Alys

There was a light breeze coming through the mountain as she looks over the eight piles of stone. Eight piles for eight of the nine deaths at the Tower of Joy, a name that seems no longer fits this small place.

Lyanna's was not in the cairns, she was coming with them. Returning to Winterfell.

She'd argued with Ned that they shouldn't leave the rest here, in the middle of nowhere, far from their homes and family. But he'd shook his head, and told her they couldn't take them all. He wouldn't even tell her much about the battle beyond that it happened and that Howland had saved his life against Arthur Dayne. He wouldn't answer much beyond that, and Alys found she didn't wish to ask for fear of the answers.

She presses a hand to the stones that buried the Sword of the Morning, and whispers a prayer. He'd been kind, especially it seemed to Lyanna. Alys had thought him a good man. The other two kingsguard she hadn't been as fond of, though despite all that they had allowed her to stay even if they'd not seemed overtly pleased with it.

Regardless of her feelings of them all, it seemed like too much death.

She was tired of death.

It seems all that has come from Lyanna and Rhaegars actions is death. Death of father, and Brandon. The deaths of countless in rebellion and war. The death of a king. Of northmen. The deaths of all but two Kingsguard. The death of Rhaegar himself, and the death of Lyanna.

She longed for it to stop.

She hoped this was the end of it.

Howland and Ned had spent the better part of the day working on these cairns. While Alys had busied herself tending Lya's son, as best she could.

It was a great relief when Oberyn arrived with a wet-nurse in tow. He hadn't gotten a midwife, as apparently at Starfall the Lady Ashara was in her own birth and they couldn't spare her. But it mattered little now it seemed, as it would have been too late anyway and all they need now is the wet-nurse.

"I'll be heading for Starfall in the morning," Ned tells her, walking up beside her. "To deliver Dawn back to them."

"You should be taking his body as well." Alys states, earning a sigh from her brother.

"I'm only one man, as it seems Howland is intent on continuing on with you." He's frowning, though she doesn't actually look to confirm. "You should head north, right away. Not to Sunspear."

Now she is the one to frown, "I gave my word to Prince Doran, and to Elia."

After Oberyn's return she'd told Ned of her other reasoning for fleeing Kings Landing. She said only what she'd put in the letter she'd meant to send, that the babe Aegon had passed on the journey and that the Martells only wanted peace for Rhaenys and Elia. He'd seemed hurt that she'd hidden them from him, but she'd been (and still is) too tired to keep herself from pointing out that if she'd told him he would have informed Robert. And they would all be dead.

"I know," Ned says.

"And besides, traveling by sea is faster." She reminds him, "we'll be able to get Lyanna north quicker this way."

Ned just lets out a noise of acknowledgement at that before the pair are standing in silence. The sun was nearly set entirely, and Alys once again looked over the cairns. She can hear, just barely, from the tower the sound of Lya's babe crying before it's hushed away by the wet-nurse Wylla. Bringing to mind a topic they've avoided talking on since Lyanna's death.

"I'm claiming him." She says. Alys had thought on it almost exclusively after her tears ran out and she began busying herself with the boy. Then when Oberyn arrived he'd offered her an easy way to hide him. They'd say he was born in Sunspear from her, that when she left Kings Landing she was doing so not only to help Elia but out of discovery that she was pregnant.

They'd have to say that Ned found Lyanna alone, he'd come to Sunspear after he's done at Starfall and they'd all travel to Kings Landing together.

But that only works if Ned agrees.

"No," he says, his head turning to look at her.

She meets his gaze and summons all the sternness in her. "I am. I'm claiming him as my son, I can say I hid the pregnancy while in Kings Landing, I didn't socialize much those last few months outside a few people. And my dresses are modest enough it wouldn't have been impossible to hide." She faces him entirely, hoping to convey how serious she is about this. "I can say I gave birth in Sunspear, that Elia was the only person I told in Kings Landing."

"And if people question about the father?"

"I'll say it doesn't matter, that he's dead or gone." She crosses her arms over herself, "if they question further I'll say he was some guard I grew close with. Nearly no one paid enough attention my way to notice."

"It should be me," Ned says, "it wouldn't be unbelievable that I fathered a bastard during the war."

"Except that you are married, Ned," she tells him, "and not the sort of man to bed someone other than your wife."

"I'll say it happened before we wed then," he states, "some girl on the road."

