Author's note:

This will be a canon compliant 3 or 4 chapter story about why Jaime left Winterfell and what might have happened between the scenes we did get to see. I actually started writing this for myself, hoping it would help me overcome the disappointment I had felt after watching the last two and a half episodes, but maybe it will help others too. The writing didn't make a lot of sense to me and I think more people would have accepted Jaime's eventual fate more if we had had more scenes or episodes.

I've never really written fanfiction before, just two chapters of a HP story I've given up on, and I'm not an English native speaker, so I hope this isn't unbearable to read. I'm open to any suggestions to improve my writing though :)

I'm staying true to the scenes and dialog of episode 4 and episode 5, so I guess this can be considered canon, but I'm ignoring parts of what D&D and Nikolaj said in interviews because it just doesn't make a lot of sense considering what had happened in the last few seasons and especially during Season 8 Episodes 2 to 4. The reunion with Cersei didn't really seem "romantic" for me, only kinda poetic and tragic. Meaning, this is more J/B than J/C.

I'm not sure whether this was done by anyone else before, if yes, I don't want to copy anybody's work and I apologize if this is the case. I really wanted to do this for myself in the first place, but of course I'm happy if anyone else likes it too. I admit it is a lot of "blabber" though :')

Jaime had never wanted to hurt her. Seeing Brienne cry hurt him more than he could have ever imagined. Even though they had been so close and intimate over the past few weeks he had never seen her crying or getting emotional like this. He wished that he could stay with her, just like she begged him to. He had hoped that she wouldn't wake up and while it certainly wouldn't have been fair to leave her in the middle of the night without any words of goodbye it would have made it a lot easier for him to go. Now there she was, crying and begging him to stay with her. When she had touched his face, Jaime had felt something crumble inside him. Absentmindedly, he had reached up with his good hand to stroke the hand rested on his left cheek with his thumb like he had done so many times now.

The words Brienne had mouthed right when she had grasped his face were still ringing in his ears. She had stated that she wasn't like his sister, that he was better than her and that he was a good man. It was obvious Brienne really believed that Jaime was a decent person.

Pictures, the same ones that had been haunting him for months and even years, flashed before Jaime's eyes. He saw a glimpse of all the terrible things he had done in his life. Most of them had been justified in a way or at least had happened during a war, but others couldn't be excused by any means. He had tried to become a better man but had to eventually realize that he had failed. Nothing could ever undo what he had done. And then there was Cersei… he had often thought about her after he had left King's Landing about two months ago but during the last few weeks it had become less frequent. Though after what he had heard today, he couldn't pretend that she didn't exist anymore…

One part of Jaime knew that Cersei wasn't all evil and that he would never want her to be executed, especially alone and without him by her side, but the other part of him was painfully aware that she was also monster who deserved to die as much as he did. A monster he had – unintentionally or deliberately - concurred to create all his life. As long as she was queen the war would not come to an end. She even sent Bronn to assassinate her brothers. Even though Bronn had risked his own life for Jaime more than once, Jaime actually considered him a threat, not just to him, but also to Brienne, if she might be considered to be one of Daenerys' top generals. Needless to say, if Cersei found out about him and Brienne, they would never be able to live a peaceful life. A life Jaime didn't think he ever deserved, but Brienne did. Then there was Tyrion, hand Cersei's sworn enemy and at the moment greatly endangered of being killed in the upcoming war.

No matter who would end up on the Iron Throne, either Cersei or Daenerys would die, unless, maybe, Cersei surrendered. But Jaime knew his sister better than anyone. The chances of her surrendering and giving up her home and everything she had not even dared to hope for were almost none existent, especially now that only one dragon was left. The odds were more in Cersei's favor now than ever before, or at least she would be convinced they were.

