Thank you to everyone from reddit for all the reviews on the previous chapters. And thank you to Princess Rosalind of Underland, garcianoah650, BriSha01, bubblelaureno, Rakaia and RhaenaTargaryen for reviewing the previous chapter! :)
I'm glad it comes across as more intense this time! I was aiming for both that for him choking her to make more sense this time. This whole chapter here is new/different from last time, as changes had to be made based on what happened. And regarding the dragon horn, it will play a major role in this story as one of the things I hated in the show was how they left it out.
The sound of the door swinging open startled him, causing him to let go of Cersei.. He turned to see one of the Kettleblack brothers drawing his sword.
Osney, or Oswell, or whichever brother it was, barged in the room, but stopped midstep, eying him with uncertainty. He gazed from Jaime, to the floor where Cersei's motionless body lay, back to Jaime.
Jaime took his hesitation as a sign that Osney would believe whatever lie he would tell him to get himself out of this mess. He was after all the Queen's brother. Why would he ever harm her? "An assassin was just here, he made his escape!" He gazed quickly at Cersei. If she were dead, he'd confess his crime to Osney and let it all be over.
She was not dead, however. Thank the gods, he could see her chest going up and down as she breathed. "The Queen needs a maester. Call for one while I inform the other guards."
"I didn't see anybody leave this room," Oswell replied unsurely.
"He left out of the secret entrance way. That way."
"The secret entrance? The Red Keep has no such thing!" Scoffed Oswell, coming at him with his sword. "I heard her call for help while you were in here!"
He backed away. "I'm bleeding! Would I be bleeding if there was no assassin? He attacked me when I came to her defense! The Queen will be very unhappy if she wakes to find you attacked her brother!"
At that Osney hesitated again."And where is this secret passageway, then?"
"The bookshelf is not a bookshelf. It's a door! Now are we going to continue to waste time? The Queen needs aid!"
Osney approached the bookshelf and started trying to slide it to the left. Osney's brows furrowed in confusion as he approached the other side, and then tried unsuccessfully to slide it to the right.
"You have to pull it not push it!" Jaime exclaimed.
"Pull it? How?"
"I imagine the same way you pull on any other door. We're wasting time. Let me do it."
"You stay away." Osney grabbed a random space on the bookshelf and started pulling. A few books fell off, one of which hit him in the head, unfortunately not knocking him out.
"You need-" he began once seeing what Osney was doing.
"Shut up and stay away! I can pull a door," Osney interrupted, picking another random spot on the bookshelf and pulling with greater force.
"Seven hells! Pull on the far right side of it!"
Osney turned to him and gave him an annoyed look before doing as told. Sure enough, the bookshelf pulled out, and books fell to the floor as a small, empty space behind it was revealed. Osney kneeled down and started to crawl through while speaking. "Very well then. I'll go look for this assassin in the tunnels."
Jaime almost protested. If he were to be the one to look for the imaginary assassin it would give him a head start on his escape. But he needed to make sure Cersei was alright, and he needed to grab some sort of jewels or coin if he didn't want to starve on the journey. "'ll get help for the Queen and sound the alarm," he replied. As Osney disappeared out of sight, he breathed a sigh of relief that his excuse worked and that they were in one of the few rooms with such an escape. A smarter man might have wondered why if someone had used the secret entryway, the bookshelf was in place. Luckily the Kettleblack brothers weren't the smartest bunch, their intellect being worse than that of even a Celgane.
He approached his other half with frenzied worry. "Cersei? Cersei?!" There was no response, which was both a blessing and a curse.
He checked to make sure she hadn't hit her head or injured herself in the fall and breathed a huge sigh of relief when it seemed she was fine. He couldn't believe that they'd almost killed each other.
Then his thoughts quickly turned from panic for Cersei's welfare, to panic for his own. He knew now he had to leave King's Landing, and had to get out of here immediately. For when Cersei awoke, he did not know what she would do. He had tried to kill her. True, it was in self defense, but would that really matter to her? He'd first threatened to align with the Dragon Queen and betray all of her secrets. At worst she would have him executed, and at best put in the castle dungeons.
