Chapter Text
There were terrible consequences for an irredeemable youth. If Jaime hadn’t realized that already, swinging from a branch had made the point. He was prepared for the dragon girl’s fire, and the wrath of Catlyn’s she-wolves, but Brandon Stark…
All the preparation in the world would not have readied Jaime to see the boy again.
He followed Brienne into Winterfell’s great hall, a footfall behind, the crowd parting around them then solidifying into a circle of scowls and murmurs. A few brazen men spit at his boots.
His stomach squirmed at the idea of burning, and he wondered just how far the Stranger’s grip would stretch, if it would drag him from the ashes or reattach a head liberated by Ned’s bastard’s blade?
The two women held court, Stark and Targaryen, would-be queens of North and South. Jon Snow stood behind like a brooding watchdog, a line of mostly unfamiliar faces stretching out on either side. His brother and the Hound were notable exceptions. They all looked so very young to Jaime’s death-shaded eyes, so unprepared for the coming horror.
Brandon Stark was positioned to the side in a chair with wheels. It took all of Jaime’s courage to meet his stare and keep moving forward, torn between running for the door and throwing himself at the boy’s feet.
Brienne wore her sorrow, a sad veil that softened her features, and he wondered if she could see forward, if she was counting corpses even now. The Stark boy’s eyes never left them, and he shared that knowing, haunted look with Brienne, as if he had one maimed leg dangling over his own grave.
Cold blew through every crack, worked its fingers up Jaime’s spine. It ached like that night on the frozen forest floor; a death for Brandon’s suffering, the first time he’d offered such payment for his sins. If Brandon had a limb in the grave, then Jaime surely was dead and buried a half-dozen times by now, nothing but skin and spite holding him together.
Brienne’s hand brushed his, the shadow of her smile flashed in his direction, a reminder that some bonds are stronger than tendon and bone, stronger than regret. Spite wasn’t the emotion keeping him here.
“You’re dead.” Tyrion stood from his chair, forgetting that it made him smaller to the staring eyes. “The imposter calling himself Aegon hung you in front of an army of witnesses, then sent me your cloak as proof.” Voice shaking, he wobbled on his feet then searched Jaime’s face, unbelieving.
“I suppose I’m lucky it wasn’t my head, or a hand.” He forced a smile, aiming for cocksure but swallowing around a wave of nausea at the memory. “I obviously–”
“He was dead.” Brandon’s voice was controlled, a raging current beneath still water. “Not for the first time, and not for the last. Ser Jaime serves a different Master now, no longer his sister’s man. We will need his particular gift to win the battle before us.”
Tyrion frowned, looking from Brandon to Jaime. “What do you mean was–”
“I’ve heard of you.” Sansa spoke over the crowd. Brienne met her cold appraisal. “The giant woman who served in my brother’s army, just long enough to earn my mother’s trust, and then you disappeared with him.” The word was a sneer. She bobbed her head in Jaime’s direction, but her eyes never left Brienne. “You’re a traitor, and a coward.”
At Sansa’s side, the Targaryen girl coiled, her delicate fingers whitening around the table’s edge. Jon Snow placed one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other on Sansa’s shoulder. All around Jaime, feet shuffled, weapons scraped as they were quietly drawn.
With a sigh of exasperation, Jaime eased his own blade a few inches from its sheath and stepped in front of Brienne. “I did not travel all this bloody way, freezing my ass off , so that I could die in Winterfell– again.” He glanced at Bran with something approaching amusement, and was shocked to see it mirrored in the boy’s eyes. “Not before slicing my way through a herd of walking corpses first.”
The dragon girl found her voice. “Kingslayer, murderer, why should we trust you—”
“Enough.”
The timbers rattled, a thousand voices buzzed; the sound crawled beneath Jaime’s skin, it shook his teeth. Brienne brushed him aside, took a step forward. She made no move for her weapon, her hands hung open, but the threat was there, in the set of her shoulders and the tilt of her head.
Torches sputtered, and Jaime wondered what everyone else saw. He saw her towering in rags, ribs stripped bare, and her indomitable heart pounding beneath. She turned blazing eyes toward him and his heart galloped in reply, the power flowing through her, connecting them.
No one spoke, no one moved, wonder and fear settling like a cold fog.
“You bicker like children. I am not asking your permission. This battle is mine to fight.” Her voice was clipped, the rumbling madness held in check.
Jaime almost felt sorry for the gathered, scolded crowd, for the girls playing grown-up, faced with something unknowable standing in front of them and rippling with fury.
He leaned toward her, unafraid.
Brienne was the shadow in the crypt and the wordless lament, she was the faceless form at the foot of a death vigil, the specter in the sept. Everyone in the room had seen her, yet they hadn’t, and still they knew, they knew.
“If you let me train your men, they may survive,” she went on, unbothered. “If not, they will die and rise again, a weapon against us.”
