Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was a hole in the Force.

Muffled shouts came from all around her, blaster bolts spattered across the fighter’s hull behind her and ricocheted off the lightsaber blade she dimly registered as attached to the hilt in her hands.

A flash of red human hair. Hands tugged at her, nudged her up a ramp and into a shuttle. The Force swirled around her like air rushing in to fill a vacuum, sweeping toward the gaping wound that had taken Renly’s place in her senses.

Stars outside the canopy. Crackling shouts over the comms. Words she only just made out.

Murder. Treachery.

She realized she was strapped into a seat. G-forces pulled at her briefly as the stars outside the shuttle’s canopy lengthened to starlines, then blurred to the mottled blue-purple of hyperspace.

The Force quieted around her and she felt her body sag against the seat’s restraints.

Moments or possibly ages ago, Brienne had been perched atop a ladder, crouching over Renly’s seat in the Striker’s opened cockpit and walking him once again through the starfighter’s laser cannon controls, her lekku falling in front of her and twitching with the urge to cross over her chest. She’d had a bad feeling about His Excellency’s plans to fly in the battle himself, and even moreso his order that she fly out in the second fighter wave with the rest of Rainbow Squadron while Loras flew lead in Renly’s personal wing. That position beside him should have been hers-- it was the only way she’d be sure he would be protected. But at least he had allowed her to check over his fighter and run the last diagnostics, allowing her some measure of assurance in his safety during the fight.

Then cold. The air around her, the Force itself, turned to ice. Freezing pain lancing up her lekku to explode behind her eyes. Fear and rage and a dark shadow like a storm centered on Renly.

Blood.

Someone was speaking. Brienne focused her eyes on the red-haired human woman kneeling beside her on the shuttle’s deck, a gentle hand on Brienne’s shoulder. There is no emotion, her father’s voice whispered in her head. There is peace.

“Lady Catelyn?” she croaked. The woman nodded and peered into her eyes. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. “I don’t understand. Did you see--?”

“I saw a shadow,” Lady Stark replied.

“I felt--”

“Lord Stannis,” she confirmed. Brienne opened her mouth but no words came out. “It makes no sense, I know. There are no Force-sensitives in the Baratheon line, let alone Sith with that kind of power.”

“I don’t care,” Brienne’s voice came out low, cold even to her own ears. There is no passion; there is serenity. “I don’t care how he did it. I will kill him,” she breathed, her nails digging into her palms as her fists clenched. “I will bring justice for Renly. I swear it.”

Lady Catelyn’s eyes darkened and her hand tensed on Brienne’s shoulder. Brienne swallowed down the sob clawing its way up her throat. There is no chaos; there is harmony. She had no idea how she would even find Stannis, let alone take him down herself. Her lekku were tensed almost to the point of cramping. Too much. It was all too much.

There is no death; there is the Force.

She could no longer sense where Renly had been. Even the jagged gap he’d left in the Force was gone. All that remained was her own solitary grief.

Chapter Text

“You can’t hear a whisper if you’re constantly shouting.”

Catelyn directed her pilot to drop out of hyperspace briefly in order to transmit messages ahead of them to Riverrun and to Robb’s fleet outside Ashemark. They needed to hear of Renly’s death as soon as possible, though she did not include her suspicions as to its cause. At the same time they received a waiting comm with the unwelcome but not unexpected report that Lord Tywin’s fleet had departed the Harrenhal system. Their source indicated he planned several stops to pick up reinforcements from his constituent systems but would arrive at Riverrun within a few days of Catelyn’s shuttle.

With a force twice as strong as her brother’s defending fleet.

Once their ship was safely back in hyperspace, Catelyn maintained her stoic mien just long enough to proceed to her small quarters and seal the door behind her, slumping back against it and releasing her breath in a trembling sigh. Her hands shook as she loosened the clasps of her high collar, but it didn’t alleviate the feeling of slow asphyxiation she’d had since… was it just since Ned’s death? No, longer. She remembered the crushing feeling in her throat while she sat at Bran’s bedside. Perhaps it began as far back as Prime Minister Baratheon’s arrival on Winterfell.

Ned was gone, that couldn’t be changed. She might never feel whole again but she was determined to do what she could for the living members of her family-- protecting them and exacting justice from the Lannisters. Her two youngest boys were secured on Winterfell, the one place Catelyn felt at all assured of their safety. But her chest clenched painfully when she thought of Robb, halfway across the galaxy leading the Rim Separatist fleet in their push coreward. It was a dangerous plan at best, no matter how confident he seemed or how much the people of the Rim loved him. Let alone how much faith he put in his own meager and unofficial training in the Force.

She feared even thinking of Sansa and Arya would stop her heart altogether.

Once, a lifetime ago, she had commented to Ned-- joking, but not really-- that she wished there were five of her so that she could protect each of her children herself. Ned had smiled, the lines beside his eyes deepening, and replied that one of her was all he needed in life. But then he’d chuckled, offering that if she really wanted they could save up their credits and have her cloned. The evening’s mood had taken a turn after that. True, he shouldn’t have been so cavalier about something as repulsive-- not to mention illegal-- as the rumors of humanoid cloning, but she shouldn’t have overreacted. She shouldn’t have let one joke in poor taste cost them a pleasant evening.

What she wouldn’t do to have that time back now.

Sliding to the floor to land in a mockery of the meditation poses her uncle had drilled into her, Catelyn let her eyes close as she evened out her breaths, reaching out to the Force. Exerting her will over the turbulence that surrounded her, she began to steady the emotions she kept close to herself before stretching to reconnect with the flow of the Force within and around the shuttle’s crew.

A brightness flared in her senses and she let out a gasp. She had nearly forgotten about their new Twi’lek companion, but the flaring of the girl’s Force sense made her impossible to ignore. It was strong, obviously, but more than that it held a strange beauty-- a delicacy that Catelyn couldn’t remember feeling anywhere else.

Catelyn felt herself wince as she thought of the contrast between Brienne’s Force presence and her physical one. Within the swirling winds of the Force she was… diaphanous. On board the ship she was large and stolid, her dull yellow skin looking even more sallow in the harsh artificial light. Her face was nearly covered with patches of brown freckles that extended upward, over hints of the brow ridges more characteristic of the males of her species, and along her head-tails. Even her facial features seemed all out of proportion. But it was the contrast of her almost luminescent blue eyes-- the same color as her radiance in the Force-- that had arrested Catelyn’s attention.

Although she hadn’t met many Twi’leks, Catelyn knew that women of the species tended toward the small and willowy, with reputations as lithe dancers and agile spies, not to mention the less savoury tales she wished she hadn’t overheard Theon relating to her son. Brienne must tower over her peers, and Catelyn grimaced with sympathy at the thought.

Something about the young Twi’lek drew Catelyn to her. Was it her stoicism in the face of her inability to blend in? Her dogged determination to fight-- and die-- for Renly Baratheon? Or was it that brilliance she felt through the Force, the sheer power of it belied by her awkward posture and ready blush, only showing through her eyes. Catelyn couldn’t quite put the pieces of Brienne’s puzzle together-- the girl contained an ocean inside defenses stout enough to rival Winterfell’s planetary shields.

It was still thirty-some hours to reach the Riverrun system. She should sleep. Or at least meditate. Catelyn hadn’t slept since before they’d fled the Bitterbridge and she had no hopes of finding rest until she received assurance of her children’s safety. She got to her feet but instead of going to her bunk she found herself slipping down the short corridor to the cockpit. Brienne had slotted without comment or complaint into the shuttle duty roster and was at that moment taking her turn watching the helm while Captain Mollen was asleep in his own bunk.

As Catelyn approached the open cockpit doors she saw Brienne’s yellow lekku draped limply over the back of the captain’s chair. But sliding into the copilot’s station, she found the girl’s posture in contrast: her spine rigid, with her eyes closed and her senses alert.

Eventually Brienne’s eyes fluttered open and she broke the silence. “Th-- thank you Lady Stark.” She paused awkwardly. “For getting me off the Bitterbridge.”

“You’re welcome,” Catelyn replied, “but I assure you no thanks are necessary. I saw what happened; I felt it. You were innocent.”

“I’m nothing to you-- you could have left me there. I don’t remember all of it--” she shuddered, clearly reliving the parts she did remember, “--but they would have… they thought that I….”

Catelyn laid a delicate hand over the Twi’lek’s much larger one, watching her yellow skin turning white at the knuckles with her grip on the armrest. With an effort, Brienne slowly released the tension in her arm. “You were innocent,” Catelyn repeated, keeping her voice low and gentle. She’d perfected the tone after Sansa had come home from a lesson on their House words in a panic that she wasn’t ready for Winter to come. The poor eight-year-old spent the next week cataloguing planetary supply lines and no amount of rational argument-- that Winter was largely a legend, that their stockpiled supplies were sufficient for any emergency-- helped settle her mind. Only a soft voice reassuring her that no matter what their family would always find a way to survive together.

Catelyn’s chest seized and she realized she had forgotten to breathe again. With a stifled gasp she focused her eyes back on Brienne to find the Twi’lek regarding her steadily. “I’ll need to leave Riverrun for Storm’s End as soon as I can get a ship,” she said as soon as she had Catelyn’s attention again.

It was a sudden shift in the conversation but not one Catelyn hadn’t been expecting. “Are you sure? I saw you fight in the sim against Renly’s other pilots-- Robb would be lucky to have you fly for him.”

“Every minute Stannis Baratheon lives is my failure.”

A touch dramatic, Catelyn thought, but she could forgive the girl a bit. She was young and grieving, after all. And she wasn’t wrong that Stannis posed a galactic threat. “The Storm’s End system is one of the best defended in the galaxy. Do you plan to throw your life away for revenge?”

“There is no death, there is the Force.”

“You should at least live first,” Catelyn insisted, her anxieties fading as her protective instincts flared. “Besides, don’t the Jedi have something to say about revenge as well?”

The Twi’lek gazed at her for a silent moment, conflict swirling in those incongruous eyes, and Catelyn felt the girl’s mind brush against her own. “I’m not a Jedi though. Are you, Lady Stark?”

“No, I’m not.”

“I felt someone reaching out a few minutes ago, before you came to the cockpit,” Brienne said, pressing onward. “I didn’t know it was you until now. The Force is with you, so why aren’t you a Jedi?”

She got right to the point, didn’t she? Catelyn could respect that. “My father thought it better to hide my connection to the Force and keep me safe with him on Riverrun, even while my brother left for the Academy before his eighth nameday. Women Jedi have never been common in the older Houses-- our value is in supporting our families and passing on our powers. A warrior would be a poor candidate for a wife, and a worse prospect as a mother.” Catelyn had taken on her role with pleasure. If only Robb hadn’t been so enthusiastic about his own, and the danger it put him in now. She shook herself slightly, bringing her wandering thoughts back to the present. “Given that you aren’t currently at the Academy I suspect you are aware of those traditions.”

Brienne was quiet for a moment, gazing out at the ripples of hyperspace. “That’s not why I’m not a Jedi,” she began, before drawing her focus back to Catelyn. “My Force sensitivity is the least of my disqualifying traits where marriage and family legacy are concerned.” Her stare was as uncompromising as her posture, as if daring Catelyn to argue-- to lie to her-- or to agree. When Catelyn did neither, Brienne nodded, apparently satisfied. “You still use the Force though-- just differently.”

Catelyn nodded. “I’m certainly no knight.”

“But you rescued me,” Brienne insisted. “You use the Force for protection without fighting.”

“I suppose…” Catleyn murmured. Where was the girl going with this?

“Teach me,” she blurted and immediately blushed a harsh, blotchy orange across her freckled cheeks. Catelyn found herself at a loss and Brienne rushed ahead. “I can’t fight for your son until I know him better, but I could stay at Riverrun and protect you-- in return for getting me off the Bitterbridge-- and you could teach me what you know.”

Almost before she knew what she was doing, Catelyn had laid a hand on Brienne’s shoulder. “I will.”

Brienne smiled, her eyes bright. Perhaps this would serve as the distraction Catelyn so desperately needed.

When she slipped into the shuttle’s hold to meet Brienne it was the next day according to the ship’s chronometer, but Catelyn still hadn’t slept. She had left Brienne on watch in the cockpit and intended to return to her quarters, but without their conversation to occupy her mind....

She’d paced the shuttle’s short passageways for hours, pulling at the stifling collar of her dress and trying to imagine all the ways her daughters might be safe. Somehow she only managed to concoct more hypothetical dangers for them. King’s Landing was no place for her children. Nothing good ever came from that awful planet.

But as she watched Brienne, slashing her green blade through lightsaber forms without noticing Catelyn’s presence, she finally found some measure of calm. She felt the chaotic eddies of the Force around her begin to settle to a gentle flow through and around the two beings in the hold. The Twi’lek’s saber form lacked elegance but showed a power and a confidence the girl lacked without a weapon in her hands. She had been trained well, if not officially.

Soon enough Brienne looked up in between footwork patterns, only slightly startled to find Catelyn watching her. She hurriedly shut down her saber and rushed toward her, flushed orange from exertion and with a shy smile, her lips pressed together and yet still too wide for her face.

The jagged eddies were back as Catelyn’s eyes were drawn to the hilt Brienne twisted anxiously between her hands. She felt her shoulders tense under the cloak she had donned in an effort to relieve the chill she hadn’t been able to shake. “Did you build your lightsaber?”

It took Brienne a moment to respond, but she shook her head as she fingered the wood inlays along the hilt’s grip. “Some ancestor long dead. I found it gathering dust with a bunch of other family relics from before I was born.”

Catelyn felt the familiar twist of rage as her thoughts went to Ice, locked away and gathering its own dust in some Lannister vault on Casterly or worse, King’s Landing. Brienne flinched; Catelyn clenched her jaw, frustrated that she’d let her anger past her own walls for Brienne to sense. She took a quiet breath and gentled her tone with an effort. “I used to carry the ancestral Stark lightsaber,” she said by way of explanation. “In secret, of course, but it was mine. The Force runs unevenly through their line, and Ned-- Ned lacked sensitivity. He said it made him feel safer to know I had Ice with me.” Maybe they all would have been safer if she hadn’t let him take the lightsaber with him to King’s Landing, to hell with Robert’s implications that its twin blue blades would be sufficiently intimidating when wielded by his Hand even without the Force to back them up.

Turning her back to compose herself, Catelyn settled herself stiffly on one of the supply crates against the wall and gestured to Brienne to do the same. Instead, the Twi’lek lowered herself to the deck nearby, folding her legs under her and looked up at Catelyn expectantly, like a much younger child ready for her lessons. She still wore the blue headwrap she’d claimed as her prize after the dogfight sim on the Bitterbridge, the ghosts of bloodstains visible across the Rainbow Squadron patch above her left ear-cone. They’d incinerated the rest of the ruined clothes she’d worn when she came on board but she had refused to relinquish the scarf, scrubbing hard at Renly’s drying blood but unable to completely remove the stains.

Catelyn took a breath to focus herself. “Tell me about your training.”

“The Force runs strong in my family,” Brienne began slowly, “but there hasn’t been a true Jedi on Tarth in generations. I begged my father to contact the Academy-- I’d heard stories of powerful warriors serving the Light and I thought I could use all the things that made me… strange… for some sort of good-- but he refused. He worried they’d mistreat me, and said that any Order that would allow a Primeslayer among its ranks wasn’t fit for me.”

Catelyn found she could find no fault in the man’s choice, or his reasoning. Her mind snagged on the casual mention of the Primeslayer, remembering he was still rotting in a detention cell on Riverrun. Where they would be arriving in a matter of days. The Lannisters might have her daughters and her lightsaber, but she felt an angry satisfaction knowing that her family held the life of Lannister’s most formidable warrior in their hands.

“But he taught me everything he knew-- basics of control, the Jedi Code, the dangers of the dark side. Flying, too. He even let me spend time with Master Goodwin, the only Jedi that ever came within three systems of Tarth. That’s where I learned lightsaber combat, but he also taught me military tactics from his time in the Republic defense fleet. I think my father hoped all that would keep me occupied until I grew up enough to put it aside and begin to help him govern Tarth. That day never came, and when Renly put out the call for reinforcements I was halfway to the Bitterbridge before he even noticed.”

Of course he noticed she’d gone. Catelyn couldn’t for a single moment fail to notice the absence of her children. But now wasn’t the time. She returned her focus to her pupil with an effort. “The first thing my uncle taught me was how to hide.”

Brienne scowled. “I’ve been too big to hide since I was eight years old.”

“I imagine so,” Cat allowed herself an indulgent smile, “but I mean it a bit less literally. I had to learn to hide my connection to the Force from a very young age, and once I’d accomplished that it was a simple task to hide my emotions the same way.”

“But--” Brienne chewed her lower lip as she gathered her thoughts. Catelyn waited patiently. “I learned that the goal was to rise above feelings, not hide them. There is no emotion, there is peace,” she quoted dutifully.

Catelyn regarded her for a long moment. Her conflict was clear from her eyes alone. “Brienne, I’d like you to show me how you achieve that peace,” she began. “Take all the time you need, and open your eyes when you’re done.”

The girl’s back straightened further even as her eyes fluttered shut. Catelyn watched her breathe-- could practically hear the girl counting four to inhale, four to hold, four to exhale. Sansa had been just as dutiful, performing their lessons precisely. Robb, despite trying, had somewhat less focus… and even less once Arya had joined them and made it her goal to disrupt meditation as often and as creatively as possible.

Catelyn felt the warmth drain from her as reality crept back in. She found herself reaching out through the Force toward Brienne’s serene glow, as if she might borrow a little of the girl’s peace for herself.

After a long moment, Brienne’s eyes opened slowly. Time for the lesson. Catelyn closed her eyes again and stretched out her senses. “Brienne, tell me about Renly Baratheon.”

In an instant the peace shattered, the calmly swirling blue light suddenly exploding like a supernova in the Force. It hit Catelyn like a physical blow and she let out a soft grunt as she opened her eyes.

A very different Brienne gazed back at her. The Twi’lek had managed not to attempt to hide behind closed eyes, and further not to clamp her teeth down on her lip, but that was where her accomplishments ended. Blotchy orange spread up over her head-tails and down her neck into her Wookiee-sized utility jumpsuit, the muscles in her wide jaw visibly working and the skin around her eyes tight. She probably hadn’t even noticed her hands balled into fists in her lap.

Catelyn had sensed walls around Brienne’s presence in the Force, yet the girl seemed constitutionally incapable of masking her emotions. If her shields didn’t serve to contain that intensity, what were they meant to protect?

She reached a hand out to rest between the girl’s head-tails. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry for what you went through on board the Bitterbridge and for bringing it up to make a point. But Brienne, you have to understand that your emotional reactions do you no favors.”

Brienne broke her gaze then, her large hands flexing and fidgeting. “I know. That Jedi peace has never come easily to me. Not like the saber. It frustrated my father and that only made it harder. How do you do it?” She was practically begging. “How can I stop feeling so much?”

Especially about Renly, Catelyn could practically hear the rest of the question. If only she could answer it. “I couldn’t tell you that,” she admitted. “Perhaps that’s what Jedi learn at the Academy.”

Confusion clouded the Twi’lek’s face. “But… you’re always so calm.”

Catelyn forced a breath in and out of her lungs. “In my life, the appearance of calm has been far more important than serenity itself. It was more important that my children not see my fear than for me to not be afraid-- my fear helped keep them safe but showing it would only scare them worse.”

Brienne was clearly unconvinced and working to assemble a followup question, but Catelyn chose to press onward.

“And when I spoke sharply to Renly and Stannis, the frustration you saw me express was a weapon-- it was a fraction of what I truly felt watching those two prepare to waste lives on their childhood complaints. It was effective-- well, it got their attention even if it turned out to be futile-- but any effect was only in contrast to the stone face I’d shown until then.”

This time she allowed Brienne a response. It took the girl a moment to begin. “I understand-- I think I do-- but those seem like powers of a diplomat, or a politician, not a Jedi. Using emotions, I mean. If I can’t find peace shouldn’t I be honest about my failure? The truth is important. Only the dark side deals in lies and treachery.”

Innocent. Catelyn wanted to be gentle with the girl, but she couldn’t let her consider herself a failure-- to even endanger herself-- trying to hold to a Jedi philosophy without any Jedi instruction to back it. “One day your life-- or the lives of those you love-- may hinge on your control… on a single convincing lie.”

Brienne looked away, her brow furrowed and her fingers flexing restlessly.

“My uncle taught me some meditation techniques that may help. Shall I show you?”

Looking relieved to have a task to accomplish, Brienne threw herself into the lesson. Catelyn hoped it was worth the effort.

They worked a while each day for the remainder of the trip, but by the time the ship finally arrived at the Riverrun system they had little to show for the time they’d spent. Brienne’s Force sense continued to roil, to spike, to swirl gently, always a perfect reflection of her mood and always blazing in Catelyn’s senses.

Perhaps Catelyn had been foolish to think Brienne’s star could ever be dimmed.

She sensed the Twi’lek’s approach as they gathered in the shuttle’s cockpit to prepare for arrival, but kept her eyes on the mottled blue of hyperspace outside.

“Just a few more minutes before we drop to sublight engines,” Brienne offered almost timidly. Catelyn hummed and waited to hear what the girl really wanted to say. “Lady Catelyn, you never told me what you plan to do once we’re on Riverrun.”

“What I’ve always done,” she replied quietly, hands clenched under her sleeves. “Protect my children however I can.”

“And I’ll protect you,” she stated with a satisfied nod. It was the most confidence Catelyn had heard from the girl since they’d met.

Within seconds of exiting hyperspace it was clear to Catelyn that something was deeply wrong. She pulled her cloak closer around herself. Brienne seemed to pick up on her unease as well, and tried to distract them both by observing the planetary defenses as they approached the planet. “Orbital artillery is a good strategy. They need some sort of protection against ion cannons,” she muttered, tugging at her blue headscarf as the two gazed out through the cockpit canopy. “They’ve just closed the shield behind us, but if those fail during an attack they’ll need at least a dozen fighter wings just to support the capital ships--”

She choked off the end of her sentence and had reflexively reached for her lightsaber a split second before the proximity alarms began to wail. The cockpit’s comms crackled to life.

Lannister ships incoming.

Affirmative. One Dreadnaught, two fighter squadrons.

Keep an eye out-- sensors indicate possible bomber wing still aboard.

The approach to the planet was somewhat more swift than usual, but Captain Mollen navigated them safely to the surface while Brienne kept her attention on the comms chatter, trying to translate the military jargon for Catelyn’s benefit. “The Riverrun forces are doing well,” she assured her, “but it’s not a true attack. They’re testing your defenses. They’ll run before taking too many casualties.”

Her analysis was entirely correct and the battle was over by the time they disembarked the shuttle, stepping down the ramp into a jubilant hangar bay. The Riverrun forces had managed to take out half a fighter wing and three of the bombers before the Lannisters fled back into hyperspace and it was clear the troops on the ground considered the skirmish a resounding victory.

A young Togruta man hurried toward Catelyn and her small escort, handing her a datapad but immediately launching into a verbal report. She knew it was merely a courtesy; she would be kept apprised of events on Riverrun, and would occasionally be included in strategy meetings, but she had no real power.

He explained that Riverrun had repelled three small Lannister strike forces over the past week. With only a moment’s hesitation he continued, telling her that after taking Ashemark Robb had been injured in the attack on Crag Base but was recovering and on his way to Riverrun as they spoke. “We’ve got them scared,” he reported with a grin. “Yesterday we received a negotiator droid from the Lannisters with terms for a truce.”

“A truce?” She certainly hadn’t expected that. If they were winning, why was she so afraid?

A brief commotion by the hangar door caught her eye, and a young human burst from the crowd, pelting toward Catelyn and her crew. The boy’s eyes were wide as he called “Lady Stark!” from halfway across the hangar. The sinking feeling in her chest intensified. “Incoming comm from Commander Cassel!” She wouldn’t show her fear, but she would increase her pace as the boy skidded to a halt, reversed course, and led her to central command.

Catelyn didn’t need the Force to know something was deeply wrong when every face in the room turned toward her as she entered. “Replay the message,” she ordered, willing her hands to stop shaking and her heart to keep beating. Her knees threatened to buckle but Brienne stepped closer and caught her about the waist.

Through severe static she could just make out the face and voice of Rodrik Cassel. … under attack… --vacuate Winterfe-- …--ost three transports… so sorry my La--... Bran and Rickon aboard….

Her breath froze in her lungs and her vision went black. She had just enough time to think I should have felt it before she realized she was falling.

Chapter Text

"I get the proverbial bad feeling about this."

Brienne found Riverrun to be a strangely muted mirror of Tarth. Both planets’ surfaces were largely covered by water, though Riverrun’s large freshwater lakes and mildly flowing, interleaving rivers were nothing compared to the often-tempestuous oceans of her homeworld. Still, it was a comfort to be near water again after so long in open space. Amassing forces around Renly’s flagship allowed for better mobility as well as independence from any specific planetary system, but as much as Brienne loved flying, and particularly flying for Renly, there was a calm that came with having her boots on actual ground instead of durasteel decks.

Looking for a good spot to meditate, Brienne headed straight for the water. One of the innumerable rivers that wound across the planet’s forested surface formed three sides of the base, formerly a commercial spaceport. Locating a quiet spot near the widest section of the river where the flow became smooth and slow, she dropped gratefully to the ground beside a large conifer tree. Riverrun’s sun had just begun to set when she closed her eyes and allowed her mind to dip into the Force, letting it wash over her. But instead of the gentle currents she had hoped to find, she was greeted by turbulence.

A muscle in her cheek twitched, her lekku tapping rapidly against her shoulder blades. After a brief attempt to consciously relax the tension Brienne resigned herself to ignoring her body entirely. Or at least trying to. She should have expected a certain amount of low-level disturbance in the Force. After all, an active military facility that had been so recently under attack would never be a haven of serenity. Centering herself, she set about locating some of the major foci within the turmoil-- identifying those sources of unrest usually helped her overall calm, even if she wasn’t strong enough to smooth them out herself.

There was fear, of course. A shallow but pervasive current running through just about everyone on the base, and possibly the whole planet. A hint of death, possibly coming from where the Lannister pilots had been disintegrated during the most recent attack. Her mind brushed briefly against the unmistakable whirl of sexual frustration, arousal, and attraction that was typical of beings living in close quarters and under stress, but pulled back from it quickly, her lekku tingling lightly and-- unfortunately-- not unpleasantly. She’d learned her lesson about getting swept up in that current back onboard the Bitterbridge, the one time she’d allowed herself to even consider letting someone else past her shields since she left Tarth.

That was not a good line of thought if she was hoping to find peace. With a slow breath she wiped her now-sweating palms on the legs of her jumpsuit and made an effort to re-center. She’d identified the major sources of disorder, but they weren’t enough on their own to explain the tumult she felt. There was something else-- something large and... predatory?... stirring beneath the surface. She set aside her fear and reached toward it, but it slipped away, leaving her feeling adrift and unbalanced as the Force grew agitated. Another grab, an effort to anchor herself to something, failed as well and she felt panic creeping in. Something was wrong, and whatever it was was getting nearer. Coming for them, for her. The Force churned around her, sweeping her up in its currents. She was losing focus, grasping at it as the turbulence grew, fumbling for calm--

“Brienne.” A cool hand laid on the top of her head, between her lekku.

She opened her eyes with a gasp, twisting her neck to look up at Lady Catelyn. The rest of the physical world came rushing back in all at once: the sounds of the river overlayed with the music and shouting from the hangar where the Stark pilots were being celebrated, the loamy scent of the ground beneath her, even the soft rasp of her headscarf against her forehead and ear-cones when she moved. She smoothed a self-conscious hand down her lekku as she peered up at the human woman.

“They don’t know,” Lady Catelyn said in a reassuring tone, patting Brienne’s head once before lowering herself to kneel beside her, looking out across the river toward where the last light from Riverrun’s sun was slowly dimming. In the near-dark her pale face looked gray, the skin under her eyes nearly purple with exhaustion and sorrow. The breeze over the river seemed to go right through Brienne.

“Don’t know--?” Brienne stopped herself. She didn’t want her lady to waste her energy helping Brienne follow the conversation. Lady Catelyn would explain if she needed to. Brienne hadn’t seen her since she’d helped transport her to the medbay after her collapse in the command center. The medic droids had shooed her away from her lady’s bedside, and her subsequent wanderings had brought her to the riverside in search of something to occupy her time.

The woman was quiet so long that Brienne began to wonder if she had fallen asleep. She half-hoped it was true; her lady needed rest badly but nobody Brienne had asked knew when she’d last slept. Not counting the time she spent unconscious, of course. Eventually Lady Catelyn broke the silence. “You’re not in the hangar,” she observed quietly.

“No, I’m not,” Brienne replied. “This suits me better. I’m not much for parties.” Or other pilots. Or people in general. At least, they weren’t for her.

“Sansa loves parties. Robb only goes if I convince him it’s important. Arya has to be dragged.”

Lady Catelyn’s face remained frozen and impassive, but Brienne couldn’t help but smile at the thought. “I’m somewhere between Robb and Arya I think. The last time I went to a function… was the gala on Tarth where I met Renly, actually.” She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry.

“You miss him.”

It would be silly to pretend otherwise. “I do.”

“You love him.”

“I--” she could feel her face warming but couldn’t find words to finish the sentence.

Lady Catelyn patted her hand. Her human fingers were cold against Brienne’s warmer skin, but the touch was still so maternal that Brienne couldn’t help feeling comforted. She wished her lady would maintain the contact, but she pulled her hand back into her lap. “You miss him, but it’s less every day. And you feel guilty for that.”

Brienne looked up sharply. She hadn’t felt her lady’s touch on her mind, yet Lady Catelyn had found the heart of her problem right away. “It should hurt still-- should always hurt,” Brienne began haltingly. “There should be a… a scar in the Force where he was, but there isn’t, and that feels… unfair.” Unfair wasn’t the right word, but it was close enough even if it sounded a bit childish to Brienne.

After another extended silence Lady Catelyn took a deep breath and began to speak, her voice low. “When Ned… when the Lannisters executed Ned. I wasn’t on King’s Landing but I knew when he died. He was alive and part of the Force, and then he was gone. It was the most pain I’d ever felt. And then it wasn’t. The Force forgot him.”

Just as the jagged holeBrienne had sensed in the Force had closed within moments of Renly’s death, leaving her with despair she didn’t know what to do with, didn’t know if she could handle. Until Lady Catelyn had swooped in to help, to give her purpose.

“All that’s left is my sorrow,” her lady continued. “My regret. My loneliness. If I lose them he’ll be gone. I have to hold onto them, stuff them into this…” she pressed a hand to her chest, “this empty place inside me and keep them there.”

Brienne chanced a sidelong glance at her lady’s perfectly composed face. She remembered with shocking precision how her father had fallen apart when her brother died. It had been terrifying to her as a six-year-old youngling to watch her father weep, clutching his lekku like a child. That’s when she first met Master Goodwin-- he had arrived only recently, and showed up at their home right when they needed him. He meditated with them, made sure they ate regular meals, and gradually life returned to a new version of normal. She realized much later that her training had truly begun during those long weeks when it was just the three of them. Their grief hadn’t been necessary to Galladon’s memory alive, but it had held them to each other for a time, long enough to heal. There is no emotion, there is peace.

Is that what her lady needed to hear? Brienne didn’t want to presume to understand what Lady Catelyn was feeling. Besides, what Brienne and her father had needed was family; Lady Catelyn’s brother was here on Riverrun and her uncle and son were on their way. With their support she could find her way back to peace while Brienne kept her physical self safe.

She was just shaping the words in her head when Lady Catelyn continued. “I thought it would have felt different to me if Ned had the Force. But Bran did-- his connection to the Force was so strong, yet I didn’t feel it when he…. Maybe I was too far away. Maybe if I hadn’t left Winterfell. If I were there I could have protected them.” She stopped abruptly and seemed to consider for a moment, then cocked her head as if she’d thought of something new. “They’re dead. Bran and Rickon.”

Brienne knew the answer to that one. “There is no death, there is the Force,” she murmured with the same tone everyone had said it to her when her brother died. It hadn’t helped Brienne feel any better, not on its own, but it was a place to start.

“So the Force wanted them dead? What do the deaths of children matter to the Force?” Her voice was rising, startling a few avians from a nearby tree. “The Force has already forgotten them. I will not. I cannot. The Force doesn’t carry the scars, the pain, but I do. Rickon is practically a baby-- so young we don’t yet know if the Force is with him. But Bran is so strong already, except… he hasn’t walked or touched the Force since.... Something happened on Winterfell. The Lannisters.”

