I Don't Own Game of Thrones, the Song of Ice and Fire or any of their Characters

Daenerys

After he kissed her, Jorah remained by her bedside and helped nurse her hangover. She would fade in and out of sleep while he kept a cold compress on her head. The few times she could stay awake, he would force her to drink juice and eat bread to "absorb" the poison and make it pass more easily. Well, it passed alright. Right onto his expensive Salvatore Ferragamo shoes. It took him a good hour before he could convince her to come back out. He tried to convince her that it was no big deal.

Yeah right. She's seen those shoes on display at the shopping center. They cost more than three of her paychecks combined! She dared another person to say that it was women that obsessed over shoes. She'd never spend that much money on a pair of footwear. Not that she ever could. Not with all of her money going into paying off her brother's debts. She was lucky if she could afford a pair of trainers for work.

She'd emptied her stomach of what was hopefully left of the alcohol poisoning in her system. At least she hoped that was the last of it before she threw up on any more of Jorah's expensive shoes. She dragged heavy feet so she could look at herself in the mirror. Some color had returned to her skin, she didn't look green anymore. Her eyes were still a little red, which was understandable. But the rise in the color of her cheeks had nothing to do with her improved health. Still, she could feel the ghost of the touch from Jorah Mormant's lips against hers. She was unsure of what to make of what had transpired only a few hours ago.

"Daenerys?" There was a knock at the door. "Are you alright?"

"In a moment!" She splashed some cold water on her face and groaned. Couldn't I just stay in here for the rest of the month? She thought to herself. How am I supposed to face him after that kiss? Not to mention ruining priceless footwear. "Alright, I'm coming out." She opened the door and found him standing on the other side, arms crossed and brow raised. Her eyes landed on the fresh new shoes and she grimaced, her stomach turning all over again.

He followed her look and shrugged. "They're only shoes, Daenerys."

"£5,000 shoes." She muttered.

"If you're still upset about the shoes, would it be any consolation to tell you that I have more than one pair?"

"Must be nice." To spend that much money on one item of clothing. She dealt with most of those pricks at Stefano's.

His lips twitched. "I think you already know from personal experience that money doesn't buy happiness. Only material items."

"I beg to differ." She countered. "If I had as much money as you, I'd never have to work another day as a sales associate or table server. I could have gone through university and pursue a career in nature photography."

"Oh?" He tilted his head with interest. "You want to be a photographer?"

Could her cheeks get any redder? "Ever since I was a girl."

"What's stopping you?" He asked.

"Viserys."

That made a furrow form between his brows. "How so?"

She shrugged. "I was taking some photography courses at Camden College for a semester. It wasn't the Paris College of Art like I've always dreamed of. But it helped point me in the right direction. Learned a lot while I was there. Even started saving to get my own camera."

"Why didn't you attend the university you wanted?" He backtracked. "I mean no offense to the community college you attended, but you're very smart, Daenerys. It seems impossible that you wouldn't be accepted into a private one."

"Oh, I was smart enough alright," I told him with a groan. "I was so smart that I received an academic scholarship that would have covered all of the tuition."

"You were going to study abroad?" He shook his head in amazement. "Then why waste your time staying here waiting tables? You could have been in South Africa by now, taking pictures of zebras and antelope."

"More likely Nile crocodiles and giant plated lizards." She smirked. "I prefer reptiles."

She noticed him fight his own smirk. "Your old family crest is a three-headed dragon. This shouldn't come to me as a shock that you would find interest in your scaly cousins."

A shrug. "They fascinate me."

"So, why didn't you go?"

Another shrug. This one more defeated. "Viserys," I told him once more.

His eyes narrowed into small slits. "I'll ask again. How so?"

The memory still had made me angry. "I had just graduated high school, unlike him, and I started packing. My eighteenth birthday was that spring I finished my upper 6th year of school. Everything was set, I was enrolled in my classes, plane ticket in hand, had a tiny apartment ready that was close to the campus, and a job set for me a local cafe. The only thing that was missing was me at the airport."

I waited a little, letting him take all of the information in. Then he said, in a calming tone, "Go on."

"I'm walking towards the front of the house. The cabbie is outside. My bags are in my hands. There's nothing between me and that door. For all of three seconds. Then out of nowhere, Viserys jumps in front of me. 'Where are you going and why are you taking all of your things?' He asked me." I could still see the image of his shocked face. His skin turning pale at the sight of the bags I carried as a clear indication that I was leaving and for good. That I wasn't joking when I said I had every intention of leaving to pursue my own life. "I said, 'I'm going to Paris to attend university. As I've told you time and again all year.' Then he had the nerve to be surprised. He didn't think I was serious. Cue the tears. He started going into hysterics. Full-on meltdown. So bad, that he fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around my legs. Literally preventing me to take another step. I could hear the cabbie outside honking his horn impatiently. I managed to break free and open the door, the cabbie still waiting. Then he pulled me back and begged me to wait another year."

