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Lyanna’s letters arrive by boat, and from the harbor a grubby-faced lad brings them to the smith in the town center where Ned does the accounting. They often come crinkled and torn, a reminder of the thousands of leagues they traveled to reach him. Sometimes they come ruined, the ink having gotten wet and dried again in unreadable smudges. Ned does not particularly mind; he reads his sister’s words out of a sense of obligation, of duty, of the lingering love that he will never be able to stamp out, but forgiveness still remains just out of his grasp and thus sometimes it is a relief to have an excuse to feed her words to the flames.
Ned should have known that this message would be different, from the moment the rap comes on the door of their small cottage. Robb and Sansa, unused to visitors but gregarious children by nature, race each other to the door with squeals of excitement, a contest that Robb easily wins over his tiny sister on her little unsteady legs. Robb is tall enough to reach the handle now, so Ned scoops him up first before grabbing Sansa and calling for Lollys, the young woman who comes each day to serve as nursemaid. Visitors are something that Ned is naturally suspicious of, and he would rather have his children tucked away, out of sight.
On the other side of the door is a man that Ned had thought to never see again, yet instantly recognizes all the same. His copper hair may be cut short and prematurely starting to grey, and he has grown a beard, but Jon Connington still looks at Ned as though he is a particularly repulsive insect that he longs to squash beneath his boot.
“Stark,” Connington spits, as though the words were poison on his tongue. Ned’s first thought is that he has come to dispatch of them once and for all, that Rhaegar has retracted his mercy, faint as it had been in the first place. His hand curls at his waist, where his longsword would be if he wore it with any regularity anymore, and all at once he is back in Westeros, fighting a war to no purpose at all. His fingers curl around air, and it is the same impotent feeling he had when Rhaegar had commanded him to leave Westeros and take his wife and son with him – a uselessness to protect those in his charge.
Connington, Ned manages to notice even through the fog of memory, wears the chain of office reserved for the Hand of the King. Unsurprising, really – Aeyrs may have discarded him but Connington had been the closest of friends with Prince Rhaegar, and Rhaegar’s victory had been Connington’s as well. Surely, Ned thinks, Rhaegar would not send his Hand to murder a family in exile. No, if the prince wanted them dead, he would have sent some nameless, faceless nobody, the better that his queen should never learn of what had been done. Connington’s appearance is shocking, unwelcome, but it is not the threat of doom that Ned had immediately jumped to.
Yet he is the Hand, and here he is, on the doorstep of a little cottage in Lys – it certainly means something.
“A message from our king,” Connington adds, and he holds the missive far from his body – the better, Ned assumes, to not accidentally brush a traitor’s hand with his own. It is affixed, as they all are, with the seal of the Targaryens, and yet as Ned takes the letter he knows upon first touch that it is different. It feels heavier, as though the news within weighs it down. And now his thoughts go to Benjen and Lyanna, the family left behind, and it is all he can do to keep his gaze steady and hard on Connington’s face.
Our king no longer, he could challenge, perhaps he would challenge if he did not have a wife and children to consider. “It must be news indeed,” Ned says, forcing himself to keep his voice even, “if the king would send his Hand all the way to Lys in search of us to deliver it.”
Connington’s lips twist into an ugly smirk. “Search?” he echoes. “Do not flatter yourself, Stark. You were always within easy reach of the crown. We always knew where to find you.”
Ned had been a fool to think otherwise, he realizes.
--
Despite Connington’s assertion that the missive was from the king, the letter is penned, as all the others, in Lyanna’s hand.
“What does it say?” Cat asks. Her voice is a sleepy murmur, but her eyes are alert upon his face as she watches him from the bed, her hand resting lazily upon the rounded curve of her belly. “I can hear you thinking all the way over here, my love.” Outside their window, the waves lap lazily at the shore, a gentle melody that breaks the calm silence of the evening as Ned rereads the letter for the sixth time by the light of a dying candle, as though that will change its contents.
He should be grateful, that it is not terrible news after all, that nothing has happened to his brother or his sister. In fact, the letter is Lyanna’s triumph, her excitement evident in the hasty scrawl of her words. I have finally persuaded Rhaegar to let you come home, sweet brother, she writes. It has been too long since I beheld your dear face. Leave at once with Lord Connington for home.
