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They are tramping through the forest, as they have for the past fortnight. The air is cold and humid, Jaime’s chains seem to weigh even heavier than usual, and King’s Landing has never felt so out of reach. His cousin’s uninterrupted prattle certainly doesn’t help with his sour mood. He’s sick of his companions, sick of Cleos’s simpering addresses, sick of Brienne of Tarth’s curt, stiff replies and refusal to engage with his quips, sick of her broad and freckled face, her misshapen, broken nose, and resentful of her unfailing vigilance. He’s keeping an eye open should any opportunity for escape be offered to him, but one has yet to present itself. He curses himself for the thousandth time for not seizing his chance on the boat. He’d just had to strike her with the oar and push her back into the river, it would have been the easiest thing in the world. Cleos wouldn’t even have had time to realize what was happening, and it would have been no trouble to cow him into silence afterwards; but Jaime had helped the wench up instead. He really is a fool.
“We’ll stop here for the night,” Brienne says, halting.
He immediately lets himself drop to the ground. He doesn’t even feel ashamed at his childlike behaviour. He only has a few scraps of dignity left to hold on to and he’s long past the stage of caring about Brienne of Tarth’s opinion of him. He suddenly feels terribly tired, a bone-deep exhaustion taking hold of him. He closes his eyes and thinks about Cersei. He’ll be back to her soon.
Brienne has heard countless tales about the Kingslayer, of course— everyone has. They say he’s a traitor and an oathbreaker. They say he’s one of the greatest swordsmen Westeros has ever seen. They say he fucked his twin sister behind the king’s back and gave her three bastards. They say he’s beautiful, with Lannister gold hair and emerald eyes.
Now that Brienne has met him, she knows they’re right. His hair is dirty, his beard matted, he’s too thin and ragged, but somehow he’s still the most beautiful man she’s ever seen, utterly unlike his weasel-like cousin (how can they be related when they look nothing alike? she wonders). The Kingslayer is also one of the most despicable men she’s ever met. His numerous crimes would be enough to make him repulsive, but he doesn’t even seem to regret them, utterly unashamed of his liaison with his twin sister, the queen. He never shuts up, always a fresh jab at the ready, taunting her, mocking her for her mannish looks, calling her wench. She does her best to shut him out— not completely, of course, he’s her prisoner, she’s responsible for him and she knows he’ll kill her and escape at the first opening he gets. If he is as great as they say he is, his chains won’t slow him much if he manages to lay hands on a sword. The gods know Ser Cleos Frey won’t be any help. Best to keep an eye open at all times. She swore an oath to Lady Catelyn, she must bring her Sansa and Arya.
Every second is a torture. His hand is gone, yet he feels horrible pain where it used to be— where it feels like it still is. This excruciating ache overpowers all the rest, his parched mouth, empty stomach, weak body. They make him drink horse piss but he barely hears their roars of laughter. His flesh is rotting, both his missing hand which they tied around his neck, a constant reminder of his loss, and his arm, where the wound is festering. The awful smell is ever present, and Jaime’s too weak to keep down food or to stand astride a horse, he’s lost control of his bowels. He’s dying.
Throughout the entirety of the nightmare, Brienne is here, tied to him. The pain is too overwhelming in the moment to pay attention to details; but on the rare moments when he thinks back on those wretched days, he remembers. A constant presence at his back (or front when they have the hilarious idea of tying them face to face). She is the gentle hand to clean him, hold him up, stop him from falling to the ground whenever she can. The voice entreating him to eat when life feels too bleak and despair taints everything gray. Jaime. You must live. He’d like to get angry at her, to reply scathingly. He doesn’t have the energy, doesn’t want to, really. She doesn’t deserve it.
It’s only later that he realizes it, as well: she no longer calls him ‘Kingslayer’, her lips twisting in a grimace over the disdainful moniker. No, it’s Jaime now, the familiarity hard-won through less than agreeable circumstances. He likes it. The thought is scrapped as soon as it comes to his mind; who cares how Brienne of Tarth calls him?
Brienne never expected to find herself naked in a tub with Ser Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer— equally devoid of clothes (and, oh, she’d never really experienced desire before this day— it’s truly astonishing how beautiful he looks despite his state). The situation is awkward to say the least— until he starts talking about the Mad King.
He tells her all about the deed that changed his life forever — burdened him with a name he hates, a reputation of ruthless oathbreaker that he does not deserve. He spews out his disgust for all the hypocrisy of the people, glad to be rid of the Mad King and glad someone did it for them. Glad to accuse him of treachery and breaking his vows when he saved their lives.
