This took so long! I'm so sorry guys! My apartment flooded, so I had a lot of things to do that did not leave much time to write :S Anyways, here's the new update!
Enjoy it, and PLEASE, review! Thanks! ^^
The room was filled by the voices that came from the huge flat TV having on the wall. Everyone in the room was silent, sitting comfortably on the leather couches and armchairs with their eyes glued on the screen, and a bowl of popcorn on their laps. Robb Stark had taken the afternoon off that day, he needed to relax and spend time with his family. He had promised his son that he would watch a movie with him, and he was going to keep that promise. However, little Ned was in the bathroom, making them all wait for him in the living room, and Robb had taken over the remote control. He had ignored his wife's and mother's protests as he put on a channel with a political debate going on. Well, it wasn't exactly a debate, it was just Governor Renly Baratheon going on and on and on talking and cracking jokes from time to time... And he was always met with laugher and applause.
It was actually being interesting, and so Catelyn Stark and Talisa stopped complaying and were watching the TV paying as much attention as Robb was.
"I can't believe he is actually going on with this absurd idea," Catelyn said, meaning the campaign. "I've known him since he was a boy! He never showed any ambition for power, only a preocupying interest for fashion! And now he wants to be President?!"
"I'd rather have him as an opponent than his nephew," Robb stated. He had met the man multiple times in his life, they weren't that far apart in age. Robb didn't dislike Renly, he actually thought that the younger Baratheon brother was good company when someone wanted a few laughs.
"Well, now both of them are your oponents," Catelyn protested, not happy about it. Robb knew why she was unhappy; Governor Renly was a much stronger opponent than Joffrey, and would put up a bigger fight than his nephew with the electoral votes. People loved him everywhere he went.
"He has a good foreign policy," Talisa commented then, and Robb had to admit she was right. He gritted his teeth.
"That's not good... I mean, it's good for Westeros, but bad for me."
"Aren't you running for President for the good of Westeros? You didn't want Joffrey as President, but maybe Renly is a better option?"
"No, he might be a good man, but he is too close to Tywin Lannister... He could be easily controlled. And who knows what Vice President he will choose!"
"Obviously, he won't choose one as awesome as me," Theon Greyjoy said, struting into Winterfell's living room. Robb couldn't help but laugh softly when he saw his lifelong best friend displaying his cockiness in front of them as he crossed the room towards with own favorite armchair. Many times he thought that Theon should really have been a stage actor instead of being involved in politics, but it was the family business... And now, Robb had chosen him to be his Vice President, if he ever won the presidential elections.
Theon sat on his armchair and grabbed the bowl of popcorn that had been waiting for him on the floor at his side. He smile widely and looked around.
"Where's the little lord?" he asked, using Eddard's nickname.
"He's coming," Catelyn said. She did not like Theon very much, she barely tolerated him, and she frowned when he saw him there. "I thought you were going to spend the weekend on the Iron Islands?" she asked, trying to sound matter-of-factly.
"I was, but... Meh, I'm not very homesick right now. I spent two entire weeks there at the beginning of the month and that was enough. I figure that I could spend some family quality time here with the Starks."
Catelyn did not seem pleased, but Robb was glad to have his best friend there. He did not like it when there were few people at Winterfell. Usually, his younger brothers Bran and Rickon were there, as they still lived there (Bran was 20 years old and on a wheelchair because of a climbing accident at Mount Everest, and Rickon was 17) but they were spending the weekend with their half-brother Jon in Europe.
Theon fell silent then and looked at the image of Renly Baratheon on the screen with disgust. "Ugh. I thought we were watching a movie?"
"Yes, as soon as Ned comes. He'll choose the movie."
"Who wants this... fancy boy as President, anyways?" Theon asked with annoyance, and put a handful of popcorn inside his mouth, making his cheeks round and puffy. His image was very comical at that moment.
"He is winning in the Reach," Robb said with bitterness. Losing the Reach meant that it was going to be more difficult to get more electoral votes than his two adversaries. Theon almost choked when he heard the news.
"Oh, fuck me! Now that's a problem!"
