Jaime wasn't certain he wasn't dreaming. He'd had all kinds of dreams like this in the past few days.
But his face was still pressed up against Brienne's soft neck, her pulse faint against his mouth. There was no denying that, in this moment, however little sense it made, it was true. Her chest was rising and falling under his arm. He had a knee between her legs—gods, better move that out of there soon—and there was nothing else separating their bodies but her clothing.
His head hurt.
He was definitely awake, and as sober as he'd been at any point recently. That being the case, it was time to move, and before she woke up too.
He started by easing his knee away (as warm as her thighs were and he wanted to stay there.) When this did not seem to wake her, he slipped fingers just under her collar, intending only to peel back enough fabric to check the condition of her wound. He almost managed it, too, but then she suddenly, reactively, kicked the warming pan off the edge of the pallet, sending it clattering to the floor, and they were both awake now.
He rocketed backward before she could, grabbing the blanket for privacy, registering the look of sleepy, wary dismay on her face.
There was nothing to say. There was far too much to say, none of it good. And there was probably plenty to be sorry for, but in the end, she'd told him to get out, so the way he saw it, apologies were due from her direction first.
"Your clothing is outside," Brienne said, looking anywhere but at him, "—I will go and—" she gestured.
Since she'd offered, that was fine with him, although walking downstairs with only a blanket would probably have been the least humiliating thing he'd done around these parts over the past couple of days, not that he could remember everything entirely.
Brienne left hastily. Jaime drank long from the pitcher of water that was nearby, knowing the headache wouldn't go away until he put fluid that wasn't alcohol back into his body. He was sober enough now to admit, to himself at least, that it was time to make a decision on what to do next.
He had an idea now—it had come to him halfway between inebriation and sobriety, dusk and dawn, sleeping and waking—but Brienne wasn't going to approve.
She didn't have to. He didn't mean to ask permission.
When she came back, face flushed, and deposited the stiff pile of clothing on the bed, he waited until she went to the door again, evidently meaning to leave, then he announced, "I'm coming back with you."
She stopped. "What?" In a small voice.
"Your father still owes me a favor."
Brienne slowly eyed the length of the door frame before turning her gaze back to him. "Are you quite serious?"
"Completely," he said.
"Why, why now?"
He considered that for a moment, and then shrugged. "I wasn't ready to ask for it then."
"But now you are?"
Again, he lifted a shoulder. "We'll see."
After a brief silence, she said unsteadily, "I suppose you will do as you must.."
"As do you," he said, refusing to give ground.
Clearly, she had no intentions of apologizing.
Let that, too, be as it was.
Brienne got started on the road before he did. He hadn't expected her to linger, and she'd know better than to try to outrun him (probably). He took his time making sure his horse, who had been stabled the whole time, was ready for the ride, and paid the tavernsmistress again though he'd already covered most of his drinking in advance. Now the woman seemed reluctant to see him go. She still had no idea who he was, which suited him as well. She stopped short of inviting him to come again.
His horse was restive and unhappy, and spent most of the first hour on the road shying at every small noise and generally being a capricious shit; they were not able to catch up with Brienne. Jaime did not lose patience—it wasn't the animal's fault, having gone unattended properly. The stubborn wench was probably trying to put as much distance between them as possible, which was her prerogative, but he'd still catch up sooner rather than later. Though she had one of the Evenfall horses, which would obviously be incomparably better than her previous two rides.
It was fully noon by the time he made up the difference.
Brienne did not ignore him when he came up beside her. She gave him a glance of what seemed like resignation, as though she'd expected, even if not wanted, his companionship.
Their horses, at least, seemed to like to ride together, and fell into a comfortable pattern side-by-side.
The afternoon slipped by, with no further words between them.
Jaime did not, by any means, mind silence. As a soldier he was accustomed to long periods without human interaction or periods where one had to be silent even surrounded by others, but he and Brienne had, until recently, established what he'd considered a comfortable level of banter that was now no more. Her silence was not hostile (or he might have brought it to her attention), but subdued, and he didn't quite know what to do with that.
All he knew was that if she wasn't talking to him by evening he might have to pull her off the horse and make her.
However that might or might not work.