He’s not the man they all say he is. Brienne has already realised this before he tells her about Aerys, of course. He saved her from being raped by the Bloody Mummers. He’s not the monster they depict. He might have been a good man. He is, she feels, there is honour ingrained deep down in his being but he’s lost all illusions of what being a knight should mean. He mocked her own naïve conceptions, but she knows now he used to be like her, before he joined the Kingsguard and found himself serving Aerys II Targaryen, a front row spectator to the cruelty of the king they despise him for slaying.
She feels, bizarrely, somewhat protective of him. She’s been taking care of him as well as she could since they cut off his hand; when he faints in the bath— he’s still greatly weakened despite the care he’s been given — she catches him and calls for help. She owes Lady Catelyn to get him safely to King’s Landing in exchange for her daughters, but she owes it to him, too. He doesn’t deserve to die.
Even days after he went back to Harrenhal and got her out of the bear pit, there’s still a confused light in Brienne’s astonishingly blue eyes whenever she looks at Jaime. He ignores it, and doesn’t offer any further explanation. He hasn’t told her about the details of his dream, leaving her with a quizzical I dreamed of you. Clearly, she has no idea what he meant, and, to be fair, how could she? He might have been jesting for all she knows. He doesn’t think she believes he had a wet dream about her, though he must admit the idea is less ridiculous than it once was. Ever since the bath in Harrehal— he feels his cock stir at the thought of her naked body. Water sluicing in droplets down her strong thighs and long legs, her pale, freckled skin— He immediately chastises himself for thinking about it. Cersei. It’s Cersei I should be thinking about. He pictures his sister’s lean body, her small and delicate frame so unlike— no, he shouldn’t be thinking about her at all. She’s homely, broad, awkward, she looks nothing like Cersei— the woman he loves. His twin. His mirror. His own soul, in a separate body. She misses him, he knows it, she longs for him just as he longs for her. He’ll see her again, soon, and he’ll fulfill his promise to Catelyn Stark, send Brienne away with her precious daughters, and his life will be back to normal.
When they finally arrive at the Red Keep and run into Ser Loras Tyrell, Brienne suddenly remembers everyone is convinced she murdered Renly. The thought is laughable, and she can see it on Jaime’s face, but how can she defend herself when there was no witness other than herself but Lady Catelyn, who is far away and unable to come to her help? She tries anyway.
“There was a shadow. I know how mad it sounds, but… I was helping Renly into his armor, and the candles blew out and there was blood everywhere. It was Stannis, Lady Catelyn said. His… his shadow. I had no part in it, on my honor…”
It sounds like a feeble, pitiful excuse even to her own ears, but it’s the truth. She has no choice but to try and tell it, make them listen to her. (To no avail, of course. No one would ever believe her. She’s afflicted by the double curse of being a woman and being ugly. Loras is certain that she is a traitor, and she can’t do anything to change his mind.)
Jaime tries to come to her aid, sprinkling insults in the middle as is his wont; clearly, he at least doesn’t believe she did it— the idea is, admittedly, ridiculous to anyone who knows her even the slightest bit. Still, she’s comforted by the thought that he believes her, strangely warmed by his praise of her honour. He manages to stop Loras from seeking revenge on the spot.
He ultimately commands to have her locked up in a cell. She can’t help feeling betrayed for a moment, seeking his gaze in desperation. He looks back, something she can’t quite grasp glinting in his green eyes. She lets herself be led away.
Seeing King’s Landing again, despite the initial rush it brought him, isn’t as fulfilling as Jaime expected. The death of Joffrey is certainly partly responsible for it, of course. He argues with his sister, has a fall out with his father (and gets a pleasant You are not my son as a parting present), and has yet to see his brother again, as Tyrion is imprisoned while awaiting his trial for the murder of his nephew. Cersei insists he did it; Jaime is unconvinced to say the least. His siblings have never been shy with their hatred of each other, but he’d never believed they could ever let it win over their attachment to their family, to him, who loves them both. He feels… rather lonely. Which is strange: his dearest wish for the past two years has been granted, he’s finally back to his sister. And yet—
And yet, he feels more alone than he has since rotting in his pitch black cell in the dungeons of Riverrun, bathing in the smell of his own shit. Traipsing through the forest with Brienne seems almost pleasant when he thinks back on it. (And his hand. He still had his hand. How he longs for it…) In a very bizarre way, he nearly misses it. He had a purpose, he knew where he was going. He was ready to do anything to reach King’s Landing. Now that he’s succeeded, he’s not so sure what he is to do anymore. He’s told his father he intended to be Lord Commander of the Kingsguard; he’s relinquished his inheritance. It’s fine. He never truly wanted to be heir to Casterly Rock. But the tensions with his sister and brother have made it all the more complicated, a twisted tangle of strings he has neither the patience nor the skill to unravel without breaking them apart.
