A/N: I first want to thank those of you who have stuck with me and my stories because it's amazing. Shortly after posting my last chapter on my computer broke and along with it I lost months of chapters. I have just now gotten a new computer and I am slowly re-writing what I have lost. It's not as I wished it to be, especially this story and chapter, but after much thinking over the last few months I may take this in a slight different direction. I hope no one minds, anyway. I hope you all like this chapter, and I want to thank those who reviewed, favorited and followed. You are all really lovely. I will be updating my other stories hopefully this week.
Disclaimer: I do not own Game of Thrones, The song of Ice and Fire or the characters that belong to them. I own only Johanna and my plot.
Johanna
It was not long after her father's death that Johanna found herself in the Godswood alone. She never imagined she would wander into such a place on her own but she felt herself being drawn to the mossy ground before the Weirwood tree. She had left her husband in the keep, his brothers at his side, she needed a moment alone. Robb had not left her side in the days after her father's passing, constantly keeping a close eye on her. She was unsure if he was worried for her or worried she would cause harm to him. Something had changed inside him, or it hadn't changed and it was something she had just come to notice.
Her mind had been clear for the first time since her return to Winterfell. No longer did she feel weighed down by the thoughts of her lost child, her father's death or her Uncle's actions. Johanna had found a way to push those thoughts aside, and focus on her life in Winterfell. In her clear state of mind she began to notice her husband's subtle actions, his shifting glances and fidgeting hands. Something was plaguing him, but yet he made no move to share it with her. Had he begun an affair? She had wondered over that thought for days. It would explain his absences when he thought she slept, the moments he would slip from their bed.
She knew the tactic; she had done the same in the beginning of their marriage. Could she blame him for the affair? Hardly, but she felt ashamed that he may have stepped from their marriage bed. She had not denied him anything he wanted, she had given him what he wanted in the ways of pleasure and yet he still left while she slept.
Johanna had never wished for him to step away, and as hypocritical as it was the thought of it turned her blood to fire. He was her husband, he was meant only for her. She cursed those thoughts, in her time of peace she had found herself thinking of Robb too much. Joffrey had slipped slowly from her mind only to slowly be replaced with frantic thoughts of her husband. She was being quite a fickle woman, but she could not help it. She had thought love was strong, and rock solid, but it seemed it could shift like the sand.
"Johanna?" Her husband's confused voice found her among the trees as he came into view. "I had not expected you to be out here," she could hear the nervous tone to his voice, and saw the confusion in his eyes.
"Had you planned to meet your mistress out here, among your Gods?" She hated the bitter tone to her voice, and yet the words spilled forth.
Robb stood stock still, his whole body rigid as Grey Wind stepped from behind him. Johanna looked to the wolf admiring how much he had grown over the months she had been in Winterfell. But it took no more than a second for her eyes to go back to her husband.
"Excuse me? What are you accusing me of, wife?" He only called her wife when his tone rose to anger, frustration drove him to it and she knew it. "You believe me to be seeking comfort in another woman?"
"Are you not? Is a woman not the reason you slip from bed while you think I slumber, is a woman not the reason you look around as if a ghost is haunting the corners of the keep?"
She watched as the grimace on his face dropped and in its place was a frown. He was saddened by her words.
"You do not trust me," it was no question.
"And you do not trust me," she responded, a hand upon her hip. "You wanted this to work Robb, and instead you stray for another woman. Just be honest with me and I will look past it, as a wife should."
She was becoming her mother, a woman who could look past the infidelity of her husband. She had always revered her mother, but if she thought her mother so strong why did the thought of Robb fucking another hurt her so.
"I am not sleeping with another woman, wife, I assure of that," he spoke evenly. "When I leave our bed at night it is not to find myself in the heat of another."
She found herself walking toward him, closing the distance between them. She had not been so close to him outside their bed in weeks despite his constant presence and she would deny the warmth she felt at his closeness.
"Then where do you go, Robb, tell me that?" She looked up at him, her green eyes shimmering. "If you do not leave me to fuck another, where is it you go?"
He took a step back from her, and the small act caused her chest to constrict. She did not want to feel this way toward him, not when she had spent months fighting it at every turn. She had spent so long trying to keep herself chained to the past, chained to the man she had loved. But in the months without word from her brother, in the months of spending each night in her husband's arms her doubts had swallowed her whole.
"I can not tell you," he said simply, his blue eyes cast away. "I say that for your safety, and for the sake of our marriage."
"I care not," she argued, "I do not care about your reasons. You demand honesty from me; you demand I agree to be on your side. I am here, on your side, and not once have I tried to flee." Her hands crossed over her chest, anger flaring in her. "You think I could not have fled while you slept? We both know it was a possibility, and with my father dead there was no reason for me to linger here."
Her words were truth and she knew he could see that. Johanna had thought of leaving the night she received word of her father's death. She thought of finding a horse and riding south to Joffrey but she didn't. She had promised Robb that she would be on his side that they were in it together, and even if the promise was made out of fabrication at the time things had changed. He had done nothing but help her, hold her and love her in the months she had been there. Even as she gave him the cold shoulder, and shut him out, he loved her.
"You are correct," he conceded, a heavy sigh shaking his shoulders. "I am sorry if my actions have led you to believe I was stepping away from our marriage, I really do."
She nodded, her eyes fixed on him with cool calculation. Guilt was eating her up inside, and for a moment she longed to confess her own crime but she did not.
"I do not wish to taint you image of your family, Johanna, and thus I keep my activities a secret."
"What does my family have to do with you leaving our bed?"
