A Rest of Swords

Part two

"You're right. I will." Jaime needed all of his strength to force the next words out, but the thought of what he would gain by this loss pushed him further. "But my hand was also a part of me. I lost it, it hurt, it left a scar, but it healed. And so will the wound that your death will cause."
And before either of them knew what happened, Jaime had stepped forward and Oathkeeper was buried deep in his sister's stomach. Cersei gasped and stared at him in surprise and shock.

"Jaime...", she breathed and broke down while her already red dress was dyed in an even darker shade. He caught her before she hit the ground, held her head in his lap and stroked her hair like he had done so many times before.

"I'm sorry", he whispered, and he meant it. He was sorry. For everything that had happened. He wished nothing more than that things had taken another direction, that he could have spared them this outcome of events, both of them, but he knew that there had been no other way, not with what his sister had become, not if he wanted the new life he had a chance to be given to be safe.

"We came into this world together...", she swallowed hard and her gaze was lost into the distance. "I always thought we would also leave it together..."

"So did I", Jaime admitted. A long time ago...
He watched as a single tear rolled down the cheek of the woman he had once loved, he hadn't even known if she was still able to cry at all. He sat with her, stroked her hair and looked into her green eyes until their fire finally stopped burning forever.

o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o

In the first days after he left, Brienne was downcast, to put it mildly. She wandered through the grounds of Winterfell like a shadow without purpose- she didn't care where her feet led her, she didn't want to talk to anyone, she didn't want to be talked to, she barely ate, she barely ever slept and if she did, she was tortured by nightmares.
Lady Sansa and Podrick watched her for a while, agreeing that it was perhaps best to let her deal with her grief the way she wanted. After two weeks, when they almost couldn't stand it any longer to see her like this, her behaviour changed.

Brienne's depressions seemed to have left her - abandoning her with nothing but anger instead. She was filled by a sort of rage she had never felt before and the worst thing was that she was angry with herself. It was her fault that she had to endure this now, her feelings, her wishes, her hopes, her heart that had led to this whole mess, and above all - her foolishness that had allowed her heart to take control over her sense.
She wanted to be angry with Jaime, tried to concentrate it towards him, but every time she imagined him, she saw him dead or back in his sister's arms and either way she simply couldn't be mad, everything she felt then was an all-consuming disappointment and sadness.
So, after some time the rage gave way to exhaustion and tiredness, and as the days blurred into weeks and the weeks finally became a month, Brienne had learned to deal with this constant change of emotions.

It was like a circle: Depression was followed by anger she tried to give vent by training with her sword in the courtyard, but at some point there was no one left who was willing to be her partner due to the strength her anger inflamed, so she had to make do with the trees in the godswood. He had taken Oathkeeper with him and that gave her an additional stab of pain. That sword meant so much to her, it was linked with so many memories...but it was his, after all, so she couldn't blame him. An ordinary sword had to serve her for smashing innocent trees to bits then, but that would sooner or later lead to exhaustion, so she could at least find some sleep. But when she awoke to find nothing but emptiness beside her, it mostly caused the depression to take hold of her again.

o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o

When Jaime passed the gates of Winterfell, there was no one to be seen in the yard. He suspected that it must be time for the evening meal, so everyone would be inside to share wine and what was left of Winterfell's provisions in times like these, times of winter and war. He unsaddled his horse, brought it into the stables where he bumped into a stable boy he had never seen before or at least he couldn't remember. The boy stared at him without saying a word, but if it was just surprise or even fear he saw in his eyes, Jaime couldn't tell. And he didn't care either, he was tired and exhausted, physically and mentally, and the only person he wanted to see at this moment wouldn't want to see him.
He made his way to the door that would lead him to the part of the building where he would find his room, or maybe it was his former room, he could only hope that Lady Sansa hadn't allocated it otherwise.
Jaime was already halfway through the door when he stopped because a sound had found its way to his ear. It was a familiar sound to him, the sound of steel on wood, the sound of a sword on wood, to be precise. It came from the godswood and the volume and strength that was clearly behind the attacks could only proceed from one person he knew. Brienne.
Jaime hesitated. He had longed to see her more than anything, but he feared that he couldn't stand the pain and disappointment in her eyes he was probably about to find there.
I left for her, he reminded himself. I did it for her, for us...but nevertheless, I left her. What if she doesn't understand why I had to? What if she can't forgive me? What if-
His thoughts were interrupted when he saw her. How did he come to be in the godswood now? He couldn't remember to have given his feet the instruction to move, but they had done so by themselves as it seemed, lead by an invisible force that gravitated him towards her while he had been too lost in his worries to notice.
And now there she was, tall and strong as always, her hair had fallen into her face while she pounded on one of the trees with a sword, almost senseless but still somehow graceful, and weirdly enough the hair in her eyes and the blush on her cheeks from coldness and exertion reminded Jaime of the morning he had woken up beside her, how beautiful she had looked to him at this moment. This scenery in front of him had nothing of the peacefulness of this morning, of course, but nevertheless, Jaime couldn't help but stand there and watch her.
Suddenly, Brienne looked to her side and her gaze met his. He could see how her face slipped away from her, as did the sword in her hand - Brienne could rather hear than feel how her hand lost its grip on it and it fell to the ground beside her. The sound was muffled by leaves and moss, but in her ears, it cut through the air like...well, like a sword.

There was a painfully long moment when both of them could only stand and stare at each other. His hair and beard had grown and were dirty and unkempt from his long journey, but despite that, he was simply Jaime. Brienne could feel something stirring deep inside of her and she discovered with shock that it was the desire to run towards him, to throw herself into his embrace and to forget everything but the fact that he was really there. But she couldn't move, her feet seemed to be stuck to the ground and maybe that was best.
How does he do that?, she asked herself. What is it that makes me so weak when it comes to anything that concerns him? After everything that he's done, everything I went through because of him, why is my first reaction to forgive him everything right away just by seeing him?
She wished she could understand it or even better, she wished it was otherwise, that she could shout at him, throw something at him, react in any way that would show him how much he had hurt her, but she couldn't. And deep within she knew exactly why.
Love..., whispered a little voice in her head. This seemed to awaken her from her trance. She stirred, and then she spoke.