Author's Note: A big thank you to everyone who's been reading and reviewing my Stannis-centric fics : )

"Lord Arryn was like a father to Robert." That had been the sentence that incited his wrath. "Lord Steffon Baratheon was our father," Stannis had shouted at Cressen. "I never needed another father, why should Robert?"

The old maester looked crestfallen, chagrined. And old. So very, very old.

He must be close to eighty now, Stannis thought. Maester Cressen had first come to Storm's End before Stannis' father was even born.

He could not have been more than twenty at the time. Steffon Baratheon was the first Baratheon Maester Cressen had delivered. Then Robert, Stannis, Renly. And finally Shireen.

"I only meant, my lord, that His Grace must be feeling the loss very deeply. Lord Arryn ... was many things to him. His Hand for fifteen years, for one. It might take him some time to decide on a replacement."

Cressen's patient voice broke Stannis' train of thoughts. Don't take out your anger on him. It is not his fault, he reminded himself.

He took a moment to compose himself. Finally he replied, in as even a tone as he was capable of at the moment, "Robert has already decided. That is why he's riding to Winterfell. To appoint Ned Stark as the new Hand of the King."

Stannis noted the look of sadness on Cressen face. But not surprise. He had expected this, Stannis thought, from the moment I wrote to him about Jon Arryn's death.

"Perhaps your brother is hesitant to appoint one of his own brothers. To avoid any talk-"

"It is not a question of blood. I have spent fifteen years running the kingdom with Lord Arryn while Robert drank and whored his way around. If anyone knows how to do the job other than Lord Arryn, it is myself. Ned Stark has not even set foot in King's Landing in years."

"And besides," Stannis continued, after a long pause, "it will not be seen as favoring his brother, Robert appointing me his Hand. The whole realm knows Ned is the real brother he favors, and loves. He can barely stand the sight of me."

"I know that His Grace ... Robert ... appreciates everything you have done for him, my lord."

Stannis' anger boiled over again. "How would you know? He certainly has never shown it."

Storm's End was the ghost standing between them. Your home too, for so long, Cressen, before you followed me to this godforsaken place.

"I am his brother, his kin, despite everything. Even if he does not see what I have done for him, or think me capable of being his Hand, my opinion could have been consulted on the candidates. But no, Robert did not even tell me he was riding to Winterfell."

"Your brother-"

Stannis interrupted before Cressen could finish his sentence. "You have always defended Robert, no matter what. I suppose you think everything exists only in my head, that my brother has never done anything to slight me?"

"No, my lord. I ..."

The maester's face was so full of misery, of words of comfort searched for yet not found, of a maester despairing that he had failed in his obligation to his lord.

"Leave me." Stannis finally said. I release you from the obligation, old man.

In truth it was not only Cressen defending Robert that annoyed Stannis. It was also Cressen asking if there was another reason for him leaving King's Landing. It was not a question he was ready to answer. The secret was not one he was ready to divulge, even to the old maester who had been like a father to his late father.

He knows me too well.

Stannis and Jon Arryn had been the only ones to know, and now Jon Arryn was dead. Presumably without having the chance to tell Robert the truth about Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen, since Robert had gone to Winterfell with a full entourage including Cersei and the children.

And Jaime Lannister. How can I tell him now? Without Jon Arryn, Robert will never believe me. "It's a treacherous plot," he would say. To put myself as his heir.

"I will not make you my Hand, so now you're conspiring to steal the throne from my son?" Stannis was already hearing Robert shouting those words in his head.

He does not even trust me to be his Hand, why would he trust me when I tell him the news about his children?

Or not his children, as the truth stands, Stannis thought. He pondered fatherhood, in all its complexity. The bastards Robert sired, in the Vale, in his brother's marital bed, all over King's Landing. Was he more of a father to them, because of the blood connection, despite never caring for them? Was he less of a father to Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella, because of the lack of blood connection, despite living in the same castle as them, seeing them every day?

Robert and Ned are more like brothers, despite not being blood.

