A/N: Just a "therapeutic drabble" (not a fix-it) of the last scene with the Lannister twins to help me work through a small portion of the angst from last week's episode as we anxiously await the finale. I'm not sure if it comes across more as Jaime/Brienne or Jaime/Cersei. Thank you for reading and I hope you like it!

Leaving Brienne wasn't as easy as leaving Cersei had been. In some other universe (one in which he wasn't an idiot), this realization may have brought Jaime to his senses. Made him turn the fucking horse around at some point – any of the million or so points along the way where he still had a choice. He might have realized that one Brienne was worth a thousand Cerseis, and that he—

Well, no, that wasn't right. That much had registered in his stupid brain… his stupid heart. Brienne was the better woman in every way that mattered. The light in the dark that should have guided him home.

And would have, if not for his twin.

"She is hateful, and so am I."

He probably could have explained himself better. Part of him believed he would have the chance to do just that… someday. The part that knew he ought to kill his sister – gods, did she deserve it! – and that doing so would set him free. Free to return to Brienne with an undivided heart… to beg her forgiveness, and spend the rest of his life earning it if need be.

"We can't choose who we love."

He'd been foolish to pretend that his love for Brienne could replace or diminish his love for Cersei. Brienne was the strongest person he'd ever known, and he had no doubt that she would get over his fuckwittery before long. She was too good for him anyway - but Cersei? He and Cersei deserved each other. His fate would be the same as hers.

No, he would never be free. He wasn't the man Brienne believed him to be, nor could he ever become that man. Far too late for that. If he hadn't known it before, he knew it the moment he laid eyes on Cersei standing in the ruins. Alone, quivering with fright, her beautiful face stained with tears… she would not reject him this time. She needed him in a way that Brienne never would, and Jaime realized that coming here was the right choice after all. Cersei's world was literally crumbling around her, her weapons of choice that had served her so well in life now rendered as useless as Jaime's right hand.

This was not the cold, selfish, vindictive woman he'd left behind - the one who had always tugged on his puppet strings just as much as, if not more than, their father had. She was a scared little girl, clinging to him for dear life. The same little girl he'd slayed dragons for as a boy in their childhood bubble of make-believe.

Neither of them could have ever imagined… this. Real-life dragons did not fall with a mere wave of a sword; they burned even the mightiest of fortresses to the ground with ease, heroes be damned.

And Jaime wasn't even a hero.

With their escape route blocked, nowhere left to go and nowhere to hide… they were doomed. Cersei knew it before he did, if only by a moment. They had come into this world together… and we will leave it together. He couldn't save her. Couldn't save their unborn child. But he could forgive her. He could love her. He could make this easier. Comfort was all he had left to offer her now. She just needed to focus on him, on them – if she would just look at him-

"Nothing else matters," he soothed, again and again until she believed it. The words were true – he couldn't even feel his wounds anymore. He held her close as the walls, the sky, the whole fucking world rumbled around them… and he felt her panic finally give way to acceptance. "Nothing else matters. Only us."

Death lurked just beyond this breath… or perhaps the next…

Only us… only us… I'm so sorry, Brienne. I wish-