Sighing inwardly, Jaime nodded his thanks to the flight attendant as she brought him the ibuprofen he'd requested along with a small cup of water. Even in first class, flying most always gave him a headache. There was always a wailing babe, an over talkative pair of neighbors on the opposite side of the aisle, a bright, explosion-heavy in-flight film to detract from the sleep taunting from just behind pale lids.

All of those burdens and more were bearable when he had his other half with which to share them. He could easily tune out the noises around them with her lilting voice ghosting promises at his ear of what was to come once they got back to the house or the hotel room, her cruel japes at the expense of the other travelers, though those were often significantly less quiet and careful, to his dismay. The best consolations were the subtle caresses of her fingers circling against his own, the brush of her lips at his cheek, temple, jaw, the corner of his mouth, even a dart of tongue on skin if they felt particularly daring, the scraping of blushed and aurified lacquered claws against the back of his neck, as gentle or harsh as he liked, when no one was paying any mind to the two of them, and sometimes continuing once someone did turn to look, too, especially if they'd gotten into a bottle of wine. She loved to make a game of watching the onlookers squirm in their seats, turn away at the instant of eye contact, or sometimes even stare harder, which is always all the more interesting. They sometimes even played at guessing who would react which way. "Do you think they know who we are, sweet brother?" she'd coo as she traced patterns on his thigh with a nimble finger. "I'm sure they've at least guessed that we're a pair of twins by now." She'd grown to become something of an exhibitionist, just a bit, now that the consequences weren't half as harsh if they were noticed. Jaime found himself relishing the thought of even her most innocent touch.

He missed her. He always did.

Perhaps the most insufferable part of all was the inevitable command from the captain over the loudspeakers informing every passenger that it was time to put their devices in airplane mode, dooming the younger twin to complete solitude. Even to type to her would have made it a little better. Any other time that they had to be separated, there were written snippets and snapshots of the events, meals, outfits of each day, I miss yous, occasionally even videos of the silliest things that the kids were finding to occupy their time, chocolate-milk-mustached Myrcellas skateboarding across the asphalt in windblown pink dresses, flower-picking Tommens chasing breathlessly after them, wielding the gold-petaled gifts like Valyrian steel. "Look at what your children are doing." Countless iterations of their little family existed in those moments, each catalogued day like its own universe at his fingertips. That was the thing about flying: It brought them together again considerably faster, but there was a certain icy interim of absolutely nothing at all. If there were to be no new memories made until he was off this Seven-forsaken plane, he'd just have to dream them up on his own.

His eyes shifted back to the flight attendant sashaying off to her next task.

"Ah, my lady?" he called out before she was too far gone.

She swiftly made her way back to Jaime's seat. People in positions of service always did; even alone, even with just about as much anonymity as he ever possessed, they seemed to know where the money was. Perhaps if I stopped letting Cersei dress me in oxford shirts and gold, and then, she'd hate that.

"Did you require something else of me, my lord?"

He nearly snorted at her response; in fact, it did come out halfway. He greedily sucked in a breath through his nose against the sound and did his best to ignore the flirtatious tone in the woman's voice. "Yes. The tallest, strongest, sweetest glass of Arbor Gold that you've got on this plane. And if you refill it at my pleasure, there's fifty dragons in it for you."

The word dragons seemed to light a fire in her eyes as though they were discussing the hell-breathed beasts from millennia ago rather than simple paper money. "Right away."

Jaime chuckled for a moment, thinking that if Cersei were here, she'd revile the idea of him drinking sweet white wine, and the stewardess' way of paying such particular attention, perhaps even the smell of it in her vicinity. She much preferred dry Dornish red. Cersei was not here, though, and he'd make do with this whole wretched flight as it pleased him. When the young woman brought him the glass he'd requested, he sipped at it dutifully a few times before shaking his head, let it be over with, and downing the rest of the glass whole. He shut his eyes and bid the wine relax him as he had hoped that it would. He focused on the darkness ahead of his lidded gaze, the hum of the plane's engines around him, the two dabs of lavender oil he'd left behind each ear, the aroma of it gracing the valley just under his nose. For just a moment, that way, there was peace, even if he was torn in half, alone. It was their darkness behind his eyes, eternal, ongoing, amassing, like the Lannister empire. The hums were as her breath might have been at his neck as she slipped into a contented slumber beside him, and her scent made its way into his nose, gracing the otherwise stale, recycled air with poise. He let thoughts of the two of them together again carry him softly off to sleep.

When Jaime opened his eyes again, the plane was on the ground. He was one of the last passengers to get out of his seat. Gruffly, annoyed at being driven from a pleasant rest, he clambered to his feet and hastily took hold of his carry-on duffel. The flight attendant flashed a knowing smile at him as he strode toward her. She never even had to refill my glass, he thought, and, suddenly in a giving mood, he slipped her the paper bill that he had promised anyway. It simply did not please me to ask any further service of her. "Lannisters pay their debts, my lady," he smirked down at her surprised face. "Every child knows that."