By late afternoon they stopped for water at the same lake he'd originally ridden to the first night he'd left. He swung off first and came to her. She stared down at him from atop the horse. He held out a hand.
"What are you doing?"
"Take my damn hand, will you?"
"I don't...need...help," she said in a raspy almost-whisper.
"It's a token of courtesy," he explained with exquisite sarcasm, and wondering not for the first time when this wench was going to read his eyes instead of listening to his voice. She was searching them—she just wasn't seeing it.
The horse took a step sideways, nudging Jaime gently, but also as if to push Brienne in his direction. At last she swung a leg over and took his hand. He didn't back up enough to give her space, so she had to swing down awkwardly, so they were standing face-to-face.
I'm right here, he challenged, hanging on to her hand a few moments longer, though she'd tried at once to pull it away. Then he released her, abruptly, took her horse's reins and his, and walked both animals down to the shore, letting them drink.
"Thank you," Brienne said, when he brought them back up.
He dropped his eyes to her chest, pointedly, and said, "Show me."
She did not demur, but unbuttoned the top button and slid thumb and forefinger far enough down to reveal the healing, lightly scarred cut. It would always be there. He reached out on impulse and she backed away quickly.
He felt his eyebrows draw together.
"You have no right," she said, quickly fastening the shirt again.
"Does it hurt still?"
"No," she said, lying, if the momentary hesitation was her tell.
He tried to calculate how many days it had been since the fight, but couldn't, largely because he'd been drunk through most of them. "Are you sure?"
"What difference does it make?" she said, blinking rapidly.
"I would rather it didn't, that's the difference."
"You make no sense." Brienne's voice cracked.
"I don't know why you seem to think I want you to be in pain," he said, offended.
She threw him a look of such hurt he was momentarily taken aback that she hadn't tried to hide it better. "You said that you only kissed me for pity."
He pointed a finger at her. "I did not say that."
"It was what you meant."
"Don't tell me what I meant."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Because you don't know, wench," he said, rather gently, for him. "So if you must know? I did it because I wanted to. There."
"And what I want does not matter?"
"You liked it," he shrugged.
"I did not like it." Her voice pitched high again.
He raised eyebrows.
"I—I did not like that you did it," she tried to clarify.
"Why, you wanted me to ask first?" Again he kept the level of scorn light. At least she was talking to him again.
Brienne struggled for words. "You were aggressive."
"Uhh.." He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. "If memory serves, you definitely bit me first."
Her cheeks were pink. "Why are we talking about this?"
"You brought it up."
"Only because you mentioned you didn't want to cause me pain."
"I don't." He gestured at her collarbone, with some vexation now. "That—I didn't want that to happen."
Brienne's eyes were magnified by a layer of tears. "I told you I do not care about my body, fool."
"Yes, well, your future husband might," he said, irritated enough by the epithet to say it.
She swallowed. "I have no future husband, and if I did, he should not be bothered by anything as superficial as scars..."
Jaime stepped in close and pressed the reins of her horse into her hands. She fumbled with them, blinking, while he said quietly, "It might surprise you to know how much some men care about things that don't matter."
Then he turned to his own animal; they'd spoken enough, it was time to move along.
Back at Evenfall by late afternoon, they parted ways and the horses were taken quietly away to the stables by impassive yardmen. Brienne might have taken the secret way in for all Jaime knew; he chose to announce his return at the front gates, rather than slink in like a criminal (at least this time).
He was shown to the guest rooms he'd been given previously, and invited down for dinner as if nothing at all had transpired in his absence. There was plenty of time for a quick (proper) bath—at which he was not surprised to find himself alone—and a change of clothing from among the many provided in the room's extensive wardrobe.
Jaime shaved his week of jaw stubble, too, and upon examining himself a touch vainly in the mirror decided that the extended debauchery had not damaged his looks terribly. He looked a little tired, his eyes were still mildly bloodshot but that was all.
He went below to see his host.
"Welcome," Lord Selwyn said, standing at the head of the table and extending arms like a beneficent uncle. "We are happy to have you back with us, are we not, Brienne?"
To his right, she murmured deeply reluctant assent. Jaime could see, as he came closer and was directed to sit at Selwyn's left, that she had been crying.
