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When Robb and Sansa march north, little stands in their way. Many, upon realising that the young wolf still lives, surrender to him upon sight. Others attempt resistance, but they do not last long against the hardened northern army.
They have never lost a battle, and they are winning this war.
When news reaches them of Arya Stark's engagement to Ramsay Bolton, they decide to forego other plans and march straight for Winterfell. A ruined castle maybe, but any man who dares lay a finger on their sister deserves the full wrath of the North.
In the end, Winterfell falls just as quickly as their other enemies. There is no great battle; the castle's inhabitants are taken unaware and the surrender happens within only a few hours. He and Sansa allow most lords to bend the knee. Then they call for Roose Bolton.
Robb can feel Sansa's cool gaze as Roose bares his neck. He does not plead for his own life, nor for that of his son. Robb is almost disappointed. He would have enjoyed to opportunity to deny him mercy.
“For Conspiring against the crown, for the murder of Lady Catelyn, and for your part in the Red Wedding, I, Robb Stark, King of the North and Lord of Winterfell, sentence you to die.”
He swings the sword, but the cut is not clean. It takes a full three strokes to sever the head from its body. When he turns to his sister, she is still watching.
When Ramsay is brought out, he is more talkative. He seems happy to tell of the people he flayed and the woman he raped. “Be sure to check the tower later, I have someone waiting for you there. You'll find him with your sister.” When he starts recounting the horrific acts he has forced upon Arya, Robb calls for someone to hold him down.
His fury gives him strength. This time, the cut is clean.
-
When the crowd has cleared, Robb and Sansa go in search for Arya, escorted by a guard dressed in white. She had been the one to bring Sansa to Robb. Brienne of Tarth, Robb remembers. When Robb had offered her a reward, she had not asked for gold, land or marriage, but had bent the knee and offered her services. She was a highly skilled warrior, and Robb would have been a fool to give her anything other than the position she received.
They hear shuffling inside the door to one of the chambers. The door is ajar, and Brienne goes in first, sword in hand.
“Surrender your weapon and the girl,” says Brienne. Robb and Sansa shadow her in, and catch sight of the man she is talking too. He is old and feeble, armed only with a small dagger. He is dressed in black, and Robb recognises the kraken sigil of house Greyjoy on his cloak. Behind him, they catch a glimpse of a girl cloaked in pink.
“You can't have her,” he says, his eyes not leaving Brienne's. “She belongs to Lord Ramsay. I won't let you take her.”
“Drop your weapon and surrender the Stark girl, and you shall remain unharmed.”
“No,” he says. “No, you can't take her.” He moves to the side slightly, no longer blocking their view of the girl. Robb feels his heart stop.
The girl is familiar, but she is not Arya. His youngest sister is still missing.
He hears Sansa gasp. “Jeyne?”
The man lets out a wail. “No, her name is Arya! Her eyes are the wrong colour, but she is Arya! She knows her name!”
And then Sansa looks at the man, really looks. Robb watches as several emotions flicker across her face, and then she speaks, sounding uncertain. “T-heon?”
For a moment, Robb wants to ask his sister what she is talking about, but then the man looks straight at him. I know those eyes. The weapon falls from the man’s hand, and Theon Greyjoy drops to his knees.
-
It does not take long for the situation to become apparent. Jeyne explains it to them, her words clear but her eyes blank. Robb's eyes are growing damp, but Sansa does not shed a tear. Her time with the Lannisters and Littlefinger has made her the queen of composure. He hates them for it.
It takes them much longer to move Theon from the floor, and have him escorted to a suitable chamber.
“Not the dungeons, your grace?” Brienne asks.
“I don't think he will last very long in a cell. I want you to stand guard. Some of the northerners will be desperate for his head.”
“And aren't you?”
“I think there is very little I could do to punish him which hasn't been done to him already.”
When Brienne has left, he feels a hand pull at the sleeve of his tunic. “What are you going to do to him?” Jeyne asks. Robb can't help but notice the bite marks on her neck.
