed him terribly — him and those constant sharp remarks of his. She would have given anything to receive a raven and know whether Robb’s army had won, lost, or was still fighting. She wanted to know who had prevailed between Sandor and the Mountain.
She would have sent a raven herself, but with the snow falling endlessly, it was impossible to send or receive one.
“This winter is certainly colder than the last,” Catelyn said, joining her daughter outside.
“Yes, it is,” Sansa said simply.
“Waiting is terrible, isn’t it?” her mother asked.
The girl looked at her mother’s pale, tired face. She too had lost sleep.
“During the rebellion,” Catelyn went on, “when I waited for your father, I remember the anguish and pain I felt for him. It is the fate of us ladies to wait and pray for the return of our men.”
Sansa lowered her head slightly, then said, “I no longer know which gods to pray to. None of them listen. And now I wonder whether Sandor… whether the Hound,” she corrected herself, “was always right. What if there are no gods and we are alone? What if we created gods only to hope for some higher help, when in truth we are the only ones who exist?”
Catelyn looked at her and tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear. “You have changed, my child. Before, you were… naive. Now you are so… disillusioned. I do not know whether leaving you with him was wise of me.”
“Mother, leaving me with him was what had to be done. He made me look at life differently. I understood that life is not a song, and that my gracious manners lead nowhere. I also learned that there will always be someone ready to betray and stab another in the back for their own interest.” Sansa looked at her mother. “With him, I understood who I am. I am a princess of the North, but I do not know whether I will ever be able to rule with everything I have learned over these past moons.”
Her mother sighed. “You will find someone with whom you will learn how.”
Sansa watched the darkness advance. Those words made her stomach clench painfully. She did not answer her mother’s last remark; in truth, there was something hidden in her heart that perhaps her mother would neither understand nor support.
“I am a little tired. I am going to sleep,” she said.
“I will have something sent up for you to eat. You must feed yourself. It has been two days since you last ate. At this rate, you will die before spring comes!” Catelyn exclaimed.
“As you wish, Mother.”
The young woman lay down and immediately sank into a deep sleep filled with strange creatures made of ice. Their eyes were blue. There were ravens and other birds flying in the sky, cawing louder as they passed.
Then suddenly, everything fell silent.
The creatures vanished, and with them the ravens.
She saw a castle in flames, and soon recognized it as the Red Keep. It burned, its towers collapsing piece by piece. A great dragon flew above it, setting everything ablaze in its wake, and when the terrible beast allowed her to see the rest of the fortress, she saw Sandor and his brother fighting on a stone staircase.
Sandor was covered in blood, cuts, and scratches. The Mountain was furious, merciless, striking his brother with terrible force.
Sansa wanted to scream at Sandor to be careful, to dodge the blow, but she could not. Not a single sound came from her mouth.
She could only watch what was happening to him.
Sansa woke with a start, sweat dampening her forehead, her nightgown clinging to her like a second skin. She rose and looked out of her window. With all her heart, she hoped the images she had seen were not real. She hoped it had only been fear playing a cruel trick on her.
Perhaps that terrible nightmare was merely her mind urging her to reflect more deeply on what she felt — and, above all, to find the courage to admit aloud what her heart desired.
Yes. That had to be it.
Blood, mud, dust, splinters of wood, corpses, fire.
That was what Sandor had seen since setting foot in King’s Landing again.
War had torn through the houses and the city walls. Little by little, the city had begun to give way beneath the assaults from the North. The Young Wolf was gradually conquering it, and the dead who fell by his hand and by the hands of his men were countless.
The wounds suffered by Robb’s men, by Sandor, by all the Stark soldiers, were countless as well.
They had faced so many men since leaving Winterfell that Sandor no longer remembered their number, nor their faces. Young, old, sick, healthy, fat, thin, pale, dark — he remembered none of them.
His hands were stained with old blood, now darkening his skin and leaving it sticky and caked.
The cuts covering his muscular arms, broad chest, and half-burned face made him look even more threatening, if such a thing were possible. The blood still running from him, and the blood already dried, had led his companions to start calling him the Bloody Hound.
He, who had fought so hard to be rid of the name Hound, had been given another name — worse, and more fearsome than the last.
Perhaps this was his fate: to kill and be covered in other men’s blood.
The little Stark had been wrong.
The Hound would never leave him.
Not in this life, at least.
Evening had fallen, and the men of the North and the South had withdrawn to tend to their wounded. Robb and the Imp, Sandor thought, must have agreed to it.
What had become of the Lannisters, Sandor did not know. Until then, he had neither met nor glimpsed any of them. He had fought the City Watch, mercenaries, and soldiers from other houses, but of them there had been no trace.
Nor had Sandor seen his brother Gregor.
He was there for him.
Only for him.
But he never said it aloud.
Not for lack of courage, but because he was merely waiting to see him — and then he would go after him.
Had the Queen taken him with her and made him her bodyguard? Gregor, a bodyguard?
No. Impossible.
That creature lived only for himself, for killing, for raping. Nothing more.
Or perhaps she had chosen him precisely for that reason.
He should have understood much sooner.
He called himself a fool, but decided that the next day he would go to the Red Keep whether the boy approved or not. He had had enough of merely obeying.
At dawn, he left his tent and made his way toward the Red Keep.
He reached it easily.
The immense fortress seemed abandoned. He entered without anyone stopping him, climbed the enormous, imposing staircase, crossed the corridors, and finally reached the Throne Room.
There was no one there.
Could it be possible that the Lannisters had abandoned their stronghold without fighting?
Sandor was saved by the sound of running footsteps.
He turned and barely had time to parry and dodge two blows — one from an axe, one from a sword. He spun and slit the throats of two Kingsguard. Others attacked him immediately, but not a single blow caught him unprepared.
“A dog turning against his masters.”
The voice came from behind him.
The Queen.
She had appeared from somewhere he had not seen. Her hair was terribly short compared to the last time he had seen her, but her bearing was still regal and contemptuous at once.
“You miscalculated, Clegane,” she spat with disdain. “Here is something for you to sink your teeth into. Ser Gregor.”
His brother emerged from the darkness at Cersei’s side, enormous and beastlike.
“I knew Robb Stark would send you,” she said. “But I did not imagine you would come alone.”
At that moment, screams and heavy thuds sounded from a few floors below.
The Queen’s smile vanished. She ordered her men to leave her guard to deal with the Hound.
Then she and other shadows disappeared behind a door.
But Sandor cared nothing for the Queen or the royal family.
✵ Pairing: Imhotep x Female OC ﹀﹀﹀ Alex O’Connell x Female OC
✵ Summary: When death finally claimed him, Imhotep believed his torment was finally over. But even Osiris refused to accept him into the afterlife.
As secrets buried three thousand years ago begin to awaken once more, Lena Turner — haunted by dreams of Ancient Egypt — finds herself drawn toward a cursed city beneath the sands and toward a man who should have remained dead forever.
Some secrets were buried for a reason.
Pairing: jackson!joel miller x f!reader (no use of Y/N)
Summary: You, after a very long trip alone across the country, arrive in Jackson. Joel is a very lonely man and after Ellie broke up with him, he's even more alone and grumpy. Tommy and Maria decide that you're going to stay at Joel's house for a while, at least until more houses are built. Will your cohabitation be easy? Or will it be more complicated than everyone thinks?
Warnings: use of you, use of alcohol, loneliness, suicidal thoughts, suicidal attempt, a short story about sexual assault that occurred in the past I won't go into details, another SA in the present days, PTSD, violence, blood, lots of sexually explicit content, use of petnames, dirty talk, fluff elements, mutual pining, the main characters spy on each other for a while, the image of the female character has the sole purpose of representing the character, but you can imagine her however you want, no physical description of the female character except for long hair often gathered in a ponytail or braid, she wears a bra and jeans (most of the time).
Masterlist
follow @mybworlds and turn on notifications to get notified when I post new fics
Thx for the dividers @saradika-graphics
When you open your eyes again, it feels like you fought and lost against something much bigger and stronger than you. Your eyes burn and you struggle to keep them open, you know you have a fever, you feel it.
Then, beyond the fever, you feel it. An even stronger pain, tearing you apart from the inside.
You don't want to complain, you're so used to making it on your own that even letting out a groan of pain seems like a sign of weakness.
When you open your eyes, you see it. The rocky ceiling of that shelter, and for a moment you struggle to understand where you are or why. Then, the memories of that last absurd day wash over you.
The patrol.
Your panic attack.
Joel waiting for you, and together you get lost in the storm.
The makeshift shelter.
The avalanche.
You fall, cut your thigh, and then he heals you.
And now the fever is eating you up despite his prompt intervention.
You huddle in the covers. You close your eyes again and your breathing barely changes. The cold creeps into your bones, under your skin.
When you open your eyes again, you look around for Joel. He's leaning against the rock face, the torches are off, and the faint light filtering through comes from outside, so all you see is his dark, but equally recognizable, silhouette.
You don't know if he's looking at you or if he's looking outside. You close your eyes for a moment again and then the pain shoots through you in an instant, making you jump and instinctively reach out to your bandaged thigh.
Joel is beside you in a moment, “Shh, don’t touch yourself, it’s all right,” he says in a low, hoarse voice, turning on the flashlight positioning it in such a way as to illuminate your leg “Now I’ll change your bandages, okay?”
You don't know if it's that calm tone of voice or if it's that he sees you in that state of strong vulnerability or if it's because he seems to care about someone else besides himself, the fact is that you feel a strong anger.
“Whatever,” you mutter, trying to sit up and find a position that feels less painful.
“Look, ’m just tryin’ to keep it from gettin’ worse.” he tells you as he starts to unwrap the bandage.
The bandage is already dark in some places, the blood having seeped through the fabric and dried poorly from the cold. He unrolls them slowly and the pain becomes more acute, a strangled moan escapes you, you squeeze your eyes shut and feel the sting of tears building. The cold air hits your skin. You're sure your face is twisted in pain.
He mutters okay, okay, okay, I got it, but it's more like he's saying it to himself than to you.
“It's bad, isn't it? you ask even though you already know the answer. He doesn’t answer. Just a tight jaw, a brief glance. That’s enough.
And then you look for yourself: the wound is worse than you remembered. Not a clean cut. A tear.
The skin has split open unevenly along the inside of your thigh, just above the knee, as if something had hooked you and ripped it away. The edges are swollen, red, and too raw compared to the rest of the skin.
In the center, the meat is darker. Still wet.
Joel pauses for a moment. He doesn't touch immediately. He observes. He evaluates.
Then he takes a piece of clean cloth, wets it lightly with water and comes back to you.
“Gonna clean it a bit,” he says.
You just nod.
When the tissue touches the wound, the pain doesn't explode as it used to. It's lower, but more diffuse, and more persistent.
It makes you grit your teeth.
Joel doesn't insist right away. Then, he passes the fabric along the edges, avoiding the center for a moment, as if trying not to overload the pain all at once.
You take short, controlled breaths.
You don't want him to see you react. Not that way, but your body doesn't completely agree.
As he gets closer to the worst part, you feel the tension rise again. Your fingers close on the rock beside you, on the blankets.
Joel notices, but doesn't say anything. He just makes slower movements. “Still hurts?” he asks, without stopping.
He already knows the question is pointless, but you answer anyway. “Manageable.” The word comes out more strangled than expected.
Joel lets out something that might be a half-breath, almost a hint of tired irony. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Sure.”
“Really,” you insist, though your tone isn’t quite holding up.
Joel doesn't look up. He continues cleaning. “It doesn't have to be,” he says simply.
You don't answer. Not right away because you know exactly what he would say and you're not sure you want to hear it.
Joel finishes cleaning and grabs the new bandages. He applies them with precise movements, carefully wrapping the fabric around your leg, not overly tight at first. When he has to lift your leg slightly to slide the bandage underneath, he hesitates for a moment. Not because he doesn't know how, but to avoid making you feel even more pain.
He barely looks at you. “Tell me if it’s too much.”
You nod.
When his hands slide under your leg, the contact is inevitable. Warm. Solid. Much more real than you'd like.
The pain comes right after. Not as severe as before, but enough to make your breathing stop for a moment.
Joel stops. “Here?”
You just shake your head. “Go on.”
He does. He raises your leg just enough, then slides the bandage underneath with quick movements, so as not to prolong the pain any longer than necessary.
When he puts your leg back, the relief is immediate even if it only lasts a moment.
His hands rest for a moment on the newly applied bandage, as if he were checking something. Or perhaps holding back. Then he takes them back.
“Done.”
You still take deep breaths with your eyes closed trying to push back the pain you feel, you try to remember when you were alone before the ZQ and you ran away from the inhabited centers for fear of encountering the infected. Or when you started killing the infected or already infected people, in those circumstances you couldn't be weak or cry. You won't do it this time either.
You look up at him, you see him fiddling with something in his backpack, He pulls out a bottle of water and a sandwich. He looks up and notices your eyes on him.
“You should eat. Drink somethin’. Then try to sleep.”
You tsk, “‘m not tired.”
You are and you know he knows, but you still don't want to give in.
“Okay.” he says, “At least eat something and drink a sip of water.”
You take the sandwich from his hand and tear off a small piece before handing it back to him. “You have to eat too,” you say before popping the morsel into your mouth.
“Always so stubborn.” He mutters, shaking his head before picking up the sandwich again and taking a piece of it himself.
The wind is still blowing outside, and every now and then you're hit by gusts of snow carried by the wind at the entrance to the cave. You remember the cold you suffered once you were away from the Boston QZ, you did nothing but walk or run, hide. You were hiding not so much from runners or clickers as from small groups of marauders who would prey on wanderers, stealing their belongings and then killing them. Nevertheless...
“Wanna talk?” Joel suddenly asks you.
He, who doesn't speak unless it's necessary or who usually stays silent, asks you to talk. About what? The weather? Your leg? Definitely not about him, lest Joel Miller want to talk about himself.
“‘bout what?” you ask perplexed.
He hands you the sandwich back. “How’s Dina?”
“Fine,” you reply quickly, sighing. “She’s pregnant. She has her good days and days when she can’t even get out of bed.” add more acid than you would like. You change the subject, “Who made this sandwich by the way?”
“Seth, I think. Or that friend of yours, what’s his name… Noah?”
You tear off another piece and chew it slowly. Dina wasn’t really the point. You can hear it now. You clear your throat. “Noah doesn’t work in the kitchen. His grandmother does.”
Joel pauses.
“He’s… a good friend, I think.” You nod, tearing another piece of bread. “You can’t help but like him. He’s a good guy. Helped his grandma get back to Jackson. Doesn’t make a big deal out of it.”
Joel hums something under his breath.
You don’t look at him. But you feel it. That shift.
You don’t look at him when you speak again, but the words come out anyway, like they’ve been sitting there for longer than you’d like to admit. “You don’t like him.”
It isn’t really a question, and the way you say it makes that clear enough.
Joel takes a second before answering, not out of hesitation, but as if he’s deciding how much of it is worth saying out loud. “Didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He exhales slowly, shifting his weight against the rock, the movement small but deliberate. “Just sayin’… people ain’t always what they look like.”
You let out a dry breath, something that might have been a laugh if it had any warmth in it. “Yeah,” you murmur, your gaze still fixed somewhere else. “I figured that out already.”
That lands heavier than it should.
You don’t need to look at him to know he caught it.
Of course he did.
The silence that follows stretches, but this time you don’t let it settle, because if you do, you already know it’ll close over everything again. “You didn’t trust me either,” you add, quieter now, but sharper in a way that matters more. “Back then.”
Joel’s jaw tightens, just enough to notice. “That ain’t—”
“It is.” You cut him off before he can finish, and this time you do look at him. “You made it pretty clear I wasn’t supposed to be there.”
Your voice doesn’t rise, doesn’t break, but it doesn’t need to. The weight of it is somewhere else entirely.
Joel doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t correct you.
“You didn’t even want me there at the beginning,” you say, quieter this time, as if you’re adjusting your aim while you speak. “And I didn’t either. I avoided you.” You swallow. “And you didn’t really try to change that.”
It’s not a full accusation. Not entirely.
“Then…” you hesitate for a moment, “something shifted.” The memory flickers, but it stays. “That night…” You don’t need to explain. “And after.” A slower breath. “We weren’t like that anymore.” You finally look at him. “Not perfect. But… different.” A small pause. “For once it didn’t feel like we were in each other’s way.”
The words sit between you, more honest than you’d like. More exposed.
Joel looks down for a moment, rubbing his thumb against his palm like he’s trying to ground himself in something physical, something simpler than this. “I didn’t want you to leave.”
That lands differently now.
Because this time, you almost believe him.
You shake your head, though. “That’s not the point.” A beat. “Then I found you drinking.”
“I know,” he says quietly. “I didn’t stop.”
You don’t comment. You let what he said sit there, heavy between you.
For a moment, nothing moves. Not really. The wind outside keeps scraping against the rock, pushing loose snow into the mouth of the shelter, but in here everything feels still, as if the air itself had thickened around that admission.
You keep your eyes on the ground, on the uneven surface of the stone, on anything that isn’t him.
Because you don’t know what to do with it.
It would be easier if he had argued, if he had pushed back, if he had given you something to resist.
But he didn’t.
And now the words stay there, lodged somewhere you can’t quite reach, pressing without making a sound.
You shift slightly, trying to adjust your position against the rock, but the movement pulls at your leg in a way that feels deeper than before. The pain doesn’t flare up all at once. It spreads, slow and deliberate, like something seeping under your skin, settling where it shouldn’t.
You inhale, more carefully this time.
Your breath doesn’t come out the way you expect.
There’s a weight to it, something uneven that forces you to pause for half a second before letting it go.
You don’t want him to notice.
You focus on keeping still, on controlling the rhythm of your breathing, on holding onto that thin line you’ve been walking since you got here.
For a moment, it works.
Then your vision shifts.
Not enough to call it dizziness. Not yet. Just a slight blur at the edges, as if the light at the entrance had changed, stretched too thin across the snow.
You blink once.
The shape of the cave settles again, but it doesn’t feel as stable as it did a moment ago.
You press your lips together, trying to anchor yourself in something real, something simple.
The cold, maybe.
The rock at your back.
The weight of the blankets over your shoulders.
But even that feels… off.
Like it’s coming from further away.
Joel moves.
You don’t look at him, but you feel it anyway—the shift in his posture, the way his attention settles more directly on you now.
“You alright?” His voice is low, the same as before, but closer.
You nod, a little too quickly. “I’m fine.”
It comes out flat, controlled.
Your hand tightens slightly against the fabric of the blanket, more out of instinct than anything else.
You can feel the heat now. Not outside. Under your skin. It builds slowly, almost imperceptibly, but once you notice it, you can’t ignore it anymore. It sits behind your eyes, dull and insistent, making everything feel just a little heavier than it should.
You shift again, trying to find a position that doesn’t pull at your leg, but the movement sends another wave through you, sharper this time, enough to make your breath hitch before you can stop it.
Joel hears that.
Of course he does.
He doesn’t move right away. He doesn’t crowd you. But he doesn’t look away either.
You can feel it.
And this time, you don’t tell him to stop. Because it’s getting harder to pretend there’s nothing to see.
Some time later.
You don’t know how much.
Minutes.
Hours.
It all feels the same.
The cold is still there, but it’s different now. It doesn’t sit on your skin anymore. It’s deeper, mixed with something warmer, something that doesn’t belong in this place.
Your body feels heavy. Too heavy.
When you shift, even slightly, the pain in your leg pulls through you in a way that doesn’t stay where it should. It spreads, dull and persistent, threading up your side and into your chest, making your breath uneven.
A sound slips from you before you can stop it. Low. Barely there.
Joel is beside you before you fully register moving. “Hey.” His voice is quieter than before. Closer.
You don’t open your eyes right away.
It takes effort.
When you do, the shape in front of you doesn’t settle immediately. The edges blur, shift, as if the light outside is bending around him instead of holding him in place.
You blink.
It doesn’t fix it.
Your throat feels dry.
“Don’t—” you murmur, though the word doesn’t land properly.
Your hand moves weakly, not pushing him away, just… reacting.
“Don’t do that.”
Joel stills. “Do what?”
But you’re not really answering him anymore.
Your gaze drifts, unfocused.
“He’s gonna see,” you whisper, the words uneven, barely connected. “You can’t— he’ll think—”
Your breathing catches.
You swallow, but it doesn’t help.
“Just stay still,” you add quickly, like you’re trying to fix something that’s already gone wrong. “Don’t talk. Don’t—”
You stop.
Your brow tightens.
For a second, something like recognition flickers.
“Joel.”
The name comes out clearer.
But it doesn’t last.
Your fingers tighten weakly around the blanket.
“No… no, that’s not—”
Your voice falters again.
“Stephen—” A pause. Too long.
Your head shifts slightly against the rock, as if you’re trying to follow something only you can see.
“Don’t… don’t let them take it,” you whisper, more urgently now. “They’ll take everything. You know that. You said—”
Another breath, sharper this time.
Your grip slips.
“Ralph, don’t—”
The name breaks differently.
Your body tenses without strength behind it, like a memory trying to take hold of something that isn’t there anymore.
“Please—” The word comes out small. Uncontrolled.
And that’s when Joel understands.
Not everything.
But enough.
Enough to know that whatever you’re seeing it’s not him.
Joel stays where he is. He watches you as your gaze slips past him, as if he weren't really there, as if he were just another shadow inside that shelter.
Your breathing is irregular now.
“Hey,” he says softly, not raising his voice, as if the noise might make everything worse rather than help. “Look at me.”
It's not an order, but an attempt.
But you struggle to really listen to him, he seems so distant and so unreachable, as if he were speaking in a low voice in a room full of voices and noises.
Joel leans down just enough to enter your field of vision without intruding. “You’re here,” he continues, slower, enunciating his words without forcing them. “You’re with me.” A pause. “You’re safe.”
The wind outside scrapes the rock, stronger for a moment, and the sound enters the shelter like a distorted echo.
You jump slightly. More than the noise, it's something only you can hear.
And Joel notices, but doesn't say anything.
He reaches out a hand, but doesn't touch you right away. He stops a few inches away, giving you time to react, to refuse, if necessary. “May I?” he murmurs.
His fingers rest lightly on your wrist, enough to make you feel his presence, to give you something concrete to anchor yourself to.
The contact is warm. Real. “Breathe slowly,” he says. “With me.”
“You said… that we were safe,” you whisper, your voice breaking apart between sobs. “You said it was okay and they still found us…”
Your breathing turns frantic.
Your fingers clutch weakly at his sleeve.
“We’re gonna die here, aren’t we?”
Joel shakes his head immediately. “No.” His voice is firm this time. Grounded. “That’s not gonna happen.”
You squeeze your eyes shut as tears slip down your temples and disappear into your hair.
A broken sound leaves your throat.
“I thought I knew you…” you whisper.
Joel stills. For one brief, dangerous second, he thinks you’re talking to him. That maybe this is about the promise he broke. About the bottle. About losing you.
Then your lips tremble again. “No… Ralph…”
And everything inside him goes quiet.
“He warned me about him and I…” your voice shakes violently. “I thought—I thought—” The rest dissolves into incoherent words. Fragments. Names. Half-finished apologies.
