Author's Note:

Okay, since I didn't have time to post an update last week – you're getting a double feature weekend!

First up, Brienne's chapter. Brienne/Jaime shippers, I've gone full on rip-your-heart out here. Sorry! I love this ship, I promise. And ever since I killed off Jaime in Chapter 2, I've been regretting it. Buuuuuut also…tragic sadness is one of my favorite emotions to write (I know, I know, there's something wrong with me haha). But hopefully the flash backs give you a little something to enjoy :)

Also, no promises, but you may get some short Brienne/Jaime fics with happy endings from me in the future. Not in this fic, obviously, but I'm not done with these two yet. ;)

A second, longer chapter (Daenerys) will be posted tomorrow. A bientot!

Brienne

Several months later

The child was born with golden hair. With Brienne of Tarth as his mother and Jaime Lannister as his father, there really wasn't any other possibility.

But still, a flood of tears blurred Brienne's vision as she beheld her son for the first time, catching sight of that head of golden hair as the midwife gently cleaned and swaddled the child. Brienne closed her eyes as she fell back against the birthing bed, exhausted. But Jaime's smirking face was there, hiding behind her eyelids, waiting for her, as always.

He could be so tender and kind, honorable even,far more than he himself ever realized. But it was the cocky, smirking, self-loathing Jaime Lannister that always seemed to come back to her, teasing her with his ghostly presence, as if he might walk through that pine door across the room and say with a heavy, tut-tutting sigh,

Brienne, my lady, you look just awful…

But then his smirk would melt into a sad smile—her joy his happiness, her pain like a shard of glass in his flesh—and he'd come to the bed and brush back the strands of her sweat-soaked hair with his good hand, whispering all those words of love and affection that her teenage self would never have imagined hearing from any man ever, not even in her wildest dreams.

It's yours. It's always been yours.

He hadn't been talking about the sword. He admitted as much to her at White Harbor, when they lingered after dinner at that seaside inn, waiting for the other to take their leave, give a respectful nod in parting and go to bed. They were soldiers, finally fighting on the same side. That should have been enough. But Brienne was too glad to see him, alive and finally out of Cersei's grasping, greedy clutches.

And Jaime had loved Brienne for such a long time.

You are everything I wish I could have been, he smirked again and winked at her, hiding his deeper feelings behind irreverence and gloomy pride in his past sins and failures, before taking a long drink from his tankard of ale.

She waited until he placed the mug down again on the rough-hewn planks between them. She had looked at him severely, her sapphire blue eyes sparking with too much feeling as she said, You are not what they say you are.

How do you know? He wondered, the old cockiness only vaguely remembered in his tone. Can you read a man's soul, Brienne?

No, she'd answered, and maybe she should have left it at that. Who's to know if it would have made a difference? But she was always too brave, and in that moment, too pleased with his presence—in the North, in White Harbor, with her. She added softly, But I can read yours, Jaime.

And there was nothing to be done after that but go to bed. The food was finished, the tankards were dry. It was late enough that the innkeeper was only half-awake and his silence was further sealed by a handful of Lannister silver, placed near the innkeeper's drooping head by Jaime's gold-plated hand on his way by. His other hand was occupied, creeping down the small of Brienne's back, gently leading her from the dining room up the rickety stairs to a soft mattress and a night that could not be taken back.

Some nights leave no trace but memory and this one might have too…if it weren't for the healthy cries of a golden-haired baby boy, breathing in his first lungfuls of air in the upper halls of Greywater Watch.

"He's strong," the midwife declared in a cheery tone, turning the child first to Brienne and then towards a watchful Meera Reed, who stood nearby, making sure her father's guest was well tended to. Stretching his arms, the child gripped the midwife's hand with his tiny fingers. "See how he wraps his hand around my thumb? As if he was gripping the hilt of a sword."

"Some are born to it," Meera replied, casting a glance at Brienne, hoping to cheer the woman with a subtle nod to the child's heritage—before they took his sword hand, Jaime Lannister was the greatest swordsman of his generation, and Brienne had held her own against him. Everyone knew the story. Jaime was too fond of telling it, pride coloring his features as he spoke of Brienne's near triumph against him at the stone bridge.

She had me at her mercy before Bolton's men interrupted us. He told the story at Winterfell at least three times.

Your hands were bound. Brienne always made excuses.

But each time, he turned to her to insist, You had me at your mercy.

And he wasn't talking about only the bridge.

How could that be though? She wondered and continued wondering. How had she, Selwyn Tarth's beast of a daughter, swayed Jaime Lannister's heart so fully? All her life, she'd been cursed to love beautiful men. But she learned quickly that those men were not for her. And she learned that beautiful features could turn ugly and spiteful, angelic faces contorted into smug, painful glares that said as plain as anything: You honestly thought you had a chance with me?

In Renly's service, she never expected anything more than a place in his king's guard. Having grown up with the most base of insults and jeers, she was just pleased that he didn't laugh at her.

Renly never laughed at her, especially not when he was dying in her arms.

She'd become cold and hard to ideas of attraction and love. She wasn't dazzled by Jaime Lannister's smirk when Catelyn Stark turned him over to her custody. At least, not in any way that would stick. He was the Kingslayer and a prisoner of the house she swore oaths to.

And anyway, he talked too much.

During the first weeks they traveled together, she ignored his goading taunts with ease, having heard all his insults many, many times before from all those boys and men who frequented her father's halls, when she was still a young girl and careless words cut as sharp as steel daggers.

Something changed. She couldn't fix the exact hour when it happened and she would never understand it, not until the day she died. But there was a time when she looked up into Jaime Lannister's pretty features and saw him looking back at her with a simple, all-consuming adoration that the gangly, unloved girl she had once been was too afraid to believe was real.

She would never fully accept it as real. Not even with Jaime's child, her child, placed in her arms.

Meera Reed watched as Brienne looked down at her son, her forefinger stroking the smooth, soft skin of the baby's cheek. Meera ushered the midwife out of the room quickly, with a parting word of discretion. The midwife didn't know the identity of the woman she attended, nor of the child's father. The Reeds would make sure it stayed that way.

Tyrion had been right. Greywater Watch kept its secrets to itself.

"He's beautiful, Lady Brienne," Meera commented as she stepped back in the room. They had spoken few words over Brienne's reason for coming here. Even less on the topic that continued renewing the wash of tears in Brienne's eyes, blurring her view of her son's face with a gleam of saltwater.

You weep like a bloody woman, Jaime's ghost teased her still, that smirk firmly in place.

In life, she could give it back to him just as easily. But she was too tired and the only thought that filled her head was a sad, hollow one, Jaime, I miss you so…

Meera couldn't know the thoughts that Brienne lingered on, but she could guess.

"My father will be glad to hear the sound of a newborn's cry," Meera said brightly, but also somewhat timidly. The swamp girl could read a room well enough. Brienne's grief cast a long, dark shadow over the moment. The room was nearly swallowed by it. Meera thought only to draw her attention away from sadness as she continued, "I don't believe a child's been born in this house since Jojen…"

Of course, at the mention of her brother's name, Meera's features darkened by a degree as well.

Brienne wasn't the only one with ghosts. Winter was full of them. In every kingdom, in every home.

Admirable as they may be, Meera's efforts to bring a little happiness to the moment fell flat and she didn't try again.

The baby was more successful, new and fresh to the world, his cries quickly quieting as he caught sight of his weary mother. Blinking up with blue, sapphire eyes, the baby yawned once and soon settled in her arms.

Just like his father, he coaxed a smile from Brienne without even trying.