"Brienne!" Jaime could hardly see in the wintry darkness, but he knew she was walking in the direction of the courtyard. "Brienne," he called, softer this time.
"Don't, Ser. Leave me be." Her voice teemed with humiliation, and it made Jaime's stomach twist in shame. He stumbled ungracefully after her. Stupid, stupid, he chastised himself. He was hot on her heels, trailing behind her like the lion cub he was.
"I didn't like what he was saying to you, he sounded as if he meant to…"
"Meant to fuck me, Ser?" Brienne turned suddenly, and Jaime almost crashed into her furs. In the moonlight, her hair shone like silver. "Is that what you think he meant?"
"Well…" Jaime rubbed a hand over his greying gold stubborn with his greying gold hand, speckled with Tormund's blood. "I didn't think he was treating you... properly, or with..."
Brienne breathed a hard laugh. "You think I am worried about being treated properly when we could die within a fortnight? Do you think I care? If anything, it's complimentary," she spat scornfully. "However, I am not worried about Wildlings and their forms of flattery, Ser Jaime, and whether they would harm me; they don't. I am worried about the Stark girls and… others surviving, and surviving myself. Not being humiliated by two fighting men at a feast. Leave Tormund be."
Jaime's breath, a steam of white fog, swirled around them, mingling with Brienne's. We're both alive, he thought, living, breathing. "I didn't think anything," he said instead. "I never do. I act, then think. You know that!" He paused. "Complimentary? A Wildling wanting to fuck you until you're sore is a way of courting you?" he scoffed. "To him, perhaps, but to you?"
Brienne turned back around in anger, shivering, and marched ahead through the now calf-deep sleet and snow. "I'm sorry, that was unworthy. But come on! Brienne of Tarth could do better than that," he tried to jest, light-heartedly, but he knew it would not grant forgiveness.
"There are no better," she said. A pang went through Jaime's chest. They'd trooped their way to the Great Keep, where Brienne's chambers were. She shook the ice off her boots. "Do you remember what I told you, Ser Jaime," she was breathing heavily from the exertion, and her cheeks were flushed pink, "when I was first charged with bringing you to Kings Landing?" she threw her boots into the corner, and barged up the stairs, not looking behind her.
Jaime remembered every minute of that godforsaken trek. "You barely said anything that wasn't rebating my insults, but I certainly made up most of the conversation on that journey. Are you referring to when I asked whether you fucked horses?" he followed her up the stairs. "If anyone had ever tried to…" he didn't want to finish that sentence.
"All my life, men like you have been sneering at me," she continued. They'd reached the chambers. Brienne turned and looked down at him, unsmiling, as he stood a few steps below her. "And right now, Ser, just once before I die next week or the next, I wouldn't mind a man who doesn't sneer at me." Her eyes were moist. "Just once."
Jaime jolted in surprise. He felt his stomach flutter unfamiliarly. I don't sneer, not anymore, he wanted to yell, I sneered once and never since, and never again will I. "I am sorry, Brienne. I didn't know," he said, and he felt his gaze flare, burning into hers. "You are not going to die," He said, as he took a few tentative steps upwards, reaching her level.
Brienne backed away towards her chamber and entered. Jaime was hurt that she didn't trust him.
He approached her chamber door, now open, with caution. She had entered and was facing the candle by the window, her back facing him.
"You believe that Tormund Giantsbane could give you everything you ever wanted?" he asked gently. "To not be sneered at? To tell you how magnificent you are? Because if so, I will not intervene. If you are welcoming his advances, then there is no reason for me to ever say that you cannot." Brazenly, he entered her chambers and walked around her so he could look at her, truly look at her, and get an answer.
Brienne's pupils dilated when she saw him. "I... Jaime, I'm not…" she said, her head drooping.
"You're not sure?" Brienne tried to avoid his unrelenting gaze, and stared past him at the candle by her chamber window, which emanated a warm, incandescent glow. "Say the word, and you will have Tormund Giantsbane and I will never try to stop him from saying unseemly things to you." He felt the words catch slightly in his throat.
Brienne's eyes locked with his. "I don't need your protection. That is all I was saying."
"I know you don't," he replied. "But do you? Want him, I mean?"" the muscles in his face tightened.
Jaime's heart ached when he saw those blue eyes well with the ghosts of tears. "He's the only man, besides Renly, who hasn't ever thought that I… I was some great, lumbering, ugly beast," she said, her voice shaking. "He says I'm beautiful, like Daenerys or like Sansa."
