To say that Tywin Lannister was displeased in Jaime's choice of bride was to put it ethereally lightly. Even that most stoic of men could not entirely restrain his shock upon meeting Brienne, his usually flat voice exhibiting actual emotion when he demanded, "Surely you're joking, Jaime."
Jaime balled his hands into fists and rued taking things so slowly; as soon as he'd known Brienne loved him, he should have begun his campaign to wed her, instead of just submerging himself in the pleasure he'd found with her. They could have been married for weeks, making it far too late for Tywin to do anything about it, but—
"No," he said calmly. He and Brienne had discussed it in the hurried few minutes they'd had to get dressed and rush back to the house, and agreed that giving rein to their (Jaime's) temper would not suit their (Jaime's) goal of placating his father enough to, at the very least, buy them the time they needed to get to a septon and be married. "I'm not joking. We've found we're very compatible, in the time I've been here, and Brienne has honored me by accepting my proposal."
Anger swelled in the space between them, but Tywin's meticulous control reigned supreme, as always.
"I see," he said tightly. "Miss Tarth. Who are your people? Are they related to the ruling house of Tarth?"
"Yes, ser," she replied carefully. "My father is the Evenstar, and I am poised to inherit upon his passing."
"And it prospers?"
"I believe so, ser, or it did when I was last there, some months ago."
"So if I were to offer you a substantial sum to leave Castamere this very minute and never return, you would refuse."
Brienne's hand clamped on Jaime's so hard it hurt, and then just as quickly eased.
"Yes, ser," she said. Her tone was exquisitely polite. "You don't have enough wealth to persuade me to leave Jaime." She paused, then added, "No one does."
Offended silence fell and Jaime almost laughed at how incomprehensible Brienne must seem to his father; not merely unattractive in the extreme, but bafflingly resistant to his best efforts at bribery.
And extortion, it seemed, because Tywin had plunged ahead with, "And if I made life very difficult for your father and Tarth? Purchased any debts he might have, bought up any available real estate and businesses? Arranged for the docks to remain empty, prevented trade, even transportation?"
He would do it, too; if not with influence, he'd simply purchase everything and do as he liked. He'd even end the ferry service, effectively trapping the people of Tarth on their fair isle.
But Brienne only said, with deep serenity, "Then my father and Tarth will persevere and overcome as we always have." Then she very gently added, "We're not in the habit of bowing to despots and bullies, ser."
Jaime's heart sang; it opened white-feathered wings and took flight. Our children are going to be warriors, he thought, no small amount awed by her. Our children are going to be heroes.
"You will leave Castamere immediately," Tywin intoned, his voice gelid.
"I'm glad to leave," Brienne replied. Her tone was quiet, almost respectful, even if her words were not. "I'll go right now."
Jaime felt his mouth go dry at the implication of her response: she was leaving. She was leaving him. He remained in the chair, relieved for its support, because his entire body felt boneless, like his skeleton could no longer hold him up. He couldn't blame her; he didn't want to be related to Tywin or Cersei, either.
Desperate, he reached out for her, trying in vain to take her hand, to snatch a bit of her shirt, anything to tether her to him. Don't go, was on his lips. Don't go without me. And he was about to say them, to reveal himself as the pathetic fool he was, when her hand tightened on his once more.
"Jaime?" she said, squeezing. "I'll see you tomorrow?"
"I did not mean you were going just for the night," Tywin said. "Once you leave here, you will not return. And you may tell your uncle his services are no longer needed here or at the Rock."
Jaime heard a creak of leather. His father must be standing. He always did prefer to stand when he was about to destroy something.
"Did you imagine all would continue as it has been?" Tywin continued, with that casual tone that had always put Jaime in mind of a snake, lazing in the sun but coiled to strike. "That I'd let you remain here, working your…" He paused for maximum insult. "…seductions and charms on my heir with impunity?"
"If we were married, I'd remain here as his wife," she replied. "Though I'd be happy to keep doing the gardening. I enjoy it."
Silence. Jaime knew that, if he could see, his father would have shot him a glance filled with disbelief and scorn: could she possibly be this naive? the glance would have asked.
Yes, Jaime would have replied. She's naive because she's good and kind and generous and honest, and expects everyone else to be, too.
"If?" he croaked. "If we were married?"
"When," she corrected, bringing his hand to her face, pressing it to her cheek so he could tell she was smiling at him. "I should have said when we're married."
"And if I withdraw all financial means?" asked Tywin, still nonchalant. He sounded as if this matter were of no consequence whatsoever. "Will you still have him then, if you have to support him? You'd happily take on that burden?"
Silence, terrible and cacophonous, dropped like a stone between them. Jaime's chest felt carved out, hollow as a drum, as he waited for Brienne's response.
Her hand held his so tightly it ached, but he'd gladly take a broken finger or two if it meant she wasn't caving to his family's emotional blackmail.
"I would have Jaime if he came to me with only the clothes on his back."