“I don't know.”
She looks like she wants to say something else, but then Sansa touches her shoulder. “Come. I will help you get cleaned up. Lets find you some new clothes. You can share my bed tonight.”
-
Robb enters Theon's chambers later with a bowl of fruit and some water.
“Have you come to take my head?”
“I have come to bring you food.” Robb places the tray on the table next to the bed. “You don't look so well.”
Theon looks at the fruit, then starts touching it uncertainly. Robb sees that he is missing several fingers. Theon finally goes for an overripe plum, and when he bites into it, Robb notices the broken teeth. I'll have the cook make up some soup next time.
When he is done, both face and hands are covered in juice. Theon wipes himself on his clothes, and Robb struggles to reconcile this man with his idea of how Theon should be acting.
After several moments of silence, Theon looks up at Robb. “Was the fruit poisoned, your grace?”
“Of course not. What kind of man do you take me for?”
“I do not claim to know the minds of kings.”
Then Theon goes to lay down, and opts for the floor rather than the bed. Robb urges him to move, but Theon insists that he is comfortable where he is. “I'm used to the floor. The bed is too soft. I won't get any sleep on there.”
In that moment, Robb feels so sad that he knows that there is no way he'll be executing Theon. Killing him would bring him no satisfaction. Besides, after what Jeyne told him about what happened in Winterfell, he doesn't have any desire for vengeance left.
He doesn't want to think about how Jeyne might react if he has Theon executed.
Maybe he should allow them a chance to be happy.
-
“I don't want him dead.”
Sansa stops sewing for a moment. “Oh?”
“What do you think I should do with him?”
“I wouldn't know.”
“I can't kill him,” Robb says. “I can't. Not when he didn't even kill Bran and Rickon.” When Jeyne had told them about that, the hope had almost made Robb dizzy. They now had search parties lined up and ready to ride at sunrise.
“Then don't,” says Sansa.
“I have to. It is expected of me. Most of the North wants his head. I can't just pardon him.”
Sansa sighs and puts her project to the side. She reaches out to him, touching his arm. “You're the King, Robb, and the King can do as he likes.” suddenly, Sansa sounds very distant. She looks down, staring blankly at her hands.
She doesn't touch her sewing equipment for the rest of the evening.
-
Robb wakes to screaming.
When he realises that he is not dreaming, he fumbles for a nightgown and hurries out into the hall. He follows the sound several doors down, and find that they are coming from Theon's room. Brienne is still standing guard outside the room.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“He started a while ago, your grace. I tried to wake him, but touching him only made it worse. And I did not want to break orders and leave my post.”
Robb sighs. She isn't at fault here, he'll just have to work out a new arrangement. “Let me through.”
He finds Theon trashing on the floor. Robb kneels down and touches his arm, which makes him cry out. “No, no, make it stop! Cut it off, please, please cut it off, make it stop!”
Robb has no idea what to do. He tries to touch Theon again, this time reaching for his hair. The colourless strands feel dry beneath his fingers, and he is in dire need of a haircut, but it seems to work. The screams soften and dissolve into sobs.
Robb strokes him gently. “Shhh... It'll be okay.” the lie falls easily from his lips.
And then Theon is coughing and his eyes are open, but Robb isn't entirely sure he's awake.
“Theon?”
“That is my name,” Theon tells him. His voice sounds too clear and his eyes are on Robb, but they don't seem to be seeing him “He tried to take it from me. He tried to take my name.” He blinks, and suddenly he is looking at Robb with complete lucidity. “Can you say it again? I haven't heard it in so long. I... I need–”
“Theon,” Robb repeats. “Your name is Theon.” Slowly, as not to startle him, Robb moves closer, and wraps an arm around his shoulders.
Theon digs his remaining fingers into Robb's arm. “He made me forget who I was. He– He made me into his creature, into his Reek.” Then Theon starts muttering something under his breath, and Robb has to intervene.
“You need rest,” he tells Theon. “You look exhausted.”
