Chapter Text
S a n s a:
When she can finally leave Cersei’s terrace, Sansa does so as quickly and gracefully as she can manage. She doesn’t look back, just gives the Queen an almost demure smile before she starts to make her way back to the Hand’s Tower. She wants to find Jaime, she wants to make sure he gets to leave the terrace but in this she has no power. He is a member of the Kingsguard, and he has sworn duties.
Sansa wants Jaime Lannister, her husband, not the knight of the Kingsguard. But in this moment his current position comes first. Logically she knows this, they have roles to play and that doesn’t change simply because she wants to make sure he’s okay. That he knows that she’s okay. That they can do this.
It was their first test, and even with the twists and turns of Cersei’s fishing expedition, they did well.
But if the Queen is already onto them, she’s having them watched. They need to stick to their routine and not do anything to give Cersei more reason to be suspicious. Running to where she knows Jaime’s apartments are will do nothing but cause trouble if she’s seen by the wrong person.
Only—she doesn’t necessarily have to be seen. Arya had found him through the tunnels. The entrance is just behind the tapestry. There’s no way of knowing whether or not Jaime will head there, but she has to try.
She returns to her rooms just so that her father’s guards see. And while she’s there, Sansa thinks to grab the small dagger she had been gifted with for practice to hide between the folds of her skirt. She isn’t Arya, she’s not as stealthy, not as ready to go for the fight. But if the tunnels are there, odds are that they aren’t the only ones who know about it.
And she’d promised she’d try. Try to take it seriously, try and keep herself protected in the event she found herself cornered in a dark alleyway.
Sansa slips from her room when she’s sure the guard has moved on, and quickly darts behind the tapestry Arya had described when no one is looking. The tunnel is dark, a little damp, and she wishes she had brought a candle with her, although that would have brought more attention to herself had she been caught.
It’s eerily quiet, and she can hear her breath as she walks forward in what she hopes is the right direction. Has anyone ever got lost down here? Are there twists and turns that lead to other places in the Red Keep?
It would have been nice to know before. Maybe she could have left earlier. With the Hound. Or on her own. Anyone but Littlefinger.
The footsteps coming her way cause she’s chest to constrict, and her hand tightens around the handle of the blade that’s hidden. It’s only when he’s closer, when she can decipher the stride, sees the silhouette of him, that she blows out a breath Sansa doesn’t realize she had been holding, and the dagger clatters to the floor as she hurries to him.
Her arms wrap around Jaime before she can help herself, offering him all the comfort she couldn’t afford to give him on the terrace. “Are you alright?”
j a i m e:
They both watch as Sansa sweeps around the corner, her elegant, though demure, gown swishing behind her. Cersei’s nails tap against the glass of her wine goblet, already full and empty twice over since breakfast began. Jaime hasn’t tasted alcohol since the morning after his first day in this life.
“A pretty thing. This city will crush her.” I will crush her, he hears.
“She’s a child, your Grace,” he replies. He’s not sure how he means it. She’s nothing to me, just a child. Don’t hurt her, she’s only a child. She’s not worth your attention, she’s just a silly child.
“Children grow.”
He says nothing, only looks away.
“Speak to me with such impudence again, brother, and I’ll have your tongue cut out. Leave me. Send Trant, I can’t stand the sight of you.” He bows and exits the room before she has a chance to change her mind, or find some new way to torture him.
He needs to go to Sansa, needs to touch her, needs to know she’s protected, that she’s unhurt. He needs to hold onto something to stop his hands from shaking. He’s spent seventeen years in this castle with his sister, and he hasn’t been so affected since the very beginning of them. There is very little, he suspects, that they can do now to keep Sansa safe. Luckily, he suspects the Queen doesn’t actually care about Sansa, doesn’t actually hold a grudge. She doesn’t believe Jaime would ever do something so foolish as fall in love with a thirteen year old girl, who also happens to be the daughter of the man who hates him most in all of Westeros. Honestly, it’s almost flattering how she overestimates him in that respect.
