Chapter Text
A cold wave of panic washed over Daenerys Targaryen as she looked at the email from the dean’s office.
Apparently Cersei Lannister had not inherited her father’s knack for managing the finances of King’s Landing University, and as a result, the grant that had been funding her research…and therefore, her currently untenured position in the history department…was no more. Without it, she couldn’t finish her work, but more urgently, she couldn’t pay her rent, feed her birds…but even worse, she couldn’t stay in Westeros. Her visa depended on having a job, and without the grant funding…
“Daenerys? What’s wrong?” Jorah Mormont, the associate professor who occupied the office beside hers and her dear friend, paused at the door of her office.
“My grant – they canceled the grant and I was supposed to have another year! Tyrion!” She shouted, making Jorah wince. “Tyrion, get in here!” Tyrion Lannister was Cersei’s brother, but they may as well have been mortal enemies. Daenerys wouldn’t be surprised if that was the reason her grant mysteriously fell through, that entire family was petty enough.
Tyrion appeared, nudging Jorah aside and proceeding into her office as if he was receiving guests. “What are you shrieking about, Professor Targaryen? Mormont’s a better bet if there’s a mouse in here.”
“My grant, Tyrion! This email says my funding is ending with this trimester!” Daenerys spun the laptop around to show him. Tyrion’s thick brows drew together as he peered at the screen, and his blithe manner gradually morphed into what appeared to be unabated stress.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Tyrion declared. “Your research is critical to the future of this department.”
“Your sister couldn’t care less about this department. It’s painfully obvious with every meeting of that Finance Committee you made me join,” Jorah said, folding his arms and leaning on the door jamb. “Her focus is the business school and if it weren’t for the interdisciplinary Essosi Studies certificate she’d probably find a way to get rid of us entirely.”
Not that anyone needed a Finance Committee to see Dean Lannister’s poor esteem for the history department. The fact that they’d been moved from more spacious quarters - now occupied by Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish’s popular MBA program - to being crammed into a near-dungeon in the basement of Harrenhal Hall sufficed. Daenerys was fairly certain her little adjunct office had been a broom closet at some point.
“Yes, well. It’s publish or perish, Mormont, not ‘think about writing a book without ever finishing it.’ You’re not helping.” Tyrion glared, somewhat ineffectively, at his colleague. “Someone’s work on the decline of the nobility in Volantis and Pentos was supposed to be done six months ago.”
Daenerys snapped her fingers. “Tyrion. Focus. My grant. My job. My visa, Tyrion.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Tyrion said cheerily. “If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s finding money that doesn’t exist.” He went off to start digging, and Jorah slipped past him, settling into the chair across from her. Daenerys groaned and put her head down on the desk.
“I’m doomed. I’m going to have to go back to Pentos and beg for my old job back.” A gentle touch to her wrist made her lift her head to look at Jorah. He tilted his head, sympathy filling her often grumpy colleague’s eyes.
(Or so everyone said. Jorah rarely seemed grumpy to her. He even tolerated Drogon, whose idea of cockatiel fun was biting humans on the nose between pleas to have his head scratched.)
“Tyrion will do everything he can,” Jorah promised. “You’re an unquestionable asset to this department.”
The knot of tension between her shoulders loosened. Everything sounded reasonable coming out of Jorah’s mouth…including applying for this position at King’s Landing. When he met her at a conference in Braavos, he told her that her work on the relationships between the Dothraki khalasars and the Free Cities was exceptional, and told her about the grant Tyrion had secured to expand the department. A grant which was supposed to extend for three years, not two..
She sighed. “You’d better think so. It’s entirely your fault that I’m here, just in time for winter.” Literally - three months after her arrival two years ago she had woken to a cold snap, and Jorah had taken her shopping for her first winter coat, hat, and gloves. Winter had continued ever since with no signs of abating, in the Westeros way.
Daenerys managed a little smile, reflected back in the lines around Jorah’s eyes. “And you’re right. I have a month, so who knows what magic Tyrion might work out by then.” She rolled her neck a little and leaned back in her chair. “Please tell me we’re still on for beer and takeout tonight?”
“Of course. Extra dumplings?”
“And spring rolls. Please?” She gives him what her friend Missandei jokingly calls her “emoji eyes” until he sighs and nods. Daenerys grins, hoping her little takeout-based triumph is a good omen for Tyrion’s efforts to replace her funding.
What Tyrion could find was absolutely nothing. He shook every tree, went to every funding source he could dig up, and a week later came back with nothing but an inbox full of rejections. Daenerys watched the days ticking away until she would be out of a job, and out of a salary. She had some savings, but the likelihood of anyone wanting to hire her on such short notice was poor at best, and her visa would expire before that.
Tyrion had run out of options, but not out of whiskey. Frost spirals formed on the windows as she joined him in his office at the end of a disastrous week. Daenerys glumly stared into a glass of smoky liquor that burned going down her throat, thinking that the chill in her bones wasn’t only the result of her woolly jumper failing her.
“I’m sorry, Daenerys. I’m beginning to suspect my sister of trying to do in this department.” Tyrion sighed. “A few places told me to come back in a few months, but…”
“But they could kick me out before then.” She wasn’t a fool, she’d seen snappish rhetoric on the news programs, sullen northerners and arch, silky Southrons alike complaining about foreigners flowing into Westeros. Rumor had it that the current government was just looking for excuses to cancel visas and send people back, especially as winter made life in Westeros more difficult for all.
