While Those Caissons Go Rolling Along
Dr. Lewin was looking at her kindly, his lips smoothed in a smile that was meant to be understanding. It made Sansa uncomfortable. “I’m not sure how this is supposed to work,” she said to fill in the silence.
“Ah,” the doctor said, leaning forward in his plush armchair. “I suppose that this would be a rather new concept to you. We’re just going to talk.”
“That’s all?” Sansa asked.
“That’s all,” he said with the same soothing smile.
Sansa nodded, taking a moment to consider it. People hadn’t thought that therapy was a good thing, more like a dirty word; something that people whispered about. “What do we talk about?”
“It would be natural for you to be struggling with your new situation, your position,” Dr. Lewin began. “Our meetings are an opportunity to work through those struggles.”
“To help me adjust.”
“Or if there’s anything else you’d like to talk about.”
“Like what?”
Dr. Lewin looks at her for a moment, considering. “There’s a term, they used to call it shell shock but in the 1980s it got coined post-traumatic stress disorder. It applies to people who have gone through extremely traumatic events, like war, natural disasters, rape. People who have had experience like that cause- let’s call them after effects. It can make something linger in the person long after the events are over. Things like nightmares, losing time, paranoia. Many soldiers can experience this.”
Sansa nodded, remembering. “They come home wrong.”
“Maybe not wrong, but changed.” Dr. Lewin paused again, as if waiting for Sansa to offer something up. She didn’t. “Would you like to start there?”
“You want to know if the war changed me?”
“Did it?”
“Doc, that war changed everything.”
**
“You’re here early,” Sansa said. She’d stayed in the gym until the sun came up and was surprised to find the cafeteria open and even more surprised to find Shireen at one of the tables with a cup of coffee and a laptop. “Do you live here?”
Shireen shook her head, closing the laptop with a sharp clip: “I have an apartment in Inwood.”
“So an early start then?”
“I like getting up with the sun,” the agent said with a small smile.
“How about the others,” Sansa gestured to the scattered agents eating around them before settling into her eggs. “Any of them live here?”
After taking a quick glance around, Shireen shook her head. “Not many people actually stay at HQ. Usually it’s a temporary situation.”
“What about him?” Sansa asked, pointing her fork at the man from last night. He was glowering down at a plate of waffles, this time dressed in the standard SHIELD uniform, his hair still tied up in a tight bun.
Shireen paused, looking at him. “Clegane’s not here too often. He’s usually out in the field. Must be a special mission.”
“What’s he usually do?” Sansa bit into her bacon, reveling in the taste. She hadn’t had bacon since, what, ’39? Least ways, not good bacon. That English stuff had been an offense.
“He does a lot,” Shireen took a long drag of her coffee. “What he does usually isn’t very nice, but he’s the best at it. He used to work for the KGB and before that…well, I don’t much about before all that.”
“What’s the KGB?”
“Oh, um, a Russian, well Soviet, police force? Sort of like the, what were the Nazi police called?” Shireen asked, her brow furrowed.
“The gestapo,” Sansa supplied.
“Yeah, the gestapo. Like them. Add it to you list.”
Sansa nodded and turned back to her bacon. She’d forgotten how good it could taste.
**
The first thing that the SHIELD scientists tested was her endurance. They made her run around a track until she couldn’t anymore. Sansa ran for an hour at her top speed. She ran for two more after that.
**
“Do you want to talk about the war?” Dr. Lewin persisted, refusing to be deterred by Sansa’s concise answers and polite smiles.
“I’m just like any other soldier,” Sansa answered. “I’m not sure I really have much to say.”
“You had a unique experience in the war. You and your sister weren’t permitted join at first, is that correct?”
“The army only wanted my brothers, thought that women shouldn’t be out in the field. So we went into the field without the army.” Sansa’s grin was feral. “They didn’t like that much.”
Dr. Lewin laughed gently, “No, I can’t imagine that they did.” He sobered. “But you fought on the front lines for months before you were discovered. That must have been quite the experience. Would”-youare going mad from the shelling. Your foxhole is snug and deep and worn down, molded to your body, molded to Arya’s. The shelling is going to drive you insane. Last night Tommy’s arm fell in your lap. He was a nice guy, a real stand up kinda fella and a mouth that ran at about a mile a minute. Tommy’d known all the good jokes and had blushed real hard when he realized he’d been telling ‘em to a couple ‘a ladies. And his arm had fallen perfectly in your lap, palm up like he was waiting to take your hand before a dance. You’d thrown it out of the hole without a second thought. Tommy wouldn’t need it anymore and there was only so much room down here. And a few minutes later, Arya had popped over the edge of your foxhole and reached down saying, “Hey, coulda give me a hand?” And you’d laughed and laughed, tears running down your face and you keeled over, clutching your sides. Arya had glanced over her shoulder, seen what was left of Tommy and then snorted, trying real hard not to laugh too, and then failing miserably. She’d tumbled into the foxhole, landing on top of you and you’re both howling with tears running down your cheeks “-rgeant Stark, can you come back to me?” Dr. Lewin’s voice called Sansa back to the room, back to the plush armchair she was sitting in.
“It was,” she said and her voice only shook for a moment. “There’s nothing else like it.”
**
They tested her agility next. The scientists kept making pleased little humming sounds whenever she dodged something or completed an obstacle course. She was a prize horse and when she saw Rayder come into the room, she realized that she was up for auction.
**
“You had a dissociative episode. These are common with people suffering from PTSD,” Dr. Lewin was saying. Sansa kept her face blank and tried to quell her panic because she couldn’t move. Her therapist hadn’t seemed to notice so that meant that Sansa was hiding it well. He was telling her that she’d lost time for about five minutes and Sansa wanted to nod to show that she understood but she couldn’t.
Sansa forced her foot to tap the floor.
**
Shireen adjusted Sansa’s stance, pushing her feet further apart. “You want to start in this position. It gives you the biggest range of motion. Now, if someone attacks you from behind-“
**
Sansa nodded at Dr. Lewin.
**
“Okay, maybe don’t hit quite that hard,” Shireen said with a small smile, rubbing her stomach. “We can’t all be supersoldiers.”
“Sorry,” Sansa mumbled, getting back into the resting position.
“Hey, no problem.”
**
After completing a training course in a minute flat, Rayder nodded, satisfied. Sansa felt like she was going to be sick.
**
“I thought there were supposed to be crafts,” Sansa blurted, interrupting Dr. Lewin. “Knitting needles an’ all that. Something for people to do, be useful.”
She could tell that Dr. Lewin was frustrated with her. He wanted her to talk about the dissociative episode and what Sansa thought about the war but she couldn’t bring herself to share something so personal with a stranger. Instead of forcing it though, Dr. Lewin smiled kindly and asked, “Would that make these meetings easier?”
