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Noise echoed off the dour halls of Winterfell’s great hall, now full of gleaming candlelight and those who had survived.

If more than most were more than halfway to intoxicated, Jaime could hardly blame them- as he’d pointed out to Brienne, if now wasn’t the time to celebrate, when was.

Brienne, who gleamed rose and pale gold in the candlelight despite her bruises. Brienne, who, when she smiled at him, looked almost happy.

Jaime leaned closer and said smugly, “You are an only child.”

The drinking game had been Tyrion's idea, of course, and she barely refrained from rolling her eyes, but a smile tugged her lips. “I told you I was.”

An odd feeling bloomed in his chest as she held his gaze, something shifting in her own. He shook his head, speaking around the tightness. “I surmised it.”

She drank.

Her eyes narrowed, and she fixed her gaze on Tyrion. “You were married before Sansa.”

Tyrion’s face tightened, went lax, and then he toasted her with a slightly cruel twist to his lip. A niggling feeling of unease crept into Jaime’s veins even before his brother glanced at him without turning his eyes, a trick he’d perfected during their childhood when he wanted to communicate a message to his elder brother that couldn’t be said out loud.

The niggling increased into an encompassing, vibrating stillness like being on the battlefield.

And still he wasn’t fast enough, because Tyrion fixed the not-inconsiderable intensity of his attention on Brienne with the Lannister focus everyone forgot him capable of because he so often played the fool and pronounced,

“You’re a virgin.”

Everything went very still in the hall and it took a moment for the words to catch up to what Jaime’s body had heard.

When they did, however, Jaime looked immediately to Brienne.

Brienne, who had gone still as stone, gripped the table, and pushed herself to her feet with the same stiff ease with which she downplayed any injury on the training field.

Jaime had just shoved his own self back, being sure to step on Tyrion’s foot as he struggled over the bench, when the red-headed wildling bounded up with fervor.

He wasn’t sure exactly what they said, only that Brienne pushed by him with a barely-polite snarl and stalked out of the hall.

Jaime clapped the man on the shoulder to keep him in place and pushed past as well, fighting the battle-ache in his bones to hurry after Brienne.

He couldn’t see it, but behind him Tyrion was looking very smug.

Jaime exited the great hall and cast around the corridor. There- walking fast and deliberate at the end of the hall. Brienne wasn’t easy to hide. He started after her, about to call out, then stalled, and watched her shadow loom and fade down the wall as she turned the corner that would take her to her room.

Swallowing, Jaime turned and went the other way down the hall.

Torchlight flickered as Jaime juggled the cups and wine bottle into his elbow so he could knock on her door with his left hand. The sound barely carried. From below the door he could see firelight, so it was likely she hadn’t yet gone to bed.

Grimacing, he shifted everything to his left hand and pounded the wood more loudly with his right.

The gold hand echoed.

He winced, swallowed, waited.

Silence came from the other side of the door, somehow charged.

The door opened: Brienne stood there, gripping it tightly. He got a glimpse of wide blue eyes- startled at the sight of him, as she rarely allowed herself to be- but what caught his attention was the lack of armor, the softness of her shirt, slightly open at the throat, the mussed nature of her hair, as if she’d run her fingers through it again and again.

Jaime swallowed, brandished his peace offering, his only weapon, and stepped into the breach.

“You didn’t dr-”

“Kingkiller!”

Jaime stopped completely at the sight of Tormund Giantsbane grinning at him from the middle of Brienne’s room. Firelight flickered on his wild hair, his fur-lined clothing and cloak, making him look even more feral and looming than usual.

Jaime’s lips twisted and he gestured with the wine. “Sorry, Giantsbane. I only brought two cups.”

Giantsbane’s smile turned slightly wicked. “For me and my betrothed? Didn’t expect a southern ponce to be so thoughtful.”

Jaime sneered, eyes flicking to Brienne, who was looking distinctly uncomfortable. “The day you work up the courage to actually propose- never mind the day Brienne ACCEPTS- I’ll give you all the gold in Casterly.”

Giantsbane held out a massive hand, palm up, and made a grabbing motion with a deep chuckle. “Pay up, fancy fucker.” The smirk deepened. “Maybe I’ll buy my bride a sword.”

“She already HAS a sword.” Brienne remained unusually silent and Jaime’s chest twisted. He drew up short, glancing at her. “He’s joking.” When Brienne still did not immediately refute this absolute farce, it was all he could do to gape at her. “You’re JOKING.”

Brienne’s chin came up. “He’s not.” He recognized her expression; it was a very specific kind of stubbornness with which Jaime was well acquainted: the kind where she set aside herself because honor dictated and she would go through with it to avoid being shown up. “Just now.”

Still clutching the wine and cups in his left hand, Jaime punched Giantsbane hard in the face with his right.

The room descended into an oddly silent blur, offering startling disconnected images of Giantsbane laughing as they brawled. Jaime dropped the cups but went at him with the wine flagon, the only weapon he had on hand. He was drunker than he’d like, lulled by good feelings at the feast, the firelight in Brienne’s eyes. He hadn’t expected a fight coming here- though of course he should have, of COURSE he should have- and now he was hating himself for it.

Giantsbane ducked the swings and barreled into him, landing a blow to his cheek and nose that rocked Jaime’s head back and made him dizzy. He worked his knee into the other man’s spleen and brought his aching skull cracking onto Tormund’s with an echoing yell.

“Enough!”

