Chapter 2

It was a tough winter and Ned was glad that he had Robb to help him handle matters in Winterfell. He was sure that Catelyn was as thankful for Wylla, and yet he could see that she missed her children. There were barely any messages from the Gates of the Moon and none from Bran whose visit to Howland Reed had turned into a long one when he gave up his dreams about the Kingsguard and married the crannogman 's daughter. Cat missed Arya too, Ned knew, even if she refused to so much as say her name. Most of Winterfell believed that their younger daughter had run away to avoid an unwanted marriage but he heard stranger tales from afar. He didn't believe any of them.

With spring, word came from the south- Joffrey Baratheon had married Talla Tarly, Stannis Baratheon had risen in rebellion and fallen and princess Arianne of Dorne and her husband were killed in Pentos where they had become involved in a conspiracy led by the long exiled and long forgotten Jon Connington. These weren't the messages which Lord Stark had awaited most anxiously, those came only with his own brother.

Benjen Stark, first thaw and tidings of Arya arrived together.

"Where is Jon?" Ned asked with fear in his heart after they had embraced. Jon was still his blood and almost a son to him despite everything.

"Ranging," Benjen answered simply.

Any relief Ned felt was brief. He had been so sure she went to the Wall. Had he been wrong, had Arya been dead all these years? He dared not ask openly, but Benjen had always been his clever little brother. He could read them all easier than an open book. He put one glowed hand on Ned's shoulder.

"She has taken a liking to Hardhome."

Ned blinked twice, Benjen just shrugged.

"And Jon is just ranging somewhere?" Wasn't this what he had hoped for, then why did he feel so angry at Jon?

"He is ranging near Hardhome. He does that often. Usually he goes alone. Many men have their quirks in the watch, no one asks much; though the Old Bear was rather upset by some of Jon's choices."

"Is that all?"

Benjen didn't answer at first. For the longest time he just studied him with those shrewd blue – grey eyes. A memory came to Ned, unbidden. He had been seven and his mother was kneeling before him looking eye to eye with him. Her eyes had been the prettiest blue – grey colour, but her voice was frightened. "Did you see her? Your sister. Do you know where she is, Ned?" She smelled of wet clothes and can still remember the smell, even today.

Benjen's voice cut as sharp as a knife "Do you truly want to know the answer, Eddard?"

Gods help me. Deep down, Ned knew the truth.

"No."

"No one has died this time. That has to count for something." Benjen whispered as if to himself.

Ned wasn't even sure he was meant to hear it, but he had to agree- yes, it did count.

Benjen stayed for a fortnight- much longer than he had planned and Ned was forever thankful for that. It was the last time they would see each other. The next year, Benjen took a wildling arrow through the eye and died.

Not even the birth of another four grandchildren could fill the void Ned felt after he lost the last of his siblings.

Four years after his brother's passing, a wildling chief called the Lord of Bones attacked the Wall with five thousand warriors. The watch withstood, but they lost many brothers- Lord Mormont among them. Though it was a weak heart and not a wildling weapon that done it for the old man.

The next raven from the Wall came signed Lord Commander Jon Snow. It was then that Ned decided to ride north to see to the repairs and to face some truths.

When Robb heard he pleaded to go with him.

"We haven't seen each other for thirteen years. He visited only once and didn't even wait for my return."

"He took the black, Robb. His loyalty is to the Watch."

"So did Uncle Benjen once. Did he ever cease to be your brother?"

Ned looked down at his hands- old man's hands that had killed many men, but had also held his wife, his children and grandchildren. Yet somehow in that moment he felt like the young man who had just won a war with a new wife and a new lordship and a new secret in his heart.

"You have been a man grown for many years Robb, but I am still your father and your lord. You will stay. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell."

Robb was not happy about the order, but he did obey nevertheless. Ned knew this was not going to be a joyful visit and if Robb went with him it would have been even worse.

Ned was already ahorse when Robb sought him for the last time.

"Will you ask about Arya at least? It had been years but Jon might know something. They were always close."

"Of course I will." Ned had every intention of keeping his word on this matter.

The Watch was in both a better and a worse state than Ned had expected. Benjen had told him years ago that the Watch was a shadow of its former self and he saw ruins all around him but there was also rebuilding. From the brief formal message he had gotten from Jon he knew that he had started to trade with east and had already garrisoned two previously abandoned forts.

Jon Snow greeted him himself in the yard of Castle Black. There were new scars on his cheek which looked as if some beast had tried to scratch out his eye and even a little grey in his hair, but it was the way he held himself that had changed the most. Command came naturally to Jon.

"Lord Stark," he addressed him formally.

"Lord Commander," Ned had to answer.

