"It's not funny," I say.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Robb says, trying his best not to smile.

"You're laughing."

"I'm not laughing, I'm smiling."

"It's a prelude to a laugh. You're laughing at me."

"I'm not, I swear."

"You're a terrible person."

"You're wonderful," he says, looking me square in the eyes as he says it. "Have I ever told you how wonderful you are?"

"No one has," I say. "Stop laughing."

"Smiling."

"Same damn thing!"

Robb holds up his hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. So tell me—how was your day?"

"Horrible," I say. "One day you're all going to wake up and find Ser Garret's corpse floating downstream."

"Ohh. You presented the orphanage plans?"

"He drank everyone under the table."

"People are always going to be challenging you, Israel," Robb says as he refills my wine. "There's always going to be some cheeky shit out there who thinks he can do your job better than you can. Your only duty then is to keep being as perfect as you are to prove to them that you can do it, too."

I shrug, taking a sip of my wine and wincing. My stomach has been bothering me. I swear I knew this northern food might kill me one day. Now I'm probably dying. What is the honest likelihood of me being poisoned? I guess one could say it's pretty high but that's only with the assumption that every single person who's ever hated me would actually hate me enough to try to kill me—which is pretty unlikely. I'm fairly sure they don't truly despise me—they just like having someone to talk shit about.

So maybe it's not that I've been outright poisoned, but maybe I've got food poisoning. Northern food is freaking weird, okay? And the freezing cold might cover up the fact that I'm eating something bad. But hang on a second. Nymsy is the best insulator in the universe. So it's not as cold around here now that I've taken over the show. So if there's some horrible little shit in the kitchens who's been putting spoiled food onto my plate twice a day, then I think I'd have smelled it. If I haven't, then maybe I deserve to be poisoned.

Then what? I think of the three possibilities that flew through my head that first day when the sickness got really bad. Maybe my body could be reacting badly to the address change. I mean—some of us just weren't built for the extreme cold. But whatever sickness the sudden temperature fluctuation could bring me should have passed in the first few weeks after my arrival. It's been months.

Possibility two is still going through my mind. I'm going to die of a fever. But this fever is awfully slow. It's been a solid week since I first doubled over puking outside the castle and the only trouble that I'm dealing with is in my stomach. So it's a stupid, lazy fever that likes to take its dear sweet time fucking me over or the north is a more fucked up place than I first thought because even the fever is an asshole.

Possibility three isn't even worth considering. So I definitely must have eaten a funny lamb chop or something. Since I've never heard of a fever that sits in your stomach for a week straight. It's definitely a virus. Unless…

Holy shit.

Unless I've contracted the plague. I look up at Robb, who's still downing his wine. I reach over and rub my palm against his hand hurriedly. Hell, if this thing takes me, I'm not going down alone.

He looks down at our hands and, clearly thinking I'm looking to get intimate, he takes my hand in his and kisses my fingers. There we go. Get those germs. His fingers trail up my forearm, to my shoulder. Whoa, there tiger. Don't pick up that many germs.

"When will they be here?" I ask. "The Ironrath company?"

"Tomorrow afternoon," he says. Pause. Here it comes. "I can do this, you know," he says. "I'm not going to bed her."

"I have the utmost faith in you," I say. Yeah fucking right. You haven't seen her in…how long? You don't know for shit how you're gonna feel when you see her again.

My mind's been busy with trying not to throw up on every conceivable surface in the castle, but this whole Talisa thing is something that I know should be bothering me. I know it bugs the stuffing out of Catelyn.

"Winter is slow approaching and he has a kingdom that needs looking after," she had said bitterly. "He has no business getting wrapped up with that girl again!"

The truth is that how I feel about Robb hasn't changed much since I first arrived here so many months ago. Yeah, yeah, I like the chance to get to badmouth Ser Garret every night. I like that I get to talk to someone—even if that someone is literally the king of the insiders. It helps that we're actually talking to each other regularly because we're making progress and to be totally honest with myself I'm actually proud of that progress. Things I see around here that confuse or annoy me, I keep pent up until after hours when everyone's gone to bed for the night and Robb and I are wide awake by the fireplace with a pitcher of wine and it helps to have someone to tell it to. Unfortunately, Robb is still not family, and this place is not the Twins, so I don't have someone to tell it all to. Because how are you supposed to tell your husband that you don't give a single shit about what he does? Robb is my husband—my overly noble, chokingly honorable, slightly asshole-ish husband—and we're just getting into that phase where we start to tell each other things. It's still a long road until we start to tell each other sensitive things. Otherwise Robb would have known by now that I have to bite my lip every single night to hold back biting his head off at all the things he does to bait me to jerk another rant out of me. I don't know why he enjoyed that. He didn't even get laid that night.