He could feel his chest swelling with pride as he made his way off the plane and toward the airport building. He strutted eminently toward the baggage claim, observing the common people as they groveled out of his way, all the while never slowing his pace. They were small, graceless, frothy, and worst of all, they were abating his progress in reuniting with the only person in this place that truly mattered.

He knew that she would be waiting for him on the other side of the gate, but no amount of premeditation quite prepared him for the sight of her. Even now, nearing their middle age, she was positively electrifying, the energy tying them together all but tactile. There she stood, cutting a regal and formidable figure among the peasants and peddlers, aureate pixie hair sticking out in every direction like savannah grass from under a gilded headband not unlike a crown. A slinky crimson tank top dexterously enveloped her top half, the drop neckline pooling at her breasts in reverence alongside her favorite golden lion necklace. Black skinny jeans greedily hugged like lusty hands at each and every curve of her long legs. Her favorite pair of rose gold spike heels raked imposingly at the ground beneath her feet; they would have been surely welcomed by most any man as an instrument in his death, were it at her hands. The top half of her house sigil tattoo was exposed for all the world to see on her right foot, the lion leaping out from inside of her shoe in undaunted glory across a veldt of alabaster skin. Jaime's golden thumb absentmindedly lumbered over the back of his left hand to stroke at the analogous illustration there, and for a moment, it was like touching her from across the room, as though his fingers were wrapped about her heel just as they were when he came into the world. In her own lofty fingers, manicured in yellow and rose gold, she held up a small white paper sign. Two words dripped balletically across the page in vermillion ink.

"Ser Jaime."

Tommen and Myrcella were in view at her feet, racing about and laughing, an amalgam of rushing limbs, startled sounds, and joined fingers as they clattered to the floor. He could see her bending down and telling them to calm down, relax, although she must have known they'd be much too excited for any of that in a place as lively as this. Though he was happy for their presence, Jaime almost didn't see them.

Their first eye contact raised most every hair on his skin to attention. One corner of her rouged bow mouth turned up into a half-smile when their gazes met. He closed the remaining distance between them with a newfound fervor as leather loafers clicked against the white tile beneath.

He wanted to grasp her by the chin and tilt her face up toward his for a kiss, nosy onlookers and little birds be damned, wanted their fingers of silvered and gilded skin to clasp and mingle like cream and honey, flowing infinitely, bathed in sunlight, but no, the children are here, and his arms found their way around her waist in a more acceptable sort of embrace. His mouth formed into a true smile for the first time in at least a week as he felt her arms wrap back around him. His face found its way into the crook just between her neck and shoulder, only for a second, and he stole the kiss he was craving in the form of a soundless press of his lips to the skin there. "Queen Cersei," he addressed her in a flash of mock seriousness, laughing and pulling away to have another look at her. It had been her nickname as long as he could remember.

"Ser Uncle!"

Jaime's gaze turned down toward the tiny Tommen pulling at his sleeve. He bent to take the boy and his elder sister into either arm for a hug, mussing their blonde hair, more than likely to the chagrin of their mother stood above them. At only four and five, Myrcella and Tommen were sponges, holding onto everything they were shown and taught, and Cersei's nickname for Jaime had quickly rubbed off onto their youngest child in its way.

Though it was sweet, sweeter than the beets that Tommen always refused to eat, Jaime had to actively resist the pang of anger and resentment threatening to plow through his newfound good mood. If Cersei was a queen, their children a little prince and princess, he was their king. Or rather, he should have been, but he certainly wasn't. He was only a knight, only an uncle, bearing a shield rather than a crown, gilded steel but never gold. Their little pride was only halfway his, and Jaime often wondered if he would ever have any sort of real relationship with his children, if he would ever be able to sit them down and make them understand when they were older, to take the title that should have always been mine. Cersei always told him in his moments of doubt that what he outwardly did for them now mattered more than whatever he was supposed to be, before or otherwise, but part of Jaime, the darker part that he kept beneath the sarcastic facade on the surface, believed that, at least to some degree, she was only appeasing him.

"They will know that you protected them."

Resentment was not for now, though, and not ever, really, not for true. Even if it had to be this way, at least for now, at least while they were too young for explanations, they were together, content, safe. Cersei would drive them home, and he could even drowse again on the way if he liked. There would be stories and gifts from his travels, and the children always loved him for those. They would eventually head off to bed, too, and they would kiss and make love and I love you. They'd sleep together, and wake up together, early, of course, lest the children find them in an indelicate state, have coffee in their underwear, black, she always wants it black now, and it would be everything that he had ever craved all those years, so how could he complain about it now?

Pushing the pressing scorn and entitlement aside as they walked to the parking lot, he willed himself to appreciate what he did have, hard as that might be for someone that had always had everything. Jaime allowed himself to conjure to mind times infinitely darker in comparison, fiery phone calls, long and lingering laconicism, somber separation, blood and bruises.

He recalled Cersei's marriage to Robert Baratheon.