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There were a lot of ways it could have ended. Bran Stark warned him of that, in the godswood at Winterfell, under that terrifying tree. Bran was still odd, at the time, with all those mystical prophecies and creepy promises and allusions to in-jokes no one understood but himself. He came back to himself slowly after the Night King was defeated, since the Three-Eyed Raven had no reason to stick around once the threat was gone. But when he’d said the thing about diverging paths, he had still very much been Weird Bran, as Arya had taken to calling him.

(“Weirwood, weird,” she’d said to Jaime, deadpan, one eyebrow raised. “It’s funny.”)

“You could die,” Bran said in the godswood that day. He said it in the same bored tone with which he said everything, but there was something sort of mockingly helpful in it that made Jaime give half a smile.

“Not much of a prediction. We’re all going to die,” he pointed out. Bran stared at him; he did that a lot. It always gave Jaime the feeling that he would be rolling his eyes if he didn’t consider it beneath him.

“There are many kinds of death. Killed in battle. Burned alive. Crushed. Beheaded.” He had tilted his head, that vacant smile on his face. “Honorable. Honorless.”

“Any specifics, or are you just having fun imagining all the ways I could go?”

“It’s not imagined. It’s possibility.”

“Suppose I’ll find out when the time comes.”

“You could be happy,” Bran supplied, which sounded like a bit of a peace offering.

“About dying? Or about not dying.”

“Both,” Bran said. It was a bit like a fortune teller, Jaime decided. A mummer’s trick to get you to give them coin. Say enough vague things and you might hit on the truth. “It’s not a trick,” Bran said. And then, before Jaime could even ask, “I’m not reading your mind. I’m just telling you. Your choices matter. There are many ways for you to atone for what you’ve done, but it doesn’t happen if you don’t allow yourself to try.”

“Is this not trying?” Jaime asked, gesturing to himself, freezing his ass off in the north, surrounded by people who hated him. Turning his back on his twin sister, his love, to fight for the living. It seemed like a pretty big gesture at the time.

“Its not enough,” Bran said.

There were a lot of ways it could have happened, but here is how it does:

Bran calls together Jon Snow, Samwell Tarly, Sansa and Arya Stark, Brienne of Tarth, Davos Seaworth, and Jaime Lannister himself. They’re all freezing in the godswood together, Jaime hunched resolutely beside Brienne in one of her extra fur cloaks, using her blessed height and bulk as a shield against the wind. Bran and Sam tell them all that Jon Snow is actually Aegon Targaryen, the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. The trueborn son, and therefore heir to the Targaryen line.

Setting aside the fact that Rhaegar already had a son named Aegon, and setting aside the way the insult to Elia makes Jaime’s blood boil a bit, Jaime can see no reason for his presence at this fucking meeting. It feels like it’s probably a bit of a jape on Bran’s part to make Jaime miserable, because there’s a lot of weeping and inter-Stark affirmations of love and loyalty even if he is just their cousin and no longer their half-brother, and even Brienne is dabbing at her eyes. Jaime’s thinking gods, imagine how much easier my life would have been if at the eleventh hour Cersei was suddenly revealed to be some secret cousin? I could have just married her, and this whole bloody war could have been averted. But then he thinks about how much Cersei would have hated being revealed as a secret cousin, and she probably wouldn’t have married him anyway, because he always had too little ambition and too little sense for his sister, even though she loved him.

When Sansa asks why Bran waited so long to tell the truth about Jon, Bran only says, “I could have waited longer,” and everyone sighs together and then nervously laughs together and then they all privately wonder what the fuck Jon is going to do.

Sansa convinces Jon to think strategically for once in his life. Jon appears offended by that, as if he has been thinking strategically, though it’s unclear if he has been. He seems rather bothered to find out that the woman he’s been shagging is his aunt, but not devastated or heartbroken, so maybe he has been strategic. Its literally impossible to tell what’s going on with him. Either way, he says he has to tell Daenerys everything, because he shouldn’t lie, and Davos catches Jaime’s eyes just as they’re both executing devastating eyerolls to the heavens. Never mind that the boy just learned that the honorable Ned Stark lived an enormous lie to protect him. No, lying is still apparently bad no matter what the reasons for it.

Daenerys is informed of Jon’s parentage in the company of Jon, Sam, Bran, Sansa, Tyrion, Jorah Mormont, Davos, Daenerys’s friend (companion? Handmaiden? Jaime isn’t sure. She seems to fill a lot of roles) Missendei, and Jaime himself. Yet again Jaime finds himself roped into something he wants no part of. Bran had requested that Jaime wheel him to the meeting, and then bade him to stay, so Jaime assumes it’s another way for Bran to fuck with him, unless it’s just that Bran likes the idea of the Lannister brothers on the opposite sides of this odd family drama.

Daenerys is immediately furious with the revelation and accuses them of conspiring to overthrow her. Tyrion glares mightily when Jaime can’t help himself from saying “overthrow you? You aren’t queen of Westeros yet. You have to conquer it, first. The crown belongs to my sister until you win it back”. Which, sure, maybe it isn’t the right time for it, but he’s tired of hearing Daenerys talk about how the crown is hers and the kingdom is hers and the people are hers, just because her family had hold of it once. It reminds him uncomfortably of how little he likes the idea of another Targaryen on the throne, especially one who seems to think her family’s words of fire and blood are aspirational.  

Daenerys glares at him. Sansa jumps in to stop the dragon queen from ordering him beheaded or burned or exiled or something. Her voice is delicate and apologetic and only slightly sly when she proposes an utterly baffling solution: they will reveal Jon’s parentage, and Sansa will marry her brother/cousin as a political union, legitimizing him as a Stark, removing the Targaryen name, and tying the north to Daenerys in a way that the northern lords might not entirely loathe.

“As far as anyone will know, he is the bastard son of your brother and my aunt,” Sansa says. “Not Rhaegar’s legitimate heir. Jon is a Stark to them, and he is a Stark to my family, but we have our loyalties to you as well, your grace. Jon can take the Stark name, and he will remain here, where we will rule the north as your allies.” Her voice softens hopefully, and Jaime is reminded of Cersei at her absolute best and most sweetly cunning. “And as your friends. You will have our support and our armies when the war against the dead is done. We will help you take down Cersei and restore your house to power. And we will be your staunchest allies when your throne is won.”

Daenerys asks to speak to Jon privately, and the rest of them are banished to wait out in the hall. Sansa is pacing, nervous. She seems awfully desperate despite it being yet another marriage based around her political status. Maybe she’s just glad at the chance to be the one protecting someone for a change. She’s still so young, too, and sometimes when he looks at her he cannot help but be reminded of Myrcella, though she looks nothing like his dead daughter, or of Tyrion, though the same is doubly true for his little brother. It’s the lingering feelings of protectiveness that make him see the resemblance.

She wrings her hands together, and he watches her. She darts her eyes to the door, her expression agonized, and he understands. He will not say it aloud, because he knows she will not like to have it exposed, but of course he understands. He is uniquely qualified to read and interpret the looks of a woman in love with a sibling, whether that sibling was turned cousin or no.

He wishes for her to relax, so he turns to the boy sitting silently in his chair between them.

“Bran?” he asks. “Is it going to work?”

“I already told you I can’t see the future,” Bran replies, sounding as miffed as he ever gets. “Only possibility.” He turns his stare on Sansa. “But, yes. I already told you. I saw you. In your wedding dress.”

Sansa’s eyes go big and round for a second, and she nods, and she stops pacing.

“She’s not going to be a very good queen, is she?” she whispers. She’s probably talking to Bran, but Bran is staring at nothing again, possibly seeing into the future, which he can obviously do despite his repeated denials. Jaime answers for him.

“Probably not,” he says. “Unless she learns how to actually rule before she loses patience and burns us all to ash. But I’ve been wrong before.”

Sansa lets out a nervous, strangled sigh and then leans against the wall beside him. They stand in silence, both of them quietly fearing the queen they are being forced to pledge their fealty to. Finally, Sansa speaks.

“My mother must be beside herself right now,” she says. “Me marrying Jon.”

“You should count yourself lucky,” Jaime says.

“Because he’s a good man? Yes, I know. He’ll be a good husband, even if it’s…uncomfortable.”

“I just meant that some of us would kill for a chance to marry our siblings,” Jaime says, laconic. He’s expecting Sansa to bristle in disgust or glare at him or flounce away, but instead she laughs. A loud, barking, surprised thing. She covers her mouth immediately, going quite red, like Brienne does.

“I should have let her execute you,” she says around her hands, and Jaime snickers as Tyrion continues to glare at them from down the hall.

Daenerys accepts the proposal. It’s difficult to say how Jon feels about it, because it’s difficult to say how Jon feels about anything, but he and Sansa exchange smiles that look at least a little relieved. The dolt is clearly in over his head, and Jaime isn’t sure why they didn’t just crown Sansa queen in the north when they had the chance. But she’s queenly now, infused with purpose. Gone is the girl who had openly sniped at Daenerys only a few days ago. Now, she’s poised and kind and sweet, like the girl he remembers she was once. A clever disguise. Placating the queen whose temper could destroy everything if she desired it.

Jaime has never been a man who could choose anything else over love. Power, gold, ambition. He could never understand his father or his siblings, reaching for material wealth and lasting legacies when love was something so much more potent. He understands even less how Daenerys can stand to see the man she claimed to love marry someone else. Maybe it’s just that it’s a neater solution than killing him to make sure he doesn’t contest the claim she’s so convinced is her destiny. Maybe it’s just that infatuation isn’t love, and when faced with a choice between emotion and power, she chose the path that Jaime would not have.

The betrothal is announced, and Jaime laughs until Brienne jabs him in the side with her sharp elbow, because the silence that takes hold before the northerners finally begin to cheer and applaud is so funny. No one much knows what to make of it. Jaime spots the dragon girl hiding her own grin in a sip of wine, so at least she has a sense of humor about all this.

Then the dead are coming, and it’s their last night, and Jaime thinks of saying something very brave and foolish to Brienne like “I came all the way here for you, because I love you, and I’d have walked the entire way on foot if I had to”, but instead he knights her, because at least he can give her this one good thing.

“You always do that,” Bran says to him, a bit later. He smiles when he says it. He’s more boy than odd tree god, for a second. “It’s sometimes the only good thing you do.”

“What about this time?”

“You held the door open for Podrick, earlier. That was good,” Bran offers, and Jaime narrows his eyes at him.

So then The Long Night happens. They’re already calling it The Long Night, which seems presumptuous and a bit defeatist, especially since in the end they kill the Night King pretty quickly. It feels like it may have been a longer than average night, but the sun rises and the dead stop rising, and Jaime is still alive.

Brienne is still alive, too.

They’re pressed back against a wall, surrounded by the dead, who the living had been only holding off by some miracle when they all dropped dead for a second (third?) time. Podrick is with them, but he looks fairly unscathed, and he scampers off to get some help once they’re sure the dead aren’t going to pull that trick again where they get back up. Brienne collapses where she stands, her back against the wall, her legs stretched out in front of her, and Jaime stumbles to her, stepping on dead bits, finally reaching the spot beside her so he can collapse next to her and lean against her side and rest his head on her shoulder.

He’s expecting a laugh, and if she asks, that’s why he’s doing this. To cheer her up. Make her chuckle. She doesn’t ask, though. Doesn’t laugh either. She tilts her head and rests her cheek against his hair, and he breathes out a sigh that sounds too content.

“We should get up,” Brienne says. Her voice rumbles in his ear, and he shifts closer to it. Their armor makes terrible screeching sounds when it rubs together, but he couldn’t care less.

“I’d rather just die here, thanks,” he says, and Brienne hums, and she doesn’t try to stand. Her arm comes up around his shoulders, and they drift off together. Maybe he is dead. That’s an interesting prospect.

Turns out he’s not dead, and Arya killed the Night King with Bran’s dubious assistance.

It doesn’t really hit him for a while that he has survived. He’s pretty sure he meant to die. He’d imagined it a lot on his way north. Stepping in front of a sword meant for Brienne. Taking a crossbow bolt in the chest to save Brienne. Getting his head lobbed off after – well, it all came down to giving Brienne a fair shot, really. Not that she needed him to be her human shield, but he wanted her to live and himself to die, so it seemed like a fair trade-off.

But they aren’t dead. They’re both alive. There’s time now when there wasn’t before, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

Jon and Sansa are married and crowned in the aftermath, with the scent of death still lingering around Winterfell. Jaime thinks to avoid the ceremony, but Brienne catches him as he’s leaving the baths. He looks clean and put-together for the first time since he’s been here, so she assumes he’s on his way. He wants to be wherever she is, quite annoyingly, so he follows her.

Jon and Sansa are as uncomfortable as Sansa feared, and Jon kisses her on the forehead when they’re wed instead of the lips, but they’re both smiling and relieved and seemingly happy. After the previous marriages the girl has endured, Jaime supposes this one to the man who used to be her brother probably comes as a joy. Neither of them look very much like the former Lord and Lady of Winterfell – Jon is pouty and pretty where Ned was dour and craggy, and Sansa’s cold northern beauty is not the gorgeous warmth he remembers from Catelyn. Jon and Sansa are echoes, not mirrors, but they are close enough to make him feel unmoored in time as he watches them make their way back into the castle. Brienne is dabbing at her eyes again. He remembers when Cersei told him Catelyn Tully was to marry Ned Stark, and Jaime had thought it a minor tragedy. He’ll freeze the life from her, he’d said, picturing the fierce little trout with her dazzling auburn braid and her quick wit and quicker smiles. He doesn’t feel that same way about Sansa and Jon. He thinks they will steady each other. He thinks they will be good together. He would not choose their practicality over love, but he understands it better now.

The celebration afterward is rowdy and too loud, owing to its suddenness after the battle. Daenerys is somewhere else in the castle, looking after her injured Mormont shadow, and the whole thing has the slightly desperate feeling of children unchaperoned by parents, trying to have fun where they can find it. Jaime gets drunk far too quickly, and he spends most of his time trying to persuade Brienne to kiss him. She writes it off as a drunken jest, but she becomes tipsy enough to kiss him on the cheek, very close to the corner of his mouth, which shuts him up. He is too old to blush about a kiss on the cheek. Possibly there is no age that is not too old for that. But he blushes and stammers and goes mute and finally falls asleep at his table and wakes up when Tormund Giantsbane stumbles against him and dumps a tankard of something foul-smelling over his head. Brienne helps him to the pool in the godswood, both of them giggling and too drunk to be awkward or quiet, and they strip down to their smallclothes and go swimming. Or, floating, really. Jaime’s hand is too heavy so he makes Brienne take it off, and then he can float while Brienne helps him clean off his hair and beard until the foul smell is gone.

She’s very close, and her eyes are watching him, and he is afraid to kiss her, because he has gotten more sober. So many vows. So many people to disappoint. He kisses her hand instead, and she blushes as he had, and that’s where it ends.

He’s cursing himself in the morning for a coward, and for a drunkard, and a fool, but Brienne is as stalwart as ever, and only blushes a very little bit the first time she sees him. The days pass quickly. They train and heal and strategize, and no one asks Jaime what his plans are for when Daenerys has tired of waiting and has set her sights on Kings Landing. Jaime appreciates that, because it gives him time to figure it out himself.

Then Bronn comes. Smug. Snarky. Swaggering. Shows up with a crossbow and a call for gold and a lordship. Tyrion grants it. Bronn tells them he was sent to kill Sansa Stark, on orders of the queen.

“And your tall bitch, too,” he says, looking at Jaime. “Was told your sister would pay extra for her head.”

Cersei was a fool to think Bronn would do it, knowing Tyrion and Jaime would pay all the gold in Casterly Rock to outbid her for the sake of both women. A fool, and a monster for trying, and Jaime feels something inside him sever. Like a string has been connecting him to Cersei and now it starts to fray even further than it already had.

He and Tyrion go to Daenerys and the new northern rulers with this information, and when they all look at Jaime for his reaction, he says that he will help them take Cersei from the throne.

Sansa prefers to keep the very lackluster assassination attempt quiet, and Jaime agrees, because it would feel too revealing to tell Brienne anyway. It’s obvious to everyone in the room why Cersei wants the lady knight dead. He sees it register with Daenerys, even, her very nice eyebrows raising and her mouth twitching slightly once she understands.

He’s glad they don’t want to tell Brienne, but it’s a bit annoying, too. She’s just so patient and kind and earnestly wounded for him, like she thinks he’s seconds away from a breakdown as he works with Daenerys to plan his sister’s surrender.

He reminds the war council of Euron Greyjoy’s fleet, since they all appear to have forgotten that Euron can take down dragons now. Sansa decides to accompany them to Kings Landing, though she swore she never would again, because she wants to be present when Cersei falls, and because it will keep Daenerys calm, to know that all her allies are nearby and cannot be scheming against her.

Jorah Mormont stays behind at Winterfell to recuperate with Missendei, a small contingent of Unsullied, and a host of Stark soldiers. Bran will rule in their absence, since Arya disappeared shortly after the battle with the blacksmith bastard boy of Robert Baratheon. A sort of reverse Lyanna Stark situation.

Arya had come to Jaime the night she disappeared, while he slept, waking him up with a knife to his throat.

“Will you try to stop us? When we kill her?” She had asked the question with a deadly calm, and he knew that she would open his throat if he answered incorrectly.

“No,” he said. “I will try to make her death as easy as I can, but I won’t stop you.”

Arya scoffed a little, but she must have believed him, because she let him live.

When they reach Kings Landing, Jaime is sent on a parlay to try and talk some sense into his sister, but she will not bend. She sneers at him. He has not worn his golden hand since that night in the godswood with Brienne, and he sees Cersei staring at the blank space in his sleeve with open disgust. Perhaps it seems like a rejection to her. A rejection of her and of their Lannister legacy. Really, the blasted thing just makes him tired.

“My love. My heart. Kingslayer,” she says, her voice dripping with malice. “Have you come to make it Queenslayer as well? You always did have a soft spot for Tyrion. You and he can be Kinslayers together.”

“I came to treat with you. To offer you a chance to escape without bloodshed.”

“It’s too late for that, brother,” Cersei says. Her eyes are cold, and they dart downward, and he knows that she refers to the child. He can see clearly that her stomach does not swell, and he knows the babe is gone. The loss of each of her children has torn away a bit of the girl he loved and the woman he craved, and he wonders what is left of her now. She certainly doesn’t look at him like someone who cares if he lives or dies.

“Daenerys will win, Cersei,” he says. He knows his sister is too clever to think otherwise. “Is your pride worth your life?”

But she is not moved. The answer is yes, to her.

Jaime returns to Daenerys defeated, but no one really expected him to prevail. Brienne doesn’t ask him if he’s okay, but her eyes follow him, and he knows she’s trying to see invisible injuries, doubts beneath the skin that she thinks might be shaken by seeing Cersei again. He cannot blame her for that. He was his sister’s creature for so long. There is still a sense that he is choosing incorrectly, now, but he knows that’s years of muscle memory. A terrible habit. An addiction. It doesn’t mean he has to give in.

He stands beside Daenerys Targaryen on her war councils. He gives her advice. Arya reappears in time to deliver a map of the tunnels under the city. She has marked the places where Cersei has bolstered her wildfire stores, and Jaime has to leave the tent to stand by the water for a bit and watch the waves. Brienne finds him, and she stands just behind him.

“Wildfire,” he says. “She was going to make sure that anything Daenerys did burned them all.”

“I’m sorry,” Brienne says. She puts her hand on his shoulder. He turns his head into it, his cheek nuzzling her knuckles. It is the weakest thing he has ever done. He hears her inhale of surprise, a sharp little sound, but she doesn’t jerk her hand away. She tightens it instead.