It is only at the bottom of the letter that he finds the caveat – the mention of an uprising in the Iron Islands, one that Rhaegar fears will spill over into the North, his sister writes. And so Ned suspects it is less loyalty and love for his queen that makes Rhaegar bid them return, and rather his need for a stronghold in the North, a lord loyal to his regime – a lord in his debt, who will fight his wars and give his men to fight battles that are a world away. There is Benjen, yes, but he is still little more than a lad, still unwed, and he is the Stark alone in Winterfell. With war looming, Rhaegar would want more security.
Come home, Lyanna writes, but Ned is not entirely certain where that is anymore. He still finds Lys oppressively hot, still finds so many of the customs of this land strange, but there is a simplicity and peace to what they have built here. He labors harder than any nobleman would be expected to, but he comes home with coin in his pocket that he has fairly earned, to a wife that he need not greet with polite honorifics, to children who were raised by their parents and not a small army of nursemaids. Robb and Sansa know nothing else; to them, the sand and water outside their front door is home. How could he force them from the only place they have ever known, for a cold, strange land across the water? Would he be no more merciful than the king, in that sense?
But how could he deny his wife the chance to see her family again? And could he truly live with himself knowing that he had the chance to return to Winterfell, to relieve Benjen of a responsibility he never wanted, and he selfishly turned his back?
“Ned?” Cat’s voice cuts through the silence of the evening, and with a sigh, Ned turns to her before she forces herself to rise. The swell of her belly has grown to the point where daily tasks are a chore, and he tries to help as much as he can. During the day, however, he is away, and Cat is alone managing the children with just Lollys for help. The girl had been a gift from the gods – barely older than Lyanna had been, the last time Ned had laid eyes upon her, but with a mother originally from the Reach who taught her the Common Tongue. But she is only one girl – were they in Winterfell, Cat would never lack for hands to assist her.
"A pardon," Ned says carefully. Catelyn's eyebrows raise, and there is a gleam of interest in her eyes. Yet ever the astute one, she must be able to read the hesitation in his voice for she remains silent, waiting for him to speak further.
"It comes at a price," she guesses when he does not elaborate, and Ned wonders with a rueful smile when she learned to read him so well. There is little need for secrets between them here, a world away from all they know, but exile has not made Ned more loquacious.
"Lyanna mentions an uprising in the Iron Isles,” he says, folding the letter carefully. “One that could explode into war before long.” He sets his sister’s words on the table besides the candle, though part of him still longs to feed them to the flames.
“No,” Catelyn says, her voice fervent, and Ned glances back at her in surprise. Ignoring his protest, she rises from the bed slowly, her hand resting first on her back for support and then coming to stroke over where their third child rests safely. “Please, Ned,” she pleads, and there is nothing in the world that Ned would seek to deny her when she looks at him with her blue eyes brimming with emotion. “I could not bear for our family to walk straight into another war. Not again. Not when so much was lost the first time.” Her voice catches, and Ned knows she is thinking of her father, executed for treason at the end of the failed rebellion.
Ned can barely stand to think upon all those lost in that war – Robert, who had been as a brother to him, and Jon Arryn, who had been as a father. His brother and father by blood, Brandon and Lord Rickard, had been victims of the Mad King. In many ways, he had lost Lyanna and Benjen as well, forever separated by distance and the choices that had split not just their family but the realm in two. And the thought of fighting battles for a cause he does not know and a king he does not believe in, with the very real possibility of leaving his wife widowed and his children fatherless, turns his stomach. But Ned is no craven, and he cannot keep his family living in shadows, in shame, for his own selfish reasons. “And you would choose to never see your brother and sister again? Your uncle?” he asks her gently, and he watches as she catches her breath, her eyes glassy in the moonlight.
Cat turns away from him, her hands still cradling her belly, her long red hair falling around her face like a curtain. “We shall do whatever you command, my lord,” she says quietly, and Ned winces – Cat has not called him ‘my lord’ since their time in Riverrun, back when he was a lord in truth. Since they stepped foot in Lys, he has just been Ned, and he despairs at the thought of the vibrant woman that he knows so well disappearing behind the mask of cool courtesies.
Perhaps, were they in Winterfell, he would leave her be, retire to his own chambers rather than push the matter. In Lys there is no such choice, there is nowhere else to go, and so he crosses to her, slipping his arms around her middle from behind so that his palms rest atop hers. “None of that,” he tells her gruffly, and Cat, never one to wallow in their misfortune, tips her head back to rest in the crook of his neck.
