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He thinks she’s a man the first time he sees her. Her already impressive stature is made taller by the hard hat on her head, and there’s no mistaking the strength in the muscles revealed by her navy tank top. Jaime sees her from behind, leaning casually against the wall, and he thinks, Now there’s a fellow I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.

Jaime doesn’t think much of the encounter until he see her again until two days later, when he walks into a random bar called Under Locke and Key, and spots her sitting by herself at the bar. He notices an open seat next to her and decides to take it. “Excuse me,” he says. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t I see you by the Pyramid of Loraq the other day?”

“Probably. I work in the area,” she replies with a bright smile, and that’s when Jaime realizes that he’s taking to a woman and not a man at all.

“Oh!” he exclaims, then begins laughing hysterically.

The tall lady regards him curiously. “What?” she asks. “Are you that surprised that I have a job?”

“No, it’s not that at all,” Jaime is quick to reassure her. “It’s just… I thought you were a man!”

Jaime barely has time to register the way the woman’s blue eyes go stony cold before she throws her drink in his face and storms out of the bar. “Whiskey? You even drink like a man!” he calls out after her, torn between amusement and indignation at her response.

The bartender also shouts after the woman. “Oy! You haven’t paid yet!” 

“It’s fine,” Jaime says, laughing at himself. “I’ll pay for her drink.”

And he does. He’s Jaime Lannister, heir to the Lannister Architecture empire, and he’s in Meereen to study with Sam Goodwin at Harpy and Sons Architecture Firm, and he’s feeling a little generous tonight, so it’s easy for him to pull his wallet out and add the tall lady’s drink to his tab.

“Can you tell me anything about her?” he asks the bartender.

The bartender peers suspiciously at him. “No,” he says. “I can’t.” He speaks with a funny lisp, the kind that makes Jaime suspect that he’d turn his words like sorry into tharry.

Jaime sighs and considers bribing the bartender with a five dollar bill before deciding that he’s not that interested in pursing the matter. Instead he says, “Well, then, can I get a glass of your best vodka?”

By the time he leaves the bar, Jaime is more than slightly tipsy. Wondering briefly if he’ll feel at all hungover in the morning, he finds his way back to his apartment and lets himself collapse on his bed. I should take a shower, he thinks, smelling the whiskey that the woman had thrown on him.

Toweling his hair dry a few minutes later, Jaime sits down at his desk and decides to send an email to his brother. Tyrion’ll get a real kick out of hearing that someone dumped their drink on me, he thinks, and smiles as he begins to type.

Jaime is driving past the Pyramid of Loraq to the Harpy and Sons office when his phone buzzes. Taking one hand off the wheel, he checks the text message. It’s from Goodwin: “Running late. Our intern, Brienne, will be happy to show you around.” 

“Brienne,” Jaime says the name aloud—a mnemonic device his mother taught him back when he was eight and could never remember anyone’s name—and parks his car.

The Harpy and Sons office is overly air-conditioned, and Jaime has to surpress as a shiver as he casts his eyes around the fastidious reception area until he sees a familiar figure sitting at behind the room’s lone desk.

“You!” Jaime can’t help exclaiming.

The tall woman with light blonde hair looks up, and her piercing blue eyes immediately narrow. “What in the Seven’s name are you doing here?” she demands angrily.

“Um,” says Jaime. He feels himself beginning to laugh at the mere absurdity of it all. “Are you Brienne?”

“Who’s asking?” the woman—and she must be Brienne—asks, jutting her chin forward mulishly.

Jaime steps farther into the office and says, “Hi. I’m Jaime Lannister. I’m going to be studying with Sam Goodwin this summer.”

Brienne drops her face into her hands. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she mutters.

“So you’re interning with Harpy and Sons, huh?” asks Jaime with a smirk. He realizes that he’s maybe coming on too strong, swaggering over to lean on Brienne’s desk, but he can’t help it. Tyrion has always called him a smug snake, and maybe his baby brother is right. Or maybe there’s just something in this woman that brings out the worst in him.

“If I show you around the office and act polite, can we just pretend that we’ve never met before?” Brienne asks. She doesn’t sound desperate or pleading, which tips Jaime off to the fact that she’s not worried about getting in trouble with Goodwin for having once thrown her drink in his face.

“A deny such a beautiful introduction its proper place in history?” says Jaime. “I would never.”

Brienne scowls. “It’s going to be a long summer, I can tell,” she mutters darkly, but still gets up from her desk. “Anyways, Lannister—” She says his name like it’s an insult. “—this is the reception area, got that? And if you follow me down this hall, I can show you the rest of the office.”

“You’re too kind,” Jaime mocks and follows the tall woman down the hall.

Sam Goodwin is tough teacher. His face is kind—and his eyes have smile lines—but his method of instruction is harsher rather than tender. It reminds Jaime a little of his own father and his ideas of parenting, and he supposes that there’s something oddly comforting about this similarity. It certainly makes him feel at home as he studies beneath Goodwin.

Then there’s Brienne. As Harpy and Sons’ only intern, she mans the front desk and is in charge of buying lunch for the office. Sometimes, Goodwin invites her to sit in on one of Jaime’s sessions, and despite himself, Jaime find himself impressed with the ease at which Brienne grasps Goodwin’s lessons. Jaime can see that there’s a lot of affection between Goodwin and Brienne, but it isn’t until a few weeks in, during lunch break, that Jaime recognizes what type of affection it is.

“She grew up in the house next to mine,” Goodwin tells Jaime. The statement is out of the blue, and it startles Jaime until he wonders if Goodwin had noticed him watching Brienne across the room. “Her father was… not the kindest of men, I’ll say, so she took to spending time over at my place. I think that’s where she got her love for architecture and design.”

Jaime looks at Brienne, and it isn’t hard for him to imagine her as a young girl, pouring over Goodwin’s books about landscaping and architecture, and that’s when he sees just how young she still is. Her cheeks still hold a hint of baby fat, and her limbs are coltishly long on her. A quick glance at Goodwin tells him that the master architecture still views his intern as the little girl who used to live next door to him. Her father was a bastard, so she found a new one, Jaime realizes, and smiles at the thought.

There is a certain pluckiness to Brienne that Jaime finds admirable, even as he finds Brienne herself to be an insufferable nuisance. Once he realizes how young she is, it’s all he can see, and suddenly her occasional immaturity makes sense, and he can’t stop thinking about how irritating her youth is. She doesn’t really belong in this office, he mentally grouches more than once. She’s too young to understand the finer points of architecture and its economics.

About month into his stay in Meereen, Jaime finds himself walking back into Under Locke and Key, where Brienne once threw her drink in his face. He grabs a stool at the counter and asks the bartender for a vodka martini. He’s halfway through his second one, when a commotion in the bar’s corners grabs his attention.

There’s a large man, whose hairy appearance brings to Jaime’s mind the image of a bear, looming over a blonde woman. And maybe it’s the uncharacteristic expression of fear on her face, but it takes Jaime a minute to recognize the woman as Brienne.

Without thinking Jaime gets to his feet and calmly picks his way through the crowded bar to where the man has cornered Brienne.

“Come on, sweetheart,” the man is saying. “How often does a girl who looks like you get a man offering to take her to bed?”

“Please,” Brienne says in a quavering voice. She takes a deep breath, then looks the man in the eyes and says louder, “I’m not interested.”

The man’s eyes narrow dangerously and he opens his mouth to say something, when Jaime takes a purposeful step closer. “Look, mister,” he says in that drawling voice that he knows sounds annoying to even the most patient of saints. “The lady say no.”