"My daughter still suffers, I believe, from her cold," her father remarked, and whether he was being truly ingenuous or deliberately oblivious, Jaime could not tell. They all sat. Servants came, filled plates, brought drinks, and left.
He cleared his throat, trying to catch Brienne's eye across the table, but she kept her gaze downcast. A tendril of hair had escaped and lay against the side of her neck. She wore blue. He liked her in blue.
"The two of you prove difficult, near impossible, to get in the same place at the same time," Selwyn remarked, distracting Jaime from his brief contemplation of Brienne's appearance.
"Happy to oblige, my lord," Jaime said, making the automatic and practiced adjustment to well-mannered replies even when not paying full attention.
"We hope it was no offense on our part that caused your temporary departure," the other man continued. "We thought you might have left our shores altogether."
"On the contrary," Jaime said, "I had some thinking to do." Thinking, drinking...close enough.
Selwyn nodded, sagely. "I would be very glad to hear the results of your pondering. But we should first eat so that the food does not grow cold? My kitchen staff has outdone themselves this day."
"Indeed they have," Jaime agreed, not mentioning that this would be the first real food he'd had in a week and he probably wasn't going to be able to do it much justice yet. He took a sip of the ale and watched Brienne's eyes fly to him.
He tilted it, as a toast, in her direction and then put it down, pointedly.
Her lips parted in what might have been a concession—an acknowledgement he might have done something of which she approved. In response, he gave her his broad, unoffensive public smile. It seemed the most appropriate, given that her father was watching.
Though it was always boring, now more so than ever, he made polite conversation with Lord Tarth about a variety of other topics while they ate. Brienne volunteered nothing, unsurprisingly, except for when she was asked a direct question and then answered in monosyllables where possible. She wasn't going to make any of this easy. Then again, she never really had. Gamely, Jaime put up with the small talk for a reasonable amount of time and then said, at a break in the conversation, "If you are still willing to grant the favor we discussed, my lord, I'm ready to elaborate."
"By all means," the older man answered, leaning forward in his chair, curating a wary but polite attentiveness.
"I realize that it has not been long since I returned your daughter to you," Jaime said, feeling Brienne's tension from across the table like a palpable thing, "but I would like to have her back."
Selwyn's eyebrows rose fractionally. "Indulge me with a little more specificity on such a request."
"Back to Casterly Rock," Jaime clarified, obligingly. "I'm offering to marry her."
Brienne dropped her fork. It clattered, the only noise in the room. He spared her a quick glance, mostly to ensure she wasn't going to throw her knife next. It was entirely within the realm of possibility.
Selwyn looked thoughtful. "I see," he said, after a moment. "May I ask what...prompted this... proposal?"
"To be quite honest, my lord, I feel honor-bound to make it. I have given offense."
He wondered if he could kick Brienne under the table if he needed to; he wasn't entirely sure what her now utterly rigid posture and gradually whitening face meant she was going to do. A reassuring kick might help? Perhaps not. Possibly he ought to have run this by her first. In the hallway. Or somewhere (anywhere) first.
But it was done now, and Selwyn looked at Brienne, and back at him, and repeated, "Offense."
Not a word to be used lightly in reference to a lord's daughter, naturally.
"In more than one way," Jaime said, compounding his wrongdoing, because he was completely serious and there should be no doubt in at least Lord Tarth's mind that this was the proper course of action. "I have caused injury, which has now turned into a physical blemish—"
Brienne stabbed the point of her knife into the table with enough force to interrupt his statement, while Selwyn looked quite confounded. "—Show him," Jaime continued, not about to back down now.
"How dare you," she said, biting off each word. "I will not confess to, nor reveal having received any such injury. I deny what you say."
Jaime leaned back in his chair moderately, not intimidated. "Will you also deny, to your lord father, that we slept together?"
Brienne made a sound in her throat.
"Is any of this so, Brienne?" Her father spoke evenly, it was hard to say if he was dumbfounded or infuriated. Possibly both. The line was thin.
Jaime stopped short of folding his arms across his chest. That would have looked a bit too smug, and he was, in fact, trying to be genuine. Or at least as genuine as he could be while embellishing facts with implications. Brienne didn't really deserve that from him, but in the long run it would be better.
"I don't wish to mistake your silence for accord," Selwyn said, "but..."
