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The Evening Courier

Summary:

This work is long and multipaired, main endgames are Jaqen/Arya, Jaime/Cersei, Sansa/Sandor.

I want to thank my marvellous beta (Anonymous) for the help!

An AU AU set in modern times and in modern Europe, a WIP that requires a long time to be completed.
Following mainly book!canon with a different development in some characters.
The Evening Courier is the most famous and known Italian newspaper, printed in the North of the country.

Notes:

This is a modern AU so I'm trying to be close as possibile to the reality of modern life.
English is not my mother tongue so please if you notice mistakes ...help me to improve my command over it.
And a comment is always welcomed.

Chapter Text

The prelude

The Evening Courier’s front page, with a big bold black title, confirmed in the early morning what the breaking news on television had announced at midnight.
Three members of a wealthy and well respected family of the North had been killed in the South in perfect criminal style, according to police reports.
Father, mother and their eldest son, a young man soon to be married, died from gunshot wounds caused by automatic rifles.
The eldest daughter was kidnapped, the younger son seriously wounded on his back, facing a long and delicate surgery to save his life, but not his legs.
It wasn’t an accident or a wrong target, the four killers entered into the restaurant overlooking the sea where the family was having a quiet dinner with their gusts – a Southern family business related - and went for their preys, locking the other customers and the restaurant staff in the cellar before starting the carnage.
The Police recognized the modus operandi of the killers, who sprung up from nowhere on motorbikes, used silenced guns and left without a trace in the night; the pizza delivery boy returned with the empty bag and discovered the massacre.
Nobody saw anything or offered further details.
It was the custom there, don’t speak when the Dons strike.

The young woman with auburn hair felt the needle in her arm and she faded into unconsciousness; she could remember only a few images of the events of the evening. Single frames, never continuous. Like watching a photo exhibition rather than a movie.
The waiter pouring them a bottle of cold sparkling white wine.
Mother taking father’s hand.
Bran answering texts.
Robb devouring his “pasta alla Norma”.
A group of four men entering and the strange expressions of the maitre’s face.
A rifle pointed at her.
People falling.
Red.
A hole in her father’s chest.
Bran’s back covered with blood.
A man grabbing her arm, pulling her away.
The streetlamps going off.
A dark van with the back door open. Then the darkness fell.

 

The key turned into the lock and a tall, slim figure entered the house out of the rain.
Drops fell from his hands, his jaw and his hair, of an unusual length for a man.
He got rid of the soaked coat, hanging it on the hook and went to the fireplace.
The house was humid, spring rain and ocean mist permeated the walls, for three long months no one had inhabited the cottage, every week the neighbours - the owners of the restaurant above the cove - controlled everything was ok. The man had told them it was a vacation cottage and he was travelling often for work, so he had no routine in visiting the place and he liked to have it always ready in case he decided to take a break.
The man took three bags out of the car and put one into the kitchen, to store more food into the fridge and on the shelves.
Tired, he needed to eat something hot and he decided to reheat a frosted portion of curry and rice t in the microwave.
He ate it in front of the fire, in complete silence if only for the crackling logs; for a long time his life had been silence, the choices had been made long time before.
The television was on, muted, the news was always the same. War, homicide, scandal, pollution, natural disaster and the climate change; it was enough to read the headlines running below like a continuous river of sadness.
The only news that caught his attentions were the photos of the family that had been killed ion the South of the bordering country. The daughter had stunning auburn hair.

The phone rang in the middle of the night; Sandor Hound, butler of Winterfell, answered it and immediately run up the stairs, shouting.
“Signorina Arya! Signorina!”
Hound knocked at Arya Stark’s bedroom door in a frenzied manner, a series of hard fists against the wood that shocked her; at first Arya thought it was a bad dream, a really vivid one, but the sound continued so she forced herself to leave her soft bed and opened the door, clad in a grey pyjamas. Her german shepherd Nymeria at her side, eyes wide alert; a danger was coming, the dog was sure.
The butler handled her the phone.
The chief inspector’s voice – a woman’s voice, strong, confident, calm, but with an unusual accent – asked Arya her identity and if he relatives were travelling South.
“My mom, dad and siblings are away. Dad’s on business trip South.”
“There had been a criminal raid, your relatives were the target. There’s a plane at the air force base waiting to bring you here. I’ll be at the landing strip to meet you with my men. You’re under police protection from now on, a police car should already be at your door.”

 

The elder friars ate their lunch in silence while the younger one read from the bible, a tradition with roots in the past, for every shared meals.
The hermitage once was home to a large fraternity, now there were only three friars, two well over seventy, one in his late thirties, tall and blond and by every standard beautiful as an angel.
The respective past of the friars remained private, those who had left the mundane world for so many years didn’t care anymore but for the young one memories were an enemy to fight and conquer like a lion with his prey.
After having his own dinner and cleaning the table, he went to the henhouse to check the hens and took the hose pipe to water the orange and lemon trees in vases.
When he pulled the hose to the terrace of the first floor, beside the walls of the chapel, he noticed the postman's car approaching, as it did every week. Few correspondence between the hermitage and the rest of the world.
He later opened the mailbox and retrieved four letters, one was not a standard envelope, but an expensive paper sealed with a small red wax seal, like in ancient times. A sign of wealth, a sign of power. He already knew who the sender was and what it contained.
The photo of two children and a birthday card, the wishes written in her elaborate callighrapy.
“To my dear twin, happy birthday, Cersei.”

Signorina is the italian word for Miss

Chapter Text

Sansa Stark woke in a feebly lit room, the window panels were open enough to let her see the iron bars securing the place.
She was on her side in a narrow bed, her wrists were tied up in her lap, her feet kept together with a rope at her ankles; her mouth was dry, she was sure she had been drugged. During her training in the red cross ambulance service she was top of the class and one of the teachers declared it was a pity she didn’t decide to become a doctor.
A blanket was covering her, she touched the fabric of her dress to be sure she was still wearing it.
Where was she and more important, why?
The room was bare, her sight adjusted to the low light, she saw a table against the wall with a plastic glass and a bottle of sparkling water.
She wanted nothing more in that moment than to drink it, but she felt too dizzy to try to stand up and grab it, her mind grew hazy as she lost focus and she slipped back into a broken sleep.
The sound of a key into the lock scared her and she opened her eyes, two figures on the threshold, the one holding a torch pointed at her, the other moving at her right, so she turned her face to see him.
“Good afternoon, Signorina Stark.” A tall, thin, bearded man with refined features, wearing a dark suit, was speaking.
“Who are you? Where is my family?”
“No, no, Signorina, it is impolite to be so forthright with a new acquaintance.”
“Do you know who I am?”
She closed her eyes to avoid the light that was hurting her head.
“It’s obvious, I know a lot of things. The right information is a vital part of my work. I consider myself a man able to evaluate people.”
“What do you want?”
“Again with the angry, it is better you calm down, before I need to ask our friend here to give you another shot. You want an answer, don’t you?”
She nodded, the arrogance of the man was disturbing her and she decided to let him speak.
“Unfortunately, your family cannot join you at the moment so I’ll have the pleasure of your company only. My name is not important, you can call me Avvocato, if you need to address me. We’ll speak again tomorrow.”
He turned to leave.
“Wait, please.”
He stopped, she lifted her bounded wrists.
“I can’t get the water bottle.”
“Oh, how forgetful of me.”
The Avvocato made a simple gesture with his hand and the other man moved from behind the torch and untied her ankles a little so that Sansa could stand and careful move a few steps.
she was too fast in her first attempt and her legs were unable to support her, so she fell face down on the floor.
“Never hurry things, we’ll talk soon.”
The Avvocato declared with a false smile before leaving, the door closing behind him with a loud thud.

---

Arya’s mind went blank on the airplane, remembering only bits of her conversation with chief Inspector Tarth.
Arya had tried to ask where her family was, sensing the inspector was ready to cut off their call.
“I’ll explain everything when we’ll meet, Signorina Stark.”
Arya had looked at the silent phone like it was a strange object, then a faint blue light had appeared from one of the window; the butler ran to see and open it, letting the chill night wind into the house.
“It’s the police, Signorina Arya.” He turned toward Arya, who shivered, not from the cold.
Then she remembered Sandor Hound sat beside her in the back seat of the police car, holding a trolley with just a bathroom travel set and a change of clothes and shoes, holding it like his dear life depended from keeping it safe.
The airport lights were trying to break the night, it was cold and there was a thin ice under her feet as she reached the narrow stair of the Air force plane.
Two armed soldiers with red berets, tall and muscular, followed her, rifle in hand, face hidden under a woollen mask.
Special corps, she was sure. Trained to kill.
The hostess gave her a bitter black coffee, Arya drank it hot, without sugar, and it burned, but she felt nothing.
Her aunt Lyanna called three times before Arya answered, she promised to join her niece south with the first plane leaving in the morning. Few spoken words, the two women were so similar they were often mistaken for mother and daughter.

 

The inspector in charge of the case was the tallest woman Arya ever saw; Brienne Tarth was probably around thirty, short blond hair and sad blue eyes. Arya remembered the surname from the list of basketball or volleyball players from when she watched a lot ofd sports on tvs; she had left the game a few years before but was still in excellent shape, her muscles visible under the blue shirt she wore.
“Where is my sister?”
Arya asked after inspector Tarth explained the dynamic of the shooting to her, avoiding the gory details; when Arya slammed a fist on the desk and between clenched teeth demanded to know everything, the inspector had to admit the younger Stark girl was a great match.
Ned Stark was a wealthy man, he created an strong family enterprise, owned various estates and was devoted to his family and his country.
The way the killers acted was in full South style, the prosecutor told Arya in presence of Inspector Tart, it had been a power show against the Starks and the Tullies.
And Arya was now head of House Stark, with Sansa missing, Bran in intensive care and cousin Jon, Lyanna’s only son, in the army far away for a peace mission.

 

Arya accepted a public ceremony of mourning, the archbishop dressed in purple cloak, flowers covering the three coffins in the middle of the North’s main cathedral, candles and incense burning during all the time, the choir singing nestled up above, around the ancient organ.
The North was in dark, black ribbons on the flags, sombre clothes of people inside the church, schools were closed for the day, children saw the hearses pass along the streets and throw flowers at them, white as the snow still lingering over the impending mountains, the spring sun couldn’t melt all the snow.
Arya was silent. She could not cry, not in front of the crowd.
The surviving Starks and all the Tullies sat on the first benches with Sandor and the managers of Stark enterprise. Arya wanted only her cousin Jon – eyes dark for the pain and the jet lag - to stand by her side.
The town major, the police chief, the Home Secretary - representing the government - went to her after the coffins left the cathedral and she simply shook the proffered hands and heard without listening their hollow words.
She wanted revenge, she was sure the police wouldn’t find the assassins and the instigators, so she had only a route to follow.

 

Arya and her uncle Edmure Tully held a private meeting with Syrio Forel, her father’s most trusted assistant, a man Ned Stark met many winters before, when an avalanche threatened a mountain village and they both were volunteers in the emergency rescue team, spending a few nights patrolling the area with the trained dogs.
The huge wall of snow had mercy of the houses and ended up destroying only a few barns in the most secluded part of the valley.
“I need to know the names. I’m going to avenge my family and find Sansa. Isn’t clear?” Arya repeated another time; she was determined not to be denied.
“I’m sure police is investigating and the culprits would be soon found.”
Arya shook her head, rage was heating her face and Syrio thought she was right, sadly; her uncle’s naivety was a nuisance for the young woman.
“Edmure, you have lived abroad for a very long time, the situation here is difficult, mafia has expanded. It corrupts policemen, judges, politicians, I don’t trust the police have the power to uncover the truth.” Syrio explained to the other man.
“I want my sister back, not a lifeless body.” Arya’s impatience to act was menacing.
Syrio, in his youth a talented swordsman, Olympic silver medallist with the national team, controlled his files before speaking.
“Arya, I think I have a proposal to make.”
He turned the screen of his laptop and Arya saw an image, half white, half black, and the words private security service in the middle

Signorina is the italian word for Miss
Avvocato is the italian word for lawyer/barrister

Chapter Text

Cersei’s Baratheon most recent lover was a young relative by marriage, whose widowed mother remarried with one of Don Tywin Lannister’s cousin. Dark hair and eyes, Lancel was handsome and young like all the previous lovers, complete opposites to her fat old husband.
Robert Baratheon - known for drinking and whoring, abusing his life in every possible way - had been laid to rest a few months before, a first class funeral for the Don King and Cersei was flourishing, feeling free and young again.
As a widow, mother of two, she was free to refuse other marriage proposals and enjoy life like she did in her teen years.
She used to meet her lover in a hotel in town, close to her favourite shopping centre, to avoid prying eyes; she felt safe there, so she did not noticed the blond man with dark sunglasses and a baseball hat sat at the lounge bar on the ground floor, close to one of the hotel entrances.
The hat partially covered a scar on his forehead.
The man noticed Cersei and the young man, he lowered the mirror lenses a little. A smirk on his face, he sat more comfortably on his armchair and ordered an iced coffee while taking some photos.

__

A man opened the door of Sansa’s room and the Avvocato appeared; the light was stronger, but Sansa was unable to judge if a night had passed or not, she felt she was sleeping too much, too often, were they drugging her to keep her quiet?
He seemed relaxed, in total control, but he had such an aura of power around his figure that by just moving a little finger only his men bowed in submission, he was able to obtain respect without scaring people with brute force.
He handed Sansa the daily copy of The Evening Courier, the front title was about the disappearance of Arya Stark
Sansa’s heart missed a few beats, at first she feared for her sister’s life, then she read and reread the article and stared at Sandor’s face, her butler had been photographed outside Winterfell.
Something was off; Sandor was a man never able to hide his feelings and he wasn’t broken or desperate, the photo was well defined and she saw he was worried, deadly worried, but not so worried as to lead Sansa to believe Arya was dead or kidnapped.
Her sister was a survivor, Arya was able to sneak away to go skiing with her friends Gendry, Lommy and Hot Pie, without her mother noticing it, she learned to drive at seventeen from Jon in secret, if there was someone who could slip away unnoticed, that was Arya.
Or simply Sansa could not admit the idea her sister was dead.
-- Friar Jaime Lannister took the vows to escape the madness of his life and family; Don Tywin Lannister let him go because he had another male heir.
And the Don planned to make Jaime powerful inside the church, with the right connections to have a Lannister bishop soon, and maybe a Cardinal, later, if Jaime would apply to study and partake in the games of power.
People would kiss his ring like they kissed his father’s, a sign of respect: the first cardinal into the family, wearing red, red for a lion.
His sister thought it was a crazy idea, but she was glad Jaime would remain celibate, a man of God. He would not betray his vows, poverty, obedience, chastity.
But she had pleaded and begged and insisted and he had fall into her trap.
A year of marriage, the confirmation of Robert’s sterility.
“Please, I need you, If I give him a child he’ll stop treating me so bad.” She told Jaime.
A woman of the South knew the value of alliances, she couldn’t divulge her husband’s secret, it could start a war, it would means deaths.,
“I can tell father he hits you.”
“No, you can’t. What I told you was a confession.”
He was being blackmailed, he believed priesthood would save him from such a thing; Jaime adored only one woman, his sister. So he gave in and ten months later he was baptizing twins.
His hand trembled pouring drops of holy water on the blonde heads and when the baby girl opened her eyes he saw green, only green, green like him and Cersei and all his family.
Legacy of ancient conquerors from the West, blond an green was stronger than black and brown.
Jaime asked the people inside the chapel to pray for the gift of life and no one heard the private prayer he whispered over the infants draped in candid white and lace.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Please protect my children, they are at no fault.”