**
Sansa woke up with a gasp and a shout at the edge of her throat. Her hand flew to her breast as if to press her heart back into her chest. Then she laughed in relief, a dry choking sound, because at least this time she could move. It’d been all black, all cold, the kind of cold that burns, and the kind of black that was empty and she’d felt the heaviness of the ice pressing.
But Sansa could move, so she got out of the bed and flipped on the desk light before starting to pace. It’d been a long day, achingly long, and all she wanted to do was go back to sleep but she couldn’t make herself do it. Glancing at the laptop, Sansa sat at the desk and turned it on. She typed “Manhattan Project” into the search bar, clicked the first link, and started to read.
Ten minutes later, Sansa ran to the bathroom and threw up her dinner. Fury was roiling through her, mixed up tight with something else.
Ten minutes after that, Sansa realized that it was shame.
**
She’d already gone through one punching bag and the second one wasn’t faring much better when the doors to the small gym banged open. A quick glance told her that it was Clegane. She hadn’t gotten around to researching the KGB yet but a glance at him told her that it wouldn’t be anything nice. Not even close. He walked like the current kept beating him back.
Her fists pounded against the punching bag even as she made a conscious effort to reign her strength in. Clegane hadn’t even glanced at her, had just started to stretch, his arms swinging back and forth in front of his body. It made the muscles in his back roil and Sansa glanced away.
“Clegane, right?” she asked, just to break the silence.
“Да,” he said, rolling his shoulders.
“You got a first name?”
“Do you care?”
Sansa huffed: “It would just be nice to know.”
“Because you want to get to know me, is that it?” Clegane answered, his voice full of hard edges. He glanced over at the wall, at the leaking punching bag; “How many are you going to break?”
“I’ll make sure to leave you a couple,” Sansa said and she couldn’t help it if her Brooklyn drawl came out with it.
To her surprise, Clegane snorted and his mouth quirked up just the slightest bit. He bent down to pick up the cotton hand wrap she had dropped. “Can you box, or do you just like to hit the bag?”
Sansa paused, letting her fists drop. “I can box,” she said, trying hard not to think about that gym in Red Hook.
“Do you want to get in the ring?” Clegane asked, jerking his head at the small boxing ring in the middle of the gym.
Sansa considered for a moment. The offer was unexpected and it’d be better than hitting a bag over and over again, breaking them. She met his eyes, and found them hard. He wasn’t offering out of pity.
“Alright,” Sansa agreed. “Are there gloves in the supply closet?”
“We don’t need them,” he said.
“I fight you without ‘em I might break you.”
His jaw clenched; “You will not break me.”
“Look pal, we fight with gloves or we’re not fightin’ at all,” Sansa said. When he didn’t say anything else she walked over to the supply closet, surprised when he followed.
Sansa let the silence keep between them. It was nice, in a way. She’d been surrounded by noise all her life; city living and terrible tenements with thin walls. And then of course there’d been the war. In this gym though, it was quiet and Clegane melted into it, a silent shade at her side.
He was a quiet fighter too. He didn’t try to goad her like Rickon had, didn’t laugh like Arya would, or give advice like Robb. Bran had been quiet, like her; more focused on the deliberation of the moves than winning the fight. But Clegane fought nothing like Bran. There was a ferocity in the way he moved. He came at her like a storm and his strength was greater than she expected; she could feel bruises forming. “You hit harder than you should,” she breathed in between punches.
“And you don’t hit as hard as I thought you would,” he responded. No, he goaded;calling her out for pulling her punches. She ducked his swing, drove a fist into his abdomen. “Better.”
She hit him again, letting herself use more of her strength, because- because he could take a hit like Robb. He landed a punch against her stomach and it drove the breath out of her, because- because he shouldn’t be able to hit like that. “The KGB, did they replicate my parents’ serum?” Sansa asked, breathing fast.
“Not the KGB,” Sandor said, trying to drive her into a corner. “But it is not the same as yours. It only makes me stronger.”
“Right,” Sansa muttered and danced out of his range.
She put herself back into the fight, letting herself loose, knowing that he could take it. Clegane seemed to be getting frustrated though, his swings more wild, his guard dropping just a little. It was enough though for Sansa to get in close and drives her fists against his stomach once, twice, three times. She brought her arm back, ready to strike again, when Clegane shoved her off. The strength behind the push almost made her fall. Sansa could feel the fury rolling off of him and backed off to the other side of the ring.
“Aren’t you going to ask about it?” he snarled.
“Do you want to tell me?” she asked, keeping her body coiled, alert.
“No,” he bit out.
“Then I won’t ask,” the answer didn’t seem to appease him though, and he ripped off one of his gloves, heaving it across the gym.
“And what about this?” he yelled, jabbing a finger at the scars on his face. “Don’t you want to ask about this?”
Sansa took him in, watched the rage in his eyes. When she didn’t answer, he tore off his other gloves, throwing it hard against the matt. During the fight, some of his hair had fallen loose from the bun he kept it in, hanging sweaty and damp across his face. It made him look wild. “I just want to box,” she said, keeping her voice even.
“Врёшь!! Stop lying! Everybody wants to know about my scars,” Clegane started stalking towards her and Sansa held her ground. She was almost positive that she could take him in a fight. His anger would make him careless.
“Everybody has scars.”
“Do you have scars? Are you scarred on the inside, Little Bird? Hurt deep down where no one can see?” His throat made a dry, cracking sound and Sansa realized that it was a laugh. A bitter one. “ Everyone knows that supersoldiers do not scar. They heal too fast.”
He came to a stop in front of Sansa, looming, forcing her to look up as she said, “Hurt someone deep enough and anyone can scar.”
“Your brother didn’t have any,” his voice grated and Sansa saw his scarred lip twitch.
“Yeah? That’s the best news I’ve heard since wakin’ up.”
His hand shot out, snagging her arm and pulling her until she was flush against him. Clegane’s fingers curled around her forearm hard enough that they would leave bruises; a testament to whatever serum he’d been given. “Let go,” Sansa said, letting steel filter into the words. She watched his eyes flicker down at her bare arms and knew what he would see. Sansa watched his eyes widen, meet hers and then go back down. “Let go of me, Clegane.”
He did, releasing her suddenly and backing off. He looked almost sick.
“Yeah,” Sansa muttered. Bringing her wrist to her mouth, she ripped the tape off the bottom of the glove and unraveled it. After pulling it off, she switched hands. She tossed it to the corner with the other one and finally looked back at Clegane. He looked stricken and Sansa felt anger swell inside her. “Do you enjoy bullying people?” she accused.
