Dream a Little Dream

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: In Your Own Words

bratanimus — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 15:20:57 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: In Your Own Words
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Brienne
Word Count: 7,853
Rating & Warnings: M for drug and alcohol use, language, sex
Summary: Oral exams always seem to begin with the instruction, “In your own words, please describe …” But out of school, Jaime can’t find the words to define his relationship with Brienne.
Author’s Note: Modern American college AU. This is a continuation of my story, Words with Letters in Between. Many thanks to my beta, MrsTater!

In Your Own Words

Colored lights swirl and flicker in the dark, and tiny flashes of artificial starlight rove over the faces and bodies of glistening dancers. The music thrums and pumps, cradling everyone in hands of sound and thumping them together without shame or formal introduction. Perfumed fog wraps itself through limbs and underneath shirts, mingling with the smell of beer and sweat. Boys with boys, girls with girls, all are free within the cavernous space that is Club Babel to reach and fling and kick and grasp, to shout, to kiss, to be.

Jaime, mesmerized, watches the dancers. He envies their alcohol-fueled freedom, each person a sovereign nation unto himself or herself, accountable to no one behind these black double doors. This is Switzerland. This is an off-shore account, anonymous, untraceable. This is where riches lie, beds strewn with rubies and sapphires, cool and sharp against your naked, trembling back.

Stop. Money is his father’s language, not his, though Tywin would never be quite so poetic about this place. Jaime takes a swig of beer and squeezes his eyes shut, trying to find his own words. Oral exams always seem to begin with the instruction, “In your own words, please describe …” But the professors don’t want his words; they want him to spout what’s in the book. And Tywin doesn’t want Jaime’s real thoughts; he wants his own parroted back to him.

How did Tyrion find his inner reason? How does he continually dare to voice it?

See what’s in front of you, not what you want to see, he always says with his eyebrows raised in that insufferable waiting way.

So Jaime looks again.

The expressions on the faces around him look transported, like the saints in those paintings in his art history class; and yet Jaime can’t shut out the word abomination, because he’s heard it on Tywin’s lips about “the gays” so many times. But once—when he didn’t know his eldest son was listening—Tywin said the word in reference to Tyrion. Jaime tried not to speak to his father again after he’d heard the slur against his brother, but that didn’t turn out well. He’d had to learn how to wear the proper face, and there is no relief for that. Parrots only know how to squawk what they’ve been taught.

Weekend Bacchanals probably aren’t enough for anyone here, Jaime realizes, and everyone gets tired of wearing the wrong face during the school or work week. He can relate to that, now. He spots Will in the center of the crowd, dancing with a new fellow who’s got the prettiest head of hair Jaime’s ever seen on a boy. His lips form a thin line as he sighs heavily through his nostrils; he might not have a ride home tonight.

His ruined hand throbs in its cast, so he sets his Dogfish Head on the bar while he hitches up the sling a bit higher so his fingers are above the level of his heart. He is grateful to be in Greensboro, an hour away from Durham, where everything happened.

He’s grateful to be as stoned as he is.

Casting his gaze about, Jaime spots a long and lean blond guy leaning with his back to him against the black concrete wall; there’s a girl talking to him. The boy’s fitted t-shirt glows a brilliant white under the disco ball and black light, and the roving colored lights peppering his broad shoulders make him look almost angelic.

From here, Jaime muses, he could almost be looking at himself from behind, golden-haired and perfect, and the high twists that thought into a fabulous fantasy about watching himself trying to score with someone who’s not Cersei. His cock stirs guiltily; but he’s free now, isn’t he? The way they’d left it at spring break, they’re done. She can’t say a word without shaming him in some way. She hates his grades, his lack of ambition, his mangled hand. She’s getting married and living with Robert in the heady wonderland of D.C., and down the rabbit hole she goes. Bye bye, Alice, he thinks with a thrill of fear, of possibility. Good luck with the cats and the caterpillars and the queens.

Jaime takes a few swallows of his beer and brings his attention back to the blond boy against the wall. Nearby stand a couple of tall women he recognizes from Duke’s women’s basketball team. If they see him here they will question him ceaselessly because everyone wonders about him already, since he’s never dated anyone at school. No matter; if they’re not out, they won’t dare threaten to out him. Besides, the accusation wouldn’t take much to disprove, if it came to that. Although wouldn’t Father’s face be hilarious if rumors of his offspring’s homosexuality were written up in the Herald-Sun? Jaime drinks again, a grim smile on his lips as he ponders what the lives of people who aren’t famous might be like.

Trade down. The thought occurs out of nowhere, and he has a sudden, gut-wrenching wish to leave school, to leave the country, to go somewhere far away in search of the modern day equivalent of dragons and maidens in distress. Though what use he could be to them anymore he’s not sure. Money is power, his father’s voice hisses, and he remembers why he can’t leave.

The petite girl standing in front of the pale-haired guy is pretty, her long brown hair cut with bangs; she wears bright red lipstick and her wide brown eyes gaze up at the boy like he’s her savior. Jaime feels a smile beginning in the corners of his lips; he takes another sip of beer to hide it. At the same moment the guy lifts his beer to his own lips; his arm is muscular but slim and hairless in the androgynous way some gay men seem to like. That girl is barking up the wrong tree, Jaime thinks, amused. Because he’s stoned, the scene seems to play out very slowly, and he stares, intrigued, wondering when the girl will realize.

Then she stands on tiptoe, wraps her hand around the guy’s neck to pull his face toward hers, and kisses him.

To his credit, the boy returns the kiss briefly, then peels her fingers from his neck and bends down to speak directly into her ear over the noise of the music. The girl’s face falls almost comically, and Jaime laughs out loud. Poor girl.

He downs the rest of his beer and turns to order another from the well-coiffed, muscular bartender, who winks at Jaime and serves him at once. Jaime slides a five over the bar top and turns back to watch the continuing drama. The girl tilts her head quizzically and says something with brows knit. The boy turns aside, gesturing to the female basketball players behind him, and … it’s not a boy.

It’s Brienne.

Jaime chokes and spends the next minute coughing into his forearm, his beer sloshing around inside the bottle.

It is Brienne, who first got his attention by clocking him in the head with a frisbee. Who punched Hyle Hunt in the face at that party. Who went with Jaime to the archery range, after he returned her clothes washed clean of the blood and folded the next afternoon, and who earned the nickname “wench” then and there for beating him too soundly on her first try. Brienne, who’s been watching him so strangely ever since a week before spring break, when Hyle and his buddies changed Jaime’s life forever.

His feet have carried him over to her without his quite giving them leave to do so, and now he’s standing nose-to-nose with her. She uncoils from her slouch, and she’s taller than him in her clunky black boots, and he thinks of the twin he could’ve had, another brother perhaps, or a sister, someone who didn’t watch him with the squint of judgment in her eyes and an ugly smirk on her pretty lips. Brienne’s lips are full of honesty, he thinks with a silly sense of wonder. And then he muses, Honesty tastes nice. And then, Stop this. And then, But here she is.

“Hello, wench,” he says in a low voice, confident that she can at least read his lips if she cannot hear him over the din of bass and drums.

“You need a nickname, Jaime,” she replies, her voice almost as low and husky as his. She doesn’t want to call him Golden Boy, like everyone on his team does; she says she’s waiting for him to do something of worth. She’s certain he could.

If she only knew.

Brienne’s two friends eye him, but he ignores them and regards just her, and the moment stretches itself long like putty in a child’s hands, and the scented smoke in the air smells like Paris and her eyes are bluer than the waters of Jamaica and dear God he is stoned.

“Come upstairs,” he says, turning his back and never doubting that she’ll follow.

They climb the black wooden stairs to the second floor bar where it’s quieter. There are bathrooms labeled Men and Womyn, and of course there’s a line waiting for the latter. Jaime wonders why the striking dark-skinned transgendered woman wearing the slim-fitting silver dress doesn’t just use the men’s; but then he decides not to judge, because she’s probably worked hard to wear her own face.

“Drink?” he offers as they reach the bar and Brienne slides her empty bottle across to the short bartender who could be a clone of Elvis Costello.

As she leans with one elbow on the edge of the glass tiled surface, pale blue uplighting makes Brienne’s fair skin practically glow. Her eyes glimmer like sapphires in the rain.

Things are getting weird here, thinks Jaime, while time and distance continue to toy with him and he leans in too closely to her to speak into her ear. “Manhattan?” he offers. She smells good. He backs away.

But she leans in to reply. “Beer before liquor, never sicker.” With her response her lips brush his ear, and his body responds as though he were a cat and she’s found the perfect spot to scratch; he’s aroused and attentive all at once. She leans in again and he is curiously electrified; he turns his head to feel her breath on his cheek, soft and warm. “Just one more beer. I drove.”

He steps forward and orders, setting his own drink on the bar while he fishes in his pocket for anther five. He drops the bills and they both squat to retrieve them. Brienne hands them to him, their fingers brushing, and it feels intimate in the darkness under the lip of the bar, protected even, like the forts of blankets and tablecloths he made with Tyrion when his brother was still a toddler, like the downy duvet that buried him happily in his sister’s bed before it all went wrong.

Brienne stands first but he remains kneeling at her feet, and the act of kneeling makes words like penitent and supplicant scurry through his thoughts. He stares at her boots, with their silver studs on the sides like the Lone Ranger, and he wonders if that would make him Tonto by default, were they to run off together tonight to find something of worth for him to do with his one hand.

He stands and resolves not to speak until he can gather his thoughts into some semblance of normality. The bartender hands Brienne her beer, appraising her height like everyone, Jaime has noticed, does. Jaime grabs his and they cross to the balcony that overlooks the dance floor. Will and his new friend are kissing—very sweetly, actually, as lights flower their faces with color—while dancers jump and gyrate around them. They look like the stars of a teen movie, happily ever after, camera out, roll credits.

“I rode with Will,” says Jaime, pointing. “He seems to have met someone.”

“That’s why I drove myself,” says Brienne. “If Mags or Lana hook up with people, I don’t want to feel trapped here. It’s no fun feeling like a third wheel.”

Jaime thinks of Cersei and Robert, of how he can’t even sit next to her anymore when he goes home; that place is Robert’s now. I am a sovereign nation, he thinks, and he feels suddenly unmoored, as though by definition he still has to be attached to Cersei somehow, the way he’d supposedly held onto her foot when she was born, as if she herself had coaxed him out of their mother’s birth canal like some goddess.

But he and Cersei are a mythology that has been disproven, which sounds exactly like something Tyrion would say, and he’d be right.

Jaime realizes he’s looking at Brienne’s boots again, and now he’s thinking of how he grabbed her bare foot and tried to pull her off his chair to go and kick Hyle Hunt’s ass after that party.

If only they had.

If only.

“Are you all right?” asks Brienne, looking at him square on with that strange expression. “I mean, how are you?” She glances at his hand.

“Oh. Ah.” Jaime shrugs. “It’s coming along. Another surgery or two and I might hold a pencil again.”

But not a bow and arrow, or a gun, not a sword or the reins of a spirited horse, not the steering wheel of a racecar.

Certainly not a basketball.

The headlines had rearranged themselves in his dyslexic brain as usual, but he hadn’t needed his friend Paula to translate that olGdenyBo ttAkced; ugRby Tame Supsectde really meant that no one on the rugby team would go to jail. They’d be kicked off the team and expelled from Duke University because their wealthy daddies would make sure that that was all that would happen, despite all the efforts of Jaime’s wealthy daddy and his team of lawyers. Perhaps money wasn’t power after all.

So Hyle Hunt and two of his buddies are no longer at Duke, which is fine for him and for Brienne, who had become the object of their harassment. Jaime broke Hyle’s nose, busted his lip, and knocked out a tooth by the time it was all said and done, and the other two shitheads didn’t fare much better. Jaime suffered a black eye, a bruised jaw, and a couple of cracked ribs. But rugby cleats can rip a man’s flesh apart, and medical science can do only so much.

He sips his beer and looks at Brienne, who still regards him intently. He’s about to bristle, but it’s not pity in her eyes, and it’s certainly not disgust. Her eyes are wide, watching him with interest and…something else.

See what’s in front of you, not what you want to see.

He shifts, uncomfortable, trying to come up with a quip or something to defuse the moment, which feels absurdly significant in his drugged state. He shouldn’t have smoked up with Will in the car before they came in and then again in the men’s room, but he’s kicked cocaine and he needs something. It’s all too much right now, and coke would only make it more so.

Brienne’s long, slim fingers wrapped around her sweating beer bottle capture his attention, and he stares for what seems like about five minutes. He wants to kiss her fingers, lick the condensation from each one, before tasting the honesty of her mouth.

Quickly, guiltily, as though she can somehow read his thoughts through his eyes, Jaime turns to lean on the balcony and watch the dancers. Will and his new friend are talking now; Will’s hands are on the guy’s chest while his hands grip Will’s hips. It looks so simple.

“Want to get out of here?” blurts Jaime.

His heart begins to pound.

After a pause, without looking at him, Brienne nods and quietly says yeah, though he cannot hear her over the music. She continues to sip her beer slowly, and Jaime looks at her fingers, her neck, the blue-veined skin within the V of her shirt. She’s watching her friends downstairs, and he follows her gaze: one of them seems to have found a friend, too, a girl with cropped black hair, and the other is talking to the cute brunette who kissed Brienne a few minutes ago.

It suddenly occurs to him that he ought to ask: “Are you gay?”

Brienne shoots him a look, and his heartbeat quickens. “It’d be easier if I were, wouldn’t it?”

Easier for whom? he wonders.

He leans his good elbow on the balcony, again a bit too close to her, and cocks his gaze upward at her towering form. God, she’s tall. He wants to grasp her hipbone to feel how sturdy she really is.

She leans down to speak into his ear. “I’m not gay.” She backs away and leans against a graffiti-covered column, and he’s at once grateful for and confused by the space she’s put between them.

“What a coincidence,” he says, grinning over his thundering pulse. “Neither am I.”

Brienne smiles down at him, then covers her mouth with her fingers as if their shared smiles were an unexpected development. She chugs her beer, coughs a little, and then finishes it more slowly. He watches and imagines movie credits rolling over the two of them, him and Brienne, a new story.

“Ready?” she asks.

With his nod, Brienne takes their two empty beer bottles back to the bar, then follows him downstairs. She goes to say goodbye to her friends while Jaime waves to get Will’s attention. Will and his friend dance their way over to him.

“I’m taking off,” he says. “Brienne’s giving me a ride.”

“Is she now?” Will raises his eyebrows, unable to resist an insinuation. “It’s about time. For both of you.”

“I’m not a virgin,” Jaime retorts for the twentieth time. Will can’t stand it that Jaime won’t spill the beans about his “mysterious love life.”

“Whatever,” says Will. “This is Luke. He’s from Winston-Salem. He works at a bank.”

Jaime awkwardly shakes hands with his left. Luke can’t seem to help ogling him.

“Will’s a good guy, even if he is a crap basketball player,” says Jaime, and Will grins, his dark features making his eyes all the brighter. “Have fun.”

He catches Brienne’s eye and the two make their way toward the double doors. Jaime glances back to see the pretty brunette watching Brienne leave, and he can’t help but feel a wave of satisfaction that it’s his shoulder that Brienne’s bumps against as they exit together.

They walk up a few blocks, Jaime’s ears ringing in the sudden silence. Their strides are the same length, he notices, and her legs look strong beneath the fabric of her skinny jeans. Nice ass, too. He forces himself to look ahead and count his steps from one circle of streetlamp light to the next. He’s not staggering, but his footsteps still feel strangely light and long from the effects of the weed, and it seems to take forever to reach Brienne’s Pilot parked next to the sidewalk.

“The Waffle House?” she asks as she opens his door.

“Sure,” says Jaime.

With effort he buckles up, realizing, as Brienne slides in behind the wheel, that this is the very first time he’s been alone in a car with a girl who isn’t Cersei.

Brienne must have been to Greensboro before, because she knows the way to the all-night diner. They’re both quiet during the ride; perhaps she’s feeling as strange about this as he is.

When they arrive, they have to wait for a booth. They tower together near the glass door and long windows overlooking the parking lot, and the patrons and waitress stare at them. He’s used to stares, particularly when he’s with Cersei, because they share the same good looks. Brienne, however, does not. With such similar coloring she could be a Lannister cousin, although her features are broad where Cersei’s are refined and delicate.

But Brienne’s presence commands attention. She’s huge, taller than him. Muscular for a girl. With her short hair she could almost be mistaken for a man; hell, Jaime did mistake her for a man tonight. And yet there’s something about her…a magnetism, or some internal light. Something he cannot name.

“What?” says Brienne, and Jaime realizes he’s been staring again.

He inhales to retort while his befuddled brain tries to invent some joke, but the red-haired waitress calls them over to a table she’s wiping down. The man in work boots and unwashed jeans who has vacated the booth approaches Jaime and Brienne on his way out. He makes no disguise of his curiosity.

“You’re a long, tall drink of water,” he says with a condescending grin to Brienne.

Girls are supposed to say thank you, no matter what; Cersei told Jaime it’s the quickest way to cut this sort of anonymous harassment short. But Brienne just looks at the man.

“You’d be prettier if you smiled.” The man is missing a tooth on one side of his mouth, and his plain, ruddy face bears evidence of a hard life.

“My appearance should be of no concern to you,” says Brienne wearily, as though she’s said it a thousand times before. She goes and slides into the red padded booth, signaling an end to the interaction.

Jaime smells alcohol on the man’s breath, so he remains standing, though there’s not much he could do with only his left arm.

“Pretty boy,” the man mutters, turning his mean, bloodshot gaze on Jaime. “You’re pretty enough for the both of you.”

“For the three of us, I’d imagine.”

“Get outta here, Don,” the waitress calls good-naturedly. The man turns back to her and for a moment he wavers. She smiles and pops her chewing gum. “Go on. See ya tomorrow night?”

“Okay, Peggy,” he says with a wave. He glares at Jaime before he exits and ambles on foot across the parking lot and down the street.

Jaime and Brienne order coffee and waffles, and as Peggy the waitress pours she says to him, “Wait a minute! I know you! You’re…hang on, I’ve seen you before, you’re—”

“I’m no one,” says Jaime. Can he not be famous for one night? “I’ve just got one of those faces. Everyone says I remind them of someone.”

“No!” she says in a high-pitched squeal. Her pink lipstick matches her dangly earrings, which clash frightfully with her red hair. “You’re that Lannister kid who plays for the Blue Devils! You are, aren’t you?”

“He is,” says Brienne quietly. The couple behind her has turned to watch. “We’re just grabbing a bite before we head back, so—”

“I was so sorry to hear about what happened to you, hon,” the waitress goes on, leaning down conspiratorially and gracing them both with a view of her freckled cleavage. She tsk-tsks over his hand in its cast and sling. “Those rugby players are nothing but trouble, I’ve always said.”

Jaime shrugs and tries to reply, but she continues. “And you, poor thing, trying to defend a girl’s honor. Was that true? I read it in People magazine, so you never know. Is it true?”

Brienne sits up taller. She doesn’t know, or at least she hasn’t asked.

“Well,” says Jaime. He clears his throat and scans the diner. Everyone has stopped talking and watches them now. A couple of people are texting furiously on their iPhones. One person snaps a photo. In a low voice he recites what the lawyers told him to say. “I shouldn’t have gone there alone, on a Saturday night. There was probably a … a better way to deal with it.” He clenches his jaw.

“I knew it!” shrieks Peggy, standing up and fanning herself dramatically with one red-nailed hand. “You’re like a knight in shining armor, aren’t you? Tell me,” she whispers, leaning down again. “Who’s the girl?”

Jaime looks at Brienne, opens his mouth, and closes it again, while the waitress continues to prod him to confess and Brienne stares at him. Slowly a deep red flush blossoms on Brienne’s cheeks. She goes to pick up her coffee cup but her hands are shaking, so she places them in her lap.

Jaime looks down at the yellow table and feels his own cheeks warm.

“Wait,” says Peggy, turning toward Brienne. “It’s not—is it you? Oh. My. God. You’re Tarth. The Blue Amazon. I watch the ladies’ games, too, you know. Oh my lord, I can’t believe it. This is like a fairy tale come true right here.” Peggy fans her face with both hands now, laughing delightedly and smacking her chewing gum.

“Order up!” the burly cook calls from the kitchen window, and Peggy turns to retrieve two plates of hash browns for another table, talking to herself and whoever else will listen.

Jaime and Brienne sit in silence, and slowly the din in the restaurant grows again as people continue the conversations they’d stopped while eavesdropping.

“So. Is it true?” asks Brienne.

“You heard the lady,” says Jaime, trying to ignore his throbbing hand, his hammering chest. “A fairy tale come true.”

See what’s in front of you.

There’s a weighty pause as Brienne watches him with an expression of wonder and worry on her face. “Oh, Jaime.” Her voice hitches on his name and she clamps her lips together. But her eyes moisten, and she keeps looking, and he will not glance away this time.

Now there’s no mistake that they are in this together. On some level he must’ve known when he drove alone to the rugby house what would happen, what he might lose.

He never thought what he might gain.

He watches, almost as in a dream, as Brienne reaches across the table and catches his good hand in her own, squeezes it hard, and it feels so very right.

“Here ya go, sweethearts,” says Peggy. Jaime and Brienne snatch their hands back as the waitress places their plates of waffles between them on the Formica table.

They eat in silence. He cuts the large waffle with his fork, glad that he didn’t order the breakfast steak and need Brienne to cut it for him. It’s strange how things can change in a moment, he muses as he chews. In one moment I lost my hand. In another I won the fair maiden’s. I think. Is that what’s happening here?

He looks up at Brienne to find her watching him. “What was Hyle saying about me?”

Jaime swallows, then takes a long breath. He shakes his head as he wipes his lips with a paper napkin. “You don’t want to know.”

Her eyes bore into his. “Tell me.”

He returns her gaze, pausing briefly but knowing that he’ll tell her, because he’d do anything for her, after all. He’s already done it, though he didn’t know why at the time; and he’d do it again.

“He—” Jaime glances around to make sure no one is listening. In a low voice he goes on. “He and a couple of the rugby guys made a bet about who could get you into bed first.” A familiar rage wells in his chest and throat as he remembers the night that Will, who’d been dating one of the other players, told him. He’d never felt such anger, and such fear when Will hinted that Hyle might try to force her if the game went on too long. “He thinks he’s the fucking king of the world.”

“And you’re the kingslayer, is that it?” She sounds almost angry, but her glance at his injured hand tells him why she’s upset.

He doesn’t have the energy to feel defensive. “Someone had to be.”

The waitress brings a few more packaged pats of butter and drops them in a little plastic bowl on their table. They watch each other until she’s moved on, and the air between them changes again.

“Kingslayer,” Brienne whispers.

He cocks his head. “I like it. Wench.”

They smile at each other, and the moment is what it ought to be, with no jokes or pulling away, and it’s terrifying and wonderful.

Now is the moment when we should kiss, he thinks, startled by the revelation. And Brienne, eyes wide and vulnerable, looks like she knows it, too. If this were a movie and there weren’t people with smartphones all around them, he’d lean right across the table and wrap his fingers around the back of her neck. She’d kiss him back, and her mouth would taste like the truth. The camera pans out, the credits roll.

Then Peggy comes to top up their coffees and the opportunity, if there ever was one, passes. But a surge of hope rises in his chest. It’ll come back, he knows. We are a fairy tale, and fairy tales don’t die.

It’s been right in front of him all along.

The ride home is somehow companionable and fraught with significance, even though they only talk about odd things. She talks about the music she plays on the stereo through her iPhone, and Jaime misunderstands when she tells him the title of an Irish song, “The Isle of Man,” thinking she said something like, “My wife’s a man.”

After a hearty laugh over that, things relax a bit. They discuss their shared dislike of political posturing. They bemoan balancing the rigors of athletic training with the requirements of class work. Brienne avoids asking about his rehabilitation, perhaps waiting for him to bring it up; but he’s far from ready to think about that, and at two in the morning his high is wearing off and he needs one of the painkillers for his hand. To distract himself from the growing discomfort, he tries to imagine what his good hand on her thigh might feel like.

When they exit onto 15-501 he realizes his time is running out, and he doesn’t want to go home. He briefly spins out a scenario in which he spends the night with Brienne and yes, the thought scares him…but it excites him, too. Should he feel guilty for wanting someone that he can actually have?

“Are you dating anyone?” he asks before he can think twice about it.

Brienne laughs, a throaty chuckle that coaxes a smile from Jaime’s lips. “As if.”

“Married?”

As he’d hoped, she laughs again, and her face lights up. He cannot stop staring. “Nope. But my father sent me here with express instructions to get my M.R.S. degree. This being the middle ages and all.”

“You don’t want to be a wife?” God, where did that come from?

“Um.” Brienne clears her throat. “It’s—it’s not that. It’s just…I’m not particularly what one might call wifey material. At baseline.”

“Are you more the man in the relationship?”

She pauses, and he senses her hackles rising. “Probably.”

“What a coincidence. So am I.”

But as she gives him a sidelong glance, he wonders if that’s precisely true. Cersei has called the shots all along. Would he even know how to make a pass at a girl, now that he’s free to do so?

