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rise-my-angel · 10 months ago

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Heart of the Great Wolf

35 - The Souls Tethered in Death

Pairing: Jon Snow x F!Baratheon!Reader, Robb Stark x F!Baratheon!Reader (Past)

Length: 17k

Warnings: angst/hurt comfort, mild description of past illness, past character death, derogatory language, suicidal ideation, blood and violence

Notes: Plenty of things going in behind the scenes which are originated in the books, but don't worry eventually everything does come together. Previous Chapter Here, Series Masterlist Here

You always felt somewhat bad sneaking off in such early hours of the morning. Especially now, he was warm and his arms always so soothing as you woke to the world. The sun only just begun to trickle in from the high windows. Eyes barley blinking open, you almost felt the pull to close them at once and move closer into the chest acting as something of a pillow.

But then the wave begun, never significant right away but it would grow. If you weren't trying to avoid waking him you would have groaned along with the heavy eye roll. One morning you would be fine and the next you would be doing as you did now. Gently preying yourself from his arms slow enough he didn't stir.

Wrapping a warm shall around yourself, you slipped a pair of shoes quick on your feet and moved towards the door. Pausing just as it creaked open, you glanced back and found the sight of him having turned in his sleep onto his side. Now facing your side of the bed with a furrow in his brow and you knew it wouldn't be long before the lack of a presence before him woke him up and he realized you snuck off again.

Knowing Robb, he likely would let out a great sigh, before huffing a smirk about how stubborn you were being about dealing with this.

But regardless, you begun a familiar path through the halls of Riverrun before making your way down towards the water. Squires and maids the only ones meeting you on the path, but eventually the cool wind picked up near the river blew your hair around, making you wish you brought something to put it up yourself already.

The morning was calm, and finally as you reached your destination, just like clockwork, you had been awake long enough that you felt the wave come up. Whatever was left in your stomach from the night before poured out into the hidden ditch.

You had about three seconds before another wave, then another and soon you could already feel the sweat accumulating on your flushed face as you knelt to the ground. One hand perched on the rocks, the other trying to keep your hair from falling in your path. Minutes passed and you found a small break in between, enough to let you finally catch your breathe as you glanced down to your growing stomach with a playful glare. “You know, I'd like to actually wake up beside your father in peace more then one morning at a time.”

As you finished, your words strained as your face twisted. Just before you could try and do it yourself, a gentle pair of hands finally arrived. Pulling your hair out of your face for you, and kneeling down to your level, as the other hand ran over your back. Leaning back up, you were handed a skin of water before the figure sat against the rocks beside you.

“I like that we sneak about to do this, feels like we're little girls getting into all sorts of trouble.” Hardly huffing a laugh, you finally sat more on your shins before looking up at Dacey Mormont. It was a pattern these past few days, sickness coming in early hours of the morning every other day and you'd sneak off with her to suffer through it in peace and quiet until it passed over.

Sipping another, hoping to let the burning wash down with it you almost grinned. “That's to assume I ever got in trouble as a child.”

Dacey only narrowed her eyes doubtfully. “You think I don't know our King? No chance you've been around him since you were a child and he didn't get you into heaps of trouble all the time.” Both of you laughed, as you finally opened your eyes more to the morning around you both.

Settling a bit, you tilted your head. “Different sorts of trouble, I'd reckon. Mine was more getting into fights with boys until one of us was getting kicked into the mud, and playing pranks on his brothers and sisters.” Pausing, you gave a jesting look as if to judge. “Can't imagine what trouble you found as a girl. Not sure I want too.”

Dacey laughed and then laughed even harder as you kneeled back over. She took over pulling your hair away from you again as she still shook a bit as you let it out. “Oh I did my fair share of rolling in the mud, it just wasn't that kind of fight I was getting into.” You mustered barley a judging look at her as you leaned back over. Dacey grinning at you, “Us Northerners aren't as uptight as your lot, remember.”

Straining out as you hardly even looked to her from the side, “Considering I'm the married and pregnant one I think that graces me to say I am the less uptight between us.”

Dacey, moved to gently wrap a free arm across your shoulders as she leaned comfortingly against you as support. “As if the Mormont women need husbands to do that, your grace. We simply turn into bears and find mates in the woods. Everyone knows that-”

Groaning you glared up at her properly, “If you tell me that story one more time I'm going to hit you, or throw up on you. I haven't decided which yet.” Through the remaining nausea, you heard her give a mighty laugh beside you.

A good few minutes passed before the pair of you had moved to take a gentle seat more against the rocks looking out to the water as you felt the life flow back into you, now that the sickness got out. Dacey beside you filling the quiet morning air, “Still don't know why you avoid dealing with this in front of the King. You two are disgustingly and insufferably in love, he'd take care of you in a heartbeat.”

Almost a grin formed on your lips as you shrugged. “That's just it. I don't get sick often, so I'm not used to people fussing over me when I do. And Robb would fuss.”

Dacey nodded, only to smirk as she added, “I think what I do might be considered fussing as well you know.”

Nodding, you washed the last of the burning in your throat away. “Yes, but you also make fun of me while doing so. Very different air then if it were Robb.” A small pause before you almost couldn't hold back the amusement in your tone, “He'd only slightly make fun of me at least.”

In truth you were grateful Dacey was choosing to stay behind. Her mother Maege was soon to leave and take some of her men and leave for tasks of Robb's need and her eldest would stay with the main army here. Telling her not so long ago, that you were relived another girl would stay with you around the thousands of men and soldiers and guards at your and Robbs side day in and day out. Telling her, “Not quite willing to lose my sanity just yet.”

The pair of you making your way up to the main castle, you knew no doubt exactly that Robb would be waiting for you. Only, as the pair of you were talking, a squire approached you. Saying a raven had come in for the King in the North. Standing still out in the cool air, you begun to open it as Dacey stood respectfully on the opposite side to not catch a glance, but did however smirk. “I do enjoy trying to guess if it is good or bad news depending on how little your face changes. I think I've gotten fairly good at knowing what impossibly small difference means one or the other now.”

Normally you'd chuckle. But the more you read the more your face blatantly fell to something cold but unsure in it's nature. Standing you read and reread it as Dacey called to you, “Is everything alright?”

Looking up at her with wide eyes, you shook your head before rolling the paper back up. “I need you to do me a favour, have someone get Robb and tell him to find me in our chambers right away.” Normally she may have made a joke about going another round so early in the day but the unsettled look in your eye made her change her stance.

He had found you leaning up against the wall just beside the window, a worry in his face that only increased as Robb could see you trying to hide yours behind an impassive wall. Stepping to you, you shook your head and pointed to behind him to the desk. The raven scroll now sitting out entirely for him. “Before you say anything, I need you to read it first in case I am entirely over reacting.”

Robb hesitated, before turning to pick it up. Only your fears were confirmed, as he held the same reaction you did. Confusion bleeding into realization, and landing it's finality on worry. “Sansa?”

Nodding, you stepped forward and instantly Robb could see where your mind went. Sitting it down behind him, he stepped up to you holding you by the waist as your hands found his chest. Murmuring your name quietly, you knew it struck him how wide eyed and openly nervous it made you. His voice though, stayed its calm and soothing warmth as he moved one of his hands to run along your cheek and jaw. ��I'd rather lie to you and say it's nothing, but you're far too smart to fall for that.”

You barley nodded, or even gave any sort of a laugh. “This can't be a coincidence, it doesn't make sense otherwise. Why would he ever risk giving her to him after everything.” You both knew Lord Tywin Lannister was behind it and that only made you both feel more sure of the truth.

Shaking his head almost trying to doubt it in his mind, but Robb came to a conclusion already and sooner then you had. Leaning down he caught your eye properly, “He wants Sansa to give the Lannisters an heir, a Lannister Stark heir at their control.”

“Why, why now? They just ended her betrothal to Joffery why give her away to another Lannister unless he was planning something. What urgency is there?”

You hated that Robb had the answer, and it broke his heart to even say it. “Tywin finally knows your pregnant.” You tried to look at him in doubt, but he kept you in his touch with a gentle call of your name. “Most of the realm knows it by now. And he knows, if you and I have a son? We have a family to inherit the North and that will only grow bigger the more we have.”

His blue eyes were looking down at you before his hand slid to your stomach, almost wanting to cry out between you both at how much easier it was getting for him to feel something there. If you didn't wear something flowing to hide, it was more obvious to see as well. And yet you both stood in your chambers in Riverrun with fear. You whispered to him, “He's aleady thinking about a North that you and I aren't in.” Your brows furrowed before looking back up at him, hands finding each side of his jaw, “If he thinks Sansa is his key to the North,”

Robb finished for you, “That means there's something he is preparing for that we don't know about yet.” Looking down at your son, before finding your eyes, he sighed out before moving. Sitting down on the chair at the desk before pulling you gently into his lap sideways. Your hands draped around the back of his neck, fingertips toying with the more auburn looking curls. One of Robb's around your waist and the other keeping your eyes on his with a hand at your cheek.