For now, he focuses on the Kingsguard. Most of his sworn brothers are unreliable to say the least; he needs to ensure Tommen’s safety and get them back in line.
Another of the few things he’s certain about is keeping his promise to Catelyn Stark. He can’t just give her back her daughters as was originally intended, obviously— one of them is dead and the other has very recently disappeared. Just his luck. He sends Brienne to find her for him, taking care to give her everything he can think of that she may need: horse, gold, a safe-conduct bearing King Tommen’s seal, and his brand new Valyrian steel sword. Oathkeeper. Perhaps its name may bring her luck. He cares more for her than he realised, ugly and stubborn and exhaustingly honourable and ever truthful and loyal to her core. It’s a strange feeling. He’s not used to caring about anyone other than his family. He trusts her, in a way he trusts very few — if any? — people. If Sansa Stark is alive, Brienne will find her.
It would appear to be the easiest solution but she can’t do it. She can’t. She can’t possibly kill Jaime. The same words repeat in her mind as she rides as fast as she can towards him. She would feel pleased about seeing him again if she wasn’t burdened by such a revolting task. There is no way out, though— she can’t let Podrick and Ser Hyle Hunt die. So she rides ahead, getting nearer and nearer to Jaime and his host, and she still can’t decide what to do. Can she really bring him to Lady Stoneheart and watch him die before her eyes? The mere thought is painful, no, no, she can’t. Jaime’s not exactly innocent, but he doesn’t deserve to die, and he is innocent of the crime Lady Stoneheart wants him dead for. Lady Stoneheart is only a shade of who Catelyn Stark was; the real Lady Catelyn would have listened when Brienne told her that Jaime is honourable, that he’s been keeping his oath to her.
Must she abandon Ser Hyle and sweet young Podrick? Their only wrong doing is choosing to accompany her in her quest for Sansa. She feels responsible for their fate. If they die, it will be by her hand. But I can’t do that to Jaime, she thinks. He trusts me. I can’t betray him. I can’t lie to him. Can’t she, though? Save two lives by forsaking one? Protect the weak and the innocent as any true knight would? She should. She should, but she can’t see Jaime die, it’s not right, nor just, she couldn’t bear it— he’s much too dear to her. He deserves her loyalty. She won’t betray him thus, she will not— but can she live knowing she let Pod and Ser Hyle die?
She’s still torn and utterly undecided when she catches sight of torchlights and Lannister banners ahead and slows down to a trot.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what Jaime feels upon seeing Brienne again. He barely even has time to think about it; she seems bent on urgency. She’s barely said a word since they left, she doesn’t even look at him. He understands she’s in a stressful situation but she could at least answer his pressing questions with more than monosyllables. They settle into a tense silence when his umpteenth attempt to prompt more than a few words from her falls flat. He observes her face as they ride towards Sansa Stark and the Hound; takes in her scarred cheek, her lips, pursed tight, her clouded blue eyes, her features twisted in a permanent frown. Slowly, he realises he’s mistaken: ever since he saw her, he’s thought her tense, maybe angry with him, but that’s not it. Her face is pure agony.
“Brienne, what is the matter?” he asks, his tone urgent, unable to help himself.
Her gaze flicks towards him and just as quickly evades him. He pulls on Honor’s reins. When she realises he’s stopped, she turns around and trots back towards him.
“What is it?” he repeats.
She avoids his gaze.
“Brienne?”
“I— I lied to you, ser.”
He frowns. She still refuses to look at him.
“You’re not taking me to Sansa?”
She visibly cringes, her broad shoulders hunched.
“No. I haven’t found her yet.”
He doesn’t understand. She came with a false pretext to lure him… somewhere, to some foe of his or of his house, no doubt, but she’s spilling it all to him now? They’ve only been gone from his camp for a short while.
“Where are you taking me, then?” he asks.
“To Lady Stoneheart.”
