Chapter Text
Derbyshire, England. 1825
“A little notice, sister, that you’ve decided to stop,” Robb said after he knocked into Sansa from behind.
Robb and Sansa had gone for a walk down to the pond together to go for a quick swim. The pond was nestled between the old Albus property and theirs, and they made good use of it. It was summer, and it was hot. And their family home seemed to be even hotter with all the bodies running to and fro getting ready for the ball that night.
“What are you doing?” Robb asked as he stood beside her and looked up at the grand estate that loomed before them. It had been abandoned for so long and then, one day, someone had taken up residence in it. Every time a Stark passed by the house on their way to town or to the pond – because this estate was en route to so many other parts of their small town – they spied people doing work around the estate. Cleaning out the flowerbeds. Repairing the roof. Cleaning the windows. Beating a carpet on the steps.
They’d go home, report what they saw, and wonder about the person who had taken it over for they had to see them.
“It’s a man,” Arya had said one afternoon, looking quite smug and proud of herself. She’d popped a strawberry in her mouth, ignoring how the juices dribbled down her chin. “And he’s huge.” She ignored, too, that she had a full mouth and no one wanted to see it.
“How do you mean huge?” Sansa asked. “Tall? Fat? Both?”
“He’s not fat. But he’s a giant and he looks…strong.”
“Everyone is a giant to you, shorty,” Robb said with a grin.
“Stuff it,” Arya said. “I yelled out to him.”
“Oh, Arya, you didn’t,” Sansa sighed.
Arya rolled her at her sister. “Course I did. Why not? We’ve been wondering about him for weeks!”
“Because a lady doesn’t shout out to a gentleman they do not know.”
“How else am I supposed to know him if I don’t call out to him and meet him?”
Robb laughed and Sansa rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“But in any case, he didn’t even turn around. Probably a bounder.”
Sansa scolded her on her language while Robb laughed.
Now, Sansa stared up at the house and contemplated the man that had been in the house now for almost two months and had yet to show himself. When her parents had attempted to welcome him to town with freshly baked scones, they’d been turned away.
“I’m pondering the man inside that house,” Sansa said as she craned her neck back. The house had five stories.
“He obviously doesn’t want to be bothered,” Robb said with a shrug.
“Does he have a wife? Children? Is he alone? If he’s alone then isn’t he lonely?”
Robb sighed. “Sansa, let it go.”
But they both knew that wouldn’t happen.
In fact, when she and Robb returned home, Sansa put up her hair as was proper, grabbed one of the extra invitations her mother had left over for the ball, and asked her younger brother Rickon if he wanted to go for a walk with her to the old Albus estate. Rickon had shrugged and nodded and whistled for his dog – husky named Shaggydog – and off they’d gone.
Sansa ruffled Rickon’s auburn curls that was so like hers and Robb’s – though hers was straight as a pin. “Do you know the man that lives there, Sansa?” Rickon asked. “Arya says he’s a giant.”
“I don’t know him,” Sansa told her five-year-old brother, “But I mean to meet him and invite him to our ball tonight.”
“But Mama and Papa said the giant wouldn’t even see them. How are you going to?”
Sansa shrugged. “I don’t know yet, but I will figure it out.”
She had been resolved when they’d left home, but now as they came up to the steps that led to the house of the “giant”, some of her resolve began to wane. Her confidence slipped a bit. What sort of man turned away her parents? What sort of man shut himself up in this big house? Was he in fact alone? Or did he have some long-suffering wife and a passel of children?
The door flung open and out ran a dog, a basset hound, barking up a storm and running down the steps towards Sansa and Rickon. Shaggydog ran up the stairs, charging the hound and the hound changed course and ran back up the stairs.
Sansa and Rickon sprang into action, knowing exactly where this was going, and ran up the stairs after Shaggydog. The maid that had opened the door stood there, frozen and wide-eyed. She was nearly knocked over as the dogs barreled past her and into the house.
“Shaggydog! Shaggydog, come!” Rickon yelled, his little legs pumping hard. Sansa ran after him, one arm outstretched and in her other hand she clutched the invitation. Her only thoughts were to prevent Rickon from getting into the middle of a dog fight, and to get Shaggydog out of the house post haste. The man that had turned away the two kindest people on the planet would probably not take kindly to having his house taken over by a husky and two strangers.
The dogs tore across the rather large foyer and knocked into the table before tearing across the wood floors to where a set of doors were open on the other end. The doors shut by a mysterious hand with a loud bang and the dogs stopped, stunned. They all stopped.
And then the voice came. A loud, deep, booming man’s voice threaded with annoyance. “What is all the bloody racket about?”
