Chapter Text
[1]
He was three when his mother first brought someone home to meet him.
"Jon, sweetie," Lyanna said, smiling that bright, happy smile she always gave him, as she sat on the floor next to him, brushing her hand through his curls. "This is Robert. He's..." She paused momentarily. "He's a friend."
Jon blinked up at the large man.
He'd seen him before. At Uncle Ned's house.
"Hello," he said softly, smiling because mother always said it was nice to smile when you met someone for the first time.
"Hello, Jon," Robert replied, kneeling down, smiling behind his thick black beard. "It's nice to finally meet you."
Robert stayed for a while, playing with him, helping him to build a tower with the wooden blocks Uncle Benjen had given him for his birthday, and after he left Lyanna asked him if he liked Robert. He said yes. And it was true. He had liked Robert. But a few days later he overheard his mother crying in her room, heard Aunt Catelyn talking, and heard his mother saying something about Robert and a woman.
He didn't understand and, when he found Uncle Brandon in the kitchen, standing by the sink, he did the only thing he could and asked why his mother was upset with Robert.
Uncle Brandon, frowned, but scooped him up.
"Because Robert was bad, little pup," Uncle Brandon said, carrying him to the living room. "He broke your mama's trust and her heart."
Jon hadn't understood then what that meant, wouldn't understand until he was much older, but he knew he didn't want his mother upset. He didn't want her heart to be broken.
The next time he saw Robert was at his cousin Robb's birthday party.
He saw the man try to talk to his mother but she turned and ran away from him. He saw the tears on her cheeks and got angry. When Robert spotted him the man tried to speak to him and, before he, or anyone, knew what was happening, he threw his juice in Robert's face.
"I hate you," he spat, ignoring the sharp way Uncle Ned said his name. He was in trouble, he knew it, but he didn't care. "You hurt mama. I hate you!"
Robert stared at him, shocked, juice still running down his face and Jon, very aware of Uncle Ned starting towards him, turned and ran.
[2]
It was two years before Lyanna brought another man home to meet Jon.
Howland.
His daughter, Meera, went to the same kindergarten as Jon.
Jon liked Howland, he supposed, he was nice and he told good stories and, after a while, when Howland came to visit he brought Meera with him. But Howland called him son, like he thought he was his father, like he had the right to do that and he didn't. Jon didn't know his father but he knew it wasn't Howland. He thought maybe Howland would realize he didn't like being called son and would stop. But he didn't.
He just kept doing it.
All the time.
No matter where they were.
And people were starting to say stuff. Aunt Catelyn most of all.
Saying how it was about time his mother finally settled down and had a good man to be a father to him.
Like there was something bad about him not having a father.
Like there was something bad about his real father.
He started getting angrier and angrier about it.
And then, one day, at the park he fell from the jungle gym and his mother ran to check on him, Howland right there too. Howland quickly checked his knee, scrapped in his fall, and smiled, ruffling his hair affectionately.
"Just a scrape," Howland said, gentle and kind, adding fuel to the fire that was Jon's anger. "You'll be okay, son."
And Jon, unable to stop, snapped at the man.
"Stop calling me that!" His voice was high and loud and he didn't notice the people staring, shocked at his outburst. "I'm not your son! I'm not! And you're not my father! Stop calling me that!"
He ran away then, hiding behind a large oak tree, until his mother found him.
He felt tears run down his face as she sat next to him and he buried his face in his arms, wrapped around his knees which were drawn up to his chest, and murmured softly. "I'm sorry."
Lyanna pulled him into her arms, hugging him tightly, kissing his hair. "It's okay, pup," she whispered into his curls. "It's okay."
Howland didn't come around much after that and, then, he stopped coming around at all.
[3]
By the age of eight Jon understood that the men his mother went out with were dates. He also understood that, if she brought them home, it was a serious relationship. Serious enough that she wanted him to meet them.
So the afternoon she introduced him to Domeric he understood the man was her boyfriend.
Domeric, Jon found, looked a lot like Uncle Brandon. Same dark hair and grey eyes. It was strange, in a way, that his mother was dating someone who looked like he could have been her brother but Domeric made her smile and laugh and, he supposed, that was good enough for him.
And as he got to know Domeric he found he did like the man.
Domeric was a good man.
He treated Lyanna like a queen, something Jon immediately liked, and he didn't act like he was Jon's father. He didn't seem to feel that, just because he and Lyanna were dating, he was entitled to that role in Jon's life.
And then things changed.
Lyanna and Domeric started arguing, a lot, and over time it seemed that was all they did.
Though they never fought in front of him Jon heard them sometimes at night while he lay awake in his room.
But that too quickly changed.
One afternoon Jon walked into the kitchen in the middle of yelling match between his mother and Domeric just in time to hear Domeric shout something he didn't understood.
"I may be a fool, Lya, but at least I'm not the whore who spread her legs to a married fucking man!"
Lyanna, spotting Jon, who stood in the doorway, went pale and Domeric, back to him, whirled around, eyes wide as he took in the sight of the eight-year-old and, confused, Jon looked up at the man.
"What's a whore?"
Things after that were rushed and a blur for Jon. All he knew was that his mother all but shoved Domeric out of the kitchen and it was the last time he saw the man. He never got an answer to his question about what a whore was until, a few days later, when he asked Uncle Ned, who quietly asked him where he'd heard the word, a word that was bad and not meant for children to say, and Jon told him about the fight, about what Domeric had called his mother.
