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Jaime alone had found her in the Vale. Hair the color of mud and blood on her hands. He had thought that Sansa Stark was his last chance for honor; in truth, she was far more than that.
He couldn’t pinpoint the moment he had fallen in love with her. It had been like waking from a deep sleep. Slowly, slowly, it had happened without him noticing; and then all at once he’d realized he was completely smitten with her. This broken young thing had somehow latched onto the unhealed wounds he carried and fused them both together. The night he’d finally realized, they had been sharing a bedroll for weeks, finding comfort in the warmth of each other’s bodies. He had been quite surprised to find her a maiden still.
They were wed in the Riverlands by a traveling septon just before Sansa’s sixteenth name day. They were exhausted and dirty, but Jaime was proud that he could, at the very least, cloak her in the colors of his own house. She had fervently insisted they be wed, and he was eager to comply with his lady’s wishes. Not even for a moment had he wondered why she was so insistent - adamant even - that they not wait until arriving at Winterfell and having a wedding befitting their stations. All that filled his head was Tully blue eyes and flame red hair and her soft words.
It was not until after the wedding that she told him.
He lay over her on a straw mattress under a moth-eaten threadbare blanket in an inn somewhere near the red fork. Sweat was beading on his chest despite the chill in the air. It was not the wedding night she deserved and had it been their first night together, he’d have been ashamed. However, as he had first taken her lying under a horse blanket in the dirt, the inn was the greatest luxury they could afford and he knew he would make it up to her when he could. Jaime’s arm had crumpled when the words left her mouth. He had toppled to the side, half on top of her, and lay gaping at her.
“You’re certain?” he asked.
She had nodded and taken his hand in her own, resting it on her still-flat stomach. There was nothing to feel but her warm skin, and yet Jaime suddenly felt more a father than he ever had to Cersei’s children.
It was weeks later that he realized, she could have gone to any woman in any of the villages of the Riverlands to ask for moon tea; instead, she had taken him to a septon and kept their child. By then, he could feel the swell of her abdomen when he pulled her close at night.
Sansa’s condition was obvious by the time they reached Winterfell, and if any of the Northern lords were bothered by her marriage to him (and he was sure they were), the mountains of gold that came with being Lord of Casterly Rock kept them quiet.
As soon as they had arrived in the North, Robb’s still-loyal banner men declared her their queen. Jaime’s money turned the others quickly enough. He announced that the restoration of Winterfell would be entirely backed by Casterly Rock – that and he had ships loaded with food sent from the South with his word that it would continue through the entirety of the winter.
The reconstruction of Winterfell began straight away. Smallfolk poured into the Winter Town, having heard of paid work and food for the whole of winter – or at least until Winterfell had been restored. Construction happened quickly enough that by the time the child came, Sansa was able to give birth in the room she herself had been born in.
It was not the first birth Jaime had ever attended – on the contrary, it was the fourth, but fourth or first, it did not change the way his stomach clenched and his heart pounded.
He held his wife as she screamed and cried out in pain. The maester and serving girls had looked at him strangely when they realized he wouldn’t be leaving his wife to give birth alone, but said nothing as he climbed into the bed behind her, having shed his boots and doublet. Sansa’s skin was slick with sweat and when she leaned back against his chest, his shirt clung damply to the both of them, but he couldn’t have been less concerned about it. Her fingers dug into his left hand and right wrist as she pushed and growled, sounding exactly like a she-wolf.
Jaime was certain he had never felt more proud when she fell back against him in exhaustion, having pushed their child free of her body.
“A princess.”
The serving girl’s words were soft, but Jaime could feel his face light up with a smile all the same. He hugged Sansa tightly against his chest, pressing his lips to her damp forehead and running his remaining fingers through her hair.
The child was passed to Sansa and Jaime looked at his daughter over her mother’s shoulder. She was pink and squealing and had no hair, but he loved her immediately. She didn’t particularly look like either of them - rather just a wrinkled angry thing, but it was clear enough that she was fierce, even so, Jaime was compelled to protect her from all the ills of the world. It was an entirely new feeling. He had sired three children before and had even attended their births, but they had never felt like any part of him.
“She is beautiful my lady,” he whispered to Sansa.
“A moment, if you will,” he said softly, climbing from the bed. He quickly strode out the door where his squire awaited him as he had been commanded hours before. The poor boy was asleep on a bench outside the room.
“Dane, wake up,” he gently shook the boy’s shoulder, causing him to startle awake. “The bells. Go to the steward. Tell him the bells are to be rung until sundown.”
The boy nodded sleepily and quickly headed off in the direction of the steward’s chambers.
Jaime returned to his wife and daughter.
Sansa looked up from the babe in confusion when minutes later, the bells began to ring.
“I heard once that on the day you were born, the bells rang from sunrise until sunset,” he told her.
“My father had an heir already,” she told him, slightly downtrodden.
Jaime shrugged.
“And yet I have never heard any tales of the bells of Riverrun being rung the day your brother was born. They rang for you and they will ring for our daughter. You could not have given me a more perfect child.”
“You’re not… displeased?” she asked. “I thought you had wanted an heir.”
“Such a thing was always more my father’s concern,” he told her easily. “Besides, this just means we’ll have to try harder at producing one.”
Jaime grinned and kissed her, moving his hand to stroke their daughter’s cheek.
“She is perfect. You are perfect.”