Author's Note: This is the end! I hope you've all enjoyed it as much as I have.

Just to point something out, to eliminate any possible confusion or questions: Jaime and Cersei have never been anything but siblings in this story. All three of her children are Robert's, not Jaime's. Any tension between them has always been due to her being a nasty and mean person and not because of a romantic and/or sexual relationship.

Curiously, a few of you have expressed concern at how inconvenient it will be for Casterly Enterprises' employees to move to Boston at Jaime's whim. Let me assure you that they'll all come to be hugely pleased with it, since it's cheaper to live there and it's closer to ski resorts and they all love to go snowboarding :D

I've written a new Brienne/Jaime story, set in TV show canon, speculating how they might (but probably won't because the show's writers hate logic and quality) meet up again in season 8. I'll paste a bit of it at the end of this chapter as a sort of text trailer, in case you're interested :)

Its title is Full Fathom Five and I expect it to be published in the next day or two, in its entirety. Add me to your author alert so you don't miss it!

Thank you all, again :)

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Brienne

Two Months Later

Brienne was toweling her hair dry after her post-defense-class-shower when she noticed she'd missed two calls and five texts. Forehead puckering in concern, she checked the texts, smiling when she saw Tyrion's panicked announcement that Shae had begun labor, that the obstetrician— on call for the day— had gone to Maine and would take a few hours to get back, and that Shae was verbally abusing him for 'forcing' her to endure the entire thing.

Then he asked— begged, really— her to come to the hospital and help him. With a sigh, she texted back that she would get there as soon as she could.

It didn't take long to arrive, the gym not being far from the hospital, but it must have seemed like eternity to Tyrion, who was texting her in increasingly frantic language every five minutes. By the time she arrived at the maternity ward, Brienne wasn't running, exactly, but she had moved at a fast clip through the hospital.

She approached the nurse's station, a trifle breathless.

"Which room is Shae Lannister in?" she asked.

"Are you family?" asked the nurse, eyeing her in a way that said she was not impressed.

"Er." What to say? 'The father's brother's girlfriend' was not an especially compelling relation to claim.

"I'm sorry, family only during active labor."

"Oh, thank god you're here," said Tyrion from behind her.

Brienne turned to find him standing there, actually wringing his hands.

"She's my sister-in-law," he blithely fibbed to the nurse. "It's fine."

The nurse gave a suspicious nod and went back to scrutinizing her charts.

"What's wrong?" Brienne asked Tyrion. "Did something go wrong?"

"Physically, everything's perfect. Mentally?" He gave her a wide-eyed look of dismay as they jogged down the hallway together. "She doesn't want to even look at me, since I'm 'the one who did this to her', but she also doesn't want to be alone. You're the perfect solution."

"You want me to be her birthing coach?" Brienne was not sure how she felt about that.

No, that was a lie.

She knew exactly how she felt about that: uncomfortable. She liked Shae very much, but not nearly as well as she'd have to, to watch her push something out of her body.

"Not the whole time?" he said, making it more of a question than a statement. "Just when she kicks me out of the room."

"I'll… try?"

There was a little waiting area by the birthing rooms.

"I'll stay out here," Tyrion said, and gratefully plopped into one of the chair, burying his face in his hands. Brienne felt a pang of sympathy for him. It was a stressful time, especially with how his own mother had died delivering him. She gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, threw back her own shoulders as if heading into battle, and knocked on the door before entering the room.

"Where is that little demon?" Shae demanded the moment she set eyes on Brienne.

"Assuming you mean Tyrion, he's hiding from you in the waiting room," Brienne told her, shedding her jacket and purse on a nearby table.

Shae let out a stream of Spanish obscenities that had Brienne flinching, and she didn't even speak Spanish.

"Have you considered walking around, instead of laying there?" Brienne asked cautiously. "I've heard that it lets gravity do the hard work for you."

Shae turned a fulminating gaze at the nurse who'd been trying to take her vitals without drawing much attention.

"Did you know about that?" Shae asked the hapless nurse.

The nurse flinched. "Um. Yes?"

"Run for your life," Brienne advised, and the nurse snatched up her chart and fled. "Alright, then, Shae, out of bed. We're going to take a walk."