Joel doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t push. Doesn’t ask who Ralph is. Or Stephen. He just moves closer when your body starts shaking harder.
“Hey.” His hand cups the side of your face, grounding but gentle. “Look at me.” Your eyes barely focus. “You’re here with me.” His thumb brushes away tears you don’t seem aware of. “No one’s gonna hurt you.”
Your breathing stutters.
Your body slowly begins to give out from exhaustion more than calm.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “That’s it.”
Your grip on his sleeve weakens little by little.
Your eyes close.
This time they stay closed.
Your breathing remains uneven for a while before exhaustion finally drags you under.
Joel stays exactly where he is. He doesn’t move his hand right away.
Outside, the storm continues.
Inside that shelter, the silence feels different now.
He looks at your sleeping face, at the tear tracks still drying on your skin, at the fever burning through you.
And for the first time, he understands that whatever happened before Jackson— it was far worse than he ever imagined.
Summary: You must marry the Prince of Dorne. He respects you, but he doesn't want you. Years later, things change, but something disturbs and upsets your serenity; so it's up to you to reveal the secrets and lies that threaten to disturb you forever.
TW: arranged marriage, Oberyn is older than you, use of female pronouns and reference to female features of the main character, use of you, Oberyn likes men and women like in the TV series, death, violence, smut. I will mark chapters with a warning if there are descriptions that might bother you.
credits: divider created by @zaldritzosrose
MASTERLIST
Oberyn returns as the sky begins to pale into soft shades of pink. Night is no longer holding, and dawn arrives with a kind of hesitation.
The air is cold, sharp against the skin like a thin blade, and the courtyard of the castle breathes in that heavy silence that always comes before the day fully claims it. The torches along the walls are burning low, their smoke curling into the faint mist clinging to the stone.
He passes through the secondary gate, his dark cloak slipping loosely from his shoulders, his hair stirred by the wind, still damp with the night’s humidity. His pace is slow, deliberate—as if time answers to him, not the other way around.
The guards see him.
One of them straightens instinctively, but says nothing. There is no surprise in their eyes, no reproach. Only awareness.
Oberyn inclines his head in return. Nothing more. Not a request for silence—simply the quiet certainty that it will be kept.
Farther off, a young servant girl carrying buckets of water falters for a moment, her gaze lifting without meaning to. She does not look at him like a master.
She looks at him with curiosity.
He does not stop.
He crosses the courtyard as though the castle were merely a passage, not a place he belongs to, and disappears beneath the arches before the sun can reach him.
Behind him, the silence does not hold.
It fractures.
And then the whispers begin—spreading faster than the light.
You are not alone.
Not in the way you usually are.
When you step out of your chambers and walk down the corridor leading to the inner staircase, you feel it immediately—a subtle shift in the air. It’s not obvious. Not a murmur, not a careless gesture. Something quieter: a glance that lingers a second too long, a voice that falters the moment you pass.
One of the handmaids arranging blankets lowers into a bow, but her eyes lift for just a fraction before dropping again. There is no mockery there. No pity.
Only curiosity.
That is the difference.
Curiosity is—perhaps—more dangerous than pity.
You descend the steps with the composure you were taught, measured and controlled, but inside it feels as though the night has left something behind.
Near an archway, two young servants speak in hushed voices. They don’t notice you right away.
“He came back late,” one murmurs.
“Very late.”
Then they see you.
They fall silent.
Their heads bow too quickly.
You don’t ask for explanations. You know who they’re talking about.
You don’t care where he spent the night.
You care that it has already become a story on someone else’s lips.
You continue toward the breakfast hall without quickening your pace. Here, dignity is the only armor they cannot strip from you.
The hall is already lit when you enter, though the natural light still struggles to overtake the candles. Your father sits at the head of the table, posture rigid and controlled, as though every morning were a negotiation to be won. Doran sits beside him, still and silent, with the calm of a man who observes before he chooses.
Baelor is seated a little farther down, and when he lifts his gaze to you, his smile is that of someone who has been waiting for the right moment.
The chair beside Doran is not empty.
Oberyn is already seated.
Drinking.
He does not look up when you enter—but you know he has seen you.
You take your place with measured grace, hands resting in your lap before the bread is broken and the cups are filled. The silence before the first words is heavier than usual.
Baelor is not a man who knows how to remain quiet. “Did you sleep well?” he asks lightly, addressing you.
The question would be harmless in another room. Not here.
“Enough,” you reply.
“I imagine sleep can be… irregular,” he continues, his tone deliberately mild, “when one discovers that certain habits are more… flexible than expected.”
The strike is subtle. And precise.
Your father does not intervene.
Doran watches.
Oberyn takes another sip of wine, with almost irritating calm.
Baelor tilts his head slightly. “The guards noticed. It seems the prince knows the village paths well—even in the dark.”
A servant stiffens as he sets down a dish.
You do not look at Oberyn.
You will not give him the privilege of your reaction.
At last, he sets his cup down. The sound is soft, but it is enough to draw attention. “It is remarkable,” he says evenly, “how men who have never stepped beyond their own walls are always the most informed about what happens outside them.”
There is no aggression in his tone. But the meaning is far from neutral.
Baelor smiles, though the smile tightens.
Oberyn continues, his gaze settling on him with quiet precision. “When I spend a night away from a bed, it is not to seek what I lack. It is simply because I have nothing to prove to anyone.”
The words linger in the air. Elegant. Cruel.
Baelor stiffens, and for a moment seems to search for a response that will not betray him.
Doran speaks before he can. “Freedom is often misunderstood by those who have never had it.”
Your father does not appreciate the direction the conversation has taken, but he cannot challenge it without exposing himself.
Oberyn adds, almost idly, as if offering a cultural observation rather than a calculated blow, “In Dorne, we do not measure women by the movements of men.”
He does not look at you when he says it.
And that is precisely what unsettles you.
It is not possession. Not gallantry. It is principle.
And the balance in the room shifts—subtly, but irreversibly.
Baelor lowers his gaze to his plate.
For the first time, he is the one being observed.
The meal ends without further disruption, but the air does not return to what it was.
Baelor speaks less. Not silence—never that—but he weighs his words now, and that alone is enough.
Your father rises first, as always, and the room moves with him. Doran remains seated a moment longer, watching his brother with that calm that is never without purpose. Then he rises as well, leaning on his cane in a gesture that appears fragile, but is only measured.
You remain seated a heartbeat too long.
You do not want to rise with Oberyn.
You do not want to seem as though you are fleeing, either.
When you finally stand, you do so without looking at him. But you feel him move at the same time. He does not touch you. He does not overtake you. He walks beside you for a few steps—close enough to be felt, distant enough to deny intention.
The corridor beyond the hall is cooler. The candles still burn along the walls, but daylight is beginning to win against their golden glow.
“I did not need to be defended.”
The words leave you before you can stop them.
You do not look at him.
He does not answer immediately. You feel his pace slow slightly, as though weighing the words before giving them space.
“It was not a defense,” he says at last.
His voice is low. Unemphatic.
You stop. You have no choice but to turn. “Then what was it?”
Oberyn inclines his head slightly, as though the question is valid—but not urgent.
“A miscalculation,” he replies. “Your cousin mistook the echo of his own voice for authority.”
No sarcasm.
Only fact.
“And that bothers you?” you ask.
“It bores me.”
The tone is calm, but there is something more attentive in his eyes than the word suggests.
Silence stretches between you. The corridor is empty now. The others’ footsteps have already faded into the inner chambers.
“I don’t care where you spend your nights,” you say—because it’s true. Or because you want it to be.
He studies you, his gaze neither provocative nor gentle. Analytical.
“Good,” he answers. “It would be irrelevant anyway.”
It should irritate you. Instead, it leaves you suspended.
“But you care that they talk,” he adds after a moment.
Not a question.
A statement.
You stiffen.
“I care that they speak of me as though I were a reflection of what you do.”
A beat of silence.
Oberyn steps half a pace closer. Not enough to touch you. Enough for you to feel the warmth of him through the light fabric.
“You are not a reflection,” he says. “And you are not weak.”
The words are simple. They should make you feel strong, because for a brief moment you have the sense that he has truly seen you—not as a piece. Not as a wife. Not as an obligation.
“And do they know that?” you ask.
A shadow of a smile crosses his face.
“I do not care what they know.” A pause. “I care what they think they know.”
Something in the way he says it tells you he is thinking beyond breakfast. Beyond Baelor. Beyond you.
And for the first time, you look at him not as an imposed presence or an unwanted husband, but as a man who is calculating, measuring, anticipating.
And that is when you remember why he still feels like a stranger.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” you say quietly.
Not an accusation.
An instinct.
His gaze lingers on yours a moment too long. “There are always many things left unsaid,” he replies.
He does not deny it.
He does not confirm it.
He simply steps aside, leaving the corridor open for you.
“Prepare for the journey,” he adds, almost absently. “We won’t be staying here much longer.”
And that is all.
He does not stop you. Does not move closer. Does not try to close the distance.
That is what brings you back to yourself.
Whatever you thought you felt a moment ago remains suspended between you. It does not grow. It does not settle.
It simply stays there—something that could become something else.
Summary: Trapped in silence after everything she has endured, Sansa finally faces what was taken from her and claims a form of justice.
But victory does not bring peace: while she struggles with what she has become, Sandor is left to face the weight of his own failure — and the distance growing between them.
Before to start... thank you to follow this story 🙏🏼❤️
Thanks @vase-of-lilies for the banner
Sansa, from that day on, did not speak for the next four days and refused to see anyone. She ate the bare minimum to remain standing and avoid collapsing. She slept a great deal, but still did not bring herself to speak. It was as if what she had endured had taken away her ability to express herself as she once would have.
Her mother and her brother Robb visited her in her room every day, three times a day. Her younger brothers, Bran and Rickon, were only allowed in with Maester Luwin’s permission. She had not seen Sandor during those days, but her mind and heart were still too shaken to wonder where he was or why he had not come to her.
On the fifth day, Sansa broke that heavy, deliberate silence and asked her brother what had become of Ramsay Bolton and his men. Robb told her that all of the Bastard’s soldiers had been killed, while Ramsay himself was imprisoned in the dungeons with his hounds.
Sansa smiled.
Then she asked to be taken there.
Robb frowned, but faced with her expression, he could not find the strength to refuse.
She requested that the Hound be the one to escort her. Robb agreed almost immediately.
Sansa saw Sandor again only then. He watched her for a long moment, but she did not speak a single word to him.
She was hurt—but also angry and disappointed. Perhaps she had been wrong to place so much trust in him. Perhaps she had simply built him up too much in her mind, and now that illusion had shattered, leaving her to realize she had been in the hands of a man no more capable of protecting her than any other.
Sansa moved forward with slow but steady steps. She knew exactly what she intended to do with Ramsay.
She took a deep breath, then, after a brief glance at the Hound, descended.
He followed her like a silent shadow. They reached the dungeon door, and there she turned to him and said simply, “Wait here.”
She went down the steps alone.
The chamber below was dimly lit, and for the first time she could clearly see the size of the cage in which Ramsay sat. He was in a corner, counting something on his fingers.
Sansa watched that gesture once… twice.
Then she made a deliberate noise.
He looked up.
“Sansa?” he smiled. “I can’t see very well.”
Without a word, she picked up a torch from the wall and approached him, stopping just outside the cage. She lifted the light to his face.
“Can you see me?” she asked, her voice empty. “I want you to see me. So you’ll know exactly what I’m about to do to you.” She enunciated each word slowly, just as he had once done with her.
Then they both heard a low growl.
One of his hounds was approaching.
Sansa and Ramsay exchanged a look.
“Your words will fade,” she continued. “Your house will fade. Every memory of you will fade. Now.”
He smiled. “My hounds won’t touch me. I’m their master. They’re loyal beasts.”
Another growl echoed.
“They’re hungry now,” Sansa said quietly. “And you’re right here. With them.”
Two more hounds emerged from the shadows. They sniffed him, circling.
Then, in a heartbeat, they leapt.
Ramsay screamed.
Sansa watched as the beasts tore into what remained of their master. Blood spilled, growls deepened, flesh ripped beneath their jaws.
It was enough.
She turned her back and walked away.
Sandor had never seen eyes like hers.
Or perhaps he had—but never on her.
She looked ahead, a faint, victorious smile on her lips. He glanced toward the darkness she had left behind and, from the sounds, understood immediately what was happening.
He followed her in silence.
What else could he do?
When they reached the others, Sansa spoke with cold composure:
“The prisoner is dead. Have the cage cleaned in the morning, and give the hounds to someone who knows how to handle them.”
A chill ran through Sandor at her tone.
She was no longer his little bird.
She was… something else.
She turned to look at him.
Her blue eyes seemed to pierce straight through him.
He had never thought her capable of looking at someone that way.
He found himself forced to look away.
“Let me take care of the hounds,” he said.
She studied him for a moment, distant. “No. I already have someone for that.”
He missed the girl she had been—the gentle, naive creature who had trusted him completely. The awkward attempts she made to speak to him, her soft, courteous ways that had once made him smirk.
Now she avoided his gaze.
And when she didn’t, she cut through him with it.
Did she hate him?
He wondered what horrors she had endured, imagining—knowing her—that she had borne them in silence.
He told himself it was time to leave.
He had failed.
Twice.
As a warrior. And as a man.
The next day, he would speak to Robb Stark and go. Face his fate. His brother.
Why should he live?
For himself? What a joke.
For battle? Against whom, once his brother was dead?
For Sansa Stark? She had her family now.
What use did she have for a dog she despised?
Afterward, Sansa asked to be left alone. Sandor watched her walk away but did not follow. He understood that no matter how composed she seemed, what she had done had shaken her.
Sandor left, and Sansa climbed the tower. The young woman felt the cold wind grow sharper with every step. She climbed higher and higher, until she reached the very top, far from the soldiers guarding Winterfell. There, she sat, letting the wind cut through her, listening as it grew harsher, while the howls of the direwolves lulled her in that freezing night.
Her eyes began to sting.
It was the cold.
It was the cold—nothing else.
She had taken her revenge.
She had done the right thing.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but when she opened them again, quiet tears began to slip down her cheeks.
Ramsay deserved to die.
He deserved to suffer.
He deserved it.
She had not been wrong.
If she hadn’t done it, Robb would have.
Calm down, Sansa. Calm down.
You’re home.
No one will hurt you anymore.
Calm.
But killing Ramsay hadn’t brought her the satisfaction she had imagined.
If anything—
it had done the opposite.
She felt like a murderer.
She was a murderer.
She had become exactly like the others.
Like Joffrey.
Like the executioner in King’s Landing.
Like all the people she had crossed paths with.
She had only ever wanted the best for herself—she had only wanted to be happy, to be a princess, to have a strong man by her side, to have children one day.
Instead…
Instead, time had made her hard, aggressive, feral.
All that remained of her were pretty words, while her ways—her very way of facing life—had become harsh, ungraceful.
A terrible shame rose inside her.
And she cried.
Sandor went to the great hall instead, where soldiers were eating and drinking. He sat in a corner, drinking deeply—trying to drown himself in the only thing that ever brought him peace. He thought it might have been better to die at the Boltons’ hands. At least then Sansa would have remembered him well. Now she hated him.
Perhaps that was the sign he needed to leave her behind.
She was safe. She was home.
His purpose was fulfilled.
“Clegane.” He looked up. The Young Wolf stood before him. “Thank you for accompanying Sansa today. She needed to face her demons.” Sandor gave a slight nod. “Tomorrow we march south. King’s Landing.”
Sandor’s gaze sharpened. “King’s Landing?”
Robb studied him. “Afraid to face your past? Or your brother?”
“My brother is there?” Sandor asked.
“He is.”
A flicker passed through Sandor’s eyes.
“Then will you ride with us?”
“Aye,” Sandor growled. “Damn right.”
Hours later, Sansa was found atop a tower, nearly frozen. Her lady brought her back, warmed her by the fire, brushed her hair.
Sansa studied herself in the mirror.
“Do I look so different?” she asked quietly.
“Lady Sansa, if I may be honest…” she began.
“You must,” Sansa urged her.
“Well, you are. And I don’t mean just your much longer hair or your paler, thinner face—your manners and the way you carry yourself have changed too. You are more a woman now, and less a child.”
“I am,” she said, lowering her voice. “One should be grateful for everything, shouldn’t they? Both the good and the bad?”
“It depends. My lady, I… can only imagine what you must have endured and suffered with the Boltons—and with that man with the dreadful face.”
Sansa lifted her gaze. “Sandor is… just a wounded man. But he is by far the best man I’ve had at my side. He’s the one who… protected me and… put up with my foolishness. And yet I’ve treated him so… terribly these past few days.”
She spoke aloud, but it was clear she was really speaking to herself—about her own disgraceful behavior over the past week.
“Do not feel guilty, Lady Sansa. You endured terrible suffering with Ramsay Bolton.”
“And what did Sandor have to do with that?” she asked. “Why did I take it out on him?”
She fell silent. She needed to apologize—immediately.
“Forgive me,” she said, rising and moving toward the door. “I… I need to… do something.”
“But my lady, your brother asked me to stay with you until you fell asleep!” the girl protested.
Sansa turned back. “If you see my brother, tell him you saw me fall asleep.”
With that, she left the room. Taking a torch, she descended two floors, careful not to make too much noise or draw attention. Remembering where his chamber was, she approached the door, set the torch down a short distance away, and knocked softly.
Summary: This story sets 15 yrs before The Mandalorian events, Din Djarin is hired by Rebel Alliance forces to protect and escort you, the princess of a dead planet, to your new home.
Series warnings: use of you, violence, science fantasy elements, slow burn, angst, fluff, mutual pining, eventual smut (18+ MDNI), trauma.
A/N Thanks as always for following me. Love ya ❤️
Masterlist
Thanks @idontgetanysleep and @saradika-graphics the dividers. Thanks @vase-of-lilies for the banner. Taglist: @thegreenkid2, @harriedandharassed if someone else wants to be added let me know.
Hyperspace wraps around the Razor Crest once more like an endless sea.
Luminous streaks race past the cockpit windshield, long and unbroken, as if the universe itself had been stretched into thousands of threads of blue light. It is a sight you could never grow tired of, and yet that night it brings you no peace at all.
You’re sitting on the small side seat of the cockpit, your hands clasped over your knees, your gaze lost ahead of you without truly seeing anything.
The memory of the moon hasn’t left you yet.
The tremor of the ground.
The violet veins lighting up beneath the stone.
That sensation that moved through your body like a living current.
It wasn’t fear.
That’s what unsettles you the most.
You could have understood fear. You’ve known fear since Arkanon was destroyed, since you left your planet, since you lost Nanuk, when Ellna became a battlefield and you saw death come closer than you had ever imagined.
But what you felt on the moon wasn’t fear.
It was… something that didn’t come from the outside and wrap around you, but instead spread through every smallest part of you. It responded.
You lower your gaze to your hands.
For a moment, you can almost still feel that warmth in your fingers, as if something inside you hasn’t completely gone quiet yet.
You slowly curl your fingers into a fist.
Nothing happens.
The silence of the ship surrounds you with an almost unreal calm. The steady hum of the engines fills the metallic spaces of the Razor Crest with a constant, deep vibration—one you’ve come to recognize even when your mind is elsewhere.
Din is at the controls.
He hasn’t moved from there since you left the moon.
His figure fills the pilot’s seat with the same stillness that seems to follow him everywhere: back straight, hands steady on the controls, his unseen gaze behind the helmet fixed on the endless flow of hyperspace.
From where you’re sitting, you can only see the profile of the helmet, streaked with the blue lights racing past the glass.
You wonder how long he’s been awake.
You also wonder if he ever truly sleeps.
“You should rest.”
His voice breaks the silence of the cockpit before you even realize he was about to speak.
You lift your gaze toward him.
“I’m not tired,” you reply.
And part of that is true—but you are tired. Tired of not understanding what is really happening to you, who you really are.
Din doesn’t turn. “If you keep staying awake when you should be sleeping,” he says calmly, “tomorrow you won’t even be able to hold a blaster.”
A tired smile brushes your lips. “I couldn’t hold it today either.”
“Today was better.”
“Is that the Mandalorian way of saying I didn’t completely suck?” you ask.
For a few seconds, there’s no answer.
Then he simply says, “It’s the Mandalorian way of saying you’re learning.”
You lean back against the seat.
Silence fills the cockpit again, but it’s not the same as before. It’s no longer just exhaustion.
It’s something pressing at the edges of your mind.
Eventually, you can’t hold it back anymore.
“Din.”
“Yes?”
“What happened on the moon…” The words die in your throat. You don’t know how to finish the sentence.
Din stays still for a few seconds.
Then he slowly moves one hand from the controls and activates a small indicator on the panel. A series of glowing symbols appears on the screen, scrolling slowly as the ship continues through hyperspace.
Only then does he speak. “It wasn’t an accident.”
Your stomach tightens. “I know,” you reply, more slowly than you’d like.
“And it wasn’t just the planet.”
You nod, even though he can’t see you.
“I know that too.”
The cockpit remains bathed in the blue light of hyperspace.
For a moment, you wonder if he’ll say anything else.
Instead, silence settles between you again.
It’s in moments like this that the distance between you feels sharper.
Not just the physical one.
That’s nothing—just a few steps between the pilot’s seat and where you’re sitting.
It’s something else you feel. Something that exists between you and that beskar helmet. Something you can’t quite reach, can’t truly break through.
You lower your gaze. “Doesn’t it scare you?” you ask at last.
This time, Din turns just enough for the helmet to angle toward you. “What?”
“What’s happening to me.”
For a few seconds, he doesn’t answer. When he finally does, his voice is lower. “It worries me.”
The honesty surprises you. “That’s not the same thing,” you say.
“No,” he admits.
The helmet remains turned toward you. “Fear makes you take the wrong decisions.”
You realize your fingers have curled into fists again. “And you’re not afraid.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Din is silent long enough that you think he won’t answer.
Then he says, “Because you’re not alone.”
The words linger in the air of the cockpit.
They don’t bring you real comfort. Not completely.
And yet, somehow, they steady your heartbeat.
You look away from the helmet and back at the streaks of light in hyperspace.
And yet, even as you try to focus on those endless lines of light, part of your mind keeps circling back to the same thought.
To that smooth, impenetrable surface of beskar.
To everything you cannot see.
And to the strange, frustrating feeling it stirs in you.
The silence slowly settles back into the cockpit.
The hyperspace streaks continue to stream past the windshield like rivers of blue light, steady and hypnotic, but after a few minutes you realize that staring at them doesn’t help calm your thoughts. If anything, the longer you sit there, the more your mind stubbornly returns to the same images.
The moon.
The ground shifting beneath your feet.
The sensation of something responding to your fear… or perhaps to something even deeper.
Eventually, you stand.
You make no sound. The Razor Crest isn’t a large ship, but by now you know its corridors well enough to move without bumping into anything. You pass the copilot’s seat and slip into the narrow passage that leads to the rest of the ship.
Din says nothing as you walk away.
You’re not sure if it’s because he didn’t see you leave, or because he chose to let you go.