“I’ve never been called a bully before,” he said, his voice almost blank.
“I thought “bastard” would be too rude.”
Clegane chuffed even as his eyes narrowed; “And you wouldn’t want to forget your manners.”
Sansa, suddenly exasperated by the man’s mood swings, rolled her eyes. “There’s nothin’ wrong with being polite.”
“It is just an easier way to lie.”
“Everyone here is a liar,” Sansa whirled on him, this time crowding him. “Every single one of ‘em. If manners are lies than at least they’re nice ones.” She paused, searching his eyes.
“How do you lie, Clegane? How do you do it?”
For a moment, Sansa thought that he was going to grab her again. Clegane looked like he was going to fight her on it until he suddenly deflated and dropped his head. Sansa let him take his moment and when he finally looked up, he seemed resigned. “Sandor,” he said. “My first name is Sandor.”
Sansa took the surrender, backed off. “Alright then. Sandor.” He nodded at her.
After a moment, he dropped his eyes and scratched at the back of his neck and Sansa was charmed somehow, to see this large man feeling awkward. She hadn’t thought it possible. “Would you like to continue the fight?” he asked.
“Are you going to grab me again?” Sansa retorted.
“Only if you do not move fast enough,” Clegane said with a look that wasn’t quite a smirk.
It made Sansa smile and it was the closest she’d gotten to something genuine the whole day. “Alright sure, why not.” When he met her eyes again, he looked almost pleased. “But we’re gonna need to get more wrap for the gloves.”
“You and your gloves,” Sandor muttered, but his lips were upturned.
**
The next morning there were knitting needles and three different skeins of yarn: red, white and blue. Sansa hid her grimace. Dr. Lewin motioned her into the same armchair she’d sat in yesterday- the one that was too plump and too low. She sat it in anyway, avoiding the kindly smile of the doctor’s face.
“I thought it might make you more comfortable,” he said, nodding towards the yarn. Then a thought seemed to occur to him: “You do know how to knit, don’t you?”
Sansa nodded: “I thought everyone knew how to knit.”
“Changing times, I’m afraid,” Dr. Lewin said. Sansa picked up the knitting needles.
He watched her for a long moment, staying silent as she cast on. Sansa tried to think of something to say, something that would satisfy him. “My brother taught me how to knit,” she said for lack of anything better. “Robb,” she clarified.
“Not your mother?”
Sansa laughed, but it was a dry sound. “I’m not sure my mother knitted anything after she started working on the serum,” Sansa paused, because no, that was wrong. “She made Bran a blanket while she was pregnant with him.” Catelyn had started it at least. Robb had finished it. Sansa picked up another needle from the pile and started working it in.
“What are you planning on making?”
“Socks. It’s my specialty.”“Did you make them for your siblings?”
Sansa worked in another needle, creating a square. She took a breath. “Sometimes. I made ‘em for whoever needed ‘em. There wasn’t a whole lot of money to go around so I would trade socks for stuff we needed. Or sweaters. A scarf. Whatever people would take.”
“And your family, they did the same?” Dr. Lewin had that kindly smile again. Sansa shifted in her seat.
“We all did what we could to help the neighborhood,” she kept her eyes focused on the knitting even though she could have made the sock blind.
“It must have been a strong community,” Dr. Lewin continued, trying to eke more information from Sansa.
She wanted to give it, she did, wanted to tell him about how her family had lost their house in Bay Ridge during the Depression because her parents cared more about the serum than their jobs. She wanted to tell him about moving into a tenement building in Red Hook that had two bedrooms and how one of them was for her parents and the other one was for the lab and how she and her siblings took couch cushions and blankets and slept on the floor. She wanted to tell him that sometimes the community hadn’t been so nice to certain groups of people and that Arya had once beat a boy with a pipe for calling their dad a crazy mick and that there had been block fights every other week and the cops never came when they were needed but yes, it had been a strong community because Mrs. McCrery always offered to watch Rickon when Sansa had to pick up a shift or because sometimes O’Brien let the rent be a day late because he was sweet on her ma and it’d been a good thing when the Irish took over the neighborhood because everyone knew that the Irish were better than the Russians.
But Sansa didn’t know how to say any of that so she just nodded her head and kept her eyes on her knitting.
**
Shireen wasn’t there at breakfast but Clegane was sitting at a table alone and hunched over a cup of coffee. Lifting her chin, Sansa walked over and plopped her tray down across from him. His eyebrows quirked up but he didn’t say anything.
Sansa settled in at the table and dug into her plate with gusto. She’d never gotten out of the habit of eating quickly; not enough food and four siblings had that effect.
“That’s a lot of bacon,” Clegane said, his raspy voice sounding slightly awed.
Sansa glanced down at the almost obscene pile of it on her plate. “Yeah,” she agreed. “And you don’t get any.”
That surprised a laugh out of him and Sansa grinned back, taking a large bite of bacon.
**
SHIELD tested her pain tolerance that morning. They hooked wires to her head, explaining that they weren’t actually going to hurt her, just trick her brain into thinking that they were. They’d said it was necessary. Sansa didn’t need to ask why.
**
The scientists kept upping the pain levels on their stupid terrible beeping machine as if they were just begging her to scream to let out every single sensation they were pouring into her until she was hoarse with it and she wanted to she wanted to she wanted to scream so bad because these bastards didn’t know they didn’t know how much pain she could take before she screamed they didn’t know that it’d been worse at the White Walker base that it’d been worse when she’d felt the ice crushing her lungs in and settling her into like a knife and how much it had burned they didn’t know that she remembered the way that they had thawed her body how it had burned like the chemicals that the White Walkers had pumped through her and burned like she’d been walking on the sun and burned like the stench they’d found in the camps and this was nothing their wires were nothing and nothing and nothing because Sansa knew that it didn’t even compare to what it had felt like to wake up in this stupid terrible beeping world and Sansa wanted to scream they didn’t know how bad she wanted to but it kept getting stuck in her throat but it had nothing to do with those wires-
**
“I would really like to talk about what happened yesterday, Sergeant. You disassociated for nearly five-“
“You know, my pa fought in the Great War,” Sansa cut him off because this was the best answer she had. “He started out on the front lines, in the trenches, until the government found out he was some kind of hotshot chemist and put him to work on making a supersoldier serum,” Sansa stopped, using her knitting as pretense to pause while she counted the stitches. “Did you know that the first times they tested it, it didn’t work? The serum, it burned men up from the inside. I guess the government didn’t like that very much and they stopped the project.”
“When your father came home from the war, did he seem-changed? Like how we talked about?” Dr. Lewin asked.
