Work Text:
Main Entryway
As soon as Brienne stepped out of the rental car, the cloying smell of decay overpowered every other scent. She wrinkled her nose at the assault and peered around the grounds to take it all in. The vegetation was somehow both overgrown and dead, swarming the cracked and dirty walls like the mythical Others, and the windows were broken in uneven shards that gleamed like deadly teeth. Evenfall Hall sagged under the weight of a hundred years of negligence, and every last, rundown inch of it was hers.
“Wow.” Jaime got out of the passenger side and rested his hands on his hips, surveying the scene with an elegant curl of his lip. “This place is a shithole.”
“Hey,” she said with only moderate offense. He wasn't wrong—she'd been halfway to that description herself—but hearing it from someone else made an indignant streak of protectiveness rear up. “That's my ancestral keep you're talking about.”
It was absurd that she even owned a keep; she certainly hadn't asked for it. But her father's will had been explicit—unlike her father, who had so often not engaged with her at all.
“Lucky you.” Jaime tossed his mane of golden curls and gave her a winning smile that made her pulse pick up.
Of anyone she knew, Jaime understood the weight of the duty placed in her lap—he bore it himself with Casterly Rock, the Lannister keep-turned-historical site that he'd inherited years ago. That experience was one of the main reasons she'd invited him to come with her to check out the state of her own anchor. The other reason didn't bear thinking about.
Jaime pushed his expensive aviator sunglasses up on his head to reveal amused green eyes and then bowed, gesturing toward the front door. “Your palace awaits, Lady Tarth.”
Brienne grunted and picked her way over the uneven, weed-strewn cobblestones to the huge front doors. She had a passcode for the modern lockbox that was attached to a thick, rusted chain holding the doors together. The small hunk of plastic looked silly against the enormity of the keep it was protecting, but it had done its job to keep people out, if not the weather and vegetation. She entered the code—her brother Galladon's birthday, an unsurprising choice by her father—and it clicked loose.
She half-expected the chains to crumble into dust, but they held steady, scraping red streaks across her palms when she unwound them from the door handles. Jaime stood nearby, picking at a vine that appeared to be crawling up the entire, towering front of the keep.
“I don't think this is safe to remove,” he mused. “It looks like a structural vine.”
“Be quiet,” she muttered as she carefully set the chains aside.
Jaime let that go unremarked, a sign of growth as far as she was concerned. She had known him five years now, and at the beginning he'd never let a single thing she'd said to him pass without some sort of retort.
It irritated her a little that she missed it, though, those times now when he remained quiet. But everything about Jaime irritated her lately—although most of that was the fault of her own, foolish heart.
It was one thing to become close friends with her fellow editor whom she'd been at odds with since the day she'd started at Winterfell Publishing Company. It was another thing entirely to be in love with that same man. Especially when that man was notoriously reluctant to date anyone after escaping from a bad relationship a few years ago with his long-time girlfriend, Cersei Hill. Since Brienne had grown closer to him, she'd suspected that he was nervous putting his fragile heart back out there; she'd tried over the last year to talk him through dating apps and the bar scene as if she knew what she was doing herself. Neither of them had had much luck, but helping him look, and then talking about their bad dates over cheese-covered monstrosities at their favorite local diner, had done a bang-up job of making her fall in love with him.
Or perhaps all the time together eating and laughing and arguing and bemoaning dating had only hurried along the inevitable. Once Brienne had seen beneath Jaime's prickly cover to the witty, caring, and honorable core of him, love had seemed the only reasonable result.
But she was determined not to be one of his many failed experiments while he figured out what he wanted—she liked being around him too much to ruin what they had on the whims of her lonely heart, even if that attention sometimes hurt for what it didn't mean. But she'd already been through that once with Renly, and although Jaime was at least attracted to women, Brienne had learned not to interpret warm friendship as anything more.
Instead she'd nudged him towards women who had the good parts of Cersei—looks, mostly, from what he'd said—and none of the bad, but they never stuck. Their search had branched out to other types of women, and men, too, and those had all also failed.
“Maybe I'm destined to only ever love one person,” Jaime had moaned one especially dismal night early on, and though Brienne had talked him down from that ledge, it had lingered in the months since.
It was a horrible thought, but Jaime and Cersei had gotten together so young, perhaps she was his structural vine the same way the ones creeping all over Evenfall Hall were supporting the now-weakened stone.
Brienne hoped not. Jaime deserved better than that, no matter who he ended up with. But whoever was the key to his tender, locked-up heart, she needed him to solve that mystery soon. Mostly so he could be happy, but also so she could move on and stop imagining that it could ever be her.
She felt him staring curiously at her as she stood there unmoving with her hands on the door handles.
“Afraid they'll tip over if you open them?” he asked.
“No.” She scrambled for an excuse that wasn't mooning over you, actually, an activity she was becoming far too familiar with. “Just taking in the momentousness of the occasion.”
He snorted. “It's a building, Stacks, not a religious experience.”
“Generations of Tarths have lived in this building, ruling the island as the Evenstar.”
“And now generations of rats live in it, ruling the Keep as Evenrodents. Think of how dismayed they'll be to be forcefully removed from their kingdom. You're like the First Men conquering the Children of the Forest.”
She shot him a dry look but he only beamed at her, pleased with himself. Obnoxious as he could sometimes be, she preferred this Jaime to the bitter, snarling one of their early days, when he'd been the outcast editor who'd fought for bland pablum that would sell to millions, instead of the more difficult-to-market, rare gems that she preferred. Somewhere in their endless battles over money versus pride, they had found common ground. He'd shown her that the mass appeal books were not inherently bad, and that the profit they brought in could be used to open up space for the targeted niche novels she fought for. In return, he'd told her that she'd reminded him of why he'd gotten into publishing in the first place, and had started looking for his own occasional treasures.
“Are you not strong enough to open the doors on your own?” he asked, so innocently that she scowled at him.
“I'm strong enough,” she growled, and threw them open with more force than was probably safe given the way the hinges creaked and the wood shook when they banged into the walls. Sunlight flooded into the main entryway, casting their shadows across a long roll of carpet rotting on the floor. There were noises in the rafters, small animals scurrying away at the sudden intrusion of light and noise into their haven. Dust puffed up and Brienne coughed.
