Written for the Game of Thrones exchange on livejournal. Fauxkaren asked for the birth of one of the Stark children. I choose Rickon because he's such a cutie.

This is a little non-traditional and I took some liberties with childbirth customs.

Catelyn sits by the window, slowly brushing her long auburn hair. It seems thicker now, glinting in the firelight. She tells him being with child softens her hair and when he troubled Luwin with the question, the maester agreed. A quickening child changes many things in a woman, heating her blood so that Catelyn, who never sits by the open window, now brushes her hair there, nearly nude instead of wrapped in her bed robe.

"What is it, my love?" she asks without turning. "I can feel your eyes, even though the rest of you is trying to be silent."

"I was thinking that the babe puts fire in your blood."

Catelyn runs her hand over the swell of her belly, letting the brush rest on her smooth skill. "Carrying a Stark does keep me warm." She waves him over, moving the brush and finding their child's foot so it can press up against his hand. She does so unerringly now, but he remembers when Sansa's tumbling was a mystery to both of them.

"I can think of other ways a Stark could keep you warm." He slips his hand beneath hers and their child responds with a kick that stretches the taunt skin and muscle beneath.

Turning just enough to kiss him, she laughs. "You'll mess up my hair."

"I'll brush it smooth again."

"Will you?" she asks, parting her legs for his hand. "Won't that make a great song? Lord Stark, who defeated the tangles of his wife's hair."

Her little gasp when his hand brushes against her stops her jest but her eyes are still bright with mirth. Exploring the familiar skin of her inner thighs: the flesh beneath soft and rounded by her pregnancy. Working his way up across her belly, he cups her breasts, now almost too much for his hands, and smiles.

"You thought Bran was going to suck them dry."

Her hands rest on his chest, cooler than his skin. "They're full again and heavy. This child will have plenty to eat."

"I never doubted you."

Her smile falters, too soft to remain on her face and she pulls him close to kiss him instead. Cat's lips cover his own and her desire for him stirs his own.

"If you wish to bed me, you'll have to help me there."

He kisses her cheek and eyes her as if she's a stubborn boar he needs to move. "I might be too old for this."

Wrapping her hands around his neck, Cat shakes her head. "There's youth in you yet, my love."

He sweeps her up with a mock groan of effort. She nips his ear and laughs when he drops her to the bed. He follows her leg up from the ankle, circling her knee. The joint is swollen, like a warhorse run too hard. His Cat is as tough as a warhorse, still running the house with the baby days away.

"What are you thinking?" she asks, running her hand through his hair. Her fingers always find their way, even when he's been out in the yard and his hair is a tangle worse than Arya's.

"I was admiring your strength," he says, leaving his robe on the edge of the bed. Cat pulls him halfway down and kissing him again before rolling to her side, then to her knees.

"Something special about today?" She strokes his cheek, her fingers gentle through his beard.

Following her spine with his hands, Ned counts the stray freckles on the white of her skin. His hands are like old leather on linen but she loves him, even with his coarseness. They were timid lovers when she carried Sansa, learning as they went. Now it's all familiar: her eager hips up against his, her hands drawn tight in the sheets; the shifting against her to bury his manhood deep.

Ned rests his forehead against her back, lost in the scent of her hair. It will be a mess, tangled with sweat, but he'll brush it out. He finishes her with his hands, her body flush against his. They're another world away from their wedding night, worn to each other's bodies like riding leathers.

True to his word, he retrieves her brush from the table and starts with the ends of her hair, working his way up. Catelyn's eyes are closed and a sleepy smile plays on her lips.

"You brush like a groom."

"Do you often have your hair brushed in the stables?"

"Not since I was a girl," she says, reaching back to stroke his shoulder. "There were moments where I was as wild as Arya."

"She should be with you. She's old enough now." His voice is soft but the meaning is heavy.

She starts to roll towards him, her hair slipping from his grip. "She is." For a moment, she's silent, her hand resting on his chest.

Catelyn's mother died in childbirth, something she must remember vividly from the way her eyes soften and look down.

