Chapter Text
“There’s a new rookie, a bit of a freak if you ask me, but she’s all yours for the next six months, Captain Lannister. I’d say try not to get her with child during that time, but I doubt that’ll be a worry after you’ve seen her face.”
Major Waters tosses him a bundle of clothing, intended for the new recruit. It should be beneath his station, to do the introductory tour, but ever since a crash left his right arm weakened and Jaime no longer considered fit for flying duties, there wasn’t much else that was left.
The other men in his unit chuckle, they’ve all heard about the latest pilot recruit who apparently was the ugliest maid anyone had ever seen, but Jaime’s interest was piqued once he heard it was a her . Brienne Tarth was their first woman in the programme, even though there were more women joining the military with the war showing no end in sight.
“Where’s she?”
“Waiting outside. Insists she’s ok to share a tent with the lads, but Major Tyrell thinks it would be a bad idea. Said you could make the call, Captain.”
He ignores the barbs behind the rank reference, knowing that the other men felt that his promotion after suffering a severe injury to his right arm was more pity than deserving, but nods in response, taking a folder with him as he exits their makeshift tent.
He would have been sent home, with his blue ribbon and all, if his father wasn’t a fucking general. But of course Tywin Lannister had to be, and retired or not, he still held enough sway over the Air Force that Jaime would retain the honour of serving until the war was over. In active service.
She salutes him as soon as he steps out into the sun, her eyes bright and back rod-straight, awaiting command.
“Good morning, ser,” she greets, her voice a surprising feminine contrast to her broad, masculine stature.
Gods, they weren’t lying when they said she was ugly - a nose that had clearly been broken once or twice, wide jaw, crooked teeth, overgrown eyebrows and freckles all across. But she had beautiful eyes - blue, bright and eager - why didn’t anyone talk about those?
“How old are you, Tarth?”
“Eighteen, ser.”
“Sure you can handle being in a tent with eleven men, older than you, who haven’t had sex in close to two years? It’s not going to be a camping trip.”
“I’ll be fine, ser.” She looks straight at him, her gaze unwavering, and Jaime nods lightly. “There’s a spare cot in there. Leave your things, I’ll take you around quickly before the morning run. Two minutes.”
She’s not going to have much trouble with the physical aspects of training, he realises by the end of the day - Brienne’s stronger than most of the recruits when they come in, and she’s eager to prove herself, like she’s been used to doing it her whole life. With a face like hers, the military was probably her best option - no living man would take her as his wife, work opportunities were few and far between for a lady, no matter how educated, and she seemed too naive for most of the world.
But Jaime’s impressed with her knowledge of the engines and repair machinery when they go to the garage, and she expresses some interest in helping the mechanics. He doesn’t disagree - most of the men have been trying to get out of repair hours, considering it below them to fix their planes.
She’s discreet, and helps him cover up when his arm acts up one afternoon when they’re reassembling an engine. It spasms suddenly when he’s holding one of the blades, with shooting pains up to his shoulder and he drops the blade, nearly slicing his own foot.
“Sorry, my hand slipped, ser,” she says too-loudly, and he can only nod gratefully in return. He tries to thank her, but she shakes her head quickly.
It’s only later, when they’re walking back after their dinner of dry rations, that he asks: “Why did you cover up for me, Tarth? They know I only have the one good hand, such… accidents, they’re bound to happen.”
“It’s only right, ser.”
“No need for the sers when it’s just us, Brienne,” he says, sighing softly. “The rigidity, it’ll get to you soon, but when it’s just us, I’m just Jaime, alright?
“Thank you. The other men, they look at my last name and that’s all they really care about. They fear my father’s name, but it’s his, not mine. I’ve heard them, they don’t think I should still be out here, think I’m a risk to their safety, and maybe they’re right. But I’m stuck here just as much as they are.”
Brienne startles and gapes, not quite knowing how to respond to his sudden honesty, and Jaime shakes his head with a laugh.
“Don’t let them take you away from yourself, cause they will. Why did you join the Air Force, Brienne?”
It’s her turn to scoff, and she deliberately steps into a patch where the moonlight is shining brightly on, looking him squarely in the eye for once.
“Look at me, at this face. No one’s going to marry a woman who looks the way I do. My father, he always wanted my brother to join the military, said there was real honour in it. But my brother’s dead and gone, so I guess he has to make do with me trying my best not to dishonour his name.”
He has too many questions - about her father, her brother, and why she speaks with resignation and weariness, but he finds himself blurting before he processes, as he always does.
“You’re not going to dishonour your father’s name, Brienne. Keep doing what you have, and you’ll get your chance. I know you’ll make good on it.”
He doesn’t try to refute her statement about being ugly , it is a fact that stands between them, and there’s no point in lying.
She turns to walk into the shared tent, but his murmur stops her in her tracks.
“Broken nose be damned, you’ve got beautiful eyes, Tarth. Remember that.”
He isn’t expecting a reaction, but hopes for one anyway - she merely pauses for a moment, but doesn’t turn around, before she enters the tent anyway. He should have caught himself, had no need to say it, but it just seemed like the right thing to say at that point - her eyes reminded him of the waters near where he had grown up, where he had swum with Tyrion on occasion when Tywin was away and the tutors were too new to say no to them.