Voice a whisper as you looked too softly at Robb, for him to handle. “One of these days I'm going to be too heavy to do this.”

Robbs face fell as he leaned in, his teeth scraping along your neck before nipping playfully. “If you think being with child is going to stop me from picking up and holding my tempting little wife in my lap, you are sadly mistaken.” Rolling your eyes he brightened finally with a laugh. “Do you not believe me? Do I need to carry you everywhere once you get too pregnant to do most things yourself to prove it?”

Leaning in, you both relaxed and felt your heart racing as he kissed you. Lips rough, but never deepening beyond your hands tight hold of the other. Barley leaving you felt his brush against yours as he spoke, hot breathe dancing across your skin. “I don't want to frighten you, but we need to prepare for whatever this is.” His face twisting somewhat as his head gestured to the paper. “The North is our home, and I know you and me will never give it up to them. So we have to be ready too.”

Looking at the other, you felt your heart slow as reason returned from the sooth of his loving gaze so sure of himself. It made you feel a little more sure was well. “We need to name a line to come after you.”

Robb nodded, but as one hand ran over your stomach, his thumb smoothing back and forth over a particular spot, Robb kissed you again. Almost not letting go as you held his own cheeks. “I need an heir. I need someone to be King in the North if something happens.”

You agreed, Robb knew you agreed but you still felt annoyed at the sting behind your eyes. Huffing as you shook your head and moved to hide in his neck. Robbs arms coming around you better, “I don't know when I've become such a wreck lately, I'm sorry.”

Pressing a kiss where he could at your hair he whispered, “Don't you be sorry, my love. I like when you're emotional. Makes you needy, and your King likes you needy.” You laughed a watery laugh and as he gently pulled you back to look at him, wondered if you liked it too or if it was just what being with child was making you feel.

Shaking your head, you ran your fingers through his hair again. “Sometimes I hate how in love with you I am. I'm supposed to be worried and running around trying to ready things for you and yet..” You only leaned in to press another kiss to his lips. “We should run who we propose to the council before we leave. Make sure everything is in place if Tywins going to have things in place on his end.”

Robb nodded, running his own hand along the back of your hair. “Good, I agree. Because I already know who it is I'm naming.” He said it with such confidence, but just as he did, you felt something warm in your own heart rising up. For once, it was not a strange heartbreak and sorrow you felt, but something much deeper as you looked at Robb with an admiration. “I don't know how to fix things when he's still so far away, but maybe if I'm not here..if you and I aren't here, I can still give my brother one last way to finally come home.”

Running through his hair, you both sat there with an understanding of where this was going and a comfort that both knew the other agreed without doubt. “I'm not sure if under those circumstances, he would want to come back named a Stark.”

But Robb knew his brother all too well. “I can put it in a way that it can be up to him. If he wishes to take our fathers House he can, if not then he can stay a Snow. I don't want him thinking he can only be King if I legitimize him under our name. He's my brother and it starts and ends there.”

Having moved things, Robb beckoned you to come back, perched in his lap still as you and him begun to detail it over. “If it's him alone, I will leave his heir up to his choice. I don't want to choose for him, he'd be King, it should be his decision.” Running a thumb along your stomach as you quickly wrote out details to craft formally once finished. Robb leaned to rest his chin against your shoulder.

For a moment, your mind could once more see images of a pretty face and her striking red hair and you almost dropped the ink writing in your hand. The thing you never had with him that she now gets so willingly, and you had to swallow it back down. It was easy once you glanced back up at Robb, letting those insecurities melt away.

Maybe you were stupid and childish for hating that pretty red hair, but as you looked at Robb, you once more saw the only future you knew you truly wanted. And it currently sat between you growing as you both spoke.

Robb knew this conversation scared you, but you had each other. Now and always, even in death you would still have him, and he would feel your tension ease up with every gentle reminder. This was your life together, and it was one you had Robb alone, which was all you needed.

So much of your current new life however, was spent trying to desperately forget how it came to be. You would never forget the final moments of your last and they persisted in haunting every waking moment. There was not a single day which would pass that at some point, you couldn't recall the gentle way Robb cupped the side of your face as he leaned over you as his entire world shattered.

How you had tried to apologize, tell him to leave while he could, but the only thing you could get out where hysterical pants as your lungs tried to breathe through the increasing amount of blood soaking the inside of your mouth. Barley enough cognizance left to recall the way Robb collapsed beside you and only for the quickest of seconds did you catch his eyes. Trying to go to him until..until you woke up again.

You didn't remember anything between, you didn't even remember anything beyond the fading in his blue eyes until you woke up to a nightmare. You weren't aware right away you were alive then, or if you had even been alive until that second. It was such a blurry chaos of fire and darkness you assumed you had been sent to a hell to atone until peace. And not once since that night did you ever allow yourself to think of the memory any longer then seconds. Some things of that night were trapped in your eyes forever, but that was one you refused to recall. It would haunt you for however long your new life had left in it.

But you hadn't been aware at that moment that you were not dead. No. That memory was something that you couldn't even tell people. Waking up from death so suddenly and so terribly alone?

They wouldn't understand. Not even Jon.

You had no voice to speak for the first while. Just a scratch that barley made enough sound to alert the men around that you had stirred in anyway. Over a day had passed before you found the strength of a voice, but you had nothing to say by then. You had woken up in a world where Robb was forced to die without you, and there were gaping slashes in your stomach that spoke of a son that would never be.

It was an inhuman feeling. No emotion encompassed how that realization felt, and all you wanted to do for months after that was die again. Something had left you behind that night and it didn't return, only a shell of a shadow that used to be you. A light, a fire, a warmth that no longer shined in your soul and you knew it had never returned. You were not a bundle of joy at the best of times, but now you were even less.

Rarley did you smile, laugh, or find hope beyond something right in front of you and it took a long time to even find as little as that. Part of who you used to be felt missing, and you were never quite sure you would find it again. A feeling that only increased the longer you kept going. Something in your soul was as dead and lost as Robb was in the Riverlands. Scattered and never to be found.

But whatever death had done with you, it was nothing compared to the vessel of vengeance that was what was being called Lady Stoneheart. You barley could call this something that used to be Catelyn Stark. Never had seen such hate in ones eyes and they never once stopped as they bore into you the entire journey. Beric Dondarrian had said she was dead three days when they brought her back and clearly what was stripped of that which made you human, was nothing lost compared to what was left out of her soul.

If you in that moment continued to question whether or not you being returned to life was a good idea or not, there was no denying that she was a mistake. Something warning of the power held in Thoros of Myr's hands and not to misuse it or suffer the dark pit of inhumanity that it created. It made her mind awake and limbs move, but her heart did not beat, blood did not flow, and she was not alive in any way that existed beyond what motivated her.

The last time you stood in Moat Cailin with her was when the North had just begun their campaign of war which at that point, was meant to save Eddard Stark's life. It was meant to free Arya and Sansa from the Lannisters captive and you all still had time. If you looked far enough, you'd still be able to see where you and her had stood and discussed how much you regretted leaving her husband and daughters behind. How she had looked at you in a concern at how easily you spoke of trading your life for theirs instead and you ignored her insistence that you deserve to be alive as much as they did.

It was here which you had stood in one of the tents with what had become Robb's war council and went over details of attack for the first time. Watching as Robb planted the first seeds of victory at the deception of Tywin Lannister and how swiftly had struck down Greatjon Umbers doubts of his intentions. It was here they saw the true makings of what was to be a great leader.

Now, you looked out to the land, seeing broken buildings in the distance, and just darkness and fire that remained. Scattered around a clearing with a pyre in the middle was the Brotherhood. If you were to guess, were around twenty to thirty of them and much to your frustration you recognized many of them. Knights and Sers and Lords, many of which passed through Kings Landing at some point and were faces which knew you as you did them.

But whatever these men fought for, it was done in cowardice. These were men who ran from their causes, abandoned their lords, their Kings to fight in the shadows and prey to a fire god which demanded nothing but agony in his worship. These were men which granted a place and safety to Gendry before selling him off a lamb for slaughter. They were nothing but outlaws and deserters fighting for no cause but their own righteousness.

Dragged to the side near where you stood were Gendry and Sam, wishing there was anything they could do as much as you stood there wishing they would have run themselves without you. Watching as you stood at the edge of what was a clearing, once more a fire surrounding your vision as if to emphasize the terror of what guilt would bring.

Beric stood beside for you only moments, speaking quiet to the still but fear painted bright in your narrowed gaze. Up towards the body of the flames and the creature stood on the platform behind it with their own dark gaze. “We seek the truth, nothing more. There is nothing to fear if there is no guilt in your actions.”