Catelyn Stark opened her eyes wide, scandalized by Theon's vulgarity.
"THEON! Language!" she exclaimed, but was silenced by a little sweet voice coming from the door.
"There is a problem?" asked Eddard Stark the second as he entered the living room, and everyone looked at him. He was the cutest little boy that there ever was. He had wavy very dark auburn hair that looked brown in the dark, but flaming red in the sun. His skin tone was a bit tan, a mix from his father's pale skin and his mother's olive skin. His eyes were very dark, almost black, inherited from his mother. He also got from her a few freckles on his nose, but his smile was without a doubt his father's, and so was his stubbornness.
"Hey kid!"
When he saw his uncle Theon sitting there, he pulled the biggest smile ever and ran to him, "Uncle Theon! You are still here!"
Theon laughed, left the bowl of popcorn in the floor to prevent it from being knocked over, and picked up the small boy and sat him on his lap. Eddard laughed.
"Of course I am here, little lord! Did you miss me already, eh?"
"Everyone else had already left for the weekend..." the kid murmured, sad because his two younger uncles were not there with him. He was not used to their absence, and he got along with them really well. He also missed their pets, which they had taken with them to Europe, but at least he still had his father's own pet, Greywind, to play with.
"But not me! I didn't leave!" Theon exclaimed, cheering him up.
"Can I have some popcorn?" he asked, almost drooling because of the smell of it.
"Yes, there, your mother has it."
Theon left Eddard back on his feet on the floor and the young kid ran towards his mother, who pulled him into a tight motherly hug. She always wore a big proud smile whenever she saw her son. He was her most precious treasure, after all. Eddard hugged his mother back, just as happy as he always was, and then Talisa gave the bowl of popcorn to him before the boy ran to his father.
"Dad!"
"Come here Ned," Robb said with a gigantic smile on his face, sitting his young son on his lap just like Theon had done before. He was never as happy as he was when he was in the company of his wife and son together. They were his entire life, beyond politics, beyond everything else. Nothing mattered if they weren't there with him. He still remembered the day that Talisa told him he was going to be a father, and the day that he held his little boy in his arms and saw him for the first time. At that moment Robb understood that there were far more important things in life than power and money. With Talisa and Eddard, he had everything he could ever want in life.
It saddened him, though, that he had to spend so much time with a political career to make sure thing did not go to hell in the country. He knew that it was his duty to watch out for the country just as his father had done during so many years, and he could not just let Tywin Lannister control everything through his grandson.
"Look, that's uncle Renly!" Ned exclaimed pointing to the TV with his finger, and they all looked back at the screen again.
There was Renly, still giving his speech, being all charming and sweet to make people love him and swoon with each and everyone of his words. Eddard had gotten used to calling Renly "uncle" because he was the uncle of his uncle-to-be Joffrey, and no one had really stopped him from doing so. When he called Renly "uncle" in his presence, the Governor of Storm's End found it quite endearing.
"What is he doing on TV? I though that the one that appeared on TV was you?" Eddard asked his father, tilting his head with curiosity. Robb sighed.
"Well, yes, but now he also is going to go on TV with me and your uncle Joffrey," he told his son. "Because we are going to work together, you know? And then the people is going to decide who is best and one of us is going to be the boss."
"Cool! It's going to be you, Dad, you are the best."
Rob smiled when he heard that. He knew that all sons usually believed that their parents were the best of them all in everything, but still, hearing those words from Eddard was really encouraging. He hugged his son.
"Thanks, Ned."
Catelyn was looking at them with a sweet smile in her face. She had to admit that, even though she had not approved of his son's marriage with Talisa, she had given her son a wonderful family, and Catelyn was so proud of them all. She wondered when had her little boy grown so much and so quickly. One day, he has just a little boy and the next, he was married, had a kid of his own and was fighting to become the President. Catelyn found it all overwhelming, but she loved these little moments with her family that made her feel so much better ever since her husband passed away...
"Are we going to watch the movie, or what?" Theon interrupted, not being really patient with all that cheessy family stuff.
"Yeah, sure. What do you want to watch, Ned?"
