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Chapter Text

This bloody bites arse!

Sandor moaned, quietly and with manly dignity (of course!) up at the ceiling of the chambers he shared with the little bird.

Sansa. His wife, his alpha, the only woman he'd ever have.

He was pretty sure she was the cause of his dizziness, fatigue, sloshing stomach, and the flood of too-warm saliva in his mouth. Last night, just before she'd pounced on him and sucked his cock down her throat ("So sweet," she'd purred, a dribble of his essence escaping the corner of her mouth as she lined her stamen up to his slick channel and slooowly thrust in and fuuuuck so fucking good!) she'd mentioned that Jeyne had retired from the castle's morning sewing circle with a touch of an upset stomach.

("That'll teach her not to eat whatever food Gage's idiot helpers leave lying around to spoil," Sandor had grumbled at the time, already tugging at the laces of his alpha's gown.)

But now...

Fuck food. Fuck drink.

The thought alone was enough to wind his belly into a ball and shove it up into the back of his throat.

Bring me death instead.

Tap-tap.

"Sandor?" Sansa called through the closed door. "I've brought Maester Luwin. We're coming in."

An invitation was too much for Sandor to manage. So was a word of welcome or even an acknowledging nod. The best he could do was not wheeze at them to fuck off. Sansa approached on quiet feet. As she sat the clean chamber pot she'd promised on the floor beside the bed, Sandor groped across the tangled covers blindly. Her hand found his and he concentrated on her slender fingers instead of the nausea tipping his guts to and fro.

The maester conducted his inspection with a light touch (which was only mildly annoying) and a thousand bloody questions (which were much more so) ranging from his food consumption (normal, which was to say, a lot) to his bowel movements (normal, for fuck's sake) to his overall liveliness (the new recruits for Winterfell's men-at-arms were bloody hopeless and giving Sandor headaches).

He griped: "Don't suppose you've got a cure for those useless shits? Gods save them if Wildlings attack; they'd have better luck dropping their britches and grabbing their ankles."

Sansa covered her smile with a hand. No doubt she was biting her lip to keep her giggles in. That thought did more to cheer Sandor than the bloody maester had managed thus far.

Luwin cleared his throat. "Well, hopefully they'll keep the Wildlings distracted until the senior members are able to lend aid." Again, he cleared his throat and asked yet another question: "And how do you find your appetite for, er, your alpha, um, recently?"

Sandor felt a lusty grin stretch his lips and tug at his scars. "Voracious. But well satisfied."

The maester nodded. "Well, you've no fever. Neither is your body attempting to void any toxins by excessive sweating or defecating. It's too soon to know for sure, but it's entirely possible that congratulations are in order."

Sansa gasped. Her grip on his hand tightened.

Sandor blinked at the man. "Congratulations for what?"

Luwin opened his mouth, but Sansa stole his thunder: "A pup, Sandor. Maester Luwin thinks you may be with child."

He gaped at his wife's beaming grin. And then, he remembered to breathe. His head fell back, landing with a thump on the pillows.

He said, "Bugger me."

"Seems as though you and Sansa won't be coming with us," Robb Stark remarked, approaching the water barrel during a lull in training. Greyjoy had gone into the sparring ring with Jory Cassel some time ago and both were starting to tire. Even the insults lacked panache. It was as good a time as any to wet one's whistle.

Robb continued, lifting the communal cup to his lips, "It's a shame." He took a long sip and then smirked. "But not exactly a surprise. The pup will be arriving with winter, hm?"

Sandor crossed his arms over his chest. "We'll know one way or another soon enough."

A curious tilt to his head, Robb hummed. "How's that?"

Fuck did Sandor hate educating these bloody beta Northmen about omegas. "Waiting to see if my fever hits."

"Was that not the point of holding the wedding--" Robb counted back, blinking. "--four fortnights ago?"

"Six," Sandor groused.

"I thought you only had to deal with that business once a year."

"Wasn't bitten and bonded was I? Now it's four."

"Huh." Evidently not knowing what to say to that, Robb badgered him further: "For Sansa, too?"

Lifting his existing eyebrow, Sandor sneered. "What do you think?"

Instead of looking cowed, his goodbrother crowed, "What I think is that you've not been to break your fast in the great hall for a sennight. The little one is kicking your guts around."

Sandor harrumphed. "And doing a better job of it than any of these bloody gnats who call themselves men."

Robb's jaw dropped on an exclamation of affront. "I would challenge you for that, except... y'know. The pup."

"Grab your buggering sword, Stark. You'll challenge me regardless."

"I would no more fight Arya--"

"Because you'd lose."

"--or any woman who might be carrying a child--"

"Do I look like a bloody woman to you?"

"--than my own bullheaded, shit-for-brains goodbrother while he's with child."

Sandor's eyes narrowed. "Craven."

"Oh? Is that what you'd be if you didn't raise a sword against a militant mother-to-be?"

"From what I know of the Mormont ladies, you and your righteous blathering would be bear shit by now." Sandor let his smirk drop. "Either pick up your sword, or leave me be to find someone who will."

He hesitated. "If Sansa finds out about this..."

"She'll be thrilled that I've kept up with training so I can do what I bloody vowed to your sister and protect our family." He grabbed a blunted blade from the rack, stomped out into the mostly empty training space, spun back toward Robb, and lifted his sword. "Eh?"

Heaving a sigh with enough grief to have come from Jon Snow's lungs, Robb acquiesced. Unenthusiastically. So the third time Sandor dumped little Lord Stark in the muck, he went in search of someone else -- anyone else -- who could give him even half a fight. Ser Rodrik obliged with exactly that. Half a bloody fight. No more, no less.

"With care for the pup," the man retorted to Sandor's dissatisfied snarls and Sandor promised himself then and there that Robb Stark would rue the day he'd opened his big mouth and informed every single buggering man-at-arms in Winterfell of Sandor's condition.

"I saw you training with Robb and Ser Rodrik today," Sansa murmured as they left the evening meal.

Sandor rolled his eyes. "If you call that training."

"It certainly looked like it." Her gaze roved over him with clinical detachment where, a sennight ago, his alpha would have hauled his tunic up and put her hot, silky hands all over him. "You took some hard hits."

He hadn't even bruised, for fuck's sake! "Stop with your bloody chirping," he spat, pulling away from the hand tucked into the crook of his arm. Their steps halted. His words echoed in the empty corridor. The family rooms were within sight, but Sandor could not bring himself to take one more step.

"How dare you." Sansa's tone was flat with disbelief, but her eyes blazed with temper. "How dare you belittle how much I love you."

"Love is it? Seems more like you've happily washed your hands of me. That's it, ey? Duty done. Omega bred and a Stark pup on the way?"

She blinked hard and fast against the wetness in her eyes. "You say I have wronged you?!"

"I said exactly what I meant."

"I know you did." Her bosom rose and fell, her breaths too deep, to fast. She held out a hand. "Please. Let me have a bath drawn for you and we'll discuss this."

Sandor gritted his teeth and stood his ground. He'd cleaned himself up just fine before dining; he didn't need a buggering bath! And what was more, he didn't need to be swaddled up in a bed so large that his wife could so easily shy away from his kisses, his touch, his need for her. Not again. Not tonight. 

"Sandor!" she cried as he spun on his heel. Their chamber door was mere steps away, but Sandor had already put his back to it.

"I take my rest in the containment room tonight, alpha."

Swift footsteps raced after him. A gentle touch landed on his arm. He flinched.

"Sandor!"

He ought to keep moving. His blood was up and his temper hot. He could not talk about this now, but he halted.

"Sandor, please. Have I not cared well for you?"

"Don't want a bloody nursemaid." He bit out, "I want my wife!" Turning, he speared her with a hard stare. "My wife, my alpha, who refuses me, night after night, who can't even bear to put her hand on my skin."

Her hands curled into fists at her sides. Her neck strained, the muscles rippling under her skin. But she spoke no denials, no lies.

With a curt nod, Sandor continued on his way to that Seven-damned room. There were no sheets on the bed, no light in the hearth, no water on the table, but Sandor had slept in worse. He dropped the bolt on the inside with a sense of satisfaction even as something inside him roared and railed against locking his alpha out.

He threw himself on the bed.

And then he got up, removed his boots, shifted the clean chamber pot near the bed, and then threw himself down on the mattress.

He stared up at the ceiling in the pitch darkness, and in that darkness where not even he could see his own hand in front of his face, Sandor pressed both palms to his lower belly.

A pup.

His lips trembled and tears crowded his eyes. He blinked them away.

The light of dawn through the single, small window woke him and, a lengthy and lazy time later, the familiar wave of nausea tossed him out of bed.

As he retched, her words came back to him: "Have I not cared well for you?"

Of course she had. Sansa had never left him to his own devices. Most especially not when he was puking his fucking guts out, no, of course not. The little bird was all cool hands that held his hair back and soft, sympathetic hums. She was his personal buggering nursemaid, deftly covering and tucking away the used chamber pot before the smell could trigger another bout. The worse Sandor felt, the more the Maiden-made-flesh she became.

But here he was. Alone. With vomit in his hair and bile trailing from his lip in a long, slimy string.

Abandoned! some small, stupid part of his brain screamed and wailed.

"I'm the one who left," he said to the contents of the chamber pot, and then made the mistake of inhaling over its open rim.

He hunched forward in a pointless attempt at emptying his already hollow stomach, and then used the rough-spun cloth to scrub his lips and beard stubble before covering the pot. His hands were too shaky to be trusted not to knock the thing over, so he shoved himself away.

There was no point in remaining here, so he knocked the bolt free and stomped out toward the water barrel at the training grounds. He gargled and spat and drank. He splashed his face and rinsed his hair. Right about now, Sansa would have been handing him a soft, warm towel and a cup of soothing tea. She'd have warm bread and salted butter ready for him on an offered tray.

But then, after she'd plopped the lot of it in front of him, she'd busy herself with tidying a room that was already neat and, once he admitted to feeling fine, she'd be out the door.

Sandor stared blankly at the rippling surface of the water, missing his wife and alpha and lover with every fiber of his being.

They'd gone from coupling like wild animals every morning (starting their day with mouths nearly numb from ravenous kisses) and evening (falling into exhausted slumber with damp and trembling thighs) to this.

It was driving him to the brink of insanity.

Actually, no. It was driving him to to point of beating the recruits black, blue, and crying for their mothers, which was what the morning brought.

"What did I bloody say?" he snarled at the useless children that Ser Rodrik had assigned him. Sandor was sure they were willfully spiting him at this point, which meant they'd earned themselves the beating he'd just given them. "Come at me like I'm the shit standing between you and your mother's bloody hovel in flames!"

They staggered and swayed on their feet. Pathetic. Did they think they were the only ones in pain? Sandor's head was pounding. His lower back throbbed from having to slog through the mud of the trampled training grounds, and he was so exhausted he could weep. So, naturally, he was exorcising his misery by tearing four green lads apart. As any man with hot blood in his veins would do.

"AGAIN!" he roared.

"But, my lord, your condition--"

"Bugger that and bugger you, you sack of shit. I'm carrying a bloody child, not missing a leg AND EVEN IF I WERE, YOU'D DAMN WELL BETTER USE IT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE! Target my weakest point to save your flea-bitten hide! Now come at me AGAIN!"

It was the sudden straightening of each boy's spine that altered Sandor to their audience. Given how much effort they were putting into looking like grown men who knew more about swordplay than to stick the enemy with the pointy end, Sandor assumed the just-arrived watcher was female. Since none of the men on the training grounds were hollering a greeting or a jape, then it was no smallfolk lass. Neither was it Arya, who would have arrived screaming about their deficiencies, nor Lady Stark who, with a glance, would have had the lot of them shaking in their boots.

No, only one person could be crossing the yard from the keep.

He was tempted to curse. He was tempted to grin. He almost turned around.

Almost.

One of the more daring (or brainless) young men, having spied Sansa, let out a breath in relief. "My lady!" he called out with no small amount of desperation.

Sandor growled. "Oh no you don't, whelp. In this sparring ring, we're not done until I say and I gave you an order. COME AT ME!"

Still, they hesitated.

From Sandor's back, a voice cracked across the yard like a whip. "What," Sansa Stark barked, "are you waiting for, men? The man who deigns to spend his valuable time teaching you how to survive your next battle has given you an order!"

A shiver raced down Sandor's spine as each recruit gulped. They made ready, each of the four sucking in fortifying breaths before darting in. Sandor suppressed a sigh. They were hesitant and wincing before their blows even connected.

He swatted them and their blunted swords aside with disgust. "Plague-infested rats, all of you!" He was ready to spit on their prone forms.

Sansa spoke up, her tone light. Teasing. "Perhaps you'll have time to assess me while your pupils are recovering."

And now he did turn around. His wife was standing on the other side of the railing, her direwolf at her side, and the look in Sansa's blue eyes as she took in every detail of him all kitted out in mail, leather, and armor was more than approving: it was devouring.

Given that the last time he'd seen her, she'd been on the verge of tears, Sandor was allowed to be suspicious. "Aye, it's been a few years since you've bared a blade."

He caught a glimpse of a grin, and then she was ducking under the railing and striding across the churned mud before Sandor could do more than grunt.

"Well?" She arched a brow.

Liking her confidence far too much, he stalled: "You said you liked that dress."

Smiling, she sidled up to him. "This may come as a shock, but I like you more."

He blinked. Fuck, but he was really enjoying this moxie of hers far too much... and also the fact that she was practically licking her lips, her gaze trained on his, in the middle of the yard for all of Winterfell to see. Well. Sandor was having trouble remembering why he'd been so furious to begin with.

She bit her lip and tucked herself against his side and--

"Bugger," Sandor intoned, glancing down to where Sansa had pressed the edge of a very sharp blade to his groin. "Predictable," he complained with forced nonchalance.

"Dependable," she argued back. She returned the dagger to the sheath attached to her left forearm. "Do you think your students can spare you for an hour?"

A wide grin curled one half of Sandor's mouth into a leer. The other half, restricted as it was by scars, gaped and twitched once. "Only one hour?"

"Perhaps two." She winked. Winked!

What the bloody hell happened between last night and this morning?

He was confused... and intrigued.

But then he sighed, remembering his duty and resigning himself to this Seventh Hell. "I can't. These sorry shits can't even manage a proper joint attack; the next band of Wildlings that passes through will be picking their teeth with their bones." He waved his sword at the four men who had clustered together near the water barrel.

Sandor was irrationally jealous when she turned her gaze away from him toward the boys who looked to be a sneeze away from their balls dropping.

"Perhaps a shift in tactics then?" she suggested, startling Sandor. Sansa had never voiced her thoughts on battle before.

"And what might that be?"

"It's as you said: if they can't be bothered to save their own necks, perhaps we should call in assistance of another kind to show them how best to drop their britches, bend over, and grab their own ankles."

Sandor stared at her.

At the water barrel, someone choked and sputtered.

Sandor didn't have to look around the yard to know that jaws had dropped.

Sansa held out a hand. "Allow them an hour to think on that."

He started to shake his head, but his alpha was stubborn. Shifting to angle her face away from the men and lowering her voice, Sansa said, "I know you're exhausted. Please, come with me."

The compelling combination of her commanding presence and this gesture of deference inspired Sandor to lower his voice. As softly as he could, he pointed out, "No one stops in the middle of a fight for a buggering cup of tea, my lady."

