A/N: Dearest readers! Hello! I've been dwelling on this for a while - mostly since the Red Wedding aired to be honest. Figured I'd share my story with you lovely people.

This takes place in an AU, where Robb doesn't die at the Twins. An AU where there is no agreement with Walder Frey, and Ned Stark is still very much alive because he kept his damn mouth shut and nose out of people's business. There may be a few elements of the show/books in here but I haven't really decided which yet.

For now, enjoy :)

Robb sat on his bed, running his fingers over a gilded box she'd given him years ago. Oh, how he yearned to open it again and flood his mind with memories of a better time. It wasn't the most ornate box, made of simple wood with small pearls embedded around the perimeter, but no matter how many times he had tried to throw it away, something stopped him. The Young Wolf couldn't part with the box, though it was filled with many memories he would probably have been better off without having stowed away in a secret compartment beneath his bed.

It wasn't fair to himself, or his new wife for that matter, for him to keep it. Out of sight, out of mind, Robb tried to tell himself, but his mind kept getting drawn to the damn thing. The last time he'd pulled the box out was the morning of his wedding day, picking through the little baubles and notes until he'd thoroughly upset himself. It took both of his younger brothers and a direwolf to rouse him from his catatonic state on the bed mere hours before he was to make the Arryn girl his wife. He couldn't help but wonder where she was now, what she was doing... or if she still even loved him at all.

Robb shook his head to clear his thoughts as he dug his nails into the soft wood of the box. He couldn't do this anymore - he was married. They would be expected to have children soon. How was he supposed to be Warden of the North - let alone a father - when he was still dwelling on what was and what could have been? Bran had told him he was being too harsh with himself and even Arya had gotten frustrated with him: "You've grown soft, Robb. Fight me like a real man, and not some pansy pining over a girl." His younger siblings had seen him as their role model, and he'd let them down as well. But none of them had been there. Nobody heard the words she was screaming over the wind. Nobody had seen the look in her eyes and the expression on his face. They were alone in the Godswood and nobody heard but the old weirwood heart tree standing between them.

Only Sansa had given him good advice: "Go after her." Robb wished every day that he'd followed the girl out of the Godswood and taken her back home with him. "You love her, don't you? Go after her." Sansa's voice rang in his ears as his fingers accidentally brushed against the tiny clasp holding the box shut. A familiar but fading scent of cedar and lavender rose from the box, filling his nostrils. Robb knew he could't possibly go through the box again, lest his wife walk into the bedroom.

But he was going to anyway.

With a deep sigh, he pulled out a worn, folded piece of paper with a note written long ago...

My dearest Wolf...

Catelyn Stark had been shouting his name from the front of the castle for a couple minutes already, and Robb was nowhere near ready. "Little Lord, come now, your mother musn't be kept waiting." Old Nan had pulled out one of his finer cloaks and boots while he was getting dressed. Robb was only eight, but he felt the need to tell his mother that he didn't need Nan fussing over him at every moment.

"Nan, if you'd just let me do it myself we wouldn't be late," he moaned as she lifted the cloak over and around him, fastening it to his shoulder with a heavy iron pin emblazoned with the Stark sigil. Robb felt the weight of it on his collarbone and he pulled on his leather gloves, wincing as the warmth of the fur lined gloves met his freezing hands. He'd been playing with the snow on his windowsill all morning instead of getting dressed, so it wasn;t necessarily all Nan's fault that he was agitating his mother.

"Robb Stark, you will come down this instant, clothed or not!" Catelyn's shrill cry pierced his ears as he looked out the window to see if their guests had arrived yet. Everyone was lined up to receive the Stark family bannermen and he heard the call to open the gates. He pulled out of Nan's grasp, mussing his hair into place as he bolted down the winding staircases and out the main doors of the castle to take his place beside his father and mother. Ned looked down, his frown lightening into a smile as he saw his firstborn beaming at him. Next to Robb stood Jon, a surly, brooding child. It was no secret that Catelyn detested the boy and held a grudge against Ned for insisting that he live among their trueborn children at Winterfell. Standing directly behind them was Theon Greyjoy, Winterfell's ward of two years after his father's failed rebellion. He was quite a few years older than the eldest Stark child, but had taken a liking to them shortly after being brought to the Stark home.

