This is my first Song of Ice and Fire fic so please go easy on me. I know that the dates of some things are not quite accurate and I did take liberty with the characters so they may seem a little OOC, but honestly I enjoyed writing this little ficlet and I hope that you will enjoy reading this.

As for whether this will also be uploaded into the 'Game of Thrones' section, the answer is no as I have not watched the TV series (sad as that is) but have instead read the books only. I actually heard of the books before the TV shows so hence why this is here and not posted elsewhere.

Anyway, please and read and enjoy and then tell me what you think! And yes, I do believe in R+L=J, but I will leave the crazy debates to the experts as to R+L=J vs R+L=D/+J... (I don't get these either...)

Rhaegar was reading of wolves the day he met her. He often took to the godswood to read, a place where few ventured other than those of the north. The trees spooked many and his own Septon claimed that it was blasphemous to worship trees when the Sept stood merely a few steps away down the corridor. But the godswood was secluded and offered the chance to get away from the screams of the next burning victim of his father's madness, a sanctum from the cruelty of the court and his mother's own tears.

The girl had come from the north and these trees belonged to her gods, he knew. She had arrived with father's Warden of the North, a man by the name of Rickard Stark. He intended to meet with the other courtiers, other lords, in order to strike up a marriage contract for his only daughter. He claimed that it was to protect her from the vipers of the realm. Rhaegar personally suspected that it was to protect the realm from her. The girl was half wild, a wilding in sheep's clothing, bound into a dress that she hated. She wasn't wearing a dress today though, but a boy's tunic and leggings, her feet bare. If he hadn't watched her arrive three days ago he might have mistaken her for one of the kitchen boys.

"What are you doing?" Unlike many of the other noble's children, she held no fear of him, of the taint in the Targaryen bloodline. She probably doesn't even know.

"I am reading," he replied quietly, raising an eyebrow at her. "What are you doing?"

"Dancing practice." The lie was obvious, but she didn't seem to care. "I thought boys were supposed to learn how to fight."

"And I thought that young ladies were supposed to wear dresses and dote on their favourite knights," he threw back, entertained by her attempts at insulting him. In truth, Rhaegar was supposed to be at the training grounds right now, but he was hiding from the master-at-arms as he had no wish to learn the art of killing today. He would rather be reading about the Kings of the North.

"Can you fight?" the girl asked, disregarding his counter with a sceptical eyebrow of her own.

"Fighting is for brutes."

"And reading and singing is for cowards," she stated. "Everyone knows that." Rhaegar frowned, finding her all of a sudden not so entertaining. He snapped the book shut and placed it carefully on one white root.

"Are you calling the Crown Prince a coward?"

"Yes," she said simply. "Especially when he hides away in a godswood for gods he doesn't even believe in."

"I'm not hiding!" Rhaegar could feel an unprincely flush running up his cheeks at her words.

"Prove it." She tossed a wooden sword form behind her, a training sword that he had not used for the past years. She sent him a feral grin, settling into a stance that showed that she was no untrained warrior or fragile fair maiden. She's still a girl Rhaegar thought childishly. I'm certain to win.

That night he went to sleep with bruises and a promise to practice in the godswood once more on the morrow.

"Does your father not think it strange that you spend so much time in the godswood?" Three years had passed since that fateful day they had first met. His fourteenth name day was but a week away and the lords had gathered once more for the celebration. Lyanna, for that was the wild girl's name, had actually worn shoes today and had brought him a gift of her own. A pretty dagger, one from her own collection hidden away on her small eleven year old frame.

"Father does not mind what I do in my spare time so long as I am where I should be by dinnertime," she said, flicking her hair back. "I need only be a proper lady in the presence of other lords."

"But I am a lord," he said, surprised. Lyanna rolled her eyes.

"No, you're a prince, stupid," she said in the tone she used when she thought that he was being deliberately thick once more. "You don't count."

"How so?"

"You're my friend." She grinned once more, picking up their discarded swords. Still wood, she was not yet strong enough for the blunted practice swords Rhaegar used in the practice yard, but she was still quicker than him. "Would you care to go another round?"

He lied to his mother again and said that the black eye was due to falling down in the practice yard. The next day his father burned the master-at-arms and mother found a new one in time for his birthday.

He was sixteen when he kissed her for the first time. Lyanna was down once more, this time to spend time with the Baratheons as her father had finally found her a suitor. Personally, Rhaegar thought that the eldest Baratheon was a bone-headed idiot, but he was Eddard Stark's closest friend, and Lyanna had explained that Eddard had few of those.