“Forgive me,” she murmurs, her eyes closing wearily. “I know this is what we have been waiting for. I just could not bear to lose you.”
He wants nothing more than to reassure her, but Ned has never been one to offer false comforts and Cat does not seek them, anyway. “Well, we certainly cannot sail yet,” he says, sliding his hand along the breadth of her belly. Even beneath her light nightgown, the skin is warm and taut to the touch, and it seems impossible that it could stretch further – though with the babe still two moons away, Ned knows it shall. “Who can say what the world will be in a half year’s time?”
--
Connington laughs, laughs in Ned’s face, when Ned tells him they will leave in a half year.
“Have you run mad, Stark? This is not a request to be fulfilled at your leisure, though perhaps your sister’s letter was poorly worded. It would not be the first time her intentions were not clear, would it, my lord? This is a royal command from His Grace the King. We leave three days hence.”
Ned bristles instinctively, his chest tightening in anger – at Connington, but at himself as well, that he should be so foolish as to think that the king would send his Hand across the sea to deliver a mere request. This is no pardon, but a summons. “My wife is with child,” he protests nonetheless. “We will go nowhere until she is delivered and the babe is old enough for the journey.”
Connington glances indifferently over at Cat, who meets his eye with all the cool regality of the highborn lady she is, that she would still be in another land and time. Her hand rests protectively over her belly, as though she fears that Connington might try and rip the child from her womb to complete his mission – and if anyone would, Ned knows it would be the man before them, single-minded to the point of obsessiveness in his devotion to his prince-turned-king. But instead he merely blinks, and shrugs, spreading his hands as though it is no matter. Perhaps to him, it is not. “We leave three days hence,” he repeats. “If needs be, leave your wife behind, then. But you and I, we shall be aboard, Stark.” The threat hangs in the air, his unspoken meaning plain.
Leaving his wife and children behind, a continent away with no prospects and no protection, is no true choice at all, and all Ned can do is pray that the babe will not come until they are safely landed in Westeros. With luck, the voyage will be easy and smooth, and they will arrive weeks before it is time for their third child to make his appearance. They have had worse chances in the past.
But they have no such luck, and Catelyn’s pains start with a fortnight left to their journey. There is no midwife aboard, just Lollys who swears that she has helped her mother deliver four babes, but Ned can see the fear in her eyes and tremble in her hands regardless as they help Cat abed. She is little more than a girl, and though she has been a wonder with Robb and Sansa, Ned does not trust her to this task.
There is no light below deck, no way to mark the passage of time as Cat labors – perhaps for hours, perhaps for days. It is a world away from the peace of Sansa’s birth. That midwife had presided over a thousand births from her own count, and she had instructed Ned to walk with Cat along the water’s edge, the waves lapping at their feet and their toes sinking in the sand. Sansa had come early that evening, with the salt breeze wafting through the open windows.
At the very least, he can still follow at least one of the midwife’s orders, and so Ned climbs behind his wife on the narrow cot, bracketing her body between his legs. It is all that he can do to help, and it feels like nothing at all, a farce of a gesture. But Cat clutches her hands at his knees at each pain, her back arched like a bow against his chest, and he vows silently that he will stay until the very last. Robb and Sansa sleep curled around each other a cot away, and Cat bites her lip to try and keep silent, so hard that Ned fears she will break the skin with her teeth.
Sweat and tears fall in unison down Cat’s face, the cries that she cannot manage to muffle as much fear as they are pain, and Ned has never felt more useless, more worthless. He cannot protect her from this, couldn’t keep her from having to deliver their babe on a small, dank ship rollicking across the ocean. Ned has spent the entire duration of their marriage failing this woman, failing his family, and yet Cat has always been the strong one for both of them; to see her break apart destroys him, and all he can do is hold her close against him and swear all will be well. “I do not think I can do this,” she whispers against his neck, and those words frighten Ned more than any he has heard before – in their years together, he has never heard Cat concede defeat.
Kneeling at the foot of the cot, Lollys’s face is blanched white, and she whispers prayers in a mix of the Common Tongue and Low Valyrian, the languages of her mother’s home and her own. “You must,” she urges Catelyn, meeting their gazes with eyes wide in fright, “for this babe will not wait for us to land.”
