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Anger curdles her blood, sparks up and down her nerves, pricks and plucks at her skin until the fine pale hairs on her arms stand on end.
She nearly welcomes it; after so much numbness, so much defeat, it’s something of a relief to discover that she can still feel and recognize rage.
The Queen had smiled at her- that strained, saccharine smile- and asked (but she wasn’t asking, not really; it was an order, not a request), “Will you watch over him, little dove?”
And there was no point in protest, no point in argument.
And so she sits here in the dark, in this stifling chamber, the fetid smell of rotting flesh thick in the air, stewing in her own fury.
She’s furious at the Queen for entrusting this task to her; she may be a Stark, may be the daughter of one traitor and the sister of another, but Cersei obviously believes that she’s sufficiently broken Sansa, that she’s turned her into a pliant little puppet who wouldn’t dream of executing a vulnerable Jaime Lannister to avenge her family.
She’s furious at the Kingslayer for returning home, damaged but alive, courtesy of her mother’s mercy (her mother, dead now, dead like all the others...). She watches him sleep, his skin hot with fever, a clammy sweat breaking on his brow; her lips curve into a grimacing smile as she imagines holding a pillow over his face until his breaths fail- it would be so easy -
But most of all, she’s furious with herself...because she knows that she will never do it. Perhaps Cersei is right, perhaps she hasn’t the stomach for vengeance, perhaps she is just a weak little fool who’s no real threat to anyone...
Jaime stirs in his sleep and kicks the coverlets from his bed. He immediately begins to shiver, and Sansa, propelled by some instinct, rises to retrieve the blanket-
But then she reminds herself to stay in place. She watches him convulse, listens to the chattering of his teeth, and the rage that pickles her insides gives way to a dull sensation that almost resembles satisfaction.
But it isn’t nearly enough, and that only angers her more.
The next morning, Sansa rises from her chair by the bed, muscles stiff and tense, eyes red from lack of sleep. She makes for the door, intending to return to the Maidenvault, but is unceremoniously steered back into the sickroom by the guard in the corridor.
She stands to the side now and watches that peculiar Qyburn unwrap the bandages from what once was Ser Jaime’s sword-hand.
(Maester Pycelle had taken one look at the blackening flesh before relinquishing its care to Qyburn; Sansa could not help but wonder how one so squeamish ever rose to the rank of Grand Maester.)
When Qyburn pulls the last strip of cloth away from Jaime’s arm, he furrows his brow with concern. But the reaction from the apprentice loaned by Pycelle and the pair of nursemaids proves far more dramatic; one girl begins to retch, the other cries out, and the young man immediately pulls his cloak up over his nose.
And it is vile, the dead skin dark with rot and oozing with a putrid pus. But while the girl Sansa once was would have screamed and fled from the room, whatever creature she has become just stares with morbid fascination. The uselessness of the decaying skin and destroyed tissue mesmerizes her- we are none of us more than bags of flesh and bone and blood.
Qyburn hands a jar of salve to his apprentice and instructs the boy to rub it on the stump while he fetches his bag of tools. After the old man leaves, the apprentice dips his fingers into the jar and gingerly flicks a bit on the moldering flesh. The nursemaids watch with disgust and pity in their eyes; the boy still wears his cloak over his face, and he stares determinedly down at the ground even as his fingers hover over Jaime’s arm.
Sansa is not sure what possesses her next. But somehow, the unwillingness of these people to look human suffering full in the face repulses her, and she cannot stand it another moment. She crosses the room and abruptly wrenches the jar from the apprentice, ordering him out of the chair and sitting down herself. He scuttles over to where the nursemaids stand, in the farthest corner of the room, but that is not nearly far enough for Sansa. In a tone far ruder than any she can remember using before, she commands them all to leave. And they do, with an eagerness that appalls her still further.
The stench of the wound pushes aggressively into her nostrils, but she forces herself to keep her face still. She spreads the cooling salve on her fingers, and after a single moment of hesitation, she massages it into the blunt end of Jaime’s arm. The sweet, herbal scent of the salve only heightens the terrible smell lingering in the room, but she carries on until the jar is nearly empty and the stump glistens.
When Qyburn returns, tools in hand, he does not inquire after the whereabouts of his assistant or the nursemaids. He only smiles at Sansa, a queer smile that she isn’t sure she likes, and offers his thanks.