All Cersei knows is, at the most, someone spied Sansa on his elbow at some point. This was a warning. Touch her, and watch her get torn apart.
He finds Trant, sends him on his way, and retreats to his rooms. He knows he’s being watched one way or another, but the further his feet take him from Sansa, the more his hands shake. At least in his chambers, he can scrub his face with cold water, take off his armor. Every time he sheds that abominable white armor, he feels like he’s shedding every crime he’s ever committed, every wrong he is guilty of in this life, and the last. If only Sansa’s gods had sent him back just a little further. He could’ve saved so many. Elia and her babes, Arthur and Lyanna and seven hells, maybe even Rhaegar. He’d tell Ned Stark of the barrels of wildfire, keep Brandon Stark from challenging the king. Why hadn’t they sent him further? Why had they allowed Cersei to keep her crown?
It’s only after he’s changed that he remembers Arya’s passageway. He knows these passageways are Varys’ territory, knows that relying on them and even using them is foolish at best, but at least Varys will only act when and if it suits him. He has no trouble leaving people to their follies, as long as he knows of them when they’ll come in handy. And this time, Jaime can’t wait. He can’t make the smart move and stay away. He’s fairly certain he’ll shake right out of his bones if he tries.
He finds the entrance again with ease, and hurries through it probably too quickly for how dark it is. He can smell her only a moment before she launches herself at him, and he pulls her close on instinct.
Is he alright? The idea is almost laughable. “No,” he answers honestly. He’s not sure exactly why this display has shaken him so much. Perhaps his emotions are just running high. This is the first time Sansa’s been in direct danger since she died, after all, and so naturally, the danger comes at the hands of her murderer. He stills see it at night, nearly two decades after the fact. He’ll always see it. Always remember how she’d come south like she’d vowed never to do, for him.
Both times.
“I’m sorry, Sansa, I should’ve said something sooner, she’s—” his hands coast from her cheeks to her neck, shoulders to waist, unable to settle, unable to believe that she’s still whole. He shakes his head. “It’s my fault, I did this, she’s even worse than before, I can’t—”
S a n s a:
The breakfast hangs heavily in the air, and Sansa knows later she will need to think back on it. Everything is a lesson, information that can be used, and if anything has been made readily apparent it’s that their changes haven’t only affected the immediate targets. Cersei is the same and different all at once, and for the life of her Sansa can’t figure out why the Queen has decided to show so much of her feelings regarding her brother with a stranger. It must be her age, Sansa thinks. It’s another thing Jaime had been right about in their brief reunion in the Godswood at Winterfell. She’s not seen as a true threat, but a silly little girl. She’s a little bird again in the eyes of the Queen, and it may just be the right role to use until it’s no longer available.
Jaime though. She remembers how the decision to ride back South after the defeat of the Night King had been for him. She remembers how much he cared for Cersei, and remembers a whispered concern from Tyrion who had been terrified that by walking back into the room there were only two options for his brother for the outcome.
That time, Tyrion had been right on point with understanding his sister. But Sansa couldn’t let her husband navigate that alone, or get caught in a trap she was sure she would be able to see before it was too late.
Funnily enough she had, but not before she’d been caught.
He’ll have what to say about her so readily dropping her weapon, she’s sure. There’s a voice that sounds suspiciously like Arya that’s already scolding her for the mistake, but it is Jaime. Something in her always knows when he’s near, and without his armor hindering her access Sansa can finally collapse against him, and she buried her face against his chest, just where his heart is.
His pulse is accelerated, she can hear it under her ear, but it beats strongly. He is alive, and they have survived the first test.
She laughs softly, and it’s muffled by his shirt. It’s an unamused little thing, a release of some of the tension that she’d been holding onto ever since she had been summoned. Sansa must be destined in every life to suffer Cersei’s close scrutiny, no matter how careful they are. She’s no fool though, she can read the message that she’s sure Cersei would write in her blood if it meant getting to Jaime.
Cersei will use her to hurt her twin if it comes down to it, if she doesn’t get what she wants, or if they make her mad enough.
