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"Ow!" Jaime yelped as Brienne clutched at him so hard he felt her blunt fingernails digging into his skin. "I've only got one hand woman, I'd like to keep it."
"This is partly your fault", she replied through gritted teeth, "You may as well see it through to the end."
He leant over and pressed his lips to her sodden forehead, feeling the sudden urge to soothe the irritability out of his wife but only getting a mouthful of hair for his trouble.
"You've got to breathe, my love", Jaime murmured, a second kiss given freely as she muffled the sounds of pain that racked her body by biting down on her tongue. "It's been a long time since you felt the need to be quiet", he teased, making her grip down even harder.
"Remind me to kill you later", her deep blue eyes were terrified but determined.
"So you can break your vows and leave our child without a father?" Jaime bantered back, more than a little terrified himself despite having seven months to prepare for this moment. Brienne had gone into labour that morning, waiting until he'd woken, showered and walked their dog before calmly asking him to take her to the hospital. The baby was ever so slightly early and though Jaime had brushed it away with jokes about the child's impatience while he filled out Brienne's admittance papers, his stomach continued to churn with nerves. "You swore to love, honour, cherish and protect me remember?"
"I did. I do", her eyes squeezed tight shut and for the first time in a long time Jaime wished for his missing right hand, as if the extra touch could somehow steal away the pain of childbirth.
"That also includes protecting me from you", he quipped, ducking as Brienne's free hand was aimed at his head. "And just because I don't always think before I speak doesn't mean you can take my head either."
"Jaime."
Her vulnerability was beginning to worry him, since they'd been together he had heard Brienne utter his name in so many different ways, growling out the syllables in anger, screaming them in moments of ecstasy and everything in between but nothing like today.
"I'll get the nurse."
There was a part of him that wanted to apologise, wishing they had waited another couple of years, but Brienne had quoted pages of stats about older fathers and given him that look. The one that he'd never told her left him a little weak in the knees, but she seemed to know anyway. Brienne was more surprised than he was when it only took a few months before she was throwing up her breakfast in the morning and smiling through gentle curses.
He only found one nurse on duty, a pleasant looking mousy girl who's name tag introduced her as Gilly, telling Jaime in no uncertain terms that his baby would be likely born within the hour and if he didn't want to see his wife in that much pain there was a perfectly good waiting room down the hall.
Jaime's response was unrepeatable in polite company though Gilly just smiled like she'd heard every expletive known to man. Suitably chastised he took up his post at Brienne's side again, refusing to leave her alone for a single second as he tried to talk his warrior wife through something he'd never experienced.
"Do you remember what I told you on the day we got married?" Jaime asked, trying to recall the specific paragraph about contraction timings in the parenting book Brienne's best friend had gifted him. He didn't know if she would actually want Margaery at the hospital but he'd sent a quick text anyway. The pair had known each other since middle school and, if he was being honest, pissing off the Rose of Highgarden was something he'd learnt to avoid long before his friendship with Brienne had turned physical.
"That we were going to need a new bed?" There was a the beginnings of a shy smile on her face, quickly disappearing as she fought off another urge to push.
"Before that", Jaime brought their joined hands to his mouth, kissing the back of hers even as he felt the slow trickle of blood down his palm.
"That you'd never loved me more?"
Though two years had gone by he could still see the reverent look on her face after they'd finally been joined together as man and wife, her lips quivering over the not quite traditional words. The day their lives had officially changed after five years of slow burn, Brienne barely in her twenties when they'd first crossed paths at the Kings School Summer Camp. Of that first unusually wet and windy season Jaime could remember little else but how the combination of height, muscles and freckles made her probably the ugliest young woman he had ever come across. And in spite of her youth, or maybe because of it, she was also infuriatingly stubborn, gentle only with the scores of children that lined up to take swimming classes from a former junior world champion. He had an easy decade on her, years of well honed cynicism at direct odds with her naiveté, though it wasn't until the third consecutive summer they spent together that he realised Brienne Tarth was completely fascinating. That year he dreamt of her, seeking her out after they'd gone back to the world beyond overseeing swimming classes and rugby matches, taking his time to finally kiss her properly on the doorstep of her olde world cottage as the rain bounced off the ground around them.
It was months before Brienne invited him into her bed, allowing him into her head and heart along the way as he did in kind for her, so by the time the consummation happened Jaime knew he had already fallen in love.
