Chapter 2: The Wall

Ser Jaime Lannister, had he known his father would take his negotiations for Tyrion's life so seriously, would do something like this, would never have agreed to it, even if it meant sparing his brother's life so easily and quickly.

That was a lie. Unlike the rest of his family, he would see Tyrion saved from this farce of a trial if he could. And it was not just because his brother was a Lannister, as Tywin seemed to assume.

But this was ridiculous.

"Why is she not still set upon the Iron Throne?" were the first words he spoke, once informed of the decision.

Nothing else came to mind in the shock that followed his father's pronouncement, alone in his father's study.

Informed, after the decision had already been made with Mace Tyrell. He supposed the shock had yet to set in, that he was to be married off like a woman. Like Cersei had been informed of her marriage to Loras Tyrell, some time earlier.

She had stormed out of their father's study just as Jaime had answered the summons from Tywin, the both of them staring at each other with fierce intensity, the guards behind Cersei waiting awkwardly. Jaime had opened his mouth to say something, though he wasn't sure what he could say, but Cersei simply swept past him silently, returning to the solitude of her chambers, where she had been since Joffrey's death, until today.

He supposed he ought to at least be grateful his father had told him before announcing it to the rest of King's Landing, he thought rather bitterly.

He wouldn't have expected that.

Jaime had not known that agreeing to set aside his duties to the Kingsguard would make him another cattle to barter away for his father. At least, not so quickly after the death of Joffrey.

Wasn't the time after a King's death meant to be filled with mourning, not the pairing off and wedding preparations of every match imaginable?

No, this wasn't very imaginable. The girl was half his age.

Tywin shrugged, turning back to his papers dismissively. When he spoke, his words were just as steely and cool as they had been since Tyrion's birth, and Jaime knew he would get no quarter here.

"Her father was amenable enough, once he heard what the Lannisters were willing to offer," he said calmly.

Jaime snorted, not sure whether to laugh or cry, but as neither sounded particularly wise in front of his father, he settled for sarcasm, usually Tyrion's weapon of choice. "Yes, I am sure the prospect of a knight disgracefully leaving the Kingsguard because he is crippled, a liege lord rather than the King of Westeros, was so much more enticing."

His father shot him a look. "You are my firstborn son, and the heir to Casterly Rock. It is not so disagreeable a match for a House trying to become the greatest in the land. Tommen is very young to be looking for a bride at this time, but when he does, the Tyrells are assured that he will set his gaze upon Alla Tyrell, when she is a lady flowered."

Jaime tried to think if he could remember this girl, for he had a vague recollection of her being with Lady Margaery's party when she arrived in King's Landing, but he could only picture his new bride to be, and, for reasons that escaped him, saw Sansa Stark's terrified face in his mind's eye, on Margaery's body. Or worse, Myrcella's.

Tywin glanced back down at his paperwork, in seeming dismissal. "If you have a problem with the girl, speak plainly. This union will only serve to bring the Tyrells closer, and to keep them under check. They are only agreeing to it because they know that we will not give up Tommen now, and do not want to go back to Highgarden empty handed."

Jaime sighed, running his hand through blond hair before muttering, "None at all."

He knew from Cersei's earlier fit that doing so would not produce results.

He supposed that his father was being so agreeable today, even allowing him his mullish complaints, for the simple reason that Jaime was suddenly his favorite child again.

The golden son.

Tyrion was to be sent to the Wall to take up the Black, and their father was angry at Cersei for some reason or another. Had been angry with her ever since she consented to let Ned Stark's head roll, actually.

Jaime was just where his father had always wanted him; his pawn, in line to inherit Casterly Rock, and no longer sworn to the Kingsguard.

He wanted to rail against this, wanted to protest that, while he had imagined he would marry some highborn lady, he had not thought it would be Margaery Tyrell. By the Seven, she had been promised to his...to Joffrey.

She was of a similar age to Sansa, and he wanted to point that out, to mention the similarities between them and the unholy marriage of the wolf girl and his brother.

