Chapter 3

Ned Stark was a coward.

Anyone else would disagree, yet the man himself knew the truth. Because even after facing death and promising to himself that he would do better, he really just …. couldn't. He came back battered and exhausted, falling into the warmth of his wife's arms and his children's playful innocence. He could have easily brought up the topic of Jon's parentage the day he came back. Or the day after. Or the day after. Or any time he wanted to. He just … couldn't bring himself to. The age-old fear of Catelyn deciding Jon's existence was not as important as the survival of their family, of losing the last piece left of his sister in this wretched world.

"Promise me, Ned."

When a promise you made conflicted the other, which one was he supposed to choose?

And, in the end, he swallowed the words that had been on the tip of his tongue countless times. Out of fear. Out of cowardice and nothing else. His wife continued to ignore the child desperately craving a mother's love. Her cold glares and hatred cowed him. And Ned could do nothing but attempt to feel the hole that Jon must be feeling in his life. He tried to spoil him and love him as he did his other children (maybe even more).

But as he grew, as he understood what the word 'bastard' meant, as he learned why Catelyn was so cold to him, he grew distant. He stopped calling him father. The first time he called him "Lord Stark", Ned felt as if someone stabbed him in the chest. He stopped asking for the things Robb had. He stopped asking for much of anything. As if he didn't believe he deserved it. Ned ached. Yet he kept quiet. Until the gods forced his hands.

Ned hadn't felt this helpless since he had been racing against time to get to the Tower of Joy, fear and panic sinking their claws into his heart. Jon lay on the bed, still and motionless. He looked frighteningly like Lyanna right after she breathed her last. Was it not for the faint rise and fall of his son's chest, Ned would have thought him dead. Even seeing him like this made his throat close up with fear.

The fever struck so suddenly. Almost overnight, Jon was reduced to … this, his breath shallow, a deathlike pallor on his face and sweat beading on his temple. He had dismissed it at first when Jon did not show up for breakfast. It was Robb who had taken one look at the empty seat and run off to fetch his brother who had discovered him huddled and trembling under his woollen blankets. He had wasted no time in fetching Maester Luwin - Maester first, Ned second; Ned would perhaps have been offended if not for the fact that Robb's quick actions probably saved Jon's life.

His wife sat across from him, looking distraught. Absently, Ned wondered at the fact that she was capable of making such an expression for Jon. It made him hope that, mayhaps, one day, his lady wife may learn to let go of her hatred towards this innocent child. A soft whimper drew his eyes to the bed. He reached out to gently put a hand on his forehead and winced. The child was burning. Maester Luwin had said he could say nothing for sure.

"I am trying my best," he had said, looking forlorn. "If young Jon can survive until tomorrow morning, then…. There may be hope." Ned didn't like that. The uncertainty. The fear that Maester Luwin tried to hide. The utter terror of losing his sister's - no, his child.

"Someone needs to stay with him," he finds himself saying. "I'll send a maid…"

"I'll stay," his wife interrupted him, her eyes fixated on the child. The only change of her expression was the slight parting of her lips and flaring of her nostrils. Signs that - Ned had long since come to realize - indicated his wife trying to control her emotions. Usually, she showed this expression for very different reasons.

"Are you su-"

"I am."

Her words brooked no argument. He nodded. However much she resented the child, Ned trusted her to take care of him. He leaned down to press a soft kiss to his son's head, feeling his shaky breath and burning skin.

"May the old gods be with you, child," he whispered before turning back and, with steps that felt like the entire armory were weighing down on them, walking out of the isolated room they had arranged for Jon. He did not want to leave. He had duties to attend to, however. He had to be the Lord of Winterfell first and a father second, after all.

He went about his day almost in a daze, going through the motions in a detached way, his heart hammering at the very thought of his child lying prone on the bed. almost listlessly. He firmly planted his usual mask over his face, playing the role of the Lord of Winterfell, a role he perfected after years of trial and error.