__

Arya Stark left the crowded train station. Gare du Lyon was a huge and tall building, outside she took note of the high tower that seemed absurdly large given its only purpose was to hold the giant clock. She opened the door of the car rental to collect the car, a very common silver grey Peugeot; at home Father has gifted her of a brand new red Mini for passing her driving test and she missed the ease with which she had driven it.
She signed the papers using the name Arry Snow, showed her new documents, threw her light travel bag on the passenger seat with two bottles of fresh orange juice; turning on the navigator and driving west, she tried not to get lot in the motorways around Paris.
She had coordinates and a map to follow, not a name, nor an address, she entered the phone number Syrio had given her, with the caveat it had to be used only in case of emergency, under the name "No One".
The roads were boring, yellow fields, crops, farms, silos for two long hours, a flat countryside; she was following the Route National, not the motorway, she met few cars during the long straits from a village to another. She crossed department borders without noticing the names, then everything changed and green took over.
The rain had lighted the land with life and everything was in full bloom, so different from her snowy hometown.
Few scattered houses, small villages, she glimpsed she ble sea and wondered where her travel would lead her.
After another two hours and a stop to use a toilet and drink a coffee that paled in comparison to her usual espresso, she noticed she had been alone on the road for a quarter of an hour or so and there were no traces of human presence.
She rolled down the window and felt the ocean. Strong. Powerful. Loud cries of seagulls and the smell of seaweeds.
The paved road ended at an iron gate; through it Arya saw a pathway slowly descending toward the sea.
A text appeared from No one.
“Open the gate, then close it and follow the stones.”
She noticed white round stones lining the left side of the driveway, until she reached a group of trees. The sound of the seagulls was stronger.
No one texted again.
“Enter the woods. Leave the car under the awning on the right, close it and continue walking.”
She grabbed her bag and moved slowly as instructed, observing the surroundings.
The pathway was getting narrow, so that only people could use it; it turned twice along the soft slope until she saw the house over the cliff, all white with a black door and black roof.
A figure was standing at the entrance, the door was half open and the face was in partial shadow.
She approached, a man came out and the first thing Arya saw was the hair.
Red, kissed by the light of the sunset: No one was an average height, a white t shirt on a muscular chest and brown combat knee long shorts. /> At close distance, she saw his eyes, bluer than the sea bordering the beach under the house and she noticed the thin streak of white hair.
“A girl arrived safe. Is a girl hungry? A man can share a meal with her.”
Arya nodded, surprised by his use of the third person.

__

“You can return home soon if we find an agreement. You’re young and inexperienced in ruling a large business like your father and brother did. We are interested in an acquisition at a convenient value.”
Sansa looked at the Avvocato with huge eyes at first, then she tensed, her interlocutor was speaking too carefully, she could read his body language, some of his gestures where not coherent with his words; she always got good grades in high school sociology, she liked to read books about pedagogy and psychology, trying to convince Father to attend university away from home.
She used to have complete faith in people when she was younger, but since her father started planning a M&A with a southern company, she was noticing changes in him.
Sansa was very close to her father, although Arya was probably the favourite child. Ned and Sansa shared a deep emotional bond, Ned liked to have Sansa in his office while he was working and she was studying, her presence soothed his mind and he felt he read documents and made decisions faster with her there.
Ned was more cautious and less cheerful at dinner or during family moments; Catelyn Stark tried to reassure Sansa, at first, but her insistence made Catelyn confess Ned and Robb were in frequent meetings with uncle Edmure - her mother’s family had been a co founder of the business - trying to find a good agreement. The people from the South had a different way to approach business and the Stark patriarch was having difficulties in fully trusting them.
“Your father is worried, he thinks the lawyer of the Vale inc, the first company he had contacts with, is not a clear and truthful man.”
That name, Vale, sounded like a bell in Sansa’s ears when she saw it briefly on the folder Baelish opened in front of her eyes.
Sansa’s ability to notice details has been extremely useful in her favourite hobby, painting, she used to remember scenes from places and people of her trips and she took great pleasure in transferring to the canvas the yellow of a rose, the lollipop in a child’s hand, the deep grey of stones wet by the rain.
And this Vale reference meant Baelish was a man her father had not trusted and she better do the same.
The Avvocato looked at Sansa with disappointment, the young woman had been a surprise, an unpleasant one, and her insistence in claiming she was not the owner of the majority of shares of Stark inc was a serious issue. If Arya was declared dead, the law asked for a few years of waiting and her brother - for now unable to sign whatever paper - could improve, depriving Baelish of the signature he needed.
He’d find a way to make Sansa crumble. The Families needed to control Stark’s business.

Chapter Text

Ch 4

Lyanna Stark’s faith in the police was low, since her husband – general Snow, a respected and loyal soldier - died many years ago in a terroristic attack inside a crowded train station, meant to kill the chief of state.
She and Sandor talked with Arya every evening using Jaqen’s secure connection. They relied newspapers and television comments about the Stark case to her as well as their meetings with Uncle Tully and daily life at Winterfell.
Arya longed to hear their voices, her only link to her former life and they were both curious about her mysterious “No one”, whose full name was revealed to be Jaqen H’ghar. Arya was very private with Sandor, but when it was just the two ladies, Arya talked more about Jaqen, his appearance and his intense training program; after a direct question, she admitted she was intrigued by his personality.
One evening Sandor called earlier than usual, he was alone, Lyanna was out with Jon.
“Signorina Arya, is Signor H’ghar with you?”
Years as the Stark’s trusted butler and Sandor was as formal and respectful as ever-.
“He is in the kitchen, should I call him?”
“Please do.”
Sandor’s tone was strained, Jaqen noticed, he decided not to point out it to Arya and listen to the butler before giving voice to his impressions
“I’ve been contacted by a lawyer from the south, a man with a mellifluous voice. He had a strange proposal. I felt a chill on my back from just talking with him.”
“What did he say?”
"He introduced himself as the spokesman of a group of private financers interested in a M and A with Stark Industries..
Since the difficulty to contact a stark heir, with Sansa kidnapped and Bran recovering, Baelish hoped the butler would be able to deliver the message to Arya."
“Signorina Arya, I don’t like that man.” Sandor concluded. “ I haven’t told Signorina Lyanna yet.”
Jaqen’s face remained impassive, not his eyes: he was good at hiding emotions, but her barely could control his blue pools.
Arya took note and told Sandor to stay quiet and to not reveal anything, then she called her uncle, asking him to also increase the surveillance of Winterfell for Bran’s safety.
She ended the call and sat beside Jaqen’s who was doing his own researches.
The net he had built during the years to collect vital info was impressive indeed, an hour later they had the Baelish dosser.
“He’s linked with the most powerful Cupola. This goes deeper than I imagined. I’m quite sure he’s got Sansa or knows well where she is. He’ll use her as an exchange for Stark inc.”
“Will he let her go if he get our business?”
“No Arya, those people don’t leave witness alive.”
Arya looked at Jaqen, hoping for an answer he was too honest to lie about.
Fear ran cold in her body making Arya shiver.
“It’ll never end.”
“We’ll find a way. They are powerful, but we have our allies.”

__

After Sandor’s call Jaqen went to the capital, to collect info from his brothers – as he called the people working for the same organization - plus the right kind of weapons and other documents, asking Arya to appreciate the tranquility of the place. All the security devices were active, Arya had food, television and a emergency line active with the central.
The Young. skinny and short woman who once a week delivered groceries to the house stayed with Arya as a body guard while he was away. She was quiet and barely answered Arya’s questions; she had protested but Jaqen was unmovable on the matter: safety first. The woman's presence was discrete so Arya could appreciate the place, so different from her snowy mountains.
She liked to sit on a bench over the dunes and watch the tide on the beach below; Jaqen had explained her the healing effect it had on him and she decided he was right. The slow changes the tide provided was a distraction that soothed her soul.

__

The convent was built at the top of a hill, close to almond and orange fields, in an area used by shepherds in summer for the green grass on the North side.
Complete atonement for Jaime.
The other two friars recognized his family name and remained silent, Don Tywin’s power in the region was strong. At first his presence was seen as a temporary refuge from whatever crime of the world he or his family had committed, but after a few years his devotion to God shone around him like a white circle of stars, he never complained, did all the chores, even the most simple and monotonous, cleaned all the rooms, the baths, the inner yard, took care of the plants and flowers; the old monks were happy to see a young man so committed to God.
Jaime seldom received news from his younger brother about the children, the twins he’d never be able to call or declare his own.
The distance from his relatives helped him made the memories of his past more bearable, but at night he dreamed about Cersei. They were a nightmare and he woke up, his erection painfully hard, his whole body drenched in sweat; as punishment he wrapped the cilice of course sackcloth his bare flesh and prayed knelt on the bare floor.
Few cars reached the place and when he heard one stopping outside the main gate he went out, thinking it was his Brother; it was usual for Tyrion to to visit around Jaime's birthday.
Two huge Hummers with dark windows were like black ravens croaking in the night. Three bodyguards and a dark haired man with cold eyes went out, a ghost from Jaime’s past.
“You’re thinner, Jaime boy, too much penitence is not a virtue.”
“Reese, what are you doing here?”
“I have a present for you from our friend, the Avvocato.”
Jaime grabbed the envelope don Reese Bolton handled him, a stack of photos of Cersei and the twins at the sea: He saw how much the children have grown, how blonde Tommen was, resembling himself at that age too much. His father suspected something, Tyrion had told him as much – the twins were golden haired and green eyed and there were voices of Cersei going to a very private clinic - so that was the reason he was allowed to stay hidden, not yet inside the bishop’s palace to start his climb to the red beret; a longer way, but a way Don Tywin preferred.
A few years as an ascetic monk will impress the archbishop, Don Twyin repeated to Tyrion often; Reese Bolton’s presence, barring the escape route, wasn’t a good sign.
“You’ll have more presents if you're a good boy.”
Jaime’s hand trembled, barely letting the photos fall from his grasp, but he swiftly tightened his grip.
“What do you want?”
“You’ll keep someone here. A girl who needs a safe place. Just to be sure, you behave yourself; your friends will leave with us, our dear bishop needs two preachers very soon.”
Two of the men, Ilyn and Armory, Jaime remembered their names from the dark wall of his memories, were fast, pushing one of the two old monks into each Hammer while Bolton went to the back of the first one; he opened the door and Jaime saw something red shine in the strong afternoon light.
The red moved and he heard a deep intake of air, Bolton’s hand grab a thin arm, pull and a figure appeared, a dark ribbon on her head and a gag in her mouth, hands and ankles cuffed together with a chain connecting the two.
“Get up, bitch.” Reese Bolton spat angrily, pulling at the chain to make the figure stand.
Jaime could tell it was a woman, thin and tall and with auburn long hair, wearing a white summer dress and a pink jacket with specks of blood.
He dragged her toward the cloister entry and ordered Jaime to follow.
“Where’s your room?”
“The second on the left.”
“She’ll be here, looked up with you, my men will stay, I don’t want people around, the place is officially closed for maintenance.”

___

“Jaime has not replied to my birthday wishes.”
Don Tywin left the table taking a call and Tyrion’s wife, Tysha, was trying to get her two sons and the twins to eat vegetables.
Cersei protested with her younger brother during their weekly family dinner. Don Tywin considered dining out with his family to be a show of power.
“Mail service is a failure in this country, I’m sure he’ll receive your letter in time for Christmas.”
“Don’t be silly, Tyrion.”
Cersei gestured at her empty glass and Tyrion immediately refilled it; the white cold sparkling wine was the perfect accompaniment for the seafood they had ordered.
The restaurant was crowded, a summer hot evening prompted people to enjoy the sea front, but the Lannister table, with full view of the Promenade, was in the most reserved corner of the veranda.
“I could go visit him.”
“For Easter mass, dear sister? You’re taking the religious turn? Now you’re a widow, ready for charity work, or you could join our brother and become a nun.”
Cersei laughed at the suggestion. A few people from nearby tables looked at them, one was a man with blond hair combed in a way to hide a scar over his left eye.

___

Jaqen left for the South with a name on his list and Arya felt lost for the first hours; she has refused company this time, armed with her brand new gun. Jaqen compromised, getting security only around the property borders.
A few days in another country with an intensive training program were too short to appreciate the novelties and she had her fresh wound to handle, too.
Why Jaqen wanted to lived there? A choice or an imposition? How did he find the place? His past, his strange contacts, his skills with weapons.
Jaqen H’ghar was a mask, and who was the man was behind it?
He ordered her to continue training and report her progresses; his voice had a dry tone, deprived of emotions.
A strange behaviour, in contrast with the days and nights spent together.
Arya debated if it was his way of detaching himself from everything else and concentrate only on his mission; she had asked him how dangerous it was and Jaqen had explained the southerners were more inclined to burn with passion and rage than act with logic and patience, so he wasn’t worried too much.
Arya trained all afternoon – a physical and mental workout with shooting and meditation - and then decided to prepare herself something to eat and a glass of white wine and eat outside the kitchen where a table with chairs stood.
Their training usually lasted until late in the evening and she had no time to appreciate the landscape.
Facing West, the sunset with the golden light was a discovery; the endless ocean plain gave her souls a new hope. She didn’t fell the oppression her beloved mountains could offer in winter, when she longed to be up high, a pair of ski or snowboards to trace the curves of the mountains and the slopes of the valleys.
This was different and familiar at the same.
A text on the phone Jaqen gave her to communicate.
“Landed. Are you ok?”
“Sitting outside after training. Great view.”
“I’ll show you my secret place.”
“Be careful.”
“As always. Good night, lovely girl.”
A pet name from a killer? Arya was stupefied by his words, at first, unused to be appreciated by people outside family. By a man, nevertheless. By a man she trusted since their first meeting, who trusted her to share his knowledge, not for money, Uncle Tully clearly had declared, but because his life was in black or white, no shadows. Complete trust or nothing at all.
Suddenly she wasn’t so alone, she was working with Jaqen, he’d help her to give revenge to her pain.

