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Chapter Text

Aemma Targaryen knows something’s wrong from the moment her phone lights up with her husband’s name.

Viserys never calls or texts during the work day. It’s his way of “giving work his all,” as he likes to tell her. He’s snapped at her before for calling without giving him notice ahead of time.

She’s even more thrown when he can barely get the words out.

“I didn’t think it would affect me this much- I’m just so out of sorts, it was all so sudden-” he stammers, his voice hitching.

“Slow down, Viserys,” Aemma pleads. “What’s wrong?”

Viserys waffles for a few more minutes while Aemma starts pacing around their kitchen, her mind moving a mile a minute to try and figure out what could possibly be going horribly enough to warrant her technologically standoffish husband to call her in the middle of the afternoon.

“Otto left a shareholders meeting,” Viserys is finally able to get out. “Alyrie is dying.”

Aemma’s stomach drops. 

Of all the things she had been imagining, somehow, that had not been one of them, even though Alyrie Hightower has been in hospice care for the past five months. Apparently, there was a massive difference between the knowledge that someone had stage four cancer, and actually processing that the words ‘Alyrie is dying’ were coming out of her husband’s mouth.

“Oh, my gods,” Aemma breathes, her hand over her mouth. “Is-”

She doesn’t even know what she’s asking. Is she going to live much longer? Is she in pain?

And she’s not entirely sure if she wants the answers, either.

Viserys doesn’t respond for a moment, and when he does speak, his voice is thick with emotion. “She was going downhill fast,” he says. “He said he would be calling you, I just- I wanted you to know. Before he does.”

It’s Aemma’s turn to not know what to say. She thinks of a thousand things she could say, but doesn’t say any of them.

Her phone buzzes, and she lowers the her phone from her ear to find Otto Hightower’s name blinking up at her.

“He’s ringing me,” she tells Viserys, and she hears him exhale.

“I’ll let you go, then,” he says. “I love you. Give Alicent a hug for me?”

Aemma almost starts crying right there and then.

“I will,” she manages. “I love you, too.”

She only has enough time for one breath before she answers Otto.

The entire time she’s speaking to him, Alyrie’s request from months ago echos in Aemma’s ears. Please, take care of my daughter for me when I’m gone. Make sure she understands, she had said, clinging tightly to Aemma’s hand as they both sat on the Hightower’s wrap-around porch. She had been stronger, then, livelier. She had hope. Make sure she remembers I love her.

Otto seems almost detached as he speaks. It’s a short call, just long enough for him to compose himself long enough to tell her that Alyrie has passed away, and would she please pick Alicent up from school.

She agrees.

Of course she agrees- but she begins to regret it when she sees the way that Alicent’s big doe eyes light up when she pushes open the doors of the front office and spots Aemma waiting by the secretary’s desk. Her backpack is just a little too big for her, and her hair is tied back in the way it often is, with a big green bow holding her auburn hair away from her face.

“Hi, Mrs. Aemma,” she says, stopping with an adorable hop and a cautious, but curious smile as she brings her Mary Jane-clad shoes together with a click. “Where are we going?”

Aemma swallows, her throat tight, abruptly unsure if Otto had meant for her to break the news. She never enjoys lying- and lying to a child so sweet as Alicent is even more of a transgression. 

“Your daddy wanted me to bring you to him early today,” she says at last. “I’m going to bring you to him, if that’s okay with you.”

Alicent’s forehead creases, and she looks around Aemma, scans the halls, alert, but not scared, more intrigued. “Where’s Rhaenyra? Is she coming with us?”

It’s natural of her to ask about Rhaenyra- they’re best friends, inseparable, and it’s rare that Aemma picks Alicent up from school without Rhaenyra also coming along. 

“She has tests to sit for next period,” Aemma says. “It’ll just be you and me for now, okay, sweetling?”

“Okay,” Alicent agrees. Aemma offers her hand, and Alicent takes it, her hand slipping into Aemma’s easily.

As they walk out to the parking lot, Aemma can’t help but note Alicent’s bitten nails and the picked-apart thread at the bottom of Alicent’s sweater, and thinks that maybe the girl might not be quite so oblivious to the situation as Otto has tried to claim when Viserys has asked about how Alicent was faring with her mother in the hospital.

She wishes she could know for certain. Wishes it wouldn’t be such a grievous overstep if she were to suggest that maybe Alicent should start seeing the school guidance counselor. 

(She should have begun months ago.)

Alicent is quiet during the drive, staring out the back window, thoughtful, but not worried for the time being. Aemma keeps glancing in the rearview mirror to check on her.

“How has school been, Alicent?”

“Good. Mr. Velaryon brought in a dessert for us to try today in home economics, and next class, we’re going to try and make dragon cakes.”

“That’s good,” Aemma says.

“Rhaenyra says she doesn’t think they can be as good as yours.”

At that, Aemma has to laugh. Rhaenyra is convinced that her mother’s cooking is the pinnacle of Valyrian cuisine, for some strange reason, when Aemma is really only mediocre at cooking and even more mediocre at baking.

“I’m sure Mr. Velaryon’s will be much better.”

