AN: Since some reviews mentioned it, I just want to make clear that Sansa, Arya and Theon do not know about R+L=J. During the Battle of Winterfell (the point of divergence), only Bran, Sam, Jon and Dany knew. Sansa, Arya and Theon all have incomplete knowledge of what has happened.

"Maester Luwin," said Ned gravely. "What are your thoughts on the Others?"

"That they didn't exist, my lord," said Luwin simply. "There was one work that suggested that the Others might be some mythicised memory of a tribe of First Men, living so far north to almost be in the Lands of Always Winter. The work itself has been discredited, but I have always thought it to be more likely than a race of ice-men."

Ned tapped his fingers against his desk and asked, "And what would you say if I told you I have proof that not only they existed, but that they still do?"

Maester Luwin hesitated. "Do you have proof, my lord?"

"I may," said Ned. "I am still waiting for confirmation, but I'm willing to trust the information for the moment."

"Then…" Maester Luwin paused, recollected himself, then went on. "Then I would have to begin doing research, my lord. I never payed much mind to the stories of the Long Night."

"Perhaps it is time to change that," suggested Ned.

"Perhaps it is, yes," agreed Luwin. "Are you quite confident in your evidence, my lord?"

The far-away look in Arya's eyes, the cynicism in Sansa, the way Theon's hands shook… They were not the same children they had been only a day ago. "I think so, yes."

"It has been a long summer," noted Luwin." "The Citadel believes it will be a long winter, too. Even without interference from… the Others -" Luwin tugged at his chain nervously – "it will still be a long and difficult winter. Perhaps the first thing you should do in preparation is to increase the stockpiling of grain. It will be useful even if your – information – proves untrue."

"Thank you, Maester Luwin," said Ned. "I will send word to the lords of the North today, and write to the King. There is a good chance we will need to be resupplied from the South, regardless of how well we stockpile and ration ourselves." As Luwin bowed his head in agreement, there was a knock on the door. "Who is it?" he called.

"It's Robb, Father," replied his son, voice muffled through the thick door. "There's more you should know."

Ned dismissed Luwin with a nod. Robb, Arya and Jon bundled into the room as Luwin left. Arya stood stick straight, while Jon radiated fury from every pore of his body. Robb had furious tears in his eyes, fists clenching and unclenching unconsciously.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Sansa wasn't entirely honest with you," said Arya bluntly. "It wasn't the Boltons who first sacked Winterfell and made Bran and Rickon flee." Ned glanced over at Jon as she spoke, but the boy didn't react to her words; he must have been filled in by his siblings.

"It was Theon!" burst out Robb, furious betrayal ringing through his voice.

"It was Theon," echoed Arya. "Robb sent him to treat with Balon Greyjoy, but Theon turned cloak and helped to take Winterfell instead."

Theon… Ned leant back in his chair, trying to take in the new information. He could still remember the boy, tiny but spitting in rage, as he was taken from his home. Perhaps he should have expected this from the moment Sansa had said the Greyjoys had rebelled once more.

"Why did Sansa lie?" he asked, keeping his voice as even as he could.

"Because she wanted to protect him," said Arya. "He helped her, once, and she's forgiven him for what he did because of it." Arya's lips curled as she spoke, unable to hide her disgust.

"Fetch Theon," he told Jon.

"And Sansa?" asked Jon. "She was with him, the last time I saw."

"If she's still with him, bring her, too," said Ned. "I want to hear every side of this before I pass judgement."

Robb stilled and Jon paused by the door at his words. Arya met his eyes without flinching, flinty and unaffected. After another moment, Jon pulled the door open and slipped out.

"Father, are you certain?" asked Robb as the door swung closed.

"I don't even know what my judgement will be yet," said Ned. "But rest assured that no matter what decision I come to, Theon will not be executed."

"What if he deserves to be?" asked Arya. "He tried to murder Bran and Rickon. Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik weren't at Winterfell when I came home, so chances are he did murder them."

