And All Because I Could Not Love A Motherless Child

She had entered Winterfell after her husband had returned from the war. A thousand emotions went through her when she saw the great keep of Winterfell for the first time, and the castle simply took her breath away. Never had she seen a castle which looked so unaffected by time; it had supposedly stood for thousands of years and it seemed it would stand for thousands more, long after Catelyn's death. And yet she could not stop the feeling of dread creeping up on her. This is to be my home, she had chastised herself, and yet no matter how much she tried to convince herself otherwise she could not help the fear of spending the rest of her life in the castle with a husband she barely knew. His name is Ned, and I have given him a son and heir. A son. Her little one had been her pride and joy, red tufts of hair and bright blue eyes. Birthing him had been difficult, and Catelyn had feared she would lose the babe which came a week early. Yet he had been born strong and healthy, and Catelyn had breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief and happiness. He had taken her colouring, but he was Ned's son, who would one day hold the north and continue the Stark legacy. So she had entered Winterfell with her head held high, willing to build her life with a stranger and do her duty to her new home.

Yet her Lord husband had shamed her.

They had told her it would have been Brandon who would stray from her, who would take lover after lover and leave her in a loveless marriage. Ned was said to be the honourable one, the one who would have stayed loyal to her no matter what and she took solace from that fact while she waited. All the men in my life have made me wait, why would my husband be different?

But Ned turned out to be more like his brother than many thought. When she first saw the child, his bastard, she could not believe that the honourable Eddard Stark would have fathered a bastard. Yet when she saw the child, looked into those grey eyes so much like her lord husband's, there was no doubting it. This was his bastard, and he had brought him back to Winterfell to raise up with his future trueborn children. She had said nothing when he presented the child, just giving her husband a frosty glare cold that would make a northerner proud before swiftly gathering up her skirts and leaving the room before she did something she would end up regretting as feelings of hate overtook her. It was only when he looked at her son, their son, with a look of pure wonderment and held him like he was the most precious thing, did she realise that her son was his son too. It was in that moment that she decided to give frigid north another chance and hope to make the best of her situation.

It wasn't long before she felt genuine feelings develop for her quiet wolf as she learned to respect him. And as her belly started to swell once again, so did her feelings of affection and even love for her husband and she found she could never find it in her to blame him, but instead all her emotions of hate and sorrow became directed at the child. She still felt isolated, and the child was a constant reminder of her husband's broken promise. Who was the woman who was able to make Lord Eddard Stark forget his vows, if only for a night? She stayed up at night, trying to imagine the face of the woman while never knowing that she did know how the bastard's mother looked like. In another life, she had even spent time talking to her, however brief, before everything had gone to the seven hells.

So she prayed to the gods in the Sept Ned had built for her. She lit a candle to the Stranger, begging it to take him away, make him die. And at the mere age of two, Jon Snow caught the pox.

She entered the room, where the maester was treating Jon, with some difficulty. Maester Luwin was a kind man, small in stature with grey eyes and hair and a man Catelyn had quickly come to trust. He had arrived with her from Riverrun, and had helped birth Robb. He had stayed by her side through the most difficult stages of the birth and ensured both she and her child remained healthy through the months. The maester noticed her enter and and bowed his head slightly, greeting her. If he was surprised to see her there he did not show it on his features.

"My lady".

"Maester". She gave him a smile before focusing on the bastard. "How is he?"

Luwin looked in the same direction, before grimly stating to her he was not well. "If he survives the night, he will live."