“Probably,” Alicent says, as if to placate Aemma, but she looks unconvinced, her nose scrunched up.

Another long stretch follows where neither of them say anything. Aemma can’t quite find the words. She’s afraid if she opens her mouth, her thoughts will spill out by accident.

Do you know your mother is dead? 

She can’t stop herself from thinking about how Alyrie brought her cake when she miscarried and how lovely she had been to offer to watch Rhaenyra after school. After a few weeks, she had also practically dragged Aemma out for a girl’s night when it was clear Aemma would not leave the house otherwise.

That night had ended up being the first true day of Aemma’s road to recovery.

What generous favors to have to repay, and what a horrible way for Aemma to finally get around to doing it.

“Rhaenyra and I are going to go to the gardens tomorrow to look for fireflies,” Alicent says, when they drive past the neatly trimmed hedges and flowering azalea bushes that adorn the entrance to the park, which is just a few blocks from the Targaryen manor. “If it’s okay with you.”

Rhaenyra had mentioned it through a mouthful of chicken alfredo last night. “Rhaenyra said something about that,” Aemma says, keeping her voice warm, light. “You’re welcome to come by for dinner afterward.”

“Maybe,” Alicent says absently, attention still fixed on the scenery moving by. “If my daddy says it’s okay.”

It’s rare that Alicent accepts the invitation, but even so, Aemma’s made an extra effort lately to invite her to stay when she plays with Rhaenyra. Viserys has told her how Otto spends too much of his time between the office and the hospital, and not enough at home with his little girl.

I’m worried, Viserys had confessed during their most recent date night, when Rhaenyra had soccer practice. He’s spiraling, throwing himself into his work. I’ve tried to order him home, but I just find him in the office even earlier the next day.

Aemma had agreed, and begun trying to come up with ways to make sure that Alicent was still properly cared for, without risking the anger of her father. She’d started packing extra in Rhaenyra’s lunch- small things, like another juice pouch, two baggies of carrots, two cookies- after Rhaenyra had mentioned a few times too many that Alicent had forgotten hers at home. She told Rhaenyra to invite Alicent over whenever she wanted- which has been often- and started picking Alicent up from school in the afternoons.

It didn’t feel like enough now. Aemma can’t help but feel she should have pushed Otto to include Alicent in more of the hospital visits, to let her stay home and soak up as much time with her mother as she could. 

And, worst of all, Alicent should have already been at the hospital and not in class when Alyrie died. 

The closer they get to the hospital, Aemma can’t ignore how the GPS on her phone has started to get ominously close to its ETA. She wishes she could stretch this time longer, to stop them from hurtling toward the inevitable- especially when she knows she’ll soon betray the game when she makes the next turn.

Her heart is in her throat when she turns the blinker on. It’s the correct turn for the hospital- but the wrong turn for Targaryen Enterprises, and the next time Aemma looks back to check on Alicent, her tiny hands are clenched into fists, and her jaw is set.

Aemma doesn’t know what to say. Her heart aches.

A few, heavy, silent minutes later, they pull into the parking lot. Aemma comes around the passenger side backseat to unbuckle Alicent, who is now near-motionless, doll-like, even now that she can climb out of her seat.

Aemma brushes a wayward strand of hair out of Alicent’s eyes. She waits, sensing the tension radiating off of her, her lips ever-so-slightly parted. 

And then-

“Is my mummy gone?” Alicent asks at last, her chin wobbling, eyes glassy already with unshed tears.

This time, Aemma knows she cannot lie. Alicent has always been a perceptive girl, and while the death of a parent is cruel, to deceive Alicent now, when she will soon go up to see her father and be confronted with the truth, would be crueler.

“I’m afraid so, my darling,” she murmurs.

“She’s not coming back home?”

Aemma’s breath hitches. “No, sweetheart. She’s not coming home.”

It’s devastating the way Alicent crumbles. At first, her face is blank, but then her lower lip wobbles, and tears start flooding her deep brown eyes in huge, fat droplets that cling to her lashes.

Aemma wordlessly holds out her arms.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Alicent falls into them and buries her face against Aemma’s neck. Still, she doesn’t sob or cry out. She just trembles, her body shaking. Aemma brings her closer, rubbing soothing circles on Alicent’s back, murmuring quiet nothings into her auburn curls.

She’s so little. So young.

They stay that way for a few minutes- longer than they should, really- until Aemma knows she can’t delay them any longer. Otto will be waiting for them. She pulls away and gently wipes the tears off Alicent’s cheeks before helping her out of the car before setting her on her feet.

They walk into the lobby hand in hand, the routine unfortunately familiar to both of them. She’s brought Alicent here several times after school, but this time, Aemma can’t quite find comfort in it. There’s a new weight to it now- now that it’s the last time, likely, and that there is no happy reunion at the end.

Alicent doesn’t speak the entire journey. She chews on her thumb for most of it. Aemma tries to push her hand down, but she can’t hold Alicent’s other hand and stop her anxious picking and click the elevator floor at the same time- and she can’t bring herself to fight her on it. 

Not today.

