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Baela finds him in the Tower of the Hand, stepping out of a shadowed alcove on the cramped, serpentine steps to block his passage upwards.
“Lord Stark.”
“My Lady.”
Cregan Stark cuts an imposing figure. Even next to his northern kin he is a giant amongst men, perpetually adorned in leather and furs that make his shoulders broader still and never seen without that formidable greatsword. Baela herself is tall, yet it is only here, standing three steps above the man, that she is able to look down upon him. “I should thank you,” she says, “for sparing my grandfather’s life.”
Those fierce eyes, piercing even in the dim light of the stairwell, latch onto Baela’s face with intensity that might cow a lesser woman. His voice is stonier than the dragonmont’s slopes when he says, “Turn your gratitude to the Lady Alysanne. Were I to have my way, your Sea Snake’s head would roll with the rest of the traitors on the morrow.” With nothing more to say on the matter Cregan tries to push past, but Baela mirrors his movement and blocks his way once again. Now only two steps apart, they stand level.
“You were loyal to my stepmother.”
It is not a question. Cregan watches her for a long moment before he answers. “I am loyal to the Queen’s banner and family.”
“Because your father swore an oath twenty years ago,” Baela surmises, a smile dancing at her lips. She lets Cregan see her amusement, lets him wonder if it is scorn or mockery or something else entirely.
“My house swore an oath,” Cregan corrects, “and any Stark’s words are mine.” His tone is perfectly placid, no signs of frustration in the set of his brow or the line of his shoulders, but he must surely be wondering at Baela’s presence outside his door…in the hour of the ghost, no less. Baela certainly wonders at Cregan’s presence in King’s Landing, his continued role in the Red Keep when, by all accounts, his oath has long been fulfilled.
“You would march ten thousand men to their deaths for the Dragon Queen,” Baela muses aloud, watching Cregan closely, “And yet you execute those who were loyal to her last.”
She gets some satisfaction when, deep in the storm-washed gray of his eyes, anger flickers. “They did not kill Aegon for love of their rightful queen, but for their own selfish desires and hatred. Those involved in the betrayal of the Usurper can no more be trusted around the Queen’s son than around the king they poisoned, and traitors and kingslayers are not the kinds of men a court should be built upon. Justice must be served.”
In all his time at court, Baela has heard him speak of naught but justice, oaths, and loyalty. “You northern lords are certainly a different sort from us petty southerners,” she says, head tilted in curiosity that is only halfway feigned.
That cracks Cregan’s stony exterior enough to bring forth an amused twitch of his lips. It is not a true smile by any means, yet it shaves years from his young face. “Constant squabbling is a luxury northern winters do not allow for.”
Baela smiles mildly in return, letting her eyes skip over the whole of him before they return to his face. “So you say, and yet you linger here as the snows pile high above the Neck. Your father’s oath was sufficiently paid with the two thousand Winter Wolves you sent south in autumn; doubly so with the eight thousand men you lead now. Queen Rhaenyra is dead, her heir with her, and the last of her sons is marrying the Usurper’s daughter. The war is done; your word is done.”
“The war is not done, though the fighting may be. I swore to the Queen’s cause, not the Queen herself, and it now falls to me to ensure her son’s well-being.” Cregan shifts, clasping his hands behind his back as he resigns himself to this stairwell for a while longer. “Duty is all, Lady Baela, and I plan to do mine to the last.”
Swaying close enough that a few wayward silver curls frame Cregan’s face, Baela’s upper lip pulls back in what is more a baring of teeth than an expression of true amusement. “I know what you were promised in exchange, Lord Stark, and I know you do your duty for a marriage pact that will never be fulfilled. Why?” Cregan’s brooding expression slips, dropping into something far darker, but he does not reply. “Why?” Baela pushes, her eyes alight with a fire of their own. “Our cause is over, our Queen is dead. Jacaerys is dead. Why must the Red Keep be stained redder still?” A long moment passes. It is only them in the stairwell; the lord and lady, twins in their grief. Cregan’s fury is horrible to behold but Baela knows it hides a far more fragile sorrow and does not flinch away.
