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Traveling to Winterfell is never particularly fun , although Jaime thinks that this time at least might be the most he’s ever enjoyed it. There’s no procession of idiots following Robert fucking Baratheon, and he’s certainly not all on his own , dreading the reception he’ll get when he arrives.
Well… he’s still sort of dreading the reception he’ll get, but at least this time he has Brienne.
It’s been three years since they found their way back to each other. Three years of peace on Tarth, three years of Jaime thanking his lucky stars each day that she forgave him for leaving, forgave him for all of the horrible things he’d done in his life.
He’s not so sure the Starks will be as forgiving, seeing him again for the first time. But answering Sansa’s call is important to Brienne, and he supposes if there’s one person that he’s willing to risk imminent death for still in this world, it’s his wife.
“It’s not even that cold yet, Jaime. Must you look so glum?” she asks him as they ride closer and closer to the castle. It’s only just visible, but it’s close enough that he can start imagining the looks on Sansa and Arya’s faces when he walks in.
“The cold’s not going to kill me this time, but the Starks might,” Jaime tells her pointedly, and her eyes narrow at him, as if he’s just said something completely insane.
He loves that look. He loves all her looks.
“They’ve got every right to execute me on the spot if they want to, don’t they?” Jaime continues, and Brienne looks exasperated with him. It’s been years now; he knows that they won’t really punish him for his past crimes, particularly when they didn’t amount to anything in the long run. Cersei is still dead, and Daenerys too; he didn’t save his child, and he found his way back to Brienne. Sometimes, in his dreams, it’s like he never made the mistake of leaving her at all.
But he did. Brienne has forgiven him, and he’s sure that’s good enough for the Starks, but he still hasn’t forgiven himself , not entirely. Sometimes, Jaime thinks that he brings it up just so she can reassure him that she’s not going to change her mind and take it all back, right when he’s gotten truly comfortable in the life they’ve built together.
She doesn’t reassure him now, though. She just quips, “I thought you didn’t care what anyone else thought of you.”
“No one but you and Jo, though I’m not sure how much thinking an infant really does,” Jaime corrects her, thinking wistfully of their daughter back home on Tarth. They’d have brought her, if they could, but she’s too little still, and Sansa’s letter seemed too urgent to ignore until Joanna was of a traveling age. She’s happily with her grandfather, and Jaime is sure that Selwyn must be tiring of all the ravens they’ve sent his way since they departed for Winterfell.
“Well, then it doesn’t matter if they want you dead,” Brienne informs him, and Jaime decides to keep the bit going, just a little longer. Just to irritate her, because he can, and because deep down he knows that how utterly annoying he can be is one of her favorite things about him.
“It matters how it makes you feel once I am dead,” Jaime points out, and Brienne rolls her eyes.
“As if I’d ever let them kill you. Come on, then; move along,” she says, kicking her horse into a faster speed, and Jaime follows her, not wanting to deny her her reunion with Sansa for a moment longer.
Jaime was never the best at writing, even before he lost his right hand; now that he’s only got his left, he’s truly atrocious at it, and he realizes that he really doesn’t write to people as often as he ought to. Not that there are many people he’d bother to keep in touch with, but Tyrion and Bronn might be nice. Maybe even Podrick, if the boy were amenable to it.
It’s never more obvious how out of touch he is than when they arrive in Winterfell, and instead of being met with Stark family ire , he’s clapped on the shoulder by Bronn, who’s wearing a shit-eating grin, and then there’s a small figure hugging him around the middle.
“ Tyrion ,” Jaime breathes out happily, crouching down to match his brother’s embrace. The courtyard is filled with familiar faces: Arya and Sansa, of course, but he’d expected them. He hadn’t expected Gendry Baratheon, or Bronn or Tyrion, or the banished Jon Snow, or Tormund fucking Giantsbane, and he certainly hadn’t expected Podrick and the King.
“What are you doing here?” Jaime asks his brother softly as Brienne is embraced by Sansa and Podrick, who can’t seem to decide who gets to hug her first and have settled for both encircling her in their arms at the same time instead.
“You’ll see,” Tyrion replies with a laugh, clearly enjoying knowing something that Jaime does not. As usual .
The surprise that Sansa has mentioned to Brienne in her letters turns out to be very surprising indeed. Jaime’s not sure what he imagined they’d been invited to Winterfell for, but somehow, it being for the Queen in the North’s wedding never crossed his mind.
Especially not her wedding to Podrick .
Brienne goes for a walk with Sansa after it’s announced, because she obviously has a million questions that she’s dying to ask. Jaime knows his wife; she won’t actually ask them, but Sansa will probably provide more than enough details to get by, if the smile on her face is anything to go by.
Jaime thinks he’s only seen Sansa Stark smile three times since she was a child. Once, drunkenly after the Long Night, as she’d urged Jon Snow to drink. Once, almost menacingly, when she’d told him that she wished she could be there to see his sister executed, and her chilling words had helped send Jaime running back to protect his unborn child.
The smile now is nothing like either of those. It’s genuine, deeply etched into her features, and her eyes are just as bright, alive and so happy .
Jaime knows that look. It’s how he looks at his wife every damned day, and since for some reason, the gods have blessed him enough to keep him alive until now, he knows it’s also the way she looks back at him.
Bran Stark wheels up to him, following his gaze to where Sansa and Brienne stroll the ramparts. The Queen in the North is talking animatedly, and Brienne is smiling, too. There’s something almost contagious about the Stark girl’s joy.
