Gentle Mother

Summary: When Joanna Lannister breathed her last, that was the moment in which everything changed. But if that moment had never come, how would things have been different? AU, of course.

Disclaimer: I only own what you don't recognise. Everything else is George R.R. Martin's.

Chapter One

Gentle Mother, font of mercy,
Save our sons from war we pray.
Stay the swords and stay the arrows,
Let them know a better day.

Gentle Mother, strength of women,
Help our daughters through this fray,
Soothe the wrath and tame the fury,
Teach us all a kinder way.

Gentle Mother, font of mercy,
Save our sons from war we pray.
Stay the swords and stay the arrows,
Let them know a better day.

By the time their mother finished her song, Jaime and Cersei were fast asleep, wrapped tightly in each other's arms. The twins slept in the same bed, as they always had done. Joanna had tried to keep them apart, after her maid had told her of... but they were children, they were only playing. 'There's no harm in them being close.' she told herself, for what seemed to be the thousandth time. 'They came into this world together, they should be by each other's side. There's no harm in it, as long as they're still children.'

Sighing contentedly, the woman placed a kiss on each of their foreheads, lingering just a little while longer simply to watch them sleep. This would be the last time she would see the twins for a few days, and so she wanted to relish these moments while she could. After all, there was always the chance...

Joanna shook her head vigorously, as if that would force the terrible thought from her mind. It would not do to think so negatively. The woman placed a protective hand over the bulging curve of her belly. It would not be long now; she needed to prepare.

Blowing a final kiss towards her children, Joanna swept out of the room, heading away from her children's chambers and towards her own. The heels of her shoes collided loudly with the stone floor of the corridors; at so late an hour, it was the only sound to be heard in the keep.

She had allowed the twins to stay up a little later than usual, reading to them and coddling them in the very way Tywin constantly warned her not to. You'll spoil them, he always told her, not allowing them to grow apart from you, but Joanna could not help herself. She would not see her children for another week, at least, and there was a feeling, a sickening, twisting fear in the pit of her stomach, that she may not ever see them again.

The thought had been swimming round in her mind often in the past weeks, but that day it had been especially prominent. The babe had been kicking furiously ever since she awoke; having been surrounded constantly by her good-sisters and cousins of late, who had borne a score of babes between them, she knew well enough what that meant.

'What if something is wrong?' she had asked herself, time and time again. 'What if there's a problem with the child? What if something happens to it, or to me?'

When she voiced these concerns to her husband, he smiled, shaking his head good-naturedly the way most men would have laughed. Tywin never laughed, not since the fall of the Laughing Lion; he smiled sure enough, but never laughed. Joanna wondered if he ever would again.

"Oh, Anna." he sighed. Any man would be too fearful of Lannister might to use a derivative of her forename, even her own brothers and sisters; then again, Tywin Lannister was not just 'any man'. "You're being foolish, my love. Nothing will happen to you or to the child you carry. It is simply nerves."

Joanna nodded, taking her husband at his word, for she had never, in all these years, known him to be wrong. But try as she might, she could not shake the feeling that this birth would be different. And when the pains began just as the sun began to rise, the doubts and terrors filled her mind once more.

She had tried to cling onto her husband as Genna had hurried her away, a silent, desperate plea for him to break with convention and attend the birthing with her, but it was to no avail, for no sooner had he opened his mouth to answer her request than she was gone.

The fear was almost overwhelming, but it was nothing compared to the pain. With the twins, the labour had been lengthy, but there had been little pain to speak of, only a dull ache as she pushed them forth into the world. She remembered jesting with her sisters that women must simply invent stories of their agonies in childbirth in order to gain sympathy from their husbands. It seemed the Gods were punishing her for that, for the pain this time was tenfold the pain she had felt with Jaime and Cersei.

Within an hour or so, Joanna was delirious from milk of the poppy. She had heard the smallfolk say that the potion could do harm to a child, but she had been in such terrible pain that she had accepted it nonetheless. Besides, surely it could do no harm at so late a stage.

Her companions were all around her, shouting instructions to one another and running around fetching supplies. Normally, Joanna would have laughed at such composed, dignified women reduced to this gaggle of squawking hens, but now, she found she did not have the strength.

The pains were coming closer now, and harsher too, but Lady Lannister had lost the energy to scream a long while ago. Instead, she allowed Genna to give her another draught of milk of the poppy, saying that they could manage without her now. Joanna had not known what she meant, but she had obeyed nonetheless.

As she felt the world slipping away to darkness, a question crossed her mind. 'If I die, who will sing my son and my daughter to sleep?'

Then everything went black.

A/N: Please review!