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XV

Rattle

Joanna held her hand clasped around her father's. She didn't consider herself a pious woman, but the sight of her father laying weak and injured in bed had shook her. He was not the tall, strong man that the stories said had won the Iron Throne, but she had always known him to be firm, hearty, even when he was overcome with the drink. She held his hand, head bowed, whispering quiet prayers to the Warrior to return her father's strength to him. Joffrey, too, had been shaken by the sight of their father's injury; he had no taunts or biting words to offer today. Indeed, Joanna hadn't seen him this scared and unsure since they were small, small children.

"Out, all of you!" Robert's voice still boomed in the small room, though it was followed by a wheezing cough. Joanna hardly registered the feeling of Ser Barristan's hand on her shoulder, or the sound of footsteps leaving the room. He shook his hand to pull it out of her grasp. "Gods be good, you're stubborn, Joanna. Get out."

She rose her head to see her mother and Maester Pycelle retreating from the room, and Ned Stark standing on the opposite bedside where Joffrey had once sat. She nodded her head obediently, pressing a light kiss to the back of her father's hand before releasing it to stand. She crossed the room, following the others out to the hallway. Joanna stood beside the others as they stood in the hallway, waiting for the door to open once more so she could resume her post at her father's bedside.

"You shouldn't linger," said Cersei. "Death isn't a sight meant for young girls."

"If Grandfather were dying, you wouldn't leave him," Joanna replied. She crossed her arms over her chest, head bowed. "I want to stay and pray over him."

Cersei stepped forward to pull Joanna into an embrace. She pressed a kiss to the top of Joanna's head.

"Your prayers won't save him now, sweetling," she said. "It's best to come away."

"Please, Mother," Joanna insisted. She looked up into Cersei's face and saw the conflict before it settled into something not quite sympathy and not quite pity.

"Very well," she relented, brushing Joanna's hair back tenderly. With a final kiss upon Joanna's cheek, Cersei left the hallway. Joanna stood among the others, staring down at the ground. All of the men among her were familiar with death – even Varys, she was sure, as he had lived through her father's rebellion. She had never seen a person die before, and she dreaded that it would be her own father.

"You don't have to stay, you know," Renly said quietly. "Your father will understand. He even wanted Joffrey to leave."

"I want to," she insisted softly. She swallowed back the tears threatening to overcome her, desperate to remain strong in front of the rest.

It was then that the door opened again, Ned Stark stepping out. He looked at each of them before bowing his head.

"Give him milk of the poppy," he said. Maester Pycelle stepped forward, and Renly and Joanna followed. Renly put an arm around Joanna's shoulders to comfort her as they walked into the room. Joanna took her place once more at Robert's side as Pycelle administered the milk of the poppy. Robert seemed to breathe easier afterwards, his breath not constrained so much by his pain.

Joanna kept her head bowed as she prayed, paying little attention to her father and Renly as Robert ignored Renly's attempts to reminisce. She hadn't noticed him leave, nor had she noticed that she and her father had been sitting in silence for several moments before he shook his hand in her grasp again.

"What are you still doing here?" he asked gruffly. "I thought I told you to get out."

"Stand from the bed and throw me out," she said quietly. "Otherwise, I'm staying."

That pulled a hearty chuckle from him, which quickly turned into a series of wheezes. Joanna squeezed his hand tighter, heart drumming in her chest. She had no idea how death worked; it made her anxious thinking that any moment could be his last. She didn't know what to expect.

"You're too like me for your own good," he said when the coughing subsided. "If you'd been more like your mother, all of our lives would've been easier."

Joanna said nothing, only lowering her eyes. She supposed he had a point – thinking back on it, much of her interaction with her father in her life occurred when her mother brought her to him for discipline. But she was happy not to be like her mother. And so long as she didn't become a drunken fool in her older years, she saw no reason why being like her father was a bad thing.

"I suppose that's one good thing I've done in my life," he said. "I've turned my daughter into a pious woman."

"The Warrior will give you your strength back," she said quietly, feeling foolish. It sounded, to her ears, more like something Myrcella would say. She always thought of herself as too old to believe in things like fairy tales and miracles. She had never disbelieved in the gods before, as she'd never had the need for their blessings. But it truly was her first thought, to pray to the Warrior for her father's strength to return to him. Saying out loud now made her realize how naive it made her sound. He chuckled again, quieter this time, with less breath.

"I never needed blessings from the Warrior," he said. "I was the warrior. I can't get that back now. Pray to the Stranger to make it swift."