Brienne knew she wasn’t the quickest thinker-- thick as planetary shield, the horrible instructor of her mandatory dance lessons had taken great pains to call her-- but she was having particular trouble keeping up with this conversation, either with words or the Force. She made what she hoped was a sympathetic noise. Perhaps words weren’t her strong suit but there must be something she could offer.

When she had volunteered-- sworn, even-- to protect Lady Catelyn, she’d assumed that meant with her lightsaber. She couldn’t protect her against despair. Brienne reached out to the Force, trusting it to guide her as it always had. She laid a hand on top of Lady Catelyn’s where it rested on her knee, hoping to channel some of the Force’s peace toward her, to divert some of that harmony to comfort her.

Instead, she found herself suddenly overwhelmed by crushing grief.

The hatch opens from both sides, Master Goodwin had once told her. Brienne had meant to give comfort but the sheer volume of Lady Catelyn’s sorrow flooded back through the connection. She felt her mind flailing to contain it, to absorb even a little, but it was too much. Brienne jerked her hand back before she could stop herself.

“They were all supposed to be safe.” Lady Catelyn’s voice was quiet again, but brittle-- broken around the edges, sending little tremors through the Force that Brienne felt prickle across her shoulders. “Bran and Rickon on Winterfell, Robb surrounded by his ships and soldiers, Sansa and Arya with Ned. I thought I’d ensured they’d be safe. I should have kept them all with me. I shouldn’t have let them leave. The Force forgot Ned and Bran and Rickon but I will not. And I will not forget who took them from me.” She didn’t sound broken anymore to Brienne by the time the last words faded into the steady wash of the river. Her voice had recovered, taken on a firmness that made Brienne believe what she said. Even her eyes seemed brighter.

The grief was giving her strength, Brienne realized. Rage provided the power to keep her moving forward. The thought should have been comforting, but it crept coldly up from the tips of her lekku and down her spine. Or maybe it was just the chill from the steadily falling night.

Lady Catelyn got to her feet, gracefully as always, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her cloak. “Robb believes this war will end with Rim independence. Some days I think he means to continue it until he takes the Prime Minister’s seat at the barrel of a turbolaser. But I will consider his safety, seeing Sansa and Arya secure, a triumph for myself.

Still seated on the ground, Brienne peered up at her through the darkness and found her lady smiling. The Force gentled around them as Brienne let out a breath. She was where she needed to be. Her lady had come to some sort of decision, and it gave Brienne a sense of assurance even if she didn’t yet know the details. Lady Catelyn would protect her family and Brienne would protect Lady Catelyn.

Her small cold hand settled between Brienne’s lekku once more. “The Force brought you to me, Brienne.”

“The Force will be with us,” she returned.

As they returned to the base together Brienne felt a little of the tranquility fall away, as was to be expected the closer they got to the bustling activity around the base-- both celebratory and mundane. She sighed a little but comforted herself knowing they’d found that quiet together once and could find it again.

Once within view of the command structure, Brienne spotted Commander Tully ducking out of the building and making for the hangar. It was still strange to her that he was an Academy-trained Jedi Knight, and yet here he was, not in a Jedi mediator’s humble brown robes but the Riverrun military’s uniform, deep blue with red piping down the sleeves and trousers.

He loosened the high collar as he crossed the tarmac toward the increasingly-rowdy celebration. And not, Brienne sensed with a frown, to calm the roiling mess of relief, exhilaration, and arousal that emanated from it. Before he was even halfway there Lady Catelyn intercepted him, with Brienne close at her heels. “Edmure,” she greeted him with a little nod.

“Cat.”

Brienne felt a bit of surprise, and some wariness from the Commander. She tried not to be disappointed-- her hopes that he might provide a family connection Lady Catelyn sorely needed would have to wait, apparently. There was so much going on, for the ranking officers especially, so she couldn’t-- shouldn’t-- begrudge the efficiency in this particular interaction.

“I was told there’s been an offer of truce from the Lannisters,” Lady Catelyn began without preamble.

“There was, but only in name.” He rolled his eyes. “I can send you the logs tomorrow,” he offered, already turning back toward the hangar.

Lady Catelyn’s hand shot out to grasp his arm, stopping his escape attempt. “What do they want?”

“They sent a droid with terms,” her brother replied with a sigh. “We got in touch with Robb via holo before he left Crag Base, but the Lannister proposals were such a joke that he rejected them out of hand.”

“He didn’t even consider a counter-proposal?” Brienne asked. She hadn’t meant to insert herself into the conversation, but it seemed strange to her that there had been no attempt at negotiation. Surely the idea of peace would be worth at least a try?

Commander Tully shook his head. “It was never a real offer for truce-- so much that Captain Desmond thought the droid’s real purpose might have been espionage, so we threw it into a detention cell. Robb can decide what he wants to do with it when he arrives.” He shrugged indifferently and made to leave again.

“Did the droid mention my daughters?” Her gaze was insistent and her brother faltered briefly.

“Well yes, they were part of the terms it presented,” he admitted reluctantly. “It said that the Lannisters would release Sansa and Arya in exchange for the Primeslayer.”

“And Robb rejected that?”

Brienne’s lekku twitched. Lady Catelyn’s voice was low and her words clipped, and even Commander Tully seemed to pick up on it. “Cat, I know it’s not what you want to hear,” he tried, gently, “but we can’t make that trade. Freeing the Primeslayer to rejoin the Lannister forces would put millions of lives at risk--” he broke off, coughing. Brienne wondered if humans had more trouble with the planet’s cold, moist air, and if she should maybe get her lady indoors soon.

She noticed Lady Catelyn’s hand flexing spasmodically beneath her cloak and decided to help extract her from a conversation that was going nowhere and only causing her more stress. Putting herself between the humans, she laid a hand tentatively on her lady’s shoulder and ducked her head to speak quietly. “We should go inside, my lady,” she suggested quietly.

Lady Catelyn’s brother nodded a dismissal, clearing his throat and tugging on his collar as he hurried into the hangar before his sister could stop him again. Brienne couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed-- the man had all the advantages of Academy training but she wouldn’t have been able to tell he was a Jedi at all if Lady Catelyn hadn’t told her about him. With a huff she resolved to put those uncharitable thoughts aside. Commander Tully had so much responsibility on Riverrun, and her judgement wouldn’t serve any real purpose.

A gentle hand on her elbow brought her attention back to Lady Catelyn. Taking Brienne’s arm, she started to walk away. But instead of heading for the living facilities she led Brienne off in the opposite direction, toward a low duracrete building near the treeline. “Where are we going?” Brienne asked, confused again.

“To talk to the Primeslayer. He’s the only way to get my girls back.”

Brienne didn’t bother trying to hide her surprise. “But your son rejected the truce--”

Catelyn halted, turning back toward Brienne. “That’s why I need you,” she said intently. “You’re the only being on this planet not sworn to Robb.” Her hands shot out and gripped Brienne’s. “You have more freedom and I can trust you--”

“With anything,” Brienne interrupted fervently, squeezing Lady Catelyn’s small, chilled hands.

“You will take the Primeslayer to King’s Landing and bring Sansa and Arya home.”

Suddenly Brienne’s mind was flooded with input: images of the Stark children, young and playing in the snow; their first cries as she labored to bring them into the world; lemon cakes, sharp and sweet, shared at a table together; the muddy, sweaty, carefree smell of a boy throwing himself into her arms.

The nearly physical force of Lady Catelyn’s love for them, her screaming, suffocating grief, and her heart-stopping fear.

Brienne jerked backward, gasping for air but still clinging to her lady’s hands. Her mind felt… different. There was a fragment-- a shard-- of Lady Catelyn there now. She looked up at the woman with wide eyes and trembling lekku. What had just--?

Lady Catelyn was looking at her intently. Expectantly. Her voice echoed in Brienne’s mind. BRING THEM HOME.

There was nothing else she could say but “I will.”

Chapter Text

“It's always nice to meet new people and make new enemies."

The facility on Riverrun obviously hadn’t been built as a military emplacement-- the room that served as their command center had previously been little more than ground control for the ships traveling to and from the system. So Brienne wasn’t entirely surprised to find that what Commander Tully had referred to as the detention block was an underground level consisting of blank-walled duracrete storage units with hastily installed electronic locks.

“Take a comlink with you, Lady Stark, and call if he gives you any trouble,” Captain Desmond said, handing her the card key for the Primeslayer’s cell as they stood in front of the turbolift doors on the ground floor. Brienne might have expected more resistance from him on the matter, but he had no problem acquiescing after Catelyn asked to see the Primeslayer. “There’s humanoid guards at the top of the lift, and I’ll be meeting with the fighter maintenance crews in the next building, but there’s only droids down on the detention level.”

Brienne nodded her approval, shoving the proffered commlink into a pocket of yet another second-hand flight suit. “Safer way to contain a Je--” she stopped herself, “-- a Force-user.”

Desmond rolled his eyes. “Well, there’s certainly that. Also nobody could stand to be down there with him. He spent three hours exhaustively insulting Rymund and most of his ancestors, and Vance bailed after his twelfth chorus of The Rancor and the Headtailed Wh--” he cut off awkwardly, glancing at Brienne when Lady Catelyn cleared her throat pointedly.

As she and her lady entered the turbolift, Brienne felt herself scowl. Not at the bawdy song-- it was impossible to be a Twi’lek and not develop some resistance to that sort of filth by the time she was six-- but by the commander’s lackadaisical attitude toward a dangerous prisoner. The Primeslayer may be locked in a closet with only droids to bring him food and water, but he was still one of the most deadly beings in the galaxy, and known for his treachery as well. In the face of true evil, Captain Desmond seemed little more than slightly put-out.

She took a breath, smoothing her face as best she could as she reached for the Force. The calm she had been accustomed to finding there eluded her again, as it had since she’d set foot on Riverrun. As the lift descended she could already feel a sense of wrongness-- that feeling from her earlier meditation of something large and malevolent and lurking. She tugged at the edge of her blue headwrap. It was too big a disturbance to have been caused by a single man, Primeslayer or no.

Brienne had been young-- no more than ten-- when the galaxy was plunged into chaos with a slash of Jaime Lannister’s lightsaber. But she had been startled by the hard lines of her father’s face, the twitch of his lekku, when she’d seen the holonews and asked what it meant. As the days passed reports flooded out from the core worlds: the Senate in disarray, the former Prime Minister’s family disappeared, scattered uprisings and secessions in the wake of the power vacuum on King’s Landing, and eventually Senator Robert Baratheon rising to take charge and restore order to the chaos.

But the Primeslayer walked free. Brienne recalled the deep confusion she’d felt-- it didn’t make sense that a man so evil still wore a white robe, still stood guard for Prime Minister Baratheon. Why did anyone trust him, let alone with the life of the new prime minister? Why hadn’t he been incarcerated? Why did the reports still refer to him as a Jedi? He was obviously a Sith assassin-- shouldn’t the Jedi Council have locked him up, taken his lightsaber and his titles? Even as a child, Brienne knew that’s what she would have done if she were a Jedi. She’d have taken down the Primeslayer herself if no one else would.

Her father didn’t have answers for her. “You can’t control the Jedi Council, or the Senate,” he had sighed. “You can’t defeat the dark side on your own. But you can control you, and push back at the darkness when you meet it.”

BRING THEM HOME, Lady Catelyn’s voice echoed in her head.

As the lift dropped, so did the ambient temperature, leading Lady Catelyn to raise the hood of her heavy slate-gray cloak over her head. The turbolift slowed to a stop and Brienne took another slow breath in-- peace, knowledge, serenity, harmony-- concentrating on the currents in the Force. Resisting the fear of what might lurk, resisting the undertow tugging at the edges of her consciousness.

The lift doors opened into a dimmed hall lined with durasteel doors. Lady Catelyn dismissed the two Sentinel droids flanking the lift and Brienne eyed them uneasily as the doors closed behind them. She supposed she should be flattered that her lady considered Brienne sufficient protection, but in truth she wouldn’t mind the backup.

Lady Catelyn stood aside as Brienne swiped the key card and eased the first door open. She was met with the faint sound of servos, and the yellow glint of metal reflecting the dim light from the hall. Satisfied with the safety of the room, she opened the door wider to reveal a bipedal protocol droid with a red torso and gold limbs and head standing in the middle of the bare duracrete floor, one arm raised in greeting. From behind her Lady Catelyn cut off its words. “Are you the Lannister negotiator droid?”

“I am!” it chirped, its programmed core accent already evident. “I am consular liaison CL-305, sent by Tyrion Lannister on behalf of Acting Prime Minister Joffrey Baratheon with terms of truce. Section one, term 1.01: Robb Stark will immediately relinquish all claim to--”

“I don’t care. Will they release my daughters to me if the Primeslayer is returned to King’s Landing?”

“That is term 11.38 of section seven, my lady.”

“How can we trust them to fulfil their side of the bargain?” Brienne asked dubiously.

“Their promises have been recorded in my databanks and are considered officially and legally binding,” the droid insisted, sounding mildly offended.

“It has to be enough,” Catelyn murmured. “Lock it back up. We will need it later.”

Brienne followed her lady down the corridor. “Lady Catelyn, are you certain this is a good idea? Releasing this kind of evil back into the galaxy--?” She looked up to see that Lady Catelyn had come to a stop outside the last door on the left, staring hard at it as if she could see through it, her left hand clenched at her side. Brienne was hit with a sudden wave of cold and stumbled to a stop, her stomach turning as she gritted her teeth against the nausea. “Lady Catelyn… maybe we shouldn’t be here,” she suggested softly. “I can feel the dark side--”

BRING THEM HOME. Louder this time, more insistent.

“Protect yourself however you can. We have no choice.” With that she swiped her keycard and slipped into the room, leaving Brienne in the hall to bite down on the feeling of the air around her turning to ice. She took a brief moment to make one last attempt at the shielding techniques Lady Catelyn had taught her. There was a stillness in the Force when she reached for it this time. Not placid, though. Waiting. Thick and stifling like the atmosphere before the legendary storms on Tarth’s oceans.

“Aren’t you a little short for an executioner?” a dry, low voice rasped from inside the cell.

Brienne pushed the door open wider behind Lady Catelyn and stepped into the doorway, one hand on the lightsaber clipped to her flight suit’s belt. Her bulky form blocked a fair bit of the light from the hallway but once her eyes adjusted she quickly took stock of the former storage bay. Featureless duracrete walls and floors, no overhead light, no furniture or facilities of any kind. A figure-- a male human-- lay on the floor curled on his side, his back against the far wall, his head raised lazily-- weakly?-- as he squinted into the light spilling in from behind Brienne. His hair, long and gold but greasy and tangled drooped over the arm he’d been using as a pillow. Human hair always seemed like such a hassle to her, with all the washing and maintenance and getting in the way all the time. The state of his, not to mention the hair on his face, indicated he’d been deprived of hygiene for quite a while.

“Primeslayer,” Lady Catelyn replied, her perfect composure almost masking the shiver in her voice.

His head came up further. “Why Lady Stark,” he greeted her, his surprise rippling briefly through the Force but quickly quashed. He made a show of looking her up and down, smirking. “You look awful.” Brienne gritted her teeth. As if he had the right to judge with all that hair all over. Though, she was forced to admit privately, the rest of him seemed more or less adequate-- he’d been stuffed into a flight suit almost identical to her own, yet somehow his body made it look tailored to him. Even curled on the floor she could see the muscles of his legs and the dip of his waist as he managed to transform an uncomfortable sleeping position into a languid lounge.

Renly’s beauty had been warm, amiable, inviting. Brienne’s stomach turned with the unwelcome thought that the Primeslayer was just the opposite but just as beautiful.

He glanced at her briefly and raised a contemptuous eyebrow, just long enough for the warmth to spread from her face to her lekku as she clamped down on her thoughts, then looked back to Lady Catelyn. “Are you here to execute me personally?” The Force prickled unpleasantly up Brienne’s neck and down her lekku. She caught the Primeslayer’s brief flinch, as if he too had felt the icy needles. “No? Well, I suppose it would be difficult to claim ties to the light side of the Force when your defenseless prisoner is found in a pile of neatly cauterized pieces, or worse, with a crushed trachea and a bruiseless throat.”

He stretched his legs, restrained with durasteel at the ankles and bound to the wall by a welded chain. Old-fashioned, in Brienne’s opinion, but effective. She watched the Primselayer nonchalantly arrange himself into a sitting position, his knees bent casually in front of him and his back against the wall. He rested his cuffed-together wrists on his knees and peered at Brienne, his green eyes flashing in the weak light from the hall. “What’s that for then?”

“Don’t bother,” Lady Catelyn growled. “She’s capable of putting you down if need be, and strong enough resist any of your manipulations.”

“Really?” He cocked his head at Brienne and lazily raised a hand, palm out, the cuffs bringing his other hand along for the ride. “You will let me out of this closet and off this moist rock of a planet.” She glared back at him, little waves of the Force lapping up against her ineffectually. “Apparently not. How about you find me irresistibly handsome and charming.” She felt her lip curl-- as if a pretty man like him needed to resort to mind tricks, let alone cared what someone like Brienne thought of him-- and he shrugged, dropping his hands back to his knees. “Worth a try.”

Clearly unimpressed, Lady Catelyn let the silence stretch before asking, quietly, “Is that what you did to my son?”

He sobered quickly, sitting up straighter and meeting her eyes directly. “By the Force,” he swore solemnly, “I would never do such a thing to your child. I don’t care in the least if he thinks I’m handsome.”

The Primeslayer’s smirk returned, starting at his eyes and spreading slowly. The cold needles were back too, bristling across Brienne’s skin. It was all she could do not to smooth a hand over her lekku in an attempt to ward them off.

“I don’t want any of your games.”

“And what do you want, Lady Catelyn?”

BRING THEM HOME. Brienne suppressed a twitch as the voice arced across her mind.

“I want justice.”

“Well aren’t you in luck then! I stand-- well, sit-- before you, a Jedi Knight sworn to protect peace and justice in the galaxy.” He dropped his voice to a low rumble and batted his eyes up at Lady Catelyn. “How can I serve you?” Brienne ground her teeth in disgust.

“I no longer trust the Jedi to protect my family,” Lady Catelyn spat. “And certainly not a Jedi like you.”

“There are no Jedi like me. There’s only me.”

Something was wrong. Brienne saw the careless arrogance, heard it in his voice, but something in the Force felt… incongruous. There were layers to the conversation she knew she wasn’t following. The temperature in the cell was dropping again, and the Force felt heavy in the air around the three of them-- she’d never felt it quite like that before and was unsettled that she didn’t know what it meant.

“I have no time for your games, Primeslayer.” Catelyn advanced on him and Brienne rushed to follow. “I am offering you a way back to King’s Landing, but first you will answer my questions. Truthfully,” she added pointedly as his eyebrows rose.

“Why should I tell you anything?”

“To save your life.”

“There is no death, there is the Force.” Brienne’s hand clenched hard on her lightsaber hilt, a wave of resentment rising in her chest to hear this man-- functionally Sith, if not in name-- quote the Code she worked so hard every day to live up to. He had the gall to chuckle. “Oh, your padawan doesn’t like that, does she?”

Lady Catelyn ignored him. “Prove to me I can trust you to let Brienne to transport you to the capital.”

“Do you really expect me to spill all my secrets and depend on your good nature to keep them? The way I see it, you need me far more than I need you.” The ripples in the Force around him put the lie to his confident demeanor. He must want to get to King’s Landing very badly if he couldn’t prevent Brienne from sensing his desperation.

“I want my girls back, yes,” Lady Catelyn admitted, almost as if it pained her to say. “But I recognize the power of your family name and wealth.”

The Primeslayer narrowed his eyes. “And…?”

Brienne watched her lady’s throat work. “And your father still has Ice.”

His eyes widened and Brienne felt herself recoil as the wave of Lady Catelyn’s want crashed over them. The smaller woman hadn’t moved, her face stony still-- a strategic deployment of feelings then. Allowing the surge of her emotions past her shields to prove a point.

“Your dead husband’s family lightsaber as hostage,” the Primeslayer hummed, considering.

“I’m sure you know what it means to us. What any damage to it would mean.”

“And we could very creatively and publicly do that damage should you spread rumors. Rumors, I’ll add, that only those who already hate us will believe no matter how true they might be.

Lady Catelyn stared. Brienne held her breath. BRING THEM HOME.

“I accept. Truth in return for my conditional freedom. Ask away.”

The tension broke and Brienne felt her shoulders relax, shaking her head gently to loosen the muscles in her lekku. But it was only a momentary reprieve.

“What did you do to Bran?”

“I was forced to alter his memory,” he replied easily. “Cersei and I caught him spying on us that day on Winterfell. A child that strong in the Force should have been taught not to be so curious,” he scolded. “He was reaching out through the Force and learned things he shouldn’t have.”

Lady Catelyn gasped, air hissing through her teeth. “If that’s all you did, why can’t he walk?” Brienne winced at her lady’s continued use of the present tense.

“That I do regret up to a point. It seems I’m not quite as proficient with mind manipulation as I am with a lightsaber. I did my best, I can assure you, but the residual damage affected his central nervous system. Couldn’t be avoided.”

“He’s dead now.”

The Primeslayer didn’t speak for a long moment. “Is he? I’m sorry to hear that.”

In the tense silence his chains clinked softly. Brienne felt as though she was struggling to keep her head above water.

“Brienne.” Lady Catelyn’s sharp demand startled Brienne out of her daze. “Is he telling the truth?”

She blinked, taken aback. “What?”

“No one ever taught me to read thoughts. Can you?”

“A little,” Brienne admitted, “but… but I don’t.”

Not since the time she’d peeked into the other pilots’ thoughts on the Bitterbridge and found out what they’d done. What they thought of her. Before that it had been a matter of manners-- she wouldn’t want anyone reading her mind, so she granted those around her the same courtesy. After that, she’d simply learned that nothing good came from knowing another being’s true thoughts.

“Brienne. Tell me if he lies.”

She felt a jolt in her mind, a sharp icy stab. “I--” she began.

“Oh don’t torment the girl, I’m not lying,” the Primeslayer cut her off with an indifferent sigh, though Brienne saw his eye twitch.

“She is not your concern, Primeslayer,” she snapped. “You continue to draw breath only to answer my questions.”

“Do try to be mindful, Lady Stark,” he chided. “You must remember: there is no emotion, there is peace.”

“Don’t you dare quote the Code to me, Primeslayer,” she snarled. “You’ve violated that code just as you’ve admitted you violated your sister.”

Brienne couldn’t help it, her mouth dropped open on a gasp. Of all the crimes she’d heard laid at Jaime Lannister’s feet, she’d never expected--

“Those filthy rumors again,” he rolled his eyes lazily. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Council themselves started them. They seem to think it’s unnatural and peculiar for a person to feel an attachment to their family, let alone to their twin. I have suffered suspicions because of it ever since I was a seven-year-old youngling who had never been apart from Cersei for even a day until they shipped me off to King’s Landing. But apparently being lonely is tantamount to the dark side, because if I asked even for a simple holo-comm with her I had my meditation hours doubled and my movements monitored at all times. Attachment. As if the other padawans weren’t constantly attaching with each other. They’d go on about it like they might die if they didn’t. As if it’s a terrible trial not to fuck anyone.” He rolled his eyes, but it was impossible for Brienne to ignore the simmering anger underneath. “Compared to them Cersei and I are pure as Alderaanian snow.”

“You mean to tell me Joffrey isn’t yours?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” He eyed her contemptuously. “You’re so close Lady Stark, yet still somehow completely wrong.”

“Joffrey shares more with you than Robert Baratheon,” Lady Catelyn insisted.

“Well he certainly looks like me. I’m not sure I can be blamed for his disposition.”

“He looks like you,” she repeated.

“He does,” he agreed. “Quite exactly.”

Lady Catelyn gasped, a wave of revulsion rolling off her. “You can’t be serious.”

Brienne looked blankly between the two. The Primeslayer threw his head back and laughed.

“I don’t know what you’re so worked up about, Lady Stark. A moment ago you judged me guilty of incest. Is this worse? Let me ask you: would you want the offspring of Robert Baratheon taking root inside you? You of all people should appreciate my sister’s predicament. Cersei refused to allow her children to share a genetic legacy with that disgusting skug. A few credits spent in the right places, a tiny tissue sample from me, a quick medical procedure for her, and thirty-eight weeks later: Joffrey.” He smiled as if he’d won something, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

A clone. Brienne’s mind reeled. A clone-- of the Primeslayer, no less, grown and birthed by his own sister-- occupied the high seat in the galactic Senate at that very moment.

Lady Catelyn pressed onward. “And Myrcella?”

The Primeslayer’s eyes hardened and his smile dropped away. “I wasn’t needed for Myrcella. Cersei did that entirely on her own.”

“How could you expect to not be caught?”

“We haven’t been caught yet and Joffrey is currently the most powerful being in the galaxy, so it seems no one cares to ask questions. The galaxy has more immediate things to worry about, and genetic records are simple to falsify. Throw enough money around and the problems all go away. Except for small Force-sensitive little boys it seems.”

“And he was such a problem for you that you nearly killed him.”

“Your family presents a rather unique challenge.” His smile turned sharp. “The galaxy seems to put more faith in Starks when you speak, though I could never fathom why. Something about honor, even though you’re just as prone to misunderstanding as the rest of us.”

“They trust us because we live by the Jedi Code whether the Force is with us or not. You wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“That Force-forsaken code,” he sighed. “You’re all so hung up on it, yet if you think about it for even a moment it falls apart completely. Jedi are to protect the innocent, but the code prohibits emotion; expects us to feel nothing-- no rage, no despair, no fear-- when those same innocents are endangered by the dark side. Force forbid we begin to care about them!

“No emotion or passion, so we must defend the galaxy without caring for it, let alone loving any part of it, let alone getting attached to anything or anyone. No chaos, so we must fight against entropy itself. No ignorance, so we can’t question-- can’t admit when the Force isn’t clear. No death, so if we die fighting for something we can’t care about and don’t understand it’s what the Force wills.

“No matter what you choose you’re forsaking some part of the Code. Allow even a little emotion, any ignorance, any chaos and you’re already a failure. Forever tainted by the dark side. Might as well be Sith.

“The Jedi tell us the light side is nothing more than the absence of dark and then ask us to fight for it. How do you fight for a void?”

After regarding him for a long moment Lady Catelyn snorted. “A pretty speech.”

“Why thank you Lady Stark.” He slumped back against the wall. “I’ve had a lot of time to practice lately.”

“But none of that excuses your turning to the dark side, Primeslayer.”

“Primeslayer.” He rolled the word around his mouth. “That’s how awful I am: they had to make up a word when they couldn’t find an insult vile enough for me. The Jedi say protect peace and justice. The Primeguard oaths say protect the prime minister. It should be a simple matter-- after all, the prime minister wants that same peace and justice, doesn’t he? And yet….”

“I don’t care how you justify your actions, Primeslayer. I only care that you’ve told me the truth, and that my daughters will be returned to me.”

“I swear it by the two even pieces of Prime Minister Aerys Targaryen’s corpse.”

“Brienne.”

“Yes my lady?”

“Your lightsaber.”

Brienne handed it over, trying to hide her reluctance. It had been secure on her person, but if the Primeslayer took Lady Catelyn by surprise he might easily wrench the saber out of her hands with a quick twist of the Force. And then there was the fact that Brienne didn’t know what her lady intended to do with the weapon.

With a snap-hiss the blade ignited in Lady Catelyn’s hands. She held the blade vertically before her, contemplating the green glow for a moment, then leveled it at the Primeslayer’s throat. The light turned his already green eyes preternatural as his gaze flicked to Brienne for a split second before meeting Lady Catelyn’s steadily, no sign of fear in his face or in the Force. The air felt even thicker and Brienne swallowed against the stifling sensation.

Staring him down from within the hood of her cloak, Lady Catelyn raised her chin. “Swear you will never again take up arms against Stark or Tully forces. Swear by your honor as a Jedi Knight, as a Primeguard. By your sister’s life and the lives of her--” she stumbled for a moment, “--children. Swear by the Force. Swear it or I will end you here and now.”

“I swear.”

He didn’t even blink. Brienne caught not even a whiff of fear or deceit, though of course she wouldn’t stake her life on her ability to sense his true feelings-- who knew what Sith learned about hiding emotion. But he hadn’t taunted Lady Catelyn for demanding the word of an oathbreaker, and Brienne did sense a sort of… determination? Maybe even hope? Could he be trusted to keep his oaths, even if his reasons for doing so were less than honorable?

Lady Catelyn continued to stare him down for a long moment. For his part, the Primeslayer didn’t move either, didn’t even blink. “Brienne,” her lady called evenly, “go get the droid.”

As soon as she was back in the narrow hall Brienne felt like she could breathe again. She slapped the card key on the other cell’s lock, stepped inside, and grabbed the droid by the arm, dragging him back out with her.

“Where are you taking me?” it wailed. “I’m a negotiator-- you can’t torture me for information!”

Brienne shoved the droid into the Primeslayer’s cell ahead of her.

“Droid,” Lady Catelyn snapped, her eyes never leaving the Primeslayer’s face. “You will verify that I, Catelyn Tully Stark, have officially accepted term 11.38 of section seven of your articles of truce whereby the Primeslayer will be returned to King’s Landing, at which point Sansa and Arya Stark will be released from Lannister custody.”

The droid’s eyes flashed green. “So recorded, my lady.”

Brienne held her breath.

With a green flash the Primeslayer’s chain fell away from the wall.

“We must move quickly.”

BRING THEM HOME

Chapter Text

"Trust me, my capacity for mayhem is undiminished."

Blue and purple swirled outside the cockpit’s canopy, bright enough and familiar enough that Jaime could see it through closed eyes. Taking a deep breath, he nearly sighed in contentment. He was out of his dark, bare cell, and back in space where he belonged, drawing comfort from the warm hum of the Force around him. He felt free.

Well, except for the fact that his wrists were bound behind the back of his seat and his ankles shackled to its base.

Details.

After those long, indistinguishable weeks in the Riverrun basement it had been almost trivial to get off the planet. The nonmilitary shuttles were housed in a separate hangar from the fighters, and it seemed most of the personnel were otherwise occupied when their strange quartet exited the storage facility. They had scurried through the shadows, the restraints still on Jaime’s ankles reducing him to the same undignified shuffling gait as the droid.

Lady Stark was actually the first to take physical charge while still in the cell, seizing his arm with her small hand to urge him to his feet, her nails practically digging through his sleeve. Jaime had already been gritting his teeth against the crawling sensation in his skin as they closed in on him-- too close, too alive, too jumbled and dissonant in the Force-- but flinching away from the tiny woman was not his proudest moment. He should have reached to the Force for calm instead of instinctively trying to evade her touch, but his entire body had gone cold at the mere thought of contact after so many weeks, maybe months in that cell. The second Lady Stark’s fingers touched him, he yanked his arm back as if stung. If nothing else, his immediate reaction to the mere suggestion of touch proved that he’d been in that bunker too long. That he’d been away from Cersei too long.

Hells, that he’d been a Jedi too fucking long.

To his everlasting shame the massive Twi’lek had noticed his discomfort, insinuating herself between her lady and her prisoner even as he struggled to shut down the rising feeling of panic in his chest. Her fingers were gentle even as they locked around his bicep to help him stand, and while he still tensed at the unfamiliar sensation, the overwhelming sense of threat gradually eased to mere discomfort as they walked. Even the Force, previously prickling harshly at his mind, seemed to settle.

The good news was that the yellow beast’s frankly ridiculous wingspan meant she didn’t need to crowd close to maintain her grip on him, so he had space to breathe and acclimate to the barrage of stimuli he’d forgotten while locked up. At first she had taken most of his weight as he adjusted to standing on weakened legs, but as he found himself less unsettled by her support he had leaned harder into her just to watch her stagger and recover with a ripple of bulky muscle. He glanced down the line of her other arm down to where she kept a firm grip on her lightsaber hilt and groaned inwardly. Between her hold on the weapon and the crackling of her wariness in the Force, his odds of relieving her of her saber and at least one limb to secure his solitary escape-- especially without drawing any unwanted additional attention-- dwindled to nothing.

At the hangar, the Stark woman had left both Jaime and the Twi’lek just outside the door, taking the droid and disappearing inside. After several long moments of shivering in the moist Riverrun night, feeling the Force’s low vibration grow steadily and disconcertingly turbulent, the beast told him their ship was ready and nudged him through the door. Jaime hadn’t missed the Twi’lek’s brief flinch just before she spoke and wondered, not for the first time, what exactly Catelyn Stark had done to secure such loyalty.

