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Waning: Spoilers for S06E05

It's too damn hot in King's Landing. Ned had forgotten just how hot summers down in the south can be – it's one more, if a minor, reason why he shouldn't be here. He should be home in the north with his wife and all his children, well away from court and its intrigues. He's not made for this, and he has always known it; it was one of the reasons why he never minded that it was Robert, not him, who took the Iron Throne. Ned never wanted that burden, and he resents that in a way, now he has been saddled with it nonetheless.

At least there's good news from Winterfell: first the raven with the message that Bran woke up after all, and now Robb's latest letter.

Hodor seems rather taken with his new task, it says among other things. We really are fortunate to have someone as strong as him, he never tires of carrying Bran. And it's good, too, that they have always been getting along well. If we can't come up with something else, I think this might be the only way for Bran to get around.

Reading it, Ned frowns – there's something about this, something he feels he should remember . . . but it's so hot he can barely think, and more important tasks are waiting for him. He sighs and puts the letter away.

It's evening now, but the heat hasn't abated. It's making it impossible to sleep, and even the open window brings no relief. Ned lies awake, sweat trickling down his face into the silken pillows, and misses the late summer winds howling around Winterfell and the feeling of furs under his skin. He feels as though he were suffocating – under the heat, his tasks, and the worry for his family. He has got to get outside, even just for a walk and some air.

It's no cooler in the godswood, and there is no weirwood, but Ned hopes that the oak is good enough as a heart tree. At least here, under the open sky and with trees around him, he can breathe, and it doesn't feel as though some ominous evil were waiting for all of them just around the corner. It's a feeling he has been unable to shake ever since he entered the Red Keep.

For a while, Ned kneels under the oak, eyes closed, and listens to the silence. A soft, sudden gust of wind makes the leaves above him rustle – and it's then that he remembers.

Bran is barely a day old, tiny and pink and wrapped in the softest, warmest furs the servants could find. He is so small and so light in Ned's arms, they all were, and yet he can't help but marvel at it every time again.

Catelyn is resting, and even if he waited until she were well enough, she would not come with him. She has never felt comfortable in the godswood, Ned knows, just as he never liked it much to enter her sept. There are no gods to be found in houses of stone; the gods of the north have no faces, no names. They're in the snow, in the wind and the trees, and it is there that he's taking his newborn son. Later, when Catelyn is recovered, she will take Bran to the sept to be anointed with the seven oils, but before that, Ned is taking him to the godswood, into the presence of the large weirwood, as he did with all his children, as did his father and all the Starks before.

Robb and Sansa had been asleep like Bran is now, but, he recalls with a smile as he enters the godswood, Arya had screamed all the while, from Catelyn's chambers to the weirwood. He hadn't been able to stay long with her; after just a few minutes under the tree, he'd returned her to her mother. He had taken Jon as well when he'd come home with him– the only one of the children never dedicated to the gods of the south – and like Arya, Jon had been awake, although he didn't make a sound even once. He only looked up into the crimson canopy of leaves with wide eyes, and the superstitious part of Ned had wondered if he remembered the seas of his mother's blood.

Bran never wakes, and for a while, Ned sits and contemplates his children. He can't deny that he is glad to have a second trueborn son. He should not have to think like this, doesn't want to think of it, but in the world they live in, one son is not enough. He would have welcomed another daughter: one look at Sansa, already a little lady at three, or at Arya, just over a year old and driving Catelyn to despair with her willfulness, is enough to know that he could never love them less than his sons. Still, he was relieved when he heard it was a boy, and it was then that he had known the child's name should be Brandon, after his brother and the founder of House Stark so long ago. And maybe, he thinks – although there's little hope if he is honest with himself – another son will mean that Catelyn won't feel as though Jon were a threat to Robb any longer.

It's when Bran wakes after all and begins crying that Ned decides to return inside. He hasn't taken three steps yet, though, when someone comes through the trees – it's Hodor, with his hair still damp and holding a towel. He must have made use of one of the hot pools.