“I love you,” she whispers as she pulls away from his chest so that she knows he’ll hear. That nothing about that meeting has swayed her to change course, to add distance between them. She rests one hand on his chest, right where her cheek had been resting, and her other rests on his cheek. The touches are soft, chaste, but imbued with everything she feels for this man.
She knows he’s not okay. She knows Cersei got under his skin with her deliberate threats. It’s something she and Jaime have always had in common—they will fight, they will do anything to protect the people they love.
“You don’t have to apologize for her. It’s not your fault.” It may be a consequence of a change he’s made, but truly, Sansa doesn’t find the meal to stand out from any of the other conversations with Cersei. And it surely doesn’t compare to Joffrey. After all, there had been no crossbow pointed directly at her. “Shh. She’s not, Jaime. The only difference was that this message was for you instead of me.” She cups his face, and her thumb rubs gently along the sharp angle of his jaw. “We’ll survive this. Trust me.”
She’ll play the game. She’ll do whatever it takes to get the Starks and her husband free of King’s Landing.
Sansa pauses, and gives her a husband a wry smile, a smile that she learned from him, although she’s desperate to make him laugh.
“I almost ate the damn bird,” she confesses.
j a i m e:
She’s here, she’s here, she’s here—
He wonders if he’ll ever stop repeating those words to himself—a reminder, a mantra, a promise, a whisper of comfort. He closes his eyes, rests his chin on the top of her head—because she’s short enough that he can do that now—and just tries to breathe. Is it always going to be like this? Stolen moments inundated with panic and frantic embraces that are as far from amorous as could be? Every time he lets her out of his reach, he feels like his heart is galloping right out of his chest after her.
“I love you, too,” he breathes, his words barely audible through the lump in his throat. It’s ridiculous for him to be so overwrought by a simple breakfast, in which Cersei didn’t even utter a single credible threat, let alone throw a goblet or sic one of her fiends on anyone. It was positively tame by her normal standards. So why can’t he breathe?
He leans into her touch, hating himself for needing this from her, when by all rights, he’s the one who should be comforting her.
“I made it worse, Sansa, I couldn’t bear to look at her when I first awoke. I had watched her kill you, I had killed her for it, and now she was back, and she wanted to touch me, and maybe I should’ve let her, or, or, tapered it off slowly, or something, but I couldn’t stand it, and Gods, it was—” It was a nightmare, is what it was. The only times he could recall her being so angry were when their mother and Joffrey died. Perhaps when Myrcella was sent away, but even so, it hadn’t been so blatantly focused on him. Even just before he left to go North, when she had threatened to kill him that first time, there had been an unnerving calm to it.
“It was like Joffrey dying all over again, only I was the murderer and the dead man.” It had been the height of bizarre, and might’ve been funny if she hadn’t gotten so dangerous so quickly. More than one of the servants who regularly tended to him had gone missing, and he was not unaware of who had chosen their replacements. He had eventually decided the best option was to simply retreat unto himself, limit his interactions with any women, and certainly his sister, and try to fade into the wall whenever they were forced into close contact. And then when she had cooled down enough to grow ice cold in her fury, she did the ignoring for him.
But this? This brings back those dangerous early days, when his every move was taken either as a reaffirmation of his love or as a personal attack. And he’s gotten Sansa caught in the middle of it.
He considers her words. Yes, that’s true, he had always had limited exposure to his sister’s mad games last life. He hadn’t been around to see it with Sansa, and Margaery had played enough of her own games that Jaime hadn’t been able to see her as a victim. There were others, of course. Robert, Jon Arryn, Baelish, Ned Stark, but at the time, those had been grown men, threatening to come between he and his love. As far as he had been concerned, Cersei had just been the smartest one of the lot, and it was as she always said, in the game of thrones, you win or you die.
It was a rigged game; they had all died in the end.
But now his sister is playing her game with him. She probably has been, this entire time, only now the stakes are upped.
