NOW:

Brienne awoke with an undignified snort as an odd gulping noise filled the otherwise still air. It was quickly followed by a loud thump as something bodily fell to the carpeted floor. She winced as pain pierced her oddly craned neck, before she pushed herself up into a seated position from where she had fallen asleep on Jaime's couch.

"Jaime?"

She rubbed her aching neck, and muzzily blinked as her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark room. It was late, if the moonlight that filtered through the plastic slats of the apartment's sole window was anything to judge by, if not incredibly early in the morning. She twisted her body until she could place her feet on the floor, and leaned forward to see if she could make out Jaime's body in his bed.

The gulping noise continued, accompanied by the very clear sound of someone retching, and that sound alone had Brienne moving faster than she believed she ever had in her entire life. She dove forward, covering the few feet between the couch and the bed, only to realize that the twisted mound atop it was the comforter and the man himself was on the floor.

He seemed to be struggling to push himself into an upright position; trying and failing to place his faltering weight on his maimed arm. With an ease that shocked her, Brienne managed to heft his body up into a kneeling position before placing her hands underneath his bare armpits and pulling him the rest of the way up to his feet. His right arm scrabbled uselessly at the small of her back. Drool pooled from his mouth, dripping onto the front of her shirt, as he continued to fight the nausea that was clearly intent on making him empty the contents of his stomach on the floor.

Brienne adjusted her grip, wrapping her arm around his narrow waist securely, before using their combined momentum to propel him forward and down the hall. Thankfully, the bathroom door was already ajar, and gave in swiftly when she kicked it the rest of the way open.

She had managed to flip the light switch in the bathroom, bathing them in bright, fluorescent light, just as he fell to his knees with an audible smack of flesh and bone against tile as he began to violently puke into the toilet. She pressed her back against the doorjamb, and winced as vomit splashed against porcelain.

"Fuck," he groaned at long last. He had placed both arms on the rim of the toilet, haloing his head where he hung it over the water. His left hand shook in a spasm, and she wondered if he could still feel his missing right. He hacked a wad of spit into the water with a grimace.

"Are there any other symptoms?" Brienne questioned around a jaw-cracking yawn.

His eyes were creased at the corners, squeezed shut, but Brienne was unsure if that was from the pain that most assuredly had to be deriving from his bandaged stump or just his way of attempting to settle his swirling stomach. In reply, he grunted and worked his lower lip between his teeth as he scrunched up his nose.

"I'm a little lightheaded," he finally admitted. He cracked opened one eye, pulled his head away from the toilet's opening, and reached up to pull the lever.

She disappeared from the doorway, and returned a moment later with an uncapped prescription bottle in one hand and a white pill in the other. She glanced down at the capsule resting in her broad palm and asked, "Do you think it's the Percocet?"

He pushed himself away from the toilet, and forlornly stared up at her from where he sat on the floor of his own bathroom. He offered a facile roll of his shoulders as if he hadn't just upchucked everything in his stomach. "Or just a side effect of being in a, oh I don't know, a coma?"

"Well," Brienne huffed, "At least you didn't lose your wit." She leaned down and handed him the pill, forgoing the water as he had done before, and watched with a sympathetic wince as he dry-swallowed it once again. Instead of an acerbic reply, as she had expected would come next, Jaime groaned around a poorly stifled belch.

"Pardon," he grimaced. "I think that's it, though." He deliberately widened his eyes, blinked hard once, and then gave his head a slight shake. "I'm good to stand." He thrust out his left hand, and waggled his fingers. "Pull me up, O'Tarth. You're certainly strong enough."

Brienne ignored the perceived slight, grasped his long fingers within her palm, and tugged him up in one motion. He stumbled through the momentum, his body colliding into her sturdier frame, but instead of pushing himself away he stilled and blinked up at her with decidedly clearer eyes.

"Brienne-"

"You should brush your teeth," she quickly interrupted. His breath actually wasn't that putrid, considering he had mostly been on a liquid diet, but it was warm and ghosting far too close to her face. She also had no clue where he was going with whatever train of thought had him saying her name, but she didn't want to follow that track in the least.

He frowned, almost offended, but then he pulled away and reached for the lone toothbrush in its holder and proceeded to do as she suggested. When he finally finished, but not before an obnoxious gargling of water, he pulled his lips away from his teeth in a wide, mocking smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Better?"

"I'm not getting close enough to find out," she replied before edging her way out of the bathroom and into the hallway/kitchen combo. As he scrubbed his face with a hand towel that was still hanging from its handle, she turned around and rifled through the cabinet that she now knew didn't contain glasses and plates. The highest shelf contained a slightly crumpled box of generic brand crackers. She pulled the box down, and pulled out the last package contained within.

"Those are expired," Jaime announced at her shoulder.

She flipped the box she had just neatly broke down into a flat rectangle to look at the date. "So they are. They're still better than nothing." She handed him the crackers as she retrieved the previously used glass, and refilled it. She went to also hand him that, when he cleared his throat pointedly, and she finally turned to look at him. He had the package of crackers pinched between the fingers of his left hand. "Oh. Sorry. Here." She flushed and grabbed them back, tore them open, then handed him one.