Eddard thought about it for a few seconds, and then...
"The Dark Knight!" he said then.
Robb was very surprised when he heard that. Talisa choked, and looked at her son and husband in a disapproving way, clearly finding that movie not appropriate for boys of Ned's age. Catelyn remained impassive, having no idea of what movie that was. However, theon raised his arms in victory.
"Yes! There's someone with a good taste in movies in this family!"
Eddard chuckled, but everyone else ignored Theon.
"Are you sure you want that movie? Because... I don't know, maybe you prefer a Disney one?" Robb asked, and he got a disapproving stare from Eddard that was identical to Talisa's. It was kind of creepy, actually.
Eddard shook his head. "No, Dad, I don't like Disney movies. I want to watch the Dark Knight, it's the one that had the Joker on it!"
"But sweetheart, that movie is the second one..." Talisa said, trying to convince her son to pick another movie. They all liked Batman, they just were not so sure that it was appropriate for Eddard to watch it just yet. "If you haven;t seen the first movie, how are you going to know what happens in the story?"
"But I already watched the first one!" Eddard protested.
His parents frowned. "You did?"
"Yes."
They looked at Theon with judging glares, and he stared back at them with innocent eyes. When he saw that Robb and Talisa were thinking that he had been the one that had given the first Batman movie to their son, he raised his hands in the air in a defensive way.
"Don't look at me! I didn't watch that movie with the kid!" he protested. As bad a influence as he was on Eddard the whole time, he did not want to be blamed for something that he was not guilty about.
"Then who...?"
"I watched it with uncle Jon," Eddard confessed then. Robb sighed again. He should have known! He remembered when Jon and him where kids and used to dress up as different superheroes. Robb liked to dress up as Superman or Spiderman, and Jon always dressed up as Batman, always. It was Jon's favorite, and he once made Robb dress up as the Scarecrow to fight him.
"Of course he did..." Robb laughed under his breath. "Well, if you liked that movie then I suppose that The Dark Knight it is then!"
He changed the channel with the remote control, looked for the movie that his son wanted in the options, found it, selected it, and played it. As soon as Catelyn saw Batman appear, she remembered the same thing that Robb had remembered mere moments ago.
"Oh! I remember when you boys would dress up in those costumes!" she said with a bright smile upon recalling that memory. She hadn't liked Jon very much during the first years of his life, but as time went on she began to care for her stepson until she ended up loving him as one of her children, and that memory was a sweet one. "Arya would try to join you sometimes, even though she was so little."
"She did?" Talisa asked, amused by that, and Robb nodded. Theon laughed loudly from his armchair.
"She did! She dressed up as Robin Hood and tried to shoot everyone in the ass with fake arrows. Thank God they were fake, or she would have cut my..."
"THEON!" Catelyn and Talisa shouted in unison, muting him for an instant.
"... right off," he continued saying, ignoring both women.
"Where is aunt Arya?" Eddard asked then. It was normal that he asked; he hadn't seen his aunt in over a year.
Robb looked at Talisa, and then at his mother and he bit his lip. He had no idea of what to say, but he didn't want to lie to Eddard. They didn't know where Arya was. However, those news would be very hard for Eddard, who had already cried with his grandfather's death. He would not like knowing that his favorite aunt, the one that always played with him and took him everywhere he wanted even when his parents didn't want him to go to that place, was missing.
"She... She is in... She's traveling," Robb mumbled, deciding that that wasn't that much of a lie after all.
"With Jon and Bran and Rickon?" Eddard asked.
"Umm... no. No, Jon and Bran and Rickon are in Rome. Your aunt, she is in... um..."
"She is in Essos," Talisa said then, interrupting when she saw that her husband had no idea of what to say. Eddard looked at her with curiosity.
"In Essos?"
"Yes. SHe wanted to see it all, you see? Every single corner of it. And because it is a very big country, it takes her a very long time to go back, so that why she is not back yet."
"And why doesn't she call? Or send pictures?"
"Well, because one has to travel very very much to find a phone, and there is a lot of sun there and it makes it difficult to take pictures, because they all turn out wrong."