He knows not where she summons the strength, but Cat nods mutely, gasping for air, her thick auburn hair plastered against her forehead and neck. Through the haze of pain and the weariness of exhaustion, a steely stubbornness that Ned knows all too well enters her eyes, and with a growl that reminds him of the sigil of their house, she bears down.
When their daughter is finally born, shamefully Ned cannot even feel joy at that moment – only relief and exhaustion, as the newborn wails lustily and Cat wearily collapses back against him. “Is she all right?” his wife asks, her voice raspy from her screams, and Lollys cries and laughs and nods, wrapping the squalling, wriggling babe in her own cloak before handing her to Cat.
“A fighter,” Lollys notes, her own voice thick, as the babe thrashes her arms, wailing unhappily.
Cat smiles at him, her tears turned to those of relief as she holds their daughter to her chest, nuzzling her damp head. “Of course. She is a Stark.”
Ned does not go above deck for air until both Cat and the babe have fallen asleep, Lollys having collapsed on the cot beside Robb and Sansa, who miraculously missed the entire ordeal. He grips the rail of the boat between his fists, trying to still the trembling in his limbs. The babe’s cries echo in his mind, and he thanks the gods for them.
--
Their ship is blown northward and so they land in White Harbor rather than King’s Landing, and for the first time since Connington called upon them Ned thinks that perhaps the tides are turning in their favor. The Manderlys have ever been loyal and true bannermen to the Starks of Winterfell. The columns of the docks are draped in grey and white silks, as though Ned and his family were returning heroes and not pardoned exiles, and men decked in blue-green and white livery stand at attention at the base of the ramp. They are feasted at White Harbor for five days, and each meal seems to pain Connington more, his face growing sourer by the moment. It is only Ned’s fear of retribution to the Manderlys that has him declining further hospitality; he is sure if Lord Manderly had his way, the Starks would be guests for at least a fortnight more.
The trip to King’s Landing proves to be far less dangerous than the journey across the Narrow Sea. Wyman Manderly has a much greater concern than Jon Connington for the comfort and safety of Ned and his family, and they are provided with a wheelhouse for Catelyn and the children, heavy furs and warm cloaks, bolts of fabric to be made into suitable clothing upon their arrival, a number of horses and plenty of provisions. It is summer at last in Westeros, and while Robb still tugs on Ned’s pants leg to complain of the cold and Sansa competes with her new sister for space cuddling against Catelyn’s chest beneath the furs for warmth, they are momentarily distracted by watching the world roll by as they munch on cheese and brown bread.
The color begins to return to Catelyn’s face and the babe – Arya, they name her – eats well, and Ned thanks the gods for their mercy, that his wife and child were spared. But at night, as he lies awake in tents or inns listening to the sound of Catelyn’s even breathing next to him, he is plagued by thoughts of what could have happened, how closely they brushed disaster, and he cannot help but be filled with bitter anger – at Connington, at Rhaegar, at Lyanna, but once again most of all at himself. He is no stranger to nights spent reliving his mistakes, is a familiar friend to sleeplessness, and he wonders how he could have saved them all from this.
Each time Arya awakens, she cries loud and long, as though still protesting the manner of her birth. Cat rises sleepily to tend to her, to bring the infant to her breast, and that is when she notices that he does not sleep.
Their silence is almost comfortable in those moments, the quiet only broken by the greedy suckling of their babe, but Cat knows him too well – he cannot hide his thoughts from her, even if he does not give them voice.
When Arya is again asleep, Cat slips beneath the worn woolen blankets with him, resting her head upon his chest. Her hair is soft and tickles against his lips, and it is easier to confess his sins when he turns his face against the crown of her head. “I am sorry,” he murmurs, his throat tight with lingering regret, with the fears that he still cannot shake. “I am sorry, Cat. I should have…we should have never boarded that boat.” Instead, he had wilted easily as a flower in the face of Connington’s conviction, had risked his wife’s life and his daughter’s too.
Cat may bear him no ill will, but Ned does not think he will ever forgive himself.
“Ned,” she whispers against his skin, above his heart, “you must stop trying to make amends to me. We are not battling one another, my love. We are not foes on the field. We have always been on the same side. We have, both of us, been wronged.”
--
The Red Keep is full of ghosts for Ned, and when they enter at the end of the Great Hall, all he can think is that his brother and father spent their last moments in this very room. He wonders if all the eyes had turned towards Brandon as they turn towards Ned now, when his brother had been led into this room with a rope around his throat – or had they looked away, discomforted? You let them die, he wants to accuse those who meet his eye and then guiltily look away. You did not raise so much as a finger on their behalf.
