His chest rattled with every breath he took, and no matter how many blankets they piled on top of him, he still felt cold. He would eat a spoonful of gruel when they fed it to him and drink a sip of water when they pressed the cup to his lips, but he felt neither hunger nor thirst. It won't be long now, he knew.
As a young boy at Winterfell, he'd often lain awake at night wondering what death would feel like, what being dead would feel like, trying and failing to wrap his mind around the idea that the world would continue without him for thousands upon thousands of years. His only comfort was knowing he would join his forefathers, for in the end, all men shared the same fate.
The king sat by his side, holding his hand. "You're a good man, Uncle." There was silver in the dark hair of the man he had once carried to King's Landing as a babe in swaddling cloths.
"You do not remember," Ned said, his voice little more than a hoarse croak. "You were too young; you don't remember." You don't know me; you don't know what I've done; you don't know what I am. He'd never told him.
"You are a good man, Eddard Stark!" Aegon repeated stubbornly, stressing every word. "I won't allow anyone to claim otherwise, not even you."
Ned wanted to open his mouth, wanted to protest, wanted to tell his nephew the truth, but all he could produce was a weak croaking sound through half-closed lips.
He thought of the men he'd slain in battle and those who'd died in his arms. He thought of the wife he'd failed and the children he'd never truly known. He thought of all his failures, and for a time, that would keep his mind occupied, but sooner or later, his thoughts would return to that day.
I was born a second son, never meant to rule. He'd never meant to become Hand, and he certainly had not envisioned himself as Regent for a king in swaddling clothes. Yet that was what circumstances had made him. Damn you, Robert, and your gluttony.
And suddenly, right there on his deathbed, he was a man of twenty again, riding into a city that had burned to ashes, carrying Rhaegar's heir and the heavy knowledge that his best friend had choked to death on a piece of bone, leaving him to decide who would rule the realm and to sit in judgment over who would live and who would die.
He'd taken many heads during those days, but it was the head he had refused to take that haunted him. The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. He'd justified in his head a myriad of times why this had been different, but Eddard Stark knew a lie when he saw it, even if it was a lie he told himself.
Yes. If he could go back in time and change just one thing, he would turn his horse around at the city gates. For riding into King's Landing had taken him into his heart of darkness.
/ / /
Notes:
Fills two old ASoIaF Kink Meme prompts and takes them a notch darker:
1) Tywin Lannister: Miscalculation. From a purely political point of view, it had been a smart move. The Targaryens were on the out, and at that point helping speed up the process was better for everyone. Murdering the royal family was simply expediting what would need to be done anyway and would hopefully earn the Lannisters their new place in the new order of things. He was not expecting for Robert Baratheon to suddenly and unexpectedly choke to death on a sharp shard of stray bone in his meat. No one was expecting Eddard Stark to return from Dorne with the only surviving son a Rhaegar Targaryen. Suddenly Tywin finds himself in the unfamiliar position of having made a very big mistake. Because Eddard Stark now sits on the Iron Throne as regent for a king still in swaddling clothes, and he is not thankful for what Tywin has done. Not at all.
2) Any male, public punishment (Any/others) tw:non-con, humiliation. Any male character - put in the stocks in the public place; bonus for sexual humilation (like being naked/forced into whores dress)