Chapter Text
Lord Lannister led the way back to the heart of the camp in a contemplative quiet, Brienne close behind. Twilight chilled the air around them, and it seemed their comfortable interlude had ended. There was no mistaking now, with night falling, that winter had come. She could feel the thick cloud cover rolling in around them and wondered if the real snows would soon arrive in the Riverlands.
Brienne watched him, watched how the men looked up as they passed, how they were drawn to him. Watched how he walked, straight and tall, without hesitation, arrogant, without swagger. She took in his black leathers perfectly fitted to him, his golden hair spilling carelessly over his collar, golden hand heavy at his side. She took in every detail. She knew she would want to remember this later, on her own.
She also noticed the tension around his eyes whenever he looked back at her, saw that he was troubled still. Ever since he had spoken of Tommen, and whatever had happened in King's Landing, there was an agitation about him that pained her to look on.
Jaime brushed past his guards into the Commander’s tent without ceremony. Brienne noted the quizzical look on the young soldier’s faces. She suspected their Commander would greet them by name most of the time. They must be wondering what she had done to disquiet him so.
Only reminded him of horrors. And hadn’t their time together been nothing but horrors, in the main? In their first journey he had been made to wear his own rotting hand around his neck, and in the second, the corpse of her sworn Lady had put him on trial with the ghoulish brotherhood baying for his blood. Both ordeals she had put him through. And now here she had intruded on him without warning to ask yet again for his help, questioned his actions, and thoughtlessly asked him of his dead son.
There is only sorrow between us. I should not have come, she thought, as she raised the tent flap and let herself in. I could have left him a message at Riverrun and stayed away. But I knew that, didn’t I? And came anyway.
Inside, she walked right into Jaime. He was waiting there for her just inside, and put up his arms to catch her at the shoulder. For a moment they just looked at each other, her wide-eyed, him weary. His hands holding her in place, one flesh and one gold.
She started to speak, but he broke in first.
“Will you travel with us?” He sounded quite sincere, much to her surprise. “If we do go North it will be some time before we can leave the Riverlands, to muster troops and set garrisons behind us. But we can send for young Podrick, and the both of you would have a place here as my guests. The journey to Winterfell would surely be safer this way.”
“But much slower.” Brienne shook her head slowly. It was not part of her plan. She had not meant to pass this much time here as it was. “No, the Starks await me and I will travel faster riding alone. I only asked leave for a brief journey, and I am expected to return soon.”
He looked sorry for it. She could not imagine why. Surely she would only be in the way here.
“Will you stay the night at least?” he asked her quietly. “We have a berth for you, and the stablehands will take good care of your palfrey until you set out on the morrow….”
It was so difficult to remember why she could not possibly stay, with his hands on her shoulders like this. Looking directly into his face, she wanted only to agree with everything he said. But her conscience said to resist, the way it always did. Not to overstay her welcome, it being so rare.
“Thank you most kindly, but no. I left Pod with only a few days funding at an inn, and I must return to him. I will not impose on you any more than I have already.”
“You haven’t,” he insisted.
“I did not come to stay. I only wanted to speak with you, to inform you that my quest was complete. And to give you this.”
Jaime withdrew his hands as Brienne fumbled a moment with the belt around her waist, freeing Oathkeeper’s ornate scabbard. “I would return you your horse as well, and the other things you gave to me, but those gifts are scattered across the Riverlands now. This will have to suffice.”
She couldn’t quite meet his expression as she held the scabbard out to him. Brienne felt a real pang of loss handing over the sword. It had meant so much to her to carry it, and she would never see its like again.
But as Ser Jaime slowly lifted it from her grasp, her sorrow was overwhelmed by satisfaction. His flesh-and-blood hand around the pommel and the golden hand supporting the scabbard both looked as though born to it, so naturally he handled the blade. The sword had been made for him, after all. A golden sword for the golden Lannister. Yes, it was right he should have it. The honor should be his, and she had returned it to him as she promised. Now her quest was truly complete.
This satisfaction was short-lived.
“And you will be quit of me, then,” Jaime said.
She looked up stuttering, confused at his bitter tone. “Not – our arrangement will be concluded, yes.”
He held the scabbard between them, the golden lions on Oathkeeper’s pommel gleaming in the torchlight. “You will be better off in the North without a Lannister sword, I’m sure. It must have been inconvenient for you.”
