Work Text:
The battle of Winterfell is lost. The armies of the living are quickly overrun by the dead, pushed back to the gates of Winterfell to guard its walls. Then they are pushed back to the inner walls, and finally into the Keep. At every step they have been decimated, and decimated again. Their ranks and formations slowly fall to pieces in the face of an endless and implacable enemy.
Separated from much of their troops in the chaos, Brienne and Jaime brace themselves against a door together, still trying to keep the dead out of the Keep even after all these retreats. What remains of her command are taking up positions inside, inspired by their tireless commander and prepared to fight to the end. Brienne insists still on staying to the front, and Jaime has stayed with her through every retreat. Though the battle has lasted all of a day and into a night, and they both shake with fatigue, they are still fighting. Either of them alone might have dropped from physical exhaustion, but they would not fail each other. Their combined strength holds the door shut despite the steady pounding outside and grants a few minutes of respite.
Face to face, breathing hard, they finally get a good look at each other. There’s blood all across Brienne’s face, dripping from a deep cut across her forehead, and Jaime’s left eye is swollen nearly shut. They’ve lost a few bits of armor each, pieces either pulled off or too damaged to be of any use, and are covered nearly head to toe in mud, blood, and worse.
It’s been hours since there’s been anything to say, but now they are eye to eye, and if ever they are going to say anything again, it will be now.
Jaime bolsters his legs against the ground, pressing his back against the huge oaken door with all his remaining strength. "We're beaten," he says, once he's caught his breath, stating out loud what has been a foregone conclusion for hours now. “Either Bran’s Night King plan didn’t work, or he isn’t here. No one's seen the Night King.”
“Give it more time,” she answers stubbornly, pressing the palms of her hands into the cold wood.
There’s not much left of that, Jaime might have said, but he doesn’t. Brienne knows it already.
Something sharp stabs through the door and nearly takes one of her fingers off, and then the door pushes in a few inches. Brienne shoves it back, shoulders it shut. She might take a blade in the arm, but she’s not going to let them in.
“Sorry you came?” she says through gritted teeth.
“Not a bit,” he says, without hesitation. “I’m right where I want to be. Where I’ve wanted to be for a long time.”
Her throat tightens. She wishes he wouldn’t say such things now, when it is too late. She wishes he wouldn’t look at her like that, with such naked longing. It shakes her to her foundation, makes her tremble in a place deep inside that she thought was dead and gone.
She focuses on the door, on leaning into it with all her strength. The battle may be lost but she'll be damned before she lets anything overpower her. The wights will breach some other entrance, but not this one. She is determined.
Still some part of her awareness is fixed to Jaime, without needing to look; she knows every move he makes, every twitch, and has for hours now. He too is straining against the door, but at the same time all of him is inclined towards her, and with new intention. He's going to do something. She doesn't know what.
With a tender expression, and slowly enough that she could stop him if she wanted to, he takes her hand.
He takes her hand from the door, carefully, threading his fingers between hers. Pulls her hand towards him, across his body, and presses it to his lips. She feels that kiss with every nerve in her body.
He holds onto her hand and she unravels and the words spool out of her like thread, beyond her ability to stop them.
“You never had to ask me, Jaime. Not to serve with me. I would fight at your side forever. For the rest of our lives, if you would have me.”
His eyes alight at her words, and she has never seen Jaime so purely happy. His joyous expression makes her heart skip a beat, it is so beautiful.
“That may not be very long, but I would have you.” Then he looks fierce. “And who knows. Winterfell may be lost, but I would fight armies for you. I will fight for you to the very last.”
Just before the door finally splinters and they must draw their swords again and fight, there is time enough for a gentle, lingering kiss.
Jaime grabs Brienne by the wrists and pulls at her, where she kneels on the ground. But she is stiff and heavy and will not budge.
“We've lost,” she says, not meeting his eyes, and her voice breaks. “There's no hope.”
It’s Podrick on the ground beside her, Oathkeeper stabbed through his chest. Looking at Podrick tells the story. He has the clammy skin of a wight and a hole in his neck where the blood had spurted out, the same blood that stains Brienne’s face and hair and armor, when she had tried to save him, and failed. And then he had gotten up again, and she had to run him through.
She’s past grieving, past even the point of tears now. Her face is hollow of all feeling, pale and slack, her body slumped and robbed of strength.
“Brienne!” Jaime tries to rouse her - shakes her by the shoulders, even slaps her. Nothing works. He would not have thought anything could break Brienne of Tarth, but the nightmare all around them has done it. All around the living have fallen, their ranks have broken, the women and children are rushing out of the crypts and running from monsters. All the light in the world is gone, and there is nothing left but death.
Then she had to stab Podrick, her own squire, her closest friend and confidante, and it was too much for her. She is too good, and the world is falling to darkness.
