Jaime wandered the grounds searching for Brandon Stark, the boy he'd tried to kill all those years ago. He'd woken up that morning feeling more refreshed than he had in years and knowing that amends would need to be made before the day was out. His first order of business should be with the one who had suffered longest by his hand – the one who could have easily tipped the scales against him yesterday if he had revealed his crime before Sansa and the queen.

Pod had shown up bright and early with a tub and hot water for him to bathe. As Jaime sank his sore limbs into the water he'd started crafting his apology – not that he wasn't truly sorry for this, and for everything that he'd ever done in Cersei's name, but the boy unnerved him with his faraway stare. Something that, no doubt, was also Jaime's fault. Why, he wondered, had Bran not had him gutted there in the great hall? Why had the boy reminded him of his act without calling attention to it? His own words came back to haunt him then – The things we do for love – his being here was, in a way, an act of love. No, Jaime thought, it was wholly an act of love – everything that came before, including pushing Bran, those things were done out of desperation, out of loyalty to a viper, out of his need for Cersei's approval. He scrubbed his face with the cloth and felt the soap stinging his eyes. Never again.

He found Bran in his wheeled chair sitting in the godswood. No other soul appeared to be nearby and as Jaime approached he found himself wondering how Bran had come to find himself here in the snow. And on an expanded thought, how had he even survived all this time?

He approached the boy from the side, hoping not to startle him from whatever prayers or thoughts he might be mired in. Jaime's boots crunched in the snow, sounding his arrival. But Bran did not turn toward him. Despite his preparation, Jaime struggled with what to say, his shame for having thrown the boy mixed in with remembrances of Tommen's broken body after having thrown himself…it was too much. Finally he forced it out.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you."

Bran turned to him, a sedate look of appraisal in his eyes.

"You weren't sorry then. You were protecting your family."

My family is here, he thought. "I'm not that person anymore."

"You still would be. If you hadn't pushed me out of that window. And I would still be Brandon Stark." Jaime took a step back in surprise.

"You're not?"

"No, I'm something else now."

Jaime had come to Bran in the hopes of making amends and perhaps working towards forgiveness. But the boy, it seemed, was well beyond that. "You're not angry at me?"

"I'm not angry at anyone."

This didn't make any sense. "Why didn't you tell them?"

"You won't be able to help us in this fight if I let them murder you first."

So that was it. Brandon Stark, or whomever he was, was playing strategically. Jaime could very well fight this battle and survive, only to have his head chopped off by one of the Starks anyway. That wasn't the way he'd ever wanted to go. He was here in good faith, ready to swear his sword to whomever necessary and possibly bring himself a little peace in the process. "What about afterwards?"

"How do you know there is an afterwards?"

That was something jaime rarely concerned himself with. But what if there is? he wondered. What if he lived? What if they all somehow lived? Could they go on like this? What purpose did this cryptic boy serve other than to torture him with evasive forgiveness?

"The only guarantees in this life, Ser Jaime, are in the past. If you're looking for answers, I recommend looking there first."

And with that, the boy went back to staring at the weirwood tree as if conversing with it silently. Jaime nodded in his direction, then slowly walked back to the castle feeling more puzzled than ever before. Look to the past? Jaime had been Cersei's terrible creature in the past. How was that supposed to help him now?

You forgave and I won't forget

Jaime was good at welcoming death. He'd often run headlong toward it, knowing that if he didn't make it, he'd served his purpose. He did not fear his own death, save once, he thought, in the bear pit. But now the uncertainty of the future dug at him.

He walked into the yard which was abuzz with activity. Men and women were loading and unloading carts, dragging supplies here and there, driving sharpened logs into the ground. If they're doing that inside, thought Jaime, they anticipate the wights getting in. If the wights get in, how do we continue to defend the walls from both sides? He and Tyrion spied one another across the yard and met in the middle.

As the brothers then made their way to one of the outer walls, Tyrion could not help expressing his shame for having believed their sister's lies.

"Was she lying about the baby, too?"

Jaime's heart sank a bit - he'd been telling himself for some time that the baby was a lie, another piece of the twisted chain that Cersei twisted around his neck to keep him close. But he couldn't tell his brother that. Tyrion felt bad enough for his folly – why make him feel even lower?

"No that part is real," he lied. Tyrion looked suspicious so Jaime kept moving, "She's always been good at using the truth to tell lies. I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. She's fooled me more than anybody."

Tyrion stopped on the steps, his eyes meeting Jaime's straight on.

"What?"

"She never fooled you," Tyrion admonished, "You always knew exactly what she was, and you loved her anyway." Tyrion continued up the steps, but Jaime found himself stuck. Yes, he'd loved Cersei unconditionally – we can't help whom we love – selfishly, and lives had been ruined for it. Never again. Love was not made for that.

He followed Tyrion up to the top of the wall and looked over the castle.

