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“Tyrion,” Jaime tells his brother as he works on placing the cupcakes on the table, good thing he can do that with one fully functioning hand only, “are you aware that the moment those kids can read for themselves and notice that the bloody shoes are silver and not ruby they’ll feel betrayed?”
“Excuse me,” Tyrion replies from the other side of the room where he’s fixing books around the chair where he usually sits while doing his volunteer work, “do I have to remind you that you felt betrayed when you read that book after seeing the movie and you were outraged that the shoes were silver and not ruby because ruby was our color and Dorothy was actually your damned favorite character?”
Jaime groans – as if he needed Tyrion to inform the other half of the staff who’s fixing things around for the Winter’s End party they’re supposed to be throwing to the kids in the Shadowblack Lane group home. A few people are snickering and some others are pretending they didn’t hear, but the damage is done.
Ah well, it’s Tyrion’s problem.
He keeps on fixing the cupcakes, figuring that he’ll worry about doing his job – at least whenever he comes here he does feel marginally better about himself. He looks down at his right hand – figures that this wouldn’t change in between Old Westeros and now, would it? – and sighs all over again. You’d think that if you’re given second chances you also would get the nice things, not just the shitty ones, but for now in between the hand, Aerys and his sister, he’s hitting all the jackpots when it comes to the worst part of your previous life.
And Tyrion was right when he dragged him here to help him out – he used to want to parent his children back in the day, and he’s not having much of a chance now, and apparently he’s very popular when it comes to cheering kids up around here even if no one would have bet on it (except for Tyrion), and he just hopes this party stars soon so he can just mingle and stop thinking about the three lost calls from Cersei yesterday.
One day she will understand he’s not in any way, shape or form interested in defying the universe by being with her even if they’re not soulmates – as if he needed a confirmation of that.
He steps back from the table – it’s covered in food. Mistletoe is hanging on the walls, there’s a large basket with presents for hopefully everyone – it’s some forty-five kids, no thanks to their father’s cuts on the foster care funds, and they actually had it better in the South than in the North.
There’s a reason why Jaime doesn’t talk to him either, these days.
He shakes his head, heads for the bathroom figuring that if he goes about that business now he most likely won’t need to take trips there for the rest of the evening, and as he leaves he runs into Jorah Mormont, the director, who as far as Jaime’s aware, hasn’t remembered his previous life in Westeros but who’s also apparently exceedingly good at this job.
“Mr. Mormont,” he says, nodding.
“Mr. Lannister. I was wondering, would you mind giving Miss Heddle a hand in the kitchen? Oh, shit –”
“Don’t worry, I’m the first one making such jokes. Sure, as long as it’s nothing that needs two hands. Wasn’t her mother supposed to be there, too?”
“She caught a fever,” Mormont groans. “I need more paid staff instead of relying on volunteers, but who has the money? Anyway, she just needs some help bringing drinks over and such after she’s mixed them, if you can carry a tray that’s about it.”
“I can carry a tray,” he confirms. “I’ll go there then.”
“Thanks,” Mormont tells him. “And have a nice holiday.”
“This is as far as my celebrations go this year,” Jaime shrugs, “but it’s fine, I’m good with it. Same to you.”
He shrugs and heads for the kitchen, where Jeyne Heddle – the daughter of one of the few people actually paid to work here, but she comes when she’s needed on top of occasionally volunteering – is mixing alcohol-free drinks for the people older than sixteen attending this party.
“Hello,” she tells him. “And where did you find that sweater?”
Jaime looks down on it.
It’s horrible, admittedly – it’s ruby-red with snowflakes crocheted over the chest. A horrible one, for that matter.
“It was a mock-gift from Tyrion and I realized I had put all the other ones in the wash this morning. And it’s fucking cold. So –”
“Mr. Lannister, you should be glad you’re the kind of person who’d pull off wearing a trash bag,” she laughs. “And that wasn’t me coming on to you.”
Jaime snorts. “Well, thanks for the objectivity.”
He was about to make some more small talk, but then he hears noise from the other side.
“Right, they probably let the children in the room,” he says. “Just take your time, I’m going to go in when they’re all sitting down.”
“A sound plan,” Jeyne agrees as she pours her mix of orange and pineapple juice in cheap champagne glasses. He waits until she’s done and she has a tray with some twelve glasses on it.
“You can come back for the next one when you’re done. Oh, and there should be a tray with more empty glasses on the table, can you bring it over?”
“Roger that. See you in a bit.” He grabs the tray – he’s good enough with the fake right hand that he can balance this shit, thank you very much, and he walks into the main room.
