Chapter Text
“And can you think of any reason why you would be unfit to serve on this jury?”
“No, your honor.”
“All right.” Judge Arryn squared his papers and looked down at the attorneys, both of whom had shifted themselves forward slightly in their seats. “You all can go outside and wait for a few minutes while we confer. I remind you that you are all not to talk about the details you have gained from this case when outside of the courtroom.”
There were about twenty of them in the group, and their chairs scraped against the hardwood floor and they filed out into the hallway. Almost immediately, phones were back in their hands as people checked their emails, checked their text messages, went on the internet.
Ned sat down on a bench and stared out the window, waiting.
The air conditioning wasn’t quite strong enough, he decided, but that hardly mattered. He was glad enough that there was air conditioning. Too often, he had found, buildings in New York didn’t have them, which made summer horrifyingly unbearable. One of the first things he had bought for his apartment was a window unit, which he left on day and night. Sure, his electricity bill went through the roof, but nothing mattered quite so much as getting home and feeling a blast of cold that made him shiver as he stripped off sweaty clothes and flopped on his bed.
The air conditioning in the courthouse kept him from sweating, but it didn’t make him feel cool. He knew he was an anomaly, though. Robert didn’t understand how anyone could possibly want to be as cold as Ned did all the time, but then again, Robert could never understand. Robert was from California and had been raised warm.
“Do you have a pen by any chance? Mine died.” Ned glanced to his left and saw a young woman looking at him with clear blue eyes. She was holding the pen between two fingers, as though it was a piece of evidence.
“Yeah. Sure.” He dug into his pocket and produced a ballpoint, handing it to her. She smiled at him, a brief wide smile and returned to writing in a journal, her auburn braid seeming to stretch towards her stomach as she bent her head. A moment later, she handed it back to him. “Thanks,” she said with a smile.
“No problem,” he shrugged.
“Shopping list,” she explained.
He nodded, then frowned. “Why don’t you put it on your phone?”
She smiled wryly. “I imagine my phone will die while I’m in the subway. It has shit battery life and likes to kill itself looking for service. And I think the fact that it gets service in stations but not in the tunnels makes it worse.”
Ned nodded, knowing the problem all too well. “At some point, they’ll put service in the tunnels, right?” he said hopefully. It wasn’t too bad up near him. The 1 was above ground above Columbia and he never had to go too far south—never south of 72nd without good reason. But all the same—the A was a nightmare.
“Well,” she sighed, “They haven’t yet. Though there’s wifi now in some places, so that’s good. But still, my hopes aren’t high.”
She had tucked her shopping list into her purse and had angled her body towards him. Ned tried to remember which one she was from when they’d been answering Judge Arryn’s questions. Was she the law student? Or the kindergarten teacher? They’d been behind him and he had felt as though it would be rude to turn and stare. He had also felt it would be rude to not look at them, so he had compromised by half-shifting in his seat and looking at the knees of the woman at the end of the back row. She was wearing some African print pants and jiggled her leg with nerves.
“Have you lived in New York long?” he asked her.
“Since college,” she replied easily. “It’s a good place. You?”
“Moved here for grad school,” he replied.
“Columbia, right? Architecture?” she said the last word slowly, as though she was both unsure that she was remembering properly and that she should be revealing that she remembered. Ned nodded. “Did you know the other Columbia student?” she jerked her head down the hallway to a young woman who was typing into her iPhone with a frown on her face.
Ned shook his head. “Nah.”
“All right,” called the officer who had led them upstairs from the waiting area earlier that day. “Judge Arryn wants you back in.”
The twenty of them stood, turning phones back off and filed back into the courtroom. They all seemed to take the same seats that they had been in before, and Ned was aware that the woman—he’d forgotten her name, and hadn’t asked. That was rude of him—was behind him now and to the left.
“All right,” Judge Arryn said and began reading off a list. “Eddard Stark, Davos Seaworth, Alannys Harlaw, Chataya Elgaya, Catelyn Tully, please stay put, you’re going to be on my jury. The rest of you are free to depart for lunch and should return to the waiting room at one thirty for the rest of your duty.
Those whose names had not been called stood and left the courtroom, and Ned noticed that the woman he had spoken to had stayed put as well.
“All right,” said Judge Arryn. “You all are actually free to go for the rest of the day. I’ll be summoning another batch to check on tomorrow morning. I need three more jurors before we can begin. You should call in tomorrow before one thirty to see if we will begin tomorrow afternoon. If we do, we’ll begin at two o’clock, so if you don’t call, be sure to show up by then. Any questions?”