Just as quietly, she replied: "It is not your lady you are presently mocking, Sandor, it's your alpha." She met his eyes, fierce and forceful, and continued, "You chose me in front of gods and Northmen, and--"

Sandor scoffed. "Betas." He dismissed the lot of them and Sansa's words with a one-shouldered shrug. "What do they know of it."

"Enough to know that I am not taking adequate care of my omega," she bit out, "either because I am too weak or too negligent. Which would you have them believe, Sandor? That I can't protect my own mate and pup or that I don't care to?"

He squinted off into the distance. His lips rolled inward to form a taut line. His jaw clenched, the scars stretching. In his hand, he juggled the training sword, spinning the pommel in his grasp. "Fuck, Sansa, I--"

"Not here. Will you dismiss the 'gnats' and allow me to borrow you for an hour?"

His chest rose and fell. "Aye. A moment," he requested. He took a single step in the direction of the water barrel yonder, startling the four recruits to attention, and then spun back on his heel and--

Sansa gasped as his mouth smacked a hard kiss against her lips, tickling her skin with the bristles of the beard hair he'd been growing in preparation for the winter winds.

His wife was laughing by the time he released her, eyes twinkling.

He wasn't as much of a fool to think all was well between them. Things had been said last night that Sandor wasn't keen to take back. He wanted an explanation, but that wasn't going to happen out here. His marriage wasn't a bloody stage performance for the entertainment of the North.

Sandor bellowed insults and threats at the trainees until they were fairly shaking in their boots. After they'd scampered off to muck out the stables as ordered, Sandor set his blunted sword aside with a groan.

"Don't," he warned Sansa, whose arms were extended, hands a moment away from touching his filthy tunic. "Don't you offer me another fucking bath."

"You need one."

"Be that as it may, it's not what I want from my alpha."

"Good. That's not what I'm offering." Again, she held out her hand.

This time, he took it.

"If it pleases you, I would apologize now," Sansa had offered, their chamber door thudding shut and the lock turning with a click! 

Sandor had pretended to consider waiting to get his hands on his wife's bare skin. "How likely am I to forgive you?"

"Very."

Seeing her shy smile, he'd chosen: "Then I'll have what pleases me now, and hear your apology after."

She'd obliged, crowding him onto the bed and loosening clothes just enough for hands to reach skin and their bodies to crash together, feral and starved and Sandor had come so hard he'd seen stars behind his eyelids, felt his brain tingle, and even now struggled to catch his breath. His hands were still inside the bodice of her gown, cupping her teats, his thumbs brushing over her crinkled nipples.

Her stamen was deep inside him, swollen huge and hard as she rolled her hips against his, hugging one of his bare thighs along her side, its corresponding knee thrown over her shoulder. Under the scrunched folds of her skirt and above the twisted cloth of his breeches still encasing his other leg, she pulsed and poured into him. He shuddered with each wave. Bugger all, being fucked by the Seven would never feel half as divine as having his alpha locked inside him, pumping him full of her seed, and fever or no, he would have begged to be bred if he weren't already carrying her pup.

Sandor hummed. One hand slithered free of her dress and slid up under his tunic to span his own belly.

A moment later, one of her hands joined his. Her fingers slid into the softer spaces between his.

"Do you know," she whispered reverently, "what it does to me to know you carry our pup?"

"Hm?" Sandor rolled his head back on shiver as another wash of glistening heat trickled up his spine. She was still rolling against him, her knot massaging every good spot deep, deep, deep inside.

"Do you have any idea what it makes me want to do... to you?" The hand still curled around his uplifted thigh tightened. He inhaled sharply at the tiny bites of her trimmed fingernails.

He croaked, "What?"

"Mmm, today, seeing you in the yard, sweaty and fierce, I wanted to grab you by the scruff of your neck and drag you into the armory. I wanted to shove you up against the wall, door open, where anyone could walk by and see us..."

Sandor gasped as her knot throbbed and pushed against his walls.

"Wanted to put my mouth on you until you begged me to have you. There, on the bench where you sit to don your armor." The gentle rotations of her hips changed, melted into quick, hard thrusts.

Sandor grabbed for the rumpled bedding, held on tight with both hands, fingers curled and whimpers eking out past his slack lips. "Hn! Hn-hn-hnnnn!"

Sansa was panting hot, open-mouthed breaths against the inside of his knee. "I wanted to shuck your trousers down, push your knees up to your chest and!"

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck!" Sandor grunted, mindlessly finishing her thought aloud.

"Yes. Yes," she agreed and praised him. "Knowing my seed has taken root in you, every minute of every day," Sansa continued, slowing her pace to Sandor's dissatisfaction, "I want the whole of Winterfell to hear you howl for me."

"Fuck. Let them. Fuck!"

A wail rose from deep in Sansa's chest as her hard pace resumed, fucking-fucking-fucking and fuck so good!

Her fingers clenched around his cock, rubbed just so through the dribbles of his unceasing pleasure so that her touch turned slick and perfect!

"Alpha!" he called out just before the heat overwhelmed his lungs and heart and mind. The rush rolled him up and spat him out, tossing him into a warm, sparkling sea of bliss. "My alpha. Sansa," he gasped, so far beyond mere contentment that he had no other words.

Her hot essence was gushing into him, rinsing every last bit of tension from his muscles. He was a puddle of omega man, barely able to breathe let alone work up the energy needed for a smile.

"This," Sansa was saying, "this is why I haven't let myself touch you for over a sennight. You still feel me?"

Fuck, he could and, fuck, how was she still hard?

"Once I had you, I knew I'd keep you." She pressed a kiss to his thigh. "Just like this. Wide open for me. I knew I'd have to have you again and again and again..."

"Seven fucked," he managed to spit out. "You can have as much of me as you want, wife."

"Can I?" She shook her head and moaned prettily as her knot pushed another dose into his womb. "You've worked so hard to earn the respect of the Northern men. Betas -- they wouldn't understand. They'd think less of you for letting your wife have you as often as she pleases."

Sandor didn't want to focus on anything other than the pleasure his alpha was giving him, but he was also very invested in the current conversation because, bugger him, he should have told her years ago: "They can think whatever they want. Aye, my leg and arm are buggered, but I can still best the lot of them with steel and they know it. And thanks to your brother flapping his gums, they know I've been good and bred by my wife."

Aye, everyone knew she'd fucked a pup into him. She liked that; he could tell by the way her hips pressed deeper and another handful of her spendings joined the rest.

"Fuck, how are you still coming?" he heard himself mutter, losing the thread of the discussion.

She helpfully reminded him: "A sennight's worth..."

He groaned through gritted teeth. "So good, alpha."

She purred.

Sandor let himself ride the ebb and flow until he recalled what he'd been saying. "We're not betas, you and I. We can't hide it. Shouldn't. It's time they got used to it." He forced open his eyes and the sight of the lust in his wife's gaze nearly made him tip over the edge again. "So aye, you come to the training yard and fuck me wherever, whenever, however you want."

Her tongue poked out to lick her lips and Sandor rasped, "Want to give that to you. Want to have that from you."

"So you shall," she promised and fuuuuuck! Sandor flopped back on the bed, surrendering to yet another gush of heaven. That was what she was. All Seven Heavens in him and on him and through him.

He spared a thought for the trainees he'd allowed only an hour's break. Surely the allotted time was nearly up, but Sandor couldn't find it in him to care. Because his channel was currently wrapped around, clamped down on, and squeezing his alpha's knot. They had seven days and nights to make up for and, clearly, Sandor wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon.

He grinned and gasped, reveling in every slow grind and sudden thrust. He was hers to have for as long and as hard, or as sweet and as soft, as she needed.

Sandor was more than happy to take her all.

There was a saying in the North: "For every Old God, there is a story." At one time, it was undoubtedly true, but as each Old God merged with the rest to become the Old Gods, many of those stories faded, too. One by one, generation by generation, their true meaning was lost through the shoddy wording of lazy bards and elders with fading memory.

The one story that best survived actually had nothing to do with the gods whatsoever. If anything, it told of a cataclysm that not even the power of the Old Gods could prevent. It told the Northerners of the Night King.

"The Night King isn't real," many Northerners would say all while surreptitiously making a sign to ward off evil and illness. Their eyes had never seen such a monster, but their hearts knew it was real.

Indeed the Night King was.

Somewhere beyond the Wall in the Lands of Always Winter, the Night King waited. The lives of men were short and their memories weak. One day, they would forget the most important tale of all: they would forget why a Stark, servant of the Night's Watch or not, must never venture beyond the Wall.

The Night King was not bothered by the passing centuries. Eventually, a Stark would come, and the Night King had nothing but time.

Chapter Text

"Fuck, this pup sucks the life out of me." Sandor sent a glare Sansa's way. She was untying a sloshing water skin from her horse's saddle and the sound of it made Sandor's belly roll in an odd, instinctual lurch. Like a strike just shy of the kneecap that would always send the foot below it flying forward. Accepting the uncapped container, he grumped, "Why did I let you do this to me?"

Sansa's lips scrunched into a moue, either because she was thinking back to a specific memory or attempting to keep a laugh from bursting out. She did look rather pleased with herself these days. Sandor should have been offended, but mostly it just made him smirk because, aye, he'd done that. He'd made his alpha sickeningly happy.

She said, "Something about being thirty-and-two and not having all that many childbearing years left?"

He pouted. "You make me sound like an old man."

He straightened up from where he'd been braced, waiting for the wave of nausea to pass. He lifted the water to his lips and glugged several mouthfuls. One of which nearly spouted out of his nose at his wife's retort: "You complain like one. Come with your wife, old man, and she might comb your hair and rub your shoulders while you rest your eyes."

Oh, aye, he liked that idea, but with Robb Stark and Jory Cassel and half the bleeding men-at-arms of Winterfell looking on, he muted his enthusiasm: "It's the least you could do."

Sansa swanned upward onto her toes and, cradling his jaw in her hands, licked a hot swath along his lips before softly dipping inside. It was indecent, to be sure, but she knew it was just what he needed.

Sure enough, when she pulled back, he was grinning. "Alpha," he intoned quietly, his voice low and heavy with praise. The unhurried clamor of the men packing up their camp for another day of traveling buried the word in this small pocket where only Sandor and Sansa stood.

She moved to sit on their bedroll and Sandor carefully sprawled in the provided space, his head in her lap. He closed his eyes, not to sleep, of course, just to give them a bit of a rest.

"Are you regretting this trip already?" she asked quietly.

"Hm. Might be. But your father made a fair point. If the people he'd met in King's Landing are any indication, Lannister's offer might not be one we'll want to accept."

He sensed, rather than saw, her nod. "They sounded awful. All those lies. All the deceit. My father nearly died for honor, and the king did die for Cersei's secret." She sighed. "Still, I'm not sure coming with Robb on his tour of the North will accomplish what my father hopes it will."

"If it convinces you to stay in the North, he'll consider it an effort well-spent."

"But what will Northerners think of us?"

Sandor blindly reached for her hand and pulled it toward his mouth, giving her fingers a whiskery kiss. "Doesn't matter, little bird. Northerners are practical-minded people; what they can't change, they'll accept."

"Oh? As you so readily accepted your new moniker, I suppose."

Sandor snorted, remembering. When the time for both his and Sansa's fevers had passed without either making an appearance, Maester Luwin (and, at this point, Septa Mordane's discerning snoot) confidently declared Sandor to "be with child" (as betas say). Both Robb and Sandor (and quite a few others) had assumed this would mean Sandor's confinement at Winterfell.

But!

To everyone's surprise, Ned Stark had urged Sandor and Sansa to join the expedition as planned and accompany Robb on his visit to each and every castle, fort, and village large enough to have a headman. The point was for Robb to introduce himself to his people, and also demonstrate Lord Stark's faith in him by toting the famed Valerian blade Ice along as proof of his worthiness as the future lord of Winterfell.

Arya had been irate at being excluded from the venture: "Oi! Sansa's Hound's got a bun in the oven and he gets to go!"

"Hound?!" Sansa had squawked.

Arya had shrugged. "Isn't he? I mean, the Clegane banner. Plus, he follows you around like one. Sniffing everything."

When Sansa had made to rebut, Sandor had simply shaken his head. The more his wife argued, the harder the little wolf would clamp her jaws down on it. Best to just let it go.

Now he answered Sansa's gentle teasing: "Of all the things your sister could think of to call me, 'Hound' isn't the worst."

Sansa's hand resumed its slow petting through his unbound hair. "You make a very good point, Sandor Stark."

Stark. Fuck, he still wasn't used to people calling him that.

But, by the time they made it back to Winterfell, he surely would be.

He kept his eyes shut as all was made ready to resume their course. It had become evident within the first few days of travel that rushing to get into the saddle merely meant stopping soon after so that Sandor could empty his stomach against an unfortunate tree, followed by a rest (the little bird insisted), during which the men would break their fast over cook-fires and the smell would have Sandor heaving again. No, it was best to wake early but move slowly until the urge to upchuck his own guts passed, and then saddle up and eat cold rations on the road. Nobody was thrilled with it, naturally, but what Sandor had said of Northerners was true: what couldn't be changed was pragmatically adjusted to.

Even the horses had accepted the presence of two fully grown direwolves roaming about at all hours: Grey Wind and Lady were their best scouts and a more competent night watch could not be had. Not that that seemed to allow either Sansa or Robb quality rest. Every morning, they both had dark circles under their eyes.

Another reason, besides my buggering belly, to have a slow start to the day.

The pattern held for an additional three days before Sandor mentioned it to his wife during the long, mostly silent ride. Everyone had finally (thank the buggering Seven!) run dry of topics and tall tales. Sandor was enjoying the peace and quiet for the most part. But not where his wife was concerned; as her energy had waned, so too had her chatter.

In a soft tone for her ears alone, he said, "Whatever's keeping you from resting well at night might be the same thing that's been chewing on Robb's arse."

Sansa blinked and peered in her brother's direction, startling as if she'd only just noticed how exhausted he looked. "You think so?"

"Hm. The only quality rest either of you have gotten was back in Tumbledown," Sandor remarked, thinking of the soft beds and warm hearths. The scent of their much-touted ale had turned Sandor's stomach, but otherwise he couldn't complain about the hospitality.

Well, no. He could complain. The lot of them had gaped at Sansa and him like they were seeing grumpkins dancing in Dornish dresses. And then Robb had cleared his throat and suddenly everyone was happily attending to their future lord and pretending all was normal.

"Nothing but betas here, folks!" Sandor had practically heard them thinking.

But the bed had been decent. And for the sake of his aching back, he was willing to overlook the residents' small-mindedness.

They were now just passing the northern shores of Long Lake. Last Hearth, the family seat of the Umbers, would soon be popping up from the snowy landscape. Sandor was looking forward to it because, frankly, bedding down in ankle-deep snow was something Sandor would readily complain about.

"So what is it?" he asked Sansa. "Is it the cold that's keeping you from resting well enough?"

She frowned in thought. "I'm not sure. I think I'm dreaming, but I don't remember much about it. Movement, maybe. Through snow and trees."

Sandor nodded. "I can see where your mind might be drawing inspiration from." He held up a hand, indicating the snow and the trees.

Sansa gave him a smile, but the humor behind it was muted.

"We'll be arriving soon." He held out a hand across the gap between their horses.

She grasped it. "Yes, and what a treat the Umbers will be."

From what Sandor could recall of the menfolk who had answered Lord Stark's call to banners against Greyjoy, aye, they would.

