#starkfish

“Don’t say you love me.”

He couldn’t stop hearing the words. He couldn’t stop hearing the sadness in her voice. Or the pain. The pain that he felt as well, but could not stay and share with her. How he longed to go back upstairs and comfort her--allow her to comfort him. But he could not. Gods damn Robert Baratheon! He realized he was shaking and leaned against the wall in the entrance hall of the Great Keep just three paces from the door. He felt unable to walk any further. As soon as he stepped through that door, he’d be leaving. 

What kind of man leaves his own child in what may be his deathbed? What kind of man leaves his wife as broken in spirit as her child is in body? 

“Father? Are you well?”

He looked down to see his elder daughter looking up at him, concern in her blue eyes--blue eyes almost identical to those he’d just walked away from, only Catelyn’s had been filled with anguish rather than the excitement and anticipation that could not be entirely dimmed in Sansa’s even by her sorrow at parting from her mother and brothers or her apparent newfound worry over him.

“I am well, Sansa,” he forced himself to say. His voice sounded cold to him, but better solid, still ice than the raging storm of feelings that threatened to overtake him. “I will be along in a moment.”

She frowned slightly. Catelyn’s frown. “His Grace is impatient to be gone. He asked after you as soon as Arya and I came down from seeing Mother and Bran. I told him you were saying your farewells to Mother, but he grew tired of waiting and sent me after you.”

“Tell the king I will be along in a moment,” Ned nearly growled, wishing devoutly that Robert might choke upon his damned impatience. 

Don’t say you love me.

She’d begged him again to stay. He knew she would, even though he had know choice. She had to see that. If she could see anything beyond Bran, she would see it. Cat would never have him endanger all of them simply to hold her hand. But Cat was broken. And even knowing that, he was leaving her.

“Did something happen, Father? Is it Bran?”

He opened his eyes, not realizing he’d closed them until Sansa’s rather alarmed voice reached him. There was nothing but worry and fear in her eyes now, and she reminded him even more painfully of the woman he’d left to her lonely vigil over their son upstairs.

“Nothing happened, Sansa. Bran is . . .” He had started to say fine. But Bran wasn’t fine. No one was fine. Nothing was fine. “The same,” he finally said. He reached out to put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Go now, child. Tell the king I’ll be right behind you, and then keep an eye on your sister. She’s as likely to run off as she is to stay put.”

Sansa frowned again, but this time it was the familiar irritation which her younger sister’s antics so often provoked within her.

“Yes, Father,” she said. “I’ll watch Arya, but she doesn’t listen to me, so please do hurry.”

She turned and opened the door to leave, and the cool, crisp air of the North hit him in the face. He wondered how he hadn’t even felt that when she’d come in. Please do hurry.

Catelyn had said please as well. Please stay, Ned. Even after he’d told her once more that he must go--that he would never leave if he could choose, but he could not choose as he wished. She’d simply looked at him with a desperate sort of hope in her eyes and spoke those three words. Please stay, Ned.

He hadn’t needed to answer her. She’d seen the answer in his face. And then her own beautiful face had contorted in rage and she’d shouted at him, allowing her anger to strike him in the heart as she had not done until that moment. “May the gods forgive you Eddard Stark, if you walk out that door! Even if you care nothing for me, surely you care for your son! Your son, Ned! Your trueborn son who worships the ground you walk on lies here half in his grave already, and you would leave him? Where is the man I wed? The man who has cared for all of us so well? Where is the man I know?” She’d risen from her seat by Bran’s bed as she spoke, but the storm of her anger seemed suddenly to have swept away the last of her strength, and she’d nearly fallen to the floor. 

He’d rushed forward and caught her, falling to his own knees and holding her there before him as she began crying as if she would never stop and saying, “Promise me you’ll stay, Ned. Promise me.”