“I don’t suppose you could marry someone?” Tyrion asked, gazing blearily into his own glass, and she frowned.
“Marry someone? How would that help?” Not that she had anyone to marry, her relationship with Jon Snow had ended badly only a few months ago. Before then she’d only dated Yara, who was fun but was always in and out of town, and Daario, who was also fun, but had an allergy to long-term commitment (and who Jorah loathed, for some vague reason). If I’d known I might be gone again maybe I would have just stuck it out with one of them, she mused, if I’d known it didn’t really matter.
Tyrion tried to wave his hand and nearly sent whiskey sloshing over the sides of his glass. “Loophole in the law. If you marry a citizen, you can stay in the country and apply for citizenship after a year.”
“That’s a ridiculous loophole,” Daenerys replied. “And not remotely helpful.” She took a gulp of the whisky and frowned.
“It would be, if we could stall for a few months.” Tyrion looked thoughtful now. “If I move some things around, I could preserve at least some of your salary…” A knock at the door interrupted him.
“Come in,” Daenerys said, when Tyrion just stared at it in befuddlement. Jorah poked his head inside. She hadn’t seen him all day – maybe he’d actually been working on the theoretical book - and smiled despite her predicament. “Drink?” She offered, holding up her glass.
“Mormont! Excellent timing. Come in, have a seat.” Tyrion didn’t wait for a response, pulling a third mug from his shelf and pouring a drink for Jorah, who settled into the chair beside Daenerys. Jorah accepted the drink, eyeing it a little suspiciously. Daenerys hoped it was actually a clean mug, Tyrion was a drink or two ahead of her.
“Good timing how?” Jorah asked, before taking a hesitant sip. He relaxed a little after getting a taste, Tyrion’s stashes of alcohol infamously ranged from the finest whisky from points north of Winterfell to barely legal rotgut.
“How would you feel about marrying Daenerys?”
To his credit, Jorah didn’t choke on his drink, though he did swallow very, very hard.
“Excuse me?” he asked hoarsely, as the tips of his ears turned red.
“Her visa will expire automatically without a job, we have no room to make an offer for a permanent position now, but if she marries a citizen of the Seven Kingdoms, she can stay. It’s probably all a little more complicated than that, but I know someone who can help us fudge the rest. You spend an unnatural amount of time together anyway, how different could it be?”
“You want us to defraud the government by pretending to be married?” Jorah stared, as if this wasn’t only the third most ridiculous thing Tyrion had suggested to them this year. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Of course not. Pretending would be absurd,” Tyrion replied. “I want you to defraud the government by actually getting married. After a year Daenerys can apply for proper citizenship, and she’ll have a permanent job to back up her application. Gods, I really am brilliant.”
They both sat there, slightly stunned. Daenerys couldn’t believe that this was her last remaining possibility to stay in Westeros.
Jorah took another sip of his drink and glanced at her, then sighed. “Fine.”
“Wait, really?” Daenerys whipped her head around. “You do get what he’s asking?”
“I’ve been divorced once. What’s one more?” Jorah said, more casually than she would have expected. “Besides, you said you hate your landlord, and there’s plenty of room in my house.”
Daenerys opened her mouth to object…but she couldn’t think of anything in particular that would spoil the plan. Tyrion wasn’t wrong, she had probably spent more time on Jorah’s couch than she had on her own in the past year, watching silly television shows and letting him warm her from the inside out with winter stews and mulled wine. He taught her to make snowballs to prepare for the Starks’ traditional snowball fight and even gave her the code for his front door, so she could let herself inside.
“Excellent,” Tyrion said, rubbing his hands together. “Now, I know Mormont’s forgotten women even exist, but do you have any impediments to this?”
“Like…what?” Daenerys felt strange. A little lightheaded. Maybe it was the whisky. Maybe it was the surreal nature of this conversation.
“Any problems from, I don’t know, Jon Snow?” Tyrion waggled his eyebrows, regarding the son of a Northern politician, who she’d dated earlier that year.
“Jon Snow? The same Jon Snow who ghosted me months ago before fucking off back north? That Jon Snow?” Daenerys felt whisky-fueled indignation bubbling up at how that relationship had ended all over again.
“You might not want to open that can of serpents,” Jorah said, drumming his fingers against the side of his mug. Daenerys supposed he may have heard this rant a few times, at varying levels of intoxication.
Tyrion held up his hands. “Just asking. Neither of you are especially experienced in trying to get away with slightly illegal activities.” He flicked a glance at Jorah. “For the most part.”
Jorah’s eyes narrow. “This is a little more than slightly illegal.”
“That’s why it’s going to be fun,” Tyrion declared, as he pulled out his phone and started texting someone. “Don’t worry, I’ll talk to all the right people.”
And that, apparently, was that. Daenerys glanced at Jorah, her friend and now abruptly, her fiancé.
“The flock will be shocked to hear they’re getting a stepfather?” she joked hesitantly.
“Don’t get them too excited. It’s only for a year,” Jorah replied, and he clinked his mug with hers.