She said it firmly, adamantly, and abruptly his heart and lungs began to function once more. It seemed Brienne was done with manners and attempting any sort of accord with Tywin.
"He's not a burden," she continued, coldly furious. "He's your son. Do you really see no reason besides wealth or connection to your horrible family that someone might want to marry him?"
"Yes, he's handsome," Tywin acknowledged, and Jaime knew he was giving some dismissive wave of the hand. "But looks fade, and—"
"Strength doesn't fade," Brienne interrupted. "Courage and honor don't fade."
Tywin didn't answer. Jaime desperately wished he could see the expression on his father's face, have some idea what he was thinking.
"You don't see it," she said softly, her tone incredulous. "You think Jaime was running away, that he only survived because he turned coward and fled the battle."
That was the last scrap of what Jaime had hidden, the last splinter through his spine, the last indignity on top of all the wretchedness comprising what had happened and resulted from the battle at Lys: everyone thought him the sole survivor because he'd deserted, because he hadn't been present when the rest of his company was being blown into a fine mist by the enemy.
"Is there proof to the contrary?" asked Tywin, sounding bored. "Because—"
"It's written all over his face!" Brienne nearly shouted. "The scars are on his front, Mr. Lannister, on his face. If he'd been running away, they'd be on his back."
She tossed the words between them, ice-cold stones dropping into a freezing ocean. Jaime had to swallow hard against the lump that had formed in his throat. She wasn't parroting the account he'd given her. She was using the evidence she'd deduced on her own, something it had never occurred to him to use to bolster his innocence.
Not that he'd wanted to bolster anything; as far as he was concerned, it all had been his fault; what did it matter if people hated him for the wrong reason? They should still hate him if they knew the right one.
The way she was fighting his father, fighting for him… he didn't care if Tywin believed him; Brienne did. That was all that mattered. But… he wanted to say it, to have the air clear, at least once.
"Arthur— Major Dayne— was out there. He'd gone in first, like always, with only two others. I'd wanted to go with him, but he wouldn't let me. Said the men needed someone they could rely on to get them out of there if he fell."
Arthur, who'd believed in him. Arthur, who'd gotten him that promotion to captain despite Tywin's wishes because Jaime deserved it, had earned it, wanted it like nothing else. Arthur, who had taught him, kept him from bearing the brunt of the colonel's madness, whose bravery had inspired Jaime in ways no one else ever had. Suddenly, Jaime felt desperate to make Arthur proud, at least one more time. Would Arthur have tried to placate Tywin out of fear of losing his financial support? Or would he have chosen to leap into the breach, knowing that doom was imminent but that it was the right thing to do, and thus no choice at all?
Who cared if he was cut off from the Lannister wealth? They'd go to Tarth, he and Brienne. There had to be something he could do without his sight, some way to earn a living that didn't require him to sell his soul. Every gold dragon his family possessed seemed to him as deadly and dangerous as a real dragon; it poisoned and destroyed, scouring away every last glimmer of decency and honesty and trust. Money and lust for power had stripped away the humanity from the Lannisters, left them slavering beasts that knew nothing but slaking their hunger for more, more, more, and still it would never be enough.
Brienne had saved him so much more than she knew, more than she would ever know.
"Arthur Dayne was the only one who ever saw any worth in me beyond what I could do for them," he said at last, and squeezed Brienne's hand, then brought it up for a grateful kiss. "Him, and now you. So if you will have me with only the clothes on my back… let's go. Right now."
She kissed his hand in return, as always, and it filled him with gladness, as always. Linking their arms, Brienne guided him from the room, leaving his father speechless behind them. Counting paces, he could tell when they turned down the hall, when they entered the kitchen, when they departed the house through the side door.
"We'll go to Clegane's Keep for the night," she said, once they were in the ramshackle old truck and clattering down the road. "We can leave tomorrow for Tarth, and be there in a few days."
He didn't reply right away, his head awash in a disbelieving sort of elation. He was free. He would be with Brienne, always. He was going to live on Tarth. He was going to be happy.
"Jaime?" she said, sounding the slightest bit worried. "I'm sorry if— I answered for you, back there— are you sure…?"
""I wish you'd been in the service with me," he informed her. "You'd have been the finest soldier in a generation. In two generations. The war would have been over within months. No one would have been able to stand against you."
Silence, for a beat, and then her warm hand was on his. "Jaime, you idiot," she said with immense affection. "What sort of foolishness is this?"
Our children are going to be legends," he continued as he threaded their fingers together. "They're going to save the world."
Her hand withdrew, and then he felt the truck downshift and slow. Smooth pavement gave way to uneven gravel on the side of the road, and then to grass, as she pulled to the verge. The old engine clunked as it was shoved into 'park' and then Jaime was in her arms.
"Stop talking nonsense," she murmured against his lips, between kisses. "Our children are going to be perfectly normal."