“Impressive,” Jaime murmured, though when she turned to look at him, he was watching her.
“Keep your snarky commentary to a minimum,” she snapped and he blinked, looking briefly surprised.
“I didn't realize you were so touchy about a collapsing pile of stone.”
“I didn't realize you were going to be a snooty ass about the place.”
“We've known each other all these years,” he said snidely. “That seems like it's your fault.”
It was, but not for the reasons he thought. She huffed and stepped into the entryway, felt Jaime following after her.
The entry was huge, with soaring ceilings and hallways that led off to each side through arches carved with suns and crescent moons. An imposing stairway rose up out of the ground ahead of them like a cresting wave, leading to a second floor. According to the floorplans she'd been given, there was a ballroom to their left, kitchens to their right, and bedrooms on the next level. There were other rooms as well—storage and guardrooms, what passed for bathrooms in medieval times, assorted servant's quarters. The place was smaller than Casterly, but still far too big for Brienne to handle on her own, even if it hadn't been in need of a blowtorch and a round or seven with a pressure washer.
She had come here to finally decide what to do with the place. When her father had died almost two years ago, she'd been his only living relative, and while dealing with the fraught trauma of burying him and closing out his affairs, Evenfall Hall had been placed in her care with everything else. There had been a note, too, written in his hand. She'd opened it hoping to find some words of wisdom or—even more unlikely—an outpouring of love, though he had never been that man in life. Instead it had said,
The keep and all of its history is yours now, Brienne. It's been neglected for too long, and I'm sorry for my part in that. Do with it what you will, as long as you visit it before you decide.
He hadn't even signed it.
He hadn't been a bad father, but she'd been furious with him as she'd sat in the lawyer's plush chair and read Selwyn Tarth's last directive. He'd given her food and shelter and clothing, space to do as she pleased, helped her pay for her degree. He'd come to her graduation and congratulated her when she'd gotten the job at Winterfell. All of the things a father should do, but he'd done them from a distance that she'd never learned how to cross. After Galladon had died, her father had simply seemed to decide that it was safer to care for and not about his only remaining child.
No wonder she'd fallen so desperately for Renly—she hadn't understood then that kindness could be normal.
Even so, Brienne wasn't going to ignore her father's last request. She'd only needed to put it off for a while, until the emotional whirlwind that had seized her with the death of her last living relative had ebbed. Jaime had helped her through much of that, bringing her snacks at work, shouldering some of the load when she started to flounder, even remembering the one-year anniversary of her father's death one lonely Saturday and taking her to the park for a simple lunch.
Though she knew better than to read into it, those actions had been added to the endless list of reasons that she'd been bound to fall for him. She tried to compartmentalize her feelings and just enjoy being his friend and all of the benefits that came with that rarefied status. To stop hoping that someday he might look up and see her across the diner table and realize that she'd been the one he was waiting for all this time—no matter how many chances he'd had to do so and never seized.
But hope was a tenacious beast. She just had to be more stubborn still and keep her heart from reading signals into their most innocuous interactions. Even if some days outrunning her feelings for him felt like a marathon.
“Look at this,” he said now.
“What is it?”
He was crouched off to the side of the carpet, rubbing his hands on the floor. “This is all marble.”
She toed flaps of carpet out of the way and squatted to examine the ground. Under the dirt and caked-on grime, she was able to scratch out enough of a clear space to prove Jaime right. Brienne scanned the line of the carpet, then out to the arches, and her mouth dropped open in shock.
“Maker's balls,” she breathed to Jaime's evident delight. There was more marble here than she'd seen in a single place before. The floors were all made of it, and some of the inner columns, and even the stairway.
“I guess we know why Tarth's marble quarries ran dry.” Jaime stood, his knees cracking as he did. “Makes your decision easy, too.”
Brienne brushed her fingertips over the cool stone. “Does it?”
“Obviously. I'm doubling down on my first instinct: sell the place. Sell it in pieces if you want to make the most money. Wealthy people will love owning a chunk of history that they can get carved into busts of themselves.”
She looked around the entryway with fresh eyes, calculating the rough square footage. If she did sell, she could make a fortune. Tarth marble was legendary, especially because the quarries had been empty for decades. The revenue from the marble alone could keep her comfortable for a very long time.
It felt wrong, though, to decide based purely on greed and a single room. Her father had wanted her to look around, and she would do as he'd asked before making any final decisions. Besides, Evenfall was a long way from Winterfell, and she had started to wonder lately if a change of scenery was what she needed. A distance she could travel where Jaime's pull couldn't reach.
She shook her head and stood, too.
“Let's keep looking around,” she told Jaime, stopping before a tapestry that was drooping down from where it had been secured to the wall. It was huge, over twice her own height, and as she neared, she could make out the careful detail with which it had been woven. With gentle swipes, she dislodged dirt and more dust, excavating the scene underneath while Jaime hovered nearby, watching.
It appeared to be Evenfall Hall itself, bustling with activity on a bright day. Standing on the top of the keep in a scale that would have made them as tall as this tapestry, were a man and a woman holding hands. A pointed star hovered over them and their two-dimensional heads were turned towards each other.
It was difficult to tell for sure, but Brienne thought they might be smiling.
“What do you think this is about?” she asked Jaime.
He stood with her shoulder-to-shoulder and the subdued, pleasant smell of his cologne settled in her nose, masking the musky scents of the keep.
“Propaganda,” he announced after a minute of study.
She touched the feet of the woman. It was as high up as she could reach, even with her too-tall body and too-long arms. “You don't think it's more? A testament to their devotion?”
“In a place like this?” His eyes tracked over the length of the tapestry, then beyond to encompass the entire entryway. “There's no love in places like this. People married because they had to, they lived stilted, miserable lives together in pursuit of wealth and power, and then they died, leaving their children to pick up the depressing flag in the name of duty. A tapestry like this was woven either by someone who wanted to make nice with the Evenstar, or at the direction of the Evenstar to show off to his guests. But I promise you, Stacks, there isn't any truth in a single one of those threads.”