After what Jaime had seen during the Battle of the Goldroad and the Battle of Winterfell he would have never thought that Daenerys could have any chance of losing the war over the Iron Throne. However, Daenerys had suffered many losses in the Long Night and now she had lost her second dragon and Missandei, who, according to Brienne, seemed to have been an important advisor to the Dragon Queen. Now that Cersei's chances to win had increased drastically, Daenerys wouldn't stand by and give up easily; Jaime was sure of it. Was unsettled him was, that he might be the only one to be totally aware of what was at stake right now. He had seen what Daenerys had done to the Lannister army, he had seen Cersei blow up the citadel, he was the only one – besides Brienne – who knew about the stackings of wildfire in the tunnels of King's Landing… If the Dragon Queen attacked King's Landing with her last dragon or if Cersei blew up the wildfires like Aery's had once planned, it would lead to an unimaginable disaster. Therefore, Jaime had to do something. He had never stayed away from a fight and while he couldn't envision himself fighting for any specific side in the upcoming battle for various reasons, he knew he couldn't stay here in the North and pretend he didn't care or that everything was all fine. The only way to avoid a catastrophe and the deaths of thousands of innocent people was for Cersei to surrender before everything got blown apart... Even if it meant he had to do the unthinkable, something he didn't even dare to think about right now.

One thing Jaime knew for sure though… if he went South, he wouldn't survive. If he didn't die in the highly possible attack, either Daenerys or one of Cersei's guards would kill him after it was all over. This was why he had wished that Brienne wouldn't wake up. She knew what fat awaited him and he totally feared that she would want to come with him.

"You think I'm a good man?", Jaime asked and gently put Brienne's hand down. His vision clouded as he looked deeply into Brienne's beautiful sapphire-colored eyes. She was too good for this world, especially for him. He didn't deserve her and he almost hated himself for doing this to her more than he had ever hated himself for anything else.

"I pushed a boy out of a tower window, crippled him for life… for Cersei. I strangled my own cousin with my own hands, just to get back to Cersei."
Brienne had to understand that his biggest flaw had always been the love for his sister. If it weren't for her, he might have had a chance of becoming a more decent person. Many lives could have been spared if he had been stronger in the past. Somehow, Jaime had always had a feeling that his sinful love for Cersei would eventually lead to his demise, but he wouldn't let Brienne get torn down with him too.
"I would have killed every man, woman and child in Riverrun, for Cersei."
This was only partly true. He had sworn an oath to Catelyn Stark to never fight any Stark or Tully ever again and therefore he had tried to threaten Edmure Tully with similar words, hoping it would get him to convince the Blackfish to surrender. Although, if his plan hadn't worked, Jaime wouldn't have had any other choice than to attack the castle, which would have inevitably led to the deaths of at least a few civilians.

Brienne was crying harder now and Jaime felt his voice crack.
"She is hateful…. and so am I."
If he weren't, he wouldn't be able to hurt and leave her like this, would he?

Jaime turned his back on the woman he had loved for way longer than he had realized and climbed onto his horse's back. Listening to Brienne's now desperate sobbing took all of his willpower to not climb down again and embrace her closely. It hurt so much… but Brienne couldn't come with him, he didn't want her to die. Not because of a hateful fool like him.

As soon as Jaime had crossed through the gate of Winterfell, he couldn't hold back his own tears anymore. He had never wished more desperately that he had been killed during the Long Night than right now.

.

It took Jaime a little more than two weeks to get to the outer rims of King's Landing. He had hardly stopped to eat and sleep and had only done it when his horse was too exhausted and in danger of dying if he urged it to go further. He had hardly met people on his way, also because he was keeping off the Kingsroad whenever he could avoid it and rode around crossings known for bearing trouble. The closer he got to King's Landing the more unnerving he had become. Would he be too late? Had the city been destroyed already? Were Cersei and Tyrion still alive? He had tried not to think of Brienne but she hunted him like a ghost. More than once he asked himself if he had made the right decision, but deep down he knew that he would have never felt peace with himself if he had stayed. He didn't deserve to live a normal life with Brienne and if Cersei won the war, they wouldn't be safe anyway. If Daenerys won… she had tolerated him in the Battle of Winterfell and both she and Sansa had been okay with letting him stay in Winterfell, but only for the time until the war was won. If Daenerys succeeded in taking the throne, Jaime wasn't sure whether she might not change her mind and execute him for killing her father after all.

Jaime knew that he couldn't head straight for the gate since there was no way he wouldn't be seen from either Cersei's or Daenerys' army. His only chance was taking one of the small side entrances reserved for farmers, merchants and the inhabitants of the city. He wouldn't be able to get through it undetected but he had his golden hand and there was a chance that not every soldier knew about his alleged treason. If he showed them his hand to prove his identity, they might let him in after all. It was a risk he had to take.