Brienne's armour was digging into her side as she lay on her damp pallet bed. She could only lie on her right side due to her wound, which pulsed numbly, her skin too cold for sensation despite her thinning furs and lone torch.
I need to be out there, she thought vaguely, I need to be helping. Honour demanded it. She opened her eyes, letting her vision grow accustomed to the dull torchlit darkness, when she was suddenly aware of Jaime's sure presence beside her, his silhouette also fully clad in armour.
He had left to scout with the other uninjured fighters some hours ago, after Brienne had asked him to stay- but she understood that they must all do their duty. He had promised her he would return, despite her weak protests for her to go with him. The sensation of his hand on her face and his forehead on hers lingered, a flicker of warmth in this cruel cold.
Somehow, Jaime had snuck back into the tent while Brienne tried to rest her weary limbs and grit her teeth through the pain of her ravaged cheek. He sat on another half-frozen pallet bed which he had pulled to rest alongside hers.
"All clear?" Brienne asked quietly, and as her eyes adjusted she could see his face, bruised and bearded and encrusted with frost. She had only earlier been touching that same face, and he had touched hers with tenderness she had not known since she had seen her father. Has the moment past, she wondered, was it a gesture of comfort in friendship and comradery?
"For now," he said. "We're on rotation in order to get some sleep, but who… who could sleep after that?" Jaime shook his head, shivering. "After everything I've seen, Aerys burning innocents, a rotten hand around my neck, the purple corpses of my own son and father… but that…" Brienne heard him swallow, then pause. "How are you feeling?" he gestured to his own cheek.
Brienne heaved herself up to a sitting position. She had lain down in armour often enough, but post-battle it was excruciating, each metallic curve and edge jutting into ever bruise and strain and ache. "I've had worse," she said instead. Sandor Clegane, she thought, please protect those girls. Even yourself.
Jaime snickered through his chattering teeth. He groaned, then coughed, his breathing a wheezing splutter. "Don't worry yourself, wench," he said, noticing Brienne's concerned expression, which she hadn't even realised she had been making. "I'm still adjusting to the climate. It's no Kings Landing."
"Nor Tarth." Brienne smiled softly as Jaime coughed violently. If he suffered from a rheum… Brienne could not even fathom the thought of an illness taking him. "I appreciate that you fought by my side tonight, ser." She touched her numb cheek, the wound concealed by strips of frozen cloth. "And for this."
Jaime closed his eyes, exhaling shakily. "My honour, lady Brienne." He smiled weakly, exhausted.
"My thanks, Jaime." I ought to forget the word ser, Brienne thought. It means nothing now. A weighted silence fell between them, the wind outside wailing like some dark spirit. Her armour was digging into her lower back, distracting her from the dull ache of her cheek. "We ought to get some rest. We continue eastwardly on the morrow."
A blaringly loud gale of wind shook the tent, causing the pair to start. "That's if we don't freeze over before dawn. Not that I'll be able to sleep for fear of those things," mumbled Jaime, looking down at the armour gauntlet on his left hand, then holding it out to Brienne. "If you would…?"
Brienne nodded before he could even finish the question, taking his hand, which was gloved in armour. She slid it off, revealing the woollen glove beneath. Jaime opened and closed his hand and flexed, sighing in relief. "Thank you. I, for one, don't want to awaken in a frozen steel crypt. And I couldn't feel my hand, and got worried."
I don't want to be the first Lannister to drown in a bathtub, his own voice echoed dimly in Brienne's subconscious. Jaime did not take off his golden hand- he instead started to unbuckle his breastplate, then his cuisses that covered his thighs, revealing his chainmail hauberk and padded gambeson, along with his mail skirting and thigh padding. Underneath the armour, we're all the same, Brienne thought. Soft and human and easily killed, even the strongest of us. Her stomach fluttered.
"You'll be … warm enough?" asked Brienne, her chattering teeth providing sufficient irony for Jaime to laugh.
"I will be fine. My armour isn't quite so mobile as yours, see. You had someone who had actually fought have yours made. If the gaps between each component freeze in mine, I'm a dead man." Brienne helped Jaime unfasten his gorget, reaching around from the back. Brienne felt a strange urge to touch his skin, so warm. He shivered violently as the cold touched his neck. A bloody graze, half- frozen, ran along the nape. Brienne took a leftover strip of cloth and patted it into place as gently as her fumbling fingers could.
Jaime turned and smiled at her in gratitude. Brienne felt at a loss under his gaze. "Here," she said, handing him one of her furs. It crunched under her hand with frost. "Rest, at least."
Jaime looked from the fur to Brienne, then back to the fur, still smiling faintly. "Thank you." He took it from her, and lay down, exhaling heavily.