"We...we didn't—!"
"Brienne," Jaime said, leaning forward now and clasping his hands in front of him on the table. Please, wench, read my eyes. "Think carefully about what you want to say right now."
She stared him in utter confusion and anger—both of which time would eventually do away with, but mixed in there, the look of betrayal that was going to be considerably more challenging.
One thing at a time.
"It is not my intent to shame her by stating any of this, nor in revealing any details," Jaime turned to his prospective father-in-law again, "but as it is what happened, I would make it right. That is all."
"I would not care for your family's criticism of these circumstances," Selwyn said, his forehead wrinkled in concentration, disappointment, or both.
"They would not be given the chance to make such criticism. I would present Brienne as she is—in my mind—virtuous."
He knew he'd won his argument. However Tarth might personally feel about linking their houses together, the alternatives were ugly.
"You must marry from here. At once. I will not allow you to depart on the shaky footing of a promise alone."
Jaime inclined his head.
"Though no one has asked me," Brienne said, her voice cold and trembling, "I do not agree to such a thing. As I have not agreed in the past." She stood up, sending her chair tumbling. They both stood, too. Brienne gave them both equally hateful stares, then turned and strode from the room.
They were silent in her wake, for a moment.
"She is very headstrong," Selwyn said, but not very apologetically.
"I know," Jaime said. I know.
He was not under any impression that he had just made life any easier for himself.
Why was she back here? Why was she in this place again? This room in which she'd already cried so many angry tears over not being able to set her own destiny without constant opposition. Brienne had never thought she would be again thinking, so soon, I can't marry him, and for so many different reasons than had ever been before.
It was the same, and it was utterly, utterly different.
Jaime Lannister was no distasteful stranger. She actually knew him. Knew him, perhaps, better than some of the people who'd known him for years. She'd seen his different sides. He could be cruel, absolutely (and this latest may have been the most cruel thing yet, she honestly didn't know what was happening now) but he could also be terribly gentle. And the things he'd said and done in their short but intense acquaintance. She couldn't even begin to rationalize why he had done what he'd done over dinner.
I'm offering to marry her.
Why...why?
It was no gamble for his own entertainment. Her father had agreed—he could not have done otherwise, given how Jaime had presented their innocent nights spent together. Well, perhaps not completely innocent. Perhaps she should be grateful that Jaime hadn't detailed the fact that while they had not been intimate, she'd still been in bed with him while he was completely naked. That was damning enough, regardless of whether a specific deed had been done. Brienne felt herself blush, even alone in her room, on her bed with her face buried in the cushions. She didn't understand. She didn't understand how any of this was supposed to make sense to her, ever.
He didn't even like her.
Certainly she'd seen respect, perhaps even pride—but affection? She didn't know what that would look like, coming from him. Had that been in his eyes? Earlier that day he'd said he wanted to kiss her. What did that mean? A mere curiosity, now easily satisfied? And he'd said he didn't want to hurt her? Was that enough reason to want to marry someone? How could it be.
And none of this was even close to approaching understanding how she felt.
She knew even less about that.
She cried, angrily and miserably, into the pillow.
A tap at the door. Ah, of course it would be expecting too much that she be left alone for the rest of the evening.
"My lady?"
"Go away, Nira. I need nothing."
"My lady, I have Ser Jaime with me; he would very much like to speak with you," Nira's voice came, hesitating, through the wooden door.
"Of course he would," Brienne spat back, not loudly enough to serve as an answer. She threw her cushion at the wardrobe. But she supposed it was preferable—only slightly—to Jaime banging on the door himself which was probably something he would do if he was determined to tell her anything.
She scrubbed hands across her eyes, not caring that she was only making them more ghastly red, and got up to answer the door.
Damn him, he had a look of soft concern on his face. Truly, how dared he.
"Did you threaten her this time?" she demanded, knowing the thrust was unfair when the time before that had been only to secure her own privacy.
He shook his head, having the grace to look moderately ashamed. Nira bobbed quickly, wanting no part of this—and Brienne did not blame her—and fled down the hallway.
"May I come in?"
"We both know you mean to," she fired back, turning from him, rubbing the last betraying tears from her face.
She heard him sigh while closing the door.
