@nedofthenorth
She hadn’t realised they were missing from Rickon’s drawer until he had asked specifically to wear them that morning. His little robin socks. She had searched the whole house but found only one....an odd sock left alone was not an uncommon occurrence and should have been little cause for concern, if not for the trigger of a memory. When she had found Rickon that fateful day in the barn, outside of the city, amongst rack and ruin, no shoes, and one little foot bare and scratched....the other....bearing a little robin. If he was bare foot upon one then that meant the other sock....
Catelyn had waited until she believed everyone in the house to be asleep but she had crept out into night, taking Ned’s car instead of her own as it was the last one in the drive, and made the long journey to that terrible place she had had no desire to visit. They had thought to burn it to the ground, before she and Cersei had realised smoke would draw too much attention.....but God, if they had, then the sock would be gone, the tie to her son gone.
In the dead of night, Catelyn got out of the car and picked her way through the barn, searching frantically, using only the light of her phone to guide her, even when she made the unsteady climb up to the second level....it seemed to take an age, when she finally found it. Shining a light over it, the sight of dirtied red cotton gleamed back at her and she reached for it, pulling it lose from the debris. She had got it.
And then she heard the noise, of someone arriving. Who? Had someone followed her, leaning over the edge of the landing, she recognised the dark form looking up at her, and she shined the light down upon him, confirming it.
“Ned”
