Chapter Text
They survive the encounter with Lady Stoneheart, though not without cost. Jaime loses his sword, Podrick loses a tooth, Brienne loses the last of her naive belief that Catelyn was still somewhere reachable in that monstrous form, and Hyle—
Hyle loses a hand.
“I won't survive!” Hyle bleats as they paddle the stolen rowboat towards the Quiet Isle. “It's too far. I can't make it.”
“You will,” Brienne assures him between powerful strokes, though she winces in pain from her still-broken arm with every one. “Keep quiet.”
“I won't. I can't.” He holds up the stump, swathed in Jaime's cloak. That had not been Jaime's idea. “I'll die before you get us there.”
“You heard him, my lady,” Jaime drawls. “Turn us around and head for a real village so we can get a start on his burial.”
Hyle gasps and Jaime can't tell if it's from offense or pain or both. He hopes both.
“You keep quiet too,” Brienne mutters. “And row faster, we're drifting off course.”
“I'm doing my best. In case you've forgotten, I'm no longer equipped for such activities.” Jaime re-settles the oar in his tired real hand, trying to use his golden one to help as best he can. It's frustrating work, but Brienne slows down to match his rhythm and they move more smoothly and in a straight line.
“Good,” Brienne says, flashing him a closed-lip but encouraging smile.
He doesn't preen under her praise, but it does make him row a bit harder.
From the middle of the rowboat, Hyle continues to whimper. Jaime hopes he hadn't been so pitiful when he'd lost his hand. Those days are hazy at best, the memories mostly of either pain or Brienne and all the ways she had stoically cared for him when there had been no one else. At least Hyle will have the Brothers, and a cabin, and not be forced to sleep in his own shit.
“There,” Brienne says, pointing into the darkness. “I see a light.”
Jaime squints into the foggy distance and then squints harder, but he can't make it out. “Are you sure? All I see is the dark.”
“I'm sure.” She motions for him to give her the oar and carefully repositions herself before beginning to row in long, smooth strokes, her back curving and arching with the motion, her hands steady around the smooth wood, even with her injury. It's hypnotic watching her, so much so that when they come sliding up onto shore, Jaime yelps in surprise.
Brienne looks over her shoulder at him, frowning. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he hurriedly says, standing and stepping out of the boat to help pull it all the way up on shore. “I thought you were going to wreck us, is all.”
Her frown deepens, disappointment in the dark bunching of her brow. “I should think by now you would trust me in a boat.”
“We've taken on more deadweight this time.” Hyle's awake enough for that because Jaime can hear him grumble.
Brienne simply shakes her head. He'd hoped for some rejoinder, but she's focused on the hedge knight. She's been even more reserved than usual with Jaime since Pennytree; he mislikes it deeply. “Help me get Hyle out of the boat, we need to get him to the Elder Brother.”
Jaime reaches down to grab Hyle's arm but Brienne's sharp, “Carefully,” makes him slow, tuck his good arm under Hyle's injured one and help her lift him to his unstable feet.
“How far?” Hyle whispers, sounding as though he's on death's door.
“Not too far,” Brienne says kindly. “We'll support you.”
In truth, though Jaime tries to help at first, she supports Hyle alone, taking all the weight on his uninjured side and helping him shuffle along the uneven ground towards where Jaime can now make out the light. Podrick scampers out of the boat and brings their packs, mostly empty after the days of travel to get to Stoneheart, and their quick retreat after.
“Will he survive, ser?” the boy asks with wide, scared eyes.
Jaime holds up his golden hand with a smirk. “History suggests yes.”
Podrick turns that wide-eyed stare to Jaime's false hand. “Was yours as grievous, ser?” He lisps a bit now in addition to the stutter. It reminds Jaime unnervingly of Hoat. Gods, I hope the boy doesn't grow up to be that.
“It was worse.” Jaime turns his hand, examining the filigree dirty with blood, the pearl nails that are mostly cracked. It had been a brutal fight, truthfully. They were lucky to be alive, no matter how many pieces they'd left behind. “I would not have survived it without Brienne,” he admits softly.
“She's saved many people,” the boy says with a sort of solemn worship that Jaime doesn't blame him for.
