FIC: The Unrising Sun in the North, for sancta_terra

[soiafxchangemod]

Recipient: sancta_terra
Title: The Unrising Sun in the North
Artist: astoria_potter
Rating: PG-13
Paring: Robb/Jeyne
Word Count: 3,756
Summary: Jeyne watches, waits, and cares for Robb after his first execution.
Warning: Nudity, but nothing graphic. Mentions of sex, but also nothing graphic.
Author's Note: Set during aSoS, following Catelyn's conversation with Jeyne regarding Robb and his execution of Lord Karstark.

---

Lady Catelyn had told her to wait; to be patient and understanding. So that was what Jeyne did. She was, after all, a good and proper lady. No, not a lady. She was a queen now, she told herself. Jeyne Stark, not Jeyne Westerling. Queen of the North. Robb's wife, not some shy maiden who worked at her needles all day. Still, she didn't feel all that much like a queen. A proper queen would know what to say to Robb, and a proper queen most certainly would not be frightened by his direwolf.

But above all, a real queen would not have been the cause of Robb losing the majority of his forces. He never spoke of that with her, had not once blamed her aloud, but she could see the grimness in his eyes, and all she could think was, This is my fault. Then again, she wouldn't be-

There was a gentle tap on her shoulder. "Sister. Sister?"

"Rollam," she smiled at him as she rose.

He held a plate laden with food out to her. "I've brought another one from the kitchens, just like you asked."

"Thank you."

"Has he eaten yet?"

Jeyne shook her head.

"Is it because he had to kill Lord Karstark?" Rollam frowned. "Is that why he's upset?"

"Yes," she replied, not sure of what else she could say. He was only nine, and she saw no reason to burden him with Robb's troubles or her own.

Rollam's face screwed up in concentration for a moment before it lit up. "I could go riding with him! He always likes that, doesn't he?"

"Robb is busy." Jeyne gave him a sad smile and patted his head. "Tomorrow, perhaps."

He tried to hide the disappointment on his face. "Oh."

"A king must plan his battles and study his maps if he is to win a war," Jeyne explained.

Rollam nodded, his head bobbing enthusiastically. "I think I understand."

Jeyne touched his shoulder and gave him another smile. "Go get some sleep."

She could hear his footsteps padding loudly down the hall, and almost swore that she heard him whistling a tune. Sometimes Jeyne wished that she could be as young and so easily placated as her brother, but to be like that at her age would be most unwise. Enough, she told herself. See to Robb.

When she entered the room, her husband was still looking at his maps, gloved fingers thumping slowly on the parchment. The other plates sat nearby on the table, untouched. She'd hoped that leaving them there might make him take notice or at least eat a morsel or two, but she saw that it was not so.

He was silent, his eyes gazing forward, as though the etched mountains and rivers and castles could give him some sort of answer.

Jeyne bit her lip. "Will you not eat, my lord?"

She should not have been surprised that he did not respond. He had been like this all day, she reminded herself. She stood there for a while longer, and then placed the plate next to him, but he did not seem to notice her. This close, she could smell him; the stench of leather and wet rain and blood invaded her nostrils. He needs to change out of his clothes, she thought for the tenth time that day. But she knew that he would not do it. He was too absorbed in what he was doing (or not doing), and did not even take notice when she slipped out of the room and went to bed.

When she woke up, she could not say what time it was, only that it was late in the night and that the rest of the castle must have been asleep. But Robb was here.

He was standing by the window, the moonlight illuminating his face as he looked out, his eyes seeing but not seeing anything at all. He did not turn to her or make any inclination that he'd noticed her, but his voice was gentle. "Go back to sleep, Jeyne."

She sat up and threw the sheets aside. "You have not yet changed out of your clothes."

"Sleep," he murmured.

The floor was cold, but Jeyne did not mind. She was beginning to get used to the chill of the north, and anyhow, she was more concerned about her husband than her feet. "How were the maps?"

He frowned as he turned to her. "Maps?"

"Your maps," she repeated. "The ones that you were looking over earlier?"

"Oh." He seemed surprised. "Yes. Yes, they were fine."

She suspected not, but decided that she would not pursue that topic now. "Did you eat anything?" she asked.

"I'm not hungry." He shook his head. "Go back to bed, Jeyne. You must be tired."

She ignored him. "Your clothes."

"My clothes?" he blinked.

"When was the last time you changed?" she asked, although she already knew the answer.