“I am not good at games,” he confesses, though he knows his wife is well aware. Then he bursts out laughing. “Of course you did. You’ve always excelled at her games, haven’t you?” It’s not said in a demeaning way. Jaime is well used to keeping company far more intelligent than himself, and he is good at it. He is a useful tool to be moved into place and deployed at will, but he’s hardly known for his good decision making. He respects cleverness and cunning all the more for his lack of it. And his wife is the most clever person he’s ever met. He even thinks she beats out Tyrion.
“Eating the bird hadn’t even occurred to me as an option. I wasn’t kidding, you know, about vomiting. I truly have always hated those birds.”
S a n s a :
She may have tried her hardest to at least understand the loss her husband had been feeling back in their previous life. No matter what happened between them, Sansa has come to terms with the fact that Jaime Lannister had loved his sister. Truly, deeply loved her for what and who she was. Coming to terms with what that meant, and seeing what had come from it was something she couldn’t necessarily help him with, no matter how much she wanted to.
And so Sansa holds him, offers him what she can while he takes his time. She remembers her own terror, remembers how all she had had was Shae, and while the woman had done her best, there had been no comfort like this. Sansa knows this feeling, the terror and conflicting relief because while something is inevitably coming, for now it is over and there is time to breathe.
She and Jaime love each other. It’s a naive thought to think that love is enough, that they will simply survive because they love each other. She had loved Jaime when they had gone to find Cersei the first time, and that had done nothing to prevent their deaths. But together, they stand a chance. Together.
“I should hope so,” she teases softly. “I don’t know if I could manage this without you.”
The thought is terrifying, debilitating, and so she shoves it far away. There’s no sense in dwelling on it. They are here and they are together.
And the relief that they had succeeded in their goal that night, that lifetime, is bittersweet. It’s nice to know that her death—their deaths—had not been in vain...but at what cost? How much of himself had Jaime had to destroy in the process? She isn’t sure she could bear to watch his death. “We’re both here now. There’s a reason for all of this. You didn’t make anything worse, my love. Not when the alternative is making the same choices to lead to the same mistakes.”
Selfishly she’s glad. The idea of having the watch the siblings together and play indifference makes her stomach flip.
“I wasn’t here for the aftermath of the wedding.” Sansa had already apologized for leaving Tyrion like that, but it’s not hard to make the leap that had she stayed, she would have been dead sooner rather than later. “She once told me to love no one but my children. That love is poison, a sweet poison that will kill you all the same.” And there was no one Cersei loved more than Joffrey, except perhaps Myrcella and Tommen.
If anything was capable of driving her to true insanity, it would be that. She supposes losing Jaime is a slightly less potent version of that, and it adds to the things to be considered when dealing with her.
Successfully managing to ensure her betrothal to Jaime is going to create waves.
“It’s not a game, really. Think of it as war.” That is something he has more experience than just about anyone she knows. “I’ve seen you with Jon, with Brienne figuring our strategies. There’s a reason why they listened to you.”
Excelled? Sansa snorts, and it’s not a delicate, lady like thing. “I survived, Jaime. I had to learn.” It had taken her some time, she had always been a slow learner. “But I did.”
But his laughter makes her feel better almost instantly and suddenly Sansa’s smiling. It’s a genuine one, the kind that had been solely reserved for him in the cold winter. “I wanted to. I don’t know if it would have sat well in my stomach once I left the room, but the thought crossed my mind.” She didn’t want to give Cersei anything, no advantage. “But someone told me it’s better to be underestimated, so I thought flinching first might be in our best interest.”
j a i m e:
“You don’t have to,” he says quietly. He won’t lead either of them to their deaths this time. If he can prevent it, she will never know the pain of watching him die, though he supposes he has as much power over that in this life as he had in the last. His sister has ever been unpredictable, and though he thinks perhaps Sansa is the only one able to see through her, he does wonder if even Sansa can predict every move. No one had foreseen what she had done to the Tyrells. What cards does she have up her sleeve this time? Just how far is she willing to go?
