Nikki

JACAERYS, 10; READER, 15; 120 AC

Two years have passed, but the ache in your chest has never quite subsided since you parted ways with your sister and her sons.

"How does it feel? That you get to see our sister anddearest nephews again? It has been what? Two years, has it? Are you excited, wife?"

You exhale hard through your nose, turning your face away from Aegon when you see him leaning over the rail trying to make eye contact with you, a shit-eating grin on his face. You do your best to ignore the way your heart sinks at the reminder of the silence you have faced from Dragonstone.

Aegon, naturally, is always quick to rub it in your face. You turn a half-hearted glare onto him when he pointedly shifts back into your field of vision, but you do not even have the energy to snap a snide comment back . Your chest is weak, and your fingers are trembling, nausea eats away at the back of your throat every time you open your mouth. Even just holding yourself upright is an effort—all you want to do is go sit in the captain's cabin, but your pride refuses.

"Leave her alone, Aegon," Aemond says, leaning on the rail of the ship next to you, looking up wistfully as Dreamfyre trills above the ship, spinning in the air before swooping down closer to the water. "Why do you always have something to say?"

Aegon scoffs, folding his arms over his chest as he looks away. "Mind your business, Aemond" he mutters. "I thought she would be pleased to see them again. It is not my fault she remains so sensitive."

Your eye twitches, and a familiar screech cuts through the sea air above.

Every head on deck turns skyward. High above the ship, Zūgaxes circles lazily through the clouds, always close enough to keep you in his line of sight, pale white scales gleaming beneath the afternoon sun as he follows the royal envoy to Driftmark for Lady Laena's funeral. Sunfyre dives after him, always keen on playing chase with the larger dragon, but Zūgaxes is in no mood for fun today, same as you—the moment Sunfyre comes within striking distance, Zūgaxes snaps viciously at his throat, forcing the young dragon to dive away with an indignant shirek, barely avoiding the bite.

"Your dragon is a vicious beast," Aegon mutters, downing another cup of wine, face a bit paler at the sight of his dragon nearly meeting an untimely end at the teeth of yours. "Keep him away from Sunfyre, would you?"

"You wouldn't have to worry about it if you would concern yourself less with your cups and more with my disposition," you reply wearily, rubbing at your temple. "Zūgaxes only takes issue with Sunfyre when I take issue with you."

Aegon looks up at the two dragons, then back at you. "… Right," he replies, clearing his throat and lowering his goblet. "Then I will take care not to bother you today, sister."

"Aegon the Sagacious," you murmur sarcastically, eyes sliding shut as a wave of dizziness hits you.

Beside you, Aegon grins boyishly and agrees, "Aegon the Sensible."

You find yourself smiling, despite how your hand drifts to your chest as your heart flutters weakly. Above you, Zūgaxes makes a noise closer to croon than roar, coming dangerously close to the ship, and Aemond hesitantly looks between the two of you, offering his arm for you to lean on.

You shake your head and say quietly, "I am fine, valonqar."

He stares at you for a moment, unconvinced, but returns his gaze to the sky as Zūgaxes swoops down lower, trying to remain as close to you as he can.

Over a year has passed since the twins' birth, but your body still behaves as though it had happened yesterday. You nearly died giving birth to them—fourteen years old, and the maesters had already begun speaking over your body as though you were no longer there, debating whether to save you or the children when the bleeding refused to stop, ignoring you when you begged them not to let you die. It was your father who stepped in when Aegon fled to the bottom of a flagon, trembling violently at the idea of having to choose between you and the children. The king ordered the maesters to save you first, voice carrying through the chamber with a fury you'd never seen from him before.

Somehow, all three of you had lived, though you reckon death may have been kinder if this is to be your fate. You tire too quickly now, and your hands shake when you hold the children for too long. Some mornings, merely fastening your gown leaves you breathless enough that your ladies insist you sit before attempting the stairs. The maesters tell you that you should be resting every time they catch you up and about, but there is only so much time you can stay abed before you would sooner collapse on the stairs than remain still.

In the beginning, they give you a general range for when they believed your body would return to what it was, but they stopped with that moons ago—you fear that this might be your life now. Even Aegon had stopped arguing with them, no longer laughing when they forbade you from flying or carrying both twins at once.

You hate it. You feel as though you've lost a part of yourself that you do not know how to live without. You have always been up with the sun, running about the castle long after the moon had risen. You were in the yard with Ser Steffon every morning until your hands blistered and your shoulders burned, and in the sky any other given moment, flying recklessly over King's Landing and the Blackwater with Zūgaxes every chance you got. You spent a year with your uncle, Daemon, perfecting your form and skill so that you could be the best—you were determined that one day you would beat him and claim the Valyrian steel sword Dark Sister for yourself.

When the court whispered that you should be gentler or softer, you would toss your hair over your shoulder and laugh, because you were neither gentle nor soft, and anyone who had a problem with it could face blade or dragon—you would be kind enough to give them a choice.

Now, you struggle to leave your bed in the morning and can scarcely make it to the dragonpit, much less climb atop Zūgaxes. There are days you look at yourself through a looking glass and do not recognize the girl staring back at you. Her face is thin, and dark circles linger beneath her eyes that no amount of sleep can erase—there is always a child in her arms and a shakiness to her limbs. She is a wife, a mother, a princess—all of the things the court had wanted her to become.

Yet, you are no longer entirely certain who you are. Somewhere between the wedding feast and the blood-soaked sheets, all of the endless, sleepless nights, you feel as though you lost the girl who spent entire days racing through clouds and challenging knights twice her size simply because she could. The girl once called hāedar and muña, whose greatest worry had been whether Rhaenyra would get upset with you for sneaking Jacaerys more snacks than he ought to have, had slipped through your fingers before you even knew you were losing her.

And no one cared to mourn her besides you. Rhaenyra had not come to your wedding, and Jacaerys had never come to visit. You sent ravens to Laenor asking if you could join him at sea and gifts to Lucerys from Pentoshi merchants who had arrived with the spring, and they had gone unanswered.

When your belly had begun to swell beneath your gowns, and you sent ravens with trembling fingers to tell Rhaenyra that you were scared, you would go to Maester Orwyle, eyes wide with anticipation only for him to give you a disparaging smile as he told you none had arrived for you. When the twins were born and the maestars whispered that the young princess might not survive the night, you cried every night because all you wanted was your sister.

Every morning for the better part of a year, you found yourself glancing toward the skies before you even realized you were doing it, looking for the familiar gold of Syrax or even Vermax's small green wings crossing the Blackwater, but they never came.

At first, you had made excuses for them. Rhaenyra has duties and children to tend to, and Jacaerys is too young to come on his own. But weeks turned to months and months turned to years, and there came a point where no excuse could rid you of the resentment. Because how could they leave you alone when you needed them most? You would never do that to them. Never.

And you had needed them. Not for the wedding—you endured standing beside Aegon in the sept without them after the two of you downed a flagon of wine together—but when the twins came too early, and the world narrowed to blood and pain and fear. You thought your final breath would be spent calling for people who you knew were not there, and the childish part of you had still waited for the doors to burst open anyway.

But every raven had gone unanswered, and every nameday passed without a visit. You wonder if something had happened on Dragonstone—maybe Rhaenyra had wanted to come and could not, maybe Jacaerys still asked after you. Or maybe they had learned to live without you—out of sight, out of mind.

"Driftmark!" the captain shouts from the quarterdeck.

You tense instantly. You do not know if you're ready to see them.

Aemond inches closer to you. "Do you want to come sit in the captain's cabin with Helaena and I, mandia? I become terribly seasick during docking."

You do not think Aemond has ever been seasick before, and concern is plain in his eyes when he glances down at how your fingers tremble on the wood rail. It is more for your sake than his, you realize, but he is courteous enough to allow you a sliver of pride, unlike his brother.

"Aemond the Chivalrous," you say with a small, teasing smile, causing the younger boy to flush when he holds his arm out for you to take.

"Aemond the Gallant," Aegon immediately echoes with a sharp laugh, mocking to your sincerity. "You will be a fine knight, if not dragonrider, dearest brother."

Aemond immediately scowls, gaze dropping to the ground, shoulders hunching slightly. You squeeze his arm lightly and say, "Do not listen to him. I fear a fish has more sense than he does. You will bond with a dragon one day, Aemond, that I have no doubt." He gives you a small smile as he looks up at you, but his violet eyes are still riddled with insecurity. You promptly change the subject and ask, "Did Helaena find the spiders she was looking for?"

"There are five," Aemond confirms. "She is trying to determine whether they might be a family."

Aegon makes a noise in the back of his throat, and you know he is rolling his eyes, but he follows the two of you as you make your way across the deck, hovering at your other arm in case you lose your balance.

Your teeth grind in frustration again. Once upon a time, you would have bounded across the deck three steps ahead of them, laughing when the ship lurched beneath your feet and Aegon lost his balance. Now, Aemond shortens his stride without comment, pretending not to notice when your hand tightens around his arm after a particularly rough swell, and Aegon tosses his cup to nearby servant so that he can catch you in case your legs give out.

Just as you reach the captain's cabin, the ship's bell sounds overhead. A voice calls, "Prepare for docking!"

Your step falters, gaze slipping to the side to settle on the pale stone of High Tide in the near distance. You see Syrax on the hill, golden head lifting when she notices Zūgaxes soaring above the royal envoy—she lets out a familiar trill, but he does not echo it the way he used to, the dread you feel undoubtedly weighing on him as heavily as it does you.

Somewhere on the island is Rhaenyra, Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey. You have spent two years imagining this moment. You have practiced what you would say in mirrors and anticipated every excuse you would be given for their absence, but somehow, none of it had prepared you for how much it would hurt.

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You have always associated your sister's smile with warmth. Before she left for Dragonstone, seeing her smile could be the difference between a ruined day and a perfect one. It chased away every lingering stare from the court and soothed every anxiety faced. It reminded you that for all the loneliness of the Red Keep, you would always have her.

You're not sure what you expected, you think later, long after the services for Lady Laena had ended, and you are sitting in the chambers Princess Rhaenys and Lord Corlys had set up for you and Aegon as the sun sets across the sea. Your half-brother is nowhere to be found—likely drunk in a ditch or in some whore's bed—you do not care either way. You are happy to be alone, so that you may finally let yourself feel whatever it is you have been holding at bay all day.

Rhaenyra smiled at you when she saw you step off the ship beside Aegon, and you felt nothing.

You had imagined this reunion a thousand different ways over the past two years. You would throw yourself into Rhaenyra's arms, laughing as Jacaerys threw himself into yours, and you would shout at her until your voice gave out. You planned all of the angry questions: why did you never come, why did you never write, why did she let you face your wedding, pregnancy, and labor all alone? Why, why, why?

But you had only smiled faintly at her back and turned your gaze away.

You could feel her occasionally watching you throughout the services—gaze pinned on you, red and black in a sea of green and gold, the twins, the handmaidens that tend to you whenever your body weakens. The longer she stares, the more frustrated you become. Does she not even care to ask how you've been? To learn the twins' names? What had you done to make her so cold?

As difficult as it was ignoring her, ignoring Jacaerys was harder. You forced Aegon to run interference through use of threat of Zūgaxes to Sunfyre, but it was clear that the boy was angry with you. Every time you looked over at him, he was already glaring at you. His brows were drawn together in a furious scowl that you've only ever seen reserved for Ser Criston, and the moment your eyes met, he would raise his chin until you looked away. It was a far cry from the open adoration that you had become used to years ago.

You do not understand it. You had been the one abandoned and ignored. You were the one who had waited for people who never came.

There is a knock at your door, drawing you from your thoughts. You tense, glancing over to where the twins had only just fallen asleep after hours of wailing, but they do not stir.

"Come in," you call, uncertain of who it might be—Aemond or Helaena, you wager, because Aegon does not knock when he barges in.

Your gaze lifts to as the door creaks open, and you falter when you recognize Rhaenyra. You inhale deeply, shifting to sit up straight on the settee as you say quietly, "Sister."

Rhaenyra hesitates before she motions toward the cushions next to you. "May I?"

You almost tell her no. You stare at her so long that you see her visibly falter, looking uncertainly between you and the door as she considers taking her leave. Before she can, your gaze drops and you nod.

When she sits down next to you, she sits close enough that you can smell the faint scent of vanilla in her hair. Your heart aches—you have missed her. You have missed all of them—her and Laenor and Jacaerys and Lucerys—being near enough again to inhale the familiar scent of her hair oils only serves to make that longing worse.

She reaches for your hands, and you let her hold them.

"I…" Rhaenyra hesitates as she gathers her thoughts. "I confess, I have prepared many times what I would say to you when we met again, but I find myself at a loss anyway. I have missed you, sweet girl. I had… been under the impression that our father would wait to wed you and Aegon until your sixteenth nameday. I did not think—"

She cuts herself off abruptly, grimacing as she looks away.

You stare down at your joined hands, trying to push away the hope that rises, because how does this explain anything? A royal wedding is no trivial affair, and she expects you to believe that word did not reach Dragonstone that the King's secondborn daughter and firstborn son had wed? She expects you to believe that word did not reach Dragonstone when you gave Aegon a son and a daughter? That she did not receive any of your ravens?

It's nonsensical. She had to have known.

"I sent ravens," you say, voice clipped. "Dozens of them. More. I was alone, and I did not know what to do, and I—"

I needed you, you do not say—you do not need to say, because Rhaenyra's expression instantly drops as she shifts closer to you. She does not hesitate now when she moves to pull you into her arms, cradling the back of your head so that you can press your face into the crook of her neck.

You tell yourself that you want to remain strong—you want to question her, you want real answers, not excuses—but the next breath you take in breaks over a sob, fingers twisting into the red velvet of her dress as you sink into her familiar warmth.

"I did not receive them," Rhaenyra whispers, pressing her lips to the top of your head. "Hāedar, I would have come. I would have come in an instant, had I known."

You tremble in her arms—you have had your half-siblings over the last two years, but it is not the same. There is always a degree of distance between you and them because of Queen Alicent; they are not the woman who raised you, who snuck you snacks when you were sad and shielded you from the cruelty of the court. That was always Rhaenyra, and two years without Rhaenyra—

"I do not believe you," you rasp. "You had to have known. I do not believe you. I—"

"I knew you had wed," she admits, stroking your back and your hair. For the first time in two years, you feel as though all of the weight that has been bearing down on you lifts from your shoulders. You are hāedar, muña, the girl you thought dead in place of a mother and wife. "By the time word reached Dragonstone, weeks had already passed. I was furious with father. I wrote to you that very night. Then another raven after a week had passed. Then another." She shakes her head. "When none returned, I thought… I wondered if perhaps you blamed me. That you no longer wished to hear from me."

Your stomach turns, breath ragged as you press your face harder into her skin. What does she mean? What does she mean that she sent ravens? What does she mean that she only knew after the wedding took place? You sent ravens weeks before the wedding took place.

"I am a fool, sweet girl," Rhaenyra says softly, pulling back to look at you. There are tears spilling over her cheeks, though she does her best to wipe them away before you notice. You suck in a terrible, choked breath, because you know your sister well enough to know that she is not lying to you. "I should have known better. I should have flown to you the moment you did not respond. Someone must have been interfering with the ravens, I—" Her expression twists into one caught between fury and heartbreak. "—I will figure it out. I swear."

"I was so scared, mandia," you dare to say out loud for the first time now that you are back in your sister's arms, lifting your hand to wipe at your eyes messily. "I thought—"

I thought I was going to die, you cannot bring yourself to say, breath hitching as the fear you felt in that blood-soaked bed finally returns. You have pushed it down for months, pretended it did not exist every time your gaze fell upon a maester or septon who was in the room, and suddenly, you were back in that bed, fourteen and crying, drowning in your own blood while strangers tried to convince Aegon that the children's lives were worth more than yours.

"They stopped talking to me," you say, words tumbling out, because now that you have begun, there is no stopping the avalanche of fear you've held in for the last year. "The maesters and the septons—they were all talking over me like I wasn't there anymore. I kept telling them that I didn't want to die, that I wanted someone to send to you, but nobody listened. I thought—I thought maybe it was my fault. That the gods were punishing me."

Rhaenyra pulls back, appalled. "Punishing you? Hāedar—"

"For mother," you whisper. "They cut her open to save me, mandia. I thought perhaps this was the gods' way of making things right. That they had decided a life for a life was only fair. That they would cut me open and I would die the same way."

"Do not ever say that again," Rhaenyra hisses, eyes meeting yours as she holds your hands tight. "Our mother loved you, hāedar. She sang to you while you were a babe in her womb; she could only sleep when she could feel you kicking against her hand. Her death was not your fault. She died because men demanded too much of her—and they demanded too much of you. You were a child, hāedar."

A wail escapes your lips before you can catch it, hand flying to your mouth to smother it—it is an ugly thing, loud and helpless, far from the silent tears and grief you swallowed every morning when you looked at yourself in the mirror. You crumple against Rhaenyra as she gathers you into her lap, like you weigh no more than you did at eight years old. Your fingers twisting in her gown as months of fear, exhaustion, loneliness, and resentment pour out of you all at once.

"I didn't want to die, and I didn't want to get married, and I didn't want to have children. I thought of you every day. I wanted to go to you, I tried, but I couldn't—I can't—"

Your words dissolve into another cry. Rhaenyra holds you for a long, long time—until your eyes start drooping and the wails turn to sniffles and even the sniffles fade to silence. She holds you still after you've calmed, lips pressed to the top of your head, humming the old lullaby she used to sing when you were a babe plagued with nightmares.

Your eyes linger on the cradles across the room. You have never sung to them.

"I hate them sometimes," you whisper after a few moments of silence pass, voicing the wretched words aloud for the first time now that you are safe in your sister's arms. "It is not natural that a mother should hate her children, I should think."

You regret them as soon as they've left your mouth, heart pounding and fingers shaking as you stare at where they are lying in their cradles, fast asleep, ignorant to the words their own mother has just spoken.

"Hāedar…" you hear your sister start to murmur, and you rush to continue, filled with shame.

"I do," you insist, shaking your head violently. "Sometimes I do. When they cry and cry, and my chest hurts so much I cannot even lift them without my arms shaking… when I wake and my whole body aches before I have even opened my eyes. I look at them, and I hate them."

The words taste sour.

"I hate that they took everything from me," you continue, voice breaking. " I look at them, and all I can think is that I used to be someone else."

You do not dare to look at your sister. You rub your face hard, trying to rid yourself of your tears.

"And then they laugh or reach for me, and they are so tiny, and they never wanted me to suffer." You curl into yourself, voice barely audible. "They deserve a better mother. There is something wrong with me, I think."

You almost expect Rhaenyra recoil, but she only gathers you close, tucking your head under her chin as she strokes your hair.

"You are too hard on yourself, sweet girl," Rhaenyra asks quietly. "All I hear is a little girl who was made a wife before she understood what marriage was, and a mother before she had finished being a child herself. It is not your fault, hāedar."

"But I should not think those things."

"You should not have been put in a position where you could."

"I wanted to love them immediately," you whisper. "The way you loved Jacaerys, but I—"

There is a loud noise from right outside your room, startling the both of you. Rhaenyra immediately stiffens, rising to her feet to stand between you and whoever is there.

She demands, "Who is there? Show yourself?"

The door creaks open, and Jacaerys stands there, tears streaking his round cheeks. He is dressed in his nightgown—your heart sinks. How much did he hear? He must have followed Rhaenyra when he heard her leave their shared chambers to see you.

"I—" he starts to say, voice wobbly. "I wasn't trying to listen, I promise. I—"

He is lying. His nose bunches and he cannot hold your gaze, the same he has always acted every time he tried to get away with a lie. When neither of you reply, Rhaenyra's brows knit together in disappointment and your lips parted in anxiety, Jacaerys shifts uncomfortably on his feet, looking between the two of you desperately before his gaze lands on you, brown eyes big and pleading.

"Nobody told me," he whispers so quietly you barely hear him. "I didn't know. I—"

The anger that had clouded his face throughout the funeral is gone, and in its place is only fear. The same fear you had seen on his face when he was running to you through the Keep after Ser Criston had struck him, the fear from the day you left for Pentos, and the fear from the morning you were forced to remain in King's Landing while he left for Dragonstone. The anxiety drains from you with haste as you let out a soft breath,

"Mandianna," you murmur, holding your hand out for him.

Jacaerys immediately rushes to you. Before you can say anything else, he drops to his knees in front of you, arms tucked around your legs. Your hands settle on the top of his head, fingers absently toying with his dark curls as he buries his face into your lap.

"I'm sorry!" he sobs. "I thought—you didn't come say hi. I thought you hated me because I broke my promise, and that's why you never wrote me back." His shoulders tremble violently beneath your hands as you smooth circles on them. You look at Rhaenyra desperately for help, but she only gives you a small smile. "I wanted to go back for you. I asked mother all the time when we would come, I promise. I asked and asked, and she always said soon, and then—" He hiccups. "Then it was never soon."

"Jacaerys," you start to say.

"I thought you didn't love me anymore," he continues, looking up at you with watery eyes. "Then I heard you saying you almost died, and I—I wasn't there. I should have been there, muña.

You pull back just enough to cup his cheeks. He presses his nose into your hand, still sniffling as you smile at him. You say quietly, "There is nothing you could've done, mandianna."

"It doesn't matter. You don't know that!" Jacaerys disagrees, eyes welling up with tears again as he looks up at you from the floor. "I could have been there. I could have held your hand. I would have told them to save you—" Your eyes slide shut briefly when you realize he heard everything "—I would have made them listen. I knew Aegon wouldn't take care of you. I knew it."

"Jacaerys—"

"What if you'd died?" he blurts. "What if I'd never seen you again? I was angry with you all day. I didn't even come say hi because I wanted you to be sorry, and—but if you had died—what if you had died thinking I hated you? Or that I broke my promise? Muña, I'm sorry, please forgive me."

You lean down to grab him beneath the arms, ignoring the way your whole body aches and screams for you to put him down so that you lift him up to sit him on your lap before he can spiral any further. You wrap both arms tightly around him as he collapses into you. He clings to you desperately, fingers twisting into your gown, face pressed to the crook of your neck, the same way you were with Rhaenyra just moments before.

"I'm right here," you tell him. "It's okay. There's nothing to forgive."

Slowly, his breathing starts to even out. "I don't want you to die," he says at last, sniffling still. "Please don't die, muña."

You laugh lightly and say, "I do not intend to, Jacaerys. Not for a very long time, if I can help it."

Jacaerys sniffles one last time, the tension gradually leaving his small frame as he melts into you. For a long moment, the room is quiet save for the crackling and occasional hitch of his breath, your fingers combing through his hair automatically, just as they had done countless evening before the world ever came between you.

Then, there is a soft cry from the opposite side of the room, and all three of you look toward the far side of the chamber. Jacaerys startles, as though he has just remembered the twins are there at all, and Rhaenyra cannot help the curiosity that slips onto her face as she looks in the direction of the cradles.

"Would you want to… meet them?" you ask hesitantly after a moment, looking between Jacaerys and Rhaenyra.

Jacaerys wipes hastily at his eyes with the heel of his sleeve before nodding frantically. Rhaenyra gives you a soft smile, reaching out to cradle your face briefly as she says, "Of course, hāedar."

You rise to your feet a little unsteadily, feeling a little faint from lifting Jacaerys onto your lap. Before you can take a step, both Rhaenyra and Jacaerys reach for you at the same time.

You tell them with a strained smile, "I'm all right."

Jacaerys's brows furrow as he insists that you hold his arm anyway, so you indulge him, crossing the room carefully with the two of them. You stop beside the cradles and stare down—for the first time since giving birth to them, you are not immediately filled with that familiar knot of dread and guilt.

"This is Maegelle," you say, brushing your fingers against the girl's face, watching as she reaches for your hand on instinct. She is quiet, unlike her brother, who is always babbling one thing or another unless he is asleep, and even then, sometimes. "And this is—"

His name catches in your throat, and your smile falters. Rhaenyra notices, casting you a concerned look.

"Maegor," you say at last, quieter, not daring to look at their reactions to your chosen name for your son.

The name feels different now than it had a year ago. You insisted upon it while still confined to your bed, too weak to sit upright for more than a few moments. Aegon had gone missing after they demanded he choose between you and them, so the choice of name was left to you. The septons had balked immediately, muttering that it was an ill-omened name, cursed by history. Alicent and Otto had looked scandalized. Even your father was surprised, eyes widening in confusion.

But you had not cared—not then, at least. The decision had been born of pure, childish spite—a tiny act of rebellion from a girl who had been denied every greater one. At the time, it had felt like the only decision in your life that had truly belonged to you in a long time, because you had looked them in the eye and, for the first time since your wedding, felt something other than fear and anxiety.

But looking at your son now, asleep and blissfully unaware of the burden his name carried, you feel only regret. You have cursed him to the same fate you have spent your life suffering—the same fate you have tried to shield Jacaerys from—with a single, stupid decision.

Rhaenyra seems to understand, because she always does. She gives you a small smile, leaning down to ghost her lips against your head. She says softly, "It is a strong name. We need not let one man own it forever."

"They are very tiny still," Jacaerys declares. There is an odd expression on his face as he reaches out to touch Maegor's silvery hair—he gnaws at his bottom lip and looks away uncertainly, pulling his hand away. "They are not as fussy as Joff was."

You laugh. "Give it a few hours," you tell him. "When they decide they would rather scream than sleep, you may change your mind."

"Can I help tomorrow? If they're awake?" Jacaerys asks, brown eyes wide and searching as he looks up at you. "Please." When your lips part to tell him to ask you properly on instinct, he corrects hastily, "Kostilus. Kostilus, kostagon nyke dohaeragon?"

Please. Please can I help?

"You've been practicing," you praise, smiling when he preens at the acknowledgment. "I'd like that very much, mandianna."

Rhaenyra watches the two of you for a long moment before she brushes a kiss against your brow, then another atop Jacaerys's curls.

"It grows late," she murmurs. "Lucerys is undoubtedly searching every corridor for his brother by now… Though, I suspect he may not be finding him tonight, so I should go find him."

Jacaerys looks up hopefully.

"May I stay?" he pleads before turning to you. "I'll be quiet, I promise, and I'll help if the twins wake, and I won't steal all your blankets. Maybe some of them."

"Of course, you can stay, silly boy," you murmur.

Jacaerys's face lights up in delight as he turns a questioning look on his mother, who smiles and inclines her head in approval.

"Sleep well, both of you. In the morning, we shall settle this mystery of the missing ravens."

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It is still night when you wake up, and Jacaerys is gone.

One of your ladies in waiting, Lady Melynda Darklyn, sits near the cradles of the twins. She has always been the most dutiful of your companions, checking in when the moon is high to see if the twins are comfortable so that you might get a full night's rest. You push yourself out of bed, ignoring the weakness in your chest, so that you can make your way over to her.

She catches the movement from the corner of her eye and rises to her feet. "Princess," she says, taking a step in your direction and holding out her arm to you, but you hold your hand up to signal for her to stay seated.

"Melynda, did you see Jacaerys?" you ask, an uncertain feeling weighing on you as you glance back at your bed. Jacaerys is a horribly heavy sleeper—you'd once joked to Rhaenyra that the boy could sleep through Doom if given the chance. He has always slept later than you, and you doubt that he has suddenly become a light sleeper after two years apart. "He was spending the night in here."

Melynda shakes her head. "No, princess. Would you like for me to send someone to go search for him?"

"No," you reply immediately, lips pressed together as your gaze sweeps over the large room one last time. "Would you stay with the twins, please?"

"Of course,," Melynda tells you, unable to push the concern from her face when she sees how your hand instinctively lifts your chest when you move toward the door, but she knows better than to push when you have your mind set on doing something yourself. "Be careful, princess. It sounded like there was a bit of a commotion coming from the Hall of Nine."

You glance at her over your shoulder, brows furrowed slightly, but then you nod in thanks before pushing the heavy door open to your chambers to step out into the cool hall. Ser Steffon, Melynda's brother and your sworn sword, is nowhere to be found.

You reach back into your room to grab your cloak, sliding it over the nightslip you wear to make yourself presentable before you make your way down the winding hall in the direction of the Hall of Nine. Your body is always weakest before dawn. The maesters say it is because you do not sleep enough—if you remained in bed more and gave your body more time to heal, the weakness would ease—but you have stopped believing them. You have given yourself moons of rest and nothing has changed. You cannot remain abed forever.

By the time you reach the first flight of stairs, your legs are already trembling. You pause long enough to steady yourself against the cold stone wall before continuing onward down to the main level of the castle.

As you round the final corner leading toward the Hall of Nine, you finally hear the commotion Melynda had mentioned.

"He attacked Baela!" / "He broke Luke's nose!" / "They attacked me!" / "He stole my mother's dragon!" / "Enough." / "He was going to kill Jace!" / "I didn't do anything!" / "Enough!" / "It should be my son telling the tale!" / "He called us—"

"Silence!"

"What happened?" you ask quietly when you see Daemon leaning against the door, looking into the Hall of Nine. He tilts his head to the side to look at you, gaze slipping over the cloak you tugged around yourself and the weakness plain on your face. He holds his arm out to you silently, beckoning for you to lean on it; you exhale through your nose as you do so gratefully. "Do you know?"

"It appears your nephews and my daughters have taken the eye of your dearest half-brother," Daemon says flippantly.

You shoot him a wide-eyed look, unsure if you heard him properly, but Daemon only nods in the direction of where Aemond is being tended to by a maester. Your stomach drops at the sight of the stitches running through his eye, and your gaze cuts over to where Jacaerys and Lucerys are standing with their mother, blood running down both of their faces—Baela and Rhaena, too, curled into the dress of Princess Rhaenys. What has happened?

"—legitimacy of my sons' birth was put loudly to question," you hear Rhaenyra say as you focus back on the conversation at hand instead of the blood spilled.

Beside you, Daemon straightens slightly, and your own eyes widen, breath catching as you look from Aemond to Rhaenyra to Jacaerys. Aemond raises his chin as he stares at Rhaenyra and her sons, and Rhaenyra—she looks cornered. Alone. She knows that by voicing this, she will be doing something irreversible, but what choice does she have when faced with a half-brother who has lost an eye and accusations of murder being cast toward Jacaerys and Lucerys? You make a move as though to step forward, but Daemon stops you, shaking his head slightly.

Your father is the first to speak up. "What?" he demands.

Suddenly, all of the fears that have been festering in your gut since you were a child and first realized the whispers of the court had turned on your nephews resurface with a vengeance.

This is what you have feared, this is what you have dreaded—the whispers are about to be given life, and once they are given life, there is no returning to how it had once been. The accusations will haunt Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey for as long as they live and more.

"He called us bastards," Jacaerys says at his mother's shoulder, voice small, expression twisted. He tries to stand tall under the eyes of everyone in the room, but he cannot help the way he shrinks back slightly when the tension in the room triples after the word is spoken.

And Aemond—Aemond, who has walked you back to your chambers every night since the twins were born because he worried you would grow faint on the stairs, who spends entire afternoons searching the gardens for strange spiders because Helaena smiles whenever he finds one, who has sat beside Maegor's cradle reading aloud from histories he knows the babe cannot possibly understand because you were too exhausted to keep your eyes open—smirks as it is said.

He does not know better, you tell yourself, swallowing thickly. He has consumed his mother's poison like milk. He is only reiterating the filth she spews.

You know that your half-siblings dislike Rhaenyra and her sons. You know that Alicent has spent years cultivating that resentment, just as Otto Hightower has spent years whispering in your father's ear. But this is not childish spite—to openly accuse the crown princess's son of bastardy is to accuse her of treason, it is to declare that the heirs to the Iron Throne are no heirs at all.

To speak such a thing before the king—you know your father has spent years turning a blind eye to what the rest of the court knew as truth, but if push came to shove and he was forced to choose between throwing the Realm into chaos by upholding the lie or condemning his grandchildren, you do not know what he would choose.

And if he should choose to protect the realm, Rhaenyra, Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey could all lose far more than just their names—they could lose their heads.

"My sons are in line to inherit the Iron Throne, your grace," your sister says, stepping forward in the direction of your father. "This is the highest of treason. Prince Aemond must be sharply questioned so we might learn where he heard such slanders."

Your eyes widen, gaze flicking over to Aemond, who instantly shrinks at the order, looking wildly between his mother, his father, and Rhaenyra. You feel sick to your stomach, fingers tightening on Daemon's arm.

Alicent scoffs, staring at Rhaenyra in disbelief. "Over an insult?" Alicent breathes out. "My son has lost an eye."

The king turns on Aemond and says, "You tell me, boy, where did you hear this lie?"

You feel light in the head again, all of a sudden. It is always worst before dawn, and worse still when you are under stress. Your hand instinctively finds your chest, eyes sliding shut—not here, not now.

Not while Aemond is shrinking in his seat as his father's demands. Not while Jacaerys stands trembling beside his mother with blood dripping down the side of his face. Not while Lucerys cannot breathe properly with a broken nose and tears in his eyes. Not while Rhaenyra stands alone before the king and queen, forced to defend her sons against accusations that could have them all hanged.

You force yourself to breathe slowly, but the room sways. Daemon's gaze cuts back down toward you, hand settling more firmly beneath your elbow.

"Easy," he mutters. "Not now."

As though you do not already know that, you think viciously and shoot him a look in kind that only serves to amuse him. If you could control when your body was weak, you would never be weak at all.

Your eyes turn back to Jacaerys—he is almost as tall as Rhaenyra's shoulders now, but he still looks so small. Only hours ago, he had buried his face into your lap, crying because he thought he had lost you, and now he stands before his grandsire, the king, trying to hold himself strong because he knows what is at stake. Lucerys does not understand the way Jacaerys does, but he knocks his shoulder against Jacaerys's anyway.

"—Aegon!" Viserys shouts, and your gaze lifts again to your half-brother, your husband, the father of your children, as he flinches under your father's demands. "Tell me the truth of it!"

Aegon does not reply right away, staring ahead blankly as though he is not sure what to say. His gaze lifts, meeting yours briefly, and you shake your head slightly, warning him. Do not do it. Do not say what I know you are about to say.

Aegon swallows and looks away, and then he says exactly what you fear: "We know, father. Everyone knows. Just look at them."

Your heart sinks, eyes sliding shut. You hear Daemon let out a breath through his nose just as you let out a trembling one through your mouth. Ten years you have dreaded the day that these words were given voice and life, and it is Aegon who has condemned them.

Your father shouts, but it is terribly muffled—garbled words spoken beneath water. Your pulse pounds, deafening in your ear, and your head aches. The air that reaches your lungs is shallow, not nearly enough to give you what you need to breathe. Your hand creeps up to your chest again—not now, not now, not now.

"—but I cannot restore his eye."

"No, because it has been taken," Alicent says desperately, taking a step toward your father.

"What would you have me do?"

"There is a debt to be paid," she insists, and you find yourself stiffening before you even truly understand what she is saying. Beside you, Daemon straightens, hand dropping to the sword at his side. "I shall have one of her son's eyes in return."

"Is she mad?" you breathe out as the hall erupts into murmurs. You see Rhaenyra push Lucerys behind her, and Jacaerys presses into her shoulder, looking between her and the king and queen uncertainly. "Do something, kepa."

Uncle.

"Not yet," Daemon murmurs, watching the scene carefully, gaze much sharper now.

"Ser Criston," Alicent says, gaze lifting to the knight standing on the opposite side of the room—far too close to Rhaenyra and the boys. You brush Daemon's hand off your arm, alarm subsuming all weakness as you take half a step forward. "Bring me the eye of Lucerys Velaryon."

For a heartbeat, no one moves, because the words seem too monstrous to belong in the same room as children, and then Lucerys lets out a frightened noise in the back of her throat

"Mother," Lucerys cries, scrambling behind Rhaenyra so quickly he nearly trips over his own feet. His small hands fist desperately in the back of her gown as he peeks around her, face drained of all color. Fresh blood stains his doublet where it had run from his broken nose, and now his whole body is shaking.

Jacaerys's eyes are wide as he looks between his mother and Alicent, reaching out to grab Lucerys's hand despite the fear plain in his eyes, and Lord Corlys is there an instant later, pulling Lucerys further behind him, placing himself between the boys and Ser Criston.

"He can choose which eye to keep," Alicent continues, voice breaking with grief and fury alike, "a privilege he did not grant my son."

She cannot mean this, you think desperately. She cannot.

"You will do no such thing," Rhaenyra hisses, voice cold, one hand instinctively reaching for Lucerys until she realizes Corlys has him safely tucked behind him while the other shields Jacaerys.

"Stay your hand," Viserys orders.

"No! You are sworn to me," Alicent says desperately.

For one terrible moment, you cannot tell whether the man standing across the hall is weighing the Queen's command or the King's.

"He is sworn to the blood of the dragon," you say, finally making your presence known, grateful that your voice is louder and stronger than you thought yourself capable of in this state. You step closer to the center of the room, halfway between your sister and the queen. "To protect and serve. To obey the King before all others. It is curious, however, how readily you expect him to forget his oath in favor of your… whims. It does make one wonder whether there is some precedent in place that leads you to believe that a sworn brother of the Kingsguard would draw his blade on a prince of the blood in the presence of his king at your behest. Does Ser Criston often set aside his vows whenever Your Grace asks it of him?"

The hall silences at the implication of your question, but you stand unrepentant, raising your chin and staring at Alicent, who lets out a disbelieving scoff as she looks over you. Daemon makes a noise in the back of his throat—a laugh, you think—as he peels off the wall to pace closer to Rhaenyra, positioning himself in line of Ser Criston.

"Muña!" Jacaerys gasps, moving to take a step in your direction, but Rhaenyra stops him from leaving out from behind her.

"Take care with your tongue, daughter," Alicent says after a moment.

"Gladly," you reply evenly. "As soon as your grace takes care with her commands."

"Enough," your father snaps at you, looking thoroughly exhausted. You press your lips together and look away, trying desperately not to roll your eyes. "Do not make this worse than it already is."

How does he not see what is plain before his eyes? It is Alicent who poisoned the ears of your half-siblings. Alicent, who has caused this terrible divide. Alicent, Alicent, Alicent. But your father proves blind to her true nature every day that passes.

There is a long moment where you think that perhaps that will be the end of it. You have made your bold commentary, and maybe it is enough to pull the attention off of the boys for the time being—you will suffer for it, surely, when you return to King's Landing alone, because your place is with Aegon now, whether you like it or not, but you would suffer endlessly if it spared Rhaenyra's boys even a little more time.

Then, Alicent says, "Then I will do it myself."

Your eyes widen, turning too slow as Alicent darts forward, pulling the Valyrian steel dagger from Viserys's hip sheath and lunging in the direction of Rhaenyra and Lucerys. Lucerys's scream tears through the hall. Everything happens at once.

Before you even register what's happening, Rhaenyra darts forward to meet Alicent, eyes wide, moving on sheer instinct to protect her sons. Lord Corlys draws Lucerys back behind him and Princess Rhaenys with Daemon's girls, but Jacaerys tries to run after his mother, shouting for her as he reaches for her arm.

You grab him by the bicep hard, yanking him out of the line of danger and behind you, panic flaring hot and fast in your chest when you see Ser Criston running down from the steps. You force Jacaerys to stay behind you as you put yourself between him and Ser Criston, ignoring the way Jacaerys tries to break free to get to his mother, but Daemon steps forward before the kingsguard can involve himself in the conflict, a smirk on his face as he press his hand to Ser Criston's chest plate and shoves him backward, daring him to draw his sword and give him a reason to draw his own.

Jacaerys clings to your cloak now, adrenaline fading to fear, as he stares at his mother and Alicent, then looks up at you. Blood streams down his face, crusted over his temple and jaw, eyes wide with unshed tears. You lift your hand to wipe the blood from his skin, and he instinctively presses his face into the palm of your hand. You catch the tears that threaten to fall with your thumb before they can, turning his face away so he cannot see as the blade cuts through Rhaenyra's arm.

Jacaerys jerks in your hold as Rhaenyra gasps in pain, and the nobles around scramble away. He tries to move toward her again, but your grip on him tightens.

"Stay," you order, and he immediately stills, eyes wide and throat bobbing as he stares at you helplessly.

You want to tell him that everything will be okay, but there is a terrible look on Rhaenyra's face that you have never seen before as she stares at Alicent, holding her wounded arm, and you have a distinct feeling that things have only just begun.

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"You should have woken me immediately," you tell Jacaerys firmly as you clean the blood from his face. He shrinks at your words. "I mean it, Jacaerys. I'm furious. How could you go out there on your own with your little brother and cousins? What were you thinking?"

"You were so tired, muña," Jacaerys whispers. "I didn't want to wake you. I wanted to take care of it so—"

"And look how that turned out," you say harshly, pinching his cheeks between your hands until he squirms and pouts. "You cannot be so reckless, do you understand? We are lucky that all that happened was—" You cut yourself off from saying what you were about to say, inhaling deeply. "You could have been killed. You, Lucerys, Baela, and Rhaena. You cannot be so reckless. Say you understand."

Jacaerys's throat bobs as his gaze drops down to your lap. He says quietly "I understand."

You let out a huff, hardly satisfied, but you busy yourself with wetting the warm rag and patting it lightly to his temple instead, grimacing at the blood still dripping from the shallow head wound.

"He's right, isn't he?" Jacaerys says after a few moments, shoulders hunched. "I'm a bastard. I'm Harwin Strong's son, not Laenor's."

You sigh, eyes sliding shut. Your head aches too much to have this conversation with him. The exhaustion of lack of sleep and the excitement in the Hall of Nine weigh your body down terribly. You say tiredly, "Jacaerys—"

"I know it is true," Jacaerys interrupts, voice small. "It is obvious, like Aegon said. I have known for a while, I think. Since we left King's Landing. Luke didn't know yet. I tried to keep it from him."

You do not answer for a long while, busying yourself with gently wiping away the blood crusted at his temple, because you do not know how to respond. Your heart hurts at the idea of Jacaerys knowing all along but trying to shield Lucerys from the truth—having no one to talk to about any of this because even just referencing it in passing could condemn his little brothers to a terrible fate. He has always tried to take more on his shoulders than he should, no matter how often you and Rhaenyra reminded him he was only just a child. His fingers are trembling in his lap, so you reach out with your free hand to hold his carefully; he immediately latches onto you, nails digging into your skin.

You finally tell him, "It does not matter."

Jacaerys whips toward you, brows pinched and lips pressed together. "How can you say that?" he demands. "You know that isn't true."

"What matters, Jacaerys, is that you are your mother's son. My nephew. You are fire and blood, and one day, the Iron Throne will be yours," you say, grabbing his chin to force him to look at you. "The Realm will whisper that Aegon deserves the throne more than you because his hair is silver and his eyes are purple, and you will prove them wrong just by being as you are."

"But what if being myself is not enough?" he asks quietly. "They will keep whispering, even after I am grown and am king. Even if I've done good. What if one day—"

He does not dare voice the question you know he wants to ask. What if one day steel is drawn? What if one day dragons fly against dragons? What if, what if, what if?

"Then, we will show them what we are," you tell him simply, stroking his jaw with your thumb. "They will learn swiftly that every man who rises against a dragon is burned by one."

"We cannot burn everyone who speaks out against us," Jacaerys says quietly, looking away, shoulders hunched slightly.

"Spoken like a true king," you tease lightly, and then lean in to brush your lips against his forehead. "You cannot, mandianna. A king must know mercy before he knows wrath. He must seek peace before war." A faint smile tugs at your lips. "That is why the gods, in all their wisdom, gave you me."

Jacaerys cannot help the giggle that spills from his lips as he rests his head against your shoulder. Your eyes slide shut as you lift a hand to cradle the side of his face, absently running your fingers through the ends of his hair.

You must get stronger again. The girl who once spent every waking hour in the training yard until her palms bled and fought her father, the king, because she sought to wield a sword like Visenya herself, the one who could remain astride Zūgaxes from dawn to dusk and dreamed of once taking Dark Sister from Daemon's hand, still lives somewhere beneath the exhaustion and aching in your bones. You know it. You felt her today in that hall, after two years of uncertainty.