Eddard seemed satisfied with that answer, but took a moment to think before murmuring:
"Everyone leaves..."
Robb felt incredibly guilty at that point, because he could see how much it affected his son that his family was apart, and he was not going to make the situation any better with his job. Because of the elections, he had to travel, and he had to do it soon.
"But they will come back!" he said, smiling and rubbing his son's shoulders with his hand. "Before you even know it, Bran and Rickon will be here, and Jon will probably visit too! An who knows... maybe aunt Arya will come too once they come back!"
Eddard liked that idea, and he smiled happily.
"Yes! And aunt Sansa?"
"Aunt Sansa can come too. She's just too busy with her job and her wedding."
"Can we go to her wedding?"
"Maybe, yes," Robb nodded, though he did not like that idea. Apparently, Theon didn't either.
"If I go to that wedding, I'll end up punching that little shit in the face," he groaned, swallowing another mouthful of popcorn.
"Theon!" Catelyn and Talisa scolded him again for his foul language, but he just simply didn't care.
"Will you have to go, Dad?" Eddard asked then. He was a smart boy, and Robb couldn't keep many secrets from him.
Feeling bad about it, he nodded. "Yes, Ned. I will have to go because of my job. But I will be back soon, I promise."
"Will I see you on TV?"
"Yes, you most definitely will."
"Then that's fine," Eddard said, not too worried about it, and Robb felt instantly better. He felt relieved knowing that his son would not be sad to see him go, because he could still be able to see him while he was gone. With a smile, he embraced his son and kept watching the movie in peace with his wife, mother, and best friend.
An hour later, they had their eyes glued to the screen, where the Joker was too busy blowing up a hospital, and all the popcorn was gone. The only noise that could be heard was the sound of the movie, and Eddard's gasp from time to time each time something shocking happened, which was quite often. Robb was amazed to discover how much he was enjoying the movie. Theon was behaving like a little boy watching the action scenes, and even Catelyn and Talisa were enjoying the movie very much.
The phone rang then. It highly annoyed Robb, who wondered if he could ever have a bit of piece and quiet with his family in that house. The phone kept ringing and ringing, and he knew that he had to answer it: it could be something important. With a sigh, he stood up from the armchair in which he had been sitting with Eddard. The little boy was so fascinated with the movie that he didn't even seem to notice when his father left.
Robb crossed the living room to reach the phone. He cold feel his wife's dark curious eyes on his back, and he picked up the ringing phone.
"Hello?" he said, answering the call.
He expected to hear some boring politician's voice at the other side of the line, but the reality couldn't be more different. When the person that was calling spoke, Robb felt that the world started spinning. It was impossible! She hadn't called in such a long time!
"Hi, big brother," she said, her voice deeper than what it used to be, more mature.
"Arya!"
That simple word made everyone quit watching the TV and turn their heads towards him all at once; they were staring at him in disbelief.
"Arya?!" his mother asked, and Robb thought that she sounded desperate. She hadn't seen her daughter in over a year, and that was only the second time she contacted them. She stood up immediately from the couch, as did Talisa and Theon, and they were immediately in front of Robb, wanting to know what was going on.
"Arya, where are you?"
"I can't talk for long," she said. All that mystery was making him nervous. however, his younger sister answered his question. "I'm in Westeros."
That shocked Robb. She was in Westeros? All that time she was gone, and now all of a sudden she was back? Just like that? He didn't understand anything.
"Do-do you want us to pick you up somewhere?" he asked, anxious to see her again.
"No," she answered immediately. "I... I can't go back yet. There's something I need to do first."
"Robb, what is she saying?!" Catelyn asked impatiently, wanting to know what was happening with her youngest daughter, but Robb hushed her.
"Arya, what...?"
"I've got to go. But I promise, you'll hear from me real soon."
Robb tried to stop her, but Arya had already hung up. He didn't notice Catelyn, Talisa, Eddard and Theon all staring at him waiting to be told what was going on. No words could rom in his mouth at that moment.
What he couldn't get out f his mind was the way in which his sister's voice seemed to carry a dark threat with it, and it made him feel cold.