A.N. Sorry for the delay, I have been very busy lately, but the new chapter is finally ready :)
Cersei was already sitting in the makeup chair, preparing for her live debate with Robb Stark when she noticed in the mirror her younger brother approaching with a troubled expression.
'Leave.' she ordered the makeup girl without hesitation. Once the girl was gone, she turned to her brother. 'What's wrong?'
'Someone leaked a tape.' Tyrion remarked with a frown. 'A tape of a drunken Robert, talking about you at a dinner party nine years ago. It's all over the news.'
Cersei rolled her eyes. 'Perfect timing.' she hissed angrily. 'What is he saying?'
'It's best if I show you.' her brother sighed and handed his phone to her. It showed a news feed from moments ago that was stopped in the middle. Cersei hesitated for a moment, then hit the play button.
'…career with good money, a hot wife, two kids, the third one is on the way… How are you doing it?'
Cersei recognized Ben Stark's voice. There was a short pause with only indistinct conversation from the background, then Robert finally replied.
'I don't know. The bitch gets pregnant every time I look at her.'
Cersei gave back her brother his phone. 'That's it?'
'Yeah.' Tyrion nodded. 'I think we should cancel the debate.'
'No way.' his sister protested. 'I'll handle it.'
'How? We built your whole campaign on Robert. On your perfect marriage, your perfect family. What could you possibly say to the people now?' Tyrion asked in frustration.
'It's edited. They edited the tape to manipulate the voters.' Cersei got up, which made her brother have to look up to her.
'Of course they did! But what does that change? Your husband called you a bitch. The only way for you to get out of this is to tell the truth about Robert.' Tyrion suggested.
Her sister reached for her cane and started pacing the small room up and down.
'And hoping for sympathy votes? It would be a suicide.' Cersei hissed angrily. 'I will defend Robert. His words were taken out of context. I can turn this around.'
Her brother followed her with his eyes. 'I'm sure Robb Stark will have a thing or two to say about this. He won't let you off the hook so easily.'
Cersei furrowed her eyebrows. 'But he should. His parents were there at that dinner party. Robb can't use this tape against me. It would be stupid, even for him.'
Tyrion climbed into the empty makeup chair and spinned it around. 'It wouldn't if he used it to distance himself from his father and his friendship with Robert Baratheon.'
Cersei wanted to argue, but a firm knock on the door interrupted her. She looked at her brother who looked back at her with a frown.
'Come in.' Tyrion cried.
To Cersei's surprise, it was her opponent standing in the doorway.
'Did you come to check out if my dressing room is bigger than yours?' she asked in a scornful tone. 'What can I do for you, Robb?'
Robb Stark rolled his eyes. 'Mrs. Baratheon.'
'It's Ms. Lannister now.' Cersei corrected him.
'My parents are… or were friends with you. That's why I'm here out of niceness, giving you a warning.' Robb continued in a firm voice. 'Tell your kids to turn off the TV if you don't want them to know the truth about their father.'
'Aren't you sweet to worry about my children?' Cersei pretended to be amused by his words.
She exchanged a quick glance with her brother, who then cleared his throat.
'You are trying to play mind games with my sister just minutes before the debate.' Tyrion stated, unimpressed. 'We know about the tape. It wouldn't be wise for you to use though, considering your parents…'
'It's not about the tape.' Robb remarked with a sneer. 'This is something much bigger. This will end your political career, Mrs. Baratheon.'
Cersei opened her mouth to say something, but Robb had already turned around and left the room.
'Do you still think we shouldn't cancel the debate?' she heard her brother's voice behind her.
The debate was going on for more than an hour and Robb Stark still didn't bring up his surprise discovery about Robert Baratheon. However, Cersei was afraid she already knew it all too well. The excruciating pain of waiting was doubled by the pain in her legs. She has gotten used to them hurting since the surgery, but she was clearly not meant to stand on them in high heels for three hours.
'What would be more important than our future? But I guess you don't care about your children's future as much as you say.'
Robb Stark's words were followed by loud cheers from his supporters in the audience and Cersei could barely hold back an eye roll.
'I ask you one more time, not to make my underage children part of the discussion.' she remarked in a firm voice. 'But to answer your question: I care more about the present than the future. And I'm sure that many people agree with me when I say that we have more pressing issues. Climate change and other fairy tales can wait until we have dealt with them.'
To Cersei's satisfaction, her future voters were not short on shouts and clapping either when it came to voice their support.
'Excuse me. Did you just call climate change a fairy tale?' her opponent annoying voice interrupted her little celebration.
'See? That's what you are doing, Senator Stark. You cling into a word I say and try to shift the focus from what I'm saying to how I'm saying it.' Cersei gave Robb a look of contempt. 'If you just listened…'
The young senator couldn't stand still. His fingers were nervously tapping on the top of his podium 'You can't just say a thing like that and go on like nothing has…' he began, but he got silenced.
'Let Ms. Lannister finish.' the moderator said in a firm voice.
Robb Stark, however, couldn't let it go. 'By all means. Please, I'd love to hear what Ms. Lannister thinks more important than the future of our planet.
Cersei couldn't hold back a scornful smile witnessing how her opponent was condemning himself with his temperament.
'Right now our most important task is to create jobs and fight domestic terrorism.'
