(AU in which Jon grows up in King's Landing as Robert's ward and Brandon's legitimized bastard.)
Ned strides out of the Tower of Joy, a screaming child into his arms and the smell of his sister's blood marked upon his skin.
He rides day and night, the only stops are those to allow the wet nurse to feed the child. He has no name, not yet.
Raise him like he's yours. Protect him. These were Lyanna's last words. It's what he promised and he will do.
Thoughts assail him in moments of forced quiet, in slumber, gnawing at his soul like rats.
During the night, when everything is dark and there is no glimmer of light, the burden of the secret and the consequences of his promise weigh heavily on his mind.
What will people think when they see him return after the war with a bastard in his arms? What will Catelyn think?
The thought of his wife, of the fragile hopes he had placed in their marriage, the feeling that they had reached an understanding, the certainty of being able to build something together little by little. If not love, at least a relationship of friendship, respect, trust, devotion.
He keenly feels the loss of what could have been and never will be.
His precautions don't matter. In the end Robert tracks him.
(Two days ago he arrived at King's Landing to find the Mad King in a pool of his own blood, to discover the cruel brutality of Elia Martell and her sons deaths.)
He is not ready, he never will be. Lying is difficult for him. Lying to the boy with whom he grew up and that is like a brother to him seems impossible. It's dishonorable and wrong, but he knows Robert and knows that Lyanna's fear was legitimate. If Robert had the slightest doubt, if he suspected something, it would be the end. It would mean fury and ruin. Too much blood has already been spilled.
Robert observes the child in his arms and for the first time in the last year it seems that the storm raging at the bottom of his clear eyes subsides. The frenzy that not even Raeghar's death managed to extinguish disappears, buried behind the shadow of a smile that peeks out from his long and bristly beard.
Ned lets Robert take the child and already feels the absence of his familiar weight against the chest, similar to an amputation.
He watches as he cradle him, a small and screaming bundle pressed against a mighty chest. Robert still wears his armor and is covered in mud and encrusted blood. Jon doesn't seem to care. He stops crying and in the sudden silence the ringing in his ears becomes the only noise inside the tent. He feels suffocated. The scorching sun of Dorne is far away and so are the desert lands that he has crossed like a man damned by the gods. If he closes his eyes, however, he can still feel the stifling heat of the room in which he found Lyanna, the stench of death.
"Cat will never accept him," says Robert. He's tickling Jon's chin. "This will destroy your marriage."
It's the truth and perhaps it was the awareness of this that stole his sleep and peace. Not the memory of the dead, but the torment of the living, knowing the battle that awaits him within the walls of his house.
"Give him to me, Ned. Give me your boy and I'll raise him as if he were mine. He will be my ward. The war took Lyanna from me. I won the war for a wolf."
He wakes up from a nightmare to find himself catapulted into another.
Now he recognizes the exalted and euphoric expression on Robert's face and hates himself for not immediately noticing. It is the same expression with which he looked at Lyanna, all possessive and fierce tenderness. Lyanna who hated conventions, the restrictions of being a woman. Lyanna who was free and wild and indomitable, but had a kind heart and always dreamed of great adventures, great loves, to live the stories of her favorite books, to become like the heroes of her songs. Lyanna who loved to dance and ride. Lyanna who died, entrusting him with her most precious thing. He is pervaded by an absolute, blinding rage. It is the injustice of everything that has happened to his family. One misfortune after another. And after all that grief, now this.
"He isn't a trophy, Robert," he says and his voice sounds bitter and terrifying. "It's the life of a child you're talking about. I've sworn to protect him, to keep him safe. On his mother's deathbed, I-" he stops abruptly for the horror of what he has just let slip in the heat of the moment. The emotions that have taken over, obscuring the reason. He knows he must have gone pale.
Robert doesn't flinch. He must have noticed his tension as he must have noticed the suspicious way he stopped talking suddenly.
Gods, let him not understand. Gods, you aren't always just and forgiving. You haven't been with Lyanna. Be with her son.
"Tell me the truth." Robert's gaze is open and inquisitive, it seems to pierce him apart. "He isn't yours, is it?" Then, like a bolt from the blue, in a thoughtful and unusually serious tone, he asks, "Is he Brandon's bastard?"
His surprise twines indissolubly with relief. He thanks all the existing gods, old and new and those who are strangers to him and who have altars of fire, gold and horse bones beyond the Narrow Sea.