Jon showed him the state of repairs, changes he had made and changes he meant to make, the way their recruits trained, the state of provisions. They even went through accounting books with Jon's high steward. It was only once the man had left Jon's solar that the Lord Commander took off his mask.

"Father, I'm sorry," he whispered so quietly that Ned wasn't even sure if he had heard him right. But one look at Jon's face and he knew they were father and son again and not Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and the Lord of Winterfell.

"So am I," Ned answered.

He should have told Jon before he took the black, he should have been a better father to him. No matter who sired him, Ned was the only parent Jon had ever known.

They stayed quiet for a moment.

"How are Robb, Bran, Rickon and Sansa?" Jon asked finally.

"Well. Robb fathered his fourth child last year. Another girl, he named her Willow. He is still angry with you- that you never came to visit after the last time- and angrier with me that I didn't allow him to come here. He doesn't know…"

Jon only nodded.

"Bran has two daughters- Lyanna and Briar. He seems happy, though sometimes I fear that he is going too deep into the secrets of the crannogmen. The letters he writes are really strange…"

"There are things I would never have believed myself if I hadn't ranged beyond the Wall. And there are stranger tales to be heard from the far North. Winder is truly coming it would seem."

Ned wondered about those words, but Jon offered no further explanation.

"Sansa has married again."

At that Jon smiled a little.

"I have heard. The heir to the Eyrie and the heir of High Garden are going to be brothers. How did you make Joffrey Baratheon agree to that? I heard he wasn't happy with the betrothal."

"I didn't. Sansa and Willas Tyrell did. Sansa was a window and the mother of an heir, she didn't need to marry again, but she wanted to." Ned himself still wasn't entirely sure how Sansa's second marriage came to be. "She likes Willas and she thinks it will be safer for all of us, what with king Joffrey being more Lannister than Baratheon."

Despite the love Ned held for Robert, he had never liked his son. He wondered if the words Sansa had whispered to him the last time they had seen each other were true and another rebellion was nigh upon them. But those were not worries Jon should be troubling himself with for the Watch took no part.

"What about Rickon?"

Ned sighed.

"He worries us. There are his dreams, green dreams Bran called them once. Sometimes he seems to know things that are about to happen, besides he is too wild. Every time a lord rides to Winterfell I fear that he is going to demand recompense for a daughter my son has despoiled."

Jon squirmed visibly in his seat. Ned frowned and in a much sterner voice he asked:

"How is-"

"Come with me." Jon interrupted him.

"Where?"

"Up."

It was windy and bitterly cold up upon the Wall but it was worth every discomfort. The sky unobscured by mountains or trees seemed immense and the stars so bright you could almost touch them.

They walked a good few yards past the guards near the winch before Jon finally stopped. He looked northeast, the way Hardhome stood.

"I could never return after what happened. I couldn't bear to look in Robb's eyes...or yours. Arya..." Jon started but he went quiet again.

"Benjen told me some of it."

Jon looked at him surprised.

"I suspected he knew, but I never dared to ask."

"Ben had always had a way of knowing things." It was hard to talk about his siblings. Ned still remembered those happy days when they were four children playing in the godswood. Back then he couldn't even have imagined that he would lose them all one day. Brandon didn't even live long enough to father a child and Lya...

"Do you know what I told Arya the last time we saw each other in the godswood?"

"Yes. I'm glad you did." Despite his words Jon's expression was pained "I always wanted to know who my mother was. I just never imaged it would mean that I would lose you as a father. Though after what I have done..."

"What have you done, Jon?" Ned asked sternly.

"I have broken my wow. And even before... Arya and I were always close, you know that. I missed her every day after I took the black. We were both children when we parted. Then I returned and saw her as a maiden so beautiful, wild and sad. I desired her as nothing in this world. She was so innocent." Jon smiled. "Arya, innocent in anything, who would have thought? Still she was, innocent and valuable. I could feel she wanted me as much as I wanted her in every smile, in the most innocent touch. She was so confused, but I didn't dare to tell her. What we felt for each other was so wrong. It was the only time I kept a secret from her. It was torture, yet leaving her was the hardest thing I have ever done."

"Nevertheless, you did. What happened after?"

"I was on a ranging near Hardhome. It was the first time I went ranging and I went alone. I was in so dark a mood that no one wished to accompany me. Many of my brothers didn't expect that I would ever return. One night as I was almost by the sea someone sneaked into my sleeping furs. I didn't even notice. Only, in the morning Arya was there, half-frozen and half-starved but alive. For hours I just watched her silently afraid that I was still dreaming, and once I really woke up, she would disappear. She didn't. When she finally awoke, I hunted us some deer, we talked and then…"

"You bedded her." Ned couldn't keep the disappointment from his words.

"I wed her." Jon's voice was hard and cold as steel.