“That's dismal.” Brienne dropped her hand back to her side. Was the woman's smile more resigned than happy? Had it all truly just been duty? Was Brienne once again reading made-up romance into a simple act of pragmatism?
“That's history. You should know that—you've barged into my office enough times ranting about inaccuracies an editor let slip in some book or another. Never my books, of course.”
“Of course,” she said dryly.
“Consider that tapestry yet another reason to sell—you'll be breaking the yoke of the falsely noble idea of honoring your ancestors.” He gestured at the woman. “She'd want you to take your money and do what you want with it.”
“You didn't sell Casterly. Why are you so keen on me selling Evenfall?”
When she turned her head to face him, she found he was looking at her, the two of them mirroring the tapestry couple's pose; for a wild second she wondered if he'd reach out and hold her hand like them as well. But Jaime's eyes were serious, his mouth in an unsmiling line. “Legacy is a burden, Brienne. You don't need to carry any more weight on those broad shoulders, strong and capable though they may be.”
“No room with you there?” she poked at him, trying to tug that dark worry from his face.
He only smiled, and his did look sad. “Exactly.” He licked his lips and for a moment it felt like he might take her hand. She caught her breath when he leaned infinitesimally nearer, the sunlight streaming in through the open doors highlighting the muscle jumping at the bright edge of his jaw. But Jaime quickly ducked his head and spun on his heel. “Come on,” he said. “Let's check out the ballroom. If we lose daylight we'll never be able to see anything, and who knows what other valuable materials there might be.”
He strode away under the arch, head held proudly, leaving her off-balance in his wake. Her heart was pounding but there was no one there to hear except the couple on the tapestry and her own mind scolding her for giving in to false hope.
Brienne took a steadying breath and stared up at them. She didn't know why her father hadn't sold Evenfall himself, but she wondered if he'd ever come here and seen this tapestry, too, had felt the same responsibility to ancestors she didn't even have names for. She ran her fingers over the fine threads once more, studying the man and woman's expressions. It was impossible to know what they were feeling, too distorted by time and distance to tell. An ink blot test for the heart.
“I hope you were happy,” she murmured, before following Jaime deeper into the keep.
Ballroom
Jaime had already pushed open the doors to the ballroom by the time Brienne caught up to him after a quick detour to check out a small garderobe. Thankfully, whatever sewage might once have been in there had turned to dirt, and the only remaining smell had been earthy. Scanning every crack in the wall and every pile of suspicious detritus, she stepped through the doors of the ballroom just as Jaime was attempting to pull aside an old, thick velvet curtain. It came apart in his hands, instead, crumpling to the floor around him like a discarded gown.
Light burst through the window and caught the dust that had exploded up from the ground and was now swirling around Jaime, outlining him in a glittering aura.
It would have been funny if it hadn't felt like a pointed commentary on how she saw him these days. Brienne didn't want to be in love with Jaime Lannister. She had never intended to even talk to him outside of work, but then there had been the incident with Catelyn Stark's daughter, Sansa.
Sansa had written a novel of such intensely personal trauma that it had felt true, and Cat had refused to publish it.
“It will never make money,” she'd said when Brienne had brought the book to Cat on Sansa's behalf after the younger woman's submission had crossed her desk—slipped to Brienne by her assistant Podrick. “Why subject her to such a draining process?”
Brienne had tried to convince Cat that if she didn't do it, someone else would, that it was an exquisitely written book, that Brienne wanted to help guide Sansa and protect both her reputation and her words, but it had been for nothing. Already exhausted from the other projects that she was giving her all to, concerned that she'd used up any goodwill she might have had with her boss, and worried that Sansa would either have to shelve her dream or entrust it to someone who would chew up her and her manuscript and spit them out again, Brienne had hid away in the unused stairwell and had a good cry.
Which was how she'd discovered that the stairwell was not, in fact, unused. Instead, Jaime used it every day instead of taking the elevator, which explained a lot about the state of his shapely calves and butt. He'd found her there and called her Stacks—the nickname he'd given her when she'd first moved into her office with her piles of books, ARCs, and submissions to read—and then, shockingly, he'd sat down next to her and asked, “What could possibly make the inestimable Brienne Tarth cry?”
Brienne still wasn't sure what had compelled her to tell him. They'd barely moved to polite speaking terms by then, and though it had been an improvement from the constant arguing, she'd never have thought that Jaime would acknowledge her tear-stained face, at least not unless he meant to make fun of her for it.
He hadn't made fun of her at all. Instead, he'd provided advice and commiserated with her on Cat's poorly made, compromised decision. When Brienne had eventually taken her updated argument to Catelyn, Jaime had agreed to go with her, had sat quietly until Brienne had indicated she wanted his input, which he'd provided passionately.
“She's the fiercest editor you've got here, Cat,” Jaime had ended with. “If it were my manuscript, I wouldn't trust anyone but her to shepherd it.”
In retrospect, that had perhaps been the moment that she'd first started to fall in love with him.
Now here they were years later, Sansa a successful author and Jaime and Brienne close friends touring a decrepit old keep. Jaime was sparkling in the sunlight, and he turned to smile at her as she entered the room, as if she were dressed for a ball and he her waiting suitor.
“These curtains have the consistency of wet toilet paper,” he said, dispelling that pretty illusion.
“I don't need curtains anyway.” Brienne pulled another set down and Jaime pulled a third set and the room was suddenly alive with light. “Wow.” She tilted her head back to admire the gilded chandelier glimmering in the sun, the decorative ceiling visible through the dirt. “This is stunning.”
“Might be nicer than Casterly's,” he admitted. She shot him a look of overdone shock and he rolled his eyes. “If someone spent several months and too much money completely refurbishing it.”
“I'm not afraid of a little hard work.”
“This isn't a little work, Stacks. This is an intense commitment. You'd have to spend every weekend traveling back here to make sure it stayed on track, spend every minute of free time during the week answering the designer's endless questions, not to mention the cost. And for what? A fancy ballroom no one will dance in?” He turned away, shaking his head.