The staff at the front desk of the hospice ward greet Alicent by name when they arrive. They’ve always recognized her and made an effort to share a joke, as they have always done with the kids of terminally ill patients, but this time, there’s pity in their eyes, and their ‘hellos’ are too bright to make up for the sadness that permeates the entire hallway. 

Aemma’s not sure if Alicent even notices.

When they get to just outside Alyrie’s room, Aemma pauses, kneeling down to Alicent’s eye level. Alicent stares at the floor, scuffing her toe on the linoleum, until Aemma brings her chin up.

“I know things are very scary right now, but I want you to know that you can come over to our home any time you wish,” she tells Alicent, gentle but firm, a lump in her throat. “No matter the time of day, or if you’re sick, or if you’re just sad- me and Rhaenyra and Viserys are here for you, okay, my dear?”

Alicent nods. Another tear drips down her face. Aemma brushes it away with her thumb, then gives her shoulders one last squeeze before knocking.

After a moment, Otto answers. His posture is sunken and tired as he exchanges a few words with his daughter that Aemma can’t quite hear before he raises his voice just a fraction.

“Thank you, Mrs. Targaryen,” he says. He’s not curt, but he’s not friendly, either, his words heavy. “Say thank you, Alicent.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Aemma,” Alicent whispers.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”

I’m sorry, Aemma wants to add, and beg for this child’s forgiveness. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t help. I’m sorry for what is to come.

Alicent turns back just once, as Otto ushers her further into the room, just before they’re out of view of the door. Her eyes are wide and watery. Aemma tries her best to look as encouraging as possible, forces herself to smile and nod as if she doesn’t know that the girl’s life has just been shattered.

The moment she’s down the hall and out of earshot of the room, Aemma promptly bursts into tears and sobs the entire drive back to the school to pick up Rhaenyra for the school’s customary dismissal time.

It takes Aemma spent the better part of the evening to console her daughter after she learns about Alicent’s mum’s death. She spends all of dinner and most of the clean-up reassuring Rhaenyra that yes, Alicent would still go to their school, and yes, she would still want to be friends. 

Even so, Rhaenyra remained so upset by the time that teeth brushing time rolled around that Aemma almost gave up putting her to bed together, but knew that she’d have a grumpy kid on her hands if she didn’t get any sleep.

A few hours later, Aemma discovers that she should’ve been the one worrying if she would ever get any rest tonight. 

Her brain refuses to shut off.

She’s not sure why she’s so thrown. The entire community, really, has known about Alyrie’s steadily worsening condition for quite some time.

But Alyrie had been one of the first bonds Aemma formed in her adult life. They’d met at the park- or Alicent and Rhaenyra had met, and they’d been forced to become friends by default, until they became friends for real. They were supposed to lose each other in fifty years- not less than five.

She tosses and turns for a few hours before heading back downstairs to nurse a cup of tea and cry over Alyrie Hightower, while brilliant smile she always had when she reunited with her daughter keeps playing on repeat in Aemma’s mind in a horrible cycle. 

Just around midnight, Otto calls again. The phone ringing doesn’t surprised her. She’d sensed Otto’s detachment in the hospital. He’s never been the most affectionate, or emotionally adept when it comes to his daughter, she’s noticed.

I have to get Alyrie’s affairs in order, he says over the phone, his voice only wavering once on his wife’s name. Will you let Alicent stay at your home? She’s tired, and I don’t want her here to see the rest of this.

Aemma doesn’t push. She’s always suspected that Otto doesn’t like her much, that she’s regarded as Viserys’s greatest distraction from his work, and she’s not about to rip into him the day his wife has passed away, no matter how much she despises the man and wishes he would just comfort his child instead of passing her off to someone else.

Instead, she agrees, and starts making the upstairs bed for her new guest- dusting off the shelves, fluffing the pillows, digging extra blankets out of the closet- and tries not to think too hard in the process.

Almost thirty minutes later, Otto leads a red-eyed, sleepy Alicent up the stairs of the Targaryen’s porch. Her feet drag, and she scrubs one eye with her palm as Aemma watches.

“Be good,” Otto tells her firmly, with a firm hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be back for you in the morning.”

“But I want to stay with you,” Alicent pleads, looking up at her father, but Otto is already shaking his head.

“We’ve talked about this. There’s a lot of grown-up things I have to take care of  now, and it’s late. The Targaryens have graciously agreed to let you stay with them, and we’ll see each other tomorrow.”

“But-”

“I said no, Alicent,” he says. Almost snaps.

“Thank you for dropping her off,” Aemma interrupts, if only to stop the hurt look on Alicent’s face from worsening. “It’s late, so I’m eager to get myself to bed, if you don’t mind, Otto.”

“Of course, Mrs. Targaryen. My apologies again for the inconvenience.”

Your daughter and your wife are not ‘an inconvenience,’ Aemma wants to shout at him, but she doesn’t want Alicent to hear it. “It’s no trouble at all,” she grits out instead.

Otto gives Alicent a quick kiss to the top of her head, and then he’s heading back down the stairs, getting into his car, and pulling away down the long driveway..

“Let’s get you to bed,” Aemma murmurs, after Otto’s car is out of sight, and Alicent, ever obedient, trails her through the house and up the stairs, only taking her thumb out of her mouth to solemnly take off her shoes and set them neatly beside Rhaenyra’s at the door.