That is not the important question, he reminded himself. This was never about fatherhood, or what being a father meant. It was about legitimacy, laws, the kingdom.

Robert is still young. He can marry another, and there will be another heir, a legitimate one.

The thought comforted him. There was something disturbing about Joffrey, a strain of cruelty he found troubling. Yet if Joffrey was the rightful heir, Stannis knew he would have had no choice but to give him his loyalty and support.

The trouble is, Robert does not spend much time with the boy, guiding him, teaching him, Stannis thought. Perhaps, the thought suddenly occurred to him, perhaps Robert suspected all along, and that was the reason for the distance?

Another thought intruded quickly, before the last one was completed. Oh who am I to judge anyone as a father? The man who barely wrote to his daughter when he was away, and barely saw her now when he was home.

His thoughts turned to his sad, lonely daughter, with Patchface her only companion. Jon Arryn had spoken to him about fostering his son at Dragonstone, fearing for the boy's safety at King's Landing. Stannis' first thought had been about his daughter. Shireen would have a friend, even if it was a frail and sickly boy. But he banished the thought immediately.

Jon Arryn did not make the suggestion so that my daughter will have a companion. He was worried about his son's future. The boy is too attached to his mother, too much like a babe still. At Dragonstone, our master-at-arms could teach him about swords and lances, and Cressen would give him regular reading and writing lessons.

He had agreed to foster Robert Arryn at Dragonstone. But the irony of it did not escape him. Jon Arryn had named his own son after the boy he had fostered. Stannis had often wondered if Robert had spent more time at Storm's End with his brothers instead of with Jon Arryn and Ned Stark at the Eyrie, whether things between them would have been different.

And yet Renly and I were left at Storm's End, and we are no closer than Robert and myself. Renly would have said the fault lies with me, not with anyone else.

He remembered something else too, suddenly. Maester Cressen talking to Renly, trying to explain to him why Stannis did certain things. Why he would not let Renly do or say certain things. "Because he hates happiness and joy and he hates anyone else being happy or joyful," had been Renly's rejoinder.

Or why Stannis would not surrender during the Siege so they can eat and not have to watch more people starve to death. This conversation, he remembered, taking place after the death of the butcher's boy, who had been one of Renly's closest playmates at Storm's End. Samuel, he remembered now, that was the butcher's boy's name. Renly had called him his twin, because they were born on the same day.

That conversation had ended with Renly storming away. "You always defend Stannis, you always take his side, no matter what he does. You love him more than you love me, or Robert."

That was what I told Cressen too, just now, it struck him. Not the love part, but about defending Robert and taking his side. Poor Cressen, always trying to play the peacemaker.

He wondered about the word Renly had used. Love. Maesters were supposed to be loyal to the castle they were assigned to, not the people ruling the castle. Of course that was not always true in practice, everyone knew Grand Maester Pychelle was loyal only to the Lannisters. He had counseled Robert to demand that the Citadel sent a different Grand Maester, but Robert did not heed his advice. But as loyal as Pychelle was to the Lannisters, Stannis doubted Pychelle loved any of them. His loyalty seemed entirely self-serving.

What about Cressen?

He had overheard Davos talking to Cressen once, during a feast. He did not know what had originated the conversation, but at some point, Davos had asked Cressen if he had ever wished for a family, a wife, children. The maester had laughed off the question at first, before giving a long answer.

"I came from a family with five sons. My father once said that the worst thing about having children is not that they will disappoint you, but that they will be disappointed in you, one day. There will come a time in every son's life when he will judge his father severely, as a failure, or as an embarrassment, a disappointment. Perhaps ... I am lucky to escape that fate."

Davos had listened attentively, before replying in a melancholic tone Stannis had not heard from him before. "My older sons probably found me a disappointment. That I am not refined enough to sit with these great lords, that I often forget that I am a knight now, not a lowborn smuggler. They see the sigil of our House and notice only the black ship flying in the wind, but not the onion. Not where we came from."