"And who were your witnesses? Sky and ground and deer?"

"The gods. I wed her in a sacred grove in front of the heart tree. And a ship full of Braavosi who were forced to Hardhome by a storm."

"Damn you, Jon. Does everything I have taught you mean nothing to you? You have broken your vow."

"Vows... are the words more important than anything else in this world?"

When Ned didn't answer Jon spoke again.

"Will you call for my head?" he asked in an unnervingly calm voice.

In that moment Ned could hear his Brother as clearly as if he was still alive, standing right beside him - No one has died this time. That has to count for something.

"No."

"Even if I have broken another vow?"

Ned frowned. "What do you mean?"

Jon just raised his eyes to look eye to eye with the Ice Dragon. His own constellation, Ned thought absurdly.

"Children." He answered simply. "Arya didn't even want them at first. It changed only with time. We have tried, but it seems that we are not fated to have any. Maybe it's better this way. With Daenerys and Viserys drowned in the Dothraki Sea, the Targaryen line will end with me. I only regret that it makes Arya sad."

Ned misliked the lightness with which Jon spoke about breaking another vow, but at the same time his heart went out to his daughter. For a moment he imagined her life as it would have been if she had married a high lord as Cat had always hoped, away from her family without even children to love. It was a sad fate. Arya would have run away- to Jon like as not.

"Where is Arya when you are with the Watch?"

"I had friends among the wildlings almost from the beginning. When the time came to leave her during that first ranging I had left her with a clan I trusted. They taught her how to live in the wildness. Arya is quick to make friends and allies and even quicker to learn. She even charmed the Braavosi we met. One of them stayed to teach her sword fighting and the captain agreed to trade with us- the watch and the wildlings both. Now there is at least one ship every moon turn that makes it from Braavos to Eastwatch and Hardhome. When Arya last returned from Braavos she came with shipwrights who are now building her ships of her own."

"Arya was in Braavos?!" Ned was surprised.

"She likes it there as much as she likes the wildness here, but she swears that she loves none of that a tenth as much as she loves me or Nymeria."

"Nymeria?"

"A wolf pup she found in the wildness. If you can call something that will soon outgrow a pony a pup."

"A direwolf?!" now Ned was really aghast.

Jon just shrugged. "There are still direwolves beyond the Wall."

Ned felt as if there was something Jon wasn't telling him, but he couldn't fathom what it could be.

Ned's visit at the Wall was more peaceful than Jon's visit at Winterfell had been and too soon it was time to leave. Ned already missed Catelyn, his son, his good daughter and their ever growing brood, yet there was sadness in the departure too. He would miss Jon despite everything, and even more the feeling that he was somehow close to his troublesome daughter. He wondered if there ever will be such a chance to see Arya; however, the risk was too great to take. He had to leave it to Jon to send her his forgiveness.

Jon rode with him as far as the Queenscrown. There was no threat in the North, not at the moment, Jon had assured him when Ned brought up his cryptic words upon their departure. Ned wasn't entirely sure the younger man was speaking the truth. Nevertheless, Jon was right in the end. The next attack came a whole two years later – from the South.

It all began innocently enough, with one terrified girl fleeing the Bolton lands. She had made it as far as the Gift and Jon took her in. When Bolton's bastard demanded her return, Jon refused- the girl had been given bread and salt. Ned sided with Jon.

Not caring for the will of his liege lord, Ramsay Snow and one hundred of his men attacked Castle Black in the middle of the night. The Watch repulsed the attack, but the bastard fled and on his way home slaughtered the entire smallfolk of the Mole's town. There wasn't a woman or a child that escaped the carnage. It fell to the Night's Watch to dig their graves.

It the middle of the unthankful task, they had not expected the second, more dangerous assault.

Despite the distance Lord Bolton had sworn when it came to the atrocities of his natural son, he had secretly assembled an army and marched north.

Ned called his banners as soon as he heard but by the time he arrived the battle was long lost, Castle Black burned to a stone and the Boltons fled back to the Dreadfort. There were only a few survivors, surprisingly, Jon was among them. The Umbers had found him and hid him in the cottage of an old healer. His wounds had worsened though and all knew that he wouldn't last long. Despite that, Ned fulfilled his last wish and took him back to Winterfell.

Jon lived through the long journey, surprising them all, he lived to reunite with Robb, speak with him and ask for forgiveness, he even lived for Bran to return from the Neck. Yet in the end, he died without reuniting with the one person he missed the most.

Despite Cat's fiery protests, Ned buried him in Winterfell's crypts, without a statue, but in a tomb next to Lyanna's.

