A/N: The Stark and Baratheon kids are all one year older than in the books.

Ned

Amongst the blind stone eyes of the long dead Starks, Ned kneeled before his king.

"Your grace I am not worthy of the honor," Ned said, bowing his head, He gazed at the stone beneath their feet, worn from centuries of being walked on, even if it was only on the rare occasion.

"If I wanted to honor you, I'd let you retire. I'm planning on letting you run the kingdom and fight the wars while I eat, drink, and wench myself into an early grave," Robert said in amusement.

"Robert Baratheon sitting out a war, that will be the day," Ned replied, lifting his head up enough to look at Robert, a small grin on his face.

"Ha! I do love a good fight. Haven't had one since … my gods, was it Pyke? How long ago was that?"

"Nine years," Ned answered, remembering the last time they took up arms together, to put an end to Balon Greyjoy's little rebellion. It had been almost a decade since they had last seen each other, and times had changed greatly since then. Many things were different, including the King's waistline, which had ballooned greatly.

"Nine years! How the time passes." Robert took notice of Ned's posture. "Up now, I won't have you kneel before me like that."

Ned slowly climbed to his feet. Standing at his full height, Robert still towered over him by almost half a foot. The weight he put on may have robbed Robert of his imposing figure, the one that used to terrify opposing soldiers on the battlefield but he was still the same man under that weight. And it wasn't just the extra girth Ned was referring to, it was the weight of that crown that sat heavy upon the King's head as well.

"You helped me win this damnable throne, now help me hold it. We were meant to rule together. If Lyanna had lived we should have been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection. Well it is not too late. I have a son, you have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses as Lyanna and I might once have done."

Ned was taken aback by the offer. Now that was surprising. Being offered the position of Hand had been expected. Why else would Robert make the trip all the way to Winterfell? He had wrestled with himself over the past weeks, as he waited for Robert to arrive at Winterfell, if he would accept the position or not. After many talks with Cat, he had decided to take the position, to join his friend in ruling the land they had won all those years ago, despite everything in him wanting to say no. But a betrothal proposal between their families? Ned winced.

"What?" Robert demanded upon seeing his face. The King's eyes narrowed, his blue eyes glinting with the fiery temper Ned remembered from their youth. The one that had frightened all those who had stood before his fury, before Robert had calmed enough to settle tensions with his booming laughter.

"Sansa is already betrothed, your grace."

"To whom?"

"Brynden Blackwood, heir to Raventree Hall. My good-father arranged it several months ago."

Robert took that information in and seemed to mull it over. If Ned still knew the King as well as he used to all those years ago, he knew the man was judging if it would be worth demanding Ned break the betrothal.

It would anger not only Lord Blackwood, who would feel like Ned was spurning his family and declaring them not good enough to marry his daughter, but it would also spurn Lord Tully, who had worked tirelessly to arrange a suitable match between his granddaughter and one of his strongest vassals; a vassal who worshiped the old gods but was also much closer to the kind of southern courts Sansa dreamed of being a part of.

House Tully's grasp on the Riverlands was always weak, as several of their vassals were stronger houses, who could raise more levies and held more land. It was one of the reasons Hoster Tully had betrothed Catelyn to Ned's older brother Brandon, and Lysa to the older Jon Arryn; two of the major seven houses. While his good-brother Edmure was of age to marry, the young man had refused all requests from his father to do so despite the older man's pleading, and so Hoster had looked to his oldest, Cat, and her family to help strengthen his bonds with his vassal lords. Ned, having already worked to strengthen his own alliances with his lords in the north, had seen the benefit in marrying Sansa to the heir of a powerful Riverlands house, to also further the bonds between House Stark and the Riverlands.

"Alright then, your other daughter."

Ned winced again. Robert's nostrils flared in anger.

"Another damn betrothal!?" the King boomed.

"No your grace. I'm just thinking of Arya's reaction if I tell her she's to be betrothed. Arya is just," Ned looked back deeper into the crypts, where they had been moments earlier, "she's like her aunt come back to life."

Robert followed Ned's gaze and then understanding entered his eyes. His anger faded and he gave a low chuckle. "She's a she-wolf."

"Aye. She wrestles with her brothers, races her horse against the guardsmen, and tries to sneak in on the boys' sword training. Every time we put her in a dress, it ends up torn and covered in mud. She runs from needlework and drives both her mother, and the Septa who tries to teach her how to be a lady, mad."

"Like Lyanna," Robert said, a wistful note in his voice. Robert rubbed at his chin, his fingers disappearing in the thick, wiry beard. "Joff is, to my dismay, too much like his mother. If the betrothal was between him and Arya, I imagine they'd likely kill each other. And Tommen, he's a sweet kid. He doesn't have the deposition for a she-wolf yet."