"Whether it was before or after won't matter much to Catelyn," Alys says, "he'll still be a bastard of yours, that you'd raise under the same roof as her children with you. She'll likely be slower to trust you, and she'll view him as a threat to her own children. She's a kind woman, but that is a lot to ask of any lady. There is a reason lords don't raise their bastards alongside their true-born children."

Alys reaches and takes Ned's hands. "Don't start your marriage off with this strain."

"You'll be viewed unfavorably," he states, "and it will be hard for you to garner a marriage of your own."

"I don't need a marriage," she says with a sigh. "I would be happy enough, after all that's happened, to return to Winterfell and raise that boy as best I can." She looks a second towards the tower, her heart hurting at the memories it now holds. "He's all I have left of her, Ned." Tears burn at her eyes but she continues, "thus, if you claim him and I married I'd have to leave him behind. I don't know that I can do that. Especially not after losing her, I may still harbor anger for what she did but she was my sister. My twin." Grief weighed on her and she released Ned's hand long enough to wipe away a stray tear.

Ned looks over her, and she can see him working over it. And so, when she sees the reluctant acceptance in his dark grey eyes she releases a relieved sigh before taking his hand again. "Okay." He says it quietly and she smiles watery and grieving but relieved.

"Thank you, Ned." And he nods before they both head back up into the tower.

Alys looks once more to the cairns as they climb the steps, and once more whispers a silent prayer that all the death that has come to be the last of it.

Her sleep is restless that night, even despite the fact that she'd not truly slept since Lyanna went in labor.

She wakes up when the baby cries, despite Wylla telling her that she could tend him Alys still wakes and watches the Dornishwoman tend her nephew.

Son. Not in truth, but to the world he will be. She shakes away the guilt that builds, that she was claiming Lyanna's son as her own. That she'd mother him when Lyanna never would have the chance.

She dismisses Wylla after he's been fed and sits with him in her arms looking out over the view from the tower. His hair is dark, and his eyes grey like Lya's and hers. It would certainly make hiding him easier, she just hopes that he looks like a Stark as he grows as well. That he never develops any real resemblance to his father.

"You should be sleeping." She glances up to Ned stood in the doorway. She'd moved to another smaller room, not wanting to sleep within the room Lyanna had died in.

"So should you," she remarks, looking back to the boy.

"Did Lyanna name him?"

Alys shakes her head before pausing and laughing a short grief strewn sound. "Well, she named him Visenya, I suppose. But that was before he was born, when she thought he was a girl. She never got the chance to give him any other name." Her voice turns quiet, thinking of Lya's last hours. She wondered if it would ever fail to bring grief to her heart.

"It won't work for him." Is all Ned says.

"No," she agrees, "no Targaryen name will." She brushes a gentle finger over his face as he sleeps. "I'm thinking something simple, and common. Nothing too attention drawing."

"Like what?" He asks, his own gaze on the boy.

She shrugs with a sigh before thinking through the names she knows. She looks again to Ned and offers, "Jon, maybe? It's common enough. And if people want meaning, well, Jon Arryn was the man who could have killed you when Aerys decreed it, but didn't. That's meaningful to me."

"Jon." Ned repeats, moving closer and looking down at the boy.

"He'd be a Snow," she says, "even though he was born in Dorne, he'll be raised in the North."

"Jon Snow." Ned states, looking to meet Alys's gaze.

"Jon Snow," she repeats, a gentle smile to her face as she looks back to him. "It's got a nice enough sound to it."

Returning to Sunspear was a simple enough journey. And a quick one, which Alys was grateful for. Ned departed earlier than them, and Alys had hugged him tight before he'd mounted his horse and rode off towards Starfall. They did not linger in Hellholt this time, simply returning to the ship they'd left behind and sailing back down towards the sea. Ned would sail from Starfall after delivering Dawn; meeting them in Sunspear hopefully only a week or so after their own arrival.

The city of Sunspear is a welcome sight as they sail in. Oberyn disembarks first, meeting the guard and soon they're all escorted to the Martells keep. Doran, Elia and Rhaenys had moved back over a week ago, after Oberyn had written from Hellholt of their return. Aegon was still at the Water Gardens though, hidden away like he was some random babe toddling about the pools and not the heir to House Targaryen.

Alys settles into a room with Jon and Wylla in a smaller nursery attached. She settles herself alone after a evening speaking with Oberyn and Doran on the younger princes offer to help in hiding Jon as her bastard. Elia finds her soon after her they've finished, Alys sitting with Jon on the balcony of her room overlooking a little garden in the Old Palace as the sun finishes setting.

