Notes: Fair warning: Jaime spends a fair bit of this fic angsting because he thinks everything is about him, secretly. Another fair warning: Most things are, in fact, about him, but Cersei's on the other end of the world, so he can't know that just yet. They'll get there. Eventually.

The reason why I don't focus quite so much on Jaime's relationship with Brienne (in this chapter or any of his next ones) is that, without wanting to sound rude, there's nothing remotely engaging I can see about it. It's a plot point and little else; I fully realise that, but there's not much to be done about it.

The day King's Landing falls, Jaime almost finishes the job he should have taken care of years ago and strangles the Stark boy in his sleep.

Refraining from the temptation is not particularly easy – it's all he can do to stop himself from tracking him down as soon as the news reach gods-forgotten place and he listens as the raven scroll is read out instead, frozen in place as the messenger drones on and on. The city gate had fallen and the Queen had surrendered, but Daenerys Targaryen had burned it all the same. The survivors, few and far in-between, had told the tale of its destruction, as well as the inevitable result. She had wanted to move on to the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, of course, but by nightfall on the same day, Jon Snow had ended the idea in its cradle, as well as her reign and her life. He'd admitted to it, too, and ended up imprisoned for his treason as well as Jaime's own idiot brother (it's too little too late, but it still makes him proud to hear of him standing his ground, dangerous as it may be) and that's as far as the news go.

"What of the Queen?" When he finally brings himself to speak, it's barely audible, but it makes the boy stop mid-sentence anyway, tensing under his inescapable glare.

"There's been no word from her, milord."

"No word?" He can't quite believe it. "She's either alive or she isn't."

"The last time anyone saw her was the surrender, milord, I haven't been told—"

"What kind of fucking messenger can't tell me that much?"

"Easy, now," someone close by warns as the boy cowers away from him and Jaime forces his fists to unclench, his body to retreat back into the shadows of the yard. Everyone's eyes are on him as it is and he can't stand the attention; not now. He doesn't move for the rest of the day, long after the crowd has dispensed, long after the news had started sinking in and the night had fallen all around him, the wind growing cold enough to remove all sensation from any piece of exposed skin and the more he stays – the more the image that the message had made drills itself further into his mind – the less real it feels.

Cersei couldn't possibly be dead, of course. Despite the destruction and the fire and the rubble, surely someone would have found her already – Tyrion, if no one else. Surely he would have looked before finally turning on his Queen. Surely she hadn't been allowed to die, especially not alone without him, without any kind of spectacle following in her death's wake. Surely not after—

And that brings him back to the Stark boy.

If you want to live, he had said, the same serene tone of voice he used for every world-shifting revelation he made, you'll have to wait for now. When Jaime had told him that he had no interest in surviving this war, he had amended his message somewhat.

"You might if it means that she'll survive too. She won't, otherwise, just so you know. And neither will you."

"Why would you care?" I tried to kill you, and she did nothing. He hadn't brought himself to voice it, but he hadn't needed to, really; it had been clear as day.

"I don't. But there is something..." He'd shaken his head then, as if to chase an image away. "You wouldn't understand."

Jaime hadn't even pretended to try. "Are you certain?"

"I always am."

He hadn't explained anything further and it's too late for him to do so now, seeing as he – along with his sisters – had headed for King's Landing as soon as the idea of making a makeshift council of Westerosi lords and deciding the country's future had been brought to the table. House Lannister has Tyrion to represent it, he'd supposed, and so he'd stayed instead, digging himself deeper and deeper into the conviction that none of this could have possibly happened.

Brienne is the one who finds him first and he's sure it's about time she departed too – whatever happens in King's Landing will decide the future of the realm, after all – even if she hadn't wanted to do it without a goodbye. It's so different from what he had been planning to do when it had been time to depart that he might have felt somewhat guilty if it hadn't been for the current circumstances, but as it is, he lets her put a hand on his shoulder, the gentle squeeze that follows the only acknowledgment he gets of the reality he's suddenly found himself in. After all, what could she possibly say? Coming from just about anyone, any kind of sympathy for his supposed grief would be a downright lie.

Gods, he needs Tyrion. If anyone would understand, it's him. He had tried to help, he'd tried so many times and when she'd finally listened, it hadn't made a difference at all. Why would it? She'd done too much damage already by that point and he had been stupid, so stupid to think that she could ever handle the consequences on her own.

