What was left of the vanguard that had fought five-hundred metres east of the camp stumbled through the whipping, sleet-laden wind. They were following the eerie glare of the dragonfire that emanated through the mist; Brienne's chest was burning with the cold air, the frozen snot and blood encrusted on her face congealing. Brienne felt the presence of perhaps ten others scuffling beside her, coughing, wheezing. She recognised Jaime's heavy breaths to her right, crackling with phlegm and ice, and thanked the Warrior for keeping him alive another day.

A deafening roar reverberated over the wind, and from behind the group another fire bloomed, scorching both their dead and the Night King's, the wights she and Jaime had fought bursting into flames. Still they did not stop. They passed the dim outlines of numerous bodies, their deceased comrades simply dark, dead things on the ice. My first true battle, Brienne thought vaguely, though her thoughts were not so much thoughts so much as a stream of numbed consciousness. Her mind at one point drifted to Sansa, to Arya, to Tormund Giantsbane, to Podrick, to Jaime. Let them survive this, she prayed, let them all survive, even if I do not. As Brienne ran, it dawned on her, bleakly, that any day may truly be their last. Let him survive.

After what felt like hours of running towards the flickering light, they came to a wheezing, hacking halt before the largest fire she had ever seen, an inferno that raged over at least forty feet of dead men, presumably both wights and their own losses. Brienne looked up to the night sky, and inhaled as she saw the silhouette of the greatest dragon against the moon. The winged shadow was scouting the area for danger, and every minute like clockwork breathed golden flames into the abyss below.

From each direction, at least a hundred of their remaining combatants arrived to what had become an unofficial assembly near this roaring conflagration. Brienne searched all their faces, Dothraki and Unsullied and Northmen and Wildlings, and the fear and full fatigue in their eyes was an echo of her own. Oathkeeper trembled in her hands, the adrenalin coursing through her, and her mouth was so dry she could not close it. Her armour felt heavy, and her pounding heart was vibrating her breastplate.

"They're gone for now!" a voice yelled from behind the fire, and from it stepped Beric Dondarrion, clutching his flaming sword as if he himself had just been birthed from the flames themselves. He stood before the throng of fighters. He looks half dead, thought Brienne, eying his bloody face, his eyepatch missing, revealing a withered, sinewy hole, and he looks half a god. "We have survived this night, and this battle, but there are many more to come, and many more dead men with them," Beric shouted, barely audible over the gales of wind, "we need to burn our dead!"

"What about our injured?" shouted a voice. Others started murmuring in agreement.

"We need the maester!"

"She's bleeding out!"

"Where's our king?"

"We will wait to receive orders from our king. Our maesters may well be dead! Tourniquet what you can with any rope you can find from the remaining tents, and I will cauterize anyone who has need of it." Beric's voice resonated over the horde, and everyone went quiet, save for heavy breathing, chattering teeth, mutterings of translation from the Dothraki and Unsullied, the weeping of the mourning, and the whimpers of the injured.

Brienne remembered she, too, was injured, as she lifted a numb hand to her cheek and felt the ravaged skin there. She felt Jaime step in beside her, and she winced. She suddenly felt ridiculous that she wanted to hide her ugly wound from him.

"Where is the King in the North?" a ludicrously loud voice boomed in Dondarrion's direction. "The dragon queen?"

Her eyes darted across the fire, and she caught a glimpse of a fiery beard and felt relieved. She may not love him, no; but Brienne did not believe Tormund Giantsbane deserved anything but life. She felt Jaime's eyes on her face, lingering then straying.

Beric opened his mouth, but his words were surpassed by the screech of a dragon. Everyone looked up, and illuminated in their own flames were two circling shadows. In this light, they could well have been vultures. Brienne felt Jaime grab her arm and yank her backwards.

"BACK! STEP BACK!" she heard an Unsullied yell, and everyone began to scream, hysterical from the battle, their fear renewed by the idea of being crushed by these enormous creatures.

The two beasts shrieked from the darkness of the wintry sky, and it was only when the smaller of the two made its landing beside the fire that people could see where they were coming from. It shook melted snow off it's scales, and then the rider, nestled between the plates on its back, came into view.

