Thanks to Ray (liliths) for her wonderful beta work!
He catches her eye, for a moment. He has just finished off yet another white walker, his blade piercing its cold chest and sending it shattering to the ground. She is doing the same, although she, being younger and possessing a greater quantity of functional hands, is much more graceful in her thrusts than he is.
The eyes that meet his are weary ones, tired and nearly hopeless from the seemingly endless night that has been consuming them and bringing hordes of Others with it at all hours. It is the longest night they will have, he hopes, and his strained limbs ache for it to end. They'd lost so many of their troops to the night already and their numbers are dwindling dangerously. The dragons are helping tremendously, but he can see them growing tired as well; running out of meat had not taken long once the queen's pets had arrived at Winterfell and now the beasts are just as hungry as the rest of them.
At first they had fought at the wall, killing the Others as they fell over it, but when the long night had come upon them they were forced to retreat to Winterfell, where the food supply hadn't run out and the walls were still mostly intact. It was a concession, since moving south allowed the Others more room to slip past them, but it was necessary, and the Others seem to only be attracted to their camps anyway.
She looks back to the fight, as if their brief moment of eye contact hadn't happened, but he had seen those expressive eyes long enough to know her feelings.
Hopeless. Tired. Determined. The contradicting emotions that they share, that every man left standing shares. There is no time for grief, or hunger, or fear. There is only time for seemingly useless thrusts of blades made by heavy arms that move almost without their owners' conscious command. Endless thrusts for endless enemies.
It is then, in his brief moment of admiring her unwavering focus, that he sees it. Just as she thrusts her blade into the chest of a white walker, another jumps toward her. He finds his legs carrying him forward, but it is too late. It lands atop her, its blade piercing the skin of her neck, just a little, before he reaches the creature and drives Valyrian steel through its cold heart.
He kneels to reach her, his mind far from the ice creatures that still threaten them, and suddenly something changes around him. It takes him a moment to process the light that falls upon her face and, briefly and foolishly, he thinks that the gods have sent the light for her. But he soon realizes that the light hasn't just fallen upon her face, but all around them. He looks up briefly to see the ice creatures shattering in all directions, the abrupt ending of the night a surprise even to them. The living soldiers fall to their knees in pure shock. Have we won? He does not know, nor can he will himself to care as he kneels in the snow.
Her eyes are still open, watching the sky dance with light. He sees the sky only as it is reflected in her eyes.
"You're alright," he says. It is not a question. He cannot bear a question.
She reaches up slowly to his cheek. Her fingers are ice, colder than ice even. "The sky, Ser Jaime," she manages with a thick and broken voice, "It is over."
He grabs her and pulls her toward him, as heavy as she is, desperate to transfer what little heat he still left within him into her frozen body. The blood from her neck seeps into his clothes, but he is unconcerned. Jaime knows of the damage that even the briefest contact with a white walker's skin or blade could cause and the creature had been fully atop her.
Her bones seem to rattle from the violence of her shivering and he wraps his white cloak around her, the one he still wears as a bit of rebellion. This all seems so petty now, as he holds this broken woman so near his heart.
He leans down to her, pressing his forehead to hers and breathing warm air into his face as if he can breathe his life into her body and trade away his worthless existence for someone who matters.
"Brienne, you must stay. I need you to stay," he breathes. It's painful to think that she is not well enough to chuckle at the uncharacteristic sincerity in his voice. He can no longer distinguish between the shaking of her body from the cold and the trembling of his from the fear, or the grief, or the pain.
He wishes that he could summon a maester or drag her back to Winterfell to be healed, but they had been on the front lines, the farthest from the castle itself. It would be no use.
She looks up at him, that face that he had come to know so well. Although that face had seemed to age twenty years in their time together, it now looks utterly childlike, her blue eyes wide and glassy. She opens her mouth slightly, as if trying to say something more, but the words never come, stuck in her throat. All that's left between them is silence and bitter air.
"It is spring, Brienne. You have made it to spring." And although she can make no move to show it, he knows it means something to her, that promise that her life would not be given for nothing.
She cannot tell him what she wishes of him, as her convulsing grows more violent, but he knows her, and he hopes that she is still aware enough to hear his words.
"I will do my best to ensure the remaining Stark children's safety. I will make no promises, you know how I am with oaths," he laughs slightly, an empty, cold laugh, "but I will try." He hopes that it is enough.
She shakes and shakes, for what seemed like hours but is likely only minutes, and her blood stains the white of the cloak that swaddles her. His good hand, now gloveless, presses to her skin as he cradles her with his stump.
