Archive of Our Own ^beta

The babe is crying. 

Catelyn sits up in her bed. Winter is coming, her mind whispers, unbidden. Maybe that’s why the babe is crying. It is rather cold. 

She pulls her robe on as she walks over to the small cradle. Only a few days old, her little Robb has yet to sleep through the night. 

But Robb is sleeping now. Then, who-?

Of course. The bastard. 

Her lord husband had snuck into Riverrun late at night, not three days after his son was born, carrying that blasted babe. 

She could go back to bed. She should go back to bed. 

She reaches for the tie on her robe to remove it, when the babe screams again. 

She is so very, very angry at her husband. She wants to be furious with the babe. 

But he’s so young, still. So small. Smaller than Robb. 

If nothing else, she tells herself, if the babe keeps crying, he’ll wake Robb, and then there will be two desolate infants to deal with. 

That thought secured, she heads for her husband’s room. 

Eddard Stark is in his bedclothes, his bastard pressed to his shoulder awkwardly as he paces.

It is very, very clear that he hasn’t the slightest idea what he’s doing. 

The babe screams again, a tiny fist thrashing and hitting him in the chin. 

Cat can’t help it, and she will blame it on being tired, but she snorts out a laugh. 

The babe stops crying for just a moment, and Eddard moves to put him in the cradle, but the movement starts the babe screaming. 

Catelyn sighs. None of them will feel better in the morning if this does not cease for them to sleep. 

She stops her husband - her husband - with a hand on his shoulder and turns him. 

She grabs the babe from his arms and settles him against her breast. 

Eddard looks nervous and wary. 

“You hold him too tightly, my lord,” she says, darkly stewing in her superior knowledge. 

She doesn’t know when the babe was last fed, but she starts rubbing his tiny back before patting it lightly. 

“Just holding him will not do a thing for his stomach, my lord,” she continues. 

Eddard looks appropriately chastised. 

The babe - Jon - burps and gurgles. She settles him higher on her collar, and pats him again, pacing. Eventually, the babe settles. 

She turns back to her husband, throat tight. 

This isn’t her babe. 

But he is just a child. He never asked to be born, never asked to be a living testament to his father’s indiscretions. 

Right now, tired, in the middle of a cold night, she can’t find it in herself to be mad at a child. A newborn. Probably just older than her Robb. Likely born early, if his size is any indication. 

The moon shines off her lord husband’s face. He’s been crying. 

Catelyn’s heart stops. She’s never seen a man cry before. Not even when her mother died did her father shed a tear. And Eddard Stark was always said to be a quiet man; even Brandon had once said his brother was carved from the ice and stones of Winterfell itself. 

But here he is. 

Weeping. 

Catelyn rubs her thumb over the soft brown fluff on Jon Snow’s little head. 

“You truly loved her, did you not, my lord?” Catelyn asks, steeling herself for the answer, for the words that will let her know her damned place as forever second in her husband’s heart. 

Eddard inhales, shakily. He scrubs at his eyes. “I did. Very dearly, but never correctly.”

Jon becomes a leaden weight in her arms. 

“Nights like this,” her husband continues, shoulders hitching, “I cannot help but think-. What if I had-? What if we hadn’t indulged her so much? What if we had instilled a sense of duty in her, or tried to quash her free spirit? Or what if we had indulged her more, and let her fight and ride as she pleased, and made the North a place of refuge, where she could be herself, until she never wanted to leave? What if I had been there, to stop her from running? Or if I had been here to finally stand up to Brandon and stop him from going and you could have married him? And this whole, this mess-. ”

Eddard stares out the window, looking infinitely older than his twenty years. 

Catelyn Tully Stark is not a stupid woman. 

Eddard Stark returned from Dorne with two things. His sister’s bones. And a babe. 

A distinctly Stark looking babe. A babe that looks more a Stark than her own. 

Lyanna’s bones. And a child. 

Catelyn does the math in her head. The time between Prince Rhaegar’s arrival at the Trident - when he would have had to leave Dorne - when Robert Baratheon took King’s Landing - when Eddard would have made it to Dorne - when Lyanna Stark must have died. 

Catelyn gasps. 

Eddard is up like a striking snake, realizing what she must have figured out, walking before her and dropping to his knees. 

“Please, Catelyn,” he begs. “Please.”

Catelyn draws Jon Snow away from her breast enough to look at him, properly. 

He sleeps soundly, safe as a babe should be. 

“Please, Catelyn,” Ned repeats, voice hoarse. “You - you weren’t there , you didn’t see Robert’s face when - you couldn’t even recognize that there had been a babe, anymore, he was so - and Rhaenys - and Robert, he laughed at it, called them dragonspawn, and I couldn’t - I couldn’t-.”

Ned brings his forehead down to meet his hands, clutched at her skirt. 

“Please,” he repeats, broken. “He’s all I have left of her, Lady Catelyn. Please.”

Catelyn traces the barely there line of Jon Snow’s brow, the slope on his long nose. 

Robert Baratheon will not stop until all the Targaryens are dead or gone from Westeros forever. 

She tries to think of it, tries to imagine if it was Lysa’s ill-begotten babe, but she can’t imagine feeling so strongly as to raise the babe herself, as to lie to the world. 

But from Brandon’s stories, the Starks had always been closer that she had ever been with Lysa. Even Ned, he would joke, living off in the sky with Jon Arryn, would write so often they did not have the time to miss him. 

Jon will grow to look the very picture of a Stark. Just like her husband, just like Lord Rickard. 

Just like Lyanna. 

Catelyn is not certain when she makes up her mind, but when she does, it’s the easiest decision she’s ever made. 

He’s only a babe. 

She settles Jon back against her chest, softly and gently so as not to wake him. 

“Grab the cradle, if you will, my lord,” she says, softly. Jon snorts and she soothes a hand down his back. 

Ned looks up at her, every inch a frightened creature. He stands and grabs it by the sides. 