Once again, Robb didn't let her finish. 'Creating jobs? Let me guess. By continuing to give tax benefits for big companies that are the greatest polluters, not just in this country but in the whole world. But of course we understand why you don't want to speak against them since your own father's company is known to disregard the environmental protocols for decades now in order to reach bigger profit.'
'And that bigger profit makes it possible to provide work for hundreds of thousands of people.' Cersei interrupted the more and more frustrated young Stark. 'Lion Cars has over half a million employees and this number will only grow if we help, instead of enforcing regulations these companies can't possibly comply with.'
Robb wanted to reply, but the moderator decided to move on.
'Ms. Lannister, you mentioned domestic terrorism as another important issue our country is facing. How would you handle the Dornish radicals? Can you imagine Dorne become an independent country in the future?'
'Absolutely not. Dorne is one of the seven states of Westeros and it will remain so.' Cersei replied firmly. 'Dornish people have equal rights, but also equal duties in this country just as every other citizen. And let's make something clear right here, right now: the Sand Snakes are not a political movement. They are a group of terrorists who are threatening the peace of this country and as such they deserve the full force of the law to be brought down on them.'
The endless applauding signed that a lot of members of the audience shared her views. Some people began cheering and chanting curse words to show their anger towards the Sand Snakes.
The moderator tried to silence them, but with no avail.
'Senator Stark, what are your thoughts?' he shouted through the noise.
'I think that we can't dismiss a large group of unsatisfied people with one word.' Robb Stark cried even louder, which his supporters rewarded with applauds. 'We can't call all of them terrorists just because there are extremists among them. The majority of the Dornish people is against violence. For me it is very important to keep an open mind and maintain the possibility of a peaceful negotiation. After all, it's in neither of our interest to stay in a bad marriage.'
The Lannister supporters booed loudly to express their discontent and Cersei couldn't help comparing the debate to a football match between the Direwolves and the Casterly Lions. All that was lacking was someone to start singing The Rains of Castamere.
'Ms. Lannister, would you like to respond?' the moderator's voice dragged her out of her thoughts.
'Senator Stark seems to know so much about a bad marriage, whereas he couldn't even go through with his own.' Cersei remarked with ease.
She was ready with those comebacks for a long time, but so was Robb Stark.
'I can't argue with that.' her opponent replied with a fake smile. 'I'm sure Ms. Lannister is an expert on the subject since she was in a bad marriage for fifteen years.'
The audience gasped in shock and Cersei also feigned surprise. 'Beg your pardon?'
'We have heard on the tape… You can't deny it." Robb stepped away from his podium and leaned his back against its side.
The moderator seemed relieved that someone before him brought up the subject.
'For those who just turned on their TV, let's quickly sum up the situation.' he interrupted the two arguing candidates. 'Minutes before this debate our news channel got a leaked tape that we felt obligated to share with the public. On this tape we can hear former presidential candidate, Robert Baratheon calling his wife and I quote a bitch. Ms. Lannister, would you agree to talk about the tape for a bit?'
Cersei took a sip from the glass of water that was prepared for her on the podium.
'If you insist.' she tried to remain as calm as she could. Luckily, her father's and Tyrion's lessons finally paid off. 'It's obviously out of context. My husband only meant that as a joke and if we could hear the rest of the tape, there would be no doubt about that.'
Robb Stark shook his head in disbelief.
'What kind of man jokes with something like that?' he asked with overacted indignation. 'Robert Baratheon was a violent man and not just in words. Several women claimed that he had slept with them and often beat them up afterwards.'
'These are lies. You are simply lying.' Cersei protested, trying to talk down the Stark supporters.
Robb Stark gave her a quick, scornful smile no one else saw, before he continued with a serious expression. 'His own wife was a victim of his abuse too.'
The large auditorium got quiet for a moment.
Finally, Cersei broke the silence.
'I wasn't victim of anything, thank you.' she snapped at her opponent. 'But I must say it's very convenient for you, Senator Stark, to spread lies about a dead man who can't defend himself. Not to mention that my husband was your father's best friend.'
At that point the sports game feeling became complete as the Lannister supporters indeed began chanting the lyrics of The Rains of Castamere. And just like from the games, the troublemakers ended up being banned.
'Senator Stark, do you have any proof of what you have just said?' the moderator asked after the audience got silent.
'According to the King's Landing Memorial Hospital's records, Ms. Lannister visited the ER sixteen times in the past five years with various types of injuries.' Robb remarked triumphantly.
Without her loudest supporters, all eyes were on Cersei, who had to seem very confident if she wanted to survive this latest attack from her opponent.
'I doubt your mother is very proud of you right now, Senator.' she remarked scornfully, then turned to the audience. 'I only dignify to respond to these ridiculous lies because I don't want my children stay awake at night thinking that their father was a terrible person.
The moderator nodded. 'So you are denying Senator Stark's allegations towards your late husband.'
'Yes. Robert would have never hurt me or his children.' Cersei said in a steady voice.
Her remaining supporters applauded her. It wasn't enough though.
'Maybe not his children, but…' Robb Stark continued and Cersei knew that it was the moment of truth.
She had to act quickly. The best defence is a good offence.
'But what? What's coming next? That they are not even his children?
It was a huge risk, but she had to take it. And it worked. Her opponent was speechless.
'You are so good at fiction, Robb, you should consider writing your own TV show.' she cried out with ill-concealed joy. 'Why not call it The Cersei Lannister Horror Story? In the meantime, I'm going to stay in the real world and make our country safer and better for all of us.'