“Indeed she has.” Jaime shakes himself a little and starts following after Brienne and the hedge knight's disappearing forms. Podrick hurries after him. “Did you know I saved her life as well?” he tells the boy.
“N-no, ser, I didn't know,” Podrick says, sounding apologetic. “Though she did call your name when she was hurt.”
Jaime halts and turns to the boy. “She did?”
Podrick nods quickly. “Aft-after her cheek. She had a terrible fever, ser, I thought she'd die.” His eyes well with tears, and Jaime looks away, giving him privacy to recover. “She didn't die though,” he whispers fiercely after a moment. “She's strong.”
“She is,” Jaime agrees. He watches the way she's almost carrying Hunt at this point, though he knows her own injuries still pain her, stalwart though she’s been in bearing them. She's strong indeed, even for this cursed mission he'd laid across her back. I should have been with her, he berates himself, and hurries after her now. He will not make that mistake again so soon.
The Elder Brother is awakened and the other Brothers come and take Hyle from Brienne's embrace, leading him off with two where it had only taken one of her.
“Go with him,” Brienne urges Podrick, and the lad nods and scurries off in their wake.
“What happened to Ser Hyle?” the Elder Brother asks.
“A fight not of his own making.” The wench sounds miserable. “He was only there because I led him into their trap and now a man has lost his hand because of me.” It's impossible to miss the way she looks at Jaime's golden hand, to not hear the unspoken again.
“I rather think he lost his hand because of Stoneheart's men,” Jaime says lightly. “Unless it was you who wielded the sword that took it?” Brienne's head hangs limply, but there's a barely imperceptible shake, no. “I didn't think so. You were quite busy taking on three men at once, as I recall. Not a lot of time for stray lopping off of companion's limbs.”
The Elder Brother looks askance at Jaime, and he gives the man a bland smile.
“I see,” is all the older man says. “We'll bring food to you in the women's cottage, my lady. Ser, if you'll follow me, I'll show you the men's cells.”
Jaime lifts a brow. “I'd prefer a cottage.”
“As would I, but we are men, and men stay in the cells.”
“It's their religious observance,” Brienne explains. “Men and women may not room together.”
“They are aware that neither cottages nor cells are impermeable to a dedicated intruder?” There's Brienne's displeased frown again, which Jaime realizes that he’s bizarrely missed. He suspects the same will not be true of the Elder Brother's.
“Ser Jaime,” the older man says, and he's patient still but Jaime knows better than to test the limits of that patience. At least for now.
Jaime lets the man lead him off, glancing over his shoulder to see Brienne shuffling away in the other direction, a hunched-over mountain of regret.
The cell is well-named, though the door is left unlatched and there are no guards in the dim hall when Jaime checks. There's a single, simple pallet with fresh straw and a scratchy blanket, a covered bucket that serves as a chamber pot, and a candle valiantly fighting the darkness.
He wonders if Hyle has been taken to one of these, as well. It's better than Jaime's experience sleeping on the road night after night, but a fine bed and a warm fire would be better still. For all of them.
Jaime's entire body aches as he peels himself from his filthy armor, manages to unhook his golden hand and drop it with a clang to the floor. He'll have to get it fixed when they return regardless. Return to where, he's not entirely sure. He'd burned Cersei's letter and left his army behind; his white cloak is certainly soon to be stripped from him, if it hasn't been already. The places Jaime can go dwindle by the day—and the places he wants to go are even fewer.
Well, he knows one, at least. Leaving his armor and golden hand on the floor of his cell, he goes looking for a bath.
He finds a stream, clear and running quickly, and decides it will do. It's dark and freezing cold, and by the time he drags himself back to shore he's shivering so hard that he can barely get his clothes back on.
He's got one foot in his breeches and one out when there's the snap of a twig. Head up, scanning the area, he spots the intruder immediately, a pale ghost in the darkness.
“My lady,” he greets Brienne with one last rolling shiver. As his eyes adjust, he sees she’s got one hand in front of her eyes and he snorts, loud in the quiet night. “Surely we’re far past embarrassment from nudity at this late date. Or does it matter more now that I’m not covered in mud and shit?”
The sound she makes is delightfully cross. But her hand drops. “I was trying to be respectful.”