Fucking Umbers.

Looking back on it, Sandor could see how the night had been leading up to this. The welcome had been boisterous to the point of confrontational and the noise in the great hall threatened to knock down the walls. The Greatjon was determined to outdrink the whole of Winterfell's men-at-arms all while expounding on his house's importance to the Starks, including the significance of the colors and sigil on the banners flying both indoors and out. The man was clearly in love with his role as Lord of Last Hearth. It would have been tolerable (endearing, even, were Sandor able to imbibe without his guts turning front to back) of the lord of the castle. However. There was more than one Umber and they all seemed to think themselves equally important in the eyes of Robb Stark.

Aye, Sandor should have seen events unfolding thus. Would have, too, if the Crannogmen's idea of a celebration was anything more expressive than sedate sips of mead as the elders told the old tales and the little ones played hide and seek among the tables.

To think I'd once found that boring.

But this? This was madness. And the younger generation of Umbers was determined to induct as many newcomers as possible: Robb, of course, and (surprisingly) Sandor, who was boggling in disbelieving silence as the drunken louts expounded on the charms of their womenfolk and the tight fit of their cunts.

"What? You've got a cock, haven't you?" a very drunk, very loud, very obnoxiously large Smalljon was saying to Sandor. The man's arm was thrown over Robb's shoulders, presumably in camaraderie, but by the speed at which Robb's ale-flushed cheeks were deepening to a very alarming shade of red, Sandor suspected that the Smalljon was more holding the man captive than anything else. To Sandor, the Smalljon either japed or challenged: "You piss standing up like the rest of us, aye?"

The Smalljon's not-much-smaller Umber cousins guffawed in laughter. The force of it was enough to rattle the roof and shake Robb's determined grin into a grimace.

"What," Sandor barked, "in all the Seven bloody and buggering Hells! Your maester's taught you lot fuck all about the Seven Kingdoms."

The Smalljon snorted. "Not talking Southern politics and backstabbing, man. You are a man, aye? Haven't got a -- what was it?" He turned briefly to one of his equally inebriated cohorts. "Flowers? Waterways? The fuck kind of language is that anyway. Just tell us whether you fuck like a man, Stark."

Robb shook his head in a sort of mesmerized horror. "My goodbrother may be an omega, but--"

"But," Sandor interrupted because this was one battle no one but Sandor would be fighting. Drawing the Smalljon and his a patronizing grin away from the much shorter son of his liege lord, Sandor declared, "You've got a maester. Ask him your idiotic questions."

The man shrugged. "Unlike some, we don't need a maester to teach us how to fuck." He slapped Robb's back, chortling at his own jape. To Sandor, he announced, "We're off to get our cocks wet and I figured, what with your wife being an alpha, it'd be a real treat for you." He beamed a sloppy and borderline hostile smile at Sandor. "To fuck a cunt instead of bending over like a bitch."

Drunk as he might be, there was nothing wrong with young Lord Stark's reflexes; Robb ducked out of the way just as Sandor's fist smashed into the fucker's gut. Seeing as how the man had been chugging ale for hours, it was no surprise that quite a lot of it came back out, spraying the tunic hems, britches, and boots of two of his like-minded companions.

"You!" the Smalljon gasped, clutching his belly while his tankard clattered on the stones and his friends roared with spiteful mirth. "You--you omega f--!"

"Aye, me. Aye, an omega, you fucking pea-brained moron. If you've got a problem with what I am, you fucking sober up and meet me in the training yard tomorrow morning." Sandor leaned in and sneered. "I hope your friends remind you to keep your cock in your britches before my sword comes out or it's liable to end up in the mud."

The Smalljon gritted his teeth, seething and still struggling to catch his breath.

"C'mon, Jonny," an Umber with an ounce of self-preservation crowed, clamping a hand around the man's collar. "Let's find you a lass. She'll make you feel like a man again!"

Another arm shot out to herd Robb with them. Sandor stepped in the way and pivoted to face his goodbrother to deliver some levelheaded advice: "There's five dumb fuckers here who are keen to watch you bugger their womenfolk, aye, but there's a hundred in this hall who'll respect you a hundred times more for refusing. Choose."

Robb was drunk. The vaguely befuddled look on his face, the pink in his cheeks, and the visibly slow workings of his brain made that abundantly clear when he attempted to articulate some sort of acceptable middle ground: "Suppose I just..." Robb waved a hand around in a gesture Sandor assumed was supposed to be meaningful.

"How likely do you think these meatheads are to let you 'just...'?" Sandor copied the motion with his own hand. "You throw your lot in with them, you're on your own. I won't be there to make sure you 'just...'" Sandor hitched his brow for emphasis.

"Right." Robb nodded carefully. "You really do love my sister. Faithfully."

"I do. But aside from that, she's my bondmate, Robb. I'll never want anyone else. She's it for me. For the rest of my life."

Robb pointed toward Sandor's neck and the bitemark that could be partially seen under his collar. "You still got the other side, though. For another bite?"

Smith, you fucker, drop your hammer on my goodbrother's head and save me from the idiocy of betas.

"A second gland doesn't mean a second woman in my bed, Stark. It means a second chance." Sandor paused and added, "Assuming the broken heart doesn't do me in first because the only way either Sansa or I would let another alpha near my neck is over your sister's dead body... and mine. That clear enough for you?"

"Hmm. Sounds boring?"

"And that sounds like Theon fucking Greyjoy talking."

Robb opened his mouth, possibly to retort or yawn or vomit.

The Umber-or-other that Sandor had cut off shouted over his shoulder. "Robb! Are you game or not?"

With a glance, Sandor could see the other three chuckleheads shoving the Smalljon out the door. He was weaving and stumbling and spitting slurred curses. Sandor pitied the unknown lass who'd have to put up with that mess between her legs.

"No," Robb firmly replied. "Enjoy your evening, Ulbrich."

With that, the sod finally fucked off.

Sandor's goodbrother grinned up at him. "There! Are you proud of me?"

"Not yet."

Robb's arms flapped wide and Sandor was grateful that his tankard was empty. "What more do you want from me, Hound?"

"I want you not to vomit on my boots." He curled a hand around Robb's shoulder to steady him. "You manage that and, aye, I'll be proud of you."

"Ugh. Could go either way," Robb warned him.

"Then it's time to fill that tankard with water."

"Boring!"

"You'll thank yourself in the morning for drinking it."

The process of winding their way through the throng to find a server who could oblige their uncelebratory request took long enough that Robb's slouch straightened and his eyes cleared a bit. With the water down the hatch, he was looking and sounding more exhausted than intoxicated.

"Well," he began with some regret, "let's go find Sansa. Tear her away from a riveting discussion of embroidery thread."

"She ever threaten to sew your mouth shut?"

Robb twitched with alarm and poked Sandor's chest with a finger. "Don't put that idea in her head."

Sandor allowed a slow grin to stretch across both sides of his face.

But Robb wasn't finished: "Unless you want to be the recipient someday."

"She wouldn't."

"Overconfidence will be your downfall. Sansa always gets her way."

Sandor couldn't argue with that. He shouldered between two equally earsplitting conversations, Robb in tow.

"Where are we going?"

"You said you wanted to find your sister. Embroidery thread and dangerous ideas, remember?"

"Oh, well. I suppose you can spot her from up there."

"Don't have to see her to find her. I can smell, can't I?"

Robb jerked to a halt. "You can smell her. Here. In a crowd of five hundred people."

"Bondmate," Sandor reminded him sarcastically.

Shaking his head, Robb sighed. "I really -- we really, betas, I mean -- don't understand you two at all, do we?"

"Not many are keen to. We complicate your safe little world of man-fucks-woman."

Robb scrubbed a hand over his face. "Gods. My sister fucks you."

"You're just now letting yourself think about this?"

"I mean, she's my sister."

"And you're no Targaryen. Right. Good."

"But you're both, um, happy? I mean, what, er. That bit about, um."

"Robb, talk to a bloody maester or you will be begging me to bash open your skull and take my words back from your brain with my bare hands because I don't give two shits about offending your delicate sensibilities."

"I'm not delicate!"

"You can't even say 'wet your cock,' for fuck's sake!"

"Well, neither can I," a familiar feminine voice interjected. Sandor turned and, ah, bugger. There she was. His wife. Looking very poised and alpha and delightfully curious. Sandor immediately decided to let Robb explain, which he did with much gesturing and redness of face.

"Hm," Sansa said, looking as frustrated as Sandor felt by all the hullabaloo over designations. She linked her arm through Sandor's and they both kept a weather eye on Robb as the Greatjon managed to snap him up in his conversational jowls. "You may yet be right about Northerners coming to accept us," she volunteered suddenly, "but this will be the last place for that to happen."

"Stubborn buggers."

"The womenfolk as well." Sansa answered his inquiring look with an arched brow. "No doubt they made attempt to be tactful unlike the Smalljon, but it was clear they considered us, you and me, novelties."

In the strictest sense of the word, Sandor could admit that they were. But he was glad when Robb finally couldn't stop yawning and both Sandor and Sansa could shuffle him off to his chambers. Six additional paces down the corridor, they found their own door and Sandor gratefully fell into bed with a grunt. Sansa tumbled in beside him, their arms wrapping around one another in reflex.

"Having to watch you from all the way across the great hall is a burden I've never cared for and am disinclined to repeat," she said into his hairy chest.

"Aye."

Her hands roved greedily over his shoulders. "If only I weren't so exhausted..."

"...aye."

"... hmmm. In the morning then?"

"...hm."

And so it was that, when morning came and a chamber maid knocked on their door, the only reply given was a feminine moan and a man's shouted cursing. (Having been a chamber maid for the Umbers and their sons for some years, the woman knew well enough what that meant and elected to return later.)

"The dreams are back," Sansa said midway to Castle Black, their next stop.

"It'd be best to visit the far north before winter digs its claws in," Ned Stark had advised back when Robb had been planning his route. So, they were moving directly from Winterfell with brief stops at Tumbledown Tower and Last Hearth only.

In the end, Sandor had enjoyed Last Hearth. The peace and quiet in the wake of the feast (as the residents had nursed ferocious head pains and weak bellies the next morning and afternoon) combined with the sound sleep and excellent fucking his alpha had given him had put Sandor in a chipper mood. Sansa had teased him about it, of course, but as no one else was within earshot, he let himself bask in her attention rather than stir up an argument out of smarting pride.

Although, to be fair, after having cohabited at Winterfell for nigh on five years, Sansa did know him well enough not to henpeck, even in jest, within earshot of stodgy betas.

In fact, the reason for their discord some sennights past had been her over-caution: "I apologize, Sandor. I should have told you I was concerned I wouldn't be able to control myself, that I'd embarrass you and belittle you in front of men who owe you respect. Instead I distanced myself from you with no explanation. That wasn't right. I'll do better in the future."

A pretty apology, indeed. He'd ducked between her thighs and used his mouth to reassure that all was forgiven.

It hadn't been the first time he'd traced her petals and stamen with his lips or tongued the tight opening to her unused womb. Her wetness there wasn't as abundant as the excitement that emerged from her lady-cock, but Sandor's own channel provided plenty of slick, didn't it? Enough to coat his own cock or paint her womanhood to ease the way. But Sansa hadn't mentioned wanting that, wanting Sandor to take her maidenhead. Perhaps someday she might, aye, but it was hard to turn away the offer of her hard knot and spine-tingling waves of pleasure.

Next time mayhap, Sandor had idly thought more than once in that brief moment of being breached by his alpha, just before all coherent thought abandoned him entirely.

He shivered with heat. His core ached. Gods, I miss my wife's lady-cock.

"Sandor?" Sansa prompted, the look on her face knowing. Her lips had a sly curve to them that Sandor wanted to nibble on. "Are you listening?"

"Aye. The dreams are back. More snow and trees?"

"And blood."

That got Sandor's attention.

Checking to ensure that they were far enough away from the main party, Sansa leaned in her saddle and lowered her voice: "A stag. I killed a stag."

"You were in my arms all night long."

"Yes, I was. But Lady wasn't."

"Lady. Your direwolf?"

"Well, I certainly can't run down a stag and kill it with my teeth, can I?"

Sandor frowned. "The Reeds told stories about something like that."

"Yes. The Crannogmen are known for greensight--"

Aye, visions of the future delivered in code in their dreams. Sandor suppressed a shiver.

"--and the Starks are said to be able to warg." At the puzzled shake of Sandor's head, she elaborated: "The mind can cross a physical distance and enter the body of another. To see through their eyes. Maybe more."

Sandor contemplated that for the count of ten hoofbeats thumping into the deepening snow. "So it's Lady who's keeping you from sleep then."

"Apparently, direwolves don't need as much rest as people do."

"Hm. I'll have talk with her about that."

Sansa laughed, the notes high and clear and bright. Every single man-at-arms turned to gape at Sandor like he'd never made a proper jape before.

Come to think of it, to them, he probably hadn't. Unless one considered curses and insults particularly amusing. Thinking of his standoff against the Smalljon, Sandor was inclined to say no.

Buggering humorless Northerners.

Lord Tyrion better understood Sandor's brand of humor. Unfortunately.

Must be a Southern custom. Insult your friends, smile at your enemies...

The tiny bugger was still waiting for Sansa's raven. Sandor still wasn't sure about returning to the Westerlands. On the one hand, he and his alpha wouldn't be novelties there, but on the other, Sandor would be treated like an omega; no one would conveniently "forget" his designation like the Stark men-at-arms often did, behaving as though Sandor was just another beta like the rest of them.

He thought of the pup. Would it be easier to raise in the North or the South? And when it had grown, would betrothals come easier among betas or from families with members of all three designations?

Fuck, his head hurt.

Spotting the small grin on Robb's face -- no, he hadn't heard Sandor's jape, but he was evidently pleased that Sandor had made his sister laugh -- Sandor turned back to what Sansa had been telling him.

"Think that's your brother's trouble as well?" At Sansa's surprised look, he pointed out, "If it's a matter of age, he's old enough. Unless younger is better with this sort of thing. And if that's the case I pity your lord father and lady mother what with those three and their wolves loose in Winterfell."

Again, Sansa laughed, suddenly and loudly.

Sandor continued, "But you and Robb both got your direwolf pups at the same time, so if it's coming from their end, well, Grey Wind is the same age as Lady. They've both been with the two of you for the same number of years." He tilted his head to the side. "And I'd still pity your parents."

Smiling, Sansa nodded. "I'll talk to him."

Sandor squinted at the sky. It was overcast as always, but darker than expected. He'd noticed it after leaving Last Hearth, but the days shouldn't be shortening this quickly. Should they?

They say the North is strange.

Maybe this, the lengthening of night the further north they traveled, was just another inexplicable oddity.

The Long Night was won, but the cost was high in blood and life and terror. Years upon years of all three. To ensure that the First Men and the Children of the Forest would always have a solid and defensible high ground from which to fight against the dead, the Wall was built.

The Children were given that charge while the Starks were given another: in magic, just as in nature, there must always be balance; therefore, so too must an unconquerable edifice be at the mercy of absolute destruction. Thus, for the Wall to stand stronger than any threat it might face, a device had to be made that, with a single strike, could cause the stones to crumble.

It was a thing blessed, charmed to be wielded only by a Stark, and thus could not remain in Winterfell lest some folly of foolish curiosity lead to its untimely use. It was entrusted to the Children and buried at a distance from the Wall, among the roots of a grove of weirwood trees, watched over by and in the grasp of the Old Gods.

