Chapter Text
The war ended, and they lived. It is as simple as that.
No, it is even simpler: it is over. The war—no, wars, and everything that had unfolded in the weeks between them. Two queens are dead now, and she and Jaime just happen to be breathing still. That is how simple it is: it is over.
She had been there to witness the end—on one battlefield, if not another. She had been there amongst the funeral pyres. She had been there, too, at the trials, the city still burning around them. Then there were the brief, painful, silent visits to prison cells; the negotiations, after. The release. His release.
In a courtyard, the ground white with snow. The end of all things.
She is alive. So is Jaime.
Still, it is nothing like what she thought it would be. Not for her, at least. She thought she might die fighting in the icy night, or serve for years by Lady Sansa’s side, or be called to yet another Kingsguard. Some nights in Winterfell, in the time when he had warmed her bed, she had permitted herself to think that they might be together, and happy. But it is none of these things, in the end. Instead, it is he as Lord of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West; it is she as the Evenstar of Tarth, Lady Paramount of the Stormlands. Lord Tyrion had bargained for his brother’s life, reasoned that it was the right and stable choice to heal the Seven Kingdoms; Gendry had forsaken his lordship—a position for which he had no experience, nor inclination—to be Arya Stark’s companion, if she would not let him be her husband.
And so, at the end of all things, Brienne returned to Tarth alone, a knight and a lady both. And Jaime—Jaime, who is alive, who had knighted her and bedded her and left her—returned alone to Casterly Rock. One of them on the eastern coast, and the other on the west.
It really is as simple as that.
It is also as simple as this: sometimes, it only takes one night.
It is not, strictly, one night. But it feels like it is, coming so long after the nights they had shared before. It has been almost two years since then, and Brienne feels as if she has lived another lifetime in between. She has spent that life serving not a king or queen, not a lord or lady, but the people of her region. After the wars, there was rebuilding to be done in the Stormlands, no different than every other part of Westeros. But there was no more House Baratheon to lead it, none of its three brothers nor any of their children. Instead, all they had was her.
Of those who had heard tell of her story, some thought her a hero, and others a traitor. Some others, she was sure, knew not what to think of her at all. Yes, she had proven herself a warrior, a commander, a knight—none heard of how she had been knighted, only that she was—but before that, she had killed one Baratheon to avenge another. Before that, she had been accused of killing that other, her king, had been forced to escape from his camp in the dead of the night. And before that, she was merely the ungainly, unbecoming daughter of Lord Selwyn Tarth. Perhaps some still remembered her three broken betrothals. House Caron, House Connington, House Wagstaff—they all thought they were doing the Evenstar a favour by even deigning to consider his daughter. She is their liege lady now, here at the end of all things. The world has been turned on its head more times than anyone can count.
Betrothals. In the last two years, few dared tell her that she should find a match. One of these few was Lord Tyrion, who had gently suggested it a handful of times; once even when Jaime was present, not that his presence had any bearing on the matter. Lord Tyrion, and others, would advise that she do so for the peace of the realm, or to strengthen her position as Lady Paramount. Neither of those, however, struck her as a particularly good reason to marry. Their opposites might well be true—marriages have been known to start wars, and husbands have been known to quell even the most headstrong of wives. She would not start a war, and she would not be quelled. It is over, and she is alive; she will remain alive on her own terms, here at the end of all things.
So there were new impressions to be made, new alliances to be forged, and Brienne of Tarth was not made for making impressions and forging alliances. But she was once charged to be brave, charged to be just, charged to defend the innocent; she had been and done those things for most of her life, before those words were ever spoken to her. And that was how she chose to rule, as a knight and a lady both. That was how she proved herself worthy of her titles, and earned the loyalty of her people—bannermen and smallfolk alike. Two years on, there is still rebuilding to be done in the Stormlands, and its people trust that Lady Brienne will continue to do it well.
She does it well, in part, by staying. Few occasions bring her beyond the borders of the region, and she has little time for or interest in what others might call diplomacy. She had made one trip to the North, at Lady—no, Queen Sansa’s request; she visits King’s Landing for the more pressing official matters, and that is all. It means she meets Jaime only rarely, and speaks to him even less. This is good. It is how it should be, at the end of all things. There is rebuilding to be done, things to be put back together. Jaime is not for putting things back together.
But Jaime, her body remembers, is for other things. For two years she has willed her body to forget them, until it seems almost as if Winterfell had never happened, or even Harrenhal. Still, her body has not forgotten, not truly, not when it is a forgetting that requires constant effort and a steadfast resolve. Both effort and resolve have been eroded by days of gruelling meetings regarding the defence of the Seven Kingdoms, for which she had been summoned to King’s Landing. She, and Jaime, and so many other familiar faces that had been easy to forget back in the Stormlands. So when those days of gruelling meetings are finally done, when they bury their heated debates in feast and celebrate their successes with drink, her body remembers a night not unlike this one. Her body remembers surviving, remembers relief, remembers games and ill-chosen questions and leaving before the rejoicing is done. This night does not unfold in quite the same way, but her body remembers Jaime—from that night, and the nights after that, remembers when they would steal from the dining hall at Winterfell with pointed looks and secret smiles—and, perhaps more significantly, her body has forgotten enough of him.
Then there is a chamber, a fire burning in the hearth. There is wine in both their bellies, and desire too. There are less words than before, because there is nothing left to say; not japes, or barbs, or worst of all, apologies. There is awkwardness, still, but that is better than hurt. And then they fuck. It is as simple as that, two years past the end of all things. Fucking to remember. Fucking to forget.
Sometimes, it only takes one night.
And then there is a child.