Chapter 5

Summary:

I am very very sorry for the delay, I had other works to complete and this one needed a long revision (I believe it was really necessary) and more scenes added, this chapter is quite short but the next one will be quite dramatic. Thanks a lot.

Chapter Text

After a few days, Jaime hoped they had been forgotten.
A couple of Bolton’s armed men were always inside the convent, faces hidden by black balaclava.
They seemed young and he didn’t remember them; the death rate after the last feuds and arrests by the police had thinned the ranks of some Families.
He wondered what was expected from him. Sansa was mostly silent so he kept his past and links with Baelish to himself.
That part of his life, his shame, was something he buried deep in his mind.
The young woman was beautiful and kind, her long red hair and white skin signifying hat she came from up North, Jaime wondered who she was, what the Families wanted from her. kidnapping for ransom wasn’t a common trait for his people, they used not to leave witnesses.
Jaime was in the kitchen when he heard voices from the court yard, he was not allowed to go without a guard.
The sound of a powerful engine, then a guard entered to grab him and forced him into the refectory where Sansa was already sat on one of the high wooden chairs.,
A man was in front of her, partially blocking Jaime’s view.
The man turned and a chill run though Jaime’s back: after a few years, the sight of the son of Don Roose, Ramsay, made him sick. Ramsay was the most cruel and sadistic member of the Bolton family. He left for the far east a few years previously after the police suspected him of raping and killing a woman, his father sent him away to calm the waters.

Ramsay Bolton crushed the lamp and grabbed the candles Jaime kept on each side of the cross over his desk.
He was stripped bare of his last remaining possessions, silver cross, watch and phone.
“My father calls me once a week.”
“You’ll speak with him when I decide.”
“He could get suspicious if I don’t answer.”
“I’ll took care of this. Get this bread and cheese and stay quiet.”
Bolton pushed Jaime inside his cell so forcefully he nearly fell on the mattress, it was getting dark, the hermitage had a clear view west and the sunset was visible from his cell.
Where was the girl? What were the men doing with her? He spotted two mattress on the floor, maybe they would be locked up together.
He tried to listen for any noises, he imagine to hear her cry, but it could've been a bird. The walls of the ancient building were thick, whispers and low voices died from a room to another. A cry, loud and clear, someone was suffering.
Jaime stood and waited and prayed.
Then a sudden scream, a soprano voice, musical if not for the pain she was experienceing.
Steps outside the door, unlocked only for the time needed to throw in what looked like a bunch of rags, until they fell against him.
Jaime caught Sansa before she landed on the bare stones, they ended up with his head on the mattress, while his lower back hit the foot stole he used to pray on, but she was safe splayed on top of him, clinging to his clothes.

Sandor Hound was proud to be Winterfell’s guardian in its darkest hour; he visited Bran every day, at first in hospital, then in the rehab centre, he kept the house alive and prayed every day in the small white chapel dedicated to the Lady of the Snow for Sansa’s safe return.
Calls and texts from Arya were his lifeline.
Sandon knew she was hiding somewhere West and was safe there, but every time he talked with Lyanna or Edmure he expressed his worry; Sansa’s fate was unknown so Arya was the only Stark who could make relevant decisions about the family company.
Lyanna was optimistic, her nieces were alive, she felt it; Edmure assured Sandor the police believed Sansa was kept alive for a ransom, nevertheless Sandor was getting more and more nervous with each passing day, feeling unable to keepthe family he loved with all his heart safe and together.
Sansa was his favorite and the uncertainty about her well being was gnawing at Sandor from the inside.
Arya announced Jaqen had got revenge on the first target - a man named Meryn Tyrant - and Sandor experienced a sad satisfaction. More deaths could not make Ned, Catelyn and Robb return from the dead.
Arya offered few details, Sandor wanted more.
“Are you sure Tyrant was one of them?”
“The research was meticulous, Jaqen has evidences he was one of the four killers at the restaurant and now Jaqen’s Brothers will get info from his phone.”
“He plan to get the others with you?”
“We’ll do what we must. Until the end.”
Arya soon forwarded Sandor an email from Jaqen, with a series of photos from Tryant’s phone: a group of men in a house overlooking the sea, sat around a table, glasses of wine, cups of coffee and guns.
One man with dark hair and broad chest, built like a bull, was clearly the boss. His bodyguards were beside him, one towering above the others.
“That one must be two meters tall.” Sandor pointed out
“It will be easier to find him. Look at the others if you recognize someone from father work.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Take your time, ask Uncle Edmore and Syrio. Maybe they know.”
Sandor gasped, Arya saw he passed a hand over his face, white as he had met a ghost.

Something wasn’t right, Cersei felt it in her gut. No reply to her letter, Jaime's phone had been off for two days, no news about him from Don Tywin when she had casually ask her father. For her, that was proof enough, Cersei Lannister could care very little for people and be considered an arrogant rich woman, but for her Jaime was something else. Her other part, the missing one, the good one. Never really apart, never fully separated. Jaime’s escape into the church had been difficult and at the beginning she hated him, but since he had answered her desperate call and gave her what she needed the most - her precious children - they would be forever linked and her others lovers paled in compared to their sibling bond. Fraternal twins with the sexual affair they kept for years strengthened whatever telepathy their common genes could have given them. She decided not to discuss her suspicions with Tyrion or her father for fear she’d reveal too much about herself and Jaime and instead contacted her own informer, Qyburn, the one she trusted more than Varys, the family’s official one. When Qyburn told her the good news - Jaime was alive - and the bad news - he was being held hostage as part of a dangerous game of power, Cersei put up a face for the world while struggling internally with the realization that for the first time in their lives Jaime was in real danger.

Chapter 6

Summary:

After my beta completed the revision from the beginning, here chapter 6.
There is a violent scene that has the rape tag to be alert, although it is not what may seem at the beginning.
Thanks for you patience.

Chapter Text

When Ramsay Bolton unlocked the door, Jaime and Sansa immediately stood up; he had kicked Jaime hard in the stomach one morning that he had been a little slow in obeying his orders. The large bruise on his skin had faded to yellow after a few days.
“Come out!”
Bolton ordered, then he followed his hostages to the refectory, a gun pointed at their backs.
After a few steps Sansa stopped, she had suffered cramps during the night and she felt a hot wetness between her legs; her period had started. She kept her legs closed, ashamed of the stain, but Ilyn swiftly took her arms to tie Sansa to a chair.
Bolton moved to Sansa and saw blood on the front of her dress. His eyes took a wild expression and he stood in front of her, a half smile on his lips. More a sneer than a smile.
“It seems we have a girl ripe and ready for some fun.”
He looked at his men; Jaime had heard him calling them Ilyn and Armory.
“Who’s going to taste her?”
Sansa’s face went pale, Jaime fought against his own ropes; tied to a chair beside her, he hadn’t noticed her blood.
His father’s talks about Bolton’s cruelty and perversions came to his mind in a rush; he had been worried for Sansa since the beginning.
“Boys, aren’t you going to try?”
His men stood silent, they knew the game Bolton was playing, his tastes and his perverse desires, how he took pleasure in degrading people. None of them dared to oppose, even though the plan was to make the woman sign what Baelish wanted, not to rape her; voicing a remark could enrage Bolton further.
“Or we can ask our friend here to do the dirty work, can’t we?”
He pushed Jaime onto the floor, using a strap to make him fall hard on his knees and he imposed himself over the friar.
Jaime gulped and his eyes widened.
“Yes, our Jaime boy will clean up the lady’s mess and we’ll admire his ability, won’t we?”
Bolton took Jaime’s chin and forced him to meet his sneering gaze.
“Have you ever went down on a woman, brother? You’re used to drinking the blood of your Lord, believe me, it’s better to taste a woman’s.”
Bolton kicked Jaime in the back until he was closer to Sansa, then he forced her legs open and ripped off her dress and her stained underwear with a knife. Sansa shivered from the humiliation and fear, the knife left a red trail on her belly, Bolton’s eyes became savage.
Jaime focused on a spot on the floor, this was madness, complete and absolute, Bolton was crazy, instable, don Tywin was a cruel man but he never crossed such a line.
Sansa was a victim, helpless, unable to defend herself, completely at the mercy of a sadistic shithead. “Come on.”
Bolton slapped Jaime hard, his ring left a mark on the tender skin.
Jaime could only imagine the disgust Sansa was experiencing at the moment.
He wanted to resist, to refuse the act, he had been very good at pleasuring a woman, always, remembering in a flash how wild he and Cersei behaved in bed as teenagers, a lifetime ago, before he took his wows.
Another slap, harder, his nose started to bleed.
“Do you need more persuasion?”
Bolton grabbed Jaime’s hair hard and put his knife near Sansa’s right eye, who by instinct closed both.
“I’m going straight all the way into the socket if you don’t start. Now!”
The blade moved slightly and Sansa trembled and hissed in pain.
“Ok, ok, I’ll do it. Don’t hurt her, please.”
Jaime closed his eyes, too, and move forward, the smell of their mixed blood soon became strong, he heard laughs from the spectators then he isolated himself from everything, going away inside, just working on Sansa’s private parts in a methodical way. Deprived of every emotion and insensitive to the task he was forced to perform, Jaime kept his eyes closed, he was with Cersei, he was home, he was loved and treasured.
The first contact of his lips with her lower ones caused a deep gasp from the young woman, he was the first to kiss her in such a way; Jaime felt her tremble and prayed for forgiveness, hoping to be fast and meticulous so that her ordeal would stop soon and the man restrained from hurting her more.
When he was finished, Bolton ordered to take Jaime to the table under the painting of the Last Supper, face down: Armory cut his ropes and blocked Jaime’s arms in a death grip, his habit was lifted and Jaime felt a hand lowering his underwear and roughly grabbing his arse to spread his cheeks. Jaime tried to oppose, his shoulders and upper arms ached from the unnatural pose he was forced to assume, with Armory on the other side of the table, and Ilyn’s weights on his back. He prayed Sansa was not watching, better if they wanted to hurt him than her, he could offer himself as a sacrifice.
When Bolton’s cock entered him raw, barely a spit of saliva to wet it, Jaime screamed in pain and passed out.

 

“Which pizza do you want? There’s also a bowl of your ice cream, pistachio and hazelnut”
Veteran police Tormund Giantsbane waited for his girlfriend’s answer before calling their favourite pizzeria with home delivery; Brienne was at home at a decent hour for the first time since the Stark massacre and Tormund wanted to celebrate a little.
“Four seasons. And an iced red beer.”
He studied her: Brienne seldom drank alcohol, so her choice was a confirmation she was more tired or worried than usual.
Being in a committed relationship for two years now – after his divorce and long battle for shared custody of his two teen daughters, living far from him on the mainland – he had learned her mannerisms and gestures.
Born into an ancient noble family of the second largest island of the country, in a large estate still managed by her father, Brienne had refused to be involved in the family farming business and chose another career for herself.
They were good together, both police, understanding each other, especially the risks and emotional involvement so typical in their work; he’d been Brienne’s first, a badge of honour he was proud to wear.
He completed the order, gave his phone number, then looked at Brienne .
“You’re worried.”
She took a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge, drank a long sip then stared at Tormund straight into his eyes.
Their matching heights made it possible, he wondered if she had chosen him because of his stature. No, she said he had been so kind and attentive to her body issues, worshipping her like a goddess for her physique from the beginning.
“I’m sure something big is going on. The Families are too quiet these days.”
She put the bottle on the table, stretched her neck to relieve the tension and Tormund went behind her to massage her tensed muscles.
He was one of the drivers for the judges at the local courthouse, so he had no active part in the investigations.
“The Stark girl is still missing and I’ve heard a body was found in a wheat field.”
“Meryn Tyrant. Two bullets in his brain. A neat work. He’s a little fish. Drug dealer with the desire to become a shark. He probably put his nose in the wrong place. He switched allegiance in the past so it’s possible someone made him pay for the betrayals.”
The bell rang, interrupting their conversation; Brienne retrieved the food and drinks, paid the new delivery boy who was open mouthed, impressed by her physique and sat at the table set up by her man.
“It’s a strange world when we’re more worried about the absence of crimes than at the presence.”
Brienne took a slice with small artichokes and ham.
“No onions on your pizza, Torm? Are you thinking to kiss me tonight?”
Tormund laughed aloud, he loved her direct approach, always.
“Whatever, I’ve assigned more teams and asked our best informers to keep eyes and ears open. I don’t want a mafia war just now, not with elections so close. How many new faces at the courthouse?”
“Three prosecutors and a judge, for two retirements and two transfers.”
“Too many for my tastes, I need prosecutors who aren’t afraid to sign orders. If my gut is right, we’ll see something bad soon.”