She walks to her room, never looking back, the soft pad of Ned’s feet ensuring he follows. 

She stops beside Robb, still asleep. 

“Place it there, please.”

Ned does as told.

She pressed a kiss to Jon’s forehead before she lays him in the cradle. She grabs one of the wolf embroidered blankets off the side of Robb’s crib and settles it over him. 

“I have done House Tully proud, and House Stark as well, have I not, my lord?” Catelyn asks, staring at the two cradles. “Most men return to their wives and hope for an heir. I have delivered you two. Robb Stark, and his younger brother, Jon. For your two dear friends you rode to war with. Do you approve, my lord? Of our two sons?”

Ned looks at her in disbelief, like a man who thought the sun would never again rise watching it burst over the horizon. 

“I apologize for having not presented you our younger son before. He was so small; I feared he would not live but a few days. But I see now that he is hale and strong.”

Ned’s mouth gapes open and closed like a fish. 

“Well, my lord?” Catelyn prompts. “Do you approve?”

“I could live a thousand lives and never deserve such blessings as these,” Ned breathes. There is more emotion on his face than Catelyn has seen on the face of any man. 

For all that they call her husband the quiet wolf, for all that she feared herself doomed to a boring listless marriage to Brandon’s near-mute brother, she can tell now that Eddard Stark rarely speaks or moves his face, for when he does his entire heart shows. 

For the first time, Catelyn truly thinks she could love him. 

“Thank you, Lady Catelyn,” he says, taking her hands, voice reverent as a prayer. “Thank you.”

“My lord, I ask again that you call me Cat.”

“Ned,” he corrects.

“Ned,” she agrees. 

“Cat,” he says, brushing her hair back. “Cat.”

“You must be tired, Ned,” she says, guiding him to the bed and dropping her robe. “Come, rest with me. I am sure they will be screaming for us again soon.”

The room does not feel so cold with her husband beside her. He falls asleep almost instantly, his face smoothing. He finally looks his age. 

Catelyn settles further into the bed, near sleep herself. An arm lays heavy across her waist, and her cheek is tickled by her husband’s patchy beard. 

She turns her head towards the cradles, peeking at her twin sons just before her eyes slip closed. 

***

The next day, she swaddles Jon and Robb in matching blankets, preparing them to meet their grandfather. Ned reaches for Jon, but she hands him Robb. 

“This is Robb,” she says, gently. “He has been...a very easy babe.”

“His mother’s temperament,” Ned says holding Robb close to his heart for a moment before looking at him. “As well as her looks.”

Cat blushes. She wishes she could have given Ned a babe that looked like him. 

“He is, without a doubt, the most perfect thing I have ever seen.”

Her heart pounds. “You’d best not let anyone hear you say as much.”

“Cat,” Ned says, cradling Robb gently and kissing her hair. “They will both always be my sons-.”

“Our sons,” Catelyn corrects. 

“But that does not mean I can not thank you for him. I have not a doubt he shall be as perfect an heir as any noble house ever had.”

“I will give you more,” she promises. “Daughters, too.”

“I hope our daughters take after their mother as well,” Ned says, staring out the window. A faint pink spreads across his cheeks. “For if they do, they shall be very, very beautiful indeed.”

Catelyn laughs. “Handsome sons and pretty daughters. What more can a man want?”

Ned looks to her again, eyes soft. “A wonderful wife, far better than he deserves.”

Cat smiles into Jon Stark’s hair.

“Handsome sons and beautiful daughters, and a husband to care for them all,” she responds. “With that, a woman can be truly happy.”

She places a hand on his arm and a kiss on his cheek. “Winterfell will be filled with love, laughter, and the sounds of little feet once more, my lord.”

“I know I am not the husband you expected-.”

“But you may just be the husband I need,” Cat interrupts, more honest than she has been in her life. Seven help her, she hardly knows him, but she never, ever wished to be parted from him again. 

Ned glances at her, and smiles. 

It is not Brandon’s smile, open and bright enough to fill a room. It is a small smile, soft and secret, just for her. 

Yes, she thinks. She could have been very happy with Brandon. Could have had many babes and learned to like Winterfell and the North, grown to be content.

Oh, but Ned. Ned, she could love. 

***

She repeats her story to her father, to all of Riverrun - Jon was born too small, she was worried he would not last the night, has sworn the nursemaid to secrecy (she had, and promised her a position in the Stark household) - and Lord Hoster Tully smiles at her. 

“What a good daughter I have,” he says, examining Jon, “to have given me two grandchildren already.”

“Family, duty, honor,” she says. She may not have borne Jon, but he is family. 

“He looks every inch his father,” Lord Tully continues. 

Ned and Cat share a look. No, he does not, Cat can feel Ned thinking. And thank the gods for that. 

“Robb is the elder,” Catelyn says, gesturing to the babe in Ned’s arms. “By, oh, almost an hour.”

A lie, of course, Jon is older by more than a month, but Robb will be the heir. She will be selfless in all matters but this. It is his birthright; she will not have it denied. 

“A red wolf,” her father concedes. 

Ned goes to hand Robb to his grandfather as Catelyn takes Jon, but the moment Robb is no longer pressed against his father’s neck, he scrunches his eyes shut and he wails. 

Ned looks astonished. He places the babe back against his chest and Robb calms, immediately. 

Lord Tully laughs, filling the room. “Already attached to his father, I see. None of mine were like that, always liked their mother more, that young. And a healthy set of lungs, as well. Howling like a little wolf.”

Ned stares at Catelyn. 

“He likes you, my lord,” Catelyn says, smiling. 

“He likes me,” Ned mouths back, and from the look on his face, a happier man had never lived. 

“Here,” she says, placing a hand on his shoulder and turning him. Robb peaks over his shoulder enough that Lord Tully can see his eyes. 

For a babe, he looks quite disinterested. He takes a long look at his grandfather before dropping back to sleep, face tucked into his father’s doublet. 