"Because no crimes have been committed," said Ned. "Bran and Rickon are safe in their rooms; Ser Rodrik is in the training yards, and you just saw Maester Luwin now. Can he be executed for a victimless crime?"

"It wasn't victimless!" cried Arya. "He did it. Just because the slate has been wiped clean, doesn't mean that it never happened."

"If Theon is executed, Balon Greyjoy will rebel," said Robb. "Theon's not just a ward, he's a hostage. If Father kills him, the Iron Islands will rebel."

Arya narrowed her eyes at her brother. "You were ready to hit him just a half hour ago. You would have, if Sansa hadn't arrived."

Robb swallowed visibly, his shoulders hunching slightly. "I don't want him dead, Arya."

"Because it's not real to you," said Arya hotly. "It isn't real to either of you! But it was, and he did it, and I'm not forgetting it."

"No one is asking you to forget it," cut in Ned. "Nor is anyone asking to forgive. Theon will be punished for his actions, but Robb is right. Theon cannot be executed. You and Sansa said yourselves that Westeros had to be united to face the Others."

Arya's jaw worked, staring at him defiantly.

"Sansa said in the Great Hall that Bran must have thought that he was saving," went on Ned. "Neither Jon, Sansa nor Bran in your future, the three who had authority over him, passed the sentence. Tell me, do you think that any of them would have avoided doing their duty?"

Arya pressed her lips together before shaking her head.

Good, thought Ned. Even if he had failed to protect his children in Arya's past, then at least he had done enough that they were still living by his principles. He must have done something right, somewhere along the line.

"I would like to hear a fuller story before I pass judgement, but Theon will still face justice for his actions, even if they are not as serious as we might like," said Ned gently.

When Jon at last led Sansa and Theon back into the room, Arya glared at Theon from her spot in the corner of the room. Theon's shoulders were hunched, eyes darting around the room nervously. Sansa held his hand, rubbing circles into the back of his hand with her thumb. She let go as Theon came to stand in front of Ned's desk, stepping back to stand by Arya. Arya shot her sister a look, but Sansa ignored her, instead focusing her gaze on Ned.

"Theon," said Ned.

"Yes, my lord," said Theon, bowing his head.

"I am told that it is you who sacked Winterfell and forced Bran and Rickon to flee," said Ned.

"Yes, my lord," said Theon. "I didn't sack Winterfell, but I did take it. Robb sent me to treat with my family. He was hoping that he could use the Iron Fleet. But when I returned to the Iron Islands…" Theon broke off, turning to Robb. "I should have stayed, I should have died with you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"Theon," said Sansa, her voice gentle. Theon started at the sound of her voice and quieted.

"Go on, Theon," prompted Ned.

"When I returned to the Iron Islands, my father told me that he didn't want to treat with anyone. He was going to raid the North in revenge, and he didn't need any Green Landers – even me. I wanted to prove myself to him," said Theon. "So I took Winterfell. Bran and Rickon got away with Hodor. My sister wanted me to abandon Winterfell. She said that it was useless for an Ironborn to hold a castle so far in land… I should have listened." Theon's hands had begun shaking.

"Winterfell was reclaimed by Ramsay Snow, Roose Bolton's son," said Theon. "He was the one to sack Winterfell. He held me hostage for years. I thought I was going to die with him, until Sansa came home to Winterfell to marry him, and I had to keep her safe, I had to."

"You did keep me safe, Theon," said Sansa. She looked over to Ned. "He gave himself back up to Bolton men to give me more time to escape. If Brienne hadn't arrived, he would have been dragged back to Ramsay, and he did that willingly to keep me safe."

Ramsay… That name had come up many times. He had heard Sansa say that she had fed him to his own dogs. What sort of person Ramsay, to bring Sansa to such a point? Sansa, a lady at three, who had dreamed of marrying a prince and who had sighed over stories of Florian and Jonquil – what had happened to that happy child?

