Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Mr. Stark? Mr. Cassel would like a few moments if you have them.”

His secretary’s voice interrupted Brandon’s dark musings as he sipped on his third cup of black coffee. The clock on his desk said 9:40am. He had a meeting with the accountants at eleven and a summons to his father’s office at 1pm. A summons, he thought. That’s what it damn well is, all right.

His secretary had asked him about it when he came in at a quarter after nine. “There’s a new meeting on your schedule for today, Mr. Stark. Did you know about this one with the president?”

Emily always called Rickard Stark ‘the president’ as if he was the president of the United States or something. Which he might as well be in terms of the power he wielded around here. He’d asked Emily once if she played “Hail to the Chief” when Rickard Stark made one of his rare visits to Brandon’s office, and she’d laughed and told him she only referred to him by his company title because too many ‘Mr. Starks’ made life confusing. She always referred to Ned simply as ‘your brother’ when she spoke of him, though, and Brandon remained convinced that her use of Rickard’s title rather than ‘your father’ came from her being at least a bit awed by the old Silver Wolf.

Of course, he’d known about that meeting. Summons. He’d half expected his father to be in his office when he’d arrived this morning, but maybe the old man wasn’t looking forward to this conversation any more than he was. More likely, he just wanted to make him worry about it all morning. Why the hell can’t you ever keep your fucking mouth shut, Brandon Stark? He’d been asking himself that for years, but he hadn’t come up with good answer yet.

“Mr. Stark?” came the secretary’s voice again.

He sighed and pushed the button to respond. “Send him in, Emily.” He set his coffee cup on his desk and leaned back in his chair to await the man’s entrance.

When his office door opened, Jory Cassel was all smiles. “You were right,” he said by way of greeting.

“I often am,” Brandon said, returning the smile. “What particularly was I right about this time, Jory?”

“Balon Greyjoy called me this morning at about 9:01 requesting a meeting.”

Jory’s grin threatened to split his face in two, and Brandon smiled a genuine smile for the first time since the blow-up with his family at Winterfell on Saturday night. He was glad he’d given this one to Jory. His uncle had worked for Rickard almost since the inception of Stark Enterprises, and Jory had practically grown up with Brandon and Ned. Jory had proven loyal, hardworking, and smart since he’d come into the company full time six years ago, and Brandon had recently pushed his father into giving him a hefty promotion. He’d make certain Jory got his share of the credit for this victory.

“So the old pirate caved, did he?” he asked.

Jory laughed, “I don’t think the president and CEO of Greyjoy shipping would like being referred to as an old pirate, Brandon.”

Brandon shrugged. “Well, his increases in shipping fees over the past year certainly amount to piracy. Tell me exactly what he said, Jory.”

Jory had been the one to notice the ever increasing expenditures in freight costs for the various companies under the Stark umbrella that did any overseas shipping. And he tracked it to one particular freighting company—Greyjoy Shipping—with whom Stark had multiple large contracts. Brandon had complained directly to Balon about the rate hikes and been told that the costs were what they were, and he was welcome to look elsewhere if he didn’t like it.

Truthfully, there were very few freighting companies large and well connected enough to handle all the business Stark had to offer, and Greyjoy knew that. He figured Brandon couldn’t pull all his business out without getting a lot of complaints about interruptions in service. What Balon hadn’t figured on was Brandon simply pulling away multiple small contracts one at a time. The smaller businesses which Stark held didn’t need a fleet the size of the Greyjoys. And Stark held controlling interest in a lot of small to midsize companies.

As Jory had made the initial discovery of the price gouging, Brandon had put him in charge of switching multiple shipping contracts, one after the other, away from Greyjoy to a number of independent freighters over the past few months. He’d known it would only be a matter of time before the financial hit got severe enough to push Balon.

“Just that he wants a meeting. He didn’t say anything about the business he’s lost with us since June. Maybe we shouldn’t be doing any victory dances yet, Brandon.”

“Oh, we’ve won, my friend. Don’t doubt it. Put him on the schedule for two or three weeks from now. Tell him I don’t have anything sooner. And we meet here at Stark. He’s in the transportation business. He can travel.”

Jory laughed. “How low are you going to make him go to get all those contracts back?”

Brandon raised an eyebrow. “Who said anything about giving him the contracts back? Right now, he’s going to have to convince me not to pull any more away. Let’s start there.” He grinned and shook his head. “Damn, I wish Benjy was here to hear this. He was just asking me about it.”

“Oh, that’s right! Big Winterfell weekend! How was everybody?”

Brandon worked hard to keep his expression neutral and cursed himself for mentioning anything about the damn weekend. “Fine,” he said curtly. “Who do you want in the meeting besides you and me, Jory?”

“Well,” Jory said slowly, “Since you want Greyjoy to cool his jets a bit anyway, why don’t I call Ben and ask him if he’s got any light class days coming up? I know he’d love to be here for it, and he did work with me on it the whole time he was here.”

“Good idea. Make Balon feel surrounded by Starks—even teenaged Starks.” Brandon laughed.

“How about Ned then? He . . .”

“No.” He must have spoken more harshly than he realized because Jory gave him an odd look. “Ned’s already gone over the legalities of what we’ve done with a microscope. The only contracts we broke early were those in which Greyjoy’s price increases were large enough to invalidate them. No legal issues at all.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“Ned’s busy at Arryn. We don’t need him.”

“All right, Brandon,” Jory said. “You’re the boss. I’ll get one of the guys from accounting to come in as well—and to make us pretty charts with numbers on them.”

“I’d like to have those numbers a good three or four days before the meeting.”

“Sure thing.”

“Anything else, Jory?”

“Nope. I just couldn’t wait to give you the good news. Score one for the Wild Wolf!” Jory grinned and backed out of Brandon’s office before he could reply.

Brandon shook his head at the closed door. Jory knew damn well that Rickard Stark hated the nickname the press had given his eldest son, and wouldn’t have used it in front of him. It was a play on the old man’s ‘Silver Wolf’ moniker, and at its inception had referenced Brandon’s playboy reputation. Of late, though, the financial papers bandied it about when Stark scored big on investments or mergers that most people wouldn’t take a chance on. Brandon seemed to have a gift for knowing how to succeed in even the riskiest ventures, and ‘The Wild Wolf Strikes Again’ had been the headline of more than one article over the past year or so. He still wasn’t certain how he felt about the name, himself. Right now, the thought it was a little too painfully accurate.

What the fuck is wrong with me? The elation he’d felt at the Greyjoy capitulation had evaporated as his mention of Benjen inevitably brought this weekend’s debacle back to his mind. It’s none of my damn business if Cat wants to pop out little rugrats every year. Why did I have to run my mouth?

She’d looked devastated when he left. Left, ha! When Dad tossed your ass out of the dining room and the whole damn house, you mean! He could still see her standing there, pale as a ghost and shaking like a leaf. Her cheeks had been flaming, though, and her eyes had been blue daggers when she’d called him a bastard. But as angry as she’d been, she’d been even more hurt. His own words to Ned on the day he’d picked the two of them up at the airport came back to him. She knows that I’d never, ever hurt her.

He looked at his coffee, knowing it had likely gone cold and wishing like hell the mug contained something stronger. Fuck me! I did hurt you, didn’t I, Red. And I meant to. Alluding to their last drunken night together when they’d both been too hot for each other to bother with a condom had been a low blow, even for him. He wished he could take it back. He wished he could make it right. He wished . . . Fuck! he thought, unable to even name what he wished. He honestly didn’t know, and it was probably better that way.

The buzzing of his phone—his personal phone rather than his work phone—interrupted his exercise in self-recrimination. He looked at it. Lyanna again. What the hell did she want? It was third time she’d called since 8:30. He was stunned that his sister was even awake at 8:30. And calling instead of texting? Not like her at all.

As if she could hear his thoughts, the text notification pinged as soon as the buzzing stopped and he’d tossed the phone back onto his desk. He picked it up and laughed in spite of himself at his sister’s message.

PICK UP THE FUCKING PHONE, YOU COWARD.

Immediately, the phone started buzzing again. Sighing heavily and certain he would regret it, he hit the button to accept the call.

“What the hell do you want, Lya?”

“Well, good morning to you, too, asshole.”

“If you called me to berate me about this weekend, get in line. I’ve got an official summons to Dad’s office at one.”

“Damn. Making you sweat all morning, is he? Just like the mornings after we’d break curfew as kids,” she said with an amused laugh.

“I’m not a naughty child, Lyanna!” he snapped, irrationally as irritated with her as he was with himself.

“No,” she said, instantly serious with all sarcasm and teasing gone from her voice. “You’re not. So why do you persist in acting like one?”

“You have no right to tell me . . .”

“Look, Brandon,” she interrupted. “I honestly have not been calling you all morning to yell at you about what a total shitbag asshole you were to Ned and Cat. Unlike pretty much everybody else who was there, I actually know just how crappy you feel about it.”

“Lya . . . you don’t know . . .”

“Shut up, Brandon. For once in your life, shut up, okay?”

Brandon forced himself to remain completely silent.

After a moment, she spoke again. “Okay, then. I’m going to be really optimistic and believe you’re still there and haven’t tossed the phone across the room. So, please just listen to me for a minute. I really wasn’t going to get into this, but you’re obviously a mess, so just listen.”

He couldn’t stand it anymore. “I’m not a mess, Lyanna. I’m just . . .”

“The most defensive human being on the planet!” she interrupted. “Jesus, Brandon, can’t you hear yourself? I don’t know what the hell happened with the three of you after Ned and Cat got back from Tahiti, but something’s been off ever since. And whatever it was, I know you did something stupid.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence, sis,” Brandon said acidly.

“Listen,” she said, drawing out the word into about five syllables. “When you feel guilty about shit you’ve done—which you do, even though you always pretend you don’t—you get charming and sarcastic followed by unbelievably defensive.”

“This is fascinating. How much do your charge for your psychoanalytic services, doctor?”

“Shut the fuck up, Brandon. I’m not finished. Now, I’m not so much for the charm or near as good at the sarcasm, but the defensiveness is something we share, big brother. That’s how I know what I’m talking about. And when we know our defenses are bullshit, we go on the offensive. And that’s what you did to Ned and Cat. You went fucking nuclear on them when all they did was announce they’re having a baby! A simple ‘Congratulations’ would have sufficed.”

“It’s ridiculous to have a baby when the ink isn’t even dry on the marriage license. Cat’s young and . . .”

“Cat’s twenty-five!” Lyanna exclaimed. “And married. It just eats you alive that she’s married to Ned.”

“You’re full of shit, Lya. I just expressed my opinion that . . .”

“Your opinion is irrelevant, Brandon! Don’t you get that? Never mind. I know the answer to that question. You get it, all right. You just don’t like it. You have never been all right with Ned and Cat being together, but you’ve never had the guts to just come out and say it. You know why you’re unhappy about this baby? It has nothing to do with how long they’ve been married or any other bullshit you spouted at dinner. You’re unhappy because it makes what they have a lot more real. And you hate that.”

“I know they’re real, Lya,” he said quietly. “I was at their wedding, remember? A blind man could have seen they’re for real.” He didn’t think he’d ever forget the way Catelyn had looked at his brother as she’d walked down the aisle to take his hand. You never did look at me quite like that, Red. Not like that. “I have no interest in breaking up our brother’s marriage.”

“No, I know you don’t. But you couldn’t if you tried, and that’s what pisses you off. Cat left you, Brandon. She took a damn long time about it, if you ask me. She should have been gone a lot earlier than she was. And honestly, I think you’d have both been miserable if you had gotten married. But she left you. And women don’t leave Brandon Stark. And then who wins the girl who got away’s heart? Ned. Of all the people in the whole world, the girl who left you marries your little brother and settles down with him to make little Stark babies that you’ll have to look at for the rest of your life and think about what you lost. And that pisses you off. You’re so damn competitive, especially with Ned, that it doesn’t even matter whether you ever wanted all that or not!”

“Bullshit!”

“You can call bullshit all you want, Brandon. But I know you.”

“Catelyn Tully is not some prize in some fucked up pissing contest, Lya!”

“Her name is Catelyn Stark, Bran,” Lya said softly, using his childhood nickname. Of all the Stark children, only Brandon was never called by the shortened form of his name. His father hadn’t used it since his mother died, and twelve year old Brandon had decided it was Dad’s way of telling him he was a man now. He’d discouraged others from using it ever since, and by the time he was eighteen no one called him Bran anymore except for Lyanna, and she only used it rarely. “Her name is Catelyn Stark, and I know you don’t think of her like a trophy consciously or anything. Shit, maybe you still think you’re in love with her, I don’t know. But competition is part of it, big brother. That and all your big, bad daddy issues.”

“Oh god, Lyanna. Now I’ve got daddy issues? By all means, continue this fascinating analysis.”

“You’re a shithead, Brandon. And we all have daddy issues. Let’s face it. We grew up with one parent, and he’s not the easiest man in the world to please. He drives himself without mercy and considers anything less than total success unacceptable. I love Dad, and I respect the hell out of him, but he can be a bigger asshole than you when he wants to be.”

There was something odd in her voice then. Lyanna being pissed at dad over one thing or another wasn’t unusual, but in all honesty, Rickard Stark had generally let her have her way about most things—never pushing her as hard as he had Brandon and Ned, so the vehemence with which she pronounced him an asshole was somewhat surprising. Before Brandon could ask her about it, she continued, however.

“Anyway, you’ve always wanted to be the best at everything. You know that. It’s fine for Ned and me to be good at things, as long as you’re better at more things. Ben doesn’t count, really. He’s always been a baby. And you’re not nearly as bad with me as you are Ned. I’m a girl and I’m six years younger than you. But you can’t stand it when Dad praises Ned too much, Brandon. And that’s the truth.”

“You really think I’m a dick, don’t you?”

“No,” she sighed. “Because I know you’d do anything in the world for Ned. Or for any of us. You’ve just been Rickard Stark’s firstborn son and heir apparent so long, I’m afraid you really believe you have to be better than us in his eyes—to the point that you tried to tear Ned down just because Dad was so happy about having a grandchild. And that’s sick, Brandon.”

“So I’m not only a dick, I’m a sick dick. Nice. Do you prescribe penicillin, doctor?”

