A/N: I honestly thought i'd never put this chapter out -it took me so long to write! It killed me writing this, it was so difficult especially when I got to Lorraine's POV -it took me forever.

Probably the last chapter i'll put out before the hiatus. See yall in May!

Damion

The night before had been an eventful one -Damion could not say that they had had many of those as of recent. He didn't even know how he could recognise the boy, but he looked just like Ser Jaime in his youth as well as Lord Lancel -it was near impossible of Damion to deny that there was a connection between the two. He hadn't uttered a word -not that he could what with his inanimate state, and the unfortunate horse did not make it through the night from the wounds its had sustained getting there. They gave him a room, a hearty fire and a Maester to check up on him and both him and the Lord and Lady of the castle were restless until they got his diagnosis.

Maester Creylen left the boy's room with a heavy shadow on his face.

"There's nothing wrong with him internally, and there are no infections but...the bruises on his body...they're disturbing, my Lord. From the look of him he's also severely dehydrated and probably been starved for days. I gave him some water and milk of the poppy to sleep, I don't we'll get much in the way of information out of him in this condition. We best wait until he recuperates." Maester Creylen had informed them grimly -it was no ordinary sight at Casterly Rock to see a young boy so mistreated.

Lady Lorraine had left strict instructions to have someone watch over him while he slept and be there in case he needed anything before she herself retired still looking uneasy by the unexpected return.

And now the three of them all stood with their arms crossed facing the bed that the now awake lost boy lay in. He had still not said a word -to them at least, and Damion wondered whether having all of them there as opposed to just Lord Lannister was wise -but his curiosity had gotten the better of him and he couldn't resist when Lady Lorraine had asked him to be present.

The boy just blinked at them, waiting to be asked an array of questions he was by now expecting.

"Do you know where you are, Tyrek?" They all seemed so still, the only thing moving being Lord Lannister's voice.

"I hope so, cousin Jaime." He let out feebly, his voice still small and hoarse from the degree of his malnourishment. It's Lord Lannister, now, he remembered.

It was a curious thing to behold. He looked all Lannister, of course, but he was both halves of each of the couple that stood before him and had taken him under their care. Tyrek's father was famously Lord Tywin's younger brother, and the boy's mother, after all, is his Lady's paternal aunt -meaning he is a first cousin to both the Lord and Lady in his own right for each. Damion did wish he could stop thinking of such trivialities when the matter at hand was far more pressing.

Lord Lannister's hand let go gently of his wife's as he approached the bed of much attention carefully.

"You're at Casterly Rock. You're safe."

"I know, I was trying to get here."

All that time, he was trying to get to Casterly Rock?

His Lord turned to face him then,

"Damion, could you give us a moment?" He asked with the usual command in his voice, and Damion was quick to reply.

"Yes my Lord, of course my Lord." Damion muttered insistently as he scurried out of the room and Lady Lorraine gave him an apologetic smile as he closed the door behind him.

He had barely walked a whole minute through the halls to his office when he was called to by a discomposed maid.

"Sir, Sir!"

"What is it Myra?"

"I've come to call Lady Lorraine, Sir, her cat's Queening! The Maester's taken her to the Kennel now!" Damion could not say he was particularly well versed in terms of cats and their gestation periods, but it all seemed so soon.

"Oh! Oh!" He exclaimed as he ran all the way back from where he had just come from.

He excitedly knocked on the door and for the first time since his Lordship's return he dared to open it without any audible consent.

They were all still stood or sat in the same he had left them in but now his Lordship's head was turned furiously at the offending door Damion had just burst open while her Ladyship's eyes widened in alarm at his imposition.

"Seven Hells Damion-" His Lord started in frustration but Damion cut him off before he could continue and instead faced his Lady fully.

"My Lady i'm sorry to interrupt but i've just had news that Amber is Queening!" As expected, the Lady's deep brown orbs widened even further and she turned in shock to face her husband. In a wordless exchange, Lord Lannister nodded his approval to his wife with a small smile and she immediately picked up her skirts and ran out of the room with Damion in close pursuit.