Sansa was the first to reclaim her voice. “Why do you care?”
Brienne almost smiled, he saw it in her eyes. “Every death is a passage, each soul has value. The Stranger waits patiently, always counting, and He does not abandon his claim.”
Jaime saw the minute the Stark girl understood, eyes moving from Brienne’s face to her black armor, her death-mask pauldrons. “You’re His.”
“I am.”
“And him?” Sansa glanced at Jaime then back, fighting to hold Brienne’s stare.
“He’s mine.”
The huffing laugh rattled up Jaime’s throat, and he couldn’t contain it, no matter how inappropriate. All the years of waiting for Cersei to acknowledge him, to claim him, and now he stood surrounded by enemies as this terrifying creature called him mine.
It wedged itself in his chest, the sharp heat of it expanding until it filled him. Hers.
With fingers that trembled, he took her open hand. He didn’t let go as they settled to the side of the room and listened to preparations; he held on as one of Sansa’s men showed them to a room of their own.
He dragged her to bed, called her mine-mine-mine until he was breathless.
*
The darkness was a steadily pressing weight, a little longer, a little heavier each day, until the hours of daylight dwindled to minutes, then disappeared.
Outside their room, Brienne was unflappable, untouched by the mounting dread. Stories circulated of what had happened when she’d arrived, growing more fearsome with each telling, and no one bucked her command or doubted her instruction.
But when the day’s training was done, when she closed the door behind her and let Jaime strip off her armor one piece at a time, the cracks in her mortar would spread.
Neither of them were accustomed to delicate words or gentle handling. His sister certainly had never given Jaime that much consideration. Only Brienne, always from Brienne.
The first time he’d stared at her face and seen worry, the first time he’d smoothed her hair and made hushing noises against her jaw, Brienne had gone rigid in his arms. Then she’d lifted him off his feet and spread him in front of their fire with his hands pinned above his head, she’d stolen reassurance from his mouth, from his body and his cock, all the while Jaime whispering I’m here, right here, and we’re still together, love, we’re fine.
He recognized the changes happening to her, how she grew stronger as the enemy approached. It was like watching a wave crest, seeing how high it could climb before the crash and knowing that they both would be broken in its wake.
So he’d let her push him down and use him, let her grind and growl her frustration and smothered fear until she shook apart over him.
After, he would comfort her. He’d whisper quips and complaints about how terribly she’d used him against her skin, blow tickling breath across her sweaty shoulders. Jaime would stroke her stomach and her thighs and coax her to bed.
In the quiet darkness, he’d circle her waist and say how much he loved her, how deeply he trusted her, then he’d take her apart once more with slow, steady hands.
*
“What will happen when it’s over?” Brienne asked, lying half covered in furs.
There had been a fortnight of black, but still they named it day and night, worked long hours then rested for a few before starting again.
“You’re assuming we will win.” Jaime was beneath her, his arms around her waist. “If we lose, there will be a lot of walking and little conversation, not that I’ll care at that point, and at least the sodding cold won’t matter–”
“We’ll win.” They’d had this conversation before, Jaime always using flippancy to cover his terror. “And I won’t let you turn into something else.” She knew his worry by now.
“Then you will return to collecting the dead and I’ll keep on living, probably dogging your heels like a morbid shadow.” He said it like it didn’t hurt.
“It never bothered me before, what I am. ”
Her unhappiness was partially his doing, and he didn’t regret it. Jaime had been determined to waste his life, and Brienne had never really lived at all, but in a handful of stolen days they’d figured out how to live, truly live. There was no changing it; he wouldn’t dare.
“What time you have given me is enough.” He held his voice steady, felt her blink against his chest, the soft drag of lashes against skin. “I’ll take more if it’s offered, I’m greedy after all,” he squeezed her hip and she sputtered a laugh. “But I will survive, Brienne.”
“I’m not ready to lose you.” She sounded so small. “It could be years. We’ll spend lifetimes apart, only meeting when–”
“I die,” he finished so that she wouldn’t have to.
“I’ll be a memory of myself.” Propped on her elbows, she looked down at his face. “We won’t have this anymore.” Her fingers trailed across his chest, then she traced her own ribs, the muscles between rippling beneath her skin.
He imagined bones and rags, silver hair and blazing eyes. “I wanted you, even then.” Holding her stare, he dared her to challenge him.
“That’s gruesome.”
“It’s true,” he cupped her chin, guiding her lips back to his. “My feelings will not change.”
Jaime rolled them so that she was sprawled across the thin mattress, skin painted golden in the firelight. He kissed her slowly, letting his hands wander, finding every dip and rise where she was sensitive, teasing until she begged him to take her. Then, using that same restraint, the slow drag of his body against hers, he pulled the climax out of her, breaking her open beneath him.
