you’ve got your demons (darlin’ they all look like me)

by geralehane

Summary:

Rhaenyra reincarnates, over and over again. 

Chapter 1

The first time it happens, she doesn’t quite understand it. The first time it happens, she thinks she’s either gone to the heavens or mad or both - surely, there’s no other way she could’ve escaped the imminent demise waiting for her between Sunfyre’s jaws. 

 

She doesn’t remember the physical pain. For that, at least, she’s grateful, as she lays in the sunny summer field and fails to come to any conclusion of her whereabouts. 

 

“Rhaenyra!” A voice calls out; achingly familiar, younger than she remembers. “What are you doing, lounging around? I need eggs!” 

 

She sits up. Behind her, there is a small house. Tiny, compared to the Red Keep. On the doorstep of the house, there’s a figure in a simple dress. 

 

Rhaenyra exhales, shakily. Just as shakily, climbs to her feet, and stares at the figure without a word. 

 

“Well?” Aemma descends from the doorstep, puts her hands on her hips - smiling an exasperated sort of smile all gentle mothers share. “Did the heat get to you, child?” 

 

Her smile disappears the very next second as Rhaenyra takes a small, wobbly step forward, collapses to her knees, and weeps. 

 

---

 

All the times after that, she gets reborn rather than getting transported into an adult body. She’s not sure which one she prefers. She’s not sure she prefers this at all. Sometimes, as she lies awake and the memories of all the past lives flash through her mind - she thinks she’d prefer for it to truly end. Yet, most of the time - when she re-meets her mother, and father, and gets to live the life they never were allowed - most of the time, she thanks the Gods for granting her this. 

 

Every life she lives is different. The time periods, the places, the people; her parents are pretty much the only constants throughout her never ending journey. 

 

Daemon isn’t always there. When he is, he’s different each time, too. 

 

She doesn’t allow herself to fall for him, in any of the lives. He never seems to display that kind of interest in her, either. And with the times changing, it wouldn’t be right - and with the amount of lives she’s steadily collecting, she’s more inclined to accept the notion of right and wrong. The dragons were above it. But she’s no longer a dragon. 

 

In one of her earlier lives, she meets Harwin. They spend the rest of that life in the south of Italy, drinking wine and swimming in the sea and enjoying the long, lazy weekends. She gets to meet her sons all over again, and watch them grow into brilliant young men, with beautiful families of their own. 

 

“Thank you,” she tells Harwin, at the end of it, as she lays in their bed and he’s sitting beside her, holding her hand. Her boys have already said their goodbyes. Tearful and heart wrenching as they were, she’s relieved it’s her who’s leaving first, not the other way around.  “Thank you for staying with me this time.” 

 

He smiles. It’s sad, and wistful, and perfectly understanding. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I know I’m not what you’re searching for. But I hope I was able to give you a moment of peace, if nothing else.”

 

Rhaenyra frowns. “What do you mean?” 

 

He’s still smiling, and it’s still sad. But despite the wrinkles and hair whiter than hers, he suddenly looks young. “It’s been a good life,” he whispers. “May you find her in the next one.” 

 

“Harwin–” she says, and fades. 

 

---

 

Next time she meets Harwin, they are at a bar in Chicago and she’s an heiress to the Targaryen fortune. When she tries to ask him about his past lives, he only gives her a blank stare and offers to buy her a drink, his words only slightly slurred. 

 

His wolfish grin, later that night, tells her she won’t see him again. 

 

Strangely, the next morning, she’s perfectly at peace with it. In that life, it’s just her and Jace, and in that life, it’s enough. 

 

---

 

She’s not really counting the lives that pass - doesn’t see any point in it. She’s not trying to figure it out, either. When it ends, it ends; while it doesn’t, she lives. While she lives, she makes sure she bonds with her father, and spends as much time as possible with her mother. Sometimes, Harwin is there. They never move past good friends. 

 

Sometimes, she meets someone; wonders if they were part of her Queensguard, or the smallfolk, or a member of some noble house that she’s never met. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. She has sex and falls in love and marries and has children - sometimes they resemble her sons from the very first life, and sometimes they don’t, and she loves them all the same. 

 

Her first life - that of Rhaenyra Targaryen, the Black Queen, the Maegor with tits, she thinks sometimes with a self-deprecating smirk - never fades away, not completely, but it’s hard to keep every memory of every life; and so, some things remain and some things grow to be echoes. All the untimely deaths, of her mother and father and husbands and children are still deep in her bones, but healed with new memories of them - alive and healthy and happy. 

 

Yet, one echo festers, somewhere underneath her heart. 

 

She’s noticed - of course, she’s noticed, would have to be blind or comatose not to. She’s never allowed herself to look, to wonder, but she’s noticed. 

 

Alicent is never there. 

 

Countless lives, quite literally - and she’s never been in one of them except for the dragon. Rhaenyra nicknamed her very first life that, after realising that was the only one where their beloved beasts existed. Ironically enough, that was the only one, so far, that had Alicent in it. 

 

(Gods ’ cruellest joke, Rhaenyra thinks once, just once, drunk out of her mind and alone in her spacious apartment - giving her everything except for the two things that made her her.)

 

May you find her in the next, Harwin has told her all those lives ago. Why would he say that? Why would he wish that upon her?

 

(How did he know?) 

 

It’s a warm day in the south of France when Rhaenyra is forced to shutter the walls she’s put up around the only memory she doesn’t allow herself to have. 

 

She’s on her way to her favourite bakery - it’s been a particularly successful week at work, and she’s eager to treat herself to a croissant or two - when she sees something that makes her heart squeeze, painfully and pitifully, in her chest.

 

A flash of auburn. A delicate slope of neck and shoulder, covered with a thin strap of a blue sundress. Hands - lovely, soft hands, not a bloodied nail in sight - putting two lemon cakes away, into a brown paper bag. 

 

She can’t see anything else - can’t feel anything else except for the drum of her heartbeat in her ears as she rushes inside, to grasp, to yell, and hold and demand - where have you been this whole time? Why have you – why haven’t you –

 

The woman turns, before she can do any of that. She’s as startled as the bakery owner behind the counter, and she’s staring at her with big blue eyes - and oh, there's never been a colour more wrong.

 

It’s not Alicent. 

 

For the second time since this all began, Rhaenyra slides to her knees and lets the tears fall. 

 

---

 

Irrevocably, everything changes. 

 

For the next several months, Alicent is everywhere. She sees her in the passing stranger, on a movie poster, in coffee shops and bars and windows. Every time she runs after her, it’s not her  - of course it isn’t. 

 

And every Alicent Hightower she manages to track down is the wrong one.

 

For the next several months, Rhaenyra thinks she’s finally going mad. Trying to drown her in wine and scotch only makes it worse; leads to hazy, incomprehensible dreams where the auburn slips right through her fingers. Drugs are pretty much the same.