Brienne turns onto Roxboro Road and they are quiet again as she makes her way to his street, and he wants to beg her not to take him home, not yet, painkillers in the bathroom cabinet be damned.

They turn onto his street and there, lurking on the sidewalk, are the paparazzi, and Jaime has never been so glad to see them in his entire life.

“Keep driving,” he says, and she does.

She goes straight to her house a few blocks away and parallel parks alongside the sidewalk. The street is on a little hill, so that her house looks down on it from slightly above. He remembers hearing that her father has money, too, and thinks that maybe, like Jaime, she doesn’t have roommates. The house is small; the windows are dark. The last of the daffodils are wilting near the porch, but roses bloom on the fence. A white picket fence.

Brienne turns off the engine and holds the keys in her hand for a second too long as she looks straight ahead.

“You can stay the night,” she says, and she exits the car before he can reply. She crosses around the car and opens his door, just like a gentleman, and he doesn’t protest because it is indeed awkward to flip the door handle and push the heavy door open against gravity with only his left hand.

He unfolds himself from the car and stands uphill of her, feeling a bit strange to be the taller one for once. As she shuts the door the street light makes a halo of her pale hair and casts her face in shadow. She could be a man. Strangely, it’s not a repellent thought. In fact, it’s a strange turn on, thinking that he’s got a secret treasure here, a stealth woman. My wife’s a man. He can’t help but smile. Perhaps he should wonder what’s wrong with him, but he doesn’t.

They ascend the slate path to her wooden porch, on which stand a white painted metal table and two chairs with red cushions on them. A few burned down candles adorn the table’s surface and he imagines, with a moment of fleeting jealousy, Brienne sitting here with some other man sharing a bottle of wine.

As if, she’d said. He hangs onto that thought. Though if she knew about him, she’d have every right to throw him out right now.

She turns on an orange table lamp just inside the front door and moves aside so he can enter. The living room is small, and sparsely but tastefully decorated. There’s a plush blue rug on the hardwood floor, and a long white sofa with a blue blanket thrown over it. Next to it is a square orange chair, and those two pieces of furniture face the windows and flatscreen television opposite. Between the sofa and TV, a coffee table in pale wood holds outdoors-themed magazines and textbooks and this morning’s white coffee mug. The plaster walls are pale grey-blue, and minimalist art graces the walls—ink drawings on white paper set in vividly colored frames. There are flowers on the white painted mantel over the empty fireplace, and a mirror. An old framed photo of a bride and groom stands next to the bouquet: her parents, Jaime guesses.

“I’ve got some sweats and a t-shirt you can wear to sleep in, if you want,” says Brienne as she disappears into the kitchen, flipping on the wall switch as she goes. “Actually, they’re the ones you loaned me the night I punched Hyle Hunt in the face at your house.”

She’s framed in the kitchen doorway, and her face disappears for a moment as she opens a cabinet and retrieves two wine glasses. She grabs a wine bottle from the countertop, turns off the kitchen light switch with her elbow, and returns to set everything on the coffee table.

“The couch is pretty comfy,” she says. “I’ve fallen asleep here more times than I care to count.”

She pours the wine, handing him his glass without asking if he wants some, which he does.

“Sometimes it gets lonely and I stay up too late watching TV,” she babbles, “and next thing I know I’m waking up with a crick in my neck.”

He knows the feeling.

“Have a seat,” she says as she crosses to turn on the stereo in the cabinet under the flatscreen.

Jaime sits as music, low and melodious, floats into the air. He sips his wine, a complex Bordeaux, and thinks he’s never really appreciated how curvy Brienne is. Silhouetted in the dim light of the little orange lamp, she tilts her glass to her lips and looks positively Amazonian, statuesque in the best sense of the word, and he wonders how he’s never noticed that before.

She sits next to him. “What about you?”

He quirks his eyebrows in question.

“Are you…dating anyone?”

He swallows. This will make it real. “Hardly.”

She squints. “For real?”

“For real.”

“Never?”

Her look of incredulity is almost funny, except that he needs to say it out loud and he is afraid.

“There was someone for a long time. Not here. Back home. But she…wasn’t right for me.”

“Ah.” Brienne looks down at her glass, raises it and drinks, looks at him. “I’m sorry.”

He drinks, sets his glass on the table, looks at her. “I’m not.”

She watches him intently as though she’s trying to read something on his face. At last she sets down her wine glass and places one hand on the back of his neck, fingers the long golden strands there. Her hand trembles and he is grateful for that because his whole body is vibrating with fear and expectation.

She rises on one knee, resting her other hand on his jaw, testing her progress in his eyes. He’s thinking yes, and she must be able to hear it because she presses her lips to his, and he falls into truth and wisdom and love, all the things the goddess had promised him, that he had to seek in another tale entirely, and here it is. Here she is.

His hand finds her hipbone and squeezes, and she’s sturdy and strong and he wants her. It’s so simple. A fairy tale come true.

Jaime tugs her hip toward him, and she obliges by shifting so that she’s straddling him, still with her hands on his face, and she kisses him as though she needs to devour him. He returns her kisses hungrily, reveling in the taste of wine, the dangerous and new feel of her tongue inside his mouth, of his inside hers. The heat between her legs crushes into his, and he doesn’t think he’s ever been this hard. But then her breasts press into his injured hand and he hisses with an involuntary jerk backward.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Brienne sputters, her hands hovering over his cast, unsure what to do.

“No, no, it’s okay, I’m fine,” he says quickly. “Just—let’s—”

He lowers himself onto his back and tugs at the strap on his sling. She helps him to take it off, and he raises his arm onto a pillow above his head.

She lowers herself onto him again, and when they kiss she grinds her pelvis into his. They’re both trembling now, lips quivering and barely touching for a moment, then crushing together desperately, and he groans with longing. He doesn’t care if she’s a virgin, like they all say, much less that he doesn’t have a condom. This is his escape, she can take him wherever she likes after this.

Her hand creeps up under his grey t-shirt, traces his ribs, squeezes his pectoral muscle roughly. Then her other hand reaches for the button of his jeans. She sits back and looks at him for approval, and he nods. Please yes oh yes.

As she unzips him, he pulls upward on her shirt. She removes it for him, but wraps her arm across her chest and her ivory bra. He gently takes her wrist and pulls her arm aside, then runs his finger along the bottom edge of lace, scuffs his thumb over her nipple through the thin fabric. She watches him, her eyes now the dark blue of the ocean at dusk.

“Beautiful,” he says.

It might not be a word anyone else would use to describe Brienne, but it’s his word, and it feels true, and at last he’s found it.

She huffs and looks away, a flush radiating across her cheeks. Suddenly he understands how inexperienced she really is.

He pulls her by the forearm so that she’s closer to him, and he reaches around to unhook her bra. “Beautiful,” he repeats in her ear, and she responds by sucking on his neck and jaw until he wants to rip the bra strap from her shoulder.

At last the damned thing is off, and he gropes her small, firm breasts as enthusiastically as though he were a fifteen-year-old virgin himself, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Finally she yanks upward on his shirt, pulling it over his head and gingerly sliding it over his ruined hand.

It occurs to him that not once had Cersei ever ridden him; it was always Jaime on top, in the supposed dominant position. Yet in hindsight he knows that somehow she orchestrated each of their encounters, for what reason now he couldn’t fathom. He fucked her willingly, to be sure; but he never felt that he’d been the one in control.

Now, with Brienne doing every bit of the work, he feels somehow that he is very much in control, that his very act of surrender to her is a conscious choice to trust the right person for once, that to give over to her strange sweetness is the most selfish and self-affirming thing he’s ever done in his whole stupid life.

He kicks off his shoes while she slides his jeans down over his hips and legs, and when the jeans lie on the floor she removes his socks, too. She unzips her boots, peels off her socks, and steps out of her jeans.

Her underwear is flowery. Jaime smiles.

“Hang on,” she says with an adorable—and unexpectedly girlish—duck of her head.

She goes through the other doorway into her bedroom and he hears another light switch flip on and a cabinet door open and shut; her bathroom must be through her bedroom. When she returns she has an unopened box of condoms.

“Um. Do you know how to do these?” she asks.

He nods slowly. “I do. But tell me something first.”

She straddles him with the box in her hand and he groans with desire, practically losing his thought.

“Yes?” she smiles.

His hand settles possessively on her hip again. “That girl in the club. Why’d you kiss her back?”

Brienne flushes again, and it’s the prettiest thing he thinks he’s ever seen.

“No sense in being rude,” she starts. “She was nice enough.”

Jaime looks at her askance.

“I mean—God, I don’t know, Jaime, it was just—”

“Never mind,” he says, worried he’s idiotically ruined the mood. “It’s no big deal.”

“No, I’ll tell you. It’s…been a while since I’ve kissed anyone.”

“Kissed?”

She nods, and the pink in her cheeks deepens to red. “Kissed.”

He looks at her carefully. “We’ll go slow, then.”

Brienne stands and removes her underwear, then pulls Jaime’s boxers off. She sits on him again, and his heart slams inside his chest as her warm, wet flesh, pressed dangerously close to his, nearly makes him come at once. He bites his lip and digs his fingers into her hip, and she gasps with pleasure, pressing against him as though she cannot help it. Quickly she opens the box and tears open a condom wrapper, handing the prophylactic to Jaime. He rolls it down over his shaft, pleased to discover that this is one more thing he can do easily one-handed.

He looks at her. “You control it. Whenever you want.”

Balancing herself with a hand on either side of his torso, with excruciating deliberateness she lowers herself onto him, and he’s thankful she’s going so slowly because he’s never been so hard, so ready.

She moves, and he moves with her, and it’s luxurious torture the way she draws it out. Her lips press together, and he realizes it’s probably painful right now, so he holds her hip still for a minute. She breathes in and out through pursed lips, looks at him, laughs a little. He reaches up and wraps his fingers around her neck to pull her to him, and they kiss, slow and deep, and he feels her body relaxing bit by bit. She begins to move again.

Jaime remembers how many sessions of lovemaking it took before he was able to bring Cersei to climax, so he doesn’t exactly expect to be able to perform a miracle with Brienne, a virgin taking her first lover. Her last, he thinks, and he wonders briefly when, exactly, he became so domesticated, but he doesn’t care.

Their bodies fit together perfectly as they grind and slide together, and gradually he realizes that she has indeed found a movement that she seems to prefer right now, so he goes with it, trying to maximize their bodies’ contact as she presses into him again and again. They both shake with longing, bodies slick with sweat, and he tastes the salt on her upper lip as he pulls on it with his lips and tongue.

Suddenly Brienne cries out softly, a gorgeous and erotic sound Jaime never expected to hear from her, and he feels her muscles clenching around him as she comes. That’s all it takes to send him over the edge, and in a second he’s buried his face in her shoulder, trying to control his own sounds of pleasure and his bucking hips.

Afterwards, she tugs the end of the blanket over their two bodies and rests her head on his chest, and he wraps his arm around her shoulders; it’s the very picture of post-coital ecstasy as they shudder and try to recover from what they’ve just done, and Jaime feels impossibly, overwhelmingly satisfied.

“Not bad, kingslayer,” she murmurs in a sleepy voice.

He chuckles. “Not bad at all, wench.”

She raises her head with that vulnerable look in her eyes and he smiles. She smiles back.

“We’ll be more comfortable if we sleep in my actual bed.”

“I thought I was sleeping out here on this comfy couch.”

“I think we’re past all that, don’t you?” she says, replacing her head on his shoulder.

“Perhaps,” he agrees, glad that they are, and feeling like quite the glutton because he knows he’ll want her again shortly and she’ll be right next to him, hopefully wanting him, too.

A sharp pain shoots into his fingers, making him hiss in pain: his arm has fallen asleep. Brienne helps him to reposition it, then props herself up on her elbow to look at him. Her expression is open, exposed, and Jaime feels much the same, though he’s certain his face doesn’t show it as plainly as hers.

Without preamble, she says, “So. You and me.” It seems like a question.

In your own words, please describe …

He could spin her a bedtime story, a sweet tale that has the usual dangers and losses, but with the inevitable happy ending that reassures everyone that all is where it’s supposed to be in the world. But that would be cheesy, and probably too much too soon, so he just shakes his head with a smile, keeping his words to himself again.

For now.

THE END

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Words with Letters in Between

bratanimus — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 13:02:19 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: Words with Letters in Between
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Cersei, implied future Jaime/Brienne
Word Count: 2,572
Rating & Warnings: T for drug and alcohol use, language
Summary: What happens when a knight can’t be a knight? A modern-day American Narcissus with a twist.
Author’s Note: Written for Tumblr’s gameofshipschallenges for the day’s prompt, “myth.”

Words with Letters in Between

Two white lines of powder, perfectly parallel.

His face, so like hers, over the mirror.

A couple of ungentlemanly sniffs, and soon all will be in order.

Jaime raises his head and blinks, sniffling and rubbing his thumb and forefinger under his nostrils. The party is louder than it was a moment ago because someone has turned up the stereo, and the bass is too prominent. He unfolds himself from the floor and turns it down; otherwise the cops will come soon, and there are only so many messes Dad will clean up. That girl Paula from Uruguay – she’s always pronounced his name “HIGH-me” and blames her native language for the jab – has already lowered her head over the little mirror on the coffee table, helping herself to his supply; no matter, it’s endless. His teammate John, still clearly unshowered and wearing his basketball jersey, nearly slips on the beer and wine smeared across the hardwood floor of the living room, but he rights himself, only sloshing his own gin and tonic minimally. Most of the team is here, as usual, and the rugby team, and lots of hangers-on. Everyone is fucked up.

Except for one.

That towering hulk of a girl from the women’s basketball team sits in Jaime’s favorite plush chair, looking like an albino giant against the crimson velvet. What’s-his-name Hunt from the rugby team hovers over her, and she’s leaning about as far away from him as the chair will allow. She sips red wine slowly and meets Jaime’s eyes for a moment as if this is all his fault. Well, she didn’t have to come. He’s still pissed at her for beaning him in the forehead playing ultimate frisbee last week.

He’s sinking in the post-rush of the game, and all the people and the noise and the two lines aren’t enough. Play and pussy are the only things that make you happy, Cersei once said, and she was right, of course. She’d bought him archery lessons on a whim, and an introductory handgun course, and of course fencing. He’d loved it all and imagined himself as a knight of sorts, one who’d managed to be born into the wrong time entirely. You won’t go into the military, their father had informed him. It’s politics for all the Lannisters. We have a duty …

For now, all he has is basketball. The high of a win gives him a sense of greatness, a sort of purpose, since he isn’t much good at anything else. A straight C and D student, his academic counselor had observed his first year, just before referring him to the lady who’d tell him all about oral tests versus written ones. And then there’s Tyrion, already with his master’s and living near Capitol Hill doing whatever it is he is doing. And Cersei, with her Poli Sci degree and that asshole rising politician who jangles her shackles and chains like jewelry.

And here is Jaime, majoring in communications and public relations – supposedly in preparation to become a lobbyist – stuck down south at Duke University, the not-quite-Ivy-League school his family’s name managed to place at his feet.

How could he not trample it?

He goes to the little mirror and cuts another line with the platinum credit card he’s left lying there. He tightens the rolled-up twenty-dollar bill and sees that someone has opened his laptop on the coffee table to one of the blogs that covered tonight’s game. A photographer has captured Jaime in mid-air, droplets of sweat flying from his hair, the ball just off the tip of his index finger before it continues its trajectory into the hoop. The headline, Gladen boybe ings Dukeclos et toeothFinialoFru, makes little sense to him in itself, though the context tells him what it probably says.

Paula from Uruguay knows about his dyslexia and never mocks him for it, even if she does for everything else. She leans over his shoulder and translates in a whisper: “Golden boy brings Duke closer to the Final Four.” Her breath is warm and should tickle his ear in all the right ways, but she isn’t Cersei. Luckily she already understands that she isn’t for him, even if she can’t know why, and she saunters off into the kitchen. The girls mostly think him haughty or vain; the gay boys are hopeful. They’re all disappointed.

He leans back over the mirror.

The white line divides his face in two. He can almost pretend that he is looking into Cersei’s eyes, can almost kiss her sculpted lips, if no one were watching just now. He wonders who he is, and how truthful a mirror really can be, even with the clarifying powder that sits atop it. (You’ll have to stop soon, you know, John, already three sheets to the wind, said tonight. It’ll fuck up your body and your brain. Not to mention that impressive nose of yours. And Jaime knows he’s right. Why eat organic food all week and then drink himself into a coma every weekend and snort this shit? But tonight isn’t the time for stopping. Cersei was at that gala tonight with Asshole Robert, who made his Big Announcement.)

A sniff and all the thoughts are blasted away.

He is Jaime Fucking Lannister, and he could’ve been king of the world.

Still could, still could, a voice says. But even cradled in the bosom of artificial certainty he knows the voice is bullshitting him.

He stands up and whirls around, trying to decide what to do, whom to accost or pretend to seduce. Maybe he’ll go into the garage and tinker with the Mercedes. Or lift some weights in the basement.

Then he notices What’s-his-name Hunt kneeling in front of the giant and trying to slip his hands – and his face, apparently – up her miniskirt. She plants her sandaled foot on his chest – there’s a glimpse of virginal white panties – and pushes him onto the floor, where he lies in a daze for a few seconds. She hasn’t even spilled her wine.

Jaime crosses the room just as Hunt rises, a bleary but mean look in his eyes. The girl stands, too, and sets her wine glass on the stereo cabinet next to the red chair. Wearing those shoes she’s a full six inches taller than both men. Her hands curl into fists.

“Problem?” asks Jaime.

“No,” says the girl, jaw clenched.

“Yes,” says Hunt at the same time. “Brienne’s an ice cold bitch. Cold as the devil’s ding-dong hanging in a well.”

“That’s an idiotic expression to use for someone you’re trying to disparage as frigid, don’t you think, Hyle?” says Brienne. Jaime laughs.

Hunt ignores the insult and glares at Jaime.

“Dude,” says Jaime. “Leave it.”

Hunt turns back to Brienne. “The guys all said you were a dyke, but I said, ‘No, she’s just asexual.’ You know what that means?”

“That I give off spores to reproduce?”

Hunt’s forehead wrinkles. “Whatever. I think you just need a good lay.”

Jaime places his hand on Hunt’s chest. “Why don’t you go home? In the morning you’ll regret being such an – ”

Hunt swings at him, but he’s drunk and Jaime dodges backward quickly. He springs back, ready to fight …

But Brienne punches Hunt in the nose.

Blood spurts all over her pale blue sweater. Some of it splatters onto the wall and the stereo cabinet. While Hunt holds onto his spurting nose, Jaime marches him to the front door, opens it, and shoves him out onto the front porch, where he flails on the painted wooden slats like an upturned tortoise. There is only one journalist out there now, perhaps nothing more than a paparazzo, and he is on his feet on the sidewalk in a flash, snapping photos; otherwise Jaime might have punched Hunt again for good measure. He slams the door.

“This is my house,” he seethes, looking around angrily at no one.

“No, it’s your daddy’s,” says Paula, who has found a bag of chips and stands in the kitchen doorway, munching.

“Out,” he whispers. But no one hears him.

He stalks to the stereo and turns it off. He waits a few seconds for all the partiers to fall silent. Then he shouts, “OUT!”

He isn’t certain why the party is over, but it most definitely is. All the same, he feels very, very alive.

“But the press is out there,” says John. “Come on, man.”

“They were there when you got here,” says Jaime, turning his back on him and picking up a couple of beer bottles from the coffee table. “Go home. Take the back door if you want.” He goes to the kitchen past Brienne, who stares at him.

As he clinks the bottles into the green recycling bin, he notices his white shirt has droplets of blood on it.

He looks back through the doorway at Brienne, still frozen in the living room and looking down at her own bloodied top, her yellow hair hanging in her eyes.

Something stirs in his cock, where it shouldn’t, and in his chest, where it mustn’t.

He mixes himself a Manhattan and tries to picture himself home again at Christmas, when he’d made the same drink for Cersei after that absurd dinner with the family and her loud, red-faced beau. Jaime had handed her the tumbler, and she’d brought out the coke, and afterwards the two of them had stood together, drinking and looking at each other’s reflections in the large window over the kitchen sink, a couple of self-satisfied ghosts side by side, but not touching, never touching, for they dared not with Dad in the next room. Then Robert had shouldered his way between the two and the moment was over.

A few minutes later Jaime has finished his drink, and he and Brienne are the only ones left. He makes another. “Want one?” he asks.

She looks at him finally and, after a moment, shakes her head. She walks slowly to the stereo cabinet and picks up her wine glass. She takes a measured sip.

He joins her in the living room and tips his glass in her direction. “Nice knuckle sandwich you gave him.”

She huffs and looks away.

“Can I – would you like to change clothes?”

“No, thank you.” Then she notices the blood on her knuckles. “Maybe.” She looks at her sweater again. “Yes.”

“Come on.”

Jaime leads her into his bedroom and rummages through a drawer while Brienne stands there awkwardly looking around. He finds some sweatpants and a t-shirt. Brienne goes into his bathroom and sets down her wine glass next to his toothbrush. She washes her hands with the same deliberation that she’s been nursing her wine all evening.

Standing next to her with the clothes tucked under his arm, he sips his drink and watches her in the mirror. Something is different about her tonight, and not just the fact that she punched a guy in the face. Her sweater really brings out her eyes. They are astonishingly blue. He thinks of the azure skies of the Caribbean.

“You don’t normally dress that way, do you?”

She reaches for the hand towel, looks at him in the mirror, and shakes her head.

“What were you trying to do?” He’s not sure why it came out that way, but he can’t backpedal.

She sighs and picks up her wine glass, takes a tiny sip, and swallows. She pushes the hair out of her eyes in front and massages the buzzed back of her neck before letting her hand fall to her side. “Fit in,” she mutters with a shrug.

They watch each other’s reflections for a second too long. “I know the feeling,” he says at last.

Brienne starts to smile, her brows knitting as she inhales to retort. But then she presses her lips together and says nothing, though the bemused expression remains. Of course, everyone thinks the Lannisters own everything and everyone, and they do own quite a bit, and that really should make him happy, shouldn’t it? He knows he’d sound like a complete ingrate if he complained about any of it. But he also knows it’s an accident of fate that he was born into his family. At least Tyrion is smart, even if he isn’t tall or traditionally handsome. Tyrion will make his way. So will Cersei, with or without that jackass of hers.

Jamie wonders about himself.

“Here,” he says, setting the clothes on the counter. He pulls the door shut behind him and goes back into the living room.

He doesn’t like being alone, and nighttime is the worst. But Dad thinks having roommates would be beneath the family name, not to mention damaging to the house he bought; so Jaime rattles around in here alone most of the time.

Maybe he and Brienne could go out tonight. He knows just what he’d like to do.

She comes into the living room looking much more like herself in his grey sweats and white t-shirt. She kicks off her sandals and curls up like a cat, feet tucked under her, a pale, pointed elbow on one red velvet arm of the chair, the other hand still holding the same wine glass.

Jaime kneels in front of her.

“Let’s go find Hyle Hunt and kick his ass,” he says. “Me and you.”

Brienne stares at him in horror for a second, then she bursts out laughing, throwing her head back; and her long, white neck really is exquisite. So is her laugh, and the way her face lights up when she smiles. She’s really not such a militant sourpuss after all, he thinks, grinning.

He stands. “Up.” He pulls on one of her feet, laughing at her protests. “Up, up, up. Let’s go!”

Finally she stands, and she looks down at her feet as if she’s about to ask him for some socks and sneakers to wear for the job.

“No,” she says quietly.

“What? You were made to kick his ass. You know you were.” He’s tweaked, and he hopes he’s not insulting her, but Brienne is a badass and it thrills him to know it. She should know it, too.

“No, Jaime,” she says, looking into his eyes. He can’t stop smiling at her, even though he knows she’s about to leave. Then she tips back the glass and downs the rest of her wine in three strangely dainty swallows, and he watches her neck again. When she’s finished she hands him her glass. “Thanks for stepping in.”

He’s about to tell her she didn’t need his help, but she’s already slipped back into her girly shoes and opened the front door. Camera flashes burst around her briefly before she shuts it.

She’ll come around, Jaime thinks. He pictures the two of them at the gun and archery ranges, fencing together, boxing. She will.

He finishes his drink, puts the glasses in the kitchen, and goes into his bathroom. In the mirror he sees that there really is a lot of blood on his shirt, and he smiles again. What is wrong with him? He laughs out loud.

Then he notices that Brienne has left her clothes on the counter.

He picks up her pale blue sweater, the one that brought out the color of her eyes.

He knows a gentleman would never do such a thing, but still, he sniffs it.

THE END

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 6 - Jaime, Part 2)

bratanimus — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 16:47:48 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 6 – Jaime, Part 2)
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Brienne, Podrick/Sansa
Word Count: 6,051 this chapter (~32,000 entire story)
Rating & Warnings: M for sexual content, language
Summary: An unlikely trio – Jaime, Brienne, and Podrick – set out to rescue Sansa from Petyr Baelish. Can they return the last known Stark heiress to Winterfell and fulfill their oath to Catelyn Stark, thereby releasing them all from Lady Stoneheart’s death sentence?
Author’s Note: This story is a continuation of my one-shot The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons, but can be read on its own. If you missed previous chapters and need to catch up:
Chapter 1 – Podrick
Chapter 2 – Brienne, Part 1
Chapter 3 – Brienne, Part 2
Chapter 4 – Sansa
Chapter 5 – Jaime, Part 1

And now, here is the FINAL CHAPTER. It’s been a lot of fun exploring these characters through the wishful thinking of this story, and I hope you’ve liked it, too. Thank you for reading!