"You're joking." He admonished.

A snort escaped me. "I'm not. I wish I were, but I'm not. He looked so hopeless. It was a whole new side of him that I'd never seen before. He said he needed me. Just one more year and then I could go."

"And you did." He finished for me.

I nodded in affirmation. "I did. In doing so, I lost the apartment and the job, but I could keep my scholarship and acceptance for another year. That was when I got the job at Sophie's Cafe. The next year rolled around and you can guess when happened from there."

"Another year each year from then on out."

"I lost my scholarship and my acceptance once it was clear to them that I wasn't coming. I knew there was no chance that they would waste their time with my situation. Why should they? I chose to stay behind to help my brother." And in doing so, I gave up my chances of ever going. "I picked him over the school. They need students that are ready to put their desire of an education and a career first."

"He was selfish even then." He ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. "The first impression I had of your brother was that he was nothing more than a dimwitted buffoon."

"I couldn't even attend the community college for two years because as soon as I turned eighteen, he'd managed to rack on his first debt." My eyes wandered towards the window. "He told me that he needed me to get a job soon otherwise he was going to be beaten within an inch of his life."

He snorted. "You should have let them beat him or dragged his arse to get his own job."

"Believe me, I'm beginning to regret it myself," I growled while turning back to give him an accusatory look. She was attracted to Jorah, yes, and even let him kiss her. But that didn't mean she would forget that she was only here because he suggested it as payoff to Viserys' debt to him. "I never thought even he would stoop to our father's level of cowardice to barter me as payment. Must be an unavoidable family trait."

He stepped closer, "What are you not saying out loud, Daenerys?"

She looked away. Unable to hold his gaze. "I'm afraid that whatever it is that made both my father and my brother use me to pay off their debts might be in me as well. I've heard rumors about my family. Some say that there's a sort of madness in our genes that makes us behave this way."

"Them, Daenerys, not you." His tone now scolding. "Why would you think such a thing of yourself? The fact that you accepted my offer alone proves that you are not like them. And from what you've told me, your elder brother Rheagar took great care of the both of you. So clearly it's got nothing to do with your DNA."

"I can't help but wonder." The thought of taking any child I'd brought into the world from my body and giving it away as an alternative to save my own skin...made me ill. Viserys is a lying imbecilic coward but she still couldn't find it in herself to just throw him away instead of paying a debt herself. Even though he'd already done it to her.

"Love, look at me." He commanded softly, tilting my chin up to meet his gentle blue eyes. "You are neither your father or Viserys. You are your own person. And you deserve to be perceived as such. Sod anyone else who thinks you deserve any less."

"You seem so sure."

"I am."

How could anyone be so confident? He always seemed to be so sure about everything. Even me. "What makes you so certain that I'm not like them? That I won't end up like them?"

He leaned in close, our noses almost touching. "I told you what I saw in your eyes. A queen. A good queen makes sacrifices for their people. Which is what you've done time and again for your only living relative. Despite his terrible treatment of you, you still protect him."

"I promised my father I would." I reminded him, pulling away. "My brother is all I have left. I have to help him."

"Then who will help you?" He took hold of my arms again. "Why does it always have to be you who supports your brother?"

I didn't like where this was going. "What's wrong with it?"

"What's wrong is that your brother should be more than capable of taking care of himself. So you can focus on your own future." His head tilted gently to the side in a kind manner. "If there's one thing you can take from this experience, Daenerys, it's that you have to put yourself first sometimes."

I scoffed. "I could never stand people that put themselves before others. I don't want to be like one of them. I couldn't put myself before my brother."

He tapped his index finger at his head. "Your brother puts himself before you all of the time. Would it be so wrong if you put yourself before him so you could prioritize your own life for once? To make a future about what you want. Not what he wants."

Her mouth opened...and then nothing came out. He was right. My whole life, I've always put my own needs second to everyone else's. Especially Viserys. I never put myself first. How could this man that I've only personally known for a short while point something out so quickly? Sansa and Missandei have told as much, but I thought it was because they knew me too well. But this complete stranger pieced my entire life together in a matter of a couple of days.

I blinked when I realized that he was waiting for me to give some kind of response. It took me a moment, but I eventually found my voice. But it was hushed. "I don't know if I can."