But your whisper was rough, an anger that grated against your throat that had your heart racing at the side of its tone. “You seek the truth, my lord. She seeks vengeance.” From the distance she never looked away from you as Harwin stood partially beside her and Thoros to the side of the other with his own eyes on you, but in volumes different then Berics understanding.

A doubt as with curiosity peeked in the man, “Those can both exist at the same time.”

Only a shake of your head once, your jaw clenching as you felt your muscles beginning that knowing tensity that shook the faster for blood flowed. “Not with her.”

They knew the creature she was, but not the woman influencing what this thing was to be like. They didn't know what was behind her hate and you didn't know if there was enough humanity to plead anything otherwise too. But you stood as men spoke, whispered, gathered and took their time.

Not rushing into it, but you were left to stand by the edge of the clearing with only the pleading looks of Gendry and Sam to find yours. They should have ran, you didn't want any blood on your hands anymore that wasn't your own. You were sick and tired of others falling victim to things not only yours to handle.

The four of them stood on the platform to watch, nothing but contempt in one but the ones on either side held a striking curiosity that were as wondering as they were doubtful. Clearing you were in seemed almost like an indent in the ground, the flatness of where you and the fire stood as many stood on the rolling of the hill around just slightly higher with nothing around but dark to accompany.

Only it was as Beric spoke your name, did you know the slight was meant on purpose. If she had wished for you to be dragged here, the woman knew that no longer was the House attached to your name that of Stark. But it was what you were called all the same. As if to accuse of leaving Robb behind with it.

As if giving it up was easy in the first place.

“You are brought before us in the Light of the Lord to bear witness to your crimes.” Breath inside your chest heavied as you knew if it was only that god watching, you had no hope for others to help. “The Lady Stoneheart, stands and accuses you of treason of her family and betrayal of her son.”

It itched in your mind to interrupt, that Robb was not only Catelyns son. He was King, he was your husband, he was the father of what would have been your child. His memory was not hers alone to defend. But you stood in silence, your nails trying to dig into your palms through the gloves without any success, rather the pressure biting down on your tongue would surely sting later.

Inhaling deeply as he spoke, you begged yourself to stand tall and unmoving as he spoke. “Crowning a usurper with no rights to that of House Stark, and denying birthright of her daughter.”

She wasn't there, you had to tell yourself. Catelyn was there that day, not this creature. She was not who stood and listened to what Robb said. Your voice was quiet as you tried to speak, but it was tinted with an edge that sat heavy to any listening. Something was held back in your tone. With a step forward, you now were alone in the snowy grass with just fire as you looked up to him instead of looking to her. “Your charges are too vague. If I am to be dragged here for judgment, I have the right to ask for the details you think I am guilty of.”

Beric and Thoros glanced to the other, you and Stoneheart looked to no one but each other without any blink or breathe passing. She seemed however, to need none of it anyways. Quiet as she spoke, you knew for all men to hear she would let Ser Harwin do so for her, and you hated it. You wanted to hear the lies spoken to you direct. Not half truths to others to appear in the right. “Without a son to stand as his heir, Robb Stark's throne by laws of the land pass to his rightful siblings. Brandon and Rickon Stark are gone, which means his sisters are next in line. By right of age, Sansa Stark is rightful he-”

You were louder then you should have been, but your voice strained doing so trying to keep the anger from such a shout. “You know that isn't true,”

Interrupting loud, Beric spoke with sternness. “You will be given your opportunity to speak, for now let your crimes be laid out in full.”

It only got worse, and the lies felt as if they all were desperate to paint you as the worst with ill intentions as the ones you and Catelyn had seen in the likes of Cersei Lannister. But you had to listen, and hope you had enough words to defend against the lies. “You are accused of keeping the Lady Sansa off her rightful throne and betraying your late King by crowning their bastard brother, which laws state he has no right too.”

“What laws?” Silence followed your ask, but you stepped further into the clearing to look this time at all three of them. “By the laws of the land you have stated, which laws are that? That which are outlined by the Iron Throne? Laws of inheritance of that for the Seven Kingdoms? Need I remind those of us who are not Northerners, we are no longer in the Seven Kingdoms. We are in the North, an independent North.”

Lines of succession, birth rights, blood rights, thrones and crownings it was all any cared about anymore to fight for. Aegon likely stood besieging Storms End as you stood here all because he refused to listen to the one person who told him the truth of the future coming. If these people here claimed to know what was coming, then they were as ignorant and useless as the blue haired dragon. None of this mattered, none of you had time for this.

Whatever anger she spat at you with, it was felt rather then heard from Harwin's translation. “And the North is to be inherited by the lawful heir which is Sansa Stark.”

You knew this was going to anger this vessel in front of you, but hiding the truth was of no use and she was there that night. She knew the truth even if she had been lying to all others. “Tell me my lords, had I been considered of House Stark by marriage to Robb Stark?” The response was quiet and confused just as Lady Stoneheart glared behind terrifying hate. “So by way of marriage, a highborn lady becomes that of her husbands House and thus is subject to the rights and consequences as such? That means your daughter Sansa is now of House Lannister by marriage. You would crown her and give the North the perfect chance to be taken hold of by the House which murdered your husband? Your son and grandson?”

The crowd sent whispers and if there was any hope it was that all still hated the Lannisters as much as any ever had. But as she glared at you and spoke, spitting something which Ser Harwin turned to her in almost shock before he looked back slowly. Whatever she said, it wasn't what Harwin put out. Still, you knew to pick off the defences bit by bit. There was only one aspect of this trial which mattered, and it was only a matter of time before there were no accusations to prove innocence of until the only guilt put on you that was in truth. But you did not come here willingly to defend lies.

Ser Harwin glanced to her then you, “That is not for you to decide-”

You didn't blink, and you no longer felt reason to be guilty of telling her that. She knew why it was done, and she knew that it was Robb who decided it all of his own choice. It was the reason the discussion happened that night in Riverrun in the first place. “Robb Stark disinherited Sansa. Wrote her out of his line of inheritance entirely, as to avoid ever giving the Lannisters a chance to rule it. And after the Boltons took it over under their rule anyways you wish to hand it right back? Is that the North the Lady Stoneheart thinks should be the future?”

Your blood increased in heat even despite the fire ablaze before you. Dragging you from the dark like an animal they did not dare come to accuse you in that of Winterfell. The North would not stand for whatever this farce was and you knew it. What you didn't know, is how they knew where you were to lure you into walking to them in the first place.

“What are you not telling them, my lady?” Perhaps, neither of you blinked nor breathed that time. “It was not just Sansa's disinheritance to which was discussed. What did Robb tell you, what did the highlords of the North agree too which you have refused to present in front of these men? Why am I alone when my true guilt should be shown to the North you claim I betrayed?”

Robb this isn't your mother, you thought. This is not her, and you despised this was what of the mother he loved was left to walk the lands. His memory has no right being defended by her, by this creature which crushed everything he was working towards. Her crimes in life put strife between mother and son enough, but this was nothing compared to it. So you said the truth.

“Robb Stark named his brother Jon Snow as his lawful heir. To be King in the North after him should he have died without issue. Your son wanted Jon to be King, and the line after that now follows whatever children he has. It doesn't return to your daughter. The North is Jons. You would go against your King, your sons law by ignoring his final decree?”

He wanted her to support Jon just once, but she refused then and her anger refused now to something even worse. This was a place, a cause that he never thought he would have or deserve. Jon didn't deserve to have this taken away beacuse she still sees him a bastard. Jon was, is, and would always be far more then that.

You heard her that time and you suspected she wanted you to recall the words. “A Snow is not a Stark.”

The brothers never got a chance to properly see how far the other had come, never got to see the man the other became and it still broke your heart. The only thing Robb knew to do, trying to bring his brother home where he belonged, was only in death. Robb never wanted that to be taken from him. And the boiling inside you got worse. Only now is flooded heavy with sorrow.

It was Robb's idea to name what would have been your second son together, after Jon. He wanted his brother back in his life so much, and you feared the idea that should you not prove your side, Jon might be fooled into thinking this creature's lies of Robbs intentions were true.

“Jon is as much a Stark as any. I didn't make him King alone, he was he one who reclaimed Winterfell from the Boltons, he was the one who reunited the North. Jon was the one the Lords all named their King. You have no right to come in so much time later and speak of things you, none of you, know anything about.” You felt angry, your voice louder then you suspected you thought you had been speaking in.

Eyes all watched in silence for a moment, and you felt the words come up. You wanted to hear it from her. “Tell me, this isn't about treason or betrayal. I know that, you know that my lady. How about you tell these men what my crime truly is? What my great sin committed is so heinous you demand I be humiliated in front of your men before my execution?”

