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Ned brings her a bouquet of flowers that Bran has helped him pick in the woods. He also brings home direwolves for all of their children, and Jon.“What happened to their mother?” She asks, as she puts the flowers in a vase that Sansa’s crafted herself from clay the week before. She has the same natural talent for pottery as she does for sewing and Septa Mordane was so proud. Ned sends her a look that means he cannot say it, not to the children, not now. She resolves to ask him later, but she has a feeling she already knows.“Our ancestors trained wolves to become dogs,” Ned tells her. “Who says that the same cannot be done for direwolves?”It is not a question she can answer, nor does she think that Ned expects her to. She is a Tully, she will always be a Tully - a fish surrounded by wolves. She has not been home for so, so long. But she is a Stark, still. But she knows nothing of direwolves. One one does. They haven’t even been seen in years.When she considers it, her children having Direwolves as pets is as logical as she and her siblings having fish in glass bowls. She likes it.She gathers the children in the dining hall, and watches as they get acquainted with their new companions. Arya immediately takes Nymeria on a run around the grounds of Winterfell a dozen times, grateful to finally have someone who can keep up with her who isn’t busy all the time.“She’s so wonderful!” Sansa is ecstatic, using a word she has only ever heard in songs of beautiful maidens’ brave companions, as Lady jumps up to reach her height, happily, but then Sansa must notice her mother looking and controls herself. Lady seems to sense it to and sits straight as a queen beside her. A lady must always restrain herself. “Thank you, thank you very much.”She hasn’t seen Jon look this content in years and she almost smiles at him, just once and then she reminds herself of how he came to be, that Ned betrayed her, that Jon could threaten Robb’s claim to Winterfell if he wished.“What did you name him?” She asks Jon, bringing her smile back again but smaller. The day Ned had brought him home, she had been furious. He was such a tiny baby, she had wondered if he would live. A small part of her hoped he would not, to spare himself the miserable life bastard’s led.“Ghost,” Jon replies, stroking Ghost’s fur and grinning at her. “His name is Ghost.”Strangely, Catelyn is reminded of Lyanna.:-:Before they leave for King’s Landing, Catelyn decides to accompany Arya and Nymeria on one of their walks. Nymeria seems to slow her pace for Catelyn to keep up, as does Arya. She is grateful to have fresh air and to have time with Arya before they go.“I’ll be queen someday, won’t I?” Sansa asks. Her voice is slightly less full of hope than before the prince had arrived. “But..what about you and Bran and Rickon?”“Queen you shall be,” Catelyn kisses Sansa’s forehead and strokes Lady’s neck. Her grandsons will be kings and queens, will be able to make the changes that Robert is too busy drowning himself in women and wine to make. “And we shall visit you, together, I swear it.”Sansa smiles again, bright as the sun at midsummer. She knows nothing of war, never seen a man died, never lost a loved one and Catelyn hopes that she never has to.:-:Bran ran falls into a coma before he gets to make his Direwolf, but Shaggydog licks the assassin’s blood from Catelyn’s hands and looks at her as though he understands how she feels. Catelyn pats Shaggydog’s head in thanks, because she won’t leave Bran’s side.Catelyn never gets the feeling in some of her fingers back, but it’s worth it. Bran’s life is worth it. She keeps the knife in a locked draw at her bedside, puts the key around her neck and under her dress.Her bed seems cold without Ned there. They’ve shared a bed since their wedding night, and they had not slept apart since when he came back from the war for the last time, fulfilling the promise that Brandon never got the chance to. She knows that it’s somewhat foolish of her, to feel so alone without him. She spent the first year of their marriage without him.But still, she lies in her bed contemplating if Bran would not be in this state had she not prayed for him to remain with her, Summer crawls onto Catelyn’s bed and curls up near her feets. It’s a kind of warmth she’s certain not even the walls of her bedchambers could muster.:-:“Do you think he’ll be alright?” Catelyn asks Bran’s direwolf because there is no one else there to ask. She is growing tired of being strong.In response, Bran’s direwolf puts a paw on Catelyn’s knee, and lets his tongue out his mouth because he cannot give her the reassuring smile that she so desperately needs.It’s good enough.:-:When Ned sends Lady’s body home, head severed by Ice, Catelyn buries her in the godswood and only allows herself to cry beside the heart tree, in the eyes of her husband’s gods.:-:It’s a long time before she is in the company of direwolves again.She lets the Kingslayer go and Robb has her guarded, Greywind is free to go where he wishes.She says nothing to him, but he puts his head on her feet as if to say that Robb will forgive her, that even kings can show mercy.She is not so sure, but thinks that their direwolves may understand her children in ways that she cannot.:-:Her throat is slit so far that her head is almost severed and she never sees the direwolves or her children again.At least, not in the way that they remember her.