A/N: So sorry for the long wait, i've been feeling quite depressed the past couple of months, but I decided to put my head down and finish the chapter I started and hopefully i'll feel better enough to keep going.

To my readers who also follow Heartsbane, I am currently working on it just as i've finished this chapter, and will hopefully have something up for you soon.

Addam

"Open the gates!" He yelled outside of the Lion's Mouth somehow strangely disappointed that this was not the grand welcome he wasn't expecting. He had never grown used to arriving at a closed gate.

"And who goes there?" A voice came, hidden behind the anonymity of the high cover of the gate tower.

His nostrils, his patience and his tempers flared together, and his response came with a push of anger at the entire ordeal.

"Are you blind, boy? Or are these banners too pale for your eyes?" Anyone would know these banners -anyone would know these fires.

"Aye, I see your banners, Ser, but what is your station and what brings you here?" I did not ride for a day and a half for this -to be questioned by a boy acting as some obstacle.

"Lord. Lord Addam Marbrand - heir to Ashemark and brother to your Lady. So I suggest you don't keep me waiting any longer." He grunted out, leaving behind a long moment of silent hesitation in the thus far lively exchange.

"The Lady made no mention of your arrival." Addam's laughter boomed loud and echoed off the surrounding hills. I should probably leave out that it was my worry that rode a horse and brought me here.

"Because I had made no mention of my coming here to her. It was meant to be a surprise." Surprise, sister.

After another moment of silence, probably because the stifled watcher was asking some kind of superior what to do, it was clear that Addam's suspicions were not completely unfounded. If Jaime were here, if his banners were not seen riding north of the West just like I have heard, then surely he would be standing at these gates with the watcher grabbed by the collar.

"Where is Lord Lannister?" Impatience weaved through his voice superseding the gradual increase of volume he was affording it with.

"He is away, currently." Away, yes, that much is obvious. But where to?

"You're hiding something."

"My Lord, Lord Lannister has many loans to collect and work to overse-"

"You say that to me when i've just received word that Lannister banners were just seen marching up the Red Fork? Your squabbles are not of any interest to me. Where is Lady Lannister?" Where is my sister? Where is Lorraine?

"My Lord, if you could just let me escort you-" He would not be escorted. Casterly Rock is where I was a page -where I had grown and learned. Do not presume to teach me the way.

"I demand to see my sister!" His words were not yet over before the gates rusted open and the dust of the stairs entered his line of vision.

It was a blur of horses and the few men he had with him, a straight line of his boots hitting the familiar ground -it was a song of thunderous footsteps and clenched fists, and it all came to a halt when the Lion's Mouth stopped at the Castle Castellan's short, crouched figure awaiting him anxiously.

"Where is my sister?" There would be no greeting. After this, there can be nothing until I see Lorraine -if she is even here.

Answering the call, a feather of steps made their way out of the deep, dark corridor awaiting his entrance, and in the stubborn light came the vision of something just the same and at the same time completely different than what he had known. She was a woman, a lady, more than ever. And, to a part of Addam he would never acknowledge was disappointed, dressed in her husband's colours almost like she had never lived at Ashemark. This was her home now, he could see that now.

"Surprise." He whispered into the dark, settling air, and she smiled with eyes sadder than he had seen them before.

It didn't take him long to understand why. Moments into their reunion she had led him to her chambers -their chambers, with Jaime still nowhere in sight -but Addam had a feeling that the lack of his presence would be explained. And so it was -from the sightings, to the letter from the renegade Lannister to Jaime's insistence on marching back to the Riverlands -the land that he and Addam had just successfully returned from, and facing the demons of Westeros on his own.

"Why did he not tell me?" Addam muttered without truly looking, but the soft scribbles made their easy way to his ears. He had missed that.

"He didn't want to raise an army for something he wants to handle himself." And it was now -only then with the reminder of how naïve Lorraine still was, that his fury made its reappearance.