"Tommen and Arya are still young, your grace," Ned pointed out. "She is only ten, and how old is Tommen?"

"He just turned nine." Robert thought it over. "Fine, in three years we'll revisit this conversation. See how the years have changed our children."

"You'll be the first one we come to when discussing Arya's betrothal possibilities," Ned promised with a small smile.

"I damn well better be!" Robert cried, clapping Ned on the back so hard that Lord Stark stumbled forward. "I noticed you were one short. Where is your other boy?"

"Bran is at Runestone in the Vale, your grace. Despite being of the Old Gods, he wishes to become a knight, a member of the Kingsguard even. He's the page for Ser Robar Royce. He should be here in another day or so."

"Stop with the 'your grace' shit or I swear I'll knock your head clean off your shoulders," Robert stated, jabbing Ned in the chest.

"As you wish your - Robert," Ned corrected.

"Ser Robar is a fine knight, if young. I've seen him in some tourneys. His footwork is a bit sloppy."

"Yohn spoke highly of his son."

Robert was back to rubbing his chin. "Those years we were at the Eyrie together were the best years of my life. This fostering, with your sons, have you had any issues with it?"

Ned's eyebrows rose at the question. Coming back to the north after winning a war, his mind had still been on strategy and tactics. He had written a list of things he wanted to do to strengthen the North, a list that he had slowly been working on throughout the years, and strengthening the alliances with his most powerful northern vassals had been one of them. The lords had been loyal to his father, and they had spent years getting to know Brandon as the future ruler of Winterfell while Ned had been away for years in the Vale. They had followed him to war, but that had been for vengeance of his father and brother, not for love of Ned. He had been reluctant to send Robb and Jon away, especially after losing all but his brother Benjen to the Targaryens, but in the end he knew it needed to be done.

"Outside of missing my children, no. Robb was with the Karstarks at Karhold for almost five years, and Jon with the Umbers at Last Hearth for the same. I'm indebted to the teaching both lords have done for them. They've both made friends with the heirs and sons of my vassals, and have further strengthened our alliances. And Bran has written about how much he's learning about what it takes to be a knight."

Robert stared at something over Ned' shoulder, searching for something that wasn't there. He closed his eyes and let out a tired sigh.

"I didn't do it with Joffrey, I'm told there's an unwritten rule about not fostering the heir to the realm, or so Cersei says, but like I said he's too much like his mother. For the sake of my other children, and my own damn sanity, I can't let the same happen to Tommen and Myrcella. I was thinking of fostering them both. Get them away from their mother for a few years. Though I don't know where to send them."

"I could help you choose where to send them. No lord will turn away fostering a prince and princess of the realm."

"When we're at King's Landing you can help me choose." Robert let out a long breath that spoke of future suffering. "I'm going to get hell from Cersei when she finds out I'm sending them away but it needs to be done. Oh she'll demand I at least send them to Casterly Rock with her father, but that is not an option. They're too … Lannister-y."

Ned chuckled. "No one said you had to marry one."

"Jon wouldn't shut up about it," Robert muttered, referring to their foster-father. "You were off relieving the siege of Storm's End so you didn't hear it. Her father gave you King's Landing. The Lannisters are a powerful family." Robert rolled his eyes. "I only agreed when word came of your sister. Whatever potential there might have been for my marriage with Cersei never had a chance, Lyanna's shade has hung over me since her passing."

Robert's face darkened with bitter memories. After a moment he shook his head and looked around them. It seemed he had forgotten where they had been. Ned wondered how much time had passed since they had first descended into the crypts of Winterfell.

"Let's get out of this damp and dark place. There's food and drink waiting and I plan to indulge in both."


Ned rolled off Cat later that night, and like he had done hundreds of times before, he walked to the windows of the room. He pulled back the heavy tapestries and threw open the windows, letting the cool night caress his heated skin. He let out a content sigh.

Cat's room was the hottest room in Winterfell, one of the reasons it was hers, and the heat of it always became too much for him to bear, especially after a night of lovemaking.

With his appetite sated, in more ways than one, he found his mind drifting to a few hours ago, back when he had stood before the King and accepted his offer of becoming his Hand.

"I should have refused him," Ned said, his voice thick with doubt as he turned to look at his wife. "In the morning I will tell him I have changed my mind, I cannot go south."

"You could not," Cat said. "You must not."

"My duties are here in the north. I still have many things I need to do here. Things I promised myself I would do when the war was over fifteen years ago."