“Don’t bother—no one else is.” With awkward movements, he starts pulling his breeches up one-handed, poking out a knee to hold up one side while he works on the other, trying to keep from losing hard-won ground.
It’s one irritant of a thousand that he’s discovered with the loss of his hand, but it irks him more than most, so when Brienne asks, “May I help you?” he snaps, “Do you have an extra hand lying about to replace mine? Perhaps we’ll use Hunt’s, at least that will have made your lie worth it” and, as usual, immediately regrets it.
Brienne goes rigidly still, and he can feel the shame rolling off of her in waves. Even in the nearly moonless night, he can see the hurt in her eyes. “You’re right,” she says as solemnly as though he’s told her she must be executed at dawn and she’s accepting her fate.
Were I to attack, would she fight for her life at all right now? he wonders, drearily certain of the answer.
“I’m peevish,” he counters. “Right has little to do with it.” He finally tugs his breeches up and pulls the drawstring tight in one fist, cinching them closed with a triumphant grin. “There, all my problems solved.”
The maid of Tarth still looks too gloomy for Jaime’s taste, so he bends to pick up his tunic. “I could use help with this, though. I’d get it eventually, but I’m like to die of cold out here before that.” As though he’d planned it, a gust of wind bursts through the trees and he shudders once, hard, water dripping from his hair down his still bare chest.
When Brienne simply stands there, he shakes the linen at her and she finally steps hesitantly towards him.
“I could go get Podrick,” she starts and Jaime scoffs.
“This is as close as you’re going to get to any man on this Isle now,” Jaime says dryly. She ducks her head and he wishes it were brighter out, because he suspects she’s blushing. A thought occurs to him and he narrows his eyes. “Why are you on this side of the island anyway?”
Her hand, reaching out for the shirt, jerks back. Now he’s certain that she’s blushing. “It-it wasn’t anything wicked.” Jaime bites his tongue to keep from poking at that further. “I was only trying to check on Ser Hyle.”
Of course. The hedge knight was her only thought. He should have known.
He nearly throws the tunic at her and she fumbles hastily for it, the ends briefly scraping the dirt before she drags it to her chest. “Don’t let me keep you from your noble quest,” he says bitterly. “Help me with this and then be on your way.”
Brienne blinks at him, slow and confused, and Jaime wants to snarl at her to move quicker than the cow he’d once thought her to be, wants to rip the fabric from her hands and retreat to his cell, wants to throw himself at her feet and beg her to explain why she risked all of their lives to save his own.
But he only stands there as she awkwardly readies the shift; raises his hands skyward as she pulls it over his head, his arms through. Her knuckles skim his sides as she lowers the linen over him, and Jaime trembles, gooseflesh raising in their wake. Only the cold, he thinks, though his insides feel very warm.
When his head emerges from the top, he finds Brienne’s face much nearer than he expected, her breath, sour and warm, washing over him. She’s got a fresh bandage on her cheek, over a wound he’s only glimpsed once since she came back to get him, but that brief look was enough to see its gruesomeness. Brienne startles when she catches him staring and drops the shift, the fabric bouncing as it settles in place.
“There,” she says, taking a step back. His body leans after her without his command. “I—I should get back.”
“Yes, mustn’t let the Brothers find you here with me. What would they think?”
Brienne’s face goes through a complicated array of emotions, too fast for Jaime to get a hold of any of them in the dark, before settling on shame once more, though the bandage hides much of it. He hates that bandage and how she keeps turning that cheek away from him, as if trying to hide it. Brienne has never hidden anything from him, and now she’s done so twice. She’s learned too well from him.
“Good night, Ser Jaime,” she mumbles, turning to go.
Yes, she’s learned well, but not well enough to mask it fully. There’s a mystery he catches in her eyes that turns him alert. What else is she not telling him now? Why is she really here at the river, away from the men’s cells, and even further from the women’s cottages? What other schemes is she playing at that she keeps from him like Cersei did?
“I didn’t think you so cowardly,” he snaps, and that brings Brienne up short. He says it to prod her to an anger to match his own, but her body only curls further inward on itself.
Faintly on the wind he hears, “I am,” and it stokes his fury to see her yield so easily.
