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What had started out as a fun diversion to celebrate their continued survival, a harmless drinking game, ends poorly with Tyrion's far too-knowing gaze landing on Brienne and declaring, "You... are in love."
She can't help the way her eyes dart to Jaime across the table at the words, too startled to hide her instinct to seek him out. Waves of hot-cold embarrassment flood through Brienne at the sight of his eyes meeting hers, her face blushing in a way no seasoned warrior's should.
She drops her gaze swiftly and excuses herself with no grace at all while Pod snickers drunkenly and Jaime hisses at his brother to shut up, and she flees for the safety of her room, the roaring laughter of the Great Hall dogging her steps.
Is it so obvious to everyone? Her affection for Jaime, dear battered yet still golden Jaime- and her trailing him like some lovestruck girl of sixteen, wanting nothing more than to be in his presence. As good a joke as she's ever heard.
She rests her head against the closed door for a moment, eyes shut. She hadn't thought she drank very much, her ale watered compared to the cups full of wine that Tyrion had tried to ply the table with, but perhaps she can blame her hasty exit on being inebriated. Her room is warm, the fire blazing high and bright the way Sansa had advised her to keep it in deference to Brienne's southern blood.
As she turns from the door Brienne unbuckles Oathkeeper from around her waist, fingers running over the elaborate hilt, the gleam of gold worn down from constant use, the rubies like drops of blood.
She knows that Jaime cares for her. It's evident in this very sword, a gift so rich only a Lannister could part with it, in the hand he lost defending her, in the fact that he valued her opinion enough to reclaim his honor and fight for the living up among his enemies. But that regard for her is what he would have for a brother-in-arms, a trusted soldier. Not the way she's grown to care for him, to love him so deeply it seems woven into the tapestry of her life, integral to who she is as a person.
It takes only a few moments for her to master herself, to remind herself that it matters not whether everyone knows the nature of her feelings for Jaime. He's only ever given himself to one woman, and she is no Cersei.
When she hears a knock at the door, Brienne considers ignoring it. There is no one she wants to see- except somewhere in her heart there's a hope that it might be exactly the one person she always wants to see.
Jaime stands in the corridor, golden hand raised to knock against the door. He stares at her for a long moment before speaking, the sort of stare that makes her uncomfortable- not one of derision, of disgust for the way she looks and dresses, but something altogether more soft and unfamiliar. "Tyrion doesn't know what he's talking about once he's in his cups," he says as he pushes inside her room almost before she's stepped aside to allow him entry.
Any other man and she'd make him stand in the hall, for what little good it would do her tatters of womanly honor after so long living on her own and among soldiers- but Jaime she allows in, and closes the door after him.
"Do you often lie for your brother?" she says, because Jaime is a very good liar- leagues better than she is- but even she knows the untruth of what he's just said.
His eyes won't meet hers, his feet restless on the rushes underfoot.
"Why are you here, Jaime?" Brienne asks, not yet over the thrill of being able to address him without his title, as one knight may speak to another. The greatest honor she had ever hoped to achieve and it was Jaime who bestowed it on her, knew what it meant to her because he feels the same call to honor, though his way may have been muddied in the years between.
"The game was stupid," he says, which doesn't answer her question at all. He won't look her in the eye but he stares all around her room instead, gaze lingering on Oathkeeper hung ready for use, on the bed piled high with furs, on the fire blazing in the hearth. "Is it the Wildling?" Jaime spits out, eyes suddenly snapping to hers, golden hand raising as if to make a gesture or reach out before falling again to his side.
"Is it- what about Tormund?" she says, thrown for a moment at the accusation.
"Well?" Jaime says, and now he won't look away, his eyes glimmering emerald and gold in the firelight. "Is it? Did he finally woo you with tales of his bear-fucking, or was it the one about suckling at a giant's tit?"
Brienne refuses to be shocked by Jaime's words- she's heard the stories he's talking about firsthand anyway, has been made uncomfortably aware of Tormund's regard for her. Her nostrils flare as she takes a steadying breath. "You sound quite jealous," she says, voice softer than the jibe she intended her words to be.
It seems to draw him up short. Jaime blinks, and the bravado of his previous statement falls away. "I do, don't I?" he says, and she thinks he's attempting for it to sound as a joke, something light and witty and meaningless.
But it doesn't sound like a joke. The words sound as if he's only just realized what he's said, how he's acted, storming into her room to demand an explanation after something as frivolous as a drinking game.
It occurs to her, watching his face from up close, that Jaime hadn't assumed it was him she was in love with. His mind had leapt to jealousy as if he hadn't known the way she feels for him, instead of amusement or disgust to have her affections confirmed.
He licks his lips, and Brienne shoulders aside the hope that wants to kindle in her chest. "It doesn't matter," she says, turning away from him in her room that had seemed spacious but now seems too-small, claustrophobic. "It was just a drinking game."
Jaime's hand grabs her at the elbow, stopping her from putting space between them. "It's not Giantsbane," he says, "The Hound? Pod ?"
She wrenches her elbow out of his grip but stands her ground, now, setting her jaw firm and her spine rigid. "Why would it matter to you?"
