Note: If you don't care about Flashbacks and Jon's childhood in Winterfell and wants to get straight to where Jon decides to leave Winterfell. I would skip to Chapter 13.
Catelyn Tully
Robb was about a year old when he said his first word. Catelyn remembered it well - there's little in the world that compares to hearing your first child speak for the very first time. She and Ned had been spending some personal time with their son in her chambers and it was a relatively warm day. Ned was tossing Robb in the air, making him laugh in delight, and Catelyn was vaguely trying to read while really spending more time watching her family; she adored Robb's joyful giggles but a part of her hated the way Ned tossed him in the air like that.
After a short while, Ned must have thought that Robb had had enough of the activity for now and he set him down on the ground in front of some of his toys. Robb frowned at being put down and reached up his chubby little arms to his father.
"Papa!" he said impatiently. "Papa!"
Catelyn looked up sharply from her book, looking first to her son and then to her husband. She met Ned's eyes, and the look of love and pride he wore warmed her heart. She did not yet truly feel like a wife to him all the time, but moments like these gave her hope that their relationship would improve even further. Right now there was nothing and nobody in the world but the two of them and their son.
Ned knelt down and picked Robb up off the ground, tickling him and grinning down at the boy. "There's a clever lad. He knows his father!"
The pride on Ned's face proved to Catelyn that this man who she had once thought so distant and almost cold was indeed capable of great love. His smile softened the slight twinge of sadness she felt that Ned had been Robb's first word, not her.
It shouldn't bother her at all, she knew, and she scolded herself for caring. Yet she wished that he could have said 'mama' first; it stung a little that he spoke first to his father. Still, she knew it was a silly thing to care about and so she let the feeling of jealousy go as easily as it had come.
Before Ned had time to even notice that she had been quiet at first, a wide, genuine smile pulled at her lips and she rose from her chair to kneel beside her family.
"Can you say it again, Robb?" she asked, taking one of his small hands in hers.
"Papa!" Robb exclaimed loudly, clearly excited by the praise and attention he received from speaking. "Papa, papa, papa!"
She and Ned giggled together at their son's antics, and spent the next few hours grinning broadly at each other as they lavished attention on their clever little boy who repeated his new word between laughs and excited babbling.
287 AC
Sansa was almost fifteen moons old when she spoke for the first time, a lot later than Robb. That hadn't surprised Catelyn; Sansa was a far quieter baby than Robb had been. Where Robb would have wailed until he was tended to, Sansa simply whimpered a little. She was a delicate babe, but healthy and quiet.
She said her first word while Catelyn was showing her daughter the small sept which Ned had had built for her when she'd first came to Winterfell. Catelyn was determined that Sansa should know The Seven just as she would come to know the Old Gods. She had been talking about the Maid and the Mother when Sansa had started whimpering. Catelyn looked down at her daughter and saw Sansa's small hand reaching out for a lit candle, tiny fingers grasping expectantly.
Catelyn chucked at her daughter's distraction by the bright flame and gently pulled her hand back.
"No, my darling, that's dangerous. Fire is hot and can burn you, and you must never touch it" she explained, craning her neck down to kiss her daughter's chubby cheek. "We'll have to leave the candles alone."
Sansa didn't agree with her mother, though, and continued to whimper. She pulled her hand free from her mother and extended it again towards the candle, desperate to play with the bright object.
Sighing, Catelyn moved back a few steps, away from the candle and tried to point out other things in the sept to distract Sansa, but the little girl refused to turn her attention away. She turned her big blue eyes on her mother and pointed at the candle to indicate what she wanted.
"No, Sansa. You can't touch the candles, my love" Catelyn said firmly.
Sansa whined and reached out again, this time stretching her full body towards the candle.
Catelyn pulled her back with a firm hand and frowned at her daughter. "Sansa, I said no. It's dangerous."
Sansa pouted and pointed back at the candle. When Catelyn didn't react, she looked her mother in the eye and simply said, "please".
Catelyn froze in place for a second before a wide smile crossed her face. She was glad to finally hear her daughter form a clear, proper word - Sansa had babbled out random syllables for a few moons now, but this was her first real word. Catelyn couldn't be prouder of her daughter's first word. 'Please' was a perfect word for a lady to learn so early, and it suited her calm and quiet daughter very well.
