A/N: I have had this story rolling around my head for sometime now. The idea came to me when I was playing the A Game of Thrones mod for CK2, and the central premise of the story "What if the dead Starks came back the lead up to the White Walkers invasion?" That is what I'm going to write about.

Eddard Stark, the former Hand of the King, and Lord Paramount of the North, was surprised to find himself waking up. The last thing he remembered was his own blade, Ice, coming down onto his head. He rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up, and he was shocked to realize that he was not in the pitch-black stone dungeons of King's Landing, but rather he was in a forest, and moreso, a forest that he recognized. The Godswood.

"Ned?" Eddard turned to look at the women that he had thought he would never see again, his lady wife, Catelyn. She looked upon him, frozen in shock, her eyes wide, before she cast her fears away and ran to him and threw her arms around him. He squeezed his wife back and she muttered into him "The Lannister's announced you dead"

He looked around himself, a boy of around ten years sat on the ground, staring up at the large white wierwood tree. Eddard caught a breath, and realized that this must be Rickon, who had grown up without him. Behind Rickon, stood his eldest trueborn son, Robb, who was frantically looking around the small clearing. He felt Catelyn push her off him, and watched as she ran to Robb. "Robb, my darling" she held him, and Eddard felt a pang of concern wash over him. What had happened to make Robb act like this? He moved closer to his eldest and stood over him and heard Catelyn say "Robb, I'm so sorry for Tilisa" Who was Tilisa? Based on the way that Robb was acting, she must have been his wife.

Robb looked up at him "How is this real?" his eyes were wet, and looked around "You are dead"

"Maybe we are in the afterlife" Rickon said quietly, still staring up at the tree.

That was a thought that Eddard hadn't considered, he looked at his family and said "If this is the afterlife" he said, bringing all of their attention to him "That means that you three also died" Anguish filled Eddard, he didn't want to believe that his eldest and youngest sons had passed on so soon after him as well. Robb stood and hugged his father, in a rare display of affection

"You're in Winterfell" came a voice with no emotion in it behind them all, Eddard turned, and Robb came up to his side, and came face to face with his second son, Bran. Bran simply looked up from his wheelchair, with a plain face as he looked at the four of them. Robb and Catelyn wore shocked and surprised expressions.

It was Robb who broke the silence "Bran, why have you aged?"

In the same unnerving voice Bran replied "I have never died" he paused for a moment before saying "You have returned from the dead" He rolled himself around "Come follow me, You should talk to Sansa and Arya"

Relief flowed through Eddard, and he watched as Catelyn and Robb faces contorted into happiness. Bran however continued to look troubled, but did not look like he would elaborate why. The walk out of the Godswood was a quiet affair, Eddard was relived to be back in the North with his whole family.

Of course he thought to himself, not my whole family. His bastard, Jon Snow must have been still alive and in the Nightswatch. He had not been in the clearing with the other dead Starks. But he wasn't really a Stark, a voice in the back of Eddard's head said. They stopped at the edge of the woods, where two people stood watch, one was a giant of a women with blonde hair, the other was a normal sized man with red armor.

"Lady Brienne" Bran said she turned around and took a step back in shock "Please go and tell Lady Sansa and Arya that I am coming, and that I must speak to her privately"

The man in red armor shot off, while the women, Lady Brienne, Bran had called her, took a tentative step in the direction of Catelyn, before she kneeled and said "My Lady Stark, I did as you directed me too"

"I should have your head!" Robb said, in uncharacteristic anger "You stole away with out key to winning the war!" Robb must have marched south when word reached Winterfell of what had happened. He feels a momentary rush of pride in his eldest trueborn son, but it's quickly drains away when he realizes the awful truth, his children had seen war.

"My lord, I was only doing as my duty as a sworn sword to your mother" the women responded fiercely. "My duty now extends to Lady Stark"

"Brienne I know that" his wife said gingerly "Please take us to Sansa and Arya" She shot a look at Robb that Ned knew well, it conveyed a "We will talk about this later"

Brienne took the lead as they walked into the castle. They didn't run across any servants or maids as they made there way towards what Ned realized had to be his and his wife's chambers. Robb had taken to pushing Bran to make sure that he was able to keep up, and the trip passed in silence. There were so many questions that he needed answered, who had been the prisoner that they spoke of earlier, how did the rest of them die, and what had happened to Bran? He had always been such a happy and full of life boy, now he seemed emotionless and tired. These questions consumed his mind during the relatively short walk to his old solar.