He looks over her shoulder. Another wave of them is coming, and he may not be able to hold them off by himself. Their line is retreating without them, and he has to get Brienne on her feet now or she will die.
With increasing desperation, he shouts her name. Louder and louder. But she does not stir now, and will not reply. Perhaps she doesn’t hear him anymore.
Three white walkers approach, leading a swarm of wights, and him only one man, and one hand. He draws his sword and rises to his feet, and it is futility itself. A swordsman with two hands will struggle to best even one White Walker, and here are three. One of them holds a Valyrian steel sword - it looks like Heartsbane, the sword Jorah Mormont had brought into the battle. He must have fallen, and Jaime's one advantage over his opponents is neutralized by that weapon.
They will run right through him, and they will kill Brienne, turn her into a wight, like Pod, like all the others.
“No!” he shouts out, in refusal. “No. No. You can not have her. You can have Winterfell and the North and the whole bloody world, and you can have me, but you will not have her. You will not!”
He throws himself at them like an arrow into a target, blade-first. The ice blades of the first two Walkers shatter after a clever pivot and a diving strike, but the third Walker throws him to the ground with a single blow, and he has to roll back in the snow and away, jumping up to his feet to evade their grasp.
“Brienne!” he calls out again. He doesn't know how long he can occupy them. If she doesn’t react soon, they will both die.
It does not for a moment occur to him to leave her behind.
When his blade is struck from his hands he fights with fists, he uses a knife from his belt, he grasps their ragged clothing and pull them back to keep them away from her, until all three Walkers pin him struggling to the ground and drive a blade through his chest.
When he screams out in pain Brienne’s head whips around at last, eyes as large and round as dinnerplates.
Ser Brienne of Tarth is on them in moments. The scene is hazy to him from where he lies bleeding on the ground, but the outcome is never in doubt. All three White Walkers, cut down in three massive swings of her sword. Look at that, he thinks, looking up at her. Like they were paper dolls. She’s better than I ever was.
He knows then she will live. She will live, and be a legend. And he, Jaime Lannister, will be remembered as the one who knighted her. That will be a grand entry in the White Book for him, after all.
The battlefield around him twists into a white-hot ring of pain that encompasses the entire world, reducing all his awareness to blind agony.
When that recedes, Brienne is dragging him into the Keep. The pain makes him black out briefly, a yawning black pit of nothingness that is mercifully free of pain, and then it cruelly spits him out again. Brienne is leaning him against a stone wall and crying out for help. He doesn't realize that's her at first, that panicked and pleading voice. It seems so unlike her.
Another flare of agony, and then his brother is there, holding his shoulder to the wall so that he doesn't slump over. Also the Dragon Queen’s young handmaiden, whose name he has forgotten, pressing firmly against the wound in his chest and making comforting noises at him.
The air hisses noisily out of his chest when he breathes. It’s hard to concentrate on anything but breathing just now, to make sure he doesn’t stop. He closes his eyes to focus on it, breathing.
Tyrion bends over him worriedly. “Jaime, stop lazing about and wake up.”
The girl (Missandei?) shushes him. He can still hear his brother talking though. Shushing has never worked on him.
“I think the Stranger came for you, and your lady drove Him off,” Tyrion says, trying to sound cheerful.
She could do that, he thinks. He opens his eyes suddenly and looks around for her, worrying. Is she here? Is she whole? Brienne is leaned against the opposite wall, watching him with her eyes wide, and her hands are shaking too wildly to tend to him. She looks terrified. He didn't know she could look like that, frightened.
Tyrion follows Jaime's eyes, and pats him on the shoulder reassuringly. I'll check on her for you.
His brother approaches her carefully, and she looks at him aghast. Tyrion would not accuse her of anything, but she acts as if asking his forgiveness.
“My Lord, your brother… I’m so sorry. Podrick is dead, and Jaime… I should have protected them...” She makes a painful sound like an animal caught in a trap, and wraps her arms around herself. “I failed him, I failed them both. I failed everyone.”
Jaime tries to watch this scene, Tyrion taking her hands and comforting her, but his vision goes blurry. He runs out of air and his limbs spasm with the desperation to breathe.
When his breath returns and he can see again, they have both rushed to his side. Brienne is next to him, on the floor beside him, and she has an arm around his shoulders. That would be a pleasant thing under other circumstances. But the girl is cleaning out his wound and plugging it up with gauze so that the air won’t escape his lungs, and the white ring of pain is settling around him again.
When the searing pain releases him he is panting and shaking, and Brienne is near tears. Tyrion is comforting Brienne, awkwardly, standing at her shoulder. He knows Jaime well enough to know this is what he would want him to do.
Missandei says something in a foreign tongue, frowning at his wound. “You will need your Maester now, this is the best I can do.”
