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He comes back to her. That should be all that she wants. Should be enough. The man she loves, (because she is sure now this ache beneath her ribs could be called no other name) has returned to her. Returned safely, returned alongside all the other heroes, returned with the knowledge that the threats they set out to vanquish are gone.
But Jaime has not returned alone.
And Brienne, who has shouldered many burdens,carried the aches of years of hurt, thinks that this pain may break her. The sunlight, which she had so treasured this morning, when there had been news the company was on their way home, fades away. Above them are only clouds, clouds that remind her of all the darkness of the past. All the danger, the pain, the loss. She cannot think of spring now, even with the greenness around them. She remembers winter and it is cold and sharp and painful. She remembers that Jaime was never truly hers, that he left, that he went back to his past and left her alone without a future. Without any hope. Because she wishes for no future he is not part of, and yet knows there is no path that would allow them both upon it. Their paths will diverge now, sharp and suddenly, after leading them together once more.
She is a knight. She is strong. So strong. Strong enough to fight, and fight, and fight. Strong enough to believe in the goodness beneath a broken man. Strong enough to let him go, let him leave that warm bed they had only shared for one night. Strong enough to believe him when he said he would return.
But Brienne does not know if she is strong enough to face the truth that Jaime now carries in his arms.
He comes back to her. Against all odds, Jaime comes back to her. The battle at King’s Landing had become a siege when he’d expected another terrible, long night. When he had expected to die and in doing so, finally find peace.
Instead, days of parlaying turned to weeks of skirmishes and then, to months of siege. The dragons always circling above, the waters now full with the dead from Euron’s fleet. And Jaime watched it all at Cersei’s side.
Where he had once been sure he belonged.
Where he now knew to be a prison. But Jaime stayed and he waited, because she carried a child.
His child.
He had thought he would be able to do it. Would be able to take his sister’s life and end the war before more suffered. As he had once taken a king’s life to save the lives of all.
But by the time he reached the city, she was months along. Euron died in battle against the dragons, and so, Cersei told him the truth.
And in hearing it, his heart shattered.
It is spring, now, even in the north. Because with the wights vanquished, somehow, the impossible has occurred and spring followed winter quickly, like a fox chased by a hound. It is both impossible and true, in the same way it is both true and impossible that Jaime is alive. The army returns on the day that there are the first buds of green on barren branches. Brienne had noticed that, noticed how there was hope in Lady Sansa’s eyes, as bright as the sunlight above. She had rushed out to greet them, rushed in a way that reminded Brienne of the girl Sansa had once been.
Brienne followed, slow and steady, though her heart beat as fast as a girl’s. Just as Sansa scanned the crowd for those she loved, so too did Brienne. But where Sansa’s joy only grew as she counted the faces of those she had feared to lose, Brienne’s plummeted.
Sansa had said she would be amazed if both her siblings returned to her. She had expected one, at most, if at all.
Brienne had said nothing but she had thought that, for her, only one face in the crowd was all she needed. And instead, that face, that man, now held a second life in his arms. It was more than she expected. It was too much.
She had thought Jaime was everything in the world. Now, that world included another, a small, crying bundle that Jaime held as if it was his whole world.
Brienne set her chin and met his eyes across the courtyard. She was strong. Strong enough to bear even this heartache. Strong enough to love and lose and live again.
But she is not strong enough to bear him looking away from her.
He looks away from her. She is alive and safe, as he hoped she would be when he left her that morning. Left her knowing that she now has whatever was left of his heart, left her knowing every whispered promise, every begging sigh he had offered her that night was truer than all else.
Left her, knowing that he would go forth to die and she would live. Because if he had let Brienne follow, if he had fought once more at her side, then she would die and he would not be able to live without her.
Better for him to die knowing she was safe than for her to be at his side and risk her life again.
And selfishly, he knew what he had to do, once he reached the Red Keep. He knew the blood that had to be spilled to win peace was the blood so close to his own. He just hadn’t known how complicated that would be.
He hadn’t known there would be another of his blood.