Lord Tully laughs once more. “Are the skies blue and clear in the North, Lord Stark?” 

No one but Cat can see the way Ned’s eyes squeeze shut, just for a moment. Catelyn sends a prayer to the Father that one day the title will not sting her gentle husband so. 

“No,” Ned admits. “But the hot springs in the godswood are bluer than any water I have seen South of the Neck.” 

Ned looks at her, and speaks with a quiet earnestness. “In fact, Robb will always look at home in the godswood; his hair is the color of their leaves. Once he walks, we should be careful not to lose him there.”

That simple phrase, that small acknowledgment, makes something in Cat’s heart settle. 

Robb may not look a Stark, but Ned has made it clear that he belongs in the heart of the North just as much as Jon. 

She is once again reminded that Ned, Ned she could love.

As he soothes a hand down Robb’s back, she realizes she likely already does. 

***

Robb and Jon grow, sharing clothes and cribs and toys. 

Robb crawls first, and then knocks Jon forward enough until Jon crawls as well. 

It makes Ned laugh. 

Robb stands first, clutching at his father’s boot before falling, just to try again. 

Jon stands at Catelyn’s gentle urging, hands resting on Robb’s head. It makes Robb cry when Jon pulls his hair, and Cat cannot imagine her life any other way. 

Robb walks first, and they only have to wait but a moment for Jon to scowl and toddle off after him. 

For all that Robb babbles all day and night long, it is Jon who speaks first. A simple “mama,” falls from his mouth one day, and Cat smothers his face in kisses. 

Ned smiles, and two moons later gets Robb yelling “PAP,” for his patience. 

As soon as he learns it, though, Jon’s favorite word to say is “‘Obb,” and Robb’s quickly becomes “Yon,” when they realize those words mean their brother. 

By the time they have both begun to toddle more than they fall, Cat realizes she cannot think of Jon as a secret, as Lyanna’s. Jon is simply her son. 

She goes to the crypts that night, and though she whispers a quiet apology to the stone, she is not, in her heart, sorry. 

“He is my son, Lyanna,” she says, laying her hand on the crypt, unable to lie to a dead woman. A girl, really. “I will do right by you; I’ll tell him, one day. But he will be my son, no matter who may have borne him.”

***

Catelyn does not get with child again until the boys are four, though not for lack of trying. 

Autumn has turned the air, and preparations for winter are beginning, when she delivers a little girl into Winterfell’s walls. 

They lay her against Catelyn’s breast, and she smiles and smiles and smiles, can’t bear to put her down as they work to clean them both up. 

The maids and maester have just swept out the door when Robb - her ever enthusiastic little boy - comes bounding in. 

Ned rushes in after him, scooping him around the middle and settling Robb on his waist, a mirror of Jon. 

“Gently, Robb. Your mother is tired.”

“Want to see,” Robb says, pulling on his father’s hair and bouncing. “Want to seeeeeee.”

“Want to see,” Jon agrees, spurred on by his brother. “Want to see Mama.”

Cat laughs, exhausted. “I am right here, sweetling. If you think you can be still, you can both come sit by me and meet your sister.”

Ned’s face floods with emotion once more. “A girl?” He says, voice soft. 

“Handsome sons and beautiful daughters,” Cat says, smiling at him. 

She loves him. 

“Want to see!” Robb and Jon keep chanting. 

Cat smiles, heart bursting with fondness. Seven help her, how are they ever to deal with three? 

Robb and Jon eventually settle enough that - with a stern look - Ned sets them down one by one against her sides. 

“I’ve not named her, yet,” she says, parting the blankets enough that the boys can see her little face. 

Ned hovers at the foot of the bed. 

“Call her baby,” Jon says, solemnly. He looks at Catelyn, who is biting her tongue, trying not to laugh. “Because she’s a baby.”

“What about when she’s no longer a baby?” Cat asks. 

Jon’s brow furrows, a perfect imitation of his father. 

“Flower!” Robb suggests. “Call her flower!”

“She needs a name, Robb,” she says. 

“If I may,” Ned says. “Sansa.”

“My grandmother’s name?” Cat asks. 

“It’s a pretty name, for a pretty girl. And Sansa Stark has a certain sound to it, does it not?”

Cat smiles. “Sansa Stark.”

The boys regale her with tails of their day, spent watching the men train in the yard or at Ned’s knee as he worked, explaining everything to children with complete seriousness. Eventually they fall off to sleep, and Ned carries them to their room. 

They’d tried to give them separate ones, but after so many mornings finding them together, they decided it was easier to let them be for now. 

Ned returns to her chamber, and stokes the fire. 

“Do you want to hold her?” Cat offers, slightly nervous. He had not reached for Sansa once, and the doubt had started to creep in. Had he hoped for another boy?

Ned brushes a curl back from her face. 

“My lady, I…” Ned hesitates, looking happy and embarrassed in equal measure. “I knew I would have to take the boys to their beds eventually and, in truth-. I do not think that once I held her that I could ever put her down.”

Cat laughs. “I’m sure you will give her back once she wants to eat.”

Ned takes the bundle that holds their daughter into his arms, so incredibly gently. “She is...Cat, she’s perfect.”

“It’s lucky, my lord,” she says, settling back against the sheets and smiling. “That all the Stark children have taken after their mother.”

She can feel Ned pause beside her. She can’t quite smother a laugh, but it doesn’t matter, because Ned beats her to it, laughing louder and more freely than she has ever heard. 

They wake Sansa, but instead of wailing - as they feared - she starts laughing, too. 

***

Sansa is three, the twins are seven, and winter is firmly in place when the next babe comes screaming into the world. 

Catelyn screams and curses and yells her way through it, and it is only when a smaller voice joins her own does she realize it is over. 

She has finally birthed a babe that looks a Stark. 

The instant Maester Luwin begins to pack his things, she asks for Ned. 

Her lord husband is across the room in three long strides, and kneels beside her. 

“Cat?” 