His initial messy proposal was over breakfast the morning after their first time, though she kindly laughed it off and told him to ask again if they made it past the year mark without killing each other.
She didn't even hesitate the second time he asked.
"I didn't think I ever would until today." Jaime wasn't sure where those words had come from but they seemed to work, Brienne sending a relaxed eye roll in his direction as an incredibly young doctor entered the room.
"Mr and Mrs Lannister", he read off the chart in front of him, "I'm Dr. Tarly and I'm here to deliver your baby."
Jaime glared fiercely, protectively, feeling ancient all of a sudden. "I think if you check your chart you'll find my wife is one of Dr Luwin's patients. You don't look old enough to be out of med school."
"Jaime", Brienne moaned, half in pain half in admonishment, offering Dr. Tarly an apologetic smile.
"Dr. Luwin has been called into an emergency and as Mrs Lannister is young, healthy and low risk I've been asked to step in", he clipped the chart on to the end of the bed as he smiled back at Brienne, "You can call me Sam."
"I don't care what your name is", Jaime interrupted the introductions, "Do your bloody job."
"Jaime's just nervous", Brienne explained, repositioning her sweat soaked hand in his which was already tingling with pins and needles from the continued pressure.
Sam offered him a look of pity and Jaime wanted to punch the doctor in his stupid, fat face. But as that would be massively counterproductive he found the strength to simply ask, "How much longer?"
"I'd say we're just about ready to push."
Jaime dipped his head to find Brienne's ear, smelling the salt on her skin that mingled with the spice of cinnamon in her shampoo, "On three, ok?"
He whispered the count and felt her tense, murmuring encouragements alongside the doctor's instructions. This was it, he thought, if they'd thought a ring and a declaration of love at the court house had changed things then neither of them was probably truly prepared for a baby. Brienne relaxed for a second, preserving her strength as she borrowed his, the doctor telling her one more time before Jaime heard the unmistakable cry of his newborn child.
"I love you", he told Brienne gently, his features firming up as he turned to Sam. "Is ..." Jaime paused, realising he wasn't sure how to address the baby, "Are they ok?"
"Congratulations", the younger man beamed, ignoring Jaime as he wrapped the baby in a obnoxiously pink blanket. "You have a healthy daughter. We'll have to do a few tests but on first glance there's absolutely nothing wrong with her. Brienne", he patted her knee and she nodded, "Well done."
"Look what we made", Jaime removed the squalling girl from the doctor and took her to her mother. Brienne's eyes were full of tears, tired but not exhausted, relief flooding through her with every breath.
"She's beautiful", Sam smiled and Jaime couldn't help but silently agree. Brienne could go back to being ugly tomorrow, today both of his girls were all he wanted to look at. "Does she have a name?"
"She's barely a few minutes old, do we have to label her already?" Jaime snapped at the doctor's inept attempts at conversation, wincing inwardly at how harsh the words sounded in the pastel room as he cradled his daughter like that was all it would take to protect her from the world.
"Some parents have ... I'm sorry."
"Honor", Brienne whispered, making Jaime start and the baby cry. She had so far refused to talk about names, stopping him from buying even the simplest things before their child was safe and healthy in their arms. They were tempting fate, Brienne had told him one day after her emotions got the best of her, why buy a crib if there wasn't a baby to put in it yet?
Jaime knew there had been too much death in her life, her sisters never even took a single breath of stagnant hospital air and her own mother didn't make it home after the second one. He had tried to make Brienne forget those fears, reminding her that despite his estrangement the Lannister name still opened a lot of doors and she could have the best doctors in the country if she wanted, kissing every inch of her freckled skin to slowly turn tears into breathy sighs. Making love did little but remind them both how their current predicament had come about in the first place, but Jaime couldn't help being a little pleased with how passionate the pregnancy was making his wife. Maybe after one healthy child, Brienne wouldn't be so nervous about a possible second or third.
"We can call her something else if you don't like it", she backtracked quickly at Jaime's silence. "Joanna maybe?"
"No it's perfect", he finally handed over Honor to Brienne, letting all his feelings flow through a kiss that made the young doctor mumble and leave the room, finding it endearing how Brienne could still blush after everything they'd been through. "I just hope she takes after her mother and can live up to it."
"If she's anything like her father I don't think that'll be a problem."