He had chosen not to comment on the line of glassy-eyed staffers they’d hurried past on their way to the light freighter Stark indicated as theirs, but his uncharacteristic silence hadn’t saved him from the glare she darted over her shoulder at him. “All they know is that I am returning CL-305 to King’s Landing in the ship that brought him here,” she informed him in a harsh whisper. “It should buy you enough time to make it into hyperspace.” A clammy, shivering feeling in the Force had only reinforced Jaime’s discomfort, but he clamped down hard on his thoughts. He’d be home soon. A few days in hyperspace with a hairless head-tailed wookiee and a load-lifter with delusions of grandeur were all that stood between him and getting back to his life. Between him and his place in the Primeguard. Between him and Cersei.

The Twi’lek had shuffled him into the copilot seat, rearranging his restraints to lock his arms behind the chair, before stepping back toward the hatch where Catelyn Stark remained. He couldn’t hear the details of their exchange, and only caught a glimpse of the beast bowing her yellow head, the Stark woman’s hand resting on top of it, before his craned neck hurt too much to continue eavesdropping.

Sealing the hatch behind her, the yellow beast had secured CL-305 and settled easily into the pilot’s seat. As she brought their ship out of the hangar and into Riverrun’s upper atmosphere in a matter of moments, the grinding pressure in the Force finally let up and Jaime felt the relief of being able to think again. By the time they jumped to lightspeed, he was feeling healthier and more relaxed than he had since he was appointed to the Primeguard.

For her part, the Twi’lek had been determinedly not looking at him for the past hour since they’d made the jump to hyperspace, tugging at the worn blue scarf wrapped around the base of her head-tails. But he didn’t need to see her face-- she was already broadcasting her disgust with him on all channels, a scowl on her brow and a reverberation in the Force that was beginning to make his mind itch. If she insisted on having such strong emotions she should at least not be so damned strong in the Force. The combination was simply obnoxious and it meant that even when Jaime closed his eyes against her surly, mismatched face-- what in all possible hells had been so brave as to get close enough to break that nose? how did those teeth even fit in a humanoid mouth? and were those freckles or engine oil stains all over her cheeks and head-tails?-- he was still bombarded with her disapproval through the Force.

Strong in the Force and in body too. He eyed her bare, muscled forearms-- freckled as well, of course-- where she’d rolled up her flight suit’s sleeves. A stray urge to reach over and grip her bicep, both to measure the strength there and to see what kind of outraged face she’d make, amused him but had to be discarded for reasons of his immobilized arms. But of course, the simple combination of muscles and a lightsaber don’t make a fighter, and certainly not a Jedi Knight. He pictured those forearms flexing as she gripped her saber; a quick mental simulation told him she’d hold up thirty seconds against Jaime in a real fight. Maybe a full minute if she’d had any training.

A shame, given she certainly wasn’t built for anything else. Lifting heavy things onto high shelves perhaps? He tried to picture her bulky form crammed into more common Twi’lek roles and couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. Now there was a thought, her two-meter-tall bulk done up in dancer’s clothes, clomping around a cantina.

He watched her set her jaw and glare resolutely out the cockpit canopy and rolled his eyes. The Twi’lek was as stunning a conversationalist as she was a willowy dancer.

“I don’t dance.” Her voice broke the silence in the cockpit, a startling sound to Jaime’s understimulated ears. “And I converse just fine with people worth talking to.”

“Ah, I apologize. I suppose I got out of the habit of keeping my thoughts to myself while enjoying the terribly humane Stark prisoner experience of solitary confinement for weeks on end with no humanoid contact.”

“--and my name is Brienne, not Twi’lek.”

He sat up a little straighter, knowing that his bound arms would show his shoulders and chest to best effect. “Lady Brienne--”

“Do I look like a lady to you, Primeslayer?”

He seethed quietly for a moment. He’d actually made an attempt to be polite, and see what he got for it? “Dancer, then? I’m reasonably sure that’s what my brother calls his Twi’leks when he can’t remember their names. My hair is a problem. It keeps falling in my eyes and making my nose itch, which I’m fairly certain is recognized by the Galactic Senate as a form of torture.” He tossed his head dramatically to flip an oily, tangled lock back behind his shoulder.

“Oh shut up, you’re not being tortured. Get the droid to scratch your nose.” She jabbed a finger at one of her console screens, scanning readouts that didn’t remotely need scanning.

“I just want to tie it back. Unbind my arms and I’ll take care of it.”

“Did you really think I’d fall for that?”

“Would it make you more likely to do it if I said no?”

“It sounds like you are having a disagreement,” the droid piped up. “As a consular liaison I am well-versed in mediation and--”

“No thank you CL-305,” the Twi’lek said, polite even to the useless hovering nanny droid. She turned back to glower at Jaime. “I don’t know anything about human hair. And yours looks all… greasy.”

“I suppose we can’t all be blessed with those low-maintenance half-assed tentacles you call head-tails--”

“They’re known as lekku, Master Jaime,” the droid interrupted helpfully.

“My apologies then,” Jaime rolled his eyes. “Would you please tie my hair back, Leks?”

She folded her arms across her chest and ignored him. Or tried to ignore him. She wasn’t very good at it.

“Would you prefer Legs? Leks or Legs, your two major features.”

“I’d prefer you called me Brienne. Or better yet, that you didn’t speak altogether.”

“Honestly, Leks, it’s not hyperdrive maintenance. Pull the hair all together and secure it. Even with those wookiee paws of yours you should be able to handle it.” His hair had been long enough to keep tied back even before his lengthy confinement, and had grown at least three or four centimeters since then.

“My name isn’t Leks, it’s Brienne,” she grumbled, staunchly refusing to move. Jaime watched the unpleasant rust-orange blush creep up and over her lekku, not even bothering to suppress his smirk as he sensed her resolve steadily wearing down.

A moment later she huffed in irritation, but she did stand up from the pilot’s seat to loom over him. “Will you shut up if I help you?”

“Don’t ask me to swear oaths you know I’ll break.” He offered her his most winning smile.

She growled-- actually growled-- and moved behind his seat. He tipped his head back to peer at her upside-down, smirk at the ready. “Now be gentle, Leks, it’s been a while for me and you wouldn’t want to damage my tender human scalp.” Savoring her burst of sharp disgust through the Force, he ducked his head back to his chest to give her room to work.

She fumbled at the strands above his shoulders for a moment, just long enough for Jaime to grow impatient, but as soon as her shockingly warm fingers brushed the back of his neck he realized he’d made a mistake. Every nerve ending in his neck and shoulders burst into sudden and alarmingly pleasant awareness and he tried to cover the gasp that escaped him with a cough.

Cersei had never played at his hair-- with as much time as she spent on her own elaborate coifs she would have considered the suggestion laughable. But she had been the last living being to touch him, before Riverrun, before his capture during the battle above Whisper Base. He remembered how she’d clutched his hands as she asked him to confront Senator Stark, running a thumb lightly across his cheek as she assured him that Stark couldn’t be a threat to them-- and that he wouldn’t once Jaime had a few words with him.

Of course that conversation she’d suggested had started poorly and only got worse, ending with Stark’s arrest for drawing his saber on Senate grounds-- a brave move for a man with zero Force sensitivity, but one Jaime couldn’t help but respect-- and Jaime’s flight from King’s Landing before the Council could get involved. He hadn’t even been able to say goodbye to Cersei in person, so his last memory of her was how she ducked away from the embrace he’d offered-- requested-- telling him she was far too busy dealing with Ned Stark’s mess, that she’d surely have more time to spend with Jaime once Stark was dealt with.

Brienne fumbled for a moment, her hands clenching on his hair, and Jaime froze. He was out of practice being around humanoids, let alone Force-sensitives, and he wasn’t quite sure how much he was broadcasting. After a long moment he felt her move again, but this time dragging her fingers through his hair, back from his forehead, in an effort to tame the worst of the snarls.

That was much worse.

He was suddenly and acutely aware of every single follicle her blunt fingernails grazed over. It pulled his focus away from the Force, from his memories, and inescapably to the heat of her fingers pulling over his crown and down toward the base of his skull.

His eyes slid closed. Only because he was using a Jedi meditation technique to pass the time.

Jaime shifted in his seat, trying to settle his unease. The only reason he’d asked for her help was to prod her, and the hair in his face was the first thing he thought of-- it was that or ask her to trim back his beard, but that involved cutting implements near his throat. But it didn’t feel right for the Twi’lek to be so close. Not when he was a handful of days in hyperspace away from Cersei. His thoughts should be with Cersei, with his family. Not hung up on the long fingers pulling through his snarled curls.

After their mother died, of absurdly unlikely complications giving birth to Tyrion, Cersei had become Jaime’s whole world, his only source of warmth. The only living being willing to touch him. For the year between the loss of their mother and his departure for the Jedi Academy, the twins had clung to each other, both physically and through the Force that ran so strongly in their family. Their father had always been too disinterested-- or too well-trained as a Jedi-- and Tyrion both too young and tragically Force insensitive, to provide Jaime and Cersei with any kind of affection. The twins’ closeness had made that first year without their mother more bearable, but it had made his transition to the Academy so much harder. He would reach for his sister without even thinking about it, a part of his thoughts always with her.

Master Dayne and the Council had always looked askance at Jaime for that reason. He was stronger than any Jedi of his generation, a brilliant fighter, but the Jedi could never claim his complete devotion and it galled them. It wasn’t that he had done anything specifically wrong, and he’d willingly dedicated almost his entire life to the Order, but they begrudged his refusal to detach himself completely from life outside being a Jedi Knight. Pointing out that they’d allowed his father to marry and procreate earned him a lecture on how it was crucial Jedi business for Master Tywin to continue the Lannister Jedi dynasty, and that his absolute control over his own emotions put him above the danger of attachment, even and especially to family.

After Jaime learned early on in his lessons that some Jedi Masters could join with the living Force instead of dying, he took to imagining his mother appearing to him as a ghost. She’d been Force sensitive, though nobody talked about it, so he told himself it wasn’t impossible that she could have learned the trick. Sometimes during his endless meditations he’d conjure her in his memory, hear her say she was proud of him, feel her arms around him, her fingers smoothing his hair….

But it had gotten more and more difficult as time went on. Her memory became distant, or his training more rigorous, or his imagination weaker, and eventually he stopped seeing her in his mind at all. He could call up Cersei’s image easily enough, but was never again able to generate that facsimile of living touch.

The Twi’lek was almost finished with her work, having plucked up the courage to attempt a passable braid. As her fingers left his hair, pulling one last time at the scrap of fabric she’d tied around it, Jaime caught himself as he leaned back to chase the lost contact. The cold recycled cabin air on the back of his neck only made her absence more noticeable as she retreated to the pilot seat once more.

He could only bear the silence for a moment. “It’s a long trip, Leks.” He cocked his head toward her. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t want to talk at all.”

“I haven’t had anyone to talk to in weeks.”

“So talk to CL-305.”

“Are you really going to just sit there and stare out the window the entire trip?” He could practically hear her teeth grinding. “Maybe I’ll just talk anyway.”

“Clearly I can’t stop you,” she muttered.

“Well if you won’t tell me about yourself I’ll just have to figure you out on my own, won’t I?” He made a show of looking her up and down. “Big burly Twi’lek. Most likely from Ryloth then. Maybe a farmer with those shoulders. Not a Jedi, but carries a lightsaber-- must have some amount of combat training. Somehow ended up on Riverrun in the service of Robb Stark’s separatist forces. I’m guessing you ran away from the farm to seek the exotic life of the grunt soldier. Am I close?” She didn’t move, but the Force began to rumble at the edge of his senses. “What’s with the blue scarf then? Is that blood on it?”

The rumble burst, hot fragments pelting across his mind, and Jaime couldn’t help but feel victorious. “Wrong, Primeslayer. I’m not from Ryloth, I’m from Tarth. I’m not a farmer or a Jedi or a grunt for Robb Stark. I’m a pilot and a soldier and I serve Lady Catelyn. And I don’t intend to make small talk with someone like you.”

“I told Lady Stark, there are no--”

“Jam it.”

“Oh, I say!” the droid exclaimed.

“Have I personally harmed you somehow, Leks? Is it just my existence that offends you?”

“I don’t make a habit of chatting with monsters,” she growled.

“Now really Mistress Brienne,” CL-305 scolded, “that kind of unproductive--”

“Monster?” Jaime gasped, ignoring the droid. “You wound me, Leks.” Honestly it was rather refreshing to be insulted to his face. Points for bravery to the beast.

“You violated the mind of a child!”

“I’m sure that can’t possibly be true--” CL-305 interrupted.

“No, I definitely did,” Jaime laughed.

The droid stuttered for a moment in confusion. “But surely he didn’t mean to!”

Jaime pursed his lips mock-thoughtfully and hummed. “Wrong again.” He’d certainly meant to leave his memory of the preceding ten minutes blank when he’d put his right hand to the boy’s face, covering his eyes and pressing his thumb and finger to his temples. The paralysis was an accident, though just as much Jaime’s fault. Cersei’s harsh whispers as he worked-- what are you doing? He won’t be able to tell anyone anything, just leave it!-- hadn’t helped either. But the boy survived, if paralyzed, and he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about Joffrey. That’s what mattered.

“You implanted your own clone into your sister.”

“Technically the doctor we paid did the implanting,” Jaime corrected her, then craned his neck to look back toward CL-305. “Droid, strike the last, oh let’s say sixty seconds from your record.”

The droid’s eyes flashed red momentarily. “Done, sir.”

“How refreshing that someone around here does what I tell them without arguing,” Jaime commented.

The Twi’lek’s eyes went hard. “You murdered Prime Minister Targaryen.”

Jaime held her gaze for a moment-- surely her eyes only looked like that because they were reflecting the whorls of hyperspace, no humanoid eyes were that blue-- then let out a huff and glanced back to the droid again. “What, no defense of me on that one?”

“I-- I’m afraid that crime is a matter of public record. According to the information programmed into my central memory, you did not deny the accusation. Is that incorrect?”

“No,” he sighed. “Of course it’s true. Everyone knows.”

“Exactly,” the Twi’lek said with grim satisfaction. “You admitted it and everyone knows.”

“Sure, have it your way.” He rolled his eyes to gaze up at the ceiling. “The galaxy is simple, light side and dark side, Jedi and Sith, Prime Ministers and Primeslayers. Sleep easy, Leks. Don’t worry your ugly freckled tentacles about it.”

“Do you really think you can win this argument by commenting on my looks?” she gaped, and Jaime could feel the Force growing rough, like small rocks or hail bouncing off him. “As if you can talk, you hairy, greasy… human,” she finished weakly.

He narrowed his eyes at her, smirking. She’d fallen right into his trap. “Oh Leks, don’t feel you need to lie to me. It’s dishonorable and you’re not very good at it.”

“What?” She blinked in confusion, her blue eyes wide like a grazing nerf.

He batted his eyelashes at her. “I know you think I’m pretty.” He’d felt it back in the cell. That Twi’lek couldn’t hide her feelings if her life depended on it-- he had hardly needed the Force to sense it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You really are a terrible liar. It’s okay, Leks, I’m well-known for my beauty, it’s only reasonable that I’d make you feel things in your...”

She glared.

“...lekku,” he finished with a lascivious grin.

She glared harder, the orange blush spreading rapidly, but the Force grew warmer around them, the gravelly sensation becoming a pleasant tingling--

With a sudden massive jolt and a wail of proximity alarms the purple-blue swirl outside collapsed to starlines as they were forcibly yanked from hyperspace. Nose to nose with a military cruiser bristling with turbolaser turrets. The comm crackled to life.

Light freighter, you are being detained for transporting an enemy combatant. In the name of General Robb Stark you are ordered to shut down your engines and shields and prepare for tractor lock.

Chapter Text

I always play fair. Exactly as fair as my opponents.

Jaime swore at length, his shoulders screaming where his body had been thrown forward by their sudden deceleration and stopped by the restraints on his wrists behind him. For a brief moment he couldn’t tell if the wailing in the cockpit was the Force or just a proximity alarm. “Since when does Robb’s fleet have Interdictors?” he grumbled. The cruiser looming before them wasn’t the largest capital ship in existence, but it sported the telltale spherical gravity generators on its sides that made it a bigger threat to their continued existence than a full Star Destroyer. Jaime had flown in several battles where similar ships were used to pin down enemy fleets, the gravity fields mimicking proximity to a planetary mass so their nav computers wouldn’t allow an escape into hyperspace. It was a tidy technology to prevent an enemy from retreating mid-battle. Or at least Jaime had considered it so until he found himself on the other side of it.

He swore some more.

Those gravity fields had yanked their freighter out of hyperspace and would continue to prevent them from jumping back. Their only hope would be to somehow outpace the Tully ship, which seemed unlikely given the crate of spare parts he laughingly referred to as their freighter. They were trapped and nigh-helpless, and the insistent itching of the Force in his mind wasn’t helping him focus on an exit strategy. Ordinarily-- before sitting in a duracrete cell for weeks on end-- it would have been a simple matter to settle his mind, and that thought only added to his irritation.

“Let me have my arms back,” Jaime said, halfway between demanding and cajoling. “Give me control of the ship, and we might have a chance at getting out of this alive.”

She didn’t even look up from prodding at the console readouts. “Have a lot of experience flying outdated light freighters, do you Primeslayer?”

“I can fly anything, Leks.”

“The nav computer isn’t responding,” she reported grimly, ignoring his boast. “We couldn’t jump even if we could get outside the range of the Interdictor. Hey CL-305?”

“Yes, mistress Brienne?” The droid sounded genuinely pleased to be spoken to by the Twi’lek.

“I need you to talk to the nav computer. Get it back online and have it start calculating our exit.”

CL-305 made an electronic noise that simulated a gasp. “I don’t have that kind of programming!”

“I didn’t ask,” the Twi’lek responded, her voice hardening. Jaime was pleased to see even her patience was tested by the droid. “Of the three of us you’re the only one with the ability to interface with the ship. I’m not asking you to calculate the jump, just convince the computer to boot up and recycle its previous trajectory to King’s Landing.”

“Lannister light freighter, this is Captain Ryger of the Tully Interdictor Volitans. You are ordered to shut down all systems and prepare for boarding.” Irritation was already seeping into the voice coming through the comm.

“It’s one of the newer interdictor cruisers,” Jaime observed, still peering out the canopy. “Two gravity-well generators, twenty laser cannons, probably a dozen fighters on board. If they want to take us alive they’ll launch all fighters and use them to herd us back toward the cruiser. If not--”

“We’re doomed!” wailed CL-305.

“Oh that’s certainly true regardless.” Return to Riverrun would likely end with his execution, but in this flying dumpster the best they could hope for would be to go down fighting, taking as many Tullys as possible down with them. It was more or less how he’d expected his death to go-- Cersei would be angry at him for getting himself killed, but at least he wouldn’t be around to hear it. He had never been particularly afraid of dying and didn’t plan to start now. After all, there is no death….

“You’re not going to die,” Brienne growled. Sithspit, had he let that thought past his shields? He had definitely been in isolation too long. He’d need to fix that problem before he got back to King’s Landing, and definitely before seeing his father again. Pushing aside that last thought Jaime calmed his mind with an effort and felt the obvious slack in his shields. It was a moment’s work to reach out and wrap the Force tight around himself, soft and comforting and close, layer upon layer to form a wall as solid as duracrete. That should keep the Twi’lek out of his head.

He looked over to find her staring at him intently. “I won’t let you die.”

“Bossy,” he remarked, very nearly rolling his eyes at her solemn sincerity. “Aren’t Twi’lek women supposed to be rather the opposite?”

She practically reared back before turning away, the Force crackling with her indignation. “CL-305, there’s an electronic interface port for the nav computer. Plug in and get that nav computer back online.”

“Lannister light freighter, respond or we will open fire.” The Tully captain was definitely annoyed. Jaime thought he might be bluffing-- Jaime must be more valuable alive than dead, especially disintegrated in open space with no body to show for it-- but the way his luck had been going lately it might not be a good idea to bet on himself. Dying in battle would be one thing; getting vaporized while sitting stunned in open space was quite another.

The Twi’lek was still focused on her console, trying to come up with a clever way out of the situation. Too bad cleverness was obviously not her strong suit. She looked over at him, her eyes wide and yet not scared. Calm, even. Alert. Determined. The Force pulsed with a sense of potential and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

“We should talk to them,” she suggested quietly, “reason with them. Tell them that Lady Catelyn--”

“They’re calling us ‘Lannister vessel,’ Leks. I think they’ve already decided what side we’re on.” Her wide brow furrowed into the already-familiar scowl and she reached a freckled hand to flick the comm switch, opening her mouth to start her ill-advised truth-telling strategy. “Negative, Volitans,” Jaime hastily interrupted her, doing his best impression of a protocol droid’s cultured core-world accent and clipped speech, before she could attempt something as foolhardy as the truth. “I am consular liaison CL-305--” the actual droid’s head shot up and the Twi’lek flailed an arm at him to shut him up before he could blow it for them, “--on a diplomatic mission sanctioned by Lady Catelyn Tully Stark--”

“Lady Stark doesn’t have that authority,” the voice of the Interdictor’s captain cut in. “Shut down your ship.”

“Oh dear, Volitans, I’m afraid I don’t know how to do that as I am a mere consular droid and therefore deeply ignorant of useful things like starship control. It makes me terribly worthless, I know, but such is my lot in life.” Jaime glanced back at the droid, who fairly twitched with the conflict between its need to obey orders and its desire to be vocally offended, then shot the Twi’lek a grin. She rolled her eyes, but then something on her screen caught her attention and she bent over it, tapping rapidly.

“They sent you alone in a ship with no way to navigate?”

“The trip to King’s Landing was pre-programmed into the navicomputer.”

“And the two life-form readings we’re getting?”

Well damn.

The Twi’lek groaned, deep in her throat, and slapped the comm switch back off. “Lies won’t help us, Primeslayer. Shut your mouth and--”

“And what, let you ask nicely if we could please be on our way to deliver my valuable person to my family-- against direct orders from Robb Stark-- so that I can get back to fighting and killing Starks, Tullys, and whoever else gets in my way?”

“You won’t be fighting any Starks. You swore to Lady Catelyn.”

It was Jaime’s turn to grind his teeth. “Captain Ryger doesn’t know that, and he wouldn’t believe you if you told him. Hells, I’m shocked you believe in me that much, Leks.” She called him Primeslayer to his face, wouldn't even let him have use of his hands, yet she had no problem trusting his oath to the Stark woman? “Now is not a good time to argue on the basis of my personal trustworthiness. Do you have a plan or don’t you? They’ll have their tractor beam warmed up any minute now and once that happens--”

“I have several ideas, but they all require you to shut up.”

“All terrible plans, then.”

She glanced at her screen, then back to him, eyes narrowed. “Alright then. How about a plan where you keep talking and are as obnoxious as possible?”

“Hm, sounds like more of a job for the droid, but I’ll see what I can do. But just because you asked so sweetly, Leks.”

Ignoring him, as usual, the Twi’lek flicked the comm switch.

“Captain Ryger!” Jaime chirped. “Fancy meeting you here! What is a nice Interdictor like you doing in a middle-of-nowhere like this?”

The Twi’lek tore off her seat restraints and disappeared behind Jaime. He was just craning his neck around to see where she’d gone when he felt a quick tug at his arms and suddenly his hands were free. His surprise cost him any opportunity for an escape attempt-- though killing her and decapitating the droid would probably only speed his own demise at the hands of Captain Ryger-- and before he had processed his brief freedom she had both of his hands pinned in front of him with one of her own as she refastened the restraints.

“Waiting for you, Lannister,” Ryger growled.

”Captain, this is so sudden,” Jaime gasped theatrically. “I had no idea you felt this way! Tragically Jedi aren’t allowed attachments so you and I can never be.” Jaime met the Twi’lek’s eyes when she glanced up from where she was still crouching beside his seat. Crouching may have been a relative term with respect to her size, but he couldn’t help but notice the coiled strength in her body. She was tense, but the light vibration of the Force told him she wasn’t afraid-- she was ready. He held her gaze even while continuing his needling of the Tully ship. “I’m flattered, Captain Ryger, I really am, but I’m afraid I have a pressing engagement on King’s Landing.” He raised his eyebrows at her, gesturing with his partially-free wrists, wondering what she thought she might gain from the use of his hands.

The Twi’lek registered his look, then got to her feet and bent over him, her mouth brushing directly against his ear. Jaime froze, resisting competing urges to flinch away or lean into the contact. “If we’re going to have any chance of getting out of this alive, I’m going to need you as a copilot,” she whispered, barely a breath. Any quip he might have attempted died as her grim determination deepened the Force’s vibration into a steady thrum.

The comm crackled with static for a moment before Ryger’s voice broke through. “Not anymore you don’t. I will say this one more time: power down and prepare for tractor lock or we will blow you out of the sky.”

“Now Captain Ryger, I know your feelings are hurt but it’s important to accept rejection gracefully--”

All further repartee was cut off as the Twi’lek suddenly threw all power to the engines and flipped the ship end-over-end. The partially-compensated G-forces shoved Jaime back against his seat as she gunned it directly away from the Interdictor.

“Do you mean to outrun a new-model Interdictor?” he shouted, the sharp edges of his indignance through the Force blunted by his surprise, as he fumbled to switch off the comms. “In a light freighter that’s older than my father? You have no chance! Even I couldn’t make this boat go any faster.” It had been meant as a complaint but came out as an admission.

“Angle the rear deflectors,” she ordered, her eyes not leaving the forward viewport. Jaime’s hands complied almost before he noticed, the restraints slowing his actions only slightly. “There’s an asteroid field a few klicks ahead.,” she explained. “If we can reach it we can lose the Interceptor, and by the time we make the other side we’ll be out of reach of the gravity well generators.”

“And if their fighters--” Cockpit alarms cut off his arguments and twelve red blips appeared on Jaime’s screen, rapidly closing from their six. “As I was saying, they’ve launched their entire fighter contingent.”

“I see them,” she murmured, leaning forward over her control yoke as if it could increase their speed. The asteroid field was taking shape in front of them, but Jaime was still not convinced they’d make it in time. The first turbolaser blasts spattered off their shields-- smaller impacts, from the fighters and not the Volitans. That was something at least. Of course it also meant--

“Get on the guns!” Brienne shouted as the first two fighters screamed overhead. “And power up the forward shields-- they’ll come around to cut us off--”

The first of the two fighters exploded as Jaime’s shot connected, cutting off her unnecessary tactical briefing. Jaime couldn’t hold in the victorious whoop that erupted from his chest. In the long days since his defeat and capture at Whisper Base he had nearly forgotten the rush of flight, of triumph. The Force was jagged with the tumult of battle and Jaime felt it sweep against his skin and his mind, awakening his senses in a way he could only achieve during combat. The feeling sharpened, narrowing his perception as he took aim at the second fighter. Their freighter was no warship, their weapons almost laughable, but by the Force Jaime would extract every last ounce of offensive capability possible.

A shot from behind them made contact, shaking the ship beneath him and throwing his own shots wide of their target. Brienne threw the freighter into an evasive spiral, keeping their narrow profile facing the attackers. “Five klicks to the edge of the asteroid field,” she gritted, her lower lip clamped between her teeth.

Soon-- and yet still too slowly-- Jaime began to adjust to her evasion tactics, his aim compensating for her tight turns. What had been discordant between her Force presence and his own settled into a pleasant resonance he could feel in his chest cavity, his skin practically tingling with its energy. The second fighter only got a handful of shots off before Jaime’s reduced it to slag.

Two more shots rattled their ship. Jaime realized the droid was screaming, the sound nearly lost in the various alarms blaring throughout the cockpit. The first small asteroids flew past the canopy and he felt each one in the Force as a pinprick of danger. “Almost there,” Brienne murmured, more to herself than to him. Her trajectory grew even more erratic, her evasive turns tighter and quicker as they sped through the increasingly dense field, and Jaime checked their shields in preparation.

“Two more peeled off at the edge of the field,” he reported, scanning his console readouts. “The bad news is that our rear shields are down to 45%.”

“Divert the power you need from the forward deflectors,” she ordered. “Keep the rear ones over 50% if you can.”

She took another hard turn around an asteroid and another of the red blips on Jaime’s screen winked out. “Seven fighters to go,” he reported grimly. With all of them behind their ship there was little Jaime could do from the copilot console outside of trying to blast the occasional rock out of their way and keep an eye on the shields. He should have chafed-- felt helpless at least-- but he found himself almost basking in the rush of the Force, along for the ride as Brienne dodged threats both fore and aft.

There was no way around it: the Twi’lek was an incredible pilot. Even tearing through an asteroid field Jaime found himself watching her and not the death rocks hurtling at them. For all her blushing and scowling back on Riverrun she achieved a remarkable calm while flying, her lovely eyes an almost luminescent blue. The Force radiated from her, warm and alive as she steered the ship between asteroids, dodging the fighters’ turbolasers.

He would have liked to call it a team effort but their continued survival was almost entirely due to her flying. He managed to shoot down one more fighter that attempted to overtake them, but three more went down when they failed to avoid asteroids that Brienne had slipped past. The asteroid field thickened, and another pair of fighters fell back to return to the Interdictor.

“I can’t shake these last two fighters,” she groaned, spinning and banking through a dense cluster of rocks. “I need your help.” The way she said it was all business, but the Force resonance between them swelled, tugging insistently at his senses, swallowing his smug remark. “Hold out your wrists,” she said, unclipping her lightsaber from her belt while keeping one hand on the control yoke.

“What--? Oh no, Leks. You’re not swinging that around in here. Just ignite it and hold it still.”

She growled and wrenched the ship sideways, just avoiding an asteroid bigger than their ship, then thumbed the power to her saber, flooding the cockpit with its green glow. Before he could consider exactly how stable her grip might be, Jaime shoved his hands on either side of the blade. His restraints fell away and a split second later his hands were back on the copilot console, blasting another rock out of their path as the Twi’lek shut down her saber and shoved it between her thigh and her chair.

“Take the helm,” she ordered, jabbing the switch to turn steering control over to his side. Jaime didn’t even pause to think, his newly freed hands already flying over the copilot console. The Force swirled, practically roaring around him as he gripped the yoke, a starship at last under his complete control. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so exhilarated, so alive.

Their freighter might have been a bucket but Jaime meant it when he said he could fly anything, sliding effortlessly around asteroids and between turbolaser blasts. It felt so kriffing good that it was several moments before he realized the Twi’lek had pushed out of her restraints to stand in front of the pilot seat, staring intently out the canopy.

“There.” She pointed toward a particularly thick cluster of asteroids, with two especially large chunks, each nearly half the size of the Interdictor itself and almost obscured in the center of the clump.

Jaime immediately banked the craft hard and shot at full speed in the direction she’d indicated. He diverted all power to rear shields to protect against the fighters, trusting his own skill to avoid the obstacles to their fore.

“Between the big ones,” she ordered.

“Roger roger.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea Mistress Brienne!” wailed CL-305.

“She’s not your problem, droid, get that nav computer online or all her tricks won’t matter.”

As the ship barreled toward the center of the cluster, dodging the ever-thickening field of debris, Jaime felt rather than saw Brienne’s entire body tense. She had taken up a position standing between their chairs, her feet planted in a sturdy stance, and when he hazarded a glance in her direction he saw her eyes closed and her arms outstretched. The Force began to throb around her as her hands clenched into fists, her bare forearms flexing, her whole upper body straining, her head-tails pulling tightly around each other behind her back.

The crash of a smallish asteroid against their hull pulled Jaime’s attention back. She clearly had a plan, one that required all of her energy and concentration. He might not know what she was doing, but he knew it was his job to keep them alive long enough for her to do it. Their monitors showed the last two fighters still in dogged pursuit, and gaining. The tiny ships lost less momentum from dodging than the sluggish freighter and would be in firing range in seconds. Jaime gripped the control yoke grimly, leaning forward as his focus narrowed to just the path before them, guiding the craft toward the gap between the two largest asteroids.

A gap that was… closing?

He glanced back at Brienne to find her orange-flushed and sweating, the muscles of her arms vibrating with strain as the Force began to shudder, rattling down Jaime’s spine. He looked back at the narrowing gap-- she couldn’t…? The flat faces of the massive asteroids weren’t just drifting closer to each other, they were accelerating-- a physical impossibility unless….

He felt his eyes widen. The Twi’lek let out a groan. The rumbling in the Force intensified, buffeting against his mind.

“This is going to be close, Leks,” he warned, coaxing as much velocity from the already stressed engines as he could.

