❛ LOVE DIDN'T JUST HAPPEN TO US. WE BUILT IT SLOWLY OVER THE YEARS ... IT'S NOT AS EXCITING AS A SECRET PASSION IN THE WOODS, BUT IT IS STRONGER. ❜ CATELYN STARK
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PLOT seventeen years later, jaime's ex lover has built a life and family with howland reed, but the arrival of the king and his party in winterfell calls for another reunion between the two (no smut, just story)
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"HE'S SUCH AN IMBECILE!" Joanna cried as she stormed into my chambers.
"What is it, my sweet?" I asked as I finished pinning back my hair.
"Your favorite nephew has set his stupid direwolf on yet another boy I was talking to!" The blonde girl crossed her arms over her chest in arrogance as her eyes narrowed in distaste.
"Robb means you well, Jo, you know that." I rolled my eyes, a smile playing at my lips at the mention of Ned's eldest.
"I'm sixteen, mother!" She wasn't having it. "I should be able to talk to them without them worrying that they'll have their heads chewed off if they say a word to me!"
"And why is it that you wish to speak to these boys so badly?"
"Because!" She didn't quite have a response. "Weren't you my age when you fell in love with father?"
Joanna had only been twelve when she'd gotten it out of me how I'd fallen in love with Howland. Yes, I'd fabricated a lie to my daughter that I'd married him because we had been in love. To this day, only Howland and I knew who Joanna's real father was.
The first couple of months of our marriage had been rough. I had been heartbroken about Jaime and my pregnancy had brought out the worst of my emotions which Howland had been victim of. I'd become convinced that Howland had used my unplanned pregnancy to trick me into marrying him in order to fulfill his desire to have me. But he never touched me in that way while I had been carrying Joanna.
Shortly after giving birth to my daughter in the spring, I'd realized that he truly loved me. I'd also come to hold a different perception of love. It wasn't just about lust and fulfilling sexual desires, but about leading a life together and having a family.
Two winters after Joanna, Meera was born. And a winter after that came Jojen. Both wore dark curls on their heads like their father while Joanna's glistening honey-colored locks went by unnoticed as an abnormality.
Joanna herself, who always supplied Howland and I with so many questions, never questioned her appearance. And what an appearance it was because I had to wake up to see a splitting image of Jaime Lannister every day.
Today, however, was different. Robert Baratheon was coming to Winterfell after the untimely death of his hand, Jon Arryn. Catelyn and I knew that Ned would be getting an invitation to King's Landing to serve as the new Hand of the King and while that stressed us both, I was more concerned about seeing the real Jaime Lannister again after seventeen years.
