PROLOGUE:
It had been scarcely two days since the king had arrived. The day of his arrival in Winterfell he'd asked Ned what he'd dreaded. Catelyn had urged him to refused… but Ned knew that sooner rather than later he'd be in King's Landing, acting as Hand to his best friend.
Just yesterday Bran had fallen from the tower. The maester said he would live, but Catelyn had refused to leave his side. Ned had barely been in the room.
It made him feel ill to think his son was going to die. Ned couldn't bear to look at his young face and think it might wither away to dust in a matter of weeks.
"Lord Stark."
Ned turned from the balcony looking over the yard where Arya and Robb shot arrows at targets stuffed with straw. A light snow drifted from the sky outside, carried on a light breeze. Arya's hair was thoroughly dusted with the stuff. Robb's was as well, but it was harder to see it on his eldest son's lighter red hair.
Behind him he turned to see Jon, the child he'd given everything but his name to. He smiled at Jon, whose own hair was dusted as much as Arya's and Bran's. With an air of nerves, or something else Ned didn't recognize, Jon smiled back. The boy was still young, but already the weight of the station Ned had given him was pressing on him hard. Ned could see it easily and felt a pang of regret. But it had been necessary. Robert would have killed him. Ned had promised.
"Hello, Jon."
"Lord Stark," he repeated.
"You can call me father in private, Jon, you know that." Ned's brow creased ever so slightly.
"I know." There was a slightest tremble to his voice, and he didn't hold eye contact. Ned felt a quick pang of concern.
Ned allowed the short pause to fester a moment, but it needn't go on longer: as Ned knew, Jon had come with a purpose, he could see it in his eyes, and he spoke quickly.
In a rush, Jon said, "You're heading South tomorrow and I'm heading for the Wall... I... I want to know who my mother is."
Jon looked at him anxiously for a moment and seemed all the more cowed when he was met with only silence. He switched his stare at Ghost sitting on his feet and kept them there. The young direwolf looked back up at him. His father sighed under his breath and studied the ground for a moment, then turned and looked out over the yard, and at the sky. It was gray and packed with clouds. The children had gone from the yard. He allowed himself to wonder where they had gone and what trouble they had got into since his eyes had left them. Then he shut his eyes for hardly a second and steeled himself.
Turning around and smiling at Jon was easy. He was grateful Jon had asked; he had intended to tell Jon before he left with Robert, but he wasn't sure he would have sought Jon out on his own. He should have done this weeks ago. Years ago.
Jon seemed to have found strength from his direwolf because he met and kept his eyes on Ned's.
"Walk with me, Jon. You'll have all the answers out of me you need... but... I would not be overheard." He sighed. His shoulders drooped perhaps half an inch. "Walk with me to the crypts, Jon. We can talk there."
Unsurprisingly, they walked in silence.
The crypts were as he remembered them, as they ought to have been. He had held off on visiting the crypts before he planned to leave for King's Landing tomorrow in the hopes he would do it with Jon as he was doing now, but even so he had last visited less than a moon ago. The roses he'd left were dust all the same, though.
Except for Cat and the children, all his family lay there. His father, his brother and his sister. All he'd loved for the beginnings of his life. All were here. Waiting for him… it seemed colder suddenly, and Ned dreaded the moment coming quicker than it ever had before.
The steps were steep and icy. Ned found himself wondering if he'd find the king down here, visiting the same person they hoped to. He frowned, and even when they stood before her statue and had found it desolate and abandoned, his frown did not subside.
He stopped meanderingly in front of her statue and wondered where to begin. Slowly, he turned to the child he had raised as his own and told him the truth he had concealed for the sake of his life.
When the news had been broken to Jon, Jon walked stiffly from the crypts, tears he hid in his eyes and betrayal twisting his face. The parchment Ned had produced for the occasion was clenched in his hand. Jon didn't look back as he broke into a run.
Ned wondered who his nephew ran to for comfort.
Certainly not him, not now.
When Ned woke the next morning, he sent his steward to fetch Jon and bring him to him. But Jon was not to be found. And Ned was swept up in the procession of leaving with the King's men and Robert himself and didn't have another chance to seek out Jon. Jon was gone when everyone assembled in the courtyard to say goodbye.
Ned hugged his younger brother close and whispered into his ear, "Protect him."
"I shall," came the promise.
Ned knew he would keep it, but he knew it was likely not for his sake; at least not entirely. Benjen had always been too smart for his own good, and he had put together what Ned had hoped he never would. He would protect Jon for the sibling he was always closest to, the one who had protected him when Brandon and Ned had been clustered close to their father.
Benjen would protect Jon for Lyanna.