Those calloused fingers stroked my cheek. "You have a strong spirit, Daenerys. Think of what you can do with it. It's wasted on your brother. You are kind-hearted to everyone but yourself. Don't let yourself fall into his traps forever. And if the house is lost, then let it happen. It will be on him, not you." He held his hand up when I opened my mouth to protest. "It would be a debt he owes. Not you. What if you had an accident and couldn't work? Or, Gods forbid, you lost your life. He depends solely on you to solve all of his problems for as long as you both draw breath. And sometimes, no matter how hard it may be, you have to cut that cord. Don't let yourself wither away for him."

"How?" I asked him as his image became blurry. More tears. Grand. "What if he ended up on the streets because of a debt he couldn't pay? It would land on me again because he wouldn't have been able to pay and I would've abandoned him."

"Because at least you can say you tried. " Was his insistence. His eyes never losing the kindness in them. "You will always hold guilt for a family member or someone you care about that is failing. He's your brother and you're human. But you have to take control of your own life. Don't let that guilt hold you down. Promise be damned. I sincerely believe that you have more than exceeded that promise you made to your dead father. Personally, it became void the moment he offered you to those vultures. Your mother's death isn't your fault either. As tragic as it was, she is neither the first nor the last woman who will perish on the birthing table. I have a friend whose mother died the same way. He was blamed for it by both his father and his sister. The only family that accepts him is his brother. All of the cruelty from his family made him a drunken sex-craved imp of a man. Of course, he does have his good qualities like anyone else, but his unnecessary guilt from his family for his mother's death became his ruin from a young age. Much like you. He turned his life around many years later, but I don't want you to have to wait that long."

"How long did it take for him?" She couldn't help but wonder.

A ghost of a smile passed his lips. "Over thirty years."

"Good god." His friend couldn't be that much older than her. "You're serious?"

"Very."

"I'm so sorry." That poor man.

He shook his head. "Don't let Tyrion hear you say that. He used to wallow in drunken self-pity all the time. Now, since he's met his wife Shae, he's much happier."

"He found someone?" How lucky was he?

He nodded. "He'd met her at a brothel."

That made her blink. "Oh." To each their own, I guess.

His lips quirked at her obvious discomfort. "It wasn't her first choice of employment, I assure you. And I also neglected to mention that Tyrion is also a dwarf. His condition is what leads his father and sister to believe the reason his mother died. He was extremely self-conscious all his life and never felt that any woman would ever look twice at him. So he sought out ones where refusal wouldn't be easy to come by. Prostitutes."

"So that's where he met her." She concluded. "She was a prostitute."

He nodded. "But she had little choice at the time. She had a baby with no home and the father abandoned them. With no money and was facing homelessness, she joined a brothel. But only the richest clientele were welcomed. You can't even look at any of the workers before presenting a clean certified STD test. And she's very beautiful, so she brought in a lot of customers. Until Tyrion. He went there often. Their first night, all they did was talk."

"Really, that's all?" Daenerys remembered her short time in that self-made brothel that that was all any of them did.

He shrugged. "Turned out they had more in common than they realized. He became her regular. At one point, she stopped accepting money from him and would only meet outside of the workplace. From then on, they became an actual couple. Eventually, she left the brothel. And with the money she earned, she enrolled in university. She graduates next year."

"And her baby?" She had to ask. "You didn't say what happened to him...or her."

"Him." He confirmed with a nod. "He's doing well. Just one month shy of his third birthday. Tyrion adopted him as his own."

She gasped. "He took in her son too?"

"Prostitutes are permitted to date outside of work. When Tyrion started to court her, Shae made it perfectly clear that if they were to be anything serious, that her son would be included too. Her son came first above all else."

"That's...incredibly sweet of him." It seemed almost as if it were out of some romance novel. How could someone get so lucky?

"Tyrion says it's nothing. He adores the boy. And Shae helped him become more confident as a man. Even lessened his drinking habits. Not completely but you won't find him passed out in the alley by the pub anymore." He crossed his arms, his eyes now calculating. "But it took him a long time to overcome all of his demons. Shae helped him find the confidence that he had buried deep inside him. But it was almost too late. I don't want the same thing to happen to you. Your pain is different but also similar. Both of your families blamed you for something that was out of your control. It may seem cruel to you now, but eventually, when you let Viserys go, you will feel the freedom you deserve."

"I don't know if I can do that. He's still my brother." She said.

He moved a strand of hair away from her eyes. His touch ever so gentle. "He will always be blood. But remember this, Daenerys, blood doesn't make family."