Brienne’s shout was enough to finally pull them apart, Tormund grinning in a blood frenzy, Jaime panting in rage. He could feel warm liquid down his face but whether it was blood or sweat he couldn’t tell.

“What’s a betrothal without a little blood?” Ginger brows waggled wickedly as he passed Jaime in his way for the door and he shoved Jaime’s shoulder with his own provocatively, put his fleshy lips right at Jaime’s ear: “But usually it’s the maiden’s blood.”
Before Jaime could retaliate he was out the door, calling jauntily, “Anon, my sweet! I’ve an announcement to make!”

The door closed and Brienne made no move to stop the wildling’s exit, though Jaime caught a faint wince before her face went to stone.

He turned to her, grimacing at the pain in his head as he did so, but that was hardly his most pressing concern. “Announce- Brienne. What-”

“You’re dripping.” Her tone was clipped and he continued to gape at her. She rolled her eyes, stepping into his space and obscuring the drops of blood he now saw splattering the floor. His hand came to his face of its own accord and she swatted it away impatiently. “Oh, move aside.”

Eyes fixed on her work, she carefully blotted the blood streaming from his nose with the corner of her own shirt.

Jaime could do nothing but stare at her.

“Brienne,” he said thickly.

He didn’t mean to notice it, but from this vantage point, closer than he’d ever been to her when she wasn’t wearing armor, closer than he’d ever been to her, period, other than when he’d been near death and delirious and in no fit state to notice, he could see now that she had an awfully lot of skin. She smelled good, too- warm and like woodsmoke and something vaguely… soft.

The wildling had perhaps hit him harder than he’d thought.

“He came here right before you did,” Brienne said quietly, quite detached, keeping her eyes on her work. By the clip of her tone she was quite put out at him, but her hands were the same gentle touch he remembered. He fought not to lean into it.

She must have heard the question in his stance, for she continued, slightly resentful: “And, as you all so helpfully pointed out in the hall, my father lacks heirs. It seemed a sensible solution.”

Jaime hissed as she started on a particularly painful cut above his eyebrow. How had Giantsbane gotten in so many scores? Had he used his fingernails, like-

“The hell with that.” Jaime squirmed away from her and her gentle touch. “Sensible solution. It hasn’t mattered before!”

Her eyes flicked to his, the blue burn of a candleflame. “Hasn’t it?” Her throat caught at this last and she swallowed. He continued to sneer at her and her lip curled in turn. “It’s always mattered. I’ve just been… busy.”

At this, she didn’t quite meet his gaze.

He glared at her, batting her hand away. “And? So? There’s still a war on!”

She stepped back, dropping her shirt, lips tight. That stubbornness was rising. “I don’t care who holds King’s Landing. Sansa’s not going, so I’m not going.” Her lip trembled and she stopped it ruthlessly. “I’m going home.”

“Home.” He spat the word. “For all you know your home is a wasteland.”

Her eyes flashed. “Then I’ll go to HIS home!”

“He doesn’t want you- he wants a trophy! He’s a brute, Brienne, who fucks bears!”

Some detached part of Jaime’s brain distantly pointed out he might not want to bring up disparaging conversation about who was fucking who.

Her face said she knew it. “He’s a good match.”

Rage kindled in him; bitterness fanned it. “A good match. A good mat- it’s insulting!”

Color blazed on her cheeks. “It’s not like I have many options!”

Jaime scoffed. “No? You’re a godsdamned HERO, Brienne of Tarth, you could have anyone! Jon-”- a scornful look- “Podrick-” incredulous horror- “ME-”

The air changed in the room and it was oddly hard to breathe.

They looked at each other through tension solid as ice.

Brienne recovered first. “You’re kingsguard.”

She didn’t sound terribly convinced and for a moment Jaime felt a wild flare of hope.

“Dismissed,” he said, hoarse. He stepped forward, suddenly desperate that she know. “I came north for-”

“Duty,” she finished for him, sounding much more certain. And much more sad. “Which you’ve fulfilled.”

He found he could merely gape at her in silence. It appeared he was a craven, after all. When it counted.

She swallowed, not quite meeting his eyes. “He’s a good man. He won’t… take anything I’m not willing to give.”

Jaime snorted. He couldn’t in any universe imagine Brienne WANTED the man. But if the point of the marriage was to give her father heirs, then that would imply at some point she might become WILLING to… His mind shied from this enough to finally register what she’d said.

He found it difficult to speak around his clenched jaw, his futile rage. He wanted to hit something. “I never TOOK ANYTHING from you-”

He stepped forward, then stopped, struck. Were those TEARS catching the light in her eyes, or merely the reflection of the flames?

“No,” she agreed in a whisper, swallowing, lashes pale and clumped and flicking away. “No. Everything you took I gave freely. There was never any choice when it came to you, Ser Jaime.” And then, so soft he almost couldn’t be sure he heard: “And no chance.”

His ire completely crumpled in the face of her distress.

He swallowed.

“Then I wish you happy.” He did, he thought, an admirable job of keeping the disdain out of his voice.

She winced, leading him to believe he had not been successful, squared her shoulders like she was going into battle. Closed her eyes and got the words out anyway.

“I would- ask. You. To…”

“I’ve wished you happy. What more could you possibly want from me.”

“I… have no one to give me away. At the… wedding.”

He’d never heard her so uncertain and vulnerable and he bore down on her in fury, sneering.

“Surely your esteemed Lady Sansa would-”

“I want it to be you.”