“And here comes the sarcasm. You’re proving my point, Brandon—going into defensive mode.” Lyanna sighed. “Look, I don’t know everything you think or feel. I’m not saying that. But I do know you, and I know a bit about what makes you tick. We’re more alike than you think. I don’t want to tell you what to do any more than I want you to tell me what to do. But this thing with Ned and Cat—this is bigger than your usual assholery. This could seriously fuck up the family, and we don’t need that right now. So whatever it is you feel or think you feel about Cat, however much you do or don’t resent Ned, you figure it out Brandon. And you figure out how to fix this.”

Brandon was silent for a long moment. He didn’t want to hear any more of Lyanna’s psychobabble. It was all bullshit, and he didn’t really want to think about what he’d said at that damn dinner. Dad did say Ned had made him proud, though. And then I said . . . I said . . Oh, Jesus Christ, I said ‘To Ned and Cat! You fucked and made Dad proud.’ I am an asshole.

“Well, sis,” he finally said, “I thank you for your thorough analysis of my life and my deep psychological issues. You can send my secretary the bill.”

“Brandon . . .”

“Now, if you are quite finished, I do have a job to do here. Dad’s already going to ream my ass for inappropriate behavior at the dinner table. I’d just as soon not get called on the carpet for neglecting my duties at work as well. Goodbye, Lya.”

“Wait!”

He sighed. “What is it now?”

“I told you I didn’t call to talk about what you did at dinner, remember?”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Well you asked for it!” she said in some exasperation.

“Well then, Lyanna, I repeat my original question. What the hell do you want?”

“To tell you what happened after you left. There was a bit more drama.”

“I don’t want . . .”

“Nothing to do with Ned or Catelyn! It’s about me.”

“About you.” His sister had done any number of things over the years which had shocked their father. She’d dropped out of college twice. She’d gone to Europe for a month with some guy she’d met a week before when she was twenty. In high school, she’d even been arrested once for petty shoplifting. She’d stolen a magazine on a dare. He almost laughed recalling that one. “Did you and Robert rob a liquor store?” he asked. “You two certainly have a taste for it. Or did Dad just inventory his liquor stock and present you with a bill?”

“God, Brandon. Everybody drank this weekend! Except for Cat—for obvious reasons. And nobody drank to excess. Quit being an ass and just let me tell you.”

“Fine. Tell me.”

“Robert and I are getting married.”

If Brandon had been given a million chances to predict what might come out of his sister’s mouth, he would never have predicted that. “You’re what?”

“Getting married.”

“No you aren’t.”

“Yes, Brandon. We are.”

“Are you crazy? Robert Baratheon? He’s practically a drunk, Lyanna! And a womanizer! And . . .”

“Do you hear yourself? I’ve seen you falling down drunk more times than I can count, and as for womanizing? Where do we even begin to tally your score?”

“He’ll cheat on you, Lya. You know he will.”

“Oh, I know that, do I? Why? Because I know you cheated on Catelyn? And every other girl you’ve ever dated longer than three weeks? I know who Robert is, Brandon. And he knows who I am. We can trust each other. And we want to get married. So you can be happy for us or you can fuck off! Your choice!”

“Does he know about your little escapade with the wedding singer?” Brandon asked her.

The silence that lasted a few beats too long over the phone then made him wonder if she’d hung up. When she did finally respond, her voice was shaking with anger, and Brandon thought she might actually be crying. “Robert knows I’ve fucked a lot of men, Brandon. And he’s never made me feel like a whore. So fuck you for making me feel like one just now!”

Why the fuck can’t I stop running my goddamn mouth? “Lya, I’m sorry. I just . . . It’s just I wasn’t expecting this. And I don’t . . . let’s just talk about it, okay?”

“I’ve told you what I called to say,” she said in a tightly controlled voice. Shit. She’s trying not to cry. “If Dad beats you up too badly this afternoon, just bring up my engagement. He didn’t throw us out of Winterfell, but I honestly thought he might. I’m sure you can distract him from your own transgressions by letting him expound on my own stupidity.”

“Lya . . .”

“Goodbye, Brandon.”

“Lya!”

The phone beeped to alert him to the line going dead. She’d hung up.

"Fuck,” Brandon swore under his breath. He didn’t want to even think about his sister marrying Robert Baratheon. What the hell had gotten into her? He knew the two of them had started hanging out together more and more and apparently had a good time—likely in the sack as well as out of it. But he’d thought Lyanna knew Robert. Fun was one thing, but marriage . . . Has she lost her mind?

As unpleasant as he found the thought of his little sister following Ned’s example and plunging headlong into matrimony to be, he was even more pissed off at her words about him. Daddy issues! Fuck you, Lya. And she’d accused him of treating Cat like a prize in a game. Whatever this mess was, it sure as hell wasn’t a goddamn game. How could she even think something like that? Unbidden, some of Catelyn’s words to him after he’d tried to kiss her on her wedding night came back to him. You hurt the people you love, Brandon. You think life is a competition you need to win. That my loving Ned means you lost some stupid game.

The recollection gave him pause. Her words had been eerily similar to Lyanna’s just now. But they’re fucking wrong, he thought grimly. They don’t understand. Any small concern that perhaps his sister and his ex-lover might understand him better than he understood himself, he put firmly out of his mind.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” he said out loud to his empty office. “I have work to do.” Angrily he pushed the button on desk. “Emily?” he nearly shouted.

“Yes, Mr. Stark?” God, the girl was good at her job. Her voice revealed no reaction to his rudeness at all.

“Did we get the quarterly reports on the Highgarden venture yet?” He tried not to growl at her, but he didn’t think he succeeded.

“Do you want the electronic files or the hard copies?”

“Paper. I need to spread them out. I’ve got to see everything at once.”

“You always do,” Emily said with a laugh. “I’ve got them in the file. I’ll bring them right in, Mr. Stark.”

She had them on his desk within minutes, and as she left his office, Brandon thanked God that the girl had refused to sleep with him when she’d first been hired. He’d tried with her, of course. Emily was a pretty girl. But she’d said she absolutely would not sleep with her boss, and he’d respected that enough to quit asking. He’d slept with his first secretary, and she’d threatened to go to Catelyn about their affair when she caught him with another girl in the breakroom. He’d had to pay her off and get rid of her. That hadn’t kept him from sleeping with her successor though. She’d simply quit when he told her he wasn’t going to break off his engagement, giving notice and leaving him in the lurch. He’d hired Emily then and had spent a good six months pissed as hell that he couldn’t get into her pants even if he did respect her for it. That was years ago, and now he realized that Emily’s scruples had managed to save him from missing out on the greatest administrative assistant on the planet. Because if he’d fucked her, it would have gone badly eventually. It always did. He just could never seem to see past the end of his cock in the moment.

As he spread the papers over his desk, looking at all of them almost at once, his eyes seeking out the patterns and automatically seeing the big picture, he wondered why he couldn’t do that with the people in his life. Whatever Cat and Lya may be wrong about, he acknowledged they were both right about one thing. He had a habit of not looking past himself and whatever was important to him in any given moment. And he rarely tried to see the consequences his words or actions had for other people until it was too late. I’ve got to do better. I’ve got to see everything at once.

Of course, Lyanna had just told him he made her feel like a whore. And at Winterfell, his father had been cold as ice, Catelyn had looked as hurt as he’d ever seen her, and Ned had looked at him with pure murderous rage. Of course, Ned had warned him, hadn’t he? Ned had told him plainly enough after he’d driven them to his apartment from the airport that day that if he ever hurt Catelyn again, he would no longer be his brother. And Ned was known to be a man of his word.

Brandon felt a sudden chill as he wondered if it was actually too late to do any better or see any more clearly. He didn’t know how to fix this. Ordinarily, if he had a problem he didn’t know how to fix, he called his brother. If he didn’t have Ned . . . if he didn’t have his brother . . . Brandon closed his eyes and put his head down in his hand wondering how he ever let everything get this fucked up. He felt empty.

He had a strong desire to walk out and drink himself into oblivion, and he actually laughed as he realized he had no business calling Robert Baratheon a drunk if he took that route. And whatever else he was, Brandon Stark was no quitter. He had a job to do, and he was good at his job, damn it. He raised his head and resumed looking over the Highgarden financials. He’d be ready for his meeting with accounting.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Sit down, Brandon.”

Rickard Stark was standing at the window which comprised nearly the entire back wall of his office looking out toward the National Mall.Like a king surveying his kingdom, Brandon thought as he closed the office door behind him. His father did not turn around, expecting him to walk to a chair and sit down like an obedient child.

“I take it the Highgarden venture continues to pay as well as you’d hoped?” Rickard asked, still without taking his eyes off of whatever distant monument he was studying at the moment.

“It does.”

“And you’ve been putting the screws to Greyjoy?”

“I’ve given him cause to reevaluate his recent price hikes,” Brandon said carefully.

“Good,” Rickard said softly. Then he was silent, and Brandon could see the tight set of his jaw in profile. It was a Stark mannerism all four children shared with him although Brandon privately thought none of them ever looked quite as severe and unmovable as their father. Ned comes damn close, he thought, recalling his brother’s face on the day he had told him that any further hurt to Catelyn would cause him to no longer be his brother. And I did hurt her again, didn’t I, Ned?

He’d almost managed to put his troubles with his family out of his mind as he’d buried himself in work so deeply for the previous couple hours that he’d not even stopped for lunch. Now as he stood here in his father’s office wanting him to turn around and look at him, but dreading what he’d see in his eyes, his mind could think of nothing else.

“Very good,” Rickard said just a bit more loudly after the silence had stretched on for what seemed an eternity. “You rarely make a misstep when it comes to business, Brandon. I have always been proud of that.” Then he sighed heavily and turned to look at his firstborn son.

Ordinarily any word of praise from the Silver Wolf caused Brandon to feel more exhilaration than virtually anything else in the world because God knew the old man didn’t give it easily. As children, he and his siblings had lapped up every “Good job” or “Well done” that dropped from his lips like eager puppies. He was a fair man, Rickard Stark, and never unkind, but he sure as hell wasn’t generous with compliments even with his own children. Now, however, his father’s praise left him unsettled because his grey eyes were as cold as he’d ever seen them and his voice held none of the warmth which would normally have accompanied such words.

“Thank you, sir,” Brandon said simply, meeting that icy gaze.

“Sit down, Brandon,” Rickard repeated, and this time Brandon complied, taking one of the chairs opposite his father’s large desk.

His father remained standing and looked down at him with an expression that spoke of shame and disappointment rather than pride, and Brandon found it suddenly hard to breathe. He had heard his father express disappointment in his behavior before, and the man had certainly told him he should be ashamed of himself on any number of occasions—the incident with Ambassador Dayne’s hot little daughter Ashara, for instance—but he had never seen his father look at him like this before. He sat there in silence looking up at the one man he’d always wanted to make proud and felt as if his legs had been cut from beneath him. If he’d still been standing, he thought he would have fallen to the ground.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself, Brandon? Anything at all?”

“I don’t know what to say,” he managed to whisper. “I don’t know what you want to hear.”

“Damn it, son! This is not about what I want to hear!” Rickard Stark shouted, his icy reserve breaking for a moment revealing the magnitude of the anger and hurt beneath it. Brandon realized his father was shaking, and he thought that he might be trembling, too, just as he had when he’d been called before his father to answer for some petty crime as a small boy.

Then the elder Stark’s face seemed almost to crumble, his shoulders slumped a bit, and he sighed heavily before walking over to sit in the big leather chair behind his desk. He looks old, Brandon thought. And so very tired. Rickard was in his late sixties, having been too busy building a fortune to marry and have children until he was nearly forty, but Brandon had never before thought of his father as old.

“This is not about what I want to hear,” Rickard repeated softly, shaking his head. “I know well enough that you can tell me what I want to hear. You excel at telling people what they want to hear. When it suits your purposes.” He fixed him with another stony glare. “You also excel at verbally eviscerating your opponents. While I have no objection to your employing that skill on the likes of Balon Greyjoy, I cannot allow you to persist in such vicious attacks upon your own family, however much you may resent Ned. You behaved shamefully, and I would like to hear what you have to say about it. The truth, Brandon. Not the spin.”

I don’t resent Ned, Brandon protested silently. He knew that if he spoke the words aloud, his father would call him a liar. A small, nagging voice from somewhere in his mind wondered if his father might be right. “I was out of line in Winterfell.” he finally said. “I don’t know what the hell else to say about it.”

Rickard regarded him silently a moment. “If you have nothing to say, perhaps you will listen,” he said finally. “Brandon . . . I have always been harder on you than on Ned, and I know that. But it is not because I think less of you, son. You are a Stark, and my father once told me that while all Starks are wolves, some of more of the wild wolf’s blood than others.”

“Wolf’s blood,” Brandon repeated uncomprehendingly. “All Starks are wolves? What the hell does that even mean?”

His father actually laughed although it was a rather sad sound. “Have you never wondered why I chose a wolf as my company’s logo?”

Brandon shrugged. “I never gave it much thought.” He looked into the grey eyes that had always seemed capable of freezing a person with their gaze. “It does seem to suit you, though.”

Rickard nodded. “It suits you as well. And your siblings. Although not necessarily all in the same way.” He paused a moment. “There have been Starks in this nation since before it was a nation. You know I’ve researched our ancestry quite extensively.”

Brandon nodded, wondering what the hell any of this had to do with his poor reaction to Ned’s big baby announcement. He knew his father’s parents had died when he was young—even younger than Brandon had been when his mother died, and Rickard Stark had been raised by his aunt who had no children. Brandon and Ned had always speculated that the lack of any close living relatives had fueled Rickard’s obsession with genealogy. They owned Winterfell because the old man had discovered some old Stark had built it ages ago, and he’d bought it right up. But what any of that crap had to do with his own reaction to Ned’s stupid announcement, he couldn’t imagine.

“My father died when I was ten,” Rickard continued. “But he used to love to tell me stories about his grandfather who made a fortune in the stock market by age twenty-five only to see it disappear about ten years later in the crash of ’29. He started working in the black market alcohol trade then, but just as he started to turn a profit, Prohibition ended. After that, he left his wife and children for a succession of women and more or less drank himself to death. He was a hell of a businessman, but he died alone with nothing and no one.”