Seeing Ned, Hodor stops for a moment, then he notices Bran and smiles. "Hodor?"

"It's a boy." Ned smiles as well when Hodor comes closer, curiously looking at the tiny face peering out from the furs. "His name is Brandon."

To Ned's surprise Hodor holds out his arms with a questioning look, but then, he's always been good with children. Ned thinks of a year ago when Hodor had come into the hall carrying two-year-old Sansa who had sprained her ankle playing. He'd been so gentle with her – no, Ned sees no reason to deny him.

Bran looks even smaller in Hodor's arms, like a little girl's doll. He had still been wailing weakly when Ned had handed him over, but now, slowly, he calms down.

"Hodor," Hodor says softly, his large finger brushing Bran's round cheek. The baby's eyes open, and somehow, a tiny hand finds its way from out under the furs, curling around Hodor's finger. At the contact, Hodor winces and gasps, and looking into Bran's large, brown eyes, the smile drains from his face, to be replaced with an expression first of confusion, then pure, unadulterated dread.

"Hodor," he whispers. His voice is shaking, and he is trembling all over; Ned fears he might drop Bran and wants nothing more than to take him back, and yet, without knowing why or what is happening, he can't do it, knows that it would be wrong. For some long, silent moments, they both look down at Bran, and Ned is filled with a terrible feeling of foreboding he can't place or name.

"Hodor." This time, Hodor's voice is firm, and when Ned raises his head, he finds himself looking him right in the eye. He is no longer shaking.

"Hodor," he says once more, with an air of determination that sends a chill down Ned's spine despite his warm furs. Hodor - he hasn't forgotten what it means, and how could he after he witnessed how Hodor – no, Wylis had lain seizing, yelling "Hold the door!" over and over on top of his lungs until his wits left him and the words blurred together into one. Whatever the reason might have been for Wylis to talk about holding the door back then – if there had been any at all – over the years, the word has lost any meaning. Now, though . . . now, Ned isn't so certain.

Later, when he tries to explain it to Catelyn, it all makes as little sense to him as it does to her, but right in this moment, all that Ned can think is that he feels as though he'd just witnessed a solemn vow. What it is about, he has no idea, but it feels no less important than vows he's seen taken in much greater splendor and with many more words.

He doesn't know what to do or say. "Thank you," he manages in the end. "Thank you, Ho- . . . Wylis."

Hodor nods slowly, then he holds out the baby for Ned to take. Ned does, still feeling unsettled and strangely dream-like, and he's of half a mind to ask Hodor what all of this meant – not that he'll get any comprehensible answer. Before he can, though, Hodor has turned away and vanished through the trees from where he'd come.

Ned opens his eyes, sucking in a deep breath – how could he have forgotten? For weeks afterwards, whenever he'd seen Hodor, the strange encounter had continued to puzzle him, but nothing like it had ever happened again, and after a while, Ned had convinced himself that it had meant nothing. He had thought less and less often about it, and eventually, he'd almost forgotten all about it. More than ten years have passed since that day, and while Hodor has always been friendly with Bran, he'd never made a difference between him and his siblings, as far as Ned can tell. Now, though, that Bran needs him . . .

Ned's rational mind tells him that this is all nonsense, but there's that other part of him, full of old tales and superstitions, the part that wondered if not maybe the rumours about the return of the White Walkers were true in the end. The part that has feared all along that going south wouldn't end well for any of them – it's that which has brought him out here tonight, after all.

At Winterfell, he never listened to it; such things are for old women and children, not men who have to rule others with clear eyes and minds. Here, though, away from home, suddenly he finds it much harder to suppress. Those tales and superstitions are in his blood as much as the snow and the cold; they're of the north, as is Ned.

He should be going to bed – tomorrow, there's another day of intrigue and frustration at court waiting for him, and he'll need all his wits about him. Instead, Ned kneels under the heart tree for many hours, praying for his family, praying that whatever strange bond there might be between Hodor and Bran, it will not fail.