A/N: Not sure where this idea crawled out of. I do, however, feel I need to make clear that I own neither the characters or settings thus depicted.

The Brotherhood was big on Ritual.

Standing watch outside the King's Chamber was a Ritual of pretending Rhaella wasn't screaming.

Standing watch before the Throne was a Ritual of pretending the cooks were over-searing a boar.

Sleeping was Ritual. Dressing was Ritual. Practice—

The twist of the sword-hilt to break to grip of flesh on steel as it was withdrawn was Ritual.

Wiping the blade clean before sheathing it so the blood didn't rust the metal or bind it in the scabbard was Ritual.

Recovery. Back to Watching-Guard.

Ritual complete Jaime blinked at the corpses on the floor.

It hadn't been long. It wouldn't be long. Not long before the Stark was walking into the hall. Already his father's men were moving through the Red Keep…

Promise me, Jaime. Keep my family safe.

The Red Keep.

Jaime blinked. Swore. Ran.

Out of the Throne Room. Across the courtyard. The bridge of Maegor's Holdfast was already down and Jaime was at full-tilt as he went. Up the stairs. Up the stairs. Up the stairs!

"I'm going to do her next," a voice like a rutting boar grunted over a high, keening wail.

Then a hideous sound. Like a melon dropping off a farmer's cart and smashing on cobblestones, but one with a rind made of pottery, perhaps.

Jaime came through the door and froze. Watching as Gregor Clegane finished, his hands squelching a mess of splashed red, shattered yellow bone, pulped grey-white brains oozed from between gripping ham-like fingers, and Elia's raven hair.

His sword leapt free in a reverse grip. Down. And Clegane's corpse was pinned to Elia's, both twitching in parody.

"Jaime—"

Amory Lorch was always slow, Jaime thought pedantically. His dagger was already drawn as he threw himself across the nursery. Lorch tried to defend himself, but he'd been holding Rhaenys as he used a knife on her.

The knife would have been good for skinning an elk, not so much fighting an armored man and Jaime arched his body to keep from crushing the princess as he rode the other knight to the floor.

He stood, and the fog that had gripped him vanished.

The Princess was dead. And Aegon. There was a smear of blood and brains on the wall, and the body itself was pinned under Elia's breast. Rhaenys had been sliced a half-dozen times by Lorch, but the cuts looked clean and shallow enough not to be immediately life-threatening.

He scooped the toddler up and, in the next room, quickly bound her wounds with strips of cloth from the kit each of the Kingsguard wore against such need. "Come, Princess," he said, unlatching his cloak and bundling it around her. "You're safe. As long as I draw breath, you are safe." Because maybe, just maybe, not all of his Oaths had been broken yet.

And so Jaime Lannister sits on the Iron Throne. In his lap, swathed in a white cloak and protected from the Throne itself by Jaime's armor, was Princess Rhaenys. And cooling on the floor were the bodies of Rossart and King Aerys.

They are still there, though Rhaenys sleeps fitfully, when Eddard Stark rolls in like a Northern thunder-blizzard.

"Lord Stark," Jaime said.

Eddard looks pointedly at Aerys, then back up at Jaime. "Kingslayer."

Jaime stood and was instantly and acutely aware of the child in his arms and lack of sword at his belt. He bit back a cutting remark that would have led to shouts and waking Rhaenys. "Come with me," he said instead. He turned and left the throne room. In a way it didn't matter if Stark followed or not.

Even the Kingsguard didn't know all of the secret passages of the Red Keep. Many of them, yes. Discovered over the years and passed on from guards by word or action, but never written down. But not all.

Deep under the cellars, under even the Black Cells, Jaime pushed a door open to reveal rank upon rank of casks. He recalled one being tapped by Rossart and takes a moment to find it. Offering Stark a cup and, very carefully took a step back (since it was wildfire), but not too carefully or too far (since it was, after all, wildfire).

Stark stared at him, then moved the cup under the tap and turned it until a dribble of glowing green came out. Stark turned the tap so hard he nearly broke off the handle. "What is this?" He demanded.

"Wildfire," Jaime said.

Stark's eyes darted at the cup, then at the casks. "Why is it here?" he asked suspiciously.

"What oaths do the Kingsguard swear, Lord Stark?" Jaime asked.

"To defend the King from harm," Stark said, voice dripping with contempt and irony.

Jaime waited.

"To obey the King's commands," Stark said. "To keep his secrets, to offer counsel when asked and silence when not, and defend his name and honor."

"Hand Rossart was an Alchemist," Jaime said, stepping back through the door. Stark followed, and he sealed it shut before leading Stark to a hearth where the stones were blackened and ran. "There are caches like that across the whole of the city. Have you ever watched a man burn to death, Lord Stark? I have."

He plucked the cup from Stark's hand and flung it in the hearth. The sudden motion was enough for vile green flames to swirl into the chimney.

"Careful," he added when Stark stepped closer to the hearth. "Wildfire will melt stone."

"Why show me this?" Stark asked.

"You called me Kingslayer," Jaime said. "I suppose were our positions different…"

Stark didn't speak for a long while, but then he looked away. "Where are the Princess and Prince?"

"Dead," Jaime said. "Their bodies cool along with those of their killers."

"Good," Stark said.

"They were some of my father's favorite tools," Jaime said.