 

(One time, cross-faded at a party, she stumbles home with a redhead whose name she doesn’t remember - and it doesn’t matter. All that matters is her hair and her - finally, finally, Rhaenyra thinks hazily, painfully - big brown eyes. 

 

The next morning, she wakes up to the wrong face and half-contemplates walking out of the window. 

 

“You must really love her,” the unfamiliar woman says quietly, just before she leaves. “I hope this Alicent girl works out for you in the end.”

 

Rhaenyra grins an unpleasant grin. “She’s dead.”

 

The door gets slammed in the woman’s stunned face, and Rhaenyra drinks herself back to sleep.)

 

Her entire family is deeply worried. Makes perfect sense - over the course of mere weeks, she’s gone off the rails completely and absolutely. 

 

She contemplates speeding up her exit, but what does it matter? If Alicent hasn’t shown up in the previous lives, what makes her think she’ll be in the next? She’s met pretty much everyone so far, except for her. Perhaps, some people don’t progress to this. 

 

Her parents are at the door again. She’s been avoiding them, hiding in the hotel rooms, but they’ve managed to track her down several times. She’s largely ignored their shouts and pleas - even her mother’s shattered expression. Today, she’s finally numb enough to silently open the door and let them in. 

 

Aemma takes one look at her and quietly crumbles. “Oh, my darling girl,” she whispers, taking her face in her hands, smiling for the first time in weeks when Rhaenyra doesn’t push her off. “Will you tell us, please. Will you tell us what’s the matter?” 

 

Behind her, Viserys looms, unsure and grief-stricken himself; Rhaenyra thinks back to the dragon, to the broken shell of a man who broke the only girl she’s ever loved, to an Aemma who wasn’t there to cradle her face like this when she lost Alicent for the first time; to the soft curls and the rose-scented oils and the torn page of a book. 

 

(She never came to see me die.)

 

“She’s not here,” she chokes out, then. “I can’t find her, mum - she’s not… She’s gone. ”

 

“Oh, Rhaenyra,” Viserys says, surprise evident in his face, while her mother holds her up and helps her to the chair. “All this because of a woman?” 

 

---

 

She gets her act together. Over the next couple of timelines, she researches, chasing any lead, no matter how small. 

 

She finds nothing. 

 

Yes, many cultures and religions speak of rebirth. She meets with people who claim to be the same as her. They are of no use, and none of them remember the dragon. Somehow, she feels it’s important. 

 

The years pass, and so do the lives, and she feels utterly, inescapably alone. 

 

At one point or the other, she tries therapy. She can’t tell the entire truth, of course - unless she wants to be locked up. But it’s still nice - to have someone to talk to about the things she can’t bring up with friends and family. The therapists are, understandably, concerned about some of the things, but the doctor-patient confidentiality and the steady - ridiculously high - income she brings in certainly help. 

 

She does, however, come to enjoy the imperceptible twitch of an eye whenever she tells them of her dead love whose son murdered her son and was killed by her uncle-husband in retaliation. 

 

“Moving on is a slow, painful process,” one of the therapists tells her. “But it can be done.” 

 

Rhaenyra blinks. “I don’t want to move on from her,” she says. 

 

“No?” The woman raises her brow. “Then, forgive me for asking, but why are you here?” 

 

She shrugs. “To talk. To…” she glances at her own hand, wishing there was the crumple of yellowed paper to hold onto. “To remember her.”

 

The therapist shakes her head. “Forgive me for being blunt, Ms Targaryen, but I do think moving on would be the healthiest thing for you to do. You’ve been through some… rather traumatic events, and most of them are heavily connected to the memory of your childhood friend–” 

 

“Love,” Rhaenyra corrects. “She was my love.” 

 

“Not all love is healthy,” the therapist tries, and Rhaenyra rises to her feet. 

 

“No. Much less the one that wasn’t allowed to become.” 

 

She doesn’t come back to that therapist. 

 

---

 

It is in therapy, however, that she finds her answer. 

 

One day, she enters the office of yet another one, and by the rapid, terrified widening of his eyes, she knows he knows . 

 

She’s locked the door and is grasping him by the collar of a crisp white shirt faster than he can squeak. “Who are you?” She growls, shaking him for good measure. 

 

The man gulps. “Bowen, Your Grace,” he stutters, fully giving himself away. “Bowen, I am – I was a guard, Your Grace, after… after everything.” 

 

“In the Red Keep?” She asks, dumbly, for some reason unknown even to her. 

 

“Yes, I - I guarded The Queen’s, I mean – I mean The Dowager Queen’s - Maegor’s Holdfast, Your Grace, I…”

 

“Alicent,” she croaks out. “You guarded Alicent.” 

 

The guard - Bowen - adjusts his shirt as she releases him and slowly sits on the couch. “I served your son, Your Grace,” he says quietly. 

 

Aegon. Her sweet Aegon, a boy - a king, then. 

 

She swallows. “Tell me everything at once.” 

 

---

 

Once he’s done, she doesn’t quite know what to do with it. 

 

Her blood sat on the throne, united with Alicent’s, at last. At least one of her boys survived. The Greens lost. 

 

And Alicent spent the rest of her life imprisoned and lonely, before dying of Winter Fever. Alone. 

 

“Has anyone tried to harm her?” Rhaenyra demands as Bowen speaks, and he shakes his head. 

 

“No. No one has ever tried, and we were there to prevent it. She was treated like the Dowager Queen should be, only - you know. She was never allowed to leave.”

 

Oh, she thinks. Alicent. Darling, brave, poor Alicent.  

 

“Tell me more of them,” she whispers. “Of my son, and of her. Please.” 

 

Bowen gives her a shaky smile - unsure, but sympathetic. “Of course, Your Grace.” 

 

“Rhaenyra,” she says. “It’s just Rhaenyra. I haven’t been a queen for a long time.” 

 

He laughs, weakly. “Even several decades wouldn’t strip you of the title, Your Grace,” he says, and - oh . 

 

She lifts her head, already pierced with a half-hunch, and stares at him. “Decades,” she says. “Bowen, how many lives have you lived?” 

 

The man blinks. “Lives,” he states more than asks. “I - one? This one? I woke up as this Bowen, about ten years ago. You’ve lived multiple lives?” 

 

If anything, her previous countless travels in search of truth - and every sci-fi piece of media ever produced - have taught her that time could and would, in fact, move differently in different universes. 

 

“When did you die?” she asks, as the cogs in her head turn. “Back in the dragon - Gods, in your first life, when did you die - before or after Alicent?” 

 

His gaze is already filled with realisation as he thinks back to it. “Around the same time,” he whispers, amazed. “Winter Fever has swept through the castle - The Queen and I, we fell ill around the same time since we shared a space - I think she passed a day before me.” 

 

In her brain, something swiftly, surely locks into place.

