Work Text:
'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe
The paperwork was not on his mind anymore when the telephone went off. It was strange, it was already 2 AM, who on earth would call him at this hour? But the voice on the other side of the phone made him fully alert and forget about anything else.
“Ned?” Her voice sounded small, like she never had done before and afraid she sounded more frightened than he ever heard.
“Lyanna? What is wrong? Are you okay?”
He heard first a sob and then a small smile sounded through her voice, “I knew you would be awake.” There was a short silence as if she needed to contemplate what she would say next. “No I am not okay. Ned I made a mistake and I can’t deal with it. I need you to help me, I need my little brother.” He now could hear her cry and he just wanted to give her a hug, even when physical contact didn’t come to naturally to them. He remembered how she ruffled his hair and he couldn’t bear hearing his big sister break down.
“It is okay Lyanna.”
“No it’s not! It is not okay!” A sob silenced her for a moment. “Ned can I come to your home? I know you just married to Catelyn and I don’t want to intrude.” She sounded so small, lyanna never sounded small. “I have nowhere else to go.”
“Off course you are welcome. Cat wouldn’t mind I can assure you. When are you coming?”
“Tomorrow. Is that okay Ned? I need you to unravel this for me. I know no one better who could unravel this better for me.” She was so quiet for a moment, but he felt that she wasn’t done yet. And then the worst words came out of her mouth. “Winter wasn’t my season.”
He could almost cry now. They always said ‘winter is coming’ it were their family words. The only thing this could me was that winter happened to her. “Lyanna, I will be here tomorrow. Don’t worry springtime comes.”
She cried out loud and he didn’t know where she was, if there was someone who could put an arm around her, to comfort her. But tomorrow he would be there for her. After half an hour he hung up with a heavy feeling.
“Ned is there a problem?” Cat stood in the doorway, her nightgown on and her auburn her was a mess. He gave her a small smile, but she noticed immediately the tension. “Who was that?”
Ned looked at the phone he still held in his hands, “My sister, Lyanna.”
Cat came over to him and put her arm around him, but didn’t say anything, she waited for him to talk. “She has a problem. I don’t know what, but it is bad. I never heard her so so confused or afraid.” He took a deep breath, “She asked me if she could come here. She needs my help.”
She just nodded, but she seemed tense. “I am sorry.”
She gave a small smile and a reassuring squeeze on his shoulder. “No it is no problem, I just wish we would have the house to ourselves since we are not even married yet for a year and next year we will have a baby around. I just wished to have some more time to ourselves.”
He nodded and gave a small smile after which he put a hand on her still flat belly. “I know, I know, me too. But she is my sister.”
She gave a small laugh, “You don’t have to explain. I would have done the same for Lysa. But Ned come to bed now.” He nodded and followed her.
Lyanna stood in front of the door as a lost puppy. She looked scared and was eyeing anxiously around. And when he opened the door she jumped in his arms and started to cry. He heard her mumble words I didn’t love him, I am sorry, I didn’t love him.
After he made her some tea and sat next to her on the couch did she finally calm down. She was wiping away her tears and there was only one thing he could ask, “explain.”
“I made a big mistake Ned, a very big mistake.” He nodded and tears sprung out of her eyes again. “Please don’t judge me, please don’t don’t hate me.”
He scrunched up his face, “I could never hate you Lyanna.” And he put his arm around her and he was rewarded with at least a small smile.
“I was so stupid. I didn’t love him, never did. I started to see someone. He was interested in me and it was trilling. But then he started to get more paranoid ideas, but at that moment I lived in one of his houses and I couldn’t go away just because he made some weird poetry or music. He was high standing.” She just seemed to felt the need to tell that little fact in between, but the rest felt like rambling. “But he had a wife and children and I didn’t-”
“He had?” He just needed that explained he didn’t understand.
“They died last week, in an accident. But two months before his father died and he started to talk about some prophecy and I tried to avoid him.”
“Lyanna who is he, what’s wrong?”
Just one name, one simple but destructive name, “Rhaegar Targaryen.”
He didn’t judge her. He nodded, “Okay and what now?”
She looked relieved, but also surprised and still lost. But she gave a smile and a sob at the same time and he squeezed her shoulder and pulled her to him. “I am pregnant Ned.” She just threw it out there. “And I have no idea what to do.”
Ned now finally started to understand what she had meant. “It is your choice Lyanna.” She laughed a humorless laugh. “But whatever you do, I will support you.”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to go back.”
“So you will not go back there.”
“But where else do I need to go?” she was exasperate.
“You could always stay here.” She raised an eyebrow and he finally could see the sister he knew back. “Cat wouldn’t mind. I told you that before.”
“I don’t want to intrude.” She mumbled.
“You won’t you’re my sister.” He pushed her with his shoulder and she punched him in his side. “Hey.” He cried out. But she finally really laughed and he felt immensely happy.