As they head up the stairs, Aemma asks, “Would you like me to wake Rhaenyra?”

She normally would never even offer, knowing how long her daughter’s active mind takes to shut down, but she’s not about to force either of them to go to school in the morning, given the circumstances. And if she can offer Alicent just a fraction of the comfort she deserves, she’ll gladly sacrifice the hours she spent coaxing Rhaenyra to sleep in the first place.

She watches Alicent’s eyes brighten for just a moment before they fade again, and she shakes her head.

“That’s okay,” Aemma says gently. “Do you want to sleep in her room?”

Again, Alicent hesitates. Another shake of her head.

“Just let me know if you change your mind later, okay?”

Aemma leaves her in the hallway for just a moment to ferret away a pair of soft pajamas and one of Rhaenyra’s less adored stuffed animals out of her room before she rejoins Alicent and brings her to the room she’s prepared for her.

Though it’s technically a guest room now, it was also room she and Viserys had designed for their second child once upon a time, before she miscarried and their dreams of filling it were shattered for good. 

The walls are a soft sage green, with a mossy carpet on the floor and animal footprints on the walls. A year or so ago, they swapped out the crib for a regular sized bed, but the decor still carries some of the charm that Aemma has always believed children’s rooms should have.

She’d selected this room hoping it would feel less intimidating for Alicent- but the more she thinks about it, she’s starting to wonder if the room might be part of the curse. First Baelon’s premature death, and now Alicent’s mother.

Aemma helps Alicent out of her shoes, then into the pajamas, which have fluffy brown squirrels on them. The entire time, Aemma’s struck by how different the process is from the battle getting dressed for bed usually is in the Targaryen household. She has no issues helping Alicent squeeze out a line of toothpaste on a brand-new toothbrush, brushing her hair, and tucking her into bed. Alicent doesn’t talk Aemma’s ears off like Rhaenyra does, and she doesn’t squirm out of her grasp when the hairbrush gets caught on a snarl. She’s unnervingly quiet, and looks as if she might burst into tears at any moment- but her cheeks remain dry.

“Here,” Aemma says, perching on the edge of the bed and presenting Rhaenyra’s stuffed giraffe with a flourish once she’s gotten Alicent comfortably nestled into the blankets. Her red hair insists on spilling over the pillow, unruly no matter how many times Aemma tucks it behind Alicent’s ears. “Here’s Mr. Beesbury. He can keep you company tonight, how does that sound?”

Alicent takes him, hesitant, at first. Aemma gives her a reassuring nod, and then, Alicent takes the giraffe more securely into her arms.

“Would you like me to sit with you?” Aemma asks, uncertain, now, and unable to hide it. She can’t read Alicent very well. She has never really been able to, not like she can with Rhaenyra- and can’t tell if the tense set to her shoulders is a desire to be left alone, or if it’s fear. 

Alicent just stares, wide-eyed, up at her, her consternation clear in the way her eyes flicker from the stuffed animal to Aemma and back again.

“How about this,” Aemma offers, when the battle behind Alicent’s eyes seems like it won’t end any time soon. She goes to the bookshelf in the corner, which is still stocked with a bunch of children’s stories that Viserys had selected for Baelon. She pulls out a well-loved copy of “A Little Princess” - the story Alicent always seemed to love when she’s slept over in the past- and sits in the armchair beside the bed. “I’ll read a story first, since I’m wide awake myself. Maybe it’ll put me to sleep, too.”

“Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares,” Aemma begins, and, as she reads, she watches a calm settle at last across Alicent’s face out of the corner of her eye.

She’s only two and a half chapters into the book when she glances over and to find that Alicent has fallen asleep, her fist clenched tightly around the neck of Mr. Beesbury. She doesn’t stop reading aloud until the end of the chapter, not wanting to disturb the girl by stopping too soon into her slumber.

Only once she’s reached the first page of chapter four does she switch off the reading lamp. This leaves the room to the gentle golden wash of the night light, which is soothing on Aemma’s eyes after a long day. She waits a few moments to make sure that the change hadn’t woken Alicent.

Only once she’s sure Alicent is sleeping does she tiptoe over the rug to slip into the hallway and gently close the door on her way out.

When morning comes, and Rhaenyra hasn’t run downstairs demanding breakfast, and Alicent hasn’t appeared, either, worry begins to gnaw in the pit of Aemma’s stomach. If today were like any other weekday, she would’ve woken her daughter up for school a few hours ago, but Rhaenyra often wakes early on the weekends, too. For her to stay in her room past eleven is a rarity- one that usually means she’s ill.

But this time, when Aemma peeks her head into her daughter’s room, she finds Rhaenyra is wide awake and playing quietly with her dragon figurines in bed, while Alicent, who must’ve made her way to Rhaenyra’s room in the night, is curled up in a tight ball next to her, asleep.

“Good morning, darling,” Aemma murmurs from the doorway, and Rhaenyra shoots her a sharp glare.

“SHH!” she hisses, and Aemma would laugh if her heart didn’t ache so much at the sight. “She’s sleeping.”

