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He stands by the open window, breathing in the warm Riverlands air that she knows is not to his taste at all, and she watches him silently from the bed, seeing the heaviness in his shoulders, the tension in his back and neck. His friend Robert may shout his rage but her new husband carries it inside him, like a physical weight that he closes himself around, pushing out the rest of the world.
Married but a fortnight, tomorrow he will ride off to war, and she will stay behind (the North can be inhospitable and the travel will be dangerous, he tells her father, before the wedding, Catelyn should remain here until the war is over, and it is then that she decides that there is a kindness to her husband-to-be, for all that his nature is solemn and quiet).
There is guilt, in the pit of her stomach, that she has more sorrow at the thought of her father departing on the morn than her husband. She had begged him not to go, to send his castellan instead, he had called his banners and raised his personal guard, and surely, surely that is enough?
Hoster Tully had merely laughed, kissed her forehead, I promised all my swords, little Cat, how could I not raise my own? And she had forced a smile, the way she knew he would want her to, and nodded, family duty honor and resigned herself to prayer and waiting, as she had waited in her youth.
His father shall never come home.
The thought comes to her suddenly, and it pierces like an arrow through her chest as she watches Ned Stark from the warmth of her bed. His stance is of one so much older than his years, the litany of names of those lost or gone forever written across the heaviness of his shoulders.
She had been shocked and horrified, and wept at the manner of Brandon Stark’s death, imagining his wild merry eyes dull and lifeless as the noose tightened, while he struggled, still, to save his father…and Lord Rickard’s death… It is a thing she can barely stand to think upon, and she shivers despite the warm night air lazing through her open window.
Brandon had been her betrothed and she had liked him well, could easily imagine being his wife, had been charmed by him and eagerly awaited their wedding day and the night to follow. And suddenly she had been handed off to his younger brother, less handsome, more serious, and most of all, a stranger, and there had been disappointment, and perhaps resentment at that. Yet Brandon had been fifteen when he had first rode to Riverrun to meet his bride-to-be, practically a man already, tall and broad, but he had been Ned’s brother, and she realizes, then, fond as she had been of Brandon, that Ned Stark must feel his loss much more keenly.
Does he look for his sister out that window? she wonders, or does he think she is lost to this world as well? She bites her lip, there is that ache in her chest again, she does not know him well but she knows him to be honorable, and kind, and he does not deserve the sorrows that life has visited upon him; and suddenly, she cannot bear for him to stand a vigil at the window alone. He should not be alone.
Catelyn climbs from the bed, quietly, crossing to him on bare feet, but she sees his head lift slightly; he hears her, and there is a certain relief at the sharpness of his senses (it may, she thinks, be what keeps him alive).
“You should come to bed, my lord,” she says as she comes to his side, and she winces as the words come out chiding. But it is perhaps the last time in quite awhile that he will know a comfortable bed, and he will need his rest and strength.
He smiles slightly, distantly, politely. “Perhaps in a bit. I am enjoying the night air. Forgive me – I did not mean to wake you.” He turns back to the window, gazing over the rivers that are as familiar to her as an old friend; he watches them as though they are something strange (they are to him, after all, she amends).
There is relief in knowing that she will remain here, in her home, at Riverrun for just a while longer until the fighting is done, but she thinks then that she may never see that winter castle she has known to be her future since she was a maid of twelve. If they have not made a child, in this brief time together, and he should die in battle…
It is this thought that makes her reach out and grasp his arm, as though to feel him solid beneath her fingers. Theirs might have been a marriage made of tragic circumstance, but she has hope that one day there could be more than sorrow, and dreads what a second marriage for a childless widow might be – a suitor as old as Lysa’s new husband, perhaps, or one of those grasping Freys who always hover at Riverrun and greedily eye the Tully children and try to catch Hoster Tully’s ear on the matter. Ned Stark is not his brother, but he is good in his own right, and a better match than most she could hope to make.
She has hope.
He turns towards her, curious; clearly he expected her to return to bed. “My lady?” he inquires, furrowing his brow, and the weariness on his face ages him (he is so young still, she thinks, they both are). She puts her other hand lightly to his temple, thumb pressing against the creases near his eye, as though she can smooth away the worry lines and take away the pain in that manner. If only it were so easy.
“I wish you did not have to go,” she says, and is surprised to find how much she means the words, her fingers tightening on his bicep. She does not want this to be the end when it is scarcely the beginning, what little it is for now. His lips twist in a sort of self-deprecating smile, he does not believe that it matters to her, she thinks, his worldview has narrowed to his lost and dead family, to his friend the king-to-be, the crown they will win with her sister’s husband leading the charge.
He must make room for me in there, somewhere, she decides fiercely, and lifts up on her toes to kiss him on the mouth. She’s found a pleasure in having him in her bed, the last few nights they have spent together, but it is tonight that she kisses him with something akin to desire for the first time, hand at the back of his neck. She shivers when she feels his hands, always cool on her warm skin even through the thin layer of her shift, pressing to her back.
She moves her hands to the junction of his neck and shoulders, feeling the tension there, and squeezes, her thumbs working in circles as she opens her mouth to his. He groans against her mouth in surprise, perhaps a bit in relief as she works her fingers over the taut muscles. She feels the brief hesitation in his body before he sighs and pulls her flush to him, hands grasping against her shift, returning her kiss with a fervor that catches her breath in her throat.
Tomorrow she will send him off to war, but tonight at least, there is still hope for a future, for something for them rather than an honored contract and a promise of swords.
She lets out a squeak of surprise when he lifts her to carry her to the bed, tightening her grip around his neck. He is not as tall as Brandon, she remembers, but there is still a strength to him, he is still a soldier, and she can taste battle in his mouth. He lays her there and she keeps her grip tight, pulling him to her, suddenly keenly aware that they may never share a bed again. He is not the man she had thought to wed and bed, not what she thought but now all that she knows.
There is desperation in his touch, in his lips, moving to her cheek, to her neck, along the slope of her breast before returning to her mouth, and she meets him with equal passion, reaching down between them to wriggle from her smallclothes. He does not want to die, and she could weep her relief; sorrow she can soothe but hopelessness is a darker thing by far. For the first time there is an urgency to their coupling, a passion borne of despair perhaps, but a passion nonetheless, and she hopes that it is what he needs to drive the shadows and demons from behind his closed eyes. For the first time he breathes her name against her ear when he reaches his peak (still Catelyn, she is not Cat yet to him, but someday, she still has hope and for now it is enough), and it sends a shiver of pleasure throughout her body as her nails bite against the back of his neck, clinging, holding tight.
She curls her body to his afterwards; affection has been tentative, awkward and unsure between them but tonight she wants to remind him that there is a world beyond the war, that there are more than just ghosts and memories of his lost family left for him. I will be his family, she decides, words she does not say (not yet) but traces them instead on his arm with light fingertips as he runs his knuckles along the knobs of her spine. I will give him a family.
“Come back safe,” is what she does say, softly, clasping a hand between her own, “I will be waiting for you.” It is what she has to offer, she does not know him yet, not truly, does not love him yet, but she will be here, and waiting; there will be someone waiting for him to come back and she hopes that will be enough.
He eyes her as though she has surprised him, but his smile is more genuine this time, and he kisses her once more. “I will.”