"I'm fine," he said calmly, but she could see that he was not. His face was cold, hard, and unflinching - an unyielding mask. That was the North, Jeyne told herself, and Robb was the embodiment of it now.

She stepped forward and placed her hands over his. "Come, my lord."

"Where?"

She said nothing, simply slipped her fingers through his gloved ones and ran her hand down his arm. So cold, she thought. He had always been warm. Even after she had nursed him back to health and his fever had passed, his skin always seemed to radiate heat and comfort. "You're freezing," she murmured as they made their way silently down a flight of stairs.

"Jeyne," he said, his gloved fingers squeezing hers, as though for reassurance.

"Yes?"

He gave her a slight frown. "Your feet."

She looked down as they continued to their destination. Oh. Now that he'd pointed it out, she remembered that her feet were bare and cold (not as chilly as Robb's skin, though). "They're fine."

His gloved thumb was making little circles on the back of her hand. "You're sure?"

"You are colder than I am," she replied. In more ways than one.

"Jeyne, I don't-"

"Here we are," she said as they entered the bathhouse. There were a few servants who still drew themselves up upon noticing who had entered. "Leave us," Jeyne instructed them. "I will tend to him."

"Yes, Your Grace," they bowed, the doors shutting with a quiet clang as they exited.

"You brought me here?” Robb frowned, but his tone was not one of disapproval - he looked like Raynald when he was puzzling over something that he could not decipher - it was more like bewilderment. He is still lost, she told herself. "We could have gone to-"

"We're here already, aren't we?" she gave him a reassuring smile.

"Yes," he said slowly. "I suppose we are."

Jeyne gently disentangled her hand from his and removed his gloves. His fingers were caked dry with blood, and he clenched his hands almost immediately after they met the bathhouse air. Once, that sight might have made her turn away, but she was no longer a frightened girl. War did that to you, she supposed. But she needed to be strong for Robb, for both of them. How could she do that if she flinched or fainted at the sight of blood? She was a queen now, she reminded herself, and queens did not allow themselves to be afraid.

Her hands moved to unclasp his cloak, and it fell into a puddle at his feet. She peeled off his damp tunic, his doublet, the leather jerkin, then his shirt, and let her fingers rest briefly on his chest. Too warm. His clothes are moist from the rain and soaked from the blood, she thought. He has not changed since the execution. Her fingers moved to unlace his breeches, and she blushed as she undid them. She might not be a maiden any longer, but she was not so experienced or wanton as to be unabashed while she was undressing her husband.

It's the lighting, she told herself. The candles are too bright in here. She had seen him undressed before - at the Crag, in their bed - but it was different. She had been too busy tending to his fever to care about his nudity, and even then, the candles had been rather dim. She recalled the first time, when he had taken her maidenhood - anguished, needy, sweet, warm - and all in the dark. Jeyne, Jeyne, Jeyne, he had murmured against her skin. Jeyne. Even in their chambers, where the candles were well-lit, it was not so bright as it was in here.

She knelt down to unlace his boots, but his hands (so cold) rested over hers as he bent his knees (almost her height, at this level, but still taller). "Jeyne," he said softly, tilting a finger beneath her chin. He did not say it aloud, but his eyes met hers, and they asked the question for him - what are you doing?

"You need to bathe," she said with simple conviction, as though she was stating that they needed to win this war.

"I-" he blinked. "Yes. I suppose I do."

She gently swatted his hands away as he made to remove his boots. "I'll do it," she said softly. I'm going to take care of you now.

When it was done, he sat with his bare buttocks on the bathhouse floor, his blue eyes slightly steely as he watched her, and was naked as his name day - except for the blood, of course. That had soiled his clothes and the rain had made it damp and reek, but she had removed his clothing already. The only red left was on his skin, the blood still caked dry on his fingers. Jeyne took his hand in hers, gave it a firm squeeze (it was like she was reassuring him, or perhaps herself, or maybe the both of them), waited for him to rise, and then led him into a nearby tub, the water warming their skin.

She sat him down, grabbed a floating brush, and began to scrub his left hand. The water turned a light red almost immediately, but even after a few minutes of scrubbing, the blood was still stained on Robb's skin. He said nothing all the while, his eyes simply watching her as she cleaned his fingers one by one, getting the blood out from underneath his fingernails.

"Your clothes," he said finally when she moved on to his right hand. "I've ruined them."

Jeyne had quite forgotten about that. "It's one of my sleeping shifts," she said. "It's just wet, is all."