She pulled Sansa away nonetheless, of course, and carried her from the sept. Sansa whimpered a little but was quickly distracted by the sweet treats which her mother offered as a reward for speaking her first word.
Catelyn offered her a piece of cake but pulled it back just out of the child's reach when Sansa grabbed for it.
"What do we say when we want something, my dear?"
Sansa looked blank for a moment before she said again, "please!"
Catelyn laughed and complimented her daughter on using the right word as she passed her the square of cake. She carried the small girl out of the kitchens and into her father's solar, to show off their daughter's wonderful manners.
289 AC
Arya was younger to start speaking than her older siblings, blurting out her first word at only ten months old. She was a more difficult baby than Robb or Sansa had been, and her choice of first word was a fair reflection of her more challenging nature.
Catelyn recounted Robb's traditional first word and Sansa's polite first word with great pride; Arya's was one that was amusing, but nonetheless a little embarrassing.
Catelyn had been trying to dress her young daughter in a pretty blue dress that she had made herself, and Arya was squirming as if her life depended on it. She was the most restless baby that Catelyn had ever known, never lying still, and she was loud and demanding with it. After two quite easily pacified babes, Arya presented a whole new challenge that Catelyn sometimes feared she was not up to. Already she'd had to invent several new tricks for calming the baby since her old ones learned from Robb and Sansa proved ineffective.
"Now listen to me, young lady, you are going to wear this dress that Mother made you and you are going to like it."
Catelyn tried to force her daughter's arm through the sleeve as gently as possible, ever careful not to hurt her, but it was incredibly difficult when Arya was thrashing her whole body around.
"This is not how a lady behaves, Arya" Catelyn said in a warning tone, trying not to raise her voice and alert the servants to the trouble she was having. She had always been insistent on caring for her own children herself as much as she possibly could. "Behave yourself."
"No!"
Catelyn was so surprised by the word that she stopped trying to dress the baby and Arya wormed her way half out of the dress.
"No?" Catelyn queried.
"No!" Arya repeated.
"Seven hells" Catelyn muttered under her breath, before returning to the awkward task of dressing her fussy daughter.
It took several minutes before a now flustered Catelyn had Arya dressed to her satisfaction, and it took some time after that before the baby was fully settled in her mother's arms.
Catelyn debated on whether or not she should keep her daughter's first word to herself; after all, it was hardly becoming of a lady. But she needn't have bothered trying to keep Arya's 'no' a secret.
After that day, Arya began saying no to almost everything, much to the amusement of her older brother and older half-bastard brother. Catelyn sent both of them glares when they laughed at their baby sister whenever she said it.
She glared even harder at Ned when he laughed.
JON
Catelyn was not unaware of the irony in how, out of all the first words spoken, it was Jon Snow's that she remembered most clearly.
She had been sitting in the nursery with the boys when Jon was almost a year old - Robb was a bit over a year at the time, so Jon must have been around eleven months old - watching the two small boys playing with toys on the ground. Jon's nursemaid was there, too, but she left for a short while to tend to something elsewhere. Catelyn was quite used to keeping a grudging eye on her husband's bastard son while she was in the nursery to watch Robb, so did not react to the maid's temporary absence.
The Lady of Winterfell attempted to tend to her sewing (a blanket for a baby, either for a future babe of hers or for the one rumours said her sister might be carrying) whilst keeping a watchful eye on the boys, keen to ensure that Robb did not try to climb on the tables and hurt himself.
"Here" she heard Robb say, one of the few words in his still limited vocabulary.
She couldn't wait until he started forming sentences out of his few words. So far, at a few moons over a year, he had only some simple words: 'papa', 'mama', 'here', 'up', 'down', 'food', 'mine', 'dog' and, to her irritation, 'Jon'. It was always nice to hear him speak.
Now she turned her gaze to the boys as Robb repeated what he had said, passing a toy to Jon Snow. She smiled despite herself; it was encouraging to see her son's kindness even if it did involve her husband's other son.
Robb picked up another toy and held it out to her. "Mama! Here!"
It was almost worthy of being a sentence, Catelyn thought to herself as she chuckled and leant forward to take the toy knight her son offered.