"He's too shy," she said. "Sometimes I wonder if he's a wolf at all."

"He's honourable," Rhaegar responded instead. He didn't know the youngest of the three boys, but he knew that he was Lyanna's closest sibling. Brandon was like her, outspoken and fierce but a man and their similar personalities often clashed he had learnt over the years. Benjen merely wanted to join the Night's Watch when he was older but Rickard insisted that he learn the pleasures of life first.

"Oh, I know that, and he's fierce when he wants to be. Ned's much better than Brandon, especially at keeping secrets," Lyanna said, winking at him. "Since he only tells the truth, people will believe him when he lies." Rhaegar smiled, loving the way that her eyes lit up at that. Over the time that he had known her, at one point she had stopped being entertaining and became endearing. The bruises he earnt in their sessions, months apart at times, grew fewer in number but when he did gain them, they no longer stung. In court, amongst the other lords and ladies they were strangers, her cold and afar in northern dresses, and him polite but aloof from the rest in crimson. It was only here, beneath the mixing of their house colours, beneath a canopy of red and white, that they could truly be themselves.

"Your father intends to marry you off to Robert," Rhaegar said and Lyanna scrunched up her nose.

"Robert is nice enough," she said reluctantly, "But Ned says he has a lust for women he's never seen in anyone before." Rhaegar knew that too. He had pitied the poor woman that would be forced to marry a man in the knowledge that he would have more bastards than they would have children. That is, until he had learnt that it was Lyanna and then he pitied poor Robert Baratheon who would have no idea just what had hit him- he imagined that the older she got the more incensed she would be to find a new bastard and the further he would be punished. Lyanna didn't believe in messing around with another person's feelings.

He turned to her, slightly battered after the practice that day and wondered whether she was aware of the other reason that he could not stand the sight of Robert Baratheon. The man was handsome enough and a fair enough knight, older than himself by three summers. But he had the one person in the realm that did not tar him with the same brush as his mother and father. One too weak to fight back, the other too mad to rule. Rhaegar wished deep down in his heart though that Rickard Stark would have made the contract with his mother or father rather than the Baratheons. But she was too close to the Lannisters who were now spurned by his father's refusal to marry him off to the girl Cersei. Tywin Lannister had quit as hand that day and refused to set foot in King's Landing until this was resolved. His mother was now grieving for the loss of her last connection to her old friend Johanna.

Lyanna was silent, her face still. Over the years she had gotten used to his long silences. He wondered whether she too felt what he felt, what he thought he felt for her, far more than any other girl that he had met. Some force seemed to draw him in to her, to look over those pale features, the dark curls, the eyes that were so grey they almost seemed black. Cersei Lannister had claimed that she looked like a horse and Rhaegar had told Jaime that if she was a horse, she was a very pretty horse. She had found a blue winter rose earlier, growing underneath one of the wierwood trees and stuck it in her hair. It hadn't even begun to wilt yet.

He only realised that he had kissed her when his lips met hers. He only realised that he had closed his eyes when he opened them to find her own eyes shut. She seemed to blush faintly, as if unsure of what to say. In answer, she merely leant forward and kissed him back.

That night Rhaella informed him that he would be married to Elia Martell and he locked himself away for the rest of the night.

Elia was nothing like Lyanna. Where Lyanna was fierce, she was frail. Where Lyanna could spend hours upon horseback, running and playing in the cold winter air of her home, Elia could barely manage the shift in climate to King's Landing. She was like the fragile southern flowers, wilting in the winter frosts. Rhaegar tried to love her as much as he loved Lyanna, he tried to be the good husband for two years, but each time, Lyanna grew more and more beautiful and yet further and further away.

It was Harrenhal when they next met alone, this time without the godswood. He had seen the three squires set upon the poor little man from the crannogs and had been about to step in when Lyanna appeared from nowhere. Gone were her boy's clothes, gone were the wooden swords, gone was the girl in the godswood. Instead, there stood a strong, proud and fierce warrior maid, sword in hand. Her dark eyes were stormy and the three boys recoiled, moving away from her and the crannogman. Rhaegar watched from the shadows as she laid into them, just as wilful as when they had been children. He had almost thought that the spark between them had been long since extinguished in the two long years that they grew apart, but at that moment the embers sparked themselves back to life. He remembered how soft those lips were, how her face had fallen when he had broken the news of his engagement, of how she had turned away so he wouldn't see the tears. And how she had looked when he brought her face around to kiss her once more.