At some point during their race to the Kennel Damion noticed Ser Benedict Broom's thunderous footsteps jog slightly behind them and he wondered at what point he had noticed and joined in.

Once they had reached the Kennels which lay in the western outer end of the castle two kittens had already been birthed, the thin layer of embryo still surrounding them as the Maester refocused his attention on to the still birthing cat.

In all his years a cat's queening was not something he had directly witnessed -especially not with her owner, his Lady, stooped directly next to her with afterbirth staining her expensive gown.

In the end, five kittens were birthed successfully with the Lady Lannister's help, and Damion could not help but feel his admiration for the lady grow as she sat on the dirty floor of the kennel stroking the kittens in her lap. For all the grandeur of House Lannister it was safe to say that Lady Lorraine lacked a certain pride that many Lannisters possessed, but she not of Casterly Rock -she was of Ashemark, born to be brave and raised to be humble.

A fine addition to Casterly Rock, if I may say so myself.

Lorraine

I had only seen Tyrek once when my aunt brought him to Ashemark when both his mother and my father were newly widowed and wished to spend time together. He was an infant, I was barely older than a child myself, but I remember regarding that he didn't look anything like my aunt or my father -he was all Lannister. And he still is, even though he was broken in more ways than only time could heal, that was still strangely very Lannister.

Perhaps Tyrek's reappearance was a good omen from the Gods. Or perhaps it was an appeasement of sorts -giving me enough company should Jaime not come back to me. I shook the thought away violently, there is no need for such a pessimism here -especially not in a kennel with five little kittens and one new mother.

I remember the day Jaime had brought Amber to me, she was an appeasement as well -and look at all that she had given me and all Jaime had given me since then? I have forged a home here, and though I can welcome the new additions to it with little promise of what is to come I can shower them with all the affection my little heart can not give my departing husband.

Amber had come to me just an unwanted kitten that had the great fortune of sticking to my husband while he was away from me and now I sat in a kennel with all five of her kittens on my lap while I myself had none to call my own.

It didn't bother me -I had insisted on that to everyone, to Roslin, to Jaime, to myself. I had never dreamt of having children or making my house proud by becoming a mother. And even though I knew that the son of Tywin Lannister would eventually expect an heir for the dynasty, neither he nor I were in any rush. He never looked at my belly like it was betraying our marriage, he never insisted nor asked about it, I don't think Jaime and I had ever even discussed the subject at all. However, I had never been put in the position that I was now in -nor had I ever dreamed to be placed in it.

In the little world I had created around myself in both Ashemark and Casterly Rock I had managed to turn a blind eye to the war that had still not died out -not completely, and it all came like one slap on the face after the other. The uncertainty, the danger, the threat of being left alone forever in the home that Jaime had brought me to with nothing to show for it. Nothing to show for us.

It doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me.

My eyes danced upon the litter of kittens, a variety of mixed variations of their parents. They all sat in my lap while my womb still lay empty.

It doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me.

One tear escaped me.

What if I never saw him again? We were supposed to have time; nothing but time, where had it all gone? I couldn't remember a day I had even spent here, what did it all mean if I didn't have a part of him no one could deny me of? A part of him that belonged to me just as fully as it belonged to him? Would whatever we made together look like Tyrek? Half Marbrand, half Lannister at heart but strongly favouring his father in looks. I could withstand a thousand whisperers and hundreds of Roslins pointing their accusing fingers at me -what I couldn't stand was losing the man I loved.

The rest of my tears pooled out in quick succession.

What kind of a desperate woman had I become? Did I owe nothing to myself anymore? I was losing all parts of myself and yet all I wanted to hold on to was Jaime. Sevens hells, with everyone else, Jaime is all I want.

Oh don't go. Don't go, don't go, don't go.