Brienne flinches at the sound of his voice, but it would be hard for Jaime to miss the sudden look of relief that enters her blue eyes at his appearance.

The large man, on the other hand, looks less pleased to see him. “Who the fuck are you?” he demands angrily.

Jaime takes one look at Brienne’s shoulder, slumped in a defeat that Jaime didn’t even know she had in her, and says, “Her boyfriend, so piss off.”

And the man does. Cursing and apologizing in the same breath, he backs away.

“Are you okay?” Jaime asks Brienne.

She nods her head. “Yeah, thanks,” she says quietly. “But why…”

“Because men like him respect another man’s ‘property’ more than they respect a woman’s decision,” he says briskly. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

Jaime puts his hand on the small of her back to guide her towards the door, and it speaks to how shaken Brienne is that she lets him. Once they’re outside, he turns to her and asks if he should call a cab to take her home or, “I don’t know about you, but I’m famished. Would you maybe want to grab a quick bite to eat somewhere?”

Brienne looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “You don’t have to act so nice just because I was stupid enough to let a man corner me in a bar,” she says softly.

“It wasn’t stupid of you,” says Jaime.

“Yeah, right,” says Brienne with a self-deprecating snort. She looks at her feet. “I was drinking alone at bar. It was dumb of me.”

“No,” Jaime says and puts his hands on her shoulders so she’ll look at him. “Listen to me, Brienne. No, listen to me. What just happened in here? That wasn’t your fault. Do you hear me?”

Brienne’s eyes widen in surprise, and a distant part of Jaime’s brain notes the beauty of their startling blue shade.

“When a man gets overly aggressive, he’s the one to blame, not you,” Jaime says firmly, then lets go of Brienne’s shoulders. Shoving his hands deep inside his pockets, he says quietly, “My sister Cersei used to date a drunk asshole that like guy. He was always smacking her around and shit. It’s men like him who are the problem, Brienne, not woman who like to drink alone at bars. Okay?”

“Okay,” says Brienne, eyes still wide with surprise.

Jaime gives her a weary smile and says, “Let me call that cab for you.”

When the cab arrives, Brienne turns back to Jaime one time before getting in. “I… thank you, Jaime,” she says.

“It was nothing,” Jaime tells hers gruffly, and as he watches the cab drive off, he wonders briefly if she was talking about what happened in the bar or for the explanation.

Chapter Text

Brienne isn’t sure what to make of Jaime Lannister. She thought she had him all figured out—a snobby, rich kid used to getting his way—but since the incident at Under Locke and Key, she isn’t so sure. The last time a jerk tried to defend her honor, she ended up with Hyle Hunt as her best friend. And as much as she’s learned to enjoy his friendship in recent years, she isn’t sure that she wants another Hyle Hunt in her life.

“He sounds like kinda an asshole,” says Hyle, when Brienne calls him on the phone to vent about her confusing new co-worker.

“You mean he sounds kind of like you,” Brienne says dryly.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny,” Hyle deadpans. “Still, you have to admit it was nice of him to pretend to be your boyfriend.”

Brienne twists the phone cord around one finger and scowls. “I’m not—”

“To make the dude leave you alone, I mean,” Hyle quickly interjects. “I wasn’t implying that you would enjoy having Jaime Lannister as a boyfriend.”

“But you are now,” Brienne guesses flatly.

Hyle laughs. “Ah, Brienne, you know me so well.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Yes, yes, poor you.” Hyle chuckles. “Still, between him and me, it sounds like you might have a thing for jerks who secretly have hearts of gold.”

“Okay, first of all, Hyle you do not have a heart of gold. Secondly, I’ve never had a thing for you,” says Brienne, then quickly adds, “Or Jaime Lannister.”

“You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart,” says Hyle, and Brienne can tell, even over the phone, that he’s grinning.

She rolls her eyes, even though Hyle can’t see her. “Remind me why we’re friends again?” she asks.

“So you can remind me when to shut my fat mouth and so I can teach you how to wrestle,” says Hyle, and Brienne has to smile at the memory of how their friendship worked in high school. “Gee, Brienne, sounds like you really got the better end of the deal.”

Brienne laughs. “Not by half,” she says. “Not by half.”

“Okay, so maybe I’m good at acting like a real git when I feel like it,” Hyle admits with a laugh. “Anyways, what are you going to do about Jaime Lannister?”

“What is there to do?” asks Brienne wearily. “I’ll just have to endure his presence for the rest of the summer and then maybe give him a really nice going away gift to thank him for saving me from a creep.”

“Or,” says Hyle in a mischievous voice, “you could let him teach you how to get your freak on.”

Brienne slams the phone down, then kicks the wall.

Instead of waiting until summer’s end to give Jaime a thank you gift, Brienne decides—No, not to let him teach her how to get her freak on, thank you very much, Hyle Hunt—to do something else for him.

“Hey,” she says, stopping awkwardly next to the desk they’ve given Jaime for the summer. It’s the end of the day on Friday. “So, um, I thought maybe we could go out for lunch together tomorrow. My treat, of course! As a, um, thank you for, uh, the other night.”

Jaime, who had been packing up his bag, pauses at looks at her, his eyes a stunning shade of green. For all she hates his guts, Brienne does have to admit that he wears his face well. “You don’t have to,” he says quietly. “I don’t want you to think that you owe me, just because I did something any decent human being would do.”

“I still want to say thank you,” Brienne insists, through gritted teeth.

“Your expression suggests otherwise,” says Jaime lightly, and he looks amused by her embarrassment.

Brienne scowls at him. “Look, I’m trying to be nice,” she says. “Take it or leave it.”

Jaime laughs and gets to his feet. They’re very nearly the same height. Brienne’s just barely a few inches taller, but it might just be her shoes. “Oh, take it,” he says. “Definitely take it.”

“Great,” says Brienne. “I’ll meet you by the Pyramid of Loraq at, say, 11:30 tomorrow?”

“Sounds good,” Jaime says with a smile. “Are you going to take me somewhere nice?”

Brienne laughs. “Oh, please, Lannister,” she says, and it almost sounds playful, even to her own ears. “I may be a paid intern but I’m still generally broke as fuck, and if you think I’m blowing this week’s pay check on you, you’ve got another thought coming.”

Jaime laughs too. “I’m sure I do. See you tomorrow, Tarth,” he says, then gets into his car, and that’s when Brienne realizes that they’ve walked outside together.

She notices Sam watching her with a smile, and automatically scowls. “What?” she asks.

“I’m glad to see that you and Jaime are getting along,” says Sam, walking over to ruffle her hair like he used to when she was a kid.

“We’re not,” she says stubbornly and affectionately swats Sam’s hand away. “We’re just learning to tolerate each other’s presence.”

Sam sighs good-naturedly. “Well,” he says. “Baby steps, I guess.”

Lunch the next day can only be described as awkward. Brienne had figured that she should put forth a little effort to look nice and wore a sundress that Sam always said looked good on her, but Jaime shows up wearing an old t-shirt and a pair of ripped up jeans. The outfit looks so shockingly out of character for he of the always looking so put together, that Brienne’s jaw drops for a half a second before she remembers herself.

“Looking good, Tarth,” is Jaime’s casual greeting.

“Wish I could say the same,” is Brienne’s auto-pilot reply. The moment she says it, she wants die. Wasn’t being gracious towards Jaime Lannister the whole point of this?

Jaime raises an eyebrow at her. “See, you always say these things,” he says. “And I can never tell if you seriously hate my guts or if you’re just teasing me.”