That was where the Night King's long-laboring servant was discovered exhausted, starved, but ceaselessly hacking away at the frozen ground with spade and ax.

Through the eyes of his servant, the Night King welcomed the black-clad man who approached and reached out to embrace his mind.

"Uncle Benjen?" the Stark said.

At his side, a white direwolf snarled in warning, but it was too late. The gazes of both men met and, in that moment, a bridge formed. The will of the Night King crossed it. The newcomer was strong and healthy. The first servant relinquished the spade to his hands and collapsed in the churned snow.

The direwolf whined, looked around as if confused.

The new servant ignored the creature and began to dig.

Chapter Text

Two steps inside the fortifications of Castle Black, Sandor decided that the name "Black" had been a badly misplaced attempt at tact, as Sansa would say. A more fitting moniker for the decrypt jumble of stone would have been "Doomed Keep." Aye, that was what he saw in the slumped shoulders and weary faces and hardened eyes of each man, from crow to recruit. No one who entered these gates expected to ever be free of the Night Watch's dour (and, as he would come to learn by this fourth meal taken there, tasteless and monotonous) embrace. Even the name of nearby Moletown enforced the inevitability of one's fate: bury your woes, along with your cock in a cunt, that's as close you'll get to escape until the Stranger comes for your wretched soul.

And Ned Stark wanted Sandor and Sansa to take possession of a keep in even more dire straits than this one?

Bugger that.

The Westerlands were looking more and more inviting by the hour.

"I don't suppose we'll be seeing Jon Snow at dinner this evening?" Robb said in a tone that meant he very much intended to see Jon Snow, sooner rather than later, whether Commander Mormont agreed or not.

"Gone ranging, my lord," the man informed him. "No telling when he'll be back. Could be tonight, could be tomorrow, could be next week. Your party made good time in the snow. Or bad, as the case may be."

Robb looked about as impressed as Sandor was with Mormont's manner, which was to say not at all.

The man further distinguished himself as an utter arse by giving both Sandor and Sansa a flat look as he declared, "Any designational issues you may have during your stay can be addressed to Samwell Tarly. He's an acting apprentice to our maester, who rarely leaves his chambers these days. I trust the evening meal will be soon enough to make introductions?"

Sansa's smile was a bit too wide when she cordially replied, "We look forward to it. Thank you, Commander."

"Hm. I suppose you'll want a tour of the facilities. Tollett!"

A cheerless fellow, who looked just as dreary as his surroundings, jogged forward. "Yes, Commander?"

"Fetch bread, salt, and ale for our--" Mormont's eyes narrowed. "--guests. Then see them to their chambers. When they're rested, show them around the castle." He started to turn but paused and looked back at Sansa. "You, my lady, are advised not to wander alone." With a glance at Sandor, he added, "You, either. Lord Stark." He then bowed to Robb and marched away.

Tollett gestured their company toward the dining hall as the commander's footsteps faded. "Welcome to Castle Black, my lords and lady. I am Edd Tollett, steward. If you'd follow me."

"Our pleasure," Robb retorted with enough sarcasm to slice a leather boot. Tollett seemed to take no notice of it.

He provided the promised bread (dry) and salt (a mere pinch per person) and ale (rancid, Sandor was sure, and that wasn't the pup talking), and then brought boiled water when Sansa asked for something to help warm more than just their bellies. Many tankards of ale either sat untouched after the first sniff or were dutifully gulped down followed by steaming cups of water. Aye, water was best served cold, but compared to the ale, it was a treat.

Few enjoyable experiences were to be had in Castle Black. The bath house was overused and the water hardly warmer than the skin it was meant to cleanse. The window shutters were drafty, the hearths small and miserly with their heat. It took less than two days for Sandor to welcome a miserable walk along the top of the Wall in the frigid winter wind simply to avoid the soul-sucking dreariness within the castle walls.

Suppose that's what the Night Watch aims for: to make their crows long for out-of-doors.

"I know Jon," Samwell Tarly suddenly volunteered on the third day. He'd been the one to offer to take them along the top of the Wall and, given his ruddy complexion and store of winter fat, Sandor figured he had a better chance of surviving the expedition (as brief as it was) as opposed to the skeletal and unsmiling Tollett.

Robb, Jory, and Sansa who had all tagged along on Sandor's escape, rounded on the stout maester's helper, causing Tarly to shuffle back a step before bracing against the wave of interest. As Robb and Jory peppered Tarly with questions, Sandor watched Sansa. She'd never seemed to be very close with her half-brother, not like the little she-wolf Arya had been, but she was clearly keen to hear about him now.

"He embarrassed me," Sansa admitted later that evening after a memorably bland supper. She and Sandor had bundled up in their too small, very humble straw bed in their room of cold stone and pitiful firelight. After they'd achieved a state as close to warm and cozy (with the exception of their noses which were wont to freeze and fall off of their faces) as one could get, Sandor had mentioned her father's bastard son. She'd hesitated for a moment before answering and Sandor could imagine why.

"Wasn't your embarrassment. Was you father's."

She shook her head. "It was my mother's."

"Ah." It made sense now. "She did her best to turn you into a perfect princess."

"A queen," she playfully corrected him.

Sandor grunted.

They watched the tiny flames in the cramped hearth cough and sputter.

"I regret now," she said, her jaw moving against his shirt where she'd pressed her cheek to his chest, "that I wasn't a true sister to him. An apology cannot make up for the years squandered, but I would have him know that he is family to me. True family."

Sandor rubbed her back. "When he gets done pissing around in the snow and finds his way back, you'll tell him."

"He's late," Edd Tollett announced to those gathered to break their fast. Jeor Mormont had torn though the hall to bolt down his portion before storming off again. The steward said of his commander's gruff demeanor, "Jon Snow is late and he's got no reason to be. Was due back some days before you arrived, and he's never stayed out so many days past his due return."

Robb paused. "Your commander holds Jon Snow in some esteem?"

Tollett nodded. "Snow saved the Commander's life. Carries the Mormont family's Valerian steel blade as proof of Commander Mormont's thanks. Most of us expect Jon Snow to be named his successor when the time comes."

"I didn't know."

Sansa rolled her eyes at her brother. "Why would you? Your arrival here was rather confrontational."

Robb winced. "It was, wasn't it? I'll make amends for that. Today if I can."

Tollett sighed. "The Commander might not see you today. Finally had news this morning; Jon Snow's wolf's been sighted."

Robb and Sansa both straightened in their seats. "Ghost is out there?"

Edd nodded. "Some miles out. Circling a copse of weirwood, scouts said."

"They couldn't call him in?"

Tollett shrugged. "Wouldn't leave. Seen that beast rip the arms off of a man. Best to just let him be."

Robb and Sansa exchanged a look. "Show us on the map," Robb commanded and, two hours later, he was leading a team to the spot where Ghost had been seen, well beyond sight of the sentries atop the wall, and into the Haunted Forest. Both Lady and Grey Wind trotted alongside the horses. Jory and his company surrounded Robb in sound tactical formation.

Sandor watched them leave, irritated at having been left behind but irrationally distressed by the thought of leaving Sansa's side.

Sansa drew a deep breath and slowly released it. "Now," she told Sandor, "I need a comfortable chair. It's time to see how well I can warg when I'm making a conscious attempt." She paused on the stairs leading to their chamber. "Or I suppose you could help me fall asleep."

"By singing you a bloody lullaby?"

She grinned. "You might welcome the practice." She gave his belly a pat. The flesh was still taut, but there was definitely a curve to it that hadn't been there ten fortnights ago. Gods, in the coming months, how was he going to manage to swing a sword with his belly arriving at the target three days before the rest of him?

He huffed and followed Sansa up to the landing.

Hours later, as night began to fall far too soon for Sandor's liking, someone banged on their bolted door, startling Sansa from her doze against Sandor's shoulder.

"Hm!" she grunted, hands reaching for Sandor but he was already moving toward the door.

"Who's out there?" he called through the wood, grasping the bundle of sword-and-belt in one hand.

"Samwell Tarly, my lord. There's come a raven. From Winterfell."

Sandor lifted the bolt and swung the door open to accept the scroll.

"Um. It's addressed to Lord Robb Stark."

"Well he's not here. If it's urgent, then we'd best know about it so we can go and fetch him back here, aye?"

With only a little hesitance, Tarly handed it over. Sandor snorted at the man's antics. If he'd had any reservations about Robb's sister or goodbrother reading the message, then why bring it here in the first place?

Sandor passed it to Sansa where she was still snuggled down under the blankets and furs. The letter unrolled stiffly, the parchment dried out after being frozen for days.

Sandor slid back into the warm spot he'd vacated.

"It's from Bran," she told him, looking up. She angled it for Sandor to read over her shoulder:

Jojen Reed is here.   He has seen .   No one with Stark blood must go beyond the Wall.   Jon will be kept alive.   We are coming to Castle Black.   Summer running ahead.   Speak to my wolf what you would say to me. --Bran

Bugger all. How many Stark children were going to end up being bloody wargs?

Gods save us all if Arya gets into her wolf's head.

But then the content of the message reached past Sandor's knee-jerk sarcasm and hit hard.

"Robb..." Sansa began.

Sandor was already throwing the furs aside and reaching for his warmest clothes.

"What are you. No. Sandor, do not--"

"Greensight's not to be fucked with, Sansa," he said, shoving his arms through armholes and buckling buckles. "Jojen's got the sight. Always has. He's never wrong. If he's gone all the way to Winterfell to warn us, it's no idle threat."

"I know that, but you can't--"

"Who else is there we can send? Who do we trust?"

"Don't you dare take our child out there."

Sandor froze.

Fuck.

"Can you warg? Can you get Lady to convince Grey Wind to, I don't know, help her block Robb's path 'til he grows a brain and turns back?" Sandor gave that a moment's thought. "If he thinks Jon's direwolf is circling because Jon is in danger, will Robb turn back?"

Sansa bit her lip and, aye, that was answer enough for Sandor.

She thumped the furs with her fists. "Take someone with you. Tarly. Tollett. Commander Mormont!"

Stomping back over to the bed where Sansa was struggling to free herself from the tangle of blankets and pelts, he said, "I'll not go alone. Plus, I'll be riding Stranger. In combat, he's worth ten of those buggering sers."

"Do not let it come to combat, Sandor. I cannot lose you and our child."

Sandor leveled his gaze on hers, somber with realization. "That's the choice you'd have me make?"

Her eyes filled with tears. She sniffled. Fully aware that she was telling him to save himself, to leave her brothers out in the frozen wilderness to die if the rescue seemed fruitless, she repeated, "I can't lose you."

It would be a hell of a choice to make, aye, but for his alpha and their child, he'd make it. If he had to.

Let's just hope I don't have to.

He braced himself over her, tucking his nose against her bitemark for a slow, deep inhale. She reciprocated, drawing his scent into her lungs. When they inevitably drew back, she kissed his lips. As he straightened, Sandor pressed a soft kiss to her brow. "Try to sleep. Warg into that wolf of yours. If I can have you there with me..." He wasn't sure how to finish the thought, but he knew he'd like knowing she was there while still being safely at a distance.

She nodded. "If I'm there, I'll nod -- up and down -- five times."

As that was something Sandor had never seen Lady do, he figured it was as good a signal as any.

Sandor banged out of the room and rounded up Tarly. "We're bringing Robb back to Castle Black. Name men who would want to fight alongside the future lord of Winterfell and clear it with the commander."

Tarly named six. Their swords looked sharp and well-made so Sandor voiced no complaint. He tossed Tarly's wide arse on top of Sansa's horse, which had half a prayer of keeping up with Stranger's brutal pace. Unlike the other sorry-looking, swaybacked nags in the castle's stables.

They burst through the gate and out into the snowy night. Sandor leaned low over Stranger's neck as the stallion plowed a path through the drifts for the others to follow.

Behind them, the weak lights from tiny watchtower windows flickered and blinked atop the Wall. Sandor didn't have to look over his shoulder to feel, know, that Sansa was there, standing vigil at one of them.

One would not know it by sight alone (for a terrible sight it was), but the Night King was pleased.  One servant had become two and now three.

Three Starks, all commanded with ease. The Night King was well accustomed to exerting his will through others. His White Walkers proved his skill in that regard. However, crunching the power of his ancient mind down into the petty and mundane words of men demanded a herculean effort. It was contrarily exhausting, but he managed it.

His servants spoke.

All of them spoke.

Three Starks uttered the same words, at the same time.

This, the Night King realized, was not natural among men. Through the eyes of his servants, the Night King saw how the soldiers (or, rather the flesh bags carrying paltry blades of mere steel) who had accompanied his third and just-acquired servant frowned, looked at one another, fidgeted on their horses.

But none of them interfered as the second servant and the third climbed down into the pit side by side to hack and saw at the roots enclosing the prize.

It was close. So very close.

The Night King gave the command, and his army of dead began the march to the Wall.

Chapter Text

On the eve of Sandor's bonding ceremony with the little bird, Howland Reed had suddenly appeared at Sandor's elbow. The weather had been too nice to waste, so Sandor had taken Stranger out for a run. Upon his return from giving the outer walls of Winterfell a cursory inspection, the familiar figure of Sandor's former lord had been waiting beside his horse's empty stall.

As was customary of Lord Reed, he didn't bother with an acknowledgment or greeting. He said with his usual soft-spoken suddenness: "A fortnight and a sennight before we found you, I dreamed. In my dream, a young black hound, little more than a pup, was escaping a mountain. He was wounded and starved, but he had a direwolf in him." Howland Reed had paused and considered that, had felt it bore repeating: "A direwolf inside him, but a hound through and through. And now here we are, twenty-one years later. Tomorrow, you'll be a Stark."

Despite having known and served the man for over a dozen years, any mention of the man's greensight sent chills down Sandor's spine. That day had been no exception. Nor had the many others since, most mere tangent happenings to Sandor's own life, but each prediction had come to pass nonetheless.

Which was why he was freezing his balls off in the middle of the night, in the middle of a snowy forest, searching for the Stark that shouldn't be here according to Howland's son Jojen, because if Howland had been gifted, then his son was ordained.

Tarly and the men he'd chosen for their mission rode in single file, neither space nor warm breath wasted on either conversation or japes. Any venture beyond the Wall was undertaken with eyes open and mouths shut.

"More than just Wildlings out there that'll kill you for crossing their path," Tollett had muttered the day before when he'd caught Sandor gaping at the endless shades of white and gray stretching along the Wall for as far west and east as the eye could see. Not even Winterfell was so utterly absent color.

Some hours passed with only the steady rhythm of hoofbeats.

And then: movement!

Just beyond the light of the torches. Lady yipped and dashed forward to greet them. Grey Wind was loping in her wake and, for the first time, Sandor heard a distressed whine from the male direwolf's throat.

Sandor nudged Stranger to pick up the pace. The men following did likewise and Sandor was careful to keep the direwolves within sight as they led the way through the trees.

He saw the soft glow of distant torches before he heard the muttering of Robb's men and the creak of leather girths and saddles. Hearing no clang of steel or shouts of distress, he slowed Stranger to allow the others to catch up. As he did, Sandor felt eyes upon him.

Must be Snow's Ghost out there, he told himself, but the unease remained.

They entered the small clearing together. Sandor spotted Jory and immediately approached the man. "Lord Robb is needed back at Castle Black. Urgently. Where is he?"