“You are,” he agrees. “First you lie to me to lead me to my doom, and then you lie to me again here in the dark of night. For someone so committed to keeping oaths you’re awfully committed to telling me untruths.”
Her head turns a little then—the unwounded side facing him, her cheek an unmarred moon pocked with freckles in the darkness. “Wh-what do you mean?” she stammers.
Jaime takes a step nearer, all his predatory Lannister instincts sensing weakness. “What drove your giant feet to this part of the river?” he asks sinuously. “If you were only checking on Ser Hyle, surely you must know he wouldn’t be here, wounded as he was. Why are you here, Brienne?”
Her mouth opens and closes like a fish drowning in air. She seems incapable of words at all.
“We risked all to kill Stoneheart and her men, so it seems a bad trade to choose to kill me now.”
“I don’t wish you dead!” Brienne gasps, horrified as she faces him again.
“You did once,” he reminds her.
“No,” she says weakly. “I never… I always admired…” Her voice trails off and she seems unable to even look at him.
“I liked it better when you called me Kingslayer,” he rasps bitterly. “At least then I knew you were being honest.”
“I may have hated you once, but no longer,” she says, her voice catching with dismay. “But I—I know you hate me for lying to you.”
He takes another step nearer, stops when she flinches away from him. Her fear wounds him more than her sword ever could. “You think I hate you enough to harm you?” He scoffs, a jagged noise that splits the night. “You think I could do that to you?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” she says plaintively. “Why haven’t you? Or is the waiting part of your revenge?” Her whole face is twisted in wretchedness, her body so limp with surrender it’s a wonder she continues to stand on her own.
Jaime nearly growls at her in frustration. “Is that why you’ve searched me out? For punishment? After all that we’ve been through, even now you think that I’m craven enough to strike some poor, ugly maid when she least expects it because of a lie?”
“A lie that nearly led you to your death,” Brienne whispers.
“I am furious at you,” Jaime admits, and her head droops even lower, as though accepting the executioner’s axe. “But not because of that.”
She startles, her gaze affixing to his in dumbfounded shock. “B-but—”
“But you took me to Stoneheart while telling me it was a different Stark to which I was being led?” He nods. “You did—to save the boy, and the hedge knight, too, I suppose. Then you saved me on top of it. For a moment, yes, I was angry that you’d betrayed me.” Jaime shakes his head. “But I just as quickly realized you didn’t, not really. You betrayed the monster that was Catelyn instead. I was merely bait to a different treachery.”
Brienne looks sick at his words, but he knows she can’t deny them, which means she won’t bother to try. If there’s one thing he knows about the maid of Tarth, it’s that she’s over-eager to accept what she sees as deserved justice, no matter how unjust it may be.
“I did wonder why you hadn’t told me the plan ahead of time,” he continues, “so that I might be more helpful and less surprised. But I’ve seen how you shoulder every worry on your broad shoulders as though the burden belongs to you alone.” She looks chastised at his words. “Disappointing, perhaps, that you felt it necessary there, but also understandable given the danger,” he adds graciously.
Brienne’s brow furrows. “If you understood my… my plan, then why are you angry now?” she asks, and Jaime’s relieved to see a hint of life in her with that question.
“Because of that,” he says, pointing at her cheek, “and that,” here he points at her neck, “and those,” he finishes, pointing at her arm and ribs. “Grievous wounds, from the way you wince and favor them when you think no one is watching. Yet you brush me off when I ask, and hide them from me when you catch me looking.” He stares balefully at her. “Now that I know you can lie, I wonder what you’re hiding by not telling me the truth of it.”
Brienne looks ashamed. “They’re evidence of my own mistakes, no more.”
“Mistakes? Podrick told me that you nearly died.” Terror swarms up, dressed in fury’s clothes. “I sent you out there and you return to me like this. By the gods, just tell me true: what happened to you, Brienne? What hell did I condemn you to?”
She touches her fingers lightly to her covered cheek, hesitant. Jaime fears that she won’t tell him and he knows that if she doesn’t now, then she never will—and he will never trust her again.
Brienne has always been open, the only person that he’s been equally open to in return. Her lie in Pennytree should have been an aberration for a good cause; but if she falters here, then it means something in her has changed more than he can bear.