Aemma raises her hands in surrender. “Would you like some pancakes?” she whispers, just loud enough for her words to carry.

Rhaenyra nods excitedly, before she grows more somber. “I think she’s sad,” she says, a puzzled furrow to her brow as she glances over at Alicent. “She was crying.”

Aemma swallows. “I’m sure she felt better knowing she could come stay with you,” she says, and Rhaenyra glances down at her dragons, biting her lip. 

“I wish she wasn’t sad,” she admits, after a pause.

“Oh, my love. I wish that too. We just have to be here for her when we can, yes?”

Rhaenyra straightens, a determination in her eyes. “Yeah,” she says.

“Would you like to wake her up? Breakfast is ready.”

“Just a few more minutes,” Rhaenyra tells her solemnly. “I’ll bring her down.”

“Okay,” Aemma agrees. “Love you.”

It seems important to say, especially now- and for once, Rhaenyra doesn’t scrunch up her nose in disgust, like she is often prone to do.  “Love you, too, mummy.”

By the time the girls make their way downstairs, the sun is high in the sky, sending the shadows of birds across the lawn. 

The atmosphere in the house was so thick with emotion, and the day before had been so heavy, that Aemma can’t help but resent the weather, as she stands at the sink. It’s unfair that first day Alyrie wouldn’t be around to experience with her daughter would be one so beautiful as this.

Aemma does her best to make breakfast a normal affair- but compared to mornings where the girls have woken up before, this one carries a melancholy mood that none of them can shake, no matter how hard they try. She sets the chocolate syrup and whipped cream on the kitchen island and draws a smiley face on both of the girls’ first pancakes, hoping that that, at least, will help cheer Alicent up.

Rhaenyra, too, tries to lighten the atmosphere. She takes the can of whipped cream and uses a spritz of it as a mustache, sicks her tongue out and earns the smallest of giggles from Alicent.

But it’s not nearly enough.

Aemma catches flickers of unfathomable sadness in Alicent’s eyes in the moments Rhaenyra is quiet. It’s so quick that she might not have noticed if she weren’t watching for it- but it breaks her heart nonetheless, in moments where she turns away to serve both girls another pancake, and turns back to catch Alicent wiping her eyes or staring off into the distance.

Rhaenyra seems to pick up on it, too. She’s extra attentive to Alicent- more so than usual- offering her more whipped cream, trying her best to make her laugh. Even she seems to understand that her antics aren’t quite working the way they usually do.

Aemma doesn’t know what to do to help Alicent even begin to process her loss. She’s been left at her friend’s house, for fuck’s sake, away from her father, who should be the one holding her, explaining to her the unfathomable shift in her life.

“What shall we get up to today, girls?” Aemma asks, once their plates have been cleared and she’s wiped off Rhaenyra’s whipped cream-and-chocolate covered face. She’s already thinking of what they could do, what might occupy Alicent enough to take her mind off her grief. Baking, maybe. The zoo. The art gallery.

But Alicent’s attention is caught by something entirety different from the activities.

“My daddy said he would come get me,” she says, her bottom lip already beginning to tremble, and Aemma mentally curses at her error in bringing unwanted attention to the obvious fact: that Otto Hightower has yet to show.

She had hoped Alicent had forgotten.

“I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he can, Alicent,” she tries, reaching out, but the damage has already been done, the cautious peace they’ve tried to built splintering to piece with every passing moment.

“He promised,” Alicent whispers, as tears start spill down her freckled cheeks.

Aemma had guessed this might happen. There was only so much a kid could hold in, she knew, before the emotions of the day would have to boil over- but it doesn’t make it any easier to witness, or any less overwhelming to deal with.

“Alicent-”

But she doesn’t even get to finish whatever useless platitude she had been about to say before, “I want my daddy,” Alicent says with a choked sob, scrubbing furiously at her eyes, and then she inhales, and Aemma hearts it catch in her chest, then she’s bawling. “I want to go home. I want mummy.”

Rhaenyra looks up at her mother, speechless, terrified- and Aemma forces back her own panic as she scoops Alicent off the stool, tucks her against her chest as she heaves sobs that feel much too big for a little girl. 

Aemma rubs Alicent’s back, tries to rock her back and forth as Rhaenyra jumps down from her spot at the island, but seems unsure as she stands there, hand on the counter, watching. 

“I know you must miss your mummy very much,” Aemma murmurs. She smooths tangled auburn hair off Alicent’s forehead, presses a kiss to the crown of her head as Alicent coughs through even more cries- “I’m sorry that things are so scary right now.”

“Why can’t I go home?”

Aemma knows that there’s no one waiting at home for her- but that truth is far too ugly to share. She can’t help it- she starts to cry, too. 

She can’t ever keep a hold her emotions when children cry, and it being precious, sweet Alicent makes it worse. And having Rhaenyra watching- it’s horrible. She would give everything for Alicent’s pain to end. She would give even more to prevent Rhaenyra from experiencing grief like this, ever.

She’s never been the most devout in the Seven, but she knows Alyrie had placed a good deal of faith in the gods. Not in the way Aemma tended to think of when she thought of people who were religious. Those people wielded the Faith like a weapon. Otto did the same. But Alyrie- she seemed to find comfort in the ritual of it all, in prayer and tradition, community and sanctity.

