Chapter Text
The Conquest subway line of King's Landing circled the entire city, running all the way from Fishmonger Station to Cobbler's Square and back again, stopping at every station on the way. It was the oldest subway line in the country and it was never, under any circumstances, not full. You could ride on it at dawn. You could ride on it at midnight. You could time your trip for the dead hours between shifts when the platforms should have been empty, and still you'd find yourself pressed back-to-back with a hundred strangers in a car built for fifty, breathing someone else's lunch.
It felt like a hazing ritual. It was the capital's way of telling you that you lived here now, and that it did not care about whether you were comfortable or not. Lyanna remembered her first ride, eighteen years old and still bright-eyed, a freshman enrolled in Business Administration at the University of King's Landing. It had been the first time seeing this many people in one place and being shoved in a car full of strangers had been both terrifying and strangely wonderful.
That had been two years ago. The wonder had not survived the daily commute. Now it was only a Tuesday.
Lyanna pressed her back against the hard plastic of the seat, balancing her phone on her knee as she reread the ad glowing on the screen.
Seeking reliable childcare for two children, ages 7 and 5. Flexible hours. Competitive pay. Aegon's Hill neighborhood.
The train lurched and a man standing across from her crashed into the metal pole, catching himself with a grunt. He wore a Storm's End Stags jersey three sizes too large and looked like he hadn't slept in three weeks. Lyanna could sympathize. She hadn't slept well either since dropping out.
Two years of Business Administration, gone. Poof. And the worst part about it was that she felt fine. Better than fine, actually. She felt like she'd taken off shoes that were a size too small. That meant something was deeply wrong with her, normal people did not feel relief about torching their entire future.
You have to tell Dad eventually.
Nope.
You're not getting student aid anymore.
Not listening.
Ned calls every Sunday and asks how your courses are going and you say "good" like a liar. Like a little liar.
Anyway. Anyway. She checked the time. Twenty minutes until the interview, if you could you call a conversation for a babysitting gig an interview. Consultation, maybe. Preliminary screening of whether or not you're insane so I can feel good about leaving you alone with my children.
Stop with the negative self-talk, Lyanna. She knew how to mind children, she'd babysat her cousins up in Barrowton every summer since she was fourteen. She could handle children. Children were just small drunk people.
The automated voice announced Aegon's Hill and she shouldered her way out onto the platform, up the stairs and into the bright and airy neighborhood that was definitely above her tax bracket. The address was a townhouse three streets up from the station. Red stone, black door with a little iron dragon knocker, two lemon trees in a pot flanking the steps. She stared at the dragon and forced herself to breathe.
Okay. Okay okay okay. Responsible. Punctual. Employable. You are a serious adult woman here to provide childcare services.
She rang the bell, the door opened and—
What. The. Fuck.
The man in the doorway was—okay. Okay, so. Tall, first of all, quite tall. He had long silver hair, pulled back in a low ponytail. His eyes were sporting some sort of indigo situation that should not naturally occur. He was wearing a button-down with the sleeves rolled up and reading glasses pushed onto his hair.
That is not a real person, she thought to herself. People who look like this only exist in perfume ads. He is going to open his mouth and mist is going to come out.
"Hello?" Mist did not come out. A crease formed between his pretty brows. "Are you alright?"
Get it together get it together get it together—
"Yes!" she croaked, sticking her hand out. "Yes, sorry. Hi. Lyanna Stark. We emailed about the babysitting thing. You told me to be here at four?"
His expression eased and he took her hand. It was warm. And dry. And big. Stop thinking about his hand.
"Of course. Rhaegar Targaryen. Thank you for coming, Miss Stark. Please, come in."
She followed him down a short hallway into a living room that was larger than her entire flat. Crammed bookshelves lined one wall while a harp sat in the corner by the window. Toys were scattered across the rug; a plastic knight, a stuffed dragon with one button eye missing, a pile of crayons, a drawing of what appeared to be a horse. Or a dog. Hard to tell.
There were also pale squares on the wall. Spots where frames used to hang and didn't anymore.
Huh, she thought, and sat down on the couch.
"I should be straightforward with you, I need help. Quite a lot of it, and rather urgently." He took the armchair across from her, sighing. "I'm editor-in-chief at Summerhall Press, which—do you know them?"
"The name rings a bell, yeah."
