AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

This one took some time. And a bloody rewrite.

This is an important chapter for Robert, that's for sure.

Enjoy!

Robert

"-ace, they're here-" Bugger me... how do I handle this?

Robert was stuck. On an impulse, he'd summoned Ned's girls to him, but he really didn't know what to say.

Sorry I got your pa killed? He snorted - now there was a great way to start! This is why I'm a shit father.

But they were Ned's children - it was not even the least of what he owed the man.

"Your Grace -?" His eyes snapped open.

The two Stark girls were standing before him.

Sansa was much changed from the last he'd seen her. She didn't look like her mother writ small anymore - now she was freckled and sunburnt like a peasant. Eh, we've all fallen on low times.

The littler one - Arya, looked like she'd broken her teeth on a particularly stubborn bone. Even more of an urchin she is - but no one who'd looked into her eyes would see anything but a wolf.

Robert forced his jaw to work, "Have you been... treated fairly, as of late?"

Shit. That wasn't what I wanted - Robert hammered his head, trying to think on what to say. Seven Hells, I know how to talk to people!

Thankfully, the fish girl came to the rescue, the Maiden bless her manners. "Yes, your Grace," Sansa answered, "Your knights are most chivalrous, and Syrio has seen to our safety."

Robert felt that last bit - bloody hell. Years with the Bitch Whore has me snapping at the slightest slight.

The Warrior bless the Braavosi too, come to think of it. They were very lucky they had him around. Robert didn't need to imagine what they'd seen. Ned would kill me for that.

Robert took a deep breath and closed his eyes, "I am sorry for the death of your father. He was my friend... my greatest friend. The Kingslayer shall pay for it - him, and his bitch sister!"

"You have my word." There, he said it. He did what needed to be done, like a true King.

"Why did you tell my father to kill our wolves?"

What? "What wolves?" Robert asked.

The little wolf still looked plenty murderous. Gentle Sansa, though, seemed tongue-tied - her hands were trembling. Gods above, is she having a bloody fit again?

Arya's hands were like claws, now. I've seen that look somewhere before. "On the Kingsroad! Your Queen asked for wolf hides, and they couldn't find mine - so you gave her Lady instead!"

Bloody hell, the Bitch Whore continues to haunt me. The fish girl tried to clutch at her sister's hands, but the little wolf just shook her off.

Robert shook his head. Women. "Like I told your father, wolves turn on you! You'd been happier with a dog instead -"

"Like you were, right?" The wolf snarled at his face. "You tell my father to go fetch, and he runs down to King's Landing?"

Sansa grabbed her hand, "Arya please, don't- "

"SHUT UP!" Arya slapped her away.

Robert wasn't feeling very charitable either. What's wrong with her? "I shall excuse that because of your grief, girl," there, that sounded suitably kingly, "but don't talk about things you don't understand. Your father -"

"MY FATHER IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!" the wolf howled. "HE DIED A DOG'S DEATH!"

The girl is losing it, Robert thought. It was like facing the Bitch again, hearing her nag and scream. But this is a wolf.

"You're a disgrace of a friend!" Lumpy, the brave soul, was trying to wrestle her away.

The fish girl had her hands in her mouth - her eyes were huge and glassy. Someone should do something. His legs quivered, but he started walking.

"Where're you going? Coward!"

Robert Baratheon ran away. Coward! Coward! Coward!

For how long he walked, he didn't know.

The whole damned forest was eerily silent now. It should've been a blessing, after that - but Robert could still hear the echoes.

Coward!

With a sigh, he seated himself on a bone-white stump - of a weirwood, most like. Jon had planted a weirwood sapling at the Eyrie, once - and wasn't that a scandal! An Arryn, given to heathen impulses!

But Robert knew he'd done it for Ned - for even then, Jon had loved them like they were his own children. He hadn't visited the Eyrie in years, but the people who kept an eye on Mya for him had spoken of the sapling's demise. Damn thing never took root, not really. Rocky ground.

Everything was simpler then - no crown, no dead betrothed, no bitch wife, to nag at him, no dead friends.

Disgrace of a friend!

Robert shook his head. Why am I king again? Snorting, he answered himself. Right - because there was no one else.

And now there are five. Gods, Robb - you poor bastard. His Lords would probably force him to marry some harpy, who'd make his existence hell.

He did not expect Lancel to barrel out of the darkness, tripping on his own feet. How in the Seven Hells does he even breathe?

