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Jaime straightened his jerkin and fastened it clumsily. Brienne sat in her usual shirt and pants upon the edge of their bed. Her eyes watched him readying for the day.
“I'm late,” she said.
“For what?” He angled his neck to look at his breast and clip on the Hand's pin
“Late.” She sat still on the edge of the bed, her brow slightly furrowed. Jaime glanced up and then looked back down to tighten the straps to his gold hand. “My moon's blood,” she finally managed.
Moon's blood? He stilled and looked up at her. She'd bled last month, he remembered that. But he'd been busy, his mind on so many other things, how long ago had that been. She looked worried and lost. He crossed to her and sat beside her.
“How late?” he asked.
“Two weeks.” Brienne frowned. “It's always right on time. I've never been late.”
She was with child? Given how they'd been fucking this shouldn't have surprised Jaime. He thought to smile, to kiss her, but she just continued to frown at him, so he didn't.
“Are there other signs?” she asked. “When would I know for certain? When it's been a month, two, when your seed quickens inside me?” Brienne looked almost on the verge of tears.
The side of his lips tweaked into a smile. What else would have Brienne so very emotional.“A child,” he sighed. His child, their child growing inside her, one that would be his to properly claim.
“Maybe,” she whispered back. “You've done this before.” She looked up to him as if he had all the answers.
Jaime shrugged and shook his head. He didn't know any of this, had never been part of any of it. “Cersei...”
Brienne cocked her head and waited. Jaime frowned. Cersei had never shared any of this. If there had been worries or waiting he hadn't been party to it.
“She'd just tell me there'd be a babe, it was mine, she was certain,” he said. Did she not share more because she couldn't or didn't want to, Jaime wasn't sure, didn't really want to think about it now. Likely Cersei had had women to ask all these questions of, other ladies. But Brienne didn't really. He was her closest companion.
“Should I ask her about it?” Brienne asked.
“Cersei?” Jaime shook his head and almost stood at the thought of what his sister might tell his dear wife. “No, most certainly not.” Then, who he thought? Who would know? Who would he trust Brienne with? “Olenna Tyrell,” he stated. He didn't exactly trust the woman, but she owed him and generally she could be kind to other ladies, particularly ones like Brienne who may need help.
“Queen Margaery's grandmother?” Brienne frowned.
“She'd have the answers for you, and would be kind about it.” Jaime said. “I'll ask her.”
“What if there is a baby?” Brienne kept frowning. “The winter, the threat of the Targarayn, court politics, so many people out for the Lannisters” She shook her head.
Jaime leaned in and wrapped his hand around her neck. “Was there going to be a good time?”
“Maybe we should have been more careful?” she whispered against her skin.
Too late for that, he thought, but did not say. They could get rid of it were there a babe, but he knew Brienne well enough to know that wasn't really a choice'd want.
“You promised me I could do as I want, fight even with child.” Brienne looked at her feet. “But it wouldn't just be me I risk.”
Jaime leaned his head against hers. “We'll figure that out. What you can do, what you want to do.” She nodded her head and sighed.
“You're happy?” she said, eyes still on the floor.
He pulled her face to his and kissed her. “Brienne, I'm... happier than I thought I would be, much happier.” Jaime did smile then, broadly. She only watched him, tears now falling. He didn't ask if she was as well. She would be. “Seems I've lost so many to death in the last year. It would be nice to bring a person into the world instead.” This Brienne did smile at.
He kissed her again and then got up. “I need to go. I'm late already.” He fastened his sword belt on his waist.
“Would it be okay if I go to the practice yard?” she asked.
“Sure. Why not?” He straightened his sword, and gave his clothes one last look.
Her brow furrowed. “I... I may carry your heir... perhaps... the training....”
“Is not going to do anything.” Jaime crossed back to give her one last kiss. “It's just the training yard.” She gave a bit of a sigh, maybe actually relieved he wasn't going to make her sit around just because of her possibly condition.
#
“Lady Olenna?” Brienne stepped into the eldest Tyrell's rooms. She sat on the wide balcony overlooking gardens.
“Ah, yes, Lady Brienne. Come in. Come in.” Lady Olenna waved Brienne in and then shooed out her servants. The table was set with cakes and tea.
Brienne gave a slight bow and entered.
“Sit child.” Olenna gestured to a chair. “I hear you seek advice from me?” She raised a narrow eyebrow.
“Yes, my lady.” Brienne sat in the small chair opposite Lady Olenna.
“Tart?” Olenna lifted a plate of them and offered it to Brienne.
Cherry it looked, one of Brienne's usual favorites. The thought turned her stomach and Brienne forced a polite smile. “No, thank you. I'm fine.”