“Your daddy is trying to make sure that your mummy gets to heaven safely, sweetling,” she says at last.

Alicent quiets just slightly at that, her cries softening to little hiccuping gasps, and after minute or so of fighting to control her breathing, she raises her head. “She’s going to heaven?” she asks, a hopeful lift to her voice that hadn’t been there before, and gods.

She’s probably been worrying about that all night, Aemma realizes, and no one had said anything- had even thought that she might be afraid for her mother, still-

“Yes, darling, she’s going to heaven,” Aemma says, and is relieved when Alicent seems reassured.

Fuck the Seven, she thinks rather viciously. 

She doesn’t care if it might no be true. She will make sure that Alicent knows that Alyrie Hightower, whether the gods will it or not, because Alicent deserves the comfort it brings regardless.

Chapter Text

It’s a crisp autumn afternoon and the trees are just beginning to shed their golden and amber leaves when Rhaenyra bursts through the front door after football practice and declares, “Mum, I think I’m in love.”

Aemma almost starts bawling on the spot, but, a show of sheer willpower, doesn’t even let her lip tremble.

Her daughter is fourteen, now, and entering her awkward growth spurt phase- even beginning to surpass Alicent in height, after being the shorter of the two for their entire friendship prior. She outgrows her pants in months, it seems, and shoes, too.

She’s looking less and less like the little firecracker of a toddler Aemma used to carry around and more like a young girl. Her baby face is starting to disappear into a sharper jawline, and this- her first crush- feels almost like the last nail in the coffin of her childhood.

Aemma knows, though, that even hinting at how emotional Rhaenyra’s confession makes her would make Rhaenyra clam up immediately. Instead, she holds back her emotions, and just dusts the flour off her hands with as casual of an air as she can muster.

“Well,” she says, unable to hide the grin creeping across her face. “Tell me about them, sweetheart.”

“Well,” Rhaenyra starts, and then glances down, suddenly shy, her cheeks flushing pink. She kicks a bit at the leg of the stool at the counter, before perching on the edge of the seat. “There’s this boy in my math class.”

“And who might this boy be?” Aemma prompts, when Rhaenyra doesn’t continue. 

Rhaenyra toys with the salt and pepper shakers left on the counter. She doesn’t meet Aemma’s gaze “His name’s Harwin,” she says, after a long moment where she seems to debate saying anything at all. “He’s on the football team, and he’s super nice, and always laughs at my jokes.”

Aemma knows Harwin Strong. His parents are lovely- she’s met them at a few soccer games. They’re some of the few die-hard King’s Landing parents who attend more sports than their children are involved  in, and they’re active in the athletics family circles.

She shouldn’t be surprised, really, that Rhaenyra’s fallen for him. He’s always been a heartbreaker, with floppy dark hair and copious amounts of athletic talent to boot, and they’ve always hung out in similar, but not identical social circles.

“I’m thinking of asking him to the winter dance,” Rhaenyra continues, taking the cookie dough-covered spoon Aemma hands her once she’s finished stirring the chocolate chips in. “Do you… do you think he’d say yes?”

She looks up at Aemma, her eyes wide. Uncertainty is a rare emotion on her daughter’s face, but it’s there now, and Aemma is reminded of Rhaenyra when she was younger, always looking toward her at the corporate parties Viserys loved to drag them both to.

She reaches over, combs her hand through the flyaways that have escaped Rhaenyra’s braid during practice. “I don’t know for sure, darling, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you asked him.”

“Really?”

Aemma laughs, keeps her voice light, judgement-free- “All boys are desperate for attention, whether they know it or not,” she says with a wink. “I know it’s scary to think of being rejected, but no matter what, I think there are things to be grateful for, even if he says no.”

Rhaenyra wrinkles her nose. “Do you really think all boys are desperate for attention?’

“Your father certainly was,” Aemma says. She’s unable to keep the wistfulness out of her voice when she thinks about the way Viserys tried to woo her, at first- taking her to dinner every time she so much as mentioned a craving for a kind of cuisine, bringing her flowers every chance he got… “They try to act tough, but don’t you forget- they’re your age. They have the same insecurities, the same things that they want.”

Rhaenyra ponders that as she licks the spoon.

“Do you think Alicent would be mad?” she asks, after a long pause, more somber, even more insecure, picking at a particularly stubborn piece of dough.

Aemma doesn’t respond for a moment, blinking slightly at what feels like an abrupt turn of conversation. At first, she’s not sure how the two things should correlate at all.

(Though, is she really that unsure? Alicent has always looked at Rhaenyra like she’s hung the stars.)

The topic of Alicent has been a delicate one in their household lately. Rhaenyra’s come home fuming about her some days, while other days, she gushes about her just like she always did when they were little.

It’s been a mess for Aemma to try to remember if she ought to be ‘mad’ on her daughter’s behalf, even if secretly, she’s never that frustrated with Alicent. She can’t bring herself to be.