It was odd hearing the undertone of sorrow in his voice. She had never heard him sound anything but drunk and jolly or powerful and angry. She had nothing to say. Instead, she bowed her head once more in silent prayer, alternating her prayers to the Warrior and the Stranger to strengthen her father, to let him live a while longer. She didn't notice that her prayers had drifted away into sleep until she was being woken again, on her knees and her father's hand still between both of hers as her head lay on the bed.

She rose her head to face the sound that awoke her. Her father's breathing had become labored, he gargled and choke as he struggled to take breath. Immediately her heart hammered against her chest, her stomach feeling as though it had disappeared from inside her as her hands began to shake. She rose higher on her knees to see her father; he was pale, his eyes closed. He looked dead already.

"Maester!" she cried. She tugged on her father's hand as though it would wake him. "Maester!"

Pycelle came shuffling in, his chains rattling like her father's breath as he lumbered over to the bed. He leaned over it, examining her father briefly, but he made no move to help.

"This is it, child," he said.

That last moment seemed to last forever to Joanna. It was an awful eternity, hearing her father's breath slowly wither and fade. She was deaf to anything around her, focused solely on her father as he died. She wished she could have closed her eyes and ears to it, but she could not. She could do nothing but watch him, do nothing but listen, do nothing but feel as his hand became entirely limp in hers. Pycelle nodded and turned away to call for the Silent Sisters.

Joanna could not move. She stared at her father, trying to process through her head that the sleeping figure of her father was, in fact, his corpse. She jumped when Ser Barristan's gentle hand squeezed her shoulder. She looked up at him, eyes wide.

"Come now, princess," he said. She nodded dumbly, resting her father's hand as gently as she could against the bed. She braced herself on the edge of the bed to stand, her knees screaming in protest. She hadn't noticed before now how much they'd hurt from being knelt at the bedside all evening. Now they were stiff, and she shuffled like old Pycelle as Barristan led her out of the room with an arm around her shoulders like a shield from the corpse they left behind.

Joanna could not understand how a man who'd had such a small role in being her father could leave such an impact on her. She could not understand how her father had been so alive only yesterday and now he was gone. The feeling in her chest was much like the feeling she'd been left with that evening after Bran Stark had fallen from the tower. It wasn't quite sadness or grief, but it felt rather empty. Robert had been absent through much of her life, and yet it had never left her as shaken as it did now. It was a different absence, she supposed. She would never see her father again. The small moments of companionship and affection that had occurred between them would never happen again. The time of her life that she'd spent as her father's daughter was over forever. Now she had only her mother. She crossed her arms over her chest, holding herself, comforting herself. She felt alone.

Barristan saw her safely to her chambers, where the candles had burned low in her absence. Dorcas had waited up for her, and undressed her gently before tucking her into bed with all the affection of a mother; she brushed Joanna's hair away from her face before caressing her cheek softly, promising in a gentle tone that things would be better again once she woke.

Once she was alone in the dark, Joanna spent several moments awake. She closed her eyes, taking slow, deep breaths in and out, expecting each time to hear the sickly rattle of her father's last breaths. Opening her eyes once more, she stared up at the canopy, trying to clear her brain of all thought of death and her father. Instead she focused on the embroidered pattern above her, the flowers and the deer and the careful beading, and on the quiet sounds of nighttime as they came through her window, crickets outside in the garden and the faraway crash of the waves.

She fell asleep thoughtless, with little resistance, the same way her father had slipped away from life.

A/N: Hello again! I'm back again, not six months late this time! This chapter is extra short, but it felt complete on its own and I spent about a week hesitating on whether or not I wanted to add more. Next chapter things will be moving along again and I expect we'll be back to normal length chapters :)

I'd like to thank HPuni101, Hackslash24x7, recey2010, and Crystal-Wolf-Guardian-967 for the reviews! Additionally I also want to thank everybody who's added this story to their faves and follows. I really appreciate all of your continued support! I understand that waiting around for an update for a million years isn't fun but I really appreciate you sticking around and I hope I make it worth your while.

Soooo Robert Baratheon died. Joanna has some feelings about that. And so do many others in the kingdom, as we'll see next chapter! I hope to get it out to you all soon! I'm going to be rewatching all of Game of Thrones from episode 1 starting this weekend probably so I expect that will help renew my interest in the series and in writing :) I've spent quite a bit of the last week tweaking my plans for Joanna's future, and I'm quite happy with what I've come up with.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Let me know what you think :) I'll be back as soon as I can with another one.

Thank you all so much for reading!

Until next time,

Rex