"Cuckolded in your own house-" The words came screeching from the hallway, and Jaime was awoken from his slumber in the chair at Brienne's bedside

"Mother, please, Brienne is resting-" Gerald whispered, but he whispered like a man in a steel mill, loud as a normal man's speaking voice, and Brienne turned in the bed. Jaime reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, trying to ease her back into sleep.

"How have you let him stay in your bedchambers with her? What were you thinking you great lumbering -"

"MOTHER!"

A beast of a woman burst into the bedroom door, and Jaime looked up at her with dismay and irritation. He didn't move his hand from Brienne's shoulder.

She was larger than Brienne, and much uglier, with Gerald's round face but without his sweet look or wide blue eyes. Her eyes were beady and judging.

"I'd have you know you're touching the wife of Gerald Pedalth, Ser." She blustered.

"I'm touching Brienne of Tarth, a woman I've known for many years, and she's very ill, so I'll have you get the hell out of here before I throw you out," Jaime said, quietly, focusing on her steely eyed.

"You shouldn't be in her bedchambers," she kept on, coming towards the bed. "It's my job as her mother to be helping her through this sickness..."

"Her mother died many years ago, my lady, and -"

She came to the bed, plumping up the pillows beneath Brienne's head, and finally waking her. Brienne came to suddenly. "Mother Pedalth." She said, in a tone that suggested this caretaking would be less than pleasant. "Hello."

"Hello, darling," Mrs. Pedalth purred. "Gerald's been off his rocker since you've turned ill and has given your caretaking to this...man..."

Brienne looked around, confused, and laid her eyes on Jaime. She smiled. "I thought I might have dreamed you," she said, softly. "How long?"

"A fortnight, now," Jaime said, stiffly, removing his hand at last from Brienne's wasted shoulder.

"Why did you come?" She asked, ignoring Mrs. Pedalth's mumbles and grumbles.

"Gerald sent for me. You were asking for me."

"Was I?" she said, looking away from him, almost blushing. She turned back to her fussy mother in law. "Mother."

"Yes, Brienne?"

"Ser Jaime is a dear friend of mine, and a welcome guest. Would you please make a pot of tea for us?"

"But Brienne, I think-"

"Please, Mother, I'm so thirsty." Brienne used her wide blue eyes, this time, blinking up at her.

Mrs. Pedalth bustled out of the room.

Brienne turned her attention back to Jaime. Jaime noted that her color was back. There was red in her cheeks now, and he wasn't sure it was because she was blushing or just startled from sleep. All the things he had been bursting to tell her seemed to be pushing deep down inside himself, again, things better left unsaid to this married, motherly woman, this woman who he'd rushed to see when she'd been on her deathbed but who now seemed more alive than ever, staring at him with her warrior's eyes.

Jaime thought he might be afraid.

"Why did you come?" She asked, again.

"I told you, Gerald sent for me..."

"Why did you come when Gerald sent for you? I'm just another ally, dying of childbed fever."

Jaime was taken aback. He wasn't sure what to say, so he held his tongue.

"I'm feeling better now. You can head back to Kingslanding."

Jaime stood, awkwardly. "Very well. I'll head back on the morrow."

"Thank you, Jaime. It was good to see you." She smiled, a little. "Would you send Gerald in with the baby? I've missed him so."

Jaime felt a knife in his heart at this, and he didn't want to ask her if she meant she'd missed the baby or Gerald. He exited the room without seeing Gerald, and found his way to the stables. He stood there among the horses for a while, unable to understand the feeling in his chest, how he couldn't breathe properly. His chest was tight. He took off his tunic, stood there shirtless, and that helped a little, but he couldn't seem to get air inside. Brienne as a happily married woman, a babe on her hip, with those still warrior eyes...

Suddenly, Jaime took his golden hand and beat it across his chest. Pain bloomed from the beating, and he did it again, and again. It felt good to feel pain, something exterior, something that wasn't rolling in his guts or buzzing in his head. Something real to hold on to, something that wasn't half remembered or never forgotten or a memory of beaded water on her breasts, the ice blue of her warrior's eyes.

A bruise spread from his ribcage to his throat, and he covered it with his tunic as best he could.