One of the things they always seem to fight about is boys. Rhaenyra isn’t shy about her appreciation of them, which Aemma suspects is a point of anxiousness for Alicent, who has always been more reserved, more focused on school, more- well. Traditional, if Otto’s opinions on most everything were an accurate measure of what she grew up believing.

“Why do you think she would angry?” she asks carefully. 

Rhaenyra huffs. “I don’t know,” she grumbles. “She’s always mad at me, it feels like. And I said we could go together. It’s just- she’s so…”

Boring.

Aemma hears it, though Rhaenyra trails off and doesn’t say it. She’s relieved, a little, that she hasn’t raised a child who would use ‘boring’ as an insult.

“She never wants to do anything exciting,” Rhaenyra says, at last, guiltily. “I don’t know. She’s a good friend, she’s just… a lot to deal with sometimes.”

Oh, Alicent.

Aemma’s heart aches for the girl. She’s always worried about her, ever since Alyrie’s death, and rightfully so. Even though Alicent manages to put forward a cheerful smile whenever she’s at the Targaryen’s home, for years, there’s a sense of melancholy that stubbornly lingers about her. 

She always so unfairly adult for someone who should still have the freedom to act like a child- and there’s a deep, unshakable sense of loneliness to her, even when she’s with Rhaenyra, that makes Aemma want to sweep her up into her arms and coddle her until her spark returns.

“If you promised that you would go with her, I think you’ll have to talk to her if you want to ask someone else,” Aemma says, after a moment. “It’s very rude to change your plans without talking to her first. She should understand if you’re respectful and honest with her about why you might not want to go with her anymore..”

“Are you sure?”

“Well. No, I’m not sure. But you can only control what you do. What she decides is up to her.”

Rhaenyra bites her lip. “I just feel bad.”

“Oh, baby, I know.”

“She’s just- I don’t know. She’s so judgy, sometimes, and sometimes I don’t always want to hang out, but I don’t know how to tell her that because she doesn’t have anyone else to hang out with.”

“It doesn’t hurt for both of you to have some time apart. You have been friends since you were very young- and people change. You’re allowed to explore your interests, and she’s allowed to explore hers.”

Rhaenyra hesitates, but nods. She sticks around for a moment more, looking as though she might add something else, but then she stands and grabs her backpack off the floor. 

“Rhaenyra, whatever you decide-” she says carefully, unsure if she should really be saying this- “There is a very fine balance between choosing what you want, and breaking other people’s hearts to get it. It can be very difficult to juggle old friendships when you’re exploring something new. It’s exciting- but for me, it was the hardest part of being your age.”

“Okay, mum,” Rhaenyra says, and Aemma can tell that she really means it, and isn’t just saying it to make her feel like she’s listened.

Rhaenyra ends up going to the dance with Harwin.

Alicent doesn’t come over to get ready.

For her daughter’s sake, Aemma spends most of the evening of the dance trying to pretend that the redheaded girl’s absence isn’t jarring.

She doesn’t ask, but she wants to.

Alicent has been a near-constant fixture in the Targaryen’s household for years now. Aemma knows from Viserys that Otto rarely leaves the office. She’s picked Alicent up from her after school debate club more times than she can count, and some of Alicent’s things have started to take permanent residence in the room that was once Baelon’s, she’s stayed over so many times.

So for her to not be flitting around the bathroom, pinning her hair back and putting on lip gloss side-by-side with Rhaenyra… it’s strange. An absence Aemma never considered could happen, until very recently.

Rhaenyra seems excited, still, which Aemma is grateful for, but she’s just a tad somber, too, as she darts down the grand staircase, fiddling with the cuffs of the dark red suit jacket they’d picked out a few weeks prior.

“You’ll call me when you want me to pick you up?” Aemma prompts, as Rhaenyra shoves her phone into the purse Aemma insisted she take with her. Harwin’s mother is driving both kids to the dance, in exchange for Aemma driving them home, but Aemma’s not sure what’s worse- knowing that she’s going to be agonizing over the wait, or knowing that her baby girl is about to go to her first dance with a boy and all she can do is wave her off from the front door.

Rhaenyra rolls her eyes. “Yes, mum.”

“And if someone tells you you have to do something you don’t want to do, you’ll-” 

“Punch them.”

Aemma crosses her arms, lets out an affectionate, but frustrated, huff. “Rhaenyra, I’m being serious. Kids these days-”

“They’re my friends, mum, they’re not going to hold me at gunpoint and force me to drink,” Rhaenyra rolls her eyes. “Plus, it’s not as though I haven’t had wine at family dinners-”

“Rhaenyra.”

“I won’t let anyone force me to do anything,” Rhaenyra says, before Aemma can start. There’s a steady, assured set to her jaw. “I promise.”

Aemma relents, steps forward to tuck a wispy strand of Rhaenyra’s silvery-blonde hair behind her ears. She lets herself linger, but only for a moment. “Let me get a photo of you, just in front of the door-”

“Ugh,” Rhaenyra grumbles, but poses nonetheless, her hand resting casually on her watch on her opposite wrist, chin angled upward in a way that is almost ego, but more just plain Targaryen.

“You look fantastic, sweetheart.”

Rhaenyra, for once, accepts the compliment.

