Jaime stormed through the courtyard looking for her in the fading light. He'd seen Tormund Giantsbane more often than he'd seen Brienne in the preceding days – he had no idea where she might be. Her horse was still in the stables, and Podrick hadn't seen her since the morning. She wasn't in the godswood or the armory. He searched every sedate table in the great hall, and every guardpost on the walls. Sighing to himself, he climbed the steps to their chambers, leaving a trail of muddy footprints.

The hall was dark but for distant light spilling in from the torches in the yard. He paced the landing – what would he even say to her, he thought. He couldn't stand for her to despise him – to think ill of him for his failings. You've never failed me, she'd told him at Riverrun. He wondered at what point that would cease to be true, if it hadn't already.

Gathering his courage, he rapped sharply on the door.

Brienne unbolted the door and snapped it open. The sight of Jaime's face, replacing his dying eyes in her mind, caused her heart to leap into her throat and instinctively she threw the door at him, slamming it shut. She took a step back as if, by doing so, she could become invisible to him.

Jaime sighed. He should have expected this. Truly he'd expected her not to acknowledge him at all, so the fact that she'd shown any emotion by shutting him out was actually not a bad sign. And she hadn't re-bolted the door. There was a chance to get through to her.

He leaned his forehead against the door with a thud, "Brienne, please."

On the opposite side, she stood still hoping he would just go away. But he persisted.

"There's been a misunderstanding. I'm not going anywhere until I can make this right. I will sleep in front of this door if necessary."

She crept slowly to the door and put her palms to it silently, angry tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Why wouldn't he just go? Better she not know anything about his plans, lest she been sent in pursuit of him. She could give him that at least.

"Go away," she said unconvincingly through the door. "Do your duty," the ghost of Stannis flittering through her mind. "I will not ask you to betray your family, Ser Jaime," she spat, her spite growing, "but I do recommend you get a head-start."

"Brienne—"

She swung the door open suddenly, nearly causing him to fall over, steading himself against the frame as she glared down at him.

"I have a title, Ser Jaime. You gave it to me. You'd do well to use it so long as you are in my presence."

He bowed his head. "You're right." His words, visible in the cold air, "Please – Ser Brienne – might I come inside and explain?"

She squared her shoulders and occupied the doorway, looking him up and down. There was no hint of his usual levity, but her trust in him wavered, "You're covered in mud."

It occurred to him then that she was wearing far fewer clothes than he. He hadn't seen her with so few layers on since the last leg of their journey to King's Landing. He could see the scars at her neck more clearly now than he had after the battle, glinting in contrast to her skin, the sight tugging at his gut.

You and me we belong together

As his eyes traveled downward toward his own body, he recalled with semi-clarity the vision of her in the baths at Harrenhal when she'd stood over him flush with anger sending water everywhere, her freckles dancing across her pale skin – he couldn't see it now because of the billowing tunic, but he could suddenly recall the notch of her waist between her ribs and her hip, a secret part of her design that other no man before him had seen, and possibly no man after.

He felt his neck heat up as he busied himself examining his legs, several inches deep in mud. There were muddy tracks all over the hall now too. She wasn't going to let him in. The hall would be his confessional, then.

He sighed, defeated. He took a deep breath to meet her eyes, struggling not to falter, his voice barely more than a whisper, "Br—Ser Brienne, I beg you, hear me out. What you overheard today was false."

She raised her brow skeptically, "So Lord Tyrion lied to Ser Davos?"

"Not exactly-"

Brienne swept the door closed again, but Jaime was a step ahead this time and flung his golden arm forward to stop its motion, lodging it between the door and the frame. Brienne held the door to it. "Move," she said with a deadly command.

"I won't," he cried, equally forceful. "I need you to hear me out."

Brienne kept her back against the door and could hear his palm sliding across the wood behind her and she leaned into it. The draft from the hallway whistling through the open door and tossing the flames on the hearth.

"Why?" she asked the crack in the door. "Does it amuse you that I stood for you – vouched for you before everyone when all along you knew you'd be going back to her? When you arrived with no reinforcements, I feared for you. Sansa wouldn't hear me, and while she had you dragged before the Queen I went to Jon Snow and begged him hear you out because I thought…I knew you. Because I knew – I thought – that there had to be a reason you would risk coming. But he wouldn't hear me either. So I stood for you before gods and men and swore – I bet my honor on yours. And you let me-"

He could hear her voice tremoring through the gap it broke, and he wished the hand in the door could have been the flesh one – it would be painful, but at least he could be closer, could reach out and comfort her somehow. When she'd stood for him in the hall, he thought her actions had been of the moment – he'd no idea that it had been borne of this kind of desperation.