"I went back to the Iron Islands," said Theon. "My father was dead, so I supported Yara in the Kingsmoot, but my uncle, Euron, won. Yara and I sailed east and allied with the Dragon Queen, but when Yara went to retake the Iron Islands from Euron, I went North to fight for House Stark." He hesitated and glanced behind him. "For Sansa. Bran was in the Godswood during the onslaught, and I protected him there until the end."

Ned leant back in his chair. "Does anyone have anything else to add?" he asked the others, looking at Sansa and Arya.

"I do," said Sansa. She swallowed hard, and looked at her siblings. "Can we speak alone, Father?"

"Sansa…" started Arya uncertainly.

"You don't need to know this, Arya. Neither does Robb, and Theon doesn't need to hear it," said Sansa tightly.

Ned nodded at Robb, who bundled Arya out of the room. Theon followed, glancing back at Sansa worriedly. Sansa shut the door behind them before turning back to Ned. She smoothed her skirt down before running her hands through her hair. Her movements were jerky and agitated, and her hands were shaking.

At last, she took a deep breath and began to speak. "When I was wedded to Ramsay Bolton, I was told that Stannis was coming south from the Wall. If he won, I was already there to be restored as Lady of Winterfell, and if he lost, I was inside the castle to do what needed to be done."

Ned opened his mouth, even though he couldn't think of what to possibly say. A deep, distant horror ran through him, thrumming through his veins. Sansa spoke almost like she had been an assassin, ready to murder a husband in the dark.

"It was a mistake. It was a mistake on all of our parts, except Ramsay's. When I arrived in Winterfell, I despised Theon the same as Arya does now. But he was broken, Father. He barely even responded to the name Theon, because Ramsay had tortured him into being Reek, instead. And Ramsay set out to break me, too."

Bile rose abruptly in Ned's throat. He forced it back. If nothing else, he owed Sansa this: to listen, to hear her story. To hear what he hadn't protected her from.

"Joffrey had the King's Guard beat me every time Robb won a battle," said Sansa calmly. "That ultimately didn't leave any scars. Ramsay did. He left my face, because he needed the face of Ned Stark's daughter, but everywhere else… Well, he did what he liked with that, and he had a predilection for blood."

Even though her voice was deadly calm, Sansa's hands were shaking, and her bottom lip was trembling as she spoke. He couldn't help but remember the placid way Sansa had spoken about what was to happen in the future. She hadn't faltered once. Now, she shook in the face of her memories.

"I'm not telling you this to make you feel guilty," said Sansa. "I'm saying this to tell you what kind of person Ramsay Bolton was – is." Sansa's voice stumbled at last. She paused for a moment, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth as she breathed deeply through her nose. Eventually, she said, "Theon was with him for far longer than I was, but when it came to it, Theon saved me. He defied Ramsay to keep me safe, and he gave himself up to the Bolton men searching for us to give me a little more time. He came back to me in Winterfell and he protected Bran with his life.

"I'm not saying he never did anything wrong, Father," said Sansa. "He did terrible things, and I understand why Arya has not forgiven him. But I believe that what Ramsay did to him outweighs anything you can possibly do. You might take his life, but Ramsay almost took his very soul."

Ned stood up, walked around the table, and pulled Sansa into his arms. She went stiff for a moment, holding her breath, but then her arms wrapped around him and held tight. He pressed a kiss to her hair. "Never again," he murmured. "It won't happen again, Sansa. I promise you that." Promise me, Ned.

He had kept his sister's secret for fourteen years, at the cost of his reputation and the full trust of his wife. He would do what it took to keep his daughters safe now.

"I need time to make my decision," he said, releasing Sansa. "Go to your sister and brothers." Sansa nodded and slipped out the door.

Ned sighed to the empty room. What could he possibly do to Theon that hadn't already been done?

