Five and one half years into King Jon's Reign- Part Two
….
"Get over it, he's delightful." Jaime Lannister huffs. He had never really been good with emotions, his brother thinks before turning his eyes to stare at him.
"Get over it?" Tyrion hisses.
"Yes."
"Do you know how the tortured me? How they-."
"Yes." Jaime interrupts. "And I didn't do enough and I'm sorry."
"You're sorry you didn't stop the world from being cruel?"
"I'm sorry I didn't stop our sister." He sighs, and his brother can't help but look away when Jaime mentions Cersei, he gives him that peace. "I'm sorry I let Father set the tone for how the world saw you." Tyrion looks away from him, pondering the concept softly. "If you would have had the full force of the Rock behind you, a whole herd of Lions… no one else would have seen you as anything but my brother. And Brienne and I have already agreed that if we are given a child who is a dwarf we'll simply count little fingers and toes and carry on."
Tyrion's pinched face gives him a long look.
"Don't let them do this to your son." Jamie shakes his head. "They're gone. They're dead and we're not. We're a whole new breed of Lion. Never let him or anyone else see him as anything but what he is. He is a smart, charming little boy who chases a dragon kite down the beach with excitement and fervor."
Tyrion sits with that for a moment, before giving his brother a nod.
"Sansa wants to name the next girl after our mother." He tells him backhandedly, watching Jamie's smile slip from sentimental to sparkling.
"My Lady wants to name a daughter Catelyn." He grins.
"Seriously?" Tyrion snickers.
"The world is ironic." His brother sniffs. "Sansa Stark will have a child named for my mother and god willing I will have one named for hers."
"Have I told you lately how glad I am you didn't die?" Tyrion quips, looking at him in all seriousness.
"I'm quite pleased with that turn of events as well."
…..
"If it isn't my brother the King." Sansa sighs, moving across the large stone porch.
"Why it's my sister the Snow Queen, in the flesh." He whispered softly.
"You know Jon this is my second moody sibling encounter of the day." She raises an eyebrow. "Am I the only happy Stark?"
"I'm happy." He snorts back.
"Then why are you up here alone?" She blinks at him, watching one of his long legs pushing the chair beside him towards her.
"Join me and I won't be." Her pin straight body seemed to hover over the chair as she settled. "I hear from my young niece that their is yet another Lannister on the way."
"There is." He can't help think she's glowing.
"Your mother would be proud."
"She would, perhaps not with my choice of husband, but the rest of it? Yes."
"I have grown to like your choice of husband quite a bit." Jon shakes his head like he can't believe what he's said.
"He's the best of them." Her soft sly smile melts into something more. "What of you? Don't you think it's time for a Queen? Someone to massage her fingers along your neck to keep it from collapsing against the weight of your crown?"
"Is that what Tyrion does?" Jon avoids.
"That simple pleasure rarely ends with babies." She chuckles and he winces. "I'm serious. I know that Arya's given herself up to the idea that a warrior's life must be void of love and tenderness, do you feel the same about a King?"
"You don't partake of that idea?"
"My other sweet sister has proven that a woman can be both." Sansa's eyebrow arched under her red tussles. "She's all of it; Lord Commander of your Kingsguard, married to a love match, she's mothered two with another on the way. If she can have it all why can't Arya?"
"You think Lord Gendry would have prided in his Lady Wife with her scabbard at one hip and a babe at the other like Jaime Lannister does?
"I think Lord Gendry would have done whatever his Lady Wife commanded he do. Much like my dear brother does." Sansa sniffs out an airy laugh as Jon shrugs in agreement. "But we were talking about you, Your Grace."
"Don't placate me with honorifics if you please." He rubs his face. "And why are you so keen to marry me off?"
"You're lonely Jon."
"You more than anyone knows a monarch is never alone." He scoffs.
"Jon." She rolls her eyes, and he sits up suddenly, pulling out a glass for her and filling it with wine. She smiled slightly before putting up her hand. "I'm pregnant, you fool."
"Sorry." He mumbles, tipping the cup to his own lips. "I've loved, Sansa, twice. I think twice.." His eyes train far off over her shoulder, looking at the sparkling skies above Evenfall. "I'm not really sure anymore.."
"I loved Joffrey once." She reminds him. "Before I knew who he was. I was in love with the idea of him, a childhood fantasy."