He listens as she unravels the tale of her journey from King’s Landing, telling him about Maidenpool and Podrick Payne and Ser Hyle Hunt and Nimble Dick and the three Mummers she found instead of the Stark girl and killed; then the inn with all the orphans, and the other Mummers she’d fought on her own; waking up injured and meeting Lady Stoneheart: Catelyn Stark brought back to life and thirsty for revenge.
“She seeks out all those who took part in the Red Wedding, and she hangs them after some semblance of a judgement. She was threatening to kill Podrick and Ser Hyle, and myself, too, if I did not bring you to be killed. I tried to tell her you were innocent, that you’d sent me to seek Sansa, but she refused to listen. She says I betrayed her, for you. She made me choose between the noose and killing you, and I tried to avoid making the choice, but she was going to kill Pod and Ser Hyle, and I—”
Tears are brimming in her blue eyes now and Jaime can only stare at her in shock.
“You defended me?” he whispers, cutting short her stammered attempts at an apology.
“I— yes, of course I did,” she answers, looking confused.
He shakes his head, a smile gracing his lips. Only Brienne of Tarth would go to those lengths for him; only Brienne of Tarth would consider it so natural. Had it been anyone but her, he’d be long dead.
“You want to save your companions?”
She nods.
“They’re innocent, Jaime, they’re about to be killed because of me. Podrick is only a boy, he can’t be any older than four and ten.”
He can’t help his smile at her use of his name, especially welcome after her stiff ‘my lord’ and rigid ‘ser’. Her face is earnest. He’d missed her, he realises.
“Listen, Brienne, here’s what we shall do.”
Brienne is wounded, but it’s only a scratch on her side, nothing compared to the excruciating pain when Biter’s attack had broken her arm and ripped out her flesh. She feels almost giddy, really, high on the feeling of being alive; they’ve escaped, Jaime and Podrick and Ser Hyle are all safe and sound at her side!
Later, she’ll feel guilty for betraying Jaime and risking his life, but for now she just feels light. They’re alive, they got out, only slightly worse for the wear, and Jaime’s there, by her side, just as beautiful as ever and almost unharmed. Almost. He’s limping, he’s got a split lip and a dark bruise on his cheekbone; he’s also gripping his golden hand with a constant grimace. She feels guilty, she knows it’s her doing that got him in that state, but all she can think of is that he is alive and so are Podrick and Ser Hyle and even herself. She doesn’t know what will happen next; certainly he’ll go back to his host and from there to King’s Landing and his sister, but they are heading in the opposite direction for now and he hasn’t said a word about it. She just wants to hang on to him for as long as she can, before he’s taken from her and she possibly never sees him again.
“Stop fidgeting, I can’t do it properly if you’re moving,” he tells Brienne, laying his hand flat on her stomach to immobilize her. He’s trying to change the bandage of the (thankfully rather shallow, her talent with a blade is still remarkable) wound at her flank, a task already difficult considering he only has one hand — and is fairly distracted by the expanse of her bare, freckled skin. She jumps at his touch; he looks down and sees he’s inadvertently used his stump. He immediately pulls back, tries to hide it from her, but she catches his arm and pulls it to her body.
“I’m sorry, it’s just— I wasn’t expecting it.”
He looks up, meets her guileless sapphire eyes.
It dawns upon him like a new day: he wants her. He’s attracted to her.
Having lived for more than twenty years devoted to his twin sister, the realisation is nothing short of life-shattering. Brienne doesn’t even resemble Cersei! They are nothing alike, Jaime shouldn’t feel that way for a woman he initially despised and thought naïve and stupid and hardly better-looking than a cow; and yet—
And yet, she has the most beautiful eyes Jaime’s ever seen, and the sight of her body (he remembers her naked form in the bath at Harrenhal with an involuntarily dreamy sigh) prompts ludicrous and strangely specific thoughts such as he wants to lick down the strong column of her neck and bite into her broad shoulders, wants to kiss every single freckle on her large body, wants her to smother him with her powerful thighs as he loses himself between them, wants to feel her fingers pulling at his hair and pull her down by the neck to kiss her with abandon. He’s imagined it a thousand times, each fantasy more improper than the precedent; he’s thought about the taste of her mouth, of her cunt, the feel of her nipple under his lips. He’s wondered about the noises she would make, dreamt of hearing her moan his name in his ear and push him down on her bed to straddle him.
