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He wasn’t her dreams. But she had been prepared to do her duty and to be a good wife, to fill his house with sons, to make a home for him in this desolate old castle, to respond to all his wants and needs and flaws with love...She’d given him her maidenhead and an army. And he’d paid for it with his seed.They’d only known each other for a fortnight then. She’d found him dower and plain, nothing like his brother. But she had taken care not to let her reservations show, and to be the attentive and loving wife for the one night they’d spent together. And then, when he’d gone back to war with her father’s banners behind him, she’d found that his seed had taken root. In the moons it took for his son to grow, and the days that stretched out after that, for the war to end properly and for it to be safe enough for her to travel to the castle she’d be the Lady of, she’d began to form new dreams. Dreams of a man so enamored with his new son that he’d find himself enamored too of his new wife. Dreams of a man made somehow more beautiful by war. She would think of Ned as what he could be, and not what he had been that night. She would remind herself that he may have been cold and a stranger to her, but the man she’d married lived by the Tully words. He was doing his duty for his family, as Catelyn always had. Catelyn was a creature of duty and did not need passion, but still… perhaps she could grow to love him as she had once loved Brandon.But when she got to Winterfell, she found that her husband was as dower as he had been that first night, only now he was more withdrawn then ever. She found his younger brother, more child than man, who did not know what to make of a southern Lady. She found cold people and harsh surroundings. She found suspicious looks and whispers. Worst of all, she found a bastard boy. A bastard living in Winterfell, the ancient seat of the Starks, living in the nursery that Lord Eddard had placed their son in as well. Jon Snow was named for Lord Eddard’s foster father, a man who rose up against his King in her husband’s defence. What stung the most was how much the bastard looked like her husband, with dark hair and grey eyes, so unlike her own son. These things happened. She reminded herself that men had bastards and that good men made provisions for the child. She tried to ignore that the bastard had come to Winterfell before its trueborn heir and that every time she made to visit her son, the bastard was there too, sharing a nurse, who seemed not to recognize any difference between the two boys. Lord Eddard was kind to her. He was unfailingly polite, he made sure her rooms were comfortable and warm. And he did seem as enamored by her son as a father could be. But he was equally enamored with his bastard.Try as she might, she could not ignore the insult. The child grew to look more and more like him day by day. His mother was never to be spoken of, and Catelyn’s one inquiry drew the only true anger she’d even seen from him. When she asked about the child’s fostering when his wet nurse was sent back to where ever she’d come from, her Lord Husband simply told her there were no such plans. She stopped trying after that. She kept to her duties of course, was as pleasant as could be to his suspicious banner men, made sure the household would run smoothly around him. She cared for Robb, and did not even snap at the nurse and Old Nan, who cared for the bastard too. But she would not try to fall in love and not attempt to entice him to do the same. If he would not care for her, she would not care for him. She retreated to her rooms and kept her doors barred. She’d never deny him if he asked, but she would not offer herself freely. He did not ask. She knew he noticed the distance she no longer made an effort to close. But if he was resentful, he kept it behind a blank face and every bit of propriety. He was polite and even kind. Lord Eddard started taking meals with her and he asked about Riverrun. He smiled when she offered stories of Lysa and Edmure and Petyr, and offered his own about his siblings. Though any mention of Brandon turned awkward without much prompting. Her girlish dreams were not so far away even though she was now a wife, a mother, a Lady of a great keep. He seemed as aware as she was of the lost promises and missed chances that come with his dead older brother. And any mention of Lady Lyanna ended in as close to despair as she’d even seen on his solam face. The stories of his time in the Vale with the King were safer. She liked hearing the tales of how he learned honor on the knee of Jon Arryn. When she visited Robb, sitting up and babbling at the bastard, she wished the honor had stuck. Or perhaps been slightly less, so that he could at least send the stain away. But she could not ignore the bastard, and he would not free her of the humiliation of it all.So it went on. He did not come to her rooms, and she does not invite him. But she did dig out an old trunk. She’d started a shirt for him before he’d even gone to war. She’d meant to stitch direwolves into the white velvet with silken grey thread. But then she’d found out she was with child, and had spent the next night months practicing direwolves for all manner of things for Robb. She took the shirt out again, and in the evenings, when she does not invite him to her bed, she drew his house sigil on it, threaded her needle with care, and pricked the fabric with a deliberate hand. This would be the second gift she made her husband, and depending on how things continued between them, perhaps it would be her last. She had a duty, and knew she must make it right.She’d gotten the wolves around the cuffs just right when he requested to presence after a midday meal. He offered his arm and they walked perfectly in step out to the courtyard, where there had been some construction she was told was in preparation for the winter the Starks alway promised was coming. She was surprised when he lead her inside. And more surprised still by what she found, for this was no silo for food nor shield against the cold. This was far more important. The Star in glass and little man in white with colored belts around him made it clear. A Sept. A Septon. The Seven. Right here, before her, in the North. “I hope you like it, My Lady,” he offered. “I know how much you have missed your gods. We had no heart tree in the Eyrie, and such things are hard to bare.”She kissed him then. Not deep or passionate like some maiden’s fantasy, but it was true and real. In that moment she forgot about the bastard and she invited him into her rooms that night. After they supped together, Robb sat up between them. She invited him the night after that and the night after that. It was a way to keep warm as Winter descends around them, and then she joyed when her moonblood stopped. She joyed as her belly grew round and she promised Ned, Ned, Ned, that she’d give him another son soon. “A second son,” she’d whisper in the bed they came to share. And pretended she didn't feel him tense for just a moment.She did not give him another son. But when the babe was born in nine moons time, in the heart of a northern winter, her soft hair was bright as fire. The smile her Ned gave her as he took the newborn into his arms was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, beyond her babes. There would be time, she knew, for more sons and perhaps more daughters. And perhaps, in time, there would be love too.