Instead, he asked, "When is the wedding?" in a clipped, slightly strained voice that finally made his father look up from his paperwork.

"Two weeks' time," Tywin muttered.

"Two weeks?" Jaime hissed. "The King is not yet in his grave." Not that it mattered to Tywin in the least, he supposed, nor, indeed, to the majority of King's Landing, save the smallfolk who did not know their king.

"And this will serve to remind the people that King's Landing is still as strong as ever, that we will not be defeated because an Imp killed our King. You will marry the girl, Jaime, and this is the last I shall hear of your complaints. Is that understood, or will my guards have to escort you out in the same disgraceful manner as they did your sister?"

Jaime ground his teeth together. "It's understood, Father."

But Tywin's attention was already arrested by his newest piece of parchment, and he did not look up as Jaime swept from the room, to put away his Kingsguard uniform for the last time.

He would, of course, be keeping the Valyrian sword, and he'd kill any man with it one-handed as easily as two who told him differently.

He was itching for a good fight.

Cersei had barricaded herself in her rooms, after that conversation with their father, though, as Jaime had understood, she had been barricaded in them before Tywin had insisted on her "growing up" and coming to see him, as was her duty as a daughter, and as the Queen Regent, rather than him going to the trouble of finding her.

She was mourning her son, as well as pouting over their father's newest orders, and Jaime could not find it within himself to blame her, for leaving Westeros with a child as her king, and without a stable leader but for their father.

Her son was dead.

Their son.

She would see no one, again, not even her servants, and so Jaime knew he did not have a hope of getting inside to see her, when their father had undoubtedly enlightened Cersei of his plans for Jaime, as well as his plans for her, even with wine cask in his hands.

She seemed to enjoy wine almost as much as Tyrion these days, if not more so, yet Jaime would not leave it in the hands of her guards to deliver to her when she did eventually reopen the door.

And so it was that he found himself wandering down to the dungeons, rather than the Queen Regent's chambers.

He didn't, at first, know what led his feet in that direction, didn't really have words for his brother after everything that had happened, and doubted Tyrion would want to hear his words now, when he was still so angry about what he had done for Tyrion, when he was to be shipped off to Castle Black in the morning.

But he went down to the dungeons anyway, taking along with him a parting gift for his brother, passing by the guards with a stern look and ordering them to let him in to see the Imp. Evidently, this was not too great a hardship, nor something his father had forbidden, and Jaime felt a bit silly when they opened the door with a small wooden key.

"I suppose you're going to ask me if I did it," Tyrion said tiredly, facing the wall of his dungeon cell and looking so pathetic that Jaime almost regretted bringing the wine.

He certainly didn't want to drown in sorrows tonight.

"I didn't ask that when I got Father to spare you," he said easily, stepping into the musty cell and wrinkling his nose comically.

Tyrion glanced up sharply then, body spinning at the sight of his brother, and Jaime was dismayed to notice how much thinner his brother had become.

He should have checked on him down here, sooner.

"Jaime," Tyrion breathed. He sounded so surprised that Jaime was almost hurt. "You came."

Jaime forced a smile, holding up the bottle of wine even as the door to the cell slammed shut behind him, taking the awful risk of letting the guards see it. Last he'd heard, Cersei had ordered no wine to be brought down to her...to the Imp, as she'd called him. That was, of course, before she shut herself away after the trial.

He felt like a fool. Here he'd been, bemoaning his new existence as the Heir to Casterly Rock, while his brother languished away in a dungeon cell, awaiting his trip to the Wall.

"Hmm. Most everyone else coming to see me simply wants to know whether or not I actually killed the little bastard," Tyrion muttered, licking his lips at the sight of the wine, and Jaime flinched at the harsh words.

If he noticed, Tyrion hardly seemed apologetic.

"Well, I couldn't pass up a good opportunity to drink Dornish wine," Jaime said, when he finally had himself under control. He held out the cask, and Tyrion scrambled forward to take it. "A gift from Oberyn Martell. Evidently he thinks you'll need it, at the Wall."