“Arya,” Cat says, bringing the babe close enough that Ned can see her brown hair. “Arya, this is your father.”

Ned kisses her hand. “Arya. Robb, Jon, Sansa, and Arya.”

“Our children.”

Ned stands and kisses her lips. “Speaking of our children, they are very anxious to see you.”

Catelyn sighs. “I am sure I gave them quite a fright.”

Ned smooths her hair down. “I can hold them off if you need a moment.”

“No, no,” she says, pulling the blankets closer. “They can be gentle.”

They can. Robb and Jon walk in, each holding one of Sansa’s hands. 

“Is it a boy-?” Jon starts.

“-or a girl?” Robb finishes. 

“A girl,” Ned says, as he lifts Sansa onto the bed and Robb and Jon hoist themselves up. 

“Good,” Jon says.

“Pardon?” Cat asks. None of them had expressed a preference before. 

“Sansa has a sister!” Robb says, pushing the little girl closer. 

“I have Robb,” Jon explains, solemn as always. “And Robb has me.”

“Now Sansa has her!” Robb says, poking at the babe. 

Ned snatches his hand away. “It will be some time before Arya is ready to play.”

Jon sighs. 

“She looks like you, Jon,” Sansa says. It had taken her a long while to speak, but once she had, it had been full sentences. Only three, she is quite the little lady. 

Jon gasps and shoves Robb aside. “She does?”

“Now I have Sansa, and Jon has Arya, and we all match!” Robb crows, victorious. 

Catelyn laughs. Two boys and two girls, one of each taking after either parent. 

Cat looks at Ned, who is staring at the scene before him, tears shining in his eyes. 

Cat presses a kiss to Jon’s forehead. Most often, she truly forgets that she had not borne the little lad herself, forgets that Ned is not his true sire. 

A little legend has grown around the lads in the North. The twin wolves of Winterfell, one with his mother’s ruddy looks and father’s regal brow, one with his father’s ice-carved face and mother’s caring heart. 

Sansa may be her little lady, but she is, in every possible way, Ned’s daughter. Kind, deferring, soft spoken, and with a keen sense of justice. 

She wonders what type of child Arya will be. 

***

Arya is a menace. Only a year old and it seems she runs the whole castle. She is only content when left to run outside, getting underfoot at every opportunity, or held tightly in the arms of one of her brothers. She will let Sansa hold her on occasion, but as Catelyn’s belly swells for the fourth time, Arya finds the most joy bashing wooden knights together. 

Ned had been honest with the boys when he had left to join King Robert, to war with the Iron Islands. 

They had not yet known that Cat was once again with child, they had both thought it too soon to even consider it.

Robb and Jon - only eight, still so young - have stepped up in their father’s absence. Robb knows already that he will one day be Lord of Winterfell, and runs after Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrick with as much dignity as he can, giving shockingly astute suggestions for one so young. 

Jon follows him, some days - they have not been parted since that day in Riverrun, and given the choice they never would be - but when he is not in his lessons or running with his brother, he sits in the nursery with his mother, playing knights and ladies with Sansa, or letting Arya pretend he’s a horse. 

Robb joins them in the evenings, once again showing Catelyn that the Starks love their own more than the Tullys. 

Her dear, sweet Robb comes to her crying one night, worried that Father will die, worried that he will have to do this in earnest, and worried to show he is to any one, not even Jon. 

Cat holds him tightly, with no comfort to offer him. Ned has not responded to any of her letters. 

Some days, she wants to curse Benjyn for going to the Wall, knows it to be selfish and wishes to do it anyway. 

Jon comes to her the very next night, also in tears, certain that Robb is keeping something from him and worried he’s done something to upset his brother. 

Cat holds him just as tight, and, in the morning, calls them both to her solar to explain themselves. 

Robb is horrified that Jon thinks Robb does not trust him, and Jon calls him a dolt when Robb explains his secrets. 

“You don’t have to be a lord with me,” Jon says, shoving Robb in the shoulder. “You’re my brother. Even when you are the Lord of Winterfell proper, you will always be my brother first.”

Robb smiles. Though they come much easier to him, Robb has always had his father’s smile. 

The next day, Jon glares at Robb when Robb tries to follow after Maester Luwin until Robb second guesses and sits back down. 

Catelyn loves her sons endlessly. 

She writes as much to Ned, still praying for an answer.

‘I know you are always saying they cannot be boys forever, but I think that eight is perhaps a bit too young to try and run a castle, let alone one of the Seven Kingdoms. 

As much as I love my children in equal measure, I am grateful for Jon. It is good for Robb to have him, to remind him that - regardless of his status - he will always have his family to lean on. Some days, I think Jon has a head far older than his shoulders.

Robb is doing a remarkable job running Winterfell, considering his age, and that Winter is here. He has adopted every one of your mannerisms he can remember, and has taken to wearing a doublet and jerkin instead of his coats. He does look quite the little lord. You would be proud of him, though he - and the rest of our children - eagerly await your return. 

Now that I am deprived of it, I notice so much more that Robb has your smile. It just comes easier to him, and hopefully always will.’

She cannot imagine how this time would be, had Ned raised Jon as a Snow, as he had once planned. The whole castle is already worried to near sickness, and she does not wish to think how Robb would feel, if he need pretend he does not lean on Jon. Though perhaps he would not have, given that. 

Catelyn knows herself well enough to know she would hate Jon Snow. She hates herself for the thought, and thanks her younger self for storming in to stop his crying that night, regardless of how enraged she had been at the time. 

She does not want to imagine not having her two little boys. 

She feels the labor pains coming just as she has settled Sansa into bed, and panics. It is too early, by almost a full moon’s turn. 

She asks the twins if they will stay in the nursery with the girls tonight, and they must see some worry on her face, for they do not whine about being too old. 

She sends Robb - the faster of the two - to fetch Maester Luwin to her chambers. 

Jon sits next to her and lets her squeeze his little hand numb. 