Jaime, Part 2

The bright afternoon slowly melted into a somber dusk, and the four finished taking stock of Winterfell’s defenses. Sansa listened well to her battle-worn companions, and particularly to Jaime, who knew more than the others about warfare and therefore which walls and gates would be easiest for foes to attack. Daylight waning, they walked together into the godswood. Jaime looked longingly at the warm pools that sat beneath the windows of the guest house, but Sansa wanted to visit the heart tree.

His unsettled feeling and the plaguing thoughts of the Stark boy had faded after this morning, but now as he moved toward the tree he felt uneasy again. A godswood at dusk was a dismal and eerie place during the best of circumstances, but the weirwood’s face really did look as though it had been weeping for a thousand years and more. He much preferred the sensible Seven, carved out of ordinary wood, wood that never wept or did anything remotely human. Sansa knelt quietly at the foot of the heart tree, folded her hands on her skirts, and closed her eyes. Podrick stood a polite distance away, stealing glances at her every now and then. Together, through snow halfway up their boots, Jaime and Brienne made a slow march around the pool and tree.

With the sun going down, the air had become distinctly chillier. Gooseflesh rose on Jaime’s arms beneath his linen and woolen shirts, boiled leather, and cloak. Even the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He told himself again that there were no such things as ghosts; but even so he felt the heart tree’s eyes following him, its mouth open as though it wished to speak. A breeze shook the blood-red leaves on its branches … and Jaime’s heart began to palpitate.

His hand found his sword hilt at once. Brienne looked at him curiously but said nothing. He pressed his lips together and tried to slow the racing of his pulse; but there it was, the feeling he’d learned not to ignore: the feeling of being watched. He scanned the trees but saw no threat. Still, the feeling intensified, and he spun in a circle, trying to see what he hadn’t seen before.

Someone was nearby. Someone … no, something … something other. His skin crawled and his stomach roiled, and it took every ounce of his self-control not to yell out. It was insane, but it seemed as though something wanted to hurt him. Something immense and ancient and far more powerful than he.

His sword was out before he knew what he was doing, and he flexed his knees, circling slowly, eyes darting all around him. He was dimly aware of Brienne catching Podrick’s eye, and the lad took a step toward them as she found her sword hilt.

“What is it?” she whispered, now looking around as well.

Why would she not draw? Could she not sense something was wrong?

Jaime looked at the heart tree. Beneath it, Sansa’s hair ruffled in the breeze, her shorn auburn locks twisting like the tree’s crimson leaves. Her eyes remained closed, though, and she seemed strangely at peace under the sheltering arms of the weirwood, unaware of whatever silent menace Jaime sensed.

Finally Brienne drew her sword and countered with her back to his. The two of them circled together, their feet stepping in the same natural rhythm, and Jaime was certain the enemy would show itself, or flee. But it didn’t. And Brienne didn’t see it, didn’t sense it. After a time, she lowered her sword and came around to face him, a worried question in her eyes.

He had the horrifying sense that the thing, whatever it was, only wanted him.

He backed away from her and raised his sword, balancing the blade over his right forearm as he tried to see deeper into the forest. His golden hand, nicked and dull and in need of polishing, seemed out of place here in the fecund twilight of the godswood. This was a place of wood and iron, of water and wool, of leaves and flesh, no place for gold or jewels or anything that stood for the significance of men.

There was no voice, but Jaime heard something in his brain, something indecipherable. He whirled about to face … nothing.

He spun again, heart galloping in his chest. Nothing. No one.

The craggy tree branches above loomed darkly in sharp relief against the orange and purple light of the setting sun. It was too quiet. The wind stopped.

And then unspoken words wove their way through his mind.

He shook his head, but the whispering went on, splitting his skull like the Smith’s nails. A hiss, a murmur, a shout. The voice sounded like everything and nothing, like one person, like all of them.

“Show yourself!” he spat into the chill air, wheeling around at emptiness.

A mouth shrieked silently. Bloody eyes froze him mid-step.

The heart tree.

It was the heart tree, it had to be, even though some part of him knew that was madness. He was going mad.

At Jaime’s shout, Sansa’s eyes flew open and she came to her feet next to the weirwood, steadying herself against it with one pale hand.

The eyes still wept, the mouth still gaped, but it spoke, it spoke, though the lips did not move, though the words were incomprehensible.

Jaime sank into a terrified stupor. Never had such waves of dread and doom threatened to topple him. He trembled. His stomach clenched. His pulse pounded in his ears and he thought he heard the surge of the ocean, somehow. The blade in his hand shook and he had no choice but to lower it before he dropped the damned thing.

“Jaime,” said Brienne firmly, stepping in front of him. He sidestepped her so he could keep the tree in sight, for all the good it would do him. How did one fight a tree, or a ghost, or one’s own insanity, for that matter?

Cold sweat on the back of his neck made him shiver. His hand felt suddenly clammy, and the sword slipped out of it into the snow.

“Jaime!” Brienne placed her hand on his jaw and turned him to face her. He saw the alarm in her clear eyes, he did; but those other eyes, the red ones, were so much more insistent. He stepped around her to face them.

“I’m not leaving,” Jaime hissed. He wouldn’t be cowed by a damned tree, no matter how malevolent. Defenseless, he approached the weirwood and Sansa, who now stood in front of the trunk almost as though she were protecting it. “My place is here.”

Something gripped his heart and squeezed. Unthinking, he moved to clutch his chest with his golden hand; but the rigid fingers wouldn’t soothe his strange ache.

“Ser Jaime?” said Sansa.

The grip around his heart tightened, and he began to hyperventilate. At this rate, he’d have to sit down before he fainted, and a Lannister did not faint.

He drew himself up.

“I have pledged myself to – to – ”

To whom? Only to Brienne, and he hadn’t even knelt. He’d said it flippantly, invoking no gods, and even though he’d meant it, how was anyone to know? And to Sansa he’d said nothing, made no pledge. He’d said he would stand with her, but what did that mean, to her, to anyone?

He began to unstrap his golden hand, making the decision he should have made long ago, when he first knew.

He had no home. His place was here. This was his family now.

He knelt, feeling the eyes of the heart tree on his scalp as he laid the golden hand at Sansa’s feet, and when he spoke, it was as easy as falling.

“Before the old gods and the new, Queen Sansa, I pledge myself to your service. I will give my life for you, if it comes to that. Any wealth I have is yours to do with as you wish, for the Lannisters owe your family a great debt.” He swallowed. “I owe you a great debt. If this is agreeable to you, I will remain your willing servant for as long as you have need of me.”

When Jaime stopped speaking, the grip around his heart released, and he breathed again.

A slow-building relief carried his fear away like ashes in the wind. He wanted to lie down and sleep. He wanted to laugh. He steadied himself on the ground with his hand and felt tears prickle behind his eyes. No weeping, he reminded himself, clenching his jaw. There’s a limit to everything. But the reprieve he felt was close to divine.

How had he come so far from home, only to find himself again? Only the gods knew.

Jaime’s companions were utterly quiet, and Sansa stood still as stone in front of him. He kept his eyes on the snow, observing how the dying light reflected off the glittering whiteness and imbued it with color, somehow – orange and blue and purple and red. He’d never noticed that before. Did all snow behave this way? Was there such beauty to be found even in winter?

Brienne’s boots crunched through the snow and stopped next to his crouching form. He smiled and, still not looking up from the snow, wrapped his fingers around the back of her calf. He would wait politely for Sansa’s response, but Brienne was his.

The sound of someone clapping broke the silence, and their heads whipped toward the wooden gate. A small man with a longbow slung over his back stood a short distance away, smiling and nodding. A two-pronged fisherman’s spear, its handle thrust into the earth, towered over him.

“O-ho! The Kingslayer! Never thought I’d see the day,” he said, still applauding.

For such a short fellow, his voice boomed like thunder through the cold evening, and his dark eyes were intelligent. He pulled up his spear and approached, boots of soft leather making his gait quiet and smooth; it was no wonder they had not heard him enter the godswood.

The intruder’s words belied his friendly smile. “So the lion bows at last to the wolf.”

Jaime realized too late that his sword was on the ground behind him. He quickly retrieved it while Brienne raised hers and Podrick drew his, but Sansa quickly said, “This is one of my father’s bannermen. He bears the sigil of Greywater Watch.”

Jaime then noticed the iron clasp, in the shape of a lizard-lion, which fastened the man’s dark green cloak.

“Howland Reed,” the man said. “Of the Neck.”

Jaime’s eyes narrowed and he kept his sword at the ready. This was Howland Reed? This unassuming little man? He knew the Crannogmen were small, and Tyrion had shown him repeatedly how even a little man can do great things, but this one couldn’t have cut down the Sword of the Morning.

Sansa introduced her companions properly and Podrick and Brienne sheathed their swords at her urging. Although Reed made no movement to draw nearer, Brienne kept her hand on her sword hilt and Jaime still would not sheathe his. Sansa laid a hand on his arm. “He was my father’s friend,” she whispered, her eyes piercing his.

She was his queen. He would have to learn to obey. He replaced his sword in its scabbard.

“You killed Ser Arthur Dayne,” said Jaime. Until he’d met Brienne, he’d never seen an equal to the Sword of the Morning. And this man had put an end to him?

Reed’s eyes bore into Jaime’s. “He was a brave man. But sometimes brave men must die for the greater good.”

Jaime had heard all this before, even from admirers of Ser Arthur, so he ignored it. “He knighted me.”

“Ah, well.” Reed scratched his head, mussing his dark hair further. “He must have seen something good in you.”

Jaime watched Reed, wondering how his slender wrists could wield even the narrow spear he carried.

At fifteen, the world had been at Jaime’s feet; he’d known in the core of his being that there was no trouble too great for him, nothing he couldn’t overcome. He was potent, immortal, with an equally powerful young woman by his side, secretly urging him on. Dayne had seen the boy’s worth, his unsurpassed confidence, and had offered Jaime an identity his own father would never have deigned to give him.

And Reed had cut Ser Arthur down.

“Do you accept Ser Jaime’s pledge, Lady Sansa?” asked Reed quietly, not taking his eyes off Jaime. “Or should I say, my queen?”

“I do,” she answered.

Jaime looked at her then, and something passed between them. It might have been a grudging acceptance, perhaps even forgiveness, though Jaime wouldn’t have expected or desired it. But the air that separated the two seemed clearer somehow. Jaime nodded, and Sansa gave a curt nod in return.

Reed chuckled and shook his head as though he’d never witnessed anything stranger. Finally he said, “From where I stood, it sounded like you sensed something we didn’t.” He shared a knowing smile with Jaime, who faced him warily. “My son sees things from time to time. It’s no blessing, let me tell you that. Are you a greenseer, Ser Jaime?”

Jaime stared at him, struck dumb for a second or two. “No, I’m not a greenseer.”

Podrick snickered, but stopped when Jaime glared at him.

“Well, that’s good, I suppose,” said Reed, raising a dark eyebrow. “The sight has its uses, Jojen told me, but it’s not always reassuring. I wouldn’t want it, myself.”

“I don’t have it,” said Jaime.

“Good on you, then,” said Reed.

A sudden grin revealed a mouthful of good teeth and transformed his sharp, shrewd angles into a visage of simple, cheery familiarity. Jaime began to wonder what other skills this diminutive man might possess, besides the ability to murder the best knight in recent memory. He decided to tread carefully.

“You received our raven?” asked Sansa.

Reed faced her and his expression softened. “Yes, your grace. And I am here to offer our protection. No one will pass the Neck without our leave, or our deaths.”

“You are very kind, my lord,” said Sansa. She appeared somewhat dazed, perhaps afraid to be too gladdened by the good news.

“Why do you travel alone, Lord Howland?” asked Brienne. Jaime knew that tone, and it meant she was still suspicious. He was about to ask the same question.

Reed looked up at Brienne approvingly. “It’s well you should ask, Lady Brienne, for there are many who wouldn’t wish for more war in times like these, and would do anything to stop it. Even some of your Northmen.” His eyes flickered toward Sansa. “No, I’m headed to the Wall, myself, seeking the Lord Commander, in fact.”

“J-Jon?” sputtered Sansa, her cheeks growing pale.

Reed moved no closer to her, but it seemed that his next words were directed to Sansa alone. “He needs to come south.”

“But he took the black,” she said, confused.

“So he did, so he did, with your father’s blessing, indeed. But there are colors greater than black,” he said with a heaviness in his voice, “and a time to take off every cloak.” This last he said to Jaime.

“I’ve never been fond of riddles,” said Jaime, “so if you have something to say – ”

“Lord Howland,” interrupted Sansa, stepping forward, “we would be honored if you would sup with us, and rest here for as long as you wish. Our larders are meager, but we would share what we have gladly.”

“You honor me, your grace,” said Reed, bowing slightly. His eyes swept over Jaime once, just before Podrick and Sansa led him to the guest quarters. Jaime and Brienne followed, sharing a wary glance between them.

While Podrick prepared the evening meal Sansa chose a room for her bannerman, then left him alone to rest before supper. Sansa then went to talk with Podrick while he worked. Jaime and Brienne retired to their room for a few minutes to wash as best they could over the basin, then don the cleanest clothes they had in their packs, which were still unspeakably grimy, despite a recent washing Podrick had done for them.

As he splashed water onto his face, Jaime reflected that it was almost unsettling how quickly the terror he had felt in the godswood had subsided, as if the same entity that had engendered the fear had then removed it, as easily as a maester might remove a chancre. In its place now sat a peacefulness Jaime hadn’t known since … well, had he ever known peace? All his family’s wealth and privilege hadn’t afforded him that. Not that he would ever complain about wealth and privilege; he wasn’t an idiot. But a quiet state of mind, that was worth more than all the riches of Casterly Rock. As Brienne helped Jaime on with his woolen shirt, he breathed in the calm silence that seemed to surround her whenever they were alone together and smiled to himself.

Later, when they had all settled together in Sansa’s room over their small plates of roasted quail, potatoes, and turnip greens, she and Reed chatted about her family. Jaime’s golden hand lay on a table next to the bed, looking dull and used. It was strange seeing it there, but somehow Jaime didn’t feel the lack of it. He supposed someday he’d have a wooden one made. It would be lighter and less ostentatious, certainly, and would help protect his stump during battle. But for now he felt fine without any such adornment.

Podrick continued to play servant to all of them, but when he wasn’t fetching necessities he sat at Sansa’s right hand, taking his meal with them all, as usual. If Reed took note of the arrangement, he said nothing. Jaime would have to remember to discuss with Brienne the possibility of knighting the young man, and soon, for queens simply did not have squires so publicly attentive. A knight would still raise eyebrows, though perhaps not as many. And Podrick had proved his mettle, after all.

He knew they’d been friends, but Jaime was nevertheless surprised to see the depth of affection in Reed’s eyes when he spoke of Ned Stark; and Sansa’s typical cool demeanor dissolved into one of rapt attention as she listened and questioned her guest in return. Jaime remained guarded in Reed’s presence, and was glad to see that Brienne was not so easily won by the little man’s witty banter and flashing dark eyes.

Was Lord Howland flirting with her?

It seemed absurd, and normally Jaime might have chuckled at such fruitless flirtation, particularly when Brienne’s silent responses included cool stares and flared nostrils as she held her tongue; but his mind seemed ruled by doubt now, even though Brienne had given him no cause to question her devotion. Even tonight, she seemed to be glancing his way more often than usual, and there was a different kind of light in her eyes when she looked at him. But the fact was that they hadn’t spoken the words, and no oaths of any kind bound them together. Besides which, it wouldn’t do to have whisperings about Brienne’s honor. Jaime frowned. It was time to rectify that. His heart began to pound, whether from fear or anticipation he couldn’t be sure.

Jaime’s attention came back fully to the conversation when Sansa asked Reed about Jon Snow. He remembered the young man, his brow dark and brooding as he sat at the far table in the great hall. He’d been elevated quickly to Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, so he must have some worth. And Tyrion had liked him.

“Lord Howland, why do you say Jon needs to come south?” asked Sansa.

Reed again cast his eyes toward Jaime and was clearly reluctant to speak. “After the news I share with him it may be – if he agrees to come – that we can end this war immediately.”

Sansa waited for him to explain, but Reed shoveled an overlarge bite of potatoes into his mouth. “Delicious,” he mumbled through the food to Podrick, who bobbed his head and muttered his thanks.

There followed a short, awkward silence, during which everyone seemed to be trying to think of what to say, or whether to ask more about Ned Stark’s bastard son. For his part, Jaime couldn’t imagine how a bastard could alter the events of the war, unless … unless he wasn’t Ned’s bastard at all. His gaze shifted slowly to Sansa as his mind began to whir.

“You recall my children came here to offer the support of Greywater Watch and the Neck,” said Reed after he’d swallowed, and his change in tone let everyone know that he wouldn’t speak further about Jon Snow. “I haven’t heard from them since Winterfell was sacked. Have they sent you word, your grace?”

Sansa paled, and her eyes softened. She put her fork down when she spoke. “No, my lord. I am sorry to say I haven’t heard any news about them.”

“Ah,” said Reed with a sad smile. “I thought as much. Still, one cannot fault a father for asking. And asking. And asking again.” He chuckled bitterly and took another bite, chewing silently and staring at the center of the small, scrubbed table.

Sansa, blinking away tears, seemed to be trying to decide what words of comfort to offer when Podrick said, “My lord, if I may, Sansa – my lady – her grace, I mean – would offer whatever food and supplies we can spare from Winterfell to aid you on the rest of your journey.”

Sansa smiled quickly at Podrick and said, “Yes, Lord Howland, in appreciation of your loyalty, however we can help you, we will do it. It is decided.”

Reed cleared his throat and said, “Thank you, your grace. I won’t need much.”

“Game may be scarce as you travel farther north, my lord,” said Podrick.

“Game will be the least of my troubles,” replied Reed gently, “but I thank you for the warning.”

Howland Reed insisted that he would depart in the morning after breaking his fast and trouble them no more than he already had. He bid them all good night, conspicuously forgetting his weapons in the corner of Sansa’s room as he bowed and turned to amble down the corridor. He certainly had a dagger or two in his boots, but the gesture was a noble one. Even though they would still take turns on watch as they always had, Brienne released a sigh that it seemed she’d been holding throughout supper.

“It is good to have the Neck secured,” said Sansa, and Podrick nodded and gave her a small smile before standing to pick up several plates to take to the small kitchen and servants’ station in the center of the guest house. “Though I wish Lord Howland would tell me what Jon has to do with the wars. The brothers of the Night’s Watch are sworn not to involve themselves in political affairs.”

“I think seeing a Lannister in Winterfell may have sealed his lips,” said Jaime. “Even though you told him your plans, and he claimed to see the sense in them, he can’t be certain I’m not a spy for King’s Landing.”

“People can think whatever they like,” said Sansa firmly. “I trust you.”

Jaime’s throat tightened with sudden emotion, but he managed to bow his head and say, “Your grace.”

The title still felt strange on his lips, but he would have to grow accustomed to it. Things would escalate quickly, now that the ravens had been sent. Besides, he’d made his oath: Sansa was his queen now.

“How can we be sure Lord Howland isn’t trying to lead us astray, to lower our guard?” Brienne asked.

“It may be that Jon Snow isn’t who we think he is,” said Jaime. “He may be a bastard, but he may not be Ned Stark’s bastard.”

“I thought of that tonight,” said Sansa, and she became very quiet. “That had never occurred to me before. Father never spoke of where Jon came from – never spoke of it at all. We all just … made up our minds about him. I never forgave Father for that, for betraying Mother, and now – if this is true – ” Sansa swallowed, her eyes dark and far away. “I’ve been so wrong about so many things.”

“If Jon has a legitimate claim to the Iron Throne,” said Brienne gently, “he could assure that Winterfell remains yours, and that you are Queen in the North.”

“No more bloodshed,” whispered Sansa. She rose from her seat and looked at Brienne with such faith in her eyes that Jaime thought his heart might crack in two.

“We can hope,” said Brienne, smiling.

“But we must prepare,” said Jaime as he stood. “I’ve found that hope flowers best when nurtured by a pessimist’s plans, so I suggest we continue as though Howland Reed had never planted that little seed tonight. Your grace.”

Brienne’s smile turned into a smirk and she stood, as well. “By your leave, your grace.” And, not wearing skirts, she bowed as a male knight would.

Jaime bowed, too, and they entered their room, shutting the heavy wooden door behind them. Brienne lit an oil lamp and set it on a small table near the bed, and its dim, comfortable light seemed to warm the room even more. They could hear Podrick enter the room again through the corridor entry, load more plates and serving dishes on his tray, and shuffle down the hall toward the kitchen, clinking and clanking as he went.

Leaning against the door, Jaime sighed. After the day’s events he suddenly felt, to use Tyrion’s expression, as though he’d been dragged through a keyhole. And it would only get worse from here, that he knew. They might have a few quiet days between now and the inevitable conflict, but the day would come when they’d have to make their stand.

Strangely, that made him happy, and he realized he was smiling. A man without a purpose was no man at all. Perhaps that was true for women as well, for Brienne seemed oddly at peace.

She shut their corridor door and leaned against it. For a time they simply looked at each other in the flickering light, each leaning against a door as though wild animals prowled outside. Jaime began to laugh, and Brienne joined him. It was inexplicable, what they were doing: the absurdity of going against the tide of the war, and the conviction that they two would undoubtedly change the world for the better. Sometimes it struck him hard in the face, and all he could do was laugh about it.

“Come here, wench,” he said, and she did, allowing herself to be enfolded into his arms completely.

They leaned together against the door and he buried his face in her shoulder, inhaling the familiar musky scent of her sweat and nuzzling the smooth skin of her neck until she shivered. She pressed languidly into his manhood, and he hummed, wanting to savor the feeling of his growing arousal.

“I am proud of you,” she whispered, leveling her gaze at him.

“For what?”

A flush blossomed on her cheeks. “You finally pledged your oath.”

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Honor is a difficult opponent to defeat. One must almost always surrender to it, in the end.”

Brienne’s mouth on his brought an end to his jape, and he reveled in the taste of her.

And now we will be together, he thought. Our paths are one. I’ll never leave your side, nor you mine, not until we’re dead.

But if they survived?

He pulled away and looked at her squarely. “What will we do after Winterfell?” he asked again, probably for the fifth time since the miller’s house. “And don’t say, ‘Whatever you like,’ because I haven’t told you yet what I’d like to do. It might be something horrible, and then where would you be?”

He knew he was asking the wrong question, but still he raised his chin and cocked a challenge at her, waiting for her to sputter and flush as she often did. But Brienne had a way of surprising him when he needed it most.

“I’d be with you,” she replied simply.

For the second time tonight his throat tightened around a lump of emotion. He swallowed and nodded, feeling suddenly like a young schoolboy. “That’s good,” he whispered.

Brienne smiled, and her eyes glimmered again in that new way he’d seen tonight, just before she pressed her lips to his. His body responded immediately, but he forced himself to remain at the door instead of pushing her backwards until they fell onto the bed. He didn’t trust himself not to ask for too much these days, because his need for her had grown practically unbearable.

As if sensing his hesitation, Brienne took charge of him, pulling his shirts over his head and unlacing his breeches before steering him to sit on the edge of the bed, where she removed his boots and stockings and tossed them against the wall. She then slid her hands up his thighs and began to work down his breeches and smallclothes.

When his manhood was freed, Brienne dove upon it and took it into her mouth, moving with a skill that she was rapidly perfecting as she learned what drove him to the brink of madness. Jaime watched her movements, groaning with every slide of her tongue and lips around him, gasping as she gripped the base of his manhood to stiffen him even more.

He grasped the collar of her woolen shirt and tugged roughly. She released him and stood to disrobe, which she did quickly, kicking off her own boots while her breeches were still gathered around her knees. She stepped out of them and strode toward him with purpose, her body strong beneath its unexpected curves. He loved every bruise on her muscled thighs, especially the ones he’d placed there with his overzealous mouth and fingers during their silent, frenzied nights.

Jaime shifted backward onto the bed and had to bite his lip as she straddled him and slid her sex up his cock … but she kept crawling upward until her blond curls and lovely cleft were right over his face. He wrapped his arms around her hips and buried his face in her maidenhood, kissing and licking and sucking there as though he were a starving man. Brienne braced herself on his shoulders and shuddered and moaned as he found the actions he knew she liked best.

He’d made her climax this way before, and he’d always loved it, having the power to unravel her so absolutely; but she placed her hands on his arms and removed them from her hips so that she could slither downward again. He was expecting her to rub herself over his cock, as she loved to do; but this time she grasped him with her hand and, very slowly, lowered herself onto him.