"Right, well. It's… I love the work, genuinely, but it means unpredictable and sometimes insane hours. Deadlines move, authors panic. I had one call me at midnight last week because he'd decided his main character should die after all." He rubbed his eyes. "We go to print in nine days. Anyway. That's the job, and to top it off I have two kids."
He smiled when he said it, and it lit up that sad face of his.
"My daughter Rhaenys is seven. She'll introduce herself to you, don't worry. She reads constantly, she draws constantly, and I really don't know where she gets the energy. Neither of her parents have it, so it must have skipped a generation before landing in her."
Lyanna glanced at the drawing on the rug. Horse or dog, it had been done in about fifteen different colors. That tracked.
"And then there's Aegon. He's five. He's—" His fingers unlaced and laced again in his lap. "He's very different from his sister. Very quiet and shy. He was diagnosed with autism last year, so he needs a bit more… patience, I suppose. New people are hard for him. New anything, really. He's been having a difficult time lately. His mother and I are in the process of divorce."
Well, divorce explained the pale squares on the wall.
"We've worked it out so they're with me one week, with her the next. We are still on good terms." Somehow she doubted that. "So it would only be every other week that I'd actually need you here—but I'd want to pay you a retainer for the off-weeks, if that's something you'd be open to. Otherwise I'll lose you to somewhere with steadier hours and I... I'd rather not do that."
He kept going, laying out logistics—school on the Street of Sisters, sleep schedules, a nut allergy (Rhaenys, severe, EpiPen in the kitchen drawer and her backpack)—and Lyanna nodded when the situation required her to.
"—but I've been talking for five minutes and I know nothing about you. Tell me about yourself."
Right. The pitch. She'd rehearsed the pitch.
"So, I'm from the North originally. Winterfell—well, a village outside it, but nobody knows where that is, so I just say Winterfell." Stop rambling. "I've been in King's Landing about two years now. I've babysat loads. My cousins in Barrowton, every summer since I was fourteen, three of them, and one bites, so I've basically seen combat." That got another smile out of him. Encouraging. "I'm responsible. I know everyone says that, but I actually am. I have a first aid certification. I can cook and I don't really —" don't say you don't have a life, Lyanna "—I keep my commitments."
A partial lie, given that you torpedoed your degree, but he doesn't need to know that, does he.
"And your schedule? You said in your email you're a student?"
"I'm between things at the moment, actually. Academically." Smooth and confident. Ten out of ten. "So my time's very flexible. Honestly, I could be here pretty much whenever you need. Mornings, evenings. Last-minute's fine."
Lyanna could tell that he was relieved to hear it; his shoulders dropped and he allowed himself to sit back in his back in the armchair for the first time since starting the conversation. This time his smile was a proper one, with teeth.
Even his teeth are perfect, she thought, then hated herself for thinking it. Focus. Focus, Lyanna. He is talking to you about his children.
"That's genuinely the best news I've had all week. The pay would be thirty dragons an hour."
Her brain stopped. She had not been aware such a pay could even be conceivable for her.
Thirty. THIRTY. Three-zero. Thirty dragons. Per HOUR.
"That works for me," she said, trying to sound calm.
"Good." He took his phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen. "You'll probably want to meet the children before you decide for certain."
Right. Right, yes. She was supposed to not look completely desperate. She was supposed to have standards and conditions and a vetting process, like a professional woman with options.
"Yeah," she agreed, nodding. "That's for sure something I'd want to do before accepting. Definitely."
"Good." He stood, pocketing the phone. "They finish school in about twenty minutes. I'll go pick them up and bring them back. It'll probably be easier for Aegon to meet you at home rather than in front of the school. New faces in familiar places are..." he searched for a word, "...better. If you don't mind waiting?"
"Not at all."
"Great. Make yourself comfortable. There's tea in the kitchen, if you'd like. The kettle's by the western window." He grabbed his keychain, shrugged on a jacket and then he was already out of the door.
She didn't make tea while she waited. It felt too presumptuous, like claiming something she had not yet earned nor worked for. Instead she sat with her hands in her lap, looking at the pale squares on the wall. She wondered who had taken them down. Him or her.
After thirty minutes of sitting, the front door opened and she heard a high, clear and quick voice.