There is no room for weakness anymore—not when steel has been drawn and you could not draw your own, not when Jacaerys looks to you with frightened eyes and Lucerys screams after being openly threatened and you can do nothing to ease their fear, not when your sister's blood has been shed on the pale floors of Hide Tide and you could not spill blood in kind.

"I will see anyone who should seek to raise hand or blade against you answer for it with their lives," you tell him quietly, pressing your lips to the crown of his head absently as you stare at where the twins lie in their cradles, ignorant of the conflict brewing around them. What would become of them, you wonder, if mother and father stood on opposite sides of a war? "Anyone who threatens my family, my queen, or my future king will learn exactly why our words are fire and blood."

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JACAERYS, 18; READER, 23; 128 AC

When Jace was six years old, his mother knelt before him and told him that his muña is very lonely and sad far more often than she allowed anyone to see, even though she has become exceptionally good at pretending otherwise. She told Jace it takes a very skilled eye to see when you are pretending, and Jace insisted that he knows you well enough to tell. His mother had kissed the top of his head with a fond smile and asked Jace to keep you company and try to make you smile in her place, when she could not be there herself.

He had not fully understood what she meant back then. Now he does, he thinks, looking back on all of the times he had caught you staring out windows with dull expressions before you noticed him looking and forced a smile. But he knew that you needed him and his mother had entrusted him with the important task of making you smile when you are sad, and that was more than enough.

Jace had taken that responsibility very, very seriously. From that day forward, every frown became an enemy for him to vanquish and every tear a personal failure. If he caught you looking particularly solemn, he would crawl into your lap or tug insistently at your skirts until you paid attention to him, armed with some ridiculous story or childish joke he had spent all morning preparing solely because he knew it would make you laugh.

Then, two years later, his family left for Dragonstone, and you remained behind in King's Landing, and he was tortured with the knowledge that he had left you alone, surrounded by people who did not know how to make you smile the way he did—who might not even notice when you were sad in the first place.

Now, after a decade away, he has returned, and you are nowhere to be found.

Jace stands toward the back of the throne room, jaw tight, hands locked behind his back as Vaemond Velaryon makes his petition for Driftmark, content—for once—to remain unnoticed.

It suits him better this way today. No one pays much mind to him while others argue over inheritance. They are too busy paying attention to Vaemond's accusation and his mother's reaction to realize the dark-haired, dark-eyed man lingering in the shadows is the heir to Dragonstone, firstborn son of the crown princess. So he is well able to overhear conversations that would shift into syrupy smiles and false pleasantries around his mother and Daemon.

Strong. Bastard. Plain. Lord Fossoway. Lady Ambrose. Ser Roxton.

It is about what Jace expected from a court full of Reachmen. More than half the throne room dons green, Faith heraldry has replaced the three-headed dragon wherever he looks. Jace's memories of the Red Keep are hazy, so in truth, he could not tell whether or not it is truly different from what it had been nigh a decade ago, but he does know for certain one thing is missing—you.

Every memory he has of this place begins and ends with you, and it is jarring that you are nowhere to be seen. You reading to him in the gardens until he fell asleep against your shoulder. You carrying him back to his chambers after he had faked dozing off during his lessons, giggling with him as soon as the two of you were out of sight from Maester Geradys. You waiting at the edge of the yard whenever Ser Criston was leading training, because you knew Jace was uncomfortable around him and would step in if things took a wrong turn. You laughing as Jace tried and failed to get Vermax to listen to him, slinking your arms around him when he pouted and pretended to be angry just so you would give him more attention. He has been to every place he once stood with you, and has found you at none.

Without you, it feels—it feels wrong. Unfamiliar. And it is all he can think about, even though he needs to be paying attention to what is being said around him. He tries to remind himself that what is said today could change everything. Vaemond is not just asking for Driftmark—he is asking the court to declare Lucerys no true Velaryon, and in doing so, to admit what half the realm has whispered since Jace was born with dark hair instead of silver.

And if Lucerys can be stripped of his inheritance because he is not Laenor's son, then Jace can be stripped of his for the same reason. Worse, if the court is willing to question the succession before his grandsire lives, Jace fears what they may do once the Iron Throne stands empty. And yet—

His thoughts invariably return to you.

He thought you would be waiting for him.

He presses his tongue to the inside of his cheeks as he fights the terrible mixture of frustration and disappointment that has been threatening to consume him since he stepped onto the docks and you were nowhere to be found. Maybe he was being foolish. It has been eight years since he had last seen you at Driftmark for Laena's funeral—ten since you were close enough for him to run to whenever you frowned.

Things had already changed in two—just in the time between Laena's funeral and when they had left for Dragonstone and you had stayed behind in King's Landing. Two years of unanswered ravens and sleepless nights had taught him that wanting someone did not mean they would come. More than once, his mother had let him cry into her skirts because he missed you so terribly his chest hurt. More than once, she had promised, soon, Jace, soon we will go to her.

But soon had become two years, and when Jace had finally seen you again at Driftmark, he had scarcely recognized you. Gone was the girl who had chased him through the Red Keep, laughing as he shrieked that she was cheating. Gone was the dragonrider who was more comfortable in the air than afoot and taught him the basics of swordplay so he would not embarrass himself in front of his father and Cole.

In her place was someone Jace could hardly stand to look at without being filled with rage. He thought, at the time, that he was angry at you. Angry at you for changing, angry at you for never answering his ravens, angry at you for abandoning him.

He knows better now—he had never been angry at you.

It had been he who promised to come back for you, he who promised to take care of you, to keep you safe, make you feel loved, devoted to you the same way you'd been to him for as long as he remembered. Instead, Aegon had married you. Aegon had stood beside you when you nearly died and left when you needed him most. Aegon had watched you become a shadow of the girl Jace had loved with every piece of his heart.

All Jace had done was arrive too little too late.

If so much had changed in two years, how much could have possibly changed in another eight? It has been a long time, he acknowledges. Long enough for people to become strangers. Long enough for memories to become distant. But he has never forgotten you, he thinks bitterly. How could you have forgotten him?

You couldn't have, he rationalizes. You exchanged ravens frequently enough that Maester Geradys grew irate every time Jace showed up with another to be sent. Several times a week, Jace had filled pages with every detail he could think to share, recounting the smallest happenings of his days simply because he wanted you to know them, because he wanted some part of himself always with you. And you had always written back with pages of your own, telling him of your days, your thoughts, the twins, all the little things that mattered only because they mattered to you. He had kept every one of them, read them until he knew whole passages by heart—surely you could not have written to him so often, given him so much of yourself and taken so much of him in kind, only to forget him now.

You could not have forgotten him, you are just—late. You are just late.

It does not quell the all-consuming disappointment. He has imagined his reunion with you so many times that he could recite what he wanted to say to you in his sleep. He had a whole plan that he envisioned, and it fell apart the moment he stepped off the ship and realized you were not there on the dock.

He imagined you would be waiting for him, smiling the moment you caught sight of him. He would cross the docks to you slowly, resisting every instinct that urged him to throw himself into your arms as he once had. Instead, he would take your hand in his and bow his head to press a kiss to your knuckles, watching for the moment you realized that the little boy you remembered had grown into a man in your absence.

He imagined that he would steal you away from everyone else after the feast celebrating their return to King's Landing, pressing his lips to your knuckles as his gaze spitefully met Aegon's. He would let you hold his arm, and he would guide you to the godswood, sitting with you as the sun set as you have countless times before, listening as you tell him about the twins and life over the past eight years. It would be different hearing it from your lips, in your voice, than it is reading it on parchment. He would let you rest your head in his lap, and he would absentmindedly comb his fingers through your hair the way you always had to him.

He imagined that he would stay there with you as the moon rose overhead, until the conversation dwindled into a comfortable silence. Then he would turn his head just enough to look at you, really look at you, and he would wonder if maybe you would look at him for him. Not as the little prince forever following at your heels, or the boy who climbed into your bed after every nightmare—but as a man.

One whose shoulder you could rest against without fear of being disappointed, one capable of taking care of you, one who could take your hand before the gods—one worthy of sharing your heart and your bed.

It is shameful, perhaps, to imagine such things with you, but he cannot help himself.

He imagined that he would be nervous as he reached up for your face the first time, brushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear, thumb lingering against your cheek longer than it ought to, and then he imagined closing the distance between you, slowly enough that you could stop him if you wished. He never imagined you would.

He fights a heavy exhale through his nose as he shakes his head, eyes sliding shut. He would tell you that he has become a prince worthy of standing beside you. That he's no longer the frightened little boy who cried himself to sleep because you weren't near. That if you let him, he could finally be the husband he had promised you he could be.

The doors to the throne room reopen, and Jace has to force himself to be present. He can think of you later. He can wonder why you never came to the docks later. He can mourn the reunion that never was later. He can try to figure out a new plan later. He can tell you everything he has carried in his heart for the better part of a decade later.

If there is a later. Because Vaemond's words are not aimed at Luke alone, he reminds himself. They are aimed at his mother—at him. If Vaemond succeeds today and Luke loses Driftmark—if the court accepts the implication buried within his petition—then Jace's own birthright will be at risk. They will come for the Iron Throne, for him, next.

You had told him once that you would see anyone who sought to raise hand or blade to him pay for it with their lives—do you still mean it? Or have eight years of separation pushed you into the arms of Alicent Hightower and your half-siblings?

He cannot think of this now, skin crawling as soon as the question crosses his mind. He forces his mind away and lifts his gaze to see who had arrived. He expects another courtier draped in green, another enemy who will revel in his family's fall, but instead—

—instead it is you.

The throne room, the nobles, the whole petition—everything falls away. Jace forgets how to breathe momentarily as his gaze sweeps over you.

He remembers his mother weeping a few nights after Lady Laena's funeral, clinging to Laenor as she whispered that your hips had been too narrow, too slight, that you had still looked more child than woman when they forced you into a marriage bed to bear twins. But looking at you now, it is almost impossible to reconcile the woman before him with the frail girl who was leaning upon Aemond's arm eight years ago. Your figure has filled out where it once seemed painfully thin, your face has regained its color, and though there remains a weariness about your eyes, you no longer look so dull.

Somehow, impossibly, you are even more beautiful than he remembered. He has spent years trying to preserve your face in his mind, sketching you absently in his free time, terrified that time would blur it beyond recognition.

It had not done you justice.

Eight years have changed you. You are older now, certainly—the softness of girlhood has long surrendered to womanhood, just as the boyhood has left him. You are taller than he remembers, or perhaps he is simply no longer looking up at you from the height of a child. The gauntness left by illness has filled out with time, gown clinging to your body in all the right places as you sweep forward through the throne room, confident even as all eyes in the room turn to you.

You look… like a woman. Like the wife of another man.

Jace hates the thought viciously as soon as it crosses his mind.

You do not look his way, much as he tries to compel you to look at him without calling for you like a fool before the entire court. Your attention is fixed upon the throne—upon Otto Hightower seated where your father ought be and Vaemond Velaryon standing so boldly before the court as though the matter had already been decided—but Jace cannot drag his eyes from you. He watches as you make your way toward the front of the throne room at an even pace, the sea of green parting instinctively before black and red.

He does not remember deciding to move. One moment, he is standing among the gathered lords, hidden in the shadow of a marble pillar, content to remain unnoticed, and the next, he is following in your wake, eyes pinned on the back of your head.

He weaves through the crowd of gathered lords and ladies as you make your way down the center of the throne room, a few paces behind, never losing sight of you. He slips between Lord Caswell and Lady Fell, circles around a knot of Hightower retainers without so much as glancing at him. His feet seem to know where to go before his mind does.

He has spent half his life following you—through the winding halls of the Red Keep, trying to keep pace with your longer stride as you laughed over your shoulder, through the gardens, to the dragonpit, to the training yard, wherever your restless feet happened to lead, Jace was always a few steps behind. Eight years may have passed, but his body remembers the path before his mind even has a chance to question it.

For one horrifying second, it looks as though you're going to bear left—in the direction of Queen Alicent, your half-siblings, your husband—but then you lean in close enough to Vaemond that your lips must brush his ear, mouth tilted up in a lazy smile.

Jace cannot hear what you say to him, heart pounding at the idea of you standing amidst the sea of green instead of alongside black and red where you belong, but Vaemond Velaryon stiffens so suddenly that Jace knows he must have disliked whatever it was. You seem to let out a soft laugh, head hanging forward slightly, before you cross in front of Vaemond to stand next to Rhaenyra, on the opposite side Daemon already stands.

Jace does not think he's seen his mother so relieved in ages, and he can't even blame her because he's just as relieved to see you stand at her side instead of amidst green. For the first time in weeks, it seems, the tension that has been endlessly weighing on her disappears the moment you stand at her side again.

Jace watches you take her hand into yours before lifting it to your lips. You bow your head slightly as you ghost your mouth against his mother's knuckles, and his mother gives you a soft, fond smile—one usually reserved for Jace himself—as she turns her hand to cradle the side of your face briefly.

You tilt your face into her touch momentarily before you stand straight again, casting a look over your shoulder to where Alicent Hightower and your half-siblings are standing before you nod your head once, beckoning.

Jace's brows furrow slightly in confusion as he moves to stand beside Luke, two paces behind you, his mother, and Daemon, until he sees two children instantly dart across the throne room—Maegor and Maegelle, Jace realizes instantly. Maegor busies himself at your side, tucked beneath your arm, while Maegelle positions herself behind you, both of them clutching you as Otto Hightower commences the petition by addressing Vaemond again.

Jace should be paying attention now, but his gaze remains fixed on your children. The last time he'd seen them, they'd hardly been a year old. You have described them in your letters countless times over, but it is different seeing them in person again. Maegor is tall for his age, nearly ten years old and already reaching your shoulder, while Maegelle hardly reaches your chest, nose tucked beneath your arm.

They cannot be more than nine or ten now, all silver hair and violet eyes to Jace's brown on brown—every inch a Targaryen prince, no question about it. Maegor's hand is wrapped around yours, the other fisted tightly in the folds of your skirt as though it belongs there. The sight of it stirs an ugly feeling in his chest, one so irrational and shameful that it embarrasses him, because once, without thinking, he had reached for you the same way.

His jaw tightens before he can stop it. The feeling is petty, even for him. He is a grown man, his mother's heir, standing in the throne room as the fate of his family hangs in the balance, and the boy is your son. Yet all he can do is think the place at your side had once been his, and wonder when he had ceased belonging there.

A sharp elbow catches his side. Jace startles, finally tearing his eyes away to find Luke staring up at him with a look caught somewhere between confusion and outright disbelief, following his brother's line of sight before slowly turning back to him as if silently asking whether he has forgotten where they are and what is happening.

Jace flushes and looks away.

The rest of the petition is a blur. Vaguely, he remembers his grandsire entering the throne room, the argument escalating, the rage and dread he felt as bastard and whore rang through the hall, Daemon spilling blood before the whole court as soon as the words are spoken. He hears the collective gasp of the nobility and the sickening thud of Vaemond's body and severed head striking the floor, but his gaze finds you again and again, as though the rest of the room has dissolved into little more than noise around your silhouette, gaze incessantly dropping to where your hands rest on your children.

Protective. Shielding them. It is the same hand that once rested on the back of his neck whenever he was frightened, that pulled him behind you when Alicent drew steel on he and his family. The same absent touch that soothed nightmares and bruises before he had ever needed to learn how to hide them.

It belongs to someone else now, he thinks bitterly, and then feels ashamed for even letting such a thought cross his mind when it is your children on the receiving end of it.

Aegon's children, his mind traitorously reminds him—his eyes, his hair, his blood. Jace wonders, before he can stop himself, what they might have looked like had fate been kinder. Would a son of yours and his have inherited your hair or his dark curls? Would—

Luke elbows him again hard, and this time, Jace shoots him an irritated look, but Luke doesn't even acknowledge it, raising his eyebrows pointedly before flicking his eyes ahead. Jace follows his gaze, attention dragging ahead to where his grandsire descends from the Iron Throne, his mother and Daemon standing close beside him, speaking in hushed voices that Jace cannot make out over the murmurs still sweeping through the hall. And you—

You are looking at him, finally.

Jace's eyes meet yours, and for one long moment, he is eighteen and ten all at once—a prince standing in his grandsire's throne room and the little boy who used to search every corridor of the Red Keep until he found you.

He is not breathing, he realizes as he stares at you. His lungs are burning as he waits for you to say something—anything. He has imagined this moment a hundred, a thousand, a million times before. He has scripted what he would say to you—practiced it in his room as soon as his mother told him they would be returning to King's Landing at last—but now that he is finally in front of you again, his throat is dry and his heart is beating so loudly that he is certain you must hear it.

Then, you smile, and Jace can suddenly breathe again.

"Jurnegon rȳ ao, mandianna," you breathe out softly, taking two steps in his direction, hands lifting to cradle his face between your palms, "emā mazverdagon sīr olvie."

Look at you, nephew, you have grown so much.

Jace's breath leaves him, lashes fluttering shut. The warmth of your hands against his cheeks is achingly familiar, so familiar that his body responds before his mind has the chance to. He sinks into your touch, turning his face into your palm as though he had been starved for your touch. Your thumbs sweep slowly along his cheekbones, catching the dampness he hadn't realized was gathering on his lower lashes.

Then, you frown and say, "I hate it."

Jace stared at you for a moment, heart pounding, freezing between your hands—you hate it?

Luke snorts loudly somewhere behind Jace, and you tilt your head and give his brother an easy smile as you say, "Do not laugh, you know what I mean, Lucerys."

Jace does not know, but you pull him closer, hands sliding from his cheeks to the back of his head so that you can tuck his face into the crook of your neck, and all offense disappears in an instant.

He melts into you with the same ease he did ten years ago—as though no time has passed at all—and a ragged breath escapes him. His forehead presses against the warm skin of your neck, hiding his face there the same way he always had whenever he was frightened or overwhelmed as a little boy.

He inhales greedily, familiar lavender filling his lungs for the first time since you parted all those years ago—he had tried buying similar perfumes at the harbor market on Dragonstone, lingering over every vial the merchants swore carried notes of lavender, but none of them had ever healed the ache in his chest the way a single breath against your neck does now.

His arms find your waist, drawing you against him until there is scarcely any space between your bodies, and you thread your fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck and press your lips to his temple.

He should be embarrassed, he thinks. He spent the entire voyage convincing himself that he would return to King's Landing as a man for you. He imagined standing proudly before you, kissing your hand, speaking with the confidence expected of the heir to Dragonstone. He would show you that he was no longer the frightened little prince forever trailing at your heels.

Instead, the first thing he has done is hide his face in your neck. He ought to pull away—loosen his grip on your waist, straighten his shoulders, meet your eyes and greet you with whatever slivers of dignity remained, but he cannot bring himself to when your fingers are carding so gently through his hair, lips lingering at his temple.

He wonders if you can feel the frantic beating of his heart through the layers of his tunic and your gown—if you notice how tightly he is holding you, how shamelessly he has folded himself into your embrace. But if you do and think less of him for it, you give no sign.

"You look well, niece," Daemon says as he approaches you, and irritation flares hot through Jace's chest at the interruption, jaw tightening when you pull away to look at Daemon. Your hand slides from the back of his head to his upper arm, and Jace feels electric beneath your touch, even as you turn to face your uncle. "Much better than you looked back on Driftmark, certainly."

Daemon takes your free hand to ghost a chaste kiss against your knuckles, gaze briefly landing on Jace. A curious expression crosses his face before he huffs out a laugh and takes a step back—Jace frowns at him, but Daemon's lips curve up into a knowing smile before he looks back at you again.

"I have you to thank for that, I suppose, kepa," you say with a ease smile. Jace cannot smother the sheer giddiness he feels when he realizes you have no intention of dropping your hand from his arm. You have missed him, he realizes, throat bobbing, you have missed him perhaps as much as he has missed you. "It was proper motivation, I'd say, threatening to send assassins after me to ensure I… ah, how did you phrase it? That I stopped feeling sorry for myself and climbed out of bed?"

Jace is immediately torn from his lingering thoughts, blinking once, unsure he heard you properly. He gives Daemon a furious look, but Daemon only laughs, tilting his head back. "Did it work?"

"Wonderfully," you say dryly. "I found the prospect of being assassinated while abed was an excellent cure for lingering weakness."

"Then all is well," Daemon says dismissively. "No need to stare at me so murderously, Jacaerys."

Jace flushes immediately when you glance up at him, embarrassed that Daemon called him out so plainly, but you only give him a fond smile, and Jace's heart flutters dangerously in his chest.

You have missed him, he thinks again, more desperately this time, because all of the time he has spent away from you, he had half convinced himself that you'd simply learned to live without him—out of sight, out of mind.

Have you ached for him the same way he has for you these last eight years? Have you thought about him? When you sat in the godswood to read, would you find yourself waiting for him? When you dined amidst the sea of green during feasts, did your gaze wander the crowd in search of him? When you lay abed with your husband, did you ever close your eyes and imagine it was him instead? He needs to know.

Before the thoughts can consume him entirely, your hand drops from his bicep, and Jace feels terribly cold again.

You reach your hands out to Maegor and Maegelle, and Jace realizes that they've been standing next to Baela and Rhaena, big violet eyes flicking between you and Jace curiously. They immediately rush over to you, each diving into your side.

Maegor looks up at Jace with a sharp, accusing look that he takes immediate offense to. Why is he staring at Jace as though he is the one who has wandered uninvited into someone else's home? Jace was here first. Long before anyone else had called you mother or wife, he had called you muña—he had known you first, he had loved you first, he had been the little prince forever tucked at your side. It was widely known throughout the keep that if someone sought him, they only needed to find you.

Jace is not the interloper here, because you were his first.

The childish part of him is bristling furiously, and shame follows it almost immediately. The boy is not even ten, and he has done nothing besides love his mother, and Jace is angry about it. He should be glad that someone in this keep cares about you enough to be wary of the strangers surrounding you.

Maegor's hand tightens around yours all the same, chin lifting ever so slightly, as though he's challenging Jace to say something, violet eyes fixed upon Jace with open suspicion. The prince edges a step closer, his shoulder pressing into you with unmistakable intent: it is territorial.

Jace almost scoffs. The little wretch is trying to stake a claim on you. Stake a claim from him. You finally notice it too, lips twitching up into a smile.

"Maegor," you say gently, resting a hand atop his silver hair, fingers threading through the silky locks absently. "There is no need to glare."

"I wasn't glaring," the young prince mutters, glaring.

"You were."

"I was looking."

"You were looking rather fiercely."

"I was making sure he wasn't upsetting you."

Jace blinks, but before he has the chance to become even more offended by the presumption that his presence might upset you, you laugh, and Jace is breathless. His lips part as his gaze fixes on your bright smile, the way your hair falls slightly in your face as you lean down to press a brief kiss to the top of Maegor's head.

You are beautiful, he thinks for the millionth time in his life—seeing your smile, hearing your laugh, it has always made the difference between a ruined day and a perfect one. Jace has always thought you were the most beautiful woman in the world—even when you were both children, he had thought no lady at court could ever compare to you, forever offended whenever singers insisted another lady was the fairest woman in the realm. They simply have never seen you laugh, he would tell them, full of righteous anger.

His gaze lingers on your smile too long—you look happy, he realizes, and it settles strangely in his chest.

For years, he had imagined your life here in King's Landing as… dark. Miserable. Lonely suppers eaten in silence, wandering the halls with no one to keep you company—a marriage endured rather than cherished. He was plagued by thoughts of you in Dragonstone, and they had always been riddled with guilt, because he had left you here alone, surrounded by enemies and—

—and it had comforted him, in some shameful way.

If you were unhappy, then perhaps you missed him as fiercely as he had missed you, perhaps you were waiting for him the same way he waited endlessly to return to you.

He had not imagined this. A daughter tucked beneath one arm and a son standing guard at your side as though protecting you were the most natural thing in the world. You love them, it is clear, and they love you the same.

Have you grown to love Aegon, too? Jace suddenly feels dizzy.

"Raqiarzy," you say fondly, smoothing an errant strand of silver hair away from Maegor's face before looking back up at Jace again. "This is Prince Jacaerys Velaryon. He is my nephew—your cousin. He will be our king one day after his mother."

Your words settle restlessly inside him. He will be our king one day after his mother. He has heard those words his entire life—from maesters, and lords, and his mother, and you. But it feels—it feels different now. He has fantasized standing beside you as your husband more times than he dares to admit, but—but as your king?

His throat bobs, breath catching, heart racing, mind shifting as his gaze slides up to the throne not a dozen feet away, then drifting to you, thoughts spinning and spiraling, enough to make him dizzy.

"Do you remember the plushes you two were gifted for your fourth nameday?" you ask the twins suddenly, drawing Jace from his mind, pulse hammering in his ears, shame crashing over him in devastating force.

—and what in the Seven Hells is he thinking?

He can see Luke giving him an odd look from the corner of his eye, and Jace desperately tries to compose himself, dragging in one slow breath through his nose as though it might somehow banish the treacherous images from his mind. His face feels unbearably hot.

Maegelle lights up beside Maegor. "Stuffed Hūraxes and stuffed Vēzarrion?" she asks, leaning into your arm and looking up at you with adoring eyes.

"Mhm," you confirm, running your fingers absently through her hair. "Do you remember who sent them?"

The twins exchange a thoughtful look, and then Maegor's eyes grow round as he looks at Jace, no longer accusing. "It was you!"

Jace clears his throat, grateful for something else to occupy his thoughts. He says faintly, "I hope they survived. I wish I could have been there for the celebrations."

"How did you know what they look like?" Maegor demands, leaning forward now. "You even knew about the little white patch on Vēzarrion's wing!"

"I keep stuffed Hūraxes in my room every day." Maegelle nods, excited. "He protects it!"

"We wanted to keep real Vēzarrion and real Hūraxes in our rooms, but mother wouldn't allow us," Maegor frowns. Then he asks again, "How did you know what they looked like? You've never seen them before."

Jace's eyes instinctively drift to you, but you only smile.

"Your mother writes to me often," he admits. "She is very thorough, as I'm sure you know."

You squint at him. "What does that mean?" you ask, but Jace only grins and holds his hands up in faux-surrender. You tilt your head and say, "Jacaerys."

Maegelle giggles, and Maegor immediately nods, brows knit together as he frowns, nodding in agreement.

"She knows everything," he complains. "I can never get away with anything. I try to skip lessons, and she knows. I try to sneak snacks, and she knows. I hid a frog in Maester Orwyle's desk, and somehow she knew that too."

Jace's smile widens a bit as he huffs out a laugh. He says, "Once I tried to hide beneath your mother's bed so I wouldn't have to attend sword training. I thought I was clever because certainly the last place she would look was right beneath her nose. She found me within ten minutes."

You laugh at the memory, and Jace's heart skips a beat when you lean slightly into him, head resting on his shoulder as you look down at Maegor and Maegelle, both of whom suddenly seem thoroughly delighted.

"You skipped lessons too?" Maegor asks excited.

"Frequently," you answer before Jace can.

Jace's lips part in mock offense. "I hardly think frequently is fair."

"Jacaerys," you say dryly, head tilted to the side as you give him a lazy smile. "You once convinced Luke that you had been kidnapped by pirates because you wished to avoid histories. He had the entire keep in a frenzy."

Luke snorts loudly behind him, finally taking a step forward to greet you. He leans in to ghost his lips against your cheek before he says, "I forgot about that."

"I was seven," Jace mutters, ears burning.

"You were a little menace," you correct.

Maegelle hides her face in your gown as she laughs, and Maegor stares at Jace with newfound admiration.

"Mother always said you were clever," he says, scrutinizing Jace carefully. Jace flushes slightly at the idea of you telling your children about him. "She did not mention you were also troublesome. You will have to share some of your tricks with me."

"He was dreadful," you confirm, "and if he knows what's good for him, he will share nothing."

"I protest," Jace says immediately, looking down at you. "You, too, were troublesome, muña. Do not cast the blame all on me."

Maegor and Maegelle gasp as though they were just handed gold.

"You used to adore me when you were little," you sigh wistfully. "You never used to talk back like this."

"I still adore you," he murmurs quietly, far more sincere than the teasing he aimed for.

You tilt your head up to look at him, and Jace cannot breathe again, because you are so close, so close that if he only leaned in a smidge then—Luke pinches his side hard, and Jace grimaces, shooting him an irritated look. Luke's expression is one of naked disbelief: what are you doing? it seems to say without a single word being spoken.

Heat crawls up Jace's neck, and he follows Luke's pointed glance across the Great Hall.

Aegon is watching him. Aemond, too.

The elder prince lounges against a pillar, but the amusement on his face is far too sharp to be entirely genuine. Beside him, Aemond stands with his hands behind his back, one violet eye fixed upon Jace with a type of scrutiny that makes him feel he's been caught doing something he ought not.

Jace's stomach drops, suddenly very aware that he is standing before half of the court and you, whether he likes it or not, are someone else's wife. It is one thing wanting you so desperately that it makes his heart ache—it is another entirely to put you in a position where your honor could be questioned.

He straightens immediately, subtly putting a bit of distance between the two of you. Your brows scrunch slightly, giving him a confused look, but luckily, Baela and Rhaena beckon you for a conversation, and you busy yourself with doting over them, pressing your lips to their hair as you fawn over how beautiful they've become.

He exhales, ears still burning as he chances another glance toward Aegon. The older prince tilts his head, the corner of his mouth curling upward ever so slightly. Jace's eye twitches in irritation. Then he looks down at Maegor as the boy grabs his hand, tugging insistently until Jace gives him his full attention.

"Will you tell us stories?" the boy asks hopefully. "About mother?"

Jace blinks, and his gaze flicks across the hall once more. Aegon is still watching. A curious, vindictive thought slips into Jace's mind, and a slow smile curls at the corners of his mouth. He intends to marry you one day—the thought comes as naturally as breathing, he has never doubted it once. One day, you will be his wife and his queen, and when that day comes—well, that would make your children his too, wouldn't it?

He kneels before Maegor and smiles as he agrees, "As many as you want."

Aegon can keep his goblet and his smug little smile. Jace will take everything else.

————————————

"What in the Seven Hells was that, Jace?"

Jace blinks as he looks at his brother, making his way across the outer edges of the training yard a few hours after the petition.

Soon, they will have to return to their mother's apartments to prepare for the supper the king wishes to host for his mother's family and Alicent's. Luke wanted to go down to the dragonpit and stay there until it was time, because he loathed to be around the vicious nobles of the court longer than he had to, but Jace thought it best that they show themselves a little longer. Prove to the court they are not afraid, that they are the rightful heirs—that they are Rhaenyra's sons and they will cower in the face of green schemes.

"What was what?" Jace asks, tilting his head to the side to look at Luke over his shoulder.

Luke stops walking altogether, and Jace stops with him. Luke says dryly, "You cannot be serious."

Jace squints at him questioningly.

"What?" he asks again, gaze flitting across the training yard. He sees Cole in the distance, and he frowns, trying to look over the crowd to see who else might be there—if you might be there—but he can't see over all of the heads. When Luke doesn't immediately reply, Jace glances at him again, raising his eyebrows, beckoning. "What was what?"

"Seriously,?" Luke hisses, grabbing his arm and forcing Jace to look at him. Jace frowns when he feels his brother's fingers digging into his upper arm, a pinched expression on his face. "You were practically climbing into her lap in front of the entire court."

Jace's face flushes, attention snapping fully to Luke once the mortifying accusation registers. "I was not."

"Yes, you were," Luke accuses. "In front of everyone."

"I was embracing my aunt," Jace denies, voice hushed as he pulls Luke to the side. "What are you talking about?"

"You were embracing her for an awfully long time," Luke whispers back, giving him an incredulous look. "What were you thinking? She's married, Jace. You do remember that, right?"

"Of course, I do," Jace snaps, bitter over the fact that his own brother is throwing it in his face. He does not need to be reminded that you are married. It has haunted him every day for the last eight years. "I was only acting as I always have. We have always been close. You know this."

Luke does not believe him. Jace can tell as much from the sidelong glance his younger brother gives him, but he does not care. He was acting as he always has—it is the truth. You have always welcomed him into your arms, and he has always gone willingly. He has always buried his face in your shoulder when he needed comfort, touch lingering a little longer than propriety perhaps allowed. He has always called you muña, has always reached for your hand without thinking, has always smiled whenever you smiled.

None of that has changed, only his intentions. That, Jace decides stubbornly, is not something anyone could have possibly seen.

"You're lucky Aegon found the whole thing amusing instead of making a fuss over it," Luke finally says, and Jace's expression hardens, jaw tightening as he inhales and stares ahead, fighting a shake of his head. "He won't be laughing forever."

"Perhaps she won't be his forever," Jace snips before he can stop himself, raising his chin and looking away. Luke's eyes bulge as he casts a disbelieving look toward him. Jace raises his hands in faux surrender. "I'm only saying."

"Jace," Luke hisses, "have you lost all sense?"

Jace shakes his head, staring ahead as he says simply, "No."

"I'm going to tell mother," Luke threatens.

Jace gives him a sharp, irritated look.

"What is there to tell?" he scoffs. Then, more aggravated, "Why must you tattle like a child? You are ten and seven now, act like it."

He does not need his mother knowing that he's infatuated with you—not that she would have much room to speak, all things considered.

"Bold coming from someone on the verge of throwing a fit for not getting his way."

"You—" Luke barely dodges as Jace tries to shove him hard, and Jace inhales sharply to calm himself down, shaking his head as he grabs Luke's bicep to pull him close. He says quietly, "I have loved her for as long as I can remember. I simply grew old enough to understand what that means. How do you propose I sit back and watch her be mistreated by Alicent's pig sons? What would you have me do, Luke?"

Luke sighs and looks away, chweing the inside of his cheek. "We are already under scrutiny, Jace. Look at what just happened—if grandsire hadn't shown, we would have been–" Luke cuts himself off, looking away. He does not need to finish the sentence for Jace to know what he was going to say: they would have been declared bastards before the whole court. "We need to tread carefully."

Jace knows this. He does. He knows he will be playing a dangerous game if he moves forward as he wishes—knows that it could backfire profusely, not just on him, but on you. But—but how is he not supposed to try?

"What do you even plan to do?" Luke continues, forcing Jace to look at him again. Jace rolls his eyes and turns away, but Luke steps in front of him again. "I'm serious. Do you plan to ask the High Septon to annul her marriage to Aegon? Approve of a divorce? They have two kids, Jace—it will not be so easy. And do you even know if she feels the same? Or does she still see you as the little boy who followed her everywhere?"

"I am a man grown," Jace scoffs. "I am not a little boy anymore."

"The last she saw of you, you were."

Jace rolls his eyes again, jaw tightening as he shakes his head. His chest aches as Luke's words settle over him—do you feel the same? Did you miss him? Ache for him how he ached for you? Or have you made a life for yourself that you are content with? His throat spasms as he swallows, uncertainty clawing at his chest.

"I liked you better when you couldn't speak," Jace snaps because he has nothing else to say. After a few moments pass, he says quietly, "I have to try. If she tells me that she—" He can hardly bring himself to push the words out. "—that she loves Aegon, if she tells me that she is happy and wants nothing more than the life she has, then I will leave it alone."

Luke squints as he searches his brother's face, as though he does not believe him. Jace presses his lips together, throat bobbing as he swallows.

Jace has wanted you for so long that he scarcely remembers what life felt like before the wanting began. It has become instinctive as breathing, woven so tightly into the foundations of who he is that he cannot imagine untangling himself from it. He has imagined futures with at his side, as his wife, his queen; he has imagined children, and children of children, and a long reign in his name and yours.

But he wants your happiness more. Preferably with him, of course. He wants to be the one who makes you laugh until tears sting your eyes. He wants to be the man whose children cling to your skirts, whose bed you crawl into after long days, whose name you breathe in throes of pleasure. He wants to grow old at your side and spend the rest of his life thanking the gods that they had finally been merciful.

But if that happiness belongs elsewhere—if, somehow, you have found it with Aegon… Then what right does he have to tear it away?

"I would never ask her to give up a happy life for me," he says quietly, gaze shifting to the ground, "but I need to hear it from her."

"Get him Maegelle! Hah!"

Your daughter? What is your daughter doing in the training yard?

Jace's gaze cuts to the side when he hears Aegon's obnoxious voice coming from the crowd on the opposite side of the training yard. He tilts his head to the side, sharing a look with Luke before he makes his way over. He grabs Luke's arm to keep him close as he pushes closer to the front of the people gathered, curious to see what has drawn so many knights and squires away from their drills.

Then he sees you.

You stand at the edge of the sparring ring, arms crossed over your chest, lips curved down as you watch the twins spar in the center with wooden practice swords and surprising enthusiasm. Your brows are knit together with the same concentration you always had whenever you were watching him and Luke train years ago.

Jace almost finds himself smiling, until he realizes Aegon is standing behind you, one arm slung comfortably around your shoulders, letting you rest your weight on him, a fresh goblet of wine dangling from his hand. The gesture is so effortless that it makes Jace's stomach turn, as though he's stood with you there a thousand times before.

Worse, you do not pull away.

Jace's jaw tightens. He can feel Luke looking at him to his side, and it's a distinct effort not to let the discomfort—the pain and uncertainty—show on his face. Could you be happy here? Without his mother? Without him? It has been eight years, he reminds himself. Eight years is a long time—long enough to build a life one can be content with, even when dealt a poor hand. Aemond, too, is on your opposite side, he realizes dully. He is leaning back against the wall, head tilted as he watches the twins spar with one another.

He says something to you that Jace cannot hear, and you snort and reply, giving Aemond an easy smile. He has to stop himself from physically shrinking from the sight of it.

He wonders, have you found in your half-siblings the home you once had in him, his mother, and Luke? When did Aegon's arm start resting there so casually? Do you seek him out at feasts the same way you once sought him? Do you instinctively drift toward his side after long days? Has that same hand, so casually resting upon your shoulder, held you through sleepless nights? Wiped away tears? Tucked loose strands of hair behind your ear? Every answer he imagines hurts.

He has always imagined Aegon to be a worthless cur undeserving of your hand, an absent husband who drowned himself in wine and whores while you tried to keep your family afloat—but he is here, a random evening watching as the twins spar with one another, one arm around your shoulders as though it belongs there. Like a husband. Like a father.

He had been pained for years at the thought of you being neglected, but—but it also brought him a semblance of comfort, because he would be able to swoop in and rescue you. He would show you love, he would take care of you, hold you, be with you.

Somehow, the idea of Aegon treating you properly feels infinitely worse, and he feels ashamed for it.

He watches a delighted expression cross your face at something Aegon says, and then you toss your head back and laugh. For the briefest instant, the prince grins—not the careless smirk he wears before the court, but something softer, almost boyish, that makes Jace nauseous.

"Jace," Luke says quietly.

Jace only shakes his head slightly, forcing a smile on his face as he glances over at his younger brother. His lips part to speak, but the smile freezes on his face when someone speaks somewhere to his left.

"I hear she entertains both of the brothers," an unfamiliar voice murmurs. "The princess."

Jace stares ahead blankly, the words taking a heartbeat too long to register. The blood beneath his skin simmers faintly. What did he just say? Is he talking about you?

"Aye," another answers with a snort. Jace tilts his head to the side, gaze focusing on the red-haired squire standing in the small crowd of onlookers—not much older than Jace himself. "The elder first. The younger whenever her husband is too deep in his cups. Makes you wonder whether those twins favor their father after all. Runs in the family, I'd say."

How dare they?

"What did you just say?" Jace asks coldly, turning to face the small group of men.

The red-haired one has the audacity to look annoyed at the interruption, gaze flicking up to meet Jace, and for a moment, his vision tints red—they wouldn't look at him like that if he looked like Aegon or Aemond. They would see his hair and eyes, and they would know who they were speaking to—instead, they look at him and see him as an equal.

"I asked you a question, you mongrel. What did you just say?" Jace repeats, taking a step forward, head tilting slightly. He can hardly think straight—he can hear his pulse pounding in his ears, drowning out everything else around him. "I dare you to repeat it."

For a second, it seems as though the squire is going to step forward, an indignant expression on his face, but before he could make a treacherous mistake, one of his thick-headed friends grabs his arm and bows deeply.

"My prince," he says quickly, stumbling over his words. The red-haired squire's face whitens, and the two behind him immediately follow suit, heads bowed so quickly they nearly collide with one another. "Forgive us. We meant no offense. We—we did not realize, truly—"

"I did not ask what you meant. I asked you what you said."

There's a long moment where all four of the squires remain silent, heads bowed—Jace can see that their hands are shaking, and his lip curls up in disgust.

"We said nothing, my prince."

Jace exhales through his nose—a laugh or a scoff, he's not sure. How dare they? He is furious in a way he has not been in a long, long time, nails digging so deep into his palms that he might draw blood.

"You had no difficulty finding your tongue when you believed no prince was listening," Jace says coolly. "Find it again."

They stand trembling now, heads bowed, hoping that if they pretend the words had never left their mouths, they might escape the consequences of speaking them. His fists curl tight at his sides—they do not know you. They have no right to speak your name or stain it with their filth.

He takes another step forward when they do not speak. "No?" he questions, and then huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. "Then count yourselves fortunate that I do not take your heads for the insult. Get out of my sight."

Jace exhales shakily as the four squires stumble to their feet and rush away. His eyes slide shut as he wills himself to calm down, and just as he's about to turn to Luke, he feels a familiar hand brush against his lower back. He knows you are standing there before he even turns and opens his eyes.

"Is everything okay?" you ask quietly, and Jace lets out a wavering puff of air as he turns to look at you. Your brows are furrowed slightly in concern, eyes roving over him carefully as you try to figure out what's wrong. "Mandianna?"

Do you know what they say about you? Are these common whispers, the same as the topic of his birth had once been? Did they turn on you again once Jace and his brothers left? Is there any truth to them?

The more treacherous question makes his stomach turn. He does not want to know the answer to that. He has imagined you abed with Aegon too many times to count over the past few years, each time agonizing in a way he could never quite explain, a private form of torture he inflicted upon himself whenever his thoughts grew particularly cruel. He would picture Aegon's hands where he wanted his own to be, mouth wandering your skin, arms wrapped around you beneath the sheets, body pressed into you in way Jace has only ever been able to dream about. Your face buried into his neck, breath pitching every time his body moved against yours, fingers tangled in silver hair instead of dark curls.

Each imagination had been enough to leave him sick with jealousy. He does not need another uncle added to them.

"Everything is fine," he lies.

You know instantly he is not telling the truth—you have always been able to catch him in a lie before he's even spoken a word—but he presses on anyway. His hand drops to yours, fingers tingling as he lifts it enough so that he can bend his head down and ghost his lips against your knuckles. He wonders if he imagines the way your breath hitches.

"Luke and I should go," he tells you. "We need to prepare for supper."

Your lips part slightly, and Jace thinks you are going to press him—to give him that look you always did when he was a boy, the one that pulled every secret from him without you having to ask twice. Instead, your gaze drops to where his fingers remain curled around yours.

"Of course," you say softly.

Jace realizes he is still holding your hand. He should let go, he thinks distantly, but instead, his thumb glides along your knuckles once, lingering, before he finally forces his fingers to loosen. The loss of your warmth leaves his palm strangely cold.

"We'll see you there?" Luke asks from beside him.

You wink at him. "Of course."

You glance at Jace again, an unreadable expression on your face, Jace's lips part to question you, but then your hand comes up, fingers briefly smoothing one of his dark curls away from his forehead. Jace's breath hitches, smile freezing.

"Go," you tell him fondly. "Before your mother sends someone looking for you and blames me for your absence.

He swallows thickly and then inclines his head obediently, "Yes, muña."

Jace turns away before he can do something foolish. Luke has the decency to wait until they have crossed half the yard before speaking.

"You are hopeless."

"Shut up."

————————————

Jace has spent the better part of the last fifteen minutes pretending not to watch the doors, nodding along absently to whatever Baela is saying beside him while his attention strays toward the entrance every few breaths.