No one had any, so they were dismissed, and Ned pulled out his cell phone and emailed his internship supervisor to let her know that he would be on a jury and that he’d keep her posted as he could. He walked to the Chambers Street 1 station, and thought briefly that he would die as he descended into the hot, humid horror that was the New York City subway system in the summer. Ned walked to the very end of the platform and glanced down the tunnel to see if he could see a headlamp.
When he’d first moved to the city, he’d seen everyone doing that, and it had terrified him. What happened if they fell and their heads got smashed in by a train? There were people who got shoved in front of tracks—he knew that. It had been on the news. But at some point during his first year, he had stopped worrying about that, and had begun to understand the impatience that all New Yorkers felt while waiting for the subway. He didn’t think he’d ever be a “New Yorker”. He was too much a Midwesterner for that. Portion sizes were too small, things were too expensive, and it was strange not having a car. But he could fake it well enough by now, and of that he was moderately proud.
“Where are you headed?”
He turned around and saw the woman from the jury, the one with the pretty eyes who had asked for a pen, standing there, smiling warmly at him.
“Home,” he replied. “Technically, I should go to my internship, but…”
She chuckled. “They gave you the full day off. I know the feeling. Though I suppose that I don’t really have anything to do right now.”
“You’re a teacher?” he asked, because he wanted to be sure.
She nodded. “Kindergarten.”
“How is that?” he asked.
“It’s good,” she shrugged. “Kids are both delightful and little monsters and I don’t know how they manage to be both, but they do.”
The 1 arrived and they both got on, and, because it was the middle of the day, there were even seats. She sat across the train car from him and pulled out a book.
“What are you reading?” he blurted out. He knew that most North Easterners liked to be left alone, but she was nice, and he still didn’t know her name, and if they were going to be on a jury, he should at least know her name.
“What? Oh.” She glanced at the cover as though she had forgotten. “A book my sister sent me. It’s a romance that she insists I’ll love, but I’m not too impressed so far.” She wrinkled her nose slightly. “It’s got a kind of shady love interest, but there we are. She and I have different types, I suppose.”
“Is she older or younger?” Ned asked.
“Younger. Two years younger. She’s back home in Boston now, and doesn’t really know what to do with herself and driving my dad and younger brother up the wall.” She rolled her eyes, remembering something that Ned didn’t understand. “Do you have siblings?” she asked.
“Two brothers and a sister,” Ned supplied.
“Younger or older?”
“One brother is older. The other two are younger.”
“Are they in New York, or…?”
“My older brother is in San Francisco. My sister and younger brother are in Minneapolis.”
“Oh, are you from there?” she asked.
“Nearby,” he said. “A little bit north—Winterfell.”
She smiled at him. “Do you like the east coast?”
“Well…” Ned didn’t know how to answer, because yes, he supposed, but it wasn’t home. She laughed though, as though understanding.
“It’s different,” she smiled. “My ex was from Winterfell and he used—” she froze, and the smile slipped from her lips, her eyes widening slightly.
“What?”
“Oh.”
“Oh what?”
“You’re Brandon’s brother, aren’t you? You look like him.”
“Yes?” Ned said slowly then it dawned on him. She’d called herself Catelyn in the courtroom, but Brandon had never called her Catelyn. Brandon was big on the one-syllable nicknames. Ned, Ben, Ly, but god forbid you call him Bran. “You’re Cat Tully.”
Cat nodded, biting her lip.
Ned didn’t know what to say—couldn’t know what to say. What do you way to your brother’s ex? Especially the ex that he jilted while drunk and with a high school friend who was visiting from out of town. Brandon and Barbrey (or “Barb,” as Brandon always called her) were still together out in San Francisco, making tons of money commuting down to Silicon Valley every day. And Cat…Brandon hadn’t really spoken about Cat beyond saying “We broke up.” Ned had only gotten the full story from Lyanna, because Lyanna had a way with Brandon.
“I—” Ned began, but he stopped.
Cat shrugged. “It’s not a problem,” she said, though her face was not so open, not so welcoming anymore. And she opened her book and began reading.
When she got off the train at 86th street, it was with a quiet nod and a “see you tomorrow,” but the smile was forced, and Ned thought, not for the first time, that he wished Brandon had some sense of dignity.
