Author's Notes: This was written by a prompt I got on tumblr, for an angsty and yet as happy as possible-ending story about Cersei and Jaime having a child somewhere pre-Robert, in their teenage years. The happy ending requirement pushed me into AU territory, obviously. ;D

I wasn't sure how to warn for this, so, vague spoilers: the focal point of this fic centres around Cersei putting herself through a conversation that was genuinely uncomfortable to write, and I can imagine it would be the same on the other side (if I did my job right, of course). It involves her and an authority figure putting her through the sort of wringer that Cersei tends to get put through in canon, too. If you could get through her Osney Kettleblack scenes in the books, you're probably good - this is milder, but of a similar nature.

Eel Alley is just as filthy as it had been when Cersei had visited it first, but the fact that someone other than Jaime would be touching her now makes it all feel filthier still.

The midwife – or what passes for one in these parts of King's Landing, in any case – seems to have recalled that occasion, too, to her great misfortune.

"You were here about a moon ago, weren't you, girl? With that golden-haired boy?"

Cersei grits her teeth. It had been more than a moon ago. She's painfully aware of that fact, and too irritated to try and correct her. The fewer things the woman notices about her, the better. "Yes, I was."

Her host laughs at her grim tone. Oh, how she'd like to rip her tongue right out of her mouth. Perhaps she would, once she gets her answer. "Was it him that got you in this state? 'S funny; you look so alike. I thought you were his sister when you first came in."

On second thought, she might gouge her eyes out, too, while she's at it, as soon as she stops needing their service. "I would like to check if there is a state to speak of at all."

"Of course, of course." If she'd heard the threat in her voice, the woman had chosen not to acknowledge it. But then again, why would she? She has no clue about the power Cersei holds, or at least, the power she'd held so far. The future had rarely felt as uncertain as it does just now. She hadn't ever expected to doubt her place in the world before, but then again, she'd never expected to stare at a frog's innards in order to tell what her future would be, either. Life, as it turns out, is full of surprises.

There's no visible change – not to her untrained eyes, at least – but after a few more excruciating minutes pass by, the woman sighs. "I'm afraid I have your answer, girl." She eyes her suspiciously and Cersei squirms in place. Even in her disguise, she looks rich enough, she knows. "Do you want me to give you something?"

She doesn't think about it. She will weigh her options later and come to a decision, she's sure, but she can't miss out on the chance of a way out. "Yes."

~.~

Jaime finds her in her chambers by the time the night is almost through, worry and relief warring for attention on his face when he notices her sitting listlessly at the edge of her bed, where he had apparently looked for her before.

"Where were you?" The question floods through her muted senses. To her surprise, Cersei doesn't even have it in her to turn to look him in the eye. "I was looking for you all night! I was going to alert the Kingsguard! Father kept asking—" His voice dies when he comes closer and finally faces her. "Cersei?"

She must look a sight, she knows – her shoulders shaking soundlessly, tears sliding down her cheeks, eyes red even in the half-light of the dawn outside her windows. Tears don't come easily to her – she can barely recall the last time it had happened – and Jaime's distress deepens right alongside with her own. It had always been like this and, like never, she wishes it weren't so. There's nothing useful she can offer just now.

Her brother, as per usual, doesn't care much for that. He takes a knee by the edge of her bed, one hand cupping her face while the other draws her nearer by the shoulder into an anxious embrace. "What happened?"

It's less a matter of what, Cersei thinks, and more one of how. When had this happened? It had to have been the night after he'd come back to King's Landing knighted, she's sure; they had been so careful every other time after that. Her memories of that night in the inn are crystal clear, but love is an odd thing, in the way it dims one's mind. They'd made plans and spoken of how they'd stay by each other's side once he'd be accepted into the Kingsguard, and the rest of it is an impassioned blur. After such a long time apart, Cersei hadn't been able to get enough of him; in the heat of the moment, it's easy to imagine that she'd allowed him to come inside her. More than once, even, perhaps. In that very same heat, he'd welcomed the opportunity. All that careful walking on eggshells all of the other times hadn't mattered, in the end – one night in some rundown corner of the capital and it's all dust in the wind. Just like the rest of their grand plans.

She still has the tea that the crone in the inn had prepared for her, steaming hot on her nightstand. Its smell is so foul that it would change the mind of even the most determined woman, and Cersei isn't feeling particularly determined just now. It's not the smell, really – she could pinch her nose shut and get it over with, if it had been about that. It's not about the smell at all.

