Warnings: Jaime/Cersei. And I'm truly sorry about it.
*/*/*/*/*
"Are you simply going to let her treat you like that?"
Jaime struggles not to roll his eyes. "Must we argue?" he sighs instead, putting his hands on his sweet sister's shapely shoulders. "We only have tonight and then you'll be wed to another and on your way North."
Cersei wrenches away from his grasp and flounces towards the bed. "And whose fault is that?"
"Our father's," Jaime says flatly, "just as it is his fault I'm married to that great creature from the Stormlands."
Cersei turns and thoughtfully considers him, her beautiful green eyes coldly calculating. "There is no need for you to be married to her for long," she purrs and he narrows his own eyes.
"I need a legitimate heir," he says, "and the realm as a whole needs peace."
"And so we are sold off like cattle to the highest bidders!" Cersei says bitterly.
"At least you will be Queen once you marry King Eddard. It's what you've always wanted."
Cersei flies to him and flings herself into his arms. "Do you think all I care for is the title?"
Yes, he thinks cynically, but knows better than to speak the word aloud. Not that it matters, truly. If King Selwyn had had a son instead of a daughter, Cersei would have been wed to him and the two kingdoms would have been united just the same. It simply sweetens the peace treaty for their father that the Southron Kings will be named Lannister and not Tarth.
"Come with me, Jaime," Cersei pleads, startling him. "Renounce your farce of a marriage, reject the Southron Throne! Declare yourself willing to join Eddard Stark's Kingsguard and accompany us to Winterfell! Let Tarth have the Southron Throne if it means so much to her family."
Jaime bites back a harsh laugh. Cersei does not appreciate being mocked and if the wedding tomorrow is to be accomplished without incident, 'tis best if he keeps her sweet.
"You know I can't do that, Cersei," he says, wrapping his arms round her lithe body and pulling her close against him.
She tries to pull away but he only tightens his hold.
"You love the throne more than you love me," she spits as she struggles against him. "You just want to be King!"
"I want peace," he snarls. "I want an end to battles and blood and the suffering of the smallfolk. If it wouldn't cause more problems than it would solve, I would have married you in front of the Seven years ago and damn the world, but we wouldn't have survived five minutes after the ceremony, and you know it. Renounce the throne? Run away with you to Winterfell? Do you think Good King Eddard Stark will tolerate being a cuckold? Let alone an incestuous affair?" He gives Cersei a small shake and almost wants to stay, almost wants to throw his sister on the bed and fuck her until she screams his name.
The gods know, his body is willing and straining towards hers…and mayhaps it would keep Cersei calm enough for the ceremony tomorrow to be completed.
But he swore vows in the Great Sept today and while he has no love for the giant ugly creature forced upon him, he finds he cannot quite bring himself to break those promises so easily. Their marriage is not what he wants, and he has no doubt they will both take lovers as the years march on, but on their wedding night?
No.
Even if the only reason he's reluctant to do so is because Tarth is so sure he will. Her remarkably pretty eyes had been filled with contempt as she'd swept out of his bedchamber.
"Jaime?" Cersei's sharp voice cuts through his distraction. "Are you listening to me?"
He smiles a pained smile. "I was imagining all the things I'd love to do to you tonight," he says.
Cersei preens and she rewards him with a deep kiss before she slips away from his embrace.
"You mustn't stay much longer," she teases. "My ladies will soon return and we can't be found fucking."
Jaime's smile is bitter. "No? Aren't you the one who thinks my renouncing my birthright and following you to Winterfell would not rouse anyone's suspicions?"
Cersei's eyes sharpen into green shards of glass. "What do you want from me, Jaime? Do you want me to refuse this marriage and stay here with you?"
Jaime's blood runs cold. "And deny you the title of Queen? I love you too much to deny you anything you want, Cersei."
"Yes, I'll be Queen—but it's the North, Jaime! So far away from you! And warmth!"
Jaime's heart twists a little with sympathy. He goes to Cersei and tugs her gently into his arms and kisses her. He understands his Father's reasoning for this second marriage; he even agrees with it. But Cersei is still his sister, his lover, and he still loves her, still wants her, even after all she has done, even after all that has happened.
He kisses her again and bears her down to the bed.
Tomorrow she'll be out of his reach, he thinks, and he's relieved, even as his heart shatters along with his resolve to honor his newly made marriage vows.
*/*/*/*/*
The control room comes back into focus. Jaime's not nearly as disoriented as he was the first time this happened and he turns to Brienne, only to run into her accusing gaze.
"You spent the night with her?" Brienne asks and for the first time in this universe, he blushes.
He shrugs and she opens her mouth-
*/*/*/*/*
Alysanne and Arianne are as fascinated with Jaime as Brienne had always been. Oh, she had grown up with him so she learned to ignore his handsome face—most of the time. Every now and then, though, he could still take her breath away. Of course, when they still had the television, it happened whenever she stumbled across him on some talk show or another, promoting his latest album.