The children are indeed all sitting around Tyrion’s small shrine in the library and the way to the table with the drinks is all clear.
“ – ‘the ruby shoes,’ said the Good Witch, "have wonderful powers. And one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in the wink of an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go’,” Tyrion’s reading out loud as Jaime walks by quickly. Well, he does have all the kids enraptured, doesn’t he? At least they’re having some fun, Jaime thinks bitterly as he reaches the table, deposits his tray and carefully picks up the next one, with twelve more empty glasses. He supposes that since last time he just had the ending left, he’s going to start reading them the sequel since it’s not going to take him long to finish the whole thing.
“‘If that is so,’ said the child joyfully, "I will ask them to carry me back to Kansas at once’,” Tyrion keeps on – Jaime can hear someone clapping in the audience. That’s – that’s fairly heartwarming, given that none of these kids have a Kansas to go back to, he thinks sadly.
“She threw her arms around the Lion's neck and kissed him, patting his big head tenderly. Then she kissed the Tin Woodman, who was weeping in a way most dangerous to his joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed body of the Scarecrow in her arms instead of kissing his painted face, and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her loving comrades,” Tyrion reads on as Jaime turns back and heads towards the kitchen. He figures he only has two more trips to go and then he can come here and see how Tyrion’s going to spin the sequels, and patience if he wishes everything was as easy as clapping your heels together and going back to Kansas instead of your empty apartment deleting your twin’s calls.
Maybe he’s just going to hang around the place as long as he can, this year he really doesn’t feel like being on his own at Winter’s End (Tyrion’s leaving for a holiday with a few friends tomorrow and Jaime really wants him to have a life outside worrying about him or work, so he’s not tagging along). Sounds good, he thinks, and then as Tyrion’s voice raises – because he’s getting to a climax, after all –
- Glinda the Good stepped down from her ruby throne to give the little girl a good-bye kiss, and Dorothy thanked her for all the kindness she had shown to her friends and herself. Dorothy now took Toto up solemnly in her arms, and having said one last good-bye she clapped the heels of her shoes together three times, saying: “Take me home to Aunt Em!” –
he doesn’t check that the road is clear and he turns to look at Tyrion for a moment and he crashes against someone and he loses his grip on the damned tray and everything smashes on the ground along with the cheap plates the other person was carrying in their grip and he barely even looks at the person he crashed into before grasping at their wrist in order to not fall in the middle of broken glass and –
And then he sees a pair of blue eyes that he’s dreamed about for a helluva long time staring straight into his as a pair of large, rough hands closes around his arms, keeping him on his feet, and oh gods oh gods it’s her it has to be her, and his skin is feeling on fire and his fingers are clamped around her wrist and –
“Ser Jaime I am grateful, but… you were well away. Why come back?”
“I dreamed of you.”
He immediately lets her go, the memory coming to the surface all over again, as if he hasn’t relieved that moment over and over again for years hoping he’d run into her at some point, because of course Cersei never was his soulmate, and given how much he’s aching to touch her again he knows why.
Because –
Because it had to be Brienne all along, hadn’t it?
He doesn’t know what she’s doing here or why they never ran into each other before, but who cares? He takes a good look at her. She’s wearing short hair in this modern era, and it suits her – she’s not any prettier, though at least her cheek wasn’t mauled by anyone, thankfully, her nose obviously hasn’t been broken thrice in this life (maybe one, though) and she’s wearing sensible jeans and a ruby-red sweater without horrible snowflakes, and for a moment Jaime thinks, what if she doesn’t remember anything, but –
But they were bonding.
He knows they were, his skin is still tingling all along, and her freckled cheeks are flushing, and she’s looking at him as if she is the one just waking up from a dream, and –
They’re standing under some mistletoe.
What a chance, Jaime thinks, his lips breaking out in a tentative smile. He also knows his brother has stopped reading and everyone else must be staring at them, and –
Oh, fuck this noise, really.
“Hey, wench,” he says, “how much time has it been, centuries?” He asks, and then he takes a step closer and she doesn’t move as he puts his hands on her face and kisses her.
For a moment she stands still and he thinks that maybe he should have thought this through, but then she makes a noise and throws her arms around his shoulders and kisses him back with enough strength he almost falls on his back, which would be a bad idea because hey, glass, right, and so he holds her back and caresses her lips with his tongue and he’s utterly delighted when she parts her lips and lets his tongue find hers and meanwhile he’s feeling warm all along and he’s being hit by a series of images – Brienne looking for Sansa in Westeros, Brienne studying for her psychology PhD, Brienne fighting off bandits a lifetime ago, Brienne confessing her feelings to Renly Baratheon in high school just before she remembered Old Westeros and and then thinking I was such an idiot, if only I remembered before, of course it couldn’t be Renly, because it had to be –
It had to be him –
She leans back, and he sees that she’s about to cry.