"It is always hard to remind our children of the things they should hold dear, the things they should never forget."

Davos had looked surprised at this. "Why dear maester, you spoke as if you were a father yourself."

Cressen had looked abashed. "No, no, Ser Davos. I am merely an observer."

"Perhaps it would be better to father only daughters," Davos had mused.

"Daughters judge their fathers too, perhaps in different ways than sons, but they judge nonetheless," had been Cressen's reply.

Cressen is much older than father would have been, were he still alive, Stannis thought. Older than Lord Estermont, Stannis' grandfather on his mother's side. Cressen had watched Steffon Baratheon grew from a babe to a boy, a man, a husband, a father, a ghost haunting his castle. Haunting his son's dreams.

His own father was long gone by the time Steffon Baratheon became a father himself, so it was to Cressen he had turned to, for counsel, for wisdom. Even though Cressen had never been a father himself. Stannis had asked his father about this once, and he still remembered the answer, as if he had heard it only yesterday.

"Wisdom does not only come from being, but also from learning, observing, understanding. And further, Maester Cressen was the one who pulled each one of you from inside your mother. He was the first to hold the three of you in his arms, before delivering you safely to your mother's arms.

"Is that difficult, delivering babies?" Stannis had asked.

"Yes, many, many things can go wrong. Mothers and babes die in childbirth every day. In fact, the same day he delivered Renly safely, Maester Cressen delivered another babe whose mother did not survive. The butcher's boy."

Stannis had wondered if part of Cressen was relieved he had never married, knowing all the ways things could go wrong.

He was thinking of another delivery, another baby. His daughter. Cressen telling him it was a girl, the look in his eyes spelling out the question he had not asked out loud.

Are you disappointed?

Stannis had looked at the tiny bundle, no bigger than his hands, so vulnerable, so small. For a second, he was relieved that this child was not a boy. This child of his, born soon after he had put down the Greyjoy rebellion, watching countless men die. Boys grow up to be men, who die in battles and wars started by other reckless men.

But then another thought struck him, wiping out the relief. Girls grow up to be women, and women die in childbirth every day. Or they die accompanying their husbands on futile trips commanded by a king. It was all the same in the end.

And it is not as if I have anything valuable for a son or a daughter to inherit, only this piece of rock. Certainly not Storm's End.

His thoughts turned to Renly's birth. He and Robert had been waiting outside his parents' room to see their new baby brother. Father had finally let them in the room, whispering that they must stay quiet because mother was sleeping. "The baby looked just like Robert," father had said.

The baby, not yet named at the time, had let out a cooing sound when Robert picked him up, but immediately started crying when Stannis tried to hold him. "We are kindred spirits," Robert had said. "I finally have a brother I can play with." His father had taken Robert's words as a joke. "He is only a babe, he cannot play with you yet." But Stannis had seen Cressen watching from the door, and he knew Cressen was the only one who understood.

Cressen had spoken to him later. About brothers. About brothers measuring themselves against the achievements of the other brothers.

"Yes, I know, maester. You have told me this before. Mother has too. I should not think that I have to compete with Robert. But it is other people who are judging me, for being less than him. Why don't you and mother talk to them?"

"We cannot change the world, only ourselves. You can be a better older brother to Renly than Robert has been to you."

That was the first time Stannis had heard Cressen criticizing Robert, even if it was only implicitly.

This was the truth hiding in plain sight all along, the notion he had not wanted to conceive. Cressen did love him, more than Renly or Robert, even if it was only love borne out of pity. The love for the things unloved by others. The love for the things not capable of love themselves. Like Cressen's love for Patchface.

I was Cressen's Patchface before Patchface ever entered our lives.

Strangely, the realization did not anger him. It only made him sad. For the old maester, and his foolish notions about love.

You should have loved Renly more, and stayed as the maester at Storm's End. And you were wrong. The worst thing for a father is not being a disappointment to his child, but his child letting him down.

And I will always -

He dared not complete the thought.