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It was strange how different things seemed only a few days after the end of the war was declared. There had been a heaviness, created out of grief and worry, that had been hanging over everyone while the war raged. It had been a part of everyday life and they had all carried it with them, some unfortunately more than others. As Sansa walked towards the station there was such a different feeling in everyone around her, there was excitement again, joy so palpable that she imagined that she could touch it if she wanted to.
It was strange how swiftly their life and the whole world around them could change, first with the start of the war and now with the end of it. She had cried more tears than Sansa ever thought she would shed in a lifetime during these hard years and she had thought her tears run out but when her parents had received the letter from Robb telling them that he was coming home there had somehow been more to shed. Tears of joy for having her brother come home and tears of grief for those she would never see again. It had felt strange pinning her hair and rolling it this morning and then putting on one of her best dresses. Strange because for the first time in a very long time she had a reason to dress up.
It wasn’t grief that was filling her at that moment, standing at the plattform packed with people, the excitement creating a buzz in the air with everyone awaiting the return of a loved one. There was anticipation and a bit of nerves, her stomach filled with butterflies. The mood on the platform changed like a wave had washed over them, turning everyone silent, and her mother reached out to squeeze her hand as the sound of an oncoming train filled the air.
“I can’t see anything,” Arya hissed angrily as she struggled to get a look at the train as people started stepping out. Sansa, being rather tall for a woman, was able to see well enough to make out her brother’s smiling face.
“Mum! Dad!” He called out and their mother released a mix between a sob and a cry as he pushed his way towards them. As their parents wrapped his arms around them, so did the siblings. Robb gave her a watery smile as Sansa placed her hand on his arm. She felt a bit overwhelmed watching the tears streaming down her family members faces and lifted her eyes to try to keep her own tears at bay.
The moment her eyes lifted they caught on a familiar figure and Sansa choked on a breath. Stepping off the train was a man she had feared lost, a man she had thought she would never see again. For a moment she wondered if she was imagining him, if her mind was creating a mirage out of her heart’s yearning.
She wasn’t sure if she could have created the man scowling at the crowded platform from her memories because he looked so much like the man she had known but at the same time so different. His dark hair no longer reached down past his shoulders and the now short hair made the scars that covered half his face more prominent. To think that years ago they had frightened her when the familiarity of the creases and raised skin now filled her with warmth. Because they proved to her that he was real, that it was him and that he was alive. He was home.
He was the tallest man she had ever met, standing at least a head over the rest so it was easy to keep her eyes on him as he made his way through the throng of people. She expected him to want to get out of there as soon as possible, not being one to care for crowds or people in general. She wished that he would turn his head towards her, that he would look at her and she hoped she would find answers to all the questions she had in his eyes.
Without realising it Sansa had taken a few steps away from her family, trying to make him turn his head towards her with pleading eyes. She was losing her chance though because he was pushing through the crowd easily, his large build encouraging people to let him through.
“Sandor!” She cried out, knowing that there was a chance that he would not be able to hear her over all the emotional reunions around them but there was no mistaking the way he stiffened and hesitated as if he wasn’t sure if he had heard correctly. “Sandor!”
His head whipped around towards her at her second call of his name and fresh tears filled Sansa’s eyes as his slate grey eyes took her in. There had always been anger in them, hiding away the hurt that he had only shared with her but as he looked at her now there was something new in them. She was unable to make out what it was but it made her heart ache because it seemed to be edged in sadness still. She caught the way the scarred corner of his mouth twitched in a flicker of a smile but before she could return it he turned and walked away. Her eyes followed him as he left her yet again, the only thing different this time being the slight limp in his step as she watched him walk away.
“It’s alright Sansa, Robb is home now.” She hadn’t even realised that she was crying until Rickon wrapped his arms around her waist and she pressed her little brother close. She wasn’t going to admit that she was crying over the fact that Sandor had been gone for so long and he hadn’t even wanted to greet her.
She had dreamed and fantasized about them meeting again after the war and perhaps it had been naive of her but what she had imagined had been tearfilled and emotional but it had always been happy and romantic. She had fantasized that time apart would make him realise how much he cared for her and he would finally admit it by wrapping his arms around her in a lover’s embrace.