Beric tried to assure you this was not to humiliate but you didn't even look at him. You wanted her to say it, but she wouldn't. She would say it on her own, and it would end this before it started to admit her own actions were vengeance of bias and not justice.

Who else had died for whatever vengeance she had sought? How much blood had the men now at her side allowed her to shed in this manner? What crimes did she have to commit before they looked to put her on the act of justice or did the Brotherhood get to be exempt of their own righteousness.

“The North does not belong to a bastard. It belongs to House Stark.”

So she wasn't going to admit it, though you weren't sure if you were shocked by the fact but you understood the implications all the same.

“If the North belongs by right to your daughter, where is she?” Glancing around your arms waved out almost dramatically as your eyes narrowed up to her. “If it truly is her throne to inherit then why has Sansa not been found a passage back North to assume her rightful place? Or perhaps is it not about that? It is about how you hate that Robbs people look up to Jon. It is that you are aware you could not convince the North to hate him so you find blame to place on me, knowing I would answer in his place.”

Turning to the crowd, you found the wide eyes watching you. An apologetic glaze found its way from your eyes to Sam, hoping he understood it was a sorry before it would hurt him, before you even got to such a detail. But he had not been there for some of the worst of these tales and it was an awful thing to hear them as story like this for the first time.

Her voice tried to shout as best it managed, cracking and scratching at ones ears until they bled as even the collar on her neck used to keep pressure on the slice open was not enough. The milky whiteness over her eyes still held enough faintness that they bore into you, and down. You knew it was visible through the tear in your dress as it was stared at. If it were Catelyn inside her, maybe it would have brought something back to her humanity. But none was there a trace.

Peeling them back up to you did she speak. “What say you for bringing Jon Snow back from the dead?”

You felt the necklace against your neck under your dress, and you burned to think coming back only brought more death and hatred to follow. You didn't have a true knowing, but you only knew of something sure. “I was the captive of the Boltons for a year and when I had escaped, I was brought to Castle Black for refuge. Only when I got there, a group of men had committed mutiny against their Lord Commander, against Jon. And he was dead by the time I got there.” Whispers followed and so did the eyes of Sam.

You looked to him, and you were honest in the red behind yours too. He was trying to ask in silence through something devastated, and your voice cracked enough as you could feel the phantom of his scars that day over the freezing cold of an unbeating chest. But you had not the words to say it either, you had known what death for the two Stark men in your life you loved looked as. And they knew of yours so some degree when they didn't deserve it.

Somewhere in another life, you were not you, but other people. Split between women better for them who gave them life, and happiness and not this dark veil which shrouds you at all hours. “I didn't do any magic. I didn't perform any ceremony, spoke any words and no actual power ran through me but I brought him back all the same. And I will not say any sorry for that. I won't stand here and tell you I am guilty of that when it isn't a crime. He deserves to live, no matter what you hate him for.”

Lady Stoneheart watched you, but it was Thoros who spoke beside her. “You were returned from the dead yourself. You needed no one to do as I do the Lady or Lord Beric. If the Lord of Light uses his power through my words when I hope and pray, he grants his powers to you without need of permission.” Your head tilted, but you felt a shiver finding his eyes before he turned to speak to the others. “Our Lord has given this woman a purpose. And I see no crime committed in a servant of the Lord of Light, fighting for her purpose as she sees fit.”

It wasn't fanaticism though, not in his eyes. He was tired and shaken and something that was dedicated and attached to the idea of typing purpose to someone and you felt as if he knew something of why you were out alone in the first place. If Berics were that of understanding sympathy, Thoros's eyes were that of a painful empathy.

“If she is not guilty, then so her King is so answer for her crimes.” You didn't know who said it, but your jaw clenched as every muscle tensed. You had left to find family when he was ripped from his, you had left to give him space when you had hurt him, you had left to stop ruining his life he was not going to be dragged into this now.

You could hear Sam protesting, “Jon hasn't done anything wrong, and neither has she.” You would look to ask him to stop but you could hear the emotion heavy in his voice as he tried to shout and there was not the strength to tell him to back off. “If bringing a man back to life is a crime then you should've been punished ages ago, you haven't told her what she's done wrong-” There was more debating around as you looked up to her again.

If only for a moment, you found enough in her faintness to recall the person this thing was possessing the essence of. Catelyn wasn't hateful, not like this. You had sat there on the journey to Riverrun with her as she was honest. Telling you of that day and how much it hurt you, but how guilty in her eyes she felt for what she knew was many horrible acts she had never reconciled. Catelyn protested but did not argue with Robb to the point she refused to accept his will.

This took Catelyn and twisted what was already wrong into a toxic poison to infect all who stand too close. But this was not her. Your eyes fluttered shut as you inhaled for only a deep moment, letting your shoulders relax as you thought of who the rest were.

You didn't know these men, not in the way they were now but you knew them before, and what the god they worshipped was. They asked for truth, she wanted vengeance. Looking up her, you spoke quietly almost building the courage as you repeated yourself. “You wish for me to confess my true guilt?”

As it was heard by some, many caught on as eyes all turned.

But you looked at her. “You wish for me to confess my guilt, is that what this is? Hunt me down and drag me here by blood and demand I say I'm guilty. But not for this, you wouldn't have accepted only me if you truly thought Jon was the enemy. This is about us, this is about me isn't it?”

You could see Gendry try and step forward, an anger twisting on his face at whatever you were about to do but in strokes of luck did Sam grab him with a look to pull him back.

“How about we tell the people exactly what it is you are really accusing me of. This has nothing to do with a crown, or the North, or your daughter or treason. No, the only crime I have committed is loving your husbands bastard son.” If sound was around you, you didn't hear any of it. “The crime I committed was I didn't hate Jon the way you wish I did. My only crime is that I am the reason Jon is alive and you despise that I couldn't control that it wasn't Robb.”

Her scratching was like a hiss seeping into your bloodstream and crawling up your spine. “You are why my son is dead.” But you felt the knife. The sudden feeling so swift into your stomach as the woman once in front of you shouted Robbs name before any knew what was about to happen.

You could feel it all pooling out as you looked up to Robb before collapsing and the only thing you remembered after was how he looked at you begging you not to go, but you couldn't even speak beyond the blood and pain to tell him you loved him before you could.

It was hardly a whisper, but there was no strength behind the pain still. You had accepted the loss, but not found ease of the agony. “Robb was not your son.” If you could jump into the flames now and have it all go away without consequence, you would. “You are not Catelyn Stark, just whatever demon possesses her corpse too late passed her death. Whatever was brought back, it wasn't her and Robb would never agree you were his mother either. This is nothing but hate you all follow, brought her back and let her seek vengeance at any cost. Is this how justice is done in the Brotherhood?”

Turning partially to seek eyes around the clearing and if there was ever unity or purpose in these men it was no longer here beyond darkness. “I spent a year desperately wishing I could go back to being dead, begging someone, anyone to let me go back and stay dead beside him. Robb was the future I had chosen for myself, I went back to him, and the first time in years I felt any happiness was when I was to have a child with him and you have no idea how it feels to have that all ripped away from you. For the only memory being the scar that murdered your unborn son. I would give anything to trade places with Robb, he was a better person I could ever hope to be and he deserves to be here. But he isn't and I cannot change that.”

The wavering in your throat wanted to strangle you with pain and tear what was left of you apart in a sob but you would not cry for this thing. Certain people only existing in fear and blood should not be graced with the tears of their victims. “What does the lady say to such a defence?” If Thoros had tried to keep the peace you tore it down in seconds.

You did not play games before with these kinds of people and you wouldn't now. If it ended with you so be it, but let it be not without a sword to fight back with. “She has nothing to say, my crime is bringing one Stark back to life and not the other when I did not have any choice in doing any of it. My crime is still having enough of a heart to love more then just Robb Stark, and if that is what I'm guilty of then so be it.”

If someone watching as witness saw it coming, if any had approached, you did not hear them over the screaming in your head of everything lost just to get you here. “I refuse to let any of you decide what to do with my life, and I certainty refuse to allow her anywhere near Jons. Isn't taking lives what you all do now anyways? Making men fight for their freedom?”

Beric's voice was stern, “Death for you will not be as simple.” Glancing up at him, you let him continue in silence. “I am brought back by Thoros as the Lord of Light bids. You on the other hand, are of Kings Blood. Your life is not so easy to revive.”

It was as if he knew something that he was now holding off on revealing. “Much was taken from you before you could be brought back, the Lord would not do so idly if you had one use only. He has many servants he could call upon should he only need you for that.” Your eyes met his, and you felt nothing but the impending defeat. “He wants you alive.”

You had never met someone who had come back other then Jon, but clearly something that was lost in you was multiplied in the one before you. Four dead and each one vastly different from the other, and it felt odd to meet all. To have known all in your life before.