And suddenly the shaking ceases.
A sound escapes him that he'd never heard before, one of pure anguish and rage. In the songs, it would be described as a lion's roar, but Jaime knows better.
It is a sound of grief that rattles him to the core.
…
"I do not wish to live. Let me die," he says, over and over on their passage to King's Landing.
"It is not your choice, Kingslayer," they reply, checking the chains around his wrist.
On any other day he would have produced some sly remark or charmed his way out of his chains, but Jaime is hollow. It seems a cruel joke to let him keep on living, when everyone he cares for in the world is gone.
He can still feel Cersei's warm skin on his arms as he choked the life from her, let her skull shatter on the stone floor. She still haunts his every dream, even so many moons from the day. He supposes that Brienne will soon join her.
Brienne had been everything that he wanted to be, a true knight without the title. She was the knight that he'd hoped to be as a child. And now she is as dead as the dreams that had perished with the touch of his sister's lips against his own.
If Cersei was half of his soul, and he knew she was, Brienne had become the other half.
Now he is nothing but emptiness.
…
He stands before the Dragon Queen with his head bowed, defeated.
"Kingslayer, raise your head." He does. "As you well know, we are here to discuss your past crimes. The slaying of my father, to be precise."
"Let me die."
She raises an eyebrow. Everyone has heard of the Kingslayer's cunning. She had come expecting a fight and perhaps had even wished for one. He had talked himself out of countless situations, but there is no fight within him today. Jaime doubts that he will ever feel the will to fight again. She looks to Tyrion, who is seated beside her, a grimace twisting his features.
"Brother," Tyrion says, almost a plea. He has no need to say more. Tyrion loves him. He does not want him to die. Jaime knows this, but it is not enough.
The queen, little more than a child, studies Jaime from her seat on the throne, her face a mask. He pities her, really; a girl so skilled at disguising her emotions must have been manipulated many times in the past.
"You served us well in the war against the Others. The songs and stories tell of your bravery." He cringes at that. "As your benevolent queen, I declare you, Jaime of House Lannister, formally pardoned."
The crowd cheers. They think it is a great act of kindness for Daenerys to set free the man who murdered her father, if not rather stupid. But Jaime knows that her words are meant to be cruel. If he had wanted to live, she would order him dead. But he wants to die, and so she will sentence him to living. It is as cruel a punishment as any.
…
Tyrion visits him in his chambers that night. He dismisses the guard that sits in the corner watching Jaime, likely having been given the task of keeping Jaime's blade from his own neck. The queen has sentenced him to life and she intends to enforce this punishment as long as she can.
"You loved her a lot."
Jaime does not know which her he is referring to, but he agrees.
"There are songs about you now. I think you would find them flattering."
Jaime's eyes remain on the ground.
"Listen, Jaime, I know you've lost everything, but so have I. I can't lose you too. You must live."
The tone of Tyrion's voice is jarring. In their former life, the brothers had seldom been completely serious with each other. Even the direst conversations had ended with a jest or a sarcastic remark. But Tyrion is pleading.
"She was the only truly good person I knew. She would have died a thousand times to save me and yet I could not once do the same for her."
Tyrion's face softens. "I suppose it's safe to assume you aren't talking about Cersei." Jaime is thankful for this small jest, and allows himself to laugh slightly.
"Tell me about her. I can't let my brother take his own life without knowing a bit of the woman who has driven him to it."
So he does.
He tells him of the girl, so young and yet so old, who gave him the will to live when he had lost his hand and again when the blood of his sister stained his hand. He tells him of the woman, so harsh and yet so kind, who would move mountains to keep her oaths and her honor. He tells him of the friend, as unsteady as their relationship had been at times, who would never betray him, no matter the cost to her own safety. Jaime knows that this version of Brienne is glossy and does not include the bitter parts of her, or the parts that were insecure and private or young. The version of Brienne that he gives to Tyrion is the version that deserves to be known.
The brothers talk for a long while, but Cersei and Tywin are never mentioned. Their sins do not matter. Not anymore.
"Where will you go?" Tyrion asks quietly, and Jaime knows the words left unsaid. Will you stay alive?
He considers this. It would be absurd to stay in King's Landing, with the Dragon Queen on the iron throne and no friends left to him. He had always assumed he would return to Casterly Rock, but it is now so tainted with memories of her, the sister that he loved so dearly. And, briefly, he had thought of returning to Tarth with Brienne, but even that island is now haunted.