"Ned!" Robert Baratheon's voice filled the Red Keep before they'd returned to the Hall. "Ned, someone made off with—"

"Easy, Robert," Stark said as he entered the Hall before Jaime.

"Ned!" Robert's voice turned almost gleeful. "Look what Lord Lannister has brought me!"

"A dead woman and her infant?" Ned asked.

"Dragons!" Robert thundered. "Dragons, every one of them. Someone made off with the dragon-bitch, but I'll have her. I'm going to see them all dead, Stark. All of them. The entire bloody house root and stem."

"Not everyone," Stark said. "Princess Elia was Dornish."

"Mother of dragonspawn, same different," Robert said.

"Not every one," Jaime said, stepping out from behind Stark. The sudden titanic fury on Robert's face melting into something approximating thought was very nearly as enjoyable as the very blank face his father bore.

"Where," Robert said instead of acknowledging the existence of the child, "is Lyanna?"

"Safe," Jaime said.

"Safe?" Robert asked

"The White Bull, Sword of the Morning, and Ser Oswell Whent guard Princess Lyanna,"

"What?!"

"I can only presume," Jaime said as though Robert's warhammer was nowhere to be seen, "that they felt disinclined to publicly share the happy news until the Princesses' families could be informed personally."

"No one ever informed us," Stark said levelly.

"I rather doubt any of them thought your brother would ride into this very room demanding the Prince of Dragonstone 'come out and die,'" Jaime said evenly.

"They were formally married, then?" Tywin asked as Stark turned and gave Jaime a look every bit like his name.

"Prince Rhaegar was a Targaren," Jaime said. "It's been known to happen, but yes. There was a Septon, witnesses, it's on record in the Citadel."

"And Aerys didn't know?"

"I can't comment on what the King and Crown Prince discussed," Jaime said evenly. "I would, of course, been oath-bound to answer any question the King put me about Rhaegar's marriage to Lyanna, and likewise bound to keep his confidence of any questions so asked, but I feel comfortable admitting that he never did so ask of me."

"Now wait just a minute," Robert said.

Jaime realized he didn't have to wonder what it'd look like if a Wolf and Lion contemplated the uses of Stag.

"I've sent ravens," Jaime said. "There will be a maester at the Princess' side afore you reach her. The Gods know Gerold Hightower is a better knight than any, and the Stranger Himself dances in Arthur's shadow, but one knows nothing that doesn't involve a fight, and the other is scared of women."

"And Whent?" Stark asked.

"What of him?" Jaime asked in reply, offering a scroll to Stark. "Take this."

"What is it?"

"Seven men cannot control the whole of the Red Keep," Jaime said. "We do have some measure for others to take on certain duties…and to let each other know when we do. And it has my report. The whole of it. Give it to Ser Gerold."

Stark paused. "Are you sure you'll be safe here?"

"That Rhaenys will be safe, you mean?" Jaime asked.

Stark didn't reply.

"I've no fear of father," Jaime said.

"It wasn't him I was talking about," Stark said.

"The stag?" Jaime asked. He lowered his voice, "Bear this well in mind, Lord Stark. My father had only ever allowed himself to care about two things. My mother was the second. The first is the family legacy. Not his legacy, but that of House Lannister. He sees me as the heir to that legacy."

"You are sworn to the Kingsguard," Stark said.

"And my brother is ill-formed," Jaime said blandly. "That he lives was the last thing my mother asked of my father."

Stark didn't reply.

"If Robert wants to kill Rhaenys, he must also kill me. He knows it. My father knows it. My father has the better army, and we are inside Robert's defenses. He cannot claim the throne, not so long as the heirs live. Mayhap in Rhaenys was dead and he could exile the others, but she's not. I'll not let him kill her because at least some of my oaths still matter to me. You'll not let him kill her because she is a child and your friend has already caused the rest of her family to be slaughtered, and would slaughter your niece if he could, to say nothing of what he would do to your sister."

Stark nodded very slowly.

"It is best for everyone that this war ends, Stark."

"And Lannister won't try for the throne?" Stark asked.

Jaime resisted the urge to grind his teeth. Talking with Barristan was less of a chore! But never had he felt so thankful for Tywin forcing him from the practice field, for the reading lessons had contained more applicable instruction as well, polished by two years of watching people move at the highest levels of power. "The Lannisters have both an army and gold, but neither in sufficient quantity to control the seven. And unless you have that power the only way to rule is if enough of the others are willing to let you rule that your gold and army suffice. And since when has an army ever sufficed for Dorne?" He shook his head. "Never mind that I save Rhaenys, they will never bend the knee to a Lannister, not in our lifetime, not for what Clegane and Lorch did to Elia."

"And yet your father joined Robert," Stark said.

"And Aerys named me King's Guard," Jaime said. "It wasn't testament to my skill, or complement to my father."

"It was a slight," Stark said, putting it out for anyone who might be listening. And not content with that he went on, "he robbed your father of his heir."

Jaime didn't reply.

"You slew your King to defend his name and honor."

"That's one way to look at it," Jaime said neutrally.

"Or was it out of loyalty to your Father?"

"My Prince made me swear to keep his family safe," Jaime countered. "Or maybe it was just for the chance to call your sister 'Princess' to Baratheon's face."

Stark grimaced.

Jaime stepped back. "Ride fast, Stark. It's a long rode to Dorne, and your sister is already nearly due."