Archive of Our Own

ANNA

After sixteen years in the system, Anna had learned several things to be true.

First, she had to be quick to introduce herself as Anna, otherwise they used her full name for everything and that’s what she got stuck with. No, that lesson she learned the earliest.

Second, every social worker’s office she visited had the same wall. One of their success stories, with pictures of adopted children and smiling parents. How many photos were on that wall and how fake the smiles were told her a lot about the social workers and the potential families she could end up placed with.

Third, her leg gave her away every single time.

Even now, in the waiting room to the office, she couldn’t make her leg stop bouncing.

This would be her fourth social worker. The first two had been fine, she thought, but she’d been young then, and hadn’t known enough how to tell the difference between a good one and a bad one.

The last one had set her on edge. She wasn’t sure what it’d been about him, but when he pulled her out of her last placement and said that she was being transferred back North, out of the Vale, she’d secretly been pleased.

She just hoped this social worker, whatever her next placement was, was good. Safe.

She needed that now, no matter how terrified it made her to admit it.

“Are you here for Brienne Tarth?” a young man asked, looking at her.

Anna looked around and realized that she was the only one in the room. She nodded.

“You can go on back. She’s just finishing up a phone call and she’ll be with you,” he said.

Anna picked up the two bags at her feet—the backpack and single suitcase—the ones that housed everything in the world that she owned.

The man—Payne his badge read—led her back to the office that said B. Tarth, M.S.W.

She expected him to stick around, supervise her while she waited in the office, but as soon as she’d set her bags down, she turned to see that he was gone.

She’d never been alone in an office before.

Anna supposed if she were somebody else, she might have looked for her file, to see what was written about her. If everything in it was true.

To see why she was always sent somewhere else.

But that wasn’t what she was drawn to.

Instead, it was the success wall.

This was by far the largest wall she’d seen. There were photos covering every inch of the corkboard, and in between the photos were notes. Thank you notes. From both the parents and the children.

It didn’t take long for her realize most of the thank you notes from parents were written by mothers. That didn’t surprise her. She’d found that a lot of the time, mothers were the ones who made the final call on whether or not you stayed—because it was often their decision on whether or not they could love you as their own.

There was one note, she noticed, signed by a father. It was pinned next to a Christmas card from last year. The family in the photo wore color coordinated outfits and were posed in front of a fire place. The two parents stood in the back, and five children in front of them.

Anna leaned closer, trying to determine which of the kids were adopted and which were biological, or if they were all adopted.

She could typically tell by how forced the smiles were. How haunted the eyes.

She could pick out the kids like her in every other photo on this board, but this one had her stumped.

“Sorry I’m late,” a voice said. Anna couldn’t hide the way she jumped at the unexpected noise.

Jumpy, scared of loud noises—she wondered if that was in her file somewhere. “Brienne,” the woman said, offering her hand.

“Anna,” she said, thankful for the opportunity to introduce herself without cutting Brienne off. She knew adults didn’t like it when kids did that.

“Anna, nice to meet you. Please, take a seat.”

Anna sat across from Brienne, trying to control her bouncing right leg. She couldn’t stop her thoughts from spiraling.

Brienne was tall and severe-looking. Like she didn’t take shit from anyone.

What did that say about her that they gave her such a tough social worker?

“So, you’re transferring back to North from the Vale?” Brienne asked, flipping her file open. Anna saw L. SNOW written clearly on the tab.

“Yep.”

Brienne was quiet as she skimmed through the rest of the file. Anna’s eyes slid back to the wall while she waited. She found the Christmas photo almost immediately.

Everyone in that photo looked so happy. She wondered what that was like.

“So, I think—” Brienne started and Anna snapped her head back to the woman in front of her. Brienne paused, turning to look where Anna had just been staring. “I think I’ve got a family for you. Excuse me while I make a quick call.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Brienne left her alone in the office again, and Anna was back staring at that damn picture.

She’d had her fair share of families over the sixteen years she’d been in the system. For the most part she could fit them into two categories: the families trying to fill a hole because they couldn’t have kids of their own and the ones who did it because they liked the extra money from the government.

Jury was still out on which one was worse, in her opinion. The first type was usually warmer, but they were also needier, and usually, it hurt worse when they inevitably sent her back. When they decided they didn’t love her. The second type was a bare-bones type of comfort—they did exactly what was required from the government in order to not have their license taken away, but they never made it seem like she should expect a permanent home from them. She never got her hopes up, so she was never disappointed.

Anna figured the family in the Christmas photo had to be in the first group—the ones who couldn’t have children of their own. They had to be. That was the only explanation.

Brienne came back in fifteen minutes later, carrying a new file folder. This one said STARKS on the tab.

That was the name on the Christmas card.

“Here, why don’t you take a look at this? See what you think.”

Anna had never been handed a folder like this before. She’d never seen a family’s file before going to live with them. Usually they just put her wherever there was space because beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Slowly, she opened the file.

The parents—Jon and Sansa Stark—had been married for nearly twenty-five years. They’d met in college. He was a history professor at University of Winterfell and had published a couple of books on some war that had happened ages ago. She was an art teacher at Winterfell High. They lived in the outskirts of the city, in a house with a big yard. They had five kids: Benjen, Robyn, Celia, Trystan, and Lyra. The oldest was twenty and the youngest was ten. The rest of her extended family lived nearby and all of the holidays were big family gatherings.

If Anna went to live with them, this would be the most functional family she’d ever stay with.

“What do you think? Look like a family you’d like to live with?”

“I—Yeah.” Anna closed their file, a knot forming in her throat.

“Great. So, I just have some paperwork to take care of and we’ll get you right over there.”

“Already?” Anna asked. Usually she ended up crashing on a social worker’s emergency cot or in a motel room while everything got sorted.

