Catelyn Stark died at the Twins with a Frey cutting open her throat, and she woke up in Winterfell, beneath the branches of the weirwood tree, red leaves drifting down over her body. 

Staring wildly up into the white branches, she felt frantically for her throat, expecting a gaping wound, the slickness of her lifeblood spilling free---but there was nothing but smooth, unbroken skin. 

"What," she began to say aloud, but there was no answer. 

Hardly daring to breathe, Catelyn lifted her head, and gasped with shock. 

She was half-buried in red weirwood leaves, and beyond that was a hot spring of water—a familiar spring, just like the one in the godswood in Winterfell—because this was the godswood in Winterfell. 

This was not possible. This could not be possible. She was miles and miles away from Winterfell, trapped at the Twins, watching Robb die...

Stifling a sob, Catelyn struggled to sit up, and then in the distance she heard someone calling her name. 

No. It was Ned calling her name, panicked. 

Oh, gods be praised. Wherever she was, if this was one of the heavens or some other unearthly realm disguised as her home, it couldn’t be that awful if Ned was here. "Ned? Ned!"

"Catelyn!" She heard footsteps approaching, and as Catelyn finally struggled to her feet, bracing herself with a hand on the tree trunk for balance, Ned burst into view, looking panicked—but more than that, alive. Alive and young—there was no gray in his beard, no lines carved into his forehead. 

He stopped in his tracks, gawking at her. "My...my lady?"

An awful sob ripped free from her throat. "Ned," she quavered, and stumbled into her husband's arms, weeping.

For a moment there was nothing in the world but the familiar strength of her husband’s body, the smell of soap and leather she always associated with him. Catelyn didn’t realize, not at first, that his arms were looser around her than they should be, that his touch was tentative as he patted her back in a gesture of comfort. 

“My lady, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Blinking away tears, Catelyn finally pulled away from Ned’s chest to look at him. “Ned, why are you so…” She trailed off, studying his face. It wasn’t just the lack of lines on his face, the lack of gray in his beard. He was looking at her warily, eyes shadowed, and he held her too loosely, his body stiff with discomfort. 

In all their years of marriage, Ned had never been this uncomfortable with her. Not since the early days of…

Oh. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. 

“Ned,” Catelyn said very slowly, “Ned, what year is it?”

Ned’s forehead creased with confusion and alarm. “My lady, the year is 282AC.”

Catelyn’s knees collapsed beneath her, and it was only Ned’s quick grasp that kept her upright. 

*

“What’s wrong with her?” Catelyn heard Benjen ask with worry, over the sound of her own quiet sobs.

She held Robb close in her arms. He fussed at first when he was brought to her, unhappy from how tightly she was clutching at him, but she couldn’t let her babe go, she just couldn’t. So she made herself loosen her too-tight grip, but continued to rock her son in her arms and weep, all while her not-dead lord husband and goodbrother watched her in alarm and confusion. 

“—in the godswood—”

“—was anyone else—”

Robb was swaddled in the blanket she’d made for him during her pregnancy, soft gray wool and tiny black wolves embroidered all about the hem. He was so small now, so perfect, it seemed impossible that such a tiny being would grow into the young man who would fight in a war, would be crowned King in the North, would—

Would be murdered at a wedding.

Catelyn’s breaths, already unsteady, cracked entirely as she let out a moan of despair from deep within her soul. 

They killed her last son. First Bran and Rickon, then Robb, with Arya lost and Sansa trapped among their enemies…

“Catelyn,” Ned said, quickly coming to her side and going down on one knee before her, his face full of worry. “My lady, please, tell me what’s wrong.”

She could feel the tears dripping down her chin—gods, she must look a fright. Catelyn’s mind raced as she tried to gain control over herself, smothering her sobs as best she could. 

How to explain this? How could she even begin to explain? Especially to this Ned, who looked at her with worry and compassion, but not with love in his eyes, not yet. 

This was not her Ned. This was the Ned Stark who has just come back from a war, who brought his bastard child to live with them, who still saw her as a stranger he had to marry for her father’s armies. 

She couldn’t tell him the truth. Not yet. 

Taking a deep breath, ignoring how it pained her, Catelyn held Robb out for Ned to carry. He took their son quickly, obviously relieved, but still waiting for her to speak. 

“I…I went to the godswood to think,” she began, wiping at her face with her sleeve. “I think…I must have fainted. And I had such dreams…they frightened me. I apologize, my lord.”

Ned awkwardly shifted Robb into the crook of his elbow, freeing his hand to carefully pat her arm. “You need not apologize, my lady. I am just grateful you didn’t suffer anything worse.”

Worse, he said. Catelyn didn’t let her expression slip at hearing this.

“A dream before the heart tree…what did you see?” Benjen asked, eagerly. “Perhaps it wasn’t just a dream, but a vision from the gods—”

“Ben, that’s enough,” Ned snapped back over his shoulder, rebuking his younger brother. Benjen looked abashed, and desisted.

“It was horrible, I can’t speak of it,” Catelyn said quickly. The idea of passing off her future knowledge as a vision of the gods had merit, but she could hardly start blurting everything out now—she would sound hysterical at best, delusional at worst. 

“You don’t have to,” Ned reassured her. “It was just a dream, my lady. You are safe. We’re all safe here.”

But we won’t be safe forever, Catelyn thought sadly, looking at her husband and son. Disaster was looming, and it could come for them all again if she wasn’t careful…

Catelyn looked up and caught Benjen’s eye—and the Father give her strength, if Ned looked young, Benjen was young, he was only fourteen when Catelyn and Robb arrived at Winterfell for the first time. There was a scattering of pimples across his cheeks, and his voice had just settled, Catelyn remembered now. 