Shae obediently started to clamber from the bed, but paused. "What if I have a contraction? I don't think I'll be able to keep standing."

"I'll catch you," promised Brienne.

Shae eyed her, then nodded, seeming to take confidence from Brienne's sturdy frame. Brienne found her another johnny coat to wear over the back opening of the first one, so as to not flash her butt to the world, and with an arm around her waist, guided her out of the room.

Tyrion leaped to his feet. "Where are you going?"

Shae hissed like a cat and he backed away, wary.

"We're going for a walk," Brienne explained. "I won't leave her for a second."

"I'll come with you—"

"No, you will not."

Shae's word was final; Tyrion sat down again, watching dolefully as his wife waddled down the hallway with Brienne dancing attendance.

"I can't believe women have more than one child," Shae muttered as they approached the end of the hallway.

"I can't believe they have even one," replied Brienne, infusing her comment with a humorous tone, but kind of actually meaning it. So far, it looked horrific.

Shae slanted her a mischievous look. "You'll find out soon enough, I expect."

Brienne blushed. "It's… it's a bit early for that, don't you think? Jaime and I haven't known each other that long."

"I know what that sort of gleam means, in a man's eye," said Shae. "Jaime's got that 'I want to have babies with you' gleam."

The blush deepened. Brienne could feel the heat emanating from her face. "I—"

Whatever she'd been about to say was forgotten when Shae groaned and her legs buckled. Brienne moved her so she rested back against Brienne's front, supporting her weight while keeping her upright.

"You're good at this," gasped Shae when she could speak again. "Had a lot of practice as a midwife?"

Brienne eased her back onto her feet again, once she felt certain Shae could stay up on her own.

"Had a lot of practice helping drunks get home," she replied with a grin. "Learned the hard way that it's best to keep them vertical. Way less barfy."

"I have to worry about the mess coming out of the other end, instead," Shae said with a laugh, and the comment proved prescient, because it wasn't long after that that her water broke.

Brienne swept Shae up, bridal-style, into her arms and strode back down the hall toward the nurse's station.

"Clean up on aisle five," she told them, jerking her head back to indicate where they'd left the amniotic puddle.

She saw that Jaime had arrived, by then, and her heart gave that same glad leap in her chest it did every time she saw him. He was sitting next to his brother, deep in conversation, but looked up at their approach. His mouth dropped open at the sight of them, which Brienne had to admit was probably pretty weird.

Tyrion noticed he was no longer listening, and turned to see what Jaime was grinning at, then blanched when he saw them coming up the hallway.

"What's wrong?" he demanded.

"Water broke," said Brienne, succinctly.

"I've got my own knight in shining armor, here," Shae announced.

"She's my knight in shining armor," said Jaime, possibly joking but looking actually very serious about it. "Back off."

"Right now, she needs a doctor, not a knight," Brienne told them, pushing past to enter the room and deposit Shae on the bed.

Fortunately, the obstetrician was almost done her journey back from Maine, and within an hour, had arrived. A plump, motherly older woman with frizzled graying hair, she shooed Brienne and Jaime out to the waiting room while saying, "This is good news, good news! I love when the water breaks after contractions start!"

Brienne went back to the waiting room and collapsed onto the chair Tyrion had vacated and looked up at Jaime. It happened that today was one of his Boston days, instead of working at home, so he was wearing one of the exquisitely tailored suits she loved peeling off of him when he returned in the evening. This one was gray, a color that made his eyes look a smoky, mossy green, as they were when they made love, instead of the usual brighter emerald.

His smile began to fade, and his expression turned hungry.

"You need to stop looking at me that way, wench," he growled softly, making things clench deliciously within her.

"What way am I looking at you?" she asked breathlessly.

"Like you want to suck me off right here in the waiting room."

A flash of heat speared her chest. "I do."

Jaime swore, closing his eyes, and removed his hands from his pockets so his jacket fell over the front of his trousers more.

"I swear you do this to me on purpose," he muttered, sitting next to her.

"I really don't. I just can't help it." She bumped her shoulder against his. "As if you don't turn me on in public all the time, as well. On purpose."