The rear compartment is bathed in dimmer light. The internal lamps cast a warm glow along the ship’s metal walls—bright enough to see where you’re stepping, but not enough to make the space feel truly comfortable.
NK-841 stands motionless near one of the walls, its metal frame slightly inclined forward as if resting. When you pass by, the droid emits a small, questioning beep.
“I’m fine,” you murmur.
The droid falls silent.
You sit on the edge of the bunk for a few minutes, trying to do what Din suggested earlier.
Sleep.
You close your eyes.
But the darkness doesn’t bring rest.
It brings Arkanon.
You see the palace again, its pale walls touched by morning light, the sound of water in the inner gardens. You remember your siblings’ laughter, your father’s steady steps through stone corridors, your mother’s voice calling your name with a gentleness that now feels like it belongs to another life.
You open your eyes.
The silence of the Razor Crest is different from the silence you remember on Arkanon.
This one isn’t full of life.
It’s empty.
You sit there for a few more minutes, but eventually you understand you won’t be able to sleep.
So you stand again.
When you return to the cockpit, Din is still where you left him.
His hands move slowly over the controls as he adjusts something on the main panel. The blue light of hyperspace reflects off his helmet, sliding across the beskar like water.
You stop by the doorway.
“I thought you’d be asleep,” he says without turning.
It’s not a question.
“I tried.”
Din doesn’t comment right away. He finishes adjusting the panel in front of him, then leans back slightly in his seat.
“It doesn’t always work the first time.”
You lean against the doorframe, crossing your arms.
“Do you ever sleep?” you ask.
“When it’s necessary.”
“Very reassuring answer.”
The helmet tilts slightly in your direction, as if considering whether that was a joke.
“You don’t need much sleep when traveling through hyperspace.”
“And yet you always look awake.”
“It’s the job.”
You take a few steps closer and sit in the copilot’s seat. From there, the view of hyperspace is even more intense—lines of light cutting across the glass like currents in an endless ocean.
For a few minutes, neither of you speaks.
Then you say quietly, “What was Mandalore like?”
The question seems to surprise you almost as much as it surprises him.
Din doesn’t move right away.
“Why do you ask?”
You shrug slightly. “I don’t know. Maybe because we keep talking about where we’re going… but never about where we come from.”
The Mandalorian remains silent for a few seconds. “I don’t remember much.”
“Nothing?”
“Not enough.”
That answer makes you think.
“I remember everything,” you say softly.
The helmet slowly turns toward you.
“Too much, actually.”
You lower your gaze to your hands.
“Sometimes I wish I could forget,” you continue. “Arkanon, my family… everything.”
The word lingers in the air.
Din doesn’t respond immediately.
When he finally speaks, his voice is calmer. “No.”
You look up. “No?”
“If you forget,” he says, “it becomes easier for others to decide who you are.”
The words hang in the cockpit.
“And you?” you ask after a moment. “Do you know who you are?”
Din doesn’t answer right away.
Then he says simply, “I know what I have to do.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Sometimes it is.”
You watch the hyperspace streaks for a few seconds.
“And me?” you ask quietly.
“You what?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
The question comes out more fragile than you’d like.
Din stays still.
“This,” he says at last.
“Running from one planet to another?” you ask with a faint, tired smile.
“Survive long enough to figure out who you want to become.”
A small, incredulous laugh slips from you. “That sounds like a very vague plan.”
“It works more often than you think.”
Silence returns to the cockpit.
But this time, it isn’t empty.
It’s closer.
As if something between you has shifted, just slightly.
And yet, as you watch the smooth surface of the beskar helmet lit by hyperspace, that same frustrating feeling rises again—impossible to ignore.
Because even now, even after that conversation, there’s still something that keeps you apart.
Something you can’t cross.
And you know that sooner or later, that distance will hurt again.
The silence that follows his words lasts longer than you expect.
The hyperspace streaks keep flowing past the Razor Crest’s windshield like currents of light that never change direction, and for a while you simply find yourself following them with your eyes, as if they could carry you away from the thoughts that keep returning.
But they don’t.
Because your mind inevitably circles back to the same point.
To what Din said.
Survive long enough to figure out who you want to become.
You lower your gaze to your hands, still resting on your knees.
“You make it sound simple,” you murmur after a moment.
Din doesn’t move. He remains seated, his gaze fixed on the ship’s instruments.
“It’s not,” he replies.
“No,” you repeat softly. “It’s not.”
For a few seconds, you consider stopping there. The conversation could end like that, with another silence, with you returning to the back of the ship to try and sleep again.
But something inside you won’t let you stop.
Maybe it’s the exhaustion.
Maybe it’s fear.
Or maybe it’s the fact that, since Arkanon was destroyed, no one has really allowed you to say what’s on your mind.
“Do you know what the problem is?” you continue.
Din’s helmet tilts slightly toward you. “Tell me.”
As you take a slow breath, you feel the words coming before you can hold them back. “You always talk like everything is… linear,” you say. “Like if you just keep moving forward long enough, things will eventually fall into place.”
Din doesn’t answer right away.
“Sometimes they do,” he says.
“Sometimes,” you echo.
A tired smile brushes your lips.
“But that’s not how it works for me.”
The Mandalorian remains silent.
You keep your eyes on hyperspace ahead of you.
“I don’t even know what I am,” you say quietly. “I don’t know what was inside that room on Ellna. I don’t know why the ground moves under my feet when I’m afraid. I don’t know why someone like Fulcrum would come looking for me.”
You pause, then add, “And most of all, I don’t know if I’m supposed to be glad they did.”
The words hang in the cockpit.
Din doesn’t speak immediately.
When he does, his voice is calm. “You don’t have to be.”
You turn toward him.
“No?”
“No.”
The simplicity of his answer surprises you.
“Why?” you ask.
“Because anyone who comes looking for you,” he says, “will have a reason.”
“And that doesn’t worry you?”
“It always worries me.”
That answer leaves you unsettled. “You don’t seem very worried.”
Din tilts his head slightly. “It’s not useful.”
You let out a quiet breath. “Of course,” you say. “Not useful.”
The sarcasm in your voice is light, but not enough to go unnoticed.
The Mandalorian remains still. “If you have something to say,” he says, “say it.”
The words land in the cockpit with a calm that irritates you more than any provocation.
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
For a moment, you don’t answer.
Because the truth is, you don’t really know how to say it.
You’re not even sure you should.
But the feeling that’s been following you for days—that constant distance, that invisible barrier between you and him—presses against your chest again.
Eventually, you sigh.
“The point is that you always seem to know what to do.”
“Not always.”
“Most of the time.”
Din doesn’t comment.
“I don’t,” you continue. “I just keep… reacting.”
You stop.
Searching for the right word.
“Surviving,” you finish.
The Mandalorian shifts slightly in his seat.
“That’s already a lot.”
You shake your head slowly.
“Not enough.”
Silence returns for a few seconds.
Then you say something you hadn’t planned to say. “For you, it’s different.”
The helmet turns a few degrees. “In what way?”
You hesitate for a moment. “You’re always… protected.”
The word hangs between you.
Din doesn’t react immediately. “Protected?” he repeats.
You nod faintly. “By the armor,” you say. “By the rules. By your code.”
The Mandalorian doesn’t move.
“You know exactly who you are,” you continue. “You know what you have to do. You know where you’re going.”
A small gesture with your hand.
“I don’t.”
The hyperspace lights glide across the surface of his helmet.
“It’s not that simple,” he says.
“Maybe,” you reply quietly.
You stand from the copilot’s seat and take a few steps across the cockpit, stopping near the windshield.
The luminous currents of hyperspace seem to flow just meters beyond the glass.
For a moment, you remain silent.
Then you add, almost without realizing it, “But at least you don’t have to wonder every day if someone is trying to use you.”
The words linger in the air.
Din doesn’t respond.
You keep staring ahead.
“Arkanon was my home,” you say softly. “And now it doesn’t exist anymore.”
Your chest tightens slightly, but you go on.
“Ellna was supposed to be a refuge. It wasn’t.”
A deeper breath.
“And now…”
You stop.
You don’t finish the sentence.
Din finishes it for you. “Now you’re here.”
You turn slowly toward him. “Yes.”
The Mandalorian watches you in silence. Then he says, “And you’re alive.”
That sentence, spoken with the same steady calm as always, hits you in an unexpected way.
Because you understand that, for him, it truly is the most important thing.
But at the same time… it isn’t enough.
And something inside you hardens.
“Is that it?” you ask quietly.
“What.”
“Is that all that matters?”
The helmet remains still. “Yes.”
The answer comes without hesitation. And that certainty is exactly what sets something off inside you. Because suddenly you understand what’s been weighing on you the most.
Not the running.
Not the fear.
Not even the power you don’t understand.
It’s the distance. The distance that always remains between the two of you.
And as you keep looking at that smooth surface of beskar, completely hiding Din’s face, you feel that distance suddenly become unbearable.
You stand there with your arms at your sides. Din doesn’t move from his seat, and yet you can feel his attention on you.
Then the words break free.
“Is this what you always do?” you ask at last.
Your voice cuts through the silence with a calm that doesn’t quite hide the exhaustion beneath it.
“What?” he asks.
You don’t turn right away. “Stay distant.”
The word lingers in the cockpit.
Din doesn’t answer immediately. “I’m piloting a ship in hyperspace,” he says after a few seconds. “Not the best moment to—”
“That’s not what I mean.”
You finally turn toward him.
The blue light of hyperspace slides across the surface of his helmet, casting shifting reflections over the beskar. Once again, you’re struck by how impossible it is to read anything behind that smooth, impenetrable surface.
“I mean… this,” you continue.
You make a small, vague gesture with your hand.
“Always like this.”
Din remains still. “Like what?”
The question is simple, but you know it isn’t really.
For a moment, you consider letting it go.
You still could.
You could just shrug, walk back to the rear of the ship, and pretend this conversation never happened.
But it’s too late now.
Because something inside you has already shifted.
“Like nothing can ever really touch you,” you say quietly. “Like everything that happens… always stays outside.”
The Mandalorian tilts his head slightly. “That’s not true.”
“Really?” you shoot back. The word comes out sharper than you intended. “Because from here, it doesn’t look that way.”
The silence that follows is brief, but enough to tell you you’ve hit something.
Din shifts slightly in his seat. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No,” you admit immediately. “You’re right.” You take a step toward him. “Because I can’t know.” Your gaze falls again on the helmet. “No one can.”
The words land between you with sudden clarity.
Din says nothing.
The distance between you is only a few steps now.
And yet it still feels immense.
“Every time we talk,” you continue slowly, “every time you try to explain something to me… it’s like there’s always a wall.” Your voice drops slightly. “I can never really see who you are.”
For a moment, time seems to stop.
Din remains completely still. “Don’t talk about the helmet,” he says at last.
His voice is lower than usual. More tense. It’s not a shouted order, but you feel it all the same.
And instead of stopping, that sentence has the opposite effect. Because suddenly you realize that’s exactly the point.
“Why not?” you ask.
The Mandalorian doesn’t answer.
The silence lasts long enough to become an answer.
Your heart starts beating faster in your chest.
“See?” you murmur, your gaze fixed on him. “That’s exactly it.”
Din slowly rises from the pilot’s seat.
The movement is controlled, but there’s a new rigidity in the way he straightens his shoulders. “Let it go.”
“I don’t want to let it go.”
The words leave you before you can stop them.
The Mandalorian stops.
For a moment, you stand there in silence.
Or at least… you look at him. Because you have no way of knowing if he’s doing the same behind that smooth surface.
“Every time something happens between us,” you say quietly, “every time it feels like, for a moment, that—”
You stop.
You can’t finish the sentence. You don’t need to.
“There’s always this.” Your hand lifts slightly, gesturing toward the helmet. “Always.”
The word lingers in the air.
Din doesn’t move. “You don’t know what it means,” he says.
“Then explain it to me.”
“I can’t,” he replies immediately.
And it’s that certainty that makes something snap inside you. “There,” you say softly. Your chest tightens. “That’s exactly the problem.”
You take another half step forward.
Now you’re really close. Close enough to see the reflections of hyperspace lights sliding across the beskar. Close enough that, for a moment, you wonder what his eyes actually look like behind that dark visor.
“I can’t know what you’re thinking,” you continue. “I can’t know what you feel.” Your voice falters slightly. “I can’t even know if you feel anything.”
The silence that follows is heavy.
Din doesn’t move.
“And sometimes,” you add quietly, “it feels like I’m talking to a wall.”
The words hang between you.
For a long moment, you think you’ve gone too far—then you say the one thing you never thought you would.
“Sometimes… I wish I didn’t have to see that helmet.”
Time seems to stop.
Nothing happens. No sound. No movement.
Only the distant hum of the Razor Crest’s engines and the streams of hyperspace light still flowing beyond the glass.
Din doesn’t move, doesn’t speak—but you can feel it clearly: something has shifted.
The tension in the cockpit tightens like a wire on the verge of snapping.
For a moment—just one—you get the absurd feeling that something might actually happen.
That he might—
But it doesn’t.
Din remains still.
When he speaks, his voice is even lower than before. “Don’t talk about the helmet.”
The words are calm, but this time they’re not just a request. They’re a boundary. And for the first time since you met him, you realize you’ve touched something far deeper than you intended.
Your heart pounds in your chest.
And as you watch him standing there in his armor, unmoving, you realize that the distance between you has never felt so small—and at the same time, so impossible to close.
For a few seconds, neither of you moves.
The hum of the Razor Crest’s engines fills the cockpit with a steady, low vibration, while beyond the windshield hyperspace keeps streaming past like an endless ocean of light. Everything around you looks exactly as it did moments ago.
And yet something has changed.
You can feel it clearly.
Din stands in front of you, unmoving.
He hasn’t taken a step back, but not forward either. His body is tense, rigid in that controlled posture you’ve learned to recognize when something is truly testing him.
The surface of his helmet reflects your movement as you lower your gaze.
Only then do you realize you’ve been holding your breath.
You exhale slowly. “I didn’t mean to…” you begin.
The sentence breaks off before it can fully form.
Because the truth is, you’re not even sure what you meant to say.
Din doesn’t help you finish it.
He remains silent, and his silence weighs more than the words you’ve just spoken.
For a moment, you think he’s going to walk away.
That he’ll return to the pilot’s seat, or simply shut the conversation down like he has before.
But he doesn’t.
He stays.
Close enough that, if you reached out, you could touch the beskar.
The thought hits you suddenly.
You don’t know where it comes from.
You don’t even know why.
But for a moment, you actually imagine it—your hand lifting, your fingers brushing the cold surface of the helmet, trying to understand if there’s something beneath that metal you could finally feel.
The thought lasts only a second.
Then you push it away.
You let your arms fall to your sides.
“It’s just that…” you try again quietly, searching for the right words. “Sometimes it feels like I’m talking to someone I can’t really know.”
The words linger between you.
Din doesn’t move.
Then, very slowly, he inhales.
Through the helmet’s modulator, the sound is faint—but you still hear it.
“It’s easier this way,” he says. The answer comes in that controlled calm you know so well.
And yet this time, it doesn’t convince you.
“For who?” you ask.
The Mandalorian doesn’t answer right away.
The hyperspace lights continue to slide across the beskar, turning the helmet into a warped mirror reflecting the cockpit.
“For everyone,” he says at last.
The answer leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
You shake your head slowly. “Not for me.”
The words come out softer than you expected.
Din remains still.
He doesn’t argue.
He doesn’t justify himself.
And that lack of response makes everything harder.
Because suddenly the exhaustion hits all at once.
The exhaustion of days spent running.
The exhaustion of unanswered questions.
The exhaustion of not knowing what you’ll become.
You take a step back.
The distance between you widens by a few centimeters.
“Maybe I should actually try to sleep,” you murmur.
The Mandalorian doesn’t stop you. “You should,” he says simply.
You stay there for one more second.
Then you turn.
You cross the cockpit without another word and head back toward the corridor leading to the rear compartment.
You don’t look back.
You don’t want to know if he’s still watching you.
But when you reach the threshold, his voice catches up with you. “Princess.”
You stop.
He doesn’t call you that often.
You turn slowly.
Din is still where you left him.
A dark figure in armor against the blue glow of hyperspace.
For a moment, you think he’ll say something different.
Something that might change how that conversation ended.
But when he speaks, his voice is the same as always.
Controlled. Steady.
“Sleeping will help.”
Your chest tightens slightly.
You nod.
“Good night, Din.”
You don’t wait for an answer.
This time, you keep walking.
When you lie down on the bunk a few minutes later, the hum of the Razor Crest’s engines wraps around you like a blanket too thin to warm you.
You close your eyes.
But sleep doesn’t come right away.
Because the last image left in your mind is the beskar helmet lit by hyperspace.
And the growing awareness that the distance between you and Din isn’t made only of space.
It’s made of something far harder to cross.
And as the ship glides silently through the galaxy, one thought keeps returning to you.
If one day that distance disappeared… you don’t know whether it would be the best thing that could happen—or the most dangerous.
Summary: Javier Peña and his partner can't stand each other, but to take down an old enemy they are forced to work together and pretend to be a complacent married couple.
Series warnings: language , violence, alcohol use, slow burn, angst, mutual pining, smut (18+ MDNI), creampie, oral sex (m and f), fingering, masturbation (m and f), trauma and SA referencing.
Masterlist
Before to start… First let me thank you so much for your likes and reblogs, I really appreciate it ☺️ Second, sorry guys, but it took me a while to write, I had neither the calm nor the time, but now here it is. I hope it's decent. If you want let me know. ❤️
Taglist: @love-affair-with-fandoms; @pedr0swh0r3; @angel98624; @missladym1981; @harriedandharassed; @morganlolitta if you want to be added let me know.
Thanks @saradika for the divider. Thanks @vase-of-lilies for the banner
The word game lingers in the air even after no one says it anymore.
It doesn’t need to be spoken aloud to keep existing. It seeps into gestures, into silences, into the way each of you avoids holding the others’ gaze for too long. Monteiro isn’t in the room, but it feels as if he has already taken up a precise space among you—a space no one can ignore.
Mark slowly lowers the tablet, as if even that simple movement could disturb something delicate and fragile.
Javier doesn’t speak right away. His eyes remain fixed on the still-lit screen, but he’s not really reading the data. He’s connecting. Reconstructing.
You stay still for a few seconds, arms still crossed, your gaze steady but not empty. Inside, everything has already started moving again.
It’s not fear.
It’s not anger.
It’s something colder.
“Let me see that section again,” you say at last, addressing Mark.
Your voice is steady, but not neutral. It carries that slight tension that only appears when you’ve already decided you can’t afford any mistakes.
Mark steps closer and turns the tablet toward you, zooming in on the log section. “Here,” he points with two fingers, “manual override. The code wasn’t forced, no failed attempts. It was entered directly.”
You lean slightly toward the screen. Not enough to invade his space, but enough to catch every detail.
“Input interval?” you ask.
“Eight-tenths of a second between blocks.”
You nod slowly. “Too slow for an automated system.”
“It’s not an error. It’s someone who knew the sequence,” Javier adds.
You don’t miss the fact that he spoke without hesitation, completing your reasoning. You don’t look at him, but you register it.
“So whoever entered it,” you continue, “knew exactly what they were doing. And when.”
Mark inhales, then scrolls to another screen. “And they knew where to enter it.”
“Explain.”
“The terminal the access came from isn’t the one assigned to the on-duty operator.”
This time you look up. “Not an authorized station?”
“It is authorized,” he clarifies, “just not for that kind of operation.”
Javier shifts slightly, stepping closer just enough to see better. “So someone used an internal terminal with partial privileges to carry out an operation that requires full privileges.”
“Exactly.”
The silence that follows is full of implications.
You straighten slowly. “That rules out an external hacker.”
“Yes,” Mark confirms. “No remote intrusion. No anomalies in the main firewalls.”
“And no stolen code,” Javier adds.
This time you turn toward him. “No. A valid code.”
The words hang there for a moment, as if no one wants to be the first to draw the conclusion.
Then Javier says it, without emphasis. “So it’s someone inside.”
It’s not a discovery.
It’s a confirmation.
And that’s why it hits harder.
Mark lowers his gaze back to the tablet—not out of uncertainty, but because he’s already looking for more, as if what just emerged is only a starting point.
You, instead, move.
You walk toward the investigation board without haste, pick up a marker, and draw a new line beneath the existing timeline. The gesture is precise, almost surgical.
You write: INTERNAL ACCESS – CONFIRMED.
Then you stop.
You don’t add anything else.
Because everything else, for now, is still uncertain.
“It can’t be a random access,” Javier murmurs behind you.
You don’t turn right away. “Why?”
“Because just being inside isn’t enough to do something like that.”
You turn, slowly.
“You need to know where to intervene,” he continues, “at what point in the system, in which time window. It takes experience.”
You nod. “Or someone giving instructions.”
“To someone already inside,” he concludes.
Mark looks up. “So it’s not just one person.”
You cross your arms, thinking. “Not necessarily,” you say. “But it’s unlikely it’s a single individual without support.”
You step back toward the central table, where the folder with the photograph is still closed.
For a moment, you brush it with your fingers without opening it.
“Monteiro doesn’t improvise,” you add, almost to yourself. “If he organized the escape like this, he built the structure beforehand.”
“How far in advance?” Mark asks.
You look at him. “Far enough to already be in place when we entered France.”
The sentence lands heavier than it should.
Javier picks it up immediately. “So the photo…”
“It’s not the beginning,” you cut in, looking at him. “It’s a phase.”
The way you say it shifts something in the room.
You’re no longer facing an isolated event.
You’re inside a sequence.
Mark runs a hand through his hair, thoughtful. “If that’s the case, then he observed not just the operation, but the team dynamics.”
“Or someone told him,” Javier replies.
You don’t react immediately.
You don’t want to go there out loud yet.
But the possibility is there.
And it’s not that far.
You take a step back from the table, as if you need space to think. “Before we involve Diáz,” you say at last, “I want something more concrete.”
Javier nods almost imperceptibly. It’s not a challenge to authority. It’s operational caution.
Mark hesitates for a moment, then accepts it too. “Where do we start?”
You look at him.
Not like before. Not with distance.
With real focus.
“At the edges,” you answer. “Secondary terminals. Temporary access. Rotating personnel.” You pause, then add, “And anyone with just enough access to go unnoticed.”
The silence that follows is no longer just concentration.
It’s awareness.
Someone opened the door for Monteiro.
And it wasn’t a mistake.
It was a choice.
And as you sit back down, as you reopen the logs and start scrolling through data that now carries a different weight, you understand that from this point on the problem is no longer just finding who’s outside.
It’s figuring out who stayed inside.
And that, more than any escape, is what makes the game truly dangerous.
For a few seconds, no one says anything.
The sound of the computers seems louder than usual, or maybe it’s just the way the silence has grown thicker, more present. Mark slowly goes back to his desk in the other room, already immersed in the data again, while you stay where you are, your gaze still fixed on the board, as if staring at it long enough might force it to give you an answer.
It doesn’t happen.
It never works like that.
You hear the metallic click of the lighter before you even see the motion.
A small sound. But sharp.