Perhaps he had been right to call her naive the first time they had spoken because nothing had gone as she had hoped. Instead she had been left at home fearing and praying for his life, writing him so many letters but never getting any in response. She had blamed it on the postal service because having a letter delivered to and from a warzone wasn’t always successful but every time they received letters from Robb her heart had felt heavier and heavier. The lack of response had made her terrified that he had been lost to her but now she worried that he had chosen not to respond. That he had rejected her. She didn’t want to believe that, she had been so sure that their connection had been stronger than that.
She told herself that perhaps he didn’t want to make a scene at the station, after all she doubted that her parents realised the depth of her affections for Sandor. Her mother hadn’t been completely clueless because why would they have been spending so much time together if it didn’t mean something more?
Sandor was a private person though and a reunion in private was more like something he would do. Sansa lived on that hope, waiting for him to come to her but after two days of nothing she was starting to question her convictions. Perhaps she had believed there to be more than she had thought? She didn’t want to question everything they had shared but with the lack of response from him, both in his lack of letters and lack of reaction to seeing her, she couldn’t help but do so. The lack of answers was maddening.
To keep herself busy she offered to take her father’s lunch down to the factory for her mother. He always forgot to bring it in with him and Sansa had done the same thing countless times before. As a child she had loved to visit the factory, the large building and the noise being impressive to her childish eyes and ears. As she grew older she knew that they were lucky that her father was the owner and not one of the many men working their bones down on the lines. They had been well off and it had meant that Sansa got to have a good education instead of having to start to work herself. It was something she was grateful for and she knew that the factory did so much for the people of Winterfell, keeping them employed and able to feed their families. Sansa was proud of her family’s business and they had all worked hard to keep things afloat during the war. Many of the men had left to fight in the war and for a while the factory had been struggling but then the wives had taken their husbands places and the power in seeing them do everything it took had inspired Sansa. She had helped her father with the books and payroll, like Robb would have done if he had been there. She had taken pride in the way her father had appreciated and came to look to her for answers during their hard times. She wasn’t sure what her role was going to be now that Robb had returned but she would always take pride in the work she had done.
It was rather strange going back to the factory and seeing so many more men leaning against the walls on their smoke breaks. Of course there were still many who were missing, lost to them forever, but Sansa had gotten used to mostly seeing women there. The men all greeted her with a nod or a quick hello as she passed them and she smiled at each and one of them before her face suddenly fell.
Standing, leaning against the wall with a cigarette between his lips were Sandor. He stared at her intently but didn’t say or do anything. He was in his work clothes and obviously on a break and Sansa felt anger well up in her chest. He hadn’t taken the time to come see her, hadn’t reached out in any way, yet here he was back at work. As if nothing had happened. How could she be so insignificant to him? It angered her how he could just go on as nothing had changed when everything had changed. How could he act as if she didn’t matter when her heart ached for him? Her heart that had longed and prayed for him without hearing a word, and yet received nothing in return for it’s devotion.
“What’s your problem?” he grunted out while frowning at her as she realised that she had been glaring at him and she couldn’t keep in her frustration any longer.
“I… I can’t believe you!” It was not like her to lose her temper in public, knowing it was not the sort of image her family wanted to inspire. Especially not outside their own place of business. “All this time and that’s the first thing you say to me?”
The murmurs of the men around them seemed to make Sandor realise that they were not alone and his face darkened. Despite that she had never feared him, knowing that he would never hurt her, she couldn’t help but take a step back when he moved closer.“What the hell do you want me to say?” he hissed angrily and the fact that she was getting a reaction from him made her feel relieved because it was something. No matter how sad or how desperate for him it made her.
“Oh I don’t know, how about: How lovely to see you Sansa? Thank you for all the letters you wrote to me. I am sorry I didn’t write a single one back. I am sorry for letting you believe me dead and having you mourn me for years. Years, Sandor!” She hadn’t realised that she was crying until she felt his thumb futilely wiping her cheek. Why was he being sweet to her when she was supposed to be angry? How could he touch her like this, as if he cared, when he hadn’t cared enough to answer her letters?