“Cersei has dug herself a pretty grave,” Jaime says. “I will not allow her to dig mine beside it.”

Brienne squeezes tighter, then, and he can feel her move closer.

“I am glad, Jaime,” she says.

Daenerys takes the city with minimal bloodshed, thanks to Arya’s map and warning. Brienne leads the northern forces into the city, and Jaime follows her. The Unsullied handle the Golden Company, and many of the Lannister forces lay down their swords when Jaime demands it. One of the dragons takes a bolt to its side from Euron’s arriving ships, but Yara Greyjoy bests him in a violent, bloody, one-on-one fight, and she takes control of the fleet. The dragon dies, and Euron’s remaining loyalists burn in retribution. Daenerys is still not the queen Jaime would have chosen, but at least it is not everyone who feels the might of the last dragon’s flames.

Cersei is captured. Jaime is not there to see it, but he hears of it after. Sandor Clegane and his monstrous brother take each other out, but before his death Sandor gets through to Arya, and so Arya takes Cersei alive using Qyburn’s face, even though she has wanted to kill the queen for years.

After Sansa tells them the news, Brienne is very delicate with him, asking if he needs anything, her eyes so sad, so very wounded for him. How can he tell her that Cersei’s little trick with Bronn deadened something inside him. He should have abandoned her after the Sept, but he hadn’t. He should have stopped loving her when he left, but he didn’t. Then she went for Brienne, and he finds his heart is broken but not as battered as he would have thought. Cersei has made her choices. Jaime has made his. There is nothing more to do about it.

Varys sneaks Jaime into the cell. Cersei does not weep or beg, but he sees the tears gathered behind her eyes.

“You came,” she says, her voice flat.

“Of course I did. I tried to save you, Cersei.”

She nods in acknowledgement, but she does not thank him for the effort.

“You left me,” she says. “And our child died.”

“They would have died if the dead came for us,” Jaime says. Firm. He will not deny a flutter of self-loathing to hear his abandonment tied so directly to the death of his fourth child. But he will not let it drive him to despair. He thinks of Brienne’s voice again. I am glad, Jaime, she had said, to hear that he had chosen to live.

“You want me to believe you were so instrumental in the fight?” Cersei sneers. “A one-handed, disgraced knight. You went to serve your giant beast of a woman, not the realm. You know what they call her, don’t you? Kingslayer’s Whore. Carrying that ridiculous sword. Seems to me you’re the one whoring.”

“Is that why you tried to have Bronn kill her? You were jealous?”

“Jealous? Don’t be absurd. Ashamed of you. Disgusted by you. Jealousy? Why would I be jealous of that absurd woman?”

But if there is any emotion apart from love that Jaime understands, it is jealousy. He spent years feeling it, every time Cersei said Rhaegar’s name, or Robert’s.

“It would have been better to send someone aside from Bronn,” he says. “He’s fond of Tyrion and I. And Brienne. And Highgarden.”

“Perhaps it was only meant as a warning. Perhaps I knew Bronn would refuse.”

“It’s not going to work, Cersei,” Jaime sighs. He feels very empty. Very finished. “You aren’t going to goad me into freeing you, and you aren’t going to goad me into killing you, either. I loved you once. I love you still. I would have done anything for you. But my eyes have been opened now, and I cannot shut them again.”

Cersei reads him with her eyes, the way she has always been able to. There is disgust in her expression. There is despair. She sees he’s telling the truth.

“I thought to ask you to join me,” she says, pulling the vial from beneath her heavy sleeves. He is not surprised to see it. “Leave the world together, as we entered it. But I see now that there is no hope in asking.”

“There isn’t,” he admits. Despite her words, she still looks devastated to be correct.

“Will you try to stop me? Make sure I meet my fitting end?” Cersei is disdainful at the thought of dragon fire, but he can see how she shakes.

“I can think of no more fitting end for you,” he admits, and there is love still in his tone, and he sits beside her on the straw pallet, and he strokes her hair. She nods. She is still shaking. She closes her eyes against years of hiding her weaknesses.

“Will you stay?” she asks.

“I will,” he says.

She drinks the contents of the vial, and he holds her. He wraps his arms around her tight, and she shudders in his arms, and he kisses the top of her hair and soothes her passing into the next world. He hopes it is kinder to her than this one has been.

When he is sure that she is dead, he weeps. It is an echo of memory that tears him apart. The feeling of needing her in his life. His desperation to see her safe that would have driven him to any madness. She is gone. He let her go, and he did not immediately follow. It is a hole inside him. Opened up, jagged and yawning and terrible.

It is a rebirth, as well. He has never lived in a world without his sister. He does not know who he is without his sister. He is a different Jaime now.

Varys helps sneak him out of the cell. Neither man looks at the other. They do not speak.

Later, he is arrested, and he is brought before the queen. Jon and Sansa stand by her side. Sansa’s knuckles are white as she grips the folds of her dress. He cannot tell if she wants to save him or watch Daenerys take his head for ruining her chance to watch her childhood monster burn. Tyrion is banished to the back of the room, and his eyes are wide and anguished, and Jaime cannot look at him.

“Your sister has ended her own life, Ser Jaime,” Daenerys says. Her voice is cold, and imperious, and it does not waver.

“I imagine she didn’t want to face the flames, your grace,” Jaime says. Jon closes his eyes briefly and shakes his head, an exhausted expression flickering over his face. It’s very Ned Stark. Very irritated with Jaime’s nonchalance in the face of judgement.

“Perhaps the smallfolk would accept the screams of one Lannister as easily as another,” Daenerys says. But it is only meant to frighten him, and he doesn’t frighten so easily anymore.

“On what charge?” he asks.

“Do you deny that you killed your sister?”

“I do.”

“Yet you do not seem shocked to hear of her passing.”

“My sister was a cunning woman. The fact that she found a way to leave this world on her own terms is not a surprise.”

Daenerys regards him coldly, and Jaime is seventeen again, and closing out the world so he does not have to fear the look in the king’s eyes. He hears movement behind him, and he is sure he will be seized. But Daenerys looks over his shoulder, and she allows a small, polite smile.

“What is it, Ser Brienne?” she asks. Jaime’s fingers creak in his glove as he clenches them into a fist. He should have known she’d do something like this. This insane need to put herself in danger for him.

“I was told that Cersei took her own life last night, late. After supper but before the change of guard. If that holds true, Ser Jaime could not have provided her with the means to end her life. He and I were sparring in the yard.”

Jaime keeps his expression blank only by some minor miracle, because the absurd woman is lying to the queen. For him. He can hear the note of steel in her voice, and he knows how this must hurt her. He didn’t even kill Cersei, but he feels the shame of it anyway. Her condemnation even as she saves his life.

“So late?” Daenerys asks. There is an implication in her tone that Jaime is used to, but he bristles all the same. It’s one thing for the soldiers to whisper Kingslayer’s Whore. It is another thing for Cersei to say it, a stab at his weak point to try and hurt him. But for the queen to make such an allusion…

“We always train late, your grace,” Brienne says, which is true, at least. “Ser Jaime mislikes so many eyes on him as he strengthens his left arm.”

True again, and Jaime flushes and stares holes in the ground. Daenerys pauses, and Jaime only then has a moment of panic.

What if she calls Brienne a liar? Will Brienne burn with him?

He opens his mouth to confess, to say anything that will keep the queen’s eyes off Brienne, but then Daenerys says, “very well. Ser Jaime, you are dismissed.”

He stands beside Brienne for the rest of the council session, but she does not look at him. His left hand trembles slightly, and he sees that hers are both restless as well, holding tight to Oathkeeper.

After, he follows her, and when they are alone in the hall, he takes her arm to stop her.

“Thank you,” he says. He is the only one who would know how much it meant for her to lie to the queen. Even a queen she doesn’t like very much. She nods, and her expression is stormy.

“Did you kill her?” she asks. Her voice does not judge. Her eyes are guileless. He cannot tell which answer she would prefer, though he knows she’s too good to want him to have killed Cersei, even if she also likely thinks Cersei deserved to die.

“No,” he says. “But I was there when she did it. I did what I could to ease her passing. She wanted me to drink the poison with her.”

He supposes that’s significant, because she nods like it is. She squeezes his hand briefly, still on her arm. I am glad, Jaime, she had said, when he chose to survive.

And Cersei's eyes were heartbroken when he did not choose to die.

“Don’t make it so I have to lie for you again,” Brienne says. Her voice is firm, and Jaime nods.

“I won’t,” he vows.

The king and queen of the north escape shortly after to Winterfell, and Jaime fears Brienne will go with them, but Brienne stays. It’s only to be temporary, he knows. At the Queen’s request, she is to reform the city guard after so many years of neglect and abuse. Jaime can think of no better person to sift through that particular wreckage, and he aids her when he can, and he tries to ignore the way the dragon queen watches him.

Tyrion tries to give him gold and get him to flee the city. Pentos, Essos, Dorne. Anywhere. He’s sober when he shows up in Jaime’s room in the dead of night.

“I don’t know what she’ll do to you,” he whispers hoarsely. “She doesn’t trust you. She grows paranoid that you mean to take her throne from her.”

“Has anyone told her that I had my chance to take the throne once but handed it off to the first man who followed me into the room? Why would I want the blasted thing now? I’ve seen what power does to people too weak to wield it well, and I would be a terrible king.”

Tyrion’s expression softens. His voice, too.

“No, I don’t think so,” he says. “Not anymore. But it doesn’t matter. She has the dragon, she has the army. And you need to leave.”

“Fleeing in the night is supposed to make her less paranoid? Who do you think she’ll turn to when my escape is known? You. Brienne. The Starks, even. Anyone who stood for me when I arrived to fight without the army our sister promised. She’ll find me wherever I go, but first she’ll burn everyone I care for, and I won’t do it. I’ve been a hostage before, Tyrion. I can survive it again. Just don’t get her too angry, will you? I’ve gotten used to living. I’d hate to die just so she can make a point to you.”

Tyrion is unused to the stakes being against him, and he becomes more and more wary of his queen. Jaime doesn’t think she’s mad in the same way her father was, but then again, her father wasn’t always mad either. Daenerys is impetuous, impulsive, imperious. She does not enjoy ruling. She is much happier flying around on her dragon and quelling rebellions by burning the rebels alive. He thinks of Robert Baratheon when he was young and handsome. Not yet spoiled by indulgence. He had been a warrior. A conqueror. What will happen to Daenerys when everyone is frightened of her and there are no more wars to wage?

And what will become of him? When she grows bored of her small council and the intricacies of ruling that he can already see she disdains? What will become of him when Tyrion has to try and keep her in line, and Jaime becomes a pawn once more in the struggle between a ruler and a hand? What will happen to him when Brienne goes back north and he must stay south, alone?

Chapter Text

Jaime lands hard on his back in the dirt, and his breath leaves him. He wheezes out a laugh when he sees Brienne's shocked expression.

“Are you all right?” she asks. She drops her practice blade and helps to pull him up.

“Where did you learn that?” he asks. She pats the dirt off the back of his tunic with a care that makes his heart clench. His feelings for her are becoming a problem. Perhaps they have been a problem for a while, and he is only now allowing himself to admit it.

“Arya Stark,” she says, looking faintly embarrassed. “It’s a move meant for a smaller fighter. I saw an opening to use it.”

“Show me. I’m still getting the hang of this blasted thing, and a move that uses my legs would be a good surprise for an opponent.”

He waves his new prosthetic in the air, and she frowns and bats it away. The wooden dagger makes a thunking noise when she hits it. Arya Stark had it made for him, with the help of Gendry and some input from Tyrion. A base he could wear like his old prosthetic, with attachments that could be switched out and secured depending on his needs. In addition to his practice dagger, there’s also a sturdy wooden hand, a steel dagger, a reasonably sized shield, and – at Brienne’s hilarious suggestion – a steak knife so she doesn’t have to waste her time cutting his food for him when the servants forget.

“You need to practice talking less with your hands,” Brienne says dryly. “Or you’re like to take my head off trying to tell some terrible joke.”

Jaime grins at her. He loves when she gets like this. Pretending not to be amused by him, though he can tell by the way she flushes that she’s happy.

Again, a bolt of dread shivers through him. It has been several moons now. The Goldcloaks are under new leadership, and they have assimilated well with the Unsullied forces. Brienne has worked closely with them and Daenerys to make sure that Kings Landing and its queen will be well protected. The men chafed under Brienne’s relentless scrutiny at first, but the ones who are left all seem to respect her. They asked her to consider joining them, but she refused. Daenerys asked her to reconsider, but Brienne still refused. Brienne is one of the only people who can defy Daenerys openly, because Daenerys likes her honesty and her loyalty, even if it’s to the Starks. She says that Brienne reminds her of Jorah Mormont, her own sworn shield. Jaime is grateful for it, and selfishly glad that Daenerys seems to want her near, but Brienne has rejected every attempt. And the work is drying up.

Soon, Brienne will return to her precious north, and he will be forced to watch her leave again. She’s always leaving. There will be another sad look back, and perhaps in three years time he’ll get to see her again, and he’ll spend the interim uselessly pining. A sad old man with one hand dreaming of the lady who was never his.

“You’re distracted today,” Brienne says. Jaime adjusts his prosthetic and looks about for the practice sword he was using with his left. She sent it flying when she swept his legs from under him. Brienne’s hand rests on his arm, gently. She always does this when he avoids her gaze, because she knows it will work. Draw his attention. “Jaime, what is it?”

“I have an audience with the queen, soon,” he admits. He hears the way Brienne’s breath catches. She will not say she’s worried, but she cannot hide the nervousness in her eyes. She can tell from his tone that it’s not going to be some usual diplomatic meeting or casual update.

“What about?” she asks.

“I don’t know. Tyrion cornered me earlier to warn me. He’s to fetch me when it’s convenient for her grace.”

“I had wondered what made you want to spar in the middle of the day.”

“It might be my last chance,” he says with a smile that does not feel true. Brienne’s hand grips his arm tighter.

“For what reason would she execute you?” she demands. She speaks to him the way he often spoke to Tyrion, years ago. Asking who hurt you? Promising revenge.

“Perhaps she changed her mind about pardoning me for my crimes.”

“If she thinks to do it, call for a trial by combat.”

“And humiliate myself in front of the entire court?”

“You would not. You fight better now, and if she truly meant to take back a pardon already given, the court would be on your side.” Jaime has to smile at that, because in some ways his lady knight is still so naive, though she has come a long way in better understanding the ways in which the world differs from the stories. “And I didn’t mean for you to fight, anyway. I would be your champion.”

Jaime frowns at her, and he can see her wondering if she has made a mistake, or if she has insulted him. Perhaps she has, in thinking he would ever allow her to risk her health for his.

“I would not call you,” he says. “Daenerys would likely call Grey Worm.”

She is hurt by that, and angry. That isn’t what he wanted at all. He has a habit of saying things too quickly and wounding her in the process. If she wasn’t so used to it, she would like him a lot less.

“You think I could not beat him?” she asks.

“I know you could. And then Daenerys would turn you to ash for killing him.”

“I wouldn’t have to kill him,” Brienne says, calmly, and he wants to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, except she’s bigger than him, and he’s already been knocked flat once today.

“Don’t you understand?” he asks, stepping closer so that there’s no chance of them being overheard. “She can decide to do anything she wants. She’s the queen, and she believes herself our savior. She means to remake the rules. Adjust them to her whims. She won’t honor a trial by combat if she doesn’t want to, and if you humiliate Grey Worm in battle, do you think she’ll smile and let me go? She could burn you alongside me, and yes, the court would let her, and they would thank her for the privilege of watching us die.”

Jaime is expecting her to back away from him and admit defeat, lowering her eyes, but Brienne is different now. She is a knight now, he reminds himself with wry amusement, because that, at least, is his fault. And she knows him better, besides, after spending so much time together lately. Her eyes don’t lower. She stares steadily at him.

“If you think I would stand by and allow you to be unfairly judged and executed without doing everything in my power to save you, you don’t know me very well at all,” she says. It is hardly the first time that the low rumble of her voice has done something to him, but it’s the first time he has felt so unmoored by it. He’s flustered, like a child, and he’s the one who has to look away. Down at her fingers, still on his arm. He covers her hand with his, and he raises it to his lips to kiss it. A silly gesture, oft repeated when he doesn’t know what else to do. It always startles her; this is no exception.

“I know,” he says. “But it is still my duty to protect you, whether it be from overzealous queens or your own stubborn self.”

“Your duty?” Brienne asks, eyebrows arched. She is amused again, expecting some jest.

“Are you not my lady?” he asks. His voice is verging on breathlessness when he says it.

He watches reality slam back into Brienne, and she snatches her hand away, scowling at him.

“Don’t be an ass,” she says, and she stalks away, leaving the practice yard. Jaime watches her go, a sigh spilling past his lips. It isn’t as if he means to tease her, but she is so utterly oblivious. He could wait for her, naked in her bed, fully erect at the sight of her, and she would gripe at him about sullying her sheets and accuse his cock of mocking her.

“Very illuminating,” Tyrion says suddenly from behind him. Jaime sighs more heavily this time.

“I should have known you were lurking about. Come to bring me to my doom, then? Best get on with it while Brienne is distracted. She’ll be angry with me for an hour or so. If your queen means to have my head, now’s the time to do it. She’ll have a fight on her hands otherwise.”

“You do have a way of picking impossible women. Well, two of them.”

“Please don’t compare Brienne to our sister. I’d have to throw you off the balcony.”

“A certain fondness for that particular move? Or just convenience?”

“It’s an adequate way of dealing with dwarves and small children,” Jaime says. His mood sours further. He’s suddenly glad Brienne is so oblivious. He shouldn’t have teased her. He shouldn’t ever be hinting to her, either. He should be happy enough to spend this time by her side before she chooses to leave him again. He threw a child out a window. Brienne of Tarth deserves a man who would never even contemplate the act.

“It’s fascinating to watch you try and woo a woman.”

“I’m not wooing her.”

“No, I’m very aware of that. I said try.”

“No, I’m…don’t be an ass,” Jaime says, and Tyrion laughs to hear Brienne’s words repeated. “After everything I’ve done, after Cersei, after…no. Brienne is far too good. I would never try to…impose myself on her. This is enough. It is more than I deserve.”

“Ugh. This again,” Tyrion sighs. “I will never understand the hopeless pining you seem to thrive on. What if the lady wants more? What would you do then? She needs an heir for that Sapphire Isle of hers, you know.”

“She’ll probably name Podrick,” Jaime says. Tyrion laughs, then frowns when he realizes that Jaime is serious.

“You really are a fool,” he hisses. “You think she’ll, what, remain unmarried up there in the frozen north? Sadly wasting away while she waits for you to feel like you deserve her? She’s the first female knight in the realm, Jaime. She is heir to a beautiful island. She isn’t that ugly. Even I have been married twice, and your lady has far more charms to recommend her. You aren’t the only man smart enough to notice that her good qualities outweigh her size and strength and stubbornness.”

Jaime glances sharply at Tyrion.

“Who else has noticed?” he asks. Tyrion gifts him a pitying look.

“No one yet, as far as I’m aware. But it’s a matter of time, especially now that the wars are over. Men will be looking to settle down somewhere peaceful. They’ll be looking for children. She has a peaceful place and needs children of her own. This isn’t difficult to piece together.”

Maybe not, but Jaime feels absolutely rocked by the information. There’s a traitorous little voice in his head that sounds an awful lot like Cersei’s, reminding him that this changes nothing about how little he deserves. It feels like it changes something, though. Would any man appreciate Brienne the way Jaime does? Would any man know her the way Jaime does? Would any man ever love her the way Jaime does? He doesn’t think so.

“None of it will matter if your queen burns me alive,” he remembers grimly.

