Chapter Text
They were in the middle of a fight before Brienne could honestly say she had even realised it had begun.
Brienne had been about to tell him. She simply could not stand the guilt and shame any more. Her mouth as dry as sandpaper, the expression on Jaime’s face had been expectant as she had licked her lips and opened her mouth to explain about the trap, Stoneheart, and the lies she had told to get him away from the Lannister camp on his own.
Instead a party of over 20 men at arms had come crashing through the undergrowth as the two of them had paused in their walk towards the Brother’s hideout. An elite killing force ploughing through the muddy slurry, armed with flaming torches and an element of surprise that was sufficient to bring the outlaws out into the open to fight.
Did they track Jaime and me all the way from Pennytree?
The fighting had been surprisingly brief.
Jaime’s men were both effective and deadly. Particularly towards those of the Brotherhood without Banners who had attempted to fight back. The caves were stormed; the bulk of the fighting taking place in the kind of mud and sleeting rain only the Riverlands could deliver as the seasons moved into winter.
Brienne had slipped and skidded her way into the fray, intent on finding Pod and maybe even Hunt if she could. In the failing daylight it was almost impossible to tell friend from foe, although when a vengeful Lem lurched in front of her, his sword raised, Brienne had been forced to raise her own weapon and endeavour to dispatch him as quickly as possible.
It was exhausting work, excrutiating with her still injured arm and it took her far longer to incapacitate the big man than she could ever have expected, taking a wound to her thigh as she battled him in the final moments. She turned, hand pressed to her wounded leg, only to see Stoneheart, dagger drawn advancing on Ser Jaime Lannister from behind.
Brienne didn’t think.
Not about the sworn oath.
Not about the breaking of it.
Brienne simply acted, lunging forwards cutting Stoneheart dead in her tracks, the sword Oathkeeper slicing through the rags and air of the woman’s body like a knife through butter.
Jaime had not even noticed. He fought on with his back to her, his left hand now as capable as any she had seen as he pushed his opponent into a slithering, stumbling retreat. But watching Jaime meant Brienne did not see the Lannister soldier who misinterpreted her proximity to the Kingslayer, her sword drawn, her clothing showing no distinguishing Lannister colours, as a threat worthy of being knocked unconscious to the floor with the butt of a sword.
So it was that Brienne regained her senses some time later, slumped on her side in the mud trying to get some small idea of what was going on round her.
The first person she recognised was Jaime, bloody and muddied, his rain soaked cloak stuck to his armour, the hem steeped in muck as he stood over the body of Stoneheart. He was deep in conversation with one of the men at arms until Pod stumbled across the clearing escorted by yet another soldier, limping as he went. Ser Jaime looked him up and down and put his hand on the squire’s shoulder as he spoke to the boy, his expression grim, his gaze intent on Pod as Pod bowed his head in obvious deference to the man so many still referred to as ‘Kingslayer’.
Of Hyle Hunt there was no sign.
The Lannister men were clearly an organised and disciplined force as they worked to secure prisoners and pull the dead out of the mud, piling them on one side close to where Brienne lay.
Did they mistake me for one claimed by the Stranger? The thought occurred to Brienne even as Jaime raised his voice to urgently direct men further into the caves. Ser Jaime Lannister was clearly in charge, deferred to, obeyed.
She’d never seen him in charge of such a force. It made him seem far more aloof, untouchable. So far out of her reach she could only look, and look, and look. Damn him.
Brienne moved her head only to feel it spin madly once more, mud seeping onto the only clear patch of hair left on her scalp. She lay on her back and stared at the sky.
I was the one who led him directly into a trap, she thought, he’ll never forgive me.
Her matted hair dripped slurry and filth, unfamiliar tears cut warm tracks through the muck on her cheek, the salt water trickling into the raw flesh of her face.
“God’s my face hurts,” she winced.
“Get up,” A rough voice told her, a boot nudging her side, obviously mistaking her mud plastered body as that of a brother rather than a sister. “Or you’ll be thrown in with the dead.”