“They keep a room ready for situations like this. And they’re good with short notice. We go to them a lot with last minute placings—especially for older kids.”

Especially for older kids, Anna thought. That’s the other shoe—it had to be. They liked older kids because they could help out with the younger ones, babysitting, chores, all that.

Her heart hoped that wasn’t true though. Because they seemed perfect and right now, she needed a little perfect.

She deserved a little perfect.

SANSA

When they built the house, Jon had insisted on having a landline. Sansa didn’t see the point—they’d lived in their last house, and their apartment before that, without a landline. Everyone just had their cell phone numbers. She said they’d just keep their volume up.

“A lot of kids get pulled in the middle of the night. If we get an emergency placement… I want to make sure we hear it.”

“Okay,” she’d said. It’d been the only thing Jon had specifically requested when they started planning. That, and the extra bedrooms. He said he wanted enough room for everyone. Enough that everyone would have privacy—a space of their own.

The contractor had looked at them when Jon said that. His look clearly said: how many children do you plan on having? But she knew the answer to that. They’d had that conversation soon after they’d gotten married.

Sansa had known having a big family—having a family, period—was important to Jon. She knew that before they started dating. When they sat on that roof of the New Year’s party and he explained what having the last name Snow meant. What being a foundling meant.

She knew Jon wanted children of their own, biological children, but he wanted to be able to foster, to adopt too.

After her high school reunion, they signed up to take the classes for their fostering license.

-

Her period had been late, but it had been before. Sansa had gotten her hope—Jon’s hope—up before and it hurt every time the results came back negative. She saw the dejection in Jon’s eyes every time.

That was worse. His pain had always been worse than her own, even before they started dating.

So this time, Sansa didn’t tell Jon she was late. She booked an appointment with her OBGYN because she didn’t want Jon to see the home test kit in the trash—the one she was scared would come back negative. Plus, the blood test was supposed to be more accurate.

Or, at least that’s what she heard. From her friends who got pregnant far more quickly than she was.

In the waiting room, Sansa’s leg bounced nervously.

They’d been trying for nearly a year—since her reunion. For some reason, Sansa thought this would be the easy part. She thought getting pregnant wouldn’t be the part that would fill her with worry.

She thought adoption would be harder—getting the licensing, the approval, the courts. She was sure they’d have their first biological child before their first adopted one, but they’d been officially cleared to be foster parents a few weeks ago.

Her mother had five children. Shouldn’t that mean that Sansa should be able to, too?

“Mrs. Stark?” the nurse called, forcing Sansa back out of her head.

“How long ‘til I find out?” she asked, once she was in an exam room and a band was wound around her arm.

“Couple of hours. We’ll call the number on file as soon as we have the results.”

“Okay,” she murmured, watching her blood fill the syringe.

“Do you want any literature about your options? Just in case?”

“What? Oh, no. No. We’ve been trying for a year. I… I’m just tired of the disappointment,” Sansa whispered.

“Oh. Well, in that case, I can give you literature on IVF, fostering, adoption…”

Sansa stopped listening. She didn’t have the energy to explain her circumstances to the woman. She struggled to put it into words, anyway. To explain how important it was to have both biological and adopted children.

To explain how deeply she wanted to give Jon a child.

A son.

Someone to pass his name onto—the Stark name.

Sansa went home after her appointment and turned the volume on her phone up all the way.

Jon was teaching a summer session and wouldn’t be home for a few hours yet.

She’d most likely get the results before he got home.

Sansa needed a way to spend the time. She needed to get her mind off the test, off the disappointment she was already starting to feel.

Typically, she would watch some kind of mindless TV, some procedural show that she could follow without effort, but the episode she put on was about a pregnant woman. She turned it off instantly.

Instead, she went into their home office.

There was a whole wall covered in the books Jon studied, and opposite it a large picture window that let in enough natural light that they rarely turned on the light when they worked in there during the day.

In front of the window was her easel.

She’d been working on a sketch a few weeks ago—a landscape from their last vacation—but that wasn’t what she felt like working on.

Sansa put a new canvas up and picked up her charcoal, her hand moving instinctually.

-

The sound of her phone ringing a few hours later jarred her.

Sansa swiped her phone open with the side of her hand—one of the few places that wasn’t covered in sooty black.

“Is this Sansa Stark?”

She immediately dropped the piece of charcoal she’d still been holding. She hadn’t looked at the ID before answering.

“This is she,” she breathed, her hands suddenly trembling.

“We have the results of your blood test earlier today.”

“Okay.”

“I have a note here, that you’ve been trying to get pregnant for about a year?”

“That’s right,” Sansa answered automatically.

“Well, congratulations, Mrs. Stark. Your results were positive. You’re pregnant.”

Sansa let out a girlish giggle, her charcoal stained hand fell to her stomach.

Her womb.

The woman on the other end continued speaking, talking about scheduling an ultrasound and prenatal vitamins. Sansa answered passively, her mind still racing.

When they hung up, Sansa looked at her canvas closely for the first time.

She’d drawn Jon and herself, holding a little bundle. A baby.

-

Sansa heard the door open about an hour later. She was still in the office, working on the portrait, adding details.

“What’s this?” he asked, coming around and resting his chin on her shoulder. “Is… Is that…?”

One of his hands drifted towards the outline that he held in the drawing.

“I’m pregnant, Jon,” she squealed, turning and throwing her arms around him.

“Pregnant? You’re sure?”

“I got the blood test this time.”

Jon’s smile transformed his whole face, crinkling the corners of his eyes. His soft, soft eyes. He kissed her once, deeply, enthusiastically, before dropping to his knees before her.

Typically, the sight would send a thrill through her, but this time it sent something gentler, fuzzier through her.

