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Ned always knew that, out of all of his children, Sansa would be the first to call for him to fix a broken heart. Robb had discovered the allure of pretty girls early on, but he was laid back, his heart protected from the tempestuous emotional highs and lows that defined Sansa's personality. Ned's sweet little girl, who begged for bedtime stories about knights and giggled over effeminate pop stars from boy bands, who flourished under her mother's approval and cried the entire day Arya broke her favorite doll. Her looks favored Cat so greatly already—Ned knew she would one day attract the attention of many men. And he would have to be there to protect her.Catelyn is the reason he knows about Sansa’s first childhood infatuation at all. His beautiful wife is fretting about Sansa’s shy, affectionate looks toward Theon every time he comes over to spend time with Robb. Though he knows Cat considers Theon to be a bad influence, Ned can only feel relieved. After all, Sansa could have chosen Gendry, who comes over to mow their lawn and never seems to have his shirt on; and it’s easy enough to humor his daughter’s crush when he knows nothing will come of it. Sansa is 13 and Theon is 17. Had Theon ever shown even the slightest inclination toward young girls, Ned would have thrown him in prison with his father and brothers.Ned has a soft spot for Theon despite Catelyn’s explicit dislike of the boy. He knows Theon is the reason his sons have started swearing and is sure the boy has introduced them to alcohol and sex alike. He is known for his dalliances, and Ned has been on the force long enough to recognize the smell of pot and tobacco, nail polish never managing to completely cover stained fingers. But Ned lets Theon practically live in his home under the pretense of babysitting Starks barely years younger than he is. Because Cat wasn’t the one who had kicked down the door, ready to arrest Theon’s father and brothers. She hadn’t looked into the eyes of an eight year old who didn’t know whether to be relieved or to mourn for his family. She wasn’t the one who had documented the bruises all over his body, the cigarette burns littering his arms. And she wasn’t the one who had walked him to his foster home after Asha Greyjoy left to join the navy. Catelyn never saw Theon's struggles to replace the unconditional safety of a home, first with a teenage sister working three jobs, and then with a group home filled with other fosters.Ned lets the Stark home be Theon’s home because he's responsible for destroying the Greyjoy family.Objectively, Ned understands why Theon is the first boy Sansa follows with her infamously Tully blue eyes. He cuts a striking figure, with long, dark hair and ocean blue eyes; despite his more annoying qualities, he always shows a brusque form of kindness to Ned’s little girl. When Theon is accepted to a university, Ned feels guilty for being surprised. And when the boy moves away, Ned convinces Cat to make Sansa’s favorite lemon cake. His little lady pouts all afternoon until she smells it baking in the oven....
It’s the worst when Robb is still in middle school and Theon has been in high school for two years. The two years between them have never stretched wider.
Robb’s Tully blue eyes have followed Theon for years. Watched Theon change in front of his eyes, laughing and smirking the entire time, a lonely, boney child becoming bright and sharp and alluring. Lean lines and sparkling eyes, accompanied by smoke-stained fingers, perpetually bruised eyes and swollen lips. Robb is too young to realize the dark and syrupy emotion he feels when he looks at Theon, but he recognizes his irrational irritation when Sansa shyly hands Theon a crown of flowers for his birthday. Theon complains about how childish the gesture is, how silly the petals, but they all see him carefully tuck it into his pocket. She and Jeyne Pool giggle as they watch him.
All it takes to soothe the irritation (at his preteen sister, dear gods) is Theon’s laugh and his proclamation that Robb will always be his favorite Stark. He feels stupid presenting a best friend necklace on Theon’s birthday, a juvenile and possessive gift for someone he has true no claim over. But Theon’s eyes and smile are soft. He makes fun of Robb, but the necklace doesn’t leave his neck, the clasp kissing his nape.
When Theon leaves, Robb is three months away from being 16. When Theon falls out of touch not six months later, changing his number, leaving college and social media, and apparently dropping off the face of the Earth, Robb feels true despair for the first time. And he remembers.
Remembers everything. In the darkest hours of the night, he berates himself for being surprised by the betrayal of Theon Greyjoy in not one, but two lives.
At least he is occupied as he sifts through the memories of an entire life, short as it was. Then she arrives. Talisa Talisa Talisa. I forsook a kingdom for you.
She does not remember.
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Talisa is the first serious girlfriend Robb brings home; Ned and Catelyn are sure she will be the last and only. They adore her, even when they don't understand her Volantene traditions, and even though she stands in the way of Cat’s romantic notion that at least one of their children will fall madly and immediately in love through an arranged courting. Ned doesn't understand this desire for the chivalric and courtly romances of days past. After all, he and Catelyn had only found each other after Brandon left Cat nearly at the alter after their own arrangement. He supposes she wants to replace that painful memory with one better for their son, believer as she is in tradition and her faith.Talisa is easy to love, stunning and intelligent, with dreams of becoming a nurse; her voice sounds like honey dripping down the comb, and her eyes are the distinct color of the spiced rum of her country. Soft accent, sharp mind, kind eyes, and charming smile, the embodiment of sunshine beaming down on his oldest child, she is everything any parent could want for a son. Robb smiles so much with her around, and Ned is glad she is helping him move on from the angry, despondent mood that has been plaguing him.Ned is so sure his son has found a partner for life that he does not mind having to sit down and reiterate the safe sex talk; in fact, he almost relishes the horrified look on Robb’s face.It’s heartbreaking for both him and Cat when Robb isn’t accepted to the college where Talisa is dead set on studying, and they both decide long distance won’t work. She was strong and kind and true, and Ned can only hope his son finds another woman like her....
Robb wishes he was like other people, the ones who never remembered the game of thrones. The prevailing theories are that either everyone remembers their memories and some people are just much better at hiding it, or that there are people who will never remember, no matter how many times painful events from their past life recur.
Robb thinks about the conniving eyes of people like Tywin Lannister and Olenna Tyrell and is inclined to believe the first. He himself is haunted by his death and failed kingship; the deaths of his bannermen and two Lannister boys; a beheading and the howls of a dying direwolf. His unborn Eddard. He is glad that the memories are always hazy and detached, as if he is looking in on them happening to someone else.
He vows to never again become a king. Gone are dreams of politics and law and business, of following in his father’s footsteps as police chief or replacing Aunt Lyanna as the CEO of the Stark business. Robb never even runs for student council again. In fact, he is secretly very happy when this allows Jon, always quiet and overlooked, to finally shine as he always should have.
Robb holds out hope for an acceptance letter from the college Talisa is attending, back in Volantis where she was born. He can spend his days loving her, discovering her world; and staying far away from the responsibilities of kingship or his family.
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Ned never expects Arya to be romantically interested in anyone. Some days she is less girl and more direwolf, tumbling her way through childhood always rowdy and dirty, inviting Cat's fretting at every turn—over her unwillingness to dress nicely, the frequency with which she collects bruises and dirt, her persistent friendships with noisy boys and only noisy boys.Ned counts them all in his head, happy he is involved in his daughter's social life. There's Mycah, the baker's son; Hot Pie, who is still too shy to tell Ned his real name; Lommy, the embodiment of a rascal; and Gendry, five years older than the rest of them. Ned assumes he babysits one of the other boys, and is secretly glad he's there. It's an open secret that Gendry Waters is one of Robert Baratheon's many bastards, and he shares so many of his father's looks that the rumor is undeniable. Ned trusts the part of Gendry through which shines the Robert Baratheon who was once the best of friends and the greatest of men—before drinking and vulgarity ruined a booming laugh and mirthful eyes. Ned sees that his daughter never cries from her hurts, never shies away from a scolding. He sees her immense strength, strength that will carry her through the inevitable hardships life. Still, he is surprised when he recognizes how his rude daughter, more likely to hit a boy than make eyes at him, looks at Mycah. Mycah, with a ruddy face and staticky orange hair, fingers always sticky with sugar. For weeks on end, he is all Arya talks about, to Ned’s initial bemusement and then exasperation.Arya's first friend, and the gentlest of the boys. The first one to call her Arry, to let her be a knight instead of the princess when they pretend sticks are swords. Ned sees Arya's eyes soften when Mycah isn't looking. And he also sees the way Myca's eyes instead settle on another little girl, one with prim bows in her blonde pigtails. Ned knows what his spitfire Arya has yet to realize; one day, that little girl will give Mycah sweet fat blonde babies to eat his cakes and pastries, will settle in his house and home soft and still.Mycah makes cupcakes for his little crush and asks Arya what she thinks of them; Ned's heart breaks for his daughter. He gets her dancing lessons to make up for it, convincing her that learning the footwork for dance will set the foundation for any sword work she does in the future. As she slides around the room for practice, Ned sees so much of Lyanna in her brimming spirit, in her frightening, hidden capacity for anger. Ned can only hope that she too will find herself a gentle, singing prince. Then he remembers how Lyanna and Rhaegar treat Jon and wipes the thought from his mind.…
Mycah wants to give her some lemon cakes he made for Sansa. Arya has no idea why, since her sister is stupid and girly and no one stops her when she calls Arya "horseface." But it means more time with Mycah before she has to go home and her mother yells at her for getting dirty again. She just knows mother won’t let her learn the sword when she turns thirteen, even though all of the boys she knows and even some of the girls get to do it! Probably because stupid Sansa turned thirteen and just wanted to embroider more like a perfect little lady instead of picking up a blade. The thought makes Arya’s face screw up, and she kicks some rocks down the road just to see how far they'll go.
When they bakery, she sees the ugliest man she has ever seen, half his face melted and burned. She is still a child, impolite enough to point at him and ask after his face right where she knows he can hear. Mycah blushes for her as the man stiffens at her words; he quickly grabs the lemon cakes and pulls her away by the hand. She hits him for holding her hand and is mad at herself for hoping he does it again.
The man’s name is Sandor Clegane. He met Mycah’s father in some place called "juvie" and has been working at their bakery for some years now.
“His daddy and his brother are mean, Arry. Be nice.”
For some reason, Arya wants to tell Mycah to stay away from Sandor, her vision superimposing a bloody body underneath a horse blanket where her best friend stands. She shakes her head and swallows the unsaid warning.
She doesn’t feel guilty about her words but…she can’t help thinking about how she has the nicest dad, who got her dancing lessons and tells her stories at night, and the best and brothers and cousin in the world. A stupid sister though. Just as stupid as she is for wanting to hold Mycah’s hand.
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Like all of Ned's children, Sansa goes to a private high school. It is one of many privileges that come with he Stark legacy, and one of the only Ned has no qualms about; his children deserve the best education and opportunities. He does feel bad that Sansa will be apart from Jeyne for the first time in years, deprived of a best friend and constant companion.However, his worries are proved fruitless when Sansa quickly befriends Margaery Tyrell and Joffrey Lannister. Ned feels bad that she will be apart from Jeyne, deprived of a best friend and constant companion. However, his worries are proved fruitless when Sansa quickly befriends Margaery Tyrell and Joffrey Lannister. Ned gives the Lannister boy the benefit of the doubt all while hoping he is nothing like his father; it is hard enough watching Jaime swagger around the precinct bullpen, a detective despite all of the sins in his past. Ned wishes his daughter would stop spouting affection for the man's son, apparently his duplicate copy, every night at dinner. He especially regrets partnering the new transfer, Tarth, with Jaime in the hope that her professionalism and honor would somehow influence him; the poor girl is instead constantly subjected to his insufferable attitude, though she weathers it with an enviable stoicism even Ned can't hold onto every hour of the workday. Despite Ned's misgivings, Joffrey appears to be a well-mannered and gentle young man. He brings Sansa blood red flowers when he picks her up for their first date and shakes Ned’s hand before whisking her away in a car far too expensive for any teenager. The flowers are such a deep red as to be almost purple. They are the same color as Sansa's bruises the first and last time Joffrey hits her after a disastrous six-month relationship.The bruises heal in far less time than everything else. It takes years of patient effort and therapy to get Sansa to stop worrying about her weight and appearance, for her smiles to be as bright as before, for her to return to some semblance of Ned's shining girl. During truly dark nights, Ned thinks of domestic abuse victims he helps at the station, broken women afraid of making eye contact, hesitantly giving matter-of-fact details of horrific stories. Sansa’s eyes look like theirs.Ned is ready to take his anger out on Jaime Lannister, professionalism be damned, but both Lannister and Tarth are working a case and preparing to go undercover. His personal and professional lives are unraveling, and he is unsurprised when he wakes up and finds his first gray hair. He's beat Cat at that at least, though it's hardly a victory; only her genuine pleasure and warm, husky morning voice ease the sting. Ned acts because it’s the only thing he knows how to do. He obtains a restraining order against Joffrey Lannister. He promises himself that for the rest of his life, he'll judge the men his daughters date with a much more critical eye; he'll never let their feelings sway his judgment, experience, or instincts again. He never forgives himself for learning to like Joffrey. Ned takes Sansa to the local bakery to get lemon cakes because she needs gain some weight, and they're seemingly the only food she can stand. They both see the scarred man at the counter, but it is Ned who immediately recognizes the hulking, worn figure of the Hound. A few years in juvenile detention were not enough for a man who was capable of smothering his own brother in cold blood, and Ned would have left immediately had Sansa not looked enthralled by the cakes on display. After Joffrey, Sansa changes. His daughter, who has always been silk and rainbows, becomes as hard and cold as steel, a strong and unapproachable woman. His giggly princess is completely gone. Ned never stops mourning the loss. …
Sansa starts private school alone and insecure in the way of all 15-year-olds. She's desperate for validation and positive attention, the very qualities that drew her toward Cersei Lannister's toxic, enthralling circle in a previous life. She falls into friendship with the first impressively pretty girl who smiles at her: Margaery Tyrell, gorgeous and rich and clever. Margaery is one year older, and she has both a car and a college-aged boyfriend; her attention is worth something. She is the one who introduces Sansa to Joffrey Lannister, and Sansa is still innocent enough to believe in love at first sight. A thoroughbred golden lion with big green eyes, who will one day inherit the Lannister company from his mother. He is a gentleman, asking to court her and bringing her flowers. She is walking on clouds with the prince of her dreams. She would do anything to make him smile. Anything.
Sansa looks back at this girl blind to Joffrey’s selfishness and temper with shame and disgust. When you are wearing rose colored glasses, red flags just look like flags.
The first time he hits her, something inside her breaks. Something important that, in a past life, healed more and more crookedly every time another man broke it. Over and over again. They are at his home and she makes the mistake of reaching for a lemon cake; he reminds her how stupid she is to have forgotten he wants her to lose weight. He has bruised her before, with too rough kisses or hard grips at her arms or waist, but he has never hit her before. He prefers her face pretty. He looks at his hand with such disdain she has the feeling that if he could order someone else to hurt her, he would. And then she remembers that he has and he did and he would.
As the crack of his hand meeting skin echoes through the house, Sansa remembers. Remembers Sansa Stark, the hostage of King’s Landing, and Alayne Stone, brown-haired Baelish bastard. She remembers Joffrey Baratheon. Ramsay Snow. Petyr Baelish.
Sansa is broken, but now she is a woman borne of pain and forged in the cold of winter. She says nothing because she knows the taste of danger. She goes home. And she tells her father, her wonderful, alive father, who taught her in two lives to find someone brave and gentle and strong. She has failed in both. She gets a restraining order. She relishes in her family, her brothers and sisters all alive and here. Relishes in Jon’s surprise when she hugs him as a true sister for the first time.
Sometimes, when the memories are still swirling through her mind, before they have settled, Sansa is surprised to see her parents alive. She remembers the swing of Ilyn Payne’s sword, a rotting head on a spike, wondering how long she had to look. The stories of a throat slit without mercy, a body dumped unceremoniously in a river, away from the eyes of the Seven.
When her father takes her to the bakery, a ferocious and ugly man comes out from behind the counter. Sansa feels bad for flinching back at the glimpse of his half-burned face in the second before his hair covers his expression. And here is Joffrey’s dog, the Hound. Sandor Clegane. The one man who had never lied in court, who had seemed to look at her needing a mother, a sister. A lover. Her mind cannot help but jump to the gentle caress of a cloak over her naked body; a dagger at her throat; dreams of rough, probing kisses.
Sansa remembers Ramsay Snow’s screams before she set his own dogs on him; Petyr Baelish's begging before Arya slit his throat on her orders; these are the memories that make her smile. She decides that some men deserve to die, and she knows which ones now. When she finds out Robb also remembers, she's relieved. She wants him to help her, wants and needs the older brother who never couldn't rescue her before. He disappoints her instead. Again.
She wonders if it's his fault or hers.
It is easy with Joffrey. All it takes is remembering her father’s head on a stake, Ros’ broken body split open by crossbow bolts. She goes back to his home on a night when he will be alone. He seems a spoiled child now that she remembers the woman she will become, once became: The Lady of Winterfell, Queen in the North. Joffrey still embodies the worst traits of his Lannister parents and Robert Baratheon. Even having Jaime Lannister’s open love and paternal care in this life only saved him from becoming a murderer, not an abuser or embezzler, a man who only knows how to take, and worse, believes he deserves to do so. She knows how to flatter him enough to let her stay; lets him touch her and hit her one last time. It is easy enough after that to force three flagons of wine down his throat and goad him into driving out to get some more. She prays it is enough and that no one else gets hurt on the way; she chose the darkest time of night, when the streets were empty. For the first time in two lives, her prayers are enough.
She does not go to his funeral.
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It is Robb's last year with them before he moves out for college, and he has been spending most of his time with either Margaery Tyrell or Myrcella Lannister; sometimes both at once. Ned tries not to consider that his son is dating both of them. He knows times are changing but there are some scenarios he simply can't fathom. He takes solace in the fact that he's heard Myrcella is seeing Trystane Martell and Margaery is in a relationship with Renly Baratheon. But sometimes Ned hears unexplained noises from Robb's room, and fatherly cowardice prevents him from actually opening the door. He tries suggesting an open-door policy to Catelyn. It's only 18 years too late. Ned doesn’t want to push Robb about dating around during a turbulent, transitional time in his life, but he is concerned. His son has never funneled his issues in such an unhealthy way. Robb had always been the active leader, facing every change and challenge head on. He had accepted Jon’s adoption with solid equanimity, embracing him as a brother immediately. He was the one who dealt with every new sibling like a pillar, ready to support as much as he could with no sway or tremor. The rare times Margaery or Myrcella stay for dinner, they are introduced as friends. Robb is never the one who extends an invitation to stay, and he seems incredibly reluctant if they accept.And then, one day, the girls are gone. Flitting away as quickly as they came, bewildering Ned.Having them around has led Ned to realize that Margaery, among the numerous Tyrell heirs and grandchildren, is Olenna’s true protégé. She's an amalgamation of her grandmother’s legendary wit and scheming tempered by her mother’s gentle, sweet demeanor. A stunning Highgarden rose, seemingly soft and sweet, hiding vicious thorns out of sight. Catelyn approves a potential romance between her son, the Stark heir, and the princess of roses. She just wishes she had contacted Olenna herself to set up a courting dinner. Ned wonders how long the old crone will be able to keep such a tight leash on her kingdom, and then he remembers Mace. If that man ever became the head of his family, the Tyrells would crumble within weeks. Olenna must be clinging to life through sheer ambition and spite against her son. Ned learns Margaery and Robb have never been romantically involved when he goes drinking with Robert. It's an outing that's become rarer and rarer these days, a far cry from college days when they spent nearly every hour of the day together. Ned swirls his customary glass of scotch and warily eyes the eldest Baratheon, who is inhaling beer after beer.Ned will blame himself, years later, when he and Stannis drag Robert to rehab. He will blame himself for what has become of his majestic best friend, now a drunken boar.Robert is talking about the latest tabloid gossip that has spread through Westeros like wildfire; his younger brother, Renly, is the subject. At first, Ned could hardly care. The younger man is frequently in the news, whether it's because of his decorated military career straight out of high school, his rank as a track and field Olympian at the age of 22, or his status as a handsome and eligible Baratheon heir.However, this time, Renly Baratheon is making headlines because he has come out of the closet. Out and proud, the reveal being a borderline obscene photo of himself in bed with Loras Tyrell. Headlines proclaim the newly minted (and simultaneously very long-term) couple is the reason Renly and Margaery's relationship fell apart. It is the knight of flowers himself who wrenched a majestic stag lord away from the princess of roses, a sin for which the media will not forgive Loras Tyrell. Robert interrupts Ned's thoughts. “He’s been fucking that girly Loras Tyrell for years now apparently, that little cunt,” Robert murmurs deep into his stein. “Probably turned Renly gay.”Ned wishes Robert wouldn’t speak like that and he says so, though he knows his words will be dismissed with a laugh, or worse, Robert doubling down. Ned and Cat have always tried to teach their children tolerance and acceptance. But Ned has to concede that he would also be thrown for a loop if any of his children weren't straight. Renly is young enough to be Robert’s son, though all of Westeros knows it was Stannis who sacrificed his youth to raise his youngest brother.Peering at Robert out of his periphery, Ned decides that he would take any news about his family's sexualities far better than Robert. Thought it may be a difficult adjustment, he would see it through. After all, it was widely known that Cat's uncle was gay, and their family had been nothing but accepting of the older man.“And to think, the boy’s been dating Margaery fucking Tyrell for years now. Gorgeous girl, and he’s going around fucking her brother instead!”Ned knows how close Sansa and Margaery are, and he wonders why his ordinarily chatty daughter hadn't seen fit to share this news during dinner. He is forcibly reminded of Joffrey and pushes away the scotch even though he knows that isn’t what is making him feel suddenly ill. Margaery, with her sweet, open face, in a relationship with a boy—no, a man—five years her senior, and no one complaining because that man is a Baratheon. Margaery, who Ned once saw giving one of her golden hair clasps to a homeless man, being cheated by a lover from a family with a proclivity for drinking and obsession, and her own brother. Ned thinks of Robb and Myrcella instead. He had been hesitant about another Lannister in his home after Joffrey, but Myrcella's sunny disposition and clear disdain for her brother had alleviated his concerns. No matter her positive qualities, though, Ned knows it won't last. She is only sixteen and Robb is leaving for college within the month. If his son wasn't willing to be in a long-distance relationship with Talisa, Myrcella has little to no chance. Sansa and Robb have also been fighting with each other, another inexplicable source of stress for Ned and Cat. It is bewildering, as Robb had always been Sansa's favorite brother and protector and savior, just as Jon is Arya's. Ned remembers his sweet children from years before, filling the house with noise and laughter, along with the harmony of barking dogs and a constantly ringing doorbell. He doesn’t know what has been going on with his usually happy, healthy family these last few years, and he desperately hopes it is simply a consequence of his children becoming teenagers.Ned feels tired suddenly. At 41, he is older than he has ever been, and he feels every year down to the marrow in his bones.Perhaps it is the scotch causing Ned's mind to conure fanciful wanderings, but he thinks he's figured out Margaery and Robb. Margaery is stunning and clever, but above all she is well-trained in Olenna's ways. She hadn't hesitated before moving on from Renly to Robb, especially after being publicly and embarrassingly broken up with. She had moved in at the exact right time, not even hesitating long enough to arrange for an arranged courtship. It also explained why Sansa and Robb were fighting—Ned remembers how grating it was when Robert and Lyanna were in the middle of their arranged courtship. Friends and siblings should never date each other.However, when he brings up Margaery and Robb’s relationship to Robert, the man snorts into his drink.“Whatever was happening must be over now. Apparently my brother’s such a girlish fuck that Tyrell's decided she prefers cunts! They truly deserve each other.”Ned feels disappointed in many things. How his best friend has changed, first and foremost. But also at the secrets his children have been keeping from him and his own general lack of awareness.Ned knows Robb is filling his life with more and more meaningless distractions to fill some kind of void. Ned wishes he knew how to help his children, wishes it was as easy as soothing tantrums or kissing boo boos or telling stories about knights and dragons and kings. He only hopes his son will tell him about his pain one day, or that he will at least settle down with and properly appreciate a girl as lovely and intelligent as Talisa or Myrcella or Margaery. ...
Robb often wished one of his family members or close friends would remember; he wants to confide in someone so badly, feels so isolated from a family that has never known war or winter or betrayal. When Sansa reveals herself, he has to confront the shameful, disappointed voice that had been hoping it would be Jon.
It all becomes so much worse after his sister remembers. He hardly recognizes this Sansa, a woman of cold and steel, a true Lady of Winterfell. Looking at her reminds him of his failures, his failures as a king and a son and a brother, his inability to lead and protect his family like his father before him. Robb knows Sansa had something to do with Joffrey Baratheon's fatal car accident, but he's too afraid to ask, to realize the life he left behind had turned his sister into an unrecognizable, unrepentant killer. Cersei Lannister showed no signs of remembering, and if she was going to do it, it would have happened at Joffrey's death. Maybe even her son’s death wasn’t enough to trigger her memories, or maybe she would be one of those who never remembers. Robb feels oddly jealous of a woman who has just lost her child.
Robb consciously or unconsciously replaces Sansa with Margaery and Myrcella. Both of them don’t remember, and if he squints, they are like the person his sister was before. It is easy to talk to them about meaningless things instead of confronting the darkness in Sansa’s eyes. They are willing companions, and if Margaery brings over Highgarden wine and drugstore cigarettes and Myrcella is willing to fool around—for Trystane is far too Dornish to really care as long as she’s happy—well, Robb welcomes the distraction. Margaery’s sexuality and Myrcella’s Dornish opinions make them perfect for the times when Robb accidentally rambles about Theon or men or bisexuality, a word he never confronts when he isn’t in the haze of being high or drunk.
A day comes around when Robb realizes that he is becoming Theon. Maybe because he never got to have him, and this is the next best alternative. Theon had slipped through his fingers like saltwater, but not before filling his lungs, setting him on fire from the inside out. Robb can never have Theon, but he can have Theon's cigarette-stained fingers, his incomprehensible taste in music, and his meaningless fumbles.
The next day, Robb makes sure Margaery and Myrcella stop coming around. Conveniently, he just manages to avoid a ridiculous and newly instated open door policy.
Robb is a coward. He has told no one, but he was accepted into the same college as Talisa. It’s just that, as always, lying was easier than telling her and his family the truth. That he still loves her, but he can no longer look her in the eyes. Not after Sansa tells him about the consequences of his one selfish act, the consequences of marrying Talisa in another life; consequences somehow even worse than her belly being split open on the floor and it being his fault for bringing her into his family, dragging her into the beating heart of war.
It’s just one more thing to hate Sansa for.
He was only 16 and he was a king and he thought himself in love (just as he does now, though he spends so much time not thinking about it). Robb knows he is a coward, has always been a coward, and is still being cowardly in avoiding Sansa.
She agrees with him. He was selfish last time. Selfish only once, but the one time it truly mattered. A good king, but much too honorable, Ned Robb Stark was. He couldn’t play the game of thrones. But now there isn’t one and he is crownless. Without the weight of it on his head, he is adrift in the sea.
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One night, Sansa comes home hours after curfew. She is swaying oddly through the door, and Ned pales when he smells alcohol and vomit on her breath. Catelyn is horrified and concerned; the Sansa they know would have never done this; every passing day, their children become more unrecognizable. Their grip on their family is loosening, and they both sense it; neither of them know how to fix it. After everything with Joffrey, they can’t bring themselves to dole out any punishment beyond a concerned reprimand. Sansa chooses to sleep in their bed that night, curled between them. She looks like the child she hasn’t been for almost 12 years, crumpled up on their bed, red hair tangled on their pillows. Ned doesn't sleep all night, deeply afraid that something sinister has happened to his daughter to make her seek comfort in this way.When they confront her, she seems conflicted. But despite how much she has changed, Ned’s beloved daughter is still the little girl he's always known. She can’t hide any truly important information from her parents. From him. In a deeply regretful voice, she tells them about the college party she went to. About drinking too much alcohol. About being kissed by Margaery Tyrell.Ned is incredibly relieved. He has been an officer of the law for over fifteen years and has seen, in graphic detail, the thousands of atrocities that could have befallen his daughter. The images are refreshed in his mind the very next day when he reports for duty. A routine investigation due to an anonymous tip had unearthed a serial killer, scant miles away from his house. Jaime and Brienne had been found in the man's basement, as he was their latest lead.Jaime was found nearly incoherent with a fever, missing a hand. Brienne has bite marks gouged into her cheekbone, and there's no telling if they are dog or human. Ned looks at the photos from the bust one time. He reads the report in a perfunctory manner before calling in federal reinforcement. He drinks himself into a stupor for the first time in years, and even that doesn’t prevent the nightmares he has for weeks. Nightmares of those photos with his children. His wife.He knows better than most that there are worse things that could have happened to his daughter than a chaste kiss from another girl. Cat is much angrier, however. For a second, Ned’s mind flickers back to Robert. He immediately throws that unconscious comparison out of his mind.Ned remembers one time when Sansa had gone to Highgarden to visit Margaery, delighted to partake in a traditional Highgarden teatime; the estate is famous for their floral tea blends. When Ned had driven up to the door to pick her up, Sansa had emerged with a flushed face and pleased, satisfied smile. Ned had looked over her shoulder and seen Margaery, Olenna, and Loras all sitting at the table, surrounded by lemon cakes; every one of them had predatory gleams in their eyes and smirks on their faces, looking perfectly capable of ravishing his daughter in one way or another. Ned had shuddered.But he knew Margaery be kind and charitable among her people, and that is more than Ned can say for any of Sansa’s boyfriends. Before falling asleep, he thinks of what could have been had Sansa been drawn to women in return. Would her eyes have strayed to the lady of flowers rather than the knight? Margaery Tyrell would have been a choice he could have approved of, gentle and clever and ambitious. Better than the men Ned is forced to confront every day. ...
Sansa lets Margaery goad her into attending a party at a local college, one she had partied at frequently when Renly had been enrolled there. Margaery is alluring and lovely and manipulative in both of the lives Sansa has known her. They are both unpopular now, with Sansa being Joffrey’s leftovers and Margaery being the jilted girlfriend of a gay man, even after she comes out herself. Sansa tries to be supportive even though every time she wants to talk to Robb alone, it seems like Margaery is there with him, glued to his side or trying to hide empty bottles of wine underneath the bedcovers. Sometimes, Sansa thinks Margaery came out more to save face than because of any real desire to be out and proud. She wouldn’t put it past Margaery to have started planning an headline worthy coming out the second she realized she was Renly’s beard.
Sansa’s first college party is a bad time to find out she is a lightweight. Margaery watches her get drunk embarrassingly quickly before leaning over and kissing her with soft, insistent lips. Even drunk, Sansa can see the genuine vulnerability in Margaery’s eyes; she believes Margaery’s desire is sincere, that the other girl wants this to be something real. Sansa wouldn’t have said no during the sober light of day, because Margaery, despite all her faults is…kind and amazing and absolutely beautiful. But she has to walk away, angry that Margaery got her drunk before kissing her, in an unfamiliar environment, barely a few months out of an abusive relationship. Even at her most sincere, Margaery has to choose a time when Sansa is vulnerable, always planning how to maximize her success with any opponent, even a crush.