He watched her with a furrowed brow, and if Ned was willing to dismiss Catelyn’s dream at the weirwood tree, Benjen didn’t seem so ready to brush it off. 

She would have to do something about Benjen, Catelyn realized. Benjen, and Moat Cailin, the Boltons and the Freys, gods be good, the Greyjoys too, never mind the damned Lannisters…

Her breathing started to quicken again, and Catelyn forced herself to take a deep breath, and then another. All of that would come with time. She had been given a second chance, it wouldn’t do to rush in without thinking and squander this miracle. 

*

Ned had urged her to rest for the rest of the afternoon, and Catelyn was too dazed still to argue. 

Her quarters were both familiar and foreign—she knew the room, of course, but after Sansa was born she’d used this room as a sort of solar, sleeping in what had been Ned’s quarters every night, until it became their quarters. But here were the tapestry she’d brought with her from Riverrun, along with the small shrine to the Seven that her father had commissioned for her, so she could worship as she pleased, even though the closest sept in the North (the only sept in the North currently) was in White Harbor. There were none of the trinkets she’d accumulated through a lifetime of nameday gifts from her children, and the silver and amber jewelry box Ned had given her upon Bran’s birth wasn’t there either…

Ned watched as she turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. “Do you wish for someone to keep you company?”

“No, thank you,” Catelyn said, trying for a smile. “I think I shall just rest.”

Ned gave a little nod, saying, “I’ll leave you to your rest, then.” He lingered for a moment longer, as if he wished to say more—but then left silently. Catelyn’s eyes started to sting as she watched him go. 

Now that she was alone, the full weight of her situation crashed down upon her. The gods had given her a second chance, true, but she was still alone and a woman, no soldiers or armies she could call upon. As much as the thought of sailing down to King’s Landing so she can drive a dagger right through Jaime Lannister’s black heart appealed—the odds of actually accomplishing it were quite small, and the odds of her surviving for long were smaller still. 

Catelyn pressed a hand against her stomach. The disaster in King’s Landing was already beginning, thanks to the hellspawn of Tywin Lannister, and Catelyn couldn’t see any way to prevent it. 

She would have to limit her efforts to saving her family. To keeping House Stark strong and safe from anyone who would do them all harm. 

After feverishly trying to think through all that went wrong (and knowing she couldn’t simply sum it up as everything) Catelyn sat down at her desk and took out a long scroll of parchment, dipped her quill in ink and started to write. 

House Bolton.

House Frey. 

House Greyjoy. 

House Lannister. 

Four. Four houses she would need to protect her family, the North, and the Riverlands from. 

Four houses she meant to see destroyed. 

The hot, driving need for vengeance flared up, but is followed quickly by bewilderment verging on despair. Gods be good, how was it to be done? Where would she even begin?

It didn’t matter. She couldn’t let herself fall into despair and paralysis, not now, not ever. The gods had given her a miracle, she wouldn’t show her ingratitude at the first challenge. So Catelyn thought, and she wrote on, until the beginnings of a plan started to form. 

*

The hour was late by the time Catelyn made her way to the nursery. 

The wet nurse had just finished nursing Robb, her laces still loose as she gently patted his back until he gave a hearty belch, almost too loud for his tiny frame. 

The nurse, Elsa, turned and saw Catelyn. “Oh! Milady, I didn’t see you there, forgive me.”

Catelyn waved this off. “How is he?”

“Just about ready for sleep, the lamb,” Elsa said warmly. “Would you like to hold him a while?”

Yes. She wanted to hold her child and never let him go. She wanted all her children, the ones that she lost and might have again, if the gods continued to be kind…and if she did what needed to be done.

Catelyn made herself smile. “No, I should let him rest.” As Elsa carefully placed a drowsy, milk-drunk Robb in his cradle, Catelyn looked to the other cradle in the nursery. 

“And the other babe—Snow. Has he been fed?”

Elsa’s expression grew warier. “Aye, milady,” she said after a moment. “He’s been fed.”

She could hear the softest of noises coming from the cradle—he hadn’t fallen asleep then, not yet. 

Catelyn dismissed Elsa for the night, and once the door closed behind her, Catelyn went to her son’s cradle first. Her heart ached as she looked down at his sweet face, eyes tightly shut in slumber and his pink mouth half-open. 

She took a breath to steady herself, and then went to Jon Snow’s cradle. 

She was right; he hadn’t gone to sleep yet. His little legs kicked under the blanket, and his dark eyes caught on her face, watching the lock of hair that had escaped her braid. 

Catelyn looked into the child’s face, and she made herself face the truth. 

It was not Jon Snow that murdered her babies. Jon Snow had gone to the Watch and made his vows, he had not been the one to invade Winterfell, he’d never slaughtered the household or thrown her septon down a well, he’d never burned her children and hung their poor little bodies up for the world to see. That had been Theon Greyjoy, and oh, while Catelyn burned at the thought of Greyjoy’s treachery, when she looked now at the solemn babe before her…

(when she rememberd the solemn boy who rode away from Winterfell and never returned)

…the hot, shamed fury that used to boil up within her now cooled to grey ash. 

Catelyn breathed out. She’d hated Jon Snow. She could admit that now. Hated him for reasons that had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with his father, his nameless, faceless mother, with herself and the vows she’d made and then broken. But if this was all real and true, if the gods, old or new, had given Catelyn a chance to begin again, to save her family, to fix all of her mistakes…then perhaps this was where she truly needed to begin. 

Carefully, so carefully, Catelyn reached out and picked the boy up in her arms. He was a light weight in the crook of her elbow, and didn’t fuss, just blinked up at her curiously. 

He looked just like Ned. 

She would have to learn not to hate him for it. 

“You and I,” Catelyn said very softly, “we will need to have a new beginning.”

Jon cooed softly, as if he understood her.