Tyrion took two long gulps, divesting the bottle of most of the wine inside, and Jaime was almost disappointed at the sight, having wanted to try it himself, but he said nothing.

Then he turned his gaze upon Jaime, face suddenly so serious in that moment, Jaime hardly recognized him.

"You told me before the trial to trust you, and I did," Tyrion said, then shrugged. "I didn't believe for a moment that our compassionate father wouldn't see me dead anyway, but I did." He paused, fixing Jaime with that look again, and Jaime was tempted to shift on his feet like a nervous child. "What did you do?"

Jaime chuckled, sinking down onto the filthy dungeon floor and wondering if this was the same cell where they kept Ned Stark before they chopped off his head.

Before Joffrey chopped off his head.

"Who says I did anything?" he asked, wincing at the lie that rings through the windowless room.

Once again, Tyrion shrugged one shoulder. "Cersei was livid. It gave me great satisfaction to be dragged away at the same time that she was."

Jaime didn't know how to respond to that, so he ignored it. "I...made a deal with Father." At his brother's questioning look, he stiffened. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with, brother. Just don't let him change his mind before you've left King's Landing."

"What deal?" Tyrion demanded. And Jaime had never been able to keep a secret from his brother, so he told him everything in the next moment, before he could regret doing so.

When he finished, he let out a long sigh and hoped that all of his disappointment did not show on his face. He didn't want Tyrion carrying that weight all of the way to Castle Black, frustrated though he might have been by the way things had turned out.

"So, my siblings are to be married off to the Tyrells and I sent to the Wall," Tyrion mused, lips twitching. "I suppose there is some small comfort in the fact that Cersei will be just as miserable as I, for a time. Before she thinks up some new way of killing her husband without being caught for it."

Jaime glared at him.

Tyrion flashed a grin. "Sorry, not helping, am I? Then again, I'm the one to be sent to the Wall. You're marrying a pretty girl and settling down as father's perfect, golden son, once more." And if he sounded bitter at that, it did not undermine his humor at the look on Jaime's face.

"You had better enjoy every last day at the Wall," Jaime muttered under his breath, and Tyrion's grin only grew at these words.

"You should at least try your blushing bride out, before you cast her off as useless," Tyrion teased then, taking another long gulp of the wine. "She seems pretty enough."

Jaime let out a low growl. "She was married to my...nephew," he ground out, the word sounding awkward on his tongue, and Tyrion merely gave him a look, somehow both reproachful and sympathetic at the same time.

"And I was married to Sansa Stark, the girl he might have married. And now Joffrey is dead, and Margaery Tyrell is yet a maiden," he said calmly. "You have to do your duty to the Lannister name, after all, now that I'm out of the way and Father has you right where he wants you." He smirked. "Besides, she was also married to Renly Baratheon, and Joffrey didn't seem much to care that his uncle'd had her first."

Jaime stood up, and Tyrion's eyes widened at the look on his face, before his own schooled into an expression almost penitent. "Sorry, that was rather rude of me," he said calmly. "Come back."

And Jaime sighed, because he knew that getting angry with Tyrion over this wouldn't help. Tyrion would have gladly been executed for this, if it meant he got to deliver his final 'fuck you' to their father and sister, rather than taking the Black, but Jaime intended for him to do that by living when they both so ardently wanted him dead.

Of course, not everyone had Tyrion's mindset. At the time, Jaime had only been thinking of saving his brother from a gruesome fate.

No, this mess was one born of Jaime's own making, and now he must deal with it.

A Lannister always paid their debts, after all, and Jaime's marriage to Maragery Tyrell and resignation from the Kingsguard was Tywin Lannister's price for Tyrion's life.

He supposed, in that light, it was a rather small price to pay, and yet, to Jaime, it was everything.

Marriage.

