City of Cinder, City of Ash: Epilogue
Epilogue: The Northern Town
Rating: M
Warnings: None
Pairing: Sansan
Word Count: 2,257
Summary: They've left what happened on the White House grounds behind them. Now that they've escaped the city of their nightmares, what will happen to them?
I'd like to thank everyone whose stuck with me through this, left comments, pestered me to update and listened to me rant at 2 AM. This is the first long!fic I've ever finished. :)
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:::
She kicks, untangling her legs from the sheets as she tries to escape. Sansa’s bare feet land on solid ground and she can breathe again, pressing one hand to her throat. The bandage is gone, but the neat row of sixteen stitches along her pale throat remain. They comfort her.
It is over.
“You’re in my bed.”
Sansa sighs, reaching over for the nightstand. She grabs her sling and gently works her arm back into it, shoulder sore and tender five days after the corrective surgery. She looks up at him, then holds her hand out. Sandor gently takes her arm and helps her up, steadying her on her feet before letting go.
“You could have woken me if you wanted me to go,” she says, brushing the wrinkles out of her shirt. Her sleep schedule is so thrown off, between depositions and interviews and testifying in front of what’s left in congress and doctor’s visits and panic attacks and nightmares and her medications. “I’m sorry, I just can’t-I’ll go.”
He rolls his eyes at her. “It’s fine, little bird. Stop with the fucking apologies and give me the remote.”
Sansa turns around, holding her arm tight to her as she gropes around in the sheets for the remote. They’ve both been put up in the Bethesda Marriott, in rooms on opposite sides of the hallway, since they surrendered to Speaker Baratheon the week before, restless and tired and nervous, having only their lawyers and each other (and some duly appointed federal agents) for company. And even now, while Sansa cannot allow herself to fully trust him, she clings to him and his gruff, hard-hearted kindnesses.
She stands up again, handing the black device to him. Clegane sits down on the chair by the desk, switching the TV onto to CNN. Sansa eases herself back down onto his bed, spine straight. She will be a lady in front of him. She is a lady alone, too. A spine of steel is what keeps her together, even after leaving the Lannisters, who now rest inside of federal jail cells, and Cersei, who is handcuffed to her hospital bed.
SPECIAL ELECTIONS SET FOR MAY, INTERIM PRESIDENT BARATHEON COMMENTS.
Sandor snorts. “No one wants Stannis Baratheon for their president.”
“Well,” she answers gently, “he’s running anyway.”
The scroll at the bottom of the screen changes. DANY TARGARYEN RETURNS FROM UNESCO TRIP TO MIDDLE EAST, DECLARES CANDIDACY.
Sansa clears her throat. “A lot of people are talking about her. It’s out of left field, but the early numbers are in her favor.”
“Her father was bat-shit crazy.” He goes to the minibar and pulls out a bottle of beer, opening it with his bare hand before tossing a bottle of water onto the bed next to Sansa. “So was her brother, before he got himself killed by that commie warlord. Both her brothers. They always tried to pin the other one’s death on Robert.”
“She seems extremely competent though. A little young, but she’s definitely no Washington insider, which is what people will be looking for. She’s fresh-faced, smart, well-spoken. The Middle East loves her, she understands the politics.” She catches his eye, and is relieved when he nods, seemingly listening to her. Sansa twists the bleached hotel sheets in her fingers before continuing. He will not hurt me. He’s proven that. “And her Chief of Staff, Mormont, is good for the game. And she has her sob story-her bat-shit crazy father and brothers-which they can spin in her favor.”
She hasn’t confronted him about anything. She hasn’t thanked him either. But he seems to serve her now, without even asking, instead of the Lannisters. She is just so tired.
She tries not to think about how slimly he avoided arrest, and how nonchalantly he’s accepted that he’ll probably be charged with a few things. She, however, has been cleared of all suspicion of accessory and accomplice and culpability in the death of Peter Baelish.
(She had watched in horror as Sandor wiped down her nail file with bleach and threw it out the window, put her comforter to flame in the bathtub, and moved his body out into the hallway. She was horrified, but thankful.)
Now she tries to focus on her health and working through the Stark estate with her team of lawyers.