You are late.

Not late enough to warrant the growing impatience twisting inside his chest, but late nonetheless, and every moment that passes where you remain out of reach only serves to further agitate the restlessness that has plagued him since the moment he saw you again.

"Can you please stop tapping your foot?" Baela finally asks, letting out an exasperated puff of air as she glances at Jace.

He immediately gives frowns at her, confused, and then she looks down pointedly at Jace's left leg, rapidly bouncing against the floor. He stills it immediately, face flushing slightly.

"I have yet to eat today," Jace lies, because he does not want to admit that he's antsy waiting for your arrival. "I'm merely hungry."

Baela rolls her eyes as she takes a sip from her goblet, and Jace gives her an indignant look, because what is what supposed to mean?

"I'm sure," she agrees dryly, "because it is food you are waiting for to come through that door."

Jace blinks once, lips parting in offense, but he does not get the chance to question her before Luke snorts and agrees, "It is not food he is hungry for."

Jace gapes, face hot as he stares at Luke in sheer disbelief, but Baela and Rhaena burst into laughter as though they know exactly what Luke is talking about, and Jace feels the distinct urge to sink into his seat. Did he tell them? Did they already know? How obvious was he being about it?

He spares a glance over to the opposite side of the table where the Queen and the Hand sit with Aemond and Helaena. Alicent is looking directly at them—so is Otto—and neither appears particularly amused.

Jace's stomach drops. The Queen's brows are drawn together in suspicion, gaze moving slowly between Jace and the rest as though attempting to decipher what could possibly have been said that inspired such an outburst. Beside her, Otto raises his chin slightly, eyes narrowed in that calculating way Jace remembers all too well from Driftmark as he watched the accusations of Jace, Luke, and Joffrey's legitimacy finally be given life.

They could not have heard, surely. Luke had spoken quietly, and the distance between them was too great for his voice to carry over the conversation filling the room.

Still, Jace sits up straighter. "Stop laughing," he hisses through clenched teeth, but it only serves to make the three of them laugh harder. Jace exhales hard, shaking his head before he straightens in his seat and looks away, doing his best to ignore them.

He's about to drive his foot into Luke's shin when the doors finally open again, and Jace's heart thuds painfully in his chest as his gaze cuts toward them just as you enter the room. There is an unsettlingly dull expression on your face when you walk in, and Jace's brows furrow slightly in confusion until you seem to shake your head and the expression off of your face right with it.

Your lips curl up into a smile that is distinctly bland compared to the ones he's used to as his mother and Daemon rise to their feet to greet you.

Aegon is with you, Jace realizes bitterly—it does not hurt as much as it did to see you in the training yard with him. He expected him to walk in with you when he saw that Helaena and Aemond had already arrived with their mother and grandfather, but he still does not like it. Maegor and Maegelle trail closely behind the two of you, dressed in fine reds for supper, and the sight of them manages to soften some of the irritation tightening Jace's jaw, because Maegor immediately brightens at the sight of him, waving his hand in a quick greeting.

You exchange a few quiet words with his mother before ghosting your lips to her cheeks, and Jace finds himself watching your face closely, trying to catch another glimpse of that strange expression you had worn upon entering the room. What was that? Are you unhappy? Are you only pretending to be content? Jace cannot tell, and it is gone now, carefully tucked away beneath smiles and pleasantries.

Then your eyes find his, and the smile changes, warming and softening in that familiar way that makes his heart flutter. Jace is on his feet before he realizes that he has moved, taking one of your hands in his.

"Muña," he greets softly, pressing a kiss against your cheek, lingering perhaps a heartbeat longer than necessary before forcing himself to straighten. "Ao jurnegon gevie."

You look beautiful.

He is wistful as he looks over you, a tight feeling in his chest as he looks over the deep red gown you wear. The velvet fabric hugs your figure, spilling elegantly against the floor, and Jace cannot decide whether it is the gown that makes you radiant, or you simply are yourself—for he is fairly certain he would have found you the most beautiful woman in the room even had you arrived dressed in plain linen instead.

You smile at him lightly, a pleased expression on your face as your gaze roves over him once. Jace is giddy from it—he has always preened beneath your praise, seeking out that particular look of pride in your eyes. Even now, perhaps especially now, some part of him still desperately wants to impress you, to do something—anything—that might make you look at him as though he is everything you hoped he would become.

"Emā issare gūrēñare aōha Valyrio," you murmur. Jace loves the way High Valyrian sounds rolling off your tongue—it is musical and natural in a way he has never been able to make it sound on his, much as he tried. "Iksan biare."

You have been practicing your High Valyrian. I am glad.

"Hen rhinka," he replies easily. Of course.

He is still holding your hand, he realizes, pressing his luck and letting his fingers ghost up along the inside of your wrist just to feel the way your pulse flutters beneath his touch. Do you want him the way he wants you? Jace cannot tell, but the slight quickening beneath his fingertips sends a dangerous flicker of hope through him nonetheless.

"Mother!"

You both startle. Jace's hand falls away from yours as Maegor suddenly appears at your side, entirely oblivious to the moment he has interrupted. He does not have to look at Luke to see the disbelief plain on his face, and he does not dare glance over at Aegon or Aemond—or worse, the Queen or the Hand—to see their reactions to what just transpired.

It is fine, he tells himself. He was only greeting you.

The boy reaches for the back of your chair with both hands and pulls it out with such enthusiasm that the wooden legs scrape loudly against the stone floor. Once he's pulled out the chair, he stands beside it tall, gesturing proudly toward the seat.

"For you, mother."

Your lips curve up into fond smile. "How gallant of you, byka dārilaros. You are such a gentleman—your father could learn from your lead."

Maegor positively beams, and you reach down to smooth a hand over his silver hair before leaning forward to press a kiss to the crown of his head. The boy bounces on the balls of his feet beneath your affection, eyes wide and adoring as he looks up at you, and your lips curve up as you stroke his hair gently before nodding in the direction of the two empty chairs near Luke.

"Go on. You and your sister are sitting beside your cousin tonight. Be sure to torment him properly."

Luke gives you an alarmed look, but you only wink at him in response. Maegor grabs Maegelle's hand and drags her over to the empty seats, already reaching for Luke's arm and babbling about a story you read him last night. Jace snorts and looks over at you, breath catching slightly at the soft expression on your face as your gaze lingers on the two of them for a moment longer.

You finally begin to sit, and Jace moves without thinking, giving the servant waiting to push your chair in a sharp look to back off. His hand catches the back of your chair, gently pushing it forward beneath you so that you can sit properly at the table.

You turn your head to the side to look up at him, smiling lightly. "Thank you, mandianna."

"Of course," he murmurs, pleased with himself—until he feels someone staring at him, that is.

His gaze lifts to your opposite side, where Aegon has taken his seat. He is watching Jace with narrowed eyes—the amusement from earlier in the day long gone. For a long moment, neither prince looks away. Jace's hand remains on the back of your chair, and Aegon's gaze drops pointedly toward it, then back up at Jace.

Jace understands the message perfectly, but he tightens his fingers around the carved wood instead, stubborn, until Aegon tilts his head and straightens in his chair, irritated. Then Jace gives him a pleasant smile and releases your chair, moving to take his own seat beside you.

Maybe Luke was right—this is a dangerous game. But as he settles into the chair at your side, close enough that the sleeve of his tunic brushes lightly against your gown, he finds that he cannot bring himself to regret it in the slightest.

"I am a gentleman," Aegon finally complains, leaning his elbow on the table, head resting in his hand as he gives you a lazy smile.

"You are neither gentle nor man, valonqar," you drawl, leaning back in your seat to look at him. "I could not think of a word less fitting if I tried, and my vocabulary is vast."

Jace cannot even bring himself to feel pleased by your insult, because there is a casualness in the way you tease him that tells him this is familiar. The type of insult born from years in one another's company, where neither party has to wonder whether the other will take offense.

Aegon only grins. "How cruelly my own wife wounds me," he sighs. Then his smile sharpens, eyes meeting Jace's instead of yours—Jace is so focused on whatever Aegon is about to say that he almost forgets to stand as the kingsguard carries his grandsire through the door to sit at the center of the table. Aegon continues quietly, "Though you know better than most that I am very much a man, and as I recall, you rather prefer me when I am anything but gentle."

"Aegon the Crude," you roll your eyes and mutter.

Aegon winks at you and says in response, "Aegon the Generous. At least, that is what I have been told."

Jace flushes immediately, gaze averting to the side, trying to focus as Alicent leads a prayer and his grandsire begins a toasts to his brother and Rhaena's betrothal and failing miserably.

He hates the image that Aegon's words conjure almost as much as he hates the man for deliberately putting it there. You beneath him, back arched as Aegon's hands roam where Jace aches to place his own, his mouth tracing the bare skin of your throat while his body presses yours into the mattress, you panting his name as he stretches you open, silver instead of brown, pale, unblemished skin instead of sun-kissed freckled.

His stomach twists. The jealousy is vicious, burning through his veins with enough force to make him want to reach across the table and wipe that smug expression from Aegon's face. Under the jealousy is something far worse—hotter, more shameful, awakened by the very image he wants desperately to banish from mind. Because the thought of Aegon with you is unbearable, but the thought of you—

That is the problem. He cannot picture you in such a state without imagining himself taking Aegon's place. His hands, his mouth, his body, his name, his hair. Is that how you like it? he cannot help but wonder, tongue darting out to wet his lips.

Whenever Jace has imagined being with you—far more often than he would ever confess, one hand wrapped around his cock, head tilted back against his bed frame—it had always been different. Slow and tender, he would take his time with you, kissing you as though he has eight lost years to make up for, touching you with a reverence bordering on worship. He has imagined your arms wrapped around him and your forehead pressed to his, breathy words exchanged in the darkness as the two of you lost yourselves in one another.

But maybe that is not what you want. Maybe you prefer something less tender.

He swallows thickly, warmth creeping higher beneath his collar as the question takes root. What would you want from him, then, if tenderness alone would not satisfy you? His imagination betrays him at once: his chest pressed firmly against your back, his mouth at your ear, one hand sliding up to curl around your throat as he holds you close to him. He imagines turning your face toward his, mouth finding yours messily, panting, gasping, soft moans and ragged cries of his name.

Would you like him that way? Is that what you would want from him? He has never pictured it happening like that, but he could do it, he thinks—he could do anything you want, be anything you want.

Jace shifts in his seat, exhaling hard through his nose as he tries to focus on what his grandsire is saying—he should be ashamed, having thoughts like this at supper while you are sat at his side, oblivious. What is wrong with him?

Once he is certain that his mind is clear of the disgraceful images circulating through his head, he dares to spare a glance back at you. You are leaning back in your seat, head tilted back slightly so you can look up at the ceiling, looking as though you would rather be anywhere else.

It is horribly rude, he thinks, fighting a smile, considering your father, the king, is across from you, attempting to address the entire table, and you have apparently decided that whatever intricacies decorate the ceiling are infinitely more deserving of your attention.

Then, his gaze traitorously slips down the slope of your neck. He catches himself before it can wander any farther, eyes snapping dutifully back to your face, but the damage is already done. His mind drifts back to where he had only just freed it from—to the weight of his hand there, palm curved against your throat, thumb resting beneath your jaw.

Jace swallows thickly, suddenly wondering whether you would still look so carelessly bored then. Whether that distant expression would finally disappear as he leaned close behind you, breath warm against your ear, and demanded your attention in full for himself. He catches himself before his mind can go down another spiral.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

Then, your eyes slide sideways and meet his. Jace immediately realizes he has been caught staring and flushes. One of your brows arches. You ask silently, what?

Jace shakes his head quickly, jaw tightening. Your eyes narrow, and he looks away. He sees you tilt your head curiously from the corner of his eye, and then, he feels your foot brush against his ankle beneath the table.

His entire body goes rigid, gaze snapping toward you. You are still watching him, curiosity flickering in your eyes, and Jace knows that this was an innocent touch. You were only trying to get his attention after he so pointedly looked away from you—he should move his leg away and that should be the end of it, but… but instead, something reckless takes hold of him.

He inhales deeply before he shifts his leg beneath the table until his knee presses against yours. Your brows lifts, and his heart pounds as he waits for you to pull away. You do not.

Emboldened, Jace lets the contact remain, the length of his leg resting deliberately against yours beneath the cover of the tablecloth. It is such a small thing—hardly anything at all, really—but with the thoughts that had been consuming him only moments before, the warmth of you against him feels unbearably intimate.

He wonders, do you think anything of it? Is the reason you do not pull away because this is no different from the countless casual touches you shared when the two of you were young? Or is there some small part of you that is as aware of the contact as he is? That feels the warmth of his leg pressed against yours, that knows there is a distinct lack of innocence behind the touch, but you do not move away because, perhaps, you want him close too?

Jace turns his attention forward as though nothing has happened, and from the corner of his eye, he sees you glance down toward the tablecloth and then back at him.

"You know," Aegon suddenly murmurs, leaning over you to address Jace. Jace's heart skips a beat, wondering if he noticed the contact hidden beneath the table, but Aegon's gaze betrays nothing. "It's a shame your younger brother was betrothed before you. I'd rather hoped that marriage might finally afford you the opportunity to discover what it is like to share a woman's bed."

Jace scoffs under his breath, tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek. He glances at Aegon, and then his gaze drifts toward you—you are staring forward, face refusing to betray whatever thoughts are running through your mind with his leg pressed to yours the way it is.

Jace finally looks up at his uncle with a faint curve of his lips and asks easily, "What makes you think I haven't discovered it already?"

Your attention immediately snaps toward him, brows furrowed and gaze sharp, and Jace is thrown off momentarily by the intensity in it. There is something there, he realizes—surprise, certainly, but something that looks suspiciously like displeasure flickers across your face before you manage to smooth it away.

His pulse quickens. Are you jealous?

The thought is so hopeful and self-serving that he immediately tells himself he has imagined it. Why should you care whether he has shared another woman's bed? You are married—you have been married for eight years. Surely, you cannot expect him to have spent all that time—

Well, he has, but you do not know that.

Aegon catches a laugh before he can make a scene while the king is still speaking, grin sharpening as he looks at you pointedly and then tilts his head to the side to look at Jace more head on. "Oh? Have you now? Has our lovely little nephew wet his cock at last?"

Jace drags his attention from you with considerable effort and says, "I don't recall my private affairs being any concern of yours."

"They aren't," Aegon says easily, leaning back in his chair with a grin. "I am merely curious."

"Then remain curious, uncle."

"And let us toast to Prince Lucerys as well," his grandsire says, a tired smile on his face as he lifts his goblet to Jace's younger brother. Your gaze drifts over to Luke briefly, and he forces himself to follow, giving his brother a small smile when he sees how he stiffens beneath the attention of the full room. "The future Lord of the Tides."

Jace races his cup to his brother, ignoring as Aegon's grin widens when he leans in again. He can feel your gaze still fixed upon the side of his face, far more distracting than anything your husband could possibly say.

Then Aegon murmurs to you, "See, wife. It seems your perfect little prince may not be so perfect after all."

Aegon sounds openly bitter, and you make a noise in the back of your throat—a scoff or a laugh. Jace pauses. Your perfect little prince. The words warm some silly, childish part of his chest. Do you really talk about him, praise him, so much around Aegon that your husband is resentful over it?

Then he hesitates. Does the thought of him seeking pleasure in another woman's bed sit uneasy with you because, somewhere in your mind, Jace is still the sweet little boy you raised years ago? Or does it disturb you because you do not want him in another woman's bed at all? He finds himself deflating slightly, because one option is far more likely than the other. He needs to know.

Your eyes flick toward him, and he holds your gaze this time. There is an expression on your face that he cannot decipher. Something about it makes him feel strangely guilty, any delight he might have felt over the prospect of you being jealous trickling away.

It is absurd. He has done nothing. The entire insinuation is a lie of his own making, a careless remark offered only because he refused to let Aegon embarrass him. Yet suddenly, Jace feels as though he has disappointed you somehow—as though the perfect little boy you have apparently preserved in your memory all these years has returned to you a man, and, within the span of a single evening, revealed himself to be just as capable of vice as the brother you married.

Except he is not, he wants to tell you desperately. There have been no women. There has only ever been you.

His attention drifts to the side when the low murmur of conversation around the table begins to fade, the scrape of silverware against plates quieting as his grandsire struggles to his feet to speak. Jace reluctantly tears his gaze from you.

"It both gladdens my heart and fills me with sorrow to see these faces around the table," Viserys begins, voice strained with exertion, breath shuddered. "The faces most dear to me in all the world… yet grown so distant from each other in the years past."

He hears you make a noise in the back of your throat, leaning back in your chair again as you share an unreadable look with Aegon. Jace hates it, fingers tightening in his lap as he wonders what passed between you in that single glance—what understanding eight years together has afforded the two of you that he cannot hope to decipher.

Then, your leg shifts against his. He thinks you might be pulling away, but you only press the side of your leg harder against his. Jace's breath catches, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales, gaze cutting to the side, but you are still looking at Aegon, talking to one another without speaking.

Was that an accident or intentional?

"My own face… is no longer a handsome one, if indeed it ever was," he distantly hears his grandsire continue, but his pulse is roaring in his ears again, throat bobbing as he tries to figure out if he should press his luck. Would it be too much to shift his leg beneath yours, to nudge your feet apart, spread your legs a little just to see how you react? The thought alone sends a wildly inappropriate rush of heat through him. "But tonight, I wish you to see me as I am. Not just a king… but your father, your brother, your husband… and your grandsire. Who may not, it seems… walk for much longer among you."

Would you startle and pull away, finally realizing there is nothing innocent about the game he is playing beneath the table? Or would you let him? Would you glance at him with that same unreadable expression and leave your legs parted at his behest? How far will you let him go before you stop pretending not to understand what he's doing? Or have you already?

Gods, has he lost all sense? His grandsire is speaking of his death, of a house broken nearly beyond repair, and Jace is sitting at his table contemplating how far he might push the boundaries of your affection before you finally push back. Shame burns hot across his face, and he forces himself to remain perfectly still, ridding himself of all thoughts to slide his foot between your legs to nudge your knees apart.

"Let us no longer hold ill feelings in our hearts," Viserys continues, his labored voice drawing Jace's attention forward again. "The crown cannot stand strong if the House of the Dragon remains divided. But set aside your grievances. If not for the sake of the crown… then for the sake of this old man who loves you all so dearly."

Jace hears you inhale, looking away from Aegon at last, and his gaze drifts back to you. The boredom gone, along with whatever had passed between you and your husband, and you stare at your father with something far more complicated written across your face. Jace watches as your jaw tightens and brows furrow as you look down at the empty plate in front of you.

In Jace's defense, when his hand settles on your thigh beneath the tablecloth, he really, really does mean it only as comfort.

But your entire body stills and everything between the two of you changes. Jace feels it happen in the span of a single hitched breath—the moment the touch ceases to be innocent, when the warmth of his palm against your leg, fingertips pressing into the plush skin of your thigh, becomes something neither of you can reasonably mistake for the affection of a nephew comforting his aunt. His fingers remain perfectly still, but every nerve in his body is suddenly alive and tingling.

He does not dare to look at you now, attention pinned ahead as his tongue darts out to wet his lips, heart pounding in his chest, pulse roaring in his ears.

Somewhere beyond you, his mother rises to her feet. He distantly hears her speak of Queen Alicent, hears the scrape of a goblet being lifted, and the answering murmur as Alicent stands in return. The entire table seems to be listening as the two women raise their cups to one another after years of tension and resentment. Jace hears almost none of it.

His fingers tighten around your thigh slightly, accidentally, really, but when you still do not bat his touch away, his hand slides up slightly, thumb stroking over the fabric of your gown. Your breath catches again as you stare ahead, lashes fluttering slightly, and Jace's stomach clenches, heat rushing downward so quickly that he has to stop himself from shifting in his seat.

Then, Aegon rises. Jace watches warily as the prince steps out from his chair, subtly drawing his hand back into his lap. Aegon makes his way around you in Jace's direction, moving with the lazy confidence of someone already well into his cups. He stops behind Jace's chair and bends slightly, obnoxiously reaching across the table for the wine.

"I see it, you know," Aegon murmurs beneath the swell of conversation. Jace goes rigid. "The way you look at my wife."

Jace's jaw flexes as he forces himself not to react to Aegon's words. He stares ahead blankly. He cannot afford to lose grip of his temper—not here, not ever, but especially not here with the Queen and the Hand and both of his uncles watching him keenly for any and every mistake.

"Like a loyal hound, aren't you? Ten years is rather impressive," Aegon says quietly with a widening smile. "If you're so desperate to know what she's like, I'd be willing to give you a demonstration sometime. Save you all the trouble of wondering what pleases her."

Jace is on his feet in an instant, fist slamming so hard against the table that conversation silences and all eyes swivel to him.

"Jace," Baela hisses quietly, eyes wide.

"Don't," you say under your breath, quiet enough that only he can overhear.

On the far end of the table, Aemond rises to his feet slowly, head tilted to the side as though daring Jace to raise a hand to Aegon. For one terrible moment, Jace wants to. Damn the consequences—he'll put his fist into Aegon's jaw and knock the smug smirk right off of his face. He does not care that he'll walk right into the trap—angry and reckless, humiliated before the entire family—not if it means getting to watch him stumble back, bruised and bloodied.

Then, his gaze drops down to you, and he sees the severe expression on your face, expression hard and gaze sharp with warning. Jace exhales hard through his nose, glancing back slowly at Aegon.

The older prince grins shamelessly, leaning back again—the audacity to look amused as though he had not just spoken of you like some common whore whose intimacy could be displayed for another man's entertainment. He has never deserved you, Jace thinks furiously. Jace would never talk about you like this to another man, would never treat you with anything less than the devotion you deserve. It is infuriating that Aegon gets everything Jace has ever wanted and does not even have the decency to be appreciative of it.

Jace presses his tongue to the inside of his teeth, forcing the white-hot fury at bay as he smiles, strained. He says at last, "You should mind your cups, uncle. It is only the beginning of the evening, and you are already speaking in twisted tongues."

Irritation flashes across Aegon's face; he barely withholds a roll of his eyes, realizing that not only is he not going to get the reaction he wants, but Jace was able to get in a public dig at his drinking habits. Jace's smile is a little less forced and a little more mocking as Aegon makes his way back to his seat.

Then, his gaze shifts down to you. Your eyes meet his, and you tilt your head to the questioningly, wondering why he's still standing. He holds his hand out to you and murmurs, "Would you do me the honor of a dance, muña?"

"Yes, yes," his grandsire suddenly says, leaning forward and waving his hand. "The music."

You give him a small, indulgent smile before placing your hand in his and allowing him to help you to your feet. Your husband has settled back into his chair, sipping at his refilled goblet, but the careless amusement from moments before has vanished. His eyes follow Jace as he steps closer to you, releasing your hand only to settle his palm against the small of your back.

Jace hold's Aegon's gaze momentarily as he guides you away from the table, and he cannot help the faint satisfaction that curls in his chest—childish and vindictive and spiteful, but he does not care.

Behind him, another chair scrapes against the floor. Baela calls brightly, "Helaena—cousin. Dance with me?"

Jace glances back in time to see Helaena blink in surprise before a hesitant smile spreads across her face as she rises to her feet, lifting her skirts slightly as she shuffles over to Baela.

Maegor and Maegelle are quick to steal Rhaena, working in union to each grab a hand to drag her out of her seat, despite her vocal protests and pleas for her father and Rhaenyra and you to get them to release her. For the first time that evening, laughter begins to spread naturally around the table, and Jace turns his attention back on you, lips curled up into a small smile.

Your smile matches his as you say with a short laugh, "The last time we danced, you were half the height and I led."

"Well," Jace says, voice lower than he intends. "I am a man grown now. Perhaps it is time you let me take the lead."

Your brows lift, and Jace realizes what the words sound like only after they have already left his mouth. Heat creeps up the back of his neck—perhaps it is time you let me take the lead. After his lingering touch at your thigh and the thoughts that had plagued him at the table—wondering how you like to be touched, what you might want from him, what it would be like to take you in full—the words suddenly sound far less innocent than he intends for them to be.

Did you hear it too?

He cannot tell. The corners of your mouth curl upward, and Jace swears he sees something knowing flicker in your eyes before you question, "And what makes you so certain I would enjoy letting you do that?"

His pulse jumps. Surely that was intentional, wasn't it? You could have phrased that a hundred different ways that did not sound so—

Is he just reading too much into it? Jace cannot tell and it's driving him crazy. He swallows thickly. There is still time to retreat—to laugh it off and make some jest about how much his dancing has improved since he was a boy—but instead, he lifts his chin slightly.

He leans his head in slightly. "You should give me the opportunity to prove myself," he replies, finding himself growing bolder. "You might find I have learned a great deal since you last had me in your hands.

Your gaze searches his face for a moment before you tilt your head in acquiescence and step closer, allowing him to guide you into position.

"Very well, mandianna," you murmur at last. "Show me what you have learned."

Jace's heart pounds. He cannot tell whether the conversation is still about dancing.

The musicians start the opening of the song, and Jace takes your hand properly in his, his other settling at your waist as he leads you into the first steps. He remembers enough not to embarrass himself, thankfully, despite the fact that he has hardly danced at all over the last few years, but he is far too conscious of you to focus fully on the rhythm—your palm is warm against his, and you let him guide your body as he pleases.

"There," he says when you follow him through a turn without resistance. "This is not so difficult, is it?"

Your eyes narrow playfully. "Do not become arrogant, Jacaerys. You have only just begun. I'm hardly impressed yet."

Jace's mouth curves upward. Bolder, he says, "Then I suppose I shall have to pace myself, so that I may keep going until you're satisfied."

You inhale sharply through your nose, gaze more calculating now as you stare at him. His heart pounds as he waits for you to reply, because there is no ignorance to the twofold meaning to his words this time.

"Careful, mandianna," you murmur. "Someone might misunderstand you."

Jace's hands tightens at your waist as he pulls you closer for the next step of the dance. He lowers his voice as he says, "That depends entirely upon what you believe I meant."

You squint at him, and Jace slows with the music as the kingsguard prepares to return his grandsire to his chambers. He stands at your side, one hand still resting lightly on your mid back, as they gather around the king's chair and carefully lift it from the floor.

You both incline your heads dutifully as they carry him past, remaining silent until the guards disappear beyond the doors. Jace feels you draw a slow breath beside him, the playful tension between you momentarily forgotten as you stare to where your father had left.

You tell him quietly, "You are testing your luck, Jacaerys."

"Am I?" he questions, searching your face. Is this your way of warning him that his attention is unwanted, an attempt to draw a boundary he has been too blinded by hope to see? Or is it the opposite? The not knowing is enough to drive him mad. "Then let me know where my luck ends, muña. Speak with me tonight."

He hates that it comes out pleading when he was going for confidence.

You let out a soft puff of air, but before you get the chance to give him an answer, Aemond slams his fist against the dinner table and rises to his feet, cup in hand. Jace startles at the noise, glancing at Luke, who is still sitting at the table and looks closer to frightened fawn than man, and realizes he must have done something to set off Aemond. Jace stiffens, hand dropping from your back as he braces himself for whatever is about to be said.

"Final tribute," Aemond drawls,raising his cup to Luke and then to Jace. Baela and Helaena pause from where they were dancing around each other, laughter fading. Even the twins share a look with one another, slowing in their chaotic dance with Rhaena. "To the health of my nephews: Jace, Luke, and Joffrey. Each of them handsome, wise… Strong."

"Aemond," Alicent says carefully.

Jace exhales hard through his nose, fists tightening at his side as he tilts his head. He knows what Aemond wants—the knowledge should make it easier to ignore him, but somehow, it only makes the anger worse. Only hours ago, Vaemond had stood before the entire court and called his mother a whore, naming Jace and his brother bastards. His body has scarcely grown cold, and now Aemond stands beneath the same roof, moments after his dying father pleaded for unity, as he renews life to the accusation.

Aemond's lips curl up into a smug smile as he continues louder.

"Come," he announces, louder this time, ensuring that every person in the room hears him clearly, "let us drain our cups to these three Strong boys."

He should let it go. He should not give Aemond the reaction he wants.

"I dare you to say that again," Jace says before he can stop himself, raising his chin as he stares at Aemond.

Aemond raises his eyebrows with faux innocence.

"Why? It was only a compliment." Jace feels your fingers close around his wrist the moment he starts to move forward, and for a fleeting second, the touch stops him from doing something he cannot take back. Then Aemond meets his eyes directly and asks, "Do you not think yourself Strong?"

Jace tears his wrist from your grasp and drives his fist into Aemond's face before he can think better of it. Pain bursts across his knuckles, but the satisfaction Jace expects never comes. The moment his fist connects, the room erupts around him. Chairs scrape hard against stone as Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Alicent rise to their feet. Aegon slams Luke's face hard into the table when he rises to help Jace. Someone shouts Jace's name, telling him to stop. The twins scream in surprise. Jace hardly hears any of it, lunging forward again, only to be yanked backward.

"Enough, Jacaerys," you hiss, fingers digging hard into his bicep as you pull him back, shoving him hard when his gaze flits above your shoulder back to Aemond.

He turns toward you, chest heaving, because why is it he that you are telling enough? It is Aemond who started this, Aemond who all but called him and his brothers bastards for all to hear, Aemond who stands there smugly. Betrayed, he wonders, how could you take his side? Was he misreading everything after all? The shared look with Aegon, his arm around you in the training yard, entertains both brothers—

"Take Maegor and Maegelle back to their chambers," you say coolly, "before you make this worse than it already is."

For a moment, he can only stare at you in disbelief. He knows you are right to an extent—he is making a scene, and the last thing his family needs right now are more whispers circulating about them. Somewhere beneath the fury and betrayal, he knows it perfectly well, but the dismissal still burns with Aemond standing there watching, bloodied mouth curling into the start of another insufferable smile.

Then Daemon steps forward, gaze meeting his momentarily, as though daring him to defy you, before he steps between him and Aemond, his attention turning to the older prince instead.

Jace scoffs, looking away, and just as he is about to turn on his heel to leave, you reach out again, thumb pressing briefly against his pulse. You lean in this time as you speak, voice low enough that only he can overhear what you say: "You and I will talk later."

His anger falters, gaze searching yours before he finally nods, swallowing his pride and whatever protest is left lingering on his tongue as he obeys without argument.

————————————

Jace stands outside your door for nigh an hour trying to work up the courage to knock.

Ser Steffon Darklyn watches him with open curiosity from where he stands vigilant at your door. Every time Jace throws a vicious glare in his direction, the man averts his gaze back to the sprawling corridor leading to your chambers, and then he returns to observing Jace, not moments later, the next time he lifts his hand to knock and drops it back at his side.

Is it true? Do you favor Aegon and Aemond now? Have years away—

"My prince," Ser Steffon finally says, clearing his throat, and Jace's gaze lifts to the older man, cold. "Would you like me to announce your arrival to the princess?"

A sharp no is about to fly off his tongue when he hesitates, glancing at the door to your apartments one last time before he nods once, raising his chin and looking away.

He ignores the amused expression on Ser Steffon's face out of courtesy for you, because he knows that you have long favored the man for being the first to indulge your requests to learn the sword.

Ser Steffon knocks politely twice before he pushes the heavy door open and says, "Princess, the prince Jacaerys has been waiting outside your chambers for some time now. Would you see him?"

Jace flushes hot and fast, all courtesy for you disappearing as he glares wildly at the knight's back, because there was no reason for him to say he's been waiting for some time.

"Oh," he hears you say. The anger drains into nerves instantly as he raises his chin and stiffens slightly. "Let him in."

Jace exhales hard through his nose, gaze flicking up as Ser Steffon inclines his head before stepping to the side to allow Jace past. He gives the older man a serious side eye as he steps forward, but Ser Steffon ignores it, letting Jace into the room before shutting the door behind him.

Jace knows exactly what he's going to say: he's going to demand to know why it was him and not Aemond you told to back down earlier, he's going to ask if you are happy, he's going to tell you to let him know where his luck ends as you promised at supper.

Then, his gaze meets yours and you are wearing thin, silk night slip at your vanity, a platter of fruits before you, and every thought drifts away like dust in the wind. His lips part as he stares at you—the soft black fabric inching up your thigh, the strap threatening to slide down your shoulder, the way you tilt your head to the side curiously when you see how his pupils are suddenly blown wide as he stares at you.

Aggravation hits him just as swiftly as desire, because were you really dressed like this for that kingsguard of yours to see? Jace flushes hot as he looks around wildly before his gaze falls upon a robe draped over your dresser, he grabs it furiously and then tosses it at you.

"Put it on," he hisses. He hates the amused look you give him as you rise to your feet and slide the robe of your shoulders. It is hardly better, but Jace can actually bring himself to meet your eyes now. He demands, "You let your sworn shield see you dressed like that?"

You tilt your head. "It is not my fault you came to me when I was getting ready to sleep. I waited for you for three hours, mandianna—I resigned to bed because I figured you were upset and would not come."

Petulantly, Jace crosses his arms and raises his chin as he asks, "And why would I be so upset that I would not come?" simply because he wants to hear you say the answer.

You tilt your head with an amused smile. You say easily, "Because I sent you to your chambers after Aemond antagonized you."

Jace instantly points at you, vindicated. "And tell me, why should I be the one chastised when it was your half-brother who purposely reignited the rumors that were just put to question not hours before?"

"Because the realm expects more of you, Jacaerys," you say dryly without hesitation, taking a seat on the edge of your bed and motioning for him to join you. Jace falters at your words, shoulders slumping slightly, feet shuffling against the burgundy carpets as he makes his way over to you. "These rumors will be ignited and snuffed continuously throughout your life and reign. Do you plan to strike every courtier who dares reference your strength?"

Jace's eye twitches. "If they mean it as a slight concerning my—" His jaw tightens over the word parentage, unable to force it out. He finished simply, "Perhaps."

When you immediately give him a sidelong glance, he bristles in defense. He demands, "Do you think I forgot that you, yourself, said that we would meet such accusations with dragonfire, and you chastise me for striking?"

You raise your eyebrows, hand lifting to grab his chin firmly. Jace silences beneath your touch, breath catching when he feels how the blunt tips of your nail dig into his cheeks.

"No, you stupid boy," you say sharply. Jace thinks he should be offended by the insult, but he can hardly focus on anything besides the feeling your fingers hot against his skin and the fact that beneath the robe he handed you, you only wear a thin night slip. "I said that I would meet such accusations with dragonfire. You cannot afford such—”

You do not finish whatever you're about to say, hand dropping back to your side with an exhale, but Jace can imagine, swallowing thickly as he remembers your fury following the prank he, Aegon, and Luke played on Aemond. Shame coils low in his gut as he looks away.

"I should not have struck him," he finally says quietly, "but he deserved it."

You huff out a laugh through your nose. "He deserved far more than a strike," you say at last. "He is insolent. Alicent coddled him after what happened in Driftmark. He has become insufferable."

Jace hates the familiarity with which you speak of him. It makes his stomach turn, sourness building in the back of his throat. It is he and Luke and Joffrey you should be speaking of with such familiarity—not your half-brothers.

You do not even know Joffrey, Jace realizes, a lump in his throat. You do not know his favorite color or his favorite story, that he dislikes sweets and has taken to High Valyrian better than Jace ever did. You do not know Joffrey, or Aegon, or Viserys. It is not fair—none of this is fair.

"He is a prick," Jace mutters.

"That too," you agree, and Jace cannot help the smile that tugs at the corner of his lips as he looks down.

You rise to your feet. Jace's gaze shifts up questioningly, but you're making your way across the room to a table, you lift a flagon of wine and then look over your shoulder at him, lifting it and motioning toward him. Jace hesitates before he nods—you have never offered him wine before. The last time he remembers, Aegon had tried to slip him some as a joke at Lucerys's eighth nameday celebration, and you had slapped the back of his head so hard that his uncle had nearly cried.

"I have grown fond of it over the past few years," you say absently as you turn two goblets right side up and fill up both generously. "Wine, I mean. The gods know the twins drive me to it."

Jace is grateful for something to begin with, because he had struggling with how to approach the conversation he wants to have. He fixes his posture as you finish pouring the glasses and make your way back over to him.

He says, "They have grown." He winced at the observation—it has been eight years, obviously, they have grown. "You—" He cuts himself off abruptly, unsure how to phrase what he realizes he's about to say. Finally, he finishes, "You appear to have a good relationship with them."

I hate them sometimes, he remembers you crying to his mother nearly a decade before when Jace was not supposed to be listening. I wanted to love them the same way you loved Jacaerys—

You hum lightly as you pass him his goblet, and he fights a shiver when your fingers brush his. You do not respond right away, sitting back down carelessly at the top of the bed, relaxing back against the pillows.

Jace's throat spasms as he swallows a large gulp of the sweet Arbor Red. He has sat in bed with you hundreds of times before, but never with this type of intimacy—always two children curled up with one another, now you are both adults, sipping on wine, close enough to feel the heat on one another's skin. His chest is tight with nerves.

He could imagine this—life with you, life like this. Returning to his chambers after long days at court to you lounging in your robe against the pillows, smiling when you see him, a glass of wine in hand and another poured for him. He wants it desperately—more than he has ever wanted anything in his entire life.

"Children do tend to grow in eight years," you reply dryly as you take a long sip of your wine, not acknowledging the second half of his statement for a long moment. After what feels like an eternity, you finally smile wryly and tell him, "I struggled the first few years—to be a mother for them, that is."

"You were only a child yourself," Jace notes quietly. "You cannot be blamed."

Something softens in your face at his words—he wonders if anyone has ever acknowledged that beside his mother, or if they had simply placed two infants in your arms and expected you to be a mother for them, as though bringing two children into the world had somehow made you cease to be one yourself. Jace hates it—the idea of you being alone, struggling, drowning beneath expectations and exhaustion and no one around you willing to do everything Jace would have done without hesitation had he been allowed to be there.

"I was angry at them for a time," you admit after a long silence, staring into your wine. "I knew it wasn't their fault deep down, but I was—I was so weak after they were born, Jacaerys. I could barely walk without someone helping me. I could not climb stairs without feeling as though I might collapse. I could not ride. I could not fly. Zūgaxes would call for me, and I could not even get to him."

Jace knows this, but he doesn't dare interrupt you, gaze focused on the pinched corners of your mouth and the way your gaze lowers to your dark sheets.

He remembers seeing you at Driftmark during Lady Laena's funeral, remembers the way you could barely hold yourself up, the way your dresses were hanging from your shoulders, what you said to his mother when you thought the two of you were alone. He remembers the weariness in your eyes and the exhaustion plain on your face when you thought no one was looking, but he was always looking at you.

"Everyone kept telling me how fortunate I was," you continue, exhaling through your nose as you look away. "Two healthy babes. A son and daughter. They would place them in my arms and tell me how much I must love them, how happy I must be, and all I could think about was everything I could no longer do."

He wants to reach out for you. His fingers twitch in his lap as he holds his goblet carefully. Your free hand is not too far away—he could take it in his, entwine your fingers, squeeze it lightly.

I'm here, he wants to tell you, and if you want me to stay, I won't leave again.

"I tried to leave them behind and fly to Dragonstone once—after the birth," you tell him, drawing him from his thoughts. His hand settles back in his lap as his gaze lifts to the heavy expression on your face. "I did not even make it to the Blackwater before I fell unconscious upon Zuzu. I hadn't even been strapped in properly, because my fingers weren't strong enough to clip myself in. I would have fallen to my death had he not sensed when I lost conscious and turned around. I think I knew it was a risk when I was climbing atop him. I think a part of me would have preferred it."

He does not think you mean to say that last part aloud, because your expression immediately twists, and Jace feels sick. The wine he just sipped threatens to come up as he imagines you alone in the sky, barely conscious and too weak to properly secure yourself. What would have happened if Zūgaxes had not been able to get you back safely? Before he can stop himself, he imagines your hands slipping from his saddle, your body falling through open air. He imagines his mother receiving word on Dragonstone, and him—

"Do not say that," he whispers, jaw so tight that it is almost painful. "Do not say you would have preferred to die. I—I cannot—I do not want–"

Jace does not know a life without you. His first memories are of Vermax's green scales and the warmth of your arms around him. You have been the center of his life for as long as he can remember, and he has loved you just as long. You are as essential to him as air, water, food—there has never been a version of his world in which you did not exist somewhere within it, even during the two years of silence before Driftmark.

He would think of you every day, crying incessantly into his mother's skirts, demanding to know why you would not answer his ravens, what he had done to make you stop loving him. Rhaenyra would hold him while he sobbed himself sick, rubbing his back as he clung to her and begged her to bring you back. It had hurt, and not in the vague, aching way that people often spoke of missing someone, but in a way that manifested physically. His chest ached until it became difficult to breathe, and his stomach turned whenever he thought too long about the possibility that you had forgotten him. More than once, his mother had summoned Maester Geradys because she had been convinced Jace was falling ill. Those two years had nearly ruined him; he cannot imagine an eternity without you.

"Please," he finally says quietly, unable to even bring himself to meet your gaze. "Just—"

"Come here, mandianna," you murmur.

Jace comes without need for any more prompting, eyes sliding shut as you take the goblet from him and place it on your bedside table. Then your arms are around him, and Jace folds into you with a quickness that is more instinctual than anything else. For a fleeting second, he is ten years old again, small enough to bury himself against you and believe nothing terrible could happen as long as you held him tightly enough. His arms wind tightly around your waist, face pressing into the crook of your neck as you draw him closer, one hand settling against the back of his head.

He breathes you in—the familiar lavender and the faint trace of wine—his throat is painfully tight as he sinks into you.

"You have always been so sweet," you sigh into his hair, gently combing through the dark curls at the back of his neck, nails scratching his scalp lightly. Jace can hardly keep his eyes open as he presses his forehead to your warm skin. "So terribly sensitive."

Jace's eyes snap open as he pulls back just enough to frown at you, indignant. "You just spoke of—" He cannot finish the sentence, shaking his head as he protests, "I am not sensitive."

"Mm," you say, and you clearly do not believe him from the amused smile on your lips. "Of course not."

The amusement in your eyes is mortifying, suddenly painfully aware that he is still clinging to you with his face tucked to your neck. He releases you reluctantly, clearing his throat as he sits upright.

"You do not sound as though you believe me," Jace scowls, looking away.

This is not how this was supposed to go. He had come here determined to make you see him differently. He had spent the entire evening testing the boundaries between you, trying to prove that he was no longer the little boy who followed you everywhere and pretended to be asleep so you would carry him around. He wanted you to look at him and see a man—a man capable of protecting you, loving you, satisfying you, a man worthy of being called your husband.

Instead, within half an hour of entering your chambers, he has nearly cried in your arms. Wonderful.

"Pouting does not befit you, mandianna," you tease, leaning in to press your lips to his temple briefly before you reach for the goblet of wine you put to the side so that you could comfort him. He reaches for his own too, desperately in need of something to numb the embarrassment he feels. "Anyway, it has been a long time since then, Jacaerys. You do not need to worry; I do not feel that way anymore."

"What changed?" he asks you quietly, not daring to ask the question he really wants to know: are you happy now?

You stare at him inexplicably for a moment, as though you do not know how to answer, and then you smile lightly and turn your back to him, shuffling through the drawer near your bed to pull out two pieces of parchment.

The one you first show him is familiar—his cheeks heat up when he recognizes the drawing you set before him. He had forgotten it, or, rather, he had simply assumed it had been discarded years ago. The parchment is faded now, worn and yellowed with time, but the childish figures drawn across it remain unmistakable.

You stand at the center, a mess of scribbles and a big smile. Luke stands on one side of you and Jace stands at the other, both of them holding your hands with arms so long that it would be unsettling in reality. Rhaenyra and Laenor are squeezed into the remaining space, Rhaenyra little more than a head with an enormous crown and legs beneath her, and Laenor drawn absurdly tall, his smile taking up nearly half of his face. Above the five of you, several messily drawn dragons circle beneath a violently yellow sun.