Brienne blushes. If only she were so bold as to tease anyone, let alone someone as pretty as Jaime Lannister. Not that she likes him or anything. But she can admit to herself that he’s attractive. If I were witty like Renly Baratheon was in high school, I’d say something like, “I bet you wish I’d tease,” she thinks hopelessly, and instead asks, “Do you want lunch or not?”

“It’s my favorite meal of the day,” says Jaime in a serious voice, face amazingly straight.

“Now who’s teasing?” grumbles Brienne, and Jaime laughs not unkindly.

They don’t talk as they walk the few blocks to one of Brienne’s favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants, The Green Grace. Brienne is horribly aware of how much it must look like they’re on a date, and the young woman who seats them gives Brienne a look like she can’t believe someone as good-looking as Jaime would ever date someone as ugly as her. If they actually were on a date, Brienne wouldn’t be able to believe it either.

“God, people like her make me sick,” Jaime mutters under his breath, the moment the hostess walks away.

Brienne looks at him in surprise. “What do you mean?” she asks.

Jaime suddenly looks embarrassment. “Don’t get me wrong, Tarth,” he says. “But she looked incredulous at the thought that we could be on a date.”

“Yeah, and we aren’t on a date,” says Brienne and she knows that Jaime, for once, was trying to not call her ugly or otherwise insult her appearance.

“And it’s just… Looks aren’t everything, you know?” says Jaime.

Brienne gives him a dirty look. “That’s really easy for you to say, Lannister,” she says. “Easy in the same way it’s easy for a millionaire to say that money doesn’t really matter, because if they were poor, they would know that yeah, money actually does really matter.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jaime says.

“Yeah? Then what did you mean?” Brienne asks angrily.

“My younger brother’s a little person, Brienne,” Jaime says, sounding almost as angry. “He got bullied a lot when we were kids, and even now, he still gets picked on more than the average person, and you know what? Tyrion’s got a really beautiful girlfriend and people look at him the way that girl looked at you all the time. Like she couldn’t believe someone as pretty as me would waste my time with someone who isn’t equally as attractive.”

Brienne is taken aback by the amount of bitter sarcasm in Jaime’s voice. You must really care about your little brother, she thinks and wonders what it feels like to have a sibling, someone who grew up in the same hard household as you did.

“That’s why I think Fuck them! when I see shallow people like that,” continues Jaime in that same passionate voice. “Because it’s their loss if they miss out on gems like you and Tyrion just because they can’t see past a person’s face.”

To her utter mortification, Brienne can feel tears pricking in the corners of her eyes. She wipes hastily at her eyes with the back of her hand and hopes Jaime doesn’t notice.

He does. “Hey,” he says softly. “Whoa. I… I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“I’m not,” she snaps. “I just got something in my eye.”

“Sure, and I’m the king of Valyria,” says Jaime. “But seriously, I’m sorry.”

“No!” Brienne blurts out. “It’s just… you’ve been so nice to me this past week, standing up for me at the bar and comparing me to your brother, when I’ve been nothing but awful towards you all summer!”

Jaime smiles. “Not many people would take being compared to Tyrion as a compliment,” he says.

“That’s besides the point!” says Brienne. “You’ve been really nice recently, and it’s kind of weirding me out because you’re usually a smug bastard and now I’m really confused, and please tell me you aren’t being nice to me as a practical joke, because I don’t think I could stand that happening again.”

The smile drops off Jaime’s face. “Do people often pretend to be your friend because they think it’s funny?” he asks slowly.

Brienne blushes and looks away. “They used to,” she says. “In high school.”

“High school boys can be so cruel,” Jaime says softly. “So no, that’s not why I’m being nice to you.”

“Then why?" asks Brienne, and she’s embarrassed by how emotional she sounds. “I don’t get it!”

Jaime smiles, and it looks almost bittersweet on his face. “I don’t really get it either,” he says.

Chapter Text

Sitting at a two-top table with Brienne feels strangely like a date. The weirdest part is that Jaime almost wishes it was. It makes no sense to him. At the beginning of the summer, he thought Brienne was the worst, albiet somewhat interesting, part of Meereen. But over the weeks, she’s grown on him. Like e. coli on a plate of beef that’s been left out too long, he thinks gloomily.

And now she’s sitting across from him with tears in her eyes, asking why he’s been so nice to her recently. It’s almost too much for him to handle.

“I don’t really get it either,” he tells her. “It’s, like… You’re always so insufferable.” The suddenly unimpressed look on Brienne’s face tells him that he’s doing a terrible job of explaining things. “But… now I find it kind of charming. Like… you wear it so well.”

“Insufferableness? I wear it well? Really?” asks Brienne dryly.

“No! But yes?” Jaime tries to say. “I mean that your stubbornness is appealing.”

Brienne arches an eyebrow at him. “Appealing?”

Jaime huffs. “I only meant to say that you have spirit!” he blurts out. “Don’t read too much into it. Because while the liveliness you share with my brother is interesting, getting a big head about it like he has would be too much.” I’m telling you that you remind of my brother, he thinks. That’s good. It has zero romantic implications.

“I’ll do my best not to get arrogant over how insufferable I am,” says Brienne with an eye roll, and there! That’s what Jaime’s talking about. Her moments of sass that make her more approachable and fun.

But he doesn’t say that. Instead he picks up the menu and says, “So what do you recommend?”

If Brienne’s surprised by his sudden change of subject, she doesn’t show it. “The French dip is always good,” she says. “And the cobb salad can be great, depending on who’s cooking today.”

“Wow, it’s like having my very own local to show me the hidden secrets of the city,” teases Jaime.

“I am a local,” says Brienne flatly.

Jaime slaps his forehead. “That’s right!” he exclaims. “I keep forgetting, since you’re Westerosi and not Meereenese. How’d you end up here anyways?”

“My dad took a job out here before I was born,” Brienne tells him.

“Have you ever been to Westeros?” asks Jaime curiously.

Brienne shakes her head. “No, I… no, wait, I have,” she corrects herself. “We went back once, when my mom was still alive, to visit my grandparents, but I was too young to really remember it.”

“When did your mother die?” Jaime asks, then shakes his head. “Sorry, that was probably really insensitive of me.”

“It’s okay,” says Brienne. “It was a long time ago.”

“It’s okay if it’s not okay,” says Jaime. “My mom’s dead too, so I get it. Like, she died when I was a teenager, but I still miss her sometimes, you know?”

“Not really,” Brienne confesses. “I was really young when my mom died, so I can’t really remember her much at all. But I’m sorry for your loss.”

Jaime makes a face. “God, don’t say that. You sound so formal,” he says.

Brienne laughs. “Okay, fine,” she says. “I take it back. I’m not sorry for your loss.”

Jaime also laughs. “I guess I really set myself up for that one, didn’t I?” he says.

“Yeah,” says Brienne. “Yeah, you really did.”

The rest of lunch ends up feeling a lot more companionable the first half of it did, and it makes Jaime oddly giddy to be able to say, “I had a good time. See you on Monday, Tarth.”

Brienne smiles back. “Monday,” she agrees, then adds, “Lannister.”

When Jaime arrives at the office come Monday morning, Brienne smiles at him from her spot at the front desk, and that’s when Jaime knows for certain that between the incident at Under Locke and Key and Saturday’s lunch, they’ve become friends.

Goodwin sets him to looking for pictures of the Titan of Braavos, but when no one’s looking, Jaime opens up his email instead. “Dear Tyrion,” he types. “You’ll never believe it, but remember the girl I told you about? The one who threw her drink in my face and turned out to be interning at Harpy and Sons? Well, we had lunch together over weekend, and I guess now we’re friends.” Jaime surreptitious glances over his shoulder to make sure that no one is around before continuing, “And you’re not allowed to tell anyone this (not even Cersei and especially not Dad), but I think I might have the hots for her.”