Only after stumbling away does Sansa remember Margaery is the only person she knows at this party. When she’s alone, he approaches her. It is dark in the room, and people are writhing about, the smell of cheap beer permeating every corner, the rhythm of the music beating in her skull. She is drunk and can’t see his face fully. Glances show he is not the most handsome man, but his interest is flattering in her inebriated state. As the music thrums around her, fragments of his face are revealed to her. Her eyes widen and her hearing goes out as she recognizes who he is, and she spins around to get away from him; he pulls her back with a bruising grip on her arm. She thinks she is crying out, but she doesn’t know for sure, as all sound is seemingly sucked into the drunken mass of music and spilled drinks and her own flailing panic.
Wormy lips. Icy eyes. A sweet, rank smell. Panic is blurring her vision until someone else pulls her out of his grasp.
Theon.
She has not seen him in years and years. She would not have recognized him had she not seen his emaciated form in a past life. His hair has gone silver, and she thinks he has less fingers than he did before. He loved the bow and the fiddle like last time, and in this life he took particular pride in his painted nails. Theon doesn’t look her in the eyes, and her own gaze is fixed on the once beautiful nails, but he whispers something unintelligible and pulls her away. Together, they lose Ramsay Bolton in the sea of sweaty bodies.
Not her. Not her, Sansa thinks she sees him whisper as he walks back to Ramsay even as she tries to pull him to safety. Theon is shaking violently even as his feet carry him into Ramsay’s arms, desperate to appease his violent master after rescuing his kill. He trembles and Sansa has never seen anything braver than his willingness to sacrifice himself for who he only knows as a bratty little girl who once made him a flower crown for his birthday. The bite marks on his neck are perfectly paired with the rage and cruelty in Ramsay’s icy eyes.
Sansa’s head is swimming and the colors in the room keep flashing around her, growing more intense with her panic. She throws up in the bathroom and then, huddled up on the cold tile floor, she calls the police. She curses herself for being drunk. He was supposed to be the next one. The next one after Joffrey.
Ramsay is a killer again. To be honest, she cannot imagine him as anything else. The police (her father?) raid his basement after her call. They find a pack of starving dogs. They find Detectives Jaime Lannister and Brienne Tarth in his basement. They find Jeyne Poole. Sansa has not thought about Jeyne for a long time, and the guilt rises up acrid. Bitter as blood. Bitter as vomit.
His neighbors have been reporting the smell of rotting meat emanating from his house. Roose Bolton is a high enough in his own police precinct to have kept anyone from investigating, turning a blind eye to his bastard's murder den. The police want to thank whoever called in the anonymous tip. She vomits again. Remembers his hands on her and thinks about them on Jeyne. On Theon. He has saved her once again.
That night, she sleeps with her lady mother and lord father. She is surprised to find them warm when she wakes up in the middle of the night, to find them alive. Alive, alive, alive. When they confront her a few days later, she feels the overwhelming urge to tell them. About all the men who are not brave, or gentle, or strong. About memories. But instead, she talks about Margaery.
Sansa remains friends with Margaery because she was one of the kinder people in a past life filled with horrors. And because maintaining a Tyrell connection is important. Sansa may have been a slow learner, but she has not forgotten all the lessons Petyr Baelish taught his daughter Alayne. She and Margaery do not speak of the kiss, though Sansa knows she would not refuse a relationship offered during the clear light of day. But Margaery never tries again.
It’s for the best, Sansa decides. After all, Margaery may have been kind and clever, but she was another player in the courtly games of King’s Landing. A good player, at that.
There was only one person who did not play with her. Who was unkind and brusque, but honorably and straightforwardly so, who played no games but those of combat, blood thrumming to stay alive. Sansa knows where he is now. One day, she will go to him. But only after Ramsay is gone.
Sansa visits Jeyne and Theon in the hospital to thank them for saving her a second time. She thinks about telling Robb, but Theon’s broken body and shattered spirit stop her. Robb is going to college soon after all, and every day he seems more eager to get away; he refuses to speak with her. Theon cries when he sees his shadow. He and Jeyne crawl into each other’s beds during the night; during the day, a renowned psychologist studies them like lab experiments. Sansa does not like Dr. Raven’s studying gaze, and she is glad when Asha arrives, looks at her brother and Jeyne, and tells the doctors they are both going home with her.
Ramsay is in jail now. But Sansa knows Ramsay Snow. Knows she needs to kill him. Neither she nor Theon nor Jeyne will be able to sleep until he is dead. Her time will come.
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The house has been quite busy for the last several days, as Catelyn has set up an arranged courtship for Robb, despite the fact that he will be leaving in a few weeks. For one merry night, the Stark clan and the Frey family will come together for a lavish dinner engagement, with Robb and Roslin Frey as the guests of honor. The dinner is intended public encouragement for them to meet, spend time together, and get to know each other; perhaps it will be the start of a wonderful love story. Ned knows the practice of arranged courting has gone out of fashion, had been fading even when he was a young man. But he vividly remembers the dinner held for Brandon and Cat because it had been the first time he had seen his wife, conversing animatedly as she was with his older brother. Her dark red hair had rippled under the candlelight, and her eyes had reminded him of cold, crisp Winterfell nights. At the time he had not recognized the feeling of envy in his breastbone as he watched those impossibly blue eyes focused unerringly on Brandon.His beautiful wife thinks this dinner will help Robb; they are both worried about his dalliances with Myrcella and Margaery, his breakup with Talisa, all of the recent behavior that has been so unlike him. Ned thinks that Robb’s intense feelings are just a natural part of the transition from youth to adulthood, but he has learned not to refuse his wife her schemes. He himself is excited about partaking in a feast rife with Cat’s cooking, savory meat pies and spiced rum spilling over on tables covered with decades of scratches, shared by friends and family who want to bid Robb goodbye. Feasts always transport Ned back to his youth, remembering stories that become clearer with the help of warm wine and hearty laughter. He remembers his six children running around these same tables years and years ago, delighted by the chaotic merriment of such gatherings. Ned hopes this one will bring them together again.Roslin Frey is much lovelier than the rest of her family. Only 19 years old, she has been raised solely to find an advantageous marriage and bear children, for the Freys are one of the most backwards, regressive families in Westeros. The difference between her and her uncouth brothers is stark and embarrassing. With her sweet doe eyes and charming giggles, she glows with youth and gentle happiness. When Ned sees the girl blushing and eyeing Edmure Tully across the table, he snorts into his dinner. But when he sees Edmure return her shy gaze with hooded eyes, Ned knows all is lost. Cat looks ready to start planning Robb and Roslin’s wedding, and Ned can only pray that his poor brother-in-law survives Cat’s legendary wrath.Roslin will give birth to Edmure’s first child barely two years later; a quietly radiant wife and mother with a beautiful, bouncing baby boy. Ned likes her, of course. Gentle and beautiful as she is, he almost wonders if she is truly a Frey. He is happy with any role he played in helping her escape her family.
...
Robb leaves for college without looking back. Leaves Talisa and his family. Leaves Theon.
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Jeyne Westerling is a sweet girl, quiet and unassuming. She reminds Ned of a time that, in his mind, is firmly in a box labeled Before—a time when Robert was a lean young man who blushed when Lyanna entered the room and Brandon took Cat on moonlit dates; a time when Rhaegar Targaryen left gentle kisses on brown cheekbones instead of a milky brow; a time when Ned was young, his dreams filled with Ashara Selmy’s purple eyes. That world made had been simple and happy and it had made sense—but it had faded into nonexistence, a photograph weathered and thin from being rubbed over and over.Jeyne seems the same way. She is mousy. Unobtrusive. A wallflower. A perfectly fine girl, but in front of Talisa’s colorful confidence, Margaery’s cunning wit, and Myrcella’s glowing smile, she seems washed out, like she could just as easily disappear in the background. Ned and Catelyn are surprised—pleasantly surprised, they suppose—but still surprised at Robb’s choice.When he introduces her, Robb grips her hand tight with clammy fingers. He tells them he has decided to be a kindergarten teacher. Ned and Catelyn don’t disagree with his decision, but they are shocked. A part of Ned can’t help but think of Robb’s choice as a rejection of his heritage, both Stark and Tully.He remembers when his son was small enough to sit on his shoulders, when Robb's freckled cheeks were covered with a ruddy blush instead of a trimmed beard. Ned would swing him around the precinct during slow, sticky days, and Robb would be enamored by the job, the investigations, the faith people had in Ned to bring them justice. He remembers Lyanna taking Robb and Jon through Stark Industries, the lifeblood of the Starks’ status as a “noble” family of Westeros, remembers his little boys marveling at bustling chrome hallways and glass conference rooms, at enormous whiteboards filled with ideas and sketches and designs. He remembers quiet nights with the whole family bundled together in the den, watching both of Robb’s grandfathers on television, fighting for their constituents during parliamentary meetings. Starks and Tullys had always been in the public eye: politicians and police chiefs, television personalities, political journalists, and businessmen. No one in either of their families, and especially no man (Ned is ashamed to think), has ever had a career even approaching that of a kindergarten teacher. Robb’s announcement is such a surprise that poor Jeyne is completely overshadowed.Where is the son who wanted to take over Stark Industries or be a politician like his grandfathers, who seemed so ready and excited to be a leader and a presence and a voice?It is equally as surprising and difficult to find out, through a malicious phone call from Mrs. Westerling, that the only reason Robb has brought Jeyne home, the only reason they are in a serious courtship, is because of a pregnancy scare. Though the test had come back negative, Robb and Jeyne had decided to try for a real relationship. Jeyne could have been anyone, and Ned and Cat would have been disappointed about the circumstances nonetheless.Ned doesn’t blame her, however. She is kind and intelligent, and genuinely embarrassed by both the circumstances and her mother. Ned forces himself to be content with the fact that his son is acting more like his old self, moving forward with someone who could make him happy. Catelyn is won over by Jeyne’s proper manners and the obvious adoration in her eyes whenever she looks at Robb. They smile at each other in bed after the happy couple leaves, exhaling contentedly. Maybe all would be alright now. Robb and Jeyne are broken up three months later....
Robb likes college well enough, but something keeps him from falling in love with the experience. He makes friends and goes to loud parties and takes interesting classes, but the deep glut of unhappiness inside him seems to grow bigger every day. He can’t avoid the reasons why; he’s been looking at men with dark hair and bright eyes and smirking mouths more often than not, and the word “bisexual” starts moving from the periphery to the forefront of his mind. And he remembers Theon, Theon who fucked and was fucked by men and women alike, because no one turned him down. And he misses Theon, even though it’s been years. He misses his loud family even though he was so eager to get away, misses the smell of dog hair and fried fish that filled his home, the lack of privacy or silence. He loves children, but he doesn’t know if he’s going to be a good kindergarten teacher; his early education classes are deceptively difficult.
He has nightmares every night, a delayed reaction to his triggering arrangement with Roslin Frey. Every night, he sees Talisa’s bloody corpse and his mother’s slit throat, sees his son as nothing but a pool of blood, and one night he can’t stand it. He can’t be alone he doesn’t know what to do he’s going crazy he needs someone needs anyone needs another person warm and real needs to touch and she shows up and she doesn’t want to be at this party either hot and stifling drunk on warm beer and trashy music and…and…
The next morning, Robb hates himself more than he thinks he’s ever hated himself before. But she is lovely through sober eyes, her back bare in the rising sun, three freckles on her shoulder. And he lets himself look. Look at light brown hair and gentle eyes and a smiling mouth. Look at the exact opposite of Theon.
Robb is bisexual and he has nightmares every night, he misses his family and he can’t stop thinking about Theon, he doesn’t know how to be a teacher and sometimes he hates himself. And in two weeks, a girl with big brown eyes and light brown hair shows up to his dorm crying, hand on her flat stomach, and all he sees is his son, a mess of blood splattered on the ground.
When the results come back negative he doesn’t know if he’s disappointed or relieved. But with this girl, who is smiling and gentle and warm, perhaps he will have another son someday.
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Ned can tell when Catelyn is worried about something. He has, after all, loved his wife through decades of marriage and anxiety alike. Loves her more every day, because the laugh lines around her eyes and the gray spilling into her hair, all the ways they have changed together, make her more and more beautiful in his eyes. So he listens to her worries; apparently, she has heard gossip about the circumstances surrounding Robb’s latest breakup. Their son’s own explanation of the matter had been frustratingly lacking.According to Catelyn, Robb had accompanied Jeyne to a family dinner. Ned would have seen this as a promising sign of Robb’s commitment to the relationship, had he not shuddered at the thought of his poor son dealing with the likes of Mrs. Westerling for an entire evening. However, all his expectations are upended when Cat gets to the crux of her story: Robb had been publicly dumped at said event because Jeyne had walked in on him with his hand down her brother’s pants.Ned can only reassure his wife by reminding her that the story is only a rumor; they need to trust that Robb would have done the right thing, no matter how difficult the situation. His son has never been selfish. Ned does not know whether Cat is upset because Robb supposedly cheated or because he cheated with a man. Somewhere deep inside, that worries him. When he decides he doesn’t need to broach the subject, he knows he is being a coward. It is surprising how much more cowardly he can be about his family than any other avenue of his life.Late at night, Ned thinks back to so many puzzling moments that suddenly fit together, no matter how much he wishes they wouldn't. Robb’s recent moodiness, the secrets he’s clearly keeping from his family. Ned still remembers the secret adoration he had once seen in Sansa’s eyes when she looked at Theon. She and Robb have always had the same eyes.Ned does not hate the thought of his son and Raynald Westerling. Raynald, who has been brave and lighthearted, funny and selfless every time Ned has met him…a true knight, bristling mustache and all. …
Robb doesn’t regret it though he knows he should. He shouldn’t have agreed to go and meet all of the Westerlings in the first place and wishes Jeyne hadn’t asked him after just three months of dating. He drinks too much wine and averts his eyes from Mrs. Westerling’s angry gaze, which is disconcertedly aimed more at Jeyne than himself.
The only highlight of the evening is Jeyne’s brother. Raynald is cheerful, easygoing; he makes Robb laugh so hard, wine spills all over his shirt. Robb dabs at himself with a napkin, and when he looks back, Raynald meets his gaze with unmistakably darkened eyes. Darkened eyes underneath a dark fringe of hair, a rakish grin almost hidden behind smoke-stained fingers. Raynald tilts his head toward the bathroom before getting up.
Robb thinks about mistakes made in previous lives; mistakes and their consequences. He thinks of how much lighter his head feels without a crown. He waits a few minutes before following.
He doesn’t regret it. Not when he feels something finally slot into place, when he feels right for the first time in so long. Raynald’s beard is burning along his jaw and he is firm in all the places Jeyne is soft and giving. He groans where she whimpers. When Robb unbuttons his jeans, his hand wraps around something hot and hard.
He doesn’t regret it until Jeyne walks in. Even then, he regrets the hurt in her eyes more than the end of their relationship.
When Robb goes home, he calls his family for the first time in a long time. Jon is first because Jon is his best friend and closest brother, cousin or not. He is concerned and tries to reassure Robb that Jeyne will take him back, but Robb manages to choke out an explanation, hysterical and relieved. He doesn’t want to go back. And Jon…just understands like Robb knew he would. Awkwardly offers to set him up with his male friends until Robb interrupts, laughing, laughing! after so long. He knows what he’s done was selfish, but this time it will be a decision for the better. He can feel it.
And it is, it is so much better. He still doesn’t regret it, not even after he and Raynald part ways, both of them oddly judgmental of how the other has hurt Jeyne. But first they have a few more fumbles, a few more nights of laughter and beard burn, calloused hands and deep groans. For the first time, he sees life how it could be. How it could have been had they all stayed in Winterfell last time. Had he been a better king.
He loves teaching the children no matter how frustrating it can be, loves knowing he is helping them grow up in a world so unlike the Westeros he knew before. He wishes he had been Lord of Winterfell during peacetime, focused on securing food and raising the next generation of Winterfell’s children instead of planning battles and burying the dead. He’d rather clean up after elementary schoolers than behead traitors; soothing children is infinitely easier than controlling bannermen. His favorite student is little Lyanna Mormont, who is just as serious and intelligent about coloring in the lines as she once was about battle strategy. He is glad all she has to worry about is what crayons to use this time around, though he has no doubt she will grow up to become the same formidable woman she once was.
Robb even calls Sansa. They have a real conversation after what feels like years, and though they are still both hiding secrets…it’s nice. Nice to talk to someone who truly understands. To think about the few memories that were happy, an entire childhood of peace before their father went to King’s Landing. To talk about how odd this world can seem sometimes through the haze of remembering, the constant inverted feeling of déjà vu, of knowing more than everyone else around you. She is still his little sister; happy for him though she scolds him for being ungentlemanly toward Jeyne. He thinks she is secretly glad at his selfishness despite her reprimands.
Robb does not regret any of the above.
What Robb regrets is when Sansa’s voice becomes gentle and whispery, and she tells him how she had found Theon more than a year ago. Tells him what she has kept from him, what he has gotten so wrong and done nothing about for years. He regrets that whispered secret more than Jeyne’s hurt gasp at her brother’s hickeys, clear for all to see.
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These days, all of Ned’s children are making decisions that keep him up at night; he never expects Jon to be the worst of them all. His adopted son has refused to go to college, instead running off to join the Night’s Watch. A borderline paramilitary, eco-terrorist organization, the watch is one of the only populations who interact with wildlings north of the wall. The Free Folk are notoriously plagued by rampant poverty and violence, and the Watch functions as part border patrol and part government-ordered aid provider for those beyond the wall. The fact that it got most of its work done through illegal smuggling or violent force was an open secret, one that was upheld because of how important the legendary wall and the brotherhood of the Watch had been during the famous winters and invasions of ancient history. It was a historical respect that lived on in the freedom given to the Watch to this day.Ned respects Aemon, the current leader of the Watch; he was a legendary public figure who had passed immense civil rights legislation in his youth and was now one of the foremost historians in Westeros. But Ned still wishes Jon would reconsider such a life-altering decision. He had seen too many men from the Night’s Watch in jail after protests that morphed into violent riots, smuggling raids to get wildling refugees across the border, both out of and into Westeros. Decades ago, Ned had barely pulled Benjen away from the Night’s Watch by begging him to become a wildlife ranger with the Westerosi government instead; he does not know if he has the energy to do the same for his son in all but blood. Ned has always felt guilty about the beginning of Jon’s life and his lack of involvement in it. It had been a time of much turmoil in his own life; he had been working multiple cases and pushing to become a Sergeant, raising two rambunctious toddlers, and helping Cat through an incredibly difficult third pregnancy. His nephew had fallen into the periphery of his life.Lyanna herself had not been ready for a child, pushing her way through business school, fighting their father to let her take over the company even after all three of his sons had bowed out of the responsibility. His strong, bright little sister, who had already been handling so much responsibility, ending up pregnant by a married man. Many years and alcoholic beverages later, she tells Ned that she kept the baby less because she wanted it, and more because Rhaegar did, falling to his knees and pressing his face to her belly with quiet reverence.Ned has to admit Rhaegar did the honorable thing by publicly claiming Lyanna’s child as his own, even leaving Elia to marry Lyanna. Ned knows he keeps in touch with his first two children, both of whom Elia had relocated away to Dorne, where they were thriving by all accounts. Though the sheer misogyny of the time still leaves a bitter taste in Ned’s mouth, he knows that Rhaegar marrying Lyanna strengthened her claim within the company at a time when less than a fraction of a fraction of the CEOs, politicians, or leaders in Westeros were women.When Jon was born, it was too much for a newly married couple; true love does not a baby raise. Rhaegar had moved across the city to marry her, away from the friends and extended family who had helped raise his first two children. Lyanna was barely 21 and hardly the willing housewife and mother Elia had been; she couldn’t handle school, learning how to run the business, and a newborn baby at the same time. It was Jon Connington who stepped in, less babysitter and more pseudo-father figure, who learned to change diapers and heat formula for the child of the man he silently loved. The child named half after him and half after Jon Arryn (Rhaegar grumbles about it still, but they all know Aegon was a terrible name).When Jon Targaryen is 3 years old, Jon Connington isn’t there. He’s at work, trying to find a half-way home for a domestic abuse victim. Rhaegar isn’t there. He's in the middle of a speaking tour, lecturing about music theory at some university across the country. Lyanna can’t be there. She needs to handle an urgent client meeting, and she is desperately calling every relative she can think of to babysit her three-year old son. Ned doesn’t pick up the phone, because Ned is 27 years old and exhausted after work and just wants to eat dinner with his wife and children. He thinks, pettily, that he doesn’t have the energy to listen to his little sister’s problems for another night.Rhaella Targaryen answers the phone.And so Lyanna leaves Ned’s sweet boy, his adopted son, with Aerys Targaryen. Because Rhaegar hasn’t told his new wife about the horror that was his home, the monster his father.Jon goes through something unimaginable for a week, abuse he does not speak of to this day, Rhaella as helpless to protect him as herself. And Ned is sure Aerys would have done worse had Jaime Lannister, then a bright new military recruit, not heard the screaming and rushed in, a fool with guns blazing. Ned had been thankful until he had stepped into the house only to see Aerys’ body on the floor, his widow looking down at it with a distant look in her eyes.Social services recommend someone else take permanent responsibility for the boy. Jon Connington asks, begs Ned and Cat to take in this child who has been overlooked so many times before. And they don’t bother protesting or even asking Lyanna’s permission when they see Jon, his face covered in tears and his throat scratched from screaming, his shoulder and half his chest burned to blisters. By the end of the night, they have their second son, and Jon Targaryen-Stark becomes a permanent fixture in their home. Ned pretends not to see Jon Connington cry in relief for the toddler he has spent his youth raising.It is Robb who makes the adoption possible at all, immediately taking to a little brother and loving Jon enough to make up for a lifetime, a week of hurt. It is Robb who includes Jon in every game Sansa excludes him from, protects him from bullies, shares all his toys. It is Robb who lets Jon crawl into his bed after nightmares, even though he knows it will be wet in the morning. It is Robb who convinces him to hold a newborn Arya, gives them all the gift of seeing Jon fall in love with his favorite sibling, the squalling newborn he will spend his life protecting and loving as a beloved older brother.Jon has grown into the kindest, gentlest, most courageous young man, a fine son. Yet, Ned still wonders if there is no overcoming those first three years. Of overcoming a lifetime of only seeing your parents during long weekends and major holidays, seeing them love each other more than they love you. A lifetime of depressive episodes and gloomy moods. Ned still worries that he did something desperately wrong raising Jon that he missed something or never bothered to glue something broken back together. When Jon comes home for the first time after leaving, he brings a young man with him. The boy’s name is Satin and Ned recognizes him from his rap sheet.Drug use. Truancy.Solicitation.He does not know why Jon is associating with this boy, but he forces himself to hold his tongue. Despite the circumstances, however, he cannot ignore the bright shine of hero worship in Satin’s eyes whenever he looks at Jon. Cannot ignore the way his too skinny wrists stick out from his shirt, the way he tucks into the food as if it will be taken away. Jon bestows him gentle, almost paternal attention, and when he isn’t looking…dark eyes framed with surprisingly long eyelashes soften in gentle adoration right back at him.Ned disapproves of this obvious infatuation, until he thinks about how few people in Jon’s life have ever looked at him with unadulterated affection. It took long enough for Catelyn to treat him with the endless patience, adoration, and fairness she gave Robb and Sansa, as the Tullys had never been known for loving children who weren’t their own and she had been more burdened by another child than him.Satin’s eyes hold an ephemeral puppy love, and he is so desperately young. They’re both so desperately young. Barely adults and making life-changing decisions. Like the 27-year-old Ned had since shed, the young man trying to be a sergeant, about to have his third child. Jon and Satin are so young, and already making decisions, having to make decisions like joining the Night's Watch. Like engaging in solicitation.Jon has also come home to tell them about another important decision he has made. He wants to change his name. Wants to become just Jon Stark. Stark for his father, not Lyanna. Ned and Catelyn both protest, but Jon insists. His name should represent his parents, shouldn’t it? Ned has to blink away tears borne of paternal affection and pride; he has never received such an honor, not in so many years of life and service. He looks at his son, who is faltering under the unexpected tears, but who still refuses to change his mind. When had this boy become so confident, so wise, so strong, not just a fine son but a fine leader as well?Years later, Jon himself is as desperately proud when he talks about Satin, the boy he was once assigned to mentor. Their professional relationship had slowly simmered into true, deep friendship. Jon had always referred to Satin as clever and fearless, never focusing on his past, and the boy had bloomed under the praise and attention. He will become an activist for other victims of sex trafficking, will end up in a loving relationship. Ned doesn’t really understand, but he feels himself swelling with just as much pride. Pride for both of them, young, dark boys with too skinny wrists. …
Jon feels free for the first time. For the first time, he’s not the boy whose parents love each other, but don’t love him. He’s not the boy whose grandfather was shot in front of him after setting him on fire. He’s not the boy who forced Jaime Lannister through a trial for murder, ruining a promising military career.
The Night’s Watch doesn’t care who you are, only what you do. He has been dreaming of joining since he was a child, listening to stories on Uncle Benjen’s knee.
Jon finds friends for the first time, people who have chosen to spend time with him, make sacrifices for him, risk their lives for him. Jon loves and appreciates his family, all his brothers and sisters, but nobody has ever chosen to be his friend before. Here he finds Sam Tarly. Aemon. Satin. Pyp and Grenn. Eddison.
After he ventures across the wall for the first time, he finds Tormund. Mance and Val.
Ygritte.
Jon teaches Wildlings how to read and write, studies history with Aemon, and stands up for himself and Sam. Argues wildling issues in court surprisingly well despite his lack of formal training. Helps find displaced free folk jobs and support networks in the big cities of Westeros, where they can disappear into new lives. Eventually, he helps smuggle wildlings across the wall, sneaking across the Westerosi border. Breaks and bails his comrades out of jail after protests and raids. Confronts evil, feral men, rapists and murderers in the woods, and brings them to justice, just like his father.
Jon loves the Night’s Watch, but he loves the Free Folk more. He spends every spare second thinking about how it could be improved, how they could treat the wildlings more respectfully, make the Free Folk truly free, consider improving their native lands and rehoming them in the same craggy rocks and wind-bitten caves they dream of. He talks to the wildlings who refuse to approach the Night’s Watch for help and tries to find out why. Advocates allowing wildlings to have leadership positions in the Night’s Watch, something that has never been allowed before. Talks about dissembling generations of systemic distrust from both sides of the wall. Tries to teach wildlings that the Night’s Watch isn’t a government conspiracy to trap them, tries to teach the Night’s Watch that wildlings are not uneducated savages who can’t decide what’s best for their own lives.
Despite its flaws, the Night’s Watch is where Jon belongs. It respects him for what he does, not for his powerful Frankensteinian mish-mash of a surname. It lets him help people. Help people like Gilly, so that she can fall in love with Sam and bless him with fatherhood. People like Osha, so that she can one day share her love with Hodor and Bran and Rickon. People like Olly, so that he can buy his parents their first house one day. People like Satin, so that he can make up for years of youth lost on the streets.
Even with everything else going on, sometimes Jon catches Aemon looking at him through the whirlwind of activity. Looking at him appraisingly. Like he’s waiting, anticipating for Jon to do something. To say something.
To remember something.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Ned notices the PFLAG sticker covering the bumper of Howland Reed’s car. It’s incredibly large and obnoxiously colored, somehow both neon and pastel; it hurts to look at. Ned thinks about the sticker a lot during the summer of his 43rd year so that he doesn’t have to think about why Howland Reed’s car is in his driveway so often in the first place. Ned thinks about a lot of things so that he doesn’t have to think about the sound of Bran’s screaming, the crunch of his bones, the thunderous snap of a tree branch giving way.Instead, Ned thinks about how quickly Maester Luwin acted, saving Bran’s life and the majority of his back. He thinks about Dr. Qyburn, who came in specifically to rebuild Bran’s spine enough to limit paralysis to the lower half of the body; he thinks about how much his hand itched to snap the man in two when he referred to Bran as an “interesting challenge.” Ned thinks about Dr. Raven, frightening and perceptive, who had eyed Bran like he was a lab animal to study under the guise of offering psychological counseling. His hand itches again. He quickly forces himself to think about Old Nan, the firm but gentle nurse, who had looked at them all with pity. He thinks about how Jon and Robb had rushed back home to be at Bran’s bedside, his grown, aloof sons who still know the importance of family all too well.Ned thinks about the fact that Brienne was one of the only officers to visit, even after a 12-hour shift at the precinct. He thinks about how quickly she befriended both Cat and Sansa, how she personally ensured that Tarth Prosthetics would supply Bran’s state-of-the-art wheelchair and back brace, how she showed up at every appointment they had with her sister’s company. Ned wonders whether she did the same for Jaime when he got fitted for his hand, wonders whether that was why she had agreed to marry him. Marry him mere months after his highly publicized divorce with Cersei, who had used her third-trimester pregnancy (Jaime's fourth child with her) to her advantage during the court proceedings.Most of the time, though, Ned thinks about Howland Reed’s PFLAG sticker, affixed to the car sitting in his driveway. Howland was Ned’s very first partner from the beginning of his career, one of his oldest and most honorable friends, and his children are no better. Both rambunctious, adventurous, and brave, all that he and Howland were in their own youth. Bless the man for sending Meera and Jojen over every day, so that they can take the place of friends Bran no longer sees at school, so that they can bring homework and gossip, so that they can make the house bright with their noise and laughter; every day, they drive the tragedy away bit by bit. It reminds Ned of when his children were young, and his home was never silent; someone was always tripping or shouting or laughing. He never thought he would miss the lack of peace, but now that his house is dark and somber, he would give anything to go back. His soul weeps for Bran, who was all chatter and energy, cut down to a serious, despondent boy. There are times when Bran seems less like he is traumatized from the incident and his disability, and more like he has died, replaced by a completely different person. It frightens Ned immensely. But his family, along with Jojen and Meera, have rallied together; they will bring the light back into Bran’s eyes day by day.Before those days come, however, Ned doesn’t want to think about his son’s eyes. So he thinks about the sticker instead. Howland Reed is one of the most supportive parents Ned has ever seen. He is incredibly proud of his son, and though he is small, he is vociferous; his love fills up the room. Even Ned’s untrained eye can tell that Jojen is not heterosexually inclined. The Reed boy is delicate and effusive, sensitive in a way Ned rarely sees in teenage boys. Cat notices too, and despite her uncle, despite the tolerance they have always taught their children, she seems hesitant to let Jojen and Bran sleep in the same room together. Ned still doesn’t confront her.Ned focuses more on Meera these days, anyway. He has been eyeing the relationship between her and his son. Perhaps he is deluding himself, distracting himself with whimsical daydreams, but Ned feels like there is something between them. Some deeper connection, a bond that goes beyond casual friendship. Nothing overtly romantic of course, for his son is barely thirteen and still recovering, but perhaps one day in the future something will happen. He can hope, because Meera (and Jojen) draw out the boy Bran used to be, lively and emotive, full of spark.He, of course, shares his thoughts with Howland, joking and serious at the same time. Howland laughs in his face, tells him his daughter will be felled by no man. Ned flushes; Jojen is not the only Reed child who is gay. Maybe that explains why the sticker is so big.Ned is embarrassed about his own biased judgement and lack of awareness, his lack of consideration for these topics when they are not spelled out for him. He can’t help but be disappointed. Of course he was happy at the thought of Meera and his son, wild and rambunctious as she is, with the soul of a warrior. Just like Lyanna and Arya. …
When Bran falls for the second time, he is high up in a tree, trying to get to the top, even though his parents have warned him about how dangerous it is. He just can't resist; there is something about it, the sensation of climbing, of being up high, the bird's eye view, the wind in his face, that makes him feel like he is pulling apart the secrets of the universe. He thinks about how he has always loved climbing, feels the leaves rustle around him...when suddenly he is startled by a raven appearing right in front of his face. It has oddly cloudy eyes and a chipped beak, and it is studying him. Bran stumbles back, slipping; his hands scramble for purchase, but he ends up letting go of the branch though he has climbed this tree dozens of times, has built treehouses in it under his father's steadying hands.
