Backstory Log: Robb & Catelyn WHO Robb Stark & Catelyn Stark WHAT Talking about Robb getting ready to apply for the police force WHENBackdated to about a year ago WHERE The Starks' home in Winterfell RATING No warnings, just mama & son chatting STATUS Complete
CATELYN STARK (~GENTLEMOTHER)
ROBB STARK (~SHINESBRIGHT)
The last remnants of the evening sun had just dipped low behind the horizon, casting everything in a warm, pink glow, a hazy watercolor of brilliant pastel hues that seeped into the Stark home. Most of the kids were gone and scattered around, and Catelyn had been busying herself with cleaning up the remnants of dinner. Ned was working late, a typical occurrence in the Stark household, but she’d long since learned to deal with it. His dinner was tucked away safely in the fridge, the plates were loaded into the dishwasher, and she had poured herself a cup of coffee.
When her phone vibrated on the table next to her, she reached for it and unlocked the screen, unsurprised to see a text from Sansa apologizing for missing dinner. Her entire world revolved around Joffrey and his family these days, and if she wasn’t with him, she was rehearsing. She seemed happy, at least, so Catelyn tried her best not to let that twinge of jealousy turn into something more insidious and painful. She was just a girl in love.
Catelyn knew what that was like better than anyone.
Sighing, she curled her long legs beneath her in the oversized chair and, after taking a tentative sip of her hot coffee, pulled a nearby book into her lap. Upstairs was quiet; she could hear Rickon roughhousing and could faintly hear a television, probably Bran’s. Was Arya even home any more? She could hardly keep up with her wild girl these days.
The soft padding of feet struck a quiet rhythm as Robb descended the stairs, eyes fixed a little too trustingly on the Westeros Police Department brochure in his hand while the other hand hovered brushingly along the rail. As he reached the bottom and began to cross the floor, his gaze did not lift, expression intent in its focus.
Even before he was old enough to really understand that law enforcement was a little more involved than swooping in to catch immensely incompetent bad guys as they bumbled about in ski masks, the eldest Stark child had known what he wanted to do, and that was to be like his father. Solve crimes. Protect the people of their city. Ward off harm and stamp out bad behavior. Bring hardened justice into a slippery world. The dream had always been somewhat nebulous in his mind, an assumption with no true researched form, but the time was nearing when he would have to make very serious and defining choices about what that would look like. University years hadn't lasted forever, and it was nearing the time to start putting out early applications if he wanted to be at the top of the heap, sitting pretty with a job offer by graduation.
Was joining the force what he wanted? (Yes -- he didn't really entertain the possibility of anything else.) What department was best fitted? (Criminal Investigations, he felt.) Thoughts tumbled relentlessly in his mind, though his expression maintained its thoughtful reserve. The thoughts were not new him; each had already crossed his mind, and several years before, when he began pursuing his Criminal Justice degree, he had talked long with his father about how to tailor the education for what was most useful. Even so, as the reality loomed closer, Robb wanted some reassurance that he'd done everything he needed to do. Ned hadn't been at dinner, and Robb knew it could still be quite some time before work wrapped up for the night, but he hadn't wanted to breach the topic while they were sitting down eating as a family. Somehow it'd felt ... inappropriate.
But now the house as quiet. The Starks (both present and absent) were spread into their evening routines, and it was just as well.
"Hey, Mom?" Robb started, and it was only when he had nearly reached her that he looked up. "Did Dad say when he'll be home tonight?"
Robb’s voice had her glancing up from the book in hand, her eyebrows beetled together in something similar to concern. “No, sweetheart, he didn’t,” she said, marking her place among the pages and sitting the book aside on the coffee table. “Everything alright? Maybe it’s something I can help you with.”
With each new passing day, it seemed her children needed her less and less. It was a transition that every mother went through at some point in time, but that didn’t make it any simpler or any easier to bear. There was still Rickon and Bran, of course, but even they were independent by nature, a trait she had always been sure to nurture.
Sometimes, though, it was nice to be needed.
“C’mon, come sit down,” Catelyn told him, gesturing to the loveseat just a few feet away. “What’s on your mind, Robb?” Had it been Arya, she wouldn’t have bothered asking. Well, she would’ve asked, but she very much doubted Arya would tell her. The girl was a spitfire, the total opposite of her older sister.
“What’s that?” she asked, nodding to the brochure in his hands.
Though he suspected his father knew the specifics of the police force better than his mother, Robb sat down without argument or objection, leaning back into the loveseat and letting the papery object of his attention lay in his lap for the moment. "I'm just thinking about everything coming up. I'll graduate this year. I don't want to be taken by surprise." Looking over at Catelyn, he folded his hands in his lap, serious in a focused -- moreso than stern -- way.
The occasional nervous flutter was more than he wanted to voice outloud -- and that nervousness felt more than a little bit silly. In truth, Robb did not doubt his ability to be an effective and fair officer of the law, but the thought that the answer could concievably be no was more than a little bit horrifying. On the other hand, his dad was the Chief of Police -- could they say no? Which would be worse?
Realigning himself to the conversation (after just a short beat,outside his mind), Robb brushed off the thought for now. Losing himself to worry accomplished nothing, and if he could just get his foot in the door, he knew he could prove he wouldn't just be a starry-eyed product of nepotism.
(It didn't count as nepotism if the person was competent.
And he was.
He knew he would be.)
"Joining the force is something I sort of just took for granted, but I want to do it right. I'm considering applying now so I'll be ahead of the game," Robb added.