"Look, I—"
She glanced back. He was running both hands through his hair. "It just made sense."
"What about any of that made sense?"
"I know you're not happy right now—"
"Oh! You know...Oh, you can see that I'm not happy. How terribly perspicacious of you. When did you first realize I was not happy? When you asked my father to give me to you like a decorative vase?"
"It's not as if this was the first time," he began, and she gasp-laughed in disbelief. "Oh, I'm supposed to be used to this, I see."
"That's not—" he made a growling sound. "I thought you wouldn't be terribly shocked if I asked him first. That is still how it's done in much of our world, you know."
"And I would have thought you understood that lying to my father about my...my state of—How could you let him think that?!"
"I didn't lie. We did sleep together. More than once."
Brienne pressed hands to her inflamed cheeks. "You know this isn't a game, don't you? Even if you're only trying to humiliate me? He will make you go through with it."
"I'm not playing a game," Jaime said. "I don't suggest things I don't have in mind to carry out."
"But why," she cried, piteously.
"Because we can both benefit from it. You need a husband. I need a wife."
She stared at him. Was he serious?
"And children," he added. "One at least. Eventually."
He was serious.
"How...how can you want that," she whispered, so terribly confused.
"I said I needed it."
"That is far from a persuasive inducement." Brienne wrung her hands together. It wasn't helping her state of mind that he'd taken a couple of steps in her direction and she'd noticed despite herself how refreshingly clean he was and how good the black and gold-threaded tunic looked on him.
"I didn't think either of us was inclined to be romantic about it," he said, a little dryly.
"Jaime, please...please, can we start over? Can we start..." She didn't know where she wanted to start. "Can you go to my father, tell him you were wrong? Tell him you're sorry?" She knew it was just words, he wouldn't listen, he wouldn't do it, not now.
"Is that what you want?" he said, and now his expression made something twinge in her heart, something she thought she—or perhaps he—had successfully killed, a week ago.
She opened her mouth to say yes, yes, that was all she wanted. She could not make the sounds.
"See, it's not what you want," he said. "And I'll tell you why it's not, in case you don't know. You want to be free."
She swallowed against the relentlessly aching lump in her throat. "Is that not what you propose, another prison?"
He took a couple of steps, circled, gazed at the opposite wall. Came back to her. "I need two things from you, Brienne." He held up index and middle finger together. "I need you to be my wife. I need you to give me a child. Beyond that—" He shook his head. "You can do whatever you want."
"But you could ask that of anybody," she pleaded.
"I'm not asking anybody, I'm asking you."
"Now you are," she muttered.
"Seven hells, you're stubborn. All right. I've asked you. I'm not going to beg. Come here."
Startled, she hesitated. It wasn't particularly gentle, and the other times he had said that, it had been followed by some kind of physical contact.
But she wasn't at all afraid of him, not in that way. She quite trusted him with her body; it was mind and heart that were giving trouble.
So she came within his reach.
He took her hand, as if they were going to make a bargain. She stared at their hands.
"If you can't contemplate this at all," he said, "I'll go to your father. Right now."
"Jaime," she whispered.
He made an acknowledging sound.
"Please give me a day. The day—you didn't give me when we fought."
He was quiet for a moment and she still couldn't look at anything but their hands.
"All right," he said, and let go. And went to the door.
The following hours, night and day, were rather miserable and Brienne spent them in solitude and contemplation—not always quiet, for she railed aloud when she'd gone over the same questions and doubts again and again in her mind. What did such an offer of marriage (he had not spoken of feelings, after all) truly mean? In words he'd reduced it to a matter of business, so was she being a fool in thinking there was more?
She'd wanted to be considered his equal almost from the beginning, and now, the truest kind of partnership was possible, but could they—make each other happy? Was that even the right question? Did it make sense?
Would she hate living at Casterly Rock? Probably, she reflected. But she wasn't marrying a place or its people, she was marrying a man. Would she hate his family?
She shied away from thinking about that. They would probably hate her first. Jaime should have asked almost any noblewoman from among his own ranks rather than to consider her, Brienne of Tarth. It was probably one of his reasons for doing so. He didn't like to be told what to do.
They would be dumbfounded.
I can't be considering this.
I am considering this.
The gentleness with which he'd treated her wound.