It isn’t until he is falling that he realizes how high up he really was. The raven is watching his descent downward, observing silently. It is still looking him in the eyes.
As Bran falls, he has a second to wonder if this is what it feels like to fly.
One good thing about remembering is that he is preoccupied with sifting through the memories that burst into his brain as soon as he makes impact with the ground. It hurts, because he doesn’t just remember his own past life, but the thousands of lives, past and present and future, thousands of timelines and perspectives he has invaded. It makes the physical pain feel like gentle fizzing in the background, sweet crackling as his vertebrae shatter and his legs and arms and torso go numb. His lady mother happens upon him relatively quickly. He remembers screaming, but doesn’t know whether the sound was coming out of his mouth or hers.
The Three-Eyed Raven finds him relatively quickly; he is glad it is much faster than last time. He inspires a lot of anger in Ned, which this new Brandon Stark finds detachedly amusing. Bran hopes he learns more from Brynden this time around. Hopes the man knows he will kill him if he is toyed with. He wonders if he will meet the Children of the Earth again, wonders whether Brynden still lives in a cave. It is an amusing thought; he is thirteen, after all. It seems much younger now than it did last time.
He is glad to see Meera and Jojen. They seem more familiar than his family sometimes. Seeing them bring him homework and laugh about the kids at school makes him happy, happy because he does love them, and it is better than seeing them hungry, paranoid, shivering in the snow. Seeing them dead.
Sometimes, he feels himself leaving his body, leaving Brandon Stark behind in a way that he knows frightens his family; he wonders if it’s a precursor of warging, or if he is simply losing his mind. He hopes there are no secrets for him to discover this time. This time Jon is a Targaryen from the start, Hodor is just their neighbor who has always had intellectual disabilities. Brandon desperately hopes there is no Night King to hunt him.
There is more clarity this time around as well; perhaps because he hasn’t been training yet. Perhaps because the memories are hazy and detached, as if he watched them instead of living them. This time, he manages smiles, manages at least a thin veneer of real emotion. Manages to pursue genuine friendships with Meera and Jojen; manages to remain Bran Stark. They are just children. As is he.
His eyes are drawn to Jojen more this time around as well. Jojen, who is 14 and incredibly lanky, but has the same youthful, elven face. Who still has seizures, but just takes medication for his epilepsy, who is so much lighter without his gift, his dreams. Who has green sight only in that his eyes are green in color, brilliant and clear. Jojen, who is shy at first, and then chatty and verbose every meeting after. He giggles instead of laughing and Bran wants to stroke his fine, blonde hair, wants to kiss him, just to see if his lips are as soft as they look. Where Meera is rough and wild and hard, Jojen is soft and vulnerable and incredibly lovely, though equally wild. Bran can’t look at him sometimes, and he hopes Jojen doesn’t notice; he has shared dreams, gifts, lives with this boy. Bran had been worried about the feelings he was having for boys, feelings all his friends were having for girls instead; but after remembering, being gay seems so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
He is sitting with just Meera one day, and it isn’t a good day. He knows he has ignored her questions at least twice, knows he is more Raven than Bran. He is looking into Summer’s eyes across the yard; he is looking back. The direwolf is standing near the tree he fell from.
He notices Jojen walking up the driveway and it brings him back a little bit; he tears his eyes away from his dog and manages a little smile.
Meera says something again, and he forces himself to focus on her. She looks grim.
“He doesn’t remember, you know.”
He is pulled between Bran and the Raven all the time, but both are too intelligent to misunderstand her. She has hidden it well. She will be a good confidante in the future, when she learns to trust him again.
“I won’t let you hurt him this time, Brandon Stark. He may love you, but he will not die for you again. I won’t let anyone die for you again. Do with that what you will.”
She goes quiet because Jojen has entered the house, has bound over to kiss her on the cheek. As he is reaching for Bran, he seizes. Bran has a feeling this has happened in front of him before, in this life, and he was too detached to notice; now, it fills him with fear. Fills him with a panic that belongs solely to Bran Stark, which makes it a gift as much as a curse. He curses his body as Meera calmly falls to her knees, places a pillow under Jojen’s head, and holds his hand.
When Jojen comes back, panting, soft green eyes fixed on Bran’s face, Bran knows he is infatuated. He knows he has to be the Three-Eyed Raven again, has to warg and see through time and space. But this time, he will not let it consume him. Bran Stark will not die for the Three-Eyed Raven again.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
After Ned’s humiliating misconception and the subsequent mockery he suffers courtesy of Howland, he finds himself reevaluating the dynamics between the children.Because Meera and Jojen, on their path to brightening Bran’s life, have enveloped Arya into their friend group as well.Ned’s daughter has grown into a fearless and rebellious wolf, a formidable warrior; she is one of the best competitive swordsmen in the country. Sometimes, it feels like just yesterday he was bandaging Arya’s scraped knees, in awe of how she refused to cry; now he watches her win competition after competition with lethal speed.Ned is proud of her, of the fact that she has grown into such strength and beauty, every movement infused with discipline and grace. Even Cat, who still disapproves of her daughter competing in such a dangerous sport, one in which almost no women partake, can’t help but smile when she sees the rows of Arya’s medals and trophies. His wife still wishes their daughter had more conventional interests, but Ned knows times are changing; if you do not change with them, they leave you behind.Arya had sped through dancing and sword fighting lessons with Syrio, and, though she loved him, he had finally recommended she move on. She chose to continue under the tutelage of Jaime Lannister. Ned had found her choice grating, but even he had to admit Jaime was one of the best swordsmen in the history of the competition. Unfortunately for both of them, Tywin Lannister seemed to take a particular interest in her, quizzing her constantly as his sharp eyes kept an eye on the entire room, as he circled all the fighters like a shark scenting blood. Arya was more than capable of answering his bizarre questions and mental challenges, even seemed to enjoy them after a time. They had a truly bizarre mutual relationship, Arya specifically switching between surprisingly deep animosity and reluctant good humor. After Jaime’s return from his time undercover, he himself has to be taught how to fight again, has to be taught to do everything with his non-dominant hand. Arya therefore decides to continue her own training under two formidable instructors, devoting twice as much time to the sport. Brienne Tarth and Sandor Clegane both have the privilege of teaching her, though Ned only approved of one. They were often seen bickering with each other about the best way to teach their shared student, while she herself snickered at them from behind. They could also be seen wearing identical expressions of pride after every one of Arya’s wins, though they tried to hide it from each other and refused to admit any similarity with the other. A lesser fighter would suffer after switching from teacher to teacher, especially ones with such different fighting styles. However, Arya seamlessly combined every technique she learned, blade spinning with almost incomprehensible speed and skill to fell opponent after opponent.Ned worries, however, that Arya only spends time with her coaches and her family. Though he is proud of her success and passion, he is keenly aware that the more time she devotes to training, the less time she has to socialize, especially now that all her childhood friends are occupied. Gendry is in his second year of vocational school, Mycah helps his father around the bakery more often than not, Lommy had been sent to military school, and Hot Pie is interning at a local restaurant. As Meera and Jojen spend almost every day at the house for Bran, and all the older Stark children are busy themselves, it is inevitable that Arya eventually befriends the Reeds. She seems especially close with Meera, who is to daggers what Arya is to swords. With his newfound knowledge about her preferences, Ned wonders if there is something brewing between Arya and Meera, at least from Meera's side. He remembers how he had felt when he had briefly thought there was something between Sansa and Margaery; had thought Margaery to be a good choice, thought that with enough time even Cat would come around to the idea.He takes the time to observe them, though he is often occupied with the swarms of people in his house. Brienne is over frequently to spend time with Cat and Sansa, who have grown close to her and love hearing about her wedding preparations; she is always flustered by the attention, insistent that her engagement will last a long while, that no one is planning any wedding yet. Jon has to go back to the Wall, but leaves them with a wildling named Osha, who had trained as a behavioral therapist with the help of the Night’s Watch. Bran and Rickon both like her, benefit from the extra attention, so Ned and Cat enlist her to babysit; she has already secured permanent employment next door, practically moving in to take care of Hodor while his mother is at work. When Bran is busy, Rickon, the wildest and most unruly of Ned’s children, can often be found with Osha and Hodor, listening to stories of the Free Folk, jumping into piles of leaves or puddles of mud, stealing snacks from the kitchen.Robb and Sansa both seem to disappear in the chaos; every second they are not with Bran, they spend somewhere else. No one but they themselves seem to know where they go, though they seem slightly happier every time they come back. Ned keeps forgetting to ask them about it with everything else going on, everyone who is visiting and Bran who is recovering and Arya who is training and maybe something more with Meera. The more Ned watches Meera and Arya, the more certain he is that there is something greater than friendship between them; and he is not the only one with suspicions, hopes. Howland nudges him and points to their daughters, who have their heads bent together, studying each other’s blades. Ned is struck by how this interaction is the exact opposite of his conversation with Robert about Renly, about Margaery. Ned doesn’t want his 15-year-old to be dating anybody at all, but he can’t help noticing how good Arya and Meera look together, dark hair and calloused hands working on weapons in tandem. Meera makes his daughter happy and is herself an accomplished, courageous girl. Strong and brave and true, as Ned wants for all his children.When Ned sees Meera making infatuated, hero-worship eyes at Asha Greyjoy, who is rigging boats in the pier wearing only a dirty tank top and jeans, he sighs.…
Arya never feels more alive than when she has a sword in her hand. Dancing lessons with Syrio had been the highlight of her childhood, even when they had been just dancing; but after he had started training her with the sword, she began winning junior competitions under his instruction. But sword fighting had become her entire life after Gendry had left for school.
She still rankled when she thought about the last time they had talked, the way he had treated her like a child even though she had been thirteen. He had thought of himself as so much older and wiser though he was only eighteen, tall and handsome and stupid, off to make a life with his much older girlfriend, Melisandre. Arya had hated her, had always seen a kind of knowing cruelty in her eyes, had known Melisandre was only with him to get back at Stannis Baratheon, who had dumped her to be with Davos Seaworth; she had known Melisandre would leave him and hurt him. And she did.
Arya had been thirteen, and she had asked him to stay with her, something she would have never begged of anyone else. He had laughed, kissed her hand gently and called her Ms. Stark before leaving; as if they were only a boy and the daughter of the man he worked for. She had cried for the first time in years, though she would never admit it, could barely admit it to herself. She had cried for him and had been ashamed to waste her tears on anyone not deserving.
Their gang breaks up after that, grows apart. As if Gendry was the glue that held four children together, refereeing play fights and punching bullies, giving them his old homework and all of his love and care. Arya misses her friends, misses their little group—four dirty ruffians and lovely Gendry—but after Bran’s fall, she is glad. After The Fall, there is no time for anyone. Her entire life condenses into fighting and Bran. Fighting with swords during competitions, with her fists during school, with words at home. These days, Bran means BranandJojenandMeera, so she forces Arya in there as well.
Arya is a dancer because of Syrio, swift and silent. She is a warrior because of Brienne and Jaime, skilled and honorable. And she is a winner because of the Hound, fighting every match like it is the last, brutal and unforgiving. Above all, she is Arya Stark.
When she is 15, she needs to move on, is itching for a real challenge, but there is nowhere to go from the top, no one to learn from after the four best swordsmen in the nation. So she starts sneaking out at night, participating in underground fighting rings and illegal street fights run by the Brotherhood Without Banners. They hold grimy fights in the dark, hidden areas of the world, in rooms with chipped walls lit by orange LED lights, the smell of cheap beer and blood and motor oil spilled all over the floor; these are their chapels to a god that demands violence and blood in exchange for fire, their rituals of worship in a church more familiar and holy to her than any before. Sword fighting had always been a dangerous sport, but it was tightly controlled above ground; here, there are no rules, no limits or hesitations, no questions asked. Gendry himself had been a fighter, had caught her following him to a match one night, had made her promise never to go by herself. She had, but now she didn’t see any reason to keep her vows when he’d broken his.
It is there, in a dark church basement, surrounded by other sweaty, faceless fighters, that Arya Stark is beaten for the first time. Beaten by a girl with blonde hair and a cruel smile, who gleefully slices her blade across Arya’s eyes to win the match. Behind her stands Jaqen H’ghar. He looks at a girl who once gave him his name. A girl named Arya Stark.
It is when she is at home, afraid she will go blind, unwilling to tell her family because they already have Bran to worry about, that Arya remembers.
Remembers Jaqen. And Gendry. Remembers horrible, horrible men. The Freys. Meryn Trant. Gregor Clegane. An entire list of men.
Remembers that to be truly alive, one must be as death. Death in all his faces and forms.
Arya Stark wipes away the blood and tears and stands up. She forces herself to open her eyes, to see herself in the reflection of her sword. She is not blind. She is not helpless, will never be again. She kisses the blade.
She will become a faceless one again. And she will kill the waif for a second time.
Valar Morghulis.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Sansa has been looking happier and smiling more; she has even gained a healthy amount of weight. Ned and Cat are both waiting for her to tell them who is responsible for these improvements, this newfound happiness. Ned is glad she found someone herself; he’s sure Cat was about to plan another arrangement dinner.Sansa has only one more summer with them until she leaves for one of the best colleges in Westeros. They are indescribably proud of her, though surprised at the majors she has chosen: political science and public relations, the very last subjects Ned expected her to be interested in; he had always assumed she would pursue something related to fashion or design. At least as surprises go, it is one of the better ones of the last few years.Everything comes into the light when they are invited to the wedding of the year; Cersei Lannister and Robert Baratheon are tying the knot, joining together in holy matrimony. Cersei couldn’t let Jaime move on with Brienne without doing the same herself, except with someone more famous, more wealthy, more well-known.Despite being the oldest, Robert is the last of his brothers to marry. He has carried a torch for Lyanna all the way from youth to middle age. Renly had had a huge wedding bash with Loras, a week-long festival where Highgarden roses had practically rained down from the sky; Stannis had married and divorced Selyse quietly before having a small seaside wedding with Davos. Ned supposes Robert has finally relented because at least he is marrying the mother of his only child. He and Cersei had fallen into bed together two decades ago, when both of them were heartbroken: she over Rhaegar, and he over Lyanna. The result had been Steffon Baratheon, who will one day take over Baratheon industries. He is Robert’s best man and looks embarrassed at this clear spectacle of a wedding. Or perhaps Robert has acquiesced because he’s finally given up on Lyanna, because his life has deteriorated to the bottom of a bottle, because even his brothers have finally cut ties.Ned didn’t understand how Tywin could allow his daughter to marry the men she did. First Jaime, the son of his housekeeper, a boy he had practically adopted at a time when both his wife and his heart were still alive; Jaime had even taken the Lannister name after the wedding. Ned supposes Tywin was desperate, with Cersei pregnant out of wedlock with Robert's child; and at that point, everyone had assumed Jaime would one day take over the Lannister business anyway. It had been a quick, painless marriage between two people who, by all accounts, were very much in love. Had Robert not felt compelled to claim Steffon, the Lannisters would have no doubt been happy to avoid scandal and pass him off as their own. Instead of taking over, Jaime had jumped from a promising military career to a short-lived stint at the business before notoriously quitting and joining the police force. Though Cersei had filled the void, in Tywin's mind he was left with no heir: his real son hated and disowned and his adopted one a disappointment. Ned knows that for Tywin, this wedding is less about joining two souls and more about merging two companies. And so Cersei Lannister is marrying Robert Baratheon, who is incredibly wealthy and dominant, but clearly incompatible with her, broken in a completely different way. Ned can see this, but he knows as little about how to help his best friend as he does his children.Regardless, the entire Stark clan is attending the event. Except for Arya, who had gotten into a screaming match with Cat, pointedly refusing to go. Ned would have forced the issue, but he had seen the genuine tears of anger and frustration that had sprung in her eyes despite her efforts to hide them. He had relented out of shock and paternal concern. Robb goes quietly, spends the time talking with Myrcella and Trystane, looking as if his mind is in a completely different place. Rickon and Bran attend under the watchful eyes of Cat and Osha. Jon is busy at the wall, but it is for the best; Robert had always disliked him, the walking proof that the woman he loved had left him for another man.But it is Sansa who truly pleases Ned and Cat with her composure and conduct. She looks stunning in green velvet, and brings a date, brings the man who must be the one making her so happy for so many weeks. It is Willas Tyrell.The Tyrell heir is rarely seen at public events, especially since the accident that had shattered his leg years before. But he is still modern nobility. Endearingly shy and extremely polite, he seems to be courteous gentleman, an accomplished animal geneticist, and a genuinely sweet man. Ned and Cat are delighted. He raises none of the red flags Ned has been scanning for in all of the men around Sansa after Joffrey.But perhaps they are biased, biased after Bran’s fall, after knowing their son will use a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Especially today, when Willas, who usually uses a cane for his limp, has to use his own wheelchair. His leg is hurting him especially badly; they can't help notice that his wheelchair looks just like Bran's.At the wedding, Sansa and Willas talk the entire time, looking content and interested in each other, if anxious. Cat and Ned pay more attention to them than to the bride and groom. Ned hopes Willas is the prince of Sansa’s dreams and future, this boy who is gentle and successful and noble and good. Hopes this time he can trust his gut, that it won’t betray him like it did with Joffrey.Willas doesn’t accompany Sansa home, but Ned and Cat don’t think anything of it.Until a few days later, when Ned learns, from nearly every tabloid and website he lays his eyes on, that Willas Tyrell has run away with Oberyn Martell. Older, seductive, known for his various trysts, his lack of sexual boundaries; all of Westeros was salivating for one night with the man. Ned thinks about Willas, and then Margaery and Loras. He wonders if there’s something in the water at Highgarden. He tells Cat, ruining her hopes once more, before his heart wrenches for Sansa. Sansa, who has lost yet another Highgarden beauty, broken though he may be.
…
Margaery is the one who introduces Sansa to Willas Tyrell, the oldest of her siblings. Sansa is uncertain at first, but Willas is sweet and gentle, shy and anxious, completely unlike any man Sansa is used to. He inspires maternal feelings she thought had spluttered out years ago. At first, his blush and stammer make her think he is flirting, and she has no time for such frivolous behavior. When she asks what he wants, he flushes deeper, breaking eye contact, stuttering out an explanation.
He asks her to accompany him to Cersei and Robert’s wedding. Sansa wasn’t planning on attending, had cemented her refusal the night Arya had come to her bed with blood on her face, eyes begging Sansa to also remember an entire life together. They had wept together, wept for the pain and rare happiness of a past life and the relief of having each other again in this one. Sansa tells her about everything that has happened, about Joffrey (she laughs) and Sandor and Theon. Tells her how Robb has started going to Theon’s apartment, is planning on asking him on a date very soon. It is a good night. A long night. They both wonder if Bran remembers as well, have noticed his distinct change in behavior, but they haven't said anything. All that is different about him could also be attributed to his fall. Last time, he had fallen at a much younger age; Sansa hadn't thought it would happen again, curses her complacency when she sees his face twist in pain. But she doesn't know how to feel about his remembering, doesn't know if her brother will be further or closer away if his memories come back. So she waits. Waits for him to tell her himself, hopes her silent support and love is enough to let him know she remembers too. She is glad to have her sister back.
Arya is angry, remembers all too well how Robert Baratheon’s visit ruined their family, ruined their lives, ruined Winterfell. Sansa has no interest in going to his wedding, in tempting fate to repeat itself. But Willas’ request moves her.
He has asked her to go as his date to escape Olenna’s suspicion, as an excuse for him to go the wedding when he rarely attends such high-profile events. Once he gets there, Oberyn Martell will whisk him away. Away from Highgarden, away from Olenna’s watchful eyes, away from all his responsibilities as an heir; responsibilities toward a business lined with old money bought with blood. Away from the suffocating pity of everyone who sees his leg and treats him like a child or a cripple.
He yearns for the spiced sunshine of Dorne, the freedom of a country buried in the sand. So much yearning, naïve and romantic though it may be, reminds Sansa of the girl she once was; perhaps there is still some of that little girl inside her. So she agrees, agrees to brave the wedding of the two people she may hate the most out of everyone, the ones who ruined her family. Just so Willas can have a chance to escape. What she wouldn’t have given for an escape, an escape from King’s Landing, from the Dreadfort, from the Vale. Willas’ answering smile, so full of excitement and hope, makes it all worth it. He is by far the gentlest man who has ever used her.
He is deeply distracted during the wedding, but Sansa is no better. She is jittery and nervous the entire time, waiting for something to go wrong; for Robert to take her father away or an arrow to fly out and kill her brother, for someone to choke on poisoned wine. Robb has newfound thoughts of Theon to distract him, though she can tell he hates being here as well. Weddings are terrible affairs.
Willas is inhaling wine as he tries to avoid drawing his grandmother’s attention, avoid drawing attention to his lover. Oberyn is accompanied by Ellaria Sand, and both are staring unabashedly at him, looking full of both love and lust, Dornish passion on full display. Willas is delighted by the attention, ready to leave as soon as possible, but he has to wait until there is an advantageous opening for his escape, until Sansa can cause a distraction. Until then, they talk. Talk about how he first fell in love with Oberyn, when the handsome pilot had had to make an emergency landing at Highgarden; how they had already been emailing each other for years, ever since the Martells were first entertained at Highgarden – when Elia and Rhaegar had been getting married; how Oberyn and his lover, renowned sex therapist Ellaria Sand, are a package deal; Oberyn thinks she and Willas will look beautiful together on his silk sheets. Sansa is sure Willas only shares the last sentiment because of how drunk she is. She is inclined to agree with the statement regardless.
Sansa’s anxiety ratchets up by a thousand when Cersei finally comes out on her father’s arm, looking both radiant and deadly. Though it has only been a few months since she gave birth to Jaime's fourth child, she has lost all of the weight from her recent pregnancy, retaining only the glow of new motherhood; her slender body is pressed into an unimaginably tight dress, with a high collar and long sleeves. She has the short haircut that had defined her in her later years, had represented her transition into true brutality. Sansa shudders to see it again. Their son is Robert’s best man, as neither of the groom’s brothers bothered to attend. Cersei’s brother isn’t here either, though that’s probably because Tyrion wasn’t even invited. Sansa’s heart breaks for her former husband, and not for the first time; one of the most intelligent, courageous men, cursed with two lives filled with ridicule and the cruelty of his own family.
Sansa knows this marriage won’t work out, just as it didn’t the first time it happened. Perhaps because Cersei reeks of wine and Robert of whiskey. Or because he is already eyeing one of the waitresses, while hers are flitting toward Euron Greyjoy. Sansa also knows now that Cersei really doesn’t remember, or she would have never subjected herself to being Robert’s wife a second time.
Sansa refuses to be afraid of anyone from before, but Cersei still terrifies her. Inspires a debilitating fear that leaves her helpless, frustrates her beyond reason. She thinks about the horrors Cersei inflicted during her past life, the horrors Sansa went through. Thinks about wildfire rushing through a sept with hundreds of people in it – Cersei has done the same in this life, culling entire departments of the Lannister company in order to increase profits, leaving hundreds jobless and impoverished, almost as powerless as the dead (Sansa knows why Jaime left the business years ago, knows it is proof of him still being a fundamentally good man, no matter what Ned thinks).
No matter how much she hates it, Cersei is the one person who still frightens her. Her very presence reminds Sansa of signing a letter that eventually doomed her family, of being used as a pawn in her father’s death. Perhaps it is the lasting imprint of a childhood monster, Sansa’s first abuser, the most powerful one. Perhaps it is because Cersei is also a woman, who used her maternity and femininity, and Sansa’s own naivete and need for validation, to destroy Sansa’s life and home and dreams and family. Perhaps it is because Cersei is the one person who truly taught Sansa how to play the game of kings, is the only one who is still truly Sansa’s equal, equal in intelligence, manipulation, ambition, and war. Perhaps because Cersei was the final villain, the one who overshadowed even the Night King.
Cersei doesn’t even look over at the Starks, not one glance during the entire reception. Robert simply accepts Ned’s congratulations, a hearty, manly slap on the back, and one shared drink, before turning away. When they all arrive home, safe and sound, Sansa breathes a sigh of relief. She sees Arya draw one in as well. This time, Cersei and Robert Baratheon did not start the beginning of the end of the Starks of Winterfell. At least now she knows the past isn’t always doomed to repeat itself, though often it does. It has. It is good to know some things can change.
But perhaps Sansa hasn’t changed as much as she thought. She sees Willas in a photo on Oberyn’s Instagram. It exudes sexuality, of course, but also a kind of pure, everlasting love. He is sandwiched between Oberyn and Ellaria, looking fucked out and blissful, and so, so happy. Both of them look back at him with adoring eyes.
And Sansa feels a small, romantic sliver of her heart come back to life; a tender, bloodied part of her that she thought had been battered to death by a myriad of men, by Cersei and Joffrey and Ramsay and Petyr. The part of her heart that had loved fairytales and romantic songs and had been shattered by the dark cruelty of the real world, starts to beat again.
Though she knows better than to pin any of her hopes on fair princes or brave knights. She wants neither now.
Sansa knows who she wants, and she knows where he is. And maybe she hasn’t finished what she started, knows Ramsay is still alive out there, knows that Petyr is even closer now, having married Aunt Lysa. But the one person she wants has been there for so long, in two lives; she finds herself at the bakery more frequently than ever before. In denial, she pretends that she visits just to buy lemon cakes, but deep inside she knows every single time she sees him that she is there just for that one look. Every time she sees him, she looks and she wonders, she hopes and she remembers…she dreams and she smiles.
Sansa is going to college soon, and she will not forsake her future for any man. But she has one summer left. And she knows the bakery has a “Help Needed” sign on the front door. Knows it is a good time to get her first job. She can gain real life skills, can shift the bakery’s advertising to the online sphere, can use social media to attract new customers, update their business model. Maybe she can even learn to make lemon cakes herself, if strong arms and a brusque voice teach her how.
Sandor still dislikes her at first, but even that is comforting in its familiarity. He yells at her the first time she spills flour, when she burns an entire batch of pastries, and licks of fire reach out from the oven. But his yelling has never hurt her before. He has never hurt her before. She understands childhood fears all too well, understands the look in his eyes when he sees the flames. It is the same look in her eyes when she looks at Cersei. Childhood monsters – what a pathetic pair they make. He mistakes her constant staring for disgust at his face, and nothing she can say will disavow that notion, nor the notion that he still thinks she is too naïve, too innocent, too sheltered. She will just have to show him how wrong he is.
Sansa lets herself have this one concession, one concession the tightly controlled Lady of Winterfell gets to have. Lets herself have this small sliver of time with him, lets herself look unashamedly. At his face, which will never be handsome, but is still intensely striking. At his large, warm hands, which have slaughtered men, have even smothered his own brother in this life, but now knead slabs of dough, gently water flowers in the windowsill. She lets herself enjoy the moments when he can’t help but look at her; when her hair catches the sunlight just so, when she laughs after her first successful bake, when she is concentrating on taking photos for the Instagram account she has started for the bakery. Lets herself enjoy the few times he is bewilderingly gentle, when he dabs at her hand with a cold towel after she burns herself, when he bakes extra lemon cakes, iced just the way she likes, and leaves them silently on the counter for her to take home.
Based on the way he always looks away when she catches him staring, she is too young for him in this life. Though she is older than she ever was before, much older than the first time she met him last. Too young for him now, and isn’t that a frustrating thought.
One night, they stay after hours, get drunk on the beer that should have gone into a batch of bread. She tells him about Joffrey, how freeing it felt when he died. Sandor’s eyes fill with rage when she mentions how Joffrey hit her, and it is comforting, comforting to know this large, dangerous man would kill for her again. Sandor tells her about working for the Lannisters because no one else would hire a felon; about how he had technically been a bodyguard, but had found himself babysitting more often than not; how he had watched Joffrey turn into a massive cunt despite Jaime’s best efforts; how he had tried and failed to protect Myrcella and Tommen and even Steffon from their brother’s cruelty, when they were just toddlers and he was afraid every time he touched them they would shatter.
And Sansa tells him she didn’t stop Joffrey from going out that night even though he was drunk. That she had known it would be Joffrey’s last day alive.
Sandor has a newfound respect for her after that night.
And respect, tolerance, and attraction are a solid foundation on which Sansa can cultivate love again.
She has to try, doesn’t she? For herself and for him.
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They are well into summer, hot and sticky as it is. This year, there are no children running around the yard, begging for trips to the pool or for cherry red popsicles they will drip all over the furniture. Ned’s house hasn’t been this disconcertingly quiet in literal decades.Rickon, their youngest, their loudest, their last rambunctious child, seems to spend every second away from them, outdoors with his friends or Osha, at the pool with his siblings, at sports camps or summer school clubs. It is one of the first summers where he isn’t there most of the time.Bran, who had always been a quieter boy, seems to make no noise these days. He is always deep in thought, his voice softer and more deliberate than ever before. He still spends most of his time with Jojen and Meera, but instead of staying in the house, they take turns wheeling him to the park or the arcade or the library. Sometimes, Ned and Cat will walk into a room and not even realize their son is there, so suffocating is his silence and his stare. They wonder what their son thinks about all the time, wish he would share. He never does.Arya has been training harder than ever before. Her presence is hardly noted in the house unless she is rushing in to change or grab equipment before biking right back to the gym. She seems angrier and deadlier than ever before, all signs of childhood gone. Ned is almost glad when she’s out of the house. She has begun to terrify him with her intensity. Sansa had revealed the source of her constant disappearances; she had started a new job at the bakery. They were both proud, though confused at her newfound desire to learn baking, her refusal to just ask for money if she needed it. At least they now had an explanation for what they had mistakenly attributed to Willas Tyrell: her missing time, weight gain, and increased happiness.Jon had gone back to the watch long before summer had even started. He was doing well, though his calls home were getting shorter and less frequent, his tone becoming more rushed. Ned still holds out hope he can one day convince Jon to leave; but he’ll never succeed if his son doesn’t even call long enough for Ned to make his case. With the newfound quiet in his house, Ned has focused in on Robb’s behavior. His oldest son had rushed home from college after Bran’s fall, ending his second year early, but every second he wasn’t spending with Bran or Jon, he was missing from the house. Sansa seemed to know where he went, but she herself wasn’t exactly volunteering information or spending much time at home.Brienne had told Cat, while asking for her opinion on wedding napkin placements, that Robb had been spending a lot of time with her soon-to-be stepdaughter Myrcella. Ned remembered the brief period during the summer before Robb had left for college when he had spent inordinate amounts of time with both Margaery Tyrell and Myrcella Lannister. Though he had discounted Myrcella as a serious love interest for Robb then, Ned wonders if they’ve restarted something serious now. It had now been some time since Robb seriously dated anyone; he had wholeheartedly devoted his time to being a teacher, had already secured a teaching assistant position in an elementary school near his college, one that the Mormonts attended. Ned was proud his son had stuck by the decision he had made for his life, even when he and Cat had not truly understood it.Myrcella was looking into attending the same college as Robb anyway, had already received significant athletic scholarships. She was beautiful, favoring both of her parents, had grown well into glowing, tanned skin and bright green eyes, all golden blonde hair and long, slender limbs. He had seen Robb talking to her at Robert’s wedding, and they had looked good together, both of them so young and beautiful.During the summer, Ned doesn’t see Robb often. When he does, his son is frequently accompanied by Myrcella and Trystane Martell. Ned would be glad to have Robb introduce Myrcella as his significant other, but something troubles him. He can’t help but think back to the rumors about Raynald, long since faded from public memory. Can’t help but think about how famously handsome Trystane is, having inherited his uncle’s acclaimed good looks, his father’s regal demeanor. Can’t help but notice how Robb seems just as close with him as he does Myrcella.Ned doesn’t want to think about these things in the stifling, sweaty heat, alone in his quiet house; he feels like an old man whose children have all fled the house, leaving it sad and empty. He is almost glad when Robb doesn’t come to them to introduce a girlfriend or boyfriend, is glad that his son has instead gained two wonderful and loving friends....