“Cersei and Joffrey were the easy parts. It was the politicking that had me stumped. I always tried to imagine what improvements you’d make. You were always thinking about how to feed your people. How to keep them safe. What do the people need from their Lady?” His eyes have tried to adjust, but there’s no light to be seen, so he lets his hands guide him, running through over her hair, in the Northern style, down her shoulders then to her hands, following them to where they rest on his skin. He cradles the backs of her palms and shakes his head a little bit. “I never had patience for those kinds of lessons as a boy. Cersei was denied them, while Tyrion lapped them up the way he later lapped up wine. And even if I had, ruling from the Rock was different. Father was untouchable, he didn’t hear petitions or walk amongst his people. He had servants for that. Everything I learned about being a lord I learned from watching you,” he admits quietly.
“I didn’t know anything about growing grain, or Westeros’ meat supplies, but I did know who caused the most damage in the War of Five Kings. So I tried to… mitigate, I suppose. And hope that nothing back fired.” He shrugs. It all sounds a little more grandiose, when he was flying by the seat of his pants. “Most of it should be credited to Tyrion, in all honesty. I just had to give him the desired outcome, and he would chart our course.” Not Gregor Clegane though. Jaime was responsible for that decision, and him alone. It’s a choice he is proud of. It’s what Elia had deserved long before she got it in his first life.
His sister’s words about love make him sad, sad for her, sad for himself, and sad for the life he’d once led. It’s bittersweet, because he is still that man, and he will have to live the rest of his life knowing that (and if he’s unlucky, the rest of his next life as well). And yet, he had grown much, even before his death, and even more since. The love that had poisoned them both in their first life, he had fought his way free from. It had killed him ultimately, it’s true, but it wasn’t his poison that had killed him. It’s the same now, he feels. What poison was between them took root in his sister alone this time, and it has done its damage. “She was right. It did kill her. I suppose it killed us all. She never knew a love like ours though, wife. I can assure you of that.” And that is how they’ll beat her this time. Let her underestimate their knowledge, their bond, the lengths they will go to to keep each other safe. It will destroy her in this life much as it did in the last. Only this time, Jaime won’t let her have them, too.
“I think my wars look different from yours.” He knows they do, or rather, they used to. But he knows they are one and the same in truth, as well. Her wars lead to his wars, and his wars fuel her wars. “They listened to me because I lost to the best war general in Westeros. High praise indeed.” But it’s not true, not really. He lost to Robb Stark, but he learned from him too. He learned from his father, and the costs of expediency in war. His father had claimed that killing a dozen men at dinner would save thousands of men in the field, but it hadn’t really, had it?
Unable to help it with the despondency of his thoughts, the calculating bite to them that feels strange even now, Jaime rests his forehead against hers and smiles. “You will know you would’ve eaten the bird, and I will know you would’ve eaten the bird, and we are the only two people whose opinions matter in this,” he vows wryly.
s a n s a:
“And neither do you.”
Neither of them will be alone this time. It doesn’t make up for the past twenty years, though, and Sansa’s not sure if anything ever will. She can’t imagine what it had been like, for her husband to wake up after what they had found in King’s Landing, what had happened to them there, to starting over. She had only had to wait a little more than a fortnight to be reunited with him. She was a girl again, a young girl of ten and three, but that’s nothing compared to the near two decades he’s had to live through alone, and had to face in the aftermath of what their choices had brought them.
The easy parts. Now Jaime’s stumped her. She can’t think of a single moment where Cersei has ever been easy . Even after they had been married, after they had spent moons as husband and wife, he had run off in the middle of the night for his sister. And she knows it had been to kill Cersei, which makes a small difference...But what he’s done now? It can’t be easy. It couldn’t have been easy. And now there’s a noticeable Cersei shaped hole in their marriage, and Sansa doesn’t know what to make of it. “ Jaime ,” she laughs, despite the fact that she means to be serious, but it’s hard when all she can feel is his hands. Everywhere. “Helping people has never been something you’ve struggled with.”
The fact that King’s Landing is standing, twice over, is proof enough. “It’s the games the great lords and ladies play that cause the wars the rest of the world has to fight, to die for.” It’s summer, winter is some ways away and they’ll be better prepared for it all. They’ll have to either foster a better relationship with the Tyrells, or not allow Highgarden to fall into Cersei’s hands. “You make a fast study.” Her thumb runs across his lower lip, the closest she’ll get to a kiss in this moment, and likely for some time to come.
