King's Landing 298 AC.
Jaime.
Holding meetings, answering questions that he knew not the answer too and seeing the looks on people's faces as they met with him rather than the king or queen was not how he'd envisioned his days. That he was apparently doing a decent enough job of it didn't make him feel any better about it either. Jaime doing what he must rather than what he wished to do and were it not for Dacey and Joanna, for Genna, and surprisingly for Oberyn Martell, he didn't know if he'd have been able to.
Every instinct in him wished him to be by Jae's side and yet he knew he could not do so and was as needed as much if not more here as he was there. The realm needed stability and though he wanted to spend his days with the boy he thought of as his son, it was up to him to provide that stability. So once again he woke early and kissed his wife on the lips and on her swollen belly before walking into Joanna's room and kissing her forehead as she slept. Jaime cursing that he needed to rise before them and yet just as he had for the last two weeks he did just that.
After he dressed he made his way to his solar and began the painstaking process of writing out missives and orders, all so that the simple day to day business of the realm could carry on without stoppages or delays. Dacey arrived to order him to lunch, just as she had each day for this past week. Jaime finding that his appetite was both ravenous and nonexistent at times as his worries for Jae increased each day that he didn't wake up. He'd been certain he would have by now, so much so that he had no difficulty, at least early on, in reassuring Margaery that all would be well. Something that was now getting harder and harder for any of them to do.
"Come eat." Dacey said and he nodded as he left the last of the papers unsigned and followed her to their small dining room.
Looking at Joanna smile happily at him as they ate at their small table gave him temporary respite from his troubled thoughts. As did watching Dacey eat in the least ladylike manner possible, his wife's hunger knowing few bounds and Jaime believing like her mother did, that it truly was a bear she carried. When he would stop and not eat as he sat with them, Joanna would reach out and take something from her own plate and hold it up to him. His daughter just like her mother wouldn't let him go hungry.
"Eat Papa." Joanna said and while the piece of cheese she held didn't look very appetizing to him, just looking at his daughter he knew he was lost and could refuse her nothing.
"Thank you little cub." he said and was rewarded with the brightest smile he'd ever seen, his daughter's was one that could make him move the very mountains themselves he'd always thought.
"More papa?" Joanna asked.
"Aye, more." he said before he lifted her from her seat and began blowing on her neck, Joanna's laughter like a balm to his soul.
They ate and played or truth be told played far more than they ate and then Sera came to take his daughter to her lessons. Jaime kissing her cheeks repeated while she laughed and then allowing the servant to take her from him.
"You spoil her." Dacey said still eating.
"I'm a Lannister, the head of the wealthiest house in Westeros and Hand of the King, if I can't spoil our daughter than who can?" he asked and saw Dacey's small smirk.
"True enough, have you much more to do today?" Dacey asked.
"Petitions and a small council meeting."