"They are ironborn!" He lunged upwards from his seat. Have you forgotten what that meant? Have you forgotten the fear nestled safely within your eyes when it was us who lay in their danger the first time they came around? Did Jaime Lannister truly have so little care for his sister that he'd leave her a widow barely a year into their marriage?

"They are small men!" She followed suit trying to meet his stature filled with a ferocity of her own, it was not enough to give false meaning to what Addam already knew of that particular army.

"Why did you not tell me?" He asked in the midst of dissipating anger and hurt suspicion. She would write to me whenever a different wall was painted, and now she hides from me in her letters.

"Same reason."

"And you think I could not tell that something was amiss? You think father couldn't?" He questioned pressingly, more angry that it had truly been so long since he had last seen his sister and that she had changed than the obvious danger that awaited them all should her husband fail.

"They were just words on a paper."

"For a long time they were all I ever had of you, and they have become so again. I've learned to read them well."

A smile cracked through her mournful face, and Addam relented, finally wrapping his arms around the frame that had slipped through his fingers time and time -year after year. Holding her now, she felt more like a Lannister than ever before. I can't say i've ever done this with a Lannister before, though.

Lorraine

Just barely out of reach -out of touch, from my dear brother's arms I had gone, did another scurrying messenger tail in from the entrance and rush impertinently to us.

"A letter m'lady, an urgent one for m'lord." The words fell through the boy's teeth, and before my eyes could momentarily lower themselves at the reminder of just who I was missing Addam had the same, ever-present and stubborn, sense to step in.

"Your Lord is not here. Have the letter taken to his study for when he returns." He ordered, moving a step ahead of me towards the boy with a silver tray and a haunting parchment in its midst.

"But...m'lord...it's of an urgent nature!" The courier tried to fight -for what exactly, I did not know. Either way, his words died in his mouth in the face of Addam's towering demeanor.

"Then you best make sure it's at the top of the pile, boy."

Nodding to a fault, in a near combustable need of the urgency apparently animated to his mission, the boy turned to me for one final appeal and I, in the situation and presence that I was now under, only regretfully nodded my acquiesce and motioned for him to take his letter -one of many that have arrived for my husband, to the study.

The glimmer in my eyes had nearly died along with the boy's loss of fight until my eyes fixed upon the sealed paper and the address written on it -it was in a handwriting of quite irritable remembrance.

Meereen. Tyrion. Urgency. What he could have wanted -what more he could have wanted?! I could not yet discern. All I knew was that through my failings of keeping the other aspects of Jaime's plans a secret I had to keep this part of it under lock and key -I would have to lie, once more. And so I killed the spark that had befallen me momentarily in my brother's presence. I pressed it down to ashes, and stomped at the dust it left behind until it was one with the ground.

"Lorraine? Is something amiss?" Without shaking my head too furiously at the question -was anything amiss? Was anything even alright anymore? I rested my hand gently upon Addam's and smiled approvingly at the messenger.

"Take it to Lord Lannister's study. For when he returns."

"Yes, m'lady." He returned defeatedly, apparently not living up to whatever solemn oath they make messengers swear to these days.

It had not been a moment after Addam and I were finally left alone once more that I suggested, with a tenacity not to be disobeyed, that my brother have his rest -he had turned a few day's ride to Casterly Rock into only one. He deserved to rest, to shut his eyes a moment while I acted out my duplicitous intentions.

I made my way to the familiar trail to my husband's study while the sun still ruled the day -even if barely, and found the subject of most urgency freshly rested atop the pile of incoming mail meant for Jaime. The last time he got a letter from the sender I suspected it had been of too curious and detrimental a nature to just be ignored. My husband rode North by the prompting of that letter. What more could be asked of him now?

I stared down the parchment in my hand thirsting for a worthy reader. Was I worthy? What if it contained news -or a warning of some sort? Jaime had left me in charge...it was up to me to decide whether I wanted him to have his brother's confidence or risk losing him to some unknown factor. I shook at the intrusive thought, and with a decisive nod, tore the seal that stood between me and betrayal.

