Chapter Text
j a i m e:
“How beautiful you look, Little Dove,” his sister cooed, as Sansa arrived at the terrace where Cersei was breaking her fast. She’d summoned Sansa, which wouldn’t have alarmed Jaime overly much—both he and Sansa were well aware Cersei wanted the betrothal to Joffrey, with a fervency neither could account for—if not for the smirk she had graced him with as she did so, the caress of his cheek that had raised the hair of his neck. Cersei hadn’t tried to touch him, had actively shunned him in fact, since the moment he had rejected her advances after her wedding. Even when he had tried to comfort her after her first miscarriage, she had rebuffed him, launching vases at him and scratching at his face.
Coming back, waking up here, in this time, knowing what she had become, what she had done, to Sansa, to him… It had made him sick, and yet, even so, he had hated to see her in pain, and so alone.
Sometimes he wonders if his rejection had only brought her madness on sooner.
It’s been years of this, of loving and hating and fearing his sister, of tense disquiet and disgust, wondering what she would do to punish him. And now there is Sansa, and the period of unknowing, he fears, has passed.
He stands in the background, his back to the wall, eyes forward, trying to achieve that state of unseeing he had perfected long ago in the days of Aerys. But he can’t not see the tension in his wife’s shoulders, the flatness of her politely interested expression.
“Come, take a seat right beside me. You’re so gracious for such a young thing. Your mother and septa must be so proud of you.” He doesn’t look at her, positive Cersei is somehow having him watched, evaluated, but inwardly he seethes. She’s not just gracious, not even young. Cersei has no idea of the game she’s playing, but Jaime is confident Sansa can outwit her.
Their only obstacle is that Cersei is queen, and Sansa is but thirteen years old, at least, so she seems. Cersei has power neither of them can possibly wield. The only thing they have is foreknowledge, but it’ll have to be enough.
“You know my brother, I believe? Come Jaime, greet our guest.”
Inwardly, he sighs, braces himself for whatever game this is to be. “Your Grace,” he says, first acknowledging her command. He won’t give her any opening. “My lady, a pleasure,” he says with little more than a dip of his chin, but his eyes dart to hers. He tries to offer her his comfort, his strength, but he’s afraid all she will see is his fear.
s a n s a:
The invitation is long overdue, and there’s nothing to do but accept it. Anything else could be seen as an insult, and she can’t afford to generate Cersei’s displeasure. Not in this, and not yet. So she takes time to make sure everything is impeccable. Sansa takes extra time in the dress she chooses, and particularly in the way she styles her hair. She keeps some of the Southron style, a small compliment to the Queen that lacks the outright admiration and adoration she had once had and tried to secure from Cersei Lannister. The twists of her braids is that of the North, and Sansa takes strength from what little of her home she can find. If she cannot remain in the North, in Winterfell, she will not forget who she is and where she comes from.
None of it stops the thousands of questions that are swirling around in her mind in anticipation. She doesn’t know what Cersei wants from her, not yet. She’s not the traitor’s daughter, no longer the key to the North trapped in King’s Landing while everyone else is left to figure out what to do with her, who she will marry, if she will live. Her father’s head is still firmly attached at the neck, King Robert is alive and there has been no talk - at least amongst the Starks- about the paternity status of the Queen’s children.
She is granted entrance onto the Queen’s terrace and Sansa smiles prettily when greeted, no matter how much she wants to grind her teeth. “Thank you, Your Grace.” She curtsies low, as manners demand, and if she’s noticed, or is even surprised by her husband’s presence in the room she gives nothing away.
The great game has begun with neither of them truly ready for it, and Sansa crosses the room to the proffered seat with her back straight, her head held tall. She is the Lady of Winterfell again, and no one, not even Cersei Lannister, will take that from her.
Her cheeks flush simply because they must at the Queen’s compliment. Cersei expects a little girl, she expects a little dove ready to sing her sweet songs. “You’re too kind, Your Grace.” And she sits next to the woman, the very woman she had wished to never see again. The very woman who she had nearly begged her husband to not go back to King’s Landing for—no matter how honorable his intentions were.
The very woman that had finally, successfully, managed to kill her.