He nuzzled her stomach, his arms braced tightly against her back.

“We’re going to have a baby, Jon. You’re going to be a father.”

ANNA

When they pulled up to the house, Anna couldn’t help but stare out the window. She figured the house would be nice, but it was probably the nicest house she’d ever been placed it. It certainly had the biggest yard.

Normally when she was placed this late, she’d be either half asleep or her leg would be bouncing uncontrollably. Now she just stared in awe.

As soon as she stood on the front porch, her nerves were back.

This was her last chance. If she just kept her head down here, she might be able to age out without any drama, or an extended stay at a group home.

They just had to like her.

Or, at least, tolerate her enough not to send her back.

Brienne led her up the walkway and onto the front porch. Anna had never been to a house that had a porch that went all the way around the house. Most of them just had a stoop or a small porch, enough space for maybe one or two people. Not for a large family.

Anna gripped the handle of her suitcase tighter.

Please like me, she prayed as Brienne rang the doorbell.

The couple answered the door together. Anna had found that most couples that did that were the ones who cared—the ones who adopted, fostered, because they couldn’t have children of their own.

They looked kind enough, she thought. The man looked exactly what she expected of a history professor—bearded, wire framed glasses, in a sweater. The woman was the one who surprised her. The file had said she was an art teacher. Anna had expected someone…more free spirited, with scarves and beads and patterns. This woman looked sophisticated. Modern.

“Jon, Sansa, this is Anna Snow. Anna, this is Jon and Sansa Stark,” Brienne introduced.

Anna nodded at them, trying not to stare. Adults didn’t like it when she stared. They said it was disrespectful.

“Want me to come in and help you get settled?” Brienne murmured; her voice was low enough that Anna was pretty sure she was the only one who could hear it.

She shook her head. She didn’t need a baby sitter. Plus, having a social worker in the house tended to make parents nervous.

“Okay, well, you have my number if you need me. I’ll be by next weekend to check in on you.”

“Okay.”

Anna stepped into the house and was instantly overwhelmed with how big, how open it was. It was clearly a newer house. She could see both the living room and the kitchen from where she stood, just a foot inside the front door.

“You hungry? We can heat up some leftovers from dinner. We ate a few hours ago…” the woman—Mrs. Stark—said, walking towards the kitchen.

“No, I… I had a sandwich. Before.”

“Okay. I can show you your room?” she offered, turning back around.

Anna glanced between the two of them. The man, Mr. Stark, seemed to be hanging back. She wondered if he didn’t want her here. If Mrs. Stark was the one who ran the show.

“Okay.”

Mrs. Stark led her around the stairs and to a door that was off the living room. The door opened to a descending set of stairs.

Ah, here we go, Anna thought. They stick the foster kids in the basement.

Except, Anna realized once they were downstairs, it wasn’t like other basements she’d been in.

There was a huge couch, a TV mounted on the wall, and glass doors separating it from the hallway.

“Bathroom’s over here,” Mrs. Stark said, pointing to a door that was halfway down the hallway. A nightlight cast the dark bathroom in a blue glow. “So this is Benjen’s room. He’s at the library tonight, so if you hear someone coming in late, it’s him.”

Benjen—the file said he was the oldest. His door was covered in band logos.

“He sometimes forgets that his room isn’t soundproof. If his music’s too loud, pound on his door and he’ll turn it down.”

“Okay,” Anna said, but there was no way in hell she was doing that.

“Robyn and Celia are those doors. The younger two, Trystan and Lyra are upstairs. This room’s yours.”

Mrs. Stark opened the only door that wasn’t decorated—next to the one with feminist stickers and across from the one with a DO NOT DISTURB sign.

Anna was not expecting the room she saw.

There was a full-sized bed made up with pillows and a fluffy comforter. There was a bookshelf against one wall, a desk beside it. There was a closet, a dresser, a nightstand, a mirror.  A series of narrow windows at the top of one wall.

It was gender neutral, but it wasn’t as cold or empty as other rooms like this she’d been in.

There were books and a few knickknacks on the shelves, a lamp on the nightstand.

“There’s extra pillows and blankets in the closet, and a set of towels if you want to shower. Our bedroom is upstairs. We sleep with the door open, if you need anything.”

Oh, yeah, right, Anna thought. There was no way she would be going up to their bedroom to ask for anything.

“I’ll leave you to unpack, then.”

“Okay.”

Mrs. Stark left her, shutting the door quietly. Anna turned, surprised. Usually foster parents left the door open. She always waited until they left to shut the door. It was then Anna realized there was a lock on the door—a button lock, on the inside. She could lock her door.

This was definitely the first time she’d had a lock on the inside of her door.

She went over, clicking the lock, because she could.

Anna set her backpack on the bed and started her usual inspection of her room.

The closet was spacious and had exactly what Mrs. Stark said there would be. The dresser was empty, as was the drawer in the nightstand.

If she wanted to, she could unpack and officially move in.

But the thought of packing everything up again eventually when she’d be asked to leave filled her with dread, so she pulled her sweats out of her suitcase, changed, and put the clothes she was wearing back in before moving them off to the side.

Sliding beneath the covers, Anna curled up, her arms around her stomach and her eyes trained on the door. The same way she spent the first night in every new house.

-

Anna awoke abruptly, sitting bolt up in bed. Her heart was pounding.

Something had woken her.

Her eyes immediately went to the door—the one that was still locked.

Then she heard the sound that woke her again.

It was the sound of her stomach growling.

Anna took a deep breath, steadying her heartrate.

She’d lied about the sandwich she said she’d had earlier. She hadn’t eaten since she’d gotten to Brienne’s office.

Typically, she didn’t when she went to a new house. She was usually too nervous. But things were different now. She had to listen to her body now.

