"Good morning, beautiful," a rumbling voice dragged me out of peaceful oblivion. A warm spot pressed against my forehead, leaving a wet and cold patch on my skin as it pulled away.
"Ugh," I groaned, wincing at the light stabbing at my closed eyes. My mouth felt dry and tasted foul, and I was sore all over. I curled closer to the warm pillow I was laying on and tried to block out the world for another few hours.
The voice chuckled. I felt the rumble against my cheek. Which was strange, because I didn't think pillows rumbled. Tentatively, I cracked open one eyelid and glanced around.
The first thing I saw was a hairy chest. One that my head was laying on. My gaze traveled up until I saw the face of the person I was using as a pillow.
"Did you sleep well?" Ned asked, a gentle smile on his face as his gray eyes twinkled down at me.
I looked down, and suddenly realized that he was naked. Worse, I realized that I was naked, too.
'Oh shit,' I thought with sudden realization. 'Did we…?'
I didn't know. My memories of the previous night were hazy and disjointed. How much had I had to drink? I remembered ordering another flagon of wine from one of the serving girls, but… was it only one more? Or…
'I knew I shouldn't have gotten drunk!'
This wasn't the first time I'd had a bit too much to drink and wound up in someone's bed. Only, that was all in my old life, and my bed partners had always been women. And, unfortunately, I could remember a fair bit about yesterday's quiet emotional breakdown.
'This isn't how I wanted this to go!' I mentally complained. What I should have done was to calmly and rationally work my way through my emotional hangups and eventually come to accept my gender, my new sexual orientation -though did it count as a new sexual orientation if I was a woman, and therefore technically still straight?- and gradually come to accept my husband. I wasn't supposed to get drunk and have sex with him!
"Ugh!" I groaned again and rolled off of Ned's chest. "I'm never getting drunk again…"
Ned's chuckles weren't reassuring.
"Stay here and rest," he said, keeping his voice low. "I will return shortly."
I felt the feather bed and the warm furs shift as he, presumably, got up and started getting dressed. Considering the way that I was pressing my face into a pillow to block out the light, I didn't know for sure what he was doing.
I'm not too sure how long I stewed in my self pity before he returned. Actually, I think I might have dozed off for a bit. However, the next thing I knew, Ned was gently running my shoulder to get my attention.
"Catelyn?" He asked, thankfully keeping his voice low. "Catelyn? Cat?"
"What, Ned?" I asked, a bit irritated.
"I brought you some tea," he calmly replied.
Carefully, I rolled over onto my back and scooted up a bit, so that I was reclining more than laying down. Belatedly, I realized that my naked breasts were exposed to the air, but Ned had probably already seen them, so I decided not to try to cover them up. It would have been too much work.
"Here," he prompted, holding out an earthenware cup that was full of a steaming liquid.
Pulling it close, I took a deep whiff of the scent and moaned in pleasure. "Mmm, mint and nettle tea…"
I took a tiny sip and grimaced. Mint tea on its own was alright, but nettle tea tasted like green tea with hints of hay. I looked around and found that Ned was holding out a small jar of honey, an amused smile on his face.
"Thanks," I murmured as I spooned a dollop into the tea and stirred it. The second sip was much, much better than the first, and I drank the tea as quickly as I could, given how hot it was.
"Feeling better?" Ned asked.
"Much," I breathed in relief. Nettle tea, according to Adrya, could help relieve pain, and didn't taste too horrible. It certainly was helping with my hangover! "Is there any more?"
"The cooks sent up a whole pot," Ned replied. When I held out my cup to him, he dutifully refilled it.
"Thank you," I said, my voice a bit more normal now.
"It was no trouble," he replied. "Do you feel up to eating anything?"
I considered it for a moment, then nodded. "Just a bit, I think," I told him.
"Then, would you care to have breakfast in bed with me?" He asked.