“This is what he wanted,” Tyrion says, sounding a little distraught himself. “He always said he wanted to die in the arms of the woman he loves.”
He can feel Brienne’s breath catch at that, and then she gasps softly, choking on her tears.
“Tyrion,” Jaime forces out with what little breath he has. “Stop making my lady cry.”
Brienne’s expression hardens into a firmer steel then, willing her tears away.
“You… I’m your commander, damn you. I ordered a retreat. I never ordered you to defend me.” She puts her other arm around his neck and leans her face against his shoulder. “You are not dying here. I won’t allow it.”
“As my lady commands,” he says weakly, with a small smile.
She leans over and, through her tears, presses her lips to his.
Brienne stands in a small dim room of Winterfell, in a plain thin shirt. She looks pale and sick, and the left side of her face is covered in bandages. The bed is unmade beside her, and she has only just tottered over to a small table and leans against it, resting. With one hand she gingerly feels at the bandages on her cheek, and grimaces.
She takes a deep breath, and picks up the glass from the table. Considers her reflection a moment, frowning. Then she slowly peels the bandage away.
Much of her cheek is gone. The flesh has been ripped away, torn by the bite of a wight-turned wolf, and her face all around it is raw and red and swollen. The swelling will go down, but it will never really heal. She knows that. This is her face now.
Brienne stares at the awful sight. She has to get used to it. Others will flinch and cringe and if she is going to survive that she will have to be entirely aware of how hideous she is, make it simply a fact and not an insult. She swallows against a lump in her throat and tries to keep her breathing steady. She is not going to cry again. Crying will do no good.
It is vanity to care about this, when she could have lost her sword hand, or her life. And Brienne should not have any vanity at all, not when she was already the ugliest woman alive.
When the doorknob turns she startles, fumbles the glass in her hands. It tips down between her open arms and smashes to the floor. But before she can even react to that her hands are rushing back to her face and smoothing the bandages over it again, hurriedly.
Vanity, she accuses herself again, but it is a relief to hide her face. Especially from the man entering the room now.
Jaime finds her falling down to her hands and knees, gathering up the shards of the broken mirror. She keeps her face turned down to find the pieces, so that he will not see.
He approaches her, she can hear his careful footfalls. “Lady Brienne?”
“Don’t call me that,” she says tightly. She has always let him say it before, but there is no point now. She turns her hand and lets the small pile of shards tumble onto the table next to her.
“Ser Brienne then. How are you feeling?”
“I feel that I wish to be alone,” she says shortly. Brushes her hands to be sure no more shards are sticking there, and stands, drawing herself carefully up to her full height, steadying herself again with one hand.
Her face burns underneath the bandage when she turns to face him. She worries he can see it somehow, even though she has covered it. She isn’t ready for him to see it, doesn’t want to see the expression on his face when he realizes she has gotten even uglier. She would postpone that a little longer, if she can.
He looks concerned. “Do you need anything? Can I --”
She cuts him off. She cannot bear him being courteous and kind, not now. “You can leave.”
Now he’s getting angry. “I only wanted to see how you fared.”
“You want to know how I am?” she snaps back. Gods, what a farce this is. "My Lady" and bows of the head and pulling the chair back for her; it's all a cruel joke, even though he doesn't seem to know it. The joke is on both of them.
Suddenly she doesn’t want to wait anymore, she wants to get it over with. Defiantly she uncovers her face, pulls off the bandage, makes him look at it. “There. See? That's how I fared. Now leave me alone.”
He takes a step back from her.
She can’t stand to look him in the face. Her wound burns hotter with his eyes on it, seems to pulse with her racing heartbeat beneath his stare. Flesh gone, muscles exposed, everything puffy and criss-crossed with scar tissue, red and swollen. It is surely worse than he ever imagined, and now she will never again see him gazing softly at her, with that half-smile that she could scarcely believe was meant for her. It was miraculous and wonderful and she wasted it.
She wishes to die on the spot; it's unbearable. But there’s nothing for it. Once she knows he’s gotten a good long look, she covers her cheek again and turns back to her bed, curls up on her side in a tight ball and wills everything and everyone to leave her be.
The bed shifts a little as he sits beside her.
Jaime is staring at her, she can feel his eyes on her. He is struggling with what to say, just like seemingly everyone has since her calamity; it makes her irritable with him. She keeps herself turned away.
Then she hears the rustling of fabric as he turns up the sleeve of his jacket, and in curiosity she looks back over her shoulder. To her surprise, he is unlacing the stays around his golden hand, with a tense expression on his face.
“No one likes to look at this,” he murmurs, “least of all me.” He pulls off the golden hand and sets it aside on the straw mattress, slowly, perhaps stalling. Then he pulls off the bandages beneath it that keep the skin from scraping off beneath the metal, rubs it ungently, then lets his hand drop to his side, so that the stump of his arm is exposed.
