He knew where she would go. And only once Jaime was in the kitchen begging for a pitcher and clean cups did he stop to think she might leave him on the other side of the door again, that she might doubt his intentions. But he had to try.

Much as he tried to push it down, sealing off the past was apparently impossible. As if summoned by the thought, Jaime turned a corner and was stopped short by the sight of the living past sitting peacefully in his chair in the middle of the hallway, staring at him.

"Lord Stark," Jaime greeted.

"Ser Jaime, you left the feast." Brandon Stark didn't seem to have much use for pleasantries.

"Yes. I think I've had enough toasts for one night."

Bran's face didn't exactly change, but as he took in the sight of Jaime juggling his loot from the kitchen, his stoic glance seemed to gain an unsettling ironic sheen. "I was wondering if I might ask you a personal question."

Now the irony was Jaime's to wear. "I thought for sure you knew all there was to know about me,"

"Not all," Bran said rather seriously, lowering his voice.

"All right – what is it?"

"After you pushed Brandon Stark from the tower, he had repeated nightmares."

Jaime blanched, and looked behind him to ensure that no one was listening. "Yes, well I am sorry for that."

"You're no stranger to nightmares, I believe."

Jaime shook his head, "It's worst for most people after a trauma."

The three-eyed raven nodded. "You had a recurring nightmare following your own trauma?"

"I did." Jaime walked to the window and balanced the pitcher there, then turned back to Bran, "I had that same nightmare for a long time."

"Do you still have it sometimes? Do the voices come and find you in the dark only to be scared away by her light?"

Jaime was stunned. He knew that Bran had a penchant for seeing into history, but seeing into Jaime's mind was something he'd not been ready for.

In the dream he was always in that dark wet cellar. The ghosts of his family and former kings would surround him simultaneously beckoning and shaming him, only to be pushed away by Brienne - naked as she'd been in the baths, beautiful to his mind's eye, her eyes shining fiercely in the light emanating from her sword.

He'd had hints of the dream immediately after losing his hand, but it would always end in the dark with the voices screaming, and he'd wake up to find himself still bound, facing backwards on that horse, the rot of his hand mixing with the dank smells of the woods and invading his nostrils, his back pressed against Brienne's as they marched toward Harrenhal. It was only once he'd been forced to leave her behind there that she appeared in the dream itself - it was what had made him go back for her.

He'd never spoken of it to anyone, but sometimes he suspected that Brienne and Qyburn had known more about his night terrors than he had. It had continued through most of their journey to King's Landing, but sometimes he'd woken in the dark before the ghosts could even appear. On those occasions, he'd opened his eyes to find Brienne snoring lightly as she huddled against him, and he would drift back into a dreamless sleep.

Recently he'd dreamt of fighting the dead, but they were people he'd known. Roose Bolton, Prince Rhaegar, his own father, Locke, they all appeared as wights, and he often woke on hearing Brienne's screams as they clawed at her.

Bran nodded as if sensing Jaime's thoughts.

"She forgave you years ago, Ser Jaime, as I did."

Jaime's mouth went dry. "What did you say?"

"Ser Brienne. There were others who treated her unkindly long after she forgave you your cruelty. You protected her from many, others she protected herself from. Some you're both fighting still. Your bond is stronger than your missteps."

Jaime shook his head with a bitter grin. "Only a foolish man claims to know what's in a woman's heart," he quipped.

Bran tilted his head serenely, "I am not a man."

Jaime licked his dry lips preparing a retort, but Bran interrupted his jibe. "He's dead, you know. I killed him."

Jaime started, taken aback by the declaration. "Who?"

Bran's response was matter-of-fact. "The man with the bear."

Jaime rocked back on his heels, choking out the name, "Locke?"

"He was the same man who maimed you, was he not?"

His voice was trapped in his throat, and he was only able to strangle out the merest assent, joined with a nod before croaking "How?"

"Does it matter? He was north of the wall, a pretender in the night's watch. He was sent by the Boltons to find me and bring me back here. He failed."

"I hope it wasn't a quick death."

"Quicker than he deserved."

Jaime nodded. "It's not that I'm not glad, but why are you telling me this?"

"You're not the only one who has nightmares, Ser Jaime. She was there too."

"Then why not tell her?"

"She only trusts you," the raven said simply, giving him a nod of dismissal.

Jaime shifted the cups against his body as a queer sort of warmth filled his limbs. Sensing that Bran was done with him, he picked up the pitcher again, nodding his exit, and turned to go down the next corridor, but then he looked back at Bran, swallowing. "I confess I'm still not sure where I fit in here."