You turn only slightly.
Javier is near the window, his back against the wall, a cigarette between his lips while the flame lights up his features for a second. He shouldn’t be doing it. He knows it. You all do.
And yet he does it anyway.
The first drag is slow, almost deliberate. The smoke disperses quickly in the cold air slipping in through the crack in the window, but not enough to erase the smell.
You watch him for a second too long.
Then you turn back to the screen.
“You know you can’t smoke in here,” you say, with no real emphasis.
It isn’t a reprimand.
It’s an observation.
He exhales slowly, unhurried. “I know.”
He doesn’t apologize.
He doesn’t put the cigarette out.
And that, more than the gesture itself, irritates you.
Or maybe not.
Maybe it isn’t irritation.
Maybe it’s just the fact that he keeps doing exactly what he wants, even now, even with everything that’s happening.
“If Diáz comes in—”
“He won’t,” he cuts in, with a certainty you can’t tell is calculation or plain stubbornness.
His tone isn’t provocative.
It’s calm.
Too calm.
You tilt your head slightly, your gaze drifting back toward him. “Have you started predicting his movements too?”
One corner of his mouth lifts a fraction. “No. Just yours.”
The sentence hangs between you.
It isn’t meant to flirt.
It isn’t meant to hurt.
It’s stated like a fact.
And that’s what makes it more dangerous.
You lower your eyes to the monitor, but you’re not really reading anymore. The coordinates in front of you lose meaning for a moment.
“Then you should know I’m working,” you reply.
“I know.”
Another pause.
The smoke slowly dissolves, but its presence remains.
Javier pushes off the wall and takes a step toward the desk. Not enough to invade your space. Enough to change the distance.
“You’ve been working since we left the briefing,” he adds. “Without stopping.”
“It’s my job.”
“Not like this.”
At last, you look up. “Like what, Peña?”
His name comes out colder than you intended.
He notices. “The way you’re using it.”
The answer hits harder than you want it to.
Your fingers tighten slightly on the mouse. “Using what, exactly?”
Javier stops a step away from the desk. The cigarette is burned halfway down now, smoke drifting slowly between you.
“The work,” he says simply. “So you don’t have to think.”
Something in the way he says it gets under your skin.
Not because it’s wrong.
Because it’s too close to the truth.
“You’re not in a position to make that kind of assessment,” you shoot back, a thread of stiffness in your voice.
He doesn’t back off. “I’m not assessing you.” He falls silent for a moment before adding, “I’m observing.”
A faint half-smile escapes you, but it isn’t amused. “Worse.”
The silence that follows is no longer tense the way it was before. It’s even more… charged.
Javier drops his gaze for a second, then lifts it to you again. “Do you remember what you said in the conference room?”
You don’t answer.
Not right away.
“That Monteiro isn’t running,” he continues, “he’s repositioning.”
You nod faintly. “Yes.”
“You’re doing the same thing.”
The sentence hits without warning.
And for a moment, you don’t have an answer ready.
You just look at him.
“Don’t confuse the two,” you say at last, quieter.
“I’m not.”
Javier takes another half step, then stops. This time the distance is minimal. Not enough to touch you. Enough to make everything else secondary.
“I’m saying you’re much more like him than you’d like to admit.”
That one lands.
Not because it’s offensive.
Because it’s dangerous.
“Watch what you say,” you murmur.
His gaze doesn’t waver. “I am.” He goes still for a beat, then continues. “Just not enough to lie to you.”
Time seems to slow again, the way it did with the photograph.
Only this time there’s no paper, no ink.
There’s just the two of you.
And everything you’re both refusing to say.
The cigarette burns slowly between Javier’s fingers.
For a moment it stays there, suspended, as if neither of you wants to be the first to break that silence that is no longer just silence.
You lower your eyes to the screen, but the lines of code have lost coherence. Not because they’ve changed—because you’ve stopped really reading them.
He’s too close.
Not enough to touch you.
Enough to remind you exactly what happens when he does.
You straighten almost imperceptibly, as if that small movement were enough to put things back in order.
“If you’re done,” you say, turning back to the monitor, “we have a more urgent problem than me.”
The sentence comes out harsher than it needed to.
Javier doesn’t answer right away.
He crushes the cigarette calmly, then drops the butt into the improvised ashtray by the window. When he turns back toward you, something in his expression has changed.
Not less intense.
More controlled.
“You’re right,” he says.
No provocation.
Just work.
And that unsettles you more than before.
Because the tension hasn’t gone away.
It’s only shifted.
“Let’s go back to the logs,” he continues, stepping toward the desk without invading your space anymore. “If the override came from an internal terminal, I want every workstation active in that time window.”
You nod, already back in operational mode. “Not just active ones. I want the ones marked inactive too, if they’ve had recent access.”
Mark comes back in without making a sound, the tablet still in his hand, as if he kept working even while moving from one room to another.
He stops near his station but doesn’t sit right away. First he listens, his eyes moving quickly from you to Javier, as if trying to understand where things stand.
“We could check the inactive terminals too,” he says, more cautious than confident. “The ones that show as offline but had recent access.”
You turn slightly toward him.
“Dormant terminals,” you repeat, more to organize the thought than in approval.
Mark nods, this time with more certainty. “Yes. If someone knows the system well enough, it’s the easiest way not to get noticed.”
“Exactly,” you confirm. “If someone knows the system, they can use a station that isn’t regularly monitored.”
Mark turns fully to his computer, his fingers moving faster over the keyboard now. “Give me a minute.”
Javier remains by your desk, but this time he keeps a very precise distance. Measured.
“If we find a discrepancy,” he says, “we don’t report it right away.”
You look at him. “You want to work it first without bringing in Diáz.”
It isn’t a question.
He nods once. “Until we know what we actually have.”
Mark speaks without taking his eyes off the screen. “That could be risky.”
“It is,” you answer. “But so is moving too soon.”
A brief silence.
Then Mark stops.
Not completely.
But enough to notice.
“Wait.”
You don’t look up right away.
You’ve learned to recognize the difference between when someone thinks they’ve found something and when they actually have.
This is the second one.
“Talk.”
Mark enlarges one of the screens, then turns the monitor slightly toward both of you.
“Three terminals show as inactive during the override window,” he explains. “But one of them… has a micro-access logged a few minutes earlier.”
You step closer.
Javier does the same.
Neither of you looks at the other.
You both look at the screen.
“Micro-access?” you ask.
“Short login. Under four seconds. No official activity recorded.”
Javier tilts his head slightly. “Long enough to authenticate.”
“And to open a command window,” you finish.
Mark nods. “Then exit without leaving an operational trace.”
Your heart slows instead of speeding up.
A sign you’re entering that mental zone you know well.
The one where everything reduces to logic.
To sequences.
To possibilities.
“Who had access to that terminal?” you ask.
Mark hesitates. Just for a second.
“Several people.”
That answer doesn’t help.
“Narrow it.”
He swallows lightly, then opens another window.
“Technical maintenance shift. Shared access.”
Javier lets out a quiet breath. “Perfect.”
Not sarcasm.
Just recognition.
“So we don’t have a name,” he says.
“Not yet,” you reply.
You don’t step back from the screen.
You don’t move.
“But we have a point.”
The silence that follows is different from the ones before.
Less personal.
More… dangerous.
Because now it’s no longer an idea.
It’s a direction.
Mark runs a hand through his hair, then adds, “If we want to narrow it further, we can cross-reference the access with who was physically in the building.”
“And with who shouldn’t have been,” Javier adds.
You nod.
“Do it,” you tell Mark. “But local only. No central servers.”
He looks at you. “To keep—”
“—whoever it is,” you cut in, “from seeing what we’re looking for.”
He understands immediately.
“Okay.”
He starts typing again.
Javier steps half a pace away, drifting back toward the window without lighting another cigarette.
This time he follows the rule.
And you don’t know whether that reassures you or irritates you more.
You stay where you are beside the desk, your eyes still on the monitor, but your mind already beyond it.
Monteiro isn’t running.
He’s building.
And someone on the inside is preparing the ground for him.
This is no longer about finding a lead.
It’s about understanding how solid it is—and how close it really is to you.
Mark finally sits down, the screen casting a faint glow across his face as he opens a new set of windows. His fingers move quickly, but not chaotically—there’s structure to it, even if it’s still unpolished.
You don’t move right away.
You remain by the desk, your eyes fixed on the scrolling data, but your mind already a few steps ahead. You’re no longer looking for a mistake.
You’re looking for a choice.
And that changes everything.
“If he used a dormant terminal,” you say slowly, “it wasn’t random. He avoided the monitored points.”
Javier leans back against the edge of the window, arms crossed. He doesn’t smoke. Not this time.
“So he knows the internal layout,” he adds.
“Or someone gave it to him.”
You don’t look at him when you say it.
You don’t need to.
Mark tilts his head slightly, focused on the screen. “I’m cross-referencing access logs with physical presence in the building… badges, entries, exits.”
A beat.
“This will take a few minutes.”
You nod faintly.
Time, in that room, seems to change consistency. It’s no longer something that passes—it’s something that builds.
You move slowly toward the board, picking up the marker again. You don’t write immediately. You hold it there, as if carefully deciding what deserves to be fixed in place.
Then you draw a sharper line beneath the timeline.
Below it, you add a single word: ACCESS.
Not “error.” Not “anomaly.”
Access.
Javier watches the gesture. “You don’t think it was a weak point,” he says.
“No.” You turn slightly toward him. “I think it was a chosen one.”
The way you say it settles the matter.
You’re not looking for a flaw.
You’re looking for someone who opened a door.
Mark pauses.
Not completely—but enough for you to know something caught his attention.
“Wait.”
You don’t look up immediately.
You let him continue.
“I’m narrowing down the people present on that floor during the override window.”
A pause.
“Fewer than I expected.”
You step closer.
Javier pushes off the window at the same time.
You both end up behind him, without coordinating.
“How many?” you ask.
“Five.”
Too many. And too few at the same time.
“Show me.”
Mark splits the screen into sections: badge access, terminal activity, timestamps.
“These are the officially logged ones,” he explains.
You follow the rows.
Names.
Times.
Movements.
All clean.
Too clean.
“And these?” you ask, pointing to a second column.
Mark hesitates for a fraction of a second.
“Secondary access.”
“Not official.”
“Not tracked at the same level.”
Javier leans in slightly. “So someone could’ve been there without showing up in the main logs.”
“Yes.”
The silence that follows is brief, but enough.
You break it. “Then we’re not looking for who was there.” You straighten. “We’re looking for who shouldn’t have been.”
Mark nods immediately, but this time there’s something different in the way he does it. Not uncertainty.
Focus.
“I can cross-reference with unscheduled maintenance routines,” he says.
“Do it.”
He turns back to the screen, but for a moment his fingers hover over the keyboard, as if weighing something.
Then he resumes.
Javier watches him for half a second.
He notices.
And you, without looking directly, feel it.
Not because it’s obvious—but because you’re used to reading the smallest shifts.
You return to the board. Add another mark beneath ACCESS.
Just a line. Open.
“If it’s someone internal,” you say, more to organize your thoughts than to share them, “this isn’t the first time.”
Javier answers without hesitation. “No.”
“So they’re not afraid.”
“Or they know they’re not being watched.”
Mark speaks, still focused on the screen. “Or they know exactly where we don’t look.”
The sentence lingers.
And for the first time, it’s not just a technical hypothesis.
It’s about you.
You stop. Look at him. Just for a second.
Then you go back to work. “Then we start looking there,” you say.
And as the room starts moving again, as the data begins to flow and the connections multiply, you realize the problem is no longer just finding a breach in the system.
It’s accepting that someone, from the inside, already knows all of yours— and that, up until now, they’ve always been one step ahead.
Hours pass without you really noticing.
The light beyond the windows has grown darker, more even, as if the city has slowed down along with the rest of the team. Only a few people remain in the open space now: a couple of keyboards still active, distant voices, the steady hum of systems that keep running even when people start to give in. Mark is at his station, focused on a set of cross-checks that now move almost automatically beneath his fingers, while you haven’t really stopped at all.
You never do when you find something to hold on to.
And yet, this time, it’s not just the work keeping you there.
“If you keep going like this, you’re going to miss exactly what you’re looking for.”
Javier’s voice comes from the doorway of your office, low but enough to cut through your thoughts. You don’t turn right away; you let the words settle, find a place among the data and the hypotheses you’re trying to hold together.
“I don’t think so,” you reply at last, keeping your eyes on the screen.
Javier remains leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on you. The earlier tension—the sharper kind—is gone, replaced by something else, more controlled, as if he has deliberately chosen not to push the distance.
“You always do this,” he adds.
You finally look up, more out of fatigue than any real intention to engage. “Do what, exactly?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. He studies you, unhurried, as if carefully choosing his words—or deciding how far he’s willing to go.
“You focus on what you can control,” he says, “so you don’t have to look at what would make you lose it.”
The sentence lingers between you, free of any open accusation, and precisely for that reason harder to dismiss. You turn back to the screen, seeking refuge in something concrete.
“We’re working on an internal access, Peña. That’s what matters.”
“I know,” he replies without moving. “But you’re working on everything except that.”
Your fingers still on the keyboard—not hesitation, but a moment of suspension you can’t fully control. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No,” Javier admits, with a calm that disarms more than any insistence, “but I know it’s not Monteiro that’s making you react like this.”
That forces you to really look at him. Not in passing, not defensively—but to understand how far he’s gone.
“He is the problem,” you say, keeping your tone steady.
“It’s what he represents,” he corrects.
The silence that follows isn’t empty; it’s filled with something shifting just beneath the surface—something you have no intention of bringing up. Javier tilts his head slightly, never breaking eye contact.
“And what does he represent?”
You could end the conversation right there. Go back to work. Let the question drop as if it carries no weight. It would be the easiest choice—the most consistent with everything you’ve built so far.
But you don’t.
“Someone who thinks he knows how I work,” you answer, your voice lower than you intended.
“And that bothers you.”
“No.”
The answer comes too quickly, and you know it the moment you say it.
Javier doesn’t push, but he doesn’t look away either. “It bothers you because it’s not the first time.”
This time, you’re the one who falls silent. Not for lack of words—but because the right ones arrive before you’ve really decided to use them.
“There’s always someone convinced they know exactly where to hit,” you say at last, your gaze dropping slightly. “And that they’re right.”
The words come out with a naturalness that surprises you almost as much as saying them aloud.
“And sometimes you don’t even have to do anything,” you add after a beat, “because it happens anyway.”
The room feels emptier, stiller, as if everything else has momentarily stepped back to leave space for that moment.
Javier speaks only after a few seconds. “It’s not the same.”
You shake your head slightly, not really looking at him. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” he concedes, finally stepping into the room, “but I know you’re not the cause.”
The sentence hits you with a precision you didn’t expect—far more than any direct question. You look up, and for a moment your expression loses that perfect rigidity you keep for everyone else.
“Don’t say that.”
It’s not an order. It’s not anger.
It’s something more fragile. More dangerous.
“Why?” he asks, without raising his voice.
You hesitate for a second, then answer with a sincerity you hadn’t planned. “Because it doesn’t work like that.”
You don’t add anything else.
You don’t need to.
The silence that follows is no longer as tense as before—but it isn’t resolved either. Javier doesn’t push further, doesn’t try to force a full explanation, and maybe that’s exactly what makes the moment more real than any direct confrontation.
He stops there.
And for the first time, you’re not the one ending the conversation.
You turn back to the screen, but the data in front of you is no longer just numbers and sequences to reconstruct. Somewhere, among those accesses and anomalies, there’s someone who knows the system well enough to move without leaving traces—someone who chose exactly where to enter and when to disappear.
Monteiro isn’t running.
He’s building something.
And if it’s true that there’s always someone convinced they know exactly where to strike, then this time it’s not just about stopping him.
It’s about understanding how deep he’s already gone.
And, more importantly, whether—by now—he’s already learned how to use your own rules against you.
Before to start... thank you to follow this story 🙏🏼❤️
Thanks @vase-of-lilies for the banner
Sansa was trembling. She barely managed to get back on her feet, taking two unsteady steps toward the door, but failed.
Her breathing came heavy.
Then she saw him.
The man who had reduced her to this state was resting peacefully.
Her hair was filthy, tangled with dust and blood. Her face was twisted by an expression of pain mixed with confusion. Her eyes were swollen and glassy, her lips red and split. Her clothes had been reduced to little more than torn rags. Her body was covered in scratches and bleeding cuts.
She would never sleep again.
She would never relax again.
It felt as though, in that very moment, in that very room, Sansa Stark had finally broken.
More tears fell from her eyes—small, warm drops—but she promised herself they would be the last.
She would not survive with words. She would not survive with courtesy. No one was coming for her.
She would have to save herself.
She looked at her tormentor, lying naked in his bed, sleeping as if nothing had happened. She wished she had a dagger—but she didn’t. The one the Hound had given her was gone, likely buried somewhere in the woods with him.
All she had to do was step closer, press her hands around his throat, and squeeze until he drew his last breath.
She looked at him with hatred. With disgust.
She stepped forward.
But in that instant, Ramsay opened his eyes.
And looked at her.
Her intent must have been obvious, because he smiled.
He smiled as if he had just seen something beautiful.
“Do you see clearly now?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“You know, I’ll confess—I never cared much for my father… and his death only made me lord of this place.” His smile widened. “You, on the other hand, have been quite… entertaining.”
Sansa said nothing.
“But now that I’ve had a taste of you, I think my hounds should have a taste as well…” He laughed softly. “I assume you’ve met them. Lovely creatures, aren’t they?”
Sansa wished the Hound were there to tear him apart. He would have found meat for his teeth.
“My lord,” a man said, opening the door, “men of the North at the gates!”
Ramsay dressed quickly.
“It’s begun,” he said with a grin. “Bring her down.”
The Hound reached Winterfell swiftly.
He was greeted by snow and a bitter wind that scraped against his skin.
He recognized some of the King in the North’s men. He recognized the direwolf as well—it let out a low howl, as if warning its master that a dog had entered the pack.
Hundreds of eyes followed Sandor Clegane as he entered the great hall.
Some watched him with curiosity. Some greeted him with a slight nod. Others whispered as he passed. A few narrowed their eyes, suspicious of his presence.
Young Robb Stark sat at the far end of the hall, near the massive hearth, with his mother, his wife, two boys, and an older advisor.
Sandor bowed, not daring to raise his gaze.
He heard the woman’s voice—Catelyn Stark.
“Clegane, where is my daughter? Why is she not with you?”
“I failed, my lady. Roose Bolton’s heir took her.”
Sandor didn’t dare look at their faces.
He only prayed he would still have his head in a few minutes.
“You said she would be safe with him!” Robb snapped.
“So I believed as well, Robb,” his mother replied, her voice controlled.
“We thought the war was over—and instead—” He cut himself off. “I should have you executed for this failure. You know that, don’t you?” Robb hissed.
“Robb, enough. Let him speak,” Catelyn said. “Tell us what happened. And stand.”
Sandor lifted his head, keeping his focus mostly on Lady Stark, and began recounting everything from the moment their paths had parted.
Robb muttered something under his breath while his wife placed a calming hand over his.
Catelyn inhaled slowly, then ordered the man sitting nearby to take the two younger boys away. The conversation that was about to unfold was not meant for children.
Sandor listened as Robb laid out his strategy.
An encirclement of the Dreadfort. A full assault.
He heard how deeply Robb loved his sister—felt it, almost, in the air—though he never spoke her name directly.
“If anything has happened to her… I will hold you responsible, Clegane.”
It was the only clear reference. A quiet, deadly threat.
Once, Sandor would have bitten off the finger of anyone who dared point at him.
Not now.
He was guilty. Or at least, he felt he was.
He said nothing.
What was there to say?
Sansa was in the hands of a madman—worse, by all accounts, than King Joffrey. He had heard of the Bolton custom of wearing their enemies’ skin like cloaks.
Even for him, that was… something else.
“If we leave now, we’ll reach it by sunset,” Robb announced.
A roar rose in the hall—men shouting for the King in the North. The direwolf’s howl joined them.
The army was larger than the last time Sandor had seen it. Hundreds more men.
And he was allowed to join them—only because of Lady Stark.
Robb would have refused.
In the end, he relented—placing Sandor in the front line.
The first to die.
The King in the North truly despises me, Sandor thought.
He smiled.
He would prove that foolish boy wrong.
Sandor Clegane would bring his sister back.
Alive.
By sunset, the army stood before the Dreadfort, rising along the banks of the Weeping Water.
They had arrived.
And the battle could begin.
Sansa was once again surrounded by darkness.
But this time, she barely seemed to notice.
It was as if it wasn’t her down there in the dark. As if it wasn’t her feeling the cold seep into her flesh, into her bones. As if it wasn’t her hearing Ramsay Bolton’s hounds growling.
She blinked several times.
At one point, she was even tempted to step closer to the cages and let the dogs devour her.
But then another thought came.
She wished it were him being torn apart by his own hounds.
That thought made her smile.
And it was the first time Sansa had ever smiled at someone else’s misfortune—
at someone else’s death.
In that blinding darkness, she heard war horns.
Then the whistle of arrows.
Then screams.
So many screams.
She hoped those horns belonged to the men of the North.
Sansa was trapped down there. She could do nothing.
Only listen.
The cries of pain. The clash of swords and axes tearing through armor. She heard the walls being struck by fire—she knew it from the flashes and the muffled screams of men running past her door.
She moved toward the door.
Tried to open it.
Failed.
Fool.
She squeezed her eyes shut and forced her breathing to steady. The air was suffocating. The stench of filth and dampness filled her lungs.
She fought the urge to vomit. To faint.
She had to be strong.
She breathed through her mouth, swallowing hard whenever bile rose in her throat.
The dogs began to snarl louder, throwing themselves against the bars of their cages, shaking them violently.
Sansa screamed.
But her scream was swallowed by others—men outside her door.
She heard hurried footsteps.
Then a clash.
The wet, choking sound of flesh being torn.
More of those sounds.
Then something slammed against the door.
Someone was trying to open it.
But couldn’t.
“For the Seven Bloody Hells!” a voice cursed from the other side.
Sansa froze.
She knew that voice.
She sprang to her feet in the darkness.
For a moment—nothing.
Silence returned, ruling that place once more.
Had she imagined it?
Then—
A pounding against the door.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Four.
Finally, it gave way.
The door burst open.
Torchlight flooded in.
Sansa shielded her eyes, squinting.
It was him.
The Hound.
He had come back.
He was there for her.
For a moment, Sandor didn’t even recognize the figure slowly approaching him.
She looked like a ghost.
Long red hair. Skin as pale as Winterfell’s snow.
A beautiful shadow.
A broken one.
She came closer and stared at him.
Her face was drained of color, her lips red like a ripe apple, split slightly, dried blood marking the cut. Her dress barely covered her chest, her body. Her feet were filthy, bare against the cold stone.
Sandor threw his cloak over her shoulders, wrapping it tightly around her.
She said nothing.
Only looked at him.
It was like lifting a piece of ice.
She was freezing. Silent.
He had carried her before.
But this time was different.
She was different.