Anna pushed the covering off, stepping out of bed. She pulled an oversized hoodie on over her t-shirt and opened the door quietly.

The other three doors in the hallway were still shut and it was quiet.

She moved quietly, using the light from the nightlight to find the stairs.

The door at the top of the stairs open with only a small squeak and she was in the living room.

There was a light on in the kitchen, over the sink. It made Anna pause, thinking someone else was up, but the only sound she heard was the fridge running.

Anna tiptoed across the hardwood floor and into the kitchen.

This was not normal behavior for her. She would never sneak around a new house—or any house, really—but she needed to eat. Her stomach growling loudly again reinforced that fact.

Anna had never been in a kitchen alone. She didn’t know what was acceptable to take.

Remembering that Mrs. Stark had already offered her leftovers, Anna opened the fridge, thinking it was probably okay to eat what had already been offered.

To her surprise, there were two wrapped plates in the fridge with sticky-notes on them. One looked like it was for Benjen, the son who was still out it seemed, and the other had Anna written on it, and instructions on how to heat it.

She almost smiled.

Anna unwrapped the plate and followed the instructions, putting it in the microwave.

Just before the microwave beeped, she heard a door open.

She jumped wildly, looking around.

Looking for an escape.

A man came in through a door she hadn’t noticed before. He was tall—taller, she thought, than Mr. Stark—but much younger. Only a few years older than she was, probably. This was Benjen, she realized.

Still, she felt caught. Guilty. Like she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.

“Oh. Hello.”

“…Hi,” she said after a beat.

“You must be… Anna?”

“How’d you know?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“Dad texted. I think your food’s done.”

“Oh.” She’d been so focused on Benjen that she hadn’t noticed the beeping.

“I’m Benjen. The oldest. Oh, excellent, was that what’s for dinner?” he said quickly, looking at the plate she took out, and went straight for the fridge. It took a moment for Anna to register everything he’d said.

Anna took her plate and moved across the kitchen with it, trying to keep the island between them.

“Forks are to your left,” he said without even turning around from where he was putting his own plate in the microwave.

“Thanks.”

Anna ate quietly, guarded. She watched the way Benjen moved around the kitchen, so assured, confident.

In the light from the single light over the sink, she noticed how his hair was a similar color to Mrs. Starks’s, but how his beard looked like Mr. Starks’s. Bio kid, she determined. This close, she could see the similarities. Plus, she’d never seen an adopted kid move with that much security. Unless they were adopted at birth and didn’t know any different.

That meant they probably weren’t the ones who adopted because they couldn’t have children of their own. Which meant they did it for the money.

Or for another reason entirely. But Anna couldn’t let herself believe that. Not yet.

-

Anna made sure to go back downstairs before Benjen. She didn’t want to walk down alone with him.

Inside the room, she locked the door again. She watched it carefully as she heard footsteps overhead, then descending down the stairs. She heard the water run in the bathroom, the toilet flush. The door across the hall squeak open and then latch shut.

It was finally then she allowed herself a breath out.

-

Anna woke up the next morning to the sound of arguing outside her door. She immediately tensed, her eyes falling to the locked door.

“It’s Saturday. Why’d you have to do the laundry so early?” a girl’s voice asked.

“Because we have enough to outfit an army and it takes all day. Grab anything you want washed and you’re welcome to go back to sleep,” a male voice answered—Mr. Stark.

“Ugh. Fine.”

Anna was frozen in bed, listening to this exchange. She heard something similar twice more—another girl and Benjen responding—though neither of those had quite the same attitude as the first.

Twenty seconds later there was a knock at her door. She sat up, gripping the blankets around her.

“Anna? We’re doing laundry if you have anything you want washed,” he called. She noticed his voice was low, quiet. It didn’t boom the way some other men’s did.

“I’m good.” She waited, wondering if he’d press the issue the way he seemed to with the other girl.

“Okay. Breakfast will be ready soon, but you can come up whenever you’re ready.”

“’Kay.”

She expected more, but she heard footsteps moving away from her door immediately.

Anna waited a few more minutes before she realized no one was going to come back and check on her. She glanced at her phone and saw what time it was. Half passed nine.

It was probably the latest she’d slept at a house, especially on her first night.

She knew it was probably good for her—the sleep—but it still surprised her. She usually spent most of the first night up, watching the door. Anna supposed the lock probably made a difference.

JON

Jon paced the length of the hallway in front of the hospital room. The doctors and nurses had already told him there was nothing to worry about. Both Sansa and the baby were perfectly healthy.

Their reassurances didn’t mean anything to him though.

They didn’t understand that his anxiety was only partially about the actual process of delivery. The rest was the fear of being a father.

It was everything he ever wanted, and yet it terrified him.

Would he be a good father?

He always said he would be. He’d be the father he always wanted.

But what did he know about being a parent, a father, let alone a good one?

The closest thing he ever had were his in-laws. And they were great, they were. He loved the Starks, but they showed him how to parent nearly-adult children. Teenagers. Not babies.

Jon didn’t know anything about babies.

What if the doctors put the baby in his arms and he started screaming? What if he didn’t stop? What was Jon supposed to do then?

He knew babies sometimes just didn’t like people. He’d seen it with some of their friends that already had kids. Robb and Jeyne’s daughter hadn’t been a fan of being held by anyone other than Jeyne for the first few months.

What if his son was like that?

What if his son only wanted Sansa, and not him?

Jon knew it would crush him, break him.

After all of his years with Sansa, with the Starks, Jon had thought he’d put this behind him. That ache, that hollowness.

He certainly didn’t think the prospect of having a son would bring it back up.

And the fact that it did also worried him.

He thought he was better, whole, healed.

Now it seemed like maybe he wasn’t.

