Close, too close to death. Jaime's mind is confused and it is too much to process and Cersei is crying, following him down the damaged stairs. She's lost and she clings hysterically to her twin like never before.
"I don't want our baby to die."
That's the truth, absolute and terrifying and whatever bad or good he did in the past becomes ashes and dirt just because she is at his side and the world is crumbling piece by piece above their heads.
Whose fault it is does not matter, only them are important.
All his strength gone, his hopes shattered like the broken columns and pierced vaults around and above them.
Cersei struggles, her fingers claw into Jaime's arms and hands, she breaks two nails against the gold faked fingers. Fake like all the golden things they owned since childhood.
Fake like their family, that never existed after their mother died, like her family with a drunken husband and three bastards and she has him only, now, him and the life inside her, that is doomed and will die before being born.
She shouts louder than the falling debris.
The skull is opposite the crumbling wall, he pushed her under it, surviving instinct takes control and rules, Jaime's brain is detached from the reality of the situation. His willpower refuses to let himself go, to let her go.
Heart in one direction, mind in the opposite.
"We need to leave, Cersei, please. This way."
"I can't."
"You can and you'll do it now. There's a boat outside."
She resists, her tears draws wet lines across her dusted cheeks, fell on the dark dress and forms stains on the fabric.
He can't cast a glance at her now, he's too focused on the skull, there for centuries, there before the building changed and more weight put on the underground rooms.
He's carrying Cersei on his arms along the tunnel, with a heart made of stone, the stone that hit her, making her fall, pulling him down with her, to the edge of death.
Sharp pain on his wound, he's forgotten it.
He shouts her name but she's like a broken doll on the stones, there's no time, the last attempt to escape, Jaime sees a light in front of him, it means the boat, it means life.
Hel pulse is fleebile, a soft breath on his lips close to her face. Life.
He looks at the blood on her hair, thin rivulets change into red her golden mane. Jaime ties his fake hand to the right row, they were meant to row together but he's forced to do it alone, the new wound burns, the old stump hurts moving against the golden hand; he cannot put too much weight on it so the boat sways, fire and water mix around them, battle sounds and the confusion allow them to disappear.
The darkness of the night is a blessing, Jaime needs to rest for a while, waiting to reach the ship that will save them. Inside the boot he finds is a parcel with some clothes, food and a skin of water. Tyrion is the best brother, the one he did not deserve.
He needs to drink, to make Cersei drink, to clean their wounds a little and asses the damages.
His side hurts like hell, but it doesn't matter, row or die, his options are limited. Another skin under the wooden seat is full of wine, he gulps a sip, the wound pulses a little less.
Cersei's short hair are white, he wets a cloth and takes part of the crusted blood away, Jaime imagines how she'll look in old age.
If they ever have a chance to grow old, together, in a new life to create, away from everything that defined them before.
Her left arm dangles at an unnatural angle from the shoulder, he touches it and she let out a sharp cry of pain. It is broken or seriously damaged.
The world thinks we're dead, what a convenient solution, Jaime thinks while the returns to their rented room at the Pentos inn.
Glancing at his reflection in a window, he sees the ghost of the golden lion.
Head shaved, his mane is gone and his beard has more grey then gold now.
A clever move to cut off his hair and sell his hand, to hide their identity.
Cersei is still dozing on and off, the head wound is serious, the maester has declared. Jaime tends to her, makes her drink spoons of warm broth and milk, puts honey on her lips during her short awakenings, cleans her from piss and shit - too fragile to stand and leave the bed - and every day tries to feel her belly, if, if…
It is their last chance, Jaime knows if Cersei loose another child - unborn or alive – she'd be dead inside and he'd be dead, too.
Cersei speaks for the first time a few days into their escape, Jaime has noticed she is more alert and her eyes follow him around the room.
A loud sound from outside, iron on wood, clattering; Jaime's a light sleeper and he notices it, but her eyes opened wide.
"Where am I?"
He turns to look at her from his side of the bed.