Her body was exquisite oil and muscle, heat and pleasure. A quiet hiss slipped through his teeth, and he kept his eyes locked with Brienne’s. She bit her lip and unhurriedly began to ride him, steadying herself with her hands on his chest as she figured out how to move over him. The vulnerable yearning in her eyes made him want to crumble. He groaned and reached for her, pulling her body down onto his and clinging to her tightly as he plunged deeper into her, eliciting another gasp as her body adjusted to the penetration of his. After so many nights of silence, the sound of her voice as she moaned and sighed without reservation nearly sent him over the edge; but he held her hips so she couldn’t move too quickly.

Her calves hugged his hips as she moved, and her elbows remained planted on the bed on either side of his face. But her fingers combed through his hair with the same tenderness he’d come to expect from her, and his chest throbbed with a new sort of longing. He was whole with her, as he’d never been before, and relief and clarity opened something in him.

Brienne was his, his at last, and he’d be damned if he’d let anyone or anything pull them apart. His thrusts took on a determination of their own as he held her to him, unwilling even to allow her to sit up to slide over his manhood the way she seemed to wish to do, for that would put her body farther from his; so their movements as they clung tight and slammed into each other were small, intense, and focused. She kissed him and kissed him again, never taking her eyes from his, and over the blood thundering in his ears he realized she was whispering his name over and over again: Jaime … Jaime … Jaime …

He forced himself to slow down, to find the perfect undulation of his hips as they rocked into hers, and before long he saw the look on her face changing to one of quiet, transported concentration, the most lovely look he’d ever seen on anyone. A line appeared between her brows, meaning she was very close now, and so he reached down between them and began to circle his thumb over her sex, and felt a glorious clenching of her body around his, a sweet milking of his cock that made him want to explode into her. And when it happened now, it felt like he’d been made for this, for her body; it was as if the same pair of divine hands were squeezing and pounding the two of them into each other, making each of them more than they’d been a moment before. He moaned and pulled her tighter with his arm, keeping his hand between them to make sure every ounce of pleasure had been wrung from her before he released her. She cried out his name, and her head fell forward and she bit his shoulder. His mouth found her neck and he whispered her name there, wishing that the word could mark her as his somehow.

They stayed that way for a time, as their panting returned to normal breathing and their sweat began to cool and make them shiver. Finally they disengaged, crawled under the covers and furs together, and lay facing each other with their heads resting on the same pillow.

It’s settled, Jaime thought. You’re mine. I’m yours.

“If we die tonight,” he said, “it won’t be the Maiden who meets you.”

And Brienne laughed heartily, no doubt remembering what she’d bemoaned – and what he’d offered – the first night he’d kissed her in the barn so long ago, the night they were certain they faced hanging in the morning.

“I suppose you want thanks for that?” she said, though her eyes beamed as she wiped tears of mirth from them.

“I want – ” But he stopped himself. He wanted so much, and he could not allow a jape, however personal it might be to the two of them, to cheapen it.

He turned his head toward the sound of Podrick pacing the corridor of the guest house and tried to picture him, sword at his side, growing taller and broader each day, choosing his fate and making peace with it, whether it would lead to glory or death. Or both.

“So, what will we do after Winterfell?” asked Brienne, suddenly serious. Her eyes were wide and dark.

Jaime looked back at her. The silence between them deepened, and he felt himself dropping into place, finding the fit snug and perfect. “Perhaps we should pay a visit to Tarth. I’d like to meet your lord father.”

Brienne snorted. “I’m not certain he’d want me without a gown, or a husband.”

A thrill coursed through his body and he thought, The things I do for love. And when he spoke his next words, it was as easy as falling, as exhilarating as flying.

THE END

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 5 - Jaime, Part 1)

bratanimus — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 14:12:51 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 5 – Jaime, Part 1)
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Brienne, Podrick/Sansa
Word Count: 4,834 this chapter (~32,000 entire story)
Rating & Warnings: M for sexual content, language
Summary: An unlikely trio – Jaime, Brienne, and Podrick – set out to rescue Sansa from Petyr Baelish. Can they return the last known Stark heiress to Winterfell and fulfill their oath to Catelyn Stark, thereby releasing them all from Lady Stoneheart’s death sentence?
Author’s Note: If you missed it and need to catch up:
Chapter 1 – Podrick
Chapter 2 – Brienne, Part 1
Chapter 3 – Brienne, Part 2
Chapter 4 – Sansa
This COMPLETED story has six chapters, to be posted once weekly. It is a continuation of my one-shot The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons, but can be read on its own. Thank you for reading!

Jaime

“The structure appears sound,” said Jaime, though really he knew little and less about architecture and the soundness thereof. What he did know was that Sansa Stark, returned now to the blackened skeleton of her home, needed some good news.

“It is about to crumble,” replied Sansa in a low voice, letting her gaze follow his to the keep.

Or perhaps she needed honesty more than she needed optimism. No matter; that was something Jaime knew better how to provide. He shrugged. “Perhaps it is. We’ll find shelter elsewhere.”

The Bastard of Bolton’s men had repaired parts of the keep, but it still stood a huge, burnt-out shambles. Sansa’s eyes shone in the bright morning light as she stared up at the blank windows, and she blinked several times before she turned her face away from the keep and the scrutiny of her companions. She cleared her throat. Although her voice was slowly returning to normal, it would catch every once in a while, the sound cut short as though she’d been struck; but whether that was from lingering damage or from emotion, Jaime couldn’t be sure.

While Sansa gazed upon her childhood home Podrick hovered near, as close and silent as a shadow. He knew how to allow a woman her space, Jaime had to give him that. Women couldn’t be forced open like stuck doors; if they would open at all, it would be in their own time.

“The guest quarters are not likely to have been sacked as badly as some of the other buildings,” said Brienne as she crossed the courtyard from the burned library.

Jaime nodded in approval, and he and Brienne shared a knowing look. He suspected that Sansa would not want to see her old rooms today, anyhow, and certainly not the bedchamber that the Bastard had restored and claimed for his own use after his marriage; it might have been Ned’s and Catelyn’s own bedchamber, for all Jaime knew. But Sansa had kept her face perfectly blank when they’d ridden through the open gates of her home an hour ago at dawn; whatever she’d felt when she saw the collapsed towers, walls, and bridges, she’d kept it to herself.

As Jaime surveyed the ruins, he saw none of the cold majesty he’d noted during his last visit here; now Winterfell looked as if the overgrown lichyard had extended its reach into the rest of the quarters, strangling everything solid in its creeping roots and vines. He shivered and tugged his cloak closer around his neck. The courtyard was cold and silent in the frosty morning. Despite the sunshine it was early enough that fog still skulked, ghost-like, along the ground. The back of Jaime’s neck prickled almost as though he were being watched. Even he, who did not believe in such things, could not but wonder about Stark ghosts. They must seem overwhelming to Sansa.

She led them to the guest house and together the four of them walked through, taking note of which rooms were relatively untouched and which had been too thoroughly sacked. One of these rooms had been Jaime’s, when he’d come here with Cersei and Robert and the children; but for the life of him he couldn’t remember which one. Everything from that time had somehow blurred itself in his mind, as though it had happened to someone else. He thought of the boy, Bran, and furrowed his brow. It would do no good to dwell on that.

Sansa surveyed each room with cool eyes as she passed through, taking in the comfortable beds and heavy bed curtains, the wooden and upholstered chairs and scrubbed tables, the wardrobes and chests for storing clothing and personal effects, all reminders of the visitors who had flitted in and out of this place like chimney swifts, who perhaps had come to their own bitter ends just as her own kin had, and as Sansa herself would – as they all, most likely, would.

Jaime frowned. After he lost his hand his thoughts, as one might expect, had darkened quite a bit; but since he’d stepped into Winterfell this sunny morning they’d become distinctly morose. But with Brienne standing by his side, he felt the familiar relief that her sturdy frame and clear eyes instilled in him. He missed her when she left him, even for a moment, and though he often wondered what that meant, he didn’t think it was necessarily a bad development. His wench was becoming a welcome constant, even if he did not deserve such a thing. Even if he wasn’t used to it. His hand found the small of her back and she looked at him, the clarity of her gaze making him feel, as it somehow always did, that he was the best thing she could hope to see.

The room at the end of the building had no exit, save the adjoining room through which they had just passed, and the windows were high above ground.

“Podrick and I will stay here,” Sansa said, “and you two can stay next door, in case of marauders. We should all be protected here.”

“Or cornered,” said Podrick. Sansa looked at him pointedly. “My lady,” he added gently, but he managed not to blush. She raised an eyebrow. “Your grace.” And here he did, finally, blush.

Sansa smiled and blushed, as well, and she was again the lovely young girl Jaime remembered from before everything had gone sour. If Podrick had done that for her, given Sansa her smile back, he was glad of it. Podrick certainly looked happier, and even if he couldn’t have his queen in marriage a man grown needed someone to love, someone to protect, a reason for being.

“Where would you have us sleep?” Sansa asked.

Podrick gestured back to where they had started. “On the opposite side the windows are closer to the ground. If the shutters aren’t stuck, we can rely on them for escape. If necessary.”

“Very well,” said Sansa, and turned on her heel. Podrick followed.

Brienne caught Jaime’s eye and grinned. He smiled back and shook his head. They fell in step with each other as they followed the younger pair to the rooms Podrick had indicated. Jaime agreed; with multiple windows as exits, the rooms here would be safer for them, if rogues came prowling in the night.

Podrick placed his and Sansa’s packs together in the far room, for they had all done away with any sense of decorum long ago. Jaime couldn’t even be bothered to remind Sansa that she was still married to his brother. She knew it, and so did Podrick. It sounded as though she and Tyrion had never been much of a match, anyhow, and Tyrion seldom let his bed remain cold for long. If they found him, he’d likely turn a blind eye to his wife’s new lover; after all, Tyrion had always been fond of Podrick, even before the boy had saved his life. Besides, when they challenged the Iron Throne, there would be more pressing worries than who was fucking whom.

Jaime and Brienne laid their saddlebags in the adjoining room. The two chambers were separated by a thick wooden door, which Jaime shut, though he left the door to the hallway open. He looked around.

There was a curtained bed that might be large enough for the two of them if they slept on their sides tucked together, as they usually did, and a wardrobe, if they had anything to put in it. Jaime crossed the room to the window and lifted the bar, opened the shutters, and saw Winterfell’s godswood looming in front of him, the gnarled branches of the thick forest of trees stretching sideways almost as if they wanted to reach inside the window and snatch him out. But the snow-covered ground was only a short leap down, as Podrick had noted; so this was a safe room, Jaime supposed.

He closed and barred the window again to keep the cold out, glad to be rid of the sight of the trees’ reaching claws. The room itself was surprisingly warm due to the hot springs that ran below the floors and through the walls; the Starks had always been kind to their guests, and Jaime was thankful for the shelter. He thought again about what he’d done to the Stark boy to protect his queen. The things I did for love, he thought. He shook his head, trying to expel the ghosts lurking there.

Brienne stood in the doorway and stared out into the hall, a faraway look in her eyes. What was she was thinking when she gazed off like that? He had to admit that it frightened him a bit. He’d seen that look on Cersei’s face before, and it never portended anything good for him. Once he’d fallen into the lion’s jaws, he never knew when they’d snap shut.

But Brienne was not Cersei, no; once he’d had the sense to really look, he’d come to realize that Brienne was everything that Cersei had merely seemed.

Still, the deep-rooted fear took hold of him and silenced his questions before they reached his lips. So he did what he always did when beleaguered by doubt: he slipped an arm around Brienne’s waist, nestling his body behind hers, and felt his manhood respond immediately. He’d grown to love her height, and the way his nose met the nape of her neck when he held her like this. He kissed it with an open mouth, tasted the salt of her sweat.

Brienne squirmed – such a girlish movement, who would have thought? – and returned from wherever she’d been as she twisted around to face him. The prize of her sapphire eyes fixed on his brought Jaime back from his place of dread.

“Do you think our ravens will be answered?” she whispered. Jaime, relieved, could only wonder at her trust in him, for Cersei might have sat on her thoughts for days, or weeks, or never told him at all.

“No,” said Jaime. When Brienne furrowed her brow, he continued. “ I think the Stark bannermen will come here directly. They will understand Sansa’s need and rise to it. That is how things are done in the North.”

“I hope you are right.”

“Either that or we’ll all be killed while we sleep tonight. Perhaps tomorrow.”

Brienne slapped his shoulder lightly. Jaime rubbed it, feigning to be wounded, but he let a smile creep up his face. It was true, though, and Brienne knew it. Best to jape around the fear, as he’d always done, for worry would not keep disaster away.

Sansa entered the hallway; she carried an oil lamp. “Pod will prepare our rooms and a meal. I would visit the crypts, and later see the sept and the godswood.”

“I shall accompany you, your grace,” offered Brienne at once. Jaime took up his sword, as well, and the three left the guest house together.

They passed by the empty armory and guards’ hall and entered a small courtyard. The entrance to the crypts stood on the far side. An ancient round fortress crouched on their right. Jaime peered up at the leering gargoyles and was glad that time had erased most of their features, for the lichyard that surrounded the keep was eerie enough. And that broken tower seemed familiar. Was that where he and Cersei …?

“I shall enter alone,” said Sansa, crossing the courtyard to the crypts.

“No, your grace” said Brienne. “Men could have entered before the last snowfall. Let us accompany – ”

“You,” interrupted Sansa. “Only you.”

Her expression remained placid, but Jaime knew her affection for him had only improved by the smallest of increments since they had rescued her. He could not erase the past, and her father was dead because of his family. Because of him. Certainly the deaths of the rest of her clan could be blamed on Lannisters in one way or another, if Sansa thought about it, which she probably did, and often. He stepped lightly away, pretending to want a closer look at the guards’ hall. The two women silently entered the crypts, Brienne’s sword at the ready and Sansa’s oil lamp held high. Jaime watched them disappear into the darkness and began to worry for Brienne. If there were bandits inside, she’d need him.

He tried to distract himself while listening for sounds of alarm within the crypts. Looking about, his eyes drew back to the damaged watchtower on the far side of the keep. Something wasn’t right; it was too tall, and he couldn’t imagine what it looked like inside. No, it was the old round keep, the First Keep, Sansa had called it. That was where he and Cersei had gone to be together, and that was where the boy … where he’d …

Jaime turned away from the keep and stalked around the lichyard, stepping over gravestones leaning this way and that; some lay flat, some were broken, but all had been kicked out of alignment to some degree. The sacking of Winterfell had been thorough. It was cold in the shadow of the First Keep, and Jaime began to feel agitated. Why, today of all days, had the sun decided to come out and irritate him with its damned shadows?

He hunkered down in the snow closer to the crypts and fiddled with his sword hilt. His golden hand glinted dully in the sun, and he tucked it into his armpit, unsure why he did so. A crow landed on the head of one of the keep’s gargoyles and watched him with its beady eyes. Jaime sneered at it, then felt a fool and stopped. This was no time to become superstitious, or to revisit all the reckless things he’d done. But if he hadn’t pushed the boy …

“Jaime.”

Brienne’s voice made him start, and he stood at once. He had an overwhelming urge to run to her, but he couldn’t show these cursed ghosts that they’d bested him. Still, he was happy to see her coming to his side, her yellow hair blazing bright as a torch in the morning sun. She squinted into the light, and Jaime countered so that the sun was beside both of them.

“The crypts are safe. I thought it best to give Sansa her privacy.”

Jaime nodded. Brienne looked quietly miserable, and Jaime wondered what she’d seen down there, or what the tombs had signified for her. Perhaps she missed her own father, or felt the lack of one who could love her for who she was. Whatever Jaime had thought of Eddard Stark, he’d loved his children, including that bastard of his. Even the worst father could recognize that.

Jaime suddenly decided that he would be quite happy to see the end of his time in Winterfell.

“If the Stark bannermen come, fortifications will need to be made,” said Brienne, looking at the open North Gate. “And we’ll need to train our army, if we’re fortunate enough have such a thing.”

Jaime snorted.

Brienne looked at him. “Why are you doing this, then, if you don’t believe in it?”

“I never said I didn’t believe in it,” said Jaime. “Sansa’s cause is the most just one I could hope to support. I don’t believe it will work.”

Brienne looked at him for a long moment. Then she sighed. “You’re right, of course.”

“Why are you doing it? And don’t say, ‘For Lady Catelyn,’ because she’s dead.”

Brienne turned away and looked at the entrance to the crypts. Her chin wrinkled as she thought, chewing on the inside of her lower lip. Finally she said, in a rush, “Because the world is ending and I want to be on the right side, and I don’t know which side that is. My father would call what we’re doing a ‘side bet.’ I think it’s the most correct decision I could make, all things considered.”

Jaime stared at Brienne, and she returned his gaze and shrugged. She looked so sweetly forlorn that he couldn’t help but snicker. She scowled at him, which made him snigger all the more. She crossed her arms and watched his shoulders shaking, apparently hoping to wait out his mirth; but finally her impatience gave way to resignation and she smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling, her beautiful, imperfect teeth glinting in the sun like a lion’s. He chuckled harder. How she was able to make him laugh so with her honesty? Her earnestness? Why was his laughter never disdainful but delighted? Even Brienne no longer believed he was laughing at her expense, but she still could not fathom what about her speech tickled him. He couldn’t tell her that it was simply her, that in this whole, spoiled world there was one person who had somehow remained good, and thought him so, too. He was a sinner with fine prospects, indeed, and he was happy for it.

He was still chuckling when Sansa emerged, red-eyed, from the crypts. She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes and glared daggers at Jaime, who tried to compose himself, but not quickly enough. He turned his back to her and took a few steps away, taking steadying breaths as he went until he appeared appropriately subdued once more.

Sansa crossed to the lichyard and began to look around. Jaime remembered someone saying the Starks had buried their most faithful servants here. An old woman had watched over the Stark children, hadn’t she? Was it her grave Sansa sought? She wove through the toppled and broken gravestones slowly, peering at the inscriptions as she went.

Brienne and Jaime kicked away some snow and sat together on one of the low steps leading into the First Keep.

“We need your brother,” said Brienne in a low voice. “We should talk about how we will find him.”

“We won’t,” said Jaime.

Brienne looked at him sharply.

“Tyrion will find us. Wherever he is, if he’s alive, news of our challenging the Iron Throne will reach his ears faster than quicksilver. We could never hope to locate him, for he might be anywhere. Besides, we cannot abandon Sansa to search for him. She needs all the warriors she can muster. If Tyrion wishes to join us, he will come to us. That’s how we will find him.”

He’d come to this dismal conclusion after they had left Lady Stoneheart’s camp, but his gut still churned at the thought of having to wait for Tyrion to decide to come to them. To him. And what should he expect, after what he’d said to his brother at their last meeting? He should have kept his foolish mouth shut; Jaime’s truth had stung Tyrion far worse than Tyrion’s had Jaime, in the end. And Tyrion’s barbs had done him a favor, truth be told; they’d shoved him out of the asp’s nest for good, at last. But as with every good deed Jaime had tried to do, his words meted out everlasting punishment.

As if she’d read his thoughts, Brienne laid a hand on his knee. “Tyrion will come. He bears no loyalty to the Iron Throne. Here, a home waits for him, and family, a reward beyond riches. We will defend him as he defends us.”

Jaime smiled wryly. “We’ll all die together.”

She smiled back, ran her fingers down his cheek, and the boldness of her gesture pleased him even if it did not reassure him. “Perhaps. We’ve been known to survive before, though, haven’t we?”

Jaime turned his face into the palm of her hand and kissed it.

“Where is she?” muttered Sansa. She’d swept up her sodden skirts and now darted from one stone marker to the next, though she must have read each one already. “Where is she? She’s supposed to be here!”

Brienne and Jaime stood as one, and she approached the distraught girl. “Your grace, may I assist – ”

“Here!” screeched Sansa. “Father said he’d bring her here, so that Cersei wouldn’t have her pelt! He said he’d do it!”

At a loss, Brienne looked back at Jaime, and realization hit him hard in the chest. “Her direwolf,” he murmured. “Cersei forced her father to kill it … ”

Sansa sank to her knees in the snow and looked around bleakly. Brienne ran to her and enveloped her in her long arms, and Sansa crumpled into them, looking vulnerable and lost and very much like the young girl she was, in truth. Jaime started to walk away to leave the women alone … but then he stopped and turned himself around again. He did not approach, but watched them from a distance. Brienne spoke soothing words – she’d somehow figured out how to do that, since they’d found Sansa: perhaps the grave hadn’t been marked, or maybe someone had thrown the gravestone into the rubble of the keep or into the godswood, but her father surely had kept his word, the direwolf was buried there, she should have no fear, her father loved her, she was his precious girl.

Jaime’s eyes prickled, but still he watched.

They took their noonday meal seated together at the small table in Sansa’s guest room, Podrick having decided to keep their supplies close at hand until Winterfell was better fortified. Jaime was pleased to see the lad becoming more comfortable making decisions on his own, and to see Sansa’s trust in him. He didn’t know what Petyr Baelish had done to the girl; but, men being men, he had his suspicions. If Sansa was falling in love with Podrick, Jaime couldn’t imagine a more honorable fellow to keep her safe.

With a fire crackling in the hearth and hot waters coursing through the walls and beneath the floors, it was a relief not to feel chilled to the bone. And the hot food was pleasing, if not entirely filling. Being indoors for the foreseeable future made Jaime reflect on the finer comforts he’d come to take for granted – servants, a full meal, a goblet of wine, clean clothes, baths. As Jaime swallowed a bite of rabbit stew, his mind wandered back to Casterly Rock and the way the sea had thundered beneath the floors there. When he was a child, it had sounded to him like a great lion lived under his house, roaring and threatening anyone who would wish him harm. How many years had it taken him to realize that there was no lion, that the roaring was just that, a noise and nothing more?

The Starks’ water was as silent as the stones it heated, but it benefited everyone within its walls. Why had the Starks ever left this place? Why had Jaime left his home? What good had any of their wanderings ever done anyone?

But if he hadn’t wandered, if he hadn’t ruined so many things, he’d never have met Brienne.

He realized he was staring at her during his ruminations and quickly dropped his gaze into his bowl. He didn’t want to be without her, if they survived this; lately, that fact was the one thing about which he was certain. His heart suddenly lurched in a way it hadn’t done in years, when he realized that he’d already made up his mind about Brienne the Beauty. It felt strange, admitting it to himself, after so many years of believing his fate was forever tied to Cersei. How long would it take him to admit it to Brienne? And would she even want him, crippled warrior that he was? A lord who’d effectively forfeited any right to his own home? Lannister or no, he was still just a knight who’d killed one king and betrayed another and who was, even now, preparing to stand against his own royal son for the North.

It was a fine mess he’d managed to step into, over his years of bungling everything he’d tried to do right; but somehow he couldn’t regret being here. This barren, haunted place felt like home … or perhaps it was his companions who made it seem so.

No. It was Brienne.

He realized he was staring at her again, but this time he didn’t lower his gaze. She looked up and smiled at him, and his own smile in return was as involuntary as a child’s. How could he have ever thought her ugly? Scar be damned, hers was the most agreeable face in the world to him now.

After they had supped Jaime and Brienne donned their boiled leather, retrieved their steel and practice swords, and the four wandered about Winterfell, noting which repairs should be made at once and which could wait. Soon they found themselves between the keep and the great hall. Sansa kept her eyes resolutely away from the blank, staring windows of the keep and strode directly to the sept, Podrick trailing a step behind; but as they approached the door, he drew his sword and entered first.

In the open courtyard, Brienne turned toward Jaime. Without a word, they laid aside their scabbards and steel and raised their wooden practice swords. Soon the crisp afternoon air was punctuated by the hollow clunking of wood upon wood and the soft stamping of boots through snow and mud as the two advanced and retreated, dancing around each other as their swords roughly kissed and kissed again.

Oh, but Jaime loved this, and Brienne’s skill in swordplay was unmatched. She’d grown ever more clever in her fighting since they had begun so many weeks ago, the day after Podrick had rescued them in the middle of the night from the barn and Lady Stoneheart’s judgment. Jaime’s skill with his left arm had improved, as well, though he still had to rely more now on his savagery and unpredictability, as the strength and precision of his left would never match his right. Brienne, for all her size and force, was a whirlwind, hailing blows down on him until he was forced to retreat again, laughing. He adored her satisfied smirks when she outdid him; he wanted thrust her against the nearest wall and kiss that smirking mouth until she begged him to take her.

But that was for another day, and there was more fighting to be done in the meantime, and so Jaime lunged forward and lashed out, forcing Brienne to leap backward. Now that she was off-balance he took full advantage, raining slashes from above, which she parried again and again. But then she stumbled on something under the snow, perhaps a root or a stone, and fell back into the white drifts, panting, her blue eyes wide as she looked up at her conqueror. Jaime dropped his weapon and was about to lower himself onto her when she lazily raised her sword to his throat.

“Will you never learn?” she chided breathlessly, her eyes twinkling.

Jaime laughed. “Put that damned thing down, woman.”

She did, and he covered her body with his and kissed her while the snow steamed all around their hot skin.

They wouldn’t have much time, he knew; but Brienne was always agreeable to any sort of tryst, no matter how brief or incomplete, and he’d needed to kiss her, to feel her solid body against his, since they’d set foot in this desolate, ghost-ridden place. And she was so responsive, her body clamoring for his in ways that Cersei’s never had. Blinded by his twin’s beauty, he had never suspected there might be anything better than a full bosom, cascading golden hair, a prettily pouting mouth. But now he had Brienne, a most surprising match for him under the bedclothes as well as on the field.