I looked at him speculatively for a long moment. By modern beauty standards in my old life, Ned wasn't particularly good looking. He wasn't ugly, just… well, average. Not quite what was considered tall in my old life (though he stood about a head taller than the average smallfolk) with rough, weatherworn skin, a wild beard and hair down to his shoulders, he was rather rugged. By the standards of the North, he was somewhat handsome. In the south, the long hair and wild beard would work against him, but he would still be considered above average in the looks department.
'Well, at least this body finds him attractive,' I mused, torn between amusement and dismay. I wasn't sure how to feel about last night (which I still couldn't properly remember), but at least I wasn't married to someone I found repulsive. That this body found repulsive.
"Oh, very well," I huffed with mostly feigned exasperation. Given my long silence, Ned had raised his eyebrow and cocked his head to the side, waiting for me to answer.
"You're too kind, my lady," he replied with exaggerated courtly manners. He climbed into bed and slid under the furs, then balanced a tray loaded with mild breakfast foods between us.
We had porridge with raisins and nuts, and sweetened it with honey. Ned had a few of the fried sausages, but I didn't think I could handle anything greasy, so I declined. A pair of fried eggs and a slice of buttered toast rounded off my breakfast. As we ate, Ned recounted the story of how Benjen had gotten so drunk he could hardly walk straight at dinner last night.
"Of course, you weren't much better," he teased when I chuckled at poor Benjen. "I ended up having to carry you up the stairs."
I flushed. "Sorry. I don't… I don't normally get drunk. At all."
"It was no imposition, Cat," he said, smiling softly at me. "I'm your husband; it's my duty to help you."
"... Thank you," I replied in lieu of anything else to say.
I was… well, Ned seemed to be a genuinely good man. Honorable, dutiful, and surprisingly fun to be around when he let his whole 'ice lord' persona melt away. If I'd been a guy in body as well as in mind, I think we would have been good friends. Alas, I was a woman, and his wife.
'That doesn't mean we can't be friends,' that traitorous part of my mind insisted. 'Relationships have been built on worse…'
Despite my overall positive impression of Ned (ignoring my irritation over his shortsightedness on economic matters), I was still reluctant to commit to anything romantic, last night's drunken mistake aside. I still hadn't come to terms with the difference between my mental gender and my physical gender. Sometimes, when I looked in the (few, rare) mirrors around Winterfell, I still expected to see my old reflection staring back.
'And yet, I'm stuck with him.'
Divorce wasn't really a thing in Westeros. A wife could, in most cases, elect to move back in with her family, or a husband could send her away, but they were still considered married. The only real divorces that happened could only be granted by the High Septon. A wife moving back in with her family was a huge slight against the husband's honor, and a wife being sent away was regarded with scorn and shame on her and her family. In the few cases of abuse that I'd heard of, either one of the wife's male family members or a knight that was acquainted with her would challenge the offending husband to a duel, sometimes even to the death.
So, all that said, unless I wanted to cause Ned a lot of trouble, I couldn't get up and leave him. I was stuck in this marriage, no matter how reluctant I was about it. So, I would have to make this work. I'd have to learn to accept my body's attraction to men (and to Ned), I'd have to get over my emotional baggage (especially that which related to my father), and I'd have to start actually accepting my unexpected change in gender.
'All this time, I thought I'd been dealing with it,' I admitted to myself. 'But I wasn't. I was just pushing it aside, ignoring it as if it would go away on its own.'
It had been relatively easy to ignore. I was a noble lady in charge of a castle. Few people would dare to ignore me or denigrate me for my gender, given my powerful position. Outside of the clothes I wore, the forms of address people used, and my childcare duties, I hadn't been treated much different than I was as a man back in my old life. Better, in fact, because I had some wealth and a lot of power. Ned coming back had reminded me that I was, in fact, a wife as well as a mother. And, the kiss and whatever we had done last night (that I still couldn't properly remember) had made it very clear that I was a woman.