cowt 9 S6, M2: living in the future (jaime/brienne, others, pg)

[janie_tangerine]

 As he wakes up, the first thing Jaime feels is that the other side of the bed is empty.

 

For a moment he panics, wondering if anything happened, then he remembers that it’s another five days still and he breathes out in relief, falling back on the mattress.

 

Then he notices that it’s still dark outside. Then he notices there’s someone knocking on the door rather insistently. Then he finally hears that someone’s crying next door.

 

Oh, right.

 

“I’m coming,” he groans, forcing himself to stand up and opening the door.

 

He’s not at all surprised to find Tommen on the other side of it, looking fairly out of his depth even if by now he shouldn’t be, but Jaime can hardly fault him given… well, everything.

 

He’s also wondering if he knows or suspects by now, but he’s not going to be the one breaching that subject, and if he’s still craven about it specifically, well, he can hardly fault himself, given everything, as well.

 

“Uh,” Tommen says, “I didn’t want to wake you up, but Jo is, uh, she won’t stop and —”

 

“It’s all right,” Jaime says, putting a hand on his shoulder, “I’ll deal with it. Are your cousins awake?”

 

“Not yet, but —”

 

“Right, I’ll get there. Thanks.”

 

Tommen gives him a nod and he disappears inside his room, and sometimes Jaime wonders at the irony of destiny. He spends years loathing Ned Stark for having judged him so harshly and here he is, doing the reverse of what he did with Jon Snow for years.

 

Maybe one day he’ll just tell all of them, but — not now, he decides as he he opens the door to the next room over. Brienne did insist that soon-to-be two years is old enough for children to sleep in their own rooms and admittedly, it did work for their first two. Not so much for this one, but Jaime doubts that when Brienne is back she’ll have his hide for it. She did say openly and more than once and in front of an audience (he has a feeling it was more for him than anyone else — he never asked, but he did appreciate it) that he trusts him with them completely when she’s away, so he’s fairly sure that she won’t mind whatsoever, if she learns of it at all. He ushers out of the room the two maids that were trying to calm down his third-born without succeeding, saying he’ll take care of things here, and when one of them almost gratefully passes Joanna over to him he can’t help himself from grinning the moment she goes quiet after a few heartbeats.

 

(To think that with Catelyn it took him a damned week to hold her the first time.)

 

“Hey,” he whispers, “someone is just that spoiled, huh?”

 

She has her eyes closed — they’re green, like his, but she has Brienne’s hair, and she’s smaller than the other two were at her age. Maybe she won’t be the tallest, but his back is being fairly thankful for it — he’s not getting any younger. She’s also obviously not hungry or in need of being cleaned up, so he has a feeling he can solve this one matter just one way.

 

He smooths her hair with his left hand, then goes back to the bedroom. The bed is still empty when he moves back inside it, his daughter still clutching at his neck but definitely sleeping. Well then. He smooths down her night clothes, tries to see if she’ll clutch less tight if they’re both horizontal and it does work, even if she stays draped over him.

 

“I guess you can stay for tonight,” he whispers, putting an arm behind her back so she doesn’t risk falling off the bed.

 

He also realizes he left the door open, but never mind that, he can’t be bothered to stand up at this point. He closes his eyes, feeling the small, smooth hand clutching at his wrist, and goes back to sleep.

 

— —

 

When he wakes up in the morning, the bed is definitely more cramped.

 

He’s nowhere near surprised that when he opens his eyes he doesn’t just have Joanna on his right side, but that his left leg is covered in long  hair and someone else is draped all over it, under the covers.

 

He rolls his eyes.

 

“Cat, how many times I told you that you can just knock instead of sneaking in?”

 

The covers move and reveal a pair of fairly guilty blue eyes on a square face with lightly freckled skin and his golden hair framing it.

 

“A lot,” his firstborn admits, “but it’s not my fault if I woke up, everything’s boring and no one else is awake.”

 

Of course. Because her brother sleeps like a log until ten in the morning if no one rouses him first and weren’t both he and Brienne feeling like the gods, if they existed, gave them a reprieve when he was born and woke up just once per night.