Jace vaguely remembers making it. He and Luke had found you crying in one of the gardens after you thought everyone had gone to dinner. Neither of them had understood why, and you had wiped your face the moment you saw them, insisting nothing was wrong, but Jace had known better, so he and Luke had disappeared into his chambers armed with parchment and charcoal to make a gift for you.

Luke had drawn himself and Laenor, and Jace had drawn himself and Rhaenyra. They had argued terribly over who would draw you until Luke accidentally snapped his charcoal in half and solved the matter entirely. He remembers presenting it to you with Luke and telling you the same thing you had told them both dozens of times before: it is okay to be sad, so long as you are never sad alone.

"You kept this?" he asks with what he intends to be a laugh, but comes out too weak. "After all this time?"

"Of course," you say quietly, an unreadable expression on your face as you stare down at it. "Whenever I felt alone, I would take it out and remind myself that somewhere, there were people who loved me enough to draw me wildly disproportionate." Jace laughs, swallowing thickly as he looks up at you, heart fluttering at the soft expression on your face as you stare down at the picture. "It made me smile, even when I was sad."

He wants to reach out for you again, fingers twitching at his side. After a moment's hesitation, he does, slipping his hand into yours and entwining your fingers. His pulse pounds, half expecting you to pull away, but you do not, squeezing lightly as you finally show him the other piece of parchment.

"That's—" he begins, surprised, cutting himself off.

It's a replica of his and Luke's drawing, except a bit more sloppily drawn with two more tiny figures wedged on either side of you, each with a wild scribble of silver hair and big smiles.

"Maegelle said that I only smiled when I was looking at your drawing," you say quietly. "She and Maegor did not even know who any of you were then—I… I rarely spoke to them outside of when it was absolutely necessary. They only knew that these people made their mother happy, and they decided if they added themselves to the picture, perhaps they could make me happy too."

Jace does not know how to reply to that, staring down at the two little figures crudely squeezed into the new version of the drawing. He imagines the two children studying the first drawing, trying to understand why a bunch of scribbled strangers they had never met could make their mother smile when they could not, and rather than resent those strangers for possessing some piece of you that remained beyond their reach, they had simply decided to join them.

"I was awful to them, Jacaerys," you admit, voice breaking, and Jace hates seeing you like this. Hates seeing you sad. Hates the reminder that you have spent ten years alone, suffering, and he was stuck across the Blackwater, unable to do anything about it. He wants to wipe away your tears and hold you close the same way you did for him for years, but he doesn't know if you would let him. "When Maegelle cried, I would hand her off to Melynda and tell her to leave the room until she stopped crying. When Maegor reached for me, I would walk away. They didn't understand why I kept pushing them away, no matter how hard they tried to be near me, and they still only ever wanted me to be happy."

"Are you?" he finally dares to ask, voice little more than a breath. "Are you happy?"

You stare at him for a long moment, lips parting as though to answer, but no words leave them. Jace's heart is pounding again. What answer does he want to hear? Selfishly, he thought he wanted you to say no, so that he could be your knight in shining armor, your prince from a fairytale who would swoop you off your feet and carry you off to a brighter future.

Now, he isn't so sure, because the idea of you being unhappy for a decade, forced to content yourself with life so that you do not climb back onto Zūgaxes's back, knowing you might fall, makes him terribly sick.

"I love the twins," you finally say, thumb pressing over the little silver-haired figure that Jace assumes is Maegelle, if only because the hair is slightly longer than the other. "Even when they drive me mad. I have Zūgaxes. I can fly again. I can walk without someone hovering behind me—most days at least. Some days are still… difficult."

But are you happy? Jace wonders, a treacherous flicker of hope stirring inside him when he realizes you didn't mention Aegon.

"And Aegon?" he finally asks. His uncle's name tastes bitter in his mouth, and Jace feels your fingers tense between his. He watches you carefully, thumb stilling against your hand. He forces himself to press, "What of him? Does he make you happy?"

There it is again—that calculating expression you had worn earlier when his double-meaning words edged on too plainly spoken. Jace feels as though he has stepped onto dangerously thin ice, but instead of retreating, he finds himself leaning closer.

"Does he treat you right? Does he love you?" he murmurs, watching your face carefully. "Does he make you feel wanted?"

"Jacaerys," you start to say, voice low with warning.

Jace is undeterred. Perhaps it is the wine you gave him, the light buzz finally reaching his head, giving him all the confidence he needs to press the subject, or perhaps he is just desperate after having been plagued with uncertainty all day and all evening, but he cannot bring himself to back down.

"It is a simple question," he tells you quickly.

"No," you say quietly. "It is not."

His heart begins to pound. "Tell me," he insists. "Tell me that he loves you as he should. Tell me that he makes you happy. Tell me that you have never wanted for anything from him."

"This is none of your business," you tell him firmly, slipping your hand from his instead of answering. His skin tingles where yours had once been flush against his, and Jace's throat bobs as he tries to figure out what to do—should he press? Should he drop it? "You have no right to question me about my marriage."

"Why not?" he asks boldly, making his decision the moment he sees that dull expression from earlier in the night briefly cross your face again as your gaze flicks away.

"Why not?" you echo, giving him a disbelieving look.

"Yes," he says, agitated and unrepentant. "Why shouldn't I care whether or not you are happy?"

"That is not what I said," you sigh, shaking your head. "You are being deliberately obtuse."

"Then why don't you answer my question?"

"Because I do not owe you the details of my marriage, Jacaerys."

"I'm not asking for the details."

"Then what are you asking for?"

"I am asking for a simple answer," he tells you, reaching for your hands again, taking them both in his. He shifts onto his knees and leans in slightly, forcing you to look him in the eye. "Tell me. If he loves you, if he makes you happy, if he gives you everything you want, then it is an easy answer. I will never ask again."

It is a lie—he knows it the moment the words leave his mouth. He would ask himself every day for the rest of his life. He would lie awake wondering whether Aegon had touched you gently that evening, whether he had made you laugh, whether Jace might have had he been in his position instead. He would torture himself with knowledge that another man possessed everything Jace has wanted since he was old enough to understand wanting at all.

But he would leave you alone. If you told him that Aegon made you happy, Jace would bury whatever foolish hope had begun to take root inside of him today. He would accept that whatever he wanted from you could never be his and content himself with whatever place in your life you were willing to give him.

"What does it matter?" you finally ask him, shaking your head. He can see your defenses dropping in real time as you consider his question, a hopeless expression settling over your face as you look away from him again, but you do not pull your hands back. "What would it change, Jacaerys? If I told you that this marriage isn't what I'd wished, what would you do with that answer?"

Jace stares at you, and for one terrible moment, his mind goes completely blank of all of things he would do, everything that would change if you would just tell him what he needs to hear.

"Everything," he finally breathes out, pulse pounding, breath unsteady as his fingers tighten around yours. "I would do everything. Anything. I would—I could make you happy, muña."

"Jacaerys—" you start to say.

"I could," he insists. The words come louder this time, almost frantic, as though if he can only make you understand, everything will suddenly become simple. "I know I could. I know a part of you still looks at me and sees the boy I was when you left, but I'm not. I know I could be what you need."

"You do not know what you're saying," you say, shaking your head, but Jace's grip on your hands tightens. He shifts closer, desperate, knees pressing against yours as he tries to force you to hear him. "Jacaerys—"

"I do," he insists. His chest rising and falling too quickly, every shred of caution he possessed earlier in the evening abandoning him now. He has spent hours wondering how far you would let him go, months preparing for this moment, years fantasizing it. He cannot hide it anymore. He breathes, "I would be good to you. I would make you feel wanted. I would make certain you never have to wonder whether you are loved. I would never speak of you the way he did tonight. I would never treat loving you as though it were some burden I had been forced to carry."

Your lips part as you stare at him. He is so close to you that he can almost feel your breath on his lips, can see the way your pupils widen ever so slightly as you stare at him.

"I would choose you. Every day, I would choose you," he tells you softly, hands tightening around yours. "So tell me, what I am supposed to do, how I am meant to sit beside you and watch you be unhappy when I know—when I know that if you would only just let me—" He stops, swallowing hard. "I could make you happy."

You pull your hands away from his, and Jace feels cold, rejection spreading like ice through his veins as you shake your head and rise from the bed, stepping away from him.

"You do not know what you're saying," you say again, quieter.

Distantly, he recognizes that there is a distinct lack of conviction in your voice, that it seems more like you are trying to convince yourself than him, but it does not quell the rage that suddenly rises in his chest.

You still see him as a child.

"I am not a child anymore," he hisses, frustrated, rising to his feet, quick and angry.

"I did not say you were."

"You do not have to," he snaps, following you when you turn away from him. He grabs your wrist and forces you to face him again. He can feel your pulse hammering beneath his fingers when they circle your wrist. "You still look at me and see the boy who I was. I want you to look at me and see me."

"Jacaerys," you say, pleading for him to listen. "It would not change that I am married. It would not change that Aegon is my husband. What is it you want from me?"

"You," he answers before he can stop to think if maybe there is a better way of phrasing this. You stare at him, expression unsettlingly blank. "I want you. Gods, what do you think I have been trying to tell you?"

You swallow thickly, lips parting, but Jace barrels on before you can shut him down.

"I know that you are married." His voice rises with his frustration. "I know he is your husband. I know all of it, and I have spent years knowing it, and it has not made me want you any less."

"I do not know what you expect me to do."

"I don't know either!" The admission bursts from him, raw and almost angry. Jace drags a hand through his hair as he turns away for half a heartbeat to take in a shuddered breath before facing you again. A part of him had thought that once he confessed what he felt for you, everything would fall into place—that you would know what to do, as you always have."I don't know. I thought—I don't know." He laughs once, shaking his head, breathless and bitter. "I thought if I told you, perhaps I would know what came next. Or you would. Gods, I don’t know. But I cannot keep pretending that it does not ruin me to see you with someone who does not deserve you. To stand there and watch him take for granted what I have wanted for as long as I can remember and act as though it does not tear me apart. And then tonight—everything I felt before it was worse—stronger—because he was insufferable, and you kept looking at me like—" He stops himself, shaking his head. "You let me touch you. You knew what I meant when we danced. You knew what I was doing."

"I should have stopped you," you rasp, voice weak, catching over the words. "I—"

"But you didn't," Jace interrupts, taking a step closer, taking your hands in his again, "why didn't you?"

You stare at him so helplessly that Jace knows your answer without you even having to say anything.

"Muña," he breathes , trying to get you to listen to him. "Let me make you happy. Please. Kostilus."

Your eyes are wide, lips parted around a breath that never seems to come, and Jace waits, heart beating rapidly in his chest. He waits for you to tell him no, waits for you to order him from your chambers and finally draw the boundary he has spent the entire evening recklessly searching for.

You do none of those things. Instead, his tongue darts out to wet his lips, and your gaze drops to his mouth. It is only for a heartbeat, perhaps less, but Jace sees it nonetheless, and whatever remains of his good sense abandons him entirely.

It all happens too quickly, all that desperate courage he has gathered over the course of the evening propels him forward before he has the slightest idea what he is doing. His nose bumps awkwardly against yours, and his mouth catches the corner of your lips instead of landing properly upon them.

Jace freezes, mortification washing over him. Neither of you moves for a horrible second, and he thinks, humiliated, that of all the ways he imagined this moment over the years, never once had he considered the possibility that he might fuck it up.

Then, you inhale sharply, turning your face toward his just enough that your lips brush his, and Jace stops breathing. His world narrows to that single point of contact between the two of you.

His hand rises to your cheek, trembling as his palm settles against your warm skin. This time, when he closes the distance, he does it slowly, eyes remaining fixed upon yours until his mouth presses to yours, your lips soft and sweet against his own. He braces himself for you to pull away, for you to tilt the lower half of your face out of reach. You do not.

Jace kisses you properly now. It is still too clumsy for his liking. He cannot figure out how to pace himself for the life of him. Too hesitant at first, then too eager when the realization finally crashes over him that this is you beneath his hands, your lips against his. He can taste the wine on your tongue, and the fruit from the platter you were picking at before he arrived.

Years of longing and an entire day of restraint unravel in the space of a heartbeat as he tilts your head back to kiss you deeper. His other hand finds your hip by instinct, drawing your body closer to his, and your breath hitches against his mouth. Jace kisses you until his lungs burn and his head feels light, and even then, he kisses you still, terrified that the moment he stops, you will send him away.

"I am sorry," he breathes when he is finally forced to part his lips from your, forehead resting against yours, breath ragged as he tries to catch it. He does not know what he's apologizing for. Kissing you? He is not sorry for that, and you certainly know it from the way he's holding you. His eyes are wide and searching as he tries to figure out where your mind is at. His thumb strokes helplessly along your cheek, gaze dropping back to your lips. "I should not have—I only thought you—"

His words dissolve into a low moan in the back of his throat when you press your lips against his this time. Jace's whole body feels hot and shaky. Your hands find his waist, and his lashes flutter when your lips move slowly against his, easing them open so that you might trace your tongue along the inside of his mouth.

Jace wonders if he is dreaming—a pleasant, wine-induced dream, and he would wake up in the morning hot and aching desperately for you, cursing himself for allowing his imagination to conjure something so terribly convincing.

But then your fingers tighten on his waist, and you pull him closer until his slim body is flush to yours, and Jace knows that it is real because no dream has ever felt like this before.

A shuddered breath escapes him against your lips, something between disbelief and relief, and whatever hesitation had seized him moments before disappears. You are kissing him. You are kissing him. He had stopped, apologized, given you every opportunity to push him away, and instead you closed the distance yourself.

He has imagined this dozens, hundreds of times before, but nothing could have prepared him for the reality of having you like this, of having your lips on his, feeling your chest heaving and pulse pounding. Jace is dizzy with need—it is not enough, he has to have you in full.

His hands lift to your face, cupping your cheeks, tilting your head back as he kisses you again. A second time. A third. Needy and eager, you can hardly keep up with him, hands curled around his tunic, holding him close as he presses his mouth to yours like he wants to devour you. It is not enough.

"Muña," he breathes into your mouth, pulling your body closer so that he can feel you flush to him. He walks you backward until your back hits the cool stone wall of your chambers, and his lips slide messily from yours to your cheek, along the line of your jaw until he can kiss down your throat. "I just want you to be happy. I want to make you feel good."

The words aren't meant to come out as desperate as they do, pleading, begging you to just let him help you be happy, but you shiver against him all the same.

"Jacaerys," you gasp, breath hitching as he slides your robe off your shoulders, letting it drop to the ground at your feet. He lets out a low moan into the skin of your neck, fingers toying with the thin strap of your night slip. "I—"

"I will stay, if you'd let me," he continues, lashes fluttering as his teeth graze your collarbone. One hand lifts to entwine with your hair so he can tilt your head back gently, kissing back up the line of your throat until his lips hover above yours, eyes searching as he continues, "My mother plans to return to Dragonstone with the rest in the morning, but I will stay. With you. As I promised all those years ago. You only need say the word."

He does not know what the look in your eyes means as you stare at him. He hates that—hates there was once a time where he could look at you and know what you exactly what you were thinking, and hates that the privilege now seems to belong to Aegon.

He kisses you again, harder this time, deeper—if he cannot convey himself in words, he will do it through actions. He will kiss you hard enough that anytime you kiss another, you will only think of how perfectly his lips slotted against yours, deep enough so that you will taste him on your tongue when your husband tries to take your bed.

He lets out a low moan into your mouth as he drags his tongue along the roof of your mouth, the inside of your lips, gliding along your tongue. It is messier than he has imagined it in times past—when he would fist his cock pretending your lips were on his, he was kissing you slow and careful. Now, spit slicks around his lips and yours, and each breath of his is wet and ragged. He sucks your bottom lip into his mouth and rolls it between his teeth.

It is not enough, he thinks, kissing sloppily down your neck again, arms winding around your waist. He needs more.

"Jacaerys," you breathe his name again, and his gaze lifts to your face.

There is a haziness to your eyes that drives him crazy, a need that is only reflected in his own.

You want him, he thinks, inhaling shakily as his fingers bite into the skin at your waist. You want him as desperately as he wants you.

Before he can lose his courage, his hands slide up the curves of your body to shift the thin straps of your nightslip over your shoulders. His throat bobs, breath not reaching his lungs as he leans back just enough to watch as he lowers the slip from your body. The fabric catches briefly on your arms before sliding lower, and Jace's hands still, eyes sliding shut.

For all the times he has imagined this, he suddenly finds himself terrified to look.

It is ridiculous. He has conjured half a hundred different versions of you in the privacy of his chambers, pieced together by his traitorous imagination, but none of those fantasies had ever accounted for the sheer enormity of actually standing before you now. Of being allowed to see you. Of knowing that when he finally lowers his gaze, it will no longer be something imagined.

"Mandianna?"

His eyes reopen at last, and all the breath leaves his lungs in one fell swoop.

You are beautiful. The thought is almost painfully inadequate. He steps forward just enough to reach out for you again, fingers skimming along the bare skin of your waist, the curve of your hip. He has always known you were beautiful. He knew it when he was young and possessed no understanding of why he couldn't stop himself from giggling and hiding his face whenever you smiled at him. He knew it when he would have fits of irritation whenever a bard implied any noble lady other than you was the most beautiful woman in the room. He knew it in Driftmark, even when your eyes were tired and your body was weak and everyone around him said you looked closer to corpse than woman. He knew it when he saw you in the throne room earlier today, and for one humiliating moment, he had forgotten how to breathe. This is different.

"Gods," he whispers.

You tilt your head. "Is something wrong?"

"No." The answer comes so quickly that you laugh, and Jace flushes. "No, I—"

He fumbles for words. His hands continue their absent exploration, tracing the lines of your body with reverence. His gaze flicks up to your face, searching for the slightest sign you want him to stop, but you remain where you are.

"Iksā gevie," he breathes at last, and your expression softens.

You are beautiful.

Jace leans forward and kisses you again, gentler now. There is none of the frantic desperation from moments before, only the lingering wonder that you are really here, really allowing him to do this.

Then, the moment is ruined.

Aegon has seen you like this. The thought strikes him with enough force that his stomach twists, and he has to tilt the lower half of his face away from yours, parting from you as his jaw tightens. He cannot even relish in the fact that you find yourself chasing after his lips before he catches himself grimacing.

But now that the thought has crossed his mind, he cannot push it away. It sours inside him, curdling the sanctity of this moment.

Aegon has stood where he stands now. Aegon has known every part of you that Jace is only now discovering. Aegon's hands have been dozens, hundreds of times, where his only just touched for the first time. Eight years of marriage in which his uncle has been permitted an intimacy with you that Jace had only allowed himself to dream of.

"What is it?" you ask him, one hand coming up to his chin, tilting his face up so that he is looking at you.

"Nothing."

You tilt your head with an indulgent smile. "Jacaerys."

He exhales sharply through his nose, scowling as he looks away. It is foolish. He has you in front of him, bare and wanting, as he has dreamed, and instead of savoring in the moment, he is allowing your wretched husband to invade it.

"Does he tell you?" he asks you quietly. "That you're beautiful? Does he even know how fortunate he is to call you his wife?"

He would, Jace thinks darkly, if he knew the lengths Jace is willing to go to call you his.

Your lips part as you stare at him. Before you can dismiss the question with another shake of your head, he leans to ghost his lips against yours, relishing in the way you falter.

"Tell me," he murmurs against your lips. "Please, muña. I need to know."

"Enough of this, Jacaerys," you finally say roughly, turning your face away from his. Jace does not mind. He kisses you still, trailing his lips gently along your cheek, to your ear, down the length of your neck, easing the words from you. "He prefers whores. He only comes to me when he has indulged in a cup of wine."

Jace's mouth stills against your skin. He does not know why the words both anger and please him. He is glad that you do not lie with one another as frequently as he feared, you do not seek each other for pleasure as you do in his nightmares, but—but how dare he prefer whores to you? How dare he have the right to call you his wife, the right to your bed, arms, and cunt, and he still seeks out other women? If it were Jace—

If it were Jace, if it were Jace, if it were Jace.

"How often?"

"Jacaerys," you warn, voice low.

"Please, muña," he says again, glancing up at you. "I just want to know."

You relent when he looks up at you with beckoning eyes. You have always been weak for him when he looks at you like that, always struggled to deny him anything when he turns his eyes up to you, wide and pleading—he has taken advantage of it for as long as he could remember, and he takes advantage of it now.

You press your lips together and say, "Often enough."

Jace's blood runs hot. "And when he does?"

You sigh, tilting your head back against the stone, patience waning, and Jace quits while he's already behind, not wanting to risk an argument while you're bare and wanting in his arms for the first time. He busies himself at your neck again, kissing down the length of your throat slowly, fingers stroking the skin at your hip.

"It makes me angry," he admits, voice muffled slightly against your skin as he nips and licks at your neck. He continues lower, lashes fluttering as he trails open-mouthed kisses between the valley of your breasts. "Worse, really. There is no word that can articulate how it feels knowing that mongrel has everything I have ever wanted and treats you with such—" He cuts himself off abruptly, resting his forehead against your collarbone. "I only wish to see you treated as you deserve. I—"

I wish to be the one to treat you that way.

He does not give you the opportunity to respond again, lips finding your skin, mouth wandering lower. He presses lingering kisses along your skin—an apology for every careless touch you have endured because he was too young to do anything when your father handed you off to Aegon. He wants you to understand the difference without having to put it into words—that there is nowhere he would rather be, there is no woman in the world he would prefer to be abed with than you.

Your fingers slip uncertainly into his dark curls when he lowers himself to his knees before you.

"Jacaerys," you say hesitantly, and Jace glances up. The sight of you looking down at him with furrowed brows nearly steals what little courage he has managed to build up. "What are you doing?"

Jace does not fully know himself. The only experience he has comes from the poorly written romances he'd managed to sneak from Rhaena when she wasn't paying attention and the increasingly indecent conversations he had overheard from the men around him as he grew older, boasting crudely over cups of lovers beneath them, thighs closed tight around their ears—the pleasure a man can give with naught but his mouth—but he had always flushed and looked away, feigning disinterest. He wishes now that he had listened more.

Once or twice, he had considered visiting a pleasure house. He had even convinced himself it would be sensible—to learn what he was doing before he ever found himself in the position he is now. But every time he seriously entertained the idea, his stomach turned. The idea of touching another woman, of kissing her, of sinking inside her and pretending it was you beneath his hands, made his skin crawl.

So he has remained hopelessly inexperienced, despite what he might have implied at supper earlier.

"Trust me," is all he says, hoping you cannot hear the uncertainty behind the words. He press another soft kiss against your skin, a second to your inner thigh as he eases your legs apart. He cannot breathe at the sight of your cunt so close to his face, half-convinced this might be a dream. "I just want to make you feel good. Let me try, muña."

He does not wait for you to second guess him, dragging his lips from your skin to the apex of your thighs, warmth breath ghosting over you. Your breath hitches, entire body tensing, and before he can lose his nerves, Jace buries his face between your thighs. His breath hitches the moment his mouth is on you, savoring in the taste of you, the scent of you, the warmth of you. His fingers bite deep into the plush skin of your thighs to hold you still, and Jace's lashes flutter as he drags his tongue between your folds, lapping at you desperately before he presses the tip of his tongue to your hole.

"Oh," he hears you breathe, thighs tensing beneath his touch, hips jerking against his face. His eyes slide shut momentarily as he relishes in the sound of the soft noises spilling from your lips above him—gasps and moans and whines caught in the back of your throat. "I—What—what are you—"

Instead of answering, he shifts one of your thighs so that it rests on his shoulder so that he might bury his tongue deeper inside of you, and you choke on your words. His eyes flick upward, wide and searching, to watch the way your chest heaves, head tilted back against the stone, lips swollen and slick from Jace's own mouth, trying to figure out what you like.

Jace has spent years dreaming of this, he thinks for the dozenth that night. Years imagining the moment he could touch you, hold you, kiss you, lay with you; none compares to having you writhing against his mouth, cunt grinding on his tongue.

How could Aegon ever be with another after seeing you in the throes of pleasure like this? Jace would suffocate between your thighs if it meant he would die with the sound of your pretty moans in his ears.

Unless—unless Aegon has never seen you like this?

Heat rushes low—his trousers have been painfully tight from the moment his lips first touched yours, but he aches now, lungs burning as his hips jerk slightly, rutting against air as he seeks out friction. He parts his lips from your cunt just long enough to suck in a gulp of air to his lungs before latching back onto you, tongue sweeping between your soaked folds, lapping at your slick before he sucks the small little bud at the front of your cunt into his mouth.

The cry that spills from your lips is music to his ears, gaze flying up as your back arches against the wall, hips rocking against his face, your heel digging into his mid-back. The hand you buried in his hair twists at the dark locks painfully, your other scratching at the stone behind you, and his eyes half-roll back at the stinging to his scalp.

There is no way, he realizes, the image of you writhing on his tongue seared behind his eyelids as his eyes slide shut so that he can focus on eating you in earnest. He groans into you, one hand tight around your thigh, the other fisting your ass to pull you impossibly closer. There is no way Aegon has ever seen you like this, had you like this, because if he had, he would never go to another.

Jace is the only one who gets to see you like this.

Jace is the only one who gets to have you like this.

"Jacaerys," you gasp, voice breathy, hitching over his name, thighs trembling around his head. "Please."

Jace's gaze snaps back up toward you. He's panting as he pulls his mouth from your cunt, savoring the keening noise that spills from your lips.

Distantly, he knows that this is reckless. He knows that Ser Steffon is right outside your door, and he can likely hear everything happening behind your doors. He knows that you are married, and he knows the consequences for both of you would be dire if someone walked in while his face is buried in your cunt.

Still, he says hoarsely what you have told him dozens of times before, "Ivestragon ziry drējī."

Say it correctly.

You stare at him, eyes wide and lips parted in disbelief, and a thrill runs through him, grip tightening on your thighs, breath ghosting hot over your cunt. He wants so badly to drown himself in the taste of you again, tongue darting out to lap at the slickness on his lips and chin, but he refrains, waiting.

"Kostilus," you finally breathe out, voice shaky, fingers trembling in his hair. They slip down the slope of his nose, resting on his lips, and Jace's lips part instinctively, lashes fluttering as he takes your two fingers into his mouth. "Kostilus, Jacaerys."

Jace's vision flashes white as he moans around your fingers, hips rutting forward against air again. Your fingers slip from his mouth so he can dive forward again, sloppily dragging his tongue between your folds, fucking it deep into your hole before he kisses messily up your cunt to the sensitive bud that makes you writhe.

He's mortified when his abdomen tightens and his hips jerk one final time, and he recognizes the familiar, sticky warmth suddenly seeping through his trousers, but he's so lost in the taste and feel of you that all he can do is hold you tighter, panting as you grind your hips against his face and he desperately tries to kee up.

You're keening above him, pretty, pitched moans that make him dizzy—because he's making you feel like this. He is. Not your husband, not Aemond, not anyone—only him.

He wants to feel you fall apart on his tongue, wants you to grab his hair and rock your hips against his face, use him—he wants you to use him however you see fit. Take him for everything he has and more.

Jace knows that you are married. He knows he cannot ask you for what he wants yet because he does not know how to achieve it, cannot yet find the courage to tell you how desperately he needs to be the man you choose before all others. He wants to be your husband—he wants to be your husband so bad that it kills him sometimes to know that the path getting there will be a long, difficult one.

But Jace is patient. He has waited a decade to be reunited with you, he will wait a decade more to wed you, if need be.

If this is all you can give him for now, he will take it. He will accept being something can only exist in stolen moments behind closed doors, beneath sheets in the dead of night, in sweat slicked skin and breathy moans, if it means that one day he might have the right to love you openly and call you his wife.

"Hah—" you gasp, thighs trembling on either side of his head. Jace suddenly understands why men always sounded so proud of themselves when they spoke of having their women wanton and writhing on their tongue. He is so drunk off the taste of you, the sound of your pleasure, that he hardly cares that his lungs burn. "I'm—I think—I'm going—"

Jace's gaze cuts upward, jaw falling half slack as he watches you come undone above him. You cry his name, fisting his hair and grinding your cunt against his mouth, and Jace thinks he finishes a second time untouched, cock twitching in his trousers, seed dripping down his thighs.

His fingers loosen on your thighs, thumbs easing circles into your skin as he returns to lapping at your cunt, careful not to let a single drop of you go to waste. His lashes flutter as he dares to suck your bud into his mouth again, only for you to start squirming and tugging at his hair.

"Jacaerys," you gasp, trying to pull your hips away, but Jace follows, tongue swirling circles, dragging between your folds. He dips it back into your hole to feel the way it tightens around him, and his mind goes blank as he imagines his cock in its place. "J—mandianna, stop—hold on, it's too sensitive. Jacaerys!"

Jace only pulls back when your voice sharpens and your heel kicking hard into his back twice, eyes a bit hazy as he looks up at you. Your expression softens at the sight of him. He wonders how much of a mess he must look right now—on his knees before you, chest heaving with every breath, face flushed, lips swollen and chin slick, hair a tangled mess from where your fingers had been tugging it.

One of your hands, still trembling, drops to his face, cradling his cheek gently. You tilt his face up, and Jace leans helplessly into your palm, turning his face just enough to press a kiss to the center of it.

"I meant what I said," he tells you, voice hoarse, eyes searching your face. "I'll stay. You need only say the word, muña. You do not have to be alone anymore."

It would be a dangerous game, he realizes. One day with you—in the throne room, at the training yard, during supper—had been enough for him to nearly expose the two of you before there was even anything to expose.

What would become of the two of you after days of stolen glances and nights spent slipping unnoticed into one another's chambers? How long before his hand lingered where it should not, before someone noticed the way his eyes followed you through every room, before the whispers that already plagued the family found fresh fodder?

Jace watches the same realization cross your face and his heart sinks. Your expression turns distant and calculating as you consider every risk he has been too desperate to care about.

"Say something," he murmurs.

Your eyes meet his again at last. "We will talk in the morning."

His heart sinks. "Muña—"

"In the morning, Jacaerys," you repeat, softer this time, thumb brushing once across his cheek. "When neither of us has wine in our blood, and you have had time to consider what you are asking of me."

Jace wants to protest that he has had eight years to consider it. Instead, he presses his lips to your palm again and nods, rising to his feet so that he might guide you to the bed.

Perhaps it is for the best, he thinks, that despite everything that has transpired tonight, the two of you have not gone any further. His gaze drops briefly before returning to yours.

"We should be careful," he murmurs. "If this is to continue."

Your brows lift slightly. "You have only just discovered caution?"

Jace almost smiles. "I mean it. I will not make the same mistake my mother did." His expression sobers. "I will not put a child in you who bears my face and leave you to answer for it."

Your entire expression changes. "Jacaerys."

He mistakes the sharpness in your voice for offense—perhaps he was being too presumptuous, you could very well tell him this will never happen again come morning. The thought makes his stomach turn violently.

"I only meant—"

"You were not a mistake." Jace goes still, throat bobbing as he stares down at you. "Do not speak of yourself that way—or your mother, for that matter."

Jace makes a bitter noise in the back of his throat—a scoff, maybe a laugh, and then he speaks out loud the words that have haunted him for as long as he's known he does not look like his father. "You cannot tell me that no one thought it. That there was not some immediate disappointment—regret—when I came into the world with brown hair and brown eyes instead of silver and violet."

You have the nerve to laugh at him, and when he shoots you an accusing look, you only grab his hand so that you can ghost your lips to his knuckles.

"Mandianna," you say fondly. "Tomorrow morning, I want you to ask your mother what my reaction was when I saw you for the first time. She will tell you."

Jace falters, fingers tensing against yours as he gives you a questioning look, but you only raise your eyebrows, signaling you will say no more.

He sighs and looks away, "I only mean to say that I do not want my son to go through what I have. Nor do I want you to go through what my mother has."

"I know," you soothe, running your thumb over his knuckles before releasing his hand. "We will talk in the morning. I would ask you to stay, but the twins rise with the sun and enjoy waking their disgruntled father with them, so Aegon tends to appear at my door shortly after sunrise to deposit them here so that he might return to his own bed. I would rather not risk him finding you in mine."

Jace's jaw tightens at the reminder of your husband, hating the domestic image that comes to mind—Aegon with sleep trussed hair and tired eyes, two children at his heel, showing up to your door with a yawn so he might return to sleep.

It should be him, he thinks despondently. It should be him with your children, him who can be with you when the sun is high, him as your husband. Not Aegon.

"Of course," he finally says, voice strained. Then he swallows as his gaze lifts to yours, tone softening as he tells you, "I missed you a lot, muña."

"I missed you too, mandianna," you say quietly. "Go rest. We will figure everything out."

Jace does not think he's going to get a wink of sleep, but he nods anyway, inclining his head slightly before he makes his way to your door.

He takes one last lingering look at you, hesitating when he sees the distant expression on your face as soon as you think his back is turned, and then he inhales deeply before lowering his gaze and leaving your chambers, an ache in his chest that already feels unbearable.

If Ser Steffon heard anything from the other side of the door, he gives no indication of it beyond the faintly awkward look that crosses his face when Jace steps into the corridor, wiping at the lower half of his face.

Jace answers it with a vicious glare before hurrying away.

————————————

"Jacaerys," his mother demands when he finally makes his way to the courtyard, where she, Daemon, his brothers and cousins are all waiting. It is hours past dawn—they were supposed to leave for Dragonstone as soon as the sun breached the horizon. "Where have you been? We've been waiting for you."

Jace's jaw tightens as he walks past his mother without a word to the horse the stable boys readied for him. He has been trying to rationalize your absence for hours. He had waited in the godswood and the gardens, lingered near the training yard and the library; he was desperate to catch so much as a glimpse of your familiar smile. He did not dare go to your chambers.

You had promised. You had sworn to him that you would speak in the morning, and Jace had hardly slept because of it. He alternated between wild hope and sickening dread as he imagined every possible outcome of the conversation awaiting him. He paced the corridors of the keep and stared up at the moon above until his eyes were heavy and circled, but he could not bring himself to return to his chambers.

Finally, morning had come, but you were nowhere to be found. You are avoiding him.

The thought has been festering inside him for hours, growing uglier each time he searches another part of the keep for you. Perhaps sobreity had brought regret with it, he thinks with a lump in his throat. Perhaps you had wakened this morning and remembered his mouth upon yours, his hands against your skin, and realized with horror what you had allowed to happen.

What has he done? He had pushed all evening, testing every boundary you placed before him until eventually there had been none left to cross. He had kissed you. He had put his hands on you. He had—

His stomach twists so violently that he almost retches. What if he had mistakken hesitation for invitation simply because he had wanted you so desperately? What if you only kissed him because you have never been able to say no to him? What if—

"Jacaerys," his mother snaps, grabbing his wrist before he can sit astride his horse. Jace inhales sharply, raising his chin and straightening his shoulders, refusing to turn around until she forces him to. When she sees the expression on his face—the tears wetting his eyes, and the way his lips tremble faintly—fury drains into concern. Her voice softens immediately, hand rising to cradle his face as she asks quietly, "Jacaerys, what's wrong, sweet boy? What has happened?"

Jace swallows thickly, gaze averting up to the sky as he desperately tries to swallow the lump in his throat. He shakes his head once, but his mother is persistent, tilting her head, lips pursed as she waits for an answer.

"I cannot find her," he finally admits, and he hates how small his voice sounds. Rhaenyra's brows draw together, confused.

"Who?" she asks, and Jace gives her a look that makes the question unnecessary. Understanding flickers across her face. "I am sure she is just busy with the twins, Jacaerys. I—"

"She said she would speak with me in the morning," he continues, words coming faster. "She promised me, and I have looked everywhere, and she is nowhere, and I think–" His voice cracks. His lashes flutter as he forces himself to stop and swallow, clearing his throat. "I think I have done something terrible."

"Jace—"

"I should not have pushed her." His eyes squeeze shut. "I should have left things as they were. Everything was finally right between us again, and I ruined it."

His mother stares at him, concern deepening into confusion. "Jacaerys, what exactly did you do?"

Jace stares at his mother helplessly. He cannot very well stand in the middle of the courtyard and confess that he spent half the night with his mouth pressed to his married aunt's cunt while Daemon, his brothers, cousins, and half a dozen stable boys stand within earshot. Rhaenyra's brows furrow slowly, glancing at him once before her gaze draws back to the direction of the keep, a calculating expression on her face.

"It does not matter," he rushes out before she can put two and two together. "It does not matter. I just—I need to speak with her."

Rhaenyra studies him for another long moment, and Jace struggles not to squirm beneath her scrutiny, afraid she can see everything that he had done with you the night before. At last, she finally says, "Then come back with me."

Jace blinks. "What?"

"We will see the others safely to Dragonstone, and then you and I can return on dragonback. If you are so desperate to speak with her, I see no reason you cannot."

Relief loosens the tension in his shoulders. It is not ideal—he had wanted to speak with you this morning, had spent hours imagining exactly what he might say, loathes the idea of not knowing what terms the two of you are on for days on end—but at least he does not have to return to Dragonstone wondering when he might see you again.

"Yes, that—" he starts to say, voice catching. "I would like that."

Rhaenyra gives his cheek an affectionate pat before releasing him, turning to make her way toward the carriage.

"Mother," he calls after a moment, and she pauses. Jace hesitates, remembering what you had told him to ask in passing the night before. Jace shifts awkwardly on his feet, feeling strangely foolish now that he has to ask. "What did muña do when she first saw me?" His mother's eyes narrow, and Jace is flustered, feeling as though he needs to explain the sudden question. He defends, "She told me to ask."

Understanding dawns across Rhaenyra's face, and then she immediately starts to laugh, hand lifting to her mouth to stifle her giggles. Jace flushes the longer she laughs and does not answer, fighting a scowl.

"She wailed," his mother finally says through her a sigh as she calms her laughter. "Quite inconsolably, actually."

Jace stares at her, unsure how this was supposed to make him feel better. "She cried?"

Rhaenyra hums in agreement, and Jace's face falls. She notices immediately and gives him a small, fond smile, tucking a dark curl behind his ear.

"Sweet boy, not because she was disappointed. When I put you in her arms the first time, she refused to let you go. I, too, thought something was wrong at first, because she wept so hard that I could hardly get her to answer me when I asked her why she was crying. Finally, she told me that you were perfect—" Jace's throat bobs terribly, and Rhaenyra tilts her head slightly as she cradles his face again "—her exact words, mind you. Then she asked quite sweetly if she might keep you."

"Keep me?" Jace echoes.

"You must understand, she was very young." Rhaenyra laughs again, hand dropping from his face to adjust Viserys against her shoulder. "She seemed to believe that because I had made you, I could simply make another if I wished. I spent the better part of an afternoon explaining that you were my firstborn son and heir, and no, she could not keep you merely because she asked so sweetly."

Jace cannot help the smile slowly spreading across his face.

"That did not discourage her, of course, spoiled little thing. She does hate being told no. She asked for you again on her next nameday, and the one after that, if memory serves. Every year for quite some time." Jace's ears burn as he flushes and looks away. His mother reaches out to hold his hand gently. He wonders if she understands what prompted you to tell him to ask this, because she gives him a soft smile and says, "She loved everything about you, but your eyes were always her favorite. She used to hold you in the sunlight because she swore they looked like pools of honey when the sun caught them right. I had to tell her to stop more than once. She would have kept you there all afternoon if I let her, and I was afraid the sun would burn you if you were kept out there too long."

"Oh," Jace says quietly, swallowing thickly as he stares down at the ground.

Her expression softens, more serious now as she tells him, "You know, she was lonely before you were born, Jacaerys."

His smile fades slightly, gaze lifting to meet hers. His mother has mentioned this before in passing when he was younger, but never elaborated on it, simply sent him off to go spend time with you.

"I tried to be there for her. I loved her dearly, but I was fourteen years her elder. By the time she was old enough to want someone to play with, I had already grown beyond such things and had courtly duties to attend to." Rhaenyra looks toward the keep, something wistful passing over her face. "She tried to befriend Aegon when she was young—" Jace's expression twists at the mention of your husband. "—but Alicent—the Queen—kept her children away from me and mine, and your muña was always lumped in with us. Sometimes I would find her watching the other noble children in the garden and training yard. They would be running about together, playing their games, and she would simply stand at the edge and watch them."

Jace swallows thickly, voice hoarser than he intends as he asks quietly, "Why didn't she join them?"

"I do not know," Rhaenyra admits. "Perhaps she did not know how. Perhaps she was scared. She was always a little apart from everyone else. You know well that she had her own whispers following her. Many thought she was—" A bitter expression crosses his mother's face. "—thought she was cursed because of the manner she came into this world. The manner in which she claimed her dragon only made people believe it more."

Jace chews the inside of his cheek, chest aching at the thought of you younger, smaller, standing alone as you watched other children laugh together. He cannot imagine it.

For as long as he could remember, you have always been bright smiles and pretty laughter, the difference between a perfect day and a ruined one. He cannot stand the idea of you small and alone, desperate for friends but unable to make any. He thinks of the dulled look on your face as you entered the throne room, the emptiness in your eyes when you first arrived to supper—worst of all, the distant one you wore last night before he left.

He has ruined everything.

"So when you were born," Rhaenyra continues, looking back at him with a small smile. "I was happy for more reasons than one. I had my sweet son, and she finally had someone who belonged to her as much as she belonged to him. I knew that once you were old enough to toddle about after her, neither of you would ever truly be alone."

Jace swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat, head hanging forward slightly. Tears sting at the corner of his eyes again, and he blinks them away before his mother can notice.

"Jacaerys," his mother says quietly, beckoning him to look at her. He lifts his head reluctantly, eyes heavy. "Whatever happened between the two of you, she has loved you from the moment she first laid eyes upon you. There is nothing in this world that will change that."

Except she does not know that, Jace wants to say, fists curling at his side. What if last night had cost him the one thing he had spent eight years desperate to have back? What if, in his selfish desire to have more of you, he had destroyed the chance to simply have you at all? What if—

"She really asked you to give me to her?" he asks instead, voice rough as he tries to joke to change the subject, hoping that his mother does not see the doubt swirling in his eyes.

He thinks she does, because her smile is a bit sadder as she says, "Repeatedly."

"What did you tell her?"

"That she could borrow you." Rhaenyra laughs softly, reaching up to brush an errant curl from his forehead. "I'm afraid she never did learn to give you back. Come, sweet boy, it is time for us to bring your brothers and cousins home. We will return on dragonback soon after."

————————————

"What is the meaning of this?" you demand, slamming your fists against the doors to your chambers. "Ser Steffon—who is out there? Let me out this instant, you mongrels, I will feed you to my dragon if you do not unbar my chambers immediately."

You had woken late to find your doors barred from the outside and Ser Steffon conspicuously absent from his post. At first, you had assumed some drunken foolishness on Aegon's part—a poorly conceived jest that you would make your half-brother regret the moment you were free—but nearly an hour has passed, and no one will answer you.

You pace the length of your room, agitated, furious, terrified. Something is terribly wrong.

Had they figured out what you had done with Jacaerys? Were they locking you in your chambers so you might not flee before they bring you before the High Septon to humiliate you? You would not put it past them—Alicent has always held a particular disdain toward you, and you have been at odds with the Faith ever since the septons tried to convince thirteen-year-old Aegon to let the maesters cut you open to save the twins.

No, if they knew what happened, there would be much more noise. It is the silence that is unsettling. The Red Keep is never silent in the afternoon. You should hear servants rushing through the corridors, bringing meals to the lords who do not wish to leave their chambers, guards changing their watch, absent chatter and laughter. But there is nothing.

"Aegon," you call loudly, slamming your fist against the door, because he had not come by with the twins this morning either. He always comes by with the twins. "Who is out there? Answer me now!"

You press your ear to the door. For several heartbeats, you hear nothing. Then, there is the faint scrape of armor shifting beyond the door, and you tilt your head to the side, stilling as your focus narrows in on the sound.

"I can hear you," you say, voice dropping dangerously low. "Open the door immediately, and I might grant you the privilege of choosing how you are going to die."

"Forgive me, princess. I cannot open the door."