His gaze drifted to where he kept past letters from his bannermen. Rifling through them, he found the letter informing him of Domeric Bolton's death. It was still recent. Theon and Sansa had both referred to Ramsay as a Bolton, but Roose had only had one trueborn son – Ramsay must have been a legitimised bastard. There was still time, then, before Ramsay could gain any kind of power.

He sat back down at his desk, reading the letter again. And what can I do to prevent Ramsay Bolton from ever harming anyone else?

The silence in the hall outside Ned's solar was deafening. Arya couldn't help but glare at Theon from across the corridor. Theon was staring at the ground, unable to make eye contact with any of the Starks in the hallway with him.

Sansa slipped out of the solar and leant against the door, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing her lips together, breathing heavily.

"You told him about Ramsay, didn't you?" asked Theon. Sansa nodded and furiously brushed away a tear rolling down her cheek. He stepped towards her, but a death glare from Jon stopped him in his tracks. "It's okay, Sansa. He isn't here. You're safe."

"But he's alive!" burst out Sansa. "He's probably in the Dreadfort right now, training his dogs and gathering the Bastard's Boys. He'll come for us, Theon."

"He doesn't know who you are," reminded Robb.

"He knows I'm the oldest Stark daughter," said Sansa. "He'll want me for that alone. He won't stop until he has every part of the North under his grip, his to torment as he wants."

Arya grabbed Sansa's hand. "Come with me," she ordered, dragging her sister down the hall.

"Arya -" protested Sansa, but Arya cut her off with a withering look.

"We have plans to make, stupid," said Arya, glancing back at their brothers and Theon meaningfully. Sansa fell silent until Arya they arrived at Arya's chambers. Sansa sat down primly on the edge of Arya's bed, and Arya sat cross-legged next to her.

"You said you wanted Ramsay Bolton dead first," she said to Sansa. Sansa nodded. "Then let's make a plan."

"He's in the Dreadfort," said Sansa dully. "How do you plan to get to the Dreadfort to kill him?"

Arya worried her bottom lip. "Father needs to meet with his bannermen sometimes," said Arya. "If we can arrange for Father to ride to the Dreadfort, I can go with him."

"Arya…" said Sansa. "If you don't manage it, if he catches you in the act – you're not going to get out of there. He'll kill you – and that's the best case scenario."

Arya scoffed. "He won't catch me." She was Arya Underfoot, the Cat of the Canals, trained by Faceless Men – some Bolton bastard wasn't going to catch her.

"He might," insisted Sansa. "I can't let you. I won't let you fall into his hands. I won't."

"He won't catch me," repeated Arya. "He won't even have a reason to suspect me, because I'll just be a little girl as far as he knows. He won't know anything else until it's too late."

"He killed Rickon!" cried Sansa. "If anyone should have been safe from him, it was Rickon, because no one even knew where he was, but he found Rickon and he murdered him right in front of Jon. I can't lose you, too, not to Ramsay."

"Listen to me," said Arya, pulling Sansa's face around so that Sansa was looking straight at her. "You are Sansa of House Stark, Lady of Winterfell and Princess in the North. You survived Joffrey and Cersei. You retook Winterfell and you fed Ramsay Bolton to his own dogs. You outplayed Littlefinger and sentenced him to die." Sansa's eyes were teary as she stared back at Arya. "I'm Arya Stark. I escaped King's Landing when every gold cloak in the city was searching for me. I survived Harrenhal and served Tywin Lannister as his cupbearer without him realising a thing. I trained with the Faceless Men and I escaped them. If anyone can kill Ramsay before he can kill us, we can. Do you hear me, Sansa? We can do this."

"I'm so scared, Arya," whispered Sansa. "I think of everything we have to do, and I think of Petyr and Ramsay and Joffrey being out there right now, and it's like I can't breathe. There's so much to do."

"We have help," said Arya. "We have Mother and Father, Robb and Jon. We even have Theon, however much use he is. It isn't just you, Sansa."