It’s not the last photo they take that night. When the Strongs arrive- Harwin looking dashing in his matching maroon tie and black suit coat, and Larys, slouched and reluctant, in a t-shirt and jeans, clearly having been dragged along for the photos- they take even more photos, mostly of Harwin and Rhaenyra. Them standing side by side, and then stiffly arm in arm- Aemma is sure to get it all.

But that first photo of Rhaenyra alone is the one that Aemma frames and hangs everywhere she gets the opportunity to. It’s the first photo where she’s looked at her daughter and felt like she’s seen her- not the baby-faced, innocent version of her- but a premonition of what Rhaenyra will become, when she has the opportunity to spread her wings and become someone more than Aemma’s and Viserys’s child.

She can’t help but wish she’d have the opportunity to do the same with Baelon. Wonders who he would’ve asked to the dance, if he’d lived to see it. 

Aemma gamely battles through the line of cars at the school when it’s time to pick Rhaenyra and Harwin up later that night. She’s almost giddy herself when the two of them get into the car, only to be stunned when neither of them say much of anything when they slide into the backseat.

“Have a good time, kids?” she asks cheerily, and they both nod.

The rest of the drive, Rhaenyra’s attention is fixed intently out the window, and Harwin fiddles with the tie he has balled up in his hand. The streetlights occasionally illuminate both of their faces, bathing them in light for just seconds at a time, but each time it happens, neither of them give anything away.

Aemma itches to ask. Almost has to ask, because if he dared to lay a hand on her daughter without her permission, she would leave the boy on the side of the road, his safety be damned.

(She wouldn’t actually leave him out to walk home alone. But in theory, she would.)

But it quickly becomes clear to Aemma that it’s not an ominous kind of silence between the two teenagers. Instead, it’s the awkward kind, tentative, hesitant, and she wonders, then, in a way that has her stomach swooping at the growing suspicion. She can’t stop herself from glancing back every now and then, but Rhaenyra and Harwin give nothing away.

“Bye, Rhaenyra,” Harwin says quietly, when they pull up to his home. He gives her an awkward, one-armed hug that isn’t really a hug, and doesn’t quite meet Rhaenyra’s eyes as  he does so. “Thank you so much for the ride, Mrs. Targaryen.”

“Oh, it’s no problem, dear,” Aemma says warmly. “I hope you had fun.”

Harwin just smiles in return and hops out of the car. He turns and waves just as he’s about to shut the door, and Rhaenyra waves back, and there it is, in the light that spills off the Strong’s front porch- a blush on her daughter’s cheeks-

“So,” Aemma says playfully, when she’s sure Harwin is safely inside with his mother, the door shut behind him. “I won’t ask if you don’t want me to, but…”

Rhaenyra’s eyes flicker down to her lap, and yes, she is blushing, her cheeks an adorable pink, and Aemma has her answer.

“He’s a nice boy,” Aemma tells her, when they’re a few streets from their home and Rhaenyra still hasn’t spoken up. “A very proper young man. And he is quite cute, I think. I’m glad you were able to go with him.”

Don’t you know, she wants to say. Can’t you hear how I’m proud of you?

But she doesn’t. She knows how big tonight has been, knows she needn’t make it into something scary, not when she knows the gravity of what that shift can seem when a relationship goes from a childhood crush to the start of something more-

Rhaenyra rolls her eyes, but looks reassured, even though she hadn’t even asked for Aemma’s opinion on the matter. She heads upstairs to her room the moment they’re back in the house, leaving Aemma to pour a glass of wine next to a snoring Viserys in the armchair, and think of another dance, a long time ago, where her husband asked her to marry him.

Harwin becomes a new presence in Aemma’s life in the days and weeks following. He’s polite every time, even offering to help Aemma with dinner whenever he and Rhaenyra pass by the kitchen and she’s cooking. Rhaenyra starts asking to go to a few of his games. Aemma is happy to take her, and sits with the other parents- Mr. Lannister, Mr. and Mrs. Stark, and, of course, the Strongs, with whom Aemma has really begun to forge a friendship with. 

It’s nice to see Rhaenyra starting to get out of her shell. She’s never been shy, but Harwin has brought out a different side of Rhaenyra- someone bold. Confident. Aemma can tell by the way the eyes of the other kids follow the two of them when they’re together that they’re already popular.

It’s strange revelation. Her daughter has already grown so much beyond the nerdy and reclusive girl Aemma was in school. 

Days Rhaenyra once spent with Alicent become nights out with Harwin- at his house, sometimes, out with friends, other times- and Aemma finds she misses the simplicity of what had been.

Either the simplicity, or having her daughter home, holding everything she knew about Rhaenyra close.

Now, she feels a part of herself go with Rhaenyra every time she steps out the door in the morning- Harwin’s mum is taking us out for dinner after the game tonight, she’d say sometimes through a mouthful of toast.

And there is almost no mention of Alicent. Rhaenyra gets quiet when Aemma tries to allude to the other girl, and the air gets tense.

So she doesn’t push.

But she wonders, sometimes, when she’s dropping Rhaenyra and Harwin off at the movies and passes by the Hightowers’ home, what Alicent must be up to.