But though she’d satisfied him in almost every way a woman can satisfy a man, and though he’d never say so, he was growing impatient. He wanted to fuck her, to take her maidenhead in every position he could think of, and to let her have him in any way she wanted. He was sick of feeling solitary. Hands and mouths were not enough anymore; he wanted the complete merge of her body with his, and his with hers, and the subsequent mental peace that only such a union would bring him. But he wouldn’t push her. With his past sins of flesh and steel as common knowledge, it was a miracle he hadn’t frightened the honorable Brienne of Tarth away already.

She didn’t seem afraid of him now, though. Her body arched into his, meeting his manhood enthusiastically as their pelvises ground together. He’d just grasped a handful of her arse when Podrick and Sansa emerged from the sept. He removed his lips from Brienne’s and looked up, managing to suppress a huff of frustration when he caught Sansa’s disapproving expression for the second time today. He stood and offered Brienne his hand, and she hoisted herself up, shooting him a private smile before she turned to face her queen.

To be continued … Chapter 6 – Jaime, Part 2

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 4 - Sansa)

bratanimus — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 20:19:05 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 4 – Sansa)
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Brienne, Podrick/Sansa
Word Count: 6,234 this chapter (~32,000 entire story)
Rating & Warnings: M for adult themes, sexual innuendo
Summary: An unlikely trio – Jaime, Brienne, and Podrick – set out to rescue Sansa from Petyr Baelish. Can they return the last known Stark heiress to Winterfell and fulfill their oath to Catelyn Stark, thereby releasing them all from Lady Stoneheart’s death sentence?
Author’s Note: If you missed it and need to catch up:
Chapter 1 – Podrick
Chapter 2 – Brienne, Part 1
Chapter 3 – Brienne, Part 2
This COMPLETED story has six chapters, to be posted once weekly. It is a continuation of my one-shot The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons, but can be read on its own. Thank you for reading!

Sansa

Sansa didn’t care if Podrick did not sleep on the nights that she drew his arm around her waist. As long as his knees were tucked behind hers and his chest pressed warmly against her back, she didn’t care if he never slept again. The darkness was the worst, and it was nighttime that she most needed the pressure of Pod’s body against hers, for it was in the night that her thoughts drifted to her mother, and she wasn’t certain if it was excitement or dread she felt. If her companions were speaking true, her mother was … no longer her mother. The Kingslayer and Lady Brienne had met her when she was alive, so this Lady Stoneheart couldn’t be an imposter, could she? Or were her supposed saviors lying? What purpose could a lie like that serve? Sansa could not fathom it, and so her thoughts whirled and bucked as she lay still and blinking with Podrick’s arm over her.

She couldn’t help being angry with her own body for becoming aroused by the feel of his, by the sensation of this stranger who seemed honorable enough but was still, after all, just a man. Pod was everything she’d once thought a knight should be – unafraid to do what must be done, yet kind to the gentler sex. But though he was all those things now, she knew she couldn’t trust him never to frighten her, never to disappoint her. After all, she understood how time and loss could change a person. She knew how it had changed her. Her body had eventually betrayed her with Littlefinger, too, and she hated herself for that, for giving him that satisfaction. But he had never hurt her, oh no – he was too clever for that. For her, calculated kindness was his weapon of choice. He understood how badly she needed it, and he was … persistent. She hoped that she knew better now.

Sansa closed her eyes and tried to go back to a better time, before everything and everyone turned on their heads and she didn’t know whom to trust. Podrick’s hot breath against the back of her now-bare neck felt almost like she had Lady back again. Lady, who’d slept against her like a mother, or a lover. Lady, who had hurt not a soul and had no one to defend her in her hour of need, not even Sansa’s own lord father. Especially him.

She squeezed her eyes more tightly shut, trying to force that thought back into the dark where it belonged. But the sun was rising, and she was cold, and she needed to find a tree behind which to relieve herself. She was so tired of having no privacy. It had been far too long since she hadn’t been under the watchful eye of someone. And if her companions were more respectful than any of the others had been, they were still constantly there. Podrick was less irritating than the others by virtue of having less to say, and so she liked him better for it. He let her be, and it was refreshing.

Podrick sat up, of course, when she did, but she laid a hand on his chest to keep him still. Her breath steamed in front of her face as she found a tree and hiked her skirts. By the time she was done, Lady Brienne had disentangled herself from the Kingslayer’s long arm – Sansa wondered who exactly had been on watch in the wee hours before waking – and was off in search of her own tree. Sansa shuddered when she realized that she and Podrick had been mirroring the sleeping position of their cohorts. But no one here seemed to care for propriety, and she couldn’t exactly be bothered about it, either. She’d done far worse in the Vale, having been despoiled by her protector and supposed father, and forced to swallow moon tea to escape the consequences of that horrid arrangement. Now, sleeping next to a squire every night seemed but a snowflake in an avalanche.

Podrick grunted, breaking the snow-blanketed hush of early morning, as he tugged on his new boots – Littlefinger’s boots, which he’d slipped from the man’s feet a short while after the Kingslayer had put an end to him. Sansa didn’t like the boots on Podrick. It felt to her as if they would poison him from the toes upward. But that was childish. Still, she turned away … and met the eyes of the Kingslayer.

“Good morning, Lady Sansa,” he said, still hoarse from sleep. He rose from his sleeping spot, cleared his throat and hawked, then spat into a bush. Sansa could not believe that she – or anyone – had ever found him handsome. He looked so much like his hateful sister. Besides, he was a man, like the rest. A man who’d murdered a king and started this horrible mess. A man who’d wanted Robb dead. A man who had made certain her father would die. So now he’d rescued her, and perhaps that shifted the balance a bit more in his favor. But there were miles to go before she saw her mother, or whoever she was, and even more before she was home again, and a man could show his true face in many ways, she’d learned.

Still, Brienne seemed honest enough, and kind, if a bit brusque about it. And there were many things Sansa found reassuring about her. The horrid scar on her face, for one, was strangely comforting, as were her crooked teeth. Her masculine strength and form. The way she only spoke when she had something real to say. And her eyes – her eyes were astonishing, and so expressive, and they seemed honest. Sansa sat on a fallen log and marveled as the older woman loomed over Podrick while he prepared a meager meal to break their fast. She towered over the Kingslayer, as well, and that was reassuring, too.

Best of all, she’d been teaching Sansa the art of defense. She seemed so at ease with violence, as if it were nothing personal but simply a way of living. Sansa envied that attitude because, to her, violence was deeply personal, and that made it difficult to hurt someone. Her fear, her damned fear, kept getting in the way, making her timid, keeping her weak.

She imagined Arya, alive, whirling about like a tornado with her little sword, cutting down foes with Nymeria by her side, the two creating a whirlpool of blood and gore around them. She smiled.

“You slept well, my lady?” asked Brienne, with a smile of her own.

Sansa nodded, for the sound of her own voice often made her angry. Many things, she found lately, made her angry. It was as if, now that she was free of Littlefinger, her rage finally had room to declare itself, and it was not a comfortable feeling.

“Shall we begin?”

Sansa nodded again.

Their routine was to complete Sansa’s lessons every morning before or after breaking their fast, as the noontime meal was for the two knights to practice together, and then for one of them to spar with Podrick. Sansa would always watch, to see what more she could learn, and she was astounded by how often Brienne, a woman in spite of her size, bested the Kingslayer. Even left-handed and using a wooden sword, he was a terror to watch. But she’d seen how the two of them had dispatched Littlefinger’s company with seemingly little effort, and quite often she had the odd thought that, together, there was nothing they couldn’t do. They fit together in some bizarre way, and that made Sansa uneasy, though she couldn’t have said why.

“Podrick?” called Brienne.

He set down the sacks of hard cheese and dried meat and rushed over, his cheeks flushed. But he met Sansa’s eyes today, as he’d been doing more and more often. She graced him with a smile and the redness of his cheeks deepened. But then he smiled back and she was disarmed. His teeth were rather nice. It made his plain face almost handsome, and she was not prepared for that and certainly did not trust it.

While these thoughts flitted through her mind, Podrick grabbed her roughly about the waist, as a drunkard in an inn might do. But Brienne’s drills helped Sansa to respond instinctively. She had her hands free, and so she pressed one knuckle into the sensitive muscle of Podrick’s jaw, keeping his head steady with her still-bandaged palm against the other side of his head. She felt part of the wounds on her fingers open again, but still she pressed hard.

“Ow!” he cried, backing away from her at once, his hand over his jaw. “What was that?”

The Kingslayer had leaned against a nearby tree to watch and now chuckled softly, and Podrick shot him a look of betrayal. Sansa grinned at her attacker’s hangdog look and flexed her wounded fingers, hardly feeling the sting of pain.

“That, Podrick,” said Brienne, “was a simple way to keep a harmless man from advancing any further. But what did you forget to do next, Sansa?”

She sighed. “Run away,” she rasped.

“Precisely. Put distance between you and your assailant. Perhaps he’ll find that you are too much trouble to chase.”

“What if he’s not harmless?” asked Podrick. “What if he gets angry? My lady,” he added quickly, bobbing his head.

Sansa raised her eyebrows at him. “Try it.”

Podrick frowned and looked at Brienne, who nodded. He stepped forward, grasping both of Sansa’s wrists. Sansa twisted and wrapped her hands around his, quickly trapping one of his hands in a stress position, as Brienne had taught her; but she didn’t have a strong enough grip to then force him to his knees, or perhaps she didn’t want it badly enough, for he turned his body and slipped free and somehow they were both on the snowy ground. Podrick hovered over her, his hands pinning her wrists at either side of her head. She knew what could happen next, though Podrick would never presume to push her legs apart with his knees. The fear began to roil in her belly and throat then, and, panting, she felt her courage leaving her like water running through a sieve.

“He cannot take what is not his,” said Brienne, reciting the mantra again, “unless you allow him.”

Both women knew that wasn’t exactly the truth, for there were many situations from which a female might not escape. But for the purposes of training, Brienne expected her to break free of every hold Podrick placed upon her.

Sansa ground her jaw. She could do this. Quickly, she raised her hands, sliding her wrists – still within Pod’s vise-like grip – upward along the cold, wet ground and turning her head to one side. Podrick wasn’t expecting the sudden shift and fell face-forward over her shoulder into the snow. Then she wrapped her left leg around his right, planted her right foot flat on the ground, and pushed with all her might from that hip and foot … and somehow she threw him off of her. She huffed in surprise, frozen for a split second.

“Next!” shouted Brienne.

Still kneeling next to him, Sansa struck Podrick hard in the inner thigh, to simulate a fist to the groin. Then she whipped her wooden practice dagger from her belt and slapped the flat side to his upper chest, to represent stabbing him in the throat. Podrick hadn’t had a second to recover. Still breathing hard, Sansa smiled down at him.

“Excellent,” said Brienne. The Kingslayer clapped his mismatched hands together slowly, nodding as he did so.

Podrick laughed, a throaty chuckle that somehow felt better to Sansa than her teacher’s praise. She laughed, too, her scratchy voice barely audible; but for the first time in a very long while she felt actually happy, and the strangeness of that made her laugh harder. She stood and offered Podrick her hand. He stopped laughing, though he still smiled, and after a moment of looking at her hand he took it and hoisted himself up. He was taller than she was, and his dark hair ruffled in the cold wind, and for a wild second Sansa wanted to kiss him. But she knew that impulse could only be the thrill of her victory speaking to her traitorous body, and it must be ignored; and so she slowly turned and made her way to their small campfire. Podrick plodded along behind her, as usual, but she wasn’t sorry when he sat down next to her to break his fast.

Their day unfolded much the same as many others. Rogues and bandits hadn’t waylaid them in a few days, which was a relief to them all. Sansa had noticed that Podrick was becoming more and more confident fighting, and killing when he had to, and she longed for the day when she would be skilled enough to have her own sword. Arya would be so smug, if she could see her now. She often found herself wishing that she could tell Arya how right she was, about everything. Her thoughts flitted one after another to Robb and Bran and little Rickon; to willful Arya; even to Jon, who now seemed more a brother than he’d ever been, or perhaps it was loneliness making him seem so; and finally to her mother and father. Her need for them felt bottomless, and she felt herself spiraling into a dark place. How little she had appreciated the real people in her life, the ones who had wanted her to flourish.

“Are you well, my lady?”

Sansa hadn’t realized that she had allowed her horse to fall behind Brienne’s, and Podrick had ridden up beside her. Brienne now dropped behind so that Sansa was protected between her and the Kingslayer; usually it was Brienne by her side and Podrick behind.

Sansa nodded and offered a small smile. “Yes, thank you. I was just – ” She stopped herself. Did she really want to talk about her sister? About any of them?

Podrick watched her and waited for a few seconds, then turned his gaze forward again. “You – my lady must be thinking of going home,” he ventured.

Would sharing the burden lighten it? She let out a breath and nodded.

“I was thinking, my lady, that if Lord Tyrion isn’t – I mean, if we find him – if he returns – ” Podrick swallowed and furrowed his brow, squinting. “Winterfell is assuredly yours, by your own right, and by the rights of your lord husband. The Iron Throne made it so.”

“They can as easily take it away,” said Sansa. “We are suspected of killing King Joffrey.” If only I had, she thought. I would have died happy, instead of whiling away my pathetic days like a bird in a cage. “And Lord Tyrion is wanted for the murder of his father.”

Sansa could not help casting her eyes forward toward the Kingslayer for, if the rumors were true, Joffrey was his own son. His torso undulated with the movement of his horse, but he gave no sign that he was listening to their conversation.

Podrick frowned. “Ser Jaime says that Lord Tyrion confessed to him that he killed King Joffrey. But I don’t – it doesn’t seem – Lord Tyrion is wickedly clever, but poison? I cannot believe – ”

“He did not kill Joffrey,” said Sansa. “This I know.”

The Kingslayer tilted his head slightly toward the left. He was listening. No matter; wouldn’t Sansa want good news of Arya, if anyone had such a thing?

Podrick’s eager expression darkened and he frowned, thinking. “Is there – do you know who actually did it?”

Sansa appreciated that Podrick could not suspect her of such treachery, for all the good it did her. “Petyr Baelish told me the murderer was Lady Olenna Tyrell. I think he might have helped her to do it.” When little Robert had finally died in the Vale, it hadn’t looked like one of his fits; it had looked like poison. It had looked like Joffrey’s death, horrible and ugly. But what could she have done? Hers was a nest of vipers, and there had been no friend to call her own.

“In truth?” exclaimed Podrick, wide-eyed. “Well, then, my lady, all we have to do is – is – ”

“Prove it?” said Sansa. “How? And destroy another house in doing so? Start another war?”

“But if we don’t – ”

“Then we – ”

She stopped abruptly, forgetting her own dire prediction when she comprehended that he’d said we. Her heart thudded hard and she swallowed, breathing heavily for several seconds as she tried to discard the long-dead hope for a true companion during what would surely be her final trials. She shook her head.

“There is no we – ”

“Shhh!” said Jaime, whipping his head to the right and looking up into the hills. Brienne wheeled about in the same direction.

Then the riders were upon them.

Sansa sat backward on horseback. She was lashed to Podrick, facing him, in his lap with her thighs around his waist and her legs dangling to either side; her arms were tied behind his back and his behind hers. Her skirts had ridden indecently high and the skin beneath her leggings was freezing cold. Though they’d taken their weapons, at least their captors had allowed them their cloaks and gloves. They had to hold each other tightly to keep from being unbalanced and sliding off the horse. Brienne’s and the Kingslayer’s armor and weapons had been confiscated, as well, and they were tied in the same way. The Kingslayer had laughed bitterly when he and Brienne were bound together, and Brienne had given him a small, sad smile in return. Then they held each other close, whispering to each other until the one with the dirty yellow cloak struck the Kingslayer’s leg with the flat of Brienne’s sword to shut them up.

“Will you not hear me?” Sansa said again. She looked at Hullen’s son Harwin, who turned away. Would no one listen to reason? “These people were escorting me to you! It is what my mother – ”

“Quiet, lass,” the man with the yellow cloak said. “Your escorts escaped from our camp. Lady Stoneheart will see them hanged. Afterward, she’ll deal with you.”

“This lass is a highborn lady,” said the Kingslayer, “and you’d be well advised to address her as such.”

Sansa couldn’t help it; affection and gratitude flooded her, and suddenly the Kingslayer – Ser Jaime – looked like a better man than he’d been a moment ago. Why was hope so obstinate a feeling? Would she never be rid of it?

The man with the yellow cloak led his horse closer and smiled a dangerous smile that revealed his rotten teeth. “The Kingslayer is in no position to give me etiquette lessons.”

“What is your name?” Jaime asked mildly. “Lady Stoneheart did not grace us with proper introductions at our last meeting, brief though it was.”

“They call me Lem. Or Lemoncloak.” He shrugged a shoulder to indicate his filthy garment.

“Very good,” replied Jaime. “I like to know who I’ve killed. It’s a point of honor for me – ”

Lem leaned out and slapped Jaime’s face.

“You will not touch him – ” began Brienne, nostrils flaring.

“Stop,” whispered Jaime to Brienne, before turning a cool stare toward Lem.

Lemoncloak began to laugh, a horrid, hacking sound that made Sansa want to retch. He fell back, still cackling, until he was level with Sansa and Podrick. “Slapping Lannisters is more entertaining than I would’ve thought. You ought to try it, little lass. You deserve a bit o’ justice.”

Sansa and Podrick just looked at him. Her heart pounded in her throat, and she could feel Podrick’s pent-up energy as he held her tightly.

“I’d like to try it,” called the one-eyed man riding behind them. “Them bastard Lannisters killed my brothers. We shoulda had our fun when we had ‘em before. But Lady Stoneheart don’t go for such. Alive or dead, no messing about in between.”

“You’d think killing someone would be enough messing about, Jack,” said a longbowman, sniggering.

“I wish Thoros was here,” the man called Jack went on, “and not out with half our men ‘collecting funds,’ as he says. That’s not near as much fun as slapping Lannisters. He’s missing out, he is.”

“All in good time, Jack,” said Lem with a glare. “Lady Stoneheart won’t be letting these two spend the night in any stable this time. And you,” he said, narrowing dangerous eyes at Podrick. “Who would’ve thought you’d be the one to help those two escape? What’s the saying? Still waters are deep waters?”

“What water?” asked Jack. “We didn’t camp near no water.”

As Lem tried to educate Jack about the concept of proverbs, the man with the longbow led his horse closer to Sansa and Podrick, letting his eyes roam over her legs before trotting past. A listless fear whorled in a hollow pit in her stomach and she wished she’d had a sword when the men had swept down upon them. Could she have helped her comrades at all? Could she have struck even one of those men? Too late, she realized that Podrick, Lady Brienne, and, yes, even Ser Jaime really had had her best interests in mind, for they’d fought violently against the attackers. And Sansa had sat there like a simpleton, frozen on her horse with her mouth open in a silent scream.

Jaime and Brienne kept their eyes on their abductors, though they would be powerless against them. Sansa looked at Podrick, wincing at the bruise forming on his cheekbone and the cut on his lower lip. His eyes darted from captor to captor, perhaps assessing their weaponry; but what could he do? She stared at the stubble on his jaw, watched his throat work as he swallowed. Before she knew what she was doing, she had rested her forehead on his shoulder and was inhaling his warmth, his male scent. She held him closer, felt the muscles of his chest against hers, and dully registered the heat between his legs against her own. A tear dripped unbidden from one eye and she rubbed her face against his rough cloak to make the wetness disappear. This was no time for tears, not now, not after everything. But if these were the sort of men upon whom her mother relied, these men who would treat a Stark lady with such dishonor, what did it say about her mother?

Who, exactly, was Sansa about meet?

As if he’d sensed her worry, Podrick nuzzled aside Sansa’s hood, brought his lips to her ear, and spoke quietly, tickling her with warm breath and the low resonance of his voice. “Do not fear, my lady. You will live.”

She began to quake, and his bound hands held her tighter. Through her hood she thought she felt his lips on her head, but she could not be sure. “Pod,” she said. Her rough voice quavered, though she fought to steady it. She hardly knew what she was saying; all she knew was that she felt horribly alone. “Stay close,” she said. “Stay close.”

“I will, Sansa – my lady.”

There were more men when they arrived at the camp, and two of them pulled Podrick and Sansa from their mount. Brienne and Jaime were yanked from theirs and they tumbled inelegantly to the ground. Though still bound, they somehow managed to stand up as one, their breath huffing in the same rhythm, making puffs of steam between them like a two-headed dragon. Sansa saw a smooth-faced man who knelt on the ground near a small campfire. He was making a noose, and more rope sat coiled beside him. All of the men looked tired and dirty; some wore dangerous expressions, but some looked as if they didn’t care a whit what became of their captives.

It was dusk, and the purple and pink light of the darkening sky looked garish behind the gnarled, black fingers of the tree branches above their heads. There was movement at the edge of the forest, and a terrible hush descended upon the camp as everyone stilled.

Sansa’s mouth hung open and she stopped breathing.

If a nightmare could become flesh and come shambling toward her in a tattered cloak, it would have looked like this woman. This was not her mother, this pale, swollen, slashed figure with the dead eyes. This was not the mother who had held Sansa in her arms when she’d been so ill as a child, who had spoon-fed her broth and goat’s milk. This was not the lady who had taught Sansa to be courteous, but who had made her laugh at gossip and intrigue traveling north from the Red Keep. This was not the wife who’d made her husband’s eyes shine with pride or frustration when she spoke her mind. This was not any real thing at all. She – it – no, it looked like Sansa’s mother, but it – she could not be. She could not be.

Sansa’s face was wet.

The woman was a few inches away, and Sansa could smell her. It was not her mother. No cloves and nutmeg, no milk and grass and wine. This was damp, and dark places with mushrooms growing; this was the deepest of wells where snakes dwelled. The woman did not look at Sansa in any way a mother looks at her child. She looked at her as one looks at a curiosity for a moment and then turns away. Only she didn’t.

Stonheart covered the gaping wound on her neck and croaked something that might have been, “Unbind the girl.”

Sansa sobbed, a desperate noise she was incapable of stopping. She clung to Podrick and he to her as the ropes were loosened.

“Step away,” Stoneheart ordered.

Sansa shook her head childishly and held onto Podrick as if he were a raft in a stormy ocean. His arms about her were steel bands, crushing her, and she felt a dull sort of gratitude for the suffocation.

“Have pity,” Brienne said. “Please – ”

“The prisoner will be quiet,” said Stoneheart. “Step away, child, so that I may lay eyes on you.”

Her mother … her mother had said that, several lifetimes ago, hadn’t she? She’d said it when Sansa wore a new gown or braided her hair differently or bemoaned a spot on her face. Let me lay eyes on you, child.

With effort, Sansa let her arms fall to her sides and took a shaky step away from Podrick. Her chin quivered and she could not stop it.

Stoneheart’s eyes looked like a lamprey’s, oily and flat and animal. They passed over Sansa’s face, down her body, coming to rest on her left hand. “Show me,” she croaked.

Trembling, Sansa undid the dressing and held out her fingers. Stoneheart silently regarded the healing scabs and the fresh, dried blood from a couple of them opening during Sansa’s sparring with Podrick.

Stoneheart held up her own hand. Her fingernails were dirty, her palm as pale as a corpse’s. The scars from the night Bran had been attacked in his rooms were white. “I have these from defending another of my children,” she said.

Sansa’s heart thudded in desperation. So she does remember us, she thought.

“You defended your child?” asked Stoneheart, her cold eyes meeting Sansa’s.

Sansa’s brow furrowed. “No. No, I have no – ”

“Whom were you protecting?”

Sansa’s mouth worked. “M-myself.”

“Ah.” She turned away, the curiosity no longer worth her attention. “These three will be hanged tonight. The girl will stay with us.”

“No,” said Jaime, his voice a knife in the night. “Do what you will with us, but Lady Sansa wishes to return to Winterfell – ”

“Silence!” screeched Stoneheart, and Lem shoved him, forcing both Jaime and Brienne to the ground. With effort, they managed to come to their knees. “You will hang first. Then your woman,” she said, pointing a dirty, white finger at Brienne. “The boy last.” The pitiless eyes found Podrick.

This was madness. Sansa’s only friends in the world, dead? It was as if Lady Stoneheart had cast the players in her mind with no regard to the people behind the characters, as if this were some sort of script she were following and she were a puppet on strings, yammering out death sentences because those were the only lines her puppeteer fed her.

“No,” said Sansa, shaking her head. “Please. Mother.” The word cut her heart in two.

Stoneheart looked at the girl who had been her daughter without pity, without familiarity, but with a sort of possessiveness that froze Sansa to the spot. She felt herself shrinking under that cold gaze, her resolve shriveling … but she had to try.

She stepped forward, gesturing to the comrades behind her. “All three of these – ” Sansa somehow felt she should not use her companions’ names, lest she fuel Stoneheart’s vengeance all the quicker. “ – have proven their loyalty to House Stark. They are not who they were. They are loyal to me, and therefore to you.”