The man who had been with Brienne stood just outside of the door and greeted them as they came up "Lady Stark is ready to greet them"

"Thank you Podrick" Brienne said as she opened the door and they rustled into the solar. Inside of the solar were two desks, the one of the left being covered in scrolls and parchment, while the other one, was less covered, in parchment, and was much less organized and also had a whetstone on it. Jon's direwolf, Ghost stood in the corner looking at them quietly, and in the center of the room stood Ned's two daughters, Sansa and Arya.

They simply stared at each other for a moment, in an unnerving silence which was broken as Brienne said "My Lady, I will be outside"

"Thank you, Brienne," Sansa said with a small smile. Brienne moved between them and shut the door behind her.

Sansa didn't understand how this was possible, she couldn't. How could it be that her father, mother and brothers, most of whom had been dead for years, were now standing in front of her? She fought to keep her composure and said with a small smile "Please have a seat" and gestured to the hastily arranged chairs in front of the hearth. They did as Bran brought himself up as well. She took a seat behind her desk, as Arya stood on her right, staring at their wayward family. "I can't say with words how happy I am to see all of you"

"Sansa" her father begins his hands grasped together and staring at the fire "What has happened? What year is it?"

"That's a rather big question Father" she looked down at the dozens of parchment paper on her desk, requests, grain supplies and updates on the next arrival of dragon glass "To answer the first question, it is 303"

Her father, and brother pale in understanding, and she presses on and she tells them everything that she can about what has happened since the Starks were last together, she tells her father of the War of the 5 Kings, with some corrections from her mother and brother about what happened in the Northern army at the time, she lets Robb and their mother take over telling Father about the end of the War, Robb's marriage with Talissa and the Red Wedding.

Her Father's expression is unreadable, oh how she had hated than growing up, but his there is no mistaking the unbridled anger in his eyes, as they tell him of the Bolton's betrayal. When they finish telling the story, it's apparent that Robb is upset, and Sansa's heart goes out to her brother, or as much as she can let it, considering what Robb did to her. Her father looks from the fire and back to her "What happened to you?"

"After Joffrey was killed, Littlefinger got me out of King's Landing and took me to the Vale, where we stayed for awhile" she bites her lip in a moment of weakness, as she debates whether or not to continue. Luckily a knock at the door makes her decision, she rises from the desk and is at the door before anyone else has a chance to and slides herself out of the room. Greeting her is Maester Wolkan, who bows her head slightly.

"A letter from the King, my lady" she takes it from his hand and thanks him before going back into the room. She tenses, this could be it, a letter telling her to send the army that he had been assembling north to the wall.

"My lady" Brienne asks her, concern running through her face and features "is everything going okay?"

"I think so Brienne" she smiles at her protector.

She reentered the room, and her mother asks "What is it sweetling?"

Sansa sat back down at her desk and opens the letter, not replying to her mother. She needs to read this first. Her mother asks after her again and so does Robb, but she ignores them. This could be it she thinks to herself once again, the battle that Jon had been warning and preparing them for since she had escaped to Castle Black. She reads the letter slowly, and relief floods through her. She smiles, hands the letter to Arya and looks up and sees her family looking at her with worry in their faces, that is except for Bran and Arya, who did not look bothered. "It's a letter from the King" she says, momentarily forgetting her audience.

Robb's face scrunches in confusion and near terror and her mother face becomes as still as stone. "What King?" her father asks, his grey eyes studying hers. She swallows in nervousness, her mother was not going to like this.

"The King in the North" Arya interjects, almost beaming in the pride she feels for him.

"The King in the North sits there" their mother says pointing a finger at Robb, who adjusts himself unconformable in the chair. Before Arya or Sansa can answer, her mother's eyes narrow in anger, as she shoots a glance at Ghost who sits in the corner and an angry snarl escapes her lips as she turns to look at her father "Your bastard has wrongfully supplanted my children"

Sansa opens her mouth to reply, but Arya does it first "Jon deserves to be king" Arya nearly yells and looks at Sansa for support. They hold each other's glances for a moment and Sansa begins.

"Jon" she starts tentatively "went to the wall and stayed there for several years, the Night's Watch" she shrugged her shoulders and continued "I don't know the full story, he won't say anything about it, they stopped a Wildling invasion, and afterwards he was made their Lord Commander, and then he was killed by his own men" It was a simplified way of putting it, bit Sansa hadn't had any time to prepare for the conversation, and it was everything to tell the story and keep herself from showing emotion.