“Just keep going,” she managed through her tightly clenched jaw.

The freighter hurtled toward the ever-narrowing gap. Jaime felt the Force surging through him as he twisted into a tight roll that aligned the narrow face of the ship parallel to the sliver of space visible between the rocks, diverting all power from shields to engines, shooting through and out the other side just as the asteroids crashed together, crushing the Tully fighters between them.

Jaime let out a victory cry, pounding the console with one free fist before taking the most direct course he could map into clear space. Brienne had collapsed forward onto the console, just barely catching herself on shaking arms. “Droid,” she panted. “Nav computer status.”

“I feel I must remind you that I am not trained in--”

“Is it functional?”

“I believe so.”

“Stay hooked in,” Jaime ordered the droid. “I’m calculating our jump out but you’ll need to keep an eye on it just in case your extensive navicomputer training fails.”

“But Master Jaime--!”

“Course set,” he notified Brienne over the droid’s protests. “Next stop: King’s Landing.”

She dropped backwards into the pilot seat and fumbled at her restraints. Clicking the last into place she collapsed back against the headrest, her arms dangling nearly to the floor. “Get us the hells out of here,” she gasped up at the cockpit canopy.

“Aye aye, captain,” Jaime called, still unable to keep the grin from his face, the Force rolling warmly around them. Gently, he squeezed the hyperdrive levers and pulled back, pulling the Force around himself and trusting it to guide them. The stars extended to starlines, and Jaime couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so happy to see the blue swirls of hyperspace.

Basking in the elation of their escape, Jaime couldn’t help but laugh. “Leks, that was the most ridiculous--” He turned his head to look at her and the words faded halfway between his brain and his mouth. She was still panting, her mouth hanging open, her broad chest rising and falling dramatically. Her eyes were closed and her head leaned back against the seat with her lekku drooping behind it. Following the lines of her body Jaime saw that her hands still shook but her arms dangled nervelessly at her sides. He could have made any number of comments about her state, but she looked completely wrung-out. The absurd creature had thrown asteroids at their pursuers-- of course she was exhausted.

She was helpless. The grin melted from his face. He could go for her lightsaber now and be done with it.

Instead, he checked the navicomputer. A few glitchy readings, here and there, but no alerts. Maybe the useless droid had actually pulled it off. He glanced toward the Twi’lek, only to be met with a sliver of blue looking back at him. “Awake again?” he scoffed. “Is that what they teach at the renowned Tarth Jedi academy? Free your captive, then pass out after blowing all your power on some foolhardy attempt at tactics?”

She rolled her eyes back up toward the ceiling. “You’re welcome,” she groaned.

“I beg your pardon,” CL-305 spoke up from behind them.

“It’s alright droid,” Jaime sighed. “I don’t need to know the proper etiquette to thank someone for throwing asteroids at my enemies.”

“No, Master Jaime, it’s the nav computer--”

The Twi’lek’s brow furrowed and she turned to her console screens. Jaime did the same and immediately saw the problem. “Brace!” he shouted, a split second before the ship was once more hurled out of hyperspace. This time their exit was far less graceful, alarms blaring and the ship tumbling end over end before Jaime could get the sublight engines online.

A green-surfaced planetary mass hurtled toward them as Brienne wrestled with the controls, grunting with the jolting of the ship. “Not another Interdictor?” she shouted, flinching back as sparks flew from the side console.

“Negative,” Jaime barked. He reached to the Force for calm, for guidance, for anything that might get them through their latest disaster alive. He found none of those, but instead a yawning feeling of… potential. Significance. Fate? He pushed it aside to focus on getting their shameful excuse for a starship under control. “I saw some sort of glitch in the navicomputer just before we dropped. Droid!”

“I’m terribly sorry,” CL-305 moaned from behind them, “I don’t know what--”

Any further apology was cut off by an explosion that threw the droid across the cockpit in a shower of sparks. “Droid?” Brienne called, not daring to take her eyes off the controls.

Jaime glanced back but could only make out a few bits of blackened metal through the smoke that was beginning to fill the cockpit. “I don’t think we’ll get any answers from him, Leks,” he coughed as his eyes started to water. “And that planet is coming up awfully fast.”

“We’re down to two engines and the inertial dampeners won’t last much longer,” she warned, her voice rough. “We should have just enough left to get us down to the surface.”

“And how many pieces do you think we’ll be in when we get there?”

“Can the commentary and see if you can get landing repulsors online,” she growled.

“I’ll see what I can do. Might be time to make peace with the Force though, unless you think the sheer power of your oath to Catelyn Stark can somehow keep us alive.” They had entered the planet’s upper atmosphere, the heat from their reentry growing more and more visible around the remaining shields. “I’m cutting power from the sublight engines and diverting it to the shields. Can you navigate on just repulsors?”

“I’ll get us to the ground.”

She would too, if only to hold it over his head. She’d bent asteroids to her will, after all. What was a little crash landing compared to that?

The green covering began to resolve itself into dense forest. Brienne had managed to slow their descent, but Jaime wasn’t at all sure it was enough to keep them from splattering upon contact with the planet’s surface. The smoke in the cockpit was getting denser-- he relied on his Jedi training to suppress his need to breathe, but Brienne was coughing violently-- and would soon obscure all visuals. The ship jolted and shook beneath them despite her white-knuckled grip on the controls. “I can’t get a read on where the ground is through all the tree coverage,” she called through gritted teeth. “This isn’t going to be pretty.” The upper branches of the tallest trees whipped past as they plummeted toward the surface.

“Excellent,” he choked out, checking his seat restraints one last time. “It’s so satisfying when a landing matches its pilot.”

A particularly hard impact threw him forward against his safety restraints and he narrowly avoided bashing his head into the console before a lateral jolt flung him hard to his left. The juddering of the ship intensified until he couldn’t make out the terrain in front of them as his throat burned from the acrid smoke.

His last thought before the ship slammed into the ground was that he never got to hear her retort. He would have liked to see her roll her eyes one last time.

Chapter Text

She was here, and it was now; and as the emperor's instructors had so often drummed into her, the first item of business was to fit into her surroundings

BRING THEM HOME

Brienne jerked awake with a gasp. For a disoriented moment she twisted in her seat restraints looking for Lady Catelyn before reality rushed in and she remembered the voice was inside her own mind. Sharp pain lancing up her spine told her the twisting was a bad choice, but it served to pull her focus back to the present. Lady Catelyn was far away, and she had put her faith in Brienne. And Brienne had crashed the ship she’d given them in the middle of nowhere.

Closing her eyes, Brienne took a breath, doing her best to set aside the doubts and growing panic. She found the Force strangely placid, but took it as encouragement to calm herself as well. Taking stock of her body, she concluded it was battered but functional. Her head throbbed mildly but persistently, and one lek burned where it had been trapped between her unconscious body and the freighter console. She pulled the bruised lek over her shoulder to rub gently at it, allowing the peace of the Force to flow through her.

After a long moment she opened her eyes, feeling calm and prepared to face her newest set of challenges. She released her seat restraints, planting her feet to keep from sliding forward due to the slight angle at which their ship had come to rest. Slow, pulsing waves in the Force told her the Primeslayer was unconscious but alive, but a glance backwards told her CL-305 would be a total loss, reduced to not much more than a slightly smoking pile of scrap metal. She felt a brief pang-- he’d been a member of their party through their escape from Riverrun, no matter how he grated on Brienne’s nerves. Distantly, Brienne felt a small sense of relief that the droid’s demise had no effect on the Force. She still felt raw from the death and pain that had come to saturate her life over the past… had it only been a handful of cycles? Since Renly--

She needed to settle her mind. She had a grounded ship and only a vague notion of where in the galaxy they even were, and on top of all that she found herself stranded and alone with the Primeslayer. She peered over at him, slumped forward into his seat restraints but unmoving. One of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy. And she was alone with him. Responsible for his continued safety. She’d never been so in over her head in her life.

He was an unpredictable threat, and it made Brienne uneasy that she couldn’t figure out who he actually served. Not Prime Minister Targaryen, obviously. Not the Jedi Order either. Perhaps Robert Barathon? Could Jaime have been a mole within the Primeguard all along? After all, the Primeslayer’s defining act had led more or less directly to Baratheon’s ascension to power. But he hadn’t exactly spoken highly of Prime Minister Baratheon back on Riverrun.

Then again, Brienne also knew that Tywin Lannister was considered the power behind the Prime Minister. And given that the Primeslayer had admitted to participating in a plot to clone himself… and that clone was currently the Acting Prime Minister after Baratheon’s death….

It aggravated her that the Force held no answers for her. There was no sense of yawning darkness surrounding the Primeslayer, no deep malevolence. His eyes were green-- like life, like her own lightsaber’s blade-- not the sickly yellow or red characteristic of dark side corruption, and his skin was very nearly the diametrical opposite of gray and veined.

But then, she’d also felt his mind brush against her own during their flight through the asteroid field. They had fallen into sync so easily, both trained and disciplined fighters, but even more within the Force. She hadn’t even thought twice about freeing his hands and relinquishing control of the ship to him to allow her to focus all her energy on moving those asteroids. It shouldn’t have been so easy to forget the threat he posed.

Brienne shook her head to stop the train of thought. The Force could be mysterious, but it didn’t alter the fact that the Primeslayer was a known oathbreaker and traitor. Suspicions and rumors and conspiracy theories may or may not be substantiated but their sheer volume-- not to mention the acts he’d admitted to on Riverrun-- certainly eliminated the possibility that the Primeslayer was some sort of epically misunderstood innocent. No matter who he served, publicly or privately, he deserved to be distrusted. He’d earned his title and all-- well, most-- of the dark rumors that surrounded him.

A quiet groan from the copilot seat caught her attention. One look at his unbound hands sent Brienne scrambling from her seat, thanking the Force that she’d regained consciousness before the Primeslayer. If he’d woken up first the best case scenario would be… well, that she wouldn’t have woken up at all.

She had been rash to slice through his bindings during their flight from the interdictor, but fortunately his ankles were still restrained to his seat. Repurposing those cuffs for his wrists would be simple. And given their lack of a functional ship, it looked like he would need his ankles free anyway. She knelt in front of his seat and ducked to free his feet, then gathered his limply hanging arms in one broad hand to secure them together.

She had just finished when she felt a ripple in the Force lap up against her, making her flick her eyes upward. Directly into his green and very much alert gaze.

Startled, she dropped his hands and nearly tripped in her hurry to get up from her knees and back away. “Finally awake, are you?” she said, a weak attempt to cover the fact that he’d surprised her.

He groaned again, louder this time. “Am I?” He swiveled his neck this way and that, grunting, but Brienne didn’t miss him surreptitiously twisting his wrists to test the security of his new bonds.

“Signs point to yes.” Checking that her lightsaber was still secure, and sparing a moment to wish she’d thought to bring even one blaster with her from Riverrun, Brienne stepped back to the console and jabbed at a few keys. The screen glowed with static until she pounded the console with her fist, at which point she was able to run a basic diagnostic on the ship.

Lannister must have noticed her grimace. “Let me guess,” he sighed, rolling his head back against his seat and stretching his long legs in front of him. “We’d do better walking to King’s Landing.”

“Not quite that bad.” She prodded at the screen for a moment. “Communications are down-- the antenna must have snapped off during landing.”

“Landing? Oh you mean when you crashed our ship.”

Ignoring that comment, she continued her report, if only to prove that she’d done about as good a job with the landing as it was possible to do. “Shields are shot, but that’s from the fight. Repulsors at 70%, sublight engines at 80%. But the hyperdrive is down-- looks like it was an alluvial damper malfunction that brought us out of hyperspace. Seems I got us down in one piece after all.”

“For all the good it’ll do us. I’m afraid they didn’t teach us how to make alluvial dampers out of leaves and bark at the Academy.”

He was being deliberately aggravating, which she supposed probably meant he hadn’t sustained a head injury, but also meant she had to use a good chunk of her energy tamping down irritation in order to get anything done. Brienne keyed out of the ship diagnostic to see if any of the sensors were still online, finding-- “there’s a city about 30 kilometers to the east. A reasonably big one so we should be able to get new parts.”

“Or a ride out of here. Where is here anyway?”

“From what readings we got after we left hyperspace, it looks like maybe the Maidenpool system. I think we’re on one of the moons.”

“So we walk.”

“Looks like it.”

“At least it’s just us organics now,” he drawled, glancing behind his seat toward the mess of charred metal remains. That reminded Brienne of one more task before they could leave the ship. She crouched down beside what was left of CL-305, her fingers running along what had been the droid’s torso until she found a gap in the red metal plates. “What are you doing?” Lannister was out of his seat. “We shouldn’t be wasting time on droid funerals.”

She eyed him suspiciously as he stood over her. He was mobile, but his range of motion was limited enough that he couldn’t cause too much damage if he attempted an attack. The Force would give Brienne all the warning she’d need to deal with him if he tried. “We need his memory chip to verify the terms of your release,” she explained. The plate gave way as she pried at it, revealing not the droid’s processing unit but a narrow, quarter-meter-long compartment containing--

“Is this yours?” she asked dryly, pulling the lightsaber out of the droid’s chest cavity and turning to show the Primeslayer. It was a surprisingly utilitarian design, the only ornamentation being a thin red metallic band around the emitter. “Or do you think CL-305 was secretly a Jedi?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Well that might have been useful information a few hours ago.” Without a tremor in the Force she was obliged to believe he hadn’t known about the smuggled weapon. He made a token attempt to grab for it with his bound hands and she easily pulled it out of his range, holding his gaze as she clipped the saber to her own belt at her right side. That settled, she reached back into the droid to pull out the memory chip and shove it into one of her pockets before getting to her feet, wiping the ash from her hands. “Let’s go.”

Lannister followed her out of the cockpit, taking one last glance back as he exited. He laid a hand over his heart, its bound counterpart hanging just below. “Here’s to CL-305, consular liaison and galaxy’s worst espionage droid.”

At first it was slow going through the forest around their crash site, the air-- and the Force-- feeling close and muggy, heavy with the buzzing and chirping of scores of tiny creatures. The thick ferny undergrowth tugged at their steps and the towering broad-leafed trees blocked sunlight from reaching the forest floor, lending the area a feeling of constant twilight. Further from their crash site the trees grew a bit sparser, the ground less treacherous, and Brienne had the passing thought that under Primeslayer-free circumstances the hike would have been pleasant.

BRING THEM HOME.

Under Primeslayer- and oath-free circumstances, she corrected herself, suppressing a wince. The feeling that accompanied the voice wasn’t so much pain as it was a pressure on her mind. Though it was starting to concern Brienne that the pressure seemed to be increasing over time.

She realized the Primeslayer was eyeing her as she picked her way through the tangle of vegetation. “What did Catelyn Stark do to you?” he asked, his usual jovial tone replaced by a cold seriousness she found unsettling.

“Do to me?” she scoffed. “She entrusted me with her daughters’ lives.”

“Is that why your intermittent grimaces just so happen to coincide with the stabbing icicles the Force keeps sending at me? You know, that kind of mind manipulation isn’t exactly the light side of the Force.”

“She didn’t manipulate anything,” Brienne insisted, scowling and kicking at a fallen branch a bit more forcefully than necessary. “It’s some sort of… of bond.”

“I’m sure Darth Catelyn appreciates your defense of her.”

She felt the outrage rise within her along with the heat in her cheeks. “That’s a vile thing to say, Primeslayer.”

“In my experience vile and true aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“You’re trying to provoke me to anger, but it won’t work.”

“Force forbid! That’s one of those emotions I hear so much about. Wouldn’t want to tempt you to the dark side.”

“Wouldn’t you?” She stopped walking and held his gaze, eyebrows raised in challenge.

The briefest wave in the Force told her she’d scored a hit despite his mask of indifference. He turned away, putting several paces between them. “You know, Leks, I’ve never been to Tarth,” he called, reestablishing the careless lilt in his voice. “Bit of a backwater, isn’t it? Is it as ugly as you are?”

“They call it the kyber gem of the Storm Sector,” she responded, scowling at his back. “For the sparkling oceans that cover most of the planet.”

“Poetic, I suppose. Though I’ve seen some remarkably unsightly kyber gems in the hilts of Sith I’ve killed. One looked for all the galaxy like a tiny, charred kowakian monkey-lizard. But no matter what the crystal looks like it produces the same blade as any other. Maybe a different color, but that’s not much of a difference really--”

Brienne took yet another deep breath as he prattled on. She seemed to require them much more often since she’d met the Primeslayer. The Force had been growing increasingly turbulent since they’d left their ship, likely due to the trial of tolerating his company. Yet again she found her mind drifting back to the asteroid field. The more she thought about it the more it galled her how well they had fought together. The rolling waves of the Force between and around them during that battle… it was one of the best feelings she’d ever experienced.

She didn’t like it. If only--

The turbulent Force suddenly focused into a single geyser-like point, breaking through Brienne’s ruminations. She came to a halt, startled by the violence of the sensation and saw the Primeslayer’s head jerk up out of the corner of her eye. A rustling in the undergrowth caught her attention and she tracked the movement, unhooking her lightsaber from her belt. “Undo my restraints, Leks,” he hissed urgently. “Now!” She ignored him, the Force erupting in her mind still. Whatever lurked there was a threat, a big one, and Jaime sensed it too. But what--

Suddenly an animal growl and a human grunt sounded behind Brienne. She snapped around, yanking her lightsaber from her belt, to see some sort of quadruped predator-- somewhere between canine and feline, roughly twice as big as a Twi’lek, with a long whiplike tail-- sinking its claws into Jaime’s back, pinning him to the ground and hissing as he groaned. His pain cut through the whirling Force and without a moment’s hesitation she charged forward, ramming her shoulder into the animal’s flank to dislodge it, igniting her blade and nearly simultaneously bringing it up in a smooth arc through the creature’s neck. A distant rush in the Force warned her of an attack from behind her and she whirled again, pulling the second lightsaber from her belt and activating it, riding the Force’s waves as she launched herself, blades crossed, into the air over where Jaime lay to meet a second creature in midair as it pounced, pulling her blades apart to slice through it and landing lightly as pieces of the animal fell around them. Two more beasts were on her as soon as she hit the ground, their Force senses pattering dissonantly against her mind as she held them off to either side. She strained to split her concentration in two directions at once, deflecting the snapping jaws as the predators gauged her vulnerability.

Jaime wasn’t moving.

Panic flared in Brienne’s chest for a moment, distracting her just enough for one of the animals to get in a glancing swipe at her arm. Gritting her teeth as the scratches burned, she reminded herself that if he were dead she would certainly feel it through the Force. He must still be alive, but if she wanted to keep it that way she would need to get the beasts further away from him and maintain their focus on her. Assuming these two were the last of the pack.

Before she could act, one of the animals found its opening, teeth sinking into her thigh before dancing back to avoid her blade. She grunted, pushing the pain down as best she could while still desperately trying to maintain her focus. Two opponents on opposite sides was too much for her-- she needed to get them both in front of her if she was to have any chance of getting out of this alive. Waiting for one to take another swipe, she dropped her knee beneath her and fell to the ground. She heard Jaime shout “Leks!” and felt a stab of relief that he was conscious-- if still prone-- as she rolled a hair’s breadth below a whipping tail, coming up on the other side of the clearing with both beasts advancing on her side by side.

The fight became less complicated after that, but she was tiring quickly. By the time she subdued the last two animals she’d taken a whip-tail across her bicep and another set of parallel scratches down her shin.

Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by Brienne’s harsh panting breaths. She half-stumbled a few steps toward the nearest tree and slumped against it as she stretched out her senses, ignoring her hammering heartbeat, to confirm that she’d dispatched the last of the predators. She felt the Force rise around her, its currents cool and soothing, assuring her of their safety, and she dipped into it gratefully to dampen the pain and inflammation from her wounds. A few breaths later she shoved away from the tree, not at her best but already in a rush to continue on their journey, as the sounds of life in the forest around them slowly returned.

The Primeslayer groaned and began to maneuver himself to his feet as she approached, brushing dirt from his flight suit. “You know, Leks,” he began offhandedly, rotating his shoulders to loosen them and not even looking at her, “I’ll admit I didn’t believe you could have killed Renly Baratheon. But I take it all back after that display. You’re easily capable.”

“Get moving.” She struggled to set aside his taunts, shoving him forward with her shoulder. He grunted, glaring back at her, and she noticed the six visible gashes through the back of his suit. There was only a little blood, but she still felt a pang of remorse for being rough with his injuries.

“I’m sure you’ll get used to being known as a cold-blooded assassin in no time.” He began trudging forward once more, glancing back to add, “I can give you some tips if you like, one traitor to another.”

It was too much, listening to him equate his acts to hers as if they were somehow comparable. How dare he even consider her in the same sentence with himself, after she’d fought off clawed predators to save his life, after she’d gotten them safely to the ground when their ship malfunctioned, after she moved asteroids to get him away from Tully forces? After she’d left Riverrun, more alone than she’d ever been in her life, to take his sorry hide back to his lavish life on King’s Landing?

“I did not kill Renly,” she all but shouted. The sound echoed through the forest around them. Jaime stopped and turned, slowly. Too slowly. The smirk was back in full force. It put her in mind of the predators she’d just dispatched. She had let too much out again, she realized with an abrupt gasp, and scrambled to pull her shields together as Lady Catelyn had tried so hard to teach her. But it was too late.

“Oh Leks,” the Primeslayer tutted, clearly savoring her momentary failure of control. “Such attachment to a man in open rebellion against the Senate. Very un-Jedi-like of you I’m afraid.” She clenched her jaw and stomped past him. The faster they could get to civilization the sooner she could get this loathsome man to King’s Landing and leave him there. He followed her in silence, but she knew it was only a matter of time before he came back to pick at her wounds again.

Her reprieve ended even sooner than she’d expected. “Did he have any idea, do you think?” he began, coming up beside her not even a dozen paces later. “Renly, I mean. I bet even without the Force he could sense you pining after him through solid durasteel. Let me guess: it was that winning smile of his that got you. You certainly wouldn’t be the first, though it would seem you were the last….”

“Shut your mouth, Primeslayer. I followed Renly because he would be a great Prime Minister. He was a good man.”

“Was he? Do you have a lot of experience with men then?” She stared straight ahead. She wouldn’t engage. Not again. “Women, then?” he suggested slyly. “...maybe Wookiees?”

“You know that Wookiees come in all genders, don’t you?” she snapped. The last thing she needed was criticism of her nonexistent romantic history from this odious, oathbreaking skug of a man.

Of course it didn’t stop him. “With your looks and personality it seems to me you might as well be a Jedi. I doubt anyone is lining up to form attachments with you, so I imagine you must be quite good at celibacy already. Tell me, is it difficult being the only virgin Twi’lek in the galaxy?”

That one took her by surprise and she came to a stop, watching him push ahead. His jabs had all been so well-aimed up to that point, each one hitting her soft underbelly, but he’d let himself get carried away by his confidence that he’d read her completely. “I’m not,” she said, almost amused at his misstep.

“Not the only virgin Twi’lek? Gods, I hope I never lay eyes on the others.”

He looked back at her when she didn’t answer, and the way his smirk faltered was a genuine delight for Brienne. Twi’leks just didn’t get quite as worked up about sex or lack thereof as many other humanoid species, so when the Primeslayer progressed in his taunts from her unlovability-- which cut to her core-- to her perceived unfuckability, it actually came as a relief. She laughed before she could think to stop herself and was rewarded by the Primeslayer’s deepening scowl before he turned and stomped away again, his shoulders tight and a buzzing ripple in the Force.

She cocked her head to the side and considered him for a moment, remembering what he’d said to Lady Catelyn back on Riverrun. Pure as Alderaanian snow, he’d called himself, compared to the adolescent libidinousness of the other padawans at the Academy. He hadn’t seemed resentful at missing out so much as bitter that he had been held to a much higher standard, which Brienne could begrudgingly understand. She had always expected better of Jedi, and it was a strange feeling to consider that the Primeslayer might have lived up to certain parts of doctrine better than his cohort. Brienne would never call herself experienced, and certainly not in anything other than extremely occasional recreational sex-- of her partners one had been a friend but no more, the second had managed to be both uninspiring and insulting, and the last had been merely uninspiring-- but it was never an aspect of her life she spent too much energy thinking about. He must be exhausted to be grasping at straws for his insults like that. Or maybe she should check him for head injury….

Blinking, she brought her attention back to the present, only to find she’d lost sight of her captive. She hurried ahead, cursing under her breath, and a few moments later she found him pissing against the back of a tree. She reversed course abruptly, muttering “I should have put you on a leash,” as she resolutely turned her back on him.

He apparently finished what he was doing, because she soon felt the increasingly-familiar eddies of his presence in the Force, followed by his footsteps crunching through the undergrowth toward her. Stubbornly, she kept her back to him, laying her hands on her two lightsaber hilts protectively. “Are you quite finished?”

He didn’t answer, but before she could turn around she felt his hand on her left lek, grasping firmly before yanking downward. She let out a choked scream as the sensation spiked along the length of the lek and across her scalp, hot needles all over her skin. She whirled around, slapping his chained hands away and darting out a hand to grasp his hair by the braid, wrenching his head sideways with her free hand at his throat.

“Don’t ever touch a Twi’lek’s lekku,” she snarled. “Do you have any idea how many nerve endings are in a single lek?” She pulled harder at his braid. He hissed, his eyes going wider. “About five times as many as your tender human scalp. Keep your kriffing hands off.”

“Message received,” he managed, but she held her grip a moment longer, forcing down the urge to blacken one of his smug green eyes. “Besides,” he continued, his voice dropping, “I’ve got a much better use for my hands.”

The reflexive scoff at yet another innuendo hadn’t even made it to her mouth when he abruptly turned his body to the side, planting his foot against her chest and shoving her back with a vicious kick. She rolled to her feet, cursing, but she had felt the tug at her belt and knew it was too late. The snap-hiss of his igniting saber echoed the cold slap of his grim triumph in the Force. His skin lost its color in the blue glow, his eyes flashing as he settled his hands around the grip.

Brienne whipped her own saber from her belt, shoving aside the impulse to berate herself for her carelessness. She’d let emotion get the better of her and now she was facing down an armed Primeslayer.

“I’ve been hoping to get you alone like this since Riverrun,” he practically purred. “Shall we dance?”

He advanced on her, testing his range of motion lazily. The Force warned her a split second before he came at her with three hard, quick slashes that she blocked easily despite the power his two-handed grip provided him. She brought her blade back up to the ready. “I told you,” she growled, “I don’t dance.”

The Primeslayer stepped lightly around her, his attacks experimental, almost teasing her with quick, light strikes. He was testing her reaction, that smug smirk widening whenever he found one he liked. Her lekku tingled with awareness as the Force simmered around them both, hot and restless.

At first Brienne struggled to match him-- he was agile where she was merely strong-- but once he began his attack in earnest, always in motion, his blade a blue blur, Brienne found herself somehow calming. Their bodies fell into a rhythm together, push and pull, advance and retreat.

She watched his body move, flowing into each thrust, each slash of his lightsaber. The Force throbbed with the battle and she let it flow through her, guiding her hands as their blades met again and again. She felt his mind slide against her own, an almost palpable sensation that brought tingling awareness across her skin.

Their tempo increased to a frenzy of glowing blades as they circled each other faster, leading and then following in their dance through the dimness of the forest, the humming and clashing of their blades filling the air. He was a brilliant fighter, and he’d already lasted much longer with her than any opponent Brienne had faced before. It was exhilarating in a way she would never have expected.

Her skin felt like it was on fire, like it could sense every molecule that touched it. A thrill ran down her lekku. She was sweating and panting with exertion, but he fared no better. Strands of hair escaped his braid, plastering themselves to his face, and she remembered the way he hissed when she pulled on it, his whole body going rigid. It gave her an idea, and used the momentum from the next blocked strike to spin around his side, reaching out with her off-hand to hook under his left elbow and snaking up to grasp his braid, yanking him off balance to fall back against her body with his arm pinned back bringing the other with it, his blade held up uselessly to the side. In a flash she shut down her saber and clamped her right arm over his chest to hold the hilt to his throat, her body flush with his.

“Yield,” she growled into his ear. When he tried to twist out of her hold she pulled his head back, her fist tight around his hair still. He gasped but then began to laugh. “Yield,” she repeated, drawing on the Force for emphasis.

He leaned his head back against her shoulder to bring his lips up to her ear cone and she could feel his smirk. “You’re at a disadvantage, Leks,” he murmured, giving her a brief second to wonder what he meant before he suddenly dropped to his knees, trapping her arm with his and using his momentum to flip her over his shoulder. She lost her grip on her saber as he dragged her down, losing track of it somewhere in the undergrowth, but with her hand freed she managed to bring him to the ground with her. They rolled together on the forest floor, grunting and grasping for purchase, his saber lost in the scuffle as well, only for him to come out on top, sitting across her back. “See? You wouldn’t kill me even if you had the chance. You swore to bring me back alive” He grasped her lekku, his hands firm yet not rough, and she was dimly aware that he could have hurt her far worse if he chose.

BRING THEM HOME, Lady Catelyn’s voice echoed through her skull. She heard Jaime gasp, his hands clenching around her lekku for a split second and she hissed at the momentary shock of pain.

He sucked in a breath, pulling her head back with just enough pressure to raise her face from the dirt. Leaning down next to her ear cone, the Primeslayer continued, “You see, I have no such compunctions.” He released her lekku and threw his hands out, reaching to call his lightsaber back. Relief washed across her freed skin, cut short when she felt the Force tremble as he drew on it. His hilt hurtled through the air toward him, but before it could reach him she slammed her palms to the ground and bucked her hips upward, pushing him off with the strength of her body and the Force together.

Part of her hadn’t expected it to work-- he should have been able to sense it coming-- but she could chide him for it later. She twisted around, wrapping her arms around his chest and bearing him back to the ground, pinning him underneath her, sitting hard astride his waist.

He made one more attempt to recall his saber, but again the Force gave Brienne all the warning she needed to catch his outstretched, bound hands and slam them into the ground above his head. “Give it up, Primeslayer,” she hissed as he fought against her grip. The Force boiled, overloading Brienne’s senses, and she grit her teeth against it.

Between her focus on restraining him and his continued thrashing neither of them sensed the intruders until it was too late, until the blue rings of the stun shots washed over both of them.

The last thing Brienne heard before losing consciousness was laughter.

It wasn’t Jaime’s.

Chapter Text

"Negotiating is the art of getting what you want. It's not the art of making the other side feel better."

Blue.

Jaime swam upward, or at least what he hoped was upward, surrounded by blue, battered by currents. Something was wrong. His skin was cold, the strokes of his arms losing power by the moment. Just as panic began to grip him he broke through the surface--

And wished he hadn’t.

He was awake again, his head pounding as the memories seeped back into his consciousness. Taunting Brienne into dropping her guard, snatching his lightsaber from her belt. The rush of the Force caressing his skin, an exhilarating counterpoint to the fundamental rightness of having his weapon back in his hand. He’d had to adjust his preferred fighting style to account for the mandatory two-handed grip enforced by the cuffs on his wrists, but found he would have needed the power allowed by the slower form regardless in order to defend against the absurd strength of the Twi’lek’s strikes. He’d been fighting her for his freedom-- for his life-- and yet….

There was a rightness there as well. The way their bodies moved, the way the Force pulled them toward each other, bound them together. It had been so long since he’d fought a worthy opponent, but even beyond the thrill of challenge he’d felt a kind of building euphoria as they struck and parried. He felt complete in the swirling blue glow of his saber’s blade, fighting as he was meant to, all of his skills focused together in one glorious effort. And it was all somehow amplified by the Twi’lek’s presence.

He remembered tackling her to the ground, both of them losing track of their weapons as they wrestled for control. Brienne pinning his bound hands above his head as he poured all his strength into trying to buck her off his body. The Force sparking and sizzling through him and around them both. The spark in her extraordinary blue eyes looking like the Force made manifest.

And then everything was blue.

A stun shot. Fuck. He’d been too busy fighting the massive Twi’lek sitting astride his hips to notice intruders, and now--

His stomach lurched. He hated stun bolts. Jedi were trained to resist the effects, but that simply meant he’d probably awoken earlier than… whoever their attackers were… would expect.

His eyelids were too heavy to lift yet, but he began to take stock of his surroundings as best he could, his cognitive abilities slowly coming on board. First, as always, he reached out to the Force. Pulling it around himself, he centered himself in the familiar rush of sensation from all around him before stretching outward. There was the tremble of danger, but nothing acute, nothing imminent. Five, no six beings nearby. Five of them distinctly hostile from the rasp of the Force against his mind. The sixth was familiar, warm and pulsing.