“WHY?” he exploded. “So you can mock me? So they all can? How long do you intend to parade me on your leash, LADY Brienne?”

He cut himself off at the truly stricken look on her face and his own face fell as though the inferno of his rage had been doused at once. It left him feeling… very tired.

“I’m sorry,” he said thoughtlessly. Heavily. “That wasn’t meant for you.”

If anything, she looked even more stricken.

“Why me.” This much too soft, but it was the only volume he could manage.

She licked her lips, but she pushed forward anyway. “You- you knighted me. I thought you at least- at least regarded me as-”

“Sansa is your liege. She-”

“Please, Ser Jaime.”

He’d never heard her say his name like that before, as if she wasn’t saying it to remind him of anything. It sounded like she was saying it just for herself.

“Of course. Commander.” She winced, faintly, and Jaime, who had been subject to cruel maiming, his cruel father and even crueler twin for most of his life, and who had just fought the dead and survived, thought he’d never felt so defeated. “When.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s… uncertain. That is, he just asked tonight. I mean- it would depend on the troops’ movements. Sometime before he- we-”

Leave. Head north into that frozen hellhole that would take her from him forever.

“There’s time,” she finished softly, rather miserably.

Time. Jaime nodded wordlessly, not trusting his voice, then turned and left.

He was halfway down the hall before he realized he’d left the wine in her room, which was too bad, because he desperately could use a drink.

He was too late. He was always too late.

He found Tyrion in the hallway the morning after, when the revelers of the night before had dragged themselves out of bed to begin rebuilding. He found his clever little brother striding rather unsteadily down the hall, and Tyrion beamed a little sardonically when he saw who approached him.

“Ah, elder brother!” he greeted. “I’ve heard news of an engagement, so I trust last night went well. Though I am rather put out you didn’t come and inform me personal-”

Jaime slammed him so hard into the unyielding stone wall that for a moment he was worried he’d hurt him.

Tyrion seemed slightly worried too, if his hugely round, hungover eyes were anything to go by.

“Was it punishment?” Jaime demanded. “Was it vengeance for what I did with Tysha, is that it?”

Tyrion’s eyes went wide. “Jaime. What-”

“If you ever,” Jaime snarled, “interfere with my life again, I shall drop kick you to the dragons and dance in your ash as it rains from the sky.”

Tyrion stammered, licking his lips. “But- YOU were never going to say anything and SHE was never-”

“If I was as good a swordsman as you are a thinker, it’s no wonder I only have one hand.”

Voices echoed down the hall around the corner. Jaime glanced; Tyrion glanced: Sansa appeared, walking with Daenerys, Jon, and Varys. Their little altercation hadn’t been seen yet, but it would be soon.

Tyrion swallowed, eyes locked on Daenerys, then skimming away. “I just wanted to help-”

“How’s that going for you?” Jaime sneered, releasing his brother. “It’s a wonder she HASN’T cut out your tongue.” He barely caught the sheepish, resentful look Tyrion threw at him before sweeping down the hall and out of sight

Rumor spread of Brienne’s engagement like wildfire. There had been bad news for so long and Tormund was loved by the northmen for reasons Jaime couldn’t possibly fathom. Brienne was even more beloved, much more sensibly, so he could understand the interest, but couldn’t grasp how they could possibly let the match stand. Perhaps it was a mockery of her. That this was the best she could get.

His fists clenched.

Time, she had said. Time enough for what he wasn’t sure, but a strange pressure took up in his chest and wouldn’t be dislodged.

He threw himself into the renovation effort in an effort to keep his mind off of… well, everything, really. He kept his head down and his ego low, did whatever odious but necessary tasks they saw fit to direct him with. The work did need to get done, but he wouldn’t put it past the northmen to get in a dig at the Kingslayer after all these years. The work was intensely physical, though, for which he was grateful, and Jaime couldn’t contain years of commanding if he tried, so if some things got done more efficiently than they might have otherwise, it was what it was. If Brienne noticed, she kept her observation to herself.

Once, when he happened to be returning from assessing the repairs to a section of the outer walls and saw Brienne, too, heading into the courtyard and out of the cold, he waited and held the door for her. She saw him, her stride faltered, and a small furrow appeared between her brows. But she nodded at him, stiff and almost shy, and he nodded back. She ducked through the door and he followed the swirl of her cloak, rolling his eyes at himself.

Two days later he came into the great hall, only to be greeted with the sight of Brienne and Giantsbane surrounded by a gaggle of well-wishers. Giantsbane babbled exuberantly while Brienne merely pushed her food around her plate, her expression distant, polite.

Jaime frowned in the doorway, thoughts of food forgotten. Couldn’t the man see that this public display was worse for her than war?

Jaime strode over. “Commander,” he declared, bowing his head slightly, sparing a nod for the other man and ignoring the collection of wildlings and northmen completely. “I’d like to discuss the rearmament of the troops preparing to go south, when it is convenient for you.”

Brienne stood, pushing away her plate. “I’m at liberty now, Ser Jaime. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

“You’ve barely touched your meat-”

“On the contrary,” Brienne said coolly. “I’ve quite finished.” She threw Tormund a marginally softer look. “I trust you will see that the rest of it does not go to waste.” She nodded to the others. “Excuse me.”

She proceeded Jaime out of the hall, navigating tables and benches with long strides. Behind them Giantsbane’s voice boomed off the rafters, undeterred in his boasting, but Jaime felt the man’s eyes on the back of his neck like arrows.