Catelyn thanked him before dismissing him. She walked slowly to the chair next to the crib and took a seat, deep in thought as she looked at him. The boy, barely more than a toddler, was asleep. His small chest rose and fell in accord with his ragged breathing. He was struggling to breathe, that much was clear. She looked at him and thought of her treatment of the child. She had never been cruel to him directly, never hit him or abuse him. Yet she had maintained an air of indifference toward the child, casting him the occasional glare. The child had already learned to avoid her whenever he could, and would flee whenever she came to collect Robb. She knew she was responsible for that, yet what could she do? The boy represented Ned betraying her, betraying the vows they made in the Sept of Riverrun. She knew he was forced, knew he did for her father's armies to fight the war. She hadn't even known if he had eyes for another, although the rumours of Winterfell's servants did suggest a name. Yet he had married her, and she had hoped he would remain faithful. If she was honest, she would have not cared if he had fathered bastards in the war, as long as he kept them out of sight.

But he brought his bastard to Winterfell. Ned brought him back with him. And she could not stand him.

Yet as she looked at the boy, she saw perhaps for the first time perhaps not what he stood for, not the Snow, but the boy. The small, fragile boy fighting for life and death. Jon. Tears came to her eyes as she imagined a fate such as the one she had given Jon to Robb, to the little one growing within her. She felt her skin crawl, and she could not stand herself for what she had done. The room suddenly felt too stuffy.

Catelyn got up and as quickly as she could she walked out of the room. She didn't know where she was heading but she let her feet guide her. She found herself outside and she took deep breaths of the chilly air. She could feel the weather grow colder, and the Stark words becoming truer every day. Winter was coming.

She didn't know what to do. Her emotions were running wild and she felt hate towards her own actions. Jon had done nothing to deserve such a fate, such hatred from her behalf. She had been the one to ask the Stranger to take the boy, and she felt deep shame for her actions. More shame than she had ever felt and as she touched the swell of her stomach, she knew what she had to do.

The late summer snows crunched beneath her boots but she paid it no heed as she headed to the godswood. It took her time, due to her slow pace, but she eventually managed to reach the weirwood. She had come to quickly know that this was Ned's favourite spot. It was where he would come to brood or think on a matter which was deeply affecting him.

For her, the godswood was a place which made her deeply uncomfortable. It was, in part, due to the long and melancholy face carved in the white bark of the weirwood, its deep-cut eyes red with dried sap which made Catelyn feel as if the tree cried tears of blood as the moon shone on the tree and made the bark glow as if it was molten silver. But she would suppress her unease to do what she had come to do. She knelt in front of the weirwood and asked them for forgiveness.

She didn't ask. She begged. She begged the old gods to forgive her, to forgive her actions. She begged them to let her fix her mistake. She begged them to let the boy live, to hear her pleas and let the boy live. And if he did, she promised that she would be a mother to him, a proper mother. She would care for him and love him like her own. She would beg her husband to rid him of the name Snow, make him a true Stark.

She promised this in front of the old gods, and she would be damned if she broke it.

She didn't know how she found her way back to the room in the darkness, or how she got out of there in the first place. But she did, and she spend the night with Jon Snow as he fought to live. She fell asleep next to his crib and woke as the first rays of the morning sunlight heralded the arrival of her husband into the room.

Catelyn was sore from sleeping on a chair, but as she checked the crib, she found Snow still breathing. Jon was alive. The gods have given me a chance to prove myself.

Ned walked over to Catelyn, from where he saw Jon. His fever had broken and he was finally sleeping peacefully. Ned turned to her, smiling. "You didn't come to bed last night. I grew worried, until I saw you here".

"He will live," she said in return, not unkindly.

"It seems so. I am glad" and Catelyn noticed Ned truely seemed happy at the moment, as he embraced her. She leaned into his embrace, allowing herself to feel content. Yet she knew she had to confess how she had wanted Jon to die, otherwise she would never be able to find peace on the matter, and would hate the boy more for it.

"Ned, I have been a terrible woman." Ned simply turned toward her, wordlessly asking her to continue. "I have been lighting candles to the Stranger, praying to the Seven to take the boy away. I feel terrible".

Ned's face looked slightly pained, but not surprised. Does he know? She found out soon enough.