“Charming bedtime story for a ten year old,” Brandon said, wondering if his father was comparing him to his great-grandfather, and not liking the comparison one bit.

“My father didn’t have much use for fairytales, I’m afraid. He also told me of his older brother. The two of them both fought in the Second World War, but they had very different military careers. My father did as he was told, fought as well as he could, but kept his head down and came home to marry my mother and have me. His brother was the most decorated man in his unit. My father called him the bravest man he’d ever known. He volunteered for every dangerous mission that was offered. No doubt he saved a lot of men. But, of course, he didn’t come home at all. A box full of medals was sent back in his place.”

Brandon knew about his great uncle. “Your Uncle Brandon,” he said. “You’ve told me about him before.”

Rickard nodded. “You’re named for him. Anyway, my father told me that Starks were always like wolves in one way or another—fierce, brave, clever, and often a little bit wild.” His father kind of smiled again, but not at Brandon. It was plain to see he was somewhere in the distant past. “I was a little boy who often said what he should not, and I asked my father then why he wasn’t like a wolf. I never saw him do anything but come home exhausted after long shifts at the factory and then take my mother and me to the park or for ice cream or sometimes a movie on Saturdays. I didn’t think that seemed much of a wolf.”

Brandon suppressed a sudden inappropriate urge to laugh. He couldn’t imagine his father as a child at all. But the boy he described now did remind him of himself.

“I’ll never forget what he told me, Brandon,” Rickard said seriously, bringing his eyes back to his son’s, fully in the present once more. “He told me wolves are pack animals. That family is everything, and that he would take care of my mother and me always. He told me it was good to be a wolf, but that I should never let the wild wolf’s blood hurt me or the things that I loved. I didn’t really understand him at the time, and before he ever spoke to me about it again, he was dead. Killed in that car crash with my mother.”

Brandon looked at his father for a moment. “So you think I’m like your grandfather,” he said almost accusingly.

“Yes,” Rickard said without hesitation. “And my uncle. And my father. And myself. It’s all there Brandon. You are a Stark, you and your brothers and your sister, and you all share the same blood. You do have more than your fair share of the wildness, I’m afraid.” He twisted his mouth into a worried sort of frown. “Your sister, too, has a bit more than she needs.” He shook his head as if to clear troubling thoughts of Lyanna from it before continuing.

“I have never tried to take your boldness from you. It is part of who you are, Brandon. I could never have built Stark Enterprises without taking chances—some of them terribly risky. This isn’t a safe way to make a living, and I knew from the time you were children that you were one who could carry it on. You have enough of the wolf’s blood to make you reckless but not stupid—well, you aren’t stupid in business at least. Ned can help you. He’s smart and he’s honest and he’s loyal. But he would never be happy in my chair. He couldn’t do the things I’ve done to get here because he wouldn’t take those risks. You would. And you will.” He paused, his eyes never wavering from Brandon’s.

“I imagine bright things for you, Brandon. But only if you learn how to control the wildness in you. You can’t want everything all the time, son. And you can’t begrudge the joys of the people who love you most. You can’t tear your pack apart over jealousy and spite, or else all of this . . .” he made a sweeping gesture with his arm that encompassed their surroundings . . . “will mean nothing. You’ve always begrudged Ned any accolades in spite of the fact that you spent your life reaping twice as many. It’s petty and unworthy of you. But Ned has never held it against you. He’s honestly content out of the spotlight. I realize you can’t understand that, and perhaps I should have spoken to you of these things sooner. God knows I have made any number of mistakes with you children over the years. As long as Ned seemed content to live in your shadow, I thought it best to leave things as they were. But Ned is a wolf as well, son, for all he’s a very quiet one. And I fear you have now pushed him much too far. This shameful attitude toward your brother and his wife must end.”

Brandon looked down at his lap for a long moment and then raised his eyes once more to meet his father’s. “I’ll apologize to Ned,” he said. “I’ll talk to Red, too. I know I hurt . . .”

“No. You will not speak to Catelyn. Not now. Certainly not alone.”

At that, Brandon bristled. “You don’t get to tell me who I can and can’t speak to, Dad. I messed up, and I acknowledge that. But we’re all adults here, and I don’t need your permission to speak to Catelyn Tully.”

“Catelyn Stark,” his father corrected. “Whether you like it or not, the woman is your brother’s wife.”

“I know damn well who she’s married to!” Brandon shouted, jumping out of the chair and stalking across the room until he was the one staring out over the Mall with his father behind him.

“You sure as hell don’t act like it,” Rickard Stark said softly after a moment. “You behaved like an angry schoolboy whose brother stole your girl.”

As much as it galled him to be called a boy, it concerned him more at the moment that his father might know about his encounter with Cat at the wedding reception. He turned around slowly to face his father who had not risen from his desk. “What do you mean by that? What has Ned been telling you?” he demanded angrily.

His father shook his head slowly. “Nothing. Haven’t you realized by now that your brother never tells me your sins? No, Brandon. Ned has never once considered it his place to apprise me of your transgressions, even those against him. But I needn’t be told that there is tension between the two of you. I could see it as plain as day even before you made an ass of yourself at dinner. And I’ve seen the way you watch your brother’s wife as well. Had any man looked at Lyarra the way you constantly look at Catelyn, I would have committed violence against him—brother or no.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I? You think I’m so old and blind and worn out, I don’t know lust when I see it? Avarice? Jealousy? I’m not blind, Brandon, and neither is Ned. Oh, save your protest,” he said when Brandon opened his mouth to speak. “You’re not in love with your brother’s wife, I know that. But you want her. You want her because she is lovely and she is Ned’s and she doesn’t want you.”

His father’s words were like a slap in the face, and Brandon didn’t want to believe there was any truth in them. “You know nothing of it,” he said. “What’s between Catelyn and me . . . you have no idea.”

“There is nothing between the two of you, Brandon. Nothing but a shared past that is now done. You could become friends possibly, and I had hoped you might make an effort to do so for Ned’s sake.” He shook his head. “But no. You look at that beautiful woman and see only the fact that you had her in your bed first. And that prevents you from seeing anything else.”

“You’re wrong!” he shouted. “I see very well. I know she loves Ned. I do! I just . . .” He turned back and looked out the window. “It’s got nothing to do with Ned,” he said more softly as he watched the shadow of a single cloud fall over the gleaming white monuments in the distance. I don’t resent Ned. “It isn’t Ned. It’s just . . . she used to love me.” The last sentence was scarcely more than a whisper, spoken more to himself than his father.

Silence filled the room for the space of time it took the cloud to pass, and Brandon watched the beauty of the capital emerging back into sunlight before his father spoke again.

“Brandon, look at me.” It was a more a request than a command, and Brandon found himself turning to look at the man he’d both idolized and rebelled against for twenty-eight years. He was somewhat surprised to see a sort of sad compassion on his face rather than anger.

“She did love you,” Rickard acknowledged. “But she doesn’t anymore. And it hurts you to know how much she loves Ned. But tell me, son . . . before she began dating your brother, how often did it concern you that Catelyn no longer loved you? How often did she cross your mind? Answer that question honestly and then tell me that your feelings now have nothing to do with your brother.”

Brandon stood there staring at him, completely at a loss for an answer. He hadn’t thought of her much at all, if he were honest. He’d occasionally recalled some good time they’d had, but there were other women and other good times, and his thoughts never lingered long on her. His pride had been hurt when she’d walked out on him after she’d caught him literally with his pants down at that Embassy reception, but once he’d gotten over the shock of being suddenly single for the first time in years, he’d actually felt as much relief as anger or hurt. Her constant questioning and obvious mistrust after the infamous Barbrey Ryswell incident had grown tiresome. Then he’d seen her in that photo looking like a million bucks with that little weasel Baelish grinning at her as if he intended to fuck her as soon as the camera was gone, and he’d been furious. So he’d gone to that damn ball with the express purpose of fucking her himself, and he’d done it. He’d won. But when morning arrived and he’d looked at her lying there beside him, he’d felt more cornered than victorious. He didn’t want to go back to the way they’d been, and so he’d bolted and called Ned to take care of her for him. God, I was a bastard, wasn’t I? He had thought about her after that—a few times anyway—with some emotion he couldn’t quite identify, but consisting at least in part of both guilt and longing. He’d even called her more than once, but she’d never returned his calls. And so he’d pushed her from his mind once more until he’d heard from Robert Baratheon, of all people, that Cat was dating Ned. His little brother was with his Red. And yes, it pissed him off. But . . . I don’t resent Ned.

“It isn’t about Ned,” he insisted, hating that he sounded like some petulant adolescent backed into a corner and trying to justify himself.

“Sit down, Brandon,” his father said for the third time since he’d entered the office, but this time it sounded more like an invitation than a command. Slowly, Brandon returned to his seat and waited to see what else the old man had to say.

“No, it isn’t about Ned. It’s about you.” he said finally. “Brandon, when Ned told me he was marrying Catelyn, I tried to talk him out of it.”

That came as a shock. The old man had always loved Red. And he’d been nothing but enthusiastic about the marriage from day the Ned announced it as far as Brandon had known. “Why?”

“For your sake,” Rickard said simply. “For the sake of this family. I know you, Brandon. You don’t like to lose things. You never did. Out of sight, Catelyn was out of your mind. But I feared that seeing her with Ned—forever right there in front of you, but belonging to your brother—would make you miserable. That you would make it about you. It seems I was right.”

“But . . . you never said . . . Ned never . . . what did he say to you?” Brandon sputtered, angry that his father for believing he could be so petty, angry at himself for making his father believe he’d been correct.

“Your brother stood up to me, Brandon. I don’t recall him ever opposing me so completely since he insisted on taking the job with Jon Arryn. And even then, I could see how he hesitated to defy me. He did not hesitate at all when it came to Catelyn. He told me that he loved her, that she loved him, and that the two of them would be married. Nothing anyone had to say would change that.” Inexplicably, Rickard Stark smiled. “And that’s when I saw it.”

“Saw what?”

“Myself.”

“What?” Brandon asked. His father had completely lost him again.

“I saw myself thirty years ago when I looked into your brother’s eyes, and I knew then exactly what he felt for Catelyn. Brandon, I believe you do care for her, probably more than you’ve ever cared for any other woman. I will not deny that. But it doesn’t change the fact that part of your attraction to her now is simply that you cannot have her. That you can’t help feeling your brother took something of yours.”

“Red is not some goddamn prize in a crackerjack box, Dad! She’s not an old toy I want back from my little brother! Christ! I may be a jealous, competitive bastard, but I’m not that petty. You can’t believe it’s that simple!”

Rickard barely reacted to his outburst. “Of course, it isn’t that simple. She is important to you, and if she should disappear from the world tomorrow, you would mourn her.”

Brandon scarcely had time to wonder why his father had made that morbid statement when his father continued. “You would mourn, but your life would continue afterward relatively unaffected. Ned, on the other hand, would never recover.”

“Jesus, Dad! Stop talking like Red’s dying! Why are you even saying this shit?”

“Because I know what it is to love a woman the way your brother loves Catelyn, Brandon. And I know what it is to lose her. And once I saw what your brother felt for the woman who is now his wife, I vowed I would never attempt to separate him from her. Not even for your sake. And I won’t allow you to do it, either. Someday, I hope you find what the two of them have. What Lyarra and I had. And when you do, I hope to God you never know what it is to lose it, the same as I hope that for Ned.”

Brandon sat looking at his father for a long time. In the nearly sixteen years since his mother’s death, he’d never heard him speak like this. He was old enough to remember that his parents had seemed happy. They’d sit close together, and his father’s arm was often around his mother, but at her funeral, Rickard Stark hadn’t cried. He’d sat between Brandon and Ned as they’d both tried unsuccessfully not to cry. He’d held six year old Lyanna in his lap as she sobbed loudly. Two year old Benjen, who wouldn’t stop asking for Mama, had been left at home with Nan. Brandon had never seen his father cry after that day either, and in all the years from Mother’s death until now, Rickard had spoken of her to them only as “your mother.” He’d never before spoken of her as his wife, and Brandon realized he’d never spared a thought for his father’s pain when she died—only his own. But now his father’s face looked as grief stricken as if Lyarra Stark had died yesterday.

“I . . . I’m sorry,” Brandon said, and he didn’t even know what he was apologizing for. He suddenly felt as if he needed to apologize for a great many things even as a desperate voice in his mind protested that he wasn’t to blame, that his father still didn’t understand.

“I know you are, Brandon,” Rickard said. “You are not a cruel man, although you can be selfish and careless of people. You are always sorry for the faults you admit. But I fear an apology will not fix this rift with your brother. You have to let go of whatever ill feeling you have about his marriage. Nothing less than an end to all your resentment will heal this.”

I don’t resent Ned. The reflexive mental protest seemed more feeble than it had been. You're always sorry,his father had said. Red had told him the same thing. He’d apologized to her more times than he could count through the years, and probably even more times to Ned. Hey, Ned, thanks again, man. I’m really sorry I had to involve you in this . . .How many times had he said such words to his younger brother?

“I’ll talk to Ned,” he said softly. “I promise. I don’t know if he’ll listen, but I’ll talk to him.”

“Even if he doesn’t listen, you still have to let go of this, Brandon. And as long as your brother is angry with you, stay away from his wife. Do you understand me?”

This time Brandon suppressed the protest which came automatically to his lips at being ordered away from Red. His father looked very tired and much too old as he sat there behind the enormous desk awaiting Brandon’s response. I have every right to speak to her, he thought, but he had no wish to anger his father again, so he merely nodded.

"That’s good,” Rickard said. “That’s good, Brandon. You can go now, son."

Realizing he had been dimissed, Brandon rose to leave, but then he remembered his sister’s shocking news. “Dad . . . this thing with Lya and Robert Baratheon . . .”

"Their engagement, you mean?” Rickard asked wearily.

"If you want to call it that,” Brandon spat, his own guilty conscience forgotten as his thoughts turned toward his sister’s idiotic behavior.

“I don’t want to call it anything. But that’s what it is. I fear this is a bigger mistake than she’s ever made, but she’ll do as she will, and you know that as well as I do.”

"Tell her no! God, Dad talk her out of it! You can’t let her just . . .”

