please please please, forgive me if this chapter is bad, just tell me and I'll make it better.

Chapter 21

The narrow streets of Golden Tooth were swarmed with panicked people, old and young and feeble alike, some with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a small parcel of food, others with an entire cart of belongings and gaggles of children huddled together. Some were even soldiers, still in their armour, who had abandoned the battle after it was clear it was lost. The men and women of the Creaky Wheel tavern were amongst those who ran half blindly into the night, seeking refuge in the west. Hundreds of feet drummed against the half frozen earth with haste, shouts of fear and urges to hurry were all that could be heard, with the light whisper of heavy breathing and muffled sobs. The sounds of battle were growing closer, spreading from the city gates and outwards into the streets, adding more urgency into their panicking.

"Come on! Come on!" someone screamed. His order did not make the people go faster, having no power over the fearful mob.

Maeve struggled to move with the crowd, but each and every step was difficult. Horrible even. At first Tally and Dorna had been beside her and stayed close, the others only a few steps ahead and for a moment she believed she could do this, escape as she had before. But the first time she escaped, she had been small, the baby—it had just been...an idea, something that couldn't be real, something that barely alerted her of its existence. But now, her womb clenched with pain and stopped her cold in her tracks, and made it clear that this was reality, by the morning she'd be a mother, to a living breathing infant, not just a moving bulge beneath her dress. That is, if she survived the night.

Unlike the other times, there was no kind comforts murmured by Tally, although those hardly helped in the first place. Still, it had been nice to hear something soft and encouraging. Now she was alone, all familiar faces lost in the crowd, all kind comforts gone and dead.

Maeve whimpered and gave a loud cry as another contraction hit her, freezing her legs along the side of the street, as pain ripped through her lower extremities. Her body was frozen, and no amount of people pushing and shoving past her could make her legs move.

Suddenly someone heavy knocked into her side and pushed her into the stone wall beside her, but she hardly registered the action; it was almost a relief to have something keeping her up, and not having to rely on her weak legs. Immediately, she curled forward and tried breathe deeply. She had been hit before, she had been cut, and had feet blistered so horribly that they bled and still walked on them, but this pain outmatched them all. It seemed to go on endlessly, with her unable to do anything to make it end or ease.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, she thought suddenly. Her life wasn't supposed to be like this. She had never imagined this kind of life for herself. She never thought she'd feel so liberated yet so entrapped, so sad and alone yet not alone at all. Some would even call her blessed, and she supposed she was in some ways, but how could she appreciate the good, when the bad seemed so big? Her old dreams had flown away when Jon had crossed her path, replaced those hopes of favor and praise in her sept, with fledgling dreams that had been foolish and young.

She couldn't keep doing this—running, moving—it hurt too badly, and maybe she was doing more harm than good. Maybe something inside her would...tear in her haste, or she would collapse and hurt herself, or die, or lose her baby. She had to stop, but she couldn't. Moving could mean death, not moving could mean death. I'd be farther away by now if I had run sooner. Why didn't I leave sooner? Oh yes—because I am a stupid bloody coward, she thought regretfully.

The auburn haired girl gasped for breath as it finally ended and before she could gather her strength again and will herself to move, a familiar voice cried out, "Maeve!" It was like a lifeline thrown to a man drowning too far from the ship, a small star of hope that it was not the end, while the sea around him thrashed and pulled his body below the waves, still reaching for that star.

Tally held Dorna in her arms, blinking wildly at the on-coming rush of frightened people, desperately hoping to see red hair or a pregnant belly. Hamal, Pox and Aunty stayed with her, but she could tell Pox was going to leave soon, he had a limp and it would take him a while to escape as it was and waiting any longer for the pregnant girl he cared nothing for would end up getting him killed. The next time Tally turned to ask Pox if he saw Maeve in the crowd, he was gone.

Her heart jumped. Her palms began to sweat. Dorna whimpered. Hamal was quiet by her side, fidgeting nervously, but carefully picking through the sea of faces, looking for the pregnant girl. Aunty kept screaming at her to forget the troublesome slut and run, yanking and tugging at her. A strange feeling crept up on her each time aunty pulled, one made up of nothing but fear and urgency—to do something, to move, to survive.

