One. "He's not ugly," Jaime said, firmly. "He's just small. And babies are small. So why do you say he's ugly?"
Cersei rolled her eyes, and leaned over the crib to look at the baby . "He's ugly. He's so ugly that he's not even our brother. And he killed mama. So he's ugly."
Jaime frowned, examined the baby and his strange mismatched eyes once more, and reached over to touch his flaxen, light hair. From the doorway, his father's voice boomed. "Leave the baby," Tywin said. "Mongrel children don't make good pets."
"But he's not a pet, he's my little brother," Jaime protested. Ironically, it seemed to the boy that even the infant agreed : his head moved away from the boy's tentative hand.
Two. Oh. So that was why. For a moment, Jaime didn't think it had anything to do with him, his skill, his talent or how brilliant he was. Bugger that. Aerys wanted an hostage, nothing more, nothing less. Insane old dragon.
"Father, you should be careful," he said, carefully, before he thought any better. "There are --" but then he stopped himself – what if he said it? Wouldn't he be pegged for a coward, then? Of course he would be. Sweet Father wasn't a tender man. "-- you know what they say about being the King's Hand," he finished, lamely.
"And you think it's the first time I'm told this, boy?" Tywin barely looked up from his reading. "No, father." A breath, and he shrugged. "You should go before I lose patience, Jaime."
And so he went – and he didn't even manage to tell anyone else, though his hesitation was probably fairly compelling.
Three. "The king's mad," Jaime told them. In the great hall, he said it, over and over. He whispered it to the guards, to any other member of the Kingsguard he could talk to privately. "He will burn us all to embers if he has his way, us and the city. We must do something."
No matter how he phrased it, they laughed, refusing to believe him, or they believed him but then brought him to the execution block for breaking his oath.
No matter how he said it or who he said it to, no-one listened.
Then, every time, he woke up in a sweat and told himself that this was one road he had to walk alone.
Four. He knew he really shouldn't think of her that way, but he did all the same. It was hard not to, when she made him come and sit in her room, wandered about in nothing but a petticoat, then asked him to come and tie the necklace around her neck for him.
It was harder when she leaned her back against his chest and he felt her silky skin against his hands. And that was not the only thing that was getting harder, unfortunately.
She slipped around the embrace, kissed him, slipped a hand over the treacherous member, mischievously. "You know, my fat oaf of a husband won't be back for another hour," she told him, grinning against his lips.
He made a soft sound of protest that she killed with another passionate kiss.
Then again, when did Cersei ever listen to Jaime?
Five. "You know, I could help you, if you remove those schackles," Jaime intoned, for the umpteenth time. The wench, of course, didn't reply – the crowd of utter indifference over her head seemed to grow blacker by the minute.
"I mean it, you could trust me," he said again, trying to sound charming. After all, she was an ugly thing of a woman – she had to be sensitive to charisma, didn't she? Again, silence ensued.
When they made it to camp, he tried again. "You know, those hands can do other things than fight," he said, with as much persuasion as he could put in his voice.
Brienne, again, hunched her shoulders, and he was almost disappointed that she didn't take him up for it.
Heck. He might even have enjoyed it. Her eyes weren't all that bad, when she wasn't growling at you.