“You want me to forbid it, Brandon?” his father said more forcefully, some of his earlier anger returning. “Maybe I should have forbidden her a great many things when she was younger. And you, too! Maybe if I had told you all ‘no’ a lot more often than I did, we wouldn’t be where we are now. I don’t know. But your sister is an adult. I made it clear enough to both of them how I feel about this marriage, but she hasn’t asked for my permission, my blessing, or my money. So, Mrs. Robert Baratheon she will become, if that’s what she desires. I’m afraid the days of my opinion mattering to Lyanna are well behind me. I don’t like this. I don’t pretend to know what’s going through her head, and I won’t pretend to be happy about it.” Rickard Stark suddenly clenched his jaw tightly shut and stopped the flow of angry words. When he finally spoke again, he once more sounded too old and tired to Brandon’s ears. “But I don’t want to lose my daughter over it, so I’m afraid you aren’t the only Stark with apologies to make after that dinner.”

“You’re just giving up?” Brandon asked incredulously.

“I’m accepting what I cannot change. I can’t keep her from doing what she will by insulting Robert or threatening to lock her in her room so I will apologize for doing both when she announced their engagement at Winterfell. I will not tell her I approve of this marriage, but I will tell her I hope to God I’m wrong about it. For both their sakes."

“But . . .”

"But nothing, Brandon,” his father sighed wearily. “Not everything is within my control. Not everything is within yours. Learn to live with that. You can’t have everything you want, Brandon. So don’t persist in wanting everything.”

Brandon left his father’s office with his head spinning. The old man had said an awful lot. He couldn’t remember the last time his father had said so much to him about anything other than business. He still didn’t think his father or anyone else completely understood his feelings about Red or her marrying Ned and all of a sudden having his baby. Fuck! I don’t even understand how I feel. He did need to speak to his brother, though. He knew that much. He couldn’t lose his brother. Ned and Cat love each other. Ned and Cat love each other, and that’s all that matters. He repeated that to himself as he walked down the hall, vaguely aware that the further he got from his father’s office, from his father’s words, from his father’s eyes; the harder it was to accept that his own feelings didn’t matter. But he would talk to Ned. That would help, he knew. And then he would talk to Red. He just had to work this out with Ned first. Dad was right about that. And he could talk to Ned about Lya, too. Robert may be his brother’s oldest buddy, but Ned knew the guy was no good for Lyanna. The two of them would think of something. They always did when they put their heads together. Dad may be throwing in the towel on this, but Brandon wasn’t ready to. Lyanna needed to see reason, and Ned was the reasonable one. By the time he got to his office, Brandon’s head felt a bit like it might explode, but he knew one thing for certain. He absolutely had to speak to Ned.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nearly a month later he still hadn’t spoken to Ned. He’d certainly tried hard enough, but Ned refused to take his calls. Even when he insisted that he needed to speak to him concerning business, that irritating receptionist at Arryn and Associates always said the same thing: “If you put your question in an email or send over any papers you need him to review, Mr. Stark will attend to it as soon as he is able. I’m sorry, sir, but he simply is not available to speak right now.”

“Not available to speak to me, you mean!” Brandon had exploded at her after about five of these phone calls. “Not now and not ever, apparently!” He’d slammed down the phone in a fury at Ned for simply cutting him out of his life like this. It wasn’t fair.

He’d gone so far as to ask Benjen to speak to him on his behalf, but Ben had come back to him with a downcast expression and told him to just give it some more time and to stop calling Ned’s office. He’d yelled at Ben then and promptly felt like shit for it. None of this was his baby brother’s fault.

To make matters worse, he really did need Ned to weigh in on several matters for Stark. As much as he hated doing it, he’d eventually sent his brother an email addressed very impersonally to Eddard Stark with the pertinent documents attached. He’d received a response in only two days—three pages of Ned’s usual astute observations and careful notes. He couldn’t accuse his brother of shirking his responsibility to the company, and no one had ever accused Ned of being less than conscientious about anything. But he hadn’t so much as used Brandon’s name in the brief note he’d typed: ‘If anyone at Stark Enterprises has questions or concerns about this analysis, please contact my office via email. Eddard Stark.’ And that pissed Brandon off so much he’d called Ned’s apartment. No one had answered, and Brandon hadn’t left a message, but apparently Ned saw his cell number on the caller ID.

He’d actually been excited when he saw Ned’s number pop up on his cell late that evening. He’d answered it on the first ring prepared to humble himself and start with apologies regardless of how big an asshole Ned had been since Winterfell. But he never got past his brother’s name.

“You will not call my home again,” Ned said in a voice reminiscent of their father at his iciest as soon as Brandon had begun to speak. “Nor will you call my cell phone or my wife’s. If you disregard this request, I will consider it harassment and pursue legal action against you. Do you understand?”

“Ned? What the hell . . . I only want . . .”

“Do you understand?” Even through the phone, Brandon knew his brother was speaking through clenched teeth, and he found himself suddenly furious at Ned’s fucking judgmental self-righteousness.

“Yeah, I understand. Fuck you, Ned!” He’d hurled the cell across his kitchen and watched it smash against the wall. “Fuck you, Ned,” he’d repeated more softly to his empty apartment.

Since then, he hadn’t tried to contact Ned again. He hadn’t even sent him any business emails. Anything that needed to go to Ned, he’d given to Jory and let him play go-between. Jory hadn’t been happy about it. He didn’t know the details of what had occurred at Winterfell, but he obviously knew something was very wrong between the Stark brothers. He’d hesitantly tried to ask Brandon about it once, but Brandon had quickly told him it was none of his damn business, and he hadn’t brought it up again.

Business had continued as usual at Stark Enterprises, and Brandon had thrown himself into it with even more energy than usual. A possible new business venture had him in Alexandria this afternoon. He’d had lunch there with Robett Glover of Deepwood Lumber, and it had gone very well. It was a fine October day, and he’d decided to walk a bit through Old Town before driving back to the office. He’d have to discuss this deal with his father, of course, and have Ned look at a couple things . . .

The thought of Ned soured his mood immediately, and that made him angry. Nothing seemed right anymore. Not even the thrill of a new deal felt the same. It wasn’t any fun without the excitement of sharing it. Wolves are pack animals, his father had said. Bullshit! Brandon thought. Ned had cut him off as if he were a dead man, Dad still looked at him with disappointment in his face as if Ned’s physical absence from Stark Enterprises was all his fault, and the two conversations he’d had with Lya since she’d dropped her little bombshell had both ended in arguments. Some fucking pack! A bunch of lone wolves howling at the moon and each other, more like it. And poor Ben in the middle of it all looking like a lost puppy. Thank God he was away at school most of the time.

Brandon’s dark musings were suddenly interrupted by a laugh he knew very well. Stunned, he turned around to see the familiar bright auburn hair. She had her back to him as she laughed at something the man with her was saying. They were coming out of a pub on the corner, and the man leaned against the doorway and smiled at her.

“You’ll call me soon, then?” he asked her.

“As soon as I can.” She bit her lip. “I really don’t know my husband’s schedule for the next few days, I’m afraid. He’s been working a lot, but he may get some time off, and then . . .”

“Well, whenever you can, my dear,” the man said. “I’ll be waiting for that call.” Then he took her hand briefly before turning to walk in the other direction.

She looked after him for only a moment and then turned to find herself walking straight toward him. The stunned look on her face was almost comical. “Brandon!” she nearly gasped.

“Hello, Red,” he said, his mind nearly incapable of believing what he had just seen.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, still looking at him as if she couldn’t quite wrap her brain around his presence there.

“Wow. I think maybe I ought to be asking you that question, Red. Good old Ned would probably like to know the answer to that one as well.”

“Ned?” she asked, a look of complete incomprehension on her face. “Ned’s at work, Brandon. And if he finds out you’re following me around Alexandria, he might just kill you.”

"Kill me?” he asked. His eyes strayed downward, and he realized she actually had a discernible little bump where her flat belly had always been. “I think old Neddy boy might be more interested in killing that guy his wife is meeting in bars. Or is the next meet-up going to be somewhere more private. He did seem awfully anxious for you to call.”

The palm of her hand caught him full across the face before he even realized she’d stepped forward. “That’s our realtor, you fucking asshole,” she hissed at him. “How dare you, Brandon? You—of all people—how dare you accuse me?”

He swallowed, his left cheek stinging and his left eye watering. “Realtor?” he said dumbly. “Why are you hooking up with a realtor?”

Her eyes flashed with anger, and he prepared to grab her hand if she tried to hit him again. She didn’t, though. She merely took a deep breath through her nose with her lips pressed tight together. “God help you, Brandon, if Ned ever hears that you’ve said any of this to me.” She looked around almost nervously then, and Brandon followed her gaze to see that a couple people had stopped on the opposite sidewalk to watch them. Likely her slapping him had made for good theater. “Damn,” she muttered under her breath. “Come on and walk with me before someone recognizes one of us and snaps a fucking picture.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him along the sidewalk.

“If you aren’t doing anything wrong, why are you afraid of photographs, Red?” he asked her as they walked.

"I don’t want photographs of you and me in an argument in the middle of Old Town,” she hissed at him. “And if you had half a brain, you wouldn’t either.”

She was right, of course. Seeing her there had muddled his brain. Seeing her with some strange man had short-circuited it completely. He nodded and gently pulled his arm from her grip so that they walked side by side without touching. “This way,” he said, and they walked silently until he had led her several blocks to where his car was parked. “Get in.”

Surprisingly, she didn’t protest. He walked around and got in the driver’s side. As soon as he’d closed the door, Catelyn turned to him. “Look, Brandon. I owe you no explanations of anything ever. But I don’t want you running your mouth over at Stark Enterprises like the fool that you are.”

He wanted to protest that he wasn’t a fool, but figured it would only make her angrier so he remained silent.

“Ned and I are buying a house,” she said slowly, as if explaining something obvious to a particularly dense six year old. “Well, we’re looking for one, and we’d like to have it before the baby comes.” As angry as she was at him, her face softened noticeably as she said the word baby, and Brandon saw her hand flutter down to softly rest on the little bump in her dress. “Ned is working constantly right now. He has three very important cases that are all coming to trial soon on top of his usual workload. He doesn’t have time to wander all over creation looking at houses. My hours are more flexible.”

“You want to move to Alexandria?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” She bit her lip again the way she always did when she was thinking—the way that had always driven him crazy and made him want to kiss her when they were together. “We’ve been looking lots of places. But today, he showed me the most beautiful house out on Rosemary Lena Way. It’s bigger than what we’d had in mind, five bedrooms, but we both want more children and . . .”

“More children?” Brandon interrupted. “Don’t you think you should pop this one out before you plan the rest of your litter?”

She frowned at him. It seemed she’d momentarily forgotten to be pissed at him as she fantasized about houses and dozens of untold babies that looked like Ned. Ugh, he thought. Those would be grim babies. Hopefully they all look like Red. She seemed to remember her anger and annoyance now, though.

"Anyway, I need Ned to look at this one. If he likes it, it might be worth putting in an offer. The realtor is anxious for my call, you stupid ass, because property in Alexandria is expensive, and he’d no doubt like the commission he’ll get on this house if Ned and I decide to buy it.”

"I’m sorry, Cat,” Brandon blurted out. “I didn’t mean to . . . fuck. I’m just sorry. For everything.”

She looked at him for a long time with a gaze cool enough to unnerve him a bit. “Sorry doesn’t fix everything, Brandon. I told you the night of my wedding I feared you could use me to hurt Ned. Do you remember what you told me?”

“I don’t want to hurt Ned,” he said without hesitation.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s what you told me. And then you sat there at Winterfell with a nasty smug grin on your face and reminded my husband and everyone in his family that you fucked me first.” Her voice shook more and more as she continued speaking, and her eyes filled with tears. “Ned wanted to share with all of you this incredible thing that has happened to us—a child Brandon, our child, Ned’s and mine—and you just had to shit all over him.” She shook her head. “And you used me to do it.”

“No! Red, I didn’t . . .”

“Don’t call me that!” she snapped, and Brandon stared at her. “My name is Catelyn. Red was a nickname given to me by a man I thought cared at least a little about me once. Obviously, I was mistaken.”

“Cat . . .”

“Don’t call me that, either. That’s for family and friends. You made it clear enough in Winterfell that you aren’t either to me.”

“Catelyn, please . . .”

“In a way, you’ve made this easier for me, Brandon, now that you’ve made it clear I was never more than an entertaining fuck to you. What was it you said? Just like horny kids in back seats every day.”

"I never said that,” he protested, knowing full well he’d used those words, but he hadn’t meant them about Red. He’d never mean that about her.

“Oh, save it for someone who cares, Brandon. I don’t anymore. I used to worry about hurting you. Did you know that? After all you put me through, I still cared enough about you that I hated the idea that my loving Ned might cause you pain. But now I know you never cared about me at all. I don’t know if you’re even capable of really caring about anyone. You took our past, my present with Ned, my child with Ned—and described all of it to your entire family as ‘everybody loves to fuck and sometimes shit happens.’ Those were your exact words, and I’ll never forget them.”

He recalled them, too. But he hadn’t meant it like that. He’d just been shocked by whole baby thing. That’s all. He’d been shocked and angry about it, even if he had no right to be. And he’d lashed out.

"You used me to intentionally hurt my husband,” she said, emphasizing every word. “And I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for that. Even for his sake.”

Brandon had been desperately trying to come up with words to refute her statements. Because she was wrong. She was looking at it all wrong. But now only her last three words echoed in his brain. “For his sake?” he asked her. “For Ned? Ned fucking hates me, Cat! He doesn’t want you to forgive me for anything. I’ve tried to talk to him for weeks, to apologize, to . . . Jesus! I’ve practically crawled on my goddamn knees! But he’s a cold-hearted, self-righteous bastard who won’t listen to anything I have to say. So don’t you worry about forgiving me for Ned’s sake!”

Once again, she raised her hand to strike him, but this time he caught it and held her by the wrist. She continued to glare at him for a moment, and then moved her gaze to his hand. “Are you going to send me home to Ned with bruises again, Brandon?” she asked in an eerily calm voice.

