He rises when Tyrion leaves, partly because he doesn't know what else to do, and partly because it puts him at a strategic disadvantage if he's still in the chair. The bowl clatters to the table and when he meets her eyes the sadness there makes him look away.
"Why would you come here?" He asked harshly; in genuine amazement, swallowing hard and daring himself to look up again.
The anger floods back into her features and before he can react she strikes him. Her palm crashing against his cheek hard enough to send him stumbling back.
He winces, his tongue darts out and tastes the blood on his lip and he can't stop himself from flinching as her other hand rises.
She lets out a huff of breath her trembling hand pausing before his face. He takes her wrist in his grasp and pulls her arm forward.
"It's alright." He whispered to her, laying her palm against his face. "I deserved it."
"You damn well did." She forced out the words, her thumb trailing over his lips. He kissed the pad.
"I know." The gentleness of his voice made her heart ache. "You shouldn't have come here. I didn't want you to come here."
"I didn't want you to come here." Brienne's eyebrows pinched and Jamie wants to lean forward and press his forehead to hers, but he can't bring himself any closer.
"I know." He told her again in a tone that made her want to sob, instead she pulls her hand slowly away from his face, he follows her, unwilling to let his grip release her fingers.
"If Sansa would have given me that letter after you were dead, after I could do nothing to help you with this mess you've gotten yourself into-." She pulls her hand away. "I would have never forgiven you. I would have gone to my grave a useless old widow, a Knight of the seven kingdoms who couldn't protect the one person-." She stops, swallowing against the bile that has risen in her throat. "Is that what you wanted for me, Jamie?"
He titled his head at her in the way he always did when he couldn't find words strong enough to fight past the lump in his throat and she presses her lips so tightly they disappear completely.
He wanted to tell her he loved her. He wanted her to hear it from his lips before he's no longer alive to say it, but he knew it would be cruel now. He was dirty and dressed in rags, the disgusting smell of Flea Bottom wafting around them. He couldn't pull her to him here. He couldn't slide his hand down the side of her body and grasp her hip to his like he wanted to. He could only stare as she tried to fight the anger and sadness he can see in her pale face as she tried to keep the tight hold on her emotions that he's had the honor of watching fall away. She was desperately trying to with hold him that honor now.
So they stared, as they had so many times before, the words they can't say moving silently between them. He watched her shoulders lift in that resolute way that they did when she had found the strength to walk away or cast him out and he panics, grabbing frantically for her arm. He closed his eyes in relief when she doesn't pull away, stroking his thumb across her wrist rhythmically.
"Be careful." She begged him softly. "Please, Jamie.."
He loosened his grip and her fingers interlaced with hers.
"I will try." He met her bright eyes. "I swear it to you."
"Try hard." She whispered pulling her hand away from him and starting out of the pot shop. "I'm not done yelling at you yet."
Jamie couldn't help but smile as he watched her go.
….
When Arya Stark had asked him which of the Queen's Guard Cersei and Qyburn trusted the most he had not expected that meant the small girl was going to kill Ser Kilmen in one blow.
"Shit." He looked up at her, still buckling his Lannister Armor in place.
"Yeah… so you might want to look away for this part."
"What are going to do?" He grimaced in wonder.
"Cut off his face." She nodded back at him. "And then I'm going to wear it." Jamie Lannister made an involuntary gagging sound and Arya snorted out a laugh. "Like I said.."
He turned his face to the wall and waited.
"Okay." Came Kilmen's voice a few minutes later. Jamie turned slowly, his eyes fluttering from the crumpled faceless body to the fully alive man standing beside him. His mouth slid in to a sneer as he starred in horror.
"Jesus what are you?" He managed to choke out as she carefully folded her clothes like a highborn lady she was and returned them to her bag.
"I am No One." She sighed, with a shrug of Kilmen's massive shoulder. "Now you're going to have to get over this fast because we have work to do."
"Right." He gulped, wondering how anyone gets over what he just witnessed. He looked back at Kilmen's dead body before taking a few steps away.
"We strike now while the queen is giving birth."
"What?" Jamie's head whipped around to face her. "Now?"
"Don't make me doubt you Kingslayer." She growled at him with Kilmen's voice. "You say you want her dead."
"It's still my child." He answered numbly. Arya's eyes studied him from the man's face. Jamie was lost in a memory of holding his sister as she screamed their children into the world. He was cradling Myrcella, and tracing her rosebud lips with his right pinky finger. He was tracing Tommen's chubby cheek. He blinked heavily at the loss. "My only living child."
"I suppose it is." She whispered with just a hint of pity. "I'm going in with you to get you passed, then I'm going after Euron. We need his dead corpse to convince the Iron Born to follow their true Lady."
"Why don't you just use his face to have him bend the knee to her?" Jamie shrugged. "Or can you only use so many in a week or..?"
He watched with sick fascination as Ayra's small smirk appeared on the lumbering Knights rugged face.
"You're full of wonderful ideas, Kingslayer." She snorted. "Let's go."
….
"Come on Jamie." Tyrion stood his binoculars pressed against his face as he waited."Come on."
He grit his teeth, worrying his brother had underestimated their sister for the last time. He glanced back down at the shore. He didn't want to think about what his brother's formidable wife will do if he returned to tell her that her husband had failed. He was envisioning the different ways Brienne of Tarth would single handedly take down the scorpions and the entire Iron Fleet, when he saw the crack of light go up from the Tower of the Hand.