Tully blue eyes flicker towards the Knight in the room, her husband , and in this she must be precise. “We’ve met, Your Grace, in Winterfell.” And she turns towards her husband with nothing but a polite smile. “It's nice to see you again, Ser Jaime.”
She knows him. Knows him better than anyone, and she wants to comfort him. She wants to tell him not to worry, but no words can be spoken. No looks can be given, not without Cersei capitalizing on it. No, she must swallow her fear and push back any hesitation. If this is why they were brought back, they must not waste their chance.
She is Sansa Stark of Winterfell. She is his wife, and she will be strong enough for both of them.
So she tilts her body towards the Queen, and folds her hands neatly in her lap. “You asked to see me, Your Grace?” And she steers the conversation away from her husband, and back towards herself.
j a i m e:
He imagines it would be invisible to anyone else looking at her, anyone who hadn’t grown to love her when she’d had the weight of worlds on her shoulder, who hadn’t seen the way she crumbled when no one was looking, then watched as she pulled herself together and became the Lady of Winterfell again , all in the same breath.
He had seen it though, and he knows what it looks like. It’s the way she turns to greet him without even a flicker of familiarity in her gaze, the way she sits so precisely and proper—but not too proper, she’s only a girl after all—the way she doesn’t quite simper, but hovers on the edge, a little girl taking her breakfast with a queen, just like in the songs.
It makes him sick.
He wants to fall to his knees in front of her, beg her forgiveness for subjecting her to this, for being too weak to kill his sister twice. He wants to tell her that he had done it, in the end, even though it had killed them both. He had done it, and every ounce of will it had taken him, had all belonged to her. But he can’t do that, so instead he says a succinct “likewise” and returns to his job, protecting the life of the woman he’s already killed once. The woman he’s fairly certain he’ll have a hand in ending this time around as well, no matter how much he just wants it all to go away. They can’t give Cersei anything, nothing at all.
“So formal. Aren’t her manners lovely, brother?” Cersei says, smiling at Sansa like she’s a precious little doll. There’s a reason she’s doing this. She likes to pretend he doesn’t exist unless she’s trying to hurt him somehow. The only reason to bring Sansa into it is if she’s somehow gleaned that hurting Sansa is the best way to hurt him.
Fuck.
“Quite, Your Grace,” he replies stoically. With Aerys, he’d go away inside, just drift back to Casterly Rock in his mind, hear the waves trying to eat away at the cliff faces, roaring as loud as their sigil. His mind attempts the same now, out of some long forgotten survival instinct, but he pulls himself back. He can’t go away, not when Sansa is in danger. If she has to sit through this farce, he’ll stand by for every horrible minute of it.
“Come, brother, sit with us. We might as well get to know Sansa, Joff is quite enamored with our little dove,” she stage-whispers, like she’s confessing some great secret. It takes everything in him to not snap at his sister, his twin, who he once understood better than anyone, who he still can read better than any other person, perhaps besides his wife, but can’t understand, not anymore.
“I couldn’t abandon my post, Your Grace,” he tries, but her smile gets toothy and sharp.
“I insist.”
He pulls out a chair, noting that there are three chairs, and wonders how difficult it was for her to get him assigned to her. Not very, he’d imagine.
“Perhaps it’s too soon to speak of, but I hope we’ll be family,” Cersei coos, and reaches out to grab Sansa’s hand lightly. His teeth clench. “I thought, how nice would it be to have a little family meal? Everyone is so busy, of course, so it’s just us, but all the better, no? So much more cozy.”
Jaime pours himself a goblet of water, grateful that his duty allows him an excuse to abstain from the wine. He lost his taste for it years ago. Cersei clearly has not.
s a n s a:
She can’t think of a single reason for Cersei to have singled out her brother to be present for this conversation. Sansa only knows what Jaime’s told her, and what she remembers of the Queen in front of her. The rumors had always been prevalent in their past life, always surrounding them. But no matter how hard she tries, Sansa can’t remember ever seeing Jaime actually interact with his twin prior to them ending their... relationship .
There’s a reason he’s here though. Cersei doesn’t do things just to do them, and usually there’s some form of logic behind it. Jaime’s become a chess piece that she’s moving—or perhaps she’s the chess piece, Sansa isn’t entirely sure just yet—to suit a bigger purpose.