“She isn’t going to execute you,” Tyrion says. “Not unless you somehow fuck everything up worse than usual.”

“Was that meant to reassure me?” Jaime asks.

Daenerys is waiting for them in a small sitting room just off her quarters. It’s just her, looking resplendent in a burgundy dress, and not the rest of her council. Jorah Mormont glares at Jaime in a warning sort of way before he leaves the room, but Jaime’s too nervous to play with him the way he usually would. The door echoes when it shuts.

“Sit,” Daenerys says. She’s smiling, which might be a worse or better sign than the cold indifference she usually shows in Jaime’s presence. He sits across from her, and Tyrion takes up a seat at her side. Missendei stands in wait near the back of the room, alongside Grey Worm, but other than that, they are alone. “I’ve called you here because your brother has raised some points with me that I think deserve consideration.”

“Your grace?” he asks, because she seems to be waiting for something, and that seems safe.

“Tyrion has reminded me that you and he are the last of your house. The Lannister line has all but died out. As Tyrion is sworn to my service for the foreseeable future, that leaves only you.”

Jaime glances at Tyrion, who is looking grimly back at him. Another scheme to remove him from King’s Landing, then. Away from the flames.

“What is it that I’m meant to do?” he asks, though he can imagine. His father only spent most of his adult life trying to make it happen.

“My hand wishes for your bloodline to continue. I wish for it to end,” Daenerys says, and Tyrion flinches slightly. His hand shakes as he picks up a goblet, trying to look casual. Jaime understands that this is the moment when his fate is decided. What he told Brienne is true: Daenerys could change her mind at any moment. It is her style of rule. No matter what Tyrion bargained for, she could throw it aside, and no one could stop her.

“Which is it to be, then?” he asks. He is unsurprised to hear how flat his voice is. Go away inside, he tells himself. He thinks of Brienne, sitting with her back against the rock wall of Winterfell. He thinks of his head on her shoulder, and her cheek in his hair.

“The Lannister name is tainted by the actions of your father, your sister, your brother, and yourself. When the history of my reign is written, I will have it said that the last of the Lannisters lived and died by my mercy.” Jaime thinks of Brienne’s fingers fumbling to remove his golden hand in the hot springs. He thinks of her body rising out of the water at Harrenhall.

“Your grace…” Tyrion starts, panicked, but the queen looks at him. He falls silent. He is afraid of her. Jaime has noticed it before, but never has it been so clear.

“It’s all right, Tyrion,” he says. I am gone away. She cannot reach me.

“The Lannister name is poison,” Daenerys says. “But the two of you have risen above it. I have heard the assurances of those who would call you friend, and I have seen with my own eyes that you are a fierce ally. You both went against your family for me.” Her voice and her eyes soften on him. “Ser Jaime, you went against the woman you loved. I am grateful for that. But I cannot afford to look weak.”

“I understand, your grace,” Jaime says.

“No, Jaime,” Tyrion starts. “Your grace, he…”

“Tyrion,” Daenerys continues sharply. “Would have me marry you off and see you installed in Casterly Rock to produce heirs to your household. Make more Lannisters who might one day be a threat to my rule.”

“He has no ambition to…”

“I do not want more Lannisters. But Tyrion would like his family line to continue, so I am willing to concede on this. You will marry, and Tyrion will have his nieces and nephews, if your gods are kind. They will bear the name of the lady, as will you. In enough time, if I judge it so, I may give your name and seat back to them. The legacy of your house entirely depends on what the two of you do to earn it.”

She looks between them very sharply, and Tyrion’s eyes are glimmering with unshed tears. He nods, plainly relieved. Oh, Jaime thinks. So I’m not to be executed? He was so certain.

“Thank you, your grace,” he says. She gazes at him with clear suspicion, so he does his best to look appropriately chastised.

“Your grace, if I’ve led you to believe that I am untrustworthy in some way…” Tyrion starts. Daenerys arches an eyebrow at him, and he quiets again. Utterly cowed. Utterly without clever retort. Yes, Jaime has been right to fear this queen, if she can unnerve his little brother so.

“You are a good hand, Tyrion,” Daenerys says. “And a trusted friend. But I must have my assurances. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course, my queen,” he says. Daenerys looks thoughtfully at the table between them.

“I have had enough of Lannisters. I have had enough of Baratheons. I was told as a girl that the common folk prayed for the Targaryens to return, but I know the truth of it now. The common folk pray for rain and fish and good harvest. It is the lords who care about names. High lords in high castles, making the decisions that the people must suffer from. I have no wish to rule the way my father did, but I have no wish to rule the way the Usurper did, either. Nor your sister. Until I can figure out what kind of queen I am to be, I need to ensure that there are no threats. Some of my advisors suggested I burn you, Ser Jaime. Some of them suggested I kill you more quietly, and make it look an accident. Tyrion begged for your life, and I am glad to grant it. But the golden lion must have his claws removed.”

“Someone already beat you to that, I’m afraid,” Jaime says, holding up his prosthetic. Tyrion sucks in a breath, but the queen laughs.

“Yes,” she admits. “But you forget I have seen you fight. And I have seen the loyalty you inspire. We took Kings Landing without reducing it to ash, thanks in no small part to you. I will not soon forget that. And I am not the only one. There is power in a name, and I need to reduce yours.”

“I’m not arguing with the sentence, your grace,” Jaime points out gently. “I am just…who will I marry? Who has been chosen?”

Daenerys fixes him then with a sort of blithe, knowing look.

“I thought you’d like to cover that part yourself,” she says. “Name me your lady within two weeks time. If she is amenable, the match will be made, and you will be cloaked in her colors.”

Jaime nods, and he waits for Daenerys to dismiss him. She dismisses he and Tyrion together, so they go back to Tyrion’s room together, not talking.

When they are behind his closed doors, Tyrion slumps in his chair and pours them both some wine. Jaime isn’t very interested in drinking, but he downs his first goblet far too quickly, and Tyrion pours him some more.

“I’m sorry,” Tyrion says. “She seemed to like the idea yesterday. I’m not sure what changed her mind.”

“Mormont, most likely. He doesn’t like me because I don’t like her. I can’t be too upset. Her father would have burned me and you and every whore you’ve ever fucked and any children they birthed if he wanted to end our line, so I’ll take a forced marriage and the removal of my name as a blessing.”

Tyrion snorts a little into his goblet.

“At least I won’t be the only Lannister with a humiliating wedding,” he grumbles.

“Is it so humiliating to be cloaked in a woman’s colors?”

“Isn’t it?”

Jaime shrugs, wondering. The lords and ladies will laugh about it, to be certain. They’ll call him all sorts of things. But they do that anyway, and he’ll still be breathing at the end of it, so he’s not particularly bothered.

“Depends on the colors, I guess,” he says. He imagines a cloak of silver and sapphire blue, and the wine sends blood to his cheeks. He takes another sip and clears his throat. “What was the plan meant to be, then?”

“Marry you off and send you back to Casterly like a good little maid,” Tyrion admits. “I worry for you here, especially once Brienne leaves for the north. You’re afforded a certain amount of protection with her around. From the queen, certainly, but not just her. With only me in your corner, I’m afraid we’re rather more outnumbered.”

“Little love for the Lannister name, despite her fears. Suppose your queen is doing me a favor, taking it from me.”

“I am sorry. I didn’t realize she’d insist on that.”

“And I truly don’t mind. I don’t like to lose my house, but perhaps the queen will change her mind one day and give it back. She can’t do that with my life. I remember how stunned Cersei was, the first time her septa told her that she’d marry into some other house. She was so angry. To lose half her name. To give it up for some unworthy man. Seems only fitting that I should suffer the same.”

“Perhaps it will give her some amusement in whichever hell she has found herself,” Tyrion says, raising his cup to their sister before drinking. “Well, I composed a list for you of eligible women. The past few years have been unkind to the major houses. Sansa Stark was the biggest prize we had left. Her sister Arya…”

“Is a child, and terrifying. No. Also, would you truly make me a Stark? I thought you loved me.”

“Arya has also left Westeros for parts unknown with her Baratheon bastard, so she’s out of the question.”

“I don’t need a list,” Jaime says. “I’m not marrying some woman because of her pedigree.”

“That one was for father,” Tyrion says, raising his cup again. “You have a woman in mind?”

“Don’t try to be coy. You’re already so irritating. Of course I have a woman in mind.”

“What happened to not deserving her?”

“I still don’t, but I’ll at least see what she thinks about it. If I’m going to have to marry someone, it may as well be the woman I would choose to marry,”

“Well said,” Tyrion says. He’s looking at Jaime carefully. “You’re…you’re happy about this, aren’t you?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? I’m alive, and now I have an excuse to ask Brienne to marry me. If I didn’t know she meant for it to be humiliating, I’d think your queen actually liked me.”

“Gods, don’t let her hear you say that,” Tyrion says, drinking some more. “I’ll keep working on your list. I’ll pick some nice noble girls who could try and heal your broken heart when Brienne laughs in your face.”

“Very kind of you, thank you,” Jaime says, but he has the confidence of the slightly wine-drunk, or perhaps the confidence of a man who thought himself on his way to the executioner only to be granted a thing so good he wouldn’t have even thought to ask for it.

He leaves Tyrion’s rooms with a lightness in his step, and he goes immediately for the guest quarters where Brienne has been staying. Of course she doesn’t answer when he knocks, so he has to go looking for her in other areas, and he finally finds her pacing on a bridge outside the keep.

“There you are,” he says, and she spins to face him, her hand clenched around Oathkeeper.

“There you are,” she says. She looks him over as if counting limbs to make sure he hasn’t lost any more in the short time they’ve been apart. “I went to the council chambers, but you weren’t there.”

“I think Daenerys believed a more comfortable setting would better prepare me for my fate,” he says mournfully, unable to resist. Brienne’s jaw ticks with tension.

“What is to happen to you?” she asks. He leans sideways against the railing, inhaling deeply as if it’s difficult to say, before he takes pity on her paling expression and grins at her.

“Marriage,” he says. She shoves him in the shoulder, and he laughs and reels back a little, so she shoves him again.

“You are an utter ass,” she hisses. “I thought…Jaime, stop laughing.”

“Your face was very good. It’s nice to know you would miss me.”

“I wouldn’t want my worst enemy burned alive,” she protests.

“Yes, and it leaves such an ugly, foul-smelling corpse.”

“Of course that would be your concern. How did you manage to talk her from executing you to marrying you?” she asks. Incredulous. He thinks of how he hadn’t talked the queen into anything, just went away inside and gave up, and he resolves never to tell Brienne about that bit. Then he catches up and, wait.

“Marry her? Gods no. Can you imagine? I killed her father! I’m more than twice her age!” Brienne looks to be working out the numbers in her head, so he closes the distance between them to draw her attention back. “She bloody terrifies me!”

“It would be better than execution,” Brienne points out, and Jaime has to laugh.

“Maybe,” he says. “No, I’ve been informed that my name is poison but I am, apparently, just decent enough to warrant a second chance as some other man. Cloaked in my wife’s colors. It’s meant to be humiliating, Tyrion says. Two Lannisters left, and one’s under her thumb. This way Tyrion can get me out of Kings Landing, and she can keep the Lannister name from spreading. She wins, but I survive, so Tyrion feels like he didn’t lose.”

“I’m sorry, Jaime,” Brienne says.

“Don’t be. Honestly.”

“I know you never wanted to marry.”

“No, I know, but…”

“And did she take Casterly Rock as well?”

“If I’m a good dog, my children might get my name and castle back, presumably once I’m dead. I don’t know. But I wanted to…”

“It’s unjust for her to do this to you. I’m sorry I...”

“Brienne!” he exclaims, laughing. “Gods, will you let me speak? It’s done. It’s better than I expected. I will learn to live with it.”

“Who is she?” Brienne asks. “The woman you are to marry. There aren’t many noble houses with marriageable women. Isn’t there a Martell daughter somewhere? That would be a good alliance, but…”

“I get to pick my own wife, which is a courtesy,” Jaime points out. “If Daenerys means to treat me like a maiden, she’s doing a poor job. She should have married me to some loathsome widow twice my age. That’s what happens to ladies.” He grows slightly nervous, some of the confidence leaving him as he looks up at her. Brienne is concerned and sorry for him now, but she gets very prickly about some things, and he isn’t sure how to word all of this so that she doesn’t assume he’s making fun of her. And maybe there’s a part of him that once longed for tales of knights and heroes that wants this to be, well, romantic. Or as romantic as it can be. “As you said, I never wanted to marry. But that was when I was younger and had reason to avoid it. Obviously, now I must. But it isn’t the chore you seem to think. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be.”

Brienne is frowning at him, trying to follow his insinuation.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“Well, marriage is…that is to say, in the past, I never met anyone I liked enough to want to spend my life by their side. Aside from my sister, anyway. Marrying someone else would have felt disloyal, but more than that, it would have been dreadfully boring. But if I married someone I actually admire, someone I am tired of parting from, it wouldn’t be a chore at all. It would be a gift, probably.”

He looks at her more significantly, and he sees understanding dawn on her face.

“You’re saying…?” she starts, hesitantly.

“As soon as she said I could pick the lady, I thought of you.”

He tries to look as sincere as possible. It isn’t easy for him. He’s so used to being insincere. Or hiding his sincerity behind insincerity, anyway.

“You wish to marry me,” she says blankly. He can’t tell what that means. He’ll have to make sure she understands.

“Of course I do! And there are plenty of very practical reasons I could give you for...”

“All right,” she says. He stops. Blinks. Opens his mouth. Closes it again.

“Did you just say ‘all right’?”

“Yes. All right. I’ll marry you.” He frowns at her, and he can see that she’s getting defensive. “Well, what else do you want me to say?”

“It’s just…not very romantic, is it? All right.”

“Because this situation is the height of romance,” she snaps. She launches into an impression of him that is, embarrassingly, a pretty good one. “Marry me because the queen says I have to marry someone and I’d rather it’s you. I’m glad to marry you, but don’t expect me to swoon over it.”

Jaime really isn’t sure how it’s gone this oddly wrong. She’s accepting his proposal, fine, but she’s so unbothered by it. Like it’s a totally normal request. Like he’s just asked her to spar for the afternoon and she’s saying sure, I’m not doing anything more interesting anyway.

“I just thought you’d take more of an explanation before you blindly accepted me,” he says.

“Why? It’s very sensible.”

“Sensible?” he asks. He is, he thinks, minorly outraged.

“Yes, sensible! What would you call it?” Jaime isn’t sure how to answer that, but Brienne barrels ahead anyway and stills his tongue. “You need to be married to please Daenerys, preferably to a woman who won’t mind about your name and title and Casterly Rock. I need to marry a man so my father can rest easy about Tarth. Preferably a man who won’t try to stuff me into a dress and lock me away.” Her expression softens slightly. “I trust you not to do that. And I could beat you in a fight if you tried it.” Jaime has to laugh at that, even through this new miserable feeling. “And it will be good to…to not have to part from you again. I had worried about that.”

Jaime’s smile is soft and entirely involuntary, and he turns away from her to look over the city. He can feel her awkward presence beside him. Sensible, he thinks. He has lain awake the last few moons aching for her, wishing he had his old courage and selfishness back, because he wanted her so badly but refused to compromise her honor or her virtue. There’s nothing sensible about what he feels for Brienne. Has felt, for years now.

“I suppose it’s sensible in its way,” he muses aloud. “We could travel without scrutiny. Do whatever we liked. Not have to spend years apart or end up on separate sides of some foolish war. And I know you need an heir for Tarth.”

“I imagined I’d just name Podrick,” Brienne says absently, leaning her elbows on the railing beside him. He frowns and looks at her. He hates when the sun hits her face like this, all milky pale skin and pink blush. It makes him feel so many inconvenient things.

“I assumed the same. But if we married, you wouldn’t need to.”

“Who else would I name? You? You imagine you’re going to outlive me? Really?”

He has to laugh at her. At this whole situation, really.

“Me? No, gods. I’ll be long in the ground when you die, hopefully. No, I meant our children.”

She laughs.

“Of course,” she says, deeply sarcastic. “The children.”

Now he’s even more confused.

“What’s so funny about that?” he asks. She only rolls her eyes.

“If you wanted children, you wouldn’t need me,” she says, like it’s obvious. He has a sudden fear – is she unable? Does she not want them? He never asked. Not that that changes anything. He still wants to marry her. It would put a wrench in Tyrion’s plans, for certain, but he’s pretty sure Tyrion’s story about wanting the Lannister line to continue was just to get Jaime out of the city anyway.

“What do you mean?” he asks. She looks at him, and for the first time she looks almost like she doubts her own mind on this. Like she realizes perhaps she has gotten it wrong. “Brienne, why…why do you think I’ve asked you?”

“Because you’re…” she hesitates, and again he sees a flicker of doubt. “Because you’re fond of me. Because we are already friends, and you must marry someone. And I…I understand your past, better than any other wife would. Because you know I will never expect…” She flushes, and she looks at the ground. She forces herself to continue with a gritted out, “husbandly obligations from you.”

“Husbandly. Obligations,” he says slowly. Again he wars with himself. Because oh, he wants to laugh so badly, and yet his stomach is sinking low. “Brienne…”

But he cannot finish. How do you say I really want to fuck you without saying I really want to fuck you aloud? Or should he just come out with it? Maybe she’d appreciate the honesty.

Finally, when it’s clear she won’t speak, he says, “do you just mean, then, to accept me and marry me and remain a maid forever? Give up on children and leave your island to your squire?”

“Well,” she says dryly. “Like you said, I’ll probably outlive you. There’s always my second marriage.”

Jaime hangs his head and laughs. It sounds rueful to him, but Brienne looks quite pleased with herself.

“Already planning for my death, and we aren’t even married yet. I wonder why I’ve never wanted to do this before.”

“It helps to be practical,” Brienne says.

“Yes, apparently,” Jaime finds himself snapping. She looks a bit taken aback. “Brienne, I...please at least think it over before you accept. I know you have something of a savior complex when it comes to me…”

“Piss off,” she says, back to being blankly good-natured about it. It makes his stomach hurt.

“…but this is a big thing I’m asking of you, and I want you to be sure.”

“I am sure,” she says. She softens slightly, and she puts her hand on his right elbow and squeezes. “But I will think on it, and give you my answer tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Jaime says. He covers her hand with his own. He wonders if this is what his life is to be like, now. Gentle courtesies. Quiet kindnesses. Will it be enough for him? He supposes it’s better than the alternative. Marrying someone who isn’t her and only seeing her once every few years. He was already going to be pining for her from afar. Might as well do it up close. “I am very fond of you, you know,” he manages to say.

“Marriages have been built on a far worse foundation,” she points out.

“You’re supposed to say it back to me,” he says. She rolls her eyes.

“You’re very needy,” she says. “But I am somehow very fond of you as well, Jaime.” Her smile is soft, and it reaches her eyes. Her beautiful eyes. She’s already flushing. She looks at him, and he sees her eyes flicker down to his lips. Oh, gods, he thinks, excitement ramping. She’s going to kiss me.

But she just leans forward and presses her lips to his temple. She holds them there for a moment, and he feels his face heating. He’s sure it’s redder than hers. His eyes flutter closed. If Daenerys could see him now, she would realize he doesn’t need a reverse cloaking ceremony to be made a blushing maiden.

Brienne leaves before she says anything else, and he releases a breath that is far too shaky. What is he supposed to do about this?

On its face, it’s better than he could have hoped. She did not reject him. She accepted him outright. But there was so little feeling in it. Sensible. Yes, it’s very sensible from the outside, isn’t it? Sensible unless you’re in love with a lady who thinks you’re asking for her hand because she’s your friend and she’s there. Disdaining the thought of husbandly obligations, as if even just those two sanitized words hadn’t made him half hard already.