Her head hurt, her ribs hurt, her arm was numb, the wound on her leg from Lem’s blade hurt like the blazes and now the scab on her cheek had decided to throb in harmony. Brienne struggled up onto her elbows and dragged herself to lean against a tree.
I’ll feel better in a moment, Brienne assured herself as the world faded to black once more.
She came too with a yelp of pain as a hand seized a fistful of hair and pulled her head up from where it had lolled against her chest. A flaming torch was thrust in her face, so close she could feel the heat sear her cold cheeks.
“At bloody last,” a familiar voice drawled from somewhere in the darkness. “I had wondered if you had abandoned me to my fate, my lady.”
“Jaime,” she mumbled, rubbing her face with a muddy sleeve in an effort to revive herself. “I was hit on the head.”
“Are you fit to move?” Jaime’s voice was curt, “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk,” she grumbled as she lurched to her feet, before crashing back to her knees.
“So I see,” the simple observation dripped with sarcasm, “Could you be covered in any more mud? It manages to completely obscure even your tow-headed charms.”
“Not helping,” Brienne took a deep breath and went to get to her feet, only to find herself ably assisted by an armoured elbow beneath her shoulder hauling her safely up.
“Back to work you lot,” bawled a voice loud enough to make her wince. Brienne could hear the sound of soldiers restarting tasks about her. “Ser Jaime’s found what he was looking for.”
Brienne was taken aback by the sheer strength of this Jaime. This was not the weakened prisoner she had escorted through the Riverlands, and fought, what seemed like a lifetime ago. This was more like the battle hardened knight who was so feared he had been kept tied to a tree even when he had had his sword hand cut from his body.
She swayed slightly and stared into his face. His distinctive fair hair had grown and his beard was once more in evidence. Ser Jaime Lannister looked less Kings Landing and more Kingsroad once more.
“I owe you an…”
“Not here.”
“But I’m…”
“Not here,” Jaime growled at her, “Gods woman, are you suddenly as deaf as you are filthy?”
“I am trying to…”
“On that we must agree. Trying.”
Jaime hauled her forward, serving as her sole support as she staggered along next to him. He was as strong and as steady as a rock.
A path cleared before them as men hurried out of their way, two horses swiftly led forward.
“Are you able to ride? We need to return to camp and you need a maester.”
“Of course I can,” she told him as he studied her briefly and then turned his attention to the two mounts before them. The doubtful expression on his handsome face was obvious.
“Upon reflection, maybe you had better ride with me.”
Brienne stopped suddenly, an image of Jaime returning to camp with her sat before him like some frail maiden making her rear back suddenly. The comment it would cause suddenly becoming all too obvious.
“I can ride a horse Ser Jaime.”
“I know that,” his exasperated tone was accompanied by a reassuringly warm touch on her arm after he had stripped the gauntlets from both gold and normal hands. “But can you stay mounted on the creature for ten miles or more?”
“I… I don’t know.” She was incurably honest.
He snorted, “Enough said.”
The compromise was that she ride behind him, not in front, her cheek resting on his cloak, the bone slightly sore against the metal plate of his armour.
“Has that wound been looked at?” he asked.
“Which one?” she replied vaguely.
He sighed, “The cheek. There are others?”
“Leg, I think…”
“Is that the wound I can see bleeding even now?” Brienne felt him shift in the saddle to look down at the offending limb.
“It was cut as I fought,” she murmured into his cloak, her arms linked about him as they swayed in time to their mount’s ambling walk. Jaime seemed in no rush to return to camp and the slow pace suited her still dizzy state. It was rather like embracing a shapely metal statue except he was warm… really warm.
So warm it was entirely possible that she nodded off slumped against his back, but she awoke quickly enough as shouting started about her.
“The Kingslayer is back!”
The horse jibbed and Brienne felt herself lurch to one side, on the point of slipping except a strong left hand caught her firmly under the arm and lowered her safely to the ground.
She staggered slightly on gaining her feet, the hand only releasing her when she was upright.