"I was no child."
"You were a grieving widow, battered and betrayed and reluctantly forced to lead. You were looking for salvation and maybe redemption and she provided that to you." Sansa finished.
"I was no widow."
"That's not the way the freefolk tell the story." She smiles. "It's not the way Samwell Tarly remembers it when he and Gilly named their daughter Ygritte for her honor. It's not the way your eyes tell the story whenever a hint of her is in the air."
"She was.." He took a deep breath and let it out before returning the cup to his mouth. "When they named her, I thought I'd die. I thought I'd never feel anything but hurt when I saw her." His eyes dance in the torchlight for a moment. "But when I watch her, tearing across the throne room with the boys, with Gilly and the Lannister nanny in hot pursuits calling her name over and over…" He stops and swallows hard before looking at his sister with tears in his eyes. "I smile."
"Children heal you." Sansa tells him knowingly. "A child of your own Jon, would heal you."
"No." He winkles his face at her and shakes his head. "I'll leave the South to your Rickon." He tells her with a smile. "He and his sweet sister can rule our sibling kingdoms side by side as you and I have.
"I want peace for you." She pleads
"I don't deserve it, Sansa." He shakes his head. "I don't."
"Ser Podrick Payne told me once that when Brienne left for Kings Landing he was reminded of her telling him that there is nothing more hateful than failing to protect the one you love." His sister sighed. "But that hate isn't a life sentence, Jon."
"Ygritte died because I couldn't bring peace. Rob died because I couldn't break my word to people that would soon try to destroy me. Rickon died because I couldn't protect him." He sniffs. "King's Landing nearly burned because I was smitten with a false queen. If not for the three of you, seeing what she was before I did? I would have done nothing while she destroyed everything. And for that they burdened me with a crown."
"You're a good king, Jon. King's Landing loves you, they forgive your miss step. I can't speak for your love, but I can speak for my brother's and they forgive you. They love you and forgive you." Sansa pushes herself forward and pulls his hand to her lap. "Forgive yourself."
….
By the time Jaime Lannister has left his brother and made his way back to his wife, he's quite drunk.
She's half asleep, on the bed with Tom's body curled around the next Lannister nestled in its mother's womb. In the nursery, he finds Ty, Amena and Lyanna asleep in a pile of northern furs by the door and he thinks they look like puppies. He pulls his four year old son back from his mother and ads him to the litter in the other room.
She's still staring at him, through half lidded eyes when he returns, sitting on the edge of the bed and smoothing feathery wisps of spun straw colored curls away from her face. Her hair gets longer when she's pregnant, and he likes it that way, the way it frames her face in little ringlets.
"Did you have as much fun with your brother as your son's had with their cousins?"
"I think so." He took a deep breath. "I passed the Stark Siblings on my way back. The were deep in remembrance. I tried to stay out of there way."
"This was a good idea." She smiles at him. "And the Arya bit didn't fool me you know. I know this is your doing."
"I have no idea what you're talking about M'Lady." He grins at her.
"My father expects you for breakfast. He has big plans for the north tower and he wants you to be excited about them."
"I will put on my best Heir of Evenfall Hall manners for him." Jaime watches as his wife's fingers start to undo the buttons of his vest. A King's visit to his wife's island requires a level of formal attire he hasn't had to pull out in a while. He kept moving his fingers in her hair. "Sansa stopped me today and asked if you were alright."
"I am." She assures him.
"She says you look tired. And she seemed to make some indication that it was my fault."
"It's not." Brienne's face turned up to look at him.
"I assured her you just hate being pregnant. She doesn't' seem to share that sentiment." His wife presses her palm to his now exposed chest when he leans in to kiss her forehead."
"She doesn't command an Army and protect a King while her next child grows inside her." She murmurs. "Her husband doesn't get dispatched to deal with unknown cultures." Jaime hums, his body stretching on the bed and pulling her in. "She's younger than I, things were easier for her."
"She didn't labor for three days.." Jamie groans.
"If you could not remind me of the horrors that await me, Ser?" She sneers at him before framing his face in her palms. "She's better at the womanly parts."
"I like your womanly parts quite a bit." He grins suggestively, running his hand down the long scar of her side before settling on her hip.
"You do, do you?" She sniffs, bringing her mouth to his.
"I do."
"Show me what you like about them." She orders him.
"As you wish."
…...