Tyrion calls him back that night. “You would!” he says between bouts of laughter.

“I would what?” asks Jaime in a faux-offended voice.

“Have the hots for a willful girl who hates your guts,” says Tyrion. 

“Brienne doesn’t hate my guts,” Jaime insists. “At least, not anymore.”

Tyrion laughs. “Yes, saving a girl from her would-be rapist does tend to be something they find endearing,” he says. “You were quite the white knight.”

“Shut up,” says Jaime. “The creep reminded me of Robert is all.”

“Robert.” Tyrion’s voice is cold when he says the name of their sister’s ex-boyfriend. “What an jackass.”

“The assholiest of all assholes,” Jaime agrees.

Tyrion makes a noise of approval at the moniker. “I’m glad Cersei didn’t marry him,” he says.

“Yeah, like, she almost did, you know?” says Jaime. “I think there was time when she was really considering it.”

“Yeah, for the ‘political advantages’ and all,” Tyrion says, and Jaime can hear the air-quotes. “As if being a Lannister isn’t advantageous enough.”

Jaime laughs. Tyrion’s always been the most proud of the family name. Jaime supposes it has something to do with him being Dad’s favorite son. Who’s my clever boy? Dad used to say. Look, Jo, isn’t Tyrion the cleverest boy you ever did see?

“I’d much rather be a Lannister than a Baratheon, that’s for sure,” agrees Jaime.

“And it’s not like marrying into a family will automatically make the public lump you together with them for the rest of your life,” Tyrion adds in a different tone of voice.

Jaime immediately understands the subtext. “I take it Tysha’s still refusing to get married?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says Tyrion glumly. “She says that she doesn’t believe in the institution of marriage and that she can tell that Dad doesn’t really approve of her and that she was never cut out to be a Lannister anyways.”

“Dad doesn’t approve of her,” Jaime says.

“I know, but who cares? We’re adults. We can make our own decisions, live our own lives.”

Jaime thinks about their father arranging for him to study with Sam Goodwin and wonders how true that really is. He’s still overwhelmingly crippled by his need to use his father as a crutch. “Still,” he says. “You’d think that Dad would realize that he can’t get rid of Tysha by now.”

Tyrion and Tysha had been dating since 9th grade. Jaime and Cersei had been seniors at Lannisport Academy, the highly prestigious school that Dad forced them all to attend. It was his alma mater after all. Tysha Crofter wasn’t old school money like the rest of them; she was a scholarship student. Somehow, she and Tyrion managed to cling to each other, and when Dad found out from Uncle Kevan, who was Lannisport’s headmaster at the time, he hit the roof and shouted about poor girls trying to get money from him by playing on his emotions. “Tysha’s not like that!” Tyrion had shouted back. “Mom would’ve had understood!” It was the first time Jaime had ever seen Dad truly mad at Tyrion. 

“Yeah, yeah, I think he knows that Tysha isn’t going anywhere,” Tyrion says. “He’s just too proud to admit it.”

Jaime laughs. “He would be,” he says.

“But tell me more about this girl of yours!” says Tyrion eagarly.

Jaime blushes. “She isn’t mine,” he says.

“Okay, fine, but you have your eye on her,” Tyrion says. “And I want to know more about her. Would Dad approve?”

“Oh, good heavens, no!” says Jaime with a laugh. “She isn’t traditionally pretty like Cersei or Mom or Tysha, and she can be a little gruff at times.”

Tyrion laughs. “I like her already.”

Jaime begins eating lunch with Brienne every day. Not just during work, either. They meet most Saturdays and Sundays and find new places to try. Jaime learns that her favorite type of sandwich is a rueben and that her best friend is an aggravating little shit named Hyle Hunt.

“Actually,” she says with a teasing smile. “You kind of remind me of him a little.”

“Me?” says Jaime in mock indignation. “An aggravating little shit? Well, I never!”

“No, Jaime, you always,” Brienne says and laughs.

And god, Jaime loves her laugh. She doesn’t laugh the way Cersei does, like she’s afraid of it sounding embarrassing. No, when Brienne finds something funny, you know she finds it funny. And more often than not, she’s laughing at something Jaime also finds funny. When she’s not laughing at Jaime himself, because she tends to do that. A lot.

Sometimes Jaime looks at her freckled face and wonders when he stopped trying to befriend her and started falling in love with her. The thought catches him in the gut every time. That’s a dangerous game to play, he tells himself. 

But when he meets Brienne’s gaze across the office and she makes a silly face at him, Jaime finds himself playing anyways.

“Tyrion, what am I going to do?” Jaime asks, during another one of their late night phone calls. “I have to go home in less than a month and I don’t even know if she feels the same way!”

“I cannot believe that you’re asking me for love advice,” says Tyrion dryly.

“Well, why wouldn’t I be? One of us has been in a steady relationship for over a decade and it sure as hell isn’t me.”

Tyrion chuckles. “Good point,” he says. Then he says, “You could always invite her back to Casterly Rock with you. Offer to show her Westeros. She might find it kind of touching. Since it’s her native land and all. You might even be able to pass it off as a romantic gesture, then wait to see how takes it. Also am I still banned from telling anyone about your lady love?”

“Yes! You are so banned! No one can know!” says Jaime. “Not Dad. Not Cersei. Not Uncle Kevan. Not Tysh… actually, you can tell Tysha. She might have some advice for me. Advice that’s actually, you know, good for once.”

Tyrion squeaks in indignation. “My advice is good!”

Chapter Text

Brienne puts another X on her calendar before going to bed every night. She can’t remember when she started counting down the days to Jaime’s departure, can’t remember when it switched from being a countdown of anticipation to a countdown of dread. It’s funny, but she’s really come to think of Jaime as one of her closest friends.

It’s because you have hardly any friends at all, and you see him everyday at work, she reminds herself. If you saw Hizdahr zo Loraq everyday, you might think of him as your best buddy, too. Then she has to laugh at the mental image of her hanging out with Meereen’s new mayor.

Still, Brienne feels sick when she thinks of summer ending. Sure, she’ll be going back to Ghaean to finally earn her Master’s in Landscape Architecture, and she’s always loved school, but she’s also really enjoyed getting to work with Sam this summer, and she’s not sure if she’s ready to say good-bye to that.

She’s also not sure if she’s ready to say good-bye to Jaime Lannister.

“It’s so stupid!” she rants to Hyle, when he comes over to play video games on a Friday afternoon. “A month ago, I could hardly stand his guts, and now I’m all mopey at the thought of him leaving. What’s wrong with me?”

“Brienne’s in looo-ve,” teases Hyle in a singsong voice.

Brienne punches his shoulder. “Shut up! I am not.” Feeling herself being to flush, she punches Hyle again and mutters, “I’m just always short on friends, you know? So I’m sad because I’ll be losing one come September.”

“Can’t you just, like, long-distance things?” asks Hyle, rubbing his shoulder. “Phone calls, emails, and the works? You could even Skype, and then you’d get to see his stupid-beautiful face, too.”

And Brienne knew that she shouldn’t have told Hyle that she thought Jaime had a stupid-beautiful face. “No, but see, Skyping isn’t the same as talking face to face,” she says. “I mean, when you say some shit in person, I can just punch you, but over Skype? Not so much.”

Hyle scowls at her. “Please don’t punch me agian,” he says. “My shoulder’s taken enough abuse for one day, I think.”

“Then stop abusing my ears with the dumb shit you say,” says Brienne.

“What you are scared of?” asks Hyle suddenly.