Now she knew why he looked familiar.
Brandon. The name hung heavy in her heart as she climbed up the stairs that would take her up to 86th and Broadway. Of all the exes he had to be related to, it just had to be Brandon, didn’t it? Brandon of the spectacular abs, the warm laugh, and the wandering dick. Brandon, who was really just…no—she wasn’t going to think about Brandon. Not right now. Because four years had been enough time, right? Four years, and she still got upset thinking about him. Weren’t you supposed to stop caring about your exes at some point? Weren’t you supposed to get over them and what they had done and move on?
She stepped into the grocery store two blocks from her house and made her way through the aisles, not really seeing anything. She placed eggs and milk and cereal and sandwich makings and lentils and everything she could think of into the cart, then checked her list to make sure that she’d remembered everything. But by the time she was done paying and was walking as quickly as she could back to her apartment, all she could think about was Ned and, even though she tried not to, Brandon.
Brandon had always laughed at Ned. He’d called him stiff, and serious, and with no sense of fun. “Ned just likes being alone in the wilderness,” Brandon had laughed when she’d complained about how Lysa was far too seduced by the cosmopolitan nature of New York. Ned, according to Brandon, was boring. Ned, at least as he had interacted with Catelyn that day, and over the phone when she’d called Brandon over school breaks years before, was polite—which was a damn sight more than Brandon ever—
God, she had felt so uncomfortable sitting there with him on the subway, realizing just how much he looked like Brandon, only shorter and burlier. But then again, how much of that was…Brandon had always said that Ned was quiet, and easy to shut up in a conversation if you made him feel nervous. What if….
She didn’t know Ned, and…and she was going to have to interact with him regularly until this case was over and they had pronounced a sentence. So…so that meant that she didn’t have to make up her mind right now—not about anything. And that she certainly didn’t have to change her opinion of Brandon just because Ned was around. And if Ned wanted her to, if he started making excuses she didn’t want to hear…well then he wasn’t…Brandon had always said he was one of the more understanding people of the world. It was one of the nice things that Brandon had said about Ned, understanding, loyal, generous, kind too, on top of stiff, boring, with no sense of fun. It had been, in fact, what had made her want to date him. Because sure—he was an arrogant bastard with a biting wit, but it was evident that he loved his little brother, and maybe even admired him. But if Ned didn’t understand her, what she was thinking…then maybe Brandon was wrong.
And Brandon had been wrong about a whole lot of things.
Oh this was all too confusing, and she was far too agitated to think about it just then. So she pulled out the book that Lysa had lent her, because no matter how stupid it was, at least it would be a distraction.
Or at least, that was what she thought. Because the hero of the book, a young man named Charles Dailey, was tall with a long face, dark hair and grey eyes. She’d never connected him to Brandon before—not once. Brandon was not half so honorable as Charles Dailey. But Ned…When Margaret Brown, the book’s heroine, noticed just how strong Charles’ arms were, just how gentle his smile, all Cat could think of was Ned.
She sat behind Ned again when they settled in the jury box the next afternoon, between a huge boy—Gregory? Something like that? She couldn’t quite remember, but she’d have it soon enough—who looked no older than eighteen, and a woman in her sixties or seventies, Catelyn would guess, who was wearing a fine silk shirt and golden bangles patterned with garnets, and prepared herself for the beginnings of the case.
Judge Arryn had said that it could take some weeks if necessary, and that it was complicated. Racketeering and money-laundering charges were the least of the Jorah Mormont’s worries in the human trafficking case brought against him. He was a surly looking man, she noticed, with a scrubby beard and a ruddy face. He was dressed nicely, though Catelyn wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse. Human trafficking. The thought made her shiver.
The lawyers spent most of the afternoon questioning his wife, a pretty young thing with blonde curls who looked thoroughly terrified to be saying anything at all. Periodically, she would cast glances over at her husband, who was decidedly not looking at her as she said words like “I mean…I didn’t…I didn’t think that he would. Why would he? The logging company makes plenty of money and…”
She almost felt bad for the poor girl. It was clear that her husband’s attorney, a man called Tarly, was a stubborn man, and a harsh one; the district attorney, Selmy, by comparison, was gentle, but Catelyn sensed that that almost made her more nervous.
It was, as her uncle had told her over the phone the night before, interesting. Interesting not in small part because it was like watching a play, or because it was like solving a mystery, but also because, sitting in the second row in the jury box, Catelyn could watch the reactions of her fellow jurors.