She felt grateful that the other men respected them enough to walk away, leaving them to have at least a semblance of privacy outside a busy place of business. Because she didn’t want anyone to see the way she was hurting.
“What was I supposed to write back? I was a dead man just waiting for the stranger to come and claim me. Hoping for him because it would have been better than that hellhole.” His voice was dark and angry but she could see the pain in his slate grey eyes. It softened her heart, because it had been soft for him for years and time apart had not changed that. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. I did as I promised, I got your brother back. That’s what's important. Not your hurt feelings over me not responding to a few letters filled with nonsense.”
She flinched as if he had struck her and there seemed to be a moment of regret on his face but she didn’t linger to have him humiliate her further. She turned away and hurried down the street, her father’s lunch forgotten in her hand.
She had barely made it home before the tears started falling again and ran up the stairs towards her room. Just as she had her hand on her doorknob another door down the hall opened and she tried to hide her tears from prying eyes.
“Sansa?” The concern in Robb’s voice told her that she had done a terrible job of it and a strangled sob left her as she slammed her door behind her.
She had barely had time to throw herself on her bed before there was a knock on the door and without waiting for her to respond the door opened and Robb stepped inside.
“I believe the point of knocking is to wait until you have been given permission to enter,” she told Robb with a biting edge to her voice but her brother only shrugged at her.
“You’ve got a lot more spunk these days,” Robb commented as he sat down on the chair at her vanity. “What’s going on? Is it Sandor?”
“I… I… How did you know?” Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and her eyes welled with another flow of tears as her brother gave her a knowing look. “I… I am just so… hurt by him.”
“Well, I don’t know what he managed to do since coming back home but you should know that he treasured your letters.” The shock must have been apparent on Sansa’s face but Robb only scoffed. She had never told her family that she had been writing to Sandor and she hadn't expected him to share that information with her brother. After all, it wasn’t as if he had ever asked to call on her or made his intentions clear to anyone. Not even to her. “You don’t think I would recognize your penmanship? After receiving my own letter written by the same hand?”
“I… didn’t think of that.”
“I knew you were close, it wasn’t as if you were hiding it. He never told any of us what or who wrote to him, wasn’t one to talk about home either. But he kept them all on him, tied with a bit of shoelace.” Sansa couldn’t keep the disbelief off her face at that. It wasn’t the impression she had gotten from Sandor. “He did. When he got shot and they were taking him to the field hospital he held on to them. He refused to let anyone take them away.”
Sansa felt her heart drop down to her feet. The news shocked her to her core. He had been injured and she hadn’t even known. He had been hospitalized and even then he had chosen not to write to her. Did she truly matter so little to him?
“He came back to the trenches really fast, I heard the lads talking about how he had fought the doctor tooth and nail to be sent back out there instead of sending him home like they wanted,” Robb continued as if he was clueless to the torment his sister was going through. “They told him that he risked getting an infection and if that happened he’d lose the leg, possibly even die. He chose to ignore them and came back to fight. And I will always be grateful for that, he saved my life more times than I can count, bum leg and all.”
Sansa couldn’t truly take in the rest of her brother’s words because all she could think of was that Sandor had been injured. So seriously that the doctors had wanted to send him home and he had told them no. He could have come home to her but had chosen not to. At the same time her brother told her that Sandor seemed to have treasured her letters and she couldn’t make heads or tales of anything.
Did the time she and Sandor had spent together really not mean anything to him? Had she imagined the way he would look at her? Had it been her own longing she had seen mirrored back at her and not his? She felt so confused and hurt and she knew that she needed answers. She needed to know why he had never written her back. She needed to know why he had acted the way he did before he left and then abandoned her to fear the worst. There was only one man who could give her those answers.
She waited until the house had gotten quiet for the night before she headed out and walked the familiar path down to Sandor’s house. She knew that seeking out men in their homes wasn’t something a young woman of good standing ought to do but she didn’t know what else to do. If she waited for him to come to her she feared she would be waiting forever.