 

The drive from the capital to his house - landing in an international airport a better way to hide himself between the crowd of passenger – lasted four hours due to the weekend traffic and Jaqen was impatient to arrive.
Someone was there, waiting for him. A completely new feeling.
Uncertainty, would Arya be as happy to see him as he was to see her? Or was he creating scenarios in his mind that were not true, simply projecting years of self-imposed loneliness on a new screen?
He opened the automatic gate, crossed it and stopped the car until he saw the light going off, signalling the property was barred to strangers.
A long breath, at the end of the driveway his refuge was waiting for him.
No more an empty shell, he saw the lights in the rooms on the right side, the sitting room and the kitchen, he smelled smoke from the chimney - it was chilly and Arya sure had kept the fire on – he heard the radio playing classic rock ballads.
It felt a home, not a simple house. And a force stronger than his willpower and his fears made Jaqen open the front door.
Silently he entered, afraid to say a word, wanting to see, to store in his memory the image in front of him.
Arya at the kitchen sink, peeling vegetables from a bowl, a pan on the fires, her hair set in a complicated braid that revealed her pale neck, wearing an oversized t shirt over a pair of jeans, black sneakers with traces of sand.
He was ready to call her to make her aware of his presence, but she was faster.
“You’re back.”
She turned, smiling.
Completely taken aback, he nodded.
“How did you hear me?”
“Your silence is louder than thunder in this house. Your arrival awakened everything here. The leaves rustled, a few birds started singing and you smell of sweat and cheap fries.”
Jaqen took steps forward from the door, compelled by Arya’s words. His hand lifted to reach hers, he took the knife gently from her fingers; her eyes locked with his.
“Did he suffer?”
“I had to be fast, but he knew he was going to die. I lead him to a solitary place”
Her pupils widened, by reflex he pulled her hand to have her closer and fill his vision with her. It was a mad desire and he could not resist.
A thud, the potato fell on the floor and her hand on his neck, grabbing skin with thin fingers.
Oh she was strong, with her passion for winter sports, the hours she used to spend in the Winterfell gym, her body was petite and ferocious, like her lips on his, the sudden contact and the way their bodies crashed one against the other, while their mouths fought in a primal dance.
Arya felt her blood hum, her kisses with Gendry had never been so, the want, the desire she was experimenting with were all so new, and the man under her hands was feeling the same, his moans and the desperate way he was holding her tight, no air between their bodies.
Words were futile, she could say she needed him, she wanted him, but her body spoke in silence, keeping her mouth on his face, mapping his contours, and he breathed deeply, lifting her face to the ceiling while Arya went on his neck and sucked his earlobe.
She never felt so wanton and she did not care, this was the reaction of what she had endured recently, this man who had killed for her, that has made a promise of vengeance.
Jaqen could not believe what was happening to his body, he had dreamed of her while they were parted, confused memories in his sleep and a male reaction in his groin every morning that only a long cold shower could tame.
And here she was and he was more alive than ever, the pressure of her belly against his front was delicious and delirious and he lifted her up, effortless, and still kissing he led her to the carpet in front of the fire.
He took off her t-shirt and his polo, her hands on his fly to open it, his hands on her torso, tasting her breasts; she pushed down her trousers until she freed a leg and he was grinding against her, without shame and fear, she took his face and looked into his eyes and opened her knees so he could settle between her legs.
Frantic desire to be joined overcame both, he barely touched her down, just to see if she was wet enough and his touch made her back arch; Arya grabbed his buttocks, sliding her hands under the fabric of trousers and boxers, and pushed him down onto her and he took himself in hand and found her entrance. At first attempt he only entered a little, bucking his hip, the wrong movement, losing the connection, slipping away, clumsy, like a horny teenager that was more close to the reality Arya could imagine, because she was tight and impatient and she opened her body more and he felt the right angle and was full inside. She gasped, her frame accepted the intrusion, after a few seconds her muscles relaxed.
They locked gaze, adjusting a little to the new sensation until Jaqen’s need to move was impossible to stop; he did a few quick thrusts - too few for his and her liking - and he come soon, the years of abstinence too many to make him last.
“I’m sorry.” he murmured, spent, on her neck, breathing fast.
“For this?”
“No, never this. For being too fast.”
Arya laughed, a liberating laugh that melted his heart.
“The first time is not supposed to be like the romance novels my sister liked so much as a teenager, when the knight holds the lady and they kiss and all fade away in blissful perfection.”
“I think you’re right. You don’t like those books?”
“Never been a bookworm. And your belt is scratching my thigh. I prefer you naked.”
He put palms flat on the floor to lift himself and not crush Arya
“Where are you going?”
“You said I’m hurting you.”
She grabbed the loops of his trousers and pulled him down.
“Get fully undressed. We could try for a second round and see if practice makes it last longer.”
“On one condition. A bed.”
He helped Arya stand and she felt sticky fluids running on her thighs. She stopped to wipe them off with her t shirt and he noticed the gesture. He had forgotten everything in the heat of the moment.
“I didn’t use a condom. I’m clear and I can get you the morning after pill.”
“Don’t worry, I started the pill four months ago.”

Chapter 7

Summary:

I am very sorry for the long delay but the Chinese covid hit hard on my family and I sufffered tragic losses. So here I am trying to reconnect with my works.
This is an interlude chapter, to explain a lot of things.
Thanks a lot to my great beta, I owe your a lot.
If you are so kind to leave a commet, I will be very glad, considering my hard times.

Chapter Text

Teaching a lovely girl is enchanting and exhausting.

“You have to drag them out, working in circles around the killers. So they won’t feel something is going to happen. You’ll start killing from the lower ranks, then going higher, waving a net, getting closer to the core every passing day. I started with the first while I was away.”

Jaqen opens a folder and shows Arya newspapers about a man found dead in a wheat field with his arms and legs tied like a goat, a clear sign of a feud between Families.

“Will you complete my revenge with me?”

“I’ll be with you, beside you, behind you, around you, always.”

This is madness, he thinks, risks and dangers and the reverse of what he has built for more than half his life, a descent into the same path of his father and grandfather.

But Arya is the one, like his mother had been, like he half longed for and half prayed to be spared from …

“I’ll protect and defend you, this I can promise you and when it is over you can go back to your life.”

“I don’t want to go back and leave you!”

“You must, my path is not one you can follow. You’re young, you deserve a chance at happiness, more than I can give you.”

“And if I want only what you can give me? Who you are? You think I can return to that kind of life, untouched after what we plan and what we feel? We are damned together  or saved together. There is a tie that binds us and I won’t  break  or loosen it.”

 

 

When did a girl, a black haired, grey eyed,  pale skinned girl become a lovely girl, his lovely girl?

In which moment, during their training, during their shared meals, during long walks along the beach? During endless  hours spent under the wooden beams of the upper floor, painted in black and white, that he had transformed into a training room?

When the next  touch be?

When the next kiss?

Because she is close, so close, too close and he has to bring her face to his, her lips to his, his life to hers.

His words flow from the broken dam he has built around him over three decades of his life.

“My grandfather was a kind man, a good man, he helped people. He was the town mayor, respected by everyone. He acted as the keeper of the justice and peace office, too, his decisions were wise. He and his brothers owned a transportation  firm that  delivered goods up to the big towns and a small farm. They owned big horses and were sad with the advent of  engines  and  trucks.

He was away often in the evenings when times got hard, when dangerous winds blew the new flag they were forced to use. His wife was  younger, he married late, but they had three children. A Jewish family he was friends with was in great danger, and  grandfather helped them to reach a neutral country.  Someone betrayed him and he was taken away with his family. Only my father and his older sister survived the camp.”

Jaqen cannot stop the tears; Arya takes his hand and caresses his palm with her fingers.

She feels he has not finished yet. The worst is still to come

“My father wanted to honour his family, he wanted to help people, too. To have justice for his relatives, to make the bad people pay.

Then new people  arrived from the East, another kind of evil. He married my mother,  a high school teacher, she taught what they wanted her not to teach. The intellectuals, the students, the poets tried a revolution during a warm spring and it was blood again, and repression. Hard.”

His hand squeezes hers, an iron grip she accepts without a sound.

“My mother was taken away from me and my brother and my father; I never saw her again. She died of a fever in a hospital prison, they told dad. They cremated her and we only got  her ashes. I grew up understanding my father more and more, while my brother became estranged. My father never remarried, although he had two young sons and  was a handsome man. He loved one woman only, he repeated to me every year at mom’s grave, her love had been enough.”

“I never imagined.”

They share so many pains. Her voice is soft and kind, Jaqen’s tears fall on her wrist, he has not cried for years.

“I started my own personal revenge. I have a cousin, a famous violinist, he was allowed to travel with the orchestra, albeit always under surveillance of our state police. He contacted the people my grandfather had saved, they  remembered us and through my cousin I escaped.”

 

“A powerful secret service  gave me a new name, my bank account changed so many  times,  making impossible to trace it back, and the best plastic surgeon of the middle east created a new face for me. All because my grandfather saved that family, whose younger child went on to have a  stellar career as a high ranking army  officer.”

Jaqen rolls up his trousers and starts walking on the beach where sand and water meet. Arya stares at him, silhouetted against the rising sun. He has explained to her that  the house is in a position over the cape, one beach facing east, one west.

“So the secret service trained you?”

“An excellent training, although very hard. I didn’t care.  After two years I  repaid them with a long mission in South America, to track down ex-army officers responsible for “desaparecidos”, missing people. Then I was asked to join my Brothers.”

With the money he earned, he rented  one of the old safe houses, the most secluded one in the west, only  the sea surrounding it.

 

 

 

“When I killed my first, a paedophile who had broken a lot of young girls, at first I felt relief. My adrenaline was high, I shot him in the middle of the forehead, I had him trapped  in a deserted old train station. I stared at the tracks for a while after he died, desiring to leave.”

He had freed the world from a disgusting man, he should have felt proud, weeks of observation, nights spent awake following him  into red light  districts, inside dirty buildings where with money a man could buy anything, including life or death.

He had steeled himself, forcing his hand to wait, forcing his mind to erase the image of the little girl the pervert was touching, until the right day came.

Afterwards he took a fast train with a new face - fake moustache and dyed hair - and was in another country in less than three hours, long before the body was discovered. He reached the safe house used in the capital, went to the top floor, just under the pigeons in  the roof, and ran to the bathroom where he expelled all the hate and rage, shitting himself, vomiting food, liquids and in the end blood. Later, he took a long bath to scrub his skin carefully, and he felt he was born again.

“Will it be the same for me?”

“I don’t know, lovely girl.”

She is so eager to learn, so ready to follow his orders he doesn’t believe it’s possible, her demons are bigger than his, her hunger to find and save her sister.

 

 

 

Arya takes Jaqen’s hand and they sit outside, under the stars, above the sea. It seems so cliché, a romantic setting, and she turns toward him and kisses him out of blue on the lips.

“Pain is always the same, your pain is my pain and nothing will ever change it. Pain is the same.”

And she kisses him more, harder, lower, bolder.

Jaqen freezes.

“We can’t. We have to stop. Please stop.”

“I can’t stop. It makes me feel alive. For the first time since I lost my family.”

“You can’t want me. Look at me, look at my scars, at my wounds. At my face, I’m too old for you.”

His past is readable on his features.

“I don’t care about your face, your scars and your wounds, I don’t care about your age. I want you.”

“I’ m lost and I cannot let you lose yourself, I’ve never let anyone come so close to me, touch my body, feel my soul. Once I had to kill a man and to get him I had to play a part and he was touching me,  he wanted to have sex with me. I was so scared for the humiliation and the pain but I remained sane.”

He closes his eyes, sees the man beside  him again and his fingers stretching his ass to prepare for penetration,  and he observes  himself turning suddenly and the hidden knife clicks in his hand and the man is stabbed to death.

“I cleaned everything, disposed of the body, then I went to the sea. I walked into the water and I cleaned my body off.”

 

“Longing and desiring is a weakness, lovely girl.”

“I never had a lover before you . I had a friend, a very good one, a ski instructor. We kissed and touched, we were thinking about going all the way for my 18th birthday, a special gift, by that time I was lost and I left him back. Never answered his calls or  texts. And from Sandor’s calls  he has a girlfriend now.”

She has information about her hometown, detailed reports of what is happening there from her butler, the only man she trusts enough. Because in the case Sansa is found, she needs to know. She clings to this hopes, Jaquen knows, and he must support her with all his strength.

 

 

 

Chapter 8

Notes:

After a long pause here we are again...

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

“We need the name behind the alias of the Night King.” The alias was the only contact in Meryn Trant’s phone without any trace whatsoever to identify its owner.

Jaqen had to steal the phone,  the police surely would notice the absence of the device and obtain information from the telephone company, but he needed to send it to his brothers for an accurate examination.

“I’m sorry, Jaqen, it’s one of the best kept secrets of the whole world.”

The voice of Jaqen’s boss on the speaker was kind, a voice Arya was now able to recognize among the others; she addressed him as the Kindly man. Jaqen had been clear that no names were to be used, for the safety of the mission, so she gave codenames to everyone.

Jaqen’s brothers at their headquarters hit a thick wall every time they used databases for “night king”.

Powerful firewalls were up to protect the man behind the name. All they got were stories for scaring children in various languages. No photos, no traces, nothing. Arya was listening to the conversation and her forehead furrowed, if the Night King was the perpetrator of the massacre, her revenge had a target, but what if it disappeared into a black well  without end?

No one was able to hide so well, there must be a weak point, an Achilles’ heel and she trusted Jaqen to find it.

If any man had the ability, it would be Jaqen.

 

 

 

At night, Sansa and Jaime created a world of fairy tales. He was the knight in shining armour on a white horse, she was the damsel with long braids living in a castle surrounded by faithful dogs.

She whispered sweet melodies about romance and devotion and he recited quotes about true love from the holy texts, to forget about the torture and all that happened in daylight.

The evening after he was raped she remained silent, he held her hand, glad that darkness covered their faces and his shame.

She didn’t refuse the contact and Jaime was relieved, he felt she was cleaning his soul, like he had been forced to clean her body.

Dozing on and off, they kept a connection, arm on shoulder, fingers intertwined, to assure they were still human beings, a sensation of closeness too long forgotten, since he had devoted himself to God.

Near dawn Sansa went to the corner to use the rudimental chamber pot, modesty long forgotten since they were locked in together, then returned to lie beside Jaime on the mattress. 

She noticed how he winced and he suppressed a groan lifting a little his back.

“Are you hurt?”

“In my pride more than in my body.”

He refused to admit that his bloody ass was a maddening throb and he could only breathe in and out to ease the pain.

“It was …weird.”

“For a southerner, it’s a good way to humiliate a man. Especially in presence of a woman.”

She murmured a yes, he’d prefer not to talk about it, but he sensed she was not done yet.

“What you did to me…”

Sansa forgot her usual shyness, after what they shared it was completely out of place. In a strange way, he had been her first.

 “I mean, it was supposed to be degrading and shameful, but in the end I felt something I never experienced before. How did you know how to do it?”

“I’ve had another life before, I had a lover. I’ve tried to erase her, but you can’t forget your past. I was a fool in believing I could. But you never had been… down there?”

“I never dated a boy. I’ve thought to become a nun, but my family was completely against it. My mother cried for a week at the mere idea. Then I devoted myself to teaching to disabled children, to feel useful in another way.” Jaime understood her choice.

“A nun? Well, we’re a good duo. A girl who caressed the idea of marrying Jesus and a man who hid from his family behind God. But a beautiful girl like you surely has a lot of suitors.”

She blushed a little, he’d hit a sensitive subject.