The Lannister groaned as he rose from the ground, "Dammit... bloody bushes!" Then, stumbling - again - he turned to face Robert. "Y-Y-YOUR GRACE! I WAS SEARCHING FOR YOU EVERYWHERE!"

Robert didn't meet his eyes, and Lumpy's shoulders drooped. "Why are you here, boy?" he asked. "Getting strangled once wasn't enough?"

"Well... I mean..." Lumpy stammered, "I thought you would need help - the Eighth Commandment of the Seven-Pointed Star dictates the faithful to do so."

"Lumpy," Robert interrupted. "All I see when I look at you's the bloody Kingslayer."

"I... noticed that," he answered. There was an awkward silence.

"A DOG'S DEATH!"

"Your Grace, if I may be so bold -" Lumpy looked so discouraged, that Robert couldn't help but laugh - which only seemed to discourage him further.

"No, no -" Robert patted his back, "few men would face death so, in the name of their King!" Death at the hands of their King - he sobered, and continued, "You've earned the right, Lumpy."

But when Robert finally met his eyes, all he could see was the fucking Kingslayer - his smug, smirking face. That oath-breaking cunt! I shall have his head!

Robert rose from the tree stump and paced. Clench and unclench, clench and unclench - he could already hear the sisterfucker squealing.

"At the camp, your Grace - that was ill-done." he turned in surprise. "Even I could see that." Lumpy looked… stubborn. Quaking in his boots, but stubborn.

Robert nodded.

"You're right."

Lumpy looked flabbergasted. "I - I am?"

Robert walked up to him, and clasped his shoulder. "'Course you're right. Never be afraid to stand up for what's right. Do you understand?" He clasped Lumpy's other shoulder and shook him. "Do you?"

Lumpy - most sensibly - nodded. "A-Aye, your Grace, I do."

"Good." Robert let go. "Then finish what you were going to say."

Lumpy gulped. Then he gritted his teeth, and kept going.

"That was no way to treat a friend's get, your Grace. You shamed Lord Stark's memory tonight."

"You tell my father to go fetch -"

"Don't I know it," Robert grinned ruefully. "In truth, I could never measure up to him - not as a warrior, but as a man. Not in the Eyrie, not in the Rebellion, and certainly not now."

Somewhere, an owl hooted. He paid it no mind.

"And Lyanna - gods - Lyanna was worth ten of me."

Ah, that was where I'd seen it before. T'was like Lyanna staring back at me - through another wolf's eyes.

Lumpy looked… careful, like a man treading softly. "What was she like, your Grace?"

Robert didn't need to think about it. As always, the words came unbidden, as if they'd been part of him.

"Wild and fierce - every inch a thorny Winter Rose. No delicate maiden she was!" He laughed.

"We were betrothed, but she didn't want to marry me." Lumpy started in surprise - no doubt he'd heard some bard sing of her, likening her to the Mother and the Maiden all at once. Pfeh, fools.

Robert laughed ruefully. "She didn't want to marry anyone, really. She wanted to be free - to ride from horizon to horizon, chasing the moon 'cross the sky." Heh, now I sound like a bard. How about that, you fucking Silver cunt?

"It was then that I knew I loved her," Robert choked, "For what was in her heart, was in mine also."

Lumpy was silent, but Robert didn't care if he was listening or not. "I knew I had to be better - a good husband for her, and a good brother to Ned."

"Why did you kill our wolves?"

"But then he crowned her. And then he took her, and raped her - like father, like son!" Robert growled, blood thundering in his ear. "Prince of Grief they called him - Silver Cunt, says I!" He could hear the roaring of the ocean - of Shipbreaker's Bay.

He shook his head, and cleared his ears. Lumpy started - more doe than lion, that one. Gods -

Robert turned to his squire, then, willing him to understand. "The Raper Prince took my chance at love from me. The Iron Throne… took everything else." His voice broke again - Gods!

He was weeping on the ground, when someone clasped his shoulder. Robert looked up and saw the fucking Kingsl- no! No.

Lumpy looked the saddest Robert had ever seen him. "That's no way to live, your Grace."

"He was my friend... my greatest friend."

Robert thought about that awhile.

"Aye. Aye." He did his best to pillow his head on the stump. "I'm going to sleep here tonight. Keep watch, your King commands it!"

Lumpy smiled. "Always ready to follow your orders, your Grace."

That night, Robert dreamed again.