The anger drains from her face, and Robb leans down and holds his head in his hands, she shoots a look at Rickon, the only Stark she can't bring herself to look at, and he is just staring at her. "I'm not sure how, but Melisandre, a priestess working with Stannis Baratheon was able to bring him back"

"Why did the men of the Night's Watch betray him?" Robb asked his face still in his hands.

Sansa sighs "He was going to march south, at the head of a Night's Watch, Free Folk, and Northern army to remove the Boltons from power"

"Jon wouldn't break his oath to do that" their father said plainly. She studied him for a moment, suppressed anger at the lie he had told attempting to come to the surface. But she is able to force it back down. "Jon had received letters from Ramsay Bolton, saying that he had been doing" she searched for the word "to Arya and was planning to kill her" Their mother and father's face pales and she hears her mother mutter an 'Oh Arya' "it wasn't Arya, it was a lie"

"He got me though" Rickon muttered softly, all eyes turned on him. Sansa looks at her brother, there is a sadness in his eyes that makes her want to run over and hold him, she knows how Ramsay treated his prisoners, his final days would not have been good ones.

Rickon had been their worst failure, Jon may have won battle after battle against the Boltons, but when the time came, Rickon had still died in Jon's arms "We tried Rickon" there tears in her own eyes as she said it "Jon and I tried so hard to save you"

Rickon smiled ruefully "I know Sansa, he became worse after every victory Jon won" mother is there and takes his head into her shoulder, and while there are tears in her own eyes, she asks Sansa how she got back to the North"

"I escaped with the aid of Lady Brienne and made my way to Castle Black" It was a lie, and she saw Rickon's face scrunch up in confusion, and she sent a silent prayer to gods she no longer believed in that he wouldn't say anything "I arrived shortly after he had been revived" She remembered how alien he had seemed to her on that day, she had been nervous that he would refuse her. As she had told him the night that they had been reunited, she had been an ass to him growing up, always reminding him that he was a half-brother, and a bastard to boot. Instead of rebuking her, he had run to her, and had given her a place at his table and gave her a voice on his war council. "Jon and I spent about half of last year fighting against the Boltons, when rumors reached us that" she gestured at Rickon "That Ramsay had Rickon, Jon abandoned his plans and marched on Winterfell"

"My last memories are running towards Jon, he got on a horse and just got to me, before Ramsay put an arrow in my back"

Mother pulls back from Rickon, her hands still wrapped around him as she says to everyone in the room "Jon failed you Rickon"

Arya makes a disturbed noise in her throat as she stands in anger, Sansa keeps her composure but is no less angry. Is that what her mother took from that? That Jon had failed? That he hadn't tried hard enough? She grabs Arya's hands and Arya turns around and stares, Sansa stares back, trying to tell her that she would take care of it. Arya slowly sits down, and Sansa looks back at her newly revived family "If Jon failed Rickon, then I did so as well"

Her mother's eyes soften as she stands "No, sweetling you didn't fail" she looks at Robb and her father looking for support "Did you control his armies? He could've gone for Rickon as soon as he-" she is cut off.

"Mother please" Arya yells, shocking everyone into looking at her "Did you not hear Sansa say that Jon dropped everything when he learned that the Boltons had Rickon?" Sansa fought back a smile, this is far easier with Arya here to help, and besides, Arya has become increasingly protective of the remaining Starks, and she had always loved Jon best.

"But" her mother says desperately.

"But nothing mother" Sansa cuts in, she cannot allow this to continue, especially with what they all know now "Mother at the end of the day, Jon liberated the North" she leans in and everyone is watching her, including Robb "If you don't have anything proper to say about Jon, then you won't say anything at all" the statement hangs in the air for just a moment, before her mother breaks down completely, she falls onto father.

As he wraps his arms around her Robb trys to get the conversation back on track "Jon is the King then?"

