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Nothing Gold Can Stay

Chapter 2

A few months later…

At the door, Myrcella hesitated. She did not want to be here. She did not want to enter. The man inside might have fathered her but he was not her father. He had killed her mother with his own hands! Or hand, anyway. And he had never been interested in her. All affectionate attention from grown men in her life, she had received from Robert Baratheon and her Uncle Tyrion… and maybe Doran Martell, later. She was not sure. Maybe it had been one of his schemes. Still, she liked to think that he had developed real affection for her, despite his plots.

Anyway, Ser Jaime was still not recovered from his participation in the battle with the Others and there weren't many willing to visit him. Myrcella was never the one to shirk her duty and well, he was a Lannister, so she knocked and entered.

The hope in his eyes turned to a flash of disappointment as he realized who had come to see him. Myrcella almost made a step backwards when she was stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of the dark-haired woman opposite to the bed. What was she doing here?

"My lady," Myrcella said and curtsied. Ashara Dayne gave her a level look.

"I'll leave you with your… uncle, Lady Myrcella," she said. "I'll expect you for dinner in the Great Hall, nonetheless."

Myrcella assured her that she'd be there and the lady left in a cloud of perfume. Jaime Lannister snickered. "It's good to know that some things don't change," he said. "She was never shy to make her opinions clear."

"She doesn't need to be shy," Myrcella said. "She's the first lady at King's Landing now, until His Grace weds, and she's the one who rules the court."

"Ah yes," Jaime said. He was still very pale and gaunt, with the same haunted look she had sometimes spotted when he thought no one was watching, ever since they had first met when the Targaryens had reclaimed Westeros. Still, there was a sarcastic smile on his lips. "Well, she all but ruled the court when she first came to live here, too. A smile here, a mesmerizing look there... she always got her way. She was more of a Queen than I ever remember Rhaella Targaryen, so it isn't new to her. I heard she's adopted a new style?"

Myrcella nodded and wondered whether she should sit next to the bed. Finally, she chose not to. "She is to be known as My Lady the King's Mother," she explained. "And it wasn't she who chose it, the King bestowed it upon her."

Jaime snorted. "Of course he did. The thought that she'd willingly subject her hearing to such a long phrase each time sometimes opened their mouth never crossed my mind. When I knew her, she preferred to keep it as short and simple as possible."

The faint sunlight stole its way through the closed shutters and made his golden hair almost white, his aging enhanced by his weakened state. Nothing is as it was when you knew her, Myrcella thought. A dynasty had fallen and been restored. Their family was in shatters. Jaime himself had done the unthinkable. Dragons had come to life. A queen had abandoned her throne after all the fight to win it. They had fought the Others and won, and some even lived to tell the tale. "Personally, I find it fitting," she said. "His Grace was right to honour the woman who brought him up."

"Of course he was,' Jaime said. "And he had to do it in the most pompous way possible. But well, that's always been a penchant of the Targaryens'."

"What was she doing here?" Myrcella demanded and by Jaime's expression, she saw that he wouldn't tell her.

"Making it clear how much she despises me," he said airily. Still, there was something in his voice that spoke not of merriness but something different. Myrcella came near.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I am fine,' he said and paused. "I thought it might be Tyrion." Seeing her uncomprehending look, he elaborated, "When you knocked at the door. I thought it might be him coming to see me, finally. We haven't spoken in months."

Myrcella looked down. He doesn't care that I came, she thought. He doesn't need me. No one does. "He spoke to the Queen on your behalf," she said. "He convinced her to spare you."

Jaime shook his head weakly against the pillow. "It isn't enough," he said and paused again. "They said he was a monster, you know," he spoke again, lost in times long gone and a world that had died long before Myrcella came to be. "My father, Cersei and even the gossiping servants. They said that he had killed my mother, that he was a monster, a freak. But he wasn't. He was so tiny and so hungry for affection that no one was willing to give him. He and Cersei, they were the only ones I've ever loved in my life… where is he, Myrcella? Why wouldn't he come, after all that happened?"

That was the first time she saw him uncertain and vulnerable. It was the weakness, the fatigue, the effects of the great battle... but she was stunned to find out that Jaime Lannister did have a heart, after all. "He will come," she said. "He will, I am sure."

Jaime looked at her in wonder. "What?" she asked. "What is it?"

She was starting to feel somewhat weak herself. Maybe it was the room itself that did it. For the last few months, death had become a frequent visitor in Westeros – an uninvited guest, but a guest nonetheless. She fed, she went about and touched everything… She was their most constant companion. She – and illness.

"How is it that you are so… good?" he said in reply. "How could Cersei and I ever produce a being as kind as you?"

Maybe he meant it to be a compliment but his words only make him feel lonelier. Apart from the world. Even he, her uncle and… not quite… even he could not relate to her. He was looking at her as if her temper was more shocking than her scar.

Her mother had never understood her either – but Cersei had loved her, at least.

Myrcella suddenly rose and stood with her back to him. "Did you really kill her?" she asked without turning around – she could not bear look at his face.

For a long moment, Jaime stayed silent. When he finally spoke, his voice was very even, he might as well be talking about making a dent in his armour. "Yes," he said. "I did,"

Cersei, her green eyes ablaze, the flames crackling in the fireplace behind her, the dagger in her hand and the blood seeping in the soft carpet. He looked at her in disbelief, his eyes moving from the body lying sprawled in her feet, the hands still tied up behind the back. Tyrion, tied in a corner of the room, his eyes intent, no doubt feeling that he'd be her next victim…

Cersei smiled and lowered the dagger. "Come on, let's go to my chamber," she purred and Jaime had trouble even processing the words. But when he did, he felt a cold fury tightening her grip on him, and he looked at Cersei, green ice to green fire.

"I am not going anywhere with you," he spat.

She stepped back, amazed. "Jaime," she said, confused. "Jaime, why are you angry?"

That was too much. She really, truly didn't understand. In her mind, she had just eliminated an obstacle in their path, a woman she felt threatened her position in his affections – and she expected that he'd just dismiss that, that once he had lost Brienne, he'd immediately become reconciled with the loss. What kind of twisted logic was that? What kind of twisted woman she was?

"Because you killed one of the very few people I've ever cared for, that's why!"

Cersei laughed, loudly and angrily. "Well," she said, "I think in a few minutes, I'll have killed two of them."

He intercepted her before she could reach Tyrion and squeezed with all his disappointment, all his disillusionment, all his hurt.

Myrcella's eyes went wide. She had hoped it was only a malicious rumour but it was not. And he offered no explanation. None. She stood up and staggered out, her entire world finally shattered.