 

“Time moves differently,” she murmurs, “across different universes, and so…” 

 

“You’ve never met Alicent because she still hasn’t crossed over,” Bowen finishes for her, fascinated. “Just like I didn’t. She must have, now; it’s her first one, too. Oh, Your Grace - do you understand what that means?” He springs to his feet, together with Rhaenyra who doesn’t seem to be paying any mind to him at all. 

 

Bowen, meanwhile, grabs his phone, then puts it away, grabs his notebook, walks in circles. 

 

“I mean, aren’t we proving the string theory or something like that simply by existing? We should write it all down, we need to call the Royal Society – Your Grace?” He finally looks back, at the couch. There’s no one there, and the door is wide open. 

 

“Well,” he grumbles, walking back to his chair and sitting on it. “I suppose it can wait, then. Gods - did she pay in advance for this session?”

Notes:

not me starting another fic while 'lay me down' and TTDS are laying there withering and dying (im working on updates for both of them i promise)

this one's gonna be only two chapters though so hopefully it doesn't take me ages to finish this. in the next chapter, we get so much alicent you guys. i cant wait yall

Chapter 2

Rhaenyra doesn’t sleep, and barely eats, as she searches the world for Alicent Hightower. 

 

Surprisingly enough, there are plenty of people with that name. Googling by herself doesn’t help; she gives up around the hundredth page and promptly calls her uncle. 

 

“Rhaenyra,” comes Daemon’s surprised voice. “It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it? Is everything okay?” 

 

“Yes,” she replies impatiently, before forcing herself to let out a steadying breath. In this life, they aren’t quite close - but Daemon is the Deputy Commissioner, and has a web of connections she doesn’t possess. “Everything’s fine, uncle - I just need help finding someone.”

 

Gods - what if she’s in a different country? On a different continent?  

 

Doesn’t matter, Rhaenyra decides. She’ll find her. 

 

“Are you in trouble?” Daemon immediately asks. 

 

“No, I’m not - could you just help me with this? I just need a reliable private detective. It’s nothing illegal.” 

 

Daemon stays silent, and she caves, with a huff. “Fine. It’s… It’s about a woman, okay? I need to find her. I…” She pauses, thinking over her next words and just what exactly she can tell Daemon without sounding completely batshit, but her uncle’s cackling stops her. 

 

“ Oh, ” he drawls, sounding positively delighted. “Could’ve led with that, niece. Of course I’ll help you. As long as you promise to not kidnap her or do something equally weird.” 

 

“I’m not going to–” 

 

“I only jest,” Daemon cuts her off, with a laugh. “Don’t worry your pretty blonde head - I’ll call a friend, you won’t find a man better suited for this. I’ll put him in contact with you.” 

 

Daemon’s friend calls her shortly afterwards. Perfectly polite and precise, he asks her several questions about the person of interest , mostly regarding her background and appearance. 

 

“Alicent Hightower,” she says, and spells it out for him. “Um, auburn hair, brown eyes, slim build. She… she has dimples.” Rhaenyra swallows. Closes her eyes. “I’m not sure what she does for a living now.” 

 

She used to be The Queen of Westeros, if that’ll help.

 

After jotting down all of the information she’s able to provide, the detective lets her know he’ll be in touch. She somehow doubts she’ll hear back from him soon. 

 

In two hours, he calls her back to announce he’s forwarded the files of the women who fit her description. Turns out there are only three auburn-haired Alicent Hightowers in all of Britain. 

 

“We’ll keep looking, if it’s not her,” the detective tells her, as she hurries to click his e-mail open. “You’ve mentioned you’re not sure whether she’s still in the country - I have connections in the States and in Europe. I have to say, one of these Alicents was particularly hard to come by - she’s not on social media at all, it was by chance–” 

 

Rhaenyra feels her lips twist in misplaced - fond - amusement. “It’s her,” she breathes out, not even needing to ask whether that was her Alicent who was leading the life of a digital hermit. “Of course it’s her.” 

 

“Which one?” 

 

She skims her file, and her wry grin grows. “The one in Oldham,” she says, shaking her head. Oldham. Oldtown. Of course. 

 

The gods exist, and they love a good laugh. 

 

“Oh, that is her,” the detective tells her, unnecessarily. “The hardest to find, and she’s in the first batch - must be fate.”

 

Rhaenyra studies the picture in the file, greedily, hungrily , fingers pressed to her laptop screen. It’s a tad bleary, and there’s an arm of an unknown man around her shoulders - they found it, she wagers, on someone else’s profile - but the person in the photo is unmistakably Alicent . 

 

“Must be,” she whispers. “Absolutely must be.” 

 

---

 

Bowen is politely listening to yet another one of Annett’s monologues about a yet another man she’s currently chasing when the door bursts open and The Black Queen strides in, all regal fury and sharp coat lapels.

 

He has to suppress the urge to bow. “Your Gr– Ms Targaryen ,” he chides, glancing at Annett who only blinks back. “I’m in the middle of a session - you cannot simply break in like that. Please schedule an appointment with my –” 

 

“She ran away,” the dragon queen states, in a colourless tone. “She saw me, and she ran away.” With that, she slowly sits down on the couch next to a gobsmacked Annett, and stares ahead as the first tear slides down her unmoving cheek. 

 

Bowen blinks. Sighs. Looks at his client. “My apologies. Truly. But I must tend to this. You won’t be charged for today, and I would love to offer an additional session for free.”

 

---

 

The former guard helps a little. But still, he helps. 

“You have to understand, Your Grace - it’s all so fresh in her mind. She probably didn’t know what to do.” 

 

“She looked terrified ,” Rhaenyra says, gravely. “She must think - oh, I’m such a moron . Bowen, she must think it’s my first life, too. I haven’t even thought of that. How have I not thought of that?” 

 

The man nods, with a wince. “If she does think so,” he says, as gently as he can, “she must think you’re looking for revenge. Last she heard of you, her son was feeding you to his dragon.” 

 

“Oh Gods ,” Rhaenyra groans, rubbing her face. “Knowing Alicent, she’s halfway across the world right now. Or plotting her revenge against me,” she snorts, with a grim smirk. 

 

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that last one, Your Grace,” Bowen says, carefully. “I’ve heard, from the former guards, that she’s collapsed, to her knees, and wailed - just as you were put to death.” He looks around, swallowing, before continuing. “We all thought she was a tad – psychic, perhaps. They say she felt you die.” 

 

Rhaenyra certainly would’ve said that wasn’t possible if she weren’t currently seated in the office of Alicent’s reincarnated guard, discussing how to approach her former arch nemesis with a love confession. “But - why?” She still asks. 

 

“Who knows? Look at us and where we all are,” Bowen shrugs, echoing her thoughts. “And does it matter? What matters is that she cried . For you. Her son was on the throne. At that point in time, The Greens had won the war. And yet, The Green Queen had wept.”

 

Rhaenyra buries her head in her hands, unmoving as she thinks everything over. “What do I do now?” She says, then. 