 

“Yeah, I am now, just don’t wake up your sister,” he says. “So, is there anything you want to do instead of being bored?”

 

“Can’t we have lemoncakes?”

 

“Lemoncakes won’t be ready before a while, unless —”

 

She smiles guiltily as she produces a pair wrapped in a kerchief that she definitely stole from him.

 

“Unless you stole them from dinner yesterday, didn’t you,” he finishes.

 

“But I saved you one!” She insists.

 

“And you didn’t save your brother or cousin any?” He asks, not even bothering to pretend he’s angry — she’s done it since she figured out she could, it won’t be him asking her to stop when it’s harmless.

 

“They had them yesterday,” she proclaims. “You didn’t.”

 

… Fair enough, he didn’t. He turns over, ruffles her hair just before grabbing one of the cakes and eating it. “Thanks,” he tells her, “I’m definitely going to tell your mother that you didn’t let me starve when she’s back.”

 

“Oh, when will she be back?” Cat asks, her voice turning higher. “Today?”

 

He shrugs. “Maybe,” he says, “but I don’t think so. A few days, I guess.”

 

“All right,” she says, eating half of her cake. Crumbs fall all over the bed, but it’s not like Jaime gives a damn, so he leans against the wall and waits until she moves against his side, nestling against it the way she’s done since she was three. “I hope she’s back soon.”

 

“Me, too,” he admits, glancing with longing at the empty side of the bed.

 

“I don’t understand why she leaves for days, though. I mean, when she goes out here it takes her half the day.”

 

He grins, in spite of himself and his longing for sharing the bed with Brienne again.

 

“That’s because this entire realm knows your mother’s the best warrior in it and if she’s needed, well, she should go. She did tell you that she always wanted to be a knight, didn’t she?”

 

“Well, yes,” Cat admits, and sometimes Jaime wishes that Catelyn Stark could see that both he and Brienne tried to make amends for all the ways in which they failed to keep their oath to her starting by naming their first born after the woman that brought them together, but he figures it will be for their next life. Sansa definitely appreciated it, at least.

 

“She is one now,” Jaime goes on. “And knights can’t always stay on their islands defending their own people.”

 

“So is she out helping maidens?”

 

He laughs, eating another piece of his lemoncake. “Maybe,” he agrees. He has a feeling she’s not, unless she manages to save a few while going after some bandit that from the dispatch Stannis sent them 

 

(and who’d have thought he would become Aegon Targaryen’s Hand out of everyone, but Jon Snow refused to acknowledge his own heritage in that sense, Daenerys went back to Essos with her dragons and no one objected to a ruler that had been raised for the job — Stannis took the Hand role when they made agreements so that his side would be satisfied, too, and Jaime has a feeling Jon Connington is really enjoying his deserved retirement) 

 

sounds pretty much the Smiling Knight reincarnated. “I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it when she’s back. She sent word that she was sailing from King’s Landing a few days ago, so I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

 

“Good,” Cat says, “even if I guess that I can’t sneak out lemoncakes anymore after she’s back.”

 

Jaime snorts, trying to not choke on the last piece. “I won’t tell her, but good to know you like me just because I let you do it.”

 

“I don’t!” She protests before he starts laughing and of course wakes up Joanna, but at that point Cat is laughing as well and he figures she does know he was joking.

 

He’s not going to tell her to go easy on the lemoncakes she’s definitely going to eat when she breaks her fast later.

 

— —

 

The sun is higher in the sky when they drag themselves out of bed to eat — Jaime is secretly overjoyed to see that Tommen has made sure his cousin did get out of bed before mid-morning passed and all the food was over, given how skittish he was around Cat back in the day.

 

He’s about to greet everyone as he walks inside the room, Cat at his side and Joanna on his hip, when Selwyn Tarth also comes inside the room, looking like he’s in an excellent mood before he sits down next to his nephew and asks him how he slept tonight — obviously he’s very fond of their second-born, but they did give the boy his name, it’s only natural.