That conversation becomes the first of many, and Jaime finds himself talking to Brienne on several stolen occasions over the next few months - neither of them are called upon to do scouting flights, they’re the only ones that are willing to do the mechanic work on a regular basis, and somehow, the former golden boy of the Air Force finds himself counting Brienne as his closest friend in the service.
He tells her about Tyrion, and how he worries that people will not take too kindly to him now that he is grown up and in public society, if their father is a good representative of others; about how his mother died on the birthing bed, and his closeness with Cersei. Cersei, who hasn’t written to him since he was told he’d never be able to write with his right hand again, or hold anything firmly with it, with her last letter talking about how excited she was to marry a wealthy businessman’s son, Robert Baratheon.
She tells him about Tarth, how she’s the only surviving child of four, and how it was to pick up self-defence and all the unkind things her nanny used to whisper in her ears whenever Brienne looked like she “fancied herself a little lady”. “You’ll never look lovely in a skirt or with paints on your skin,” Septa Roelle had said. “Only try to please your man in the dark, if he would have you in the first place.”
Their conversations are eventually taken into Jaime’s tent, which he’s given out of respect for his rank, albeit belatedly, despite Brienne’s initial hesitation that it wouldn’t be proper. But he convinces her otherwise, just like how he convinces her that she should take part in the squadron’s marathon race, “because you’ll beat them all”.
It doesn’t take long before the other men notice, and whispers of “Lannister’s whore” are heard. He worries if it bothers her, but she shakes it off. “My father always said that words are wind,” she told him one afternoon, as she brought him a rare piece of fresh bread.
"Why don't you leave, if there's nothing left here for you to do? You have nothing to prove, Jaime," she says that evening, after he rants about how they left him with some of the young mechanics that day, while she was on fuelling duty for those going on scouting missions.
Because of you, he wishes he could say, but he knows how she'd react, how anyone would react. It would be wholly inappropriate given their direct chain of command, and Jaime bites his tongue for one of the rare times in his life.
"There's still some satisfaction in seeing the planes take off - it still is a marvel. I told myself when I was in my first year, that if they ever stopped being a joy to be around, whether it's being in the cockpit or anyway else, then I'd think very hard about leaving. But that hasn't changed. I don't know if it ever will. I hate having to be a babysitter for the children they've been bringing in, but if that's all I'm going to get, then I think that's got to be the deal."
A dullness flickers over her gaze for a moment before she mumbles, "I'm sorry you've been saddled with me so much. The others...well you know."
Jaime grimaces, wishing it hadn't come off that way, but it's too late to try and reverse how his words came across, and changes the topic.
He asks her if she still pines after Renly Baratheon, a handsome young man she bashfully tells him about one evening when he asks if she ever learnt how to dance, and Brienne looks at his jaw for a while too long before she shakes her head wistfully. “He’d never have fallen for the likes of me,” before she catches his dismay and continues: “He was in love with another boy.”
Jaime only realises then, when there’s a sense of relief, that he’d been dreading hearing her hopeful admission of unrequited love, and oh . The dreams of rippling blue waters and unclouded skies start to blend, and make sense, and he clenches his fists, consciously taking slower breaths. Fuck, I’m going to be the ruin of her.
“Do you miss her?” Brienne queries, when they’re snapping twigs to add into the small fire they rely on for warmth - a habit they only developed after Brienne moved her cot into the corner of Jaime's tent, after he caught Hunt and Connington showing each other stolen pieces of her undergarments and boasting about being able to take her virginity.
"If anything happens to Tarth under your watch, it's going to be your badges in the fire, and all of those men will be stripped of any honours after this is all over, I'll make sure of it," Jaime had told Major Waters, when he had originally dismissed the complaint. It was one of the few times that Jaime had threatened to take any action using his father's name, and they both knew it. It hadn't stopped the ugly words, but at least he knew she would be safe.
He’s taken aback, because she’s obviously talking about Cersei, but how did she know, I never let it on . But Jaime’s often thinking about how they had been inseparable as children, how so many of his memories before he departed for the military were of her, of wanting to fulfill all the dreams she had for them - we are one and the same .
I have to be honest with her .
“She’s the only woman I’ve ever been with. I know how it sounds, but she was all I had and I believed I was all she would ever want. Or need.
I loved her - would have done anything for her, I nearly didn't join the military because she didn't want us to be apart and I would have stayed with her always. But not anymore, I guess. Not since this,” he says, gesturing to his right arm, with gnarly scars where they tried to fix it.
“But it doesn’t matter, I think. I don’t miss her, I just wish I could have changed things.”
He recognises the softening relief in her shoulders, not too different from his own before.
“Not the way I’d miss you if you were to leave now.”
“Jaime…we can't go there.”
“No, we can't, but I wish we could, Brienne. I’ll make it right, I’ll do right by you and your father, when this is all over, if you’ll have me. I won’t let you leave with the stain of being called those names. Gods, this should be different, not like this, not in my tent.
You’ve been a beacon since your arrival, Brienne. I had been thinking about quitting, leaving the army for good, but all these times we’ve shared have been worth the stay.”
He moves his right hand closer to hers, she’s still clenching on to a thin twig and rubbing it nervously. Glancing down for permission briefly before covering her hand with his own, Jaime leans in and gently kisses the back of her hand.
“I’ll always be yours, if you’ll have me.”