Brienne freezes, then laughs. “Scared of? What are you talking about, Hyle?”

“Brienne, you’re absolutely terrified by the idea that you might have a thing for Jaime Lannister,” Hyle says, voice surprisingly patient. “Aside from the fact that he’s going back to Westeros in a month, why are you so scared by the possibility?”

“Because people like him don’t like people like me,” says Brienne flatly. 

“Um, weren’t you just telling about how he hates people who think like that?” asks Hyle.

“Yeah, and he compared me to his brother,” Brienne because. “Because we’re both interesting to talk to. That’s not romantic, Hyle, that’s just friendship. I mean, he compared me to his brother, for Seven’s sake! Jaime and I are… we’re ‘bros.’”

Hyle doesn’t look convinced. “I mean,” he says. “If you say so.”

Sam invites her over for Sunday tea and scones. It’s tradition of theirs that started when Brienne was twelve, and has continued approximately once a month since then. Brienne sits at the little round table in Sam’s kitchen, and looks at the room around her: the white, linoleum counters; the bright yellow curtains; the houseplants. She’s always felt more at home in Sam’s house than her father’s, and as she looks at Sam’s weathered and kind face, she wonders when she’ll be forced to let go of this childhood safety net and face the world alone.

Then, Sam surprises her by asking if she’d like to help him plan a little going away office party for Jaime. “I just figured, that as his closest confidant in the office, that you might have some valuable insight into what he might enjoy,” says Sam.

“Um,” Brienne says stupidly. She shakes her head, then says, “I’m sure if I would use the word ‘confidant,’ but I’ll do my best to help.”

Which is how Brienne finds herself discussing potential foods to serve at Jaime’s going away party over tea and scones with Sam. It feels surreal, to help plan a celebration for an event she is so dreading.

“I’m glad that you and Jaime got be friends,” Sam tells her. “The first time I talked to him, I thought, He and Brienne will either be best friends, or they’ll hate each other. I’m glad it’s the former and not the latter.”

“I think we did hate each other for a while, at first,” admits Brienne in a sheepish voice.

“But you moved past that,” says Sam. “You didn’t let your original prejudices get the better of you. And that’s the important thing. You’ve done me proud this summer, kiddo.”

Brienne feels herself flushing at the praise. “Thanks, Sam,” she says shyly. She’s glad that she hasn’t been a disappointment to Sam, whether through her internship at Harpy and Sons or through her interactions with others. At some point during her childhood, Brienne realized that she would never make her father proud, so she stopped trying; instead, she began seeking Sam’s approval instead.

“And I’m glad you’re making friends,” Sam adds. “I know you’ve always had difficulty with that.”

“Sa-am,” protests Brienne in embarrassment.

“Though I must admit,” continues Sam, ignoring Brienne’s interjection. “Sometimes I wish you’d choose easier friends.”

That pulls Brienne up short. “What do you mean?” she asks.

“It’s just that, it feels like all of your friends are headstrong boys,” Sam says. “And it might do you some good to have a few female friends, too.”

“Not all my friends are headstrong boys.”

Sam smiles indulgently at her. “Between Renly Baratheon in high school, then Hyle Hunt, and now Jaime?” he asks. “Your track record says otherwise.”

“They aren’t my only friends,” protests Brienne weakly. “Alayaya and I still keep in contact.” Alayaya, or ‘Yaya as she was sometimes called, had been Brienne’s roommate her first year of graduate school. She was a bold and sensuous woman—everything Brienne wasn’t. Still, they had gotten along well.

Sam makes a noise indicting that he’ll accept her answer, then says, “Speaking of Hyle Hunt, has he asked you out yet?”

Brienne chokes on nothing. “What!?” she sputters. “Sam, what are you talking about?”

“Well, it’s obvious the lad fancies you,” says Sam mildly.

“No, Sam, just… no,” Brienne says firmly. “Absolutely not.”

Sam raises his eyebrows at her. “But you spend so much time together,” he says.

“Yeah, because we’re best friends,” says Brienne, slowly as if she’s explaining a new concept. “And I know it might be hard for you to grasp this idea, but in this modern day and age, it’s totally possible for males and females to be friends without there being romantic undertones.”

“All right, no need to sass me,” says Sam, grumbly good-naturedly. Then he grins wickedly at Brienne. “But what about Jaime?”

“Do you want my help planning this office party or not?”

Jaime Lannister’s going away party goes smoothly. When he gets up to use the restroom towards the end of his last day with Harpy and Sons, Brienne takes the pie, made by Sam, out of the fridge. It’s cherry, which Brienne knows from prior conversations is Jaime’s favorite. She very carefully sets the pie down on Jaime’s desk, then moves to stand with the rest of her co-workers as they wait for Jaime to come back.

When he sees the pie, Jaime’s green eyes go wide with surprise. “What’s this?” he asks, turning to notice the entirety of the office gathered around.

“Happy going away party!” says Sam, just as someone else shouts, “Surprise!” and a third person jokes, “We’re celebrating your imminent departure.”

“You didn’t have to,” Jaime begins to say, but Sam shushes him by telling him that any excuse to have pie is a good excuse.

Brienne smiles when she sees Jaime laugh at Sam’s reasoning. It always makes her happy when the people she cares about get along with each other. Then she has to stop and wonder how, in the span of a few months, Jaime Lannister got to be so high on her list of people she cares about. It reminds her of Hyle’s “What are you so scared of?” and Sam’s “But what about Jaime?” and her own calendar countdown to this day.

Sam cuts into the pie, and when Jaime sees that it’s cherry, he turns to flash Brienne a crooked grin; she can tell that he knows she’s one who arranged for that. After graciously thanking Sam and the other Harpy and Sons execs, Jaime brings his pie plate over to the front desk. “So,” he says and nudges Brienne’s shoulder. “Cherry pie.”

“Sam asked me to help him put this together,” Brienne explains.

Jaime smiles at her. “Well, thanks,” he says.

Feeling her cheeks flushes, Brienne looks at her feet. “It was nothing,” she says. When Jaime doesn’t say anything, she forces herself to raise her gaze to meet his eyes, and say, “Um, I don’t know when you fly out, but if you have time, would you want to go get lunch together tomorrow? Just, you know, for ‘old time’s sake’ and all?”

Jaime looks on the verge of saying something, when he stops, closes his mouth, smiles crookedly. “Meet you at the Green Grace at noon?” he asks.

The Green Grace. Where they had lunch together that first Saturday. Brienne supposes there’s some poetic grace to sharing their last meal together at the same place. “Sounds good,” she says. “See you tomorrow.”

And she does. At exactly 12:00, she and Jaime are sitting down in the Green Grace. It isn’t the same table they sat at that first day—that would be too much of a coincidence—but it’s the same girl who seats them. Brienne wonders if Jaime recognizes the hostess. She hopes he does. She hopes he doesn’t.

They sit in an unexpected silence, not talking until they order, at which point Brienne feels the need to say something. Say anything. “So,” she says suddenly. “When do you fly out?”

“Um,” says Jaime, and he sounds like he isn’t sure, which strikes Brienne as odd. Jaime Lannister is always so put together, so prepared for everything. “I was supposed to fly out this morning,” he admits.

That certainly catches Brienne unawares. “What?” she says with an awkward laugh. “Jaime, isn’t it a little foolish to miss your flight just for a lunch date?”

“No,” says Jaime quietly. “I think I did something a lot more foolish.”

Brienne feels her stomach swoop. “Jaime,” she says softly. “What did you do?”

Jaime swallows hard, stares harder at Brienne. “I sold that plane ticket a few weeks ago,” he says.

“Why?” asks Brienne.

