Sorry; a tad late.
The silence that settled between them was always laced with an undercurrent of expectation - sometimes it was Ned expecting Jon to respect the pact of silence he had forced onto his son; to let dead things lie where they have laid and accept that, all things considered, things had turned out fairly alright. Sometimes it was Jon expecting Ned to break that pact of silence that had been forced onto him by his father; to give him the answers he sought and allow him a fair chance at knowing the secrets Ned had sworn to keep despite the unfair circumstances that had led Jon to be in Ned's care.
Right now they both had expectations of each other but one of them would have to be disappointed. Ned would either break his promise to one Lyanna Stark and say more than he should say, or break his promise to Jon and say nothing at all.
The silence between them used to be comfortable. Ned was used to silence and Jon had probably grown to become accustomed to it as well. But now it was starting to fester like a raw wound that needed immediate treatment.
"Do you read the local newspaper?" he asked, shifting his gaze from his beer to the young man who was and was not his son.