“She’s asking for you. It won’t be long now,” the nurse said, coming out of Sansa’s room.

Jon nodded, trying to compose his face, hide his panic.

He’d been thrilled, elated, when Sansa had told him she was pregnant. He’d been excited, but nervous, this morning when the contractions started.

It was the waiting that made him get lost in his head. They’d been in the hospital for almost six hours now. That’s what it was. The waiting.

“Hey. How’re you feeling?” he asked Sansa, entering the room.

“Oh, you know,” she joked, rolling her eyes. Her humor lightened his worry a little bit.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Come here,” Sansa whispered, extending her hand. “What do you think of Jon for a name? Name him after you?”

“No.” He wrinkled his nose.

“Someone from one of your history books? Robert?”

“I still like the idea of naming him after someone in your family. We could name him Eddard, for your dad.”

“I want to name him something that means something to you,” she stressed, holding his hand tightly.

Jon sighed.

They’d been going round and round like this since they found out they were having a son. Sansa kept saying the same thing: let’s name him for someone in your life. Except he had so few people in his life.

“Maybe we’ll know it when we see him,” Sansa murmured, letting go of his hand and caressing her stomach.

Jon glanced at it, still in awe that there was a baby—their baby—growing inside of her.

He’d watched it grow all these months, watched Sansa glow in her pregnancy, and fell even more deeply in love with her.

-

Sansa had wanted him in the delivery room, but her screams were too much. He fainted soon after she started pushing.

When he came to only a few seconds later, the nurses and midwives assured him that it happened all the time, but perhaps he should wait in the hallway.

He agreed, and sat in the hall, trying not to listen to how Sansa screamed and cried.

He’d seen birth in movies, TV shows, he vaguely remembered something about it from health class, but nothing prepared him for the sounds she made.

It made him wonder if having a family was actually worth all the pain Sansa was currently enduring.

That question was answered for him as soon as another cry broke the air. He raised is head, listening.

“Mr. Stark? Come meet your son,” the nurse said, coming into the hallway.

Jon stood slowly.

In the room, Sansa was pale, sweaty, her hair dark and plastered to her face. But she grinned at him, her eyes sparkling.

“We have a son, Jon,” she whispered, holding out the bundle in her arms.

The baby whimpered and Jon almost said no, you keep holding him, but he knew that Sansa would call him on it, exhausted as she was.

He took the baby, pulling him into his chest. He was at the same time bigger and smaller than Jon expected him to be.

He cradled his son, and when he didn’t cry, Jon felt a tear slip from his own eye.

ANNA

It was not the most chaotic house Anna had ever been in, but there was definitely an element of controlled chaos about it.

Breakfast had been laid out buffet style and the kids were scattered across the kitchen, some sitting at the island, some at the kitchen table. Mrs. Stark was at the oven, flipping bacon and Mr. Stark was unloading the dishwasher.

“Morning, Anna,” Mrs. Stark greeted. “How’d you sleep?”

“Good, thanks,” she answered honestly.

She took a plate and began taking her share: a pancake, a slice of bacon, a little cup of fruit. She only counted three of the Stark kids, which meant there had to be enough for the other two, one of which was Benjen. She was pretty sure that one could eat a horse if he could.

“Is that all you’re eating?” Mrs. Stark asked as Anna passed her, heading towards the table.

Anna couldn’t read the comment: did she think she was taking too much? Did she think her defiant by rejecting dinner last night, and only taking a small helping this morning?

She wasn’t sure how to respond, so she didn’t. She just shrugged as she sat across from the two younger children—Lyra and Trystan. She still wasn’t sure who was adopted and who was biologically Stark, aside from Benjen. Their parents had such different coloring and Anna had never been good at biology.

“Hi,” she offered quietly to the kids.

She could always tell the type of house it was from the kids. The houses that had quiet kids were always the worst.

Both kids instantly started asking her questions—her name, her age, her favorite show, her favorite animals, if she believed in magic.

Their response floored her. She’d never met kids in a foster home like that. So open.

Anna glanced over at Mr. and Mrs. Stark, who were dishing up their plates. Mr. Stark handed a full plate to Mrs. Stark and she kissed him on the cheek in response.

That was something else Anna had never seen in a home.

“Anyone know what time Ben came home?” Mr. Stark asked, sitting next to Trystan.

Anna stared at them, trying to figure out if they looked alike. She thought they had similar eyes—dark and solemn, but she thought Trystan’s were brown and Mr. Stark’s looked grey.

“I heard the toilet around midnight, I think,” the daughter at the counter offered. She was either Celia or Robyn. She had a mass of dark curls that looked like Mr. Stark’s but her face was longer than either of the parents’.

Anna watched the faces of the two adults carefully, looking for anger or irritation or something. How they reacted would tell her a lot about them, and the fact they didn’t told her even more.

-

Anna spent most of her first day in the Stark house trying to understand this family that seemed too good to be true.

Lyra had grabbed her hand after breakfast and begged her to play dolls with her. She said the other two daughters, Robyn and Celia, were too old now and refused to play. Anna was pretty sure she was the same age, or close, to them, but she didn’t mind.

Lyra took her upstairs, chattering animatedly. Anna tried to follow the story about her dolls she was telling her, but the wall in the hallway had her stopping dead.

It was covered in photos.

There were baby photos, school pictures, staged family photos. They covered the wall.

There were far more children than the five the file said the Starks had.

“Lyra? Who’re the rest of the kids in these pictures?”

“Kids who’ve stayed with us but had to go back home,” she shrugged.

There were probably at least a dozen kids, and more than half were teenagers.

“Mum and Dad said they can’t all stay with us forever. They have their own families to go back to, some of them. But they still cry every time they leave.”