Brienne did not want to take off her armour in fear of needing to don it in haste- it was a habit she'd never gotten out of since travelling with Podrick, who did unfasten it every now and again, but when they were travelling the Kingsroad North, it was too much of a risk in case of Bolton men.
She lay down, her mat dipping slightly beneath her weight. She lay on her right side, aching, her wound facing upwards as to not aggravate it. A lump in her chest rose to her throat as she looked at Jaime, who lay on his back no more than two feet away from her, eyes closed, chest rising and falling beneath the fur. He shivered minutely.
"I wonder how Tyrion is," he said quietly, eyes still closed. "If he has fought those things like we did…" Brienne could sense the fear in his voice. She could also hear the name Cersei resting on the tip of his tongue, but she knew he would not want to talk of her. Not yet. When he's ready, she thought, he will talk.
"I am quite sure he would be fine. I do not know him well, but from what I've heard he is a survivor," she reassured.
"I suppose you're right. How not? He has survived thus far."
"I worry constantly about Podrick and the girls," Brienne divulged. "I know well that they are perfectly capable of looking after themselves, but it doesn't stop the thoughts creeping in." she cringed as she heard her voice tremble. She hated feeling weak, but more oft than not, she could not dismiss her emotions; her ability to conceal it was different.
"We all become concerned for those we care about. The first time…" Jaime began, then shook his head, "… no, the second time we parted, after Oathkeeper, my thoughts went to you often. I wondered if you were happy, if you were hurt, if…" he trailed off.
Brienne's body coiled. Do not say that to me, she thought, her throat tight. You made this as agonizing as it could be when you first walked through Winterfell's gates, when you told me I was worth living for. "I wondered the same of you," was what she said instead.
Jaime looked at her strangely, eyes soft. He gave a resigned chuckle. "Do you ever think, if we could tell our past selves after our first meeting, that we would be worrying about one another? That we would be fighting in bear pits, travelling across the country, being taken captive, losing limbs…" he shook his head in disbelief. Brienne breathed a laugh through her nose, which was half-frozen. She tugged her fur upwards. "… fighting dead men together. Sharing a tent at the gates of the seven hells."
"I can tell you that I would not have believed it, had the ghost of Baelor the Blessed himself been informing me," Brienne replied in a low voice. As she was lying on her side, the single lit torch in the tent created dancing shadows on Jaime's smirking face. "I abhorred you."
"Hah. I'm glad the feeling was mutual," Jaime purred, and his voice sounded so painfully Jaime that Brienne had to close her eyes. The action distorted her cheek's haphazard dressing, and she winced. "You talk a bit more than back then, though. Now I hear one or two words and I am amazed that your tongue works at all."
A small smile begged on her lips to grow, but she restrained it. "Talking never was my strong suit." That's what her septa had told her. Neither looks nor a tongue. She shuddered as the cold crept into her bones, and wrapped her fur up tighter.
She opened her eyes to see Jaime lying on his side, facing her, so close she could see the ice crusted on his eyelashes and beard. A line appeared between his brow. "We would be warmer if we shared the furs. Double layers and all." He hesitated, his eyes searching her face. "Are you comfortable with that idea?"
Brienne paused. She felt herself nod, the cold too much for her. She would not get out of her armour, though. "I'm afraid I won't offer much warmth in this," she said nervously, sitting up.
"No matter, Brienne. Here." He draped his fur over both of them, then took hers and layered it over the first fur. "This should be a bit warmer. If warm is a concept this far north." They both lay on their backs, their meagre bedding pulled close.
I did abhor you, she thought. But imagine had we not crossed paths. She cherished the feeling of his shoulder pressing lightly against her own. She closed her eyes tightly. Was this what it felt like, she wondered, to care about someone so deeply the thought of living without them would be unfathomable? She had thought that living without Renly was unimaginable, and it had been painful, yes...
But the thought of Brienne's world without Jaime Lannister was simply wrong. Had they never met, they would not be who they were. Brienne didn't know what to call what feeling surged within her at that moment, but she did not care. It didn't need a name.
"Good night, Jaime." She thought of Tormund, kissed by fire, and wondered if he was keeping warm. But all thoughts of him drifted sideward at the feeling of Jaime's steady weight beside her. It was marginally warmer, but the single torch was flickering due to the wind that crept through the tent flaps, threatening to blow out. "Thank you again for… helping me."
Jaime nodded. "Good night, Brienne."
Brienne felt her heavy eyelids fall shut, a strange, broken state between consciousness and subconsciousness. At some point during this odd stage of the night, their hands searched for and found one another in the dark. Only then did the sleep.