Author's Note: Hello everyone, thanks for sticking with me and this story!
I hope you still enjoy your stay.
And hence this chapter ;)
The next morning, Jaime has his brother ordered to his room. Once the youngest of Tywin's children comes inside, Tyrion instantly asks, "What did you say to Lady Brienne?"
"Nothing of your concern, brother," Jaime exhales.
"It is something I have to concern myself with because I am in it, like it or not. You certainly said something, or else we wouldn't be sailing today. And I still have no clue what she did to secure her father, because she apparently won't talk about the matter," Tyrion argues. "So now I would like to know what in the Seven Hells you did to screw everything up, again?"
"Don't, just… don't," Jaime says, biting his lower lip. Tyrion studies him. He saw his brother upset, he did, but this is a new kind of upset he cannot really put.
"Jaime," he tries in a softer voice.
"We had a fight and I said some pretty nasty things… or rather unforgivable things," Jaime admits. Tyrion is the only one he can talk to about these matters.
"Good timing," Tyrion rolls his eyes. "What did you argue about?"
"I admitted that I laid with Cersei back here, before I laid with her again," Jaime says with a grimace. Tyrion hits him in the thigh angrily.
"Ow!" the older brother cries out, but Tyrion only hits him again, "Why did you have to do that? Gods, we had it all so nicely figured out!"
"It won't pose a threat to our plans," Jaime argues, anger leaving him at once.
He deserves more than a slap to the thigh by his younger brother.
He deserves so much worse.
"I don't care about that! Why do you throw the one good thing you managed in a long time away in favour of… her? And now don't look at me like that, you know that I have any reason not to like her," Tyrion argues.
Gods, and here he thought that his brother finally woke up from his shadowy slumber. It all seemed to be going so well.
That is what Tyrion hates about personal problems. They are messy and unpredictable.
"What is it to you?" Jaime asks again, trying his best to hide his discomfort.
"What is it to me? I don't know, a possible threat to our plans? Inappropriate? Making me want to bring up my breakfast? Nothing nature ever wanted? Pick one," Tyrion retorts.
"It doesn't matter anymore, alright? She will leave, and it's probably better that way," Jaime argues.
"You just give up?" Tyrion frowns. "That is really out of character for you, brother."
"What else am I supposed to do? I betrayed her, and if there is one thing she cannot accept, then it is betrayal," Jaime shakes his head, running a hand over his face. He is tired to the point that he would like to sleep for a whole week, but he couldn't close his eyes for more than seconds, the picture of her staring at him in shock haunting him whenever he closed his eyes for too long.
"And that I brought up Renly Baratheon and her ideals didn't really help the matter," he adds. Tyrion already means to raise his hand again, but Jaime says in a low hiss, "You slap me one more time and I will knock you to the ground."
"You know, when you apologise for infidelity, you usually crawl on your knees and beg forgiveness, like a worm, instead of throwing accusations?" Tyrion snorts.
"She is not so much upset about that, that's the whole problem," Jaime exhales.
"Huh?" Tyrion makes a face.
Those two are perhaps the most confusing bunch Tyrion has ever met.
"She was enraged that I laid with her, after I laid with Cersei," Jaime explains, making Tyrion frown.
He knew those two were odd, but they can't even fight like normal people, or so it seems.
"Why did you, though? I mean… with Cersei," Tyrion questions, trying to understand what devil must have possessed his brother to choose another devil when he had the choice to get himself a bit of bliss.
"If I knew, I surely wouldn't have done it. I… after you made the suggestion about going to Tarth, I… I just wanted to escape all this, I don't know," Jaime admits. "It was a moment of weakness, alright?"
"Isn't it always?" Tyrion sighs.
"It's not like I had it planned," Jaime argues.
"And for that men are gifted with a hand, even you still have one to strangle the snake in case of emergency," Tyrion grunts.