“Maybe there’s someone who cares for me, but he’s very shy. Shier than me.”

 

 

 

 

The heat hit Arya in the face when they left the  airport building for the car park; their rented car was an anonymous blue Punto, a very popular car; it was equipped with air conditioning and she thanked Jaqen for the choice.

“Always blend in with the place, remember. Dress like they do, eat what they sell, drive a common car.” Jaqen had kept on training her for the mission.

It was difficult to breathe, she missed her snow, her ice, she missed the winds from the ocean too.

She spotted a shop selling delicate printed paper fans, it could be a good purchase.

“How do they survive in summer?”

“Habit, I think.”

 It was late spring and she did not dare to imagine the situation in full summer; Jaqen appeared unaffected, his composure unchanged from when they were at the house, if only for the subtle way he kept himself close to her, a fraction, a brief contact. Was it only for the protection of his employer or was it desire for the young girl who was sharing his bed?

“People here tend to be closer than you are used to, remember, don’t refuse a kiss on the cheek or a contact but be aware, always. Daggers and knives are common.”

“I can handle myself.”

“I know, lovely girl, I’m not going to be far from you, ever. The town is famous and we are tourists on honeymoon, so would you like to wear this?”

Jaqen opened a small velvet case that contained two shining gold bands.

“They fit your left and my right ring finger. I am supposed to be from Germany where they wear it on the right. They are new, not recycled, it’s proper for a new couple.”

“How do you know my size?”

“A man has his ways and great help from his Brothers.”

She stared hesitantly at the rings; it was not her intention to contradict Jaqen, but the idea of a ring on her seemed like an ownership, a reduction of her fierce independence, one of her most treasured goals.

He sensed her uneasiness.

“Is there something wrong?”

“No, Jaqen, I …just never envisaged seeing a wedding ring on me. I’m not the kind of girl who desires to marry.”

Her voice was a little too harsh if he was being completely honest and he wanted to ask if some boy had already broken her heart or if she simply considered herself unworthy of a serious commitment.

“I thought it would be better to visibly show that we are married, in case some local guy tries to flirt too much with you, but if you don’t want it….”

A flicker of sadness passed over his face, like she could not comprehend his desire to protect; she took the smaller ring and offered it to Jaqen to put on her finger.

“Do it, groom.”

The ring was perfect. “I’ll wear it and show it off to every man who wants to charm me. Although I’m not the kind who’s like to be charmed.”

Oh lovely girl, if you only know, he thought and repressed the desire to give her a kiss. She took his ring and mirrored his previous gesture.

She stared at her hand, then at his and how the gold was the tone of his tanned skin. A fleeting thought crossed her mind, how during the last year, after deciding not to take the veil, Sansa had often forced Arya into talking about their future weddings and the grooms who’d give them rings and now Arya was wearing one; if only Sansa was here to see it, she sighed. All she was doing was for her.

 

 

“My first was a policeman.”

Sansa startled at Jaime’s words, so sudden, said in a low tone that revealed his anguish and hurt.

“I killed him a month after he became a father for the second time, I made a widow and two orphans. My father sent me to do that work to prove I was able, his true son, a lion with the courage to kill.”

Don Tywin could not let his golden boy be considered a coward, so Jaime had to demonstrate he was the rightful heir, a man of power, not a boy hiding behind his father. And Cersei pressed him to prove his value, she wanted him to be respected, admired, she wanted to be proud of him in front of the other women of the Families and she wanted to worship Jaime in their few private moments.

“I was a fool, young and heartless and when I saw his blood and his brains spill out, I dropped the gun and ran away to retch in a bush.” 

And he had had to go back, his friend Addam Marbrand was his back up that day and told Jaime he had to retrieve the gun, to never leave evidence, to never give up a weapon.

“That was my first, but not my worst. Barely a year later The King got mad, my father was surveying him closely but everything went crazy, suddenly. There was a white snow delivery blow up because the police had a tip-off and he got angry and wanted to teach the whole town a lesson. He asked for a bomb to put inside the church of a priest who dared to oppose him, building a youth centre to help teenagers follow the right path.”

Jaime recalled how the bodyguards of the King were shocked at the idea, it was absurd and they tried to dissuade Don Aerys, tried to change his mind, but the king wanted Old Frey to build the bomb and put it into a car. When his driver opened the garage door, Jaime knew he had to do something.

“Don Aerys placed the bomb on the back seat and when he stood I shot, first the driver, then the King. He fell back on the floor, I saw it in slow motion. Like it was not happening to me.”

One shot in their heads was enough, there was no one else present and the sound made other guards approach fast. They saw the body, the young Lannister with the gun and the bomb.

“From then on I became the Kingslayer.”

The new appointed boss, because there were no male heirs on the Targaryen line, was Robert Baratheon and Robert wanted a wife. His choice was Jaime’s sister, the only daughter of Don Tywin.

“We were close, too close for our own good. The lack of children to play with, the continued surveillance by our father’s man everywhere. For a few years she was my whole world.  I prayed for her not to marry Robert, but she craved the prestige!”

Robert wanted children – Jaime told Sansa – but when after a year Cersei hadn’t conceived yet, rumours that Robert had fathered some bastards were widespread, while  Cersei was in excellent health, her body ready to bear a child, as her medical tests confirmed.

In the waiting room of the clinic she had heard a couple talking about male sterility and she became suspicious, because Robert had had a high fever after coming home from South America, shortly before they got married. Cersei collected a seed sample without Robert noticing and got the news she feared.

“No one would dare tell the King he was sterile, so she found help. She had twins. A boy and a girl.”

Jaime wanted to escape the madness of his life as the male heir of a Goodfather and blatantly failed.

“They still use me. For confessions, I can’t avoid my family. Father comes here once a year to clean his soul and I’m forced to listen to him. Every time he promises to stop and I have to assign him a ridiculous punishment in prayers and absolve him.”

“So they let you stay here because you’re not a threat for them.”

Sansa was right, Jaime wanted to believe his vocation, his choice of a different life had been a liberation, but he was still deep into the net of his Family. Don Tywin the mastermind and his siblings secretly happy to have him locked into a different kind of prison.

“Do they know I’m here? With you, I mean?”

“I believe so. Bolton comes from a family in a strong alliance with mine.”

“And the Avvocato?”

“He’s dangerous in a subtle way, he likes to control people, not with brute force but with intelligence, Father wanted him to dissuade me from taking my wows, I spent an afternoon talking with him and ended up exhausted, not enough to make me give up.”

From his high school memories, Baelish would be the perfect Machiavelli’s prince: the art of politics, the use of words to influence, the ability to gain from his enemy’s weaknesses.

 

 

 

Gregor Clegane, a man much taller than average, entered a two floor house near the harbour, a house with white walls and blue window panels like all the others on the street; Jaqen stopped the car and Arya took off her dark sunglasses for a brief moment.

His number was on the phone list and his huge size had been captured by a CCTV camera at the restaurant; the police had strong suspicions about him but with his face covered by a mask they hadn’t had enough proof to arrest him.

Gregor visited his favourite whore every other week, his movements were known and a good amount of money to the right person assured Jaqen the address.

“Did you take good note of the way out? Remember at the lights you cannot turn right.”

She nodded and they switched seats; the wheel was still sweaty from Jaqen’s hands, he was not as unconcerned as he pretended to be.

“I can’t believe he’s Sandor brother.”

“Estranged half-brother, same mother, different father, his mother had been raped and her religious beliefs made her keep the child.”

“She’d have been better to have gotten rid of Gregor.”

“Sandor is devoted to you Stark only.”

“I know, but I’m sad for him now I know more of his past.”

Jaqen grabbed his backpack and a large beach towel, perfect to hide the gun. The house had an external stone staircase leading up to the roof. It was early afternoon, the hottest part of the day, and there was silence everywhere, not even the ever present seagulls dared to fly or break the silence with their cries.

Jaqen slid out of the car and Arya kept the engine on, her hands were sweating and she took deep breaths to steady her heartbeat.

She was actively partaking in a homicide. One of the men who had destroyed her family and her happiness. Arya felt no remorse, no shame for helping Jaqen. The girl who once was Ned’s tomboy and Catelyn’s wild daughter had chosen a path of vengeance and revenge

Sunglasses and a hat completed Jaqen’s minimal disguise, no one noticed him from behind closed windows and heavy curtains, he reached the top and the stairs leading inside had no door. He turned and stepped down inside.

There were three doors along the narrow dark corridor, the first a tiled bathroom floor, the second open into an empty bedroom; he stood beside the last one.

Sounds of people fucking, grunts and a creaking bed; a beat to steady himself and he was inside, unnoticed by the couple, Clegane’s eyes were closes and the whore’s face was turned to the opposite side; it was too easy.

Mirare, puntare, fuoco.

 

Don Tywin let the dogs out, sending all his men in search of his golden son.

“Every house, every store, every farm. You have to find him, understood?”

His impressive height- over sixty and still tall and athletic like twenty years before – made Don Tywin stand above all his men, who had received the news Jaime was missing.

Everyone knew the old lion adored his oldest son, vows or not.

Tyrion suggested caution, before the police got alerted and inspector Tarth jumped into the game.

He had glimpsed Cersei’s golden mane outside the window, his sister was very worried so she had shared with Tyrion Qyburn’s report.

The surprise on his face assured Cersei her family had no clues regarding Jaime’s situation, but Tyrion’s impulsive hug startled her; never before had her little brother showed such affectionate behaviour.

“We need to inform Father immediately.”

“He’ll be angry I asked for Qyburn’s help.”

“He’ll be angrier if we keep him in the dark.”

Her phone rang, she looked at the screen, her face showed annoyance and her finger refused the call. It rang again and Tyrion glimpsed cousin’s Lancel’s name.

“Answer him.” Tyrion suggested.

“He’s not important. Only Jaime matters now.”

“Cersei Lannister refusing a man? A first for me to see.”

“There’s only one man I care about, Tyrion, and you know it well.”

Now Cersei was pacing around the garden like a wounded lioness, waiting for Don Tywin to start the hunt.

Roose Bolton sat at Tywin’s side with a map spread on the table and gave detailed orders, splitting the town into zones and assigning each to a team of two people.

“I’ll go to the harbour, father.”

Ramsay proposed.

“No, Ramsay, I want you at the convent. Check every corner, Jaime was there and he must have left traces.”

The young Bolton nodded at Don Tywin’s orders: the old lion was offering him the very place he wanted to be.

Tyrion took note of his father’s decisions; everything was related to the ill-managed Stark affair, he was sure, someone he wasn’t able to identify yet was aware of the presence of the northern family and wanted to sabotage the project. But Jaime’s involvement was a different problem, there was a deeper hidden layer he was determined to discover.

“They have the Stark girl and Jaime”, he told his father, “Whoever is involved, it’s against us.”

Tywin remained silent, his son’s theory was logical and he felt stupid for missing the connection before, too concerned about Jaime since Cersei told him about her fears.

 

 

 

Jaqen stripped a dagger to Arya’s thigh under her gown with an adhesive tape and kissed the blade and her skin as though she wore a black lace garter bought in an elegant Parisian shop.

She needed weapons for her first kill, the hunger in her eyes at the idea to start – really start – her vengeance made Jaqen shiver inside: he had never met someone so feral and instinctive like Arya.

If he was control and calculation, she was pure wilderness, he cared for her enough to feel a physical pain at the thought of seeing her hurt.

And he felt an excitement in his trousers that he breathed hard to reduce; years of self-imposed refusal of human contact and now he had her and he could not control himself.

Later, if she’d allow him, he’d have her, naked under him and begging for his touch.

But right now there was the mission to focus on, Jaqen was back to his old self and made Arya repeat the plan that he had carefully prepared again.

Frey, the gunsmith, the man who managed with his sons the shooting range hidden underground a strawberry field, was the man who took care of the weapons.

“Without the Freys, they’ll lose certainty, it’s the third generation of Freys working for the Families.”

“I know, you told me countless times.”

“A girl must remember. It won’t be easy. If you feel you’re not up to…”

“I’m up for it and I know.” She interrupted him. “I cover your back and let you do all the hard work.”

They hid near Frey’s county house, taking a safe position on a very old and huge olive tree and waited until the two women finished cleaning the dinner table under the grapevine and left through the outer stairs to the first floor of the building.

There were no sounds except for cicadas and night birds, but the night smelled of citrus flowers; Jaqen had some drugged food should there be dogs, but it seemed that in that secluded farm the dogs were simply spending their life lazily chasing rabbits.

Jaqen gave a sign, Arya checked her weapons, the one she held and the hidden one, then Jaqen climbed down and went to the low fenced wall and with no apparent effort jumped over it.

Arya followed him with less grace and they were inside the garden, unnoticed.

Turning around the corner of the house, there was a faint light through an open door and male voices were heard.

Jaqen squeezed Arya’s wrist briefly, then in silence moved to the other side of the door, a shadow the Freys didn’t notice.

It was enough for him to see they were four men, apparently unaware of the incoming danger.

It was easy, first an arrow to pierce the chest of the younger one, then a dagger between the eyes of the second – a perfect shot – then Jaqen entered and Arya faced the third, her dagger easy to still a heart. The old Walder, the patriarch, saw his children fall before he could retrieve a gun or help them.

Jaqen approached him before he could walk back, grabbing his arms and keeping him in the middle of the room, waiting for Arya’s sharp dagger that opened Frey’s throat to make him bleed to death.

Two shadows left the house long before the women found the bodies.

 

Notes:

Thanks for your opinions

Chapter 9

Summary:

I thank my precious beta a lot, a miuch needed help to upodate this fiction, I have decidedo to make shorter chapters to have a better flow of the story.
Thanks for your patience.

Notes:

A scene with violence and blood, be alert.

Chapter Text

 

“Let her go!”

Jaime screamed.

“I told you to be quiet, Lannister, don’t make me angry.”

The fist in the middle of his chest took away the air from Jaime’s lungs and he fell to his knees, coughing.

“Make him stand, boys.”

Ramsay’s men, Payne and Lorch, grabbed Jaime roughly under the armpits and forced him to lean against the closet under two windows.

Sansa lay half naked on the bare stone floor, passed out from a cane beating, her back a patch of red rivulets, blood flowing or half crusted, a strong contrast to her pale skin.

Bolton loved to see her bloody, that was a certainty.

“I was playing with her, Jaime, and you ruined my day, so I think you have to pay for it, don’t you?”

Ramsay approached Jaime with a knife, sharp and serrated, the type hunters use to skin their preys.