He didn't see Jon that night. He had gone to visit him. However, the sound of soft sobs from inside halted him. He had heard those cries only a handful of times in his life. His wife rarely cried, after all. He peeked inside. His wife was holding Jon's hand in a white-knuckled grip, her head bowed as she murmured under her breath. He could only make out a few words - "gods", "forgive", "save" and "beg" among them. Even in this grim situation, the scene made his heart lift. Just a bit. He exhaled shakily before retreating, resigning himself to a sleepless night of trying to fend off the gnawing worry in his mind by burying himself in work.

Morning came with the news of Jon's fever breaking. The Starks breathed a collective sigh of relief. Ned had gone to Jon, only to find him being piled on by his siblings, with Theon standing awkwardly by their side. Catelyn, however, was nowhere to be seen. He didn't think much of it as he greeted his children - who were both flustered and delighted to see him - chalking it up to her exhaustion and need for rest.

At that moment, he felt far, far lighter than he had in years. His child was going to be fine and there was real hope for his wife to stop resenting the child. Perhaps …. All would be well without him being torn apart by the burden of two promises.

However, all was most definitely not well.

His hopes had been in vain. She isolated herself for the entirety of the day that Jon's fever broke. After that, she seemed to want to speak to him, to say something multiple times…. And yet, everytime, she would hesitate and retreat with a "never mind". It reminded him of the times he had tried to speak of the truth to her and yet again gave into his own cowardice. He waited for her to speak. Patiently. Hopefully. Praying to the gods that he would not have to break a promise to keep another.

But his prayers went unanswered. Because Catelyn had not changed. She had not let go of her resentment. The first few days, she utterly ignored Jon and avoided him at all times. And when Jon approached him, hesitant yet with a hopeful look on his face, she glanced at him with a look of such deep hatred that Ned's heart stuttered. Jon froze in his tracks, looking like prey caught under the gaze of a predator. The exchange after that was filled with enough venom to bring down those famed elephants from Essos.

"What do you want, boy?"

"I … I just wanted to th-thank Lady Stark for …. f-for taking care …"

"Stop spouting nonsense," she snapped, "I can't have you dying under my watch. It would be in poor taste. House Stark would be disgraced. If you are going to die, do it after you come of age and leave."

"Catelyn!" The single word came out of his mouth as an enraged snarl. She snapped her mouth shut and only the slight - almost imperceptible - widening of her eyes was the only indication of whatever was going on in her head. She looked at him, and her eyes were filled with almost as much hatred and rage as the day he presented Jon to her. She turned her eyes to Jon, glaring murderously for a moment, before turning around and storming out of the dining hall.

"I … I j-just wanted to thank her," Jon's cracked voice drew his eyes towards his children. He stood, forlorn and small and trembling, his hand folded around something against his chest. No doubt some sort of gift he had procured somehow tot thank Catelyn Robb looked enraged, glaring after his mother, eyes fixated on the door through which his mother had disappeared. Sansa shifted around nervously, taking a look at each of their faces, before running after her mother. The younger ones stood with only confusion on their faces.

Had he not been paying attention, he might have missed the barely audible whisper in which his son spoke. "What did I do wrong?"

The words made Ned grit his teeth. Not 'Did I do something wrong?', his son went straight to the conclusion that he truly did do something wrong, only he did not know what. The vehement reassurances from Robb that he did nothing wrong was not enough to actually reassure the boy.

Ned made his decision. He walked to his children and put a hand on Jon's hand, gently ruffling his hair, prompting a look of surprise from him. He gave the boy a smile, hiding the bitterness he felt (why was he so surprised at such a simple gesture?), and spoke softly. "You did nothing wrong, child. Go to your lessons now."

With that, he pulled back, the children leaving one by one, the younger ones led by a maid to their lessons while the older ones went to the training ground. Once he was sure they were out of earshot, he ordered for his wife to be brought to the godswood. It was time he had stopped being a coward.

He had been waiting in front of the weirwood tree for quite a while before he heard the rustling behind him. He would usually go through his daily routine of sharpening his sword to calm his mind. But, right now, his mind was a swirling storm of endless thoughts. He could not calm down. He did not want to calm down.

