Joanna did not even wait to be announced before pushing past the guard into Tywin's chambers, a raven scroll clutched in her hand.

She found him behind his desk, unshaven and hollow-eyed, looking like he hadn't slept in weeks. Normally, she would have asked him what in seven hells had happened to him before ordering him to take a bath. But today she would be she was happy.

'Lady Tarbeck has released Stafford!' she exclaimed excitedly, flinging herself down opposite her cousin, 'and he writes that he's unharmed, if a little stiff from being chained up…'

Tywin scarcely seemed to be listening to her. His arms were folded across his chest, and he was gazing intently at nothing out of the corner of his eye. His face was as impenetrable as it always was, but his eyes were so dark that they looked almost black from numbness. Joanna pounded on the table with her open palm, demanding his attention. She had no time for Tywin's nonsense today. Her brother was free, and she was happy.

'Lord Tarbeck has been returned unharmed to his lady,' Joanna said slowly, 'and she was gracious enough not to cut my brother's throat.'

Her cousin remained mute.

'Tywin,' Joanna remarked testily, 'perhaps I should educate you as to what courtesy demands in these situations. When a lady expresses happiness that a relative has not died, you are meant to express your happiness also; to say how relieved you are; to thank the gods that your Father gave in to Lady Tarbeck's demands rather than allow Stafford to be slaughtered.'

'I wish he was dead,' Tywin replied.

Joanna's heart stopped in her chest.

'You…you wish my brother was dead.'

'Not your brother. My father.'

She tried to think of something, anything to say that would transform that last remark into a very bad joke. But the pristine, unmarked, uncaring marble of Tywin's face in that moment wiped her mind blank, and the malevolent black flames in his eyes, so different from the warm, glorious gold that had burned in them on the night of her name day feast, tore out her tongue. How could he say such a thing? Lord Tytos was a doddering old fool, certainly, but…how could he say…

'Tywin,' Joanna murmured eventually, 'how can you – he's – he is your father.'

Tywin's face contorted in fury.

'My father's…actions,' he spat, 'have brought this family to the brink of an abyss. Hundreds of years of glory and honour discarded…thrown away…'

'Tywin.'

She wanted him to stop. His tone was terrifying her.

'…replaced with laughter…and ridicule, with sheep mocking lions, sheep ruling lions, with nothing more than a few overly-loud bleats of indignation. He's pathetic. He has…destroyed us. I want him dead. I want him dead.'

'Stop this at once!' Joanna cried, rising and grasping the edge of the table with her fingers, 'I understand that you're upset, Tywin, but I will not allow you to sit there wishing your own father dead over some ridiculous political spat that will be forgotten in a week.'

'You're a fool if you think it will be forgotten in a week,' Tywin shot back contemptuously.

Joanna leaned threateningly across the table and looked into her cousin's eyes.

'Are you calling me a fool?'

Unintimidated, Tywin looked nonchalantly at her and did not even blink.

'This…'political spat,' as you call it, is proof,' Tywin growled, 'conclusive proof, that House Lannister is no longer great. It cements our weakness and our ineptitude, our fall. It demonstrates to all the world that it is House Tarbeck that rules in the Westerlands. And House Reyne, of course, though I can't see how they would have – '

'So because of the actions of a couple of Tarbecks and Reynes,' Joanna scoffed, 'you would wish your own father dead?'

Tywin's eyes were terrible as they met hers.

'What would you do?' he asked.

'I would try to protect my father from them,' she replied, without hesitation.

Tywin looked away again.

'He doesn't deserve protection.'

'I don't care what he deserves. He's family. His name is Lannister. That's enough.'

When Tywin did not reply, Joanna slumped into her chair once more and covered her eyes with her hand, feeling faint, angry and distressed. She hated it when Tywin talked this way. Perhaps it was hardly surprising, when he had grown up forcing himself to despise every person with a smile on their face. Everyone except her, of course. He would have asked her to stop years ago if her smiling and laughter troubled him as much as everyone else's did.

Joanna studied her cousin yet again as he sat abstracted and pulsing with hatred before her, terrifyingly and violently beautiful in his rage, and she thought for a moment of how things might have been.

If only little Lord Tarbeck had never visited with them, all those years ago. If only one of the lads' fathers hadn't wanted money for a new horse. If only he hadn't needed a horse at all. And if only the little lord had been gracious, and not so fond of listening to his father. Were it not for all those things, her cousin might have been a happy man. Not that his being a happy man would have made her love him more. She didn't think that that was possible.

I really do love him in spite of all that; in spite of his anger; his darkness. Perhaps I love him because of it.

No, that isn't true. If it were, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Joanna wondered for a moment where all these thoughts of love were coming from. When had loving Tywin become such an obvious thing that she could think about it so casually? There had been no epiphany for her, none of the flashes of lightning or sweet summer breezes that the singers said were meant to happen. It had occurred to her as an ordinary thought, something habitual that she thought of every day. When had this started? When had Tywin become this, and ceased to be the strange, unlaughing boy who devoted his life to contradicting her?

Never. He has always been both. It is why you enjoy fighting with him. And it is why it hurts you so much to see him unhappy.

'What is it?' Tywin was asking, his voice pulling her from her thoughts and back to where she sat opposite him.

'I wish…' Joanna replied, 'I do so wish…that you could be happy.'

Tywin's face turned from marble to flesh, light erupting in his green eyes, starving away the black.

'Why would I need to be happy?' he said, 'I have you.'

To Joanna's acute embarrassment, she blushed to the roots of her hair. Bowing her head immediately, she screamed at herself to have some self-respect, before looking once more at Tywin, almost falling off her chair as she did so.

He was…was he smiling at her? The corners of his mouth had turned up, ever so slightly; so faintly that someone who did not know him might never have noticed it. He looked perfectly serene, like he knew all the answers to every question in the world, and Joanna's heart began to hammer gloriously in her chest as Tywin's cheeks erupted, red as blood.

'Joanna…' Tywin trailed off.

'Cousin?' she managed to reply.

'Marry me.'

He was smiling properly now, his face like light; like he was about to laugh. Joanna covered her mouth with her hands and waited for the sound, scarcely able to believe what she was seeing, and afraid; afraid that she had imagined the question; that her delight at seeing him smile was putting words into her head that had never really been spoken.

Tywin looked confused and a little hurt, but his smile did not fade.

'Joanna, are you –'

'Of course I'll marry you!' she blurted, leaping to her feet and scrambling to where he sat on the other side of the desk.

As she hugged him tightly enough to break his ribs, and showered his face with kisses, Tywin Lannister burst out laughing, and the sound was beautiful.