"—and then Ms. Fossoway said that my drawing was creative but Alys said that dragons aren't real and I told her they WERE real, they used to be, there are bones in the museum, and she said bones don't count and I said bones are literally the most important part of being real because they LAST—"
Rhaegar appeared in the doorway to the living room with two children attached to him. Rhaenys was holding his left hand, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She had dark, curly hair with a silver streak near the forehead. Aegon was holding Rhaegar by his right leg, pressed so close against his hip that he was basically behind him. The boy was silver-haired and from Lyanna's estimation small for five.
Rhaenys's chatter was cut off mid-sentence when she saw Lyanna. Her eyes went wide, then narrow.
"Who's that?" the girl asked, looking up at Rhaegar.
"This is Miss Stark," he answered. He wasn't looking at Rhaenys as he said it, instead down at the boy glued to his side. "She might be spending some time with you two while I am at work. I told you about this, remember?"
"You said maybe." Rhaenys crossed her arms. "You said maybe someone would come and we could see."
"Yes. This is the seeing part."
Rhaenys frowned, considering. Then she crossed the room, planting herself on the rug in front of Lyanna with her hands at her hips. "How old are you?"
"Twenty."
"That's not very old."
"Nope."
"Our last babysitter was old. She smelled like soap and she wouldn't let me watch cartoons after six."
"That does sound rough."
Meanwhile Rhaegar had sat down on the armchair from earlier. Aegon promptly climbed into his lap and currently had his face buried in Rhaegar's chest, arms around his neck. Not a single part of him was visible to Lyanna except the back of his head.
Rhaegar's hand was on his back, moving in soothing circles. "Egg," he said softly. "Can you say hello?"
Nothing. The boy pressed deeper into him, as if he longed to be welcomed within the confines of his father's ribcage.
"He won't talk to you," Rhaenys told Lyanna. She had seated herself cross-legged on the rug and was looking at Lyanna's shoes and probably finding her worn-down converse lacking. "He doesn't talk to anyone new. He didn't talk to Mrs. Rosby for three weeks and she cried about it."
"Rhaenys…" Rhaegar sighed with some warning.
"What? She did cry. I saw her."
Aegon gave a sharp whine and Rhaegar's hand didn't stop its circles. His head dipped and Lyanna heard him whisper into the boy's ear. Aegon's fist tightened in his shirt.
Rhaenys had followed Lyanna's gaze to her brother and pouted. "Do you want to see my room?" Rhaenys said.
Lyanna looked up to Rhaegar, who gave her a small nod. "I would love to see your room."
Rhaenys led her upstairs and into a room whose door was full of fairy and dragon stickers. Within it she found more books than a seven year old could ever possibly read, an overflowing art station, a canopy bed with a quilt patterned in little suns and a large collection of stuffed animals. Rhaenys talked about each and every thing in detail. This is her reading corner. These are her drawings, and she draws every day, and this one is a horse and this one is a dragon and this one is her family, and—
She stopped. The drawing was four figures; a tall man with silver hair, a woman with dark hair, a small girl, a smaller boy. They were holding hands.
Rhaenys pulled it off the wall and put it facedown on the desk. "That one's old," she said.
Oh, kid. Lyanna pointed at the horse drawing. "This is quite good. The legs are really hard to get right."
Rhaenys's face brightened. "You know about horses?"
"I ride, or rather I used to. I grew up around them."
"Real ones?"
"Enormous ones."
That was the moment Rhaenys Targaryen decided to love her. The girl's face remained bright and when she asked questions, Lyanna did not feel like she was part of an interrogation anymore. Did the horses have names? and How fast could they go? and Has one ever stepped on you? and Can you bring a picture next time? and Do you think—
The girl was interrupted by a sharp cry that came from downstairs. It kept rising in pitch until it broke into a full-on wail.
Lyanna had heard about meltdowns, though never seen one herself. She knew they weren't tantrums but rather the only way children like Aegon could manage their emotions sometimes. Under the screams and wails she could hear Rhaegar's voice, trying to soothe the boy.
Meanwhile Rhaenys had gone wholly still. The brightness snapped off her face and she stood there in the middle of her own room, small suddenly. Her lip wobbled and Lyanna could see her fighting the tears that longed to run down her face.
Rhaenys turned, walked to her bed, and climbed onto it. She pulled a plushie out of the pile—a giant black cat—and wrapped both arms around its middle, putting her chin on its head. Downstairs, the screaming went on.
Lyanna crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Does this happen a lot?" she asked.
Rhaenys nodded. The black cat was getting squeezed very hard. "He doesn't mean it. He gets scared and then he can't stop. It's not his fault."