She doesn’t have the heart to tell him that most of what she had learned had been in Cersei’s court, or Margaery’s.
“Perhaps I was still with you, even then.”
Sansa likes the sound of that much better. For her, one moment Cersei’s dagger had been at her throat, and in the next she had been waking up in her chambers—her old chambers—back in Winterfell. Lady had been at her feet, her Lady Mother had come running at her screams, but she could still feel the pressure of Cersei Lannister’s hands.
It was as if no time had passed, and even knowing what she does, it’s hard to swallow the idea that to Jaime they’ve been married for nearly twenty years. Longer than she had been alive in either of these lives.
“Part of wisdom comes from asking for help when you need it.” Perhaps the Dragon Queen’s second dragon wouldn’t have been slaughtered, or their fleet ambushed, had she been willing to consider Sansa’s points. “Have a little faith in yourself, my lord husband. I believe in you.”
She never knew a love like ours though, wife.
“No,” Sansa agrees, trying to talk through the sudden lump in her throat that she pretends isn’t there. She had once thought herself an idiot, allowing herself to fall in love with a man who could manipulate her, a man whose history was so intertwined with the very woman she would execute herself if given the opportunity. “It killed her perhaps, but we did what we had to Jaime. I would travel South all over again if I had to.”
There’s no regret. Would she have preferred the two of them to stay North? To let the others deal with Cersei and fight over the Throne? Absolutely. But she couldn’t lose him either, not if there was something she could’ve done.
She supposes there was, but it didn’t make much of a difference in the end.
Except—
“We’re still here, Jaime. She didn’t poison that.” He can’t see her smile, so she rocks forward up onto her toes to bury her face against the nook of his neck so he can feel it.
“They listened to you because you know what we’re up against. You’ve seen more than anyone I know, and can anticipate any enemy you’ve dealt with.”
Perhaps not the dead, but Sansa doubts anyone could have ever truly been prepared for them.
His forehead finds hers, and Sansa’s eyes close as she just takes a moment to enjoy being there, breathing the same air he is. There’s no audience, and they’ve got some time before anyone notices that either of them are missing. “Your opinion is the one that means the most to me. But Jaime, I must ask you something.” And she doesn’t think he’s going to like it.
“If Cersei baits you using me, you must ignore it. No matter what she does. Promise me.”
j a i m e:
Her laughter, and the simple ease with which she believes what she says, that he’s never had a problem helping people, strikes him through his core. It’s not true, not really. Helping people always seemed to be a monumental task, or one that only occurred when he had no other choice. Helping people usually resulted in some catastrophic change of course in his life. He saved King’s Landing, became eternally ridiculed as a kingslayer. He tried to protect Brienne, lost his hand.
He went North to fight for the living, and married his wife.
Not all bad, he supposes.
In fact, perhaps it’s since his marriage that helping people had become less of a life-changing action and more of a motivation. He supposes the entire reason he’s done everything he has in this life is to help people, at its core. That’s what surviving the coming years means, isn’t it? “I learned from the best,” he says, running his knuckle over her cheekbone.
The closeness they’re afforded in the darkness feels almost holy, and he wonders how many years they will need to wait before this becomes something that is their right, rather than a stolen guilty pleasure. Even in the darkness, this isn’t safe, but it’s been far too long for him to care. “Always, wife. I’ve carried you with me, always.” They feel like the truest words he’s ever said.
“You have,” he murmurs quietly. She has traveled South all over again, and her life is in just as much danger now as it had been the last time. They are on a fool’s errand, but they’ve neither of them claimed not to be fools. And besides, they’ve had crazier schemes.
They’re wound so tight they could be mistaken for one silhouette, and yet there’s nothing licentious about it. His love for Cersei had been wrapped so tightly in sex that it’s strange to think love can exist without it, and yet, just having her in his arms is satiation enough, after so long.
