A/N: I have never been so nervous as I am right now, I knew this was where I wanted to go. I hope you'll enjoy it.
« Cersei is dead, » Sansa said, and Tyrion had never felt more terrified in his life.
Forget about the Blackwater battle, even the Winterfell one. This, right now, topped it all.
What had once been his sister was on the ground, lifeless, and Sansa was covered in her blood.
"Yes she is, sister," Arya said, coming up slowly to the young woman, trying to keep her tone steady, in order to give her something to hold on to.
He should have been helping her, but he was still suffering from shock. When Cersei had grabbed Sansa and ran up the stairs, saying she would kill her if they attempted to reach her, he had felt the most terrible fright in his entire life.
"I stuck her with the pointy end," Sansa went on, gesturing to the knife she was holding in her bloody hand.
"As I told you to. You did good, Sansa, you avenged Father and Mother."
"Did I?" The red-head asked, still half in trance. "It did not feel like that."
"Then what did it feel like?" Tyrion finally asked, knowing they needed the woman to drop the knife before shock made her do something different.
She would never stab herself, except if she thought she was beyond redemption.
"She called me 'little dove', as she dragged me here by my hair, and I could feel it all again, all those times she and Joffrey humiliated me, put me on display, made sure everybody could witness my shame, and my naivety. I could feel like I did back then, unable to do anything but suffer, and pray one day one of my brothers would come and deliver me. Yet no brother came."
"That was then, and now is now. Back then, you relied upon people you loved for security and help, and you were right to do so, even though they never managed to rescue you," Tyrion said. "Now, you are your own person, your very own champion. You slayed your dragon. Cersei will never call anyone anything again."
"Aren't you mad I got the deed done?" Sansa asked, finally looking over at him. "I know people will be annoyed I was the one to end her life. They had it all planned, even yourself, so many plans that involved one of you taking Cersei down, and yet, it was me, the one no one had considered for the job, who got it done."
"I only feel admiration for the courage you displayed, and gratitude for the fact that you rid us all of this devil," he said softly. "Now, My Lady, if you please, how about putting the knife down?"
She seemed to take notice of the fact that she was still holding the weapon, and out of nowhere, Tyrion was reminded of that time in the Godswoods where he would have sworn she had been armed.
"I bet you never pictured this happening when you gave me this dagger," Sansa told her younger sister.
"Yet it makes me happy, and proud. Not because you committed murder, which is let's face it, my daily bread, but because in a way, I was able to be there with you when you finally made the bitch pay for everything she inflicted upon you."
Tyrion could see the knife was made of Dragonglass, and in more ways than one, it felt right that it should have ended his sister's life. He also pinpointed where he had seen it and remembered that Sansa had taken it out in the crypt during the battle of Winterfell. So much time had passed since then, and yet in a way, they had come full circle.
Carefully, with more patience than he believed he had, he made his way to his wife, and made sure she saw that he was about to touch her wrist.
There were noise and he panicked until Jon erupted in the room, yelling the redhead's name.
"Sansa!" Jon said, as he just walked right to his sister. "I'm so glad you're fine", he said, pulling her closer and kissing her forehead.
What a foolish man. As the owner of a direwolf, he should have known better than to go straight for the woman who had turned into a predator. However, and perhaps it was the Stark blood having magic properties, Sansa let her brother come close.
"I stuck her with the pointy end?" She repeated, showing the knife she had wielded.
Jon and Arya exchanged a stare, and Tyrion had no patience to try and decipher what they were secretly saying.
"That you did, my love," he told the woman, and Tyrion felt intense jealousy.
He knew it was just the adrenaline talking, the rush of the moment, the relief of seeing her alive, and more things he could come up with, but he had never dared callSansa "his love" even though he had been trying to court her for months, and her brother who was really her cousin got to say it before he did.
Brienne and Jamie appeared too, and Tyrion was sorry for the long in his brother's eyes, though he noticed how fleeting the pain seemed to be. Jamie had been done with Cersei, and he had already spent months mourning the creature who was now on the ground in a pool of her own blood.
"Where is the baby?" He asked.
"Babies," Sansa corrected, as she pointed to two bassinets further away.
Brienne looked gutted but resolved. Wishing the little ones out of existence would not work.
"What should we do with them?" She asked.
"Take them to the Vale," Sansa offered. "Take Tormund with you. Once you all three are there, you can decide if you want to raise them, give them away, or throw them through the hall in the sky. In the meantime, Daenerys will not know where you've gone, and it will give you time to actually make a decision of your own and not follow her orders."
"Sansa is right," Jon said. "Dany… She will not deal well with Cersei being dead by anybody's hand but hers, but if she sees those babies, I fear she might give them to the dragons. I can pacify her, if given the time. I can make her see, but you guys need to be on your way before I can start making her see or unsee whatever you want me to tell her."
Tyrion felt like he was watching them all, himself included. He could tell what was going on. The bitch was dead, and she left behind twins obviously. Jamie as their father could not just pretend they did not exist. However, he was also involved in a very strange but also extremely working relationship with Brienne and Tormund. Turned out Brienne would not be one man's woman, she was the goddess who allowed mere mortals to be part of her life. If people had known that back at Renly's camp….
Finally, he moved forward, and offered his hand to Sansa who was still in Jon's embrace.
"Please give me your knife, my Lady," he said.
For she was already taking care of everyone around her, even people she had all the reasons in the world to hate such as the latest batch of Lannisters twins, but it was time to take care of her.
