It's after they learn of the battle plan that the nightmares started.
He dreamt he's in the dragon crypt, the walls around him tumbling in as he tries to save Cersei from the mess she's created. Dream Jamie hugged her to him and whispered sweet words as his hand snakes up her back until it's firmly around her neck. He paralleled his gold appendage against his flesh one and pressed them as closely together as he could, with his twin sisters throat in the way. He held her close so he can't see her face, still whispering encouragement and comfort as he killed her.
He woke up with a gasp and finds himself beside his wife, her hands clasping his cheeks.
"It's alright." She told him calmly. "It's all right."
He took little gulps of breaths swallowing down sobs with each one. She kissed his forehead and he wiggled closer until he's at her breast like a little boy.
"You're alright." She tossed her leg over his hip and clutched until there is no space between them. "It's alright."
"What if she can be stopped? He ground out.
"She can't be." She assured him. She'd been angry at the plan. She'd tried to counter. She'd spoken to Sansa she'd spoken to Tyrion. She'd made an emotional appeal for the child, Jamie's child.
If either of them had been swayed enough to take it to Jon she wasn't sure, but the plan had not changed.
"What if I can stop her?" He lifted his head and met her eyes and she suddenly understood what he was saying. She tried to stop it from happening but he felt her body bristle just the same. He winced and she could feel the air between them where she'd moved her body slightly from his.
He didn't look away and her thumbs had not stopped brushing against his damp face, but the air felt like a betrayal, she just wasn't sure which one of them it betrayed.
"I should put another log on the-." He closed his eyes tightly as he pulled her face back to his and pressed his lips to hers. "Jamie-."
"Don't you dare." He choked out, drawing her tightly to his body with his lame appendage. "Don't." She groaned out what could have been the beginning of a sob and he winced again, pressing his kiss into her with everything that he couldn't say but needed her to know. "I'm sorry." He told her. "Don't you dare leave this bed."
"Jamie." Her tone was frustrated, but her hands have weaved into his hair now.
"Our first fight will not be about her." He begged her. "I can be about anything else, but not her."
"It's hardly our first fight." She snipped at him, watching the corner of his mouth quirk up.
"Since the wedding." He corrected, pressing his stump against the small of her back.
"We haven't fought since the wedding?" She raised and eyebrow at him.
"I prefer to think of it as foreplay." He decided, following her banter with barely contained relief.
"You do, do you?" She countered with a grin.
"I do." He kissed her forehead, and her eyes slipped shut letting the side of her face brush against his. They laid there in the darkness without speaking for so long Jamie was sure she'd fallen back asleep. He took slow even breaths, his left hand stretching out his fingers against her shoulder blade. He wouldn't sleep now, he couldn't. He knew he'd see Cersei's face. He knew he'd kill her. Over and over. He knew he'd die with her. Jamie swallowed hard, pulling back his arm and tracing it down the edges of Brienne's face.
"I'm on your side." She says softly, her eyes slipping open into his. "You know that don't you?"
"It's not the right side to be on." He admitted, looking away.
"I know you love her." Brienne told him evenly. "I've always known that, it doesn't change anything."
He swallowed hard, his eyes damp and red and looking anywhere but at her.
"I don't deserve this." He scoffed. He didn't' deserve her. He did not deserve to be happy. He did not deserve to live here as Kings Landing burned because of her. Her, the other half of him.
"You're right." She told him firmly, she grabs his face and forces him to look at her. "You didn't deserve the father you had, or your mother dying when you were so young. You didn't deserve to spend your life being controlled and manipulated by your sister. You didn't deserve to be branded the kingslayer, or to loose the chance to claim your own children. You did not deserve to watch them die. You did not deserve to lose your hand and you did not deserve to be forced to live with the memories of what you have done.
"You're a good man. You're not like her. You don't have to die with her." She looked like she might sob, Jamie's throat felt raw and sour when he swallowed.
"The things I've done-."
"For her." Brienne interrupted sharply. "You did those things for her. Let them die with her." His lips trembled. "You deserve to be happy." She almost made him believe it. "We can be happy."
She kissed him then, soundly and desperately. He knew it was a plea. One her pride wouldn't allow her to actually make.
He rolled her to her back and covered her body with his. Touching and kissing and caressing her as reverently as he could, while slowly pushing his sister from his mind. He could be here. He could spend the rest of his life making her happy.
And maybe he could be happy too, all he had to do was let Cersei go.
…
Tyrion Lannister sat beside the fire examining his brother. He wished he could write off the dark circles under his eyes to being just over one month married, but he knew that wasn't it.
"Your lady made quiet the plea to spare our sister." He decided to broach the subject directly.
"I don't want to talk about it." Jamie rubbed his face.
"I'm not quite sure your worthy of her, bear pit rescue considered."