"You called, my lord?" Any other time, he would have flinched at her cold tone. But mow, he could not afford to. He turned around and levelled her with a hard, unyielding look.

"We need to talk, Cat."

She clenched her jaw. " If you called me here to reprimand me for…"

"No," he said firmly. "That is not what you are here for."

"Then what?"

"I called you here… so that I could tell you the truth."

"What truth?"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It's not too late, a part of him whispered, you can still back off. He firmly shut it down. He had promised to protect Jon. He had also promised to speak the truth to Catelyn. Those two did not necessarily need to be separate. He trusted Catelyn to keep this secret, if only to protect their children. It was only his own cowardice that stopped him.

His eyes opened and met his wife's as he spoke with as steady a voice as he could manage.

"Jon is not my son."

He did not look away as the cold mask his wife wore cracked and a myriad of emotions ran through her shadowed eyes. "Ned," the quiver in her voice was almost imperceptible, "if this is some sort of joke-"

"It's not," he interrupted. "It's not a joke. Jon is not my son."

Catelyn's face was filled with such rage at that moment that Ned had to resist the urge to step back. "What a bunch of nonsense!" She stormed towards him. "Do you think I'm a fool, Ned? Whose son would he be if not yours? He looks more Stark than any of our sons. He has your blood in his veins! You said so yourself!"

"That's because he is. He does." It took everything in him not to snap back at her. He inhaled deeply to calm himself before looking at her. "He is a Stark. He does have Stark blood running through him. I consider him my son in every way that matters. But he was not born of my seed. Catelyn… I have never been unfaithful."

His wife seemed to be at a loss for words. She opened and closed her mouth several times. He waited for her to actually process what he said.

"If …" This time, the crack in her voice was more audible now. "If he is not your son … then Brandon's? He was always … but no …. the time doesn't match Jon was barely two months old when you brought him back. If not him, then …" Her eyes widened, and Ned could see the wheels turning in her head as she connected the dots.

"Lyanna," she breathed out, taking a step back as realization crashed onto her. "Lyanna and … and Rhaegar …"

Ned slumped, feeling as if a huge burden had been lifted off his chest. "Yes," he whispered. "Lyanna … she … she was on her deathbed when I reached her, and Jon a mere babe of a few moments." He looked at her, swallowing to dampen his dry throat. "I promised her I would protect him, Cat. I promised."

Catelyn was rigid, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Why...why now? Why did you keep quiet all this time?"

"At first, I … I did not know if I could trust you," he started softly. "Keeping quiet and introducing him as my son was the only thing I could have done at the time. As time went on, even as I came to trust you, I could not. The fear of losing Jon, the fear of losing the semblance of normalcy we managed to gain … I could not bring myself to speak of it."

"And now? What changed?"

"Because I made another promise. At Pyke, I almost died. And my regret was not telling you the truth.' He closed the distance between them. "I made a promise to myself, after I was saved, that I would tell you the truth. But once I came back… I couldn't. Like a coward, I kept quiet."

"Until now."

"Until now." He nodded. "I… I thought you would be able to let go of your resentment after…" he trailed off, looking away.

"Is he truly a bastard?" She asked. Ned hesitated. And that was all the answer that Cat needed. "He isn't, is he?"

Ned looked back at her. She was trembling, eyes wide with pain and fear and fury. "Ned! How could you-? Do you have any idea what- what I have been going through? The thought- the very thought that my husband went into the arms of another woman mere weeks after marriage? Because of you, I treated Jon with so much contempt. Gods, that poor child!"

"I admit not telling you the truth was my fault," he started, fury bubbling under his skin and he viciously pushed it down. "And I contributed to this …. this situation. Significantly. But the decision to direct the resentment that you had towards me - that hatred and bitterness - towards an innocent child; that decision was all yours. Even if Jon was truly my bastard, he would have been innocent. He would not have deserved that."