It isn’t about them, not yet, she thinks. This feels too much like a charade, too much like they’re under watchful eyes for it to solely be a trap. She wishes for a way to get her husband out of this—for him to be called away for something much worthier of his time. He doesn’t need to be here for this, he doesn’t need to watch his sister—his former lover—start to subtly interrogate his wife.
For a brief moment she wishes Tyrion was here with them. Sansa can picture her own former husband turned brother with a goblet of wine, asking Cersei what the entire point of the charade is, and to get on with it.
Sansa doesn’t get that luxury. Instead she has to watch Cersei’s game of cat and mouse as she exerts her power over Jaime to effectively get what she wants. What that is exactly, remains to be seen.
Briefly she busies herself by looking around the grand room, as any young girl new to the grandeur of the Red Keep would. The entire time her focus is truly on the two Lannisters, and she waits for some kind of signal.
The first test comes and Sansa knows there’s only one answer. To imply that she has no interest in marrying the future king, to reject him when truly it is a decision that must come down from her father in all appearances spells danger. But even the thought of referring to Joffrey as her one true love tastes like ash in her mouth.
So she smiles when the Queen takes her hand, and ducks her chin as if she’s embarrassed. “Nothing would make me happier, Your Grace.”
And it’s not a lie. They are family, and she intends to renew that connection in this life as well.
Just not to the Lannister relation that Cersei has in mind.
“Of course. It is very thoughtful, Your Grace.” There’s no one else in the room, and by Cersei’s own admission it doesn’t seem as if anyone else has been invited. She’s suddenly very glad she left the note in her room for Arya relaying where she had been summoned.
She’s momentarily distracted by the sound of Jaime’s goblet being dragged across the table, and no matter how much she wants to shoot him a look, a secret smile, she refocus her gaze on Cersei, her hand still firmly in her grip.
j a i m e:
Sansa’s rote replies grate on him, and he’s certain he didn’t even feel so sick when facing down a sea of corpses coming to kill him. No, it’s only his sister that wants him dead, and he vows internally to seek out Tyrion after this—whenever he returns from his adventures—to remind him that he is loved. Jaime has lived half a life—not half his life, but he has special circumstances—with his sister’s hatred, but he couldn’t imagine having known nothing but it. He thinks instead of sparring with Little Stark, of sparring with Brienne, though sometimes he can’t remember what feints she favored anymore. Even so, he still hears Sansa remark prettily on how dearly she’d love to be family. He covers the quirk of his lips with more water, which he is sucking down as if he could actually get drunk off of it.
The comment brings him back to himself more fully, and he tries to calm. Sansa is smarter than Cersei by far, more cunning, and more kind. They will win this. And regardless, it won’t be breakfast that breaks them.
He can see the wrinkles around Cersei’s lips, the one she likes to pretend aren’t there, deepen as her lips thin. No doubt she’s frustrated she can’t get more out of a child who by all rights should be gushing over her liege. You’ll have to work harder than that, sweet sister.
“Tell me, Jaime, how did you two meet?” Her eyes cut over to Sansa. “He’s very dedicated to his work,” she confides. “You must tell me your secret. I have the hardest time pulling him away these days. We used to get into all sorts of trouble as children. Inseparable…” Her gaze shifts into middle distance, and Jaime notes her knuckles are white where they grip Sansa’s hand. If she bruises, he thinks, I won’t be the Lannister sans hand in this lifetime.
“I was exploring the godswood, Your Grace. I had never seen a heart tree before traveling to Winterfell.” True. “I stumbled upon Lady Sansa in her prayers.” Cersei hums around the rim of her goblet.
“How interesting. Your mother told me you worship the Seven?” Cersei inquires politely, the hint of scorn only noticeable to those who know her. Unfortunately, they both do, only too well. “All the same, piety is so rare in the world these days, I must commend you for it. Perhaps Joffrey can take you to the Sept of Baelor. You might find it somewhat more awe-inspiring than your forest.”
Jaime chews on a piece of honeydew, tasting like ash in his mouth. Not Joffrey, not there. He wonders if Cersei would still sneer at the Godswood if she knew what Sansa’s gods were capable of. Sansa’s gods rewrote history. Your only god is yourself, sister, and I will see that history forgets you.