At the end of the hall is the Iron Throne, where King Rhaegar watches as Jon Connington leads them in. The king’s face is inscrutable, and his expression does not change as Connington falls to his knees before the throne, even when Ned, with Robb clasped in one hand and Sansa scooped up in his arms, does not follow suit and merely inclines his head instead.
Beside King Rhaegar, on a less ornate throne made of wood, sits his queen.
There had been part of Ned that had expected to see a child still, a part that is startled by the woman he sees now, her lips parted and eyes wet as she drinks in the sight of Ned and his family. Her long white fingers tremble on the arms of her chair, as though she would reach out and grasp him, but after a hundred unanswered letters and a thousand empty words, Lyanna is silent.
“Lord and Lady Stark,” the king greets, his voice betraying none of his thoughts. “I bid you welcome to King’s Landing.”
Ned’s tongue feels thick and heavy in his mouth; he wants to shout, to curse the man, rather than return his measured greeting. He wants to ask questions, demand answers, to set the terms of his joining this new war. He can feel Catelyn’s eyes upon his face, and when he remains silent after a long moment, she responds for them both. “Thank you, Your Grace,” she says, pulling her cloak tighter around herself to hide her Lysene dress and preserve her modesty, adjusting the bundle of their newest daughter in her arms. “We are glad to have returned,” she adds, and Ned is glad that at least one of them has a talent for the mindless pleasantries that are expected at court.
Their children are brought forward, and if anyone notices how newly born Arya is, they do not mention it. For that, Ned is not sure if he is angry or relieved. Lyanna still does not speak as King Rhaegar calls their son forward, a solemn little boy who stands both straight and as though the weight of the world is already upon his shoulders. “Prince Jon,” Rhaegar introduces, and Connington beams at his namesake as the young prince bows at the waist, his brow furrowed in concentration as though he is trying to remember lessons and instructions.
Ned can’t help but remember the babe Lyanna had cradled in her arms, a quiet infant even then. “Hello, Your Grace,” he greets the boy, managing to finally find his voice when faced with one of the few true innocents in the room. “I am glad to see you again. Last I saw you, you were but a babe in arms.”
“And now he is my age,” Robb declares happily, tugging on Ned’s hand. “Can we play together, Father?”
“Perhaps later,” Ned answers cautiously, not missing the way the young prince’s eyes brighten in interest as they land on Robb, even as Rhaegar frowns in disapproval. With a father like the king, Ned would not be surprised if ‘play’ was a term Prince Jon was all together unfamiliar with. But then, with a mother like Lyanna he had expected – had hoped – differently.
“Yes, perhaps later,” Rhaegar echoes, waving his hand as though to dismiss them. “There will certainly be time. But now, you must be weary from your travels. However, I would like very much to speak with you upon the morn, my lord.”
“The journey from White Harbor was the least of our troubles,” Ned spits, unable to contain himself. “I look forward to telling you the most of them tomorrow, before you order me to raise my banners to fight your war.”
There is an audible intake of breath throughout the room from the lords and ladies who had come hoping for just such a confrontation; Cat’s fingers bite into his bicep in reproach, but he ignores her grip and refuses to look away from Rhaegar’s violet gaze. The king’s eyes narrow imperceptibly, and the silence stretches on as he seems to carefully consider how to respond. What punishment could he give except send us away again? Ned wonders bitterly. Surely my tongue is no greater affront than the side I chose in the rebellion.
“Ned.” Now is the moment that Lyanna chooses to break her silence, her great gray eyes damp and her lips quivering with emotion. “Ned, please,” she begs, and while her plea only inflames Ned’s indignation, it seems to mollify the king as his eyes slide to his distraught wife.
“Her Grace speaks truly,” King Rhaegar announces. “We are kin, and will not quarrel. As I said, you are weary, and we will speak tomorrow. At first light, my lord.” With a wave of his hand, they are dismissed, and it takes all of Ned’s will not to simply head to the courtyard, mount the horses, and ride away from King’s Landing for good.
You are no kin of mine, he would say, were he a slightly more foolish man.
--
The heart tree of the godswood is an overgrown oak, not a weirwood, but it is the closest that Ned has felt to his gods in years. The gods may have no eyes south of the Neck, but they certainly do not see across the Narrow Sea, so simply the chance to bow his head and be alone with his thoughts is a blessing.