"Winterfell," he says, "I told her I would protect the Stark children. I don't know if they even need protecting anymore, but all I have left is trying."
"Casterly Rock belongs to you."
"Brother, I think we both know who would be the better Lord Lannister."
…
They watch him as he leaves the capital, young and old, lords and peasants. He hears their remarks. Kingslayer. Kinslayer. And some just gawk. The songs have been kind to him, after all. And he hears one remark louder than the rest, a comment made by one peasant to another.
I've heard that he was better with his whore. They say the best part of him died with her.
He'd heard similar words spoken of Tywin about the death of his mother. The words are a punch to the gut, especially because he knows they are wholly true.
If Cersei, as much as he loved her, was the worst part of him and Brienne was the best, who is he now that they are both dust in the wind? Nothing. No one.
…
Two men wait for him outside the gates. It is strange to think of Pod as a man, but it is the word that most fits him now, so many years having passed since he first gifted the squire to Brienne.
"Glad to see you with your head still attached to your body," Bronn says, patting Jaime on the back.
"So am I," Jaime replies. The words feel more truthful than he would have expected. "So what is this, the rejects of King's Landing sent north?"
Bronn shrugs. "She doesn't want me here. She has heard stories of how my loyalty is easily bought in gold, but she also has heard how invaluable I was in the war with the Others. So instead she gave me some land in the Riverlands. You may call me Lord Bronn now. Next I'll just be needing that wife you promised me."
"Unfortunately I'm not in the favor of many highborn ladies at the moment," Jaime said, allowing a small smile to form on his lips.
…
He dreams of them every night. They are more like memories or flashbacks than dreams, in truth.
On some nights his beautiful sister stands before him, so lovely, so deadly.
Her appearance is startling, the expression in her green eyes unfamiliar to him. He had once thought that he knew every expression that her delicate features could create, but this was entirely new. The words come from his mouth although he does not will them to. "What will you do when the people revolt? When they don't bend the knee to the woman who killed their lords and ladies and stole the throne from her own son? What will you do when the Targaryen girl makes it to Westeros?"
Cersei waves a hand as if dismissing his concerns completely. She smiles at him, a wicked smile. "I'll watch them all burn."
Jaime feels his sword drop from his hand. He hadn't even known he was holding it. The horror of the words, the familiarity of it is drowning him. He steps forward, and her arms reach out to him, begging him to accept her as a lover once more. It is almost tempting. Almost.
The clicking of his boots upon the stones is a deafening sound and seems to be the only sound in the world. He reaches her and avoids her arms, stepping behind her instead. He wraps his arm around her neck, his golden hand brushing her cheek. It is almost a lover's embrace. Almost.
She begins to understand, begins to struggle, but he is stronger. His lips are in her golden hair, still shorn short. It feels as though her hair is trying to suffocate him. He almost wishes that it would. She claws at him, her nails drawing blood from his skin, but he keeps his grip. Her breath comes in ragged, short gasps so he brings his arm closer. He holds her there until there is no breath left.
Suddenly he realizes what he has done and he pulls away. Her limp body collapses to the floor and a loud crack pierces his ears. Her skull, hitting the floor. He falls to his knees, almost breathless with sobs that can't fully escape him.
He always wakes from this dream feeling as though he is choking.
Some nights he dreams of Cersei in other ways, happier ways, but the vision of her skull shattered upon the stones of her bedroom floor is the one that plagues him the most.
On nights when his dreams are not Cersei, they are memories of Brienne.
She looks as she did in life. She is impossibly large, scarred, and much older than her true age. He stares at her sleeping form, their bodies close for warmth. She opens her eyes. He knows he is staring, but he cannot will himself to look away.
He can feel her warm breath upon his face. Their faces are so close. Were they that close when they first laid down? He cannot remember. Her face is soft, absent of the scowl that she usually wears. In the night she is less guarded. He wonders what would happen if he moved his faces forward, just a bit. He doesn't even know if he wants her in that way. All he knows is that he wants to be closer to her, perhaps in hopes that some of her honor can spill into him, to make him a better man.
"Why are you staring at me?" she asks, the few minutes of wakefulness returning the hardness to her voice.
"Can't a man gaze upon his lady's face in the night without having his motives questioned?"
Her jaw tightens and the scowl returns to her face. "I don't enjoy your mockery. I am not your lady, Ser. And I'm sure the view of your eyelids is much prettier than my face."
