Chapter Text
“I want our baby to live! I want our baby to live! I want our baby to live…”
Cersei sobbed with a heavy, pounding heart. Jaime closed his eyes, her desperate words felt like daggers in his chest. Hopelessly, he tried to remove some of the rocks blocking their escape route. Somewhere behind them, another part of the ceiling collapsed. Cersei screamed and Jaime rushed to her side, wrapping his arms around her.
“Don’t let me die, Jaime… please, please, don’t let me die! I don’t want to die… Not like this! Not like this… not like this… not like this… not…” Her voice broke.
“Look at me… look at –” But Cersei screamed again, a loud and sharp sound, terrified and terrifying at the same time. Her screech electrified him, awakening something within. Jaime let go of her and spoon around several times, scrutinising the surroundings. There had to be a way out! There had to be at least a way in which they could shelter from the falling rocks… somewhere safer than right underneath the high ceiling… a stronghold arch, a vault, any type of safe haven.
“Dragon bone! Dragon bone!” Jaime shouted aloud. He grabbed Cersei’s frail figure and manhandled her towards the collapsing corridor they’ve left behind not far before.
“What are you doing?” She cried while her brother pushed her towards certain death.
“The skulls! We’ll shelter in the damned dragon skulls!”
“We will not reach them…” Cersei sobbed, but hastened her pace, while the rocks continued falling all around. Jaime did not reply, focused on dodging death and protecting her. When they saw the skulls still standing, Cersei choked on her tears in relief and disbelief.
“Go! Go! Go!” Jaime pushed her, towards the biggest skull.
“NO!” She stopped him. “Not Balerion!”
“What?” Jaime asked confused, still pushing her towards it.
“No, no!” Cersei grabbed his arm and rushed him towards a smaller skull. “We’ve tested the scorpions on Balerion… it’s cracked, it won’t hold!”
Jaime nodded and they made their way towards the nearest skull, which was already barricaded by a layer of stones. They climbed over the rocks and tried to reach the back of the skull. The opening was cumbered, but not blocked. Jaime helped his sister crawl to safety, just as the earth around trembled – the ceiling collapsed on the skull of Balerion, crushing it to the ground.
“Jaime get inside! Get inside now!” Cersei begged. Jaime looked hopelessly at the Red Keep collapsing.
“JAIME!” Cersei sobbed desperately and that alone prompted him to move. He crawled inside the dragon skull and fell on his knees on the cold ground. Cersei, as well on her knees, was trembling with her back against one of the dragon’s jaws. The two of them barely fit within the narrow space and, for a long moment, all Jaime could think about was how it must have been the same inside their mother's womb.
With tears streaming down her face, with shock and horror in her emerald green eyes, Cersei opened her mouth to say something. When rocks began to rain on them, her words came out as screams. Jaime dragged her into his arms, and they hugged for dear life, on their knees, as the entirety of the Red Keep crumbled. The terrible noise made by rocks crashing on each other did nothing to him – nothing in comparison to how painfully maddening were the screams of his sister. Cersei the strong, the terrifying Lannister Queen… Cersei the hateful, the evil… the powerful, Cersei his twin, his lover, the mother of his children – Cersei was screaming in terror at the top of her lungs.
Jaime rocked her in a tight embrace, while kissing her forehead. His mind was running hundreds of miles per second, unable to make sense of the reality around him. Were they dying? Was the dragon skull holding? Were they being crushed by the falling sky? Was the earth going to swallow them? Was Brienne safe in Winterfell...
Jaime’s eyes flashed open at the thought of her. His heart ached and his grip on Cersei loosened at once. His sister's screams stopped as if on cue and complete darkness engulfed them. A deafening silence followed immediately after. The Keep had fully collapsed and they were trapped underneath its ruins.
Jaime’s senses became numb and time stood still for a long while.
After what felt like an eternity, he heard his sister whispering barely louder than the sound of their heartbeats: “Have we died?”
Jaime shook his head. Cersei could not see him, but she felt the motion and nodded. They did not speak, nor move until their bodies ached. Cersei’s knees gave up first and Jaime helped her turn around very slowly as if scared not to disturb the rocks layered atop the dragon skull. He sat on his bottom and carefully leaned on the dragon’s jaw, parting his legs and pulling his sister between them. She settled with her back on his chest, legs folded underneath. She stirred a couple of times to adjust as comfortably as the situation allowed and then she let her head fall back on his shoulder. Jaime’s left hand rested on her belly and rubbed her bump lovingly. When the baby kicked, Cersei started crying once again.
“Thank you, Jaime…” She whispered as the tears reached her mouth. Jaime pressed a kiss on her head. He felt the urge of crying as well, but bit his tongue instead. “Thank you so much for coming back…” She added though sobs. Jaime did not reply, but his fingers continued to caress her bump.
He came back because he had to! He came back because it was the right and honourable thing to do. He came back because it was his duty to try to save them – his sister, his child. Had he stayed safe in Winterfell when fire and blood were unleashed over King’s Landing, he would have never forgiven himself. His heart ached with the realisation that he would have lost Brienne either way… that there had never been a real chance at happiness for them, not while his sister was still alive, not while she was carrying his child.
Jaime closed his eyes and conjured Brienne's face in his mind. All he wanted was to see her beautiful sapphire eyes and her bashful smile one more time...
But the only image that came to him was that of her face covered in tears. All he could see was Brienne, his knight, the woman he'd grown to love in spite of himself, crying in a nightgown... all because of him. Jaime opened his eyes, but the image remained, for the darkness of his dragon-bone coffin was no different than the darkness found behind closed lids. He could no longer hold it in and tears came tumbling down his cheeks. A silent cry at first, but the longer Brienne's tear-stained face remained in his mind, the more his cry turned into muffled sobs. Cersei must have felt it, as his chest was panting against her back, but she let him have his release in peace, no questions asked, for she was still crying her own sorrow.
Jaime Lannister cried himself to sleep inside the skull of a long-dead dragon.