When they reached the corridor beyond the hall, he gathered his breath as they stood together, awkward. Jaime looked at her, felt he could look at her forever. “For future reference, I hear crossbows are quite good for deterring bears.”

Brienne’s lips quirked, her almost-smile lighting her eyes, and Jaime heart thumped in victory. Then she swallowed and the light vanished. “We’ll speak of the troops later, Ser Jaime. I need to get back to Sansa.”

She gave Jaime one barely perceptible glance of gratitude, and then she proceeded to disappear for the next full day.

If anything, the rumors worsened.

Jaime was in a true temper by the time he glimpsed Giantsbane’s red hair in the inner courtyard, and then, to his dismay, Brienne’s pale gold, having spent most of the past thirty-six hours trying to track her down without admitting it to himself. The wildling was leaning down to whisper in her ear, and her lips quirked up. Before Jaime could process this, she had stepped briskly away from the warm walls of Winterfell and out into the cold after him.

A pair of onlookers watched them go, not quite as quiet as they could have been in the Kingslayer’s hearing. “No wonder she finally said yes,” one of them sighed with something like worship. “Need a big cock to satisfy a big woman.”

Or perhaps they knew of Jaime’s presence after all.

He found them outside in the frosty air, standing rather close together and apparently discussing the rebuilding of one of the roofs off the outbuildings attached to one of the towers, though their voices didn’t carry. Jaime glowered.

Brienne smiled at her betrothed- it was slightly stiff, but it appeared she was making a true effort. Her cheeks were bright with cold and though Tormund wore his customary thick fur cloak, she was in nothing but her blue armor. Jaime’s heart jolted to see its familiar patina next to her pink cheeks.

Jaime blew on his hand in the biting wind.

When the wildling had sauntered off, having kissed Brienne’s bare hand, Jaime approached, glowering and shrugging out of his own cloak.

“Take it,” he grumbled, holding it out to her.

Brienne regarded him, faint surprise and confusion on her face, before she became unreadable once more. “I’m quite well, Ser Jaime. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Take it,” Jaime repeated with something of a snarl, shoving the cloak toward her again. “I’m frozen just looking at you.”

She studied him, but finally accepted the cloak and he helped her swing it around her shoulders. “Thank you,” she allowed, stepping back to a safer distance.

Jaime sneered. “Your dashing betrothed didn’t offer you his, I see. Perhaps it was an old paramour and he didn’t want to share. Jealousy’s a bitch.” He smiled at her, feeling the cruelty in it but unable to stop himself. “Seems a shameful lack of foresight, really- it’s at cross-purposes if you die a maid.” At her expression of shock he barreled on. “Or maybe you aren’t any longer? Perhaps that’s why you’re entertaining this insane farce-”

Her cheeks flooded with color and she drew herself up furiously. Her hand, instinctively, went to Oathkeeper’s hilt, and Jaime felt a moment of primal triumph and panic, both. Ah. “Is that what this is- what I am to you? A jape?”

Jaime snarled, shoved the breastplate of the armor he had commissioned her so hard he felt her shift her balance in surprise to support it. He had never once touched her like this. He shot out his left hand and slapped at the hilt of Oathkeeper, still at her side. For an electrifying moment their bare skin met when her other hand snapped down and she gripped his wrist warningly. Jaime, heated, wrenched his hand away and tugged at the cloak- his own cloak!- that he’d just thrown around her shoulders. “I thought what you’re WORTH to me was quite clear,” he spat. “My apologies. My lady.”

He stormed off without looking back at her, leaving her alone in the snow.

Now new rumors swept through Winterfell: the Kingslayer was jealous. This news did not improve Jaime’s mood.

Tyrion, when they met unexpectedly walking the walls some days later, counseled him to tone it down. He was embarrassing them both.

Jaime shot him a glare worthy of Tywin. “Perhaps I should be the one to suggest the tongue to Daenerys. It would likely improve her opinion of me. What do you think?”

Tyrion sneered.

“Or maybe I’ll just pitch you over the parapet,” Jaime continued, warming to his theme. “I’ve gotten quite good at flinging small bodies from tall heights.”

Tyrion laughed, bitter. “Dear brother. There’s not much more you can do to wound me.” Jaime knew this was patently untrue, but was equally unsure just what he COULD do to this newly armored version of his younger brother.

He was still stewing over it (and if his gaze drifted down to Brienne and her giant where they watched the troops in the courtyard, well, then, she was simply in the way) when footsteps approached on the cold stone.

“You’ve been helping with the reconstruction.”

Jaime startled to find Sansa beside him. Her eyes flicked from Tyrion’s stormy retreat back to his own defensive stance. Her gray gaze was, typically, unreadable.

“I have.”

“Why.”

“I made a vow.”

“You promised to fight for the living. We lived.”

Jaime couldn’t help his glance down to the courtyard, where Brienne stood making sure that the troops under her command did not lose their edge. They were not done fighting.

Jaime pulled himself back and gave Sansa the smallest of nods. “You did. But a one handed man was likely of little consequence in the midst of battle. My duty was to defend you.” They both knew what Cersei was capable of. “Once you’re properly defended, then…”

“Then?”

Again, his eyes strayed. Sansa followed Jaime’s line of sight.

“She vouched for you.”

Far below, Tormund leaned in close to say something, and Brienne linked her arms behind her back. Jaime swallowed.

“Yes.”

Sansa kept her eyes on the scene. “I will not have you tarnish her happiness. There is no one who deserves it more.”