Obviously Robert misunderstands. "Don't look at me like that. Did you think I didn't know? People like to talk. So Lady Dayne really committed suicide because of a broken heart." He shakes his head and his sadness is genuine. Probably the idea of that tragic love reminds him of his own. "Poor girl."
A gurgling verse elicits yet another smile. It is amazing to watch the change, the chasing of lights and shadows on the corners of his angular face. The fierce warrior tamed by a child. Robert touches the delicate and frail curve of Jon's skull. Ned thinks of Aegon Targaryen, of little Rhaenys, of the bloody end of Elia Martell. Of a mad king murdered by one of the knights who had sworn to serve him. Betrayals and oaths, achievements and secrets.
"I can legitimize him," insists Robert. "I can give him a title, recognize him as his father's son. You don't need to take responsibility for him, atone for a sin not yours."
On the contrary, the sin is also his. He didn't arrive in time. He failed to save Lyanna. He sighs and that simple gesture seems to deprive him of any residual energy. He feels incredibly tired and old. "What about you?" He asks. "You said that Jon would destroy my marriage. What about yours?"
"Jon?" echoes Robert's voice, starstruck. "You fucking bastard. I've always wanted to call one of my boys like that."
Me too. "Answer the question."
"What do you want me to say? I will never love any woman as I loved Lyanna, but my wife will be queen. This will have to be enough and she will have to accept Jon Stark, whether she likes it or not."
He knows it's a gamble. He should prevent it from happening. Make excuses.
Robert continues to smile at the son of the man he hates. The man he killed for revenge and to pay off a debt of pride.
The news travels fast, carried by raven's wings propelled by strong winds.
The new King has a ward. An orphan and a bastard whom he has already legitimized.
When he returns home, Ned is a changed man, hopelessly different from the man he was before he left for the war. Why shouldn't he? The war took away everything from him. His father, his brother, his sister. His honor.
He returns to discover that Benjen intends to take the black and that his mother has slowly gone out, the most romantic say for the heartbreak of having survived the death of her family. But he knew her, strengths and weaknesses. It wasn't despair and mourning that killed her, but anger, bitterness, a burning hatred. His mother was a strong and passionate woman, but even the hardest stone can break under the right pressure.
He comes back to discover that his wife, whose colors he knows, but not the most intimate thoughts, meanwhile gave birth to a male child. A healthy and robust child. She called him Robb and he thinks he loves her a little for that.
In the chambers that belonged to his father and mother and which now belong to him and Catelyn, Ned holds his first child. Blood of his blood. Partly Stark partly Tully.
Motherhood has made Catelyn radiant. It made her flourish again. She must miss terribly the great rivers and the expanses of grass covered with dew, the exterminated fields, the wild flowers. A part of her must hate this hard and cold land where nothing pretty grows, where everything is white or dark, covered with moss.
She's trying to adapt. She wants to learn to be happy here with him. She set aside the elaborate braids and garments with gaudy tones. Now she is the portrait of sobriety and composure. Only her hair shines like red gold against the fire in the fireplace and so does Robb's.
She didn't welcome him with a hug, but when they were alone and he sought the reassuring warmth of her body, she let him attract her against him and reciprocated his embrace with equal force.
I'm home, he thought. This is my home now.
While nursing Robb, Catelyn is careful to ask general questions about the South, about Robert. Neither of them speak of the deads, the spoils of war. Nevertheless the argument cannot be avoided. When he mentions Jon Stark, he sees the pain in his wife's sky blue eyes and can't stand it. In his case it would have been humiliation and wounded pride. In Brandon's case it is something profoundly different. No matter how, Catelyn loved him. Discovering that she has been betrayed remains a severe blow, a sour bite to swallow. She reacts stoically, but her features are expressionless, her eyes cold and dry, her shoulders stiff, the crease of her thin mouth is decidedly unhappy.
He doesn't want to build the foundation of their marriage on a lie.
In another situation he would have acted differently. Not in this one. In this Jon has already been lost and he failed to protect him as he should have.
He kneels in front of his wife and taking her hand, in a broken whisper, briefly tells her about a bed soaked with blood and the last words of a beloved sister lost in the worst way, the forbidden love of a wolf and a dragon, of a child guilty only of being born on the side of the losers at the end of a war that made him an orphan.
In the end, Ned isn't the only one crying.
Robb has fallen asleep and his small face is placid and blissful.