“Escort our guest to my tent,” Jaime’s voice drawled from above her head as he turned the horse around. “Tell Lew to get some water heated for a bath.”
“No, I don’t think…” Brienne started to protest.
“And call the maester,” Jaime slid from the horse.
Guilt assailed her. The maester would be busy enough tending far more serious wounds than a nick to a thigh and a knock to the head.
“Ser Jaime, I do not need a maester,” she insisted loudly, “please do not inconvenience-“
The look he gave her made her flush bright red and instantly decide to argue with him somewhere less public. His gaze dropped to her wounded leg where the muddy material was clearly stained with fresh blood.
“Take her to the tent.”
And that was that.
Brienne found herself deposited into a large red pavilion and then left alone, although two guards had been stationed outside.
Were they to keep others out, she wondered, or to keep her in?
A tub was brought and dumped unceremoniously in the middle of the tent, next to the brazier, followed by a procession of buckets and cross looking manservants.
“My…l…Lady,” it was nothing more than a girl, but Gods, her teeth. So broken and misshapen it was a shock. The girl noticed her stare and covered them with her hand as she spoke, “can I help you to disrobe?”
“No!” Taking a deep breath she lowered her voice, “no, no thank you.”
When the tub was full, she was left to strip the mud caked gambeson and linens from her body. Everything had started to dry in the heat of the Lannister pavilion and although she delayed as long as she could, the water proved too tempting. Removing her clothes was more like trying to climb from the covers of a book than to discard fabric.
But the water… the water was wonderful.
When was the last time I had a bath?
Gingerly Brienne stepped into the tub, her toes searching the wooden base for a secure foothold. The hot liquid swirled around her thighs and as she sat, it swamped her cuts and wounds.
“Gods!” they hurt.
The cut on her thigh was the worst, but she had nicks and scratches over her hands and wrist as well as her neck and face. As if not wanting to be left out, the wound on her cheek set to throbbing angrily in time to her heartbeat.
“May the mother save me,” she groaned as she finally immersed all of her body save her head into the bath. Leaning back, she let her head rest on the edge and allowed her eyes to drift shut.
“If you faint I’ll pull you out, I’m sure you don’t want to be the first Tarth to die in a bathtub.” Jaime’s voice rang out before saying to someone else as an aside, “Leave us.”
Brienne opened her eyes wide to see an intrigued maester and an amused Jaime Lannister regarding her from the entrance to the tent.
Sitting bolt upright, the water lurching to the sides of the tub, she crossed her hands in front of her breasts.
A flash of pity appeared in the maester’s eyes and she felt a glower descend onto her face. She knew her chest was rather more muscle than soft bosom, she knew that her face had never been comely to start with, but to cover her homely freckled features with dirt and blood and to then put her broad pale freakish shoulders on display was unfair.
“I am having a bath,” was all she finally managed to splutter, the indignity of being in such a position making a tide of red sweep up from her meagre breasts to encompass her neck and face.
The maester bowed and left, having murmured briefly in Jaime’s ear.
Pushing her chin up, Brienne stared hard at him, waiting for him to also leave.
He did not.
Instead he picked up a stool, placed it next to the tub and sat, laying his good arm and hand on the edge as he regarded her with a wry smile.
She flushed again and moved as far away from him as the tub would allow.
“You do know that my horse still tells a better lie than you do,” Jaime studied her damaged cheek before she covered it self-consciously with her hand, “but by the seven it was always going to be more entertaining than negotiations in the Riverlands.”
Brienne closed her eyes briefly before opening them only to encounter such a knowing green gaze that it was clear that he had seen through her lies from the start.
“I… she…,” where to start?
What on earth could she say to him?
Brienne drew a deep breath and realised she had only thought as far as confronting the Brother’s again. She had not considered surviving long enough to have to deal with consequences of her actions.
