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“When the fighting is over,” Jaime says, groaning as he drops onto a wooden bench in Winterfell’s Great Hall, “I shall learn how to knit.” He yanks off his boots, removes a frozen sock, and slings it over the bench. “I shall learn how to knit, and I shall knit socks upon socks upon socks, and I shall never suffer wet socks ever again.”
Brienne sits down beside him and raises an eyebrow at his golden hand.
“What, wench? You don’t think I could knit? I could trade my hand for a needle. Mayhaps I shall have a hook made, one I can unscrew and replace with whatever appendage suits me. For example,” he says, tugging off his other sock and tossing it beside the first, “a knitting needle.”
Brienne silently removes her boots.
“Fine,” Jaime says. “I’ll learn to raise sheep instead, and you can learn to knit, and I’ll provide you with all the fleece and wool you’ll ever need to keep me rich in socks.” He attempts to massage some warmth back into his feet.
Brienne begins to remove her armor. “I know how to knit.”
Jaime stops his ministrations. “Do you, wench? Good with the sword and with the needle, is that it? You are, indeed, a woman of diverse talents.”
“I know how to raise sheep, too.”
Jaime shakes his head. “You never cease to amaze me. I didn’t realize Tarth was known for its sheep.”
“Mmm,” Brienne hums. “Only its sapphires.”
Jaime almost doesn’t hear it. He pauses for a moment, then begins unbuckling the straps of his golden hand. “When the fighting is over, Brienne, you can teach me to raise sheep, and you can teach me to knit, and then we will both be knights of many talents.” He thinks he sees the corners of her mouth turn up slightly at that. “Your turn.”
He waits as she removes the last of her armor. She leans back and casts her gaze about the room. It is filled with exhausted, smelly, noisy men in all states of undress. “When the fighting is over,” she says, taking in the scene before her, “I shall surround myself with women. For at least one year. I shall become a Septa.”
Jaime bursts out laughing, earning glares from some of the battle weary men nearby. “Septa Brienne. Are we truly that terrible, we men, that you would swear us off for an entire year?”
From the corner of the room comes the loud, long trumpet of someone passing gas. The stench wafts over them a moment later. Brienne turns her head and looks Jaime in the eyes. “A year may not be long enough.”
“Well,” Jaime says, chuckling, “at least during your year as a Septa - or however long it may be - you will have plenty of time to knit me some dry socks.”
The words have barely left his mouth before he is hit in the face with the wet wool of her stinking sock.
“When the fighting is over,” Brienne says, groaning as she twists and arches her aching back, “I shall have a massage every day, whether I need one or not.”
“Oh?” says Jaime, watching her from the corner of his eye, “and where shall you find a maester willing to perform such duties? I doubt there will be many left.”
“I don’t need a maester,” she says. “I need a smith.”
Jaime grins. “And you shall pay for a smith with what coin?”
Brienne rubs her side, wincing. “We will work out some kind of barter system.”
She is still quick with a blade and strong as ever, despite their meager rations and lack of sleep. Tonight, though, he had seen her wrench her sword arm violently while darting to defend another soldier. He didn’t know the man she saved - a boy, in truth. No one of import. One of the smallfolk who had fled south to Winterfell when the dead started marching.
But a quiet, dark haired boy, of an age with her lost squire.
Jaime finds himself moving to Brienne and batting her hands away from her ribs. He holds her shoulder with his stump and roughly massages a hard knot along her left side. He feels her tense, and for a moment he thinks she will protest, but instead she lets out a soft sigh and sags against him.
He smirks. “Perhaps,” he says, muttering in her ear, “you could find a smith willing to trade you for a steady supply of freshly knit socks.”
“When the fighting is over,” Jaime says, groaning inwardly at the thought of yet another bowl of brown for dinner, “I shall plant a garden. I shall grow carrots, and cucumbers, and potatoes, and beets. I shall grown a rainbow of vegetables, and I shall plant apple trees and pear trees, and I shall never, ever eat meat again.”
Brienne slops a ladle of brown gruel into a scarred wooden trencher and passes it to him, along with a piece of hard, gray bread. She serves herself and sits beside him.
“When the fighting is over,” she says, “I shall learn to bake bread. Lovely, light, crusty bread. And I shall eat bread at every meal.”
Jaime examines his bowl. “What meat do you think it is, today?”
“Best not to think on it,” Brienne says. She looks into her bowl, sighs, and drops her nugget of bread into the stew.
“Good idea,” Jaime says, doing the same. “Less likely to break a tooth on it that way, I suppose.”