"Thank you, Robb" she said politely, hoping that he'd soon pick up on 'please' and 'thank you' and add them to his growing vocabulary.
Jon watched the exchange with his curious grey eyes before looking down at the cloth toy Robb had passed to him. Then he turned his gaze to Catelyn and held up the toy to her just as Robb had done. He babbled out something unintelligible and Catelyn blinked down at him.
"Keep it, child" she said, her tone rather colder than it had been when speaking to her own son.
Catelyn was never cruel to the boy but she was not unnecessarily kind to him either. His presence at Winterfell was a blight on her honour and Ned's, and she felt that he threatened Robb. She did not have to indulge his antics the way she did Robb's, though she had to admit that he was a far calmer and quieter child than his half-brother.
Jon looked confused, as did Robb. Catelyn understood their confusion - they were both far too young to understand the reasons why Jon was not anything like Robb, why she adored Robb while she only grudgingly tolerated Jon - but chose not to comment, trying to focus back on her sewing. Jon himself might have followed her lead and returned to what he was doing before, but Robb was not so easily refused.
"Mama?" he called, reaching out to her and looking back and forth between her and the toy still clutched in Jon's small fist. "Mama!"
"Hush, Robb" Catelyn scolded gently. "Mama's working on something."
"Mama" Robb said again.
Catelyn rolled her eyes and was about to respond (or simply call the maid), when she heard again, "mama!" This time, it was spoken in a different voice.
Slowly, Catelyn looked down at the the boys. Robb was smiling up at her, and now so was Jon. Clearly the two of them thought they had found a new game, a new way of getting attention.
"Mama" Jon repeated, holding the toy out to her again now that she'd caught his eye.
Robb laughed at his half-brother, no doubt finding it funny that Jon was copying what he was saying. Catelyn herself was not amused in the slightest.
She knew, logically, that Jon didn't know what he was saying. He didn't know what the word meant, he was just copying what Robb said. Robb was a little older than he was, and it was only natural that he would copy whatever her son said.
That didn't make it alright.
She felt her heart freeze over as she listened to the bastard's babbling. Anger coursed through her and she almost shouted at the boy, but caught herself before she started. No matter how angry he made her, she wasn't about to scream at a child; a lady conducted herself in a better manner than that, no matter the situation. She wouldn't have the servants whispering about her losing her temper with a child over what they would consider to be nothing. Instead she took a deep breath to calm herself and then steeled herself against the innocent expectation on the boy's face.
Catelyn put down her stitches and leaned forward to take the toy from Jon, but unlike placing it in her lap like she had with the knight Robb had given her, she simply placed it on the ground in front of him.
"No, Jon Snow, I am not your mama. I'm Lady Stark." The boy looked up at her, comprehending nothing much of what she said, and she sighed. "Lady Stark. You remember that, alright?"
The boy didn't answer, though he looked confused and a little upset that she had rejected the toy he'd offered her. Catelyn swallowed slightly, not sure how to proceed. She was never cruel with the child and knew she couldn't just yell at him, but she had to make sure he knew that he could never call her 'mama'. She would not tolerate such a slight.
"Mama" Robb said, clearly as confused as Jon Snow was.
"Yes, darling, I'm your mama" Catelyn said, stroking her son's rosy cheek. "But I'm Lady Stark to you, Jon Snow."
The bastard was quiet for a moment and she held his gaze resolutely, determined that he would never use that word again. She feared for a moment that he would ignore her and repeat it, but instead he just seemed sad. No doubt he had little understanding of her words and was mostly sad that she hadn't taken the toy, or was just scared by the ice in her voice that she could not keep from her tone. Regardless, she stared down at the little face he had no business having, such painfully obvious Stark features, and glared to show him that she was serious.
Jon looked down and picked up the toy again, this time twisting it in his hands and not offering it to her. She stood then and stepped back, wondering if he or Robb were about to start up again or worse, start crying, but the two seemed to resume their playtime relatively naturally. If Jon was quieter than he had been, she didn't let it get to her.
Catelyn walked from the nursery, stopping on her way to Ned's solar to tell the nursemaid to hurry back and watch the boys. In Ned's solar, she told him what had happened and that he had to tell Jon not to call her 'mama'. She doubted he had understood anything she'd said, really, as he was very little, and she needed her husband to talk to him. After all, the bastard was his son, not hers. Teaching him such things was not her duty. Ned seemed sad, but he had understood.