Brienne. That’s why his back was so warm-- he realized then that her arms were looped around his waist, presumably bound there, her unconscious weight bearing him down. Brushes of warmth draped over his shoulders-- her lekku, of course. He thought vaguely that having her strapped to his back should be less comfortable-- too close, too big, too warm-- but he supposed his post-Riverrun need for personal space was rather low on the list of current priorities.

His hands were still cuffed, but that seemed to be the story of his life of late. The breeze in his face coupled with the high whines of repulsors indicated open-air vehicles of some sort. Probably a speeder bike, from the feel of the seat underneath him.

The slowly fading mental haze finally lifted enough for Jaime to pry his eyes open. The ground rushed past below his feet and his stomach lurched again before he was able to get his bearings. His wrists were strapped to the yoke of the speeder, which was clearly being towed as he had no control over it in his present position. Upon further inspection he realized the Twi’lek’s cuffs were bound to his own. Fantastic.

Sitting up with an effort-- Sithspit Leks was heavy!-- he lifted his head to peer ahead at the towing bike’s rider. Human, or at least humanoid, wearing a badly fitting set of body armor that looked like it had once belonged to a House guard, but the sigil had been painted over with some sort of horned ruminant. A goat, Jaime realized with a suppressed groan.

The Brave Companions.

They were an awful confederacy of bounty hunter scum, not a single scruple amongst the lot, which is what had made them so useful to Jaime’s father over the years. Tywin kept them on his payroll-- unofficially of course-- for use on jobs too remote, too underhanded, or too messy for Senator Tywin Lannister to have on his own hands. They may be scum but the good news was that at least they were Jaime’s father’s scum. The bad news was that he’d have to speak with them to get everything straightened out, which would undoubtedly be an unpleasant experience.

Leks jerked against his back, the sharp thorns of her befuddled fear prickling at Jaime, and nearly overbalanced the speeder. Jaime briefly considered throwing their combined weight sideways and off the bike, but dismissed the idea as far too dangerous at their speed. He wasn’t that desperate to avoid a conversation with the Brave Fucking Companions. Though he did imagine the great yellow beast would break his fall nicely.

Instead he stretched out with the Force to soothe her as she stumbled toward consciousness. The last thing he needed was her twitching attracting attention. He didn’t tell her she was safe-- there would be no point in that kind of lie-- but he was reasonably confident his own authority would prevent their captors from butchering her or selling her off right away, which had to count for something. Her arms tensed around him and he felt her rub her forehead against the back of his neck like a sleepy child in an effort to shake off the lingering effects of the stun bolts. The contrast between the soft warmth of her skin against his and the bristling of her Force sense made him uneasy.

“Welcome back, Leks,” he called over the bike’s repulsors. “You’re just in time.” He felt her brow furrow against his back just before her head jerked upward with a spike of her awareness.

Before she could ask any of the obvious questions, the group pulled up at the outskirts of some sort of outpost. Jaime finally got a good look at the five Companions-- three humans, one horned and sharp-toothed Zabrak, one green-skinned Mirialan, all unfriendly. They seemed to be ignoring their prisoners for the moment as they secured their speeder bikes at the edge of the forest. Jaime craned his neck to look back at Leks but before he could convey any information to her his words were cut off by a burst of icy shards pelting against his mind. He felt her tense behind him, letting out a quiet grunt. Catelyn Stark’s influence again. He wouldn’t care what the woman had gotten up to in Brienne’s mind except that he seemed to keep getting hit with the splash damage.

Once they’d secured their speeders they seemed to remember that Jaime and Brienne existed and sent two envoys. The Zabrak and one of the humans, deathly pale and completely bald, swaggered toward the still-hovering bike Jaime and Leks were tied to.

“The happy couple is awake,” the human called back to his cohorts. “Good thing too,” he grumbled to the Zabrak as he released the restraint cuffs from the bike but of course leaving all four of their wrists bound. “I’m not dragging her massive yellow ass anywhere again. Great beast nearly snapped my spine trying to get her onto the bike.”

“You’ll get no arguments from me,” Jaime agreed, sitting up for the first time since their interrupted duel and stretching his back as the Twi’lek tried to scoot as far away as the seat and her restraints would allow. “As soon as you get these cuffs off me I’ll make sure she drags herself wherever she needs to go.”

The bounty hunters both considered Jaime for a moment, and with an unpleasant cold slithering feeling Jaime realized that both of them were... amused. Not by Jaime but at him. Something was wrong.

“What you get up to with your--” the human made a show of peering up at Brienne appraisingly for a moment and she shifted uncomfortably against Jaime’s back, “--woman... is your problem on your own time. The cuffs stay on. Now off with you, loverboy.” He prodded at Jaime’s side with the muzzle of his blaster rifle and Jaime took the hint to wrestle himself and Leks off the bike.

“Do you know who I am?” Jaime grunted as they hit the ground ungracefully, Brienne slamming into his back as they stumbled to find their footing while still conjoined.

“The idiot Lannister who didn’t check his stolen ship for tracking beacons.” The Zabrak chortled. His hand went to his belt, pushing back his long coat, and Jaime caught the glint of silver and red from his lightsaber hilt. “Can’t say I’m impressed. How ‘bout you, Urswyck?”

“Regardless, I appreciate the assist in getting me off this planet,” Jaime replied magnanimously, ignoring the insult. The Zabrak’s brow went up and the clammy feeling in the Force reasserted itself. “If you’ll find me transport back to King’s Landing with my prisoner I’ll see that you’re paid for your trouble.”

“He’ll pay us for our trouble!” the human, Urswyck apparently, called back to the other three, and a raucous laugh went up. Behind Jaime, Brienne tensed again.

The Zabrak chuckled as he came around behind them and shoved them toward the edge of the forest. Brienne adjusted her arms around Jaime, yanking his own hands hard to the side as she tried to walk beside him with her torso twisted toward him. The Companions found the whole maneuver extremely entertaining and Jaime didn’t even have to look to know she must be bright orange from neck to lek.

“Listen,” Jaime began again, refusing to let the Force’s warnings affect his carefully cultivated hauteur. “Is Vargo still lording it over you lot or has someone finally shoved a blaster up his ugly blue snout?”

“Commodore Hoat is waiting for you at the Black Goat,” Urswyck replied as they rejoined his colleagues.

“Commodore?” Jaime’s mind boggled at the mere thought. “He’s come up in the galaxy since I last heard of him. What capital ship would tolerate him at its helm?”

“He’s been promised the Harrenhal.”

Something was definitely not right. Tywin Lannister would not grant a dreadnought like the Harrenhal to scum like Hoat and his crew. Bounty hunters served as blunt instruments in Jaime’s father’s arsenal and nothing more. “My father’s become generous in his old age it seems,” he observed. That seemed to amuse the Companions even more than Jaime and Brienne’s awkward conjoined lumbering. Their chortling laughter grated against Jaime’s nerves, already frayed from captivity, escape, and crash. He leaned his head toward Brienne. “See, Leks, at least someone finds me entertaining.” She looked up at him from where her head was nearly laid on his shoulder, her blue eyes wide, the Force rolling off her in concerned eddies. The ends of her blue headwrap had come loose sometime during their fight or abduction, hanging limply off her lekku.

“Not you, Primeslayer,” one of the other humans snorted. “The idea of Tywin Lannister’s generosity is the funniest thing we’ve heard in ages.”

“Maybe if he’d been a little more generous we wouldn’t have had to--”

“Revoke our allegiance, so to speak,” the Zabrak finished with a jagged grin.

“What Zollo means,” Urswyck cut in, rolling his eyes, “is that Tywin Lannister has been a bit stingy on the payroll lately-- Vargo says he’s too busy mopping up the Castamere system to keep up on his payments-- and Senator Bolton gave us a better offer.”

“And Bolton offered you the Harrenhal? Since when is it his to give?” That overgrown slug controlled the Rim systems closest to the core and had thrown his lot in with the Starks and the other Rim Separatists, but he shouldn’t have had the forces necessary to take the largest of the Lannister dreadnoughts.

“Ever since we helped him take it from your father all sneaky-like.”

Of course. Bolton could never have taken the Harrenhal in a fair fight. “So you’re telling me you switched sides entirely?”

“Basic economics,” Urswyck laughed mirthlessly.

Jaime scoffed to hide his deepening concern. If they served the Separatists now Jaime’s authority would get him precisely nowhere with them. “You hear that, Leks? They’ve joined up with the people they used to kill, so now they can kill their former allies. And the galaxy brands me a traitor.”

He barely had a moment’s warning from the Force before Zollo’s fist connected with his stomach. He doubled over, pulling Brienne’s arms downward with him.

“Stop!” Of course the Twi’lek picked the worst possible time to speak up, bent over him as he gasped for breath. “Don’t hurt him!” she commanded, her voice strong, though the sharp fluttering in the Force put the lie to her show of confidence. Hells, even without looking Jaime knew her eyes would give away her feelings. He hoped the Companions would somehow miss it. “Lady Catelyn put the Primeslayer under my protection for a prisoner exchange on King’s Landing, if you serve Bolton then--”

The Zabrak hit Jaime hard across the chin, splitting his lip, and only Brienne’s bound arms around his chest kept him from falling. Two more Companions approached, but she wrenched his body around at the last moment so that she took the blows intended for him: a vicious kick to her knee and a punch to her side that knocked the air from her lungs and drove their conjoined bodies to the ground.

Ridiculous Leks, taking hits meant for Jaime. It didn’t matter anyway, once their captors circled them both, each getting in a couple more kicks for good measure. Jaime drew on the Force to dull the pain, to draw his mind back from the beating he was receiving. He hoped Brienne had been taught to do the same.

Once they’d had their fun, the Companions wrestled Jaime and Brienne to their feet, urging them toward the back entrance of what turned out to be an open-topped docking bay that housed the great cobbled-together bulk of the heavy freighter Black Goat.

Jaime considered his options as they were herded across the bay toward the ship’s ramp. If Bolton was giving the Companions’ orders, Jaime’s options would be severely limited. Roose Bolton may be a Rim sympathizer but he could probably be convinced to see reason in not attracting Tywin Lannister’s ire. Brienne certainly was in trouble, regardless of who held the Companions’ leash at the moment. Any protection afforded to Jaime by his name or reputation would not extend to the Twi’lek. And a lone Twi’lek woman, even one as brave as Leks, in the hands of a vicious bounty hunter like Hoat….

“Listen,” Jaime again. “I don’t care who you serve, my father will still pay well for my return.” The Companions scoffed, but Jaime pushed onward. “At the very least if you let me go he might give you a head start before hunting you down and gutting you for betraying him.” That argument seemed to get their attention, if only slightly. “And the Twi’lek is from Tarth,” he continued, placing a special emphasis on the last word to imply its significance. He felt the shiver of her confusion through the Force and shot her a glance that begged her to keep her wide mouth shut.

“Never heard of it,” one of the humans grunted.

“Should that mean something to us, Primeslayer?” Urswyck growled.

“They say the planet is basically one big kyber gem. Imagine what you could get for returning her there.”

“Kyber fetches a high price these days,” the Mirialan murmured, half to himself, considering Jaime’s words.

“Shut up, Rorge,” Zollo snapped. “The choice isn’t ours to make anyway. We just have to get them secured for transport. The rest is up to Vargo.” He eyed Jaime for a moment and then punched him in the gut again for good measure.

Jaime didn’t know what he would be left with if these bounty hunters weren’t impressed by his name or his family’s wealth. It seemed that apparently Lannister rage was a more compelling currency than Lannister credits at the moment, and even then the threat of his father’s wrath constituted such a distant peril that the Companions could easily discount it in favor of more immediate, concrete rewards they’d been promised by Roose Bolton. Jaime was rapidly running out of alternatives by the time they stumbled up the ramp and into the wide cargo hold of the Black Goat. Without his lightsaber or the usual respectful fear granted by his name or his family he had no leverage, no way to protect himself, let alone the Twi’lek still attached to him. He felt his stomach twist as the thought that he was largely helpless began to creep into his mind.

No. He wasn’t helpless. He was a Jedi. The Force was with him. He’d get them out of trouble somehow.

They were met by another dozen Companions who finally detached Jaime’s restraints from Brienne’s. He had just enough time to register the lack of warmth beside him before they were shoved into a cramped storage closet and secured to opposite sides of the cargo shelving inside. Jaime considered making a grab for his lightsaber at Zollo’s belt-- ideally he’d get ahold of both his and Leks’s-- they could at least take out a few of their captors before the rest filled them with blaster bolts, but he wasn’t yet that desperate to escape. If Hoat had meant to execute him-- if Bolton’s bounty included a clause for death of the target, accidental or otherwise-- he’d already be dead. They wouldn’t have wasted time with stun shots back in the forest.

Fucking Twi’lek. If she had given him his lightsaber without making him fight her for it they would both have been armed and prepared when the Companions arrived and they wouldn’t be in this mess.

The door was slammed on them, plunging the tiny room into darkness.

“Ah, just like Riverrun,” Jaime sighed sardonically.

The Twi’lek didn’t respond, but Jaime could feel her judgement. He let the silence stretch, the ship shuddering beneath them as it lifted off. He didn’t think the Brave Companions were done with them yet. Hoat would want his turn to taunt Jaime if nothing else, once they’d jumped to hyperspace.

The Brave Companions didn’t care that he was Jaime Lannister. He was a sack of credits to them. A prize to bring back to their master in hopes of reward. They called him Primeslayer but only to show they weren’t afraid. Not like Brienne. She meant it. As an indictment, as the straightforward unvarnished truth. Or what she thought was the truth. She didn’t know about fucking Aerys-- the Brave Companions wouldn’t care if they did.

Jaime’s mother had tried to help him. Even as a child he didn’t want to care what other people thought. But it hurt so badly when Cersei had said she deserved to be a Jedi more than him, that she was stronger, that he was too soft. Their mother had told Jaime his sister was jealous, that she was trapped in the unjust traditions that kept daughters of old Houses away from the Academy. But it hurt.

His father had never seen Jaime as more than a tool, a weapon in his arsenal, a symbol of his power and legacy.

You don’t have to be who they think you are, his mother would say, pulling Jaime into her lap and drawing the Force close around them both. You get to make your own choices. You have to.

He’d tried. But after she was gone he’d felt so lost. His masters said he lacked focus, that he didn’t take his training seriously. But he’d passed all their trials, and he’d thought his appointment to the Primeguard straight out of the Academy would set all doubts to rest once and for all. It had only made everything worse.

And now here he was, locked in a cargo hold while the scum of the galaxy decided how much he was worth and to whom. The Primeslayer. The secret Sith of Lannister. The galaxy’s most famous oathbreaker.

“Do you lie about everything?” The Twi’lek’s voice cut through the darkness. He could practically hear the glare in her voice, feel it in the rough grating of the Force.

“I’m going to need you to narrow the question a little. What exactly have I done this time?”

“Calling Tarth one giant kyber gem?”

“Could you shout a little louder, Leks? Can’t let any of them miss you giving away the only thing that’s keeping you safe. Or at least what passes for it right now.”

“What?”

“They’re going to sell you.” He had meant the words to come out differently-- he’d meant to sound as if he didn’t care one way or another. But they came out more of a growl. He felt her shock through the Force. “One way or another. I don’t have to tell you how valuable Twi’lek women can be on the black market. If they think they can take you to Tarth and trade you for a load of kyber to sell instead, you won’t have to worry about whether you’ll be a Hutt’s new dancer or someone’s pet rancor’s next meal.” He sensed her fear prickle across his neck and shoulders, only to be cut off by a frozen blast spiking through him. As the Twi’lek breathed through Catelyn’s latest salvo, Jaime felt her resolve harden into something smooth and strong. Brave, stupid Leks. He almost pitied her.

The door slammed open, flooding the room with blinding light. While his eyes were still adjusting he was dragged to his feet and pulled out through the doorway and out into the Black Goat’s cargo bay. The Companions allowed him and Brienne to stand independently, but the way they crowded around, hands on blasters and knives and who knew what other weapons meant that Jaime’s position hardly counted as freedom.

The crowd parted to allow a broken-tusked Toydarian through. He hovered in front of the prisoners, adjusting his altitude so as to force them to look up at him, and eyeing them as if determining exactly how many credits he could turn them into.

“Hoat,” Jaime greeted him.

“Primeslayer.” Hoat’s gravelly voice echoed the grating of the Force. Jaime knew he needed to tread carefully.

Brienne stepped forward, causing every single Companion to shift into fighting stances, fingers closing around weapons. She ignored them as Jaime barely contained a roll of his eyes. The Twi’lek wouldn’t know treading carefully if it yanked on her lekku.

“Commodore Hoat, my name is Brienne Tarth. I serve Lady Catelyn Stark. She sent me to take Jedi Lannister to King’s Landing.”

Jedi Lannister now. Jaime might feel honored to hear his title from her mouth in literally any other circumstances.

“I don’t recall asking,” Hoat commented blandly. “Urswyck, did you hear me ask for the life story of this Twi’lek--” he finished with a string of Huttese that Jaime didn’t catch, but had no doubt as to the type of word he’d used to describe Brienne.

“Listen to me,” she continued doggedly and Jaime considered reaching out to the Force to discourage her from attempting any further reasoning. “In the name of Robb Stark-- in the name of the Force-- please just--”

A sharp kick to the back of her knees sent her to the ground with a grunt, and two Companions hurried forward to keep her there, blaster muzzles jabbing into the back of her skull.

“Don’t shoot her,” Urswyck warned.

“Why ever not?” Hoat inquired. “Have you taken a liking to the great yellow beast?” The crowd of bounty hunters roared with laughter and Jaime ground his teeth.

“Her homeworld is loaded with kyber,” Urswyck growled, trying to save his dignity after the mortal blow of accused attraction to the Twi’lek. “She’s worth her weight in the stuff, but we don’t have enough bacta patches to put her back together if you lot have your way.”

The rest of the group continued to howl, throwing increasingly lewd remarks at both Urswyck and Brienne as Jaime felt her resolve solidify, but Hoat seemed intrigued by the new information. “Kyber, you say? The black market price for kyber has tripled lately. Someone on King’s Landing has taken quite an interest in the stuff….” He reached a three-fingered hand to scratch his snout thoughtfully.

“Listen, Vargo,” Jaime interrupted, his back itching with the Force’s sudden urgency. “Not a great move to cross my father, but returning us intact would do wonders for your reputation with him, you know that. It’s not too late to make the right choice.”

Hoat’s gaze went flat. He wasn’t amused anymore. Jaime needed Hoat to take him seriously. “I’ve already made the right choice, Primeslayer,” he said. “Bolton controls this sector, and Bolton will give me the Harrenhal. Tywin Lannister won’t be able to touch me.”

This conversation was not going the way Jaime had hoped. He still didn’t think Hoat would go so far as to execute them but if Jaime didn’t do something soon they’d have to fight their way out. It would be ugly and risky, and Brienne likely wouldn’t make it out at all. Then again, he remembered she had gotten in a few good moves during their duel, so perhaps she’d stand a chance.

Jaime called on everything he’d learned about mind manipulation from watching Cersei at work. She’d laughed at most of his own efforts but it was their only hope for getting out of this particular situation intact. He reached out for Hoat’s mind, found it slimy and squirming as he tightened his mental grasp. “Let us go and you’ll be rewarded.”

The room went deadly still. Jaime fumbled against his hold on the Toydarian’s mind, slippery as it was. Every time he thought he had it pinned down it slid away again, forcing Jaime to grapple for control as it slithered through his grip.

Hoat glared silently at him and Jaime let out a gasp as his focus snapped. Of all beings, how could Vargo Hoat be strong minded enough to resist the Force? Was he as weak as Cersei always said?

The Toydarian snapped his fingers at Zollo and fluttered closer to Jaime, nearly snout-to-nose with him. Any sign of his previous casualness was gone. Jaime heard a buzzing-- was it the Force’s warning, or just Hoat’s wings? “Did you just try a Jedi mind trick on me?”

Jaime schooled the shock from his face, falling back on nonchalance with a shrug. “Worth a try.”

“Hm,” Hoat hummed, the sound coming out like a growl. As the silence stretched, clammy fingers of the Force crept up Jaime’s spine. “Speaking of trying, Zollo, haven’t you always wanted to try a real lightsaber? I think we should send Senator Lannister a message.”

The Zabrak’s lips pulled back into a sharp-toothed grin and suddenly the Companions were in motion, the Force roaring in Jaime’s ears. There were hands on his body, holding him back, holding him down, forcing him to his knees, pulling his bound hands out in front of him. Too many hands, too close, and he fought down the panic that rose in his throat. The Toydarian wanted Jaime to scream or beg or put on a show. But fear is of the dark side. Jaime clenched his jaw, refusing to fear scum the likes of Vargo Hoat. He fought for composure as the Force whipped through his mind like battering winds. Brienne bellowed something he couldn’t hear and Jaime felt the blows to her head and back, the hands on her lekku, through the Force.

The snap-hiss of a lightsaber igniting sliced through the commotion.

The blue blade arced through the air. Pain flamed up Jaime’s arm.

The roar cut off.

The battering winds ceased.

His world contracted to the pinpoint of just himself in a fraction of a second.

In the shock of the sudden silence in his mind-- the sudden absence of sensation like the vacuum of space-- Jaime fell to the ground.

His own gasping breaths echoed in his ears where the Force once howled. Its comforting pressure replaced by the durasteel deck under his cheek. Its warmth traded for the fire in his arm.

The Force was gone.

Jaime screamed.

Chapter Text

"As long as I'm fighting, I'm not dying. And I'm not done fighting just yet."

There was a hole in the Force.

Not the rip Renly left behind that the Force had rushed in to fill, to smooth over within moments.

The Primeslayer was a black hole in Brienne’s senses. It was all she could do to resist the pull of his hopelessness, his misery, his pain.

She’d sensed Hoat’s intentions a split second before Zollo ignited the lightsaber. The well-trained part of her mind wanted to stop them from hurting him. The less rational part screamed that they wouldn’t stop at simply hurting him, regardless of his logical assurances that if Hoat wanted either of them dead they wouldn’t have left the forest alive. She had less than a breath to react.

She couldn’t let him die.

She’d bellowed, fought like a wild animal, anything to take their focus away from him. It hadn’t been enough. Brienne was lucky the Companions hadn’t intended to kill him-- there was no way she could have fought hard enough, there were too many hands on her lekku, too many arms around her throat.

She wouldn’t have been able to save him.

She hadn’t saved him.

Brienne barely remembered the interminable moments after Zollo swung the saber. She knew it had felt like forever, that the shock wave of whatever had happened within the Force had hit her with teeth-jarring impact, knocking her to the deck gasping and half-stunned. In hindsight the screams she heard must have been the Primeslayer’s, but any sensory information she was receiving had been eclipsed by the howling void that he had left behind. It screamed in all of her senses, clawing at her heart and mind alike. She had curled in on herself on the Black Goat’s deck, clinging to her lekku, pulling them to her chest, trying to somehow protect herself from the onslaught.

Nothing she had done lessened the pain, hers or his. At one point she’d reflexively reached for the Force in the face of the darkness, for strength or healing or comfort, only to be blown back by the freezing nothingness. She’d had to pull back as best she could, trying to shield herself without touching the powers she’d relied on her whole life. When it all became too much to bear she had passed out, hardly noticing the blows inflicted by the Brave Companions surrounding her. But even unconscious the black hole was still there at the edge of her mind. An abyss, dark and swirling and viscerally horrifying.

If this was how she experienced his maiming, what would his death have done to her?

She awoke on the floor of the cargo closet, bound to the shelf with her arms behind her back, her shoulders burning with the strain as she realized her body weight was leaning toward the other side of the shelving, pulling toward where she knew the Primeslayer had been secured. She scooted her body back, gritting her teeth against the pain in her arms and the screaming in her mind, then reached out tentatively to the Force, dipping into it gingerly, struggling to adjust to the new undertow, to the cold that seemed to soak into her bones.

She could begin to sense the Primeslayer around the edges of the void’s event horizon. Nothing like the presence he used to have in her mind, hot and alive and responsive, but something dull, barely discernible. She was able to make out the mundane traces of his sensation and emotion, like those she sensed from every other being on the Black Goat, but muffled, muted. Barely perceptible unless she focused directly on them.

She felt a pang at the loss, which she smothered as best she could. Objectively, a Primeslayer without the Force would be an improvement for the galaxy. He’d surely be fitted for a top-of-the-line bionic hand as soon as they landed on King’s Landing, though the Force would not be so easily replaced. His martial prowess might not be negated entirely but he would no longer be the formidable warrior feared all over the known systems. What must that feel like, to lose what defined him to the galaxy as a whole?

Not wanting to dwell on the Primeslayer’s predicament, Brienne moved on, letting the Force flow through her, finding the places that were still familiar: herself, the strange background hum of hyperspace, the usual signs of life from a ship full of beings. The now-familiar low-level turbulence from the hostility of said beings. Settling into the ebb and flow of the Force, Brienne felt calm settle over her. Master Goodwin had always said she was too rigid in her thinking-- that trying to resist the always-changing nature of the Force was a fool’s errand at best, and a path to the dark side at worst-- that there could be comfort in accepting that fluidity and allowing oneself to flow along with its currents.

With an effort Brienne forced herself to relax, to set aside the obvious immediate concerns and trust in the Force. Just when she thought she’d found equilibrium--

BRING THEM HOME.

She must have screamed or made some kind of noise as the vise grip on her mind tightened, because the next thing she knew the door slammed open and two figures descended on her. She only felt a few blows connect with her body before she passed out again.

The next time she surfaced, the first thing she registered was warmth. The Companions had bound her arms around the Primeslayer’s waist again. She shifted under the weight and found herself sitting with her back to the wall, his body nestled between her bent legs, his head lolling back against her shoulder, face pointed away from her. Her head spun and her lekku throbbed where they’d been manhandled, but she began the arduous process of forcing her mind to focus again.

The yawning nothingness in the Force remained, distracting all her attempts at centering herself, always pulling her focus toward it, deeper into its aura of hopelessness and loss. She heard a whisper. Faint at first, barely a breath. Not Lady Catelyn’s again, thank the Force. It took her a long moment to realize it was real and not in her mind, but once she did she found she was able to concentrate more and make out the words.

There is no emotion, there is peace
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge
There is no passion, there is serenity
There is no chaos, there is harmony

It was the Primeslayer. Reciting the Jedi code over and over.

But only the first four lines.

Something about his reflexive reliance on the Jedi code surprised her. Had she expected his delirious state to reveal the Sith everyone knew lay below his golden surface? That he would derive his comfort from peace is a lie, there is only passion, declaring that the Force shall free me while barely lucid?

She tried to remind herself that the details of his personal philosophy were irrelevant. He was the Primeslayer, and once they reached King’s Landing she’d never have to see him again, let alone worry about his relationship to the Force. She focused her mind with an effort, trying once more to center herself. The black-hole sensation remained at the edge of Brienne’s mind, but she seemed to be acclimating to its presence.

He reached the end of the Code’s fourth line again, pausing with what sounded like a whimper. “There is… there is no…”

“There is no death, there is the Force,” Brienne whispered into the silence.

“There… there is no Force….”

His body tensed against her with a quiet, wordless cry and she reflexively tightened her hold on him. Slowly his muscles unclenched and his breathing evened out, once more asleep. Or passed out, Brienne wasn’t sure what the difference was for him at that point. She relaxed her hold on him, suddenly wishing for some distance-- for any space at all between them.

She hated the effect his maiming had on her. She hated that anything about him affected her. When Lady Catelyn had put them on the ship on Riverrun Brienne hadn’t exactly expected a pleasure cruise, but it should have been a simple matter of jumping to hyperspace for a few cycles, dropping back out at King’s Landing, and getting rid of him.

But now there she was, locked in a closet with a helpless and Force-less Jaime Lannister.

With the Primeslayer.

Who she had fought to protect. Who she hadn’t been able to save from maiming.

Surely she only cared to the extent that his continued existence was necessary to ensure the safety of Sansa and Arya Stark. He was a chip to be traded.

He was suffering.

He assassinated the Prime Minister and plunged the galaxy into chaos, Brienne reminded herself. He had abused the trust placed in him as a Jedi and a Primeguard. And he’d done so to siphon more power to his family. Tywin Lannister had previously been expelled from King’s Landing by the Prime Minister himself, and was only allowed to return once Robert Baratheon claimed leadership for himself. So perhaps it was Baratheon who benefited most from Aerys Targaryen’s death?

The closet door opened a crack and Brienne felt two military ration bars collide with her head while she was still blinded, their wrappers rustling as they ricocheted and hit the floor. A light metallic sound proved to be a canteen rolling through the doorway toward her.

“No beating today?” she muttered before she could think better of it. She was too tired and too bruised to filter her thoughts.

A rough laugh sounded and Brienne sighed. She was so tired of that sound. “Don’t think we didn’t want to, Twi’lek. But Hoat says we got to be respectable for Bolton.”

They certainly hadn’t had any problem before. This edict must be new. “And delivering us bruised and bleeding is worse than showing up with three hands between us?”

“Get him cleaned up,” was the only reply, as a smallish hard-sided box slid across the floor to stop at her feet. She peered at it in the dim light. A standard-issue emergency med kit. She glanced down at the Primeslayer’s face to see the light sheen of sweat. Brienne wasn’t at all sure she could treat him for shock-- or whatever was afflicting him-- with the contents of the box, but at least it was something. She opened her mouth to ask for a glow-rod or really any source of light, but she stopped, startled to find that the Primeslayer’s eyes were open. Weak yellow light glanced off his glazed, hollow eyes and golden lashes for a moment longer before the door slammed shut again.

“Hey,” she said into the darkness, but he didn’t move, just as limp and unresponsive as ever despite his open eyes. She jostled the man in her arms, hoping to get his attention, and he groaned. “Time to eat,” she murmured into his ear, adjusting him to sit up a little straighter. It was a complicated process with their three hands bound together, but Brienne managed to retrieve the ration bars and open them, though his hand shook too much to hold one himself. His utter inability-- or unwillingness-- to cooperate forced her to give up on him eating entirely and she settled for getting a few sips of water into him before collapsing back against the wall, his lax body pressed to her chest again.

Keeping the Primeslayer alive was exhausting, she thought. But she also realized that she hadn’t been distracted by the void in the Force while she’d been trying to force a protein bar down his throat. The black hole was still there-- she winced as she checked again-- but it seemed she was acclimating to its presence. As she settled back against the wall sleepily, she hoped that meant he was adjusting as well.

“Jaime,” she whispered into the dark. He had been groaning again, but made no verbal reply. His forehead was warm against her neck-- too warm for a human. “Jaime, what are you doing?”

“Dying,” he murmured sluggishly.

“Stop it.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Leks.”

“So you are a coward after all?”

He didn’t answer, but her accusation did seem to get his attention. The dead weight of his body lessened as he woke up a little more, shifting against her grip.

“Have you been unconscious all this time?” she demanded.

“Why do you care?” he huffed, his words slurring together.

“You should be awake by now, unless you’re still in shock, or your wounds from the forest are infected.”

“I’ve been awake, just away.”

“Away?”

“Your Master didn’t teach you that?”

“He taught me meditation-- can you still meditate, even though--?” She trailed off, a vague sense that saying the words might be… tactless? Cruel?

“It’s not the same.” He paused as if marshalling his thoughts before continuing slowly. “It’s more like… retreating inside your mind.”

“That doesn’t sound like a Jedi practice at all.” Or Sith, for that matter. The only thing the two had in common was the Force, but what he was suggesting was deliberately cutting oneself off from one’s senses. And for what benefit?

“Useful though,” he replied. “I taught myself to do it. At the Academy? Maybe before that. Came in handy with Aerys.”

Brienne felt her brow furrow. Prime Minister Targaryen had certainly been known to occasionally be volatile, and some of his policies hadn’t exactly benefited Tarth, or the Rim worlds, but he was a politician, and a duly elected one.

And Jaime was strong both mentally and physically. Whatever else Brienne thought of him he’d proven that repeatedly in their short time traveling together. Beyond that, he hadn’t been alone on King’s Landing-- he’d still had his family with him for support if he’d needed it. Not to mention the backing of the Jedi order.

It didn’t add up. Why had he ever felt the need to withdraw within himself? To hide?

“Well if you’re awake and… here… now,” she said, falling back on practicality in the face of questions she was in no way prepared to address, “then you can feed yourself.”

He groaned and slumped forward over his own knees. A bit melodramatically, Brienne thought uncharitably.