“What of what I want?” You glared up at her, blood racing as you felt yourself approaching doing something rash. “You do not deserve this life given, using it to defend against my son. You are only a whore warming a bastards bed. It was a mistake asking the gods to spare his life that night.”

The thing about being Northerners surrounding an outlaw group of mostly Southerners, is that they had not any inkling of what it felt like to be watched on anothers land. In the dark and wilderness which surrounded the group were many watchful eyes, all perched in the snow watching for right and wrong signs to approach.

Jon barley knew of these men, but he and many however, watched in a shock at the sight and the one who led them. He had been warned, but seeing was something else entirely. Spending his life avoiding the spite filled eyes of Catelyn Stark and yet the ones on her now were hateful to a frightening degree. Only they were directed at you.

He could still remember the way she looked at him that day. He, Robb, his father, Lady Catelyn, and Maester Luwin had all gathered in the room which was to be yours. His father having brought you up there after discovering you had not just collapsed, but you were burning up almost while he could feel your forehead.

You were flushed with sweat and almost pale that the window had to be opened fully just to keep you even slightly cool, and it still barley worked. His father stood with a rigid, but worried look as he tried to keep his concern from reaching his sons, despite knowing they saw all of it. “How bad do you mean?”

Luwin had glanced to the you and then back to his father, with a heavy weight muttered, “I would suggest preparing a raven to send to Lord Stannis. One that can be sent out at a moment's notice.” Jon had barley taken his eyes off you at that point, as if suddenly your tiny signs of breathing would disappear in an instant as his heart raced painfully. Saying someone would always have to be with you.

Just as the three adults begun to discuss who would do what when, Jon had stepped forward with a rough but earnest, “I'll do it.” All turning, Luwin, Robb, and his father looking the same, but Lady Catelyn had narrowed her eyes already. Jon had to ignore her. Looking back to the others, “I can take care of her.”

She had looked at him as if he was some monstrous criminal ready to violate you the moment they left the room. She tried to protest and his father shot it down, saying they all had things to do and Jon would only be missing training in the yard for now. He quietly said he would come check on him much later, but as they all left the room, his instructions from Luwin of what to do, he had turned back to look at Lady Catelyn still there.

Watching him with narrowed eyes, before flickering them up to you and turning away before she said anything more. The older both of them got, the less she would restrain her comments towards him when both were in private. Jon simply got used to that. But back then, he still hated the way he wasn't trusted with you.

Jon sat by your bedside that entire night and for the next three nights to follow, and by the time his father came to check on him he hadn't even noticed the moon passed over the middle of the night sky by then. He barley had looked away, making sure he could always tell you were breathing and every few minutes he would both check to see how hot your head was, and run a cool cloth over to keep you comfortable.

As he knelt there now though, Jon knew it meant something that no matter what he thought or told himself he still automatically referred and saw Ned Stark as his father in his mind. Arya was his sister until he was reminded by her words that he had a secret and she was almost enraged at him for it. He never wanted any of them to think this truth meant he didn't love them. His father, his brothers, sisters. He loved them all. He didn't want any of them to think that changed.

It was too confusing, and Jon couldn't help but wonder if he had brought this on himself. Spending so many years doubting his place within the Stark family, and now it was all on his shoulders to decide for good where he stood in it.

Jon hated that he let his anger get the better of him, that he had said things in a way that made you feel he didn't want you, didn't love you anymore when he still felt as terrified now as he did when alone with you unconscious self that first night. He didn't want you doubting that, and he was angry at himself for not just stepping back. That was twice he took things out on you now, but even still, it was those eyes he was mad at most.

Look at him that way, Jon thought. Whatever this once visage of Catelyn Stark was, he wanted her ire to be looking only at him. He was used to a form of it his whole life, he didn't want your last true reminder of your life with Robb to look at you with the kind of hate that pushed Jon to the Wall in the first place.

“What in Seven Hells am I looking at?”

Narrowing at the fire in the clearing where many stood, Jon could see her, with the kind of hate none deserved to be look at with. But nothing of her was familiar anymore. Not turning more then his head slightly to the side, Jon whispered “I'm not sure I want to know.”

Yelling could be heard, and he knew if your voice was raising that much it wasn't good. That had he and Maege glance uneasy at the other. Jon knew what he had seen, and she heard the rumours and it felt none too good what they were walking in on. Theon came to his side, kneeling down much as he could with a whisper of his own, “Count about thirty, not including the two hostages with them.”

Ser Davos on the other side of him, whispered in an angry urgency watching it play out. “We need to get in there now.”

Jon shook his head no, watching with sharp eyes at the woman he once knew. “I need eyes closer then this. Need to know a path to get down there without alerting them we're here. Otherwise they could kill her if we can't sneak up behind them.”

Just as he heard someone speak up, he decided for them. He hadn't done this in front of anyone who wasn't you, but he knew it was the safest option. He needed someone who could sneak silent a ghost and there was only one who could without question. What was one more abnormal thing to add to the eyes of his people. He took a knife to the heart, it didn't get stranger then surviving that.

He wouldn't know what the reaction was, but he knew in a moment Jon was there and the next his eyes seemed to paint over totally white with Jon still perched in place, and the direwolf next to him matched with eyes as white until they faded back to a red.

The sounds around should have been what set you off, but it wasn't in your senses. Your eyes trained narrowed and blazing with a rage as she gave you the same right back. This was not her, this was never her. You knew Catelyn Stark, you did not know this woman. This was hate and anger, and took every inch of spite, guilt, and anger in Catelyn's soul and twisted it into something dark and vengeful that sought to only do harm to anything she had seen as a threat.

This was a mockery of something which you used to be able to call a mother. Not any longer.

Whatever and whomever had snuck up behind, you almost held no care for it. Swords and blades drew and as some snuck up behind, those of the Brotherhood also fought back. You recognized in the back of your mind that of your people, but did you truly? No, you hadn't let her go in your sights.

All by her side left to jump into a fight and yet it seemed around you, none put you in targets sights in either camp and so you could only bide your time.

He had not the time to consider what it said that the wolf which jumped from the shadows, lunging to the deathly figure he once knew, was the same sort of large and imposing but darker in fur and quick snapping aggression then Ghost. Jons own direwolf snapping with a jump at any looking to flee, unwilling to let such injustice occur by escape as Jon fought back against them.

Whatever battles most of these men fought was none. Undisciplined and jumped into another blade as if their instincts alone would guide them and little helped when it cut though their bravado as it did bloody into their skin. Not all though, were untrained. A small few gave a fight, and the one finding within Jons sight was a solider.

One eye covered and scars running all over, but he had not the time to think as metal clashed. But it was one thing to fight with skill, and another with anger. Needing talent to wield both and few had such capabilities and even as such it became a balancing act which Jon struggled to maintain. Pushing him forth and a swift aggressive charge shoved both towards the other.

The fire behind him which should have burned hot the closer the one eyed opponent pushed him back and back further to dance with the flames. One hit before the other and that balance crept closer and closer the more Jon considered he had lost placement of where you had been entirely.

But one well timed swing could change everything, and he had to trust in himself to get that. The problem on the other, such standard armour had blatant weak spots. What it covered worked for what was necessary and yet such small but quick vitals sat important in the bends between metal coverings along them and one swift plunge of a blade could penetrate it with ease.

But it seemed, this needn't not be a fight to the death to end it. Surrender, was easier and this time Jon hadn't needed to force their hand.

You cared not for a single moment why the blades stopped clashing around you, and neither did you find any attention directed towards the words and whispers coming in the final surrender of who was left. It had not even registered which it was occurring before you, only the slow steady steps to the side to where one of your own now stood did you pay attention too.

Hours felt like they could have passed in what was no more then seconds, but you could only hear what she had said, claimed, spit in a hatred towards those of a life which once did not belong to whatever possessed Catelyn now. It was rash and unwise, one may call it impulsive and stupid but the moment the metal of a daggers handle found your creeping hand to one's side did you decide none of it mattered.

You would have done so to the Boltons had you had the chance that night, and it was the act of only one who kept such a butchering from painted your hands in red. This time however, you had the debate as your heart pounded painfully as the sensation too in your head. You did not care. This was not a person, this was a falsehood masquerading as a person and you could only hear the scratching of a voice talking down to the only things left in your new life giving you a purpose.

Three people went for you the very second you snatched the dagger, but only one whose voice shouted your name stopped you. Jumping up across the stones and rocks blocking such an easy path, you would put the rest of this blade through the slice in her throat and show her that she did not deserve to pretend she suffered as Catelyn did. Walk around as if Robb was her son.

It was nothing but red for the insinuation of how little she was a person. Catelyn had expressed the pain she felt. You had not the mental state for it at the time but she still had admitted it in guilt. That she had promised to the gods.