Her fears flowed out and she gasped his name, and don’t leave me, don’t leave, while she tightened around him; and he trembled, and spilled, whispering I’ll stay, always-always .
It was a wish, not a lie.
They fell asleep tangled together, and woke to the sound of battle horns.
*
Brienne was a sight to behold, hacking down wights three at a time, slogging a path through reddened snow. Her sword made quick work of everything in its path, dead men and icy monstrosities alike piled at her feet. Jaime guarded her back, holding the mass of dead at bay and giving her room to maneuver.
The first time he was overtaken he was terrified. The wights swarmed his ankles, his knees, pulled him to the ground and gnawed and stabbed until he was bleeding and crumpled. Jaime felt the chill rise in his veins, the gathering need to stand and swing and claw until everything was as dead as he surely would be.
Then Brienne was there, crouching even as the dead climbed her shoulders and bit her neck, pressing her warm lips to his mouth, whispering, “You are mine , Jaime Lannister, mine, and you will not leave me.”
So he knit back together, and he gasped icy air, he pushed death from his blood and replaced it with Brienne, her fire, her belief. Then he stood again, and took his place at her back.
He fell again, and again, but she called him back to her, always back, and he went without hesitation, more slowly with each passing. Still guarding, still protecting with everything left of him.
Time had long lost meaning, the fight may have lasted a day, it may have lasted five. Jaime found himself eating filthy snow because there was no time to drink, and blinking long and slow between swings of his sword. Once, he woke to Brienne shaking his shoulders, wearing a smile too soft for a battlefield.
She never faltered, never weakened, and the men fighting around her, those of the north and others who had traveled to join the fight, Dothraki and Unsullied alike, all rallied behind her. Brienne was the point of their spear, driving through the darkness with eyes gleaming, their light when there was no other.
Then there was only one white walker left, the others were stains on Brienne’s boots. Wearing a look of surprise, the living circled around him. The frozen king didn’t speak, he didn’t snarl or shriek, but remained as cold and unfeeling as the snow banked over the piles of dead like a clean shroud.
It was Brienne who stepped forward to meet his blade, Brienne who took blow after blow from spear and dagger before finally driving forward with enough force to slice his head from his shoulders. It rolled to a stop at her feet, and all the reanimated men floundering on the dark battlefield fell in place, never to rise again.
Brienne went to her knees in blood and mud, and Jaime fell beside her. He thought that this was his end after all, that he’d served his purpose and used up all the Stranger’s grace. Jaime found Brienne’s hand on the ground near his, wrapped his fingers around hers as his eyes shut, and there was no sorrow.
*
He woke to sunlight through their window. Someone had hastily washed them both and laid them in bed, bare beneath a pile of covers, a fire kept hot while they slept.
She was asleep beside him, mouth open, hair mussed and stuck together in places with clumps of mud. He traced her cheekbone with his thumb, and her lips. Brienne’s features were more delicate than he remembered seeing in years, possibly ever.
Jaime lifted the covers and looked at the rest of her. She was still broad and flat, still thick-waisted and full-hipped and muscled beyond reason. If he didn’t know Brienne’s body so well he might not have seen that her wrists were smaller, that there were indents above her pelvic bones that hadn’t been there the day before, and her clavicle poked out further from her chest.
“What are you looking at?” She stirred behind white lashes.
“The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he grinned, and she shoved his chest.
“Shut up.” Grumbling, pulling the covers close, Brienne rolled away and he followed, wrapping himself around her back.
“You’re smaller.” He whispered it against her neck, then reached for her hand, twining their fingers. “Just barely, just enough for me to notice.”
“I feel it.”
He wondered what that meant, if she felt smaller in her skin or a shrinking of spirit, or both. Jaime didn’t want to know the answer, not yet.
“I certainly hope so.” He rubbed against her, teasing her sensitive thighs with his hairs, pressing his half-interested erection against her backside. “There’s sunlight again, and we have this whole bed to ourselves, and it likes being felt.”
“Do you ever think of anything besides sex?” Brienne turned with a smile. It faded as she met his expression.
“I do little besides think,” his voice was too soft, too serious. “I’d like to not think right now.” He swallowed the cracking sound that accompanied his panic. “Will you help me do that, sweetling, just for a while?”
It surprised him, this honesty, enough to ask for what he needed. He wasn’t born to it, it wasn’t what he was used to.
Brienne cupped his face in broad hands. “For as long as you need.” Then she covered his body with hers, and it felt as heavy, just as wonderfully solid as he remembered.
*
Their reprieve lasted a turn of the moon. They ate what they were rationed, and helped with rebuilding the keep and the disposal of bodies. Brienne was unaffected by corpses; she would throw one over each shoulder like it was nothing, another menial task. Jaime did not take to it as easily; every blonde head reminded him of Tommen, and he would have avoided it altogether if Brienne wasn’t there.