"There's no word from her doesn't mean dead," Brienne says at last, as if he hadn't talked himself into that exact piece of desperate hope back when he had first heard of that second dragon's death. Her tone is just neutral enough for him to be unable to tell what the hope in question makes her feel. "Chances are—"

"I know. She isn't dead." It's the first time he's spoken in what feels like an eternity and out of the corner of his eye, Jaime can see her eyebrows raise in an emotion somewhere between surprise, concern and – worst of all – pity. He can't bear to speak her name aloud; doesn't dare letting it slip out into the world just in case he never gets to say it again. He would prefer not to know when exactly he had spoken it for the very last time. If she is dead, then so am I. "She couldn't be. She wouldn't—"

She wouldn't die without me. It would make him sound like a lunatic, along with the I would know if she'd died that he had meant to say, but he doesn't have to elaborate – she understands.

"I doubt she had much of a choice."

There it is again – pity. Jaime can feel the fury rising inside him, directed towards every single soul in the world who still dares to breathe and at no one at all, all at the same time.

"She did." And she'd made the right one, from what he'd heard. She had done that much and it still hadn't been enough and she can't possibly have done this to him. The image of her as she always is – brimming with emotion, brimming with fire, mind racing in countless different directions at once behind her bright eyes – is as real in his mind as his own hands in his field of vision; the idea of her gone is so absurd that he has no choice but to refuse to entertain it. "I should have been there."

"And you would have died too."

Died, too, as if she's dead and buried already. Jaime's heart skips in its shallow, painful beats in his chest at the thought. "It doesn't matter." It's never mattered, nothing else matters, I should have— But it's too late now. I should have never gone.

"There's nothing you could have done."

That doesn't matter either, but it wouldn't be right to say it, he supposes; not to her, at least. There's plenty he could have done – been there despite everything. He could have returned, if nothing else, just to see her one last time, look into her eyes, have her face him again, hear her last words. Even now, it feels impossible – last words implies that she's spoken them already and that he hadn't been there to hear. It's unfathomable. For all her lies and betrayals, this isn't a line Cersei would ever cross, he's certain of it. Out of all the ways to prove a point, daring to let herself die before him had surely never been an option.

Brienne shifts uncomfortably in her place and Jaime half-wonders if he's been talking all this time, mumbling convictions under his breath like a madman. It might be just the cold, too – it's getting progressively worse the more time he spends unmoving and he finally finds the strength to face her again.

"I suppose you must be going already."

"It really is, yes." She gets to her feet, straightening up as if she's bracing for something. He's not sure what she's expecting him to do, but it doesn't matter – he couldn't move if he tried. The frost in the air has taken root in every inch of his body, it seems, and nothing works like he wants it to. It might never do so again, he fears. "If there is anything—"

"Send Tyrion my best." If I haven't abandoned him to his death too, that is. It wouldn't be much of a surprise at this point. It's what he deserves, anyway, even if his brother does not. "Tell him it wouldn't hurt to send me a raven or two every now and again."

There's rather a lot she wants to say to him, that much is clear – how it's not Tyrion's fault that he's in prison or, if she's feeling resentful, how it's awfully petty to complain about his brother's nonexistent ravens when the ash still hadn't settled in King's Landing, but she keeps it to herself. It would make no difference either way – the thought of this scale of colossal destruction had terrified him once, years and years ago, and now that it's all dust, the world had collapsed to a pathetically tiny circle with him and his siblings in the middle, impossibly separated. It all feels so unbelievably small that it should be easy to reach out and touch them, keep them close, keep them safe like he always had, but he can't. It's too late and he has only stupid messenger boys to rely on and if fucking Brandon Stark had lied to him—

But he hadn't. He couldn't have. Had he convinced him to go and get himself killed, it would have made far more sense, but there's no way the boy would like to keep him alive for longer than he'd been supposed to have. He could want to prolong his suffering, Jaime supposes, but it feels far too malevolent for someone quite so confusingly indifferent towards his general existence. It had to have been the truth. It's the only thing he can hold onto now and Jaime does so desperately until he can feel himself slipping away again, taking refuge in the safety of his own mind and the repetition he'd kept up for the entirety of today like a prayer or a hymn. She's alive, she's alive, she's alive. She has to be. When he closes his eyes, he can almost feel her skin under his fingertips, kept away from harm in his memory as she always is.

"I'll see you when I return," Brienne says and he nods, too numb to do anything else. And when you do, this conversation might as well never have happened. By then, more news would come, certainly – something would have proven him right and all his grief would have been in vain.

"Be safe," he calls out after her, then huffs out the desperate laughter stuck in his lungs. Be safe. For all his efforts to help his loved ones do just that, it's never made an ounce of difference. That particular thought, more than anything else, keeps him out in the cold for the rest of the night.