Ser Jaime awakens a day later, still flushed and weakened, but lucid enough. He spends the afternoon in silence, watching as Qyburn tends to his wound, glancing up with something like hope in his eyes whenever the chamber door opens, and then looking away with the same crestfallen frown each time.
When he notices Sansa, still and silent in her chair, he tries and fails to sit upright. His eyes are full with something that she neither understands nor recognizes, and he begins to speak in a weak rasp.
“My lady-”
But then he stops. Perhaps it would be the kind thing, the courteous thing, to return the greeting and invite him to continue. But Sansa keeps quiet, blue eyes focused in an unblinking stare, until he turns away from her.
When she leaves the room for a moment to fetch new linens (she forbade the return of the insipid maidservants after she caught one of them vomiting into a vase), Sansa comes upon the lady knight of Tarth, hovering in the doorway of the antechamber.
“Lady Sansa...”
Sansa breathes deeply through her nose in an attempt to keep her eyes from rolling and her face from pinching. She’s gone out of her way to avoid Brienne, because she cannot bear the way the Maid of Tarth looks at her, wide blue eyes filled with misty apology. She does not know the particulars of Brienne’s relationship with her mother, only that there’d been a vow made that would provide for Sansa’s safety, a vow sworn by both Brienne and the Kingslayer.
(After the lady knight shared this information, Sansa had gone to her chambers and laughed until her abdomen ached, then cried until she nearly drowned in tears and mucus. Mother should have known better, she should have known that they would never release me, she should have known not to trust a Lannister. )
“Lady Brienne.” Sansa nods her head to the knight before attempting to pass, but Brienne still holds in the doorway.
“Is he...is he well, my lady?”
“He’s awake, if that’s what you mean.”
“May I see him?”
This surprises Sansa enough to halt her movement. She’s grown used to answering questions about the Kingslayer’s health, but the inquirers are unfailingly satisfied to take her word for truth before hastening from the stale chamber. Only Lady Brienne has expressed any interest in visiting with Ser Jaime, and Sansa cannot help the little flicker of admiration that softens her expression and dissolves most of her annoyance.
“I’m sure he’ll be grateful for the company.”
When she opens the door to Jaime’s sickroom, he whips his head up like he always does, green eyes bright with longing. A bit of the usual disappointment darkens his gaze when he recognizes Brienne, but he manages a wan smile, which grows fuller when the Maid of Tarth comes to sit beside him, never once recoiling from the noxious odor that seeps out from beneath the bandages.
Of course, the woman is a fool for caring whether a Lannister lives or dies- if she doesn’t know it yet, she’s sure to learn it soon. And yet there’s something oddly winsome about this hulking beast of a woman, with her sweet eyes and gentle voice. When Sansa exits the room, leaving Brienne and Jaime to their hushed conversation, she shakes her head with bewilderment- but then she catches a glimpse of her face in a nearby mirror and is startled to see her lips stretched into something almost like a smile.
The fever returns the next night, seizing Jaime with greater force than ever before. The delirium consumes him completely; he thrashes and shivers and sweats and screams, and Sansa looks on in horror and fascination when he begins to weep.
She dips a cloth in cool water and hesitantly dabs at his glistening brow. Too lost in his fever to offer any thanks or exhibit any shame, he just continues to sob, tears mingling with perspiration to dampen his thick golden beard.
It’s repulsive and macabre, watching a man like the Kingslayer cry like a child; she feels at once ashamed of and vindicated by the disgust that twists her stomach.
His sobs quiet, but his mouth keeps moving, shaping the same word again and again. He cannot articulate, but his lips contract, then stretch, over and over, more grotesque each time. Sansa leans closer in a sudden fit of curiosity, but it isn’t until he exhales that she realizes what he’s been trying to say-
“Cersei. Cersei.”
She understands now. She understands the hopeful glances at the door, the pall of sadness that would settle over him each time. And she knows that this comprehension should alienate her more- the rumors about them are true, then...
But although she’ll never fathom the relationship between the Lannister twins, Sansa knows better than anyone what it is to be alone, what it is to yearn for loved ones only to find them gone, only to find oneself abandoned.
And so she forces herself to remain beside him, applying the cold compress with one hand while the thumb of the other trails beneath his eyes, clearing away the sticky remnants of tears. She wipes and soothes and gentles, and she hates herself for smiling when he clasps her hand tight before drifting into a shallow sleep.