S a n s a:
It’s easy, falling back into this pattern. Perhaps it should frighten her more than it does, her ability to quickly recite exactly what she knows Cersei wants to hear, in a way that doesn’t give away much at all. There may already be differences, after all she doesn’t remember Cersei being much interested in the betrothal the first time around. It had been pushed by King Robert himself—and she certainly had never fallen into such a conversation with the Lannister twins.
But Cersei’s games are exactly as she remembers them, and there’s a sort of cold comfort in that. As long as they maintain appearances they may survive King’s Landing without too much incident.
The hard part is the why . With a free hand Sansa finds a lemon cake on the table, and places it delicately in front of herself. It looks beautiful, as tasty as she remembers the ones that Lady Olenna had once obtained for her. But these treats are from Cersei’s table, and no matter how much she wants to stick a finger into the filling for just a little taste, she doesn’t trust it. She does trust Jaime in handling his sister while she thinks, and tries to look as if she’s not intruding on a conversation by all rights a girl of ten and three should not be privy to.
Sometimes when I try to understand a person’s motives I play a little game. I assume the worst. What’s the worst reason they could possibly have for saying what they say, and doing what they do?
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Your Grace,” she says softly, eyebrows furrowed as if she’s confused. But she doesn’t think Cersei is listening to her, not anymore. Her fingers are slanted against one another, the bones rolling tightly in Cersei’s grip, and Sansa fights a grimace.
She’s the pawn, Sansa silently concludes. Everything points to her husband. Cersei is trying to catch him in a lie, she’s trying to get a reaction, though she doubts Cersei knows the depth of what she’s trying to determine.
Another test. She can hear the disdain almost as clearly as she can see the frustration in the tightness of Cersei’s mouth. They aren’t giving her nearly enough, and she’s using Catelyn Stark to catch them in a lie. Her lady mother has no reason to think otherwise, and can’t even begin to fathom why her eldest daughter has suddenly taken so much comfort from the Godswood.
“I do, Your Grace. But my father keeps faith with the Old Gods, and I’ve always found comfort in the Godswood.” It’s a half truth, but it seems as if those are the best stories to spin with Cersei. Nothing is a lie precisely, so it cannot ring as false. “It must be very grand.”
She remembers the Grand Sept.
Her father had lost his head on its steps.
She had married Tyrion there.
“I should be happy to accompany the Prince if he wishes to go.”
She’d rather take a dive off of Traitor’s Walk, but that will go over about as well as Sansa imagines.
Her fingers feel like pins and needles, but all she ignores it. She’s lived through worse pain. “Are you hungry, Your Grace?”
j a i m e:
He doesn’t know how she manages it, but Sansa looks perfectly at peace, though he knows there is only one place she despises as much as the Great Sept and that’s the Red Keep. He struggles to keep his food down, and only just manages to keep from gagging.
He’d woken up in Cersei’s bed that morning seventeen years ago. The place he’d killed her only moments ago, and the place he’d died in. He’d made such a commotion that Cersei had thrown him out—thank the Seven—before someone could hear and investigate. He’d killed her, and died in her arms, and then woken up in them, tangled together like it was okay, like it had ever been okay. He’d been sick on his way back to his rooms, several times. It had taken months for the nausea to abate, though he still can’t make it past the Dragon Gate without losing time.
Right now, whatever game she’s playing, she’s not trying to be cruel. She has no reason to suspect that the Great Sept has a feature role in every one of Sansa’s nightmares, and a few of his own as well—he sees it engulfed in green more frequently than he cares to admit, even still—and even should she plan for it to meet the same fate, it wouldn’t happen until years from now. But careless cruelty is the only thing Cersei does better than intentional cruelty, and he has a feeling that if she knew how discomfited she had made Sansa, she’d be crowing about it.
“In fact, I’m famished , little dove. Thank you for reminding me. I get so caught up in discussion when I meet new people.” There’s a small smile on Cersei’s lips that he can’t look away from, a smile he doesn’t like at all. She reaches for a covered dish in the center, and pulls the lid off, inhaling deeply.
The urge to gag returns to him.
Inside are three tiny roasted birds, each small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. If she wasn’t trying before, this is definitely intentional cruelty.