Evenings, they listened from the edges as men gathered and told stories of the fight. Brienne never spoke, but cups were lifted in her honor, and she smiled at their songs and laughter. Alone, they wrapped around each other, and he would map the shifting of her skin and bones with his fingers.
She was shorter and leaner, and she’d quit wearing her armor because it no longer fit; but she hefted her massive broadsword easily, and she could still do the lifting of four men.
One remarkably bright morning, she sat up from a sound sleep and stated, “It’s today.”
“No, it’s not.” He pulled her back down, held her to his chest. “It’s just your nerves, a change in the wind–”
“Jaime, it’s happening. Can’t you feel it too?”
He could, fuck it all, he could. There was that once-familiar feeling of shifting, an echo he’d almost misplaced of two worlds colliding beneath her skin.
“Don’t go,” his voice broke, at once desperate. “Stay with me.”
“I would stay forever if I could, you know that.” She squeezed him so hard that his ribs ached. “He’s been generous with me. He gave us time.”
“Not enough.” He shook his head, denying what was happening. “It wasn’t enough, please, I can’t–”
Jaime’s fingers were burrowing into her shoulders, bruising. He swallowed the sob threatening to spring from his throat. It was too soon, he wasn’t ready, he’d never be ready.
Brienne felt less tangible, misty at the edges. Still she pressed her lips to his neck, his jaw, mapping his face with fingers and mouth. “Find your daughter.”
The words caught him off-guard, he stared blankly. “Brienne.” It was all he could say. He was already so lost.
“She might yet survive.” There were tears in her lashes. Jaime wondered what he’d done to deserve her, how he’d charmed fearsome death into loving him. “Promise me you’ll leave here, avoid a pointless war for the crown and try to save her.”
He nodded, covering her mouth with his, drawing her exhales deep into his lungs. Jaime wanted to take some of Brienne into him; to remember her taste, her smell, the slide of her skin against his.
“I love you.” He said it between her lips, against her teeth, not willing to pause. “I’ll search for Myrcella, but I will look for you, too.”
“Don’t waste a death trying to find me.” She leaned back to see his eyes. He started to say that he wouldn’t do that, but knew himself better. If he were desperate enough, he would sleep on the icy ground and wait for her. “It’s important, Jaime.” Deep-water eyes implored him. “Don’t waste a moment of your life mourning me, and don’t casually court harm because you think that you can. He’s measuring how you use His favor.”
“Favor,” he scoffed at the word, it stuck in his throat.“Without you, what does it matter?” Jaime wanted to scream at the Stranger to take him now and spare him lifetimes without her.
“It will matter.” Brienne smoothed his hair, comforting him. “How you spend so many years should have meaning.” Her cloak was draped over them, she reached into a pocket. “Take these and add them to the others.”
She handed him a small bag, it rattled as he took it–a sack of stony eyes, each one a fall during battle, its weight the price of their survival.
Brienne was almost gone. He felt the familiar drag of the wind, the suck of dirt and roots, grinding her back to dust. He wanted to scream at the unfairness of it, to thrash and curse and grip her too tight.
Instead he cradled her, repeating mine-mine-mine-mine-mine. It was folded into the wind of her, into her swirl of scent and sighs. She carried his claim with her into nothing, and Jaime was left alone in their bed in the sunlight.
*
Leaving was no trouble at all. Balerion was missing from the stables. Jaime supposed he’d followed his master to ashes, so he picked another sturdy-looking horse and tucked his meager possessions in a saddle-bag.
He’d said goodbye to his brother, knowing that it was final, knowing that their paths were diverging and would never reconnect. Jaime wanted nothing to do with battle or politics, and Tyrion would forever chase their father’s admiration from whichever circle of hell the old lion watched from.
Only Brandon Stark noticed as he passed through the courtyard toward the gate. “Good luck, Ser Jaime,” he called, wearing that unfocused expression he’d had since returning to Winterfell. Jaime’s neck prickled from being watched, and he thought Bran must be reading his future, but didn’t turn to ask.
It was a long trip to Dorne. Jaime cropped his hair and allowed his beard to grow long. He wrapped his head in the fashion of the locals, and the unyielding sun browned the skin of his cheeks and neck until he was unrecognizable.
Jaime entered the Water Gardens through the servant gate, then found his way to the reflecting pools and waited.
Myrcella walked in the afternoon sun with two women by her side and a babe on her hip. They laughed and talked freely, cooing over the boy she carried. Jaime crept closer to the group, straining to see.
The child was young, less than a year, with honey-gold hair that would age to brown, and eyes as green as his mother’s, as green as Jaime’s own.
Questions flooded his mind: whether the Prince had married Myrcella despite her fall in status with Tommen’s death, or if he’d taken her as a paramour instead.