Another summer has started, hot and sticky; it is Robb’s second summer home from college, marking the passage of time before he has to rapidly confront an impending adulthood. Robb refuses to follow in his father’s footsteps this time, has already refused in all the ways he has molded his life differently.
Since Sansa had called him, had told him about Theon, Robb had been living in a daze. Had been wondering what he would say, what he would do. He wants to see Theon so badly, but it has been years, years of him operating under false impressions and irrational anger. He is worried the memories he has been feeding off of his entire life, the ones he has revisited so many times they themselves have become soft and well-worn, are wrong, that he can never be loved by the real Theon as much as he loves the one in his mind.
The choice is taken out of his hands when Bran falls. Robb ends up on the next flight home. When everything has settled, he screws up his courage, begs Sansa to contact Theon, to set up a meeting between them. Her eyes soften, and she agrees.
And that is how Robb ends up in front of Asha’s house, sweating as he waits for someone to open the door, feeling guilty and clammy and nervous, checking his breath like a teenage boy on their first date.
When Theon opens the door, Robb falls in love with him all over again.
And every moment from that first meeting to the day he asks Sansa to help him choose a ring, he falls in love with Theon even more, with this person Theon has become, falls in love with all his differences. Falls in love with the way Theon smiles now, without showing his teeth; falls in love with short-cropped golden-brown curls that were once sleek and obsidian. Falls in love with this new Theon who has trouble making eye contact; who always looks slightly to the left of whoever he is speaking to; who can never be in the same room as Grey Wind; whose hands shake and mouth clenches when he hears loud footsteps. Robb falls in love with a Theon who is traumatized, will always be traumatized, but who is working through his trauma every day. Falls in love as he drives Theon to psychiatrist appointments, helps him keep track of bottles of medication, reads trauma recovery books with him.
Robb falls in love with Theon over and over again, in so many ways, during a thousand moments that summer as they become friends again. Falls in love when he hears Theon laugh for the first time. Falls in love when Theon tells him about how he punched Euron Greyjoy in the face so the man would stop coming over every day, asking Asha to run drugs with him. Falls in love when Theon shoots his bow for the first time since losing three fingers, and immediately looks back to see if Robb saw him hit the bullseye.
Robb falls in love when Theon asks him to help move into his own apartment. He hauls box after box up to the small, cramped space, only to see Theon standing in a warm patch sunlight streaming in through the window, with his eyes closed and expression content, all his vulnerability on display.
Robb wants to touch him all the time, wants to be gentle and sweet and loving. But they have to learn to be friends again, that which they haven’t been in a long time. All they’ve been is Robb’s memory and his regrets and hopes and dreams. He falls in love as they slowly go from friends to best friends again, cracking jokes and sharing secrets under the gentle blanket of night, laughing more than either of them have in years. As they reclaim every part of who they were before, when they were just children. Loudly commenting on movies at the theater, playing video games and throwing popcorn at each other. Doing new things, because they are both different people now: going to the pond to feed ducks and learning to bake, which Theon has been doing; clipping coupons for school supplies and grading multiplication tables, which Robb has been doing. He wonders when they grew so old; when they went from wisecracking boys who snuck out of the house to get drunk, to old men before their time, cracking their necks and complaining about their days while drinking coffee together; Theon talking about some irritating guy at therapy, and Robb talking about kids who never behave in class. It is all so lovely.
Despite all this, Robb sometimes feels sidelined. He doesn’t know his place in this new Theon’s life, doesn’t know where he fits anymore. Theon has people who understand him more now, has been forcefully pulled and tortured out of the bubble in which he and Robb had lived together for years. The 3 years they spent apart gape wider than ever before as they try to fit their fractured parts together, sometimes chafing instead.
Theon has Jeyne and Sansa, who knows what he went through, knows the horrors he cannot speak aloud intimately and personally. Has Jaime and Lancel Lannister, who he goes to group therapy with; it is therapy for people who have been in intensely traumatic situations: serial killer survivors, former cult members. He goes out for drinks with them after their sessions. Robb remembers when Theon would sneak alcohol under Ned Stark’s nose, just for him.
Robb finds himself spending time with Myrcella and Trystane, who he had reconnected with at the Baratheon wedding. Myrcella is still a wonderful girl, still understanding and kind. He is glad he will see her around campus. What is new is Trystane: open-hearted and handsome, incredibly laid-back. Robb knows he benefits from spending time with a man his age who is so sexually fluid, a role model for confidence and self-assuredness; Theon fulfilled that role when Robb was young, but they are all so different now. More importantly, Trystane remembers. He remembers, lived just as short a life, didn’t witness Robb’s mistakes. It’s nice to talk to someone who understands what it is like to love someone who doesn’t have the memories you do, who maybe never will. Robb likes spending time with Myrcella and Trystane, in the large, modern home Jaime shares with Brienne (and who knew he would be encroaching so much on the territory of his former prisoner of war? He's just glad he rarely sees Jaime around) or in Trystane’s decked-out apartment. Likes that they let him stay for sleepovers, likes watching how deeply comfortable both of them are in who they are, after the years he has spent struggling with identity, memory, and sexuality.
So Robb spends the summer with them, holed away in their apartment when he isn’t at home. Jon keeps getting busier and busier, but Robb cherishes the few times they can video call – Jon is his best friend and his favorite brother, and will always remain so. Arya and Bran, he knows remember now; his siblings are no longer the people he knew. He died so early, and they remember so much more than him, are so radically different than the children he left behind in either life. It is an uphill battle with them.
But he has to try. Sansa helps, knows both Arya and Bran better than he does. It makes it an odd summer of awkward sibling bonding. He thinks they paint an incredibly ridiculous picture the few times he manages to get them all together for ice cream or trips to the pool. There’s Sansa, who looks like a regal queen looking off in the distance; Arya, who exists with murder in her eyes, deadly force in every step; Bran, who looks as if every facial expression, every hint of emotion he projects takes intense deliberate effort, who usually forgets about his ice cream until it has melted all over his lap; and Robb. The most normal one of them all, usually keeping an eye on Rickon, wishing he could put his youngest brother on a leash. Sometimes he doesn’t even want to know what happened the years after he died.
It is a summer of friendship. Of ice cream melting down your hands so you have to lick it up, of peeling sweaty clothes off of reddened skin, laying on the cool floor with ice cubes in your mouth, listening to the buzzing static of the fan. Of learning people old and new all over again, his siblings, his friends, his Theon.
His mind always comes back to Theon. It has always been Theon, in two lives, no matter who else distracts him. It doesn’t matter what they are to each other; Robb still cherishes the chance to love him, take care of him, be there for him in a way he never has been before.
He doesn’t realize that he’s fallen into his old pattern of missing Theon even though Theon is now within his grasp, until Asha Greyjoy shows up at his door. He apparently hasn’t been around for a week, after days of spending hours with Theon. He has been thinking about his role in Theon’s life instead of actually being with him. Asha is angry; she terrifies him.
“He doesn’t think he’s worth you. He never has, never thought himself worthy to spend time with the shiny, flawless Starks. Don’t prove him right.” Or I’ll kill you goes unsaid.
Of course Robb goes back. It is not his time to be insecure now, not when he has to be there for Theon; when Theon has died for him, for his family, for Winterfell, has gone through unimaginable hell. But Theon still ends up comforting him a few days later, when they are watching another movie together. Theon has become an intense film buff, likes to escape reality through the screen.
A maimed hand reaches for his, hesitates before making contact, gently hovering over his fingers.
“I thought about you when I was with Ramsay. It kept me sane. Even when he tried to make me forget who I was, I held onto your name, your face, your memory. You have always been my family Robb.”
Theon doesn’t look at him. But from the glint of the television, Robb sees the stupid best friends necklace he had once given Theon hanging around his neck. He still has it, had kept it hidden all these years, knowing it could get him killed. Robb thinks he could cry, wants to say something, feels his throat hurting from the effort of swallowing back the tears. He squeezes Theon’s hand instead, doesn’t let go all night.
A few days after the Baratheon wedding, Robb screws up the courage to ask Theon on a date, something he has been waiting to do for years and years.
Theon rejects him, rubbing at his face with shaking hands as he does it. Robb wants so badly to comfort him, but he lets Theon get the words out. He’s not ready to start dating again; all the therapy is helping, but dating was what had fucked up his entire life the first time around. He trusts Robb, but subconsciously he can’t help but remember he had trusted Ramsay once too, had liked when Ramsay had taken him out on dates, bought him gifts and given him kisses. The man had been a good actor, a good boyfriend before he had shown his true colors, had pulled out his knives.
Robb is proud of Theon for refusing. He can wait, even if he has to wait forever. Theon doesn’t make him wait that long.
Robb falls in love with Theon’s tentative smile and dark, unfocused eyes when he says he’s ready for that first date, months of friendship later. Falls in love when Theon laughs as they kiss for the first time, after their third date, looking surprised by the sound, his nose scrunching up because Robb’s beard scratches; a kiss Robb has waited lifetimes for, soft and hesitant, and oh! the fireworks that explode behind his eyes. Falls in love when Theon fusses over his outfit for hours before their thirteenth date, beautiful no matter what he wears, growing frustrated when that’s all Robb has to say. Falls in love when Theon tries to cook for their 37th date, but ends up burning half the dishes. Falls in love when Theon pushes him against the wall after their 48th date, his bow-calloused fingers rough on Robb’s hips, his face, his shoulders. Falls in love when he takes Theon to the carnival for their 62nd date, and he finally smiles big and wide, unconcerned about his broken teeth, and the full force of that smile is directed at Robb.
And Robb would have loved him no matter who he was, but every day a little bit of the old Theon shines through is a brighter one.
And Robb falls in love the first time they have sex. Theon is still so utterly, devastatingly beautiful, even with the scars and the missing fingers, even with a tentative touch and hesitation the old Theon never had during sex. Robb falls in love with this new body, so different and yet the same one he had always surreptitiously stared at in years and lives before. They move in tandem, broad and freckled over lean and scarred and it is a miracle, it is heaven, it is music and the stars and all that has ever been good and god in Robb’s life.
They have to stop because Theon zones out and goes limp, starts shaking with memories of Ramsay’s touches. Robb holds him close and tucks him in, pets his hair until he comes back. Holds him as he cries.
There comes a day, when Robb has lost track of how much time it has been, how many months and dates and lifetimes, that they spend kissing sloppily against the kitchen counter; the morning is warm and syrupy, and they are standing in that same patch of sunlight, when Robb finally says the words out loud.
Theon quirks his eyebrow and smirks and Robb’s heart twists as he falls in love all over again; he has never looked so much like the man he was before, but his eyes are still vulnerable when he says the words back.
Robb can’t believe he dated anyone else. He could have never loved anyone as much as he loves the man in his arms, the one he has waited so long for.
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Arya has become the national sword fighting champion; it is one of the highlights of Ned’s entire experience as a father. Watching her fight as adrenalin sang in his veins, as the massive crowd screamed around him, as metal clanged against metal and sweat hit the mat. He has fought the Sword of the Morning and Barristan the Bold and the Kingslayer, has wrestled criminals with knives and swords to the ground. His daughter is still the best fighter he has ever seen.Arya is the youngest champion in history, and only the second woman after Brienne. Men who are fans of the sport hate it, hate that girls have “infiltrated” the traditionally masculine sphere of sword fighting. They had tormented Brienne when she had won, targeting her looks and musculature online, had asked her out just to humiliate her. And now, Ned fears the anger and vitriol they will direct toward Arya, though he can’t help but think no one could ever touch his daughter as long as she had a blade in her hand.Arya had fought and won against both Brienne and Sandor to get to first place, the student defeating her masters in the most literal way. Brienne had flushed red with pride and exertion, nearly crying out of sheer joy. Sandor Clegane had mustered a restrained smile, promptly leaving the competition; clear signs that he was feeling just as much pride and happiness.And that is why Ned doesn’t understand why she chooses Beric Dondarrion of all men to be her next coach. Dondarrion is a formidable fighter, but nowhere near as skilled as anyone else under which she has trained. Ned personally thinks his fighting style is washed up, dislikes his flair for the dramatics. Dondarrion participated in a more theatrical, staged version of traditional sword fighting, one that resembled WWE more than the official sport. There was a reason he was more famous for the fact that his sword could erupt into flames than for his match strategy or skill.Ned is generally concerned about the devotion Arya seems to show older men – first Gendry, then Sandor, and now Beric. Sometimes, it feels like Arya is drifting further and further away from him, and choosing to instead spend her time with literally any other older male figure.Ned knows Beric runs an underground fighting club, though he is much too clever and well-connected to have ever been caught. Once a month, the man comes into a significant amount of pocket change that he inevitably pours into the Church for the Lord of Light, charity, or amongst the miscellaneous poor. Ned knows it is noble, but illegality is illegality.The one good thing that arises from Arya’s relationship with Beric is her friendship with his nephew, Ned Dayne. Small Ned is a sweet boy who is learning to fight from his uncle, who is a junior-level sword fighting champion in his own right. He is talkative, tells Ned about wanting to be a national champion like his illustrious uncle, Arthur Dayne; The Sword of the Morning is an admired surgeon, the Surgeon General for the Westerosi government, and an award-winning medical advocate, practically royalty in Westeros. Small Ned has a lot to live up to, all these dreams bursting out of one very shy and polite boy with a pleasantly handsome face and Targaryen coloring.Ned can’t help but be preemptively biased in his favor; Edric Dayne is, at least in some part, named after him, represents an incredibly flattering honor from the House of Dayne. And Ned is man enough to admit there was a time when he would have done anything for a glance from Ashara Dayne, for even the smallest of smiles directed at him while she giggled about with her best friend Wylla. Little Ned has her unnaturally blue-violet eyes, eyes that had always reminded Ned of the stormy skies off the coast of Pyke.Ned couldn’t be happier with the way their lives turned out, no matter how heartbreaking their separation had been back then. He with Catelyn, the most beautiful and virtuous woman he has ever had the pleasure of knowing; his wife, companion, and best friend, his most resolute supporter and fiercest defender. And Ashara with Barristan Selmy, an incredibly successful barrister turned judge, and more importantly the noblest and best of men.As the weeks go on, Arya stops spending so much time with Little Ned. It’s as if at the very second Ned had a thought about Arya considering such a gentle, well-behaved boy as a romantic interest, she stopped bringing him by the house.…
Arya goes to the very next meeting of the Brotherhood, barely a month after she remembers. She circles the room agitatedly, trying desperately to find Jaqen again. But instead, she comes upon Beric; hopes he knows how thankful she is for his sacrifice, for the fact that he let her say “not today” to the god of death during one of the worst nights of her life; hopes he knows what it means to have her take his name off her list.
He remembers, so he understands what she cannot say aloud. Understands better than Sandor, with whom she has just as much of a complicated relationship, but who in turn will never actually understand the lives they have lived together.
Beric enlists Edric, who she could never call Ned, to help her track down Jaqen. Though Edric doesn’t remember, seems confused about the purpose of his task most of the time. He is a nice enough boy otherwise, she supposes, but she doesn’t have the time or need for friends; she thinks he should train some more if he ever wants to win serious competitions.
Beric also keeps an ear to the ground about whether the Night King exists in this life, listens for information about Cersei, especially whether she remembers: she had, after all, been the last name that had been on Arya’s list. Listens for information about the Boltons and the Lannisters to pass on to her as well. He is well-connected among the underworld, among the impoverished people who hid in the darkest, dankest parts of Westeros. She would have never imagined a world where Varys and Beric were two sides of the same coin, but she supposes they had both always strived to serve the realm in their own ways.
Bran is helping too, doing the best that he can while dealing with his own struggles and his training with the Raven. He has referred her to a long list of people, including Aemon Targaryen and Melisandre, from whom she can gather data, with whom she can hash through her memories.
Sansa keeps in contact as well, even as she starts college. Petyr Baelish is the head of the department of political science and international relations at the university, and Sansa has already started trying to infiltrate the holds of information he undoubtedly has.
After months of investigation, of talking to and threatening people she had never even met in her last life, she eventually finds the faceless men once more.
Jaqen sends her a message the very next day. He still doesn’t reveal himself in person; doesn’t even tell Arya where the House of Black and White is now, doesn’t tell his most successful student, the only one who had ever named him to die. This time, he knows better than to ask her to be no one, knows better than to even insinuate she cannot lie convincingly. Knows better than to test her.
Over the next few months, she trains. Follows his written instructions. Completes her first kill for him a second time, accessing deadly muscle memory she had forgotten she had.
Jaqen sends her to a father. A father she recognizes, with a daughter who was once sick, a daughter she had lied to. This time, she is already dead. He has hired the faceless men to avenge her.
Meryn Trant is still a pedophile, has been benefitting from the attention surrounding Ramsay’s case and other more prominent serial killer cases, in order to fly under the radar as he kidnaps little girls, rapes them, and disposes of their bodies; makes sure to only take from families who have already been ground into the dirt by the system, by a government or society or world who barely notices them anyway. Of all the men whose blood she could have on her hands, his is by far the most justified. It is harder this time to get to him; she is too old for his tastes now and she has no faces to use yet.
The next time she goes to another Brotherhood meeting, the entire Church is empty. Arya is instantly on guard, sword up and feet silent. A bead of sweat makes it down her face and everything is quiet. There is no one there.
The lights go out.
Arya walks out of the building with a straight face and steady gait.
The waif’s face is soaking the bottom of her backpack with blood. Arya can feel it dripping down the back of her legs.
Beric takes care of the body, the blood staining the floor of hallowed ground.
Jaqen finally comes to her; she recognizes him, even though he is wearing a different face. He wonders aloud that a girl has found her way back.
The next day, she, the national sword fighting champion of Westeros, announces him as her newest coach.
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When Sansa comes back for winter break after one semester at Vale University, she brings Harry Hardying back home with her. He is classically handsome, more so than any other man Ned's daughter has dated; with a square jawline and bluntly chiseled features, unlike Joffrey’s finer, elfish face or Willas’ softer, cherubic beauty. Harry is a rugby player, broad and blonde, the literal embodiment of Prince Charming from Sansa’s favorite childhood storybooks.He is perfectly polite, any parent’s dream for their child. Related to Jon Arryn, a man Ned respects greatly, the current president of the college.But Ned has been watching the handsome men his daughter dates very closely. There is some sense of artificiality behind Harry’s eyes, a casual possessiveness toward Sansa that irks Ned. He suppresses saying anything because Cat seems so delighted with him. Ned does pull Sansa off to the side, asks her very seriously if Harry is a good man, only for her to determinedly tell him she is absolutely fine. It is not an answer to his question, and it does not ease his worries. His daughter seems more focused and performative toward the relationship than lovestruck, though she and Harry mechanically hold each other’s hands every time they sit together. Still, when Sansa comes home the summer of her freshman year and blithely informs Ned that she is newly single because Harry had been cheating on her with four other girls, it is disconcerting. Ned doesn’t really know what to do, but…he folds his daughter into his arms. She stiffens and trembles for a few seconds before melting into him. Sansa has gotten so tall that her tears drip down onto his shoulder. His poor little girl; he remembers the first time he had held her, his first daughter, remembers how tiny and perfect she had been. She has felt so far away for so long, but now she is in his arms, clutching at him desperately. His baby.Harry was a representation of normality, of the life Sansa had always wanted to have when she was a little girl. Blandly handsome and wealthy and normal, a man she could settle down with to start a family. Ned admittedly felt some tenderness toward her relationship with him because looking at them together made him nostalgic for a time when his daughter was a child, when her dreams and wants and needs were simple. When he could soothe a broken heart with a slice of lemon cake.But it’s time to move forward. What a wonderful gift he has been given, to see Sansa grow into such an impeccable woman. A daughter any man could be proud of. …
A few months into college, Sansa starts missing her family desperately. Her father, with his firm, warm hugs, pulling her against a solid, protective torso. Her mother, kind and strong, running calloused fingers gently through her hair. Robb, teasing and protective. Bran, gentle and perceptive. Arya, the one person who understands her more than anyone else. She misses Sandor, especially during the nights in her dorm, when the loneliness is creeping in, the twin bed is especially uncomfortable, and moonlight is coming in through the window.
Despite these debilitating feelings, university life is an easier trial than many of the things Sansa has lived through. She knows how to play the game of power. How to court the people’s love. Has political savvy, leadership skills, and genuine care for the people, the very skills that had made her the Lady of Winterfell. It is much easier to gain enough favor to become class president.
Once, she had moved past the dreams of marrying a kind, handsome man to dreams of defending her home. Her people. In this life, she has moved past the dreams of working in fashion in order to pursue dreams she could have never even imagined in the Westeros of old. Sansa wants to help put leaders in political positions where they can help people, leaders who are kind and good instead of corrupt and selfish.
That is how she meets Petyr Baelish again, for the first time after remembering.
Head of the political science department, he is cozied up to president Jon Arryn despite the fact that he is married to Arryn’s ex-wife. He is Sansa’s uncle, married to Aunt Lysa; she had spent many an afternoon on his lap as he read her stories in his frighteningly perverse, threatening voice. He had always insisted she sit on his lap. Especially when her parents were occupied with Lysa.
The memories make her feel sick.
Petyr, who had gotten her father killed. Who had trafficked women in his brothels. Who had killed and manipulated and ruined, ruined her with kisses and honey-soaked words, just before saving her with the Knights of Vale.
Professor Baelish takes a special shine to her. How can he not, when she is his niece, his most promising student. When she is a spitting image of her mother. He calls her after class just so they can talk one-on-one, he keeps his office hours in rooms conveniently close to her classes, at the times when she has breaks. Touches her shoulders, guides her into rooms with a proprietary hand on her lower back, and it takes all she has not to flinch away. He makes remarks suggestive enough for her to understand, subtle enough to keep them from being incriminating, obvious enough to be an insult to Sansa’s intelligence. He still thinks of her as a malleable child, which makes Sansa think he doesn’t remember, for if he did he would never underestimate the woman who had him killed. But sometimes, when he talks to her, he will call her Alayne. Littlefinger would never reveal a cache of memories he could use to his advantage. They are locked in a tricky game once again, one she has to navigate as carefully and intelligently as she can.
She needs to destroy him, so she lets their relationship continue even when it makes her skin crawl. But she refuses to let him kiss her, feel her. Though he clearly wants to, her resemblance to Catelyn keeps him satisfied enough to tolerate a no-touch policy. It is better even, as her hair is darker, her skin finer, her entire being more beautiful.
Harry Hardying is firmly under Petyr’s thumb. The golden student of Vale University, Harry is clearly being groomed to one day follow in his uncle Jon Arryn’s footsteps as a political savant. Arryn had made it to president of the college at a record young age; Harry had set his eyes on doing the same in political government, aiming to be governor of the region at an even younger age. He seemed to see the position as something he was entitled to, as an inevitable culmination of a life that had given him wealth, physical prowess, and a lax attitude toward sex and wearing condoms that had already forced two of his one-night stands to get abortions. It didn’t seem to bother him, and it revealed who he truly was. The epitome of a frat boy, threatening and predatory; who drank himself under the table every week, rated girls on fuckability, and felt comfortable wiggling around the concept of consent enough to have sex with girls drunk out of their mind. A man who knew judges didn’t let girls ruin the futures of promising young men like himself.
Petyr had jumped at the opportunity to do favors for Harry, of course. Harry is in many of his classes, holds sway with his uncle Jon Arryn. Arryn, who decided Petyr’s salary, decided what privileges his department could get away with. Harry would wield political power one day, because men like him always did; and Petyr was intelligent enough to recognize and take advantage of a good connection when he saw it.
Harry agrees with his professor: Sansa Stark is a beautiful and well-connected woman. She would be a good accessory on Harry’s arm, and the sex would no doubt be brilliant. And Petyr was his favorite professor, the one who let him skip exams and gave him A’s anyway. He had no problem sharing his girlfriend with Professor Baelish; in fact, he thought Baelish had great taste if he had his eyes on the Stark redhead.
After a few classes, Sansa knows she has nothing left to learn from Petyr. All their interactions are fueled by her need to destroy him. She does not need his lessons, and this time she no longer needs the knights of Vale.
During the parts of her university life that don’t revolve around Petyr, she meets some more people from a previous life; people she forgot had once comforted her, had healed her and kept her sane during the worst periods of her life. There is Shae, as beautiful and charismatic as always. She has not met Tyrion in this life, and Sansa doubts she ever will; Sansa’s former husband is already married to a lovely girl named Tysha. She is glad he has found happiness, has moved away from Tywin’s bruising grip early this time.
Sansa meets Myranda Royce, bubbly and cheerful and much too talkative; Mya Stone, mirthful and rebellious and smoky. They stick with her despite the fact that she knows she is aloof and cold now; they love her as much as they once loved Alayne, the bastard daughter of Petyr Baelish.
And suddenly, she knows this is what true love is. It is Shae and Myranda and Mya. It is Arya, the strongest woman in the world who somehow thinks Sansa is the cleverest. It is Sandor, with hands that knead bread with an unbelievable gentleness. It is her father and her mother and her siblings. It is a warm feeling, like when your belly is comfortably full with your favorite food, like when you run through a sun-soaked patch of wildflowers. When there is no jagged hole torn in your soul. She could cry for how quickly it was once all taken away.
They are all studying together, the four of them, not working as much as just giggling as quietly as they can. Someone complains about programming homework, and it suddenly clicks.
A plan.
It is Sansa who accepts Harry’s offer of a date, though she makes sure to direct a coy glance toward Petyr as she does it. Cozies up to him slightly more, plays the part of the naïve innocent they both seem to think she is. Goes on dates and holds Harry’s hand and kisses him close-mouthed, never lets it get any further. Never drinks or takes anything around him. She even brings him home and introduces him to her family, solidifies the relationship in a more public and private eye. Petyr offers her, his darling niece, anything in the world, as he strokes a finger along her cheek, pulls a curl of her hair. She asks him how he’s so smart, how he knows so much about other people. Sits in his lap, though she will throw up at the thought of it later, so that he will show her the laptop he keeps all his compromising blackmail information on; a laptop unable to connect to the internet, information backed up on multiple drives. She asks him for the blue drive, the one he calls Catspaw, because she is his true protégé after all; they both know Harry is much too unintelligent to absorb Petyr’s lessons. Tells him blue is her favorite color. He seems wary and surprised, but he’s never thought she was as clever as he was, could never think she would outsmart him. He gives her Catspaw. It has information about many people on it, but nothing compromising or incriminating about him.
It is Shae who tells Sansa that Petyr still sells women. Has small businesses scattered throughout the region that act as covers for everything from money laundering for local mobs to functioning brothels. He still exists in the true seedy, grimy areas of city life, as Littlefinger always has. Shae and her girlfriend Roz had both been runaways from abusive homes, and Littlefinger offered women in their positions warm beds, three meals a day, shelter; as long as they worked for him. It had seemed like a good deal at the time, felt like a good deal to the multitudes of desperate women he took advantage of. They had been one of the few to ever actually make their way out from under him, and only because they had sticky fingers light enough to hoard and hide money. Roz had gotten a job once they had gotten out, and Shae was working through college so that she could one day use her degree to finance a better life for them both.
It is Myranda who trips up Professor Baelish on the way to class, spilling coffee on him and distracting him as she mops at it and churns out apologies in a loud voice, makes sure everyone in the hallway can see them, and he can’t get away. A theater major to the core. Sansa and Mya quietly make their way to his office while he is distracted. Sansa knows he doesn’t keep cameras in his office, paranoid that someone will hack in and watch him, see him with his female students sitting on his lap in the darkened room.
And it is Mya, computer science major, who manages to get into his laptop, to burn another drive. This one is just for them, a record of emails, account information and business dealings that will lead to Petyr’s downfall.
Her job done, she publicly dumps Harry. Enjoys the way his face starts to resemble a gasping fish, lost in sensation he has never felt before. Calls campus police the next time she knows his frat is having a party.
Sansa goes home the next day for summer break, stiff and exhausted from the adrenaline crash of what she has done. And a lighthearted mention of her breakup with Harry ends up with her sobbing in her father’s arms. Sobbing for all the horrors of two lives, for having to use her body in conjunction to her mind in order to manipulate Petyr, for the women he has hurt just like her. She cries for her father’s arms, warm and alive and protective. Cries for the fact that men like Ned Stark can be killed by men like Petyr Baelish, who sold her and adopted her and touched her, made the taste of the word father bitter in her mouth. Clutches at her real father, who should have set the standard for every other man in her life, and had instead ended up as an unimaginable exception to the norm.
She emails him the information from the drive anonymously the next day, makes sure to get it to his official police email.
When Petyr is fired and subsequently arrested, she imagines he never thought his precious niece, his almost-lover, his Alayne, could do this to him. Not after his constant belittlement and grooming and underestimation, not after an entire semester’s work on this one feeble girl. He does not dare mention it in court, lest it bring the fury of Chief of Police Stark on his head. Lest it reveal his relationship with Sansa, all the way back to the days of her being a little girl he would coax on his lap.
Lysa will stand by him during the trial, often leaving Sweet Robin alone at home. Sansa visits him, and he is distressingly sleepy and ill, too quiet and blank for a little boy she vaguely remembers once being full of energy and imagination.
Evidence of Petyr Baelish regularly drugging his stepson is the last nail in his coffin. Maybe Sansa should have killed him again, but she knows men like him don’t survive prison anyway.
She makes sure Robin ends up in the care of his father. It isn’t difficult after Lysa breaks into incoherent hysterics during the trial, publicly marking her as an unfit parent.