The city is rebuilding, the country is rebuilding. Everyone is wondering how Tywin Lannister managed to orchestrate this-to seize power and tumble the country, or at least the East Coast, into anarchy. The world is talking about the end of America’s reign as the global superpower. They have been humbled.
“You have to be fucking kidding me,” he snarls, and Sansa shudders, breaking out of her reverie. She looks at him disdainfully, and then sighs as she looks back to the TV.
ALL CHARGES AGAINST TYRION LANNISTER DROPPED, WALKS OUT OF LEAVANWORTH.
“The rest of them are charged with treason.”
“And the dwarf walks free. Charming little shit,” he spits, before taking a large swig of beer. His cell phone rings, and he turns it off before even looking at the caller ID.
“Don’t call him that,” Sansa says stiffly. Tyrion Lannister had shown her some form of kindness. And he is a human being too, after all.
“What?” he asks, bitterly. “Little shit? Charming?”
“Dwarf,” Sansa answers, the phrase you know what I am talking about hanging deftly in the air.
Clegane snorts again, a harsh and unattractive sound. “What, it’s not politically correct? Fuck that.”
Sansa tightens her fingers in the sheet, a twisted mass in her hands. “You’re horrible.”
“I’m not horrible, little bird. It’s the world that’s horrible.”
Sansa rolls her eyes, and turns herself to face him instead of the television. “The world is horrible and you have allowed it to make you so. Don’t feed me your bullshit.”
She reaches for her laptop on the nightstand, opens it, and turns it on.
Sandor laughs around the rim of the bottle. “The little bird has claws. And I am horrible, girl.”
“You won’t hurt me,” she answers, typing in her password with quick, practiced fingers. “I sleep in your bed and fold your laundry. You won’t hurt me.”
“No, little bird,” he says with a laugh. “I won’t hurt you.”
“Sansa,” she mutters, opens the chess program on her computer, and starts a new game. “My name is Sansa. Two syllables. Not particularly difficult.” She raises her voice. “And that could have been your lawyer, you know. You can’t just ignore calls. Your sorry ass could go to jail.”
He just keeps laughing at her.
Sansa allows herself to smile, just the smallest bit.
:::
He brings her to meet with someone that he calls an old associate, after the press continues to chase her and the focus on her grows exponentially-but more specifically, he brings her to Langley the afternoon after the fifth episode brought on by a reporter.
“Varys,” he tells her. “Former Russian national. Met him while I was in the service, worked a couple of ops with him. Known as the Spider, inside intelligence circles.”
“Okay…” she says. “Why are you bringing me here?”
Clegane looks at her dubiously, pressing on the brake of the car as the light in front of them turns yellow. “You’re cleared of all charges, and you're cleared to leave the state. Don’t you want to disappear, lit-Sansa.”
She bites her lip, and nods.
“Then he can help you.”
:::
“Miss Stark.” Agent Varys stands when they enter, smiling at Sandor who scowls at him. “Please, have a seat. You must be exhausted.”
“Thank you, sir,” she says, startled when Sandor helps her into one of the stiff-backed chairs in front of the agent’s desk.
Do not trust him, Sandor had warned her. But he can help you.
Why?
He owes me a favor.
“Of course.” The bald man’s smile grows wider. Sansa thinks he means to be unnerving. She smiles back. “You’ve quite become America’s sweetheart.”
Sansa cringes.
“Yes,” Varys says, tone dripping in a perverse form of sympathy. “I had a feeling that’s what brought you here. I am more than willing to help you disappear, Miss Stark. It’d be quite simple.”
“Yes…” She clutches at the arm of her chair with the hand on her good side. “I wish to finish my education here, but… it’s not feasible. No one’s even sure if Georgetown will open for the spring semester anyway. And I’m not sure if I’d want to stay there anyway. I do not… wish to stay in DC any longer. I cannot. But-”
“You fear that you will be recognized anywhere you go. Of course.” The slimy smile on his face grows, and he reaches for a slim manila folder resting in his inbox. “A young woman like you will be recognized almost anywhere you go. Same with Clegane here, due to his… unfortunate condition. His name, though, may allow him to stay under the radar, since it's not in the papers. How you managed that, Hound, is beyond me. Congratulations, by the way, Captain. I heard you’ve gotten away with fines and probation.”