"I know Cat. I've seen the candles in the Sept." To her surprised expression, he replied in an amused tone, "I do occasionally visit the Sept, if just to see if it was built properly".

Something overtook Catelyn. She had made a promise to the gods, but she would never find peace if she did not know who the mother of Jon Snow was. "Who was she, Ned?" she asked while looking at Jon. Before Ned could deny her, she continued. "I need to know Ned. Otherwise I will never be able to look at Jon in the same way I would to Robb or will to the one in me." She was sure she looked desperate, but she did not care. She wanted the burning question answered.

Ned took a deep breath as he seemed to consider her, before he answered her.

"Ashara Dayne".

A long forgotten memory of him dancing with Ashara came to her mind as she remembered the face of the woman who was called the most beautiful in all of Westeros. A woman who perhaps may have been Lady Stark. A woman who Catelyn had known, however briefly.

And then Ned told her everything. He told her about dancing with her, the time he spent with her in Harrenhal and how he promised to wed her when they saw each other again. How that soon became impossible after what happened with Lyanna and Rhaegar. He told her of the sorrow he felt when his father and brother were killed and how he raised his banners. How he met Ashara at Maidenpool. How, in their shared grief and sorrow... he had laid with her and taken her maidenhead. How they had created Jon, just over a week before he had married Catelyn. Catelyn had interrupted him then and asked Ned as she picked up the toddler from the crib, Jon is older than Robb? She had seen his soft but firm shake of the head, as he explained to her how Jon was born near two weeks after Robb. Robb was an early babe, she reminded herself when she was confused as to how that could have been. He then told her of the war, most of which she knew, and told her of the Tower of Joy and the battle with the Kingsguard and finding Lyanna on her deathbed, before going to Starfall to return Ser Arthur Dayne's sword. She got the distinct feeling that he was holding something back, but she didn't push it.

He then told her of meeting Ashara and taking Jon from Starfall from her. Of Ashara's tear-filled goodbye and her anger at him for killing her brother. Of hearing about her death at the wedding of Robert and Cersei and coming back to Winterfell with a bastard and his dead sister. The sadness in his voice was evident by the end.

Catelyn took a deep breath as she digested all her told her. She realised if her father had not forced Ned to marry her then perhaps Ashara would be the one in Winterfell and Jon the heir. She realised the burden Ned had carried and how much pain he had hidden away and she felt so sorry for her wolf. And all of a sudden realised that technically Ned never broke their vows as he hadn't made them, before realising she said that last part aloud.

Ned look at her and smiled, a sad smile which almost brought tears into her eyes. "I did not my lady, and I never will". He held her tighter and as she snuggled into him, finally knowing the truth.

It seemed the movement had startled Jon, who stirred from his sleep, and finally woke.

His grey eyes, so much like Ned's, opened as she looked at his face. Catelyn didn't know what he would do once he saw who was holding him, but he snuggled into her chest and smiled as he looked up on her.

"Mama?"

The one word broke the dam she had placed in the heart. She felt waves of tenderness engulf her and she let the tears fall freely, not caring about them. It broke her heart, hearing his first word, into a million tiny pieces and she held him tighter. It reaffirmed her stance as she looked up at Ned with a smile, and perhaps the promise she had made to the old gods was one she could keep.

"Make him a Stark".

He would tell her he did not deserve her, did not deserve such a kind and devoted wife. Perhaps he did not, but in the end, Jon did. Robert had no qualms in legalising Jon, and the boy became Stark in both blood and name. And in the end, she found that she could love a motherless child.

I own nothing of the works of George RR Martin.

A/N: Yes I know it has been absolutely ages, and I do apologise for that. I found that I just couldn't write this chapter whenever I tried and that ended up taking me ages. It is much shorter than the prologue but I hope it was worth the wait. I look forward to the thoughts and opinions of those reading this. We find out what has happened to Alysanne and Arthur in the next chapter.

Till then, do not hesitate to drop a review!