He stares out at the city, and he glowers, and he considers, and he talks himself in circles.

The alternative, of course, is worse. Marrying someone else, some minor noble girl, probably too young, who will half despise him. His looks are fading fast, he’s sure, and he has only one hand, and he has no will to make a young wife fall in love with him with sweet words anyway. It would be a miserable fucking thing. Brienne at least knows him to be a fool. And she is fond of him. Sometimes he thinks she might halfway love him, but he is unsure what form that love takes, and if it is anything like what he feels.

And with Brienne, at least he would have the will to make her happy. The thought of an unconsummated marriage to the woman he has dreamed of bedding is almost hilariously punishing, but if he is with her always, man and maiden, then perhaps he could in time actually give wooing her a go. And if she isn’t interested in the end, at least they would be together. And if she hated him for it, an annulment would still be possible. And at least he could comfort himself by knowing he tried.

Yes, marrying Brienne is the right decision, for all the anxiety it is going to continue to cause him. He’d thought himself absurdly lucky when Daenerys announced his sentence, but now he thinks it’s fitting. She couldn’t have planned this torment better if she had tried.

Brienne closes the door to her quarters behind her. The room is blessedly empty.

“Fuck,” she whispers. She leans her back against the wood. That wasn’t satisfying enough, so she says, “fuck,” again, louder. She hits her head lightly back against the door. She closes her eyes. She thinks of Jaime. Always Jaime. The man never gives her a moment’s peace when she’s with him, and she thinks she can just…marry him? Absurd, idiot girl. Even that sounds as if Jaime is speaking to her in that low, clipped voice, the one that started angry and distant but has become fond and caring over the years. If he could see inside her head...

If he could see inside her head, he wouldn’t have asked her. She knows that. He would feel guilty, Jaime, if he knew what he was asking of her. She’s a sensible choice, as much as it had seemed to annoy him when she said it. He probably thought it was a magnificent scheme. Exceedingly clever. Sensible probably seemed like too little enthusiasm. And maybe she should be enthusiastic, from the outside. Two good friends marrying so neither have to marry anyone else, and so they can spend time together without scrutiny. She’d learned to ignore the whispers after years of being called Kingslayer’s Whore, but at least Kingslayer’s Wife has a better sound to it. If only that was the end of it, she probably would have called it clever.

Why can’t she ever do things simply? She really does care for Jaime. Aside from Podrick, he is her closest friend, and he respects her in a way that so few men have. If she was simpler, this would be a happy occasion. And even now, she is glad to do it. Glad to help Jaime, and she’s not ignorant to the benefits to herself.

But. Pining for your friend is hard enough without being married to him for convenience. It’s easier when there are massive expanses of land between them, and when they’re on opposite sides of a conflict, because she doesn’t have to talk to him or look at his stupid, earnest face. To see him every day has been a joy and a burden at once, and to call him husband will be, she has to imagine, even more of one.

She has wanted him for so long that it’s a dull ache inside her. She imagines that it’s a similar blunt longing that he feels for Cersei. There is honor in it, she thinks. To keep him safe from having to break anymore vows. He guarded her own maidenhead and lost his hand for it, and in a way a marriage will be her way of repaying him the favor. Not that he would be happy to hear that, so she won’t say it, but…another woman would expect him to lay with her. She would expect heirs. Brienne knows not to expect that, and she has an heir already in mind, because it has been a long time since she expected anything from men. Jaime can live his life unburdened by that expectation. When he dies, the only woman he will have ever been with will have been Cersei.

She wishes he didn’t feel the need to remain loyal to his sister. She wishes he could see beyond their friendship and Brienne’s looks and fall hopelessly in love with her somehow. She wishes her ungainly height had turned her into a statuesque beauty like Sansa and not a brutish oaf like herself. But Brienne learned years ago that wishing for things is pointless, and so she focuses on the things she can control. She can help Jaime keep his vows. She can protect the man she loves from the queen who would perhaps gladly see him dead. She can make a match with a good man who will not try to change her. She can keep her name, her titles, and bring a friend under her cloak, and they can stay married as long as they wish. If she ever does feel the need for a true marriage, they can annul theirs, but that seems unlikely. No, this is a good choice, and it’s one she makes gladly.

She just needs a little time to let the ache inside her grow more dull.

If this were a normal day, she would lie in bed and think of that moment when he had kissed her hand after their sparring and called her his lady. He has a way of japing that unsettles her because he is so very good at lying. His eyes go all doelike and earnest, and his brow becomes all handsomely furrowed, and she can hardly stand it. But there is no time to lose her mind over a small gesture when now he has proposed to her.

She is lucky that these past moons in his presence have given her the strength to hide her emotions behind friendly regard. They are both more open with their care now than they were. They do not cloak it in cruel jabs and insults. After Winterfell, there is something softer between them, but she has become skilled at revealing only as much of her emotions as she is comfortable with him seeing. She would not have him think her entirely uncaring, but she also cannot allow him to see the truth.

She will give herself the night to imagine it. Silly, fanciful dreams of a love match with her golden knight. And then she will imagine instead the truth, and she will see how very good it will be, even if it is not everything she might have hoped for, if she were a less practical woman.

In the morning, she finds Jaime for breakfast. He has already gotten her a plate, which she finds endearing. If this is how it is to be between them – gentleness, kindness – she thinks they will do very well together.

“I thought it over, as you requested,” she says. She manages not to blush when she says it, though it is a difficult thing. She had imagined so many silly, romantic things last night. She had been compelled to touch herself beneath the sheets, something she only rarely felt the need to do, and she had been grateful for the privacy of her quarters.

“And?” Jaime asks. He looks nervous, she decides. There is a wariness in his eyes, and a darkness under them, as if he has gotten little sleep. She feels sorry for it. She should have just insisted on the acceptance yesterday.

“I accept, of course,” she says. Jaime frowns at her. That was hardly the reaction she had been expecting. She had braced herself for lots of jokes about being his lady.

“Is this what you want?” Jaime asks. His forehead does that furrowing thing it does again, and he is absently attempting to attach the small knife to his prosthetic to cut his food. She takes his arm gently, and takes the knife from his hand. He flushes and watches her slot the knife into place and secure it. “Brienne,” he says. “I mean it. Is this- do you want this?”

He gestures sort of feebly to himself with the point of the knife, and Brienne feels a lingering annoyance that he continues to think so badly of himself after every sign of loyalty she has shown him.

“Do you doubt my attachment to you, Jaime?” she asks. He is plainly surprised by the force of her tone, but he shakes his head. He hesitates before he does it, but still. It is enough for her. “Good,” she says. “Because I am certain. I want to marry you. It was very clever of you to think of it.” She injects some of that enthusiasm she knows he longs to hear. “Very quick thinking.” He still looks doubtful, like he thinks she might be lying. He should know better than that, but she cannot fault him for his insecurities. She has her own that make it difficult to believe kind things that people say to her. “If you worry that you’re pressuring me, or that I feel like I have to accept, you shouldn’t. I would marry you gladly.”

His expression softens a bit at that, and he nods. He still doesn’t look entirely happy, but at least he doesn’t look concerned. He reaches for her hand where it rests on the table, and he covers it with his. She remembers when he did this at Harrenhall, and she smiles at him.

“I’ll inform Daenerys,” he says. “Thank you, Brienne. I hope you know I’ll…” He clears his throat, awkward, and it’s rather nice to be the one who is even-keeled for once. She should laugh at his struggle and make irritating comments if she wants to repay the annoyance he’s given her over the years, but she just squeezes his hand instead. It seems to give him the strength to continue, “I’ll give you all I can. Every bit of me is yours. I don’t know much about being a husband, I’m afraid, but I will do all I can to be a good one.”

“I know even less about being a wife,” she reminds him. “But I promise you the same. I am yours entirely.”

It is good to say that aloud. To mean it, even if Jaime will only believe she speaks of friendship.

Chapter Text

Jaime is losing his fucking mind.

The woman he loves has accepted his hand. He should be happy. He should be grateful. He should feel something other than confused terror, like a child suddenly stolen from its bed and thrown out into the snow.

 He relays Brienne’s tepid acceptance to his brother, and Daenerys requests that they both meet her in the council chambers. She’s more casual today than she was yesterday, dressed in a summery pink gown that’s so sheer it makes Brienne blush and focus her eyes too pointedly on the queen’s face. Daenerys smiles and offers them food and drink, which they both accept, because they are both afraid of being impolite. Daenerys has stripped most of the old furniture from this room, and it is filled with cushiony couches and plush pillows in the style of the lands where she grew up. She makes herself comfortable, reclining on pillows on the floor while Jaime and Brienne sit awkwardly together on a couch in front of her. Tyrion stands uneasily on a smallish patch of stone that has no cushions on it, eyeing the whole setup miserably for its lack of chairs.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” the queen says with her customary polite smile. She looks at Brienne to read her reaction. Her eyes are sharp, and older than the rest of her. Jaime fears Brienne will look too much like a forced bride. She does look confused, but she smiles back at the queen.  

“Yes,” she says, her low voice clear and strong. “I have accepted Ser Jaime’s proposal. It was…a pleasant surprise.”

Daenerys’s smile grows wider, but her eyes still travel Brienne’s expression, taking in the tension in her shoulders. Jaime looks at Tyrion and sees that Tyrion is worried, too.

Brienne’s calm doesn’t waver, but she’s much cleverer than people think. She straightens out, her defensive posture becoming more languid. Her smile grows more natural and more comfortable on her face. She knows exactly what the queen needs to see.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Daenerys says. “With you as their mother, I am hopeful for the future generation of Lannisters. Perhaps the name will no longer be tainted if I choose to give it back to them.” She looks at Tyrion with a warm smile, less sharp than it was yesterday, though Tyrion still looks wary. “Are you satisfied, my hand? You shall have your nieces and nephews, and I shall have one less Lannister to concern me.”

Brienne’s eyes go to Jaime’s, her expression oscillating between angry and confused, and he tries to shake his head without alerting either Daenerys or Tyrion to the movement.

“I am quite satisfied,” Tyrion says. “Though I would like to make my apologies to the lady.”

Daenerys laughs politely at the joke, and then she asks Brienne about the Goldcloaks while Jaime sits uncomfortably beside her. Then she asks Jaime about his recent survey of the city with Varys and Bronn. She asks the right questions, but she seems disinterested in the answers, and more than once Jaime sees her eyes glazing over as she looks to the window, probably dreaming about riding her dragon. Once she has put on enough of a show to satisfy herself, she dismisses them so she can talk to Tyrion alone, and Brienne leads Jaime straight into an unoccupied office that no one has used in years.

“What was that about children?” she asks. He’s reminded of her tone when she asked him not to make her lie for him again, and he feels guilty, suddenly, slightly shamed that she thinks he ignored that request.

“It isn’t a condition. Tyrion just wanted me out of Kings Landing, and he convinced Daenerys it was because he has a yearning to continue the Lannister bloodline. He thought to find me a wife and send me to Casterly, but children was never the real object.”

Brienne deflates visibly, relieved.

“Oh,” she says.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mention it to you. I meant to. I just…forgot.”

Forgot because he was too busy losing his mind because she thinks a marriage between them is sensible. He had it all planned out yesterday, but she interrupted and now the words are all stuck inside him. There are plenty of very practical reasons I could give you for us to marry, but the truth is that practicality is my last object. I wish to marry you. The queen has provided me a convenient excuse to set aside my own unworthiness and make you the offer my heart has yearned to make. I love you. I wanted to tell you in Winterfell, but I never did. I came north for you. I would have died beside you gladly if the dead had overrun us. And I know you will wish to disbelieve it, but I hope you can look at me and see how truthful I am being.

Except. All right, she had said. Before he got to any of that. So now it just sort of…lingers. Unspoken.

Brienne sits down at the unoccupied writing desk. He lingers near her, and he sees that she has been shaken by their audience with the queen.

“I want to leave here,” she admits. “As soon as we are married. North first, and then to Tarth.”

“Yes, of course,” Jaime says. “Anywhere but here. I agree.”

“Sansa and Jon are…discreet,” Brienne continues. “And if anyone could advise us on how to approach a marriage like this, it would be them.”

Jaime wants to laugh at that, but he dares not. Yes, two half-siblings who barely spoke as children revealed to be cousins and married swiftly in the time between two massive wars. Yes, they have so much in common with two friends and comrades who have cared for each other, seen each other at their most vulnerable, and have spent years apart wishing they could be together.

“Very sensible,” he says weakly, instead.

Brienne seems relieved, and she leans back in her chair.

“She distrusts you,” she says. “I’m glad you’ll be coming with me when I leave. I don’t think I’d really seen it before.”

“I didn’t really notice,” Jaime admits. “Is it so obvious?”

“She was looking for any sign of hesitation or unwillingness in me. But it was the expectation in her expression that worried me. She wasn’t just looking to ensure my own comfort. She was convinced that you’d forced me into this.”

“Sometimes I fear I have. You would not be marrying me if I hadn’t asked.”

“That’s generally how marriage proposals work,” she reminds him, unimpressed, and he laughs, but it’s reluctant and fairly pathetic-sounding.

“I know. But this is my mess.”

“My father’s impatience for a match isn’t your mess, and neither is the insistence of the world to see our friendship as something dishonorable. We are both earning something with this marriage.”

She is looking at Jaime with that serious look that reminds him of Catelyn Stark sometimes. The look that dares him to argue. He knows better than to do that, no matter how much he might want to, so he nods.

“All right,” he says.

“All right,” she teases. “You’re right. It isn’t very romantic.”

She may not be choosing him for romance, but she is choosing him for love. For him, for their friendship, for their bond. Strengthened by war and now again by these quiet moons of peace they have shared together. Jaime knows that now, and he knows too that it is better than he deserves. He’s almost glad he didn’t get the chance to tell her everything. He would do better to earn her regard slowly. Wooing, but properly, and without so much sarcasm. And he will do whatever he can to make sure that he never gives her cause to regret cloaking him.

Daenerys insists on a proper, extravagant wedding, which neither Jaime nor Brienne really care for, but of course they know it isn’t really up to them. Tyrion is assigned the responsibilities of planning it. It must be a punishment of some kind from Daenerys, because he plainly loathes the work, but he devotes himself with an irritating attention to detail.

The date is set: two moons away. Brienne writes letters to Sansa and to her father. Sansa sends back congratulations, though Jaime imagines he can hear the doubt dripping off the page as Brienne reads the letter aloud. Sansa Stark can look sideways at someone with devastating effect, and Jaime imagines the look now, pinning him. She also writes that she is sending along a wedding gown for Brienne, just as soon as she finishes making it. In Jon's own, shorter, correspondence to Brienne, he writes an amusing anecdote about how his wife immediately dropped every sewing project to begin Brienne’s dress, and has been in raptures ever since, coming up with the details of it. Sansa pretends at being overwhelmed, but the truth is that she loves to feel rushed and busy, so your marriage is proving quite the happiness for her.

Selwyn, meanwhile, writes that he will be sailing from Tarth to attend, and Jaime for the first time feels the humiliation that Daenerys thinks to force on him.

“What will he think?” he asks. It’s the afternoon on the day Brienne received her father’s raven, and they are ostensibly taking a walk in the gardens to spend some time together. Really, they are hiding from Tyrion, who wants yet more opinions about decorations. For someone who claims to have no real interest, he does seem to want a lot of input on flowers and colors and seating.

“My father will understand the situation. I have written of you before. He knows we are friends.”

“He’s coming here to witness his daughter’s wedding, and what will he see? A one-handed man being cloaked in his wife’s colors. A Lannister having his name taken from him.”

“I thought it didn’t bother you.”

“It didn’t. I suppose it still doesn’t, except then I think about how your father will take it. He will think you have thrown yourself away on some old, crippled…”

“I grow weary of you already, and we aren’t even married yet,” Brienne groans. The loudness of it, and the plain irritation, startle him. “Stop trying to convince me you’re a bad match. You know me. You respect me. You gave me a sword and armor and set me on a quest to aid your family's enemies. Jaime, you knighted me! You aren’t so old! And if it will shut you up, I will admit that you are still somewhat handsome!”

He laughs unreservedly, delighted by the dissonance of her compliments paid with such a disgusted tone.

“Please, go on. You know I can’t resist such flattery. What do you think of my stump?”

“It’s a stump. It’s fine,” Brienne growls, and he laughs even harder. She stifles a smile of her own as she speaks louder over his mirth. “If you wanted pretty compliments, you should have chosen a different wife.”

“I can’t imagine another wife would even be able to look at it.”

“I prefer to not remember how it happened, but it really isn’t the hideous nightmare you seem to think,” Brienne says. She takes his arm like a proper lady, her hand on his elbow. His right arm, he notices. Reassuring without trying to touch it. When Cersei avoided it, he knew it was because she hated it, because it disgusted her, but he knows with Brienne it is courtesy. Not wanting to make him uncomfortable.

“Thank you,” he says. She looks at him. “For being patient with me.”

“Of course,” she says. “We have time to figure it out. A wedding is just a wedding.”

He remembers when he thought her so naïve. She was a noble girl grown up ugly, who longed for romance and knights but understood that the world would not give her those things because of the way she looked. She was too big to be a delicate maiden from a song. Too ungainly and plain to be the beloved of some handsome knight tormented on his journeys with thoughts of her. So she became her own knight. She embodied the songs better than he ever has. Every shred of honor he still clings to, it’s because of her. It saddens him to hear her say such practical, sensible things.

There was a time when he wanted to strangle the life out of that girl. Make her see the world for the shithole it was. Make her understand that honor was nothing when you were faced with so many dishonorable men. But now, to see her so changed, he aches. He hopes it was not his cynicism that drove her away. He hopes that some of that girl still lives behind her façade of pragmatism. A wedding is just a wedding. He wishes it could be more than that for her.

“I never thought to have a wedding before,” he says, and she glances at him.

“Does it bother you?” she asks. It’s asked so gently that he knows there is some significance there, though he isn’t sure what it is.

“Does what bother me?”

“Marrying. Having a wedding though you never planned to?”

“No. Maybe it would, if it were to anyone else.”

He expects her to deflect like she always does in moments when he comes too close to the truth, but she only smiles at him.

“I imagined weddings when I was younger, but I haven’t for years,” she admits.

“What did you want from a wedding when you were young?” he asks. He has a moment of hope. Maybe she'll say something he can give her. Some extravagance he can convince Tyrion to include in the festivities.

But her expression darkens slightly, a shadow passing over it, and he is left to wonder. She hesitates. He can see when she decides to brush the question off.

“I went to few weddings when I was young,” she finally says. “I imagined whatever I saw there. And what I heard in stories.”

“Well, I’m not a secret prince. I think there are usually secret princes in stories.”

“Sansa got that particular tale,” Brienne says, and Jaime laughs. “If you were a secret prince, the queen would likely burn you alive, so I’m glad you aren’t.” She looks at him rather fondly, then, and his heart does that absurd twisting thing it does when she looks at him that way. “In truth, I could not have dreamed of a better match, as much as you seem intent on denying it.”

Jaime only smiles at her, because he isn’t sure he trusts himself to speak. He is only a little disappointed when she doesn’t move closer or kiss his cheek or really touch him at all before she leaves this time.

“I hope you realize how utterly pathetic this is,” Tyrion says. Jaime huffs a bit as he tries to muss his hair in a way that looks fetching. “Lady Brienne knows you. She has fought for you and beside you. She has seen you drunk and stumbling with bruises all over your face. From what you’ve told me, she played nursemaid for you when you were dying and covered in your own shit. She has agreed to marry you and hasn’t taken it back despite having loads of time to come to her senses. She isn’t going to suddenly change her mind because you don’t look exactly as you think you should!”