“A bare faced lie,” Jaime drawled, eyebrows raised, “The Hound has poor Sansa hidden away? And if he did, it seems far from unlikely that the Hound would not find a pack of his own in this godforsaken place. So what could have brought you to me with a lie on your lips and desperation in your eyes?” He raised his brows, “A trap?”
Brienne stared at the dirty tub water.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she admitted finally, “I was going to tell you…but …”
He could have said no, he could have said she was not worth the risk. He could have turned round and gone back to the Lannister column at Pennytree and left her.
But he did not.
“When were you going to tell me? As we stood before Stoneheart, or maybe as we were about to be made guests of her hanging tree?”
“I realised… as we walked to… and I was going to have to tell you…” She normally managed to be far more articulate and calm but now the words were sticking to her tongue and she found that, confronted with more emotion than she could possibly want, she had no idea how to put right what she had done. This was Jaime and she was losing him.
“No,” she shook her head, “I couldn’t do it. I didn’t even think that you’d come with me. Why would you?”
“Why would I not?” his voice was soft, “And it was you that killed Stoneheart.”
“Yes.”
And it made her an oathbreaker, a person without honour.
Jaime rose from the stool and circled the tub.
Brienne slunk even lower until her chin touched the water as he bent his head close to her own.
“That creature ceased to be Lady Catelyn the moment her throat was cut.” He whispered in her ear.
“I swore an oath…” she insisted.
“As did I,” he replied, “and I broke it.” His hand cupped water from the bath and started washing the mud from her face and hair.
“You do not have to take all the blame for what fate brought you today,” Jaime said finally, but Brienne could hear anger in his voice. It was the tone she had oft heard one man use with another in the moments before steel came sliding out of scabbards. And something else, pain.
Brienne froze, unable to move. His touch was soft. So soft she started to tremble.
“Are you cold?” He asked her.
She shook her head swiftly from side to side, “I … I am fine Ser.” She assured him, ducking away from his hand to wash her hair and face herself, tentatively dabbing at the wound on her face, the bandage having been lost a while ago.
“What happened?” He asked, looking closely at the wound.
“A fight… I was bitten, by a man.”
“A man did that?” He asked, “And how much did I do by sending you into his path?”
“It was a fight,” she muttered defensively, “and it would have been far worse if he had taken an eye or,” her own gaze dropped to his golden hand resting on the edge of the tub, “something else…”
The air between them was tense until Jaime grinned at her and tapped his golden hand with his good one.
“As strange as it may sound, losing my hand seems to have improved my other faculties.”
She felt relief flood through her at his change of mood.
“More thinking,” Brienne asked gruffly, “less fighting?”
“Maybe,” Jaime continued to tap his hand as if thinking,” and the man that bit you is-?”
“Dead,” Brienne rubbed her face again, her eyes feeling as gritty as her skin. “Someone killed him with a spear to the head.”
“Good.” Jaime smiled a deathly smile, “He has saved me a job.”
She looked up at him, her face creased into a frown, “by the seven gods Ser Jaime, you don’t need to fight my battles for me.”
“Really Milady? And I thought I was doing so well even with so little information”
He had defeated Stoneheart’s men.
“You Ser Jaime, or your soldiers?”
“A Lannister hunting party, feeding Lannister soldiers,” Jaime shrugged, “a soldier has to eat. It was a lucky accident they came upon us.”
It was a lie. It had to be.
He handed her a goblet of wine that smelt of herbs and then sat down upon the stool once more. She held the drink beneath her nose and sniffed at it suspiciously.
“Don’t worry,” he told her, “it’s nothing bad. Something the maester suggested would help soothe the pain from your wounds. We’ll get him to clean and patch up your face once more later.”
She nodded briefly and took a swig. It was hot, bitter and the alcoholic fumes made her cough and splutter until she screwed her face up as far as she could.
“It’s medicinal. Drink it.” Was all he said to her.
Brienne forced it down, gagging slightly, and handed the goblet back to Jaime with a reproachful look, “that was disgusting.”
“Don’t be a baby,” he chided her.
“I think I have finished my bath,” she told him. “I would like to get out now.”