 

Bowen shoots her a sympathetic look. “Assuming she hasn’t fled the country, you try again. Less aggressively this time, perhaps.” 

 

That earns him the infamous Targaryen glare.

 

---

 

Alicent hasn’t fled. And so, she does try again. 

 

An e-mail isn’t quite as tangible or - fine, romantic - as she may have preferred, but it’s not as ominous as a physical letter would’ve been perceived by someone like The Dowager Queen, and it’s not as intimidating as a call. Rhaenyra settles for that, and tries to not make it too long. She tells Alicent she’s lived for almost a thousand years now. She tells her how sorry she is for everything that’s happened between them. She tells her how she’s missed her. She asks her - begs her for a meeting, in a place as public as she wants. 

 

Alicent’s reply comes three days later, and makes Rhaenyra wish she had cornered her instead of starting this nonsense correspondence. 

 

I can’t , she reads on the screen, over and over until her eyes hurt; keeps hearing it long into the night, the long-forgotten memory of the first of Alicent’s rejections burning through her chest. 

 

I can’t, a terrified girl of ten and three stammers and pushes her away, leaving her with the taste of her mouth as she runs after her furious mother. 

 

Rhaenyra screams out in frustration, and punches her pillow, and marches to the kitchen for a drink of her entire fucking bar. 

 

---

 

“I don’t understand, Bowen. I simply don’t.” 

 

“Neither do I,” the former guard admits. “But, unfortunately, we don’t always have to understand in order to accept. She’s clearly communicated her wishes. I’m sorry.”

 

“You said she cried for me. The guards must have been wrong about that one.” Rhaenyra’s lips twist in a wry grin. “She hated me then, and she still hates me now. I’ve spent centuries dreaming of someone who’ll never want me.”

 

“You can’t assume that, either,” Bowen tells her. “We can never truly know what the other person is thinking or feeling, until they tell us - and even then.” 

 

“You know,” Rhaenyra grumbles, “it’s moments like this when I really miss Syrax.”

 

Bowen gives her a look. She sighs. “Sorry.” 

 

“She says she can’t. That’s alright. Let her know you’ll still be here when she can .” 

 

“And if that never happens?” 

 

The man hums. Puts his notebook away and leans forward, elbows on his knees, as he looks her in the eye. “Then, you keep going,” he says, quietly. “And I’ll help you, Your Grace, as much as I can.” 

 

“Rhaenyra,” she says, swallowing the salt on her lips. “I told you, Bowen. It’s just Rhaenyra.” 

 

---

 

It takes Alicent two more lifetimes. Both of these, they run into each other by pure chance. 

 

On the street, the first time - Rhaenyra is exiting a pub and Alicent is going in, and they stare at each other for a small eternity before Rhaenyra nods, with a smile and a softly murmured find me whenever you’re ready as she leaves. 

 

In a public library, of all places, the second time - Alicent is the same graceful, comely girl on the cusp of womanhood, and Rhaenyra has to grip at the insides of her leather jacket’s pockets so she doesn’t try to do something idiotic, like hug her. 

 

“Hello—“ she starts, and doesn’t get to finish before Alicent charges at her, almost furious - and so lovely in her rage. 

 

“How do you keep doing that?” she demands. 

 

Rhaenyra takes a step back. Lifts two placating palms up. “I’m not doing anything. It’s the gods.” 

 

Alicent scoffs. “You don’t believe in the gods,” she points out. Rhaenyra just stares. She almost forgot how lithe a young Alicent was. 

 

She only stops when the taller girl shifts on her feet and hugs her bulky books close to her chest, clearly uncomfortable. “I didn’t,” she confirms. “But you have to agree this isn’t quite man-made. So it’s either the gods, or fate — or, I read about this quantum entanglement thing a life ago…” 

 

“You’re not seriously proposing we’re photonic soulmates, are you,” Alicent snorts, but relaxes just enough for Rhaenyra to be able to breathe again. 

 

“Ah,” she quirks a cocky brow. “But you’ve read about it, too.” 

 

Alicent doesn’t confirm it. Doesn’t deny it, either; and she doesn’t miss the way those lips curl, just a little, when Rhaenyra adjusts her beanie and stuffs her hands in the pockets of her jeans. 

 

They are silent for a beat before Alicent speaks again. “It’s so weird,” she says, quietly. 

 

Rhaenyra grins. “Which part?” She quips, and brown eyes give a perfect roll before Alicent sobers up again. 

 

“Just - you. Seeing you like this. Still so young, and in those clothes.” The taller girl gives her a quick, discreet onceover that doesn’t escape Rhaenyra’s notice. 

 

She wants to say so many things, in that moment, as they stand there - two girls older than old, stuck in a loop outside of their comprehension. But Alicent’s face isn’t etched with sad lines of her sorrow yet, and she’s not running away from her yet , and in her simple sweater and her simple jeans, she’s still the most beautiful human being Rhaenyra’s ever met in a thousand years. 

 

And so, she shoots her a faux-indignant glare, and huffs through a barely concealed grin. “What’s so wrong with my clothes?” She demands. 

 

It’s like flying on dragonback for the first time - seeing Alicent’s tentative, shaky, amused ghost of a smile. “Rhaenyra,” she says. “You look like a commoner. Your dresses used to have gold threads in them. What is this hat?” 

 

“It’s a beanie, ” she grumbles, adjusting it again. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know this. You’ve been alive twice now, in here.” 

 

Alicent swallows, as her pretty almost-smile fades. Inwardly, Rhaenyra curses. “I have been,” the girl says, slowly. “I… I’m still getting the hang of it, if I can be frank with you.” 

 

“You can,” she says - Gods, talk about keen - and stuffs her hands in her jacket pockets again, forcing a nonchalant shrug. “It’s been a bit rough the first couple of times for me, too. You get sort of used to it, after a while.” 

 

“Do you?” Alicent says, clearly doubtful, and Rhaenyra chews on her lip before reaching out with her hand, her palm up.

 

“May I?” She asks, gesturing at one of Alicent’s books. And, once the girl slowly gives one of the heavy tomes to her, she wastes no time in cracking it open and tearing out the last, mostly empty, page. 

 

Alicent’s short gasp is both horrified and outraged. “Rhaenyra!” she hisses, looking back at the librarian who’s nowhere to be found. 

 

She waves her hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell them it was me. I can risk a ban,” she smirks up at the now blushing girl as she quickly scribbles her number and her e-mail down onto the torn page. 

 

“When you get banned from a public library, you get banned from all of them,” Alicent points out, exasperated. That makes Rhaenyra pause. 

 

“Really?” 

 

Alicent huffs. “I - yes?” At Rhaenyra’s questioning glance, she huffs again. “My father told me that,” she says, and immediately freezes. 

 

Otto Hightower, the fucking twat, still standing between them across lifetimes. There are a lot of things Rhaenyra regrets, when it comes to Alicent. Slaughtering her cunt of a father is not one of them. She’ll apologise for not feeling sorry, but not for the act itself. 

