I've made a small change to this chapter. I accidentally said that Jon had the Gift as a new fiefdom when in the last chapter I had said he got the Dreadfort. I've rectified this mistake. Enjoy the chapter!
Ever since she had arrived in Winterfell, Catelyn had always felt like a stranger. No matter how many times Ned reminded her of their five northern children, or how highly the people of their hold held her in esteem, she was always aware of how different she was from her home. She could never forgot how brusque, even rough manners were in the North, even when compared to the dreary court of the Riverlords. The cold still seeped into here bones, though a little less so than it had when she first arrived a lifetime ago.
Winterfell was her home though, and nothing could change that. She had birthed five healthy northern children and there was not so much difference between Tullys and Starks that she could not find ease among her new people. Ever since she first came to this behemoth of a fortress, her connection with its gray walls and the hard people within them had been buttressed ever stronger, again and again every year.
As she knelt in the sept however, alone as the only worshipper as usual, she felt like a stranger in her own home. More than she had for many years. And it was all the bastard's fault.
Damn you Jon Snow.
It sometimes pained Catelyn when she listened to herself. Deep within her proud Tully heart she knew she was unfair to Jon. She knew it was not right for her to condemn and judge him. He had not chosen his place in this world. Never had he asked to be Ned's son and not hers. Never has he asked to live beside her children. Sometimes, when Catelyn found an excuse to scold him, or even when she simply refused to speak to him as she passed him in the halls of their home, she remembered that what she may well be wrong. But this was not one of those times. Jon had chosen to come to Winterfell. This time it was his fault that she cursed him on her knees in her beloved sept.
When she heard that ravens from Castle Black had arrived, she had feared the worst. It had been many months, nearly a year even, since word had arrived that her husband's baseborn offspring had become Lord Commander. That alone would have sat with her badly, if it had not been for the changes to the boy's new position.
The Dreadfort given as his private fiefdom? Along with a private army of wildling savages and Black Brothers breaking their vows? Vows allowing them to live like normal men?
Allowing Jon Snow to take a wife and sire heirs?
It was the fulfilment of Catelyn's worst fears. She had always been haunted by the fear that Jon may one day marry and breed children, sons perhaps, who would have a direct line to her children's seat. What if her husband legitimised them, gave them the name Stark? Of course, as the years went by, her fears began to subside. Ned loved her with all his being, he would never betray her that way. Yet she couldn't help but feel she was betraying him now. It had been a fortnight and two days since she had last quarrelled with her lord husband over his bastard's coming. It had also been a fortnight and two days since they had shared the same bed. Catelyn felt betrayed, and she would let Ned pay for the feeling.
Catelyn was interrupted in her self-pity and despairing by the creaking of the sept door opening, followed by a soft voice.
"Mother, are you well?"
Catelyn sighed. Sansa, her beautiful, proper, loyal daughter. Catelyn told herself she had no favourites, but Sansa came close to cracking her resolve to keep that promise.
"I am dear. Are you well? Have your lessons with Septa Mordane finished?"
"You know I no longer have lessons with her Mother. I'm six-and-ten now, I'm a woman grown. I know how to be a lady."
A woman grown. A proper lady, worthy of any of the great lords and heirs of this realm. And yet her bastard brother is being married before her.
"Of course dear." She turned to look over her shoulder, remaining on her knees. She saw Sansa standing in the opening of the thick double-doors, a passive yet kind look on her face. "A woman grown, and soon to be wed, if the Gods be good."
Sansa looked down at her feet, hiding what Catelyn suspected was a small blush. She sighed as she thought of how she and Ned had been working so hard to find a suitable husband for their eldest daughter. They had sent letters across the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, even to remote, alien Dorne to find Sansa a bridegroom. They wouldn't have done so if she hadn't insisted. Sansa was still as eager to find her perfect prince, wherever he may be. Since the removal of the last princes of the realm - Joffrey had reportedly been locked up by Stannis for attacking the princess Shireen, and Tommen was no more a viable option as an incestuous bastard - there had been far less eligible bachelors on the market.
Most of the young noblemen of Westeros were getting married too quickly for Ned or Catelyn to find a suitor for Sansa but it did not stop them from continuously trying. Now Catelyn was more determined than ever to find ever to find a groom, for her own pride as well for Sansa's happiness. The realisation of such thoughts brought a little pain at her own selfishness.
"If the Gods be good mother. The Old and the New." She looked back at her mother with a weak smile and the traces of her blush still there. "Are you well mother? I've barely seen you these last two weeks. Is it alright between you and father?"
Catelyn looked away from her daughter at her words. She took a deep breath before she deigned to give an honest reply.
"Things are difficult between your father and I, Sansa. Don't worry, it is nothing to do with you or any of your siblings. At least, not with your trueborn siblings."
"You mean Jon."
"Yes, my dear."
For a few moments there was silence between mother and daughter. It seemed that no more words were needed to be said after the bastard's name had been mentioned. Ever since Sansa had been old enough to understand what the word 'bastard' meant, she had silently yet firmly taken her mother's side in their family's only true source of division. As a matter of fact, as Catelyn was suddenly realising as she knelt by her daughter, Sansa had been the only other Stark to share and respect her feelings about Jon. She had never been rude to him personally, she was the perfect lady as always. Instead she had simply kept a polite distance whereas the rest of Catelyn's offspring had, much to her anguish, openly embraced and loved Jon for all the world to see.
Yet again Catelyn had to remind herself that she had no favourites among her children.
