Freedom. That was all Jamie Lannister could think about as he walked about the Red Keep's many gardens, freedom was a privilege he should have been deprived of by now. He was a lucky man. When the Dragon Queen seized the throne he was sure he was going to be sentenced to death, but he hadn't. She had pardoned him as a favor to his father who had brought many of the houses that were resistant to her to their knees before her and to the beautiful Sansa Stark, who had pled for his life after he nearly sacrificed it to save her from the bandits on her quest to return home (he suspected the pardon had more to do with the Dragon Queen sympathizing with sweet Sansa then his manipulative father). So here he was, walking across the gardens of the Red Keep… a free man.
It was a hot afternoon and Jamie was enjoying every minute of it. It was the perfect day for appreciating what the gods had blessed him with and one such thing was the pleasant touch of a woman, and one just so happened to be seated on a bench not far, folding laundry.
With a confident smile, Jamie approached her, taking his time in order to properly observe her. She appeared as if she might have once been a raving beauty, but now her black hair was thinned and tied back with a head rag. Her lips were chapped from the heat, something that did not occur in peasants because their bodies had never been healthy, but did occur when a body went from healthy to meager living. He suspected she must have been one of the victims of the Dragon Queen, who had left many servants without work and homes when she wiped out the houses of those that wouldn't submit to her.
"What is your name?" Jamie asked with a charming smile.
"Elena," she replied simply as she continued her folding, refusing to meet his eye. She appeared angry about something, it intrigued him.
"Elena, you look much to beautiful to be a handmaiden," he observed, noticing the skin of her hands. It was soft and cut open from the rough work, something that even a luxury servant would not have had, "your skin is to soft and your back to straight. You are no handmaiden."
"I am now," she stated with a hint of bitterness, again refusing to meet his eyes.
"What happened?" he asked her, leaning in to her space.
"I am no one anymore," she replied, leaning away from him. He noticed that she bit her inner cheek, probably to keep from saying something to him.
"Who were you?" he asked cheekily.
"I was the Lady Elena Martell," she bit back harshly.
His face paled as he heard the name. Of everyone he'd expected her to be, Elena Martell had not been it. This was her, the one he was supposed to marry before the Dragon Queen came to Westeros. His father had arranged for her to be married to him so he could inherit Casterly Rock instead of Tyrion. Had the Dragon Queen not come to Westeros he would have been married to her by now, likely with small children. In another life they could have both been seated on this very bench watching their children play in the flowers and trees with large Lannister eyes and dark Martell hair.
"Now I am the disgraced daughter of a House that has been destroyed. I have no family and no allegiance but to a queen that granted me clemency in order to punish my family. My family was murdered for their loyalty, for refusing to bend the knee while your family was rewarded for bending the knee a third time in but a few decades. Who then is the traitor? My family… or yours?" she hissed angrily, standing from the bench and taking her basket of laundry. She walked away without another word, leaving him to his thoughts.
Only a few minutes had passed before the Dragon Queen appeared by his side, the children of Jon Targaryen running about the garden in their silver buckle shoes and blue silk clothes. The two children had been sent from their homes in the North to live with their Aunt as she could bare no children, they were the heirs to the throne. Young Princess Lya named after her father's Stark mother, was every bit a Targaryen daughter with her silver blonde hair and violet eyes while young Prince Rhys named after his grandfather looked every bit a Stark with his long brown hair and large brown eyes (reminding Jamie far to much of Bran). It surprised him that they were with the Queen, it was a sight rarely seen. The children were her family, but she spent so little time with them he felt their mother would have been even more disheartened to learn that she had given up her children only for them to remain motherless. In fact it was their Lady mother that was the reason he was in King's Landing at all, she had insisted that he care for her children and protect them from harm. While he had never considered them his children, for a moment it did not matter that the children were not his; he imagined Lya's hair a much darker gold and Rhys's a much darker black. In that moment they could have been the children he never had, the ones he and Elena would have shared and spoiled.
"What troubles you Jamie Lannister?" the Queen asked him kindly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. He knew she was only being kind to him because Sansa had insisted when he was tasked with protecting her children, that he also be allowed the ability to return them to the North should he believe they were being mistreated.
"Nothing Your Grace," he assured her, though he could tell by her eyes that she was unconvinced.