With Petyr gone and Robin free and Harry revealed, Sansa is in the good graces and inner circle of Jon Arryn. The Vale is firmly hers once more.
She takes Catspaw, a mine of information about powerful men and women in Westeros, and gives it to Arya. After Petyr’s arrest, it is the only working copy left. Arya had performed a miracle with Catspaw before. They both have their list of names to kill.
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Ned hates Arya’s new trainer.The man never seems to talk to her or give her any advice, just watches her fight with a vague smile on his face. Ned sees Arya get more and more worked up, sweat streaming down her face, hacking away with her sword; Jaqen never moves a muscle. Ned has never even seen him fight, has no idea what he can offer Arya that the Hound and Brienne and Beric couldn’t.If Ned disliked the vaguely paternal gaze Beric and Sandor bestowed on Arya, he absolutely hates the way Jaqen H’Ghar looks at her. He and Arya spend too much time training together in private, away from the view of the rest of the gym. Their relationship is odd; sometimes Arya seems submissive to him, at other times sharply superior. Ned thinks they pray together before they start, and he is utterly sure they do not ask from the Seven. Worries that Arya is joining a cult as he hears whispers of Death, the Many-Faced God from her mouth.Jaqen looks and touches her with a familiarity that sets off all the warning signs in Ned’s mind. The emotion in his eyes seems so close to lust and yet is completely different; perverted and dangerous. What worries Ned is that Arya looks back with the exact same look in her eyes.Jaqen is a handsome man, and Ned worries for his daughter. She is young, only 17, prime to fall in the trap of dating an older man. Ned has seen too many women in this exact situation, women who are groomed and abused by older men when they are young; those relationships always end in tragedy, end with a suspect sitting in front of Ned.Ned tries so hard to talk to Arya, but their conversations always devolve into yelling or cool silences. He has no idea how to get through to her, his gentle cajoling had ceased to be effective years ago. Cat tries as well, but Arya has always been less responsive to her mother’s advice. His daughter isolates herself more and more, pushing away from everyone, pushing herself into Jaqen’s arms. She becomes darker. Angrier. Her every move holding a repressed violence, itching to spill over.Talking to Arya is a dead end. Every day, Ned stops himself from threatening Jaqen, from forcefully dragging him away from his daughter, from finding a blade and slicing him head to toe for daring to touch her, to look at her. There is nothing else he can do; he knows the law better than anyone else, and Jaqen hasn't done anything wrong. Yet.It all comes to a head when Jaqen pays a visit at the house. He offers Arya a position at his training facility, the exclusive and isolated House of Black and White.Ned and Cat adamantly refuse, and Jaqen’s face doesn’t change in response to their resistance. But there is a tightening in his smile. A flash of menace in his eyes. He becomes frightening in an indescribable and vague way. Shrugs disaffectedly and asks them if they have ever heard of the Faceless men before leaving. Ned is relieved he has left the house, and he hugs his bewildered wife close. Arya will go to college like everyone else in their family, will go somewhere far away from the darkness inside Jaqen.At night, when his wife has finally fallen asleep, Ned remembers what he has heard about the Faceless men. Something he had only heard about when he was a young, foolhardy man, before he had even gotten married; an urban legend more than anything else. When people died mysteriously, when they were forced to label a case as cold and finished, rumors of the Faceless men always swarmed the academy, still swarmed the station until Ned brought them to an end. They were a foreign myth no one could confirm or deny, something laughed at publicly and feared in secret.Ned leaves some articles about college applications on Arya’s bed the next morning.A few weeks later, Cat wakes him in hysterics, her red hair flying out of its braid. Their daughter is gone.…
Arya knows it is almost time to leave. She has been doing more and more missions for Jaqen, been attending more and more Brotherhood meetings. Sandor has started attending the fights. After serving time in juvie, he knew better than to get caught at an illegal fight club, had resisted going for years, but Beric had finally convinced him. They had had an odd, mismatched friendship for many years; the felon and the priest, the misanthrope and the savior.
When Sandor sees her named the winner, she knows he wants to tell her off, to warn her against fighting in an arena without rules; but he doesn’t consider it his place. Sometimes, Arya will be taken aback by the force of longing, longing for him to remember. Because he had understood her like no one else, had understood the sheer desperation of who they were, the cliffside of violence on which they lived. Had saved her, warned her away from revenge once with a protective hand around her neck, his true name on her lips. The first time she had said Sandor instead of Hound. Sandor Sandor Sandor.
Arya misses the man who had yelled at her for being too kind, who had thrown her over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes, who had carried her kicking and screaming to a new life.
Arya remembers how shocked he had been when she had practically forced him to be her coach; no one had ever asked the gruff, aggressive man to train them despite his obvious skill. He and Brienne had interacted with each other with such vitriol, Arya was sure she would get the chance to watch another mountainside fight. Suffice to say, they had reached the frustrated yelling part of their relationship pretty fast after he started overseeing her training.
He is a good man underneath his blustering violence. Arya hopes he and Sansa get their heads out of their asses soon.
But this time, she cannot walk away from the road of vengeance yet. There are new powers that be, new tasks to complete in this second life. So far, neither Sansa nor Beric believe Cersei remembers. Arya had called Jon, and when his voice came on the line she had nearly been reduced to tears. Her favorite brother, her true king. They both realized they hadn’t been calling each other nearly enough, realized how much they missed each other now that the seal of silence had been broken. It feels like heartbreak to know he doesn’t remember, heartbreak she knows Robb and Sansa feel as well. She tries to ask him about the Night King, but he just seems confused about what she is saying; the closest thing he can think of is a fatal disease ripping through wildling populations up north, leaving mountains of cold bodies behind…it was colloquially referred to as the white walker, because of how quickly it spread, how it left its victims white with pain and cold just before they died. Jon was running himself ragged trying to raise money and awareness for the disease, but there is nothing Arya can do to fight this.
She keeps training. She returned to her family, to Winterfell, to life, once; and she will again, but first she needs to learn and do everything she can. The information she has found on Catspaw only adds fuel to the fire…she is better at simply dispatching people, but that doesn’t mean she is a stranger to blackmail. And here is information about the Lannisters, the Targaryens, the Boltons, the Tyrells, the Tullys, the Greyjoys, the Freys. Even the Starks. It is a good thing the Stark children are already intimately acquainted with the fatal flaws of their own family line, that they can bear to look at these secrets.
There is enough to keep her family safe. The second anyone gives her an excuse, she will destroy them.
One day, Jaqen tells her he is leaving. He would take her with him, but her parents had refused.
Arya is desperate to go, to finish the training she had left behind once before. It is already July, and her parents are expecting her to tell them which college she is attending any moment. Arya was never going to go to college. Her destiny was always to worship at the temple of the Many-Faced God, to become Death.
Bran tells her the best way to navigate through the night. Sansa helps her pack, gives her one month of wages despite Arya’s adamant refusal. Robb arranges the train ticket and the boat ticket to get her to Braavos. And Jon puts her in contact with a distant friend from high school, someone who has settled in Braavos and can pick her up at the station. It’s a perfect arrangement; he needs a roommate anyway. Arya kisses Rickon on the forehead before finally leaving; silently stands outside her parents' room and stares at them before finally turning away.
When Arya gets off the boat, she comes face to face with Gendry Waters. She remembers the night they had together, remembers the earnest foolishness of his proposal in a previous life. He looks good, tall and lovely. Tanned from the Braavosi sun and the fires of the forge, hair grown long and curled, eyes a sparkling blue. They widen as he watches her walk toward him, and she sees a slow, steady smile grow across his face.
Her stomach flutters.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jon comes home for his 21st birthday. In his customary black clothing, with his hair half-pulled back, he has never looked more like a Stark. He has brought his friend Sam Tarly with him.Ned is proud of his son, proud to share a glass of top-shelf scotch, proud of the small party he and Cat have thrown together. Jon’s favorite food steams from takeout containers on the kitchen island; a small group of meticulously wrapped presents sit on the dining table.Robb and Sansa have come home just for the weekend. Both warmly embrace Jon as a treasured brother and close friend, long-gone and dearly missed. Bran displays a real smile, allows a hug, his head tucked into Jon’s fur-clad shoulder. Rickon is especially excited, crawling all over Jon to ask him a multitude of fast-paced questions. Ned’s youngest wants to hear about what wildlings other than Osha are like; sometimes, he seems part wildling himself. They all seem delighted to meet Sam Tarly, who is befuddled by the attention.Even Benjen has shown up, driven up straight after his broadcast. He is leaning against the door with a beer in his hand, a smirk on his face. When Jon sees him, he lights up, rushes in for a hug so affectionate, it almost makes Ned jealous. Benjen grills Jon about how the Watch is doing, tucking him under his arm. The setting sun shines in through the window, glinting off of two identical heads of curly black hair. They have always resembled each other.Ned had called Lyanna and Rhaegar, asked them to come. Both were currently out of the country; a card and gift with their names sit on Ned’s table, underneath everyone else’s presents.Arya’s absence is a gaping, noticeable hole in an otherwise warm evening. Lulls in conversation, the careful avoidance of any conversation about her, makes her absence all the more obvious. Glaringly obvious during a celebration for the brother she favors so overtly.Jon seems surprisingly alright with the fact that Arya isn’t here. Ned doesn’t know whether to be happy or angry that the rest of his children seem to have helped Arya leave; happy at their obvious camaraderie or angry at the mass subterfuge happening under his nose, the heartbreak they have invited in his home. Ned had tried desperately to find her, but even all his considerable resources had yielded no results. She had left them a note, and texted home every day to let them know she was alright, even called them occasionally. They have learned to live with the broken, silent shards of her disappearance.Eventually, the night wears on; the warmth of sunset coming in from the window becomes the chilly glow of starlight. Rickon goes to bed, Benjen drives Bran to a sleepover with Jojen Reed, and Sansa and Robb catch trains back to their respective colleges.Cat decides to retire to the kitchen in order to start cleaning up. She has always had a colder relationship with Jon than Ned has. Perhaps it is easier to accept a replacement father than a mother, perhaps it is because Ned is related to Jon by blood, perhaps Cat could have never loved Jon the way she loved her real children. She had treated him well, but had never been able to extend genuine maternity toward him, to be truly open with him. Jon still called her Aunt Cat; he had started calling Ned his Da barely a year after moving in. Ned supposes his children have always been surprisingly perceptive.The only people left in the room are a weary Ned, an exhausted Jon, and an awkward Sam.Sam Tarly is Jon’s closest friend, a chubby, nervous sweetheart of a boy. Well-read and sensitive, but lacking in social prowess, and it shows in the awkward hesitancy of his manners. Ned knows of Randyll Tarly, who is a legendary judge, sees him often when presenting evidence about his arrests at court. He must be disappointed his oldest son decided to join the Night’s Watch. Poor Sam Tarly will also soon face the perils of fatherhood, and at such a young age. Ned despairs for him, though he seems excited at the prospect of having a son with one of the wildling girls the Night’s Watch had taken in. Though Ned supposes he can’t truly say anything when Sam is barely 2 years younger than he himself was when Robb was born.Jon seems worn out, but proud of the work he is doing. He is currently running a campaign to elect a wildling, Mance Rayder, to a leadership position within the Night’s Watch. Were he to be successful, it would be the first instance of wildlings actually having a representative within the Watch.Jon is also being offered a hefty scholarship from the Night’s Watch, who think he would benefit from attending law school. He seems to be adamantly against the proposition, citing it as a way to get him away from the inner workings of the very organization he is trying to dismantle. Ned just thinks of his son as a human rights lawyer. Living the legacy of so many Starks before him. The dream of any parent, the vision they see in the future of an adored and loving child, in a baby with twinkling eyes and a sparkling laugh. His scared toddler, his moody teenager, an accomplished, thriving adult. Ned had been despairing about Jon’s decision not to attend college, and now another door to the same destination has suddenly been opened.Ned has also heard of Jon’s campaign, heard of Mance Rayder in great detail. The wildling “king” has caused quite a buzz, has become the watercooler story for all adults around Ned’s age: members of the community who don’t think wildlings should have the same rights as Westerosi citizens, who hate the Night’s Watch for changing its mission from segregating wildlings to assimilating them. The types of people who spread baseless fearmongering, claiming wildlings would join Westerosi communities and lie in wait, ready to rise up and wreak havoc.Jon is almost singlehandedly trying to further radicalize the Watch, to push their goal from assimilation to representation. Trying to improve native wilding homelands and preserve wildling culture. Ned knows Jon has been receiving threats for his efforts, even from within the Night’s Watch itself. He worries for his son, and the father in him wishes Jon would just let go. The man in him is proud of Jon for keeping his nerve, for standing his ground.Ned had watched Jon train with a sword. His son could have easily been a champion, had he decided to participate in competition. If Jon keeps a knife under his pillow, he will be fine. Jon is drunk and delirious off half a glass of scotch, starts to talk about Mance, his wife Dalla, and his sister-in-law Val, seems to admire them all greatly. His face takes on a dreamy quality as he describes them, all the time he spends with them, defending them, arguing for them. There are two spots of color high on his cheeks and his eyes have glazed over. It may be common hero worship, but Ned sees a deeper, more affectionate feeling in Jon’s eyes.When his doorbell rings, Ned gets up, cursing at the way his bones creak when he lifts himself out of his chair. He is rubbing at his forehead as he answers the door, only to be hit with the sight of Mance Rayder and Val standing at the door, holding a beautifully wrapped present in their hands.Ned has never hosted wildlings before. When Cat comes out of the kitchen to greet them, she meets his eyes with a similar look of bewilderment.Mance is tall and formidable, long black hair pulled back to frame a square jaw and weathered face. Charmingly rugged, he offers apologies that his wife could not come due to her pregnancy. It is Val who is the true beauty. Striking, blonde, with features perfectly carved from marble. She is blunt, nearly insolent, her birthday wishes direct and sharply aimed. Both she and her brother-in-law hide deep intelligence behind their dark eyes and rough manners, their gazes deeply assessing. Ned invites them in, offers them food. They take residence on the couch, on each side of Jon, who looks ecstatic to see them. Mance looks comical holding a plate with a slice of funfetti cake.Ned is discomfited by their presence. They are hugging Jon between their bodies, sitting far closer to him than is necessary, with a possessive, near lustful look in their eyes. Ned admits he doesn’t know what is considered socially appropriate in wilding relationships, but he can’t imagine it is what he sees. Jon is near dozing, cradled between them. Looks happy to be there. Somebody’s hand is in his wild curls, someone else’s resting on his knee. They look like a painting sitting together, the three of them draped over each other; something faded, still, and sexual is in the air.Jon practically falls in Val’s lap as he fully falls asleep, after which she extricates herself so that she and her brother can leave after offering their goodbyes.Ned leaves Jon on the couch and retires to the kitchen to help Cat clean up. He and his wife look at each other with wide eyes, but silently agree not to discuss what has just happened.Ned is aware that he was uncomfortable because of the mixture of Mance’s paternal gaze and Val’s romantic interest, the way those emotions had intermixed over Jon. The boundaries between possessive familial affection and sexual interest that had been completely blurred.But Ned doesn’t want to read between the lines, doesn’t know how much of his judgment is affected by Val’s beauty and the fact that Jon is his son. After all, they had travelled a long way just to see Jon. To leave him with well wishes for a bright future and a meticulously wrapped present, even in the middle of a hectic campaign season.Ned can’t help but appreciate that, despite everything.…
Jon is in the middle of so many things, tackling concerns of a magnitude he could have never even imagined before. White walker is still decimating wildling populations, surrounding the countryside with ice-cold corpses. He pushes for the Night’s Watch to branch out, involve scientists and doctors who can begin studying the disease and find a cure for an epidemic that no one cares about because it only affects wildlings. All of his ideas are met with pushback, but Jon persists because he knows he is the only one fighting.
Stannis, who is high up in the world of academic publishing and textbook editing, has agreed to reach out to scholars who can start tackling the disease. His daughter Shireen and her friend Lyanna Mormont spend their free time writing letters asking for donations to the Night’s Watch cause. Jon appreciates every little bit of help.
His work is difficult, but this is what he was meant to be doing and where he was meant to be doing it. He loves his family, but he had always felt like an outsider, a puzzle piece that wouldn’t quite fit; now, he has slotted into a perfect place.
But family is still important. In fact, he seems to be finding new facets of his family every day.
Robb calls more frequently these days; the lovesick tone of his voice is often grating. But Jon can’t begrudge Robb’s happiness, even if it was because of Theon of all people.
Arya had reached out to him for help in running away, and he had felt compelled to help her. His fierce and beloved sister, small and vivacious and so poorly understood. It is easy enough to reach out to Gendry, who had been over all the time to mow the lawn or oversee Arya and her friends. When Jon couldn’t spend time with Robb because Theon was bugging him, he and Gendry would find each other. They had had their first beers together, cracking the stolen ice-cold bottles open in a shaded part of the garden, spilling the sticky liquid all over their hands. They had talked about how it felt to be a bastard in Gendry’s case, to be adopted even though your parents were still alive in Jon’s. They had even been in an ill-thought, short-lived band together, and Jon had lived under the assumption he had destroyed all photo evidence of its existence until Rickon had started questioning him about it.
Sansa had reached out to Jon about finding some way to keep Ramsay Bolton in prison, make sure he would never get released early from his life sentence. Jon tries his best, but he isn’t truly a real lawyer, and the Bolton’s are wealthy enough to have Ramsay transferred to a hospital facility. In his efforts, he finds an unlikely partner in Tywin Lannister, who wants Ramsay to stay in prison surprisingly badly, who considers Jaime’s missing hand a debt to be repaid in suffering and blood; but Jon finds it difficult to work with a man with such a loose sense of morality. Roose Bolton doesn’t care about Ramsay beyond the hospital transfer – he has his wife, who he actually seems to care about, and another son. Walda Bolton actually tries to reach out to Ramsay more, mails him baked goods in an effort to form a relationship with her stepson.
Jon was amazed Sansa reached out at all, considering how turbulent their relationship had been when they were children. But something incredible had happened in his absence, triggered by the fact that both of them had left the house they had grown up in. She had finally begun to treat him like a brother for the first time. He cherishes the ability to shower her in brotherly affection, accepts the spoken apology without a second’s thought.
Jon is genuinely surprised by the birthday party he is greeted with when he arrives back home, by the loving embraces of Stark family members who shouldn’t even be there.
When Mance and Val show up, he is already feeling woozy, is extremely flustered by the fact that they decided to visit. He is fighting his hardest for them, genuinely believes electing Mance will revolutionize the purpose of the Watch. They have spent much of their campaign discussing the needs of the wildlings, why the system actually keeps many of them from asking for help. The fraught history between the Watch and wilding populations, especially ones that want to continue living in their native lands, with their culturally distinct tribes. The Watch really only works for nomadic, unattached individuals like Osha or very young ones like Olly.
He doesn’t know how he got here, but the stars are twinkling, and he is pressed warmly between them. Everything is warm: the parts of their bodies that are touching, the alcohol in his blood, the flush in his cheeks. Warm and soft and hazy, and he notices, for the hundredth time, how beautiful Val really is. Truly a princess warrior, a ridiculous term that seems almost romantic through the haze of inebriation; her hair has never been more golden, her face never so lovely.
He can’t look them in the eyes for a week after they have all returned to the Watch. Not until Mance has been elected, despite the palpable displeasure of a very vocal group of people, can he look the him in the eyes with a sense of personal pride. The night Mance is elected is one of the best nights at the Watch.
Mostly because he spends it pressed between Mance and Val once again, but this time in a massively comfortable bed. They have to celebrate their success somehow. Ygritte and Dalla seem happy to watch.
Commander Mormont and Maester Aemon keep trying to convince him to go to college on the Watch’s dime, to get an accelerated law degree. Jon hesitates, doesn’t want to leave the family he has found here.
Mance and Val and Dalla. Tormund and Ygritte, all the other wildlings. Sam and Pyp and Grenn and Satin and Gilly.
Tormund smacks him about the head before practically tackling him in a hug. Tells him maybe if he goes to school, he’ll come back and be able to continue the work he’s doing, convince the Night’s Watch to let wildlings stay in their homeland instead of forcing them in the cities.
Ygritte calls him a fool, reiterates the fact that he knows nothing. That college is a place that even she knows he could finally learn something. She also tells him to kiss her unless he wants her to be taken by the time he comes back. He complies in a way that can only be called desperate, heedless of Tormund hollering encouragement right behind him.
Despite what they say, he knows they are sorry to see him go, his redheads are.
Satin and Pyp and Grenn insist they are fine together as well. Jon sees the way they look at each other, and wonders how they managed to get into a functioning relationship while he could barely ask Ygritte out on a date.
Sam tentatively asks if he can come with, bringing Gilly and Little Sam with him. The fortress is no place for a baby, and they can get married in the city. He can see his brother, who would have just started college.
“I would have studied. It was all I ever wanted to do actually, but my father didn’t think it was worthwhile to pay for me to go do it.”
And how can Jon say no to his best friend’s big, pleading eyes, how can he say no to someone he loves.
Aemon and Jeor are happy to see him go. The Night’s Watch was designed to force men to stay, to grind out their lives in service. But Jon trusts much too easily. What use is a knife to a man who does not know where to point it, who does not know the danger he is in, who does not know who is out to get him.
They will ensure he will not die again.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Ned finishes another phone call with Arya and rubs his temples.His daughter is living with Gendry Waters.Gendry, who has always been in the periphery of Ned’s life: Robert’s son but the one who is a bastard, always at the Stark house but just to mow the lawn. At some point, Ned had offhandedly worried Sansa would be taken in by Gendry’s good looks; but then his attention had been needed for Theon and Joffrey.He had completely neglected thinking of Arya as vulnerable to romantic interest. Ned remembers being equally as surprised when she had been infatuated with Mycah, so many years ago; and he thinks fooled him once, fooled him twice, as the saying goes.Ned had allowed Gendry around his daughters out of respect, out of a belief in honor and loyalty. And now the same boy is shacking up with Arya, who is barely an adult. Gendry, who has known Arya since she was 10 and he 15; Gendry, practically fatherless, the son of a former stripper; Gendry, who owns neither a college degree nor a stable home of his own. And Arya is the first one of his children to set out on her own, to reject the traditional path of college, a career, a semblance of connection to her family. Ned is simultaneously shocked and wearily unsurprised. Shocked that one of his beloved children, a squalling baby girl he had rocked and kissed and soothed, had left him so easily. Unsurprised that it is Arya. Arya, who has always wholly rejected all the expectations ever set for her. Who has always been different and rebellious and energetic and angry. Of course she would escape, of course she would leave him bereft, wondering if the next time he sees her she will be unrecognizable, a creature of myth, a faceless man.What hurts the most is that all she left him was a note. That somehow he and Cat were the last to know. That they seem to be the only ones who care she is gone. And then one day Arya comes back just as suddenly and silently as she left. One-and-a-half years pass and she is knocking on the door, a defiant look on her face and Gendry’s hand in her own.She has changed, is now darkly tanned and leanly muscled, all hints of puppyish youth gone from her face. But she is still Arya. Any lingering anger or upset he feels evaporates, and he draws her into his body, crushes her against his torso in a hug.Gendry is satisfyingly nervous at meeting Ned at least. Arya is smart enough to bring him home during Sunday dinner. It is the holiest day of the week for followers of the Seven, and the one day in which Ned invokes guest’s rights for his children; Sunday dinner is usually the time when the Starks get to meet their children’s friends or significant others.Guest’s right is the only thing that protects Gendry when Arya decides to announce she is pregnant during the middle of dessert. She states it defiantly, as if daring them to disagree, daring them to insinuate that she of all women can’t be pregnant, can’t want to raise a child, daring them to slight her sense of femininity or gender.Gendry spits out his food. Ned pales. Cat drops her fork.Arya’s siblings, though not nearly as perturbed by the news, go silent; remain silent for the rest of dinner. Cat doesn’t touch the rest of her food. Ned’s right hand itches to grab his shotgun, but he settles for stabbing his steak with a knife and putting it directly in his mouth. The knife remains in his hand the entire time as he stares at Gendry, stares to the background noise of Cat begging Arya to tell her how it could have happened. It is somehow more surprising when Arya tells them she has already married Gendry. Ned feels himself physically age at the news.She is the first of his children to marry.…
Braavos is sparkling sunlight over clear water. Braavos is life. Braavos is freedom.
Braavos is Gendry.
God she loves him, this stupid fool who once thought she could be his lady. As if she could have been anyone’s lady.
They come home to each other at the end of the day drenched in sweat; Gendry from working with a blowtorch all day, Arya from the exertion of her fighting, her missions. It doesn’t stop her from pushing him over so she can ride him.
She’d never tell him how much she loves his big hands fitted around her waist, loves his blue eyes looking at her with love and lust from below.
They spend their days fucking, smoking, and drinking. She trains and kills and learns all that she could not before. There is a sense of carefree oblivion in this life that she has never enjoyed before.
She loves it. Loves him, when he still blushes during sex, even after months together. When he knows she is stronger than him and seems to love her more for it. When he watches her train and fighting becomes fucking, fucking becomes more like fighting, but his touch is always reverent.
They go out clubbing or to bars with his friends, loud and raucous men like Bronn, who comes to visit during his breaks from working for the Lannisters; and Thoros, who talks way too much about how much he misses Beric. Sometimes Sandor tags along, especially during long weekends, only to sit broodingly in the corner and glare at everyone who looks at him. Arya drinks them under the table, crushes them at darts, relishes in the looks of astonishment and admiration in their eyes.
She joins Izembaro’s acting troupe. At first, she does it solely to protect Lady Crane, whose broken body still haunts her dreams; but then Arya learns to love it, to love being someone else, being faceless without the death.
And then one day she doesn’t clean up after a job, just wants to go home; she enters the house covered in blood, and Gendry is still awake, waiting up for her. He flails in a panic, thinking the blood is hers; and then falls to the floor, clutching at his head.
It is Arya’s turn to panic then, until he looks back up at her.
The first thing Gendry says after remembering is
“Holy shit, you killed the Night King!”
because Gendry is an idiot.
The second thing he says is “Woah, I did fuck Melisandre this time,”
which is when Arya realizes he’s dumber even she could have ever imagined.
She will deny that she cries at his remembering, at the fact that she can be in a relationship with someone who remembers, who knows all the ugliest parts of that life, who truly understands. He knows about every kill this time around, has no delusions about what she really is. Gendry has always tried to protect her from the abject cruelty of men; it is not his fault he failed.
His touches are all the more tender now, for now he knows the gift he has been given, the one he had been denied a life before. He had once spent his whole life looking for her, waiting for her.
That is her gift.
Gendry never lets her forget who she is, no matter how many faces she gains. Always reminds her of Arya, never lets her question if she’s still human enough to even love. Gives her permission to open herself up, to bare the softest, most vulnerable parts of her. Outside of her family, she does it for him. Only for him.
He knows how to propose correctly this time, without a mention of the word lady. Though, he apparently thinks the best way to do it is to make a ring from scratch and then throw it at her.
She says yes solely because he expects her to refuse again, because she has always enjoyed being contradictory. At least that’s what she tells herself.
There comes a time when life becomes comfortable and well-worn.
Arya has performed her first big role with the troupe. The waif has been in her grave for a long time. There is a silver ring around Arya’s finger from a wild, drunken night.
Drunken and surrounded by friends, they had decide to get married right then and there. Sandor is there to give something to Thoros from Beric; Arya forces him to be a witness at her impromptu wedding.
Her memories of the night are hazy, softened by alcohol and happiness:
Thoros, taking a shaky video of the ceremony, all his hair escaping his perpetual man bun. Sandor being dragged toward the floor of the club for Arya’s first dance. The smell of the chicken he was eating, the sound of him telling her to fuck off, the movement of the dance floor when she finally wore him down and he swung her around without an ounce of finesse.
The look in his eyes – the same look as the last day he had been alive, a protective hand around her neck, telling her to go home.
And Arya realizes she doesn’t have to miss who he was anymore. He is still that man, the echoes of that same tortured soul in a better, more forgiving life. He was happy when she won nationals, happy when she got married, happy when she drags him out to the dance floor, happy when she calls him Sandor.
This man who got his revenge in two lives, who died in the midst of his childhood nightmares the first time. Who got his revenge and remained hollow until he found the things that truly made him smile: baking and swords and maybe Sansa. They’re both tired of the list, tired of living for it. The list that reminds Arya of war, of children burning in the streets, because that is what war is.
It is time to go home.
When she tells him, Jaqen does not react except to tell her she is pregnant.
She’s been with Gendry for a year, the best year of her life, and when she tells him it is time to go home to raise his baby, he has never looked happier.
“Can’t raise our baby here, huh. Knew you were just another rich girl.”
“You don’t know any other rich girls.”
And for the first time, memories of a previous life are not soaked in blood or violence, but made of honeyed smiles, reminiscent of a cold afternoon where two children, a man and a woman, had flirted with each other over a darkened forge, savoring childhood memories.
She hadn’t wanted a child last time, and in this life Gendry leaves the choice of the baby up to her.
Arya wants it now, has thought about it for a long time. She wants to raise a child properly, without any of the restrictions that dictated her own childhood. To see her child grow up with all the freedom and safety in the world, this new world where Arya knows she can keep all who she loves safe; with her sword, with Catspaw, with her family's love and support.
They leave the next day. Arya had explored the whole world once, and now the possibilities stretch out as endlessly as the sea once did.
She could kill the Boltons and Tywin Lannister and Walder Frey. Could ruin them, with the information she knows is on Catspaw. Could join the military, which is what her mother had always threatened her with. Maybe she’ll be an actress. Or a dancer. An explorer. An assassin. A spy. A mother.
She doesn’t know yet, and she doesn’t need to. All she knows is that it is time to move on, that she’s learned all she can here.
Between her desire to destroy evil and protect the innocent, she knows which is more important. Knows it is time to choose life.
Meeting her parents’ eyes after coming back is an ordeal, but one she is more than willing to go through. She remembers what it had been to have no parents at all.
Arya is nothing if not observant. She saw her father’s hurt at the announcement of her marriage. He had always tried to understand her, leagues more than her mother.
After all the outrage and anger, she finds him in his study late at night. Brings her iPod, puts on a slow song from his youth.
“You were the first person to get me dancing lessons. And we missed our dance.”
The father daughter dance.
Ned is a man forged of honor and tradition, and above all, love.
He gets up and sways his daughter in his arms.
