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Uncle Gerion once told Jaime that when he had trouble making a choice, he should flip a coin. In the seconds before the coin hit the surface below, he would know what he wanted — a subconscious decision made clear by sudden pressure put upon it.
He didn’t have to flip a coin this time. Instead, he almost died.
In fact, he can still feel the burn of the Stark woman’s rope ‘round his neck where it supported his weight for the moments before Brienne cut him down with that blasted sword he gave her; it may have saved his life, but it is a gift he regrets. The wench led him to his death — knowingly led him to his death, let him be strung up and the support knocked out from beneath his feet before saving him, and all for the honor of a woman once dead and brought back to life by the sort of sorcery he is wary of at best.
And then she had the audacity to ask his forgiveness.
Since losing his sword hand, Jaime has learned about right and wrong, good and evil. Oh, he is well aware that he has learned lessons aplenty — something Brienne reminded him of, after her request. He has not lost his sense of self-preservation, though; only a fool would do so in a war-riddled realm. And the burn of the rope upon his flesh is nowhere near the burning fire of wrath in his gut.
She came through in the end — perhaps after a mental coin flip of her own. But it was only in the end, after a long journey and a confrontation with the abomination Catelyn Stark has become that felt as if it took near as long as the trek to her little clearing in the woods took, and for all that time Brienne had every intention of watching him die.
So when she asks for forgiveness, he thinks about it. He does.
And then he denies it, saddles up his horse, and sets off for King’s Landing. I am not one for women, he thinks bitterly as he rides. Only my sister — a special breed of woman, indeed; one born half-mad, perhaps, but I am not entirely sure anyone in this realm exists who was not.
It feels like madness when he returns to the Red Keep, a hint of his old swagger in his step. It feels like madness, too, when he takes Cersei in his arms once more and feels her return his rough, hard kiss as an equal. Inhales her familiar scent; lays her down on that familiar featherbed before fucking her — or, rather, starting to, before she flips him onto his back and rides him instead.
Yes, it is madness. But it is the sweetest thing there is — and Jaime knows his choice has been made for good.