“Will you be okay, Mama?” Jon asks, voice small. 

Catelyn’s heart aches; Jon has not called her Mama since he was Sansa’s age. 

“Oh, Jon,” she says, hugging her younger son, wishing she could promise everything will be alright. A babe coming early is always much harder. 

Jon can tell. “I will look after Robb.”

“He needs you,” Cat promises. 

“And the girls.”

“Good.”

“And Father, when he returns.”

Cat buries her face in Jon’s hair. She has lied, to all her children, saying Ned had sent letters, saying how much he loves them. 

Ned has not returned a single letter. 

She cradles Jon’s chin in her hand. “You are a good brother, and a good son. I love you very much, Jon. Never forget. Never, ever forget that I am your mother, and I love you so, so dearly.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“The girls, too, and Robb. Do not let any one of them forget.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. Walk me to my solar, and then come right back here. I will send Maester Luwin when the time comes. Please, make sure Arya sleeps.”

“I will, Mama.”

Robb bursts back through the door, then, breathing hard. “Maester Luwin is waiting in your chambers, Mother.”

“Very good, Robb. Walk with me and your brother.”

Cat clutches at her two sons’ hands as they walk. 

Before they turn to go at her door, she hugs them each tightly in turn. 

“Robb, Jon. You are my sons, and I am proud to have raised you. I love you, so deeply and dearly, from the shores of Dorne to the land beyond the Wall, and back. Promise me you will take care of each other. Promise me.”

Robb starts to cry. “I promise, Mama.” Her eldest grabs her hands tightly, and kisses the back of them as he has seen his father do countless times. “Please don’t give up, Mama. I’m not ready to be Lord.”

“I would never give up, sweetling,” Cat says, her mind years ago, thinking of Lyanna Stark birthing too early and dying for it. 

But Lyanna was six and ten, and alone, with a father and brother dead. 

Cat has Maester Luwin, eight and twenty years, four births to her name, and every reason in the world to stay. 

She kisses both her sons’ foreheads, and watches them go back to the nursery. 

They no longer hold hands as they walk, tugging the other along, but they do bump shoulders. 

They will be alright, Catelyn tells herself. They will be alright, so long as they have each other.

***

If she thought Arya had been hard, the little lad was a trial. He seems to know he was too early for the world, and fights to stay in her belly. 

When he does emerge, he gives but one brief cry, before quieting. 

Catelyn does not sleep that night, keeps her son in her lap, and watches him breathe. She sends Maester Luwin to let the boys know their mother yet lives. 

Though his little tufts of hair are more copper than dark, there is something of Ned in his face, his demeanor. Already so quiet, so serious. 

When Arya had been in her belly, Ned had mentioned offhand that this generation of Starks could do with a Brandon. He had always left the final decision of their children’s names up to her, as Lord Rickard had done with Lady Lyrra. 

“A woman works to bring a child to this world, a woman should decide what her child will be called,” he had said, when she had asked him of it. 

She may name the lad Brandon, but she calls him Bran; a smaller name for a smaller babe. 

He is larger than Jon had been. It gives her hope. 

When the sun is bursting through the clouds - Winter’s grip is ending - she hears a great commotion in the yard, and tries to leave her bed to see what it is, but she has to sit back down. 

Luwin had mentioned that her body might take longer to heal, given her early delivery, but he has confidence she will. 

Since she cannot see to the yard, she looks at Bran. He yet breathes. 

After several moments, the commotion moves to outside her bedchamber, before Jon bursts through the door, followed by Robb, who carries Arya in his arms. 

Last to enter is Ned, holding Sansa, who clings to her father’s neck. 

“My lady,” Ned breathes when he sees her abed. “Are you well?”

“I will be, in time,” she replies. She is so happy to see him her heart may burst. “Come look at our son. He is only just born this night.”

Ned gapes at her. “Another?”

Cat cannot help but laugh. “Yes, my lord. Brandon. Though I call him Bran. He is...a bit before his time, but Maester Luwin said if he survived the night he should live to a ripe old age.”

“And?” Ned prompts, moving closer, eyes still on her. 

“And he has breathed all night, waking on occasion to be fed, but he is quiet. He takes after his father in that.”

Ned smiles at her, finally. He puts Sansa on her feet, and Jon takes his sister’s hand. 

He lifts Bran from the cradle - the cradle all her children had lain in at one point or another - and holds him softly. Ned still smells of the road, of war, of death. 

“He is perfect, my lady.”

“Thank you.”

After a time - wherein Jon and Robb insist on telling their father every single thing that has surpassed in his absence, and Sansa shows him her curtsy, and Arya (shown by Robb and Jon) babbles ‘papa’ at him - Maester Luwin returns, to call the boys to their lessons. The nursemaid comes to fetch Sansa and Arya. 

Cat is left alone with her husband. 

He sits on the bed near her - still smelling something awful - and kisses her desperately and passionately. 

“Did you get any of my letters?” She asks him. 

“No, my lady, not until we had already begun to return, but I have read them all. I see I outpaced my raven. I am, as you so wrote, quite proud of the boys, of Robb. He will make a good lord, one day.”

Cat hugs him close. “You must be tired.”

“I must reek.”

Cat laughs. “Wash, and return to me, and rest.”

Ned kisses her again. “I have urgent news.”

“Yes?”

“Robert has returned with me. Just himself and some of his Kingsguard. I have started Rory Cassel on taking care of everything, so you need not worry. No, the urgent news is that I have brought my own addition to our household.”

Cat has faith in her husband; he only insisted on bringing Jon home to protect him from Robert. Some men might father bastards, but Ned Stark would not. 

“One of Robert’s - well, Tywin Lannister’s, truly - terms of surrender was that Balon’s boy, the only one left, Theon, be fostered elsewhere. I volunteered before Lord Tywin could. I think he could do far better here than on the Rock.”

“How old is he, Ned?”

“Not yet three and ten. He had two older brothers.”