Anna studied the wall of pictures. It reminded her of the wall she’d seen in Brienne’s office, but she’d never seen one like this in someone’s home.

“Dad said some of them got too old and had to leave. But some of them still come for Christmas.”

Anna almost asked what she meant by too old but she realized Lyra meant that they aged out.

Then she came to a portrait at the end. This one wasn’t a picture or a photograph. It was a drawing, a sketch.

“What’s this?”

“Mum drew it. She said even though some kids have to go home, doesn’t mean they’re not still family.”

Mr. and Mrs. Stark were in the center of the sketch; surrounding them were all the faces she recognized from the pictures along the hall.

“She takes it down and adds to it every time someone leaves.”

Anna felt tears sting her eyes and she had to swallow harshly, forcing them down.

“Let’s go play dolls, yeah?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t sound as weak as she thought it did.

SANSA

Sansa thought she knew what it meant to be a foster parent. She’d heard the stories from Jon, about how he grew up, and from the classes they took, the support groups they joined.

She did not realize how much of an emotional toll it took.

Their first foster child was a teenage girl who they knew would be a temporary placement. They knew she wasn’t eligible for adoption.

It was a late-night call—like Jon had said they might get when they installed the landline.

Brienne showed up twenty minutes later with a thirteen-year-old that reminded her of Arya at that age.

She stayed with them for almost two months before being moved back with her family.

Sansa expected Jon to take it harder than she did, but that wasn’t the case.

He’d spent the entirety of his formative years in the system. He was used to it. She wasn’t.

She was not expecting the pain that ripped through her as they drove away.

Over the years, it got easier saying goodbye to the kids, but it was never actually easy. It helped that Brienne started to send them older kids—sixteen, seventeen-year-olds. The ones few other families wanted. The ones who didn’t leave but aged out. The ones who came back for holidays and still dropped by on occasion.

She knew it was the most they could do—she knew they couldn’t adopt them all—but every time the phone rang, she hoped they officially became a part their family.

The temporary placements, the kids who were prepared to age out, Sansa knew they didn’t hurt Jon as deeply when they left.

The handful of times they’d gotten foundlings? That was different.

Foundlings had become less common in the last twenty, thirty years since Jon had been in the system. There were social changes and healthcare changes that made it easier for women to find safe places for their babies without dropping them off at hospitals or fire stations. That didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Those were the ones that pained Jon more.

She watched his eyes every time a kid who spent their lives in the system entered their house.

He was different with those kids.

He gave them more space, but at the same time made sure they knew he was around. He spent more time working in his office at home, took on TAs whenever he could.

Sansa knew he did his best to give stability. She knew what it meant to them, to him.

The first time they had a Stone—Rowena—Jon had immediately wanted to start the process for adoption. She’d been with them for two weeks at that point.

Then they found out that she wanted to age out. She didn’t want to be adopted.

That was the first time Sansa saw Jon break down in Brienne’s office.

But Rowena stayed with them for her year and a half until she turned eighteen, and when she left, Jon made sure she had their landline and cell phone numbers programmed in her phone and that she knew that she could always come back if she needed to. Or wanted to.

He made sure she knew that even if she was out of the system, they could still be there for her.

When she left, Sansa was sure he’d be upset. He was quiet, but not much more than he had been any time any other child left them.

ANNA

In the first couple weeks Anna spent in the Stark house, she realized what type of couple the Starks were. They weren’t the ones doing it for the government check, nor were they the ones trying to fill a hole because they couldn’t have children of their own.

They were a third type Anna had never considered. Never met.

They were a family overflowing with love that wanted to share it with as many people as possible.

Anna had heard about people like them, but only in fairy tales and TV shows. She didn’t believe that they were real.

Not until she met the Starks.

They were patient and kind.

They insisted she call them Jon and Sansa instead of Mr. and Mrs. Stark.

The kids they’d adopted—Celia and Trystan, she’d finally figured out by asking Lyra—called them Mum and Dad the same way the rest of the kids did.

This was the family, she decided. They were the perfect family.

She didn’t think they’d kick her out when they found out, and they cared deeply enough to want to protect everyone.

The thing that Anna worried about was their age.

They clearly preferred older kids, and their youngest—Lyra—was ten.

Would they want to start over?

JON

Signing the name Jon Stark made Jon emotional nearly every time he had to do it. First, on their marriage license, then on checks and leases. A mortgage. It eventually became normal that he was Jon Stark and not Jon Snow.

And then he signed his name to Benjen’s birth certificate.

Jon had cried many times that day, but he cried again after seeing his name under father. After seeing the name Benjen Stark written on the document.

That day had been emotional, as had the births of his other two children, but he didn’t weep the same way when he signed those certificates.

When Celia’s adoption papers came through when she was thirteen, and he watched as her name was changed from Rivers to Stark, he cried, and again when Trystan’s was changed from Frost.

Even after living for almost twenty-five years as a Stark, the name Snow, or any foundling name, still carried a weight with him.

After the adoption of both children, he realized it was a burden he would probably always carry, and the best he could do was keep other children from having to carry it as well.

ANNA

After almost a month with the Starks, Anna realized she was running out of time.

She could see it every time she stepped out of the shower, every time she changed into her pajamas.

She could feel it every time she entered the cafeteria at the high school, her stomach rolling from the smells.

Anna knew she would have to tell them, but she still found the idea terrifying, even after everything she witnessed.

She had not grown up in a world where people were decent, good and it was hard to change that belief after sixteen years.

Even though everything she’d seen, everything she’d learned, she still was afraid she’d get sent back. Any other family would.

-

“Anna, you okay?” Robyn asked, looking at her closely.

Anna pushed her lunch trey away. It was meatloaf and mashed potatoes. She didn’t know why she’d picked it up. She should’ve known better than to even attempt trying to eat that.