He was leaving tomorrow and through the haze of making love and spending time with him I had forgotten the drop in my stomach I felt when I thought of sharing the castle with his ghost. I want a child if it means it's a child of Jaime's. I want a child if it means green eyes and blond hair and sly smiles like they knew everything. I looked down through blurred eyes at the triggering sight of new life and wished that somehow, I would be left with something I could love just as much as I loved him.

I decided to leave them all in the kennels that night -they needed time with their mother and a human such as I could hardly pry any longer of hopes of imprinting myself forcibly unto them. Instead, I walked to Tyrek's chambers, even though I knew that unless he was having an impossibly long conversation with the feeble and tired boy Jaime would not be there -but nevertheless I went.

It was dark, but by his bedside shone two candles halfway melted, and so I made my way deeper into the room with purpose. He looked so peaceful, so quiet, in a way different than what his earlier fearful disposition demanded of him. The remaining light kissed his cheekbones -still lacerated and bruised from unknown sources, but his hair was washed and piqued with rich gold. Tyrek's bones were visible through his fingers and his collar, his skin still draped desperately over his figure, but there was room for growth -there was room for health. I wondered for the millionth time how he was so utterly Lannister when he shared my own blood, and again I questioned whether any child of mine would inherit my brown eyes or brown hair -would Jaime even want them to? Would Jaime even want them, at all?

It was a question I now had to ask myself, and my mind reminisced over the contradicting logics I had been faced with when it came to my husband. There was a reason he had become Lord of Casterly Rock -a reason he had requested it, it couldn't just be because he wanted to marry me. I had known him barely a week, it was just out of the question and frankly worrying if the man I knew as my husband was so enamoured by someone as simple as me to ask for a release from his vows upon our first meeting. He had to continue the legacy, and I was kind and pretty and there. But I could never forget our wedding night -my dress, his hands, the growing pleasure I was beginning to feel and then the sudden action of spilling his seed outside of me. I couldn't claim to be a Maester, but I was a highborn lady raised among other highborn ladies -I knew how to make a child. We had resumed doing so when we had finally resumed our activities as most married people should...but was that some sort of an appeasement, a relent? Was he just resigned to the idea?

And that led me to my other question -a question most women I know would most probably turn a blind eye to. We've been making love for months -most ardently, most passionately, and though I had just only thought about it it begged the question -why was I not yet withchild? "Even your cat can get pregnant but you can't." I'll never forget those words -but now they meant more to me than just the poison they were full of, they held truth in them now. For it was true, I had myself just bore witness to it, and only moments ago my lap was full of the evidence of it while there was no crib, no cot, no womb and no babe to contradict the statement.

I leaned down as I got closer to the bedside table to blow out the lit candles, thoughts still whirling too violently around my mind to notice the movement next to me. BeforeI drew wind I felt a bony hand grasp tightly at my loose handing wrist. In alarm, I turned to the direction of the offending grasp, hoping Benedict was near. Instead, my alarming assailant was just a sleepy boy, eyes dusty but still as open as they would allow.

"Don't, please. Not the dark." He plead softly into the fading dark, and my hand unknowingly snaked from the base of the candle to over his still gripping hand and I nodded to him encouragingly.

I had known you when you were but a babe, but now, in the dark, I would recognise you anywhere Tyrek Lannister.

He fell back asleep almost instantly as I slowly backed away from the glaring candle and made my way out of his chambers feeling like an intruder. It was hard to think, especially without all the facts, about what had happened to him in all the time between the riot in King's Landing to making it here at Casterly Rock.

I found Jaime where I expected him; in our chambers, sat on the edge of the loveseat with a hefty looking goblet in his hand. I nearly grimaced at the thought of having to deal with drunk Jaime -which was a rarity in itself, on our last night.

"It was Varys." He said, his head barely hanging on his formed fist. I didn't know what it meant yet, but I was glad it was something he could tell me. I was glad that he tells me, now.