It was evident very quickly that Chataya Elgaya, a dancer and yoga instructor from Tribeca, was plainly horrified by the charges. She did her best to hide it, of course, since jurors were supposed to be completely neutral until they passed a verdict, but not long into Lynesse Hightower’s testimony, where she described the room she had found, with four young Nicaraguan women sharing a space that was barely fifty square feet, Chataya made a noise of disgust that carried just as far as Catelyn’s ears if not further.
Davos Seaworth, a man who worked in imports and exports, grew stony-faced when Selmy pressed Lynesse for more details about the yacht that she and Jorah owned, and which had been taken in as evidence as the potential vessel of transport for the victims in question.
She noticed how people shifted in their seats, how Gerion Lannister leaned forward when each question was asked, how Moshe Bar Emmon seemed to rock back and forth as he listened, how Alannys Harlaw fiddled with her wedding ring. She did her best not to notice how, of all of them, Ned Stark sat still as stone, watching intently. She was sitting at an angle to him, and could see his profile and the way his grey eyes flicked back and forth between the litigators and Ms. Hightower like he was absorbing every word and she wondered what he was thinking.
Because that was the thing—she couldn’t tell. It was frustrating on every level. Brandon she could have read like a book. He would have been sitting there in his chair, probably tilting it back onto two feet and resting his feet against the front paneling of the jury box, but Ned didn’t. He sat with a straight back, his hands resting on his knees, and she just knew that he would remain that way until the court was adjourned for the day.
She and Ned took the same subway uptown again, and they didn’t say a word this time. Ned was on his phone, reading something, and Catelyn fished out Lysa’s novel, and when she got off on 86th Street with a quiet, “See you tomorrow,” he looked surprised that she had said anything at all. It almost made her wish she hadn’t said anything. But at the same time, she felt a warm sort of gladness that she had.
Ned unlocked the door to his and Robert’s apartment and was met with snores. Robert was asleep on the couch, an empty bottle of bear lying on the floor next to a dangling hand and Wayne’s World still playing on his laptop on the coffee table. Ned stared at him for a moment, then sighed and went to pick up the bottle and close the laptop, cutting off Wayne’s and Garth’s trip to Milwaukee to see Alice Cooper play. When the laptop snapped shut, Robert grunted and jerked awake, his eyes searching out Ned’s.
“Wha’ time is it?” Robert mumbled.
“Five thirty,” Ned said. He went into the kitchen and deposited Robert’s beer bottle in the recycling before going and grabbing one of his own. “I was thinking about ordering a pizza.”
“Pepperoni and sausage,” Robert called before Ned even asked him if he wanted any. Ned let out an amused huff and called Tino’s and placed the order, then he went and dropped himself onto the couch next to Robert.
“How’s the case?” Robert asked, still sounding a little bleary.
“You know I can’t talk about it,” said Ned, glancing at Robert out of the side of his eyes.
“Yeah—but it’s not like anyone would find out,” Robert said. “Who’m I gonna tell?”
“That’s not the point, Robert. I am under oath,” Ned said, taking a sip of his beer. Robert reached over and took the bottle out of Ned’s hand, took a swig, and handed it back.
“So? Come on. I’m not going to—“
“No, Robert.”
“Fine. Always with a stick up your ass, aren’t you?” Robert sighed and stretched. Then, trying and failing to sound casual, he asked, “Have you heard anything from Lyanna?”
“No,” Ned replied. “So long as I’m living with you, she won’t talk to me.”
“That seems a bit harsh,” Robert said testily. “You are her brother.” He was staring at his hands, picking a hangnail off his thumb.
“Yeah—well…you pissed her off, Robert,” Ned replied. It really was too hot in this room for him to have this conversation right now. “And she’ll forgive me, but she doesn’t want shit to do with you and—“
“It’s not my bloody fault,” Robert yelped, “Look—she just doesn’t understand, ok? And—”
Ned raised a hand. “I’m not getting in the middle of this. Really—I am not. That’s what I told her, that’s what I’m telling you. Because honestly—it’s not me. Ok? You two need to work it out, or you don’t, but I refuse to be your fucking go-between.”
Only then did Robert seem to see him clearly. He frowned, brows furrowing and eyes narrowing. “What’s with you?”
“What’s with me what?” Ned asked. He leaned back on the couch, resting his head on the back so that he was staring up at the ceiling. There was some paint coming off it that he was really thinking about chipping away and painting over, but he thought that might make the landlord angry.