Afterwards, Catelyn never spoke of that incident again, and neither did Ned. And when an innocent, five year old Jon Snow asked his father what his first word had been, Ned told him 'papa', and prayed that the expression on his face seemed truthful.
"Look, Mama! Look what I did!"
Robb's proud little voice made Catelyn look up from her sewing to see that her son had made it to the top of the toychest, a feat he'd been trying to accomplish for weeks now. At just under three, her toddler son had already become determined and fearless.
"Great job, baby!" Catelyn clapped encouragingly, and watched with a proud smile as Robb wobbled his way down from his perch, barely avoiding falling onto the floor. As soon as she was certain that Robb was firmly back on solid ground, Catelyn looked back down at her sewing.
When his brother made it unsteadily back to the ground, Jon Snow clapped happily at Robb's accomplishment, and then grabbed onto the sides of the toychest to try and climb it as well.
It took Jon several tries to get a good grip on the box, and his face began to wrinkle with an adorable determination that would have melted even a White Walker.
"You can do it, Jon!" Robb encouraged in a small but already authoritative voice, and after a few more tries Jon was able to heave his little body onto the box.
"Look!" He said joyfully in Catelyn's direction, hoping that she would look up and praise him as she had done Robb.
She didn't even spare him a glance, not bothering to look up from her sewing even when Robb squealed for her to "look what Jon did!"
Jon hadn't let Cat's ignoring him thusfar dampen his joy at finally climbing the toy chest, and was still giggling giddily at the newfound thrill of being a foot and a half taller than usual. However, he still wanted the woman to notice that he'd done it just as well as Robb had.
"Mama, look!"
The words flew out of his mouth in a matter of a second, and Catelyn's head jerked up just as quickly.
Her mouth gaped for a second with astonishment at the nerve of this bastard boy, whom she hated, who somehow got the idea in his head to call her "mama.". Again. She stood, letting her sewing fall forgotten to the floor, and stalked over to the toddlers with an icy glare on her face.
Upon reaching the oblivious bastard, still grinning proudly at his accomplishment, she seized him by the back of his neck and forced him to look directly into her eyes, and yelled so loudly that those bustling around in the courtyard below grimaced sympathetically at the plight of Jon Snow.
"I am not your mother!"
When she let go of him, Jon was trembling, and his joy had dissipated into nothingness. His lip began to wobble at the same time as his legs, and he tumbled from the toy chest and fell into a heap on the cold stone floor.
Robb's eyes were sparkling on the verge of tears and he reached out to Jon, who had begun to cry violently, both in fear of Catelyn and in pain over the bruise quickly forming on the left side of his body.
Jon didn't stay, picking himself up from the floor and flying from the room as fast as his little legs could carry him. Once he was gone, Robb's face twisted and he finally burst into tears as well.
Cat picked her son up off the floor, and sat him down in her lap as she tried to calm his tears.
Nothing in Winterfell stayed a secret from Ned Stark for long. He heard in a matter of minutes, upon his return from a visit to the Godswood, that his bastard son was missing. He didn't even bother asking Cat where he'd gone, once he passed Rodrik Cassel and heard him whisper that he'd heard her yelling at the boy.
Ned wouldn't normally be worried that no one could find him since he liked to do that sometimes, but when someone said that it had been hours since the boy was last seen, he started to feel the stirrings of panic. Even for a child as resilient as Jon, that was a long time.
An order was immediately given to search each and every corner of the keep for the little boy, and Ned himself went to look in the child's room and all surrounding rooms. There was no sign of Jon, not even in any of the cupboards that he was so fond of hiding in to fool his nursemaids.
After what felt like an eternity of searching, but was likely only an hour or so, Jory Cassel came running into the room. "M'lord! I found your son!"
Ned turned around, ready to snatch Jon out of Jory's arms, only to find that he was not there.
"Then where is he, Jory?"
"He refused to come out, and he was too far back in the cupboard for me to reach him! Maybe he'll come out for you."
Ned hoped so.
"Lead the way, Jory."