“It’s a delicacy from the Reach, one of the few things they do right,” she says, gently picking one up and holding it up with her fingers so neither Jaime nor Sansa has any choice to look. “The Ortolan. A rare songbird caught with a clever trap, then blinded and drowned in a goblet of hippocras. My chefs tell me it’s a good death for a little bird. You eat it whole, bones, beak, and all.” She sighs happily and brings it to her nose, inhaling the scent of the wine marinade. Then she looks up directly at Jaime, and bites down on the tiny bird, with a sickening crunch.
“I’ve never heard an ortolan sing, but their song can’t possibly be as sweet. Would you like one, little dove?”
S a n s a:
Sansa sits neatly in her chair, and doesn’t look towards her husband no matter how much she wants to. Her appetite is gone, though she’s not sure she ever had one despite the beautiful display. Cersei’s invitation had sat in her stomach like a rock. And maybe it is paranoia that makes her mind whirl with implications. The Queen has no true reason to despise her yet. Her family isn’t quite digging into the very true scandal of her children’s parentage. Ned Stark’s friendship with the still very alive King grants a small level of protection.
That’s not enough to make Sansa forget that Cersei wields her own power.
Still a part of her thinks this isn’t as bad as the Queen can make it be with a snap of her fingers. The food must not be laced with anything, not with how her husband is using it to thoroughly distract himself, or keep himself busy. If there was a way for me to get you out of here, I would do it in a moment, Husband. This is a game he should not have to play. And while she does need him, perhaps more than he even knows, to make him suffer this seems unnecessarily cruel. His wife, and the woman he had once spent most of his life loving locked in a battle of wills.
This is almost certainly about him. Sansa just isn’t sure why.
She returns Cersei’s smile with a child-like one of her own. She must not give anything away, or over play any of their cards. It’s hard, and Sansa still forgets that she looks so much younger than she actually is—and certain reactions are required if she’s to come across as innocent. Smiling at the beautiful Queen, looking happy if not excited to be dining with her. It’s the last thing she wants, but she can’t give Cersei any reason to suspect anything to the contrary.
Especially if her gut is right, and this first test has almost everything to do with Ser Jaime Lannister’s attentions.
Her stomach flips, but other than that there’s no outward reaction to the small bird Cersei wields like a trophy. Is this what is supposed to be their downfall? Her reaction to a tiny bird?
Sansa wants to laugh. It’s so much more than that, it always is with Cersei Lannister. She has lived through King’s Landing once before. She has lived through Petyr Baelish. She has survived Ramsay Bolton. She has lived through the Long Night.
This is the woman who killed her ultimately. And it’s that thought which prevents Sansa from taking one of the birds she’s been offered and taking a matching bite if only to show Cersei she can’t be intimidated.
So she forces herself to drop her gaze to her lap, to blink first in a way that will be read as innocent surrender. This is the long game—winning the first battle with Cersei won’t bring them anything but more trouble.
“No thank you, Your Grace. I couldn’t,” she speaks softly.
j a i m e:
His repulsion is a physical sensation, and he has to resist the urge to close his eyes in defeat. This one act seems somehow incredibly more monstrous than all the horrors she wrought in his past life, more premeditated, more sinister…
More evil than throwing a young boy out of a window?
One way or another, he is responsible for making Cersei what she is, just as he was in their last life. True, there are other mitigating factors—Robert’s violence and infidelity, their father’s disinterest, whatever irreparable damage their mother’s death wrought…
And yet still, he feels the weight of her actions as if they truly are one half of each other’s whole. Had he not indulged her as children, perhaps he wouldn’t have been made Kingsguard, perhaps he’d never have been blackened with the tar of the name kingslayer. Maybe Cersei would never have cultivated a taste for the flesh of her family, there would be no Joffrey, no war of succession...
Then again, if he hadn’t killed Aerys, perhaps King’s Landing would be little more than a crater.
It’s a useless exercise, and it does nothing to ease his trepidation. He cannot save Cersei, not from herself. There is only Sansa, their family, and the true war that awaits them.
There’s another grotesque crunch, and Cersei hums happily. It’s hard to tell whether she chose the food to match her new nickname for Sansa, or whether Sansa’s new nickname was derived directly out of Cersei’s desire to shred the girl between her very teeth. He’s not sure which is worse, frankly.