"Pentos. We're safe."
She tries to move but her arms don't support the body, her shoulder and upper arm are bandaged, her head is unsteady; she grabs his arm, touches the stump and don't retreat from the contact. The horrible stump, his mark of shame.
"I feel awful."
"You got a blow, a strong one. you need to rest."
She nods, closing her eyes; it's strange to see her obedient and weak. He have to do with it.
His questions are answered by monosyllables, he don't care, he's got her.
The maester visits twice a week to check Cersei's progresses and she looks at him in silence when he holds a candle in front of her face.
Her left eye has been covered by a soft patch, things have a white veil around when she uses it.
"The hit was on the left side of your head. Your shoulder was fractured. There may be a damage on your sight, maybe not permanent."
His right hand, her left eye.
The master goes at the feet of the bed and lifts her night robe along her legs, he holds a strange piece of metal in his hand.
"What are you doing?"
"Checking on the child."
Cersei lifts her head, there is a bump, her stomach is not flat. How can she forget such a important thing? Is it the real reason Jaime saved her?
A cold cone on her midsection, she don't understand, all her children are gone.
The man moves the cone and ask her to be still, Jaime's face is a mask of worry.
"There's a beat, weak but …."
Jaime breathes again.
To clean the wound, her head is bald, like his. He cut around the crust and she cut all the rest later.
Are they tamed, without a mane?
Without the protection offered by their father's shadow, by their brother's clever suggestions?
Jamine has changed, without a hand, that glorious, powerful, magical hand – and without all his pompous identity.
Cersei has lost every time she planned a scheme, she's lost power, she has memories, she has Jaime, the important one, they are together.
Was it written in the stars, was the prophecy right? Was it meant to happen? All their children had to die? They could have saved Tommen or Myrcella, the one who knew, the one happy Jaime was her father.
And this new chance, the last one, Cersei promises Jaime no more lies, no stags used as screens to hide the true feline blood.
Working for a living is a new experience.
Nothing granted because of their names, their family.
In the boot Tyrion put a pouch of money, Jaime has to make it last, Cersei never cared about money, now he is forced to change his way of thinking.
The house, the nurse-maid for Cersei, the master have a price and Jaime don't know for how long Cersei will be unwell. Maybe they'll need a wet nurse, too. The master has declared the baby appears tiny and Cersei is near forty, he should have thought about the risks, she should have …. but their children were all dead, maybe she wanted simply another one.
The house is rented for a few moons, to high the risk to be found, they will have to disappear further north.
For now he works, hands hurt, back hurts, legs are heavy when he returns home, because he's no more a young knight, he's a middle age man, without a hand.
She's waiting for him every evening, there's some food on the table, sometimes half burnt, sometimes not. She can stand near the fire for a few minutes each time, then her head gets dizzy and she sits on a bench.
Frailty.
They are both too fragile, the strength has vanished under the debris of the destruction of their former lives.
Doom, death, she tells him about the prophecy and cold run through his veins, she believes in what the witch said and he wants her not to.
"She was right! They died, all, and this one won't survive, too."
"But no queen arrived in your place, no one else, the king rules now."
The queen is in the North, her ice beauty under her red mane, the king rules where once Cersei sat, the king he maimed as a young boy, the action he regretted since.
It had been impossible to save their children, from madness, from poison, from self destruction.
If she lets herself go, he'll go with her, he's sure, but the last hope is the new child. The only hope.
Weeks turn into moons, she is silent most of the time, sitting at the window.
"If it goes well, what can we do?"
A tiny ray of light, the first since they ran, fills his heart with a new spring.
"I've dreamed a lot of a little house by the sea, we can find a quiet village. Just the three of us."
The master brings a midwife, an old woman who has helped hundreds of mothers, she probes cersei, is pleased to know it's her fourth child, is worried when she hears about her age.
"This will be our last."
Cersei declares, she is afraid to die, the idea to leave Jaime alone with the infant, she wants him to hold her every night, sometimes a tear falls on her neck.