Like most blessings, it does not last.
“I thought I would find you here,” Lyanna’s voice breaks the silence, and Ned lifts his head but does not rise from his knees. His sister stands a few paces away, her hand resting against the trunk of the oak, her eyes lifted to the overarching branches. Her hair is loose, her brow uncrowned – she looks like the girl he remembers from his youth, a memory sweet and painful all at once.
“I often come here myself,” she adds. “It is not like the North, but it serves as a place to pray.” Her breath catches, and she bites her lip as her eyes fill. “I pray for Brandon and for Father,” she whispers. “For their souls. For their forgiveness. Though I do not think they would ever grant it – not when my sweetest brother still cannot find it in his heart.”
After the years and leagues between them, it takes Ned a moment to find his voice. He wants to accuse her, to reprimand her, to shout until his voice is lost. He wants to wrap her in his arms and hold her tight to feel her still-beating heart, and swear that there shall be nothing but love between them ever again. “I pray for them, as well,” he finally answers. “And Robert. And for the strength to forgive. The gods know I have tried, Lyanna. I try anew every day.”
“Do you?” Lyanna fires in response, quick as an arrow released from its quiver. “All these years, Ned, and not a single letter. If your wife didn’t write to her sister, I wouldn’t even know if you were alive or dead!”
“Forgive me, Your Grace,” he replies acidly, bristling instinctively at her scolding, remembering all too well his own fears and uncertainty when he had first learned of her disappearance. “I cannot imagine how difficult that must have been. However, I was a bit occupied in keeping my family alive while we were alone in exile.”
The fight seems to go out of Lyanna at that, and she slumps against the trunk of the heart tree. “Your family,” she whispers. “Does that no longer include me?” As she blinks, fat tears roll down her cheeks. Ned tries to harden his heart, to remain unmoved, but he finds himself softening, the way he would when they were very young and Lya would cry at him until he gave her a sweet, or a wooden sword, or whatever else her heart desired.
Brandon had called him a fool. Brandon had been right.
“You ask that of me?” he demands, his heart tight in his chest. “I wondered the same, when I learned you willingly left us without a word, but you chastise me? And then you let your husband send my wife and child into exile with me…” He swallows hard, pained by the memory of Cat’s pale face, the night they had boarded the ship bound for the Free Cities. “I may have fought against the crown, but they were innocent.”
“Let him?” she blurts, her eyes widening in disbelief, her fingers clenching around the bark of the tree for support. “Let him? He is the king! Who lets a king do anything? Who dares to deny his wishes?” She draws her lip between her teeth, nipping so hard that the skin around her mouth turns white. “I am sorry, sorry for all my sins, brother,” she whispers, and she slips to her knees beside him, her voluminous skirts settling around her. She reaches for his hand, taking one of them between her two small ones. “I am sorry,” she repeats. “But he was the prince, and then he was the king, and I…I was just a silly little girl who thought I knew best.”
She wipes at her cheeks with the back of her hands, then brings her elegant gown up to dry her face, and once more she is a girl determined to have her way, rather than a woman who wears a crown. “I know forgiveness is more than I am due,” Lya whispers, her voice swaying, “but you are one of the many I have wronged who is still alive to grant it, and I cannot help but ask it of you. Time has made me no less selfish, I fear.”
Ned swallows, lowering his gaze to their clasped hands. “You have always been my sister,” he answers, unable to give more than that and yet unwilling to offer her less. “You will always be my family.”
Around his knuckles, her fingers tighten. They lapse into silence, the swaying leaves overhead their only witness.
“Did you love him, at least?” Ned finally asks, uncertain where such a question even came from, uncertain as to which answer would be most of a comfort to him.
His sister’s eyes are almost pitying when she looks upon him. “Oh, Ned,” she sighs, and she looks away, regretful. “You always put so much faith in love. Does it matter if I loved him? Princess Elia and her little babes were still murdered. Brandon and Father were still lost. You were still sent across the sea. How could we love one another, when we are each the ruin of those the other cherished most?“ She turns her pale face up to the heart tree, as though it would offer her answers even in the absence of their gods. “Yet perhaps I love him for Jon. Perhaps I love him, as that is the only way I may live with my crimes. Who may say what love is, dearest Ned?”
He thinks of the intertwisted rage and love he feels every time he beholds his sister, every time he tries to reconcile what has happened with where they are now, and he answers, “Perhaps my faith has run its course.”