Jory pointed to what looked like a large hole near the base of the oldest tree Sandor had ever seen. He could see the top of two dark heads, one with lank black hair and one with disheveled auburn. Both young men alternately digging and cutting away at the dirt and roots.

"They say it must be brought up," Jory said unhelpfully.

Sandor's eyes narrowed. "Who says?"

"All three of them. Lord Robb, Jon Snow, and him." He gestured to where a filthy, skeletal man was being guarded. Not that a guard seemed necessary. With the barest bit of a breeze, the poor bugger would blow away. "Benjen Stark."

"Lord Stark's brother? The one who went ranging months back and nary a peep was heard from since?"

"That's the one."

With that, Jory fell silent. The quiet of the dark woods pressed in on the circle that the men-at-arms and crows had formed. Again, Sandor felt watched. Even Lady and Grey Wind were soft on their feet, patrolling the clearing. The strangest thing of all, however, wasn't the ear-deafening stillness of the snow-shrouded forest; it was the wordless focus with which two brothers, who had not seen one another in years, worked with singular purpose.

It was more than just eerie. It was wrong.

Sandor ground his teeth. His fingers tightened on the reins. Lady turned toward him. Their gazes met. Sandor watched for the signal he and Sansa had agreed upon, but the direwolf did not nod her head. Still, he had the feeling that his wife was looking at him through those canine eyes. Lady had never focused on Sandor quite like this before.

And then the motions in the pit changed from clawing-and-scraping to pushing-and-pulling. Together, with more economy of motion than two willful young men should be able to manage, Robb and Jon lifted up and then shoved a massive, rotting bag of indeterminate woven cloth out onto the snow. It landed with a solid thump! but neither man grunted at the effort. And they definitely should have.

They pulled themselves out, neither giving a thought to offering a hand to the other. Sandor wondered when Jon Snow had last eaten or slept. He was more than simply ragged and unwashed. He looked like a ruined horse just arrived from a too-long ride. Sandor glanced Robb's way, but he seemed entirely unconcerned by his own brother's exhaustion. In fact, Jon himself seemed insensate to it as well.

What in all Seven Hells.

"Lord Robb," Sandor announced as both brothers knelt beside the root-and-soil-bound bundle. "There's been a raven from Winterfell. You are needed back at Castle Black."

"Not yet."

Sandor shivered because it hadn't been only Robb to reply. No. Jon and the Stark crow had all spoken with him. The same two words in the same moment. As though their separate mouths, or perhaps minds, were one.

Glancing to Jory, Sandor found no answers, only a tight-lipped frown.

Robb and Jon both drew daggers and began slicing and ripping at the fabric. Dirt and bits of roots flew, sprinkling onto the snow. Grey Wind whined again. Lady was watching Robb and Jon with ears forward and shoulders tense.

The first layer of covering fell away to reveal another, still filthy. That ceded to another and another until finally what appeared to be the last layer revealed a crudely stitched direwolf sigil upon a background of once-upon-a-time-white cloth.

House Stark, Sandor realized just before Robb tore through it and Jon yanked the tear wide enough for it to fall open completely, revealing the curving sheen of something bronze and bone and--

Is that dragonglass?

"A horn," Jory said on an exhale.

"Aye. What's it doing here?" Sandor took stock of the surroundings: a dense part of the Haunted Forest, encircled by ancient weirwood trees, buried among their roots (guarded?) and covered by the sigil of the Starks (a warning!).

The watchful eyes seemed to stare even harder.

"Let us back to the castle," Sandor declared, his inexplicable urgency further hardening his tone.

Jon ignored him. Robb ignored him.

Robb reached for the horn, sucking in a deep breath as though he meant to put his lips on the bloody thing and blow it!

Lady leaped.

She bowled Robb over with only a soft thud and a rustle of cloth. Grey Wind took up a position between the horn and his master as Lady wrestled Robb further away. His arms flailed as he tried to reach the dagger strapped to his boot, but she was not giving him the chance to do more than flop on his back.

Jon approached the horn now, scooping up his sword from the snow and unsheathing it.

Sandor was out of his saddle before Jon could bring the point to bear on Grey Wind. "Jory!" he bellowed. "Restrain Lord Robb. He is not himself!"

Swooping in, Sandor met Jon's blade with his own.

Grey Wind dashed away.

As Longclaw met Sandor's own castle-forged steel again and again, he was only peripherally aware of Robb's wolf pinning his master to the ground and Jory moving in--

"WHITE WALKER!"

Sandor dodged another blow as men hastened with restrained panic. A horse bolted, knocking into Sandor, who tumbled back over the horn. His sword hand was suddenly and alarmingly empty, and Jon was rounding the obstacle, marching purposefully toward Sandor as men shouted and screamed. Pale enemies erupted from the cover of the trees and swarmed the clearing.

Rolling, Sandor came up on his knees beside Robb's discarded sword. Ice.

Sandor hoped he was enough of a Stark not to get beheaded for what he was about to do with it.

Grasping the pommel, he yanked it free of its scabbard and rose to his feet. It was surprisingly light in his hands and flew with a speed and precision that he barely had to work to achieve. Valerian sword to Valerian sword, Sandor now used his height and weight and reach to his advantage.

Clang! Clang! Shiiiick! Ping!

With a quick parry and undercut, Longclaw flew from Jon's hands.

Sandor darted in--

THWACK!

--and thumped Jon in the temple with his fist, pommel still in his grasp.

The man fell like a sack of potatoes.

A snarl behind him. Sandor spun around in time to see Lady clamp her jaws around the blood-splattered sword arm of a massive, frost-encased creature. A man it might have once been, but now it was a monster. As big as the Mountain had been in life.

The thing -- a White Walker! -- brought its other fist around, aiming for the direwolf's skull--

Sandor swung Ice, expecting to perhaps sever a few fingers in his too-hasty attempt to take advantage of the opening, but as Valerian steel passed through its hand, the wrist crumbled and then the forearm shattered.

Sandor was already pulling the blade down in a follow-through. Lady still held to the sword arm. The White Walker didn't even lurch away (was the bugger stunned stupid?) and Sandor cleaved it from neck, across torso, to hip.

Ice cut through it, frozen flesh and bone alike, as easily as a hot knife through butter.

The White Walker exploded. Shards flew. Sandor flinched away. Lady yelped and Sandor himself cried out as needles stung his face.

But when he turned back around and opened his eyes, he saw that it was dead. Destroyed.

The clearing was quiet but for panting breaths and soft exclamations of pain. The horde that had attacked, all dead men, women, children, and animals, lay pale and still, bright blue eyes staring sightlessly as the power that had animated them quickly faded.

There were bodies of flesh-and-blood men as well, some clothed in black and others in Stark colors. Samwell Tarly was huffing and puffing, hustling toward the nearest creature (a wight -- bugger me, that's a bloody wight of the stories) and, reaching it, shoved his torch flame into its body. As the flame caught, Sandor stumbled away. His left hand found Lady's fur and his fingers clenched in her scruff.

Grey Wind was limping but not bleeding from what Sandor could see, and Ghost had at last made an appearance. He was standing over Jon's prone form, showing his teeth at Sandor.

Seeing that, Sandor blinked and realized that Lady was posed just as protectively in front of him in a direwolf stand-off.

"Cassel! Jory!"

Sandor spun around, scanning the area where he'd last seen Jory approaching Robb, pinned by Grey Wolf, to bind him. But there was no Robb, only a spray of dark blood in the snow and Jory's unmoving figure.

Sparing Ghost a snarl of his own, Sandor muttered, "I don't mean to kill your buggering master, wolf!"

Ghost's muzzle rose and his teeth disappeared behind his pale fur. Lady also relaxed and when Sandor stomped over to the downed man, she was at his side.

Sandor crouched, not because there was anything to be done, but because it seemed wrong to loom over a man he'd considered an equal and a friend. Aye, Jory was dead. By his own blade it seemed; a dagger was missing from his belt. Sandor glanced around, counting both the discarded weapons and those still in hand. Robb had disappeared with Sandor's sword, Jory's dagger, and the blade Robb kept strapped alongside his boot. Robb's horse was also missing.

Standing, Sandor stomped over to Tarly. "Get these two," he said, nodding once toward Benjen where he sat blank-eyed in the snow and again back over his shoulder in Jon's direction, "back to Castle Black and buggering confine them." He then addressed the men-at-arms: "Stark men, tie the injured to their saddles."

"We have to burn the dead," the maester's assistant said. "If we don't, they may rise as wights. I'm sorry." He didn't have to look in Jory's direction for Sandor to know what he was sorry for.

"Right. Do it. You crows, come with me. We've a Lord Stark to track. We surround him. If he doesn't surrender, leave his apprehension to me. We want him alive and hale."

Sandor had just turned toward Lady when a commotion brought Sandor's gaze up. There. Across the clearing, Jon was on his feet and two Stark men-at-arms were on their backs. Ghost was standing over them and Jon was staggering toward the horn.

Lady barked and dove toward him.

Ghost lunged into her path.

"SNOW DON'T YOU TOUCH THAT BLOODY THING!" Sandor yelled.

The fallen soldiers scrambled to their feet. Sandor's cold-numbed and battle-bruised body launched forward.

All of them too far distant, too slow in pursuit.

Jon fell upon the horn. Wrapping his trembling hands around it, he pressed his lips to the mouthpiece.

And blew.

The blast of the horn was heard in Castle Black.

It was heard in Moletown, where a lone, northbound wolf broke stride. It was heard some miles further where two Reeds and a Stark were riding hard in the animal's wake.

It slammed into the Twins, startling an old man awake beside his too-young wife.

It howled through the halls of the Eerie, shaking the walls of the bedchamber where a boy slept at his mother's bosom.

It barged through King's Landing and the pale-haired queen who was passing another sleepless night gazing, from the lofty perch of a balcony, upon the city of her birth.

The horn that Jon Snow blew was heard in every corner of Westeros simultaneously.

Sansa Stark was yanked from her dreams, from the eyes of her direwolf, back into the simple bed she'd been sharing with her omega bondmate and husband.

"Sandor!" she gasped, plowing through the heavy blankets and furs toward the door, towards her mate who needed her! She stumbled and fell as the door burst open and Edd Tollett called out: "Lady Sansa!"

He reached out a hand for her to take, but both of hers were pressed to the floor. The stones trembled against her palms.

"What is happening?" she shouted over the slow rumble and sudden cracks of thunder.

He roared back: "It's the Wall!"

Sansa felt her face go slack, her eyes blink. The Wall?

And then Tollett's hand was grabbing her arm, shoving her toward the open door. Perhaps she made it to the threshold. Perhaps not.

A cacophony like thousands of horses, their thousands of hooves pounding the earth, rushing toward a silent battlefield, overwhelmed the ears.

CRASH!

The fortress trembled. Stones popped apart. The floor bucked.

Castle Black manifested its moniker and there was only darkness.

"Sansa..." Sandor gawped at the rubble. Just hours ago, this long line of tumbled stones had been the greatest structure ever created. Held together by magic, it was said, and now evidently brought down by it. The Wall, even collapsed in a long, snaking line, was a formidable barrier to cross. Sandor had to leave Stranger behind as he pulled himself up over the boulders, slipping and banging his knees in the dark, scraping up his hands even through the leather of his fur-lined gloves.

He was alone. Lady had fucked off and none of the soldiers or crows had been able to keep up with his mad dash back to Castle Black. His lead was significant, aye, but there was no one to distract him from the total fear that his wife, his alpha, the woman who had sired his child, was trapped, injured, dying!

She wasn't dead yet, no. He'd feel it if she were. But her being alive now didn't mean she was safe. She wouldn't be safe until she was in his arms, breathing, smiling.

It took him half the night to scale that bloody pile of rocks without a single light to see by. He could feel exhaustion pulling at him, weighing his eyelids and blurring his gaze, but he stumbled from one pile of stones (the remnants of the Wall) to another (the rubble of the castle) with a chill in the air that told him dawn was coming. The light would help, aye, but he didn't need it in order to follow his nose.

He'd found her easily in the packed hall of House Umber and now he clambered over the wreckage, pausing to stick his nose into every pocket to sniff the air.

"SANSA!" he shouted down into the darkness. Shouted and waited for a reply. Hearing nothing, he moved on to the next crevasse his hands and nose could find.

And despite the certainty that it was a new day, the night stretched on and on and on. It was the rumbling of his empty belly complaining of the meal he'd not yet eaten that finally pulled him upright to crouch on his haunches and take pause. He yanked some jerky from the small bundle of provisions tied to his belt and gnawed upon that as he crawled and climbed.

He was still working his way from where he estimated their chamber had been, moving in ever-widening circles, when Sandor became aware of the others: Stark men-at-arms and Samwell Tarly and the crows he'd recruited were all working somewhere in the distance. It was lighter now, a sort of dull gray twilight under the thick winter clouds overhead, and he could see the end of a long chain of men, each passing a stone along and out of the way.

It was Samwell's laborious breathing that caused Sandor to look up.

The man said, "We've found the main entrance. It's not completely buried. We could use your hands in clearing it."

Leaving this place, the closest to Sansa that he could possibly get, felt wrong, but Sandor was making no progress here. Perhaps if he'd had an alpha's nose, he could have sniffed her out, but he didn't and he couldn't.

"Aye," he said and went to join the effort to uncover the massive doors.

Sansa was racing over ice and snow. The chill bit and burned her toes but the scent of her brother, Grey Wind, was strong. He could run fast, but she was faster. Gaining on him.

The snow had stopped falling. The air was getting colder. She was thirsty and hungry and needed sleep, but she ran.

She ran until Grey Wind's trail stopped and he with it. He stood at the edge of the trees, looking north. In the distance, a frozen lake lay supine in a bowl valley. On the other side, a mountain rose, sharp and angular like an arrowhead toward the cloudy sky.

At the foot of that mountain, stretching to and encircling the shores of the lake, was a mass of undulating movement. Pale and swaying, jerking, marching.

The wind shifted and Sansa's nose burned.

Others.

More of those unnatural, mindless things that had attacked her Sandor and the men from Winterfell and the men from the Night's Watch, too. There they were. So many. Countless. All dead and all moving south.

Toward the Wall.

Grey Wind twitched as if to bolt into the horde, but Sansa nipped his haunch. It startled him and he bared his teeth. She would have submitted, once. She would have lowered to her belly and flattened her ears to appease him, but not now. Now, she wasn't in the wrong. Now, showing weakness would not stop him from running straight into the maw of death.

A squeal.

A horse. Below the line of trees, a horse was thrashing and screaming as dead faces with sharp teeth and bright blue eyes tore the flesh from its bones.

Robb!

Sansa scanned the writhing, jostling bodies, stomach tightening and twisting at the thought of seeing an arm or leg emerge...

Grey Wind whimpered.

Sansa looked up and could breathe again. Robb was standing. Walking. Striding right through the cluster of dead. He passed between two huge, white-furred and rotting bears unharmed. A White Walker shifted out of his path, which led Robb directly to a terrible figure mounted upon a decayed steed.

The Night King.

The Old Gods must be dead.

How else could this be allowed to happen?

Sansa stared after her brother, helpless, as the Others surged forward. The Night King's army was marching on Westeros, and they were bringing the second Long Night with them.

