This one is a new multichapter! I've had it in my mind for quite a while now, so I'm happy to see it on paper. Hopefully, it'll explain itself as it goes because, again, I'm not really allowed tags on here.

King's Landing – the jewel of the Crownlands, according to many a tourist guide and almost none of its actual citizens – is particularly disgusting on the day Jaime gets the worst news of his life. It's cloudy and stifling, the way it always is when it rains on an otherwise hot summer day and the air smells like fish and seawater and it's all far, far too much for his already overburdened senses.

It's home, and he's never hated it more.

Ever since he'd been a child, he'd had this ritual; trying to freeze certain moments of his life into a perfect picture so that he can come back and look at them later. It had been solely reserved for any sliver of happiness he had been able to find, at first – a new toy, a good grade, the first time he'd rode a bike, the day he'd joined the army – but slowly, he had started incorporating it for different purposes, too. By now, it's less about looking back at happiness and more about making sure that he can assess the emotion, no matter how exciting or devastating it is, once his head is clearer, and handle it before it destroys him.

It's about to be one of those days, it seems; the kind he'd need to drown in amber in his mind to keep forever so that it can't drown him in turn.

"I'm sorry, Jaime," Tyrion, the closest he's had to a friend ever since aging out of the country's tender care and occupying too many positions in his life for Jaime to count, says for what has to be the thousandth time today. "Everyone says you're going to make a complete recovery and I'm overjoyed to hear that, but there's no way they're going to let you go back to field work day in day out with a history of an injury like this."

He's fine, Jaime wants to insist, despite all the evidence that points otherwise. His arm had been out of its cast for days now and even though it still aches and he's still tentative every time he tries to do anything more strenuous than holding a pen with it, he had hoped that eventually, he would put it all behind him. A shot directly through the palm of his hand would surely not be enough to stop what should have been a lifelong career in the only place he'd ever felt at home.

But this particular piece of news had been broken to him with varying degrees of gentleness countless times over the past week and when he snaps back, it's as irritated as it's hopeless. "You said that over the phone already. Why call me all the way here if there's nothing more I can do?"

"Because I'm a social worker, not your carrier raven. And I do have something for you." He taps at the screen of his tablet a few times, giving him yet another gauging look. From anyone else, it would have been exasperating, but this is Tyrion – the same Tyrion who always has an exit strategy in mind – and Jaime feels hope unfurl in him, bruised and reluctant but alive. "You mentioned to me years ago that if there had been a vacant spot, you might have gone for the Queen's guard."

"Is there a vacant spot?" He had been in Essos for so long that a lot of the news back from Westeros – any country in Westeros, up to and including his own – had started slipping away eventually. As far as he remembers, the monarch's sworn guards are in it for life – either their own or that of the monarch in question, whichever ends first. "Who died and made me an option?"

The stifled laugh that follows feels like a small victory, as any reaction from Tyrion's general direction always does. "No one as of right now, but that doesn't mean there isn't an interesting prospect there. The members of the Queen's guard are burdened with the care of all of the castle's inhabitants, even if they have their own protégés they're assigned to, so no, it's not the Queen herself I have in mind; it's a Princess." He leans in over his desk, lowering his voice as if there's someone else around to overhear them. "It's just a little too early for us to be able to tell for sure yet, but with a little luck, it's the Princess."

~.~

A long time ago – centuries ago, from what little Jaime remembers of his history classes back in school – the monarchy had been absolute and the country that the Crownlands is now had spanned the entire continent. An even longer time ago, every region of Westeros had been split into its own nation and the fragile union had lasted some three hundred years before cracking apart again. The North had been the first to separate itself from the rest, but over the decades, it had gradually become clear that each kingdom would be more efficient on its own. The trade deals and inter-continental routes had remained, but each of the seven regions had eventually returned to its independence. Somewhere along the line – before the split, even, perhaps – the king or queen of the Crownlands had started being an elected position rather than one handed down from a ruler to their direct offspring.