"Who?" He didn't look at me as I asked, but i'm sure he knew it was coming, especially when he answered.

"Master of Whispers. The former one, I should correct myself. He's somewhere in Essos now." Jaime finally looked up at me, and I moved to sit next to him. My hands quickly found there way to his golden one, and they began soothingly caressing it as if it would feel it.

"He told you?" I whiffed the scent of wine leave his breath as he chuckled bitterly.

"All Tyrek knows is that he was grabbed by a bald man when he made it to the Keep and the next thing he knew he was dropped off somewhere in the Riverlands with no food, water or help. He was a boy, just left to fend for himself like an animal." Jaime sounded disgusted at the notion where I felt sad picturing the scared young boy I had just seen somewhere alone, in the dark.

"That bald scoundrel. He got away with it, too. He might as well have just left Tyrek for dead. It's a wonder he's even alive." Jaime continued on, the anger lining both his voice and his eyes.

He got up and left my hands to instead face the darkened Sunset Sea that only glowed with the reflective torches of Casterly Rock.

"The man I sent my brother off with." Was all he whispered, perhaps he hoped it would disappear into the sea and somehow be undone. I knew of course. He told me, and at the time I could not decide on what I thought of both Varys or Tyrion, but now I felt more than spite at such a militant enthusiast for the "Realm". What worth does the realm retain if its subjects are off kidnapping and abandoning children in its name?

I walked over, meek and for once in fear of rejection observing Jaime's angered state, and wrapped my arms around his middle, pressing my face into the back of his shoulder in the process.

"He could have died." He said.

But he's alive now, and here, I wanted to say. He was our blood -undeniably, and in our home. He's safe and he could be ours, we can save him. We can save something, Jaime.

He's changed. Have I changed my husband? Jaime Lannister cares now. Not too much, of course, but he cares about me. About our home. About his King, I know that. About Tyrek, i'm sure. Maybe even all our new kittens. He cares, however much he might like to regret doing so.

When we made love still half asleep that night I wondered whether it was all just a dream -all of it. Was I really as mad as people once speculated? My Ashemark was safe, it was a haven -isolated and neatly wrapped around my fingers, it was my own world, ever unchanging. And out of nowhere it was turned upside down by a strange new arrival. He burst through my perfectly formed world, my perfectly formed peace, and all of a sudden my life had changed and it would never return to what it once was. I could never return to the not-knowing, to the hazy dream that was my existence. Did I dream him, too? It couldn't be, could it? He came like a volatile fog that swept me back up with him. Jaime was the rush of slow kisses that left the maiden I had been sweating at night for more, his touch was all warmth and his green eyes a pit I could only enjoy falling in. He was a dream, he had to be. And even with the pain of the nightmare that was to come, all the complications and uncertainties, I would rather kill my way through the Iron Islands themselves than wake from this splendour.

I love him, mother, I think I love him.

.

Jaime

They all stood at the Lion's Mouth -the very same one that only moons ago Jaime had rode into with his new wife.

Everything was prepared, everything was ready for his departure, the castle need only push him out forcefully to stand well without him, but he did not care -not as he watched the woman he was sworn to protect hold herself from breaking.

Jaime was due back north to command in the Riverlands once more, the land that once bore Catelyn Stark -the woman whose daughters he had vowed to return safely. What of them now? Arya Stark, lost forever. Sansa Stark, lost anew -was it a better fate than the one she had in King's Landing? The Riverlands would haunt him now nevertheless be it for the mother or the daughters -and their ghosts.

Tyrek stood by Lorraine. The young lad had insisted he was well enough to see him off -one need only look at him to see he wasn't. Lorraine had insisted that Tyrek be by her side as Jaime wrapped up his final commands to his men, and when he looked back at the sight of them standing side by side he couldn't help but note how strange it looked to have a young man, so like him in all the ways that others counted, standing next to the woman he now could admit he loved. Was he looking at the present? Was he looking at a portrait of what life would have been like had he made this choice earlier? Or was it what Lorraine's life could be with someone younger than an old cripple like himself? If not, was Jaime then looking at the future, if the future existed anymore? Was that young man sired by him, bearing his name as well? Was he looking at a portrait of his heir -the one his own father had only ever wanted?