She couldn't leave Maeve to die—she was about to have her baby, an innocent little thing, helpless as a kitten—but her baby, her Dorna, had to be safe as well. The bruises on her child's skin still hurt her, knowing she had been hurt, had been afraid, and that she, her mother, was powerless to protect her, to keep her safe, to keep the bad things out. And when it came down to it, there was no one else in the world she loved more than Dorna...it was hard, and she might hate herself for it, but keeping her daughter safe had more strength over her than helping Maeve.

The others were gone, most of them having abandoned them after the second time Maeve had stopped their progress—Vymia and Baba, and their children, Lia the pretty bar wench and Otis the cook, lost in gaggles of people and large wagons rumbling along slowly in the night. They were probably safe by now, right at the back gates of the city, while they searched hopelessly for a virtual stranger. It was the right thing to do, but it settled a terrible weight in her belly, making her feel sick.

Tally's feet tickled, she wanted to run. Dorna needed her; she couldn't let her baby be hurt, not like last time, not like last time...not like last time. Maeve would...she would be alright, someone with a cart would give her a ride, probably. People tended to have soft spots for babies, if not...

Tally frowned, tears of exhaustion coming into her eyes. Dorna sniffled and rubbed her face against the side of her mother's neck, tears wetting her skin. A lump formed in Tally's throat, her arms tightened around Dorna. Without a second glance she turned away and began to speed with the people around her, traveling west like a river, her aunt guiding her along. Hamal stood a moment in shock, turned back to the oncoming horde of frightened townspeople, waited a moment or two, and then joined them with a heavy heart.

No one stopped, no one tried to help her and Tally's voice was lost in the crowd.

The world had gone silent to her as she panted there against the stone wall, her heart pounded in her ears, loud and fast. Around her people swarmed and screamed, pushing and shoving towards some unseen finish line.

The screams scared her, touched something painful inside her, something from so long ago when other people had screamed in the night, when men came over walls and with bloody intentions, fire burning stone and when the smash and clang of steel had sounded so strange and foreign to young ears. Sadness and bitter hatred for some unseen, unknown foe engulfed her then, almost matching the naked despair growing inside her as minutes ticked by and the contractions grew stronger.

With a great amount of effort, conjuring up all the courage she had left, Maeve pushed off the wall, stumbling forward on her feet as quickly as she could. It was terrible, but still her feet moved. Then another wave of pain engulfed her being, she cried out because she had no more strength left to scream. I'm dying, she thought, I'm dying. Oh my child, my poor poor baby.

She collapsed once more, this time her side against sharp angular stone, her elbow holding her up, legs spreading apart by some baser urge. Her hand reached out, looking for leverage, and felt her fingers grip a ledge by her sides, the cold stone smooth and strong beneath her grasping fingers. Her body no longer obeyed her wishes, but did as it willed, instinct guiding it to do what needed to be done.

Maeve looked up, and hardly registered the impressive temple she laid before, or the Seven figures those strong marble pillars depicted.

Time was meaningless to her, she could have been there a few moments or hours, she did not know, didn't care. All she could focus on was the continuing cycles of pain, starting and ending and starting again so closely together she hardly had time to think.

Suddenly hands took her under her arms, hauling her up on weak legs.

Ghost mauled another man's throat as Jon collected himself on the ground, pulling himself up with all the strength he had. He lifted his sword again. His chest felt heavy, his heart was beating as though he'd run a mile, and he felt ready to do it again, his muscles poised and ready to pounce.

"Let me go! Let GO!" Maeve squealed as the owners of the hands pulled her up the stairs, her feet stumbling and knocking painfully against the hard stone. She tried vainly to twist a little, to get them off of her, but her attempts were weak compared to their unflinching steadiness.

"Quiet, you." The aged voice of an elderly woman admonished her. They pulled her up the last step and Maeve's feet dragged on smooth, gleaming stone.

It was suddenly a bit warmer as the strangers pulled her through the threshold. The sounds of screaming and battle outside were muffled some, but the sounds of whimpers and sobbing and hushed voices became amplified as they bounced off hard stone walls. She opened her eyes, and then closed them immediately as the strong, sudden firelight blinded her.

A familiar smell flittered across her nose.

The sword shone wetly in the firelight, stained with blood. Jon didn't know what was happening, who was winning who was losing. All he knew was to keep fighting, to cut down any man in Lannister colours. He was a soldier, and that is what soldiers do. He blocked out the faces, the noise...let them bother him some other time, some other night...not today.

Oils...spices... the scent of jasmine and lilies, of lavender and rose water and spices from across the Narrow Sea...she knew those smells, she knew them, she had inhaled them every day for years and years. Maeve knew them well...her heart dropped low in her belly. She twisted a little harder, and felt the hands clench tighter around her arms to keep her in place.