He saw it in her face—white as milk, her eyes full of tears, her lips red, the scratches along her neck.
She closed her eyes.
But she didn’t relax in his arms.
She was rigid.
Like a drawn bow.
She opened them again only when she heard her brother’s voice.
They were in the courtyard of Winterfell.
Sandor set her down.
She threw her arms around Robb’s neck, whispering something into his ear.
Robb looked at Sandor.
Then spoke.
“Bring her a blanket. Get her food immediately. Send the Maester. See that she is treated.”
The men of the North led Sansa away—but not before she turned back.
She looked at him.
Silently.
Robb approached.
His expression was grave.
“I never liked you,” he said plainly. “Not from the first time I saw you at Winterfell. You were—and still are—a dangerous man. People around you die. Or suffer worse fates.”
He paused.
“I was against you then. When I saw you again, that feeling didn’t fade. It only grew.”
“My mother insisted Sansa escape with you,” he continued. “And you failed.”
His jaw tightened.
“Only the gods know what that bastard did to my sister.”
A long silence.
“You deserved to be executed,” Robb said quietly. “But once again, my mother spoke for you. She allowed you to fight with us.”
Another pause.
“Today, you fought well. You fought like one of us.”
He held Sandor’s gaze.
“So… thank you for that. And thank you for finding her. For bringing her back.”
A beat.
“You’ve done a great service.”
Then, almost casually—
“Do you still want your payment?”
Once, Sandor would have traded anything for gold.
Now?
Nothing had the same weight.
He could walk away rich.
Free.
But he would carry a chain around his neck all the same.
Summary: Javier Peña and his partner can't stand each other, but to take down an old enemy they are forced to work together and pretend to be a complacent married couple.
Series warnings: language , violence, alcohol use, slow burn, angst, mutual pining, smut (18+ MDNI), creampie, oral sex (m and f), fingering, masturbation (m and f), trauma and SA referencing.
Masterlist
Before to start… Hey guys, I know I update slowly, but the story is still moving forward. Thank you for being patient and still being here 🤍
Taglist: @love-affair-with-fandoms; @pedr0swh0r3; @angel98624; @missladym1981; @harriedandharassed if you want to be added let me know.
Thanks @saradika for the divider. Thanks @vase-of-lilies for the banner
The open space feels smaller than usual.
Too many people.
Too much tension.
Too many glances pretending not to watch you.
El Diablo has escaped.
Even after the second briefing, even after reviewing the transfer footage frame by frame, the news still feels unreal. The assault was clean. Military. Precise. Someone on the inside helped.
You’re standing in front of the investigation board, arms crossed, studying the timeline you reconstructed yourself less than an hour ago. Your black marker pressed so hard in some places that the white surface is almost scratched.
You hear footsteps behind you.
You don’t turn.
“You’re going to put a hole in the board if you keep staring at it like that.”
Peña.
Of course.
“I didn’t ask for commentary,” you reply without looking at him.
Silence.
Then he steps closer. You feel him stop beside you, close enough to sense his warmth, but not enough to touch you.
“Durand,” he says quietly. “If El Diablo had outside support, that’s still our best lead.”
You turn slightly. “I don’t think Durand would take a risk without a major return.”
Peña nods. “So you think this wasn’t just an escape?”
“No,” you confirm. “It’s a repositioning.”
A flicker passes through his eyes. He’s thinking the same thing.
Before he can add anything, Mark approaches with a tablet in hand.
He’s about to call you by your name, then hesitates for a moment, choosing neutrality. “I checked the financial movements tied to Durand’s front companies.”
You turn fully toward him. “That fast?”
“Three withdrawals in the last forty-eight hours. Through secondary intermediaries. Too clean to be random.”
Peña looks at him. “Amounts?”
“Enough to fund private transport and false documents. Not large enough to trigger international alerts.”
You nod slowly.
He did well. Fast.
Peña notices.
“You sure it’s Durand?” Javier presses.
Mark holds his gaze. “Yes.”
A second of tension.
You step in before it escalates. “Send me the trace. I’ll cross-check it with port records.”
“Already done,” Mark replies.
You turn back to the board.
Behind you, Peña comments in a deliberately light tone, “Careful, Marley. Keep this up and you’ll raise expectations.”
“They don’t scare me,” Mark replies calmly.
You don’t turn, but you feel the shift in the air.
Peña is tensing.
A little later, in the meeting room, Diáz stands at the head of the table.
“Durand left Marseille two hours before the convoy assault,” he says. “Private jet. Declared destination: Geneva.”
You lean forward. “He didn’t free El Diablo to celebrate. He did it to move him.”
Diáz nods.
Peña crosses his arms. “Durand usually moves only when he feels pressure.”
“Or when he feels strong,” you counter.
His eyes slide over you. “Dangerous optimism.”
“Realism,” you reply coldly. “If he were afraid, he’d disappear. Instead, he’s reallocating resources.”
Diáz watches both of you. “What’s your read?”
You don’t hesitate. “El Diablo isn’t running. He’s reorganizing. And that means he still believes he has leverage.”
“Over what?” Peña asks.
You look at him. “Over us.”
A heavy silence falls over the room.
“He knows how we work,” you continue. “He knows who led the last operation.”
Peña stares at you.
“And he knows you went undercover,” Diáz adds.
You don’t lower your gaze. “I know.”
Marley stiffens slightly.
Diáz studies you. “Can you work this case?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
Peña speaks first. “She can.”
You don’t look at him. You don’t thank him. But you heard.
When the briefing ends, you walk away quickly.
Not because you’re breaking.
Not because the idea of El Diablo being free is speeding up your pulse.
Walking fast feels like control.
You close your office door.
You breathe.
A light knock.
“Hey.”
Mark.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
“Perfectly.”
He doesn’t leave. “I read the files. You were directly involved.”
“Yes.”
“You never took leave after.”
You raise an eyebrow. “Is that a question?”
“It’s an observation.”
You stand slowly. “I’m not going to fall apart, Mark.”
“I didn’t say you would.” He is silent for a moment “That man attacked you,” he says quietly. “And now he’s out.”
Your jaw tightens. “He failed.”
He sighs, then adds, “If you need support, I’m here.”
You look at him more sharply. “Support is protocol.”
“I meant beyond protocol.”
There’s a thin line there.
You step closer.
“Careful, Mark Marley. Concern can be misinterpreted.”
A faint smile on his lips. “Interpretation doesn’t worry me.”
A slow clap from the hallway.
Peña.
Leaning against the wall.
“Am I interrupting something?” he asks.
Your back straightens. “Do you need something, Agent Peña?”
“Diáz wants Marley on port surveillance. Now.”
Mark looks at him for a moment, then nods and leaves.
You’re alone.
Peña closes the door.
No smile. No warmth.
Just tension.
“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone,” he says.
“I’m not.”
“Then stop acting like you’re untouchable.”
You laugh without humor. “I’m not the one pretending indifference.”
His jaw tightens. “Marley isn’t your shield.”
“And Andrea isn’t your distraction,” you fire back.
Direct hit.
“Don’t,” he says through clenched teeth.
“You kissed Andrea.”
You don’t say it as an accusation. You say it as a fact. But the way your jaw tightens gives everything away.
Javier inhales slowly. “You told me to move on.”
“Moving on doesn’t mean—” You cut yourself off.
He tilts his head slightly. “Doesn’t mean I stop mattering to you?”
The silence that follows is louder than any answer.
“This is work,” you cut in. “El Diablo is the priority.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
You walk past him. “If you did, you wouldn’t be in my office arguing about personal boundaries.”
He steps closer. “Tell me something. If El Diablo came looking for you… who do you think would be at your door first?”
You don’t hesitate. “The team.”
A shadow crosses his eyes. “Right.”
He turns, opens the door.
“Don’t underestimate Marley,” he adds without looking at you. “He’s not naive.”
Then he leaves.
You’re alone.
Back straight. Gaze steady.
But your hands are trembling slightly.
And you hate that he can still do this to you.
The noise of the computer drills into your brain.
The faulty fan produces that intermittent hum you now know by heart. Every now and then, the desk vibrates slightly. Every now and then, it sounds like it’s about to explode.
But it doesn’t.
Just like you.
The station is wrapped in a tense calm. It isn’t silence—it’s the kind of quiet that comes before something. Papers shifting, keyboards tapping, a distant cough. The smell of stale coffee and paper.
Mark is sitting a short distance away, focused on a screen full of coordinates. His shirt sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and his expression shows more curiosity than experience. He’s good. He’s learning fast.
Javier is standing near a window cracked open just a few centimeters. He doesn’t smoke inside—since Diáz arrived, that rule has become an unspoken law—but he holds an unlit cigarette between his fingers, like a habit he can’t quite let go of.
But it doesn’t matter.
He’s not looking at you. Or not directly.
You’re mapping Durand’s possible movements over the seventy-two hours before the escape on a digital map. You’re cross-referencing train routes with city cameras, temporary phone signals, cash payments. It’s the kind of work that requires absolute focus. The kind where you can bury anything.
The trauma. The jealousy. The night in France. Your stepfather’s voice.
The office door opens with a short creak.
No one looks up right away.
It’s the archive clerk, a woman in her fifties who doesn’t like interruptions.
“This just came in.”
She’s holding a brown envelope. No letterhead. No sender. Plain. Too plain.
She sets it down on the central table.
“It was in the internal mail. Addressed to you, Agent,” she adds, looking at you.
No one moves.
Javier is the first to react. He pushes off the window and steps closer. He doesn’t touch it right away. He studies it like something that might explode.
You stand up slowly.
Not because you don’t care—but because you’re afraid to know what’s inside. And who it’s really meant for.
Mark moves too, but stays a step back. He’s attentive. Curious. Still new enough not to know that curiosity can cost you.
“Scanned?” Javier asks the woman.
“No.”
Silence.
You’re already there.
The envelope doesn’t seem heavy. Not rigid. It doesn’t feel like it contains metal.
“It’s not a bomb,” you say, touching it lightly.
Javier shoots you a sideways look.
“Open it behind the glass.”
It’s not an order.
It’s precaution.
You take the envelope into the empty interrogation room, the one with the one-way mirror. Mark follows. Javier stays outside, but doesn’t walk away.
You put on latex gloves.
You cut the corner with a box cutter.
There’s only one thing inside.
A photograph.
You slide it out slowly.
And the world stops.
Not for everyone.
For you.
It’s the beach.
France.
The day before the arrest.
You’re in profile, sitting on a deck chair. Your hair is moving in the wind. Your expression is irritated because of something Javier had just said—you remember that moment perfectly.
You remember thinking, for a second, that everything felt normal. That the cover wasn’t entirely wrong.
The photo was taken from a distance.
With a telephoto lens.
Someone was watching you.
And you didn’t know.
There’s a red circle drawn on the print.
Not around your face. Around your waist. Where the microphone was hidden.
The ink is still glossy.
Below it, written in black ink: you didn’t understand how the game is played.
Not more than a few days old.
You don’t move.
Mark is the first to step into the interrogation room and break the silence.
You don’t speak. You don’t break.
“This means that—”
“That we were never invisible,” you finish.
Javier comes in too.
He doesn’t comment on the beach.
He stops beside you. Looks at the photo.
He doesn’t comment on your expression.
He notices the technical detail immediately. “Telephoto. At least 200 mm.”
Mark steps a little closer. “Hotel?”
You nod. “And elevated angle. Not from the shoreline.”
“Or a private balcony,” you say.
A heavy silence settles between you.
Javier’s jaw tightens. “Or someone on the team.”
You lift your gaze.
Cold.
“It’s not a warning.”
Mark looks at you.
“It’s an invitation,” you add, placing the photo on the table.
“If he wanted to scare us, he’d have sent something more direct. This is… theatrical.”
Marley swallows. “He’s playing with us.”
You don’t say it with fear.
“No,” you correct him. “He’s playing with me.”
You say it like a fact.
And he understands.
Javier finally looks at you. Not at the photo. At you.
You’re not shaken.
You’re holding everything inside.
And that worries him more than a breakdown ever could.
Javier stays silent a moment too long.
You don’t look at him anymore. You study the photo as if it were a medical report.
“Durand wouldn’t have done something like this,” Javier says at last.
You nod.
“Durand is operational. He executes. Organizes transfers. Manages contacts. He’s not theatrical.”
No need to say more.
Mark tilts his head. “So… Monteiro.”
El Diablo.
He’s not a man who sends messages out of anger.
He sends them for strategy.
Javier notices. “He circled the wire.”
You brush your fingers over the red circle drawn on the image. “He didn’t circle my face.”
Silence.
Mark swallows. “You’re saying he… knew?”
You cross your arms. “Not necessarily. But he suspected.”
“Before the arrest,” you answer immediately.
Javier takes the photo and tilts it under the light. “The question is: when was it taken?”
“You sure?” Mark asks.
“Yes. Right after his arrest, we never went back to the beach. We stayed—” you were about to say in the room for the next five days, but you stop yourself “—we stayed shaken,” you add quickly.
Javier watches you for a moment. He knows exactly what you were thinking. And what you almost said.
“So someone was already watching us while we were preparing the arrest.”
“Or,” you say quietly, “someone was watching me.”
Mark takes a step back. “Why you?”
You don’t answer right away.
You don’t want to turn the room into something personal.
He doesn’t say it possessively.
Javier answers for you. “Because she went into his private room.”
He says it like an operational fact.
You add, “Durand handles movement. Monteiro chooses people.”
The weight of the sentence lingers in the air.
The door opens again.
Javier hands him the photo without a word.
Diáz walks in without knocking. “What’s going on?”
Diáz reads the line written underneath.
His face tightens slightly. “When did this arrive?”
“Ten minutes ago,” Mark answers.
You keep your tone neutral. “It concerns all of us. It’s a statement of presence.”
Diáz looks at you. Not with pity, but with assessment. “This concerns you directly.”
Diáz nods slowly. “Monteiro doesn’t make useless moves. If he sent this, it means he wants us to see it.”
Javier crosses his arms. “Or he wants her to see it.”
The pronoun carries weight.
You ignore it.
“Monteiro escaped during a high-security transfer,” Diáz continues. “And now we get this.”
Everyone turns toward him.
Mark speaks up, his voice more decisive now. “It could be a distraction.”
“If Monteiro wants us to think he’s watching her, he might be moving something else.”
Diáz studies him. “Go on.”
Mark inhales. “Durand is the logistical link. If Monteiro wants to re-enter Europe through new routes, he needs someone to reactivate contacts. The escape could’ve been planned months ago.”
He doesn’t look at you with pity.
You watch him. Calm. Analytical.
He doesn’t treat you like you’re fragile.
And that helps.
Javier steps in. “Durand doesn’t risk a high-profile escape just to reopen routes. If he organized it, it’s for something bigger.”
You complete the thought. “He’s preparing a message. Or an event.”
The photo.
Diáz closes the folder. “And right now, the message is this.”
“It’s not a direct threat,” you say.
“No,” Javier replies. “It’s a reminder.”
The question is professional.
Diáz looks at you again. “Are you fit to work this case?”
You don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“I’m not interested in pride.”
“It’s not pride.”
Silence.
“It’s competence.”
Javier doesn’t take his eyes off you.
He turns to Mark.
Diáz nods. “Good. Then we proceed.”
“I want a full forensic analysis of the photo. Paper, ink, residues, prints. Even if we probably won’t find anything.”
Summary: You must marry the Prince of Dorne. He respects you, but he doesn't want you. Years later, things change, but something disturbs and upsets your serenity; so it's up to you to reveal the secrets and lies that threaten to disturb you forever.
TW: arranged marriage, Oberyn is older than you, use of female pronouns and reference to female features of the main character, use of you, Oberyn likes men and women like in the TV series, death, violence, smut. I will mark chapters with a warning if there are descriptions that might bother you.
credits: divider created by @zaldritzosrose
MASTERLIST
No one had told you that becoming a wife would mean learning to live beside an absence.
Sleep is not a refuge. It is only another corridor of the castle, darker than the others, where no one asks you to smile, yet your body keeps remembering.
You wake before dawn, when the air is still cold and unmoving, and the loudest sound is your own breathing. For a moment, you lie still, staring at the ceiling—the dark beams, the thin cracks between the stones. The bed is too large to be yours, and too neat to feel real.
You turn onto your side.
There is no one there.
There has never really been anyone there. And yet, emptiness has its own way of taking up space. You can almost feel it like a presence: the place that should belong to a husband, the place that is instead only an authorized absence.
You push yourself up and listen.
Nothing.
A castle sleeps differently than a house. A house breathes. A castle holds its breath.
You rise, barefoot. The floor is freezing. You cross the room with light, almost guilty steps, and pull the curtain at the window just slightly. Outside, it is still dark. The courtyard is a gray blur of stone and shadow, the torches along the passageways burning low, as if they too were growing tired.
You don’t see Oberyn.
You catch yourself looking for him, and the realization irritates you. You shouldn’t be looking for him. It doesn’t concern you. It shouldn't.
You pull away from the window as if it had been the one drawing you in.
You wash your face in a basin of cold water. Your hands tremble slightly, but it’s not just from the temperature. When you look at yourself in the dull mirror they left you—a piece of polished metal that distorts—you see eyes that are far too awake for a day that hasn’t even begun.
You slip into a simple dress, the simplest you have here. Though nothing is ever truly simple: even “modest” fabrics in a castle are softer, cleaner, more expensive than anything you ever wore in the village.
That’s what hurts most.
That even your poverty, here, would be a luxury.
When you step out of the room, the corridor is empty. The torches are nearly burned out, and the smell of stone fills your lungs. You walk without knowing where you’re going. If you stayed shut in there, it would start to feel like the walls were closing in.
You reach a narrow window overlooking the inner courtyard.
The light is changing, slowly. The sky is growing pale, but it is not a gentle dawn. It is a colorless one, without promises.
A servant passes at the far end of the corridor, a bundle of sheets in his arms. He sees you and immediately lowers his gaze, as if you were a knife laid on a table and he didn’t want to cut himself.
“My… lady,” he murmurs, uncertain.
The word still sounds wrong to you.
You give a slight nod, because by now you’ve learned that here, nodding is safer than speaking.
The boy hurries away.
You remain there, watching the courtyard.
And you think of Cole.
The thought comes without asking permission.
Cole running, Cole laughing, Cole with his hands covered in flour and dirt. Cole taking your hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if touching you didn’t require the world’s permission.
Cole, now, who is only a name.
A name spoken by a man with a Tyrell seal at his throat.
A name that was taken from you with a single sentence.
Gone.
Your heart aches in a way you can’t explain. It isn’t just fear. It’s something subtler: the feeling that the past is becoming unreachable, like a village swallowed by a flood.
You wrap your arms around your chest, as if you could hold yourself together.
The sound of firmer footsteps makes you turn.
Talia.
You recognize her before you even see her. Your aunt has a way of occupying the air—she never enters a place without it knowing. She is already carefully dressed, her hair pinned, her face set like a weapon.
Her gaze travels over you, from head to toe.
“You’re up early,” she says.
It’s not a compliment. It’s an assessment.
“I couldn’t sleep,” you reply.
Talia presses her lips together slightly, as if “I couldn’t sleep” were a fault. Then she steps forward and stops beside you at the window, looking out as though the courtyard belongs to her.
“You look tired,” she comments. “Try not to show it. Fatigue makes people… sincere.”
You almost laugh, but you hold it back. Sincerity here is a sin.
“It will be another full day,” she continues. “The Prince Regent isn’t leaving today.”
“Prince Regent.” Doran. The grand words slide over you like cold rain.
“And your husband…” Talia pauses for a moment, as if the word itself irritates her. “…will be present. At least enough.”
The sentence tightens something in your stomach.
“Where is he?” you ask before you can stop yourself.
Talia glances at you sideways, both surprised and faintly disgusted.
“It’s not like you to ask about a man.” she says.
Your back stiffens.
“It’s not my habit to ask about anyone,” you reply. “Here. But—”
“But nothing.” Talia cuts you off. “The Prince of Dorne has his own ways. And we are not in a position to judge them. Nor to comment on them.”
We.
As if you truly belonged inside that word.
Talia smooths an invisible crease in her gown, then continues in a more practical tone: “You’ll come down for breakfast shortly. The real one, not that farce from yesterday with the envoy. There will be fewer outside eyes today, but more inside ones. It’s not better. It’s different.”
“And Oberyn?” you ask, without thinking.
Talia exhales softly through her nose.
“If he’s where you think he is, I don’t know,” she says curtly. “If he’s where I think he is, it’s none of my concern. And it shouldn’t concern you.”
A chill runs down the back of your neck.
Not because you truly care where he goes. You tell yourself that, and you only half believe it.
It unsettles you because it reminds you of your place. Because it makes you feel, again, like when your father spoke of you as something to be moved.
Talia brushes your shoulder. The touch is light, but it isn’t affection. It’s guidance, the way one would guide an animal that might run.
“Smile when you enter,” she says. “Not so much that you look foolish. Just enough to seem… trained.”
Hatred rises in your throat. You swallow it.
“Yes, my lady,” you reply.
Talia nods, satisfied, and walks away with the same measured step as before, leaving behind the scent of perfume and control.
You remain there a moment longer, staring outside, until the cold seeps into your bones and forces you to move.
You descend the stairs slowly, because every step is a way to delay what awaits you.
The breakfast hall is smaller than the great banquet hall, but no less formal. Here, formality isn’t a celebration—it’s a habit.
Your father is already seated.
When you see him, you feel the old instinctive reaction: a tightness in your stomach and the want to become invisible. It's as if your skin remembers what it means to be under his gaze.
Next to him is Doran.
The Prince Regent appears more tired in the daylight. His eyelids are heavy, his hands carefully placed on the table, as if even the act of placing them were a decision. He's not weak, though. He looks tired. Not weak. Controlled.
Baelor is across the table, not too far away.
He looks at you and smiles, that half smile that never reaches his eyes. Your cousin always has the look of someone who is always waiting for someone to make a mistake, because someone else's mistake gives him a place in the world.
Oberyn is not there.
The seat reserved for him is empty. That should reassure you.
But that's not the case.
You sit with your back straight. Hands in your lap. Your smile trained in the right place.
“Daughter,” your father says, as if he were granting you the honor of existing. “finally.”
You don't answer with a sentence. You nod.
Doran tilts his head slightly toward you. It's a small gesture, but deep down you sense something akin to true courtesy. Maybe it's just because the comparison with your father makes everything more human.
“I hope the night was… kind,” Doran says.
The word kind almost feels out of place. It hurts in a strange way, because it reminds you that there are people who know how to choose their words.
You hesitate.
“It was… silent,” you finally reply.
Baelor makes a low sound that could be a stifled laugh or a cough. He does it on purpose, quiet enough to deny, loud enough to be heard.
Your father ignores him. Or pretends.
Doran's expression doesn't change, but his eyes slide over Baelor for a moment, as if cataloging him.
“Silence is a rare luxury,” Doran comments. “Sometimes a blessing.”
You don't know whether he's saying it for yourself or for himself.
Your father puts the glass down on the table with a sharp touch. “Oberyn hasn’t come down yet,” he says, as if it were an irrelevant detail. But there is that familiar note of irritation in his voice: the note of the man who hates what he cannot control.