On the smaller dragon's back was a fur-clad Jon Snow, ashen and bloody. He slid off its glistening moss-green back, and Tormund was immediately there to catch him and hold him up. He held Jon Snow's face in between his hands and embraced him. Jon's white wolf emerged from seemingly nowhere and Jon fell into its fur.

The immense black monster landed in the middle of the fire, crushing the scorched corpses beneath it. Smoke blared from its nostrils. It was a scene from the Seven Hells. However, Brienne could not see the dragon queen on its back.

She looked to Jaime, who was still holding her armoured arm. He was shivering, almost to the point of convulsion, his breath only a tiny mist between his gritted, chattering teeth. Brienne's heart swelled as she looked at him, the flecks of snow in his beard and hair and eyebrows, and the sheer relief he was there, at her side, not across him on the battlefield, was enough to warm her momentarily.

Jon Snow got slowly to his feet, leaning heavily between his wolf and Tormund. "We…" Jon began, his eyes rolling back, "we have not won yet," he croaked as loudly as he could. "The wights we have fought this night are gone, but we have also lost many of our own, and we will lose many more. This is only the beginning. I have burnt many of our dead, as had Daen…" when Jon Snow looked towards the black dragon, his voice trailed off. The dragons had become restless, and a sound that Brienne would never have expected came from their snouts, a whining of sorts.

Jon's eyes widened, and suddenly he returned to being the King in the North within moments. "Take all who are injured back to the camp and tend to their wounds with boiling wine and whatever bandages or tourniquets you can find! All who are not, search the battleground for anyone who is still living, and burn those who are not! Tormund, Dovaogēdyr, with me. Dothrakhqoyi, essalat!" he pointed to the camp. Brienne did not understand what he was telling the Dothraki, but she assumed he meant for them to return to camp. Jon Snow's eyes fell on Jaime and Brienne. "You two, with us."

"Yes, your grace!" every Wildling and Northerner chanted, dissipating off in the directions from whence they came. Those who carried their injured headed westerly back towards the camp, which was visible from where they stood. Those that were left of the shivering, frostbitten Dothraki hesitated, clearly uncomfortable without their queen (or Khaleesi, which Sansa had told Brienne) but they turned and headed back to camp. They were slow, lost without their horses, a large portion of which had been mauled by the wights. Brienne started towards Jon Snow, when she felt Jaime's hand on her shoulder. She looked at him, and suddenly she too was lost.

"You're injured, Brienne," he said, his voice impossibly soft. "Go back to the tents." His brow was creased with concern.

"I won't let injured fighters go unfound because of a bite on my face," she said shortly. Jaime sighed.

"It's more than a bite. Let me help you clean…" he began, then his head snapped to the dark side of the fire, and he stared into the empty darkness. "Hear that?" he said.

"We need to keep searching," Brienne said hurriedly, ignoring his question, but he was frowning with curiosity. She continued towards Jon, Tormund and the Unsullied. "You fought off a bear with one hand, this is hardly a wound at all." She walked on.

As she arrived in front of Jon, Brienne felt Tormund's eyes burning into her from beside him. His eyes were glistening and wide with awe. Her stomach twisted with guilt.

"Your cheek, Lady Brienne," said Jon Snow, "are you sure you do not want to go and get that rinsed?" His face, too, was bruised.

Brienne smiled gently. "It can wait." Brienne turned to Jaime, but he wasn't beside her. "Ser Jaime?" she asked, but when she turned around she saw his armoured shape emerge from the darkness. His face was sombre, almost sad, and Brienne's stomach turned.

"Lannister," Jon Snow said curtly, until he registered the expression on Jaime's face was not the usual cutting Lannister smirk, battered and riled. His eyes darkened. "What is it?"

Jaime swallowed, jerking his head backwards. "She needs you."

Jaime looked back towards the darkness, and Jon Snow sprinted without a word into the shadowy battlefield beyond the fire. Brienne, Jaime, Tormund and the small group of Unsullied followed, and then was when Brienne saw her. Saw them.

Daenerys' small, fur-clad figure was huddled over something on the ground, someone, her silver hair dishevelled and smattered with ash as she rested against the frozen figure. Jon Snow rushed over to kneel beside her small, shaking figure, and he put a gentle hand on her back, and whispered a few sorrowful, gentle words.