Jaime fought against the arms that were holding him, kicked a leg, heard a hiss of pain, but Bolton gave a quick twist of his head and Lorch’s boot fell on Sansa’s back. She cried in agony.

“She’s as desperate as her brother when I shot him. He didn’t die immediately. I saw his blood on the floor and his face getting pale.”

Jaime wanted to cry, Sansa was in presence of one of the killers.

“If you move again, he’ll continue. Yours is the choice, do you want your little pet maimed to death?”

He shook his head, resigned, he was a strong man, but they were three, armed and tormenting an innocent.

He had to protect her, he had failed already and it was his chance for redemption.

Then Jaime was dragged forward, his arms outstretched in front of him, pinning him on the table in the middle of the room, while Sansa was tied to a chair and forced to keep her eyes open, a gun at her temple.

Their gaze locked, then Bolton took the huge holy cross with the body of Jesus away from the wall, smashing it on the floor so hard it broke in pieces.

He took one of the nails from the wood and weighed it, examining how sharp it was. Old iron, aged maybe centuries.

“Pass me the bag!” Bolton ordered.

A rope, a thick rope was used to tie Jaime’s wrists and his thighs, so he was unable to move and stand, like a goat for the slaughter. But with the way his legs were pressed together, they weren’t going to rape him this time.

“We’re going to have fun, Brother Jaime, a lot of fun. You pray under that cross every evening, don’t you? You want to become like him?”

Jaime was sweating, his pulse racing, fear invading him, this was going to be worse than he suffered before, Bolton was talking about blasphemy.

Holy Mary, Mother of sinners, pray for us.

“My father won’t like to hear about this. Set us free.”

“Your dear father is not here, Don Tywin is safe in his beautiful house, with his other children who are clever and accept our rules. Not stubborn and idealistic like you.”

“Don’t hurt him!”

Sansa pleaded, bending a little to ease the pressure of the rope on her damaged skin.

“Oh, now you want to save him, little bitch? You want more punishment? I’ll be happy to comply, but I want to make you wait a little more before I have my time with you. It will only increase my pleasure. You’ll like very much to be impaled on my cock and my men’s too. We’ll have a nice day together, but now I’m pressed for time, I can barely deal justice to your friend.”

Bolton was fast, he grabbed a hammer from the tools bag and placed the nail above Jaime’s right wrist.

“Some say Jesus was crucified on the palm, some not. Let’s make an experiment.”

He lifted the hammer and Jaime’s scream started before he felt the hit.

Lord, have mercy….                  

Pain.

White hot burning eternal pain, like the flames of the deepest hell. Jaime felt each small bone break, each nerve flake off, every muscle give way. He was pinned, nailed, bound to his own personal cross, unable to move, to breathe, to spill tears. A shock that left him paralyzed.

 

 

The peaceful atmosphere of the small room with soft lights, scented candles and soft music was an incentive to complete relaxation.

The spa was one of the best in town, Cersei Lannister loved the place and after a few minutes on the massage bed, laying face down, her long hair kept in place by a red ribbon and a towel covering her modesty, she was always able to relax and breathe slower.

The masseuse was using her skilled fingers to loose the knots of muscles on her client’s back, Cersei was a regular, booking a massage once a week. At first she had preferred a woman named Ellaria, but after a misunderstanding about a booking Taena stepped in.

The masseuse knew who her client was and so, apart from some informal conversation about the weather or the latest celebrity gossip, their relationship remained strictly professional.

Better show respect to the daughter and widow of a Don.

For the first twenty minutes things were going as smooth as usual, but then Taena noticed Cersei’s back arch a little and her arms push against the massage table.

She continued, maybe it was a contraction, maybe the need to cough or sneeze, but the woman didn’t return to full relaxation, her muscles opposed Taena’s touch.

“Are you ok?  Do you want me to stop?”

Cersei suddenly turned on her side and grabbed her right hand with the left, until her knuckles were white.

She was sweating profusely, the massage oil making her skin glisten in the candlelight.

Her breath was laboured and she curled into a ball on the massage table.

“Mrs. Lannister, are you in pain?  Please, answer me!”
Taena knelt to be eye level to Cersei, who was now crying.

It was not possible that she had touched a nerve to cause such a reaction; she was experienced and well trained.

“I’ll call a doctor.”

“No! Stay. It’s not your fault….”

Cersei shivered and trembled more, her heart thumped in her chest, her twin’s name on her lips when she passed out.

 

 

 

Ramsay Bolton and his men left, loosening Sansa’s ropes so that with an effort she could free herself; her cuts were open and sore, the rope had been drenched in salted water to make her suffer more.

“We need to run away. They’ll be back soon.” She told Jaime, who could only weep. His broken wrist and the aftershock made him tremble.  

Sansa’s hold on the nail sent another wave of pain to his brain, tears flowed freely.

“I have to do it, forgive me.”

Her expression was different, now, cold steel blue eyes met green ones, Sansa showed concentration to ease his suffering.

Ave Maria, gratia pleina…

Mother, guide her in this difficult task.

Sansa pulled, once, hard, until the nail was off and Jaime’s body slid from the table like a rotten doll.

Blood flowed from the wound, a new rivulet, as if he had not bled enough; Sansa scanned around to get a cloth.

“The closet.” He whispered, turning his head toward the wall opposite the windows.

She opened the first drawer and found some scissors to set Jaime free; his arms hung limply from his shoulders and his legs felt like molten lead, unable to support his weight.

From the second drawer she grabbed the first stole on top and returned to him, kneeling.

He saw the purple garment – for the days of the passion of Jesus, so appropriate, he thought -  and lifted his good hand to get it; Sansa understood, it was a holy object, he was damned and broken but still had respect in him, so she let him kiss the stole before wrapping it tightly around his wrist.

Sansa ran to both doors, they were locked, their jailers’ intention clear: let Jaime bleed to death without help.

She looked around, in search of something to break the windows, but Jaime had other ideas.

“Help me stand.” He murmured between waves of pain that threatened to make him vomit what little his stomach had.

“There is a secret door, between the high chandelier and the painting of saint Thomas.”

The tapestry had a thin cut and a very small hole that concealed a lock.

Hesitantly he stood, she supported him and they entered into a narrow dark corridor, leading to the old kitchen and to the pantry with the first aid kit.

Two painkillers, first, then Sansa cleansed the wound and wrapped it in a bandage. His teeth clattered, his body adjusting to the shock; Jaime couldn’t stop, his mind whirled with one word only.

Away, away, away.

“They’ll be back. They don’t know about the passage, but we need to be fast.”

“We can’t run, you’re wounded.”

“You too, turn around.”

Her dress was torn and the marks ugly. He poured abundant disinfectant over it and used cotton pads to clean most of the blood.

He was set like Jesus on the cross, she was posed as Our Lord after the flagellation.

“We’ll take the Panda, the key is always in. I know the unpaved road on the other side of the hill. Can you drive?”

She nodded and he grabbed her arm, leading her to his room.

“No time to change, wear this.” She took off her ruined dress and wore one of his religious uniforms.

Jaime leaned against the wall, trembling, he had a plan to follow; from the nightstand he retrieved a thick envelope sealed with adhesive tape and handed it to Sansa.

 

 

 

"I'm fine! It was a pressure drop, I shouldn’t have eaten before I came here. It's nothing."

Tyrion Lannister recognized his sister's voice before seeing her refuse the help of two women in the uniform of the spa.

"Tyrion, Shae!" The joy of seeing them seemed excessive to Tyrion, as if Jaime were in his place.

"Dear sister, we arrived as soon as you called us."

"Tyrion will take you home and I’ll drive your car."

"Shae, I can drive."

The two employees of the spa remained a step behind, now that Cersei’s family had arrived she was no longer their responsibility

The three Lannisters reached the exit. Shae made it clear to her husband that her sister-in-law was too silent and too pale.

The couple exchanged a nod of understanding.

"Do you really feel like driving?"

Tyrion asked Cersei, who passed the keys to her sister-in-law and climbed into the passenger's seat of her brother's BMW.

For the first stretch of road Cersei looked outside, only to turn around when Tyrion asked her how she was for the umpteenth time.

"I'm fine!"

"A fainting spell is no joke." Tyrion furrowed his brow. "Cersei, tell me the truth: are you pregnant? It happened to Shae both times in the first months."

"Pregnant? Me?"

"If you need help to get rid of it … I won't say anything to our father or to anyone else."

His sister's ironic laughter made him gasp.

"I take double precautions. Robert's widow and Tywin's daughter can't have a bastard, can she?"

There was a sadness in Cersei’s voice that hit a nerve in Tyrion, he shifted in the seat, uncomfortable. He had long suspected that Robert’s twins were not what they looked like, but only recently, seeing them grow up, he had compared them with photos of Jaime and Cersei at the same age.

"I just wanted to help you."

She put a hand on his thin forearm and the gesture warmed Tyrion’s heart a little.

"I don't need your help, Tyrion, our brother does!"

"What do you mean?"

"I felt a sudden sharp pain in my right wrist, something terrible happened to Jaime,  I'm sure."

Tyrion Lannister was not a man inclined to believe in supernatural and magical forces, but his sister's tone was so intense that it caused him a shiver.

He had read about the special bond in some pairs of twins, his siblings had never spoken of similar phenomena, at least with the relatives. But what he had discovered by observing them in silence over the years now made him believe that there was an even deeper layer in the bond that the two shared.

 

 

Chapter Text

 

 

Jaime did a few steps at a time, making a stop when it was too painful.

Twice he sat on a nearby seat, telling Sansa he needed a moment.

The swinging of his arm caused strong waves of pain.

They passed the warehouse, the laundry and eventually reached the old barn.

Jaime opened the  passenger door while Sansa  throw the back pack behind the driver seat and opened the large wooden door.

“Take some water.”  Jaime pointed at the shelves where  supplies were stored. “We  need clean water.”

She lifted a pack of six bottles wrapped in green plastic, grimacing for her abused fingers, to put in the Panda trunk.

“Faster, there’s  no time.”

Sansa complied,  then sat and  fastened the belt, not thinking about her abused  back, asking where the nearest police station was. Jaime  remained silent, fixing the well outside in the middle of the yard.

“Jaime?”  She touched his shoulder.

“We won’t go to the police. I can’t trust anyone now.”

“But we need the police and a doctor! Immediately!” He turned to her, his face sweating for the aftershock,

“You don’t understand. I was raised here, I know how things work. There’s a fight  between the Families  and we’re in the middle of a big game. We need to hide for a while and see what happens. I can find  help. My friend Addam owes me a big favour. He lives out of town”

He turned the key and instructed  Sansa to follow the driveway to the main gate, then turn right along the external wall.

Jaime’s gaze was on the accelerator, like he wanted to push it further with the mere force of his mind, but  the old Panda had worn out tyres, holes and stones on the ground could easily end their travel at the beginning. There were more than ten kilometres before reaching a paved road.

They passed under the entrance arch, Jaime silently told a farewell to a place where he found peace, then the wheels started making a trail of dust behind the Panda, as the dry soil  reacted to the car’s frantic run.

Sansa was looking forward, Jaime back, half breathing,  half praying  and then full cursing, forgetting all his wows, when he glimpsed a car approaching the hermitage from the main road.

“Faster, there’s a car.”

Grabbing the wheel he steered  the car, dangerously close to the unprotected roadside.

Jaime’s right hand felt numb and with a brief glance Sansa declared he was feverish.

Jaime squinted and shook his head to keep his concentration. The other car has spotted the Panda and was following them,  

Jaime took the back pack and retracted a small gun.

“If they reach us, I’ll shoot and you must continue, there is a town hall at the bottom of the hill, ask for help there to the Carabinieri* only. Don’t stop to look at me, whatever happens. Ok?”

Sansa nodded.

“Is it close?”

“Not yet, but it’s fast.”

After a turn of the road, Jaime clearly saw the small white car, not Bolton’s hammer

 

Arya had spotted the driver’s red hair and  she was sure Sansa was inside the Panda.

She shouted Jaqen to follow it,  he acted by instinct and increased speed, then he realized his action was having the opposite effect, the other car was accelerating and they were unable to make themselves known.

“She can’t see you.”

“Sansa is not a good driver, you should reach her easily.”

“I hope, before she goes astray.”

“The snitch was right.”

“Yes.”

The anonymous message to go to the convent arrived at Winterfell via a phone call, Sandor had only the time to listen to a recorded tape before the call ended. .

Arya leaned on  the cockpit,  a desperate gesture to be closer to her sister.

“I don’t want to scare her further and cause an accident.”

“You said the only access route was the one we took.”

“This is probably a service road for olive groves.”

Arya tried to check the  map on her phone, it was difficult  with all the bumping and Jaqen’s attempt to avoid the larger holes that forced  her head thrice against the roof.

A stone hit the front window and Jaqen cursed, fearing it could  break.

Arya used the regular lines of trees to estimate the distance between the cars and see if it was diminishing.

For a while they seemed to gain advantage, then the Panda found a flat straight section and increased the gap again, only to pass too fast over a  protruding tree root  and crash against a tree.

 

For Sansa the safe belt tension  was more painful than the cane.

A few seconds to absorb the hit then she looked at Jaime, who had unfastened his own belt and was trying to open the door, blocked by the trunk.

“Open yours.”

He ordered her, pushing Sansa’s hip to force her out of the car; he followed, hiding behind the door to have  a shooting point and  shielding Sansa with his body. It was impossible to run, the trees were too few to offer  protection and they were both wounded.

The other car stopped at a short distance and Jaime lifted the gun; he had to use his left hand, reducing a lot his ability to shoot.

He waited, the  occupants were still inside, it meant he had a difficult target and they had time to call for reinforcements.

Then a man with red hair and a boy with a baseball cap got out and   started walking toward them, no weapons in sight.

“Stop or I’ll shoot.”

Jaime shouted, the duo halted and the man told something to the boy, who spoke loudly with a female voice.

“Let my sister go! Sansa, it’s me,  Arya! I saw you in the car. Come here,  we won’t harm you!”

 

---

 

The  paths up the hills were used by  bikers in every season; with a full  helmet and dark sunglasses no one noticed the biker who left the usual path at the old goat barn and headed west through the almond grove.  

The man took off his helmet and  grabbed the spyglass, pointing it toward the convent.

He stopped to scratch over his left eyes, where a scar itched due to the heat under the helmet.

No activity and no people in sight. Good. He saw a hammer approaching and soon a few men were shouting and running in and out of the buildings.

