A/N: Written for my hc_bingo wild square; I chose 'unrequited pining', which seemed to work for Jaime/Brienne since he is SUCH a fool for love and is forever ruining his own chances for happiness. I apologize for any incoherency or cheese; this is my first time in this fandom so please feel free to comment or critique or just tell me how cute Jaime/Brienne is. xposted to AO3
(1)
She confronts him in the baths at Harrenhall, bare as a bride at her bedding and as tall and proud as the towers of Casterly Rock. He has seen a great many naked women as Robert's Kingsguard, and judged them all objectively, for despite their looks none of them had ever held a candle to his other half. Brienne the Beauty, judged by the same standards, is fairly low on the scale.
He has never been moved by a woman's beauty, but the proud strength of her posture, the heat of her fury, and the map of victories and defeats traced by her scars arrests him. His heartbeat pounds in the painful stump where his swordhand once was, and between one breath and the next he loves her.
He has never loved someone better than himself before, and the brief thought of her returning it is a horror deeper than death.
(2)
He is Kingslayer of the king to whom their new Queen traces her legitimacy to rule. Everyone knew that that same king had been both mad and a terrible ruler, just as everyone knew that the man who had killed him nonetheless would be executed.
What not everyone knows is that the young dragon queen had first wanted his death to be by fire.
She told him, small and pale and vicious in that horribly uncomfortable iron chair, while he knelt unsteadily on the throne room floor surrounded by her strange menagerie of peoples and creatures loyal to death. He knows better than to argue with a Targaryn about fire, and merely allows himself a moment with eyes closed to pray to gods he hardly believes in that dragonfire will be swift. When he opens them again, there is someone kneeling in front of him.
He recognizes with a shock a member of the Queensguard, and with an even greater disbelief that it is Brienne of Tarth, one of the Queen's earliest supporters and closest companions. "My queen," she says gravely, in a surprisingly pleasant voice, "While this man surely deserves to die for his crimes against your house, he is still, for all his disgrace, a knight. I humbly beg Your Grace on his behalf for an execution by beheading."
The dragon queen looks over her sworn sword thoughtfully, before glancing briefly over Jaime. She gestures for Brienne to rise and nods once. "I am willing to grant your request. I know how much you value your own oaths of knighthood."
"Thank you, Your Grace," the tall woman says simply, and returns to her place in the ranks.
His date of execution is set for a week hence, and he lasts a day before requesting a visit from Lady Brienne. She presents herself with dignity, the white cloak setting over her broad shoulders as well as it ever did on his. "Why?" he asks her.
"As I told her grace, it was a matter of honor."
"But why," he insists, because he is a simple and straightforward man. "What honor? You can't have not heard what they say about me."
"Aye, I've heard," she says almost gently. "And I have heard worse things said by better men about me, and I know my own honor."
(She is his executioner once the time comes, wielding a greatsword and stepping up to him with a quiet grace. She pushes his neck down to the block, and her hand on his head feels like a benediction)
(3)
They are barely a year married when he realizes that he likes her.
Two years married and he realizes that he loves her.
Five years married and he realizes that she will never, never love him in return.
(4)
"Do you weary of the wall already, Ser Jamie?"
He looks up at the wry voice, shrugging wearily under his furs. "Not everyone can think of this icy hell as home, brother Brienne."
She shrugs, masculine and powerful in the black garb of her sworn service. "I stay where I am needed, Ser. It is my duty."
"To keep all the oaths of the Nightwatch," he says softly. "Oaths so final they even remain when the oathmaker is revealed to be a little more female than the other brothers."
"It was a good oath, and I was glad to take it," she responds easily.
"I don't know how good," he says, forcing his voice to remain light as she pulls him to his feet. "Never much liked the part about chastity, myself."
"It's not like I had a lot of offers before."
Her frank eyes meet his with something like self-deprication, and they are blue, blue, blue. Since he is roused, she turns back to her post-her duty is done, and Brienne of the Night's Watch always does her duty. He follows behind her and the following feels like night falling.
(5)
"You look troubled, wench," he says. Actually she mostly looks cold and tired. And bloody. But then they all look bloody.
"There's less cause for it than of late, I should think," she says simply, and steadies him as he almost topples in sitting down next to her.
"That may well be," he replies. "Rumor has it the war is over, and seeing as the hordes of unnatural foes seem to have been eliminated I tend to lend the rumor more credence than I otherwise might have."
"Aye. But then there's always another war, isn't there?"
"Generally. But at least we survived this one." At least you survived this one, he thinks, and feels himself smile at the thought.
"I never expected to live," she says wonderingly. She finally meets his eyes. A smile starts on her face in echo of his, and he can't stop himself leaning against her the littlest bit; they're both so bundled in layers of clothing it's not like she could feel it, anyway...but perhaps she can. In the last week of near-constant fighting they have been at each others' sides and backs so constantly that she feels like a part of himself, more than his missing hand ever had.
"I confess, nor did I." She drops her eyes and smiles at her hands in her lap. He nudges her shoulder with his own. "Well, my lady, what are your plans now that you have a future in which to have them?"
"I don't-" she stops, and under the flush of cold a darker blush arises in her cheeks. It delights him, and he turns to face her to admire it more fully.
"You don't what?" he says, mocking but gently.
She takes in a deep breath and sets herself like she did before going into a battle, but all she does is turn to face him squarely. His small falls away as her eyes, bluer than ice or a fire's heart, meet his searchingly; then with a swift sure move like an impaling blade she ducks forward and kisses him on the mouth.
It is an absurdely chaste gesture, close-mouthed and brief, although their faces are so numb with chill either can hardly feel it, and for once Jaime is completely speechless. The blush rises brighter in Brienne's cheeks, the scars standing out sharply, but she looks at him almost defiantly. "Well?"
His mouth opens, closes, opens again. "Well...what?" He clears his throat, grasping for his composure. "I mean, it seems like a good plan. A bit lacking in details..." She kisses him again, and he gladly stops speaking to reciprocate. "...I suppose that's more than one war over, then?" he says when he finally catches his breath.
She actually laughs at that. "I suspect not. But then we've never done too well with peacetime, it seems."