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Aunt Sara liked to say that Rickon’s father had northern stoicism, though deep down Rickon had never fully agreed with that statement.
His dad was warm, arms always willing and waiting if they were needed, with a phone that had probably never been silenced so he could make sure he never missed a call from someone in their family. When he laughed, it was quiet, but it was frequent and genuine. When he spoke, it was purposeful, thoughtful.
It took his Uncle Jace dying for Rickon to realize what she’d meant, to realize that he’d never seen his father cry before.
. . .
May 22, 2019
Rickon blinked awake to the familiar feeling of his father squeezing his shoulder in goodbye just before dawn, the yellow light from the hallway bleeding into the room through the half-open door, and when he blinked awake again it was to the roar of the truck in the driveway.
By the time he stumbled downstairs an hour later, there was a text from Daenaera inviting him for breakfast that he readily accepted. Anything to keep from having to cook for himself and besides, he was going to drive over there anyways to pick up the girls. He and Daenaera alternated driving, finally getting to enjoy the freedom of having a license and getting to leave later now that she and Jocelyn didn’t have to catch a ride with one of her parents on their way to drop off their younger sisters.
The garage door was unlocked when he got there, the air thick with sugary-sweet smells, and he’d barely made it into the kitchen before his uncle was pushing a plate at him with a grin. There was a cooler next to the open pantry door, half-full of grocery bags, the caps on a six pack of beer just barely visible over the plastic. Rickon nodded in its direction as he filled his plate.
“Weekend plans?”
Jace shook his head, dumping the scrambled eggs into one of the serving bowls and dropping two more into the pan unscrambled for Jocelyn, who prefered them sunny-side up with her toast, “Today, actually. Vis’ bachelor party. We’re going out on the lake for the day, fishing and swimming and such. You kids can join us after school if you want, though I’m not sure how much food will be left at that point.”
“On company time, I assume?” Rickon asked with a smirk, finally taking his seat next to Daenaera who sleepily grunted at him in greeting.
“It’s practically a board meeting with Luke there.” Jace smiled, the lines beside his eyes crinkling, “Inspecting the boat for leaks, market research. A very valuable use of company time.”
He would have snorted in reply, but just then Jocelyn came around the corner, stopped when she saw him, and then darted back upstairs. Strange.
“What was that about?”
Jace sighed, giving him a strange look.
“Nothing, bud. Nothing at all.”
Rickon glanced at Daenaera, who didn’t seem to have much to say either, the glow of her instagram feed reflecting off her glasses as she ate.
When Jocelyn did return, she seemed in much better spirits and in a skirt that did very nice things for her legs-
Not that Rickon was looking. Of course not. Though, maybe his uncle thought he was based off the very protective, suspicious glare he was giving Rickon over the top of Jocelyn’s head as she filled up her own plate.
“Lyssa!” Jace pulled the sunny-side eggs from the pan, “You’re going to be late if you don’t move it, bug.”
His uncle’s phone buzzed on the counter, Visenya’s bright smile from her college graduation picture taking up the screen, and Jocelyn hit accept before her father could even ask.
“You’re never going to believe it,” Visenya said, her voice loudly filtering through her car’s bluetooth phone, “But also when Egg tells you on the boat, pretend you don’t know.”
Jace raised an eyebrow, “Oh?”
“Jaehaera says that Aemond and Floris are getting a divorce, filed the papers and everything, because he’s been having an affair with an older woman.”
“You’re kidding,” Daenaera said, finally looking up from her phone, “Like I knew they were miserable but I was sure Floris would cheat first.”
“Who’s to say she hasn’t?” Jocelyn asked, dropping into the chair next to Rickon, “Morning.”
“Morning.”
“Anyways,” Visenya said, “like I said, don’t let Egg know. But I also wanted to check with you on where we wanted to have dinner when Mom and Dad get back from Hawaii. Any suggestions?”
Alyssa appeared in the doorway then, followed closely by Daella who looked less than enthused to be up and about.
“I wouldn’t mind going to that Pentoshi place we went to in February again.”
