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He’s drunk, rolling on top of her, his breath stinks and she keeps on telling herself that it’s worth it - he is tall and strong and brave and King, and she’s Queen of all the Seven Kingdoms, this is worth it; she can live through this.
Robert opens his mouth, and for one terrible moment his lips make the shape of an L, and Cersei thinks he’s going to ruin it all. For the rest of their lives - Cersei is a proud woman, a prouder wife and lover, she is nobody’s replacement and she knows if he said her name in their wedding bed then she’d never be able to forgive him.
But he doesn’t. He just gasps, and groans, and shoots his warm load into Cersei so hard it almost makes up for his inebriation.
Robert doesn’t groan her name, but as he rolls off of her, Cersei breathes deeply and smiles - there’s time for that.
.
Robert can’t really understand his lady wife: Lyanna was always so open and wild and free and never caring what anybody thought, not her father or brothers or betrothed. But Cersei is so radically different to any woman he’s known before - she looks at him out of her slanted green eyes like she’s saying something he doesn’t understand with no words, courting the affections of people Robert knows she hates, her and her brother, the Kingslayer, matching each other like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle although deep down they are opposites in practically every way.
But soon Jaime Lannister leaves for Casterly Rock, as Jon Arryn had convinced him it was for the best that a man with such a track record wasn’t trusted with his safety. Cersei had sulked, for days in fact, but slowly she came out of it after Robert promised that Jaime would be welcome to visit whenever he wished - whether Tywin Lannister would ever let his son and heir out of his sight ever again was another matter, but Robert didn't mention that.
He doesn’t know women as well as he thought - he knows her body well enough, they’ve been married two moons, and he’s found the places where all he has to do is stroke her and she screams like a well tuned high harp, and his back is in ribbons from where she tears his skin with her sharp nails.
He’d made the mistake of complaining to Ned before he went North, and his brother in all but blood had laughed. “You’ve met your match,” the Warden of the North had said, and Robert has the most horrible feeling he’s right.
Robert feels like he’s ruining something that hasn’t properly begun yet - he never knows what to say to his lady wife, his Queen, and around her he becomes a lad of three and ten again who hadn’t yet had his first girl. At least he’d stopped himself calling her Lyanna, he comforts himself.
No matter how little he knew of women, he knew of not one that wouldn’t be insulted by that.
.
“My lord,” Cersei comes to him in the fifth month of their marriage, dressed in vibrant yellow that makes her hair look like spun gold, “I am with child.”
Robert stares at her for a moment, before a smile comes onto his face. “Truly?”
She nods, and something about the way she stands is triumphant, “Truly. Pycelle says I am almost two moons along.”
Honestly, Robert is at a loss for words. Although he knew Ned had gotten his lady wife pregnant on their wedding night, he hadn’t imagined pregnancy could happen so fast, at least not to him - Mya’s mother, he remembers fondly, had gotten pregnant after a year of fooling around, and even then it was unsure.
“My lady,” he says, trying to pour all his appreciation into the words, because this woman is his queen, this woman is to be the mother of his children - she is not Lyanna, but she is his all the same, “you are a wonder. Thank you.”
His Queen beams at him, and for a moment he thinks she resembles the rising sun.
.
Seven months later, Robert returns from a hastily organized hunt to find a wriggling baby girl with hair as black as his own presented to him. Cersei looks put out, her eyes looking anywhere but at him or their daughter.
“Hello, bonny lass,” Robert says to his daughter, and picks her up trying to be as careful as he can - she is so very light, no heavier than a bag of sugar, and wriggles in the crook of his arm, “You’ll be a beauty, like your mother.”
Cersei looks at him then, with the eyes he’s learned to love and hate simultaneously, and grits her teeth.
“Her name is Cassana, after your mother.” Robert barely has a moment to feel touched before she continues “I will give you a son next time.” She says it like a promise, with the certainty preachers had that the Seven were waiting for them all him heaven.
“You have given me a daughter this time,” Robert reminds her, “She is strong, and healthy, and has my look. You could not have given me a greater gift, my lady.”
A small, smug smile twitches at the sides of Cersei’s mouth, and Robert counts it as a victory.