"Jaime," is all she manages as he holds her close. How can she even say it? There's nothing he can do, and there's only one way out, no matter what she'd deluded herself into thinking when she'd hesitated to drink her potion. She doesn't have the faintest idea how he's going to react at all. She hadn't planned for any such scenario happening before her wedding, no matter who her father would eventually sell her off to – Father had been keeping her for Viserys or perhaps for Rhaegar, should his bride die in childbirth, she had known, and had thought that it wouldn't be so bad. Her children wouldn't inherit the Iron Throne either way; it wouldn't have mattered if they hadn't been Targaryen children at all, she'd decided.

But all such flights of fancy had involved an as of yet faceless royal husband and Jaime's future in safe hands within the Kingsguard. She had been meaning to talk to the King about the latter as soon as her brother leaves for Casterly Rock and her father seems to think that the former is within his grasp, too, but right now, she has neither.

And yet, she can't do this – can't look at her brother's earnest, beautiful face and try to turn back time on what they'd created together. Had it been anyone else, she would have downed her makeshift tea as soon as it had come to a boiling point, but this is different. It's Jaime. How can she destroy a future she'd desperately wanted, even if she'd never allowed herself to think it? It would cost them everything, and yet—

In the end, the words just spill out. There's no point in delaying them, and if she's to put an end to this before it's even started, then he deserves to know. He had been a willing participant, too, after all.

"Jaime," she says again, and it feels that much heavier now. Her brother nods, encouraging, worrying his lip between his teeth in silent anxiety. "Jaime, I'm with child."

~.~

The next few days pass in a strange, timeless blur, with Cersei's circumstances pressing her into action – or trying to, at least, since she doesn't actually do anything – and plunging her into despair. The time to act is running out, she knows, but the more she thinks about it, the clearer it becomes that she can't simply end it. This is their one chance at happiness, she knows, and they would get disowned and shamed in front of the entire realm, but Jaime doesn't seem to think much of it, as long as they're together, and slowly, she feels herself become resigned to the idea, too.

It's on one such evening, as they indulge in their nightly ritual of fruitlessly trying not to panic in her chambers, that Jaime comes up with an idea.

"We should marry." When she only gives him a tortured look in response, her brother elaborates, "I know it's forbidden. We could ask the King for permission."

"Why would the King give us permission for something like this?"

That makes him falter. Aerys Targaryen is not a particularly generous man on his best days; the chances of him doing anything at all out of the goodness of his heart are slim to none, especially if his Hand's children are involved.

Her brother, though, has no match when it comes to ways out of any crisis at all. "You were planning on asking him to give me a place in the Kingsguard. If he would agree to that—"

"But it's quite different, isn't it?" Cersei cuts him off. Making him despair alongside with her is the last thing she wants, but each flaw in their potential plan could easily cost them their heads. "He could only gain from having you guard him. What sort of fool would not want the best swordsman of this generation?" Jaime smiles, pleased, and it dies a quick death when she continues. "Marrying us would make an exception that only the royal family is allowed. He would never let us."

"He would," her twin argues, hopeful as ever, and undeterred when she only sighs. "You said you'd easily convince him to keep me here; you can do the same with this, too, even if it's a little more difficult. He likes you better than he does Father. If anyone can do this, it's you."

The fact that he'd noticed is enough to make her feel more embarrassed than she would ever admit to. Her brother had been in the capital for less than two months; if he had noticed, then so had everyone else. It's not an accomplishment to be liked better than Father at this point, Cersei thinks – that applies to just about anyone in the Red Keep – and either way, it's not her that the King likes.

Some time ago, hours into a feast when His Grace had been well beyond drunk, she'd asked to be excused – the reason for it escapes her now, but his reaction had not: quite on the contrary; it had etched itself into her mind. He'd turned to her, unusually agreeable – certainly more agreeable than she'd seen him before – and had given her a distracted nod. Of course, Joanna.

It hadn't been the mistake that had startled her, truly – she'd been told plenty of times that she'd taken after her mother, and the King had had far too much to drink. It had been the familiarity of it. If he had addressed her by Lady Joanna, she suspects, it would not have shocked her so, but it had slipped out so effortlessly that it had stuck.

So, days later when Jaime had asked how she'd meant to secure him a place in the Kingsguard, a plan had hatched.

The thing is, of course, that she'd meant to ask for a much smaller favour and – more importantly, as inconsequential as it is in the great order of things – she hadn't meant for her twin to see it happen. She's well-aware that she's about to do something horribly low; she needs only an audience of one for it, and Jaime should have been on his way to Casterly Rock by the time any of it had come to pass.