Cat hums. “We will raise him well, I think. Two new boys in the castle at once.”

Ned kisses her again. “I will wash, and return to you.”

Cat smiles. “The children are eager to see you.”

“And I am eager to sleep. I arrived early with some of the men; we rode through the night. The children have seen me, have been assured I am alright. They have their lessons and their games, for now. They shall see me at supper.”

“You must be very tired, my lord.” Ned is not one to shirk his duty, even for a moment. 

“I fear I shall drown in the bath.”

Cat laughs. “Please do not.”

“Since my lady requests so,” Ned says, kissing her once more before standing. “I shall return shortly.”

He does, hair still damp. Cat lays beside him, ready to sleep herself. 

“Does Robb truly have my smile?” Ned asks, softly and hesitantly. 

“He does, my lord. And your frown.”

“I had not noticed. I always considered him taking after you.”

“In looks, perhaps,” Cat says, tracing her husband’s collar bone. “But he is every inch a Stark, my lord. He is your son.”

“He is,” Ned says, still in awe of him after eight years. “I never thought to have such a son.”

“And now you have three fine sons.”

“Three fine sons, two wonderful daughters, and the best wife in all the world.”

“In truth, Ned,” Cat says, sitting up slightly. “I know that Robb and Sansa have my coloring, and may smile and laugh far easier than you may, but in temperament and sense, they are all yourself. Robb gave Arya a very stern talking to about honor and justice after she stole one of Sansa’s dolls and made her cry. It was all I could do not to laugh, he was so serious.”

“Jon takes after you, in many a way,” Ned says, toying with a stray curl. “He is very gentle and kind. Observant, as well. Dedicated and skilled.”

“We have children who reflect us both.”

“I worry,” Ned admits, quieter. “About Jon, with Robert here.”

Catelyn is reminded once more that Jon is not a Stark, in truth, but a Snow and a Targaryen, and she fears. She hates it, wishes she could go back in time and beg the gods to have put Jon in her belly with Robb in truth, that there would never be the threat of discovery. When the Seven weigh her soul, she will own the lie she has told, for she is not and never will be sorry for it.

“He is my son,” she says, forcefully. “In every possible way, he is my son. I would swear it on the Seven, on the godswood, on my father’s life and mother’s grave. He is my son, Ned.”

“And yet-.”

“Robert has no reason to question anything,” Cat hisses. “Jon looks more Stark than you.”

That makes Ned smile. “Three sons and two daughters.”

“Robert has but one of each, does he not?” 

“Two sons,” Ned corrects. “One is but newly born. Tommen.”

“Bran was before his time.”

“We shall care for him, and he shall grow just as strong as our other children.”

“He is a Stark,” Cat concedes. 

“He is your son,” Ned says, taking her in his arms. “You are the strongest person I have ever known. He could not possibly help but be strong.”

She kisses her husband and settles against his chest. She sleeps well for the first time since he left. 

***

King Robert I Baratheon arrives two days later. Cat is strong enough to stand and walk about, and so they line up all their children to greet the king. 

Robb stands tall as he can, his posture perfect, glancing up at his father from time to time, trying to match his expression. 

Jon stands beside him, already grown a little taller than his brother, his eyes darting around. 

Sansa folds her hands in front of her, mouth gaping as she sees the size of the horses. 

Arya stands between Jon and Robb, each brother holding one of her hands so she doesn’t run away. 

Bran is wrapped securely in blankets, and nestled into his mother’s arms. 

King Robert dismounts his horse with a loud clang of armor. 

The Starks bow low. 

“Your Grace,” Ned says, “the North is yours.”

“Ah, Ned,” Robert says, pulling him up and into a fierce hug. “I’ll have none of that shite while I’m here. I’m here as your friend, not your king. Now, introduce me to all your brood.” Robert laughs. “Or pack, I suppose.”

“Lady Catelyn, my wife, you know,” Ned says, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Bran, in her arms.”

“But four days old,” Cat says, turning slightly so Robert might see his face. 

“Robb, the eldest,” Ned says, walking behind to place a hand on his shoulder. 

Robb bows. “Your Grace.”

His namesake laughs. “As serious as his father already, and only eight! I see the North will be in good hands for years to come!”

Robb beams. 

“His twin, Jon.”

Jon bows, but says nothing. 

“And one as quiet as his sire. Why,” Robert laughs, taking Jon’s chin in his hand, “here is the face I met in the Eerie, twenty years ago! Each twin took one parent’s look, but only their father’s demeanor.”

A weight seems to fall off Ned’s shoulders, though only Cat can tell. 

“Between them is Arya, just a year old.”

Arya tugs on Robb’s hand. “P’ay?”

“Not yet,” Jon whispers. 

“And Sansa,” Ned says, crouching beside her. “Our eldest daughter.”

Sansa sweeps a perfect curtsy with one hand over her heart. “Your Grace.” 

Robert laughs once more. “The picture of her lady mother, though I should guess by now that she takes after you, Ned, so serious! You’re all children! Loosen up!”

“Winter is only now breaking, Your Grace,” Ned says, standing. 

“Not that you would think as much, the snows we came across.”

“It snows even in summer, sometimes!” Robb can’t help but interject, wanting to be included. 

“Aye, I’ve heard. It’s too bloody cold, Ned, let’s get inside.”

Ned takes Catelyn’s arm and leads them to the Great Hall, where breakfast has been laid out. 

“I’m serious, Ned, tell your pups that there is no need to be on ceremony. You and I are all but brothers! Are they so well behaved when Benjyn visits? I’ve two of my own, you know, I know how children are.”

The three eldest Stark children exchange looks. 

Arya throws a spoon at Sansa. 

“Hey!” Sansa yells, catching it. 

“Arya!” Robb yelps. “We don’t throw things at our sisters!”

Arya takes that to mean throwing things at our brothers is perfectly fine, and tosses her fork at Jon. 

Robb snatches it out of the air before it reaches his brother. 