On the morrow after the funeral ceremony, Ned and his younger son saddled their horses and led the rest of their host to rejoin the army besieging the Dreadfort. The castle was stormed and lord Bolton beheaded but his son escaped. They never caught him for another army came from the North in the black of the night. One on four feet instead of two, with teeth and claws in place of swords and bows. A huge pack of giant wolves led by a monstrous she-wolf appeared out of nowhere and slew Ramsay Snow and his companions.

"Arya," Bran whispered when they came upon a field of human remains and pink snow. Remembering the direwolf pup Arya kept, Ned somehow knew it was true.

His daughter hadn't left him much to do. Ned returned home, hoping that he might find her there. He didn't. The days passed and the Ironborn attacked, the moon turned and King Joffrey's own fleet joined them sailing on Gulltown and White Harbour while the Watch choose a new man to lead them. Still there was no sight of Arya.

A year after Jon's death, the war was mostly won- Willas Tyrell and Oberyn Martell were controlling King's Landing and once Robb and Renly starved out Casterly Rock and dealt with the last of the Lannisters there was a great Council to be held. Ned would have to ride South he knew, the thought was heavy in his mind, not letting him sleep.

He dressed and went to the godswood, he prayed for a while and then decided to visit the crypts too.

As he was almost by Lyanna's tomb Ned noticed that he had company. There was a hooded figure kneeling by a tomb, Ned could hear the sound of muffled sobs.

"Arya," he called softly.

She didn't react.

Ned came closer, knelt next to her and took her in his arms. She was no longer the unruly child who used to run around in boy's clothing or the sad maiden from the last time they had seen each other, but she was still his little girl.

Only when he hugged her, did she speak.

"I wished to be with him when he died," she sobbed. "He held for so long, he waited for me, I know, but I didn't make it."

"He did," Ned knew that much was true," but he wasn't alone when he died. I was with him, as were Robb and Bran and even Rickon and a whole army of nephews and nieces who had a chance to get to know him a little."

"Thank you for that."

"Will you stay with us?" Ned asked.

"Maybe for a while, I have to return."

"Why? What is there for you now that Jon is gone? Your wolves, your ships?"

Arya stood up and took his hand.

"You don't understand."

Without another word she led him back to the castle.

Ned watched her in the light of the passing torches. Time had treated her well. She had grown into the woman Lyanna had never had a chance to become. Her clothes were very strange for a highborn lady- leather riding breeches, dark jacket made in the Braavosi fashion, and over that a shadowcat cloak worthy of a wildling chief. Even more extraordinary was the fluidity and lethal sureness of her movements.

They ended up in front of a small room near the castle kitchens. Arya opened the door quietly- a single candle was burning on the window sill. On the narrow bed under it, huddled in the furs, slept a dark-haired child about a year old.

"We hoped for a child for so long," Arya whispered. "After Jon became Lord Commander it was much harder to see each other and yet it happened. When I found out, I was in Braavos, the babe already growing two months inside me. So stupid. I hurried home to tell Jon but we caught bad winds. In the end I came too late. The Boltons had attacked two days before we anchored at Eastwatch. If only I didn't believe that he had died…"

"When did you learn that Jon was still alive?"

"Two moon turns before my son was to be born. It was too late to travel then. I wanted Jon to know at least before… Wildlings don't marry their kin, not even cousins. No one besides a few people in Braavos knew about us, but a brother has the right to know his sister is about to give birth, doesn't he? I sent a messenger, did she make it?"

There was hope in her eyes- bright and fragile. For a moment Ned was tempted to lie, but she read the truth on his face.

"Jon never even learned," all strength had left her voice; she sounded almost as if she were dying herself.

"We all have our regrets, sweet one. Don't dwell on them too much. Live and try not to make new ones. Make peace with your siblings and your mother. Stay in Winterfell for a while. Bran is here now and Sansa will visit any day. You haven't seen each other in years. You have half a dozen nephews and nieces you have never met. We can help you take care of your son. He will grow up as a lord's son would. As Jon did."

"I can't. My son is not safe on this side of the Wall, not even with Robert Baratheon and Tywin Lannister dead."

"No one but us knows the truth about Jon. No one else has to know."

Arya smiled wanly, walked over to her son and gently stroked child's hair.

"Jon," she called softly. The boy stirred and woke. He made a face at Arya and then looked up at Ned with big, purple, Targaryen eyes.

AN: This fic was originally supposed to be a drabble. I asked myself what would have Ned thought if he realised that Jon has feeling for his own sister. It ended up with a fic about 6000 words long. I consider 3000 words to be the ideal length for one chapter. That is how this work ended up dived into two parts. Thinking about it now it probably wasn't the best decision because those two parts have a different pacing. I hope I haven't disappointed too many people who were expecting a real multi-chapter fic. Well, maybe I will find a time to finish one of those resting in my computer.