Finally, we can get back to the real conversation Sansa thinks to herself. Arya answers in excitement "Yes! He's also the King-Beyond-the-Wall!" Sansa didn't know how Free Folk titles worked, but shortly after the northern lords had declared Jon King in the North, Tormund had taken Jon aside and called him King Crow off hand. That had seemed to cause a chain reaction throughout the Free Folk who fought with him, and they had all taken to calling him a King. She didn't know if he was a true King-Beyond-the-Wall, the way that Mance Rayder had been, but she wasn't going to argue with it

Her father leans back contemplatively, with his wife still in arms "How is that possible?" she realizes that they simply don't know the threat that they are all facing down to the North, the reason why Jon isn't here. She swallows in nervousness; would they believe her, she certainly wouldn't have believed Jon if he had told her.

It's Bran who answers the question "The Free Folk and the North both recognize the threats from the Land of Always Winter"

"The threat the Lands of Always Winter?" Robb says quietly, his face scrunched in confusion and attempts to remember where he had heard that before.

"The Night King must be stopped" Bran clarifies in a tone of voice that she was growing to despise. Sansa watches as her brother and father pale and has their mother stops crying long enough to turn around.

"I believe it's best if we continue this conversation in the morning" she ran her hands together. She calls for Brienne who leans in through the door "Brienne could you see my parents to Ser Davos' room?"

"Rickon still has his bed in our room" Bran says.

"Very good" That left her eldest brother, who she wanted to at the same time hug and scream at "See Robb to one of the guest chambers please"

Brienne nods her head "Yes my lady" and she begins to direct them all as they left the room, her father being the last to stand. One thing was left that she had to clarify tonight. A conversation she dreaded.

"Father may I have a word?"

"Of course"

Ned Stark regards his daughter as they wait for everyone else to leave. He has been surprised by her, she was so unlike the last time he saw her, where she desperately begged Joffrey to not execute himself. She now wore a face of ice, not letting any of her true thoughts out. It pained him to think what had caused his first daughter to change like this. She had always been so happy and invested in dreams, now she was dealing with things that he and her brothers should have been dealing with.

Arya remained sitting to her right, and Ned was also surprised by their closeness, in the years before he left to go to King's Landing, they had grown apart, but something had brought them back together. Arya's fervent defense of Jon had not surprised Ned in the slightest, it was no secret that Jon and Arya had been the closet of the children, but Sansa's defense of him had been shocking to say the least. He wondered at what had caused such a change, but then remembered their story, for a time they had believed themselves to the last of their family, of course they had grown close.

"What is it Sansa?" he asks, when he realizes that Sansa will not start the conversation.

His daughters face remains unchanged, but there is a tight anger in her voice as she answers "We must speak about Aegon Targaryen"

Dread fills in the pit of Ned's stomach. They knew. He wondered if they found out before or after Jon had become King. "Aye, I suppose we must" he sits back down in his chair "I take it Howland told Jon?"

Sansa's face does not change but there is clear confusion in what she says next "No, Samwell Tarly and Bran figured it out" How did Bran come to find out the secret that Ned had hid for years? "They told Jon, who in turn told the lords"

"How did they take it?" he could see it now, the lords screaming at yelling at the poor boy, who must've only felt honor bound to tell his bannermen the truth.

"They were not happy, they thought they named a Stark bastard king, not a Targaryen" Sansa said cooly. Her demeanor changes, from the icy look she had a few moments ago to something that Ned doesn't quite recognize. "A deal had to be made to keep them loyal to Jon"

Ned didn't like the sound of that, and the way that Arya face knitted itself in worry, and disgust, it seemed like she also knew he wouldn't like it.

"They wouldn't support a King without direct ties to the Starks" bile filled his throat as he realized in horror where this was going. He brought a hand to his eyes and rested his head on his knees. "Jon and I have agreed to marry" Sansa finished without any emotion to show what she thought of that.

Ned opens and closes his mouth several times before he can bring himself to say something. How could this happen? How could both of his children agree to this? Another thought strikes at him, and no matter how unlikely it is, he must know "Jon….Jon isn't forcing you to do this is he?"

Sansa's face contorts in fierce anger for just a brief moment before she composes herself. "No, he did not" she says finally, "I was the one who suggested it" she leaned back in her chair and said, more to herself than anyone "I will at least finally be married to a good man"

"You've been married before?" Ned demands, anger now replacing the confusion that had been there previously "To bad men?"

In lieu of answering him Sansa simply stands and goes to look out the window. "You will explain Jon's heritage to everyone tomorrow" she looks back to him from the window "Before the King arrival" He knows an order when he hears one, and he knows this is one that honor demands that he follow. "You will not speak of the betrothal" she turns completely "Jon and I will make that announcement"

"Sansa you don't have to do this" he says, and the look on her face tells him that he has said the wrong thing.