“We don’t throw things at anyone, Arry,” Jon says. “Not polite.”

Ned watches the scene unfold with the fondest of smiles. 

Catelyn calls a nursemaid over. “I should have known she is too young, yet. Take Bran as well, it’s warmer in the nursery.”

“Lad’s a wolf, Catelyn,” Robert laughs, clapping her on the shoulder. “He’ll be fine!”

“Bran was almost a full moon before his time,” Cat explains, delicately picking up her knife. “And only four days old. A mother can not help but worry.”

“Gods know that’s true. Cersei does nothing but worry over ours. I fear they’ll never grow properly with her coddling. Robb, Jon,” the king says, taking a drink. “Are you training yet? Do you ride?”

The twins brighten immediately.

“Yes!” Robb says. 

“Ponies,” Jon answers.

“Mine’s name is Flurry, and no one else rides him, because I don’t have to share,” Robb says, proud as anything. “Well, no one except Jon. I share everything with Jon.”

“And does Jon share everything with you?” Robert asks, smiling. 

“Aye, Your Grace,” Jon answers. “Father gave me a practice sword he used himself, and Robb uses it sometimes when we play knights.”

“What about archery? Have you started at bows yet?”

Robb nods eagerly. “Yes! Ser Rory says we’re very good for our age.”

Jon snickers. “He says Robb is better than Father was.”

“And you?” Robert prompts. “Are you better than Ned was?”

Jon blushes. “I’m not as good as Robb.”

“Not yet,” Robb scoffs. “You just take longer at some things. You’re better at swords than I am. And sums.”

“Well, you’re better at letters.”

“Quite a matched set, you have, Ned!” Robert says. “Swords and sums, letters and arrows, and only eight. I give it ten years, and no one would ever dream of attacking the North!”

The twins grin. 

“And what about the little lady?” Robert asks. 

“I sew,” Sansa says, standing on her chair, referring to her blunted needle and coarse, open fabric. 

“Sansa likes to dance,” Jon says with a scowl. “I’m glad Robb volunteers to dance with her. I don’t like it.”

Sansa rolls her eyes. 

“‘S not so bad,” Robb says. “It helps with footwork.”

That sets Robert Baratheon off laughing again. 

***

Robb and Jon are nearing two and ten when Rickon comes along. 

She stares down at the little babe in his cradle after the twins have rounded their siblings out of the room for bedtime. 

He looks so like Robb. It makes Cat think of the other little babe that was with him. 

“We have to tell him,” she breathes to Ned, voice shaking. “He deserves to know.”

Her husband sighs.

“He does. But not yet, Cat,” Ned says, a hint of pleading in his voice. “He is yet too young.”

“He will not be a boy forever,” Cat replies, echoing the words he uses so often. 

“A little longer, then?”

“Five and ten,” Cat decides. “Five and ten is almost a man grown. We’ll tell them together.”

Ned’s brow furrows, the same all his children’s do. It makes Cat smile. “Do you think we should tell Jon first? And then let him decide if he will tell Robb?”

Cat brushes a finger down Rickon’s nose. “He will tell Robb the moment he knows. They don’t keep secrets. At least, not for long.”

***

Five and ten comes sooner than Catelyn would have liked. 

That night, after the small feast they had hosted in the twins honor - even Benjyn had come down from the Wall - Ned invites Jon back to the Lord’s Solar. 

Robb tries to follow them, but Ned stops him with a steady hand on his shoulder. 

“In a moment, Robb. We must speak with your brother first.”

Robb glances between his parents, confused. 

“You’ll know, in time,” Cat reassures. 

Robb and Jon share a look, an unspoken, ‘I will tell you whatever it is,’ passing between them. 

Saying Jon was hers was the best decision she has ever made, and she can only pray that he still sees her as his mother once this conversation is over. 

A fire is smoldering out in the Solar. 

Ned and Cat sit Jon down in an armchair and place themselves across from him. 

Cat takes one of his hands. “Jon, do you remember what I told you the night Bran was born?”

Jon, her sweet, gentle Jon, nods. “Which part?”

“Before Robb returned. Do you remember?”

“I’m a good brother. A good son. I am your son.”

Cat bites her lip. “You are, Jon. All of those things. I am very proud to be your mother.”

Jon looks at her, brow furrowed. “Mother?”

“I could not be prouder to have such a son, Jon,” Ned adds. “I am proud to be your father.”

Jon, ever observant, can sense there is something they are not saying. “But?”

Ned and Cat exchange a look. 

“But I did not birth you,” Cat admits. 

“And I did not sire you,” Ned finishes. 

Jon starts. “Then - who?”

Ned’s mouth thins into a hard line. 

It is hard for him, to speak of Lyanna, or Brandon, of Lord Rickard. Even all these years later. 

“You know I had more siblings than your uncle Benjyn?”

“He’s not my uncle,” Jon protests. “If you aren’t my father, he isn’t my uncle.”

Jon makes a move to stand, but Catelyn grips his hand tightly. 

“No,” she says. “He is.”

Realization dawns over Jon’s face. “So I’m a bastard? Brandon’s bastard?”

Ned sighs. Cat grabs his hand. 

“No. Not a bastard. Not Brandon’s.”

“Then who?” Jon demands. 

“Lyanna,” Cat says, sparing her husband. “You are Lyanna’s son. By Rhaegar Targaryen.”

Jon’s jaw drops. His eyes are wide. 

“They married,” Ned says, voice hollow, eyes on the floor. “Or so Lyanna told me, as she pressed you into my arms. She made me promise to care for you.” 

Ned’s head snaps up and he locks eyes with Jon. They are near reflections of each other, twenty years apart. 

Grey eyes bore into grey. 

“I would have, regardless. You have to know that, Jon.”

“But... why?”