She cannot exclude him from this particular request, though – after all, it concerns them both, and they're well on their way to running out of time to do anything about it.

"Tomorrow evening," Cersei says, resigning herself to her fate when Jaime's face lights up, ridiculously hopeful. "Father will be busy with his Tully guests tomorrow, from what I remember, and after the dinner, the King should be alone. We'll go to him then." Her brother only nods his assent. "I hope you know how much we're risking by doing this."

As always, he's ready with precisely the words she needs to hear, as empty as his promise might turn out to be.

"Not as much as all that," he says, still with that sweet, careless smile lighting up his face. "I don't need to have a single thing if I still have you."

Even the distant threat of separation makes her shudder. His blind faith in her is infectious, and for a moment, she allows herself to believe that they really are closer to freedom than they had ever dreamt to get.

"Let's hope it doesn't get to that."

~.~

After dinner, just as they'd agreed, Jaime races on his way to his sister's chambers, both jittery and strangely excited. The feeling had scarcely left him ever since he'd first thought to offer a confession in front of His Grace as an option, and the dread that had haunted them both since Cersei's revelation of her pregnancy had seemed to dissipate, giving way to all sorts of likely unachievable fantasies about their potential life together. Ever since they'd learnt that they would both have to be shipped off to someone else one day, he had wanted nothing more than to have her by his side for as long as they both live; to rule over Casterly Rock with the only person who knows their ancestral home as well as him. He wonders, fleetingly, if Father will still want him to even have it after all of this is through, provided that they don't get berated – or much, much worse – for their insolence. Would he be ashamed to have him as his heir, or would he let him, Cersei and their child go back to the Westerlands to one day rule over their domain?

But that would come about at some point, he now hopes; he would have his answers. First, there is the matter of the King.

Still, any thought of him – or anyone else, really – deserts him as soon as he closes the door behind his back. Cersei is standing in front of her tall mirror, dressed in a gown he's never seen before – it's certainly not the one she'd worn at dinner – and twisting her hair in a braid wrapping like a wreath around the back of her head. It's another unfamiliar thing, or at least, distantly familiar enough to slip his mind. All the ladies in court wear their hair the way Queen Rhaella does, which happens to be something completely different from what his sister is currently trying to achieve – trying and failing, from the looks of it, since she can't reach far enough and can't see her own back in her reflection in order to place it where she apparently thinks it should be.

"Let me," Jaime says, prying it out of her grasp as soon as he reaches her. She's holding a golden brooch in her free hand and he clips it into place, letting her hair fall down under the braid when he steps back. It's a far cry from the glossy, wavy perfection that he's used to, her curls a little wilder instead in a way they've never been, almost— almost—

The image falls into place so suddenly that it leaves him speechless for a moment. Her hair along with that gown, more opulent and a little more restrictive than the style he knows his sister prefers – light, fine fabrics that float behind her when she turns, thin and all too easy to unlace – it paints a picture he can barely recognise, with how long it's been, but that everyone older than them certainly would.

"Cersei," he says, trailing a hand over her shoulder where the rubies woven into the fabric glisten under the candlelight. It must be their mother's gown, or at least a close enough thing – his sister must have had enough time to have it modified to her own body if this had been the plan since the start. He remembers very little of her presence in their lives, but he does remember the shine of her hair under the sun, thick and just a little more untameable than either of her children's, and that braid, holding the golden waterfall back. He doesn't want to understand why she'd done this, but deep down, he fears he knows. "You're playing with fire."

"But that's good, isn't it? The King is fond of fire. He's fond of..." She trails off, as if unsure how much she should tell him, after all. "He was fond of Mother. She was the one he liked best of all of the Queen's ladies, it is said. And there are kitchen maids in the Red Keep who've been here for decades and they tell the sorts of stories that Father would have their tongue ripped out for if he heard, but," and now there's a tremor to her voice, in a way he's never heard before. It's almost more frightening than the perspective of trying to get the King to allow the unthinkable is. "Sometimes, when he speaks to me, I don't think it's me he's speaking to. I thought that if I reminded him of her—"

"I know what you thought," Jaime interrupts, and it sounds a little too angry to his own ears. It's not her he's angry at, though, and he's sure she knows – it's the rest of the world. The idea that someone would like his sister better as someone else than as who she already is seems ridiculous, but he knows she's right – he'd seen it, even in such a short time. He laughs joylessly. "This is our best bet, isn't it?"

"It is." She returns his grim smile. "We must avoid the Queen, too, or she'd brand me a whore the way she did with Mother. Not that it matters what she thinks, but it certainly won't help."