…
At least, Ned thinks, Gendry is a good man. Hardworking and kind. He has seen how men can be, and after all that happened with Joffrey and Jaqen, he is almost glad at Arya’s choice.That they have come back married is what hurts him the most. That he had not celebrated in the matrimony of one of his children, that he had not been able to see his wife relish in planning a glorious bash, a feast, a deserved celebration of love and life.At least his daughter grants him a dance. As he swings her around his study, he cannot help but see Lyanna in her eyes.When Arya looks at Gendry, Ned sees the way Lyanna looked at Rhaegar, still looks at Rhaegar. When Lyanna was young and unburdened and free, when the world was simple and beautiful. Romantic.His beloved sister; his beloved daughter.Slowly, he stops seeing Gendry as a man five years older than his daughter, as the one who absconded away with her. And he starts seeing all that was once pure and good in Robert Baratheon. Charm and strength and honor and pride and obstinance, the worth of a stag.Ned sees how his and Robert’s dream has finally been fulfilled; the Stark and Baratheon lineages have finally come together. A Stark daughter and a Baratheon son have united their families.Robert had hoped it would have been himself and Lyanna; Ned had hoped it would be Sansa and Steffon. But dreams and prophecies do not bend to the desires of man. Ned had read Arya a storybook once, since Sansa had enjoyed them so much. A story about a princess. A princess who married and ruled and had children… You will marry a high Lord and rule his castle. And your sons shall be knights and princes and lords.
No. That’s not me.
Arya is married; Gendry takes her last name.She will remain a Stark till the end.As Ned moves with her in his arms, a song playing softly in the background, Arya looks at him with so much love and strength and pride in her eyes it sets his heart aflame.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Maybe there was a world where Ned could have accepted Robb and Theon. But his son destroys any hope of that.Robb does not bring Theon home to introduce him as a boyfriend or partner, does not bring home a boy the Starks had helped raise. He does not give Cat any time to get used to the fact that her oldest son is in a romantic relationship with another man, something that has been slowly dripping, coalescing, being ignored in Ned’s mind for years.Robb hasn’t told them he has been with Theon for years. For years he has hidden from them, has kept a huge part of his life away. They are all having breakfast together, every child at home for spring break. It is just the Starks; none of their significant others present. The sun is shining through the window. The world is pastel in its brightness. Cat is serving waffles dripping with cream and honey at the table, and Ned’s entire family looks like a painting from a home décor magazine. And then Robb, their oldest son, their shining star, their heir, takes advantage of a rare moment of silence in this perfect morning. He looks at his siblings and seems to take strength from their collective before speaking up.He asks for his mother’s ring. A Tully heirloom Catelyn had inherited from her grandmother, a woman’s engagement ring she had always wanted to give Sansa. Delicately wrought, thin strands of silver braided together, with a ruby on top; a small silver fish encircles the jewel.Their son wants to propose, and Ned and Catelyn are blown away; blown away that they had not realized Robb was in love from the look on his face alone.When he reveals the name of the person to whom he wishes to propose, his siblings smile at him delightedly. Bran and Sansa look the happiest, Jon the most disappointed; that is why he is Ned’s favorite.As the name echoes across the table, Cat drops the plate she is holding on the floor. She stands, frozen, for a few seconds, before finally sitting at the table, holding her head in her hands. It is a scene Ned has become accustomed to in recent years.Even the birds have gone silent in the heavy stillness that follows Robb’s declaration.Theon, a son in name but never in love. Ned had dealt with Sansa’s infatuation with him. Had tried his best to ignore Robb’s, to ignore shiny eyes and besotted smiles.He numbly stares at the horror in Cat’s eyes. His wife, who had come to him with genuine worry about Sansa’s innocent crush, who had never wanted Theon in her house at all. Theon was and still is Cat’s greatest fear. Theon, who brazenly smoked both cigarettes and pot; Theon, who regularly swore in front of their daughters; Theon, who failed all of his classes, surprised all of them by getting accepted to a college. Ned regrets minimizing Cat’s worries. Regrets the weakness that allowed Theon in his house, amongst his children; a weakness borne of cigarette burns under faded hoodies, of shattered dreams. A weakness borne the day Ned arrested Balon and Maron Greyjoy and his officers shot Rodrik Greyjoy, officers who he knew were still waiting for the day Theon followed in his family’s footsteps.Now, Robb wants to marry him, wants to hammer in the nails on their coffin, nails Arya and Gendry had laid. Nail after nail: that he has been in love for years, that he is dating a man, that that man is Theon. Theon Greyjoy. But for all Robb has changed and shocked them, he is still who he has always been; persistent, assertive. He tries again.He brings Theon back to the house he hasn’t seen in years, to introduce him to the family that should have been more precious to him than his own. Ned watches Theon cringe away from the dogs he used to once wrestle, watches Robb shoo them away instead of hugging them himself. He can barely recognize Theon without the confidence and vanity and sullenness that had defined his teenage years. He can’t help but think that this Theon is…broken. Broken, physically and spiritually, his gaze focused on something no one else can see except for the moments when he looks at Robb.And Ned knows it is terrible, and cruel, and horrid to think these things, but he cannot help but think it is his fault for introducing a lifelong burden into his son’s life. The burden of this broken, ruined man, for Robb to take care of for the rest of his days. And Ned knows it is terrible, and cruel, and horrid, when he and Cat refuse Robb the ring, refuse him their approval for the marriage. Robb’s face falls, becomes mired in heartbreak. The rest of their children look at them with disapproval and anger; even Jon, who has always thought of Theon as an ass, can’t speak up against Robb’s happiness.Robb is outwardly upset. But Ned notices Theon’s quiet, unsurprised devastation more. He looks like a rejected son. Ned wonders when Robb had decided to so completely stop following in his father’s footsteps, wonders as Cat cries herself to sleep next to him. He feels ridiculous when all he can think is that the rumors about Robb and Raynald must have been true after all. Robb had been waiting for his first paycheck as a kindergarten teacher, had been talking about how he would treat his family to dinner with his own money.He spends his first paycheck on a brand-new ring. Sansa helps him choose. And Ned is left with a distraught wife and an absent son, wondering what he did wrong. Left blaming himself, confronting the realization that not only had he and Cat never seen Theon as a son, but that they had also lost their first-born along the way.…
Robb is finally happy, finally with Theon.
So it’s a nasty shock, a splash of ice water in this warm sunlight dream of a life, when Robb and Sansa are at Theon’s apartment, and there is a knock at the door. Theon gets up to answer and looks through the peephole. And all the color drains out of his already pale complexion.
It is Ramsay. They can hear him crooning outside, thumping the door repeatedly with something heavy. Metallic.
Roose had ensured his son would suffer a lenient sentence, life in a psychiatric facility instead of a prison or death row. His stepmother, so sweet and innocent, still wanting to have a relationship with her stepson, had been sending him small presents. She sends him a card announcing the birth of his baby brother and a photo of Roose Bolton looking down at his second son with a semblance of what could be called love. And Ramsay snaps. Uses a hidden plastic fork to get himself out, to kill a security guard, steal his gun, and set off to find his beloved Reek.
Theon knows he can’t let Ramsay leave. Not with the gun. Can’t let him leave when Shireen Baratheon is alone in her stepfather’s apartment upstairs, waiting for him to come home and make his famous onion rings, when she could come to the door at any time for help with her math homework. Can’t let him leave when Tyrion is away, collecting rent from his tenants, while his petite wife and newborn son are only a few doors down; not when she gifts Theon with sweet smiles, asks him if he wants to hold her baby. Can’t let him leave when Lyanna Mormont could come home any second to visit her Uncle Jorah, who lives just one floor below Theon, who lets Theon borrow sugar and flour and his vacuum with kind eyes. Can’t let this psychopath leave, armed with a gun, when he could stroll through the building unchecked and enraged.
Theon know what he must do. It frightens him immeasurably, makes bile rise up in his throat, makes his hands shake. He turns around to look at Robb and Sansa, and he wavers. Begs them to hide themselves, hide their phones, so that Ramsay doesn’t make their contacts his kill list.
Robb refuses, refuses until Sansa drags him away, yells that if Ramsay sees them, sees Robb - whose love for Theon seeps out of the very pores of his skin - he will kill Theon on sight. Yells that there are knives in the kitchens, that they have all left their phones there.
Robb tries to pull Theon to this facsimile of safety with him, tears in his eyes, but Theon stands his ground. He had always been brave and unwavering when it mattered, no matter what his lives had thrown at him.
Robb ends up sweating and shaking behind the kitchen counter, trying to pull knives out of the cupboard as silently as he can, staring as his sister whispers into the phone, calls the police and the ambulance.
The ambulance.
Theon finally opens the door, and Ramsay comes through. He is all the angrier for being made to wait.
All Robb hears past the ringing in his ears is Ramsay’s deceptively gentle crooning, adeptly hiding seething rage. All he hears is the sickening crack and wet give of metal against flesh, brutal and loud and nonstop, as Ramsay beats into Theon with the pistol, making do without his preferred weapon of a knife.
All Robb hears are clothes ripping and Theon’s screams and then Sansa is holding him back, her hand covering his mouth because he hasn’t even noticed he has begun sobbing, sobbing loudly; and now he is choking back his screams behind her hands. The largest kitchen knife Theon owns is in his shaky hands.
There is a brief lull, and then Robb hears Ramsay asking about the necklace, the necklace Robb had given him years ago. It may say best friends, but the worn softness of the metal speaks to a more intimate relationship with its other half.
Robb’s blood runs cold. They had forgotten it on the mantle.
Ramsay asks, in a frighteningly sincere voice,
“Don’t you love me, Reek?”
And Theon is still begging, but it sounds more like he’s gargling his own blood. And Robb can’t take it anymore.
Theon had already died once to protect Bran, to protect Winterfell, to protect the Stark homestead. He had proved his worth as a Stark with his final breath. Robb can’t let him die now, can’t let him die for the meaningless idea that is honor. He has already done his duty. All Robb wants from him in this life is his love.
Robb rushes out at the exact right time; when the gun is lax in Ramsay’s left hand and as his right one is fumbling with the buckle on his belt. He is trying to get his pants open.
Theon is laying in a pool of red, trying desperately to get away. All of his remaining fingers have been broken by the pistol, and he is nearly naked. Ramsay is moments away; moments away from brutally raping Theon; moments away from killing his beloved Reek for daring to touch another man; moments away from using the gun to shoot him.
Robb tackles Ramsay without hesitation, forces him off of Theon. He grapples for the gun immediately, but Ramsay is bigger and stronger and absolutely high on adrenalin; he ends up on top of Robb and knocks the knife out of his hand, and it slides across the floor.
And Robb thinks this is how he’ll die, with a bullet in his head; and the last thing he’ll ever see is Theon bleeding out on the floor, trying to grab the knife as it dances away from his broken, bloody fingers; he is terrified that he’ll be forced to witness Ramsay using the knife to carve Theon’s body into a hundred ribbons as his own life seeps out of him.
And then suddenly the body on top of his goes limp, and warm, sticky blood oozes all over Robb’s face, and he is drowning in it, choking on the red viscosity of it.
Sansa is standing over Ramsay, standing over Robb, looking feral and mad; she is covered in specks of blood that blend into her hair. Robb hadn’t noticed her enter the room; hadn’t noticed Theon kick the knife toward her before finally passing out; the same knife she has thrust into Ramsay’s neck, moments before he could shoot Robb.
When Ned Stark bursts through the door with the might of the entire police force behind him, he finds his daughter holding a bloody knife, staring at nothing; his son covered in blood and bite marks, trying desperately to staunch Theon’s wounds with his bare hands; Ramsay Bolton lying on the floor, gun still in his hands, eyes the color of dirty ice, clouded over in death.
And then, there is a life, spent together.
It takes time for Theon to progress back to the same place he was before, mentally and physically.
But Robb is there for him this time, every step of the way.
The second Theon wakes up in the hospital bed and knows his real name, Robb knows they will be alright. He finally let himself cry in relief and desperation; shudders to think of what could have been had Ramsay had more time or his flaying knife, had had enough time to make Theon Reek again. What could have been had Theon been at home alone; if Robb had come in to find his dead, assaulted body bleeding out on the floor, or find him missing, cursed to a life of horror and regret.
Roose Bolton knows better than to show up at his son’s funeral. He picks up and leaves the country, takes his wife and new son away. An intelligent move, with Tywin Lannister, Ned Stark, and Arya Stark all howling for his blood, his list of enemies growing day by day.
Four years after Robb first knocked on that door, Theon says yes. Robb is on one knee, a brand-new ring in his outstretched hand. Three month’s salary from his first job.
Robb still falls in love with Theon every new day, has loved him since they were both children. Thinks he is still just as lovely, no matter that he looks and acts different, that he stares at things no one else can see; because they are both different this time. Robb loves him because he let Ramsay hurt him instead of anybody else. Robb loves him when he makes Sansa smile, when he laughs at Robb’s corny jokes, when he refuses to stop shooting his bow.
They get married one stormy evening, because it’s Theon’s favorite weather. Asha is Theon’s best man. Euron isn’t invited; he has mysteriously disappeared, and Robb would put money on Asha, terrifying and competent, being the reason why. Speaking of Asha, Robb has noticed that Jeyne Poole is still living with her, even though Theon moved out long ago. Robb smiles; he hopes they make each other happy.
Robb teaches kindergarten and comes home to the only apartment they can afford. They eat take out in front of the television and toss suds at each other when they wash the dishes. They kiss every night before falling asleep and every morning before parting ways for work.
After years of recovery and gentle care, Theon decides to try drama school. He had gone to college for a technical degree, but Robb remembers how much he had loved acting, how much it had suited his natural charisma. Remembers doodles of krakens on the scripts for their high school plays and musicals. Remembers Theon being mocked for his love of classic films and musicals. Arya actually helps him get a job by putting him in touch with contacts in her acting troupe; she had somehow found the time to be an actress during her assassin training.
Theon’s first part is as an extra in The Rocky Horror Picture show. Robb goes to every showing, brings flowers every time; brags about it to every friend and family member and co-worker who will listen, just to see Theon blush. He can barely sit and watch the show without wanting to rip the corset off Theon’s body, wanting to gently cradle the face so artfully brushed in makeup and glitter.
Every week, Robb drives Theon to therapy; he attends physical therapy and sex therapy and psychological therapy and group therapy. Sometimes, he stays out late to get drinks with Jaime and Lancel Lannister. Other days, he and Robb get ice cream on their way home.
They have their bad days, days of arguments and yelling and dissociation, fights where they lose themselves in horrific memories, accusations of abandonment and shattered dreams from both sides. But married life is bliss, with enough laughter and love to offset any upset. Life seems heavy with contentment.
Sometimes, Robb feels high off his own happiness. With Theon’s lips on his in the warm, syrupy sunlight; with Theon laying in his arms while it rains. And Robb sees the rest of his life stretch in front of him, sees the powers of the past and present. Sees his job and his husband and his life, quiet and domestic and mundane.
Theon wakes up one night. He is distressed from a nightmare, which has become a less common occurrence as time passes. He lays confusedly in Robb’s arms, mouth dry.
“I dreamed you came to kill me,” Theon murmurs. He has nearly fallen asleep once more, but manages to whisper
“Don’t worry. It would have been a mercy. I begged you to do it swift and just.”
Robb panics, wonders if this is Theon remembering; but there are no other memories forthcoming.
He had wanted to kill Theon once, when he had thought Theon had destroyed his home and killed his brothers and broken his heart. Once, before Theon came back to defend Winterfell once more, to give his life in order to protect hers.
Theon will never remember, and Robb is thankful. Thankful he doesn’t have two lives of Ramsay Bolton to remember.
Eventually, the nightmares will fade away almost entirely. Eventually, the only time Theon will cry is from joy.
But right now, Robb tucks Theon against his chest and kisses him with breath stale and sweet from sleep. Pets his curls, and follows him into better dreams.
…
Ned and Cat are invited to the wedding. It is a largely spontaneous event; the invitations are texted out just a week before.There is no ring on Theon’s finger, because he doesn’t have his left ring finger. Ramsay had taken it as a perverse symbol, to make sure Theon could never move on. Sometimes when Ned looks at him, he doesn’t see a smartly dressed young man about to get married; he sees a limp body bleeding out on the floor. His son crouched over that body, sobbing with desperation. They place the rings on each other’s right hands. Theon is ungloved in public for the first time, his remaining fingers painstakingly groomed and painted. Ned had once thought he was broken. Had forgotten that all men deserved happiness and love; had forgotten the mercy and honor he built his life around.Jon is Robb’s best man; Trystane one of his other groomsmen. Theon’s sister acts as a maid of honor though she would riot at being referred to as such; Sansa and Myrcella and Jeyne are his bridesmaids.Rodrik Harlaw walks Theon down the aisle before going to stand behind Alannys’ wheelchair; she has been given a day pass from the hospital in order to attend her son’s wedding. They are all smiling wide, practically leaking happiness. Ned imagines they are almost surprised Theon has found his own happy ending, after the dark and painful upbringing he barely survived.There is a pang of something painful in Ned’s chest. He had never even thought about walking Robb down the aisle, but something tells him he should have done so for Theon. Something tells him he has failed his duty as a father by letting Rodrik do his job. Ned feels like an outsider through most of the wedding, feels as if he has missed more of Robb’s life than just the person he fell in love with. It is an objectively lovely ceremony regardless, one which Ned and Cat had willfully refused to engage in. The hall is golden, decorated with sweet smelling flowers, light and open. Hints both of Sansa’s taste and Theon’s former grandiosity litter the venue. It exudes far more youth and vitality than Ned has felt in a long time. As weddings should, he supposes.Now and always, Robb and Theon say to each other in their vows, smiling and happy and young. When they kiss, looking in each other’s eyes with love practically pouring out of them, Ned thinks of his own wedding. Feels wetness on his cheeks. He had seen Theon in the hospital, had seen, had seen his…son laying bloodied and close to death. His daughter’s desperate voice on the phone and the sheer terror of driving at top speed while praying his children weren’t already dead.Seafood covers tables that could have held Cat’s cooking; she had always wanted to help prepare the food for her children’s weddings. Ned remembers Theon had always been partial to seafood; there is childlike glee on his face as he skips from table to table, and for the first time since Robb’s announcement, Ned feels truly pleased by his son’s marriage. His sons’ marriage. And Ned is perceptive enough to realize he and Cat have failed their firstborn, that they have missed two of their children’s weddings now. That Theon should have been another Stark son, but he never truly was. Theon has married into the family now, has finally and truly become a Stark in all the ways that matter.And Ned vows to be a better father-in-law than he has been father.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Theon becomes a regular attendee at their weekly family dinners; he is, after all, their son in law. Cat is still uncomfortable when she sees Robb showering him with affection, but she does her best to hide it. For her son.Ned tries his best to rebuild a relationship with Theon, a relationship that had been shaky to begin with, and then further lost to time and trauma; but he had never been adept at figuring out what to say, not even when Theon was younger.Seeing him at the table brings back memories. It transports Ned to years ago, to when his children were all children, and Theon would eat dinner at their house nearly every day. Ned wonders at how everything can change so much and yet remain exactly the same; how they have all changed and yet cycled back to their pasts. Books about queer theory and sexuality, gender identity and LGBT history litter his and Cat’s bedside table now. They are helping each other understand. They are trying. Any time they hear malicious gossip or rumors about their son, even among former friends and associates, people from their own generation, they shut it down immediately. As a team. They have always been the most adamant supporters of their children. The marriages their children have chosen are admittedly not the ones they wanted. But one can only guide progeny so far before having to let them make their own destinies. Nothing exemplifies this more than when Arya goes into labor. Only 19, and now a mother. Ned is only 47, and she has made him a grandfather already, aged him beyond his years. Quite unfairly, he thinks.It is an easy labor. So easy, in fact, that by the time their entire family has rushed to the hospital, they are greeted by a screaming newborn boy. The baby favors Gendry greatly, but Ned will eventually convince himself that his eyes are Tully blue. He is absolutely, heart-stoppingly beautiful. As is Arya, looking radiant and sweaty and self-satisfied, as if she has knocked down an opponent she expected to give her a harder fight. She holds her son tenderly, softer than Ned has seen her be since she had offered him a dance. They have filled the room, all of them crammed in together. Gendry, on the bed next to Arya, disbelief written in his eyes, as his fingertips gently trail through dark, wispy hair. Arya’s little childhood gang makes it in eventually as well; they are all men now. Lommy, who is slowly rising through the ranks of the military, skinny and lean, his quintessentially floppy blonde hair a crew cut. Hot Pie, who has become a tall, broad hulk of man, though with the same gentle smile and warm hands; he is a sous chef in a restaurant now. And Mycah, with plump, blonde wife in tow, in the middle of his business degree. They all coo over the newest member of their gang.And eventually there are Sandor and Beric and Brienne, all looking in awe. Arya seems just as much their child, and now she has one of her own. Brienne caresses her own small baby bump, smiles in a way that has always made her eyes seem intensely beautiful.(It is the same smile she wore at her wedding with Jaime Lannister. Worn along with a baby blue pantsuit. It had been a charming affair, even in Ned’s eyes. None of the Lannisters had been in attendance except for Tyrion, who had been Jaime's best man; and both she and Jaime looked so very much in love. Jaime had become less argumentative about desk duty ever since his marriage; both of the Tarth’s were extremely professional about their marriage in the workspace. Ned appreciated that they lived far enough away for him to avoid seeing Jaime outside of work, but close enough for Brienne to visit Cat for tea during her maternity leave).And then there is his beloved Cat, cooing over her first grandchild with as much joy as she had any of her own children; gently tracing the baby’s tiny nose and miniscule fingers. Her slowly-graying hair is curling around her face as it falls out of her bun, and she is wearing an old robe and her slippers. His heart aches for how much he loves her. And then there is Robb and Theon and Sansa and Jon and Bran and Rickon and tears of joy and awe-filled silence, a silence as peaceful as one would find in a church, and this moment is no less holy.Ned is honored when Arya passes him the baby, allows him to be the first person other than herself to hold this brand-new life. He yawns in his grandfather’s, grandfather’s! arms, and Ned remembers when all his babies were born. Each one so tiny and perfect, and he looks around the room with tears in his eyes, tears for how much they have grown, those precious treasures he could once nestle in the crook of his arm.The new Stark is black-haired and blue-eyed, their sweet summer baby. Arya and Gendry name him Eddard Stark, chosen from Arya’s list of names.And even through his tears, Ned sees Robb stiffen at the announcement of the name, sees his smile turn peculiar and melancholy. During such an unambiguously happy event, Ned sees him lean into Theon for comfort. Even with a new baby to lavish with praise and attention, Ned keeps an eye on his other children. The second Robb had told them he was in love, it had been obvious, had been written all over his face. Ned is determined not to miss these signs ever again – he will catalogue any besotted looks or strange absences, will know them intimately.His careful observation doesn’t yield much beyond how devotedly both Arya and Robb love their significant others. He wonders if these effects are signs of his impending mid-life crisis.Sansa has been coming home from work every day covered in flour and icing (like usual), but at an (unusually) later time. Ned knows she has started attending therapy a few evenings a week, had started it after the horrifying incident with Ramsay. Ned wholeheartedly approves, thinks it is the best thing she could possibly be doing. He himself had been ready to recommend a few therapists based on an enlightening conversation with Theon. Her lateness is novel only in that Ned knows it is not just therapy that is keeping her late; there is something else making her come home long after the sun has set. Ned has his theories (another sign of impending middle age), but does not let himself believe he can determine or convince his adult daughter of any of them.Ned is delighted Sansa is attending therapy. He is even more delighted that she tells him about it, has an entire conversation with him about it unprompted. And he is further delighted by the fact that the person who seems to be driving her home after her later-than-usual nights is Steffon Baratheon.Ever since Sansa’s first date with Joffrey, Ned had hoped she would choose his older half-brother instead. They had been close as children, back when Robert was a bachelor and both he and Ned spent inordinate amounts of time at each other’s houses. Before he had succumbed to raging alcoholism, an empty house, and, most recently, an openly antagonistic wife. Steffon had eventually stopped spending time at the Baratheon house, as he had always preferred to live with Cersei and Jaime.He is the antithesis of Joffrey. Clearly a Baratheon, and Robert’s oldest, most legitimate son. With the dark hair, blue eyes, and lean build of all Baratheon’s; he was a gentlemanly, if awkward character. Had gone from sweet child to heir of Baratheon industries.But Ned has grown too old, has seen too much, and has learned the hard way that his daydreams are just daydreams. That there is no point in reading into his children’s mannerisms. He holds no hope of his daughter dating anyone she doesn’t want to and is glad of that fact. Ned is just content that Sansa looks happy. …
Even after an entire month, Sansa’s nightmares persist. Nightmares of the blood dripping all over her hands, splashing her in the face; redder and warmer than she would have thought. It is different when the life leaves them up close, when you feel them going limp under your hands. She had never killed someone deliberately before Ramsay, never with her own hands. Her only consolation is that he had been facing away; she had not had to see the life drain out of his eyes.
Sansa knew she loved Theon. Had loved him in both lives, had cried over his body in the last one; in the worst part of a terrible adolescence, he had been her hope and savior. She had visited him regularly since his release from the hospital the first time around, before, during, and after Robb. She had had a crush on him. Once, she had spent his last night alive having dinner with him. But she had never realized the force of sheer panic and grief that would encapsulate her when she saw him bleeding out on the floor. She didn’t like having to sit in a hospital chair by his side for the second time, as Robb cried silently beside her and gripped Theon’s hand, as Asha stood over them looking exhausted. Her brother, her savior, her friend. He had died to save her, to save Bran, to save Winterfell.
Sansa wishes Ramsay had still had his dogs. She had enjoyed listening to them rip him apart with slow deliberation.
The night after everything had happened, after she had fulfilled her promise to herself to kill Ramsay, she had sat in the police station for hours. She had washed the blood off her face, but it was still flaking on her arms. It was getting quite itchy. She had the feeling that many people were trying to talk to her, but the sound around her was much too hazy. She was irritated Robb had gotten to ride in the ambulance with Theon and she had been shuffled to the precinct.
Her father had watched her with eyes that were immeasurably sad. His eyes had once looked like that in a prison cell, right before she had doomed him. She doesn’t want to see those eyes.
He had sent her home without taking her statement.
She doesn’t want to go home, so she goes to the bakery. Sandor will be packing up, setting up the next day’s bakes late into the night.
He sees her come in, covered in blood, and says nothing. Just grabs a wet washcloth. Grips her face, firmly, to start wiping the blood off her neck. Her collarbone.
He puts a blanket around her shoulders. It smells of icing.
He got what he deserved, she tells him. I gave it to him. I watched him bleed onto my brother.
Sandor calls her a little bird for the first time in this life. When he looks at her, she could almost pretend that he remembers, that he still knows what the Lady of Winterfell is capable of. He is glad, she thinks, that she isn’t crying. Still swipes his thumbs over her cheeks uselessly, trying in vain to rub away pain and grief and trauma that she has not allowed to manifest as tears.
She grabs him, pulls him into a kiss.
She’s tired of it, isn’t she; tired of them dancing around each other. She’s older now, nearly finished with college. Will be working far away this time next year, working on a political campaign in Dorne - they are in the middle of negotiating their independence from King’s Landing, are the last nation to be granted this freedom. She is interning under their ambassadors, helping to write out their political negotiations.
She wants Sandor now, before it’s too late.
So she has him take her to bed.
He flinches when she touches the burnt side of his face, tries to pull away; but she keeps holding on. Lets his massive body carry her, warm her up where she doesn’t even realize she’s gone cold. When they fall asleep, his hand rests, large and warm, on her belly.
She doesn’t let him leave in the morning either. Shows him she can kiss him in broad daylight. Despite how tightly he gripped her, he had made sure not to bruise the pale, freckled skin.
Steffon Baratheon comes into the bakery one day to buy a cake for Tyrion’s child’s first birthday. He spends time at the counter talking to her, even after he has the cake in his hands; maybe because he too knows her history with Joffrey, or because Sandor knew him as a child, or simply because he is well-mannered. They had spent plenty of time together as children, when Robert had actually been trying to be a father. Whenever Steffon would come over, Robert would always get in over his head, would arrange playdates with the Starks just so Ned and Cat would help him look after his son.
Robb had always focused all his attention on Jon or Theon. Theon himself was too arrogant to approach Steffon, Jon too shy. Steffon had been a shy child as well, and Sansa had spent the most time with him, taking advantage of that gentle nature. She had forced him to play the prince in all of her pretend games and fairytales. Even now, Steffon was comically similar to a child’s image of a storybook prince and savior. Tall and handsome, with a vague resemblance to Gendry that confirmed the latter’s parentage. That quintessential Baratheon look, along with Cersei’s sharp features and tight curls, made him a true beauty. Sandor thinks so as well. Sansa finds his rumbling jealousy quite funny.
Their conversation ends with Steffon inviting her to Tyrion’s party with him. Sansa is sure Tyrion has his hands everywhere in Westeros; it costs her nothing to get into her ex-husband’s well wishes.
Varys and Bronn are at the get-together as well. Two disparate people connected to each other by Tyrion’s endless charm and charisma. Bronn seems to be scheming for a way to somehow infiltrate Highgarden again, though he seems at odds about what to do, since he cannot fuck his way in. Varys thinks the best way to serve the realm is through the connections Tyrion has forged in his extensive housing network. He lets homeless children stay in his apartments for free. Sansa hopes he keeps Varys away from them.
Tyrion and Varys also host their own weekly podcast, where they get drunk and talk about the state of Westerosi politics. Sansa supposes that if they remember, it must be freeing to now be part of a state where one is allowed to criticize the politically powerful.
They are no longer affiliated with Daenerys. Perhaps because she let them down. Or they her.
But Tyrion is still using his clout, this time as a businessman, in order to help people. Sansa sees him, looking happier than he ever was, as he watches his red-cheeked wife feed cake to their chubby baby boy.
Sansa had once told him he was the best of men, and it had been the truth. She hopes he remembers, and so she says it again. To his face, though they have met maybe twice before, in this life. He responds with dark, intelligent eyes, and kisses the palm of her hand. He remembers, and her soul is lightened. Lightened for his memories, lightened for the contentment with which he now lives his life. He leaves her side only when Jaime and Brienne arrive, ready to greet them in the celebration of the son he never got to have with any woman he loved before.
They become fast friends after that.
And so do she and Steffon. He starts coming by the bakery more often, just to give her company while she ices cakes and bakes cookies. She appreciates it, because Sandor is such a terse man; it is nice to have someone to talk to as she works. Though she misses Sandor’s arms around her own, gently teaching her how to properly knead.
Maybe it’s because Steffon sees Sansa’s hands shake uncontrollably as she ices. Or because Joffrey still hangs between them, ties them together. But he asks her to come with him to the therapy sessions he attends. Though he and all his siblings have personal therapists, courtesy of Cersei’s wealth and Jaime’s compassionate parenting, they all also went to group therapy together. Used it to discuss Joffrey, how powerless he made them all feel. How powerless he made Steffon feel, when he had only hoped for a little brother to dote on; and had instead received the lifelong guilt of feeling like he had failed Myrcella and Tommen. All victims of Joffrey.
Jaime himself attends another group therapy session at the same time. One that Sansa knows Theon, Brienne, and Jeyne Poole also attend. Victims of Ramsay.
Sansa is darkly amused by the fact that she could attend either one.
Mrs. Dondarrion runs the session that Steffon attends; Sansa accepts his invitation to accompany him. It feels good, to share. It makes her feel better, stitches up the fracture lines that have taken root in her heart, in her soul.
Steffon talks about how Myrcella had always been the brave one. She had gotten the worst treatment from Joffrey, and had been the only one to defend her siblings from his wrath.
She’s always been the brave one.