Sansa couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “Ma said once that he used to smile more an’ go out dancin’. But I didn’t know him that way; none of us did. He was- quiet and- serious, I suppose you’d say, and-“ Sansa’s throat clicked dry. Dr. Lewin waited for her patiently.
“He’d get a little lost sometimes,” Sansa forced the words out because now that look in her father’s eyes made so much more sense. “I think that’s why he worked so hard on the serum. It cleared things up for him, up there,” she said, waving her hand around her head, unsure of how else to put it. “The numbers, maybe. It made him have to focus. And then sometimes-“ Sansa stopped again because saying what came next felt like a betrayal. Her father’s pain wasn’t hers to share.
“Sometimes I think that we all would have been better off without the serum,” she finished instead because it was the closest to the truth.
**
There was shouting and a lot of it. Sansa blinked. The room slowly coming back into focus. When she tried lifting her head, a heavy hand fell on her shoulder to stop her. Vaguely, she was aware that the wires were being pulled off of her and that the pain had stopped.
“-vitals returning to within normal range-“
“I didn’t even realize that she had-“
“-those levels shouldn’t have been possible but-“
“-can’t imagine how much-“
“I thought she’d scream before she-“
“Why didn’t she tell us that it-“
Sansa let her eyelids flutter shut, feeling exhausted all the way down to her bones.
**
Sansa couldn’t move her body. Time slipped by and her fingers were tangled in her hair, her knees dragged up against her chest and her breaths shallow. They came so quickly that black spots were beginning to form in the edges of her eyes. Sansa didn’t know how much time had passed since she was shaken out of her nightmare, from the creaking of the ice, and she couldn’t convince her body to just move.
Her body ached with phantom pain and the terror of the nightmare clung to her skin like a stench. She didn’t even have enough energy to let out the whimper clawing at her throat. The test had thrown her so far back in her head that panic felt like it was only a step away, that if she gave into the ice for just a moment, the pain would come flooding back into her and worse than that she would still be frozen when it happened.
She thought of the little gym and how her fists felt against the punching bag. She thought of the motion of it all. It was the closest thing to comfort that she’d found so far and she wanted it so bad. The quiet of it, the peace of it, even Clegane’s steady presence grounding her.
She tried to uncurl her fingers. It didn’t work. Sansa’s breath came quicker because oh god what if she could never move again and what if the ice came back was back and crushing back down on her lungs and she tried so hard to uncurl her fingers because damned if she’d let that happen again.
Her finger twitched.
**
Dr. Lewin smiled kindly.
Sansa ate breakfast with Shireen. She glanced at Clegane.
The scientists put a gun in her hand and pointed her towards the targets. She hit every one of them. The scientists looked impressed. They looked scared. Sansa didn’t tell them that she was better with a knife.
Shireen introduced her to Brazilian Capoeira and Sansa might as well have fallen in love because it was just like dancing.
Sansa dreamt of Robb getting shot. She wasn’t the one pulling the trigger. Arya was.
Clegane was a in the gym. He greeted her with a nod.
She broke two bags that night and swept it up afterwards. Clegane stayed by her side.
**
Dr. Lewin smiled kindly.
**
Search: Robb Stark…
April 17, 1919- January 12, 1950
“-assassinated-“
“-government blamed it on Communist sympathizers”
“Was Robb Stark a member of the Communist Party before the war?”
“-conspiracy theory-“
“government cover up-“
**
Search: Bran Stark…
August 12, 1921- August 21, 1982
“-peace summit-“
“-plane crash in Russia-“
“blamed on faulty construction-“
**
Search: Rickon Stark…
May 30, 1923- November 7, 2011
“-supersoldier serum-“
“deterio-“
**
“Rough day?” Clegane asked, his voice even and blank as usual.
Sansa had just sent her third punching bag against the wall and it’d only been an hour. “Well,” she drawled, already hooking up a fourth, “I just found out that none of my siblings died a good death so yeah, it’s been a rough day.” Sandor grunted in acknowledgement, never even turning from his own punching bag. She drowned herself in the training, trying everything to block out words like “assassination,” “plane crash,” “deterioration.”
She couldn’t find the rhythm of it though. Her hands stuttered against the bag unevenly and she used too much force. It felt better than it had any right to though. Dr. Lewin could keep his coping mechanisms because what was deep breathing going to do about the rage roiling in her gut and those stupid tears that didn’t want to fall no matter horrible the information she found out was.
Clegane didn’t offer to box with her like he had most other nights and Sansa was grateful. Gloves or no, she was too emotional to reign in anything and he’d end up with something broken because right now, Sansa needed to break something because even if she couldn’t cry she could destroy. The fourth bag flew off its hook.
Later, Clegane was watching her sweep up sand when he spoke again: “I knew Rickon.” His voice was quiet, softer than she had come to associate with him and his heavy Russian accent. Sansa stopped sweeping and propped the broom against the wall.
She turned to look at him, feeling more scared than she had since she’d woken up in this world: “Was he happy?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. It was the only question that mattered.
Sandor looked back at her, his face almost unreadable. But Sansa was coming to know this steel-edged man, to read the minute facsimiles of his expressions. Right now, she thought he might look sad. Not for himself, not for Rickon, but, she realized, for her: “Да.” Sandor paused then, his eyes falling away from her and Sansa watched the expression of sadness grow on his face. “He talked about you. He would have liked to see you.”
“Me too,” Sansa said, not even trying to hide her bitterness.
Because Rickon had died one year before they had found her in the ice. One year, and she wouldn’t have woken up alone. And she wouldn’t have because Rickon and Bran had founded SHIELD and even after Bran died in the plane crash, Rickon kept fighting. He would have been there when they woke her from the ice. Brave, wild Rickon. He’d trained countless agents, received so many honors and medals and fought so many battles and then, in the end, the serum had corroded. He’d been fit and healthy for 71 years, had hardly aged from when he got the serum in 1940. And then, time caught up with him and he degraded.
It tore Sansa apart, thinking about that word. Her youngest brother, the tallest of them, the largest, and he degraded into nothing. Into a husk. She’d seen the photos, had clicked on the comparison shots with a kind of sick fascination. On one side her brother was strong, dressed in army fatigues and smiling like he could own the world, and on the other, a shriveled old man in a wheel chair, a dusky reflection of the man he had once been, the gleam in his eyes only a faint glimmer.
Scientists suspected that it was because he’d been given a lesser version of the serum, weakened and not as refined. Sansa knew they were right. She had memories of her parents debating about it. Rickon had been so young and they had wanted to account for him completing puberty. They had apparently miscalculated. Although, with Robb dead from a coward’s bullet and Bran smashed against a mountainside, Sansa and Arya missing, there wasn’t really a point of comparison. It tore at Sansa because if they’d found her just a little bit sooner they could have studied her, maybe would have found a cure for him.