It happened that they were both right. Their sons and daughters were perfectly normal— as normal as any children of Jaime Lannister and Brienne Tarth could ever be— but they were different, as if special fates had been bestowed upon them all, as if they'd been just as destined for greatness as their father had always known. They all pursued different avenues, but each duly changed the world in their particular way, and that legacy passed down to their own children when the time came.
Jaime sat on Evenfall Hall's porch overlooking Shipbreaker Bay and lit his pipe. The kids and grandkids had all invaded that morning, intent on celebrating his and Brienne's fortieth anniversary with all due enthusiasm and effort. He loved having them there, but gods, they were noisy. After their youngest had left home, he and Brienne had gotten accustomed to the quiet and peace of having the place to themselves, if one did not count the help.
With the advent of their offspring that day, the Hall was seething with humanity and it was especially confusing to Jaime, since he couldn't see the faces surrounding him. He suspected some of the people in his home, that day, weren't even related to him.
Brienne joined him before too long, as always giving a pointed little cough to indicate her disapproval of the pipe, and as always Jaime ignored her, grinning around its stem at his wife.
"When is everyone leaving, again?" he asked her, then grinned wider when she tsked at him.
"You'd bawl your head off if any of them left," she said, her hand bringing his to her face so he could tell she was smiling. The cheek he cupped was lined, as his was, but as soft as ever, as beloved as ever.
"You're not going overboard, are you?" he asked, giving her lips one last caress with his thumb before leaning back in his rocking chair and setting it into lazy motion. He'd said it casually, but real concern was beneath it; Brienne had had a cardiac 'incident' the previous year and been warned not to overextend herself.
"I sit around like a queen, giving orders to the platoon of servants you've insisted on hiring," she said dryly. "They'd carry me around in a sedan chair, if I let them."
"You should let them," said Jaime. "I hired six of them for just that reason. If you don't put them to work, they're being paid for nothing."
"Ah, so that's why all I ever see them do is stand around and flirt with the maids," Brienne murmured.
"As long as they don't flirt with you." He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed the back of it.
"They're more likely to flirt with you," she shot back before lifting his hand for her own kiss. "Everyone is. You should have seen the look Tyrion's new girlfriend gave you when they arrived. I thought I'd have to fight her for you."
He gave a huff of disbelieving laughter. Their eldest grandson was barely sixteen, the very spit of Jaime when he'd been that age, according to the boy's namesake, and Jaime could still clearly recall his own looks in youth. He thus had great difficulty believing that any teenaged girl would eye him as he was now when she could have him as he'd been in his burgeoning prime.
"Oh, you laugh," Brienne said, a smile in her voice, "but you've only been getting more and more handsome with each year. Everyone thinks so."
"Everyone is crazy, then," he said. His hair had grayed, she'd told him, gone a warm silver first in his beard and then on his head, and he had wrinkles on his forehead and between his eyes and bracketing his mouth. His middle wasn't as trim as it had been, and decades of enjoying the beach with his family had left his skin a bit more like his grandfather's saddle than he might like.
"Not as crazy as you might think," Brienne grumbled. She was still out-of-sorts from last year, when the new housekeeper had thought to offer Jaime a service not typically provided by one of her station.
General consensus had been that the woman had to have been critically stupid, because any fool could tell the lady and gentleman of the house were mad for each other, even after being so long married. She had been terribly offended when Jaime had laughed at her suggestive flirting so hard he'd cried, but those escorting her off the premises after Brienne had fired her told her it was her own damned fault for not paying attention.
"Well, it doesn't matter anyway," Jaime said cheerfully. "I've never had eyes for anyone but you since the day we met."
It was a stupid, terrible joke that Jaime enjoyed telling for the reactions it garnered— people were not accustomed to blind people jesting about their situations, apparently— and Brienne gave it the same groan she had been giving it for the past forty years.
"When will you stop telling that joke?" she asked, her tone mild but weary. "Honestly, Jaime."
"The kids love it."
"The kids hate it. They just love you, so they pretend to laugh."
He smiled and reached his hand out to her. "We raised a good family, didn't we?"
"We did." He heard the smile in her voice as she took his hand and wove their fingers together. "Just as much thanks to you as me, Jaime," she said, forestalling his continued surprise that he'd somehow managed to be a good father despite lacking one himself.
"Anything good in me is thanks to you, wench," he murmured, eyes closing as he leaned his head back against the chair.
Brienne only huffed. "This again."
"Again?" Jaime smiled, basking in contentment. "I think you mean 'still'. You'll always be the best part of me."
Brienne grumbled, as she always did, while he grinned, but then surprised him by standing and tugging on his hand until he got to his feet.
"I have a different idea about what the best part of you is," she whispered as she buried her face against his neck, still shy even after all those years.
"You'll have to work hard to convince me," said Jaime, aching with love and happiness as he began to lead his wife through the unlit hallways to their bedroom.
"I think I'm up to the challenge," Brienne replied, a smile in her voice.
And she was.