She had to leave, leave, leave! Run away as far as she could, somewhere they could never find her. They would hurt her, hurt her baby, she'd be thrown into the dark and never see her baby again. Her heart squeezed tightly.

"Please, let me go, let me go..." she whimpered, a hand reaching down to feel her belly, trying to protect it. She opened her eyes again just as they pulled her through another doorway, but in the light, everything was a blur.

"Come on, Sister, get'er on th' bed." a voice sounded beside her. Maeve's unfocused grey eyes turned to the speaking, and could see the faint outline of a women, covered head to toe, only her face visible for modesty's sake.

"Please, please don't hurt me..." Maeve whimpered as they pulled her forward once more.

"We're not gunna hurt you, love. This will hurt, but not 'cause of us." The woman comforted in a matter-of-fact voice. Suddenly, Maeve was pushed down on something cool and soft.

He hardly noticed when they were suddenly deep within the city, pushing back Lannister forces and capturing half of Golden Tooth. His back throbbed with pain, a warm bead of sweat—or maybe it was blood—trickled down his temple and his heartbeat drummed in his ears, a fearsome war song.

He kicked away the wounded soldier, who had come at him with a mace, and looked amongst the quarreling bodies around him for that familiar streak of white.

"Ghost!?" he cried, his voice lost in the countless screams of ferocity and terror and the endless clangs of steel against steel. Jon's heart sank when he did not see him.

"Ahhhh!" the loud roar was not at all startling, but it drew his attention because the one screaming was also rushing at him with a sword. Jon lifted his sword instinctively, and deflected the blow, although not without difficulty.

Her vision cleared as they pushed up her dress. She could see the gorgeous paint of a mural above her, dark blue paint representing the midnight sky, with seven painted figures circling the candleholder, a portrait of the night sky and the sun, with the gods mastering the greatest power of all: light. It was common for wealthy septs to have sky murals painted on the stone ceilings of their dorms.

Maeve felt hands on her legs, prying them open and her heart leapt. Memories struck her like a blow from a fist; she remembered the sickening feeling of when rougher hands had yanked up her dress, and when a terrible weight had pressed down against her, trapping her, suffocating her. Maeve scrambled back up on her elbows, trying to push her skirt back down, but a sudden jolt of pain crashed back over her, freezing her movements. She felt something...gush out of her, out onto the bed linens and coating her inner thighs.

The women pulled her back down on her back and spread her legs open, pushing up her dress without embarrassment or hesitation and without struggle from Maeve. She knelt on the bed, between the pregnant girl's legs and looked down to see how it was coming along. She saw blood.

Looking back up at the girl, whose face was screwed up in pain, she ordered, "Alright, push now, push!"

A strange foreboding feeling suddenly pulled at Jon, the feeling of impending danger, of worry for the ones he could not see.

When a man slashes his sword against someone, gets bloody, and nearly dies half a dozen times in battle, a strange frenzy grips him. He moves quicker, does not see the faces of the men he's killed...fire enters his blood, and won't let calmness take him until hours after the battle has been won. Jon had never had this feeling in the middle of battle before. It was weak as a whisper, but it commanded such attention from him.

Jon tried to ignore it, but the seed had been planted. He needed to see Robb, Ghost... Jon needed to know they were safe.

He turned on his heel, searching for Ghost, and roared in frustration when he didn't see him. How could Ghost come back so suddenly and vanish after a moment? Jon's thoughts were once against halted when an axe came rushing past his head.

"Yes! Good girl, now another!"

Maeve screamed...loudly. Her nails shredded the bedclothes beneath her, her back arched and her head flung back against the pillows. Gods help me...

"I can't!" Maeve screamed breathlessly, collapsing back on the pillows. "I can't, I can't do it!"

Propped up on her elbows she looked weakly at the septa kneeling between her legs—pleading her to help her, make it stop, to put an end to the pain already. She was afraid to look down, to look and see she had not moved along the slightest little bit.

"Yes you bloody well can! Push!"

The feeling did not go away, no matter how many axes, swords and hammers were swung his way, that gnawing feeling kept up. Jon pressed forward with the rest of his brother's horde, the fighting Lannister soldiers diminishing with each street they took. The calming battle made it a little easier for Jon to search for his companion, but not by much.