Now, standing in the courtyard, Jaime is faced with the realization that bloodlines and heart lines and hope and fear have all become so completely woven together in his life, that they may have tangled him impossibly so. Shrouded him in a darkness that even Brienne’s stubborn, good, noble light cannot shine through.
Because the child is is his niece so he must protect her as any kind uncle might and the child is his daughter and proof of all his misdeeds.
The child is his so he had hoped Brienne would love her. But the child is Cersei’s and so of course those who know will fear her. Every moment up until now had been fueled only by thoughts of hope, of seeing Brienne’s so-surprising smile once more, of resting once more in her strong arms.
Now, he only knows despair. It is dark and deep and reminds him of countless loses before. The babe in his arms will send Brienne away from him. He has hoped too hard, asked too much.
It is all too much. No one else knows the burden Jaime carries in his arms. Brienne knows that. Knows that and is glad of it as it keep him safe, but knows that and wishes she could cry as it threatens to destroy her. But she knows, and the others do not. They must see his expression as simply that of an uncle. No one knows what he asks of her, if he will ask anything of Brienne, to accept this child.
Or rather, those who know, like Tyrion, have their own reasons to keep silent.
Podrick has gone forward to speak with others who have returned. Brienne stands alone, watching. Waiting.
Jaime does not look at her again. He speaks in low, differential tones to one of the guardians of Winterfell. Brienne knows their names, their roles, but cannot remember anything now. All she can think of is that night, is of Jaime’s hand on her hip, his breath on her skin, his lips to hers.
All she can hear is his promise that she is all he wants. That she, Brienne of Tarth, is beautiful to him, is enough for him, is his. All she knows is that she believed him.
And all she knows now is that she is a fool.
Jaime curses his foolishness. His stupid hopes, his lack of thought. He should have… what? Abandoned the child? Done as Tyrion suggested and allow another to raise this one, this last of the Lannisters? Broken the one promise he made to Cersei with a clean conscience?
Brienne would have smiled then, he thinks, if he had greeted her with nothing lingering from his past. But she would not have loved him, if she learned of what he had abandoned. She loves, or perhaps loved, him for what she saw as his noble nature. Brienne had seen the scraps of honor remaining on the Kingslayer and treasured each glittering fragment. Stitched them together, wrapped him with her belief in him.
Through her stubborn trust, he learned to see the light in his own self once more.
It is that same light he sees in his child’s eyes. He sees nothing of the cruelty that his family has such talent for, sees nothing of the sharpness or the sting of the past. This little one, this life, will be different. This child will grow well, blossom with all the goodness of a life lived in peace. Because he will be there to raise her. Because he chose to do the hard right, the good thing. He has made mistakes, he knows, and he will accept the burden. He doesn’t let himself think of the other children, those he had not been able to save, though he knows the babe has hair as golden as Myrcella’s, and he hopes that she will share her sweetness. But that same sweetness had doomed his eldest daughter.
We do not choose who we love, he had told her. He had whispered the same thing to this babe, with tears in his eyes. Tears because Cersei was dead, tears of grief, yes, but tears of relief, too, that it did not have to be his blade that had done the deed. Tears, too, of guilt. Guilt for too many things to name or count. We do not choose who we love, he had told the babe again, told her of Brienne each night, after the wet nurse had fed and swaddled the babe and returned her to Jaime’s arms. He told the babe of the woman he now loves, the woman he swore he would return to. The woman he hopes, though he knows it is a hard ask, will love the babe as much as he does. We do not choose who we love, he told himself as the pain of seeing Brienne once more cuts deep into him.
Tyrion stands at his side. “Not too late,” he mutters. “I’ll find a good home.”
“I will not allow that.” His words are soft, measured. But unyielding.
“This will destroy any chance of a new life for you.”
“Destroy?” he snorts with derision. “Have we not lived through enough destruction?” Had they not seen all they know burn with flame? When at last the siege broke, at the same time as Cersei’s water had. Her last hours spent giving life, not taking it. In the end, the god of death came for the cruel queen, not with blade or poison but the simple risk of birth.
In the end, Cersei had died in his arms and it had been his fault. BEcause if he had not fathered this child then the birth would not have killed her.