Jaime wondered if bedding the prince had been a calculated move by Myrcella, or something spontaneous and born of love. He thought of his sister, and how Cersei would value the first reason, while he hoped for the second.
His headstrong daughter might prefer to be bound by a shared family instead of a vow that often meant nothing in the end. Myrcella had given Trystane a son, one with a distant claim to the throne, and the child had secured her place in court.
The questions blew by as quickly as they’d come. None of it mattered, because his daughter looked happy.
Myrcella’s hair was bleached from the desert sun, it sparkled in the reflections from the ponds. She wore the pink glow of youth and new motherhood as she lifted her son and kissed his fat cheeks.
With a last look, Jaime left. He was dead to the Dornish, and he’d remain dead. He wouldn’t risk Myrcella’s joy to hold his grandson for a moment. It would be enough to know that a part of him existed in the world of the living.
*
He left Dorne on a ship bound for Pentos, joining the crew and learning to sail. Standing at the rail, charting the horizon, he felt the burden of eternity as deep and heavy as the sea all around. There would be crests and falls, but his end stretched ever out of reach.
What value held the passing of time if there was no consequence of spending it? What importance were ten turns of the seasons, or twenty? At least on a ship he had company in his strandedness, afloat in tireless blue with only the sun and stars to mark the flow of days.
Brienne’s parents were islanders. If she’d lived long enough to breathe the salt air, the sea might have held her fortune. Jaime watched the sun-kissed waves, how they sparkled just beneath the breaking surface, and he pictured her eyes.
One day he would take a ship to Tarth and visit the grave of a woman he’d never met; he’d kneel at the stone for her stillborn daughter.
He couldn’t be the man he’d been, and he no longer wanted to. Brienne had reset his compass, and now it pointed toward her expectations. Jaime could still talk a septa into sinning if he put his mind to it, but he would use that skill to learn new trades, to gain knowledge and survive alone.
The waves eventually grew tiresome, and he settled in a seaside town. A hundred winters had come and gone since the war with the dead. Buildings grew taller, people multiplied, and Jaime stayed the same.
Throughout that time, Jaime never died. He’d considered finding a way to force the issue, there were plenty of ways to find trouble if he was looking for it, but then he’d remember his promise to Brienne and change his mind.
Like all long-harbored memories, his ones of Brienne faded into half-formed things, outlines without substance. During drawn-out days he wondered if he’d imagined her altogether, but in dreams he felt her body beneath him and heard her laugh. It was slow torture, a long life spent without its meaning, never glimpsing the joy which he lived for.
He suffered it as the penance he deserved.
*
Summer was thick and humid, and he was climbing the stairs to his flat above a tavern when a woman screamed in the alleyway below.
Jaime didn’t hesitate to run to her aid, even though he’d long quit carrying a weapon. He charged the circle of three men, catching one by surprise and overpowering a second. The third man pulled a knife and slit Jaime’s throat before he could laugh at his own stupidity.
The girl ran off, and Jaime slumped against a wall, pressing a hand to his neck to slow the flow. Blood trickled down his chest and gathered in a puddle between his thighs. He would end up the only man to bleed-out in an alleyway twice.
His last death had come at the hands of wights, so this seemed much kinder.
A breeze stirred around him, heavy with the smell of fallow fields and turned dirt; arms circled his waist, more bone and tendon than flesh, but still warm.
He groaned at the feel of her, lifetimes of longing rushing back at once. She was real and she was here, sitting behind him, holding him. The reality of it was too much, and he closed his eyes. Tears escaped the corners, and she thumbed them dry.
“Haven’t we done this before?” Her breath brushed his blood-streaked neck, and he tried to sigh, but his ravaged throat could only gurgle.
Jaime’s weakening body wouldn’t cooperate. He wanted to turn in her arms and kiss her, to sink into her chest and never leave.
His vision was fading quickly, and he reached for her face with bloody fingers. Brienne nuzzled his hair, wrapped bare-bone legs around his hips and held him close. He could feel her heart thump against his cheek.
“This one is easy.” The even hum of her voice was more seductive than any siren song. He let his hand fall from his neck, no longer caring how quickly his life seeped into the cracks in the brickwork beneath him. “Close your eyes and I’ll hold you until it passes.”
Jaime let the dark take him, and in his death-dreams he felt strong fingers pinching the gash in his neck closed, he tasted her sweet-sour breath in his mouth, and tried to move further into the sleepy darkness, only to have her lead him out.
He’d hoped it would be different this time, that his eternal watch was drawing to a close.
When he opened his eyes, Brienne’s face was near to his, as broad and plain and disarmingly honest as he remembered.
“I’ve missed you.” The words creaked from his still-mending throat, and they were too little and horribly inadequate, but he couldn’t think of better ones. Instead, he pulled her mouth to his, her taste seeping deeper into his tongue.
