Twenty Years into King Jon's Reign. (Part two.)
Jamie
"Stop." His son puts up his hand and he closed his mouth. "I'm done having this discussion with you. I've already told Catty she can go, you can't untell her."
"Renly the last time I sent a daughter to Dorne she came back in a box."
"Father that was a long time ago!" His boy scoffs, his arms swinging against his sides and his eyes rolling to the ceiling."Different daughter. Different Dorne."
"Forgive me for drawing parallels!" Jaime shouts, running his hand over his face.
"Da." Ren sighs dropping his highborn tongue in away his children tended to do with the ease of a Tarth. "I am, as you know, betrothed to someone from Dorne."
"As was your sister." Jaime points out ruefully. His son tilts his head at him and Jaime watches his own eyes appraise him like his wife did."What exactly will I do here if you take Cat to Dorne? Ty is bothered enough by my presence when I'm busy running after a five year old."
"Is this about Mum?" He asks suddenly. Jaime winces, kicking at the floor with his foot. "If this is about you missing her, there is a very easy solution to that."
"Ren." Jaime huffs. "This is not about-." He stops and swallows hard,
"You could stop being an ass and go back to Kings Landing." Renly raised a careful eyebrow over his handsome face. "We can stop there." He tilts his head as he turns to leave. "On my way to Dorne."
"I'm not going to Kings Landing!" Jaime yells after him. "It's not even on the way to Dorne! Even I know that!"
…..
Four days later, Jaime returns to Kings Landing, after swearing he'd never return for what feels like the millionth time. He's barley made it into the keep, his daughter asleep in his arms the former Master of War makes his way towards the White Sword Tower. He snips at Ren, who is stopping to chat with everyone along the way, when his eyes fall on a commotion around the Maester's Chambers. It's not until he catches sight of Arya Stark rushing towards them that he feels the cold dread well up in his chest.
"Take your sister to your mother's rooms and wait for me there." He turns to Renley. The young adult from a few days ago is gone and he looks barely his 15 years now.
"What's wrong?" He asks, as Jaime transfers Cat to his chest.
"Go." He yelps at him before jogging towards the growing crowd.
"What are you doing here?" Arya looks up at him, her face grave.
"Later. What's happened?"
"A survey team was ambushed on the Gold Road." She looks him dead in the face and he knows. He knows what comes next.
"Is she alive?" He hears himself ask, his voice gravely and unwilling to accept the wrong answer. Arya looks to the Gold Cloak, still sweaty and huffing.
"She was when I left to fetch a Maester Ser." The man wheezed.
"Sam set off." Arya tells him and he lurches towards the direction she's nodded. "Jaime." She grabs his arm. " Podrick and Marbrand are with her, you should wait."
"What aren't you telling me?" He looks at the Gold Cloak. "Where was she injured?"
"Left Shoulder." He tells him. "Speared straight through."
"The arm." Jaime realizes suddenly his ghost fist clenching in his mind.
"There was a lot of blood, Ser." He tells him, and he can still feel Arya's hand on his arm attempting to steady him.
"Was she conscious?"He rasps."
"For a time, Ser."
"Jaime." Arya repeats coaxingly, pulling at his arm. "Come and wait"
….
"I sent Gilly to get Jon from the training yard. I didn't want him to see anything. He's with Ren now. She told them Brienne was hurt and you'd come for them later with an update."
He'd forgotten about Jon. For a second he winces at the thought of his nine year old seeing his mother carted across the Keep on a litter.
"I've never not been with her." He murmurs into his hand, his elbows digging into his knees. "When she's been hurt, or hurting." He grunts, slapping his thighs. "I should have at least gone to the gate."
"You'll be here." She tells him. "Right when she needs you."
"By accident." He moans. "I'm supposed to be on Tarth."
"Well you're not, you're here." Arya says quickly. "And if you have a brain, which remains to be determined you will stay here, in this Gods forsaken city until your wife has run out her time as Lord Commander."
"Despite any attempts to be persuaded other wise my wife serves for life." He swallows. "And in that vein, I hope she doesn't run out her time anytime soon."
"She'll be fine. She's Brienne." The Hand of the King looks at him before glancing towards the door.
"She's not invincible." Jaime growls."Just damn stubborn."'
The door flies open and chaos reigns.
"Seven be damned." Jaime winces when he sees her, pale and lifeless, her left arm dangling unnaturally off the litter. The spear itself had been cut down, but its still sticking out ½ a meter from her body.
"Why don't we wait-." Arya reach's for his arm again, but he shrugs her off.
"I'm not leaving." He snaps.
…..
"But I want YOU to come to Dorne too!" Jaime watches the golden curls bounce of his daughters shoulders as she grips at his arms accusingly. "I don't want to go with just Renly!"
"I have to stay here with your mummy until she's better." Jaime repeated patiently. "Not one week ago you were begging Ren to take you to Dorne."
"Sariella will be there." Jon reminds her. "And then we'll all meet up at home for the wedding."
"Your uncle Tyrion will be there then, with all your cousins." Jaime tells her softly.
"And Mummy?" Cat turns her head looking over her fathers shoulder.
"Come here." Brienne beckons to her with her right hand and Jaime deposits her on the bed. "What did Mummy say to you? About after Dorne."
"That we are going home." She whispers.
"Yes. Ren will bring you home. Your brothers will all be at the Rock for the wedding, then you, Ren, Jon, Father and Mummy will live there from now on."