Sandor lived in a rougher part of town and Sansa had her heart beating frantically in her chest the whole time until she reached his door. She had to knock twice before she could make out some shuffling on the other side of the door. She jumped when it flung open and her heart picked up speed again as Sandor stared down at her with confusion written all over his face.
“Sansa? What are you doing here?” he asked and without being able to stop it she felt her anger fill her again.
“You could have come home!” She yelled and he flinched back as if her angry outburst had surprised him. How dared he act as if she had no right to be angry with him? With a quick look down the street he pulled her inside and closed the door.
For a second she was distracted by the fact that it was the first time she had been inside his home. It was just one room, she realised, with a small kitchenette with one single chair next to a small table. At the other corner of the room was a large bed and a bedside table. It was all that there seemed to be room for and it was so different to what she was used to.
An expectant scoff from behind her reminded her what she had come there to do and her anger flared up again as she turned around to glare at Sandor.
“You were hurt.” He didn’t try to deny it, he only stared at her expectantly and it was infuriating. “You didn’t have to stay and keep fighting after getting hurt!”
“I left to keep your brother safe. It was what I was meant to do. It was what I promised.” No one would have expected him to keep risking his life over a promise no one had asked him to make. She couldn’t understand how he could argue that he had chosen that over coming back to her. Had she just imagined the connection she had believed them to share?
“I thought you would want to come home to me,” she whispered out and the scoff he released made her flinch as if he had struck her. Her eyes welled with tears but she fought them as he glared down at her.
“What would I be then? A cripple with no future, no prospects! What the hell would you want with a man like that?!” He shouted angrily and she wished there was a way she could temper his anger. Not because she feared him but because she knew that his anger was a sign of the pain he was feeling. “I was already not good enough for you. You would be expecting some war hero back and only getting me? No, I was better off dying in a field knowing that I sent the people who mattered back to you.”
“You idiot! You matter!” she shouted as the tears fell down her cheeks unhindered. “Did you even read my letters? Because if you had you would know that!”
He glared at her for a moment before he turned around and opened the drawer of his bedside table. As he turned back towards her she realised he was holding letters in his hands, a stack of them with a piece of string tied around them. It was far from all of them that she had written to him so a lot of them must not have reached him like she had feared. He shoved them angrily into her hands and she stared down at them in surprise, her own penmanship unmistakable to her eyes.
“I could fucking recite them by heart. But they weren’t meant for me. There is no way they could be. I am not the man you wrote about, not the man you wanted these letters to reach.” There was so much pain on his face that it made her want to reach out to him. To hold him in her arms and be held by him. But she wasn’t sure he would accept her affection. “I don’t think I was before and I know I am sure as hell not him now. I’ve done horrible things, killed men and boys because it was their life over mine. I should have died, but I am here. And you would have been better off not seeing the ghost of a man that you once believed to care for.”
She couldn’t understand how he could think that. How he could think so little of himself when she thought so much more of him. She wished there was a way for him to see himself the way she saw him. Her words had obviously not been enough since he still didn’t believe her despite letters upon letters telling him. She didn’t fully believe that her words would make a difference in person either but she had to try.
“I wrote to you , Sandor. It was always you because you are the one my heart has belonged to ever since that day when you stopped that horrible man from hurting me.”
She would always remember that day because as the awful men had her pressed up against the wall in an alley she had prayed that someone would save her, but only managing one cry for help before a dirty hand had been slapped over her mouth. She had started crying as she felt hands pulling at her clothes and she looked to the side to avoid looking at her assailants face. There had been a slight shuffling but other than that Sandor had been almost completely silent as he appeared behind the horrible man. He wasn’t a stranger, having seen him before since he worked at her father’s factory. His scarred face and the way he would glare at her used to scare her but seeing him then she was filled with relief. She knew he would help her, for some reason she just knew.