“He helped me,” Clegane spoke up suddenly, drawing Sansa away from her thoughts. “I was- trying to get away from a bad place and break out of my- programing. And he helped me. He was a good man.”
It was the first time Clegane had spoken about his past. Sansa took in the guarded look on his face and recognized the statement for an act of trust. “Thank you for telling me, Sandor,” Sansa whispered. He nodded, for once not making a joke about her manners. She turned back to the broom and let the silence come back. He stayed with her while she cleaned, just like he always did.
**
Dr. Lewin smiled kindly.
**
It was a nice day and Central Park was as crowded as it ever was. The full assault of a New York summer hadn’t settled in yet and there was a nice breeze. Sansa sat on the lip of Bethesda Fountain and ignored the three agents trying to tail her covertly. There was a group in front her dancing and it astounded her, the way that their bodies moved. The men and women were rolling their bodies and moving their hips. Some threw flips and spun and their feet crossed back and forth and Sansa didn’t know how to describe it, only that she loved it. The music had a steady beat and repeated again and again. The rhythm coursed through her and it was electrifying, mesmerizing, almost intoxicating.
One of them was wearing a shirt that had “Brooklyn” splashed across it and it made her smile and ache a little. She hadn’t gone back to Brooklyn, not yet, even though sometimes that was all she wanted. SHIELD, or maybe Dr. Lewin, she wasn’t really sure who exactly was in charge of dictating her life, hadn’t deemed her ready for it. Something about the city being too much of a shock for her. But when Sansa was being honest with herself, and she always did try to be, she knew that she couldn’t face her old neighborhood yet. Too many ghosts. Or maybe not enough. She also knew that Brooklyn was calling to her and soon it wouldn’t matter if she was ready. She wouldn’t be able to resist going home.
It helped though, getting out of SHIELD HQ, getting to see at least a little bit of the city, even if wasn’t her city. Watching the dancing was good too. Maybe she’d learn it. That’d make Dr. Lewin happy. He didn’t think that the constant training was a good coping mechanism. He liked talking about coping mechanisms.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sansa saw Shireen approach. The agent was dressed in civilian clothes and it was jarring. At SHIELD, Shireen always looked so put together, not a hair out of place and steel in her spine. Out here in Central Park, in denims and a t-shirt (a look that Sansa still wasn’t used to), Shireen seemed looser, like she’d come unstarched. It was a good look.
Turning away from the dancing, Sansa greeted the agent. She could tell something was off, Shireen’s face pinched and a furrow in her brow. Instead of saying hello back, she lowered herself onto the lip of the fountain next to Sansa. She didn’t meet Sansa’s eyes either, instead turning to look at the dancers. There was something on her mind, something she was trying to put into words. Sansa let her take her time.
“I guess that dancing has to look pretty strange,” Shireen said, breaking the silence. It wasn’t what she had come to say but Sansa let her have this.
“It’s incredible. Do you know what it’s called?”
Shireen nodded slowly, distantly: “Break dancing.”
Shireen didn’t offer any more information and Sansa let the silence creep back. She could look it up later on the laptop.
After a moment, Shireen seemed to square her shoulders but she still didn’t look at Sansa: “Rickon and I were in love.” The statement was firm and confident. It wasn’t what Sansa was expecting to hear and it knocked the breath from her lungs.
Soldiering on, Shireen spoke again: “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner but I wasn’t sure how to say it. It’s hard, seeing you here when he’s not.”
“Do, do you,” Sansa paused, willing her voice to come out even. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
Shireen seemed oddly grateful for the opportunity because she smiled then and it spread across her face like sunshine. “He was the best person I ever met,” Shireen started and her voice was fond even though there was sadness in it. “You have to remember that he was a legend. Meeting him that first time was overwhelming. I tried so hard not to be star-struck, to treat him like any other agent, but the truth is that he was so much more than anybody else in the room and you’d have to be an idiot to miss it.”
Shireen laughed and Sansa smiled a little at the thought of her littlest brother having such an effect. She could remember when he was still picking his nose and playing in the mud and here this amazing agent was talking about her brother like she’d never known anyone so incredible. “He trained me. Well, not just me, but I was part of the group. We’d been hand selected because Rickon never really trained people but Rayder wanted us to learn from the best. And he was,” Shireen said earnestly. “He was the absolute best.”
“How did you fall in love?”
The question made Shireen smile even wider: “It was a mission in Prague, a couple months after the training ended. He’d requested to work with me specifically because we’d become friends. I’d stopped seeing him as this otherworldly creature because, let’s be honest, your brother could be a snarky piece of shit when he wanted to be. He used to try and convince new recruits that he once fought dinosaurs during world war two.”
“Did he ever convince them?” Sansa asked, laughing.
“Oh sure. None of them were going to question the Wilding, Howling Commando, brother of Captain America.” Sansa laughed again, enjoying the image of the new recruits staring at her brother with wide and dazzled eyes.
“But,” Shireen continued, sobering, “he was also so angry sometimes, and sometimes so tired. He kept it hidden away but he let me see that in him, trusted me with it, and that’s when I knew I loved him. Prague-Prague just brought it out in the open.”
“Most people forgot how old he was.” Shireen said and Sansa knew all too well what she meant. She remembered her brother’s glassy, far-off stare that he’d sometimes get when the Howling Commandos were out in the field. He’d already been so old back then, even when he was young. “They forgot that he’d been fighting his whole life; moving from one war to the next,” Shireen’s voice was quiet, the sadness creeping back in.
“Why did he keep going?” Sansa asked. The Rickon that she remembered had wanted nothing more than to go home. He was willing to fight the fight but Sansa had been able to tell that he was ready to go back to Brooklyn, hang up his hat and call it a day.
“I don’t think he knew how to do anything else,” Shireen answered. “I asked him once what he’d wanted to do, had wanted to be before the war started and he told me that he didn’t even remember.”
“I’ll always be a soldier,” Sansa whispered, her heart aching with the knowledge that Rickon had wanted to be a park ranger and live somewhere quiet.
Shireen looked at Sansa sharply; “That’s what he said, after the serum started to fail.”
“It was something Robb used to say,” Sansa said, not sure how to explain it. She hadn’t understood it herself, not really, back during the war. She had believed that all she had to do was get to the other side of the war and then she could marry Willas, maybe find a new company to dance with. Now here she was on the other side and she finally understood what Robb meant. Rickon must have too.
“Sometimes when we were holed up in one country or another, we’d talk about getting out. Leaving SHIELD and everything behind. I meant it but I could tell that he never did. He might have wanted to do it but he never would have,” Shireen said quietly with something that sounded very close to regret.