Brienne kissed him back, with soft lips and girlish pants that he knew she possessed, even if no one else would believe it. He ran his hand along her exposed ribcage, and she tried to bat it away. Jaime wouldn’t let her.
“None of that,” his breath gusted into her mouth, he was unwilling to budge. “I told you that it wouldn’t bother me, and it doesn’t.”
“What a strange, morbid man you are.” She smiled through the barb; it had no bite. “It must be the company you keep.”
He had wrapped himself around her, one hand at her waist and the other at her neck. Brienne held him to her with both arms, settling her chin atop his head. How many years had passed since he’d been where he belonged?
“The last time I died in an alleyway, it was your sword in my chest,” Jaime remembered aloud, and she grunted in reply. Her hand drew little circles over the spot where her blade had exited his back. “That was the day I quit aging.”
“You captured the Stranger’s attention with your fancy swordwork.”
“Funny, I was attempting to capture your attention.” He grinned against her chest, and Brienne snickered. “Do you think that dying like this again is a sign?”
“No.” Her voice was gentle. “Are you impatient to grow old and wither?”
“I’ve lived at least four lifetimes already, Brienne. Gods willing, my grandson has great-grandchildren of his own by now.”
“He does.”
It hurt less coming from her lips. Brienne was watching over his family, offering what protection she could. Jaime wished briefly for what could never be, a past where he met Brienne –alive and stubborn and impossibly good–and they had a family of their own.
“I want to go with you.” He knew her answer, but he would keep asking.
“Not yet,” she shushed him like a child, he trembled against her. “You’re not finished here.”
“Have you considered that maybe I’m finished with this –”
“You did something wonderful today,” her quiet praise silenced his protest. “That girl would have died horribly; you gave her a future.”
“I bet the Stranger hates my meddling.”
“No,” she chuckled under her breath. “He’s very patient, and you’ve made him proud.” She took his hand and pressed two stones to his palm. “Remember to keep these with you.”
Jaime started to question the need–his pouch was full already, and he’d carried them so long. Then he felt Brienne start to shift, like grit grinding beneath him, and all of his attention was focused on her. “You’re leaving.”
“I’m being called away,” she pointedly clarified. He knew. Brienne never chose to leave him. “I love you.”
He could count on one hand the number of times she’d said it first. Always, Brienne had seemed a wild thing that needed coaxing into tameness with slow, careful touches and whispered affection. Time without him must have made her desperate too.
Jaime surged to cover her lips with his, to show her how much he valued her love and how badly he needed it. He tangled his fingers in her hair and closed his eyes, refusing to watch as she scattered on the wind.
*
The world grew more hazardous, with modern, faster ways to die.
He pushed a boy out of the way when the child’s shoe caught in the rails of the cable-car leading from the old keep to the harbor in Kings’ Landing. Jaime had initially returned to the city to see his brother’s grave, and ended up staying for more years than he could remember.
Jaime’s leg ended up beneath the car, and he watched his blood streak down the tracks, painting its own path to the harbor. He blacked out, and Brienne somehow moved him to a quiet courtyard in the center of town and stitched his severed limb together.
When he roused, there was no time left for them, he had taken too long to heal. Brienne was there for a moment, pressing open-mouth kisses to his pulse, whispering I miss you–I miss you–I miss you… then she faded to dust once more.
Two green-eyed stones laid face-up in the grass.
*
Kings’ Landing grew unchecked into a sprawling mass of closely-packed people. Fires broke out in the poorest housing, and Jaime volunteered to help fight them.
Jaime was never reckless with his life, but he didn’t fear death. If it came for him now, well, he’d lived without Brienne for long enough, and there were so many sins from his youth to atone for. So he entered the smoke and flames time and again, rescuing as many as he could before he fell.
His question about dragonfire from centuries before was answered. The Stranger could, in fact, resurrect his burnt corpse, but it was a drawn-out, painful ordeal. Brienne carried him back to his tiny apartment, then stayed beside him for days as the skin grew back and he howled in misery, crying for release.
His bravery and suffering earned them a gift. Jaime was healed and Brienne remained, sleeping next to him in the fever-soiled bed. He woke in sunlight while she slept, and he touched the jut of a hip beneath her clothes, the line of her jaw.
“You’re finally better,” she blinked awake, smiling. “That was awful. Don’t die like that again.”
A long-ago, brittle-cold afternoon in Winterfell they had curled under covers, and Brienne had insisted that he take other lovers after she was gone. The idea was preposterous to Jaime at the time, and had grown to be inconceivable. Even like this, half-rags and half-bones, she was mesmerizing.
Brienne wouldn’t let him make love to her now. He argued that it didn’t matter what form she took, but she remained resolutely self-conscious. All her protests couldn’t stop him from looking, from caressing and wanting and worshiping her in the small ways that she would allow.