Oh, sweet Brienne, Jaime thought. You are not beautiful like them. You are beautiful like Brienne. "You truly believe that only they have thought otherwise?"
She stared at him, cow-eyed. "I know it." The breeze from downstairs ruffled the furs around her neck.
Jaime shook his head. "You don't," he said, "you truly don't." His words trembled in the space between them, shivered, and fell. "You didn't answer the question."
She bowed her head slightly, fiddling with the tassel on the edge of the four-poster bed that was between them. "I truly don't know. If I want him or not." Her voice was deep, deeper than it had been.
"Well. Does he make you smile?" Jaime asked, his voice so quiet he hoped she could hear him. "Do you know how he thinks? What his intentions are?"
"Well, like all men, I suppose."
He laughed. "I'm not going to disagree with you there. Do you find him… comely? Handsome?"
"Wanting someone isn't all about that," said Brienne. "But yes." Jaime blinked quickly.
"No. No, it isn't." He sighed heavily. "Cersei was beautiful, and I was blinded by my devotion to her. The only woman I'd ever been with."
"As was Renly. As was I." Brienne looked at him. "Do you… miss her?"
Jaime didn't want to go there, but her eyes implored and he realised that he could talk about it, he could talk about it to her and her alone because she knew him like no one else. "I do." He shuddered as he felt the cool air on his neck. "She's pregnant."
Brienne paled. After a moment of silence, she spoke. "And you still left her?"
Jaime snorted. "Gods, what have I made you become? No, Ser Jaime! You should stay with your sister whom you've impregnated! In clandestine! That's honourable!" he mocked, leaning nonchalantly against the wooden dressed by the window.
Brienne smiled a secret smile. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't question your decisions."
"Don't be. I shouldn't question yours." They stood in silence across from one another. "Brienne, I…" gods, he had no idea what to say. Her eyes were so wide and they drank him in and swallowed him whole. "I'm sorry I embarrassed you. You're right, it's not what I should be concerned about now."
She shook her head. "I just didn't expect it. I didn't think you, Jaime Lannister, would care who took interest in me."
Jaime felt his cheeks burn, like he was some squire with peach fuzz being berated. He felt that familiar heat pool in his stomach and he tried to stamp it out. If this were any other situation, any other place or time or context, he would've shot back an 'I don't care." But he didn't, not this time. "I just wanted you to be safe. If you truly think you want Tormund, by all means," he said, ignoring the gnawing ache somewhere in his chest.
"No one is safe, now," Brienne said sadly. "We may all be dead come next week, if the fight doesn't..."
Jaime had had enough. He strode angrily towards her and grabbed her by the arm, as she had to him in the Dragonpit. "Enough of that!" he growled, "if you say that, you are dead already, before the fight has even begun. I will not have you say you'll die before I do, Brienne, gods, I will not hear it!"
Brienne stood in shock, looking at his hand on her upper arm. Her bottom lip trembled. "And you think I would watch you die with ease?" she said, her eyes reddening. "Do you think I would let you… let you go without fighting?"
Jaime lessened the space between them. "I know you wouldn't," he said, "But I don't want you to say these things. Not to me, not now." His green eyes searched her blue, searching, searching. "If you're saying it to make things easier for me if you do something stupid like sacrificing yourself for the girls…"
"We don't know what either of us could do, Ser," Brienne butted in, her internal fortress going back up.
"Enough with the Sers, Brienne. You are not dying soon, you hear me?" he said sternly. He was very close to her now, the heat of her radiating off her person, raising goosepimples on Jaime's arm. "I will not lose possibly the only thing in this world that makes it worth fighting White Walkers and Ice Dragons for." The words came tumbling out and he realised he couldn't take that back, and he didn't want to. He didn't care anymore.
Brienne's mouth opened with a small pop, then closed again. "Are you… mocking me?"
"No, I'm not fucking mocking you, Brienne…"
A cough echoed through the door and Sansa stood there, eyes questioning. "I'm sorry to interrupt," she said, "but this is my chamber too, and I've had enough of the feast. If you would, Ser Jaime." She curtsied.
Jaime clenched his fist. Should've closed the fucking door. "Of course, my lady," he said, his voice tight, his eyes burning into Brienne's. Sansa entered, and Jaime hardly saw her. He exited the chambers, and looked over his shoulder.
Don't leave me, her eyes said. Never, his replied.