“For his half-brother, the young king,” Cregan finally says, his voice like ice. “For my son who will one day be at the beck and call of that damned Iron Throne and its wars.” For the first time in a long while his eyes drop from hers, drifting over Baela’s stomach before roaming back up to her face. “For your daughter who will never be.” A cold breeze wafts down the stairway; Baela shivers, Cregan does not. “You should know he spoke of you often, and thus far you have proved to be all he said and more.”
Cregan’s sudden, solemn words take her aback. From any other she might think it flirtation, but nothing in his face speaks of desire. He looks ferocious and world-weary and, more than anything, like a man holding himself together by the skin of his teeth.
“Did he?” Baela asks, straightening her spine so she might restore some space between them. “What am I, then?”
Cregan does not hesitate. “Bold. Brave. Beautiful.”
Beautiful . It is not undue arrogance for Baela to consider herself so. She is her mother’s daughter and the blood of old Valyria and has heard herself described as such from many a mouth, but Cregan… Cregan calls her beautiful the way Jace once did, not looking to her face, nor her body, nor the wealth surrounding her, but only within . It is as though he can see her very soul as he says it, wrenching Baela’s heart, grief twisting around the poor, battered organ until it nearly stops in her chest. It is a gift she does not know how to return except by saying, “Jace held immense respect for the houses and people of the north. He had little to say that was not fond, yet he reserved much of his admiration for you.”
A muscle flickers in Cregan’s jaw. Baela can no longer read his expression in the dancing firelight. “Winterfell is certainly the most impressive of the northern keeps, and the Stark name one of the oldest.”
“Not your castle, Lord Stark, nor your name. You .” And though she knows she pushes her luck, knows she has already strained the limits of her tenuous and unfamiliar relationship with the Young Wolf, Baela adds, “I think you meant much to each other.” She remembers well how Jace had spoken of him, the easy curl of his lips when he did. He loved her, of that she held no doubt, and it was not in his nature to be unfaithful, but Baela wonders if maybe in another, kinder life, one less saddled with duty…
“We did,” Cregan admits on an exhale. “For however short a time, we were brothers.”
Cregan is not a duplicitous man. He means what he says, wielding truthful words with blunt precision, and he is no more inclined towards lying than oathbreaking. Even so, there is something in the gleam of his eyes that suggests brotherly is merely one such word for it, that perhaps Jace’s own affections were not so unrequited. Baela clasps her hands behind her back in a mirror of Cregan’s posture (though she remains decidedly less stiff about it) and raises one brow high. “Brothers,” she repeats, letting the word drip off her tongue. “How very Targaryen of you.”
Nobody could ever say she is not her father’s daughter. She knows how to strike at the soft spots as well as he did.
Eyes narrowing, Cregan’s heavy boot shifts against the flagstones as though he’ll finally walk away, and he stares for a long, stretched-out second before he speaks. “I find myself with little patience for glib tongues, my Lady. Speak clearly.”
Lady . The emptiness of the title chafes.
She is not Lady of anything, really, not anymore. Driftmark remains in Velaryon hands (though it should pass to Rhaena), and Dragonstone is as empty of dragons as it is of a ruler. Baela has become nothing more than a liability that Aegon the Younger’s quarreling council must marry off before she brings disgrace upon them. Each proposed lord is older and more insipid than the last, all of them cowards, none of them overly loyal to either Greens or Blacks because Baela’s child could one day be heir and the council does naught but dither and compromise in their desire to avoid division…
…Yet here in front of her is another option. The council would huff and puff at the idea of placing a northman so close to the throne, but as long as she acts with secrecy and speed there is little the lords can do after a wedding has already occurred.
Baela Targaryen — a Queen Who Never Was like her grandmother before her, and Princess of Dragonstone no more — takes one final step down the stairs. Only inches apart, Cregan must now look down to meet her gaze, and in their proximity, Baela can see the stern set of his face dissolve into puzzlement as she reaches up, fists one hand in the furs upon his shoulder, and begs, “Take me as your wife, Lord Stark. Share with me your weirdwood gods and frozen halls, and allow me to ride and hunt and hawk as any man does. Whisk me north of the Neck before they stuff me in a gown and sell me to some fat southron lord to be bred like cattle.” Already seeing the refusal taking shape on his lips, Baela curls her free hand into Cregan’s other shoulder, holds him in an iron grip, and leans so close their lips nearly brush, wildly throwing down her last, desperate card. “Marry me, Lord Stark, and have me as you could never have him .”