He realized with a start how tightly he gripped her and jerked his hand back with a cry. He wasn’t drunk now. He had no excuses for any of his behavior here. No more than he had at Winterfell. Hell, he didn’t really have any excuse for how he’d been with her at the stupid wedding reception regardless of how drunk he’d been.

"I’m sorry, Catelyn,” he whispered, looking down. “I know it doesn’t fix anything. I know it’s all fucked up, and that my brother has a right to hate me. But I am sorry. For all of it.”

"You’re right,” she said, and he looked up in surprise at her words.

What? he thought to himself mockingly. Did you expect her to tell you everything will be fine?

“He does have every right to hate you,” she said in voice more like steel than like music. He’d always likened her voice to music. “But he doesn’t.”

Those words surprised him even more. It must have shown on his face because she gave a rather sad, exasperated sigh. “You’re his brother, Brandon. Ned’s hurt. And he’s angry—angrier than I’ve ever seen him at anyone. But you are his brother, and he can’t stop loving you any more than he can stop breathing. Even if he should.”

"I want . . . I just want to talk to him, Red.”

"I don’t care what you want,” she said coldly. “My only concern is Ned. You aren’t my brother, Brandon. You’re nothing to me. And I want you to stay away from my husband. Stay away from me, too. I don’t know what the hell you were doing in Old Town today, but it better have been a coincidence. Every call you make to Ned is like a knife stabbing him right now, and I won’t have it continue. Do you understand me? I know that someday he’ll want you back in his life. It isn’t in him to hate his brother, and if you weren’t such a self-centered, self-pitying jackass, you’d realize that.” She looked at him as if waiting for him to protest, but he remained silent. “When that day comes,” she continued, “you’ll be welcome in our home, and I’ll stand beside my husband and welcome you as family. But I’m telling you today so that you’ll know; from now on, anything I say or do concerning you--good, bad, or indifferent--is for Ned’s sake and Ned’s sake alone. Not yours. Don’t ever hurt him again, or I will see to it that you are very sorry.”

Brandon looked at her. She had loved him once. He knew she had. And he’d loved her, too, even if he had been a selfish prick about it. He realized as he looked into those determined blue eyes that stared intently into his that whatever she had felt for him was long gone now. He’d thoroughly banished the last remnants of it. “If I didn’t know you better, Red,” he said slowly, “I’d say that was a threat.”

"My name is Catelyn. And that was a promise.”

"All right, Catelyn,” he said. “I’ll leave things up to Ned, then. But if he ever does need me for anything, I promise you I will be there without fail.”

She didn’t say anything, but gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“Can I drive you to your car?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I’d rather walk, thank you.”

"Okay, then. I do wish you well, Cat . . . Catelyn. You, Ned, and the baby. I wish you all the happiness in the world whether you believe that or not.”

She bit her lip and looked at him a moment. Then she nodded. She didn’t smile, but at least the ice left her eyes which continued to meet his even as she reached out for the door handle. “Goodbye, Brandon,” she said softly.

And then she was gone. Brandon sat there in his car for a long time before he turned the key to start the engine, and while the sun still shone brightly in the October sky, the day no longer seemed fine at all.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Brandon pushed back away from the table feeling entirely too full, but rather pleased with the meal and the day none the less. After all, Thanksgiving was all about gratitude and overindulging with family, and he found himself more thankful than he would admit to anyone that his family was more or less together on this day. Ned and Catelyn weren’t here. They’d opted to go Hoster Tully’s Riverrun extravaganza for the weekend instead of celebrating the holiday with the Starks. Dad had said something about them alternating Thanksgivings and it only being fair, but Brandon knew he was disappointed not to have them. And everyone knew that the continued strain between Brandon and Ned and Cat was the biggest reason those two were absent. Ned had at least acquiesced to Dad’s request that he begin attending important meetings at Stark again and maintain civility with his brother while there, and Brandon had to admit Ned had done precisely that. He would greet Brandon just as he greeted anyone else present, answer any questions Brandon posed to him, and even ask him questions pertaining to whatever was being discussed. But he gave him nothing more. Not one damn thing. In spite of Catelyn’s admonition that he leave Ned alone when he’d run into her over a month ago, Brandon had pursued his brother through the corridors of the Stark building on two occasions, hoping to get him alone and have an actual conversation with him. Both times, Ned had responded with, “I have nothing to say to you.” Brandon thought he’d seen more grief than cold anger in his eyes the last time he’d said it, and he wondered if that were a good thing or a bad one.

Everyone else had come to dinner today, though. Even Robert Fucking Baratheon, who had only one cocktail before dinner and drank one glass of wine during the meal—not that Brandon was counting. While there was a certain undercurrent of tension at the meal, the laughter that did occur was genuine enough, and Benjen’s tales of freshman year adventures in college were golden.

Now that the meal was over, however, Brandon was reminded forcefully of the other oddity about this Thanksgiving—the one that loomed almost as large as Ned and Catelyn’s absence. None of them were at Winterfell. There were no woods to wander through or snowball fights to be had. No staggeringly large collection of ancient board games awaiting them. Thanksgiving was always held at Winterfell, and it was a ridiculous weekend long affair of family activities and games presided over by Rickard Stark. While Old Nan and the cooks had done the usual phenomenal job on the food, it felt odd to be eating it here in what dad called the “city house.” Never mind that he’d owned this place longer, their father considered Winterfell home.

Ostensibly, Dad had decided to stay in D.C. this year so that Lyanna could come. She’d flatly refused to come without her fiancé as she called him—he’d given her a ring, but they still hadn’t set a wedding date—and Robert couldn’t go up to Maine for the whole weekend. He had Thanksgiving with his younger brothers to do, and Lyanna intended to go there with him as well. From what Brandon had heard from Ned, Robert would rather eat nails than spend time with his brother Stannis. Those two were fairly close in age, but oil and water in personality. However, Robert felt obligated to do family things every so often with their younger brother Renly who was just a kid still. He couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen. He’d been in kindergarten or something when the Baratheons’ parents had been killed in some freak boating accident, and Robert had been all of nineteen and handed custody of his younger brothers. He wasn’t the most paternal of men, Robert, and he’d left them in the care of some relative (although Stannis, seventeen at the time, was out on his own within a year or so) while he worked and drank and fucked his way through college and law school, but he did sort of make an effort with Renly on birthdays and holidays. As he watched his sister and Robert rise from the table and walk out of the dining room hand in hand, Brandon wondered vaguely if the two of them would have the youngest Baratheon live with them once they married. Likely not. Lya struck him as being no more maternal than Robert was paternal. Kid was probably better off with whoever had him.

Whatever. Brandon was glad they’d come to dinner. He and Lyanna still tiptoed around the subject of her engagement, but Robert hadn’t done anything to piss him off too badly in the past month. The two of them would head out soon while he and Ben spent the night with Dad just as all of them had always done on past Thanksgivings. Only not in Winterfell.

Quit being a sap! He reprimanded himself mentally. Being in Winterfell would likely have been miserable. Too much shit had gone down the last time the family was together there. Shit that was responsible for two people being AWOL right now. And even last Thanksgiving there hadn’t exactly been a laugh a minute. He and Ned had barely been speaking that weekend, and Brandon’s jaw had still been sore from the punch Ned had thrown two weeks prior to the holiday when he’d mouthed off about Ned dating his ex.

Fuck! Has it only been a year? Just over a year ago, he’d learned for the first time that his little brother had romantic designs on Catelyn Tully, and now Red was married to the guy with his kid stretching out her belly. She was probably really getting fat now. He hadn’t laid eyes on her since that horrible day in October. He didn’t know if he wanted to see her. He didn’t want to see her look at him like she had then, that’s for sure.

“Brandon,” his father’s voice interrupted him. “Go and make sure your sister and Baratheon aren’t sneaking off without saying goodbye. I know we don’t have Risk or Monopoly here, but we’ve got a deck of cards. Maybe they could be convinced to stay for at least one hand of poker.”

Benjen looked over and caught Brandon’s eye. Rickard Stark was not a warm, fuzzy man, but he had always made doing things together a priority. Dad was missing Ned, and he didn’t want Lyanna to leave just yet.

“Sure, Dad,” Brandon said. “But they do have a bit of a time crunch to deal with.”

Rickard nodded, and Brandon went in search of his sister and her future husband. God help us! He’d made an effort to adopt his father’s Switzerland approach—remaining neutral toward this marriage thing rather than openly hostile or truly supportive—but he wasn’t entirely sure it was the right thing to do. He still had more than a few doubts. And not just about Robert, to be honest. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out how this sudden desire for marriage had possessed Lya. She’d always been pretty turned off by the whole idea.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” Robert Baratheon’s voice came from around the corner ahead of him.

“Your brothers are waiting for you. They’ll be anxious.”

“Stannis doesn’t give a flying fuck if I’m there or not,” Robert said grimly.

“But Renly does,” Lyanna’s voice insisted. “You know that, Robert.”

Brandon heard Robert sigh heavily. “Are you sure you want to do this now? We can wait.”

Lyanna laughed. “Until when, Robert? Until they don’t need to be told if they just use their eyes?” She sighed. “Ned’s known forever and . . .”

“But you aren’t going to tell them . . .” Robert’s voice sounded almost panicked, and Brandon immediately lost whatever guilt had been building up over his eavesdropping as concern about this secret known to Ned overtook it.

“Everything I told Ned? Of course not! No one ever needs to know that. Ned’s your best friend, Robert. He’ll be there for both of us.”

What the fuck? Ned approved of this marriage? Maybe they were already married and they’d kept it a secret. He wouldn’t put it past Lyanna to run away and elope.

“I just hate you doing this alone.” Baratheon sounded honestly concerned for her.

“They’re my family, Robert. They aren’t going to kill me. I promise. Besides, if you aren’t here, my father can’t insult you, and then I won’t have to tear into him, and he’s much less likely to threaten with locking me up until I’m thirty!”

Robert actually laughed. “God, I’d never seen the Silver Wolf like that before. With his claws and fangs really out. Your dad’s a scary dude, Lya . . . when he wants to be.”

“Yes, well, he hasn’t acted scary since then, and we both got apologies. So I’ll be fine. Now go. Go before Renly starts texting both of us every five minutes!”

There were the unmistakable sounds of kissing for a moment. “And you’ll come straightaway afterward?”

“Oh, I imagine they’ll be happy enough to let me go. Then they can talk about us in our absence.”

Brandon couldn’t keep still any longer. “Who’s going to talk about you in your absence, Sis? And are you two leaving right now? Dad told me to ask.” He shrugged and gave them a crooked grin.

“I’m afraid I’m running late already, Brandon,” Robert said. “We were just talking about that. Lya wants to take her car over to my place anyway, so she’s going to stay just a bit.” He looked at Lyanna then and asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?” The intensity of his gaze indicated he was asking a question of greater importance than taking separate cars

“Yes,” she said emphatically. “Now go!” She tiptoed up to kiss him and still had to pull his head down to meet her lips. Robert Baratheon was a big man. Then she smacked him on the arm and ushered him toward the coat closet. “Off you go! I’ll see you soon!”

Robert grinned at her. “You better.” He turned to look at Brandon. “Is your dad still in the dining room?” When Brandon nodded, Robert said, “All right then. I’d better go thank the man for dinner."

As soon as Robert had disappeared in the direction of the dining room, Brandon grabbed his sister’s arms. “What’s the big secret, Lya?”

“You shit! You were listening to us!”

He shrugged. “It’s my house, too.”

“No it isn’t,” she said, shaking her head just as she had when she’d argued with him as a child. “You and Ned both moved out. It’s just mine and Ben’s and Dad’s house now.” Then she stuck her tongue out at him, and Brandon nearly laughed.

But he refused to let her distract him. “You’re up to something, Lya. You’re making Robert leave, and you have something to tell us. What is it?”

She rolled her eyes. “God, Brandon, if you know I’m staying here to tell you all, why can’t you just be patient a few more minutes?”

“Because I want to know now,” he said in frustration. Because Ned knows. Because you won’t tell us everything you told him. “Because . . . because if I’m going to react badly to whatever this is, I’d like a chance to do it in private,” he said in a rush, and he realized he meant it. He was terrified of what she might say. Terrified that she’d say something to make him go off like he had at Winterfell. He didn’t want to do that again. He didn’t want to lose another sibling. He really didn’t want Lyanna to marry Robert Baratheon, but he didn’t want to lose her over it. Or over whatever this new thing was either. God, I sound like Dad now!

She just stood there staring up at him for a moment, looking for all the world like she was twelve years old. Finally, she said in a very small voice, “I’m afraid you will react badly.”

She was six years younger than he was, and those six years had loomed large when they were kids. When she was six and he was twelve, he’d been her tormentor but also the fixer of all her problems. Six year olds’ problems seemed very small and easy to solve for a cocky twelve year old boy. Then when she was twelve, he’d been eighteen, and having discovered the glory of girls who were not his kid sister he’d had much less time for her. But still he was her problem solver, and he became a sort of less frightening, more approachable adult than Dad for her when she’d screwed up or gotten hurt. Of course, once she got older, she’d learned to do the same as he did with serious problems—take them to Ned. But at twelve, she’d still believed he could make anything okay if she could just summon the courage to tell him about it.

“Just tell me, Lya,” he said very softly.

“I’m pregnant, Bran.”

Pregnant. My god, is it in the fucking water? Every girl in the family is getting knocked up! He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw tightly, willing the sudden violent urge to tear Robert Baratheon’s throat out with his bare hands to pass. He bit back the biting remark about contraception that came to his mind. He wasn’t going to do this again. He wasn’t. He opened his eyes and saw her still staring up at him, her grey eyes wide and apprehensive, afraid of his next words.

“You don’t have to marry the asshole if you don’t want to,” he said, and was surprised to hear that his voice sounded relatively calm.

“I want to marry him.”

He raised a brow. “Because you’re pregnant? It’s not 1950, Lya, we’ve got options.”

“We’ve?” Now she looked less nervous and more amused. “Are you pregnant, too, Brandon?”

“Dammit, Lya! This is serious. We need to talk about this,” he said, the stress of her news and of keeping a lid on his own anger causing him to be irritable.

“No,” she said sadly. “I need to talk. You need to listen. That’s what I want from all of you. Do you think Dad can do that?"

