Chapter Text
When Ned finds his dying sister in the tower of joy he wonders who he hates more the prince who stole her or king that went to war for her but couldn’t be bothered to rescue her from her tower, so it makes sense because Robert didn’t go to war to save her he went to war to have her. Still, now he has a throne, and not even the winter rose can compete with for a man’s love for power.
So far, it’s just him there all alone looking and watching as she lays there propped up on pillows and bloody sheets with a cradle in the corner. Ned almost hates the babe, but then his sister looks at him and smiles and for a moment, seems just like she did when they were young and free before she became something that could be owned or stolen.
“ He’s a wolf Ned, all wolf looks so much like you he's even got your eyes,” she tells him in a soft strained voice.
Ned barely manages to grumble out an “Aye” because he hasn’t even gone to look at the sleeping babe.
Still, he knows she's wrong she gave birth to a dragon she gave birth to that rapist’s baby and just like always lyanna can read him like a book.
“I chose to leave Ned I chose to go with him, so if you want to hate somebody you hate me but not my child do you understand me Eddard Stark he’s innocent” she says with so much venom in her voice "promise me you’ll protect him from father I know he’ll be so mad. Still, I never meant for any of this to happen,” she rushes out in the most pleading voice he’s ever heard.
“Oh, lya” he croaks out as his chest tightens because how does he tell his sister that her leaving wasn’t the only thing that the north went to war for
“ ned please please promise me you’ll take care of my boy promise me” shes openly begging him now.
And it’s in that moment that ned realizes that it’s himself he hates the most as he listens to his dying sister plead with him to a protect a babe he doesn’t think his honor will allow. Lyanna looks into his eyes resignation, slowly creeping into hers as she slowly accepts the truth.
“ I promise I’ll protect him. I swear it on the old gods and the new,” he says without really thinking because God hasn’t he failed her enough.
And just like that, all the fight leaves her as if she had been fighting off the hands of death with her sheer will power until she was sure her boy would be okay.
“Love him ned, please love him for you might be the only one who will,” she tells him as she takes her last breaths and all he can do is nod, his sister smiles at him one last time with glossy grey eyes and watery smile so beautiful and tragic at the same.
He finally understands Robert because lyanna stark most definitely is reason enough to go to war.
Seconds that feel like hours go by in complete silence as he stares at his sister’s unbreathing chest. The silence gets disrupted by cries, pained vengeful cries he didn’t even know a babe was capable of, the two seconds it takes him to get to the babe he tells himself he’s going to get his sister’s son, not her killer. When he gets to the cradle and makes eye contact with the babe, his heart stops because God those are her eyes, and he has the same puff of curly hair lyanna had when she was born. He’s stark through and through the babe stares at him too then reaches up to him.
That’s when it all flashes before his eyes his sister as a babe reaching out to him
His older brother pestering him for a chance to hold the new baby.
Just as soon as the memory arrives, it leaves because that’s all it was only a passing memory full of ghosts now.
He comes back to the present to pick up the babe because he’s real and alive and Neds going to do everything in his power to keep it that way no matter what because he’ll be damn if Robert kills Jon just like he killed his father because maybe the Robert he knew would have never killed a babe but Robert Baratheon King of the Seven Kingdoms had no problem stepping over the bodies of his nephew's half-siblings on his way to the throne.
To say his wife didn’t take kindly to him introducing her to his pretend bastard Jon Snow two seconds after she introduced him to his firstborn would be an understatement.
Looking back at it, Ned can’t help but let out an angry, bitter chuckle because, of course, Cat named their babe Robb after his dear friend (and king) the only one who would want Jon gone more than her.
Ned's surprised she hasn’t come to his chambers yet to release of that ice-cold fury she kept at bay in the courtyard when she laid eyes on the bundle in his arms.
So, now, he’s just waiting knowing Cat will want to know why after she birthed him an heir a sweet trueborn heir he gives her a bastard to raise as punishment.
Neds not quite sure how he expected her to react to him returning with a bastard, no doubt conceived after their wedding when he was at war.
Undoubtedly there would be anger, tears, and maybe yelling, but when she came barrelling into his chambers, demanding an explanation as to why he would shame her like this why he would dare bring a bastard to be raised here. Ned almost considers telling her the truth when his wife looks at him full of so much anger she’s shaking because she never asked for any of this hell she never asked for him. She’s not supposed to be here screaming at him about his bastard because she was never supposed to marry him in the first place.
There are only three things Ned knows about Catelyn Stark, the wife, that was never meant for him, one is that she spent every second of her life since her twelfth nameday preparing to marry his brother up until Jon’s grandfather killed him. Two, she abides by her house words Family, Duty, Honor no matter what because while she grieved for his brother, she allowed her self to be traded down to the next brother to him. And lastly she’s the mother of his child, and she’s willing to protect that child from anything no matter what which is why he can’t trust her not with this because Jon wouldn’t just be a threat Robb’s claim in her eyes he’d be a threat to his life.
So instead of the truth, Ned just looks at her and says, “I’m sorry, Cat, he’s my son, and he belongs with me as is his place.”
“His place she spits out his place is where ever his whore of a mother is that… that is his place not here, Eddard not here” she spits out at him.
She doesn’t know she not aware that his mother is in the crypts below their feet, but he can’t help it can’t stop the anger that flows through him as she unknowingly calls his sister a whore.
“You seem to know so much about other people places, yet you seem to have forgotten yours Lady Stark,” he spits out with more anger than she really deserves.
Because her words are just a result of the choices he made, it seems like everything about her life is the result of other people’s choices. The anger suddenly leaves him, but before he can apologize for his misplaced anger, she cuts him off.
“Oh I very well know my place it is beside you raising our children your trueborn children it does not and will never include that bastard your bastard,” she tells him in a void of any emotion as if the mention of her place in the world has suddenly knocked all the fight out of her.
“He’s just a babe Cat he’s innocent. If you want to hate somebody, hate me if you need somebody to hate but don’t blame him for simply being born” he pleads with her just like his sister pleaded with him, but unlike Ned, she doesn’t relent.
“I may not be able to make you send him away, but you cannot order me to the love the boy, and I’m very capable of doing both Ned Stark hating you and blaming him” she informs him then exists the room leaving it colder than it was before she came in.
Ned sends a quick promise up to the old gods that he’ll love the boy he’ll love him enough to fill the space of his mother since his wife will not.