Baelor allows himself to intervene, with an innocent air. “Perhaps he doesn’t rest well in such… green surroundings,” he says, as if it were a comment on the climate. “Or perhaps he dislikes certain company."
The sentence hurts you.
You look at him. Not with anger, but with the clear awareness of someone who recognizes poison when they smell it.
Doran barely looks up. He doesn't smile. “My brother sleeps where he can,” he says simply.
Your father gives a hint of a smile. It's not warm. It's a strategic smile. “Of course,” he replies. “I understand that Dorne has… different customs.”
The word different is used as inferior.
You bite your tongue to avoid speaking, to avoid responding as you would like.
Baelor adds, as if worried, “It’s just… people notice, uncle. People talk. And a new union—”
“People can talk until their tongues wear out,” your father interrupts coldly. “And House Florayne will stand regardless.”
Baelor lowers his head, obedient. But something shines in his eyes that isn't obedience. It's satisfaction: he's managed to take the conversation where he wanted.
Doran says nothing for a few moments. He seems to listen to the clatter of cutlery, the faint rustling of servants entering and exiting.
Then he asks, in a calm tone, “Any news of the boy?”
You stiffen.
Your father slowly puts down his fork. He's a man who knows when a topic is risky.
“None,” he replies. “And I don’t think the news will get through any faster if we mention it in the morning.”
Doran nods slowly, as if acknowledging it. He doesn't insist. But it's not because he's giving up. It's because he's choosing.
You can't help but look at Oberyn's empty chair. Not because you miss him. Because his absence is something everyone sees, and you're sitting here as a symbol, not as a person.
Baelor follows your gaze and smiles. “Looking for him?” he asks, his voice too gentle.
Your father gives you a sideways glance.
You feel heat rise. Anger. Humiliation.
“I’m wondering why everyone feels entitled to question what I ask,” you reply. The sentence comes out harder than expected.
A silence falls over the table. Not long, but long enough for everyone to truly understand what you mean.
Doran lowers his eyes to his plate, as if he's decided not to intervene. Your father stares at you with that familiar coldness: the coldness of a man who doesn't forgive the unexpected.
Baelor, on the other hand, looks amused. As if this was exactly what he wanted.
Talia enters at that moment, as if she's sensed the silence from afar. She sits down with her calculated calm, and her gaze immediately slides to you.
Check.
Your father speaks as if nothing has happened. “Prince Oberyn will come when he pleases,” he says. “We are not the ones to dictate to a Martell.”
The phrase sounds like a concession, but it's full of contempt. A man like your father doesn't concede without hatred.
Doran finally looks up. “My brother,” he says softly, “is… impatient. But he’s not disrespectful. He just never learned to pretend.”
This sentence remains in the air.
You think: I'm learning to pretend instead. And it disgusts you.
Time passes. The bread grows cold. The words become more innocuous, but you don't relax. Every noise in the hallway seems like a prelude to something.
When you finally hear footsteps approaching, you recognize him before you even see him.
Oberyn enters slowly.
He's not wearing a cloak. His dark hair is still a little disheveled, as if he's had little sleep, or as if he's slept where sleep isn't really possible. His gaze sweeps across the table in an instant, recording everything: the silence, the positions, the moods.
He neither apologizes nor justifies himself.
He sits down and it's as if the room changes temperature.
Your father looks at him with a tense smile. Baelor watches with predatory curiosity. Doran watches with that calm that always seems painful. You observe him only for a moment. Then you lower your eyes.
Oberyn places his hands on the table and takes a piece of bread, as if it were the most important thing in the world. Only then does he speak. “You look happy,” he says. The sentence seems casual, but there is irony underneath.
“We feared the Reach had swallowed you,” Baelor replies, too quickly, too happy to speak.
Oberyn looks at him like a fly. “I’m not that easy to digest,” he says.
Talia looks down at her plate. Your father's jaw tightens.
You feel something strange: no pleasure, no sympathy. Just a little relief. As if, with him in the room, there was something unpredictable, something that was beyond your father's control.
Oberyn takes a sip of water. Not wine today. And it hits you without you even meaning to.
“We must talk about your leaving,” your father says, trying to regain control of the conversation and the situation.
Oberyn looks at him. Not like a subject. Like a man wondering why he should listen. “We must?” he repeats.
Doran intervenes before the room breaks. “There are... tensions,” he says. “And the journey south requires preparation.”
Oberyn gives a brief smile. “Always the tension,” he murmurs. “Always preparation. Rarely living.”
Baelor laughs softly, as if it were a funny joke. But you can tell he's laughing to curry favor.
Oberyn gives him a sharp look and Baelor stops immediately.
The meal ends shortly thereafter, without further tension, but with the feeling that something is simmering beneath the surface.
When you stand, Talia motions for you to follow her. Your father gives you a look that doesn't bode well. Baelor looks at you as if he already knows what's coming.
Oberyn rises last.
You hear his footsteps behind you in the hallway, but you don't turn around. You don't know why, and that only irritates you more.
Talia leads you to a side corridor, away from the room. “You answered,” she says softly, without looking at you.
“They provoked me.”
“They’ll always provoke you,” she replies. “And you can’t afford to respond every time. Not if you want to stay whole.”
Stay whole.
The phrase hits you in the chest. Because the truth is, you no longer know what it means.
“Baelor talks too much,” Talia says, her tone neutral, as if commenting on the weather. “And he often confuses prudence with the need to be seen.”
She gives you a brief, measured look.
“He's young,” she adds, and the word isn't indulgent, but protective. “And your father willingly listens to those who bring him news, even when that news is... unripe.”
You stop. "What does he want to do?" you ask.
Talia finally looks at you, her eyes harder. “He wants you to be presentable. Obedient. And ready to go.” She pauses. “And he wants no one to say that the new union with Dorne is… fragile.”
You start walking again because you can no longer bear to stay still.
And as you do, you feel that step behind you again.
It's Oberyn.
He doesn't say anything. He doesn't call out to you. He doesn't stop you, but his presence behind you is enough to make you tense your shoulders.
Then, suddenly, you feel it—the shift. His footsteps change direction. He’s moving away. You don’t turn. You won’t. You won’t give him that power. And yet, when you reach the corner and the corridor opens for a moment onto a narrow window, you catch him in the reflection— Oberyn turning into a side passage. One that doesn’t lead to the main halls.
He leaves.
Again.
No explanation.
This time, the word absence settles more clearly in your mind. It isn’t just the way he is. It’s a choice.
He isn’t yours.
He won’t be.
And maybe that’s what unsettles you most—that you don’t know whether you want him to be different, or if you simply want to stop being watched like an object.
You return to your chambers with Talia.
She talks—about gowns, about travel, about how a wife is meant to behave along the road. You listen, and you don’t. The words pass over you like falling snow.
When you are finally alone, you close the door behind you and lean back against the wood.
You breathe.
You think of Cole.
You think of the emptiness.
And you think of the fact that Oberyn, at least, hasn’t touched you.
It’s an ugly thought, because it should be nothing. And here, it feels like relief.
You move to the window and look out once more into the courtyard.
You don’t see Oberyn.
You see Baelor.
He stands near a column, speaking to a servant. You can’t hear the words, but you see the tilt of his head—the shape of an order being given. The servant nods too quickly.
Baelor looks up, as if he had felt your gaze. For a moment, he sees you at the window.
He smiles.
And you understand. The day isn’t over.
It never is, here.
And somewhere in the castle you cannot see, Oberyn is already slipping beyond the walls—bored of formalities, drawn toward the air of the streets… or toward anything real enough not to ask him to pretend.
When Oberyn leaves House Florayne’s castle, he does not do so like a man fleeing.
Men flee when they have something to hide.
He leaves like a man who has already decided that no one has the right to stop him.
The courtyard is still alive with servants moving in disciplined patterns, carrying jugs, trays, baskets. The guards stand at the gates with the air of men reciting a script learned generations ago.
Oberyn crosses through it all without slowing.
He doesn’t take a horse.
He dislikes being announced by the sound of hooves, dislikes leaving traces that can be followed. He has always been more dangerous when he arrives without warning.
He passes the secondary gate with the faintest nod. The guards do not stop him. Not out of respect. Out of instinct.
Men learn quickly to recognize predators—even when they don’t bare their teeth.
The village that surrounds the castle is not the one the Floraynes show their guests.
Here, the land is not decorative.
Here, life smells of sour beer, sweat, horses, and meat roasted too close to the fire.
Oberyn moves through the low houses with the ease of someone who has walked through cities far more dangerous than this one. He does not look around with curiosity—he registers. Every movement. Every half-open door. Every gaze that drops too quickly.
A woman washing clothes pauses to watch him.
A man outside a tavern pretends not to see him.
It’s the best way to survive men like him.
The house he stops in front of has no sign. It doesn’t need one.
The thin curtains in the window are amber-colored.
Inside, candlelight casts slow shadows against the glass.
Oberyn knocks.
Two beats.
A pause.
A third.
The echo of an old language few still remember.
The door opens.
Zaraya does not look surprised.
She is not a woman who startles easily.
She leans against the inner frame, her body relaxed but alert—like a blade resting on a table, ready to be taken up at any moment.
She wears a dark silk gown, the color of ripe pomegranate, fastened at one shoulder with a worked silver clasp. The fabric falls softly along her body without truly hiding it, without offering it either.
Her black hair is loose, wavy, threaded here and there with small gold beads.
Her eyes are the first thing anyone notices. Dark. Bright. Too attentive.
Zaraya studies him as if measuring him—not only with her eyes, but with memory.
“You’ve changed,” she says softly.
Oberyn doesn’t answer at once. His gaze drifts over her body, slow, deliberate, as if checking that every detail is where he remembers it. Or perhaps to convince himself it isn’t.
“You haven’t.”
She smiles slightly—a smile that offers no comfort. “I change every night.” A brief pause. “You’re late.”
Oberyn steps inside without waiting to be invited.
He closes the door behind him.
“I’m here,” he says. “Still alive. That seems like a good enough excuse.”
Zaraya watches him with deliberate slowness, letting her gaze trace every line of his body as if she were reading a story she knows by heart—but wants to make sure has not changed.
“Men like you always come back when they’re about to do something stupid. Or when they need someone to tell them it isn’t.”
“I’ve never done that.”
“I know.”
The room is warm, lit only by candles and low braziers. The air smells of sandalwood, spiced wine, and something subtler, more personal—something that belongs only to her.
Zaraya moves toward a low table, pouring wine into two cups. Her movements are slow, deliberate without seeming so. The kind of gestures that make people forget she’s watching every breath they take.
She hands him the cup.
Her fingers brush his for a moment longer than necessary. It isn’t accidental. Zaraya never does anything by mistake.
Oberyn takes the wine but doesn’t drink right away. He watches her—the way candlelight reflects on the dark skin of her shoulders, the slow rise and fall of her breath beneath the silk.
“You didn’t come for the wine,” she says.
“I never do.”
Zaraya tilts her head slightly, studying him. “Then why do you look like a man trying to remember how to breathe?”
Oberyn finally drinks. A short sip, as if the taste matters less than the gesture. “Because I’ve spent too much time among people who think breathing is a concession.”
Zaraya lets out a quiet laugh. It isn’t kind. It’s complicit. “And now you’ve come back to people who know it’s a right.”
He sets the cup down without taking his eyes off her. “I haven’t come back. I’m just passing through.”
She crosses the distance between them in two slow steps. Close enough for him to feel the warmth of her body, not close enough to offer herself.
“You never just pass through,” she says softly. “You mark places. And then you abandon them.”
Oberyn lifts a hand, letting his fingers trace the line of her arm—from shoulder to wrist. Slow. Deliberate. Not possessive. Knowing.
Zaraya doesn’t pull away.
Instead, she takes his hand and guides it along her side, beneath the thin fabric. The contact is warm, alive. Her breathing shifts, just slightly.
“You’re tense,” she observes.
“I’m always tense.”
“No.”
Her eyes lift to his. “You’re angry.”
The silence that follows is brief, but real.
Oberyn pulls her toward him in a sudden, decisive movement. His mouth finds hers without hesitation. The kiss is deep, hungry, but controlled. He is not a man who loses control—he measures it.
Zaraya responds immediately, catching his lower lip lightly between her teeth, like an old challenge between them. Her hands slide beneath his tunic, up his back, reading every tension in his muscles as if it were a language only she understands.
He lifts her easily and sets her down on the low table behind her. The cups clink; one tips, spilling a thin line of wine across the dark wood.
Zaraya laughs again, but this time the sound breaks when Oberyn grips her face and kisses along her throat, moving slowly toward her bare shoulder.
His fingers tighten over her breast through the silk—firm, unhurried. She arches into his touch, her breath catching in a low exhale.
“Always impatient,” she murmurs.
“Always honest,” he answers against her skin.
Zaraya slips down from the table and pushes him back toward the bed, guiding him with a confidence that is anything but submissive. She makes him sit, then pauses before him, letting her fingers slowly undo the silver clasp at her shoulder.
The dress falls along her body like a whispered secret.
Oberyn looks at her without speaking. It's not blind desire. It's recognition.
She climbs onto his lap, her skin against his, the heat immediate. His hands slide down her back, gripping her, holding her against him as if contact were the only stable thing in that room.
They don't say anything to each other, their mouths find each other again and again, without words, finding each other's bodies.
When she guides him inside her, she does so while looking into his eyes. Without haste. Without lowering her gaze.
The movement between them is slow at first, almost measured. Then it becomes deeper, more urgent, but always accompanied by that heavy silence that exists only between people who know each other beyond desire.
Zaraya leans toward him, her lips against his ear. "You brought the pain with you," she whispers.
“I always bring something.”
Her fingers tangle in his hair as the rhythm between them breaks into something fiercer, faster. When they finally stop, they remain like this, united, their breaths trying to find the same rhythm.
Zaraya is the first to move. She lifts herself off him, but doesn't move away. She lies down next to him, her head resting on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slowly returning to normal.
“Now you can talk,” she says.
Oberyn closes his eyes for a moment. Just a moment. “A boy is missing.”
Zaraya doesn't react immediately. It's a sign that she's understood this isn't just any question. “Many kids disappear,” she replies.
“Not this one.”
Silence.
“Who is he?” she asks.
“His name is Cole.”
The name hangs between them like something fragile.
Zaraya raises her head, observing him with newfound attention. “This boy isn't who you think he is,” she murmurs.
Oberyn looks at her. “Explain.”
She slowly gets up, retrieves her robe but doesn't close it. She walks to a small chest near the wall and takes out an object wrapped in cloth.
She places it on the bed between them.
It's a knife.
The blade is narrow, elegant, crafted with thin incisions that look like waves intertwined with thorns.
“Does this remind you of anything?” she asks.
Oberyn looks at it. His eyes narrow slightly. “It’s not from the Reach.”
“No.” Zaraya runs a finger over the symbol engraved on the hilt. “It belongs to a house that should no longer exist.”
Oberyn looks up at her. “And Cole?”
“Cole carried it as a child,” she replies. “And someone... someone who pays well... has been looking for him since long before he disappeared.”
The silence that follows is no longer sensual nor full of that previous complicity. It's a dangerous one.
Zaraya returns to his side, sitting and observing him in silence for a moment. The candlelight casts golden reflections on her skin, but her gaze remains steady.
“What you are when you come in here stays here,” she says softly. “And what you fight for out there, I won't sell to anyone.” she pauses. “But I’ll tell you this: whoever’s looking for that boy doesn’t want a peasant. They want what he represents.”
Oberyn closes his fingers around the knife hilt. “And what does he represent?”
Zaraya looks at him as if she's deciding how much to risk. “A story someone buried too quickly.”
The knife remains between you on the bed, the blade reflecting the candlelight with a slow, almost lifelike flicker.
Zaraya doesn't touch it anymore. She lets him decide whether to grab or ignore it.
Oberyn watches it silently. His fingers barely glide over the hilt, not closing it in a fist. As if he recognized the language of the blade even before the symbol engraved on it.
“It's not a peasant's weapon,” he says finally. His voice is low. Not surprised. Just... careful.
Zaraya shakes her head slightly, her hair falling over her bare shoulder. “It never was.”
She settles down next to him, sitting sideways, one leg tucked under her. She's in no hurry to cover herself completely.
“That boy,” she continues, “didn’t disappear by accident.”
Oberyn finally looks up at her. “No one disappears by accident.”
Zaraya smiles faintly, a smile that isn't amusement. It's approval. “You've always had this flaw. You look at things as if they were already connected.”
“And they usually are.”
Silence.
The crackling of the brazier fills the room. The heat makes a drop of sweat glisten on her collarbone, which he follows with his eyes absentmindedly.
“Tell me what you know,” he says finally.
Zaraya leans back against the headboard, studying him calmly. “I know his name has been circulating for years among people who have no interest in the fields of the Reach.”
“Who?”
“Relic dealers.” A pause. “Blood collectors.”
Oberyn's jaw tenses slightly. It's a tiny movement, but Zaraya sees it. Zaraya always notices everything.
“Go on,” he says.
She reaches out and takes the knife, turning it slowly between her fingers. “This symbol...” she traces the line engraved on the hilt. “belongs to a house that the East of the Sea prefers to remember as a legend.”
Oberyn observes the sign with new attention. “A walking legend?” he asks.
“A legend that someone tried to exterminate.”
The silence grows heavier, no longer intimate—more like the edge of war.
Zaraya places the blade in his palm, offering it to him. “Cole doesn’t know what he’s carrying,” she says. “But someone does. And they want him alive.”
Oberyn takes the knife this time. His fingers close around the hilt effortlessly. As if the object already belongs to him, in a way he himself can't explain.
“Why do they want him alive?”
“Because dead blood is of no use to anyone,” she replies.
He raises an eyebrow, almost imperceptibly. “You sound like a priestess.”
Zaraya tilts her head. “I speak as someone who listens to people who pay not to be listened to.”
A pause.
“Who's looking for him?”
Zaraya hesitates. It's the first real hesitation she's shown. “Not a name,” she says finally. “A network.”
“Nets are cut.”
She looks at him with a hint of bitter amusement. “Not when they're made up of nobles, merchants, and old vendettas.”
Oberyn doesn't answer.
Silence stretches between them like an invisible map.
Zaraya looks at him. Then asks, more quietly, “Why do you care?”
There's no accusation in her voice. Just curiosity.
Oberyn places the knife beside him, on the crumpled sheet. “Because someone might use it on my wife.”
The words hang in the air. Heavy.
Zaraya studies him as if she's reading a page she didn't think she was reading. “Your...” she pauses briefly, “...wife.”
Oberyn doesn't turn to her. “Don’t give me that look.” he adds.
“I’m not making any faces.”
“You’re making the face you make when you’re deciding whether to laugh or stab someone.”
Zaraya actually laughs this time, a low sound, “I didn’t know you were so attentive.”
He shifts slightly, leaning against the headboard beside her. The contact of their shoulders is only seemingly casual. “She's not my concern” he says. Then he adds, after a moment, “But I won't let her be used.”
“Does she resemble her?” Zaraya asks suddenly.
There's no need to say the name, Oberyn knows the reference.
He doesn't answer right away.
The fingers stop on the sheet, as if unable to move.
“No,” he says finally.
Zaraya tilts her head. She's not a woman who believes in simple answers. “How’s she different?” she asks.
Oberyn breathes in slowly. “Elia was… restrained light,” he murmurs. “She knew how fragile the world was, and she kept looking at it without lowering her gaze.”
The silence stretches between them.
“And her?” insists Zaraya.
Oberyn's eyes drop for a moment, then harden again. “She still hasn't understood how cruel the world can be,” he replies. “And I have no intention of being the man to teach her.”
Zaraya nods slowly, as if that were the only possible answer. “And yet… it seems to bother you that someone might break her,” she notes.
Oberyn turns his face toward her. His dark eyes are colder now.
“Because someone already has. Enough.”
The silence that follows is different.
Zaraya leans her head back against the wall behind her, staring at the ceiling. “Cole had been watched for months,” she continues. “Not just by those who live in the shadows. Also by people who wear rings and seals.”
“Tyrell?”
“Not directly.” A pause. “But someone who buys what the Tyrells prefer not to see.”
Oberyn folds his arms across his chest. “And now he’s gone.”
She looks at him. “Or taken.”
“By whom?”
Zaraya inhales slowly. “If I knew, you wouldn’t be here asking. And I wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell you.”
A hint of a smile passes between them. The kind of respect that only exists between people used to lying to survive.
Oberyn leans forward, picking up the knife again. “Where did you find this?”
“It came here with a man who never gave his real name,” she replies. “He paid for silence. Not for pleasure.”
“And?”
“He died three months ago.” She pauses briefly. “Throat cut in a street too narrow for anyone to claim they saw.”
Oberyn nods faintly, as if that kind of death were a language he knows well.
Zaraya watches him again. “If you follow this,” she says quietly, “it won’t end with a peasant saved.”
“I’ve never believed in fairy tales.”
She leans toward him, her fingers brushing his chest, tracing slowly along an old scar. “No,” she murmurs. “You only believe in revenge.”
Oberyn catches her wrist—not roughly, but with decision. “I believe that people who use others like pieces eventually forget that pieces bite back.”
Zaraya smiles. Slow. Proud. “That’s why I let you in here,” she says. “Not because you pay.”
He releases her wrist but doesn’t move away. “Then why?”
She leans closer, her forehead almost touching his. “Because you never lie enough to insult my intelligence.”
The silence between them fills again with warmth, but it’s different from before. More dangerous. More lasting.
Zaraya moves slowly away from the bed, retrieving her robe and closing it this time with unhurried gestures. “I’ll ask questions,” she says.
“I know.”
“They won’t be free,” she adds.
“I never asked you to.”
She turns toward him. “If anyone finds out you’re looking for this boy, they won’t come for you first.”
“They’ll come for her.”
Zaraya nods. “Then listen carefully, Oberyn Martell.” Her tone shifts, suddenly sharper. “If you want to protect her, you need the world to believe you don’t care enough.”
He gives a faint smile. “I’m good at that.”
Zaraya studies him a moment longer. “Too good,” she says quietly. “Maybe.”
When Oberyn leaves Zaraya’s house, night has already fallen over the Reach like a veil too heavy to ignore.
The air is colder outside, more damp. It carries the smell of turned earth, lit hearths, wine spilled across tavern floors. Real smells. More honest than the spices and perfumes of the castle.
He doesn’t turn when the door closes behind him.
He never does.
Zaraya’s words linger on him like an echo that refuses to fade.
Cole is not what you think.
The knife.
The carved symbol.
Someone was already looking for him.
Oberyn walks without hurry through the village streets. His steps are light, but not silent enough to seem furtive. He has no need to hide. Men who know how to kill don’t need to look like shadows to be feared.
A lantern sways above the entrance of a tavern. From inside comes a rough chorus of drunken voices. A woman laughs too loudly. A dog barks, then falls silent, as if it has recognized something it would rather not disturb.
Oberyn keeps walking.
He is thinking.
Not about politics. Not yet.
He is thinking about the precision with which Zaraya always chooses what to say—and what not to say. If she mentioned a lost house, it means someone powerful enough to erase it might still be alive… or someone reckless enough to try to bring it back.