He knows better than to say any of that. Instead, his lips press into a grim line for a moment. “Tyrion, I will raise the child. My niece.”
“It is a foolish choice.”
“Then I am a fool.” He adjusts the fur cloak around the babe, glad she sleeps so well. The nursemaid they had hired hovers nearby, but Jaime wanted to be the one to hold the child when they reached Winterfell. “But we both know, dear brother, how much the hiding of children, and the lies told them, has not been a choice to make peace in our lands.”
It is muttered softly, only loud enough for Tyrion’s ears. Because Jon Snow is known now by another name. Because there is still a matter of a throne and of a ruler. But those discussions, between those who have claim and those who suppose they do, those discussions no longer interest Jaime.
He has paid the price of blood, he has saved the innocent from the dragonfire. The evacuation of King’s Landing had taken all those months, all those lies to Cersei, ensuring that when the dragonfire did rain down, none but those who wished to draw swords, burned.
“She is still watching you.” Tyrion comments.
Jaime lifts his head. He meets her gaze as he has met all justice delivered to him before this moment. She does not look away. He holds his breath.
Brienne lets out a breath. Relief washes over her, scrubbing away all the fear and pain that had consumed her for the past small eternity. Because the man looking at her is not a monster, is not a stranger. It is the man she still loves.
Because when she meets his gaze, a small private smile spreads over his face. It is a smile she saw last when he lay on the bed next to her. It is soft and tender and only for her.
Even if the child in his arms is not hers.
“What’s wrong?” Podrick asks. He’s returned to her side, and rocks on his heels in excitement. “He’s here. He’s back. Heard he’s the reason everyone got out of King’s Landing. Heard he…”
Podrick’s words fade like a handful of snow.
Jaime had been the hero she always knew he would be. He had rescued the innocent, again. He had been the man she believed in for so long. “And the child?”
Podrick smiles. “It’s the dead queen’s. He’s raising her. As his duty.”
Duty. A word befitting any knight. A word that had bound her own actions for so long. A word that… that she could find purpose in, as well. A word to guide her choices, her steps. A path forward. Not one with joy, not the one she had dreamed of, but a path all the same.
She moves forward. And Jaime, slowly, slowly, does as well. Each step takes them both away from the past and toward each other.
They are so close now, Jaime knows. He lifts his gaze to hers. Wishes he could do more than look. Wishes he could kiss her, because he had thought of little else but that in his silent, cold nights spent away.
He returned to Cersei’s side, but not her bed. Does Brienne know that? How can he tell her? How can…
“You are safe, then?” Brienne asks. Her voice holds no anger but no warmth either.
“Is any man truly safe?” he retorts. Trying to armor himself with words, because she can pierce beneath any platemail meant to keep him protected.
“I hope our actions lead us all to a day where that may be true.”
Actions. Choices. He has made many poor ones in his life. So many mistakes. So much grief. So much pain. “I hope, as well. I hope…” he begins. He cannot finish. Words die on his tongue, as fear spreads.
“Hope what?”
He shakes his head.
“Tell me?”
The babe, instead, answers. Fussing in his arms. She squeaks like a mouse, and for the first time Brienne looks down at the bundle. Without the intensity of those sky-blue eyes on him, Jaime finds the rest of his wish. “I hope she will learn to be kind and brave as you are.”
Brienne does not speak. Jaime watches her, waiting. He would rather duel a thousand warlords than wait through this agony. Finally, Brienne clears her throat. “She is not mine.”
He hears the words. They cut deep but it is a pain he deserves. A pain he knows well. The ruining of a good thing, the destruction of hope. Jaime has never had much hope.
But Jaime is also a warrior. He is used to fighting for what he believes in. He is used to battle and bloodshed and loss, yes, but he is also used to trying and trying, forging ahead. Never giving up. So, he clears his throat, and says one more thing.
She is not mine. Brienne had said, each word a dagger as it left her, another as it sank into Jaime. And she knows them to be true. Knows too, that she is nothing to him in the end. He went back to Cersei, to his twisted past of obligation and love and lust. He went back and she was left behind. Because she’d not mattered enough for him. Because he would have rather died with Cersei than lived with her.