Ned followed Jory as quickly as he could down hallways and around corners until he could finally hear the sniffling of a child.
As Ned approached the closet, the tearful noises got louder, and his nostrils caught the faint scent of urine. His heart swelled, both in sympathy and love for the terrified toddler, and anger at his wife, for the mutterings of the servants and others had made it obvious this was her doing.
"Jon," he said quietly, crouching down in front of the cupboard where Jon was hiding. "Do you want to come out?"
The baby shook his head, and retreated further back into the cupboard. Ned turned to Jory.
"Jory, would you please go and tell everyone to return to their duties?"
The other man nodded, and retreated back around the corner. Ned slowly moved closer to the closet and knelt just outside the door.
"Okay. If you don't want to come out, then would you tell me why you're hiding?"
"I was bad."
That comment made Ned's heart twist even further in anger at Catelyn, but he hid it as well as he could from his voice as he next spoke to Jon. He didn't know exactly what had happened, but he had a feeling that it didn't have much to do with Jon's behavior.
"Really? Why do you think that?"
"I don't know!" Jon wailed. "I j-just climb-bed on the b-box and t-told Mama to look! Then s-she yelled at m-me!"
"Oh," Ned gasped quietly, suddenly realizing what must have happened. "I'm sure you did a great job climbing, Jon. Do you want to come out now?"
Jon shook his head again, but moved a little bit closer to the entrance of the closet. Ned had to overcome the strong desire to reach in and snatch up Jon, but he didn't want to scare the child any further.
"Papa," Jon whispered with a trembling lip, and looking like he was about to start crying again any second. "Does Mama hate me?"
Ned didn't know what to say. How does one explain the concept of bastards to a toddler? The only thing he could think to do was to reach his arms out for Jon and hope he came willingly into him.
"No, baby. She's angry at me, and she's hurting you because of it. But, look at me Jon. You cannot call her Mama anymore. Ever. I'll tell you why when you're older."
"I'm sorry that I made Robb's mama angry. Do you hate me, Papa?"
"No, Jon! Papa doesn't hate you, Papa could never hate you! I love you so much, Jon! Please come out, Papa needs a hug from you."
The promise of a hug, and Ned's assurance that he did not hate him, was what finally coaxed Jon out, and he toddled out of the cupboard into Ned's waiting arms. Ned picked him up and cradled him against his chest, ignoring the wetness in Jon's lower half as he tried to comfort the little boy.
Jon's thumb, filthy from his time in the dusty old cupboard, found its way into his mouth as he leaned his head against Ned's shoulder. His eyes were already drooping, and Ned figured that the exhaustion of the day, combined with the relief of being in his father's arms, would knock Jon out within minutes.
Ned was reluctant to put Jon down, even for a moment, so therefore decided that he would dispense with Nan for the night and put the boy to bed himself.
Walking through the keep to Jon's room was the easy part, but when the time came to put the toddler down in order to change him out of his wet clothes and into some more appropriate for sleeping, Ned began to have problems.
Jon did not want to let go. When Ned tried to put him down, Jon whimpered and wrapped his hands even tighter around Ned's neck. The easiest course of action would be to let Jon sleep in his wet clothes, and put him down once he was out, but even Ned and his rudimentary childcare skills knew that would end up giving the boy a rash.
Despite the fact that it broke Ned's heart to seen fresh tears spring to his eyes as his Papa let go of him, he set Jon down on a table and changed him as quickly as he could into some clothes which had not been soaked with urine for who knows how long?
When he was done, he instantly wrapped Jon in a soft blanket and scooped him back into his arms. Jon quieted, and Ned felt better too, having the boy close to his chest as Jon nodded off to sleep with a soft sigh of 'papa.'
Once Ned had deposited a sleeping Jon in his bed and sent up a silent prayer that the boy wouldn't wake before he returned, he tiptoed from the room and went to search for Catelyn.
He found her close by, in Robb's room. Upon Ned's entry into the room, the toddler jumped out of bed and ran to hug his father's legs.
"J-Jon..."
That was all Robb managed to say before he burst into anxious tears. Ned picked his son up and cradled him.
"Jon's quite alright, Robb. I promise. Now, you best get to sleep."