The voice is unfamiliar. Your stomach drops. What is happening? Fear curdles low in your stomach, skin itchy with anxiety. Your gaze flicks from the heavy door to the bars on your window—your apartments are too high to climb from, and there is no way for Zūgaxes to free you lest risking bringing the entire tower down with you in it.

"Where is Ser Steffon?" you demand. "Who are you? Where are my sister and my nephews? Where are my children?"

Where are Maegor and Maegelle? Where are Jacaerys and Lucerys? Rhaenyra, Daemon, everyone else? What is happening? Why are you locked in?

"Your children are safe, princess," the guard says simply.

"Where are they?"

"I have been instructed only to assure you that Prince Maegor and Princess Maegelle are unharmed."

What? Unharmed? Why would they be harmed?

"Instructed by whom?" you hiss, only to be met with more silence. You strike the door again, fury beginning to overwhelm your fear. "Where is my husband? Answer me, you worthless dog!"

"I cannot say."

"My sister?"

Your heart begins to hammer when the guard does not respond. Rhaenyra and the boys were supposed to leave for Dragonstone at dawn—Jacaerys was supposed to leave with her.

Jacaerys, who would be waiting for you. Jacaerys, who you had watched leave your chambers only with the assurance that when the sun rose, the two of you would speak about what had transpired between you and what in the Seven Hells you intended to do next. Jacaerys, who would undoubtedly assume the worst when you did not show.

Your stomach twists as you imagine him waiting somewhere for you, watching the hours pass with no sign of your arrival. You know exactly where his mind will go. He will convince himself that you regret everything that happened between you, that you had woken sober and ashamed and had broken your promise because you could not bear to face him after what you had allowed him to do.

He will think he had done something wrong. The thought makes panic claw at your throat. You slam your fist against the door again, and again, and again, tears of frustration pricking at your eyes.

He had been so uncertain when he left you. He had searched your face for reassurance, and his confidence crumbled the moment you told him the two of you must wait until morning to speak. You should not have sent him away. You do not even know why you sent him away. You had just been—you had been scared.

You had been scared for what you'd done, of what you'd allowed him to do, of how easily you'd forgotten everything else as soon as his mouth was on yours—your husband, children, his mother, the realm. Every consequence that should have been enough to make you push him away had disappeared the moment he touched you, and you'd been terrified of how desperately some part of you had wanted him to stay.

When he offered to remain in King's Landing with you, some reckless part of you had wanted to say yes before he even finished speaking. You'd wanted to pull him into your bed and keep him there until morning, consequences be damned. For one night, you had wanted to forget that you were Aegon's wife, that you have been alone, desperately trying not to drown for a decade, that war was most likely on the horizon and your children would be at the center of it.

So, you had sent him away and told yourself that morning would make everything clearer. Instead, morning has come and gone, and Jacaerys is somewhere far beyond these walls believing you had abandoned him again.

What is happening? Why are you locked in your rooms?

"Let me out," you demand, voice rising, furious, slamming your fists against your door again and again and again. "Let me out! Let me out, let me out, let me out!"

You were not supposed to be the twin who lived. 

Nobody tells you that in so many words, but it is the first thing you learn all the same.

You catch your father staring at you sometimes with an empty look in his eyes, and you know he is seeing the ghost of your mother, thinking that if Baelon had been the one to survive instead of you, he might have been able to justify her death. The lords and ladies of the Red Keep constantly look upon you with polite smiles and carefully chosen words, lowering their voices whenever the topic of your birth is raised, as if you are too young to understand them, even though it was the first thing you ever understood at all. 

Such a tragedy.

The queen gave everything.

The prince…

The prince, the prince, the prince—it is always the prince.

A son who never lived is afforded every virtue. He would have been strong. He would have been the perfect heir and the perfect king. He would have united the realm, and he would have spared your father his grief. He is remembered with all the generosity reserved for the dead, and none of the criticism reserved for the living.

You grow accustomed to measuring yourself against a brother you never knew. Every accomplishment is met with the unspoken question of whether Baelon might have done it quicker or better, and every celebration carries a shadow of mourning that you will never escape. 

It is only Rhaenyra who has ever looked at you and seen nothing to mourn.

She has never spoken of Baelon as though he ought to have taken your place. She sneaks you your favorite desserts when you are sad, and she wipes your tears before anyone else can see them. When you are too scared to be alone at night, she slips into your chambers with stories of dragons raining fire from the sky and queens who crossed seas. 

Your father has always been distant, but you have never minded because Rhaenyra is enough warmth for two parents, and when the whispers of the court become loud enough to reach you, she rolls her eyes and steals you away to the dragonpit or cuts the gossipers down with words sharp enough to leave them speechless.

She is your shield whenever the court would have you bleed, and your sword when distraction alone is not enough. For a little while, that is enough.

Then Jacaerys is born. 

You are still young enough to be bundled off to lessons with Septa Elaine, feet dangling from chairs too tall for you, when Rhaenyra places him in your arms for the first time. 

You think he is beautiful.

He has a mop of dark curls and bright brown eyes that seek you out in every room. He laughs more readily than he cries, and he reaches for your finger whenever you are near, curling his tiny fist around it as though he has claimed you for himself. 

He is perfect—you know it the moment he giggles up at you the first time, but the whispers begin before the bloodied sheets are removed from your sister's bed.

Strong. Bastard. Plain.

The words are spoken with feigned innocence, as though they are not daggers pressed to both his back and your sister’s. For the first time since you were born, the court’s attention shifts to another, and you desperately wish that it hadn't.

You know what it is to have your life measured against someone who is not there, but Jacaerys is measured against people who are. 

Your half-brother, Aegon, with silver-gold hair that gleams in the sun and eyes the color of amethysts, every inch the image of Old Valyria from the moment he was pulled from your stepmother's womb. Beside him stand Helaena, Aemond, and Daeron, no less unmistakably Targaryen. Silver hair and purple eyes; four children who look exactly as the world insists dragonlords should.

By the time Jacaerys is born, the image of a Targaryen prince has already been firmly etched into the court's mind, and it is not a little boy with brown curls and warm eyes who resembles neither the princess who bore him nor the husband sworn to be his father. 

You recognize the look in their eyes intimately when they turn their gazes on him. It is the same one they once turned on you—a child who has already failed to become what the realm expected of them before they have spoken their first words. You had been the daughter who survived instead of the son who should have. Jacaerys is the son who does not look as though he should have.

Rhaenyra never allows you to bear your burden alone. Before the whispers find you, they find her first. Whenever cruel words are spoken, hers are always sharper. She stands between you and the court so often that most days you hardly realize she’s shielding you at all. 

So when the whispers begin to follow Jacaerys instead, you do the only thing you have ever been taught—sharpening words and standing between him and the world whenever you can.

If your sister has always been your sword and your shield, then you will be her son’s.

——————————

JACAERYS, 2; READER, 7; 112 AC

“He really does adore you, doesn’t he, princess?” one of your ladies in waiting, Melynda Darklyn, says with a soft laugh after Jacaerys climbs into your lap at Lucerys’s first nameday celebration. You wind your arms around the boy, relishing in the delighted noise he makes once he’s wrapped in your arms.

Your sister and her husband are sitting at the center of the table, chatting with your father and entertaining the assembled lords while musicians fill the hall with cheerful melodies and servants weave between tables bearing silver platters piled high with roasted meats and sugared fruits. Rhaenyra occasionally looks in your direction, casting a small smile your way when she sees how Jacaerys is tucked against you, fisting the embroidery of your gown tight enough that you fear he might rip some of the tiny pearls from the fabric.

“He has excellent taste,” you answer primly, with all of the seriousness a girl of seven can muster, earning a ripple of laughter from your end of the table. “It certainly has nothing to do with the fact that I let him have his sweets before supper.”

Jacaerys blinks, head lolling against your shoulder, unconcerned with being the subject of conversation. You can feel his small fingers picking at the ribbon tied around your wrist, freezing comically every time you look down at him. Each time you return your attention to the feast, his fingers creep back toward the knot with painstaking care, his tongue peeking from the corner of his mouth in concentration. He glances up at you every few moments to make certain you are not watching before tugging experimentally at the ribbon once more.

You pretend not to notice, smiling lightly to yourself when you hear the triumphant little hum that escapes him as the knot finally begins to loosen. 

“His hair really is so dark,” Aegon suddenly says on your left, voice idle as he yawns. 

The conversation immediately halts. 

You wonder if Aegon knows the gravity of the words he spoke, stiffening slightly from where you’re sitting, enough that Jacaerys seems to sense the shift in your demeanor, lifting tiny hands to your face to squish your cheeks. It’s only when you smile at him that he finally lets go, and he returns to toying with your ribbon. 

You look at your younger half-brother from the corner of your eye carefully, catching the bored expression on his face as he absently pokes at his peas, still looking at Jacaerys. You do not know why your father insists on seating him near you during feasts—you desperately wish he would sit with his mother and your other half-siblings. He has spent half the evening kicking the legs of his chair and playing with his food, bothering you with inane questions about whether there is an end to the Sunset Sea and if you think there is such a thing as water dragons or ice dragons. 

You see three of your ladies-in-waiting exchange glances, Melynda stiffens slightly as she glances between the princes before her gaze meets yours, riddled with concern, and two lords further down the table quiet down immediately to listen in on whatever Aegon might say next. No one speaks openly of Jacaerys’s… coloring. Not yet, at least. The whispers have remained whispers, traded behind fans and cups of wine, because everyone is unwilling to be the first to give them voice.

So the court waits, each lord and lady wondering who will finally speak the unspeakable. 

For one fleeting moment, you can’t help but wonder if the Queen has whispered something into Aegon's ear before the feast, if she has sent him here to say what no grown lord dares so that life might be breathed into the whispers haunting Jacaerys. You would not put it past her—she has always had a certain disdain for you and your sister—but you do not think that is the case this time. Aegon is six, and he hardly has the patience for lessons in High Valyrian, much less the conspiracies of court. Every thought that enters his head escapes his mouth within moments, innocent of the havoc it might wreak. 

He is simply a little boy who has noticed that his nephew's curls are brown where everyone else's are silver. The court, however, has spent so long waiting for someone to say too much that even a child's idle observation is enough to make half the hall hold its breath.

Aegon notices the silence at last, mid-motion to tug Jacaerys’s hair. You slap his hand away before he can. His brow furrows, and he glances around the table. He looks from one lady to the next as though expecting someone to satisfy his curiosity. Instead, they busy themselves with their cups of wine and suddenly find the roasted lamb before them intensely interesting.

He frowns. “What?” 

“I suppose everyone else is too kind to say it,” you say dramatically, giving Aegon a bright smile as he tilts his head questioningly. “You should not speak on someone else’s hair when yours is so greasy, valonqar.” You reach forward to tug a long lock of silver hard, and Aegon yelps, squirming away. “It only draws more attention to it. Did you not bathe before the feast?”

Little brother.

“I did bathe! It’s not greasy!” he disagrees loudly, lifting his hands to cover his hair. “You’re a liar!” 

“Of course it is,” you insist. “Why else do you think no one dares look you in the eye? You should be grateful that you have me to tell you the truth when others would avert their gaze and pretend they do not notice. Say, thank you, mandia.”

Older sister.

“No!” 

“Do it, or I’ll pull your hair again, you little wretch.”

Aegon gapes at you and looks around the table for help—unfortunately for him, the only one who might have taken his side, scandalized by your behavior, is sitting on your father’s opposite side, watching the two of you from afar, unable to do anything about it. You give the Queen a faux-sweet smile before raising your eyebrows at Aegon and lifting your hand threateningly. 

He shrinks back. “Thank you, mandia.”

You raise your chin proudly, and the tension slips away. The tension eases from your shoulders when you realize you’ve successfully averted the crisis, but the dread you feel remains even as goblets are lifted once more, and conversations that had died on waiting breaths begin again. One lord clears his throat loudly and returns to discussing the harvest with his neighbor, and another asks after plans for hawking. 

Around the table, everyone is suddenly very eager to prove they had not been listening at all; as though moments before, they hadn’t been on the edge of their seats waiting for someone to give them a chance to speak what they’ve all been thinking.

Jacaerys gives one final victorious tug, and the ribbon slips free into his hands. He squeals with delight, waving it triumphantly in the air, utterly oblivious to what just took place. 

You pluck it gently from his fingers before he can stuff it into his mouth, and he immediately looks up at you, big brown eyes watering, lower lip quivering. He pleads in a tiny, wobbly voice, “Please.”

You raise your eyebrows at him pointedly. You say firmly, “Ivestragon ziry drējī.”

Say it correctly.

He stares up at you, brow furrowing in fierce concentration. His lips part once, then close again. He glances toward his mother for help, but she is much too far to be of any assistance, so his little nose wrinkles as he thinks harder.

“K-k…” he begins uncertainly, fingers curling tight around the sleeve of your gown. You wait patiently, toying with the ribbon. At last, he says proudly, “Kolilus!”

“Close,” you say, tapping his nose, smiling softly when he immediately scrunches it again with a giggle. “Kostilus.”

Please.

“Kostilus!” he repeats, beaming. “Kostilus! Kostilus!” 

“Sīr albie,” you praise as you tie the ribbon around his small wrist, watching as he waves his hand in the air trying to show Rhaenyra across the room. “Olvie tolī albie pār aōha qȳbor.”

So smart. Much smarter than your uncle.

Jacaerys spends the rest of the feast showing anyone who will look the ribbon tied around his wrist, never noticing the glances that follow him, and you are filled with a dread that will haunt you for years to come, because one day, someone will find the courage to finish Aegon's thought, and when that day comes, no amount of distraction or childish innocence will be enough to swallow the words back down.

——————————

JACAERYS, 3; READER, 8; 113 AC

“Sleepover!”

You wake blearily from where you’re dozing off on your couch as the door to your chambers swings open, exhausted after a day of flying. Rhaenyra finally gave you leave a few months ago to take flight with Zūgaxes, once she was certain you would not go flying off the large dragon's back the moment he took to the air, and you have spent almost every waking moment with him above King's Landing and the Blackwater. Your thighs are sore, and you barely fight a wince when you push yourself into a sitting position just as a small ball of energy slams into your abdomen, pushing you back down against the couch.

You blink once, a smile instinctively curving your lips when Jacaerys’s face pops above yours, a wide, toothy one spread across his lips as he looks down at you, excited, dressed in his nightclothes and holding his favorite blanket. 

“Mandianna,” you say fondly, lifting your shoulders enough to press your lips against his cheeks, biting down lightly to make him squeal happily. “What are you doing here?”

Nephew.

“I hope I didn’t wake you, sweet sister,” Rhaenyra murmurs as she makes her way into your room. She holds Lucerys carefully on her hip—the boy is half asleep, blinking sleepily in your direction before giving you a small smile. She nods in the direction of the couch you’re lying on and asks, “May I?”

You tilt your head curiously and nod, shifting to sit up properly. Jacaerys clambers off your lap to go play with the toys he left in your room the other day, and Rhaenyra sits next to you, smiling at you softly as she lifts a hand to tuck your hair behind your ear. Your eyes are wide and adoring as you look up at her, leaning into the familiar warmth of her hand—you have been so busy flying that you've hardly seen her as of late.

"Look at you, growing up so lovely," Rhaenyra sighs lightly, running her thumb along your cheekbone as Lucerys nuzzles into the crook of her neck. "I heard father was upset with you this morning. What happened?"

You scowl immediately, crossing your arms and looking away. The reminder of the argument sets your mood afoul, throat already tightening with a something caught between irritation and hurt.

"He is always upset with me," you mutter. Rhaenyra raises her eyebrows at you, waiting for you to explain, and you push your bottom lip out into a pout. "I only mentioned that I wanted to fly to Highgarden. Ser Lowen says the flowers will be at peak bloom soon. I should like to see them."

Rhaenyra laughs lightly, and your cheeks feel hot as you keep your gaze averted even as she tilts your face toward her. She strokes your hair lightly and says, "You have only just turned eight, hāedar. You cannot expect him to allow you to fly off on your own across the kingdom."

Little sister.

Your eyes well with tears immediately, and Rhaenyra's expression shifts into one of alarm, shifting Lucerys on her lap so that she might face you fully.

"He can hardly even stand the sight of me, mandia. He could at least let me travel. I do not just want to see Highgarden—I want to see the Wall and Casterly Rock. I want to cross the Narrow Sea and travel the Free Cities, see the ruins of Old Valyria, walk the House of the Undying in Qarth. It is not fair. He cannot keep me trapped here forever when nobody even likes me."

Rhaenyra's expression softens; she tilts her head slightly to the side as she holds your face between her palms, stroking your cheeks steadily with her thumbs. You grit your teeth hard to try to stop the tears from spilling over, but you fail miserably, breath shuddering as you sniffle and choke back sobs.

"Did someone say something to you?" she asks you, lips pressed together and eyes a bit cooler. "Ali—the Queen? One of her sons?"

You shake your head, trying to pull your face away, but she does not let you. "I just—"

You just what? You're lonely? You're tired of the way everyone looks at you? It feels unfair to say that to Rhaenyra, who has always done her best to shield you from it all. It feels unfair to say it when Jacaerys and Lucerys have faced worse from the court these past three years.

It is all unfair, you think miserably. All you want to do is lounge in gardens and snack on oranges with your sister and your nephews. You want to watch as Jacaerys plays with his wooden dragons and finds pretty flowers to put in your hair, as Lucerys naps in his mother's arms, oblivious to the world around him. You want to do it all without the eyes of judgment constantly pinned on the back of your head; you want to do it without the fear that someone, one day, will speak the words that will condemn them all.

"Well, then, perhaps it is a good thing that Jacaerys asked for you, hāedar," Rhaenyra says softly. "I did not realize you were so upset. Were you really planning to spend the night alone?"

"I did not want to bother you," you reply glumly, glancing away to where Jacaerys is trying and failing to gather all of his toys up in his arms, pouting each time he drops one back to the floor.

"You are never a bother, sweet sister. You must come to me whenever you feel like this. I loathe the idea of you being alone," Rhaenyra tells you softly as she leans in to brush her lips against your forehead. "Jacaerys, come here."

The boy immediately pokes his head up from the other side of the room, putting down all of his toys except for the wooden dragon you gifted him for his first nameday. He bolts across the room, tossing himself on Rhaenyra's lap and jostling Lucerys, who immediately starts sniffling. Rhaenyra raises her eyebrows at Jacaerys, who gives her a sheepish smile before he gives Lucerys a hug.

"Sorry, Luke," he says dutifully before shifting to sit between the two of you, holding his wooden dragon in his lap. He gives his mother an expectant look.

"Didn't you want to ask your muña something?" Rhaenyra prods, raising her eyebrows. "Instead of coming in here and demanding?"

Aunt (mother's sister)

Jacaerys's face lights up as he swivels his body toward you, brown eyes bright with delight. "Can we have a sleepover, muña?"

You say, "Ivestragon ziry drējī.”

Say it correctly.

Jacaerys immediately wrinkles his nose and gives Rhaenyra a pleading look, but your sister only gives him a small smile, beckoning him to do as you asked.

"You're so mean, muña," Jacaerys whines, giving you a pitiful look, wide eyes and a pushed-out lip that he certainly learned from you whenever you're trying to convince Rhaenyra to get you extra snacks from the kitchens. Unfortunately for you, it is infinitely more effective coming from baby Jacaerys with big brown eyes and chubby cheeks. He wrinkles his nose as he thinks, a few long moments passing before he tries, "Kostan ēdrugon toliot?"

I can stay over?

You correct, "Kostagon nyke ēdrugon toliot?"

Can I stay over?

"Kostagon nyke ēdrugon toliot?" he repeats instantly, leaning forward, tiny fingers wrapping around your hand. "Kostilus, kostilus, kostilus."

Can I stay over? Please, please, please.

You lean in with a small smile and tell him softly, "Hen rhinka, kostā."

 Of course, you can.

Jacaerys lets out a squeal of glee and immediately leaps off the couch to run over to your bed, climbing on top and bouncing happily three times before flopping down and rolling around. Your lips curl up into a smile as your sister leans in to nudge her shoulder against yours.

"Are you truly going to look me in the eye and say nobody likes you when mine own son adores you so deeply?" she asks you quietly. "When I do?"

Your shoulders slump slightly, unable to meet her gaze.

"Jace would be distraught if you left," Rhaenyra continues, undeterred. "He has… been having night terrors. He struggles to sleep through the night. He has tried sleeping in bed with Laenor and I, but nothing seems to be enough to rid him of them. At first, I thought he simply preferred being fussed over, but the servants have made me aware that he does not cry out once during his naps in your chambers. When he wakes beside you, he is… lighter."

You turn to look at Jacaerys. He has managed to wrap himself in your blankets like a cocoon, your favorite stuffed dragon tucked to his chest. Every few moments, he glances over his shoulder to make certain you're still watching him before burying himself deeper beneath the covers.

You hear your sister let out a soft huff of laughter at your side at the sight of him, brushing a sleeping Lucerys's curls away from his forehead.

"I did not know," you whisper, guilty now—not just for wanting to leave and travel, but also for the number of days you've landed in the dragonpit with Zūgaxes to find Jacaerys sitting there waiting for you. For hours, Ser Steffon told you once when you'd asked how long he'd been there. "I…"

"I do not think he does either," Rhaenyra admits, smiling sadly. "Children simply know where they feel safe, and he feels safe with you."

Rhaenyra watches Jacaerys for a long moment as he buries himself beneath your blankets, only the top of his dark curls visible.

She says after a moment, "I should like it if you spent more time with him." You blink and give her a questioning look. She amends immediately, "I know you already do, but… he adores you. There is no one in the Seven Kingdoms whose presence delights him half so much as yours. Every morning, he asks whether you will break fast with us. Every afternoon, he asks whether you are flying. Every evening, he asks whether you have already gone to sleep. Laenor has begun telling him that dragons require princesses to nap as often as hatchlings simply to stop the questions."

You giggle, hand flying to your mouth as you imagine an exhausted Laenor forced to answer question after question—Jacaerys is insatiable when it comes to needing things answered. You once spent two hours trying to answer incessant whys when you told him that dragons could not fly forever without taking breaks, and you know Laenor well enough to know his patience is not endless.

"He is noticing things," Rhaenyra tells you after a moment, voice breaking. "He does not understand why some lords smile at him only when I am looking. He asked me last week why everyone stares at him, if he had done something wrong—I had to tell him that people only stare because he is a prince. That they admire him. I lied to him."

You stare at your folded hands, unable to think of anything to say that would make her feel better. You know she lied because there had been no other choice. What else could she have told a three-year-old boy? That grown men whisper about him behind closed doors? That ladies who smile at him in passing spend their evening wondering aloud whether he has any right to the Velaryon name?

Children should not know such things.

You should not have known that the court would have preferred you dead to your brother.

"He believed me," Rhaenyra says quietly, "but he will not forever, and I dread when that day comes. And it will come. One day he will hear every cruel thing that we have kept beyond his reach, but—"

"I will make them stop," you say immediately, leaning forward and grabbing her hands. Rhaenyra gives you a small, sad smile, but you insist with a nod. "I will, mandia. I will cut them down. Ser Steffon is teaching me the sword, I—"

Rhaenyra blinks. "Does father know that?"

"—I will take the head of anyone who says such things about him. I will feed them to Zuzu, and I'll burn their keeps," you declare, ignoring her question, because no, your father does not know, and you have no intention of telling him. "You do not have to worry, mandia. I will protect Jacaerys and Lucerys forever. And you."

Then, she laughs. It is quiet and watery, born through tears rather than amusement, but it is a laugh nonetheless. A success, you think.

"Oh, sweet girl."

You frown. She says it the way she always does when she does not believe you.

"I am serious," you insist.

"I know you are," she sighs, reaching up to cup your face with both hands, smiling softly. "You are a child. You should not be talking about taking heads and feeding people to dragons."

You frown again, deeper this time. "But I mean it," you tell her again. "I will take their heads, and I will feed them to Zuzu. I will burn their keeps, should I please."

"You are eight, hāedar."

"Then, I will wait until I am nine," you say firmly. "I will grow very tall. Taller than Ser Steffon. Even Ser Harrold."

"I think that unlikely."

"I shall," you say fiercely. "And I shall be stronger than Ser Erryck, and wiser than every maester."

You do not know why Rhaenyra looks as though she's going to cry again as she looks down at you, stroking your hair gently. "So, when you are the tallest, strongest, and wisest princess in the Seven Kingdoms…"

"I will protect all of you," you finish. "Anyone who is cruel to Jacaerys will regret it. And Lucerys. And you."

Rhaenyra's smile softens, and your lashes flutter as she leans in to brush her lips against your forehead.

"Well, if you are so adamant, then I suppose I must believe you." You nod at her words, pleased. "Will you promise me one more thing?" You look up expectantly. "If one day, the court makes him feel alone… find him, please."

You nod immediately. "I promise."

"And if one day the court makes you feel alone…"

You hesitate. "… He is only little."

"He will not always be," she tells you with a faint smile, and your nose wrinkles at the idea of Jacaerys growing older. You like him the way he is now—tiny and cuddly. "Promise me you will let him find you, too."

You glance over to where he's curled up in your bed, fast asleep now, ignorant of the conversation taking place between you and his mother. He is so small, you think doubtfully—you cannot imagine a day will ever come when he will be the one to seek you out.

Still, Rhaenyra has that expectant expression on her face, so you find yourself nodding.

"I promise."

—————————

JACAERYS, 4; READER, 9; 114 AC

"Jacaerys?"

You rise to your feet from where you were sitting with your half-sister, Helaena, on the edge of the gardens in Maegor's Holdfast as a small figure rushes past the two of you. Helaena blinks once, tilting her head to the side as she cradles her beetles between her palms.

"He looked sad," she says quietly. "Do you think he's okay?"

You don't respond, rushing after Jacaerys as soon as he turns the corner, ignoring the eyes of the knights and servants lingering as you push past them. You thought he was supposed to be in the training yard with Laenor today? He was excited about it last night—so excited that he kept you up for hours, asking for tips to impress his father and Ser Criston. So why—

"Jacaerys!" you call again as he turns down the hall, taking a familiar path through the holdfast. Where is he going? To his mother's chambers? To yours? "Jacaerys!"

Jacaerys skids to a stop halfway down the next hall, and you glare at a passing knight whose gaze lingers a moment too long on the sniffling boy. He hurries away, leaving you alone with Jacaerys in the long hall. He lifts his face to look at you, and alarm shoots through you when you see the dark bruise on his jaw.

"Jacaerys, what happened?" you demand, making your way over to him. He rushes toward you, throwing his arms around your waist and burying his face in your stomach. You wrap your arms around him, fingers threading through his thick hair as you hold the back of his head to your body, lowering yourself to your knees in front of him. "Jacaerys."

You pull his face back gently. His fingers clutch desperately at the back of your gown, bunching the fabric in both fists as though he fears you'll disappear if he loosens his grip. He is trembling. He is shaking so badly that he can hardly hold himself upright. Your fingers bite a bit too hard into his shoulders as your hands slide from his face down to his upper arms, forcing him to look you in the eye.

"Tell me what happened," you say furiously, rage already bubbling in your chest, vision tinted red as you squeeze his tiny biceps. "Who hurt you? Jacaerys, answer me!"

Jacaerys lifts a hand to wipe at his eyes, tears stubbornly clinging to his long lashes. The bruise on his jaw makes your stomach lurch. You force your grip to ease as you lift a hand to his cheek, cradling it gently as you brush your thumb over the mark.

His lower lip trembles violently before he whispers, "… I fell."

You stare at him blankly. "Did you?"

He gives you a tiny nod, refusing to meet your gaze. He is a terrible liar.

"I see," you say slowly, eyes narrowing slightly, "and the floor struck only your jaw?"

He sniffles and nods again.

"How curious," you say flatly.

You wonder if it was Aegon or Aemond. You thought Aegon was getting along with the boys, for the most part, but your half-brother has always been fickle and capricious, prone to changing his mind on a whim; and Aemond has taken to the sword, but he has always been careful enough with smaller children, more interested in proving himself than hurting anyone else. You struggle to picture him throwing a careless blow at a four-year-old.

"It must have been a very malicious floor," you say at last, the anger ebbing away at the sight of his mouth twitching up into a small, wobbly smile. "I shall have the castle steward informed. Dangerous stones cannot be allowed to wander the halls attacking little princes."

Jacaerys giggles, lifting his fists to wipe clumsily at his eyes.

"It wasn't the floor," he admits in a tiny voice. "I lied."

You sigh lightly as you brush the last lingering tear from beneath his lashes, leaning in to press your lips against his forehead. You say, "I suspected as much. What really happened, mandianna?"

His gaze immediately drops to the floor. "Ser Criston was teaching me how to wield a sword."

You stare at him for a moment and then ask slowly, "Ser Criston gave you this?"

"He didn't mean—" Jacaerys begins quickly, fumbling for words. "He was showing me, that's all."

"Showing you what, exactly?" you question, voice strained.

Jacaerys withdraws, shrinking a little. He says quietly, "I do not want to get in trouble."

"Iksā dōrī isse qopsa lēda nyke, mandianna," you say, softening your tone, sighing lightly as you brush your lips atop the welt forming on his jaw. Jacaerys clutches at your arms, trying to keep you close."Nyke mērī jaelagon ao naejot ivestragon nyke se drēje."

You are never in trouble with me, nephew. I only want you to tell me the truth.

"He was showing me how to block," he finally says, sniffling again as he presses his face into the crook of your neck. "I was supposed to stop it, but I didn't. He said I should have blocked it, and then went back over to Aegon and Aemond."

You do not reply immediately, rubbing between his shoulders to soothe him, one hand sliding down to his tiny wrist and tinier hands, small and uncalloused, barely able to wrap around the hilt of a sword. Ser Criston is a grown man, you think, outraged. He is years older than Rhaenyra, and he struck Jacaerys.

"How hard did he strike you?" you ask him softly.

"It hurt," Jacaerys says, voice small and muffled. Your eye twitches—a kingsguard striking a prince, Criston Cole gets away with far too much because of the Queen's favor. "He said if I cannot stop a practice sword, I will never stop a real one. I couldn't find father—he was supposed to be there—and mother has been busy all day in court, and I—I wanted you, muña. I always want you when…" His face twists as he searches for the right words. "… when things hurt."

Your expression softens into a smile as you sit back on your heels to look him in the eye. Jacaerys looks at you through wet lashes, bottom lip still wobbling, and you hold his face between your hands, squeezing his cheeks gently until he giggles and turns his face into your palm.

"Well," you say lightly after a moment, "your muña is here. How about we go down to the dragonpit and check on Vermax?"

His face lights up instantly. "Yes! Maybe they'll let me feed him. Do you think they'll let me?" he asks, excited, grabbing your hands and squeezing. Before you can respond, he presses, "Will Zuzu be there? Can we go flying?"

You lean in and lower your voice conspiratorially as you whisper, "Only if you promise not to tell your mother."

"I promise! I promise, I promise, I promise!" he cheers.

You give him a small smile, running your thumb one last time over the welt on his cheek before you rise to your feet and hold out your hand to him. He takes it quickly, entwining his fingers with yours as he takes off in the direction of the dragonpit, and you laugh as he drags you along with him.

Jacaerys forgets all about the bruise and Ser Criston Cole by the time the two of you reached the dragonpit, but you do not.

—————————

JACAERYS, 6; READER, 11; 116 AC

Jacaerys becomes your shadow over the next two years.

He rushes to your chambers before you've even woken, and will linger there long into the evening until his mother finally forces him to return to his own. Some nights, he sneaks back well after midnight because he insists that your room is safer than his, though you suspect he simply sleeps better with your dragon stuffed beneath one arm and your hand draped over his back.

He follows you everywhere.

When Ser Steffon trains you in the yard—now with your father's permission, though you had to put up quite the fight because your father was unconvinced that there was any need for a princess to learn the sword—Jacaerys perches himself on the balcony, his chin resting in both palms as he announces every successful strike as though you had just won a tourney.

"You got him!"

"It is a wooden dummy, Jacaerys."

"But he was losing!"

"The dummy?"

"Yes! He looked frightened!"

When you fly Zūgaxes, Jacaerys waits patiently in the Dragonpit with a book in his lap that never seems to advance beyond the same page. The moment your dragon's shadow crosses the courtyard, he leaps to his feet, waving both arms high above his head before racing to meet you

"How high did you go?"

"Very high."

"Higher than the towers?"

"Certainly."

"Higher than the clouds?"

"Not quite."

"Tomorrow?"

"Perhaps."

When you retreat to the gardens with a book, he appears scarcely minutes later, carrying one of his own. He cannot yet sit long enough to read more than a page or two before asking questions, but he tries valiantly, resting his head against your shoulder as he sounds out unfamiliar words. When he inevitably grows frustrated, you take the book from his hand and read aloud instead—by the third chapter, he is almost always asleep against you.

The servants quickly learn that if the young prince cannot be found, they only need ask where the princess has gone, and he is always there.

Which is why you feel so terrible about what you have to do today.

"Tell me it's not true," a shrill voice accuses from the door of your chambers as you finish packing the last of your bag. Ser Steffon gives you an apologetic look as he holds the door open for the little prince, and you grimace but signal for him to close it and step outside so that you can talk to Jacaerys. "You can't be leaving. Say that you're not leaving!"

"Mandianna," you start to sigh, turning to face him. His eyes are already welling with tears, face red and fists clenched at his sides. "I—"

"No!" he screeches. "You're a liar. You're a liar. You promised you wouldn't leave me. You promised I wouldn't be alone. You're a liar, and I hate you."

"Jacaerys," you say quietly, kneeling in front of him. He has grown over the past year, but so have you—and unfortunately for him, you have been growing faster. Where he once nearly reached your shoulder, the top of his curls now barely reaches your chest. He'll be even taller when you return, you think mournfully—how much will you miss? "Come here."

"No."

"Please."

"No!"

"I only want to talk, mandianna."

"I hate talking to you. I don't want to talk to you."

"Jacaerys…" you sigh again, a helpless feeling tugging at you because you do not want to leave while he's angry at you. You knew this would be a difficult conversation, but you'd hoped to at least leave with one last hug. "I know you are angry, but—"

"You don't!" he cries, stamping his foot so hard the floorboards rattle beneath him. "You don't know anything! Everybody hates me here. They all stare at me and think I don't notice, but I do! You promised you would stay, that I would always have you. You're a liar!"

Your breath hitches as you stare down at the tears tracking down his cheek. For a moment, you are no longer looking at Jacaerys. You are six years old again, yourself, standing in the halls of the Red Keep, wondering why everyone always stares at you, convinced that if you disappear, no one but Rhaenyra would notice.

You had spent years hoping he would never know the feeling.

"I know that they do," he insists before you can speak, as though he already knows you will try to deny it to preserve his innocence, as Rhaenyra has been doing for years. "They look at me all the time. They whisper, and then they stop when you or mother comes. They think I don't notice, but I do." He wipes furiously at his face with the heel of his sleeve. "They don't like me because—because I'm not pretty like everyone else, because I don't look like mother or father or grandsire or Aegon. But you always liked me—you said I was clever, and brave, and you said that I always would have you."

"You do, Jacaerys," you start to say. "I meant it."

"Liar!" he shouts again. "You wouldn't leave me if you meant it!"

You do not have a choice, you want to tell him.

Your father has asked you to go to Pentos to convince Daemon to return. You are not sure the Small Council knows of his request, because he has specifically asked you not to breathe a word of it to anyone, knowing too well how fiercely they opposed Daemon and how quickly they might act to convince him otherwise it if they learned where you were bound.

He thought he was doing you a favor—he remembers how badly you wanted to leave two years ago, and is giving you the opportunity now under the guise of a request from him. You did not know how to tell him that the last thing you wanted to do now was leave when Jacaerys hardly goes an hour without you.

You rise slowly from where you are kneeling, crossing the small distance between you. The moment you lift your hand toward him, he recoils.

"Don't touch me! I don't want you to touch me!"

Your fingers freeze in the air before falling back to your side. Your heart feels as though it is stuck in your throat as you stare at him, watching as he wipes hard at his face again, gnawing at his bottom lip as he fights a sob.

"Okay," you finally say, hand dropping back to your side.

"I don't want you to come back," he tells you, sniffling loudly, refusing to look at you. "I hate you."

You know he does not mean it. You do. Children have so few weapons when they are hurting, and cruel words are among the first they learn to wield. You know this better than most, and yet, somehow, his words still manage to find every wound you've ever been dealt in this keep, salt on open wounds because they are being spoken by the one voice whose opinion matters more than any vicious noble ever could.

Your throat feels swollen, and your chest aches so painfully that you fear you might die. You had imagined this moment so differently. You had imagined Jacaerys helping you fasten your cloak, asking you to bring him back gits and insisting you write him every day, faster even than the ravens can deliver. Instead, there is only a frightened little boy glaring at you through tears, insisting that he hates you and never wants to see you again.

"I'll see you soon, mandianna," you say quietly. "Avy jorrāelan. Kesan sagon arlī gō ao gīmigon ziry."

I love you. I will be back before you know it.

You wait just in case he changes his mind, but he does not answer, turning his back on you as your hand closes around the handle of the door.

It is the first time the two of you have to bid goodbye to one another.

It will not be the last.

—————————

JACAERYS, 7; READER, 12; 117 AC

It has been a year since you departed King's Landing.

Pentos had become a fortnight, then a moon, then half a year, and before anyone quite realized what had happened, an entire year had passed. Your father had sent you to talk to his brother, hoping that you might be able to convince your uncle and his wife to return home. Instead, Daemon had laughed in your face and said you were too small to be so bold, and refused every plea you had bade.

You had failed. The only consolation was that Daemon had immediately not sent you away. He had taken one look at your pinched expression and fisted hands, and he took you flying over the bay and the Velvet Hills. He taught you more about your history than any maester in King's Landing ever had, and filled your head with so many stories of Old Valyria that it had you dizzy with homesickness for a place you've never known, longing for a future you would never know.

Every morning, you would challenge him for Dark Sister, and he would pummel you into the tiled floors of the Prince of Pentos's palace, and every evening, he would make you do it again until he properly beat out the "poor teachings of Ser Steffon"—his words, not yours.

You met your cousins for the first time, too.

For years, you only ever had Rhaenyra, Laenor, Jacaerys, and Lucerys, but Baela and Rhaena quickly latched themselves to each of your arms, showing you all around Pentos, desperately trying to keep you in the Free City with them longer.

Baela had insisted on racing dragons before she'd properly introduced herself, offended when Zūgaxes won by what she declared was an unfair margin. She reminded you so much of Jace, forever at your heels, rarely letting you out of her sight for long. Rhaena spent long afternoons wandering Pentoshi markets with you and her mother, pointing out fabrics she thought would look pretty on you and teasing you relentlessly whenever Daemon tripped you and claimed he was only trying to hone your reaction time as you fell flat on your face.

For the first time in years, your world stretches beyond the walls of the Red Keep and lingering gazes, and yet not a single day has passed without you wondering whether Jacaerys still sits in the godswood, waiting for someone who is no longer there.

When your father finally sends a letter recalling you to King's Landing, tiring of your frolic with Daemon and not wanting to deal with another member of his family joining self-imposed exile, you spend the entire flight back thinking about what you would say to him, wondering what he might do when he finally sees you.

You have imagined him running at you and throwing himself into your arms, and you have imagined him turning his back to you once more. You do not know what to expect from him, so your heart is in your throat when you see him standing with the dragonkeepers as they bring out a sheep for Vermax, dark hair flopping around his face, a bright smile on his face.

In your worst fears, the smile drops when he realizes that you have returned.

You clear your throat and force a light expression on your face as you say, “He is almost big enough for you to ride now, isn’t he, mandianna?”

Jacaerys startles, smile dropping just as you feared, eyes widening as he whips around to face you. He stares at you, blinking once, head cocking to the side—for a terrible second, you wonder if he even recognizes you. It has been a year apart, you try to rationalize to mitigate the hurt. You have grown a lot; your hair is styled in the typical Pentoshi way, and you have spent the majority of the past year basking in the sun. It would not be so far-fetched if he did not recognize you right away, in fact—

"Muña?"

"Jacaerys," you greet quietly, hands behind your back to hide the way they're trembling uncertainly. Is he still angry at you? What if he doesn't— "I—"

Jacaerys is across the vast pit in an instant, a blur of black and red as he charges in your direction. The air leaves your lungs in a whoosh of relief as you dip down to catch him in your arms, lifting him off the dirt floor and swinging him through the air. A noise caught between a gasp and a broken sob escapes his lips as he buries his face in the crook of your neck, arms wrapping so tight around your neck that he momentarily chokes you.

For a long while, neither of you speaks. His fingers clutch desperately at the back of your riding leathers, bunching the fabric beneath his fists, and you hold him just as tight, arms wrapped around his waist and face buried in his fluffy hair.

You have spent an entire year imagining this moment, worrying he might shrink away or turn his back on you, fearing that he might remember only your departure and not the years that had come before it. But he clings to you so tightly that your arm and neck begin to ache, and you have never been happier for the pain.

"I'm sorry," he blurts into your shoulder, words muffled against your neck. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Mandianna, you have nothing to apologize for," you murmur, pressing your lips to his temple, and letting out a wavering sigh. "I—"

"I said I hated you," he cries, voice catching over the words. "I didn't mean it. I promise."

"I know, Jacaerys," you murmur. "It's okay."

"I wanted to hug you," he sniffles, words tumbling out, desperate to be heard before the courage abandons him. "I was going to, I really was, but then you started leaving, and I got scared, and I thought maybe if I didn't hug you goodbye, you wouldn't leave, but you did leave. I wished I'd hugged you every day."

You let out a huff, unsure if it's a laugh or a sob of your own. "I'm here now, mandianna. You do not need to cry."

"I thought maybe you weren't coming back," he admits, pulling back just enough to look at you, cheeks damp and his eyes red-rimmed. You brush his unruly curls back from his forehead. He hiccups as he presses his nose into your hand. "I thought I made you mad, and you were going to stay away forever. I wanted to send a raven, but I was scared I would only make it worse."

"I could never be mad at you, silly boy," you murmur, carding your fingers through his hair absently. You give him a small smile, and he gives you a wavering one back—he's missing his front tooth. "I missed you."

"I missed you, muña," Jacaerys sniffles, pulling one hand from where he's clutching the back of your tunic to rub his face. You hum lightly, putting him back on the ground and kneeling in front of him, lifting your own hands to cradle his cheeks between them, thumbs wiping away his tears. He returns to clutching your arms, nails digging into your bicep. "I hated going to lessons with Maester Gerardys, and I hated going to feasts, and I hated training, and I hated everything. I just wanted to sit in the garden with you all day, but you weren't here."

You exhale through your nose as you hold his face gently, watching as he tries to hide it in your palm.

"I tried reading by myself," he continues in a rush, "but it wasn't the same because you weren't there to do all the voices. Mother tried, but she doesn't make the dragon sounds the way you do. It made me mad."

"I brought some books back from Pentos," you tell him with a small smile, hoping to calm him down and dry his tears. You pull him closer so that you can ghost your lips to his temple again. He immediately latches back onto you, arms wrapped tight around you. "I think you'll like them."

"What are they about?" he asks, eyes finally shining with excitement instead of sadness as he pulls back to look at you.

"Dragons, of course," you say with a mysterious smile, and Jacaerys gasps in delight. "How about tonight you help me unpack, and afterward I'll read you the first chapter?"

"With the voices?" he presses.

"Would I ever read a dragon story without the voices?" you ask, mock offended.

He smiles immediately, bright enough to chase away every trace of the tears that had been welling in his eyes. For a moment, he looks exactly as he did before you left—missing tooth, unruly curls, and eyes sparkling with excitement at the prospect of a story.

Then, the smile falters. He says quietly, "I missed you."

Your expression softens as you brush his hair back gently. "I missed you too, mandianna."

His gaze drops to the ground

"Sometimes…" he hesitates, chewing nervously on the inside of his cheek, like he isn't sure if he should tell you this next part. "Sometimes I still went to your room. I knew you weren't there! I knew that, but… it still smelled like you. I slept with stuffed Zuzu instead."

