Author's Notes: I am the worst at updating. Oops.

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine except for my ridiculous ideas.

In the Lion's Den
Part XIV

"M'lady?" No answer. "M'lady Catelyn, are you, ah, are you awake?"

Catelyn opened her eyes blearily, unsure of the hour or day. It took her a moment to register whose voice had woken her. It was Ser Broderick; she could always tell when it was him by the way his voiced lilted up in pitch at random words while he spoke. It made him sound more cheerful and also plenty young. Rubbing her eyes, she pulled herself into the sitting position and looked around the room. Light had filled the room from outside the canopy of the bed; it was much later in the day than she'd anticipated sleeping.

"M'lady?"

"I'm awake, Ser Broderick," she called back. She could hear the sigh of relief in his voice. "Let me change into something appropriate."

"Yes, m'lady."

He looked like such a Northerner, but he spoke like a Southerner. They were so much more proper down here than they were in the North, so much more tied down by titles and customs.

Catelyn slipped out of the bed, pushing the veil away, and walked over to get her robe. When she tied the belt around her waist, she noted that she had to make it a little looser than before. Her belly was growing fast. It was getting much harder to hide these days. Already, her clothes were too tight; and Tywin had pointed out that new dresses would need to be started on very soon. She walked over to the door and pushed it open to peer outside. Ser Broderick stood in his gold cloak armor, looking around the place innocently, as if he hadn't stood outside this door countless of times and everything he saw was new to him.

She couldn't help but smile faintly. "Sorry, I did not plan on sleeping this late."

Ser Broderick turned to face her, a bright smile on his young face. He was trying to grow a beard, she saw, but to little avail. Robb had been able to grow one easily, but it came with being from the North. Perhaps his difficulty came from being in the South for so long. "It is of no fault of yours, m'lady," he replied cheerfully. She could tell that he was trying to speak more properly, if only for her. "Lord Tywin told me to get you. He said that a maester from Oldtown is here to tend to you?" The smile on his face faltered. "I wasn't aware you were sick, m'lady. Are you…are you alright?"

"Yes, Ser Broderick," Catelyn replied, feeling touched that he looked so concerned, "I'm quite alright, merely feeling a bit under the weather."

Though he'd offered to retrieve her maids for her, Catelyn waved the young knight away and changed clothes. She couldn't just walk around in her night gown and robe, as much as she'd like to. It took her a bit longer, considering the state of her belly and the complexities of Southern dress, but she managed to dress quickly enough and then left with Broderick to find the new maester. She was terribly grateful that Tywin had found a maester that was not Maester Pycelle to tend to her. More than anything, she had been sure that the old man would have gone straight to Cersei with news of Catelyn's pregnancy.

On the way to the room where she was meeting him, Broderick talked about some new gossip he'd heard from some of the kitchen staff. He wasn't much into gossip himself, she could tell, but he told her these things in order to help distract her. She appreciated it, but didn't let him know that she'd caught on. She just laughed when he got animated about a story or how he'd flush a bit when something crude came up and apologize when he forgot himself. He is so young and lively, she thought for the hundredth time. How has he not let his losses cripple him into nothing?

Upon reaching their destination, Broderick knocked and held the door open for her. "I'll be right outside should you need anything, m'lady."

Catelyn thanked him and then stepped inside to meet her new maester. It felt strange to have someone here just for her, but she liked it. She supposed Tywin Lannister could practically get anything he wanted, save for a dragon. Maester Varden was a man with about ten years over Tywin Lannister and possessed a lot more energy than Grand Maester Pycelle. He was also plenty more pleasant to speak with. He never brought up who she was and only seemed concerned about hers and her child's well-being.

"How far along would you say you are?" he asked while feeling her bare belly. He had a funny twinge in his accent from having travelled the Free Cities for so long.

"Just shy four months."

Varden smiled at her. "Nearly on the dot, I'd say." He felt her belly with his hands. It was definitely starting to show more. After Sansa, she had noticed that she began to visibly show right around four months. Of course she could tell beforehand and so could Ned, when they lay together, but no one else noticed until she was four months pregnant. "And this is not your first time giving birth."