"I do not hate him mother."
Caught unawares by the sudden sound of her daughter's voice, Catelyn turned her head to look at Sansa. She was looking back at her, a look of trepidation on her face.
"I understand your feelings mother, I truly do. I hope my future husband never does sire any baseborns. Yet I can't hate him mother. I want to. He has no right to come back here, his presence is an insult, it always has been. But he never does anything wrong. It wouldn't be right for me to hate him when he's never done anything. I'm sorry, but it's just how I feel."
Looking into her daughter's face as she spoke, Catelyn was struck by the pains of one her oldest memories of Winterfell. She remembered the first brush with the cold as she stepped out of the carriage onto the mud of the courtyard for the first time. She remembered the agony of Robb's birth, followed by the bittersweet tenderness she felt as she was the first to cradle him.
After these two relics of her past followed Ned's arrival in Winterfell. With Jon Snow in tow.
Sansa's young, beautiful face, with her high cheekbones, her light freckles, pale skin, framed with bright auburn hair, suddenly became Catelyn's mirror in her chamber as she stared into it, weeping after the discovery of her husband's betrayal. Finally finding the composure to speak, Catelyn took Sansa's hand in her own and smiled softly.
"I understand entirely Sansa, and I feel the same." Her daughter's brows twitched closer together in confusion.
"When your father returned to Winterfell after his war with Robert against the Mad King, I was hoping for a new beginning. I had lost my sister to a man old enough to father us both, my own father to my old home, and my freedom to your father. I was happy to pay the last price. I knew it was the lot of women in this world, and even in the short time we had before he rode away, I could see clearly that the young Eddard Stark was a good man. Tall, strong, bearded already, and a little bit handsome."
Sansa smiled and almost sniggered at the last words and Catelyn allowed herself to grin before continuing. "So as I waited for your father to ride through the gate the day we heard he would return, clutching your brother Robb in my arms, I thought to myself that I was blessed. My husband had returned safely, and I had given him a son. Surely there could only be happiness between us now."
Catelyn breathed deeply and sighed, and Sansa did not need to be told what happened next.
"And then you saw Jon." She said. Her mother nodded.
"One of the things you must come to accept Sansa is that however much your men may love you, whatever vows they swear, they do not always remain faithful. I hope and pray to all the gods that whoever is given the honour of marrying you will make you happy, and will never betray you. But I cannot promise you that he will do as such. I thought I could expect that of your father.
But I can forgive him for it." Sansa looked surprised at her mother's words. Before she could ask how she could do so, Catelyn answered her. "I don't care for a women miles away, who only had Ned for one night whereas I have him forever. I don't care what a man does when he thinks he's going to die the next day and wants some comfort and joy before he prepares to meet the Stranger. One good thing about being a woman Sansa is that you'll never be expected to go to war."
"Arya does not seem to think the same."
"Well" Catelyn chuckled "your sister always has to the exception to the rule. She doesn't know what is like. Neither do I, but your father has told me enough for me to know I have no desire to take a man's place. Your brother's make the same mistakes as your sister, so perhaps she is unique in her foolery." Sansa smiled briefly in mirth, her mother doing the same. Then her expression turned serious and she spoke up.
"So, you can forgive our father for . . . . for what he did, I understand. But there is more to it, isn't there?" Catelyn sighed, he smile falling away.
"A man's sins are easy to forget and forgive when they are out of sight Sansa. By bringing your brother back with him, he forced me to look upon his crime day after day. I barely knew this man, and he barely knew me. Yet he thought he could ask me to love a child that with his every breath insults my honour.
"It's not Jon's fault Sansa, you must remember that. You must also remember that I remember it and I am always aware of how I can't blame him for anything. There have been so many times I have felt guilt for my feelings. I can't describe how I feel about Jon without feeling ashamed of myself. Believe it or not I've told myself a hundred times that I would stop hating him, I let him be, accept him. Perhaps even love him."
Catelyn paused in her speech to wipe her eyes with her fingertips. She had never cried openly in front of her children. She found not salt water when she pressed her fingers to her eyelids and felt relieved that she had yet to show weakness in front of her darlings, especially Sansa, perhaps her most delicate flower in her small northern garden.
"But every time I look at Jon, I can't forget who he is. I don't know why, but I can't. Perhaps it's how he looks like your father. Perhaps it's the look he has when he sees me-"
"Does he insult you? If he does you should tell father! How dare he show you disrespect!"
"No Sansa. Jon is nothing but polite to me. I mean that when he seems so, afraid." Catelyn paused in though before a look of realisation crossed her face. "Perhaps when he looks at me he remembers his place. And it makes me remember as well."
Sansa had no words to say in return. After that, mother and daughter sat in silence, kneeling together before their foreign gods. No tears were shed by either of them, though they both felt more pain and angst as they mulled over the words they had spoken, and the things that drew nearer. Suddenly, after what may have been ten minutes or an hour, the doors to the sept were roughly opened. Both women's heads quickly turned to look at the intrusion, finding a flustered man-at-arms in the Stark colours standing before them.
"Forgive me Lady Stark. I was told by his lordship that I would most likely find you here. There are others also looking for you Lady Sansa."
"What is that requires you to disturb our prayers, sir?" Catelyn spoke loud and clear, though with decent modesty. She turned and stood tall to speak, and her daughter followed suit.
"My ladies, the lookouts have spotted a large groups of men and horses with banners. Lord Jon Snow is here."