A/N:Thanks to everyone who read or reviewed the first chapter! I've had a very busy week but hopefully I can get chapter three written by the weekend. I hope to be pretty steady with updating, so fingers crossed. Thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoy! Please leave any feedback :)
"And when exactly do you plan on making this public reappearance?" Jaime Lannister asked, his body stretched languidly across the sofa. For half an hour he had watched his sister nibble at the pitiful foods she had called dinner, all the while draining glass after glass of wine. It had been three weeks since Robert Baratheon's funeral and, though the paparazzi had tried, Cersei had managed to stay out of the public eye. Returning to her father's home in Cheshire with her two youngest children, she had bolted the door behind her and refused to speak to anyone but her twin brother and her father.
"Father says I should wait until Stark has settled," she replied, her words slightly slurred. "Show I mean him no ill will. It wouldn't look good otherwise." The decision to give Ned Stark the position of Prime Minister had not been one Cersei had agreed with, something she had voiced to her father on multiple occasions, and with no clear constitutional ruling as to who would take over the government, she had suggested that, perhaps, she could take over and rule in her husband's stead. The idea had not gone down as well as she'd hoped, however, and now the Deputy Prime Minister was the Interim Prime Minister, much to her chagrin. "He isn't moving into the house, did you know?"
"He can't. Tyrion says –" but his explanation of what their younger brother had told him was cut off by a loud, scathing noise from the back of Cersei's throat.
"What does that little bastard know about it?" As she filled up another glass, Jaime found himself staring at his twin. Eyes wild and glassy, cheeks flushed, she'd never looked further from a grieving politician's wife. Clearing her throat, she continued, "Like I was saying, as he's only Interim Prime Minister, he has no rights to the house. God only knows what happens once they've picked a final replacement. No doubt we'll return to the old house – it would probably be good for the children."
Already, Jaime was starting to lose interest. He had never had much time for Robert Baratheon; the man was a foul creature, brash and loud and entirely unsuited to the task of Prime Minister but he had kept everyone's eyes on Cersei and left Jaime to do as he pleased, something he had enjoyed those past few months. "So, that's the plan you and father have come up with? Wait until Ned Stark takes his seat as Prime Minister and then throw you into the public eye as the grieving widow, lending her support to her father's own political party?"
"How do you know about that?" The talks of Tywin Lannister running as an independent party had been particularly hush-hush, with only Cersei and her uncle Kevan sitting in during conversations. Or so she'd thought. "Nothing has been finalised, actually. But, yes, I suppose that's one way of putting it. Just don't fuck this up for us, okay? He's already got Tyrion on a tight leash after that last scandal…"
And with that, Jaime was done. Rolling his eyes, he pushed to his feet, fingers wrapping around Cersei's wine glass and plucking it from her hand with ease. "Tidy yourself up, Myrcella and Tommen will be home from school soon and I won't have them seeing you like this," he said, turning his back on her and limping from the room.
"And where do you think you're going?" she called after him, the sounds of her unsteadily standing up following him into the hallway.
"Tarth's!" He replied, dropping the wine glass off in the kitchen before leaving the house, glad to be away from his sister and her ridiculous, drunken notions once more.
"So, dad's Prime Minister, but we still stay up here?" Arya asked for the umpteenth time, causing most of the dinner table to roll their eyes. "Not that I want to live in Downing Street – that's stupid – but think of how cool it would be to live in London. All the cool gig venues and all the cool clubs – they don't have any of that up here! It's not fair!" Since their father's appointment as Interim Prime Minister, the Stark children had seen little of their parents, with their Aunt Lysa travelling all the way from the Highlands to take care of them, despite the fact that most of them were of an age to look after themselves. It wasn't the worst scenario; with Lysa came her son Robin, a poor, sickly child who needed a lot of attention which meant, besides meal times, they rarely had to spend time with her and, for the most part, were left to themselves. If anything, it was even better than having their parents home. If you asked Arya, that was.
"Fair? How can you think about fair?" Sansa hissed, eyeing her sister with disgust. "Joffrey's father has been murdered and you're talking about fair?"
"I know, we went to his funeral, stupid. I'm just saying we can't be sad forever and if mum and dad are already down there I don't see why we can't go too," Arya argued, watching as her aunt ladled out something which looked suspiciously like soup, though no one could quite tell with Lysa's cooking. "Joff and Myrcella and Tommen all got to stay there, why can't we?"
"Your father is only the interim Prime Minister, Arya," Lysa clucked, handing the first bowl to her own son. "He won't be down there for long, let me tell you. Soon enough, they'll realise he's terribly ill-suited to the job and send him packing back up here." Fussing with her son's hair, she turned to the faces of the four youngest Stark children. "Good people never last in Downing Street. That's what killed my Robert, you know? Being down there, surrounded by those…those vipers. It killed him." Turning back to the large pot of soup – or was it stew? Arya was still struggling to work it out, even as Robin slurped down his first few spoonfuls – Lysa gave a dramatic sniff. It had been like this almost every night since she came – she would give them some food, make a comment about her late husband and then rush off dramatically, taking Robin with her.
"I think dad would be a great Prime Minister," Bran piped up, dragging his eyes from the handheld computer game which had held his attentions all evening. "He's fair and he's just and he doesn't pretend to be something he's not." Chewing on the inside of his lip, he paused. "Uncle Robert –" Sansa tried to interrupt, telling him to stop using the term 'Uncle' when the man wasn't related to them, but Bran spoke over her. "Uncle Robert was always trying to pretend he was posh when he was in front of the cameras and trying to pretend he was sober when he was around us."
It was one of the many things the family had agreed to keep quiet; many people knew Robert liked a drink but no one wanted to go tattling about the Prime Minister and ruining his reputation. Especially not after the last one…
"He'll be home soon. You listen to me, now. This is the last I'll hear of it – none of you will be going down to London," Lysa replied, placing bowls in front of the other children. "It's not safe down there for good people like us."