Sansa closed her eyes and whispered to herself, "I am Sansa of House Stark, the blood of Winterfell. I can be brave."

"You are brave," corrected Arya.

Sansa opened her eyes. "Not like you."

"You could have fled to Essos and been shot of everything after you fled from Ramsay," said Arya. "I talked to Jon; I know he considered it when he first woke up. But you didn't. You went right back to Winterfell and you dragged Jon with you and you took it back for us. That was brave, Sansa. That's one of the bravest things I've ever heard of."

Sansa looked away. "We need to talk about what we're going to do about Jon Arryn."

Arya narrowed her eyes at the abrupt subject change, but let the subject drop. "We need to warn him," she said.

Sansa took a deep breath. "Do we?"

Arya frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Everything we know about the political situation in the future stems from Jon Arryn dying," said Sansa. "Father becoming Hand, the War of the Five Kings – it wouldn't have happened without Jon Arryn dying."

"So we let him die?" asked Arya, aghast.

"I -" Sansa paused, then said, "I'm scared of what will happen if we save him. Stannis and Renly will likely go to war when Robert dies either way, but who does Jon Arryn support? If he supports Stannis, do more Houses side with Stannis? What if he supports Joffrey? We don't know what kind of effect he'll have."

"Then we'll work it out," said Arya. "Gods, Arya, you're one of the most experienced people I know. If anyone can manoeuvre around Jon Arryn, it's you. It's not like he's a second Littlefinger."

"But that's another thing," said Sansa. "If we warn him, and Littlefinger gets wind of it, then he knows someone knows his plans and is interfering with them."

"He'll have to know it at some point, unless you're planning on letting things go unchanged right up until I cut his throat," said Arya.

Sansa looked down at her hands. "You're right. Of course you're right. I'm just…"

"We don't have to sign the letter," offered Arya. "If you're worried, we can even make a seal with Littlefinger's emblem on it and use that to seal it. Now that will throw Littlefinger off."

Sansa barked out a surprised laugh, then leaned over and hugged Arya. "Don't let me be too cautious," she murmured into Arya's ear. "We need to be careful, but we need to change some things. Keep me remembering that."

Arya sighed and said, "You'll have to remind me to be more careful, then."

"I will," promised Sansa.

"The first time round, in King's Landing, Father told me that we needed each other, even though we were different as the sun and the moon," said Arya. "I didn't really believe him. I never would have even dreamed of – this." She held her arms out wide to gesture around the room.

"We'll do better this time," vowed Sansa. "The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives."

When the time came for them to hear Theon's sentence, Arya stood next to Sansa. Theon was fidgeting anxiously as he waited, and Arya noticed Sansa had knitted her fingers together like she was keeping herself from reaching out to comfort him.

"After what Sansa told me, I knew there was little I could do to punish Theon," said Ned. "Even execution would not be the first time he experienced death – he has already died, and in service of Bran, at that. There is little to nothing that I could to Theon that he has not already experienced, and I have no wish to be like Ramsay Snow.

"Theon does need to make amends, however. He did serious harm to people, even if they will never know the true extent of the harm. It is for that reason I am commanding Theon to act as Ser Rodrik's squire."

"That's a boy's job," said Robb, not quite as a protest.

"It is," replied Ned blandly. "He will also aid Maester Luwin in educating Bran and Rickon. You harmed people, Theon. Now is your time to make up for it by making their lives better and easier than they were in your last life."

Arya bit her lip. It didn't feel like enough, somehow. But she couldn't help thinking of Sansa's fear of Ramsay – maybe that same fear would have to be enough punishment for Theon.

Sansa let out a happy, high-pitched squeak, throwing herself forwards to wrap Theon in a hug. He caught her at the last moment, holding her fast.

"There is one other thing," said Ned. Sansa and Theon let go of each other to look at Ned. "I want you to tell me everything you know about Ramsay Snow."

Arya smiled. Now that was something she could work with.

The candles were burning low in Sansa's chambers when she heard the knock at the door.