He runs his hand through his hair, the golden one on the end of his right arm swinging, winking in the firelight. Most of the gold on the surface has begun to wear away- it's merely gilded, not cast all the way through. Hollow steel, Jaime had told her, it weighs only somewhat more than a real hand would have aside from the straps that keep it in place.
"Why shouldn't it?" he replies. "I didn't follow you to the bloody awful North just to watch you throw yourself at the feet of some- some-" He stutters, apparently unable to settle on an insult.
"You came North to fight the Night King," Brienne says.
"Hah!" he says, face contorting in the dancing light. "You'd be the only one to believe it."
She shakes her head, wondering how much wine he's had. She had thought they both switched to watered ale when his brother accosted them for his drinking game, but perhaps she was mistaken. Pod certainly hadn't switched, downing goblets of wine like it was his last chance to taste it.
"Brienne," Jaime says, " Ser Brienne."
"Saying my name isn't an explanation," she snaps.
He grins, a leonine flash of teeth. "Isn't it?"
Brienne shakes her head again, confusion warring with the hope that's in her heart, the longing she's carried since before they even reached King's Landing, let alone fought back-to-back against a legendary foe. "You've had a lot of wine," she says, her voice steadier than she feels.
"I've had no more than you," he retorts. His hand reaches out, fingers just brushing against the cuff of her sleeve, the barest touch of his skin against hers. "Brienne, I..." He trails off, his face awash in frustration before suddenly lightening. "If Tyrion had played that accusation against me, I'd drink."
She lets her hand be pulled slightly away from her body by his, but says, "I know. Your sister-"
"Not my sister!" he blurts, and takes in a sharp breath of shock, eyes widening. Brienne tugs at her hand, but he tightens his grip. "Cersei isn't in this room with me now, is she?" he says, softer. "I- It hurts, it'll always hurt, but I haven't been in love with her in... Not since she saw this-" He brandishes the golden hand where his flesh-and-blood one should be- "And turned away in disgust. Since she killed our children in her quest for power."
Brienne doesn't want to be having this conversation, but she can't turn away from Jaime when he's like this, spilling secrets to her that no one else hears.
He turns her hand over in his, gaze dropping. His thumb strokes along the side of her palm, her fingers curling with the urge to touch him back.
"I'm in the North, for you," Jaime says, his voice low and utterly serious, devoid of his usual irreverent, dancing tone. "I'm in your room because I couldn't stand the thought of someone else being in your thoughts." His eyes drift back up, latching onto her gaze. "I would have drank if my brother had accused me of being in love- because of you ."
It hits Brienne like a punch to her gut, her body flinching as if he'd struck her.
His eyes search her face while she finds her gaze pulled to the side, her mind a frantic churn wondering what the punchline is, what wager he'll be winning. Except that Jaime had never been so cruel to her- vicious with his insults, yes, far too amused with himself at the japes he's made, but he's never strung her along the way she's afraid he is now.
"Have I addled your wits?" he says, and doesn't let go of her hand as he reaches up for her face, flesh on one side and cool metal on the other.
Brienne shakes her head. "I don't know what to say," she admits, emotions competing within her for attention, squirming and fluttering in her belly like something alive.
"Who would you have drunk for?" he says, so close she can feel his chest brushing hers as they breathe, his thumb moving just slightly on the skin of her cheek.
"You," she says, the first time she's confessed aloud to anyone, even herself.
Jaime's smile is there and gone again in a blink, replaced with the feel of his lips against hers. She's too startled, too unfamiliar with the act, to do anything except stand there rigidly for a moment, until the hand not still entwined with his moves without her volition to grip tight in his shirt and she is melting into him, into the kiss.
She doesn't realize she's closed her eyes until they flutter open again when she takes a gasping breath. He doesn't let her get far, hands still cradling her face. The temptation to simply lean the small distance between them and kiss him again is too great, so Brienne doesn't resist.
Jaime abruptly draws away from her, when moments before his tongue had been dancing with her own. "Right," he says, his breathing coming fast and hard. "We need a witness and a heart tree. Unless you care about it being done in a sept."
"Unless I... What?" she says, her head spinning from the rush of kissing him.
His hand squeezes against her shoulder- she doesn't remember when his grip changed, her own hands holding fast to his shirt like a lifeline- eyes blown wide to merely a ring of green around the black. "You will marry me, won't you?"
Brienne blinks. "You can't be serious," she says.
"Why not? We've just established that we love one another, which I don't need to remind you is hardly a requirement for marriage," he says, and the words are flippant but his gaze is serious.
It draws her up short to hear it said so plainly. "You love me," she says slowly.
Jaime nods.
"Oh," she says, and feels her knees grow unsteady in a truly appalling way as the news sinks in. "We don't have to marry," she says, but her voice is weak, "I don't, I never expected-"
"Neither did I," he says, "But I can't think of anyone I'd rather pledge myself to. If you'd have me."
Brienne swallows, and runs her eyes over his face, feels the beat of his heart under the hand across his ribs. "We can get Pod and your brother to be witnesses," she says.
Jaime grins at her, and she can't help but kissing him when he looks at her like that.