You tilt your head with an amused smile. "Surely it did not smell like me for the whole year, mandianna."

"I asked the servants not to wash your blankets," he blurts out before you can finish your sentence. You blink, brows furrowing slightly. "I thought—I didn't want them to smell different. I missed you. When they smelled like you, I could pretend you were still here."

You tilt your head slightly, letting out a puff of air as you give him a small smile. "Oh, Jacaerys."

He shrinks beneath the tenderness in your voice, cheeks red, suddenly looking embarrassed. "I know it's silly."

"It's not silly."

"I just missed you," he says again quietly, bottom lip trembling again. You reach up and cup his cheek again, your thumb brushing beneath his eye. "I missed you a lot, muña."

"You should have written to me," you tell him softly.

His eyes widen. "I wanted to," he insists again. "I really did."

"What stopped you?" you press, raising your eyebrows.

"I told you," he says with a pout, gaze averting to the side. "I didn't know what to say."

"You could have said anything, mandianna," you answer, pinching his cheek enough to watch it redden, laughing when he squeals. "I would have been happy to hear from you even if you were just complaining about Lucerys stealing your honeycakes."

"He stole them all the time!" Jacaerys says furiously. "And mother didn't do anything about it!"

"How dare she?" you gasp with mock offense.

"I was so angry!" he scowls, puffing out his little cheeks. Then he deflates and looks away. "I thought if I wrote the wrong thing, maybe you would stay away longer, so I just… I talked to your room instead."

You give him a bemused smile. "You spoke to my room?"

He nods once. "I told stuffed Zuzu what happened every day the same way I would tell you, but it wasn't the same," he says quietly. He lifts his gaze to yours, and his eyes are shiny again, but you can tell that he is trying his best not to cry from the way his throat bobs, and he chews at the inside of his cheek. His voice breaks in a way that makes you sick as he holds your hands tightly and whispers, "Please don't leave again. Please, muña."

"I won't," you promise, squeezing his hands gently. "Never again."

"You promise?" he asks skeptically, nails digging deep into your skin.

"I promise."

—————————

JACAERYS, 8; READER, 13; 118 AC

"He's so tiny," you say softly as you lounge with Rhaenyra in her chambers. Jacaerys and Lucerys are in the training yard—you were supposed to go with them, because Jacaerys never likes training with Ser Criston without you there to watch, but the birth was harder on your sister than she is willing to admit, and someone needs to look over her. "Tinier than Jacaerys and Lucerys were."

You poke at Joffrey's forehead, delighted when the boy gurgles and reaches for your finger, and Rhaenyra lets out a soft laugh, a fond expression on her face as she looks at the two of you lying in bed, resting back on the settee a few feet away. You had tried to insist that she should lie down, but she was quite adamant against it, and you are not fond of fighting with her when she struggles to keep herself upright.

"As much as I do adore the way you look after me, sweet sister, I am sure you have more important things to be doing. Were you not meant to sit with our father in the small council today?" Rhaenyra asks with a tired smile, pretending she is not in pain as she adjusts her legs.

You hate the way she winces every time she shifts.

You are certain this is Queen Alicent's fault—you had been furious when you passed Laenor and the boys on the way to her apartments, and he told you that the queen had called Rhaenyra to her chambers immediately after the birth, insisting upon seeing the babe before your sister had even been given the chance to rest. She had walked, bleeding and trembling, barely able to stand after the labor but forced to climb the winding stairs from her own apartments with a newborn in her arms, crossing the holdfast while every servant and noble stopped to stare at the blood trailing after her.

You had not been there—you had been in the sky for hours with Zūgaxes, oblivious even to the fact that Rhaenyra had entered her labors—but you found her immediately afterward. Still, she had smiled at you, even as her face had gone pale with exhaustion, and she leaned too heavily against Laenor when she thought no one was looking.

Maester Gerardys had ordered her to remain in bed for several days, but everyone was more concerned with tiny Joffrey, who was born too small for their liking, so no one noticed that your sister was already wandering around after an hour.

Except you, of course.

"All of your attendants and the maestars are focused on Joffrey," you say simply, sniffing as you raise your chin. "Somebody has to attend to you."

You do not notice the way Rhaenyra's expression changes at your words, snatching away the fluff he tries to stuff in his mouth. You stare down at the boy, a conflicted feeling tugging at your chest. You love Rhaenyra's boys—you do, but…

"Mandia," you say quietly after a moment, shoulders a bit hunched as you glance over at Rhaenyra, who tilts her head to the side curiously. You know that all women are meant to bear their husbands sons—you perhaps, more than anyone, so that the blood of Old Valyria might be passed on—but… "I do not think I should like to have children of my own."

Rhaenyra hums. "I used to think so too, did you know?" she tells you, and you look up, blinking at her in surprise. She nods with a small smile when she sees your surprise. "I was terrified when I found out I was with child the first time. I never pictured myself as a mother."

"Really?"

"Really."

You frown. "But you're…" You glance down at the little bundle wriggling happily in the bed next to you. "… You're perfect at it."

Rhaenyra laughs. "I assure you, I am not," she says with a smile. "I have made more mistakes than I can count."

You sniff. "I have never seen one."

"You had never seen a pufferfish until two weeks ago—does that mean they do not exist?" she teases, reminding you of the argument you got into with Laenor a few weeks ago because he insisted there was a type of fish covered in spikes and you refused to believe him until he dragged you out to sea to show you. Your face feels hot as you look away. "As I thought."

"Still," you say primly, crossing your arms and looking away.

"What made you think of this, sweet girl?" Rhaenyra asks, and you know she wishes to cross the room to brush your hair out of your face, but you scowl at her the moment she starts to move, and she sighs, holding her hands up in defeat as she lies back against the settee. "Did my boys horrify you so much they scared you off children altogether?"

She is teasing, but you frown anyway.

You say firmly, "No. I love your boys. In fact, I do not think I need children of my own when I already have two—three, now—little boys who insist on occupying all my time."

Rhaenyra laughs, tilting her head back. For the first time since you arrived in her chambers, she looks genuinely happy. She says, "Jacaerys would be terribly offended to hear himself counted alongside his brothers."

You scoff. "He ought not be. He is the worst offender," you tell her fiercely, smiling. "He sneaks into my apartments almost every night, steals the snacks I go through the effort of stealing from the kitchen, and has somehow convinced himself that half of my wardrobe belongs to him. I found my favorite cloak in his chambers the other day—I had been looking for it for weeks, mandia."

Rhaenyra's shoulders are shaking, though you think they ought not be because it is not funny in the slightest.

"Oh, hāedar, you misunderstand," she manages between laughs, wiping at the corner of her eye. "He would be offended because you called them your little boys as well. He gets rather cross whenever he's reminded that he must share you with his brothers."

You squint. Last week, Lucerys had fallen asleep against your shoulder while you read aloud in the gardens, and Jacaerys had spent the better part of an hour attempting to wedge himself between the two of you under increasingly flimsy pretenses until you had finally sighed and let him climb into your lap as well.

"You may be right," you concede at last, "but I digress."

"What made you think of this then, if not for my boys?" Rhaenyra asks again, determined to get to the bottom of the issue.

Your shoulders hunch slightly. You busy yourself with fixing the blanket wrapped around Joffrey as you try to figure out how to phrase what you want to say.

"The Queen said something to me this morning," you finally admit. "It is why I've spent the whole day flying."

Rhaenyra's expression shifts instantly, fondness hardening and lips pressed together. "What did she say to you?"

"She said she was glad to hear that I've flowered… I did not tell her, I assume one of the servants must have," you say quietly, playing with your own fingers, unable to lift your gaze to meet hers. "She said that she would speak to the king about—matches."

Flowering means womanhood, and womanhood means marriage, and marriage means children.

Rhaenyra exhales hard through her nose, jaw tightening, and you feel guilty instantly. Your sister has just given birth. She has just given birth and was forced to cross the Keep because Queen Alicent demanded to see the babe, and now you are throwing more issues at her as if she isn't already faced with enough.

"Mandia, I—"

"I will speak to our father, hāedar," Rhaenyra says before you can say anything else, gaze lifting to meet yours. She gives you that familiar, reassuring smile that always puts your nerves at ease. "Do not fret. Your elder sister will handle everything. I will not see you forced to do anything you displease."

You know that she means it. If Rhaenyra said she would move the heavens for you, she would spend every waking second ensuring that it happens. Even so…

"I do not wish to be a burden. I—I know it is a woman's duty to wed and bear children, but I—"

"You are not a burden, hāedar. How many times must I remind you?" Rhaenyra tells you with a soft smile. "Be at ease. I shall speak to father. I—"

The door to Rhaenyra's chambers opens with a loud bang, and both of you startle, gaze lifting just as Ser Harwin enters the room. Rhaenyra blinks once and gives the man a questioning look, and you tilt your head to the side.

"Forgive me, princesses," the man says, dark curls framing his face as he looks between the two of you. His gaze settles on you. "The dragonkeepers sent for you, princess. Zūgaxes is—agitated."

—————————

"Are you upset with me?"

You exhale as Jacaerys barges into your chambers later that night, brows furrowed indignantly, as though to mask the anxiety plain in the way he otherwise holds himself. Your gaze slips down to the way his fingers tremble at his sides and his shoulders are too stiff, and Jacaerys instantly shrinks, hiding his hands and standing straighter.

You glance away, lips pressed together, fingers thrumming against your desk.

"'I waited for you in the garden, but you didn't come," Jacaerys continues, voice pitching in accusation as he comes closer to you. "I waited in the library, but you didn't come. And then I thought you'd definitely come for supper, but you didn't. Where were you?"

"I was busy, Jacaerys," you say, clipped, and Jacaerys freezes a few feet away. You stop yourself from glancing at him over your shoulder because you know the moment you see his bottom lip wobbling, your anger will start draining away. "Perhaps you would be better suited attending etiquette lessons with Septa Elaine. You have clearly missed far too many."

Jacaerys does not answer for a long moment. He asks hesitantly, "What does that mean?"

"What that means, Jacaerys," you hiss, whipping around to look at him. He flinches backward, but you barrel on anyway. "is that I found my half-brother crying in the dragonpit after nearly being burnt alive by my dragon because you thought it would be a good idea to taunt him with a pig."

Jacaerys stares at you for a moment uncertainly, shoulders hunching inward as though to make himself small. He has been mad at you countless times before. If he feels as though you're paying more attention to Lucerys, he will give you the cold shoulder all evening, and if you dare to even hint at missing story time, he'll insist he never wants to speak to you again, then will appear in your chambers after supper, asking you to read to him with the sweetest smile.

You have never been angry at him before.

"It was just a joke," he whispers, voice small. "I didn't—"

"You didn't what?" you interrupt. "You didn't mean it? Is that it?"

Distantly, you know you should not yell at him like this.

He is only a boy—you're almost tall enough to reach your sister's shoulders now and still growing at that, but Jacaerys hardly reaches your chest, cheeks still chubby with fat, giggling at every unfunny joke that Laenor makes. Aegon is likely the one at fault for the prank, miserable wretch, but Jacaerys—

Jacaerys should know better.

Jacaerys knows, as you do, what it's like to be ostracized by the court for something out of his control. Aemond is not your favorite sibling—he is too uptight, clings to his mother so much that it makes you roll your eyes—but to mock him for not having a dragon?

You yourself did not have Zūgaxes until your fifth nameday. Your cradle egg did not hatch, and Dreamfyre, Vermithor, and Silverwing had all rejected you. Zūgaxes had been nigh wild after the years he spent terrorizing the Riverlands following Princess Daenerys's death to the Shivers in 60 AC, having hatched moments before the princess took her last breath. The newborn dragon fled in the chaos after losing the bond as soon as it had formed, and if he had not come to you by chance while you were flying with Rhaenyra, you might be in the same position as Aemond is now.

"Aegon said it would be funny," Jacaerys whispers, bottom lip wobbling. "It was a joke."

"Aegon says a lot of things," you hiss. "He is a fool. If he told you to jump from Maegor's Holdfast, would you do it?"

Jacaerys's eyes drop to the floor. He says quietly, "No."

"You know what it is like to have people laugh and whisper," you continue furiously. "You know it feels like to have people smile to your face and question whether you belong the moment you leave the room. You cry to me because they stare at your hair and your eyes, and you cry to me when people mention that you do not look like Ser Laenor. You know those are not jokes."

Jacaerys flinches. "Muña—"

"No," you snap. "Do you think your uncle feels any different when the whole keep laughs at him for not having a dragon?"

"I'm sorry—"

"Your mother will be queen one day, Jacaerys, and you will be king after her," you interrupt. "Everything you do matters. Every laugh and every foolish prank—every time someone sees you, they are deciding what sort of man you might become."

"I didn't mean it—"

"The lords do not whisper about Aegon the same way they whisper at you," you continue harshly, kneeling in front of him and grabbing his shoulders. He is crying now, fat tears rolling over his chubby cheeks, chest rising and falling rapidly as he tries not to sob. "They already question you, Jacaerys, and it will not stop. Every action you take makes them wonder whether or not you deserve the throne your mother will leave you. They are waiting for you to fail, Jacaerys, they—"

You cut yourself off when Jacaerys chokes on a sob, the sound rips through your anger as though someone had plunged a knife straight into it. His little shoulders shake beneath your hands. He is trying so desperately not to cry that it hurts to watch, biting down on his lip so hard you worry he might draw blood.

What are you doing?

"I'm sorry," he whispers again, tears falling freely now. "I'm trying to be good. I am. I didn't think."

Good will not be enough, you think, but do not say, fighting a sob of your own as you pull Jacaerys forward into your arms, sitting back on the floor and letting him clamber into your lap. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, muffling his cries into your skin.

Good will never be enough. You have watched the court use every careless word he has ever spoken as proof that he is unworthy. You have watched them turn his hair, eyes, and face into evidence against him. They will not stop because he grows older—if anything, they will only become crueler and louder.

And you fear one day that words will turn to swords.

You see the glances exchanged between the Queen and her allies, how every feast ends with another whispered slight and word disguised as courtesy. One day, your father will die, and everything held together by his presence will begin to crack.

Your sister will be queen, Jacaerys will be heir, and there are already too many people who have decided they will never accept either of them.

You are scared.

Perhaps you are imagining monsters where none exist—you have spent years watching nobles smile with their mouths and sneer with their haves, and it has made you cynical. You hope one day the two of you will laugh about how frightened you had been over nothing, but until that day comes, the fear remains.

You tighten your arms around Jacaerys until he lets out a tiny squeak of protest. Then he melts into you, arms looped around your shoulders, sniffling into the wet spot at your neck.

"I do not want you to grow up," you whisper before you can stop yourself.

"Why?" Jacaerys murmurs.

Your eyes slide shut. Because the older he gets, the fewer days remain where the greatest thing you have to worry about is a prank gone too far. You smooth a hand through his curls and press another kiss against his temple.

Instead, you say, "Because I like you just as you are."

He giggles. "I still want to grow up."

"Traitor," you tease, brushing your fingers through his hair as he snuggles into you.

"I want to be brave, and I want to ride Vermax all by myself, and I want to protect mother, and Luke, and Joffrey, and—" He pulls back to look at you, big brown eyes still watery. "—and you, muña."

You smile at him, your own eyes stinging with tears. "I'm the one who protects you, silly boy."

Jacaerys shakes his head so vigorously that his curls bounce. "Not forever," he claims. "One day I'll be big and grown, and I'll have a sword, and Vermax will be bigger than Zuzu, and I'll be the one to protect you."

You exhale softly through your nose, swallowing the lump that forms in your throat. He lifts his tiny hands to your cheeks, squeezing hard the way you always do to him when he is sad, then he leans forward until your foreheads touch.

"Don't be scared, muña. I'll be a good king," he tells you simply. "I'll be kind. I won't do things anymore just because Aegon tells me to."

"I know you will, mandianna," you murmur. "I know."

He bites his lip, twisting nervously in your lap. "Are you still mad at me?" You pull back just enough to look at him properly. His eyes are swollen from crying, cheeks blotchy and damp, fingers clinging to you. He whispers, "I want you to be proud of me."

You lift your hands to cradle his cheeks and say firmly, "I'm always proud of you, Jacaerys. Always. I'm sorry if I was cruel—I was only scared."

Jacaerys wrinkles his nose.

"Then don't be scared, muña," he says firmly. "I'll make sure you never have to be."

—————————

You should have known things would never be so easy.

"Where are my trunks?" you ask as you make your way to where Rhaenyra and the boys are getting ready to leave for Dragonstone. Jacaerys's face lights up from a glum frown when he sees you, and you toss him a wink that he giggles at. You look back up at your sister and say, "I told my handmaidens to make sure they were brought down."

Rhaenyra's brows furrow. "They are coming, perhaps?" she offers, making her way toward you to ghost her lips against your cheeks in greeting. "We are not in a rush, hāedar, do not fret."

But there is a tightness in your chest that unsettles you. Something has been off the past few days—you know it. The Queen always has that small, knowing smile on her face, and your father seemed inordinately pleased with himself. You had thought, maybe, the Queen was just pettily satisfied that Ser Harwin was being sent away and your father was just happy having his third grandson, but there was something—something off-putting that could not let you rest.

"Mandia," you whisper, clutching the sleeve of her gown. Your fingers are shaking. Rhaenyra looks down at your hands, alarmed. "I don't…"

"There you are! To think it would be so difficult to find my own daughter for a conversation," you hear your father say from the top of the steps leading into Maegor's Holdfast.

King Viserys leans on his cane as he makes his way down the steps toward you—Rhaenyra blinks in confusion, lips parting but words escaping them as she moves forward to greet him.

He looks worse, you think absently. Even just walking down the stairs is an effort, his face pale with exertion, sweat beading at his temples. Heaviness weighs on your chest—grief, maybe, but what is there to grieve about a man who has spent most of your life incapable of looking you in the eye?

"Father," Rhaenyra greets with a sad smile. "You did not have to come down to bid us goodbye. You should be resting."

"Nonsense," your father dismisses, squeezing her hand. The Queen Alicent and your half-brother, Aegon, follow behind your father. She looks too pleased with herself still—your heart drops to your stomach. "But it is not the only reason I have come. My dear—" King Viserys turns to look at you, eyes upturned. You think it is the first time he has ever looked you in the eye. "—I would like for you to stay behind."

He reaches out to take your hands in his, passing his cane to a nearby attendant. They are clammy and unfamiliar; you are not sure if you are breathing.

Somewhere behind you, you hear Jacaerys inhale sharply, and to your side, Rhaenyra makes an audible noise, confused.

"Father," she starts, a bemused smile on her face, "I—"

"Alicent—she had the most wonderful idea to unite both sides of the family," King Viserys continues with a breathless smile, squeezing your hands. Behind him, Aegon, who had been bored and looked as though he wished to be anywhere else, starts to squint, realizing something might be wrong. Alarm hits him slower than it has hit you. He looks at you questioningly, but you cannot even bring yourself to meet his gaze. "It is high time we put these petty squabbles behind us, don't you think?"

You cannot feel your fingers.

Your pulse pounds so violently in your ears that you can almost not even hear your father over it. Across the city, you hear Zūgaxes let out a screech, feeling your fear as his own.

"Father," Rhaenyra starts to say, voice riddled with disbelief. "You cannot mean—"

"You and Aegon shall wed, my dear," King Viserys says, squeezing your hands as though this is news that shall delight you. "You are both of age. A marriage between the two of you shall bind the family once and for all. Alicent proposed it only a few days ago—I confess, I do not know why I had not thought of it sooner."

"What?" Aegon blurts out, eyes wide. "Me?"

"Quiet, Aegon," Queen Alicent says sharply, and Aegon silences immediately, gaze darting over to you as though you have any means of fixing this. "It is a fine match."

"A fine match?" Rhaenyra demands, arm extending outward to push you behind her, stepping between you and your father. "They are children. You cannot be serious, father."

Aegon stares at you, and you stare at him.

He is only twelve; you are only thirteen.

You can see the fear you feel reflected in his eyes.

"Alicent tells me that she has bled," Viserys dismisses. You knew it—you knew something was wrong, you knew to be scared. "She is a woman grown, Rhaenyra."

"She is thirteen," Rhaenyra hisses. "Aegon is twelve."

"The King has already made his decision, Rhaenyra," Queen Alicent says coolly. "Would you question it?"

Rhaenyra stares at her in disbelief, a scoff slipping from her lips. She asks quietly, "How could you do this?"

For a moment, something flickers across the Queen's face—her lips become pinched, her gaze flits to the side—guilt? It couldn't be—Alicent is cold and cruel, stone made flesh, she has always hated you and your sister. You must be mistaken.

"Was it not you who offered marriage between your son, Jacaerys, and my daughter, Helaena?" the Queen asks. You blink, unsure if you heard her properly. "Let us bind our families through marriage, as you once proposed yourself."

Your head snaps toward Rhaenyra, appalled. She was trying to marry Jacaerys off? Rhaenyra does not meet your gaze, so you know it is true.

"It is not the same," Rhaenyra says, shaking her head, stepping forward again. She turns to your father, expression clearing of anger and disdain as she gives him a more pleading look. "Father, please. She has only just flowered—she has hardly had a chance to understand what that means. You cannot mean to—"

"Enough, Rhaenyra," King Viserys interrupts, exhausted. He looks as though he's aged decades in a matter of minutes. Did he really expect everyone to be made happy by this news? "I have made my decision."

The pavilion goes quiet, and you cannot breathe. This cannot be happening. It is—it is not possible. You are not meant to marry Aegon, of all people. You would rather anyone else. You would rather take the vows and become a septa. Your gaze lifts to meet Rhaenyra's, but there is a terribly defeated expression on her face—one that you have never seen before. You feel nauseous, bile rising in your throat, lightness in your head.

"What does that mean?" Jacaerys finally asks, breaking the silence somewhere behind you. "What does that mean? Muña is still coming with us, isn't she?"

"Jacaerys," Rhaenyra begins quietly, voice low and unsteady, because if the king puts his foot down, there is nothing she can do. She looks at both of you desperately, because for the first time in her life, your sister does not know what to say. "I—"

"She promised," Jacaerys interrupts, voice becoming a bit shrill—understanding enough from Rhaenyra's tone to know that you will not be coming with him. That you will be breaking the promise you made to him not two years ago. He turns his gaze onto you, eyes blown wide with anxiety. "You promised, you—"

"Jacaerys," you say, barely able to keep your voice steady as you make your way over to him and kneel in front of him. His eyes well with unshed tears, and you lift one hand to his face, brushing your thumb beneath his eye to catch the tears before they fall. You lower your voice, speaking just to him as you say quietly, "Do not let them see you cry. You are a prince of the realm, your mother's heir. You must be brave, remember?"

Jacaerys's bottom lip wobbles as he nods.

"I will not be across the sea this time, mandianna—only the bay. Vermax is growing quickly. You will be able to visit as frequently as you please," you soothe, brushing his curls from his forehead, "and I will be able to come to you."

"But—"

"There are no buts, mandianna," you say softly, and Jacaerys inhales sharply, fighting a sob. "We all have our roles to play. You will be king one day, your duty is to the realm, and mine—" Your voice threatens to crack, before it can, you clear your throat and force a small smile. If you start crying, so will Jacaerys, and he needs to be strong now more than ever. "—and mine is to a husband. I must stay at his side."

"Then I will be your husband, muña," Jacaerys says desperately, fingers clinging to your sleeve. "You can come with us then. You won't have to stay here."

You exhale through your nose, pulling Jacaerys closer so that you can press your lips to his temple, rubbing easy circles against his upper back. He flings his arms around your shoulders and buries his face into your hair to hide his sniffles.

"That is not how it works, Jacaerys," you tell him quietly. His shoulders are trembling, small whimpers in the back of his throat as he tries not to cry. You hold him a bit tighter. "The king has made his decision."

"It's not fair," he sniffles. "You're my muña. Why does Aegon get to have you? He doesn't even want to marry you. I want to marry you."

You laugh despite yourself, because Jacaerys is too young to know what marriage entails, but he says it with the conviction of someone who has never been more certain of anything in his life. You press your lips to his hair before you pull back just enough to look at him. You find him glaring over your shoulder at Aegon with all the ferocity he can muster with shiny eyes and wobbly lips.

Aegon has gone pale, but you do not think it's because of Jacaerys's righteous fury.

"I don't think…" Aegon begins awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. "I mean, I never—"

"Quiet, Aegon," Alicent says again sharply, and he falls silently immediately, shoulders slumping. She lifts her gaze to Rhaenyra, giving her a curve of the lips that doesn't reach her eyes. "Well, you and yours had best get going. Safe travels, Rhaenyra."

Rhaenyra scoffs and turns on her heel, but Jacaerys's grip on you tightens at the prospect of leaving.

"He doesn't even know your favorite story," he says desperately, as though it might change something, "or that you don't like onions, or that you can only eat two honey cakes before you start feeling sick, or that you can only sleep if there's a candle going. It's not fair. He doesn't know anything. He'll never take care of you."

"Jacaerys—"

"But I can!" he insists, wiping angrily at his cheeks. "I already do. I make sure you eat when you forget, and I bring your favorite cloak when you're cold, and I tell the servants not to wake you if you've fallen asleep reading. I know how."

"Jacaerys, come here," Rhaenyra says quietly, but Jacaerys only clings more desperately, nails digging into your skin. "Jace—"

You look up at your sister. There are tears in her eyes now too, though she does not let them fall. She gives you the smallest nod, an apology, a goodbye, and a promise wrapped into one gesture. This would not be the end of this—she will get the boys settled at Dragonstone, and she will return for you.

"Mandianna," you murmur, cupping Jacaerys's damp face between your hands. "You must go with your mother." You press a kiss to his forehead, then another to each cheek. "Look after Luke and Joffrey, and mind your mother—she is terribly stubborn and will forget to rest if no one reminds her."

Jacaerys fights another sob and nods, but Rhaenyra successfully pulls him away this time. She gathers him into her arms, and he clutches at her desperately, still looking at you over her shoulder.

"I'll come back for you," he promises. "I promise, muña! I do!"

You smile because he needs you to, even as your vision blurs—luckily, he is too far to see the unshed tears.

Her class had spent nearly a week talking about it. Every morning another child had a new story, another exciting detail to add. Emma was going to help frost cupcakes at her mother's bakery. Noah couldn't stop talking about riding in his dad's garbage truck, proudly announcing to anyone who would listen that he was going to press the "real buttons." Olivia was getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the aquarium where her mom worked. Even little Ben, whose father worked at a bank, marched around the classroom with a paper tie taped around his neck, declaring he would be "approving loans all day." By Thursday afternoon Lucy had listened to enough stories that she'd begun planning her own. She was absolutely certain she would wear one of those little white doctor coats she'd seen in toy stores. She'd carry a clipboard. Maybe even a stethoscope. Everyone would finally get to see how cool her parents' jobs were.

So when you and Jack walked through the front door that evening after a twelve-hour shift, you barely had time to take your shoes off before Lucy came barreling across the living room like an excited puppy.

"Mama!"

She wrapped herself around your legs so tightly you had to catch yourself against the wall to stay upright.

"Daddy!"

Jack wasn't spared either. She launched herself at him next, nearly knocking the backpack from his shoulder.

"Whoa, easy, bug," he laughed, catching her under the arms before she could accidentally headbutt him. "Someone's excited. Where's your grandma?"

"In the kitchen. I have something important to say."

You and Jack exchanged an amused look over the top of her head. Important announcements from Lucy ranged anywhere from losing a tooth to discovering worms in the garden.

"Oh?" Jack asked, setting his bag down.

Lucy nodded so enthusiastically that her ponytail bounced. "It's Take Your Kid to Work Day next Friday."

Her grin stretched so wide it nearly split her face.

"And I get to come with you."

The silence that followed was tiny.

Barely a second.

But it was enough.

Jack's smile faltered first. You watched it happen almost imperceptibly, the corners of his mouth relaxing as his eyes drifted toward yours. The excitement on Lucy's face hadn't dimmed yet. She was already imagining hallways and stethoscopes and showing all her friends pictures afterward.

You felt your heart sink before either of you had even opened your mouths.

Lucy noticed immediately.

Her smile wavered.

"...What's wrong?"

You crouched until you were eye level with her, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear while you searched desperately for words that wouldn't break her heart.

"Oh, sweetheart..."

Jack carefully lowered himself beside you, adjusting his balance before slipping an arm around Lucy's shoulders.

"Our jobs are a little different from everyone else's."

She frowned in confusion.

"But I can still come, right?"

Jack let out the smallest sigh.

"The emergency department isn't really a place for kids."

Her forehead wrinkled.

"Why?"

You looked at Jack for half a second before answering.

"Because the people who come to see us aren't coming for fun." You spoke gently, carefully choosing every word. "They're usually having one of the worst days of their lives. They're very, very sick..."

"Or hurt," Jack added quietly.

"They can look scary sometimes," you continued. "There can be blood. People cry. Sometimes they're frightened, sometimes they're angry, and sometimes they need every doctor and nurse in the room paying attention to them."

Jack nodded. "Our job is making sure they get help as quickly as possible. We can't always stop to explain what's happening, and there are things no six-year-old should have to see."

Lucy listened with surprising seriousness, though it was obvious she still didn't understand.

"But..." she said softly, "I'll be quiet."

Your chest tightened.

"I know you would."

"I could sit in the corner and color."

Jack smiled, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"You probably could."

"I wouldn't touch anything."

"We know, sweetheart."

"I wouldn't even talk."

Jack smiled sadly. "You'd probably be the quietest kid in the whole hospital."

For the briefest moment, hope flickered across Lucy's face before reality settled back in. She looked between the two of you, swallowing hard.

"So..." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "...I can't?"

The words were so small they made your chest ache. You reached for her little hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"No, sweetie. I'm sorry."

Her eyes filled almost instantly.

"But everyone else gets to go to their parents' work."

Jack closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. Every parent hated hearing those words because sometimes there simply wasn't a fair answer. He rubbed his thumb absentmindedly over the back of her tiny hand.

"I know."

"I wanna see where you guys work."

"I know."

"I wanna wear one of those little doctor coats."

Despite the ache in your chest, a smile tugged at your lips. "You would look absolutely adorable."

"I could help."

Jack let out a quiet snort, his expression turning dramatically serious.

"Oh, that's exactly the part I'm worried about."

Lucy blinked. "...Really?"

"Oh, absolutely," he said with a solemn nod. "I think you'd spend the whole day walking around the department telling everyone what to do."

"I would not."

"You absolutely would."

She crossed her arms.

"No."

"No?"

She puffed out her chest, planting both hands on her hips as she deepened her voice into what she apparently believed sounded very authoritative.

"'Okay everybody, one at a time! No pushing! You have to wait your turn!'"

Jack laughed so suddenly and genuinely that it echoed through the house.

"There it is."

You couldn't help laughing too.

"Our little charge nurse."

Lucy dissolved into giggles, pleased she'd made both of you laugh.

The moment was warm.

Light.

Comfortable.

Until it wasn't.

Her smile slowly faded as she remembered why she'd started the conversation in the first place.

"...But I still don't get to come."

Jack's laughter disappeared just as quickly. He opened his arms without saying a word, and Lucy climbed into his lap as naturally as breathing. She tucked her face into the crook of his neck, wrapping her little arms around him with a sigh that sounded much older than six years old.

"No," he admitted quietly, kissing the top of her head. "Not to work."

The room fell silent.

You watched Jack gently rub circles over Lucy's back while she sat curled against him, neither of them speaking. The disappointment in the room was almost tangible. You knew Jack was feeling it just as sharply as you were. Both of you spent your careers taking care of other people's children, yet this was one of those moments where your own daughter simply had to accept that your jobs came with doors she couldn't walk through.

Finally, you leaned over and kissed the top of her head.

"How about this?"

She peeked up hopefully.

"When we're both off next weekend, we'll take you to the hospital."

Jack immediately caught on.

"We'll show you the cafeteria."

"My locker."

"The ambulance bay."

"If there aren't any helicopters flying, maybe we can see the helipad from outside."

"The empty waiting room."

"My office."

Lucy sniffled, considering the offer with all the seriousness of someone negotiating an international treaty.

"...Can I push a wheelchair?"

Jack looked over at you.

You shrugged.

"If nobody's using it, sure."

She thought for another long moment before giving a tiny nod.

"...Okay."

It wasn't the answer she'd wanted.

It wasn't even close.

But she accepted it with the quiet resilience children somehow managed to find after their hearts had been disappointed. Before long she was asking what was for dinner and whether Grandma was still making pancakes the next morning, and by bedtime she seemed perfectly content again.

You smiled to yourself as you tucked her in that night, smoothing the blankets over her little shoulders.

Children had an incredible ability to move on.

Or so you thought.

Lucy had absolutely no intention of moving on.

She smiled when you tucked her into bed that night. She happily ate pancakes with Grandma the next morning. She colored pictures at the kitchen table, watched cartoons, and talked excitedly about the hospital tour you had promised for the following weekend. If anyone had asked, she seemed to have accepted your answer completely.

She hadn't.

To a six-year-old, "next weekend" felt impossibly far away. Everyone else would get to visit their parents' jobs on Friday. Everyone else would come back to school Monday with stories to tell. Emma would talk about frosting cupcakes. Noah would probably tell everyone he got to honk the garbage truck horn. Olivia would have pictures of fish. And Lucy... Lucy would have to say she stayed home because her mommy and daddy worked somewhere she wasn't allowed to go.

That simply didn't seem fair.

By Wednesday she had the beginning of a plan.

By Thursday she had improved it.

By Friday morning, she was convinced it was foolproof.

Your mother had barely finished pouring herself a cup of coffee when she heard small footsteps padding down the hallway. Lucy appeared in the kitchen doorway still wearing her pajamas, her favorite stuffed rabbit dangling from one hand while the other pressed dramatically against her stomach.

"Grandma..."

Your mother looked up immediately.

"Morning, sweetheart."

Lucy took two slow steps into the kitchen, making sure not to walk too quickly. Sick people probably didn't move very fast.

"I don't feel good."

The smile disappeared from your mother's face at once.

"Oh, sweetheart."

She set her mug down without taking a sip and crouched in front of her granddaughter, brushing a hand over Lucy's messy bed hair.

"What's wrong?"

"My tummy hurts."

"Oh no."

Lucy gave a pitiful little nod.

"It hurts a lot."

Your mother frowned with concern.

"Can you show me where?"

Lucy froze.

That...

She hadn't prepared for.

She looked down at herself, suddenly realizing stomachs had different parts. She'd heard you and Jack ask patients that question before. Daddy always wanted to know exactly where it hurt.

Panic fluttered in her chest for half a second.

"...Everywhere."

Your mother's eyebrows lifted ever so slightly.

"Everywhere?"

Another solemn nod.

"Mhm."

She gently rested both hands on Lucy's shoulders.

"Did you throw up?"

"No."

"Do you feel like you have to?"

Lucy pretended to think about it before giving a hesitant little shrug.

"...Maybe."

"Do you have a fever?"

"I don't know."

"Hmm..."

Your mother pressed the back of her hand against Lucy's forehead before checking again with her palm, the way mothers and grandmothers always seemed to do. Her skin felt perfectly cool.

No fever.

That was reassuring. Still, children didn't always spike a temperature right away. Maybe she'd eaten something that hadn't agreed with her. Maybe a little stomach bug was just beginning.

Lucy watched every expression that crossed her grandmother's face. She could tell she wasn't entirely convinced.

She needed to make it more believable.

So she let out the tiniest little whimper she could manage. Not loud enough to sound dramatic, just enough to make it seem like the pain had returned.

Your mother's face softened immediately.

"Oh, you poor thing."

Lucy leaned instinctively into the comforting touch, a small stab of guilt twisting in her chest before she quickly pushed it aside. She wasn't trying to be naughty. She just wanted to see Mama and Daddy at work like everyone else got to.

After a long pause, she lowered her voice to an almost frightened whisper.

"I think..." She looked up through her lashes with the biggest, saddest eyes she could manage. "...I need the hospital."

Your mother smiled gently as she tucked a strand of hair behind Lucy's ear.

"Oh, honey. I don't think we're there just yet."

Lucy's heart sank.

"...But my tummy really, really hurts."

"I know it does."

"We should go."

Your mother hesitated. Normally she would've waited an hour or two, called you first, given Lucy some water, and seen whether she felt any better after breakfast before rushing to the emergency department.

But abdominal pain in children was one of those things she'd learned never to dismiss completely after watching both you and Jack work in emergency medicine for years. You had both told stories about children who seemed perfectly fine until they suddenly weren't. Appendicitis. Intussusception. Things she'd never heard of before you became a doctor and Jack became a nurse.

She didn't want to overreact.

She also didn't want to ignore something important.

Her eyes lingered on Lucy's face. The little girl looked uncomfortable enough to be believable, even if she wasn't crying. Some children tolerated pain differently.

Your mother sighed softly as she stood.

"Alright."

Lucy's eyes widened before she could stop herself.

Really?

It worked?

Excitement rushed through her so suddenly she almost smiled.

Almost.

She bit the inside of her cheek just in time, quickly lowering her head and pressing a hand dramatically back against her stomach.

"I'll get dressed," your mother said. "Then we'll have one of Mommy's friends take a quick look at you, okay?"

Lucy nodded with all the seriousness she could muster.

"...Okay."

As your mother disappeared upstairs to change, Lucy remained standing in the middle of the kitchen, hugging her stuffed rabbit tightly against her chest.

Her plan had worked.

In just a little while, she'd finally get to see where her mom and dad spent all day.

She had no idea that before the morning was over, two people who had faced mass casualty incidents, violent trauma, and countless life-or-death emergencies would see her name on the emergency department tracking board and experience a kind of fear neither of them had ever learned to prepare for.

The emergency department had been in controlled chaos since seven that morning.

Every room was occupied. Hallway beds had filled before breakfast. Monitors chimed from every direction, phones rang almost constantly, stretchers rolled past one another with practiced precision, and conversations overlapped until they became little more than background noise. Jack had barely stopped moving since clocking in. He had just finished helping stabilize an elderly patient in respiratory distress and was updating the tracking board when a new name appeared among the incoming pediatric triage patients.

His own last name.

At first his brain didn't process it.

He frowned automatically, assuming it was another family with the same surname. It wasn't uncommon.

Then his eyes shifted to the details beneath it.

Accompanied by: Lucy.

The world seemed to narrow into a single point.

His stomach dropped so violently it almost hurt.

No.

No, no, no.

His mind filled the blanks long before reason had a chance to intervene.

Car accident on the way to school.

She'd fallen from the playground.

An allergic reaction.

A seizure.

Appendicitis.

A ruptured appendix.

Internal bleeding.

She'd stopped breathing.

His chest tightened so sharply that, for one terrifying second, it felt impossible to draw in air.

He was already moving before he'd consciously made the decision.

"Jack?"

Dana looked up from her workstation as he hurried past.

"You okay?"

He didn't answer.

Couldn't.

His prosthetic clicked faster against the floor as he rounded the nurses' station, weaving through stretchers and staff with an urgency that made several people instinctively step aside. Every extra second felt unbearable. His heartbeat pounded so loudly in his ears that he barely registered the voices around him.

Across the department, you were finishing charting after discharging a patient when your own eyes drifted toward the tracking board.

Your last name.

Pediatric triage.

Lucy.

Everything inside you went cold.

"No..."

The word escaped before you realized you'd spoken aloud.

Your pen slipped from your fingers onto the counter.

You didn't bother picking it up.

Someone behind you asked a question you never heard. You abandoned your chart mid-sentence and hurried out of the trauma bay, every rational thought dissolving beneath one singular, suffocating fear.

Not my baby.

Please not my baby.

You'd both spent years watching parents run into emergency departments wearing that exact expression.

The look that silently begged someone to tell them their child was okay.

Now you understood it from the inside.

Jack reached pediatric triage first.

He rounded the corner so quickly he nearly lost his footing, instinctively compensating before his prosthetic could catch awkwardly beneath him.

Then he stopped.

Lucy sat on one of the triage beds beside your mother, happily swinging her legs back and forth as she hugged her stuffed rabbit. She looked perfectly content, completely fascinated by everything happening around her.

The moment she saw him, her entire face lit up.

"Hi, Daddy!"

Jack didn't answer immediately.

He couldn't.

His breathing still hadn't caught up with him. His pulse hammered painfully against his ribs as his eyes swept over her with clinical precision born from years in emergency medicine.

Skin color okay.

Breathing normal.

Alert.

Talking.

No blood.

No bruising.

No obvious deformities.

No signs of respiratory distress.

No altered mental status.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Relief crashed into him so suddenly his knees threatened to buckle.

He had to grip the back of a nearby chair to steady himself.

"Jack?"

Your mother stood immediately, guilt already written across her face.

"I am so, so sorry. I should’ve called."

You arrived only seconds later, breathing almost as hard as Jack.

"Lucy!"

Your daughter beamed.

"Hi, Mama!"

You dropped to your knees in front of her without hesitation, your hands automatically moving through the familiar sequence every parent in emergency medicine knew by instinct. Forehead. Neck. Arms. Wrists. Face.

"What happened?"

Your mother looked apologetic.

"She was perfectly fine this morning. She'd been playing, and then all of a sudden she started holding her stomach and said she was in terrible pain. I didn't know if I should wait or..."

"You absolutely did the right thing," you assured her automatically, even as your attention remained fixed entirely on Lucy.

"Honey?"

Lucy nodded solemnly.

"It hurt."

"Where does it hurt, bug?" Jack asked.

She pointed vaguely toward the center of her stomach.

"...Here."

"How bad?"

She held up eight fingers.

"On a scale of ten..."

"...Eight."

"When did it start?"

"This morning."

"Did you throw up?"

"No."

"Feel sick?"

She hesitated.

"...Maybe."

Jack exchanged the briefest glance with you.

Neither of you relaxed.

Because children lied about vegetables.

They didn't usually lie about pain.

And even when they weren't lying, they were notoriously bad at describing it. Jack had treated smiling children with ruptured appendixes, kids who laughed while walking on fractured ankles, toddlers quietly coloring despite severe dehydration. Looking well meant almost nothing in pediatrics.

You rested a reassuring hand against Lucy's abdomen.

"I'm just going to press a little, okay?"

She nodded.

You gently palpated one quadrant.

"Does this hurt?"

"No."

You moved to another.

"How about here?"

"No."

Lower right.

"No."

Lower left.

"No."

Jack watched every tiny flicker of her expression. Or rather, the complete lack of one. She wasn't tensing beneath your touch. She wasn't guarding her stomach or curling inward instinctively. If anything, she seemed far more interested in everything happening around her than in the examination itself.

Her eyes wandered constantly around the department, following nurses rushing past, patients being wheeled down the hallway, monitors chiming, stretchers rolling by, the ambulance doors sliding open every few minutes. She wasn't frightened by any of it. She looked fascinated.

You noticed it too.

Before either of you could ask another question, Lucy turned back toward Jack, wearing the brightest smile she'd had all morning.

"So..." She tilted her head innocently. "...Can I see where Daddy works now?"

Silence settled over the four of you.

Jack closed his eyes.

Very.

Very slowly.

Your mother frowned, looking between the three of you.

"...Lucy?"

Your daughter's grin only widened.

"It worked."

Jack opened one eye.

"...What worked?"

"My tummy."

Neither you nor Jack said a word.

"It wasn't really hurting." She paused, as though she'd only just realized you weren't reacting the way she'd expected. "I just wanted to come."

For several long seconds, nobody moved.

Jack slowly lowered himself onto the chair beside her, more because his legs suddenly felt weak than because he'd intended to sit.

Because his prosthetic leg suddenly felt unsteady beneath him.

He rubbed both hands over his face, forcing out a long, shaky breath before looking back at his daughter.

"You..." His voice was rougher than he intended. "...You faked it?"

Lucy nodded proudly, completely oblivious to the emotional hurricane she'd just unleashed.

"That was the only way Grandma would bring me."