Under his leathers, Cregan’s chest rises and falls a beat too fast. He curls calloused hands around Baela’s wrists, solid and warm, and Baela thinks for just a moment that he’ll agree…then he’s tugging her hands down, gentle despite his bone-breaking strength, as a sad smile creeps up one side of his mouth. “I will not,” he says, not unkindly, “as I am already sworn to another.”
“Alysanne Blackwood,” Baela says, lips thinning, though her displeasure is not for brave Black Aly herself: headstrong, loyal, and brash, the woman commands nothing but admiration. “Had I come to you earlier, before she promised you her hand…would you have had me then?”
“No,” Cregan says, and for all his blunt rejection stings, there is no cruelty in it. Quite the opposite, with the warm brush of his breath and the careful press of his fingers still on her wrists. “Winterfell is nothing to you but a ghost's brief, happy memories. Jacaerys is no more likely to be found there than he is in this very keep, yet you would wander those ‘frozen halls’ for years searching for a hint of your beloved.”
Cregan’s refusal thus far to say Jace’s name had not been lost on Baela, and she is deeply unprepared for the cautious way it finally rolls off his tongue. Like something precious. “Would the same not hold for you?” she retorts, finally tugging her hands from his grip just to rest one over the direwolf sigil at his breast.
He smiles, then, too small to reach his eyes yet genuine all the same. “Winterfell is my home: my dead are buried there, my son lives there now, and my people look to it as a symbol of their protection. The ten days your Jacaerys spent behind her walls were nothing compared to twenty-three years, and despite the many ghosts haunting those corridors, I am certain he is not among their ranks.”
For all his selflessness and vows of duty, Baela does not quite believe he refuses marriage only for her sake. Whatever his true motives, they are as lost to her in this moment as Baela’s hopes of a weirwood wedding. “You will not marry me,” she says, tapping one nail against a shining metal fang, “but I would ask one last thing of you tonight.”
“Anything,” he swears, his voice low, and for a man as concerned with his word as he, Cregan should know better than to throw such an open opportunity around.
Baela cups his cheek, presses her thumb into the soft skin at his cheekbone, and watches the way his lips part around an inhale. “Have me for tonight, Cregan Stark, if you will not have me forever.”
Cregan’s hand flies to her wrist, this time gripping tight enough to bruise. “I cannot,” he says, still so close that Baela can feel his breath on her lips.
“If you are concerned for your Blackwood woman, I might remind you how recently she has found her own way into Sabitha Frey’s bed.” Sliding her hand from cheek to jaw, Baela’s long, slender fingers press into the back of Cregan’s neck. She leans further into him, trusting him to take her weight, but she needs him to be the one to close that final gap. His desire is obvious, yet something holds him back, a curious hunger that sends his eyes flitting over Baela’s face as though searching…
Ah.
“Hypocrite,” Baela laughs, cocking her head. “All your talk of sparing me a lifetime seeking ghosts and yet here you stand, refusing my hand because you will spend a lifetime searching for pieces of Jace within me .” Cregan’s expression twists, a unique kind of pain taking over as he abruptly tries to draw away, but Baela only tightens her hold. “Take me tonight as you would have taken him,” she says, breathless to the point of desperation, and with those words the last of Cregan’s resistance dissolves.
His kiss is insatiable, like he can taste Jacaerys on her tongue if only he tries hard enough, while Baela wrests her hand from his grip and wraps her arms around his shoulders and imagines that the hair she threads through her fingers is shorter, curlier. It is a hard thing for both of them to pretend, however. Her silver hair and violet eyes share no more similarities with their ghost than Cregan’s towering height or the roughness of his beard. In a strange way, Baela thinks, this is less about shared desire and more a desire to share in grief.