“How long were you together?”
“Almost 17 years,” Shireen answered and Sansa was surprised for a moment. She’d thought that she and Shireen were closer in age but if she and Rickon had been together that long- Sansa looked closer and she noticed the fine lines around Shireen’s eyes and mouth. The agent was older than she’d thought, closer to 40 than 30.
“Were you with him when-when,” Sansa stuttered, unable to finish the question.
“Up until the very end,” Shireen answered, her voice gentle, caring in a way that Sansa hadn’t heard since she’d woken up.
“Good,” Sansa said. “I’m glad he didn’t die alone.” Shireen nodded and reached out to grab Sansa’s hand. Sansa took it and held on like a lifetime. She was selfishly glad that she wasn’t the only person mourning her brother for the man that he was instead of the legend that the world made him.
**
“Can you use the shield, Sergeant?” Rayder asked her without preamble.
Sansa was standing in his office, meeting with him for the first time since she’d been found. She’d been at SHIELD for a week, doing her monotonous routine of meetings and training. She’d been waiting for something to change, for some conclusion to be reached about her. She supposed that one had been found.
“Yes sir, all of the Howling Commandos can use the shield.” She didn’t mention that it had always felt just a little bit wrong to do so. That shield had been an extension of Robb, an extension of his arm, the reach of his fist.
Rayder seemed satisfied with the answer: “We want you to take up the shield and become Captain America.”
It took all of Sansa’s training as a covert agent not to blanch at the suggestion; “I’m sorry, sir. What?”
“Carry the mantle. This country needs a Captain America now, maybe more than it ever did.” Rayder turned from her to look out at the expanse of Manhattan outside his window. “This country is facing enemies that we can’t see, that we can’t put a name to and say, ‘yes, this is evil.’ Our new enemies are lurking out there, more powerful than we can imagine.” He turned back to her: “You ever heard of the Targaryens?”
The question threw Sansa off: “The mythological Valerian gods?”
“They’re not quite as mythological as we thought,” Rayder replied, his voice still even. “Two years ago, an artifact was found in the New Mexican desert; some sort of horn. It gave off a unique energy signature that caught our attention. We had it for a day before the sky opened up and dragons came through a portal.” Sansa’s disbelief must have shown on her face because Rayder nodded, his eye wide and honest. “That is not a metaphor. They were dragons. Three of them. Then a man came flying after them, being chased by a woman who could light herself on fire,” Rayder leveled her with a dry look. “That town in New Mexico looked like a disaster sight after those two finished their grudge match. Thirty people died that day.”
His face twisted and he changed the subject suddenly, “What does Captain America mean to you?”
Sansa blinked, “Sir?”
“As a symbol,” Rayder clarified. “What does Captain America mean to you?”
Sansa considered for a moment before answering. Captain America had never been a real person. Robb was Captain America but Captain America had never been Robb. “He’s an ideal; a symbol for what this country, or the world I suppose, can and should be,” Sansa said finally.
Rayder nodded: “I believe the same thing. This world of ours is at one of its darkest points and it’s not just the threat of ancient alien dragon gods knocking at our front door. It’s the wars and the drones and the realpolitik.” Fixing his one eye on her, Rayder said, low and earnest, “This is a world that needs Captain America.”
And it made sense, then, why Rayder wanted her. But- “I can’t be Captain America. I’m just…” Sansa paused, grappling for the words that would explain it right and came up short. “I’m just the Little Bird.” She finished lamely and looked down, not sure how to convey that Robb had always been the best of them, that he could be Captain America because out of all of them, he believed in Captain America. And the rest of them had believed in Robb.
Director Rayder looked like he wanted to roll his eye. “Exactly,” he said. “You’re America’s Darling. Who better to take up the name of Captain America?”
Sansa flicked her eyes back to Rayder. Sandor had called her the same name but she’d brushed it off, not assigning it any consequence. “You have no idea who you are, do you, Sergeant?” Rayder asked and Sansa stayed silent.
“Computer, pull up images of America’s Darling.” The air filled with holographic images of Sansa, or upon closer inspection, pictures of Sansa and women meant to look like her. Sansa sucked a breath between her teeth.
Most of the pictures were from the war and the propaganda campaigns the Howling Commandos had been subjected to. Others were of actresses with their hair dyed red posing like models or from films and posters or pieces of art. One image seemed most popular; Sansa from the early years of the war, staring at the camera, her eyes half-lidded and a small smile on her lips, taken for some propaganda campaign. Her hair was done up in victory rolls and the text beneath it read “America’s Darling.” The phrase was everywhere in the search; scrolled beneath perfume ads or on movie posters, across pictures of a redhead and a brunet kissing. It made her more innocent than she had ever been in her entire life. Sansa understood then, what had happened. Sansa Stark had become an ideal; an image of innocence and goodness.
“The phrase first started popping up in the 1950s, right next to the invention of the teenager and suburbia. Your relationship with Willas, that wartime drama and romance- it became quite the story,” Rayder said and Sansa forced down her anger at the utter invasion that had happened to her life. “Your brothers tried to fight it and said that you weren’t this sweet little lamb but, well, the media won that fight.”
Sansa smirked, a dry, humorless thing: “That’s an old fight, Director.”
Rayder regarded her for a moment before speaking again: “You understand why it has to be you, don’t you?”
Sansa did. If Captain America had been an image of what the world should be, America’s Darling was the result of such a world. Rayder, SHIELD, they were scared of what the world was becoming. They were scared of what could be coming to the world. They wanted a symbol, something to rally behind. Something to point to for hope and reassurance.
“You tortured me,” Sansa said and met Rayder’s eyes.
For a moment, he managed to look almost stunned: “Excuse me?”
“Five days ago you had scientists strap me to a chair and torture me,” Sansa repeated and to his credit, Rayder didn’t look away.
“SHIELD is cataloging your strengths and limits-“
“I know why you did it, but don’t try to hide it under a name that’s nice and clean. I’ve been tortured before, Director. I know what it looks like.” When Rayder didn’t say anything, Sansa continued. “You seem like a good man, sir. You’ve got a heart and it’s even in the right place. But I don’t trust you, and I don’t trust SHIELD.” She watched his eye harden. “I want to be Captain America. I want to help, I do. But I won’t be your lapdog. I pick my missions and who I run them with.”
Robb had become Captain America because he couldn’t stand aside and not help, not when it would be something as simple as wearing a certain uniform and painting a metal disc. But he’d let himself go to do it. He’d let himself be owned. Sansa couldn’t do that.
Rayder didn’t say anything for a long moment, didn’t look away. Sansa held his gaze. Finally, he nodded. “I can see the Stark in you,” he said, then sighed. “Alright, we do this on your terms.”