 

She holds Alicent’s gaze as she gives her the page with her details on it. “He’s not someone whose word I’d take for anything,” she says, truthfully. “ You are. Not him.” 

 

Alicent swallows, breaking eye contact first as she looks at the torn page. “You’re quite sentimental,” she chooses to say. Then, seemingly steeling herself, she lifts her gaze to meet Rhaenyra’s. “I gave him that page in the hopes that it’ll stop the impending bloodshed. I hoped, like a fool…” she shakes her head, swallowing her tears; Rhaenyra’s afraid to breathe as she waits for her to continue. “But - Gods, Rhaenyra. I gave him that page hoping it’ll be enough to convince him to start by offering you terms, instead of murdering you in cold blood, like he wanted from the beginning.” 

 

Rhaenyra frowns. That’s not something she was aware of, before. Then again, whenever she’d visit The Queen In Chains, they’d only end up exchanging barbs and accusations. 

 

(Alicent of the past has never quite forgiven her for the death of her only daughter. Rhaenyra of the past has never quite accepted she’s the one to blame for it. 

 

How do they ever move past it all?)

 

“The last life,” Alicent continues, with a sniffle, “I left as soon as I turned eighteen. I had to work two jobs and take night classes. I’ve never been happier, I think.” 

 

Rhaenyra wants to say she’s happy for her, but the words are lodged somewhere in her throat. How can she be happy for her? When every time Rhaenyra meets her loving parents all over again, her love is reborn into the family of that vile man? 

 

“My mother is divorcing him, this time,” Alicent says, as if reading her thoughts. “I’m leaving with her. And she is – much less devout , in here. This is the life I’m grateful for the most, so far.” 

 

Rhaenyra has to smile at that. “So far,” she echoes. “An apt choice of words.” 

 

For a while, they are silent. Rhaenyra spends that time drinking Alicent in as discreetly as she can, trying her hardest not to spook her, but unable to look away. And Alicent - Alicent keeps glancing between the piece of paper and Rhaenyra’s face, and somewhere in the depth of those doe eyes, she finally finds hope . 

 

“Whenever you’re ready,” Rhaenyra whispers to her as they part, with a nod at the paper, and a second later, Alicent nods back. 

 

---

 

The gods exist, and they are cruel. 

 

In this life, Rhaenyra doesn’t make it to Alicent. A truck runs the red light, and her car just happens to be the one in its way. 

 

She almost doesn’t feel anything, as she bleeds out. Only the ever-present longing - so familiar it’s a part of her, now - as she looks at the shattered screen of her phone, where a text from Alicent is, indecipherable behind the shards. 

 

---

 

It’s taken Alicent two lifetimes - and two of Rhaenyra’s untimely deaths - to be the one to seek her out first. 

 

Rhaenyra wakes, gasping, in the new bed of her new life, and a mere day later, there’s a new follower and a message on her Instagram. 

 

‘ It’s Alicent,’ the text from a newly created nonsensically named account reads. ‘ I’m in London, and it seems like you are, too. Meet me here tonight.’ 

 

The next text is an address of a pub that seems both secluded and public enough - Alicent is still as careful as ever, and Rhaenyra can’t exactly fault her for it. Although if she were truly after revenge, she could argue she would’ve sought it a long time ago. But, at the very least, they’ll finally talk. 

 

Rhaenyra’s extra careful on her way over. 

 

She spots the auburn curls first, and then the woman herself, tucked into the furthest booth. Alicent is stunning even under the dim lightning of a pub, even with the shadows under her eyes and the sad lines back on her yet again grown-up face. 

 

Alicent pauses in her measured sip as their eyes meet. Rhaenyra can’t think of anything better than a nod at her pint. “Always thought you were more of a wine drinker,” she says, sliding into the booth across from her. “Then again, drinking ale would be unbecoming, for a woman of your station.” 

 

The former Queen snorts as she takes another, bigger sip. “Don’t worry, Your Grace,” she says, neutrally. “I drink plenty of wine, too.” 

 

Coming from her , the title hurts. Rhaenyra swallows it, much like most of her pride when it comes to this woman. 

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it last time,” she chooses to say, instead. “I - there was an accident, and I… I exited . To this one.” 

 

Alicent gulps more of her beer. “I know,” she says, softer, after a second of silence. “I searched for you, when you didn’t come. I went to your funeral.” Her eyes grow hazy with a distant memory, for a fraction of a second. “I went to your grave every day before I ended up here. They didn’t let me, you know. Before .” 

 

“Oh,” Rhaenyra says, because what else is there to say? “I’m sorry,” she offers. 

 

“Yeah,” Alicent says, with a hollow laugh. “Yeah, so am I.” 

 

In the last years of her life, Bowen says in her memory, Queen Alicent came to dislike the colour green.

 

“It’s interesting,” Rhaenyra starts when it becomes clear Alicent isn’t going to add anything more. “This time I woke up in this fully adult body, just yesterday. That only happened once, the first time I crossed over from the dragon - the very first life,” she clarifies when Alicent purses her lips in confusion. “From our original universe, I suppose.” 

 

Alicent mercifully ignores her ridiculous name for it. “So the other times you wake up in the body of a newborn?” She asks, sounding actually curious. 

 

“Well - not quite like that,” Rhaenyra grimaces as she tries to come up with the words to explain it. “I’m not an adult stuck in a child’s body. I simply get reborn, and gradually remember my past lives as I grow older. It’s really — a surprisingly gentle process. By around fifteen, I usually remember most of it.” 

 

Alicent nods. “Right. Same as I, then. It was like that the second and the third time, too. Not this one, however. It felt like I was… yanked out of the last one and put here. I ‘exited’ to here only five days after you passed in the previous one. I woke up today,” she clarifies, to Rhaenyra’s increasingly confused frown. 

 

“Yanked out,” she repeats, slowly. “Interesting.”

 

“So you’ve said,” Alicent deadpans, with another sip of her beer. 

 

She sighs. “Let me get one of these, as well.”

 

---

 

They get really pissed, for the lack of a better word. 

 

She’s never seen Alicent this drunk. Never been this drunk around Alicent, either. Dornish wine has nothing on bourbon. 

 

“One of my most favourite,” Rhaenyra muses Alicent’s question, restlessly twisting the rings on her fingers. “Each time I had my boys. I also quite enjoy the ones with the Targaryen business empire,” she grins, almost sloppily. “All of the fortune and only half the pressure.” 

 

“Of course you do,” Alicent jeers - yet not unkindly. 

 

Rhaenyra almost mentions the fact that Alicent herself is a - very - highborn lady, and some of it must’ve bled into her lives, but then thinks better of it. She doesn’t want to bring up Otto, which will inevitably bring up all the betrayals and the hurt and - she doesn’t want that yet. Not right now, when Alicent is sitting across from her with the prettiest blush on her cheeks, eyes twinkling with alcohol and curiosity. 