Catelyn looks devastated. "Oh, Ned," she whispers softly. She puts her hand against his cheek and he turns his head to kiss her palm. "I'm so sorry," he hears her say. "Tell me what I can do. How can I help you."
There are traces of dry tears on her pale cheeks and new tears are accumulated against her dark eyelashes. She has never seemed more beautiful to him. He has never been so close to feeling something like this. Not a violent passion, but an affection of a piercing, disruptive sweetness that seems to fill the cracks inside him.
"Bear the burden with me," he answers. "Keep the secret and swear by my gods and yours to never reveal it to anyone."
She smiles, sad and resolute. She smooths with a finger the worry lines between his eyebrows. "It's a Stark secret and I'm a Stark now. We're in this together."
The King's arrival is welcomed by the procession of the inhabitants of Winterfell gathered in the inner courtyard. It is a triumph of opulence that clashes all the more openly with the austerity of the castle. The Starks are in the front row.
Ned kneels before Robert and pronounces the usual words, hiding a smile little and badly.
Robert's eyes betray the same mirth. When he tells him to get up and crush him in a bear hug, he finds in the fat and rowdy man who stands in front of him his oldest and dearest friend.
The necessary introductions are made. Only a few moments seem to have elapsed when Robert slips his hand below the belt and declares that he wants to go down into the crypts.
Ned has no choice but to obey.
He leads the way, after exchanging a look of understanding with Catelyn. Her eyes leave his to stare at a point behind him and he sees a flash of surprise crossing over her face.
He takes a moment too long to understand and it happens when Robert says, the surliness swept away by a hint of rude kindness, "Come with us, boy. I want you to see her. It's your aunt after all."
It's the first time he sees his nephew after fourteen years and gods, the resemblance is impressive.
The shape of the mouth is that of Brandon, only that while his brother's was prone to grins, Jon's seems perpetually sullen, so as the thick and frowned eyebrows are those of his mother.
The penetrating gray cloud eyes are entirely Lyanna and the way he moves, with determination yet light, reminds him of other ghosts. He is a Stark in every way. There is nothing of his father in him and he knows he must be grateful.
"Jon," he says and doesn't know whether to hug him. He is at an age when such gestures are perceived with aversion. It's the same with Robb.
Jon must read his indecision because he smiles with his eyes, squeezing them slightly as Benjen does when he tries to hold back a laugh.
"Uncle," he greets him with a nod and without another word follows Robert.
That night, embracing Catelyn in their bed, they comment on their respective days as usual. It's an old habit.
"Rodrick said that during the training Jon disarmed Robb three times." She has her head resting on his shoulder and he caresses her long loose hair, passing it between his fingers like silk ribbons.
Ned chuckles. "I can imagine Robb's reaction."
Catelyn lightly hits him on the arm. "There's nothing to laugh about. You know how he becomes when he loses."
"Do you want me to talk to him?"
"They're kids." She sighs. "They are growing. Let them sort things out for themselves."
The silence that follows is comfortable and relaxing. "He resembles her," he mutters in thought. He doesn't need to specify who he is referring to.
Catelyn is strangely silent. "He looks just like you," she finally says with her eyebrows furrowed. "He looks more like you than your children."
The idea seems to disturb her. It's true. Among the kids only Arya has inherited his look, the Stark look, but these are mere physical similarities. Robb is stubborn and self-confident, as pungent and charismatic as Brandon was. Sansa and Arya painfully remind him of Lyanna, each in a different way. Bran is reckless and curious, as cheerful as Benjen. Rickon is still too young for him to express an opinion on his character.
She doesn't respond immediately. Her hand is tight around his tunic, near the heart. She raises her head to look into his eyes. "Do you ever think what it would have been like if you had brought him here and raised him as your bastard? If you hadn't told me the truth?" He also hears the questions she doesn't dare to pronounce. Do you think we would be where we are now, like this? Would I be able to forgive you for betraying me? Would I have the strength to love you anyway?
He touches her forehead with his lips. "Every day," he admits.
It isn't the first time that Robert disappoints him, but it is the first time he discovers he cannot forgive him. Sansa's shattering sobs, the anguished way she is embracing her direwolf would melt a heart of stone. Not that of the Queen, nor that of the King, apparently.
Ned passes an arm around Sansa's shoulders, trying to convince her to let go Lady, but Sansa is stubborn, just like Catelyn and hers is an iron grip. Arya has already run away, probably went to hole up in some corner to cry the tears she held back from the moment the Hound entered the tent with a bloody sword decreeing Mycah's death.