Bran looked at him very curiously, a small smile flitting across his face. "You have one half of Ned Stark's sword. And she has the other. They belong together. As long as they are, you are right where you are meant to be, Ser Jaime."

The meaning behind Bran's words hit Jaime in his chest, and he was filled with a sudden maddening energy. The sensation was gone as quickly as it had come, but it left him feeling powerful, and sweating as if he'd just run for miles.

He turned from Bran in a daze, hefting the cups, and jogged down the corridor. He climbed the steps to their familiar lodgings, careful not to spill anything on the landing lest it freeze in the northern air and cause some drunken fool to slip to his death.

He had no free hand, so he knocked on her door using the pitcher, its contents sloshing back and forth.

When she opened it, she looked as if she'd been expecting someone else, and he could see that the ghost of her pain was in her eyes still. But when she didn't slam the door in his face as she had the week before, Jaime took advantage of the moment. "You didn't drink." He dropped his eyes and skirted past her through the doorway.

It was the first time that Jaime had walked into her room without her invitation, and she was confused by his trespass, thinking him either mad or drunk or both. She turned to face him, slowly closing the door. "I didn't drink?"

"In the game," he swallowed, "you didn't finish the game." She watched from behind him as he filled the cups from the pitcher.

"I drank, and I don't think either of us needs more."

He gave her a sheepish but insistent look over his shoulder, then turned and held a cup out to her. "You're right. It's only water."

She let out a huff of a breath, half laughing as she took the cup, offering up the shade of a small defeated grin. She should have known what he was about. His brother was the source of her frustration, not him. "Thank you." She drank deeply, closing her eyes to the cool liquid.

Desperate for a cure to this disease

Her room was overly warm, made worse by the heat his body was still feeling. "You keep it warm enough in here," he muttered as he crossed toward her bed and removed his jacket. He'd gotten good at unbuckling it, but the sleeves were a constant struggle for his arm.

She watched from a distance as he tried to shrug the jacket off. "It's the first thing I learned when I came to the north: keep a fire going. Every time you leave the room, put more wood on."

Jaime finally managed to wrest his arms from the leather and threw the offensive jacket to the floor, turning back to her with a jape, "Well that's very diligent, very responsible," he teased.

"Piss off, Jaime," she laughed, seeing how disheveled he'd become from his jacket efforts. He grinned at her retort and walked back to the table, standing almost eye-to-eye with her, recognizing what little in the way of clothing now stood between them, "You know the first thing I learned in the north? I hate the fucking north."

"It grows on you."

His eyes caught on the edges of the scar at her neck, and he forced himself to meet her eyes again.

"It has yet grow on me. You were right when you said I preferred the coast – being inland makes me feel trapped."

"I grew up on an island. I know what you mean."

Jaime's mouth felt dry again and he stepped past her and reached for the water. He knew that Tyrion was probably right about where her duty would eventually lie, but he was done letting others make assumptions for him. He needed to hear it from her.

"Do you miss it, Tarth?"

Brienne nodded, a faraway smile reaching her eyes as she looked past him into the flames.

"Will you go back?"

She worried at her lip, captivating him with the way she pulled the lip across her teeth, flattening out the dagger-shaped scar.

He took a step towards her. "What is it?"

She started and released her lip, searching his eyes for the source of his question, finally giving in.

"I will go back. Eventually. The Stark girls are home now, they're safe-"

'—thanks to you," he cut in.

"—thanks to us," she amended with a nod. "As soon as this wretched business with Daenerys and…as soon as the war is over and I know that they will remain safe, I plan to go home. My father is very capable, but time is not on his side. My place will be there."

"Not much for a couple of knights to do on a peaceful island, I should think."

She looked at him curiously, but continued, "But life has to go on, doesn't it? Unless it doesn't? I don't have much hope for the house of Tarth beyond me – I've spurned every attempt by my father to marry me off to simpering power-hungry men. I believe he gave up the moment I took the rainbow cloak in Renly's Kingsguard. But he would never take my birthright from me, so it will be my duty to see that the island is left in good management when I am gone."

"You've got plenty of time, Brienne, you could-"

She shook her head. "-I'm sure this will sound selfish, but I could never concede to marry anyone who didn't want me to wife, and no one does. The future of Tarth is important, but I am not a brood mare."

"No, you're not," he agreed quietly, his voice getting hoarse, "But do you really think it so unlikely that a man could want you?"

She blushed with a quiet rage and looked away. "Please, Jaime, I've had enough of this for one night."

"I'm serious," he said adamantly, "the wildling certainly fancies you," he deflected.