When the castle walls rise before him again, he doesn’t slow.
The guards at the secondary gate see him approaching and stiffen almost imperceptibly. No one speaks. No one asks.
The gate opens.
Oberyn crosses the courtyard with the same stride with which he left it hours earlier. Fewer servants now, lower torches, longer shadows. The castle at night feels more honest: less ceremonial, more cruel.
He enters.
He doesn’t return immediately to the rooms assigned to him.
Instead, he turns into a side corridor, one he memorized on the very first day. Fortresses are all alike, if you know where to look. Service passages, narrow stairways, routes built for those who are not meant to be seen.
The silence here is deeper.
Only the distant crackle of torches.
Oberyn moves without hesitation. He doesn’t count his steps. He feels them.
He stops only when he reaches the bend that leads to the wing where his wife’s chambers lie.
He doesn’t enter.
He doesn’t approach the door.
He stays in the shadows, leaning against a worn stone column. From there he can see the corridor—and beyond, through a narrow arch, the window of her room.
The light inside is out.
For a moment, he thinks you are asleep.
Then he sees you.
A dark shape against the window.
You're standing. Still. Your shoulders straight, but not rigid. Your hands resting on the sill as if you're trying to hold the world outside… or keep yourself from falling into it.
The wind stirs the curtains behind you. Moonlight slips in through thin stripes, tracing silver lines along the curve of your face, your neck, your bare arms.
He doesn’t know how long you've been standing there.
You don’t look like a woman waiting for someone.
You look like a woman learning how to be alone.
Oberyn remains still.
Not because he doesn’t know what to do. Because he knows exactly what he must not do.
To step closer would mean breaking something that isn’t his. Something that, perhaps, you don't even have the right to own.
He watches as you tilt your head slightly, as if searching for something in the courtyard below. Maybe light. Maybe air. Maybe a memory you can no longer reach.
The thought of Cole cuts through his mind with the precision of a blade.
If someone was already looking for him before he disappeared…
If someone was looking for him while you were still here…
His gaze narrows slightly.
It isn’t jealousy.
It’s calculation. It’s anger. It’s something that reminds him too much of other rooms, other corridors, other women left unprotected while men decided their fate.
He sees you bring a hand to your mouth. You aren’t crying. Not yet. But the gesture belongs to someone learning to swallow sound before it can become words.
Oberyn inhales slowly.
The castle around him seems to hold its breath with you.
For a moment—just one—he considers going in. Saying something. Anything.
He doesn’t.
Zaraya was right.
People in places like this turn anything that is shown into a weapon.
And he still doesn’t know who is watching you. Or him.
He watches you remain at the window a moment longer, then slowly step away. Your figure disappears into the darkness of the room. The curtains fall still.
Oberyn stays where he is.
He counts three breaths. Then four. Then he pushes himself off the column. He moves without a sound, heading back toward the opposite wing of the castle. His steps are slower now. Not tired. Thoughtful.
Cole.
The knife.
The lost house.
And you who don’t know you stand at the center of something far older than the marriage forced upon you.
When he reaches his chamber, he doesn’t light any candles. He sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of his mouth.
Silence surrounds him.
And for the first time since arriving in the Reach, Oberyn Martell allows himself to remain still long enough to listen to his own thoughts.
Not for you.
Not unless it becomes necessary.
But for what might happen if the name Cole is only the beginning.
I just stumbled on this literally seconds after you posted the chapter. What a start! I'm so intrigued by the world you've already built up, the tension and the mystery! Very much looking forward to reading more of this!
Summary: You were forced into a marriage without love. Years later, when something shatters your fragile serenity, you must uncover the secrets that could ruin everything.
TW: arranged marriage, Oberyn is older than you, use of female pronouns and reference to female features of the main character, use of you, Oberyn likes men and women like in the TV series, death, violence, smut. I will mark chapters with a warning if there are descriptions that might bother you.
credits: divider created by @zaldritzosrose
MASTERLIST
No one had told you that becoming a wife would mean learning to live beside an absence.
Sleep is not a refuge. It is only another corridor of the castle, darker than the others, where no one asks you to smile, yet your body keeps remembering.
You wake before dawn, when the air is still cold and unmoving, and the loudest sound is your own breathing. For a moment, you lie still, staring at the ceiling—the dark beams, the thin cracks between the stones. The bed is too large to be yours, and too neat to feel real.
You turn onto your side.
There is no one there.
There has never really been anyone there. And yet, emptiness has its own way of taking up space. You can almost feel it like a presence: the place that should belong to a husband, the place that is instead only an authorized absence.
You push yourself up and listen.
Nothing.
A castle sleeps differently than a house. A house breathes. A castle holds its breath.
You rise, barefoot. The floor is freezing. You cross the room with light, almost guilty steps, and pull the curtain at the window just slightly. Outside, it is still dark. The courtyard is a gray blur of stone and shadow, the torches along the passageways burning low, as if they too were growing tired.
You don’t see Oberyn.
You catch yourself looking for him, and the realization irritates you. You shouldn’t be looking for him. It doesn’t concern you. It shouldn't.
You pull away from the window as if it had been the one drawing you in.
You wash your face in a basin of cold water. Your hands tremble slightly, but it’s not just from the temperature. When you look at yourself in the dull mirror they left you—a piece of polished metal that distorts—you see eyes that are far too awake for a day that hasn’t even begun.
You slip into a simple dress, the simplest you have here. Though nothing is ever truly simple: even “modest” fabrics in a castle are softer, cleaner, more expensive than anything you ever wore in the village.
That’s what hurts most.
That even your poverty, here, would be a luxury.
When you step out of the room, the corridor is empty. The torches are nearly burned out, and the smell of stone fills your lungs. You walk without knowing where you’re going. If you stayed shut in there, it would start to feel like the walls were closing in.
You reach a narrow window overlooking the inner courtyard.
The light is changing, slowly. The sky is growing pale, but it is not a gentle dawn. It is a colorless one, without promises.
A servant passes at the far end of the corridor, a bundle of sheets in his arms. He sees you and immediately lowers his gaze, as if you were a knife laid on a table and he didn’t want to cut himself.
“My… lady,” he murmurs, uncertain.
The word still sounds wrong to you.
You give a slight nod, because by now you’ve learned that here, nodding is safer than speaking.
The boy hurries away.
You remain there, watching the courtyard.
And you think of Cole.
The thought comes without asking permission.
Cole running, Cole laughing, Cole with his hands covered in flour and dirt. Cole taking your hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if touching you didn’t require the world’s permission.
Cole, now, who is only a name.
A name spoken by a man with a Tyrell seal at his throat.
A name that was taken from you with a single sentence.
Gone.
Your heart aches in a way you can’t explain. It isn’t just fear. It’s something subtler: the feeling that the past is becoming unreachable, like a village swallowed by a flood.
You wrap your arms around your chest, as if you could hold yourself together.
The sound of firmer footsteps makes you turn.
Talia.
You recognize her before you even see her. Your aunt has a way of occupying the air—she never enters a place without it knowing. She is already carefully dressed, her hair pinned, her face set like a weapon.
Her gaze travels over you, from head to toe.
“You’re up early,” she says.
It’s not a compliment. It’s an assessment.
“I couldn’t sleep,” you reply.
Talia presses her lips together slightly, as if “I couldn’t sleep” were a fault. Then she steps forward and stops beside you at the window, looking out as though the courtyard belongs to her.
“You look tired,” she comments. “Try not to show it. Fatigue makes people… sincere.”
You almost laugh, but you hold it back. Sincerity here is a sin.
“It will be another full day,” she continues. “The Prince Regent isn’t leaving today.”
“Prince Regent.” Doran. The grand words slide over you like cold rain.
“And your husband…” Talia pauses for a moment, as if the word itself irritates her. “…will be present. At least enough.”
The sentence tightens something in your stomach.
“Where is he?” you ask before you can stop yourself.
Talia glances at you sideways, both surprised and faintly disgusted.
“It’s not like you to ask about a man.” she says.
Your back stiffens.
“It’s not my habit to ask about anyone,” you reply. “Here. But—”
“But nothing.” Talia cuts you off. “The Prince of Dorne has his own ways. And we are not in a position to judge them. Nor to comment on them.”
We.
As if you truly belonged inside that word.
Talia smooths an invisible crease in her gown, then continues in a more practical tone: “You’ll come down for breakfast shortly. The real one, not that farce from yesterday with the envoy. There will be fewer outside eyes today, but more inside ones. It’s not better. It’s different.”
“And Oberyn?” you ask, without thinking.
Talia exhales softly through her nose.
“If he’s where you think he is, I don’t know,” she says curtly. “If he’s where I think he is, it’s none of my concern. And it shouldn’t concern you.”
A chill runs down the back of your neck.
Not because you truly care where he goes. You tell yourself that, and you only half believe it.
It unsettles you because it reminds you of your place. Because it makes you feel, again, like when your father spoke of you as something to be moved.
Talia brushes your shoulder. The touch is light, but it isn’t affection. It’s guidance, the way one would guide an animal that might run.
“Smile when you enter,” she says. “Not so much that you look foolish. Just enough to seem… trained.”
Hatred rises in your throat. You swallow it.
“Yes, my lady,” you reply.
Talia nods, satisfied, and walks away with the same measured step as before, leaving behind the scent of perfume and control.
You remain there a moment longer, staring outside, until the cold seeps into your bones and forces you to move.
You descend the stairs slowly, because every step is a way to delay what awaits you.
The breakfast hall is smaller than the great banquet hall, but no less formal. Here, formality isn’t a celebration—it’s a habit.
Your father is already seated.
When you see him, you feel the old instinctive reaction: a tightness in your stomach and the want to become invisible. It's as if your skin remembers what it means to be under his gaze.
Next to him is Doran.
The Prince Regent appears more tired in the daylight. His eyelids are heavy, his hands carefully placed on the table, as if even the act of placing them were a decision. He's not weak, though. He looks tired. Not weak. Controlled.
Baelor is across the table, not too far away.
He looks at you and smiles, that half smile that never reaches his eyes. Your cousin always has the look of someone who is always waiting for someone to make a mistake, because someone else's mistake gives him a place in the world.
Oberyn is not there.
The seat reserved for him is empty. That should reassure you.
But that's not the case.
You sit with your back straight. Hands in your lap. Your smile trained in the right place.
“Daughter,” your father says, as if he were granting you the honor of existing. “finally.”
You don't answer with a sentence. You nod.
Doran tilts his head slightly toward you. It's a small gesture, but deep down you sense something akin to true courtesy. Maybe it's just because the comparison with your father makes everything more human.
“I hope the night was… kind,” Doran says.
The word kind almost feels out of place. It hurts in a strange way, because it reminds you that there are people who know how to choose their words.
You hesitate.
“It was… silent,” you finally reply.
Baelor makes a low sound that could be a stifled laugh or a cough. He does it on purpose, quiet enough to deny, loud enough to be heard.
Your father ignores him. Or pretends.
Doran's expression doesn't change, but his eyes slide over Baelor for a moment, as if cataloging him.
“Silence is a rare luxury,” Doran comments. “Sometimes a blessing.”
You don't know whether he's saying it for yourself or for himself.
Your father puts the glass down on the table with a sharp touch. “Oberyn hasn’t come down yet,” he says, as if it were an irrelevant detail. But there is that familiar note of irritation in his voice: the note of the man who hates what he cannot control.
Baelor allows himself to intervene, with an innocent air. “Perhaps he doesn’t rest well in such… green surroundings,” he says, as if it were a comment on the climate. “Or perhaps he dislikes certain company."
The sentence hurts you.
You look at him. Not with anger, but with the clear awareness of someone who recognizes poison when they smell it.
Doran barely looks up. He doesn't smile. “My brother sleeps where he can,” he says simply.
Your father gives a hint of a smile. It's not warm. It's a strategic smile. “Of course,” he replies. “I understand that Dorne has… different customs.”
The word different is used as inferior.
You bite your tongue to avoid speaking, to avoid responding as you would like.
Baelor adds, as if worried, “It’s just… people notice, uncle. People talk. And a new union—”
“People can talk until their tongues wear out,” your father interrupts coldly. “And House Florayne will stand regardless.”
Baelor lowers his head, obedient. But something shines in his eyes that isn't obedience. It's satisfaction: he's managed to take the conversation where he wanted.
Doran says nothing for a few moments. He seems to listen to the clatter of cutlery, the faint rustling of servants entering and exiting.
Then he asks, in a calm tone, “Any news of the boy?”
You stiffen.
Your father slowly puts down his fork. He's a man who knows when a topic is risky.
“None,” he replies. “And I don’t think the news will get through any faster if we mention it in the morning.”
Doran nods slowly, as if acknowledging it. He doesn't insist. But it's not because he's giving up. It's because he's choosing.
You can't help but look at Oberyn's empty chair. Not because you miss him. Because his absence is something everyone sees, and you're sitting here as a symbol, not as a person.
Baelor follows your gaze and smiles. “Looking for him?” he asks, his voice too gentle.
Your father gives you a sideways glance.
You feel heat rise. Anger. Humiliation.
“I’m wondering why everyone feels entitled to question what I ask,” you reply. The sentence comes out harder than expected.
A silence falls over the table. Not long, but long enough for everyone to truly understand what you mean.
Doran lowers his eyes to his plate, as if he's decided not to intervene. Your father stares at you with that familiar coldness: the coldness of a man who doesn't forgive the unexpected.
Baelor, on the other hand, looks amused. As if this was exactly what he wanted.
Talia enters at that moment, as if she's sensed the silence from afar. She sits down with her calculated calm, and her gaze immediately slides to you.
Check.
Your father speaks as if nothing has happened. “Prince Oberyn will come when he pleases,” he says. “We are not the ones to dictate to a Martell.”
The phrase sounds like a concession, but it's full of contempt. A man like your father doesn't concede without hatred.
Doran finally looks up. “My brother,” he says softly, “is… impatient. But he’s not disrespectful. He just never learned to pretend.”
This sentence remains in the air.
You think: I'm learning to pretend instead. And it disgusts you.
Time passes. The bread grows cold. The words become more innocuous, but you don't relax. Every noise in the hallway seems like a prelude to something.
When you finally hear footsteps approaching, you recognize him before you even see him.
Oberyn enters slowly.
He's not wearing a cloak. His dark hair is still a little disheveled, as if he's had little sleep, or as if he's slept where sleep isn't really possible. His gaze sweeps across the table in an instant, recording everything: the silence, the positions, the moods.
He neither apologizes nor justifies himself.
He sits down and it's as if the room changes temperature.
Your father looks at him with a tense smile. Baelor watches with predatory curiosity. Doran watches with that calm that always seems painful. You observe him only for a moment. Then you lower your eyes.
Oberyn places his hands on the table and takes a piece of bread, as if it were the most important thing in the world. Only then does he speak. “You look happy,” he says. The sentence seems casual, but there is irony underneath.
“We feared the Reach had swallowed you,” Baelor replies, too quickly, too happy to speak.
Oberyn looks at him like a fly. “I’m not that easy to digest,” he says.
Talia looks down at her plate. Your father's jaw tightens.
You feel something strange: no pleasure, no sympathy. Just a little relief. As if, with him in the room, there was something unpredictable, something that was beyond your father's control.
Oberyn takes a sip of water. Not wine today. And it hits you without you even meaning to.
“We must talk about your leaving,” your father says, trying to regain control of the conversation and the situation.
Oberyn looks at him. Not like a subject. Like a man wondering why he should listen. “We must?” he repeats.
Doran intervenes before the room breaks. “There are... tensions,” he says. “And the journey south requires preparation.”
Oberyn gives a brief smile. “Always the tension,” he murmurs. “Always preparation. Rarely living.”
Baelor laughs softly, as if it were a funny joke. But you can tell he's laughing to curry favor.
Oberyn gives him a sharp look and Baelor stops immediately.
The meal ends shortly thereafter, without further tension, but with the feeling that something is simmering beneath the surface.
When you stand, Talia motions for you to follow her. Your father gives you a look that doesn't bode well. Baelor looks at you as if he already knows what's coming.
Oberyn rises last.
You hear his footsteps behind you in the hallway, but you don't turn around. You don't know why, and that only irritates you more.
Talia leads you to a side corridor, away from the room. “You answered,” she says softly, without looking at you.
“They provoked me.”
“They’ll always provoke you,” she replies. “And you can’t afford to respond every time. Not if you want to stay whole.”
Stay whole.
The phrase hits you in the chest. Because the truth is, you no longer know what it means.
“Baelor talks too much,” Talia says, her tone neutral, as if commenting on the weather. “And he often confuses prudence with the need to be seen.”
She gives you a brief, measured look.
“He's young,” she adds, and the word isn't indulgent, but protective. “And your father willingly listens to those who bring him news, even when that news is... unripe.”
You stop. "What does he want to do?" you ask.
Talia finally looks at you, her eyes harder. “He wants you to be presentable. Obedient. And ready to go.” She pauses. “And he wants no one to say that the new union with Dorne is… fragile.”
You start walking again because you can no longer bear to stay still.
And as you do, you feel that step behind you again.
It's Oberyn.
He doesn't say anything. He doesn't call out to you. He doesn't stop you, but his presence behind you is enough to make you tense your shoulders.
Then, suddenly, you feel it—the shift. His footsteps change direction. He’s moving away. You don’t turn. You won’t. You won’t give him that power. And yet, when you reach the corner and the corridor opens for a moment onto a narrow window, you catch him in the reflection— Oberyn turning into a side passage. One that doesn’t lead to the main halls.
He leaves.
Again.
No explanation.
This time, the word absence settles more clearly in your mind. It isn’t just the way he is. It’s a choice.
He isn’t yours.
He won’t be.
And maybe that’s what unsettles you most—that you don’t know whether you want him to be different, or if you simply want to stop being watched like an object.
You return to your chambers with Talia.
She talks—about gowns, about travel, about how a wife is meant to behave along the road. You listen, and you don’t. The words pass over you like falling snow.
When you are finally alone, you close the door behind you and lean back against the wood.
You breathe.
You think of Cole.
You think of the emptiness.
And you think of the fact that Oberyn, at least, hasn’t touched you.
It’s an ugly thought, because it should be nothing. And here, it feels like relief.
You move to the window and look out once more into the courtyard.
You don’t see Oberyn.
You see Baelor.
He stands near a column, speaking to a servant. You can’t hear the words, but you see the tilt of his head—the shape of an order being given. The servant nods too quickly.
Baelor looks up, as if he had felt your gaze. For a moment, he sees you at the window.
He smiles.
And you understand. The day isn’t over.
It never is, here.
And somewhere in the castle you cannot see, Oberyn is already slipping beyond the walls—bored of formalities, drawn toward the air of the streets… or toward anything real enough not to ask him to pretend.
When Oberyn leaves House Florayne’s castle, he does not do so like a man fleeing.
Men flee when they have something to hide.
He leaves like a man who has already decided that no one has the right to stop him.
The courtyard is still alive with servants moving in disciplined patterns, carrying jugs, trays, baskets. The guards stand at the gates with the air of men reciting a script learned generations ago.
Oberyn crosses through it all without slowing.
He doesn’t take a horse.
He dislikes being announced by the sound of hooves, dislikes leaving traces that can be followed. He has always been more dangerous when he arrives without warning.
He passes the secondary gate with the faintest nod. The guards do not stop him. Not out of respect. Out of instinct.
Men learn quickly to recognize predators—even when they don’t bare their teeth.
The village that surrounds the castle is not the one the Floraynes show their guests.
Here, the land is not decorative.
Here, life smells of sour beer, sweat, horses, and meat roasted too close to the fire.
Oberyn moves through the low houses with the ease of someone who has walked through cities far more dangerous than this one. He does not look around with curiosity—he registers. Every movement. Every half-open door. Every gaze that drops too quickly.
A woman washing clothes pauses to watch him.
A man outside a tavern pretends not to see him.
It’s the best way to survive men like him.
The house he stops in front of has no sign. It doesn’t need one.
The thin curtains in the window are amber-colored.
Inside, candlelight casts slow shadows against the glass.
Oberyn knocks.
Two beats.
A pause.
A third.
The echo of an old language few still remember.
The door opens.
Zaraya does not look surprised.
She is not a woman who startles easily.
She leans against the inner frame, her body relaxed but alert—like a blade resting on a table, ready to be taken up at any moment.
She wears a dark silk gown, the color of ripe pomegranate, fastened at one shoulder with a worked silver clasp. The fabric falls softly along her body without truly hiding it, without offering it either.
Her black hair is loose, wavy, threaded here and there with small gold beads.
Her eyes are the first thing anyone notices. Dark. Bright. Too attentive.
Zaraya studies him as if measuring him—not only with her eyes, but with memory.
“You’ve changed,” she says softly.
Oberyn doesn’t answer at once. His gaze drifts over her body, slow, deliberate, as if checking that every detail is where he remembers it. Or perhaps to convince himself it isn’t.
“You haven’t.”
She smiles slightly—a smile that offers no comfort. “I change every night.” A brief pause. “You’re late.”
Oberyn steps inside without waiting to be invited.
He closes the door behind him.
“I’m here,” he says. “Still alive. That seems like a good enough excuse.”
Zaraya watches him with deliberate slowness, letting her gaze trace every line of his body as if she were reading a story she knows by heart—but wants to make sure has not changed.
“Men like you always come back when they’re about to do something stupid. Or when they need someone to tell them it isn’t.”
“I’ve never done that.”
“I know.”
The room is warm, lit only by candles and low braziers. The air smells of sandalwood, spiced wine, and something subtler, more personal—something that belongs only to her.
Zaraya moves toward a low table, pouring wine into two cups. Her movements are slow, deliberate without seeming so. The kind of gestures that make people forget she’s watching every breath they take.
She hands him the cup.
Her fingers brush his for a moment longer than necessary. It isn’t accidental. Zaraya never does anything by mistake.
Oberyn takes the wine but doesn’t drink right away. He watches her—the way candlelight reflects on the dark skin of her shoulders, the slow rise and fall of her breath beneath the silk.
“You didn’t come for the wine,” she says.
“I never do.”
Zaraya tilts her head slightly, studying him. “Then why do you look like a man trying to remember how to breathe?”
Oberyn finally drinks. A short sip, as if the taste matters less than the gesture. “Because I’ve spent too much time among people who think breathing is a concession.”
Zaraya lets out a quiet laugh. It isn’t kind. It’s complicit. “And now you’ve come back to people who know it’s a right.”
He sets the cup down without taking his eyes off her. “I haven’t come back. I’m just passing through.”
She crosses the distance between them in two slow steps. Close enough for him to feel the warmth of her body, not close enough to offer herself.
“You never just pass through,” she says softly. “You mark places. And then you abandon them.”
Oberyn lifts a hand, letting his fingers trace the line of her arm—from shoulder to wrist. Slow. Deliberate. Not possessive. Knowing.
Zaraya doesn’t pull away.
Instead, she takes his hand and guides it along her side, beneath the thin fabric. The contact is warm, alive. Her breathing shifts, just slightly.
“You’re tense,” she observes.
“I’m always tense.”