Ned knows what to do, even if the thought fills him with revulsion.
Jon steps forward and kneels in front of Robert. No matter how awkward he may appear, he moves with lethal grace. Ned saw him sparring, saw the easy camaraderie he established with Robb during his stay in Winterfell (his son is impulsive and impetuous and proud, but he knows how to recognize his mistakes and after the first defeats, it was him who sought Jon's company, who asked him to train together), he knows that even the Kingslayer takes pleasure in their swordplay. Looking at the inflexible line of his back, Ned doesn't know what to think. He doesn't understand Jon, he doesn't know him. His nephew, with his silences and the constant frown that never leaves his forehead. His nephew who always wears black and brown leathers. Introverted, but not shy. Usually a boy of few words, a silent observer.
"Your grace," Jon says, his head dutifully bowed, "if I'm allowed to talk."
"Damn it, boy," replies Robert, but there is no real bite in his cursing, only blatant fondness. "Every time this spiel of obsequious banter. If you want to talk, then talk. You don't have to ask my permission."
Jon gets up with a fluid movement and when he talks it's like hearing Lyanna, her incurable thirst for justice. "Lady Sansa's direwolf is innocent and so was the boy. This is not the King's justice. It is only revenge ruled by anger."
Robert runs his hand over his beard, listening intently. Standing at his side the Queen's eyes are reduced to two slits yet she remains silent, even if she stares at Jon with open hostility.
"What do you propose, boy? My queen wants blood. She is a fierce lioness and one of her cubs was wounded."
"Scars are what make a man a warrior. Scars like that..." Jon looks in the direction of Joffrey, of his bandaged arm. There is no scorn in his tone, but Ned holds his breath because the meaning behind the words is unmistakable. "Any man would show them off with pride. However, he is the prince and he was injured. What happened, regardless of how it happened, is unforgivable. Since the Queen asks for the head of a direwolf, I propose an exchange. Spare that of Lady Sansa and take mine instead."
Silence and tension are as dense as the morning fog.
"Jon, no," a broken voice whines behind him and Ned catches Sansa's guilty and striken expression.
"Are you sure?" asks Robert. "There's no coming back from that."
Jon merely nods. "I'm sure."
"So be it," says Robert. "Ned, see that the sentence is executed. Now go away and leave me alone, all of you. I've had enough of you troublemakers."
Later, after it's over, Ned watches Jon cover the remains of Ghost with his cloak. The boy's expression is closed and indecipherable.
Ned puts a hand on his shoulder and is surprised when Jon allows it. He's probably too distracted by what happened and hasn't even noticed it.
"We'll bury him in the north," he promises.
This seems to awaken Jon. He blinks. "I wish for him to be buried with Lady Lyanna."
Ned must fight against the sudden lump in his throat before speaking. "It will be done."
"The Queen will not be satisfied," Jon says after a moment. "You have to send Lady away. Get her back to Winterfell. There she will be safe."
Ned had hoped that was the end, but he realizes that it was foolish of him to think so. Death calls for death, blood wants more blood. He's just surprised that Jon, so young, has already learned this lesson. Not for the first time, he wonders what Jon had to endure, the kind of childhood he had.
What happened in the King's tent, the exchange of words and looks he witnessed. He lets the hand fall to his side. What right does he have to comfort Lyanna's boy right now?
"In there," he says and Jon turns. "You knew what would happen."
It is clear that Jon knows what he is referring to by the way he avoids his gaze and is mulling over how to respond, weighing the words and deciding what to admit.
"They aren't my family, but I grew up with them," he says and it is a painful, bitter truth. A purulent and rodent wound just as much for him as it must be for Jon. Lyanna's eyes stare at him from his grave face, accusers and sad, as if they knew, as if he understood the extent of his guilt. How did you protect him? How did you keep your oath? Throwing him to the lions.
The moment passes. Jon shrugs, unperturbed. "I know how they think, what they feel. Sometimes it seems like I know them more and better than I know myself."
Ned thinks back to the time when in the crypts, after Robert's proposal to join their families, Jon didn't immediately follow the King. He stared intently at Lyanna's sculpted face while Ned thought, you won't know the sound of her laughter. You will never hear her sing to robins. You will not know of the pranks she used to play at the expense of lords and servants, how her laughter was able to dissolve any resentment or animosity towards her afterwards, making her earn forgiveness and love from anyone who knew her.