He had only looked at her for a second and then everything went so fast that it was almost a blurr. The horrible man had been pulled off her and as she slid down the wall to the ground there had been a wet crunch followed by a painfilled moan before a heavy silence seemed to reach into her core. When she had lifted her eyes Sandor had been there, crouching in front of her with a worried frown. He had asked her if she was alright and offered her a hand that she had gratefully taken. When she had tried to thank him he had called her a fool for putting herself at risk. Perhaps it should have offended her but then he had shrugged off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders with such care that it had made her want to weep. It had been huge on her, but warm and if she closed her eyes she could still smell the mix of smoke and cedar that had filled her nostrils. The scent of him. Without another word he had started walking her home. She remembered thinking that she couldn’t believe she had been afraid of him.
From then on she had made a point of always stopping to talk to him if she passed the factory during his breaks and she had started bringing him treats that she had made in hopes of showing him her gratitude. Then it had turned into her bringing him lunch and one time he commented that she needed to eat too and had shared it with her. After that their lunches had been almost daily and it had developed into a friendship and despite him not being too talkative and her talking enough for the both of them he had opened up to her in his own ways. Whenever she had stayed late at the factory or at the shop next door he had made a point of walking her home, keeping her safe and he had told her about his family history and the pain there as they walked down the quiet streets. He had been so understanding and seemed to truly listen and care about the things she said, no matter how trivial they might be. How could that not mean something?
“You must have thought me a foolish girl and perhaps I was but I tried to show you through my actions how much you meant to me. I thought that at least you were my friend. But then you enlisted and didn’t tell me until you were leaving.” There were tears in his eyes but he seemed to fight them with a shaky breath as he nodded. She grabbed his hand in hers and he stared down at their joined hands but didn’t pull away. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was remembering the pain of that day all over again, like she was.
How she had seen ran to him that day, crying because Robb was leaving for the war. How she had sought comfort in his arms, where she felt safe and he had told her that she didn’t need to worry about Robb. She hadn’t understood then what he had meant because of course she would worry. Her brother knew nothing of war and had a naive idea of the glory of fighting for his country. Yet as Sandor kept assuring her that Robb would be safe, that he would come back to her, she believed him. Because she trusted Sandor and he would never lie to her.
It wasn’t until later that evening as Robb was getting ready to leave, her mother's heartbroken cries ringing through the house, that Sansa understood that it had been a promise. Because standing outside their house was Sandor, with a duffel bag thrown over his shoulder.
She had run out to him, asked him what he was doing and she would never forget the way Sandor had looked down at her with so much sadness and pain written so clearly on his face as he told her yet again that he was going to keep her brother safe for her. As realisation had washed over her she had wept and shaken her head, wishing for the courage to plead with him to stay with her. She hadn’t been able to say anything through the heaviness of her tears knowing that he was leaving her. That this was going to be goodbye and she would have no idea of when she was going to see him again. There were no words spoken between them, because there were no words to express her heartache as he left her standing in the street, having pressed the softest of kisses to her lips. A kiss that had only lasted a second but had thrown her whole world on its axis.
“I deserved more than not hearing anything and fearing the worst. You could have at least written to me and told me that you were alright.” She realised that she was crying when his thumb was on her cheek, wiping them away carefully yet again. The tenderness of his gesture felt heavy and confusing, causing her to try to pull her hand out from his to be able to step away but he glared at her and held on. “Even if you didn’t care for me the way I cared for you, I thought I meant something to you. Why else did you kiss me?”
His face scrunched up in confusion as he stared down at her and she suddenly felt unsure. Had it not meant something to him after all? Had it only been a heat of the moment action and not a declaration of his affections?
“What? I didn’t kiss you.” She wanted to argue that he had, no matter how quick it had been life changing for her because it had given her hope. It was what had kept her going in the hardest of days, what kept her writing to him even as she despaired that he wasn’t receiving any of her letters. “I would have fucking remembered kissing you.”
“But… yes you did,” she argued and he shook his head vehemently with an appalled look on his face. The obvious negative reaction to the thought that he would have kissed her caused her to look at her memory of that moment in a new light. She felt so mortified that she didn’t even bother with trying to argue that it had been such a vivid memory to her that it must have happened. Had her mind truly conjured the press of his lips against hers? It had only been a second long, perhaps it had been a way for her to deal with what was happening?