Jaime snorted, watching the two of them together. “If you think this is happiness, you don’t know anything about Brienne. She is doing this out of duty.” She never did anything else.

Sansa regarded him fiercely. “Enlighten me what you know of happiness, Ser Jaime?”

Jaime grit his teeth against blurting out that that the happiest he’d been was being dragged by Brienne through the Riverlands, both of them at the ends of their ropes. Perhaps he had no ground to stand on.

He thought, then, of her demanding that he live. Of the fight in her eyes, the hard words she knew would provoke him the most. Thought of her eyes as he knighted her, her incandescent smile in return, but these didn’t matter because Sansa was still talking: “You think you’ll be able to bring Brienne happiness?” and Jaime’s chest tightened.

“What would you know about it,” Jaime snarled, jerking out of the force of her gaze and leaving without even a bow.

“Very little,” Sansa’s words followed him as he strode down the wall. “The Lannisters saw to that.”

Jaime ducked into the tower at the end of the wall, swallowed immediately by shadows. The stairs loomed before him as his cloak swirled around, giving him the dizzying sensation of standing on a cliff by the sea while he caught his breath around the sudden squeezing of his heart.

As he clattered down the stairs, Sansa’s words echoed: “The Lannisters saw to that… Lannister… Lan is ter…”

Jamie broke out into the silver sunlight, scowling. “You,” he snapped at a startled, barrel-chested northman whose cloak could not disguise the slightly hollowed feel of a big man who was starving. “Fetch the mason, the one with the ears. He’s done half-assed shoring on the north gate, you can see it clear as day from the wall.” The man blinked. Jaime glared. “Be quick about it. There’s only so much daylight left.”

The man scurried off and Jaime stood in the courtyard with clenched fists, scanning the empty sky.

Faintly from the other side of the wall he heard Brienne admonish her troops, but he couldn’t hear what it was she said.

That night at dinner, Jaime watched Gilly with little Sam. She kept a hand on her stomach, and glowed with a certain kind of certainty. Jon was saying something to Big Sam, who was detaching the young boy’s curious grip from his face with amused patience.

Brienne watched too. Her eyes flicked to Tormund. She caught Jaime’s eye as if she felt his gaze. Her cheeks flushed and she immediately returned her attention to her plate.

Sansa watched them both.

Jaime stabbed his stew.

They crammed the tiny turret room that held the map of Westeros, with its carved pieces upon it- Danaerys, Sansa, Varys, Tyrion, Davos, Jon. Brienne. Jaime, against all assumptions. Giantsbane lounged nearby, but it was not his war and Jaime had no idea why he was even there.

“- scorpions on the walls. Euron Greyjoy was supposed to bring his fleet with the Golden Company, but I’m not sure where they actually are by now. Cersei is protected by the Mountain at all times. Qybern did something- he’s not human, anymore. He’s- reborn.” Davos looked at Jon and he thought there might be a story there, but now was not the time. “But you can get into her rooms. There is a passageway through the back of the wardrobe; it comes out into the tunnels under the palace. I’m sure Tyrion and Varys can explain them to you- they know all about the most efficient expulsion of shit from the Red Keep.” Tyrion snorted and Jaime leaned back, placing the last of the markers in their final positions and toppling the queen. “If you can get in there without anyone knowing and taking her by surprise... you risk the man you send in, but you have the chance to spare the city from open war.”

He found he was breathing hard and wasn’t sure why.

Jon shared a glance with Davos, who studied the board and nodded. He glanced at Daenerys. “It’s a sound idea.”

The little queen leaned closer to him, her face like marble. “Why would you help us now?”

Jaime shrugged. “I’ve damned myself once to save this city from a madman, I may as well do it again.”

“Saved it from my father, you mean.”

“You have dragons, your father had wildfire. Your grace. If I had not stopped him, everyone in that city was going to die. I pray you are not your father.”

Daenerys blinked, once, the only sign she was startled. Perhaps her pale cheeks went a shade paler. “And so you killed the man you were duty-bound to protect.”

“To save the innocents I was also duty-bound to protect.” His lip curled. “You are young, your grace, but I suspect you will find duty damns us all.”

“And that’s why you help us now.” The little queen glanced between him and Brienne. Then at Sansa. “For duty.”

Jaime swallowed. He regarded them- Daenerys, Sansa. Brienne. Brienne, who was watching him with quiet, certain pride buried deep in her blue gaze. Jaime dragged his gaze back to the queen. “There… may also be a child.”

Tyrion looked away.

Daenerys's brows rose as she smiled very faintly. “Ah. Now we get to it. Perhaps not duty after all.”

“Duty without love is slavery,” Tormund spoke up from the wall, checking his fingernails. “Or so the Freefolk say.”

Daenerys ignored this, eyes intent. “Tell me, Ser Jaime, why I should let a future usurper live?”

Jaime swallowed. “That child will never sit a throne, my lady, no matter who its parents are. No one wants the Lannisters to rule, me least of all.” His lip curled as he and the queen locked eyes. “You would not kill a child, I think.” He couldn’t quite meet her eyes. Hers, or anyone else’s. “I know that Cersei has forfeited her right to live. But I would ask that you aren’t… cruel. In your justice. I believe you know what a woman can do when they’ve been forced into a corner by a world that tells them they cannot be all that they are.” Brienne’s eyes flicked to him and Jaime met them for the briefest of instants, then glanced away. Daenerys was looking at him, an odd light in her eyes, as was Sansa. Jaime took another breath. “If Cersei finds herself cornered…” He shrugged, helplessly. “What would you choose- if it was between protecting your child- or your pride- and your duty to protect your people.”