Chapter Text

Sansa was as still as death. The only reason Sandor knew she still lived was the faint shifting of her chest with each breath and the slow thrum of her pulse in her neck. He felt both because he'd wrapped her up in his arms, tucked her tight in the lee of his body as if the grip of his hands and form and will could keep her from leaving him. Her chest pressed against his and her blood flowed in subtle rhythm beneath his lips. He inhaled her scent and hoped his own would call her back that much sooner.

She was fine, or so appearances suggested. No broken bones or rent skin or even scrapes and bruises as far as Sandor could tell. She'd fallen when the castle's northern wall had crumbled, Tollett had said. The man had managed to haul her out of the rubble and into this intact chamber and lay her upon the unmade bed, where she'd remained unmoving for hours.

"Asleep," Tollett had suggested with a hopeful lilt, but her eyes were not those of someone knocked senseless: they'd rolled back, leaving only the white for Sandor to see when he'd carefully lifted her eyelids.

She was warging. Into that damned direwolf of hers. Probably going after Robb to try and save the bugger.

Fuck. Fuck but there was nothing Sandor could do to aid her and Lady in that. All he could do here and now was try to keep her body safe and sound for her return.

She would return.

In the meantime, it was the chill that posed the biggest threat. It was cold, aye. They'd scrounged some old, tatty furs from somewhere, but the hearth was unlit. If the chimney wasn't collapsed under the weight of the rubble above, then it was surely blocked.

Sandor made do with a few candles to light the space and his own body to keep his wife and alpha warm. And then he'd waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And now her eyelashes were fluttering, her brow creasing, her chest expanding with a deep breath.

"Sansa?" His voice was little more than a croak.

Her hands gripped his coat and she pulled herself in tighter, toward his neck, following his scent to his bitemark, which she kissed.

Sandor shuddered at the wave of heat that rippled through him.

"You're back," she sleepily observed.

"Aye, and so are you."

Sansa leaned away to meet his gaze. "I am," she agreed with a puzzled expression that was quickly shifting toward horror. "I am back. Lady, too. She's still on the other side of the Wall. She won't leave Grey Wind and he won't leave Robb and Robb... Sweet Maiden and merciful Mother, Sandor!" She gripped his shoulders so tightly that, even through all his layers, he wouldn't be surprised to find handprints bruised into his flesh. "Robb is--!"

Whatever Robb was, she couldn't say, but Sandor knew it must be bad. Dead, probably. "I'm sorry, Sansa." He petted her hair in slow passes as she sobbed, her head tucked under his chin. He gave her a few minutes to get the worst of it out, and then he told her, "Your younger brother is here. His wolf arrived first, scared the shit, piss, and holiness right out of the crows. Followed his nose right to us and near leapt onto the bed."

"Bran," she managed on a hiccup.

"Aye," Sandor agreed, remembering Bran's note and his directive for them to speak to Summer as though speaking to Bran himself. Aye, Bran Stark had warged into his direwolf while he and the Reed siblings were still on the road. "He's here. Meera and Jojen Reed, too."

"Hmm. Where?"

"Outside. Everyone's either trying to clear the well so we don't die of thirst or burn the bodies of the men crushed by the rockslide, so we don't die by their undead hands."

"They're coming, Sandor. The Night King's army is marching."

"Fuck. How many more of those undead cunts are on their way here?"

"Thousands," she whispered, voice going high with terror, "upon thousands upon thousands. They filled a valley large enough to hold all of Winterfell and more. As far as the eye could see."

"It saddens me then, that your wolf can see so well," Sandor weakly japed, "even in the dark."

Sansa went still, no doubt as surprised by Sandor's remark as he himself was. "Is there nothing to be done then? To prepare?"

"We can run." And that was the sad, sorry best anyone could hope for.

Her arms wound around his shoulders and embraced him tightly. "How are you feeling? You and our pup?"

"Well enough. Tired, though I'll find no rest here in this place."

She nodded. "Let's find Bran. He came all this way. All hope can't be lost."

"I hope you're right." Again, a pitiful jape: all hope couldn't be lost if even Sandor held onto some small measure of the stuff.

She hummed and kissed his chapped lips and then they rose to find her younger brother. He was standing on the battlements, what crippled, crumbling bit of the south-gazing portion that had withstood the weight of the Wall's collapse. Jojen and Meera were with him. The well in the yard had been cleared enough for men to draw water. Bonfires blazed beyond the walls as the Night's Watch burned their dead. The wind blew the smoke east, away from both the castle and Moletown.

At their backs, the long tumble of rock and stone created a jagged horizon. It was still formidably taller than Castle Black, but no longer impassable (as Sandor himself had proven).

"Bran!" Sansa greeted him with a warm embrace. He returned it, but pulled back quickly.

"We need information," he said, foregoing a greeting. "The books in the castle library. Or the maester's chambers. Both. Every tome and scroll there is."

Sandor went to find Sam. Sam took them deep into the castle. The corridor that led to the maseter's study had fallen in. It took another long line of men handing rocks away to clear it, and even then it looked frighteningly unstable.

Samwell ordered the crows to follow him through: "We get to the room at the end, everyone grab one book, two if you can manage it, turn around and hurry back. Let's go."

Sandor and Sansa convinced Bran and the Reeds to wait with them in one of the few rooms that had passed Tollett's assessment: it was tucked between load-bearing walls and the adjacent corridor lead to both the courtyard and the inner passageways under the battlements. They lit candles and moved tables and chairs for what promised to be a long stretch of reading. As the books began to arrive, with them came Summer and, as a direwolf was as good a guard as any, Sandor said to Sansa, "I left Stranger on the other side. Best try to bring him over. We'll need him if..." He hitched his brows, leaving the sentence unfinished.

She nodded, understanding. "I'll stay with Bran and the Reeds."

"And your brother's wolf."

"Yes, and my brother's wolf." Her expression turned urgent. "Take care, Sandor. Both of you."

He claimed a kiss from his wife, a quick embrace from each of the Reed children, both of whom still recalled riding on Sandor's shoulders when they'd been but wee little buggers, and then he began the long climb back. It went faster and easier in the weak light of day, but his thighs were trembling and his calves jumping by the time he reached the other side. Lady trotted over and kept him company while he sat and rested and lifted the water skin to his lips. When at last he felt ready to face the struggle ahead, a whistle brought Stranger tromping over, tossing his mane, temper high at being abandoned.

"Shut it, you bloody ungrateful ass." Grasping the reins, Sandor led the prancing beast toward the intimidating jumble of stones. Of course the buggering creature balked. "Oh, aye?" Sandor barked. "Well then stay here and let those frozen cunts rip you to pieces. They'll get you, lad. Thousands of them and one of you." Sandor jerked his chin toward the mound of jagged rocks. "Give it all you've got and you might make the climb, but if you don't, well, you're dead either way. If you fall, I'll cut your throat, make it quick. The dead won't offer you the same, believe that."

The stallion dropped his head and heaved a weary sigh.

"Right. Let's go, lad. One foot in front of the other."

By the time Sandor got back, patched up Stranger's scrapes, watered him, and scrounged up something for the horse to eat, Sandor himself was ready to fall down flat on his face. But he didn't. Wouldn't. Not until he'd seen his little bird again.

He found her where he'd left her. Summer was sitting beside the door, a silent sentinel. Bran and the Reeds were perched on benches, the table between them piled high with books, most of them left open like landed fish, trapped and floundering. Sansa was pacing, back and forth, in front of the cold, dark hearth. The only addition to the company was Commander Mormont, who looked frazzled and rumpled and humbled.

As one, they pivoted toward Sandor, expectant looks on their faces that ranged from curiosity (Jojen) to dread (Sansa).

Although Sandor didn't want to ask, he did: "What is it?"

Jojen spoke first: "I dreamed."

At that, Sansa hurried across the room and into Sandor's arms.

"I dreamed of cold and darkness, a skeleton with a sword of pure ice and death. Men fought him, and they all fell. They all rose again as dead soldiers standing alongside him."

Sandor nodded. Sansa's distress was understandable. "So there's no hope."

"My dream didn't end there. A hound came forth with a wolf pup in its jaws, carried gently, safely. They faced the skeleton together; they fought; they won. I didn't understand why or how, but I know that hound is you and the wolf pup is the child you now carry. That's why Meera and I left Greywater."

"We missed you at Winterfell," Meera added, "by days. But the library -- we thought we might find answers there. Something to aid you in the fight."

Bran patted one of the volumes. "We found it here. This tome. It's an accounting of the Long Night and the story of the Night King. He was a Stark. Our great great great-many-times-over grandfather. The Starks are the key. To all of this."

Jojen nodded. "Just as the Wall was built by way of magic, it could only be brought down by an artifact crafted of the same means."

Tired and aching, he sourly mused: Just because greendreams are in code, that's no bloody reason to speak nonsense! Sandor briefly lifted his hands from Sansa's back in mute befuddlement.

"The horn," Meera adroitly offered Sandor's exhaustion-slowed brain. "It could only be blown by a Stark and the Night King can only be killed by someone carrying Stark blood."

"But not," Bran was quick to interject, "by the hand of a Stark. The Night King can control us through our shared blood. It's not unlike warging. It requires him to look into our eyes, but once that's done, there's no stopping him. He's got Robb in his thrall. Jon and Uncle Benjen, too. Luckily, neither Sansa nor I have visited them yet."

"Likely Benjen was first," the until-now silent Commander of the Night's Watch said. "Then Jon went ranging to find him, and when he did, through Benjen, Jon was caught. Once Lord Robb found them..." He shook his head, fury dampened by futility.

Sandor asked, "And what happens to them if the Night King dies?"

Meera shrugged. "We're not sure. He's never died before."

"The White Walkers," Jojen suddenly said, "were Starks. Not Starks of Winterfell, but another line that stayed or fled north of the Wall."

"Craster," Commander Mormont bit out. "They're all his sons -- the White Walkers. He gets them on his daughters to keep the blood pure. It's saved his people from the Night King for years." The man paused and winced. "Until now, I expect. Now that the Wall is down, now that Robb Stark is under his control, there's no reason for him to wait any longer."

"The Wildlings are coming," Sandor realized.

Mormont didn't refute it. He acknowledged, "And there's too few of us to fight them."

"Why fight them?" Jojen asked, curious. "It's their home the Night King had taken. Why not fight with them? Against the dead?"

"Too many," Sansa said, her voice muffled against Sandor's cloak.

Sandor resumed rubbing her back. She wasn't demanding that he lock himself and their pup in a room, safe until the end of days, which was a testament to the control she exerted over her own instincts. He was sure that once the two of them were alone, she'd have plenty to say. For now, he just kept her close, in his arms, where he needed her to be.

He told the others, "Lady saw them and so did Sansa through her eyes. The army. On the move. The number she described could be more than a hundred thousand." He asked Mormont. "Do the Wildlings have warriors in such numbers?"

"Not even close."

Fuck, then we are doomed.

Heavy silence filled the room.

And then, suddenly, the dread soaking into their bones was burned away.

A screech rent the air followed by another and then a third. For one moment of madness, Sandor thought it was the Others cresting the remains of the Wall.

Bran's brows scooted up toward his hairline. Meera started smiling. Mormont's jaw dropped and Sansa's head came up.

Jojen, with an ear-to-ear grin, announced what they were all too afraid to hope for: "Dragons!"

Bloody dragons.

Bran was enraptured with the beasts. Jojen was mesmerized by their mistress: Queen Daenerys of Westeros and a thousand buggering titles. Meera stood back, almost as wary as Sandor. Both the queen and that huge, black beast of hers surveyed the castle wreckage. Sansa stood with Commander Mormont, too close to those great maws and sharp teeth for Sandor's comfort.

Three dragons in total, each with a different rider. Foreigners by the looks of them. A man the queen introduced as Greyworm and a woman she called Missandei. With each of them had come half a dozen Unsullied. The Queensguard, presumably. Though competent warriors were welcome, Sandor doubted they'd make much of a difference in the imminent onslaught.

Dragonflame, though, Sandor considered, reluctantly pondering the dragons' collective contribution, might put a dent in that sea of bloody--

"You are an omega!" the queen suddenly observed, staring straight at Sandor.

Sansa moved aside with the briefest (but still noticeable) hesitation. "Your Grace, my husband and bondmate, Sandor Stark, formerly Clegane of the Westerlands."

Sandor barely managed to stop the wince. His bloody wretched and at-long-buggering-last-dead brother had been loosened upon a Targaryen wife and her children with a brutality that anyone in their right mind would seek vengeance for.

This could get awkward.

"You carry a sword," Queen Daenerys further remarked, showing no indication of having heard a word of his introduction, "of Valerian steel. I presume you can wield it."

She hears my family name and this is what she blathers about?

He replied, "Aye, your grace, although in truth, it belongs to my goodfather, Eddard Stark, and was entrusted to his son Robb, not me."

Daenerys looked toward Bran, who was clearly not Robb, but a male Stark at the very least. "Where is Robb Stark?"

"With the Night King, your grace," Bran answered solemnly, "as an unwilling hostage."

"It is a long story," the queen assumed correctly, "that I would hear, but first: Lord Stark, you did not answer my question." When Sandor's brows pinched, she repeated it: "Do you have much skill with a sword in battle?"

"Some. I fought the Ironborn during the rebellion."

"More than some," Sansa corrected him with a warm smile. "Sandor Stark is the man who felled the Mountain."

"So I have heard," the queen agreed, still looking at Sandor. "Although, I had not been told of his designation, only that he had cause for revenge. It seemed your brother wronged many people."

"Aye, your grace. Too many."

Queen Daenerys moved closer to him, inhaling. It'd been a while since Sandor's last bath; no perfumed oils or soaps muddled his scent, which was getting quite ripe, honestly. The queen did not appear offended. She did, however, look shocked.

"Aye, your grace," he volunteered, for it was no secret. "I am carrying my bondmate's pup and a sword of Valerian steel." His lips twitched at the dissonance as the queen tried to reconcile both bits of seemingly contrary information. "You are in the North now, where I have been since age twelve, and where the people give no care for alpha or omega designations. A strong man or woman should know how to use a sword, should carry one, so I do."

"Your alpha permits this?"

Sansa bit her lip. The instinct to come not to her own defense but to his was probably burning her up from the inside out, but she was well-practiced at suppressing her alpha instincts in a land governed by male betas.

He answered for himself: "There are many private matters between my wife and myself, but she has never voiced objection to my use of a blade. She has no cause for it." He grinned. "I'm that good."

Daenerys swiveled toward Sansa, inviting her to speak, which she did succinctly and to Sandor directly: "You are."

The queen's posture relaxed. "I would hear the tale in its entirety. Shall we adjourn indoors?" With an assessing glance at the mostly-buried castle, she added, "If it safe to do so."

Commander Mormont assured her it was. They marched back into the room with the books and benches and cold, dark hearth.

The plan was a good one. The best they could manage given the limited time and resources. Far better than Sandor had hoped for.

Sansa, however, had not stopped frowning.

The queen leaned back from the table and its load of empty tankards and battered maps and castle illustrations. "All that remains now is to decide who will stay."

Sandor drew in a deep breath. He looked from Bran (resolute) and Jojen (encouraging) to his wife (distraught).

Sansa, his bondmate, the woman who had sired the pup he carried under his heart, the mother of their future child. All more important titles than any the Dragon Queen held, in Sandor's opinion. He waited as she lifted her gaze to his. She could remain silent no longer. "A word in private, please?"

