Work Text:
Jaime was banging on the door. “Tarth!” he shouted. “I know you are in there, open up!”
She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t give up and go away but she didn’t know what he might do next if she didn’t answer. He was always doing unexpected (stupid, terrible, wonderful) things.
So she opened the door. “Why do you want?” She sounded ungracious - even to herself. He beamed at her anyway. “Just came to wish you a Happy New Year.”
“But the lockdown - you know we are not meant to be socialising” she protested.
He sighed. “I knew you would be like this. Well you brought this on yourself.”
Suddenly he leaned forward and kissed her full on the mouth. “There - if I am infected I’ve already given it to you. You might as well let me in now.”
She stared at him wide eyed. He pushed her gently backwards into her flat and followed her in.
“I’m fairly sure I am not infected” he said. “I haven’t seen a soul for over a week now and I just drove here. I was supposed to go to Casterly - my father doesn’t care about tiers or lockdown rules. They don’t apply to Lannisters, he thinks. But I didn’t go. I stayed here in Kings Landing and had sausages for Christmas dinner. Tyrion didn’t go either - he was going to but somehow on the way he picked up a woman and he went off with her instead. Father’s furious with both of us but you know what I realised I don’t care. The sausages were pretty good - what did you have?”
She blinked at him. Her hand was pressed to her mouth where his lips had been. He was standing very close to her, shrugging his coat off and throwing it onto her shabby sofa.
“Roast chicken” she said. “I roasted a chicken. A turkey would have been too big just for me.”
“Of course you did” he said. “And I bet you got at least five meals out of that damned chicken and then you boiled the bones for soup.”
She nodded. Took her hand down from her mouth.
“What are you doing here, Jaime?”
“I told you,” he said. “I’ve come to wish you a Happy New Year. I brought wine. And chocolate. Though I am surprised that I have been in your flat for more than five seconds and you haven’t offered me a cup of tea. Standards of hospitality are slipping - you need to get a grip on yourself.”
She nodded again and moved away from him towards the kitchenette in the corner, going to put the kettle on. But he followed her. There was something hard and bright in his expression. She reached up and got two mugs from the cupboard, dropped in teabags, keeping her back to him. She realised she was touching her mouth again. She must have put too much water in the kettle - it was taking forever to boil. She had to say something - silence was dangerous, gave him too much of an opportunity to start talking about things.
“Sausages for Christmas? What kind?”
“Very expensive ones from the organic butchers. But you know I thought I should treat myself. Spending Christmas alone. Not very traditional but I realised I don’t have to do what everyone else does. I can choose what I want.”
She had to squeeze past him to open the fridge door, took out the milk, splashed it into the cups. Held one out to him. She had chosen his usual cup she noticed. The one from the zoo with the lion.
“So what do you think I want, Brienne?” he demanded, as he took it. She forced herself to look at him.
“I don’t know” she whispered. She tried to pick up her cup but realised her hand was shaking so she put it back down before he noticed.
He had noticed. He leant his head back against the cupboards. “I’m an idiot” he whispered - almost to himself. He put his cup down and came even closer to her, putting his arms around her. “Sweetling'' he whispered in her ear. “Its okay. I wish for once you would let me help you. It's been a terrible year - it's okay to cry on someone’s shoulder once in a while.”
She was very still, holding herself contained within the circle of his arms. A large part of her wanted to do just that but it had never been her way. After a few seconds he let her go. She smiled weakly at him, pushing her hair away from her face. “Can we just sit and talk?”
He went over and sat carefully on the small sofa and she perched on a kitchen chair.
“Shall I go first?” he asked. She nodded.
“I was angry with you,” he said. “It felt like an ambush, like you hadn’t been honest with me. And I was angry. But I see now you were just trying your best. You set up that meeting with Catelyn so that we could sort things out. And it didn’t work out - but that wasn’t your fault. And it wasn’t your fault that she died soon afterwards either. And I know how important she was to you, how she was a mentor to you.”
Brienne knew that tears were sliding down her cheeks again. She ducked her head, looking down though she had no hope he wouldn’t notice.
“I also know how hard you have tried to carry on with Catelyn’s work. And if it was possible for one person to single handedly stop the trafficking of young women and girls then you would have done it but it's an impossible task. I think you hold yourself to too high a standard. Just like you are doing now. You couldn’t go home for Christmas so you shut yourself in this flat and worked through. Apart from that one extravagance of the roast chicken - and even that was half because you felt you had to. According to some set of rules in your head about what you can and can’t eat for Christmas lunch.”
“I like chicken more than sausages,” she muttered.
He laughed. “You won’t give an inch will you? So I was angry. But then I remembered that just before you sent me into your little ambush - that totally accidental meeting with Catelyn - you wished me good luck and kissed me. And even though you never took a single one of my calls after that you can’t undo that moment.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “You kissed me just now”
“Yes,” he said. “So I did. So we have both kissed each other. What does that tell you?”
She looked down again at her hands pleating the bottom hem of her jumper in her lap. He didn’t say anything. When she looked up again he was still looking at her - with curiosity and affection and infinite patience, as if he was willing to wait all night.
Slowly she got up and walked over to him. He leant back against the faded cushions of the sofa, tilting his head back to look up at her. Carefully she took his face in her hands, stroking the soft hair of his beard as she bent over to kiss him again. His mouth parted immediately under her and he brought his arms up around her to pull her down into his lap.
“See” he whispered. “It was easy. All you had to do was let yourself do it.”
“Shsh” she answered. “All you had to do was to stop talking for long enough.”
And then she kissed him again - tentatively at first because she was still not sure what she was doing but then more confidently until they were both warm and breathless and the tea was quite cold. She had never expected to see him again, had resigned herself to that but here he was - on her sofa, looking up at her with eager eyes.
“Are you sure?” she asked him.
“Quite sure” he said. “What about you?”
“Not all” she said. “You ambushed me. But in a good way.”