"So," started Tyrion, "We're going to die…at Winterfell. Not the death I would have chosen." Jaime grinned down at his brother, knowing what came next. "I always pictured myself dying in my own bed, at the age of eighty, with a belly full of wine and a-"

"-girl's mouth around your cock," finished Jaime, with a chuckle.

Tyrion rolled his eyes up at Jaime. "What about you? Did you always dream of dying by charging a dragon?" he asked with a sly grin.

Jaime shook his head knowingly and looked up at the sky, "No, I always wanted to die in the arms of the woman I love, unlikely though that seemed."

Tyrion offered him a sad grin. "Not much chance of that now."

Jaime looked back at his brother, his mind racing. "Perhaps."

Tyrion knit his brows at him, but Jaime seemed lost in thought.

Tyrion looked back out over the grounds, "At least Cersei won't get to murder me. I'm sure I'll feel some satisfaction denying her that pleasure."

Whatever Tyrion said next was lost to Jaime. His thoughts had been broken into by a familiar voice calling out orders in the distance, and being answered by the clash of swords down below.

Unconsciously he crossed to the other side of the parapet without even a glance at his brother, drawn by the sound of her voice. She was taller and blonder than anyone else, and he spotted her immediately walking the grounds and observing pockets of young men training with the sword. She was as commanding from a distance as he knew her to be up close. So fixed was he on her that he didn't notice Tryion squeezing between himself and the wall to get a glimpse of what had stolen Jaime's attention.

"Ah," said Tryion, startling Jaime from his trance, "the Maid of Tarth." He paused then and looked up at Jaime curiously, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" Jaime asked defensively.

"Your hand. I thought you lost it when they tortured you. But to hear Lady Brienne tell it, you were defending her honor."

Jaime sighed and Tyrion's eyebrows shot up.

"So it's true? Not that I would doubt her, she seems honest to a fault."

Jaime glanced back at Brienne, then turned to face his brother. "I lied to keep her from being harmed by Roose Bolton's men, and as punishment for depriving our captors of their conquest, they took my sword hand. They made me wear it around my neck all the way to Harrenhal."

Tyrion stared at him in horror.

"When we got there, Bolton saw fit to return me home, but he would not release her."

"But he did."

Jaime shook his head. "He left for the Twins the same day I left for King's Landing. Cersei's current pet – Qyburn? He traveled with me, treating my arm while she was left with the men who'd ruined it. They were hoping for a bounty from her father that would never come. Another casualty of my lies."

"I don't understand."

"I went back for her. They had thrown her into a pit with a bear and a wooden sword." Tyrion gasped and stared wide-eyed at his older brother. "She didn't even have armor on." He touched his neck. "She was –" The memory came to Jaime like a noxious flood and he had to support himself on the wall in order to keep steady. Brienne had convinced him to live - in order to take his revenge, she'd said. But when he'd seen her there with those gashes on her neck, he'd thought nothing of himself. Only once she'd been lifted out of pit had he found himself fearing for his own life, and even then it was not a fear for himself but a fear that if he died, she would likely be thrown back to the bear, or worse. He lived to guarantee that that would never happen. Not for himself, not for Cersei. He'd lived for her. He looked down at Tyrion, a far-away look of remembrance in his eye.

"She was hurt and her captors would not relent. So I jumped in," he shrugged.

"You what?"

"I jumped into the pit. Got her out. And then she pulled me out."

"Gods…"

"I couldn't tell you. Or father. Or Cersei. I couldn't tell anyone. If Cersei ever found out that I'd lost my hand for another woman and then jumped between her and a bear –"

"She'd be dead." Jaime nodded as recognition dawned on Tyrion's face, "That day – at Joffrey's wedding. Cersei cornered her."

"Yes."

"That's why you sent her away, isn't it? When you took care of Pod. The sword father had given you? You were afraid for her."

Jaime stared at the ground. "Yes."

Now of course there was no such threat. She was armed now, she was more than capable of defending herself and others, and he had no doubt that she could take on the night king himself and survive. And yet Jaime found himself worrying. There was something there he couldn't place.

"And now she's returned the favor?"

She had defended him from the queen yesterday even though his own stupid defensiveness was flagrantly at odds with her efforts. She valued his life more than he did. Just as he valued hers, he mused. "She's been saving me for a long time now."

Tyrion studied his brother's face and watched as his eyes sought her out again.

"She's commanding the left flank."

Jaime turned back to his brother, his head cocked. Tyrion was looking away, feigning indifference.

"Jon wanted her to stay inside and protect the women, but Sansa insisted that Lady Brienne be given her own command. Have you been given a post yet?"

Jaime shook his head and looked back out over the grounds.

"Well best seek that out now – surely you don't want to be stuck in the crypts with the screaming babes all night."

Jaime nodded, barely acknowledging his brother, and started walking away.

Tyrion smiled to himself and watched his brother all but float down the stairs.

A/N: I do not own Game of Throne or these characters; some dialogue may be taken verbatim from HBO's Game of Thrones or George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Lyrics used are directly from Mumford & Sons' "I Will Wait" (C) 2012.