"You're telling this to me?" Jamie sniffed.
"Sansa seemed less moved then I." Tyrion sighed.
"I think I said I don't want to talk about this." His brother winced.
"But she did watch them execute her father." He continued.
"Please stop." Jamie groaned, turning to face his little brother head on.
"She did tell her that despite everything, Myrcella and Tommen were kind." He watched his face crumble just a little. "That they didn't deserve what happened to them, and that given the chance she felt this baby could be like them." Jamie looked hopeful. "My wife just feels that is Cersei's chance to give. Not the Queens."
"And Jon?"
"I'm not sure." Tyrion looked at his cup. "It's in our best interest right now that I stay away from asking Jon what he thinks."
"Does she know he's told them? That we know?" Jamie looked suddenly on guard.
"No." He shook his head. "No we don't suspect that, but if Daenerys' does find out-."
"We're all dragon food." Jamie finished. Tyrion raised an eyebrow and took a long drink. "Bran took a big risk by telling you."
"He told Sansa he looked back upon my life and realized that I was someone who could be trusted." He huffed.
"That must have been-."
"Slightly terrifying?" He completed looking at his brother.
"I was going to say nice." Jamie mused. "But dangerous, so we should never speak of it again." He picked up his own cup and took a swig. "And you shouldn't go South."
"You sound like my wife." Tyrion moaned. "I am her Hand, I can't very well not go. How do I explain that one?"
"But I'm supposed to stay here? Like a good Stark lap dog?" Jamie snorted. "While you go get yourself killed by our sister or fried by your queen?"
"Neither one of you should go South." Came a voice from the doorway.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Tyrion snorted, but Jamie was already to his feet, his eyes fixed steadily on the cross bow.
"Bronn." The edge in Jamie's voice made Tyrion set his challis down on the table. "She sent you? How ironic of her. Nice touch. Make it personal."
"I'm not supposed to kill you." Bronn sighed heavily before Tyrion groaned.
"How much do I owe you?" The Imp grumbled.
"Two River Runs." Bronn raised an eyebrow at him.
"Well shit." The Imp muttered. Jamie still stood frozen as if his whole body had suddenly been dipped in gold.
"You're never getting River-." He muttered.
""I'm supposed to kill your wife." Bronn interrupted. "In front of you, as horribly as possible." He shook his head. "I knew you were fucking her." Jamie's eyes bore into him and just as suddenly as he arrived he dropped the cross bow onto the table and dropped into a chair. "Oh relax, She'd break me in two before I had a chance to touch a hair on her ugly-" Jamie's gold hand swept out like a lion's paw and he swatted his friend in the face with it, sending him crashing chair and all to the ground. Tyrion scrambled for the crossbow as Jamie stood over his victim.
"I thought you'd stopped wearing that damn thing?" Tyrion asked him breathlessly.
"I still wear it when I'm training the young men in the practice yard. They find it intimidating."
"I can see why." Tyrion was still messing with the contraption, in an attempt to disarm it.
"Give me that before we have a repeat performance where you gut yourself this time." He tossed the thing onto the table behind him. "What do we do with him?"
"We'll let the Lady of Winterfell decide that." Tyrion's mouth twitched into a half smile.
"Don't be too hard on him." Jamie decided. "I don't think he was really going to kill any of us."
"You're bride would not be pleased you defended her honor." Tyrion smirked.
"Let's not tell her that part shall we?" Jamie sighed, still looking at the man prone on the floor.
…..
"You are being ridiculous. I can take care of myself." His wife was yelling. "And you for that matter."
"Please, listen to me." Jamie said softly from his spot at the table as she paced back and forth around their chamber.
"I will listen to you when you say something that makes sense."
"She paid a man a castle to come and kill you!" Jamie shouted back, his body rocketing from the chair. "In front of me." He added meekly. "I can't protect you from that."
"You've protected me from far worse." She was calmer now, but her voice was still firm and devoid of any warmth she may have allowed him. "And as I have stated before, I can protect myself."
"He walked right into Tyrion's study like he owned the place with a crossbow while we were half drunk, unarmed and talking about things that would get us killed for treason." Jamie swallowed hard. "My brother is the God Damned Lord of Winterfell and if it had been anyone but Bronn he would be stuffed and mounted for Cersei's throne room right now."
"Jamie-." She started dismissively, but he took the two giant steps until he was standing in front of her, stopping her methodical pacing.
"It's her or us." He said softly. "Don't you see that?"
"Let the Dragon Queen do the job." She ground out.
"And if she doesn't?" Jamie begged.
"Then we'll revisit this conversation." She swallowed. "I'm going to check in on Sansa's door guards. As you have proven to me that security has gone a bit slack around here." He watched her yank Oathkeeper from where it sat with Widow's Wail and stop to the door. "Try not to be murdered while I'm gone."