Sorry, folks, I totally got hooked to another show, so I've adjusted this chapter to be the last one in the story. It was originally supposed to go on for another 8 chapters, slowly revealing why Ned did what he did and how Cersei would lose the fight with Starks.

Catelyn isn't sure how much time passes before Ned comes back, but when he does, he slams the door open and then slams it shut with incredible noise. She feels much better now, finally through with the uncertainty that's been haunting her the past days. Catelyn is so very close to believing Ned's acting for someone else to see. She watches her husband slowly come closer to the bed. It is, after all, the capital, and it is known for nothing less than eyes and ears being everywhere. Little birds, Varys has called them, she remembers.

She wonders if that's what is driving Ned insane. If having to act all the time is what is making him behave so unlike the husband she knows and loves. She'd go crazy too if she had to pretend all the time.

Catelyn wonders who the birds watching her and Ned will sing to. Perhaps, Lord Varys, or maybe Petyr; it is even possible that the king has his own spies, and of course so does the queen.

"Robert is reckless, but he is no fool," Ned starts, almost whispering, "The crown owes the Lannisters too much, there can be no action against them until the proof is found," Ned takes a cup and pours water in it, then hands it to Catelyn and watches her drink. She had no idea she was so thirsty. "It is a dangerous place, and you may have created a very powerful enemy for our family, Cat, just by throwing an accusation like that, true or false, it doesn't matter."

She knows she has. But fear shouldn't stop them from seeking justice, should it? Her son is already fighting a war with Lannisters in the Riverlands, so it is far too late to fear.

The war she has started when she took the imp, she admits.

She wishes things would play out differently, and for a moment she wonders where Tyrion Lannister is now. The last time she saw him he was badly injured and could barely talk. She knows he was the wrong Lannister. Would he listen to her should she ask for his forgiveness?

Ned sits on the edge of the bed and carefully lifts the blanket his wife's covered with. She doesn't resist, just starts breathing louder. Moving her skirt up, he watches bruised back and hips with a bitter expression and is about to touch her with the back of his hand, but then he stops only so far that Catelyn can feel his warmth. She moves to see what he's been looking at, and winces in pain.

"I'm sure it could be worse," she offers him a weak smile and drops her head back onto the pillow. There's no point in trying to seem stronger than she is. Ned knows his wife is strong, he's seen her give birth to five children, he knows, she tells herself. She watches him, waiting to hear something that would resemble an apology – not because he owes her one, but because he knows it would make his wife feel better. As moments pass by, the silence becomes almost impossible.

"You have been sentenced to fifty strokes," Ned begins, and Catelyn can see how absolutely awkward he looks. She could probably recognize sickness on his face if she'd allow herself to look closer.

"You had no choice," she responds the moment her husband makes a pause. Catelyn is surprised by how sure she sounds. It's almost as if she really believed what she was saying.

Ned waves his head negatively, looks at his own hands then glances at the door and at his wife's beaten body. He is nervous, she sees, and his nervousness makes her nervous too. Ned's breathing become so very loud, she seems him struggling, and she can't recall another time he's been so tense. Catelyn feels her heartbeat quicken. Something is not right.

"I must finish what was started," Ned finally states, breathing out, and gets up from the bed.

Catelyn raises her eyebrows and bites her lip. Whatever her husband is trying to tell her doesn't seem to be making him happy, and somehow she gets a notion that it's not going to make her happy either. She lifts herself on her elbows, trying not to disturb her injured back. It may not hurt when she's steady, but as soon as she starts to move, it reminds her how badly it has been violated.

Ned starts to take off his belt once again. Catelyn freezes. He cannot be seriously intending to beat her again. For what purpose would he do that if the king isn't even here to witness it?

As Ned comes one step closer to her, she instinctively moves away on the bed, hissing in discomfort.

"No," she breathes out shortly, not being able to pick the right words. It's mostly shock and anger in her now. "Please, Ned," her voice is steady. Catelyn knows it's not because she's calm, but rather because she is terrified. Her voice sounds so daring and brave that she hates herself for it. She hears herself speaking as if she was asking her husband to close a window or light a candle. Perhaps if Ned could see just how bad things were for her, he would reconsider punishing her more. Catelyn swallows hard, still slowly backing from her husband towards the middle of the huge bed. "Why?" she adds, finally hearing her voice trembling the way it should.