"Of course I do," he said, "but when you get worked up, you can hide it. I can't."

"Doesn't feel like I hide much." She always turned bright red, and her eyes went glassy, and her breath went funny so her voice sounded weird.

"Pfft," Jaime said. "You can pass that off as indigestion. I can't pass an erection off as anything but an erection."

That got her thinking about sex with him again— specifically fellatio, since he'd mentioned it— so when their gazes met, it was almost like an electric current passed between them.

"Stop," he pleaded. "Those eyes of yours. I can't function when you look at me that way."

"I'm sorry, love," Brienne said, taking his hand and putting it on her knee, caressing it with her fingertips. "I really didn't mean to make a problem for you."

He brought her hand to his lips for a kiss before replacing them both on her knee. "You never make problems for me. I'll take an ill-timed erection any day. It means you still want me."

She blinked at him. "Still? Jaime, it's only been five months. How could I have gotten tired of you already?"

"I don't count those first six weeks," he said grimly.

"You should. I count them, because I loved you for all of them."

He stared at her in silence a long moment, his eyes soft and amazed, lips gently parted. He looked at her a lot, like that, to Brienne's extreme pleasure, because it meant he was carried away by his love for her in that moment. When he looked at her like that she could almost believe she was beautiful.

The only thing that saved her from being almost crippled by awkwardness when he did it was the knowledge that she did it to him all the time, too, if Margaery's vocal disgust was to be trusted: gaping witlessly, wide-eyed, wondrous at the force of her feelings for him.

"Wow," said a youthful voice, and they looked away from each other to see a pair of teens, girl and boy, staring at them.

The girl continued, "Uncle Tyrion told us that you and your girlfriend moon over each other in public all the time, but I didn't believe him."

The boy added, very cheerfully, "You two look like you're in one of those romantic movies where someone dies from cancer in the end."

Jaime grinned. "Ah, two particular Lannister talents: no tact, and poor timing. Brienne, this is my niece, Myrcella, and nephew, Tommen. I called them about the baby after Tyrion called me."

"Uncle Jaime sent a car to bring us here from our boarding school," said Tommen.

"I was surprised you'd both want to come," Jaime commented.

Tommen shrugged, looking anywhere but at them, and mumbled, "It got me out of gym class."

Myrcella attempted a smile before giving up.

"We never see anyone in the family anymore," she said quietly. "Mother and Father are always sick—" Brienne took that to be her diplomatic way of saying 'drunk' "—Uncle Tyrion's up here… you were in New York until just a few weeks ago—"

"And we don't want to see Joffrey. Ever," interjected Tommen before going back to studying the wallpaper.

"So we talked about it and decided we wanted to see you and Uncle Tyrion more. Especially now that Aunt Shae is having the baby. We want to know him, too."

"Her," said Tyrion from the doorway. They all turned to see him standing there, looking shellshocked, his eyes wet.

"Already?" Jaime asked, standing.

"Already." Tyrion did not look remotely ready for fatherhood. "Come in and meet her."

Jaime herded Brienne and the children before him, and they all packed into the room. Shae sat propped up in the bed, a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. She looked weary, but happy, and her smile encompassed all of them.

"Look what I did," she said proudly, tilting the baby so her tiny, red, wrinkled face could be seen.

"Aw," said Tommen.

"She's so small," Myrcella cooed.

Jaime's hand found Brienne's and he squeezed it, almost too hard, but she didn't care.

"That went quickly," she said instead.

"Births where contractions begin before the water breaks are usually fast and easy," said the doctor as she prepared to leave. "Plus Mrs. Lannister did everything the right way to prepare for it. She hardly needed me at all."

The doctor shot Shae a grin.

"Now, I'll leave the family to enjoy the new baby, but I'll still be around if I'm needed." And she bustled out.

"What will you name her?" Myrcella asked, then batted her eyelashes. " 'Myrcella' is an excellent name, in case you haven't quite decided yet."

They all smiled.

"Joanna," Tyrion said, his voice a little hoarse. Beside her, Jaime jolted, just a little, just enough to tell Brienne it had surprised him. "I wasn't able to know our mother, but… I hope she would have been pleased."