"We need to burn him," Brienne heard Jon Snow whisper. Daenerys began to weep, shaking her head. Brienne couldn't take her eyes off the body, and she could only see herself, weeping over Renly's dead body, waiting for him to wake up and say it was a jape. When the horrific thought of Jaime lying there intruded her mind, she pushed it away. She couldn't bear the thought. The Unsullied around them had taken off their helmets, and rested them against their chest.

"I can't, I can't," Daenerys repeated, her soft voice breaking, a vulnerability which Brienne had never heard from the strong dragon queen. "Not him, not him. I can't, Jon, please, I can't." Brienne couldn't see the face of the dead man. "He was always there, he died for me, he saw me struggling and just…" she dissolved into sobs. "I can't."

"We have to, Dany. I'm sorry." He held her tight, but she wouldn't move. "You'll die out here. I know it's hard, I've lost friends, so many friends in battle. But you need to live on. For him, for us all."

Jon Snow took her in his arms and pried her from the body. "No, no!" she tried to scream, but her voice was too weak. Silent tears freezing on her cheeks, and Jon embraced her tightly as she wept into him. When Brienne saw who is was, she felt her heart ache.

Jorah Mormont's fine face, once so comely, was a dappled grey and white, his eyes wide open and bloodshot as his lifeless corpse lay half covered in snow. His frozen hand still clutched his Greatsword.

Jon Snow turned back to Jaime and Brienne. "Back to the tents. Fix that wound," he ordered. They nodded, and made the long walk back.

Somehow, a majority of the tents were untouched. Jaime's, however, had blown away in the wind, despite the iron pins that had been hammered into the ice. The camp was almost desolate, except for the moans of pain that came from those who were more severely injured being treated by others who had fought. Brienne hoped they would last through the night.

Her and Jaime were silent as they entered one of the remaining tents. Jaime had managed to salvage his linen sack, digging it out from under the ice, which held meagre supplies of dried mutton and ale. They'd brought a burning log from the large fire to light the torches with, but they kept blowing out in the wind that crept under the tent entrance.

Jaime groaned as he warmed his hand and wrist under his golden hand, which was perfectly cupped for containing ale, over one of the torches that had managed to keep alight. "Ah, fuck," he said, "that's a bit better." He turned to Brienne, who sat on the small pallet bed, her body already aching all over. She looked up at Jaime, his green eyes glistening. Was there ever a man more beautiful and dangerous? She thought. She could hardly believe that only hours ago she had been talking with Tormund in a tent, and that had been the worst of her problems at the time. She shook her head to herself for her folly. Hundreds of their own were dead. Jorah Mormont was dead.

"We've lost so many tonight," said Brienne. "Dothraki, Northerners, Unsullied, Mormont."

"That is the way of war. And the way of war is terrible. You know this.," Jaime responded, sounding old. He picked up his sack and came over to sit beside her, carefully making sure not to spill any boiling ale from his golden hand.

"Clever," Brienne mumbled. Brienne felt more tired than she had ever been before. She had known this was going to be the most difficult time of her life, of all their lives; but gods, this, this was perdition.

"Let's take a look at this," said Jaime, peering at her ravaged cheek. Brienne felt her cheeks flushing, and her hand moved to hide the bloody gash. Jaime caught her hand, and Brienne became anxiously aware of how warm his breath was against her cheek. "Brienne, we've just had a battle against dead men. I don't care for a bloody bite." His voice was as tired as she felt. She sighed, then removed her hand.

"How does it look?" she asked grimly. She knew it was bad, but she didn't know the extent.

"Like horseshit," Jaime said. Brienne grimaced. "I'm japing. It's bad, and it will scar, but it will be alright. I'll wash it the way Qyburn washed this." Jaime lifted his stump. "Prepare yourself for pain." He gave her the pouch and she took a few swallows, the heat of it warming her insides. Jaime tore off a piece of cloth from the sack and dipped it in the hot ale in the hand. He looked up at her, searching her eyes questioningly.

Brienne nodded, her hands beginning to sweat, from the pain or his proximity, she did not know. "Do it." She'd been kicked in the cunt by Sandor Clegane. She could handle this. Jaime paused. "Do it!" she grunted again.