“No, it was – it was wonderful,” she tried to explain. “But it isn’t mine. You gave it to me for a purpose, and I have fulfilled that purpose. Now I return it to you.”
“I thank you then.” He did not sound grateful. He sounded almost angry. “You fulfilled all of your oaths admirably, as you promised. You restored my honor in the North and completed the quest I could not. And now you are free.”
Brienne bit her lip. She had done something wrongly, but she could not think what. “Ser Jaime, I—“
The words died in her throat when he turned away from her. Jaime walked around the commander’s table and set Oathkeeper in its scabbard on his desk with a solid, hard thump and set about removing his overcoat. His left hand made short work of the buttons but he had to ease the sleeve carefully over his golden hand so that it would not get stuck.
Her throat tightened. It was most important that he understand. “I was very proud to bear your sword,” she said boldly. “Your sword, and your letter, and all the things you gave me. I will be proud of that until the day I die.”
He froze in place, holding his coat in front of him with a grip so firm his knuckles would be white. She had only a glimpse of Jaime’s face then, and thought she saw there an expression of indescribable sorrow. But he lowered his head quickly and set his mouth in a firm, hard line. He looked much like his father when he did that. Then he resumed draping his coat over the chair and adjusted his gambeson stiffly.
“Thank you, Lady Brienne,” he said, formally and without feeling.
Without looking at her, he turned the sword on his desk until the pommel spun into his good hand. He seemed to be examining it – for damage? Flaws? Brienne did not know. He needn’t have worried, anyway. She had taken better care of Oathkeeper than she had herself. Kept it away from prying eyes, cleaned it obsessively, and unsheathed it only rarely. She would have told him so, but felt he did not want her to speak anymore. He didn’t even want to look at her anymore.
She realized suddenly she was being dismissed.
For a moment, she was angry. Her hands balled into fists and she wanted to shout at him, demand his attention, demand gratitude, tell him all of the terrible things she had gone through on his quest. Tell him about the Inn at the Crossroads and Nimble Dick and Lord Tarly and how her sword arm still pained her and her face still burned where she had been bitten, and she still had nightmares nearly every night full of the faces of dead men she had slain and of Biter and Lady Stoneheart and hanging until she awoke gasping for air.
But it was not his fault, was it? It was her quest, given her by Lady Catelyn, not him. She had sworn him no oath, and she had not suffered these trials for him.
She exhaled, and unclenched her hands. There was no use being angry. He owed her nothing, after all, and now she owed him nothing in return. There was nothing between them now, with the blade returned, and her quest complete.
“I will be on my way then,” she said stiffly.
Jaime nodded curtly, not quite raising his eyes to her face.
She watched him a moment longer, hoping for something more. But there was nothing.
Brienne turned to go, telling herself to hold her head high. There was no reason for her to be so crestfallen, when she had accomplished everything she meant to.
But she only managed a few steps. They felt horrible, those steps. And she was not even out of the tent before that pulling sensation in her chest stopped her in her tracks.
Not like this, she thought. If we should never see one another again, I would not have the last words I say to him cold ones. After all he has done for me, I owe him better than that.
“Jaime?” Brienne turned back, heart thumping loudly in her chest. “I am happy that I could complete my obligation to you, and most grateful for your help. But…” she felt quite breathless here, as she grasped for the right words. She took a step closer. “Though the quest is concluded and there’s no reason for you to need my service I just want to say that… If ever we should meet again, in the North perhaps, I hope that… I hope that I could be your friend.”
She felt like sinking into the floor saying such a silly thing, but it was all that she could offer.
He finally looked at her then, with a kind of fascination. For the second time today she had surprised him, first by arriving and then by not leaving. A slow smile settled again on his face and looked more at home there than it had before. It looked a lot like the gratitude she had not asked him for.
“My friend,” he said. “Is that what we are?”
She realized that Jaime was laughing. At her. Or maybe not at her, but at some private joke she had intruded on.
“I’m sorry,” he said, a little breathlessly. “You just... you have no idea, do you? And I can’t make you out either. You speak to me like a stranger and then you’ll say something like that. I don’t know if you’re just that good and kind, or if it could be anything more…” He rubbed at his beard with his good hand, chuckling quietly. “Is this the way of it? How do people do this, this is awful.”