Jaime cringes internally, trying to keep his face passive and pleasant. He still can't quite believe her. He wants to, but something inside him burns with doubt. The wisdom of experience, he tells himself.
"It's time." Tomsyl says softly. "We need to get you two going." He leans over and kisses his mother's cheek as he lifts his sister into his arms. "I'll leave straight away to go back."
"Okay." She smiles, grasping Catty's leg. "Be good for Ren."
"I will Mummy." She murmurs as Tom handed her back to Jaime. Ren let Jon out of his embrace and kissed his mother.
"See you at home." He whispers, his eyes holding hers for a few more minutes than usual. "I'll keep after Cat."
"You always do." She grins.
"Jon keep your Mum company while I walk your siblings down." Jaime tells his youngest son.
"Darling, I'm fine. Take some time. I won't disappear."
"Sick of me already?" He give her a weak smile.
"Walk me back Da, I'm sure Ser Addam's men can spare you a horse for the ride back." Tomsyl asks softly.
Jaime nods at his son, squeezing Cat a little closer to his chest.
….
Brienne and Arya stop talking the moment he walks through the door and it makes his heart drop.
"You see the kids off?" Brienne asks softly and he nods, sitting on the edge of the table. "I sent John back to his lessons."
Jaime nods again, before dropping his eyes to the floor.
"I'll take that as my cue." Arya looks between them before standing up and making her way to the door.
"Cat's going to be fine." Brienne promises. "Ren would never let anything happen to her."
"I know." He whispers.
"Talk to me." She swallows hard. "Jaime, you can talk to me, I'm fine."
"I'm not fine." He looks up at her. "I'm a lonely old man with independent children rattling around in an old castle missing my wife." Her lips press into a tight smile and she pats the spot beside where she sits on the bed. "I've become your father."
"I'm not dead."
"No." He sighs roughly. "You're not."
"Try not to sound so disappointed." She chuckles.
"Stop it." He dismisses. "I've missed you."
"So you came to King's Landing. The place you've time and time again sworn to me that you will never return to?" She picks up his hand in hers, carefully tracing his knuckles.
"I always do though, don't I?" He sniffs. She presses her chin into his shoulder and hums, he feels her cheeks rise against his jaw.
"I'm nearly seventy." He tells her mournfully.
"You're sixty three!" She scoffs.
"I've forgotten my love what comes after the sixties?" He raises an eyebrow at her.
"My father lived to be 96." She reminds him.
"Mine barely saw 65."
"Well with your brother safely ensconced in the North I think your safe." She tells him and he swallows a laugh.
"You could have died a few days ago." He blinks.
"I didn't." She lays her head back against his arm.
"Would you let me mourn our waning days here, Woman?"
"You're being silly." She rolls her eyes at him.
"I'm getting to the good part." He winces at her.
"There is a good part?"
"What I'm saying is that we're too old to be living all over the damn place, so far apart. I always thought there would be time when the kids were older and the vows were fulfilled we could just have some time." He looks down at his shoes and she takes his hand again. "But you love being Lord Commander, Brienne and I won't force you to give it up."
"Jaime-."
"If Kings Landing is where you are then it's where I am too." He turns his face to look at her and for a second he is transported back in time and she is once again the Maid of Tarth, looking at him with such admiration it makes him uneasy.
"I love you." She tells him in her flat tone before pressing her mouth to his. "And what I realized as I lay bleeding on the Gold Road is that in putting my vows and oaths above my own to fulfill my own wants and needs? I'd put yours there as well. And that maybe just maybe you didn't know that you mean more to me." She stops and swallows. "And I thought of all the times you needed me and I wasn't there. All the times I left you saddled with the children, or my father, or Tarth. How you'd all but given up the Westerlands for me. How easily you've made those sacrifices because your whole life has been about sacrifices."
"Stop it." He winces, pushing her hair off her face as she sniffles. "You are everything I need."
"And you haven't had it." She interrupts. "Not all of me, and you deserve all of me."
"And you deserve to be Lord Commander more than anyone I have ever known."
"And I have been." She reminds him. "For twenty years."
"And if you want to be for twenty more I'll be here." He turns his body and grasps her right shoulder in his left hand. "By your side, because despite everything, that is the only place I've belonged since Catlyn Stark left me in your care."
"You belong at Casterly. Watching Jon teach Cat to jump from the highest heights and helping Ren to learn all the names of the Lords and Ladies until he can recite them all with the same ease as you can." She tells him softly. He looks away and she grimaces as she lifted her left arm and turned his face back towards her. "And I belong at your side. Which is why I just recommended to Arya that Podrick take my place, after I tell King Jon I can no longer serve as his Lord Commander."
"Don't do this unless you're sure." Jaime whispers, shaking his head the tiniest bit. "Your shoulder will heal, you'll learn to work around it."
"You're enough." She swallows against the tightness of her throat, seeing the confusion on his face. "You and the children. You've always been enough."
"Brienne." His head shook again. She grasps his chin tightly in her palm, her eyes shining with tears.
"Jaime.." She rasps, swallowing hard. "You're enough."
He realizes now, long after she has, that he's afraid he's not. That she'll regret it. That somehow that would be regretting him. He swallows hard, trying to shake his head yet carefully moves her injured arm to frame his jaw with both hands.
"If I had to go back and choose I'd choose you. A hundred chances and I'd always choose you." She presses her forehead into his. "I'm so sorry. I'm- You are enough."
He makes a fragile sound when he gulps and she presses her eyes as tight as she can and kisses his jaw, his cheek, the edge of his mouth.
"Take me home."