"Brienne, I—"

"I owe you nothing," she growled.

"And I owe you everything," he snapped back, before he could stop the words. His left hand scraped across the grain, feeling the heat of the room – or perhaps of her - pressing behind it, "-an explanation," he clarified, "Please."

"I've known you to run toward death before, Jaime, but this is a perversion. You've made some pretty speeches about this not being the same, and how you've put your past behind you but clearly you've left something there that you now wish to retrieve, so why don't you just go?" He didn't answer, but he hadn't moved either. "You have this chance, Jaime – go," she urged, "standing there and telling more lies does not help your cause."

Jaime swallowed. "My cause is here. And I never lied to you."

Brienne scoffed on the other side of the door. "Omitting facts is as good as a lie."

Jaime swore under his breath, then spoke directly into the space above his arm. "I swear to you, Brienne. On my honor – whatever that has ever been worth to you – I've no intention of going back to King's Landing, ever if I can help it. There is nothing and no one for me there."

Brienne said nothing, her heart beating through the door.

Jaime could feel the door vibrating and he stretched his palm against it more fervently without adding pressure. "I have no reason to betray anyone here. My loyalty is here – right here. And I would never betray you, you know that…You have to know that," the last, in a desperate whisper.

Again, Brienne said nothing, but she could hear the strain in his voice, and her resolve began to break.

"Tyrion was wrong," he said quietly, "He didn't lie, he just…he didn't have all of the details," he said bitterly.

She let out a long breath and turned, keeping pressure on the door. She closed her eyes, the vision of his death crossing her mind again, and they flew open. Whatever happened, whatever he had to say, she could not bear for those accusing dead eyes to be the last she saw of him. Her next breath came out in a shudder.

She straightened her back and pulled the door slowly just in case he thought to fall into the doorway again. When the door was open fully, she looked at him expectantly. Jaime could see that the scrapes and bruises on her face had begun to fade into yellow, but the bruise around her eye was still bright purple and somewhat swollen, lending her an ironic look even in her seriousness.

"What details?" she asked, mustering as much cold neutrality as she could.

Jaime let out a grateful sigh. He considered telling her then and there why he'd sunk back into that bed – to tell her of his fears for her death, of the ways he'd drunk himself into a stupor over her apparent loss. But he was certain she'd slam the door again – possibly on his neck this time. He couldn't start so far back. "She told me she was pregnant months ago. Qyburn confirmed it. But the weeks went on and she never showed."

"Some women—"

"Not her," he said firmly, "she took after our mother, she always swelled rather quickly," he said, a fleeting memory flashing through his mind, "You saw her at the Dragon Pit – would you have thought that she was with child then?"

Brienne hesitated, thinking of the way Cersei had stared murderously between the two of them, thinking of those murderous dead eyes burning now. She worked her mouth for a reply but could only shake her head.

"No, you wouldn't." He licked his lips, the ghost of his memories haunting him. "She wanted another, a replacement for the ones she'd lost. But even if it were real, it would not have truly been mine. She manipulated me into thinking that she'd let me because I was…"

He felt Brienne's eyes burning into him as he recalled the feeling of believing her dead, and the numbness that followed. "I was in a dark place. She offered me light. And the fool I am, I took it. I knew her cruelty, yet I kept going back for more, trying to fill the bottomless pit that my heart had become after- She hadn't let me ever be a father to the others, why on earth would she start with this one?"

Brienne felt her cold expression soften into something akin to pity, recalling the way he'd been after Myrcella's death – he'd seemed so broken and vulnerable then.

"When I fled King's Landing and came here she'd just told me that she was going to let Euron Greyjoy be the father to our child." He shook his head, his mouth set in a line, "but by then I knew there was no child – and by then I had already planned…" he looked up at her, trying to decide whether he dare tell her he'd thought to stay, that he'd been leaving the capital forever regardless. But her hand was still on the door and he hesitated, "either way – there is no child. If she truly thinks there is now, then either she is madness itself, or it's no bastard of mine."