“Don't make me sleep, please. I know I have no right to ask things of you, but don't make me sleep. I don't want to go back there, I don't want to forget again, please, please–”
“Calm down,” Robb says. “I'm not making you do anything. But I am going to get the blanket from the bed, and then I am going to sit next to you on the floor, and then we'll see if you can get some rest. Okay?”
Theon curls in on himself, then nods.
The floor isn't nearly as comfortable as his bed. Robb doubts he'll be getting much sleep. He glances over at Theon, who has allowed himself a corner of the blanket. They stay like that for a long time, neither saying a word, until Theon's eyes eventually close, and he drifts off.
Theon doesn't sleep through the night; far from it. When he does wake though, his screams are not as loud, and when he sees Robb, it doesn't take him long to fall asleep again.
When he leaves the room in the morning, he steels himself for Brienne's judgemental stare, but it doesn't come. Instead, she nods at him with nothing but professionalism. He wishes he had more guards like her.
-
He gives Brienne the morning off to catch up on sleep. He doesn't trust Theon with the other guards though. Most of them are war-hardened men, bloodthirsty after losing the unthinkable from all the betrayals to the north.
Instead, he brings Theon to Sansa's chambers.
“Could you watch him for a while?”
Sansa nods without comment, while Jeyne gives a small smile. Robb leaves as they great each other, suddenly feeling very out of place.
-
That night, Robb has Theon sleep in his chambers. Theon still refuses the bed, but he sleeps next to it on the floor.
When Robb is awoken by Theon's screaming, he crawls back down to the floor.
“He's going to find me,” Theon cries into Robb's arm. “And he'll ask me my name, and if I get it wrong, he'll take even more fingers. Maybe even my hands, or something else.”
It occurs to Robb that he hasn't told Theon of Ramsay's execution. “He's dead,” Robb tsays. “The day I took back Winterfell, he was executed on the spot. His head is on a spike next to his fathers. We can go and see it in the morning.”
This time, Theon sleeps through the night.
-
“You don't have to look,” Theon says. He is sitting in the small bath, curling up to hide as much skin as possible. “It isn't nice. I can wash myself.”
Robb shakes his head. “Some of these are bad. They could get infected.”
With Theon's permission, he traces over the multitude of scares on Theon's back. As they go along, Theon recounts where the scarring comes from. When he gets to the empty space where Theon's little finger should be, he flinches. “He took that one when he caught me eating a rat,” he tells Robb.
He feels sick. Even so, Robb keeps going over him with a wash cloth. When he gets to the scars at Theon's thighs though, Theon falls silent, and has to hold on to the edges of the tub as to not cringe away under Robb's touch.
It takes everything Robb has not to scream.
-
“You need to stop doing that.”
Robb looks up at his sister. She gestures to Theon and Jeyne, who are sitting next to each other in the hall. “Stop doing what?”
“Looking at him with pity.”
“I do not!”
“You do,” Sansa insists. “He doesn't like it. Jeyne told me. He worries that you only care for him because you feel sorry for him.”
“But that isn't true!”
“I know that, but he doesn't. His world view has changed, Robb. There are very few people he can trust. Make sure you are one of them.”
-
That night, when Theon's screams begin, Robb takes him into his bead, and holds him all through the night. For the first time, Theon doesn't dream of Ramsay's touch.
-
Jeyne Poole is improving. As the weeks become months, her wounds have almost healed, and she smiles more often now. She still zones out regularly, and she isn't comfortable being alone with any man other than Theon, but she is getting better. It shows in his sister too. As Jeyne's eyes start to regain some of their lust for life, so does Sansa's. He hasn't seen her this this happy since before she left for King's Landing all those years ago.
Which is why he isn't overly surprised when he steps into Sansa's chambers one day to find them embracing in a way which would not usually become of two ladies. He excuses himself immediately, and when Sansa later finds him, he tries to be calm about it.
“I can still re-marry,” she tells him. “If you don't find a wife, and Winterfell needs an heir, I will do my duty.”