Catelyn and Ned had known for a long, long time that their son planned on following his father’s footsteps, and it was a great source of pride for them both. And, in Catelyn’s case, also one of immense worry and fear. She already spent long nights worrying about her husband, dreading the day she received the knock on the door that would mean her husband fell in the line of duty.
How could she deal with the possibility that it would happen to her darling boy, as well?
She took a long, deep breath and nodded, careful to keep her expression neutral. Robb knew how she worried; there was no need to bring it up now, not when he seemed so intent. “I think--” Catelyn trailed off but only momentarily, barely longer than a soft intake of breath. “I think that’s a good idea, Robb. I’m sure there will be a lot of applicants.” Having his father in such an honored position would certainly help his case, but neither of them wanted their son to depend on it. He had to make his own way in the world.
“Getting your application in there so early would look good; it’d show them that you’re thinking ahead, that you’re not just waiting around until you graduate to start thinking about your future.” Briefly, she glanced into the fireplace, at the crackling embers that spit up from the logs. He’ll be fine, Cat, she thought to herself, the knot in her stomach unsettling and uncomfortable.
“Is there anything I can help you with? On the application, I mean.”
Thumbing an absent drumbeat on his hand, Robb shook his head thoughtfully. "I'm not sure. I need personal references, but I don't think that's what they're looking for: 'My mom thinks I'm a fine, upstanding citizen!'" Robb's mouth tugged into a lopsided grin as he turned his full attention to his mother. The playful jest took an air of sincerity as he added, "Even if your opinion stands to hold more weight in this than most."
The intensity had softened as Robb pulled out of his head (and in his head, he had been dwelling all evening); nothing had changed, but affirmation in itself was a boost. Though he did not consciously consider the distinction, the simple security of his parents' attention did more than any list of recommendations, safe and reassuring and strengthening. Their approval, their faith -- he knew what he wanted, felt it was right, but even if it was a little bit childish, those little reminders were rejuvenating. His father's suggestions would make the process less work, but it was their confidence that made his head clearer.
"Besides," Robb added after a beat, "You do enough as it is. You always have." As if on cue, a tumbling patter of thumps drew Robb's gaze upward to the ceiling, and for a fleeting moment he wondered if Rickon and Shaggydog had rolled into his boardgames again. The degree of fond exasperation could be determined after surveying the damage -- it would probably still be there later -- and with a wry smile, he looked back to his mother, knowing it was far from the first and far from the last. The Stark (and Snow and Greyjoy) children had all seen to that in their own way, even if it wasn't usually on purpose. How strange it was, to think he wouldn't always be here, sharing a roof with them all.
It was nice to see her son smile that boyish grin, earning one of Catelyn’s own. Sometimes, Robb could get so deeply lost in his own mind that he seemed older than he really was, more serious than a boy his age should be. He was so much like Ned, that way. They both bore all of their stresses on their shoulders, but Ned was a grown man.
Robb was just a boy.
”You do enough as it is. You always have.” Catelyn often felt as though she felt short as a mother. She loved her children, yes, more than anything else in the entire world, but no mother was perfect. There were times when she thought she could do more, have said something else, but either way she was immensely proud of her children. All of them. Even Theon, for all his snarkiness and attitude.
The only one she couldn’t claim to be proud of was Jon, and even when she would remind herself that he never asked to be born a bastard, it didn’t help the twinge of hate that boiled in her belly.
“Listen to me, Robb,” she told him, making a mental note to go upstairs and check out the damage in a moment. “You’re going to get it, and not because of Ned.” It wouldn’t hurt, certainly, but that wouldn’t be the key. “You’ll get it because you’re smart and dedicated and good, and you care about people.”
With his wry smile pressing into something a bit warmer -- a smile that reached his eyes, blue and reflecting back some of the more Tully-esque features -- Robb nodded, the wash of praise lifting him in a rush. Though it could be argued that she had to say that, as his mother, he had never doubted that Catelyn Stark meant the things she said. Despite his conflicting tendency to blatantly ignore certain objections without care as to who they might come from, the stretching need to Find His Place was not enough to discount her value in his eyes; the throes of adolescence had thumped the occasional bump, but everything broadened with the thrust into adulthood.
Their world was changing -- their city needed changing -- but at least they still had family.
"It's creeping up fast. I feel a bit antsy when I think about it, but I guess waiting is always part of the game," he said with a huff of air, though a small, pressed smile still remained.
“It’s all part of the game,” she echoed, nodding in agreement. “But try not to let it bother you, sweetheart. Like I said, I don’t doubt for an instant that you’ll get it, and you’ll be excellent at your job, just like your father.”
She sighed and glanced up at the ceiling just as another bang sounded, a peel of laughter right after. “I should probably go make sure Rickon isn’t tearing down the house.” The youngest Stark was as wild as Arya but had a heart like Robb. “Might be too late.” Smiling gently, Catelyn stood to her feet and crossed to where her son sat, a careful hand finding his shoulder.
“Don’t doubt yourself, Robb. Ever.” She bent at the waist so that she could press a chaste, quick kiss to his forehead. “Try to get some rest.”
"I will," Robb answered, and as she wandered upstairs to tend to Rickon's well-meaning destruction, he melted back into the loveseat with a slow, limber stretch, propping an arm on the side to rest his head. His eyes lifted to the ceiling again, thinking about how the crashes didn't used to be so isolated, how the house didn't used to be so quiet, and someday his parents might make it an extended period of time without some bit of excitement or another. A fond smile played on his lips.
After a beat, Robb pushed himself back to his feet, sticking the pamphlet in his pocket and sparing the front door a glance before trotting up the stairs after his mother.