“Let him live, and I'll love him. I'll be a mother to him…And I couldn't keep my promise. And everything that's happened since then all this horror that's come to my family it's all because I couldn't love a motherless child.”

In truth however, what made people better then their worst moments, was whom they choose to keep around to ensure those worst moments do not come truly to pass, even if every scrap of blood in your veins wishes to prove it didn't matter as long as you put that blade through this creature.

You hadn't seen anyone who moved to stop you, only the sound of Gendry shouting your name and the undeniable hauling back strength of a Baratheon that yanked your arms back and kept you away from her.

All watched as this thing the North once knew and respected, hissed through a deathly visage and scratched throat towards you almost so tough any slightly further away then mere feet could not hear. But you did, and Gendry adjusted his grip further against you with as much determination as your anger felt. “Robb should have carved his son from your womb when he had the chance.”

Few times did any hear you in a fashion any could consider a yell like that of Robert, but it tore from your throat as it painted over your eyes. The memory of blue staring down and a hand soaked in blood as nothing but heartbreak shattered the world which was the man you loved, and the angering words spat towards her in an shouting instinct, “Burn in hell,”

Jon had to focus on not looking in two opposite directions.

More then going right to one or the other, other things first had to be done, that was his duty. One was a morbid curiosity of how and why and truthfully who was she anymore. But the other was led away before he could once more go to you.

In the settling night, it was Ser Davos who moved fast. Swiftly walking over to you and the one still holding you back. There was something almost familiar in the manner you and the other had interacted, the way you stood around the other as if used to it. But Jon didn't know who it was, and whatever Ser Davos had said in too quiet for any else to hear, he had prompted the other man to lead you away from the scene as your eyes almost didn't even peel away from the woman in an anger before allowing her to be taken from such a scene.

Jon didn't blame you for not looking his way, but he still hated it.

He needed answers of what these people had done, and not a shred of patience for understanding their justifications of blood they shed to get here. But when he had begun to pry into how they had learned all of their information, dots that were already suspicious in Jons mind begun to connect.

It continued to take a great effort not to look at her, not to find those hateful eyes kept guarded as far from the others as possible. Instead sitting across from Lord Beric, hands tied at his front as Jon kept a dark, unchanging gaze at him as Ser Davos now sat beside him. Beric however, found words first. “You look like him. Your father.”

If he was thankful for one thing, it was his growing skill in remaining as impassive as possible not to change expression. He knew who he meant, and he knew he looked nothing like the one now plaguing Jons mind. “You knew him?”

Nodding, “When he was Hand of the King, he charged me to lead a rally men to execute The Mountain in his stead for slaughtering villages in the Riverlands.” A small smile that meant little when looking into his eyes, “Who would have known that was only the first time I was to be killed by a Clegane.”

Jon nor Davos found amusement, and whatever impatience for this the later had, the former found anger still. “And what am I supposed to say to that, when you had innocent men and women slaughtered in Barrowton just to lure my wife out of hiding?” Beric at the least, had a look fallen to a sorrowful sympathy.

“You're angry with me, and I can't blame you.” Glancing over to Thoros of Myr, Jon followed the mans eyeline to go up until it found a small stone ruin not so far off where you had currently were with the one Jon didn't know. “I'm not proud of what we've become. When Thoros and I started this, we were doing what we did to protect the common people. Protect them from the nobles ravaging their lands from war, war your family was waging.”

Jon knew Davos had spared a glance to the setting of his jaw and the tint of darkness seeping more into his eyes as he watched. It was a risky thing most knew by now, speaking ill of those Jon Snow loved, and even more dangerous to do so about Robb Stark. Speaking for him hoping to quell whatever anger still sat on the Northern Kings tongue, “No one here's saying it doesn't have a cost, but peace isn't found by two sides just getting along. Robb Stark fought and died for an independent North, and so far it's the only place that's been able to hold that, thanks to him.” Gesturing to Jon beside him with a nod.

Peeling his eyes back, Jon nodded a thank you to Smalljon Umber on one of his sides and Maege Mormont on the other, as they all but tossed the second party down somewhat beside Beric. Thoros seemed much more like the talker of the pair of them, and none of the Northerners present had energy for these people as such. “You both started the Brotherhood after abandoning your fealty to House Baratheon.” Jon said it not with judgment or accusation, but these men were known as outlaws for a reason.

Thoros seemed a bit of an easier going, if a little bit distant and purposely aloof in his tone. “We formed it after the Mountain impaled this one in the chest with a lance. The Lord of Light brought him back and we found something better to do with our days, then fight for this King or that King.” Once more nodding to Beric, “Then he died five more times and here we are.”

Ser Davos was short with the subject, and Jon was thankful. If he and the man did not speak of any subject, it was the wounds all over Jons chest they both knew Davos saw. “So what does that have to do with his wife?”

Beric looked tired, Thoros looked more with shame. But it was Thoros who said it, “Ser Harwin was the one who begged to bring Catelyn Stark back. We found her body, what the Freys did. Stripped her naked and tossed her in the river and he wanted so badly to bring her back. And perhaps this is the Lords way of punishing me for not listening to Beric when he said it was too late.”

All she was doing, was glaring at Jon now that only he was visible. At least now, Jon had become someone who was not uncomfortable and insecure over such hostility. Anger might not have been much better, but it was more productive.

Beric speaking low, “The longer you are dead the less of you that comes back. She was dead for over three days, I think there is very little left of Catelyn Stark which came back. But she is the one who commands, the one who leads us. She certainly had the drive for it unlike any of us. But it also meant she chose a much bloodier path to justice then we did alone. For that I can only apologize.”

Jon however, wasn't satisfied. “I can't give those people their loved ones back with an apology.” Your name coming from him with a twist in his face growing impatient. “You followed her, you had men start a slaughter in the streets just to lure her out and have that woman put her on trial for something she didn't do? That what you choose to follow now?”

Both of the men looked at the other, something unspoken being shared with ease between the silence as Jon felt the tensity in his shoulders grow. “I admit, our goals of coming North were far different then that of Lady Stoneheart. She came for vengeance, but we came here for something far different.”

As Jon asked what that was, Beric looked pointedly at him and Thoros looking up to where you were and did he ever feel unsettled once more. Beric spoke first of you. “She brought you back, Thoros has brought me back six times, and no one but the Lord of Light himself saw fit to bring her back. Maybe this was all meant to happen so the chosen who serve him could come together.”

Jon was short and rigid with him, the feeling in his shoulders now draping across his back as it left every part it touched feeling uncomfortable. “I serve the North.”

“The North didn't raise you from the dead.”

If he thought he was trying to lead Jon towards a greater point, he was wrong. Ser Davos beside him chose to change the subject for him, “I've seen one of your priestesses,” Gesturing with a narrowed ire towards Thoros, “Burn good, innocent people alive for your god. I've seen her try to burn children alive for your god. If that's the cost for whatever he wants you to fight for, it's one I don't see as worth it. “

Jon could only hope you have never come close to truly seeing what watching someone burn to death of a pyre as such looked like. He had seen the red woman do it to Mance before he spared him a mercy kill, and he'd do damn near anything to make sure you didn't find out just how terrifying it must have been for Shireen.

“So is this family immune to death, or are you that special?”

Glancing at the hand he was wrapping, a cut from one scuffle to the other in the past days begging to get infected if kept out any longer, you found a barley there smirk and shrug. “Let me stick a knife in your stomach and find out.” He glanced down to where it sat uncovered once more and your expression fell flat and voice frustratingly short as Gendry did a poor job at pretending he hadn't looked. “If you want to ask, ask. Don't pretend as if I can't see you staring.”

Nodding somewhat to it, “Looks better then Lord Beric.”

The laugh was a huff which held little to no meaning behind it. “Most people look better then he does now.” Eyes narrowing in curiosity at him your voice lowered, “Were you just going to always keep to yourself that you knew this was possible, or were you waiting for the perfect opportunity to ask if that's what happened to me when everyone though I was dead.”

“Didn't know you, wasn't going to pry.” Both your eyes met and yours were as furrowed and doubtful as Gendry was trying to pretend as if he wasn't amused with your lack of amusement.

Rolling your eyes eventually, you pulled your hand back once he finished. Mumbling as you put your glove back on, “At least I know you are related to me without any doubt.” Asking a hesitating why you simply responded flatly, “All Baratheon men are some degree of irritating.”

He barley nudged you in the side when he turned falsely apologetic, “My apologies, your grace. I forgot it isn't acceptable to hit a Queen unless you're beating the shit out of her during a fight in the streets.”

“Or unless she deserves it.” Eyes flickering up, you felt the guilt swallow you whole once more as you nodded for Gendry to give you a moment. Standing up, you could tell Theon had spent the last few days in anger. Eyes with slight bags and a tensity in his shoulders as he stood tall but his tone was short. “I already yelled at Jon, and I was coming over here ready to yell at you..”