She looked at him, trying to get an answer in his eyes but he did not know what she got.
"Would you marry a murderer?" She finally asked.
"I'd marry you any day, and you're no murderer."
Carefully, exchanging glances with Jon Snow and Arya, he put his hand over Sansa's and got the knife she was crutching on to.
He let it fall, and she went the same way, fainting. Thankfully her brother caught her.
Jon went to Daenerys, while Arya helped him, getting Sansa in a bathtub. The servants provided water as though their queen had not been killed.
Sansa had woken up, and was so calm you would think she had turned into the three eyes raven herself.
Carefully, with Arya, Tyrion divested his wife of her dress, making sure to let her sister hide every part of her that he would not see until she wished him to. Having laid sheets on her chest and on top of her legs, they got to work, and started washing the blood away from her. Soon the water was red and they had to ask for more.
This was tedious work, for dried blood all but caked her hands and hair, but they got it done nevertheless. Sansa was still not herself, but he took care of her, as she was the most precious doll on earth.
Washing her hand proved to be difficult, and he got a glimpse of the top of her breasts, but also of several scars on her back, mementos of her time with Ramsay. When they were done washing away Cersei's blood, they laid her in a bed, she had fainted again and Tyrion went to the window.
His sister was dead.
He did not care.
Was it wrong that it did not affect him?
He could hear their whole party downstairs, reclaiming the castle and starting something along the lines of a party, while also preparing for a coronation. Daenerys would be crowned in the morning, and Jon would be her consort. The two had found some middle ground shortly before arriving in King's Landing, when the man had realized that he had already lost one woman he had loved more than words could express, and that he wanted to be by the dragon queen's side when it came to having everything she hoped for come true.
Sure, he was hiding some things from her, such as his sister's pregnancy, but the moment Dany was wearing that crown, a Baratheon baby would not feel like a threat anymore, he was sure of it, as long as no one spread the word about his lineage. Varys had gotten threaten in various ways to let him know that if the news were made public, well there were more parts of him he could still lose.
Cersei was dead. So was Tywin, and their cousins. With Jamie running to the Vale with Ser Brienne and Tormund, looking he had made peace with his sister's passing and being ready to start again somewhere else, there was not a Lannister in sight, but him.
He could hear Arya moving around in the bedroom, but felt lost in thought until something landed on his lap.
It was a direcub. He had no words. He looked at Arya, who was picking the cub she wanted her sister to have.
"Nymeria gave birth some time ago, and the cubs are the perfect age for you to form a bond of indefectible loyalty," Arya said."
"Mistress of Death, how…."
"Mistress of Death," Arya repeated, "I like that. Though no one can master this lover. I guess it's not the point. I promised my sister a direwolf, and she will have one when she comes to. I was looking at this cub, and pondered who it should go to."
He looked at the furball in his lap, and had to stifle a laugh. If Ghost was scary because of his red eyes and white fur, this one looked like everything that could have gone wrong when two direwolves had a cub. It was smaller than the others, he just could tell, and its eyes did not match. There was a line of darker fur along his face, making him look as if he was two cubs sawn into one.
"He'll be a killer, in good time, but right now he needs some care. Furthermore, he will not go anywhere where this one," Arya said, lifting another beautiful cub with a red pelt, "is not."
"If your sister asked me," he said, almost unaware of the depth of what he was revealing, "I would forget my Lannister name and be a Snow, or a Stark if it felt like you would allow me this privilege. I roared like a lion, I played the part. Turns out, I'm just not the son my father tried to raise."
"I heard Jon and Daenerys discuss as I was picking up the direwolf. She had agreed to a council, with one advisor for each Kingdom. Jon was pleading for you to be sent back with Sansa to the North, my sister being the Warden though. He was convincing her that dragons would always make communication easier if she really needed a word from her previous Hand, but that you had done what she had named you for, and that it was time to let you have a chance at whatever you wanted, which is, let's be frank, " Arya said, "bedding my sister."
"I want more than that."
"I know it. I'm just not…. Just because I fucked doesn't mean I'm ready to start sweet talking about the gentle act of mutual love or whatever bullshit you come up with."
He had to laugh.
"Tomorrow will be another day, Tyrion Stark," she finally said. "I'm going to lay by my sister, so that she does not wake up alone. I would suggest you did the same. However if I see your hands any place they shouldn't be, just ask yourself, where did that dragonglasss knife go?"
He nodded, and divested himself of his travel clothes, ending up in a night shirt that the servants had gotten out. He pulled It on, and went on Sansa's other side on the bed. He took his direwolf with him.
What a strange thought. He had a direwolf of his own…. A beast who could not hesitate to kill him if he did anything wrong. Just like his lady…
Sansa's cub was between her and her sister, and he spotted Nymeria hiding in the corner. The young woman would love her gift, and he would relish in her happiness.
How strange it felt, the battle was won, Daenerys would claim her throne again, and then it would be time to live again. Did he still know how people did just that?
He still had to win back his wife, was his only lingering thought as he fell in a deep and well-earned slumber.
A/N: Begging again: please please please give me your thoughts. What do you want to see in the last part? There is only one chapter left to this tory before the new peisode airs and my magical world may get destroyed. Please please please, R & R. You'll notice that I absolutely don't blackmail people, I posted a part a day no matter what, I don't have "reviews" goal or whatever, I just want to know I guess and feel that people are there, and interested, and not scratching their head at my prose. (As an FYI, mye is French). PleaseR&R!