Sansa and Arya were hiding behind Catelyn's skirts. Mere girls of five and two, Sansa was already taking on duties of an older sister by holding on to a squirming Aryas hand. "Hush, Arya, we need to be quiet," Sansa hissed through her teeth. She would grow up to be a proper young lady, Robb was sure of it. Bran was in his mother's arms, a year old and oddly small and quiet.

The carriage finally pulled in to the courtyard and Eddard went to go greet the large, hairy man who stepped out of it. "Lord Rickard Karstark, it has been a long time."

"Same to you, Stark!" Lord Rickard clapped Eddard on the shoulder, much less polite to him than Ned was. Robb smiled. He knew the Karstark's were famous for being a little rough around the edges. Lord Rickard made his way down the family line, being welcomed by all of them. He'd moved back to discuss with Ned, who waved the family away. "Go start the feast without us, we have some matters of importance." Catelyn gave him a look before herding the children into the main hall of the castle where the feast for the Karstarks was ready. Catelyn seated the children with a Septa, sent Jon Snow away, and went to the head table to await Ned. It was not often that Ned discussed personal matters in this way, and she couldn't help but wonder what headache he was going to bring her now.

Robb sat across from Sansa and Arya, wishing his mother would let Jon come to the family feasts. Theon sat beside him, but it wasn't the same. Theon was ironborn and there was a certain hardness to him that Robb didn't understand. They hungrily dug into their dinner and Robb noticed the main doors opening once more. Lord Rickard and his father walked in, and behind them, a silly looking little girl with wild black hair. Ned quietly sat her beside his daughters and took his seat beside a wide-eyed Catelyn.

They ate in complete silence amidst the raucous laughter of the other guests. Robb saw Catelyn trying to pry answers out of Ned but his father stared at his plate and ignored her. The girl pushed her hair out of her face and pulled her cloak off her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor carelessly as she picked up a chicken leg.

When the dinner was finally done and the guests left, Robb finally turned to Catelyn and beckoned all the children forward. "You too, Taisha." Robb watched as the girl raised an eyebrow and quietly picked up her cloak and meandered over to the Starks. "This is Taisha Karstark. One of Lord Rickard's nieces. A more distant one, but a Karstark nonetheless." Robb didn't really care about family lineages, he was more concerned with why his father was being so cryptic about this girl. "She will be our ward for a while because they've got their own inner turmoil in Karhold and both her parents succumbed to sickness not too long ago."

Catelyn's face turned the color of Sansa's hair and her mouth narrowed into a tight-lipped frown. "What is this, Ned? Have we become an orphanage? Are we taking in every child from across the Seven Kingdoms now? First Jon, then Greyjoy, and now this girl?" Ned waved the children away, beckoning for the Septa to take them upstairs.

"She will sleep in the guest bedroom by Sansa and Robb's rooms. Cat, you know the Karstark's and us share blood. She is family to us and I will not deny Rickard in these trying times."

"But you couldn't have asked me first, Ned?"

Robb didn't hear the rest of the conversation as the Septa ushered them up to their bedchambers. Arya and Sansa kept their distance from Taisha, who was eyeing Robb curiously. The hair on the back of his neck pricked as he tried to ignore her staring.

"I remember you," she piped up, skipping up the steps to be on his level. "You're Robb. We used to play together."

"Well, I don't think I remember that." Robb kept looking ahead. She was making him uncomfortable with her piercing green stare and the smirk on her face. But Robb was lying. Of course he remembered the wild little Karstark girl, though she looked much more different than when they were four. She was tall for her age, all legs and a mess of tangled black hair. She was oddly pale and her eyes were not the typical Karstark blue, but an emerald green.

"I'm living with you now, so you'll have enough time to remember. After all, I still remember the birthmark you have right above your..." He turned to look at her, absolutely red in the face, and Taisha had the biggest grin on her face even as she stumbled on a step. "Now, where's my room?"

"Ask the Septa," Robb mumbled, opening the door to his bedchamber and disappearing into it. He collapsed onto his featherbed and covered his face with his hands. He didn't have to be so rude to her, he knew that. She knew she'd jog his memory but they were too old to be talking about the silly things they'd done when they were four. "Taisha, I'll show you mine if you show me what's under your smallclothes."

And she'd remembered his stupid birthmark in the crease of his thigh.

A/N: Thanks for reading. The following chapters will all have a time jump. This is meant to be a story of them growing up together and the challenges they face at each point in their relationship. So this is them reuniting after a few years, and the next time will be when they are thirteen years old.