How often had Ned dreamt of his family while in the darkness of the dungeons? How often had their faces floated into his sight - ghosts, spirits meant to haunt him (or perhaps there to comfort?) - while he murmured nonsense to himself. A mad man. A man stripped of all he'd ever had and known, nothing more than a heap of bones covered in a sheet of skin.

Broken, emptied, hollowed.

He would've sworn he'd heard Robb's voice call out to him in the darkness. Would've sworn he'd heard his quivering cries he'd not made since he was but a babe, swaddled and padded with fur and cloth. Would've ripped through the granite and stone with his bare hands if he thought he'd stand a chance to see them all again: happy, well-fed, safe.

Ned exhales a breath to steel himself, unable to bear the sting of the pain he hears in his son's voice. Grips him tighter, holds him all the closer.

"It was the only thought that kept me alive," he murmurs quietly in return, lids falling to meet their counterparts. "That I might see you and our family again."