Arya was born on a winter night, with the moonshine coming from an open window, waving in with the cold wind and a flurry of snow.
In her arms, she looked so small, no bigger than a loaf of bread. It made her look so fragile and delicate and it worried her. Small babies weren't common to survive but Measter Luwin says there was nothing to worry since the babe was born, though rather small, robust and healthy and strong. But she was a mother and mother's hearts were meant to worry, especially since the tiny little thing would never stop crying.
Whenever she would wake up, she would burst into such loud screeches that give Catelyn such a fright that sometimes she felt like crying herself. She had tried everything, she swaddled her and carried her around the room and shook her crib, she even feed her herself when she wont drink from the wet-nurse. But yet the cries would never stop. This morning she cried so much that tears had streaked her cheeks, and hadn't stopped until she had cried herself to sleep.
It made her tremble and quake with worry. She was a mother of two children, a son and a daughter and had taken care of her own sister and brother when she was younger. She was familiar with the fussing of newborn babes but none of them were so fussy. Robb was her first born but he was easy enough and Sansa was such a sweet little thing, she never cried at all and was a happy soul but Arya…
She had thought first that when Ned would come home from the Greyjoy Rebellion, he might be able to soothe her but that had only half succeeded. She had calmed a bit but still whimpered and sniffed and fussed. Then Catelyn had just burst into tears, clutching at Ned's arms as he comforted her and scorned at herself for being such a horrible mother.
What good is a mother if she can't even take care of her children? Catelyn thought. Her tongue tasted bitter at the thought and her throat tight as it caught a sob. Catelyn swept the blankets aside and swung her feet onto the carpeted floor. She looked at the place beside her. Ned still hadn't retired for the night and was probably with the Measter and the council discussing this affair and that.
She picked up the silk night robe hanging from the bedstead and tied it around her waist. She walked towards the door. It swung open with a loud creak and she grimaced. Arya slept in a room across the hallway so there was no need to worry about waking her up but she didn't want to take any risks.
Her slippers shuffled against red rug that covered the hallway as she walked slowly towards the nursery. She picked up a candle stand from one of the tables lined against the walls. Arya's chamber was probably dark since Arya couldn't sleep with the candles on. A small woolen rug lay at the foot of the door and there was a brass handle that opened the door.
Catelyn almost screamed in terror when she caught the sight of two figures near the crib before realizing it was just Ned…and Jon. Her lips tightened and her eyes were fixed in a glare. She stepped in and was about to ask what was going on-she had strictly forbidden the bastard's entry into Arya's chambers-when she heard a noise that hit her the hardest.
It was a small giggle, so light and faint that she almost didn't hear it but so sweet and…heart breaking. It was Arya's giggle, her daughter's first laugh, gained by a bastard. A bastard. She hadn't graced Catelyn even with a smile, not even with a moment when she wasn't crying or upset and she gave him a laugh, her first laugh.
Catelyn felt tears prick her eyes and then felt them running down her cheeks. She scowled. She hated him. She hated him. She hated him. She had always hated him but this time it was actually true. Since the day Jon had came into their lives, Catelyn despised him. Not for the reason that Jon was born but because he was born as her husbands son, his natural son, with some whore of somewhere.
Family, Duty, Honor were her house words and she had followed by them the day she had married Ned, not even a year since Brandon's death, a man she had spent her whole childhood loving and dreaming about. At that time she hadn't cared, not about him or their marriage or their lives because she was too numb with pain and loss. But then, she had. She was going to spend the rest of her life with this man and she had cared. She wanted to be happy, to have a family, to love him and she had made herself. She made herself love him despite the fresh wound still sore and open from Brandon's death.
Her dreams that had once been enraptured with Brandon were now filled with Ned. She thought about him and wished about him. She would murmur his name in her sleep and dream about having a thousand children and a happy family with him, in a far away winter castle of the north which would belong to her. She had done that day and night and weeks and months until she was as in love with him as she had ever been with Brandon.
She had stood in front of the Winterfell gates with a son in her arms, smiling with pride and glee. And he had come and she had been so happy until he bought forth Jon. A babe no older Robb had been in the arms of his nurse and her heart had broken. Her dreams had broken and so had her hopes. But they were mended and fixed in years time as her family grew and her love for Ned took seed again and bloomed brighter than ever before but in them Jon had stayed like a stain or spot that won't go away even with all her efforts, constantly reminding her of her husband's infidelity.
She didn't want to hate him. She didn't. He was an innocent motherless boy and sometime she had even tried to love him but she couldn't, she couldn't because she couldn't forget who he was, and what he was and she hated herself, for being so cruel, so self fish.
But she now hated him truly. Even more so as Ned wrapped his arms around his shoulder and held him close as they both gazed down smiling into the crib and laughing whenever Arya would laugh and gurgle. She was supposed to be there, in his place with him and Arya as a family but she would never look like family as much as him. He looked like Ned, like Ned and Arya with his brown hair and grey eyes and northern looks but she was from the south, an outsider with her Tully red hair and blue eyes and would always be an outsider. Nothing more, never more.
She glared at them once more before turning away and closing the door softly. She returned to her chambers and wrapped herself in her blankets and when Ned kissed her goodnight, she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. She did her duty but he took the family.