Greetings, brother.

I can't say your lack of response has been terribly surprising -you were never truly a champion for literacy. However, seeing as the matter I wrote to you about was about the actual pillaging of your 'home', then I must say it is rather worrying that you have left your returned letter bare. Hear me -Euron Greyyjoy is coming for you, and he has the men and the twisted anger of the Ironborn by his side. What do you have besides dry mines and an army tired of fighting? Kill the head of the operation, and you will be spared. There are only so many times I can ask.

Post script: There has been talk aplenty about you and your lovely new wife -but no news at all of a bump in the belly. Shocking, really, it never took you that long with Cersei.

It was a notably shorter letter than the one I had stumbled upon before, but short as it was I could not unread it. If Jaime were here...would I hurl a small chest in his direction again? Or would I find it too absurd to even believe the vile things suggested in this letter?

This is the man that murdered his own father. As tenderly as Jaime may have recounted him to me, could he really be believed when all evidence seemed to point at how craven he was? Nevertheless, with the knowledge of Jaime not there to defend himself or his alleged actions I let the virility of such rumours sink into me.

I had never truly considered it. Not once. He was Ser Jaime of Lannister, an honoured guest in my home. Our liege Lord. I had been prepared to always think that such talk was strictly gossip meant to hurt the Lannister name...but it never crossed my mind for a moment that it was not. Could petty gossip truly have been the driving force to turn Ned Stark -a man of reputable honour and honesty, to turn against the Queen? Could that by itself be the sole deciding factor to make not one but both of the late King's brothers to take up arms and wage war against the Queen's children? It lay in my hands right now...at this moment...the question I had just realised I should have asked myself long ago -and the hypothetical answer I knew I couldn't bear to hear.

I had to consider it, there was no way I could ignore it now. Could Jaime, my husband, have been in an incestuous relationship with his sister? Is that why he stayed at Ashemark? Why he resigned from the Kingsguard? Is that why he was in such a hurry to abandon one sworn oath for another and ask for my hand? Was I some sort of cover-up for an illegitimate relationship gone sour? Whatever it was...I knew without a doubt now that it was over, but will the fact that it ever even begun affect me; someone who always believed that change was possible?

I was in love with him -this man in question, but if this were true how could I bear to look at him knowing the child that I so longed to have with him already existed through his sister?

I shook my head dangerously. I had no proof. No proof but a letter by an angry, bitter renegade. If Jaime were here, he would have a perfect explanation for this...i'm sure. Perhaps this is what Tyrion sought to achieve -cracking holes and dents in our armour. He was laughing at us, he mocked us. He saw us as nothing but simple -that much, I could easily discern. Even now he still finds it in him to mock my infertility; reducing me down to my womb just as everyone else has done. But I would not let him have the word this time -regardless of what was true or not.

Greetings,

You will forgive my address if you will, lord Tyrion, for my husband is currently elsewhere tending to the safety of the Kingdoms and has left me in charge at Casterly Rock. I debated whether or not to read your letter, not forgetting that it was not meant for my eyes, but the last time you wrote my husband it was with regard to a very unsettling matter that seemed to be of some urgency -and so I feared the matter of urgency would come up once more.

My husband is fighting for his people and for our safety -all of our safety. We are not just spouts of common land to be claimed by whatever monarch thinks it in his or her's interest to control. The West will not be threatened by your Khaleesi, and the fall of the Greyjoys will come at our hands -not for her convenience but for the preservation of all our lives.

A fit King or Queen rules over his or hers subjects with care above all else, my lord, and so with what care does your new queen bequeath unto us -her supposed subjects? We will not burn for someone else's demands.