“I brought you a boar,” he tells her sheepishly, and this does make her laugh “It is rather large. I hope it makes up for my absence.”
“I don’t think,” she says, in a low voice, mirth colouring her tone “either of us would have wanted you there.”
.
When Cassie, as Robert calls her, is a year old and taking her first steps on wobbly legs, Pycelle says Cersei is ready to bear another child.
In that year, they had become something like friends - they fought, but nowhere near as much as they had used to in the very beginning, and Cassie had brought them together, as she was equally attached to both her father and mother, clinging to Cersei’s legs and begging her Papa to throw her up into the air - higher, Papa, higher!
So they are not strangers this time - whilst they still sleep in separate chambers, as both their mothers and fathers did, the coupling is more sensual - Robert makes it a personal challenge to make her cum as quickly as possible, and only releasing himself when she is satisfied.
“It’s not very efficient in conceiving,” Cersei points out, after coming down from a rather glorious high (if Robert does say so himself).
“Would you like me to stop?”
“No,” she says, quicker than necessary. Robert laughs then, right from his toes and her cheeks burn flame red.
.
It takes another year for them to conceive, even with Tywin Lannister breathing down his wife’s neck and the rest of Court breathing down Robert’s.
Cersei doesn’t so much as tell him as hint, exceptionally strongly although she probably thinks she’s being subtle - ha! she wouldn’t know the meaning of subtle if a horse and cart ran over her - she begins eating peaches of all shapes and sizes, and becomes ravenous for him at all hours of the day - his body, his sex, his touch.
So when Pycelle informs him his wife is with child, Robert just smiles and says “I know.” but acts surprised in front of Cersei so she can feel smug.
.
The Queen goes into labour nearly a month early, and Robert runs like the hounds of hell are after him deep into the kingswood with an impromptu hunting party of the first nobles he could grab, even with Stannis who grinds his teeth disapprovingly when Robert is trying to hunt some stags.
At least it takes his mind off of what could be happening back in his castle - women rarely survive such early births, and the babes too.
Cersei’s strong, Robert told himself, she’s a lioness. Childbirth won’t kill her. Not my wife.
But-
Lyanna was a direwolf, some treacherous part of his mind whispers, she was strong too, and she died of a fever.
In the end, Robert doesn’t catch a damn thing he’s so distracted.
.
The Red Keep, when he returns, is busier than he’s ever seen it. Everyone keeps on congratulating him, and he doesn’t know why.
“Cersei?” he calls into his wife’s chambers, and a baby’s cry answers him.
A rush of air leaves his body. She’s alright. They’re alright.
He walks into a scene he hadn’t dare dream of - Cersei is curled up on a bed, rocking a bundle side to side.
“Cersei?” he says again, and she turns. A beatific smile lights up her face.
“Robert,” she breathes and gets to her feet, “Do you want to meet your first son?”
He nods, so hard he thinks his head will come off. She eases the squirming bundle into his arms, and the thought hits him suddenly that the little, wrinkled face staring back at him is his legacy - his line, his kingdom, his heir, his son.
Cersei walks away, but Robert barely notices. The little child’s eyes stare up at him, as round as saucers. “His name is Eddard,” she tells him as she leaves, and Robert smiles so hard he thinks his face will crack in half. She knew he had wanted to honour Ned, and had done it without a word of opposition.
“I’m your daddy,” he tells his son, who opens and closes his tiny, toothless mouth without a sound.
“Somebody’ll get jealous,” Cersei’s voice wafts towards him.
Robert looks up, to tell her that there’s no point getting jealous of their son, they made him together, but the words catch in his throat.
Cersei is holding another bundle.
“This is your second son,” Cersei tells him, and the infant in her arms wails and wriggles. “Steffon.”
“My... my second...” Robert opens and closes his mouth before swallowing, “My lady, I...”
“Yes,” she says, tossing her golden curls and grinning, “You love me and think I’m wonderful.”
“I do,” Robert says, and kisses her, even if it is awkward with the way that they are each carrying a writhing, screeching newborn, and finds it to be absolute truth.