“Fine, child.” Olenna placed the plate back down and leaned back. “From what I've heard you are not fine. You've come to ask if you might be with child. You're late, I suppose of course you are?”
Brienne nodded. Lady Olenna rattled off a list of common symptoms and Brienne nodded at each: queasiness, exhaustion, aversion to foods, sore breasts and mood springs. She'd felt mildly nauseous most of the last few days, her breasts ached and she'd never felt more tired in her life. Just the stairs up to Lady Olenna's room had gotten her winded. How worst would it get when she was actually heavy with child? And her emotions, she'd never felt on the verge of tears more in her life, everything made her want to weep, and it all made her feel such a silly girl.
“Well then, Brienne, congratulations. Seems there is likely to be a babe in your near future.” Olenna smiled. “Not that it's surprising considering how you and that husband of yours have been going at it. He's got impressive stamina for an older man.” She chuckled a bit.
Brienne frowned, worried the lady was making fun of her.
“How old, Brienne, were you when your mother died?” Olenna said. No apology for her previous words, but these held kindness.
“Not even two.” Brienne shook her head. “I don't remember her.”
Olenna tightened her lips. “Who taught you about women, men and making children? Your septa? A hand maid?”
“My septa.” She titled her head.
Olenna shook hers and sighed. “I'm sure she screwed that up. Sorry, dear girl, but how can a woman like that know anything?” Brienne shrugged. “Has anything she told you about bedding a man been helpful or correct?”
Brienne tightened her lips. “Very little.”
“You want the truth to babes, Brienne? All those dirty details no one tells you about?”
Brienne looked at the old matriarch in her ornate gown and draped silks scarfs topped with a matching hat. She actually reminded Brienne quite a bit of her old septa. She finally nodded, because she did really want honest truth.
Olenna sipped her tea, leaned back. “Have some too, child. Should calm your stomach. Always did mine.” She beckoned Brienne to drink and Brienne finally did, the flavor mild and at least not upsetting.
“You won't know if things will take or not for a few more months,” Olenna started. “And then there's no rhyme or reason when it does or doesn't. I speak from experience here. Rode almost every day at the beginning with my son Mace, laid about and did nothing other times and lost them.” She waved a dismissive hand. “It will take or not and nothing you do will change that.”
“Then you won't really be sure until it quickens. Oddness thing, having another being within you, but you'll feel you know them before you finally meet them. And of course there's no real guarantees until you birth the babe. Dangerous affair childbirth, dangerous and bloody and painful. Warrior or not it'll still surprise you.”
“And you'll do all that with your emotions in such a tangle you never know to cry or laugh, or both, which is oft what you'll do. Men bang about swords, bruise and bloody each other and think they know what strength is.” Olenna chuckled. “They know not a thing of it. If they had to endure a tenth of what we do from the moment you sit now until a child is weaned, there would be no babes in the world.”
Olenna stopped and sighed. Brienne wondered what horrors her face must hold. She took another sip of tea and tried to make her face at least neutral.
“You're a large, strong woman Brienne.” Olenna tutted. “You'll carry a babe easily. You have hips wide enough to birth one well, and the strength to get through it all fine. And don't worry about those small tits of yours, not the size that matters when nursing a child.” She laid a hand on Brienne's. “You do have the womanly strength to do this, so worry not, child.”
Brienne gave her a wane smile. “Thank you.” She swallowed. “After though, how will I...”
“Know how to do anything?” Olenna leaned in. “Ask. Ask the midwife who tends you, the nurse maid, the wet nurse. They'll all know the important points. You'll figure the rest on your own. Truth, what works and doesn't is never the same. So do what feels right and damn the rest for what they think.”
Brienne narrowed her eyes at the old woman, and Olenna smiled. “That babe will be yours, yours and Jaime's. You'll love it and do right by it no matter how people think it wrong. I don't think it very proper for a woman to be skilled with a sword, to battle with men.” Olenna shrugged. “But if a maid can do it, why not a mother. Being a mother strengthens you not weakens you. Don't let anyone tell you different.”
Brienne let out a breath she had not known she'd been holding. She so liked the life she had been leading the last few years. To have someone wise and old think she could do both made her hopeful.
“Will I be a good mother though?” Brienne asked. She knew nothing really about being a mother, had no example to use.
Olenna sighed. “Every one wonders that. Although I suppose most have some memories at least of their mother.” Olenna smiled. “Dear child, you have a deep kindness in you, the kindness that will make a good and loving mother.”