Do not consider my words treacherous -I merely speak plainly. With any luck, Euron Greyjoy will fail his campaign and die for the justice of those he has harmed and the lands he has breached. Your enemy, and mine, shall be vanquished by your brother -my husband, and we will defend and keep our home from those that seek to take it from us.

Yours faithfully, Lorraine Lannister.

Post script. Are you truly surprised that my brother Addam would so 'readily give his permission for [Jaime] to fuck his sister'? You seemed to be under the contrary impression.

Yes, it may have been bitter of me to end on such a...crossing, note, but I could hardly say he didn't deserve it.

I leaned back into my oaken chair, its legs complaining in a creak as I sighed in heavy contemplation. For once, I didn't want to think about Jaime. It felt like a lie to say i'd wait for him to return to confront him about something when I haven't even settled it with myself. What if he just admitted to it? All of it?

What then? Does the fact that it had ever happened -if it had ever happened, change who he is and all my reasons for loving him? Maybe...maybe this...thing...shaped him in some way. Maybe it made him the man I married. I had resigned myself long ago to the comfortable thought that I didn't care what he had done in the past. I had agreed that the blood of the men he killed had no room in our relationship, and that it was not my place to judge him for it -so was this any different?

Suddenly, the red, the blood, the torn muscle and breaking of bones conjoined in my head and my feet found the closest chamber pot of their own accord. I heaved over the brass pot, emptying the contents of my already empty stomach as I traced a crack on the floor to distract myself from the horrible pain searing my throat and the numbing sickness that gathered in my belly.

I could lie to myself and say that it's my unusual sensitivity. I could shake my head and tell myself that the possibility of Jaime's past made me sick to my stomach. But I unfortunately knew myself better than that. The silence I surrounded myself with allowed me to listen to my body in great detail, and one didn't even need to do so to know that I had not bled this whole moon.

It had finally happened -the thing I had silently cried into my pillow over. I had foolishly wanted a part of Jaime to remember him by when I knew nothing about how to bring a child into this world. I knew even less about what I was to do with the child if his father was not the man I thought he was. It was a sorrowful I had created in my head now come to life -the sad tale of a grieving widow with only her child as her last hope in the world, but the reality of the situation stung me in more ways than one.

Firstly was the tiring sickness that came with the situation not to mention the mixed emotions -that horrid letter was the last thing all the evil chemicals inside of me needed. Second, of course, was Jaime. From what I could tell, in what I was coming to know as my limited understanding of him, he didn't want children. Or at least, he didn't seem to be in any special hurry. What would he think, what would he do, should he return and find me wide with our unborn child?

All the time, all the distance, and all the ambiguity he had successfully kept around him regarding his famous past had left far too much room to sow the seeds of doubt in just the few minutes after I had met with this unknowing accusation. Doubt was a powerful thing indeed, for it takes root in the house of your mind and swirls wildly into all your memories, painting them red with suspicion. From meeting him to even the gentlest kiss to my hand I tried to muster something from memory -some sign, some indication, that he had been hiding his insidious intentions from me, but for some reason all I could think of was that one day by the maze fountain at Ashemark. The day Jaime Lannister proposed to me.

"Do you think i'm a good man, my lady?"

I answered him with a nod of my head. All this nodding and I will eventually get dizzy.

"Why?"

"Because you are brave. And kind." He looked down, thinking hard and shaking his head. He lifted his head and I found a faint smile, this time full of bitterness.

"Not many would agree with you."

I had taken my vow, and it did not matter how many vows he had broken before the one we took together -he was still beholden to this one as much as any other man under the eyes of the Gods. And I know, deep down in places I didn't know were in me, that Jaime had not forsaken his vows to me. That much, I knew.

He is still, just as he was -brave and kind, but would I eventually find myself agreeing with those I swore never to be?