“You didn’t change the terms and conditions of being in the Kingsguard for Brienne’s sake at all, did you?” Jaime asks him pointedly, and Bran smiles, too. Bran . The robotic boy-king, the one with that constant, hauntingly-far-off gaze of his looks genuinely happy for his sister, and amused by Jaime’s line of questioning, too.
“There were other good outcomes for Sansa. Not that involved Podrick, but she was destined to be happy,” Bran tells him, looking almost coy. “Changing the rules was the only truly good outcome for you , though. And the only truly happy one for Brienne. It was the right thing to do.”
Jaime doesn’t want to think about those other outcomes. He would have deserved the misery, and he knows it, but Brienne… she deserves the world, and if him being a part of it is what it takes for her to have it, then he’s damned glad Bran Stark said fuck tradition and changed the rules.
Jaime might like the Starks after all. Or at least
this
one.
Jaime hasn’t been to many weddings in this lifetime, and the ones he has attended, bar his own, have hardly been joyous occasions. Cersei’s wedding stands out as particularly miserable for Jaime, but he supposes Joffrey’s would have to rank as pretty terrible, as well.
Sansa’s wedding is nothing like that. There’s a quiet calm that washes over all of them as they stand witness in the godswood. There are no conflicted feelings, no politics involved: this is the union of two people who love each other, and it’s as simple as that.
Sansa is positively glowing as she says her vows, and Brienne whispers that she’s never seen Podrick look this pleased, not even when she knighted him. Not even when he was named Joanna’s goodfather, and came to Tarth and held her in his arms for the first time.
“You’ve gotten soft,” Jaime teases under his breath when he sees that there are happy tears glistening in his eyes. She jabs him in the stomach lightly, but they both know it’s true.
They’re still warriors at heart, all fierceness and sharp edges, but with each other, they are both softer, both lighter . He can see that the same is true for Podrick and Sansa; it’s evident to all who are watching them.
Jaime might have envied them, once. He might have envied Arya, too, curled into her Baratheon boy’s side. Hells, he might have even envied Jon Snow and Tormund bloody Giantsbane, who’s too busy doting on his little crow to pay Brienne any mind the way he used to.
Now, Jaime has his own blessings to count, and he’s simply glad to find that this strange collection of people that he’s reluctantly grown to care about can share in some of the happiness he feels everyday.
The festivities celebrating the Queen in the North’s marriage last long into the night. There’s music, and dancing, and a feast, and smiles and laughter and of course, lots and lots of drink.
Tyrion, being Tyrion , can not resist the urge to try and get them even drunker than they already are, but this time, when he proposes that damned drinking game of his he loves so much, Jaime and Brienne don’t recoil at the suggestion. There’s no tension, or nervousness. There’s just a sense of peace as he reaches under the table and takes her hand in his.
If it weren’t for Tyrion and this stupid game, he might never have gotten Brienne to really and truly listen to him, about how sorry he was and how much she really meant to him. If it weren’t for Bronn and his insistence on exposing and embarrassing the Lannister brothers and their secrets at every turn, he might still be skulking around the Red Keep, pining for a woman that he doesn’t think he deserves.
He’s sure there will be more poking and prodding and prying, but Jaime welcomes it this time, as he flashes Brienne another of those soft smiles that he saves just for her.
Then, he looks at his brother, and nods towards his empty cup.
Bring it on, brother , Jaime’s gaze says, and Tyrion gleefully begins to fill all of their cups.
“I’ve never seen Podrick’s magic cock,” Bronn says to start the round, and Tyrion protests, “You have ! You pulled his smallclothes down because you couldn’t believe it and you had to see it for yourself!”
Jaime snorts at that, but next to him, Arya Stark is positively howling with laughter as Sansa turns beet red and tries her best to take a subtle sip from her cup. The Queen in the North is embarrassed to be caught, having bedded her husband before they were wed, but she doesn’t seem to mind sharing with them all that much. She is unburdened, able to safely share anything with the group of people who love her that surround her, and Jaime feels an odd sense of rightness , here, in the halls of Winterfell of all places.
Jon looks almost more embarrassed than Sansa, to be hearing about his sister’s sex life, and he only buries his head further in Tormund’s shoulder to hide when the next turn is Sansa’s, and she immediately repays Arya for her laughter by saying, “I’ve never bedded someone in the forge .”
Gendry drinks proudly at that, even muttering, “You should hear some of the other places she’s wanted to try it.” He is so enamored with his little she-wolf, even after she had spent two years away, exploring the uncharted west. Jaime had been surprised to hear that she’d made it home at all, but it seemed that the Starks could not stay away from each other, no matter how hard they tried to forge their own paths.
The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives . He’d heard Brienne say that once, when she’d talked about Sansa and her time in her service. They’d had their differences in the past, but Jaime thinks he is glad that half of Ned and Catelyn Stark’s brood is still standing.
They continue in the same vein — harmless questions that make them laugh, scandalous questions that reveal more about them than they’d ever expected to know. Nothing malicious, though. Nothing that ruins the vibrant mood of the room.
As Jaime and Brienne fall into bed later, warm and full of drink, Jaime doesn’t think he’s ever felt so content. He may still hate the fucking North, but he also thinks he loves the family that they’ve found there.
The last thing he remembers thinking before he falls asleep is that he can’t wait until the next time they’re here, Joanna in tow this time. He can picture it so easily: their daughter sewing with Sansa, reading with Tyrion, running wild with Arya, sparring with Podrick for something different… There’s something she can learn from all of them, although whether or not she should learn anything from Tormund and Bronn in particular is a different story.
Sleep finally takes him, and that night, as he sleeps with his head resting on his wife’s chest, visions of the happy future that awaits them dance through his dreams.