The Children of Winter // House Stark

I. Bastards & Innocents

Catelyn.
I. Of Bastards & Innocents.

Catelyn Tully Stark lay in her bed, her hand circling her swollen stomach. The baby was due in less than a moon, and she was grateful that Ned would be here to welcome their child into the world.

This pregnancy was harder than her last two. The baby seemed to be always moving and kicking.

"Wolfsblood." Ned had told. "The babe will be wild and willful."

Catelyn hoped her husband was mistaken. Ned had just brought home Theon Greyjoy, bringing the total of children in their care to four, soon to be five. The boy was Balon Greyjoy's heir and was being kept as a ward at Winterfell to ensure his father's continued cooperation. Every time Ned rode off to war, he returned home with another child.

A child that wasn't hers.

She hated that boy. The boy who looked so much like Ned when Catelyn's own son did not. She knew it wasn't fair to hate the child, but she couldn't help it. A living, breathing reminder that the honorable Ned Stark wasn't so honorable after all. That he had loved some other women, and that maybe he still did.

She hoped this child would have the Stark looks.

Her husband turned over in his sleep. He hadn't been sleeping well since he had returned. After he had come from the Dorne with that little bastard boy, it had taken months before he could sleep soundly. It appears it would be the same this time as well.

"Lyanna."

Catelyn tuned. It had been only a murmur, but still, she could hear it.

"I'm sorry, Lya. I am so sorry. Please don't leave me. Please. You must live, if not for me than for him. He needs you; I need you." His voice grew in presence with every word.

Catelyn listened in shock. Ned never spoke of his sister. It hurt him too much.

Who had could have needed Lyanna more than Ned? Robert? No, Robert was in love with an idea, not the woman itself.

A pit began to grow in Catelyn's swollen stomach.

She had always known that Ned and Lyanna had been close.

She thought of Brandon, the man she had been supposed to marry before Robert started a war and Rhaegar left his wife. Brandon had often talked of his siblings, of little Benjen who dreamed of being a ranger in the Night's Watch. Of quiet Ned who was endlessly trying to keep his older brother out of trouble and failing. And of willful Lyanna who he had bragged was the best rider in all of the seven kingdoms.

The man who had died far too young and too tragically had told her how close Ned and Lyanna were. "Inseparable," Brandon had said.

Catelyn knew that Ned had loved his little sister more than anything else in the world and that when he had lost Lyanna, she left a hole that no one could ever fill.

Maybe it's not a memory. It could just be a nightmare.

But somthing in Catelyn knew otherwise.

The pain in her gentle husband's voice was all too real.

"No, Lya, please. Please don't die." He begged. And then to Catelyn's horror, he started crying, tears streaking in narrow rivets on his cheeks. Catelyn screwed her eyes shut, unable to watch and unable to move.

He let out a heart-wrenching sob. "I'll protect him, Lyanna. I promise." His voice broke at the last word.

And with that, Ned let out a gasp, his eyes flying open in shock. He sat up, careful not to wake his wife, who was pretending to be asleep. She didn't want to face him. What would she even say?

Ned rose from their bed, wrapping himself in a heavy cloak, and donning a pair of boots before leaving their chambers. She listened as his footfalls echoed down the corridor until he reached the end of the hall where all the Starks slept. She heard the large oak door to the bastard boy's chamber creek open and then fall shut.

Jon.

She once heard the little boy ask Ned who his mother was. Jon had called her mother, and she had harshly corrected him, her voice like the icy winds that blew through the Godswood. She left Ned to explain his actions to the confused little boy, unable to do so herself.

But when she turned the corner, she came to a stop and listened. Catelyn wanted to hear what Ned told his son, the one who had the Stark looks. Ned hadn't told her anything. He had refused to speak of it since she had asked him if the boy was Ashara Dayne's son. Ned had been betrothed to her before the Rebellion. Before the Lady of Starfall had thrown herself from a tower, shortly after Jon was born.

But his eyes had turned cold. "He is a Stark. That is all that matters."

She waited with bated breath. "I..." Her husband paused, uncertainty thick in his voice. "I loved her very much."

That was all he had told the boy. And it had broken Cat's heart.

And now her heart broke again. Not for herself, but for her sweet, honorable Ned. And for the innocent little boy with dark curls and Stark grey eyes who could never know the truth.

Ned had not lied.

The child was his blood. And Ned had loved Jon's mother, more than Catelyn could have ever known.

"Oh Ned," she whispered into the darkness.

The boy may be a bastard, but he was not Ned's.

She didn't know how long she lay there before she drifted off into an uneasy sleep, her mind still swirling with thoughts of blue roses, a little bastard boy with curls, and a bed of blood.

And when she awoke a short while later, she still saw the bed of blood from her dreams. Only this time, the blood wasn't a dream, and it did not belong to Lyanna Stark.

The blood was Catelyn's.