“Dad? Fuck, no. You’re his baby girl, Lya, and however much he knows or guesses about your sex life, he’s going to want to castrate Robert for this. Shit! I want to castrate the drunken asshole!”

“He isn’t an asshole, Brandon! And he sure as hell wasn’t drunk tonight. Or weren’t you paying attention?”

“He left you here!” Brandon countered angrily. “Fucking coward! Couldn’t face the music, could he?”

“God Brandon, you know he wanted to stay! You listened to us, for fuck’s sake, you big creeper. This is my choice. You all are my family, and I wanted to tell you on my own. Is that so hard to understand?”

“Hey! Are you two coming or . . .” Benjen’s voice stopped in midsentence, and his face took on a concerned look as he took in the expressions on their faces. They’d been so intent on their conversation, neither had noticed his approach until he spoke.

“We’re coming, Ben,” Brandon said. “Lyanna just needs me to help her carry something to her car first. Go tell Dad to keep his shirt on. Pour him a scotch or something.”

Benjen looked back and forth between the two of them, clearly not buying Brandon’s little story, but he only nodded. “Don’t be too long.”

They watched him walk back down the hall, and then Lyanna said, “Well I suppose we may as well go find something in my room to put in my car.”

He followed her to her bedroom where she promptly sat down on her bed and patted the space next to her for him to sit down as well.

“Are you ever going to take those posters down?” he asked her, nodding at some old boy band posters that had been on one wall as long as he could remember.

“No. They make me laugh now. Besides, are you aware that you still have a Batman poster and an awful Hooters calendar that’s at least ten years old hanging in your room? So who are you calling kettle, pot?”

“Not you, Lee-lee. Never you.”

She smiled a bit at the name. Benjen had called her that when he first started speaking, and Brandon and Ned had both sort of adopted it. She’d declared herself much too old for it at some point, but all three brothers occasionally pulled it out to annoy her. She didn’t smack him or anything now, though. She only smiled kind of sadly.

“We are a lot alike, Brandon,” she said. “I think that’s why I get mad at you so easy. And why I can’t ever stay mad at you even when you deserve it.”

“I never deserve anger or criticism,” he teased.

“Well, I do,” she said seriously. “Getting pregnant was stupid. Don’t think I don’t know that. But Robert isn’t the villain here. The two of us chose to be together, and now the two of us choose to stay together. And I’m happy about that. I really am.”

“I just don’t want you to make a mistake.”

“Everybody makes mistakes Brandon. Getting pregnant was an accident. I’m trying not to let it be a mistake.”

“Have you thought about . . .” He hesitated to say it allowed.

She didn’t. “An abortion? Yeah. I thought about it. A lot. And I just can’t do it. I can’t kill my kid. And I know I don’t have to think of it like that, but I can’t help it. And thinking that way might just be a bigger mistake than getting knocked up in the first place because I’m terrified I’ll be a shitty mother. And if I force this kid to be born just so I can screw it up, that’s about as shitty as it gets.”

“Lya, you’ll be wonderful mother.”

“You don’t know that. But you know what? I decided it doesn’t matter. I’m the only mom this kid has. And if Robert and I suck at parenthood, we’re at least going to give it our best shot. And that’s more than a lot of kids get.”

“And marriage? Marriage is more than just raising babies, you know.”

“Brandon Stark giving marriage advice? That’s rich.”

He laughed. “You’re right. That’s fucked up. Forget I said it.” He looked at her face and watched it grow apprehensive once more. “But, Lya, do you love him? Robert?”

She sighed. “Now you sound like Ned.”

“I never sound like Ned.”

“Well, Ned asked me that same question. He came outside to find me after Dad finished his character assassination on Robert and his diatribe on my failings in such areas as common decency and rudimentary intelligence.”

“He didn’t say that . . ."

“He did. Then he went on about I should probably be kept locked up for my own safety.”

“Shit . . . that really was one hell of a dinner party, wasn’t it?”

“It was one hell of a shit storm, Brandon. Once Dad got finished with me, I was really glad you’d already been booted out for unloading on Ned and Cat. I didn’t need anyone else judging me.”

Brandon couldn’t help feeling that was unfair. He got pissed off when people did things that were stupid, but he’d done too many shitty things in his own life to judge anyone else. Ned’s the judgmental one, he thought bitterly. “And Ned didn’t judge you?” he asked her. Judging by her expression, his bitterness was apparent.

“He told me he wanted to be happy for me,” she said, glaring at him. “But only if I could convince him that I truly wanted to marry Robert. And he asked me if I loved him. Of course, that was before I told him I was pregnant.”

“And then how did our upstanding, honorable brother react to that?” Brandon demanded.

“Well, at first he called Robert a son of a bitch and threatened to kill him,” she said calmly.

“Ha!” Brandon exclaimed. “I knew it!”

“Then I called him Brandon.”

“Huh? What the fuck, Lya?” He said angrily.

“What? Aren’t you the guy who just called Robert a drunken asshole and a fucking coward and expressed a desire to castrate him?”

She’d expected Ned to react more calmly than he would. He supposed that shouldn’t surprise him, but it still pissed him off. “Well, maybe this is just the kind of thing that brings out the worst in all big brothers—even the saints.”

“Don’t start on Ned. This isn’t about him.” She sighed heavily. “Look, I have to tell Dad and I really am afraid to. Telling Ned was almost easy. I knew he’d at least listen, and he did—after that first reaction. I . . . I wasn’t as sure about you, but you’re handling this better than I thought you would, and I’m really glad. Because now I won’t be completely alone when I tell Dad.”

“No, you won’t be alone, Lya.” Suddenly it occurred to him that she hadn’t answered his question. “What did you tell Ned, then? When he asked if you loved Robert?”

“That I do,” she said without hesitation. When he gave her a somewhat disbelieving look, she sighed. “I do, Brandon! Maybe we’ll never be Ned and Cat, but Robert and I care about each other, and my baby deserves a father.” She hesitated. “And Robert really does love me, Brandon. He’s proven it. I don’t know if I deserve that or not, but is it so awful to want a man who wants me more than anything?”

She sounded uncertain somehow, but Brandon wasn’t certain of what. “Lyanna Stark,” he said, taking her hands in his. “You deserve all the love in the world, and don’t you ever doubt it. But are you certain about Robert’s love? Really certain? Because you sound scared to me.”

“I am scared, Brandon!” she said, jerking her hands out of his and standing up. “I’m scared of what my father is going to think of me in a few moments! I’m scared of being a shitty mother! I’m scared that this marriage won’t work! But none of that is because I don’t trust Robert’s love for me! It’s . . . it’s . . .”

She turned her back on him, and he realized she was crying. He jumped off the bed and put his hands on her shoulders. “What is it, Lyanna? What are you afraid of?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I can’t tell you,” she said in a very small voice.

He wondered if this had to do with the secret she’d shared with Ned—the one she’d told Robert that she wouldn’t tell anyone else. The thought that she trusted him less than their brother both hurt and angered him, but he couldn’t demand answers from her now. Not while she was scared and crying and unable to even look at him.

He took a deep breath and tried to keep his voice calm. “Whatever it is, I’m here for you Lya. Don’t be scared. Nobody hurts you on my watch. You got that?”

She nodded and wiped her face with her hand. Then she turned to face him. “But what if I hurt him?” she asked him softly, looking up into his face.

“What?”

“Brandon, don’t be mad, but . . . we are so much alike, you and I . . . and that scares me now. You loved Cat. I know you did. But you hurt her so much, and . . . what if I can’t do this, Brandon? What if I can’t love someone enough to really belong just to them?”

He felt a bit like he’d been punched at her words. Had she been anyone else, he’d have wanted to defend himself, to punch back. But this was his little sister, and she looked up at him searching his face for answers. Whatever secrets she’d shared with Ned, she never would have asked him this. She would have been too ashamed. Shameful. Is that how you see me, Lya? He swallowed, wishing there was no truth to her words, but he could hardly deny that he’d behaved shamefully throughout all the years of his relationship with Catelyn.

“You aren’t like me, Lya,” he said carefully. “I know you think you are, but it isn’t true. Maybe we’re both more reckless than we should be, but you aren’t as selfish as I am, and you know how to love better than I ever have.”

She laughed bitterly. “I thought I knew how to love once. But then I learned that nothing I thought about love is true. Hell, Brandon, I just told you I love Robert, and I think I do, but maybe I’m just making it up as I go along. Maybe everybody is! I just want to be happy. I want Robert to be happy. And most of all, I want my baby to be happy. Isn’t that selfish?”

“That’s a good kind of selfish, Lee-lee. And I believe you can make anything work if you put your mind to it. And that’s what I’ll tell the mighty Rickard Stark once you tell him he’s about to be a grandfather yet again.”

She laughed again, and it sounded almost like her normal laugh. Then she took a deep breath. “Okay, big brother. Let’s go do this.”

He took her hand and led her back down the stairs and toward the dining room.

Much later, as he lay down to sleep in his childhood bedroom, staring at the Batman poster that indeed remained on the wall after all these years, he thought the whole baby talk with Dad hadn’t gone too badly. Rickard Stark had reacted far better than he’d expected—which wasn’t to say he’d reacted well--but it hadn’t been the debacle Lyanna had described at Winterfell. Their father had been most incensed that Robert wasn’t with her to ‘accept responsibility’ as he put it, calling the man a coward as well as an irresponsible philanderer. Lyanna hadn’t stood for that, however, stating that this pregnancy was her responsibility as much or more than Robert’s, and that while her fiancé had very much wanted to be here and tell Rickard this news himself, she had absolutely refused to let him. Brandon was pretty sure he’d actually seen a bit of pride in the old man’s face behind his anger when she’d stood there and informed him in no uncertain terms that she would never allow him to subject the man who would be her husband and her child’s father to insult and abuse. After a fairly intense but mostly civil discussion which lasted the better part of an hour, Lyanna had left to go to Robert’s, and Brandon and Benjen had played three-handed poker with their father for a little while before getting into another intense, but altogether more enjoyable conversation about current and upcoming projects at Stark.

Now it was late, and Brandon wanted only to go to sleep, but was finding that more difficult than he’d like. Just as he contemplated going down to the kitchen to grab some sort of snack, his cell phone pinged softly. When he picked it up, he stared at the message in shock before he could actually bring himself to read it. It was from Ned.

Lya called me. She was very grateful you were with her today. I am glad you supported her, Brandon. She needed someone by her.

“Yeah, she did, you self-righteous fuck,” Brandon said allowed to the phone. “And you were too busy nursing your grudge against me to show up for her.” He had very nearly decided to type something to that effect when the next message appeared on the little screen.

I worry about her. But she seems more at ease now that everyone knows. Thank you for helping her.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Brandon muttered. But in spite of himself, he imagined Ned in some guest bedroom at Riverrun with Cat asleep beside him, staring at his own phone and carefully composing those little messages with full sentences and punctuation like he always did. He smiled a bit at the thought. His brother had sent him a text. Two texts. It was something. He tapped out a reply.

Yeah well she’s got 2 big brothers looking out for her and the kid now so Robert better do right by both of them

The reply was almost instant.

I truly believe he will, but if he gets out of line, I’ve no doubt the two of us together can take him.

Brandon stared at the screen in disbelief. Had Ned just made a joke? To him? It wasn’t much of a joke, but then again, Ned wasn’t much of a comedian. He grinned and texted back.

Well he is a pretty big guy but if we need reinforcements I bet Ben would be willing to kick him in the shins for us

There was a long delay before the next message and Brandon began to wonder if he’d pushed too far or expected too much, but when the message did finally appear, he grinned even more widely as he read.

Happy Thanksgiving, Brandon.

You too Ned

Brandon then laid down his phone and fell asleep with ease.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was less than two weeks until Christmas and the ornate, enormous lobby of the Stark Enterprise building had been decorated with its usual holiday flair. It was also currently filled to capacity with Stark employees wearing their holiday best and enjoying free food and drink. Brandon sipped his bourbon very slowly as his father had given him the usual stern lecture about not becoming intoxicated at company functions. He tried not to resent the fact that the same lecture was never delivered to Ned and took private enjoyment in the fact that “little” Benjen had gotten it this year. Apparently, Dad had gotten word of the youngest Stark’s excessive drunkenness at Ned and Cat’s wedding reception.

He’d been making small talk with people for two hours now and smiling until his face hurt. Ned had been making the rounds as well, but he seemed to have disappeared with Catelyn. Brandon rather suspected they had retreated to the private lounge which was just for the use of the family. Poor Red’s feet had been killing her all day. She’d looked quite pretty in her green maternity dress, but she was more than seven months pregnant now, and her belly was getting really big. He hadn’t seen her since October, and he thought that even her face looked a little fuller than it usually did. She’d been friendly enough when Ned had brought her over to say hi, but there remained a coolness in her manner toward him that had never been there before, and it made him sad.

Ned was still pretty formal with him, too, although he would at least smile in his presence on occasion now. He’d seemed more on edge than he’d been around Brandon in awhile today, but Brandon blamed that on his having Catelyn with him. Once Ned seemed to accept that Brandon wasn’t going to be an ass toward his wife, his little brother seemed to relax a bit. The two of them hadn’t really talked much since Thanksgiving, but Ned would at least answer his texts now—both business and non-business related. Baby steps, he told himself as he scanned the crowd looking for his sister.

He still didn’t see her anywhere, and she and Robert were supposed to be here. They’d finally set a wedding date for mid-January so they’d have a full month before Catelyn’s baby was due. It was going to be a small family and close friends only affair, but now that the date was cemented, Rickard Stark was eager to make the engagement public, particularly since anybody looking closely at Lyanna could see the changes in her body now. Looking back, Brandon wondered how they’d all failed to miss it at Thanksgiving.

He saw his father introducing Benjen to yet more stuffy-looking men in suits, but no Lyanna or Robert, and Robert Baratheon was a hard man to miss, standing taller than pretty much every man in a room with that distinctive head of jet black hair. Sighing, he headed to the family lounge to see if Ned had heard from either of them.

As he opened the door of the lounge, he heard Catelyn’s voice. “Oh god, Ned, that feels heavenly. Don’t stop.”

He nearly closed his eyes, thinking that he wasn’t prepared to walk in on the two of them naked as he had after their wedding, when he got a glimpse of his brother from the corner of his eye sitting on the sofa to the left, fully clothed in his tailored suit. “Your ankles are more swollen than yesterday, my love. You shouldn’t have come,” Ned said rather sternly.