She studiously avoids his music, although that's virtually impossible since his big cross-over hit is literally on every radio station at least four times an hour. She wants to buy his album—he's her best friend, after all—but its money better spent on food or squirrelled away to buy the girls new clothes for the upcoming school year.
Brienne's glad Jaime's made it in the world of Southron music. He's a big star. At least for now, she tells herself darkly, and then feels guilty that she's always half-hoped he'd fail and return home to settle for her homely self.
Not that he had ever noticed her homely self—at least not like that. And she hadn't even realized what she felt for him until he left. No, at the time, she'd been mooning after Renly Baratheon, certain he was the only one for her. Then Jaime had left without even saying good-bye, and her heart had shattered. Then he hadn't once tried to contact her over the last five years and his absence became an ache she could never soothe.
Not that she's had much time to dwell on it. After her mother had died having Arianne, her father had descended into alcoholism, leaving Brienne to take care of both him and the girls. Jaime knew all that, of course; Arianne had been seven when he left, after all. What he didn't know was that not even six months after Jaime took off for Music Row in King's Landing, Selwyn Tarth went on a bender and rolled the tractor down the one hill on their sorry farm.
He was already dead by the time Brienne found him.
All of her energy since then has been focused on keeping her sisters with her while keeping a roof over their heads and food on their table.
She tells Jaime about it in a few words while they're sitting on the front porch swing, glasses filled with iced tea weeping on the side tables beside them. The sun is setting but it's still brutally hot. She's sent the girls out to the garden to pick some vegetables for supper.
"It's a little early for most everything," she says to Jaime.
"I know," he says. "Why didn't you tell me about your father?"
"Why didn't you tell me where you were?"
He frowns. "I told Cersei to give you my address!"
Brienne snorts and rolls her eyes. "Well, you should have known better than that," she says, her voice as dry as the land that surrounds them. There is no love lost between Brienne and Jaime's sister.
Jaime sighs. "Yeah, I suppose I should have."
They gently rock in silence then Brienne says, "Why are you here?"
"Cersei's getting married," Jaime says softly.
"I know," Brienne says kindly. "Are you okay with that?"
Jaime's laugh is harsh. "No, but there's also nothing I can do about it."
"I always thought Cersei would join you in King's Landing, especially—" she stops abruptly.
"After I made it big?" Jaime says drily. "She did, for a while. I even got her a few gigs, but it turns out that being a successful recording artist actually takes work. Not work like this—" he gestures at the dying crops and the struggling garden "—but still more work than Cersei was willing to put in." He sighs and deflates. "I always thought she'd leave this place before I did."
Brienne could have told him differently; had, too, before he'd left town and left her, Brienne, behind with it. Cersei likes being a big fish in a small pond; likes being queen bee. She wouldn't have that in a place like King's Landing.
Jaime shakes his head. "Anyway, Cersei needs to make her own way, and I need to make mine. A singer is only as good as his last hit, and I have to get a new album out soon or lose my momentum."
"Oh," Brienne says, startled. "I still hear your song everywhere."
Jaime shrugs. "For now. But I have no intention of being a one-hit wonder. I'm working with my producers now, listening to demos, trying to decide what's going to be the next big hit for me." He takes a sip of his iced tea. "We'll see."
"Do you like it?" Brienne asks carefully.
"I love it," he says promptly. "I'm good at it, which shocked the hell out of my dad, of course. He cut me off, did you know?"
Brienne shakes her head. Tywin Lannister is not a man who deigns to speak to someone like her.
"I made it on my own anyway," Jaime says smugly then shrugs. "At least for now."
The porch swing gently sways, the silence broken only by the creak of its chains and the girls' childish voices as they call to each other in the garden.
"You look good, Brienne," Jaime says softly.
She snorts.
"I've missed you," he insists. "It's good to see you again."
She picks up her glass with a trembling hand and takes a sip, hoping to hide her reaction to his words. She puts the glass back down. "I've missed you, too," she says, her voice husky. She clears her throat. "It's good to see you," she says briskly, "and I'm glad you're back, even if it's only for a few days."
*/*/*/*/*
The taste of the iced tea is still deliciously sweet on his tongue as the control room comes back into focus. Jaime wonders if his Brienne—Brienne Prime—is just as good at making it in this universe and thinks he needs to remember to ask—
*/*/*/*/*
Brienne brushes the tips of her fingers across her scarred cheek as she stands outside Jaime Lannister's cell door. Odd. The maiming had occurred not even six months into her tenure here; a man condemned for horrific crimes had attacked her as she was escorting him to the gallows. He'd wanted one last victim; one last taste of human flesh.
She shudders a little at the memory, but she had not thought of it for months, now. Had not mourned the loss of her smooth cheek, nor the loss of what few homely looks she had been blessed with. Yet since her largely unsuccessful meeting the previous day with the man languishing in this cell, she's been seeing herself through his eyes. And cringing.