She looks at Ned. He doesn't even have to say it, she already knows. Her fear tells her. It's about honor. It's about the damn honor that comes before anything else for the Starks.

For Catelyn, it is family that comes first. But for Eddard Stark it is the honor. She wishes he remembered that honor seventeen years ago, when he made a bastard with another woman and brought that bastard home to raise with his trueborn children. Where was his honor then?

"What you told the king, where did you hear it?" he suddenly asks, his voice soft. Catelyn drops her head onto a pillow. She bites her tongue. She wants to ask if it's still about her kidnapping the imp or perhaps telling the king about the Lannisters' nasty secret. It's probably both. Ned hates when innocent blood is spilled, and a rumor like that – even if an untrue rumor – placed in Robert Baratheon's head, can prove to be deadly dangerous for many.

The truth is Catelyn doesn't even remember where she's heard it. It was perhaps her sister Lysa who told her, or perhaps she's heard it somewhere on her way to the capital.

"Do you absolutely have to?" she doesn't mean to yell, though her voice sounds thunderous to her own ears. Ned nods, but offers nothing more. "Why did you stop then?" Catelyn feels like she's about to cry. She was sure this nightmare had been left behind. Her lips tremble, her eyes are now wet.

He has no need to say it out loud, she already knows the answer. Her husband had to silence her before she'd say more terrible things trying to save herself. She predicts that she probably would have.

"It is seventeen left," Ned says quietly, and Catelyn jerks, cries out and covers her face with hands. That's too many. She is actually surprised to learn he's been counting them in the first place. It makes her desperate – he was counting the strokes, he didn't mean to stop just because she would beg him; he didn't mean to stop before he'd finish. After taking deep breaths and biting her cheek, Catelyn pauses as long as she can and then moves back to the edge of the bed. Her whole body feels strange and clumsy. It feels like it doesn't belong to her. In the corner of her eyes she notices her husband's hands shaking wildly.

She clenches her teeth on a pillow and shuts her eyes so tight that it makes her head spin.

There's no escape this time, no questions asked, no truths to be revealed, Catelyn tells herself. She knows her husband won't strike hard, but it won't matter. It hurts to even softly touch the bruised skin, let alone beat it with the heavy leather belt Ned's holding in his hands. Unsteady hands, she thinks to herself.

It is less than a half, though.

Catelyn screams when the first blow comes. She means to stuff her mouth with a pillow and stay silent, but instead she sounds like a wounded animal. She jumps on the bed, digging her fingers so deep into the sheet that it gets ripped. Another stroke lands on the very same spot, and then another and she turns hysterical, moving erratically and trying to get away. A belt is no sword, and Ned just cannot aim it right, she thinks and then the next blow beats the air out of her lungs.

He beats fast, rushing as if he's afraid someone might want to come and witness the process. At some point Catelyn tries to take a wet hair from her eyes and scratches her own cheek. It starts hurting a few moments later, when salty tears get a hold of the wound.

She comforts herself with thoughts of how they will all go home, but every stroke sets chaos in her mind, making it fly from one image to another. She doesn't scream so badly anymore though – Catelyn whimpers, sobs, moans and hisses into a pillow, but she doesn't scream and she doesn't move.

And then it stops.

Ned quickly puts the belt aside and takes a small jar out of his pocket. He bends next to his wife's head, lifting it with his hand and pouring a liquid from that jar into her mouth. She swallows it with relief, smelling and tasting milk of poppies. Trails of it run down Catelyn's chin, she chokes, coughing, but keeps on drinking until the jar is empty and Ned puts it away.

He carefully fixes the pillow and removes the hair from her sweaty face. Ned is a loving husband, a caring one, but he was never too good being tender or showing his affection. Lord Eddard Stark is a northerner, a soldier to a bone. And this is the most he can do for his wife right now.

She feels dizzy and her body is becoming so very relaxed. She doesn't expect Ned to tap on her head, soothe her to sleep or kiss her tears away. He's never held her hand when she was in labor, he's never sung lullabies to his children. The last thing she remembers is a soft kiss on her forehead and a barely audible whisper to her ear, "They needed to see this, I'm so sorry, Cat."

And then she drifts to sleep. When she wakes up Catelyn finds her head rested on Ned's chest. He's holding her shoulder and from the looks of it he's sound asleep himself. She smiles weakly with only corners of her mouth. If her husband went through so much trouble to deceive someone, she'll learn to be careful too. They'll both learn if they want to return to Winterfell alive. If they want justice.