Brandon risked turning in that direction. Catelyn was reclined on the sofa, also fully clothed except for her shoes, and her feet were in Ned’s lap. He appeared to be massaging them. The interaction between them struck him as almost as intimate as sex, and he felt like he was spying on them again.

“I’m fine, Ned. I just stood too long, that’s all.” She looked up. “Brandon!” she said, seeing him there. “Did you need Ned for something?”

Ned looked up at him as well then, awaiting an answer.

“I just wondered if you’d heard from Lyanna,” he said, attempting not to look at the way one of his brother’s hands so tenderly held Cat’s foot while the other rubbed her ankle.

Ned frowned. “They aren’t here yet?”

“No. They were supposed to be here two hours ago, Ned.”

“I know.” He and Catelyn exchanged a look Brandon didn’t quite understand.

“What?” he said, looking back and forth between the two of them. “What is it?”

Ned sighed. “Lyanna called Cat just as we were leaving. Said she’d gotten a call from an old friend who was here just for today and wanted to see her. She was going to meet them before she and Robert came here. She thought she might be a little late.”

“What friend?”

“She didn’t say,” Catelyn said. “Honestly, Brandon, I thought she sounded a bit off, but she laughed at me when I mentioned it."

“Have you called her since then?”

Ned shook his head. “I texted her about an hour ago, and she didn’t answer.”

“Dammit, Ned! Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because it isn’t unlike Lyanna to be an hour late. And because I haven’t heard anything from Robert. If he didn’t know where she was, he’d be calling or texting all of us, and you know it. He’s a bit overprotective of her.”

Brandon grunted. Obnoxiously possessive was more like it. But Ned had a point. If Baratheon wasn’t worried about Lyanna’s whereabouts, then she was likely fine.

“But two hours is a bit long even for Lya,” Ned said, worry lines creasing his forehead.

Brandon noticed that Cat already had her phone to her ear. “She isn’t answering, Ned. Call Robert.”

Ned gently moved Catelyn’s feet off his lap so that he could stand up and get to the phone in his pocket. But as he pulled it out, his actions were interrupted by a desperate half-sob, half-shout from the doorway into the lounge.

“Ned!”

Brandon looked around to see his sister practically fling herself across the room to grab their brother. “You have to find him! Please, Ned! I don’t know if he’s coming back!”

Lyanna was obviously dressed for the party, but her hair was somewhat askew and her face was streaked with tears.

“What’s happened?” Brandon demanded at the same time as Ned said in a much more controlled fashion, “Robert?”

Lyanna ignored Brandon, focusing only on Ned. “He’s gone. He’s so angry, Ned! I’ve never seen him so angry. Oh god, why is this happening?”

“What is happening?” Brandon nearly shouted.

At that, Lyanna finally turned to look at him, seeming to notice his presence for the first time.

“I need to talk to Ned, Brandon,” she said desperately.

“I need to know what the hell is wrong with you,” Brandon countered. “Did Baratheon hurt you? I will fucking kill him, Lya, so help me God!”

“No!” she wailed. “You don’t know anything! None of this is Robert’s fault. Oh god, what have I done?” She started crying in earnest then, and Ned put his arm around her and led her to sit beside Catelyn who had sat up straight on the sofa and now put her own arm around the crying girl. Then Ned knelt down in front of them.

“It’s all right, Lyanna. Tell me what’s happened.”

She shook her head violently. “Nothing’s all right! I . . .” She stopped suddenly, looking at Catelyn and Brandon. “I need to talk to Ned,” she insisted.

“I’m not going anywhere, Lya,” Brandon said flatly. Catelyn didn’t say anything, but he noticed that she didn’t rise from the sofa, either.

“It’s all right, Lyanna,” Ned said soothingly. “The friend who called you. Was it . . . him?”

Lyanna nodded miserably.

“Him? Who the fuck is Him?” Brandon demanded. “Robert?”

“No!” Lyanna shouted, and Catelyn hissed, “Shut up, Brandon!” at the same time.

“Did you meet him?” Ned asked, seemingly ignoring everything in the room except Lyanna’s face.

She nodded. “I shouldn’t have, I know. But he sounded so desperate to see me, and I thought . . . I thought I owed him at least a chance to know . . .” She looked at Brandon again and stopped speaking which made Brandon want to scream.

“I understand,” Ned said calmly, and Brandon wished like hell that he understood anything. “What happened with him, Lya?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Nothing. We met at a café and he just . . . I don’t know why he called me, Ned. Nothing had changed. He wanted to make certain I didn’t intend to be a problem. Can you believe that? I told him never to call me again, and I left. I couldn’t have been there more than fifteen minutes.”

“What happened after you left, Lya?”

She took a deep breath. “When I got home, to Robert’s I mean, he was acting very strangely. He kept asking me where I’d been, and I told him I met a friend like I told him. And he asked for a name, and I . . . I made something up, and then he shouted at me.” She looked at Ned, and more tears filled her eyes. “He called me a liar, Ned! He told me I’m a whore like all the others!”

The rage Brandon felt toward Robert Baratheon then was overwhelming. “God damn him! I will kill him! I will fucking break his neck! Where is he, Lyanna? Tell me where he is!”

“I don’t know where he is!” she shouted back at him. “I don’t know!”

“Lyanna,” Ned said, his voice tightly controlled although Brandon could see the anger building within him as well. “What did he mean?”

“What did he mean?” Brandon asked. “Jesus, Ned, the cocksucker called our sister a whore! What part of that needs explaining?”

“Someone sent him a picture,” Lyanna said quickly. “I don’t know who. And in the picture it looks as if we’re holding hands. We weren’t! He . . . the first time I tried to leave, he grabbed both my hands, and I jerked them away. Someone got a picture of just that moment and it looks like . . . it looks like . . .” She covered her face with her hands.

“What did you tell him, Lyanna?” Ned asked.

“He asked if it was . . .” She paused and Ned nodded as if he knew what Robert had asked. “I told him yes,” Lyanna whispered.

“And he left?” Ned asked her.

“He got very quiet. He didn’t say anything for the longest time. Then he looked at me and said, ‘so it was all a lie then? You and me. He’s what you’ve wanted all this time.’ And I told him no, that wasn’t true, but he wouldn’t listen. He just shook his head and said he couldn’t look at me.” The tears started flowing freely again. “He couldn’t look at me, Ned! And then he left. He just . . . left.”

“Do you think he might go after this man, Lya?"

She shook her head. “He doesn’t know his name. I don’t think he recognized him. He just wanted away from me.”

“He left you,” Brandon said, trying not to shout, but feeling as if he might explode. “He just fucking walked out on you over a stupid picture without even listening to you? He walked out on his own child? Jesus, Lya! Good riddance! What kind of fucking asshole walks out on the mother of his baby—but then I guess he’s done it before, hasn’t he? You don’t need Robert Baratheon, Lyanna! And we’ll make damn sure he has no rights to this baby either. He doesn’t deserve any after . . .”

“It’s not his baby!” Lyanna shouted, and Brandon felt as if cold water had been splashed in his face.

“What?” he said. “No. You wouldn’t do that. Tell me you wouldn’t do that, Lya!”

“Do what?”

“Lie to a man about something like that!”

“Brandon!” Ned said angrily, standing up.

Lyanna stood up, too, pulling away from Catelyn’s arm. “I have never lied to Robert, Brandon,” she said between clenched teeth. “He knows this baby isn’t his. He’s always known. And he wanted to marry me anyway. He was willing to let the world think this is his child because the man who fathered it wanted me to have an abortion. Wanted me out of his life. Threw me and this baby away like so much garbage. And I felt like garbage, Brandon! But Robert never saw garbage when he looked at me.” Suddenly all the fire seemed to go out of her. “Not until today,” she said in a much smaller voice.

“Lyanna, he’s only hurt and angry,” Ned said. “Robert . . . he has to blow up sometimes. I am certain he’ll come back, and then he will listen. But someone meant you harm when they sent him that picture. Can you think of anyone who had reason to hurt you?”

“Are you seriously defending Robert here?” Brandon said angrily. “You shouldn’t want him back, Lya! And as for this asshole who got you pregnant in the first place, what’s his name?”

Lyanna simply glared at him.

“Ned?” he demanded, rounding on his brother.

“I don’t know,” Ned said softly. “She’s never told anyone. And it’s her right to tell or not, Brandon.”

“Oh, Lyanna,” Catelyn said, speaking for the first time since she’d told Brandon to shut up.

“I’m sorry, Cat,” Lyanna said then. “I’m sorry I made Ned keep secrets from you. I just . . . I didn’t want you to hate me.”

“Hate you?” Catelyn said, slowly getting up from the couch. “Lya, you are not the first woman to get pregnant by someone you regret ever being with. Of course, I don’t hate you.”

“But . . . he’s married, Cat. And he has kids . . . and I knew all that before I ever . . .” She shook her head and then looked at Catelyn as if she sought some sort of absolution for her sins. “I knew it. And I just chose not to care. So now do you hate me?”

Brandon didn’t hear Catelyn’s response. His mind had suddenly been taken back to an alley behind a hotel where his sister had asked him if he hated her. She’d said almost the same words she’d just spoken to Cat. I didn’t forget. I just chose not to care. Not tonight anyway. Do you hate me?

Oh, God. That singer. That fucking long-haired asshole who’d fucked his sister against a wall in an alley like some kind of street corner hooker. Targaryen. That was his name. He’d seen it in the paper just this morning—not the rock star, but his father—that crazy old coot who thinks he’s supposed to be the king of someplace that doesn’t even exist in Europe anymore. He was in town for one of the holiday functions at some embassy. There’d been a picture of him at his hotel, and Brandon had remembered beating up his little prick son in that alley.

“Rhaegar,” he said grimly under his breath, remembering the man’s first name.

Lyanna drew in a sharp breath. “No,” she said, pulling away from Catelyn who had embraced her and looking at Brandon with wide, frightened eyes.

“Yes,” Brandon said, feeling more certain he was correct as he looked at the panic on her face. “One little tumble at the reception wasn’t enough for him, was it? He kept after you. Goddammit, Lya! How could you let him do this to you?”

“I was stupid, all right? I was stupid and wrong and I thought I loved him!” She was shaking. “He told me he loved me, Brandon. He told me . . .” She shook her head. “I was wrong. I was wrong, and now I’m being punished for it. Isn’t that enough?”

“No, Lyanna. It’s not enough,” Brandon said. He was angry at her. He was angry at Robert. He was angry at Ned for keeping Lyanna’s secret even if he hadn’t known the father’s name. But the blinding fury he felt toward Rhaegar Targaryen for what he had done to his sister made all his other anger insignificant in comparison. “You aren’t the one who deserves to be punished here. That man will pay.”

“No! Brandon, please! His wife! His children! They don’t deserve . . .”

“And what about your child, Lya? What does your child deserve?”

“Brandon,” Ned said. “We have to be calm about this. Shouting about punishment doesn’t help anyone.”

“You’d let him get away with this?” Brandon insisted, rounding on his brother. “Jesus, Ned, do you have any balls at all?”

Ned glared at him without responding, but Catelyn didn’t hesitate. “Don’t you dare speak that way to him, Brandon Stark. You have no right! And you are not helping anyone.” She turned to Lyanna who was actually shaking. “Rhaegar Targaryen fathered your child, Lyanna?” she asked in a rather incredulous tone.

Lyanna nodded mutely.

“Oh, Lyanna,” Catelyn said sadly.

“Please don’t tell Daddy,” Lyanna said then, sounding about six years old. Brandon couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard her call their father ‘Daddy.’ “It’s all my fault. All of it. I’m so sorry. So very, very sorry. And I can’t make anything better. I thought with Robert . . . but I can’t fix it! I can’t fix any of it.”

She looked broken. Not just broken, but shattered, and Brandon couldn’t just stand there and watch her suffer anymore. Not while the man who just repeatedly kept fucking up her life went merrily about his. “Rhaegar Targaryen and I are going to have a talk,” he said grimly.

“No!” Lyanna cried. “He said he’s only here for the day, Brandon. And I don’t even know where he is!”

“Well, I do. I saw a picture of his crackpot father at his hotel. Fifty bucks says they’ve got at least a suite if not a whole floor there.”

“Brandon, you shouldn’t . . .” Ned started.

“Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do, Ned!”

“I won’t let you do this,” Ned said, putting his hand on Brandon’s arm as he started toward the door.

“You can’t stop me, brother.”

“Please stop, both of you!” Lyanna cried.

“I’m doing this for you, Lya,” Brandon told her, jerking his arm free of Ned’s hold and turning again toward the door. This time when Ned grabbed at him, he pushed his brother back. As he stumbled, Ned tripped over one of Catelyn’s shoes and fell to the floor. Catelyn screamed, and both she and Lyanna rushed to Ned.

Brandon took the opportunity to get out of the lounge and head for the parking structure. Rhaegar Targaryen had a hell of a lot to answer for.

As he drove through the crowded D.C. streets, Brandon forced himself to breathe deeply and come up with a plan. He still looked good. As intense as the encounter with his brother and sister had been, he’d done nothing physical except push his brother. His suit wasn’t even wrinkled and not a hair was out of place. That would help get him past the front desk as long as there was a girl working. Rhaegar Targaryen was a rock star. A girl would be likely to go all starry eyes over any story that involved the rocker or his band, too. Brandon just had to hope no one recognized him. He’d been to any number of functions at that hotel. He decided to take his dress shirt and tie off and wear his jacket just over his white t-shirt for a more casual, less corporate look. And he kept his sunglasses on as he strolled through the hotel lobby after giving his car to the valet.

There were three people working the desk, only one of whom was currently helping someone. One of the others was a young woman who didn’t look a day over eighteen although Brandon knew she had to be at least twenty-one to get the desk job there. Perfect.

“Hello, love,” he said, flashing her his best smile. “Any messages for Brandon Wolfe?”

“What room are you in, Mr. Wolfe?” she asked politely.

“Oh, I’m not staying here, Amy,” he said, reading her name badge. “I’m supposed to meet someone here, and I thought there might be a message from him.”

