Arya was furious at the turn that things had taken.
Jaime had come to her chambers mid-afternoon to discuss something or other, but no sooner had the door closed behind him that her tongue was in his mouth and her clothes a pile of sober black on the floor.
By the time they had finished, night had fallen, and her loins were aching from the number of times they had made love; and as Jaime had lain beside her, beautiful and infuriating and naked as his name day; her fingers had softly brushed his face like the memory and the feeling and the warmth of his skin, his mouth and his scent that she still felt in every line and curve of her body; on her neck, on her breasts, on her stomach, on her thighs, on her back, on her eyelids.
Then the stupid fool had asked her to come to Casterly Rock with him the day after tomorrow, and she had hit him squarely in the face before leaping out of bed and facing him down, infuriated both by the question and by his evident lack of surprise at her reaction.
'Have you lost your mind?' she yelled shrilly, ashamed by the tears that were beginning to form in her eyes, 'why in seven hells would I want to leave my sister here alone to come with you to Casterly Rock and watch my brother being annihilated?'
Jaime shrugged with a nonchalance that made her want to decapitate him.
'I had hoped,' he remarked patiently, folding his arms across his chest, 'that you might accept to treat with your brother on my behalf. Preferably before he is annihilated. The exercise would be rather pointless otherwise.'
Arya stared at him.
'Treat…treat with him?' she stammered.
Jaime smiled.
'Treating with someone is when you – '
'I know what it means!' Arya snapped, quivering with rage.
Anger was growling in her stomach, and anxiety and grief eating at her mind; but he was only a few feet away from her, his body golden in the candlelight, and his eyes were like his lips on her skin, and his mind was inside hers, she could feel it, and I love your mind, she thought, I love your face. I love your eyes. I love your throat. I love your skin.
'Why didn't you mention this before?' she demanded, hissing at herself not to be so bloody obvious, and cursing the smug look on Jaime's face that immediately announced her failure.
'I intended to mention it to you the moment I arrived,' Jaime purred, looking her up and down with obvious appreciation, 'but I forgot about it the moment you stuck your pretty little tongue down my throat and commanded me to take my clothes off. I'm sure you'll forgive me.'
His eyes were making her skin tingle, like emeralds that were alive and breathing and cold.
'Stop that,' she barked.
'What?' he asked.
'Looking at me like that. It's making me want to forgive you.'
His lips parted, a whisper of breath and warmth between them.
'Come here,' he murmured.
Arya folded her arms, frowned at him and stayed right where she was, determined not to give him the satisfaction of knowing how wet that previous remark had made her.
Jaime sighed and threw his arms up in exasperation.
'I think your brother will be more inclined to pay attention to a negotiator who does not come directly from Joffrey - '
She grudgingly admitted to herself that he had a point there.
'- and I can think of no one more suitable than a woman who is his own sister and the future Lady of Casterly Rock,' Jaime finished, staring into his lap with a coolness that did not fool her for a second.
Trust a Lannister to slide a marriage proposal into a political argument and expect to get away with it, she thought, determined not to smile or laugh or bolt across the room and kiss him or show the slightest sign that she was pleased by the idea. She was still angry with him.
'Have I ever told you what an idiot you are?' Arya candidly enquired.
'More times than I can count, since you ask.' Jaime replied promptly.
'Pull a stunt like this and my brother will kill you, and that only if my mother doesn't get to you first!'
'Don't be so melodramatic, Stark.'
She put her hands on her hips and gazed flippantly up at the ceiling.
'I wonder if there's something in the water in King's Landing that makes people more inclined to believe that marriage can solve any problem that exists,' she mused mockingly, thinking of Sansa, 'that little shit Joffrey cut my father's head off, Jaime, and he needs to pay for it! Which part of that don't you understand? Thousands of lives have been lost on both sides during this war; Stark and Lannister will very likely hate each other for ten generations, not to mention the hordes of bannermen that will raise their children to do the same; and you think the sound of wedding bells is going to be enough to make everything fine again?'
Jaime shrugged.
'No. But it may be enough for a truce.'
She stared at him.
'A truce?'
'An end to the fighting.'
'Seven hells, Jaime, I know what a truce is!'
He was looking at her earnestly, his eyes pleading with her.
'A truce is not an alliance, or a peace treaty. It is, however, a start. Stark and Lannister may very well decide to hate each other for ten generations, but this war cannot continue for ten generations. The realm won't survive it, and…'
She knew what he was going to say before the words escaped his lips.
'And…winter is coming,' she finished.
Jaime went pale and shivered, and she could tell that hearing the words from her mouth had affected him.
You are a Stark of Winterfell, Father had once said, you know our words.
'It might not end the war,' Arya said.
'No,' Jaime admitted.
'Joffrey may reject any terms we come to.'
'If that little shit tries to tell me what I may or may not do in my own lands – '
'This is about more than just your lands. Recognising that Robb is King in the North will put you in open rebellion against the crown.'
She could tell from the look on his face that he hadn't considered that at all.
'There may be a way to work around that,' he ventured.
'There won't be, Jaime!' she exclaimed in return.
'All I'm suggesting is that we succeed in getting swords out of people's hands for long enough to have a civilised conversation,' he insisted, 'we can start worrying about technicalities once that's been accomplished.'
'Has anyone ever told you that you have no flair for politics at all?'
'So come with me, damn you! Be my flair for politics!'
'As 'Robb Stark's sister and the future Lady of Casterly Rock?'' she mocked.
'Yes,' Jaime insisted, reddening slightly.
Arya stared at him, her heart pounding like some stupid princess in a song, waiting for him to say more. No further discourse was forthcoming.
'Are you asking me to marry you, Lannister?' she demanded.
'Yes.'
'Because you're tired of war?'
He rolled his eyes.
'Yes, certainly, I'm tired of war. But to own the truth, I don't care a fuck about the war at this particular moment in time. I don't care if both our Houses devote themselves to killing each other until the end of time - '
'How very selfish of you.'
' - and I certainly don't care that you, Lady Stark, are far and away the most irritating person I've ever met, or that I spend most of my time wanting to cut your little white throat. I don't give a fuck about any of that. I want you fighting me. I want you with me. I'm in love with you.'
When she slid back into bed and reached for him, he kissed her with an unbearable softness, his lips incredibly warm, like home, and this is going to kill me, she thought as her mouth opened beneath his and the bones of her back were pulverised beneath his arms and her heart ached madly in her chest, if Robb and Mother don't kill me first.
'I love you,' she whispered, her hands trailing through his hair, 'I love you more than anything. But –'
He kissed yet her again; swallowing her words and taking them into himself, where they became sighs as his tongue danced with hers.
'I can't go with you to Casterly Rock and leave Sansa behind,' she blurted, breathing hard as she broke away from him, 'Joffrey will - '
'Then bring Sansa along, for fuck's sake!' Jaime groaned, rolling his eyes.
'Sansa?' Arya snorted, 'on the road? With us? She's never slept on the floor in her life!'
'I'll get her a bloody featherbed, if you absolutely insist!'
'I – '
'For fuck's sake, Arya, are you going to marry me or not?'
She remembered the first time that she had looked at him, really looked at him; lying beneath him on the floor of Tywin's solar, her dagger on the ground beside her, his hands pressing her arms to either side of her head.
He is also two people at the same time, she had thought, he is also running from himself.
Beneath his gaze, his fingers bruising her wrists, she had become Arya again, the ability to hide torn out of her. And being Arya hadn't hurt anymore. She remembered that. Being Arya hadn't hurt anymore.
'Yes,' she said, 'yes, I will.'