“Lies,” said Stoneheart.

Brienne’s voice echoed in Sansa’s mind: He cannot take what is not his, unless you allow him. Would she let this dead woman murder her only friends?

A spoonful of anger stirred deep in her belly, mixing in with the fear. She felt ill, tremulous, as though her body were about to shake itself into a million pieces. But she spoke quickly. She could pretend to be brave even if her insides shattered.

“They were bringing me to you, and from here they will accompany me to Winterfell.” It is mine. It is mine. “I will call our bannermen and women. We will restore our family home to its former beauty and power. I will be Queen in the North.”

She stopped speaking abruptly and nearly gasped. This thought had never, ever entered her mind. Not once. But to save her companions … to save herself … could she do it?

Lady Stoneheart stepped away and drifted toward the noose maker sitting next to the fire. He looked up at her nervously and held the third noose closer to his chest, as if it would somehow protect him. When she spoke again, her voice was as quiet as a dagger sliding into flesh. “Once there was a boy who wore a crown … ”

“My brother – your son – Robb.”

“ … who would have been king …”

“And I will take up his crown and avenge him.”

Lady Stoneheart faltered. She looked back at Jaime as though she were trying to put the pieces together in her mind but they were slipping away, like sand through her fingers. “Something happened to him. To his wolf – ”

“Robb has no more need of his direwolf. Nor have I any need of mine. I am the wolf. I will bring justice to all who would subjugate the North, and reward all who stand with us.”

“The Kingslayer – !” Stoneheart hissed at Jaime, one hand clawed and grasping, her merciless eyes boring into him. He drew himself up and did not flinch.

“ – will be a powerful ally,” said Sansa quickly, stepping in front of him. She stared into Stoneheart’s eyes, making her face the only thing the woman could see. “He will bring my lord husband Tyrion to my side. I will battle the Iron Throne with two Lannisters at my back. The Iron Throne has betrayed them, and now they are our allies. We will not rest until the North is ours.”

Sansa could hardly believe the words spilling from her lips; but the more she spoke, the more she felt that she had the right of it. She felt a hurricane inside her, its screaming, relentless winds thrashing her uncertainties to shreds like leaves against a stone wall.

She could do this, or die trying. At least she’d die for something.

Lady Stoneheart took a step back and turned her head, looking away into the trees. Sansa glanced behind her at Jaime, unsure of what his eyes would tell her; but he met her gaze and nodded.

Brienne, still bound to Jaime, spoke firmly. “I am sworn to Lady Sansa and this I promise: I will give my life for her cause.”

“I will stand with Lady Sansa, as well,” said Jaime. Brienne shot him a look of astonishment. “I will find my brother,” he murmured.

Podrick stepped closer to Sansa. “My place is by Lady Sansa’s side. I will protect her with my life.”

Sansa watched his face as he stared down the horror in front of him, and something skittish and shy quivered in her heart. She reached out and grasped his fingers with her scarred ones and squeezed. One of her scabs broke and blood flowed afresh between their hands, and he squeezed back, never taking his eyes from Stoneheart’s swollen face.

Lady Stoneheart was quiet for a long while, much longer than any person should have been without making some comment during the silence. She turned back and watched Sansa, almost as a fat, blind spider waits in a corner of its web. Sansa forced herself to look back into the woman’s dead eyes. She wiped the tears from her face and raised her chin. Catelyn would have been proud. She would have been very proud, indeed.

“I am well pleased,” said Lady Stoneheart flatly. “You may use the Lannister men to avenge the Stark name and return us to glory. Be on your way. Unbind them,” she said, gesturing to her men. Lem began to protest, but the look she gave him cowed him at once. The longbowman brought out a dagger and cut Jaime’s and Brienne’s ropes, and they stood behind Sansa. “If I discover that you have lied about your intentions, or failed in bringing them to fulfillment,” continued Stoneheart, “we will find all of you and kill you, for you will have brought dishonor to our house.”

Sansa felt her heart harden, and she wondered if that was how Stoneheart had earned her name. “You need not fear,” she rasped.

“I do not fear,” croaked Stoneheart. “I only expect, and prepare. Then I act.”

Sansa stilled as she looked into her dead mother’s eyes, and she told herself that that small bit of wisdom was something her mother might have offered her someday, had she lived. She felt tears well up again, but she blinked them away.

“Come, Sers. Take our weapons,” said Sansa. “Pod, get our horses. We shall leave immediately.”

Pod began his watch in the early hours before dawn. He sat holding his sword in one hand with his arms around his knees; he’d folded a blanket beneath him on the cold ground. They had traveled as far and as fast as they could all night, putting as much distance between themselves and Lady Stoneheart as possible, in case she thought better of her decision to let them go.

Sansa had wept beneath her hood for miles.

Now she could not sleep. Though she was exhausted, she couldn’t stop the turning of her mind. When she did this thing, when she took back Winterfell and challenged the Iron Throne, she would be walking to her death. There were not enough people left who could fight for her, and she would surely die. Everyone would die.

And yet, despite her fear and guilt and a growing sense of heavy responsibility, she felt almost relieved. This would be a death of her own choosing, and people would sing songs about her someday, of her courage and her righteousness. She smiled grimly as she sat close to Pod and wrapped her arms around her knees.

“You should be asleep, my lady.”

Sansa nodded.

“Daylight will come soon,” he mused, yawning. He seemed half asleep as he spoke. “Just you wait. Everything is grey now, but the color will start to show in a few minutes.”

She looked at him, surprised by the poetry in his words, and stifled a smile. Then she sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. Podrick stiffened, but she didn’t care. He would relax eventually.

In the predawn silence, Jaime snored lightly, his face buried between Brienne’s shoulder blades. During sleep, Brienne looked almost like the Maiden, or perhaps the Warrior, but fierce and wild instead of merely beautiful or strong, with her angelic pale hair and eyebrows, her full lips slightly parted while she slept soundly.

Sansa and Pod remained quiet together as they waited for the sun and the silence was comfortable. He slipped his arm from his knee and wrapped it around her shoulders. She snuggled closer and tugged his heavy cloak over herself. She thought about her lord father, and about her lord husband Tyrion, and wondered how many lovers they had taken. She thought about Littlefinger, and the Hound, and Cersei. And Robb.

If she could lead her ragtag band of bannermen and women into battle once more, she could take a lover of her own choosing.

Just as Podrick had said it would, the rising sun cloaked the frozen ground in every color, making it sparkle like liquid jewels. Sansa smiled again.

To be continued … Chapter 5 – Jaime, Part 1

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 3 - Brienne, Part 2)

bratanimus — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 13:54:23 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 3 – Brienne, Part 2)
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Brienne, Podrick/Sansa
Word Count: 4,441 this chapter (~ 32,000 entire story)
Rating & Warnings: M for sexual content, language
Summary: An unlikely trio – Jaime, Brienne, and Podrick – set out to rescue Sansa from Petyr Baelish. Can they return the last known Stark heiress to Winterfell and fulfill their oath to Catelyn Stark, thereby releasing them all from Lady Stoneheart’s death sentence?
Author’s Note: If you missed it and need to catch up:
Chapter 1 – Podrick
Chapter 2 – Brienne, Part 1
This COMPLETED story has six chapters, to be posted once weekly. It is a continuation of my one-shot The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons, but can be read on its own. Thank you for reading!

Brienne

Sansa froze and stared at Jaime. Her mouth worked. “N-not dead?” She swayed for a moment, then seemed to gather herself once more. Brienne and Podrick stood as well, and he placed a hand on Sansa’s elbow to steady her.

“Your mother is changed, my lady,” said Brienne. “We thought it best to protect you from … from seeing her as she is now. I am sorry if we were misguided.”

Sansa looked at Podrick, who merely nodded.

Whatever she had been expecting to hear, this clearly wasn’t it. She slumped back into her chair, her face pale and blank. Podrick sank to a knee beside her.

“Tell me,” she said to Podrick. He opened his mouth to speak; but when the words proved too strange to utter, he looked to his companions.

Brienne sat on the wooden stool while Jaime remained standing behind her. “When your mother was alive – ” Brienne began.

“I thought you said she was alive,” said Sansa.

“What I said was that she was not dead,” corrected Jaime, not unkindly.

“She is not herself,” offered Podrick in a quiet voice, and Sansa searched him with her eyes. “I do not know what she is now. What I mean to say is – I’m sorry, my lady – Lady Catelyn – ”

“Is now Lady Stoneheart,” finished Brienne for him, “and the apparent leader of a rogue group called the Brotherhood Without Banners.”

At Sansa’s insistence, Brienne related the whole story as she knew it, how she’d brought Jaime to the Brotherhood to save Podrick’s innocent life and how Podrick, in turn, had saved theirs the night before their hanging. Podrick added his part of the tale, recounting how he had watched Ser Hyle Hunt hanged when Brienne had not returned in a timely fashion. He had fully expected to be next, so escape was the only option.

“But Podrick, you hadn’t done any wrong!” cried Sansa. “My mother would never have used you as a pawn to capture the Kingslayer!”

“As I said, my lady, she is changed,” said Brienne. “The world exists in black and white for her now. Revenge is all, redemption is a lie. A sinner can have no future.” As she said this she looked up at Jaime, who watched Sansa carefully.

“Your lady mother is not dead,” he said, kneeling next to Brienne, “but neither is she alive. She is somewhere in between, I think. I do not know what magic made her so.”

Sansa looked, horrified, from Jaime to Brienne to Podrick. “It is true, my lady,” he murmured. “I am sorry.”

Sansa stared at him, and her hands twitched as though she wanted to touch him, or strike him. To his credit, he did not balk, but returned her gaze with an open expression. She set her jaw. “I would see her for myself. You will take me to her.”

“Lady Sansa – ” started Jaime.

“How can I trust any of you if you will not take me to her? This tale is absurd! Magic! Pah!” she cried wildly. “I will see her for myself!”

She made as if to go to the door and out into the snow, but Podrick hurriedly caught her by the elbow and whispered to her. She snarled something back between gritted teeth. He replied, and she stopped pulling away. He dropped his hand and they stared at each other for a few seconds, the air between them fraught with intensity, until Sansa finally nodded. Podrick’s brow furrowed and he drew himself up.

The two approached the hearth and he cleared his throat. “Ser Jaime, Ser – Lady Brienne. I shall escort Lady Sansa to the Brotherhood to see her lady mother.”

“You will not,” said Jaime.

“It is too dangerous,” said Brienne at the same time.

“All the same, Podrick and I will leave tomorrow,” said Sansa. She leveled her gaze at Brienne. “Unless I am, in fact, your prisoner.”

The silence in the room was terrible as the two older knights and the young lady and squire stared at each other. Brienne should have known it would come to this, if Sansa ever learned the truth.

What choice did they have now?

She knelt on the floor, looking up at her lady. “I swore to protect you, Lady Sansa. My place is by your side. I shall escort you.”

Jaime groaned and cast his eyes about the room as if he could find someone else there who might take his part. Brienne could not look at him, and so kept her gaze on Sansa’s hard expression. At last he sighed heavily. “All right, then. We begin our journey to the Brotherhood on the morrow.”

“Thank you, Sers,” said Sansa. She stepped aside and crossed to the small bed in the corner to prepare for sleep.

The two knights stared at Podrick, who squirmed.

“I thought you were my squire,” said Brienne.

“I – yes, my lady, Ser, I am! I merely – I thought – ”

“You followed your conscience,” said Jaime. “It is right for a man grown to do so.” He turned to the ladder and began his awkward climb. “Though I am not happy about what your conscience told you to do.”

Podrick reddened, mouth open, and Brienne could not help but smile at him. “Good night,” she said, taking a lamp and climbing the ladder. She and Jaime would leave Podrick to clean up and take the first watch, as he usually did.

There was a small, half-circle window built into the wall of the sleeping loft, a surprising extravagance in such a modest home. Heavy clouds crossed the moon now and again; but the ground, blanketed in snow, was so white that it seemed almost bright inside. A short table stood beneath the window, and Brienne placed the oil lamp on it and looked around. The straw mattress appeared worn but clean, and a few personal items lay scattered about the perimeter: a comb, a broken mirror, an ancient baby’s rag doll propped in the corner, an empty chamber pot. The ceiling hung low over their heads, forcing them to stoop to move about and to inspect the ticking upon which they would rest.

There was no sense in lamenting the turn things had taken downstairs, and Sansa did not need to overhear them speaking ill of the woman who had been her mother, so neither talked of it. Instead, Jaime took the broken mirror and sat on the bed. He looked squarely at Brienne. “We need to remove your bandage.”

Brienne unconsciously brought her hand to her left cheek.

“It must be healing,” he went on. “You change the dressing every day. It may be time to leave it off and let it breathe.”

Feeling more vulnerable than she would ever wish to admit, Brienne could not bring herself to speak. But she knew Jaime was right. She had delayed removing the linen for long enough. She had not seen herself in a mirror yet and had been tending her wound by feel, or by letting Podrick be her eyes – but only when Jaime was otherwise occupied. She would avoid looking at Podrick’s face whenever he helped her, for she could not bear to see revulsion in his guileless eyes if her face looked as terrible as she feared.

Brienne sank onto the bed beside Jaime and he handed her the shard of mirror. She held it on her lap and fingered the edges delicately, as if it were a knife whose sharpness she could not estimate. Small shuffles and clinks from downstairs told her that Podrick was washing their dinner bowls and spoons, and Brienne tried – unsuccessfully – to place her mind there instead of on what she and Jaime were about to do.

Jaime began to peel away the cloth while she kept her eyes downcast. Neither word nor breath escaped his lips as he removed the linen and set it aside on the table. His fingers found her face and moved from her cheekbone downward over her scarred cheek and onto her jaw and neck.

“Can you feel that?” he asked.

Brienne cleared her throat. “My cheekbone and jaw. Less feeling, in between.”

“As I expected.”

Somehow Brienne could not bear to see herself in the mirror yet. She was surprised to realize that she wanted to see Jaime’s reaction to her disfigurement first, before she passed judgment on herself. Before she could consider otherwise, she looked at him. His gaze did not remain on her ruined cheek, but met her eyes at once. His mouth was a thin line, his jaw set.

“How is it?” she whispered.

Jaime’s throat worked. He looked from the wound back to her eyes. “You look even more formidable, my lady.” A wry smile started in his eyes and eventually worked its way down to his mouth, which quirked upward in a tight-lipped grin.

Brienne surprised herself with a breathy laugh, though her heart was thundering with dread. Do it! she told herself, and she brought the mirror up.

It was bad, but not worse than she had imagined. She thanked the gods that the wound was smaller than she’d thought it would be. But the scarring was pink and angry, a ragged, mouth-shaped brand. She could see the carvings those horrible teeth had dug down her cheek, like fingernails raked through dirt. Her breathing, already shallow in anticipation of the awfulness she would see, quickened in anger. Yes, she had scars all over her body, wounds she’d earned in battle fairly; but this was her face, her face, and Biter had done it purposely to violate her. She might have died if not for Gendry, but now she was saddled with the memory of that foul act for the rest of her days.

Tears sprang to her eyes and she cursed under her breath, for crying would make her eyes swollen and render her ruined face even uglier. Besides, she did not cry, would not cry. She set aside the mirror and cursed again, angry with herself for caring, so late in her life, for her appearance. And then she barked with laughter, realizing she hadn’t known what a gift an unmarred face, even hers, had truly been. But she had borne hardship in her life; she could bear this. She would bear it.

While she struggled inwardly, Jaime’s eyes followed her every subtle shift in mood; and he seemed to be trying to assess whether he should speak or simply allow Brienne’s tide of emotion to roll in and crash wherever it may. His hand had somehow ended up resting upon her knee, and the calm assurance Brienne felt from the weight of it there was comforting. In that simple moment she saw Jaime once again restraining himself from trying to fix her, like nearly every other man she’d known had tried to do. He allowed her to be no more or less than who she was.

And at last she finally understood – knew it from her flushing skin inward into her very bones – that she loved him. She looked away, wondering if she could bear that, too.

Downstairs Podrick had finished cleaning up the dinner things and trod softly to where Sansa lay, probably still wide awake, on her small bed. Brienne heard him spread out a blanket and some furs on the floor. Then the whispering began. She and Jaime raised their eyebrows and smiled at each other.

He put on his sternest voice. “You have the first watch, Podrick, unless you’ve forgotten.”

Then ensued much scrambling and apologies and gathering of sword and wet cloak. Podrick had nearly reached the door when Brienne called out, “You may sit by the fire. Just stay awake and keep the door bolted.”

“Yes, my lady. Ser. I won’t. Fall asleep, I mean. I’ll stay awake.”

As Podrick settled into the chair Sansa had vacated, Jaime and Brienne stifled their snickers and crawled under the furs together, and somehow that was the end of any discussion about the scars on Brienne’s face.

Her heart pounded; after all, their little roost in this loft was the first place they’d had any semblance of privacy together. She wondered if Jaime kissed her – would he want to kiss her again, now that he’d seen her disfigurement? She batted the thought away – whether she could keep from sighing and moaning as she usually did when they reached for each other while Podrick and Sansa slept. She doubted that Sansa would sleep much tonight, if at all, and she didn’t relish the thought of the two downstairs hearing what she and Jaime got up to under their furs. Even so, she knew if he wanted her she wouldn’t resist his advances. There was a certain freedom in surrender, she realized. The Kingslayer’s whore she was, in name and probably quite soon in deed, and that was that.

As she lay back on the straw mattress, a sharp twinge caused her to hiss in pain. She sat up, rubbing her ribs. Jaime silently rose with her and began, with his one hand, to pull her heavy woolen shirt and linen undergarment over her head. Like an obedient child, she helped him by lifting the other side until she was bare from the waist up except for the fabric binding her chest. Where was her modesty? How soon after she’d met Jaime had it fled? For there was no question that she would let him undress her to view her wounds. The light from the lamp and the bright snow outside gave her nowhere to hide, but she sat up straighter. There would be no shame in this.

Jaime’s own hiss escaped his teeth as he saw the purple bruises peeking from under the cotton binding that flattened and protected her small breasts. He untucked the edge and began to unwrap it, with Brienne helping to pass the fabric around her back until she was naked.

She’d always thought that allowing herself to be disrobed by a man was fantasy, something that would never happen in her waking life; or, if it did, it would be part of some humiliating horror she was forced to endure for a man’s sport, as when she’d had to don a dress to fight a bear, or worse, if Vargo Hoat and his men had been crueler than they’d been greedy. So she was surprised by how captivated she felt when Jaime’s hand passed gently over her bruises, feeling her ribs with his fingertips.

“Take deep breaths in and out,” he whispered, bringing his ear to her lips.

She obeyed and he listened, keeping his hand on her ribcage. He must be listening for a rattle, or wheezing, indicating fluid in her lungs from a broken rib; but they both knew her injuries couldn’t be as bad as that. Still, she had to acknowledge his thoroughness, and a smile stole across her face as she wondered about his other motives for undressing her. His eyes were downcast, probably inspecting her breasts, and he must feel the thundering of her heartbeat under his hand, which somehow embarrassed her more than being naked did. She looked away and tried to slow her frantic heart by imagining being examined by a maester; but it had been many years since she had submitted to any such prodding, and no maester had ever made her heart flutter like Jaime did. And his ear was right next to her mouth, begging to be kissed.

Jaime sat back and looked her in the eyes, exhaling in relief. “You’ll heal,” he whispered.

His hand was still on her ribs. She nodded. Of course. She always did. They regarded each other silently. A sweet, sad longing churned deep between her legs. She placed her hand on top of his.

As always, Jaime would begin as a gentleman, or as much of one as he was likely to be. He barely breathed his next words. “Brienne, can you keep quiet if I do this?”

Leaning forward, keeping his eyes open, and pressed his open mouth to hers, and the sudden, throbbing desire in her loins nearly made her whimper. He slid his hand upward until it cupped her breast and he gave it a squeeze, and still, somehow, she didn’t make a noise. She reached for his hips, for they were too far away from her aching pelvis and the fire within. But he wouldn’t come closer, not yet, for there was her body to explore, at last, and as he pulled back his eyes seemed to feast on it. A small smile crossed his face and he hummed quietly, satisfied, and brought his mouth to her left breast, keeping his hand on the right and running his thumb over her nipple. Brienne’s eyes closed, and she bit her lip to keep from moaning. His tongue on her nipple seemed somehow larger and yet more precise than it had been inside her mouth a moment ago, and she thought she might pass out from the thrill of it.

Jaime’s warm breath made her shiver as he slid his mouth up her breastbone and neck and across her jaw, right underneath her scars. “I want to feel you,” he breathed when he reached her mouth again. Grasping the hem of his woolen shirt, he tugged it deftly over his head, and slung it to the side, then reached for the linen shirt underneath, though Brienne had to help a bit with that as it hugged his body more snugly than the wool. Now shirtless, he slid his hand down to her hip and reached behind her with his other arm. He sat up on his knees and pulled her firmly to him, and she felt his need, hard and insistent, between her legs and his muscular chest against her own naked breasts. She moaned.

Jaime stopped kissing her and his green eyes glimmered like emeralds in the lamplight. “Shhh,” he breathed into her mouth, but Brienne silenced the reprimand with her tongue. He quickly lowered her onto the mattress and kissed her, grinding his manhood into her through their breeches, over and over again, until she thought she might have to beg him to take her, dignity be damned.

But Jaime had other ideas. Propping himself up on his elbow, he shifted so that his length was pressed into her thigh and he slid his hand down inside her breeches, beneath her smallclothes, until he found her sex. The wet heat he found there made him moan, and he pressed his forehead into hers, closing his eyes as if he were in a dream. “Shhh,” whispered Brienne, and Jaime kissed her to silence her cry as he pressed the warm heel of his hand against her sex and slipped a finger inside her.

Brienne’s maidenhead had probably been lost long ago from the physical exertion of riding horseback, and she’d given herself the widow’s comfort for years, knowing that no man was likely to give her any pleasure. But when Jaime slipped a second finger inside her and began to rub the nub of her desire with his thumb, her eyes fluttered shut and she surrendered to the knowledge of his hand. He started slowly, rolling her sex under his thumb with the practiced, undeniable rhythm of an ocean wave tumbling over itself to reach the inevitable shore. She turned her head to the side and they lay forehead to forehead as he silently ministered to her need. She bit her lip and furrowed her brow to keep from making a noise, tilting her hips upward to take his fingers in even deeper. Jaime’s breath shuddered in and out against her lips and she kissed him, feeling his own unrelenting want against her hip. At last he found the rhythm that she knew would bring her to her inexorable finish. She held her breath, daring not to make a sound as she felt her body’s yearning slowly building, building under his touch – and with a rush of exhalation it was released, pulsing and contracting around his fingers. She whimpered, and he thrust his tongue into her mouth, swallowing the sound. She ran her hands up over his jaw and into his hair, grabbing handfuls of it as she kissed him back, hard, and wondered with a certain amount of giddy wickedness what else this man was capable of doing to her.

Jaime slipped his fingers out of her and sat back, knees spread, and waited. Brienne sat up and unlaced his breeches. He released himself and, with her juices still on his fingers, grasped his length and began to stroke. Brienne could not take her eyes off of him. He must know she’d never touched a man, and in their nights of tussling under the covers, though she’d tentatively squeezed him through his breeches, she hadn’t yet reached for his naked manhood. Now, with the lamplight and the white light of the fallen snow making his angular face glow with an ethereal beauty – and despite purple and green bruises all over his shoulders, arms, and torso; despite lines on his face and dark circles under his eyes from too many nights with little sleep; and, yes, despite missing a hand – he looked like a god, beautiful and perfect, perhaps one that the Seven had cast away jealously in punishment for his physical splendor. While Jaime rubbed himself, he kept half-lidded eyes on Brienne as he watched her watching him. She sat up on her elbows and wondered how his manhood could fit into her, but it must be possible, and she knew now that it would happen. Perhaps not tonight – because she didn’t want to stop him, not until he’d shown her how best to pleasure him – but soon, soon, she promised herself.

Brienne watched Jaime’s movements for a while longer and, finally, drawing on a new sort of courage she hadn’t known she possessed, she knelt almost behind him, spreading her thighs around his right thigh and buttock. She pressed her sex into his hip and her breasts into his arm and ribs. She held his left hip with her hand, keeping him close. Then, as she tucked her chin on top of his shoulder – for once glad of her height, for it meant that she could watch – she reached for him with her right hand. He let go and she wrapped her fingers around his girth, thrilling at the soft moan she elicited from him, and at the new sensations of smoothness and rigidity under her fingers; and she began to slide her hand over him, as she’d seen him do. His warm, soft skin moved over the stiffness, and she found herself smiling. She kept at it, slowly, marveling at the wetness she saw gleaming on the tip of his manhood and wondering how soon she’d bring him to climax.

“Faster,” he commanded in a rough whisper. She obeyed, and almost immediately she was rewarded by his release. He produced a handkerchief to capture his seed instead of letting it spew onto the bedclothes, and his hips thrust involuntarily as she continued to stroke him. She looked at his face and felt a rush of satisfaction when she saw the utter abandon in his expression; his eyes were closed, his brow knit, his mouth open in a silent sigh of ecstasy. His mutilated arm reached behind him to draw her even closer to him. It seemed right to continue to touch him until his shuddering had completely ceased, and so she waited until he’d turned to kiss her to release him.