After that they started a comfortable conversation with banter and jokes. And she was laying on the couch and was almost sleeping. She probably hadn’t had a good sleep for a while. “Ned”
“Uh-uh.”
“Don’t tell Robert, please. Don’t tell him.”
Ned hadn’t thought about Robert yet. He wasn’s his priority and after Lyanna refused him after a bit of flirting, was his heart broken and because of his stubbornness he was much more determined.
“I won’t.” worry left her face and she fell asleep.
She started showing and he saw how people looked at her. Rumors spread around quickly. Especially after she had been to a clinic with Ned, she wanted to get advice and Ned supported her. They had talked, but after Lyanna had talked with Cat and Ned wasn’t allowed to be there, Lyanna had made her choice. She was keeping the baby, because he was a Stark, because the baby was hers.
She had moments she cried, moments she was angry at the world. She rants about people, who had no idea of her situation. Ned never said it out loud, but he had talked about it with Cat. “It was rape. She was not in a stable situation and he sounds to be certainly insane, maybe from grieve, but still insane. It was dubious consent Cat, which means it was rape.”
She had comforted him and he never mentioned it to Lyanna. He knew that Lyanna was smart enough and if she wanted to go to the police it should come for her. Ned was not going to push her, Lyanna had to decide herself.
She started to show and people looked and judge, while they walked through the streets. “Lyanna they are just hypocrites. No one has the right to criticize anyone.”
“It doesn’t matter Ned.”
“But it does.”
It was May and Ned had to visit his longtime best friend. He didn’t feel comfortable on the army base at fort Bliss, but it was his birthday and Ned had to go, had to talk to him.
He was sitting there sluggishly, a flask in his hand and he was growing out his beard. “Happy birthday Robert.”
He sat in front of his friend who was looking longingly at his flask and after rotating it drunk another sip. He looked at Ned through glazed eyes, “It’s just a day.”
Ned wasn’t prepared to see his old friend like that, he used to be the most handsome man in school, he used to be it. But now he looked down, miserable and drunk. He still was a bit muscled but less and he seemed to have more of a belly, even when he was at the army. “cheers to me.” Robert continued and took another sip. “I haven’t been sober since what? It think October, of last year.” He gave a false laugh, not the booming laughter that Ned was familiar with.
“He stole her from me Ned, I saw it. She lived in his house.”
“She is back home now.”
Robert looked up, but Ned shook his head and Robert sounded a bitter laugh. “So still-”
“She never loved him.” Ned looked at his drunk friend, “but she also never loved you.”
“But she has his baby.”
“How-”
“You never look in the gossip magazines. Here it is one of the only entertainment we’ve got.” Ned was taken aback, he didn’t know people knew, the paparazzi knew. “But tell her that if she ever, ever would change her mind. I would be there for the child Ned. It is Lyanna’s. He is not from the dragons.”
Ned gave a smile, “No he is a Stark.”
Robert smiled for the first time, “Yeah, I have heard you will be a dad too?” Ned confirmed and Robert slapped him on the shoulder. “Congratulations.” It was the first time that Ned recognized his old friend in the man in front of him. It felt good. Robert started to smile even more and pulled something out of his pocket, which clearly was a child’s drawing. “It is from Mya, you know the daughter I have from-”
“Yes we visited her a year or so back?”
Robert nodded, “Yes her mother died and I think I am going to leave this place behind and take her with me.” Ned smiled at that and remembered how proud Robert had been of the girl and had played with her. “I have made mistakes, but I want to change Ned. Tell her that. Tell her that please.”
He had told, but didn’t tell lyanna what to do. She signed, “I’ll think about it, but we are all in a tunnel and there is a light at each end and you want to get out. The thing is you are just as far in as you’ll ever be out, and the mistakes we make, we’ll just make them again. When we try to turn around.”
“That sounds depressing.”
“It is the truth or what I believe and until I can believe that he has changed I won’t consider it.”
Ned smiled, “That is good. Because you don’t love him.”
Lyanna smiled and he only just realized how beautiful both Robert’s and her smile was. But in a different way. He wanted to see them both happy, but they would never be happy with each other. Even if Robert didn’t believe that. Maybe in another life, but not now. Not after what happened.
Lyanna had written a diary when she was pregnant. She wanted to write all her feelings in there. It was full of life lessons and it contained Lyanna’s soul.
When the boy was old enough, Ned gave it to him. Telling him that it was from his mom, who died when she gave birth to him. The boy couldn’t sleep and at 2AM he was writing a song about his mother’s misery and feelings.
The diary was dedicated to him, as if she knew she was going to die. Threatening the life it belongs to.
Even when she didn’t knew if she could get it all on paper, but she needed to get it outside of her, everything. This was her diary and the words screamed at him. It was as if the core of his mother, her soul was bare to him and he didn’t know what to do. He felt guilty. But she choose for him, she wanted her, she wanted to be happy. She wanted him to be happy.
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to