Confident as I am, dear nephew, Uncle Kevan had written to him, that you will realise what is afoot the moment your royal sister approaches you, I have been quite unexpectedly seized by a fit of avuncular affection, which I hope you will forgive, that compels me to warn you of what Cersei's true intentions are.

Tyrion had been as touched by that as he had been amused by Cersei's blatant transparency in making the offer to him in the first place; but today, he marched into the small council chamber jauntily whistling The Rains of Castamere as though his exile had never happened, expecting a cool reception despite its being widely known that Cersei had asked him to return.

It surprised him, therefore, to find the entire council already assembled; Cersei smiling broadly, Littlefinger smirking in satisfaction despite very red eyes (drunkenness? Surely not.) and Joffrey positively bouncing with glee, a disgusting kind of triumph twisting his punchable little vermin face.

'Killed any puppies today?' Tyrion asked, taking his seat beside Grand Maester Pycelle and nodding to Varys, who had acknowledged him with a small smile and a reverence.

Joffrey did not seem to hear him.

'Show him!' the King giggled at Pycelle, his voice shrill as a septon fucking a catamite, 'go on, show him!'

Rolling his eyes and already regretting his return, Tyrion took the raven scroll from his foul-smelling neighbour and read it aloud.

'Roslyn caught a fine fat trout,' he enunciated, 'her brothers gave her a pair of wolf pelts for her wedding. Signed Walder Frey.'

Cersei's smile grew wider and wider and Littlefinger's ever more enigmatic; and Tyrion looked impatiently at Joffrey, who looked ready to wet himself with joy.

'Is that bad poetry?' Tyrion asked in exasperation, 'or is it supposed to mean something?'


Jaime could barely hear his brother speaking to him. His voice might have been in the next room, or even in the next wing of the castle. His lips were moving, and his mismatched eyes were dark with worry and anger, but still his voice remained soft; too soft for Jaime to hear him. Nevertheless, sitting half-dressed in his chambers, his elbows on his knees and his hand on his forehead, Jaime understood him.

He understood him when he wished with all his soul that he could not.

Arya.

'It seems that our Father had been planning this devastatingly simple little stunt for months before he died,' Tyrion said gravely, 'in secret, of course, with both Walder Frey and Roose Bolton. It's…it's brilliant, really. Despicable, but brilliant.'

Jaime laughed mirthlessly. Of course it was brilliant. Everything Father did was always so fucking brilliant.

Tyrion was still explaining.

'Father finds someone who has reason to be annoyed with the Starks, but is stupid enough to take all the blame and risk bringing eternal disgrace on his House by murdering guests beneath his roof. Bolton turns traitor in exchange for being named Warden of the North, and Father…Father gets no more Starks and no more war. The safety of his House intact.'

'Why didn't the plan die with the old bastard, then?' Jaime spat, Tyrion's cleverness making him want to cave his dear brother's head in, if only because it reminded him of Father.

'They were lazy,' Tyrion declared.

Arya.

'They were lazy, they were greedy and they were hungry for blood – '

'Really? I would never have thought.'

'They were, however, intelligent enough not to take it directly to you, me or Cersei.'

'Cersei had no knowledge of this?'

Tyrion laid a hand on his shoulder.

'She only found out about it last night –'

Jaime took some comfort in that.

'– and I suspect she was considered too much of a woman, I too much of a dwarf and you too much of a cripple to be much use in bringing the scheme to fruition.'

I swear by the old gods and the new that I will crucify them both for this.

Oh gods. Arya.

'Who did Frey and Bolton approach with this scheme, then?' Jaime asked mockingly, coldly thrilled that he still had a sense of humour 'Uncle Kevan?'

Tyrion smiled sadly at him.

'Littlefinger.'

Jaime groaned inwardly. Even he could see the sense in that.

'Baelish arranged all the final details,' Tyrion continued, 'and only told Cersei about it when it was too late for her to fuck it up.'