Her belly is big now, the midwife jokes about twins, she don't see Jaimes' face getting white.
"I'm a twin." Cersei tells to the midwife during one of the last visits, "I was the first born."
"You mean the second child."
"No, the first."
"The first born is the second that takes root in the womb. The other one is the first conceived."
Cersei's mouth is wide open, a gasp of surprise. So Jaime was indeed the first, the heir, he had all the rights to have the title, the Rock, he gave up everything fior her.
She looses consciousness twice during labour, Jaime holds her, supports her damaged shoulder, the maester puts a vial under her nose, to awake her, gives her drops of milk of the poppy, careful with the dose. She has to push, she's too weak, Jaime has only words of encouragement, afraid to loose her the same way his mother died. Is he doomed to never be the father, now he has the best chance ever?
The midwife talks with the master who cuts Cersei's flesh to ease the birthing, more blood, more than the other times. Jaime retches, fear devours him, Cersei let out just a groan, the pains melt, she is pain.
When the head appears, Cersei's back sinks into the bed, she is exhausted, her strength has left her; Jaime cries, the midwife and the master maneuvers the baby's head with a strange instrument to pull it out.
Once the baby is born, Jaime waits for the first cry, then he fells on his knees beside the bed. He don't care if boy or girl, he only wants it to survive.
A difficult afterbirth, the midwife pushed on Cersei's deflated belly to expell everything, Jaime holds a tiny little baby boy, tinier than Myrcella had been. Cersei is too tired to move a finger.
"Will he live?"
The masters is stitching Cersei, he looks at Jaime, confused, unaware about their dead children.
"Why he shouldn't? He's alive and hungry."
Jaime observes each little limb, the small chest, a terrible doubt rise inside him.
"My brother is a dwarf, the baby is so small.."
"Would you kill him if he's a dwarf?" The midwife expression changes, she has liked the care of the man toward his wife, but could he be so cruel to kill his infant son?
"He's ours! I'll never hurt him." Jaime holds the baby closer to his chest.
The old woman smiles.
"He's just smaller than average. Your wife isn't young."
-
Cersei spent hours with the baby in her arms, she had to let him go when the wet nurse feeded him, a strange resentment toward the woman, she always had milk for her children before; Jaime chastised her and she told him he was right, every time, but deep down she felt less a mother than the other times, or Jaime was more a father. She repeated herself it has been the right choice, the only possible, the one that deprived him of parenthood and assured her his fidelity, . Lions aren't protective with their cubs like lionesses are.
Tyrion appears on the doorstep, unexpected and welcomed, spotting a grey beard, too.
"We're getting old, brother." Jaime greets him with a hug.
"It was not easy to find you."
"We need to be careful."
"This place is quite safe for you. The king would allow you to return, but he can't control those who want revenge against our sister."
Jaime's mind don't want to think about it, he dreams about a house by the sea, where he can be a husband and a father, where his son is not a bastard.
Cersei's face shows anguish, she holds the baby closer to her chest.
Jaime notices, he tells Tyrion his decision.
"Gareh cannot travel for now."
Gareh is six moons old and the maester declares him officially in good health and ready to be weaned. Cersei thanks the wet nurse; not a friendship, but a bond has grown between them, for the sake of the small lion, Cersei considered him a kitten more than a cub.
Jaime brings home a cake from the baker to celebrate the half year.
No more wine, the illness freed Cersei of her addiction and he was more than glad, too many times he saw a glass in her hand, like Tyrion used to. He was the most responsible of the Lannister trio, barely drinking more than a cup; the night he got drunk, he dishonoured Brienne.
The wet nurse wishes them good night and returns to her home, her tasks quite completed, she'll be around less. Jaime lives by the crib, taking note of every step of the growth, wanting to remember them in a little book, it is difficult for him to write and so the ink on the white sheet is precious for him.
The house is too silent without the chatting of the wet nurse, they are alone after a long time, the baby sleeps, Cersei unbraid her hair; she wears a white tunic, fabric bought at the market, made by the woman who lives three doors left.