The compress seems to be working; his skin cools, and Sansa feels reasonably sure that he’ll sleep through the night. But she stays at his bedside all the same, holding his hand as she stares out the eastern window, waiting for the dawn.
“How does he fare?”
The Queen asks the question in an unnervingly casual tone, not even troubling to place down her wine carafe and look at Sansa.
“His arm is healing. Most of the rot is gone...Maester Qyburn says that the pus is wholesome now...”
At the reminder of her brother’s festering wound, Cersei purses her lips and inhales deeply through her nose. Sansa knows that it may not be appropriate to speak so candidly of the graphic details, but a part of her dearly wishes to continue, to see how far she can push, how much the Queen can take.
It is this desire that prompts her next comment. Her tone is too blunt, her volume too loud, but she cannot hold the words back:
“He’s been asking for you.”
Cersei flicks her gaze upward to fix the girl with a cutting glare. But she says nothing, and Sansa proceeds,
“He calls out for you in his sleep...he wants you there, he wants to see you-”
A loud clang echoes through the chamber as Cersei slams down the carafe. “That’s enough,” she hisses before turning on her heel and sweeping from the room. For half a moment, Sansa thinks that she might be heading to the sickroom. But then she turns a corner and stalks off in the opposite direction.
Cersei does not come to Jaime that night, or the night after that, or the night after that.
Sansa devises her plan on the morning of the fifth day. There’s a red brand on her hand from Jaime’s grip; he’d squeezed it so tight in his sleep that she felt the bones grind together. And then the tears returned, coupling with mucus to flow into his mouth and nostrils. When he started to choke, Sansa immediately slipped behind him and held him upright, letting him rest his head on her chest and mopping his cheeks and brow with the cool cloths.
(She saved his life without a second thought, his life that, by all rights, is hers to take...)
It’s the exhaustion , she tells herself enough that she can nearly believe it. Were she fully-rested and of her right mind, she’d never feel this sort of sympathy, this care for mercy.
(Mercy, like her mother’s, like her father’s...)
She slips away from the sickroom long enough to steal into the Queen Regent’s chambers while she is otherwise occupied. She’s anxious, glancing at the door every other moment, muscles taut and heart pounding. And yet her hands move quickly and deftly, slipping into the cushioned drawer and withdrawing a vial of fragrance, which she hides in the folds of her dress until night descends and she is left alone with the Kingslayer.
When he begins to murmur and thrash- as she knew he would, as he always does- Sansa uncorks the bottle and applies a bit of the lemon-and-rosewater essence to her pulse points. She stands beside the bed, breath bated as she waits.
Only a moment passes before he stills his movement and relaxes his muscles. And then a smile, radiant and beautiful, spreads across his lips as he breathes a blissful sigh:
“Cersei.”
The light from the candle is dim, but Sansa can tell that while his eyes are open, he cannot truly see; there is a glassiness to the green irises, and the pupils do not dilate. All the better, she thinks, stepping forward and placing her soft, fragranced hand in his.
“It’s me. I’m here.”
(She finds it easy to replicate Cersei’s pitch and timbre; after all, hadn’t she spent hours in front of her looking glass, trying to mimic the Queen’s posture, her gestures, her soft smile and sweet voice? The memory stings now, mocking and brutal, but she pushes it aside.)
He tries to reach for her with his right arm, but she places a hand on the crook of his elbow and pushes the bandaged stump down. But when she leans over him to guide his right arm back into its sling, he releases her hand and wraps his left arm around her waist. She loses her balance and leans heavily on the mattress, but he continues to pull until she lies on her side next to him.
“Cersei.” Jaime buries his face in her neck and nuzzles; she feels a peculiar thrumming in her heart, but she reminds herself to remain focused-
“Yes.” She gently runs her fingers through his short golden hair, just as she’s seen Cersei do to Tommen (as she saw her mother do to Bran and Rickon...).
“Don’t leave me.” He utters the words in a low purr as he trails hot kisses up and down the side of her neck. Panic seizes her, and she fears she’s gone too far. But she can feel him still smiling against the thin skin of her throat. He may be an abominable creature, but he needs her, is wholly at her mercy, and she cannot deny the pleasure that comes from that thought.
She continues to stroke his hair as he sucks bright marks into her white neck. His skin still burns, and she tries to turn away enough to reach for the compress. But then he swings his right arm again, his face twisting with frustration when he cannot remove it from the sling. She abandons her task and returns her attention to him, and he wastes no time before burying his left hand in her hair and pulling her face down until he can capture her lips.