"Perhaps," he says, "but only because the inside of my eyelids are particularly lovely. Your face is much more interesting, though."
She ignores his jest, squeezing her eyes shut once more. "You're thinking of her again," she says with certainty. Her tendency to see people as one-dimensional is quite annoying. Jaime supposes that it is her youth that causes such a black-and-white view of life. Of honor. Of goodness and badness and of motives. He hopes that if he can offer her nothing else, he can show her that people are more than they may appear, although he fears that he may not be as complex as he wishes to be.
Of course, doesn't the fact that she stayed and has not killed him yet suggest that she views him as more than an oathbreaker, at least? Is he more than an oathbreaker? He is not certain.
"Well now I am." It is only partially true, but he wishes to at least make her feel sorry for reminding him of his sister.
Brienne doesn't seem to sense this. "You have done terrible things, Ser Jaime, but hurting her was not one of them." She says hurting as if Jaime merely pushed his sister to the ground or struck her face with the palm of his hand. "In fact," she says, eyes still closed, "I think it could be the most honorable thing you have ever done."
The words should sting. They should slice him to his innards, but they don't. Jaime wonders if this means he truly has no honor at all. Would the ever-honorable Ned Stark slice the throat of fair Lyanna if she had threatened to burn cities to the ground? Would Brienne kill her father if she knew thousands more would die at his hands if she refused? Would they regret it if they had?
He almost slides closer to her. He almost touches her face. Almost, but he cannot will his hand to move.
These dreams of Brienne should be kinder than those of Cersei, since whatever gods exist do not force him to relive Brienne's death on the darkness of his eyelids. But when he wakes from a vision of the Maid of Tarth, who will eternally be a maid and whose house has died with her, he feels nothing but coldness, even in the warmth of an inn.
…
When Jaime arrives in Winterfell, the snow has all but completely melted and the Stark clan seems to have nearly doubled in his absence. Along with Jon Snow and his sisters, the two younger boys had reached Winterfell after the war, almost completing their broken family.
"What are you doing here?" the younger girl, Arya, demands. Jaime cannot blame her for the anger she still holds toward him, despite his efforts in protecting her home from the Others.
"I made a promise to Brienne of Tarth that I would protect the lot of you, since she was sworn to your mother. I came to make good on that promise."
"What good are your promises?" Arya scoffs. Sansa shoots her a sharp look and she shrugs
Jaime smiles slightly. "Fair point," he says, "but I brought you a gift." He pulls one of the swords from his belt and holds it toward them. They stare at it, likely puzzled by his offering of a lion-hilted sword. "Reforged from your father's sword," he explains, "wielded by Brienne of Tarth in the battle with the Others. She would want you to have it."
The boys and Arya still stare at the sword, but Sansa looks to Jaime. He assumes she is studying his face, gauging his sincerity. She knows the lies and trickery of men better than most. Jaime fears that they will not accept the sword and he would have to carry it forever, haunted as it is. "I do not expect you to trust me," Jaime says slowly, "I have given you no reason to trust me, but I am sure that she gave you reason to trust her. I will not plead. If you wish to cast me off, feel free to do so, but please take the sword."
Sansa nods. "The sword should be yours, Arya."
The young girl's eyes widen. She steps forward, grabbing the sword with no hesitation.
"And what should we do with the Kingslayer?" asks the youngest boy, barely recognizable as the baby Jaime had once seen at Winterfell a lifetime ago. The young boy makes no attempt to hide his distaste for Jaime.
"Rickon, please," Sansa scolds, "we have reached the end of the world and survived. If the gods did not punish him during that hellish night, I think we can afford some mercy." She seems to pity him, which in his former life would have enraged him, but now he is only grateful. He thinks of who she was when they'd first met, a naïve and foolish little girl, but none of that girl seems to remain in the lady who stands before him now.
Sansa moves closer to him. "Even if your words mean nothing, I need you to swear your sword to me. To my brothers and sister."
He does.
…
His life in Winterfell is quiet. With the war over and a temporary peace returning to Westeros as everyone recovers from winter, swearing his sword to the Starks was more a formality than anything, and there really is no one to protect the Starks from. Not that his sword in his one weary hand would provide more protection than the swords of Jon Snow or even Arya Stark.
Jaime finds it amusing that all it took to unite Westeros was an army of the undead and a darkness that lasted moons. It seems that the threat of the Others reminded the houses that there are worse things than the games of political rivals. Jaime is also not so foolish to believe that the peace could last. For a reason Jaime cannot understand, humans have an unquenchable thirst for power. He had never wanted that power, even in his former life, he had just wanted his sister.
