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Winter has come, indeed.
And abandoned houses in the middle of nowhere (or, in the middle of the Riverlands) aren’t the best place to find some rest, but it had been either that or sleeping out in the open during a raging snowstorm, and if they have to find Sansa Stark before six months (and save Pod and Ser Hyle, who are still hostages at the Brotherhood camp) they can’t afford to freeze to death.
Not that they have much to go on – the small fire Brienne managed to lit does nothing to warm up the room, the walls are too thin and they have just one fur in two. It’s hailing outside – she doesn’t think she’ll sleep at all. She tells Jaime to take the fur and lies down next to the fire, her back turned to him.
She bites her lip, wishing that the small fire could at least warm her up a bit. But her bones have been cold since the moment she had to swear to kill him. Of course, she had told him the truth the moment they were alone – the moment he called her my lady and sounded like he meant it, she knew she’d never be able to do it. Of course he found a way to sweet-talk his way into convincing the Brotherhood to give them a handful of months to fulfill that vow – and maybe Lady Stoneheart had somehow remembered that for all he is, he isn’t the kind of man who lies or schemes in order to kill someone he wants dead.
But she still feels a deep, gnawing guilt. She managed to fail everyone she ever swore an oath to, and he was the one pulling the both of them out of the only oath she’d have never taken of her own volition. It’s fun, how whenever she gets something she wants it always turns out to be a nightmare – she had wanted to be in Renly’s guard and he died under her eyes, she should have brought Jaime to King’s Landing and it was too late and he lost a hand in between, she was given a task worthy of songs and here she is. And she had sometimes wished that Jaime had come with her, and now that he is she wants to cry.
“Wench, stop thinking that hard.”
“… sorry?”
“I can hear you feeling sorry for yourself from here. And I’m fucking freezing – get over here. I promise that I won’t take advantage.”
She turns, dumbfounded, and she sees him raising the fur. Right. Body heat. And given the situation, it only makes sense. She takes a couple of steps before kneeling again and crawling under the fur – she doesn’t expect him to throw an arm around her waist, pressing up against her.
He’s slightly warmer than she had been – at least he had been the one with the fur.
“Definitely better,” he mutters some two minutes later, when she’s finally feeling a little less cold, too.
“I’m sorry,” she blurts out, unable to keep herself from it. If only, he should know, but she hasn’t been talking too much, in the last few days.
“You’re what?”
“You shouldn’t be here. And I should have never accepted to lead you into that place.” She’d have never said anything, if not for the other two. They hadn’t deserved it.
“You had to. Do you think that I can fault you for running into a band of outlaws commanded by a living corpse? Anyone else would have accepted at once and stabbed me in the back the moment they could,” he says, and suddenly his hand isn’t on her shoulder anymore but brushing over the rope burn on her neck. “Fuck, what did even happen?”
“I said no,” she says, her voice barely audible. “When they asked me to kill you first. I – I tried to save myself at the last moment because Pod and Ser Hyle didn’t deserve to die with me, but if I had been alone –”
She knows she sounds pathetic, but she needs him to understand that she had never wanted to break that oath. He stares at her for one moment, the green of his eyes tinged gold because of the firelight, and she breathes in when his hand moves to her cheek. “And what the hell was that?”
“Do you remember Biter?” she asks.
“I remember them all too well. Seven hells.” For a moment he looks as if he feels sick, but then his eyes narrow and he looks straight at her again. “Wait a second. I overheard one of them talking about you.”
Brienne doesn’t think she wants to know what he’s about to say.
“He said something about you being sick and the other replied with something about you being my whore. Care to explain that to me, wench?”
She sighs. She knows what comes now – she’ll brace herself for it. If anything, she’s had a few minutes of lying next to him – she’ll take what she can get. “I had a fever after that. They nursed me back to health, and I was feverish for a long time.” She stops, takes a breath. “When they brought me to meet her, they were calling me like that. I asked why and – they told me that I called for you. While I was sick. I don’t –”
She never finishes that sentence – he kisses her cheek first. Brienne freezes, her entire body unable to move. The skin there is sensitive, so sensitive, and she doesn’t think she has ever dreamed of how his lips would feel against hers (why would he want to kiss the likes of hers, anyway?), but if this ends here, then she’ll treasure the memory to the last of her days.
His hand is still on her neck, and when he moves away, looking at him is probably one of the most difficult things she’s ever done. She doesn’t know what to expect, but she doesn’t even know how to name the way he’s looking at her right now.
“When we find the girl and bring it to her,” he hisses, and she doesn’t miss that he didn’t say if, he said when, “I might find the one I heard and ask him to repeat that in front of me.”
She flushes, in spite of the cold. It might be the first time someone said that they’d stand up for her and while she can take care of herself in that sense, it’s strangely nice to hear it said out loud. “My thanks, but you don’t have to. It wasn’t the worst thing I was told.”
“I can imagine that, but it doesn’t make that better. You know, I met someone who used to know you. He was in my army.”
“Who?”
“Ronnet Connington.”
Brienne’s slightly hopeful mood sinks – oh gods, not him. She had been happy knowing that she showed him who was better at jousting at Renly’s melee – she didn’t want an excuse to think about him again. “And what happened?”
“He told me how your first meeting went. I punched him in the face. I think some of his teeth are in Harrenhaal’s bear pit.”
“You did what?”
“In retrospective, not much. I should have done something more hurtful.”
“But – why?”
“Brienne, damn you, do you think I know that many people who’d be willing to die for me? I’m not sure I do. And I’m not worth it.”
“Let me be the judge of what I’d consider worth dying for.” She can’t tell him that she dreamed of him, too, and that the only thing she would have regretted if she had died on that tree would have been failing the oath she swore to him, too. She doesn’t know what she expects him to do. Surely she isn’t expecting him to kiss her, slow, without pressure, but definitely not to be intended as something friendly or done in thanks; she feels as if in a dream when she brings her hand to his hair and when his tongue traces her lower lip the moment she opens up her mouth. His beard is scratching over her chin, but it’s almost pleasant – she doesn’t dislike it at all. She feels so very warm right now, and he isn’t as cold as he was when she joined him under the fur either. She gasps when his teeth grasp her lower lip before the kiss is over, and she knows she must have surprise written all over her eyes. He’s looking almost fondly at her and if it’s a dream, then she doesn’t want to wake up. But if it was, she’d have found Sansa Stark already and he’d have his right hand back.
“You still have my thanks for the offer, but about Ronnet Connington, you shouldn’t concern yourself too much. I took care of that a long time ago.”
“You did what?”
“When I was at Renly’s camp, they organized a melee. And I won it, but – well, he was paired against me at some point before the final fight.”
“Let me guess, you beat him bloody?”
“… well, yes.” She doesn’t expect him to stifle a laugh against her neck, his left hand still on her ruined cheek. Or to bring her closer so that they’re pressed against each other without space left a moment later.
“It doesn’t surprise me that you didn’t wait for someone else to teach him a lesson.” And he sounds so pleased, and she feels so light headed that she can’t keep a hint of amusement from her voice.
“Your honorable deeds are still appreciated, ser.”
“Too bad for him.” He doesn’t say anything else after that, and she doesn’t either, but it’s not the kind of silence that feels uncomfortable. He doesn’t move away either; she falls asleep with her fingers running through his hair. When she wakes up is to his mouth trailing across the rope burn (so it was no dream after all), and she doesn’t feel cold at all.
End.