“And I spoke to my landlord about extending the lease on my apartment,” Jaime continues, looking determined to get to the end of his point.

“Why?” repeats Brienne.

“I guess I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to Meereen,” says Jaime quietly.

Brienne sighs. “It is a beautiful city,” she says. “All of the pyramids.”

“No, I…” Jaime looks frustrated, and then suddenly, he’s reaching across the table to grasp Brienne’s hand. “I’m not ready to say good-bye to you, Brienne.”

Chapter Text

Jaime stares hopefully across the table at Brienne, waiting for her to say something, to say anything. Her hand is large and calloused in his own, but Jaime finds he doesn’t mind. If anything, he’s grown to take pleasure in thought that Brienne wouldn’t let him push her around. He thinks that maybe he’s spent too much of his life pushing around people who couldn’t stop him. A side effect of having been born handsome, and athletic, and a Lannister, he thinks.

“When did we stop hating each other?” asks Brienne suddenly, and of all the things Jaime had been expecting her to say, that was not one of them.

“I beg your pardon?” he says.

Brienne rolls her shoulders back and tugs her hand out of Jaime’s grasp. “I mean, you used to be such an asshole to me,” she says. “And I wasn’t much better, throwing my drink in your face just because you think I looked mannish, like that’s the first time’s that happened.” She rolls her eyes. “The whole first month we knew each other, there was nothing to suggest that we’d ever come to even respect each other, let alone be friends, and now? What are you doing, Jaime?”

“Well, I thought I was making a romantic gesture, but now I’m not so sure,” says Jaime hotly, because that’s the thing about Brienne: she’s always driving him crazy, either from want or from pigheadedness.

“Well, it was a foolish gesture,” Brienne says. “To decide to stay in Meereen before knowing how I felt on the matter! It’s mighty presumptuous of you to assume that—”

“I wasn’t assuming anything!” shouts Jaime. The restaurant falls silent around them, and embarrassed, he drops his voice to a hiss. “How else was I supposed to find out how you felt?”

Brienne rolls her eyes. She’s been doing that a lot lately. “Gee, Jaime, I don’t know. Maybe by asking?” she says sarcastically.

“Well, call it a defect of my lavish upbringing, but I’ve never been any good at asking,” says Jaime. “It’s easier for me to just do.”

“What? Like, shoot first, ask question later?” asks Brienne with a laugh. She no longer seems so angry, sounds more amused than upset.

Jaime’s lips twitch. “Sure,” he says. “Something like that.” He looks at Brienne, her freckled face, her bright blue eyes, and her mouth that seems torn between laughing or sighing in exasperation, and he says, “You’re right.”

Brienne’s mouth drops into an expression of surprise. “What?”

“I should have talked to you before deciding to commit to Meereen,” Jaime says. “Were I deciding to stay because I liked the city or simply because I enjoyed your friendship, it’d be different. But that’s not what this is about.

“So when did we stop hating each other?” Brienne asks again.

“Well, I don’t think I ever did,” says Jaime. At the look of disbelief of Brienne’s face, he quickly adds, “I mean, yeah, I found you irritating and I enjoyed trying to piss you off, but I never hated you.” Hate is a very specific emotion that Jaime reserves for very few people, namely Aerys Targaryen for looking at his mother in an indecent way, and he despises Old Man Frey.

“I hated you,” Brienne admits in a soft voice.

Jaime smiles sadly. “Given how I acted, I don’t think I can fault you for that,” he says. “But, since you’re so eager to ask the question, when did your opinion of me change?”

“When you stood up to that creep at Under Locke and Key for me,” confesses Brienne sheepishly. “It’s so cliché, isn’t it? I hated you until you did something nice for me. But apparently, that’s how I make friends.”

Jaime remembers Brienne telling him about how she and Hyle became friends after he got in a fistfight with someone who had accused her of being a man in drag. Sometimes Jaime wonders if Hyle sees Brienne as something more than a best friend, but he can’t afford to think like that right now. Instead, he thinks about something a lot more pressing. “You know,” he says casually. “You never really answered my question.”

“What are you talking about? I just told you when I stopped hating you,” says Brienne in confusion.

“I didn’t mean that question,” says Jaime. “I meant… about how you feel regarding my decision to stay in Meereen.”

Brienne blushes a deep scarlet. “Oh!” she manages in a small voice. “I…” She trails off uncertainly, and Jaime wonders if this means her answer is no, when says suddenly, “I have this calendar.”

Jaime isn’t sure where she’s going with this, but he sense it would be best not to push her.

“And not long after we met, I started putting x’s on it,” Brienne continues in a halting voice. “To countdown the days until you left. At first, I did it because I couldn’t wait for you go. But not anymore.” She pauses, takes a deep breath as if to steel herself, says, “In the end, I really didn’t want you to go.”

A sense of relief washes over Jaime, but Brienne isn’t finished yet.

“I kept telling myself that it was because I had come to see you as a good friend,” she says. “Because I was scared to admit to myself that I might be attracted to you. But now that you’ve gone and made the first move, I don’t suppose there’s any use denying it anymore.”

“Does that mean—” Jaime begins to say, and Brienne smiles.

“I guess it does,” she says. “But don’t go thinking that just because I like you that I’m ready to leap into a relationship right away. I think I still need some time to get used to idea of you. You know?”

Jaime looks at Brienne, and, “Yeah, I do.”

“So, thanks to my expert advice, in the end, you got the girl,” Tyrion says smugly, when Jaime calls to tell him the news.

“Uh, false,” says Jaime with a laugh. “You told me to ask her to back Westeros with me. That’s, like, the opposite of what went down.”

Tyrion doesn’t respond, and Jaime can practically hear his frown in the silence. “Why didn’t you ask her to come back with you?” he eventually asks.

“Because I knew that she wouldn’t say yes,” Jaime says simply.

“What do you mean? She said yes to you saying in Essos, didn’t she?” asks Tyrion.

“Okay, well, first of all, I didn’t ‘get the girl,’” explains Jaime. “Not yet anyways. I mean, we’re heading in that direction, but we’re not there yet. If we were already there, then maybe I could ask Brienne to cross the Narrow Sea for me. I mean, she’s still in school, for Seven’s sake! One year away from getting a Master’s, and you think she’d drop out of school to run away with me?”

Tyrion laughs. “I get it,” he says. “But, now, that you and Brienne are semiofficial, am I still sworn to secrecy?”

And Jaime isn’t sure why, but for some reason, he’s hesitant to let anyone else know about his budding relationship with Brienne. “Yes,” he says. “I still don’t want you tell anyone.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s not really your story to tell, is it?” asks Jaime. “Also, I don’t think Brienne fancies the idea of Tywin Lannister having a grudge against her just yet.”

Tyrion chuckles. “Would Dad really hate her that much?” he asks.

Jaime nods, before remembering that his brother can’t see him. “If he hasn’t accepted Tysha yet, he’ll definitely not be okay with Brienne.”

“I’ll give you that,” says Tyrion. “But when do I get to meet her?”

“When you come visit us in Meereen next summer,” Jaime says.

“Really?” Tyrion asks, sounding pleased with the prospect.

“Sure. You and Tysha deserve a vacation anyways, why not spend it with me and Brienne?”

“So, assuming that you eventually ‘get the girl,’ you think and Brienne will still be together in a year?” asks Tyrion, not unkindly.

Jaime thinks about Brienne telling him she isn’t ready to simply jump into a relationship with him, and he says, “Yeah, I do. I think we’re in it for the long run.”

Chapter Text

On her 24th birthday, Brienne tells Jaime that she thinks she’s ready.