"He is your king. You can not refuse him. You especially can not tell him no, after agreeing to at first."

Ned shook his head. "Robert is like a brother to me. He will understand."

"Robert Baratheon is a king and has been for fifteen years," Cat reminded him. "Kings do not hear the word 'no' often from their subjects. He's not the child you grew up with in the Eyrie and he's not the teen you fought a war with. When a king commands you, you obey. He came all this way to bestow this honor upon you. You can not spurn him."

"Honor?" Ned asked with a forced laugh. "Starks do not do well in the south, my father and brother and sister can all attest to that. And King's Landing is like a pit of adders."

Whatever Cat was going to say in response was interrupted by a knock on the door.

Ned growled, the sound coming from low in his throat and sounding almost wolf-like. He moved closer to the door.

"What is it?"

"My lord," Desmond, one of the house guards, called through the door, "Maester Luwin is without and begs urgent audience."

"Did you tell him I instructed not to be disturbed?"

"I did my lord, but he said it could not wait."

Ned growled again. He moved to the wardrobe and took out a heavy robe that he threw upon his shoulders.

"Very well, send him in!"

Cat pulled the furs and blankets up to her chin. "Perhaps we can close the windows?"

Ned gave a distracted nod and moved to the windows as the Maester entered the room. His wife could never stand to have the windows open long, even in the summer months.

Maester Luwin was a small gray man. His eyes were gray, his hair, what little he had left of it, was gray, and the robes he wore were gray.

"My lord," Maester Luwin said, as soon as the door closed. "Pardon for disturbing your rest. I have been left a message."

"Left by whom? And what does this have to do with me?" Ned asked with irritation as he pulled shut the last window.

"I do not know who left it, my lord. I awoke from my nap to see someone had left a carved wooden box on a table in my observatory. My servants saw no one, but it must have been left by someone in the king's party. We have had no other visitors."

"A wooden box you say?" Catelyn asked.

Ned frowned. He had little patience for these kinds of things. His preference was straight and to the point, not this roundabout way. So someone had left the maester a box why this was such an urgent thing?

"Inside was a fine new lens for my observatory. It looked like it came from Myr. Fine lens crafters do work their craft in Myr."

"Luwin, speak plainly. What does this have to do with me?"

"That is a very good question to ask, my lord. I found the true message in a hidden compartment at the bottom of the box."

Maester Luwin reached into his gray robe and pulled out a tightly rolled scrap of parchment. It was sealed with blue wax.

"A lens is an instrument to see," Cat stated. "So what is it they want us to see?"

"Perhaps this message will shed more light," Luwin said, turning the rolled paper over in his fingers.

"Give it here then," Ned said, holding out his hand.

"I'm sorry my lord, but this letter was not addressed to you. It is addressed to Lady Catelyn."

Ned looked at his wife, who shivered under the furs of her bed, despite the fact that he had closed the windows. She dropped the furs, and rose from the bed, and Ned wondered if she had forgotten her nakedness. Maester Luwin averted his eyes.

"Cat," he warned, nodding at her form.

She looked down at herself before shaking her head. "Maester Luwin has delivered all of my children. There is no time for false modesty."

Cat moved to the wardrobe and also withdrew a robe, which she placed around her shoulders. She pulled the robe tight against herself, tying it off at the waist. Once clothed, she moved to the Maester and took the message from him. The Maester moved to leave the room.

"I shall leave you -"

"No," Ned interrupted. "Stay, we might have need of your counsel."

Cat opened the seal and her eyebrows went up. "It's from my sister, Lysa."

Ned looked at the message over her shoulder but it read like nonsense to him. "How can you tell?"

"When we were girls, we created our own secret language, just between us two so we could pass notes without anyone being the wiser to what we were saying. It has been many years since then, but I can still understand it." Cat continued to read, her hand moving up to her mouth in surprise. "Lysa believes her husband was murdered."

Ned felt a series of emotions rise up in him at those words. Jon Arryn had been a second father to him. He had raised his banner in rebellion rather than turn over two teenagers to the Mad King, saving both his and Robert's lives. That someone would murder such an honorable man like that.

"Is she sure?"

"That is her belief. She has fled King's Landing for the Eyrie. Ned, she accuses the Lannisters of being behind the murder; she accuses the Queen."

Ned's mind took a moment to process what his wife had just said. Her sister was accusing the Queen of murdering the Hand of the King? Was that something she would even be capable of? Ned remembered the look on Tywin Lannister's face when he presented the mutilated bodies of Princess Elia and her two children. Yes, the Queen was capable of such things, she was a Lannister.