“When the fighting is over,” Brienne says, groaning inwardly at the bucket of tepid water in front of her, “I shall take long, hot, luxurious baths. Every day. Even if I am not dirty. I will find the hottest hot spring I can, and I will get in and never get out.”
Jaime sighs and hands her a gray, dingy cloth. “Here, wench,” he says. “You deserve a thorough wash for once. Well, as close as one can get these days. I’ll hold the cloak.”
She blushes. It amazes him, really, that after so many months of living with soldiers, of fighting, of seeing all there is of war, she can still be embarrassed by anything physical.
“Jaime,” she says, “You don’t…you don’t need to…”
Jaime removes his cloak, and awkwardly slings one corner over an empty wall sconce, a few drips of wax on the bottom all that remains of the candle. Light is scarce these days, both within the castle and without. “I’ll broker no argument. You may be a soldier, but you are still a lady, and I won’t have this lot getting a show.”
Brienne glances up at him. He sees the weariness in her eyes, and feels something within him on the edge of breaking.
He coughs, and stretches his cloak in front of her as far as it will go. “I know it’s not much, but it covers the important parts.” When she doesn’t move, he looks at her and raises an eyebrow. “Come now,” he says, “must I undress you myself?”
She turns, fingering the hem of her tunic, then looks back at him over her shoulder. “Thank you, ser,” she says, before turning away. As she removes her tunic, he catches a glance of her broad back before averting his eyes.
Her ribs are more pronounced than ever, but then again, so are his.
“When the fighting is over,” he says as he holds her in his arms, “I will bring you to Casterly Rock. I will bring you to Casterly Rock, and I will bring you to a cove where the waters are deep, and cool, but the sun is hot. And we will lie on the rocks and let the sun warm us until we can’t stand it, and then we will swim, and when we are tired we will sleep, and then we will wake up and do it all over again.”
She coughs and shivers against him. “When the fighting is over,” she says, “I will bring you to Tarth. I will bring you to Tarth, and I will show you how to dive from the cliffs into the deep waters of the Narrow Sea.”
I know how to dive from cliffs, Jaime thinks. “The sapphire waters,” he says.
She nods, weakly. “The sapphire waters. We will hike to the highest point on Tarth, where you can almost see clear across to Essos. I will show you the hidden glens, and the waterfalls that only appear after a rain. And Evenfall Hall.”
He brushes her hair, damp with sweat, out of her eyes. “I should like to see that, my lady.”
She looks up at him, her remarkable eyes glassy with fever. “When the fighting is over,” she says, “I will go to Tarth, and I will find my father.”
They both know what she truly means.
She shivers, more violently than before, and he tightens his hold on her. “When the fighting is over, my lady,” he says, then stops. He swallows and blinks back the wetness in his eyes. “When the fighting is over, you shall never want for blankets. I will commission the warmest blankets to be made for you, and you can heap them on your bed, and you can burrow into them when the nights are cold, and you will be as warm as the hottest day in Dorne.”
She shudders again, hard, and he presses his forehead to hers. “When the fighting is over, Brienne - when the fighting is over - you shall never be cold again. I shall take you away from the wretched North, we will return to your Sapphire Isle, we shall go to Essos, we shall go to Dorne, we shall go to all the warm places, and you will never know snow or ice or fever again.”
Brienne sighs and clutches at him. “When the fighting is over…Jaime…when the fighting is over…I want you to go to Tarth. And find my father. Please.”
He closes his eyes and breathes her in. “Brienne -”
But the horns sound - once, twice, three times - and their eyes snap open. She begins to squirm, trying to free herself from his arms.
“What -”
“Jaime…my sword…we must go back to the battle…”
He presses her back against the tree where they are huddled and reaches for his sword. “I must go back. You’re well enough hidden here.”
“Jaime, I can’t-”
He shakes his head. “You can. You must.” He looks her in the eye. “I won’t be long.”
“Jaime,” she says. Another shudder racks her body. He can see when she makes the decision, when she realizes she is truly, at the very last, too weak to fight. She swallows, and holds his gaze. Grips his arm roughly, squeezes once, then lets him go.
He nods, not trusting himself to speak. The horns sound again. They both turn towards the noise. He stands to go, then turns back to her. She is exhausted and sweaty, freezing and burning up. Her face is chapped and her hair is windswept and tangled. Her eyes are red and feverish, and the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
He crouches, touches her cheek with his stump - he’s long since given up the hand - and kisses her fiercely. When he pulls back, he sees the surprise in her eyes.
“You, my lady, are a woman of your word. And we have many plans for when the fighting is over.”