Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

robb is not supposed to cry. he is a king now, or close enough to it that tears feel treasonous. a king does not fall apart in front of bannermen, in front of theon, in front of grey wind, who prowls like he can taste the grief in robb’s blood. but here, in the tent, with the candle sputtering, he lets himself remember.

he remembers his father’s hands first, the way they closed around his shoulder like an oath and a shield both. he imagines those hands when they held his mother’s waist. he can’t help it; he builds a picture out of scraps, half-formed memories of glances traded over supper, of the rare softness of his father’s mouth when he looked at catelyn stark.

love must have been a quiet thing in winterfell, robb thinks. he doesn’t remember them touching much, but when they did; gods, it was like watching snow fall in a still wood, hushed and deliberate. a brushing of fingers as they passed a trencher. the shadow of her smile when he came back from the godswood wet-kneed and sheepish. she would look at father like she was almost amused, and father would look at her like he was still surprised she stayed.

robb imagines them in the godswood, always the godswood, because where else could his father’s heart live? the heart tree watching, red leaves whispering, his lady mother standing there with her hair loose like river water, his father’s voice soft in the cold air. they must have spoken without words half the time. robb wants to think they laughed there, too. he wants to think ned stark laughed, really laughed, and not just that small, rare curl of lips.

he wonders if his mother misses that laughter. he wonders if she can still hear it.

robb presses the heel of his hand against his eyes until stars bloom there. he tells himself it is just the smoke stinging. grey wind whines, low and sharp. there is war in the air, and he is so young, too young to be king. too young to be the one to keep the memory of them alive.

but he does. he carries them both in his chest like a vow. if his parents loved quietly, then he will love loudly, recklessly. he will make a world where his sisters can grow up in peace, where his brothers can be boys again, where no one has to bury their father for a lie told in a southern court.

and maybe, if he dies, no, when he dies, the gods will let him see them together again. he hopes they are together. he hopes the godswood is warm where they are.

Chapter Text

jon dreams of winterfell every night, and every night he dreams of ned and catelyn as if he could stitch them together with memory alone. as if he could make sense of his own place among them by imagining theirs.

in his dreams they are softer than waking life ever let them be. the great hall glows with firelight, and the cold corridors are banished. catelyn sits by the hearth, red hair spilling over her shoulder, needle flashing in her hand. ned stands behind her, one palm on the high back of her chair, head inclined as if to catch every word she says. jon imagines him smiling, not the grim press of lips he knew, but something almost tender. he imagines catelyn answering with laughter, the sound a ribbon of warmth winding through the cold stone.

he builds them like a story told to a lonely boy. ned sets his sword aside before supper, catelyn meets him in the yard, they walk together through the godswood and do not speak, because they do not need to. jon makes them lovers in the oldest sense, two halves of a vow so strong it hums through the heart tree itself. in these dreams, there is no war, no king to kneel to, no bastard to shame.

and yet, even here, the ache crawls in. he cannot help but think of the woman who gave him life, faceless, nameless, carved away from him like a sin. ned kept her a secret so well that sometimes jon wonders if she existed at all. he imagines catelyn asking about her, gentle, insistent, and ned turning his face away, shutting the door between them as he shut it on jon. he imagines her anger, and her grief, and he feels both on her behalf. it would have been easier if they had fought about him. it would have meant he mattered enough to fight over.

once, he is sure he saw them like this, one late winter night, the solar door ajar, catelyn’s hand resting light as snow on ned’s wrist. their heads bent close together. jon had frozen where he stood, afraid to breathe, terrified to break the spell. that one glimpse is all he has, and he clings to it now like a prayer, but even that memory tastes bitter, because he will never know what words passed between them. he will never know if catelyn pleaded for him, or if she turned her face away.

still, he lends her mercy in his mind. he lends it to his father too. he imagines that their love was wide enough to shelter them all, that some part of them wished for him to be whole. it makes the ache bearable, to think that their love was not the thing that left him outside in the snow, but the thing that tried, and failed, to call him in.

under the hard stars, jon whispers to the old gods to keep them together. let there be a godswood wherever the dead go, he prays. let there be red leaves and still water. let them stand side by side forever, and let father’s face be soft when he sees her coming.

when he opens his eyes, the night is as sharp as ever, but something in him feels steadier. as if for one fragile moment, he had been allowed to sit at their feet, and watch them love each other until the dawn.

Chapter Text

sansa remembers her mother’s voice first. not the sharpness of command or the chill of fear, but the softness, low and secret, when she told stories. those stories were full of brave knights and dutiful ladies, and though sansa knows now that stories lie, she also knows where the lie began: with ned and catelyn stark, who made a marriage out of quiet gestures, who made a family that felt, for a while, like the end of every ballad promised.

in king’s landing, surrounded by lannisters, sansa holds their love like a shield. she hides behind it when joffrey sneers, when cersei’s smile cuts like glass. they cannot strip her mind of the image of her parents standing together at the gates of winterfell, their shoulders touching as they watched their children race in the snow. father grave as stone, mother bright as riverwater, two forces so different they should have broken each other, and yet, they did not. they endured. and in enduring, they taught sansa to believe that love was possible.

when she thinks of them, she dresses the memory in the trappings of song. her father is the solemn lord, her mother the proud lady. he bore the weight of the north in his silence, she bore the weight of southern birth in her smile. together, they carved out a space where laughter could live. sansa knows she heard it once, her father’s rare, hushed chuckle, her mother’s answering warmth. she builds a hundred songs from that sound. when the lannisters feast and the hall is too bright, she closes her eyes and hums them back into being.

she remembers the small things, of course, how her father always rose from the high seat when her mother entered, as though she were a queen; how her mother’s hand lingered on his arm when she wished to speak but would not interrupt. sansa had thought all lords and ladies behaved this way, that courtesy was simply another word for devotion. only now does she realize it was something rarer, something quieter. respect, worn into habit until it shone like love.

in the red keep, she dreams of them in the godswood, always the godswood. mother’s hair like a flame against the snow, father’s head bowed to the heart tree, his hand brushing hers without words. sansa imagines them whispering there, promises only trees could hear. it comforts her to think that the weirwoods remember, even if the world forgets.

and yet, the dream hurts. because their love was not a song that lasted. it ended in blood and silence. father’s head on the spike, mother’s cries carried downriver. sansa cannot sew the pieces back together. but she tries. she makes a tapestry in her mind, stitches his honor to her pride, his loyalty to her fire. if she can believe in that tapestry, then she can still believe in herself.

sometimes, in her narrow bed, she whispers to the darkness, if love like theirs can exist, then i am not lost. she imagines her father’s hand on her shoulder, steadying her. she imagines her mother’s kiss pressed to her brow, fierce as armor. she tells herself that their love was the proof that even in a world of lions, wolves could still find each other and stand together.

she clings to that belief as though it were a blade. it is not the songs that keep her alive in king’s landing. it is not the knights or the ladies, not the lies she once adored. it is her parents. ned and catelyn stark, who loved in ways the songs never told, and yet made their daughter believe in songs all the same.

when morning comes, sansa smiles at the mirror. it is small, brittle, a thing that might break if anyone touched it. but it is hers. and she thinks, i am their daughter. i will survive, because they loved. and because they loved, i still know how to hope.