She won't look him in the eye, though, as if ashamed of what she means to do, and that he cannot accept. Cersei had always been daring, but she'd need all the bravery she could gather tonight, and he's more than happy to be that for her; to dare on her behalf when she falters.

"Let's get it over with, then, shall we?"

~.~

The Throne room is deserted by the time they enter, just like Cersei had predicted – the King is the only one still lingering, along with one of the brothers of the Kingsguard that he's holding as captive audience. Jaime holds his sister's hand all the tighter as they approach, and he can feel her shivering. They'd have to make sure that Aerys chases the man away, too – there's still a chance that he won't agree, and if anyone else knows—

What, then? He lacks the energy to care. They'd gone too far to go back now either way. If the King refuses them, he and Cersei will have to be out of the city before first light either way.

It takes him a moment to acknowledge them even by the time they're within hearing distance, and it feels like a lifetime all on its own.

"Lady Lannister," he greets with a nod. "Ser Jaime." Despite the tension coiling in every bit of his being, Jaime feels warmth course through him at the sound of the title. It's still so fresh. Is it the sort of thing you can have taken away for a transgression? It's only a fleeting worry, and a vain one at that, but it's enough to distract him from their predicament for all of a moment. "It's rather late, is it not?"

"Your Grace," his sister greets now, voice as sweet as honey, contorting herself into a curtsey. Jaime takes a knee next to her, the wordless shadow that she'd instructed him to be, and watches the torches scattered around the hall glisten in her hair and finery, red on gold dancing like a living flame over her skin. The King is fond of fire. "I apologise for the disturbance." She follows his example and eases herself onto her knees, her gown spreading around her in what's surely an elaborate show at effortlessness. "I have come to you to ask for absolution, and for a blessing."

The King, thank the gods, nods his guard away until he slinks off to a farther corner and leans forward into the Iron Throne, intrigued. There's a mocking smile playing along his thin lips, Jaime notices when he dares a look up at his face, but it's all right, it must be – Cersei is as calm as ever. It's impossible to know whether they're being listened to, but it's not unlikely; he doubts that he would remain with no protection at all. "Have you, My Lady? Did you mistake me for a septon, perhaps?"

His sister manages a brittle laugh. "Not at all, Your Grace, but it is a grave matter I bring to you." She turns away, glances down, and then faces his eyes head on again. It's obvious now, what she'd meant – that he's looking at her without quite seeing her. "What is a septon to the King of the Seven Kingdoms?"

And oh, he likes that, Jaime can tell. He likes that very much. "Very well, then. A grave matter, you said."

"Yes, Your Grace. A great sin." Her hands are in her lap, her fingers frantically turning one of her rings round and round and it's no longer so easy to guess if this is a show at all. For all he knows, his sister is more terrified than she's ever been and there's nothing he can do. "I've allowed a man—" She falters, and it takes everything in Jaime's power not to touch her; try and comfort her in whatever way he can. "I've lain with a man outside of my marriage bed. A man I can never marry."

Another glance, and Jaime can pinpoint the precise moment when the King realises that he now knows something horribly embarrassing that his Hand doesn't. Perhaps Cersei had been right, after all, when she had told him that she could way him without their father's knowledge – spite seems to be a bigger motivator in the world than any other thing there is. "And why is that?"

"My Lord Father would never allow it, and neither would the laws of gods and men."

"No, Lady Lannister." There's a cruel streak in his watery eyes, laced with a strange sort of hunger, but Cersei endures it as bravely as she always would have. "Why did you do it, if it shames you so? And why take the time to admit to it in front of your King?"

She brings out a smile so devastatingly sad that it would break the heart of the most hardened man – though then again, Jaime thinks, perhaps he's just biased. "Out of love, Your Grace. I am only a woman, and easily swayed."

"So it seems." He does get out of his iron seat now, and out of the corner of his eye, Jaime can see his sister freeze in the middle of another turn of her ring. "Do you imagine you're the first highborn woman in history to do so, My Lady? Or even the first of your House?"

This time, her confusion might just be genuine. "I'm afraid I don't understand, Your Grace."

"Your transgression," the King clarifies, and he's so close now that Cersei has to look up to meet his gaze. "Your sin. You would not be so open with it if you did not believe the world was a much purer place than it is, and that you were the first to break its laws. That's a difficult thing to believe for a Lannister – and for Lord Tywin's daughter in particular – and if it's not that, then it must be because you want your bastard legitimised." She flinches at that, rather violently, and the King laughs. "There it is, then; that Lannister pride. No perversion is beneath you unless you have to own up to it. Your mother had that air about her, too."

