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i.
It’s not like he wants to be nearer to the wench.
Jaime brings his bedroll to her side of the fire, and when Brienne turns a flustered, questioning glance at him, he only says, “It’s warmer here.”
When he wakes up after a surprisingly restful sleep, it’s to find his arm wrapped around her and her leg draped over his. The morning light is gentle on her freckled face. His breath hitches, and there is a queer sort of aching in his chest.
He has to admit that it really is warmer here—if here is by Brienne’s side.
ii.
“No,” he tells Podrick. The boy hangs his head and begins to back away with the flimsy blanket that serves as his bedroll hugged to his chest.
Brienne casts a reprimanding look at him. “Don’t be so rude, Jaime.” She turns to Podrick. “Come on, Pod, you can sleep next to me.”
By morning the three of them are all tangled up, and when he tries to extricate himself and fails, Brienne only laughs, annoyingly cheerful.
“Hush,” he grumbles.
She laughs again, and her cheeks are red.
He thinks he wants to know if the rest of her is blushing too.
He hauls himself up and goes to rouse her sleeping squire, who is still snoring, fast asleep, with his limbs sprawled like a cat. She is still laughing.
iii.
She is dreaming of Stoneheart again. Jaime knows this because he wakes to her trembling in the dead of night with the stars still bright in the sky, and her liege lady’s name falling desperately, desolately from her lips.
“Brienne,” he says, hushed. Then, louder: “Brienne. Wake up.”
She makes a keening noise in her sleep, and the sound is a knife to the chest. He sits up and shakes her by the shoulders. “Wake up,” he says again. “You’re dreaming.”
Brienne gasps awake. “Jaime?”
“That’s my name, wench.”
She blinks at him, dazed. “What…”
“Stoneheart,” he says.
“Oh.” Her face falls. “Right. M’sorry.”
Jaime hates the way she looks; lost and grieving and mournful again. He hates that it is his fault. I’m sorry, he should probably say. You did this because of me. She was never truly alive, he should say.
He says none of this. He says, “Oh, come here, wench,” and she curls closer to him. He pulls her closer so that her head lays on his chest. He looks away when she wipes the tears off her face.
“It’s not your fault,” he tells the top of her head.
Brienne shakes her head, but she doesn’t say no.
“Go back to sleep, wench.” He gives in to the desire to run his fingers through her hair, and she sighs, leaning into his touch.
“Mm,” Brienne says agreeably. Soon enough she is fast asleep again.
Jaime watches the stars set and the sky slowly lighten. The rise and fall of her chest is strangely soothing.
His arms are still around her when he finally drifts off into a light sleep.
iv.
It’s freezing at the Wall, and when he tells himself that he only continues to sleep beside her because it’s cold, it’s not even a lie. Not entirely.
She yelps when his icy, winter-chilled arm goes around her, and he has to stifle a smile.
That longing feeling is back in his chest. He very decidedly does not think about this.
v.
The men snicker when they come to take their shift fending off the wights. They’ve made no secret of where they sleep—so of course, everyone else think he’s fucking Brienne.
He isn’t, though.
Not even a kiss.
He doesn’t know—he doesn’t want to know why this disappoints him, so he only turns a deaf ear to their japes and a blind eye to their smirks and he takes up his duty as the sword in the darkness, the watcher on the walls.
And when his watch ends for the nonce, he only trudges back to the barracks, to a corner called theirs.
She is already there, bundled up in their blankets. They had the same shifts and she has certainly just returned from hers, but the cold saps the strength from even the sturdiest warriors and he knows that he, too, will fall asleep straight away as soon as his head hits the ground.
She is flushed red from the cold. Jaime makes a space for himself among the blankets, and when he squeezes in, deep in her sleep she reaches for him.
The world is ending but in this frozen wasteland, still, she is warm.
+ i.
She kisses him, in the gasping relief of dawn’s final triumph. They stumble into bed, weary of war and winter, and still Jaime has never felt so content and—happy.
Their hearts beat slowly in time and he gives in to the truth that he knows, has always known for quite some time, but has never allowed himself to acknowledge.
The world is whole and the war is won and he loves her.
He lays his head on her chest. He rests.