The way he'd said he'd make a terrible husband.
Which to believe? Which was more true?
That was really the essence of the choice she had to make, and as the day wore on, she was not necessarily any closer to making up her mind any more firmly than before.
But time did not care, and she had had her time.
She went to Jaime in the evening.
He opened the door promptly when she knocked. "Come in," he said, holding it open.
Brienne did, though with considerable reticence.
He poured wine from a full pitcher and offered her some. Brienne took it, if only to have something to do with her hands. She wondered how he had spent the day, but was loath to ask. As if he knew she was speculating, he volunteered, "I went riding with your father, earlier."
Brienne nodded, not quite ready to use her voice yet, and drank long from the goblet of wine. Perhaps it would give her the courage she lacked.
"We had a...good discussion."
That might, or might not, have been sarcastic.
"Did you?" Brienne forced out.
"Mm." Jaime swallowed his own mouthful of wine. "He's a reasonable man, actually. Less like my own father than I might have thought."
How so, Brienne considered asking, but realized she really did not want to know. Not at this moment, at least. Everything else had to be secondary to the question of her and him.
"Is there anything," she ventured finally, anyway, "that you wanted to share from that discussion?"
"Not particularly."
They were both quiet. Brienne considered herself incapable of small talk at the best of times, and there were so many important things to be said that she felt rather completely overwhelmed by the idea of broaching any of them.
"I should—" he began, just as she blurted—"I really—"
"You really what?" He put down his drink on the side table.
"No, please, say what you were going to say, first." Brienne felt her sensitive skin flame yet again.
He considered, nodding, looking at the floor contemplatively. "This isn't meant to convince you, one way or the other," he said, after a few moments of silence. "But I was going to tell you. When we fought. When I said you weren't good enough..."
She briefly relived that moment, biting down on her lip.
"I didn't mean it. That's all." He picked up and took such a quick drink of his wine that she thought he might choke.
By the old gods and the new, after such a statement, she might very well be realizing she loved him.
How truly terrifying.
He cast the swiftest of glances at her face.
"You're right," she said softly. "It doesn't change what I came to say."
His head tilted, almost arrogantly, in the way of the lion again. But he was still watching her now and there was uncertainty in his eyes, she saw it.
Which emboldened her. "I—have come to say yes."
He breathed out, barely noticeably, but she noticed, because she was watching him too. "Yes," he repeated, with the hint of a question.
She nodded and ventured a half-smile, though it was as likely to look like a rictus of utter terror as one of confidence or happiness.
True to form, he said, wryly, "You don't have to look so miserable."
"I am not trying to," Brienne said, herself daring to breathe now. "But it is hard, when—"
He waited, his manner seeming encouraging enough.
"When you haven't said—anything—about your feelings."
"I thought we both preferred it that way."
"I—like feelings. Good ones." This was deeply embarrassing.
"So you want me to have feelings. For you."
"Well, I don't want you to feign them," Brienne protested, "if you do not have any..."
"And I told you that I kissed you because I wanted to."
Brienne desperately drank the last of her wine.
"So. We could do that again. If you want to."
She clutched the cup in front of her like a weapon.
He came over, unhurried, and stopped. Put his hand around the cup and gently wrested her fingers away from it.
She stared into his eyes. Her heart had begun to beat very fast.
He leaned in. Brushed lips against hers in a very chaste kiss. No searching hands, no arms around her, just face to face. Actually, it was quite what she needed at that moment. An intimacy without exertion of power.
"Want to stay here tonight?" he muttered, their lips still touching.
"No," Brienne murmured back, not entirely truthfully, but far too nervous to agree.
His lips formed disappointment. "As you like." Then he drew away and said, "Your father wants to have the ceremony as soon as possible. Tomorrow."
"He was planning to regardless, was he?"
"Well. I told you we wouldn't have gone through with it if you'd said no."
"And after—I suppose we will be heading west."
"If that suits you. It's going to take two months, best to get started."
She was glad of the journey ahead of them, though. It would be the time she needed to get used to the difference of her new life.
"I'll be ready," she said, though she didn't know if that meant anything more than in terms of physical needs.
They both hesitated, and in the moment Brienne said hastily, "Good night," and fled, while she could.