A/N: I don't own Game of Thrones, and I certainly don't own A Song of Ice and Fire. They are the property of their creators. I'm only playing around with the characters.

284AC

Family. Duty. Honor.

Catelyn Stark repeated the words in her head as though they would somehow tell her how to respond, how to greet a husband who she hated with the decorum her station demanded. He was looking at her with solemn grey eyes. They didn't show remorse for the state he had left her in after his last visit to Winterfell, they simply looked at her with a grave sort of acknowledgement. I'm your wife, she wanted to scream, the mother of your son.

"I am glad to see you are well, my lord." Catelyn said stiffly, the courtesy containing an edge that she hadn't been able to smooth over.

It was now that his eyes began to soften, making his face seem less hard. If he smiled, would he look like Brandon? She had never seen him smile, and now she supposed she never would. "May I see them? Robb," Eddard hesitated briefly, "and Jon?"

Family.

Eddard was always going to be the father of her son, the boy she loved more than anything in the world. She would always be grateful for that fact, even if she would never forgive him for forcing his bastard on her.

"It is your keep, my lord." She left it at that.

As they walked in the direction of the nursery, Catelyn studied his profile from the corner of her eye. It had been a year since she saw him last. He seemed older, as if he had been fighting for a decade. Grief could do that to a person, she knew—she still hadn't come to terms with her father's death, with her uncle's death, with Brandon's death. The thought that Lysa was caring for their little brother all alone made her heart ache; Edmure was a boy of twelve, and yet he was already Lord of Riverrun.

Robb's happy squeal greeted them as they entered the room. He was sitting up in his bassinet with his chubby toddler arms waving in her direction. His red hair was messy from sleep, but his blue eyes were alert when he looked at her. Robb was an utterly happy child, content to sit and stare at his mother for hours on end. In some of the darker moments, she had shamefully relished in the fact that he loved her more than he loved his father.

"Milady, milord." Robb's nurse, an aging lady that had traveled with her from Riverrun said as she climbed to her feet. An abandoned piece of embroidery lay at her side, and Catelyn could make out the gnarled roots of a tree.

Eddard nodded to the woman before moving to his son's side with a look approaching amazement on his face. The last time he had seen Robb was when the boy was two days old. He'd been wrinkly and red and had cried the moment Eddard took him from Catelyn's arms. Now, though, Robb was content to pull on his father's beard and babble utter nonsense at him. In that moment, seeing her husband and son so happy together, Catelyn was willing to move past everything that had happened. She was willing to be a good wife.

Duty.

Duty was something she understood. She had done her duty after Brandon's death; she had married his brother so that the alliance between their houses would remain strong. She had even come to think that she could love him; with his arms around her that first night, she had believed it with all her heart. He was strange and solemn, the opposite of his laughing and sunny brother, but she had thought they would be happy together, eventually.

"Where's Jon?" Eddard said curiously, breaking all her illusions and bringing her firmly back to the resentment she had felt ever since he had returned with Lyanna's corpse and the boy.

Honor.

He had blacked her honor. He had fucked another woman while she was pregnant with his heir. It would have been fine if he had kept it secret, the horrors of war often drove a man towards a whore's soft touch. Eddard hadn't kept his infidelity a secret. Instead, he returned with a two month old infant that looked more like a Stark than her own son. He'd expected her to raise him alongside Robb; he'd expected her to love his bastard. The next week he'd rode off again, leaving her with shame and tattered dreams.

"He's where he belongs. You honestly didn't expect him to be here, did you?" Catelyn said, taking a vicious pleasure in the way Eddard's happiness seemed to fade. "A bastard has no place among our trueborn children." She stalked across the room and gently took Robb into her arms, "I'm sure Maester Luwin will show you the way."

She didn't see Eddard again until he was crawling into their bed that night. They said nothing at first, and he didn't try to take his marital rights by force. For that she was grateful; Eddard Stark was honorable to a fault, that hadn't changed.

"I'll be leaving for the wall tomorrow." His voice was grave, just as everything about him was grave.

"Who will lead Winterfell if you are gone? Who will lead the North?"

"Robb."

"Robb is an infant," she said coolly, "The Targaryens can't expect that he would be able to run a keep at one year old, can they?"

"You will be protector of the North until he comes of age, Cat. The king has been rather fair; only I will be punished."

Catelyn's eyes narrowed, only two people had ever called her Cat; one was her father and the other was Brandon. "You bent the knee? I thought you would rather die than allow Rhaegar Targaryen to rule after what he did."

"I know better than to drag my family and my people into further tragedy. That is all it would be; the North no longer has allies-it would be a slaughter. If Jon and I had gotten to Stannis in time, things might have been different."

She said nothing for there was nothing to say; she would not lie to him, she would not cry and demand that he stay, but he had been good to her for the most part, and so she would do him a kindness. "I will make sure the bastard is treated well." It was the best she could do. He seemed to know that because she felt a light brush of fingers across her upper arm in thanks.

The next day was cold and thick snow fell in swirling masses. Winter had taken a firm hold on Westeros and it would only get colder as her husband rode north. Would he still be her husband once he had taken the black? She didn't know, perhaps she would become a widow twice over—first to death and then again to duty. As he rode into the harsh wind beside his brother, she felt herself begin to cry.

She cried for Robb, for the relationship that would never blossom between her son and his father. She cried for her father and her first love, but most of all she cried for the uncertain future that awaited her and Robb. She was a foreigner here, a soft southern lady with a son who looked like a Tully; in front of these people, her people, she could not show weakness. She had to be strong, she had to become a part of the North, and so she wiped away her tears and turned her back on the man she would never truly know.

"Maester Luwin, I would like to see record of our current finances. I would also like to know the state of our supplies. Winter is far from over and I want to make sure that none of my people starve."