When the new knight entered the lists only against the three squires, he could almost laugh. Many seemed to believe that the rider was the crannogman, taking revenge upon his attackers but Rhaegar knew better. He had seen the man watching from the side-lines, eyes curious as each squire fell. And he noted the conspicuous absence of one lady from her chair beside her brother who was staring adoringly across the grounds at the young Ashara Dayne. After his final joust that day, fortunately or unfortunately not against the knight, he slipped inside the tent that the knight had entered. Dark curls fell from around her head as she removed the helm.

"I thought that all knights were supposed to declare their house colours," he teased and she jumped, turning to see who had entered. When she saw that it was only him she relaxed and raised an eyebrow.

"I see you are merely relieved that I did not ride against you today," she replied coyly, sly as always. He laughed at that, knowing it was true. She was as true with a lance as she had ever been with a sword.

"I see your dancing skills have improved," he said. She paused, head tilting to the side curiously. "Although I doubt that those boys needed to be humiliated twice in one day." Her face darkened.

"They were taking advantage of Howland," she said angrily. "As if they were any better than him."

"Howland?"

"Howland Reed," she stated. "His father is the lord of Greywater Watch." He raised both eyebrows at that.

"The floating castle? Well, they do say that you northerners are strange." She rolled her eyes and tossed the helm to one side, beginning to unbuckle the rest.

"You have no idea," she stated. "Besides it's you southerners that have it all backwards with your seven gods and insipid schemes." There was another pause as she struggled with the straps to the armour, seemingly frustrated that they didn't want to come undone. There seemed to be a strange mist in her eyes as she refused to meet his own. Sighing, he moved in to help her. "What are you doing?" she snapped, slapping his hands away. Undeterred, he merely carried on to undo the straps and buckles that kept the armour in place.

"You know there is a reason why knights have squires help them put their armour on," he said conversationally.

"Don't you have a wife to get back to?" she asked, voice cold. He paused in what he was doing a moment then, looking at her wonderingly.

"Elia is resting. The journey was hard on her," he said neutrally. "She will be present for the final tomorrow."

"And you are being the worst husband by not checking on her to ensure her continued health," Lyanna retorted. He sighed then and slipped the last buckle from its hole, allowing her to pull it all off.

"I am probably the worst of husbands for any lady," he said, tipping her head up. "Since I have given my heart to another woman already." He would have kissed her if she had allowed it, but she glanced to the side, eyes downcast.

"We can't," she whispered.

"Why not?"

"You have said your marriage vows and I am given to another man."

"You don't even like Robert."

"No," she said. "It seems I share your sin in loving another."

Elia was fuming when he returned to the tent when the tourney was over. She had not brought the children with her, not even little Aegon, only two months old- Elia had claimed that if the journey would be too much for her, it would most certainly be too much for the infant and so left him back in King's Landing with a wet nurse.

"What were you thinking?" she shrieked when he walked through the doors, eye aflame. "I am your wife!" He winced at the accusation. The one thing that Elia was good at, having grown up in Dorne with the rest of the vipers, was how to read a situation. And she was not so blind to her husband's faults to know when he made a gesture of political correctness or love. He knew he should have given the wreath to her, should have declared his love for her in that one gesture before the kingdom, but he couldn't. If it had been made of any other flower than those gods damned blue roses, they would have gone to her. But Elia was a southern bell, no northern bloom could survive on her hot little head. She was not made for icy temperatures but for hotter climates.

"I apologise," he said, catching her hands before she could remember any of the items around the room. When angered, she sometimes would lose her head and recklessly throw the nearest item on hand at his own head and then collapse from the effort. She was trembling but if that was from overexertion or anger, it was impossible to tell. "That I have offended you and your people." We are walking a thin enough line as it is he thought, thinking back to the tent. They should not have done it, not have done anything, but then she had worn that dress, the one that had made him flush and be glad for the helmet that hid his face and remember. And now I have shamed my wife in front of the entire kingdom and my father. He was only too glad that his mother had chosen to stay behind with little Viserys and her grandchildren. I am not looking forward to her words on this he thought.