She seemed like she wanted to disagree vehemently. Ned braced himself for the usual arguments. But they didn't come. Instead, she exhaled sharply before speaking softly. "I need some time… to think about this."

Without waiting for an answer, she turned and left, leaving Ned alone in the godswood. He slumped, feeling so very weary. Yet, as he turned to the Heart Tree, he felt lighter than he had in a long, long time. It wasn't over, he knew. It would take a long time for these scars to fade. But … it was a start.

Anyone who knew Princess Myrcella would agree that she is a wonderful little girl, with those beautiful Lannister looks she got from her mother yet lacking the coldness her mother had. Her face was expressive and her smile was warm. Once she grew up enough for people to discern her personality, almost everyone in the Red Keep breathed a sigh of relief when she showed none of the cruelty that her brother usually displayed.

However, there were times when Myrcella would look quite unnerving, if you asked the people who witnessed them and they answered frankly. Whenever Joffrey felt particularly vicious and bullied Tommen. Whenever the Queen reprimanded her for speaking up against Joffrey because "he is the heir to the throne and your older brother; you must obey him, Mycella." Whenever her father devolved into drunken - and quite exaggerated - recounting of his adventures. And whenever she watched the knights train.

She would just …. stare. Unblinkingly. Her eyes followed every move they made, every swing of their swords, every twist of their bodies. She wouldn't look away even when one of them - usually Ser Jaime or Ser Barristan - would look up at her. She would just smile and wave, as if telling them to continue. Quite different from the shy little girl that endeared herself to almost everyone around the Keep. But no one questioned it. Her father and mother did not care what she did in her spare time and who else would dare question the Princess?

The days wore on peacefully. Until one day, Ser Jaime Lannister found her clutching a wooden sword in hand and brought her to her father.

Robert looked down at the little child hanging her head low in front of him, still clutching the small - well, small for him, but way too big for her - wooden sword to her chest. The Kingslayer stood behind her, somehow looking like a detainer and a protector at the same time. Robert sighed softly and the girl made herself small, looking even younger than she actually was. By the Seven, shouldn't she be seven years old now? How on earth was she so small? Had he ever been that small?

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Myrcella," he started, his voice its usual rumble, making her flinch. "Do you want to tell me why you were swinging about a wooden sword twice the size of your arm and thrice its weight?"

The question prompted the first look of defiance of the day from her. Ah. There it was. Myrcella's tantrums were never as bad as Joffrey's and they had started to abate as she grew. But they still made special appearances from time to time. Her head snapped up, her mouth looked as it wanted to form a pout and her eyes met his straight on.

"I was practising!" Her voice wasn't the screech he had gotten used to Cersei or Joffrey. It was loud though, and full of defiance.

"Practising? With a sword?"

She nodded vigorously. "Yes! With a sword! How else would I learn how to use a sword? I want to learn swordsmanship! I want to learn how to fight!"

"And why on earth would you sneak a wooden sword into your room and get yourself hurt swinging it about instead of asking to be taught properly?" Robert asked, a rare seed of concern sprouting in his chest as his eyes moved to her bruised hands and scraped knees. Her wrists had to be aching while carrying a wooden sword too heavy for her.

Her hands tightened around the sword and her voice got louder. "I did! I tried to ask! I asked them," one of her hands let go of the sword to point at the knight standing behind her, "but they said I needed permission from you. So I tried to ask you but you never listen, father! And then I asked mother and she ..." Myrcella gritted her teeth hard enough to give Stannis a run for his money, "... She scolded me, telling me that I had no job taking up a sword, that a lady isn't supposed to fight, that I can't learn the sword because that's for Joffrey and Tommen."

"Well," the Kingslayer opened his mouth for the first time since he entered the room with a guilty looking Myrcella and explained the situation, "she is right, you know. A sword has no place in a lady's hand."

Myrcella's defiant gaze found a new target as she turned her head to glare at the Kingsguard. "Does that mean father is wrong, then?"

