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The silence was heavy, bone deep.
It left Jaime cold.
"What is dead may never die," Asha Greyjoy had proclaimed before the siege had started. When the greenlanders had looked at her confusedly, she had elaborated. "They are the words of the Drowned God... I never realised they would prove so true."
The dead had thrown themselves at Winterfell's walls not long after, armed with nothing but their bare, skeletal hands and their otherworldly blue eyes. Frozen men had lingered in the distance, veiled in mist, silent even as their dead marionettes danced in the snow.
It was war, though death now stood on both sides.
Jaime had been standing on the battlements when they arrived, side by side with Brienne. They were both in armour, locked inside layers and layers of metal plate designed to keep them safe from outside attack. Every inch of her freckled skin had been obscured from his view, apart from her face and hands. It had made him sad. As usual, she had been stoic and silent, her cheeks flushed pink in the cold. When the dead had first proved undead, Brienne did not immediately turn to look at Jaime, but tightened her grip on Oathkeeper, her mouth drawing into a tight line.
"They're here."
"I can see that, wench."
He stole a glance at her, hoping that she would smile... just for a moment, for a fleeting moment before everyone in the castle - on the battlements and the parapets, in the bailey and the keep, in the kitchens and the crypt - faced death. It would be something to hold onto, at least, when everything went to shit. A reminder that life was worth living. To his immense happiness, Jaime had been duly rewarded with a slight upwards curve of her lips, almost imperceptible to the untrained eye. In the bitter cold of an endless winter, that smile had been ten days of sunshine, a hundred blazing hearths, a thousand campfires, and a million campfires. It was all the light and warmth in the world, and brighter than all the stars.
"You should go," she had said, still not meeting his eye. "They will want you in the keep. You are one of the few commanders with actual battle experience..."
"I wouldn't call the Greyjoy Rebellion experience. I never got close to Pyke; I mostly had to mind Robert and stop him falling overboard when he drunk too much."
That really had earnt him a smile. "Still, that is more than most. You will be needed." Already distracted by thoughts of battle, Brienne had looked out into the snow once more, her grin fading with every second. It had made Jaime feel cold. "You should go, ser."
"I won't leave you."
"You must," she had insisted. "I have my duties here, and you in the keep."
The rubies on Oathkeeper's hilt had shimmered when Brienne went to unsheathe the sword, but Jaime had stopped her with his golden hand. He had not wanted her violence in these last moments; he wanted her gentleness.
"Brienne..."
"...Jaime."
Her name had been a beginning, his an ending.
"You must go, Jaime. The dead will be at the gate soon."
He had reached across his body so he could grab her arm with his hand. It was armoured in steel - steel he had given her - but the ice cold feeling of the metal made him sad. He had wanted to touch her. Would he ever get to touch her?
"I can't leave you here," he had said, his voice breaking, "not without telling you... not without making sure that you know how I..."
Sheathing her sword back in her scabbard, Brienne had turned to look at him. Her blue eyed gaze had been determined and possessed none of the fear he felt. On that darkest of nights, she had been the only light in the world. She had become his only warmth too when she lifted her hand and touched his cheek, and her caress was as gentle as he remembered.
"I know, Jaime," she had whispered, her thumb brushing against his cheekbone. The moment felt as delicate and fragile as the first snowdrops in spring. "I know."
Jaime wanted to kiss her, to wrap her in his arms and make her knees go weak.
Damn the world, he thought. For just one moment, let's damn the world.
He had thought she might agree to stealing a moment for herself, for themselves, a brief sliver of wonder in an endless night. Therefore, his heart had nearly broken in two when she removed her hand.
"But we cannot do this now. The dead are here, and we must live."
He had not seen her for seven days and seven nights, yet the enemy kept coming. Waves and waves of monsters, nightmares, and horrors threw themselves against the ancient stone walls of Winterfell with no sign of abating. Having been forced to hole up in the keep with Jon Snow, Bran Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, and a host of other leaders, Jaime tried to imagine something... anything... that would keep the monsters at bay.
What is dead may never die, he had thought when they brought Asha Greyjoy into the makeshift infirmary, her eyes glassy and a bolt through her neck. When they had laid Asha's axe beside her, Jaime's mind went to Brienne, almost in prayer.
May she live, and live, and live...
In fact, during every miserable moment when he was not planning, scheming, arguing, sleeping, pissing, eating, and shivering, Jaime found himself thinking of Brienne. Due to the rotations Jon had ordered to keep the men well rested, he sometimes heard snippets of news; she had saved seven men from an ice spider on the postern gate, she had defended the north wall entirely by herself until soldiers could be re-supplied, and she had killed an Other with her magic sword.
Jaime had clung onto every whisper, every rumour, every murmur of her survival.
She knows, he had thought.
She cannot leave me without letting me know in return.
Given how Brienne had been the light guiding him home through the long days and nights of the siege, Jaime found it unsurprising that he felt so cold now it was over. In the end, it had been Bran Stark who imagined the circumstance to engineer the downfall of the Others - something about weirwoods, the mysteries of time, and blood sacrifice - but Jaime hardly cared, because he wanted Brienne and she was not here. He could not find her.
Anywhere.
Immediately after the dead had fallen, Jaime had gone in search of her. He looked in the Great Hall, the infirmary, the crypts, the kitchens, her private room, the armoury, the kennels, the bailey, the battlements, and the parapets, his eyes dancing along the zig-zagged crenellations in the hope he would spot her tall, proud shadow against the light of the moon. Still dressed in his armour, he ended up trudging through the snow looking for her. The hundreds of bodies of those who had fallen in battle - dead and living alike - were now being loaded into piles for burning. Although Bran had reassured those gathered in the keep that the fight was now over, nobody was taking any chances. Consequently, Jaime scanned the face of every dead person he saw, hoping and praying not to recognise a flash of white blonde hair and sapphire eyes.
I would know if she was dead, Jaime reassured himself. I would...
He saw her.
Brienne of Tarth was standing in the distance, her eyes downcast as a fire was lit not far from her. She looked tired, exhausted even, and her hair was matted with blood and dirt. Shadows danced across her face, revealing the tension in her jaw and the emotion in her expression. His sweet, innocent wench was sad at the slaughter, sad at the magnitude of death, sad at the dishonour of war, yet her light banished all those shades into the night.
"Brienne!" Jaime shouted, the word escaping him before he even had consciously thought to call to her. "Brienne!"
She looked up from the fire, her eyes scanning the darkness before her confusedly. It took a few moments for to lock onto his face but, the moment she did, a smile crossed Brienne's face that was so bright, beautiful, and brazen that it put the stars to shame.
Jaime was running before he could think, before he could breathe. He had wanted her for so long, his desire feeling like a purpling bruise; present, painful, but ever so tender. And now the dead were dead and the living alive, he could have her. Brienne was running too, her great long legs making her swift as a horse. Her smile did not abate, even when their armour clanged together and his hand was in her hair and his lips were on hers and oh... oh... oh...
The taste of her mouth and the slide of her tongue against his was almost too much, too sweet, that when she pulled away from the kiss, Jaime made an indignant sound at the back of his throat.
"Jaime," she said breathlessly. "I need you to know that I..."
He scooped his hand around the back of her neck, pulling her close so their lips were almost touching. Given her proximity, Jaime could almost taste her unspoken words on his tongue.
"I know wench," he whispered. "I know."