From the Ashes (ASOIAF) (Sandor Clegane x OC)

Chapter 12: Tess

Tess gingerly sipped the glass of cool water by her bedside table before collapsing back onto her pillow. She should have seen this coming, she thought to herself. She had been so careful. Taking the hit on her profits so they could stay safe. Closing the inn to everyone. She'd seen no one except Elle, Gilly, and the boys for weeks. But all things considered, she should have known. Life had just been going too well for her, she was due for something to come in and wreck it all. Of course she was glad that if anyone had to get sick that it was her. She didn't even want to think about if it had been baby Jon or little Sam.
Tess pulled the blankets tighter around herself, everything hurt. She knew how this would go, tonight would be bad, but by the morning either she would be feeling improvement and on her way to recovery or she would be worse, and she knew where that led. She sighed, it wasn't her first brush with death, but these circumstances felt so monumentally unfair. The idea that she could die here in this bed shivering and burning with fever, when she had been right on the cusp of what felt like potentially the most defining moment of her life to date. With nothing else to occupy her mind Tess let her thoughts wander back to the day of the tourney. She could see it so clearly in her mind. She had a feeling she would never forget the details of that day for as long as she lived. Which might not be very long it turned out. She remember watching Sandor ride onto the field for the joust in his dark armor. Watching him take down every opponent in his path. He was stunning, the more she watched him that day the more she couldn't take her eyes away. Any worries she'd had about whether she could want him had disappeared. She'd rushed back to the inn, almost impatient to see him. Then Tyrion had told her he'd gone to the street of silk and it felt like someone had punched a hole in her chest. She'd known it was stupid, he wasn't hers, she didn't have any rights to him, but it hurt terribly. Then he was there, and he didn't go, and she felt almost giddy with relief, and she'd seen it for the first time. Tess had always been able to tell when a person looked at her with desire. She'd seen it in Yara Greyjoy from the first words she'd spoken, but then again Yara hadn't been trying to hide it. But that night she'd finally seen it in Sandor's eyes. It was the first time she'd know for sure they were on the same page, and it was exhilarating. -Was Elle talking to someone? Tess thought she heard a second voice. Probably just her fevered brain.- Now it had been three weeks since she'd even seen his face, and she wasn't truly sure if she would again. The thought made her heart ache, it was the height of cruelty to let her come this close to something real, and then snatch it away, or snatch her away from it, to be more accurate.

"Tess?" Said a voice from the opposite side of the door.

She bolted upright in bed, and immediately regretted it. The room swam and she felt like she might be sick, she closed her eyes and drew a deep breath through her nose. She sat there staring at the door trying to decide if the voice had been real. She'd been lying there thinking of him not a moment before. Imagining the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled and the little lines on his brow between his eyes when he scowled. Had she imagined his voice? There was soft knock and the voice came again, this time edged with concerned.

"Tess, are you awake?" He said.

"Sand?" She said weakly, her voice was scratchy despite the water.

"Thank the fucking gods." He breathed heavily, and he cracked the door of the room to come in.

"No wait." Tess rasped, she was conflicted. On the one hand she wanted nothing more than for him to walk through the door. Being close to him again after all this time made her feel all the more how much she'd missed him, but if she got him sick too, she'd never forgive herself.

"You shouldn't be here." She made herself say, "it's not safe."

"You think I give a damn about that." He said forcefully.