Like you, goes unsaid, but Sansa hears it anyway. He looks at her, eyes shadowed under long, dark eyelashes. Had she not lived the lives she has lived, were she not already dreaming of spending her nights with someone taller, darker, and less handsome, she would have fallen for Steffon without hesitation. He is gentle and sweet, but now she needs to spend her life with the Warrior. With a man who will kill for her without hesitation, who will spill blood like sugar. Steffon, with his gentle nature and untested morality, can never be that man.
He is a good man, one who does not need to wait for her refusal. He reads it in her eyes, and they simply let what could have been simmer between them, until it cooks into a warm friendship. They both move on.
She starts joining the Lannisters every week during the sweet sticky summer after her last year of college. They all pile together in a car, and go to therapy. Sometimes Robb will take her home, as he attends with Theon; but most of the time, she accepts Steffon’s offer of a lift home. Jaime drives them sometimes, the quintessential father with his mini-van. They all smush together, and he asks them if they are all wearing their seatbelts, every time without fail. Pays special attention to Brienne, gently touches the small bump on her tummy.
He makes eye contact with Sansa in the car mirror. She knows he remembers. Sometimes, she wants to tell him she's the one who killed his son.
Brienne doesn’t remember. Sansa hopes Jaime treats her better this time than he did the last. The way his eyes sparkle with love when he looks at his wife give Sansa hope.
It is an eventful summer; she has her job, evenings filled with Sandor and therapy, preparations to leave for the year.
And then Arya gives birth. There is suddenly another person for Sansa to fall in love with, to protect and care for and dote over. Little Eddard Stark.
She thinks about how precious a child would look in Sandor’s massive, gentle hands.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Before Bran tells them what college he has decided to attend, he tells them who he is in love with.It is difficult news to swallow. They have been trying so hard for Robb and Theon’s marriage; and now, they wonder if they somehow raised their sons incorrectly. If they missed something or did something wrong. They know this ideology is wrong, but it’s so difficult to move past it, so difficult to acknowledge that two of their sons have fallen for other men. It is difficult, no matter how much they read and learn and fight. And Bran is only 18. So young in their eyes, barely a man. He has never had to make a life-changing decision before, and his first one is the person he wants to settle down with. He may think he is only introducing a boyfriend, but Ned sees the look in his eyes. Sees the same look returned from Jojen with just as much ardor.Ned remembers Howland Reed’s PFLAG stickers. He wonders if that’s where he went wrong. Would it have been easier if he had pasted those same stickers on his car after Robb’s announcement? Or easier if he had made sure Bran had never seen them in the first place? Would anything have been different if he had never invited the Reeds, never invited Jojen to spend time with Bran? Or if Robb had never met Theon?At least, at least Ned had seen Robb coming. He had tried to ignore it, amongst everything else about Robb, all of his girlfriends and drama. But he remembers the infatuated looks Robb had always thrown Theon, remembers the tumultuous adolescence, the rumors about Raynald. There had been signs no matter how much he had avoided them.Bran has been a blank road, void of any signs, suddenly opening into a chasm of incomprehensibility. Neither he nor Catelyn had forseen his romantic relationship with Jojen.Cat questions, begs, asks if he’s sure. At her lowest moments, she tries to convince him to reconsider.But Bran, who has always been so quiet, so unemotional, so unlike the happy child he had been before his fall, insists by his love for Jojen. Ned sees emotion, anger and love alike spark in his son’s eyes; and all the fight drains out of him.Jojen, who alights such vivid emotion in Bran’s eyes, who makes him smile and talk, who draws him out of his head. Jojen, who has whisked his wheelchair around for years, who has never spoken down to him. Jojen, who has always been so effusively gay, weaving flowers in his hair, giggling and wondering and feeling so loudly.Ned feels tired; and at least Bran is introducing them to his boyfriend instead of his fiancé or husband. But he cannot deal with his son right now, needs time to work through his emotions, needs to pull Catelyn away before she actually says something she can never take back.Ned calls Howland Reed, finds him aware of and receptive to their sons’ relationship. Ned wonders how he found out, wonders why he gets to know about his children and Bran’s relationship before Ned does.Ned goes to Bran after a few hours, afraid to leave him hanging in uncertainty. Needing to tell him he is loved.He catches Bran and Jojen in bed together. They are doing much more than sleeping. Jojen flushes crimson and rolls off the bed in shock. Bran pulls the sheets up, and his legs do not allow him to move away. His face does not shift beyond defiance. The words dry up in Ned’s mouth, recede back down his throat.One week later, they go to the same college hand-in-hand.…
Bran does not want to do this without Robb’s presence and support, but he owes it to Jojen. Jojen, who came out so early because he could never really hide how sensitive and gentle and soft he truly was. Jojen, who was tormented in school; for being gay, for being kind, for being best friends with creepy, crippled Bran Stark.
Bran owes it to Theon, who had suffered the first wave of wrath and disbelief from Ned and Cat after his engagement with Robb. Owes it to him for being the first true role model of a man who loved other men, back before Bran remembered; during his prepubescent identity crisis, as he was finding himself observing boys’ lips more than girls’ bodies. Owes it to him because Theon taught him how to wield a bow in two lives. Because Theon had died for him in the last one.
Bran remembers his first date with Jojen; the first of many. Remembers the absolute look of surprise on Jojen’s face because Bran had been the one to ask, the one who had just let the question hang between them on an otherwise perfectly normal afternoon. A lack of embarrassment, of shame or pride or expectation had served him well then. Still, he remembers the spark of pleasure that had erupted as a soft pinkness found its way in Jojen’s cheeks, as his lips had curved into a shocked smile. They had found themselves having a picnic, Bran in his chair and Jojen on the ground, as the latter had spun crowns of wildflowers and talked ceaselessly, his voice a rhythmic cadence that ebbed and flowed like the gentle breeze. And they had eaten and laughed and Bran had fallen deeper in infatuation. Jojen had walked him back home and shyly told him he had enjoyed the date, and would not mind another. Bran had fiercely wished he could stand still; he would have been taller than Jojen then, would have been able to just dip his head to brush their lips together. Instead, he had made the best of it by pulling Jojen down by his shirt collar and smashing their lips together.
Bran enjoys inspiring surprise in others, he has found. It had made the kiss even sweeter.
Bran will be going to a college with a significant magical underground, a fact Jojen had not been privy to when they were deciding where they would apply. The magical studies supported by the university connect magic users all over the world. He will be a history major, since he is already studying the histories of Westeros under Aemon Targaryen and other maesters; they are waiting for Samwell Tarly to join them. Aemon, in particular, is yearning for Jon to remember.
He will do personal research under Dr. Raven. Instead of lab work, they will be traveling through time and space once more. Though the Three-Eyed-Raven acts as a psychologist, this is not what he will be teaching Bran. Their goal is to research and find out why memories occur; if the memories are real; if they happened. Current theories in the magical community overwhelmingly said yes. Maesters restored old books, found scraps of histories from thousands of years before that indicated the game of thrones had truly occurred.
Bran works with Arya to further unravel the true threads of their past life, to see the bigger picture that once tied seven kingdoms together. That ties all who remember now together. The very intersection between magic and memory and history.
He and Jojen have plans to move in together, as dorm life is not exactly possible for Bran. They will get an apartment together near campus. It is just another reason Bran can’t wait any longer, why he must tell his family. While Bran studies history, Jojen and Meera will attend the school of engineering, with Jojen studying environmental engineering and Meera mechanical engineering. Howland seems to be bursting with pride for them every second. He has always been that way. It is the first time it hurts Bran.
He has to come out to his family. He can’t keep delaying it because of nerves or trepidation. Not when he is going away so soon. Not when he knows Jojen would delight in being introduced as a boyfriend, but will never ask it.
At his parents’ reaction, Bran almost wishes he felt as unemotional as a life before.
When his father catches them, he feels no shame. And that is pure Brandon Stark.
It had been an immense struggle to grasp onto Brandon Stark, to keep his spirit and his mind. Bran learns primarily from the Raven, though trying to fulfill his destiny and keep his soul simultaneously drives him mad. He is on his way to becoming the Three-Eyed-Raven again, without becoming entrenched in the past, without losing all semblance of want or desire or love.
Sometimes, he feels exhausted. Exhausted and useless and still as he is trained; it is slow and painful and endlessly cryptic.
Fuck warging, he thinks. Fuck greensight. What’s the point of being able to fly or see or know when he can never help.
Bran had been king once. Bran the Broken. Bran the Wise.
He, just as Jon, had never wanted to be.
He had done alright at it, but this time, he will make sure his powers are used to their full extent. Used for a better world. Some men, especially men of magic, do their best work behind closed doors.
He already knows his magic must be used to heal the land rather than lead it. There is a disease ripping through wildlings, one that will some day reach Westeros. Jon is trying desperately to staunch it using science and money, but Bran knows ills of magical origin must be destroyed by magic. The Night King had always been his other half.
Sometimes, Bran attends witches’ meetings at the behest of the Raven. It is part of his efforts to integrate himself in the abundant magical community of Westeros, in which he will one day have a powerful role. The meetings consist mostly of tea and sandwiches with an ongoing rotation of Melisandre, Maggy the Frog, Jenny of Oldstones, and more; as they prophesize and try to decipher the underlying magic of the memory of Westeros. Magic that had once been ice zombies and dragons and flaming swords and prophecies, and is now exemplified in memory and ritual. Bran treats these meetings as a twisted form of job shadowing; interning under the people whose career path he will eventually follow in.
Bran wonders how witches make money.
During one of these councils, Jenny cackles about dismantling the monarchy and pours tea. They ask him how coming out to his family went. Bran has never even told them about Jojen, but he supposes there is no need.
There are representatives from the Children of the Forest present. They mask their appearances in order to appear human, though they have taken on the faces of indigenous peoples. Perhaps that is what they have always been.
Bran pulls out the few fragments that have been found relating the story of ice and fire. The goal of this meeting is to go over these scraps, to see what the Children can confirm. In exchange, they will receive magical help to protect their native lands.
Bran waves his hand around to dispel the smoke that seems to constantly exist in the odd, velvet underground they have made their meeting place. The smoke adds to the atmosphere, though it is born of years of cigarettes trapped in a tiny space; it makes the flickering bulb light hazy.
Bran pulls out his laptop to take notes. The witches and Brynden look at him.
“What? It’s much easier than quill and parchment.”
Bran is the memory of Westeros. He is Brandon Stark. He is more of the Raven than he ever was last time, has learned more, can do more. Will do more. Will decipher the secrets of magic and time and space and memory. Will understand why Westerosi people remember, whether others remember as well, and what these repeating stories teach about the state of the world. He will defeat prophecy and illness alike; and if he has to, he will defeat dragons, corruption, and power.
But first, he will take Jojen’s hand in his own. He will give him a real smile, and kiss his petal-soft lips. Go to college with him, date him, and marry him. Look into such green eyes.
…Bran and Jojen are still together, come home together from college for Ned and Cat’s 25th anniversary party later that year. They will stay together for the rest of their lives, but Ned is not privy to that foresight yet.He does notice how much happier his son looks, happier than he had been since a once carefree childhood. Going to college and living his relationship openly have done him well. Leaving home has done him well; Ned’s gut churns with that realizataion.There is color on Bran’s cheeks and a small, but real smile on his face as he looks up at Jojen.Also looking at their intertwined hands with pleasant surprise is Cat’s Uncle Brynden, who has arrived hand-in-hand with Jon Connington. They look at Ned with knowing smiles and he looks away.Cat herself is running around the house, making sure everyone has food and drink, herding friends and family together and away from each other.But Ned sees her eyes land on Bran and Jojen. She considers their smiles, and finally gives one of her own. It is content, but he sees it waver. Sees it dampen as she considers the life Bran could have had. How much easier it would have been if he had wanted a wife. If he had never fallen. Ned watches this moment, understands his wife in these few seconds in which time seems to stop and peace seems to fall. And then someone is congratulating him and the moment has passed.Lysa is also in attendance, in a move Ned can only describe as deeply unfortunate familial obligation. Robyn who has accompanied his father, one of Ned’s closest friends and oldest mentors, tries desperately to rein her in; but the entire crowd still hears her wail about Bran to Cat, hears her bemoan how the poor child is not only crippled but sexually perverted as well.Bran’s face fills with horror and anger, something primal and dangerous sparking in his eyes. It frightens Ned, though he must otherwise admire his son’s resolve. Jojen flushes and pulls his hand out of Bran’s grasp, as if such a small move will distract from the love that seems to pour out of his very being. Ned steps forward, intending to grab Lysa’s arm and pull her into the kitchen, to give her a serious talk about respecting his family, his children. But Cat beats him to it. She is practically glowing with anger, his normally polite wife, burning like Nymeria from story and song. She does not choose to draw Lysa away or to calmly reassure their son.Cat drags her sister to the front door.
How dare you talk down to my son, Lysa. Have you forgotten who I am. Leave my house. Now.
Everyone can hear the words in the dead silence that has fallen, but Ned is the only one who sees them form in his wife’s chest, sees them vibrate through her throat with sheer anger, sees them tear out of her mouth. She is feral with anger and disdain and pride. Something in her words echoes. When Lysa is gone, Cat smooths down her hair; she is still standing in front of the door, with her back to their guests. It is quite a lovely back, especially when framed by the black cocktail dress she has worn. Ned sees redness peeking up her neck, threatening to reach her face; he sees how her hands tremble to keep from clenching.He distracts the crowd with some awkward segues in conversation and directs them to the food; slowly, noise filters back in the room and the celebration continues. Ned wants desperately to comfort both his wife and son, but he gets stuck in the crowd, gets stuck squashing rumors before they can start spreading out of control. He sees Cat go to Bran. Sees the words I love you leave her lips. Maybe even I’m sorry. He sees her pull Jojen into a hug and kiss Bran’s forehead. She leaves them holding hands, glowing with the aura of a mother’s love.Robb approaches Cat to put a comforting arm around his mother; she will tell Ned later that he apologized for waiting so long to tell her about himself and Theon. She lays a tentative hand over top Theon’s, where he hangs behind Robb. His head shoots up in surprise and Ned knows he sees the gesture for what it is. Acceptance, of both him and the apology given. Ned sees Arya looking contrite in the background, though when she catches his eye, she gives him a reassuring smile. Little Eddard poured into Cat’s arms brightens her spirits immeasurably. Ned sees Sansa looking contemplative as she observes the scene. He nearly chokes on his tears. His wife, slowly knitting their family back together. The day ends when all the guests leave and his family is all that are left. All his babies and the people that they love. Robb and Theon, in animated conversation with Cat like never before. Sansa and Arya, who had fought so much as children, trying to balance Eddard between them; Rickon standing in front of the baby trying to show him something on his phone. Eddard is quite a chubby baby; Arya herself was quite tubby as an infant, and the memory makes Ned laugh. Gendry, talking to Bran about something, with Jojen happily perched on one of the arms of his wheelchair. Ned looks over the entire scene and finally gets to tell his family, tell Bran, how much he loves them all. They’ve come so far, but they’ve always stuck together. It is a 25th anniversary to remember.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Sansa is coming home after a year abroad. Ned is watching his wife cook a lavish dinner to welcome their oldest daughter home. Ned would help, but Cat refuses to allow him in the kitchen. It is a comfortable, quiet afternoon. Ned is slowly getting used to the amount of quiet he is exposed to these days. He has been spending more time with old friends, rehashing their days of youth together. Friends who have become legends, friends with whom who he has not had the time to share a drink with properly in years. Howland Reed, Arthur Dayne, Barristan Selmy, Jon Arryn.There is not much else to do these days. Crime has gone down significantly in recent years, and Ned is always prompt with his paperwork. He knows he is decades away from retiring, but he has kept a close eye on Brienne; he hopes she will be his successor one day.Brienne has only recently come back from maternity leave; her first son is six months old, and looks exactly like his mother. She and Jaime have named him Arthur Duncan Tarth.Jaime has extended his own paternity leave permanently, resigning from the desk job his hand had constrained him to. He wants to spend more time with his children, as if it has finally hit him that Arthur is his sixth one, though he only has five living. His relationship with Ned had warmed considerably after years of filing paperwork together.Part of Jaime's reasons for leaving the job were that he and Brienne were looking into adopting another child; a teenager named Podrick, who had spent years shuttled around in the foster system. He had saved up for years for one sword fighting lesson with Brienne; she had taken him on as a pupil for free. Both she and Jaime clearly have a soft spot for the boy. Ned knows it is unlikely Pod will be adopted by anyone else. He is a sweet boy, but he is 16 years of age, and teenagers were rarely taken in. Jaime and Brienne wanted to finalize the adoption soon, wanted to see the look on his face when he realizes they are to be his parents.And then Jaime will have six children to take care of, to coddle and raise and adore. Even Ned had stopped after his fifth one; he supposes once you have a sixth, you have to leave the job behind.These days, Ned doesn’t even have five kids; he is glad work takes up his time. The Starks have moved beyond the days when everyone would have gathered to welcome Sansa back. A family dinner such as that one seems like a myth of whimsy and lore.Robb and Theon have gone on vacation for their third anniversary. Arya is still playing around with what she wants to do with her life, jumping around multiple career avenues and activities; usually Ned and Cat would have babysat little Eddard, but Gendry had taken him to visit his other grandmother. Bran is in the middle of his second year of college, thriving at what he has decided to do. The only one left at home is Rickon, who has reluctantly agreed to be at home during Sansa’s dinner, but has taken the rest of the day to play video games at a friend’s house.It is just Ned and Cat; one cooking and the other watching. Ned is getting used to the quiet. Slowly, and day by day. Sansa had been in Dorne for a year, helping them draft their new constitution. She had come home briefly during that time, but had loved the job too much to ever stay for long. After Dorne, she had taken up other internships, volunteering opportunities, and advocacy programs abroad, filling up another year after college. She had helped run campaigns and advocacy groups, working under and helping elect politicians all over the country. She was finally settling in Westeros, working as the chief of staff to re-elect Ned’s father, who was the long-running incumbent representative for their constituency. Rickard Stark has no plans to retire, but something tells Ned that Sansa will have no qualms about removing him from the position when she becomes old enough to run. He cannot say he won’t support her. She has chosen the difficult, winding career path of a politician, one mired by manipulation and constant campaign; he had never expected it from her, but it suited her almost too well. The dinner goes without a hitch, though Rickon excuses himself at the earliest possible second. Sansa joins her parents for after-dinner coffee. They have ordered lemon cakes from Mycah’s bakery, just for her. There is a glint of something soft in her eyes as she eats them, seemingly savoring every crumb. A glint of affection, of tender tears. Of love. When she tells them she is dating someone, as she finally reveals who she has been loving and being loved by, it is not the calming balm Ned hoped for after Robb and Arya and Bran. He freezes. Cat’s lips purse in horror. Ned hates Sandor Clegane.Because he had seen Gregor Clegane’s body, frozen in paralytic shock and pain and horror. Asphyxiation is a terrible way to go, even for a monster. He had never looked the part better than in death. And it was Sandor Clegane who had committed the unforgivable crime of fratricide. Only 16 years old, and he had kept his hands locked around his brother’s throat, had watched the life drain from him, and he hadn’t let go.
It had been Ned’s first case on the force. Sandor’s age had gotten him a far more lenient sentence than he deserved, in Ned’s case. In the juvenile center, he had eventually earned the title of Hound, a lone mangled stalker baring his teeth at any who wished to befriend him, growing leaner and more muscular day by day. Though, Ned knows, there had always been rumors drifting around that Sandor would put himself between the true monsters and the center’s most vulnerable teenagers. Ned had quietly despaired when Sandor had been released, for he had become a man inside. But he had lived quietly. Had worked for the Lannisters for a fair number of years before ending up at the bakery.It’s because of this quiet living that Ned had allowed Arya to go to the bakery as a child, had allowed Sansa to work there. That did not mean he wanted Sandor to end up as a fatherly presence in Arya’s life. It does not mean he likes the man. Does not mean he wants Sandor to be the name that Sansa speaks to them that evening, over cooling coffee and crumbling cake. Does not mean he wants to see the man in his house, a possessive hand over his daughter’s shoulder when she brings him over for dinner the following week. Once more during a Sunday, invoking guest's rights.Sandor’s visit is one more instance that prompts Ned to wonder, not for the first or last time, when his little girl had disappeared. The girl who had always dreamt of marrying a gallant knight with gentle courtly manners. A prince with sparkling emerald eyes. When had his little girl bestowed those wishes, those dreams, on a hulking beast of a man.Sandor is an entire head taller than Ned, with half the flesh on his face melted away, half the hair on his head balding, and his entire mouth screwed in a permanent scowl. He does not make polite conversation, is a good 17 years older than Sansa; and when he looks at her, it is with a gleam in his eyes Ned does not want to consider is love. Even as Ned acts courteously, part of him is afraid. Afraid of those massive hands that could easily crush his daughter’s skull. Afraid of the growling voice that could tear apart her dreams, her self-esteem, her self-worth, as men have done before. Ned forbids Sansa from seeing Sandor, something he has not tried with any of his children since they were in their early teens. She looks at him impassively, and continues on as if he had not spoken.To think that Ned had once despaired for a child’s feelings for Theon. That he had seen any flaw in his other children’s significant others. Cat rages, and she has the upper hand this time. It is not homophobia or bias that drives her, but fear. Fear at her daughter choosing a man so much older, so much angrier, the embodiment of what could only be abuse. Ned tries to rally support from his other children, but none of them dislike Sandor as he does. Robb seems confused about Sansa’s choice, but has nothing to say against it. Arya looks between Sandor and Sansa and nods; breaks out into a real smile after reading what is in Sansa’s eyes. A smile for two people she loves.
…
Most days, Sansa is glad Sandor does not remember.
If he hadn’t remembered the second his face was held, almost tenderly, into a lit fireplace, or when his hands were squeezing his brother’s throat, he surely never would.
He is still vulgar and rude. But Sandor has never left a mark on either her body or soul. He would never hurt her.
He is still surprised. Tells her the stories of his life as if he thinks they will scare her away, but.
She’s killed men this time too. How could she ever look at any man other than the only one who treated her kindly for no ulterior motivations, in an arena of betrayal and cruelty.
Sansa does not care for courtship; not anymore. Sandor woos in bread and flowers but never in words. He speaks in wide eyes and a large frame hunched over as if he thinks his height or bulk will frighten her. As if he could frighten her after all the things she’s seen and done; it’s almost laughable. Laughable that the only man who had ever tried to rescue her could be scary.
As if the unfathomable texture of his cheek under her lips would frighten her away when she was 24.
When she was 23, she had come back from a semester abroad and moved all her things into his apartment overnight. When she was 22, and covered in blood, she had left the police station and her father’s arms for his instead. He had told her the blood on her hands was forgivable.
She does not find him handsome or able-bodied as she once did Theon or Harry. But she had found Joffrey handsome, and Ramsay, and once even Petyr. She does not need handsome men. She’s had plenty, each more beautiful than the last. Has felt their anger and abuse and violence and narcissism all too swiftly. But his face is so far from being repulsive; even with the intensive burning, he cuts a striking figure.
This life is better in many ways. Cersei has not remembered, and she has stayed away; Sansa’s greatest antagonist, ended in anticlimactic stalemate. Joffrey and Ramsay and Petyr are gone. Arya has left her lists behind. Sandor has gotten his revenge early, has built himself a life away from constant, mind-wrecking violence; this time, he will not die in fire.
Sometimes, and only with him, she lets herself remember what it was to be an innocent. To have the dreams of a girl, naïve and unburdened. Let’s herself enjoy nice dresses and romantic stories. He does not mock her for them. Another difference between lives.
They are married on a bright spring evening. In an outdoor temple for the old gods, as had been her dream since childhood. Her mother even comes for dress shopping and cake tasting with her, afraid to miss another wedding; she does not tolerate any talk about the groom, as if ignoring Sandor will transform him into a younger, more appropriate man for her daughter. The dress finally chosen is not white, but instead lemon yellow, bright and creamy like warm summer sunlight. Sansa stitches her own marriage cloaks, deep golden silk embroidered into every inch. Brienne and Jeyne and Arya and Myranda and Mya and Shae stand behind her as she is married. Sandor had grumbled about how he would be standing alone, but behind him are Thoros and Beric and Gendry. His fingers, as they clasp the cloak around her throat, are ever so gentle. She remembers the brush of his fingertips against the underside of her jaw most vividly, more so than even the kiss that had sealed their lives together.
He still calls her a stupid chirping little bird sometimes. But he knows, better than most, that she is a true wolf. When she comes home after a long day, there is always a lemon cake on the counter. She loves learning to bake from him, but can never quite make anything as well as he does. She sings around the house and he leans against doorways and listens. It reminds her so much of her father.
Their home is filled with flowers and patterned cloth curtains like she’s always wanted. It is a place of rest, in which the Queen of Winterfell not only rules with unwavering care, but mothers and sings and hums and stitches and loves. A different sort of romance, perhaps, but romance nonetheless.
They have their first baby when she is 28. Her career is blooming, but she wants a family. She will eventually be old enough to run against her grandfather for his parliamentary position. And she knows she will win; after running so many other peoples’ campaigns, she wants to run her own. But she has time now. Time to prepare, though she knows this is the job she was meant to have. She had, once, been Queen of Winterfell after all, the best queen Winterfell had ever had. She had won independence for the north, setting the precedent that had allowed every other principality to win their independence. In both lives she had told her father she would one day be queen. Sansa knows how to play the game well. How to make people love her. How to wield political power and leadership. She had long moved past dreams of marrying a king, to visions of protecting her home and country. Somewhere, inside, she knows Danaerys will one day try to unify the kingdoms under one rule again. But Sansa will be there to clamor for their independence. She will always be there.
There is a small voice inside her head, one that is a mix of Cersei and Petyr, that tells her children are a huge asset for political candidates. She ignores it as well as she can.
Sandor yells at her multiple times when she is pregnant, barks at her, can’t handle her tears or tantrums; but he still treks out for hours, at all times of the day, to find the foods she craves. He had always been oddly gentle with Arya, had saved them both so many times. He had chuckled when she had told him she wasn’t a little girl anymore, the first day of her work at the bakery. It had brightened his entire face, but not nearly as much as his searing look of awe as he gently patted at her pregnant belly or her face, swollen with hormonal tears.
They both have their bad days. Days where Sansa won’t talk to anyone, won’t let anyone touch her, not even her children; where she has to focus on just keeping herself together, tight and controlled, lest the very substance of her being escape its boundaries.
Days when Sandor can’t control his temper, can’t use any of the tips from so many anger management classes. When he gets in his car to drive around for hours or destroys dummies at the gym, hiding the fear that he will lash out on his children, his wife.
Days when yet another uninspired filmmaker wants to make a documentary about a serial killer and they include Gregor, phoning Sandor for an interview. Not as Gregor’s brother or victim, but as his killer. When the film or show or documentary is made and includes footage of Gregor and Cersei and Qyburn. Qyburn talking about how he had tried to save Gregor, how physically mauled his body had been in death, how terrified he must have been in the final moments. How despicable was the monster that had killed him.
Those are Sandor’s worst days. When he’s truly angry, though she is still never scared of him.
And she is no wilting flower either. When he is broodier than usual, she does not tolerate it. Reminds him of all the friends he has, more than her even. As if he doesn’t go out with the Lannister brothers or Bronn or Beric and Arya and Gendry and Thoros all the time.
Maybe it would help him to talk about it, she thinks.
Maybe one day Pod will make a film about it that treats Sandor with respect, that finally convinces him to talk to the camera, even with his hair hiding half his face.
It is difficult to be with him sometimes. For he reminds her of the child she once was, lifetimes ago. When she was stupid and young and naïve, as he himself had often pointed out. The sweetness of youthful naivete, how precious it is. How fragile and easily damaged.
But it is never as difficult as being without him. Even though he is an abyss of trauma and vulgarity and nightmares and scars.
Kisses and gruff, loving murmurs and hot, sweet sex, is all worth it.
When he thinks she doesn’t notice, he treats her with a reverence that should be reserved for gods. Her body, her hair, her very being is something sacred to him, desperately more so for having chosen him.
Sansa has never been happier.
…
Sansa reminds Ned so much of Cat. Beautiful and commanding; both in greater spades than his beloved wife. His daughter’s blood red hair, the hair that Cat had brushed every night while Ned had spun tall tales and bedtime stories. It is so vivid against the pale yellow of her gown, spilling over her shoulders in rivers. Darker and more lush than Cat’s had ever been.She is grown. He is at her wedding. Cat had gone pale with fury, but had been determined to throw Sansa a proper, fairytale wedding. She will not miss another one, not when she has learned there is no way to stop her children. No way to stop Sansa. Not when they’ve both seen the look in her eyes. The same look they had tried to ignore in Arya and Robb and Bran.Renly has planned their wedding, and it is something out of storybooks. Out of fairytales that are surprisingly dark, the sweet longevity of tragedy, the happiness of a first breath after drowning. The trees rustle over them, raining leaves down on the happy couple. Steaming food covers outdoor tables. Blood red leaves and ribbons and meat and wine and hair and lips and kisses. When they have their first child, it is not even close to being Ned’s first grandchild. But it is the first time he sees Sandor look soft. The first time he sees this large, frightening man hold his baby as if he’s afraid to break her. Sees his massive hands tremble under the weight of a newborn. Hears his gruff voice mellow into a low timbre.Ned watches Clegane change his daughter’s diaper with the concentration he’s put into fighting his entire life. Their babies are what they may eventually bond over above all else, the only way for Ned to accept his new son-in-law. Ned sees their picture-perfect baby. Sees the lemon cakes on the counter. Sees the way his beautiful, beautiful daughter looks at this ugly man. She had insisted he was strong and gentle and brave. Better than a knight. One day, they may see each other man-to-man. Go out for a drink or a game together. Maybe, what is uncomfortable silence between them will one day blossom into a peaceful quiet. The same kind of quiet Ned is still getting used to. Ned will always think that no man could deserve Sansa, but there are worse men than Clegane. He knows better than most how true that is.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Ned’s 50th birthday comes and goes, affecting the world with more of a whisper than a bang. A seemingly momentous occasion actually devoid of any world-altering revelations.It brings some few changes – Catelyn gets a job with Renly Baratheon’s catering business, tired of being alone at home all day, minding one child nearly grown and a few dogs. You have work, she insists. You get to be busy. You’re not the one who misses them all day. Ned understands her view, but his heart tears just as much as hers for the absence of their children. Jon makes it back home to attend the party; and when Ned sees him, it is the first time he feels the overwhelming weight of a half-century of life. When he sees his son, all 26 years and 5’ 8” of him. When he sees familiar dark curls framing a beloved face, one that has lost all of its boyishness. With trimmed beard, a tumbler of whiskey, and a form-fitting black suit, Jon is every inch a Stark man.He has brought Sam and Gilly Tarly with him; Ned smiles to see sweet five-year-old Sam gleefully run toward the food, reach for chocolate with sticky little hands. Ned sees the Tarly’s, young and happy despite all the obstacles in their way, and feels that another era of good, peace, and plenty has come to the land. And maybe, just maybe, he has helped in its inception, all these years serving the North and its laws.Gilly is heavily pregnant with their second child. A little girl. Jon has also brought a wildling; one he seems especially close to. Clad in fur, and with the wildest, reddest hair, the man could be better described as a bear. He makes a beeline toward the bar and downs the strongest vodka available. Tormund Giantsbane is by far the loudest part of the event, boisterous and wild. He would be embarrassing if Ned and Cat hadn’t faced worse for their children these past few years. Marriages to men too old, too scarred, too illegitimate; children out of wedlock.Jon seems so comfortable with such company, company so strange to Ned. The wildling wreaks havoc, but when he touches Jon, he is gentle. Ned sees his arm draped across Jon’s shoulder in camaraderie, sees his fingers just brush Jon’s dark ringlets, barely trace patches of skin uncovered by well-trimmed beard. Ned hears this hairy giant of a man call his son “Little Crow.”He feels a measure of relief when Tormund’s eyes land on Brienne and he starts trying to woo her. His bad flirtation and childlike glee make him seem younger somehow; younger and less frightening or unseemly. Brienne, who had barely managed to find a babysitter for her three-year-old son and newborn daughter, looks alternatingly baffled and repulsed. Until Jaime wedges his arm between them and smiles at Tormund with what can only read as threatening intention. Ned smiles into his glass and goes to find his wife. He has a speech to give. After the party, Jon hands them glossy, embossed invitation. I didn’t want to upstage you, he chuckles awkwardly, running a hand through his hair. You’re the closest thing I have to a father, he says for neither the first nor last time. He has had no mother but two distant ones.For one startling moment, Ned thinks it should be Jon and Sam getting married. They match, one tall and lean and the other shorter, rounder. They have been by each other’s sides for so long, always together and laughing. But then reality comes crashing back, and he shakes the thought off.But Ned has always wondered about Jon; would have thought of him over Robb or Bran when it came to taking up with men. Jon is sensitive and gentle. Ned remembers Satin, remembers Val’s beauty tempered by Mance’s gruff nature. Fears the invitation will have the redheaded wildling’s name, when he remembers fingers gently trailing across his son’s pale skin. He’s not exactly wrong.