Rickon looked over his shoulder at Sansa, his blue eyes wide and fearful. The hound whimpered and ran away from Shaggydog while Shaggydog loped over to Rickon.
Sansa waved for Rickon to come closer and he did, nestling into her side. Sansa looked up and saw a man – and he was a giant, at least from this angle – come down the stairs that were to the left of them. She couldn’t really see his face in the shadows, but she could vaguely make out shoulder-length black hair. She gulped. “I am sorry, sir,” she said, hating how her voice trembled. She was dimly aware of the invitation in her hand now being crumpled.
“I am no sir,” he snapped. He had a bit of a Scottish brogue, she noted.
“Lord--?”
“I am not a lord either, girl.”
Then who are you? she thought in a burst of irritation.
His feet hit the bottom of the steps and Sansa turned to face him, pulling Rickon closer to her. “I am Lady Sansa Stark. I live next door. And this is my brother Lord Rickon.”
“A little lady and a little lord,” he said snidely as he came towards them. “How nice.”
Sansa had never been quite described as little considering she was rather tall for a girl. Plus, she was eighteen. Hardly a girl any longer. She straightened her gait then to show him just how tall she was, and the light finally hit his face as he drew closer.
Sansa managed to hide the gasp that came at the sight of the scarring on the left side of his face with a cough instead. Rickon though, did not bother to hide his reaction. “What happened to your face?!”
“Rickon,” Sansa muttered. “That’s not kind.”
“No, but it’s honest,” the man said and stopped before them. He stared at her for a long while and Sansa forced herself to stare right back without flinching. She refused to look at the scars on his face, how they were puckered and red and took up most of the side of his face and a bit of his lips.
He had grey eyes, she noted, and they were boring into her as though he sought to uncover her thoughts. Then his gaze flickered down to Rickon. “I was burned, boy,” he told Rickon.
“I’m sorry,” Rickon said. “That sounds awful.”
The man laughed. “Yes, it was at that.” He looked back at Sansa, eyes narrowed. “What are you doing in my house and with that dog?”
“It’s Shaggydog,” Rickon said, and pushed away from Sansa. Apparently, he was no longer afraid. “He’s my dog. It was an accident. The door opened and your dog came running out and then Shaggydog went running after—”
“I think I can piece it together,” the man said gruffly. “What do you want?” he asked Sansa.
“As I said I am Lady Sansa from next door, Mister…?”
His eyes narrowed, and with the left side that meant his eye nearly shut completely. “Clegane. Sandor Clegane.”
Sansa curtsied. “It is a pleasure to meet—”
“No it’s not,” Sandor said with a laugh. “I’ll ask again: what do you want?”
Sansa’s irritation sparked, but she was determined to be nice. “I wish to invite you to the ball my family is having tonight,” she said as she thrust forward the definitely crumpled invitation.
He didn’t take it. “I don’t think so,” he said and turned around. He began to walk away. “You can see yourself out.”
That did it. Sansa stomped her foot and demanded, “Are you always so insufferably rude?”
He stopped and for a quick moment Sansa felt fear. He was bigger than her, bigger than anyone she knew, and taller too. Arya had the right of it – he was also quite strong looking. He could crush her skull with one hand probably.
When he turned, he glared at her. “Do you think anyone will want to see this face at your pretty ball, Lady Sansa?”
Probably not, she thought, but she wasn’t about to say that to him. “Do you mean to lock yourself up in this big house and never leave it?”
“What concern is that of yours if I do?” he asked challengingly.
“Are you alone here?”
He blinked. “Yes.”
“Then I think that’s just sad.”
He waved a hand dismissively. “You know nothing, girl. Experience has taught me that no one wants to see my ugly mug. It’s better this way.”
Now Sansa just felt sorry for him. He was most likely not aware of the sadness she could hear in his tone. Tender-hearted, that’s what Robb always said she was. The idea of anyone excluding themselves from others because he had burns that yes, were jarring, but were nothing compared to his rather harsh attitude, was sad to her. How lonely an existence it must be.
“Mr. Clegane, please, I beg you to reconsider,” she said.
“Beg me, do you?” he rasped and then laughed. “Good day to you, Lady Sansa.”
He strode off, back up the stairs without another word. His dog ran up with him. Rickon tugged on the sleeve of her dress. “Let’s go, Sansa.”
Sansa sighed, nodded, and pulled Rickon with her. Shaggydog followed. As they passed by the table in the middle of the foyer though, Sansa put the invitation on it.
She didn’t expect him to show up at the ball, but she hoped he didn’t expect that she would just go away and never come back. She was going to come back, all right, for he had just become her mission.