He could remember the first few weeks after Cersei's marriage to Robert Baratheon. She had been so excited, in the beginning, not taking any heed to Jaime's terror at being so separated from his beloved twin, with a bond that not even he could cut with a sword, and Jaime had forced himself to smile and pretend to be happy for her, as well.

And then Robert Baratheon had turned out as a drunk and a fool and most certainly not Rhaegar Targaryan, and Jaime had been guiltily relieved, for it meant that he still had his sister, the other half of his soul, as Cersei used to call the two of them.

He had never really paid attention to her pretty words, her insistence that, because they were born of the same womb in the same time, they were meant for each other, body and soul.

He had only known that he loved her, in a different way than he knew brothers usually loved their sisters, and that she loved him back, no matter who her real husband was, and that was enough.

And he could remember their vows to each other, when they were younger, just before Joffrey's conception, when Cersei pledged herself to him and he to her, for in truth he had known no other but her, and she none but him and Robert.

Yes, that was enough for the two of them. Until it wasn't.

And now Jaime was the one being married off, and, worse, he wasn't even attempting to fight it.

He glanced down at his hand and sighed.

He wasn't certain he was capable of fighting anything anymore, despite all of Tyrion's (and, rather more reluctantly, Bronn's) words of encouragement on the subject.

"-aime?"

He glanced up at the sound of his brother's voice, the concerned look in his eyes.

"You were a long way off," Tyrion observed. "Remember, I am the god of tits and wine, not you."

And Jaime could not help but laugh at that, a hoarse, bitter sound, as he remembered his brother's wedding, and realized that he was not so bad off as Tyrion, in all of this.

"You'll be all right," he found himself saying finally, out of the need to say something, to reassure himself if not his brother.

Tyrion's eyes softened at the genuine concern in Jaime's voice. "Of course I'll be all right," he said, rather arrogantly. "I just told you, I'm the god of tits and wine. A few white walkers aren't going to be able to get rid of me, any more than our father has been able to for the last...oh, since I was born."

Jaime snorted. "Well, I suppose that's true."

"And besides," Tyrion went on, eyes twinkling with mirth, "I'll get to piss off the edge of the world for the second time in my life."

The guards came hours later, after Jaime and Tyrion had spoken of things that they hadn't thought of for years, decades even; of Cersei's attempts to dress as her brother so that she could go out and spar with him, of their father's anger when he found out, of swimming in the sea when they were children, of whores Tyrion had had, and, most of all, of Joanna.

But never politics, and very little of what was going on outside this dungeon cell in the present time.

And somehow they laughed at the old tales, and somehow Jaime felt tears stinging his eyes that were not from the fact that this was the last night he would spend with his brother.

Tyrion was the sort of fellow that Jaime felt he could always have told his secrets to, even if they were not brothers. He was witty, but, when he wanted, he could listen, and there were very few people in the world who listened to Jaime Lannister.

Jaime hadn't even realized how quickly the time had flown by until he was yawning and the guards were banging on the door.

"It's morning," he said, blinking stupidly, and Tyrion chuckled at his expression.

"Why, Jaime, and here I thought you were a knight, able to withstand whatever difficulties, even one night's missed sleep."

Jaime rubbed his eyes. "Old age is finally catching up to me." And, now that he thought about it, a rather stinging headache. He supposed this was from all of the wine.

Tyrion coughed discreetly. "I'm sure your future wife will be glad to hear it."

The guards banged on the door again, and Tyrion shouted something at them that Jaime was too tired to hear, but that was likely just as unsavory as the expression that his brother's face had morphed into.

Then the door was opening, and the guards' faces were set in granite as they stepped forward and grabbed Tyrion, pulling him to his feet. The empty wine cask somehow still in his hands fell to the ground, but Jaime didn't bother to pick it up as he too stood.

One of the guards, and Jaime thought he recognized the man as Ser Meryn, stepped forward, almost menacingly, and Jaime reached instinctively for the sword still hung loosely at his waist.

"My lord," Meryn muttered, the words clearly coming with some difficulty after years of Jaime being part of the Kingsguard, "Lord Tywin has requested that you not be present when the traitor leaves King's Landing."

