Last night's episode absolutely gutted me. I'm not one to get overly emotional over shows and movies, but this one was a kick to the teeth. It hit me so hart that I couldn't sleep half the night. Every time I woke up, my thoughts were plagued with Jaime and sadness over the death of his redemption. Finally, at about 5am, I accepted that sleep wasn't going to happen and wrote some subtext to Jaime's actions through 8x04 and 8x05. I do not agree with the ending for this character, but I'm doing my best to accept it. That being said, you'll never convince me that Jaime leaving Winterfell equates to him not loving Brienne. I call bullshit. Hope you enjoy my twist on events, I had to do something to make my heart stop hurting. The one thing I did really appreciate about all this pain was the message that it doesn't matter how much you love someone, you can't save them from themselves.

You're a good man.

Brienne's plea for him to save his own life echoed in his head in time with the fall of his horse's desperate gallop. The warmth of her touch continued to warm him, long after the whipping winds numbed his cheeks.

Before Brienne, Maid of Tarth, he'd never worried much about about being a good man. He was Jaime fucking Lannister. He was the king-slaying, sister-fucking, child-crippling monster the realm thought they knew and knew they hated. No one cared to know him or his reasons, they judged his actions at face value and condemned him for them.

Even Brienne had hated him at first. How could she not? He'd been a cocky, arrogant prick to her. He called her many unflattering names that he no longer believed in the slightest. How could she have not been disgusted by the man all the realm knew by reputation but none truly understood. Her loathing of every inch of his despicable character was justified and expected. If anything, it only spoke of her unshakeable honor to be horrified by his lengthy list of misdeeds.

At the time, he didn't give any heed to Caitlyn Starks profession that the mammoth beast of a woman, Brienne of Tarth, was a truer knight than he would ever be. What did Lady Stark's high and mighty opinion matter to Jaime Lannister? What did the opinions of sheep matter to a Lion?

But she had been right. Over the years Jaime had seen the depths of Brienne of Tarth character, and it wasenough to make him ache for the tattered remains of his honor. It was enough to make the beast of a woman grow in his mind and heart. Enough to make him see a beauty where so many others saw only a beast. And just as shockingly, he had grown on her as well. She saw past all his hateful misdeeds. She saw him not only as a man of honor, but a good man. She was wrong, but he still considered it the greatest honor of his life that she could see him as someone worthy of not only love but forgiveness. He only hoped that in some small way, granting her the knighthood she never imagined she could have would serve as a lasting reminder of all she had truly meant to him.

I don't like things growing on me.

But Brienne had grown on him. And he had, in truth, liked it. He had liked everything about her. He had liked every moment of their days of domesticity. He had liked falling to sleep in her arms every night. He had liked waking in the middle of the night to touch her. To rouse her with the adoration she'd never known before. He liked being hers almost as much as he like her being his. She wasn't beautiful, but she was beautiful to him. And what he had liked best the imagining their future, imagining spending every day of the rest of his life in her arms. Dying in her arms at a ripe old age, surrounded by a horde of blonde brats.

He'd never called the bond between them love, never could bring himself to do so when that word had been inextricably bound to Cersei, and he couldn't bring himself to relate the two women in his mind. Cerise was fire and passion, pain and pleasure. Brienne was something softer. Despite her mannish appearance and affinity for armor and weaponry, Brienne had the gentlest soul of anyone he'd ever met. She fought, not due to hate of an enemy, but because she loved that which she guarded. Be it Renly, Lady Stark, Sansa, or even himself. She fought with everything she had in her, because loved with everything she had in her. She would lay down her life and body without a second thought for the sake of those who'd earned her loyalty.

Despite the unspoken nature of the emotion Jaime felt for her, it was real. It was perhaps the most real thing he had ever known in his life. His all to brief time as Brienne's companion, it made him certain of two things. First, that Brienne was the one person in the world who could truly make him happy. And second, that he could never deserve her.

When word reached Winterfell of the Iron Fleet's ambush, the death of another of the Targaryan girl's dragons, and the capture of the conquering queen's favored advisor, the past bubbled up and pulled Jamie from his cocoon of happiness with Brienne. The revelation that the last war was unavoidable weighed down on him in it's entirety. Cersei would not surrender and neither would the would be Targaryan queen, leaving one certainty.

Kingslanding would burn.

And Cersei with it.

He wanted to feel relief. He wanted to retreat into the blissful little world Brienne had opened up to him. He wanted their imagined future. He wanted to give the realms a second Lannister knight, one with twice the number of hands and a thousand times the honor, by making Ser Brienne of Tarth more than a lover. He wanted to live out his days calling her his lawful wife.

But he needed to save his family. No matter her sins,he had to try to save Cersei. If not for her sake, then for the sake of their unborn child.

Jaime wasn't sure what he hoped to accomplish when he saddled up his horse and left Winterfell. He'd never been able to control his sister or make her see reason. He would not be able to convince her to surrender, but if he didn't even try she would surely die. Their unborn child would die. Tens of thousands of innocent people would die.

The very same people he became the Kingslayer to save all those years ago would be burned up in the same fiery grave. His most arguably most honorable dead of slaying a king to save a kingdom would be for naught. If an act of honor only delayed the slaughter of thousands, what was even the point?

"Then I suppose I'll die tomorrow, if not before."