---

The Carabinieri are an Italian branch of the Army, not exactly like the police. They are very respected and trusted by everyone so Jaime tells Sansa to go to them. It is quite impossible a Carabiniere is a corrupt. Many acts of heroism they did.

Chapter Text

 

 

“Signor Lannister, Inspector Tarth is here to see you.”

Don Twin's office was inside a building near the docks, from a tall window he had a good view of the whole harbour. His fishing float was the respectable business to cover other more criminal enterprises.

His secretary introduced the very tall policewoman and her assistant Podrick, a younger man in uniform who remained beside the secretary’s desk as to be sure no one would disturb his boss.

“Please sit down, would you like a coffee?”

“Just a glass of water, thank you.”

Tywin stood and poured two glasses from a carafe full of water, lemon  and ice.

“Is it a formal visit?”

The inspector's courteous smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“I would like to ask you a few questions. It's not an interrogation. I won't record this conversation.”

Tywin put his glass on the desk so that the inspector could start.

“The Freys have been trapped.”

“So I heard.”

“It is strange they died all together. A bad delivery of weapons, perhaps with defects, but why killing the whole family? A betrayal so worth of all males’ death? It is known you used them for years.”

Clever woman, she wasn't accusing him of the massacre, but after the Starks affair, the tension in town was growing.

“I'm not involved.”

The inspector remained impassive at Tywin’s declaration

“You have to admit it is a bad sign. First a northern family, now the gunsmiths. The kettle  is boiling and something else will happen soon.”

“News about the Stark girl? Any news?”

“You  knows she's still missing or my office would have made official her finding. The whole country is worried for her.”

The inspector was honest, but not stupid; her presence was aimed at reminding Tywin that the police was always around. So what if they discovered his boy was missing, too? Would they consider his a power failure if he was not able to  protect his own pack? Tywin was glad they didn’t know about Jaime.

He decided to give his men three more days to find Jamie, then he would ask the police for help

 

---

 

Jaqen  took off Jaime’s  rudimental bandage: the wound  was neat and clean, but the pain the man was suffering suggested Jaqen the cut was deep,  requiring a surgery.

“I can’t. If I go to an hospital my identity will be reported to my father in a heartbeat. Bolton and Baelish will find us.”

Arya was driving, she shout her rage against the names Jaime spoke, but Jaqen silenced her immediately.

“I have an emergency kit in our hotel, but we need a safer place for tonight. It’s midnight, I’ll make a few calls.”

Arya heard him use an unknown  language for the first call and German for the second; her language ability never reached Bran’s, who spent every holiday season wanting to learn something new from all the tourists in Winterfell.

Jaqen was good, compared to her brother; she wanted to ask him how many languages he could speak, but not now.

They were too busy to define a new strategy; Arya briefly noticed the bruises and the scars on her sister’s body and was curious to know more about her companion, the brief explanation  he was a friar lasted for a few minutes, then Sansa admitted he was Don Tywin’s son.

“Go to our hotel to collect our things, then to the airport. The car rental is open all night. We’ll get a new car there.”

If Arya ever thought it was a game they were playing, she became aware of the real dangers noticing the deadly stare Jaqen gave her trough the rear view mirror.

 

---

 

Tyrion liked his half glass of Passito after dinner and Shae often put some almond biscuits on a side plate for him.

It was Tyrion’s reading time with books of his immense collection; the kids were watching tv in their room and Shae liked to embroider cushions.

When his wife sat on the armchair beside his, Tyrion understood she wanted to talk.

“I was with Cersei this afternoon at the church, the twins will receive the first communion in three weeks.”

“And our  older’s confirmation is in late summer, I know. I will donate money for the church ceiling.”

“Cersei was upset. I was checking her out after what happened yesterday.”

Tyrion had not been able to persuade Cersei to see the family doctor.

“She hates Pycelle, she refused to call him. I insisted a lot.”

“No, Tyrion, I don’t think it is something physical that worries her.  She was fine until sister Unella asked us if your brother wanted to concelebrate the mass. Cersei’s face went white and she gripped the rail of the stairs. Luckily, Myrcella arrived, she had been promised to go to choose the confetti for the celebration.”

“And Cersei?”

“She hugged her daughter tight, but she didn’t answer to sister Unella.”

“Like she refuses to speak about Jaime?”

“Has something happened between them?”

Tyrion  took his wife’s hand and kissed it, tenderly.

“I think the separation of my siblings is not a good thing for both. I need to do something for them.”

 

---

 

A few hours later, Jaqen was carefully  driving a rented  minivan with darkened windows that kept the light of dawn outside.  Jaime breathed slowly to ease the throb  of his wound and the sisters kept their hands intertwined.

Jaqen followed the navigator to an estate overlooking the town from a  hill; he  helped Jaime to walk inside  and lowered him on the couch of the sitting room. Sansa followed, then Arya with  the medical kit and their bags.

Jaqen spotted the swimming pool outside and the bunch of clean towels on a shelf.

“Arya, please, use some towels to keep the furniture clean.”

Arya spread them on the couch and the armchairs and made a mental note to discuss with Jaqen about fingerprints.

He was moving inside the house without gloves, was it deliberate carelessness from his part or a dangerous mistake? Who owned the house? His brothers, maybe.

Looking at her sister, she noticed how dirty Sansa’s  clothes were  and the blood stains on Jaime’s trousers.

“Jaqen, they need something clean to wear.”

“There should be some bathrobes, I’ll go find them, you start cleaning the blood.”

The older Stark’s eyes followed Jaqen while he left the room.

“Who is him?” Sansa asked Arya.

“A special agent Syrio found for us. But you were escaping with a Lannister?”

“He’s good, he helped me.”

“They fucked up our family, do you remember? Mom and dad are dead with Robb and Bran is a cripple now. And you’re here with the enemy.”

“Its not so easy, Arya.”  Sansa whispered through gritted teeth. “He saved me from multiple rape and beatings  and got that wound as a reward.”

 

---

 

Jaqen lead Jaime into the bathroom  of the ground floor.

The wrist was a mess, dangling at an unnatural angle and Jaime’s face showed a great deal of pain when Jaqen gently touched the injured limp.

“I’m not a doctor, but this seems  bad.”

“I know,  but I don’t care, give me some painkillers and wrap it carefully.”

“You better go to a hospital, I can drop you unnoticed.”

“And what will I say them? That I fell on a nail playing soccer? This is a serious  wound that will rise too many suspicions. Do you know there is a police office in every  hospital? Someone wants all the Starks dead. My father’s allies did this to me. We don’t know whom to  trust.”

Jaime stopped his tirade, he had realised he had slipped back into  his old self, the Don Jaime self, the one he escaped from taking his wows, the one his sister wanted him to become, a man of honour.

He had plunged again unwillingly in his past,  getting a bad taste in his mouth, a taste of corpses, of blood and fire.

Jaqen was already worried to have Arya at his side and now they were four, interconnected because Arya would never leave Sansa.

“Are you sure? There could be permanent damages on your wrist.”

Jaime nodded, Jaqen took a syringe and filled it with a strong painkiller.

“This is going to hurt,  but I need to asses it as better as I can:”

Jaime put a towel from the rack  into his mouth, the cry when the needle pierced the skin was suffocated, but not enough to pass unnoticed by Arya and  Sansa in the other room.

 

---

 

Peter Baelish  paid cash for a domestic flight to the capital and for two international flights, one to a low key town in Eastern Europe and one to an African destination. The police technician identified the transactions, made in a well-known travel agency, the amount of cash exceeded the limits allowed for transactions of that kind.

Inspector Tarth had asked her IT colleagues  to be very careful about any purchase operation connected to the transport system in case someone was trying to leave the city too quickly.

"The lawyer is afraid."

Podrick opened the file labelled “L’Avvocato”.

"Baelish has always been connected to Don Tywin."

"There's something the old Lannister didn't tell us when I spoke to him. A piece of omitted truth. I am sure, he was way too controlled and formal." 

The inspector squeezed her belt with her fingers, Pod recognized the typical gesture of moments of tension, when Brienne felt that the solution of the case was tangled like a skein and she had no way to unravel it.

 

---

 

The kitchen of the villa  was well equipped and the refrigerator full of frosted dishes;  whoever managed the pace must be very efficient, Arya thought.

“What do you want to eat?” Arya asked, getting only Sansa’s attention, her sister stiffly raise form the couch and joined her.

“I’m hungry, they gave us only bread and cheese. And I ate nothing since yesterday.”

Sansa gulped a big glass of cold water, then another.

“There’s orange juice.” Arya offered.

“Just water for now.”

Sansa poured a glass for Jaime, Arya forced himself to avoid comments, why was her sister so attentive with the enemy?

“Choose what you want, I’ll put it into the microwave. And for him?”

Sansa looked at Jaime, resting on the couch.

“A  chicken soup?  I don’t think he’s up to eat, probably he’ll throw up in any case.”

“Like old Nan when we were ill?”

“Sure.”

An improvised dinner on the low table between the couches was set out, Jaime could not use the spoon with his left hand and Sansa feed him; it was hot and he felt hot, too, asking Jaqen something for the fever. It was a cocktail of medicines all in a row, but Jaime wanted to be alert, whatever happened, should they run away again soon.

Jaqen got a text, read it and his minimal facial reaction was easily caught by Arya

“Bad news?”

“We lost Baelish, he’s reported on a flight for somewhere in Africa by now.”

Arya did not hide her disappointment.

“Let him go. At least for now.” Sansa declared. “He wasn’t cruel with me. I want Bolton more than him.”

Baelish never dirtied his hands to much, Jaime told her; if the Avvocato was leaving, it was a bad sign, it meant he was walking too close to the fire.

 

---

 

Lyanna and Sandor cried hearing Sansa’s voice, the  joy she was alive and well overwhelming for both.

It was  hard for Sandor to understand why her finding had to remain a secret.

“It’s really important.” Arya was determined.  “We are not following normal procedures. We cannot raise the police’s suspicions.”

Lyanna told Sandor Arya was right.

“I have been in contact with inspector Tarth. That woman is clever, since  Arya left Winterfell she started  suspecting we’re up to something, but I was careful not to give her any clue.”

“Better you talk  with her, aunt Lyanna, instead of Sandor.”  

Jaqen  had given each roles, choosing carefully, it was a complicated game of chess they had to play as a united team 

 

---

 

Jaime was lead into  a bedroom of the first floor and Sansa sat at the feet of his bed until he dozed off.

Arya was taking a shower  when Sansa entered their en suite; it felt like a holiday for a few seconds, like the summer in Greece when the sisters shared the same room.

Sansa felt excited and empty at the same time, breathing fast because she was free, but the full impact of the deaths of half her family was hitting her.

Jaqen had offered her a sleeping pill – his medical  kit was not a common one, Sansa realised – but she refused.

Who were the contacts of the man with red and white hair?  Arya trusted  Jaqen  too much, Sansa trusted her sister only. During her kidnapping, she  was forced to witness things far from her previous experiences,  she was living inside an area of uncertainty,  like sailing on a sea without reference points, endless blue water with deadly rocks just below the surface.

Arya left the bathroom dying her hair and turned  the lights off seeing Sansa already under the covers.

“Do you want to talk?”

“Not now.”

Arya missed Jaqen’s closeness, her duty was to be with Sansa and it was better not to reveal she and the strange foreigner now shared a bed.

Jaqen was alone downstairs at his computer, there were more variables to plan,  carefully, since more people were involved.

Sansa said the friar once was a criminal who had killed, was it safe to give him a gun?

He and Arya had to work fast, together, the option to lead both sisters back to Winterfell was impossible for now.

Jaqen switched  off the computer and went upstairs.

Jaime was lying on his back, the sheets a tangled mess; it was not a peaceful sleep. Jaqen casted a glance at the other bed, he was glad it was the one closer to the door, in case of danger; the alarm was on, he received the code to set it on his phone. But he wanted to sleep with an eye open.

Soft steps on the  cool marble floor,  too lights to be an intruder: Sansa’s red mane appeared.

“I wanted to check Jaime.”

“Do you want to stay for a while? I could go downstairs.”

“Or stay with Arya.”

“I don’t …”

Sansa lifted a hand to stop him.

“The way she follows your orders and perform  the tasks you give her… She never behaved this way with anyone else. There’s something going on, isn’t it?”

Jaqen nodded, Sansa’s perceptivity regarding feelings was opposite Arya’s bluntness; the sisters were so different, but clearly each did care for the other.

Sansa approached the free bed.

“Go to her. We were locked up together, I can sleep here.”

 

---

 

Don Tywin was the head of the table. His younger son at his left,  the other men followed in order of importance.

“The Stark massacre had been a mess indeed. You  were meant to scare them, make Ned sign the contract. Not allow someone else to kill them.”

Don Tywin’s fist went on the table, hard.

Ramsay held Tywin’s gaze, not caring his father’s desperate glances, asking him  to be quiet and not enrage the Don.

“The  Avvocato couldn’t seal a good agreement. And Ramsay had no time to work on it, they were preceded by the killers. …”

Reese Bolton declared  as  a feeble justification.

“We have already lost too many men. Someone is tightening the rope around us.”

Twin looked at his son.

“Father, apparently  the police is at a dead end, too. I was questioned by inspector Tarth  after Clegane was found dead.” Tyrion remembered how the Inspector towered over him, but a lion wasn’t afraid.

“That woman never drops the prey. We need her  to be transferred and soon.”

Ramsay spoke,  passing his knife from hand to hand,

One of the younger men  with a nervous  laugh  suggested there were other  ways to get rid of the inspector,  from finding her a man with a big cock to keep her busy  to placing a bomb under  her car.

Tyrion dismissed the idea, waving his hand and giving him an icy look. 

“I don't kill women so easily and from what our insiders say,  Sergeant Giantsbane and Detective Tarth  share house and bed. She is well protected and I’m not so eager to provoke  the  police now.”

 

Chapter 12

Notes:

I am very sorry for the delay in updating this work, it is 95/100 written and 2/3 edited, but I felt all the passion I put into it was not understood and it slowed me down a lot.

But the lovely Arya x Jaqen asked kindly for an update and so I decided to do it, changing the size of the chapters to make it easier for me to post something new.

Thanks a lot for your patience.

Chapter Text

 

The old Arya had vanished or was still there? A question the older Stark sister often asked herself.  

A few days and countless hours of separation  set in motion a complicate development of two people from the same roots, with the identical upbringing and different personalities.