She frowned at his back. Jaime had been firm about selling since she'd first discussed it with him a week ago. He'd caught her at lunch, scrolling through photos of the keep on her phone, and she'd been grateful for his opinion, even though he'd been uncharacteristically serious in delivering it. On a whim she'd asked him to come on this walkthrough, and he'd quickly agreed, regardless of the plane ride it took to get here. He'd repeated his opinion, several times, on the drive from the airport. But this was shifting into aggressive in a way he hadn't been.
“Did you go through all of that with Casterly?” she asked, watching the tense line of his shoulders as he walked slowly around the ballroom, examining it.
“Not myself, but my mother. Even though I was young, I remember when my father put the responsibility in her hands. She'd work late into the evening day after day, or talk endlessly on the phone in between making me lunch and taking me to the park. It wore her out, and she wouldn't let herself rest until it was done and by then she was halfway through her pregnancy with Tyrion.”
It wasn't difficult to make the leap from there that Jaime obviously had. His mother had died giving birth to Tyrion, an event that had been a sea change in Jaime's life, and there was clearly some part of him that believed that the stress of reconstructing Casterly Rock had been part of that.
Six months ago, Jaime had told Brienne the story of his mother's death over a shared bottle of wine—how devastated he'd been, how his father had closed himself off completely from his sons, how Jaime had turned to his childhood friend, Cersei, and she'd given him the scraps of affection he'd been so desperate for, starting a connection that would only grow more twisted and unbalanced as they got older. Brienne had told him she understood what it was to want to be loved so much that any barely welcoming harbor would do, and he'd crumpled in her arms as though she'd cut some invisible string.
She remembered holding him afterward, the way he'd been so solid and warm in her embrace, the feel of his hair against her cheek when she'd laid her head on the top of his. That had been the night she'd realized she was in love with him, and it had taken all of her considerable willpower not to kiss him.
Sometimes she wondered if she should have done it and blamed it on the emotionally fraught moment. It would have helped with the daydreaming about what his mouth might feel like, although it would have probably made every other moment worse knowing it for sure and not being able to do more.
Moments like now, when he was pursing those lips as he studied an empty pedestal, running his long, strong fingers over the curves and crevices. Surely it would be more difficult to know if his mouth would be soft or fierce, if his day-old stubble would prickle as he kissed down her neck, if his hands would grip her tight enough to leave marks.
Not much more difficult, though.
Jaime must have felt her devouring him with her stare, because he looked up suddenly, and his eyes darkened when he met hers.
“Everything all right?” he asked softly.
Not at all, she thought.
Brienne swallowed and nodded quickly, pointing at the pedestal. “Is that marble, too?”
“It is.” He said it slowly, as though he knew she was trying to distract him, but after one more lingering second, he turned his attention back to it. “They all seem to be. They probably held ostentatious displays of flowers, which I know you hate so it's for the best that they're empty.”
“Not all flowers.”
“Just roses. Red ones.” Of course he remembered the details. Telling him about Connington had been a significant moment for her, delivered in a hitched voice after an especially disastrous date she'd been on. But Jaime was always recalling even throwaway comments, or showing up with a small trinket and a genial It made me think of you in explanation. Brienne's desk was scattered with mementos, and she had nearly an entire shelf of one bookcase arranged with more at home, too.
“I can picture a ball here. With flowers,” she said. “White ones.”
“And blue, I hope,” he said, moving closer. “The color of your beautiful eyes.”
“I—I guess,” she stammered, feeling her cheeks heat. She hated that he could still throw her off-balance with a single reckless compliment. “Have there been any parties at Casterly?”
“No. My father was adamant that Casterly be respected as the political and military might he insisted it was. A ball would have been too frivolous.” His mouth twitched into a smirk. “Maybe I should now that he's gone. If we dance extra loud, perhaps he'll hear us in his tomb under the Rock.”
“You could invite a pop star to play. That might actually raise him from the dead.”
Jaime laughed, a loud, rich sound that soared up to the high ceiling. “Gods, it would almost be worth it. Though there is something romantic about the old dances. The way partners separate and come together, the brief moments of touch. It's reminiscent of courtship.”
It was far too easy to imagine him in pristine white gloves, holding the tips of her fingers as though she were some dainty maiden, when she was anything but. To picture him drawing her against him to share a heartbeat of space before spinning her away again. As breathless as though she'd actually moved, Brienne latched onto his last words for a distraction.
“Courtship? Have you been transported in time?”
“Mayhap 'tis simply this place, Lady Tarth,” he said grandly. He strode near with the natural confidence of a lord, was dressed well enough to have been one. She'd suggested he wear casual clothes, but when she'd picked him up that morning, he'd appeared in perfectly-tailored and expensive khakis and a crimson button-up shirt that he'd left unbuttoned enough to show the slight arc of his pecs and for a moment she'd forgotten how to breathe. She was in old jeans and an even older t-shirt, but he'd only tracked his gaze down her body and hadn't said a word. He must have been used to it by now—Jaime always dressed more extra than anyone else in the room. It made those times he'd met her at his door in sweatpants feel more special, knowing he trusted her enough to see him when he wasn't put together.
He was leaning into the moment now though, his posture straight as one of the columns, chin lifted, eyes flashing like the reflection off of a polished gem. Stopping an arm's length away, he inclined his head. “May I have this dance?”
“Dance?”
“The music's playing, my lady. Can't you hear it?”
She blinked at him, wondering if he'd cracked like one of Evenfall's walls. But there was a smile curving his lips, and he was searching her face with an eager hope that she found hard to resist.
Still—dancing? She had done many activities with Jaime, but none of them were so potentially ruinous for so many different reasons.
“I'm not really a dancer,” she hemmed. That, at least, was true.
“You could learn—I've seen you spar.”
He had, one time when he'd invited himself to her martial arts belt test. He'd beamed at her after her match, as proud of her win as though he'd done it himself. “You were incredible!” he'd crowed, repeating it so many times she'd had to bury her head in her hands.
But fighting forms and hurried sparring were very different from dancing with someone who made her forget where she was with just a look. “There's no music,” she tried.
“We have our phones and, miraculously, cell coverage.”
She cast about for some other excuse. “The ground is so dirty, we'll get filthy. Your outfit is too nice for that.”