She is beautiful, Jaime stands on the bedroom door and she comes to him, touching his shoulders, feeling the muscles, touching his face and his wrinkles. He feels an old lion but when her hands reach his naked chest, disrobing him fully he's suddenly young again and lifts her up to lie on the bed.
How many moons since they made love, it don't matter now, because she is under him and he is above her and it's like the first time and the last and all the others between.
Tyrion travels between Casterly Rock and the capital, he finds for his siblings a house on the shore of a little cove, close to the harbour, a half day travel from the Rock. Jaime's stump has a hook and he works on a fishing boat.
It's summer, Cersei lies awake at night, Jaime is a light sleeper, he wakes when she turns under the sheet, restless.
Sometimes she leaves the bed and goes to the window, the stars shine in the dark night, mirroring over the water.
Jaime has mastered the ability to pretend he's sleeping, but he observes her.
She's changed and her mad lust for power has vanished. A hard lesson learned, a deep change. A permanent one?
His fears remain: if she leaves them, if what he can offer is not enough?
Living openly together is his biggest desire. The one he has clang to since their first time.
She's Corren now, he's Josan. For the village people they are married, for the village people their child is legitimate.
She can run away, he wont' force her to stay, he'll never hurt her, but he prays every day she chooses him.
She can't take the baby from him, she knows he'll fight for his son, he'll followed her to the end of the world to have him back.
Cersei is tired, her shoulder never healed fully, she likes to hold Gareh, but after a while the discomfort forces her to put him back in his crib.
His hair are darker than hers, more like Tyrion's, more like her mother's were. His eyes are pure green.
What would Joanna Lannister think about her twin children? Alive, would she be able to keep them apart like she once tried?
Would Joanna be ashamed regarding the forbidden love and the four grandchildren or proud because after thirty years Cersei and Jaime were still together? Joanna married her first cousin, he loved her more than anything else in the world and Cersei believed Tywin deep down hated his children because his great love died birthing Tyrion.
If they were not forced to have heirs, Joanna would be still alive.
And Jaime loved her more than their offspring, except their last. The similarity between father and son.
She dreams, she gets chocked to death often in the nightmares or sees her children die again.
Jaime is asked to sail away fishing for a week and every night cersei is plagued by nightmares, because he's not there.
What is her life without him now?
It's hard to change your life in a short amount of time, from queen to fisherman's wife.
The things she renounced.
Power, control, command, wealth.
There's a void inside her, the part Jaime cannot fill, the queen part, since she married Robert.
There's another kind of fulfilment, the awareness to be loved, to deserve Jaime's complete affection, to have him care for his family.
Conflicting forces. Lust for power destroyed everything, before, killed her children, threatened to kill her and Jaime. He saved her.
"Why you returned?"
"Because I had to."
"Was it duty only?"
"I couldn't leave you facing destruction alone."
He tells her about Brienne, reveals he knew about Cersei's lovers - his rage for her betrayals, she lowers her gaze - he explains his doubts and heartache before the final battle for the living, he declares his wife the choice had been difficult to process, but he returned.
Gareh first name day, Tyrion brings him gifts, Jaime observes carefully each of them, tunics, small boots, toys, a little bed, signs of wealth. He is afraid because they belong to the past, the old life.
Cersei is worried, this child won't rule, not like his brothers who were kings and his sister who would be queen.
Gareh can be a lord of the manor, she knows Tyrion's idea, because he has sired no children and he wants Casterly Rock to remain in Lannister's possession.
It is too early, too dangerous for a little baby, maybe in a few years they could return home, admire the scenery and find a quiet accommodation inside the castle. People will forget the kingslayer and the cruel queen, people will love the young heir and compare him to his predecessors.
Jaime is not eager, he has been forced to erase the idea of a family for a long time that now he's a father for real he wants to savour it.
Gareh will have parents who care about, love and respect him. Gareh will grow in a house by the sea, until the world around him will be a safer place for a lion cub.