Work Text:
"Is he going to die?" Tyrion asked.
"I cannot say yet," Pycelle intoned gravely. "He fell hard, and his skull is cracked. By rights he should be dead already." He shook his head. "Slipping and falling down the stairs is not how a man such as he ought to go. At the least, I expect he will be comatose for a time. And if he does live, when he wakes there may be... changes."
"What sort of changes?" Jaime asked nervously.
"His personality may be different. He may forget things. He may go mad." Pycelle shook his head. "It is impossible to predict what may happen, with an injury to the head." He got up and made slowly for the door. "I have done all I can, for the time being. Make sure he is fed and watered and cared for, and summon me if there is any change."
Tyrion and Jaime looked at each other, and then back at their father, already looking half a corpse with his swollen, bloody, bandaged head and his face bruised and discolored. Tywin Lannister had always seemed as eternal and solid as Casterly Rock, and this just didn't seem real.
A pregnant week passed. And then, while Tyrion was reading by his father's bedside, he heard a hoarse noise, and looked up to see that his father's green eyes were open and looking back at him.
"My son," he whispered.
"You want Jaime? I'll go get him." He put down his book and moved to get out of his chair, but Lord Tywin reached out and pulled on his arm. He was weak, but his grip was insistent. Tyrion did not understand. "Father?"
"Tyrion," he whispered. "Here. Come here."
Tyrion climbed up onto the bed, still not sure what was going on and growing worried. The look on his father's face was one he had not seen before. He didn't know what it was, and it made him nervous.
His father reached with both arms and, to Tyrion's astonishment, hugged him. He held him tight and stroked his hair, and then kissed his forehead. "My son," he purred. "My son."
Tyrion was dumbstruck. "Who are you," he asked, "and what have you done with my father?"
Tywin smiled. Smiled. Tyrion remembered what Pycelle had said about possible changes, and burst out laughing. His father chuckled weakly along with him, and suddenly Tyrion realized that the look on his face was one of love. And then he began to weep. He hugged his father and kissed his cheeks, and silently prayed that this change would be permanent.