Cold.
A burning cold and snow on the ground; that was all she could see when she opened her eyes. No more pain, no more fear, just a cold breeze blowing through her unbound auburn hair, sliding beneath a gown that was much too thin, comforting in a way, like a lover's embrace, something that she had longed to feel on her skin again. 'They did not return my body to the river,' was her first thought, and it was foolish really, to think that her murderers - her son's murderers - would return her bones to the river to honor a tradition of her own house. She moved briskly through the strange and yet familiar surroundings, a feeling of unease bubbling up in her chest. Robb. She'd seen them kill him, and she had gone mad. Mad, they'd called her, and they'd grabbed her hair. Make an end.
Heh.
She wanted to cry, but she could not shed a tear in this garden of purity and innocence. It was a garden, she realized. Or a wood. There were trees, tall soldier pines, willows and oaks, and she could smell the scent of them, something that reminded her of home.
The North. Winterfell. It had been her home for so long.
She moved down the narrow path as if she had a purpose, as if she had someone to meet, as if she had no time. But she did have time, more than she would know what to do with. She would have time enough to find her children, all her sweet babes, and they would be together at last. She would find her father, mayhaps, tall and strong once again, with his fiery auburn hair just like her own, just like she remembered him. And then she would find Ned.
She had to find Ned.
She saw the long white branches of the heart tree before she entered the clearing, and there he was, her sweet lord husband, beneath the branches and the red leaves - as red as the blood their son had shed, as red as her own blood. The red eyes of the heart tree stared at her, but she didn't feel the same kind of frighten she'd always felt in Winterfell. The Old Gods never wanted to hurt her, and they couldn't hurt her here. No one could. She called his name and the sound of her own voice startled her, so loud and clear, crystalline in the pure air of the godswood, but Ned only looked up and smiled.
He smiled and rose to his feet and she was in his arms before he could reach her. He was there and he was whole and she wanted to cry again, but she found she couldn't; there was too much joy in her heart, a joy so fierce it drowned the sorrow she'd been feeling for so long.
"I've been waiting, Cat," her husband said with one of those rare smiles of his, those smiles that had won him her heart so many years past, and she just nodded her head and stroked his face with white fingers that were much too cold against his warm skin.
"I know, my love. I knew you would."
There was so much she wanted to say, too much, but they had time; they had an eternity together now, so she just kissed him instead, taking her time to form words and sentences in her mind and finding comfort in the sweetness of his mouth. His lips were warm and dry, as they always had been, he tasted of apples and mead, his beard tickled her face… and it felt real, it felt like it always had, and her lips parted against his to welcome the warm wetness of his kiss.
It was a moment, as if lightning had struck her, as if a force pulled her back, dragging her away from that place of calm and pureness. The lips against hers suddenly weren't Ned's anymore, the kiss tasted sour and bitter in her mouth. There were invisible hands pulling at her, at her body, at her clothes, and Ned disappeared in the distance, swallowed by the cold and the snow. 'Don't leave me,' she wanted to scream, but she couldn't speak, she couldn't move, she couldn't run back to her husband, to find their children as she wished to do. 'Let me go back to the cold. Let me see the snow again,' she prayed in her mind, but her head felt heavy, and her body felt soft.
She felt a searing heat run through her body, spreading within her like wildfire, flames running beneath her skin; and then cold. A humid, wet cold that made it hard to breathe, a cold that muddled her brain and made it hard to think, and she didn't know where she was, but it was dark and damp and she only realized she was naked when someone - a strange voice, a strange face - laid a heavy cloak on her shoulders.
Hair fell on the soiled, grey wool, white and brittle and it was not her hair. It couldn't be. Her hair was red and fiery, and Ned loved it.
Ned loves my hair.
Catelyn Stark looked up to her saviors, the people who had taken her away from the comfort of her husband's embrace. She couldn't speak, but she saw them, their ragged clothes and their pale, gaunt faces.
And she hated.
THE END