“Clothes can be laundered.” He stepped closer, and the hope in his eyes had set, leaving some darker, twilight emotion that she couldn't read. “Do you not want to dance with me?”
She wanted to with every last trembling nerve in her body. But she didn't dare. “No, I, um...” Think of something, she begged her stumbling brain.
It didn't respond in time, and Jaime's eyes shuttered, all the light lost beyond the horizon. “I didn't mean to pressure you,” he said, smiling widely. Brienne knew that smile, had seen him deploy it on problematic vendors. It was meant to fool them into thinking that he liked them. He'd never used it on Brienne, and the blow it scored in her heart made her chest feel bruised. “There's plenty more keep to explore anyway. We don't have time for useless frivolity.”
He gestured for her to exit the ballroom before him and she did, the echoing sound of his footsteps and her regret following after in the silence.
Kitchen
The kitchen was one enormous room, with a bank of stone ovens at one end, shelves along the other walls, tables in the middle for prep, and a door that led down into what Brienne assumed was the cellar for cold storage.
It was falling apart as surely as the rest of the keep, but there was something homier about it, more familiar to be in. Cooking and eating food was a human constant, a trait that she shared with every person who'd stepped foot on these dirty stone floors before her. She could almost feel the heat from the long-cold ovens, could almost hear the voices of scullery maids hard at work. Had they been happy here at all? Or had it all been drudgery and mistreatment? Would it be better to tear the keep down and let the ghosts rest, or to revitalize it and let them live again?
Brienne looked over to Jaime to see if he was similarly affected, but the distance from the ballroom had followed them. He was unnaturally quiet, up on his tiptoes peering at the top shelves, then sticking his head in the stone ovens. When he pulled it back out, there was a dark smudge of soot across his temple that her fingers itched to clean away.
She rifled idly through rusty kitchen tools and chipped pots, not really seeing any of it as she tried to piece together what had happened in the ballroom. She'd hurt Jaime by not responding to his playful invitation, but she couldn't figure out why he'd taken it so personally. There had been other times he'd tried to engage her in some silly pastime and she'd demurred—usually at work when she was trying to focus—but it had always been a routine push and pull, a tug-of-war they enjoyed engaging in that never ended with this aloof politeness. Though it had, admittedly, been a while since they had done it at all.
If Brienne hadn't had these feelings for him, she might have said yes to his simple request to dance. They could have waltzed in ridiculous circles around the floor, kicking up dust and making themselves sneeze, and then they wouldn't be so far apart here in the same room.
“What's this then?” Jaime said suddenly from where he'd crouched to peer under one of the tables. His voice crackled through her like lightning, and she hurried over, eager to try to close the gap that had opened between them.
“What did you find?”
He glanced up and then quickly away. “Wine.” He patted a small cask, still tightly sealed against the elements.
“We should open it,” she said, squatting next to him.
That earned a lengthier stare, his eyes narrowed. “You want to drink hundred year-old wine?”
“Why not?”
He sat back on his heels, staring blankly at her. “Because it will taste like ass?”
Brienne let out a loud, honking laugh of surprise and the shadows on his face retreated some. “I thought wine was better when it aged?”
“To a point, yes. Much like a person, you can only age wine so long. Eventually both bodies and wine break down completely.” He thumped the cask again and shrugged. “But we can try it. This feels full.”
“If it's good, I could sell it, too,” she offered and he shook his head, but the lines on his forehead were smoothed now and he smiled as he stood up, looking around.
“You've got a fortune in these miserable walls. Ah, here we are.” He unearthed a heavy piece of stone and a broken-off butcher's knife. “Stand back, please.”
She did, watching as he pulled the barrel out with a hefty grunt of effort, his muscles bunching and tightening under the form-fitting fabric of his clothes. Why the man couldn't just wear loose jeans like every other person in the world, Brienne would never know, but she appreciated it all the same.
It wasn't a big barrel, just above knee height, and he walked around it, considering. “We'll have to get the top off, there aren't any good places to try to install a makeshift spout. Once it's open, though, we can't close it again.”
“So we'll have to drink all of it?”
He snorted. “I've seen you drink. You'll be lucky to get through two glasses of this without toppling over.”
Brienne huffed, but didn't otherwise protest. She'd been drunk more than once on his couch when he'd introduced her to some fancy new sherry or whiskey he'd bought. Regardless of what everyone seemed to expect, her size didn't provide her with much resistance to alcohol, a fact he seemed to endlessly enjoy teasing her about.
“I'll find cups while you do that,” she said, and Jaime nodded, distracted, as he circled the barrel again.
Examining the shelves with more purpose this time, Brienne stumbled on a mostly-preserved pot painted in the same style as the tapestry. She pulled it down, examining the picture. It was a meadow—on Tarth, she assumed, given the green of the grass and the blue of the waters—faded after all these years, but still beautiful. The couple from the tapestry were depicted here again, both of them riding horses. The manes and tails streamed out behind the horses stretched in eternal gallop, and the couple's mouths were open in what looked like joy. Brienne squinted, picked at dirt that obscured the full picture, some of the paint flaking off in her hand.
She wasn't naive about how historical marriages had often gone. One day, near the beginning of her time working with Jaime, Brienne had argued with one of the senior editors in a team meeting about a book he'd been pushing that romanticized the Targaryens' penchant for marrying their siblings, willing or not. Jaime had approached her afterward and she'd waited for the arrogant dismissal, but instead he'd told her, “Your assessment was right, but you handled it all wrong. Karstark hates being publicly reprimanded by underlings.”
“I wasn't reprimanding him,” she'd protested. “I was defending the honor of those women.”
He'd given her a look of faint disbelief, as though he was faced with something fantastical that shouldn't exist, but he couldn't deny the evidence in front of him.
He still looked at her like that sometimes, but these days it made her feel warm instead of peculiar.
She felt the same urge to defend this couple now, and wondered if Jaime would look at her the same if she did. He seemed so certain they couldn't have been happy. But here was more proof that perhaps they were, that they might have lived a life of laughter in these echoing halls. And she didn't know why, but it mattered to her to find out, before she decided what to do with this place that they'd left behind.
