Three: Grey Eyes & Realizations

Ned

Ned Stark refuses to move. He can't.

Catelyn Stark lays in the same four-poster bed unconscious, just has she has for the past day and a half.

Ned refuses to leave their chambers. He's terrified that if he leaves the room he'll return to find Catelyn gone.

He twines a lock of his wife's auburn hair around his finger. Catelyn's hair was the first thing he noticed about her. Ned can still remember it, the way her hair seemed to glow in the sunlight. Back when she stood at Brandon's side rather than his.

The same hair that adorns the heads of the two sleeping children down the hall. Unaware and innocent. Ned hasn't seen Robb and Sansa in two days, not since Catelyn gave birth but he has heard them. He listens to the stories Old Nan tells them before bed, Robb's curious questions as to his parents' whereabouts and Maester Luwin's skillful evasions.

The Lord of Winterfell scoops up the babe who has been resting a wooden cradle.

He cards a single finger through her single dark curl. Her curls aren't the same as Robb's. The girl's were chestnut rather than copper. Like Jon's.

The single dark curl stands out against her pale skin, a spill of ink against parchment.

She can fit in the palm of my hand, Ned marvels.

Ned doesn't remember Jon or Sansa ever being this small. And he never laid eyes on Robb until he was nearly half a year old.

She was born too soon, the midwife had explained.

It was why the infant was so small, so frail.

He wonders if she will always be tiny.

Robb had always been taller than most of the lads his age and Sansa not much shorter than Jon, despite the years between them.

She doesn't seem frail, he thinks, as the newborn babe stares up at him with the steely grey that characterizes House Stark.

Small, but not weak.

Maester Luwin remarked that she resembled him, while Robb and Sansa took after their lady mother.

The little girl did have look of the Starks, with their wintery grey eyes and dark curls.

She does have my look. Ned thinks.

And father's, and Brandon's and Lyanna's. But he never said that part aloud.

Ned's chest tightens. I can't lose her. I can't have another pair of grey eyes close forever, haunting me. Not again.

The babe stares at back at her father, defiant, as she if she knows what he is thinking and is affronted by it. "You're a fighter, aren't you, little wolf?" He whispers to the bundle in his arms. His daughter gurgles in agreement. "Winter is hard, but the Starks endure. And so will you." He smoothes down her single dark curl. "There is wolfs blood in your veins." He swears that the babe smiles at him. "You are too stubborn to go down without a fight."

And with that, she opens her mouth and lets out a cry. Startled by the noise, Ned rocks her back and forth trying to calm her, but still, his little wolf howls on.

Ned desperately tries to remember what Catelyn would do when the others cried.

Rob had been a happy child, and when he cried, the mere sight of Catelyn had usually calmed him. Sansa had rarely complained, she was quiet and demure. And when she did it, she sounded more like a sad song than the howling cries her sister was currently making.

Ned thinks he can count on one hand the number of times he heard Jon cry. The boy had always been solemn little thing. As if he was all too aware of the darkness surrounding his birth.

"Hush now, love," he tries. "You'll wake your sibling up."

Still, she cries.

"Please? For me?"

Her wails become slightly softer, not that it helps much. How can someone so small make such a loud sound?

He will need to inform Maester Luwin that he no longer need be concerned about her lungs being underdeveloped.

"Ned?" a voice croaks.

He whips around to see his wife struggling upright on feeble arms. "No, Cat," he rushes to her side, trying to get her lay back and calm the restless child at the same time. He fails at both, for both of them are stubborn and carry on.

Like mother like daughter.

"Give me my child, Ned."

"Please lie back, Cat."

"Eddard."

Ned complies, handing over the squalling bundle of blankets. He always does when his wife uses his full name. It makes the Lord of Winterfell feel like Robb, being scolded for swiping sweets from the kitchen or throwing snowballs at his sister.

"A girl." He tells her, gingerly placing the squalling bundle in her outstretched arms.

"She has the Stark look."

"Aye."

She holds the little girl to her breast, gently shushing her, whispering sweet nothings into her dark hair until the babe quiets and peers up at her mother with curious grey eyes.

"What does Maester Luwin say?" His wife whisper's, her blue eyes never straying from the bundle in her arms.

"That she was born early."

Catelyn looks up at her solemn husband; her Tully blue eyes lit with indignation.

"I am quite aware of that seeing as I was present for the birth."

He nods helplessly. "I remember."

"Good. Now tell me what the Maester said when I was no longer… present. Coddling me will do no good."

Ned gaze shifts nervously around the room.

"Please, Ned."

He sighs and rubs a hand down his long face. "He says that because she was born so soon, she didn't have enough time to grow. That she is small, too small. He is worried that she may not…"

"May not be strong enough?"

Ned swallows, giving a barely perceptible nod, not meeting his wife's gaze.

Catelyn's gaze shifts back to her daughter.

"He's wrong," she whispers.

The Lord of Winterfell looks up at that, his grey eyes meeting her blue ones. "The other night, before she was born, you told me that she had wolfsblood. Fierce and wild and willful." She smiles down at her daughter. "Look at her, Ned. She's a fighter. And I have never known a Stark to give up without a fight."

Ned looks at her like she was a rare miracle.

This woman whom he married as barely more than strangers, out of duty rather than love. But it didn't feel like duty, not anymore.

Catelyn was beautiful, she has always been beautiful, but now, watching her with her auburn waves having long since fallen loose of their braid, swirling around her like flames, as she hums a tune and rocks her daughter, their daughter.

He watches the scene desperately trying to sear it into his mind because he does not ever want to forget this moment.

"I love you."

His voice is hushed, soft, as if he were speaking inside a sept.

The words should sound foreign to him, but they don't. The words sound like home.

Catelyn looks over at him, her soft smiling growing until it's all he sees.

"I love you too."

Ned leans over, his torso angled awkwardly so as not crush her or the babe, and kisses her, Catelyn's lips rising to meet his.

He tangles his hand in her auburn waves while leaning on the other one his body twisted uncomfortably so as not crush the babe between them. Catelyn's lips are chapped, and his beard scratches her cheeks.

It is raw and flawed and real, like them.

They only break apart when the babe between them wakes with a howl.

Catelyn pulls away with a small laugh.

"I think our little wolf may be hungry."

Ned chuckles at that. "I wish you luck. It took the wet nurse nearly three hours to get her to feed. Claimed she was the most stubborn babe she ever nursed."

Catelyn shakes her head in mock exasperation at the crying little girl. "You will never make things easy for us, will you?"

And Ned swears he sees his daughter smile.