She had hated that she had been too much of a coward to tell him how she felt, how much he meant and perhaps she wished that he would have told her. Perhaps that was why she remembered him kissing her? Because it would have meant that she wasn’t alone in feeling the way she did. It had been the driving force in writing her letters to him. Letters he had never answered. Perhaps that was why. Because he never returned her feelings at all. It had all been in her mind.
She wanted to leave then, filled with shame and embarrassment so heavy that it made her cheeks burn. What he must think of her. Not only had she written letters upon letters telling him her hopes and dreams for their future. When he came back from fighting a war she had made a scene and now she was demanding answers. Answers he had already given her years before, with his silence. She had been too naive to see it. She needed to leave, she needed to get away from the fact that she was making a fool of herself.
It was as if Sandor could tell what she was thinking because his hand tightened around hers as he took a deep breath, as if to fortify himself for the rejection he was about to make very clear. She truly did not want to hear it but there was no way she was going to be able to pull her hand out of his hold without making an ever bigger fool of herself.
“I thought I would be the one to mourn the loss of you while you continued living your life. But then you wrote to me and it fucked with my head.” His words brought her out of the despair she had started to fall into but then she saw the darkness on his face and it broke her heart. She squeezed his hand tighter, hoping beyond hope that what he was saying meant that despite everything he had harboured some feelings for her. “Being out in the field all day and night, you let yourself imagine the things you’d have when you get back home. As if there is even a possibility of it. When the letters stopped coming I thought you had moved on. I thought my choice had been the right one.”
He released a low huff that sounded almost like a curse as his arms suddenly wrapped around her pulling her to his chest. It was the kind of embrace she had hoped their reunion would have yet it was also nothing like what she had wanted. It hurt to be this close to him, knowing that she had lost him years before like she had feared.
“It was better that I left you with that goodbye than having you hope for something that wasn’t going to happen. I was supposed to die out there. I didn’t write to you because I wanted to protect you, I didn’t want you to be hurting because of me. Because I was so sure I was going to die.” He sounded so resigned, as if he had made peace with death and it angered her. It felt like what he was telling her was that he had never intended to fight for himself, had never intended to fight to come back to her. He had truly left her that day and he had never intended to come back. His words had her heart clenching in painful excuses for heart beats as hurt and anger filled her.
She had pushed through every day, thinking that one day they would be reunited. Hoping that their pain would not have been in vain. How could she have been so wrong about him? About what they had? Why did he let her believe and hope for it? Why hadn’t he just told her the truth, why couldn’t he have written to her and told her that he didn’t want her? He would have saved her a lot of time longing for something that was never hers to begin with. How little did he think of her if he couldn’t even give her that courtesy?
”You can keep telling yourself that you didn’t respond because it was the less painful choice. But it wasn’t painless for me. You did hurt me and you can’t excuse that away.” She pulled out of his embrace and took a fortifying breath, knowing she needed to do this for herself. “You did what was easiest for you. I don’t know if you were scared or if you simply didn’t want me but couldn’t bear to tell me. But don’t try to tell me that you did what you did to protect me. I think you did it to protect yourself.”
“Little Bird…” It was the first time she had heard the old moniker since he had left and she hated how it sounded. So filled with pain and regret. She used to love the moniker, saw it as a term of endearment but now it felt tainted. It hurt too much to stay there wrapped in his arms knowing that everything she had thought and hoped that they had was all in her head. She felt mortified and she needed to go home and get over the heartache she was experiencing.
She truly felt like a foolish girl. Foolish for telling herself that once he came back he was going to sweep her off her feet and tell her how he had loved her letters and that he had written just as many but they must have been lost to the chaos of war. As if life was like one of those stories she used to love as a girl. Life wasn’t a fairy tale and their’s wasn’t a story of star crossed lovers. Wanting something didn’t make it so.
Why was he looking at her with so much sadness in his eyes if he had never wanted her? What would he care about her feelings if she didn’t matter? If she wasn’t someone worth coming back to? He had never cared about protecting other people’s feelings the whole time she had known him. Why would he do so with her? The Sandor she had known would have no qualms about telling her that her feelings were unreciprocated. Perhaps that was the heart of the issue, perhaps she had never truly known him. Perhaps she had been right to mourn him, mourn the man she had known because it seemed that he was truly lost to her.