 

“Very well,” the younger Selwyn replies politely — that one is all his mother except that he doesn’t have freckles, and he doesn’t even try to stop Cat as she goes and sits down in front of him.

 

“Yes, because you sleep all the time,” she complains. “Boring.”

 

“Why, what did you do instead, young lady?” Her grandfather asks, looking fairly amused.

 

“I read the book Uncle Tyron gave me for my nameday,” she proclaims. “And I woke up a lot earlier than now.”

 

Tommen snorts under his breath. Jaime doesn’t try to make him understand he noticed.

 

“How about you break your fast now?” He asks, sitting down in between his son and his namesake.

 

“I see you didn’t sleep as much as him,” Selwyn Tarth says, sounding like he doesn’t find it a problem whatsoever.

 

“I slept fine enough,” Jaime grins back. “And I’m sure your daughter won’t have my head for anything that’s happened in the last moon.”

 

“That she won’t,” her father agrees. “And please, the last thing I dared hope for her was that she’d marry someone who would just care for having heirs and not even knowing them. All things considered, I think any woman in the realm would kill to have you for a husband.”

 

“Just everyone’s luck that she waited long enough to run into me, right?”

 

“Sure thing it was,” Selwyn deadpans, glancing at Tommen and saying nothing, and Jaime is not going to tell him ever that on his side, he’s beyond glad he’s sharing a roof with someone who’s the total opposite as his own father. 

 

— —

 

In the morning, he lets Cat go to the yard to practice with Ser Goodwin — she might be six, but she definitely is bent on learning to be just like her mother when it comes to sword fighting and of course they didn’t discourage her at all. Her brother is more interested in the maester’s history lessons, so Jaime brings Joanna to the library and keeps her distracted while Selwyn learns about the ending of the Northern kingdom — the first one, of course, since the second is well and thriving these days.

 

That is, until Tommen knocks on the door and tells him that it seems like the winds were favorable and Brienne’s ship is on the horizon, and maybe they want to go to the port together?

 

“I think we might after I get your cousin,” he agrees, “but you know, you could come.”

 

Tommen, who had come holding one of his old cats (it’s the only female one, the last that survived up to this point), almost drops her out of surprise.

 

“Really? I mean, I guess —”

 

“It’s been almost seven years,” Jaime tells him, trying to sound as gentle as he can without blatantly saying no one is keeping you around here just to pay me a favor as much as it would sum the entire situation. But he’s not sure he wants to put it in these terms. Not yet, anyway. “She does want you here and not just to pay a favor to me, of course you can.”

 

Tommen considers it for a moment, his fingers scratching behind the cat’s ears, but then he says he will and he’ll be outside in the stables. Then he pretty much runs away in that direction, but… that’s also progress, Jaime decides, and when Selwyn says very enthusiastically that he does want to go get Mother, Jaime leads him out and goes to get Cat in the yard, who of course is very adamant that they should go right now.

 

“Maybe we should get the horses first and wait for your cousin, or do you want to go by foot?” It’s not far from Evenfall Hall, he reasons, but he’s not getting any younger himself and he’s not sure he wants to go with kids who’ll run faster than him and having to bring a two-year old along.

 

“… Maybe not,” she replies sheepishly.

 

Jaime grins and ruffles her hair again before they go get the horses ready.

 

— —

 

Tommen is in the stables already, which Jaime takes as an extremely good sign given that definitely hasn’t stopped thinking that he’s here just because Brienne wanted to pay him a favor (he asked Jaime just once, when he was ten or so, when they just arrived here, and he had wanted to cry at hearing it), and after a bit of meddling, they end up with him and Selwyn sharing a horse while Cat goes on Jaime’s — they have to go slow because she also has her baby sister in her lap and the last thing Jaime wants is for anyone to fall down from it, and by the time they get to the port Brienne’s ship is drawing closer and he has to keep his daughter from running into the water and swimming towards it.