“When Robert took King’s Landing...Rhaegar had two other children, Rhaenys and Aegon. Aegon was not yet a year old. Robert killed Rhaegar at the Trident. Tywin Lannister killed the two children. Robert laughed. ‘Dragonspawn.’ I know not how Lyanna knew. But she knew. Robert would have killed you, had word got out.”

Jon sniffs, scrubbing the hand not held by Catelyn under his eyes. 

“So I raised you as my own. I had planned to raise you as my bastard; you looked enough like me, even that young, no one would have questioned it.” Ned glances towards Cat, taking her hand. “Your mother would not allow it.”

“I hated you,” she admits to Jon’s hand. “I hated you. You and everything you represented. But…” Cat looks up, looks at her son. “You were just a babe. And when I put together who you were, and why my husband had to care for you, and keep you close-. You were so small, Jon. Smaller than Bran was. I knew then how Lyanna died, and I looked at you. I made my mind up then that you would not grow up without a mother.”

“So she decided to raise you and Robb as twins,” Ned continues when Cat’s voice is too thick with tears to do so herself.

“You’re actually older than Robb,” Cat says, giving a single, humorless laugh. “By almost a full moon’s turn. But Robb is Lord Stark’s heir. I am sorry, but I would not take that from him.”

Jon shakes his head, yanking his hand away from her and standing. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not a Stark.”

“You will not say such things,” Ned says, grabbing his shoulders. 

He is using his Lord’s voice. 

“Lyanna was a Stark. She was my sister. And she bore you. You are a Stark. The blood of Winterfell flows in your veins. And even if it did not, Catelyn and I have raised you for fifteen years. More than a Stark, you are our son.”

Jon throws himself into his father’s arms. He cries. 

“Robb is not my brother in truth, then?” Jon says. 

Cat laughs, tears falling. She joins Ned in holding their son. “I think Robb might raise objections to that.”

“Do I have to tell him?”

“Not if you do not wish to.”

“I want to. I want him to know.”

“I can fetch him, if you like,” Cat offers, kissing his hair. “Knowing Robb, he will likely be just outside the door waiting for you.”

That makes Jon smile. 

Cat opens the door, and Robb scrambles from the floor to stand in front of it. 

“Yes?”

“Come in.”

Cat closes the door behind him, and turns just in time to see Jon throw himself into his brother’s arms. 

Robb hugs him tight, confused and scared to see his brother so. “Are they sending you away?” Robb asks, brokenly. “Please say they aren’t sending you away.”

“Robb,” Jon says. “Robb, are we brothers, always?”

Robb scowls. “What kind of stupid question is that?”

“Even...even if Mother and Father were not my Mother and Father?”

Robb pulls back to look at Jon’s face. “Even if you were a Targaryen, or a Wildling, or some form of ghost, you would be my brother, Jon.”

Ned laughs at that, a little hysteric. Robb has guessed correctly, not even knowing there was anything to be guessed. 

“Do you promise?” Jon asks. 

Five and ten is almost a man grown. Almost. Not yet. 

“On the Old Gods and the New, Jon. We are brothers, now and always.”

Cat moves to stand by Ned. He wraps an arm around her. 

She loves her sons, so dearly. 

“Now and always. Brothers.”

“So, now will you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Mother and Father,” Jon starts. 

Robb glares at them. 

“Mother and Father have just told me that the woman who bore me was Lyanna Stark. My sire was Rhaegar Targaryen.”

Robb stares at him. “But...but you look more Stark than I do!”

Jon laughs.

“I don’t care,” Robb says fiercely. “I don’t care who sired you, I don’t care who bore you. You are my brother, Jon. I’ll fight anyone who says different, even you.”

Jon hugs him again. 

“Robb,” Ned says, calling him over to sit down. 

Robb sits next to Jon, looking meaner than Cat has ever seen her son, defiant. 

“It is important that no one know,” Ned stresses. “The King would have him killed.”

“I’ll kill him if he tries,” Robb swears. “I don’t care if he’s the King.”

Ned inhaled deeply, looking at his hands. 

“You are so like Brandon, sometimes,” Ned whispers. 

Robb’s eyes widen. “I am your son, am I-?”

“You are,” Cat reassures him. 

“Even if I had not sired you either, you would still be my son,” Ned says. “Never question that. You are my heir, Robb.”

“I’m older though,” Jon jokes, and Cat feels as though everything may turn out alright. 

“No!” Robb gasps. 

“So you are actually my baby brother.”

Robb shoves him. “Well, we can’t ever tell anyone or else the King will try to kill you, so there.”

“This is not a laughing matter, boys,” Ned says, voice serious. “Jon is the last Targaryen heir. There are some who would see him on the Iron Throne.”

Jon shakes his head frantically. “I have no desire to rule-.”

“But will Robert accept that? Will Tywin Lannister suffer a threat to his family ruling?”

Jon’s jaw snaps shut. 

“He would never have a chance to sit the Iron Throne, nor cause too,” Robb says, his voice taking a very serious, affected light tone. “Jon is a Stark, of Winterfell. Lord Stark’s second son; if anything were to happen to the elder, Jon Stark would be Warden of the North, one day.”

“Don’t - do not even say things like that,” Jon says. 

“You are my brother, Jon.”

“Brothers.” He turns back to Ned. “Can we tell Uncle Benjyn?”

Cat can see Ned considering it. 

“If you wish too. This is your secret to tell or to keep, Jon. You must decide who you can and cannot trust.”

Jon’s brow furrows once more. “I think I will tell all my siblings, when they are older. I only hope that-.”

“It won’t change anything,” Robb promises, earnest. 

“I think I would like to tell Uncle Benjyn. Will you tell him all of it, Father? I don’t think I recall it.”

“I will fetch him,” Cat offers, giving the boys a moment with their father. 

Before she shuts the door she hears Ned speak. 

“There is so much of your mother in you, Robb. You should be proud.”

“I am.”

Cat closes the door with a small smile. 

Herself, her husband, now her son; Jon will be safe and loved. And if Robert does try to come after him, he will have the entire North to contend with.