Brienne placed her hand once more on her still flat belly. At nearly two and a half moons pregnant, she still woke up a bit nauseous every morning. The maester had said that the nausea was very common in pregnant women until the third moon. From then on, that discomfort usually vanished.

The baby had barely begun to make itself known and it was already reminding her of its annoying and draining father. A sad smile spread across her face. At least he had left that last gift for her, one she would never regret and that filled her with terror mixed with loss and a happiness she had never experienced before.

She was going to be a mother. Sansa had forbidden all types of exertions and watched over her protégée personally. Brienne often caught herself rolling her eyes and smiling indulgently at her queen's fussing.

In her bad days, Brienne cried to sleep thinking about the father her child would most probably never meet. Despite what Tyrion declared in his letter, she couldn't bring herself to believe that Jaime loved her and he would appear any day at the gates of Winterfell. That surely was the wishful thinking of a cynical romantic like Tyrion. He saw what he wanted to see, not the reality of Jaime's devotion to Cersei. Even if the former queen was dead, that wasn't enough for Jaime to develop a nonexistent love for Brienne. He had perhaps fancied himself in love for a while until he came to his senses.

In her good days, she thanked the gods for having been with a man she was head over heels in love with and conceiving a baby with him.

But one thing she was certain of: he would never come back for her. Why should he? He was almost certainly grieving for his sister-lover and had no place in his heart for an ugly-looking and simple woman like herself. Now he could go wherever he fancied, have any beautiful woman he fancied. Whenever her train of thought followed that painful path, she quickly suppressed it. There was only so much her broken heart could take.

Sansa on the other hand (such a sweetheart she was inside her battered soul), was absolutely sure that Tyrion was right, but at Brienne's relentless stubornness she finally dropped the subject, though reluctantly.

Every passing day, his absence was more and more eloquent. Brienne refused firmly to wander near the gates in order to avoid risking a peek outside to spot a certain silhouette she'd recognize anywhere and that would never materialize. She endured enough secret pain as it was, without adding a useless longing.

Besides, life didn't revolve around her troubles and there was much to do to mend the damaged realm and relevant decisions to make.

Another message from Tyrion had arrived with shocking news and the revelations of his schemes.

Jon had stabbed Daenerys in the heart after all his attempts at making her see reason had fallen on deaf ears. She was determined to build her sovereign on ashes and terror. Her mental ailment had no cure. It seemed that her family's curse, madness, had affected her as well. Jon had put a quick end to the threat she represented for the whole of Westeros.

Brienne could only imagine how hard it must have been for him to resort to those extreme measures. In the time she had been acquainted with him, his decency and honesty were blatantly obvious. He had devoted himself to Daenerys. Anyone could see he was head over heels for her. Therefore, ending her life must have been probably the hardest act he had ever committed.

In order to placate the late dragon queen's armies, Jon had been punished with taking the black again and spending his life at the Wall as a reengaged member of the Nightwatch. He had accepted his penance gladly, seemingly done with the heartbreaks of civil life.

But the most surprising fact was that Bran was traveling to King's Landing in response to Tyrion's summons. The scheme consisted of gathering together a representative from every great house to choose the new king or queen of Westeros among them. It was a revolutionary method, even though nothing new under the sun. The Iron Islands for instance had, until not so remotely in time, made use of that tradition to seat their great lord and warden on the Salt Throne.

No doubt it seemed a fairer method of succession than the crown simply being inherited by a member of the current king's family, preferently a son, with no say or vote from anyone else, no matter if the heir was a total inept at ruling. Brienne was as fed up as the rest of the realm with enduring cruel and negligent kings and queens.

Nonetheless, Brienne wasn't interested in politics and in consequence there was only so much curiosity the intricacies of government could arouse in her.

She simply hoped that whoever took the crown, would be a just ruler.

When Sansa had conveyed her the contents of Tyrion's message, Brienne had only asked if she wasn't interested in attending the gathering as the head of the Stark house. Sansa had answered that she had her hands full with ruling the North and had no desire to abandon it. And of course, she quoted one of the Stark's proverbs: there must always be a Stark at Winterfell. With Jon revealing himself as a Targaryen (for as much as he refused it) and joining the Nightwatch once more, and Arya's wild spirit so unfit to be the lady of a house and keep (not to mention she had slipped away again who knew where, in one of her mysterious errands), the only remaining Stark was Bran. He'd finally acquiesced to venture out to the capital with that unnerving and extraterrenal calmness and the wisdom of the world in his expressionless brown eyes.

The lady knight had also noticed the spark that lit Sansa's features and her eagerness every time she received her former husband's letters.

Brienne wondered about the possibility of a growing affection between the pair. She smiled, remembering them in the Red Keep so long ago. They looked as a fine couple, two hurt souls with too much obstacles but with a natural affinity in their characters and their shared miseries. They were both good people.

And her days continued to pass by, busy with her tasks (although now she limited herself to give instructions to the men, without engaging physically in the sparring drills or trainings), her bonding with her friends and the hope and fear her baby inspired in her, as well as the uncertainty of the future.