He reached his left hand out, almost touching her face, but then he dropped it back into the water. There was a plopping sound, and then all was silent except for her scrubbing his skin and the slight slushing of the water.

"I'm sorry," he said when she began to scrub his chest with lye soap.

She nodded. "I have more shifts," she told him as she moved to clean his arms. She noted his stocky build, the contours of his chest, the muscles in his arms, the vein that twitched slightly on his neck, the thick curls of his hair. Northern and honorable and mine. Mine, but I may very well be the reason he loses this war. So truly, how long before he loathes me for it?

"So you do," he inclined his head as she scrubbed his legs.

Jeyne stopped scrubbing and moved so that she was sitting behind him. Her fingers kneaded his back, and she could feel him beginning to lean into her, could see his muscles relaxing. "I'm sorry too," she blurted out.

Her husband spun his head around and frowned. "For what?"

"I... I should not... we should not have - at the Crag." Why were the words so hard to say? He had seen her naked dozens upon dozens of times now, and had coupled with her just as often.

Robb let out a breath that she wasn't aware he'd been holding, but said nothing.

"I am the reason you lost the Freys," she went on. Fool, she thought. Foolish, stupid girl. They had never spoken of this, not aloud, so why did she have to bring it up now? "It was good of you, but you should not have wed me, Robb-"

"It was the honorable thing to do."

She wasn't sure whether she wanted to weep or to laugh. Honorable. Yes, that was what the Starks did. He had told her that he'd loved her, that night in her bed. But theirs was a love that should not have been. Perhaps if it had come a few years earlier, before his father had been imprisoned and Robb had made a deal with those slippery Freys. Perhaps if they had lived a hundred years before or perhaps a hundred years after. I should not have come in between, she thought. I am why they are calling him the King Who Lost the North.

If he had been any other lord or belonged to any other house, Robb would very likely have let her be and let himself marry one of those Frey girls. That would have been the wise thing to do. But no, he had to be honorable and ask her to marry him. I should have said no, Jeyne told herself. She should have, but she had wanted him too much, and still did.

"I need to win this war," Robb said then. "The North needs to win this war. We will all die if we do not." Do you understand what I'm trying to say?, his eyes asked her.

They did not speak after that. She scrubbed his body clean until he seemed to shine, ran her fingers through the thick auburn of his hair and cleaned that thoroughly as well.

She was not sure how she got up to their chambers after that. She informed him that she would be back after she got him a change of clothes (it wasn't at all proper to have him walking around in bloody and damp clothes, and he most certainly couldn't walk around nude, even though barely anyone was up at this hour.) She rummaged through his wardrobe, finding what was needed, and then she made her way back to the bathhouse.

He was asleep, his head leaned back, his arms resting on the exterior of the tub. He looked so peaceful that Jeyne did not want to awaken him, but she need not have bothered, for his eyes flew open when she took a step towards him.

"Get some sleep, Jeyne," he said softly.

"Robb, you need-"

"I have some matters to attend to," he replied smoothly. "Sleep, Jeyne. I can dress myself." He did not say it unkindly.

A queen does not cry, Jeyne told herself as she made her way onto the bed, tired and spent. So she simply bit her lower lip and went to sleep.

When she awoke the next morning, she saw that Robb had been true to his word. She would wager that he had spent some more time looking at his maps and composing letters in the early morning hours, but she hoped that he had eaten something, at least.

When she opened the door to see if he was still at his maps, she saw that she had been quite mistaken.

Her husband was in a deep conversation with the Greatjon; Robb's hands crossed, his head nodding every now and then as Lord Umber's words came out faster than a stream of water.

Jeyne made to shut the door, but they had seen her already. "Your Grace!" the Greatjon boomed cheerily. "Good morning!"

She smiled at him, but her eyes lingered on Robb. "Good morning."

He gave a polite nod of his head. "My lady." She could see that Robb had not forgotten what they spoke about in the bathhouse in the early hours of the morning.

The Greatjon was suddenly bustling past her. "I just remembered I'd forgotten something," he winked as he slammed the door shut.

They were both quiet for a moment before blurting out "good morning" at the same time. Robb chuckled at that, and Jeyne found that she laughed quietly (although it wasn't a long one).

"About yesterday-"

"Jeyne, I-"

"You probably need time to think about-"

He looked surprised at that. "Do you think I do?"

She bit her lip. "Do you? Need it, I mean?"