Brienne took a step back, apprehensive. She didn’t know if she had said the wrong thing or exactly the right one.
It seemed the more bewildered she became, the more amused he was. Jaime shook his head wonderingly and came around from behind his desk. “You know I was going to let you go? Without saying a single word to stop you, and with no cause to ever cross our paths again. Fool that I am, fool and coward. You were always the braver of us two, Brienne.”
“I don’t understand,” she confessed. “Have I said something wrong?”
He lifted the sword in its scabbard delicately, with real reverence, and brought it to her. She had noticed it before, the way he handled Oathkeeper as though it were both very precious and very breakable. Jaime held the sword out to her and raised his eyes to hers, quite serious now. “I cannot accept this. It’s yours. It will always be yours.”
She stepped back again, anguished. “I couldn’t. That was –“
“A gift.” He looked fierce for a moment. “My gift to you. If you would spurn it, then discard it as you will – give it to another, throw it into the sea. But do not ask me to take it back.” Clumsily he urged the scabbard into her hands, his golden hand cold against her flesh and the flesh one warm.
Distracted by their hands clasped together over the sword, she stumbled over the words she needed. “It- it would be my honor…”
“No, it’s mine. Didn’t I say that before?”
“Jaime,” she said, and stopped. She didn’t know what to say. By all the gods, what she would give just to know the right thing to say for once in her life.
“I’m so tired of this,” he cut in. “Letting you go. I’ve done it often enough it ought to be getting easier, but instead it is more and more difficult every time. I’m sick of it. I want you to stay, Brienne. Stay for good.”
Brienne fought off a mad urge to whoop with joy. He wants me to stay. But quickly her cautious nature stepped in and stamped out her excitement. No, no, it means nothing. Be sensible.
“To stay…” her brows knitted together to complete the thought. “In your camp? As your sword?”
“Yes,” he said quickly, and then stopped himself. He shook his head slowly. “No, not that, not exactly. I’m sick of lies and dissembling. It’s cowardly, and to be worthy of you I would be brave. I would have you as my lady, not my sword. Both, really, but the first most of all.”
“As your…” she trailed off again, her heart sinking.
Jaime leaned close to her, so close she could see flecks of gold in his pretty green eyes. His fingers tightened around her arm and his lips parted as though to speak, but for once, he did not. Instead he touched his lips to hers, sweet and feather-light and so brief that by the time she had realized it was happening, it was already over.
He looked rather chuffed about it after, smirking at her as he withdrew, and she would have been annoyed with him had she not been so utterly astonished.
“Why?” she just managed to say.
“Why? Why?!” Jaime managed to sound both exasperated and fond. “Why do men do anything? Why do the knights fall in impossible quests before the fair maidens? Why did Robert and Rhaegar duel at the trident? Because we’re all idiots, mad helpless idiots. I thought it would be blazingly obvious from the moment you arrived, Brienne. I’m in love with you.”
“What?” she said sharply. Thoughts of Hyle Hunt, of the bet, of every laughing face that had ever taunted her crowded into her mind’s eye. Oh no, not him too. Not this.
“You heard me,” he smiled back at her.
Brienne looked stricken. “That isn’t funny.”
“It isn’t,” Jaime agreed. “It’s damned inconvenient. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to know you? To wonder where you are all the time, whether you are even alive? Despite all your skill, to know that you’ll only fling yourself at danger again and again until something successfully kills you? The thought of it has been driving me mad. Once I’d seen you hurt badly it was all I could think of. I don’t think I’ve slept a whole night through since I left you on the Quiet Isle. That was when I realized what the problem was, why nothing has been right for me since I returned to King’s Landing from my captivity. I missed you. I have been missing you all along.”
Brienne’s eyes dropped to the floor and could not rise again. Suddenly she wished urgently to be very far away, anywhere but here. “Jaime,” she tried to interrupt.
He raised his voice above hers easily. “Your Elder Brother told you to ask me, so here it is: I told the Brothers I couldn’t be parted from you, I never wanted to be away from you again. I told them I loved you. It didn’t work, obviously – they wouldn’t let me on the Isle. But that wasn’t why I said it. I said it because it was true and I never knew it until that moment. It’s still true now. I love you.”
“That cannot be, Ser,” she forced out, her throat thick with pain. “You are making fun of me.”
