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She deserves punishment, she knows, for betraying Jaime, and she has borne most of it with acceptance. The long, slow-healing slash to her ribs Lem Lemoncloak had given her after she’d killed Lady Stoneheart. All of her other injuries, still not fully healed – her arm, her ribs, her cheek – and the constant dull pain they still give her. The suspicion, if not outright hostility, of Jaime’s soldiers when he’d led her, Pod and Hyle back to his camp to recover. And, worst of all, the anger she sees in Jaime himself, the way he hardly looks at or speaks to her, the clench of his jaw and the coldness in his eyes. She deserves it all.
In the face of all of that, she knows it should not bother her when she sees Jaime flirting with Hildy, a camp follower who had apparently come with the Lannister army from Riverrun; and yet it does, immensely.
Jaime had grudgingly allowed Brienne to sleep in his tent, so that she would be under his protection while she healed, but her gratitude for this one benevolent act had soon been dampened when she saw how frequently Hildy sidled in on the pretext of bringing him food or laundry. She had never thought Jaime to be interested in whores – he had been too devoted to Cersei, before – but it is clear he likes this woman. It seems odd, because she is not very pretty. Prettier than Brienne, of course, but not by much. Her hair is brown and shaggy, her features plain, and there is dirt on her feet.
She is bold, too. “Ready to break your vows yet, m’lord?” she asks saucily, every time she enters the tent with a plate of food or a pile of washing.
“Not yet, Hildy,” Jaime always answers, grinning. Brienne hates the yet.
Hildy always pouts in response before she leaves. Sometimes she touches him, too, which Brienne hates the most. Once or twice, Brienne has seen her pinch his arse or squeeze his cock through his breeches, not caring that Brienne can see, before darting out of the tent like a girl playing a game. The worst part is that Jaime never seems to mind. Instead, he stares musingly at the tent flap she has just disappeared through, a faint smile lingering on his face.
It seems inevitable that they will fuck. Even thinking the word fuck, especially in connection with Jaime, brings colour to Brienne’s cheeks, but it is hard to avoid thinking about it when it’s right in front of her like that, and she is trapped in her bed by her injuries, unable to get away from it. Her presence in the tent seems to be the only thing stopping them.
She wishes she were bold enough to flirt with Jaime like that, to be so sure that he would welcome it, to touch him so casually and make him smile. But Jaime has never wanted her, and he wants her less than ever now.
That only seems to make her want him more.
At night she thinks of him to help her sleep. She has had nightmares ever since Stoneheart, awful nightmares, but thoughts of Jaime sometimes help to chase them away. Listening to his breathing in the dark, she dreams up sweet and wildly unrealistic scenarios –Jaime wrapping a Lannister cloak around her shoulders, Jaime holding her and comforting her when she cries, Jaime kissing her in the bathtub at Harrenhal. That last one is the most dangerous, because it tempts her to imagine other things – things no highborn maid has any business imagining, especially not one who looks like her, and especially not when the real Jaime is asleep just a few feet away, probably dreaming of Cersei, or Hildy.
It is torture, being so close to him when she knows that he hates her.
*
Jaime takes to eating with his men around the cookfire rather than in his tent.
Anything to get away from Brienne of Tarth and her big sad eyes and the thousand inexplicable emotions she provokes in him. They need to talk, he knows that, but he still has not the vaguest idea of what to say to her when half of him wants to abandon her here and never look on her again and the other half wants to pull her broken, bandaged body into his arms and hold her against him until this awful misery is finally gone from her. Until he decides, the easiest course is to avoid her.
One warm, clear night in front of the fire, a high-spirited Daven somehow convinces Jaime to drink considerably more wine than he usually would. When Daven eventually disappears into his tent with his favourite camp follower and Jaime reluctantly rises to retire to his own tent, he finds his head feels foggy; he is on the edge of drunkenness. It’s no harm, he decides. Mayhaps now he’ll sleep better, without Brienne’s breathing and his own conflicting thoughts keeping him awake.
He is almost at the tent when he hears a familiar voice behind him. “Lord Commander?” it says, coyly.
He turns. It is so dark he can hardly see Hildy, but he knows it’s her. Perhaps it’s the wine, but some reckless urge rises up in him. This might be what he needs to make him forget—
He steps close to her, and she responds instantly, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her body flush against his. She’s not shy, this one. It’s been a long time since he’s been this close to a woman, and the feel of her soft curves beneath her thin shift quickly makes him hard.
“Finally decided to accept my offer, m’lord?” she asks mischievously.
“Your many, many offers,” he says drily, and she laughs.
In an odd way, he is not quite sure what to do, but Hildy seems assured enough for both of them. She stands on tiptoe to press open-mouthed kisses down his neck, and he closes his eyes.
Brienne would not have to stand on tiptoe, he thinks suddenly, unbidden. Brienne would be the perfect height to kiss him. She wouldn’t, though, not the way Hildy is. He would have to coax her kisses out of her, and they would be shy, timid, maidenly kisses, at least at first. But he would be patient with her, he’d kiss her until the shyness left her, until she was soft and pliant and wanting underneath him, until her hand was on his cock, just like that—
She grips him harder, and he thinks, Yes, Brienne. But then her hand is gone, and she’s staring up at him, because she’s shorter than him suddenly, and her eyes are brown instead of blue, and she’s not Brienne, she’s—
“Hildy,” she reminds him. “My name’s Hildy.”