 

She clears her throat before polishing off the rest of her drink - a mistake, she’ll learn later. “What’s your favourite thing, then? About all of this?” 

 

“Showers,” Alicent immediately says, and Rhaenyra laughs, and laughs, until she starts to hiccup. 

 

---

 

She wakes on Alicent’s couch, fully clothed and with a massive hangover. 

 

“Remind me to never drink with you again,” the woman in question mutters as she passes her. A cold bottle of water is dumped in her lap, unceremoniously; she grunts as it lands, and when she lifts her eyes, she finds Alicent already dressed for the day, her gaze scrutinising as she looks Rhaenyra over. “You look dreadful.”

 

You don’t, Rhaenyra wants to tell her, as she feels her heartbeat in her throat. You’ve never looked anything other than beautiful a day in your life, not even in chains, not even with clothes torn and grime on your face.  

 

She doesn’t. Instead, she stares. She does that a lot around Alicent, she’s noticed. So has Alicent, and it’s clear she doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

 

“Gods, Rhaenyra,” she sighs, and starts walking to what Rhaenyra assumes is her bedroom. “Would you stop looking at me like a puppy and get up? I need to go to work. I’m assuming you don’t.” She reemerges, wearing a blazer to accompany her pencil skirt. 

 

Rhaenyra takes a huge gulp of her water. “I’m not a puppy,” she says. 

 

Alicent shoots her an exasperated glance as she puts on her modest heels. “I have to go, and I’m not leaving you alone in my flat,” she tells her, and Rhaenyra can’t refrain from rolling her eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. 

 

“Really, Alicent,” she says, with a shake of her head, and slowly stands up. “What do you think I would do if left unsupervised? Cut holes in your socks? Move every piece of furniture an inch to the left?” 

 

She doesn’t even try to hold back a bark of laughter at the genuine fear flashing through brown eyes. 

 

“If I wanted revenge, I would’ve made my move the first time we met again,” she points out. “I may be many things, but being patient isn’t one of them. You know that, Alicent.” 

 

The woman exhales. Picks at her nails, just once, before clasping her hands and clearing her throat. “You’ve been patient with me,” she says, then - quiet and almost unsure for the first time since their reconnection. “Why is that? We’ve–” Alicent cuts herself off, with a disbelieving scoff and a shake of her head. “Gods, Rhaenyra, the amount of hurt we’ve caused to each other is enough to last an eternity - the things I’ve done to you, the things you had done to my children, to my…” 

 

They both know, in the silence that follows, the name Alicent can’t bring herself to say. 

 

It’s Rhaenyra who breaks it first. “I’ve thought so, too. Before . We’ve hurt each other too much, too deep. For the longest time, I blocked every memory of you I could. But it’s easy to claim you’ll never get over things until you’re faced with actual eternity,” she grins. “I’ve had over a thousand years to sit with this, Alicent. I’ve met my children so many times now. Everyone this senseless war took from me, I got back. Oh - I also had several lifetimes of therapy.” 

 

At that, Alicent lets out an involuntary laugh, and Rhaenyra grins with her. 

 

“Well,” the former Queen says. “What do you know. Rhaenyra Targaryen, finally a woman grown. You’d have to mature at some point after a thousand years, I suppose.”

 

Rhaenyra easily ignores the jab, having accepted Alicent’s defence mechanisms long ago. “Well,” she says, in kind. “You’ve only had a couple of centuries, and you’re still here.” 

 

“I do own this flat,” Alicent deadpans. “I’m also about to be late for work.” 

 

“Alicent.” 

 

The woman sighs. “What do you want from me, Rhaenyra?” 

 

“The same thing you wanted from me,” she says. “For you to tell me why you stuck around.” She thinks she knows the answer. She hopes she knows the answer. 

 

Alicent throws her hand in the air, incredulous, helpless. “Isn’t it obvious, you – you nitwit ?” At Rhaenyra’s badly concealed, surprised smirk, she huffs. “Gods. I stood at your grave , Rhaenyra - not the one I should’ve clawed my way to, but your grave , nonetheless. Just before we could meet again, on our terms, you were taken from me.” Rhaenyra’s no longer smiling as she watches the former Queen swallow slow, silent tears. “I spent three years locked in a room, but those five days were the longest days of my entire life. Every second, I wondered if I lost my second chance forever. Just because I was scared, and stubborn, I – I lost you, again.” 

 

The confession takes all of her remaining strength, it seems. Alicent closes her eyes, sags back against the wall, and quietly weeps. 

 

When Rhaenyra holds her, somehow, she lets her. 

 

---

 

It’s a tentative sort of life that they lead, this one. 

 

Rhaenyra wishes, quite desperately at times, that they could find Bowen in this life, too, for the most extreme form of couple’s therapy known to any of the worlds. But they are on their own, and it’s up to them to untangle their mess. 

 

They really, really try. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. 

 

Alicent tells her of Aemond’s worst wrongdoing - begs her to understand, almost. 

 

“He never planned it. None of us did. It didn’t matter, back then, but - I’d like to think it matters now.” 

 

“It does,” Rhaenyra tells her, through the echo of the pain she carries to this day. “It does.” 

 

She apologises, over and over, for abandoning her, a girl, a child , out of her misdirected rage. 

 

“I never should have left you,” she says. “You never had a choice, and I - I never should have left.” 

 

“You shouldn’t have,” Alicent whispers. “But you’re here now.” 

 

(Rhaenyra makes the mistake of uttering Helaena’s name once. Alicent silently walks out and doesn’t speak to her for a month.)

 

---

 

They are hammered , again, when their tentative truce takes the inevitable turn. 

 

“Why’d you lie to me,” Alicent demands, putting her scotch on the coffee table, nearly missing. “That day, about Daemon, and Criston - why did you lie to me? You fucked him,” she spits, disgusted. 

 

Rhaenyra has her fair share of grievances to take with Alicent over this. 

 

“Why were you so mad over it?” She fires back. “I was an heir , don’t you understand? You were the King’s wife . I had to lie - you didn’t have to go so – friends lie to each other all the time about it, what made this so fucking special? Oh - I think I know why, Your Grace, ” she sneers. Remembers, suddenly, the way it felt when Alicent saved him, took him in - remembers how much she hated seeing them together, Criston trailing after the Queen like a reverent puppy. “Tell me, did you fuck him? Did he warm your widowed bed during the war, then? Did he get to taste that sweet regal cunt of yours–”

 

Alicent slaps her. Hard. She relishes in it, just a little. Stumbles back, and laughs, loud and unreserved. 

 

“Fuck you, Rhaenyra,” Alicent tells her, very seriously, just before she grabs the back of her neck and smashes their lips together, making her taste blood.

 

---

 

She wakes up alone. There’s a hasty note on her bedside table. 

 

Don’t look for me, it says. Then, as an afterthought, under the words, a scribbled please . 