Sansa looks at him, eyes full of you didn’t tell me? Sandor doesn’t look at her, his grey eyes trained hard on Varys.
“Anyway, my dear. I must ask: how much do you want to truly disappear?”
Sansa licks her lips, smoothing her face into the cool mask that has been in place for months now, but has been dropped around Sandor. “Very much so.”
“And you, Captain?”
“I left the Navy, Spider,” Clegane growls back at him. "Not Captain anymore."
“Semantics.” Varys dismisses it with a wave of his hand. “Still. My offer?”
“Only if she wants it.” Sandor’s eyes flick to her briefly, Sansa’s fingers clench at the arm of her chair.
“Want what?”
“Clegane has offered to go with you, wherever that may be, in order to protect you.” Varys folds his hands in front of him on his desk. “But only if you want it.”
Sansa cannot breathe. She is angry. She is also happy, and hopeful, and a tiny bit flattered and even though they haven’t discussed the kiss she is… she is hopeful and more than a little confused. She can see Sandor’s shoulders tensing in her periphery.
“I… I will go with him. Should he want it.”
She looks at him; he nods tersely.
“Good! Good then.” Varys claps his hands together before opening the file and leafing through it. “I have an identity prepared for you, Alayne-”
“No, no,” Sansa interrupts. “I do not wish to change my identity. I’m-I’m Sansa. I am a Stark. And should-should Jon or Arya be alive-I would want them to find me. Please, can you somehow-”
“The CIA is looking for your siblings, Miss Stark,” he breaks in, voice still mostly sympathetic but now hinting at a shade of condescension. “But I will make sure that if they are found that whoever is in charge lets you know.”
“Thank you,” she breathes. “Have you found anything?”
“Nothing on your brother. He went off the grid completely after your father’s arrest. There’s talk that he’s in Norway, though.” He pulls a sheaf of paper out of the folder and slides it across the desk to her. Sansa grabs at it desperately, her sister’s face peering up at her in a grainy surveillance camera still. Sandor’s hand moves towards her in an abortive moment. She squashes down her tears, rubbing her thumb over Arya’s little pointed face. “This was taken at an ATM the night after your father’s arrest. She emptied her account at the Wells Fargo on L Street, between 20th and 21st, and walked off heading across the street. This information did not leave the agency.”
“That’s all you know?” Sansa whispers, blinking furiously.
“Yes,” Varys hands her a tissue from the box on his desk. “For all we know, she could still be in the city, or in Mexico.”
“Canada,” Sansa laughs sadly. “Arya would never go south. She’d go back north.”
Varys’s mouth folds into a thin line resembling a toothless smile. Sansa hands the paper clipped stack of papers back to him, pulling her emotions back under the surface, thankful for the Xanax and other medications now keeping her depression and anxiety in check. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, my dear. Details.”
Sansa smiles wanly. “Yes. Details.”
“I have arranged for the two of you to move into a former safe house in Homer, Alaska,” he starts, passing her a print out of a real estate listing for a two bedroom split-level on the water.
“Former?” Clegane questions in a hard voice.
Varys smiles at him. Sansa is finding herself rapidly growing tired of his smiles. “Former. It was not comprised. Just no longer needed for our purposes.”
“Okay.” Sansa cuts Sandor off when she sees him about to open his mouth to retort. “So it’s safe?”
“And already well-secured. There are currently no threats against your person, but that is always a… possibility. We’ll be able to protect both of you there.”
Sansa looks at Sandor, who gives curt nod.
“And I know that you don’t want to change your name, Miss Stark, but your surname must at least be changed. You cannot be Sansa Stark, even hidden away in a tiny last-stop hamlet at the edge of the Alaskan peninsula.”
Sansa nods her head, acquiescing.
“Clegane will be fine," Varys adds.
“We know, Spider,” Sandor says. “Nobody knows who the fuck I am.”
Varys gives a high, tittering laugh. “I don’t think you understand me.”
“Then what the fuck are you talking about?”
“You’ll be posing as a married couple. Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Clegane.”
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( Part One: City of Cinder)( Part Two:City of Ash)( Part Three: City of Blood)(Epilogue: The Northern Town)