Brienne turned the pot, and on the opposite side was Evenfall Hall again, with the star overhead. She tucked it under her arm and kept searching until she found two smooth wooden cups thick with dust that she carefully cleaned off with her shirt. She returned to the table and set all three down just as Jaime pulled off the barrel lid. The smell that floated out was shockingly fruity, rich with the wood flavors that had leached into the wine. There was perhaps a hint of vinegar, but nothing that made her think the wine would be rotten.
“Good work,” she told Jaime and he gave her a quick nod, his eyes straying to her discoveries.
He pointed at the pot with the broken knife. “What's that?”
“More evidence that the tapestry might not be just propaganda.”
Jaime set his tools down and picked up the pot with careful hands, turning it as she had, tracing the star with his finger. “How is this evidence?”
“A tapestry in the entryway might be just for show, but a pot hidden away in the kitchen where guests would never go? That's for them,” she pointed at the couple, “and no one else.”
“If it was for them, then why would it be down here? This could be a serving dish.”
“It's not the right shape.”
He lifted one shoulder. “Then maybe it was a way to convince their servants that everything was fine. Gods know appearances couldn't be dropped, ever, when anyone was around. I'd guess they didn't even share a bedroom.”
Brienne snatched the pot out of his hands, frustrated by his stubborn refusal to admit she might be right. “I wouldn't have brought you if I'd known you were going to be so dour.”
“Isn't that usually my line?” he asked, but he looked apologetic. “Think what you like, Stacks. We'll never know the truth, and far be it for me to ruin your optimist's heart.” He frowned as he said it, his brow creasing with deep lines like the edge of an old book, before he made a noticeable effort to relax and smile at her. “Let's try your wine, shall we? And then we can tour upstairs with rosé-colored glasses.”
That earned a small laugh, her annoyance subsiding as she held out her cup. But she didn't miss the way he couldn't quite meet her eyes when he took it without touching her hand at all.
Bedroom
Brienne carefully navigated the stairs, cursing her low alcohol tolerance and lack of food beyond a hastily-eaten muffin that morning. Jaime appeared to be having no problem as he bounded up them two at a time, dodging messes and being irritatingly sober. At least he was cheerful again.
Seduced by the smell, they'd dived into the wine and found it disappointingly disgusting, and they'd quickly dumped their cups back in the barrel. However, the brandy that they'd discovered in the cellar had been an excellent consolation.
“Hurry up,” Jaime called from the top of the stairs, before tripping on something and catching himself on the railing. She burst into giggles and he did, too, their laughter mixing and falling back down the stairs in a melodic waterfall.
He wasn't entirely sober, either, then. It made her feel a bit better.
“Did you see the ground attack me, Stacks? I think this place is haunted. Now you have to sell it.”
“Shouldn't I exercise it first?”
Jaime squinted at her as she finally pulled herself to the landing. “Like weight training?”
She squinted back, realizing she'd used the wrong word, and they both let out peals of laughter. “Fuck,” she cursed, rolling the word in her mouth. That was another thing Jaime always teased her about—how little she cursed when she was sober, and how foul-mouthed she got when she wasn't.
“There's my sailor,” he said, grinning happily. “I told you you wouldn't be able to handle two cups.”
“You're not doing much fucking better, cabin boy.”
He arched his elegantly manicured brows. She knew he went to the salon regularly to have them shaped; it was a testament to how far gone she was that she found the care with which he presented himself mostly charming.
“I prefer Captain Lannister.” His voice was a commanding curl that wrapped around her ribcage and pulled her in. “It'll be the lash for you if you misstep again,” he went on, rough as unfinished wood, and Brienne was regretting having that second cup even more now. She was not sober enough to deal with his friendly flirtations.
She shoved him away with more force than was necessary and he went flailing a few steps backward. He lifted his chin with fire in his eyes.
“Feeling feisty?”
“I'm not playing,” she said, the words wobbling off of her tongue.
He inhaled sharply. “Neither am I.” It felt like a riddle when he said it like that, but she wasn't quick enough to figure out what he meant. “I wish--” His jaw snapped shut and the apple of his throat bobbed as he chewed down whatever he was going to say.
“What?” she asked in a whisper.
Jaime shook his head, small, quick movements as though he were trying to dislodge his own thoughts. “It doesn't matter—wishes are pointless. Where should we go next?”
She didn't feel drunk anymore, only confused, their loose rapport evaporated with Jaime's swift change in mood.
“What's wrong with you today?” she demanded, fisting her hands on her hips.
“Nothing, Stacks. Why do you ask?” He started down the hallway on the left towards a large pair of double doors at the end and she followed close behind.
“You've been grouchier than usual. Didn't get enough beauty sleep?”
He smiled thinly. “That must be it.”
Jaime pushed the doors open, revealing the main bedroom. It was a single large space, with a canopied bed at one end and a huge fireplace at the other. There were the remnants of a wardrobe, chairs, and a dressing area, and the musty smell of old clothing.
“There's a bed for you. Why don't you have a nap?” she asked, grouchy herself now.
“That's a big bed. Plenty of room for both of us, cranky.”
Brienne glared at him. “Any crankiness I'm feeling is entirely because of you.”
Jaime grunted and turned his back on her to examine the wardrobe, the door coming off in his hand and crashing to the ground with the sound of a thunderclap. “Perfect,” he muttered in the dust cloud.
She headed for the fireplace to put some distance between them, the world still hazy at the edges as she blinked up at the shield above the mantel. It was painted with the Tarth sigil, the yellow suns nearly as white as the crescent moons, the rose and azure quarters dimmed with age. Brienne had hoped there would be a portrait of the couple, which was foolish to expect; they'd likely been gone long before the last Evenstar had left the keep, their personal touches gone with them.
The rest of the room was equally devoid of anything that shed even the smallest light on who had lived here. Brienne wandered the confines, keeping Jaime across from her, the two of them tethered over the distance by the tension that she couldn't snap.
She knew the tension wasn't only from his bad mood. She had been retreating from him in slow steps since the night she'd realized the depth of her feelings, too scared to swim into the deep waters of his affection when she felt like she was drowning every time she did.
