The whole of Winterfell stands waiting as the King and court start pouring into the courtyard. Placed between Robb and Lord Stark, she finds herself nervously shuffling, a tight knot on her stomach as she watches her father ride his way in.

He's not that different from the last time she saw him. A little fatter, maybe, but overall, she finds him to be still her Father.

He need help dismounting, which she knows is not what he likes, but seeing as he is too fat to get down on his own, he can't exactly refuse.

They're all kneeling, herself included, when Robert stops in front of them. Lord Stark sees the small movement of the King's hand before he raises, the rest following him.

"Your Grace."

"You've got fat," her father says after looking at Ned.

Lord Stark just raises an eyebrow before they break into laughter, hugging each other. She can see the love between both of them, raised together in the Eyrie, away from home.

"Nine years, Ned, why haven't I seen you? Where the hells have you been?"

"Guarding the North in your name, Your Grace, and looking after your daughter." Only then does Robert look at her.

"Gods, how you've grown! Come give your old man a hug!" he nearly shouts, opening his arms for her.

In that moment, seeing her father for the first time since leaving home a year ago, she forgets she's a princess. She just throws herself at her father, laughing and crying as he spins her around.

"You look good," he says as he sets her down, taking her face in his hands. "Gods, you're a woman now. Ready to get married?"

"Yes." She smiles.

"Good," he says then, ushering her back into line before going to greet the rest of the Stark house.

She sees her mother, a good few feet away, and her youngest siblings by her side. Joffrey, the little shit, does not even dismount. She notices his eyes stuck to the oldest Stark girl. For the girl's own good, she just wishes Sansa did not look as enchanted as she did.

When her mother approaches, she waits patiently as her hand is kissed by Lord Stark and Lady Stark courtesies, her feet impatiently moving, not letting her be still.

"Mother," she says, smiling wide.

"Daughter," Cersei says, hugging her. Despite her mother's furs and thick gown, her hug feels much colder than her father's. "How are you, little doe?"

"Good, I'm good."

Her father says something then. She doesn't hear it, but her mother does.

"We've been riding for a month, my love, and we haven't seen Cerelle for a year. Surely the dead can wait." Cerelle had not missed this.

Her father looks at her, seeing a small child in her mother's arms. His daughter's eyes have not changed, the same Baratheon blue he has and had enamored him the first time he laid his eyes on her.

Cersei would never hurt her. She would be in good hands in the few minutes it would take to visit Lyanna's crypt.

In truth, he just wanted to remember her face. Her voice had long vanished from his mind, and he could not remember the color of her eyes nor the exact color of her hair, though he suspected it must have been similar to Ned's youngest girl.

For a moment, when he had seen her, he had damned the Stark's genes. The girl was what little he could remember from Lyanna. In his mind, he had panicked. He asked her name, and in the small second it took for her to answer, he damned Ned if he ever thought of naming her Lyanna.

He had wanted to name Cerelle that. He knew, the moment he came back from the hunt to discover the girl had already been born, that his child would have a Lannister name. If he thought about it, naming her Lyanna would have only made things worse. But back then, he still had her fresh on his mind and heart.

Now, he knew it was his fault their marriage had failed. In the beginning, Cersei had wanted it to work. Now, both had hurt the other far too much for any peace.

"Ned" he says, and his friend takes the lead.

Luckily, Cerelle doesn't seem hurt by it.

In the back of his mind, he knows that is not good.

Anyone who did not belong to an important family was to stay in a camp just outside Winterfell. As big as the castle was, it did not have much room for the enormous amount of people invited to the wedding.

Robb, helping his mother call servants to show their guests to their rooms, spares a look towards Cerelle. She's in front of her siblings, hugging the life out of them. He sees her kneel in front of them, cupping their faces with her hands and whispering to them.

Prince Tommen is crying silently, and Princess Myrcella looks misty eyed as well. Robb sees Cerelle wipe Tommen's face and then her own, kissing their foreheads before ushering them towards their mother. He sees her stand up, take deep breaths as she covers her face before straightening.

"Robb!" she says as she catches him watching her. He blushes but tries to make it go away as he sees her approach.

He gives the last indications to the serving girl he's talking to before turning completely to her.

"What can I help you with?"

"I was just going to ask you the same."

"Don't worry about anything, we got this."

"Oh, no, I'm helping! I'm going to be the Lady of the House, so don't expect me to just sit tight and do nothing while your mother is doing everything!" she frowns, putting her hands on her hips and raising an eyebrow to him. Robb just smiles.

"Alright."

The feast held in the King's honor is Winterfell's way of saying welcome. It's not as grand as her wedding is supposed to be, which will be paid half by her family and half by Robb's—not what is common, but her mother had wanted just the best for her (if she wanted her to get married at all —Cerelle called bullshit, but, well...Lannisters).

At the dais, the Lord and Lady of Winterfell were to be seated along with the Queen and King, and just below them, their children and their friends.

Of course, the moment he finishes eating, the King walks away from there. Lord Stark stands as well, but for very different motives. While Lord Stark, she has learned in her time in Winterfell, is good and kind with his people, close enough to them to know every name, Father just wants to drink and fuck.

She can see him from her seat beside Lalia, closer to the Starks than her own family. Her father is dancing and kissing a servant, the woman seeming enjoying it.

"Your hair's getting long, Baratheon" Theon comments, sitting in front of her.

"You got a problem with that, Greyjoy?" Cerelle raises her eyebrows, the beginning of a smile on her lips.

