Eddard paces up and down his bedroom as his wife sighs at his annoying behaviour.
"It's not that hard to understand, Ned. Robert is coming here. He'll be here in three days time, I really don't know what you are freaking out about!" Catelyn throws her hands up in an exasperated fashion and storms towards the window. Looking out over her realm she calms slightly before turning back to Ned.
"What does he want? Why does he come at such a time?"
"Perhaps he wants to make you his new hand?" Catelyn suggests. Ned rolls his eyes and mimes vomiting at the thought of it. Him? The king's hand? Ridiculous. Not only does he not want to be the king's hand, he wouldn't make a good king's hand. Besides, his place is here, in winterfell, raising his family.
Noticing her husband's reluctance to even think about the benefits of accepting Robert's proposition she softly whispers, "At least think about it." With that she dashes out of the room, he elegant dress flowing out behind her.
Ned sighs and thinks about all of the reasons why he needs to stay in Winterfell. Winter is coming, and with it, the worst winter known to man. He needs to be here for when disaster strikes. He needs to stay for his family. For Robb, Rickon, Arya, Sansa and Jon.
Jon. His bastard child.
Just the thought of Jon causes him to sigh. He has failed that boy more times than he can count and this saddens him.
Ned puts all thoughts out of his mind and continues on with his boring paper work and organising. After a few hours he is interrupted.
"Lady Stark desires your company at dinner, My lord."
Not bothering to look and see who it is he simply waves them away and stands to leave. Ned waddles down the stairs, fixing his shirt and pants to make himself more presentable.
He doesn't say much at dinner, and he can tell that his children know. He ignores them all, though, except for Jon. He idly watches Jon, who is just as silent as him, as he eats his dinner. Catelyn ignores him and he only answers questions from his siblings with a curt nod or firm shake of the head. His new direwolf, 'Ghost' Ned thinks his name is, lays at Jon's feet. His eyes somehow looked tired and alert at the same time, his body slightly tensed, ready to leap into action should the need arise.
Dinner was a dull affair and Ned finds himself happy to slink back to his quarters. He falls asleep instantly, not even bothering to say goodnight to his wife, too busy with his raging thoughts on what could happen when Robert appears.
Three days later King Robert arrives with his royal party. Ned forces a smile onto his face and welcomes Robert warmly.
"Your Grace, such a pleasure to see you," Catelyn says from beside Ned. Robert completely ignores her, whether consciously or unconsciously Ned would never know.
"Ned! So good to see you again!" Robert laughs heartily and throws his arms around his old friend. Ned forces himself to reciprocate the hug and awkwardly laughs along with him.
"Yes, it's wonderful to see you as well," Gesturing to his wife, "and you remember my wife, Catelyn." At this moment Ned takes his time to look over the king's royal party and is pleased to note that Jaime Lannister, the kingslayer, is absent from the group.
"Ah yes, Lady Catelyn, nice to see you again," Robert turns back to Ned quickly, "Now Ned, we simply must go to the crypts, I need to pay my respects."
Ned glances at Cersei and sees her tighten her lips, and her eyes harden. Turning back to his king, Ned simply smiles and leads the way to the crypts where Robert visits his one and only love, Lyanna Stark.
The walk is silent and awkward, and Ned is relieved when they finally reach the crypts. Robert is silent as he finds Lyanna's statue and gently presses a feather into her hand.
"You've never stopped loving her," Ned quietly remarks a few feet away from where Robert stands.
"I've tried many times, with many women, but no body even begins to compare to her beauty as a woman," Robert states. His eyes meet Ned's and Ned knows that Robert has probably slept with every woman in all of the seven kingdoms to come to that knowledge.
As they leave the crypts Robert stop Ned for a minute and pulls him over so that the trees cover them.
"I must confess that I had bigger intentions for this trip than just paying my respects," Robert begins uneasily. Ned watches him silently waiting as the king struggles over what words to use. Finally Robert decides to just dive in, head first, "I want you to become the king's hand, my hand."
Ned watches Robert and all he can think about is the fact that Catelyn was right.
"I... Oh Ned, it's so boring! I can hardly stay awake during any meetings.. I just.. Cersei has said that I needed to think about who could be my new hand and I thought... Why not Ned? I trust you Ned. I need someone that I can trust in my council..."