The queen nodded and rose. Her people moved to escort her out. Bran and Jojen and Meera, as well as Commander Mormont, all stood from their seats, the benches creaking, rattling, and skidding.

"The Wildlings will be arriving by now. Coming over the rubble. I've given the order to let them pass. My men are due to deliver reports on their numbers." He scowled and shook his head. "Better a pillager on this side of the Wall than meat in the Night King's army, I suppose."

"Easier to kill a red-blooded pillager than one of those frozen things," Sandor offered.

"As you say. Excuse me."

The door shut. Candle flame flickered. Sandor sat with a heavy sigh and held out an arm to his alpha. Sansa crossed the distance and slid onto his lap, her arms twining around his shoulders.

"Sandor, it's still too dangerous."

"Aye. But running is dangerous, too. Your horse couldn't make the climb, so it's just Stranger to carry the both of us; he will and he will die in the attempt, but when and where will that leave us? Stranded on the King's Road, a sennight away from Winterfell? We can't outrun those bloody things that never sleep, never rest."

She reminded him: "The queen has offered her dragons to take us to Winterfell. That's where our child should be. You've heard my father say, at least once, that a few hundred men could defend Winterfell from a siege of thousands."

"And what happens to the Wildlings? The crows? The whores in Moletown? The people of Last Hearth? Your brother Robb?" Sandor paused then, sensing this this might be the strongest argument to make: "Will the Night King keep him alive or will he turn your brother into one of his White Walkers?"

Sansa's forehead thumped against Sandor's shoulder. "Why is this so hard? Every fiber of my being is screaming to get you and our babe as far away from here as possible. As quickly as possible. I cannot rest until I know you are both safe!" She sucked in a wet breath and straightened. "But I am a Stark, too. We may scatter, but we never leave our pack behind."

Sandor rubbed his palms over her back, tilting his brow against hers.

"We should," she began, "go back to Winterfell. Put Ice where it belongs -- in the hands of my father -- and."  Here she paused,  jaw clenching before she forced her next words out. "Let it be the Warden of the North who faces the Night King."

"Little Bird, that won't work. With a look, the Night King will have him, too. Twist his mind around and aim him at his own people, his own family."

Sansa shook her head. He didn't blame her for not wanting to believe, but nothing good would come from ignoring facts.

"You saw. Through Lady's eyes. You saw Robb kill Jory." Sandor hadn't, but he was betting that Sansa had. Nothing got past Lady. "Jon would have killed me." Petting her loose, unwashed hair in slow sweeps, he argued, "I'm one of the best fighters here. The fight needs to happen here or the Night King's army will only grow larger and then it will be impossible for me or anyone else to get close enough to kill him. If that happens, there's no future for any of us."

"Let Commanger Mormont try. With Longclaw. Let him kill the Night King. You subdue Robb." She framed his face in her hands. "Say you'll do that for me."

Sandor sighed. "I've known Jojen since he was a babe in swaddling. His greensight has never been wrong."

"Is there nothing I can say to convince you not to risk our child's life?"

Her words had bite, but Sandor had already embraced the sting hours ago when Jojen had first shared his premonition. "Aye. You could command me back to Winterfell and I'd go." He tucked his chin down and met her gaze. "But could you live with that? Thousands of Wildlings and Northerners will die on the Night King's march and his army will be that much bigger. Can you say for certain that Winterfell was built to withstand hundreds of thousands of wights?"

Her chin jutted out. "I'm your alpha. It is my privilege to protect you, just as it's yours to protect me."

Sandor smiled. "My alpha. Do you remember anything about the moment we met?"

The shift surprised her, but she paused to remember. "We danced, I think?"

Sandor's mouth tilted, his smile going crooked and even a little embarrassed at the reminder of the utter fool he'd made of himself for the wee tot. He didn't clamp his jaw and lips tight against it. Didn't even try. If this was their last day in this world together, he'd have at least one smile for Sansa in it. "That came after introductions. I mean the very moment."

She shook her head, rolling her lower lip inward and looking very sorry.

Sandor wasn't troubled. It was a good memory; he was happy to share it. "The Greyjoys were defeated and half of bloody Westeros was crammed into your father's hall. Stinking up the place."

Sansa wrinkled her nose, likely in memory of the Baratheon and Lannister "invasion" some years past.

Sandor continued, "There I was, a lad of ten-and-nine, scarred and angry, a killer with the blood of Ironborn on my hands, and a wee lass toddles up to me and taps me on the leg." He drummed his fingertips against her, on the very spot, and she twitched in helpless reflex, a smile blooming. "I went down on my knees to look you in the eye and do you know what happened next?"

She gave him a playful but impatient glare.

"You looked into mine. You put your tiny hand upon my scars." He cupped her wrist and lifted that same hand so she could curve her palm and fingers against the old wound. "You leaned in and kissed the hurt away. One kiss and, aye, they were all better. I was better."

Her eyes shone with moisture. His own were stinging from it. Sandor was fully prepared to blame the pup for all this unnecessary emotion. He was trying to make a point here!

To his little bird, he said, "You've already done your duty to me, Sansa. You've healed me so that I can be strong enough and smart enough to fight for all of us now. I need you to let me do it."

She swallowed and breathed and nodded slowly. "I understand." Reaffirming her hold around his shoulders with one arm, she slid her hand from his cheek down to the center of his chest. "So long as you understand that I need something, too." The hand moved lower until it pressed against the slowly expanding roundness of his lower belly. "I need both of you to live."

"Aye," he whispered but did not dare promise. He pressed a kiss to her temple. "Aye."

Chapter Text

"But! Lady Stark! It is not safe for you to remain here at Castle Black!"

The Night King listened as the words came to him through the ears of his servants. The first two Starks had been captured but a better one, a stronger one, a more useful one had been gained. The Stark of Winterfell marched at the side of the Night King's dead steed. He was beginning to tire, like the others. Unlike the others, the Night King had no intention of allowing this one to wither. The others he had needed in order to procure and blow the Horn. This one, the Night King had plans for. This one could venture forth, could muster ships that would sail the Night King and his army eastward across the sea once Westeros was silenced under snow and darkness.

The cold. The night. Only the marriage of those two things could bring the Night King peace, respite from the unrelenting, gnawing agony that drove him now.

The death of every living thing was his only salvation.

The Night King's abandoned Stark servants, bound, were being shoved through stone halls and their ears heard the lady's reply: "Safe or not. I am a Stark of Winterfell and so is Robb. I will not leave my brother to the Night King. I cannot."

The Night King waited. He might have a chance -- a mere momentary glance -- to ensnare this as yet unseen female. She would make a good mate for his male Stark. In their offspring, the Stark blood would remain potent, and those children would grow to become his emissaries, continuing further out into the world of men to gain their trust, put them at ease, and essentially pave the way for the Night King's arrival. Yes, he would breed them.

His servants, one after the other, passed an open doorway. A woman stood within, her long red hair trailing down her back. A large black-clad man frowned down at her.

The old crow said, "Then my men and I will do what we can to protect you."

"The Night King's army will be too busy chasing after the Wildlings to come into the castle. We'll be safe here, Commander."

"I hope you're right, Lady Stark."

She was, in part, correct: while the Night King's army hunted down more bodies to add to their numbers, the Night King himself would enter the castle and collect a bride for his pet.

"I am surprised she is willing to risk your life," the queen said, suddenly gliding up to Sandor's side. The Wildings and villagers were on the move, Jon and Benjen among them. Ghost still helplessly trailed his mindless master and Sandor felt a pang for the animal. The situation Sandor now faced was not unlike that: some ephemeral intent guided him toward a conclusion of its making, not his.

Sandor only hoped that whatever power had arranged all of them thus intended for them to succeed.

The Dragon Queen continued, "I have never met an alpha like her."

Among Dothraki and slavers, no, Sandor wouldn't think she had. But, he knew he had to say something. He cleared his throat. "Mayhap she's learned from the Northerners, your grace. They like to forget we're not of their designation. She obliges them, for the most part, because if my lady wife and bondmate hates anything it's having disappointed others."

The queen was quiet for a moment, and then she asked a question that made it clear she hadn't forgotten who Sandor's brother had been: "Were her lord father and lady mother pleased that she chose you?"

Sandor opened his mouth to guffaw, to sneer, to say Seven Hells no! But that was not what emerged: "That is a question for them, but from our side of it? We fought. Sansa and I fought long and hard to stay together. For years without even realizing it."

"Yes. It's in your scents." Queen Daenerys told Sandor, "The strength of your compatibility, the harmony of your bond is unique and just as rare and precious as the love you share openly with one another. It saddens me to see you both so near peril."

He drew in a breath to remind her that, compatibility be damned, they'd see this fight through, but the pale-haired omega queen wasn't finished.

Looking him in the eye, she informed him, "You are what I fight for; an alpha and omega who stand as equals rather than one crushed beneath the entitlement of the other." Her expression resolved further. "When I arrived on these shores, I vowed to break the wheel here in Westeros. It is not precisely the same as the one in Mereen, but broken it shall be nonetheless. The two of you have already done so between yourselves here in the North."

It was the pup, Sandor was certain, that made him feel so bloody humbled to have renewed the queen's determination. As an omega in homeless exile and then among the Dothraki and then against the slavers of Essos, Daenerys had no doubt faced more attempts at subjugation than Sandor could even begin to imagine. But he did know a thing or two about the looking glass that people unwittingly held up and how their views and assumptions could, over time, become one's own. Aye, without Sansa's unconditional love, Sandor would have been a very different man, embittered at best and a monster just like Gregor at worst. It was a slow, easy slide into the loss of confidence, integrity, and faith. Sansa had saved him, and today he'd given a queen a nudge back into the perspective she'd lost.

Fuck it. Pup-addled or not, it was a humbling thing.

They arranged themselves in the largest, most structurally sound room available, which happened to be the hall where the crows of the Night's Watch took their meals. The grounds beyond were quiet; the Wildlings who came over the remains of the Wall were being shepherded toward Moletown and further south. Lady hadn't returned with Sandor and Stranger, but when he'd asked Sansa, she'd said Lady was looking after Grey Wind, keeping him ahead of the army.

"When she arrives, we'll know they're nearly here."

What she didn't say was whether Grey Wind would be with her. Would Robb's wolf manage to tear himself away from his master or would he finally allow the dead to get their wretched hands on him?

Gods help us against a dead buggering direwolf.

But all they could do now was wait and rest. Sandor lowered himself to a corner at the back of the room near the great, gaping hole where the kitchen doorway (and most of the wall) had been. He opened his arms to Sansa. She gracefully knelt and then snugged herself into his lap regardless of the layers of armor he was wearing. (The mail was a bit tight across the belly, aye, but he'd take the squeeze over the alternative.)

Around the hall, many of the Winterfell men-at-arms did likewise. The crows, with their commander still upright and pacing the breadth of the room, didn't dare relax their guard and the Unsullied followed the queen into the gloom of the darkened kitchens.

Into Sandor's ear, Sansa murmured, "When this is done and we are back in our bed in Winterfell, there is something I would have from you."

"Oh aye?"

"Hmm. I must be the only woman in the North who has been wedded and bedded, and is due to become a mother who still possesses her maidenhead."

Sandor reared back, brow arched and jaw loose. "You very well may be. You'd change that?"

"I would." Her arms drew him close again. "Would you like to?"

"I would like," he whispered, tilting his brow against hers, "to know my wife in all ways, to be your husband in all ways. I would like to do so often enough for it to be good -- very good -- for both of us."

A slow smile curved her lips. Neither unable nor unwilling to resist, Sandor ducked in to nip at her wide grin. His beard was in need of trimming and the hair tickled a giggle out of her.

"In our bed in Winterfell?" he murmured as her fingers carded through the long hair gathered at the nape of his neck, well-secured for the coming fight. "You mean to decline the little lion then?"

"I do."

"Why?" He wasn't upset, simply curious.

Sansa's brows drew together at an unhappy thought. "Something the queen said. Or did. She was surprised to see you with a sword, and if that is how Southerners treat strong and capable omegas, then I want you nowhere near them." Her fingertips ghosted over his lips, which he could feel curling into a smile on one side and twitching on the other. "It will not be easy here, either, but we will make do. Both of us will be able to make do."

"All three of us," he softly corrected because there was a two in three chance of the pup not being born a beta.

"Yes," she agreed. "All three of--"

Just then the quiet, loping pace of a direwolf announced Lady's return. She bounded into the hall through the open doors, pads thumping and nails ticking. Grey Wind did not follow. The crows manning the doors waited a moment as Sansa welcomed her wolf with a hug and much ruffling of fur, but when the wolf turned her gaze toward the entryway and whined, Sansa nodded to Commander Mormont for them to bar the entrance.

Sansa stood and hooked her hands under Sandor's elbow. He allowed her to help him and all the additional weight of his mail and boiled leather and armor to his feet. "Got your dagger?"

She produced the dragonglass blade that Samwell Tarly had passed to her from the castle armory before he'd accompanied a group of young women ("Craster's daughters," Mormont had observed with the gravity of great apology owed) with the group heading south toward Last Hearth.

Not that they'll bloody make it that far.

Either the plan would work and the threat end here and now, or they would fail and wights would swarm the countryside, killing every man, woman, child, and creature in their path. Certainly, the dragons and their riders would be able to hold off the front lines, but not even in Sandor's worst nightmares was dragonflame endless or the creature that spewed it tireless. The wights would overwhelm the refugees eventually. Time was most definitely of the essence.

Sansa nodded. "I'm ready. As ready as anyone could be."

"I'm long past. Bloody tired of waiting," Sandor boasted with levity meant to bolster her spirit, "so there you are, same as me: battle-ready with a shamefully clean blade."

She beamed, chin lifted and shoulders squared. "I shall make you proud."

"My alpha. You always have." He gave her a firm kiss, lingered long enough for her to return it, and then he took a step away to draw his blade. "Stay behind me and look away."

Lips rolled in tight between her teeth, Sansa nodded and obeyed. At her side stood Lady, attention focused on the far entrance. All murmuring ceased as steel and dragonglass were bared. Each man held a blade (one long and the other short, respectively) in each hand. Torches blazed along the walls and all the braziers were lit with more torches tucked into their coals, waiting to be drawn and thrust upon the dead.

Silence and heartbeats pounded in Sandor's ears.

Overhead, rain began to fall.

Pitter-patter-pitter-patter...

No, not rain.

Footsteps. Thousands of footsteps. All tromping over the rubble.

Shrieks.

The men startled, spines straightening and eyes focusing on the barred door as hungry hisses and mindless moans echoed in the castle corridors.

Behind him, Sansa pulled in an unsteady, hitching breath.

Aye, they were coming.

The door was barred and then, moments later, it was broken. Easily. Crushed inward. Scores of wights burst into the room. The White Walkers followed. The Night King and his pet Stark approached leisurely to the sound of steel-strikes and the howls of frustrated wights.

The resistance would be brief and the battle a short one.

Sure enough, when the Night King crossed the threshold, it was clear that the female Stark's men were too few. The wights had already pushed them back and back and back to the rear of the hall where the female Stark stood beside the remains of a wall. If this was all the defense she had, then she was as good as his.

The Night King paused in the center of the room and so too did his White Walkers and their wights. All of them held at his will. At his side, the male Stark was ordered to speak the Night King's words:

"Lady Stark. Do not fear. You will not be harmed. Come."

She turned her head, but kept her eyes downcast. "Robb. I know you can hear me. You have to fight, Robb."