Foolish.
She's a septa, sworn to serve, sworn to celibacy. It matters not what a condemned criminal thinks of her.
She brushes her fingers across the scars again and reminds herself that the man behind this cell door may look beautiful, but beneath, he is just as much a monster—and just as much a child of the Seven—as any other convicted man she's counselled in the last three years. What he thinks—or, more like, doesn't think—of her has less than naught to do with what she is honor-bound to provide to him: succor, and one last chance at peace and salvation.
*/*/*/*/*
The septa sits, stiff and precise, on the only chair in the cell. Jaime carefully watches her as he tries to pry words out of her. For someone who is supposed to be trying to save his soul, she is remarkably reluctant to speak once she's finished saying her prayers.
The silence between them deepens.
"Tell me what you do here, septa," Jaime finally says.
"I minister to the men condemned to death," she says.
"A truly noble calling," he says, sardonic. "Did you volunteer for it?"
The septa hesitates then says, slowly, "The High Septon assigned me here."
Jaime raises an eyebrow. "Did he now? For what reason?"
"It is not for me to question the High Septon's decisions."
"Of course not. Tell me: does he know all that you do here? Do you write reports to him that he reads while he is safely hidden away in the Great Sept in King's Landing? Can he truly understand what you tell him? Has he ever been in a place like this, septa? Has he ever looked in a condemned man's eyes and offered to pray for their souls?"
The septa blinks those ridiculously large and beautiful eyes, but they remain serene. "Does it truly matter if he has or not?" she asks. "The gallows is but one way to meet the Stranger; I am sure the High Septon has provided comfort to many who were lost and afraid."
Jaime's smile is knife-sharp. "Is that what you think of me? That I'm lost and afraid?"
"You are here, are you not? You have this afternoon, and two full days, and then I will walk by your side as you meet your fate."
"And will the prayers you'll intone to save my soul have any true meaning? You will not even tell me your name."
The septa blinks again, and now she looks uncertain, even confused.
Jaime cocks his head. "How long have you been here?"
"Three years," she says.
"Has no other condemned man ever asked your name?"
The septa hesitates, blinking owlishly in the dim light of this festering cell. "No," she finally says softly, "but my name is not important."
"I disagree. As my time counts down and the Stranger draws near, I find there is nothing more important to me than the name of the only person I am allowed to see." He jerks his chin towards the door. "The guard out there opens the slot in my door and shoves through a food tray three times a day, yet never speaks a word." His grin is brief and humorless. "At least the Hanging Judge believes in still feeding the men he condemns. The pail for my shit will soon be overflowing, but I am at least grateful I have enough length on my chains to allow me to pace this cell as far as needed." He considers her, suddenly thoughtful.
"Do not think to overpower me, Mr. Lannister," the septa says, still calm but with a warning look on her scarred face. "I am as strong as I look, and even if I weren't, none in this place would save me."
Jaime raises an eyebrow. "You are the prison's septa."
"And worth less to the Hanging Judge than the justice that must be meted out."
"You've been taken hostage before?"
"Several times."
"And you're still here."
For the first time in their acquaintance, a slight smile curves the septa's too-large mouth. "I am still here."
Jaime's smile is more pronounced and genuine. "And yet none have ever bothered to ask your name." He shakes his head and sobers, his eyes intent. "I will not harm you, septa; you have my word—such as it is. But I would know the name of the person intent on saving my soul in such a short time."
She hesitates, then reluctantly says, "Brienne. Brienne of Tarth." Her voice is as solemn as her face, her beautiful eyes wide and blue and honest.
Jaime slowly smiles. "Septa Brienne." He bows his head, almost like a knight bowing to a maiden. "Septa Brienne." He nods. "Thank you."
She flushes and quickly clears her throat. "Do you wish to pray?" she asks.
Jaime heaves a small sigh. "Since you have been so kind as to give me your name, yes. Please pray for me. Septa Brienne."
*/*/*/*/*
A truly good person, Jaime thinks as Septa Brienne closes the door of his cell behind her some time later. She actually believes the auroch-shit she's shovelling every time she's here.
That's good, he thinks as he leans his head back and shifts, trying to get some relief from the shackles round his wrists and feet. He can work with a truly good person.
He dozes, his mind working, and when he wakes, he has a plan.
*/*/*/*/*
Jaime blinks and sees he's back in the Wall with the computers in front of him and his Brienne beside him.
The experiment is once again over, and he's pleased he's not nearly as dizzy and disoriented as the other night—although he has to fight the urge to scratch every inch of himself he can reach, still feeling the filth of that prison cell.
"Gods, that place stinks," Brienne says, wrinkling her nose, rubbing at her unscarred cheek.
Now he does start to scratch. "I need a shower," he groans.
"There's one two levels up," Brienne says, already reaching for her pen and a pad of paper.
"Thank gods," he says, and bolts from the room.
*/*/*/*/*