“I'm not going to make you marry anyone, Sansa,” he tells her. He is still holding out hope for Arya, Bran, or Rickon to show up. “If this is what you want, then you and Jeyne deserve this. I'm not going to intervene.”
Sansa pulls a hand through her hair. She wears it down now, as a tribute to their mother. She looks just like her. He briefly wonders if he has made the right decision, but when Sansa gives him a small, rare smile, he knows that he couldn't have had it any other way.
-
“Where is Grey Wind?” Theon asks. He is snuggled up close; Robb can feel his bony frame poking against his side.
“I sent him to protect my mother at the wedding,” Robb says. “He didn't come back. They say his body is still nailed to the castle walls.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't be. There was nothing you could have done.”
“I should have been with you,” Theon says. “He told me you'd died too. For a long time, I wanted nothing more than to have died with you.”
Robb doesn't know what he could possibly say to that. Instead, he lets his arms circle Theon, and hugs him close. He thinks of his wife, and wonders where her mother spirited her off to. They had sent out search parties for her too, but no trace of Jeyne Westerling had been found.
Robb wonders if she would have any objections to him allowing Theon to sleep in her spot of the bed.
-
One day, Robb walks in on Theon hacking violently at his own hair with a blunt dagger. The room is a mess of white hair and blood, and Robb is quick to take the knife from him.
“I needed it gone,” Theon tells him. “It is the wrong colour.”
There is a certain pattern to Theon's outbursts, and Robb recognises this one as an association to Jeyne. He takes a deep breath, not letting himself freak out. “Okay. Would you mind if I helped you with it instead?”
Theon doesn't mind. He shuffles close to him, and lets Robb use a sharper knife with a cleaner cut.
In the end, they have to take most of it off to keep it even. Theon doesn't mind though, even though he looks very different without long hair.
Robb pulls his hand through it. “It might grow out healthier now,” he tells him. “Maybe even darker.”
Theon shrugs. “I doubt it. And it hardly matters anyway.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Thicker hair won't bring my looks back, will it?” he is smiling as he says this, though there is no joy in him.
On impulse, Robb makes a grab for his chin, and leans in close to him. “Don't say things like that,” he says.
Theon wets his lips. “Okay,” he agrees.
There is something there, in that moment, and Robb is afraid of what it means. He lets Theon go, and they go back to talking.
The moment is not forgotten by either of them.
-
“Your grace!” Robb looks up from his dinner. Brienne is rushing in to the room, a small piece of parchment in her hand. “I'm sorry to disturb you during your meal, but I you'll want to hear this. There is news of Rickon. He has been found by the hand of Stannis.”
She gives him the parchment, and he reads it quickly. Stannis is offering him a trade. The onion knight will return Rickon to them, if peace can be reached between them. Robb must forego his claim to the North, and recognise Stannis as King of the realm. In return, he shall also receive the title as warden of the North, and they shall be pardoned for their challenge to his crown.
After a brief talk with Sansa, he agrees to the terms. He never wanted to be king. All he wants is his family back.
-
The first time Robb kisses Theon is on the eve upon Rickon's return.
He is hesitant, and allows plenty of room for Theon to pull away. Theon feels tense beneath his lips, but he makes no move to stop Robb, not does he remain completely still. Theon's kiss is clumsy, but Robb enjoys it nevertheless.
When they finally do move apart, Robb allows himself a moment to breathe in the scent of Theon's skin. He smells of the scented lemon water he likes to bathe in, with a hint of sweat, and something he can't quite identify, but which is definitively Theon.
Theon reaches out to touch him with his right hand. It has taken Theon a long time to initiate touch, and he isn't comfortable with physical contact with anyone beyond Sansa, Jeyne and Robb himself, but that is okay. He doesn't see many other people anyway.
Robb catches Theon's hand, pulls it close to his chest. They don't speak. Words aren't necessary right now, and would just spoil the moment. The silence between them is comfortable, and Robb feels confident in the belief that they will be able to work this out.
Together, they are going to be okay.