Hey!

I didn't plan to write this at all originally, but since it's Lena Headey's birthday today I figured a little fic like this wouldn't hurt ^^

So good reading!

It was the middle of the night when Cersei woke him up and clung to him as if her life depended on it.

Jaime wasn't surprised.

It's a common occurrence for Cersei to pull him out of the warm embrace of sleep and cling to him, just as she did when she thought the Red Keep was going to bury them, collapsing on them, just before, as if by a miracle, he managed to open a gap in the wall that the fallen stones had formed that separated them from the little cove where Tyrion's planned boat was waiting for them so they could flee away from Westeros, to Pentos, Braavos, Lys, wherever, as long as Daenerys couldn't get her hands on them, and execute them for high treason against the Crown.

And they had succeeded.

When they were stranded on the beach, off Pentos, they had almost believed in a dream, in a miracle, they had nothing left, no money, except for the bag of gold coins that Tyrion had slipped into the little boat, no inheritance, no power, even no more house, and the family name that had made them proud for many years, with a famous maxim associated with it, would certainly have gotten them killed, but at least they were alive, they were together, but above all, they were free.

They were free, and that freedom was priceless, and Jaime understood as soon as he stepped onto the wet, foamy sand that it was actually that life that he had really longed for.

A life where they were nobody, not a queen and a knight, not Lannisters, not brother and sister, a life where they were nobody, but a life where he was free to say that Cersei was his wife and to think that the little cub growing safely in her belly was his, and to be able to raise it.

The beginnings had been difficult, they had had to find a house, a house away from the city, and then find other names, Jaime and Cersei, it was too uncommon, it sounded much too foreign, much too exotic for the inhabitants of Pentos, and, associated with Jaime's golden hand, it would have attracted attention, when all they wanted was to be discreet.

They'd gotten angry, many times, over everything, Brienne, Tyrion, the war, the dragon queen, the Iron Throne, the broken promises made at the Dragonpit talks, and the almost spoken threats that had been held back while on the tip of Cersei's lips.

It was only when Jaime had stormed out of the house after a particularly violent argument, that Cersei had feared that in the end it had all been for nothing, that he had gone, like everyone else, after all, abandoned her, left her alone with the baby, and had come home to find her sitting in a chair by the window in tears that they had begun to put their differences of the last few months to one side.

Things hadn't really gotten any easier though.

Cersei's belly was beginning to round out noticeably, very noticeably, and while there was nothing that filled him with more joy than to see the woman he had loved since birth, their birth, carrying their child, the fruit of their love, the pregnancy was particularly difficult.

Cersei was no longer young, and neither was he, and they felt that the last war for the Throne that they had almost not survived had aged them by ten years.

The first thing they had done when they entered the city was to go see a maester, both for Jaime's wounds caused by Euron Greyjoy, which were deep enough to be worrisome, and for the baby, whom Cersei had not felt move since they had left Westeros.

If the latter had been delighted to know that this was her fifth pregnancy, and that Cersei had already carried four to term without any problem, he had been much less delighted to know her age.

Carrying a child and giving birth at the age of forty was an extremely dangerous thing, all women knew that, and since the day Cersei had announced to him that she was expecting his child in her office, his joy at finally having a son or daughter of his own, that he could claim as his own, without a stag to claim it for him, that he could raise and love in full view of everyone, was mixed with the fear that his sister would meet the same fateful fate as their mother, that her lips would turn blue and her alabaster skin would become even more diaphanous than it already was, so that she would let out her last breath, the white sheets tinged with the fatal Lannister red, tinged with the blood that Cersei had lost in far too great a quantity, far too great a quantity.

On top of that, they hardly slept at all during the night, even if, as they had always wanted, they could freely share a bed, sleep glued to each other, and wake up with their arms and legs intertwined, only Cersei's round belly, only their little cub standing in the way of their bodies coming together, and what little sleep they managed to wring out was filled with nightmares, of dragons flying over the city and spitting its murderous jets of flame into the city streets, spreading fire and blood, and of the Red Keep collapsing on them, with no escape, seeing their chances of finally starting a family as they had wished reduced to ashes with the rest of the capital.

Jaime knew that while these nightmares had gradually stopped infesting his sleep, this was not the case for Cersei, who still continued to have these visions of horror, to the point of completely unconsciously clutching herself to him even more than she already was, hurriedly murmuring pleas to him, imploring him not to let her die, telling him that she wanted their baby to live.

If he had always hated to see her feeling so weak, so bad, in a way, he was happy that she still trusted him enough to show herself so vulnerable in front of him, as she had always done, as when she let herself go completely and started to cry on his shoulder, burying her face in the hollow of his neck, or as when she joined him after Robert had abused her in one way or another.

But he knew that tonight was not like the previous ones when he saw Cersei's two emerald eyes shining in the darkness, a sign that she was wide awake, and when he felt a strange wetness on the sheets.

He saw a bright tear bead at the corner of his sister's eyes before running down her cheek.

"Jaime... My water broke…"

Thanks you for reading !