“Ready for what?” asks Jaime, and Brienne can’t tell from his tone of voice whether he’s serious or he’s just playing dumb.

“Jaime,” she says. “We’ve basically been dating in everything but name for the past few months. I’m ready to actually be able to call a spade and spade.”

Jaime smiles softly and slips his hand into hers. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“Sure, I’m sure,” Brienne says and nuzzles her face into Jaime’s shoulder. She has long since gotten comfortable with showing affection when they’re alone. She’s less sure of how she’ll handle being affectionate in public, but she’s ready to try. It’s part of why she wants to call their relationship by the right name.

“Does that mean I tell Tyrion you’ve finally agreed to be my girlfriend?” teases Jaime.

“I’ll never hear the end of it from Hyle,” Brienne says with sigh. “The moment I say ‘boyfriend,’ he’ll never shut up about how he knew I had a thing for you.”

Jaime laughs. “I’m glad he was right, though,” he says mildly.

Brienne elbows him in the side. “Don’t get cocky,” she warns, then says, “Yes, you may tell Tyrion that I’ve finally said yes to being your girlfriend.”

“Mm, finally.” There is sweet affection in Jaime’s voice as he cuddles closer to Brienne and presses a kiss to her short, blonde hair.

Turning toward Jaime, Brienne kisses him gently. “Took us long enough to get here,” she jokes.

“The journey was just as important as the destination,” Jaime tells, and Brienne bursts out laughing.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says between laughs. “It’s just… that was cheesiest thing you’ve every said.”

Jaime laughs too, and leans his forehead against hers. “It really was, wasn’t it?”

Brienne likes him like this, when he’s silly and open and free. Over the past few months, she’s come to see that there’s more to Jaime Lannister than the content and golden man she had just thought him to be. She knows now that his childhood was as imperfect as her own. His father was harsh and demanding—and still is, from it sounds like when Jaime breaks down enough to talk about it. All she can do is wrap her arms around him and hold him close and hope that it's enough.

“Jaime Lannister, master of cheese,” she teases.

“Imagine seeing that on a billboard,” Jaime teases back.

Brienne laughs. “Believe me, I’m trying.”

When Brienne walks across the stage to receive her Master’s, Sam, Jaime, and Hyle sit together and cheer as loudly as a three-man brigade can. Afterwards, Brienne finds Alayaya in the crowd. They squeeze each other’s hands and laugh about finally getting through grad school. “We did it!” exclaims Alayaya with a huge grin on her face.

Then Brienne introduces her former roommate to Jaime. “‘Yaya, this is Jaime,” she says. “Jaime, Alayaya.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Jaime says and shakes Alayaya’s hand.

Alayaya grins at him. “Ditto.”

Hyle claps Brienne on the back, harder than necessary, and laughs and says, “Congratulations, Brienne.”

But it is Sam’s reaction that Brienne craves the most, and when she sees the shining pride in his eyes, she feels like the most loved girl in the world. “You’ve worked so hard for this, kiddo,” Sam says and hugs her tight. “Well done.”

“Thank you,” Brienne whispers back. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

Later, Jaime takes her out to dinner at a cute, little restaurant that specializes in Westerosi cuisine. “Have you ever had Arbor gold?” he asks, and when Brienne shakes her head and explains that she’s only ever had Essosi wines, he urges her to order a glass. “It’s truly lovely.”

And maybe it’s the euphoria of finally earning her Master’s, or the prospect of partaking in wines from her homeland, but something makes Brienne reach for Jaime’s hand across the table and say, “You’re lovely.”

Jaime smiles. He doesn’t lie, doesn’t say “No, you’re lovely.” They’ve never felt the need to sugarcoat little things like that. But he does squeeze her hand tight and say, “I love you.”

“Really?” It’s first time they’ve ever used that word with each other, though Brienne’s been thinking it for a while now.

“Really,” says Jaime. He strokes his thumb across her palm. “And I now that it’s early in our relationship to be throwing the L word around, but like our ‘honesty is the best policy’ thing we have going on, and I just thought you should know anyways.”

Brienne laughs softly. “It’s a good policy,” she agrees.

Jaime pretends to kick her under the table. “There you go, teasing me again,” he says. “Letting me tell you I love you, and then saying that.”

“Surely, you know how I feel by now,” says Brienne. She brings Jaime’s hand up to her face and kisses his knuckles tenderly. “I should think it quite obvious that I love you back.”

“I had my suspicions,” Jaime teases.

Brienne rolls her eyes. “Of course you did,” she says fondly. Jaime may act full of himself at times, but Brienne knows now that persona has been built up after years of feeling unsure of himself. It’s his idea of self-defense. “I do love you, Jaime,” she says, because she recognizes the appearance of his shield now as an indicator of his anxiety over telling her that he loves her.

Jaime smiles, and there’s that look Brienne loves, when his smile reaches fully into his green eyes and there is no mistaking how happy he feels. “I’m glad,” he murmurs.

Brienne playfully nudges his foot with hers. “Me too,” she says.

Brienne is nervous beyond all nervousness when Tyrion and Tysha come to visit. She knows how important Jaime’s brother is to him, and she desperate hopes that she won’t make a bad first impression on the younger Lannister.

“Relax,” Jaime says when he notices the tension in her shoulders. “Tyrion’s, like, the least judge-y person I know.”

“Are you sure?” asks Brienne anxiously.

Jaime presses a kiss to her nose. “I’m sure,” he says. “You’ve already won me over, and that’s the hard part.” Brienne arches an eyebrow at him, and he amends, “By which I mean that I’m considerably more judgmental than Tyrion is, so don’t worry.”

Brienne worries anyways. She nervously bites her nails as Jaime drives them to airport to pick up Tyrion and Tysha, and when she does finally meant Jaime’s beloved younger brother and his girlfriend, she feels taller and uglier than she has in a long time. Tyrion’s lack of height makes her seem a giant, and next to Tysha’s dark-haired and slender beauty, Brienne is sure that she looks all the more a hag. But then Jaime looks at her with such an affection in his bright green eyes, that Brienne brushes off the feeling of humiliation and smiles at their new guests. “It’s amazing to finally meet you,” she tells Tyrion. “Jaime talks about you all the time.”

“He better,” says Tyrion with a laugh.

“Shut up,” Jaime mutters, but the look he gives his brother is full of love and happiness to see him again. “And look at you, Tysha!” he says. “You look well.”

Tysha laughs, and Brienne almost flinches, because by the Seven! even her laugh is beautiful. “Thank you, Jaime,” the brunette says and goes up on tiptoe to kiss Jaime’s cheek. “It is good to see you, too.” Then she turns to Brienne with a bright smile. “It’s good to meet you, Brienne,” she says and extends a perfect, tiny hand to shake.

Brienne shakes said hand and smiles. “Nice to meet you too,” she says. She knows from what Jaime’s told her that Tysha has been dating Tyrion since high school and is practically family. And Brienne wants to be friends with Tysha, but it’s hard for her to look at this gorgeous woman and not feel a twinge of jealousy. Then she remembers what Jaime told her the first time they had lunch together—“Tyrion’s got a really beautiful girlfriend and people look at him the way that girl looked at you all the time. So fuck them! It’s their loss if they miss out on gems like you and Tyrion just because they can’t see past a person’s face.”—and feels less out of place around Jaime and Tyrion and Tysha.

Jaime drives Tysha and his brother to their hotel to let them drop off their luggage before taking them back to the apartment he and Brienne have recently moved into together. “We would have asked you to just stay with us, but wait until you see the apartment,” explains Jaime. “I mean, it’s nice, but it’s definitely too small for four people.”

