A/N Sweet little oneshot from Jaime's POV when he tells Myrcella that he's her father. Rated T for some sex references but nothing explicit.
Disclaimer: No. Game of Thrones isn't mine.
Jaime looked at his niece. His daughter. All her life she'd known him as Uncle. All her life he'd been forced to deny her. To deny who she was. To protect her, and her brothers. To protect Cersei. To protect himself. All his life, he'd had to deny the rumours, forbidden to express how he felt about his twin sister. Nearly every day he was reminded how wrong it was for him to love his twin sister. Every time he saw the common people he was reminded. Ridiculed. But they didn't understand. He never chose to love her. No-one chose who they loved.
Kingslayer, they called him. Oathbreaker. A man without honour. He wore those words like armour, protecting himself from their words. They didn't understand that he'd saved them all. When he killed the Mad King, he had saved their lives. So many innocent lives. That was worth breaking an oath, wasn't it? He'd thrown the child from the window to protect Cersei and their children. To protect House Lannister. Maybe it was wrong, but those he loved were worth far more to him than his honour.
Those he loved. His family. Not his house. Not those he was told to like. His lover and his children. His children. They were so far away from everyone that he could call them his own. He could love them. Love her, like a real father, not an uncle. At least for a little while. He could call his daughter his own. She was his princess. His daughter. His bastard.
He was going to tell her. She would understand. She was old enough. She was in love. That wasn't to say she understood love, or how powerful it was, but she felt it. She felt it for a Martell, something that was also, not forbidden exactly, but taboo at least.
He opened his mouth to speak, looking at her beautiful Lannister gold hair, just like her mother's. Anyone could see that she was a lion. There wasn't a bit of stag in her. Not in any of them.
"There's something I wanted to tell you," he began. "Something I should have told you long ago."
She was the only one of them she could tell. Joffrey was so unpredictable. He probably would have had him thrown in prison and cut off his head. And Tommen was so good, so just, that he would renounce the throne immediately, disgracing House Lannister and probably ending in his parents' public humiliation and murder.
Myrcella understood. She smiled, an innocently sweet smile.
"I know what you're trying to say," she said, standing up to clasp his hand. "I know."
How could she know? Was she happy, angry, disappointed? She didn't sound disappointed.
"I think a part of me always knew," she continued, burying her face in his muscular chest. He put his stump around her comfortingly, stroking her hair gently with his left hand.
"And I'm glad. I'm glad that you're my father,"
He liked that word. He liked being called it. It was better than Cersei panting his name as she climaxed, better than watching his niece and nephews come into the world. Because now he could be a father to his own children. He had been hiding it for so long. Carrying the burden of his secrets weighed heavily on him. He'd never realized it before.
But now, she knew. She accepted him for who he was. He could be a father to his daughter, if only for a few days, while they were far from home. Far from the politics of King's Landing.
He wondered if she knew what it meant. She didn't seem disappointed or disgusted at all. Perhaps she didn't realize that she was a bastard, born of incest. That she wasn't really a princess of the realm. Just how many people wanted her dead.
Maybe she did know all that. Maybe she was just proud to be a child born of love. Glad to have a living father, who didn't drink or whore. Maybe he was just proud that he had finally told her. That she finally knew for certain.
But he never got the chance to ask...
A/N Sorry about the sad twist at the end, but it's Game of Thrones. It very rarely ends happily. I'd love a review. Please?