Jaime folded the handkerchief neatly and handed it to her, and she gratefully accepted it and cleaned the rest of his seed from her fingers, grinning in what she was certain was a silly manner as she did so. She lowered her gaze, blushing and smiling. He pulled her to him and, placing his finger under her chin, tilted her face to his. He whispered, with a grin, “You’ve been holding back, my lady.” He kissed her again, his hand rough in her hair at the nape of her neck and his breath hot against her mouth. “I cannot wait to try that again.”

“You flatter me,” said Brienne, still blushing.

“Not at all. Flattery is what one resorts to when the truth is not an option.”

“Your moral code is interesting, Ser Jaime.” But she kept on grinning like a fool.

“Come and lie down with me, wench,” he whispered. And she did.

As they settled down beneath their covers and watched the white flurries through the windowpane, Brienne was grateful for the heat rising from the fireplace downstairs, and glad that they had one night of true shelter before they wound their way back to Lady Stoneheart. Soon Jaime turned his body toward Brienne, and she mirrored his position. His hand found hers and held it.

“We should sleep,” whispered Brienne. Jaime nodded.

But they continued to look at each other. Brienne couldn’t begin to guess what Jaime was thinking as he gazed at her, but the intensity of his eyes made her feel somehow intriguing, desired, and even a little beautiful. It was confusing, for she had never been any of those things; but she was quickly growing addicted to the feeling that she might be, at least in his eyes. She wanted to talk about what they’d done, and tell him how bloody amazing he had made her feel, and how incredible the act of pleasuring him had felt to her … but somehow she couldn’t. It felt almost as if to speak of it would break the spell, and she had no intention of doing that. So she just looked at her lover and prayed to the Seven, all of them, to keep her from driving Jaime away.

“What will we do after Winterfell?” asked Jaime, his gaze dropping for a second to her hand in his; but then he looked into her eyes again. He’d spoken almost casually, as if he were merely making conversation.

But Brienne’s heart leapt into her throat, for she wondered the same thing, every day and night. After Winterfell Jaime would return to King’s Landing, and she … she wasn’t certain where she would go. Perhaps a visit to her father was warranted, though he’d implied that his welcome would be warmest if she happened to bring home a promising candidate for her lord husband. So it would be a cold visit home. After that, she did not know.

But Jaime had said we. What will we do after Winterfell?

Brienne surprised herself by giving Jaime the truth. “Whatever you like.”

To be continued … Chapter 4 – Sansa

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 2 - Brienne, Part 1)

bratanimus — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 18:58:29 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 2 – Brienne, Part 1)
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Brienne, Podrick/Sansa
Word Count: 4,742 this chapter (~ 32,000 entire story)
Rating & Warnings: M for language, scene depicting death, sexual innuendo
Summary: An unlikely trio – Jaime, Brienne, and Podrick – set out to rescue Sansa from Petyr Baelish. Can they return the last known Stark heiress to Winterfell and fulfill their oath to Catelyn Stark, thereby releasing them all from Lady Stoneheart’s death sentence?
Author’s Note: If you missed it and need to catch up, Chapter 1 is here. This COMPLETED story has six chapters, to be posted once weekly. It is a continuation of my one-shot The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons, but can be read on its own. Thank you for reading!

Brienne

“My lady, the water is cold.”

Brienne stood on the river’s shore and watched as Sansa, bent over with her skirts hiked up and her bare feet in the freezing water, scrubbed her head violently with a bar of lye soap she had borrowed from Podrick’s pack. For the past three mornings she had washed her hair after breaking her fast and had managed to remove most of the brown dye, but the color had permeated the older, more porous ends of the long strands and was proving difficult to wash out. Now her hair was a curious sunset of auburn bleeding into brown, and her delicate hands were red and angry from the harshness of the soap and the never-ending cold.

They had recovered one of Baelish’s horses to add to their three, and they’d scavenged what provisions and food they could, including a too-large pair of fur-lined gloves for Sansa, though her hands remained raw because of her daily determined ministrations. Podrick had taken some clothing from the men they’d killed, too, and had relieved Littlefinger of his boots, a fact which pleased Brienne as the boy seemed to have grown four inches in the short time she’d traveled with him. It was no wonder that Sansa had not recognized Lord Tyrion’s squire at first; he must have looked a mere boy to Sansa the last time she’d set eyes on the lad. Now he was a man grown, and getting taller by the day, it seemed.

“My lady?” repeated Brienne, holding out a blanket. “You will fall ill. The water is freezing.”

Sansa pretended not to hear her and rubbed her hands together around her hair as it hung beneath the flowing water. She muttered quietly to herself in her raspy, damaged voice, but Brienne couldn't make out the words.

She looked back at Podrick and Jaime breaking camp. The two had learned to work together efficiently without speaking, as men often do, and she sighed, wishing that it could be as easy for women. A splashing sound drew her gaze back to Sansa. She had squeezed the excess water from her hair and was returning to dry land, stomping through the water’s edge as if it had offended her. She took the blanket from Brienne with a nod of thanks and wrapped it around her hair and shoulders. Together, the two walked back to where the men waited.

Podrick tended to the horses and prepared a meager lunch while Sansa sat on the dry grass watching Brienne and Jaime fight. They never missed a day's practice if they could help it because, as much as he had improved, the strength and dexterity of Jaime’s left arm and hand would never match his right in battle. Fortunately, his reflexes were quick, and his body knew how to dodge and thrust, advance and retreat instinctively. Brienne became dimly aware of Sansa sitting very still, hands folded in her lap, while she and Jaime danced backward and forward, swinging their heavy wooden swords at each other. Jaime landed a savage blow to Brienne’s ribcage that made her retreat quickly, hugging her elbow to the spot; even though they fought in boiled leather, there would be bruises later.

Focus, Brienne thought. Jaime was letting her regroup from the blow, though he shouldn’t. She took a deep breath in through flared nostrils and centered her vision on her opponent; and as she exhaled slowly through pursed lips, her fear and rage opened up everything on the periphery. She welcomed this beautiful, familiar feeling, of sensing so much all around her, while honing a needle-like focus on the threat facing her. It was reassuring to sense her own greatness and to revel in her body’s strength; these were the only times she loved her size and prowess and felt like she owned her gawky body.

She whipped her sword around and brought it crashing onto Jaime’s left shoulder, his weakest point. He staggered backward, and she forced herself to continue to advance. No mercy, she thought, her mantra in battle. No mercy, she had to repeat, for it was Jaime. Jaime. His green eyes glinted hard in the flat light of the overcast day. With heaving chest and widened nostrils like those of a starving lion set to pounce, Jaime was terrifying to behold, and a thrill coursed through her loins as she realized that she loved it. Her smile escaped before she could do anything to stop it.

As she swung again, Jaime shifted his weight and thrust directly into the same spot he’d hit before, then slashed upward, point forward, into her armpit, sending a spasm of pain radiating through her whole right torso and into her arm. Brienne cried out and retreated, backstepping into the open space of their small battlefield. How could he be so strong?

She tried to lift her sword, but another spasm of pain forced her to lower it and retreat again. “Seven hells!” she spat, trying to raise the sword once more. He must have struck a nerve somehow, for her sluggish arm was not obeying her. “Damn it!” She dropped her sword and stood tall, breathing heavily, as Jaime discarded his own and came to her.

“Are you all right?” he asked, placing his hand on her injured side.

Her dagger was at his throat before he could even raise his eyes to hers. “Never lower your guard, Jaime,” she said. “Even for a woman.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “I fear it is too late for such remedial lessons. Would that you had been there to teach me when I was a boy.”

“You would not have appreciated my … perspective then.”

“I fear you are too right.” Now he raised his eyes to hers, and she felt the familiar melting deep in her sex. Despite the pressure of her dagger on his skin, Jaime leaned in as if to kiss her, and she lowered the weapon. But while he’d distracted her, he’d raised his own dagger to her throat.

“Ah,” said Brienne appreciatively. “Lesson learned.”

“At last,” he smirked. “You are a slow pupil.”

Later, Brienne rode next to Sansa and tried to rub the sore spot in her ribs, but it was hard to reach through her boiled leather and armor. Much of her days with the Stark girl were spent in silence. It was just as well, for it was too cold for either one to do much except cling to her horse and tuck her cloak more closely around her. And Brienne, never eloquent, was used to being quiet. Besides, Sansa’s voice was still recovering, and Brienne wondered if it would ever be the same. She couldn’t blame her for wanting to keep mum; perhaps it pained her throat to speak. But today she found herself wishing that the girl would speak more, for the long days of riding brought far too much time to let her thoughts wander to Jaime.

He rode in front, and Brienne would find herself staring at his cloaked back, imagining the way his broad shoulders narrowed to his hips, and remembering how her hands – and the rest of her – thrummed whenever she ran them from his armpits to his buttocks, the better to press his hips closer. They had not disrobed during any of their desperate, silent trysts yet; it was too cold for that, and they had elected not to requisition Baelish’s tents so they could continue to travel light and fast. So whenever it was Brienne’s watch, Jaime would wake, too, and before long they would be huddled under her furs and groping at each other. It was not safe; someone could attack them in the night and they would have to struggle to throw off the furs and each other to reach their swords. Each night she vowed she would refuse his kisses. Yet each night she hungered for them and accepted them greedily.

Part of her figured she had to take what she could while he still wanted her, for surely this could not last. She was no prize for any man, even one missing a hand and a home.

“Winterfell will need rebuilding.” Sansa’s voice sounded like dry snow sliding off a tin roof. “Is it true that the wedding party has abandoned it?”

“Yes, my lady. Ramsay Snow has returned home.” Brienne looked at the young woman riding by her side, her face hidden by her cloak’s hood. “I am told that Lady Arya escaped, thank the gods, but I know not where she is now … if the girl was indeed your sister.”

“Arya would never have agreed to such a marriage,” rasped Sansa.

Brienne nodded in silence and hoped Sansa was right. She could barely see the girl’s shiny, reddened nose peeking from the front of her hood. Her flat affect had not changed since they had rescued her, and Brienne could only wonder if she was still in shock; or perhaps this was merely her personality, or what had become of it since she had been made the pretty pawn of countless others in these endless war games. It was Sansa’s curse to be beautiful, just as it was Brienne’s to be ugly, and somehow they’d each had to navigate their lives based on others’ perceptions of their countenances. It seemed so silly, and she felt an old, familiar anger welling in the pit of her stomach. Without quite realizing it, she touched the dressing on her cheek. Then she frowned at herself for worrying about the wound. It was healing, and that was all that mattered.

She glanced behind her at Podrick. He huddled miserably on his mount, peering occasionally to one side or the other. When she turned back to Sansa, she noticed snowflakes beginning to fall between them. They would have to find shelter soon, for they could not camp in snowfall.

“Who will help me rebuild it?”

“We will, my lady.”

Sansa looked at her, not unkindly, but with an expression of general disenchantment. “I am grateful, Lady Brienne, but it will take more than the four of us to restore Winterfell to its former state. Even to a habitable state.”

“Your bannermen – ”

“Are dead, or wanted as traitors. As am I.”

Brienne pressed her lips together and remained quiet for a while. “There are bannerwomen, too, and their children, who would be happy to be given a purpose again.”

She prayed this wasn't too hopeful, but Sansa’s silence seemed contemplative. There was no sound for a time but the clip-clopping of their horses’ hooves on the hard path, and the occasional huff or nicker. Brienne’s breath made puffs of vapor in front of her face. The snow fell harder.

“You chose not to remain at Tarth. Why?”

Brienne’s brow furrowed. How best to explain her lot to someone who had been born with the form and demeanor of a good lady?

“My father wished me to marry and I did not.”

She realized she was staring at Jaime’s back again and forced her gaze into the trees. Then she began to try to formulate an answer to the question that would inevitably follow: why on earth would she not wish to marry?

But what Sansa said was, “I understand.”

Brienne looked again at her companion, but she had turned her cloaked head away and now looked into the trees on her left. They rode in silence, and Brienne thought. Even with her beauty, perhaps the girl did understand. Life for women bartered off as chattel to the most suitable match must not be easy. Brienne had escaped it with her will, her sword, and her towering ugliness; but if she’d been born pretty, she would at best be the sequestered bride of some ancient, boring lord, and at worst she’d be saddled with a brute or a scoundrel; and then what would her life be like? Who would she be now? She felt ashamed of the simple opinion she had held of the lass, for how could one live through what Sansa had endured and not grow wiser, or jaded? The naïveté of Sansa’s youth was long past, just as Brienne’s own innocence had fled, of a necessity, at an early age.

“Someone once called me his little bird,” said Sansa, still not turning to face Brienne. “Now I sound like an old crow.”

Brienne did not know what to say to that.

“May I borrow your dagger?” Sansa had removed her hood and tucked her gloves into her belt. She held out her right hand; the fingers on the other still had a bandage wrapped around them.

Puzzled, Brienne guided her horse closer, slipped her dagger from its sheath, and presented it hilt-first. Sansa took it, grasped a hank of her hair, and began to saw through it with the dagger.

Brienne couldn’t help crying out. “My lady!”

Jaime turned back then, and Brienne looked to him for guidance. His eyes widened and he uttered something that sounded like, “Ooof,” before he faced forward again. Brienne couldn’t blame him for wanting to stay out of this.

She turned back to Sansa.

“Your hair!” she hissed, aghast, not knowing what else to do. It was a glorious auburn from roots to chin, though the brown dye still permeated the rest of the length to varying degrees. Still, it was glossy and lustrous, the kind of hair Brienne could only dream of having; and it seemed a crime for a lady to cut it away. It was almost like watching someone chop off her own finger with a meat cleaver.

“This brown hair is not mine,” rasped Sansa, who now hacked away at another handful of hair. Her horse, who was an agreeable sort, continued to amble ahead while Sansa sliced away section after section of her hair. She let every gossamer handful fall into the snow like hundreds of slender flower stems at a wedding.

Brienne was at a loss. She looked behind her at Podrick, who was staring at Sansa as if she were a ghost. He steered his horse around the piles of hair as he passed them. Brienne found that small action hopelessly sweet, though she could not quite say why.

When Sansa was finished she held out the dagger and whispered, “Thank you.”

Brienne took it, staring at Sansa’s uneven, chin-length hair until the girl raised her hood and replaced her gloves. She then took the horse’s reins in hand and said, in a flat rasp, “I want to learn to fight. With my hands and with a sword and a dagger and whatever else you know. Will you teach me?”

Brienne looked ahead of her at Jaime’s back, suddenly desperate to see his handsome face, his reassuring and infuriating cocky smile.

What else could she say? “Yes, my lady.”

Night was falling when they found the miller’s house. The family had been murdered some time ago and their bodies lay strewn across the frozen earth like abandoned rag dolls. It was impossible to tell which had been the parents and which had been the three grown children, for they looked alike, all black and bloated with a blanket of snow on top. Brienne saw skirts on two of the bodies and tried not to see anything more. The stench was dreadful, but they could not honor the dead with a burial tonight, not with the snow accumulating every hour by inches. Moreover, the ground was too hard to bury the bodies; come sunrise they would have to cover them with stones.

Podrick and Jaime led the horses to the empty barn to rub them down, feed them, and throw blankets over their backs while Sansa and Brienne carried the saddlebags indoors and brought fresh water from the river that bubbled beneath the miller’s wheel. Though Brienne’s arm had recovered from Jaime’s sword thrust, her right side still ached, and she was grateful for the prospect of sleeping indoors and out of the wind that made her shiver with every gust.

The house, as the women entered it, harbored that unsettling quiet of a home grown empty and cold. It was relatively clean, thankfully, though every shelf and drawer had been ransacked. Brienne kicked a tin cup out of her path and saw Sansa startle at the noise as she carried her and Podrick’s packs to a small bed in the corner of the room; the bedding in the other corner had been slashed apart. Podrick would sleep on the floor by Sansa’s side, Brienne supposed, though she certainly wouldn’t judge if they decided to share the bed. She lifted her eyes to a loft accessible by a ladder. Hopefully the mattress was not infested with vermin, for she and Jaime hadn’t any other choice. She climbed and deposited their furs on top of the straw ticking and woolen blankets that the home’s previous inhabitants would never use again.

When she descended, she retrieved a tinderbox and two squat candles from her pack and lit them, placing them together on a plate on the scrubbed table, and Sansa brought two oil lamps she’d found on the mantel above the stone fireplace. There was fresh, dry wood next to it, and with luck they’d soon have a fire going in the hearth; it was too cold to consider otherwise, though it would be safer not to send smoke into the sky. Perhaps the bandits and rogues are too cold to be out a-roaming tonight, Brienne thought wishfully as she washed her hands in a basin of frigid water. Two more bowls sat next to the fire; hopefully they’d have warm water for washing soon enough.

Before long a small fire blazed, and they found a clean pot to hang over it. Brienne was no cook, and during their travels they’d had to make do with minimal food of rather poor variety; but tonight the two managed to peel some potatoes and carrots, slice an onion, and set a stew heating.

The crackle and warmth of the fire were comforting, but Brienne once again found herself wishing that Sansa would speak. Were not women supposed to chatter? She chastised herself as soon as the thought entered her mind, for Sansa hadn’t been a typical lady-at-court for a long while. Neither had Brienne. If the lass had once spoken pretty courtesies, Brienne suspected her desire to do so had vanished long ago. And then there was the matter of her wrecked voice.

A sudden realization struck Brienne like a fist to the breastplate: she would have to speak to Sansa. She was a woman, too, after all, and she could not allow her lack of experience with speaking in small pleasantries prevent her from offering some comfort to Lady Catelyn’s daughter. She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Then she reached into the bottom of her pack and brought out a small box she’d nearly forgotten she had.

“My lady?” she said as she placed her thumb and forefinger inside the nearly empty box. Sansa met her eyes just as Brienne drew her fingers out and smiled. “Salt!”

Sansa suddenly grinned, her clear eyes and straight teeth sparkling in the firelight, and again Brienne could only marvel at the girl’s beauty. Even with her boyish, unkempt hair she was a vision, and Brienne felt a certain satisfaction that she was able to tempt a smile from her. Then Sansa laughed, taking the saltbox and tipping the rest of its meager contents into the stew, and Brienne’s heart tightened for a moment. Never having known her mother, she often wondered what it was that mothers and daughters did together, what she might have learned from hers. Perhaps it was just this, sharing salt over a cooking pot and finding comfort in each other’s company. She would never know, but this would certainly do, she decided.

“When would you like to start learning to defend yourself?” asked Brienne. She did not say to fight, for Sansa was too small. But she could defend, she was sure of it.

“Now. Tonight,” said Sansa as she stirred the steaming soup with a wooden ladle. “I should have learned long ago, when – ” She stopped abruptly and pressed her lips together in a shut-down sort of expression that Brienne thought looked altogether too much like her own.

“It is never too late, my lady,” said Brienne. “We will begin tonight. Nothing physical yet, just … talking.” She cleared her throat, trying to decide where to begin. “There is much I can tell you.”

Sansa brought a wooden chair close to the fire while Brienne found a short footstool; this way they were nearly at eye level with each other. She began by teaching Sansa about the weaknesses that all men have – the groin, the eyes, the throat, the instep – and praised her for seeking out one of those weaknesses in Petyr Baelish, for it had enabled Jaime to find his opening. Sansa’s face flushed, perhaps with pride, but Brienne continued and told her how her diminutive size would limit her in some ways but offer advantages in others: men would underestimate her. She stressed the need for extreme physical closeness during a conflict; Sansa would never have the reach or strength to fatally slice and thrust with a sword, but she could bury a dagger with ease.

Just then the door opened and Jaime entered, with Podrick close behind. Eddies of snow and a gust of bitter wind entered with them, and Podrick shut the door quickly and lowered the bar. The two approached the fire, removing their wet cloaks and hanging them on pegs next to the fireplace where they would drip and steam as they began to dry. Then they washed their hands and faces in the basins of water.

Jaime sat on the wooden floor at Brienne’s feet and inhaled the savory cooking smells, closing his eyes for a satisfied moment as he unstrapped his golden hand and laid it beside him on the floor. “Hmm, perhaps it was worth freezing our noses off in that barn for this. What’s in the pot?”

Brienne told him, and the blood flooded her cheeks as it always did when he turned his eyes to hers. He always made her feel as though she were the only person in the world when he looked at her, no matter how fleeting and seemingly insignificant the glance. Was that his doing, or her own pathetic yearnings? She had no way of knowing, for no one had ever graced her with such glances before. Once again she had the irrational thought that she would never tire of his gaze, and it was followed hastily by the thought that she would be without it soon enough. She was sure of it. Despite this absolute certainty, a hollow, insistent longing pooled between her legs.

“How far to Winterfell?” asked Sansa. She still would not quite meet Jaime’s eyes when she spoke, despite Brienne’s repeated assurances that they wanted nothing from Sansa but to return her safely to her home and, once there, to help her in any way they could.

“Perhaps another week,” he replied, looking at Podrick, who nodded. Pod was the one who carried the maps, and he had developed real skill in reading distances and estimating risk. At least, so far.

Podrick had retrieved four tin bowls and spoons from the cooking pack and now ladled stew into them, passing the first one to Sansa. When the distribution was done and the pot replaced on the hearth, he took his bowl and settled at Sansa’s feet, almost mirroring Jaime’s position next to Brienne, sitting closer to Sansa than Brienne might have imagined at one time he would have; but the two young people seemed strangely comfortable with each other. They did not speak much, but Brienne noticed Sansa gravitated towards the boy whenever she could when they stopped for rest. She could not blame her. Her only other options for company were the Kingslayer and the strange, towering knighted lady. She knew Sansa did not trust Jaime in the least, but tolerated his presence because she had no choice but to rely on those who had killed her captor. And though her faith in Brienne seemed to be growing, Sansa had been manipulated too many times; surely she had no reason to believe that now would be any different. It was no surprise to Brienne that Sansa should cling hopefully to Podrick, with his earnest face and shy smiles.

The four were silent for a time; the only noises were the sounds of their eating and the crackle and pop of the fire. The hush created by the falling snow outside made every noise within the house seem louder. They each had a second helping of stew, then later passed around a water skin, finally letting their weariness settle into them as night fell.

Jaime placed his bowl on the floor and sighed contentedly, then wrapped his fingers around the back of Brienne’s knee. She did not flinch, but her eyes widened and her body responded, low and insistent. Just like his kiss after killing Baelish and his flirtatious defeat of her during today’s practice, his fingers squeezing her calf was hardly an appropriate gesture in mixed company; but Brienne was past caring. If she was to be called the Kingslayer’s whore, she might as well enjoy some of the fruits of that title. She looked down at Jaime and they smiled at each other, and in that shared moment it was as if there emerged some unspoken agreement, as if they’d somehow declared themselves publicly with the touch of his hand, even though the only witnesses were an awkward squire and a traitor’s daughter.

“Something has been troubling me,” said Sansa finally to Podrick, who sat more upright as soon as he was addressed. She then turned her gaze toward Brienne, darting her eyes only briefly toward Jaime.

“What is it, my lady?” asked Brienne.

“Podrick told me earlier that you and he were traveling alone, searching for me.”

“Indeed we were.”

“I do not understand why Ser Jaime abandoned his oath to my mother.” Her blue eyes glittered in the firelight, almost boring into Brienne so as not to look at the Kingslayer.

“I had duties in King’s Landing, Lady Sansa,” said Jaime, removing his hand from Brienne’s calf, and there was an edge to his voice. “I entrusted my sword to Brienne so that she – ”

“Yes, yes, I know, Brienne and Podrick told me the same,” Sansa said, ignoring the thin line of Jaime’s mouth as she spoke over him. “What I do not understand is why you decided suddenly to set aside your duties to the war and seek me out once more. Why you reunited with Lady Brienne.”

They had rehearsed this excuse and Brienne spoke quickly, feeling a flush surge into her cheeks as she lied. “Ser Jaime and I had communicated by raven and agreed to meet at certain times and places to search for you together.”

Sansa watched Podrick, whose eyes fixed on the floor while his cheeks turned quite red. “You are lying, Lady Brienne."

“I – my lady – ” Brienne was unused to lying, and even less practiced in defending her lies as truths. She felt the redness deepening in her own cheeks, but still she forged ahead, even knowing already that the argument was lost. “Ser Jaime was determined that we should find you. I had two hands to his one, and we decided – ”

“There is something missing from your story,” said Sansa hotly, her damaged voice little more than a hiss in the quiet room. “I would hear the whole of it.”

Silence confirmed her suspicion. Podrick looked miserable and guilty, as if he’d been the one who had decided not to tell Sansa about Stoneheart, the one who had determined that a letter sent by raven from Winterfell to the Brotherhood would suffice, because Sansa should not see the creature her mother had become.

Sansa stood. “If you truly wish to honor my mother, and to serve me as you say you do, you will tell me.”

Jaime stood as well, and Brienne tensed, worrying that the conflict would escalate. But he stepped forward, speaking softly. “Your lady mother is … not dead.”