Your eyes drifted down, and Theon cut himself off as you blinked slowly. Inhaling with the courage to look back up at him, “If I had told you what I was doing or what I wanted to do, what would you have done?” Interrupting as he opened is mouth, “And don't say you would have gone with me, we both know that isn't true. You would've stopped me. Or tried to, or told someone right away I was trying to leave and-”

“None of this would've happened.” Once upon a time you may have tried to argue with him, but you bit your tongue and kept it back. “Who the hell is that anyways, that what you ran off for? Meeting up with-”

You both were just taking turns interrupting the other, knowing you could go on in a rant. But the honesty slipped out, beacuse at this point some truth needed to be said. Theon didn't deserve to be lied to. “He's…someone I knew from Kings Landing, but he reached out to me and he was trying to keep his identity secret so I didn't tell anybody I was going to find him.”

Theon wasn't fooled to think you weren't keeping information from him, but in the outside it might not be the best place to discuss it. It was quiet for a moment before he stepped closer. “So, four dead people in one place. Has to mean something.”

You almost lost his gaze for a moment before you sighed. “Perhaps it's only supposed to show me that however wrong I came back, at least you all can still somewhat recognize me on the inside.” She stood now too far away for you to see, but you could still sense her. Something created only to hate. Not too far from something created only to destroy as well.

The gods warning you that things from every walk of life was coming for you all, it could be.

But as you both stood there, Theon finally sighed. “Caring about you is exhausting, you know that, Baratheon?”

You only shrugged, and he held a smirk back before you both moved to hug the other. Tight and a leaving desperate worry simmering down to a calm between you both as you whispered, “I'm sorry.”

Nodding, you both kept a tight hold. “Don't run off again. Me and Jon aren't ready to be left alone yet. Barley did anything without you but argue.” You let out something of a laugh that sounded close to breaking, but so did Theon as he returned it.

Maybe it said something, that the persons surrounding you that were of family or were something like family, but it was Theon you had reunited with first.

You had watched Jon reunite with Sam from how far you were now though. The happiness in expressions and hug that followed from where you were now keeping from the scene. The building still in ruins but stairs leading up to the exposed second floor now stood as an open awning to the night sky. The two had seemed emotional and the guilt came at that being how Sam learned what happened to him.

Everything that led here, you wondered if it was all worth it. Wondered if there was reason to stay, every step of the way it felt as if you were the one causing Jon problems. Putting his life in danger, making his life worse. Were you simply too selfish to stop, was that it? Your mind about Jon was always so intense, and everything within you felt like it burned in his presence but you were terrified you were no better then the people who ruined his life before.

The frustration overcame as you wiped the water about to tear from your eyes away. Ever since returning to Jon, you felt as if you two were never on solid ground. Something always was in the way for both of you and maybe in fact it was never him, maybe you were the one always in the way and it tore even more at you. At this point you felt lost without Jon, but that felt unfair to him.

Unsure if it was really your voice as it spoke in your mind, but something dark in remains of a not to long ago torture, that whispered around you that you shouldn't have married him. You shouldn't have forced him into the kind of misery you were once terrified Robb was being forced into with you. He was happier when he was around people who weren't you, it was the only conclusion that made any sense.

Not even the feeling of Ghost coming to stand by your side made you alright.

“She's safe, I promise.” Sam had been endlessly worried the moment he could breathe after seeing Jon again. Asking about Gilly and Little Sam and Jon knew he had reassured him more then he could count already. But Sam nodded, and Jon smiled a little bit. “What were you even doing here in the first place, Sam? Read every book in the citadel already?”

Tilting his head with a small smirk, “Think I've read more books then you've even seen you whole life.” Both men chuckled, as he knew Sam looked in the distance to where he previously had seen you go. Stepping closer with a whisper, “So, that's really her? All this time, and she was alive?”

The peel of Jons eyes going down to nothing then forced back, gave way for the brightness in them to shine with a pain behind them. “It's not that simple. She's been through a lot, more then anyone deserves to..I just don't think she knows that yet.” Sam's face fell a bit, the two men given quiet space as Jon tried to keep himself steady. “The Boltons held her prisoner for a year. Did more to her..”

Jon was grateful that Sam picked up on the crack in the fading of his tone to not pry. Rare did he see Jon so easily overwhelmed in his eyes but it was there as soon as he looked back on it. “You of all people..married…why are you standing here talking to me?”

He tried to tell himself not to look, and he got as far as watching Ghost's distant figure making his way from the woods to where you were. “Because she's scared. She's scared she screws everything up, and I don't know how to make her stop thinking that.” Looking around, Jon could sense the need to go to you, and hated having to only trust in Ghost to keep you company after Theon had returned to assist in handling the rest of them. “I lost my temper on her and I know she'd rather say sorry to me as if it's her fault.”

He knew Sam had never seen him speak so unsure about you before, but Sam knew exactly what he felt. In his own way. “Do you think I had any idea how to talk to Gilly about her life before?” Jon looked up with an eyebrow raised in confusion as Sam elaborated. “Think about it, she was raised with everything Craster did to her, and I was raised in some fancy castle. I had no idea how to talk to her about that sort of thing before. But now, we only work as well as we do beacuse we're honest no matter what.”

“Thats different-”

“Is it?” Tilting his head, Jon easily felt once more that look Sam always gave when he thought Jon was being thick. Which wasn't uncommon some days. “So you got angry at her, you get angry with everyone you know. She's not unreasonable, talk about what happened and figure it out. You can't suddenly be worse at talking to your girl then I was with Gilly.” Jon glared at him, and the ease in which both almost shoved at the other in jest was comforting.

Looking back up to you, Jon was mostly just waiting out until you were alone. He wanted to go to you, but you had other people in your life who weren't just Jon. He felt that itching in his muscles begging to go to you, having to fight with not wanting to dominate every moment of your life just beacuse he hated being apart.

Sam luckily, whispered in distract, “So you really…someone actually…killed you?” Nodding slowly, Sam clearly had looked for something that would tell him anything but found nothing easy. “How..who.. when did..how did you come back?”

Jon however, knew there was much more to tell him later. Your name coming deeply from his lips, saying that you brought him back and he doesn't know how.

Ghost's silence gave nothing away as he stood tall by your side. The cold wind almost enough to make you shiver by now, but having lost sight of a large dark wolf in the distance you were watching, you begun to contemplate what you were to do next. But he moved as silently as Ghost did, the two White Wolves one in the same in that manner. You only realized you weren't alone when a warmth radiated heavy at your side. Your forearms resting flat against the stone looking out did Jon brush up against your other side.

Not looking at you, but as close as he could without invading your space completely. That pull was so frustrating, something that tethered your new lives so deeply making you yearning to give everything back over to him even if he didn't want it. But Jon looked over at you, and your name rasping deep from his lips did you feel that pull turn to something choking as soon as the sound hit your ears.

“I've been having dreams about you for months. More then what they used to be, things in your past I was never there for.” Your eyes flickered somewhat over to Jon but kept forward as he continued. “Something was letting me walk through your memories in my dreams and I never told you beacuse I had no idea what they were or if they were real. And I still didn't tell you beacuse you started having those visions and I didn't want you to worry.”

Your brows furrowed, but you kept quiet. The weight in your throat proving too heavy, and your limbs to weak to pull away from him. You wanted to lean into Jon further and sink into the alluring husk always entrancing you from his voice. But you stayed still. Letting him continue. “I'm telling you because I said I wasn't keeping anything from you, and that was a lie. Lord Howland said you told me as soon as you found out the truth about my mother for certain. I know you weren't trying to keep anything from me, you were trying to protect me from something you didn't know was true, and you never deserved to be yelled at for it.”

It was quiet, and you felt weak at not being able to stop the pressure in your head from choking your words in your throat. “You had every right to be mad, Jon. I knew telling you meant I was going to bare that towards me, and it wasn't your blame for it. I wasn't upset that you were angry at me. I was scared that..”

Leaning more to look at you, you shook your head as he prompted your name softly. “You were scared I didn't want you anymore, or that I didn't love you.”

On one side, you despised how like a weak little girl it made you feel. But that choking tore up and soon tears fell down your cheeks as you tried again shaking your head to deny it. But you felt unable to breathe at the idea and it strangled your fear into your blood, carrying it all over to take your body over as it wanted to collapse.

But Jon, only felt his heart break. You spent so much of your life and so much effort trying to be as calm, and well put together as possible and you so rarely let yourself feel things as raw as Jon did. But you were falling apart at the idea of what he said and Jon didn't give you the opportunity to doubt what he wanted before turning to pull you safe in his arms. This time your front to his, his hand moving to bury your face in his neck as he held you, trying to pretend he wasn't upset at how long you had been holding this in. The swiftness in which you fell into him.