“Jaime, gods – you never do things halfway, don’t you?”
“’Course I don’t,” he smiles. “I’ve been waiting to run into you for almost my entire bloody life, I don’t like to waste time.”
“You – you asshole, you couldn’t know if I remembered already or not,” she says, but her pretty blue eyes are tearing up in happiness, so he’s fairly sure she didn’t mean it.
“Don’t even, it took me a look to know. So, fancy doing that again?”
“Jaime, we’re in front of –”
“Hey, kids, should I kiss my soulmate again or should I wait?” Jaime shouts as he turns towards their audience, who is all staring at them with fairly enthralled faces.
“Kiss her,” most of them shout, and some others shout something fairly more explicit, fuck, you shouldn’t be this explicit at eight, and so he does, and Brienne doesn’t even resist, and he can hear Tyrion muttering something about Jaime always stealing the spotlight, but honestly?
He can’t give a fuck.
--
Eventually, they have to part and clean up, though thankfully everyone else in the staff is more amused at the fact that they found each other so dramatically rather than being pissed that they broke that much stuff – Jaime gives Mormont a check and tells him to please buy everything back, honestly, and after the kids get their presents they finally end up sitting next to each other in a corner while everyone else opens them and his brother starts reading the sequel of the Wizard of Oz for anyone who might be willing to hear it.
“So,” he says, “you’re their psychologist?”
“Yes,” she confirms, “but I’ve just been transferred from White Harbor. I’ve only been here a month.”
“Transferred? Why?”
“The place closed down.”
He groans. “I hate my fucking father. Of course he goes cutting funds for their foster homes.”
“Well, he’s not you, I see. As always,” she says, her voice way softer than it used to be back in the day. He lets her touch the fake hand he keeps under a black glove – no point in shying away from letting strangers even notice it.
“Sorry to see it happened here, too,” she sighs, her fingers wrapping around his wrist.
“I guess some things never change,” he sighs. “At least I remembered early enough which was only a good thing.”
“Oh. Because –”
“Please, if I hadn’t I’d have ended up buying into whatever bullshit Cersei might’ve cooked up to justify the fact that we aren’t soulmates and that it was plenty obvious from the beginning.”
“She tried?”
“She did and – yeah. Good thing I already knew,” he says, drinking his sans-alcohol cocktail. “Sorry about Renly, by the way.”
“Please. I guess that was what made me remember things, but if I had before I wouldn’t have even bothered.”
Then her hand tentatively covers his left, their fingers tangling, and Jaime holds it back, and he can only think, finally.
“Hey,” he tells her, “any plans this Winter's End?”
She shakes her head. “I have an empty apartment, mails to send to whoever takes on the kids I had to leave in White Arbor, if they’re given a psychologist, and some eggnog in the fridge, but that’s about it.”
“What a coincidence,” he says, “I have an apartment full of crap I should throw out but otherwise empty, absolutely nothing to do until my next volunteering turn starts and that’d be at what, New Year’s, and excellent-quality eggnog in the fridge. How about you come over to my place and send your e-mails before we consume the good quality alcohol and catch up on lost time?”
“I think,” she says, “that given that all the people I had to contact until now were assholes, they can wait for the e-mails until the holidays are over and we can move straight to the good alcohol.”
“I like that,” he smirks, and kisses her again, and she goes with it at once – shit, her lips are soft and she’s definitely not losing time here. Not that he minds.
“You know what,” he hums, “I like that you already remembered everything. Though I wouldn’t have been against wooing you all over again.”
“You’re such an idiot,” she says, her cheeks turning redder, but has anyone ever looked at him this fondly, at least in this life?
(But even in the previous one, for that matter?)
“Never said I wasn’t, but has that ever stopped you?”
“No,” she admits. “I can’t believe you didn’t even wait for me to say anything before doing your ridiculous grand gesture. Who even does something like that in real life?”
“Hey, there were no men like me then and there are no men like me now. And we’re sitting under some more mistletoe, by the way.”
She rolls her eyes and moves a hand to his face before kissing him again, and again, and they’re probably being ridiculous and it might be a side-effect of meeting in their late twenties and not having bonded earlier, but who even gives a fucking damn. He feels like he could spend an entire week doing just this.
And then –
“But why are your brother and Miss Tarth kissing if they didn’t know each other?” He hears one of the kids ask Tyrion, and how old can she be? Six? Maybe no one explained her the whole soulmates business, even if people usually do know at that age.