“Even when one of the four is as small as I am?” asks Tyrion innocently, and Tysha laughs.

“You may be small,” she teases, “but you stretch out like a giant when you’re asleep.”

“And you snore,” Jaime chimes in.

“I do not!” protests Tyrion, and Brienne likes this friendly banter. One day, she hopes she’ll be able to partake in it, but she isn’t yet family to Jaime and Tyrion, not the way Tysha is.

A few days later, Jaime and Tyrion go out golfing together, “For some brotherly bonding!” Jaime and explained with a laugh, leaving Brienne alone with Tysha. She no longer feels so uncomfortable around Tyrion’s pretty girlfriend, and welcomes the chance to get to know her better.

“Jaime says that he doesn’t want to tell his father about me, because he’s not ready for his father to hate me,” Brienne says. “Is that hating his sons’ girlfriends something Tywin Lannister does regularly, and is it really that bad?”

Tysha laughs. “Twyin has very specific ideas about socio-economic class,” she explains. “He has similarly specific ideas about which type of people are suitable partners for his children. A scholarship girl is not one of them.”

Brienne sighs. “A lumbering giantess probably isn’t one of them either,” she says.

“A giantess you may be, but lumbering? Brienne, you have more grace than you give yourself credit for,” Tysha says, and it doesn’t even sound insincere. “But yes, I will admit that you don’t quite conform to Tywin’s idea of a perfect housewife.”

“Oh, he’s one of those,” says Brienne with a groan.

The expression on Tysha’s face is grim. “Unfortunately,” she says. “He doesn't like me, because he wants Tyrion to marry a beautiful housewife from a successful family who can trace their bloodlines back to nobility.”

Brienne thinks about her own bloodline. It’s blue enough; through her father, she’s a direct descendant from an ancient noble house, one that once ruled over an island that still, her father was fond of telling her, to this day, shares a name with them. She briefly wonders if that would be enough to sway Tywin Lannister’s thoughts in her favor, before realizing that between her lack of other qualities he’s looking for and her current estrangement from her father, there’s no hope of Jaime’s father ever approving of her. Then scolds herself for even thinking about it because, You’ve been dating Jaime for less than a year. You have no idea if this will be a long-term relationship or not. So Tywin Lannister isn’t even worth worrying about.

But a part of Brienne secretly hopes that some day, Tywin Lannister will be worth worrying about.

Chapter Text

Sometimes Jaime wakes gasping in the middle of the night. Usually, he’s been dreaming of some former memory that only returns to haunt him the darkness. He finds that sleeping next to Brienne’s solid form helps, and sometimes when Jaime sits on the edge of their bed with his head in his hands, trying to regain his breath, sometimes Brienne will wake up, too. Jaime always feels guilty when she does, because he doesn’t want her to lose out on sleep just because he is, but he has to admit that he finds comfort in the way she leans against his back and wraps his arms around him and gently kisses the back of his neck.

A little sign of love goes a long way, Jaime thinks, takes a deep shuddering breath, feels the beat of her heart against his back.

And sometimes it fascinates Jaime, to look at Brienne and realize that she loves him in all of his flaws. The thought makes him love her all the more. He’s always been a secret romantic, a believer in unconditional love. A lot of his childhood was spent believing that Cersei loved him unconditionally—though perhaps, the thought itself was a condition of her being his twin—but as they got older, Jaime began to see just how many conditions there were to Cersei’s love for him. He knows that Tyrion loves him unconditionally, and that their mother did too, but as enters his thirties, Jaime finds himself longing for a type of unconditional love that isn’t familial. 

Then he feels Brienne’s lips hot against his ear as she whispers calming words in the middle of the night, and Jaime wonders if maybe he’s already found the unconditional love he’s been looking for.

He finds himself walking into the jewelry store before he’s even realized what he plans on doing. He asks the jeweler to help him find a simple ring with a small gem. “It has to be a sapphire,” he says, thinking of Brienne’s eyes. “But nothing gaudy.”

The ring feels heavy in his pocket as he walks around for the next week trying to find the perfect moment to pop the question. Would a romantic candle-lit dinner be too cliché? he wonders, before deciding that yes, absolutely yes, that would be far too cliché for either Brienne or him to stomach.

Then, one night when Brienne is brushing her teeth and Jaime is casually channel-surfing, he reaches into his pocket for the ring and decides that it’s time. When he calls for Brienne to come out of the bathroom and see this thing on the TV, it doesn’t matter that her mouth is full of toothpaste or that he hasn’t shaved in three days or that they’re both in their raggedy old pajamas. He produces and the ring from his pocket and gets down on one knee. The toothbrush falls from Brienne’s mouth before he even asks the question. But then he does—

“Brienne,” he says softly. “Brienne Tarth. You… you’ve been the love of my life for the past… five years?” He laughs. “God, sorry, I haven’t planned this at all, but believe me when I say that it comes from the bottom of my heart.”

“Jaime,” Brienne whispers in a shocked voice.

He smiles at her. “Brienne,” he repeats. “I… will you… you know?”

“Marry you?” asks Brienne, quirking one eyebrow.

Jaime nods. “yeah, that,” he says with a laugh. “Will you marry me?”

“I… yes,” says Brienne. She smiles broadly at him. “A thousand times yes.”

And maybe it tastes like Crest when they kiss, and yet Jaime thinks it’s never been sweeter.

Their wedding is a quite affair. They barely even dress up when they go to the Justice-of-the-Peace’s office to get their marriage license. They have only four guests: Sam and Hyle from Brienne’s side and Tyrion and Tysha from Jaime’s.

“Who would have thought that I’d be married before you?” Jaime says to Tyrion, when they’ve gathered for food and drink at their apartment afterwards.

Tyrion smiles wryly at him. “Well, you had the advantage of falling in love with a woman who believes in marriage,” he reminds his brother and gazes wistfully across the room at Tysha.

“You do realize that the two of you are as good as married, right?” says Jaime. “And that Tysha’s been a part of them family for years now.”

“I know,” says Tyrion. “But sometimes I wish that she’d let me put a ring on it.”

Brienne laughs at his words. “You two,” she says. “So opposite of all the stereotypes saying that women are desperate to get hitched while men prefer their freedom.”

Tyrion laughs with her. “We’re an inversion of stereotypes? What about you and Jaime? You’re loads stronger than he is,” he teases.

“That’s my cue to leave,” says Jaime, rolling his eyes and crossing the room to offer Sam another glass of Arbor gold.

“I’m glad, though, that my brother found you,” Tyrion tells Brienne. “Before you, the only girl he knew how to talk to was our sister.”

“Cersei,” says Brienne, testing out the name. “Did they have a falling out? Jaime rarely talks about her.”

Tyrion shakes his head. “Not a falling out, per say,” he says. “But they’ve definitely grown apart over the years. As kids, they conformed to that stereotype of twins being closer than most siblings, but that changed around high school. You know, Cersei’s a lot like our dad. That is to say, they’re both really concerned with social status and all that. Jaime and I aren't so much, and so that realization, that they preferred the company of different types of people, drew them apart a little. And just little things like that. Like, when Jaime told Cersei that he didn’t approve of her boyfriend, and she accused him of being jealous. Don’t get me wrong, because they love each other. They love each other, but they know just how to push each other’s buttons.”

Brienne hums to herself. “Your family dynamic sounds complicated,” she says and thinks about her own family, or lack thereof.

“Yeah, well, welcome to the family, Brienne,” says Tyrion with a laugh.

And at the end of the night, when Jaime kisses her and she wraps her arms around them and they fall asleep to the rise and fall of the other’s breath, Brienne is happy to be a part of the family.