Jon advised him to wait. An engagement is for life. He remembers what he told him as if not a single day had passed, so deeply it struck him. "Let them know each other, let them fall in love. Let them live the fairy tale. Give her a choice. Make her choose to get married because that's what she wants and not what she thinks she wants."
He knows Joffrey's temperament, he knows how he is. It is as he said. He grew up with them. Those people are not his family, but he knows how they think, how they behave.
He averted a catastrophe. After what he saw, he will never consent to a marriage between Sansa and Joffrey Baratheon.
"The boy can't become King," says Robert. He refused the milk of poppy. His face is swollen and red, veiled with sweat. He has a fever. The wound infected and must hurt like seven hells. Nevertheless he seems lucid and more than ever like the man he loved as a boy, not the dissolute and careless King he has known in recent months.
In light of the discovery about the real parentage of Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen, Ned says nothing.
Robert punches the mattress. "Joffrey," he says his son's name as if it tasted disgusting, as if he wanted to spit it out. "He cannot be King. He isn't suitable. He doesn't have the makings for governing." He twitches the eyes and it seems that the pain is getting worse because he is panting heavily. "Jon was right."
"Jon?" What does Jon have to do with all this?
Robert opens his eyes instantly. "He's a good boy. Diligent. Quiet. Well-mannered. He looks more like you than his father." He bursts out laughing and as often happens is a laugh at the expense of the world, for a joke he doesn't intend to share, which only he seems capable of fully understanding. "A year ago he tried to talk to me. He wanted to convince me to issue an edict to name Tommen as crown prince. Obviously I didn't listen to him. You should have seen him, Ned." The smile that curves his mouth, supplanting the grimace of pain, is a smile that Ned remembers well. It has the taste of youth, of spring, of tournaments and winter roses, of dances and banquets.
"It was like she was talking to me. Lyanna. He had exactly her look. Do you remember her look? When she stuck to something and wanted to convince you to think the same way at all costs. It made you feel like slime in the channels, like she was ready to hit you if you dared to contradict her." Robert's eyes are shiny and wistful. "May the gods forgive me. I loved the boy as a son, more than my own. For years I imagined that he was her boy's, the son that she would have given me if everything had gone as it should have been. I saw him grow up and it was like seeing you and her again, mixed up. He would be a good King, a great one. He doesn't have my blood and he has no right to the crown, but if I could I would recognize him as my heir right now."
But he has it, Ned thinks. He could be King and he would have more right than those you consider your children.
"He would hate it." Robert bursts out laughing again. He holds his chest with both hands as if it hurt, but he doesn't stop laughing. It only ends when he is out of breath. "Yes," he murmurs. "He would hate it like I did. Like he hates this place. I wronged him. I should have send him north years ago. I was fucking selfish, but I loved him. As much as I loved her. My Queen of Love and Beauty."
After his offer to let her and the children survive, when Cersei asks the inevitable question, the answers could be multiple. Honor, which requires not to claim innocent victims. Mercy, because now he can imagine precisely how difficult life must have been as the wife and queen of Robert. In the end the truth prevails. "For Jon."
"Why?" She frowns. She is a beautiful woman and if Robert had been a better man, a man capable of letting go the past and above all the idealized image of a dead girl, perhaps he wouldn't be forced to have this conversation now, to do what the duty towards his king and the realm impose on him. "I've never been kind to him. He has every reason to hate me. If he knew what you discovered-"
And this is perhaps the most difficult part. To know that the boy he had sworn to protect grew up in this nest of vipers. Lonely because of the King's love. Far away from the affection of the family that would have welcomed him and loved him, not a perfect love, but as indestructible as the Wall, vast and deep as the depths of the sea.
"He already knows," he admits. "He always knew."
"Ridiculous," she says scornfully, but the doubt is sprouting. He can see the cracks in her mask, in her demeanor. "It's impossible."
"He hindered Jon Arryn's research and he was the one who covered you for years. He made sure that Robert's bastards left the city discreetly, paying to cover their escape. The only one left is a blacksmith and just because I beat him to it."
Now she seems distraught. "Why should he have?" She isn't looking at him, as if the question was addressed more to herself than to him. As if she had forgotten his presence, the sword hanging over her head, so great and shocking is the surprise of what he told her.