Tyrion downright smirks.
“You know how Dorothy really wanted to go back to Kansas and used her precious ruby slippers to get there?”
“Yes.”
“I think Miss Tarth is his Kansas. And they had ruby sweaters instead, but the idea is the same, isn’t it?”
The girl is now staring at them with dreamy eyes and Jaime is going to – he doesn’t know what, but Tyrion isn’t getting away from this scot-free.
“Jaime,” Brienne says, “let’s just make it clear now. I know he will start referencing this until he dies, so I’m not calling you Dorothy if you never call me Kansas or something, agreed?”
“Absolutely agreed,” he answers at once – like hell he wants to be stuck with that nickname all his life, even if –
Well, even if the comparison wasn’t too wrong, he thinks as he leans down and kisses her all over again.
--
“But look at you,” Cersei says as she walks up to Brienne, and Jaime wants to fucking die inside.
He didn’t even want to come to the bloody Winter’s End family gathering, he didn’t attend for years, but now that they’re about to move North his aunt insisted for him to come and he kind of did want to see her and Addam, so he accepted, and of course his father wasn’t too pleased with his partner choice but it’s not like he can say anything when she’s his soulmate and they haven’t even talked properly for years, and Cersei’s livid.
That’s also probably the reason why Brienne’s had about three glasses of red wine since she set foot in here – she already feels uncomfortable in the red dress she’s wearing which fits her more than gowns used to back in the day, but is still not her kind of garment (but it was required by the rules, gods, who even has rules for how to dress for Winter’s End? His fucking family, that’s who), and she’s only stuck to talking to Tyrion and Addam, which was a very good choice on her part, and now she’s definitely at least tipsy given that the moment she had seen Cersei coming she had finished her glass at once.
“Cersei,” she says, trying to sound polite and kind of failing – it’s obvious that she wants to be somewhere else and that’s not just because Cersei is looking at her as if she wants her to be obliterated from the face of the planet right now.
She’s probably thinking about Old Westeros, isn’t she?
“I see that it’s been two thousand years but you still look like a freak of nature, my lady,” Cersei says, and Jaime about groans out loud, or loud enough that the people around him hear as he mutters, please don’t.
Cersei has to be drunk, too, he decides.
Except that Brienne just stares down at her and shrugs, and then –
“I made peace with it a long time ago. I see you didn’t make peace with your Elektra complex though, or haven’t you? Because that so doesn’t look like it.”
“My what?” Cersei blurts as Tyrion about doubles up laughing and Brienne’s face goes as red as her dress, the moment she realizes what she’s just said.
Then she clears her throat, and Jaime figures she realized she has to finish that statement.
“It’s the same thing as Oedipus complex, just, the other way around. Maybe you should read some Freud sometime,” Brienne blurts, immediately grabbing more wine from one of the waiters passing by.
Cersei just stares at her without moving, and Jaime decides that it’s high time he and Brienne find a more secluded place, and that’s why he’s near enough to hear it when Brienne leans down and says, low enough that others might not hear, “It means wanting to have sex with your relatives might not be very healthy and you should really see someone about it,” and Jaime has to stop and break down laughing so hard that he cries, and by the time he’s more or less put himself back together Cersei’s stomped away and Brienne is looking down at her half-empty glass in complete embarrassment.
“Damn, why did I drink?”
“Are you serious? That was – oh gods, I’ll laugh about it for the next ten years,” he says, grabbing her arm and leading her out of the room. “Honestly, she deserved it. Maybe she will see someone, it’d be just good for her,” he says, and finally they’re out in the hallway.
He’s about to tell her that maybe they should go to his old room and hide there for the rest of the night, and then his eyes fall to her shoes.
Right. She’s wearing red flats, the same rich red as her dress, but then again they came as a pair. He starts laughing again.
“What’s so funny about this entire situation?” She asks.
“You’re wearing ruby shoes, Brienne,” he snorts. “I’m sure Tyrion’s been dying of laughter for the entire evening.”
“Hey, in theory you should be the one clapping the heels, not me, if I remember that dumb comparison right,” she says, but she’s also smiling back at him.
“Hm, fair. Too bad I already am in Kansas, I think,” and he doesn’t let her complain about him having actually used that comparison when he said he wouldn’t, and he kisses her right against the wall, and they don’t find his room for a long time.
But it’s all right. He might be home, technically, but Casterly was never Kansas to him.
Right now?
Right now, as he tastes excessively expensive red wine on her tongue and she kisses back as eagerly as the first time they did it both in this life and in the previous one, he’s thinking that there’s no place like home, indeed.
End.