"Could Lady Lysa be imagining things in her grief?" Maester Luwin asked. "There have been well documented cases of such things happening."

Cat shook her head. "No, I know my sister. These aren't grief stricken accusations. This message was carefully planned, cleverly hidden. She knew it meant her death if it was discovered by the wrong person."

Ned ran his hand down his face and closed his eyes. By the Old Gods, why would the Queen murder Jon Arryn? What could possibly drive her to do something like that?

"Then it looks as though I truly am needed in King's Landing." Ned frowned, not liking this one bit. "For the safety of the man I consider a brother."

"The Hand of the King has great power my lord. Power to find the truth of Lord Arryn's death. Power to bring his killers to justice. And power to protect Lady Arryn and her son, should the worst be true."

Ned stared out the window, to the godswood where he could see the top of the heart tee with its canopy of red leaves. "My father went south once, to answer the summons of a king, and he never returned."

"A different time my lord," Maester Luwin said. "And a different king."

"Yes." Ned took a seat by the hearth. "Catelyn, you shall stay here in Winterfell."

"I am to stay?" Cat asked, shocked. "You would separate us so?"

"Robb will rule as the Stark in Winterfell. He is fifteen now, almost a man grown but he does not truly know yet what it means to rule. He will need your council, and you Maester Luwin. You have been a source of much wisdom, and I trust you like I trust my family."

"Thank you Lord Stark. Serving your family has been an honor," Maester Luwin said, bowing low.

"I don't wish to be separate from you," Cat whispered.

"Nor I you, but it must be done."

"What of the other children?" Cat asked, a pained expression on her face.

It had been hard on Cat when Robb had been sent to foster and again when Bran was sent to Runestone to be a page. He knew she loved her children dearly, and as most mothers, did not want to be departed from them in their youth.

Ned gathered his thoughts. "Rickon is too young, he will stay with you. I will take Sansa with me. She has always wanted to see a southern court. Well now she will get to see the southern court."

"You should take Arya as well. She must learn the way of a southern court sooner or later if she is to wed."

Ned shook his head. "No. Arya is a she-wolf, like my sister was. The southern ways are not her ways. She will stay at Winterfell."

"Ned, if she is to marry a prince of the realm -"

"Robert loved my sister, in spite of her ways. Tommen is Robert's son, and I do not doubt that if he and Arya are meant to be, he will love her in spite of her she-wolf ways as well."

Cat bit her lip, no doubt in worry over Arya. Bran would be traveling with Ser Robar as his page, Sansa would be accompanying him to King's Landing, and Robb, Arya, and Rickon would remain in Winterfell. That just left -

"You must take Jon with you."

Ned winced, hoping Cat would forget about Jon, but it was not to be. The resentment she held for the boy was always present it seemed. "He and Robb are close. I had hoped -"

"He can't stay here! I will not allow it. Take him to King's Landing and be done with it."

"You know I cannot take him south with me. A boy with a bastard's name at court? He will be shunned."

"Rumor is Robert has sired a dozen bastards himself."

"And none have ever been seen at court!" Ned said, feeling the anger swell within himself. "Jon will stay at Winterfell."

"No, if you are leaving then you must take the boy with your or, or, send him off to Last Hearth again."

"The boy expressed interest in joining the Night's Watch," Maester Luwin supplied, no doubt trying to be helpful. "Your lord brother told me the boy spoke with him about it at dinner tonight."

Ned's face fell. "Jon said that?"

Cat jumped on the idea. "Yes! Send him with your brother to the Night's Watch."

"Jon is still a boy," Ned said with a shake of his head. "The Night's Watch is a hard life. Jon doesn't realize what it entails."

"Benjen is his uncle, he will look after him. Let him take the vows, and give up any claims he might have."

Ned knew Cat meant a claim on Winterfell. She viewed Jon as a threat to her trueborn children, and despite his statements that it would never happen and his attempts to soothe her worries, it seemed she always would.

"No. Maybe in a few years, when he truly understands what being a brother of the Night's Watch means, he can join but not right now."

"I will not allow-"

"I am the Lord of Winterfell," Ned snapped, his anger getting the best of him. Cat shrank away from him. "And if I say Jon is to stay here, then it is to be so, and I will hear not another word about it."

Ned moved to the door and exited the room, without a glance at his wife. He already felt guilty at snapping at her, but he knew it was the only way he could get her to drop the issue without capitulating to her demands.

Maester Luwin dutifully followed him out, closing the door behind him.

"Maester Luwin, tomorrow after he breaks his fast, have Robb come to my solar. We have much to discuss if he is to be the Stark in Winterfell."