Sansa nodded and she knew that it’d be harder than this to actually keep him to his word. It was a start though.
“Looks like you got a promotion, Captain,” Rayder said and shook her hand.
Sansa walked out of Director Rayder’s office carrying Robb’s vibranium shield. She walked out with a bitter taste in her mouth, trying to stave off the feeling of wrongness.
**
“Thief,” Robb accuses, his eyes dead.
“Thief,” he hisses, hands cold.
You close your eyes and tremble; a cold wind burns through you.
“Thief,” he whispers and kisses your forehead.
**
Sansa’s eyes flickered open and she couldn’t move. She wasn’t surprised.
**
Dr. Lewin smiled kindly.
**
Sansa sat in her room reading a biography on Joseph McCarthy.
Time slipped.
Sansa blinked and noticed the book had fallen to the floor and the cup of tea she’d been drinking was cold. Sansa blinked and stood up from her chair, her joints creaking. Glancing at the clock, Sansa winced. She’d lost at least two hours.
Sansa blinked again and looked at the shield leaning against the door.
She picked up the book.
**
The tests didn’t stop after Rayder gave her the shield. The scientists just got more creative. They timed her going through obstacle courses, tested her tactical skills, her stealth. At one point they gave her a table of weapons to choose from to complete a disaster simulation. They didn’t notice that she’d slipped a knife into her boot. The weight of it was comforting, familiar.
She practiced with the shield on her own too, trying to get past the feeling of wrongness. Sansa was in one of HQ’s larger training rooms, leaping from sawhorse to sawhorse, throwing the shield at dummies that randomly popped up from the floor. The shield hit the dummy square in the chest and Sansa vaulted across the room, catching it in midair, before landing and throwing it again at the next dummy that popped up.
Sansa been there for almost an hour when she heard the gym door open but she ignored it. She’d been training herself to do the math and work out the angles rather than just relying on instinct. Sansa had just caught the shield again when she heard the telltale click of a gun being cocked. She leapt back off of the sawhorse, flipping and landing with in a crouch, shield up and deflecting the bullet.
Sansa sprang into action, eyeing the man who was drawing a bead on her. Arcing her back, she heaved the shield at him, hitting him square in the chest. It ricocheted against the wall and back into Sansa’s waiting hand. The man flew back, crashing against the back wall and Sansa charged him, shield in front.
He was laughing.
Sansa pulled up short, still alert, and heard someone clapping. “I told you that you wouldn’t be able to hit her, Bronn,” a woman called out, sauntering into the training room. Her voice was light, tinkling. Playful. Sansa knew in an instant that she couldn’t trust this woman. Maybe as a comrade, but not as a friend. She was a spy in every way.
“Had to try, didn’t I?” the man, Bronn, answered. He lifted his hands up, shrugging in a whatareyougonnadoaboutit gesture. “Sorry about that, love. Just testing the new meat.”
Sansa arched an eyebrow at him: “Love?”
“Just ignore him. I do,” the woman said, reaching out her hand. Sansa shifted the shield to her other arm and took it, giving it a firm shake.
“Sansa Stark,” she said, introducing herself.
The woman laughed: “I know. Agent Margaery Tyrell.”
Sansa’s breath caught and her shock must have shown because Agent Tyrell laughed again: “Yes, the same family. He was my grandfather.”
Sansa hadn’t even thought about Willas having children, hadn’t even googled him and now his granddaughter was shaking her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Sansa said, flying on autopilot.
In a daze, she watched Tyrell turn to Bronn and help him stand. “Good hit,” he said, rubbing at his chest and eyeing the shield in Sansa’s hand.
Mentally shaking herself, Sansa turned to him: “Sorry about that.”
He turned his head to Willas’ granddaughter, shaking it in mock disbelief: “I shoot at her as a test and she apologizes. I like her. You should be more like her.” The grin on his face was natural and it made his eyes crinkle. Despite his obvious jovial nature, Sansa knew that, just like Tyrell, she couldn’t trust him.
“Next time, I won’t be as nice about it,” Sansa said with a smile but she knew that they would read it as the warning that it was.
Looking between the pair of them, Sansa could see how dangerous they were. They cloaked it behind light gestures and easy smiles but she could tell that it was practiced. Arya was the same way, or at least had become that way, close to the end of the war. Both of them moved with a practiced casualness, one bred from being hardened by a dangerous world.
“Well, don’t let us keep you from your training, Captain,” Tyrell smirked, one side of her lips pulling up. It looked like a trap. Sansa nodded and walked back to the sawhorses. They followed her, stopping nearby and leaning against the wall.
The two stayed to watch and Sansa found herself studying them as she leapt through the air. Their closeness was obvious. The touches lingered and the smiles turned genuine, if just for a moment. Sansa saw it and labeled it love, or something like it. It was obvious that they were partners and, if she had to guess, out of all the people in the world they only trusted each other. It was what made them so dangerous.
They were huddled close together, urgent whispers being exchanged. Sansa knew that if she wanted to, she’d be able to listen to them with her enhanced hearing but chose to block them out, give them privacy. They seemed to reach a decision about something because they both turned to look at her at the same time.
“You should spar with us.” Tyrell had that smirk on her face and Bronn was all-out grinning.
Sansa jumped down from one of the taller sawhorses and nodded to them. “Any rules?” she asked. They both shook their heads and moved out onto the floor. She set the shield off to the side before going to meet them on the mat.
“Rayder set you up to this?” Sansa asked.
“Of course,” Tyrell responded. “But we love a good fight.”
Sansa spent most of the fight on the defensive as they paired up against her; she was more interested in learning their tactics than actually fighting. Bronn was a direct fighter; he charged her and swung heavy fists. But he was also a distraction from Tyrell. She was quick and catlike, all of her moves smooth and deadly. She and Shireen fought similarly although Tyrell was much more vicious. Sansa wondered if Rickon had trained her too.
She quickly discovered that Bronn was a talker. He goaded her and tried to make her lash out. Most of it was harmless enough, simple jabs at her technique or if she didn’t react fast enough. It was easy to block him out. Rickon had done the same thing to all of them. It made her lips tug up in a small smile.
They’d been sparring for close to an hour when Sansa heard the gym door open again, followed by a familiar walk. She rolled away from Tyrell’s kick and gave Sandor a quick wave before turning her attention back to the fight, noting the man who followed him in.
“Hound!” Bronn shouted, pulling out of the fight. Tyrell lunged at her again though so Sansa kept at it. With Bronn out, Sansa felt more comfortable moving to the offensive, driving the other woman back.
“Sellsword,” Sandor responded, his voice as gruff as ever.