He remembers Sansa's small, pale face in the corner while she watched her sister and brother enter the world. He stroked her hair and whispered that she should not be afraid. That the birth of a child was nothing to fear, that she would be strong like her mother and grandmother, and when she pulled her own children into her arms, she would have every reason to be proud.

Ned's still not sure she remembers either birth. His eldest daughter has grown up so quickly that she seems half her mother already. Lyanna was never half the lady his Sansa is at twice her age. Sansa is already too proper for him to scoop her into his arms as he can her sister and brother. She still surrenders to his embrace, but he wonders if she will someday resist that too. Perhaps she will take to childbirth as one more duty to learn, like sums for the household accounts and needlepoint.

"Arya's already seen the dogs whelping."

Catelyn sits up on her elbows with fire in her eyes. "The dogs?"

Her anger's chased the sorrow for the moment and he grins at her, waiting to be chastened.

"You compare your lady wife to your dogs?"

"I compare my wife to no one," he says, kissing her. Catelyn lengthens the kiss, winding her fingers around his shoulders.

They spoke no more of her childbed that and in the morning, she asks the Septa to bring the girls. Bran comes too, following Arya as if they were twins. They're nearly of a height with each other, both with the brown hair of the Starks.

Septa Mordane frowns. "My Lady-"

Catelyn hushes her. "Sansa and Arya will both need new dresses, perhaps you could begin looking for an appropriate cloth in the stores."

"As you wish." The good septa takes another look at Bran but leaves without argument.

The youngest Stark stirs in her belly, turning like a fish in too little water.

Arya's quick eyes follow Catelyn's hand and she bounds over.

"Let me feel."

Catelyn guides her hand and wonders if her fearless daughter might have made a good midwife, if she'd been lowborn. "There, feel that?"

"He's very strong."

"You can't know the baby's a boy," Sansa says, arms neatly at her sides.

"Why can't she?" Bran follows his sister, as he always does when she's not following him out into the yard to watch Robb and the men at arms.

"Because only the gods know until a baby is born," Sansa says, dutiful as always.

"There's no harm in guessing, Sansa. Your father and I spent many hours guessing if you would be a brother for Robb or a little girl."

"And me?" Arya asks, moving her hand across Catelyn's belly to follow the foot that insists on stretching the limits of her body from within.

"You father insisted you were a girl."

"You thought I was a boy?"

"I did, in moments, then you were born as you are, perfect and I couldn't have been happier."

Arya nods, and takes Bran's hand to show him. "Here. Feel that?"

"I think he's a boy. We need another boy."

"We need a girl," Arya insists. "We already have two boys. Robb is the heir to Winterfell and you will be a knight. We don't need another."

"We need whatever the gods decide this baby ought to be."

"I want a sister," Sansa says, looking back from the window. "I'd like to dress her in pretty things." Her smile is shy, but bright and warm.

"I don't like pretty things."

Sansa's glance suggests she is well aware of how different her sister is from her.

"When this baby is born, I-" Catelyn pauses, taking strength from Arya's smile and Bran's look of wonder. "Your father and I want you to be with us when the baby comes."

"Yes mother," Sansa says, folding her hands in front of her. If she remembers Arya and Bran's births, she gives no sign.

"Really?" Arya asks, eyes wide.

"It is important that you know childbed is not to be feared, so that when you have children of your own, you are strong."

"I'm not afraid."

Bran agrees, his face set and serious. "Me either."

Catelyn hasn't the heart to send him away, or tell him that men rarely enter the birthing room. Her own father was kept from her mother but the septas and the maester. Peasant might attend the birth of their children, but great lords had no need. As with so many other things, customs differ in the North.

Ned treated Sansa's birth with the same calm he carries with all his lordly duties. He held her shoulders when she groaned with effort and bore the marks of Catelyn's hands on his arms when she clung too hard. Maester Luwin told her later, while Sansa slept on her chest, that in the North, where hands are scarce and precious, a husband attends the birth of his children.