She hasn't seen that since the Riverlands, years ago. He always keeps it covered, or hidden, or disguised with a false hand and a glove. He hates even to acknowledge that the hand is gone, even though its absence has remade his whole life.
“You,” he says quietly, “have never flinched away from this. Never once.”
He rubs it again, compulsively, as though exposing it to the air is painful, and then forces his hand to fall away.
“Most people can't bear to see it. But you bandaged it for me when it looked far worse than this.”
“A few times,” she acknowledges.
“Sixteen times,” he says, more firmly. “I counted.”
“Whats your point,” she counters him angrily. “That it’s the same? It isn’t the same.”
“Would you say I was monstrous for this? Disgusting? That I should hide from your sight?”
She pursues her lips. Of course she wouldn't. But it's different for him. Because he is a man, because he's Jaime Lannister, because it’s her face and atop her lumbering and inadequate body, and he is beautiful even without a hand.
“You wouldn’t. You didn’t, you told me to live. I adored you for it,” he says slowly. “Do you see that? I have loved you at least that long.”
Brienne starts to shake.
He pulls at her shoulder gently until she rolls towards him. Even then she can't look at him, will not meet his gaze. But she lets him pull the bandage off her face this time, and keep it in his hand so that she can’t replace it. Can't hide from him. It hurts, the open air on her torn flesh and his eyes on her scars, it hurts her in a place she had long ago boxed and buried and forgotten.
Yet he smiles at her.
“I don’t give a damn about your cheek. I will love your face even if you lost the other cheek as well.”
A sob clamors up from her chest like a dry heave, she has to fight hard to hold it down. “Don't say such things.”
“You still have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen.” His smile sinks into her stomach and makes her knees quiver.
But she scoffs, and squeezes her eyes shut. “There's nothing special about my eyes. You probably couldn't tell me what color they are.”
“They’re very blue,” he says quietly. “Dark blue in the main, lighter at the middle. Blue as the seas around Tarth. Like sapphires.”
She can hardly breathe now. “You’ve never seen Tarth,” she says accusingly.
“I have,” he admits. “We sailed past it on the way to Dorne, and I stopped to look. It’s true, the waters do sparkle like sapphires, and the isle is green and lush. It was a beautiful island. When I looked on it, I thought of you.”
Could that be true? The thought of him looking at her island is somehow just as intimate as looking on her face. He would have no other reason to look at Tarth, except to know that it made her. That he would stop for that touches her deeply.
Still she hardens her heart as best she can. “I don’t need your pity, or your pretty words. I will adjust to this. I have always been ugly, and I know how to live with it.”
Jaime looks startled. “I don't pity you. I love you.” There it is, he’s said it again.
She can't help opening her eyes, and for a long moment they stare into each other's gaze.
Surprisingly, he is the one to break it. He looks away and she realizes his hand, his real hand, is trembling. She almost didn’t notice it. Once she does she can't quite tear her eyes away. It is the first time she really understands that he is nervous, he is awaiting her judgement and suffering in it. He always sounds so confident, seems to act always decisively and without hesitation, but perhaps this is only an act, the way his callous disregard of knightly honor had been an act, to disguise how wounded he was.
“But,” he goes on, “I don’t expect you to return that feeling. I only wanted you to know.”
“You’re serious,” she ventures, half-believing it.
He nods cautiously. Though his expression betrays no nerves, his eyes are pained. She has never realized she could do that, cause him pain. Maybe she can do the opposite too, if she tries. She wants to, and at last the wanting is stronger than the fear.
“When you said that to the Bloody Mummers,” she says haltingly. “ Sapphires . When you protected me. That was when it started.”
His lips part, and his eyes shine with wonder. “When what started?”
Brienne squeezes her eyes shut, leaves it to him to act. Her cheek throbs once, and then it eases. She will learn to live with it.
“Everything.”
His hand caresses her undamaged cheek, and then his lips cover hers.
Jaime never learns what took her from him. He just finds her lying in the mud, surrounded by dead wights, and every light in his world goes out at once.
“It was supposed to be me,” he whispers, falling to his knees beside her. “I’m the one meant to die first. It should be me.”
He shakes her, feels for a pulse, disbelieving. Her skin is cold. But it’s cold outside, he reasons, it’s the bloody frozen north, of course she is cold. But the blood is pooling beneath her skin and no breath issues from her gray lips, and even Jamie's powers of denial cannot fight off the realization that she is gone.
This can’t be happening. It must be a terrible dream. He fell asleep in front of the fire on the best night of his life and had an awful nightmare. Any moment now he will wake up and have her with him again. But he doesn’t wake up and Brienne doesn't either, she lies unmoving and lifeless on the frozen ground and the moments tick by mercilessly. Moments where he is alive and she is dead, more and more of them. It's agony.