But she'd been equally reluctant to go too far away from him, her life emptier without his snark and his smiles and his fond attention. The night after she'd asked him to come on this trip, she'd lain awake second-guessing herself, had used Casterly as an excuse that it made sense. In reality, she simply liked being around him—something she'd been doing less lately to protect herself—and this had seemed like the perfect cover to eke out a little more time together in a way she'd thought would be safe for her swirling emotions. Time that she was starting to believe must come to an end.
Brienne dragged her finger through dust, drawing a line. Jaime was right: if she took this on, it would soak up all of the non-work parts of her life. She'd idly talked to Cat a few days before about her plans, about the potential of keeping Evenfall and what that would entail, and Cat had suggested she could work remotely from Tarth if necessary. “You might enjoy being somewhere new,” Catelyn had said with a concerned crease of her forehead. “Your work is still excellent, but I feel like you've stagnated a bit in the last couple of months. Some fresh air might be nice.”
Brienne had disagreed, saying that she could do everything she needed from King's Landing, that Tarth was too small of an island to live on. But those had not been the true reasons, and she'd known it even as they'd left her mouth.
The real reason was stalking around the room here with her, his energy a discordant buzz, drawing her attention as inexorably as he ever did whenever they were near each other—whether across the room or across the city. How many nights lately had she spent talking herself out of texting him to hang out simply because she knew he was there? How many lunches had she started eating alone, afraid that she'd laugh too loudly at his jokes, or stare too long when he licked his lips clean. Every decision had become such a struggle to make, when they should never have been that hard.
And neither, she knew, should this one have been.
Brienne had gone back to Catelyn the next day and asked for more details, had listened to Cat's eager suggestions and thanked her boss with an agreement that she'd keep Cat apprised. Had gone home more confused and undecided than ever, weighing the valid reasons to move to Tarth against her one, overwhelming reason for staying.
Walking through the keep with Jaime today, the sunlight hadn't only revealed the dusty heart of Evenfall, but all the ways Brienne's singular focus on only being Jaime's friend was making their relationship harder. It had been too long since she'd responded to his friendly advances, for fear of giving too much away, and here together alone, it was easier to see the hurt she hadn't known she was causing both of them. Jaime may have been her reason for staying, but he wasn't hers to have, and whether it was the light or the sea air or the ghosts murmuring quiet reprimands, Brienne realized that it was time that she accept it.
She finally understood why she was hoping so hard for some incontrovertible proof that the people who had lived in Evenfall had not been miserable: if a couple forced together by marriage could make a happy life together in much darker times, then perhaps she could write her own joyful story on the keep's neglected grounds. She could stay here and use the distance to recalibrate her heart—or at least ignore it for a while—and give Jaime time to figure out his own, on his own, without her taking his every spare second just because she didn't want to be without him.
And if after a year away she missed him with the same intensity as the first day—if he was still alone and perhaps had missed her a little, too—then maybe she'd finally be brave enough to tell him how she felt.
For today, she just had to be brave enough to tell him she was leaving.
“Find any more evidence?” Jaime asked from where he was staring up at the shield above the fireplace, the last word a twisted bite.
Brienne sighed and sat gingerly on the bed. It creaked but didn't break, stronger than it seemed. “No.”
“I found mothballed clothes and an old, tarnished tea set. Do you think they professed their love over a nice chamomile?”
“Fuck off,” she growled, her tongue still loose from the alcohol and the resignation. He turned to face her, his features pinched with some emotion she didn't understand. “Maybe you should wait in the car if you can't be civil.”
“Maybe I should,” he agreed, unmoving. “Maybe I shouldn't have come here at all. I'm surprised you even invited me, you've been so scarce lately.”
They stared at each other across the bedroom, shadows and unspoken words filling the gap between them. It was an intimate space, for all its size; the history of everyone who had slept and fought and fucked in this room covering every surface like the dust.
“Why did you come?” she asked—tired, suddenly, from the work it took to keep her emotions reined in around him.
“You asked me to.”
“I asked you to fly across Westeros with a week's notice. You could have said no.”
Jaime huffed, humorless and dry. “No, I couldn't.”
“What do you think I would have done? Thrown a fit? I'm not Cersei.”
“I fucking know that,” he snarled, taking a few urgent steps and then halting in the middle of the room. “You are not the problem. You never were.” He scratched his hands roughly through his hair, leaving a curling wave in their wake. “We should keep looking around.”
“There's no need.” Brienne stood, folded her arms over her chest. “I've already made my decision.”
His chest heaved with the force of his breathing, and he met her eyes, his wide and wild with a fight she didn't know how to win. “You said you wanted to see all of it first. You haven't tried to hack your way through the gardens yet.”
“Jaime—”
“Brienne, don't do this.” His voice was raw with the hushed force of his words, scraping over her skin, making her shiver.
“I haven't even said anything,” she said hoarsely. She didn't understand what was happening, didn't know whether to blame it on the brandy or the pleading drag of his tone.
“I already know.”
Her arms fell to her side, numb. Oh gods. He knew. She thought she'd been so careful, had managed to hide her feelings. It was ridiculous to think that she ever could have, though—they'd been spilling out of her overflowing heart for too long. “Oh.”
He nodded, took another step with hands held out, placating. “I wasn't trying to pry, I swear. Cat told me yesterday.”
“Cat told you?” she asked, horrified. Did the entire office know she was in love with Jaime?
“She asked about my weekend and I said I was coming with you to Evenfall. Then she told me you'd talked about working from here, and wasn't I going to miss you when you did.” A laugh escaped, thin and high like he was trying to strangle it. “She doesn't know the half of it.”
Brienne felt stuck in the center of a hurricane, everything whipping around her while she stood unmoving in the eerie calm. Questions surged forward and she picked the most important one, the one that she had never even thought to ask. “Would you miss me?”
Jaime dropped his hands and his head, staring down at the floor. The windows in this room were mostly intact, and the light coming through the stained glass painted the floor and half his body in gold.
Then, loud in the silence, he inhaled and met her eyes. “I missed you when you went home last night without me. Just like I do every night.”
Her mouth and throat went dry, the hurricane rushing through her to steal her breath.