A few days after what feels like his second pardoning, Jaime finds himself in the godswood with no idea why he is there. His faith in any gods, old or new, had waned long ago. Bran Stark sits below the tree, watching Jaime as he enters the clearing. Somehow if feels as though the boy knew Jaime was coming, even though Jaime himself hadn't known.
Jaime sits beside him. In another life he had pushed this boy from a tower window. This life seems so far from him now.
"You know," Jaime says, his voice quiet.
"Yes."
"You could have ordered me dead."
"I know."
They stare at each other for a long while. Jaime cannot will himself to apologize, but the boy doesn't seem angry, Tully-blue locked on faded green.
Jaime can't fathom what he could have done to afford him so much mercy from those who had once been his enemies. Perhaps his sins had been buried in the snows of winter, or perhaps they had died with her. Or, maybe, the young Stark boy has a soft spot for those who are broken.
He has no idea how Bran Stark traveled to the godswood in the first place, but Jaime ends up carrying him back to the castle.
…
Life goes on for most. There are marriages and births and deaths. And the summer is long, years passing with no hint of true cold in the air. Jaime walks about the castle sometimes, a ghost among the stones of the walls in a cloak of grey. Whispers followed him everywhere, at first, but eventually new gossip became more interesting and now Jaime can almost fade into the background.
There is a day when he truly fades. More years from his arrival at Winterfell than he'd wish to count, he bumps into a girl, small and frail but with cheeks rosy from summer air. Or, rather, she bumps into him, having been playing a chasing game with another young girl merely moments before.
In seconds the impact of the force against his large frame sends the girl to the ground, her back hitting the stones of the flooring. At first, Jaime's breath hitches, the fall too reminiscent of another, but there is no cracking sound and no red stain upon the stones, so he reaches out his hand. She takes it without any hesitation.
"I'm so sorry, Ser," she says, a gap-toothed grin lighting her face. Ser, not Ser Jaime or Kingslayer. Just Ser. It is as if she doesn't recognize him and perhaps, he realizes, she doesn't.
"My name is Brienne." This time she offers her hand to him.
"Brienne," he repeats, blinking.
"Yes," she agrees proudly, "named for the maid in the songs. The one who fought in the great war against the Others."
"And what's your name, Ser?"
He studies her for a moment. There is no sign of deceit in her wide brown eyes. She is only a child and couldn't be past her sixth nameday, a child of new summer, probably the daughter of a visiting Lord and Lady from the quality of her dress, dirty as it is. She knows not of evil or deceit or winter and offers her hand to him unaware of the blood he once dug from beneath his fingernails. And she does not recognize him. He thinks it must be the first time since the war that he hasn't been recognized.
"It does not matter," he replies. He turns to retreat down the corridor before the young girl can object.
…
Jaime is informed after several moons of living in Winterfell of a sculpture created to stand atop the mass grave in which the last dead of winter had been buried once spring had arrived and the threat of Others had ceased. It is of someone regarded as a great hero of the war with the others. It is of Brienne, commissioned by Sansa, who loved her more than Jaime had known.
It takes Jaime years to visit the memorial. The moon waxes and wanes and the Stark children grow into adults and Jaime's own features begin to sag. Cersei and Brienne are still the same, never aging in his dreams or in their graves. They never leave him, though, and he grows comfortable with them, although he wonders how Cersei would look with deep lines upon her face to match his and how Brienne would look with the rest of her youth melted from her features.
He trembles as he makes his way toward the grave, after all these years. A broken man, they call him now, and of every title he has received in his life, this one seems the most truthful, despite the sword in Aerys' back and the arm around Cersei's pale neck. Although he does not know if he considers himself a man anymore.
In his former life, Jaime would never have cried at the feet of a woman, especially one made of stone. In his former life, Jaime barely cried at anything. But here, not a man nor a lion, Jaime weeps, his tears falling into the summer snow. He feels a hand on his shoulder. It is Sansa Stark, her belly swollen with another child.
She says nothing, but she offers him her hand. They are so different from when they started. She is not a child, nor is he a man. They are not enemies, but survivors, both hardened and softened from war and grief.
Perhaps they both wish that they had died from it. Perhaps, in some ways, they did. Perhaps the gods are real and they have shed their human forms to become them.
So they kneel, the Mother and the Stranger, at the foot of the Warrior, until his tears have melted the thin summer snow beneath them.