"She would have been, yes," said a voice from the doorway, and they all turned to find a woman standing on the room's threshold. Her outfit was designer, as was her face: already lovely, but carefully assisted to defy the ravages of time, such as they might be at her age, which was not very far advanced that Brienne could see.

She stepped closer, and the smell of vodka wafted gently into Brienne's nose.

"Cersei," Jaime said, a terse greeting.

"Jaime," Cersei replied, sardonic. Her gaze, just as green as Jaime's but hard, like glass, passed over her children, both of whom looked nervous to have been found there by her, and from them to Brienne. Those eyes swiftly, unerringly, found where her hand was locked with Jaime's, fingers intertwined.

The corner of Cersei's mouth twitched, as if she couldn't decide whether to smirk or laugh, before traveling to her other brother and finally to Shae and the baby she held.

"I didn't expect you to come," Tyrion said into the silence.

"I didn't expect you to ask me to," Cersei replied coolly.

Tyrion shrugged. "We're Lannisters."

"So we are." She walked to the bed and gazed down at the baby, whom Shae shifted so Cersei could get a better look.

Joanna yawned and smacked her lips, squinting blearily with cloudy blue eyes at the confusing world around her. Cersei held out a finger, and the baby reflexively curled tiny fingers around it. Cersei did smile then, a smile of genuine sweetness that transformed her face into something almost angelic.

Jaime and Tyrion stared at their sister with a strangely mingled sense of sorrow and longing. They both knew what she was capable of being, Brienne realized. Jaime, in particular, was probably remembering what his twin had been like before their father had tainted her. They three could have helped each other through the loss of their mother, and the cold distance of their father, but instead she'd only made them all more miserable. Brienne felt a pang of pity for her, thinking of how much joy and love she'd missed out on, and how much pain she'd caused.

As if she could read Brienne's thoughts, Cersei looked up from Joanna and caught her gaze. She straightened and fixed Brienne with a gimlet stare. Too late, Brienne realized that Cersei had seen that pity, and Ramsey's quip about the pig careened through her mind.

No point in feeling pity, Brienne thought, a trifle hysterically. It'll just anger the pig.

"So you're Jaime's girlfriend," Cersei drawled, that same horrible tone of voice Jaime used when he was trying to be infuriating on purpose (as opposed to when he was infuriating by accident).

"You look very cozy together," she continued. Her smile, so lovely before, turned sharp, gleaming like a naked blade. "When's the wedding? I do hope I'll be invited."

Brienne thought that would send Jaime's temper into the stratosphere, but instead he only turned to her and smiled, and unlike his twin's, it wasn't knife-like at all.

"That's a great idea," he said, his gaze soft. "Tomorrow? Next day?"

Alarm and terror shot through Brienne. "That's— but we— Jaime—"

"Looks like your Amazon doesn't want to marry you, Jaime," said Cersei, a false pout of sympathy on her glossy lips.

Again, Brienne thought Jaime would at the very least tense up at his sister's blatant attempt to rile him, but instead he just grinned fondly, squeezing her hand.

"She is very Amazon-like, isn't she?" He sighed happily. "That's another outfit I want to see you in, wench— if you won't do Xena, how about Wonder Woman?"

Brienne felt a volcanic blush rise on her face. "I told you, no costumes," she informed him, but faintly, completely weirded out by the Lannister family dynamic.

"It's not that I don't want to marry Jaime ever," she continued, meeting Cersei's derisive gaze as directly as she could manage. "It's just that we've only known each other for five months. I don't want to jeopardize our relationship by rushing into anything."

When she chanced a look at Jaime, she found him giving her that startled damn-I-really-love-you look again.

"I'm not hearing a 'no'," he said, his voice a little rough.

"It's too soon, is all. Maybe after a year?"

"I accept."

"What?"

"Your proposal. I accept."

"No, I didn't—"

"It's decided. We'll be married on the anniversary of our meeting. December twenty-second, everyone. Mark the date."

"I meant you could ask after a year."

"Wench, all these rules," he griped. "What am I supposed to do until then?"

