Two months after Jon's Army Liberated King's Landing- Part One.
(I have switched to present tense here, most of my one shots are in that tense, due to how quickly they seem to appear in my head.)
…...
She'd taken to calling the baby Ty. Mostly because she is tired of people asking his name and not having an answer. She's still not sure what it stands for, but Samwell Tarly had sent her a extensive Lannister Family Tree that had been littered with Tywin's Tyricks, Tyrion's, Tyrels, and handfuls of others.
She figures she'll decide on one at some point. She writes to Winterfell and Tyrion writes back with tales of the other Ty's helpfully and some days she looks for the traits from those stories in her son.
Her father is beside himself with glee that he can now properly introduce his sweet heir and she finds it more endearing than she'd expected. She had thought she'd feel guilty, lying about the boy being his true born heir, but she's not. She loves this child as much as she thinks she possibly could love anything, and pretending she's carried an birthed him is so simple she thinks it true.
When people ask about the ease of his delivery she says it was a long night, but a lovely one, and when they ask her about the first time she saw him she smiles and says she was shocked when Jamie put him in her arms, and she knew she'd do anything to protect him.
Stay close to the truth. Tyrion had told her. It's the only way to keep the story straight.
She created the story from truth and therefore I had become just that.
He was born in the Red Keep.
They'd spent the night in the Dragons Crypt.
Jamie had held her. They'd both cried.
He came just before the Dragon Queen.
Jamie had laid him in her arms and rushed off to stall the battle.
Tyrion had helped her get away to Tarth.
Jamie had given his life.
It was all true. Every sentence. How could she feel bad for what she'd left out?
She rarely calls him by his name. She'd taken to calling him her Brightstar because that is what he is to her, her light in the darkness. She refuses to admit that part of her thinks she wouldn't have survived without him. That she would have given into the exhaustion and despair if not for the tiny pair of Jamie's eyes looking up at her from her arms. It's not very Noble and it's not very Lord Commander of the King's Guard to admit she envisioned more than once throwing herself from the tower of Evenfall Hall, but she has. She has clutched the baby to her neck and bathed him with her tears more than she cares to admit. She promises herself not to turn into Lysa Tully, she'll stop before he's old enough to understand, but she suddenly isn't as judgemental of the woman as she might have been before.
She thinks it's unbecoming of a member of the King's Guard, moreless the Lord Commander, to think that if anything happens to her baby she'll simply walk into the Narrow Sea and die. She wants to send a raven to King Jon and tell him that he's made an error, that he should choose someone else,
However, a raven arrives from Jon instead.
His majesty, King Jon commands that you present yourself to the River Gate immediately. A ship has been dispatched and will arrive post haste
It's official, in Arya's handwriting, below it Grand Maester Tarly has scribbled. Bring the baby. I'll meet you personally.
Yara herself comes to collect her the next morning.
"For how long?" She asks the other woman cradling her two month old and ushering Janali and Amena ahead of her.
"As long as it takes I suppose." The mistress of ships tells her cryptically, helping pull her aboard her fastest ship.
..
She can see Sam Tarly and his wife as they pull into port. As soon as the plank is set the chubby fellow is already mounting is horse and his adorably pregnant wife has opened the carriage door.
Gilly is upon her immediately, moving down the path and attempting to grasp Ty from her, nodding for the rest of her party to load the vehicle.
"Go with Sam. I'll take him." She coaxes. Brienne looks at the Grand Maester.
"I'll explain in route." He says impatiently.
"You'll explain now." Brienne tells him, suddenly feeling a jolt of her status. It's as if King's Landing itself has awakened her former persona from the haze she's been swimming in.
"It's not safe to speak out here."
"If it's unsafe then my child stays with me!" She tells him firmly.
"Sam?" Gilly whispers, the man nods at his wife and she leans in. "They've found him."
"Found wh-?" Her question suddenly dies, and the other woman's face turns soft, comforting. Jamie. Brienne's brain registers what this is. They've found Jamie, or what was left of him anyway.
"Go." Gilly says, grasping her baby again and pulling him from her arms. "Go on with Sam."
Someone is helping her onto a horse, she looks at the Maester who gives her a nod and a soft smile she doesn't feel she deserves. She follows.
She meant what she told Tyrion, that having Widow's Wail was better than having his remains. She doesn't need to see him, two months dead either.
There is a particular cold that settles into her, it's lodged itself into her body with with some finality.
"Gilly is taking the baby to Arya." Sam tells her at some point. "He'll be safest with her."