You are cordially invited to the union between Jon Aegon Stark and Ygritte.
…
Sam nominates him.
When Jon is elected as the newest Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, he stutters through a speech because he never expected to win. Everyone, including Allister Thorne, concedes to his leadership. Jeor Mormont raises a drink in congratulations. It is one of the grandest honors Jon has ever received. Even Othell Yarwyck and Bowen Marsh, who are some of the most adamant opponents of his reforms, do not argue the results. Sometimes, Jon catches a haunted, mournful look in their eyes when they look at him before quickly averting their eyes.
Jon does not dwell on it, however; he has neither the time nor feeling to truly worry about a few bad apples.
He thinks of Ygritte instead. A hurricane packed inside a tiny, blazing frame, she sets him on fire; like icy air at the wall filling his lungs until all he can think about is how the burn cleans him from the inside out. He wants to have a life with her, for her, around her, and inside her.
But Jon thinks of his father and mother and he is scared. Scared that they are two objectively good, kind, and intelligent people in a happy marriage who ruined him. A gentle music professor and a successful businesswoman, neither of them able to raise a child.
He can tell Ygritte is waiting for him to ask. To take her before someone else does, steal her away. Contrary to her belief, he does know some things. He knows her. And every day he waits is one more day she could get another offer, could be taken by someone else. And all he can trust on is her willingness to wait for him and her faith on his love.
Until the day he’s graduating from law school, worrying about writing another piece of legislation for wildling rights, trying to understand Bran’s cryptic messages about white walker. His hair is pulled back into a bun and the dark bags under his eyes barely hidden by the frame of his reading glasses. Ygritte comes in, and he is overjoyed to see her, wants overwhelmingly to slot his hands around her ribs and in her thick, tangled hair; wants to pull her down into his lap, feel her warm and strong and alive; wants a few kisses. She acquiesces for a while, before sliding down on her knees; and he blushes, blushes even after so long together. But instead of doing what she thinks he does so well in return, she grips his hand firmly and tells him to marry her.
It is not true to wildling custom, for he hasn’t taken her away. Nor has he asked her properly, on his knee with ring in hand. But it is perfect for them. A free woman and an enamored man.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It is cold at the wedding. Cold enough for Ygritte’s cheeks and nose to turn as red as her hair. As red as her lips, on which Jon lays a gentle, loving kiss. They chose to get married at the wall, and the only Westerosi citizens in attendance are the myriad men of the watch and Jon’s family. Ned doesn’t know if Jon even invited Rhaegar and Lyanna.They are married at the base of a Weirwood tree, and Ned catches Catelyn wiping a tear away when the cloaks are exchanged. They have been stitched by Sansa, as her wedding gift – stunning, thick fur meshed with black beadwork; both beautiful and functional for the cold weather.The red-haired giant stands at Jon’s side, along with Sam and Eddison and Satin. Ygritte stands alone, proud and fiery.And thus Jon is wedded to a wildling, is ready to start married life settled so close to the wall. Ned wonders when he lost his son to the true North, wonders how Jon slipped so far away right under his nose. He thinks of Jon riding a mighty steed into the woods, surrounded by wildlings; swallowed up by a dark unknown, an uncertain future. It is a lovely wedding. Ned is startled by the fact that he has attended so many. He has only one child left in the house, yet unmarried; and Rickon is already 17. Ned wonders if the passage of time will ever stop surprising him. Jon and Ygritte have their first child less than a year later. They will name him Robb. Both Robb’s will cry when they meet each other. So will Ned and Catelyn.…
When Ygritte tells him they are expecting, Jon thinks of Rhaegar. Remembers his father playing the piano in the sitting room, warm sunlight filtering in through large balcony windows. Remembers French braids in platinum blonde hair, a smiling mouth humming a gentle tune, the sharp smell of steaming coffee. Remembers a gentle hand pointing at the rising sun, in the earliest moments of the morning. They are warm memories, filled with love. It is hard to believe such good men can be bad fathers. The prospect of this child, this new life frightens Jon. And it is not a fear that can be laid to rest with his sword.
But Jon is trying out happiness, is slowly settling into being deeply in love. And he yearns for this amalgamation of himself and Ygritte.
Do you want to feel him kick, Jon Snow? And he places a tentative hand on her swelling belly, delights in the soft beat of a little foot. It matches his own heart.
His newborn son is so red. He is heated from the fury of his cries, from the indignation of being brought into the world. He has a shock of Ygritte’s red hair. Jon laughs after it dries and fluffs out like a little cloud.
They name him Robb.
Tormund is the first to visit. Jon’s third redhead, now. The baby is tiny in his massive hands; his already brusque voice becomes rougher with tears he will forever deny shedding. Tormund looks at Robb’s black eyes. Another, littler crow.
The Starks show up, of course. The older Robb ends up in snotty tears when he lays eyes on his namesake, and Theon looks bewildered when the baby is poured into his own arms. Jon wonders why they haven’t had children yet. Sansa, who has not yet had a child, and Arya, who has the oldest one, both coo over their new nephew. Jon remembers holding Arya when she was born, and thinks of the cyclic nature of life, of memories and birth and hope; she had always been his favorite sibling. Bran and Rickon and all the Starks by marriage get a chance to hold little Robb as well. Ned and Catelyn both cry when they hold their little redheaded grandchild.
Even Rhaegar and Lyanna drop by, during the quietest moments of the setting sun, skirting the very edge of visiting hours; everyone else has left, and Ygritte has fallen asleep. Jon almost denies their request to hold Robb, but spite has never been his forte.
They both look…exhausted. They hold the baby together, the same way they have done most things. Rhaegar smiles at a Targaryen with red hair, and Jon remembers that smile from so long ago. He understands why his mother fell in love with it.
Rhaegar has brought Jon’s half-siblings with him. Rhaenys and Aegon are both lovely and kind; both just as distant from Rhaegar as Jon himself. He feels an odd melancholy when he sees them. Feels a distant, old wound pang, deep inside, when he looks at his father.
Their last visitor is also the most surprising one. Daenerys Targaryen shows up, too formidable and elegant to be stopped by such things as hospital regulation or strict visiting hours. Jon vaguely remembers his aunt from his earliest memories, when he was still with his parents. She had only been a few years older than him, and they had played together as children. He had always thought her pretty, her quintessentially blonde Targaryen hair pulled back in pigtails. It is now intricately braided and piled on her head.
Jon finds it odd she has decided to visit, considering they barely know each other; but he holds his son out to her dutifully. There is an odd pain in her eyes. Such lovely violet eyes…he loved those eyes. The eyes of his queen. He had watched the life drain out of them.
And that is how Jon remembers; staring into the eyes of a woman he had once loved and killed, hazy moonlight drifting in through large hospital windows, while holding his sleeping newborn son. It feels like a dream.
They both remember, but nothing is said. She merely takes his son, traces his tiny features and blood-red hair, and coos at him. And then she hands him back. Safe and sound. There is something distinctly painful in her gaze – a savage, raw kind of pain. At facing her lover, her killer, her usurper; or at facing the baby that could have been their son. Could have been their child, if enough time had passed. All that could have been.
Maybe she will have to watch him grow up, her nephew instead of her son.
Jon did truly love her. Once.
Drogo steps into the room, looking exhausted. Makes a remark about how much harder it is to find parking for a mini-van than a motorcycle. Hazy rumors from years ago sleepily filter into Jon’s mind…the scandal at her marrying one of the Dothraki, the rumors of their open relationship, considered too base for Targaryen royalty.
But Daenerys has fared happier in this life. Rhaego stands behind his father’s legs, looking like a mini version of the man. A shy boy of around 5 years of age, he stares solemnly at Robb. More surprising are the three infants strapped to Drogo’s massive chest, blinking sleepily.
Somehow, Jon knows these are Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion. He had loved them too.
Daenerys had always called them her children. She has her sons, and he has his. None of their children have violet eyes.
And now her greatest strengths in battle, her wings, have become her most vulnerable weaknesses; but Jon doesn’t think she really minds. She had lost everything once, over and over again, and so she has held on to it with an even greater ferocity this time. She had served her destiny more faithfully than anyone their gods.
She had begged him once, begged him for her position. She will not do so again. It is a better world, one that has not given her reason to go mad. Jon hopes he will never see madness or desperation in these eyes. He preferred being on his knees for her. He has always preferred kneeling for the women he loves.
This time, when he says, pleads, that he doesn’t want the throne, it matters. When he says he is happier with the free folk, it matters. What Jon wants matters.
He is happy to see her take over Westeros one day; the first woman, the first mother in charge. Stark men don’t do well in positions of power.
One wonders where Jon will be when Sansa runs against Dany, one fighting for the kingdoms to remain independent and one trying to pull them back together again. Sansa fights for independence and freedom with cold authority. But Daenerys has always pulled the most oppressed people up from the gutters, lifting them up behind her, lighting the flame of revolution. She is owed nothing this time, has no birthright or dragons or advisors.
Ice and fire.
Jon knows she crusades for the rights of human trafficking victims. He wonders what fresh scars she bears on her soul.
Sometimes, after he remembers, he dreams about suffocating in corpses. About drowning in bodies both dead and undead. But the cries of his son, the warmth of his wife, sometimes Tormund’s massive hands, always pull him back from the brink. He will not die steeped in bodies and dust. It is a better world.
Jon Snow knows there are magical things in the woods; many people have waited a long time for him to remember. But he looks at his wife and his baby and his family, his redheads, and at how far they’ve come. And he wonders how there can be any more magic than this.
…
Ned drives back to the hospital the next day. He and Cat both want to see little Robb again, are going piled with gifts and clothes. They want Robb to meet his cousin Eddard for the first time, want to be there to greet any other visitors so that they do not overwhelm the new parents. When Ned walks in, Jon is cradling little Robb. The atmosphere in the room seems inexplicably sad; melancholy in a way that is troubling for a household that has just welcomed a new child. Until Ygritte wakes up and smiles, bright and teasing. Nudges Jon for being too broody and reaches freckled arms out for their son. The stress leaks out of Jon, and Robb lights up in his mother’s arms. Ned smiles. Ygritte is good for his shy, serious son.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Despite all expectations, it is Rickon who walks a life path closest to what Ned had once imagined for all his children. Their last baby, a little boy so precious and coddled and loved.He had always been contrary: the noisiest baby, the angriest toddler, and the moodiest teenager. But, out of all of Ned’s children, he had hidden the least.Ned had always thought he’d have to wrangle his youngest into place or watch him go down a path to ruination; Rickon had always been so rambunctious and resentful toward advice. He had waffled for a while, applied to the military and been rejected; but eventually, he had settled down. Ned supposes he should have trusted Rickon to find his own way, just as all his children somehow had.Rickon had been a star athlete and avid programmer despite his teenage angst. He had gone to the best university out of all of Ned’s children with a scholarship to study computer science. His had been the only major Ned guessed beforehand.Rickon had also had a sweetheart his first year of college; one he brought home after six months of dating, stayed with for all four years of school, and promptly proposed to on graduation day. Shireen Baratheon.A lovely girl, shy and sweet and ever so gentle. She wants to be a school teacher. Ned knows she had lived above Theon before he and Robb had moved into their house; she looks delighted to see Robb, and during dinner, she listens to his teaching stories with rapt attention. When Rickon brings her home, the first thing Ned notices is silky hair brushed ever so carefully over half her face. She has restricted her vision in an effort to prevent them from seeing her.Ned feels guilty that it doesn’t work. All of Westeros knew about the scarring Stannis’ daughter had due to a serious case of infant chickenpox. His wife had been happy enough to spill the details to any newspaper that had cared to listen.But Ned sees Rickon reach a gentle hand to Shireen’s face, sees him brush her hair out of her eyes, sees how fingertips trail lightly across scarred skin. Shireen fidgets away from the revealing hand until Rickon leans in to lay a kiss on her newly uncovered forehead.Of course Ned likes her, watching a pale pink blush and tentative smile overshadow any scarring.She grounds Rickon for the first time. …
Rickon is the only one who doesn’t remember. He never will.
They don’t think they want him to remember a life short and messy, dominated by fear and violence and dark before an untimely end.
They all adore him, but every day they look at him, they think about how they have never seen him look so old. He had never before outgrown bright blonde curls and a face plump with baby fat.
Sometimes, when they look at him, that’s all they see. The youngest Stark; the oldest he had ever been was lifeless on a cold, grassy field, bleeding out from an arrow wound. Maybe it’s their fault he had become so withdrawn and angry growing up. As if he could somehow discern they were all hiding something from him, see a peripheral pain in their eyes.
When he is married to Shireen Baratheon, it is impossible to deny that he is a man full-grown, tall and handsome and happy and safe. And you can almost hear a collective exhalation, a breath no one quite remembers holding.
…When Rickon is married, Ned thinks of the moment years and years before, when he and Cat had gotten all of their children puppies. Many of the dogs had since died of old age after long, happy lives. Shaggydog is the only one still alive, slow and limping, staving off death in order to see Rickon married. An entire life has happened in the gray of his muzzle. An entire life filled with flourishing happiness that Ned does not appreciate enough. All of his children have ended up content, no matter the paths they have taken.It is finally a wedding Catelyn gets to plan exactly to her liking, what she has wanted to do for so long. The food is catered from her workplace, and she has helped cook much of it. She also helps choose venue and flowers, and outfits for both the bride and the groom. Cat even has a hand in designing the cloaks that will be exchanged.It makes her young, this exuberant joy. Ned can almost imagine their wedding when she looks over at him, flowers in hand and pure exultation on her face.Though they cannot choose dresses, Stannis and Davos contribute far more than their fair share to both planning and funds. Shireen is almost more Davos’ daughter than Stannis’. Ned feels a detached sort of guilt for arresting the man during mining union riots decades ago. Davos had lost a few fingers and most of his sons to unsafe mining standards; he had led the stand when it came to unionizing and planning strikes, and had therefore also been the most frequently arrested. Ned cannot imagine the life Davos has led, one that should have beaten him down but had instead left him kind and gentle. He had remained blue collar his entire life, working on docks and in mines to push his youngest son through college before settling with a small dockside grocery.Stannis, on the other hand, had tried to lead a life so private Ned knows almost nothing about it. He had married Selyse quietly and divorced her after she had shared details of Shireen’s illness with tabloids. He had then been in a relationship with Melisandre for some time, which Ned only knew about because of how much Arya had hated the woman. He had finally settled down in a peaceful companionship with Davos in his later years. They could almost be mistaken for friends, but there is an unmistakable intimacy between them, especially when Shireen is around. Stannis does not look at anyone the way he looks at Davos. At moments when Davos is overtaken by emotion, Stannis will reach over to silently take his hand; his long, type-worn fingers grasping at Davos' mauled ones. Stannis and Davos, quietly holding hands at their daughter’s wedding. Renly and Loras, married while golden roses rained from the sky. Ned wonders about Robert's sexuality sometimes, ludicrous as the thought is. As in-laws, he and Stannis will drag the man to rehab in a few years.Ned’s stomach turns to think of how his former best friend had spoken of Shireen, especially her scarring; and how he had not bothered to say anything of her gently sculpted features or kind brown eyes. Ned has long since refused to let Robert speak ill bigotry, barely even interacting with him in the last few years. Especially since the oldest Baratheon was in the middle of extensive divorce proceedings. The fact that his tumultuous marriage to Cersei Lannister had even lasted for more than a decade was a massive surprise to everyone. Davos spends the entire wedding crying; he loves Shireen, is an even more protective father than Stannis when it matters. Stannis glares at everything from the guests to the place settings as if threatening them to even try and ruin his daughter’s big day.Ned looks over at his own family, all together after such a long time; and so much larger than just his wife and six children. He smiles at them and as they feel his gaze, they look over and smile back, nothing but love and peace in their eyes. A wolf pack once torn asunder, together once again, and stronger for it. Despite their efforts, someone falls into a pond during the reception. It is a perfect wedding.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Ned has never truly liked Jaime Lannister. To this day, he doesn’t know why Tywin decided to practically adopt his maid’s son and make the boy his heir. Perhaps he is privy to knowledge Ned does not have access to. Perhaps it is because of how much Tywin Lannister hated Tyrion. Perhaps it is because Cersei Lannister was jilted by Rhaegar and impregnated by Robert in the same afternoon, and that someone was needed to marry her before she gave birth to an illegitimate Baratheon child. Perhaps, if Robert had not been seized by an oddly paternalistic desire, Steffon could have just been passed off as Jaime’s. Despite everything, Tywin had come out on top of all things, having secured the heir of Baratheon industries as a grandchild; after two decades, he would get Robert Baratheon himself as a son-in-law, no matter how temporarily.And then Jaime Lannister had forsaken the “family” business after just a year, been booted from the military just as quickly, and had applied to the police academy almost immediately afterwards. It had been a day when only the tabloids had rejoiced, and Tywin’s anger had echoed across Westeros.…
Jaime is one of the oldest ones to remember. Most, he has learned, remember as teenagers if they remember at all.
Memories of his current life are the hardest ones to get rid of. The smell of rot in Ramsay’s basement, of blood and viscera and horror. The darkness, the damp itchiness; broken whimpers that would snap into silence after sickening crunches. Feral dogs panting just out of earshot. The ragged, unclean pain of flesh tearing and nerves splitting and bone splintering as his hand was cut off. The shallow relief that he had been able to protect Brienne, that Ramsay had found his desperate pleading novel enough to listen. She’s innocent; hurt me instead, Jaime had begged. He had fallen unconscious to Brienne’s panicked screaming and the too-bright too-loud blistering of memories slamming into him like a freight train.
Brienne doesn’t remember, but that’s alright. She loves him, and there is no greater miracle or blessing than the fact that it has happened for a second time.
She’s still the same, memories or not. The world hasn’t been much kinder to her this time. But Jaime will keep all the Hyle Hunts away from her in this life.
Once he had worked through his memories, he had cried out of how much he loved her. He could have jumped in front of a bear for her all over again. Had cried that he could have ever called her a beast, that he could have ever left her with such callous brutality. Brienne, who had beaten him into the dust over and over again, who had saved him and trained him and rescued him. He had left her, and what had she given him in return? A legacy, a story full of honor and forgiveness. A true wife she had been, beyond the end. The thought makes him sick, makes him simultaneously happy and sad she doesn’t remember an entire past life. She had forgiven all his misdeeds last time, but this time she doesn’t need to; he vows to never commit them.
And Jaime thought he had ended up unlucky to have Tywin as a father again despite not even being biologically related to the man. But no matter how hard Tywin had tried to make him his son again, he couldn’t. Jaime had finally been able to refuse to do as he was told, had stopped sacrificing every good in his life for Cersei’s sake. It had made Tyrion equally proud and jealous.
He still loves her. His twin. Part of him always will. They had been together since they were 13 this time around, hiding in the nooks of the house. The Lannister princess and the maid-born pauper her parents had taken pity on. He never dated anyone else, not till Brienne 30 years later. Cersei had cheated on him their entire life, dating in high school and college, justifying it as hiding from the incestuous repercussions of their relationship. Had dated Rhaegar with a much too convincing happiness. Had fallen into bed with Robert easily enough.
When he is in the hospital, Jaime looks into Brienne’s cornflower blue eyes instead of the space where his hand used to be. And he wonders how he could spend an entire life wishing to be married to someone and the next one wishing he was divorced.
Cersei had loved him at some point. He is sure of that. But he had never been a first choice. The maid’s son, then a brother. She had loved him only at her most desperate, when everyone else was gone. When she was about to die. When she got pregnant with Robert’s child. Her love had always fallen below ambition and pride.
But Jaime had seen her die. And he knew she was human. And at the end, it had been enough for him. At the end, they had been equals.
He knows now the darkness in her. Perhaps madness. Repression. Dead children. A prophecy in the woods. Memories maybe. Things he will never know about his former wife. His former sister.
Years later, the Lannister company will merge with the Tyrell flower empire. And it will be solidified by Cersei’s marriage to Mace Tyrell. Jaime will be disappointed in Cersei for marrying yet another man she doesn’t love, though everyone knows she is doing it for Olenna’s kingdom.
Jaime isn’t going to their wedding, because Cersei sneers at Brienne; had sneered at her in both lives. He is not jealous; can’t be without how petty and unfaithful he always knew she was. Instead, he feels shame for having been conned for so long. Once, Tyrion had told him he had always known who Cersei was. And he had loved her anyway.
On some level, Jaime knows Cersei is very good at pretending to be happy. Happy to finally be marrying a childhood sweetheart, even though both of them had worried about the relationship’s incestuous overtones for years, even though her father was looking to him to inherit the company that by all rights should have been hers; she, who had been top at her class in business school, had been as vicious toward Tyrion as their father had wanted. She smarted at always being seen as below Jaime, who had barely passed the business school Tywin had paid for, had fucked off to join the military before eventually getting kicked out (he would never regret that though, never. He had never had love for Jon Stark, but the man had been kind to him, and Jaime Lannister did not ignore the suffering of innocent children).
Tywin had finally shifted his keen eyes on Cersei, finally groomed her to take over. And Jaime is genuinely happy for her. Buried under a thin veneer of desire and cruelty had always been the passion to be a queen. CEO, Jaime hopes, is close enough. He tries to ignore the fact that the reason he had quit years ago was because he had seen men and women alike crying after Cersei had fired them, had treated them like human capital. Only after joining the police force had Jaime started to genuinely love his job.
Cersei was good at pretending when she married Robert too: a known alcoholic, years out of his prime. She had pretended to be happy about their companies merging, about marrying the father of her oldest child, a puzzle piece finally sliding into place.
Now she was pretending to be happy marrying Mace, a widower much older than her, for the beauty and wealth and secrets of Highgarden and its formidable matriarch. Jaime admits Olenna Tyrell is still the most intelligent and experienced woman around. He still hates her.
Sometimes, he wonders at what would have happened if Rhaegar had agreed to marry Cersei; if he hadn’t chosen Elia instead, and then Lyanna after her; if that heartbreak hadn’t pushed her into Robert’s bed and then Jaime’s proposal.
Cersei is hateful and narcissistic and cruel and possessive, but she still deserved better than the men she got. Jaime still sees his time with her as a privilege, no matter how temporary it was.
At least in this life she got to wear the armor instead of the dress. In this life, he gets to get away from Cersei, gets to work through that devotion and misplaced worship. Therapy helps.
Brienne holds his meat down with a fork so he can cut it. She introduces him to her father, one of the most prominent prosthetic designers in the business. She sits through all his fittings, is there for every tear and nightmare. When they finally get married, he takes her last name.
After Ramsay, they had spent weeks preparing for the trial, hoping it would be enough to put him away in maximum security. It hadn’t been, but Jaime had at least gotten Brienne in his home for long periods of time, had convinced her to spend the night on his couch more than once instead of driving back. He had still been married to Cersei, but she had forced him to move into his own apartment so she wouldn’t have to live with his stump. The cruel irony of having his memories back was that he wasn’t even surprised.
He and Brienne continued spending weeknights on his couch watching trash television and eating takeout, even after Ramsay was done and over with. Perhaps, they just hadn’t wanted to be alone.
It had been innocent enough, until he had told her he was going to ask Cersei for a divorce. Brienne had ended up on top of him, big blue eyes boring into his own green, searching him for a lie; he hadn’t been able to hold back any longer and had leaned up to kiss her. He is still surprised she kissed back.
It is a terrible complicated mess to find out Cersei is pregnant again. She uses the pregnancy against him during their divorce, and he keeps his relationship with Brienne a secret, refusing to allow her to become Cersei’s target. It is tragic and upsetting but ultimately helpful that Cersei would never think Jaime would deign to love someone like Brienne.
Stark hates him, but his daughter is still one of Brienne’s bridesmaids. There’s just something about the Starks, always has been. The family everyone is drawn to, the one who brings everything together.
Jaime knows that the Stark children all remember, except perhaps the youngest one. He doesn’t know whether that makes Rickon the luckiest of them all. No one illuminates Ned, and Jaime vindictively thinks it is because he would get in their way. Ned has always been good at denying the existence of that which he did not want to believe in, be it White Walkers or dishonorable men.
Brienne’s sister is her maid of honor; none of her siblings have drowned this time. Though Tarth still rests on a beach with water as blue as sapphires. Instead, they are all blonde-haired engineers, most of them working at Tarth Prosthetics.
Renly plans the wedding, on Brienne’s request. He is competent enough at his job but Jaime still hates him because Brienne had liked him once. It helps a little that his obscenely pretty, obviously devoted, I’m-a-literal-model-did-you-see-me-on-the-cover-of-vogue husband lounges around all the time under the excuse of delivering flowers.
Jaime wishes he could knight his wife again. But marrying her is almost as good. Anyway, she will soon receive commendations plenty for heroism on the job.
Tyrion is his own best man – you were the only one who didn’t call me a monster – while Bronn, Steffon, and Tommen are his other groomsmen.
Uncle Kevan and Aunt Genna attend; Tywin Lannister is not invited. It’s not a huge faux pas; after all, Tywin isn’t his real father, and has no real reason to be here. It hurts more than Jaime thinks it should.
He still remembers when Tywin had taken him in, in this life. Joanna had been alive, and they’d just had their one daughter. Jaime had thought she was pretty. They had been kind. Joanna had made Tywin kind.
Jaime loves his real mother in this life though, and she is glowing with happiness. She had always seen the flaws in his relationship with Cersei, just as Kevan and Genna had. They had all seen how she had abused Tyrion, how she had eventually started doing the same to Jaime. Jaime is happy to share his mother with Tyrion. He would have shared her with Cersei as well, if Cersei’s pride hadn’t gotten in the way. Before this life, he had never known a mother felt warm and soft and alive. The warm glow of love when a cold, aloof father wasn’t around.
Cersei hadn’t bothered attending, and Jaime had been extremely relieved; it had been a sign they were totally done.
He’s not the only husband better off in a life after Cersei. A few weeks after his own divorce, Robert had been dragged to the rehab run by Arthur Dayne. Last Jaime had heard, he had been doing well and getting sober. He had even started working on some music.
The best night of his lives is his wedding dinner. He and Pod and Brienne and Tyrion sit around the table playing drinking games. He feels déjà vu, laughs at the drunken happiness on their faces. His wife, wife! looks stunning in a fitted pantsuit; he can’t believe he had been able to leave her once. It had been the most painful feeling in the entire world.
He still can’t believe they’re together sometimes. After all his fuck-ups, his hand, the hair on his head going gray because he’s 15 years older than her. After realizing he has no game because he had been with the same girl since he was 13, and she had scared any other love interest away. He had always been loyal anyway, and that means he now lacks any form of suave or charm or smooth conduct, no matter what he looks like or who he attracts. He’s pretty sure Tommen has more game than him, given the way women seem to melt all over his blue eyes and kittens.
He has so many children this time around. And all eight of them, he helped raise as a father. It is the greatest delight of his life every day. It leaves an acidic taste in his mouth that he never got to be a father before.
They’re having a family picnic together during one bright, sunny day in the park. Tommen, with blonde hair and Tywin’s blue-grey eyes – though they are much brighter set in Tommen’s innocent face – is squeezing his most docile cat in his arms weaving, a daisy chain for her collar. Jaime feels something squeeze in his heart, knowing Tommen acts much too childish for his age. He knows it is because of Joffrey, and the therapist Tommen has been visiting for years has clearly helped, but the fact that he is nowhere ready to start applying to colleges breaks Jaime’s heart. Steffon has joined in, solemnly plucking flowers for Sir Purrsy; he will be taking over Robert’s company within the next few months. Myrcella, who looks just like Cersei, though softer and happier and brighter, sits next to her stepmother and former lacrosse coach, chatters excitedly about some pictures on her phone. Jaime hopes they are pictures of her college lacrosse team and not her Dornish boyfriend.
Jaime has four children with Brienne. Brand new beings he never got to conceive the first time around. Two little girls, his youngest and twins, laying across Brienne’s chest. A boy called Duncan, about to start his first year of school, laughing and chasing butterflies. They will all be phenomenal swordsmen one day if he has anything to say about it. Right now, they are too busy giggling at the bubbles Pod is blowing. Pod is also his son with Brienne, and he delights in the novelty of getting to father such a bright young man, one who has respected Brienne as she deserves for two lives now.
Jaime’s last child with Cersei, one that had once died unborn under a cascade of falling rock, underneath a dragon’s breath, is trying to steal Pod’s camera out of his bag. His tongue is sticking out as he focuses.
Jaime loves his family so much.
He asks a young couple passing by to take their photo. A lovely woman with fine features and a dark afro, holding hands with a stoic brown-skinned man. Jaime’s mind provides their names, though he has never met them in this life. Missandei, large eyes and deep dimples. Grey Worm, haunted and serious, deep love for her hidden in his eyes. It is disconcerting to know who they are, but not terrible. Hardly the worst thing about his memories.
It is a picture that will sit on their mantel for years to come. There is even a little space in the back, one in which Joffrey could have fit. Perhaps in a another life; though Jaime can scarce imagine one better than this.
…Ned Stark has never liked Jaime Lannister. But he admits the man has lovely children. Almost as beautiful and successful as his own.