Brienne scoffed. "You act like I'm banishing you to pine in solitude until the stroke of midnight on the fated day. Jaime, we live together. You'll see me constantly between now and then."

"I'll still pine," he said, looking mournful. "I'll pine my ass off, Brienne, see if I don't."

"A tragedy," she said, stifling a giggle. "since I like it right where it is."

"Um…" said Tommen.

Brienne and Jaime extracted themselves from the little bubble they always found themselves in when they started bantering.

The boy and his sister both had expressions of slightly-grossed-out amusement on their faces. Tyrion and Shae were openly laughing at them. Cersei's lip was curled in derision. Joanna just yawned again.

"Well, that's all I can stand," Cersei muttered, and beelined for the door. "Myrcella, Tommen… let's get you back to your school."

"Can't we come home to New York with you?" Tommen asked, a whine in his voice. "It's almost the weekend."

"Of course not," his mother told him briskly, her voice fading as they walked away.

"Congratulations, Aunt Shae, Uncle Tyrion," Myrcella said from the doorway. "I'm glad we could see you, Uncle Jaime, and be here to meet Joanna." She paused, and then added, "And Aunt Brienne, too."

With a cheeky grin, she dashed after her mother and brother.

Jaime turned to Brienne, triumphant. "See? Everyone thinks it's a great idea."

Brienne blushed hotly again.

"Jaime, stop teasing her," Shae commanded. "Come hold your niece."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, and approached the bed. Shae handed Joanna to him, and he carefully cradled the baby's head in his hand while propping the rest of her tiny body on his forearm.

He would make an incredible father, Brienne thought, seeing the intent, incredulous way he stared down at Joanna, and felt a lump form in her throat. A pang of yearning, for a baby of her own, with him, lanced her chest and she blinked furiously to keep any threatening tears at bay.

Tyrion tried to take Joanna from his brother, but Jaime rotated away from him.

"Mine," he said, using his back as a shield so he could continue holding her.

"Get our baby back from Jaime before he makes a break for it," said Shae. "I didn't do all that work so he could kidnap her."

Brienne extracted Joanne from Jaime's clutches, fully intending to hand over the little bundle to her father, but she couldn't help keeping the baby to herself for just a few moments.

Joanna looked, frankly, like an old boxing mitt, red and creased. She made little snuffling sounds as she slept. Brienne fell quite thoroughly in love with her, touching the little nose and minuscule fingers, and looked up at Jaime, needing to share the moment with him.

I want to do this with him, she thought fiercely. I want to give him a child.

He was already looking at her, and she saw the same yearning on his face.

"I understand," she said suddenly to Shae, who with Tyrion had been watching them quietly. "I understand why we do it, now."

Shae, along with Jaime and Tyrion, looked confused for a moment. But then Shae twigged and a knowing, sympathetic smile lit up her face.

"That gleam in the eye is a powerful thing. I knew you wouldn't be able to stand it for long," she said, with just a touch of smugness. "You've got a gleam of your own, too."

"What are you two crazy women talking about?" Tyrion asked mildly.

"None of your business, nosy," his wife informed him.

Tyrion rolled his eyes and accepted Joanna back from Brienne. Kisses were exchanged all around, and then Brienne left with Jaime.

"What was that about understanding and gleams?" he asked as they exited the hospital into the pouring late April rain. She extracted an umbrella from her bag and opened it over them.

"Shae and I were wondering why women ever have babies, since it seems like such an awful experience. I had said I didn't understand why they did it."

She glanced over and saw the comprehension on his face. He stopped walking, huddling closer to her under the umbrella.

"And you do, now?"

"All I could think about, when you were holding Joanna, was how I wished she was ours," Brienne said softly. "Maybe in two or three years—"

"That long, wench?" He cupped her face in his hand, smoothing the pad of his thumb over her cheek. "What can I do to get you to move your timeline up a year or so?"

She felt pinned by his gaze, like a butterfly to velvet.

"I don't want what happened before to happen again," she said slowly. "We need time to get used to each other, to learn more about how to be in love. We're new to each other, and to being in a relationship. Or at least, being in a healthy one. What if we skip an important step, and everything goes wrong? I don't want to hurt you again."

