Alone. Just him and his twin. No Robert Baratheon grunting atop her in the dark. No Tywin Lannister sending ravens demanding duty. No oaths, no white cloaks, no sneering lords calling him Kingslayer behind his back. Just the two of them, free to love each other under the warm sun of Essos. It was the sweetest, most intoxicating thought he had ever entertained.
Yes, Jaime thought, his heart soaring. We can finally be free.
But then, his gaze drifted back to the bundle resting against Cersei's breast.
The burgundy eyes were still watching him. Unblinking. Knowing.
The fantasy shattered like brittle glass. If they took this child with them, they were taking the apocalypse in their luggage. A monster like that would not stay hidden in a quiet keep in Pentos. He would draw blood, war, and death wherever he went. If he truly was the Gods' punishment for their incest, running across the Narrow Sea would not save them from his blade.
An unpredictable threat needs to be removed, Jaime calculated coldly, the ruthless pragmatism of Tywin Lannister finally surfacing through his panic. We must sever the rot before we flee.
"Ok... ok, Cersei," Jaime said, his voice softening, stepping closer to the bed. "We will go. I swear it to you by the old gods and the new. We will take a ship from the Blackwater before the moon turns. We will go and live far away, just you and I, and Jeyne and Myrcella."
Cersei's pale face flushed with a rush of genuine joy. A breathtaking, radiant smile broke through her tears as she envisioned the happy, golden future he was painting.
"But..." Jaime continued, his tone dropping into a grim, fatalistic whisper. "We cannot take the blight with us. We must leave the shadows behind." He gestured toward the child.
"Let us silence that boy first. A pillow over the face... the Maester will say it was a sudden crib death, a tragedy of a difficult birth. No one will question it. And then, my love, we will be free."
The silence that followed was not fragile. It was the deafening silence of a vacuum right before a horrific explosion.
Cersei's radiant smile froze, then shattered into a million jagged pieces.
For a moment, she simply stared at him, unable to comprehend the sheer, monumental audacity of what he had just suggested. Murder her divine gift? Smother the godling she had just torn her body apart to bring into the world?
The vulnerability vanished. The romantic fantasy burned to ash.
"You..." Cersei breathed, the sound rattling in her throat like a death rattle.
She pushed herself up from the pillows, heedless of the agonizing pain in her lower body. Her face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated hatred.
"Jaime Lannister!" she shrieked, the sound so piercing and violent it seemed to rattle the very stones of Maegor's Holdfast. "You speak of death for my boy?! You dare plot the murder of the Prince in my own bed?!"
She grabbed a heavy silver goblet from the bedside table and hurled it at his head. Jaime dodged, the goblet smashing against the stone wall, spilling dark arbor gold like blood across the floor.
"You bastard knight!" Cersei screamed, her voice cracking with feral hysteria. "You are no lion! You are a coward! A frightened, sniveling little boy hiding behind white armor! Get out! Get out of my sight before I have the guards rip you apart!"
She tried to reach for another object to throw, but her body had reached its absolute limit. The physical toll of the grueling labor, combined with the explosive surge of adrenaline and fury, finally broke her. She collapsed back against the headboard, heaving deep, ragged breaths, her face deathly pale, a sheen of cold sweat breaking out on her forehead.
Jaime stood frozen, terror gripping his spine. He wasn't afraid of the goblet, and he wasn't afraid of the Kingsguard outside.
He was trembling because of the look in her eyes.
It was a look of absolute, irredeemable madness. It was the same look he had seen in Aerys Targaryen's eyes when the Mad King ordered the pyromancers to burn the city. But this was infinitely worse, because it was Cersei. He had stepped on the tail of a forbidden, sleeping dragon, and he had nearly been incinerated.
If he said another word against that boy, he knew with terrifying certainty that she would make good on her threats. She would use all her authority, all her cunning, and her unparalleled manipulation of the men in power to destroy him. Worse than death, she would completely cut him off. She would bar him from her bed, from her presence, and from her heart forever. To Jaime Lannister, a life without Cersei's intimacy was a void worse than the mountain of corpses he had seen in his vision.
Thank the Gods for Maegor the Cruel, Jaime thought frantically, his mind racing. The walls of the Holdfast were famously thick, built to hide the screams of Maegor's tortured victims. The guards outside likely heard nothing but muffled shouts, indistinguishable from the pains of the afterbirth.
He had to fix this. Now.
Swallowing his pride, his fear, and the lingering horrors of his vision, Jaime quickly stepped forward. He moved cautiously, hands raised, broadcasting total surrender.
"Cersei, please. I am sorry," Jaime murmured, his voice adopting the soothing, apologetic cadence of a whipped hound.
He reached the edge of the bed and slowly, carefully extended his hands. When she did not immediately try to claw his eyes out, he gently placed his fingers on her tense, rigid shoulders. He began to massage the knotted muscles, moving his thumbs in slow, rhythmic circles up to her temples, trying to physically knead the murderous tension from her body.
Cersei's face remained a mask of serious, cold, unforgiving stone. She glared at the wall, her breathing still harsh and shallow.
"Ah, forgive me for that, Cersei," Jaime whispered, leaning in close so she could feel the warmth of his breath against her ear. He layered the lie thick and sweet, burying his terror beneath a veneer of absolute devotion. "I was a fool. The exhaustion of the night, the fear of losing you to the labor... it made me mad. I will not talk of that again. I swear it."
He gently stroked her forehead, pushing the damp, golden hair away from her face.
"Yes... yes, you are right," Jaime continued, forcing himself to look at the infant, pushing down the bile that rose in his throat. "Our child is divine. He is a Lannister lion with the strength of a god. He will bring fortune to our house, and he will be the greatest king Westeros has ever seen. I see it now."
He kissed her temple, a soft, lingering touch.
"Just... take deep breaths, my love," he murmured soothingly, feeling the slight, begrudging relaxation of her muscles beneath his hands. "Relax... you have just achieved the greatest triumph of our lives. You just got out from a terrible delivery. You need your strength. Just relax."