Robb took a step towards her and let out a breath. And then he was crushing her to him, his arms encircling her, his nose nestling in her hair and then at the crook of her neck. "Jeyne," he said, and that was all.

They stood there like that, simply hugging, and she wasn't sure if his arms were holding her upright or if she was helping him hold her or if they were both just hanging on to each other. "I really am sorry," she mumbled into his chest.

He stroked her hair and pressed a kiss to her chestnut curls. "I know," he murmured. "So am I."

And that should have been that, but afterwards, the Greatjon had come barging back in and hooting about how surprised he was he hadn't found them in a compromising position, and when exactly was Robb going to get her with child, anyway? Jeyne had blushed and quickly excused herself by saying she needed to help Eleyna with her reading of some tome or another.

Robb did not seek her out for the rest of the day. He is a king and is busy, she told herself at first, but when he did not sup with her at dinner or come into their bed, Jeyne knew that he needed some distance, needed to think after she'd said what they both hadn't wanted to utter aloud but had needed to hear. She distracted herself by doing other things, but she kept on seeing Robb's grim eyes and his set face.

It was like that the day after, and the day following that one as well. Sometimes she would feel him looking at her, and she would turn around while laughing with her sister or look up from reading a book and find him watching her.

On the third day, she was running to the yard when she slammed into someone rounding the corner. "I - Robb! Raynald!"

"Sister," Raynald bowed.

"My lady," Robb said. "I have not seen you as often as I would like."

She nodded. "I have been busy," she blabbed, but they both knew that it was a lie.

His eyes looked sad. "Jeyne-"

"I must go," she muttered, not sure what she would do if she stayed there for a moment longer.

Probably something very stupid, like kiss him or be rendered utterly speechless. The truth was what she had wanted, and it was what she saw.

But wasn't that what she had wanted? The truth? For him not to lie and say that everything was alright? That yes, he had wed her and lost much of his troops, but it was alright because love would prevail in the end? No, that was the stuff of foolish maiden dreams, of the girls who dreamt for a sweet Florian to come and sweep them off of their feet.

She went to bed early that night, not that anyone said anything about it. She was the queen, after all. (She didn't really feel like one, though. She just felt like a sad young woman.)

It must have been late in the night once more, but there was a gentle hand at her shoulder. "Robb?" she asked groggily as she turned. "You're still awake?"

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I've been kept busy until now."

She nodded.

"Jeyne..." he began."I do not... it was my not my intention to cause you any hurt."

She bit her lip and his fingers brushed a few stray tendrils from her face.

"I've needed to think... and when I want to speak to you, you hurry in the other direction, and I don't-"

"Oh," she said, stupidly. He'd wanted to tell her, and she'd obviously been so set on avoiding it that she'd just rushed off. "Well, then. Why don't you say it?"

He gazed at her, his eyes peering into hers. "Very well. It was the honorable thing to do, Jeyne, but it doesn't mean that I didn't want it, either. Gods, I wanted you so badly, and not because of the night before."

She blinked. "What?"

"No one's ever cared for me like that before, Jeyne. My mother loves me, and my father did, and my siblings, but they've never... well, none of them have ever taken me to their bed and treated a festering wound."

"Oh," she repeated. Now she was confused. He said one moment that he hadn't married her simply because he'd felt obligated to (and her heart soared), and the next he said it was because she was a good caretaker? She supposed those were good qualities to have in a wife, but not exactly what a lady wanted to hear from her lord. But he was honest, she supposed. Honest, and noble, and good-

"I don't think anyone's ever smiled like you do, or blushes half so fiercely," Robb went on. "You have the most adorable way of scrunching up your nose when you're confused, did you know?"

"I do not!" she sat up straight.

He laughed at that and placed his hand over hers. "You are patient and kind and good and bright, Jeyne. You do not carry a thousand troops or five hundred with your name, but that does not matter, because... Jeyne. You are, I think, what I never thought I'd wanted, but really have been looking for all along."

She smiled. "Your forehead scrunches up when you get confused, did you know?"

Robb laughed once more, and leaned forward. He kissed her forehead, and then her nose, and finally, her lips. He was of the North, hard and unyielding, but with her, he was soft and tender. "You are tired," he murmured as he pulled her to him.

"I am not," Jeyne protested, but a moment later, she yawned loudly.

Robb grinned against her hair as his arms encircled her. "Good night, my lady."

His lady wife was already fast asleep, a happy smile on her face as she dreamed.