She heard Rhaegar's footsteps on the stairs, and then the creak of a door further down the hall. Aegon's voice still carried through the wall, though the screams had lost some of their strength.
"Are you okay?" Lyanna asked and in response Rhaenys shrugged. It was definitely the most unconvincing shrug in the history of shrugging. "You're allowed to be upset too, you know."
"I'm not upset." Rhaenys's grip on the cat tightened.
"Okay."
"I'm not. Daddy and Mommy have so much to do with everything. There's been so much to do ever since Aegon came, there's the doctors and the therapy and the—everything, and now there's the divorce too, and they're so tired all the time, and I don't want to make it more." She said it all very fast, trying hard not to cry. "I don't want to be another thing they have to worry about."
The girl looked at her. Her dark eyes were furious and wet at the corners. Lyanna was half-convinced Rhaenys would insult her now and that Rhaegar would send her away and she'd have to go back to her sad one bedroom apartment that her father was still paying for.
"I'm hungry," was all Rhaenys added.
Right, Lyanna thought. Right. This is where you show what you're for.
"I'll make you something," she said. "Be right back."
She went downstairs quietly, aware of how Rhaegar was currently probably trying to coax Aegon into a nap. The living room was as she had left it, though there were some cushions on the floor now.
In the kitchen, she opened the fridge. Okay. Okay. What are we working with?
Some sad-looking spinach and cherry tomatoes. In the cupboard: pasta, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, a tin of chopped tomatoes. Bread from yesterday, perfect for garlic bread.
We're fine, she told herself. We've worked with worse. Remember Brandon's last birthday? You made dinner for nine people out of rice and ketchup.
Cooking was the one thing she'd never doubted about herself. Unlike the rest of her life, cooking made sense. You put the right things together in the right order and something good came out. Direct cause and effect.
She found a pot, filled it with water, and set it on the stove to boil. The chopping came next: garlic, tomatoes, spinach. Olive oil in a pan, garlic in, then the tomatoes followed by salt and pepper. Let it cook down while the pasta boiled and add in the spinach at the end. To go with the pasta, she made garlic bread in the oven from the stale loaf.
Rhaenys appeared in the kitchen doorway at some point. She'd changed out of her school outfit into leggings and an oversized t-shirt with a bunny on it. The black cat plushie was still under one arm.
"What are you making?"
"Pasta with tomatoes and spinach, garlic bread on the side."
Rhaenys took two steps into the kitchen, standing on her tip-toes to see the pan. "Can I help?"
"Can you get the table ready?"
Rhaenys set the table for four people, with two bigger plates and two smaller ones. Fork on the left, napkin on the right, a glass of water at each place. When the pasta was done and the garlic bread had cooled down enough to eat, Lyanna sat down across from the girl at the kitchen table.
Rhaenys looked down at her plate, picking up a single piece of spinach and looking at it for entirely too long before putting it in her mouth.
"This is good," Rhaenys decided after a moment, sounding surprised.
Finally a win, Lyanna. "You don't have to sound so shocked."
"Mrs. Rosby only made fish fingers."
"Every time?"
"Every time."
They didn't talk much while they ate, which Lyanna was grateful for. Her battery had been running at only half capacity ever since dropping out and this whole ordeal of sad children and sadder beautiful divorcees had only drained her more.
Rhaenys scraped her plate clean, ate four entire pieces of garlic bread, and then sat back with a great sigh. "You're a really good cook," she said.
"Thank you."
"Can you make pancakes?"
"I can make pancakes."
As if on signal, Rhaegar appeared in the kitchen doorway. He looked like he'd been in a fight; his hair had come half out of the ponytail and his shirt was pulled sideways where small fists had grabbed and twisted and held on.
Rhaenys was off her chair in an instant, wrapping both her arms around her father's legs. Rhaegar's hand came down onto her hair.
"Daddy, Miss Stark cooked for me," Rhaenys said. "She made pasta and garlic bread and I ate so much, I ate four pieces of garlic bread, and there's some for you and Eggy too, I told her to save it."
Rhaegar knelt down on one knee so that he was at her level. He took her face in both hands and kissed her forehead, and Lyanna watched him close his eyes as he did it. "That's wonderful, sweetheart. Thank you for thinking of your brother and me." His voice was impressively steady, considering the rest of him. "Now go run a bath and brush your teeth. I'll come check on you in a bit."