That evening he overheard his mother and Uncle Ned talking about it and learned just what a whore was.
Any affection he had still felt for Domeric died.
[4]
About six months after his mother had broken up with Domeric she brought someone new home.
Jon had been wary, still hurt and angry over how things had gone with Domeric, was not eager, nor happy, to meet Oberyn.
Oberyn had four daughters, all older than Jon, and they seemed to share Jon's opinion of their parents' relationship.
They didn't like it.
Oberyn's oldest, Obara, told Jon that it wouldn't last. That her father's relationships never lasted.
He asked her why and she'd shrugged.
"It's just the way he is," she said. "He likes women, probably likes your mother a lot, considering he introduced her to us, but he always gets bored and goes back to Ellaria in the end."
Jon had asked about Ellaria but hadn't gotten a straight answer from Obara or any of her sisters so, in the end, during dinner one evening, he looked across the table at Oberyn, who had been saying something charming to Lyanna, and, without really thinking about it, asked.
"Who's Ellaria?"
Oberyn went still and quiet so quickly that it was like he had turned to stone. He shot Obara a sharp look, a look which had her shrinking down in her chair, before he slowly looked at Jon.
"She's my friend," the man said and Jon's gaze narrowed even as Lyanna looked at Oberyn funnily.
"What kind of friend?"
"Jon," Lyanna's tone said she wasn't happy but Jon held his ground, so to speak, and continued to glare across the table at Oberyn.
When the man didn't answer he huffed and shook his head, throwing his fork down on the table, shoving his chair back and standing.
"You're just like Robert," he sneered the name of the man he remembered hurting his mother years earlier. "And I hate Robert."
He turned and stomped out of the dining room, ignoring his mother's shout of his name.
He ended up grounded for a week for his behaviour.
But within that week Lyanna and Oberyn broke up.
Turned out he'd been right. Oberyn wasn't different from Robert after all.
[5]
By the time he was twelve Jon had seen a few more men come and go from his mother's life. None of them worth remembering, not really, and then, one evening, she came home with one who was. If only because of how spectacularly Jon disliked him.
Jaime.
He was the brother of the woman who had married Robert not long after Lyanna had broken up with the man.
That, in Jon's book, was an immediate mark against the man.
Couple in the fact that Jaime was constantly at his sister's beck and call, and that he was an arrogant prat, didn't exactly help win Jon over.
Despite thinking his mother and Jaime weren't suited, that it wouldn't last long, the relationship went on for months. It was nearly Christmas and Lyanna and Jaime showed no obvious signs of having problems or breaking up and Jon didn't know what to think. He didn't like Jaime, made it more than clear, to his mother, to Jaime, and to his Uncle Ned the night of the Christmas party.
Ned shook his head. "It's Christmas, Jon," he said as he lightly gripped Jon's shoulder. "Your mother deserves to be happy at Christmas. Maybe you could try to like Jaime. For her sake?"
Jon didn't like the advice.
Why would Uncle Ned say that? Didn't he see how wrong they were for each other?
But he nodded and shuffled off to find Jaime, to, as Uncle Ned had said, get along with the man. He supposed Jaime did make his mother happy. She smiled and laughed more than she had in a while. And, even if Jon didn't like the man, Lyanna seemed to and Uncle Ned was right, his mother deserved to be happy. She deserved all the happiness and love in the world and if she'd found that in Jaime he would be nicer to the man. For her.
He rounded a corner, hearing Jaime's voice, and opened his mouth to say something, he didn't know what, the words left his mind at the sight that greeted him but he must have made some sort of sound because two golden heads immediately snapped around and both people looked absolutely shocked, terrified, to see him standing there.
"Jon," Jaime spoke quickly but Jon turned and bolted, hearing the man call after him and, he almost made it back to his Uncle Ned when a hand caught the back of his shirt, hauling him to a stop.
"Jon." Jaime crouched down, those bright green eyes full of worry. "Jon, wait, what you saw...it's not what you might think."
Jon's gaze narrowed. "I know what I saw." He didn't shout but his voice was flat and cold. Like Uncle Brandon's when the man got mad. "I'm telling."
"Who's going to believe a child, Jon? Especially when you've made it oh so clear that you don't like me being with your mother, hmm?" Jaime smiled almost cruelly. "No one will believe you and you'll be labelled a liar. How much will that hurt your mother, Jon?"
Jon glared harder and jerked against Jaime's hold. "Let go." When the man didn't immediately release him Jon started to draw a deep breath, as though to scream, and the hand holding him let go without hesitation. He stepped away from Jaime and glanced around, seeing his mother standing with Aunt Catelyn, smiling and laughing, and he part of him knew Jaime was right. His mother might not believe him. Might think he was just acting out. He heard the man chuckle and shot him a nasty look before he spotted someone who would believe. Someone who always believed him.
Without a word he turned and hurried across the room.
"Uncle Benjen," he said, tugging at the man's arm to better get his attention. "I need to tell you something. And...And you might not believe me but I swear it's true. I swear on mother it's true."
He glanced back at Jaime and watched the man go pale as Uncle Benjen asked him what was wrong.
Not long after he told Uncle Benjen what he'd seen all the children were hurried out of the room when Lyanna all but flew into Jaime, and his sister, who was at the party with Robert, who was only invited because he was Uncle Ned's best friend. Jon glanced back as Aunt Catelyn gently pushed him towards the hallway and he saw his mother punch Jaime in the jaw.
Looked like the relationship was over.