 

She tries her phone, just for the hell of it. The line is dead.

 

---

 

They meet a lifetime later - Alicent is a vision in her white sundress and her shades as she basks in the sun above the Aegean sea, its rays caressing her relaxed face. 

 

Rhaenyra’s already wearing a lopsided smile as she sits across from her, on a small terrasse of this small tavern. 

 

“Didn’t I tell you not to look for me?” the former Queen muses, with no malice. She still hasn’t looked at her, but Rhaenyra doesn’t mind. 

 

“I wasn’t,” she tells her, with a chuckle. “I’m on vacation.” 

 

Full lips curl in a smile. “So am I.” 

 

It’s hard not to kiss her - when she knows exactly how she tastes, all of her. Thankfully, Alicent makes that choice for her, later, in the hotel room after their idle catch-up. 

 

“I’m sorry I left that night,” she whispers to her, well into the night, as Rhaenyra is still trying to recover from their latest round. “I simply couldn’t stay. I - I’m better now.” 

 

“Oh,” Rhaenyra murmurs back, her breathing finally level enough to speak. “Haven’t I told you, my love?” She says, cupping Alicent’s cheek with her hand, running a soft thumb across when brown eyes widen, glisten at the term of endearment. “Whenever you’re ready.” 

 

---

 

Alicent is in therapy. It’s not Bowen, and she doesn’t know of their unique predicament, but she still agrees to start going together, as well. They have small breakthroughs and occasional breakdowns, but with time, they manage better and better. 

 

In this lifetime, they greet their old age by the sea, hand in hand; Alicent no longer caring who could see them. It reminds her of another lifetime, aeons ago - the one with Harwin and her boys in the Italian summer. At the thought, she smiles. 

 

How right you were, old friend, she muses to herself, as she lifts Alicent’s weathered hand to her aged lips. I’ve found her, now.  

 

There’s only one thing that’s been missing. They’ll get to it in the next, Rhaenyra hopes, as she glances at Alicent’s stomach. 

 

---

 

The next time they meet, they are children. It makes things both easier and more complicated. The memories are there, but hazy, ebbing and flowing as far as a child’s mind can handle. They take to each other as quickly as they did in their old world, and Rhaenyra knows she loves Alicent way before all of her memories grow back and make sense. 

 

It does mean, of course, that Alicent has to re-meet her ex-husband, still alive in this one. Viserys is nothing but welcoming, right from the start; encouraging their growing friendship and their growing feelings, loving Alicent like a second daughter. 

 

Alicent starts avoiding him once she turns fifteen. 

 

“Tell me if it’s too hard for you,” Rhaenyra tells her, then, one night. “And we won’t ever see him again.”

 

“ Rhaenyra ,” her friend - her girlfriend, by now - chides. “You can’t abandon your father because of me.” 

 

“I’m perfectly capable of deciding what I can and can’t do,” she snorts, but Alicent won’t budge. 

 

“I won’t stand between you and your father again—” She starts, full of confident self-righteousness, before Rhaenyra cuts her off. 

 

“Well I’m choosing you this time!” She yells. 

 

For almost a minute after her outburst, Alicent is quiet. And a minute, despite having lived hundreds of lives, is still a very, very long time under certain circumstances. 

 

Alicent’s hand, warm and soft, finds hers. “Okay,” she whispers, placatingly; only then Rhaenyra realises she’s shaking. “It’s okay, my love. It’s alright.” 

 

Over the course of several slow years, Alicent warms up to Viserys again. He never quite understands what happened - wonders, sometimes, when Alicent is either not there or not within earshot, what he could’ve possibly done to offend her back in the day. In the end, he’s just happy it seems to have passed.

 

She quite likes this life, in the end. Alicent is her first everything, and she is Alicent’s. They get to enjoy the longest journey they’ve ever been on together; her love is bone-deep, and there’s a piece of Alicent’s soul, she thinks sometimes, where her heart should be. 

 

It’s only at the talk of having children of their own that Alicent baulks.

 

“ Why would I ever want to be a mother again, Rhaenyra?” 

 

It’s the worst fight they’ve ever had. She doesn’t bring it up again.

 

---

 

One of their lives, she walks into the office of her therapist and sees, in his rapidly widening eyes, a flash of relieved recognition. 

 

“Good Lord in heaven,” her old friend, from lifetimes ago, drawls in a different accent, and she cries , freely, into their tight hug. “If it ain’t the dragon queen herself.” 

 

“Bowen,” she laughs, through tears. “Didn’t I tell you? It’s the bitch queen.” 

 

They laugh, and cry, and laugh; he shows her pictures of his husband - a tall drink of iced tea, thank you very much - and their two children. 

 

“Never married in our old world,” he tells her. “For obvious reasons, much like your first husband Prince Laenor, may he rest in peace. Or - you and Lady Alicent. Gosh, we’re really just a bunch of queers, aren’t we?” 

 

“My dearest friend,” she tells him, with a smile. “That’s exactly who I want you to meet.”

 

She was right, all those years ago, when she so desperately wished for Bowen to be in their lives. With him as their therapist, there’s much more progress this time around. 

 

“He was kind to me,” Alicent tells her, once. “He’d bring me books, and extra cake. We never spoke - he would’ve lost his head. But, he was kind to me.” 

 

With Bowen, they can finally discuss Helaena. It takes them several sessions. Alicent runs away for two weeks, in-between. 

 

“Will you ever forgive me for that?” Rhaenyra pleads, in the end. They are all cried out, and whenever Daemon’s name is mentioned, Alicent spits venom. 

 

(In all of their lives together, she’s never once talked to him, and Rhaenyra never asked.)

 

“Will you?” She begs. She has to know. Because if she won’t - then there might not be a way for them to– 

 

Alicent - her darling, brave, tired Alicent - looks at her, then. 

 

“Don’t you understand?” she whispers. “I have , Rhaenyra. A long time ago, I’ve forgiven you, and I hate myself all the more for it. What kind of a mother am I, then - to forgive something like that?”

 

---

 

She’s not so sure the gods truly do exist; whether the ones of Old Valyria or the despised Seven that took so much from her in the dragon . But there is something , and that something is clearly listening. And in the end, that something strives to make it right. 

 

Once more, they wake up in a new life as adults - tangled in bed together, Alicent’s back to Rhaenyra’s front. Finding Alicent’s hand, pressing a drowsy kiss to the nape of her neck is an instinct by now. An inherent sort of impulse. 

 

She relishes the quiet hums of her love as she kisses her awake. “Good heavens,” Alicent murmurs into her lips as they part, in that wonderfully rich voice of hers, still husky with sleep. “I think I’m a corporate lawyer.” 

 

Rhaenyra laughs; before she can make any clever quip, the sound of tiny footsteps and, subsequently, a tiny body barrelling right between them stops her in her tracks. 