"You don't understand…," Jaime means to say, but his younger brother interrupts him before he gets to it, "Oh, I do understand. I know why you do these things. Cersei has always been your number one source of comfort. And after all that's happened, be it the loss of your hand or your fear of not seeing the child, which resulted in your acting like a complete arse, I may add, you were obviously in dire need of some good old coddling."
Jaime looks to the side.
"Don't look at me so tearily, you brought that upon yourself. And that even though I still honestly fail to understand what devil possessed you. Why did you go back to Cersei? Why…," Tyrion asks, but then stops himself, blinking at his older brother, "You still love her."
Jaime says nothing.
"And Brienne?" the younger man asks.
"That's what I don't know. And that is what is driving me insane. I used to be certain of my feelings. I always knew that I loved Cersei, I knew that I loved my family, but I don't know what the wench is to me, no matter how much I try to figure it out," Jaime admits, folding his hands under his chin angrily. "I care about her, that I know, but the rest? Just obscurities."
"That wasn't the question, though," Tyrion grimaces.
"I know it wasn't the question, but that is the only answer I can give you," Jaime replies truthfully.
It's the only answer he could give her. That is the whole problem.
Jaime would like to have a better answer.
"Why?" the younger man asks.
"Because it really is a complicated matter. Brienne is not the kind of woman who wants to be married off. Our first attempt of marriage to secure the cub and Sansa was merely a political act to her. I wish I knew for certain what we are to each other. I only know what the child is to me. I know that I love it to the point that it hurts and that I would do anything to know it protected," Jaime tells him, his voice slightly shaking with emotion at the thought of the child.
"That is out of question. If there is someone who knows how much you want to protect that child, then it's me. I saw you glancing at my nephews and my niece from a distance with that longing look for all their lives. I know what a child not a bastard means to you. And believe me, I would dance around in relief for you finally having that if not for the situation into which it will be born, with you as a man of the Kingsguard no longer allowed to quit at all. Do you think I would begrudge you that bit of bliss? Or that I think you wouldn't give everything to protect it?" Tyrion replies.
Jaime lets out a shaky breath. He knows that his brother cares about him a great deal, he knows that he loves him as much as he loves him, but it still catches him off-guard at times.
"But that doesn't answer the question about you and Lady Brienne," Tyrion argues.
"Sadly, it doesn't," Jaime agrees.
"And you seriously told her that?" Tyrion exhales.
"I said to her that I think I have feelings for her," Jaime replies.
"Yeah, I bet that is the kind of devotion ladies want to hear. It sounds like the resolution I had when I thought I could quite wine, but in the end I had to realize that I only thought I could. For that we love each other too dearly," Tyrion rolls his eyes.
"What? Should I lie about the matter?" Jaime argues.
"The Seven Hells yes!" Tyrion argues vehemently. "If that means that you keep with her instead of Cersei! You should have lied the hell out of you!"
"She wanted the truth. She deserved the truth. That is the truth, however hurtful it is. I don't know what it is between her and me. I don't know what I am to begin with. I guess that the only thing I can know for certain is that I am seemingly the same man I used to be, a bad man, making questionable choices at best. I didn't want to throw those accusations at Brienne, and still I did. Because I am this. I feel more like a bloody woman these days, talking about these things, only so that she doesn't," Jaime grunts angrily, frustrated, sadly.
"You are a changed man, of that I can assure you," Tyrion argues, making Jaime blink at him, so the younger man goes on, "You are a different man now, and for all it's worth, I think you returned a better man than you were before you were taken by Robb Stark."
"Oh, so you hated me before? That hurts my feelings," Jaime huffs, though the sarcasm comes off rather weak at the weight of his brother's words, who'd never know just how much they mean to him.
"I didn't always like you back then. That is the thing. I watched you ever since I was a young boy, as I looked up to you. I saw you change in such a way that you were our dear sister's puppet, and joined the Kingsguard mostly to please her, and I surely didn't like that development, no," Tyrion tells him.
"I am a knight, alright, even if a questionable one, but back then those oaths truly mattered to me," Jaime argues, slightly feeling offended, though he doesn't really know why.