He sighed in relief as he trudged back down the rocky landscape to the entrance of the Dragon Crypt.
""They're in." He told the group assembled. Yara smiled at him before nodding to her attendant, who hurried to inform the queen.
…
Jamie Lannister sat in the hallway drinking with Euron Greyjoy and the fake Ser Killmen as his sister screamed and writhed a few rooms down. He wondered if Arya was poisoning the current expectant father who did not seem bothered that his child was arriving far earlier than was actually possible. Jamie wondered for a moment if Arya was poisoning him too. He looked at Ser Kilmen with mild reproach. The skinned face smiled sickly at him. He took another drink.
A particularly shrill scream erupted down the hall and Jamie pressed his head back against the wall. The room spun slightly when he looked forward again.
"Least you could do was be in there with her." He spit at Greyjoy.
"I've done the least that was required." The pirate slurred. "That's all I need to do."
Jamie grunted, pushing himself off the floor. Not Kilmen watched him carefully.
"I've heard enough." He mumbled, his body learching drunkenly down the hall. He could hear Not Kilmen take a step towards him. "I'm going to bed."
He glanced back at the men, looking deep into Arya's eyes as if he could tell her what he intended to do. She nodded in understanding as Jamie Lannister descended the stairs and kept going until he reached the bowels of the Red Keep.
Somewhere along the line he'd stopped and leaned heavily against the wall to catch his breath, to straighten his head and try to grasp onto any inch of sobriety he had left, but it was no use. He was drunk, exhausted and more than a little heartbroken.
…
She can hear someone breathing in the entrance to the cove that has become her bedchamber. As carefully as possible she reached for the small dagger that Tyrion had given her as a wedding gift, clutching the hilt under her pillow.
Her unannounced visitor lets out a staggered familiar breath and she let go of the dagger and sat up slowly in the dark. She could see him, back lit by the torch light in the hall.
"Are you hurt?" She whispered harshly into the quiet room.
He shook his head fiercely, leaning against the wall and staring at her. His barely contained sobs shook painfully in his chest. She winced at his bruised face and cut lip before slowly lifting the blanket around her with one hand while reaching her hand out to him with the other.
He pushed off the wall painfully slowly, dropping to his knees at her side. He was sobbing in earnest now and she pulled him into her chest. She could smell the wine on his breath as his hand came up and clenched itself painfully tight in her hair.
"Shhh.." She rocked him, shushing and soothing. Her hands sprawled out against his back as he burrowed deep into her neck.
"I need.." He whispered hoarsely, his throat raw. "Please."
"Jamie.." She lulled, pressing her lips to his ear, his neck, his temple.
"Forgive me." He cried."I need you, please forgi-."
"You know I will." She told him pushing him back slightly, holding him in her arms like a child, like she had in the baths at Harrenhal. "You know I always will."
"I can't do this." He told her weakly. "I can't do it anymore."
"It's alright." She laid him down carefully on the pillow and he lifted his lame arm pathetically towards her. She undid the laces and sent it skidding across the floor. He closed his eyes and tried in vain to compose himself and she methodically undid the clasps of his armor and pulled it from his body. Her hands slipped into the top of his tunic and she ran her palm over his chest in slow circles. Jamie brought his hand back up to her face as she dipped down to him and kissed the welt she'd left that morning. "I'm here now. I've got you."
"I need you." Sighed heavily, running his thumb over his lips.
"You need sleep, Jamie." She coaxed. "Close your eyes."
"I have to tell you." He breathed.
"I already know, my darling." She pressed her lips to his temple. "I know."
"I'm.. I.." He struggled sniffing in ragged breaths as her palms moved over his body trying to still him.
"Shh." She laid down beside him and pressed her cheek to the side of his face. "Slow breaths."
"You always hated it when I said that." He hiccuped, pulling back a bit and opening his green eyes into hers. .
"But I did it anyway because you were right." She smiled stroking his jaw as he slid his right arm under hers, grasping at her curved hip with his left hand. His eyes slipped shut and he stilled his breathing.
"I got drunk with Euron Greyjoy and a little girl with the face of a grown man." He mumbled. "While Cersei screamed."
"Shh.. sleep." She coaxed.
"I kept dreaming the Mountain would kill you." He suddenly found he couldn't stop telling her all the things he'd kept locked inside of himself.
"I'm safe. You're safe."
"I dreamt he bashed the baby's head in like Aegon- the first Aegon.- with the silver white hair." She moved her body as close as she could and he molded around her. "There was fire of blue and red and green and everyone burned. She burned them all, Margaery Tyrell, she-. Tommen couldn't-. I should have-."
"Sleep Jamie." She repeated before he could start again. She pressed her lips to his, and he met her with more eagerness that his body was capable of, whimpering when she pulled back. "Sleep."
His hand left her hip, pressing against her face as his green eyes opened into hers.
"I love you." He swallowed. "I know I don't deserve you, but I won't make it without you and I love you."
She smiled at him, slowly pressing her forehead to his.
"And I love you." She promised him. "Now sleep."
For the first time in a month Jamie Lannister slept dreamlessly through the night.