Brienne brought up her free hand to caress his face, as well. "I won't take any chances with you, Jaime."

He stared at her with that expression she loved, all wide eyes and parted lips and amazement. She thought he might ask her to marry him, again, and this time, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to refuse.

But he just flashed her his famous grin. "I hate when you're right."

"No, you don't." She faced forward once more, charging ahead through the puddles toward her car so quickly he was forced to jog a little to keep up. "Because when I'm right, you benefit. Your plans are the ones that get skewed, if you recall."

"I maintain that Ramsey's little mishap was due to circumstances outside my control," he insisted. "And had nothing to do with any actions that might have been taken on my part."

Brienne unlocked the Outback's doors and gave him a level look over the roof of the car. "Right."

"I am wrongly persecuted," he informed her in the tone of one who has suffered greatly the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. He crossed his arms over his chest, feet planted wide, as if he intended to make a last stand then and there.

"Is that right? Tell you what: the sooner we get home, the sooner I can make it up to you." She couldn't hold back a little smirk. "Didn't you mention something about getting sucked off, earlier?"

Jaime's face went almost comically surprised, then eager. Without a word, he got into the car and was buckled up, eyes front and hand and wrist in his lap like an obedient schoolboy, by the time Brienne even opened her door.

She laughed most of the way home, then again when Jaime's enthusiastic reception of her efforts were expressed at a volume so loud that Margaery started banging on her ceiling in protest.

"Margaery puts up with so much from us," Brienne gasped between peals of laughter as he tugged her up the bed to lay on top of him. "Poor girl."

"Poor girl?" Jaime harrumphed. In a quick move, he flipped her over so he was on top, and began kissing his way south. "I still haven't paid her back for abducting me into a closet."

"How do you plan on punishing her?" Brienne asked, then moaned when he gave each nipple a kiss before moving down her belly.

"Thought I'd make her miss some sleep," was his reply as he got comfortable between her legs and settled her knees over his shoulders. "I figure if I keep you screaming, she'll be up all night."

Brienne shared her doubts that he'd be able to accomplish it. Jaime took that as a dare, and threw himself whole-heartedly at the challenge.

By the next morning, Brienne had screamed herself hoarse.

And Margaery had served them with an eviction notice.

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THE END

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Full Fathom Five

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"Goodness doesn't save anyone," said Brienne, very quietly.

"Except you," he told her. "Your goodness has saved you, over and over, just as it has saved me. In ways you don't even realize."

Podrick took a deep breath. "When she heard you had died, my lord…"

"I'm sure she was sad," Jaime said, into the silence that fell after the squire had trailed off. "We're friends. Friends are sad when they lose each other."

The idea of Brienne's death sent a shock through him, as strong as a body blow from a war hammer.

"It was more than sad, my lord," Podrick said.

"I am not your conscience, you foolish man," she grumbled, even as she fought to keep herself from smiling. "I just remind you that you have one."

"Stop being an ass," Brienne muttered at his side.

Daenerys looked at her, a bit shocked.

"Not you, Your Grace, of course," Brienne hastened to say. "Him."

"Apologies," Tyrion said, glancing between him and her with an expression of dawning realization that Jaime did not like.

"You've got that look again," Brienne accused. "What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing," he almost snarled, and then got himself under control again. "Have your visit. I'll see you later."

"Thing that kept me going was the hope of seeing you again," Tormund continued.

And now she was tense again. He noticed, and laughed.

"Ser," she began, but Tormund snorted.

"None of that," he said. "Like my friend Clegane, I'm no ser."

She quirked a brow in surprise. "You befriended Clegane?"

"Someone had to. Can you think of a man more in need of friends?"

When she opened her eyes again, Jaime was standing there, with an expression on his face she'd never seen before, and which she had no hope of interpreting.

Podrick chose that poor time to enter the tent, his eyes huge and concerned. He opened his mouth to speak, but they both turned on him.

"Get out," said Brienne.

"Don't come back," said Jaime.

When he was silent, she spun to face him, snapping, "Say something. Don't make me wait to hear you laugh—"