“I want it to be perfect for her,” Jaime says. “Or as perfect as it can get, anyway.”

Tyrion pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers, irritated to hear the note of self-loathing in Jaime’s tone.

“Jaime, you are marrying the woman you love, and she loves you in return,” he tries. Jaime can no longer hold it in.

“She doesn’t,” he blurts. Tyrion stares at him in the mirror.

“What are you talking about?”

“She doesn’t love me. Or she does, I suppose, but not in the same way. She thinks our marriage is sensible.”

“Sensible.”

“Yes. She needs a husband and I need a wife, and we like spending time together, so why wouldn’t we get married?” He knows his voice is bordering on hysterical, and he’s to be married in less than an hour. “She thinks I chose her because we’re friends and she knows not to expect any obligations from me. Gods, even saying that aloud is enough to get me thinking about it, but apparently I’m just...”

“Does she know you want to fuck her?” Tyrion asks, interjecting violently, which Jaime appreciates because he knows he’s in a bit of a panic.

“What? No. I don’t know. Probably not. I haven’t exactly told her. But I’ve flirted. I have done that.”

“And she understands you’re flirting?”

“Of course she does. I don’t know! Maybe not.” She always seems to think he’s mocking her, but he’s not going to say that to Tyrion. He’s too embarrassed.

“Jaime,” Tyrion says gently. Pityingly.

“I should be marrying her when she knows. Not before. I tried to tell her when I proposed, but she didn’t even let me get it out. She just said yes, because she’s a good person, and a better friend than I deserve, and she wanted to help me.”

“You’ve never done anything normally when you could do it utterly backwards,” Tyrion reminds him. “Why would this be any different? And none of this changes my advice, you know. You are marrying the woman you love, and she loves you in return. It isn’t her fault you’re too convinced of your own uselessness to see the way she moons after you. Just as it isn’t your fault she’s too convinced of her own ugliness to think you could possibly love her in return.” Jaime glares at him, wanting to believe him, but not quite finding it in himself. Tyrion sighs. “Look, just...go out there and marry the girl. It’ll get you out of Kings Landing, and as much of an idiot as you are, I’d like to know that you’re safe. You can work through your existential crisis on your own time.”

“I’m going to marry her,” Jaime says. “I just need to have a moment to wonder what the fuck I’m doing first.”

“If you make this about deserving again…”

“She is the truest knight I have ever known.”

“And you are not taking anything from her by marrying her. You are only giving. Please try not to sabotage this before it starts. You have been doing so well. I know that when you lost Cersei…”

“Don’t,” Jaime interrupts. “Please. You know I hate it when you try to commiserate about that.”

“She was my sister too.”

“You know it’s not the same.”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand what you lost.”

“I am here. I am alive. I have survived the worst of it, and I would prefer not to talk about it.” Especially not with someone who hated her, he thinks, but he does not speak the thought aloud. The truth is that Tyrion does not understand. He has lost love and he has lost a sister, yes, but there is no one else alive who understands what Jaime had with Cersei. Not even Brienne, though he has seen her trying to make sense of it. Offering him comfort when she thinks he needs it, even though he knows she doesn’t understand. He appreciates her honesty in that, as he appreciates her honesty in most things.

Oddly, thinking of Cersei has calmed him down. Once, he dreamed of marrying Cersei, but Cersei is dead. Once, he would have said that he could not breathe when she did not also draw breath, but he has breathed for moons now on his own, and he has not had cause to regret refusing her offer to drink the poison that took her. He is going to marry a woman he loves, and that is more than he ever thought he would get, even if she deems the whole thing sensible. He should be grateful for what he does have. He is grateful.

He looks at himself in the mirror. He tries to see it as honestly as he can. Brienne had called him still handsome, and he can see why she would say so. He is older and grayer than he was once, but it doesn’t look terrible on him. He has only one hand, but the other was lost in protecting her, and he knows that the loss and the trials that followed have made him more like the knight Brienne wanted him to be. If anything, it is a symbol for the two of them. He can still fight with his left hand. He survived The Long Night with it, fighting by her side. He has seen her grow stronger and more confident, slowly growing quicker with her words and smiles as he grows quicker with his blades. They grew for years separately, their paths crossing intermittently, but now they have grown together in peace, like two flowering vines meeting and merging. A marriage will make it truer and more real than anything else he’s done in his life.

“I’m ready,” he says to his reflection, and he sees Tyrion nod behind him.

For all his anxiety around it, the wedding is fairly simple. Brienne wears the gown that Sansa made her. He’d worried she wouldn’t like it, preferring a tunic and breeches, but she’s smiling down at it as she approaches him on her father’s arm. It’s a deep blue that agrees with her complexion and her eyes, with silver and gold accents throughout. Brienne is absolutely radiant in it. Sometimes he forgets that she hasn’t always spurned the trappings of being a lady of a noble house. Perhaps the problem with gowns has always been that she did not like the look of herself in them. Sansa has found a way to clothe Brienne’s body in a way that accentuates and does not try to hide or diminish her strength. Jaime still prefers her in a tunic and breeches, sweating in the practice yard, but he quite likes her in the dress, too.

The ceremony is very quick. Jaime is surprised when he suddenly has to hand his cloak off to Tyrion. Brienne’s is blue and silver and magnificent, and she drapes it with care around his shoulders, pulling it tight around him. Many of the guests murmur and snicker at this part. They’ve heard it was to happen, of course, but now they’re surprised that it actually has. Bronn laughs outright. Daenerys smiles. Brienne’s jaw is set grimly, and he can see that she wants to challenge every chuckler to defend their laughter against her sword. He grabs her hand with his own.

“Don’t,” he says. “This is what she wants, remember?”

Brienne nods, and her fingers squeeze his own, some of the tension leaving her as she remembers. She probably does like, in some deep secret part of her heart, that she is protecting him. Not just in a way in which she is happy to prevent his further punishment, but in a way in which she likes it. It’s such an honorable thing. He doesn’t mind. There is a dark, secret part of him that likes it too. He loved songs and stories about knights, once. He soured on them when he became one and realized the poison of vows and oaths and a slavish devotion to honor. But that boy is still in him somewhere, and Brienne is nothing if not a knight from a song.

She hesitates at the end, but he smiles with encouragement, and he gives her a nod, and so she leans in and kisses him. He wants to make fun of her, because it is such an old impulse, but he doesn’t dare ruin this moment. Not for her. Not for himself, either. Her lips are soft, and her kiss surprisingly delicate. It is a good kiss. A first kiss. He has kissed many, many times in his life, and he likes the newness of this one. It doesn’t feel like kissing Cersei at all.

Afterward, she takes his wrist. He wears his golden hand today because he decided the ceremony called for it, but she does not touch it. It’s his wrist she wraps her fingers around, as they face the court. The skin of his stump under his red coat yearns to be without the barrier between hers and his, but he appreciates the gesture for what it means. She doesn’t want the shiny golden Jaime Lannister that Cersei insisted on pretending was still there long after he had gone. She has chosen to marry the man beneath. Her friend.

After, there is a feast, and Jaime endures many bows and falsely serious congratulations and a few snickered my ladys from Bronn, who seems to think this is the height of comedy. At least Daenerys seems genuine enough when she congratulates them. She calls him Ser Jaime still, not Kingslayer, and she hugs Brienne with a warmth that he believes is true. Maybe she does enjoy that this marriage will be mocked, but he thinks she also supports it. Perhaps she means to balance things out a bit for ladies by this public reverse cloaking. Change has to start somewhere.

He floats the idea by Tyrion, who snorts a bit.

“Only a half-suicidal, maimed, set-to-be-executed old man would agree to this without a fight. I think she expected your Lannister pride to win out over your survival instincts so she could kill you without issue.”

“You have very little faith in her humanity, don’t you, brother?”

“I have every faith in her humanity. That’s the problem. Humans are all bastards in one way or another.”

“Not all of them,” Jaime says, watching Brienne making her way towards him. Tyrion sighs with evident disgust.

“I’m not talking to you while you’re like this,” he decides, moving away to speak to Bronn.

Brienne approaches with her father. The man is somehow even taller than her, and handsome in that way that a well-aged man will always be handsome because he has escaped the early ravages of time. Selwyn arrived only yesterday, so Jaime has barely had time to meet him. It wasn’t an entirely favorable meeting, but it could have been worse. Selwyn clearly understands that it’s an arrangement rather than a love match, but Brienne says far too many glowing things about Jaime generally, so at least he can be assured that Selwyn thinks him to be a more honorable man than he is.

“Ser Jaime,” Selwyn says. Jaime inclines his head.

“Lord Selwyn. Ser Brienne. The northern queen did a wonderful job on that dress.”

“She did, didn’t she?” Brienne asks, smoothing the fabric and smiling down at it in a way that makes Jaime’s stomach flip pathetically. She will have a hundred dresses if it makes her so happy. A thousand. “Sansa has been very kind to me. I am eager to see her again.”

So is Jaime, truthfully. He’d seen the way Sansa had watched her half brother turned cousin. He would wager that she is having as much of an issue with her sensible marriage as Jaime foresees he will have with his.

“I am eager to be out of Kings Landing,” Jaime says, and Selwyn nods. It is a knowing nod. He distrusts the dragon queen too, Jaime thinks. He is probably eager to have his daughter away.

“Only a week,” Brienne reminds him. She takes his arm. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he says, very performative in a way he knows will annoy her. “Lady wife.”

“I’m already tired of hearing that,” Brienne gripes, but she is smiling, and he does not believe her.

Later, as the festivities grow rowdy enough that they are no longer the center of attention, Brienne finally speaks on what has plainly been bothering her.

“I know that we have to endure it here,” she murmurs as they near the place where Tyrion and Bronn have been sitting and drunkenly laughing for nearly an hour. “But I wish for you to know that no one on Tarth will call you anything but Ser Jaime Lannister.”

“Why not?” he asks, in the arrogant voice he knows she hates. “Perhaps I wish to be of Tarth.” He flourishes her cloak a bit, still around his shoulders, and she rolls her eyes. “Seriously, what has my house ever given me?”

“You are proud of your name,” Brienne says. “I know you are.” She is looking at him very intently, her hand still tucked into his elbow.

“I hate it when you do that,” he remembers, growling. She looks briefly hurt, but she hides it quickly. She is better at that, now.

“When I do what?” she asks.

“See me,” he says, waving his hand grandly. “It’s very…unsettling.”

She smiles a little. She’s pleased with the compliment, even if it was phrased so poorly at the start.

“You should get used to it,” she reminds him in a low voice, and he laughs.

“Ser Jaime Lannister of Tarth,” he says thoughtfully.

“Bit of a mouthful.”

“No, I like it. And I look quite good in your colors, I think.”

He holds out the cloak and arches an eyebrow, asking her opinion, and he can tell she is trying not to laugh as she studies him, readying an insult.

“You realize this is meant to be a punishment,” Tyrion hisses, slapping the cloak out of Jaime’s hands, glancing at Daenerys. She is speaking with Yara Greyjoy, Queen of the Iron Islands, her eyes sparkling as she laughs. She isn’t even looking at them.

“I’m not allowed to enjoy my wedding feast?” Jaime asks incredulously. Tyrion shoves a goblet of wine into his hands and gestures for he and Brienne to sit.

“No,” he says. “Drink.”

“Confusing messages you’re sending,” Jaime jokes, and he raises his glass to Brienne. “To our marriage, which is apparently meant to be a miserable affair.”

“Shut up and drink your wine,” Brienne says, but she clinks her glass against his, and they both sip.

The wine flows heavy after that. It’s possible Jaime is sulking a bit, being unable to be as glad as he wants during this wedding. His wedding. His wedding to Brienne. He drinks several more glasses, and then more after that on Bronn’s insistence, and then Brienne very politely asks Daenerys if they may be excused. Daenerys allows it, happy to allow them to skip the bedding if it is what Brienne desires.

Brienne leads Jaime out into the hall, and it’s only then that he realizes how drunk he is. It’s not blind drunk yet, but it’s drunker than he’s been in ages. It’s the kind of drunk where you stumble a bit and say very honest things.

“If you were exaggerating the extent of your drunkenness to get out of a bedding ceremony, it was very clever,” Brienne says. Jaime stumbles. “Ah, maybe not.”

“Why lie about it when you can actually get drunk?” Jaime points out. Then contradicts himself with, “I don’t like being drunk. My siblings were always drinking. It made them...unpredictable. I don’t like that. And sometimes cruel. That was even worse.”

“Does this mean you’ll be unpredictable and cruel tonight?” Brienne asks, sounding very fond, like she has no doubt that he will not match his siblings in this.

“No, I believe I’ll just be tired,” Jaime says, because it’s true, and Brienne laughs at him. She has her arm through his to help keep him steady, protecting him from his own fool feet, and if he were less drunk he would probably think it was quite poetic and metaphorical or…something. But he’s drunk, and so she’s just sturdy and warm and he loves her.

Gods, he really does, doesn’t he? Loves her. He already knew that, but it’s hitting him harder now, like the wine has softened his brain and allowed the weaker feelings to seep through and infect it more fully. She was so ugly to him when they first met. Ugly and horrible and she was the only thing keeping him from Cersei. Now he looks at her and sees a million things at once that he can’t even articulate. With Cersei, it was easy. He could say anything and even if she rolled her eyes, he knew she was secretly pleased by his devotion. With Brienne, it’s harder. He doesn’t like making himself vulnerable.

He’s vulnerable now, drunk and letting her lead him. Trusting her to lead him. He has trusted her for a long time, but the wine has made the trust feel so much more complete. His wife. His wife. She opens the door to the rooms that are to be theirs. The servants have moved their things in already, and it’s strange to see his armor on a stand beside hers. Strange but wonderful, and he loves her all over again. They are married now.

Brienne’s forward momentum stutters slightly, and he knows that the reality has hit her. Shared quarters. One bed. There’s a settee that might make a decent place to sleep if either of them were shorter than they are. And of course once they’re on Tarth, they can sleep separately if they’d like, but it wouldn’t do, here. If he were more sober, he’d make a joke about it, set her at ease, but he isn’t, and instead he finds himself fumbling with his cloak.

Brienne helps him without prompting, and he thanks her too politely. They are awkward in this space together, as if neither of them had really thought about what it would mean to be married. They are so used to separating, talking quietly in hurried moments and then parting again. Meeting for sparring, and for meals, and otherwise having to seek each other out. On its surface this is better, and he knows it will be better. But they are unused to having this time together now that they’re no longer imprisoned together or traveling on the road together. They have become used to a certain courtly distance that now has to be breached.

She unlaces his shirt, too, before giving him privacy. Knowing that he can handle the rest. He does, turning his back so he doesn’t have to pretend not to long for her as she calls in a woman to help her unlace her dress. He pretends it doesn’t bother him, the fact that he can’t help her with that. He can’t even manage his own clothing. He imagines how it might have been, if he still had both his hands.

If he had both his hands, they wouldn’t be here. But. Still. He imagines it. His hands tugging at the delicate ties, exposing her back slowly, revealing more of her milky skin. It was Cersei who hated his stump, Cersei who turned away from it, but he longs for his lost hand as if it would be the thing that would make Brienne want him.

Brienne’s voice is low and grateful as she speaks to the girl helping her behind the dressing screen, and Jaime wanders over to the bed to change into the soft clothes that have been folded and placed on the plush blankets for him. It’s a big bed. He’s disappointed by that. Drunkenly irritated because small beds are better. A small bed means tangled limbs and breathing each other’s space and warmth. Accidental touches. Gods, he’s more pathetic drunk than he usually is.

He manages to change his clothing, and he longs to crawl into bed and fall asleep, but he forces himself to stay standing. Brienne might try to do something ridiculous like fold her too-long body into the settee if he doesn’t make it clear that that’s stupid.

She emerges from behind the dressing screen in a soft-looking sleeping shift, and the servant girl scurries out of the room after hanging up the dress, her cheeks flushed redder than Brienne’s have ever been. Jaime wonders what she’ll say to the others. He’d overheard the servants gossiping about his family when he was a boy, and he and Cersei would sneak around the castle to overhear. Will they say that Ser Jaime looked at his plain wife with naked yearning and that his wife stood still and stiff and did not seem like to receive him? Perhaps they will make it out to be more romantic than that. Brienne will be a blushing maid, ready for her loving new husband. Or perhaps she will be the one who wants, and he will be made out to be disgusted, a man with a true punishment.

“Well, wife,” he says. He forces his tone to be light and teasing. A friendly tone. The same tone he’s been using since she agreed to marry him. No more of his awkward attempted flirtations.

“Ser Brienne Lannister of Tarth,” Brienne corrects, trying to joke as well. She is uncomfortable with so few barriers between them, and Jaime smiles a little. He wishes he could set her at ease. She grips her shift in her hands. There is something childlike about it, and in the way she stares at him as if expecting him to say something terrible. Shoulders squared. On the defensive.

“I wanted to make sure you didn’t try to do anything stupid like sleep on the settee,” he says. “Guarding my honor like a true knight.”

“I am a true knight,” she says.

“Yet my honor does not need a guardian.”

“Doesn’t it?” she asks, but she’s smiling a little, and she is less tense. “I don’t think either of us are so ridiculous, are we?”

“Well, you are. I’m not. It’s a big bed.”

“It is a big bed,” Brienne says in agreement. She hesitates, and he can see that despite what she says, she is uncomfortable. But she forces herself forward. She stalks towards the bed as if she is approaching to do battle, and she throws back the covers and climbs in. Jaime pointedly does not watch the skin of her legs or the way the shift clings to her when she moves. He only climbs in after her.

He is drunk still, and the nearness to her is heady and nearly too much to bear. There has been this feeling for him of rebirth since he lost his sister, so perhaps it is appropriate that he is made again a child again on his wedding night.

“Was the wedding everything you hoped for?” He cannot help but ask. Brienne hums thoughtfully, and he looks over at her. It nearly takes his breath, the startling sensation of seeing her there. It has been months since Cersei died. She was the only woman he could ever imagine sharing a bed with, and yet his fantasies have all been Brienne of late. And still it is surprising to have them actually realized. Her head is on the pillow, her hand curled beneath it, and he wishes that he could lean in and kiss her, or at least reach out and touch her. But he must be patient. He has time. They have time. To figure it out.

“It was a lovely wedding. The threat of dragon fire and the presence of Bronn aside.”

“Bronn would be hurt to hear that. He’s quite taken with you.”

Brienne scoffs and rolls onto her back. It feels absurd, suddenly, that he’s as old as he is and has never shared a bed with anyone but Cersei. He thinks again of nearly kissing Brienne in the pool at Winterfell. Would she have kissed him back?

“I thought he was mocking me at first, every time he spoke to me. Then I realized he takes me as seriously as he takes anyone else. There’s a compliment in that, I suppose.”

Her thoughtful tone makes Jaime laugh, and the alcohol is making him quite tired, but he doesn’t wish to sleep. He wants to stay awake and laugh with her some more.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” he asks. He puts his hand out to brush her arm, and she hisses and draws away. He’s hurt, for a tipsy second, until he remembers that it’s his golden hand, and probably quite cold. “Shit. Sorry.”

“You sleep with it on?” she asks.

“I…sometimes.”

He feels too uncomfortable to tell her of Cersei’s preferences and his own constant feelings of inadequacy when he looks at it.

“It can’t be comfortable,” Brienne argues softly. Jaime lifts his eyes to hers and finds that she is regarding him with sympathy. Not pity, not like it sometimes used to be. It’s just Brienne. It’s just how she is. She sympathizes. He probably would have hated it, once, to have sympathy so on display. But he’s older now, and he knows Brienne better now. He doesn’t hate it. She sits up a bit, reclining against the pillows. “Let me take it off,” she says, and he sighs and sits up beside her, holding out his arm.