“But,” Jaime says now. Brienne freezes. He has spoke louder now. Not yelling, no, but with a stern and calm voice, the sort that gives orders soldiers will obey. “But, I am yours.”
He has spoken it clearly enough in that spring air for all to hear. It cuts through the chatter of all those returned from war. It cuts, too, right into Brienne’s heart. “You… what do you mean?”
“I am yours, Ser Brienne of Tarth, if you will have me.” He looks up at her with both determination and adoration on his face. “And this child, my niece, last of the Lannister name… I would be honored if she may come under your care, as well.”
The courtyard falls into a hush, as silent as frost.
Of all the scenarios that she dreamt of, this was not one. For him to so publicly state his intentions to her. Her, who so many men had laughed at, who was not beautiful, not graceful. Not…
No. She mustn’t think as such anymore. She is Ser Brienne, as he has said. She is a knight, a hero, a warrior. She is deserving of this, this small moment as brilliant as that from a ballad. She is deserving of love, of hope, and she is beautiful to him. He has said as much before, in the night, in the soft whispers of passion. Now, she listens as he says it again in the clarity of day.
“You have won my heart, Ser Brienne. I thought of nothing but your smile this long journey back to you, and leaving your side… that was…” he shakes his head, his own words failing him once more. “A pain I do not wish to endure again.”
“I…” she stammers, stuck on the word. Cursing herself. She’s never been good with words, nor with such matters as romance, given her utter lack of experience in the matter. “I am glad.”
“Glad I suffered or glad I returned?” One of his brows arches up.
She shakes her head, feeling a blush upon her cheeks. “I am glad.” She says it again, because it is true. Because she has little else to say. Because he did not, in the end, chose someone else. He chose duty, yes, but what other choice was there for an honorable man?
The child is his, she knows. Now, though, she wonders, and in her wonder, finds a way to speak. “The child… might she…”
“Yes?” he asks and there is fear in his eyes. Brienne could undo him with a word, a weight they both know.
“Might she mind being of Tarth and not of Caste..Casterly.. Cas…” she stumbles over the words, stumbles far harder when she sees how wide Jaime smiles.
“It would be an honor for her to be of such a noble house,” he replies. “And perhaps you will give her a name to match.”
“I… you didn’t…” She’d thought Jaime would have named the babe for his dead sister-lover. For the cruel queen. For someone who Brienne hated beyond reason.
“I had hoped we might do so together,” he says. “As I hope to do all things.”
Brienne looks at Jaime once more. He has returned to her. Not easily, not without complication, but was that not all of their moments together? Were not victories sweeter for the challenges endured on the path?
She opens her arms. He places the child there and Brienne looks down at the babe. She sees nothing of cruelness, of the queen she refuses to think of again. She sees hope and light and the brightness of Jaime’s own eyes in the eyes of the child. So be it then, she thinks. They will go forth, together.
“Together.” She tells him, tells the babe, tells everyone around them.
He nods.
Brienne leans in and kisses Jaime’s forehead. It is a gift given with a free heart, though not free from fear. That fear melts, though, when Jaime’s hand cups her cheek, brings her face down so their lips meet.
The kiss is sweet and pure and new. They stand there, embracing, holding the babe between them. In that moment, she thinks, all the past washes away. Now, together, they will go forth. A family.
It is a word she never thought she would use for herself. But in that moment, she knows it to be true. The sunlight bursts forth, shines from behind the clouds, warms them all in that moment. Brienne of Tarth lets out another breath, knowing now, it will be all right. He has come back to her. With more than she expected, yes, but more than she hoped for too. They have a path forward now, together. A child, when one was never even dreamt of. A life to raise, a path to follow. And love. They have love, which will guide them safely home, a path made, finally, in the glittering light of day.
They come back to her. She sees them from the window of her room, hears the clatter of their horses’ hooves. The clatter is matched by her own hurried footsteps as she rushes down the hall, out the gate, and into the courtyard.