Your mother's mouth fell open.

"Oh my goodness..."

Lucy looked between the two of you with complete sincerity.

"I wanted to see where you work."

Jack let out another slow breath that sounded dangerously close to becoming a laugh. Not because anything about this was funny, but because relief had nowhere else to go.

"You scared ten years off my life."

Her smile faltered.

"...I did?"

Jack swallowed, the image of her name on the tracking board still burned into his mind.

"When I saw your name pop up..." His voice caught unexpectedly, forcing him to pause. He looked away for a moment before gathering himself enough to continue. "I thought something terrible had happened."

You nodded quietly beside him.

"I thought my little girl was hurt."

Lucy's face crumpled almost instantly. The excitement disappeared, replaced by confusion and guilt.

"I..." Her shoulders curled inward. "...I didn't know."

Of course she hadn't.

She was six years old. In her mind, she'd come up with the smartest plan imaginable. Pretend to have a stomachache. Go to the hospital. Surprise Mommy and Daddy. She'd never stopped to think about what it would feel like for two emergency clinicians to suddenly see their own child's name appear on the tracking board.

She looked down at her sneakers, twisting one toe against the floor.

"I'm sorry."

Jack watched her quietly for a long moment. Every ounce of frustration he'd felt dissolved beneath the sight of her trying so hard not to cry. Without another word, he opened his arms.

Lucy climbed into them immediately.

He wrapped her tightly against his chest, closing his eyes as he rested his cheek against her hair.

"I'm not mad."

She looked up uncertainly.

"...You're not?"

He shook his head.

"I'm relieved."

His voice was barely above a whisper.

"So unbelievably relieved."

He held her for another moment before leaning back just enough to meet her eyes.

"But you cannot ever pretend to be sick like this again."

She nodded immediately.

"Okay."

"I need a real promise."

"I promise."

You moved closer until your shoulder rested against Jack's, wrapping an arm around both of them. Almost instinctively, Lucy reached for your hand with her free one.

"I'm sorry, Mama."

You squeezed her little fingers.

"I know."

"I just wanted everyone at school to know my mommy and daddy have cool jobs."

Your heart ached.

"We know, sweetheart."

"They all got to go."

You met Jack's eyes for a brief second. Sometimes the hardest part of parenting wasn't saying no. It was understanding exactly why your child wanted something so badly and still knowing the answer couldn't change.

Jack kissed the top of Lucy's head.

Jack was quiet for a moment before a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"You know what?"

"What?"

"Since you're already here..." He glanced at you, silently asking the question before either of you spoke.

You smiled back.

"I think our patient has been thoroughly examined."

Jack nodded solemnly.

"I agree."

He looked back at Lucy.

"So I'm officially discharging you."

Her eyes widened.

"You are?"

"Mhm." He reached over and gently tapped the tip of her nose. "No tummy ache. Cleared to go home with Grandma."

She giggled.

"But..." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Before you go home, I think we can spare five minutes."

Lucy's mouth fell open.

"Really?"

"We can show you the nurses' station." He pointed toward the center of the department. "My locker. Maybe the ambulance bay if there isn't anything coming in."

"And the cafeteria," you added with a smile.

Jack nodded.

"But that's it."

"No treatment rooms."

"No sick patients," you said gently.

"And you stay with one of us the entire time."

Lucy threw her arms around his neck so quickly he almost laughed.

"I promise!"

"I know you do." He hugged her back before pulling away just enough to look at her seriously. "But that doesn't change one thing."

"What?"

"If you ever feel left out again, you tell Mommy or me."

She nodded.

"You don't have to scare us to spend time with us."

The smile slipped from her face.

"...Okay."

"I mean it, bug."

"I know."

She leaned forward to hug him again, then reached for you too, nearly pulling the three of you together on the waiting room chair.

Jack caught your eye over the top of Lucy's head.

"I think she inherited our problem-solving skills."

You laughed.

"No."

"Our stubbornness."

Lucy looked up immediately.

"I heard that."

"Oh, we know," Jack said with a grin. "Trust me, we know exactly who you got it from."

"I did not fake being stubborn."

"You absolutely did."

That earned another burst of laughter, loud enough that even your mother laughed through the tears she'd been quietly wiping away.

As Lucy happily slid off Jack's lap, already asking a hundred questions about ambulances and whether nurses really kept candy in the break room, the knot in his chest finally began to loosen. The fear hadn't disappeared entirely. He wasn't sure it ever would. Seeing her name on that tracking board had unlocked a terror he hoped never to feel again.

But as he watched her bounce happily between you, clutching one of your hands and one of his as though the last twenty minutes had never happened, he found himself smiling despite everything.

He would take fake stomachaches, dramatic plans, and six-year-old schemes over seeing his daughter in one of those treatment rooms for real every single day.

At eight years old, she has lots of opinions. It had started that morning when she woke up and decided she did not want to brush her teeth (which you of course had to convince her to do), she’d been upset to find that Jack was working and could not ride bikes with her (as they liked to do on Saturday mornings he had off work), and then suddenly decided that she absolutely would not be getting her Flu vaccine you had already scheduled her for at your local pharmacy today.

It isn’t often you give in to your daughter's outlandish whims, but you also know that aversions to needles is something that can become worse the older a person gets. You dealt with parents fainting over their child getting a small shot in the arm enough to know that you did not want your daughter to one day fear needles that much. So that’s why you made her a deal.

Get your vaccine from mom at work and maybe you can see Jack.

She’d been all for it, of course. From the day you’d introduced her and Jack seven years ago, she and him had been attached at the hip. It’s why you know that bribing her with the thought of his attention is a sure fire way to get her on board. 

“Can we go see Jack now?” she asks the minute you step on the chaotic emergency floor. Even though she didn’t see her biological father often, and had known Jack since she was a baby, she still liked calling him Jack. You and Jack never correct her because you know that kids can have a hard time relinquishing titles like that.

“Have to get your shot first,” you tell her, weaving through doctors and nurses striding by in a frenzied hurry. You’re mostly trying to get off this floor before she sees something traumatizing.

You pass a young woman screaming at the top of her lungs in the psych hold area and you cringe, angling your daughter’s curious gaze away.

Entering through this floor had not been your first idea. Pedes was a few floors up, and not nearly as chaotic as the emergency floor. It also tended to not have nearly as much blood or gore. It had just about the same level of loudness, though—especially when babies are concerned.

“Is that my favorite pedes doctor coming in on her day off again?” 

You flinch and turn your head just as you and your daughter have just about made it to the elevators. Since Jack’s been working more day shifts recently (to get better aligned with you and your daughter’s schedules, bless him), a whole new cast of characters has been taking up residence in his stories.

This one you recognize immediately, though. 

“Dana,” you say with a short laugh, reaching out to give her a quick sidearm hug, the other still holding your daughter’s hand captive in your own.

She returns it softly, grinning at you with that warm, toothy smile.

“Hey hon.” She releases you after a quick pat on the back, eyes glittering. She looks down at your daughter and bends on her knees. “And here’s the one we’ve all heard so much about from Jack.”

You adjust your hand to rest between your daughter’s shoulder blades, gently nudging her forward. She’s dressed in a bedazzled rainbow dash t-shirt (the best My Little Pony, in her opinion) and a tulle skirt, and several butterfly clips in her hair. She’s been picking out her own outfits recently, but luckily they were still pretty cute.

She looks back at you nervously, but offers Dana a smile when she turns her head back. She gives the older woman a small wave.

“We didn’t want to have to spend the day at work,” you say to her, “but someone is a little hesitant to get her flu shot, so I thought I’d just bring her in and do it here.”

Dana shoots you a knowing look. “Well, let me know if I can help you guys at all.”—she turns to your daughter then, a smile on her painted lips—“Maybe if it all goes well, you can come see me for some stickers afterward?”

Your daughter grins, looking back at you. “Can we go do it now?”

You laugh at her sudden enthusiasm, turning to Dana. “You should come join us on the pediatric floor.”

“No thank you,” she says, shaking her head, “if I had to hear babies crying all day I’d lose my mind. Those days are over for me.”

“You have the touch!” you tell her over your shoulder as you weave into the elevator with your daughter in tow. 

“I have bribes.” Dana’s laugh follows you as the doors begin to slide shut. “Not the same thing.”

You continue to smile even as the doors slide shut and the familiar weightless feeling takes hold as the elevator moves. Your daughter slides her hand from yours and you quickly check your phone for any notifications. The last text you received was at 7am this morning—Jack sneaking out but not without telling you he loves you over text and that he’d made breakfast.

You bite your lip as you relive the butterflies that erupted in your stomach from the simple phrase. 

That is what is so rare, so special about Jack. He loves you unconditionally. Your last boyfriend, your daughter’s father, had practically skipped town when he found out you were pregnant. As far as you were concerned, he was just a sperm donor.

Luckily, you had met Jack about six months into your pregnancy. Somehow in that brief period when you spoke infrequently in between night shift consultations, you being single had come up in conversation and he made his move. 

Two years later, he was the one doing puzzles with your daughter and drawing with crayons at the kitchen table. Later, he was the one teaching her how to ride a bicycle and tie her shoes. When you and Jack got married four years ago, your daughter had beamed ear-to-ear during the entire reception—and had run up to give her new step-dad a huge hug that resulted in many resounding “awws” in the audience.

Your daughter knew no other male parental figure except Jack, not really. Your ex visited on holidays, often with some kind of lazy $20 Target gift card and a Hallmark card. There’s some kind of the mysticism that comes when you’re a kid that’s visited by an absent parent once in a blue moon that keeps them haunting the back of your mind like an apparition, always.

She doesn’t know him like you do, and she only sees him twice a year, so she doesn’t have a fully-realized image of what he is or what kind of person he could be. She gives him graces that she wouldn’t afford anyone else in her life that are constants because of that mysticism and childhood naïveté. You don’t blame her—can’t. You do blame your ex, but there’s really not anything you can do about that either—except demand child support and remind him with texts of her birthday coming up every year.

You reach over to squeeze her shoulder affectionately and she looks up at you, giving a small smile.

“It will be over in no time, I promise.” You let go of her shoulder just as the elevator dings and the doors slide open to the, thankfully, much quieter pediatrics floor.

In the distance, you hear a baby crying that is quickly soothed by their mother’s voice. You glance down at your daughter as she steps into the floor behind you and your heart pangs.

Her eyes are wide, taking in every person that walks by with scrutiny, and she tries to hide the slight tremble to her hands. 

You bend your knee, putting on your trained pediatrics smile. Her eyes dart to yours, a plea on her lips. “It will be over so quickly. I promise. And then we will see Mrs. Dana and she will give us stickers and we can go see Jack and give him a hug.”

She doesn’t seem entirely comfortable, still, but she nods and follows you as you lead her to the circle of desks near the center of the room. It’s a very similar setup to the emergency floor, except the rooms are less windowed for privacy and the walls are painted in a soothing nature scene for the kids to enjoy.

You find one of the pediatrics nurses, a friend of yours, and you ask him for some assistance. You set your daughter down in one of the stools at the front.

“Okay, this is mom’s friend Henry, and he’s going to help us with your flu shot. Is that okay?”

Your daughter looks over at the mid-twenty year old man standing across from her, hands clenched into little fists in her lap. She nods, then starts pulling at one of the strings in her rainbow skirt.

You look over at Henry, who begins prepping the shot. Your daughter stares at you with a tremulous chin, eyes beading with tears.

As Henry begins to wipe her upper arm with a sterile pad, she flinches and turns away, hiding her upper body from sight.

“I want Jack,” she says softly, “can Jack do it? I promise I will if he comes.”

You sigh and turn to Henry, who shrugs. You look down at your phone and raise a brow when it vibrates in your hand, as if beckoned.

Jack<3: how did little one’s shot go today? i’m on lunch

“Stay here with Henry for a minute, okay, honey? I'm going to go make a phone call.” Your daughter nods, but gives Henry a skeptical side eye as he continues to stand in front of her.

You back far enough away that your daughter can’t hear and press on Jack’s contact info to call him.

It only has to ring once before you hear his voice on the other side.

“You okay? Need me to head out?” 

Your stomach flutters at the concern in his voice, even though you think it might be a little sadistic to feel that. Maybe it’s just that every day, in little moments, you’re reminded how much you and your daughter mean to him.

“If I were to tell you I’m in pediatrics right now, with little Miss-Afraid-of-Needles near-hyperventilating at just the thought of getting her flu shot, what would you do?”

“I thought you guys had an appointment for that?” You can hear shuffling on the other end and the sound of someone asking him a question, which he replies in a muffled voice you can’t make out. 

“Well, I made a mistake,” you tell him, “I let her decide where we go to get the shot. I also promised she would see you after and that Dana would give her stickers. And she’s still upset about it all.”

“She’s got you wrapped around her little finger, you know that?” 

You snort a laugh through your nose. “Like you’re any better? Don’t think I didn’t see the smiley face you made her out of chocolate chips on her pancakes this morning.”

“It’s our Saturday tradition, honey. You know that.”

“I know, I know,” you laugh again, “just don’t try to lecture me about being too soft on her when I can literally hear you running to catch the elevator right now.”

He chuckles, then quietens.

“—I think the elevator’s about to arrive. I’ll see you in a minute?”

You nod, then you realize he can’t see you. “I love you. Thank you for making the time.”

You can hear the smile in his voice as he replies. “For you? Always.”

The call cuts just as you hear the elevator doors ding on the other side of the call. You turn around to look at your daughter, only to find her putting stickers all over poor Nurse Henry’s arm. You grin at her enthusiasm, striding over.

“You getting Nurse Henry looking pretty over here?”

Your daughter clams up as if she’s expecting you to be angry at her sudden 180 in emotion. You know kids, though, and you know that her fear was real and that just because she’s been distracted doesn’t mean she was faking it before. You squat down to her level, gently stroking her hair.

“Jack’s coming up now to give you your shot.”

Your daughter beams, but after a moment shrivels in on herself, her lip trembling. 

You give her a kiss on the cheek. You pull back, forcing her to look at your eyes with a hand on her chin. “It will be okay. I promise.”

As if on cue, the elevator doors open and Jack comes striding in. He looks around for just a few seconds before his eyes land on where you stand across the room. He beams and quickly strides over.

Henry steps back as Jack takes his spot.

“Hey, bug,” he says to her. He pokes her arm and she lets out a soft laugh, turning away. “I hear you’re a little scared of your shot?”

She wrinkles her nose. “It hurts. And I can’t sleep on my arm at night when I get them.”

“Well,” Jack says, snapping on a pair of gloves from nearby, “sometimes life is about doing things that might make us hurt for a day or two so we don’t get really hurt later.”

“But I’ve never had the flu before,” she says, furrowing her brows.

“Do you remember what I told you about our bodies? That we have fighters inside of us that are usually really good at keeping viruses like the flu from making us sick?” She nods, so he continues. “Well, this shot”—he picks up the needle to show her—“has a code in it that those little fighters can learn, so that when you do get the flu, you might not get sick at all, because now they know what they’re fighting.”

Your daughter nods very seriously. “So my fighters are like Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash learning more about Nightmare Moon so they can stop her from taking over the world next time she shows up?”

You notice from the corner of your eye Henry biting his lip to smother his laughter. Meanwhile, you’re actually pretty impressed by her comparison to her favorite show. You also think in the same train of thought that maybe she needed less screen time.

“Yep, exactly,” Jack agrees enthusiastically. “And this shot is like the Elements of Harmony coming to change Nightmare Moon back into Princess Luna.”

Now you’re the one holding back your laughter. You look over at Jack, impressed by his knowledge. He shoots you a sly wink as if to say ‘I know more than I’m letting on.’

Your daughter squares her shoulders and nods. “Okay,” she says, “do it. I’m ready.”

Jack smiles and grabs the sterile swab to rewipe her upper arm. She flinches at the cold liquid and you walk over to stand in front of her.

“Just look at me,” you tell her softly, “it will be over before you know it.”

She follows your direction obediently as Jack lines up the shot with her arm. As the needle enters, your daughter winces and tenses, but keeps her eyes on you all the while. Jack pushes the liquid in then removes the needle. He puts on a colorful bandaid to the wound.

“All done,” you say with a grin, “you did so good.”

She bashfully drops her eyes. “It barely even hurt.”

Jack stands, removing the gloves with a small, affectionate smile pulling at his lips.

She stands up from her stool. You think she’s going to move toward you when she surprises you by turning to hug Jack around his waist. Jack tilts his head toward her, surprised.

“Thanks, dad,” she says into his back. “You’re the best.”

She continues to bury her head into his scrubs, and Jack pats her head as he meets your shocked gaze. You think your mouth must be hanging open, but you can’t help it.

She pulls away and looks up at him. She frowns. “Why are you crying, dad?”

Jack wraps her in a gentle side hug, wiping away the small tears that had leaked out. “Nothing, bug. Just happy.”

Your daughter lets out a soft laugh, shaking her head. She begins to move away from the two of you quickly. “Okay, well stop crying and come pick out stickers with me.”

You snort at her drill-sergeant order and look over at Jack, who continues to grin and shake his head. You reach over to loop an arm around his waist, planting a kiss to his cheek.

“You earned it,” you whisper, “only a dad knows that many My Little Pony references.”

Jack lets out a laugh, leaning forward to capture your mouth in a full kiss.

The moment is broken when your daughter lets out a loud groan from across the room. “Come onnnn, gosh you guys are so gross!”

You laugh and pull away. You sweep your hand toward your daughter with a sarcastic grin. “C'mon, Jack. Fatherhood awaits.”

Screenshot. Blocked. Done.

Bucky walked in with a mug in his hand and took a seat beside you, which brought a small smile to your face. He liked being close. You were one of the only people he let into his personal space bubble.

“You okay?” he asked when you set your phone down. “You’re being quiet.”

“I’m quiet sometimes,” you tried to tease.

He tilted his head. “No, this is a different kind of quiet. Something happened,” he said because he knew you so well. “And I want to fix it.”

You smiled again. Of course, he wanted to fix it. That was the kind of man he was. 

“Apparently, I’m too old to have hobbies,” you stated.

An adorably confused look crossed his face and you wanted to kiss him for being so cute. “You’re… what?”

“I got some anonymous ask on my blog basically telling me to stop posting fanfiction because I’m too old and I should do something my age,” you explained, showing him the screenshot.

Bucky stared at the screenshot, his fingers twitching before they curled into fists. He didn’t say anything. It didn’t even look like he was breathing.

The cold that filled his blue eyes told you he was about two seconds from somehow climbing into the internet and finding this person.

“And before you asked, I didn’t respond. I blocked them,” you explained, keeping the phone out of his reach. “They’re just trolling or trying to get a reaction.”

One of the wonderful things about your blog was that you could curate it for your own experience. If you didn’t want to respond to rude asks or messages, you didn’t have to. If you wanted to, you could. It was that simple.

A downside of the website was that some people seemed to forget to curate their own experiences, like simply unfollowing or blocking blogs and tags if they didn’t like, agree, or want to see them.

“I am reacting,” Bucky said in a quiet voice tinged with building rage.

“I noticed,” you said, not flinching when he set the mug down with a little more force than necessary and took a deep breath.

“That… is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of stuff.”

You almost laughed, but he was dead serious.

“Does this…” He gestured to your phone and flexed his fingers again. “Askhole really thinks that there’s an expiration date on hobbies? Because there isn’t.”

You shifted and tucked your legs underneath you, giving him your full attention.

“That’s so fucking…” He let out a bitter laugh. “People collect baseball cards into their seventies. Eighties. They paint miniature trains. Build model airplanes. Knit. Garden. Fish. Hunt.”

“They do,” you agreed, running your fingers through his hair just because you could.

He closed his eyes at your touch before he continued. “People go to comic cons and cosplay. They play D&D. Video games.” His voice was starting to rise and your nails touched his scalp again. “And what about grown ass men who paint their faces and spend entire weekends yelling at sports games?”

“You sound personally offended.”

He looked at you incredulously. “I am personally offended on your behalf.”

You snuck in a kiss because you couldn’t help yourself. You felt some of the anger leave his body when your lips touched. It meant a lot that he cared so much.

“Don’t distract me,” he whispered.

“I’m not,” you whispered back, smiling when you pulled away. “You just have very kissable lips.”

“So do you,” he said with a smile before he frowned. “But I’m still not happy because they’re acting like people writing stories is somehow less respectable because what? Other people read them online and not from a book?”

You shrugged a little. “It’s fanfiction,” you said softly.

He shrugged, too. “So?”

“So…” You tried to find the words. “Some people think it's an inferior form of writing and a waste of time.”

His brows pinched, something sad filling his eyes. “I think creating something that makes you happy is one of the most adult and superior things you could do.”

You were quiet for a moment. “Really?”

“Really.” He opened his arms for you to move close. “You have two kids who love and adore you and vice versa, and they’re busy with so many activities that you have a calendar to keep it all straight. You make sure they’re never without.”

Your heart swelled. Your babies. No matter how old they got, they would always be your babies. And you wanted them to thrive in life. That was one of the reasons you worked so hard to give them not just a nice home, but a loving one.

“You work 40 hours a week. Sometimes more,” he said, his lips brushing the top of your head. “You pour so much of yourself into that job and your teammates that it wears on you by the end of the week.”

Mist filled your eyes. You did put a lot into your job because your parents taught you the value of hard work. And as frustrating as growth in your job could be, there were perks to your job and you had a great team. That wasn’t easy to come by.

“And when you aren’t pouring yourself into the kids or work, you have a pretty amazing husband who always wants your attention,” he teased, tilting your chin up with a tender smile. “Seriously, I can’t keep my hands off you half the time.”

Heat filled your cheeks and a laugh bubbled up. It amazed you after so many years how your husband still wanted you. Still admired you. He was an amazing partner and father.

You couldn’t ask for anyone better.

“And when you aren’t dealing with a handy husband.” He smirked a little. “You’re paying bills, handling responsibilities, and checking on others. Online and offline.”

Your heart sank a little. Messages sometimes went unanswered. Asks got buried. Comments got late replies. Not on purpose. Never on purpose.

But you felt guilty just the same. It didn’t feel like enough some days. There wasn’t enough time. There wasn’t enough of you to go around. 

“I try,” you said sadly.

“You do your best, and people see that,” he said proudly. “And after all that, you write.”

“Yeah.”

You wished you could write every single day. Life rarely gave you the opportunity to do so. You accepted that.

“I’m in fucking awe of you,” he said so seriously that your mouth fell open. “And not just you, but the community you all have online. They may not have your same kind of life or schedule, but they have their own struggles and they still find the time to create and share. You all help keep fandoms alive.”

Everyone had a life and a story to tell. Everyone had their hardships. That was one of the reasons so many of you gravitated to certain characters and communities. Life was tough enough. Building connections helped.

“I guess we do,” you said, much softer.

“Does that piece of shit askhole realize that your creations have touched people? Helped people?” 

“I haven’t-”

He silenced you with a deep kiss, the words dying in your throat.

“Don’t you dare say that your writing hasn’t touched or helped at least one person because it has,” he said fiercely, cupping your cheek. “Fluff, smut, angst, soft, dark. There’s something for everyone.”

You did your best to provide a variety of stories, and you adored your readers. They were cheerleaders, supporters, and friends. You wanted them to feel loved and cared for. They deserved that. 

“And some coward.” The word tasted bitter in his mouth. “Hiding behind a button doesn’t get to treat you like you don’t belong in your own space because of your age.”

Your eyes burned again. “Bucky…”

“Not to mention, you do this for free in the very limited free time you have.” He brushed his thumb along your cheek. “I’m glad you blocked them. You don’t need that trash in your inbox.”

“I’m glad, too.”

It wasn’t the sort of energy you needed in your space, and blocking them helped take your power back.

“And look at me? I’m over a hundred years old. I’m an old fucking man, and I still have hobbies.” He smiled when you snorted. “Like jumping out of planes.”

“You take after Steve,” you joked. 

That beautiful man could be reckless in the best way.

“I like old records.”

“And we dance in the kitchen while listening to them.”

You always felt cherished when he held you close.

“I read,” he said, nodding to the chair where he usually sat to read.

“I should get you reading glasses,” you mused.

Even if he didn’t need them, he’d look sexy in them.

“I’m a science nerd,” he stated proudly.

“I still want to get your glasses.”

Because nerds were sexy as hell.

“I like fixing motorcycles.”

You sighed dreamily. “And you look good on your bike.”

Maybe he could take you for a ride later… in more ways than one.

“I bake with Sam’s nephews.”

You sighed again because the man looked good with kids. “They do love when you add extra chocolate chips to cookies.”

“Extra chocolate chips make it better.” He winked. “And I’m still saving the world every so often.”

You put your hand over his. “My hero.”

“So, if I can still have hobbies at my age, why can’t you?” he asked rhetorically. “If this person really thinks people should stop once they hit a certain, they’re going to live a sad life. If anything, people get better at their hobbies because they’re getting more experience which happens with age.”

You didn’t disagree.

“I don’t care if you’re in your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, whatever age,” he promised you. “If it brings you joy? If you love it? Then don’t stop creating. Don’t stop writing your stories.”

You closed your eyes when he kissed your forehead. “Even the self-indulgent ones?”

He smiled against your skin. “Especially the self-indulgent ones.”

“Even if I write about other characters?” 

“I’ll support you,” he promised.

“What if someone else says I’m still too old?” you asked.

“Then I’ll remind them, once again, that I’m over a hundred years old and they can get fucked.”

“You look very good for your age.” You giggled when he playfully growled and managed to grab your phone. “Hey!”

“You look very good for your age.” You giggled when he playfully growled and managed to grab your phone. “Hey!”

“Forget about them,” he ordered, tucking the device away. “And talk to me about one of the next ideas brewing in that beautiful brain of yours.”

An almost shy smile appeared on your face. Almost. He knew better.

“It might be better if I… show you.”

He leaned back against the cushion and helped you straddle him, his eyes dark as his hands settled on your hips. “I like the sound of that.”

You stopped him before he could pull you down for a kiss. “Bucky?”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

You gazed at the man who brought so much light into your life. He helped you connect to others. He fueled your creativity. 

You felt very lucky.

“Thanks for loving and seeing me,” you whispered.

His eyes softened. “Thanks for loving and seeing me, too,” he said, meeting you halfway. “And if some askhole bothers you again, send them my way.”

“Yes, sir,” you teased, letting him kiss you.

So, yes, you’d keep posting your stories on your blog.

The self-indulgent ones. The ones you struggled to tell. The ones you put your blood, sweat, and tears into.

You’d joke about the writing process. You’d apologize for late updates. You’d keep on doing what you were doing.

Because there was no expiration date on creativity and hobbies.

And anyone who thought there was?

Well, they didn’t need to read your stories. 

Yep. I'm a mom. A wife. A friend. I work. I adult. Fanfiction isn't just fanfiction, lovelies. It's community. Keep doing you. Curate your own experience. Love and thanks for reading. ❤️

his mouth opens, breath catching hard enough that you see his chest stop and inhale heavily. the assignment is forgotten, the laptop screen dimming as he turns fully, and before you can even smile he’s dropping straight to his knees on the carpet of his bedroom floor.

the sound is a soft thud but like every ounce of tension leaves his body at once. his hands rest on his thighs, palms open, and those hungry, yearning eyes lift to meet yours, they’re wide, dark, almost pleading.

“come to me, baby” he says, voice low and rough, every word wrapped in that same aching need that makes your stomach flip. he almost sounded like he wanted to cry. your poor baby was so overworked.

you take the few steps that close the distance, and the second you’re within reach his hands are on you, gentle at first, his fingertips tracing the edge of the fabric at your hips before sliding up, palms warm against your skin. he leans in, pressing his face right against your stomach, breathing you in like he’s been starved for it.

a soft, shaky exhale leaves him, and you feel the shake in his shoulders as he holds himself back from pulling you down too fast.

his fingers hook under the thin straps at your hips, not tugging, just holding, feeling the texture of the lace against his skin. he looks up again, those same puppy eyes darker now, lashes low, and you can see how hard he’s fighting to stay still, to let you come to him the way he asked.

the clear yearning is there, enough that you feel it in your own pulse.

you thread your nails through his hair, and that’s all it takes for him to surge forward, mouth pressing open kisses along the line of lace just above your navel, tongue flicking out to taste skin wherever the fabric allows.

his hands slide around to cup your ass, squeezing once before he drags you even closer, burying his face between your thighs without hesitation. the lace is already damp from how wet you are, and he moans against it, the sound vibrating straight through you. “john” you moan quietly.

he doesn’t rush. he stays on his knees, worshipping every inch he can reach, kissing the inside of your thigh, the sheer thin covering your pussy, breathing hot and heavy until you’re rocking against his mouth without meaning to.

his tongue presses flat through the fabric, licking slow and deliberate, soaking the lace even more until it clings to you. every time you tug his hair he groans, the sound needy and desperate, and he looks up again with those same hungry eyes like he’s asking permission to keep going, to pull the delicate material aside and finally taste you properly.

when you nod, his fingers are quick but careful, easing the lace down your hips just enough to bare you to him. he doesn’t stand up yet.

he stays right there on the floor, pulling you forward until your thighs cover his face, and then his mouth is on your bare pussy, tongue sliding through your folds, lips sealing around your clit to suck gently before he flattens his tongue again and laps at you like he’s been thinking about this all day. “ugh, you- you make me feel so good johnny.”

his hands grip your ass tighter, holding you steady while he eats you out with slow, thorough strokes that make your knees shake. if it wasn’t for his grip on your ass, you would’ve fallen to the floor by now.

you can feel how turned on he is, the hard outline of his cock against his sweats, but he doesn’t touch himself. he just keeps his focus on you, licking and sucking until your hips are rolling against his mouth and soft sounds are slipping from your throat.

every few seconds he glances up, checking your face with those same yearning eyes, like your pleasure is the only thing that matters in the world right now.

when your thighs start to tremble harder he pulls back just enough to press a kiss to your clit, then another lower, tongue dipping inside you for a moment before he stands in one fluid motion.

his arms wrap around you, lifting you easily, and he carries you the short distance to the bed without ever looking away from your face.

he lays you down carefully, the lace still tangled around one thigh, and climbs over you, settling between your spread legs.

he kisses you then, so deep, slow, letting you taste yourself on his tongue, while his hand works between your bodies to shove his sweats down just far enough. the head of his cock nudges against your entrance, hot and slick from how ready you both are, and he pauses there, forehead resting against yours, breathing hard.

“tell me you want this honey,” he whispers, voice wrecked, eyes searching yours like he needs the words as much as the act itself.

when you pull him closer and say yes, he sinks into you in one smooth thrust, burying himself to the deepest he can with a groan that vibrates through both of you.

he stays still for a moment, just feeling you around him, then starts to move, slow at first, rolling his hips so every stroke drags against that perfect spot inside you.

his hands never stop moving, sliding over the lace still clinging to your body, fingers tracing every strap and bow like he’s memorizing the way it looks on you.

he leans down to kiss the swell of your breast above the cup of the bra, teeth grazing lightly before he sucks a mark there, claiming you even as he fucks you deeper. the bed creaks under the steady rhythm he sets, each thrust pushing you higher, and he keeps his eyes on your face the whole time, watching every reaction, every flutter of your lashes when he hits just right.

you come first, clenching around him hard enough that his rhythm falters, and he follows right after, burying his face in your neck as he spills inside you with a broken moan, hips jerking through the aftershocks.

he doesn’t pull out right away. he stays there, cock still twitching, pressing soft kisses along your jaw and whispering how beautiful you look, how much he needed this, how he’ll never get tired of seeing you like this just for him. “you’re just so perfect baby.” he whimpers into your neck. “i’d do anything for you. anything, i promise.”

~ ~ ~ ~

“I thought you said this was going to be easy.” Dean whispers. You stare at the fake plastics babies at the front of the class.

“Apparently, I was lied to.” You say under your breath.

“I’ll give you the luxury of choosing your own partner, considering that’s generally how it works in procreation.” The professor says. A weak wave of laughter rolls through the classroom. Dean grabs your chair pulling you closer to him, if that’s even possible.

“Got my baby mama!” He announces to the class.

The first few days aren’t so bad, your fake baby, who Dean has affectionately given the name Deana doesn’t cry too often and when she does you just stick the key in her back and get her to stop. It’s nothing like a real baby.

“Babe, I have an exam today I can’t take her with me.” You say, grabbing your bag and heading down the stairs.

“I have practice!” Dean says. Garrett rolls his eyes.

“No he doesn’t, it’s media day, he can stick it in his locker and get it if it alarms.” Garrett says referring to the plastic baby like a bomb.

“I thought media day was tomorrow?” Dean says. “On Thursday?”

“Dude. It is Thursday.” Garrett says patting him on the shoulder. Dean thinks for a second.

“Huh.” He says. “Okay I can take her.” He says, you sigh handing him over the fake baby.

“Please don’t do anything stupid, and don’t shake her, it has a monitor in there.” You say.

“Are you questioning my parenting abilities?” He asks feigning offense. You stare at him.

“Dean, you forgot what day of the week it was. Yes I’m questioning your parenting abilities. In fact I’m questioning your self care abilities.” You say exasperatedly. You turn to Garrett, “is it actually safe to leave him unsupervised?”

“Jury’s still out.” Garrett says. You laugh, pressing a kiss to Dean’s cheek before heading to your exam.

The exam goes well. Your day has been going great actually until you get a text from Dean.

Dean 💙🏒: so, hypothetically how mad would you be if I lost the baby???

You:

Dean 💙🏒: that seems like pretty mad…

You: please tell me you’re joking 🙃

Dean 💙🏒: …

You meet Dean outside of the rink.

“Are you serious right now!” You shriek, worried about your grade.

“I’m sure she’ll turn up.” Dean shrugs.

“You lost the baby!” You exclaim, causing a few students to turn their heads your way.

“It’s a fake baby!” Dean reasons.

“That is not the point!” You say face palming yourself.

Your phone dings at the exact time Dean’s does.

Hannah 🎶: attachment: 1 image

You open the text to see your fake baby riding in the back of Garrett’s Jeep.

Dean 💙🏒: for the love of God, put her seatbelt on

You: oh thank goodness, I was afraid she was gone for good

Garrett 🏒: I’m reporting you to the Department of Fake Family Services.

Dean 💙🏒: you can’t take her from us she’s the light of my life! 😫

You: for real though can you bring the baby back I don’t want to fail this class 🤣

Garrett 🏒: She’s thriving. You’re just jealous she prefers her cooler god-parents.

Hannah🎶: We’ll return her after ice cream.

You: She is made of plastic, Hannah.

James Allison looked up from the briefing. “You mean inters?”

She nodded sagely. “Green. Wet. Zoom safe.”

Toto blinked. “It’s 25°C with no clouds.”

Y/N turned her tiny face toward the garage opening and narrowed her eyes at the sky. “I feel it in my eyebrows.”

The grid laughed at the idea when Lewis Hamilton posted it to his story: “Y/N Wolff: weather forecaster by eyebrow tingles 🫠”

But then? It rained.

Exactly 11 minutes later. Out of nowhere. Right during FP1.

Mercedes was on inters. Everyone else scrambled.

Toto didn’t even celebrate. He just handed Y/N a cookie and said, “Thank you, mein little barometer.”

[SCENE 2: THE LEGEND GROWS]

By Silverstone, people weren’t even checking Accuweather.

They were checking Y/N Wolff.

Max Verstappen casually leaned into the Mercedes motorhome, looked around, spotted her coloring a diagram of the pit lane with crayons, and asked, “Is it gonna rain today?”

She didn't even look up. “No. Just mean sun. Make helmets spicy.”

He nodded. “Got it.”

Esteban Ocon brought her a fruit pouch in exchange for the next weekend’s forecast.

Carlos Sainz bribed her with stickers.

Lando made a whole vlog segment titled: “Consulting Baby Wolff: Weather or Not?”

Her track record? Flawless.

Y/N Wolff became the paddock's most trusted weather source.

[SCENE 3: SINGAPORE CHAOS]

It was the Singapore Grand Prix.

And every weather app said: Clear. Dry. Hot.

Ferrari was starting on softs. Red Bull too. Even Mercedes was leaning toward a two-stop dry strategy.

Until Y/N marched into the strategy room (wearing sunglasses and a headset she definitely wasn't using correctly), plopped a juice box on the table like a threat, and declared:

“Papa. Wet zooms.”

Toto blinked. “Again?”

She nodded. “Sky got that tummy ache look.”

George Russell, suppressing a laugh, tilted his head. “What kind of tummy ache?”

“The throw-up one.”

Everyone stared.

Toto sighed. “Put the inters on standby.”

People thought Mercedes had lost it. The other teams snickered.

Then, five minutes into the race, monsoon.

Everyone spun.

Except Mercedes.

Camera footage caught Y/N sitting on her dad’s lap in the pit wall chair, sipping apple juice like a villain.

[SCENE 4: FIA ACKNOWLEDGES]

At one point, someone from the FIA actually tried to question Toto about the use of a toddler as a forecasting tool.

“She’s not a tool,” he said dryly. “She’s an asset.”

Lewis stood behind them and added, “Honestly? I trust her more than our sensors.”

Someone printed shirts that said: “Y/N WOLFF SAID IT'D RAIN. IT DID.”

They sold out.

[SCENE 5: DRIVER GROUP CHAT - LEAKED]

F1 Driver GC: “MUST BOX FOR MEMES”

Max: ok who has the weather report from Y/N

Charles: i tried to get it but she told me i smell like old tires and to go away

Oscar: that’s because you stepped on her coloring page last week

Lando: she told me it would rain on saturday

Carlos: did she say how long??

George: she said it would be “puddle big.” make of that what you will

Lewis: translation: full wets, probably

Pierre: who gave her my sunglasses. she’s holding them hostage

Alex: she traded them for the forecast. classic toddler extortion

Yuki: I RESPECT HER

[SCENE 6: TODDLER FORECAST FAME]

One weekend, she held an impromptu press conference.

Y/N was sitting on a folding chair, legs swinging, surrounded by microphones. Someone had made her a tiny Mercedes polo.

“Today is big wet. Big. Like bathtub. No dry zooms.”

A journalist raised their hand. “And wind conditions?”

“Wind go whooosh!”

The video hit 50 million views in two days.

[SCENE 7: FINAL RACE - ABU DHABI]

Final race of the season. Everything was on the line. Championship-deciding.

Teams were staring at conflicting forecasts.

Sky: dry. FIA: drizzle maybe? Pirelli: no rain.

Y/N Wolff, now sitting in her custom throne (a modified race seat on the pit wall), raised a finger.

“Rain. In twenty-three minutes. Left side only.”

People laughed.

Until the radar confirmed it.

She had predicted not just the time, but the part of the track where the rain would hit.

Mercedes won the championship. With the right tires. Right time. Right call.

After the cooldown lap, Lewis dedicated his win to her.

“To the tiniest strategist with the biggest weather brain.”

[EPILOGUE: POST-SEASON]

A Netflix documentary episode was dedicated to her:

Formula Forecast: The Rise of Weather Baby Wolff

Clips included her scolding Max for knocking over her juice, telling Charles he wasn’t allowed to wear yellow near her ("Too bright! My eyes say ow!"), and sneakily sticking cloud stickers on the side of the McLaren garage when she thought rain was coming.

The final scene showed Toto hugging her post-race, lifting her up.

“Do you want to be team principal when you grow up?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nope. I wanna be the sky boss.”

[COMMENTS SECTION - F1 YOUTUBE CHANNEL]

@tifosicharles55: not me checking her forecast before planning my wedding

@landozsmile: i would trust her with my taxes

@skyiscrying: NOT THE EYEBROW TINGLE ACCURACY

@mercedesbossbaby: she’s not the weather girl she’s the weather god

@maxispinning: the fact that she took down 10 strategists with a crayon and a vibe is insane

And somewhere, in the off-season quiet, Y/N Wolff looked out a window, squinted, and whispered:

“Clouds mad again.”

The paddock braced.

End.

“I thought I lost you, but then I saw the sign for Monet and knew I’d find you here,” he whispers with a quiet laugh. You stare up at him, swinging your still connected hands thoughtlessly.

“Am I that predictable?”

“I just know what my lady likes,” he says, giving you that smile that melts your heart. The two of you had been slowly exploring Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts for the last hour, taking advantage of the city’s free museum admission day for college students. It was almost 4pm, and you two had already spent three hours at the Harvard Museum of Natural History and then stopped for lunch and iced coffee at a locally owned cafe you found together and fell in love with months ago. Now you were here, and the two of you had made a game out of the visit.

“What if we both tried to find a piece of art that reminds us of each other,” he said when you first walked in. So the two of you had orbited around each other in adjacent rooms as you searched for each other for the last hour.

You could tell from the beginning of the day when Garrett showed up at your dorm that he was very proud of the “all-day date” he planned in order to celebrate your 6 month anniversary.

With the amount of time he had recently been devoting to practice and games and preparing for finals, you knew he felt guilty for not paying more attention to you. He also knew deep down that he had no reason to feel guilty because you constantly reassured him that you understood he was busy and that you cheering him on at every game, and nights where neither of you spoke as he fell asleep on top of his textbooks studying were temporary and you weren’t leaving.

“Oh yeah, your lady?” you tease him.

“Yeah,” he replies with a smirk, wrapping his arms around your waist. He leans his head down and you stand on your toes, puckering your lips before he swerves his head at the last second and whispers in your ear, “I found mine.”

You smack his chest softly and roll your eyes.

“Lead the way, baby.” And the two of you, fingers laced together, stroll out of the room. Neither of you even noticing the two people watching you, their heads poking around the corner of the opposite exit you took.

“I’m telling you, I’ve definitely seen her around campus before,” Tucker says stepping into the room fully, Logan following him. The former having begged the latter to come with him to complete an assignment for one of his elective art classes. And when they had gone to enter one of the rooms, Tucker spotted you and Garrett and immediately dragged Logan back, raising his finger to his lips to be keep quiet. That’s how they found themselves following you both from the room to room for the last twenty minutes.

“Well, if someone, could provide better angles, I’d be able to contribute,” Dean complains over the FaceTime call.

“We can’t exactly ask her to pose for us, now can we,” Logan argues back.

“Just follow them, Johns.” Tucker snorts while Logan talks himself down from hanging up the call. They walk in the same direction you and Garrett had headed in hoping they’d be able to figure out where the two of you went.

Meanwhile, Garrett had stopped you in front of a painting you knew well, one you had almost picked yourself: The Lovers by René Magritte. You stared at it for a minute before turning to look at him only to find him already watching you for your reaction.

“Why this one?” You ask almost shyly.

And blame it on the many other people in the room gathered around the new pieces on loan talking or how absorbed the two of you were in each other, but both of you miss Logan and Tucker quietly sitting on the bench in the middle of the room behind the two of you. They face towards the other wall, pretending to look at the art.

“I can’t see,” Dean whines.

Logan gives him a glare, thankful that everyone else talking drowns Dean out as he props the phone up in between him and Tucker on the bench.

“I think it’s clear that they love each other, but they for some reason aren’t able to express that love publicly, so they take what they can get being hidden even if it’s killing them.”

You give him a sad smile, giving his hand a squeeze.

“I want to tell them about us,” he states, thumb rubbing over yours.

“They might be upset.”

“Maybe, but it’s been six months of sneaking around, and I love you, and I want to be able to spend as much time with you as I can,” he states. Your eyes begin to water, his begging you to let this step be taken. And now the reason why you’ve hidden your relationship seems so silly looking up at the man who would do anything for you.

“I lov-” you begin.

“Six months?!” Dean shouts, and of course it’s right when a pulse of quiet settles over the room. Tucker smacks the phone face down on the bench like that will end the call and save them. The slam of it echos, everyone now looking at them, no longer talking.

“What’s happening? Guys, I can’t see,” Dean’s voice calls. Logan quickly moves over and sits on it. Both him and Tucker still pretending that they’re staring at the art on the wall, completely ignoring all the eyes on them.