“Flatterer,” he chides, smirking into her hair, but the levity settles once more, and he holds her neck in his hands as their foreheads rest together. He’ll give this woman anything she wants, he’ll move mountains, wait decades for her, and decades more if he has to. Then she makes her request and he snorts.
“There’s no chance in all seven hells of that happening, my love. Last time Cersei baited me using you, you died. I had to watch. ” His thumbs stroke her cheekbones, and he finds the pain at the memory, while still breathtaking, is diminished by the knowledge that she stands here in his arms. Even the Stranger was no match for us, wife. “How about, we agree to do everything in our power to avoid a situation where Cersei has the power to make us face such a choice, hm? I wager we have a fair chance at outmaneuvering her this go-round.”
S a n s a:
I learned from the best her husband says, and Sansa swallows back a snort of laughter. “Tyrion’s always excelled at teaching,” she teases lightly, though there’s truth in that too. She just doesn’t want to linger on the how she learned. Cersei had demonstrated what not to do when it came to earning the love of the small folk – while Lady Margaery, the Queen Margaery had been the opposite. For a moment, she wonders if the Tyrells will make an appearance—though it seems unlikely if there was no opportunity for their goal to be achieved.
Perhaps it’s for the best. She still remembers of hearing of the destruction of the Sept, and everyone who had been in it.
And they’re not merely playing the game this time, they’re changing it. Every choice they make, every step they take to avoid something that came about in their past life is going to create something new.
The ripple scares her, the unknown. She can protect her family, her husband, from known enemies but it’s the unseen that will need to be evaluated, anticipated. Cersei’s ire for her twin will change things in its own way, as will the fact that while the children are still not Baratheons, they are not Jaime’s either.
If only she can evade a betrothal to Joffrey.
Her husband is much better at turning a phrase, Sansa thinks, and she can’t hide the way her eyes start to well up with unshed tears. He had been alone , alone with his thoughts and knowledge, and there’s no way to carry the burden for him.
Perhaps she can make it easier for him, now that she’s here too.
Her hands explore every part of him that she can. It’s nothing more than a simple reminder that he’s here, and that he’s well. Every time she finds the fingers of his right hand Sansa can’t help but investigate, can’t help but try and commit every new piece of him to memory. But there’s more than just that, he’s different too. She’s not too sure yet, and while part of him seems like he’s just less tired, less battle-worn, there’s something else too.
“I go where you go, husband.”
Sansa laughs, a natural laugh that feels lighter than she can ever remember it being. “As is my right as wife. And as it’s one of the only rights I’ll get to take for quite some time, I’m afraid you’ll have to just indulge me.”
This is why they’ll survive, she’s sure of it. They’re together, they’re stronger together, and while she may be stronger within the walls of Winterfell, she’s stronger with Jaime too. No one should be capable of making her feel like this, especially after leaving Cersei’s chambers, but somehow this man is able to.
Until he snorts in a way that just spells his disagreement, and Sansa’s eyes flash in her own stubbornness. She doesn’t pull away, can’t bring herself to when she doesn’t know when the next moment that they can steal will be, but her hands reach to wrap around his wrists as he all but holds her face. “ Jaime .”
If he reacts, if they react, they give Cersei something to hold against them. She’s not sure just trying to avoid a situation that Cersei crafts is enough of a guarantee.
“You’re distracting me,” she finally grumbles, too focused on the feel of his thumb to point out the very obvious.
What happens when they’re stuck in such a situation anyway?
“We need to get out of King’s Landing.”
j a i m e:
He hadn’t realized how much he misses being touched until he’s got Sansa’s hands mapping him. It’s been years since someone touched him so freely, and with such affection. Her fingers dip between the fingers of his right hand, and his lips quirk. “It’s strange isn’t it? It took me years to become fully reacquainted with it. My sword wielding skills were a fright. I’m fairly certain Selmy thought I’d had a fit of apoplexy in my sleep,” he murmurs into her hair, feeling content for the first time since he’d woken up all those years ago. “This must be the first time this hand has ever touched your hair.” It’d probably come across as suave if not for the smirk she can’t see, but undoubtedly intuits.