The imp had always been the cleverest of the Lannisters. Cersei thought herself the clever one, but she often confused cleverness and cruelty. Perhaps that was why Tyrion didn't mention Brienne. Perhaps he knew even the sound of her name would be enough to dissuade Jaime from his course. While, Tyrion loved his brother, they both knew this was bigger than either of them. If anyone in the world could convince Cersei to forsake the city, it was the innocent in her belly, and the only person who could give that child a voice was its father.

"Tens of thousands of innocent lives. One not particularly innocent dwarf. Seems like a fair trade." Tyrion mused.

His brother's musings weighed on him as he snuck through the camp to the city. If his life could save the city, whether by dying for it or convincing Cersei to surrender the throne and escaping to live out his days with his hateful other half, that was a price worth paying. To save the innocent lives. To save his unborn child. The life of a not particularly innocent cripple didn't seem like such a high cost. Even if the greatest cost was one no one else would ever know or appreciate… a future in the arms of a woman who made him want to be a better man.

"You were the only one who didn't treat me like a monster. You were all I had." Tyrion's tearful farewell tightened Jaime's throat in memory. He would never see his brother again in this life, of that he was sure. Even if he did safely navigate the city and save Cersei, Tyrion would pay a fiery price for his treachery.

Thanks to his brother's sacrifice, Jaime made it inside the city's gates before the siege, only to be barred from entry into the inner wall by a locked gate. But he knew this city. He'd spent most of his life as a Kingsguard within its walls. He knew ever turn, every secret. He could get to the keep the same way he intended to escape it, he just had to find a way to get there through undulating mass of the panicked crowds.

You can't save her.

Unbidden, Brienne's face returned to him, the way her startlingly blue eyes shimmered through her barely suppressed tears, before he'd pushed her to her breaking point. She would never know. She would never understand how much he wished he could have stayed, wished he hadn't started down this path long before he ever knew what it was like to be loved by a good woman. She would never know that the only price too high in all of this was the knowledge that he had wronged the one person who's good opinion he would have gladly died to keep.

Perhaps he would find that he couldn't save Cersei and the baby. Perhaps this whole journey would prove pointless and futile and the city would burn despite his efforts. Perhaps Brienne would prove right. Perhaps that would offer her some form of comfort, knowing that if he'd listened to her, he could have been back in Winterfell in the arms of the one woman who believed he could be more than hateful.

He dearly wished he could have allowed himself to be loved by a good woman, in hopes that it would one day make him a good man. But even from that first drunken kiss, he knew better. And after, while he watched over her as she slept peaceful and spent, he never could have lived like that. He tried to ignore the knowledge, but it clawed at him every day the spent together, like the guilt for his many hateful actions he'd spent years pushing down. If he was honest, he never could have accepted the happiness Brienne offered him if he hadn't come to Kingslanding and at least tried to save his sister and child. He could never be the good man he wanted to be for Brienne if he didn't do all he could to right the wrongs he'd committed before she showed him a better path.

You don't have to die with her.

And perhaps he wouldn't have to. Perhaps there was still a chance for him. He reached the cove and saw the dingy Tyrion had promised would be waiting. He just needed to get to Cersei, to convince her to do what she'd always done and put her child first. By the time the city fell, they could be far from this place. He could find a safe place for Cersei and their child. Then maybe, just maybe, he could begin to be the man Brienne made him want to be.

But gods were not kind. Even as he drove his sword into Euron's chest, he knew he was a dead man walking. Perhaps it was his punishment for the wrongs he'd done. Perhaps it was a mercy in a way, because he wasn't sure that he had any interest in a future that wasn't softer than Cersei.

Stay with me… Please.

He knew now, that those would be the last words he ever heard from Brienne, his Brienne. The last sight of her he'd have to cherish would be that of her heart breaking to pieces in his hands. And he would never forgive himself for being the one who broke it. He'd failed her. She was the one person who's opinion he'd truly cherished. And he would never have the chance to right the wrongs he'd done to her.

But he could still right one wrong.

He could still save Cersei and a with her their unborn child. And perhaps that child could be better than either of them. Perhaps something good could come from something as hateful as their love. If he could have one wish, it would be for that. For a child that was nothing like himself or Cersei, who could be better than either of them.

A child who could be the good man Jaime failed to be.

Every step was agony, but Jaime pushed on with the hope that something good could come from this fools errand. He continued to hope, even as the Red Keep crumbled around him. Even as he guided his hateful twin down to the bowels of the castle.

That hope died when he saw the collapsed tunnel. He searched for another way out as Cersei begged for him to save her, begged for the life of their unborn child.

Brienne was right. He would die here. Cersei was also right. He really was the stupidest of the Lannisters. He returned to the side of his sister, the woman he had always loved. Even now he loved her, though the shape of that love had changed from the hateful passion that had motivated all of his darkest actions.

He grabbed her and told her to look at him. He told her that nothing else mattered. He wrapped his arms around the woman he loved, knowing he'd get exactly what he'd always thought he wanted. The gods could be cruel even in their kindness.

He didn't kiss Cersei in those final moments. He didn't want to erase the memory of another's lips. He wanted to hold on to every kiss he'd shared with his knight. From frantic firsts to tender midnight touches. Death would have him, that was certain. As the stranger came for him he would have Cersei in his arms. Oh, but by the mother, he would have Brienne in his heart. So he closed his eyes and pictured the woman who had grown on him. And he wished that if the mother had any mercy at all that somehow Brienne of Tarth, Ser Brienne, his lady, would know that his final thoughts were only of her.

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