“Don’t feel well,” she muttered. If she clenched her jaw tight enough, she thought she might keep it down.

“Text Mum, she can tell the office to send you home. Ben could pick you up.”

That comment was strange enough that for a second, she forgot about the nausea.

“She’d do that?”

“S’long as it doesn’t become a habit,” she shrugged.

Anna thought about it for a second, but the nausea seemed to have pass, for the moment at least. As long as she didn’t try to eat the so-called meatloaf.

It came back two class periods later.

Anna rushed from the room without asking and just made it to the bathroom in time. She retched into the toilet, everything she hadn’t eaten at lunch and the little she’d managed at breakfast coming up.

She sat back leaning against the stall, sweaty and quaking.

“Anna?” she heard as the door opened.

It was Sansa.

“Your teacher called me when you ran out. Are you okay?” she asked through the door.

“No,” she answered honestly.

“Want me to see if Jon or Ben can pick you up?”

“Yes, please,” she whispered, on the verge of tears.

“Okay. Okay,” Sansa murmured. Seconds later, she heard Sansa talking quietly on the phone.

Five minutes later, Sansa escorted her to the main office where Jon was supposed to pick her up. Anna heard her say flu and stomach bug to Jon, to the secretary, to her teacher when they picked up her stuff.

Anna knew her time was up. She’d have to tell them.

-

When Jon picked her up, he was quiet, but she learned that was just how he was. He was quiet, consistent. He was always there and she didn’t realize how important that was until she met him. She’d never been in a home with a father as involved as he was.

“There’s crackers in the lunch bag, if you want them,” he offered, indicating to the bag at her feet.

“You take a bag lunch to work?” she asked, surprised.

“Sansa packs it for me,” he said with a small smile. “I pack hers.”

“Isn’t that… ineffective? Why not pack your own?”

“Because she packs mine and everyone else’s whenever they don’t want the school lunch, so I pack hers so she doesn’t have to.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

Anna was pretty sure she’d never met people so in love, even the newlyweds she’d been placed with a few years ago. Jon and Sansa had been married for over twenty years, and yet Jon had the softest smile on his face.

She knew anyone who grew up in that house would grow up to know love and what real love looked like.

It just reinforced what she already knew she had to do.

-

Anna spent most of the afternoon in her room, trying to figure out how she was going to tell them. She knew she’d have to do it today with how they kept asking about a stomach bug.

Finally, after dinner and the rest of the kids went to their own rooms, she got up the courage to go to their home office.

In the month she’d been there, she’d never went into the office. She knew it was off the back of the living room, but she always assumed it was a no-kids-allowed space.

To her surprise, the door to the office was open.

Jon sat at his desk and Sansa was at her easel, both working quietly but together.

“Can I talk to you?” she asked quietly, standing in the doorway.

“Of course,” Jon said, immediately putting his pen down. Sansa moved to the couch that was near Jon’s desk, sitting down and patting the spot next to her.

Anna perched on the other side of the couch, careful to keep space between them.

She opened her mouth, ready to say what she’d been preparing all afternoon, but the worry on both of their faces forced the words out faster than she had been planning on.

“I don’t have the flu. I’m pregnant.”

The words came out quieter, sadder than she thought they would. Every time she said it in her head, the word was detached. Medical. Clinical.

Not the tragedy it sounded like when she said it out loud.

Anna thought there might be yelling or awkwardness. She thought it might feel like the air was sucked out of the room.

“Did you take a test?” Sansa asked instead.

Anna nodded, focusing on her hands in her lap.

“When’d you find out?”

This question was harder to answer. This was where she thought they might get upset.

“Almost two months ago. Before I came here.”

She heard a clatter then and looked up sharply. Jon’s glasses were on his desk and he was rubbing his hands over his face. When his hands dropped, she thought he looked tired.

“I took the test a day before I was transferred back up here,” she offered. Please don’t be mad, please don’t be mad, she prayed. “No one knows, except the father.”

“Who’s the father?” Jon asked, voice low.

It was the first time he’d spoken since she’d come in and it made tears well in her eyes, because he sounded like he was barely controlling his anger.

“A stupid boy I went to school with down there,” she breathed. “It was stupid, it was so stupid. We were at a party… And we just… let it happen.”

“Thank the gods,” Jon groaned.

Anna was shocked to see relief on both of their faces.

The reason why took a second to dawn on her.

Jon’s anger hadn’t been directed at her—he’d thought it had happened in her last placement.

That’s when she broke down sobbing.

-

It took a few hours to get the whole story out, as simple as it was.

When she started crying, they’d both jumped to the conclusion that it was something more, but it honestly was teenage stupidity.

Anna explained how the last placement she had was fine but had a strict curfew. That’s what had gotten her sent back—breaking curfew one too many times.

The last time had been when she went to confront the boy she’d thought she was in love with. He hadn’t believed her and brushed her off. She’d come back to the house upset and hadn’t bothered to try to sneak in.

Once they were convinced that what had happened was nothing more than kids not listening in health class, they started talking about doctor’s appointments and options and whether or not she needed new clothes.

That overwhelmed her—their instant attention to what she needed.

Anna wasn’t able to ask the part she’d been planning.

-

In the months that followed, Anna still couldn’t believe that she hadn’t gotten sent back.

She thought that maybe, when her stomach grew, when it was impossible to ignore, they might change their minds about her staying there.

They didn’t.

They never changed their minds.

Anna knew she’d have to bring it up eventually—what she intended—but it was so hard. She felt such a part of the family that she didn’t want to do anything to risk it.

-

Anna was a few weeks out from her due date when she knew she couldn’t avoid it anymore. She’d have to ask them.