Jaime bites his tongue hard enough that he can feel the blood in his mouth, but it makes no difference – Cersei's temper flares up, it's obvious in her fiery eyes, and then rushes out of her in the pretence of remorse. "It's true, Your Grace. It's as much of a sin to wish for what you cannot have as it is to share one's bed with a man out of wedlock, and I am guilty of both. Greed is terrible on its own, and my vanity prevented me from seeing it."

"I give you my absolution, then." He offers her a hand and Cersei kisses his ring the way she would a septon's. "But this wasn't all you asked for. You come to ask for my blessing." She nods, undeterred; some more of that fire Aerys Targaryen apparently likes. "You would like to marry this man who put a child in you, I gather. You would hate to raise a bastard."

"Yes, Your Grace. Who wouldn't?"

"Then let us hear his name." The King's eyes are bright with the sort of malice that only knowing that he will torment his Hand with this for the rest of his life can bring. "If I were to allow your marriage in your father's stead, what name would your own child's father give him?"

Despite his best judgement, Jaime feels himself get ready to run. If this makes the King as furious as he would expect it to— There's no knowing what would happen to them. He would have to get Cersei out before it happens.

"Lannister, Your Grace."

For one blissful moment, the Throne room is silent as a crypt and then, with no further warning, Aerys Targaryen begins to laugh.

He can't force himself to look at him, but he can look at his sister, and so Jaime does – she hadn't takes her eyes off the King for a second, and her knuckles are white where she's gripping the skirts of her dress. Perhaps she's about ready to start running, too. They're usually of the same mind, after all.

"Is this why you've brought your silent protector with you, Lady Lannister? Our youngest knight. Was he the one to take your maidenhead?" He doesn't wait for a response. What would be the point? The truth is out, at last. "You were right. What you ask for is beyond the laws of gods and men. It was only ever allowed for Valyrians. The gods made us this way, you see. They did not do the same with the Andals or the First Men."

That's a great deal more vanity than anything Cersei had said, Jaime notes, but still, she sounds terribly remorseful. "We've always known that to be true, Your Grace. My brother and I— we are only human, and we love whom we love. What more are we than the gods's playthings? We don't have the blood of Old Valyria in us, but the seven made us the way we are, too." Everyone seems to hold their breath, even Cersei, as if she can't believe how bold she'd just been. "And yet, our Lord Father would not believe it to be so. It's the gods that made me love my brother, and they made him love me in return, but Father— Father is not a godly man. He would make sure to separate us, and end my child's life before it's even begun."

She speaks nothing but the truth, now, and Jaime can see the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes in the prospect. Tears are a woman's weapon, their mother had chided him once, many years ago, when he had tried to get his way through crying. She had known it; chances are, she had used it more than once in court, and a shadow passes over the King's features. "You admit to being only human," he says, and his voice is so low that he has to strain to hear it from his place on the floor, "and yet, you believe yourself worthy of an exception, along with your brother. Why would I grant you one?"

"My father wishes to make a match for both me and Jaime here, in the capital," Cersei says, and something about her tone is uncertain, as if she's surprised by her own line of thought. "You have a young son of your own, Your Grace, and grandchildren, too. It would be easier, surely, if you remove two Lannister children from the Red Keep. And it would be easy to remove us," she says, and a smile steals over her features as she prepares for her final blow. "If we were to be wed without his knowledge, Father would be furious when he learns, but he will have no choice but to accept it. A Hand is no match for a King."

Aerys smiles back at her, so gleeful that it sends a shiver down Jaime's spine, and just like that, he knows that they'd won.

~.~

The streets of King's Landing are deserted this early in the morning – or this late into the night, Jaime supposes – and the cool breeze coming from Blackwater Bay rushes past him, pushing Cersei's hair in his face as she clings to him for dear life. She had always been more comfortable with riding when she's on her own, but it had hardly been an option – there had been only enough time to grab a piece of cloth with their family's sigil on it, a single horse, and the King's royal credentials and they'd been off towards the nearest available sept. In the end, this is how Lord Tywin Lannister's children will be wed – with a permission given out of spite, with no witnesses other than a septon, and with Jaime in his dinner clothes and Cersei in the oldest gown in her wardrobe, cloaked with the same cloak that he'd worn on his way to King's Landing, bloodstains still hidden somewhere between the red and gold woven into it.

It'll be an odd story to tell for the future Wardens of the West, he thinks, but it's all right – Cersei is right here by his side for it, and after all, he had asked for nothing more than that.