But he couldn't regret anything. He couldn't make himself believe that he had crowned the wrong woman as the Queen of Love and Beauty, even if it was just to see Robert's incensed face. She is mine he had thought in that moment. She will never be yours.

"Offended me? You have shamed me and my people as well as yourself! You have shamed our marriage!" Tears were falling from her face, tears that would not have been falling from Lyanna's. If she were anything like Lyanna she would be pounding me into the floor he thought sadly. I would not have to be holding her up in case she falls over. He was fond of Elia, he had to be to have given her two children, but things were not going the way she wanted. Elia wanted more children, at least five little beauties to chase after and keep her occupied while her husband ruled the Seven Kingdoms but it was not to be. After she had almost died while birthing Aegon, he had told her exactly what the maesters had informed him, what he had expected since her experience of giving birth to Rhaenys.

"I am sorry," he murmured into the dark curls upon her head, the ones that she shared with their children. There was nothing else he could do other than take her into his arms and comfort her, fragile as a leaf even now after Aegon's birth that had almost killed her. At time he had wondered in the darkness before dawn what would have happened if she had perished and then cursed himself for having such thoughts. She was his wife, he ought to be relieved that she was alright. And he was, but only as a close friend might have been, never a husband but he was too noble to tell her that. When he had married her he had hoped that that would be enough.

But now after this tournament, he realised that it would never be enough.

The war had exploded from the consequences of their actions. It had only been weeks until Lyanna's marriage to Robert, three weeks after her sixteenth name day but she had spoken to him in the darkness of an abandoned tower of Winterfell one night on his visit to the north asking him to take her away. Robert was still at the Eyrie with her brother Eddard and Benjen had sworn to keep their secret. She had asked him to take her away, make it impossible for Robert to marry her in any way possible.

"We've already done that," he had said, holding her close, aware of the treason they were both saying.

"Then take it a step further," she had answered, eyes hard but also desperate. "I don't want to be his next mistress."

"I'm already married."

"By the Seven," she said passionately. "Up here in the north, the Seven mean nothing. We follow the Old Gods. If we were to be married in front of the Heart Tree, it would be just as binding but different to your partnership with Elia Martell." She had had a point and he did not have the strength to turn her down, to turn down the thoughts that he had had from the moment he had learnt of her engagement to Robert Baratheon. And so the next day they were married at the stroke of midnight in front of the great wierwood in the godswood at Winterfell and they were gone the next day.

Rhaegar cursed his lack of forethought when Rickard Stark and his eldest son Brandon journeyed south after them. He cursed that he had never given thought to what his father might do. By the time he went north to attempt to intercept them, Rickard Stark and son were already imprisoned in the cells beneath the Red Keep and the bonfire was being built. His attempt to speak to his father failed, as did the one to speak with Lyanna's brother, his now good-brother, Brandon. The man was convinced that he had kidnapped Lyanna, as if such a thing were possible.

However, Rickard Stark had the same look his mother had when he had ridden through the gates.

"I know that you did not kidnap my daughter," the man said solemnly, as he sat in the puddle of filth that marked the floor of his cell. He was bound so tightly that he could not move to stand for a piss or anything else and so was forced to sit in his own fluids overnight before being cleansed in the fires of his own pyre the next morning. His eyes were sad as he stared at Rhaegar. "I just want to know where she is."

"I left her in Dorne," he said quietly. "She's safe." Rickard Stark merely nodded and leaned his head back against the wall.

"That's good." There was a moment of silence between them in the dank cell before the man spoke again. "You could only have asked if you wished to marry her. You didn't need to start a war."

"We didn't mean to. I will speak to my father and straighten this out." Rickard let out a strangled laugh at that shaking his head.

"If you believe that that man still has a scrap of sanity left in his head, you are sourly mistaken. Even when I asked for leave to take my men after you all he had to say was 'Burn them all'. No, there will be no saving me from what he has planned." Rhaegar looked down at his hands, unable to look this man in the eyes, the man he had practically sentenced to death himself.

"Promise me something," the old man said as Rhaegar got up to leave. "Promise me that you will look after her, ensure her happiness no matter what the cost to you is. Promise me that she will be safe from all this bloodshed that you have caused." Rhaegar nodded.

"I will." Rickard Stark had smiled then, a strange sad smile that would be his last.

The next day he was burnt alive in his armour, while his son strangled himself to death trying to save him. Rhaegar had ridden out, unable to bear the screams from his dying relations, unable to deal with the guilt that came with that one last smile.