Daenerys sneered at him and Tyrion shifted uncomfortably. “There would be no choice.”

Jaime snorted. She sounded so self satisfied and righteous. Such a martyr. “There is ALWAYS a choice.” He glanced helplessly at Brienne, eyes drawn without trying. “Whoever says there isn’t is merely someone too cowardly to choose.”

Brienne looked away. Tormund frowned, glancing between them.

Daenerys smirked. “I always wondered if the rumors were true, about you and your sister. And if they were, what she could possibly see in you.”

Jaime snorted. “Obviously it was the size of-”

“Your ego? Mm, you certainly do seem well-matched.” She shook her head, her braids like a cage around her skull. “No, I think I see it now. Do you know what it is?”

Jaime did know. He closed his eyes. “For better or worse, I never made her choose.”

When the council broke Jaime could not push past the bodies fast enough to approach Brienne. He wasn’t sure what he’d say if he did.

Tyrion stopped him with a hand on his wrist, just above the leather glove. His eyes were dark and deep and caught Jaime the way they had always done when they were children.

“You never told me,” he said quietly, his voice pained.

Jaime swallowed his resentment with difficulty. “You never asked.” It came out accusingly.

Tyrion’s mouth tightened and his hand dropped. Perhaps this was what could hurt him now, Jaime thought. He sighed.

He reached out and squeezed his brother’s shoulder. Tyrion nodded, then stomped off.

Jaime made to follow, but Sansa blocked his path. “I’ve finally realized who you remind me of, Ser Jaime,” she said clearly.

Jaime raised a brow as Tyrion disappeared. “The Smiling Knight?”

For a moment her past swam behind her eyes, and then her lip quirked up. “My mother.”

Jaime blinked at her in shock.

Then he threw back his head and laughed.

“Oh, how she would have hated that,” he said, wiping away tears that were a mix of grief and relief. For a moment he caught Brienne’s eye- halfway down the hall she’d stopped and was staring at him like a startled deer struck by the arrow of his laughter. He tried to recall- had she really not heard the sound before?

He turned his gaze back to Sansa. “You honor me, my lady,” he said seriously.

She nodded at him, then swept off to join Brienne, who was looking at him searchingly. She nodded once, too, a gaze he couldn’t read, and then they were both gone.

Days passed which he weighed on a scale without numbers. They were measured in sunlight and moonlight, in reconstruction progress and the soreness in his arms. They were measured in moments: Brienne, tucking her hair behind her ears when she thought no one was watching. Her long fingers lifting her glass at dinner. The genuine interest in her face as they discussed tactics (carefully sticking to old battles, and skirting the issue that the likelihood of her commanding men in the north was nil). She was guarded and skittish with him but he persisted: he fought, selfishly, to make her smile- even tiny, small things- and to make her blush, the heat of these which he ranked out loud on a number scale, which made her blush all the more.

Once, he made her laugh- and he wished desperately that he could work out what had made her do it because it was wonderful- unguarded and free as a startled bird. Jaime was delighted; Brienne, horrified.

These trophies were glorious and terrible. Glorious and terrible, because soon they would be all he had left of her. Terrible and glorious, because every so often he felt she was measuring him by the same stolen glances, lingering silences, hopeful delays. Jealously cataloging all of these raw, tender things that made them human. They drank these down in secret sips of care, because they both knew loving humans brought nothing but pain. Giantsbane was safe that way, Jaime supposed- undemanding. He never saw her cataloging HIM wistfully.

Jaime ran a hand down his face, feeling trapped. It was a strange feeling for a man of action such as himself.

He was running out of time.

Jaime was drawn to the courtyard by the clash of live steel. When he reached the ground level the roar that had accompanied him resolved into a massive crowd cheering a pair of fighters going at it on the frozen training ground. Jon’s dark hair whipped in the wind, a dark shadow to Brienne’s. She towered over him by almost a full head.

Daenerys and Sansa watched the proceedings impassively, proprietarily. As Jaime drew nearer, snaking his way through the crowd, he could see Tyrion’s jaw drop lower and lower and Jaime almost laughed out loud. He’d never seen Brienne really fight, had he? And she was, he thought appreciatively. Really fighting.

Almost.

When she beat Jon to the thunder of the crowd, a panting Brienne accepted water, graciously composed, while Tormund roared with triumph. “Any more of you fuckers want to take on my wife?”

Jaime was over the fence before he knew it. “May I have this dance, my lady?”

Brienne startled, then glared at him as the whispers started. Bright color blazed in her cheeks.

The crowd roared louder still but Jaime didn’t notice, because thank the gods, at last he’d pissed her off enough to not care so much about appearances.

"Finally," he breathed, as she came at him without warning.

It was glorious.

They engaged, disengaged, attacked, feinted, lunged, parried again and again. Her battle with Jon had winded her slightly and Jaime wondered if it was this or something deeper that gave him a fighting chance now. She closed again and again, brilliant, flushed, determined.

He nearly had her, once, somewhere in the middle, but she slithered away with a clever move- Brienne, always letting people underestimate her, he should have known better- and the clash sang in his veins as he laughed. The crowd beyond a blur.

“Gods, at least we have this.” Panting, gasping. Unthinking.