She’s steadier than she was in the godswood. She’d practically ripped the straps apart to get it off, but they’d both been well in their cups at that point. She’s gentler now, careful, her eyes roaming over it. It’s the old one tonight, because he thought the golden hand was a good choice for a wedding. He forgot how much it chafes; when she takes it off, the skin of his stump is red and irritated. Brienne hums and gives it an absent rub before she gives him the hand to set aside.

“Has Sam given you anything for it?” she asks.

“It’s fine,” he says, because the salve from Sam is all the way across the room, and because he doesn’t want to get up, and because he’s half convinced she’ll want to rub the salve in herself and then he will literally die from wanting. “It feels all right.”

“All right,” she repeats. She releases his wrist, and he pulls it back beneath the covers to hide it. Brienne doesn’t notice. “This is nice. I wasn’t sure it would be. I was afraid that it would be uncomfortable, but it isn’t. I think I could come to enjoy marriage.”

Jaime smiles to hear that.

“Good,” he says. “I think I already do.”

Chapter Text

On the surface, nothing much changes after Jaime weds Brienne. He is both glad of and irritated by that fact. They still spar most evenings. They still spend most of their days separated, and they meet up for meals to discuss whatever needs discussing. Brienne attends the Goldcloak training sessions, and sometimes she meets with the queen and Tyrion to give them status reports, and sometimes she walks through the streets with Grey Worm and Jorah to get a feel for the attitude of the city. Jaime mostly attends diplomatic meetings with other lords and Tyrion, who tries to balance their wants against the fickler whims of the queen. Sometimes he assists Podrick in training some of the lesser knights of the city, occasionally with Brienne. Often he attends Sam, dictating letters that are sent out to the remaining minor houses. Invitations to travel to Kings Landing and swear fealty to the rightful queen of Westeros. Jaime hates the blasted things, but Sam is still nervous when it comes to this kind of correspondence, and Jaime is glad to have a few hours to sit with him and give him phrases and bits of advice. If there’s one thing Jaime and Sam both learned from their fathers, it’s how to be all lordly and superior even in letters, so they do all right between them.

The major difference for he and his wife is that they leave their room together in the morning and walk down to breakfast together, and after supper they return to their room as one, and the evening is theirs. They endure plenty of jokes about their apparently insatiable appetites for each other, but really they just like having the excuse to leave boring functions early so they can climb into bed and talk between themselves without being interrupted by anyone.

By Bronn, particularly. Jaime is quite gleeful when he realizes that they can avoid Bronn whenever they want by just closing and locking their door behind them.

“More people should get married to their friends,” he declares one night. In just half an hour, they have talked through several solutions to an issue Brienne has been having with the Goldcloaks, and then spent several minutes mocking each other and arguing over who was more awkward when Jorah attempted to be friendly and congratulatory earlier. “It’s much easier than not being married to you.”

“It really is convenient,” Brienne says. She leans over suddenly and kisses him on the cheek, friendly and pleased with him and with herself and with everything. She blushes after, embarrassed by her boldness, and he really might pine to death like some heartbroken maiden in a terrible song.

Convenient. Sensible. Nice. And it is! That’s the really horrifying thing: it really is the best idea he’s ever had, except that he’s also in love with her, and it’s turning something that should be convenient and sensible and even fun into an exquisite kind of torture for himself even as it’s also the happiest he’s ever been.

And it’s not that nothing changes between them. Things do change. They get gentler. It’s the worst and best part about all of it.

They’ve generally been more careful with each other since Winterfell. Before, even when they were no longer captive and captor, there was always some sense of frustration bubbling beneath the surface of their interactions. Brienne wanted him to be a more honorable man than he was, but every time she saw him she would be reminded that he was still Cersei’s creature, doing her bidding, playing at house fealty and doing terrible things in the name of the woman he loved. And Jaime would remember Brienne as liking him more, being more open with him, and then he’d see her again and remember that she always had a kind of blunt disdain for him that made him feel horribly seen by someone who judged him and found him wanting.

But then he left Cersei behind. He left Kings Landing behind. He could not deny that he had changed anymore. Not after he realized that she would put her lust for power above the lives of everyone else in Westeros. And once he reached Winterfell, and once he stayed in Winterfell, Brienne slowly came to realize and understand that he wasn’t going to be going back. And things changed.

Now, they’re changing even more. They learn little things about each other. She tells him about growing up learning to sail. She tells him about swimming off the shores of Tarth. She tells him about the three previous betrothals her father tried to make to ungrateful men who didn’t know what a treasure they had. He laughs at those men and teases her, making it out like he won over them, though she rolls her eyes and reminds him that they had not found her such a prize.

“Funny that I have such a reputation for being a dim-witted man when I’m the only one who realized what a good wife you’d make,” he says, and that gets her to crack a smile.

“You have a reputation for being a terrible man, not a dim-witted one,” she says.

“I think you’ll find it’s both.”

“I think you’ll find most men are smart enough not to speak ill of you to me,” Brienne says.

She’s sitting up against the pillows when she says it, reading through some correspondence from Sansa, and it’s said so absently and thoughtlessly, just as casually as her acceptance of his bungled proposal, and gods, he’s so…warm. Tyrion would never stop laughing at him if he knew just how much Jaime likes the thought of his wife intimidating men who would call him Kingslayer and question his honor.

But with the good comes the bad. Or, if not bad, at least torturous in its goodness, because then he starts to idly wonder if she would try to intimidate him if he talked about his own shit honor and called himself terrible. And then he starts thinking of her atop him, holding him down, pinning him beneath her with her strong hands and strong thighs. She would smile down at him, and she would warn him to take it back, and she would roll her hips enticingly, and…

“Didn’t Sam give you a letter from Bran earlier?” she asks, interrupting his musings. He feels horribly caught, and he doesn’t understand what she’s asked him.

“What?” he asks.

“Bran. Young boy. Says a lot of odd things? You’re vaguely familiar with him, I think. He wrote you a letter. I was wondering if you wanted me to write a response.”

“I already sent one,” he says.

“That was fast.”

“It was a short letter.”

Bran’s letter had been an amused, scrawled this is pathetic, and Jaime’s response had been fuck off.

Brienne likes to hear stories of he and Tyrion when they children, so he tells her whatever he can remember, and he tries to excise Cersei carefully until one day, near the end of their time in Kings Landing, they’re walking together to breakfast as he talks, and Brienne says, “you don’t need to do that for me. I don’t know if it is for me, or if it’s for you. But if you’re avoiding mentioning your sister, you don’t need to.”

She’s uncomfortable, uncertain if she’s said too much.

“Sometimes I don’t want to talk about her,” he admits. “Sometimes it’s too much. Not always, though. Sometimes I get this powerful urge to go to Tyrion and reminisce, just because he’s the only one who knew her when she was young. But I’m afraid Cersei never showed him the same side she showed me. For so long, I found ways to ignore it or justify it. For years, really. Tyrion loved Cersei, in his way, even though she loathed him. He found it in his heart to love her anyway. I always wondered at that. Now I wonder why I didn’t try harder to help them…get along.”

It sounds hopelessly juvenile when he says it like that. Like Cersei and Tyrion just had the occasional argument and decided it was better if they didn’t speak. Cersei loathed their brother. She spoke of him with a clenched jaw and a wryness that spoke of a deep desire to hurt. Jaime had loved her, yes, but it’s easy to remember her darkness when he thinks of their brother.

“I don’t know if you would have been able to help,” Brienne says.

“No. Maybe not. I was too busy excusing Cersei’s actions and excusing my own because I loved her. It’s easy to look back on things and wish that you had done them differently, but sometimes you look at me like you expect me to be far more broken by her absence than I am.”

Brienne is plainly surprised to hear that, and a little embarrassed. She stops in the hallway so that they don’t have to enter the hall before she can gather her thoughts. He stops and watches her. She has this tentative look on her face like she’s navigating turbulent waters, and he wishes she would realize that she doesn’t need to. His waters aren’t turbulent at all.

“I know that you and your brother share the same tendency to jape and use sarcasm as a way to cover up your own emotions. I’m far too familiar with it.”

“I don’t know what you could possibly mean,” Jaime says, sarcastically.

“So it’s difficult to tell sometimes. I know how devoted you were to her. Before, when we…”

“I’m not that same man.”

“You are. You’re still Jaime.”

“Yes, but I’m Jaime Lannister of Tarth now. Don’t take my new name from me. I worked very hard to get it.”

Now she’s unimpressed, shaking her head.

“You asked me to marry you, and I said yes. That doesn’t seem so difficult. And you’re avoiding the conversation.”

“Because there is no conversation to have, Brienne, truly. I have done my grieving. I will be doing it for the rest of my life, because that’s how grief is. If I was going to lose myself to it, it would have been back at the start, when there was still a chance of me choosing to follow her. I didn’t then, and I wouldn’t now. Honestly, sometimes I wake up and forget that she is gone, and then I look beside me, and I see it’s you in my bed instead of her.” He realizes that he is about to say something very horrible, and very foolish, and very deep within himself but he cannot stop it. “And then I remember, and sometimes I am…relieved.” He breathes out after he has spoken the words that have bunched up inside his heart. He hates himself for saying them, but he knows that he had to. “I am relieved that she is gone, and I’m relieved that I’m still here, and I’m relieved that you’re still with me. Bran Stark told me once that it could have ended up in so many other ways, and I think of that constantly. Tear myself apart thinking of it after I wake up from dreams of burning or dying or being overrun at Winterfell. I loved Cersei. I will always love her. But we grew and separated until there was no way for me to get back to her without going backwards. Undoing everything good about me that you…” that you helped me find within myself. No, that’s too much. He stutters to a stop, finds his breath. “That I- that I learned to fight for. Cersei wanted to see it strangled out of me so that we could be reflections again, but she didn’t win, and so I am relieved, when I remember.”

He is heartsick once he’s finished. Brienne looks bowled over. Her face is very white. Her eyes are very large. They take him in with a kind of relentless sympathy that is easier to withstand when they’re in the dim lighting of their bedroom but which is impossible now that the morning light is full on her face.

She nods, and she bites her lip, and she doesn’t say anything, but she smiles at him more easily for the rest of the day, and he knows that he has said something that she needed to hear.

They wake each other with dreams. That’s another thing. They’re both vaguely mortified the first few times it happens, but it quickly becomes routine. It’s like undressing before bed. The first few times, Brienne blushed and Jaime fumbled and they both rushed for the covers like they were wearing nothing. But the passage of days made that easier, and Brienne would hardly even go behind the dressing screen anymore. Jaime still turned away and busied himself with his own clothing, but that was less out of discomfort and more out of a want to be respectful.

Respectful. Kind. Dutiful. Chaste. All words that manage to bring him joy and lighten his heart and put him at open war with the grasping, greedy part of himself that still wants and yearns to love her openly. Bring her pleasure. Take her maidenhead and claim her for good, because that is the truest way he knows to show his affections. What happens after the dreams is a blend of the two.

It’s just. Moments. Brienne will gasp awake from dreams of the shadow that killed Renly, or the accusing sneer of a Lady Catelyn who never existed, or the dragon fire coming for Jaime himself. Her jerky movements will reach Jaime on the other side of their too-big bed. Jaime will wake, and reach out to her, and he will take her arm, or her hand, or will grasp her shoulder and pull her closer. He will comfort her, and she will accept his comfort.

And he will dream of Aerys, and he will dream of Bran Stark, and he will dream of losing his sword hand. And Brienne, screaming. Brienne going down under wights. Brienne fighting to him and never reaching him. Cersei drinking poison. Brienne drinking poison. Tyrion. He weeps at the end of every dream, just as he had wept while holding his dead twin, and then he will wake with a sour taste in his mouth, but Brienne will be there, soft and warm, the weight of her hand on his arm bringing him back to himself.

It was a dream, they always say. I’m here. And long after Brienne has fallen back asleep, Jaime will lie there and plead with himself to stop wanting more. This is a kinder, more careful love than he has ever experienced in his life, and he would be an utter fool to ruin it for something as treacherous as lust.

The weeks pass quickly like this as they learn to navigate the new boundaries of their relationship. Their marriage still causes whispers in court, but only among people Jaime cares nothing for. His new status has elevated him in the eyes of the queen, and though he still wishes to be away from Kings Landing, he feels more at ease when he sees how much she plainly likes he and his wife together.

The marriage has worked in Tyrion’s favor, too. Daenerys isn’t any more interested in ruling, but she seems more likely to trust her Hand, and she takes suggestions from him better than she did. He is beholden to her now, and she knows that. Jaime imagines that she has lived a life much like Tyrion’s: bartering with power more than gold. Buying respect rather than earning it. Learning early and often that trust is an impossible thing to grant because everyone has a price. She has bought more loyalty from Tyrion, and now she is better able to believe it.

If Tyrion can keep the queen from going mad or from being too zealous with her dragon, they might have half a hope of surviving this reign.

Jaime and Brienne say their goodbyes to Selwyn, who sails for Tarth on the same morning they begin their ride to Winterfell. Selwyn has largely been a mystery to Jaime. He plainly loves his daughter, and he is openly fond of her in a way that Tywin never bothered to be of his own children. But there is a distance between them. He supposes it makes sense: a more involved father would not have let her run off on her own for so long, especially not without providing him an heir. But he treats her more like a comrade than like a daughter.

For Jaime, he has had polite words and an open curiosity as if at every moment they spent together he was trying to figure out why his daughter chose the Kingslayer for a friend and husband. It isn’t as bad as Jaime had feared it would be – no, he seems perfectly fine with everything – but it is confusing. He isn’t used to a parent who trusts their child to make their own decisions. Selwyn seems hardly to understand Brienne, but he doesn’t seem all that bothered about it. He loves her anyway.

 Sailing was mentioned as a possibility for Jaime and Brienne’s journey as well. Both Tyrion and Daenerys seemed to want to have more control over their route. They mentioned issues of safety and length of travel time, and Brienne very skillfully managed to deflect their concerns in a way that didn’t come off as rude, which obviously it would have done if Jaime was the one arguing. In the end, they are permitted to travel by land. It is decided that they will be traveling in the company of Podrick and a few other squires and knights, along with several wagons filled with gifts for the north from Daenerys and Tyrion.

Brienne scoffs when Jaime asks if they have to ride the whole way with the wagons.

“I don’t trust anyone but Podrick,” she says brusquely. “The rest of them will either be reporting to Varys or to Daenerys directly. We’ll ride hard to be rid of them as soon as we’re a few days out of Kings Landing.”

“Thank the gods,” Jaime sighs. “It’s a long ride to Winterfell, and half those knights have insulted you for being a lady and me for being a cripple and an oathbreaker, and now they’re all fawning and ridiculous because they know the queen likes us. I imagine they’ll be insufferable on the road.”

“If anyone gives us trouble, they’ll have me to answer to,” Brienne says shortly. “I could use a good fight.”

“We fight every day,” Jaime reminds her.

“Yes, but I’m not usually trying to kill you,” Brienne answers. “I could use a fight like that.” Her bluntness reminds Jaime why he likes traveling with her so much. He laughs, and she looks at him quizzically, because of course she was not intending to make a joke, and that makes him laugh even harder.

The first night, they stop at an inn and fairly take it over with all their knights and travelers. It’s a good decision for several reasons, but Jaime likes it mostly because the bed is much smaller than the one in Kings Landing. It’s going to be much less comfortable, too, but after a long day of riding, everything feels like a featherbed.

He talks relentlessly as they get ready for sleep, as if he thinks he’s going to distract Brienne from noticing that the comfortable distance they keep between themselves at night cannot be achieved here. She doesn’t seem to notice his aimless babbling; she laughs loudly at his impression of one of the squires who has been staring after her with enormous, saucer-like eyes and a definite hero worship.

“I’m a head taller than him. I think it more likely I frighten him,” she says, sounding almost pleased. She slips between the sheets without a fuss, and he realizes with a slightly sinking stomach that she really doesn’t mind the closeness. She probably thinks it’s another very sensible step in their very sensible marriage. Sleeping closer together for warmth in this poorly insulated inn as they travel north. If she hesitated, at least he would know she felt something.

“You likely do intimidate him,” he manages to say. “But some men like that.”

He does not tell her that he has become one of them since meeting her. He does not tell her that he wishes he had been more aware of it, that time she yanked his hair back to bare his throat. The memory has tormented him lately.

He expects her to argue against his words, and he will insist, because they’re true, but instead she just hums as he climbs in beside her.

“I suppose that explains Tormund Giantsbane,” she says, and he cannot help a pathetic growling sound in the back of his throat. Like some sort of jealous dog.

“Tormund Giantsbane,” he says, as if to dismiss the very existence of the man. He brightens a bit when he realizes, “he’ll be quite disappointed, won’t he?”

“We can only hope,” Brienne says. He lies on his side and faces her, and she does the same, a small smile on her lips for him.

“The truth comes out,” he teases lowly. “You married me as a shield against unwanted suitors.”

“I had wondered when you’d work it out. We’d better strengthen your arm before we reach Winterfell, since so many men will be so desperate to have me made a widow. Assassins around every corner.”

“Why do we need to strengthen my arm if I have you to protect me?” he points out with a grin that he knows will make her laugh. She does, though it’s half a groan as well. She rolls her eyes, and he sees that she notices his right arm is out, on the pillow between them. He moves to tuck it beneath the covers, and she gives him a searching look as her hand darts out to stop it, trapping it, her fingers splayed over it.

“Does it bother you to have it out?” she asks. He knows why she’s asking, but it makes him uncomfortable to be under her scrutiny like this.

“No,” he admits. “But I...”

“It doesn’t bother me either,” she says. “I meant it when I said it. I hate remembering that night. I imagine you do as well. But…it was a noble thing. And even if it hadn’t been, it would be no fault of yours to have lost it. I interviewed so many men for the positions of Goldcloaks. After so many years of war, more than a few of them were missing limbs. Hands. Arms. Legs. They’d all heard the stories of how you learned to fight without your sword hand. You’re quite an inspiration to them, you know.”

“Did you tell them that I barely fight at the level of a common footsoldier?” he asks. She scoffs.

“You survived the battle at Winterfell. Not many common footsoldiers did that. I told them that you were never that impressive to begin with, and that tales of your prowess had been exaggerated to the extreme, but your inflated sense of ego gave you the courage you needed to fight again.

Jaime smiles softly at her. He cannot help it. Let her see his fondness for her if she must. It cannot be avoided.

“That sounds like you,” he says. Brienne squeezes his wrist gently, and she removes her hand, resting it on her own pillow, just beside his. He allows his stump to stay there, Ugly and naked. The urge to hide it is almost too great to resist, but he does resist it, and he can tell that she is pleased with him because of it.

“I was winning that fight between us, you know,” she says, and he laughs, the tension broken.

“Is this to be the rest of my life?” he wonders aloud, trying to pretend that he doesn’t love the idea.

The small bed wins some time in the middle of the night. Jaime isn’t sure when, but he wakes up with his right arm hooked around Brienne. He’s on his side, behind her, and when he wakes he’s in the middle of pulling her closer, an unconscious need for nearness that startles him into drawing back. He retreats back across the bed, and she makes a quiet, displeased sound that makes him ache, but she doesn’t wake up.

In the morning, it’s the opposite. Her arm is around him, and she is nestled up behind him, and he is humiliatingly grateful that their positions have reversed, because he is hard and wanting. Her chest rises and falls against his back with heavy, slow breaths, and Jaime is trapped in that halfway place between sleep and true wakefulness. Her hand is splayed on his stomach, and her fingers twitch slightly in sleep, drawing him further awake. Everything is soft, even the uncomfortable bed, and he resists the call of the morning as well as he can. He can hear horses outside. He can hear stablehands and children and serving girls in the halls, attending to their guests. He sighs and keeps his eyes closed, stubborn, refusing to acknowledge that he is awake and not likely to fall back asleep.