Jaime

For once, Jaime was looking forward to sleep. In sleep, in dreams, he could be back at Casterly Rock teaching Tyrek how to be brave again and letting Lorraine sleep on his chest in the late afternoon. In his dreams, he did not have to be so aware of the doubtful looks his own bannermen directed his way when he led them. He was still a lion -at least he was supposed to be, but they seemed to be more haunted by the loss of his hand than he had been.

That's not to say that he hadn't felt its displacement. It was the most grievous loss of his life, more than when his mother or father died -he had died but he was still somehow alive. And yet like some twisted form of absolution, his severed hand gave him a second chance to see clearer -to see past the lies and the twisted sense of loyalty he had created around his family. What had his family -his Cersei, ever done for him? Why did he spend his life's honour killing those she demanded would die, when her fight would go on with or without him?

The only person that had helped him survive, truly, was that Brienne and her abhorring sense of righteousness and loyalty. She had known loyalty when he had forgotten. She had been his savior when he was unworthy. She kept his secret when he bled out his confession -not even Lorraine had bore witness to that yet. But the dame fair had followed her oath and her honour, and Jaime could not think to himself where else she would be if not doing exactly that.

The winds blew harsh and unrelenting as he gathered himself by the small fire in his tent for the night, focusing only on the slow prickling of the thawing blood in his hands and the way the wind wavered just farther north than it did at the Rock. It was during this deep contemplation that he heard a commotion gather just ahead of his tent where he knew the sentries were posted for the night, and his head turned in attention to the alien threat.

It could be an iron islander, he thought, a lone reaper or a whole host of them, but as he slowly raised himself from his low seat he heard a voice he thought he'd never hear again -one that was almost too coincidental for Jaime to trust hearing.

"Let me through!" Undoubtedly, unmistakably, it was the rough cry of the wench herself. How she was there -or why she was so agitated at being so, remained a question still unanswered.

"No one's getting through tonight, my lady." He heard the sentry roughly push her back as the flap of his tent disappeared behind him and the bite of the night air stung his warming nose.

"I demand to see your lord!" She repeated her command, and unbeknownst to her with only a few more footsteps out of the unforgiving darkness, Jaime would meet it.

"Brienne?" He uttered out without realising it had been moons since he spake her name.

She turned in a sharp assault to the calm breeze, and her sharp, jagged, face sagged.

What he found in her was not the relief -or the tinge of happiness, he had expected to find in her fantastic blue eyes, instead Jaime thought he saw disappointment in his appearance to her.

"My Lord." She bowed, the way she usually did, and while she was still low he motioned for his sentry that all was well and he could leave them.

Once she rose again they stood facing one another in a wordless exploration in all that had changed. She looked the same save for the scratches on her face and a feeling that Jaime could not shake getting from her. Nevertheless, he motioned for her to follow her into his tent, and she diligently did so.

Once inside Jaime made to take his previously abandoned seat before realising that Brienne seemed intent on standing and making herself stick out like a sore thumb.

"You're looking well. What trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?" It was a jest. At least, half a jest. Her state seemed distressing, and without wondering how she had even found him he wanted to hear why she seemed shaken.

"It's Sansa Stark, I found her." Sansa Stark. That was a name he had not heard in a while.

So, the little bird has been found after all.

He swallowed down grimly, wishing he had a goblet to hide his nonchalance under.

"Well...that's good for you, isn't it?" I still have yet to see why this has anything to do with me.

"I found her but I don't have her...The Hound does." She seemed sick to say it, and Jaime was too sick to imagine it.

"The Hound?" He repeated incredulously. How could she have landed with the Hound?

But that wasn't the question to be answered -his answer was coming soon enough.

"I need your help freeing her from him, they're only a day's ride away." The wench beseeched him with her hand on her sword -the way she did when she didn't want it to look like she was asking for help in the first place.

He chuckled lightly upon hearing it -he could almost think it was a jest in truth! For the last time he had been in the Riverlands with this certain dame, their own swords had met and it can't exactly be said that he had won.