“You’re just saying that because that’s what Baela would choose if I had called her. You can barely handle the lowest spice level there.”
Jace dipped down to kiss Daella on the top of the head, his arm around her as she hugged his side, “Guilty as charged.”
“Loser. I’ll talk to the others and let you know. I love you all.”
There was a chorus of love you’s and see you soon’s before Visenya hung up the phone and Rickon settled back into his food, Jocelyn’s foot bumping lightly against his.
. . .
This is how it should have gone:
It should have been a normal Wednesday, just with a surprise pop quiz in third period that he would have complained to his father to about at dinner. They should have gotten through the day and then gone out to the parking lot, Jocelyn sprinting to get ahead of Daenaera so she could call shotgun and sit next to him. He should have stopped by his place on the way home to grab his swim trunks and a snack before driving the girls back to theirs so they could get changed. They should have gotten to go to the lake, where he would have dealt with a very sudden realization of his very not platonic feelings towards Jocelyn through one too many glances her way while she was tying her curls up in her bikini. They should have been eating sandwiches and chips and drinking cold sodas from the sloshing, half-melted cooler in the summer sun. They should have had familiar sights like his aunt sitting in her husband’s lap once she arrived from her shift in the ER or Luke with one of his twin toddlers under each arm, all three caked in mud.
He should have driven home sleepy, hair damp, the tops of his shoulders sunburnt.
He should have driven home with his godfather still alive.
. . .
It went like this instead:
He was watching the clock, the slow drag of the hand all the way around, watching it click to 11:22. Daenaera was too far across the room to talk, separated many, many grades ago due to joint misbehavior, and the substitute for the teacher that day was an older gentleman who was just about as monotone as a human being could be. It was brain numbing. It was preferable to what was coming.
A knock at the door, someone asking for Daenaera Strong and Rickon Stark, and his stomach dropped. Daenaera looked similarly unsettled as she gathered her things and followed him out to a chorus of whispers. The teacher who had asked for them had a pinch to her brow, but could tell them nothing when they asked, only depositing them in the office with a nervous-looking Jocelyn and closing the door behind them. He sat down next to Jocelyn, who pressed her shoulder against his in greeting.
“Something's wrong,” Daenaera said as soon as the door clicked shut, pulling her phone out and dialing the first number on her list, “Really, really wrong.”
“We don’t know that,” Jocelyn said, the voice of reason, “It could be anything.”
Rickon didn’t say it, but he didn’t think it could be just anything. Something was wrong and whatever it was? It was going to be bad. The only reason they would pull all three of them was if it was something to do with his dad or their parents, and the fact that no one was already here to tell them what was happening was unnerving in a way that even being sent to voicemail once, twice, a third time, could not achieve.
By the fourth, Daenaera was beginning to tear up, switching her tactics from calling her dad to calling her mom, to no avail. He typed out a text to his dad, quickly followed by two more. All went unanswered.
“Someone’s dead,” Daenaera kept saying, over and over as Jocelyn begged her to stop, “No one’s answering-“
Tick, the clock on the wall said, no one's answering-
Tick, the sound of footsteps in the hall, no one's answering-
Tick, his father in the doorway, Baela's face of grief, the wordless scream, tick, tick, tick, no one's answering-
. . .
May 23, 2019
He woke to his father’s voice, comforting and low somewhere nearby.
Shoulders aching from the air mattress, Rickon pushed himself up to grab his phone from its charger near the wall. There was already a steady stream of texts overnight asking what had happened but he swiped them all away without an answer. What had happened, where could he even begin? His godfather had died in a tragic, preventable accident? He’d seen his father cry for the first time in his entire life?
How do you explain the act of watching your extended family fall apart in a way that doesn’t feel like putting your entire heart on your sleeve to the world? In a way that doesn’t feel like betraying them, even? In a way that isn’t a detached family emergency, not sure when I'll be back-
He wasn’t sure, he didn’t know if he’d ever really be sure.
His father was at the kitchen table, the same one that Rickon had sat at the day before, watching Jace, alive, cooking for his family, making plans with his little sister. How had so much changed in so little time? It didn’t make any sense. It would never make sense.