Elia was alone though right now as she sits beside Alys and peers down at Jon. It reminds Alys of her nerves when she'd first met the Dornish princess. Worried that she'd hate her because of what Lyanna did. She knows better to judge Elia that way, the princess had always been kind and compassionate. And she never held Alys to her sister's actions.

But Jon was the results of those actions. More a part of it than Alys had been.

He was the evidence of what Lyanna and Rhaegar had done. The hurt that it had caused the kingdoms and Elia herself.

But Elia smiles down at him, though Alys does note that there are hints of hardness to her gaze that don't overwhelm her look but add layers to it. "He's got the Stark look."

"Yes," Alys nods, "of which I'm grateful for."

Elia nods and Alys knows she's probably thinking of Aegon, who because of his resemblance to Rhaegar can't be easily hidden in Dorne. "And you've named him?"

"Jon." Alys says. Elia nods, a quiet hum as she looks over the babe. Alys simply rocks him gently and waits for Elia to say more, though she doesn't.

Finally tired of the quiet she speaks herself, "thank you. For agreeing to help me hide him."

"He's as innocent in this as Rhaenys and Aegon." Elia states, "he did not choose his parents, nor their choices that led to him."

"No," Alys agrees, "but still, thank you."

"You're welcome, Alys." Elia reaches and takes one of Alys's hands to squeeze. "It's a lot, what you're deciding to do. Are you ready to be a mother? And for what it will require you to give up? Especially as a mother to a bastard."

"Highborn ladies have had bastards before," Alys states. "And it matters little whether I am ready, I doubt Lyanna was ready and yet she was prepared to do so before she… I am prepared as well." She looks over Jon. "I'll care for him, never let him feel unloved. Keep him safe, no matter what."

"That's good." Elia nods, "but you didn't answer on your thoughts for what you'll be giving up."

"I'll be going home, I'll be with family." Alys says, meeting Elia's eyes. "I'd yet to be betrothed and most likely if Jon wasn't here Robert or Lord Arryn could have proposed a marriage in place of Lyanna, as it's not all that different than Ned marrying Catelyn Tully." She sighs and returns to looking at Jon, "now that won't be a problem. Jon will protect me from any unwanted marriages."

It was something she was grateful for. She'd never thought foully of arranged marriages before, she'd known it to be the way of things. She'd never truly given her own marriage much thought beyond the fact that someday down the line her father would choose a man and she'd do her duty. She didn't have Lyanna's same yearning for romance and a real love. Alys would have been happy with a keep to manage and a husband who treated her and their children kindly.

But lately, her thoughts of marriage was more something to dread. She supposes the way Lyanna had dreaded marriage to Robert. Alys was fearful of marrying someone she didn't know. She could see how arranged marriages had affected people, and not always in positive ways. Elia had been married to Rhaegar, yet that didn't stop him from pursuing Lyanna. Catelyn was meant to marry Brandon, but was now soon to deliver Ned's child. Robert, despite wanting Lyanna as a wife so greatly that he'd go to war, had never let it still his pursuing of other women or fathering of a bastard. And if Alys had returned with no means of refusing she likely would have ended up like Ned, married to the betrothed of a sibling.

No, she was quite content with the thought of not marrying.

Then Elia squeezes her hand and asks, "and what about wanted marriages?" Alys's gaze moves back up to Elia, her dark eyes comforting and seeing her far deeper than she'd recalled. "If you fell in love, but now it is not an option because you've chosen to claim him as your bastard."

"There's no one—" Alys says.

"Not even Jaime?" Elia interrupts softly. And Alys is blinking at the princess, a furrow between her brows as she looks her over. "You two grew quite close."

"He's a kingsguard. He can't marry." She states, and Elia's little smile makes her realize that his vows, which he'd already broken when he killed Aerys, were the first protest she had. Not her own feelings, which she hadn't even denied.

"He was a kingsguard to House Targaryen." Elia points out. "Perhaps he'll be released from his vows. Plus I imagine Tywin Lannister is pushing for exactly that, it was never any secret that Aerys brought Jaime into the kingsguard to scorn his Hand."

"But…" Alys shakes her head trying to work through her thoughts on what Elia has now put into her mind, or at least put into the focus of her mind. But Elia simply smiles further, though it seems a rather serious sort of smile.

"It's something to think on, Alys, hard." Elia states and Alys is suddenly reminded for the first time in their friendship that Elia has near ten years on her in age. "Because right now Jon is still a secret, you can change your mind and your brother could claim him or some other decision could be made to protect him."