It had been a slow process, from what he knows, but in the end, it had resulted in a rather public, nation-wide election, with the potential future rulers being observed by both the monarch and their people for years on end before a choice could be made. When the current Queen had decided that it was time for her to start screening for her potential successor, Jaime had still been almost a child – as had the princes and princesses themselves. The majority of them don't have the blood of the old nobility, so their titles are gifted to them by the Queen, one of his teachers had said, but they're never just anyone either. She had been a good-natured woman and even then he had known that she hadn't meant anything by it, but the message had been clear all the same. Don't even think of trying.

Even back then, Jaime hadn't been a particularly ambitious person, but even the most stubborn, goal-oriented of his fellow orphans had had no desire to have a go at something like this. To this day, the image of the children – twelve in total, six girls and six boys – waving their parents goodbye as they'd been herded into the Red Keep is stuck behind his eyelids every time he sees the Queen smiling benevolently through a screen. He'd lost his parents when he'd been too young to remember anything about them but a vague feeling of warmth followed by sudden terror and then everlasting loss, and the idea of sending a child – his own or any of the younger ones back at the big, crowded government-issued house he'd spent his childhood in – away so that they would be prepared for a position they had the tiniest chance of being chosen for is unthinkable; the idea of being in the rulers place and keeping them in the castle for years until they'd be ready to be chosen or sent away – even more so.

If he's being entirely fair – which Jaime prefers not to be when it comes to any of the royal proceedings – the Red Keep, even if it doesn't provide access to ultimate power, does at least serve as a great launch pad for its inhabitants. Unless they'd got themselves tangled up in a serious – and public – scandal, they would all end up with a comfortable position in the army, the court or the parliament, and few would go back to their regular lives from before. The fact that some of them had already been sent away and the choice had been narrowed down to only the best and more promising is yet another reminder of how long he'd spent shut off from this side of the world. He had thrown the last seven years of his life at war camps and battlegrounds and negotiations with every country that could potentially threaten the one he'd grown up in, and he had never even seen the face of the potential Queen he would sign his life away to.

"You haven't missed as much as you think," Tyrion says on their ride to the castle. In the relative privacy of the car, separated as they are from the driver, it's easy to gear himself up for just how big this might end up being should he accept. "This is your charge – if you agree, that is. Cersei Hardwicke. Her father is the Lord of Sharp Point, so she's got better ties to the royal family than any other contender; she was Her Majesty's pet project long before she entered the castle, which meant that she would always end up within the final three. Now that the Queen is actively thinking of retiring as soon as she finds a replacement and the public opinion is starting to sway towards Miss Hardwicke, too, the chances of the nation suddenly losing her to an unexpected case of bullet through the skull have skyrocketed, so it's been agreed upon that she requires personal protection. I've worked with the royal family before. When you told me you'd been discharged, I recommended you immediately. It's not what you wanted," he says and for all of a moment, Jaime feels eighteen again, fresh out of his home and sent out into a world he has no clue how to navigate, with Tyrion as his only guiding light. "I know. But it's better than most places could offer you."

"I know," he echoes, forcing himself to look away from the kind, all-knowing green eyes he knows so well by now. Being read so easily still stings, even if the man in front of him is the only person capable of it. "Let me read that," he says, reaching towards the tablet and the article on the Princess he'd apparently already been assigned to. "I want to see what I'm getting into."

~.~

Tyrion leaves him in front of the castle.

"This is as far as I can take you," he says, almost in apology, but Jaime can see right through him - despite the fact that to him, it looks like he's being thrown to the wolves, his social worker slash only friend is excited for this. "From here on, the security is as tight as it can get. The Kingsguard will get you to the princess."

"All right." He still feels a little dazed, as if nothing of this is actually happening to him - for a few frantic moments, he thinks he's going to wake up back in Essosin the middle of the warzone he'd been evacuated from, with nothing to look forward to but another battle. The sudden, eerie calm that reigns right in front of the centuries-old gates of the Red keep is almost as disorienting as the transition back home had been. "Thank you, Tyrion."