“Thank you,” his father was saying, crossing off something on the list in front of him with a Velaryon Charters plastic pen, “I’ll be sure to let her know.”
The ending beep followed and Rickon watched his father breathe a sigh of relief before he tossed the phone aside and pushed out the chair next to him with his foot in invitation. He took the seat, glancing over the mostly crossed-out list in front of them. Schools, the church Jace had attended at times, the name of a few doctor’s offices that must have had appointments coming up that needed cancelling. The family calendar was pulled up on a laptop next to the paper, the sliver of background peeking out from behind the document a picture of Rickon’s mother.
“Hey,” he said, reaching out to ruffle Rickon’s hair, “You sleep okay?”
Rickon shrugged, feeling the strain in his shoulder with the movement.
“Do you want to go to school today?”
Rickon shook his head without hesitation. Definitely not.
His father nodded, a look of relief on his weary face. Rickon couldn’t help but think of the day before when his father had cried. Then later, when Rickon had fallen asleep in Daenaera’s room on her chair and he’d crept downstairs to avoid getting in trouble and found his father in the kitchen with Baela. They’d been sitting at the table, at an angle where they could have seen Rickon if he took another step, and something in his aunt’s voice drove him to stop.
“I don’t know how to wrap my head around it.”
Rickon pressed himself against the wall, holding still even as he debated climbing the stairs. Any trouble he might find himself in by falling asleep in Daenaera’s room would be far outdone by how disappointed his father would have been about him sneaking around and eavesdropping.
“It’s Jace of all people. You know exactly how he is. I don’t think he went a single day without thinking about death.”
He could hear her crying, the pull of tissues from a box, the creak of a chair. His father was silent, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there, that he didn’t care.
“You don’t think,” Baela hesitated, “You don’t think he meant for it to happen, do you? I don’t want to think that way but it’s just so out of character and it terrifies me that I could have missed-“
“Look at me.”
His father’s voice wasn’t harsh, but it was strong, it demanded to be heard, to be heeded. If Rickon hadn’t been holding himself so still against the wall, he might have looked too.
“Look at me,” he said again, softer, “You can’t do that to yourself. Not now, not ever. What happened to him isn’t your fault and convincing yourself it was will only hurt you more.”
“None of it makes sense, Cregan,” she sobbed, “None of it. It already hurts.”
“I know,” he hushed her, “I know, honey.”
Her crying grew muffled, Rickon didn’t dare glance around the corner but assumed she was pulled against his shoulder.
“Listen to me,” His father said, eventually, and his voice held the same edge of tears that it had when he had told Rickon that he wasn’t okay, not at all, “I think for the first time, he was comfortable. He felt in control, no kids to protect, the boat was still, the weather was good, and he’d drank far more than he normally did. And in that feeling of control he had a lapse of judgement that he couldn’t come back from.”
He took in a deep breath.
“He loved you and those girls so much, Baela. It was just bad timing. A freak accident. There was nothing you could have done.”
“Hey.”
His father’s voice shook him back to reality, his warm hand smoothing Rickon’s hair back from his face.
“You always know what to say,” Rickon couldn’t stop himself, voice dropping to a whisper, “but I don’t. I can’t remember Mom, I know you said being here is enough but I don’t know how to help here.”
His father’s face somehow grew even more sad, his hand dropping to Rickon’s shoulder.
“When your mom went into surgery, do you know who I called?”
Rickon nodded.
“Do you know what they did?”
He’d heard the story a hundred times over. How his father had called Jace. How Jace had shown up and sat with him for hours while they waited to learn if Rickon and his mom would survive the surgery. How Jace’s dad had been there too, sitting on the other side, waiting, solemn, praying. It’d been Grandad Harwin who had gone to the store to get a new carseat as the one Rickon’s father had installed, though empty at the time of the collison, could not be used again.
“They stayed. Whatever we needed, they were there to do it.”
His father’s mouth curved into a sad smile.
“That’s right. And so will we, for as long as they need us.”