Even if this is the case, he answers the same, feeling his heart break exactly like the first time he put the threads together, at Robert's deathbed, "Because you are the only mother he has known for all his life and through you he discovered a woman's love for her children, even if was never directed towards him."
The cell where they locked him up is dark and cold. He survived worse things. The only torture is not knowing what happened to Sansa and Arya. And Jon.
After what he told the Queen, there is no way he can have survived. At best he was thrown into a cell similar to his.
When the door opens, hours, days, months later, Ned has to shield his eyes. The light of the torch that one of the two men has in his hand is blinding. He cannot make out their faces, only the blurred contours of their figures.
The taller man gives the torch to the other and kneels beside him. "Uncle," he says and for the first time in years Ned feels like he might cry.
He tries to talk, but all he can produce is a strangled cry. His mouth is dry, his lips like leaves about to crumble.
He tries again and croaks, "Sansa? Arya?"
"They're fine," Jon reassures him and hands him a wineskin. Ned drinks greedily as Jon continues to update him on recent events, "Arya disappeared the day you were imprisoned. She must have escaped. Sansa," Jon hesitates imperceptibly, avoiding his gaze, "she is fine."
Ned grabs him by the wrist. "What are you not telling me?"
For a moment it looks like Jon doesn't want to tell him. Whatever it is, he doesn't like it. No matter how terrible it is, he wants to know, he must. Jon seems to understand because he nods slowly. He turns to the second man and finally Ned recognizes him.
Lord Varys comes forward and begins to speak, revealing what Jon would have preferred to keep to himself, "This morning Lady Sansa implored the King to spare you and the King graciously consented for the sincere love that binds him to your daughter. He will pardon you and allow you to join the Night's Watch, as long as you admit your betrayal to the whole Court and that Joffrey is the true King. As a friend, I strongly advise you to accept the offer. Doing so would protect your daughter. She could even be queen one day."
He doesn't know what worries and disgusts him more, if the shame that Sansa pleaded for him, kneeling at the foot of the iron throne in an attempt to save him or that one day she could be married to the monster that is Joffrey Lannister.
His opinion on the matter must be evident because Lord Varys sighs, a sigh of regret, as if with it he wants to express that despite everything he tried and that if he failed the fault is not attributable to him.
"He won't pardon you," Jon says unexpectedly.
"How do you know?" He asks without thinking. Then remember who he's talking to.
The smile that Jon gives him is empty and doesn't reach his eyes. Because I know him, he is saying. Because I grew up with him. Because I know things you don't know and you'll never know.
Ned takes his head in his hands. For the first time in his life he doesn't know what to do, what to say. All he can think of is that he will die. It's a matter of hours, maybe days. He feels no fear, only regret. The regret of leaving Sansa alone and helpless and practically ad a captive of the Lannister. The regret of not seeing Catelyn again and not seeing the boys grow up. The regret of not having a future, of not being able to savor the old age they had dreamed of, gray and old and surrounded by grandchildren. There is a regret, however, that he can remedy. A thorn deep in his heart and that he could finally eliminate.
"Your mother-" begins and maybe it's an impression, but Jon looks pale, his face white as bone. He's just a boy, he thinks suddenly. I shouldn't give him this burden. He isn't ready, not yet. After all, the secret will not die with him. Catelyn is the next keeper.
"I know," Jon interrupts him firmly, but not without a certain amount of kindness.
"Did you know I grew up thinking I was your son?"
It's not like Jon to answer a question with another question. However, the absurdity of what he has just said makes his mind white and bleakly empty.
He looks just like you, Ned recalls Catelyn's voice. More than your children.
He would like for it to be true. He would like not to have accepted Robert's proposal and would have liked to have torn him from his arms with force, to hell with the consequences. He would like Jon to have grown up in Winterfell, protected, loved, safe. He would like hundreds of things, but here, at the mouth of the seven hells, while death looks him in the face through the eyes of his sister, he cannot lie.
"I'm not your father," he says, every word scratching his throat.
Jon looks at his hands, his face in shadow. "Now I know." He doesn't sound surprised. "I knew since I met you. Since I saw how you treat your children. I'm trying to be honest because-" he swallows, running out of words.
Ned has never seen him so nervous, agitated. Even when he lost his direwolf he didn't react this way. Jon is usually calm, prudent, cautious. Not right now. He appears young and worried, as if he isn't the master of his emotions and the newness destabilizes him, makes him uncertain about how to proceed.
