Author's Note
I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire.
Robb is several moons old by the time Ned lays eyes on him. He is different from Jon, the infant he has known from only a few days of age, red-haired where Jon is dark, blue-eyed to Jon's grey. But there is something strange in him. He rarely cries, and when he makes sound there's an odd ring to it, like music and breaking ice and the snarl of an animal.
"He's a quiet babe," Cat says, but Ned can read the unease in her eyes.
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Cat does not allow Jon to share Robb's cradle, scorning his bastard nature. Ned has him made his own, and both boys sleep in the nursery against Cat's protests. But perhaps this saves him, and so Ned doesn't begrudge Cat her decision.
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They can't find a wetnurse willing to stay longer than a month, and Cat, despite her shame and embarrassment, often has to feed the boy herself, though she confides in Ned one night that she understands the problem.
"He has a fierce bite, and one might think he prefers blood to milk for those sharp teeth of his!"
The problem is not echoed in Jon. The wetnurses are happy to mind him, and often speak of his mild nature. Sometimes Ned sees the way Cat looks at him and worries about the envy in her eyes.
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One afternoon, back from a hunt, Ned finds Cat huddled in the great hall, a bundle clasped against her chest. At first Ned thinks it Robb, but as he approaches, he sees the dark hair.
"What has happened?" he asks carefully.
Cat looks up at him with tear-stained eyes and gently adjusts Jon in her arms, unbinding him from the blanket. "See what your son has done?"
Jon's throat is a mess of blood and flesh, his little chest marred with scratches and bites. Ned cannot find the words, so instead he snatches the babe and holds him close. He's supposed to be safe here, in Winterfell.
"What did this?"
If it was rats, he will fill the castle with cats. If it was a man, he will have his hands before his head and his screams before both. Jon is his blood, and he made an oath.
But Cat only looks at him with sorrow in her eyes. "Ned." Her voice is quiet, and it is the first time she has called him that, his Lady Wife. "Robb did this."
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Ned has Jon moved to another room, down the hall from the nursery, where he is to be cared for only by his own wetnurse. And if sometimes Ned sees Cat there, watching the boy with jealousy on her face, he says nothing of it.
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"I want another baby," Cat says as she lays in his bed, wearing nothing at all. "I want a normal baby."
It is the first time they have discussed another, though it is expected of them.
Ned kisses her and climbs into bed. "As you wish, my Lady."