He would have died for her. He planned to die for her, damn everything. He never got the chance.
Blinding pain takes him then, and he sees nothing until his brother Tyrion is pulling on his arm. A small crowd has gathered around them, looking solemn.
Tyrion gently tries to tell him that they have to take her now, he must let go. Jaime has hold of her sword hand and some unworthy gravedigger is trying to pry his hand from hers. His brother doesn't say that they will burn her body, but Jaime knows. They have to burn her before she turns. He knows and he will not let them take her. Some sick part of him wants to let it happen. Let her become a wight and choke the life from him. He has no use for living now.
In the midst of this half-crazed thought his eyes alight on a man standing over him, a man he has never met and knows only by reputation. That reputation, at this moment, is the most important thing in the world.
“Beric Dondarrion," he croaks. "You've beaten back The Stranger, returned from death. Help her. Bring her back.”
The men standing all around exchange glances.
Beric looks sorry. “I can’t. It was the red priest Thoros brought me back, and Thoros is dead.”
“And still you live. Ask your Lord of Light. Bring her back.” His voice shakes wildly. “This world is not worth saving without her. Ask him.”
Beric looks down at her broken body, and he frowns. “I could try. But there is a cost.”
“I will pay it. Whatever it is, I'll pay. Take my sword, my gold hand-”
“Not that kind of cost.” Lord Beric drops to his knees beside her body. “Is she worthy?” he asks the men assembled around them. To a man, they nod seriously. They all believed in Ser Brienne, they had followed her to the end. The North had understood her worth in a way the South never had. Their solemn deference to the scene below them conveys how deeply they had respected her, and this tells Lord Beric what he needs to know.
He looks at Jaime seriously, as though about to ask the most important question in the world.
“What would you give?” he asks.
“Anything,” Jaime answers with no hesitation at all. “My other hand. My life. I haven't used it well. Take it, give it to her.”
Beric regards him thoughtfully. If he is surprised to see the lion of Lannister behaving so selflessly, he does not show it. But it does seem to make his decision for him.
He leans over Brienne's broken body. “Lord of light, if it be your will…” he prays, briefly.
Then Beric kisses her.
Jaime is incensed at first by this liberty; even dead, he still wants to protect her. He grabs the lightning lord's arm as if to pull him off. But Beric slumps over almost inmediately, as though all the air has gone out of him, has gone limp in Jaime's grasp.
Brienne gasps loudly.
She clutches at her own throat in shock, dragging in breaths with determined effort, eyes wide and round, and Jaime lets go of Beric and falls back on his elbows, stunned.
There is a good deal of commotion then - figures rushing over, many voices shouting. Hands pull Lord Beric off of the prone knight, and reveal Ser Brienne of Tarth breathing again, her eyes open and seeing again. She lives.
Beric's eyes are open and empty. He is dead. The Lightning Lord has given her his last lifetime.
Jaime is in shock. He sits stock-still, flattened, unable to move or speak in case it might break this spell somehow and leave her still and silent again.
Only when she sits up and looks at him, blinking in confusion as though waking suddenly from a long sleep, does he respond. He responds by grabbing hold of her and kissing her passionately, unable to stop himself.
Only once she’s alone does she collapse. Crawls into a tent and closes the flap behind her and puts a pillow over her face and cries.
Of course they can still hear her out there - a tent flap can hide her tear-streaked face but it cannot conceal the sobbing that she can no longer hold in. She’s too loud. And too big, and too much, and even when she hides herself she is always in the way. She has to keep herself very strictly contained, so that she does not barrel over everyone. But she can't hold it in right now, and so she hides away. As she always does, she keeps her pain hidden. It's too large for anyone else to bear.
Most of the time she can do that, keep it all in. She can remain implacable in the face of danger and not hesitate in the moment of action. She's made use of it, of how she is. It serves her well as a fighter, made her good enough to command a regiment, good enough to be knighted only a day previous.
But she wasn't knight enough to save Pod.
An especially painful sob escapes her clenched throat at the thought. She should have trained him more. Watched him more closely during the battle. Not let him drink with the rest of them only hours before taking the field. Put him back farther in the formation, where he would be safer. She had done none of those things, and now he is dead.
Ser Jaime is outside her tent. Or rather, somebody is there, she can see their shadow, and she knows it must be him. He is hesitating there as if deciding whether to follow, and in her secret heart she is both pleading with him to leave her be and in equal measure longing for him not to.
He lifts the tent flap and crawls inside, and she is both relieved and horrified simultaneously. She swallows her tears as best she can, takes herself in hand. No one has ever seen her cry and it's not going to start now. She must be strong; she is a knight now, undeserving of the title as she may be.