When Arya came, Ned was familiar and strong. He did not sleep during the long night when Arya was born. Even when she dozed, his eyes were clear. Though Luwin drew Arya from Catelyn's body, Ned was the first to hold her and Catelyn remembers, thought the haze that followed the birth, that Arya watched her father with the incredible stillness only newborns seem to have.

Bran, sweet Bran, was a joy. He arrived in the morning, with the summer sun rising high in the window and the birds full of promise in the air. She hopes, as far as she'll let herself, that the child within her follows Bran's example and comes quietly and easily. Catelyn trusts her body as much as she dares, but being mindful is not being overly concerned. Her mother bore three healthy children before the last boy took her.

The Whents have never been fertile. Her mother was the exception, until the last. Catelyn is not her mother nor her sister, who suffers from their mother's ill-luck. Her children are whole and healthy.

Perhaps there is something to be said for Ned's Old Gods watching them all. Even Jon, with his mother unknown, is a healthy young man.

She pats Bran's head, running her fingers through his hair. This child will be a playmate for him. Someone for Bran to protect, the way Robb and Sansa protect him. He'll suit that role, if he ever stops trying to climb all the trees in the Godswood.

Ned's appearance in the door proves to be too much to resist; Bran and Arya run after him, tackling him hard against the wood. He smiles at her: one of his rare, perfect smiles, that he reserves for moments with her and the children.

Sansa hangs back, approaching her with eyes cast downwards.

"Do you want to feel your brother today?"

"I'd rather she was a girl."

"Try your luck with the gods, the old and the new, and perhaps they'll bring you one."

Sansa nods, fidgeting with her sleeve.

Catelyn waits her out. Patience comes easily in the warm summer.

"How much does it hurt?"

"More than some things, less than others." She waves her daughter over, patting the bench at her side. "It's not the same pain as Arya pulling your hair or Bran being careless with a practice sword."

"Is it like being ill?"

Catelyn shakes her head, teasing a knot out of Sansa's long auburn hair. She's already a beauty and will only get prettier still as she flowers. Trying to imagine Sansa with children surrounding her brings a heat to Catelyn's heart.

"Not like being ill. It is hard, sometimes long, and there are moments where every woman swears she should have remained a maiden."

"Septa Mordane says the Mother watches over all women in childbed."

"Even me," Catelyn promises.

Sansa smiles a little at that, looking up from her hands. "Old Nan says that in the south, men stay away, least they draw the Stranger or the Warrior-"

"Or some other unwanted Southron god." She's heard Old Nan talking through the doors. Catelyn straightens, trying to ease the dull throb out of her back. Nothing works for long, but for the moment, her muscles quiet. "The gods divide their realms. In the South, the Mother watches over all women. In the North, the Old Gods watch together. There's no need to banish the men."

"You won't banish Father?" Sansa's eyes are nearly as soft as Bran's.

Catelyn chuckles. Her old Septon at Riverrun would be scandalised by Ned and the children watching her labours. "Don't tell the Septons in the South, but your father is nearly as good as bringing babies as he is at hunting deer."

It takes Sansa a moment to laugh, but when she does, some of her fear vanishes with the summer wind.

Luwin wakes them both, waiting in the corridor for Ned to bid him in. Catelyn sits on the edge of the bed, rubbing sweet paste of roscel nuts from Dorne into the marks marring her swollen belly. Each child adds new lines, and they turn soft and silver as her stomach grows flat again. These are fresh and angry, but Ned traced them with his fingers, then his tongue last night and it's hard to blame the lines for being.

"Forgive me, my lord, my lady. There's been a raven from House Mollen. A fever runs through their smallfolk and has taken Maester Fould. I would send them supplies and aid, if you'll agree."

They've both known him too long to not read into Luwin's words. Catelyn watches Ned turn from his seat and the reports of the men at arms. Luwin would beg leave to tend to House Mollen immediately if she were not so great with child. A fever can wipe out a house and most of its' retainers if not tended by trained healer, even spread to the surrounding houses.

Ned looks to her, meeting her gaze with his lord's face. "You do not wish to go yourself?"