"Safe from what?" She dares to ask him as they ride along the edge of Visenya's Hill she sees the damage to the center that Tyrion told her of. It's not as well repaired as the south side, but wildfire is harder to contain and clean up from than dragon fire. It was Jamie who told her that, she thinks. After one of his nightmares at WInterfell, in the beginning, when he was still telling her about them.
When Sam doesn't answer she looks at him, and he waits. Nodding when he sees the recognition dawning in her eyes. Safe from those who might suspect what he is. This isn't Tarth, and although her armor provides a legitimate sense of the unknown, she was never visibly pregnant. Cersei was.
She looks at the bell tower and is almost surprised it's still half standing, it looks like it may crash at any moment. She adds it to her list of things that must be dealt with. Things she must take to Jon. She'll tell him she wants it down. Tyrion will probably commission a statue. She'll deny the request, or beg Arya to, she's not sure who's job that is. It strikes her how quickly she has become all business since they pulled her baby from her arms. He mind has already gone to another place.
Her husband is dead, and her baby cared for, Brienne has on a gold cloak and she's riding horseback through the crumbled city. Examining it, like that is why she's here. Not to view her husbands decaying corpse. She swallows down the sickeningly bitter heat that fills her mouth with that thought.
They stop at the West Watch and a small group is clustered there. She recognizes Bronn and for a second she envisions she has a cross bow and she shoots him on sight. Why Tyrion took pity on him she'll never understand.
"Lady Lannister." He greets her, steadying her horse as she disembarks, landing on the dirt with a satisfying thud. She spins on him, giving him her full height and all the power that comes with it. She watches him flinch back, just a little, as he tries not to shrink away.
"You will address me as Lord Commander." She tells him angrily. "While you still have a tongue."
He sneers at her, like she is the cold blooded beast that she feels like, giving a nod.
"You're welcome then." He says as he stomps off before she can snap that this is nothing more than a formality. Nothing more than the last act of a widowed warrior whose heart has already frozen. Her body is icier than Winterfell now. For a second she feels a pang of regret for her beautiful bright star that his mother will be an empty cold hearted shell.
Irony or fate? The words ring through her in Jamie's voice and she presses her jaw together as tightly as she can. Sam's hand is on her back as they walk past two more gold cloaks who mutter 'Lord Commander' as she approaches. She thinks it's a bit much as the ascend the steps to see yet another guard at the top of the stairs. Ceremony be damned, it's just a body. Who would want to steal a dead man's bones? Even his.
Sam nods at the woman who opens the door as they speak softly. Brienne's impatience grows. The room is nice, cool,crisp and full of cleanliness. It's a place she wouldn't care to tarnish with a body. Her eyes flitter about before the land on the bed in the far corner and-.
Jamie.
Jamie, just as she last saw him. Thinner. Paler. But Jamie just the same.
Her mind tries to fathom how his body could possibly be so preserved two months dead when Sam removes her cloak and begins to rattle off a list of injuries and ailments as if his words should make sense, or even matter.
It's only when his body takes a particularly staggered breath and she watches his broad chest shake at the effort that it dawns on her. He's alive.
The heat floods back into her so quickly she stumbles. Sam's hands grip her, but he says nothing. A barely contained whimper makes its way to her throat and the next thing she knows she's dropped to her knees beside the bed.
Her hands shake as her fingers explore the outline of is face and the deep purple of the healing bruises there. There is an ugly gash beneath his collar bone that is so freshly treated their is specks of red blood on the white bandage. Bright red, the type reserved for the living.
She can't fathom this; the feeling that life had slowly drained from her over 60 days, the feeling her heart finally close in on the trip over and now everything has returned too quickly. It's suddenly an overwhelming onslaught and her brain simply can't figure it out.
Then his green eyes flick open and turn to her lazily and she lets out a strangled painful sob. His brow wrinkles and a hoarse whisper comes from his raw throat.
"Why are you crying?" He asks her with confused concern and she cries harder. He slowly pulls his hand to the one resting on his cheek now and runs his thumb across it. "Slow breaths." He coaches her and everything in her shatters and reunites. She presses her sobbing face gingerly into the crook of his right arm as his fingers continue to stroke. "Shh, slow breaths."
"Shut up." She whimpers against his bound ribs and he huffs out a careful laugh.
"That's better." He sighs, his body going slack again and he slips back under.
"Jamie." She breathes softly against his skin, a haze of palpable relief building in the room. "Jamie."
His thumb twitches against her hand his lips push nearly imperceivable against her thumb as she takes slow short breaths to calm herself.