Reaching into a pocket, she pulled out two more stones, mumbling, “Before I forget.”
He resignedly dropped them on his bedside table. “I already have two pouchfulls. I’ll need a wagon if I live much longer.”
She was staring at him, her blue eyes luminous in the afternoon rays. “There’s some gray in your hair, here,” lean fingers brushed his temple. “And some lines around your eyes.” Her touch trailed down and in, mapping him.
“Are you certain?” He sat up quickly, running his hand over his face, trying to feel what she saw.
“The time of the Gods is fading, Jaime. Men worship their own inventions now.” She pulled him back down to her. “It follows that we will fade as well.”
She didn’t sound distressed, and Jaime wasn’t either. It was natural to age, to weaken and die. His heart wasn’t made to contain an eternity of weariness and wanting.
“How long will it take?” He knew that she didn’t have the answer, but he asked anyway.
“Probably a few lifetimes at least.” Brienne squeezed his fingers, held him tightly. “I’ll be here with you. Even when you can’t see me, I’m close.”
“I know you’re there. I’ll catch glimpses of you, off to the side, barely a shadow.” He pressed his face to the fold of her neck, seeking her warm scent. “It’s enough, you’re enough.”
Their time was ending, she was scattering beneath him. The desire to hold her together, to steal a few more minutes, was enough to make him sob. Still she soothed him with a slow rocking back and forth, a deep humming in her chest. “It will be all right, love. I’ll see you soon.”
He was alone once more, with his new skin that prickled and burned and his heart thumping too hard, missing hers already.
*
Jaime was an old man. He’d bought a farm near the coast, and raised and rode horses. All the newer forms of transportation were too fast, they didn’t fit him.
Nymeria was a pretty gray mare, and it wasn’t her fault. There was a loud crack in the distance, the sound of someone hunting on a neighboring property, and she reared back and threw him. Jaime landed with his head on a rock.
When he opened his eyes, Brienne was standing by the horse, running her hands through the mane. She would still tower over most men, but was wraith-thin; only her face carried enough flesh to hide the bone beneath. Brienne looked fearsome and hollow, until she turned to Jaime and smiled.
“She’s beautiful,” Brienne cooed, rubbing her nose against the horse’s ear. It twitched and she laughed. “Such a pretty girl.”
“I’m dead and you’re enamored of my murdering horse.” Jaime saw spots, his head pounded. “Frustrating woman.” He didn’t mean it. Brienne would see right through him.
“It’s been ages since I’ve ridden.” She rubbed the leather of the pommel. There was longing in her eyes.
“Go on, then. She’ll be gentle for you.”
She climbed easily into the saddle, then extended a hand, and he slid into the space in front of her as he’d done years before. Brienne wrapped her arms around him, and they swayed with the gentle cant of the horse, her broad hands roaming his chest. Jaime closed his eyes and leaned into her.
“I’m ancient, my love,” he sighed.
“You’re still the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.” She kissed his nape, the hairs mostly silver now. “The first time I saw you in the forest, you were shining in the sunlight, and I didn’t think that you were real.”
Jaime gave a bark of laughter, remembering the unworldly being Brienne had been when he’d met her, and now knowing that she’d found him just as unbelievable. It seemed an impossible thing.
The horse followed a well-trod path; they let it lead. The wind picked up and Brienne flickered.
“You’re going.” They’d done this so many times, and it was always too soon. He covered her hands with his, and she pressed two stones into his palm.
“Our time is almost over,” she huffed, and he could hear her melancholy. “We will depart with a whimper instead of a roar.”
“I don’t mind.” He thought of the lives he’d quietly saved, and the many others he hadn’t. “There’s dignity in this ending, at least.”
Brienne nodded, her skeletal arms squeezed him close. “I love you.” Her breath brushed his shoulder, he smelled her familiar sour-salt scent, and he was alone.
Jaime rarely prayed, but he asked the Stranger to live long enough to care for the last of his horses, and his request was granted. When they were gone, he sold his farm and bought a little boat for his final journey to Tarth.
*
The grave was on a tall plateau overlooking the sea, tucked in the shadow of a once-grand manor. Time had reduced the building to an outline in white stones; it sprawled over the grassy land like the great skeleton of a long-dead beast.
He kneeled in the little graveyard. No one else knew that Brienne was buried here. She was a footnote in a once-powerful family’s history, a tiny blank stone next to her mother’s marker.
“I made it, sweetling.” He touched the stone’s smooth surface. It had taken all his strength to sail to the island and then climb to the gravesite. This was where he wanted it to end.
Jaime lay on the grave and placed his head next to Brienne’s marker. Old age had claimed him more quickly as he’d traveled, and now he could feel the slowing of his heartbeat, the stilling of his blood.