He felt wetness on his side, and absent-mindedly touched his hand to it. He was shocked to see blood. That was right, he remembered. Due to his concern for her and how he'd escape this mess, he'd momentarily forgotten that she had stabbed him. His wound didn't look as deep as he'd feared, and she hadn't come close to any organs, but he was bleeding profusely. Would he lose consciousness? He didn't feel lightheaded yet, at least.
It occurred to him he would need to find a maester. But, first he needed to slow the bleeding. He removed his shirt before ripping off part of Cersei's dress. He tried to tie it around himself, but Cersei was not Fat Walda, and it was not enough. He really was the stupidest Lannister. After his failure, it quickly occurred that she was a tall woman. He'd have to somehow get the whole dress off of her and tie the length of it around him.
He had it halfway off her when he stopped dead in his tracks.
There was blood. More blood. And it wasn't his this time. It was coming from between her legs.
This was it. She was losing the baby. Likely the only one she'd ever been able to have. All as a result of his actions. She wouldn't forgive this. He decided to lay down and close his eyes and wait for death to come.
But first he couldn't resist giving her one final, quick kiss. He knew it would be the last one, probably ever, even if there was some sort of afterlife, he doubted either of them would go to any place good. 'And even if we did both make it to one of the seven heavens she would probably never let me near her again after this'.
He kissed her tenderly as their blood mingled. He lay down on top of her, placing his arms around her in a loving embrace. He always knew they were meant to die together, but he'd never thought it would be like this.
"Seven hells, what the fuck is going on here?" A voice asked lowly as a door clicked shut.
He turned to look, finding himself staring into the eyes of none other than his friend. "Bronn! What the fuck are you doing here?" He asked.
Bronn followed Jaime's eye to the motionless Cersei on the floor. "What in seven hells happened here?"
"Osney…" he said weakly.
"Osney what?" Bronn asked, before following Jaime's eyes to the open bookshelf. "He attack the Queen?"
Rather than answer, he tried to ignore the approaching footsteps and just focus on dying.
"Stay with me. You don't get to die until I say you die. I'm still owed a castle," Bronn said. "Now wanna tell me what the fuck happened here?"
He opened his eyes, let go of Cersei and sat up, giving Bronn an anguished look. "I was in the process of taking off her dress to make myself a tourniquet to slow my bleeding, but then-" his voice broke, unable to voice what horribleness was happening to his Cersei.
Bronn glanced over at Cersei again. "That doesn't tell me a fucking thing about what happened here. Why were you bleeding?"
"Cersei and I argued. She started to call for guards, I tried to silence her, she stabbed me, I choked her, and then Osney came in and interrupted things."'
Bronn looked at him, astonished. "Seven hells. Fucking Lannisters. Well fuck. We need to get out of here now."
"Leave me. I cannot live while Cersei dies," he said, laying back down. They were meant to die together. He just hoped they'd have longer.
"She ain't gonna die."
"She's losing her baby. She will kill herself after this. I know it."
"Well you sure in seven hells ain't gonna bleed to death from that flesh wound. So what's your plan?"
He moved to a sitting position. "You could-" he began, making a motion of a throat being slit.
"Could, but won't. Get your pretty little blond head moving cause we're getting out of here."
"I can't…because…" he struggled to think of a reason. "I've no coin!"
Bronn raised an eyebrow. "Fucking hell. You're a Lannister, don't you basically shit gold?"
He rolled his eyes despite the situation. "Funny. I've not not enough to survive months on the run!"
"Well, fuck. We'll get gold. Just one thing first."
He turned to look to see Bronn approaching the bookcase. "What are you doing?"
"Putting the bookcase back in place, so nobody suspects a thing. Now get the fuck up off that floor cause if I have to drag you, it ain't gonna be pretty. And I will drag you by the tuft of that blond hair if I have to."
"I can't leave her. Not like this!" He protested.
"She needs a maester. Nothing you can do. I'll call for one. You head out through Maegor's Holdfast and get the gold you need on the way out. I'll head the other way." Bronn must have noticed the distrust in his eyes because he clarified. "I'll do it soon as we leave the room. Fuck. you'll probably even hear me. Now let's go."
As always I love reviews, but in particular on this chapter as its a huge change from when I had originally written and posted this. I know most of you probably never saw the original (if you did let me know - I'd love to know about any readers who read this when it originally came out years ago.)