Rhaenys pulled back, pouting. Lyanna half-expected the girl to protest her father’s verdict, but soon the pout vanished and with it any will to fight what was inevitable. "Okay." She retrieved the black cat from where she'd set it on the chair, tucking it under her arm. "Daddy?"
"Hmm?"
"She's nice," she said, followed by a quick glance at Lyanna. Then she was gone and it was just the two of them in the kitchen.
Rhaegar stayed on one knee for longer than he needed to, his hand still in the air where his daughter's head had been. She had no idea what to do.
"Um," she said. Excellent start. "I put a plate for you and one for Aegon in the oven. To keep warm. If you want to—do you want to sit down? I'll get it."
For a second she thought he might refuse, might say something polite about how she didn't need to, how he'd manage and that she could go home. Then he nodded and pulled himself up off the floor and into the chair Rhaenys had vacated.
The plate was still warm when she set it in front of him. Then stood there like an idiot as he ate until she realized she should probably also sit down.
"This is good," he said eventually. "You're hired, obviously. That's—I should have said that first. You're hired."
She laughed. "I figured."
He ate quickly, finishing every last bite, then got up and opened a cupboard above the counter. He came back with a bottle of Dornish red and two glasses. He held the bottle up, questioning.
"I shouldn't be drinking with my babysitter," he said with a smile. "This is probably unprofessional."
"I'm off the clock."
He poured and they moved to sit down in the living room. The wine was good. Like, it was really good. It tasted how Lyanna imagined old money to taste like. For a while they just drank in silence. The house was quiet and all Lyanna heard was the shower upstairs.
"How bad are they usually?" she asked. "The meltdowns."
Rhaegar turned his glass slowly. "They vary. Today was a seven out of ten, maybe. The worst are… he can go for hours. He hurts himself sometimes, bangs his head against things. I hold him until it passes, which the therapist says is the only thing you as a parent can do, but you feel helpless nonetheless." He took a drink. "You're supposed to fix the world for them, aren't you? That's the job you agreed to when deciding to have a kid. But you can't fix this."
"You were there, that counts for a lot."
"Can I ask you something?" The look in his eyes told her that he did not wish to talk about Aegon. "Off topic."
"You can ask."
"'Between things academically.' What does that mean?"
She could lie. She'd been lying for the better half of a month. She was good at it now, knew the whole routine by heart.
But something within her wanted to be truthful. Maybe it was the warmth of too-expensive wine. Or maybe the quiet. Or the fact that this man had just told her about holding his son for three hours while the boy screamed, and it seemed stupid to sit in his living room and lie.
"I dropped out two weeks ago. I was in Business Administration. Two years in and I just… couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't sit there and listen to someone talk about supply chain optimization for another semester." She took a drink. "I haven't told my family."
Rhaegar nodded slowly. "Do you know what you want to do instead?"
"No." Honesty felt good, especially with him. "I have absolutely no idea. I keep waiting for it to come to me, this big revelation, like, ah yes, I was meant to be a veterinarian, or whatever. But it doesn't come. I just wake up and stare at my ceiling."
"You're twenty," he said. "I was twenty when I decided I didn’t want to become a concert harpist. By that point I had spent three years at the conservatory."
"You played harp professionally?"
"I’d say I played the harp aspirationally. Three years of very expensive aspiration. My father didn't speak to me for a year when I quit. Then he didn't speak to me for another year when I told him I wanted to edit books. Then he didn't speak to me for a third year for reasons he was never entirely clear on."
Lyanna laughed out loud, then remembered the children upstairs. She clapped her hand over her mouth.
"My point is," he continued, "that knowing what you want at twenty is a myth. Most people who say they know are lying or deluded."
She smiled. "You give really good advice."
"You've got to make a ton of mistakes before you can give anyone sound advice." He reached for the bottle and poured himself another glass. "Ask any of my friends. Ask my ex-wife. Ask my mother. Making mistakes is one of my great talents, you might even say it's a vocation."
He said it lightly enough, with that half-smile, but his eyes went to the pale squares on the wall for just a moment. Upstairs, Rhaenys called for Rhaegar to come and read to her.
"I should go," Lyanna said, and meant it, and didn't want to.
"Of course." He walked her to the door, opening it. The evening smelled of lemon trees and stone. "Can you start Thursday? I'll email you the details."
"That works," she said. Thirty dragons an hour. Two kids. A gorgeous man with sad purple eyes. Lyanna, you’re in so much trouble.