Rhaella was waiting for him at the gates, her hood thrown over his face to hide the Targaryen features, just as he had. She gave him that same understanding look and squeezed his thigh from her position on the ground.

"You did your best," she whispered. "And when this is over, you will be a greater king than he ever has been."

"It was still I that caused this war."

"Men have caused wars over lesser things than the people they loved," she murmured. "So long as she is returned, you can spare us a war until you are king yourself." But Rhaegar knew that Lyanna would never return, especially after this.

The next day Robert declared a rebellion against his father, the Mad King Aerys, and against Rhaegar to whom he truly believed had carried away his 'beloved'. Meanwhile, Rhaegar rode out to comfort his wife in her grief from her father's and brother's deaths.

It was four months into the war when Lyanna told him that she was with child. They had not even risen from bed yet, having awoken that morning to bright sunshine and she had whispered it to him while he was drifting between daydreams. For a moment, he did not understand her and then happiness swelled within him and he smiled back. They were to have a child, one that was made of their love from now and all the way back to when they were children and he imagined raising him with none of the sadness that had followed him in his own childhood. He imagined them doing it together in King's Landing, teaching him to ways of being a prince with his siblings. And then reality crashed back around him and he found himself remembering that the child would be in even more danger now. Robert had declared that he would wipe all trace of the Targaryen line from the earth.

"What will we name them?" Rhaegar whispered back, mentally flinching away from all the consequences now in this happy moment. Lyanna smiled, twining her fingers with his.

"I do not know. Something worthy of both the north and south," she said.

"I'm not sure that's possible," he laughed, smiling at their hands. "We are all so different." She thought on that and then smiled a moment.

"Perhaps we should wait and see the child first. Then we will know whether they are a northerner or a southerner."

He rode off to war, not soon after he had found out. It would take some days to ride back to King's Landing, and then months to train up an army to face against the almighty rage that was Robert's Rebellion. It was not just the north that joined with Robert though but other great Houses as well, all slighted by his father, riding this wave that would give them redemption for all the wrong done to them in the past few years. Rhaegar knew that even if he were to win, he would have to make the changes they wished for that they thought they could gain from Robert.

But Rhaegar would never sit the Iron Throne. He knew that when the Lannisters joined the cause of the Rebellion and Rhaegar knew, without a doubt, that without Casterly Rock, the Targaryens were doomed. Now he truly wished that his father had never insulted Tywin Lannister and sent orders that the news was to be kept as far away from Jaime Lannister as possible. That and that someone would keep an eye on the boy so that he didn't do anything rash or stupid and got himself killed.

He was writing a letter in reply to Lyanna, having already sent to the Daynes for a wet-nurse in the case that anything went wrong, one that would also give Lyanna sufficient company whilst he was away. The Tower was as yet unguarded but he planned to change that. Robert was moving up the Trident and they needed to stop him there and then, before he could move further. He called for Ser Arthur Dayne, knowing that the Kingsguard were practically his now that his father had finished his descent into madness.

"You called for me, my prince," Ser Arthur said once he entered.

"I have a favour to ask of the Kingsguard of the greatest import," he said. "Robert's Rebellion is gaining not just men but power. It must be stopped from passing the Trident if we are to win this war. Ser Arthur nodded.

"I will have the Kingsguard prepare themselves for war."

"Yes, do that, but keep aside your two best knights," Rhaegar said. "You and these two will not be heading into battle with me. The rest will stay here and protect my father." Ser Arthur looked surprised.

"But my lord you will need a member of the Kingsguard with you yourself," he insisted but Rhaegar shook his head.

"I have another job for you. You will take yourself and your two best men to the Tower of Joy in Dorne. There you will find my wife, the Lady Lyanna," he said, noting how the man made no movement of surprise when he said this, attesting to the fact that his mother must have confided in him or he had heard him speaking to his mother or Lord Rickard earlier. "I want you to guard her and protect her and the child." That did elicit a reaction.

"Child?" He looked concerned now. "If Robert wins the war…"

"He will not let the babe live I know. The child is yet to be born but if Robert does win, the lives of my wife and child are in your hands. I trust that you will keep them safe." Ser Arthur Dayne had not hesitated in nodding his head, always the professional Kingsguard. When he left, Rhaegar was glad to have confided in him and that the two he chose did not include Jaime Lannister.

He rode off to war thinking of Lyanna and their unborn child and the future that could have been.