Jaime approached Ser Benedict first and shook his hand firmly -which was not customary for him but as his wife's sworn shield Jaime could not leave without one final reassurance.

"Anyone goes near her, you put a sword through their throat." It was not a request, and Ser Benedict nodded his head indicating his full understanding of his duties. There was a reason Jaime thought Ser Benedict best fit for the job, and it was because of his utter ruthlessness when the time called for it. Jaime had seen it for himself in battle, and to impress him was a large enough feat as it is.

He only spared a barely knowing look to Damion but it was more than he would usually give -he was, afterall, the main steward to Lorraine's castle now.

Next, Jaime's eyes landed on Tyrek, still slightly cowering by Lorraine's side. Jaime clasped his shoulder only outwardly roughly, he was otherwise careful not to apply any pressure or cause any tenuous stress after the ordeals he had been through.

"I'll be back before you know it, lad." Jaime was never very good with children, not even his own. Perhaps if he was any better Joff would not be dead and Tommen not so alone. "Take care of Lorraine for me. You're the man of the castle now." He let out sparingly, trying to encourage something stronger in young Tyrek than the proud perseverance he so obviously displayed.

When he finally, almost dreadfully, reached the one he held the most regrets for he realised just how badly she was trying -not as bad as I, i'm sure.

She embraced him closely, tighter than she had when he left her for the first time to King's Landing with all her family's eyes watching.

"Come back to me." She whispered heavily in his ear and he couldn't help the small smirk that crawled to his lips without fail every time he heard her speak. For me, just for me.

"Or else?" He smiled. Her tears stung her dark orbs.

Jaime gave his lady one last kiss, only one in the thousands they had probably shared as man and wife -not like the three they had shared when they were only betrothed. He kissed her for her sad heart, for her safety, for her damned kittens if that is what she so wished. He kissed her for everything she may have wanted and for all the things he now knew he needed, and he needed every last one of those things from her. It seemed that Jaime was doomed to not learn his lesson when it came to love; he loved, no matter who, wholeheartedly and without care. He loved, most dependently and most ardently. He loved, he loved he loved, Lorraine Lannister just as she was, just as she was tearing in his arms.

He remembered talking to her elder sister, Lady of Silverhill -Janyne.

"I don't know how to speak to her."

"You'll find, Ser Jaime, with Lorraine you do not always have to speak. Words are not always such a necessity with her. I hope that helps."

Jaime never understood, never fully, until now. Until now when it was he who had no use of words. It was action, only action, that had the right to show her what it was he wanted her to know.

Maybe this, this one kiss, could be enough for her. Maybe this'll show you, my darling, my love. I won't say it, not as I stand on the cusp of my departure, not as your tears line your cheeks. Hear me, hear this. My words will serve you when I return, hand and foot I will bear the reminder. I'll tell you how I love you when you are smiling, when you are riding a horse by the sea you so enjoy -only when you are smiling, you were made for nothing less.

He tore himself away, not missing the unimpressively suppressed sob that left his wife at the sudden loss, and Jaime ushered his men to the gates where his back was finally turned and the gates open for his leave.

As the wind howled through his ears while he rode off he compared to the sighs, the muffled moans and the groans of frustration that would all leave his wife at different times of the day, lost to the air but not to his memory it seemed.

The Lion's den bellowed at his departure silently into the mountains, and Jaime only looked back once to make a vow he would never break.

"k amber has her kittens n lorraine cries. tyrek explains that he was kidnapped during the riot. cries. jaime remembers his old self. lorraine wonders whether her children will look like tyrek. jaime buh-byee"

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