Her hands curl into fists as she says "Father, to be perfectly honest with you. You don't know what is truly going on here" she marches forward to where she is just in front of him "Jon also told me the same thing, but we must do this to keep the North together and prepared for all of the wars to come"

He has to press ahead though, to try to get her see reason "Sansa please" he doesn't get any further.

"Father, please stop" she had knelt down and his looking directly into his eyes now. "Jon will treat me right, which is more than my other two husbands have done" Pain and regret grips his heart, and he wishes that he had never gone south, and had instead stayed in Winterfell. Then his children would never have been put into this position "matches like this are common across Westeros, and there is history of it in our own family" She justifies it, like they hadn't been raised as brother and sister.

He swallowed and while he did not accept it, he knew that Sansa had her reasons and while he would continue this conversation later, it would not be now "Okay Sansa" he says.

She has stood and moves away from him and bids him goodnight. She also reminds him to tell Catelyn, Robb, and Rickon of Jon's true heritage before he arrives the following day. It's a conversation he is not looking forward to.

He makes his way to Ser Rodrik's old room, and slides under the furs with Catelyn, she is already asleep, but sleep does not come to him. Instead he worries about the future, the future of his children, the future of the North now that Jon claims that the ancient threat of the White Walkers are not only true, but that they are returning. His worries for all of them keep him from having a restful slumber.

Arya looks up from the Needle as she sharpens it. Her sister has returned to her desk, and sits trying her to get through the remaining letters and reports strewn across it. It has been a very long night, and Arya still can't quite come to terms with how it has happened. How has the family that she watched die come back, she watched her father be beheaded, she watched the Frey soldiers gallivant around with Robb's body at the Twins. How was it possible? She sighed and went back to sharpening her blade.

Their return changes nothing, Cersei and all of the others who had contributed to her families near downfall still had to be cleaned off of her list, but that would have to wait, until after this new war. She was pulled out of her own thoughts as Sansa began to speak "Thank you for your support, I'm not sure what I would have done without you"

"Sansa you are one of the smartest people I know, you would have figured something out" and she means it when she says that. While Sansa still acts the way a proper lady would be expected to, the naïve Sansa that had gone south had been molded into a shrewd politician, who had been able to remove Littlefinger from the picture without alienating the Vale and was working to bring the Riverlands back into the Stark alliance.

She looks down at the papers strewn across the desk "Sometimes I feel like I'm one of the stupidest people in Westeros" she admits. That had been something she had heard from her after the announcement of the betrothal to Jon, and she still had to fight a pang of disgust when it was brought up, but she had gotten over it when Bran had assured her that that was the only way that they could keep the North truly loyal to Jon. And even then, she was only now coming around to the idea, nearly full moons turn since their announcement.

"Mother won't be pleased about the betrothal" Arya comments wearily, if Arya had to be convinced, how would their mother, who hated Jon for simply being born?

"Mother will come around or she won't" Sansa said looking up from her papers "And like I told Father, at least Jon will be nice". Arya knew better of what had actually happened to Sansa during her time married to Ramsay Bolton, based on the idle gossip of the servants and maids who tended to the Starks, and none of it deserved to be repeated.

"I'm with you Sansa, I'll help you in anyway I can convince the rest of them" She thought it odd for a passing moment that they were not concerned about Robb's opinion on the matter, but she figured that that would be Jon's concern on how to handle that.

Sansa smiled a true smile, which was something that was so rare since Arya had returned "Thank you Arya" Arya can't help but smile.

Sansa looks down at her papers and sighs "I'm not going to get anything else done tonight she resigns herself" she stands from the desk, and unwrinkles her skirt "I'm going to turn in for the night, good night, Arya"

"Goodnight Sansa" Arya returns. She returns to her own chambers, and worries for the days to come, their fathers reaction had her concerned, and she was worried over whether Robb would try to oppose Jon's throne. If he did, she didn't know what she would do. Robb had lost the North, and Jon had regained it. But Robb was a Stark, and Jon was a lost Targaryen prince. If Robb took the throne, at least Sansa and Jon would not have to marry. But then again, there was a sinking suspicion that the marriage between the two of them did not bother either of them the way it should have. Arya didn't want to dwell on that so she didn't, and instead rolled over and forced herself to sleep.