A/N: Firstly, thanks to all who have left reviews on chapter 1 and on my previous two stories. I am quite overwhelmed by the response this story has had, TBH.
This chapter contains a flashback / continuation of That Scene in 8.04, which is rating-appropriate - it's written in italics because I couldn't think of a better way to delineate it as being a past event, so apologies if that makes it harder to read. Also, since the creators apparently forgot about Brienne's encounter with the bear (or they have some kind of magical scar-vanishing medicine in Westeros IDK), I fixed that for them. They're welcome, I'm sure.
With Sansa's protection entrusted to Podrick – he is more than capable of the task – and Bran promising to pass on the news of her departure, Brienne is on the road to Kings Landing. She has taken only what she needs to survive: furs, food and drink, a small amount of coin, and the fastest horse in the Winterfell stables.
She pushes the poor, beleaguered beast to its very limits, barely able to see the road ahead of her in the darkness, as she tries to regain some ground on Jaime. He cannot have gotten far in only a day, and with the snow starting up again she hopes he will not have strayed from the road. To take a shortcut in the North in winter would be suicide, and she very much suspects he does not want to die prematurely if his plan is to get himself murdered trying to win a war single-handedly. (She cannot quite summon the energy to smile at the irony.)
The bitter air is harsh in her lungs, stinging her face, her breath clouding in front of her with every exhale. The horse grunts from the effort of maintaining the pace she has set, hooves kicking up mud and ice with every impact. The rhythm of it grounds her against the silent backdrop of snow, and from that grounding she feels her rage flare up anew.
She sees perfectly clearly now what his intentions had been, and her desire to strangle him is almost as strong as her need to enfold him in her arms and make him understand. The stupidest fucking Lannister. If Tyrion had not gone south with Daenerys and her fleet, she thinks, he might have talked some sense into his idiot brother. As it stands, that impossible task is now her responsibility.
Her anger fuels her through the night until the sky grows light with the dawn, when her growling stomach begs for a reprieve. She has covered good ground in only a few hours. The snow is falling thick and heavy, making visibility almost as bad as during the battle for Winterfell; but at least there is no more Night King, no more walking dead to worry about. If she is set upon by bandits or robbers, they will feel the sharp end of her blade and the brunt of her wrath.
There had been snow on the night of the feast, she remembers; a light flurry which turned to a blizzard by the time she had returned to her quarters. Warmed by wine and laughter and good company, a fire in her hearth, she could almost have felt at home in the Starks' ancestral castle; a tundra of ice just as isolating as a sapphire sea.
Little did she realise that it would take a mere knock upon her door, for her to consider herself duly settled.
She does not know what to do with her hands.
It seems a ridiculous thing to be focusing on, considering, but she has never yet been bested in a duel and she does not intend to start now. There are no rules to aid her, no training in all the lands which could have prepared her; all she can do is follow her instincts, as unhoned as they are in this situation.
Calling the kiss unexpected would be an understatement. Of course, she is not so naïve as to have misinterpreted his intentions, even if she struggled to believe them, but everything happened so quickly she barely had time to think. She has to keep reminding herself that it is Jaime here with her in this unprecedented moment: Jaime's mouth against hers, Jaime's hand against her face. His thumb caresses her cheek almost tenderly in comparison to the force of his kiss.
She wills her arms to find a purpose, and her hands find their way to his chest. When he does not protest (quite the opposite, in fact) they move to his sides, to the small of his back, her arms encircling him and tugging him closer. He yields, walking her backwards to the wall; she somehow finds the wherewithal to kick both of their discarded shirts out of the way before they can trip over them, but she has always been the more sensible of the two of them.
The stones are cold against her back; Jaime is warm against her front; she arches towards his heat and something that sounds suspiciously like a growl emerges from his throat. His left hand drops from her face to her back, sliding up between her shoulder blades so she cannot move away from him. She yearns to be held in both of his arms, but he holds his right uselessly at his side. The golden hand has been nothing but a hindrance from the moment he gained it.
Then, as suddenly as it began, he pulls away from her. Her eyes snap open as she catches her breath, searching for his in the low light. There is an unreadable expression on his face and she feels the barest twinge of panic.
"This is wrong," he says, and releases her, taking a step back.
She resists the urge to protect her modesty, staring defiantly back at him; it's nothing he hasn't seen before. She sets her face into an impassive expression, to try and conceal the painful realisation which is washing over her, emotions she is tethering down until it is safe to release them.