And Elia squeezes her hand once more before releasing it, she looks to Jon again and smiles, still a hard sort of sadness to it that continues when she turns it back to Alys. "Goodnight," Elia says and then Alys is once again alone with Jon looking over Sunspear's gardens as the moon begins it's ascent.

It seems Alys has become doomed to suffer no restful nights as she turns over for what must be the hundredth time in the evening.

It's been three days in Sunspear, word of Ned sailing out for Sunspear arrived the other day and Oberyn said it was likely he'd arrive in another day or so if the weather was good.

Though Alys does not feel that it is Ned that is causing her restlessness.

It's Elia, and what she spoke of.

And in a way it is Jaime.

She misses again his presence in her bed and that only makes her think further on what Elia had said. They had grown close, but it had never seemed to be a romantic sort of closeness.

Or at least, she hadn't noticed it as such before.

Though in truth what did Alys know of romance, save what she's heard in song and story.

She knows her mother and father loved each other, but their love wasn't romance, not like the songs. They'd married out of duty, not love itself. But she knows they'd been fond of each other, at least she believes they had been. She can remember them being fond with each other.

Brandon and Catelyn had seemed on their way to love. She can recall all the times while she had stayed at Riverrun that she'd seen her brother make Catelyn blush and laugh. It had seemed so sweet, even Lyanna had looked at it with awe. But they never had the chance to truly fall in love, and now Brandon was dead and Catelyn was married to Ned.

Was she falling in love with Ned? Would she be able to?

Robert had claimed love of Lyanna, and Lyanna had claimed some love of Rhaegar though Alys figures that was more love of the freedom he represented even though it was a false freedom in the end. She also supposes it best not to think of love when it comes to Lyanna's suitors. None of it had seemed right and in the end it all became a mess, or perhaps it always had been one.

How was she thinking of Jaime in the frame of love?

She cared for him, much so. But was it love? Or even the way to it?

If it was, was there anything she could truly do about it?

His presence was a comfort, and she cares for him, and she longs for his company once more and has since leaving Kings Landing. She worries for him, greatly, and now wonders: is that love?

A cry cuts her overthinking short. She turns her head towards the nursery and rises from bed to head to it despite the fact that she knows Wylla can manage Jon well on her own and will likely tell her as much.

Wylla is rocking him while she walks in little circles, the wet-nurses eyes moving to Alys and the light chastising look Alys now recognizes as Wylla's way of telling her she doesn't need to fuss, especially now. But Alys dismisses it, "what's wrong?"

"Seems just a nightmare," Wylla states, "he ate not long ago so it's not that."

Alys holds her arms out for him, "I can rock him," she states. "I wasn't asleep anyhow."

Wylla's eyes narrow a second before she nods and Alys settles Jon against her, rubbing a gentle hand to his back as she heads back into her own room to leave Wylla to resettle in her bed.

She walks steadily along the balcony, back and forth, all while rocking Jon as he cries against her shoulder and slowly he seems to settle. His cry turning to hiccups and then to the quiet breath of sleep against her skin.

Instead of returning him to his cradle in the nursery she settles him carefully onto her bed and crawls onto it beside him, laying on her side to watch him carefully. She can see the gentle rise of his chest against the thin blanket he's wrapped in and occasionally his mouth moves like he's suckling at invisible milk. She can't help but smile softly at him.

Her mind slowly drifts back to where it had been before.

Perhaps, the way she feels for Jaime could, if nurtured, be love. Perhaps he'll be released from the kingsguard and she could confess her bubbling feelings and they could wed. Perhaps she'd have the romance and love that her sister longed —and died— for.

But could she do it at the cost of Jon?

He lets out a soft noise in his sleep and her hand goes to gently run over his head in comfort. And as she watches him sleep, her own breath evening and her own eyes slowly growing heavy, she knows her answer.

She cares so much for Jaime. She longs for his comfort and his company. And, if given the option, someday she could see herself loving him so greatly.

But she already loves Jon, perhaps more than she loves herself or anything before him, and for all she longs for Jaime and cares for him. She knows that Jon needs her more.

So the answer is settled in her heart as she drifts away beside him into a restful sleep.

Thank you for reading!

As always thank you so much for all your amazing reviews, I always love seeing what you guys think of the chapter and the story in general as well as your opinions of characters!

And for all the people missing Jaime (including me) don't worry! He'll make his return next chapter!