And you know what's funny? He's been baiting me ever since that night, like that shit he pulled with the dress and the perfume wasn't enough. He wants another rant. He liked when I lost it that night. In some weird fucked up way it actually turned him on.

Do you have any idea how hard it is not to call him out for that sound of his voice when we're going at it in bed? Now, I know that's bait because sometimes he's just too tired to put on a show and his voice sounds fine then. But when he's trying to mess with me it's…it's catastrophic. It's not real, the way his voice sounds. I'm not sure what the hell he's trying to accomplish by trying to make me complain about our sex life, but it's some funky shit. His Bait Voice sounds like the way a person's voice would sound if he were hiding in the closet as thieves were invading his home in the dead of night. Everything comes out in these low, hoarse whispers and at first it was hi-fucking-larious but then I realized what it is he's trying to do when he uses it and now it's just irritating. But that's his objective, fucking duh, so I'm not gonna say anything exclusively so I can inflict as much annoyance as he inflicts on me. Two can play this game, gingersnap.

Now I know, I know. We should have learned by now that communication is important. But this is communication. He annoys me when he wants me to loosen up a little, and I throw heavy things at his head when he needs to tighten up a little. Candleholders, paperweights, envelope seals, a chamberpot, whatever is handy. It's a silent, easy communication that doesn't involve awkward conversations or anymore humiliating confrontations or fights. The only words we exchange are words of cordial kindness and gentility and the occasional 'loosen your corset strings'. The real talking gets done without us needing to talk at all. Aside from the fact that Baiting is fucking annoying, I like our arrangement. Throwing heavy things at him is fun and relieves my stress. Wine and Bitch helps, too, but I wonder what Robb would say if he knew that most of my problems here in Winterfell are related to him?

If Robb can keep things between himself and Talisa as well as he's keeping them with me, then I'm not too worried that we'll have any sort of mortifying scandal on our hands. Unless, of course, he keeps things with Talisa exactly as he's keeping them with me, which means they can and will fuck so often that not being caught together is virtually impossible.

Now realistically thinking, if I had it my way then of course Robb and Talisa will behave as grown adults. I guess that I can rely on Robb to keep his word, but I'm not sure Robb quite understands exactly what it is that he's promising me. This sort of thing—well, I don't know much about love but I'm fairly sure that this kind of promise is easier made than kept. Who knows how difficult it'll be when he actually sees her? They haven't seen each other in a while—a long while—and time fixes things, makes it feel like something is behind you when in truth it could just be the distance that's strengthened you. I'm just gonna have to hope that this time they've been apart is enough time for them. Because thinking honestly, there's no way in hell that I'm interested in dealing with Robb being in love with Talisa. That'll make the Wine and Bitch sessions awkward and I don't want that because my dysfunctional relationship with Robb is probably my healthiest one here in Winterfell and when you add love affairs to the mix things always get dirty.

Robb may be a backwater gingersnap, but he's still my husband, as much as that makes me cringe. And I suppose it would have been nice to let him and Talisa Maegyr run wild, fucking on every surface available to them like a pair of jackrabbits. I wonder if Talisa can go as often as he can? Moving forward. Unfortunately, all of Winterfell is going to be watching me very closely and that means that Robb can't fuck up. For the kingdom's sake. More importantly for my sake. Because I think at some point we're slowly turning into maybe possibly friends. Not an absolute. Not quite yet. But it's materializing fast and I know that because it's been a week since I puked up my lungs right in front of him and he still laughs at the memory when he looks at me. So we must be getting somewhere, right?

But if we're friends, or en route to becoming friends, then I don't think I have much to worry about. And I'm not. Love and friendship aren't on the same boat, anyways. Robb and I are steering our own boat. They don't call it loveship, do they? He and Talisa don't have a boat. They just have an island with a single coconut tree and some banana leaves. An island might keep you alive for a while, but it's not gonna get you anywhere. That's an absolute.

"Just don't make an idiot of me," I say to him quietly. "Out of any of us. Me, you, and her."

He pats my hand. Then he snorts.

"I'm sorry," he says, and he cracks up again.

I roll my eyes and get to my feet.

"Goodnight, Robb," I say. Fucking carrot.

"Wait, wait, wait, I'm sorry—" but the words don't come out right cause he's laughing so hard. Pasty teabag.

My stomach gives a lurch as I crawl into bed. At the rate I'm going, I doubt that I'll even be alive by the time Talisa gets here. So I won't be around for the mortifying scandal. Hehe. Nothing can embarrass me when I'm dead. But seriously? I should probably go see Maester Ormond in the morning.