“If you’re not going to eat, at least push me the med kit by your foot. I think I’m supposed to see to your injuries, or maybe my own.”

“Hoat gave us a med kit?”

“Sounds like he wants us cleaned up a bit before we get to the Harrenhal. Apparently he ordered that we not be beaten anymore either, so there’s some good news for you. Can I-- we should at least bacta treat your-- your arm.” Why couldn’t she just say the words? Why was she trying so hard to spare the Primeslayer’s feelings?

The silence stretched for a long moment. “Give me your arm,” she ordered and he obeyed, seemingly reflexively, bringing his right arm to where she could reach with their bound hands. “Does bacta regrow limbs now, Leks?” he grumbled.

There wasn’t much of anything in the med kit, so Brienne assumed the liquid-filled packet her hand closed around must be bacta. She wished, not for the first time, that the Companions had allowed them any light at all.

“That hand is all I was,” he ground from between clenched teeth, his whole arm twitching as she gently applied the gel to the stump of his arm.

“I wasn’t aware humans kept all their internal organs in their right hands,” she responded dryly. If he wanted to deal with pain by irritating her, she might as well let him. She rifled through the kit for what she hoped was a pressure bandage.

“Someone’s got an overclocked sass-back chip,” he grumbled weakly.

Brienne began wrapping the bandage around his wrist.

“No Force, no lightsaber,” he mumbled. “Should never have attempted that mind trick.” He hissed as she pulled the pressure tight. “Cersei always said I was weak.” Brienne was finished with the bandage but continued to fiddle with it, not wanting to stop his conversational momentum-- if he could talk maybe he was healing. “Maybe if I’d been stronger-- better at mind tricks-- I could have saved my hand. Or at least the Stark kid. I tried. Cersei hated that I tried to undo her work. I could have left him blank like she wanted. Should have given up. Should give up now.”

He was certainly talking, though apparently not to her, which only increased Brienne’s concern. His feverish rambling didn’t make any sense-- he hadn’t helped Bran Stark, he’d admitted as much to her and Lady Catelyn. Hadn’t he?

None of it would matter if he died, though, and Brienne was running out of ways to talk him into surviving. But his speech did give her one last idea. “You have to live and return to your sister,” she tried.

He was quiet for a long time. Brienne felt the muffled echo of his emotions, as if he were shouting at her from underwater. The passive way she felt any other being’s emotions, but far, far weaker. Even though it wasn’t for the first time, she still found it strange to find herself missing the sharpness of his presence, the way it ran hot and turbulent and confusing but always always active. She needed him to live in order to complete her mission, and it bothered her to realize she wanted him to live.

“My sister already already has a replacement for me. And Joffrey still has all his parts.”

“He may be genetically the same as you, but… I mean…” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence, let alone the argument. She wouldn’t even attempt to further appeal to his sibling bond, not when she couldn’t understand it, not when he’d been so deliberately evasive back on Riverrun. Brienne sensed a minefield there. And bringing up his decades of training would only remind him of what he’d lost.

Obviously his oath as a member of the Primeguard wasn’t something she’d get anywhere near.

“You out of things I should live for already?”

“What about revenge then?”

He paused. “What about it?” She could hear the wariness in his voice.

“You can’t come back and rain holy hell down on Hoat if you let yourself die here.”

“Thats… not a very Jedi thing for you to suggest.”

“Well I’m not a Jedi, and--” she broke off.

He huffed a quiet laugh. “And neither am I anymore. You can say it.”

She didn’t say it.

Brienne didn’t know how long they’d been locked in the cargo shed. They were both exhausted and spent much of their time in captivity asleep. Periodically the door would open to let in a ration bar or two. None of Hoat’s men spoke to them, but at least they were apparently obeying the Toydarian’s new rules about treatment of prisoners. Jaime-- the Primeslayer, she reminded herself-- seemed to sleep more easily over time, snoring lightly with his head tipped back against her shoulder. She thought maybe his fever was coming down, but he still couldn’t carry on much of a conversation so she continued trying to treat his wounds until all the medkit’s bacta pouches were used up.

The next time she woke up, it was to cool air hitting the skin of her leg. She jerked awake, nearly headbutting the Zabrak as he bent over her with a blade. A growling chuckle came from the figure silhouetted in the light spilling in from the cargo bay. “Told you you should have moved the Primeslayer first,” he called.

Jaime stirred but didn’t wake as she twisted him away from the Companions, curling him over her arm and trying to disguise the motion as sitting up from her uncomfortable sleeping position. As she pulled her knee up in front of her she saw the leg of her flight suit fall away, exposing yellow skin from thigh to ankle. Clenching her bound fists her she forced herself to look up at the two Companions.

“What do you want?”

“We’re bored and it’s a long way to the rendezvous with the Harrenhal.”

“I don’t care.”

“Come on, don’t Twi’lek females love to dance? I already helped you get into costume--”

“No.”

“It’d be easier for you if you did,” Rorge growled, stepping into the room to loom over her.

Brienne suppressed a sigh. “I don’t care.” What harm would a few more bruises do? Perhaps if they violated Hoat’s rules and hurt her badly enough they might get themselves punished, either by Hoat himself or by Roose Bolton upon arrival. It wouldn’t help her retroactively of course, but at least she could get some pleasure out of the knowledge. She braced herself as the two Companions took another step toward her. Zollo’s blade slashed out at her filthy flight suit, slicing downward through the collar past her sternum. Her chest had already felt chilly once she pulled Jaime off it, but now she felt the exposed skin prickle with cold.

“I really thought you lot were smarter than this,” Jaime’s voice was lazy, still facing away from them, but Brienne could see his shoulders tense in the yellow light from outside their shed.

“I didn’t ask your opinion, Primeslayer.”

He shuffled his body around with an effort to face them. “I’m told Hoat’s orders are strictly no-contact. Don’t want Bolton to think Hoat abuses prisoners. Or that he can’t keep his underlings in line.” It was one of the longer speeches he’d managed, but Brienne thought she heard a faint tremor in his speech. “You’ve already pushed that line, but I doubt he’d be pleased to find you freed Leks here to make her your evening’s entertainment.”

“We could just beat you both some more,” Rorge offered. “Hoat won’t be bothered to tell the difference between wounds you got before you came on board and after.”

“Hm.” She could see sweat breaking out on his forehead. He was definitely pushing too hard. “Are you so excited about seeing her dance that you’d go against direct orders?”

“I don’t care about any damned orders.”

“Hoat fancies himself a player on the galactic stage now,” Jaime laughed feebly. “Seems it’s given him delusions of honorability. You think embarrassing him in front of Bolton is a good career move?”

“What do you care, Primeslayer?”

“I suppose I don’t, not really. I just wouldn’t want you to get dumped out an airlock and miss out on all that KYBER.” He practically shouted the last bit, and Brienne knew he’d used up all his energy for it as he slumped back against her chest, panting. But whatever he was attempting seemed to work-- both Rorge and Zollo jumped back from Brienne, the Zabrak darting a panicked glance through the door.

Their fear only lasted a moment before both turned ugly glares on the barely conscious man. Zollo growled and slipped back out of the room, but Rorge took a step forward to plant his boot directly on the stump of Jaime’s arm.

From the sound he made before passing out again, Brienne was shamefully grateful that she couldn’t feel his pain through the Force. At least he seemed relatively peaceful while unconscious, though without the Force she couldn’t be sure.

She couldn’t be sure about anything.

The galaxy had made sense until so very recently. Light side and dark side, the righteousness of Renly’s campaign and the evil of the Lannisters. Order and peace that were threatened by everything the Primeslayer represented.

It should have been a noble quest, serving Lady Catelyn and helping to free her daughters. Except it started with going against Robb Stark’s direct orders and releasing a dangerous and valuable prisoner. A prisoner who the Tullys had isolated and half-starved, who had fought beside her in the asteroid field, who’d suffered alongside her at the hands of the Brave Companions.

She wished the Force held answers for her.

When she felt him shift against her at last she jabbed the tip of a lek into his shoulder. “What was that about?” She couldn’t contain the frustration in her voice.

He groaned. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Why did you draw more attention to us? Shouting about imaginary kyber?”

“I’m sorry, did you want to dance for Rorge and Zollo?” His voice was still slurred.

“Of course not, but--”

“Did you want another beating then? I thought I’d spare you another broken nose. You’re plenty ugly without it.”

Brienne wouldn’t dignify that with a response.

He dropped his head back against her shoulder and grinned weakly up at her. “Good thing I lie about everything, huh Leks?” She huffed and shrugged the shoulder to dislodge his too-close face. Chuckling, he readjusted his position on the floor, bending forward over her bound arms. He began to fold his arms over his knees before being reminded that his left wrist was shackled to Brienne’s, and that although his right wrist was free--

“Thank you,” Brienne blurted, startling him from where he was gingerly tucking his maimed wrist under his armpit. She wondered if he was trying to keep it safe or to keep it out of sight.

“What?”

Brienne ground her teeth at him making her say the words again. He probably hadn’t done it on purpose-- he was recovering from severe trauma and possibly fighting infection-- but she couldn’t be sure. “Thank you for distracting them.”

“Well as you said, you don’t dance. I saved everyone involved. I’m a damn hero.”

Hoat had them separated to be paraded in front of Bolton, their arms bound behind their backs for a change.

“It’s going to be okay,” Brienne murmured as they were jostled out of their cargo shed, aware it was more for her own benefit than Jaime’s. “Bolton is allied with the Starks. He’ll listen.”

“Boltons skin beings they don’t like, Leks.”

She suppressed a shudder, reaching to the Force for calm. Surely the flaying rumors were hyperbole. People said all manner of horrifying things about Hutts-- they couldn’t all be true. Especially given Bolton’s alliance with the Starks. Lady Catelyn wouldn’t associate with that kind of being, and Robb would know better as well.

Brienne reached for the Force, putting up shields as best she could while trying to soothe the turbulence she sensed growing with each step forward.

Jaime stumbled and Brienne reflexively moved to stabilize him before remembering her arms were pinned. He caught himself, but only barely, and pointedly refused to look at her afterward. He should have been recovered by now. Brienne was beginning to wonder if the bacta in the Black Goat’s medkit had gone bad.

Four armored Weequay guards met them at the bottom of the Black Goat’s ramp and led them through the Harrenhal’s launch bay and down a series of corridors into what could only be called a throne room. Hutts were known to value power and status, so it wasn’t surprising to find Lord Roose Bolton in a room that seemed specifically designed to intimidate visitors, long and low-ceilinged.

As they approached, Brienne saw that Roose Bolton was the thinnest Hutt she had ever seen. The tunnel-like construction of the room coupled with the dais he sat on served to make him look larger, more imposing, but in an almost predatory way she’d never seen in a slow-moving terrestrial species. His tail curved around behind his elongated body and he kept his hands folded across his chest as they approached. Between the sharp look in his eyes and the six heavily armed guards arrayed to his side, he had the same air of casual power that she’d seen in the few other Hutts she’d had occasion to come in contact with, but with a gaunt, hungry air she immediately mistrusted.

Hoat led them toward the dais, with every member of the Brave Companions who wasn’t in the med bay close behind, clearly expecting a spectacle of some kind. Before the Toydarian could open his mouth Brienne took three large steps forward, ignoring Jaime’s sputtered protest behind her.

“Lord Bolton, I’m Brienne Tarth. I’m sworn to Lady Catelyn Stark who tasked me with bringing Jedi Lannister to King’s Landing.” She stretched out her senses but found the Hutt’s place in the Force shielded and slippery. He may not be able to touch the Force himself but he was far from the weak-minded Companions Brienne had become accustomed to.

“Hm,” his deep hum seemed to reverberate through the hall as he tapped one finger to his wide chin. “We do not trust the oaths of Starks any longer.”

Brienne was relieved to hear him speak Basic. Her Huttese was mostly vulgar slang and cursing, which made it sufficient for most interactions with Hutts and their associates, but she had suspected it would not be up to the task of negotiation. She found herself wishing CL-305 was with them to translate, or at least facilitate-- that kind of expertise might mean the difference between departing the Harrenhal for King’s Landing in a borrowed ship versus being packed into cargo crates for the trip.

She was so busy feeling grateful for the shared language that she had almost missed his actual words.

“I… don’t know what you mean, Lord Bolton,” she admitted, wishing she could at least get a sense of whether the Hutt was in any way friendly toward them, “but Lady Catelyn Stark sent me to ensure Jedi Lannister’s safety. I’m to take him to King’s Landing for a prisoner exchange.”

Hoat’s gravelly laugh sounded behind her. “She was trying to strangle him when we found them on Maidenpool IV.”

“Or fuck him,” Zollo chortled from further back.

Bolton’s glare could have silenced a kowakian monkey lizard, and it more than did the trick on the Brave Companions. “I will not tolerate that kind of vulgarity in my subordinates,” he said, articulating every word carefully.

“Jedi Lannister must be delivered alive for Sansa and Arya’s sake,” Brienne insisted.

“Send him along with your own guards and let us have the Twi’lek,” Hoat said, clearly imagining the kyber crystals the Primeslayer had convinced him awaited them.

“Unbind them and leave them with me,” Bolton commanded, ignoring the Toydarian’s attempt to bargain. “Feel free to inspect your new ship, Commodore Hoat, but mind your wings around the Rancor we keep in the secondary cargo hold. I will begin preparations tomorrow to depart for Winterfell with my forces.” He left the distinct impression that it wasn’t a suggestion and that he didn’t care at all what the Companions did so long as they did it elsewhere. Once the pack of bounty hunters had abandoned the room, leaving Jaime and Brienne alone with Bolton and his silent Weequay bodyguards, Bolton turned his full attention on the former prisoners.

“They treated us badly.” She could practically hear Jaime’s eyes rolling, but Bolton seemed reasonable so far. If the Brave Companions reported to him now, perhaps he could curtail their worst impulses.

“That’s disappointing to hear.”

“Jedi Lannister’s injuries need treatment,” she pushed onward. “His-- his wrist was cauterized but he has symptoms of shock from the wound, and possibly lingering injuries from when we were attacked by predators on Maidenpool IV.”

“You have those too, Leks,” he muttered, but she saw him sway worrisomely on his feet.

She didn’t know how to refer to the... complications... of the loss of his hand, so she relied on the obvious wounds to get him the help he needed. “Hoat’s men gave us a med kit but I think the bacta was expired, or bad somehow, and it may have made his injuries worse.”

“Take Jedi Lannister to the medbay immediately and put him in a bacta tank overnight,” Bolton ordered, waving a short arm at his guards.

Brienne could have sighed with relief. Bacta didn’t come cheap, so devoting a whole tank of it to the Primeslayer boded well for their survival prospects. Perhaps she had been right, that Bolton would be a strong ally, and not as fearsome as she’d thought.

Two bodyguards moved forward to usher Jaime from the room. “Wait,” he called, his eyes struggling to focus. “We’ve been cut off from any news for several cycles. What’s happening on King’s Landing?”

Bolton’s face shifted. His mouth turned up, but even without the Force it was clear that his smile was not one to be trusted. Brienne hoped she’d never again see a smiling Hutt. “If you are referring to your father and siblings, they have been safe from the unrest on the capital. Your… nephew… continues to act as Prime Minister for the remainder of his late father’s term, but the election is coming soon. Favors are already being exchanged for votes and support.”

Jaime nodded distractedly, sagging against the guards’ arms, clearly having stopped listening after hearing his family was safe, but Brienne hadn’t missed the way Bolton said the word nephew. He clearly knew the truth of the acting Prime Minister’s genetics, and wanted the Primeslayer to be aware of his knowledge. Brienne had never had a head for political games, but she logged the information away to warn him later if necessary.

And then she found herself alone with the Hutt, shifting from foot to foot, unsure of what might be expected of her.

“I am sorry to hear that you were treated roughly by Commodore Hoat,” Bolton said, the words practically oozing from his mouth. “Would you tell me what they did, so that I may address your complaints specifically?”

“In addition to maiming Jedi Lannister and beating both of us--”

“Ah, perhaps bacta for you as well then.”

“Uh, thank you Lord Bolton,” Brienne stuttered, surprised by the offer, before continuing. “They took my lightsaber, and they slashed my clothes into their current form. In order to--” she broke off, not wanting to even discuss the incident, but she couldn’t stop the shameful heat that rose across her cheeks toward her lekku.

“I can assure you of your safety as long as I am aboard the Harrenhal, Lady Twi’lek.” Brienne felt herself relax fractionally, even if she wasn’t accustomed to that form of address. “In fact, I swear you will have no need of anything as barbaric as a lightsaber.”

She felt like she was losing track of the conversation, and her inability to get a sense of Bolton’s intentions through the Force did little to comfort her. “But I--”

“A female of your species should not be expected to handle weapons to ensure her safety.”

Brienne’s shoulders drew up but she forced herself to calm. There was something she didn’t like in his tone, but she told herself that she had tolerated worse things before from weaker beings.

“As for your clothes--” Brienne couldn’t help but pull the sliced sides of her collar together with one hand as he paused, his large amber eyes staring hard at her, his mouth curving up again. “We will find you something to wear that better befits your culture.”

Brienne knew a threat when she heard it.

Chapter Text

Service to evil is still evil.

As Jaime slowly came to, he couldn’t quite figure out where his body was. Everything was dark and he felt like he was in zero-gee, briefly wondering if he’d been shot out of the Harrenhal’s airlock after all and had only regained consciousness for a split second before death.

But he could breathe, so that was a good sign at least.

His eyes felt stuck shut. He forced them open, and for a moment all he could see was blue. He started, his whole body jerking and his breath punching out of his lungs. The subsequent burst of bubbles rippling upward past his eyes caused a second shock, but as Jaime’s brain began to engage the situation became obvious.

Bacta. He was floating in a bacta tank.

Shapes began to resolve themselves out of the blue fog. Slowly though, and Jaime already felt himself becoming impatient. Reflexively he tried to reach out to the Force to analyze his surroundings and jerked again when he was met with… nothing. The borders of his world had shrunk, a soft, hazy feeling surrounding him like a fog he couldn’t penetrate. He no longer had any way of knowing what lurked outside that haze, and it frightened him.

The Force was gone. As was his hand.

With the realization came the memories. Burning in his wrist and painful clenching of fingers that weren’t there and the great sucking feeling in his chest cavity. Taunts and abuse from the Brave Companions. Going away inside, being brought back by the Twi’lek. Moments of lucidity in that dark shed, a warm body against his back. Kyber. Bolton. Being dragged away to the Harrenhal’s med bay.

What was left of him after all that? He thought he might prefer the vacuum of space. At least then he wouldn’t have to think about what he’d lost.

The Twi’lek would hate that line of thought. He should die just to spite her. Ridiculous creature. She’d actually attempted to berate him into living. For revenge. What would she know about that? And how exactly did she expect him to go about getting it anyway?

Just for that he’d live, but on his own terms. That would show her.

Feeling more awake than he had since the Maidenpool moon, he used his left hand to feel around his body slowly, clumsily, taking stock. With the already-noted exception of his hand, all the other parts were accounted for. And apparently on display, he noted ruefully as it became obvious he’d been dumped in the tank naked. Reaching up toward his face his fingers brushed against the mask sealed over his mouth and nose, then followed the tubing from the mask up to the lid of the tank. No hand, no Force, but at least he had air. And the fact that someone decided his continued health was worth an entire tank of bacta at least spoke well for his short-term prospects. His long-term prospects were quite another question.

Rubbing at his eyes clumsily with his left hand, feeling his grown-out hair swirling around his head, he considered his situation. His whole body felt stiff and heavy, and he was grateful he didn’t need to think about supporting his own weight for the time being. Even aside from the Force’s absence-- as if he could put it aside for even a moment, he thought darkly-- his mind was fuzzy. After getting half-dragged out of Bolton’s throne room he’d been sedated by the med droid before he could object. Which he would have, and strenuously. The Jedi had techniques for resisting poisons and other drugs, though presumably those were just as dependent on the Force as everything else that had made him himself.

And his hand was gone. Bacta couldn’t help that. He’d likely find himself with some piece of protocol droid scrap slapped onto the end of his arm later, but for now he was left to contemplate the void that used to be his dominant hand. His saber hand.

The hand that killed Prime Minister Aerys. That stole Bran Stark’s ability to walk.

Cersei had held that hand the last time he’d seen her, so long ago now, promising the time they’d spend together once Ned Stark was dealt with. He hated that she’d been disappointed in him after the debacle with the Stark kid, that he’d failed to stop Ned earlier, but that moment of comfort had sustained him long after he left King’s Landing to meet with the Lannister fleet in the Casterly system. What he wouldn’t do to have her with him now.

Did she miss him the same way? At any other time in his life he would never have doubted her. But without the Force she was all he had left, and the thought made him desperate to hold onto her, desperately afraid of the alternative. He knew he had nothing to offer her any longer except his love, and what good would that do her? Especially when her son-- Jaime’s genetic duplicate-- was far more powerful politically, and now in the Force as well.

Worrying wouldn’t do any good. He just needed to get back to her, to his family. He might have become a joke of a Primeguard, of a Jedi Knight, but he was still a Lannister. Together they’d rain holy hells down on Vargo Hoat, on Robb Stark, on anyone else he could hold responsible for the wreck his life had become.

He blinked hard, and pinpricks of colored light began to resolve themselves from the blur-- control panels, presumably. The room brightened as his sight gradually returned. Unforgiving blue-white lights illuminated stark white durasteel walls surrounding standard medical bay beds and equipment.

Movement. A yellow blur in the far corner of the room. His sluggish mind struggled to boot up.

All he could hear was the rushing-liquid sound of his own blood in his ears. Or, wait… a gentle prod at his left ear revealed an audio bud secured against his cheekbone. He wasn’t hearing blood, but something flowing outside his tank. Rain? No, not indoors.

A shower.

Yellow.

Brienne.

His eyes widened. The haze was still in the process of lifting but there was no mistaking the outline of her body-- her extremely unclothed body-- in what looked like an open shower stall just a few steps away in the opposite corner of the bay. Blue pooled around her feet-- she must have just been released from the room’s second bacta tank. Between the sheer volume of bacta and the luxury of a running-water shower, someone had gone to surprising lengths to patch them up.

Brienne had been facing away from him, which he only realized when the fuzzy yellow form turned around to orient her lekku directly under in the stream of the shower, scrubbing hard at each in turn.

He’d never really thought about her skin. She’d never exposed more than her head as long as he’d known her. Well, he had a vague memory of the Zabrak slicing a slit in her filthy flight suit but hadn’t been in a position to think much about the skin showing through at that point. Now that he had nothing else to occupy his mind, it occurred to him that it was an awful shade of yellow, made even more sickly by the sterile medbay lights. And so much of it. He still couldn’t make out details but images floated through his mind of her muscles moving just below the surface. He’d felt them during their duel when she’d wrestled him to the forest floor, steady against his back when they’d been bound together. He’d seen her fight off five of Hoat’s men just before--

Before everything ended for him. He’d never fight again. The emptiness in his chest came back with a vengeance. The Twi’lek had a whole lifetime of flying and fighting ahead of her. He was so kriffing tired of that creature witnessing his humiliations. Watching him brought low with those great blue nerf eyes.

“Be gentle there, Leks,” he growled, the dry rasp of his voice audibly amplified outside the tank. “You know freckles can’t be scrubbed off, right?”

Her whole body went rigid. The last of the blur left his eyes at the precise moment she opened hers. Wide, blue, and looking directly into his own.

Her momentary paralysis snapped and she scrambled for the towel hanging beside the shower stall, her feet slipping slightly beneath her. She had all the grace of a newborn void strider and Jaime couldn’t help but laugh. He watched that ugly blush spread down her head tails as she fumbled with the towel, turning the yellow skin a blotchy rust color. It made his head spin a little, but he didn’t quite care.

Only after securing the towel around her torso did Brienne deign to turn back toward the bacta tank. Glaring, no surprise there. Even with the towel in place she still held her arms tightly across her chest, which really only served to highlight the splotchy orange of her flushed chest. Water dripped off her face and lekku that she hadn’t taken the time to dry.

“Still so shy after all we’ve been through, Leks? You have nothing that interests me. No attachments, and all that.” He was quoting a Jedi rule, he realized. But without the Force did any of those edicts still apply to him?

“You were supposed to be sedated for another six hours,” she growled accusingly.

Apparently some of the chemical resistance he’d cultivated during training remained, that was something. “I can go back to sleep if it would satisfy your maidenly modesty.”

“You really think I’d trust you to do that?”

He felt anger rising in his chest. Why had he expected any different from her? “How silly of me, of course you wouldn’t trust the Primeslayer,” he did his best to brush the jab aside, continuing airily. Or at least what passed for airily in his current state. “Listen, if my oxygen runs out I do hope you’ll hit the emergency release. Drowning in bacta would be an exceptionally ironic way to die.”

She shifted, pulling her arms closer into herself and looking away. “Should I care how you die?”

Now that was just laughable. Jaime wasn’t sure who she thought she was kidding. “You do. You promised to take me to King’s Landing safely and you wouldn’t dare risk failing the disembodied voice of Catelyn Stark in your head,” he scoffed. Even in death, even without the Force, it seemed he’d never escape the judgemental scorn of the Stark family.

The godsawful Twi’lek just stared at him. Why was she still standing there? Her jaw flexed and her neck flushed, but that didn’t narrow down her emotional state at all-- she had the most promiscuous blush response he’d ever seen. If only he could touch the Force he might have some idea what was going on behind those ridiculous eyes. But that part of his mind was severed, and there would be no replacement to be found in a droid scrapyard for that. Anger flared again and this time he didn’t even bother to attempt to quash it. After all, no Force meant no danger of falling to the dark side. Finally, an upshot to his mutilated state.

She hadn’t moved, still staring at him, and for some reason her staunch wariness only stoked his rage. “Then again,” he snarled, “you haven’t exactly held up the safely end of that promise so far. You probably would let me drown, wouldn’t you? You let Renly die, and you actually cared about him.”

He didn’t even have time to regret saying it. In a split second Brienne stormed across the medbay in three great strides, her towel dropping behind her as she reached to call a lightsaber-- his lightsaber-- into her hand, the snap-hiss of its ignition stabbing through Jaime’s earpiece. Every muscle in her body was tense, her saber raised and her eyes reflecting the blue glow. Her lekku quivered, their tips curled and jabbing into her shoulder blades. Floating in the tank, he had the advantage of height for once, but it offered no sense of superiority. She was furious and terrifying, glaring up into his eyes through the transparisteel tank, hard breaths snorting through her nose making her chest rise and fall.

For a moment Jaime didn’t even breathe. Water dripped from her body. The lightsaber in her hand hummed.

He dropped his gaze toward her feet. “That was unfair of me,” he muttered. “I find myself perhaps understandably cranky. I’m sorry.”

Even without looking he knew she was still glaring, but her saber arm lowered just slightly. With an effort he focused on her bicep.

“You’ve done a fine job keeping me safe,” he offered, trying to be conciliatory. “Better than anyone else has, honestly. I have vague memories of ration bars. Did they really put you in charge of feeding me on board the Black Goat?”

The saber rose again and her face twisted as she drew in a breath to respond. He didn’t need the Force to know she’d heard only mockery in his words. He raised his eyes back to her face. Gods, really? Those absurd freckles ran in twin trails from her lekku down her cheeks and neck and continued all the way down her body, flowing in contours over her collarbones and--

He bit down on the urge to smirk or comment. “I’m apologizing,” he asserted evenly, once more holding her gaze. Kriffing hells, she still had the Force, couldn’t she just sense his sincerity?

He felt his irritation deflate. He couldn’t blame her for not bothering to even check. Ned Stark hadn’t, and this beast might actually have him beat in the honor department. Jaime knew he had never given her any reason to think better of him. He hadn’t given anyone reason to think well of him since he was seventeen.

“Look, I’m too tired and broken to keep this up,” he sighed, bubbles trailing upward through the bacta. “Can we have a peace?”

Narrowing her eyes warily, Brienne shut down her lightsaber, then backed up awkwardly-- without taking her gaze from him, as if he might break out of his tank given half a second’s chance-- crouching to retrieve her towel and wrap it back around herself. After fumbling to tuck in the end while still holding her saber hilt she straightened, but avoided his eyes. “I assumed you’d think peace is a lie,” she mumbled, half under her breath.

It hit him like a punch to the solar plexus. That she could quote the Sith code at him even now, still testing his alignment. He was helpless, handless, naked, and floating in viscous blue slime and she was eying him as if he might secretly be the second coming of Darth Subridere. The sudden rage made his head spin.

“Yes, that’s me,” he spat, his breaths coming shorter, “the Lannisters’ secret Sith. Not so secret after all, I suppose, since apparently everyone knows what I am. I must be truly terrible at my job if even you weren’t fooled. All that blood on my white cowl…” he trailed off as he lost the train of thought. Between head injuries and whatever drugs had been pumped into his system it was a wonder he even remembered how to speak Basic. His vision blurred slightly as the mad minister’s face swam before his eyes “I wore my white cowl that day….”

“That day?” Her voice sounded very far away.

“Have you ever been to King’s Landing, Leks?” His eyes slid shut, remembering. “The city covers the entire planet. They just kept building upward until no one alive remembered what the surface looked like. The buildings are all connected-- it’s the only thing holding them up. That’s why Aerys only needed a handful of Wildfire-class thermal annihilator bombs, strategically placed by a couple of lackeys. He hated the lower levels. They were dark and rusty and full of nonhumans and he was sure his downfall was being plotted there. He was always devising ways to depopulate the lower levels-- gas, military raids, even an engineered plague once-- and I stood there watching him do it. His wife disappeared after daring to suggest he might be going too far and when I wanted to go looking for her my brothers of the Primeguard stopped me. They said that we protect the Prime Minister.

“As the days went by Aerys only got more paranoid. More and more senators opposed his policies. By the time he received word that the Baratheon and Stark fleets were massing in the Trident system he had hidden those Wildfire charges all around the city’s lower levels.

“Somehow, even though Aerys believed everyone was plotting against him, my father convinced him to drop the planetary shields and let in his fleet. To bolster defenses, he said. I begged the prime minister not to, but he didn’t even bother arguing with me. Minutes later the Senate Dome was surrounded by Lannister forces.

“There were three of us in the Grand Senate Chamber-- probably in the whole Dome-- when the Baratheon and Stark fleets broke atmo. Aerys commanded me to slaughter the Lannister troops and bring him my father’s head. Then he turned to his favorite aide and said let them rule over rubble. I was probably the only other being on King’s Landing who knew what that meant.

“I didn’t even need both hands. I had the aide choking two meters off the ground with one while I ignited my lightsaber with the other. I sliced through Aerys’s spine in a single stroke, right in the middle of the empty Senate chamber.”

Jaime opened his eyes, half expecting to find she’d fled. But no, she was still there, thick and yellow and staring at him with wide blue eyes. They were unreasonably blue. And bright. What drugs had that droid given him anyway?

“Such wit, Leks. Come on, react. Make a godsdamned choice. You expect a seventeen year old boy to be able to choose between the population of King’s Landing and his oaths to the light side of the Force, yet you can’t even decide whether you want to reach into my mind and tell me I’m lying, cut me out of this tank and drag me away with you into the sunset, or pull the plug and let me drown.”

She couldn’t hide the flicker in her quasi-Jedi control. “If what you’re telling me is true--”

“Read my mind for yourself, Jedi.” He raised his chin, daring her.

“You know I won’t do that.”

“Afraid of what you’ll see?” Would she prefer him to be a liar? Or would it be worse when she found he was telling the truth?

“If what you’re saying is true, why doesn’t anyone know?”

He snorted. “Ned Stark.”

“That’s a name, not a reason.”

“Clearly you never met the man. He burst into the Senate chambers to find me standing atop the grand podium with the two halves of Aerys Targaryen at my feet and needed no further data. He couldn’t touch the Force but he didn’t need it to know I was an oathbreaking Sith. And once the noble and honorable Senator Eddard Stark judged me guilty, so did the rest of the galaxy.”

“Doesn’t the Jedi Council have ways of determining truth?”

“I refused to submit to that. My father didn’t want Cersei’s Force sensitivity known and at that point it was a small thing to trade my last shred of honor for her safety. The Council didn’t try very hard-- Sith have ways of hiding truth anyway, they said.”

She was quiet for another long moment, clearly warring with herself. “But you did break your Primeguard oath,” she began hesitantly, “and the Jedi Code--”

That kriffing code again. “If Renly wanted your father dead would you be concerned about the Jedi Code?” he growled, feeling his whole body heat with anger. Why couldn’t she understand? He needed her to understand. “Would honor be worth the deaths of billions?” He slammed his fists against the transparisteel-- one fist and one stump.