Maybe some echo of Brienne ghosting around within his body.
"I never questioned that. That was you. You are a knight, but the Kingsguard? That was Cersei more than you. She just took over, I reckon, to make sure that you were hers alone… Of course things didn't go as they were planned, but in the end… you reunited and that is when you really changed in ways I still fail to figure… But then… you were gone for so long and when you returned, you came back changed again, but more into the man you were before, or rather a… better version," Tyrion explains.
"Missing a hand," Jaime snorts.
"Maybe missing a hand, but no longer missing a sense of what is right and wrong, and a will to redeem himself if needed," Tyrion argues.
"And all that change for nothing now… Brienne's said it, and I think she's right… people don't change, in the end," Jaime exhales.
"You did," Tyrion insists.
"Just to go back to the old game when it mattered," Jaime huffs, angry with himself, but then looks at Tyrion with a frown. "Was I really that much of an arse before?"
"You've always been an arse, like Father, like Cersei, like me. Lannisters are a bunch of arses," Tyrion shrugs. "The thing with you back then was that you had become ruthless over the years, and that is what I never saw in you, as a man who's always been so devoted to those he loved foremost."
"Ruthless? I? The Kingslayer?" Jaime chuckles softly.
"Since dear Aerys was such a lovable character," Tyrion snorts. "That's never really bothered me. I was always concerned about you. And because I was and am, I didn't like what Cersei made of you, and you can now complain about it all you want and tell me that I am all wrong, but that was my impression and that is my opinion. She made you another man, ruthless, denying your children, and no longer regretting things worth regret. I am not the one who always makes good choices, you know that better than anyone, but we both know that pushing the Stark boy out the window was worth regret. And years before, I never would have guessed that my brother would have been capable of such a thing, and of not regretting it at first at all."
"And you really, honestly think that is changed now?" Jaime grimaces.
"I know it is. Because you came back to King's Landing with maybe your body no longer intact, but with your mind more intact again. You made decisions in interest of people other than Cersei, for good reasons, and we both know what the sacrifice is that you let Lady Brienne and the cub go to Tarth for now," Tyrion replies promptly. "Now I don't know what it is that led to your change exactly. Maybe the loss of your hand is still putting you through some stage of transgression or made you more humble, I don't know, and that is not up to me to say, but I have watched you for all my life, Jaime, I can only repeat it. If someone will recognise a change within you, then it is me."
"Brienne begs to differ," Jaime snorts.
"She doesn't know you the way I do. She only saw you once you were in a changing process already. She witnessed you going through that process. So, naturally, to her, you seem the same as you used to, because she is so used to you being in transgression. I, by contrast, saw the you before. And then after. And those are two different men. You are no longer the same man freshly marked Kingslayer," Tyrion argues. "And I think she likely said it more out of hurt feelings than as a real accusation. In a fight, you always say things you don't mean, if only to win. Because we always want to win, even if we lose the much more important war thus. Because we want to be right all the time."
"Well, all my change is for nothing, because I am still a bad man," Jaime grimaces. "This just proves it. When left with a choice, I make not only one wrong call but many."
"Though I am wondering. If she doesn't really begrudge you for sleeping with Cersei, which I still fail to understand, but fine, Lady Brienne seems to be quite another breed of woman, and she doesn't begrudge you for not knowing what she is to you… then why did I see you mooch up and down in front of her chambers early this morn?" Tyrion questions. "What did you say to her that pushed her into whatever actions she undertook, only to now treat all with silence?"
"I called the one thing into doubt that means the world to her," Jaime shrugs. "Her oaths. It's not that I questioned her devotion for them. That's a lost cause. There is not a single person who means her oaths more than Brienne of Tarth, but I questioned how she exploits oaths as means to protect herself from exactly such ambiguous feelings, like lies… and then went on about Renly Baratheon… which really proved to be fatal."