“I prayed for you. Every night before bed I prayed that you would come back to me. Even when I feared you were gone, even when I couldn’t help but mourn you I prayed that you would come back to me. And now you have. And it’s as if I… As if we don’t matter. Perhaps there never was a we, maybe I imagined it all. Like how I imagined that kiss and what it meant.” She wasn’t sure why she was telling him any of this. It didn’t matter anymore yet if this was goodbye she for some reason couldn’t bear leaving it unsaid. He might not think himself worthy of affection, be it from her or anyone else, but she wanted him to know that he had had hers once.
She turned towards the door, not wanting to stay there with her heart on her sleeve and him just staring at her with a pained expression. It was confusing but all she could focus on was that he had not once actually told her how he felt about her. About them and if that wasn’t rejection she didn’t know what was.
“You’re just going to leave?” He asked, suddenly sounding small and she released a shaky breath as her hand wrapped around the doorknob.
“I don’t know what else there is to say. I put my heart in those letters and the lack of response should have told me enough.” As she pushed the door open she turned her head to look at him. His face was crestfallen and the pain in his eyes made her chest ache. “I am so happy and relieved that you are home safe. That is what matters now. Goodbye Sandor.”
There seemed to be a moment of realization within him because his eyes widened as he seemed to scramble for something, anything, to say when it was apparent that she was saying goodbye. Not just for now but she was going to do what he thought she would do if he didn’t write to her. She was going to try to move on. He wasn’t giving her anything but pain and if he didn’t want to be with her she couldn’t linger just because she wanted more than he wanted to give her. She wanted him to want her, to feel like she was worth taking a chance on. She couldn’t wait for him to decide that he did want her, couldn’t wait for something that wasn’t going to happen.
”I can’t go back and change the past. I can’t undo what that hellhole did to me. I dealt with that alone. I… I don’t know what… What do you want from me?” he asked in an almost whisper and there was so much raw pain in his deep voice that it made her cry again. It made him scrunch his face even more as he released a heavy sigh. ”Please don’t cry anymore. I hate seeing you cry.”
She wanted to tell him that if he hated it so much then he should stop hurting her but she couldn’t manage another word due to her thickening throat as he moved up to stand in front of her. His hand lifting to cup her cheek did nothing to stave off the tears. The closeness of him made her heart crack open and there was nothing she could do to stop it from bleeding out.
“I imagined you, everytime I closed my eyes you were the only thing I saw in my mind’s eye. You were always smiling that damned smile that made me feel like a fool. I couldn’t write to you because what if I didn’t make it? I couldn’t bear the thought of that.” His words sounded caring, almost loving even, but they did not convey love to her. They did not convey affection. It was too late for that. He had made his choice and she had been too naive to see it.
“I wish you would have written to me. I wish you would have told me how you felt, if you truly wanted me to move on. I wanted to support you, I wanted to be someone you could lean on. I wanted to love you. Instead we suffered on our own.” She told herself there was no point in changing what had been done, because there was no changing the past. Even if it meant that the future was not going to turn out the way she had dreamed. She knew she needed to move forward. In this case it meant moving on from Sandor, no matter how hard it seemed at this moment.
“Sansa…!” She heard him calling for her as she hurried down the street but she didn’t stop running until she reached her door and she was a fool because she couldn’t help but look over her shoulder and hope to see him following her. There was no one following her, the streets were empty and she knew she needed to let go. She needed to become at peace with the fact that he wasn’t hers, that he had never been hers.
She knew she was going to be hurting for a long time, and she needed to allow herself to feel that hurt. She needed to grieve the loss of him, yet again, and no naive fancies or false hope could make her deny the truth this time. As she cried in her bed she was sure it wasn’t going to be the last night she would shed tears over him, it certainly wasn’t the first.
She was so caught up in her heartache as the night turned into early morning that she did not hear the sound of the mail slot opening, and therefore she did not see the white envelope as it fell down on the door mat.