 

Thankfully, the ship docks not long later, and when Brienne gets down from the deck first, Jaime almost whistles — she’s wearing some black and red tunic that she definitely borrowed in King’s Landing, but it’s not a bad combination on her, not at all, and it’s probably a good thing that seeing her in Targaryen colors doesn’t make Jaime feel like throwing up. Her hair got slightly longer and she braided it behind her back, she did tan a bit under those freckles, and Oathkeeper is at her side, and she looks every inch like the knight she was in that one dream of his, years ago.

 

He doesn’t even try to stop Cat or Selwyn from running over to her — she grabs them as soon as they jump into her arms, lifting both them up effortlessly, and Jaime can’t help it. He knows he must be grinning like a lovestruck fool, but what’s so bad about it, when she’s there being everything she should and could be and killing bandits for the crown and showing everyone that she can be her island’s lady and the truest knight Westeros has ever known and that it didn’t have to come at the expense of being wedded and having children that she loves as much as he does.

 

Tommen looks at the scene wistfully, but he’s also smiling a bit at that.

 

He can hear Brienne telling both Cat and Selwyn that she did get them something but they’ll have to wait until they bring her luggage to Evenfall Hall, and then she looks at him from across the dock and she smiles that soft, bright grin she has just for him, and Jaime decides that maybe it’s high time he tries something.

 

“You mind holding her a moment?” He asks Tommen before dropping Joanna into his arms, not waiting for an answer.

 

“Uh, no, but —”

 

“She won’t bite and she likes her relatives,” Jaime winks at him, and then he heads over for the dock, meeting Brienne in the middle.

 

“Hey,” he tells her, “I see that the mainland has treated you well.”

 

“As if,” she shrugs, “King’s Landing is the same as last time, the king insisted for rewarding me so now I have enough gold to buy grains for the entire next winter and all of my clothing got ruined in the two weeks it took us to track those men down, but if that’s well according to you.” She’s grinning, though, her hands going around his waist as Cat and Selwyn run back towards their cousin — or better, Cat is telling her brother that they’re going to do something fairly icky soon so it’s better they don’t watch.

 

“By the way,” he says, “your daughter wants to know how many fair maidens you saved.”

 

She laughs. “Maybe I did save a couple from immediate danger, though I don’t know if they were maidens. Does that count?”

 

“Hm, it does to me,” he smiles back. “And now sorry but I think I did wait too damn long,” he whispers against her mouth, and when he kisses her she immediately kisses him back, her mouth familiar after all the times he’s kissed it, but she’s been away for a long time, which means he’s entirely going to take his time in reminding himself exactly of how much he loves how her tongue feels against his, how soft her lips are, how rough and gentle her hands are as she holds his face.

 

“All right, I did miss it,” he says against her mouth after kissing her for a long, long time, and then her arms are around his back and she’s lifting him up ever so slightly —

“Believe me, I did as well,” she grins back, and then they crash their mouths together again, and he can barely hear the sailors and crew from the ship whistling at them.

 

They always do it, whenever she comes back and he’s inevitably here seeing her home.

 

And he’s more than glad to keep on doing it — maybe he misses her when she’s away, but if it means she gets to have everything she’s dreamed of including going down in history as a finer knight than Arthur Dayne and if it means he gets to rest, take care of his own children, try to make up for what he didn’t do with Tommen and enjoy his not getting any younger someplace where no one whispers behind his back, people actually do like him without thinking of his previous misdeeds and if he ever wakes up at night smelling smoke and ash he can be on the shore looking at that sea that’s the same color of her eyes instead of being stuck in a castle of which he only has horrid memories at this point, well —

 

He never gave much of a fuck for what people expected of him in the first place, and neither has Brienne. Why would he not want things exactly like they are right now?

 

“Good,” he tells her, “because we have to make up for a moon’s worth of lost time.”

 

“I cannot wait,” she immediately retorts, letting him back on the ground, even if she keeps her arms around his waist.

 

Oh, yes.

 

They definitely have to make up for that lost time.

 

Starting as soon as the children will let them, but there’s no hurry now that she’s back.

 

 

 

End.