He knew that insecurity was in you, and that doubt if you were good enough for him but it had never been as strongly upsetting until now. Voice somewhat muffled as he buried his face in your hair, feeling your own arms around his shoulders and back of his neck tightly. “Never think I don't love you, I don't ever want you thinking that. I've always loved you, and I always will.”

Letting a shaking breathe out, you barley whispered, trying not to give away how there were more tears then you wished to let fall. “I love you. It took me a little longer then you to get there, but I am trying to catch up.” Almost half smiling at the chuckle deep in Jons chest. His hand over your hair smoothed over it again and again, his other arm still wrapped firmly around your waist to keep you pressed to him.

Your own touch relaxing a bit as you eased up in how much you leaned into him for support, moreso now resting gently with him. “There is no catching up to me.” You hummed a questioning tone as he elaborated. “If you were as in love with me as I am you? We'd never get anything done, we'd never leave the other long enough to.”

Breathing out more of an airy laugh, Jon turned slightly to press a kiss to the side of your head. Not quite willing to let you go yet, yourself feeling that anxiety slip away more as you sighed deeply against him.

“I'm not used to it yet. How different it feels this time.” Pulling away only enough so he could move his hands to gently cup the sides of your cheek, he looked down at you in question. Your own hands sliding down to his chest and collarbones. “We were still in love before, we were happy with the other but it..it felt almost innocent compared to now.” Your brows furrowed as you looked at the nothing on the leathers of his armour. “Everything with you now is so..it feels too intense, like the moment I thought you didn't want me around I lost all purpose and I know that isn't normal.”

Tilting your head to meet up with his eyes, the grey shined beautifully in the starlight above. His face soft when so often it was harsh and rough as yet wide eyes and gentle expression as he watched you so close. “Maybe for us it is normal. We died, you and I aren't normal anymore.”

A weak but rather dry slip of, “Should we invite Lord Beric to this relationship in that case?” One hand on your cheek slipped down to pinch at what he could grasp at your waist with a smirk, pulling you gently back to him when you tried to flinch away. His hand covered the same spot, almost massaging his rough touch away. “No, you're right. You can't even handle when Tormund winks at me, I have no idea how you would deal with Beric seeing me-”

That time both of Jons hands moved, grasping at your waist as you laughed trying to shove him off you before he flipped you around. Holding you back against his chest, only this time soothingly as you looked out to the night. Your hands pushed up the material on his sleeve as you shivered, Jon tugging you back more firmly as you almost snuggled back into his warmth.

Perhaps it was a risk, but you wanted to know if he was alright without addressing too bluntly. “I know telling you would hurt you, but you deserved to know she had always been right there.”

Another good moment passed, and his voice was quieter then usual. “I don't know how to feel about it, or if I ever will. But I never should've yelled at you for it. I got mad and I took it out on you, when you've been through enough.” Trying to shake your head, softly telling him it was alright Jon held you tighter.

One hand more on your hip now to keep you against him, as the other trailed across your front and found the tear in your dress. Annoyed for a moment it was exposed, Jon wasted no time covering it with his gloved hand and running his thumb all along it. “He took her from everyone she loved, kept her prisoner, tortured her,” Swallowing harsh before his voice continued on a tad more strained. “..raped her. All he cared about was that she give him a child, give him a son and that's all she was worth. She could die after that, it didn't matter. Took her away from everyone who cared about her, and made that her only worth..”

Leaning back, you felt his head rest more against yours as he turned somewhat into your hair. Your voice soft in tones, “This is your life, Jon. He doesn't have to have any role in it. You had a father who raised you, and loved you. And now you know your mother has watched you your whole life. Watch you grow up from that wild haired little boy to a wild haired King in the North.”

Jon nuzzling the side of your head a bit as he softened his tone. “You know what the worst part about it is?” A hum in your throat answered for you, but it caught and choked on his next words. “I wasn't talking about what Rhaegar did to my mother..I was talking about what Ramsay did to you..” Jon must have felt you stiffen in his arms, moving one hand to tilt your head to the side enough that Jon could meet your eyes better. “I almost lost you the way I lost my mother, and then I blamed you for telling me…what kind of man, what kind of husband am I?”

Slipping one of your hands out to reach up and behind you, gently toying with the ends of his hair peeking through the strands fallen from having it up all day. His own on the side of your cheek now tilting you more in that same direction to lean down to nudge his nose against yours gently as you spoke. “You are the husband I chose, the man I love. There's nothing more too it, Jon. I've never been anything near a perfect wife, I would never expect you to be either.”

Were you both not wrapped up in the refusing feeling in your blood not to pull any bit away from the other, you might have rolled your eyes as he muttered faintly, “Would be weird if you expected me to be the perfect wife.” Pressing a kiss as much as he could reach from his angle, you wanted to turn to face him but he wouldn't budge. “I don't want you regretting giving up the name Robb gave you, to take mine. When I hadn't even had you for a week before I almost pushed you away for good. “

Biting your lip as your heart raced, you willed it to calm down but it simply never did as you leaned back up for another kiss. His softness letting you turn properly in his arms to cup both of his cheeks. One of his cupping your cheek and the other at your waist. Brushing against his lips as you spoke, “I've never regretted anything I've shared with you Jon Snow. And I never will. I just want us to have peace, for things not to try and tear us apart again.”

Once more sliding his hand to cup the back of your neck instead of your cheek, Jon pressed a kiss to your forehead. Leaning his own down to rest against it after as you both stood in the cool wind. “Then we make sure everything is out in the open. No secrets not between us, not anymore.”

Just as you nodded, it slipped out. He said no secrets, and you may as well give up your last one. “Gendry is my cousin. He's Robert bastard son, the last I'm aware is alive.” Pulling back Jon looked at you with sharp eyes as you shrugged with a half smile. “Most of my blood are all dead, he might be the only one left. He reached out to me, told me he was in Barrowton that's where I went when I left. I thought I ruined your life by telling you the truth of your family, so maybe I should try and at least put my own back together if I could.”

Only, he had one that beat yours. “Arya's in Winterfell.”

Your eyes went wide and Jon let out a genuine smile that had him pull you back, pressing another kiss to your forehead before wrapping you back in his arms. Mumbling into his neck, “It wasn't a competition, Snow.” You wanted to ask so many questions, but right now it didn't feel right. Right now, you and Jon just needed each other. Ghost having stood quiet at both your sides as a guard to keep any and all intruders from ruining your peace without even needing to be asked.

The North was quiet in that cold of night. Jon had not a clue what his place or purpose in his own family was anymore. But he could had Ghost by his side, his baby sister waited for him back in Winterfell, and he had you in his arms, nothing more holding you back from each other in pain or secrets. And Jon hoped, maybe right now, that was all the family he needed.

Jon's life with you, used to be so easy. But nothing was easy now and it wouldn't get any better.

It wasn't for many days did the raven arrive. Many places in the realm things were playing out precisely as planned. Some unexpected turns along the way but nothing they did not have the ability to manipulate, that was until the ink written on the paper told a story in it's facts.

So the spider had more plans then he ever let on, did he? This was not just one unexpected obstacle, this was a new contender to ruin everything. One Targaryean thought left but now two, but this was the one to fear. This one was already in Westeros and this one held the name and a father and mother drawing quick support from the downtrodden families and thus far, an attitude better then that of his acclaimed father or grandfather.

These plans did not work if they could not control the royals in charge. If this Aegon Targaryean were to take the Iron Throne everything would fall apart. The spider wouldn't let even a scrap of them back within the Red Keep if that were to come to pass.

So, there was only one choice. The second plan was to become the main plan for now. It was time once more to look North. The spies had done their job, kept them informed of the once dead Queen and your new bastard King. Tearing the couple apart through putting you at odds with each other was not working, and so other plans had been formed. But, there were not one raven scrolls to come to their attention that day. But two.

And it was the second telling that their second round of plans in the North were falling apart as well. It was going to be far harder to bring the North away from supporting you two by the sounds of it. Something needed to change, and they knew the answer. It was time anyways. To bring her into the fold. She was ready, they had made sure she was going to be ready should a more aggressive push be needed.

Coming down into the halls, calling out to where her beauty stood in the open floors below. “Alyane, sweetling. It's time for your lessons.”

She was going to be perfect. She played her role so well even now. This time, they would ensure this plan would be one that worked. Parting from the girl she was speaking to, her voice high pitched and obedient as if nothing out of the ordinary. “I will be right up, father.”

This one had to work. The bastard boy would be more impossible to influence or manipulate then his father ever was. Jon Snow had learned from Eddard Starks failures, and the longer he spent married to you, the worse that inability to manipulate him was going to get.

But as Alyane walked into the study, it was all too clear. She was ready to be told the truth about what he was doing, and this time they would succeed together.

After all, she was the best student he's ever had.

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