It’s even worse than mere physical attraction, he realises right after, bewildered: he wants to murmur sweet assurances of his love in her ear, whisper some not-so-innocent suggestions that would provoke that aggressive red blush he relishes; he wants to melt into the tenderness of her gaze, wants to make her laugh just to delight in her cackles. He’s thoroughly smitten with her. It’s a very unexpected discovery, but the more and more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes. It feels right, righter than many things in Jaime’s life. It’s not even quite exact to call it a discovery; a part of him already knew it, since that dream he’d had after leaving her in Harrenhal.
The only woman he’s ever loved, the only woman he’s ever desired, is Cersei. What does it mean that Brienne is nothing like his sister, yet he yearns for her so desperately? Perhaps it’s precisely because they’re so different; perhaps not— he’s not in love with Brienne merely because she’s so unlike his twin. Cersei is akin to a peach: she’s all soft and exquisite on the surface, but dig deeper and you’ll find a hard, bitter pit: at her core, she’s harsh and ruthless, determined to get what she wants— at all costs. Her love for power and control far exceeds her love for Jaime, something he’s been blind to his whole life and has only recently realised. Brienne is very much her opposite. Despite her tall and strong frame, she’s gentle and tender-hearted; she is, much like Jaime, quite uninterested in power and the manipulations and shenanigans that take place day and night at the Red Keep. He’s tired of it, tired of having to keep up appearances, tired of spies and whispers, tired of being a mere pawn in his sister’s plots for power, just as he’d been for his father.
“Jaime? Are you all right?”
Brienne’s voice bursts through his thoughts. He meets her concerned blue gaze, gives her a faint smile and wonders. If he confessed his feelings for her, what would she say? Would she requite them? Would she reject him? She used to despise him, but that’s long gone, just as his own disdain of her has waned; he has several reasons to think she considers him handsome, but would it be enough? Can she love him? Can anyone? The only ones who did were Cersei and Tyrion. Tyrion now hates him for lying about Tysha and Cersei… Cersei is complicated to say the least.
What if it’s the same with Brienne? What if she thinks she loves him and eventually discovers that she only loved her idea of him? What if she loves the real him but he eventually turns out to be too much for her? She doesn’t seem to care that he only has one hand, unlike Cersei; unlike her, she’s also never called him stupid. She’s seen him at his worst, knows all about his worst actions, too— but can it be enough?
“Jaime?” she calls again, the edge of worry in her tone more apparent now.
“I’m fine,” he says, much less brusquely than he once might have. “Just thinking.”
She seems to sense that he’s not inclined to provide more details and doesn’t prod further. She still seems to harbor guilt for what she views as a betrayal— bringing him to Lady Stoneheart. She remains obstinately heedless whenever he argues that without her, he wouldn’t have escaped alive. You shouldn’t have been there in the first place, she retorts.
He focuses on her wound, wrapping it in a clean bandage. She shivers at his touch; he immediately stills, worried he’s hurt her. Looking up into her eyes, he finds himself frozen in place by her gaze. Bright, pure, sapphire blue.
“Jaime,” she murmurs, her hand making its way to his hair, and he finds himself leaning in to press his lips to hers.
Brienne is kissing a man for the first time in her life, and that man is Jaime Lannister. She barely dares believe it. Surely, this is just another dream. Yet his lips feel real on hers, she can taste him on her tongue, his hair feels like silk under her fingers, his hand is laying on the back of her neck, she’s vaguely aware of the distant ache of the wound at her side. When they pull apart, their breath short, the eyes that stare back at her are the very same emerald green as those of the prisoner whom she’d seen when she’d escorted Lady Catelyn to the dungeons of Riverrun. The mouth that was just pressed to hers is the same that spewed insults at her all across the Riverlands. She blinks; that man wanted nothing to do with her, he can’t have just kissed her. But he’s no longer that man, and those green irises hold none of the edge that used to sharpen them. Instead, he looks at her with something very close to awe tangled with desire, a smile twisting his lips. He’s no longer the Kingslayer, or even Ser Jaime Lannister: he’s Jaime, he cares for her (if she’d doubted it before, all her uncertainties were washed away by his anxious care for her injury) and oh, how she loves him. She smiles back at him and he strokes her scarred cheek. She feels her face heat; his fond grin widens.
“Now, now, Brienne, no need to be shy,” he murmurs. “Must I remind you we’ve seen each other naked?”
The memory warms her cheeks further.
“Jaime, you—”
He cuts her off with another kiss. She welcomes his embrace eagerly.