"I did not think my lord would wish it." Luwin bows his head, his loyalty firmly with his house.

Catelyn can read the thoughts in Ned's eyes. He can gamble their child's uncomplicated birth for the lives of dozens, perhaps hundreds of smallfolk, or he can send Luwin to tend them and bring a midwife.

She pulls her robe closed over her belly and holds his gaze. "I am no delicate thing, my love."

"Your strength does not lessen your worth to our children."

"The child may wait."

Ned rests his hands in his lap. "The child may come before Luwin is out of sight of Winterfell. Speculating is useless. I will not send him from here without your consent."

So she must choose between keeping Luwin's skilled hands close and allowing those hands to heal House Mollen.

"Is there a midwife of whom you approve?"

"Several in the villages nearby, my lady, but none are trained by the Citadel."

"Old Nan will remind me that the Citadel trains a man how to set a bone, but only teaches him to fuss and fret over a woman in childbed. I know she jests, but I would not have lives lost for my peace of mind."

Luwin nods slowly, measuring his response before lowering his hands to his sides. "I will make preparations, my lady."

"See that you guard against this fever yourself," Ned says, turning back to back his papers.

"Of course, my lord."

When the maester leaves them alone, Catelyn lifts a hand. "Come here my love."

"Are you all right?"

"I would like to kiss you and I would rather you made it simpler for me."

Ned pushes back his chair and crosses to her, crouching before her to be in easy reach.

He is not a man who needs her to tell him why she loves him so dearly, yet, Catelyn often finds the words in her mouth.

"We'll be fine," she says, letting their joined hands over her belly speak the rest.

Luwin arrived at House Mollen before the youngest Stark arrived in Winterfell. His ravens arrived regularly, reporting slow progress and the continuing march of the disease.

Catelyn reminds him that with Old Nan and Luwin's chosen midwife, an old woman tiny enough to be of the First Men called Laoret. She's as fearless as Arya of late and he worries for both of them.

He was too young to remember Benjen's birth, but he was Bran's age when Lyanna came. He remembers holding the cord that connected her to their mother and the knife his father gave him to cut it. Bran's hands are steady enough to climb the stables, perhaps he will cut his brother free as well.

Trying to pretend he is not shadowing his wife would be folly, so he does so brazenly. Catelyn teases him at first, then accepts his presence. Watching her move through the household, Ned holds himself silent. It is not his place to interfere in the running of Winterfell, and Catelyn manages the often ungainly household with ease. He sends Robb to lead the border patrol with the men and joins Arya and Bran's game of dragons and wildlings in the great hall.

He laughs until his chest aches, not bothering to argue that dragons have never spoken, nor been purple or yellow as Bran and Arya both insist must be so. It all seems half-foolish, stolen time where he is not Lord of Winterfell, but simply a father of four wild children who would rather shout and play than sit to study the history of the Targaryens.

"If you've finished dying a thousand deaths, perhaps you'll walk in the godswood with me? Only if the children can spare you, of course."

Sansa's given one of her old dolls to Arya, who has dressed it in armour made of scraps of leather and fights it against Bran's man made of sticks and cloth. Ned's lost track of the sides and nods, giving Catelyn his arm.

"You've been watching me."

"Yes."

She laughs, resting her head against his shoulder. "Some men would have lied."

"I am not those men."

"No. You circle me like a wolf and a wounded boar."

He pretends to study her teeth to make her laugh again. "Your tusks are less wicked."

Catelyn touches her lips. "Only slightly." She pauses by one of the trees and rests her hands on the bark, shifting her weight from one hip to the other.

Running his hands along her back, he searches for the taunt muscles and kneads them, one by one.

The sun hangs low over the walls when they return from his favourite place by the water. Catelyn rests her hand on his thigh at dinner, keeping him close.

hr

Finally, when all of Winterfell seems to itch with anticipation, Catelyn sends Arya to fetch her father from the godswood.

Sansa looks pale, but she stands straight and tall. "I'll get Nan, mother."

