Chapter Text
Ned I
Ned listened to the jeers of the crowd and tried not to hear Sansa's pleading and wailing. The boy king cackled in the background but Ned could hardly hear it over the roaring in his ears. He had failed in his duty to the realm but more than that he knew he had failed in his duty to his family. His family would go to war, just as he had for his own father and brother all those years ago. Sansa, sweet innocent Sansa, would be a hostage to the tyrant who killed her father.
At least Arya was free. Not safe, no, but free. Hopefully the nights watchman would help her flee the city. She would have a chance at getting north.
They never should have left. He should have listened to Cat and kept his family in Winterfell. He should have refused to leave the second he was asked and if not then when Bran was found bent and broken at the bottom of the tower he was proficient at climbing. He should have followed his instincts and forbidden Sansa's betrothal to Joffrey as soon as he saw the slimy git's face.
But instead here he was, preparing to die before the very people he had served. They called for his blood now but how long would it be before they saw Joffrey's true colours? Another Mad King to rain terror down on them. It would not be long before Joffrey grew tired of tormenting his usual victims and showered his cruelty upon his subjects.
Ned beseeched the gods to protect his family and save them from his naivety. His last thought was of Cat, and he prayed for her forgiveness for leaving her alone. She was the mother made flesh and now she would have to go to war for their children without him.
The blade raised high above his head. The crowd stilled. Ned Stark shut his eyes for the last time. The sword swung.
Ned opened his eyes with a gasp.
Catelyn I
Cat woke in a bed. This wasn't unusual except the bed was rather large and soft and warm. Nothing like the beds she had grown used to in the camps. Even in Riverrun she had been given a rather small room with an even smaller bed owing to her prisoner status. This bed was beautifully welcoming. The covers provided just the right amount of warmth so as to not be stifling. Her legs stretched and tangled delightfully. And there was someone in it with her.
A gasp and a shuffle of the furs alerted her to her bedmate. Maybe they had been killed too and they were put here to rest until the gods got round to dealing with them? Wait - she was dead. That meant -
Cat flung her eyes open and swivelled in hope. And there he was. Her husband. Gods had he always been this handsome?
Looking at his face she could see where Robb had gotten his looks from (and she ignored the pang that her eldest's name brought - Robb would be with them here now and that's what mattered). She had missed Ned so and she felt guilty that she could barely look at her son without being overcome with grief. But no more of that now, they were in the next life and there was no room for pain now they were together again.
Despite her conviction to put aside the pain of life she couldn't help the way her mind flashed to her son holding his wife and unborn child in his arms as all three died. She couldn't help the way her chest tightened as she remembered the blood choking her either. In truth it had felt like a relief when her own throat had been slit, to know that she would be joining her youngest children and eldest son soon, to know that she would see Ned again.
And there he was, sputtering away as if he were the one who had just arrived here and had not left her alone all those moons ago. Ned turned to her with horror and regret in his eyes and Catelyn ignored the shred of doubt that awakened in her over where they truly were in favour of throwing herself at her husband. Sweet relief consumed her as he wrapped his arms around her in return and joy sang in her veins as he peppered watery kisses to her hair.
Cat had just begun considering the possibility that this may not have been the afterlife when the doors to their chamber flew open.
Sansa I
Sansa ran.
When she awoke in that room, the same room he had kept her in, she had been certain this was hell. She could still feel the knife in her chest, could still hear Tyrion's wheezing breaths as he shared her fate, could smell the stench of death in the air.
She had died and she had been so sure that this was hell. Hell would be an eternity in that room with the beast she was forced to call husband. It was her punishment for leading to the death of her father and subsequent destruction of her house, to never be free of that monster. Not to mention abandoning Tyrion to face Cersei's false accusations alone.
But then she had noted the absence of pain in her body and the clean, crisp air without the acrid smoke that clung to the keep years after it had burned. Further exploration had assured her that none of the scars she had accrued over the years of her suffering remained on her body and everything else just wasn't quite right. Her hips were too narrow, her chest slightly too flat and her long limbs were still gangly rather than elegant. Then she had seen Lady staring up at her.
Sansa ran.
And Lady padded along behind her. She was already the size of a small hound, not far off the size she would have been when Cersei ordered her death. Hope bloomed for an instant - maybe it was all a terrible dream but rather, she prayed, she'd truly been sent back. Sansa dared not address the accompanying fear that rose with that. (Surely she won't have to live through it all again? Powerless to change the fates of those she loved? Moved around the Seven Kingdoms as a pawn for the men who tortured and used her? Surely the gods wouldn't be that cruel?)
Sansa ran.
She passed people who were long dead to her mind - guards and servants who left or perished during the wars or the terror of the Boltons. They looked at her strangely. Lady seemed to understand the urgency of her mistress, dashing ahead occasionally in clear anticipation of their destination.
Sansa ran.
Right to the doors of her parents' chamber, not hesitating for a second as she flung them wide to find her parents wrapped around each other. She stopped in her tracks, ignoring Lady dancing about her heels and seeing her parents' questioning gazes. The tears upon both their cheeks and the grief in her mother's eyes confirmed that they remembered too. Either they were all dead together, which if she were being honest sounded quite pleasant provided that the rest of her pack arrived soon (including a lion she couldn't help but think of as hers), or she hadn't come back alone.
"Sansa?" her father called out to her and she suddenly realised that the last time he'd seen her had been around her betrayal, accidental or not. Guilt washed over her. She'd just been so stupid, how could they forgive her?
But her father was reaching out to her and her mother looked upon her as though she were a ghost. It was all bitter sweet longing. How could she refuse such a summon?
Sansa ran.
Sansa ran straight into the waiting arms of her parents for the first time in years.
Robb I
Robb sobbed and bolted upright in a room he barely remembered, in a bed he was sure Theon would have burned with Winterfell. His mind couldn't move past the feel of Talissa still in his arms, the panic of watching the knife sink into her stomach, into their child, and the devastation writ across his mother's face. They had all been so happy - Talissa radiant as she grew into motherhood, Edmure smug and relieved over his surprisingly beautiful bride, Robb himself relieved there seemed to be a way out of the mess he'd made, and his mother sparing one moment to the joy of having her family triumph and sensing a tentative start towards forgiveness from him. They had been fools.
If this was the next life where was his wife? Surely if they were in the gods' realm they would be together? Perhaps with the babe they should have raised with joy and love? Why in all the heavens and hells would he be in his childhood bedroom?
Requiring more information he opened his door in time to see a streak of red hair, white cloth and grey fur pass him. Why would Sansa be here already? Last he had heard she had been married off to the Imp (and he gnashed his teeth as he always did when thinking of that slight) and had been healthy enough. Had Joffrey seen fit to murder his sister too? Perhaps he had simply decided to have done with the Starks?
Having more questions than before, Robb shadowed his sister down the torchlit halls. As he did he considered the possibility of his last years being a dream but quickly dismissed the thought - he had experienced and learnt too much, grown too much, for his inexperienced younger self to have dreamt up. He couldn't have made up Talissa.
And the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that he was younger. He felt strong and rested in a way that a war campaign did not allow for. The familiar twinges and aches of inevitable injuries no longer pulled at him. But if there was one thing he had learned it was that no one should become fixed in their ideas without accounting for all the facts.
Yet as he watched his eldest sister and parents tearfully embrace Robb couldn't help but hope.