--
Catelyn is angry with him.
He can tell the moment he steps into the chambers that had been bequeathed to her, can see it in the gleam of her blue eyes as she glances up from the table. She has changed into a new gown, borrowed like as not from her own sister, and it is ill-fitting so soon after the birth of their babe. His mind is so full of his conversation with Lyanna that it takes him a long moment to recall why Catelyn might be cross with him, to remember the bite of her fingers into his arm when he had challenged the king, the way her eyes had been reproachful and afraid at the same time.
She does not even have to breathe a word, and still he is filled with shame at his behavior. Not for speaking against Rhaegar – never for that – but for risking his family again for the satisfaction of a mere barb. “I will hold my tongue when I meet with the king tomorrow, never fear,” he tells her before she can scold him.
“I cannot help but fear,” she says quietly, absent-mindedly pulling a brush through her auburn hair, not quite meeting his eye in the reflection of the looking glass she is seated before. “I was a far braver woman before I became a mother – now I am afraid all of the time.”
Something in Ned’s chest twists painfully, remembering the way she had birthed their daughter below the deck of a rollicking ship. She had survived that, their child had survived that, and he is selfish enough to frighten her now with a careless tongue, as though it were only his life in his hands. “You are the bravest woman I know,” he replies, and her expression softens as she finally turns to face him in full.
“I beg of you, my love, give me no reason for bravery,” she pleads, reaching to clasp his hand between her own. Her fingers are longer than Lyanna’s, her grip more certain. “Guard your words tomorrow and in the days to come, and soon we will be home – truly home.”
“I promise,” he agrees readily, resolutely, and her face softens further – after all their years together, they both know Ned Stark does not break his promises.
“Will you help me with the laces?” Catelyn asks quietly, rising and turning her back to him. Silently, he works the ribbons free with unpracticed fingers, his knuckles brushing against the shift beneath; he cannot help but recall the loose silks she would wear in Lys, the ones that would slip from her shoulders like water to puddle on the floor, leaving her bare and beautiful and free. The ones Cat put in the trunk, that would likely never see the light of day again.
It may be summer, but a fire is roaring in the hearth, and still Cat shivers as she pushes the gown down over her hips. He touches the back of her neck lightly, the nape exposed with all her hair pulled up into thick braids and coils, the way it was the day they wed. Her sister’s maid must have dressed her hair, as well, and the thought makes Ned sad – he loves her hair best spilling down her back, thick and curly and a bit wild, the color rich as the sunset, but that would not be proper for the court. Her skin is cool to the touch, and she smiles apologetically over her shoulder. “I’m afraid our time away has made my southron blood even thinner,” she explains, and despite her smile her words are laced with melancholy.
“You are a Stark,” he tells her, squeezing her shoulders. “We always endure the cold.”
“Will you stay here tonight?” she asks urgently, reaching back to brush his arm with her fingertips, her blue eyes over bright. Separate chambers had been prepared for them, as befitting their station and to signify their return to favor. Yet they have not slept a night apart since their exile – in Lys, it simply had not been an option, and now it would feel strange and wrong to not have her curled against his side.
“I know everything will change now,” she whispers, as though she knows his thoughts. “But I do not want us to change. You and I, our children…I would keep you all close.”
“Cat…” he murmurs, words failing him as they so often do. Instead he bends his head and kisses her, kisses her as though she is his only anchor in the world – and for so long, she has been. She twists in his embrace so that she may face him, her lips parting against his with a soft sigh. Her fingers skate the length of his sides, and when she slips one hand between them to stroke his cock through the fabric of his breeches, he curses quietly against her mouth, his body all too eager to respond to her ministrations.
The trauma of Arya’s birth is not so far behind them, but the maester in White Harbor had pronounced Cat well and with Sansa, the midwife in Lys had hand-waved any mention of maesters’ warnings of how long to wait after birthing a child before lying together. “You will know when the time is right,” she had told Cat, and Ned had merely waited for her to come to him, to tell him she was ready, and it only makes sense that he should do so again. Words are not always easy between them, even after all these years, but touches, looks, the slide of her body against his – they have always told a story of their own.