Jon is not present. While it does not bother her, Lady Stark had been right in getting him away from her mother. She knew Cersei could very easily see him as an offense.

"I like long haired women. You know what I do to them?" Theon smiles the stupid smile he gets on his face before he starts talking about sex and she has a very clear idea of what he does.

"I don't want to hear!" she says, loudly as she covers her ears. Lalia laughs at her side.

"Oh, are you blushing? Are you going to be blushing on your wedding night, Rellie?"

Oh, how she hated that nickname. Theon had decided, not too long after she first came to Winterfell, that Cerelle was far too long a name. Not happy with calling her Relle like everyone she was close to, he chose to call her Rellie, which to be honest made her feel like she was five years old. She preferred to be called Baratheon over that.

"I'll. Kill you," she says through clenched teeth, though she does not deny the blush.

She can't help it. Growing up, she did not know anything about what would happen in her wedding night up until she was about thirteen, and even then, she heard it from her ladies, not her Septa, who made it sound much more unpleasant than her friends when they talked about it, a few days after her betrothal was announced.

Jenne, who had a married older sister, had said it was not painful if he was careful.

Jeyne, being daughter of a whore, said it was far from painful— pleasant, she called it.

Cerelle did not know what to believe. She was unsure if Robb had any experience and while him being a Stark gave her the suspicion that he didn't, having Theon as a friend made her doubt.

"Cerelle!" She hears her name, and as she looks up, she sees her sister calling to her.

"If you'll excuse me," she says as she stands.

"No, I won't."

"Oh, shut up, Greyjoy."

Myrcella doesn't want anything in specific, just to spend time with her sister, so Cerelle sits with her and just talks and talks until she hears a table explode in laughter. As she looks to the side, she sees Sansa wiping her face. Knowing who is to blame, she stands goes over her. In the way, she passes Robb who, having received a look from his mother, was standing to put Arya to bed.

"I'll do it," she says, kissing his cheek.

"You don't have to—"

"I want to." She runs her hand through his hair and then cups his fresh-shaven cheek and smiles at him. He smiles back.

"They seem to get along well," Cersei says to Catelyn, not taking her eyes off her eldest.

"Yes, they do," Catelyn smiles. The girl was good for Robb, she could see it. It might have taken her a while, but she could accept Cerelle into her family now.

But Cersei could not. Her daughter deserved to be in a sunny place with the sea near her. She would have been happy somewhere like Casterly Rock or King's Landing, even Storm's End. Somewhere closer, somewhere warmer. Instead, she was up here, in the cold, far away North. It could be years before she saw her daughter again. Years before she got to meet her grandchildren.

But she still had time to call everything off. She did. Cerelle could still choose.

Arya looks back at her when Cerelle reaches her and sighs.

"Up you go, time for bed."

"But I don't want to go to bed!"

"Should have thought about that before you threw food at your sister. Where are your brothers?"

"They were talking to Prince Tommen," Arya says as she stands up.

Cerelle can see the three children, all of them trying to speak through their yawns.

"Alright, let's get them all to bed." Cerelle sighs, pushing Arya to start walking.

"Time for bed, boys!" she says, placing a hand on Tommen's head. Her brother looks up at her and nods.

She holds Rickon up, placing him on her hip as she starts ushering Bran and Tommen up.

"Cerelle! Give me Rickon. I didn't think you were going to take all of them to bed!" Robb says, taking his brother from her arms.

"Well, they were falling asleep, what else was I supposed to do?" she says, taking Tommen in her arms. The boy is heavier than she remembered, but he was still her little brother and she liked carrying him. Making him put his legs around her waist, she grabs him firmly and starts walking, Arya and Bran behind her while Robb catches up to her.

They part ways in the courtyard, Robb taking his siblings to the Great Keep while she takes Tommen to the Guests House.

She carries him to the room he's been assigned, close to their Mother's chambers, passing the guards easily. Per Cerelle's own request, the King and Queen do not share a room. Things would be easier this way.

She puts on his night clothes and kisses his forehead.

She meets Robb close to their Tower, now childless.

"I can see us like this in a few years." He smiles as he offers her his arm.

"So many?! Gods, my poor body." She laughs, looking up at him with a smile as she takes it.

"I want ten," he says, completely serious until he sees her face. Only then does he break into laughter.

"It's not funny!" She hits his arm, laughing but only a little, not able to help it.

Truth be told, Robb did want many children. He had five brothers and sisters; he was used to the laughter and the fights and the company that it meant. To have only two or three children, in his eyes, meant less happiness around.

He's old enough to still remember Arya, Bran and Rickon as babies, the smell that comes with them, the sweet, toothless smiles that they always carried. He remembers the lessons his father gave him, the weight of his hand on his shoulder and his proud face when any—any— of his children did something right. He can still remember his mother pushing his curls away from his face, the way her soft hand tucked it behind his ear and chirped at him for missing lessons and covering his clothes with mud.

In his eyes, children are a blessing. He wants them to have a good childhood, the childhood he and his siblings had here in Winterfell.

Cerelle, on the other hand, hated wet nurses. And she knew, from what ladies said back in King's Landing, that too many children meant having someone else taking care of them. She wanted to hold her children and feed them herself, to be able to be there for them without stretching herself too thin. She wanted her children to have good, happy memories of her as their warm, loving mother. She wanted them to trust her, to be able to look at her and know that they could tell her things, that she would listen and she would try and make things better, even if she was a little busy at the moment.

She wanted for them the childhood she did not have.

"Shall we go back to the feast, Your Grace?"

"It would be my honor, my lord."