When Ned had put his other son back to bed with a kiss to the forehead and a reassurance that his brother was fine, he grabbed Catelyn's arm and pulled her from the room as gently as his rapidly rising temper would allow.
Once they were a safe distance away from Robb's room, he whirled on her.
"What. Happened?"
"Your bastard called me mother. Again."
There was cold fury in her voice, fury that Ned knew was directed at and meant for him but had been shown to Jon. As horrible as Ned felt for his wife, his anger at the way a helpless and innocent child had been treated trumped everything.
"He's a babe, Cat. A babe. He doesn't even know what a bastard is, much less that he's one. He didn't know any better!"
Before Catelyn could get a word in to defend herself, Ned continued.
"You can hate me for the rest of your life, curse me, but I'll be damned if I let you treat Jon like you did today!"
When he paused, panting from the exhaustion that was emotion, and listened to the echo of his words bounce around the stone halls, he noticed a glittering on Catelyn's face out of the corner of his eye.
"I wish I could hate you, Ned."
Despite the anger he still felt towards her, Ned opened his arms and pulled his wife into them. She cried gently onto his shoulder, and he patted her orange hair gently.
"Oh, Cat. I'm so sorry."
They stood together like that for a moment, until Ned slowly pushed his wife towards their room and turned back to go to Jon's.
"Get some sleep, Cat. I'm sleeping in Jon's room tonight."
Jon Snow
The Snow had started falling for two weeks now, yet Jon Snow didn't find himself caring; the Snow was a welcome sight for him; he had fewer duties around the castle and could spend more time playing with Robb and sometimes with Sansa whenever or not Lady Trout would let her play.
Sometimes Jon wondered if Sansa was the one getting punished instead of him since her mother didn't allow her to play with them most of the time or would allow her, only if the 'Bastard' was nowhere near in sight.
Robb would whisper his name to come back when he saw his mother leaving. Jon was grateful for that; at least his brother didn't see him as a Bastard.
Sometimes during Dinner, whenever Jon would eat anything, he would notice her looking down at him; a grin would be visible through her distorted mouth.
His foot walked downstairs slowly; the wooden stairs were covered with Snow, someone could easily slip and break a bone or neck if wasn't careful, people walking around the country yard wearing different clothes, most were servants of Winterfell; some wearing clothes ripped in several places.
Tilting his head to the side, he saw a bluebird drinking from a puddle, half of the water was frozen, but the bird had used his beak to make a small hole.
Jon's face lightened up at the beauty of the bird; his wings were a rich blue with a pale blue body, white beak, and Rich purple eyes. He had never seen a bird with purple eyes?
Seeing the bird, Jon thought if the bird felt cold, his body looked so tiny and weak, or maybe the bird is used to this.
Jon looked at the bird with awe, the thought of flying everywhere like him, the thought of being far away from Lady Trout, to look at the world and be free, to fly like a bird, like a Dragon...
The thought excited Jon, to fly away, as far as sky, to see DragonStone, The Wall, Essos and beyond.
King's Landing, to look where the dragons had fallen. Robb, Sansa, Arya, Jon thought the names with a small frown, he would be leaving his only family alone.
Jon escaped his thoughts as the bird started chirping.
Jon approached the bird slowly, his smile not leaving his face; he wondered if he could raise the bird as his own; I Will have a little friend with me at all times, Jon thought with a grin.
The bird raised his beak, drinking the water around his beak, before letting out a melodic sound that made the young boy smile even more.
Jon followed with a whistle, despite being young; many people around Winterfell and even Robb told him that he knew how to sing.
The bird turned to look at Jon, and the Bastard felt a sense of dread spread in his little body; what if I Scared him?
Jon slowly crouch in the Snow, his arms crossed in front of his chest, making sure his body would look as small as possible not to look menacing to the little bird. The snowflakes were falling on his dark hair, the Snow only half a foot deep.
The bird soon returned back to his business, ignoring the young boy.
Jon cursed himself for not having food for the bird. The young boy kept staring at the bird in awe when suddenly, the bird stopped drinking water, and his head tilted to look at Jon again.
Jon felt his whole body freeze, he tried to move and yet couldn't find himself being able to move, not even an inch, yet he didn't feel the cold around him, nor the Snow falling on his skin.
"Child of Winter and Fire"