Tall grass swayed all around him, and Jaime revisited the ways he’d failed in his long life. There were generations of his bloodline that he’d never met; he’d abandoned the Lannister name after visiting his daughter, and he’d never once interfered with his progeny’s lives. Jaime wasn’t sure if that was a fault of his character or a merit.
He’d failed Cersei, and he’d failed his sons, although much of their fate had been out of his hands.
It was mostly his youthful mistakes that haunted him, choices driven by hubris and lust. Jaime wondered if he’d done enough to atone.
“I’ll accept my fate willingly,” he spoke to the high, blue sky. “Just, please, send her to collect me.”
Then he closed his eyes, and placed his palm on her stone. “Come on, Brienne. I’m waiting.”
He felt his weary heart skip, then stop, and with a final exhale he was gone.
*
There was darkness all around, and Jaime’s first thought was that he’d been judged and found lacking. He faced it with tired acceptance.
Then he felt fingers around his, a hand wider than his own curled against his palm.
“Brienne,” he sighed her name, and it echoed in the empty blackness. “Where are we?”
“In between.” She stroked his thumb, soothing. He still couldn’t see her face. “Follow me.”
She led him through the empty dark toward the sound of running water. Out of the gloom, a wide, rolling river seemed to materialize. There was a figure leaning against a skiff; it stood as they approached.
“Do you have fare?” Its voice tumbled all around them, cold currents of sound that chilled Jaime’s skin with the crisp wetness of an inland breeze.
“The stones,” Brienne whispered beside him.
He fumbled in the dark, then handed over both full pouches. The figure rolled each one in its hands; the stones rattled like dry bones as they felt the size and shape of them.
Jaime knew, in the same way that a dream is known only while sleeping, that the stones weren’t what was being examined, but the life attached to each one. The figure twisted and turned the sacks, weighing the worth of each of Jaime’s lifetimes.
There was a sound as each stone slid through skeletal fingers, and with each sound an image flashed in Jaime’s mind: that first battle beneath the tall, swaying pines –click– pushing Bran and watching small limbs flail in the air –click– suffocating in his tent as he pondered the worth of one babe’s life -click– standing beside Brienne during the long battle and falling again and again –click-click-click-click-click…
Centuries spent protecting innocents, one stone for each life lost in the process. They shifted and clacked against one another in the boatman’s hands.
After long moments, they lifted their shrouded head. “There are two missing.”
Brienne held out her hand, in her palm were the pair she had carried since the sept. “I am responsible for these.” As she handed them over, Jaime relived the memory of leaning against her in an alleyway, her sword covered with his blood.
The figure added those to the others, fingered them a while longer, then nodded. “There is enough for passage for two.”
Brienne trembled beside him, swaying until her shoulder bumped his. She’d faced his fate stoically, unwilling to risk hoping for anything for herself, or them. He knew her so well that he could feel the sadness lift from her shoulders, how it turned to relief, then joy.
His hand was still in hers, and she was squeezing it until it hurt.
Wordlessly, their guide turned and boarded the skiff, and Jaime and Brienne followed. After a few moments the hooded figure asked, “Where would you like to go?”
Jaime hadn’t expected to be allowed to choose. He hesitated for a moment, then laughed. “It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m with Brienne, and it’s warm.”
The boatman spread their hands in acquiescence, then steered them into the center of the raging river; the fog that settled around them was as dark and impenetrable as the long night had been.
*
Sunlight flooded the room. Jaime opened his eyes and looked around in silence. There were things scattered about that he recognized from his childhood bedroom, and others from their nights in Winterfell. Through an open window he heard the crash of waves.
Brienne rolled in her sleep, so that her arm draped over him.
He lifted the covers, and it reminded him of mornings after the battle. This time, there was no Stranger left in Brienne. Her pale skin was near translucent in the early light, and her white-blond hair stuck off at odd angles against her pillow. She was still much larger than most men, her face was too broad and her chest too flat, but she didn’t have the otherworldly presence she’d had before.
He stroked her cheek and her eyes blinked open, sparkling like sunlight through shallows. She smiled.
Jaime wondered what it was like for Brienne, who’d never had a home, never been allowed to claim anything for her own, to wake up safe and loved. It must feel impossible, unbearably sweet, heavenly.
He didn’t understand why the Stranger had chosen him to live so long, or why he’d been loved so well by someone who’d been created unfit and unprepared to love anything. But in the end Brienne had taught him compassion and care, and he’d been able to show that to others. Like stones rolling through fingers, his legacy had tumbled outward into the world.
If this was his reward for lifetimes well spent, then it made sense for Jaime to be in bed with Brienne, with her warm, long legs tangled with his, and her hand on the small of his back, as she hummed a gentle greeting.
He wondered if any of his family was here too, and if he’d get the chance to see them. Jaime would ask Brienne later, when he was ready to hear the answer.
For now he smiled back, tucked his head against her shoulder, and slept without fear.