Strange, the Night King mused, ignoring her inconsequential pleas. Strange for a human. Always so eager to challenge one another eye to eye...

Ah.

The realization blew through him like snow and ice on a northern squall. Just as he realized the extent of her knowledge--

How does she know to shield her gaze from me?

--black shadows beyond the ruined wall shifted. A soft, orange glow lit the darkness on the other side of the gaping hole.

And then a woman's voice rang out with authority and smugness: "Dracarys!"

Flame and heat engulfed the wights. They burst into ash before they could scream in aggravation at their failure to satisfy their king's will. In an instant, the room was emptied down to the Night King, his Stark, and the three White Walkers, which stood as if untouched by the fire.

Now the humans circled, closed ranks and closed in.

The Night King drew his sword and, at his side, his Stark did likewise. Without the wights, the task would take longer, but there was still no impediment to the Night King acquiring the female Stark and proceeding with his plan. He might even find a dragon added into the bargain. Their eyes were small targets to hit, but a single, sure strike was guaranteed to kill the beast instantly.

The Night King advanced, ignored the curses and grunts of the men who buzzed around the White Walkers like gnats in the North's brief, wet Spring.

He commanded the male Stark to speak again: "Lady Stark. Come forward. It is not your fate to die this day. You will have an honored place with me."

She shrunk behind two large men, both with black beards and gray eyes and blades of Valerian steel. The elder of the two had been heard by the Night King's servants speaking to her.

An attempt at a trap. Futile. Nothing they possessed could harm him.

"Lady Stark. Westeros is mine. Come to my side. Together, we shall cross the sea. We shall claim those lands for Always Winter."

She did not obey.

The Night King was not inclined to wait. There was no point. Valerian steel or not, no warrior would be able to stop him.

Stepping within range, the Night King brought his sword down on the taller of the two. The male Stark rounded on the old crow beside him. Steel and ice struck and cracked and shrieked.

Lady Stark ducked out of the way.

Fetch her, the Night King commanded to his White Walkers. There were no words between him and his servants, only intention, but they responded precisely, pushing past the men with their useless swords.

The female Stark reached the broken section of wall--

The swordsman that the Night King fought was very good. He was skillful and strong and confident, but he would tire eventually. The Night King never would, not so long as he was driven by the agonizing pull of the promised silence. Yes, his peace would be hard-won, but he would win. It was inevitable.

The dragon roared.

It burst through the crumbling wall. Its tail whipped around, slamming the White Walkers away, sending them flying across the charred hall.

The Night King impatiently knocked his opponent's blade aside. The dragon, so close, was a prize too irresistible to ignore. Worth being impaled by an ineffectual blade!

The dragon first then, he decided and turned, sword point aiming for the creature's nearest eye.

Shiiick!

The Night King halted.

The dragon swung its head around and hissed. Its burning eyes lowered.

The Night King's did as well.

A blade of Valerian steel was sticking out of the middle of his chest. That was not unexpected. What brought the Night King up short was something else entirely.

It hurt.

His torso came alive with a burning pain that seemed familiar, like some distant memory accompanied by the thrum of a pulse and the dull ache of blood seeping from smashed flesh.

The dragon chittered and shook its head at him, almost scolding.

And then there came a shout: "Sandor! Take it!"

Something flipped through the air. A hand grabbed it with a reverberating smack!

Whoosh!

Sharp steel (the other Valerian blade!) sliced through the air. The Night King caught a glimpse of its gleam as he turned his head toward it in disbelief.

A kiss upon his neck.

A kiss?

Yes! He remembered kisses. His wife would kiss him there, just below his beard, and laughingly say he was becoming more bear than man day by day and he would growl and tell her, "No, woman! I'm a wolf! I am a Stark! And you are my--"

"And you are mine," a long-forgotten woman's voice rang out. Cool and clear and kind. Like the ringing of the bell for evening meal, calling him home. He stared at the luminous hand before his face. "Come with me now, my love. It's time."

He looked up into the beloved, smiling face of his wife. "Aye," he agreed, clasping her hand in his own. As warm light and peace engulfed them both, he said, "I missed you."

"Come," she urged again and he eagerly followed.

The Night King fell.

The White Walkers crumpled.

Robb Stark collapsed.

Later, Sandor would learn that all of the White Walkers had fallen flat on their faces and every last wight had tumbled to the ground in mid flight. They had nearly reached the first line of defense consisting of torch-wielding Wildlings and dragonglass-armed crows, bellows of dragonflame be damned.

But they did stop. The dragons did not, incinerating great swaths of felled, undead flesh with each swooping pass.

The daughters of Craster had sobbed, wailing in abject grief for what had been done to their sons. All mourned except for one young woman who clutched a babe to her chest and wept in gratitude. The wide maester's assistant standing beside her with a torch in one hand and a blade of dragonglass in the other, gave her a reassuring smile before tucking the dagger away and offering her his handkerchief.

Jon came back to himself with a gasp and sank to his knees as Ghost bounded toward him.

Benjen groaned. "I'm too old for this." A nearby boulder took his weight as he sat and shivered in reaction to his sudden freedom.

Bran whooped and hollered. Jojen grinned. Meera turned her face up to the thinning clouds, spreading her arms wide to receive the light of the sun, and beamed.

From the top of the broken Wall, a lone wolf howled, inviting his brothers and sister to join their voices with his.

Outside in the snow south of Moletown, everyone gawped and sighed and then rejoiced.

Inside the remnants of Castle Black, Sandor pulled a panting and wincing Robb Stark to his feet just as Sansa flew into her brother's trembling arms. The crows surrounded their commander, who was bleeding badly but might just live. The man had taken a bad hit from Robb when he'd tossed Longclaw to Sandor so that he might behead their foe before the Night King rallied.

Now that sword was set aside. Ice was lying upon the stones amid an explosion of ice shards. A ways distant, where the Night King's head had landed, there sat a smaller pile of crystalline ash.

"Sandor! Sandor, are you injured?"

His alpha's words took Sandor back to a time when he'd said them to the little bird: that day he'd heard rumors of blood and murder and barged into the Stark family solar, intent on ensuring that his alpha was safe and sound. He brought that memory into the moment, again scooping his alpha up into his arms. Like she had done back then, she burrowed her face against his neck and inhaled deeply. He tilted his nose against her bitemark and did likewise.

"Little bird. I'm alright. We're all alright."

He grinned and breathed. He ignored the dragon as Daenerys coaxed the great bloody menace back the same way she'd brought him in: through the hall's great doorway and down the spacious corridor leading to the massive castle entrance. He heard Robb offer his own belt for a tourniquet. He heard Lady's howl join others muffled by stone. Best of all, he heard his alpha's whispers of love and--

Thump-thump-thump!

Sandor twitched as something fluttered in his lower belly.

What.   Is that...?

The pup. It had to be. Sandor smiled.

"And I think the pup agrees," he said though tears and laughter. His wife gasped and demanded to be put down. Ignoring the entirety of the hall -- the crows, the commander now wincing against the pain of a just-applied tourniquet, the queen and her great, black dragon -- Sandor helped maneuver his belts and leather and mail and tunics aside so that his wife could press her ice cold hand to his furry belly.

"Dance for us again, little one," Sansa crooned. "Momma's here, too. Say hello!"

Sandor was about to remind her that the pup was still too small to even have ears to hear her voice with when that fluttering came again. Sansa looked up with an expression of awe in her eyes. Tears spilled down her cheeks and Sandor chuckled.

"Bugger me. Looks like the pup can't resist you, either, little bird."

"Can't resist me?" She hooked a hand around Sandor's neck and pulled his lips to hers. "Why would you want to?"

Sandor wrapped his arms around her, bringing her close with rough enthusiasm and trapping her hand between their bellies. "My alpha. I never have," he murmured against her warm mouth, "and I never will."

In comparison to the lush, rolling hills of the Westerlands, the lands surrounding Winterfell were pretty fucking bleak. Especially now that Winter had arrived. Aye, white raven and all. It was here. It was bloody cold, too. But the castle walls were heated by running water from the springs, the little bird had fashioned a fur-lined cloak to fit his frame, and the pup generated more heat from Sandor's belly than any blazing fire in any Northern hearth could.

Aye, that's the one thing I'll miss.

At the moment, though Sandor was warm, he was far from content. He was fuming. And with the bulk of his belly pulling at his lower back, his ankles swollen and feet sore, he couldn't even storm out of a room properly.

I did manage to slam the door.

A small victory over those puffed up, self-entitled beta shits, but he'd take it.

The corridors, too narrow and stifling, funneled him up to the battlements. His nose did the rest of the work. His sense of smell had nearly reached his wife's alpha-level of sensitivity as the time for the pup to make its appearance drew near, so much so that he was easily overwhelmed into a headache or nausea (or both! Bugger all!). His sleep, what little the kicking and flailing creature allowed him, was light and restless. Any touch at all to his nipples made him jump. And his belly was so large that his alpha was hard pressed to fuck him properly (to say nothing of being able to fasten his own boots)!

Although, having Sansa between his thighs was always a welcome sight. In fact, just that morning, after she'd finished buckling his boots for him, she'd pushed him back onto the bed, unlaced his britches and sucked him until he had tears of sweet joy in his eyes.

But even in that Sandor could find something lacking: Can't watch her take my cock between those lush lips, can I? Bump, my arse. This belly's the bloody Wall returned.

It was to the pup he groused as he waddled with as much dignity as he could muster toward the lone figure bracing his arms against the stone, following the stench of self-loathing.

"You!" Sandor bellowed, eager to release some measure of the steam that had been building up since he'd been called to join the Northern lords' council that morning. "You, Robb bloody-minded Stark! Get your arse off of this wall and be the man your father raised you to be!"

Robb turned, jaw hanging loose and eyes blinking at his goodbrother's sudden volley. "You! What! I!"

"Aye, aye, it bloody hurts." Sandor windmilled his arms dramatically, ignoring the twinge in his lower back that had awakened him at the crack of dawn, and proceeded to pinch away at him regularly, all buggering day long.

Sandor blustered: "You were fucked over well and good by the Night King. So was your uncle Benjen and he's down there in the yard training up the men Sansa and I will need for the new keep."

Sandor wasn't sure he was keen to spend his years wrangling Wildlings in the Gift but fuck it, the North needed people thanks to Robert Baratheon's bloody-minded war against the Targaryens and the Wildlings were people, ones willing to get off their arses and put their backs into working the land, which was more than could be said for the lazy cunts of Moletown.

"So was Jon," Sandor further reminded the little lord loudly, "but he's already in with the Wildlings, getting them settled for Winter! Aye, that buggering monster warged into all three of you, didn't he? Took what he wanted and fuck the rest."

Sandor plopped his fists on his hips for lack of ability to cross them over his too-sensitive chest. "Wasn't you that wanted to kill Jory. Just like it wasn't Jon who wanted to blow that horn. And it wasn't Benjen who wanted Jon to come looking for him!"

Sandor stopped, panting.

Robb gawped. The wind blew at this dark auburn curls. Puff, they went one way and huff, they went another. Back and forth.

"Robb," Sandor said, calmer now that he'd shouted a bit. "Every lord sworn to the Starks is down there asking your father to name me the next Warden in the North."

"Why wouldn't they?" Robb bit out. "You're the one who saved all of us."

"Actually, without my wife risking her life to draw the bugger in, I never would have gotten the chance to get close enough. That's why I told them that she'd be a better and braver choice than me."

"Sansa?" Robb shook his head. "They'll never choose a woman."

Sandor countered: "They'll never choose a man who won't even fight for his own birthright." Leaning back on his heels, he spat out, "How're they supposed to trust you to defend their claims when you so easily abandon your own?"

Robb scowled, blinking against tears that he could have blamed on the chilly wind. "I don't deserve forgiveness for the things my hands have done."

"I'll never forgive my brother for this." Sandor pointed to his own face. "But that's because he bloody well chose to do it. Reveled in it. Oh, aye. I know monsters, Robb Stark, and you're a far cry from that."

Sandor drew in a deep breath and then slowly let it out. "Jory believed in you. What do you think he'd have to say about you moping up here while a bunch of petty lordlings waggle their cocks over who they're going to answer to?"

Clapping a hand on Robb's cloak-padded shoulder, he barked, "Now get out of this bloody awful wind, grab your own balls, and tell those useless fuckers who their future lord is. Sansa and I are behind you. Your lord father and lady mother are behind you. Your siblings and a small army of very large direwolves are behind you. When you walk in there, we're with you. Stand tall and speak firm, goodbrother."

Robb stared at him for a long moment. Then, with a decisive nod, Robb spun toward the doorway and thundered down the steps.

Thank whatever buggering gods who bring sense to stubborn children there be.

Still, regardless of whether it had been the will of some god or other or Sandor's inspirational methods, it was good to have someone hopping at his command again. It'd been too long since he'd been allowed near the training yard much less been given hapless trainees to terrify.

His hands moved to splay over his belly. Once this one was out of the way, he'd get right back to it. Loathe as he was to share his alpha's teats with anyone else, even the pup, he was even more invested in resuming his training so that--

Another twinge, stronger than the others, had Sandor wincing and hissing in a breath between his teeth.

Don't even think about scolding me. It's because of you I've been bored out of my bloody mind.

At least the trek south from the demolished Wall had given him something to do with himself. Even if it had been frustratingly slow going due to the loss of so many quality horses left on the other side of the Wall.

Another twinge. Harder. Longer.

"Bugger me," Sandor grumped, turning to lumber toward the doorway and the thousand bloody stairs and endless corridors that now stood between him and his little bird. To the pup, he groused, "You would choose now of all times."

A wash of pain and heat answered him.

"Though," he muttered through it, "I am looking forward to banging that door open and announcing to all of those blinkered shits that you'll be arriving today." His eyes narrowed as another thought occurred. "Had better be today. I'm not putting up with this shite tonight, you hear me?"

"Sandor? Robb said you were--"

He grinned at the sight of his wife turning the corner and quickly stole a kiss. "Having the pup today, little bird," he whispered and then winced as his midsection clamped down so hard his vision whited.

"You? What? It's!"

Sandor couldn't stop the rasping laugh at what seemed to be a Stark family trait: those one-word exclamations. "Are you ready for this, my alpha?"

She nodded, slowly at first and then with increasing enthusiasm. "My omega. I am."

After many hours of sweating and swearing (and accusing Maester Luwin of everything from being a goat fucking cunt to a useless beta who was somehow entirely to blame for Sandor's designation), Sandor was free. His belly was no longer so large he couldn't see over it. His legs were trembling and his back twitching and by the buggering gods was he sore!

 He blearily focused on the sight of his disheveled but radiant wife holding their pup to her breast.

I'm free, he reminded himself, waiting for sleep to come.

It didn't.

Because, well. Sandor knew why.

He reached out, curling his fingers in a silent plea for his alpha and pup to come closer. "Come to bed," he croaked. "I need you both in my arms so I can sleep."

Sansa tucked herself up against his side and kissed his brow. "You are amazing, my omega. I love you so much."

"Hmm. With such sweet words, you might manage to convince me to do all this again."

She hummed a laugh. "Yes, I know." She delivered a slow, gentle kiss to his lips before whispering in his ear: "I know you love me, too."

Aye, he did. He really, truly did. "More than I've words to say, little bird. Now stop your chirping and let a man sleep."

She did.

The End

(Possibly.)