A frown marred Robert's face as he leaned forward. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"You're the one who tells stories of the lady warrior, father!" She said, her voice taking on a tinge of wonder. "You're the one who tells stories of a lady fighting beside you in the Greyjoy Rebellion, sword in hand! If she can, why can't I? Were those lies, father?!"

Her indignant words prompted a sharp "no" from Robert, making the girl flinch. He sighed and calmed himself. Robert wouldn't lie about his battles, particularly about this battle that left such a deep impression on him. But this child didn't know any better.

"That's different," he started. "She was a trained soldier. You…"

Myrcella, for the first time, found the audacity to interrupt him. "I can train too, father! I'm sure she didn't train in one day. I … there are so many famous knights here in the Keep. My brothers can learn. So why can't I?"

Why couldn't she? That was a question he couldn't answer, except for the very answer her mother gave her. Ladies had no job wielding a sword. And yet… he had been proven wrong in that battlefield. Dorne armed its daughters. He had even heard that the Lord of Tarth had been teaching his daughter the sword. And Lyanna… he viciously shoved away the thought, pushing down the twist in his chest and ignoring the urge to grab a drink. He had a little brat to deal with right now.

He glanced at his child, her spine straight, her small, trembling hands clutching at the sword tighty even as she refused to avert her eyes and met his - no doubt intimidating gaze - head on. An image flashed across his eyes. The same image that had first made itself known to him in the heat of battle at Pyke. A little girl with Cersei's face yet his own viciousness as she wielded a sword. It's an image he had forgotten over the years Myrcella had been barely toddling when he came back after suppressing the rebellion. The thought had been a fleeting one at the moment and never made a comeback …. until now.

A soft smirk curved his lips. "I do not see why you cannot."

Myrcela's surprise was evident on her face, even as a bit of wariness made its way into her eyes. "Truly?"

"Truly."

"I do not think that's a ... " the Kingslayer started but a withering glare from Robert had him shutting up, though he looked pained from doing so.

"No one asked, Kingslayer," his voice was closer to a growl. A brilliant idea occurred to him right then, the smirk back on his face. "In fact, you can help Princess Myrcella. You will start training her in swordsmanship tomorrow."

"Truly, papa?!" The excited voice made him turn his eyes to his daughter, unable to hide the surprise on his face. It had been a while since Myrcella had called him that, trying to act all ladylike under her Septa's guidance, though this development proved that the girl had more of his blood in her than her mother's, despite her appearances. He had always distanced himself from his children, but he could admit - to himself, of course - to being a little disappointed that these little creatures were growing up so soon. Except for his oldest… he could not believe that he had spawned such a little monster.

He let a rare, genuine smile curve his lips. "Truly," he repeated. The delighted squeal he hears from her makes his smile widen just a bit. Despite his initial misgivings, he couldn't bring himself to regret his decision.

"It's final then. You will start your training tomorrow with your uncle." He said, sending a baleful glare towards the Kingslayer when he opened his mouth. "It's an order, Kingslayer."

The Kingsguard snapped his mouth shut, hesitating a moment before he bowed his head, "Yes, Your Grace." Good. That should be enough to deal with the matter. He could admit - he was a bit excited to see how this little development would pan out.

'Besides,' he thought, 'the look on Cersei's face when she finds out will be a sight to behold.'

Days went by. Perhaps not entirely peaceful. But they did go by, bringing in better days for some and worse for others. The once brothers-in-arms watched their children grow proudly, the changes they made - small and big - bearing fruit, while the ones that prompted these changes travelled the world unaware.

And then … a ship docked at White Harbour.

Author's Note: What's that? Yes, this self proclaimed author is going to be irregular af. I wanna be badass and say "I won't apologize!" but I can't do that so... sorry? I am getting my ass kicked here. I'll try to update again in a month but ... no promises. Kudos and comments are lifeeee!

Hugeeee thanks to ArchangelCeaser for being my soundboard and beta. Thanks to them, I found that I am actually capable giving my random ideas a coherent form. Huh. Who knew? Enjoy.