Brienne stirs behind him. She wakes up with the same efficiency with which she does everything else, and he hears her surprised sound as she pulls her arm back, dragging it over his hip, moving away. Its absence leaves him feeling pathetically empty. He keeps his eyes closed.

Brienne sits up, and he can hear her breathing. She’s straightening her sleeping clothes, and then she’s getting out of bed, hissing as her feet make contact with the cold floors. He smiles, and he finally opens his eyes, and he pretends.

Every morning after that one for the first few days is similar. The inns as they travel north grow more sparse. The beds appear to be growing smaller. It’s a unique punishment, and it makes him think the gods have a sense of humor. In one, he would swear the bed was made for a particularly tall child, and there is nowhere for space between he and Brienne. She almost suggests that one of them sleep on the floor. He can see the thought forming in her head. But her eyes flicker over him, and she shrugs, and she climbs in beside him. That’s his favorite night, because they both laugh at themselves and each other for their skittishness, married now for long enough that it’s fairly absurd to still be shy around each other. They fall asleep with his arm around her waist, and in the morning it seems another piece of the wall between them has crumbled.

She follows him in sleep even though she doesn’t show any signs of wanting him when they’re awake. She makes quiet noises of contentment when he rouses in the middle of the night for a drink of water or to relieve himself, and then returns to her side. When he grows bold and brushes her hair away from her face, she moves towards him, closer, seeking his warmth and his company.

As they ride, their banter irritates everyone around them, until even Pod starts riding behind with the other knights. Jaime hardly notices.

When they leave that blessed inn with its tiny bed, Brienne reads through correspondence as they ride. She received a lengthy missive filled with various updates from Sam, the raven arriving just before they set out, and she entertains Jaime by reading aloud some samples of songs that Bronn sent along with it.

“They’re singing about us in taverns,” she says, sounding equal parts fascinated and mortified.

“Of course they are! They sing about everyone in taverns. They were singing one about Sansa and Jon last night. A cold snow queen and her white wolf lover? What did you think that was about? And there were plenty about me and Cersei once that little family history was exposed. At least our songs are probably more flattering.”

“This one’s called The Beast Woman’s Pet,” Brienne says, and Jaime gives her a pointed look.

“I remember a time when someone led me on a leash through the Riverlands,” he says, and she laughs at him and scans the paper again.

“You really are shameless, aren’t you?” she asks as she does.

“What would I be ashamed of? Let them write songs about us. Let them say whatever they like. They were already saying it. At least now we’re married, and there’s nothing dishonorable in it.”

“There never was,” Brienne reminds him, and he sighs. If it sounds too regretful, she doesn’t notice.

“No. But at least now they can’t try and besmirch your name. And at least now there’s no one denying that we have any affection for each other at all. For every person convinced we were secretly fucking our way through the Riverlands, there were a dozen who claimed we still loathed each other.”

That’s the kindest way he can put it, but the way she snorts tells him that she knows what he isn’t saying: people thought that a man like him would never desire a woman like her.

“I’m not even going to read this one,” she says, holding up a page and passing it over to him. “Bronn wrote at the top to warn me it’s filthy. Bronn warned me.”

Jaime chuckles and skims it, then laughs harder.

“Something tells me Bronn wrote this one himself,” he says. “This particular act seems to his tastes.”

She doesn’t ask for it back, so Jaime tucks it into his saddlebags for later.

They make quick enough progress that they can finally leave the others behind for good, and then they camp out under the stars when they need to instead of sticking to inns for safety.

Jaime prefers the small beds in shitty inns, but the coziness of a campfire is welcome, too. Brienne never argues when he points out that they should be sharing warmth, and it’s more comfortable than he thought it would be to put his arm openly around her shoulders as she rests her head against his chest, and it’s even more comfortable when their positions are reversed. Whether they sleep on their sides or on their backs, they are close and comfortable, and Jaime feels ten years younger when he wakes in the morning. Back pain aside, it’s the easiest he’s ever traveled.

Left to their own devices, they bicker horrendously, like being alone together in the woods again has reverted them to their early acquaintance. Except there is fondness now between them that tempers the snideness of their comments, and they are both quick to laugh. There are little kindnesses, too. She unbuckles his prosthetic every night, and she straps it on again every morning. He always sets up their bedrolls, and he checks the ground for rocks and lumps before setting them down. She cuts his food and he forages for berries and herbs to make their meals more flavorful. It’s a transitional existence, both for their physical travel and in their new journey as man and wife. They learn the little things about each other that make it easier to care for one other. 

I love you, he thinks, often. Sometimes it seems like it would be easy to tell her.

Chapter Text

When they arrive at Winterfell at last, they are too road weary to be embarrassed that they are likely several days ahead of the rest of their party and therefore without an escort. They try lingering on the road for an extra night to see if Podrick and the others catch up, but they are both too impatient for a real bath and a real bed and real food. Sansa meets them in the courtyard when the gates open to admit them. She looks more queenly than ever in a long gray gown with red leaves falling down full skirts, and a black fur cloak drawn over her shoulders. Jaime has been complaining of the cold at every opportunity, and he has even caught Brienne at the occasional shiver despite her denials, but Sansa looks utterly unbothered even as the beginnings of a small snowstorm fall around her. She stands ready to receive them with that one eyebrow arched, amusement dancing behind her eyes. Queenly and poised, yes, but more than that, she is happy to see her friend.

“I don’t suppose you brought anything suitable to wear for dinner,” she says, which makes Jaime laugh while Brienne looks mildly scandalized that she hadn’t thought of that.

Sansa is every bit a gracious host. Being made queen hasn’t changed her much. Jaime isn’t surprised, given how she grew and embodied the best and most regal qualities of Cersei and Catelyn and Daenerys and Margaery Tyrell. Sansa absorbed the intelligence of people around her to keep herself alive, and she’s using that knowledge now to make sure that she is the kind of queen that people can trust in. He watches her interact with the people who stop her as she leads Jaime and Brienne to their room. She is friendly, polite, not half as cold or distrustful as she could be. Brienne struggles with how to address her, but she has always been too formal with the Stark girl by half, so that’s no great surprise. Jaime is less rigid, and he thinks Sansa likes him better for it. He sets her at ease. An odd thing to say about himself and a Stark child, but it seems true.

He leaves Sansa and Brienne to speak on what has happened since they have been apart, and he takes a detour to the godswood, where Sansa tells him he can find Bran. The boy is there, but he isn’t alone: the king is talking with him under the Weirwood. Jon Snow was a sullen boy when Jaime first met him, but Jon Stark smiles.

“I’ll be honest. I expected you to get yourself burned within a moon,” he says after they have shaken hands. Jaime laughs.

“I count myself lucky that her grace thought I made a better hostage than a charred spot on her throne room floor,” he says.

“Some hostage. You’re given leave to escape Kings Landing and you immediately flee to her enemies.”

“I think we would all know if you were truly her enemies.”

Jon nods, weary, and admits, “aye. It remains a delicate balance. She was hurt by it, but she does not want to rule by emotion, and she knows she needs the north.”

“And you? How have you dealt with your own hurts? According to all the tavern songs my wife and I kept hearing on the road, you loved her. A brave man to love such a mercurial queen. I would know.”

Jon scoffs at Jaime’s mild preening, and he shakes his head. His smile is wry and soft, but it is not very troubled. He looks peaceful.

“Loved her?” he asks, as if it’s painful. “I hardly had time to know her. I was infatuated with Daenerys. She was beautiful, and I knew she struggled with the weight of her famous name, and we needed her dragons. It was… convenient for me to like her. I saw only what I wanted to see. The truth…the truth opened my eyes to many things. About myself as much as about her.”

He is uncomfortable then, and Jaime cannot help the grin that spreads across his face. He recognizes the look very well.

“So the truth comes out. You love your wife,” he says.

Bran laughs. Abrupt. The sound startles Jaime; when last he saw Bran, he could not imagine a lad less likely to laugh, but there is real mirth in his voice.

“He’s been here only an hour and has already worked it out for himself,” Bran says. Jaime is, humiliatingly, a bit choked up with emotion. To see him made a boy again and not a blankly wise creature is a relief he did not know he needed. Sansa had written of Bran’s slow return to normalcy, and of course his prodding letters to Jaime in Kings Landing were always signs of some real emotion, but to actually see it…

He is teasing Jon openly. He is smiling at Jaime as if they are in a joke together. Jon’s weary sigh is very familiar to Jaime, reminding him of all the times he has sighed at his own brother’s shit-eating grin. It is so very normal.

“I wished to talk to Lord Bran, if you don’t mind,” Jaime says to Jon. “If you want the opportunity to make your escape. Otherwise, I am happy to continue to mock you. I’m sure your brother will help me.”

Jon looks to Bran for his permission, which Bran grants with a nod. Jon’s still smiling a bit even as he swirls his cloak and stalks away, his terrifying wolf melting out of the scenery to follow him.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Bran asks once they are alone. “I warn you, my powers aren’t what they were. I can still see, but it’s different. Oh, it was quite funny, what you did with the ravens. I do look through them, usually when I need to carry secret messages. It’s the easiest thing to do without the Three Eyed Raven. Jon thought it was funny too, when I told him, though he told me I shouldn’t tell Sansa.”

“I only wanted to ask you if this was one of the better outcomes for us,” Jaime says. “But I am happy to find you restored to yourself, even if it means a less prophetic conversation.”

“Are you? As the Three Eyed Raven, I had no reason to hate you.”

“And Bran Stark has every reason.”

Bran seems irritated by Jaime’s blank acceptance of that.

“It isn’t as fun to mess with someone who thinks he deserves every bad thing that happens to him and doesn’t think he’s earned any of the good. I don’t hate you, really. I was scared of you at first, and then I hated you. But then I saw you. The Three Eyed Raven helped me understand lots of people, but you most of all. I saw the things you did. And the things you felt. It isn’t easy to hate someone you understand.”

Jaime thinks of Brienne, and coming to understand her as they made their trek across the Riverlands. Yes, it was easy to hate her back at the start, when she was just an irritating, insane woman who seemed to want to be a knight from a song. It became less easy the longer they spent together. Everything he learned about her, every single tidbit of knowledge about herself that she dropped either willingly or unwillingly, led him deeper into understanding her until at some point it was just too much, and he no longer hated anything about her.

“Maybe not,” he says. “But I understand my own actions better than anyone, and I can loathe myself enough for both of us.”

Bran rolls his eyes.

“It is, by the way,” he says. “One of the better outcomes for everyone. There were worse.”

“Can you still see them?”

“Sometimes.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Not always. I would rather be me than him, even if he was more powerful.”

“Wise words,” Jaime says.

“They will call me that, I think, when Daenerys gives me the throne. Your brother will have…other suggestions. But I like Bran the Wise.”

Jaime stares at the boy, who stares back. That creepy smile is on his face again, but it’s more lifelike than it used to be.

“The throne,” he says.

“Yes,” Bran replies. “For a little while. I think I’ll melt it down. It hasn’t done anyone a bit of good. She’ll smile, when I do.”

“Why would she give you her throne?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Bran says. He sounds very young. Curiously upbeat. “But I look forward to finding out.”

Winterfell is still being repaired, and Jaime is glad to accept an offer of a tour from Jon. The damage from the battle was immense. Jaime hadn’t thought about it much at the time, but between the dragons flying around and the wights scrabbling up the old stonework and the fires being lit to keep the dead at bay, there’s hardly an area of the castle that doesn’t need new stone and wood.

“Bran has directed most of the building,” Jon says. “Because he knew Winterfell best. And he has some ideas for improvement.”

“You’ve managed a lot in such a short time, even with the losses you have suffered.”

“Daenerys has been generous with her aid. As have the Iron Islands, and Dorne. I am still unsure what kind of queen she will prove to be, but having the kingdoms united this way has been a boon. And what of Kings Landing?”

“It didn’t require much, and she saw to it quickly. Too quickly, maybe. The boredom eats her alive. I’m afraid of what she will do when she can no longer stand it.”

He thinks of Aerys again. Aerys with his daughter’s eyes and his daughter’s smile, wanting everything to burn. Maybe she would give her throne to Bran. Maybe the boy had the right of that. But would she give it to him willingly? And would she give it to him before a tragedy, or in the chaos of after? He doesn’t know.

“Yes,” Jon admits. His voice is quiet, knowing that Varys likely has spies even here, standing in the yard with no one about. “I worry about that, too.”

 The feast that has been planned for them is postponed until the rest of their party arrives in a few days time, but Sansa will not hear of their arrival going entirely unremarked, so they have a dinner with most of the available bannermen. Jaime’s ready to be defensive about his marriage, but they’re all well behaved under Sansa’s watchful eye. Whatever opinions they have about him, Brienne, or the unlikely pair they allegedly make, they keep them to themselves.

Brienne wears another gift from Sansa: a gown that is simpler than the one she had made for the wedding but still fits her in the same marvelous way. Jaime is grateful for his own sake, but he’s more grateful for Brienne’s; she cannot stop smiling. It makes him think he should be better about gifts. He did his best work all at once with armor and a sword and a horse and a squire. If he’d realized at the time that he had intentions of wooing her eventually, he would have been smarter and spread those gifts out. Now he’s got so few options. Better armor? A bigger horse? Three squires? He wishes he had Sansa’s ability to sew pretty things with such absurd speed, because Brienne’s looking charmed in her dress, and Jon’s looking pleased in a new doublet with wolves on it, and Bran has a lovely stitched blanket for his legs, and Jaime’s half convinced he’s going to find himself the owner of a nice little red slipcover for his stump, embroidered with lions and moons and sunbursts, which of course he would fucking love.

But no, he doesn’t have the patience for that, to say nothing of the skill.  He’s good at buying things. Commissioning them. He’s still a Lannister, after all. Spending money is what they do best.

“You look like you’re thinking,” Brienne says, in a warning tone that makes him laugh because it sounds so very wary.

“It’s been known to happen,” he says.

“Winterfell looks well.”

“Yes, it does. And that’s a nice dress. It suits you.” Brienne smiles a little. Sort of wry and disbelieving; she never believes the compliments he pays her. He turns to Sansa, on his other side. “Your grace, I was just remarking to my wife how much I like her in this dress. You have quite a skill. Her wedding gown was beautiful.”

Sansa is plainly pleased with the flattery, and he can see the girlish happiness behind her queenly mask.

“I am glad to hear it, Ser Jaime,” she says. “I’ve always liked embroidery and dressmaking, and no one deserved a beautiful marriage dress more than Brienne.”

Brienne blushes more deeply, then. She stutters out her thanks, and Jaime smiles at her.

His wife. His wife. This is one of those moments when it strikes him hard, how lucky he is. Married to the woman he loves. It need never go beyond this, and he will be happier than he deserves. He has made many vows in his life, but this is one that he will be glad to uphold.

The bed in Winterfell is unfortunately sizable, and covered in furs, but the Stark home is always so cold.

“How did you survive here for so long without me to warm your bed?” he jokes that first night. He is happy to be in Winterfell with Brienne, and happy to speak to Bran even though he’s more annoying now than he had been, and it makes him uncommonly open. He’s already under the furs while Brienne stokes the fire and then strips off the top two layers of her clothing. He holds open the blankets to let her in, then jokes, “hurry up, you’re letting in the cold,” which makes her laugh.

She doesn’t bother to keep to her side of the bed, though it’s almost as big as the one in Kings Landing. She huddles in the middle, and he huddles beside her, and slowly the blankets around them warm.

“I don’t think the cold bothers me nearly as much as it does you. You’re a pampered southern lordling, are you not?”

“Quite an attempt at insult, except that Tarth is south of Casterly Rock and Kings Landing both.”

“Yes, but it’s breezy on Tarth, and I’m not pampered at all.”

Jaime scoffs. He’s propped up on his left elbow beside her, while she lies on her back quite close, looking pleased with herself, waiting to hear his return jab. Quite without thinking, he touches the blanket over her stomach, sliding his right arm over it. Holding her with several layers between them. She looks down at it in surprise, but she doesn’t move it. They’re both slightly tipsy on celebratory wine, so it brings to mind the last time they were in Winterfell together. The godswood and the kiss on the cheek. Tentative touches. When he doesn’t move his arm, she covers it with one of her hands. Trembling slightly, he can tell. But she looks at him with full, uncomplicated boldness.

“Apparently I haven’t been doing my duty as a husband,” he says quietly. “If you don’t feel pampered.”

“I confess I don’t know much of the duties of married people. Are we meant to pamper each other?”

“From what I’ve seen at court, it’s the ladies who like to be pampered. But since I’m such a soft southern lordling, I wouldn’t mind a bit of it.”

She laughs, then, and her hand tightens on his stump, and all the cold in Winterfell can’t dispel this warmth from inside hm.

The following morning, Jaime tracks down Sansa and expresses a desire to give Brienne a gift. Sansa is pleased that he’s taking the initiative, and also pleased that he has come to her for advice. She’s so pleased that she makes him a gift of a new shirt of deep blue, almost black, with a lion embroidered in silver thread over the heart, and silver moons and gold suns on the collar.

“I wanted to wait until you earned it,” she says. She doesn’t sound like she’s joking, which of course makes it funnier. She offers to ride to Wintertown with him, as she is bound there to visit the market and see her people, anyway, and Jaime accepts gladly. Brienne and Jon are already outside, preparing to run some training drills with Winterfell’s depleted army, and they come up to see the party off. Bran gives Jaime a little wave from the balcony. Jaime can’t tell if he’s fucking with him or not, so he waves back instead of offering a rude gesture, mostly because he knows it’ll make Sansa and Jon both like him more if they notice. Maybe he’ll earn more gifts that way.

He notices before they go that Tormund Giantsbane is in attendance, prepared to watch the training, already eyeing Brienne with admiration, so before he mounts his horse in the courtyard, he presses a kiss to Brienne’s cheek.

“Lay Giantsbane flat for me, would you?” he asks in her ear afterward, and she laughs.

“Don’t pretend at jealousy. It’s a ghastly look on you,” she says. He grins cheekily back at her.

“I think it makes me seem rather young and dashing. Besides, who says I’m pretending?”

She smiles at him again, and there is something wistful in her expression, but he does not know quite how to interpret it, and Sansa is waiting. Jon is watching her with a concerned, pouty expression that makes Jaime want to laugh at him, though he manages to contain it until they’re riding away, with only a few guards to follow them.

They take up polite conversation about Winterfell’s repairs. He isn’t really sure how to talk to her, this young queen, now that they are alone. He doesn’t want to patronize her, because she is by all accounts a good queen, but he knew her when she was a child. Winterfell is ruled by children who grew up too fast. It doesn’t feel like talking to children, but he remembers when it did. He remembers when Bran was small enough to hold up by one arm. He remembers when Sansa shrank away from anything even slightly upsetting. He remembers when Jon was filled with a bastard’s youthful angst, a certainty that the entire world was against him. They are all grown now, but he sees the shadows of who they were, and he feels old for having outlived their parents. At least in Kings Landing, he had Tyrion and Varys and Jorah Mormont around. Other old men who had seen too much. Here, it’s children who are the ghosts of the people who came before.

Their polite conversation lasts only until they have ridden a bit ahead of their guards, and then Sansa turns a slightly piercing look in his direction.

“I was surprised when I received Brienne’s raven announcing your betrothal,” she says. Jaime grimly resigns himself to this. He supposes it makes sense. Selwyn Tarth was so blithely trusting about the whole thing. He should have expected scrutiny would come from somewhere.