“No.”
Her eyes lift to his. “You’re angry.”
The silence that follows is brief, but real.
Oberyn pulls her toward him in a sudden, decisive movement. His mouth finds hers without hesitation. The kiss is deep, hungry, but controlled. He is not a man who loses control—he measures it.
Zaraya responds immediately, catching his lower lip lightly between her teeth, like an old challenge between them. Her hands slide beneath his tunic, up his back, reading every tension in his muscles as if it were a language only she understands.
He lifts her easily and sets her down on the low table behind her. The cups clink; one tips, spilling a thin line of wine across the dark wood.
Zaraya laughs again, but this time the sound breaks when Oberyn grips her face and kisses along her throat, moving slowly toward her bare shoulder.
His fingers tighten over her breast through the silk—firm, unhurried. She arches into his touch, her breath catching in a low exhale.
“Always impatient,” she murmurs.
“Always honest,” he answers against her skin.
Zaraya slips down from the table and pushes him back toward the bed, guiding him with a confidence that is anything but submissive. She makes him sit, then pauses before him, letting her fingers slowly undo the silver clasp at her shoulder.
The dress falls along her body like a whispered secret.
Oberyn looks at her without speaking. It's not blind desire. It's recognition.
She climbs onto his lap, her skin against his, the heat immediate. His hands slide down her back, gripping her, holding her against him as if contact were the only stable thing in that room.
They don't say anything to each other, their mouths find each other again and again, without words, finding each other's bodies.
When she guides him inside her, she does so while looking into his eyes. Without haste. Without lowering her gaze.
The movement between them is slow at first, almost measured. Then it becomes deeper, more urgent, but always accompanied by that heavy silence that exists only between people who know each other beyond desire.
Zaraya leans toward him, her lips against his ear. "You brought the pain with you," she whispers.
“I always bring something.”
Her fingers tangle in his hair as the rhythm between them breaks into something fiercer, faster. When they finally stop, they remain like this, united, their breaths trying to find the same rhythm.
Zaraya is the first to move. She lifts herself off him, but doesn't move away. She lies down next to him, her head resting on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slowly returning to normal.
“Now you can talk,” she says.
Oberyn closes his eyes for a moment. Just a moment. “A boy is missing.”
Zaraya doesn't react immediately. It's a sign that she's understood this isn't just any question. “Many kids disappear,” she replies.
“Not this one.”
Silence.
“Who is he?” she asks.
“His name is Cole.”
The name hangs between them like something fragile.
Zaraya raises her head, observing him with newfound attention. “This boy isn't who you think he is,” she murmurs.
Oberyn looks at her. “Explain.”
She slowly gets up, retrieves her robe but doesn't close it. She walks to a small chest near the wall and takes out an object wrapped in cloth.
She places it on the bed between them.
It's a knife.
The blade is narrow, elegant, crafted with thin incisions that look like waves intertwined with thorns.
“Does this remind you of anything?” she asks.
Oberyn looks at it. His eyes narrow slightly. “It’s not from the Reach.”
“No.” Zaraya runs a finger over the symbol engraved on the hilt. “It belongs to a house that should no longer exist.”
Oberyn looks up at her. “And Cole?”
“Cole carried it as a child,” she replies. “And someone... someone who pays well... has been looking for him since long before he disappeared.”
The silence that follows is no longer sensual nor full of that previous complicity. It's a dangerous one.
Zaraya returns to his side, sitting and observing him in silence for a moment. The candlelight casts golden reflections on her skin, but her gaze remains steady.
“What you are when you come in here stays here,” she says softly. “And what you fight for out there, I won't sell to anyone.” she pauses. “But I’ll tell you this: whoever’s looking for that boy doesn’t want a peasant. They want what he represents.”
Oberyn closes his fingers around the knife hilt. “And what does he represent?”
Zaraya looks at him as if she's deciding how much to risk. “A story someone buried too quickly.”
The knife remains between you on the bed, the blade reflecting the candlelight with a slow, almost lifelike flicker.
Zaraya doesn't touch it anymore. She lets him decide whether to grab or ignore it.
Oberyn watches it silently. His fingers barely glide over the hilt, not closing it in a fist. As if he recognized the language of the blade even before the symbol engraved on it.
“It's not a peasant's weapon,” he says finally. His voice is low. Not surprised. Just... careful.
Zaraya shakes her head slightly, her hair falling over her bare shoulder. “It never was.”
She settles down next to him, sitting sideways, one leg tucked under her. She's in no hurry to cover herself completely.
“That boy,” she continues, “didn’t disappear by accident.”
Oberyn finally looks up at her. “No one disappears by accident.”
Zaraya smiles faintly, a smile that isn't amusement. It's approval. “You've always had this flaw. You look at things as if they were already connected.”
“And they usually are.”
Silence.
The crackling of the brazier fills the room. The heat makes a drop of sweat glisten on her collarbone, which he follows with his eyes absentmindedly.
“Tell me what you know,” he says finally.
Zaraya leans back against the headboard, studying him calmly. “I know his name has been circulating for years among people who have no interest in the fields of the Reach.”
“Who?”
“Relic dealers.” A pause. “Blood collectors.”
Oberyn's jaw tenses slightly. It's a tiny movement, but Zaraya sees it. Zaraya always notices everything.
“Go on,” he says.
She reaches out and takes the knife, turning it slowly between her fingers. “This symbol...” she traces the line engraved on the hilt. “belongs to a house that the East of the Sea prefers to remember as a legend.”
Oberyn observes the sign with new attention. “A walking legend?” he asks.
“A legend that someone tried to exterminate.”
The silence grows heavier, no longer intimate—more like the edge of war.
Zaraya places the blade in his palm, offering it to him. “Cole doesn’t know what he’s carrying,” she says. “But someone does. And they want him alive.”
Oberyn takes the knife this time. His fingers close around the hilt effortlessly. As if the object already belongs to him, in a way he himself can't explain.
“Why do they want him alive?”
“Because dead blood is of no use to anyone,” she replies.
He raises an eyebrow, almost imperceptibly. “You sound like a priestess.”
Zaraya tilts her head. “I speak as someone who listens to people who pay not to be listened to.”
A pause.
“Who's looking for him?”
Zaraya hesitates. It's the first real hesitation she's shown. “Not a name,” she says finally. “A network.”
“Nets are cut.”
She looks at him with a hint of bitter amusement. “Not when they're made up of nobles, merchants, and old vendettas.”
Oberyn doesn't answer.
Silence stretches between them like an invisible map.
Zaraya looks at him. Then asks, more quietly, “Why do you care?”
There's no accusation in her voice. Just curiosity.
Oberyn places the knife beside him, on the crumpled sheet. “Because someone might use it on my wife.”
The words hang in the air. Heavy.
Zaraya studies him as if she's reading a page she didn't think she was reading. “Your...” she pauses briefly, “...wife.”
Oberyn doesn't turn to her. “Don’t give me that look.” he adds.
“I’m not making any faces.”
“You’re making the face you make when you’re deciding whether to laugh or stab someone.”
Zaraya actually laughs this time, a low sound, “I didn’t know you were so attentive.”
He shifts slightly, leaning against the headboard beside her. The contact of their shoulders is only seemingly casual. “She's not my concern” he says. Then he adds, after a moment, “But I won't let her be used.”
“Does she resemble her?” Zaraya asks suddenly.
There's no need to say the name, Oberyn knows the reference.
He doesn't answer right away.
The fingers stop on the sheet, as if unable to move.
“No,” he says finally.
Zaraya tilts her head. She's not a woman who believes in simple answers. “How’s she different?” she asks.
Oberyn breathes in slowly. “Elia was… restrained light,” he murmurs. “She knew how fragile the world was, and she kept looking at it without lowering her gaze.”
The silence stretches between them.
“And her?” insists Zaraya.
Oberyn's eyes drop for a moment, then harden again. “She still hasn't understood how cruel the world can be,” he replies. “And I have no intention of being the man to teach her.”
Zaraya nods slowly, as if that were the only possible answer. “And yet… it seems to bother you that someone might break her,” she notes.
Oberyn turns his face toward her. His dark eyes are colder now.
“Because someone already has. Enough.”
The silence that follows is different.
Zaraya leans her head back against the wall behind her, staring at the ceiling. “Cole had been watched for months,” she continues. “Not just by those who live in the shadows. Also by people who wear rings and seals.”
“Tyrell?”
“Not directly.” A pause. “But someone who buys what the Tyrells prefer not to see.”
Oberyn folds his arms across his chest. “And now he’s gone.”
She looks at him. “Or taken.”
“By whom?”
Zaraya inhales slowly. “If I knew, you wouldn’t be here asking. And I wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell you.”
A hint of a smile passes between them. The kind of respect that only exists between people used to lying to survive.
Oberyn leans forward, picking up the knife again. “Where did you find this?”
“It came here with a man who never gave his real name,” she replies. “He paid for silence. Not for pleasure.”
“And?”
“He died three months ago.” She pauses briefly. “Throat cut in a street too narrow for anyone to claim they saw.”
Oberyn nods faintly, as if that kind of death were a language he knows well.
Zaraya watches him again. “If you follow this,” she says quietly, “it won’t end with a peasant saved.”
“I’ve never believed in fairy tales.”
She leans toward him, her fingers brushing his chest, tracing slowly along an old scar. “No,” she murmurs. “You only believe in revenge.”
Oberyn catches her wrist—not roughly, but with decision. “I believe that people who use others like pieces eventually forget that pieces bite back.”
Zaraya smiles. Slow. Proud. “That’s why I let you in here,” she says. “Not because you pay.”
He releases her wrist but doesn’t move away. “Then why?”
She leans closer, her forehead almost touching his. “Because you never lie enough to insult my intelligence.”
The silence between them fills again with warmth, but it’s different from before. More dangerous. More lasting.
Zaraya moves slowly away from the bed, retrieving her robe and closing it this time with unhurried gestures. “I’ll ask questions,” she says.
“I know.”
“They won’t be free,” she adds.
“I never asked you to.”
She turns toward him. “If anyone finds out you’re looking for this boy, they won’t come for you first.”
“They’ll come for her.”
Zaraya nods. “Then listen carefully, Oberyn Martell.” Her tone shifts, suddenly sharper. “If you want to protect her, you need the world to believe you don’t care enough.”
He gives a faint smile. “I’m good at that.”
Zaraya studies him a moment longer. “Too good,” she says quietly. “Maybe.”
When Oberyn leaves Zaraya’s house, night has already fallen over the Reach like a veil too heavy to ignore.
The air is colder outside, more damp. It carries the smell of turned earth, lit hearths, wine spilled across tavern floors. Real smells. More honest than the spices and perfumes of the castle.
He doesn’t turn when the door closes behind him.
He never does.
Zaraya’s words linger on him like an echo that refuses to fade.
Cole is not what you think.
The knife.
The carved symbol.
Someone was already looking for him.
Oberyn walks without hurry through the village streets. His steps are light, but not silent enough to seem furtive. He has no need to hide. Men who know how to kill don’t need to look like shadows to be feared.
A lantern sways above the entrance of a tavern. From inside comes a rough chorus of drunken voices. A woman laughs too loudly. A dog barks, then falls silent, as if it has recognized something it would rather not disturb.
Oberyn keeps walking.
He is thinking.
Not about politics. Not yet.
He is thinking about the precision with which Zaraya always chooses what to say—and what not to say. If she mentioned a lost house, it means someone powerful enough to erase it might still be alive… or someone reckless enough to try to bring it back.
When the castle walls rise before him again, he doesn’t slow.
The guards at the secondary gate see him approaching and stiffen almost imperceptibly. No one speaks. No one asks.
The gate opens.
Oberyn crosses the courtyard with the same stride with which he left it hours earlier. Fewer servants now, lower torches, longer shadows. The castle at night feels more honest: less ceremonial, more cruel.
He enters.
He doesn’t return immediately to the rooms assigned to him.
Instead, he turns into a side corridor, one he memorized on the very first day. Fortresses are all alike, if you know where to look. Service passages, narrow stairways, routes built for those who are not meant to be seen.
The silence here is deeper.
Only the distant crackle of torches.
Oberyn moves without hesitation. He doesn’t count his steps. He feels them.
He stops only when he reaches the bend that leads to the wing where his wife’s chambers lie.
He doesn’t enter.
He doesn’t approach the door.
He stays in the shadows, leaning against a worn stone column. From there he can see the corridor—and beyond, through a narrow arch, the window of her room.
The light inside is out.
For a moment, he thinks you are asleep.
Then he sees you.
A dark shape against the window.
You're standing. Still. Your shoulders straight, but not rigid. Your hands resting on the sill as if you're trying to hold the world outside… or keep yourself from falling into it.
The wind stirs the curtains behind you. Moonlight slips in through thin stripes, tracing silver lines along the curve of your face, your neck, your bare arms.
He doesn’t know how long you've been standing there.
You don’t look like a woman waiting for someone.
You look like a woman learning how to be alone.
Oberyn remains still.
Not because he doesn’t know what to do. Because he knows exactly what he must not do.
To step closer would mean breaking something that isn’t his. Something that, perhaps, you don't even have the right to own.
He watches as you tilt your head slightly, as if searching for something in the courtyard below. Maybe light. Maybe air. Maybe a memory you can no longer reach.
The thought of Cole cuts through his mind with the precision of a blade.
If someone was already looking for him before he disappeared…
If someone was looking for him while you were still here…
His gaze narrows slightly.
It isn’t jealousy.
It’s calculation. It’s anger. It’s something that reminds him too much of other rooms, other corridors, other women left unprotected while men decided their fate.
He sees you bring a hand to your mouth. You aren’t crying. Not yet. But the gesture belongs to someone learning to swallow sound before it can become words.
Oberyn inhales slowly.
The castle around him seems to hold its breath with you.
For a moment—just one—he considers going in. Saying something. Anything.
He doesn’t.
Zaraya was right.
People in places like this turn anything that is shown into a weapon.
And he still doesn’t know who is watching you. Or him.
He watches you remain at the window a moment longer, then slowly step away. Your figure disappears into the darkness of the room. The curtains fall still.
Oberyn stays where he is.
He counts three breaths. Then four. Then he pushes himself off the column. He moves without a sound, heading back toward the opposite wing of the castle. His steps are slower now. Not tired. Thoughtful.
Cole.
The knife.
The lost house.
And you who don’t know you stand at the center of something far older than the marriage forced upon you.
When he reaches his chamber, he doesn’t light any candles. He sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of his mouth.
Silence surrounds him.
And for the first time since arriving in the Reach, Oberyn Martell allows himself to remain still long enough to listen to his own thoughts.
Not for you.
Not unless it becomes necessary.
But for what might happen if the name Cole is only the beginning.
Pairing: jackson!joel miller x f!reader (no use of Y/N)
Summary: You, after a very long trip alone across the country, arrive in Jackson. Joel is a very lonely man and after Ellie broke up with him, he's even more alone and grumpy. Tommy and Maria decide that you're going to stay at Joel's house for a while, at least until more houses are built. Will your cohabitation be easy? Or will it be more complicated than everyone thinks?
Warnings: use of you, use of alcohol, loneliness, suicidal thoughts, suicidal attempt, a short story about sexual assault that occurred in the past I won't go into details, another SA in the present days, PTSD, violence, blood, lots of sexually explicit content, use of petnames, dirty talk, fluff elements, mutual pining, the main characters spy on each other for a while, the image of the female character has the sole purpose of representing the character, but you can imagine her however you want, no physical description of the female character except for long hair often gathered in a ponytail or braid, she wears a bra and jeans (most of the time).
Masterlist
follow @mybworlds and turn on notifications to get notified when I post new fics
Thx for the dividers @saradika-graphics
You fall asleep almost immediately.
Joel places a thick, faded blue wool scarf over your head, and without thinking twice, covers you with both blankets he's brought with him.
He's watching you.
Every now and then he looks outside. The snow has slowed, but the wind continues to scratch his cheeks and raise white dust at the entrance to the refuge.
You groan in your sleep, a low, involuntary sound. He leans over and touches your forehead with the back of his hand.
You're burning.
Fever. And a high one too.
He lifts the covers slightly and checks the wound he's bandaged. Blood has already soaked the bandages, darker than before. He clenches his jaw. Perhaps, despite everything, the infection is taking hold.
You mutter something unintelligible. Then your eyes snap open. You look at him as if you don't recognize him, just for a moment, then you close your eyes, letting out a sigh. A small cloud of steam escapes your lips.
Joel looks down at your leg, then back up at your face. He stays still.
“I didn’t want to fall asleep…” you mutter, your voice thick.
He barely shakes his head. What's he supposed to tell you? It's the wound, the blood loss, the effort to get there. It's all too obvious.
“That’s fine,” he says softly, letting his gaze wander outward.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” you add, as if joking, but your voice is shaking. “The wound.”
“You’ll get better,” he replies. “When we get back to Jackson, I’ll take you to the doctor and…” He pauses for a moment, looking at your leg. “And you’ll get better.”
You look at him. “I saw you checking it,” you say. “It’s not healing as well as you hoped, is it?”
Joel bites the inside of his cheek. A few seconds pass before he responds, “It’s… it’ll be okay,” he mutters finally.
This isn't what you wanted to hear. It's not a promise, nor a lie. It's just the truth, told in its own way.
You try a smile that quickly fades. “You don't seem very optimistic.”
“I’m not,” he admits. “I’m just honest.”
You close your eyes. The fever is eating you up from within, the pain has become dull, replaced by a burning heat beneath your skin. You mutter something you don't even recognize.
Joel leans closer. "I can hear you," he says softly.
You turn around slightly. “You… always hear everything,” you whisper, almost as if it were an accusation.
“I do what I can,” he replies. A slow, held breath.
You start to tremble. Your teeth chatter, your hands grip the covers as if they could hold you together.
Joel calls softly your name. “Drink a little,” he says. “The canteen.”
You resist weakly. “I’m not thirsty.”
“Your body does,” he replies softly. “Do it.”
You raise your torso slowly, bringing your face closer to the water bottle, drink in small sips while he holds the water bottle and cups the back of your head. The liquid is a small but real relief.
Joel studies you in silence. He's not planning. He's not controlling. He's just... staying. With you.
“You’re stubborn,” he mutters.
“This is how I keep going,” you whisper.
He shakes his head. "Sometimes I wish you weren't."
Outside, the wind howls. Snow slides down the rocks in small landslides. You curl up under the blankets, your body exhausted but strangely calmer.
Joel doesn't insist. He sits next to you, far enough away to give you space, close enough to be there if you collapse again.
And for the first time in who knows how long, you feel something moving slowly in your chest.
It's not safety. Nor peace.
Just being cared for.
Not because you're useful. Nor because you have something to prove.
But because it is you.
The snow continues to fall outside, slower now. The flakes make no sound as they hit the ground, as if the world were holding its breath along with you.
You open your eyes with difficulty. Your eyelids feel heavy, but for a moment you're lucid. You search for him. You find him sitting nearby, his back leaning against the rock, his rifle within reach. He's looking outside.
“Joel…”
He turns around. Right away.
“I'm here,” he says.
You swallow. Your throat burns. You speak softly, as if raising your voice might break something. “Do you think…” you pause, catching your breath. “That the others are looking for us?”
You don't look at him as you ask. You stare at a vague spot on the rock face, your breath coming out in little white puffs. You don't want to seem scared. Or weak. It's just a question. Any question.
Joel is silent for a second too long.
Then he nods. “Yes,” he says. “Tommy won’t stop. He knows where we’re headed. And when the storm calms down… they’ll come.”
His voice is firm. It's the one he uses when he wants you to believe something. He doesn't tell you when. He doesn't tell you how long it will take. But you want to believe he doesn't lie.
You close your eyes for a moment. When you open them again, they already seem duller. “Good…” you murmur. “I didn’t mean… to worry you.”
He clenches his jaw. “Rest,” he says only.
Your head slides slightly to the side on the scarf. You move slightly, as if searching for a position that won't hurt. A small moan escapes you before you can hold it back.
Joel comes closer and, without thinking, places the back of his hand on your forehead.
It's hot.
Too much.
He pulls it back immediately, as if it were burning him too. He watches you breathe, too fast, too slow at the same time. Your lips are dry. Your skin flushed. The cold sweat has nothing to do with the snow.
“Hey…” he says softly. “Stay with me, okay?”
You half-nod, but you're already slipping. The words tangle in your mouth, becoming meaningless sounds. Your eyelids droop again.
Joel stands there, motionless.
Then look down at your leg.
The bandages are dark. Blood has seeped through the fabric. Perhaps the infection is already there, under the skin. Perhaps it has been there for hours.
Jackson.
The doctor.
The medicine shelf, half empty.
What if there was nothing?
Joel breathes in slowly, as he does when he has no alternative but to make a decision.
If there are no antibiotics… I’ll find them.
He doesn't say it out loud.
He doesn't promise it.
He arranges the blankets around you better, makes sure the knife and rifle are within reach. He stays seated next to you, ready to intervene beside you if you get worse.
Outside, the storm is calming.
Joel has already decided to leave if necessary.
Night creeps into the shelter. Joel stays awake. Sitting next to you, his rifle leaning against the rock, his shoulders stiff. Every now and then he gets up, goes to the entrance of the cove, and looks out. The snow is still falling, but it's different now. Slower.
When he comes back to you, he adjusts the covers. He tucks them in carefully, as if afraid of waking you. He barely touches your shoulder, then pulls it back. You're warm. Always too warm.
You're having trouble breathing.
Every now and then you shift, your brows furrowing, your mouth opening in a low moan.
“Hey…” he mutters. “I’m here.”
You don't react. Your eyelids flutter, but they stay closed.
Then you speak.
At first, they're just broken sounds. Meaningless syllables. Joel stiffens without understanding why. He leans slightly toward you, instinctively.
“…no…” you murmur. “No, please…” your voice is different. Thinner.
Joel swallows.
You move again, as if trying to escape something that isn't there. Your fingers tighten around the blanket.
“Don’t leave me…” you whisper.
Then a name.
One he has never heard of.
It's not Ellie.
Nor Dina.
It's nobody he knows.
Joel freezes.
“It's not my fault...” you say. Your voice breaks. “I was just... I was alone...”
Another name.
Another situation.
Disjointed, fragmented sentences, images that don't fit together.
Joel doesn't understand everything. But he understands enough.
He understands that there is a whole life before the one he knows.
He understands that the silence you defend yourself with isn't just character. It's habit.
He understands that the way you always keep yourself ready, always distant, is not distrust towards him.
It's survival.
He wipes the sweat from your forehead with a piece of cloth. His hands are shaking slightly from the cold, but he doesn't stop. He speaks softly, even though he knows you can't really hear him. “It’s okay,” he says. “You’re safe. No one’s going to hurt you.”
He doesn't know who he's talking to.
To you now, or to whoever you were before.
You moan again. Your body tenses, then relaxes. A long, ragged breath.
Joel stands there, leaning toward you, as if leaning closer might bridge the gap between what he knows and what he's never known.
And it's only then that he really understands.
He doesn't know you.
Not like he thought.
And what strikes him most is not fear. It's the sudden weight of everything he never asked for.