Her eyes intent on him, bluer than her armor. “We’ll always have this, Ser Jaime.”

Jaime cackled, cracked. His feet slipped in the frosty scuff and he recovered hastily, redoubling his attack. “No we won’t. You’ll go north to bear him bear children and I’ll never see you again. Did he tell you how his first wife died?”

Her eyes softened, then set. Duty, then.

“Brienne,” he whispered, a plea.

She came again and again and again and he couldn’t breathe fully; he was too completely inside himself in the way that made him inside the whole world, too. Ecstatic, grunting, thrusting, the terrific instinctual call and response- this was it, they were in it, now- the crowd was slamming like the sea, they were hammering at each other again and again with no finesse, Jaime saw his opening and took it, there was no choice, really, it just came, and she was down and his blade was at her throat and he fought against the momentum with all he was to not continue, to run this through like he’d ruined every other good thing. His blood was alive, alive with her- he was so much himself he was giddy with it.

Brienne blinked at him in some shocked, primal place and then the pride bloomed in her eyes- at him, FOR him- the grace of surrender that spoke of challenges to come, in bed, in shoals of sheets-

He came back to himself as the crowd roared, a physical wall of sound. He gave her a hand up and she yanked him down and rolled him beneath her, a dagger under the pulse in his chin, which she tipped up, just so slightly, and he knew. He knew what he had to do. He would not survive this when she left. None of it mattered.

Shaking sweat off their heads, they stood in charged silence as the crowd dispersed until she reached out and touched his arm, bare fingers on his wrist in passing as if the world wasn’t tilting and said, solemn, “I was cruel to you when I said you didn’t know my worth, Ser Jaime. I know what I’m worth to you.”

In the cover of the dispersing crowd, Tormund watched them close.

“What is it,” Jaime gasped. He was loose and steaming; they were the only two people alive. He wanted to press his aching cockstand against her, wanted to claim her, wanted her to KNOW-

He watched in silence as she wrestled, fought her face, but he saw her feelings float to the front, a glimpse of blue to black, and trembled.

“Comrades,” she choked out, as if the words caused her pain.

Jaime dropped her arm and shoved past, leaving her startled and hurt in his wake. “Gods, Brienne,” he snarled. “You really are the stupidest woman alive.”

Clegane passed him in the hallway later in the day, his massive shoulder nudging Jaime’s as he sauntered past. “Always thought you were a cunt, Lannister,” he smirked. “But you really are an asshole. You’d shit on absolutely everything.”

Jaime found himself once more at her door that night, and knocked with the golden hand, pounded until it opened. It was Podrick who had opened it, and beyond his glare he caught a brief glimpse of Brienne, shoulders shaking as she sobbed on the bed, before the door slammed shut again and refused to open.

He hammered on it, then, shouted at her, shouted at Podrick, shouted and banged until he truly was making a spectacle of himself and the serving girls and guests in the corridors scurried past and fled, whispering.

Jaime leaned his forehead on the wood.

An idiot.

The next door he knocked on opened readily, and his brother met him with a slightly knowing smirk.

He poured two full glasses and toasted, handing one to Jaime with a wry laugh. “To the perils of self-betterment.”

The next morning found him prowling, determined to apologize in person though he had no idea why. He hadn’t done anything wrong.

He found Brienne and Sansa huddled in the courtyard with Giantsbane, a scroll between them, and he slowed his pace so that they might not notice him.

“- have the wedding before, of course. Tomorrow, then, and march the day after. It will be good to have them go out on a party.” Sansa turned to give one of her frosty half-smiles directly to Jaime, revealing he had not hidden as effectively as he thought. From Brienne’s clear surprise, she had had no idea he was there. Sansa’s smile deepened. “I always wanted to be there when they executed your sister. Now I’m afraid I won’t get the chance.”

Jaime gaped a moment at the scroll in her hand, feeling like he’d been punched. His eyes met Brienne’s and the expression in hers- a sorry sympathy that seemed, despite everything, genuine- sent him straight to rage and he turned on his heel without a word and left.

He spent the evening in Tyrion’s room, drinking. “To our sweet sister,” Tyrion slurred, pouring himself his third full glass of the night. Jaime had barely touched his first. “And to Ser Brienne’s impending union.”

Tyrion grinned sardonically at Jaime’s slump-shouldered posture by the fireplace and toasted the room, his brother’s nearly-turned back. “And now our watch begins.”

Jaime sneered, but didn’t turn his attention from the flames. They flared voluptuously, seductive. Not sword-straight, he thought as he drank. Sultry hints of hips and breasts. No protective righteousness here. Orange fire, not green, he reminded himself. Not green, except at the very heart where it glowed the hottest.

Brienne’s door was unbarred when he pushed it open much later that night, which he thought very stupid of her.

He stood above her bed and watched her sleep, the dagger in his hand.

Jaime’s frozen breath made it hard to see the saddlebags he was attaching in the moonlit courtyard under the open sky. He’d just finished fighting with the last of them when footsteps alerted him to the arrival of someone else.

Damn.

“I got your NOTE,” Brienne snarled.

He cut a glance at her to find her brandishing the scrap of parchment he’d left her, weighed down with the dagger.

“’Goodbye, Brienne’? What kind of horseshit is this.”

Jaime snapped his eyes back to his bags. This was hard with one hand. “I am glad you think so highly of me, my lady.”

Then she was there and he faltered.

“Jaime, what are you doing.”

Jaime, then. Not Ser Jaime, or Ser, just Jaime. His breath caught.