The ferocity of his kiss nearly frightens her; she knows only Joffrey’s fat lips and groping hands. And then, of course, there was Sandor...but even he never kissed her like this, like a drowning man gasping for air, so desperate and immediate and full of want.
The implications repulse her, of course- he thinks I’m the Queen, he thinks I’m his sister. But when she looks at him, sick and weak and sallow though he is, she sees gold and green, the scraps of girlish dreams long torn asunder, an ache that has yet to disappear. Her anger, her hate- they provide little succor, next-to-no relief. She cannot explain it, but there is great comfort in holding this lion in her arms, in knowing that in this moment, at this time, she alone can soothe his pain.
A cold sweat soaks through the thin fabric of Jaime’s tunic. Qyburn insists that this is healthy, that he’s sweating out the ill humors, but she fears that the dampness will bring a chill. And so she peels the tunic from his chest and eases it over his shoulders until his torso is bare. Crisscrosses of pale scars over taut muscles, bones more visible and prominent than they should be- she reaches for the compress again, only to be thwarted once more. Jaime drapes her over his body, flush against his bare skin.
“Don’t leave me.” His voice rumbles low in his chest; she can feel it against the soft skin of her cheek.
She turns her head just enough to press a soft kiss over his heart. Inexplicable tears sting at her eyes when she whispers into his skin-
“Never.”
He holds her there, his left arm unyielding as steel, as his breaths become slower and fuller. When he finally succumbs to sleep, the beautiful smile lingering on his lips, Sansa lets the tears flow. They mingle with the slick of sweat to wet Jaime’s chest, and she rubs her cheek into the dampness. Ill humors, siphoned out and cast aside, leaving behind the fledgling hope of healing.
She knows not when she fell asleep. But when she opens her eyes, the yellow light of dawn fills the room. Sansa starts, only to find that Jaime’s arm still holds her in place. Assuming that he must still be asleep, she tries to carefully extricate herself from his grasp- but then she glances up at his face. Emerald eyes stare back at her, wide-open and fully alert.
Jaime blinks at her- once, twice, three times. Something unfathomable lurks in his expression, and Sansa’s mind begins to race immediately, trying and failing to think of anything to say.
He speaks first. “It was you, then. It was you the whole time.”
Absurdly, her first instinct is to apologize. And yet her lips refuse to shape the words.
She lifts her head from his chest and dips it up and down in a slow nod.
Sansa expects to meet the usual disappointment in his eyes, perhaps coupled with anger. And yet his gaze reminds her of nothing so much as Brienne’s limpid looks of penitence. The sight irks her, and she stirs restlessly beneath his arm. But then she notices something else, something that nearly resembles appreciation...perhaps even gratitude.
But he still says nothing. Perhaps “thank you” sticks in his throat, just as “I’m sorry” sticks in hers...
She shifts more aggressively, looking away from him as she mumbles something about leaving the chamber to fetch Qyburn so that he might inspect Jaime’s bandages.
Jaime moves his arm, but just long enough to slip his hand into her hair and draw her face close.
“It’s early yet,” he whispers, holding her head in such a way that she has no choice but to look him in the eye. “You don’t have to-”
He pauses, his throat moving with a laborious swallow. Every muscle in Sansa’s body itches to move, to get out, to get away while she still has the fortitude to keep her heart hardened and her sympathies in check.
Jaime murmurs, almost too quietly to discern-
“Don’t leave.”
And although the memory will disgust her later, will fill her with rage and set her to screaming into her pillow at night, she finds that she can forget about Stark and Lannister and wars and betrayal and fear and enmity. She does not know Jaime Lannister, does not know the infamous Kingslayer, the golden son of her family’s rival house. All she knows is this vulnerable creature in her arms, a broken body and soul in need of relief.
His eyes flutter closed when she kisses his brow; she’s pleased to find the skin cool beneath her flushed lips. The fever is gone, his strength will soon return, but a piece of him will always be damaged, bereft, lost and abandoned- and whether she wishes it or no, that is the piece that will find its fellow within her.
He kisses her lips, and it will not occur to her until later to be confused- it’s no fever dream, he knows me for who I am. For now, she kisses back until they share one breath, letting herself feel the cool skin and warm sunlight and the tantalizing illusion that she may no longer be alone.