Again, she found herself standing in front of their office, the door that was, again, open.

“Anna? Is everything okay?”

They both rose when she walked in, thinking something was wrong.

“I, um. I wanted to talk to you both. I wanted to ask you something.”

“Sure.”

Anna slowly sat on the couch, her hands falling instantly to her stomach.

“I… I wanted to ask you…tell you…my plan for the baby.”

“Okay.”

“I want to put him up for adoption. But… I’d like you to adopt him.”

They glanced at each other and Anna’s heart sank.

She hadn’t made any other plans. She was so sure they’d immediately agree. They’d adopt him, and she could age out quietly, knowing her son was safe, in a good home. That he had a name.

“Anna, we’re honored…” Sansa started.

“But we’re going to have to talk about it,” Jon finished.

Her eyes flashed between them, trying to understand the silent conversation they were so clearly having. What did it mean?

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”

JON

“We cannot adopt a baby,” Sansa said as soon as they were in their bedroom. “I love Anna, but… We’re almost fifty, Jon.” She was sitting on the bed, her voice completely rational.

What she said made sense, Jon knew, and yet he paced.

His mind churned over all the options, trying to find the one that worked for everyone.

“We were talking about adopting her,” he reminded.

“Yeah, Anna. A sixteen-year-old. Not an infant.”

“She trusts us with him,” he whispered. “She wants us to have him.”

“There are other parents out there, Jon. Ones that are younger, that want infants.”

“There aren’t as many as you’d think,” he muttered, unable to stop himself.

“Oh, Jon,” she murmured, softening suddenly.

“We have to do something,” he said, determined, as she caught him in a tight hug. He trembled in her arms. “We have to do something. They can’t go back into the system.”

The rest of his sentence hung unsaid in the air: like my mother.

He never found her, but he knew the story well enough, the statistics. Most foundlings were mothered by teenagers who didn’t have a support system. Teenagers like Anna.

“We will,” Sansa told him. “We will.”

ANNA

Anna didn’t expect them to give her their decision the next morning, but when they didn’t, something in her crumbled.

Every time they started to speak, she tensed, waiting for their verdict. Waiting to find out if her baby had a family.

After almost a week and a half, she sought them out, needing to know what they were thinking. If they’d already made their decision and were trying to spare her the pain.

Typically, after dinner, both Jon and Sansa were in their office, but tonight it was just Jon.

“I…I was wondering if you made a decision yet,” she asked, her voice just above a whisper.

“We’re still talking about it, Anna. I’m sorry. But… I was hoping to talk to you. I wanted to give you something.”

He got up then, and pulled something out from his briefcase under his desk.

“I found this a few days ago, when Sansa and I were cleaning out the closet. It’s from the auto shop I worked at in college.”

He handed her a black hoodie that read Night’s Watch over the right breast. She’d never heard of it.

“Look at the back.”

Curious, Anna flipped it over. Her breath caught when she saw the name on the back: SNOW.

“What…?” she whispered.

“That was my last name before I married Sansa.”

“You took her name?”

She’d met the rest of the Starks at Christmas, all the siblings, the parents, nieces and nephews. It was a whole clan. She’d assumed they were Jon’s family.

She should’ve realized they were Sansa’s—Catelyn and Robb Stark both had similar hair to hers.

“I did. She gave me a family, a home. I don’t know where I’d be without her.”

Anna traced the letters on the hoodie. The ones she knew so well. The ones she’d also been branded with at birth.

“I know what you’re trying to tell me. That you grew up in the system and still got your happy ending,” she muttered, handing back the hoodie. “But you got lucky. Most people don’t.”

Anna heaved herself from the couch then, and left his office.

-

A week later, Anna still hadn’t gotten an answer. They promised they were trying to find a solution that worked for everyone, but she knew what that meant. That they weren’t going to adopt her son.

-

Anna was woken up a few days later by a knock on her door.

“Anna? Can you come up? We’d like to talk to you.” It was Sansa.

When she came into the living room, she stopped dead in her tracks.

All five of the Stark kids were in the living room, sitting quietly, and Brienne sat with them.

No, she thought. No, not so close. She was due any day now.

“What’s this?”

“Come sit down. You shouldn’t be standing.”

She didn’t dare go any further then where she stood.

“Anna, we have good news.”

This was Brienne.

If Brienne was here… If she was saying they had good news… That meant they must’ve found a family to adopt her son, right? Right?

“Jon and Sansa would like to start the process of adoption.”

Anna’s heart stopped. She was sure, she was so sure that they were going to say no. After almost two weeks of we’re still talking about it, she was sure it would mean no.

“You’re going to do it? You’re going to adopt the baby?”

“Erm, no, Anna. They want to adopt you.”

That knocked the wind out of her entirely.

“W-what?” Her adoption was never a thought that crossed her mind. She was too old, too close to aging out. She’d be seventeen in a few weeks. “Wait. What about the baby?”

“Well, if you want to put him up for adoption, we’ll support that,” Sansa said slowly. “But if you want to keep him, we’ll support that too.”

Keep him.

Anna didn’t realize that was even an option. The only two she thought she had were to convince the Starks to adopt him or hope that the system didn’t fail him the way it failed so many others. The way it failed her. The way it failed Jon.

“I… I could keep him? And stay here?”

It couldn’t be.

That was too good to be true.

“Yes, Anna.”

When she started crying, she knew the hormones had nothing to do with it.

-

Several months later, she stood in the family court, her son in the stroller next to her. She was staring at the document that had just been handed to her, declaring both her and her son legally a part of the Stark’s family.

The one that declared that she was no longer Lyanna Snow, but Lyanna Stark.

Anna Stark, the mother of Jon Stark, whom she named after the man who adopted her. A man who was gentle and strong.