“Come to join the fight? Or were you just going to lurk in the shadows some more?” Bronn’s voice lacked any edge to it, there might have even been a fondness.
“But he lurks so well!” Tyrell called out, barely managing to block Sansa’s kick.
“Already fought her,” Sandor answered. He stopped by the mat and began to stretch. “She’s good.” A part of Sansa swelled to hear the compliment.
“Well, that’s a Stark for you; always ready for a fight. But let’s hope she’s a little different from the others,” the other man said. Sansa looked away from the fight, narrowing her eyes at him. He was tall and walked as if he owned the world. His hair was a golden shade of blonde that he wore in a style that would have fit in with Sansa’s time. The man was almost achingly beautiful.
Sansa yanked on Tyrell’s arm, using the momentum to throw her to the mat. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, bristling at the man’s insinuation.
Tyrell tried to stand. Sansa slammed her down again, using more strength than she meant to. “Starks. All the strength, none of the brains,” the man said, shrugging.
“Lannister,” Sandor warned, his eyes flashing between the two of them.
Sansa froze, a pit of fire in her stomach, and Tyrell managed to squirrel her way back to her feet, moving away from Sansa. Sansa let her, focusing all her attention on whoever the man was. Lannister apparently. Out of her periphery she could see Sandor watching her warily, Bronn’s stance defensive. Tyrell also seemed to notice the obvious tension rolling off of Sansa and didn’t make another move to continue the fight. Lannister continued talking, blasé: “Let’s be honest here. Anything special about a Stark came out of a bottle.”
Sansa broke. She lunged at Lannister with a shout. He didn’t have time to react before she tackled him to the mat. Sansa pressed one knee against his chest and braced the other on the floor. The man tried to rise and Sansa slammed his shoulders back down. Pulling out the knife she wasn’t supposed to have, Sansa shoved it against his throat. It was sickly satisfying to see how the skin whitened under the blade.
“Give me a reason,” Sansa’s hissed. “Insult my family again. I dare ya. I fuckin’ dare ya.”
Lannister said nothing, just stared back at her with wide eyes. Slowly, he lifted his hands and made a gesture of surrender. Sansa glared at him, the anger still thrumming through her. He nodded after a moment and Sansa forced herself to rise and let him go. The blonde man stood lazily and made a show of wiping off dust from his suit. Sansa scowled. He practically stunk of money.
“Yeah. A Stark through and through,” Lannister said, a smirk stretched across his face. Sansa raised her knife again, pointing it at him. The smirk faltered.
“Leave it, Jaime.” Tyrell called out, her voice sharp. Sansa turned to look at the other woman. Tyrell gave Sansa a nod before turning her gaze back to the blonde man. “That might have been one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen you do. And you threatened an international terrorist on TV once.”
“She’s not wrong,” Bronn spoke up, but his eyes were still trained on Sansa and the knife in her hand.
“What are you doing here, Lannister?” Tyrell asked.
He shrugged, “Hacked some files, found out about Rayder’s little frozen surprise. I got curious. It’s not every day you get to meet America’s Darling,” Lannister turned to her and his eyes looked her up and down. Sansa’s grip on the knife tightened. “I can’t say I’m disappointed.”
“Fuck off,” Sandor barked, squaring himself in front of the smaller man. His eyes were hard and dangerous.
“She the one holding your leash now, Hound?” Lannister drawled. Sandor bristled but Bronn put a hand on his shoulder.
“Who are you?” Sansa broke in, trying her hardest to keep her anger under control.
The smirk was practically smeared across his face as he said, “Jaime Lannister, Iron Man, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. I answer to all of them.”
“You forgot jackass,” Bronn interjected, looking amused.
“I’m wounded,” Lannister turned to the agent, hand on his heart.
“Bronn, let’s go. We have a debriefing,” Tyrell spoke up, cutting Lannister a glare. “You’re coming too. You two can rip each other up later,” she motioned between Sansa and Lannister.
With a flourish, Lannister trailed behind the agent. Bronn did the same put with a smile, calling out to her over his shoulder, “See you later, love!”
“Still not your love!” Sansa shot back and was surprised to find that liked him a little bit despite everything. Lannister, though, was a completely different pill.
After the door swung shut behind them, Sansa let herself collapse onto the mat, pushing the anger out of her. She was distinctly aware of Sandor’s eyes on her. They felt heavy against her skin. Closing her eyes, Sansa willed the tension to leave her shoulders. “Sorry ‘bout that,” Sansa murmured even if she wasn’t sure that she meant it.
Sandor laughed, the same dry sound from their first meeting. It made Sansa smile. “Don’t go back to your manners now, милая. Not after that shit.”
Sansa rolled her head to the side, raising her eyebrows in amusement because even if she didn’t know Russian, she could recognize a pet name when she heard one. Sandor sat down beside her, sitting with his legs splayed in front of him, leaning back on his hands. Even in repose he looked deadly. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you say fuck,” he mused. “If America could hear its darling now.”
It was Sansa’s turn to laugh: “It’s like people forgot I was in the army. Or that I had three brothers and a sister like Arya. I grew up Irish and poor in Brooklyn fer chrissakes..”
It warmed Sansa when Sandor grinned back at her. They stayed that way for a moment before his smile fell away into his familiar scowl: “People see what they want to see.”
“Yeah,” she whispered, “the world’s got a way of forgettin’ the important things.”
Her eyes wandered back to Sandor: “We are…were,” Sansa corrected herself, “more than what came out of a bottle.”
“I know, милая.” He said it so quietly that she almost missed it.
“The serums were a parta us, ya know,” Sansa continued. “But we were always more’n that. So much more.”
Sandor didn’t say anything back for a moment, just held her gaze. His expression was unreadable: “You try to hide your accent,” he said. “You shouldn’t.”
“Why not?” Sansa asked.
Sandor lifted a hand and waved it over Sansa: “You hide behind your manners and your polite smiles. You’re so covered in lies that sometimes I think you’re nothing but lies.” Sansa winced but couldn’t fault him for it. She’d wondered the same thing sometimes during the war.
“But then you tackle a man and hold a knife to his throat and that Brooklyn accent comes bleeding out of you and I figure there must be more to you than that,” Sandor shrugged and looked away, suddenly uncomfortable.
Sansa couldn’t help her smile. This big, gruff, violent man, upturned by his emotions. It made Sansa like him. “Would it ruin the whole thing if I said thank you?” she asked, surprised at her own teasing.
His reply wasn’t quite a laugh but his smile seemed genuine enough. He didn’t say anything though, instead choosing to start stretching again. Sansa kept the silence, relishing it in a way that she hadn’t during her own time. The new world was so loud that it made Sansa want to burrow into Sandor’s silence, made her want to sleep in it.