“Nothing? No answer?” Her voice trembled. “Are you such a coward?”

He rounded on her, suddenly furious and heart-torn. “COWARD? I’m not the one running away!” Jaime sighed and rubbed his face with his cold leather glove. His eyelids, pulled down, stung in the cold. “Maybe I am a coward. But I know no other way to be.”

She stepped forward abruptly, determined, though very pale. “You don’t have to do this,” she begged, reaching for him. “You’re a good man. You don’t have to die with-”

Jaime felt very old. “No? What am I if not duty?”

For the first time Brienne looked uncertain. “Duty?”

He looked at her, memorizing her there in the moonlit snow. “It’s all I have left.” He lifted his voice. “I’m sure you’d agree, Giantsbane?”

Tormund emerged from the shadows, eyes troubled on the scene. He spoke to Brienne, but his gaze didn’t leave Jaime. “I came to your room and found it empty,” he said. “And, finding it empty, I found a note, and then shouting in the courtyard. Is everything all right?”

“Jaime.” Brienne’s voice trembled. “You gave me your word.”

“My word,” he choked out. “My word that I would what- give you away? I could cut out my heart sooner than give you away, but I’d do it for you. I’d do it for you, Brienne, but I CAN’T, because I’ve ALREADY cut my heart out along with my hand and it’s been yours ever since!”

Silence echoed after this pronouncement; her lips parted. He rolled his eyes, too far gone.

“COMRADES, Brienne. That’s really what you think we are? I’ve done everything to make you see, you stubborn woman- everything but one.” His breath rattled in his throat in the cold. Brienne was gaping at him like she’d never seen him before. He shrugged, trying to make light, but his lips twisted. “Anyway. My heart is only half yours. The other half…”

She swallowed hard and for a mad moment Jaime considered leaving, letting her believe Cersei still had his heart. It would serve him right- and her too, for thinking the worst. But she’d always been able to pull the truth from him. “The other half I gave to them.” Maybe that’s why it felt like it was breaking.

She looked at him, askance, but he thought he saw realization dawning in her eyes. He laughed, a little wild. “Gods, I’d marry you in a heartbeat but I’m not a good match. He-” He waved his hand at Giantsbane- “is a good match- or at least the easy match, can’t fault you there. But I can’t stay here and give you away- can’t stay here and fight for you when you’ve already chosen. Not while the world burns for crimes I committed-”

“Your SISTER committed!” Brienne had finally found her voice.

“But I enabled.” Jaime shook his head, feeling like a winded horse. He had to go, couldn’t she see that? So she could go north, be safe, and have a future. Any future. “For fuck’s sake. You’re a knight, too, or did you forget already?”

She staggered as if he’d struck her. “Of course I didn’t- you MADE me one!”

“So? You swore a vow to them, too.”

Her chin came up stubbornly. “And I swore a vow to Tarth.”

He laughed, cruel. “To Tarth. Tarth. You think if Cersei wins she’ll spare Tarth? Spare YOU? She knew why I came north even if neither of us did, you STUPID woman!”

She blinked at him, shocked. As if the world was rearranging itself under her feet. But still- the look. “I swore.”

He sneered. “So many vows. I told you, Brienne. Love or duty. Always the choice.”

Silence sank heavy into the courtyard, packing down the snow. Brienne glanced at Tormund.

She glanced at Jaime.

Then she stepped toward Giantsbane.

Jaime ducked his head to his bags, still saw Tormund grip the nape of her neck and press their foreheads together, murmuring something he couldn’t hear- how odd to see Brienne have to look up to someone.

A curious roaring rang his ears as he swung furiously into the saddle and wrenched his poor horse’s head toward the gate.

Someone called out behind him, but the words were lost beneath the dull hammer of hooves, the painfully loud pounding of his heart.

Sky, snow. Gray trees. Gray fields. Dawn painted everything in muffled peace. The world passed in a gray, frigid blur.

If it stayed this way all to King’s Landing, that would be fine for Jaime. It didn’t matter so much, because he was well away from winter, on a bridge in the Riverlands, the sun on his face and the weight of steel sweet in his right hand-

A noise was intruding.

The press of bodies straining, the wind in his hair as he ducked-

His horse’s ears flattened and somewhere Jaime’s instincts surfaced, speared by a white-hot chill. Before he could turn his horse, the call came again:

“Jaime!”

He gripped the reins so hard his hand popped and his horse protested furiously as he wrenched the creature’s head around.

Brienne drew her own mare to a halt several yards away. She wore her armor, now, a bright patch in all the gray. She flung herself off her mount and was moving towards him, her eyes as stubborn as the steel, before he could do more than open his mouth.

“I am yours,” she said, swallowing visibly even from this distance. Somehow Jaime’s horse had stopped, somehow he was on the ground. Somehow he was shorter again, her freckles clear. “And- theirs.” Closer now, straight and vulnerable in the snow despite the armor. Her hands pressed against her thighs. “And you are mine.”

Jaime stood before her in two strides, staring up into her face. “I am yours,” he said hoarsely, without hesitation, the most solemn vow of his life, “and theirs, and-”

She kissed him.

It was like sparring and Jaime lost himself in the familiarity and the newness at once, the utter sense of rightness.

When he drew back, she was staring down at him, a glow in her eyes that he’d seen only once before, the night they thought they were all going to die. “And you are mine,” he whispered, tracing her cheek with his finger. She caught at his hand, pressing her face into his palm.