She expects him to maintain a distance. They have always done that, kept a space between them for safety. There is a sense that if they did not, something would happen between them that could not be undone.
He would always ask her before approaching, he always has before. But this time he doesn’t ask - he doesn't say anything at all. Jaime simply sits beside her, directly beside her, pressed close, wraps a blanket around her shoulders and puts his arms solidly around her.
She struggles. She tries to push him off, tells him to go away and that she doesn’t need anything or anybody and she is fine, but she is not fine. It hurts so much. She is too distraught to struggle any more than half-heartedly and already his arms around her are unlocking an unfamiliar feeling, a voice inside that does not want him to let go.
She fights him until all the fight has gone out of her and she goes limp and starts sobbing again, harder than before, the humiliation of crying in front of him making her cry even harder than that. She hides her face in her hands, shoulders shaking, and he pulls her against him until her face is pressed into his neck and he's saying in a low, tense voice, “I'm sorry, Brienne, I'm so sorry.”
There's nothing else he can say and she is glad he does not try. She is not prepared to accept any comfort beyond that; he knows her so well.
Oh, Pod. Lords and commanders would come and go, but she would have bourne his loyalty as far as it would carry him, for as long as he was willing. There was no bond for her more sacred. And how proud she had been, how pleased, to see him take the field a man, a brave man, where a shy boy had once been. She had given him that, and it had killed him.
Brienne cries for a long time, with Jaime's arms around her.
“I apologize,” she says, struggling to compose herself. “This is foolish of me.”
“It's not," he firmly disagrees. ”there are more men crying now for their fallen brothers than you imagine, and the Dragon Queen weeps for her man Mormont. You are entitled to your tears. He was like a son to you.”
She stiffens a little at that comparison, guiltily.
“And your real sons died. i would not compare it to your losses. I’m sure it isn't the same.”
“It is,” he insists, and holds her tighter. “He was yours. You were more parent to him than I ever was to mine. You loved him.”
She reels again at that, and nods quickly. Yes. She did.
“I should have-” she begins to say.
He cuts her off.
“We all fought today expecting to die. Hundreds of us died bravely. He was no different, and he was proud to fight at your side.”
She lets herself settle against him, tears still rolling down her face.
His fingers tentatively rest themselves at the crown of her head and then slowly, carefully, stroke her hair. A soft sensation, just his fingertips trailing gently across her scalp. Pleasure shivers down her neck at his touch and guilt quickly follows it; nothing should feel this good now, not when Pod is dead. But she cannot bring herself to stop him.
Pod had taught her some things as well. Had taught her that there would not always be insults around every corner, sometimes there would be admiration instead. He had taught her some patience, and had been patient with her. Had taught her that love would not always be denied her, for he had loved her too.
In her mind’s eye she sees Podrick beaming at her across a firelit room as she arose a knight, and how his smile took in Jaime too, as if he had read what was in her heart and knew exactly what it meant to her to kneel at his feet. Pod understood that. He would not begrudge her this comfort, she knows.
It lets her relax and breathe out slowly and experience this strange sensation of being held by a man who cares for her, feeling his chest rise and fall beneath her cheek.
The pain will stay with her, and she will not be ready to forgive herself for some time, but that grief can sit side-by-side with this small pleasure.
Jaime fixes a kiss to her forehead, just below the hairline, a tender blessing. She can feel that kiss for minutes afterwards, burning into her skin, in the shape of his lips.
She loses sight of him in the chaos, retreating back into the courtyard. Jaime has been fixed to her side without exception ever since they had taken the field, until he suddenly isn’t. Podrick has not seen him either, not for ages and ages. She fears he has been left outside, and now the gate is shut.
She looks all around the courtyard where the injured and dying lie moaning in the muddy snow, and walks up and down rows of retreated soldiers looking for his face. She asks everyone she meets if they have seen Jaime Lannister. Many of them sneer at that question.
Arya sneered. She went into the keep where all of the commanders are reporting in, and found the young Stark with her sister. “Who cares where he is?” she says, though she should know already that Brienne very much does.
But she would not expect Arya to be sympathetic. The girl had been unimpressed with her tales of all Jaime had done for her. She had shrugged off her examples of Jaime’s chivalry as so much pointless bravado. “But you didnt NEED any of it. A woman who can beat The Hound jn a fair fight could probably have fought her way free of the Bloody Mummers herself, or killed a bear with a wooden sword. You can rescue yourself, you dont need anyone for that.”
“That isn't the point,” she had replied awkwardly, but she had not known how to explain.
How can she explain to Arya that it is *different* for her? Arya is a willfull and boyish child, but she has never been ugly, her body does not inspire disgust no matter how she clothes it. Arya can decide to defend herself, but she always had options. If she had wanted protection she would have had it, for she is valuable enough for people to want to shield her from harm. Brienne has no value. She is a chipped glass to begin with, and you do not lock your chipped glasses in the fine china cabinet. You use them roughly and without regard and when it breaks, you shrug and get another.