She draws him to the bed, into the strength of her embrace, guiding him to lay on his back so that she may sit astride him. He watches eagerly as she pulls the shift over her head, and tugs her hands away when they flutter self-consciously to cover the sag of her belly, not yet recovered from the birth. “You’re beautiful,” he assures her, and the words are simple to find – there is a glow to Cat, when she is carrying and then nursing a babe, something mysterious and lovely that goes beyond the stretch of skin or the extra weight that still clings. There is something about her that is intrinsically his, and he cannot have enough of her that way.
He lets her guide their joining, watching as she raises up on her knees and guides his cock inside her, sinking down with a sigh that he can barely hear over the way his blood pounds in his ears. He wants nothing more than to grasp her hips and lose himself in the warmth of her, but he knows better, he remembers that she needed gentleness and slowness the first few times after Sansa.
Her movements are steady, languid, almost unbearable, and when she looks at him with hooded eyes, he cannot help but sit up to hold her so that he may be closer to her, wrapping his arms around her hips as she grips behind his neck for balance.
“I love you,” he breathes against the sweat-slick skin of her shoulder, the words surprising him even as they escape his lips. Who may say what love is? Lya had asked him mournfully, but he knows, feels it burning in his gut and keeping him warm at night, keeping him alive through the years when everything else in their world seemed bleak. They had been alone, exiled and forgotten, but they had one another; he had Cat and his children and that had been enough.
Catelyn’s arms tighten around him, and with a shudder, he comes as she holds him tight. She does not release him right away, pressing a kiss to the top of his head even as he begins to soften inside her. “And I love you,” she answers softly, and he smiles, gratified but not surprised.
The feather bed is large and luxurious but they sleep as they always had in Lys – knees tucked into knees, her back to his chest, carving out a tiny piece of the world for themselves.
--
The northern banners are raised, in Ned’s name and under his command but in Benjen’s hand.
His wife and children are to depart first. True to his promise, Ned had managed to hold his tongue with Rhaegar – he is certain there will never be true forgiveness nor understanding, but tolerance he will try his best to muster. But when the king had suggested that Cat and the children should stay in King’s Landing, until the battles were done and the roads safe once more, Ned had refused – politely, he had managed, but firmly nonetheless. The king had sworn they would be honored guests, but Ned remembers all too well the facts of Princess Elia and her children – guests are only guests so long as the intruders stay out of the city gates. And should the war go badly, should Rhaegar be displeased with Ned’s efforts and think them not worth the journey back from Essos, Ned refuses to leave his family to be used as pawns or hostages.
And so his greatest condition, the matter on which he would not budge, had been that his letter to Benjen instructing him to call the banners had also asked for Winterfell men to come first to the Neck to escort Lady Catelyn and the children home. Ned would have preferred Winterfell men to come all the way to King’s Landing, but there had not been the time, and so he must put his faith – what little faith he has – in the king’s men to see them to Greywater Watch and his old friend, Howland Reed.
Though summer has thawed the world around them, his Lys-born children are bundled so tightly in layers and furs that they waddle rather than walk. Robb is distracted by the thrill of being allowed to ride a pony for the first leg of the journey, but it is little Sansa who seems to notice something is amiss when Ned bends to kiss her russet head, breathing in the sweet baby smell that still lingers in her hair. “Papa come too,” she says, clutching into the leg of his breeches, and all Ned wants is to wrap her in his arms and acquiesce.
“I will be with you soon, my little lady,” he tells her, holding her for a beat longer as she buries her face in his jerkin and begins to weep, so softly and delicately, so unlike either of her siblings with their loud demanding wails. It is Lollys who comes to take her away, and though Sansa has always loved her nursemaid, she struggles in her arms as Lollys carries her to the carriage. When the door closes behind them, it is almost a relief, for surely another moment of looking at his daughter’s heartbroken face would make him relent and follow them home, war or no war.
He holds Cat tight, uncharacteristically heedless of the eyes around them as the party prepares to depart. “Keep yourself safe, my love,” Cat pleads, her voice low and her blue eyes filled with tears that she bravely fights back. It is a hard thing to hear – that he shall keep himself safe, and she herself and their children, when for so long they faced the world together.
“And you,” he says hollowly, his heart aching, and he cannot stop himself from kissing her briefly, from keeping his arms tight about her for just a moment longer. “We shall all be together again soon,” he assures her, for as much his sake as hers. He stops short of given his word - nothing is certain in war.
“The Starks will endure, you say?” Cat whispers, her breath tickling his throat.
“We always do,” Ned answers, and reluctantly, he lets her go.