 

Over the blonde mane of a young Aemond, startled brown eyes lock with hers, and she remembers the rest of this life they haven’t quite lived. They are married. They have a son. 

 

“Happy Mother’s Day, mummy, mama,” Aemond babbles. 

 

As Alicent silently deposits the confused boy into Rhaenyra’s arms and hurries to the bathroom, she remembers another detail over the sound of her wife’s retching. 

 

Soon, they’ll be the mothers of two. 

 

---

 

“I can’t fucking do this, Rhaenyra,” her wife hisses to her, in the hallway, while their son is busy with his toys. Rhaenyra still has a hard time taking her eyes off of him. She barely remembers him young. In the dragon, she’s never approached any of her half-siblings. If she’s being frank, almost all of them grew up to be all sorts of twats, with the exception of sweet, poor Helaena, driven to madness because of her . 

 

But this boy. So small, and so bright; from the distance, he looks just like her Aegon. His features aren’t quite the ones he had before : he’s not her father’s son in here, after all, and she suspects he’ll look only barely similar to the previous version of himself, save for the silver blonde of his hair. Still, it’s him : and he’s part Alicent.

 

“Rhaenyra? Are you even listening to me?” 

 

She swallows, forcing herself to look away from Alicent’s son and meet her wife’s panicked stare. 

 

Our son, she thinks. He’s our son, here. My son.

 

Her gaze drops to Alicent’s still-flat stomach, and her hands are the softest they’ve ever been when she reaches out to hold her waist. “My love,” she whispers. “It’s alright. I promise you it’s alright.” 

 

“I can’t,” Alicent chokes out, still allowing herself to melt into her. “I can’t do this all over again, I…” 

 

“Again?” Rhaenyra leans back, just a touch, to look at her. “It’s not again. It’s anew.” 

 

This time, I won’t leave. 

 

---

 

She gives birth to a girl. 

 

“Helaena,” she murmurs, as soon as the baby is bundled up and placed in her arms, under Rhaenyra’s awed gaze. “My sweet. Oh, how I’ve missed you, my love.” 

 

Their daughter, already fast asleep, doesn’t flinch as Alicent runs a finger down her cheek. 

 

Alicent holds her for a long, long while, as she maps out every little detail of her red, wrinkled tiny face with a tender gaze. Rhaenyra sits near them, silently, one hand squeezing and caressing Alicent’s shoulder and the other supporting the arms that hold their little Helaena, shielding them both. 

 

Her beloved doe eyes finally look up at her after a small, peaceful eternity. “Would you like to hold her?” Alicent asks, gently; and something deep inside Rhaenyra’s chest finally, truly heals . 

 

“You’re mine,” she whispers to the sleeping bundle in her arms. “Just like your mummy, you’re mine, and I’m yours.” 

 

---

 

They re-meet all of their children, eventually. 

 

Each time they get reborn, their paths cross at one point or the other; and as soon as they meet again, the world becomes sharper, makes so much more sense. 

 

The love of my lives , Alicent greets her. 

 

My soul, Rhaenyra greets her back. 

 

Each time they meet again, it’s different. Rhaenyra always has her parents, and Alicent always has her mother; there are some lives, she’s astonished to find, where Otto Hightower isn’t a complete prick, as well. 

 

Sometimes, they meet Bowen. He either remembers them or doesn’t; in any scenario, he becomes their dearest friend. 

 

One life, Rhaenyra gives birth to a daughter they thought to be a son. It’s a particularly difficult labour, and by the end of it they are both too exhausted and shocked to do anything more than hold her and stare. 

 

“It’s her,” Rhaenyra whispers, then. “It’s her, Alicent. My girl. My Visenya.” 

 

Alicent holds them both, and together with her wife, she cries. 

 

---

 

“You aren’t tired of me yet, are you?” Rhaenyra asks her, at some point. They’ve been through dozens of lives together; sometimes, she’s worried Alicent is growing sick of her.

 

From where she lounges beside their pool, engrossed in a new book, her wife shoots her a lazy glance. “I could never tire of you, annoyingly enough,” she tells her. Then, as she puts her book away and takes off her glasses: “come, my love.” 

 

Their children are all gone for the summer: Jace and Aegon have gone to a university program for a month, Luke is at space camp and Aemond is on a week-long fishing trip. It’s just them, and so Rhaenyra allows herself the luxury of settling right between her wife’s shapely thighs as she takes her beckoning hand, stretching out on top of her with a small sigh. 

 

Alicent’s blunt nails scratch at her lower back, gently. “Why do you ask?” 

 

She shrugs. “It’s been, what? Over twenty lives, by now?” 

 

A quick finger taps the bridge of her nose - one of her loveliest features, Alicent claims - before running down her cheek, settling on her chin. “Twenty three,” she tells Rhaenyra. “This is the twenty-fourth. The next one is an anniversary, of sorts. I don’t count the first two.” 

 

She simply stares at her. “You keep count?” 

 

“It’s also been sixteen hundred and fifty three years,” Alicent continues, as if not having heard her at all. “Would you like to know the amount of days?”

 

“You count the days ?!” Rhaenyra almost yells, as she sits back on her haunches and watches Alicent with wide eyes.

 

Her wife gives her a slow, amused smile. “I’m not that psychotic,” she says. “It’s nice to know you think I am, my dear heart.” 

 

She blinks. “So the years…”

 

“Oh, no, that was real,” Alicent says. “I keep count. You see, there is this woman who I’m very much in love with - quite perfect for me, actually, and so hot it’s ridiculous . Every life I get, I get to meet her. Every year I have with her is precious. So,” she shrugs, sitting up so she can put her arms on Rhaenyra’s shoulders, around her neck. “I like to keep count, to know somewhat exactly just how many I’ve had with her.” 

 

For what might be the first time in all of her lives, Rhaenyra is speechless. 

 

“So no, my love,” Alicent says. “I am not tired of you yet . Each time I have with you might be the last. We don’t quite understand how this works, still, and it doesn’t matter. If this one is to be the last, I’ll be content, having spent all of these lives with you. But I’d very much like, and hope, to spend just as much, and more.” Dark eyes, calm and sure and twinkling with mischief and the summer sun, study her. “Are you growing tired of me yet, then?” 

 

She squeals, with surprised delight, as Rhaenyra takes her into her arms and swiftly stands up, already pressing a smiling kiss to her lips. “No way in seven hells,” she murmurs. “Allow me to demonstrate just how not tired I am of you, my dear wife.” 

 

“Thank Gods for summer activities,” Alicent murmurs back, laughingly, and clings to Rhaenyra as she carries her towards their blissfully empty house. 

 

If this one is to be the last, Rhaenyra thinks, then and later and in every new one, just let me love you with all that I have - the way you love me. 

 

And so, she does.

Notes:

this monster of a chapter (by my 3k-words-a-piece standards) kicked my ass and yet i wanted to write so much more. i love them in this verse. i love them so fucking much. i'm gonna go cry now thanks