“I’m not stopping you.” His eyes flicked to where a pile of cloths sat in a pile on a chair.
He hadn’t changed, he was as infuriating as ever and she fixed him with a gimlet stare. “Are you going to pass me a cloth Ser?”
“No, I thought Pia was here to help you.”
“Pia?” The girl with the teeth, it had to be. Self-consciously, she ran her tongue over her own crooked and missing dentistry.
What was it with Jaime Lannister and women with rather less than perfect teeth?
“I… I sent her away,” Brienne admitted.
Jaime’s grin returned, “Shy, Brienne?”
She settled for a pulling a fierce face, desperate to quell the tug of attraction that resulted from him studying her so closely with that particular expression on his face, one that combined arrogance and devilry, “No.”
“Good.” Still the dratted man did not move.
With a mighty sigh, and much sloshing of water Brienne moved over to the side of the tub and leaned out as far as she was able, no doubt giving him a clear view of her backside and the backs of her thigh and knees as she reached across to snag herself a towel.
“Gods wench, I had forgotten how long your limbs are,” Jaime murmured in a voice that was laced half with humour, half with something else she could not place. He was still yet to stir from his seat. Brienne wrapped the cloth about her body, not caring if it fell in the water, just as long as she had some sort of barrier between her freckled skin and his all-seeing green gaze.
I can feel him looking upon me and it’s as if someone is holding a candle so close the heat makes my skin burn.
Once covered, she scrambled out.
Brienne staggered a little on clearing the tub, forcing her to grip the side until the dizziness had passed, “I… I realised something when Stoneheart was about to hang me.” She paused, turning to where he had been sitting, but Jaime was no longer on the stool but suddenly beside her.
As his hand steadied her, his unique scent and presence swamped her.
Her thoughts, her regrets on still being a maid as she stood before Stoneheart came back to her.
Brienne fought down panic and took a deep breath. “I realised how much I wanted to…” Her resolution died away in the face of his implacably blank expression. She tried again.
“Jaime, I know I’m not going to be wed, I have always known it. But I find I do not want to live the whole of my life not knowing about …” she swallowed hard. “It is not something a woman can seek out… not without risks, not unless there is someone she can trust.” As I trust you.
Why can’t I tell him that?
There was a humiliating pause, Brienne felt herself turn bright red yet again, “My apologies Ser, forget….”
“Do you trust me?” The underlying coolness that she had sensed from the moment she had been so slow to tell him of Stoneheart seemed to abate slightly, she could sense it, although she was still confused by how affected he had been, the hurt she sensed. Was it simply a matter of honour? Surely not.
“As you say there are risks,” he said steadily, his green eyes watchful. “Your reputation…”
“Is that of the Kingslayer’s whore,” Brienne pointed out to him her face becoming even redder.
“Do not blush like that, Brienne, you cannot start a conversation like this and then not be prepared to finish it.”
“I am sorry, I have spoken out of turn… it is inappropriate.” The apology was muttered through her own suddenly stiff lips, but something warmed the cool green eyes and she sensed him change his posture slightly, as if turning towards her. The wise thing would be to bid him a speedy good night, to seek her lonely bed now while she was still safe from the consequences of what she wanted so much. But she no longer wanted to be wise, or careful, or even safe. “Jaime, I know men have ways of dealing with their needs.” His expression of mingled shock and amusement put her in mind of the Jaime she knew of old rather than the newer less comfortable individual she was with now. “I have spent more time about men than I have women, I have listened and I have made sense where I can. But you have made me want something I do not understand. I don’t want to ache like this anymore, to suffer and not understand why it will not go away when I think of you.”
He was going to refuse her, she was certain. He was a beautiful man, a Lannister Lion, all golden locks and green eyes and she was merely a scarred huge beast of a woman whose only beauty had been her scrupulously guarded honour. And she didn’t even have that now.
Jaime tipped his face up slightly to regard her, his face serious. “Brienne, has anyone ever told you how beautiful your eyes are?”
And then he kissed her.