"Keep me updated," he offers in lieu of a response and Jaime almost makes to leave before it occurs to him to ask what had been on his mind ever since he'd heard the announcement of his potential new position.

"Tyrion!"

He looks so innocently interested that Jaime can't help but be suspicious. "What is it?"

"Why me?" All he gets is a questioning look. "You must have other projects; why did you offer it to me?"

"Just an inkling." Tyrion pats his arm conspiratorially, like that's supposed to mean anything at all. "Trust me on that one."

And he does, of course. He does, like he always has.

~.~

The Red Keep is a ridiculous place.

Ever since he'd been a child, whenever the news they'd watched on TV had taken them to the royal palace, he had found it archaic and overly confusing, with its labyrinths and added buildings over the years; the flippantly modern new wing with its cutting edge technology and the old bits and pieces from a castle changed and destroyed and built a new time and time again, renovated year after year so that its original dubious glamour could be preserved, all mashed into a building that hadn't seemed to want to work with each other at all.

It's no different when he's on the inside looking out.

"The contestants for the crown are housed in the original western wing," one of the guards explains to him before mercifully pointing him down the corridor he needs to head down. "Their names are engraved on labels next to the doors. I'll let you get acquainted with your charge on your own."

"Thank you." He's not particularly grateful, but it's likely for the best - what kind of guard would need his own escort to meet the likely-to-be-crown princess?

The man flashes him an encouraging smile before turning on his heel. "Good luck."

I hope I don't need it, Jaime thinks fleetingly before he starts scanning the names written next to each door. It's all hopelessly impersonal, though not too different from the home he'd grown up in - state-issued, soulless rooms with little to no personality unless you decide to come in and see the life that the poor parentless fool inside had built for themselves. When he gets to the one he's likely going to spend the last few months guarding (Cersei Hardwicke, the label says in painstakingly perfect cursive) Jaime braces himself and takes a deep breath before finally knocking.

"Coming!"

Oh.

She sounds-familiar. Worse - she sounds familiar in a way no one ever had, with one exception; the same exception that had left him on the Red Keep's doors not half an hour ago.

The lock turns and the door flies open before he'd had the time to fully process anything about what is going to follow - whatever that is. He knows and doesn't know and the world layers itself time and time again before finally snapping back into focus, right as the princess faces him, looking about as overwhelmed as he suddenly feels.

"Hello," she breathes out, a tentative smile blooming on her face even when he doesn't move. She looks exactly like she had in her file - long blonde hair, braided out of the way at the top, eyes more startlingly green than any he's ever seen, slight built, black dress shirt tucked into an equally black skirt - and it's everything he had expected and nothing like the way he remembers her. When had he seen her last? It had to have been that footage of the contestants's first entrance in the Red Keep, but no, she'd been a child then. It feels like a more recent memory, somehow, than the one has of her as an adult. "Are they done with the background check already? Those usually take ages. I'm Cersei, but I suppose you know that already."

Oh, he knows all right. From what he can see, she must, too - he's a stranger to her, as she is to him, but there's an unmistakable familiarity in her eyes.

Why me? He had wondered. Tyrion's non-answer had been as frustrating as everything else since the day he'd returned to Westeros, but he understands now.

Just an inkling.

"Yes, I know." He holds out his hand and finally feels it; the way a soldier is supposed to when boarding off the plane back into their homeland. Home at last. "I'm Jaime." He clears his throat, doing his best to compose himself into what a princess would likely expect from a personal guard. "Jaime Ryswell. I've been assigned to you, starting today."

He remembers this, too – the rare smile that blooms and lights up her entire face; the one he'd never seen before. "I know." She waves him in with a grand gesture. "Welcome to the Red Keep, Jaime."

Yes, this must be it, he thinks, still under the same spell that had taken over him ever since he'd heard her name for the first time today. Home.