Arya’s eyes were windows to a mind Sansa feared to discover. At first sight, Arya was the same, small, wild and vibrant as always, but in two sad, grey pools innocence was lost, like her family.

Arya formed a new pack with  the killer, the man from the East – his accent was easy to identify for a girl well versed in languages  like Sansa – and she was afraid how much Arya and Jaqen  could hurt and heal each other at the same time.

What future awaited them, Sansa debated within herself, wondering if they’d be able to return to the safety of their castle and if Arya would invite him there

The idea Arya could refuse to stay in Winterfell was hard to bear, Sansa felt they needed some time at home to mourn together.

The man had a house far away, not a home, more a place to hide from the rest of the world and he  was her true first male interest – it was too awkward to call him her first love and first love too often lasted just for  a little while, or so Sansa wanted to believe.

 

---

 

Arya closed her tablet after saying goodbye to aunt Lyanna,  who had been alone during their daily chat, because  Sandor was  too ashamed to appear on screen.

The revelation his half brother, Gregor Clegane,  had been involved in the massacre had been a massive blow for him, Lyanna had said.

“He hides in his parlour. He comes out thrice a day to check everything is ok and plan the staff’s tasks.  He refuses to talk with me and barely eats.”

Arya reported Jaqen and Sansa, who expressed her concern for their trusted servant. 

“It is not his fault. He lost contacts with Gregor after what happened.”

“He knows we trust  him.”

“He feels responsible. Aunt Lya is very worried, she says Sandor feels  useless up there.” 

Jaqen typed  on his tablet and had  the confirmation Jon’s shift would be over in a few days.

“If your cousin is available to protect Bran, I can arrange a private flight for him and  we could ask Sandor to come here. He was in the army once,  wasn't he?” 

Sansa nodded, she knew the past of sergeant Hound, he was a skilled sniper, who retired after a bombing in a crowded market of a Far East country where he was serving;  it was is free day and he got half his face burned trying to save children seriously injured. 

 

---

 

“Little bird”, Sandor started calling Sansa so when driving the Stark kids  to a summer fair where a stand was full of caged birds.

She stopped in front of the stand and looked at each cage, a  tear falling from her blue eyes.

Bran tugged at Arya’s elbow, asking why they stood rooted there, but his sister silenced him and took  her small purse.

Sandor understood and gently approached Sansa with some money, asking her if she wanted to buy some birds.

“I want to set them free.”

“We’ll do it at home. With food on a wooden feeder on the big trees out of your window.”

Sansa was kind with every animal, like his little sister had been, ten years ago, before the accident that killed her and their mother.

Sansa negotiated with the seller for five canaries in small cages and with  her siblings’ help carried  them to the car.

Sandor followed, holding a bag with bird seeds and realizing that canaries would not be able to live outside captivity.

He cursed himself for forgetting to point it out  to Sansa, but the deal had been done and he concentrated on finding a solution.

Sansa was so happy, she spoke to the canaries in a sweet voice and never stopped admiring the birds. One was red, like her hair, Sandor had never seen such a variety.

He decided to discuss with  Sansa later, hoping she would understand the implications of her idea.

He was right, Sansa  looked at him with a sad expression, her desire to free the birds went  against the reality of  bred birds  and animal safety

“I wanted a better life for them”. She declared looking at the five cages.

“They sure have it, now. First they need more space.”

Sandor headed for  Winterfell’s  maintenance store, searching through shelves filled with nets, wires and various pieces of metal.

An hour later her  resurfaced with enough materials to temporarily repair the old large aviary under the outer staircase leading to the orchards.

He called Sansa when his  work was completed, she stopped in awe when  saw the result.

“I did it in a hurry. I have to put a new roll of steel net between the bars. Tomorrow I will buy it with covers for the cold season.”

“Sandor! Thank you!”

On impulse Sansa stood on her tiptoes, hugged Sandor and gave him a quick peck  on his maimed cheek; he blushed and bent his head to hide his emotions.

Sansa was as sweet as one of the birds she had saved and he only  wanted to protect her from any evil.

Now he stood outside the cage with eleven canaries, the following day a taxi would lead him to the airport.

I’ll go and bring your little bird home, I promise, he told them, not caring of how ridiculous a  grown up man was, speaking to a bunch of birds.

Sandor swore never  leaving Winterfell again, never giving up the place he called home; once he followed Ned on a business trip in Germany and  every moment away from the North  made him feel like he had a heavy weight on his shoulders.

Winterfell was more than a building for him, he considered it a safe haven, a refuge from the harsh brutality of his life as a child and as a young man.

From  his father and half-brother and all the abuses committed against him and his mother.

Ned Stark became  a mentor for the former soldier who resigned from the army when he learned that his half-brother had become a murderer.

 

---

 

Cersei’s life were restless after  the episode at the spa.

Mycella  made a fuss about the dress for the ceremony when she discovered she had to wear l a plain white tunic with golden stripes, identical for everyone.

She took one of Cersei’s photo albums from the shelf, pointing at the lovely pink dress with ribbons  - a sort of mini-wedding dress - her mother wore at the same age, while Cersei’s brother had a blue jacket and white trousers with a white tie.  

They were standing under the altar, their hands intertwined, as they were meant to be, Cersei thought.

“It was a different custom then, my dear.”

Tywin was cautious regarding religious matters, to make Jaime’s career easier.

“Sister Unella told us each priest can give us the first communion and the confirmation. Our uncle is a priest.”

“Marcella, your uncle is a friar and the dress is only for the church. You’ll wear another one at the restaurant.”

The girl accepted the compromise when Cersei promised her to go shopping the following day.

For a moment Cersei imagined the scene, her twins knelt in front of Jaime, in the small chapel of their county estate - the same of her old photo -  then suddenly she saw blood falling from Jaime’s hands holding the holy cup.

“Where is him?” Myrcella continued. “We saw only his photos. Uncle Tyrion told me he baptized us.”

Cersei tried to explain her daughter the rules of a convent, but Myrcella repeated she wanted to meet her other uncle.

So I wish, Cersei thought, I do want to see him soon.

Mycella never had expressed such an interest in Jaime before, she and Tommen weren’t close to Robert, a man  too often away from home.

Tyrion was a devoted uncle, but with two kids of his own, he had few time for his sister’s twins. 

---

 

Jaime cleaned his wound twice a day, Jaqen had restocked the painkillers supply and  Jaime continued refusing a doctor.

Jaqen wanted to get some fitting clothes for Jaime, who assured him Jaqen’s spare ones were enough, although the t- shirts and shorts were larger; Jaqen’s was a little shorter, with broader shoulders and waist.

Jaime could not shoot with his injured hand so he started using the other one, with a light automatic gun; a girl’s weapon, his father would define it. The basement of the villa hosted a small polygon and after  years of missed training, Jaime’s results were poor at  first.

His left shoulder was aching for the new position, he had to shoot without steadying the gun with both hands. Arya was training, too, Jaqen wanted her to improve her ability and Sansa felt a little cut out, her  role was to look for on line info, read newspapers and to keep up Jaqen’s contacts.

There was the abundance of fresh,  delicious  fish and seafood, daily delivered, of vegetables and fruits, so Sansa relaxed in the kitchen, cooking; lunch time was a moment  of pseudo normality, they appeared like friends on holiday for half  an hour, not a group of killers

Sansa has accepted and welcomed Arya’s vengeance,  but she had refused to use a mirror to brush her long hair,  afraid to see what she had become.

“We need to draw out  Bolton. He will lead us to the people behind all of this.” Jaime stated.

“It’s difficult, he’s clever.” Jaqen declared.

“We can find a way through my family. I’ve thought about it a lot. Bolton wanted to hurt me, so I suppose he is against my father. I’ll play the bait.”

They evaluated pro and cons: Don Tywin’s involvement in the massacre wasn’t direct, but he did nothing to avoid it.

Bolton and Baelish were too close to the Lannister Family, if the duo was not anymore faithful to Don Twyin, Jaime was worried for Cersei and her children.

“I will tell everyone I have set myself free, my hand is a proof I was kept prisoner.”

“But how could we get close to our targets? Bolton saw you, he came to you by purpose!”

Sansa realized she was too naive to grasp how things worked in the South.

“I can offer my father what he wants the most. His heir back, giving up his wows and returning to his former life. Once my father has me in his grasp, Bolton is ours.”

 

Chapter 13

Summary:

Another player join the scene....

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Sansa and Jaime took a walk in the garden, following the path to the panoramic stone bench from where  the view was stunning; the town below was bathed in  sunlight and the sea was  bluer than Sansa’s eyes.

She sensed he was lost in thoughts, distant and reserved; since he suggested himself as the bait, something has clicked inside Jaime, his green eyes lost focus.  

When he stopped, producing a pocket knife to cut a prickly pear and offer it to Sansa, she took the fruit and also his good hand.

“What are you thinking?”

He let out a long breath, she was observing him; there was no point in keeping his decision secret now.

“I’m going to resign from my wows for real, not just to please my father. I’ve hold a gun again and..  it’s incompatible. Neither for me to survive or to protect an innocent like you. I’m no more a man of God.”

It felt like a failure, another oath he couldn’t keep. His escape into the church had been in vain and returning home, bowing his head to don Tywin’s will meant also his father would start to arrange a match for him, like he tried years before.

And his sister would be close, she had been his only woman and without the protection of his religious cloak Cersei would be free to make a move if she wanted to rekindle their flame. Friar or not, his body still felt desire for her. She was the only sin he never confessed.  

 

 

The following day Jaqen  inserted a microchip in Jaime’s neck to trace his whereabouts once away.

“I feel like an  endangered animal in an African reserve”, the Lannister lion  declared.

“Our plan is to keep your specie alive.” Jaqen retorted, while Arya put a disinfectant on the area after the shoot.

Jaime was optimistic for his reunion with his father, although Cersei was a different, complicated,  matter; for years he had remained chaste, but once she was informed  of his retutn, would she call for him?  His heart beat fast and he told himself he was a fool.

Jaime’s musings were interrupted by Jaqen’s phone, Sandor’s plane had landed.

“I’m going to the airport to pick him up.”

“Can I come with you?”

Sansa asked, visibly impatient to meet Sandor; Arya knew how much their butler was protective of all the Starks, especially their eldest daughter.

His presence could be very useful, she repeated often, especially because Jaime  was supposed to stay with  his family.  All the years Sandor spent hunting with Ned Stark kept him trained and in case of need Sandor would be unafraid to shoot. 

 

 

Arya drove Jaime to town, parking the car under a huge shopping centre and leaving it half an haour later with a shopping bag, in case surveillance cameras were on.

Meanwhile the airport was crowded with travelers; Easter and two national holidays in a week allowed many people to take short breaks  so Jaqen and Sansa stood unnoticed outside the arrivals area, confused between the others waiting for relatives or friends. Sandor’s height made him stand above the average passenger and Sansa easily spotted him when the doors opened to let a group pass by.

He wore what could appear a casual outfit, but on him it was more  a formal dress: a pristine white t shirt all buttoned up, a pair of blue cotton trousers, leather brown shoes and black  sunglasses to partially hide his facial scar.

Jaqen noticed and made a mental note to buy immediately more clothes, Sansa run into Sandor’s arms, too overwhelmed to restrain herself.

Sandor was home and smelled like home, of snow, cold, streams and pines.

She started crying and felt Sandor’s tears on her hair;  he gently lead Sansa  against a partition wall to let people move freely.

She clang to him and he caressed slowly her back, repeating in a low voice little bird, little bird.

 

 

Don Tywin used to have breakfast near the  swimming pool of his estate,  after

half an hour of swim; for his age, he was a man slim and fit, in excellent shape; he had survived his son in law, a fat  man who died of a heart stroke in the arms of a whore, the evening before doing his duty and killing a rival.

All the family was relieved for Robert’s death, especially his wife, Don Tywin’s only daughter.

After a proper time of mourning and wearing black, as it was custom in their land, Tywin planned to find her a new husband for a new alliance. That way voices she had  lovers, whispers she had been too close to her twin, could be put to rest once and forever.

When Tywin heard voices and steps from  inside  the house, he felt a twinge of disapproval; he liked his morning time to be spent alone and quietly,  his men were instructed to stay away until he left the breakfast table.

It had to be really important, so he turned his head and saw a ghost. His lost son was standing at the door, dressed in a pair of jeans and a blue shirt, a silly red  hat and  his right wrist wrapped  in a white bandage.

“Hallo, Father.”

The coffee cup clattered on the table.

“Jaime?”

“Flesh and blood.”

“What are you doing here?”  

“I escaped. A Lannister is smart, isn’t he?”

Don Tywin hide his surprise – or his shock, if Jaime read him well enough – and stood to examine Jaime closer, the injured hand was held by a string and  when Don Tywin moved to touch it Jaime by reflex took a step back.

“Tell me who maimed you and where you were kept.”

Seeing rage on his father’s features, Jaime sat on a chair, hiding his hand in his lap.  Jaqen’s  plan was to avoid Don Tywin’s immediate vengeance; he had to offer his father something more important than revenge.

“I want to leave the church. I’m back with you. For the family”

Words that immediately had the desiderate effect, Don Tywin’s posture visibly changed, he sat, too, and poured Jaime a cup  of coffee from the pot, his eyes glistening with traces of tears.

 

 

Sandor listened to Jaqen’s detailed explanations, loosing his composture when he heard about the efficient way the man had disposed of the killers or was planning to.

They sat outside under the veranda, the sun was low, ready to dive into the sea the table was full of  cold drinks and fresh fruits  - Sansa twice told Sandor not to pour or refill for  everyone, they weren’t in Winterfell – and Sandor felt he was in a different world.

In a few weeks, the Stark sisters had changed both, in a significant way.

Arya was pure steel, Sansa lost her innocence, trying to recover from a  trauma and from her ordeal.

“It is impossible.”

“But true!” Arya retorted. “They tried to force Sansa to renounce to Stark inc.”

“Did they hurt you, little bird?”

Sansa concealed her days with Jaime behind a screen of courtesy, she imagined Sandor’s violent reaction if he knew what she  endured at the convent. Jaime had the worst, but she was still  scared and wanted to erase those days.

“The man who helped you is the son of a local boss?  And he’s a friar?”

“He’s been maimed because of me. I owe him a lot. “

“I failed you! And your parents. “

Arya interrupted the exchange.

“No one failed anyone. We’re here, alive, with a revenge plan thanks to Jaqen’s experience. It’s more we could hope for.”

 

Notes:

Thanks a lot for your opinion.