“I imagine you would have been,” he says. “It was a surprise to me, too. The dragon queen…required it.”

“Yes, your brother sent me a message explaining the whole thing. Bran’s abilities have proven quite useful for passing messages through Sam without Varys or anyone else being able to intercept them. He told me that he was unsurprised when you chose Brienne.”

“She was my only choice,” Jaime says softly, and Sansa nods. She seems pleased to hear that. “She accepted quicker than I thought she would. But you know her better than anyone. She does like to fancy herself a knight from a song. A storied knight might ride in on white steed and lob the head off a dragon, but Brienne works with the tools she has. She cannot possibly hope to kill Drogon without burning to death, so she saves the fair maiden by cloaking him and setting him free.”

“Is there bitterness in your tone? I find it difficult to tell.”

“If there is bitterness, it is only for myself, your grace. And the situation I have gotten Brienne into. I am pleased to be married to her. I can think of no worthier wife.”

“No, I imagined that was the case,” Sansa says. She is looking at him very carefully. “I thought I had noticed some… deeper attachment in you when you were last here. I didn’t think you were particularly subtle, in the way you trailed after her everywhere she went. Only Tormund is more obvious. I was surprised when Brienne told me I was mistaken. That your affections for her are only those of friendship.”

Jaime flushes slightly. He can tell. He looks away, and Sansa hums under her breath, pleased. He finds himself irritated by that.

“As if I was the only one hiding my feelings while securing a marriage,” he snaps, and Sansa is silent. Rigid and tense. When he looks at her, her eyes are sharp. Cutting. She looks more like Catelyn Tully than she ever has. “Forgive me. That was…”

“Not untrue,” Sansa admits, though her tone is still harsh. “I didn’t think anyone noticed.”

“Yes, well you must admit I’m uniquely qualified to understand these things.”

“I had no intentions on acting on it. It was just…Jon was my brother, but he was more a stranger to me than anything else. And he cared about me. He was the first man in a long time that I truly trusted, to his core. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. I hadn’t felt so safe since I was a child.”

“I am sorry for all you have suffered at the hands of my family,” he says quietly, and she nods, though she brushes past it.

“I had never been in love before. Not really. I thought I loved your son, but that was when I was younger and didn’t know anything. So I didn’t recognize my…feelings for Jon. I didn’t think they were unusual at first. I thought it was simply gladness. To have my family nearby. But when he left, I longed for him, and when Littlefinger told me that he might want to wed Daenerys, I felt jealous. I hated to acknowledge it. I thought it made me like her.”

“Cersei?” he guesses. She nods. She won’t look at him.

“I thought she had broken something within me. That I could have such feelings for my brother...”

“You aren’t like Cersei,” he says. “Not in the ways you fear. But, speaking as someone who loved her, maybe you won’t take it as an insult when I say that I do see some parts of her in you. You have embodied some of her better qualities. It is quite a skill to learn from the people around you and to choose only their best parts to emulate. I think Cersei would have hated you for it, but I think she would have respected you for it, too. Loved you for it, even, if she weren’t so afraid of the power it gave you.”

“Thank you, Ser Jaime,” Sansa says. He can tell that his words have landed the way he wanted. She looks pleased. He hopes that it can give her some form of peace, to know that she is only like Cersei in the ways that make her a person to be admired. He clears his throat and changes the subject. He doesn’t like to talk of Cersei here, in the north, where all the trouble started.

“King Jon. Does he…does he return your affections?”

He does not know how to ask if she believes that Jon still pines for the dragon queen. He knows that Jon does not, but he doesn’t want to cause any unnecessary strife by mentioning her. He knows how a woman’s presence can linger long after she is gone.

“He does,” Sansa admits quietly. She brushes one hand, absently, over her still-flat abdomen. Jaime pretends not to have seen, though it’s hard to contain his shock. So soon after the wedding, too. They wasted very little time. “It was uncomfortable at first, but then we both realized that we were hiding love from each other. Each of us trying to pretend that it was only duty.” She laughs a tad ruefully. “We have a long way yet to go, but we have time. My mother once told me that her relationship with my father was not the easy thing of songs. Stone by stone, they built it. I have taken comfort in that, but in truth we were matched much more fairly than my parents. Jon and I are alike in a lot of ways. He has learned to seek my counsel, and I have learned to trust his. It is…maybe it isn’t at all like I thought it would be, back when I thought your son was the prince of my dreams. But it’s better than I have hoped for since I left Winterfell. I am very happy.”

“I’m glad to hear that, your grace.”

“Please don’t call me that. It makes me want to laugh every time. I was so frightened of you the first time I saw you. You were so handsome and gallant and older, until I knew you better. When you say “your grace” in that voice, it makes me think you’re being sarcastic.”

“I’m not,” he says with a chuckle. “If I were allowed to choose my queen, it would be you.”

“Arya said, ages ago, that you would be on our side, if Daenerys ever chose to move against us. I wasn’t sure you’d ever go against your brother.”

“Tyrion is frightened of Daenerys as well. I don’t think he would be too devastated if I chose to back you.”

“I’m happy to hear I have more friends in the south,” Sansa admits. “Though I should not have doubted. Married as you are to my closest one.” Jaime knows he gives himself away with the smile that he can’t help, and he sees Sansa notice it. “Did you think I would let this subject drop? You are as in love with your wife as I am with my husband.”

“Of course I am. You know her better than almost anyone. How could I not be in love with her?”

“Then why does she think that this is a simple arrangement?”

“She thought I only chose her for convenience and for the sake of friendship. Sensible is the word she used, and it has plagued me ever since. Sensible. Of course she would think it sensible. It is sensible. Except I’m in love with her, so it’s a bloody torture all the same. I wouldn’t give her up for anything, but it can be…chafing.”

“So why keep it from her? Why not tell her?”

“If you had seen me trying to flirt with her these past months, you would know. She remains utterly disinterested. She distrusts every kind thing I say about her, and I do not like to push her. I depend on her regard too much. I’m quite pathetic.” He sighs, hating the bitterness in his own tone, and he tempers it. “Marriage with her is sweeter than I deserve. I will take it gladly, torment or no. Just to have this time with her is…”

“You cannot be this stupid,” Sansa says, bluntly, and his jaw snaps shut as he glares at her.

“I’m not stupid,” he says, feeling like, well, like an old man arguing with a child’s taunts.

“Don’t act like it, then! Can you really believe her disinterested?”

“I believe in the proof she has shown me.”

Sansa glares at him. She appears to be considering what to say. Jaime is content to let her stew in silence, but then she lets out an explosive sigh and glances behind her to make sure they aren’t being listened to. Their guards are apparently far enough away for her, because she looks at him then with a blazing righteousness.

“I am going to tell you what she told me,” she says, glaring. “Breaking her confidence. Which I loathe to do, but I do it because I want her to be happy. Your wife is in love with you, you idiot.”

“What? No. She’s...what did she say, exactly, that made you think that, because...?”

“She said the words herself. Yesterday, not long after you left us. She believes that you asked her to keep from having to marry any other woman. She believes that you mean to keep your oath to Cersei, to remain only your sister’s, and that Brienne was chosen to serve as your shield against having to break that oath.”

“What?” Jaime asks, louder than he meant. He lowers his voice to a hiss. “That’s absurd. Tell her that’s absurd. I never...”

“You are old enough to be my father, and you’re demanding that I talk to your wife on your behalf? Tell her yourself!” Sansa exclaims. “The pair of you are like children. I tried to tell her she was mistaken, but you know how she is.”

“Stubborn,” Jaime concedes. “Pig-headed. So convinced of her own rightness that the idea of someone else being correct about something never even crosses her mind. Yes. Of bloody course she would think this. I thought she just knew that she was too good for me. That my honor was too stained for her to love with her whole heart. At least she would have been right about that. This is just…”

“Pathetic?” Sansa asks, sounding very unimpressed.

“That’s my wife you speak of,” Jaime reminds her absently. She smiles at him, taking pity on him.

“Yes it is, Jaime,” she says. “So what are you going to do to make sure she knows you mean the word in every possible way?”

Back at Winterfell, Jon and Brienne stand side-by-side as they watch the new recruits. Brienne’s brow is furrowed as she watches them. Jon looks physically pained.

“They’ll get better,” Brienne says.

“Oh, aye, they’ll improve. And there are no more wars to fight. Yet.”

“Yet,” Brienne agrees. Silence, then.

“He treat you right?” Jon asks. He sounds deeply uncomfortable. Brienne thinks longingly of the battle against the wights.

“He’s a good husband,” she says.

“Good. That’s good.”

Another silence. This time, she’s the one who breaks it.

“Sansa tells me that you two have grown to care for each other.”

“Aye. I love her.”

“That’s good.”

“Mm. And you? Do you…love? Ser Jaime?”

Mindful of Tormund Giantsbane across the yard, Brienne shrugs half-heartedly.

“I suppose I do,” she admits. Jon smiles a bit.

“That’s good,” he says, and silence reigns once more.

Much as they are both reluctant to admit it, Jaime and Sansa both plainly needed this afternoon together. Jaime has admired the Stark girl, but he had not thought they would have much in common. Yet they spend hours riding and talking of their marriages and their shared past and even his youthful regard for her mother before finally doubling back to Wintertown. There, she helps Jaime pick out several gifts for Brienne – delicate scarves, riding gloves, a new belt, several tunics and shirts and shifts in bright shades of blue and green that he knows his wife will like – and when they are finished, Jaime is more certain than ever that he would choose Sansa as queen. He sees the way she interacts with the people of Wintertown. She is kind to them, and earnest, but she doesn’t have the fawning obsequiousness of Margaery Tyrell. She knows the north too well to try and get away with that. She is instead stalwart, gentle but strong, without the guile that Jaime has been used to after years at court.

Jaime loved his sister, and Jaime misses his sister, but he is happy to see her queenliness evolved in Sansa Stark. Cersei hated Sansa so much that it nearly ruined the poor girl’s life, and now she is here, in the north where she is strongest, married to a man she loves, carrying his child. Sansa Stark has won despite his sister’s best efforts. And now she even has his loyalty. He says a brief apology to Cersei, wherever she is, but it’s true. Sansa would already have his fondness for the kindnesses that she has shown Brienne. But in the course of a single day, she has earned it for everything else, too.

When they return to Winterfell, Sansa fixes him with an imperious look, and she inclines her head towards the practice yard, where Jon and Brienne are just finished sparring. Jaime is unreasonably smug to see that Brienne has won – unreasonably only because of course she won – but Sansa doesn’t seem to care about that.

“You will speak to her, yes?” she asks. “If you don’t, I’m sure Bran and I could devise something embarrassing. It would be easier if Arya were here, but if it takes you so long that she’s back from her journey, there will truly be no hope for you.”

Jaime laughs, pleased by the small smile on her face. She is clearly proud of herself, and she seems younger than ever, in a way that makes his long-dormant fatherly instincts come out. Funny considering she’s the one parenting him.

“I’ll speak to her. Thank you. Your grace.”

“That time, it was sarcastic,” she says, trying not to smile at him and failing horribly.

“Of course it wasn’t, your grace,” he says, even more sarcastic than before.

Before dinner that night, Jaime hides most of his gifts for Brienne in the chest that he has been using for his clothing, but he gifts her with the belt because it would look nice with the clean white shirt and gray breeches she has chosen to wear. She’s more pleased with it than he expected her to be, and also utterly baffled, and it makes him feel warm inside when she fastens it around her waist.

He means to wait until later, but he finds that he cannot. He can’t even wait for dinner to pass, because suddenly the idea of sitting through a whole meal with Sansa watching him and Brienne not knowing is unbearable. She loves him, Sansa claimed, and Jaime doesn’t think she was lying. And now he sees evidence where caution before would not let him hope. She looked at the belt with so much emotion in her eyes. She always touches him so gently. So reverently. When they sleep, they both gravitate towards one another, and he knows that he does it out of love, so perhaps it’s possible that she does the same.

“Brienne,” he says, from where he sits on the bed. She turns to look at him, and he loves her. His wife. He stands up and approaches her, and she watches him warily but lets him, because she trusts him. He cups her cheek in his hand, and he swallows his own fear and allows his stump to rest on her shoulder. She grabs it with her own fingers, soothing him because of course she noticed the effort, though she still looks confused.

He kisses her.

He doesn’t think he has ever kissed so tentatively. Not even when he was a boy and kissing Cersei was not yet habit. He imagines he can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. It is little more than a peck. It is little more than the kiss that sealed their marriage. But it feels- he feels…

“Why did you do that?” she asks. Her voice is low and wary, but she still holds his stump, and she does not back away.

“I have not been entirely honest with you,” he says. He takes his hand off her face, because he needs to curl and unfurl his fingers by his side, nervousness taking over. “Brienne, I asked you to marry me because- because I love you. Because I have been in love with you for…for years, maybe. I wanted to kiss you in Winterfell, but I was a coward, and I didn’t. I told myself that I didn’t deserve you. I told myself that I was fortunate to even be your friend. But the truth is that I want to kiss you, and bed you, and give you tall, stubborn children who could knock me to the ground with tourney swords. I wanted to kiss you every day we spent sparring in the Red Keep, and when Daenerys told me I must marry and leave Kings Landing with my bride, my only care was to wonder if you would have me.” She is staring at him, her eyes wide, plainly astonished, and he cannot read anything else in her expression. “Please say something. I’ll flounder on like an idiot if you don’t. If I have misunderstood, if I am alone in my affections just…”

“You haven’t,” Brienne says, jerking slightly, holding his stump tighter. “You aren’t.” Jaime’s jaw clenches, because he would otherwise release a very undignified, relieved sigh. “I thought that you chose me because I was the only woman who would understand that you wished to remain loyal to your sister.”

“I know what you thought,” he says. He reaches for her hand almost shyly with his own, and she is the one who intertwines their fingers. Jaime feels such relief. “The truth is that I can think of no worse fate than remaining loyal to Cersei. When she chose to die, she wanted me to go with her. She was disgusted when I would not leave this world with her. She would have had me die by her side, and you have chosen, over and over, to fight for me to live. You were willing to fight Grey Worm for me. You lied to the queen for me. You married me because you thought you were protecting me, even at the risk of your own heart. I loved Cersei. I did. But even if she were standing in front of me now, I could never choose her. The man who would have, he was a lifetime ago. There’s only me, now. And the man who is left would follow you anywhere. Would have lived beside you in chaste harmony, a Kingsguard guarding his queen, for all my days, because I thought it a privilege just to be beside you. I told Sansa already, but it’s quite pathetic. Sometimes I can’t believe myself. Sometimes I think Tyrion devised this whole scheme just to get me away from him because I annoyed him with my pining.” He laughs a little, hearing the desperate quality of it. He hasn’t felt so young in so many years. He should be embarrassed, he thinks, but he can’t be. “You married me for such noble reasons, thinking you were saving me, not realizing I was just…looking for reasons to marry you.”

“Well you could have done a better job of explaining that,” Brienne points out, testy, her happiness not diminishing her defensiveness at all, and he loves her so much.

“Every time I tried to flirt, you thought I was mocking you!”

“You’re not very good at flirting, then,” Brienne says stubbornly, but he can see the red in her face and he knows that she’s lying. He grins at her, and he tugs her closer by their bound hands.

“You still chose to marry me,” he says.

“Yes, I did. And you have tormented me for it since,” she says. But her voice is soft, and she is looking down at him with a searching kind of fondness. “I would have married you anyway. Even if I felt nothing more than friendship for you. Because you are my friend, and because you needed me, and because I would do anything to help you. But I do love you. I have loved you. More every day since I’ve known you. It made the decision all the easier.”

“I think I require some proof,” he says softly, which makes her groan, and then roll her eyes, and then kiss him while he’s still laughing at her performed reluctance.

“You were right,” he whispers to Sansa later, at dinner, as Brienne and Jon discuss something probably important several seats away. Sansa probably already knows she was right, considering how smug she has looked since they arrived for dinner, Brienne with her new belt and a new scarf and also a new tunic because Jaime got a bit caught up in the excitement and gave all his gifts at once, like he promised himself he wouldn’t do.

“Of course I was right,” she says. She takes a sip of water from a wine goblet, because clearly she hasn’t chosen to share the information of her pregnancy with everyone yet. Jaime wonders if Jon knows. Jaime wonders if he’ll be a father one day, too. A true father, able to hold his child in his hand and watch them grow and hear them call him father more than once.

“I can’t believe I thought she didn’t love me,” he says, leaning back in his chair, trying to capture some of that smug, golden lion smarm that always made Catelyn Tully roll her eyes at him while fighting a smile during his visit to Riverrun when they were young. Her daughter doesn’t disappoint, and she even snorts a little and waves her hand to dismiss him.

“I can’t believe she chose you of all people,” she says. “You can’t imagine how many of the free folk have asked me about her. Tormund’s the most persistent, but they all think she’s spectacular.”

“You’re trying to make me jealous, but it isn’t going to work.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, because she loves me. I’m too happy to be jealous.”

Sansa smiles at him softly, and she touches her stomach again, resting her hand over it.

“I’m glad,” she says, sounding confused. “May the gods forgive me, but I am. For her, mostly. But for you, too. We could all use a little more happiness, I think.”

“It’s going to be a boy,” Bran whispers suddenly from Jaime’s other side. He jumps a little and flinches, startled to see how close Bran is.

“What?” he asks. Sansa turns to listen to something that Jon is saying, and Bran leans in closer.

“The babe,” he says. “It’s going to be a boy. They’ll name him after you.”

“What? Really?”

“Of course not,” Bran laughs, loud. “You? They’ll name the babe after Robb.”

“You are such an ass now. I think I liked you better when you were that terrifying god thing.”

“No you didn’t,” Bran says, knowing, and of course he isn’t wrong about that, either.

Jaime likes the journey by sea even more than the one by land. He likes the open air, and he likes the ease with which Brienne takes to the crew of the ship. All she had to do was prove her competence with sailing, and they welcomed her gladly. Jaime’s been puffed up with pride the whole voyage watching her work, though the sailors mock him quietly for being a useless lordling and other, less savory things when Brienne isn’t around to make them hold their tongues. They have a room with a bed that’s frightfully small. Jaime loves it. Jaime is tired of bigger beds. He cannot ever be too close to her.

When at last the skies are clear enough, and they are near enough, Jaime stands at the prow and leans his elbows against the railing. Tarth is still hazy from this distance, and it doesn’t quite look real, yet. It has the shimmery sheen of a mirage, and Jaime looks forward to standing here and watching it approach, knowing it is to be his home.

He hears her footsteps, and then she is there, wrapping her arms around his chest from behind and pulling him back against her.

“I went looking for you,” she says. “I wanted to show you this. I see you’ve already found it.”

Her voice is low and fond in his ear, and her arms are tight around him, and he is safe. Surrounded by her. Wrapped up in her. She loves him. She is his wife.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever deserve this,” he says, and he reaches up to hold on to her arm, his thumb brushing over her sun-red forearm, exposed by the rolled-up sleeve of her tunic. “You’ve saved me. Protected me. Made me want to fight again. Gave me your name and your cloak. All of that to a man who hardly earned it.”

“I know you don’t understand it yet,” she says. She presses a kiss to his jaw, to his temple. She’s nuzzled very close. His warrior woman made soft by him. “But we have the rest of our lives together. I’ll make sure you get it one day. Even you aren’t that stubborn.”

Jaime laughs at her, and he turns his head to look at her well loved, freckled face, made beautiful by time and affection. He has to kiss her, and her arms are still holding him tight, protecting him from anything that would try to take him away from her. Himself included. His own idiotic self-loathing included.

“The rest of our lives together,” he echoes. He cannot think of a kinder fate.