~.~

Weeks pass, and no one deigns to tell him a single thing about the only possibly-surviving members of his family until Jaime feels as if he might claw his eyes out in frustration. Tyrion and Cersei might as well have vanished into thin air for all the information he can get on them and he wanders through the northern forests in desperate search of something to occupy his time with, as much of a ghost as they might be. Tyrion is at least somewhat safe, especially when compared to their sister, but Cersei—

He only ever misses her in fragments - the burning determination setting her whole being aflame, the ceaseless ambition, endless hunger, the wicked glint in her green eyes, the sly curl of her mouth when she's being especially bold and, on his worst days, the scorching feeling of her mouth against his throat, the bite in her kisses, the way her body fits against his just right until he's lost in her. It's the only way. If he ever tries to mourn all of her, she'd consume him, he's sure; pull him under, drag him into the depths of her until they're whole again. It's a tempting prospect and one he's only resisted through the knowledge that Tyrion would have to lose him as well if he were to try and follow her into the dark. And it's not just that - there's his hope, still, damning and unshakeable just like Cersei herself. If it had been her time to go that day, she wouldn't have left me behind, he reminds himself, and the world gains back a little of its meaning once more.

Eventually, change does come, although not as quickly as he had expected it to. He hadn't been entirely correct in his estimation, as it turns out. The morning the Starks return to Winterfell – just Sansa and her entourage, really; her bastard brother had been exiled to the Wall, Tyrion (alive and well and free; an achievement he'd always excelled at) had somehow managed to name Brandon their new king and Jaime isn't entirely clear on what had happened with Arya Stark – the soon-to-be-crowned Queen of the North receives a message, clutched in the hands of a nervous advisor. He keeps his voice low, but not low enough for the rest of the hall not to hear and certainly within earshot even in Jaime's own half-dark corner once he catches on to the name Greyjoy.

"—over fifty ships, all of them fully armed, and they're quite sure he has enough men to take Pyke too, once he reaches it."

"Are you certain?" Sansa Stark asks and something about the dread in her eyes feels awfully familiar; enough so for hope to start unfurling in his chest without him really allowing it. It's the sort of trepidation he'd seen in the eyes of anyone stepping too close to the Throne with news their Queen wouldn't like or a demand she could deem too great; the sort of trepidation that only Cersei ever breeds. He had missed seeing it too much for words.

"Quite, Your Grace."

"And he's doing it alone?"

"No, Your Grace. He has an army at his back, as I said, and—"

If Lady Stark is losing her patience, then there's only the barest hint of it on display, but her irritation pales in the face of everything else about her behaviour. She doesn't want to hear the answer, but has no choice but to ask, knowing what the truth could be, and Jaime's knuckles turn while around the edge of the table with the effort it's taking to keep himself seated instead of giving her any opportunity to remember that he's in the room at all. "What kind of army?"

"Ironborn for the most part; the ones who wanted him on their throne before." The man hesitates. "The bulk of it is from the Westerlands, however."

Sansa Stark's voice is cold and sharp as steel when she speaks again, as if she'd unknowingly arrived to the same conclusion as him. "Why would the Westerlands get involved in a conflict for the Iron Islands?"

Why, indeed? More fidgeting from the messenger, but Jaime can already tell what the answer will be; has always known, in a way, that if she were alive, she wouldn't be able to keep quiet for more than a year. It's a generous estimation and it has definitely not been a year, but that's to be expected. His sister had never been too good at waiting when she could have something now instead.

"The survivors are still too few for anyone to know for sure and there's no declaration of intent made as of yet, but there have been rumours— reports, to be more precise— that Cersei Lannister called them to her aid."

"Cersei Lannister is dead." But no, she isn't, she isn't and Jaime's shoulders shake silently, dry sobs stuck between relief and bitter satisfaction and disbelief trembling through his entire body at the confirmation. Of course she isn't; I would have known. All along, he had been right, but the news makes it all the clearer just how unconvinced he had been in his own resolution. He hadn't let grief take over, but had numbed himself down instead until every shred of feeling had drained out from his being and this is what a rebirth feels like, it must be; his blood is roaring in his ears, pumping through his veins with a ferocity he has felt in no battle before today. Hungry for anything else he can take from this, he redirects his attention to the conversation again, as inconsequential as it feels now.