She gave him a withering glare, pressing him into a decidedly un-serious tone, "What's wrong? Do you not think that Tormund Giantsbane would fare well in the south?"

It sounded like a challenge, and Brienne felt that molten ball in her center start to expand until it felt suddenly as if all the pieces of her had fallen into place. "You sound quite jealous," a test of the waters.

"—and what if I am?" another challenge, unblinking, unwavering.

An unconscious sigh escaped into the air, the charge between them so strong that neither was sure whether they were breathing, let alone who the sigh had come from. She started worrying at her lip again, and he felt his body shift, all of the tension, pain and ignorance between them dropping away. In his mind, he could see all the times she'd walked away from him, either out of disappointment or anger, because he'd pushed her away, or because she was literally escaping from him. And the remnants of the regret that had been born of those choices dissolved into nothing but heat. And he was sweating again.

He tore his eyes from her, muttering under his breath as he reached for the laces at his collar, desperately wanting to be rid of the shirt.

"It's bloody hot in here!"

She was frozen in place, unsure of herself, unsure of him, certain only that she wanted to be touching him, and that she wanted to feel the familiar blaze of his hands on her skin. He was pulling at the strings with his teeth now, and she couldn't bear it any longer. "Oh, move aside," she muttered impatiently knocking his hand away and moving both of hers to his neck and making quick work of the knots.

He looked up at her in surprise, his eyes darkening as he focused on the neck of her shift. He reached around her arm and dared to loop a finger into the loose bow at the top of the shirt. Brienne stopped her ministrations and arrested his hand with one of hers, the other still anchored in the laces at his neck, a tangible spark igniting where they met in a completed circuit.

"What are you doing?"

He saw the question – the real question – in her eyes then. Without breaking eye contact or shaking her off, he pulled on the bow and nearly growled, "taking your shirt off." She clasped his hand and lowered it to the side, and for a moment he thought that she was rejecting him. He'd never seduced anyone before in his life. His only other lover having been the one to drag him to bed in the first place. He searched her face for signs of denial, but then her eyes widened in semi-shock as she finally identified the desire in his eyes. She squeezed his hand and finally let go, bringing both of hers up to her own chest.

He studied her face with wet eyes as her fingers danced across the laces. He wanted to sooth all of her worry lines, to absorb the broken vessels across the sea of her beautiful brow. As she reached the final bow, his eyes dropped to the indent on her upper lip, the desire to press his tongue to it and memorize its depth nearly overpowering him. She raised her eyes again, searching his for any sign of change or refusal at the sight of her, but he only stared at her in wonder of her steadfast independence.

Then she was reaching for his waist and tugging his shirt from his breeches. She pulled him minutely closer before he raised his arms so that she could free him of it, kissing his ribcage with her knuckles, and carefully working around the fresh scars that adorned his right arm, and peeling the sleeve from the leather cuff before dropping the offending linen to the ground behind him, their closeness leaving them both in a temporary daze.

Her eyes raked his chest, recalling the feel of it grazing across her skin when she'd cradled his feverish body in the baths. Desperate to feel it again, she tore her shirt from her shoulders, exposing herself as fervently as she had at Harrenhal, but this time with want rather than anger.

He swallowed hard to keep from crying out or cursing Locke's name aloud. The scars along her collarbone shone in the firelight marking a familiar terrain just above newer and strange angry red landmarks, scabbing cuts and unhealed bruises marring the space between her breasts, just above her heart, and traveling down to her belly. Pressure wounds, he realized, from the crush of the dead, the cuts likely due in part to her tearing away from the dead Dothraki just before the bodies had fallen.

He raised his eyes to her face reverently. He'd never been religious or put stock in the Seven. But in that moment, he was sure that the woman before him was the warrior and the maiden made both flesh and light. The maiden had pulled him from his waking darkness, just as the warrior had pushed away the shadows in his dreams. A truer knight there never was, and she was his, as he was completely hers.

Well some days are better than others

She watched him take in her uncertainty as it mixed with both tears and lust, and when he raised his eyes to her, she saw her own desires reflected back at her, and the fire in her belly erupted, a million tiny flames scattering across her body, her breath catching in her chest as he gazed at her, his breath on her neck.

"I've never slept with a knight before."

She sighed through her nose and her voice but a whisper as her chin trembled, "I've never slept with anyone before."

"Then you have to drink," he said with a smile shining in his eyes. "The game's not over until you do."

"I told y—"

But I fear no thing as long as you're with me

He captured her lips with his, swallowing her rebuke.

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

NOTE: *WHISPERS* I THINK WE MIGHT BE DUE FOR A RATING CHANGE.