They come back to her as they always do. They’re never gone for long, though they always go together. And they always, as they’ve told her countless times, will return together.
And they do. One astride a white horse, the other, on a bay mare. Both of them smiling, as bright as their armor shines. Both of them safe and sound, and certainly full of stories to tell her.
Arlie of Tarth skitters to a stop in front of her parents, waiting for them to dismount, before she rushes forward again. “You’re home!”
“We are,” her papa says, as he wraps his arm arms around her, his hand warm on her shoulder.
“And a day early, too,” her mama states, wrapping warm arms around Arlie. Her parents love encircles her, a warm embrace that is safe and true and all she needs. She does not know how often they stood like that when she was small, holding her between them, vowing together to raise her well, to raise her in the light of a new dawn. “How were your lessons?”
“Good! Ser Podrick says my parries are much cleaner now.” Arlie pulls out of the hug merely to start chattering, bounding around her parents with all the energy of a puppy, miming her practice maneuvers.
Her father rubs his bearded chin with his hand, smiling at the sight. His golden hand, as always, is still at his side, but she does not mind. When she was very small, it was that hand she used to hold when she learned to walk, clumsily at first, tripping over the flagstones of the courtyard. And it is still that hand her mother holds, when the two stand side by side, as they so often do. Mother said once it was so that both of them could draw swords if needed, without letting go of each other’s hand. Arlie had thought that was the most romantic thing she’d ever heard.
Her father says, “You’ll beat your mother soon, if you keep that up.”
“You think so?”
“Oh, I know so,” her mother says, mirth in her blue eyes. ”
Arlie sometimes wishes for eyes like mother’s, bright like the sky, instead of hers, green like moss on the north tower of Evenfall Hall. She wishes too, that she could be tall like her mother, but she knows such things will not come true. Her mother is not her blood, she knows. Knows and does not care, because her mother is perfect in her eyes. She is a hero, a warrior unmatched, at least in the eyes of her daughter. She stays up with Arlie when there are nightmares, soothes her when she is frustrated, and kisses away her bruises. Arlie does love that her hair is golden like her mother’s, and keeps it cropped short, trying hard to match that one thing they share. Her mother tells her that she doesn’t have to, that she can wear as many dresses and have as many frivolous things as she’d like, that she doesn’t need to wear trousers just because her mother does. And Arlie does sometimes wear gowns, and treasures her dancing lessons. But she treasures too, the times she has seen her parents dance. Not in a great hall or out in the gardens, but alone, in quiet hallways, swaying together like willows in the wind. Arlie knows too, that her father has bought dresses for her mother, that he tells mother how lovely she looks in them, and how much mother blushes with delight at such words.
“And how go your lessons in less martial of matters?” her father asks. “Still practicing your languages?”
“Kessa, kessa,” she says in a sing-song tone, skipping around them. Yes, yes of course she is practicing her Valyrian, all the better to pass notes to her uncle-king Tyrion, who rules from the south as Queen Sansa rules from the north.
Her father smiles. “I am glad.”
And that makes her happy. Because her father is her hero as well, the man who tells her stories when she cannot sleep and teaches her falconry and poetry. He tells her few stories of his own past, but she knows that he had family he lost, a daughter before her, sons he could not save. He does not tell them her names, and she does not ask. But he tells her, too, that she is safe, and that both he and her mother would die before any injury befell her. Her father is noble and kind and she adores him as much as she adores her mother. Her parents, she knows, are perfect, and her life is sweet. Arlie worries about little, except for when her parents leave to attend to matters. But they always come back to her, and that is all that matters.
Her father quizzes her language skills a little more and she answers correctly. She enjoys academic challenges almost as much as those offered by practicing to be a knight. They named her in Valyrian, the word for new, a choice she does not understand. She has no idea that she was the start of all new things for them, that naming her was a choice by both of them to start a new life, and leave the past behind.
Arlie skips her way back to the grand hall where generations of Tarths have lived, and her parents follow. The sunlight glitters ahead of them, the summer air fresh and full of flowers.
She is their new path forward, and they are home.