"Mother," greeted Sansa when she opened the door. Catelyn was standing in the hall outside, hairbrush in her hand.

"We haven't had much of a chance to talk," said Catelyn. "I thought…" She lifted the hairbrush in her hand.

Sansa felt the smile spread across the face before she could even think about it. Tears stung at her eyes. She opened the door further. "I would like that, Mother."

Catelyn smiled, surprisingly shy. Sansa led her back to the mirror, where she sat in the chair. Catelyn stood behind her, carefully unravelling the braids in Sansa's hair.

"Your father told me a little of what you said to him today," said Catelyn. "Not enough to betray your confidence, but enough for me to understand – for me to understand what you did to him."

Sansa closed her eyes, letting out a deep breath. She opened them again and met her mother's eyes in the mirror. "He was a monster."

Catelyn began to run the brush through Sansa's hair, gentle and slow. "I never wanted that for you," she said. "I hoped that you would have a marriage like mine and your father's. We may not have loved each other to begin with, but we were able to build it over the years, stone by stone."

"Ramsay would rather have torn it down and ground each stone into a dust," said Sansa.

Catelyn stopped and placed the hairbrush on the dresser. She knelt down beside Sansa and said, very seriously, "He will never touch you again. I promise you that."

Sansa swallowed hard. If Ramsay did ever come near her, Arya would murder him. Arya had already promised as much. (She wasn't so sure that Arya would go to as much trouble to rescue Theon, but at least for now if Ramsay went near Theon, he would be going near Sansa, thus incurring Arya's wrath.) It had hardly helped when Arya promised it, and neither did Catelyn's.

"I know," said Sansa, because none of her thoughts would help. Catelyn nodded, took her hand and squeezed it before standing back up and taking up the hairbrush again.

"I can't believe that my sister married you to him," said Catelyn, the hairbrush flowing through Sansa's hair once again.

Sansa's heart seized in her chest. She could tell Catelyn. She could tell her mother the truth about Petyr. It would be so, so easy to open her mouth and tell Catelyn what Littlefinger was. But she couldn't quite get the words out.

"It was a mistake," said Sansa. "I don't think she knew how – what he was. We thought that Stannis would retake Winterfell. We thought that I would be there for when Stannis came, ready to be made Lady of Winterfell. We didn't know. No one did."

"We do, now," said Catelyn. Sansa offered her a tiny smile in the mirror.

Sansa sat in silence for several moments before she said, "You shouldn't be so hard on Jon."

The steady movement of the brush in Sansa's hair faltered. "He took your birth right," said Catelyn, a hard edge to her voice. "I warned Ned time and time again. He always ignored me, but he did it. He'll do it again, in this timeline."

"He saved me," said Sansa, twisting around in her chair to look at Catelyn. "If he was what you think, he could have tossed me back out of Castle Black and handed me right back to Ramsay. He stayed with me, though, and he helped me to rally the North."

"And why was he able to leave Castle Black with you?" asked Catelyn. "He deserted. He should have been executed for it, not crowned king."

"He died," said Sansa flatly. "He was stabbed in the chest by his own men for letting the Wildlings south of the Wall, and a Red Priestess raised him from the dead. He gave his life. He fulfilled his vows, and then he came south and helped me to retake Winterfell."

"Sansa…"

"I spent years as a hostage in King's Landing, then when I escaped, I was sold to Ramsay Bolton," said Sansa, blinking back tears. "Jon was the first family member I had seen since Father was executed. I asked him where he was going to go when he left Castle Black and he insisted the right question was where we would go. He protected me when nobody else did, besides Brienne. He's a good man, Mother."

"Boy," said Catelyn, more automatically than anything. "He's a boy."

"Not for long," whispered Sansa, leaning back in her chair. She closed her eyes, letting Catelyn run the brush through her long, auburn hair. The future was rushing in on them. There was no hiding from the White Walkers, not even here.