If she does not want to be broken she will have to shield herself. That is something Brienne has never had a choice in.
But Jaime had valued her. He had protected her from harm. Where another man might have reasoned that she is already scarred and bruised, and what's a few more scars to a woman warrior, he had shielded her with his own body, had preserved her virtue as a maiden when it had no real worth to anyone. Had called her “My lady” and pulled out a seat for her, as though she deserved such deference. Arya would never understand what that means to her, when for the young Stark such offers are as common as rain, that she can turn them aside.
Jaime has been a rare presence in her life and one she had not dared to consider herself worthy of, and now he is gone. It's sinking in now. Jaime is gone. His reckless bravery and deep loyalty and wounded honor, all gone.
He is gone, and she will never hear him cracking his stupid jokes again, or his low rolling laugh. Never again feel that burst of confidence that his absolute belief in her had always given, that in her darkest and most hopeless days had kept her striving and fighting. Never see his eyes burning with such deep feeling that it frightens her. Her secret memories of him, that she had gone over and over again in her heart like a song she knew every note of, there would be no more of them. The song is over.
She holds herself so very tightly then that the slightest movement might shatter her, stands still and silent with her eyes fixed to a single point so that she will stay together. At any moment now someone will arrive to give her the terrible news and she will have to turn herself to stone and steel to keep from tearing in half.
When the door opens, her throat clenches, and her eyes prick with tears.
Instead Jaime limps through the door, bloody and battered but whole, alive. Greets his brother nonchalantly as though he had not just returned from certain death.
She has to back out of the room then, before anyone can see her face. The tears start falling, trailing hotly down her cheeks, beyond her ability to stop them, and her knees buckle and she sinks onto a bench in the passageway and puts her face into her hands and weeps.
All of the terror and grief she had not allowed herself comes tumbling out, now that she knows he is safe. How close had he come? She might have been burning his body today like so many others and never again heard his voice. It had been so close.
Of course he follows her. He stands over her and waits patiently for her to look up at him through her tears.
“Thought you were rid of me, did you?” He is smiling ruefully, but his eyes are serious and sorry.
He wipes a tear from her cheek with a touch so unexpectedly gentle, catching the teardrop with his fingers. He is so careful with her. Jaime does not mind she is a chipped glass - he doesn't seem to see what Brienne does when she looks in a mirror. He treasures her like something extraordinary, something precious to him. Like someone of value.
She takes to her feet mostly to look into his dear face, the face she had nearly never seen again, and again tears are trailing down her cheeks. Dear gods, she had nearly lost him. thank all the Seven for bringing him back to her.
And then they are in each others arms. Hers flung around his neck, his around her waist, clutching at each other, holding on for dear life. He is shaking slightly. He might have come very close indeed. It feels so good to hold and be held by him and they stay this way for a long time.
It feels amazing, in fact. She has never known such a passionate embrace and now that she has it, she never wants it to stop. She would stand here forever in his arms, if he would only hold her.
Their faces turn to each other. His lips find hers.
He came to Winterfell with his heart in his hands, alone, exposed and vulnerable.
In all the weeks riding North, he could feel everything he was falling away - his Lannister riches, his confidence, his swagger. He is no more than a hedge knight now, and a one-handed one at that.
And the closer he cames to Winterfell, the more of a terrible idea it seemed to go there. All of the people who most hate him in one place, and here he was riding there. His rationale for going, to inform them of Cersei’s plans, became more and more flimsy. He could send a raven, and go somewhere safer. His prowess as a swordsman is valuable to no one now, and will surely not turn the tide of this battle. There is also a distinct possibility that they will simply kill him on sight, making this journey especially pointless.
But he thinks of the wight in the dragonpit, and the description of thousands of them, tens of thousands. He thinks of the Long Night, and the tales of the War for the Dawn, and he thinks that they may very well all die, and soon.
And if he is going to die, he wants to do it in the arms of the woman he loves. That woman is in Winterfell. So that’s where he will go, even if he might be executed for it.
Now, later, when the battle is over, they have won the day - they are alive, the Night King’s forces have been turned back, and even if they have not been destroyed, their survival is ensured for now.
Jaime’s still alive. That wasn't part of the plan, to be honest. Now he has to figure out what to do after. It had been comforting, in a way, to think that Bran was right and there is no after. Then he wouldn't find himself unmoored again, lost and without a home.
The armies of the North will soon be clashing with Cersei’s armies to the South, and even if he has gained some credibility with the Northerners for serving in the Battle of Winterfell, few of them would trust him in a contest against his sister. He has been disinvited from that council, and he does not know how to feel about serving as a foot soldier against men he used to command. He thinks he would not take that well.