“I was bitten,” she softly admits. Jaime inhales sharply, equally horrified and relieved in a tangled, twisted measure.
“By what?” he urges. “And what of the others?”
She tells him the whole story there in the dark while he shivers from the cold and the dread and she stands like a statue and speaks like a scholar reciting an old tome. The only time her passionless retelling falters is when she mentions Catelyn demanding his life in exchange for the boy’s.
Would that she had given me to Cat, Jaime thinks. It’s a fairer price than what Brienne has paid.
When she finishes, her voice drifting into silence, Jaime fights the urge to wrap her in his arms. It would be cold comfort at best for all she’s been through, and surely she wouldn’t want consolation from the one who had doomed her to it. He wraps his arms around himself instead.
“Why did you not tell me this before?” he asks quietly.
Brienne looks pained, as though the answer itself is causing fresh injury on top of all the rest. She’s silent for a very long time, not quite looking at him before she finally answers.
“I thought that you would be ashamed of me,” she says hoarsely.
“Ashamed?” he says, his voice going high in shock. “Why?”
“You gave me this quest, your sword. I rode under the King’s name and all I’ve done is fail to do the one thing you asked me, and gotten another man hurt in the course of it.”
She sounds near tears and Jaime reaches for her, but it’s with his right hand, an instinct he can’t seem to overcome. He drops his stump to his side without touching her.
“It was an unachievable task,” he says tightly. “I should never have asked it of you.”
Brienne looks, impossibly, even more upset, but also more resolute. Her chin wobbles as she says, “I know that I’ve let you down, that I’m not fit to carry Oathkeeper. When you leave, you should take the sword with you. It belongs at the side of someone who might wield it with honor, not me.”
Jaime stares at her, so stunned by her words that he feels like all the air in the world has disappeared. She’s standing with her head lifted, looking past him, but he can tell it’s taking all her effort to maintain her straightened spine. Even in her despair, she shines with more bravery and strength than anyone he’s ever met.
“You fool,” he whispers, dragging her unwilling gaze to his face. “You think there’s a single person out there with more honor than you have? If you’re not worthy of wielding Oathkeeper, then no one is. If you aren’t carrying it, then I’ll melt it down into scrap. If you died holding it, I would bury it with you.” His voice is a tense, vibrating line that he’s barely holding onto. He wants to yell his words at her, but he fears she would mistake it for anger at her instead of at himself for letting her believe she’s unworthy. “The sword is yours, Brienne. It will always be yours.”
Her head rocks back as if he’s struck her, her eyes widening almost comically. He wishes it were daylight, so he could see the blue of them more clearly.
“But I failed you.” She sounds so bewildered that he nearly laughs.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I failed you. I shouldn’t have given you this quest. Not because you couldn’t handle it, but because no one could.”
“You don’t know that,” she protests stubbornly and this time he does laugh a little.
“I do. I know precisely because you couldn’t do it.” He lays it there simply before her, watches her wrestle with accepting it as truth. She opens her mouth—to argue, he’s sure—so he cuts her off. “You saved those children, and Podrick, and me. If you must, consider the quest only on hold while you recover here until you’re strong enough to continue.”
Her wide lips press together, as though holding back further objection. But she only nods. “I will find Sansa Stark, Ser Jaime. Whatever it takes. I swear it.”
That’s what worries me, Jaime thinks, but he only lifts his chin. “Well, neither of us will be much good finding anyone if we don’t get some sleep. You best return to your side of the island before I have to call the Brothers to protect my delicate virtue from your presence here.”
Brienne huffs—a familiar, annoyed, amused sound. “It is not your virtue that they’re trying to protect.”
“No,” he murmurs, his gaze traveling up and down the long path of her large body. “I suppose it’s not.”
The face she makes this time is far more appealing than the misery of the ones before. “Good night, Ser Jaime,” she says with a finality that he knows he can’t overcome. It’s for the best; given more time he’ll only make things worse.
He inclines his head towards her. “Good night, Lady Brienne,” he says, letting her go. He watches until her pale form disappears into the darkness and wonders if he lets her continue her quest alone, whether it will be the last time he watches her leave.