Valyrian Steel
Lord of the Rock
Chapter 20
A knock on his door woke Jaime from a dream, when he woke he forgot for a moment that he was in Casterly and not on the road travelling with Brienne. He expected to see her dour scarred face stroking a fire, instead is Aunt Gemma had barged crying.
"I didn't want to wake you, it's the first time you've slept all week and you've been in a foul mood. I thought I could tell you when you woke up. Tommen was insistent that he had to see his mother, I told the guards to leave so they could speak privately. The boy has gone insane, he won't stop yelling. Hurry!"
Jaime was confused and rolled quickly out of bed following his aunt who was crying and apologizing the whole way. Jaime yelled at the servants to go back to work as he entered the room and saw Tommen squeezing Cersei's throat screaming the same phrase over and over again. "Not my Mother! Not my Mother!"
His sister, lover and the mother of his children was dead. Her eyes had bulged and her neck had snapped, there was no doubt that she was yet Tommen continued to squeeze and scream. Jaime felt grief for his son, Cersei had long since died in his eyes but Tommen was a good boy. Gemma cried behind him and Qyburn appeared offering to sedate Tommen but Jaime refused. He stepped forward and sat next to his son, ignoring Cersei's dead eyes and tear stained face.
"Tommen, it's over she's gone." Jaime said gently as Tommen continued to scream.
The boy paid him no mind and kept squeezing his mother's broken neck until Jaime place a gentle hand on his. Tommen stopped and looked up at Jaime. The boy had been burned along his arm, shoulder and neck and had a mad haunted look in his eyes.
"It's over, she can't hurt you or anyone else. Let go." Jaime said stroking Tommen's hair with a fatherly affection that he did not recognize.
"Let go, son. Let her go" he said softly.
Tommen's eyes cleared and he looked down at his mother horror plain on his face. He tossed her away and brought his hands to his chest shaking his head crying. Jaime brought him close and held him tight as the boy raged and cried. Jaime motioned for the guards to take the body away as he rocked the sobbing boy.
Tommen soon passed out after crying for hours, Jaime had him moved to another room and where Maester Creylen and Qyburn could watch over him.
Jaime went back to bed and tried to sleep, something that had proven difficult since Brienne's death. He remembered the look in her eyes, she looked sad and smiled at him with tears in her haunting blue eyes and blood leaking from her mouth. The most honorable human being he had ever come across had died by his own hands. His greatest crime haunted him at night. Jaime never lost sleep over the Mad King, or even the poor Stark boy, but memory of Brienne haunted him. The walking corpse or Catelyn Stark had given him a trail by combat and Brienne was his opponent. She was the better fighter, everyone knew, but when it looked as if he would die she moved towards his blade with a sad smile and died holding his gaze. He loved her then, in that moment he loved her more than anything in the world and he lost her. His name was her last breath and he kissed her bloody ugly face with tears in his eyes.
The cruel corpse called Lady Stoneheart stared coldly down at him and Jaime charged in a blind rage. He was stopped by the ghost of Robert Baratheon, or a young beardless look alike. The boy kicked him back and the rest of the Brotherhood held him down while the Lady Stoneheart stood and went to Brienne. She closed the woman's eyes and spoke in a rasping voice for her men to send her back to the Sapphire Isles.
"You have won your life, live knowing that you do not deserve it. I have seen the darkness and I know that it will find you soon enough." She told him with a rasping voice that was barely a whisper. Since then every time Jaime slept he saw Brienne's face and hear Lady Stoneheart's words.
Now he saw Cersei, Tommen, Elia and her children, Rhaegar telling him to look after his family, the Stark boy's look of surprise as he fell, Tyrion and his young wife, and Brienne's blue eyes fading in her death. He lay in bed for an hour tossing and turning until he finally gave in and took the sweetsleep Qyburn had left by his bedside.