He hadn't meant to bring up painful memories, but it was hard not to when this matter was concerned. She was pregnant again. A few years ago, she'd hoped to be able to give Ned another child, but instead, she was giving Tywin one. She'd lost all her children and now she was having a new one. There were nights when she felt guilty, when she felt like a bad mother; and she prayed to the gods that her children's souls did not feel like she was trying to replace them. She couldn't. Still, the guilt seeped in, like it or not.

Catelyn bit her lip. "No, I've given birth five times before this – all healthy."

"Any miscarriages?"

"Only once, in between my first and second child, around…fourteen years ago."

Varden did not ask about her children. She was sure that, even if he didn't know much of her, he knew who she was on a basic level; she was certain that he had been warned or told or heard that all of her children were dead for some reason or another. "That is good, very good." He stood up straight, a hand on his back. "Of course we must take precautions because of your age. Naturally, childbirth becomes a lot more dangerous as women age. Seeing as how you have a history of healthy childbirths though, I believe we should remain optimistic." All of this, she already knew. They would need his help in the coming months as she grew more pregnant. There would be draughts needed, dreamwine and maybe milk of the poppy, which she would always decline. This was just a formality, a meeting, to prepare her for the coming months. "Lord Tywin is very concerned with your well-being. I have been told to take every precaution necessary, but you're quite healthy, if only a bit too thin still. Are you eating and sleeping well?"

"I could probably eat more," Catelyn admitted, "and…there are…nightmares."

"Would you like dreamwine?"

"No," she said adamantly, shaking her head. She could not admit it, but she wanted the nightmares. They happened less often these days, but had started to reoccur once she'd found out that she was pregnant. Nearly all of them were about her children. Part of her was afraid that if she stopped dreaming about them, then their faces would begin to fade away from her memory and they would be nothing. She couldn't handle that yet; she wasn't ready to let go of them and probably never would be.

When all was said and done, they set up a time and date for their next meeting in a few weeks' time, and then Catelyn walked out of the room. She expected Ser Broderick to still be there, but instead it was Tywin, like he hadn't been able to wait to hear the news. Broderick was nowhere to be found. Tywin had probably sent him away once he'd arrived, no longer in need of the gold cloak's services at the moment. Despite herself, Catelyn smiled as she walked up to him.

"So?" Tywin asked immediately. "What did he say?"

"That I'm fine and healthy," Catelyn replied, rolling her eyes. "That you need not worry so much."

There was that dark look on his face again. "Childbirth is dangerous."

"So is war, and yet you've made an art out of it." The words had a bite to them that she hadn't meant to come out. It was true though. Tywin Lannister's specialty was war and decimating Houses. It was not a light joke, but there were times when it was all she had. People might think it strange, but these were the facts of the matter. She'd married the man that had successfully destroyed yet another great House; and they both had to live with it. "The child seems to be growing strong."

"He will be a lion, not a rose," Tywin grumbled.

Catelyn surprisingly laughed. "Well, with all the roses suffocating this place, I wouldn't be so sure." She searched his face, a mild look on her own, and then placed her hands on his cheeks, his golden stubble rough against the soft palms of her hands. His eyes were locked on hers again. It was a more intimate gesture than she normally allowed when outside of their chambers. "The child could be a girl. You must remember that."

"The child will be a boy." Tywin had been adamant about that right after she'd told him. Normally she could tell, but with all the things going on, Catelyn felt like she couldn't be sure of anything these days and she was hesitant to put a guess forward. "I know it."

"At this rate, we are never going to agree on anything concerning this child," Catelyn mused as she began to pull her hands away from him. "I am certain that everything will be okay; and you are unsure about the future. I am uncertain of the child's gender; and you are sure it will be a boy. Things never change, do they?"

Tywin took her hands in his before she could bring them back to her sides. "Some things do."

Catelyn's breath hitched for a moment as she stared back at him, unsure of what she was supposed to say or do. To be honest, she couldn't even be sure how it made her feel. (Except that it made her feel wonderful, terrible, hopeful, and scared.)