"Aunt Dany!" Lya cried out with a child's laugh. The small girl ran to the Dragon Queen with a large smile on her young face and her arms up and out. With a laugh of her own, Daenerys scooped the girl up in her arms, placing the squealing child on her lap.
"Lya," the Queen laughed with a happiness she so rarely expressed.
"Ser Jamie," his charge greeted sweetly, smiling up at him with her Targaryen violet eyes wide and innocent. Jamie found it odd that before meeting Elena, he had never considered children, even when his father had alerted him of the marriage contract, even when Cersei bore him three children. He had never entertained the idea of being a father to someone, the thought of being a father to Cersei's children had been forbidden and as a member of the Kingsguard he had been damned to a life without children or a wife. Yet now, staring down at the little Princess, in the right light she could have easily been mistaken as his. "Tell me a story Ser Jamie."
He was not startled by her request, having heard it many times, but her Aunt was.
"I'm afraid I don't know many stories befitting a princess," he told her gently as he did every time she requested such a thing.
"Tell me about your time with Mama," the princess insisted, gently placing her small hand over his. She was truly beautiful, staring up at him with those wide child's eyes that shined of innocence she was still to young to lose.
"I suppose I can," he replied. Of course the story of his adventures with the eldest Stark daughter was not a story for children, but he knew he could fashion it to be at the very least appropriate.
"Will you stay Aunt Dany?" Lya asked her Aunt.
The Dragon Queen smiled at her young niece, stroking her silver blonde hair before placing a kiss on her temple. "I cannot Lya," she replied gently, cradling the girl's cheek with one hand, "I have things I must attend to sweet girl."
"Yes Aunt Dany," the princess replied with a sullen face. Without a blink the silver haired Queen removed her look alike from her lap and placed her on the ground. She bent to kiss the girl's forehead once again in a way that would remind any onlooker of the way Viserys had her the day he told her she was to marry Drogo. They would also realize that young Lya wore the same sad expression Daenerys had. She was watching her only mother figure leave her again. It reminded Jamie of the times Tywin had done such a thing to Tyrion before Tyrion was old enough to understand why and one time he had witnessed Robert walk away from a teary eyed Myrcella.
"Come here Lya," he whispered lovingly, pulling the sad princess into his lap. She sat stiffly, not leaning into him or curling up in his arms like she usually did. Instead she kept her head bowed and her hands together. "What's wrong?"
"Aunt Dany says I shouldn't sit with you like this, that it's improper," she replied, tears in her violet eyes.
"Your aunt can come speak with me if she has a problem with it. Why are you so upset?" he asked her, kissing her cheek. Upon seeing his sister's distress, Rhys had come running from the flowers to join them, taking his sister's hand in his own.
"Why doesn't she love us? Mama sent us away and Aunt Dany doesn't want us. Have we done something wrong?" Lya asked, looking up at him with tears streaming down her face. In that moment Jamie cursed the blonde queen in a way he hadn't ever before. He had seen Lya cry over such matters many times, but never had he been so filled with rage. He and Elena would have never done this to their own children or any of their nieces or nephews, he knows that. Had they married he would have loved them like a true father and cared for them.
"Your mother loves you. Sometimes we must be parted from those we love because of duty. Your grandmother, your Lady mother's Lady mother, was forced to allow her husband to travel here to the capital with both of her daughters knowing she was never to see them again. Your mother done the same with you, she allowed you to be brought down here to love with you Aunt Dany so that one day you and Rhys will inherit the throne. Then one day you will be married to some wonderful man and one wonderful lady and have children of your own. Then you each will select a child – one boy and one girl – and they will rule together, continuing the process until the end of time," he told her, stroking her hair like a father would his daughter.
"I don't know if I want to be Queen," the young girl said quietly.
"You have a long life before you must make that decision," he replied. "Now, go off and play and in a few hours we will steal into the kitchen and fetch you some lemon cakes, how does that sound?"
Lya gave him a wonderful smile before allowing Rhys to pull her down from Jamie's lap. Together the two ran into the garden, worries forgotten.
"You know in another life they would have been ours," Elena said from behind him, stepping out of the shadows.
"In another life we'd have had freedom."
A/n This started out as a Jamie/OC story, about Jamie realizing what he could have had. Instead it turned into a slight Jamie/Sansa story with Jamie acting as father to her children. Let me know what you think.