Isn't strange how much things can change in a single year. Was it not amazing how much a single life could change others around it? And was it not awful how much impulsive decision could tears asunder what was supposed to be a strong relationship and bury it in the ground.
Shireen felt these questions go through her head as she took and deep breathe, held the bouquet of yellow roses in her arms, counted to ten, and turned to the one man, who aside from Gendry, has been her rock in the past five months. He has stood by her and held her hand when her own father had denied her the familial bonds she needed and craved once she has settled into Winterfell. He was the one man who had never judged her and the one man who she could honestly say she had been wrong about most of her life. But she liked to think she was making up for it now. She looks and sees eyes the same color as her own staring at her with concern and love. And she smiled slightly at the man who shares the same name as her three month old son and knows he will help keep her steady as she walks down the aisle on what should be the happiest day of any woman's life. Instead her wedding day feels like a death sentence she can not shake off.
So she sighs once more for the last time and prepares to face her sentence; to do what she must to protect her son and ensure he remains with her and no one else. She is breaking her own heart and tearing it out in the process but she feels that this is what parenthood must feel like; putting the needs of the child before your own no matter how much it hurts and aches and bleeds and kills.
Her uncle Robert offers her his arm and she takes it and soon begins the walk the will lead her to the end of the aisle where Theon Greyjoy awaits and where they will be married before God and where Shireen will become a Greyjoy to protect her son and where her heart will mourn forever that it is not a boy with wild hair and a quiet yet fierce strength instead.
A boy who has confused her and a boy who she thinks she could have loved but would break her all the same. And at the end it comes down to a simple fact; Rickon Stark is a boy. A boy who would look at her with such emotion one day and then when he was home from school on the weekends fall into bed with a new girl every time she saw him. He is a boy who she knows hated her for a moment when it was revealed Theon, the boy who nearly killed his brother in a drunken driving accident, was the father of her child. He is a boy whom could never give her what she needs or wants.
A home, stability, food on the table, love for her son. She has not forgiven Theon and a part of her knows she never will. But he was there for her during the birth and was the third person to hold her son. She knows he loves him. He has promised to help her and if Shireen knows anything Theon Greyjoy is a man of his word, however broken and dirty his word may be. He is a man who she knows she will never love but who will give her son everything he needs. Theon Greyjoy is a man. Rickon Stark is a boy. And she is ripping her soul apart and killing her dreams and she can't afford to risk her son by betting that sometime in the future a boy could become a man who could love her. So she takes the road that ends with a man whom she knows will not let her down; in this area at least.
So in order to protect Robbie Steffon Anders Bartheon Greyjoy Shireen will do what she must and become Shireen Greyjoy. So as she reaches the end of the aisle where Theon stands with Gendry beside him with Asha waiting on her own side Shireen draws her strength from her Uncle Roberts reassuring gaze and does her best not to lose her composure. She feels nothing but a pit in her stomach that seems to grow as Theon slides the plane gold ring onto her finger and when he kisses her it grows. When they are pronounces husband and wife and they turn and look out at everyone in the simple small chapel pews, her Uncle Renly, Ned Stark, Jon Snow, and Brienne Toth, her childhood sitter and the nurse who helped deliver her son, Shireen looks at the small babe held in Ned Stark's hands and swallows down the lump in her throat and steels her spine. She is a mother. She will do what she needs to do for her child's sake. Nothing else matters.
Robbie Steffon Anders is born in the early hours of a June morning. He arrives screaming with a shock full of black hair weighing almost twelve pounds. His eyes are the pale green that both Asha and Theon share with curls that he inherited from his mother. His cousin and godfather is the first one to hold him in his large hands. His namesake and great uncle in the second. His father is the third, his aunt and godmother the fourth. His mother is not able to hold him as the doctors race to save her from the hemorrhaging that is racking her body and the blood pooling on the bed.
Gendry Waters looks at the baby lying in the nursery bed and then walks down the hall to join the others in the waiting game. To see if Shireen will survive or die and leave her son to be cared for by himself and Theon and the other members of their strange patchwork family. He reaches to rub the wedding band that no longer lies on his finger and some days he wishes that Arya was beside him. But he knows he made the right choice. He never should have proposed to the wild girl she was too young and willful and could never compromise. And that was what made him love her. But when her fury was directed at his cousin who was more like a sister and she demanded he choose something inside of him broke. So he did what she told him to do. He told his wife to get out of the house and to never come back. A week later he signed divorce papers, took off his ring, and threw himself into becoming a godfather and uncle and to try and forget the girl who would not even try to accept his coming godson and even demanded he be given up for adoption and that she would never tolerate being around a Greyjoy baby bastard.