“You’re all…tetchy.”
“Tetchy? Have you been watching British movies all day? Bloody? Tetchy?”
“Nah—I was watching some TV yesterday though, so it probably took a few days to set in. Netflix has so much BBC goodness.”
Ned blinked. He really couldn’t fathom Robert watching the BBC, but decided not to push the matter. He sighed and closed his eyes, reaching his hands up and pressing the heels of his palms into his face. He saw stars briefly, then colors swirled behind his eyelids, and when he opened his eyes again, the world seemed calmer.
“Brandon’s ex is on the jury with me.”
“Which one?” Robert asked.
“Catelyn. Cat Tully.”
Robert screwed up his face, trying to remember. “Was she the one who came over to your place at Thanksgiving and you had a total boner for?”
“No—that was Ashara Dayne. And…” Ned shuddered. Why was it that Robert had to phrase it that way? It hadn’t been a ‘boner’—he’d had a crush was all. And it was precisely because of that crush that Brandon had ended it and gotten together with Cat in the first place.
“And?” prompted Robert.
“And I have to like…I don’t know. Brandon was a shitbag to her. Why do I always have to clean up his messes?”
“Oh! Was this the one he screwed around on?”
“Yes!” Ned said emphatically. “Yes, and she’s nice, and pretty, and a kindergarten teacher, and smart and—”
“Wholly not Brandon’s type.” Ned glared at Robert. “What? It’s the truth, isn’t it? Brandon doesn’t like wholesome. He likes to noodle wholesome and then get nasty.”
“You really have a way with words,” grumbled Ned. Robert was the only person Ned knew who spoke like this. In college, Ned had tried to get him to have a little more respect when he spoke, but Robert had just blown him off. Robert did things like that. But it was true. It was, in fact, exactly what Robert said. Brandon didn’t like the type of girl you settled down with. He wasn’t a nineteen fifties “look pop, this is my girl, we’re going steady” type—he was the kind to get drunk and hurl half-full cans of beer at the wall while arguing with a girl, then make up with her and fuck her against that same wall, probably while there was still beer dripping down it. Cat was obviously the former type; Barbrey the latter. No wonder he’d thrown Cat over.
“I’ve been told,” Robert was saying dramatically. “So—what’s the deal? You’re not Brandon. You’re a good guy with capital gs. Surely that shouldn’t be a problem for when you want to get your end in.”
“Get my—Robert!”
“What—that’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“I—” Cat was beautiful, that was true. And she had a nice smile, and Ned had always been of the opinion that you could tell a lot about a girl from her smile. But that didn’t mean that he—“Look, not everything’s about sex. And seriously, cut the BBC shit—I never want to hear you say ‘get your end in’ ever again.”
“Sure it’s not,” shrugged Robert. “Well—I’m in favor of it. But, then again, when was the last time you got laid?” Ned reached over and smacked him and Robert guffawed. “Yeah—you definitely need to get your end in.”
“Cat’s not the type of girl you do that with.”
“Do what with? Have sex? Look, Neddie—most girls are the type of girls you have sex with.”
“No—not like. Get your end in sex. She’s not for that. She’s….she’s…” Ned scrambled for words. “She’s a kindergarten teacher, Robert.”
“Oh, like they can’t be nasty,” Robert snorted.
“Oh stop it. That’s not what I mean.”
“Well—here’s the thing then. So she’s not the type you have a fling with. That’s not a problem. You don’t like flings anyway because you’re a weird-ass motherfucker. So date her, ok? And stop agonizing.”
“I don’t want to date her, Robert. Or fuck her or anything. She’s my brother’s ex. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Are you saying that Brandon wouldn’t diddle your ex? Because you know he would.”
“How many phrases do you know for ‘have sex’?”
“All of them,” said Robert seriously. “And answer the question.”
Ned glared at him and took a sip of beer. He did not reply.
“Not everything has to be a question of what Brandon would or wouldn’t do,” he said at last.
“Then stop making it one,” Robert shrugged. “Look, if you don’t want to date her, that’s a whole different matter. I’m just giving you bro advice, ok?”
Ned rolled his eyes and got up. “I’m going to go lie down. Let me know when the pizza gets here?”
“You got it.” Robert reopened his laptop and a moment later, Ned heard the sounds of a montage at a beer factory filling the room before he slammed his bedroom door and threw himself on his bed.