Jaime huffed. "Of course he has. Wouldn't want us disgracing the family name by recognizing a known traitor, after all."

He glanced at Tyrion, perhaps to convey his apologies, although they had done their farewells here in this room well enough compared to what it might be like to say goodbye in front of one thousand people. But then he saw the look on Tyrion's face, the sad resignation there, and simply...couldn't.

"Well, my lord father can find someone else to play the puppet for today," he said coldly, and Tyrion's eyes widened at the words. "I'm already tired of it."

He wondered if Tyrion's rebellious nature was indeed catching.

His intended stood in the crowd beside the rest of House Tyrell, watching with an almost vacant expression on her face as she squeezed her brother Loras' hand, and, if he had not seen enough proof of Loras Tyrell's...predisposition on the sparring fields, he would have believed the foully spread rumors (likely by his own sister) that Margaery and her brother were just as close as he and Cersei were.

She was a pretty thing, he supposed, but then, Jaime had never had a true eye for beauty, unless his sister was involved.

Cersei did not come to see Tyrion out of King's Landing, but then, Jaime had not truly been expecting her to do else. She was furious, he had been told by his own father, that Tyrion had been allowed to live at all, and Tywin had thankfully refrained from mentioning that this was Jaime's doing.

He did not know what he would do, if both of his siblings were estranged from him forever.

But Tywin Lannister was there, still standing as cold and imposing as ever, beside their new young king.

Tommen.

Jaime had not realized how young the boy was until now, dwarfed as he was next to the Hand of the King, and looking over the proceedings as if he wasn't certain whether he was supposed to look angry with Tyrion or cry that his nuncle was leaving.

Jaime shared the sentiment wholeheartedly.

"I suppose this is goodbye then," Tyrion muttered, glancing almost nervously at the burly Lannister guards that were to escort him to the Wall.

Jaime supposed that it was better than being escorted by Tyrell guards, for then there would be no chance of Tyrion making it alive, with the glare Mace Tyrell was sending, "the Imp."

All of King's Landing had heard his righteous fury at the fact that Margaery and Joffrey had been drinking out of the same cup throughout the wedding, at the fact that Margaery could have been killed, as well.

Jaime was still trying to figure that one out, himself, with the sort of numb detachedness of a Kingsguard, his mind vindictively reminding him that he was one no longer, that his one relation to Joffrey had been...

And besides, his father had made him a promise, and even if there were few in the world who thought Lannister promises to be in high standing, expect perhaps the Lannisters themselves, Jaime knew his father would see it done, if only to keep his new heir at Casterly Rock. And Cersei had been holed a way too long to have paid the guards to kill Tyrion along the way.

Jaime paused before getting down on one knee and pulling his brother into a soft embrace, ignoring the disapproving scowl on Tywin's face, or the shocked sounds of their rather large audience.

He'd heard from Bronn, of all people, that there were some wondering whether Jaime Lannister's retirement from the Kingsguard, so quickly after the King's death, was because he'd had a hand in killing him, along with the Imp, though there were none brave enough to voice these concerns to Lord Tywin.

It wouldn't be the first time a Lannister son had killed the King, after all.

Tyrion leaned into the touch, a reluctant smile on his lips even as Jaime leaned down and kissed him on the greasy, curly fringe of his forehead. "Farewell, little brother."

Tywin cleared his throat behind them, and Jaime would have shot the man a murderous look if he thought he could get away with such behavior in public without embarrassing himself further.

Instead, he stood to his feet and took his place by his father. And as he watched the guards come forward to escort Tyrion away, he could not help feeling that he had not, as he thought, saved Tyrion's life, but rather betrayed him instead, though he could not have said why.

"Jaime." Tyrion's eyes were soft, understanding, even as he stepped forward to join his escort. "Thank you. For my life."

Jaime shrugged, flushing despite himself. "Get going, before they leave without you," he muttered, but Tyrion only smiled at the words.