Jon's dark eyes darted around him, across the countless men and across the buildings. That damned feeling...it grew the longer he went without seeing Ghost, or Robb...he hated it. It was making him weak, vulnerable, unfocused. The last man who had come at him had gotten in a good swipe across Jon's side, and even through the boiled leather protecting his sides, Jon could feel the bruises form.

"Ghost!" Jon's gaze darted about, but this time he finally found the overly large figure of a wolf—his wolf—trotting up the steps to a grand temple, the stone shining even in the dim firelight, the orange glow bouncing off the strong marble pillars like gold. Jon frowned.

"Almost, come on, come on, come on! I can see it!" Maeve lifted her head, clenched her jaw, and pushed her hardest, screaming between her clenched teeth...

...and then suddenly the pressure was gone...

Jon ran forward, weaving and dodging through thrashing bodies, hurrying towards Ghost. Direwolves were not dumb beasts; there was a reason for everything they did, much like humans. Ghost would not tuck himself away from battle without a reason, not when Jon called for him.

He took the steps two at a time, and when he finally reached Ghost, reaching out to touch his pale fur, Jon looked to see what the direwolf was staring so intently at...and dropped his sword with a clatter.

There, huddled tightly against one of the stone pillars, tucked so closely to the stone she was all but invisible to the world, was Arya. Dirty, hair chopped away, obviously grown since he last saw her, but Jon would recognize that long face anywhere.

"Arya." He breathed. The small girl stared at him a moment longer, wide eyed and unbelieving, before she launched herself into her brothers arms, just like she used to.

A cry that was not her own took up in the air, a soft wail, weak and helpless, and it took Maeve a long moment to realize who it was from.

She opened her watery eyes and gasped, her racing heart stumbling a second in sheer amazement. A small little thing, an infant laid cradled in the older woman's arms, wet with blood and purple, wailing loudly in the cold air...so tiny. She couldn't believe what was happening.

Her mind went silent as she stared at the baby. She stared at its little arms, its little legs, the small body and the slightly pointed head which had a dusting of dark black hair, sticking to his head. Maeve wanted him in her arms, wanted it desperately, but she could not find her voice to demand it, still too enchanted by the whimpering newborn, which was still in the arms of the septa cleaning him off. She did not notice the violent, uncontrollable shaking in her legs, or the soft trickle of blood still seeping out of her.

And then, finally, after what felt like forever, they laid him on her chest wrapped up in a warm blanket, and she really got a good look at him, the thing that just came out of her.

"It's a boy." She faintly heard someone say, but the voice was far off and distant. And the world went silent. There was no war waging just outside these cold stone walls, no death, no time, no sound, nothing...just this wonderful warmth, engulfing them, protecting them from everything else in the world.

Maeve cradled her baby, stunned at how light he felt and at how comfortably he fit into her arms. What surprised her even more were the clear, alert eyes that stared back at her. Blue, she noted. Maeve stared back, studying those tiny features and imprinting them to her heart, hoping she never forgot this moment for as long as she lived.

She counted the tiny fingers and toes and when she took one of those hands in hers, and one tiny hand closed around her finger, the tears came finally. He was so tiny. So fragile. Months and months of discomfort and pain had brought her this little blessing, something that she needed as much as he needed her.

How could something this perfect have come from her? Maeve smiled brightly for the first time in months, and knew without doubt or guilt or shame that this had been worth every second of pain, torment and guilt. She rubbed away the tear trailing down her nose, still smiling.

He would look like Jon, she realized suddenly, dimming her smile to only a grin. He had his black hair, the shape of his face, his long fingers, and while the baby's eyes would be bright like hers, they held something that reminded her of his father.

A morose feeling began to creep up into the warm joy of their world, and to stifle it, Maeve braved a touch to the soft head of the quiet baby. Gods he was so small, his head was so soft, and his hair was so thin and delicate. He was so...beautiful.

"Edrick." She whispered confidently, rocking her body back and forth, watching as those tiny eyes drifted shut. "That's your name. Oh...I love you so much. Oh, my sweet baby, I love you."

The world still turned, the war still raged like the hell-fires of the underworld, and she was alone with no one to help her take care of Edrick...but here in this tiny little world, her son safely tucked away in her arms, Maeve felt happy for first time in a long, long time.

Mother of god you will not believe how good it feels to get that out! :D please tell me what you think, just tell me...please, please, please please please?

good, bad, ugly...etc

please please please review, I'm pretty unsure :(