But when his laughter slowly died and the imploring glimmer in Brienne's eyes did not, he had half a mind to think she was actually serious in her proposition.

"What?" He questioned further, but it seemed that was even less cause for her to explain.

"We must hurry! Gods know they might not be there for much longer." She was operating under some sort of idea that he had readily agreed -and she certainly looked at him like she was waiting for him to grab his horse and leave.

"I can't just march my army to save a girl no one knows I was to protect." A girl who, by all lawful measures, is still considered a co-conspirator and traitor. But to be fair, Jaime was hardly the most lawful. Yet, still, he couldn't just redirect and lose a day's ride -or any men, to The Hound.

"Not your army -just you. If you don't come alone he's sure to kill her." Has the Wench lost her mind?

It wasn't like she wasn't right. He knew Sandor Clegane well enough to know that he would abandon whatever mission of ransom -or any other twisted reason he would have for holding Sansa Stark his captive, once he knows he is outnumbered. And the Hound hasn't been known to leave any prisoners for the sake of it. Still, Jaime found it hard to reconcile himself with the idea of his involvement. She has never needed me before. She was always been worthy.

"This isn't what I came here for, Brienne." He shook his head dismissively -but he should have known that that was not a possibility with her.

"But it's what you vowed!" Her words stopped him with his back to her. As much as he wanted to forget it, she spoke the truth. Just as she always did.

"One day. That's all I ask of you." She beseeched him carefully once more, and as he wound his fist up in a ball he recalled another vow he had made -one he was determined to keep as well. I have made vows to a lady with hair of deep auburn, one with golden tendrils, and one of deep brown.

"Do you think i'm a good man, my lady?"

She nodded affirmatively.

"Why?" He had pushed on -no one ever bothered to answer him. Then again, he had never cared to ask.

"Because you are brave. And kind."

It is time to be the man my wife deserves; even if it means delaying my return to her.

"One day."

He did not even spare a look at Brienne, but instead only repeated his commitment to himself. Even as he ordered his men to ready his horse, his squire to adjust his armor and polish sword, he could only think of this new vow he was making to himself. One day. Only one day. One day.

They rode out in the deep night and did not stop for rest or leisure. One day. You only have a day to spare. He suffered the ride in silence and fed off Brienne's badly hidden anxiousness. Why is she so worried? Jaime had seen her fight a bear with nothing but a pink gown and her bare hands and still look less afraid than she did the whole ride up.

When they stopped the sun had long since come up again, and they stood flush against a densely packed forest before them.

Coming off his horse together as Brienne removed herself from her own he looked to her in confusion, waiting for her directions, but she did not speak. She only looked up at the trees like her battle was with them.

"He's...they're in there?" He inquired, puzzled at the strange choice of settlement. He knew Clegane was not a gentlemen, or a stickler for grooming for that matter, but surely he had the means and the strength to secure better accommodations...

"There's a small keep in the heart of the woods. That's where he has her." She looked down at the sinking ground as she answered, her light brows pained and contorted, and Jaime offered a small smile to sooth what he thought was fear.

"Right. Let's get this oath over and done with, shall we?"

He entered the forest before her and kept his pace light and steady, and for once the wench did not take it upon herself to walk in step with him but remained behind him. Jaime thought it odd since he had little idea where he was going, anyway.

They were yards into the forest now, and not even a hint of any kind of structure seemed close by. Suddenly, a bustling noise came from behind a tree, and before Jaime could successfully bring his sword to its attention he felt a cold, wet cloth cover his nose and mouth.

His limbs failed him, one by one, and he felt his trusted sword leave his grip and his back fall onto a stouter figure behind him.

The only thing his eyes saw before it turned completely dark was Brienne, standing as tall as the tree around them, her tears shining enough to show through his dulling consciousness.

"I'm sorry, Jaime."

Hope this was okay -it's been a while!

Thank you so much to the people following/favouriting/reviewing recently...you've really helped me get this out!

Review if you can x