"You don't have to rush," Catelyn reminds her. "It was only a few pains, there are a great many to come before this baby arrives." She keeps her smile and moving around the storerooms counting barrels of dried fruit and grain keeps her busy; she's still glad to see Ned when he arrives with Arya tugging his hand.

"My sister's coming," she announces proudly, as if she's read the raven herself.

Catelyn pushes off the wall she's been using for support and takes her husband by the shoulders instead. "Arya's set on a girl."

"I want a brother," Bran says, perching on a shelf. "The baby's going to be a boy."

Ned kisses her cheek. "Arguing should keep them busy for awhile."

She holds close to him, letting him be her balance as they walk the long corridors from the storeroom to the towers. She's hot then: her dress clinging to her skin, and they skip the bedroom for upper walks, where the wind is cool. She stops them there, between the stones of Winterfell and the sky. The children are helping in their way, deciding names and performing the tasks Old Nan sets them to.

Standing with her, Ned is as solid as the castle beneath their feet. He says little, letting her breath and sway like the sails on the Trident.

Brandon's little brother has the same impatience. As much as she loathes leaving the cool air, the clenching fire around her belly crawls lower, sinking into her hips as pressure beads within her like the sweat on her skin.

Ned brings her in, guiding her down the stairs a few steps at a time, breathing with her when she falters. His familiar, rough hands touch her face, bringing her eyes to his as the rest of her surroundings fade.

Arya and Bran stand by the bed, watching as Old Nan prepares cloths for the baby. Sansa and Robb stand by the table, almost as if they're guarding the knife and twine. Robb's hand is around Sansa's and Bran retreats to them when Catelyn's panting grows too loud.

Still fascinated, Arya perches near the head of the bed, watching like a stalking cat.

The cresting, consuming need fills her like water, driving the thought of pain from her mind. She has a purpose, a single task and her body lives for that. Ned holds her knees, remembering the last time, and with Nan arranging Catelyn's thighs and the midwife she doesn't remember arriving settling in to catch the baby, everything passes in a rushing torrent.

Ned's behind her ear and beneath her, his legs under hers. He's solid and she seems to be liquid, pouring, rushing, straining against what holds her until she breaks. Like stone, the baby seems immobile and fixed with her, until she moves him, bearing down hard.

He arrives, wet and blue, still streaked with blood. Arya leans close. Catelyn laughs in release, watching from Ned's arms as the little boy takes his first breath.

Sansa holds him, her eyes wide with wonder. Then Robb takes the baby while Old Nan shows Arya the sharp little knife. Bran and Arya cut the cord of flesh together, separating the new little boy from Catelyn. She lies on her side while the afterbirth follows the babe, wet and warm on her thigh before the midwife takes it away. It'll be buried in the godswood, something to feed the trees as it once fed the baby.

Their third son sucks greedily from her breast while Ned smooths her hair. Some of it has slipped damp from the heavy plait and he kisses the skin where it clung.

"We'll call him Rickon."

"You will?" Sansa asks, helping Nan collect the cloths from the floor.

"I wanted Osric," Arya says, patting the baby's dark head.

"Your mother and I agreed a boy would be Rickon. It's been too long since a Stark had that name."

"Rickon," Bran tests the name on his tongue. "It's good."

"He'll be a knight," Robb says, suddenly wise beyond his years. "With a direwolf on his shield and a great sword in his hands."

Catelyn kisses the tiny fist that is far too small for a sword and smiles at her children. "Let him grow up a little first."

Satisfied with the baby, the other children head down to supper. Ned remains while their meal is brought up. Rickon drinks his fill and lies on his father's lap while Catelyn eats. There's an ease to the way Ned holds him now that softens her heart.

"He'll be a knight, won't he?"

"His hands are already strong," Ned says, smiling. "Maybe he'll be a builder and swing a hammer instead of a sword."

Catelyn seals that hope in her heart and leaves Rickon with his father in the bed to light her candles to the Seven, who have once again given her a healthy child. She lights two for the Mother and glances out the window at the godswood far below.

With gratitude for the gods, old and new, she returns to her husband and their new son.