"You had better leave, then."
"What?" He appears genuinely confused by her suggestion, and she wonders exactly how much wine he'd imbibed before knocking on her door.
"You said, 'This is wrong'," she reminds him.
"Oh. Yes. I did." He blinks at her. "That's not quite what I meant."
This conversation is proving a struggle. "You're very good at not saying what you mean. The wine has made you an expert in it."
"Brienne…"
"Speak plainly, or do not speak at all."
She is rapidly losing patience, and he knows it even through his drunken haze. His expression softens again, to her surprise, and she tries not to think too hard about what that means.
"I intended to say that I have gone about this in completely the wrong way," he says. "My nerves got the better of me, and I…"
"You… what?"
When he lifts his hand to her face again, it is to gently caress her cheekbone with his thumb, and she feels the wall around her heart begin to crumble, against her better judgement. She misses his warmth already.
"My words are failing me tonight," he admits. "I'd rather show you, if you would permit me?"
She does not trust herself to speak, in case her own words are similarly muddled, and merely nods her agreement. A moment of silence extends between them where she tries to read his face; his eyes are almost black (she tells herself it is from the low light because she is too scared to consider the alternative) and they are all she can focus on as he leans closer.
This time, when he kisses her, it is tender and undemanding.
Her arms hang limply by her sides again for the briefest of moments, before she lifts them: her right to cover his where it still rests against her cheek, their fingers interlocking, whilst her left hand reaches for his right forearm. He tries to jerk out of her grip in surprise, but she tightens her hold; then the notion occurs to her that if Jaime can deal with the golden appendage one-handed, then so can she. Her fingers search for the leather bands attaching the hand to his arm, finds that they are secured with hinged clasps – a Maester's clever design, no doubt – and within seconds they are loosened and the heavy prosthesis falls away into her hand.
Their kiss breaks as he pulls away to take in a sharp breath, and her heart aches at the expression on his face: a devastating combination of shame and uncomprehension. Her first instinct is to discard the hand out of the window, or throw it onto the fire, but instead she finds the nearest flat surface within reach and carefully places it down, her gaze flitting away from his only briefly while she does so. When she looks back, his eyes are shining in the firelight and he looks as though he might be about to cry; she does not have any time to think further on it before his mouth is on hers once more.
Emboldened, she wastes no time in ensuring his right arm is firmly wrapped around her; he hesitates for only a second before tightening his grasp and pulling her closer. Her hands find his chest again, sliding up until she is cupping his face, and it prompts him to deepen the kiss, his splayed fingers sinking into her hair. A noise rumbles from her throat which she would probably find embarrassing, if not for the fact that he makes a similar noise in response.
The wine tastes all the sweeter on his tongue and she wants more: more of his warmth and his arms and his lips moving against hers. She takes a step forward, pushing closer, and his arm tightens around her waist in encouragement; her hips roll instinctively towards his almost beyond her control and what she feels pressing back is not a surprise, exactly, but it shocks her nonetheless.
Jaime must sense her hesitation, because he carefully releases her again and both his good hand and stump rest at her waist to gently push her back. There is no rejection in the gesture, only quiet care and concern for her feelings; he does not want to scare her. She feels a sudden rush of affection that he is no longer worried about his foreshortened arm coming into contact with her; that, at least, she has managed to get right, even if between them they have approached this situation like the drunken fools they are.
He stares at her for a long time, his eyes drifting over her features but never leaving her face. She tries to remain impassive but can feel a frown of confusion edging onto her brow. His hand lifts again, fingertips gently brushing a lock of dishevelled hair away from her forehead before ghosting against the skin of her cheek.
"You're beautiful," he says, and her heart almost stops. She shakes her head, trying to escape his gaze.
"How much wine have you—"
She is prevented from finishing the question by his thumb brushing against her mouth, effectively silencing her.
"You asked me to speak plainly," he reminds her. "I am doing so."
Brienne can only stare at him, searching for any trace of dishonesty in his words, except she knows him better than either of them would prefer, and she has not seen such a look on his face since he told her about King Aerys; since he commanded her to kneel and made her a knight. She knows the glint in his eyes when he mocks her; it was not there then, and it is not there now.
"I would have my brother play his game every night," he says, trying to fill the silence, "if it would make you smile like that again. And I wouldn't let him ruin it with his bawdy suggestions."