Ned takes a deep breath, "Would you please allow me some time to think things through? I would need to consider what has to be done about Winterfell.. and my family.. There are a lot of things to consider."
Robert seems a bit taken aback, he was expecting a straight answer, a yes, but Ned wants some time to think about it.
"Um sure yeah. Take some time to .. think things over. I cannot stay for a week, though. I will have somebody come for your answer one week from tomorrow."
With that they both head back to the castle, a tense atmosphere surrounding them.
Jaime POV - three days earlier
How trivial. The king, fool as he is, has never ordered something quite like this. Fifteen of his men in the kingsguard told to capture some male prostitute from some brothel on the outskirts of the city. Jaime had been the one to lead the 'mission'. How boring.
Arriving at the correct place they all dismount from their horses.
"You two there! Go further down the road, as backup, in case something happens," Jaime commands two men that he couldn't be bothered to learn the names of. He then turns to the front of his group and signals for two men to knock on the door, while the rest stay near the horses. Jaime himself slinks into the trees to watch everything happen from afar, and to have the element of surprise on his side.
The door opens and all he can hear are muffled voices before the door shuts. The voices grow louder so Jaime moves himself into a position where he can hear everything that's going on.
The door opens again and he can now see the woman that has opened the door, "I am very sorry but we are not sure who you want to find, we have no teenage boys like that in our establishment."
Jaime's men nod slightly with evil smiles on their faces and gestures to the men behind them, "Then you won't mind if we just have a closer look ourselves, correct?'
The woman has no time to reply as the kingsguard storm into the brothel and start turning everything over looking for this kid. Honestly, Robert could have given a better description of the task at hand. He hadn't even given Jaime a name of who he was supposed to find. He had simply said "Go here and find this kid with black hair and green eyes, he's probably 10 and 6 name days."
Jaime wished he could turn back time, punch the king in the face, and declare that he wouldn't take on this stupid job in the first place.
His attention is brought back to the present as his men come back out, dragging a teenager of the correct description out of the brothel. Jaime blushes slightly and looks shocked at what he finds. This is Percy. Percy Jackson. Jaime still remembers the amazing night he had spent with Percy last year. As payment he had spilled all his dark and terrible secrets to do with his sister and their children.
Jaime can't stop all the memories of their amazing night together, and starts blushing. He is instantly enraged at himself, he isn't a virgin! Why is he acting like this for some common whore!
His close slightly and his hand instinctively moves to the front of his pants. Then he remembers where he is and what he's supposed to be doing. Snapping his eyes open he forces himself to calm down. Taking a deep breath he looks towards the fight, only slightly surprised that Percy is promptly beating the shit out of his men.
Percy has a bronze, 3 foot long sword in his hand and is making quick work of his entire team. Stepping out from the trees Jaime stands nice and tall, refusing to look small and weak.
"Percy Jackson, so nice to see you again. Perhaps, once you've calmed down and are safely tucked away in your little cage I brought you, you wouldn't mind meeting me again." I wink at him suggestively, "But first.. You've been a naughty kid, and you need to be punished."
Percy laughs slightly, a beautiful laugh, and just shakes his head at Jaime. "Oh how I missed your punishments Jaime, too bad that today we are enemies."
Percy steps closer to Jaime and raises his sword to meet his first strike. They soon join together in an elegant and deadly dance of swords. Jaime is mesmerised by the sway of Percy's hips and the way his eyes light up with a fire.
A clever flick of his sword and Jaime's sword strikes Percy. It's only his left shoulder and the cut is pretty shallow, it will heal within a week at most, but the sword had also cut through the boy's shirt. Jaime's concentration is thrown out the window as Percy's beautiful skin is shown to him. His hands go weak, and he drops his sword hoping to lick the sweat off of the boy's body.
Percy on the other hand, has other ideas. With one flick of his wrist he strikes Jaime, not hard enough to kill him, but bad enough to end the fight in Percy's win. By this time some of Jaime's men that weren't killed, only knocked out, start to groan and push themselves off of the ground.
Percy flees into the forest as Jaime's men gather around their fallen leader.
Jaime pushes them away angrily, "It's just a scratch you fools. Where is the kid!?"
Silence is his answer and he sighs before pushing himself to his feet.
"Move! Move!" He shouts angrily as he mounts his horse, "We must go back to the king and report your failure on this mission."
What's left of his men scramble to mount their horses and they ride hurriedly to Winterfell.