"It was never confirmed, Your Grace, and as you said, there is no reason for the Westerlands to get involved in the Ironborn's fight for their home without someone to point them there. Greyjoy keeps speaking of the queen he means to crown alongside himself when they arrive. Few have seen her and fewer still have lived to tell the tale, but it is rather close, from what I gather – a small woman, not much Ironborn about her; gold of hair, with a lion crest woven on her chest. Lannister's men respond to her alone."

And oh, he can imagine it all too well. It's not just relief now – Jaime can feel the worst kind of excitement stir low in his stomach, insatiable and crude as it ever is at the thought of Cersei wielding her chaotic justice over foreign lords until they're terrorised into submission. He lowers his head and his beaming expression until all he can see are the miserable contents of his bowl, but nothing – not even Winterfell's unholy porridge or the pained grimace on the advisor's face or Sansa Stark's thoroughly unsettled expression – can mar this for him.

There you are, he thinks, and for a moment, he's certain his twin will hear him, wherever she is now; whatever conquest she's leading. You almost had me fooled there.

But he had known already, of course; an inevitable promise they'd made each other too many times for him to remember them all. She never would.

~.~

The next few days pass in a blissful haze. It's funny, really, because he hasn't seen her – hasn't had any sort of confirmation that it had been his sister and not someone clever seizing the opportunity to gain what she'd once had - and the news of her presence in the world still manage to change everything and shower it all in the sort of ecstatic, carefree joy he hasn't felt ever since the irreplaceable few days between Cersei's coronation and the day Bronn had dragged him to meet Tyrion in the dungeons. He feels as if he's sleepwalking; his aimless wandering from before gaining purpose as he tries to find out as much as he can.

It's another raven scroll, this time from Tyrion, that pulls him somewhat back on the ground again. After Brienne reads it, that is: the precious new details about the situation, insignificant as they are, make him smile before he can stifle his reaction despite the doubtlessly disastrous effect it'll all have on the realm. The Small Council tearing their collective hairs out in frustration at Cersei's hectic but effective ruling choices had always been rather entertaining and - now that they're on the opposite sides of a conflict - it's no less so, even if Brienne doesn't seem to agree and, judging by the tone of his letter, neither does Tyrion. Despite his displeasure, his relief shines through every frustrated, venom-filled word. It's a clipped, quick response to Jaime's plead for information and his grin only widens as he skims over it again.

Pyke will fall within the fortnight; no question about it. Around two hundred ships and twenty thousand men with their forces combined. Every single Ironborn that Euron Greyjoy could find on his side and all of the Westerlands. You wouldn't believe the things our sweet sister has already talked them into. Or rather, you would - you know her far better than I do. Too late to try to negotiate anything, too late to stop them now with the forces we have. We might as well have lost Yara Greyjoy already.

He's not quite sure who we is supposed to be this time – he's not going to war no matter what happens, not against her, Tyrion must know that perfectly well by now – but Brienne cuts in before he can figure it out, her frown deepening with every word. She's been different ever since coming back, the news of the attack on one of the Iron Island's outer regions following right after her arrival, but he hadn't made the connection until now. Chances are, of course, he might be imagining it all and perhaps something had happened in King's Landing to make her as quiet and thoughtful as she'd been ever since returning, but he hadn't dared to ask so far. Given the direction the conversation seems to be taking, he's not sure now is the time, either.

"Not even a year into our supposed new world, too."

Jaime shrugs, still keeping his eyes down, lest his irrational glee become more obvious. "My sister is not a patient woman."

"You think she's responsible for this?"

"I think she provided him with the men he needed and – even if she hasn't done anything about Casterly Rock yet – she's made sure to impose herself in their memory as the only Queen for them to follow and they did just that. It's not like there's much of a choice; it's either her or Tyrion and after his failure with the Daenerys Targaryen, they're not likely to take his side anytime soon. Why would they? If she wants the Westerlands, her claim is better. All our bannermen must have spoken to her already; in their eyes, she'll be the only heir to Tywin Lannister worth acknowledging until—" He catches himself just in time; it wouldn't do to make any potential departure sound like a given, "unless I show up."

The image of her proving herself the way she had so many times already, in front of too many people to count, sends another bout of satisfaction rushing through him. It's addicting in the most unexpected way – he hadn't realised he'd been lacking it until it had resurfaced along with every single bit of Cersei's presence in his mind that he'd tried to shut away over the past couple of months. It's headier than any wine could ever be, and far sweeter and when he pushes Tyrion's scroll to the side – careful, ever so careful; he'd keep it forever if he can, with the information it holds – and starts writing out his response, the world seems to have narrowed down to a handful of people once more, only to expand right in front of him all over again, this time meant for them and them alone, just like he'd always promised her.