Once he went over the conversation, lying on his back in bed, did it really dawn on Jaime what this seemingly little thing explodes into when seen from Brienne's perspective. The horrifying thing about their fight wasn't that he slept with Cersei, maybe it wasn't even that he laid with Brienne, it was really that he gave in to the temptation to fire such a thing at her, to somehow get out of the limbo, or maybe try to make her join his limbo so that he feels less like the only one uncertain about his feelings.
"Why did you?" Tyrion asks in a small voice.
"Because I am a bullhead and an idiot and because I don't like to yield," Jaime shrugs. "Maybe I'm deep down a bloody knight after all, however much was done to corrupt my sense of honour over the years."
"You are in fact a bloody, bull-headed knight," Tyrion shrugs. "That is completely out of question. And while I don't mean to call your turmoil into question, I can't help but wonder. I mean, you laid with her, you share a close connection, you two get along…"
"We fight," Jaime corrects him.
"Like an old married couple," Tyrion snorts. "In any case, I really thought that you were the one most sure about your feelings for her. I reckoned she'd be the only one uncertain about her feelings, for that she seems too new to showing emotions in general. I saw her interact with Sansa and Margaery about the child the other day. It was like watching a tall toddler, blushing furiously at compliments and trying to say things properly, even though it thus sounded rehearsed."
"Yeah, that sounds like her," Jaime snorts.
"I didn't think you were in doubt," Tyrion grimaces.
Or else he would have knocked some sense into his brother already.
"Yeah, well, then you thought wrong," Jaime exhales. "If you are so used to something, to another person's love, against all possible odds there are, then… this leaves you in doubt about anything taking its place. I don't know. There are many things that leave me in doubt. And I honestly thought that Brienne would be the one to get that, because she is like me in that regard, or so I understood."
"Or don't you just want it to admit to yourself?" Tyrion grimaces. "That you actually made a choice already?"
"If it were so, I would have told her, believe me that. Or else I wouldn't have peeked inside her room this morn, only to barely dodge a dagger flying my way. Only the Gods know where the wench learned to toss a knife like that, I have to give her that much," Jaime grunts, thinking back to the moment early this morn when he came to her like a goddamn kicked dog and wanted to talk with her reasonably, only to shut the door as the dagger rammed into the wood.
"So how do you intend to figure out the conflicts inside your mind?" Tyrion asks, to which Jaime just shrugs his shoulders.
"You two are really alike. When it's important, you seem to have bitten off your tongue," Tyrion rolls his eyes.
"Yeah," Jaime exhales.
"So what are you going to do now?" the younger brother asks instead. "Now that we are about to sail?"
"I selfishly hope that she will hold on to her oaths regardless of what I did to them and that I will see the cub despite the fact that I threw it all away when it comes to its mother," Jaime shrugs.
He is actually pretty confident about Brienne trying it, if only to act in the cub's interest.
"And stay with Cersei?" Tyrion makes a face, to which Jaime shakes his head, "I didn't in a while. I foolishly thought that maybe staying away from her would undo it in a way, but… well, I was seemingly too late in my realisations. But in the end, that really doesn't matter, because I wasn't honest with Brienne. I broke her trust, that is the thing, and the problem is that I really thought it was just about that. It was about the truth the whole time."
The truths he couldn't give.
The truths still dancing around his head, making him dizzy, leaving him in limbo.
"Gods, you are frustrating. It's enough that our lives are so screwed up. Why do you have to screw it up even more?" Tyrion grunts.
"Because I am no good man, it's just that simple," Jaime sighs. Tyrion looks at him with a sad grimace. Jaime gets up from his seat, needing to move in some way, "In any case… I would ask you for a favour."
"What is it?" Tyrion asks. He wondered anyways why Jaime had him summoned. Normally, the older brother keeps such feelings to himself, unless Tyrion calls him upon them.
"I want you to give this to Brienne," Jaime says, pointing at a package neatly and securely packed up. Tyrion cranes his neck, recognising the shape even though he can't directly see the item underneath.