He dutifully placed the entire square in his mouth, and snapped his teeth. Dry morsels flew in different directions; stale crumbs that now coated his thin lips and gathered at the corners of his mouth also collected in the coarse hairs of the light beard he had yet to shave. He slowly grabbed the glass, and sipped at the water, before audibly sloshing the cracker-paste in his mouth around to gather what had gummed at the back his molars, before he swallowed the salty concoction with a wry expression.

He placed the water back down atop the counter, the glass clinking, before he turned to face Brienne with his left hand outstretched for another.

Brienne, for her part, had watched him in equal parts disgust and bemusement.

"Are you deliberately acting like a child or has your brain been scrambled in the accident?"

At that, Jaime snorted derisively. "Accident." He plucked the next proffered saltine from her hand, and shoved it into his mouth. "I would have put that word in air quotes," he said around a mouthful of pale mush, "But, well, one hand."

"You could still do it with one hand," she muttered and then instantly pinked under his suddenly keen gaze.

"I suppose you could," he drawled before he suggestively tugged at the waistband of his undone jeans. "Speaking of which, one thing I cannot do is remove these without a helpinghand."

Brienne flushed bright red at the implication.

At least he's making jokes.

She swallowed the lump in her throat.

I think.

His lips quirked with only the slightest of upticks.

"I mean they're a bit uncomfortable to sleep in."

"But you're not wearing anything underneath," she protested weakly.

He raised both brows, and nodded with an exaggerated bob of his head at her as if she was deliberately being obtuse. "This is true, but-" His expression melted into something softer; vulnerable. "I still need help."

His voice only faltered slightly, but it was enough to strike Brienne as genuine. She relented with a deep, resigned sigh and a dip of her chin. She handed him another cracker before placing the opened package on the counter. She could hear the plastic rustle as he grabbed another while she made her way toward the couch, and settled herself on the edge of the cushions. He appeared in front of her a moment later, his jaw working around the dry saltines and his pale, taut stomach undulating as he swallowed.

The relative quiet of the apartment was punctured by the crunching sounds emanating from his, thankfully, closed mouth before he finally ingested the last of it and was blessedly quiet for once in his life. She stared at the undone waistband of his jeans, and released a shaky breath that she didn't realize she was holding.

You're an employee of the FBI, she scolded herself. Get yourself together!

She stared at the surprisingly sparse trail of darker hair on his lower abdomen, before skating her eyes over the worryingly prominent ribs that marked his recent weight loss, and up further to the light smattering of grayer hair that covered his upper chest. When her blue eyes finally met his half-lidded gaze, she frowned and subconsciously brought in her lower lip with her teeth and bit into it.

"Did I pass muster?"

His voice was soft; languid around the consonants but his darker eyes held a distinctive sharpness that dissolved as Brienne brought a hand up and ghosted it over his ribs. His bruised skin erupted in gooseflesh; she snatched her hand back. "You've lost a lot of weight."

He simply hm'd as he drew his brow together.

Without a reaction to counter, Brienne firmly grasped a belt loop on either side of his jeans and twisted his trim waist until he stumbled over his own bare feet. He seemed to belatedly realize she was turning him to face away from her. He complied silently, seemingly deep in thought, as she began to pull the denim down in quick, firm tugs. Within a quietly strained moment, and an awkward beat where his foot got caught in the bunched up fabric, he stepped free and sluggishly covered the scant distance toward the closet. He missed the knob once, before he finally tugged it open and used the door to shield his body from her blatantly concerned gaze. He pulled down a fleece pair of sweatpants before walking backward toward the couch.

The sudden presence of her fingertips were like five fire irons branding themselves against the unexpectedly sweat-slicked skin at the small of his back. He froze in alarm, loosening his grip on the fleece when she gently prised his fingers from them. He could hear her manipulating the fabric, and situating them at his ankles so that he could step back into them, but he could also hear the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears and her steady, even breathing caressing his warm skin; and the moonlight was piercing his eyes even though it was barely filtering into the apartment-

"Are you okay?"

Jaime blinked and found Brienne standing in front of him, impossibly tall and magnificent in the pale light, and he felt his lips twitching as they widened into a dazed smile.

"M'fine."

"I think the drugs are kicking in," she said after a lengthy pause.

"Are my pants on?"

She gave him a hesitant nod in the affirmative, worry creasing her brow, but her blue eyes appeared to twinkle in amusement. Or were those literal stars he was seeing?

"Then take me to bed, O'Tarth."

The blush that painted her cheeks red was a delightful sight.

Brienne stepped to the side, and let him totter the few paces forward before he face-planted atop the bunched up comforter with a grunt. He could hear her sigh, a soft hffooo that he could have sworn tickled the hairs at the nape of his neck. The comforter underneath his slack weight shifted and moved until Brienne was able to pull enough of it out and drape it over him.

She pulled away.

"Stay."

Her hand hovered over his bare shoulder hesitantly. "I- What?"

He turned his head up, eyes still closed but without the tightness around the edges. "The couch is small and uncomfortable. Just stay." He lowered his head back into the crook of his arm. "Don't make it weird," he muttered.

The bed dipped slightly and settled, and Jaime fell into a pleasantly drug-induced sleep with the warmth of Brienne's arm brushing against his own.

TBC...

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