Pain lanced up his arm-- he’d forgotten again-- and she jumped, startled. “Would you keep your sithspawned oaths then?”

He was breathing hard, his head light. Would she? Knowing her, maybe she could have found a way, the stubborn kriffing aurochs.

She still hadn’t looked away, even as her left hand came up to rub at her right wrist. He couldn’t think. The agony in his stump throbbed, burning, as black encroached from the edges of his vision. He felt himself slump, his forehead meeting the cold transparisteel and his fist weakening until his palm was flat against it. Maybe she was right. Maybe they all were. Maybe he should just drown.

“Droid!” he heard the Twi’lek shout. “The Primeslayer! He’s--”

There was a flurry of movement in the doorway and Jaime tried to raise his head, but his eyes arrested at the yellow hand pressed against the other side of the transparisteel from his own. Yellow, like Casterly’s suns.

A vague thought that he wished the barrier weren’t between them drifted through his sluggish mind. Just to have a touch, a hand to hold. The comfort and safety her arms had offered aboard the Black Goat. He tried to breathe through the pain, hissing between his teeth. He would see Cersei soon, she would comfort him. He registered a droid’s voice-- heartrate spiked… sedating… for his safety-- and the scent of the air in his mask changed just slightly.

Jaime met Brienne’s eyes for just a moment, registering her concern as his mind went fuzzy. He struggled against it, sudden panic not enough to move his increasingly heavy limbs. His mouth wouldn’t form the words, but he had to tell her. She needed to know.

Blackness closed in over him.

Jaime. My name’s Jaime.

Jaime was naked and alone.

Still? Again?

He stood in a dim chamber, on the edge of a pit. He had two hands, which should have made him feel strong, but all he had was cold fear.

He was surrounded. Twelve cowled figures, hoods covering their faces. They advanced on him, herding him toward the ledge, toward the darkness, and even though their lightsabers hung dormant at their belts Jaime backed away as if they were ignited and leveled at his throat.

“I don’t want to go that way,” he told them. “That’s not where I’m meant to be.” Nothing good lay down there, he knew. And if he fell there was no way back up.

The figures moved inexorably onward, crowding him, and he stumbled, tripped, fell backwards into darkness.

He didn’t fall far, and yet he fell forever, before hitting the floor-- the deck?-- beneath him.

“This is where you belong.” It was his father’s voice, but Jaime saw nothing but blackness.

A red flash-- a lightsaber igniting. Held aloft by Cersei, standing atop the ledge he’d just fallen from. Their father stood beside her, Joffrey and Myrcella behind. What about Tyrion?

“Cersei, why are we here? Is Mother with you?”

“This is your place,” she intoned, turning to leave. Joffrey had already retreated into the darkness. Master Tywin had turned his back. Myrcella still stared intently at Jaime.

“You can’t leave me here!” Jaime was near panic. He didn’t want to be alone. He knew something was coming for him. Coming for his blood. And Cersei’s blade was the only light.

He tried again, urgently, pleadingly, “I have no light, no weapon!”

“I gave you a weapon,” Tywin said, just before he too disappeared.

Jaime’s good, whole, solid right hand closed around the hilt of a lightsaber and he felt a surge of hope. He ignited the blade, but instead of blue its blade glowed a sick, angry red. It was wrong. Deeply wrong. Had his father known? His stomach turned as he recoiled from the weapon in his own hand. It cast light, but blue would have been so much better.

Something was coming. Jaime reached out with the Force, thrilled momentarily by the familiar power flowing through him, but then he felt it, huge and dark and cold, setting his bare skin shivering.

But there was something else… something warm. Not soft exactly, but soothing. Calm washed over him.

Brienne was there.

Naked, with her wrists bound. “I’m not chained to you,” she told him. Wordlessly he held the blade of his lightsaber out to her and she slipped her hands to either side, shearing her restraints. “I can help,” she offered, “but I need a saber.” She reached out a hand and Jaime felt the Force rush in, a golden lightsaber hilt landing neatly in her palm.

Her blade was blue. Much better for pushing the darkness back.

“Red suits you better, brother.” Cersei’s voice was far away, her own blade dim. Jaime had forgotten she was up there, but as he watched her step back he knew he couldn’t let her go. What would he do if she left him there?

Jaime could sense Myrcella still at the edge watching him, even as her mother-- her template-- retreated. The ledge seemed much taller than he remembered. Had he fallen so far? Had they been so far away when he’d landed?

“Cersei, please!” But she was already gone, taking her light with her.

“Jaime, what lives here? Rancors? Sith? Something worse?” Brienne asked, and he whirled to see her beside him, much closer than she’d been before, her eyes wide with concern. She laid a hand on his shoulder. It was so warm.

“Nothing lives here.” He knew for a fact. The Force comes from living things, but all he sensed in the blackness surrounding them was doom.

“Something’s coming.” She slipped her right hand into his left, holding her blade high in her off-hand. In its light she looked almost beautiful. In the warmth of the Force she was more a Jedi than any he’d met.

Figures approached. They made no sound, left no trace, were half-shrouded in mist. They seemed to glow faintly blue, but Jaime thought it might be from the reflection of the Twi’lek’s lightsaber.

Where had the mist come from?

Jaime couldn’t see their faces but he felt their judgement. The kind of judgement he’d only felt once before, when Senator Eddard Stark entered the Senate chamber. “Is that you, Stark?” he called toward the spirits. “I’m not afraid of you.”

They all wore the white cowls of the Primeguard. One lowered his hood.

“Master Dayne,” Jaime called, not a greeting but a challenge. Jaime knew these spirits were unfriendly, that he’d have to defend himself.

Brienne stepped in front of him. “I swore to keep him safe,” she announced, her jaw set, her saber readied.

“We all swear oaths,” Master Dayne murmured.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Jaime called. “The Force is with me.”

“Is it?”

With a jolt of panic Jaime realized his lightsaber was growing dim. He wouldn’t be able to see or fight if it went out, but he couldn’t stop it. The ghosts were closing in on them. There was something even worse behind the ghosts, just out of the circle of light cast by Brienne’s blade. He needed to help Brienne fight but with a weak pulse of blue his blade vanished. All that remained was the light of her saber, the swirl of the Force around her and through her.

The spirits lunged and Jaime screamed.

...and woke up. His head pounded and the world spun around him. He reached for the Force and recoiled from the nothing he felt.

He’d have to rely on other senses, he reminded himself. Looking around the dim space, he shuddered at the remembered darkness of his dream. He wasn’t in the Harrenhal medbay, that was certain. He sat up, nearly slamming his head into the bunk above him. He was in a cramped crew cabin. The Harrenhal was a huge ship, why did it have such tiny living spaces?

He pulled himself out of the bunk, reaching out to steady himself with his right hand before remembering it wasn’t there. Upon examination he found he’d been put into some sort of medical scrubs, but he couldn’t find shoes or anything else in the room.

The lingering effects of whatever Force-forsaken sedative Bolton’s med droid had given him made it hard to focus, but Jaime resolved to go find the Twi’lek. He hadn’t been more than a few meters away from her since Riverrun and it felt strange to not see her when he woke up.

He pulled the door of the cabin open, only to meet six pairs of eyes turned toward him, the blue swirl of hyperspace visible outside the canopy behind them.

“I’m not on the Harrenhal, am I?”

A tall black security droid stepped toward him as the other crew members of the ship-- apparently a smallish vessel, given the fact that the crew quarters were smashed directly adjacent to the bridge-- returned to their business.

“Jedi Lannister,” it greeted him. “I am Bolton command droid W8L-70N, in charge of bringing you safely to King's Landing.”

Jaime nodded warily.

“We will reach the capital in approximately--”

“Where’s Brienne?”

“Who?”

“The Twi’lek,” Jaime ground out. He already knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Lord Bolton determined she should stay on the Harrenhal while you completed your journey under my protection.”

“And Bolton took off, leaving Hoat in command of the Harrenhal.”

“Affirmative.” Jaime definitely hated that answer.

“Turn the ship around. I left something onboard the Harrenhal.”

“Negative. Lord Bolton ordered us to take the most direct route to the capital.”

Jaime stepped up to the droid, narrowing his eyes and trying his best to appear intimidating while wearing pajamas, missing a hand, and looking up into the electronic eyes of an over-two-meter-tall droid. “Drop out of hyperspace, and return to the Harrenhal, or when we get to King’s Landing I will tell my father that you, this crew, and Lord Bolton himself are responsible for this,” he waved his freshly bandaged stump.

“Lord Bolton--”

“Do you want Tywin Lannister to pay you or hunt you down for maiming his Jedi son?”

The Mirialan in the pilot seat lunged for the hyperdrive lever. The droid glanced over its shoulder as the starlines collapsed to the stars of normal space. “I did not order the recalculation.”

“Listen Steelshanks,” the pilot replied as the navigator’s hands raced over the computer. “It might not concern a droid but getting paid sounds a lot better than getting disintegrated to the rest of us.”

Jaime smiled tightly as the ship jolted back into hyperspace.

Chapter Text

But she'd had a reason to find him. No one had a similar reason to find her.

Brienne had been in worse spots in her life.

Surely she must have.

But facing down a five-meter-tall beast made almost entirely of teeth and claws, she found it challenging to come up with a single one.

Her stay on the Harrenhal hadn’t started off so badly, or at least Brienne had at first been able to put aside the cold, unsettled feeling in the Force in order to do what needed to be done. Of course she hadn’t enjoyed her conversation with Lord Bolton, and having Jaime wake up to needle her while she was mid-shower had been awkward, but things had only gotten stranger and more disturbing after that.

She had yet to truly grapple with the implications of what Jaime had told her, not to mention what she may have heard as the emergency sedative took effect. So much of what she thought she knew had been shaken Jaime’s confession-- and the desperation in his eyes as he practically begged her to understand-- explained too much for her to dismiss it out of hand. Brienne had no choice but to admit that she hadn’t sensed darkness in him. The chill that she’d felt on Riverrun had lifted as soon as they left orbit, so she attributed it to the battle that had taken place so recently, or to the preparations for the next one. Since then she’d come to know Jaime’s place in the Force as quite the opposite: the warm, lively sensation, unlike anything she’d felt before, had resonated between the two of them whether they were working together to escape Tully forces or trying to kill each other during their duel.

She didn’t like to think about how right it had felt, or how much she’d missed his Force sense after his maiming. The black hole he’d left behind was disturbing enough without considering her own reaction.

By the time his second round of anesthesia knocked him out the agitation she felt-- from the Force and from herself-- became hard to ignore. A second droid had arrived with the clothes Lord Bolton had promised, a far-too-formal ballgown more suited to the grand King’s Landing opera house than the halls of a cavernous dreadnought. She’d turned away from where Jaime floated in his tank out of some sort of absurd modesty given that he was unconscious. Not to mention the fat that she’d already threatened him with a lightsaber while stark naked.

Once she’d gotten the layers of long skirt settled and arranged the top-- consisting only of two broad, intricately-beaded strips of material running up from the skirt’s waist to cover all the relevant bits and cross behind her neck-- she found that all her other belongings were gone. She had no attachment to the tattered Tully flight suit, but her lightsaber and her headscarf were quite another matter. Beyond the helpless feeling of being unarmed, that saber had been in her family for generations-- had been a part of her. And the blue Rainbow Squadron scarf, her last connection to Renly--

The loss of both her lightsaber and her scarf left her feeling more cold and exposed than the dress did.

Standing in Lord Bolton’s audience chamber, struggling not to tug at the shoulders of her dress and shoving aside the increasing unease tickling the backs of her lekku, she had thought their discussion relatively productive at first. The Hutt had informed her that as soon as Jaime was out of the bacta and cleaned up he would be sent off to King’s Landing in a shuttle crewed by Bolton’s own agents.

But Brienne hadn’t missed the use of a singular pronoun and a cold feeling settled in her gut, knowing that good news for Jaime meant rather the opposite for her. Bolton informed her that he planned to depart at the same time, headed for a summit with other Rim Separatist leadership, and Brienne had tried to convince him to bring her along in hopes of reuniting with Robb Stark’s fleet and maybe even Lady Catelyn. She didn’t relish the idea of admitting failure to her lady in person, but it wouldn’t be complete failure if Jaime made it back to King’s Landing safely with the memory chip from CL-305 formalizing the planned exchange for Sansa and Arya’s freedom.

But Bolton wasn’t interested. And Brienne had no leverage at all. If she hadn’t been the pawn involved, Brienne might have thought it a clever bit of needle-threading: score points from the Lannisters for returning their golden son, keep the Brave Companions loyal by providing entertainment for a few cycles in the form of a Twi’lek prisoner of no political importance.

With the Force’s cold undertow sucking at her, slowing every step, she’d been returned to the medbay and told to prepare the Primeslayer for transport. Setting her jaw and walling off the sense of dull terror within herself, she’d cleaned the sticky bacta from his extremely naked body, blushing to the tips of her lekku but taking a small comfort in the familiar coolness of his human skin. He’d never know, but she did her best to work gently, drying him off and negotiating him into formless gray medical pajamas. She’d spoken quietly to him as she worked, reminding him of his promises and his responsibilities, admitting out loud that he wasn’t the man she’d thought him to be. By the time he woke up from the anesthesia he’d be halfway home and she would be a distant and unpleasant memory. Maybe that would be better, for him at least. He didn’t need to remember her. He just needed to--

BRING THEM HOME.

Brienne had winced at the familiar pressure inside her skull. Blinking tears from her eyes she tried to reassure the voice in her head that someone was still on the job, even if Brienne herself had failed. The Primeslayer wasn’t who she’d expected, so she could hold out hope that he would secure the release of the Stark girls once he arrived on King’s Landing. Once Sansa and Arya were back with their family it wouldn’t matter what happened to Brienne. She hoped the voice in her head would agree.

They’d been separated there, with Jaime carted off to the shuttle bay and Brienne handed over to a grinning and delighted Rorge. She’d said one last goodbye to Jaime as he was loaded onto the hover-gurney, her hand on his shoulder to lean close to his ear. She knew how pointless it was to speak to an unconscious person, and particularly that the traditional the Force will be with you was especially ridiculous in his case, but she did it anyway. It felt like the thing to do.

Rorge had left her in a cell-- a real detention cell this time instead of the cargo shed that had been her quarters on board the Black Goat-- for what felt like days but was probably less than one. She had tried to meditate, settling herself into a nest of billowing pink skirts on the deck floor, finding the Force unsurprisingly unsettled. Not the yawning, sinking, freezing sensation of the dark side, but the eddies of danger, of precariousness. Of a single tipping point-- a fulcrum around which balance would soon be lost. But where would it fall?

Her unmoored thoughts had drifted to Jaime. How had he tolerated his long isolation on Riverrun, if she was developing paranoid existential dread after only a few hours? Then again, his future had been much less uncertain in Tully hands than hers was onboard Hoat’s Harrenhal.

Eventually the Companions had come to the apparent conclusion that simply executing her or letting her starve in the cell wouldn’t be exciting enough, and she’d been dragged from the cell. It turned out Bolton had left Hoat his pet rancor in a cargo bay three levels down to sweeten the agreement between them, and it was the creature’s mealtime. Brienne had heard of rancors, of course-- two metric tons of bipedal predator, long forelimbs and massive clawed hands, everything one would want in a monster to scare Twi’lek children with-- but no holo captured the reality of finding herself trapped in a sealed cardo bay with one.

Nevermind. This was definitely the worst spot she’d ever been in. No use pretending otherwise.

She cast her eyes around the dirt-strewn cargo hold as the rancor emerged from the shadows, the crowd of Brave Companions jeering down at her from the catwalks surrounding the cargo bay. A few of the bounty hunters drew their blasters to take potshots at it, to Brienne’s momentary consternation until she realized the blaster bolts pinged harmlessly off its skin and only served to provoke the beast. Brienne’s momentary flash of pity for it was quickly quashed by a glimpse of fangs inside its snarling mouth as she searched for anything she might use to her advantage. Other than the glowrod Zollo had thrust into her hands before shoving her off the catwalk, saying a Jedi should always have their weapon, her only assets within the makeshift animal enclosure were a few heavy shipping containers and the remains of the creature’s previous meals, none of which seemed particularly helpful. She resisted the sinking feeling of despair that threatened to overwhelm her. If this was to be her death, so be it. But she refused to give up without a fight.

Actually, it seemed that the glowrod was rather the opposite of helpful. The rancor immediately fixated on her position thanks to the bright light in her hand, making one ponderous swipe at her with an outsized forelimb and forcing her to scramble backwards across the dirt-covered decking to get out of its ridiculously large range.

Getting to her feet, her legs immediately tangled in the full skirts Bolton had so generously foisted upon her. For as much fabric as had been devoted to the lower half of the dress, Brienne knew she was exposed, hunching her shoulders against the ship’s chilly air and the Companions’ taunts.

Lady Catelyn’s command to BRING THEM HOME was nearly lost under the growing roar of the Force. Brienne reminded herself that she wouldn’t be able to fulfil her promise if she was eaten by a rancor, so she would need to think fast, even if that wasn’t usually her strong suit. At least she got some warning from the Force before the rancor struck, its tremble increasing to jagged turbulence with the imminent danger. She watched the creature’s beady black eyes track the glow rod to determine her location, watching its head follow the beacon when she gave it an experimental wave. Finally, a weakness she could exploit.

The beast moved toward her, one ponderous, deck-shaking step at a time and she waited for her opportunity, trying to breathe through the panic that rose in her chest. As it drew back an arm for another strike, Brienne hurled the glowrod toward the far end of the cargo bay, pushing it with the Force all the way to what had once been the bay’s crew entrance. The rancor drew up short, blinked myopically, and turned its head to search for the light.

She’d bought herself some time. Now to use it.

First, a defensible position. Brienne took a shuddering breath and struggled to calm herself while the giant predator snuffled and stomped on the other side of the bay. Reaching out to the Force, she began the slow process of levitating one heavy cargo crate after another over to her corner. She did her best to focus on the Force flowing through her, shutting out the rancor’s frustrated noises, the shouts of the bounty hunters above her, and the shaking in her outstretched hand. Sweat broke out on her lekku but she reminded herself fiercely that she’d moved asteroids-- these boxes wouldn’t be a problem.

She’d only managed to pile three of the containers before the rancor realized she wasn’t attached to the glow rod. It wasn’t much but the small barricade would offer her some cover from the beast-- or from the Brave Companions’ blasters once they lost patience with their entertainment.

If the success of her glow rod diversion was anything to go by, the rancor depended on its eyesight to locate its prey. Brienne could work with that. Still panting from the exertion of lifting the crates, she stepped out from behind her cover and was startled with the speed with which the creature spun to fixate on her. As it stomped toward her, she crouched low to the deck, filling both hands with dirt. The creature reached for her, and with a monumental effort to control her terror she allowed it to wrap an enormous hand around her, squeezing the air from her lungs as it lifted her toward its gaping, fanged mouth. Reaching futilely out to the Force for calm, it was all Brienne could do to swallow the scream in her throat as the beast’s hot, rancid breath washed over her. If this was how she died, she’d at least do so without letting the Brave Companions see her fear.

Waiting until the last possible moment, the Force crashing against her mind and nearly overwhelming her, she pitched her fistfuls of dirt directly into its beady eyes. It hissed and dropped her to the deck, where she rolled quickly out of the way of its flailing arms, ducking behind her pile of crates to catch her breath and hopefully come up with the next part of her plan.

Suddenly the Force shifted-- not the turbulence that came before the creature attacked, but a change in the current’s direction, strong enough to make her sway on her feet. Was that what her imminent death felt like? It seemed to be rushing past her as if pouring over a cliff’s edge, into a void--

“Hoat!” a familiar voice called. “I seem to have left something behind. Well, something more than my hand.”

Brienne’s head jerked around and up toward the commotion on the catwalk, and at first she struggled to believe the scene there. Jaime, still in the gray pajamas she’d dressed him in, his hair half-escaped from the tie at the base of his neck, stood nose-to-trunk with Hoat. What in space was he doing here? His words had been characteristically flippant but the tension in his body and the hardness in his face spoke otherwise.

“Lord Bolton left me in command of the Harrenhal and her,” Hoat retorted stubbornly.

Jaime turned angrily to the catwalk’s railing. “Leks!” he called downward toward her. “Jump back up here and let’s go!”

“What?”

“Use the Force, Leks,” he drawled. “And make it quick. We have a shuttle to catch.”

“I don’t know how to do--”

He let out a frustrated groan. “Fine. Hoat, get her out of there. Now. I’ll pay you in credits or kyber, just get her out.”

“I’m not going down there for that--” he finished with a string of Huttese, which Brienne understood enough of to know that it hadn’t been a kind description of herself. “You want her?” he scoffed. “Go get her.”

So, to Brienne’s utter astonishment, he did.

As his boots hit the dirt a few meters away Brienne nearly staggered under the confusion of sensation in the Force. Almost too late she caught the tremor that signalled danger and only barely tackled Jaime out of the rancor’s swipe in time. They rolled halfway across the bay and came to a stop with Brienne sitting astride him. The Force continued to rush around her and through her, but its jagged turbulence had eased to a steady flow, warm against her mind.

“Primeslayer?” It wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever said, but it was the only thought she could manage.

He came back.

Why had he come back?

“Jaime,” he corrected her, just as he’d done in the medbay. She hadn’t been sure she’d heard it then-- he’d been thoroughly anesthetized after all-- but there was no mistaking it now. Brienne scrambled to her feet, glancing up to see the rancor still batting at its eyes in frustration.“I see Hoat’s given up on exchanging you for kyber.”

Brienne couldn’t help but roll her eyes as she pulled him up and toward the crates she’d used for cover. “After Bolton left and you were packed off to King’s Landing it took Hoat about thirty seconds to look up Tarth on the HoloNet.”

“At least twenty seconds longer than it should have taken. I’m beginning to think he’s not very smart.”

They started across the bay toward the relative safety of her corner, but the flailing creature made a lucky swipe that forced them further away. Keeping her body between Jaime and the rancor, Brienne turned her head to glare at him over her shoulder. “What precisely was your plan when you jumped down here unarmed?” And what, she didn’t add, could possibly have brought him back to the Harrenhal in the first place?

“Well first I thought I’d stop you from trying to fight a rancor with your bare hands. Are you going to back off now or do I need to sit on you like I did back in the forest?”

Brienne felt the angry heat bloom across her face and she turned back to keep her eyes on the rancor. “I will not.”

“I thought maybe Hoat would intervene so as to not let me die, but it seems I was wrong.”

The beast roared in frustration. “Any backups?” Brienne prodded him, her patience short.

“Of course, Leks. Even if Hoat doesn’t care if I live, Bolton’s droid will.” He jerked his chin up toward the catwalk, where a large black security droid had forced its way to the railing, blasters readied in both hands.

“I advise you all to step away from the railing and holster your weapons,” the droid told the Companions calmly as more armed and Bolton-uniformed beings pushed through the crowd.

“Took you long enough, Steelshanks,” Jaime called upward.

“Don’t shoot!” Brienne shouted at the droid. “Blaster bolts won’t penetrate the rancor’s skin.”

“Perhaps this might help then.” It holstered a blaster and popped a panel on its chest open, reaching inside to draw out a now-familiar lightsaber hilt and tossing it down into the pit.

Jaime made a lazy grab for it but Brienne reached out to the weapon with the Force, redirecting its arc to land neatly in her own hand. She had never felt so grateful to a droid in her life.

“I taught him that trick,” Jaime murmured, looking back at her and smirking. “See, old CL-305 was good for something after all.”

The prickling of the Force gave her the split second she needed to toss the saber hilt into her left hand and ignite it, grab Jaime’s hand with her right, and yank him back just barely in time to avoid a swipe of the giant creature’s claws.

“Now will you get behind me?” she growled. She was not about to let his need for sarcasm distract her from the giant predator.

He was looking strangely at where she gripped his hand but at her words he tore his attention back. “Good plan.”

She pulled him back behind her pile of crates. “I need to get some altitude.” He nodded, apparently sticking to his commitment to let her lead, and she let him boost her to the top of the pile. As she clambered to her feet, a shift in the Force alerted her just in time to bring the lightsaber up to block three blaster bolts from impatient Companions who apparently decided they didn’t like the revised odds now that she was properly armed. The droid and crew converged on the shooters, freeing Brienne to focus once more on the monster as adrenaline burned through her veins.

Soon enough the rancor found her scent and approached, roaring its fury. One paw still swatted at its eyes, so Brienne knew she still had a few more moments of blindness to do what she needed to. She felt another flash of pity and thought briefly that she should find a way to let the creature live, but her resolve hardened when she thought of the remains of Lord Bolton’s prisoners strewn about the pit, or all the future victims Hoat might bring for the monster’s meals. As soon as the rancor’s long arm reached out toward her, she pushed off from the crate, letting the rising tide of the Force propel her forward as she dashed up the limb with her skirts held up in one hand, leaping onto its head and stabbing her saber viciously downward through its skull. The creature screamed, jerking its head sideways as Brienne took one last leap, relying on the strength of her muscles alone to get her to the catwalk above. She just barely managed to catch the edge with both hands as the creature began to thrash, knocking one of the crates dangerously close to where Jaime still hid.

Two of Bolton’s crew grasped her arms, pulling her to the catwalk, but the second she was safe she bolted to the grating over Jaime’s hiding spot, throwing herself down onto her belly. “Hold my legs!” she shouted, not even bothering to check if her erstwhile allies had come with her.

Jaime scrambled up the remaining crates, hurling himself toward her waiting hands. The swirling Force broke over them as she caught his hand in both of hers and pulled him upward, out of the range of the rancor’s death throes. By that time the crewers who had helped her had a grip on her legs, giving her the leverage she needed to haul Jaime up and onto the catwalk. With the last of her energy, Brienne reached over the edge and called the lightsaber back to her hand. Jaime would want it back.

They lay side by side on the metal grating for a long moment, panting and exhausted, as the rancor’s groans faded. Finally getting to their feet they found the KX droid-- Jaime had called it Steelshanks-- training its blasters on Holt, who looked decidedly displeased with the turn of events. “We will be taking the Twi’lek with us,” it informed the Toydarian.

“Her name is Brienne,” Jaime told the droid sternly as he shoved past it, pulling Brienne along behind. She stumbled, caught off-guard by what he’d said. Not only had he used her actual name, but he’d demanded that the droid respect it. She pulled at her tangled skirts as she tagged along behind him, struggling to wrap her mind around recent events in general.

“You killed my rancor,” Hoat called after them, clearly trying to salvage some of his dignity.

“Put it on my tab,” Jaime shrugged contemptuously.

As the rest of the Bolton crew joined them the Companions parted to let them through. “Hold on,” Brienne called to Jaime as they pushed past the last of the Companions. She turned on her heel and delivered a lightning-quick punch to Rorge’s gut, moving swiftly to pluck the long hide coat from his shoulders as he doubled over in pain. He was a bit smaller than Brienne, but between the satisfaction of the punch and the close-enough fit of the coat she was quite happy with her choices. Pulling it on over her ridiculous dress, she turned back to find Jaime frozen, staring at her. She felt her chest tighten and turned away, unwilling to deal with more commentary on her appearance, least of all from him. Instead she looked back at the Companions one last time, her jaw set and her chin held high. She’d faced the worst they could think of and she’d come out the other side alive. All the pink skirts in the galaxy couldn’t take that away from her and she wanted them to know it.

The Force had calmed to an almost placid state, still warm, a gentle pulsing, with the jagged roaring waves merely a faint memory. A cool hand slipped into hers and Jaime was tugging her away from the bounty hunters with just a hint of urgency. “Come on, Leks. Before one of them manages to have a thought.”

They retreated into the corridor behind Steelshanks and the Bolton crew, Jaime’s pace increasing as they approached the shuttle bay. It seemed none of their party had much faith in the strength of their position, especially once the shock of Jaime’s arrival and the rancor’s death wore off. By the time the ship came into view, its white hull stark against the black of space outside the bay’s forcefield, Jaime was practically running, dragging Brienne along behind him as she struggled not to trip on her voluminous skirts. It might have been easier with two hands, but his grip on her brooked no argument.

The crew hurried into the ship ahead of them, heading straight for the cockpit to initiate preflight procedures, and the repulsors were already humming by the time Brienne’s feet hit the loading ramp. Jaime led her up and into the shuttle, still gripping her hand.

But they’d made it to safety and the questions— well, question— that had been prodding at Brienne’s mind became a priority. “Hey,” she called quietly as the ramp began to raise behind them.

He kept moving further into the ship, pulling her behind him without looking back as the craft rumbled to life and began to accelerate.

“Hey,” she tried, louder this time but with the same effect.

Finally, letting out a frustrated little growl, she planted her feet on the deck. “Why did you come back?” she asked, with a bit more heat than she’d intended, jerking him backwards by their joined hands.

His head turned but his eyes went first to her hand, broad and yellow against the almost-pink of his skin, before making it up to meet her questioning gaze. Her irritation dissolved as her thoughts caught up with her, her godsdamned blush returning with a vengeance. “Don’t think I’m not grateful-- I am-- but--”

Her babbling was cut off when Jaime suddenly swarmed toward her, pulling her into his arms and nudging her lek out of the way with his nose-- a flash of tingling radiating out from where it made contact-- to tuck his face against the rough hide of her jacket’s shoulder. Brienne’s whole body seized up but he didn’t seem to mind, patiently waiting for her to acclimate to the embrace, her hands sliding up his arms and around his neck. It startled her-- both the affection itself and the fact that the Force had given no warning before Jaime’s sudden turn-- but recovering from the shock Brienne settled into the now-familiar feeling of Jaime Lannister well within her personal space. With his body so close once again she realized how alone, how wrong she’d felt ever since he’d been packed off with Bolton’s lackeys.

He smelled clean. Not filthy like he had when she’d sprung him from captivity on Riverrun, and not the antiseptic scent of his post-bacta body as the med droids left her to clean him up and dress him so he could be sent off home to his family. Just himself. The recognizable scent of the cheap soap every commercial or military entity seemed to buy in bulk, underscored with that subtle earthy note that marked him as human.

“Jaime?” she asked quietly, feeling him stiffen with her arms still around his shoulders. She pulled back to look at him and found a strange kind of confusion in his eyes as he gazed back. His mouth opened once, but he swallowed whatever words had been on his tongue. Brienne felt her confidence dissolve. Despite his previous demonstration of affection she could practically see him scanning through his myriad options for insulting her--

“I dreamed of you.”

She blinked, feeling her cheeks heat as the words settled into her brain. He sounded dazed, unsure, as if the words were coming out without his full consent. Without thinking she reached for the Force for answers but pulled back at the first brush of her mind against his void. Instead, she searched his face for anything that might help his assertion make sense. All she found there was a puzzled openness, along with something that almost looked like fear.

He’d dreamed of her.

And whatever it was he’d dreamed had made him abandon his express route home to come to her aid.

She wouldn’t be alive if not for his dream. He’d lost his hand, lost the Force, and still risked everything he had left to come back and save her. Because of a dream.

Something that could have such an effect on him didn’t sound much like a dream to Brienne. It sounded like a vision. As if the Force had somehow intervened, pulling him back to her. But the Force was no longer with him.

… was it?

That gentle heat in the Force she had come to associate with him rose around her, though it felt… shallower. Without the added dimension of Jaime’s Force presence the pleasant feeling seemed flat. It was almost comforting, almost the harmony she’d felt when they flew together, fought against each other. His place in the Force had been negated, but having him so close, knowing what he’d done for her, it almost didn’t matter.

But she wanted more. She wanted that feeling of resonance, of rightness.

She ducked her chin to press her lips to his.

The Force rushed through her and it was his turn to freeze, but only for a moment. With a shudder he melted against her and yes, there was the feeling she desired. Warm and pulsing, surrounding them. It crackled against her skin like tiny electrical sparks, nothing like her usual contact with the Force.

The kiss was unhurried, gentle, quiet. Nothing like the handful of hasty, businesslike, means-to-an-end kisses of her past. There was no need to rush, to tear off clothes or yank at bodies. His lips were just barely cool as they slanted against her own and she couldn’t help but sigh through their languid embrace, basking in its softness. They may have still technically been on the run, but it was the safest they’d been since they’d met and Brienne intended to enjoy it.

As he held her close to him with his truncated right arm, she felt his hand slip under her stolen jacket, sliding around the thin fabric covering her stomach

The moment his fingers brushed the exposed skin at her side, the sparks on her skin became a jolt and they jerked apart, Jaime yanking his hand back and curling it to his chest.