"Don't you want to give that to her yourself? I mean…," Tyrion grimaces, but Jaime just shakes his head, "It won't make her change her mind. And I want her to get it, but I fear that the wench will deny it, if only to defy me. She needs protection. So say it comes from you or whatever. You are smart, I'm sure you will come up with something. Just make sure she gets it."
"Don't you think you can talk to her another time?" Tyrion tries once more.
"I told you, I tried, but it's done and over, I think. I screwed it up beyond repair, and it doesn't matter that I regret it now. Just do me the favour and make sure that she gets this. Can you do that for me?" Jaime looks at him solemnly.
"Of course," Tyrion nods.
"I think you should better finish up the last preparations. You are about to leave soon," Jaime tells him.
Tyrion nods, "I will have Podrick pick it up."
"Alright," Jaime agrees. "Thank you."
"I'm sorry for you," Tyrion says as he slips out the door. "I hoped for things to pan out for all of us, but… Just so that you know, I still believe in people to change, and that they can change situations thus."
With that he leaves Jaime standing in his room, glancing out the small window.
Hence, later this morning, Sansa and Tyrion glance at the ship now to take them to Tarth. Jaime stands next to them. Tywin keeps Joffrey busy with some business of the Small Council. Tyrion reckoned that this has to do with what Brienne did to get Lord Selwyn's safety net. And Cersei said her goodbye briefly and with a sneer to Tyrion. It appears that Joffrey really didn't tell anyone about the maybe-pregnancy on Sansa's side, which actually helps their cause at this moment, which means that they have that bit privacy for themselves.
"Thank you for your support another time, Ser Jaime," Sansa tells the knight, squeezing his hand once, offering a small smile. Lord Tyrion informed her that he and Lady Brienne had a fight, a bad one no less. And Sansa feels more than bad about it, despite his reassurance that it has nothing to do with her, but she reckons that it revolves around her for as long as Lady Brienne sails with her, which takes away any chance from the two to resolve the dispute presently, something that feels way too familiar to how she left with her sister.
"It's nothing," he assures her.
"It isn't," she argues. Jaime suddenly frowns as he feels her pressing something into his palm. He inspects the soft object to identify it as a small stuffed animal, with the outline of a lion in profile. "Oh, I… thank you."
"That is nothing," she argues. "In any case… I wish you all the best. I hope you will be safe, Ser Jaime."
"The same for you, Lady Sansa," he replies.
"Goodbye," she says. Jaime gives a tight nod as Sansa turns around and disappears on-board.
"Well, this might be a goodbye in a longer while, I still fear," Tyrion grimaces. Jaime bends down to embrace him. "Don't get killed."
"You better don't either, brother," Jaime grunts against his shoulder.
"I suppose I should get on-board, too," Tyrion then says. "I think you two need a moment."
He nods behind him where Brienne approaches with fast strides. Jaime gives a nod as his dwarfish brother disappears on-board as well. Brienne just means to walk past him, but he calls out to her, "Brienne, please."
She stops, turns around slowly, looks at him, but doesn't say anything.
"I am… I am just sorry," he mutters. "And I mean that in all earnest."
Because he does, he really does.
"Alright," she replies. "I suppose we both said things that came out of the heat of the moment… but... it doesn't matter. What was done was done. We made choices, now we have to live with the consequences. Your place is here. Mine is in Tarth. But be sure that I will protect the cub and Lady Sansa no matter the costs."
"Yeah," Jaime nods tightly, pressing the small lion in his palm.
"And you can be certain that the cub will know, no matter what is between us. I stick to the truth, however foolish that may be," she shrugs, and the defeat is right back in her eyes, rendering Jaime speechless.
Because that is thanks to him.
"Goodbye, Jaime," she says.
"Goodbye, Brienne," Jaime replies numbly. With that she gets on-board the ship.
Disappears.
Jaime stays until the ship disappeared beyond the horizon, twisting the small stuffed animal in his palm.