Jon had his mother's eyes. Ned had always known that, but he was suddenly more aware of it than he had ever been in his life. Ned had his father's eyes, and for all that Ned could see Arya in him, Jon more than any if the others had the looks of their slaughtered family. He shared his colouring, somewhat, and his features, somewhat, with Arya, but that was where it ended. Jon, alone, like Ned's siblings, had Lyarra Stark's eyes, had their Flint grandmother's mountain clan eyes, and something deep within Ned hurt at the sight of them. He felt himself swallow. He didn't break the gaze, kept looking at Jon's eyes, watched as they went from implacable to confused to outright pleading, and that was when Ned stepped forward and pulled the son he first held and loved into his arms, held him close. "I love you," he whispered into Jon's ear. "I loved you first, when even Robb was still just letters on parchment. I have loved you longest, and I love you as much as any of my other children. None of the rest of it matters."
At those words, Jon let out a breath that was loud as a sob, next to Ned's ear as it was. It was only as Ned reached up to cradle his first son's head against his shoulder that he realised the boy was nearly of a height with him. Robb had grown taller than him by an inch already, but Ned had long known Robb would be taller than him. Jon was different. Jon had always been so small, always been so frail in Ned's arms. Ned had always suspected he had been born too soon, and part of him had never stopped seeing the small babe that had first been put in his arms when he was near to mad with grief at Lyanna's death, that too-small infant, too-silent and too-solemn, even as a newborn. Smaller, then, than any of Ned's other children had been at birth. To have him suddenly be of a height with Ned himself, even if it was no great height, made something inside him tremble and shatter. Jon was a man grown, he had to admit. More so than Robb was. He had had to be, after all, smart enough to understand bastardy at a young age, and coming into a lordship so young, and when no one had expected it. Coming into fatherhood years before Ned had, and Ned himself had felt too young, woefully underprepared. "I am so proud of you," Ned breathed, even though he was uncertain how Jon would receive the words, whether he would accept them at all. They were the truth, though, so Ned saw no reason to hold them back. "So very, very proud."
For a short, precious moment, Jon seemed to slump against him, entrusting Ned with nearly his full weight. Then he straightened up, features stiff the way Lyanna's had been, long ago, when she had tried to conceal her tears. "I would like you to meet your grandson, Father," he said. His voice cracked halfway through, but Ned thought it was from emotion, rather than immaturity. Jon's voice seemed to have settled into the same baritone register Brandon's had taken on when he had been alive. Deeper than Rhaegar's, simpler and less frilly, heartfelt in a different way that had naught to do with songs and all to do with the world as it was. The voice of a lord, a man grown, even if he had yet to reach his majority. Pride, once again, squeezed Ned's chest in a vice.
Ned nodded, did not even care to conceal his eagerness as Margaery, with all courtesies, extricated her son from King Robert's arms and walked over to Ned, handing the babe over. And Ned was dumbstruck. Duncan Stark was a Targaryen through and through, was Rhaegar Targaryen's grandson without a doubt. Even Robert might have seen it, had he not been so blinded by the presence of the Daynes and the memory of Lyanna. Ned did not care, though,
not in the least. Just as he had loved Jon the first moment he had held him, in spite of their true relation, he loved this boy and knew him for a grandson, regardless of the actual truth. And, he realised, as he held the silver-haired, purple-eyed infant close to his chest, he would protect the babe with his life. Against Robert too, if the need ever arose. The same fierce, wolfish need to protect that he had first felt that moment he had first laid eyes on Jon rose within him once more, that first taste of his own wolf's blood no less strong for all the years that had passed, and he raised the babe up to press a kiss against his soft little forehead. "You are my grandson," he whispered, and he did not care who heard him and disapproved, Gods or Jon or Arthur or any of them. "And I love you dearly." He turned to Robb, suddenly very conscious of what he was showing Jon, what he was showing Robert, even. "Come, son, hold your nephew."
Robb stepped forward and took Duncan from Ned's arms with a competence borne from taking care of his younger brothers. He cradled the babe carefully against his broadening chest, stroked his finger carefully through the softly curling white-blond fuss on his nephew's head.
"He is our blood. Swear you will never let anyone hurt him, as Jon will never let anyone hurt you," Ned instructed, making sure his voice left no room for misinterpretation.
Robb glanced up at him for a moment before looking back at the babe as if enchanted. Then he looked directly at Jon. "By the Old Gods and the New," he said. "I will protect your babe with all I have, brother. And all the might of Winterfell and the North with me."
Even from where he stood, Ned heard Jon's breath stutter. He saw the glint of moisture in the boy's eyes before he used a long blink to hide the vulnerability. "Thank you," Jon said, and Ned knew they would have more words, knew he would have to tell the whole story, explain how he swore Arthur to silence, explain how he had wished to keep the peace with Robert as King, even as Jon grew up within his sight. How, to his own shame, he was still torn - he would never lie to the boy. But now, he thought it might be easier than he had feared. Jon still loved him, he did not doubt that. And Jon, he had to trust, knew Ned loved him as dearly as he ever had. That was most important. Everything else rested on that, after all.
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