Yours and Garrett’s spines straighten hearing Dean’s voice the first time, eyes widening as the two of you slowly turn your heads to look behind you after taking a moment to process. At the sight of Tucker and Logan posing like they’re deep in profound thought and Dean’s muffled voice coming from under Logan’s butt, you and Garrett make eye contact again before bursting out into uncontrollable laughter.

“What the hell are you idiots doing?” He asks. Tucker dramatically turns around and slaps his hand over his mouth with a gasp, acting surprised when he sees Garrett. Logan at least has the decency to look slightly ashamed.

“Oh my god, what are the chances?”

“Cut the shit, dude” Garrett chokes out as he tries to stop laughing.

“You like art?” Logan asks randomly, eyes narrowing at Garrett like everything he knows about him is wrong.

“I’m literally a history major. I feel like the idea of me liking art can’t be that shocking.” Logan shrugs and Tucker scrunches his face with an “eh.”

Thankful everyone has started going back to exploring the museum, you give Tucker and Logan a small, awkward wave, a tight-lipped smile on your face. Their eyes shift to you.

“Well, it’s nice to finally meet you both,” and at the sound of your voice, more muffled yelling sounds from under Logan.

“…and Dean,” you say, nodding towards Logan. Logan seems to jolt back to reality at the mention of Dean and quickly moves off the phone. Tucker holds it up and then flips the camera so Dean can see you and Garrett.

“Thank you, Sweet Tuck,” he cheers.

“Hey wait, I know you,” Dean accuses as soon as he looks closer at you.

“Me?” You ask, eyebrows furrowing as Garrett looks between you and the screen.

“Her?” Both Tucker and Logan say at the same time, worried how Dean could possibly know you.

“Yeah, you slept over the house like two months ago! I was sleeping on the couch, and you woke me up because you were rummaging through the fridge at two in the morning, and then you scurried back up the stairs.” Everyone quietly lets out a breath. Your eyes flick to each of them confused before looking back at the screen.

“I don’t scurry,” you mumble as your boyfriend chuckles, sliding his hand around your waist.

“You sometimes do scurry in the dark,” Garrett provides and then looks away quickly at the offended look you throw at him.

“I was scared, I thought I heard something.”

“Yeah, me!” Dean points at himself dramatically. Multiple heads turn at the noise. Garrett checks the time on his phone, 4:48.

“Okay, listen, we’ll come to the house tonight and explain everything, but we kind of have a reservation at 6, so we need to go.” The four of you start making your way out of the museum. Against Dean’s pleading, Logan had ended the call. The two of you say your goodbyes as you get to the parking lot. Tucker shouts over his shoulder “Your curfew is 10,” before you climb into the passenger seat, laughing, as Garrett opens the door for you.

“We should get a hotel room tonight,” Garrett groans as he gives you a quick kiss and closes the door.

The thing about cravings, pregnancy cravings, is that they’re a mystery even to the person experiencing them. This is why Bucky Barnes, ex-assassin turned cuddle-bear, stood frozen in the kitchen mid-bite of his third Pop-Tart as his very pregnant and hormonal wife stared blankly at the open fridge like it had personally offended her.

“I don’t know what I want, Buck!” You cried, throwing your hands up and nearly knocking over a bowl of oranges in the process. “But whatever it is… it’s not in there and I hate it… and I hate this fridge… and why is this light so bright?”

Bucky blinked slowly, then glanced guiltily at his half-eaten Pop-Tart and tried to hide it behind his back.

“Sweetheart,” he said carefully, in the same voice he once used while disarming a nuclear device, “do you maybe want some... pickles and peanut butter again? Or the chocolate-covered beef jerky thing?”

You turned your gaze on him like an avenging angel with a maternity pillow. “No! That was last week, Bucky. I evolved. That was the larval stage of cravings. I don’t even know what this one is. All I know is I’m hungry and sad and mad and also maybe I could cry over a sock.”

“You did cry over a sock yesterday,” he mumbled under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” He said quickly, holding up his hands like he was about to be mugged. “Okay! Right… hungry… not sure what for. Could be anything. Could be... grilled cheese? Watermelon? Honey on pizza?”

“Stop saying food names, it’s making it worse!”

Bucky paused, then asked sincerely. “Do you want me to stop or do you want me to list them alphabetically?”

You made a sound that could only be described as a frustrated grunt-squeal, dramatically flopped onto the couch. “I’m going to die hungry and hormonal and the baby will come out annoyed because I couldn’t figure out what I wanted!” You shouted.

Bucky was sweating now as the Pop-Tart was forgotten. He sprinted to your side like the flat was on fire. 

“Could have asked for some Pop-Tart…” 

“I hate Pot-Tart… they’re disgusting!” You cried.

“Babe… don’t cry… I’ll go to the store and buy one of everything. I’ll bring back sushi and ice cream and that weird cereal with marshmallows that tastes like regret.”

“I can’t eat raw fish, you idiot!” You snapped, eyes blazing.

He blinked. “Right… raw and dangerous… got it… what about the ice cream? You love that mocha caramel chunk-”

“Ice cream makes me fat, Bucky!” You wailed, hands flying up in distress.

He blinked again, rapidly. “Babe… you’re pregnant. You’re literally supposed to gain weight. That’s part of the-”

“Oh, thank you, Doctor Barnes,” you growled. “Did they teach that in assassin school too? Did they teach you how to ruin your hormonal wife’s last shred of self-esteem while she’s swollen like a balloon and can’t reach her own toes?”

Bucky’s mouth opened.

Then closed but immeditely opened again.

No sound.

Just silent.

“Marshmallows?” He squeaked, desperate now. “Maybe marshmallows? I could make cocoa?”

You recoiled like he’d suggested eating a handful of gravel. “Marshmallows? I could vomit just looking at them right now. Why would you say that? Are you trying to kill me?”

“I’m not! I swear! I’m trying to save you!” He gasped. “Okay. No sushi and no ice cream and no marshmallows and… no joy apparently. Got it. That’s fine. I’ll go to the store. I’ll buy one of everything and we’ll sniff our way to an answer like food detectives.”

“You’d do that for me?” You sniffed, now on the verge of tears.

“I would storm a Hydra base for you, grocery is nothing.”

There was a pause.

“…Actually,” you said thoughtfully, “maybe I want… a pickle… dipped in whipped cream… wrapped in a pancake.”

Bucky blinked.

Then gave a single, solemn nod. “God help me, I’m going to make that happen.”

He kissed your forehead, stood up, and grabbed his car keys.

And as he headed for the door, you called after him. “Also maybe Funyuns! And a tub of cookie dough! And not the fucking off-brand kind this time, Barnes!”

“On it!” He shouted, already gone like a soldier on a mission.

You lay back, cradling your bump and grinning faintly. “I’m so hormonal… but I really married a good one.”

From the hallway, his muffled voice shouted back, “I heard that and I love you too, even if you make me cry once a week during snack hour!”

Damn super soldier senses, you thought.

Twenty-nine minutes later.

That’s how long Bucky had been gone. Not long, really.

Just enough for him to hit the local store, argue with a teenager over the last tub of name brand cookie dough and Google whether whipped cream counts as a dairy product or a “condiment”.

He was now juggling three overstuffed grocery bags, a wild-eyed expression and what looked like a pint of pickles wedged under one arm.

And when he finally kicked open the front door, all heroic and breathless, he was immediately hit with…

Sniffling?

Crying?

Whimpering?

“Y/N?” He called cautiously, kicking the door shut with his foot as he balanced the bags. “Sweetheart, I’m back! I brought, like… everything? Including that nightmare pancake idea? You said syrup optional… I got both. We can build the monstrosity together…”

The only reply was a soft, hiccupping sob from the couch.

Bucky dropped the bags like they were hot and darted over. “Hey… hey… hey what happened? Are you okay? Did the baby do a backflip again? Is it the indigestion thing? Oh my god, did I forget the non-dairy whipped cream?”

You sat curled up in a blanket burrito, red-eyed and nose running, clutching his hoodie to your face like it was a lifeline.

As soon as you saw him, your lip wobbled.

“I missed you,” you whispered in a teary voice that sounded like a Disney princess on the verge of collapse.

Bucky blinked. “I was gone for twenty-nine minutes.”

“It felt like a year,” you wailed, dramatically flopping onto your side. “And I was mean to you and I yelled and I said the Pop-Tart was disgusting and it wasn’t… it was fine… and I love you and I’m so sorry. I cried into your hoodie because it still smells like you!”

He gently perched on the edge of the couch, eyes soft. “You cried into my hoodie?” Bucky snorted and reached over to smooth your hair back, his touch gentle and warm. “I forgive you, doll… only because you’re very cute and very hormonal and carrying my future tiny assassin in there.”

You sniffled and wrapped your arms around his middle, burying your face in his belly. “I was just so sad and I didn’t know why. And then you were gone and I thought… what if you got hit by a car because you were thinking about pancake pickles and now I’m a widow and still hungry?”

Bucky tried very hard not to laugh. “Well… I did almost get hit in the parking lot. But it was because I dropped the whipped cream and chased it into traffic.”

You looked up at him, appalled. “Bucky Barnes!”

“What? I thought it was the fancy kind! You don’t disrespect fancy whipped cream.”

You blinked at him for a moment… then burst into laughter through your tears. It was the sort of laugh that turned into more sobbing halfway through, but Bucky just held you tighter and let you do both all over his shirt.

Once you’d calmed down, and maybe blown your nose a little too aggressively into his sleeve, he pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

“Okay… here’s the plan. I’ll make you the pickle pancake horror food,”

“With whipped cream,” you murmured against his chest.

“Obviously. I am a man of taste.”

“...And a tub of cookie dough?”

“The real stuff, babe. I tackled a guy for it.”

You looked up with teary eyes. “You tackled someone for me?”

“I lightly bumped him with the cart.”

You clutched his face and kissed his cheek like he’d just saved the planet. “You’re my hero.”

“I try,” he said dramatically, pulling the blanket tighter around you both. “Now… are you going to help me cook the Frankenstein meal or just cry while I assemble it?”

“I’ll probably cry,” you admitted, already tearing up again. “But I’ll cheer you on.”

“Deal.”

And with that, James Buchanan Barnes shuffled into the kitchen like a very tired raccoon in love, muttering to himself about pancake ratios and whether or not syrup counted as a hate crime in this context.

You smiled softly, hands on your belly.

The baby was probably wondering why it felt like a reality show in there, but it was home.

And it was full of love.

And whipped cream.

And maybe, just maybe… a slightly too charred pickle pancake.

Ten minutes later.

The kitchen looked like a cooking show hosted by a sleep deprived raccoon and filmed during a windstorm.

Bucky stood at the stove, frowning at a frying pan like it had personally betrayed him. He was still in his jeans, now wearing a dish towel over his shoulder like a professional chef or a dad from a 90s sitcom who just burned dinner.

"Okay," he muttered to himself, flipping the pancake with the concentration of someone disarming a bomb. “One warm and golden pancake.”

He glanced at the counter, where a line-up of very questionable ingredients waited.

Pickles? Check.

Whipped cream? Check.

Syrup? Optional, but included for the brave.

You? Sitting at the kitchen island with a pillow under your bump, watching him like he was cooking the final meal before his execution.

“I just want to say,” Bucky said slowly, “…this is an act of love. If I die tonight, tell Steve I went out honorably.”

You sniffed, hand on your belly. “If this goes wrong, I’m blaming you. I never should’ve said the word pancake. That’s where it all started.”

He gently placed the pancake on a plate and added a generous squirt of whipped cream then, holding his breath,rested on it a big and sour pickle. Then, like a final insult to logic, he drizzled maple syrup across the top.

You blinked. “Bucky. That looks like a war crime.”

“I know.” He turned, holding the plate solemnly like it was a cursed artifact. “I’m going to eat it with you.”

Your eyes widened. “You don’t have to-”

“No, I do.” He sliced the monstrosity in half, handed you the less-drenched side, and picked up a fork like it was a weapon.

You both stared at the halves.

Silence.

“I’m scared,” you whispered.

“Me too,” he whispered back.

Together, in synchronized doom, you each took a bite.

You chewed.

He chewed.

You blinked.

He blinked.

The baby did a single slow kick as if to say “what fresh hell is this?”

“…So?” Bucky asked, eyes glassy.

“It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever had.” You admitted, mouth full. “It’s kinda… weirdly satisfying?”

Bucky looked like he’d seen another plane of existence. “I think my tongue just had a panic attack.”

You smiled softly and took another bite. “It’s crunchy and sweet and gross but like… fine?.”

“Like me,” Bucky said with a proud shrug.

You swallowed, then leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You’re the best husband ever… forced to eat cursed food.”

He wiped imaginary tears from his eyes. “I take that as the highest compliment.”

Despite the messy pancake and the impending digestive regret, the two of you sat there sharing abominable bites holding hands across the table and laughing every time he gagged a little but kept eating anyway.

When you’re in love, sometimes the most romantic thing someone can do is eat a whipped cream wrapped pickle pancake without blinking.

And maybe go back for seconds.

Maybe.

Summerhall burned without her.

Not with dragonflame, not with the great conflagrations his ancestors had commanded, but with a dull, suffocating emptiness that crept into every corridor, every chamber, every breath Aerion Targaryen took. The hearths were lit, the servants moved in their endless silent procession, his brothers' voices echoed somewhere in the courtyard and yet the world had lost all color. The very stones of the castle seemed to sigh, as though they too mourned the absence of their lady.

She had been gone three days.

Three days since Y/N had ridden for King's Landing with her escort, off to visit her family, off to leave him behind in this grey mockery of a palace. Three days since the sun had last shone, or so it felt. Three days since Aerion had last tasted peace, last drawn a full breath, last felt his heart beat with anything other than the dull, persistent ache of longing.

He stood at the window of their chambers, his chambers now, though he refused to think of them that way, staring out at the rolling hills of the Reach with an expression of such profound tragedy that any who saw it might have thought the realm had fallen. His doublet was carelessly fastened, half untied at the collar, as though he could not summon the will to dress himself properly. A goblet of wine sat untouched on the table beside him, which was perhaps the most alarming sign of all, for Aerion Brightflame had never been known to refuse wine.

His boots were still unlaced. His rings, the gold and onyx band she had given him on their wedding night, the small ruby she had pressed into his palm with a smirk and a command to wear it always so everyone knows you belong to me, sat in a small dish by the bed. He could not bear to put them on. Could not bear to look at them without her there to see them on his fingers.

He had not slept. Not truly. He would lie in their bed, in the hollow where her body should have been, and press his face into her pillow, breathing in the fading scent of her, something floral, something sharp, something that was simply her. He had forbidden the servants from changing the linens. When the maid had come that morning with fresh sheets, he had snarled at her so fiercely that she had dropped the bundle and fled, and Aerion had spent the next hour smoothing out the rumpled side of the bed where Y/N had last slept, arranging the pillows exactly as she liked them, preserving the shrine of her absence.

He was being dramatic. He knew this. He did not care.

"My prince," came a hesitant voice from the doorway. A serving girl, young and pale with fear, her hands clasped so tightly before her that her knuckles had gone white. "Your father requests your presence at the midday meal."

Aerion did not turn. His voice, when it came, was distant, thrumming with barely suppressed anguish. "Tell him I am indisposed."

"My prince, he was most insistent—"

"Tell him," Aerion's head snapped toward her, violet eyes blazing with such sudden ferocity that the girl took a stumbling step backward, "that my wife—my heart—has been torn from my breast and carted off to that stinking city, and I will not sit at a table pretending to enjoy the company of men who still have their wives beside them while mine languishes in absence. Tell him that I am in mourning. Tell him that the light has gone out of Summerhall. Tell him—" His voice cracked, and for a moment he looked less like a dragon prince and more like a man utterly undone. "Tell him that I cannot."

The girl fled. He heard her footsteps echoing down the corridor, a panicked staccato, and he almost felt a flicker of satisfaction. Let them all know. Let them all see what her absence had done to him.

He turned back to the window, pressing his palm flat against the glass. His breath fogged the pane, and for a moment he fancied he could trace her name in the condensation. Y/N. He traced it once, twice, a third time, watching the letters blur and fade, and something in his chest constricted so painfully that he had to brace himself against the window frame.

Gods, but he missed her.

He missed the sound of her voice, sharp and commanding, telling him his hair was a mess and to sit still while she fixed it. He missed the way she would sprawl across their bed as though she owned it, as though she owned him, with that imperious tilt to her chin and her feet bare and her hair spilling everywhere. He missed the fire in her eyes when she was displeased, which was often, and the way she would make him work for her smile, which was everything. He missed the weight of her hand on his arm when they walked together, the possessive curl of her fingers.

He missed her in the morning, when he woke and reached for her and found only cold sheets. He missed her at night, when the candles burned low and the quiet of their chambers became unbearable. He missed her at meals, when he looked to the seat beside him and saw it empty, and his stomach turned at the sight of food he could not share with her. He missed her in the training yard, where he had no one to impress with his prowess, no one to roll her eyes at his boasting and call him a preening fool in that tone that meant she loved him. He missed her in his blood, in his bones, in the very marrow of him.

She was perfection. She was the sun around which his entire wretched existence orbited.

When she walked, flowers bloomed. He had seen it himself, well, perhaps not seen, but he knew. The grass grew greener in her footsteps, the air itself became sweeter, the very sky seemed to brighten. Birds sang when she passed. The clouds parted. The Seven themselves must have looked down upon her and marveled at their creation. She was a vision of grace and gentleness, his lady wife, his dragonness, his beautiful, beautiful—

"Brother."

Aemon's voice cut through his reverie like a blade. Aerion did not bother to hide his scowl as the younger prince entered the chamber without knocking, as was his irritating habit. Aemon was ten, small and serious, and he looked at Aerion with the particular expression of a child who had long since grown accustomed to his elder brother's eccentricities.

"What," Aerion said flatly. He did not move from the window.

Aemon leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms in a gesture that was far too old for his years. "The servants are saying you've refused to eat for two days."

"I am not hungry."

"You're always hungry. I've seen you eat an entire pheasant by yourself."

Aerion turned, finally, and the full force of his tragic countenance fell upon his little brother. His eyes were red rimmed, his pale skin even paler than usual, his jaw shadowed with the barest hint of stubble he had not bothered to shave away. "My appetite has departed with my wife. How can I be expected to eat when she is not here to grace the table with her presence? When I must look upon your face instead of hers? When every bite I take is ash in my mouth because she is not beside me to share it?"

Aemon's expression did not change. "She's been gone three days."

"Three centuries." Aerion pressed the back of his hand to his forehead in a gesture that would have been comical if he were not entirely sincere. "Three eternities. I have aged a thousand years in her absence. Look at me, Aemon. Look at what has become of me."

He did look. Aerion was, objectively, still the same sharp featured, silver haired prince he had always been, perhaps slightly more disheveled than usual but otherwise unchanged. Aemon seemed to reach this conclusion as well, because his eyebrow arched with the precision of a courtier twice his age.

"You look the same."

"I am wasted," Aerion insisted. "I am a hollow shell. A ghost haunting these halls. Without her, I am nothing. Less than nothing. I am—" He paused, searching for a word sufficiently dramatic. "—diminished."

Aemon sighed. It was a heavy sound for such a small boy. "Father is concerned."

"Father can concern himself with his own marriage." Aerion finally moved from the window, but only to throw himself into a chair with all the despair of a tragedy hero in his final act. He let his head fall back, staring at the ceiling, one arm draped across his eyes. "You do not understand. None of you understand. You have never loved."

"I'm ten."

"Age is no barrier to understanding true love. I knew I loved Y/N from the moment she threw a candlestick at my head during our first meeting. It was a magnificent throw. She has such strength in her wrist, such precision, such—" He let out a shuddering breath. "Such perfection."

Aemon, who had been present for that first meeting and had witnessed Y/N hurl a candlestick at Aerion's head because he had made some comment about her family that was, in retrospect, deeply offensive, said nothing.

"Do you know what she said to me, the night before she left?" Aerion asked, his voice going soft and distant. He did not wait for an answer. "She said, 'Don't be a fool while I'm gone.' And I said, 'I am always a fool for you, my love.' And she—" His voice cracked. "She laughed. She laughed, Aemon. The most beautiful sound in all the Seven Kingdoms. And then she kissed me, here—" He touched his lips "—and she said, 'I know.'"

He was quiet for a moment, lost in the memory. Then he surged up from the chair, suddenly animated, pacing the chamber with wild, restless energy.

"Her hair," he said, "do you remember her hair? The way it catches the light? and when the sun hits it just so, it glows, Aemon. It glows like embers. And her eyes—gods, her eyes—they are like nothing else in this world, and when she is angry they darken, and when she laughs they lighten, and when she looks at me—"

"She usually looks at you like you're about to do something stupid," Aemon observed.

"With love," Aerion corrected fiercely. "She looks at me with love. The love of a woman who has chosen me, who has bound herself to me, who has—" He stopped mid pace, a thought striking him with such force that he went pale. "What if she decides to stay longer? What if her family convinces her that King's Landing is more pleasant than Summerhall? What if she—what if she forgets me?"

"That seems unlikely."

"You don't know! You don't know the power of her family's influence. Her mother, that woman—she never approved of me. She said I was—" He lowered his voice to a pompous imitation. "—'volatile and overly dramatic.' As though those are insults."

"They might be."

"They are virtues," Aerion declared. "I am a Targaryen. Volatility is in my blood. And yet her mother looks at me as though I am a stain upon her daughter's gown. What if she spends this fortnight whispering in Y/N's ear? What if she convinces her to—to—"

He could not say it. Could not even form the word leave.

He sank back into the chair, all the manic energy draining out of him. His hands gripped the armrests so tightly his knuckles went white. "If she does not return to me, I shall burn something. I don't know what. Something important. Something that will make them all regret taking her from me."

"She's visiting her family, Aerion. No one took her."

"They took her from me." His voice cracked again, raw and honest in a way he rarely allowed anyone to see. "They took her from me and I am here alone, in this cold place, without her warmth. Do you know what it is to share a bed with someone for a year and then have it empty? Do you know what it is to reach for someone in the night and find only a pillow? Do you know—"

He stopped. Swallowed. Looked away.

Aemon, to his credit, did not mock him. The little boy crossed the room and stood beside his brother's chair, and after a moment, he placed a small hand on Aerion's arm.

"She'll come back," Aemon said quietly. "She likes Summerhall better than King's Landing. She told me so. She said—" He paused, clearly debating whether to share what he had been told. Then: "She said the food is better here and her mother gives her headaches."

"She said that?"

"She said the roast lamb here is better than anything in the Red Keep. She said—" Aemon's voice dropped to a whisper. "—she said she married you for your family's kitchens."

"She did not."

"She did. I was there." Aemon's expression was solemn. "She said it to Mother when she thought you couldn't hear. She said, 'At least the food is good, even if my husband is a madman.'"

Aerion pressed a hand to his chest, overcome. "She adores me."

"She said you were a madman."

"A term of endearment." He was smiling now, a real smile, the first in three days. "She calls me a madman because she finds my passion invigorating. She finds my intensity—my focus—she finds it romantic. I know she does. She told me once that I loved her more fiercely than any man had ever loved anything, and that she—that she—" His voice caught. "She said she would not have it any other way."

He looked toward the window again, but this time his expression was softer, almost hopeful. "Do you think she misses me?"

Aemon considered the question with the gravity of a maester pondering a philosophical treatise. Finally, he said: "She said you were annoying before you left. But she also packed your favorite doublet. The blue one. She told the maid to make sure it was clean for you while she was gone."

Aerion closed his eyes, overwhelmed. "She does miss me."

"Maybe."

"She does. She packed my doublet. She thinks of me, even when she is away. She carries me in her heart, as I carry her in mine. We are bound, Aemon. Bound by something greater than marriage, greater than duty, greater than—" He opened his eyes, seized by a sudden thought. "I should write to her."

"You said you wouldn't. You said you wanted her to come to you first, to prove that she—" Aemon paused, clearly trying to remember the exact phrasing. "—'yearns for you as desperately as you yearn for her.'"

"I changed my mind." Aerion was already moving, crossing to the writing desk that sat by the window, the desk where Y/N usually sat when she wrote her letters, where her inkpot still sat and her quill still lay, where he could see the faint scratch marks she had left in the wood from pressing too hard when she was angry about something. He dropped into the chair—her chair—and pulled a sheet of parchment toward him.

His hand trembled as he dipped the quill. He had so much to say. So much. How could he possibly contain it all in a single letter? How could he capture the depth of his longing, the breadth of his devotion, the way the world had dimmed without her in it?

He began to write.

My love, my life, my dragonness—

He paused, reading the words. Too small. Too insufficient. He crumpled the parchment and threw it aside.

To the most beautiful woman in all the Seven Kingdoms, without whom I am nothing but a shadow, a ghost, a man already dead—

Too dramatic? No. No such thing. But perhaps she would roll her eyes, and he loved when she rolled her eyes. He loved the way she looked at him when he was being too much, because even then, even when she was exasperated, there was something in her gaze that said I see you, I have you, you are mine.

He wrote again.

Y/N—

I am dying. Not the slow death of age or illness, but the swift death of absence. My heart has stopped beating. My lungs have stopped drawing air. I exist only as a vessel of longing, a monument to my own foolishness for ever allowing you to leave my sight.

The sun has not shone since you departed. I have looked for it. I have searched the sky each morning, hoping to see it, and each morning I find only grey. The flowers in the garden have wilted. The birds have stopped singing. The very stones of Summerhall have grown cold, as though the castle itself knows that its lady is gone.

I have not eaten. I have not slept. I have not done anything but think of you, dream of you, ache for you. Your pillow still smells of your hair. I lie in your place in the bed and pretend you are beside me. I speak to you in the empty chambers, and sometimes, sometimes I can almost hear you answering.

Do not stay away too long. I fear I shall not survive it.

Come back to me.

Come back to me.

Come back to me.

Your devoted husband,

Aerion

He read it over three times, making small adjustments, crossing out a word here, adding a flourish there. Then, seized by a final impulse, he turned the parchment sideways and drew a small dragon at the bottom, breathing a heart shaped flame. Y/N had once told him his drawings were terrible. He had been offended. He was a Targaryen. Dragons were in his blood. The fact that his dragons looked more like deformed lizards with wings was entirely irrelevant.

He folded the letter carefully, pressed his seal into wax—his personal seal, the three-headed dragon encircled by flames—and held it to his lips for a moment before setting it aside to be sent.

"There," he said, satisfied. "Now she will know. Now she will understand the depth of my suffering, and she will return to me, and everything will be right again."

Aemon, who had watched the entire process with the expression of a child who had long since learned not to question his brother's peculiarities, picked up one of the crumpled attempts from the floor. He smoothed it out, read it, and looked at Aerion with an arched eyebrow.

"You wrote 'my dragonness' with two n's."

"It is spelled with two n's."

"It is not."

"It is when I spell it. She is not a dragoness, like some common beast. She is my dragonness. The extra n signifies—" He waved a hand vaguely. "—grandeur. Magnificence. The ineffable quality of her being."

Aemon stared at him for a long moment. Then, with the particular weariness of a child who has long since given up trying to understand his brother, he said: "Father wants to know if you'll be joining us for the rest of the week, or if you intend to waste away in here until Y/N returns."

"I shall waste away," Aerion declared, settling deeper into her chair, pulling her shawl, which had been left draped over the back, around his shoulders. It smelled of her. He breathed in deeply. "Let them bury me in my wedding cloak. Let them say: here lies Aerion Targaryen, who loved too much and too well. Who could not survive the absence of his beloved. Whose heart, like his ancestor's before him, turned to ash without the fire of his—"

Aemon, ten years old and already possessed of more sense than his elder brother, crossed his arms. “Y/N threw a book at your head the morning before she left.”

“It was a love note.”

“It was a history of House Targaryen. She threw it because you said her new gown made her look ‘pleasantly round.’”

Aerion clutched his chest. “And I was wrong. She is not pleasantly round. She is exquisitely formed. Perfect in every proportion. A goddess descended from the heavens to grace unworthy me with her—”

“She also called you a ‘silver haired fool’ and said she hoped the journey to King’s Landing took twice as long as usual so she might have some peace.”

The words landed, but they did not land as Aemon intended. Aerion’s eyes went soft, dreamy, a smile curving his lips for the first time in three days.

“She was teasing,” he breathed. “She does that. She teases me because she loves me. Her wit is so sharp, so brilliant—do you know how fortunate I am to be married to a woman of such intellect? When she calls me a fool, it is affection. When she throws things, it is passion. When she—”

“She broke your nose last moon.”

“A light passion.” Aerion touched his nose fondly. “It was an accident. She was aiming for the vase.”

Aemon stared at him for a long moment. Then, with the particular weariness of a child who has long since given up trying to understand his brother, he said: "She's going to be back in a fortnight, Aerion. Try not to die of heartbreak before then."

The door closed.

Aerion sat in silence for a long moment, wrapped in his wife's shawl, surrounded by her scent, her things, her absence. He picked up the letter he had written, unfolded it, read it again. The words stared back at him, inadequate as they were, but they would have to do. They would have to carry the weight of everything he could not say.

He thought of Y/N. Of the way she would wrinkle her nose when she was displeased. Of the way she would snap her fingers at servants and nobles alike, expecting obedience and receiving it because she was his wife, because she was his, because she was terrifying and magnificent and the most beautiful creature to ever draw breath. He thought of the way she would push his hair back from his face when he was brooding, the way she would kiss his forehead and tell him to stop being so much, the way she would say it like it was not a criticism but a compliment, like his excess was something she treasured rather than tolerated.

He thought of the way she had looked at him on their wedding night, with something like wonder in her eyes, as though she could not quite believe that this ridiculous, passionate, infuriating man belonged to her. He thought of the way she had said his name—Aerion—as though it was a secret only she knew. He thought of the way she had fallen asleep in his arms, her breathing soft and even, her hand curled against his chest like she was holding onto him even in sleep.

He missed her. Gods, he missed her.

He lifted the letter to his lips, pressed a kiss to the folded parchment, and set it carefully on the desk to be sent with the morning's ravens.

"Come back soon, my dragonness," he murmured to the empty room, to the lingering scent of her on her shawl, to the hollow space beside him in the bed. "The flowers are wilting without you. The sun has forgotten how to shine. And I—I am nothing without you. Nothing at all."

He pulled the shawl tighter, closed his eyes, and pretended, for just a moment, that she was there.

Meanwhile, in King's Landing:

You sat in your family's solar, feet propped on an embroidered cushion, a plate of honeyed figs balanced on your stomach, and a look of supreme contentment on your face. You were sprawled across a chaise in a manner that would have horrified your septa, one hand trailing lazily through a bowl of grapes you had commandeered from the kitchens, the other holding a cup of wine that you had refilled three times already.

Your mother, seated across from you with the rigid posture of a woman who had spent her entire life cultivating proper manners, watched you with the particular resignation of a parent who had long since given up trying to impose decorum.

"Must you sprawl like that?" your mother asked, not for the first time.

"I am comfortable," you said, not moving. "You should try it. Loosen your stays. Unlace your boots. Live a little."

"I am a lady of the court. I do not 'live a little.'"

You snorted. "Your loss."

You bit into a fig with relish, letting the honeyed sweetness coat your tongue. The figs in King's Landing were good, better than Summerhall's if you were being honest, though you would never admit it. The wine was passable, and your mother's servants were efficient and unobtrusive, and for the first time in months you were not being followed around by a silver haired shadow who watched you with the intensity of a dragon guarding its hoard.

You loved Aerion. You did. Fiercely. But the man was exhausting.

He looked at you like you were the sun and the moon and the stars all rolled into one. He followed you from room to room like a devoted puppy, except puppies did not usually compose epic poetry about the curve of your neck. He touched you constantly, your hand, your hair, your waist, as though he needed the physical reassurance that you were still there, still real, still his. He was dramatic and possessive and utterly, completely mad, and you would not have him any other way.

But seven hells, a fortnight without him was a vacation.

"You have been here three days," your mother observed, breaking into your thoughts. "Should you not be writing to your husband?"

You popped another fig into your mouth. "I will."

"When?"

"When I feel like it." You stretched, languid and comfortable, your arms reaching above your head in a gesture that made your mother wince at the impropriety. "He is probably moping around Summerhall writing me letters. He gets dramatic when I am gone."

"And that does not concern you?"

You considered the question. You thought of Aerion, beautiful, mad, your Aerion, pacing your shared chambers, composing florid verses about your eyes, refusing to eat, driving his family to distraction with his theatrical suffering. You thought of the letter that would inevitably arrive in a day or two, covered in his cramped, urgent handwriting, filled with declarations of undying devotion and descriptions of his agony in your absence.

A slow, pleased smile spread across your face. "He will survive. He always does. Besides, it is good for him. It reminds him what it is like without me."

"Y/N." Your mother's voice was sharp. "You are a terror."

"I know." Your smile sharpened, affectionate and wicked all at once. "He loves it."

You thought of the way Aerion had looked at you before you left, his violet eyes wide and tragic, his hands gripping yours as though you were being led to the executioner's block rather than a carriage. Do not go, he had said, and he had meant it, had meant it with every fiber of his being, had meant it so fiercely that you had almost, almost considered staying. Do not leave me. I cannot breathe without you.

You had kissed him, soft and quick, and told him to be good, and then you had climbed into the carriage and watched him grow smaller and smaller in the window until he was just a silver haired speck in the distance, and you had felt not guilt, exactly. Not guilt. But something that might have been tenderness, if tenderness was the sort of thing you admitted to.

You missed him. You did. You missed the warmth of him beside you at night, the ridiculous things he said that made you laugh despite yourself, the way he looked at you like you had hung the moon. You missed the weight of his arm around your waist, the sound of his voice calling your name, the way he would press kisses to your shoulder in the morning when he thought you were still asleep.

But you also enjoyed the silence. The absence of constant, overwhelming Aerion. The ability to eat a meal without being stared at. The chance to sleep without someone wrapping around you like a starfish.

You would go back. Of course you would go back. You would go back in a fortnight, and you would find him in your chambers, pale and dramatic and probably unshaven, with a stack of desperate letters on the desk and your shawl wrapped around his shoulders like a security blanket, and you would kiss him, and he would weep, and you would call him a fool, and he would agree, and everything would be exactly as it should be.

But for now, you were going to enjoy your figs.

Your mother sighed, the sound of a woman who had long since accepted her daughter's nature. "Your father wants to host a dinner tomorrow night. Several of the courtiers have asked about you."

You wrinkled your nose. "I do not want to see courtiers. I came here to escape."

"You came here to visit your family."

"I came here to eat your figs and sleep in a bed that does not contain a five foot man who radiates heat like a furnace and twitches in his sleep." You reached for another fig. "The family is a bonus."

Your mother's lips pressed together in a thin line. "You have responsibilities. Appearances to maintain. You cannot simply"

"I can," you interrupted, "and I will. I am the wife of Aerion Targaryen. If I want to spend a fortnight eating figs and ignoring courtiers, I shall. Who is going to stop me? My husband?" You laughed, bright and sharp. "He would thank me for resting. He would probably compose an ode to my repose. Behold my dragonness, who reclines in splendor, her beauty outshining the very sun itself." You pitched your voice into a ridiculous imitation of Aerion's dramatic cadence. "See how her fingers curl around a fig, how her lips part to receive it, how the heavens themselves weep with envy at her grace."

Your mother stared at you.

You grinned. "I am going to write that down. He will love it. He will probably frame it."

"You are both utterly mad."

"Perhaps." You settled back against the chaise, closing your eyes, a smile still playing at your lips. "But we are mad together. That is the important part."

You did not write to him that day. Or the next. On the third day, a letter arrived from Summerhall, sealed with red wax and Aerion's personal sigil, and you read it in bed with a cup of tea, laughing aloud at the extravagant declarations of suffering and the tiny dragon breathing a heart shaped flame in the corner.

You folded it carefully and tucked it beneath your pillow, where you could feel it when you slept.

On the fourth day, you wrote back. Your letter was two lines long:

Do not starve. I will be back when I am back.

Y/N

--

From Prince Maekar Targaryen, Summerhall, to His Good-Daughter Y/N Targaryen, King's Landing

To Y/N, Princess of House Targaryen, Lady of Summerhall,

I hope this letter finds you well and that your visit with your family has been pleasant. I trust the capital agrees with you and that you are enjoying the comforts of your mother's home.

I write to you now with a request that I offer with as much dignity as I can muster, which is to say: please come home.

I am begging you.

Your husband has been moping through the halls of this castle for a week now and I cannot endure another day of it. When you are here, Aerion is a terror. He picks fights with his brothers. He argues with the household knights. He sets things on fire when he is bored. He is loud and obnoxious and he drives me to drink. These are his good qualities. These are the qualities I have, over the course of his life, learned to tolerate, even to expect. They are the qualities that have prepared me for the indignities of fatherhood.

But this?

He has not argued with anyone in six days. He has not set anything on fire. He has not even raised his voice. Instead, he drifts through the corridors like a ghost wrapped in your shawl. He sits by the window in your chambers and stares at the horizon for hours. He refused to attend meals for three days, and when I finally forced him to appear, he sat in your chair and pushed food around his plate with the expression of a man who had lost his will to live.

It is unbearable.

I have seen Aerion angry. I have seen Aerion cruel. I have seen Aerion so drunk that he tried to challenge a horse to single combat. I have seen him at his worst, Y/N, and I have weathered it all with the stoicism of a father who knows what his son is. But I have never seen him like this. I have never seen him sad. I did not know he was capable of it. I thought the emotion was foreign to him, that he was built for fury and passion and nothing in between.

I was wrong. He is capable of sadness. He is capable of a deep, theatrical, utterly pathetic sadness that is somehow ten times more irritating than his usual behavior because at least when he is terrorizing the castle I can yell at him. What am I supposed to do when he looks at me with those violet eyes and asks if I think you still love him? What am I supposed to say when he tells me that the birds have stopped singing because you took the music with you? What am I supposed to do when my son, who once tried to drink fire, begins to cry because he found a hair ribbon of yours under the bed and it still smells like you?

I am not equipped for this.

I had to watch Aerion sit in the rain for an hour because he said the sky was crying with him.

The sky was not crying with him. It was raining. It rains at Summerhall. It rains often. This is a normal occurrence that has never before prompted my son to stand in the courtyard with his arms outstretched like a man awaiting divine intervention.

The servants are talking. The household knights are uncomfortable. Your brother in law Daeron has taken to hiding in the library, and I cannot blame him.

I need you to come back. I need you to come back soon. I need you to restore my son to his natural state of being an insufferable, arrogant, occasionally violent menace because I have discovered that I prefer that Aerion to the alternative. I prefer being terrorized to being mourned. I prefer the chaos to the silence. I prefer the Aerion who makes me want to lock him in his chambers to the Aerion who makes me want to hold him and tell him everything will be alright, because I am a warrior, Y/N, I am a prince of House Targaryen, I have fought in battles and seen men die and I do not know how to comfort my own son.

I am not asking. I am begging. Come back. End this. Save us all.

Your good-father,

Maekar Targaryen

P.S. He has taken to sleeping with your shawl. He wears it around his shoulders like a cloak. I saw him walking through the garden at dawn with it wrapped around him, speaking to your favorite rose bush as though it might answer. I am not making this up. I wish I were making this up.

P.P.S. If you tell anyone about this letter, I will deny everything. I will claim it was forged. I will have you removed from the succession. I will do something dramatic and irreversible. Do not test me on this.

Letter the Second: From Prince Maekar Targaryen, Summerhall, to His Good-Daughter Y/N Targaryen, King's Landing

Y/N,

It has been three days since my last letter. I am writing again because the situation has deteriorated.

Aerion has begun composing poetry aloud. I do not mean that he is writing it down. I mean that he stands in the great hall, in the courtyard, in the corridors, and recites verses about your eyes and your hair and the way you walk. His voice carries. There is nowhere in this castle that is safe from declarations of his undying love for you and his profound suffering in your absence.

The servants are requesting transfers. Two of the kitchen maids asked to be reassigned to the Dornish border. The stable master has offered to take a pay cut if it means being sent to literally any other holding. I am running out of places to put people who do not want to hear my son describe the precise shade of your eyes for the fifth time in a single afternoon.

This morning, he cornered me in the armory to ask whether I thought you would be pleased with the poem he composed about your laugh. He read it to me. It was forty lines long. It described your laugh as a "silver bell that shatters the darkness" and "a melody that would make the Seven themselves weep with envy." I have heard you laugh. It is not a silver bell. It is a sharp, wicked sound that usually precedes someone being verbally eviscerated. I say this with affection. You are a good match for my son. But your laugh does not shatter darkness. It shatters egos.

I told him it was beautiful. What else was I supposed to say? He had tears in his eyes, Y/N. Actual tears. My son, who once laughed when I broke my arm falling from a horse, was on the verge of weeping because I might not appreciate his poetry about your laugh. I told him it was the finest poem I had ever heard. I told him you would cherish it. I told him I would personally ensure it was delivered to you with the next raven. He thanked me. He thanked me with such sincerity that I felt something twist in my chest, and I realized that I would rather have him set something on fire than look at me like that again.

Please come home.

Your good father,

Maekar Targaryen

P.S. He is now composing a poem about your hands. I overheard him telling Aemon that your fingers are "delicate as rose petals" and that he dreams of them every night. I do not know how Aemon tolerates this. I do not know how any of us tolerate this.

Letter the Third: From Prince Daeron Targaryen, Summerhall, to His Good-Sister Y/N Targaryen, King's Landing

Y/N,

Father does not know I am writing this. He has forbidden any of us from contacting you because he says it is "beneath the dignity of House Targaryen" to beg, which is ironic because he has sent you three letters already.

Do not tell him I wrote to you. He will be angry. But I cannot stay silent any longer.

I am hiding in the library. I have been hiding in the library for four days. I bring food with me in the mornings and I do not emerge until nightfall. The measters have stopped questioning it. They simply leave a candle for me and pretend I am not there. I am becoming friends with the dust. I am starting to understand the appeal of being a maester. Anything is better than being in the same room as Aerion right now.

He is unbearable. You know how he is when you are here. He is loud and arrogant and he follows you around like a dragon with a favorite treasure. It is annoying, yes. It is irritating. He picks fights with me for no reason. He calls me a drunkard. He says I have the personality of a wet scroll. He once challenged me to a duel because I suggested he might want to visit a brothel. These are the things I complain about when you are here. These are the things I tell Father I cannot tolerate.

I was wrong. I was so wrong. I would take a hundred duels. I would take a thousand. I would let him call me a drunkard every day for the rest of my life if it meant he would stop looking at me like that.

He does not pick fights anymore. He does not call me boring. He does not challenge me to duels. Instead, he finds me. He finds me wherever I am hiding, and he sits beside me, and he asks me questions. Questions, Y/N. He wants to know about my day. He wants to know what I am drinking. He wants to know if I am happy. He has never asked me if I am happy. I did not think he knew the word.

Yesterday, he put his hand on my shoulder. He has never touched me voluntarily in his entire life unless it was to shove me. He put his hand on my shoulder and he said, "Daeron, do you think she misses me?" And his voice was so small, Y/N. I did not know his voice could be small. His voice is always loud. His voice is always demanding. His voice is the sound of something about to be set on fire. But yesterday, his voice was small, and I did not know what to do, so I lied. I told him of course you missed him. I told him you probably thought about him every day. I told him you would be back soon.

He smiled. He smiled, Y/N. It was not his normal smile, which is sharp and cruel and usually means someone is about to be humiliated. It was a real smile. A soft smile. A smile that made him look like he was not a menace to society but just a man who missed his wife. It was the most unsettling thing I have ever seen.

I want my brother back. I want the brother who calls me boring and challenges me to duels and sets things on fire. I want the brother who makes me want to throw things at his head. I do not want this brother. This brother makes me feel things. This brother makes me want to help him. This brother makes me want to be kind to him, and I do not know how to be kind to Aerion. I do not know how to be kind to someone who has spent our entire lives making kindness feel like a trap.

Please come back. I am begging you. Come back and restore him to his natural state so I can go back to hating him in peace.

Your good-brother,

Daeron Targaryen