“I am not.” His tone was gentle, suddenly, but still could not bear to look at him, or anywhere else but the floor. She saw his thick fine boots step closer. “I assure you the joke is on me. You appear out of nowhere and suddenly I am as nervous as a squire. I was sure you would see it on my face, or that I would blurt it out at any moment, and then you would… I don’t know, slap me, shout at me? Draw your sword? I must not be doing too badly, if you’ve not tried to stab me yet.”
Brienne closed her eyes and held tightly to Oathkeeper’s scabbard and willed herself not to cry. Her face burned with shame.
“I do not know what game you play here, but I will not be fooled by honeyed words. I am not so foolish as that. I know I am nothing to look upon.”
With her eyes squeezed shut his voice seemed to float into her head, like a dream. “I like to look on you,” she heard him say.
“Stop it. Just… stop.” The stone in her throat had become a boulder, a mountain. She could hardly breathe around it. She wanted to get away from here. She wanted lightning to strike her down on the spot. She wanted him to take her in his arms and kiss her again and she hated herself for it. With a shaky breath, Brienne tried to calm herself enough to continue, shaking her head slowly from side to side. “I can take your taunts and your japes, Ser, your bawdy songs and insults, but not this. Do not taunt me with what I can never have. I gave up on such foolishness long ago, though it took far too long and far too many heartaches to learn that lesson.”
She steeled herself and opened her eyes. His green eyes stared directly into her scarred face with an ease she found infuriating. A flash of anger came to her and she clutched onto it like a lifeline.
“I return your honor to you and you throw it back in my face with lies. You are a cruel, wicked man.”
Jaime sucked in a sharp breath. Now he too looked angry, or was it hurt? She could not read him, she never could. “I confess my love to you and you call it a jest? When you only just finished calling me a man of honor? My honor is thin indeed then, or you cannot have meant it, Lady Brienne.”
Brienne bristled, her whole body thrumming with the tension of a whip about to crack. If she must face the truth of her life without flinching, so should everyone else. “You know perfectly well I am no lady. Let us be honest with each other at the very least.”
“But my honesty is worth so little to you,” Jaime said wryly, with a false smile. He sounded like his old self then, not the arrogant golden Lannister but the wreck in the Riverlands, defeated and bitter. But then he gripped her shoulders and the smile died from his face, and he looked like a different man entirely, someone Brienne did not know. “You’re the only person who ever wanted the truth from me, the only one anyway who I’ve wanted to give it to. The truth is that I have loved you for so long I can’t remember how or why or when it started. I can’t explain it. I only know I do.”
“You can’t.” She wanted to stay angry. If she was angry, her voice would not crack and waver like a stupid young girl. She tried to lace her words with venom, but they broke just the same. “What would you love? My good looks? My charming personality? I know what I am, I’m not blind or stupid. I am an ugly, lumbering beast of a woman. I am a joke and a spectacle to point and laugh at.”
His hands on her shoulders tightened. “You are Brienne of Tarth. You are the bravest knight in the Seven Kingdoms and the best person I’ve ever known. How could I not love you?”
Hot tears slid down her cheeks despite her attempts to blink them back. She hated crying. She always had. But she could only stand there stiff with humiliation and bite her lip to keep from sobbing.
“Don’t cry,” he told her firmly. “I don’t want to start a habit of making maidens cry. I know nothing but terrible things have happened to you since we met, and it’s not likely to improve, I’m afraid. There are only darker times ahead. But listen, Brienne, I ask nothing from you – not for Oathkeeper and not for my love. It is a gift, for you to do as you please with. You can return to the Starks and be rid of me. Or, if you wished to, you could join me here. As a soldier, as a friend, or as my lady. We can pretend this never happened, if you prefer. Only for gods’ sake be honest with me, the truth will hurt less than a lie no matter how kindly meant. What do you want? What do you feel for me, if anything at all?”
His good hand cupped her face, lightly, as he brushed the tears from her cheek. Gently, with his thumb, more gently than her tears had ever rated.
Only that small touch was enough to undo her completely.
With an audible sob she jumped back from him, upsetting a nearby table and rattling its contents to the ground. Oathkeeper slipped from her fingers and slapped to the floor. The sound itself tore at her jangled nerves painfully. After everything it was more than she could bear. She turned away from Jaime Lannister and his beseeching expression and fled the red tent, leaving Oathkeeper lying on the ground at his feet.