Promise me. The words had pierced him like a blade, and pierced him as cruelly now as he stood in the entryway of his own Keep unable to go forward or back. He recalled another woman’s desperate plea, although she had been little more than a girl. Promise me, Ned, she’d begged of him--her eyes had been grey, but the desperation and hope mingled within them as she’d made her plea had been identical to that in Cat’s blue eyes as she’d begged him for a promise just now. 

There’d been a child then as well. Not a broken, silent boy of seven, but a red-faced, crying newborn boy. In that godsforsaken, sweltering tower in Dorne where his sister lay dying, she’d begged him to do as she asked for the sake of her child. And he’d done it. Risking the wrath of his friend and his new king if discovered, committing himself to a lie he could not take back, he’d done it. For the sake of that child. And the sister he loved.

What kind of man am I? Will I refuse to chance Robert’s wrath for my own wife and son?

He’d held onto Cat, both of them on their knees on the floor of Bran’s room, until her sobs stilled. She hadn’t pushed him away. Instead she’d leaned against him, and he’d run his hand through her hair, his fingers catching on the tangles which had gone untended during her grief-filled vigil. “I do care, Cat,” he’d whispered. “You, and Bran, and all the children . . . you are everything. You must know that. If I had a choice, I would . . .”

He’d felt her stiffen in his arms at those words, and he’d stopped speaking. Instead, he’d tilted her face up to look toward his, and she met his eyes. He’d softly touched his lips to hers, and she’d allowed it. He’d put his hands on either side of her beautiful face and said, “Look at me, Cat. And hear me. I love . . .”

“Don’t say you love me.” There hadn’t been anger in her words. A sadness deeper than any he’d ever heard there, but no anger. And the pain--the dull aching, exhausting, unending pain that had haunted both of them since Bran had fallen.

“Father!” 

This time it was Robb who stood there, looking at him in confusion. When Ned didn’t answer him, his son continued speaking. “You must come now, Father. The Queen has been complaining loudly about your discourtesy, and I only just got a hand over Arya’s mouth before she said something terrible to her. The Queen did hear enough to decree that she won’t have Arya in her wheelhouse which mortified Sansa, and . . . I don’t care if Sansa and Arya shout at each other, but I don’t trust the Queen, Father. The way she looked at both of them . . it frightens me.”

It frightens me, too, Ned thought grimly. And that very fear compels me as much as anything else to do what I must now. I cannot protect any of you if I know not where the danger lies. And so I will take our girls to the last place I would have them be--to protect them. Gods help me!

“Forgive me, Robb,” he said softly. “I fear it is not an easy thing to leave Winterfell not knowing when I may return. I simply wished to bid it farewell on my own before joining the company.” There was some truth in the words he gave his son--and all the truth he wished to share.

The confusion and concern on Robb’s face melted into a sort of sad understanding, and his blue eyes--Catelyn’s eyes again--seemed to look at him with a maturity Ned hadn’t realized he’d possessed. My son is nearly a man.

“Take your time, Father,” he said. “I’ll keep the girls in check.” Without another word, he was gone.

Ned knew he had no choice but to follow. He had to do this for the sake of them all--Catelyn, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon, even Jon on his way to the Wall. He had to walk this path and find a way to walk it safely. Still, it hurt more than he thought anything could. And still he questioned himself. What kind of man walks away from all that matters to him? 

He’d not finished his sentence after Catelyn had stopped him with her words. Instead he’d pulled her to her feet and kissed her again, and she’d again allowed it. He’d led her back to her seat, but she’d remained standing as he turned from her to go. He’d made it to the door, but then had to turn around. “Catelyn, I cannot leave you without saying . . .”

“No,” she’d said sadly, but with a sort of firm resolve. “Don’t you dare say say you love me. Not as you leave me.”

He’d stood there silently, and after a moment, she’d turned from him and sat back down, reaching out to take Bran’s hand, not looking at Ned again. 

The unsaid words had nearly choked him. The words he so rarely spoke aloud had nearly screamed inside his head wanting her to hear them. To know them. But he couldn’t speak them to her against her will. If he could do nothing else she’d asked of him, he could do that.