You mourn him as I do, says the hand she clasps tight in her own, dragging him up the last of the stairs and into his rooms where they strip each other bare in the low orange light. He takes in her scars — burns from Moondancer’s first and final battle — without a second glance as she skims cautious fingertips over a jagged mess of tissue carved into his side. Cregan allows the careful, curious inspection for only a moment before he takes her hand away, kissing her knuckles, then her lips, then her neck and breasts and stomach and thighs.
I loved him as you did, says Cregan’s mouth upon her cunt, unrelenting as Baela twines both hands in his dark hair and writhes against him. She finds release there, barely taking a moment to catch her breath before she is pulling him back up her body.
I loved him as he loved you, say the reverent touches, the sweat-damp press of skin on skin as she takes all of him in one long, slow push. Cregan is atop her, big and solid and warm , and though it is far from an unpleasant place to be, Baela has no wish to be mounted like a prize mare.
“This may be how you northmen take your wives,” she says, breathless, “but I have ridden destriers and dragons, and I think I could make short work of you.”
Cregan smiles at that, genuine and fond and wide enough to show teeth, and though he offers no response, when Baela rolls him over onto his back he goes gamely. Atop, Baela’s view is much improved, the flex of muscle in Cregan’s chest and stomach on display as he matches her movements. His lips are parted but his eyes are closed, and every breath scrapes from lungs that sound as raw as Baela feels. Turning his head into the pillows, he lets out a choked-down groan, a single syllable that, like as not, was almost a name. Whose, Baela doesn’t know — perhaps hers, or Jace’s, or his Blackwood betrothed, or even his dear, deceased wife — but Cregan nearly swallows his tongue with the effort of staying quiet so Baela takes pity and grabs him by the jaw, occupies his mouth with two of her fingers instead. Surprise quickly melts into something more molten, lighting up the gray of his eyes, yet he only allows the intrusion for a matter of seconds before sinking his teeth in hard enough that Baela yanks her hand back. She doesn’t blame him for it: even flat on his back, a wolf is still a wolf.
As pleasure builds and her thighs begin to burn, Baela’s rhythm breaks apart. She finds it again when Cregan sits up, slinging one arm around her shoulders to hold her near as he reclaims her mouth. The kiss is messy and biting and Baela can’t quite tell if the salty wetness on her cheeks is from her tears or his… both, perhaps, as they claw at each other with blunt nails and desperately-grabbing hands, leaving no space between their bodies where a ghost or fantasy might sprout up unbidden.
Cregan comes near-silently, one hand cradling Baela’s face and the other clutching her hip, a moan muffled in the crook of her neck: the scrape of sharp teeth on skin and the feel of his spend inside her bring Baela over the edge a moment later. They stay there for a short while, tousled hair indiscriminately sticking to any sweaty skin it can find, chests pressed so close they can feel their slowing heartbeats. Cregan’s breath is warm and his beard is rough, and his expression is gentle as they finally disentangle from each other’s limbs. Half-expecting to be shown the door, Baela is surprised when Cregan stands to bar it instead, blowing out several candles in their sconces on his way back to the bed. Illuminated by only the embers in the dying hearth, she is even more surprised when he slips wordlessly back under the furs and tugs her to his chest, one massive arm curling protectively around her back in a mirror of their earlier position. His warmth is welcome in the rapidly cooling room — Lady Winter creeps farther south with every week — so Baela neither questions nor complains. Admittedly, the comfort of the embrace is welcome as well, every steady rise and fall of his chest eating away at the lingering flayed-open feeling in Baela’s own.
She wakes shivering in the early morning chill. Cregan is up, already in the midst of dressing, and each layer he dons is another piece of his armor. By the time he’s buckled Ice over his shoulder, the grief-stricken young man of just hours ago is gone and it is Lord Stark of Winterfell giving Baela one last, long look. “I am sorry I cannot help you,” he says, utterly sincere. “I am sorry, too, for all you have lost.”
Before Baela can even think about returning the sentiment, he’s gone, heavy oaken door slamming shut with a resounding clang.