Ned lets him regain control. He feels he owes him at least this. Ti decide how he want to face the truth about himself. The choice is his. He will respect it, whatever it is. Not for duty or honor, but because it is right.
"Growing up with this face, knowing that I looked more like you than my supposed father..." Jon takes a deep breath and meets his gaze with the expression of someone about to face a battle. "The King liked to talk about your years together in the Vale. Lord Arryn would have preferred him to do it more discreetly. I never understood why he didn't like me, until one day I did. I understood. He believed what everyone believed. That you were my real father and that to cover up your disgrace you had asked Robert to help you. A loophole. For years I believed you were my father, that you couldn't bear my sight to the point of praying the King to take me as ward. I thought of you, in your castle of stone and snow, picturing how it would be like to have brothers and sisters, if you loved me at least a little or if I was just that to you, the perpetual memory of a moment of weakness, of your shame."
My dear boy. What have I done?
"Robert legitimized you," he says.
Jon nods, but it's a gesture with no real meaning. "A bastard remains a bastard even with a different name. I've never been a Stark, not really, otherwise why would I have been forced to grow up here? Even if it wasn't an exile, it seemed like that to me."
When he is silent, obsessively staring at the wall, Ned observes his shining eyes and feels overcome by impotence, by a raw despair, a roaring wrath.
"During the tournament in your honor I met Edric Dayne," Jon continues to talk. "He is Lord Dondarrion's squire. He seemed surprised by my questions about Lady Ashara. He couldn't understand the reasons. He was convinced that my mother's name was Wylla. She was his wet nurse. He told me we were milk brothers."
"It was also yours for a short time."
"I didn't know what to think anymore." Jon runs his hand through his hair. Ned can imagine what he must have felt, the frustration of not knowing and the need to discover the truth, vital and necessary. "By then I was sure you weren't my father. I knew you. I had seen the kind of man you were. Isn't it ironic?" Jon laughs. It sounds depressing, bitterly disappointed. "When I wanted you to be my father, I realized that it wasn't possible. I wasn't yours, so I really had to be Brandon's son. My mother's mystery remained. Who was she? I wrote to Lady Allyria Dayne. She confirmed my suspicions. Her sister had given birth during the Rebellion, it was true, but a stillborn, a girl. Wylla had been my nurse, she loved me like a mother, but she didn't give birth to me. I wasn't who I thought I was."
"You shouldn't have written her," he reproaches him more forcefully than strictly necessary. "It was a risky and dangerous move. What would have happened if someone had intercepted the missive?"
"I have the means," Jon responds, minimizing, but his eyes unknowingly move to the left, where Lord Varys is.
Since when? When did you start weaving plots and collaborating with the Spider?
He isn't surprised, not really. Jon's fate was marked from the moment he was forced to grow up at court under the King's protection. And what protection was it? It isn't a shield, something that has protected him from the whispers, from the looks. A name doesn't make you less alone when the only boys you grow up with are cruel and derisive and the others too small to understand what is happening, to act. When the adults around you consider you a burden, a stain, something to eradicate. When the only adult who shows you affection is too distracted by the past to pay attention to the present. What can you do if not train yourself to the bone and become a skilled swordsman with Lord Barristan to fill endless afternoons that you wouldn't know how to spend otherwise? To study and beating yourself up you to show that you are worthy of respect, for them to leave you alone?
"I have the Stark traits, I was given the name Stark, but I'm not your son, I'm not Brandon's son. There is another brother, but he is in the Night's Watch. Fifteen years ago, you came back from Dorne with a child, along with a wet nurse named Wylla and the bones of your sister, after you smashed a tower to pieces. Say it," he orders with a look that could cut. "My mother's name. Say it."
"Targaryen," he corrects him. "Lady Dayne wrote something else. Apparently I was never a bastard."
It's too much information. After days of silence and darkness, it's happening too much and too fast. He can't reason. He massages his temple. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"To give you the opportunity to redeem yourself and do something right. They will kill you. Joffrey may have agreed to pardon you this afternoon, but if it is not today, it will be tomorrow or another day. He will change his mind and go back on his word because that's what he does, what he likes. You know it's true."
Yes. Yes, he knows. He learned it the hard way. "What do you want me to do?"
"Tell the truth. Say what you discovered."
"There is honor also in the way we die. It will allow us to buy time."
(I reached the word limit so I leave the link where to find it complete.)
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