Jaime nodded, and pressed the wet cloth gently to the gaping wound. The burning pain seared through Brienne's cheek, and she hissed through her teeth. "Fuck!" she swore. Brienne snarled as she saw the side of Jaime's lip twitch.

"I know, I know." Jaime dabbed the cloth lightly, rousing another curse from Brienne, then dipped it back into the ale. The only solace she had was how soft his touches were. "I'm going to go a little bit further under the skin. Just forewarning you, I'm no maester."

Brienne bit her lip, then nodded again. Jaime pressed the cloth to the wound, then dug under the torn skin minutely. Brienne let out a yelp, tears burning behind her eyelids. Black spots covered her field of vision. She grunted as her hand dug into the pallet straw, but her other hand, she hadn't noticed, was scratching into Jaime's armour.

"I'm sorry, I know it smarts. But there's always a risk of infection."

"Just… keep going," she spat, doubling over.

"Stubborn wench. You're doing well." Jaime dabbed the wound here and there, poured some ale here and there, and then when Brienne thought she was going to pass out from the pain, he stopped.

"I think it should be clean enough now," he leaned in as he examined the wound. Brienne let out a sigh of relief. "I'm glad you let me help for once."

She lifted her heavy eyelids to look at him, just look at him through a blur of tears. Square jaw, green eyes, sharp nose. Brienne felt that bizarre warmth return. "Th… thank you, ser J-Jaime," she said through her teeth. Jaime paused, then picked up another few pieces of cloth.

"Don't thank me. It's repayment for this," he lifted his stump, now void of the golden hand. He'd taken it off without her noticing. "All those times you scrutinized that rotting skin and sinew. Ah, the smell of shit and vomit that arose from my beard and clothes, those were the days, weren't they, Wench?" he said, to which Brienne smiled weakly. "We're going to have to patch it up." Jaime dipped some strips of cloth into the ale, knelt in front of her, then plastered them over Brienne's wound. His left hand was shivering, his fingertips calloused, but his touch was as gentle as a maid's.

Brienne closed her eyes under his hand, just savouring the feeling of someone touching her face. No one had ever touched her face, save for her father. She felt Jaime's hand rise to place another strip of bandage on her wound, but felt no dampness. Just skin.

Brienne opened her eyes, and the expression on Jaime's face was bewildering. "Ser Jaime? Is ought amiss?" Her stomach tightened, and blood rose to her face, to her stomach, to her loins.

Jaime's lips were pursed. His hand was still on her cheek, just resting there. "I thought you'd been killed tonight," he said, his brow furrowing. "That you had… become one of them." He shook his head. "It was Mormont I saw go down in the field, but I thought it was you, until I saw that it wasn't Oathkeeper he was holding." His voice was shook, on the verge of breaking.

Brienne swallowed, the pain of the wound lessening slightly, but the pain of this conversation worsening concurrently. "I had thought the same of you." Her mouth was dry. She felt his hand creep from her cheek to the nape of her neck, the weight of it reassuring. Brienne's heart was in her throat, and his chapped lips were so close. She wanted… she wanted…

But she couldn't, not now, not here. There was no time. This was war, and war was terrible.

"We fight side by side from now on," Jaime said fiercely, interrupting her vague, detached thoughts, his voice a deep growl. Brienne inhaled sharply, and Jaime moaned under his breath at the sound, and pressed his forehead to Brienne's own. "Brienne," he breathed, and his eyes drifted shut.

Brienne felt a sob rise in her chest, her cold, overexerted lungs aching. She did not know how long she had waited to hear her name slide from his lips like that, she did not know. A surge of courage shot through her tired self, and she reached up and softly rested her hand on his jaw, feeling the roughness of his greying beard, searching his face, remembering it, savouring it. Never had she touched anyone's face like this, and she likely never would again. She might never touch his face again.

"Can you… Ser Jaime," Brienne said, overwhelmed. Jaime pulled away, eyes downcast, his lips parted. She felt aware of her wide, dour face, her ugly wound, her dishevelled, straw-like hair. But still she asked, "please stay."

Jaime's eyes were soft in a way that she hadn't seen since their meeting at Riverrun. "I will."