“Oh. If it’s one of our guests, just give me a name or a room number, and I’ll check.”

“Well . . .” He drew the word out. “My friend doesn’t usually take rooms in his own name. He doesn’t like the publicity, you see. But in this case, he’s staying with his father.” He raised up his sunglasses, and gave her a conspiratorial look. He knew women liked his eyes. “But if I give you his name, you have to promise not to breathe a word of it.”

“We aren’t allowed to talk about our guests,” she assured him. “Or their guests.”

“Well, I’ll trust you then, Amy.” He winked at her, and she looked very pleased. “It’s Rhaegar Targaryen.”

“Rhaegar Tar . . . from Dragonspawn? Here?!?” The look on the girl’s face reminded him painfully of the youthful enthusiasm and infatuation he’d seen on his sister’s face when Catelyn had confirmed Dragonspawn was playing the wedding reception, and it took all his willpower to keep from scowling. He really did want to kill this prick.

“That’s the one. No messages from him?”

“Oh, no. I’d remember anything from Rhaegar,” she assured him with feeling.

“Yeah. He gets all the girls,” Brandon laughed. “Makes it hard on the rest of us.”

She looked at him then with a mixture of excitement and puzzlement. “Are you in the band?” she asked, looking at him closely.

If she was as crazy about this band as she acted, chances were good she at least had some idea what the other band members looked like, so Brandon shook his head. “With the band,” he said. “Not in it.” He gave a little self-deprecating laugh. “You don’t want to hear me sing.”

She laughed with him. “So what do you do for the band, Mr. Wolfe?”

“Brandon,” he said with a smile, taking his sunglasses off completely. It was obvious now that this girl had no idea who he was. He pointed at her little name badge which had only her first name. “If I get to call you Amy, then you get to call me Brandon. And I help with the management. I’m not the manager, mind you,” he said quickly, recalling that sometimes even the managers of very popular bands became well known. “I’m sort of his underling. We’ve known each other since we were kids.”

"Oh my god! You grew up with Rhaegar Targaryen just like Jon Connington did?”

Jon. The man who’d taken care of Targaryen after Brandon had almost knocked him out had been named Jon. Must be his manager. And they must be childhood friends. “Yeah. And Rhaegar’s been getting all the pretty girls since we were about ten,” he said with a smile.

“Oh, I imagine you get lots of girls, Mist . . . Brandon.” She smiled, and he knew he had her.

“Look, Amy, I’m not sure how our signals got mixed, but Jon and I are supposed to get Rhaegar out of here within an hour without anybody knowing he was ever in here with his dad. This weekend is kind of big deal for his dad, you see, and Rhaegar doesn’t want hordes of Dragonspawn fans descending on the hotel. He wants to keep it about his dad. You can understand that, right?"

“Of course.”

“So, I don’t know if Jon went up without me or . . .”

“Oh, no. Not in the last two hours since my shift started anyway,” she assured him. “I’d recognize Jon Connington.” She smiled at him again. “Although it’s a shame you aren’t the manager so your picture could be in the magazines. You’re a lot better looking.”

He laughed. “Well, I won’t tell Jon you said that. But trust me, he’s the right man for that job. I may be pretty, but he’s got the brains. Anyway, if Jon hasn’t gotten here, and no one’s heard from Rhaegar . . . Maybe I should just go up to Mr. Targaryen’s room and see what’s up.”

“I’m not supposed to give out that room number . . .” she said hesitantly.

“Oh, I don’t want to get you in any trouble. I can just sit here in the lobby.” He frowned slightly. “Could you call the room at least?” He already knew that Aerys Targaryen was very particular about being disturbed. He was hopeful there was a no call order in place. The expression on Amy’s face after she’d checked the computer confirmed that to be the case.

“I’m sorry, Brandon. I can’t call.”

“It’s all right. I just hate that I let my phone die or I’d text my boy. Oh well. Hopefully, he’ll remember he’s supposed to have left a message for me eventually.” He frowned. “Unless he’s just sending progressively more pissed off texts to my phone.”

“Oh dear!” Amy said. She bit her lip. “I don’t suppose it’ll hurt just to let you see the room number,” she said after a moment. Very quickly, she scribbled some numbers on a piece of paper. Brandon recognized one as a suite number on one of the more exclusive floors and the other was a cell number—Amy’s.

“Why thank you, love. Thank you very much,” he smiled.

Getting up onto the floor had required further subterfuge as there was security, but he was fairly well known to security personnel in most of the high end hotel—a product of many business meetings and a not insignificant numbers of more personal rendezvous. He was able to get a quick peek at the names on the room list at the security check in for the floor and grinned wickedly as he told the security guard he was surprising one of the female names. He was on the floor and knocking at Aerys Targaryen’s suite within minutes, ignoring the Do Not Disturb sign.

The suite was in a secluded hall for which Brandon was glad. No one was around. His knocking got progressively louder and more insistent until a thickly accented male voice called out, “Go away! Can’t you read? I am not to be disturbed!”

“I need to see Rhaegar Targaryen!” Brandon called back.

“You cannot see my son! Go away!”

“I have to see him.” Brandon had no wish to keep arguing with the old man. “Rhaegar!” he shouted more loudly. “Rhaegar Targaryen! This is Lyanna Stark’s brother! Come out and talk to me!”

“Go away! My son does not need to talk to you!”

That infuriated Brandon. “Rhaegar, you asshole! Come out here and talk to me! Do you want the world to know what a fucking piece of shit you are? What you did to my sister? You come out and talk to me now or I swear to God I will find you! And you will be sorry when I do!”

“My son is not here! I am calling security! I will have you locked up!”

“Oh no you won’t, old man!” Brandon yelled, angry beyond the point of reason. The old man had just said Rhaegar didn’t want to talk to him. Now he said he wasn’t there. “I know he’s in there, old man! I know you’re in there, Rhaegar! I’m not going anywhere! Get your ass out here and face me like a man or I will beat you like the dog you are!”

“Mr. Stark!”

Brandon turned to see several members of hotel security approaching. A couple of them, he knew fairly well. They all looked apprehensive. “This is a private matter,” he said. “There’s no problem here.”

“We have to ask you to leave, Mr. Stark,” the man in charge said. “If you don’t come with us, we’ll have to detain you and press charges.”

“I want to press charges! He threatened my son! He should go to prison!” The old man’s voice was just on the other side of the door now.

Brandon snapped. “Your son should go to prison, old man! No! Prison isn’t good enough for him! I am going to ruin him! You hear that, Rhaegar! I will ruin you!”

At that moment, one of the security guards reached out to take hold of Brandon’s arm. It was a reflex, just as it had been with Ned, but he pushed the man away as hard as he could, and the next thing he knew, he was being tackled to the ground. He knew he shouldn’t fight. He knew it. But it took several moments for the rational part of his mind to communicate that to his body, and several punches were thrown by him and at him before he lay still, face down on the ground with his hands cuffed behind him.

“It’s all right, Mr. Targaryen. We’ve got him.”

“I want him in prison!” the old man shouted. Brandon craned his neck around to see that the door to the suite was now open. The old man whose picture he’d seen in the paper stood there in a red and black bathrobe with his white hair unkempt. “He should be locked up.”

“Well, you can press charges, sir, but he didn’t actually hurt anyone and the most . . .”

“He threatened my son! How dare you threaten my son?”

“Can I get up?” Brandon asked one of the men who held him. “I’m not going to hit anyone. Keep me cuffed. Keep hold of me if you like. But please, can I get up?”

Two men held onto his arms and helped him rise. He realized his lip was bleeding. When he was standing up, he looked at the old man in the doorway who glared him with eyes that looked almost purple.

“Is Rhaegar here?” he asked him quietly.

“Mr. Stark, I don’t think . . .” one of the security guards started to say.

“Do you hear that? He still threatens my son? He is a menace! He must be stopped.”

“The son isn’t here, Mr. Stark,” one of the security guards who Brandon knew leaned in to whisper. “He was here early this morning, but he left.”

He’s not even here, Brandon thought wearily. Jesus, what the fuck have I done?

“Let’s get him out of here boys,” said another one of the guards.

Brandon barely heard Aerys Targaryen continuing to rant from the doorway as the security guards turned him to face in the other direction. His blinding rage had been replaced by a sense of deep regret and fear. This couldn’t be hushed up. That crazy old man wouldn’t allow it. Lyanna would be horrified. Dad would be ashamed. And Ned . . . Ned would try to fix it. He’d be livid. And disappointed in him. But he’d try to fix it, and Brandon just didn’t see how he could do it. And Rhaegar Targaryen wasn’t even there. He would find that asshole. Whatever happened to him now, he’d make sure that Rhaegar Targaryen didn’t escape unscathed.

“Brandon!”

He looked up at the sound of his name and saw his brother running toward him. How did Ned get here? he wondered. As two security guards stepped in front of him and the two who had him by the arms in order to halt Ned, he heard a loud popping sound. And then another. People were shouting and moving very quickly. His back hurt. Why did his back hurt?

“Brandon! Brandon!” That was Ned again, shouting his name. He sounded half crazed. Other people were shouting, too. That old man had finally stopped shouting.

“Somebody call 911!”

“Give us room! Give us some room here!”

Brandon couldn’t really see what was going on. He realized with a shock that he couldn’t really see well at all. It occurred to him that he was lying on the floor. Why was he lying on the floor again? He hadn’t fought the security guards anymore.

“For the love of God, get those things off him!”

Ned. “Ned.” Did he say that out loud? He had tried to.

“I’m here, Brandon. I’m here. Hold on.” Ned was talking faster than usual and his voice sounded odd and breathy.

“What? How did you . . .why are you here, Ned?” he asked. His brain didn’t seem to work just right.

“Be still, Brandon. Be quiet. Help is on the way.”

Help is on the way? Then it hit him. “That old fucker shot me, didn’t he, Ned?” He forced his eyes to focus on his brother and saw that the front of Ned’s shirt was covered in blood. He nodded toward it because he couldn’t figure out how to lift his hand to point. He wasn’t sure he could feel his hand at all. “Is that mine?” he croaked.

Ned nodded. “Good,” Brandon said. “You’re okay then.”

“You’re going to be okay, too. You’re going to be . . .”

Whatever else Ned was going to say was cut off by the arrival of the paramedics. Brandon had no clear thoughts or sensations for an indeterminate period of time, although he became more aware of hurting a lot. People would talk, but they mostly said things he couldn’t understand. Finally, he realized he was outside. He was outside on a stretcher. And it was cold.

“Ned!” He thought he shouted, but he couldn’t be certain.

“Be still, Mr. Stark. We’re taking you to the hospital.” The man looking down at him was dressed in some sort of medical garb. A paramedic, he supposed.

“I was shot.”

“Yes, and you need to go to the hospital.”

“No. Where’s my brother?”

“You’ll see him at the hospital.”

Suddenly, Brandon felt panicked. “No,” he said. “No, I won’t. Not if I die.”

“We’re doing our best not to let that happen.” Brandon realized there were tubes in both of his arms with fluid and blood being pumped into him.

“I’m hurt bad.”

“Yes, that’s why we need to get you to the hospital.”

“No. You can’t take me without my permission. As long as I’m coherent. And I’m not giving it. You can’t take me.”

“Mr. Stark!”

“Get me my brother! You want me to go to the hospital, you get me Ned.”

The next person he saw was Ned, leaning over him and looking equal parts terrified and furious.

“Get in the fucking ambulance, Brandon.”

“No. No, listen to me, Ned.”

“Brandon . . .”

"Please, Ned. Just listen. Listen, and then I’ll go. But I’m going to die.”

“You’re not going to . . .”

“I feel like death already, Ned. I can’t feel anything at all, and I see all the shit they’re pumping into me. Don’t lie to me, Ned. It’s bad, isn’t it? They told you I probably won’t make it.”

Ned sighed. “They don’t know how you’re even conscious,” he admitted. “Brandon, why? Why the hell did you . . .”

Brandon actually laughed, but it turned into a cough, and he tasted blood. “Wild wolf’s blood.” Ned looked puzzled. “Ask Dad,” Brandon said. “Listen, Ned. Take care of Lyanna. She’s wild, too. But she’s better than me. Better. You take care of her. And her baby.”

“I will, Brandon. You know I will.”

Brandon tried to smile. “Yeah, I know. Dad’s gonna be a mess, Ned. Tell him I’m sorry. Please tell him that. I know it doesn’t fix shit. But I am sorry.” You always are, Brandon, he heard Red’s voice say sadly.

“I’ll take care of all of them, Brandon. Dad, Lya, Ben. I’ll take care of everything until you’re well.”

Brandon rolled his eyes. “I’m not getting well, Ned, and we both know it.”

“Get in the ambulance, Brandon.”

Brandon felt more tired than he’d ever felt in his life. He wanted to close his eyes. He wanted to let it all go. But there was more he needed. More. He fought against the exhaustion. He fought as hard as he could against the blackness. He fought to stay with his brother.

“Take my hand, Ned. I can’t feel it. Are you holding it?”

“Yes, Brandon, I’ve got it. I’ve got you.”

“Red,” he croaked. “Tell her I never loved her as well as you do, but I loved her as well as I could. Tell her everything bad was my fault and never hers. And I’m sorry.”

Ned was silent, but Brandon thought he nodded. It was getting harder to see clearly. “Have a great life, Ned. You and her. And the baby. And all your other babies. I love you, brother, but I hope they all look like her.”

“So do I,” Ned said with a choked kind of laugh. Brandon couldn’t really see him anymore, but he could hear him.

“Ned,” he said. “Ned, I’m glad you’re my brother. I’m sorry for every shitty thing I ever did to you.” The words were very hard to get out now, and it seemed to take forever to say what he had to say. “I never said thank you for so many things. I just . . . I just . . . I’m . . . I don’t deserve it, Ned. But I hope someday you forgive me.”

“I forgive you, Brandon,” he heard his brother say. “You’re my brother. My big brother. I’ll always forgive you."

Brandon felt a certain heaviness lift from him a those words. He could almost hear Ned shouting for someone to get him into the ambulance. He almost heard the sirens. But the only thing he was certain of was that he was forgiven. Ned still called him brother. That had been the last thing. The important thing. He was finished now, and he didn’t have to fight any more. So Brandon Stark let go.