'They were uncommonly stupid to put their trust in that little eel,' Jaime remarked, smiling bitterly and beginning to tremble in rage.

'Not really,' Tyrion replied, making Jaime want to hit him again, 'anyone can see that Baelish had too much to gain from the arrangement to betray them. A chance to curry even more favour with the crown, an end to the war, the extinction of the Stark name. And Lady Catelyn, I suspect, though I suppose his eyes could be red for many other reasons…'

Jaime stood up abruptly, not giving a fuck about Littlefinger's eyes, and crossed the room to the door, flinging it open so hard that it banged against the wall.

'Where are you going?' Tyrion demanded in alarm.

Jaime looked back at him, hoping that the desolation he felt wouldn't show on his face.

'I am going to tell my betrothed how we killed her brother and mother.'

Tyrion's eyes widened.

'Your betr – Jaime!'

As he thundered through the corridors, his heart nothing but a red gash in his chest and his stump a dull throb instead of a blood storm; a legacy of dancing and living and her; he thought back to the faint, shy, movingly sincere smile that would always form on Arya's lips each time she mentioned his father. He remembered the Valyrian steel dagger he was holding for her; Father's favourite; that he had given to her on the day he had decided to adopt her, and he must have loved her very much, Jaime had thought the first time she had mentioned it to him, and he had been so jealous at the thought. He had been so fucking jealous.

How could he have loved her and done this to her? How could he have made her his child; and saved her; and known that I would love her; and told me to protect her, with his last fucking breath; when all the while he was planning this; when he knew that someday he would destroy her?

It's…inhuman. It's the cruellest thing he could have done.

And loving her is the cruellest thing that I could have done. It only hurts her more. I'd rather have her hate me than love me, if only she would hurt a little less.

As he pushed open her chamber door without knocking, and found the room empty with the curtains drawn, he realised that he didn't give a fuck whether or not she still wanted to fucking marry him. He also realised, quite suddenly, that for the first time in his life, he cared for someone else more than he did for himself.

This is not about you.

'Go away, Jaime,' a small, disembodied voice said, making him jump, 'I know you mean well, just…go away.'

He found her curled up on the floor on the other side of her bed. She was hugging her knees tightly to her chest; and her knuckles were bone white.

'What…what are you doing down there?' he asked quietly.

Her eyes were tightly closed, her eyelids a shock of white, uncrying tenderness against the restrained black wool of her gown, and the darkness of her hair.

'I can't sleep in a featherbed anymore,' Arya replied, so softly he could barely hear her, 'I've tried to, but I just…can't.'

Arya.

He crouched tentatively behind her on his haunches, meaning to touch her shoulder, or her hand, or to do something, fuck, to make some insignificant fucking gesture that would supposedly help her forget that her home and her family were ruins, and her life was little better.

Her eyes were still closed, and he knew that she couldn't bear to look at him. Looking at him would remind her of the hours she had spent dancing, and shouting, and laughing and fucking and loving a person with Tywin Lannister's blood in his veins; the blood of the man who had done this to her family; who had done this to her.

Jaime's hand was poised, unseen and trembling, above her shoulder; acrid, boiling agony seeming to radiate from her concealed skin, through her clothes and into him. In that heat he felt her mind; her mind that had become a harrowing slaughterhouse of visions of blood and butchery and guilt; and he knew; he could feel; that if he touched her she would lash out at him, because she could lash out at no one else; and that her guilt, and his, would kill both of them.

Slowly, his fingertips touched her; then his fingers; then his palm; and as he clasped her shoulder, she began to tremble violently in anger, a growl escaping her as his thumb brushed her collarbone. He tightened his grip and waited for her wrath and her cries and her screams, his heart trying to armour itself but only growing wilder and weaker as a dampness arose in his eyes and showered her in silver light.

And suddenly her hand was clasping his, and she was weeping quietly into the dark.