Olenna leaned forward and rested an arm on the table. “It's almost impossible not to love them, your children. Maybe not at first. A newborn babe is an ugly little thing, pink and squished and mad at the world. But it's impossible to not care for those tiny, helpless beings and not fall in love.” She pinched her lips and shook her head. “You think you know love now with your dear Jaime. It will pale to what you'll feel for that child.”
“And it doesn't really end, that love, never.” Olenna sighed and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “My son Mace is a grown, gray man these days. If Margeary has anything to do with it, on his way to being a grandfather. Still... he'll always be that helpless babe at my breast, the little boy who hid in my skirts. It doesn't matter how old he gets, he'll always be my baby, until the day I finally die.”
Brienne knew some of that, possibly not the truth or it, but knew it. She'd seen it in her own father's eyes. How it was hard for him not to think of her as the little girl she'd once been.
“Normally, I would say Jaime won't realize the truth to being a father until you hand him that swaddled babe.” Olenna pinched her lips and cocked her head. The old woman might have been thinking what she should say about the fact Jaime already was a father. “Your husband is a most interesting man,” Olenna continued. “There are few people who surprise me at my age.”
“He came to talk to you?” Brienne asked.
“He did.” Olenna sipped some tea, shook her head. “He accused me of killing King Joffery.”
Brienne frowned. “Did you?”
Olenna didn't answer, instead said, “Surprised me he'd utter that word, the one everyone dances around the truth of.”
Brienne lifted an eyebrow. What one word had Jaime said? Although it did not really surprise her he'd said something truthful, and the truth had to be about Jaime and Cersei's relationship.
“Son. He called Joffery his son,” Olenna said.
“He was.” Brienne cocked her head.
“Yes.” Olenna titled her head. “But to own up to half of the creation of that monster is more than enough. To admit to me he bed his sister, with no shame.” Olenna shook her head. “Cersei would have never --”
“He's not Cersei.” Brienne frowned.
“No, he is not.” Olenna narrowed her eyes and Brienne felt she was being accessed, like Lady Olenna was sizing up every crack in her emotional armor. “Nor Tywin,” she continued, “who was in denial of what his precious children could do behind his back.”
“Jaime lov... loves her, and he slept with her, and he's not ashamed of it.”
“He should be,” Olenna said like a scolding mother.
Brienne shrugged. “Maybe.” She knew that he should be. It was not the way of the world to lay with one's sister. But it was too much a part of who Jaime was to deny it.
Olenna shook her head. “Why, dear Brienne, did you step into the complicated mess that's between them?” There seemed worry and concern in the old woman's words.
“Because I love him,” Brienne softly said. Her face held a slight frown. “He once told me you don't get to choose who you love.”
Olenna pinched her lips, looked Brienne over. “There's likely truth in that.” Perhaps she thought of her own grandson and his desires. “I'm an old woman though, and it has been so many years since I've had the love of a man.”
Olenna leaned back, sipped her tea, and finally gave a light chuckle. “Jaime Lannister, Tywin's golden lion cub. There was such talk of who to match him with when he was a boy. My own daughters were considered as possibilities. Handsome, already a good swordsman, a prize, almost every young lady in Westeros would have loved to marry him.” Olenna chuckled again. “Odd the two women who actually gained his affection.”
She put down her tea and sat forward again. “Brienne, he does love you. So rare in a high-born marriage.” Olenna watched the tea flakes swirl around her tea cup. “Your child will be his in a way that hers have not been, will not be. That will surprise him, how much he will like being a real father instead of a mere sire. He loved the monster that was Joffery. He will love your child, deeply, devotedly. He'll likely be a good father, unlike his own.”
Olenna finally looked up at her. Brienne nodded and said, “I know.” Because she already had known all that, not that she'd fully thought about it. Wasn't that part of what Cersei was jealous of? Brienne had his love, she woke up beside him every morning, and now she would have the children who were fully his.
Olenna sighed and lifted her hand to wave in a servant who'd been standing out of earshot. “Come. The tea needs warming. Enough I can't enjoy the fresh air of the gardens, but even in my room the chill is so bad.”
Winter, Brienne thought. It was here and who knew how long it would last.
“Tell me of Tarth in the summer, the way the bright sun sparkles on the sapphire waters,” Olenna asked. “I've actually never been.”
“Come summer you could go yourself.” Brienne took a sip of the newly warmed tea placed before her. It might have actually helped calm her stomach as Olenna suggested it would.
Olenna shook her head. “I will not see another summer.” She waved a hand of dismissal at her own statement. “I have seen many though, plenty to hold me for the time I have left in this world. So Tarth, Brienne, tell me about your home?”
She tried to forget all her worries and think about home, a place she also was unsure she'd get back to. Brienne gave a small smile and started, “The water is sparkling blue of the brightest color...”