“I should apologize for misleading you,” Jaime continued. “I didn't come here to be a disinterested third party. I came here to try to convince you to stay. When Cat told me your plans, all I could think of was every lonely day ahead without you, and I couldn't bear it. It's been hard enough not seeing you as often lately.” He moved a few steps nearer. “When Cersei left, it was a relief. But the mere thought of you leaving hurt too much to even consider.” He shook his head with a small, disbelieving laugh. “Would I miss you? Every single second, Brienne. I already do, from the moment you leave until I walk in the door and see you again.”
Jaime was an arm's length away now, all burning need and desperate hope, real and solid and unyielding as the walls of the keep that refused to give in. She trusted his determination, his steadfastness, even more than the thick blocks of stone. When the keep fell, Jaime would still be here, looking at her like she was the answer to everything.
“Say something,” he begged. “Curse me out, or tell me you feel the same. Sometimes I think, maybe—“
Brienne pulled him the final step into her, kissing the last of his plea from his lips. He gave a low, relieved moan and then wrapped his arms around her, meeting her with a ferocity she couldn't have imagined, searching for the same truth she was. She found it in the slide of his tongue along hers, the eager heat of his mouth merging with her own, the firm press of his fingertips into her sides, holding her close.
When they broke apart, panting, the sun was in his green and gold eyes. “So you'll sell the keep and stay then?” he said, a smile rising on his lips.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. The joy fell so swiftly from his face that she felt guilty and hurried on. “But that has nothing to do with how I feel about you.” She combed her fingers through his curling hair, the way she'd wanted to for so long. It was as silky as she'd thought it would be. “I'm keeping Evenfall, and you. If I have to go, it won't be for long, and who knows: maybe Catelyn would let you work remotely, too, if you wanted.”
“I'll make sure she does.” Every curve and angle of his face was set as he said it, and she was certain he wouldn't fail. “I may not have come with good intentions, but I do have some relevant experience. If you'll have me.”
“Always. Jaime, I...” The words stuck in her throat, so small and so big all at once.
“You what?” The flickering joy in his eyes undercut the innocent curiosity of his question. “You're hungry? Tired? You have to go to the bathroom?”
“No, you ass, I love you,” she said, laughing, the sound of it loud and alive and ringing down the slowly waking halls of the keep.
Ballroom (One Year Later)
The reconstruction was going more quickly than Brienne had hoped. She and Jaime had agreed to split the work, with Brienne having final say on every aspect. Between Jaime's experience and her persistence, there was no problem that stood too long unsolved—and there had been many.
The day they crested the halfway mark, Jaime led her into the still-unfinished ballroom to ask her a question about paintings that had been found earlier in the last uncleared storage room.
It had been a long day already. Her primary client—Lyanna Mormont, a teenager writing biting, pointed political satire for other teens—was brilliant and headstrong and every meeting with her took all of Brienne's skill to keep up. Brienne had been looking forward to going home to the apartment she and Jaime shared on Tarth and indulging in a bath and a glass of wine. Jaime had greeted her with her coat and a kiss and gently, but firmly, ushered her back out the door with promises of a massage when they returned.
When she stepped inside the ballroom, there were candles lit in the sconces on the walls, casting flickering shadows on the floor. There were still no curtains, and the chandelier hadn't come in yet, but the ceiling had been cleaned and carefully repainted, and the marble floors were bare. There were also, unexpectedly, white and blue flowers on the pedestals, the sweet scent hitting her as she stepped through the doors.
“Planning on throwing a party for the new paintings?” she asked as she took in the constructed scene.
“Not exactly. C'mere.” He tugged her to the far wall, where there was an elegantly designed fireplace. There was currently no fire in it, but there was an electronic lamp plugged in and shining at the paintings hung over the mantel. Brienne followed the beam of light and then stopped with a gasp.
“Jaime! It's—“
“Your loving couple,” he said. “We found them a few weeks ago; they just got back from the restoration people today.”
She moved closer, drinking in every detail. “You kept this a secret? You sneak.”
“Always calling me names, Stacks.” He smirked at her eye-roll, and then kissed her cheek. “I wanted to surprise you.”
Brienne studied the two paintings. The one on the left was, in theory, a portrait typical for the time: the Lord and Lady of Tarth posed together in their finery, with plush drapery in the house colors behind them. But instead of the woman sitting with her husband behind, they were both standing, side-by-side and slightly turned to face each other. It seemed like the painter had caught them barely restraining themselves from smiling, some playful joke on her lips being reflected in his eyes. Their hands were interlocked in front of them, fingers wrapped protectively around each other.
The second painting was even more remarkable. It was them again, this time with two small children and the man holding a third, a baby swaddled tight. The man had laugh lines around his eyes that reminded Brienne of Jaime, and the woman had been caught mid-laugh with her children beaming up at her. It would have been impossible to fake the joy shining from every stroke.
“What do you think?” Jaime asked, his casual tone laced with a restrained anxiousness.
“I think they were happy,” she said.
He stepped up beside her, shoulder-to-shoulder, and took her hand. She turned her head to look at his smiling face. “I do, too,” he said, meeting her gaze. “The room they found these in had been the children's playrooms. A reminder of how much love there was in this family.” He tugged her around so they were facing each other fully. “When we came here the first time, I had counted on the dreary state of things to change your mind about staying. But I should've known you wouldn't let a broken exterior stop you.” She cupped his cheek and he turned his head to kiss her palm. “You always find the heart of things, Brienne. Thank you for waiting long enough for me to find mine.”
He pulled out his phone, pressed a button, and a lilting waltz started to play.
“I know this isn't the ball that you wanted, but I've been waiting a year to dance with you. It seemed appropriate to have our first one with them here. Will you do me the honor?”
Jaime was dressed just as sharply as he had been the first time they'd been here, and while she was wearing slightly better clothes, it was still nothing even approaching a gown. But none of that mattered when he bowed slightly and held out his hand.
She put her hand in his, their palms sliding together. “It would be my pleasure,” she said, curtseying in return.
He grinned and pulled her into his arms. They whirled around the floor, spinning out with laughter one moment, coming together for heated kisses the next, filling the ballroom with the sound of their joy.
The Lord and Lady of Tarth looked down on them, smiling all the while.