He looks down the hallway and sees Theon pacing with Asha glaring at him and his own father simply staring at the ceiling. Everyone, including himself, had been shocked and surprised by how fast Robert had raced to the side of his pregnant niece and how she had clung to him and got along well with the newly divorced drunk who more often than not was loudly proclaiming if she needed him to he would gladly geld Theon for her, quite often when said Greyjoy was in hearing distance of said proclamation.
So she had shocked them all when after over thirty hours of labor she had whispered out her sons name before her eyes rolled back and the heart monitor began to stutter. Now the few people aside from Ned, who was picking up Jon from the airport, who were in Shireens life were here waiting to hear any type of news; good or bad. And so it was that Gendry collapsed against the wall wishing for nothing more than his little wildling to be safe in his arms and Shireen beside him as it was always meant to be.
Silence reigns and soon Gendry looks at the wall and becomes lost in his thoughts once more. He almost seems to sink into a trance until the doctor comes out; his blue scrubs covered in blood. Shireen has survived. But the damage done to her uterus and organs will make it very hard for her to carry any other children to term; let alone deliver them naturally.
His cousin wakes up three hours later confused and begging for her son. Gendry is the one who delivers the news. Shireen begins to sob and bang her feeble fists against his chest and Asha demands everyone else but him leave. The sobbing continues and Shireen wants to know why. Gendry calms her down the only way he knows how. He tells her that he will always be there for her; it is still them against the world, but now her son will be the third musketeer. He whispers this over and over again and he is not sure if she can hear him over he own sobs.
But eventually she calms down and then asks him in the smallest voice if he is ever going to leave her. And he replies no; he will always be there. And in that moment Gendry feels his heart break a little. He wants and yearns for Arya but knows he must stay here with his broken cousin, who is yearning and mourning for something he does not quite understand. Arya, who was far off in the distance before, is now out of reach. He had hoped that someday she would be able to accept the baby. But he has made a promise. And then and there he vows he will protect the child most of his family does not seem to want; it reminds him so much of himself it is pitiful.
Shireen is barely holding herself together. She is not yet strong enough to even hold her son who is sleeping in a small crib next to her bed. Her uncle is drunk and sleeping on the widow seat with a bottle of booze that he snuck in his hand, Theon and Asha have left to go and gather some of the things from Winterfell for the baby and Gendry is out starching his legs after struggling to fall asleep in the small chair beside her bed.
It is then she hears and noise and she looks up from the wall and sees him. With his wild hair and eyes and nature. It is then she knows that she can never tame Rickon Stark and it is then she knows that he will never be able to accept her son. She is not a true woman anymore. She will not be able to give him Stark babies with those damned grey eyes or wild hair or pale skin or strong nose. He will grow to hate her and her son will never have what he deserves. So she opens her mouth to say something but soon whatever words she was about to speak are swallowed by the mouth of Rickon Stark.
His lips are chapped and dry but Shireen finds she does not care as she responds unconscientiously with her mouth opening allowing his tongue access and her soul relief. Her weak hands barely manage to life and wrap themselves around his neck while his own circle her waist softly and pull her to him. The kiss and embrace seem to go on forever. When he pulls away he takes some of her loose and frizzy hair and pushes it behind her ear. He still says nothing and the look in his eyes are softer than anything she has ever seen before. She opens her mouth to say that she wants him near and cares for him and is willing to try if he is. She is willing to forget the promises she has made to Robbie and to Theon and to herself is he is willing to try. But then he looks down and sees the engagement ring on her hand and something breaks.
His eyes turn cold and he roughly withdraws his warmth and hands and turns and walks out of the room without a single word. Shireen simply sits there staring at the wall. And it is only when Gendry walks in and Robbie wakes and begins to cry that she comes back to reality and she breaks once more. She begins to sob and she can not stop. Rickon Stark is nothing but a boy. A boy who walked out rather than simply talk to her; a word or a grunt or anything. He can not give her what she needs.
So she will marry Theon to keep Balon Greyjoy away from her son. She will keep the patriarch of the Greyjoy clan away from her son even if he has the power of the revenge obsessed Cersei Lannister behind him. She will do what she has to in order to protect the only child she will most likely ever have. But she will and face all of that tomorrow. Right now she will simply cry and hold on to the solid things in her life. The arms of her cousin, the cries of her son, the snores of her uncle.
And so she cries until the dawn comes. Cries for what could have been, what will be, and what should have never happened. And in the end Shireen knows her son is the only thing keeping her together.
*******Thanks for all of the comments and support! The next update should be coming soon! And it will have more rickon and Shireen goodness. And don't worry they will end up together. Both just have a lot of growing up to do! R&R!********