She felt hope creeping into her body, but then she considered all she'd heard in the library. "What about what Tyrion said, about you?" she asked quietly.

Jaime sighed, rolling his eyes at his own folly, "She managed to convince him when he came to parlay with her after the failure at the pits, and he believed her as I once had. The distinction is that I had the benefit of time – when Tyrion saw her, it had been too long for me to continue believing in the charade. But he'd had no way of knowing just how long she'd been playing at it, and I didn't think to warn him," he added with regret, "so he took her at her word."

"Then why did you—"

"I lied – to him!" he quickly covered, "I lied to him. I thought it a kindness."

Brienne's brows drew together, and Jaime did what he could to meet her eye without fixating on the crease there. "Why?"

He shrugged. "When I revealed her deceit in the hall, it set Tyrion back. The queen questioned her faith in him and he was questioning his faith in himself. He asked me whether the baby had been a lie, too. And rather than give him another reason to question his own judgement and potentially pitch himself off the ramparts, I told him that it was real."

So he'd been trying to save his brother, she thought, foolishly noble to the end. Brienne's look had softened now, but she stayed silent and unreadable.

"I thought I was doing the right thing." Jaime looked at his feet, then took a deep breath and looked up at her through glassy eyes. "I've only…all I've ever done is try to do right by those I love." His voice cracked on the word as his chest swelled and he watched her eyes drop to the floor.

"And I may be paying for the crimes that I committed in their names for the rest of my days. But I will not be controlled or defined by them anymore. I told you that I would serve under your command, Ser Brienne, and I have no interest in begging off of that. Even if you do not believe me, even if you think… you cannot trust me now, I trust you. I know you. I know that you would never ask anything of me that would bring me dishonor as they did."

Just like a breath needs the air

"The battle is over," she whispered to her feet.

"That matters not. I remain yours to command." This oath, he swore to himself, he would never break.

She kept her head lowered, but studied him through her pale lashes.

He dropped his voice to a whisper. "I will go if you want me to go, Brienne." He took a deep breath. "Send me away, and I'll leave. I'll saddle my horse tonight and ride away, north, south, it doesn't matter where you send me, because what I'm riding away from stays the same."

She lifted her face to his, trying to discern the emotion there. They searched each other's eyes and all Brienne could think of was her desire to quell the fear she saw in his.

After a moment, she offered an inaudible response.

He surged with hope, "What was that?"

She sniffed, then offered her response again, her voice enveloping him like warm honey. "Stay. Please."

Jaime kept his eyes on her steady but pressed his jagged fingernails into his palm to keep from reaching out and cupping her face and then running his hand down her neck to those silver and pink scars at her collarbone.

'As you command, my lady." His heart soared and he tried to hide a grin as she let out an exasperated sigh and stared at him with an accusation.

"I'm not—"

"I know, I know." He dropped the grin and met her eyes with a seriousness so furious that her torso began shifting defensively. "But so long as you command me, you are mine."

Her breath hitched in her throat as an ache rose in her belly.

She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for misjudging you."

He shook his head at that, leaning towards her. "Never apologize, not to me. I swear by all the gods, Brienne, I will never give you cause to doubt me again."

"Jai—"

Brienne was cut short by the sound of the bells, tolling for that evening's burning. They both swallowed and blinked out of their trance at the sound.

"Time to burn the dead…again," Jaime said, exhaustion pouring out of him. "I understand they've found Jon's friend from the wall - he's among them tonight – the Mormonts and Theon Greyjoy as well."

"I expect he'll give the same eulogy as usual," she said, her brow creasing.

Jaime gave a knowing chuckle, "No doubt…will you come?"

"I suppose I should…" Brienne looked down at her linens and bit her lip, "I'll be a moment…will you…wait for me?"

"Of course."

She half-grinned and shut the door gently. She leaned against the stone wall, cooling the sweat still at her back and chilling the flush that she knew had crept up her body. You are mine, he'd said. "I am yours," she whispered into the firelight, then she went about seeking her boots.

Outside the door, Jaime's shoulders sank and he leaned against the frigid stone wall, his breath materializing in the air as he whispered, "I am yours."

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 "You and Me" by Alecia Moore and Dallas Green (C) 2014.