As they stared at each other Brienne waited warily for a snide comment, for him to turn away. For her own shame at giving in to her impulses rise in her chest, for awkwardness to complicate their… friendship? She didn’t even know what to call it, but it didn’t seem important at the moment. He didn’t reach for her again, but still he simply stared, and still she simply returned his gaze. The Force lapped gently, comfortably, at her mind.

As the long moment stretched, Jaime’s hand relaxed, the tension in his shoulders softening. Brienne felt a tired smile tug at her lips. He jerked his head slightly toward the corridor leading away from the ship’s closed ramp and she wordlessly walked beside him toward the cockpit, their shoulders brushing with every other step. They didn’t need words to fill the quiet. With a quick glance out the cockpit at the swirls of hyperspace, Jaime showed her to what seemed to be the crew quarters, sealing the hatch behind them.

They both dropped themselves to sit on the lower of the two available bunks, both exhausted and both still silent. Somehow, though they’d started at opposite ends of the bed Brienne found herself scooted toward the middle, her right leg pressed against Jaime’s through her layers of skirt and his medbay pajamas.

He huffed and let himself fall backwards onto the bunk, throwing his still-bandaged right arm over his face. Brienne turned her head in time to see his left hand reach toward her blindly. Jerking her lekku out of his hand’s path, she let him grab her shoulder, tugging her down to lay beside him, their legs still hanging off the edge. She felt more than heard his sigh as he settled into the thin mattress.

A more logical part of Brienne’s mind suggested they ought to talk about… something. Everything. But the Force was calm and warm around them, a pleasant contrast to Jaime’s just-barely-cooler body, and really there didn’t need to be anything to talk about. They’d survived and they continued to find comfort in each other. It was more than Brienne had ever expected out of her life, and decidedly more than she’d expected from the Primeslayer when she’d laid eyes on him in the cell on Riverrun. Letting out a deep breath, her eyes slid closed and she let herself relax for what felt like the first time since she’d left Tarth.

A scream pierced the silence, shattering the peace of her sleep.

The Force boiled.

Darkness. Fear. Anguish.

Death.

Brienne forced her eyes open.

A second scream. She whipped around to see Lady Catelyn, her face ashen and twisted in agony, her arms pinned behind her back by a guard in armor Brienne didn’t recognize.

A blaster shot, joined by Lady Catelyn’s howl of rage and pain, then another, and another. Brienne twisted in time to see the body of a red-haired human drop to the ground, and she knew it to be Robb Stark.

To have been Robb Stark.

As one, the blasters turned toward Lady Catelyn. The guard behind her began to cough, dropping her arms to claw at his throat, but she made no move to run.

Brienne heard herself scream as she struggled to move her sluggish body across the vast, corpse-strewn distance between her and her lady. Her feet were trapped in a rising pool of blood, spreading across the stone floor. She bellowed a challenge, anything to take their attention from her lady.

A horrible crunch, and the first guard fell to the ground, unmoving. Lady Catelyn’s eyes flashed a frightening, sickly yellow as three more of the armed attackers gasped for breath.

And suddenly Brienne was looking through her Lady’s eyes, but only a passenger, helpless to stop what was happening. A human without a helmet stepped forward, leveling a blaster pistol. Brienne could finally see the pink stamp of the Bolton forces on the chestplate peeking through his formal robes. Two of the choking guards fell. “The Lannisters send their regards,” the man said as he squeezed the trigger.

BRING THEM HOME.

Heat seared through Brienne’s head, and jagged spears of ice; flames exploding from between her eyes and frozen daggers lancing through her temples.

BRING THEM HOME.

Brienne screamed, huddled on her side into the smallest ball her bulky form could make, her arms and lekku wrapped around her head and her eyes squeezed shut against what she’d seen. Someone was talking. Someone quiet, not--

BRING THEM HOME.

The pain redoubled and another scream punched from her raw throat.

Then coolness against her face. The howling of the Force cut off suddenly and a voice began to break through her own cries.

“Brienne, Brienne, come back, Brienne--”

Jaime.

He was curled around her, his hand on her cheek and his arm holding her tightly.

Jaime Lannister.

The Lannisters send their regards.

Brienne shoved him away savagely, hearing his grunt as her elbow connected with his gut before she scrambled away across the floor of the crew quarters to huddle in the far corner again. The worst of the pain had eased but her whole skull throbbed with its echoes. It was too quiet now that the Force had gone silent.

“They--” she whispered into the stillness, her breaths coming quick and shallow, “you-- they killed her--”

“Brienne.” Her stomach turned at her name in his mouth, at the open concern in his face. He eased off the bed and began to move toward her. “You need to start from the beginning.”

“The Starks-- they’re dead, Robb and Lady Catelyn and I don’t know who else but there were so many bodies and he shot her--”

BRING THEM HOME.

“Bolton troops,” she forced through teeth clenched against the blinding pain. “He said the Lannisters sent--”

Jaime stopped his slow crawl toward her corner, frozen in place, his eyes wide.

“She thought they were safe.” She let out a choked sob, clutching at her lekku.“She thought they were allies but they--” Jaime reached his hand out to her tentatively. “Don’t!” Brienne barked and he stilled again. “Bolton allied with-- with--”

“With my father,” Jaime finished, barely a whisper. He didn’t ask how she knew. He didn’t ask anything.

Brienne’s head shot up to glare at him, grasping for the loathing she’d had for him when they’d first met, as if by hating him enough she could bring back Lady Catelyn, bring back any of the dead Starks in that hall. “Did you--”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but we are on our way back to King’s Landing and once we’re there we will get Sansa and Arya to safety.” He spoke quietly, slowly, holding her gaze. “They may not even know how much danger they’re in.”

Only shreds of her animosity toward the Primeslayer remained now. All she had to go on was his face, the honesty, the worry in his eyes. Without the Force she had no alternative but to make her own choice, based on what she’d learned of him since Riverrun. He certainly hadn’t been in contact with his family since his capture, so he couldn’t be involved in the massacre of the Starks. And she could not deny that he was far from the faithless man she’d first thought. He’d killed the Prime Minister to protect King’s Landing and took the shame of it on himself, and confessed to her while naked and helpless in a bacta tank. And he’d all but clung to her after their escape, both offering and taking comfort with his touch. He’d returned her kiss and it had felt right, even without the Force. She’d seen his eyes afterward.

She knew what the truth looked like on Jaime Lannister’s face.

It was too much. He began to move toward her again tentatively, keeping his eyes on her. She couldn’t take it. Her failure, her grief, her exhaustion and pain, the weight of her decision to trust him, the gentleness of his movements, how much she wanted him near her. It wouldn’t all fit inside her. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the crushing feeling build in her chest as cracks formed all across her walls, knowing any second she’d shatter--

Jaime slid over to sit next to her, and the pressure on her mind bled away. The energy went out of her and he caught her as she slumped, nerveless. He pulled her against him with his right arm and reached his left across his body to take her hand. The Force rose warmly around her, the gentle sparks prickling her skin when her face fell against his cheek. “We’ll get them out, Brienne.”

BRING THEM HOME.

“I promise,” she heard him murmur against her temple, rocking her gently as she ground her teeth against the searing pain in her skull. “I promise.”

Chapter Text

Hang on a minute. I’ll come with you.

Jaime was only a few klicks away from home.

Or at least, from the palace where his family lived. From the temple where he’d been raised.

Unbidden as always, the Jedi Code floated through his mind.

There is no passion, there is serenity
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge
There is no emotion, there is peace
There is no death, there is the Force.

Approaching King’s Landing with no ability to sense the Force turned out to be a deeply unsettling experience. He knew what the planet should feel like: a nearly frantic riot of conflicting sensation crawling across his skin. He’d never enjoyed the feeling particularly, but he hated its absence even more. He’d say it felt like losing a limb, but frankly his lost hand bothered him far less. And the hand was fixable.

Their shuttle came in to land on a private Bolton pad well away from the Senate District proper, but close enough that he could see the major buildings as their ship descended. It was local night, but of course the city was far from dark. The major skylanes had been visible from orbit, bright veins of the city, and as they approached the building lights and the smaller lanes began to resolve themselves. The Senate district came into view, with the Dome giving off a subdued glow and the lights of the Jedi Temple’s main tower seemingly trying to assert the power of the light side of the Force all on their own. And behind them, the old Targaryen palace: the Red Keep.

He and Brienne stood shoulder to shoulder at a viewport, watching the planet-sized city grow larger. He wanted to take her hand again, but didn’t for fear of giving in to the panicked part of him that screamed this might be his last chance to be near her.

Shortly after leaving the Harrenhal the shuttle crew had produced yet another pair of nondescript flight suits for them, pointedly lacking in any insignia or House affiliation. Jaime had been pleased to replace his post-bacta pajamas with something approximating real humanoid clothing, but his pleasure was nothing compared to the relief in Brienne’s eyes when she was allowed to change out of that pink abomination of a gown. Someone had even found basic armor for them in the shuttle’s equipment locker-- not much more than plasteel chest plates, but both of them felt better with that small bit of extra protection. Steelshanks drew the line at allowing them weapons, confiscating Jaime’s lightsaber once they were back on board and refusing to issue them regulation blasters, so they remained unarmed. Jaime had an easier time accepting that, given that his fighting proficiency had relied almost entirely on his use of the Force, but it was more complicated for Brienne, whose saber was lost entirely, either in Bolton’s hands or Hoat’s. Either way Jaime had no plans to run out and find it, as much as he might want to help her.

For as hard as he’d been trying to get back to King’s Landing, Jaime had very little idea of what he’d do once they touched down. Without the Force, without his ability to fight, he wouldn’t be of use to anyone there. The Primeguard would have no use for a Forceless Jedi, nor would his father or Cersei for that matter. And the godsdamned Jedi Council would probably throw a grand feast to celebrate being rid of him.

There is no passion, there is serenity

His shoulder was warm where it pressed against Brienne’s.

They had stayed close throughout the trip, rarely more than an arm’s length apart, but in a subconscious way that felt strangely natural to Jaime. He could reach out and touch her, she could lay a hand on the stump of his wrist when it ached. She became quite proficient at braiding his hair back from his face, which had become Jaime’s favorite part of the cycle.

After her vision of the Starks, once the pain had faded, she’d fallen asleep against him, still sitting on the deck of the crew quarters, one of her lekku draped around his neck and over his shoulder.

During ship’s night he’d lay on the bottom bunk, half awake and listening for the sounds of her breathing from above. It wasn’t that he missed being bound together, but he did find it harder to sleep now, with a bunk between them. He thought about crawling up to join her. He thought she might want the same thing, when he woke up to find her scooted to the edge of the upper bunk, an arm and a lek hanging off it to brush against his shoulder.

It was all so different from the quiet desperation he always felt when Cersei was near, never knowing if she’d allow a bit of affection and clinging to the times when she did, knowing he’d have to earn the next one all over again. Though he had to admit to a twinge of that desperation that seemed to be growing the closer they got to the ground. Or what counted as the ground on the kilometers-high, planet-wide city of King’s landing. Brienne hadn’t spoken much at all since they’d left the Harrenhal-- since Catelyn Stark’s death-- but when she had, it wasn’t about her plans on the capital.

Maybe not knowing was worse.

He hadn’t brought up their kiss. The way she had kissed him. He wasn’t avoiding it out of fear, but rather that it somehow didn’t feel like something to be talked about. There had been smaller ones-- he’d brushed his lips against her cheek when she reached past him to the caf dispenser, she’d pressed a kiss to his forehead when he leaned his head backwards to thank her for fixing his hair again.

But none like that kiss.

It hadn’t been his first kiss, but very nearly. And certainly not comparable to anything prior. He never seemed to have the desperate need that the other padawans did, but kissing-- pairing up in general-- had appeared to be the thing to do. There had to be a reason they were willing to risk disciplinary measures, let alone the dark side, so just before his Knighting he’d decided to give it a try. If nothing else Jaime had been tired of feeling left out, unwanted. It had been worth the attempt, even Addam agreed, but kissing him hadn’t been the revelation Jaime had hoped for. He’d chalked it up to his commitment to his training, rising above the need for romantic attachment in a way the other padawans couldn’t, but he secretly wondered it there was something inherently different about him. Regardless, Jaime had taken it as a lesson learned, and by the next week Addam was stumbling back from the fighter simulator with that Kenobi guy, their robes both notably askew.

Jaime had had the Force then, and still felt nothing in particular with Addam’s lips on his. With Brienne he’d been maimed and broken and yet kissing her had been the closest he’d felt to touching the Force since he’d lost it.

Jaime watched her pull absently at her gray head wrap and smiled to himself. She’d eventually admitted that her head felt naked and cold after losing her blue scarf, so once he was dressed he’d torn his gray medical pajamas into wide strips for her to wind around her head and the base of her lekku. That small measure of physical comfort caused her shoulders to visibly relax and Jaime counted it as a personal victory.

Of course, all the warmth in the galaxy couldn’t help her during what Jaime had come to call her attacks.

They didn’t come often-- one every cycle or two, and so far fortunately only on the day side-- but each time Jaime had been there, catching her if she fell, letting her squeeze his hand through the pain, her grip so strong that he feared she might break his one remaining hand. He held her afterward, making soothing noises and trying to bite down on his rage at whatever Catelyn Stark had done. Brienne refused to talk about it.

Those moments were the closest he’d come to kissing her properly. He would keep her close as the tension drained from her body, her teeth unclenching, her lekku drooping over his arm. But then she’d open her eyes to look up at him, and they were so blue, and she was so close, and so warm, and so strong. Her lips parted and her breath went shallow, and all his anger and worry didn’t matter anymore. He wanted to kiss her. For comfort-- for the both of them-- but more than just that. It felt right.

Then the orange would creep up her cheeks and she’d turn her head, or he would, and the moment would slip away and the charge between them would settle into the background of their now-routine closeness.

Besides Brienne’s occasional attacks, the remainder of their trip had been without major incident. They remained safely at lightspeed, unmolested by interdictors, forest predators, or vicious, prisoner-dismembering bounty hunters. Brienne talked little and less, and eventually Jaime gave up on attempting his wonted chatter in favor of the quiet equilibrium they seemed to have reached.

Just after they dropped out of hyperspace outside King’s Landing’s planetary shields, they flew through what looked like a rescue operation involving several heavy freighters that seemed to have been blown to pieces. Planetary comm chatter indicated they had been Lannister ships, all carrying high-value but unnamed cargo. Rumor favored kyber crystals of all things. The ships had been reduced to slag, the payloads vanished, but it seemed all crew members had survived in escape pods and were being picked up by rescue ships as Steelshanks’s shuttle approached the planet. Brienne shuddered as they passed the wreckage and Jaime was about to ask what the Force was telling her when the droid approached them at the viewport.

“It seems it may not be safe to be connected to the Lannisters at the moment,” Steelshanks informed them in its dry, dispassionate tone. “You will need to depart the ship as quickly as possible so that we may end our association and return to Lord Bolton with all due haste.”

The landing pad looked just like every other in the city, a wide round platform jutting out from the roof of one of the buildings, ringed by landing lights, with a turbolift shaft at the far end leading into the interior. True to his word, Steelshanks bustled Jaime and Brienne down the loading ramp and off the ship nearly before the ship had set down completely, only barely remembering to return Jaime’s lightsaber to him. Jaime found himself resisting, not just because he didn’t enjoy being bossed around by a droid, but also because on a visceral level he wasn’t ready to be back on King’s Landing. On the shuttle things were simple, but on the capital he didn’t know where his place was anymore, or the role expected of him. He didn’t know where Brienne fit into any of it.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge

By the time Jaime got his bearings, Brienne had already moved to the edge of the landing pad to look down into the massive city’s canyons. From where they stood it was several kilometers and hundreds of years’ worth of construction down to the planet’s original surface and Jaime couldn’t stop the smile from tugging at his lips as he watched Brienne sit down on the edge to peer over in awe.

She wasn’t seeing the same city he was. To her, King’s Landing was a vibrant place full of lights and the signatures of billions of beings in the Force. It was new and fascinating, not bogged down in years of seeing the worst the planet had to offer. The city’s inhabitants were full of life, not fear and judgement. Prime Ministers were leaders, not genocidal tyrants or drunk lechers. Through her wide blue eyes, Jaime could almost forget the ghosts that lurked in every corner of this Forceforsaken world.

Her skin seemed to glow in the soft blue light of the landing beacons running along the edge of the shuttle pad as Jaime approached her quietly. She didn’t turn as he drew next to her, so he simply rested a hand on top of her head, between her lekku. He saw her take a slow breath before she looked up at him. A shame. He’d hoped to startle her. He ought to be able to get something out of being Force-less. Stepping around to her left side he lowered himself with a sigh to sit next to her, dangling his feet off the edge. He preferred to keep his foreshortened arm between them. It felt less exposed.

“Welcome to King’s Landing, Leks.” He looked out at the city’s lights and tried to push the tension creeping into his shoulders aside in favor of enjoying what he hoped were not his last few moments with Brienne. Leaning closer to her, he raised his remaining hand to point along her line of sight, through the canyon formed between the tops of the buildings to where the Senate District rose, set apart from the surrounding city. “See the blocky red building just past the Dome? That’s where Sansa and Arya are.”

Somewhere in there, probably. Possibly. Unless they’d somehow gotten off the planet, or had already been rescued by Stark allies, or been executed or smuggled away as future political leverage by Jaime’s family.

He didn’t want to think about any of that, and in particular all the work he’d soon have to put in to get caught up on the machinations of his various relatives since he’d been gone. Let alone that he’d be expected to get involved somehow. He’d never really resented the Lannister propensity for intrigue before, but now he just felt tired just thinking about it.

Then again, it would probably be worse to find that they have no use for him in his current state.

Bringing his focus back to Brienne with an effort, he saw the familiar orange blotches on her cheeks, though she still didn’t speak. Apparently it was going to be up to Jaime to make conversation. “Did you sense me sneaking up behind you?” he asked.

“Not exactly.” She chewed her lip, deep in thought. “Your Force signature is gone, but you don’t feel like any other non-Force-sensitive being.”

His chest contracted and he couldn’t keep the bite from his voice. “Ah, there are no non-Force-sensitive beings like me--”

“Only you,” she rolled her eyes and he felt like a scolded child. “You feel… strange.”

“I could have told you that,” he grumbled. “It’s quite strange to be down a hand.” Not to mention being cut off from a sense he’d been relying on since before he could remember.

“There are trenches beneath Tarth’s oceans,” she began slowly, ignoring his commentary. “So deep nobody knows where they end. If you take a submarine you can travel right to the edge, see where the rock drops away and there’s just darkness. Not nothing-- it feels very different from nothing. That’s what’s left of you in the Force.”

“Not nothing.” He snorted indelicately. “I suppose that’s the best I can hope for.”

“I can’t see it unless I try to touch it directly, but I’ve noticed the Force acts differently around you. The currents change, and if I pay attention I can infer that it’s you. Like looking at the behavior of nearby stars to find the location of a black hole. I think it might mean that--”

“Poetic,” he cut her off, uninterested in dwelling on his new status as a gaping void. But he also needed her to keep talking, to remind him what the Force was like, to give him even a hint of his lost sensation. “What about King’s Landing? What does it feel like?” He tried to keep the demand out of his voice without much success.

For a long moment she didn’t answer. “The Force flows differently here, with so many lifeforms packed so closely together, each of them affecting it differently. It… babbles.” She winced, clearly unsatisfied with her own description. “It’s so many different currents at once, some smooth, some so turbulent they make my lekku itch. It’s overwhelming, honestly. Will it get easier the longer I’m here?”

“Not particularly,” he muttered. She asked it so innocently, but still Jaime’s irritation rose. He’d had to learn to tolerate those sensations as a child and he hadn’t been allowed to complain, surely she could handle a few days of it. And anyway, as unpleasant as King’s Landing could feel, at least she still had the ability to feel it.

There is no emotion, there is peace

“But hey,” he continued louder, “the good news about being here is that you’ve officially kept your vow to Lady Stark.”

“Less than half of it,” she sighed. “I still have to get you to your family and then--” she broke off, squeezing her eyes shut and groaning against the pain of whatever it was happening inside her head. He pulled her against him and waited for it to pass, biting back his own growl of frustration. If Catelyn Stark weren’t already dead Jaime would be sorely tempted to hunt her down himself to make her undo whatever she’d done to Brienne’s mind. He’d felt cold echoes of her influence through the Force before… before, and those had been unnerving enough, but whatever had changed after Lady Stark’s death was leaving Brienne distinctly worse off.

This attack was taking longer than usual, Jaime realized with growing concern. The hand clutching at his thigh had relaxed a bit but her shoulders were all strain under his arm. He should have sat on her other side so he’d have a hand to rub soothingly across her back, but it was too late for regret. Brienne began to shake, nearly imperceptably, and Jaime stiffened with alarm. Staying close to her had helped during previous attacks, but this time it didn’t seem to be enough.

Jaime reached across to press his hand to her cheek, turning her face toward him and pulling her forehead against his own while he babbled whatever comforting nonsense came to mind. Her shaking subsided, but her eyes remained squeezed shut against the pain and her breath came hard though clenched teeth, her hands clutching at his arms to pull him closer. She was still hurting. He needed to give her something more.

Before he even processed the thought, he was kissing her. Carefully but firmly, as if asserting his will over her pain. And there it was, just like the first time, the sense of jagged pieces falling into place, fitting together seamlessly. His eyes slid shut and the world dropped away around him, all his senses focused on the slide of her lips against his own. The tension bled out of her with a sigh, answered by a thrill of triumph in Jaime’s chest.

He always resented his loss of the Force, but never more than at moments like this. He could only imagine how it would have felt, how the warm wind of her presence might sharpen to sparks dancing across his skin. How alive it would feel. How light.

Her fingers tightened where they still gripped his arms, but in an effort to tug him closer rather than stave off pain. Jaime tilted his head to deepen the kiss and her mouth fell open in welcome.

It was so easy to forget he was on King’s Landing while she was kissing him, easy to forget his anger at the Starks for imprisoning him, his bitterness toward the Brave Companions for maiming and mistreating him, his rage at the Force for abandoning him. As her hand crept up to his neck and he felt her tongue warm against his lower lip all of the emotions he’d been fighting seemed to dissolve.

...All except the fear that she’d leave.

His movements took on an edge as he shoved the thought back. He slid his hand around to cup the base of her lek-- how many more nerve endings did say she had there?-- and she let out a little gasp into his mouth. But the fear didn’t go away. He kissed her harder and she matched his intensity, just as she had when she’d duelled him-- and he wasn’t the only one feeling an edge of desperation-- and what was he expected to do once she was gone--

They pulled back at the same moment. He couldn’t quite make out the emotion in her wide blue eyes, and he hoped the vicious tangle of his own feelings wasn’t visible in his own.

It was too much. King’s Landing and everything associated with it came rushing back at once. He couldn’t allow himself to get attached to her. She was too good, she had too much to do. The Force still had work for her.

He sighed, drawing her forehead down to his again but avoiding her gaze. Speaking-- thinking-- was so much easier when he couldn’t see her eyes. “It’s getting worse,” he said, transparently grasping for a change of subject. “Whatever she did to you. There might be a healer at the Jedi Temple who could--”

“It’s fine,” she cut him off, pulling away to sit up on her own but still rubbing a hand absently across her forehead. Even though Jaime knew he’d been the first to back away it still hurt to watch her do the same. His arms were cold and he drew them back into his body. “It’ll stop as soon as we-- as I deliver the Stark girls to their uncle on Riverrun.”

Jaime was no longer included in her plans. The chill settled around him. She had her promises and the light side to serve. He should accept that, should get out of her way, rather than dwelling on the coldness beginning to settle in his stomach.

“Were you planning on coming with me?” she asked dubiously, as if she’d read his thoughts. Planning would be putting it strongly. Hoping, maybe. Ridiculously.

“No.” He heard the old sneer creeping back into his voice.

“Your home is here,” she reminded him gently. Of course she was gentle about it, which only stoked his irritation. “Not to mention the Primeguard.” She sounded like she was trying to convince him. Because he was foolish enough to require convincing. “And your-- family.”

Jaime wondered which word she’d stopped herself from saying. There were so many to choose from. His father had been involved in the massacre of the Starks in the Twins system, and Brienne knew the whole sordid story of Joffrey. Maybe she had been about to say nephew or just go directly for clone. Or she’d meant to say sister….

Truly, Jaime had so many reasons to celebrate his return to this ridiculous planet.

Within days they’d patch him up, fit him with a bionic hand, throw credits around until he once more looked like the man he was when he’d left. As if nothing had changed.

Brienne reached out a hand tentatively and Jaime twitched away from it reflexively.

“I know what’s waiting here for me, Leks,” he scoffed. “The problem is that you don’t.”

There is no chaos, there is harmony

“I don’t,” she admitted, “but I have CL-305’s memory chip. The exchange of-- of prisoners shouldn’t be complicated.”

“Everything here is complicated. You either need to learn that quickly or get offworld before it gets you in trouble.” He’d been too harsh. It was obvious from her look of confusion and what looked like a sliver of hurt. He was making a mess of everything. “You need my help,” he said instead of apologizing. “You can’t possibly do this one on your own.” Moving asteroids with her mind, fighting Jaime to a draw, facing down Vargo Hoat, killing a godsdamned rancor-- those she could do. He’d seen her in danger and he’d seen her rise above it. King’s Landing was a completely different matter.

“I don’t--”

“What exactly were you planning to do now? Waltz into the Senate in borrowed clothes too small for you armed with nothing but a consular droid’s memory chip and ask politely for the girls’ release? It’s the middle of the night Leks, and I don’t think the cleaning droids will be terribly impressed by your demands. Or maybe you thought you’d just sneak into the Red Keep unarmed with no idea where you’re going or what you’ll do when you get there?”

From the looks of it, she’d considered at least one of those.

“Let me help.” It was all he could do to keep the note of frustration out of his voice, hating how close it sounded to begging. He just needed to know she’d be safe, that someone would be watching over her. “At least let me give you a place to stay. We don’t know how long negotiations might take.”

That seemed to startle her. “But your brother sent the terms and Lady Catelyn accepted. We have the proof. Why should there be negotiations?”

Oh Leks.

Jaime had to get her off this overdeveloped rock. Or at least stay near her to make sure the mynocks masquerading as humanoid residents got their suckers on her. She wouldn’t last a day on her own. “See, this is why you need a guide. You’ll be helpless here on your own.”

She was looking at him again, her eyes narrowed. “Oh I see.”

“See what?” he snapped.

“You aren’t chained to me anymore, Jaime. You have to go back to your life,” she said, a little sadly. She considered him for a long moment, pursing her lips. “But you don’t have to be the Primeslayer-- you don’t have to be who they think you are.”

There is no death, there is the Force

Jaime jerked his head up to look at her. Had he told Brienne about his mother’s words while he was delirious on board the Black Goat?

“You don’t believe me?”

“What? No. Of course I-- I just mean, my mother used to tell me that.”

One of her lekku twitched. “Used to?”

“She died. Childbirth. I was seven.”

Brienne’s head jerked back in surprise. Jaime appreciated that she didn’t bother hiding her shock. “Did she not have medical care?”

“She was overseen by King’s Landing’s finest medical professionals, both droid and organic.”

Her eyes went soft. “And she still--”

“Somehow.” Jaime turned his eyes back toward the skyline, the old familiar grief clutching at his heart. He didn’t particularly want to have this discussion but he didn’t know how to stop. “It was chaos. Nobody was able to explain it to me, I think because none of them knew what happened either. I haven’t gone within two floors of that wing ever since.” It hadn’t been just the memories that kept him away-- even as a child he’d sensed the strange Force sense lurking in those rooms. It wasn’t the cool breeze of death and grief but something darker, something with sharp edges. Perhaps that was when he had first begun to hate this planet.

Brienne looked at him for a long moment. “That’s the first time you’ve mentioned your mother to me.”

It was true. Jaime shifted awkwardly where he sat. He had always preferred to keep his memories of his mother close, as if someone might damage them or take them away. “Well, she causes significantly less trouble than the rest of my family, so there’s not much to talk about.”

They lapsed into silence again. She clearly had no idea where to take the conversation at that point and to be fair neither did Jaime. None of this discussion was going the way he’d expected when they landed. When had everything gotten so complicated?

“Steelshanks told me the big news on King’s Landing,” he blurted, grasping for something-- anything-- else to talk about. “Joffrey is being elevated to Knighthood it seems. Big ceremony, big gala afterward.” Jaime managed not to roll his eyes just thinking about it, but it was a near thing. He’d never been allowed anywhere near Joffrey’s training. Hells, he wasn’t sure the boy actually had any real Jedi instruction at all. Cersei deemed Jaime’s involvement too great a risk, that observers wouldn’t miss their nearly identical Force signatures.

Well, that wouldn’t be a problem now that Jaime had apparently become a fathomless trench. Maybe he could be something like a real Master. A Master but better. Joffrey could learn from all Jaime’s mistakes, be better.

A better version of Jaime.

A replacement.

He could feel Brienne’s eyes on him. This whole conversation had gotten away from him and his frustration was beginning to boil over. He should be happy to be home but all he could think about was how useless he’d be to everyone here. He should let Brienne fulfil her mission. She deserved better than he could offer, but he couldn’t handle the thought of her path diverging from his.

The emotions rising in his throat threatened to suffocate him before his old reflexes kicked in to push the feelings back down. To deny them, to keep well away from the dark side.

Fuck the Code.

Without the Force Jaime could be free of it once and for all.

His attention dropped to the lightsaber at his belt. In a rush he unclipped it and pushed it towars her, watching impatiently as her eyes grew even wider. It felt very important that she should have it. And even more important that he should not.

“Take it, Leks. I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I know it’s not much but the Force knows you shouldn’t be left on this planet without the means to defend yourself.”

“But it’s--”

“I’m really not that attached to it. You’d be doing me a favor, since I’d likely try to use it before I’ve fully adjusted to a new hand and end up slicing off another appendage if I ever tried to use it.” A part of him screamed over his affected nonchalance and he viciously smothered it. He had to give her some distance to make her choices. She couldn’t be expected to make plans with him clinging to her, figuratively or otherwise.

She eyed him for a long moment before taking the hilt from his hand gingerly, running a finger around the thin band of red chrome.

“You can finish the mission on your own if you want,” he said quietly, looking away toward the lights of the Senate District. “If anyone can pull it off, it’s you. I won’t stop you and I won’t get in your way. And I won’t pressure you to take me along out of some misguided light side pity.” He scrubbed his hand down his face. He was so tired. “But I made a promise to Catelyn Stark too, and I will do what I can if you let me.”

He didn’t want to pressure her, to force her hand. And he certainly didn’t want to entertain the piece of himself that was desperately howling not to let her leave him alone.

“You don’t even have to decide now. You can ask for a place to stay at the Jedi Temple, assuming you don’t mind a few dirty looks at your lack of training. Just don’t mention me and it’ll be fine. I can even transfer you some credits if you need them.” He wanted her to stay with him, to let him support her. But he also knew the person he was on King’s Landing. No one should be coerced into associating with the Primeslayer.

She didn’t reply, still staring down at the saber hilt in her lap.

He had to let her choose.

He got to his feet, still looking out at the city. “I have to go. I’m sure my sister knows I’ve landed-- even if she can’t sense me in the Force she has regular old-fashioned spies everywhere-- and she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Brienne looked up at him but didn’t move to stand up. He met her eyes for a long, lingering moment, trying to record the exact shade of blue, the precise sense of safety he felt while looking into them. Just in case. With a faint nod he turned to leave.

His footsteps seemed to echo as he crossed the landing pad toward its turbolift. Each step was an effort, just to keep moving, to not turn back, to let Brienne make her choice. He could feel the muscles in his shoulders tightening protectively into a stance he only now realized was his native state on King’s Landing. His hand felt heavy when he raised it to hit the lift’s call button.

“Wait.”

Jaime froze, his fingers hovering at the keypad, a flutter in his chest that might have been hope. He turned his head just enough to meet her eyes across the landing pad. The moment stretched long enough that Jaime started to wonder if she’d said anything at all, if maybe he’d conjured her voice through sheer wishful thinking. The feeling in his chest started to curdle around the edges--

“I’ll come with you.”

She hurried across the platform to his side, chewing her lip as she hesitantly reached for his hand. He knew it was dangerous to ignore the danger he might be putting her in, let alone to let down the shields he’d built up over years on the capital. But as her warm palm slipped into his it felt somehow easier to hope that maybe things could be different. Maybe he could be different.

Brienne was with Jaime, and the Force was with Brienne, and as the turbolift doors shut he realized that could be enough.