He hums in response to her vow, but it makes him think. Can she go where he goes? In this life, he is still a member of the Kingsguard, still honor-bound to protect the king and his royal family. He’s not fool enough to think that it will remain safe for Sansa to stay in King’s Landing beside him, nor does he believe they can achieve what they mean to achieve from here. But he’s loathe to bring more bad tidings into this moment, and simply tugs her closer, though there’s hardly anywhere for her to go.
“Distraction is the point, love.” And he doesn’t want to speak of his sister and her games anymore, or all the ways those games will likely lead to their deaths, again.
“We do, and we can’t,” he says, voice flattening with his distaste. “There’s too much we’ve yet to do, and for now, King’s Landing is the only place we can do it from. But soon, Sansa, I promise you. No Stark will be trapped in this city again. We need to plan, and we need a way to talk, safely. Even your training sessions won’t be private enough, I think.” He draws back, reluctantly, knowing his absence has likely already been noted by his sister, and several other peering eyes. He doesn’t have a good solution, and he could ask Tyrion upon his return, scheduled for any day now, but he shudders to think what conclusions his brother will draw if Jaime asks his advice for a good place for clandestine meetings.
“I can leave notes for you in here?” He suggests, brow furrowed. And to think he once used to be an expert on clandestine assignations in this castle.
S a n s a:
She should argue. It’s the next step, and the response is already on the tip of her tongue. It’s a gut reaction, an involuntary action because in whatever it is they’re going to plan– change –they must not get caught or fail. There are too many unseen enemies, too many possibilities in front of them, because no matter how much of the future they may know, their actions are bound to have consequences that, if all goes as planned, will change the path they had once walked considerably.
Distraction is the last thing they need, and her husband had never failed in that regard to begin with.
Her mind wanders back to breakfast, to Jaime’s immediate reaction to the birds on display while Cersei toyed with both her words and her food, and any argument to the contrary dies before it can fall past her lips. They can discuss it later, when it isn’t so new.
It does beg the question—what had been whispered to Cersei about lessons of swordplay for children to bring that bold of a threat?
A question for another time, she thinks, and nods when Jaime speaks next. He’s right, of course he is, and she believes him. She has to. Her father will ride out of King’s Landing with his head firmly attached to his shoulder, and Arya won’t have to flee. Even if they’re stuck in the capital now, it is only temporary.
“I don’t think there is anywhere remotely near these walls anymore that can be called private.” Cersei’s already made mention of not only the lessons, but of the Godswood. Even these tunnels can hardly be called private when they don’t even know the full extent of who has access to them.
Sansa blows out a small breath, and her eyebrows furrow as she thinks, staring pointedly at something beyond her husband’s shoulder. She doesn’t want to involve anyone else in this just yet, not until they have a true plan, and even then, the idea of risking any of the people they care about causes her stomach to flip uncomfortably. That leaves the pair of them alone, and coin isn’t enough to buy loyalty in a city where everyone is willing to double prices in exchange for information.
“A word to meet here?” It can be nothing incriminating, nothing of any real substance written in either of their hands in the event it falls into the wrong hands before the fire.
“What about a sign? I could perform particularly poorly in one of the training sessions.”
Perhaps her sister would jape about that being every lesson, Sansa thinks and smiles.
a s p i d e r:
In the dark, a spider sits content in its web, swallowed up by the shadows, unheard and unseen.
“As much faith as I have in your growing skills, wife, it will be just as difficult to meet up to spar unannounced as it will be to meet for other things.” Clandestine rendez-vous can only be permitted to a certain extent and toward a certain goal. More information is needed.
There is silence, and a hum, the slightest susurrus of skin on skin, or perhaps hair…? He daren’t leave his spot safe in his web to move closer, but any fears he might have are quickly assuaged.
“...perhaps ribbon in your hair?” The two settle an agreement of ribbons and colors and meanings, and depart, leaving the spider to spin his web in the dark.
Hmm. Much to consider.