“Enough, Cersei. You know I despise those damnable little birds—” He finally says, pushing his chair away from the table. Her eyes flash, and she slowly lowers the hand holding what is left of the poor bird.
“You forget yourself, ser. ”
It has been this way since he spurned her advances after her wedding all those years ago. He’s not sure which of them first insisted on the distance of her formal title, but it had become a point of contention for them both. He didn’t want the closeness or familiarity of her name, and strove to remind her of what she had to lose, but the title was also everything that made her dangerous, a symbol of all of the power she has cultivated in both this life and the last. She wanted his affection, his adoration, his worship, but she also refused to admit she still wanted anything to do with him, would never bow so low as to admit she missed him, and would never settle for anything less than his entire wholehearted devotion.
It has been a dangerous impasse.
“My apologies, your Grace, ” he says working not to clench his teeth. “Might I be so bold as to request a desist in the eating of ortolans? I am not allowed to leave my post, and I would hate to dishonor us both by losing all the melon I consumed this morning, and on such a fine repast as that which you have had prepared to honor your guest.”
It’s not smart, and he can tell by the way her knuckles go white and her eyes flinty, that he will pay one way or another. She snaps her teeth down on the last of the bird, and his eyes flicker away, unable to watch. They land on his wife, and just as quickly travel elsewhere. He can’t look at her, not now. Not knowing that he had a hand in creating this monster, that he shares her blood, shared the womb with her—
“Perhaps the little bird sung out of turn,” Cersei muses, her voice musical and all the more chilling for it. “Perhaps,” she says, eyes traveling from her twin to Sansa, though it’s clear she’s talking to him. Warning him. “–little songbirds should be careful not to speak out of turn, and not to fly where there are more dangerous creatures waiting to strike.”
s a n s a:
Her polite refusal goes unacknowledged, and the feeling that settles in her stomach is not dissimilar to what it would have been during her first years in King’s Landing. Though there is an added benefit to being left alone in plain sight, rather than seeking solace in the Godswood. This is a show, a demonstration of power that stings despite the fact that it’s not nearly the amount the Queen had had in their previous lives.
Sansa sits quietly, as if she can’t see the tension between the two siblings, the former lovers, and her fork delicately pushes around the pieces of fruit on her plate. She takes small bites, as if the words can’t be heard – as if they’re far above her head. Her appetite is long gone, ortolans or otherwise, but she must continue on. She must. It becomes a small mantra in the back of her mind, a reminder that for as much as Petyr Baelish had once been right to push her in action rather than quiet observance, her husband is right too. She and Arya had waited for the right time, had created the opportune moment to expose Littlefinger in Winterfell. This will be no different. I’s for the best that the Queen remain ignorant of her involvement of playing the great game, though it doesn’t appear as if that will be too difficult to maneuver.
Jaime’s been playing for nearly two decades now, and his sister seems none the wiser.
They were not meant to do this – hadn’t they earned a life free of games in an independent North?
Is an independent North still a possibility? Her father will not betray the King, and their goal of avoiding the War of the Five Kings – of uniting families rather than pitting them against one another will remove the catalysts that ultimately named two of her brothers as King in the North.
Cersei’s threat – it is a threat, though certainly not her cleverest – pulls Sansa from her thoughts, and she forces her teeth to bite off a piece the fruit speared by her fork. Little bird, little dove , even without the less than subtle look placed her way the message is heard. Don’t let her needle you , she silently pleads to her husband, unable to catch his gaze without causing more suspicion. It’s a glance into the intimate relationship between the pair and it’s enough to show perhaps a little fissure in what used to be the Queen’s competence.
She’s not fool enough to doubt that Cersei can still pull strings, that accidents can occur, but it’s a bold threat to make against the daughter of a Lord Paramount who still lives and breathes- and walks these very halls, as does the King.
Whatever had happened between the twins upon Jaime’s own arrival back in time has festered, Sansa thinks. And has manifested into...
This.
Is it enough to use to their own advantage? Can the Queen be goaded into making enough little mistakes that will provide them that last proverbial nail to seal her coffin?
Any hesitation about condemning one for crimes they have not yet committed disappears as Sansa quickly looks away from the Queen and back to her own plate. Her duty is to protect her family – all of her family – her home, and its people .
Cersei Lannister remains a threat to all of them.