Fuck. He’d said it aloud.
“Forgive me,” he mutters. “I didn’t mean—"
Hildy steps away from him. She is looking at him with a mix of bemusement and pity.
“Look, I don’t mind what you call me, ser,” she says. “But if it’s her you want, she’s in your tent. What’s stopping you?”
What’s stopping him, indeed? He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “She’s a highborn maid. Not yet twenty. With three broken ribs.” And she betrayed me.
Hildy smirks. “Her ribs will heal. Go to her. If she turns you down, you know where to find me.”
She walks away, hips swaying, and Jaime is left with no more excuses.
When he returns to the tent, however, Brienne is fast asleep, looking more peaceful than he’s seen her in a long time. He sits on a stool beside her bed and allows himself a good long look at her, something he hasn’t done since they arrived at the camp. Her bandaged cheek, her bruised neck, her broken arm in its splint. Long pale hair splayed across the pillow, pale eyelashes resting on her freckled cheeks. She looks so very young like this.
Then her brow furrows; she is frowning. Even in sleep, something troubles her. She stirs slightly, and her mouth moves, forming his name. Jaime. Her face twists in anguish.
Something cracks inside him.
Suddenly he cannot bear to see her like this for one second longer. She is broken, and he is the cause, and all of his petty sulking has only made it worse. He leans over her and kisses the crease in her brow. “Forgive me,” he murmurs against her skin.
He leans away. Her expression clears, the frown vanishing, and he rises, meaning to slip away to his own bed before she wakes. But then she stirs, and her eyes open. Gods, her eyes. Even in the darkness of the tent, they are luminous. They find him and hold him, and suddenly he is powerless to move.
If he hadn’t known he loved her before, he knows it now.
“Jaime?” she whispers. With difficulty, she sits up.
He sits back on the stool. “Pardon me, my lady. I did not mean to wake you.”
She blinks at him. “Were you watching me?”
“You were frowning in your sleep. You’ve been having troubled dreams, wench.”
She looks down at her hands, twisting in the blankets. “Yes,” she says quietly.
Chest aching, he takes her hand and kisses the back of it. He does not miss her tiny gasp.
“No more suffering on my account, Brienne,” he tells her, and his voice comes out rougher than he’d expected. “I’ve been behaving like a child since we arrived here, and I’m sorry. You have endured things that no man or woman should ever have to endure. You should not have to deal with my pettiness on top of it. It ends now. Forgive me.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I betrayed you.”
“Yes, and with good reason. I knew that from the beginning. I was angry because I didn’t expect it from you, but when I put that aside – do you think I’d ever truly ask you to choose my life over your own, Brienne? Over your life and a child’s? Do you really believe I’d ask that of you?”
He is still holding her hand, and he strokes his thumb over it, back and forth. At this gesture, one fat tear slides down her damaged cheek and soaks into the bandage. “It was for Pod I did it, not for myself. I would have died for you, Jaime, believe me. I wanted to.”
He grips her hand tight. “You think that’s what I want?” he asks, and the sudden anger in his voice makes her blink, startled. “You think I want you to die for me? Gods, Brienne, I want you to live.” His voice cracks. “I need you to live.”
She is staring at him, confused. She opens her mouth, and (fuck Renly Baratheon) he knows she’s about to ask him why. He doesn’t know how to answer, not in words, so he surges forward and kisses her instead.
She freezes against him, and he runs his hand through her hair to soothe her, forcing himself to kiss her gently even though he’s desperate for her. He moves his hand down her neck, her back, pressing her close to him, and slowly she melts under his touch, just as he’d imagined. It takes a moment for her to kiss him back, and when she does it’s shy and clumsy but so, so sweet. Against his better judgement, he coaxes her mouth open and the tiny sound she makes when their tongues touch is more arousing than anything Hildy has ever done. He kisses her deeper, kisses her breathless, kisses her until she’s clinging to him like a swooning maid from a song. It’s only when her broken rib makes her hiss in pain that he finally comes to his senses and moves away.
She leans back gingerly on her pillows and stares at him, eyes wide, cheeks pink, lips red and kiss-swollen. It takes all the restraint he has not to pounce on her again.
There is a moment of silence, and then she says, “I thought you wanted Hildy.”
It takes him a second to even remember who Hildy is. When he does, he laughs. “I want nobody but you,” he tells her, realising the truth of it even as he says it. It brings him a strange kind of relief.
“Nobody?” Her voice is so soft he barely hears it. He sees her eyes cloud over, and knows the doubts are creeping back in. We know each other too well, he’d told her once, and it was true. Her every thought is written on her face.
They will speak properly on the morrow, but for now he kisses her again, softly, sweetly, caressing her undamaged cheek with his thumb. He has never been a gentle man, but he can be gentle for Brienne. “Nobody, sweetling.”
For the first time since Pennytree, she smiles, small and tentative, but it feels like the sun coming out.
“I want nobody but you either,” she says quietly. “But you knew that.”
His heart lifts. “I knew no such thing,” he teases her. “Are you certain? If Hyle Hunt were to make you another of his enticing marriage proposals—”
She scowls. “Jaime.”
And just like that, she is back to herself. He feels a weight lift from his shoulders.
“Sleep, wench,” he tells her, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “And dream a sweet dream this time.”
She gives him another of those rare, precious smiles. “I will.”
*
She does.