She knew she should not have asked, she was sure the answer was not what she was looking for, not truly. His eyes told her as much when he turned to look at her, sadness etched on his face mixed with an unforgivable anger in his eyes.
"Do you ever wonder where your guards have gone to? The ones who rode north with your family, the ones who brought you home from the North?" He questioned her.
She pondered the thought for a moment, forgetting all about the guards. She had been so closed off in her mind for months after her return that she had forgotten they had even existed.
"I thought maybe they had gone south," she drew the words together with much uncertainty.
"If only they had," he responded walking toward her to take her hand. He guided Johanna to sit before the Weirwood tree, much as they had the last time they were in the wood. Instead this time they faced each other on their knees. "What I will tell you is truth; I swear it by the Old Gods and the new."
She had never heard him swear to the Gods, nor had she herself ever done it. She was devout in her faith, and never once made such a promise. She knew he was very devout as well, and though maintained different Gods they had never argued on religion. It may have been their only common ground, that and his siblings of course.
"Speak, then, and I shall listen." She relaxed back on her heels as she knelt before her husband.
Something about the moment felt more intimate than any other they had shared. Both were clothed and their knees barely touched as they knelt before each other but Johanna had never felt so exposed. They were laying themselves bare in a way they had not in their time together, not since she had wept in the bath after losing her child. For a moment she was sure it was the most intimate she had ever been with anyone.
"Your guards, the men your family sent to protect you, are locked in the dungeons of Winterfell," he spoke the words with no remorse or guilt. He was strong in his tone, steady.
"What," shock filled her, "why?"
Robb reached out for her, taking one of her hands into his own. She was constantly amazed at how large his hands were compared to his own, and yet they fit perfectly together. He placed her hand on his thigh, placing his own above hers.
"I had reason to suspect they had something to do with an attack against one of my house," he paused for a moment, as if waiting for her to speak but she said nothing, "against you."
She freezes for a moment before she tries to move her hand from his grip. He had to be lying, she could not believe him.
"Do not pull away, Johanna, let me explain," he held her gaze and his grip on her hand. "Do you know what tansy is? The flower, the herb?"
She pondered for a moment, trying to think back to her lessons but she never learned much. So she thought back to the books she had read in the library at home, the ones her mother did not sanction her to read.
"It is an ingredient in moon tea is it not? The tea they give women to prevent the conception of a child?"
Her husband nodded with a solemn expression on his face, "Maester Luwin found a box of the herb among your guards belonging upon your arrival from the Wall."
His words were simple but they made a sinking feeling settle in her gut. She was not foolish, she may have been when she came to Winterfell but she had learned things over time, and she could understand what he was trying to say. But it made no sense she was already far along with child, too far along for moon tea to work.
"But I was," she paused and worried her lip between her teeth, "surely it could not have," she could not finish, the memory coming back.
She tried to hold back the tears that threatened to fall as her husband quickly snatched her up in his arms. She did not mind the uncomfortable position as she wrapped her arms around him.
"I am sorry, my love, but if they had given you enough in your tea it is possible," sadness and regret laced his words. "I should never have let you go, and I am sorry it took me so long to say it."
She buried her head into his tunic, the scent of the woods filling her nose. She did not cry but her body shook as he held her. She did not want to believe him, but as he held her the thoughts began to swirl in her mind. Memories of her last night with Joffrey surfaced, the way he had asked her to take the moon tea.
"I will not allow you to give birth to his damned pups."
A sick feeling filled her and suddenly she found herself pulling away from Robb. Her eyes grew wide as she stood and ran from the wood. She was going to be sick, and she refused to let the vomit forth in the Godswood. She could hear Robb following swiftly behind her, and she could feel Grey Wind at her heels but she focused not on them but the realization in her gut.
Once free of the dark wood she felt her body hunch forward, the contents of her stomach emptied onto the courtyard ground. She didn't want to believe her own mind, she did not. She wanted to think her thoughts were tainted by the vile lies of her husband but not once had he spoken ill of Joffrey in such a way. In fact, Robb had done very little to speak against her family in some time, and so she felt that her thoughts were her own. Were the Gods punishing her? Or was the loss of her child caused by the very man she believed to father her babe?
"Johanna, I did not mean to make you ill," her husband's voice was soft and gentle as it reached her ears over her own retching. "Here, let me take you back to our chambers," he reached for her but she shrank away.
Oh by the Seven she had laid with her brother, and she had slept away from her husband. She had done nothing to deserve the kindness of the man who had reached for her, who held a secret he knew could destroy her.
"You think my family had something to do with the loss of our child?" She asked meekly, standing up straight once her stomach was empty.
He looked at her with a stern face, but she could see the way the doubts he had changed his face. He had aged slightly in the months since her return, and she knew it must have been the cause. It pained her to know he had to keep such a thing because she had acted like a petulant child all those moons ago.
"I do not know if your family knew of their actions, but the guards admitted to me that they had done as we suspected."
"I want to speak with them," she spoke with a coldness she did not even know she had, "alone." Gone was the warmth that her voice naturally held, never had she felt so frozen.
"Love, I do not believe that is a good idea," he warned.
"I do not care, Robb," she spoke sternly, her eyes fixed on his. "I wish to speak with them, and I shall. I am not a guest here; I am the Lady of Winterfell in your mother's absence. I am your wife, not a servant you can tell no to."
She watched a slight smirk twitch on her husband's face and she could not even begin to imagine what he was thinking. But in that moment she cared not, she needed answers. She had to knows he was wrong, she had to know her brother, her lover, had not killed her child. She could forgive Joffrey for a lot of things, murder being one, but not the death of her child. To her that was unforgivable, and if it was found true she would ruin the new King of the Seven Kingdoms.