"It made you chase after me, didn't it?" she challenges.
"Yes, but it also upset you, and you were enjoying yourself until Tyrion lowered the tone. He's good at that, by the way; I probably should have warned you."
"I wasn't upset," she clarifies, though he clearly does not believe her. "I just rather felt that the game was unfairly balanced in Tyrion's favour and that there was no point in continuing."
"It's his game," says Jaime. "He can play by whatever rules he wants. Still, it seems that defending your honour has become something of a habit for me."
"And yet, here you are."
He smiles at that, but the irony wears off soon enough, a seriousness overtaking his expression. "Brienne, if you want me to leave, you only have to ask. We can stop this now; you need only say the word. I have very little honour left in me, but what remains is reserved for you."
It takes her a few seconds to understand that he is not rejecting her, but offering her a choice. She is so used to being unwanted that believing the opposite is almost impossible.
"Do you want to leave?"
"Never."
"So stay."
She does not want to remember; she would sooner erase the memory completely than be cursed by it now. And yet, she cannot stop; it warms her against the cold as much as it tears her heart in two.
She had wanted to tell him, that night, to confess her deepest and most long-held feelings, but words soon became an economy not to be wasted. He had kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, when she asked him to stay, his lips trailing fire wherever they went, giving each and every one of her battle-bruises tender attention before moving to the pale parallel scars at her neck; she had hissed and flinched away and he had stopped, before realising that she had not reacted in pain but something far deeper: something he recognised only too well. His right arm had twitched involuntarily against her side, and a tacit mutual agreement had been reached: it was too soon for the sharing of these particular scars.
She had to remind him repeatedly that he did not need to be so gentle with her; that she would not break. He reminded her in turn that there were other ways to break her.
No, there had been not the time nor the opportunity to bare her heart that night; nor had there been in the weeks that followed. She regrets it now, not telling him. Perhaps if she had done, it might have made a difference; but even now, after everything, she cannot say if he would have reciprocated. Only two days ago, she would have suggested that she knew Jaime Lannister better than any other person in the world; better even than he knew himself. Now she wonders if it was merely an illusion; if the good man she had allowed into her heart had ever been there at all.
She gives herself a mental kick, willing herself to stop travelling this particularly self-pitying path. She knows him; Bran Stark's cryptic visions have reassured her of that fact. He would never have travelled to Winterfell – to the North that he hates so much – if he had any intention of returning to his sister. He may be stupid, but even Jaime is not such an idiot as to walk straight back into the lion's jaws. Cersei has already threatened to kill him, and sent his former sell-sword to fulfil that promise; he must have some kind of plan to end this that will not result in his blood being shed along with hers.
Then she remembers that he jumped into a bear pit, once, one-handed and unarmed, just to save her life. It is the realisation of that which prompts her to mount the horse again and kick it into action, driving onwards into the freezing snow.
Of course he doesn't have a plan.
A/N: I didn't intend this fic to be so Brienne-centric but apparently she's the one doing all the directing at present. I'll try and get back to Jaime's side of things next chapter. I also intended this to have a much longer third section than what's here, but the flashback gave me a lot of trouble and I wanted to share it once it was finally done, so there you have it.
Don't get me wrong: I love both of my baes beyond reason and want them to be happy, and I will defend Jaime to the death. I honestly do believe he's doing what he thinks is the right thing, but I worry that I only believe that thanks to Nik's stupendous acting in that final scene rather than because that's what the writers are intending.
I have a bit of a headcanon/theory about where this could go. Jaime is a man formed of dichotomies – light and dark, good and bad, Brienne and Cersei – and is constantly torn between them. I think (/hope) his redemption will come in the form of him learning to live with those opposites rather than thinking he has to be one or the other, and I think he will only come to terms with that once Cersei out of the picture. But I also have no trust at all in the writers at this point, thanks to their relentless captaining of the SS Twincest, so I guess we'll have to wait and see…
(Incidentally, I am giving up on Tumblr until this season is over and done with because the leaks/spoilers are getting harder to avoid and I can't cope with the constant fluctuation between hope and despair. Honestly, I already feel healthier for it. :P It goes without saying that if you do know anything, please keep it to yourself!)
Anyway, hope you enjoyed. Inevitable reunion hopefully coming in the next chapter, which I am intending to post later today or early tomorrow if it cooperates.