Winterfell is hardly an option either. He has earned his keep at least, but it could never be a home for him. Not with so many ghosts there.
He saddles his horse and rides away, in the middle of the night, riding South. He had thought about it for days, and in the end left without a word to anyone. It's simpler that way, and he won't have to find out exactly how little he is welcome. He has no particular destination in mind - somewhere warm, at least. With at least the Night King dispatched, he will have years of life left to figure out what to do with himself.
Hours later on the road, a horse galloping at top speed overtakes him, and he is faced with a very incensed and armed Brienne of Tarth.
She slings down from her horse before it's even fully come to a stop, having grabbed the reigns on his own steed and pulled him to a stop as well. She marches in front of his horse without losing a beat and stares up at him, furious.
"Desertion! After everything that's happened, you would slink away without a word? How dare you!" He thinks he has never seen her so outraged, and that's really saying something. Her face is bright red. “Where are you sneaking away to?” she demands.
He glares back. “Not King’s Landing, if that’s what you’re thinking. I can never go back there, remember? She tried to kill me.”
"I'm glad you recall! You've had a short memory where she's concerned. You might have chanced it."
"Did you come to stop me then?" Jaime is getting equally annoyed. "I don't know what you expect me to do, sitting around Winterfell like a lump. I'm not going to just wait around uselessly."
“I thought --” Brienne stops short, and looks away biting her lip, thinking. “I thought you would carry on with us.”
Jaime drops down from his horse. “And attack the South? Slight problem with that - lot of my bannermen and family members in that crowd. And your friends the Starks still don’t trust that I won’t just turn around and join Cersei.”
Brienne crosses her arms in front of her, and looks determinedly down at the snow.
“Why did you not say goodbye?” she asks him, and her voice is strange.
Because it would hurt too much. Because he might get it wrong again, and bicker with her pointlessly, and manage to say nothing at all. Because he might do something stupid like try to kiss her.
He crosses around his horse, gathering his nerve. “Because I’m sick of saying goodbye to you,” he says. “It’s awful every time. I told myself when I came to Winterfell that I would never say goodbye to you again - because I would die in the battle, I expected, but this works too.”
Her eyebrows come together in that familiar expression of concern. “I thought you wanted to serve with me. Didn’t you? There is still the Golden Company to fight, and I will vouch for you. You should come with us.”
He was worse than useless in the Battle for Winterfell. A liability, if anything. And still she had kept him at her side, when he might have endangered her.
“I don’t know that I am any use as a soldier anymore,” he admits. “And as a man… I might have wanted more than you were willing to give.”
He can't stand to look at her now.
“I thought… I could not be sure that you would have any use for me. A man without a house or family, no title to his name - dismissed from the Kingsguard, barely able to fight. At the end of it all I’m only an aging cripple and I've already given you all I have to offer. Everything else is… not much to write home about in the end. I was happy just to be at your side, I would not have asked for more. But if I had stayed, I might have. So I left.”
When he falls quiet, Brienne steps closer, standing so close to him he can feel her breath on his face. He looks up at her and for a moment he forgets how to breathe.
Her voice is barely above a whisper. “What would you have asked for?”
“You.” He runs a hand through his hair nervously. “That’s the only way I can put it. Just you, in whatever way you were willing. But you are a great hero now, and you will have a lot of options. Better options, that aren’t great golden fools. Not even so golden anymore - mostly grey. And you deserve a lot better than a man whose only friends are paid for and his only lover his own sister.”
“Do not speak so harshly of the man that I love,” she says.
The man you…? The world reels around him as he contemplates her words. He could not be more thunderstruck by actual lightning.
“Oh Jaime,” Brienne smiles, and is radiant. “Did you really not know? Maybe you are a fool.”
Gods, the things that smile does to him. He would fight the Army of the Dead all over again, just to see her smile.
She sounds confident now, and sure. “I swore to defend Winterfell, not to conquer King’s Landing. Now that's done, I can decide too where I will go. I thought we might continue on South, but we can discuss it. There are options."
Still he isn't sure. "And your oaths?"
"I've kept them well, and so have you. Perhaps we might try swearing them to each other. I’ll swear an oath to you, if you will do the same.”
He puts his arms around her waist, lightly, and miraculously she does not pull away from him.
He remembers now how to be himself again: a great golden fool. “I will swear all my oaths to you from now on, if you'll have them. Kiss me then, and prove it, my dashing hero.”
She leans down and kisses him, right there in the road, for all the world to see.
She loves him.
He loves her.
But they are so wounded and so weighted down with burdens, mistakes, and circumstances beyond their control.
They kiss, and it is joy and acceptance and pleasure and understanding and, of course, love.
And for today, at least, they live.