To be continued … Chapter 3 – Brienne, Part 2

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 1 - Podrick)

bratanimus — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 16:16:18 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: Nights Without Armor (Chapter 1 – Podrick)
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Brienne, Podrick/Sansa
Word Count: 6,047 this chapter (~ 32,000 entire story)
Rating & Warnings: M for gory violence and character death in this chapter (sexual content in later chapters)
Summary: An unlikely trio – Jaime, Brienne, and Podrick – set out to rescue Sansa from Petyr Baelish. Can they return the last known Stark heiress to Winterfell and fulfill their oath to Catelyn Stark, thereby releasing them all from Lady Stoneheart’s death sentence?
Author’s Note: This COMPLETED story has six chapters, to be posted once weekly. It is a continuation of my one-shot The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons, but can be read on its own. Heartfelt thanks to my beta, mrstater! Any mistakes you see are mine. Thanks for reading!

Podrick

It was Sansa.

A small, secret smile crept up one side of Podrick’s face.

She was here – Sansa Stark – Lady Sansa – here, within shouting distance, standing alone atop a sloping hill, with the light slanting and golden as if meant for her alone and not the twittering birds of morning or the swaying soldier pines or the damp, dead grass beneath her boots. She had lifted her skirts to descend the hill a short distance, as if she wished to be out of the eyesight of her captors as they packed up their camp and prepared to travel again. Here, at last, was she – Lady Sansa, the loveliest creature Podrick figured he’d ever seen, even lovelier now than he’d remembered. He watched, mesmerized, as she brushed her long, sleek hair, dyed brown, and her pale skin appeared, in contrast, perhaps even more luminous against her dark locks, her lips more red, her eyes a blue to rival the sky as it welcomed the rising sun. She looked out toward the sunrise, her gaze following a bird in flight, her expression inscrutable and yet somehow perfect.

But over his elation, Podrick’s throat felt strangled and his heart hammered, for he knew that, in order to rescue Lady Sansa, they would need to kill, he and Ser Jaime and Ser – Lady – Brienne. He shivered. But no matter. He would master his fear, for finally they had found her, the lady he had been determined to find while seeking – pretending to seek? – his former master, Lord Tyrion. Sansa. Lady Sansa. My lady. The name repeated itself in his mind in a hundred different tones of voice. He hid his hapless smile before his companions saw it, for it would never do if they knew how he’d dreamt of this moment.

“It is she,” he whispered as gruffly as he could, glancing to his right; and Brienne, lying flat on her stomach on the grass next to him, nodded. She darted her eyes toward Jaime and he grinned at her, which made her flush, as his smiles always did.

After Sansa disappeared over the rise, the three silently and awkwardly crept backward on their elbows and knees until they were well hidden within the copse of trees at the edge of the forest once more, and then they stole back to their small camp, where their horses nibbled on the apples they’d left for them.

“We will track them today and attack tonight,” said Jaime as he rummaged one-handed through his saddlebag for a slice of salt beef, which he bit into and began to chew laboriously. “We’ve followed them for two days and we’ve finally seen the lass. The time is now.”

“We still do not know their number,” said Brienne.

“We have a sense – ”

“But we do not know,” she insisted, giving the Kingslayer a stare that would have withered Podrick instantly had it been directed at him. Nevertheless, when she broke the gaze, she unsheathed Oathkeeper and began to oil it as if she were preparing for battle. Jaime chewed and glared at her, annoyed, until she spoke again. “We are three. How many can you kill, Jaime? Even counting the sword training you did with Ser Ilyn and now with me – ”

“You needn’t remind me,” he muttered, rotating his left shoulder, which seemed to pain him daily, now that his weaker limb had of necessity become his dominant one. He swallowed and reflected for a moment. “Three?”

Brienne paused mid-stroke, oiled cloth in hand, and raised her eyebrow at him.

“I am being conservative,” he said, bristling. “I could reliably slay four attackers quickly, when I had my hand. Perhaps more.”

She began her slow oiling of her weapon again. “I believe you,” she said at last, though whether she was referring to his boast of his former prowess or his speculation about his current ability, Podrick could not say.

Jaime scowled at her, then turned his back and stalked off deeper into the forest. During his absence, Podrick knew he would sharpen his words for the next round of argument. He wasn’t certain why the Kingslayer seemed so rattled by Lady Brienne, but this wasn’t the first time he’d wandered away during one of their many discussions. Ser Jaime held his tongue more than any man Podrick had seen in his short life, and he wondered if the knight had always behaved in this manner or if he’d somehow cultivated his restraint. Or perhaps there was something about Ser – Lady – Brienne that confused and confounded people; Podrick certainly felt even more tongue-tied than usual in her presence, even though she’d been nothing but kind to him.

While his two elders fumed separately, he busied himself by retrieving a few more apples for their horses. He did not like these uncomfortable silences between his lord and lady. What was more, he did not understand their intimacy. Every night during Podrick’s watch, even the very first night after the three had escaped their hangings and fled the Brotherhood together, Jaime would curl himself around Brienne, his left arm draped possessively over her waist, with his knees tucked behind hers and his nose buried between her shoulder blades. He would sleep soundly thus, though Brienne’s eyes would remain wide and blinking in the night. Podrick tried not to see, but the two did not attempt to hide their sleeping arrangement from him. It was not his place to ask, or even to wonder; yet wonder he did. How could he not? He felt so dreadfully alone, now that Brienne had her errant knight.

Mostly, what he wondered was if he would ever find himself curled around a lady like that.

“How many men can you slay, Podrick?”

The question yanked him from his reverie and he blushed as if she had read his thoughts on his face. He rubbed an apple against his doublet to wipe the dirt from it, and continued the motion unconsciously as he considered.

He’d never pondered how many men he could slay at once. He’d only had to kill one at a time during the Battle of the Blackwater. Then he’d killed the two who guarded Brienne and Jaime as they languished in the old stable, awaiting their hanging by Lady Stoneheart the following morning; but those had been alone keeping watch during a silent snowfall as the Brotherhood slept in a nearby farmhouse. They’d been isolated enough not to expect an attack, certainly not an ambush executed by one of their prisoners, a mere lad who was supposedly under the watch of their fellows in the farmhouse.

“Erm, three, perhaps, Ser. My lady.”

“Three might be generous, but I hope you are right. Four would be better.”

Podrick swallowed. “Yes, Ser. My lady.”

Then, as if she’d guessed the unspoken question in his mind, “I might manage three. Four or five, perhaps, with luck and the Warrior at my back.”

Podrick’s eyes widened a bit. Five men? But then again, Brienne was no ordinary lady. In strength and skill, she was more like the Kingslayer than any man Podrick had ever seen. She, like Ser Jaime, was likely being conservative when she initially said she could slay three men.

The morning was cold, and the breath of Jaime’s horse warmed Podrick’s hand as it took the apple from his palm. Its name was Honor, which Podrick could only hope was a jape. He shivered, considering how his own honor had slowly twisted into something other than what he’d imagined as a boy. And yet, hadn’t he only done what he would hope any squire would do for him?

Brienne had sharpened her weapon yesterday, but now she inspected it for nicks and dull spots again. “There may be eight men, or as many as thirteen, accompanying Lord Baelish and Lady Sansa.”

“But the closer we allow Baelish to Ser Harrold, the more likely a receiving party will ride out to meet them.” Jaime had returned, with his next argument at the ready. “Bronze Yohn’s information has been true thus far. He said nine men. With a surprise attack, we three can take nine men. But if we wait until Petyr Baelish runs into Harry’s envoys, we might expect twenty more.”

Brienne sheathed Oathkeeper and rose. She stood two inches taller than the Kingslayer, but somehow Jaime never seemed diminutive next to her, and Podrick wondered again how a man could achieve something that defied the laws of the physical, and with so little effort, it seemed. He watched the couple from the corner of his eye as their argument continued wordlessly. But Jaime was beginning to cock another grin at Brienne, and she was beginning to flush, so he knew the argument was at a close. Jaime had won this time.

“We attack tonight,” said Brienne, as if she had made the decision in the first place, and turned to attend to her horse.

Jaime looked at Podrick and winked.

They had to allow some distance between themselves and their quarry before they began to follow, so it was decided that they would continue Podrick’s training after breaking their fast. Today it was to be Ser Jaime against him. Podrick didn’t know whom he dreaded fighting more, the lord or the lady, for both frightened him. Each knight moved like a wild cat, Brienne with the sleek and relaxed prowess of one playing with a mouse and Jaime with the fierce and unpredictable pounce of a hungry one.

Knees flexed, body turned, elbows up, eyes open. Brienne’s mantra played itself in his mind as Jaime advanced, and Podrick reflexively parried the sudden blow. Jaime smiled and Podrick felt his heart swell, just for a second, before two more slashes forced him to step backward quickly to regain his footing; but he’d lost any advantage he might have had in that moment of pride.

“Where is your mind?” asked Jaime briskly, still advancing. “I’m going to kill you, lad.”

And he attacked again, his left arm slicing and thrusting so rapidly that it was all Podrick could do to remain facing forward as he parried and retreated. Then, somehow, he managed to hit Jaime’s left shoulder with the flat of the blade of his practice sword, and Jaime winced with a quick intake of breath.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” said Podrick, lowering his sword.

“Never apologize!” snapped Jaime. “And never lower your sword! I’m trying to kill you, don’t ever forget that! You will show me no mercy.”

Podrick shut his mouth at once; but then his opponent was upon him again, forcing Podrick back into position, and it seemed that the shoulder pain drove Jaime harder into the fight. Their swords clacked and scraped through the crisp morning air, and Podrick tried to bring his mind to the here and now, not on pleasing his teacher, so that he could let his body fight, as Brienne kept insisting that it would do if he’d just let go. And he’d done it before; he’d saved Lord Tyrion, and then he’d rescued Jaime and Brienne. He could do this.

Somehow he rounded a tree and dealt Jaime two fast slashes that landed at the backs of his opponent’s knees, and Jaime dropped his sword. “Yes. Like that,” he said, panting. “You’ve disabled me.” He dropped to his knees and looked up at the boy. “Now finish it.”

Podrick stared. Was he to kill a wounded man?

“Better to end my suffering,” said Jaime, not unkindly.

So Podrick raised the sword, placed the tip at Jaime’s heart, and nudged. Jaime fell backward into the snowy grass, clutching his chest and overacting.

Podrick smiled as he gathered the swords and began to pack up.

A scythe of a moon cast nary a shadow, which suited Podrick fine. But he was astonished that no one else could hear the thundering of his heart; it seemed if it beat any harder his veins would burst and the whole of his body would explode in a gruesome fountain. These things happened in stories but never in real life, he reminded himself, as his throat throbbed along with the pounding of his pulse. His eyes bulged and strained to see Brienne ahead as they crept up the hill that abutted one side of Lord Baelish’s evening camp. Behind him, Jaime was as silent as shade, even with shield and armor.

The last few hours since dusk had passed in a strange fashion. Time seemed somehow impossibly slow and irretrievably quick, just as it had during the Battle of the Blackwater and on the night he’d killed those two Brotherhood guards. He knew their plan by heart, but so many things could go awry during the rescue. I could die tonight, a frightened part of his mind kept saying. But a braver part always answered, as Brienne had taught him, So could many others.

However, it was Sansa who kept his feet moving forward. Sansa, and knowing that he could never fail Brienne or Jaime and live with himself afterward.

The three fanned out as they neared the crest of the hill where Baelish, Sansa, and their retinue slept. And then luck smiled on them when the man on watch climbed the crest and accidentally met Brienne. He inhaled to yell, but Brienne’s dagger silenced him with a violent slash to the throat. She caught him as he fell, supporting him almost gently under his arms and lowering him to the ground. She relieved him of his dagger, inserting it into another sheath on her sword belt, but left his sword lying on the moss, where it had fallen from his surprised hand. Crouching now, she looked in Jaime’s direction, and Podrick saw his shadowy form nod.

Podrick waited, hidden, as he was told to do, while the two descended silently into the sleeping camp. He could see them now by the light of a dying campfire, around which four men slept. Four more inside the tents, Podrick thought hopefully. Then Petyr Baelish and Sansa. Brienne and Jaime moved like mirror images of each other, each long and muscular, jaws set, with pale hair and piercing eyes. Brienne had replaced her own bloody dagger in its sheath, and Oathkeeper was like an extension of her own arm. Jaime’s sword was less impressive, and held in his left hand it might have seemed awkward not too long ago; but tonight his arm looked strong and steady. Podrick almost felt sorry for the sleepers around the fire; he would not want to wake to the points of their steel. Better to die in their sleep. And some would.

Podrick was gripping his sword too hard and forced himself to relax his hand a bit, as Jaime had instructed. Save your strength however you can, he’d said. Save it for when it matters.

Just as Podrick loosened his grip, Jaime and Brienne simultaneously buried their swords into two of the sleeping men, and Podrick had the surreal thought that Brienne seemed made for this, made for killing. Her body was all fluid motion, and again he was reminded of a great cat. Nothing in her movements bespoke any ungainliness or inelegance; she was beauty and poetry, death and destruction.

Jaime was much the same, but if Brienne’s actions were a weird sort of poetry, smooth and lyrical, his were prose. He was quick and unpredictable, but deadly precise, even with his left hand; and as he pivoted to attack one of the sleeping men awakened by the deaths of his companions, his two rapid slashes across the man’s chest and face seemed the final words of a gruesome and gory edict. He joined Brienne to take down the other man who had leapt to his feet, a longsword in his hands. Together they quickly dispatched him; but the alarm had been raised, and now five more men emerged from two small tents, swords in hand. The largest pavilion’s door flaps remained closed.

All this happened in the time it took for Podrick to rise cautiously to his feet.

He’d been instructed to wait above until he had a sense of the number of Baelish’s cortege, and he was not to descend into the fray until and unless it was apparent that Jaime and Brienne were in trouble. Then he would ambush from behind. But it had happened so quickly. The two were already outnumbered, and the shouts rang out sharply in the cold night air. Podrick tried to keep one eye on the largest pavilion, for if Baelish escaped now with Sansa on horseback, they might never catch up to them.

All for naught, he thought dizzily as he careened down the hill. Brienne had her back against a tree and was swinging Oathkeeper at two – no, three attackers. Jaime battled two men on the other side of the fire. A shape that might have been two figures huddled together emerged from the pavilion. No, Podrick thought.

He sheathed his sword and ran for the horses.

When he reached the beasts beyond the campfire, he whipped out his dagger – for there was no time to unhitch them – and cut the tethers that tied them to their trees and wagons, slapping them one after another on the flank to send them on their way. There must have been nine or ten, though he didn’t take the time to count. Those that seemed reticent to depart he pricked on the rump with the tip of his dagger. Then he whirled and ran back to the campfire, seeking Baelish and Sansa.

As he neared the camp, Podrick saw that Brienne had killed one of her three attackers, and the other two had her well and truly cornered between two wagons. Jaime had just finished off his second foe, and he turned to face Brienne’s assailants, his eyes wild and bloodshot with fury. He sank his sword into the back of the neck of the man closest to him. Brienne kicked out hard at the knee of the man bearing down on her. She was able then to emerge from between the wagons and put enough distance between her and her assailant so that she could swing her sword, which she did. The blow landed across that man’s collarbone and brought him to a swift end.

The two figures that had emerged from the pavilion had tried to edge around the fighting toward the horses. Seeing the animals were gone, they instead ran up the hill, the taller one pulling the shorter one by the hand.

“Halt!” shouted Podrick. He bolted across the camp, leaping over the dying fire, and ran up the hill on a diagonal, praying that he wouldn’t twist an ankle in the dark. Luck was with him, and he planted himself above the two, his sword at the ready.

Jaime and Brienne approached from behind, their swords still dripping blood. A sudden silence fell upon the camp, the only sound the ragged breathing of Jaime, Brienne, and Podrick. At last the taller figure removed his hood, and Petyr Baelish greeted Podrick. His smile was like a knife, his words even sharper.

“You do realize – Podrick, isn’t it? – that I will not let you take her alive.”

Swifter than lightning, Baelish grasped his captive’s arm with one hand, pulled her in front of him, and with the other pressed a dagger to her throat.

Sansa’s hood fell back, and her pale skin glowed in the moonlight, her eyes showing their whites as they darted from Podrick’s face to Brienne’s and Jaime’s. Her mouth worked, but no sound came forth. Podrick’s heart thrummed like a hummingbird’s, though his arms remained steady as they held his sword. But Baelish’s thumb pressed into the flesh of the front of Sansa’s neck, and Podrick wondered if she could breathe; meanwhile, the dagger dug into the vulnerable skin under her jaw. Her hands gripped her captor’s forearm for balance, but she did not struggle; any move would have invited bloodshed. He stepped to one side and backward across the hill, keeping his eyes on Podrick to his right and acknowledging Jaime and Brienne, now on his left.

“Ah, Ser Jaime, of the missing hand! Come to retrieve your missing brother’s missing wife. How noble.”

“Release Sansa,” said Jaime, his voice deadly calm, “and we may let you live.”

“A generous offer from someone who has nothing with which to bargain,” said Baelish. “Of all of us, I have the only gold piece.” He squeezed his captive’s throat between his thumb and the hilt of the dagger until she winced and dug her fingers into his wrist. “We all know that Sansa is worth nothing to you dead, and you will kill me regardless. So I must press this dagger to her throat until you give me a horse to carry us on our merry way.”

Brienne’s voice was low and rough. “Your escape is not part of our plan.”

“Have we met? I’m certain I would have remembered a woman of your … impressive stature.” Baelish let his eyes travel up and down Brienne’s armored body.

“She is the Lady Brienne of Tarth, and a knight besides,” said Jaime, “and you would do well to keep your eyes where they belong.”

Baelish’s eyes narrowed and his smile flickered in interest. “My eyes only wish to rest upon my daughter’s wedding frock, as you must know, seeing as you’ve met us on our way to the home of her betrothed.”

“Sansa is not your daughter,” said Brienne, advancing slowly, “and there will be no wedding.”

Baelish continued to retreat. “Were you ever a blushing bride, my lady?” he asked with a smirk. “Surely you would not deny Sansa a second chance at love? Rumor has it that her first marriage was not, shall we say, a success.”

By now the two stood on flat ground, near the campfire. Podrick, Brienne, and Jaime surrounded them in a semicircle.

“I swore an oath to her lady mother,” said Brienne. “I intend to bring her home.”

At Brienne’s words, Sansa’s eyes widened and one hand fell to her heart. Her fingers grasped blindly at her cloak.

“Catelyn Stark is dead." Baelish almost spat the words, his voice thick. “The Starks are no more. That family of traitors has been eliminated. Because of the love I bore her mother, I am providing Sansa with a new identity and a future she could not hope to have as long as the Queen Regent sits the Iron Throne.”

“Selfless to the last,” said Jaime with a laugh. “Every word that oozes from your mouth is bitter poison.”

“Some say medicine tastes like poison,” retorted Baelish. “All the same, you’re better off swallowing it.”

“You will swallow steel before we’re done,” said Jaime, stepping forward.

“And Sansa,” said Baelish, “will taste my dagger.”

Sansa’s eyes briefly squeezed shut as the blade dug in behind her ear. A thin, dark line of blood began to run down her white neck.

“It appears we are at a bit of an impasse," Baelish went on. "Podrick, my good fellow, won’t you run and get one of your horses for me? Then we can call an end to this little game.”

Sansa looked at Podrick then, her eyes pleading silently; and he felt somehow utterly responsible for her. Did she remember him from King’s Landing? It didn’t matter. He didn’t know if he could save her life, but he could keep Littlefinger talking. He spoke without taking his eyes off her, without thinking, and was surprised by how loud his voice sounded to his own ears, and how quickly the words flew from his lips. “If I were Lady Sansa, I would have stabbed you in your sleep.”

Baelish barked a laugh. “He speaks! Lad, I confess, I never knew you had a voice. If you didn’t sound like a bleating sheep, I might – ”

But Podrick never found out what Baelish might do, for he was cut off by his own scream as Sansa thrust her cloak pin into his left eye.

As Baelish released Sansa’s arm, clasping his hand to his ruined eye socket, she gripped the knife hand and twisted out from under his arm, then backed toward Podrick, tripping over her cloak as she did so. Podrick caught her awkwardly and helped her right herself. She coughed and clutched her throat, but apart from that she seemed unharmed. By the time she was on her feet and Podrick had turned, sword raised, Jaime had the point of his steel under Baelish’s chin.

Littlefinger held both hands to the side and let his dagger drop to the ground, his bloody eye socket dripping and horrific. He was forced to stand on tiptoe to keep the sword from piercing his skin. He’d stopped screaming and now panted, his voice adding a high-pitched stridor of fear as the air ripped in and out of his throat. The two men stared into each other’s faces, Jaime’s mismatched hands steadily supporting his sword, Baelish’s fingers trembling as he silently implored his assailant. Brienne held him by the back of his collar like a kitten, her own steel wrapped across his chest in a broad mockery of how he’d held Sansa a moment ago.

“Ser Jaime,” he said. “Lady Brienne. Might we discuss this like civilized – ”

“Be quiet and take your medicine,” said Jaime, and he plunged his sword upward.

Podrick stepped in front of Sansa; a lady shouldn’t have to witness such a gruesome end, no matter that the man was her captor. But she stepped aside quickly to see the blade’s position – through the soft flesh under Baelish’s chin, into the underbelly of the tongue, piercing the soft palate inside his mouth and the brain within his skull, and emerging bloody through the top of his head.

For a second, Podrick forgot about Sansa and felt bile rise in his throat. He managed to swallow it; it wouldn’t do to be sick in front of a lady, particularly not one so lovely and gentle. Well, he’d thought her gentle until she’d stabbed Baelish in the eye, but she was still lovely. He suddenly realized that he had his arm across Sansa’s chest to prevent her from getting closer to the bloody scene in front of them. He lowered his arm and took a step away from her. She pulled her cloak together in front of her to keep out the wind. A mockingbird cloak pin lay on the ground next to Baelish’s feet.

Brienne braced Baelish’s body so that Jaime could retrieve his weapon. In the cold silence of the snowy woods, the blatant sound of steel slipping through flesh and bone was like nothing Podrick had ever heard, or wanted to hear again. He’d seen men killed, seen them hanged, the most recent one being Ser Hyle Hunt mere weeks ago, when Brienne did not return quickly enough to the Brotherhood with Jaime as prisoner; but he’d never witnessed so closely, for so prolonged a time and without the distraction of other battle, anything as repugnant as this death. Brienne lowered Littlefinger to the ground, her mouth a grim line. Jaime watched her with a sort of fire in his eyes.

“Hold this,” he told her, and presented his sword hilt-first. Brienne hesitated, looking confused as she still held her own sword, but then took it from him. “This is something I’ve never had the opportunity to do right after battle. How about you?”

He shook off his shield, grabbed her roughly around the waist (was that a squeak that escaped the lady’s throat?), and covered her mouth hungrily with his. Brienne held the two swords in her hands loosely, like bouquets of flowers that she was in danger of dropping should she swoon; and Podrick did wonder if she would indeed faint, with her eyes closed and knees half-buckled as she surrendered herself to Jaime’s embrace, though the Kingslayer had her pressed tightly against him. This kiss, with their open mouths and their tongues and their bloody, dripping swords and her leg creeping up his, was far worse than improper; it was bizarre and primal and far more intimate than anything Podrick had ever witnessed so close-up. And it was doing strange things to him, things that didn’t feel improper at all, that, in fact, felt quite nice; and so he shifted his gaze to Sansa.

She was pale, but her face was utterly blank, her pale eyes like shutters on an empty house.

“Are – are you all right, my lady?”

Sansa still stared at Baelish’s face. “Is he really dead?” she croaked. She coughed again, a hacking, pitiful sound, and rubbed her throat; Baelish must have hurt her as he held her neck. She looked curiously at her bloody fingers as she pulled her hand away; she seemed only to realize just now that he’d nicked the skin of her neck with his dagger. Next she shifted her gaze to her other fingers, the ones that had struggled against Baelish’s weapon when she’d escaped his grasp, and saw blood there, too. Slowly, like a dandelion seed drifting in the wind, she lowered to her knees.

Podrick dropped his sword and rushed to her side and helped her to sit on the cold ground.

“You are injured, my lady,” he said, taking her hand in his to examine it. There was a slash across all four fingers, but fortunately the wounds did not run deep, probably because Baelish had already released his firm grip on her because of his own injury. “I will make a bandage for you when we return to our camp.” Then, knowing it was unseemly for a squire to be so forward, he released her, balling his hands into fists in his own lap.

Sansa looked into Podrick’s face as if seeing him for the first time. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but her eyes became misty. It made Podrick extremely nervous so he kept speaking.

“It was clever of you to stab him, my lady. This gash could have been much deeper, but you must have … distracted him with your cloak pin.”

Sansa gave a breathy laugh, the tears in her eyes disappearing at once. “It’s the first clever thing I’ve done in … well, in as long as I can remember.” Her voice was little more than a scratchy whisper. “Thank you for suggesting it.”

“I?” said Podrick, looking wide-eyed into Sansa’s face. “But I – how – ”

“You said if you were me you would have stabbed him while he slept.” Sansa had to pause for a long moment while she coughed, and when she continued her voice was rough. “I realized I had my hand on my cloak pin, and it had come undone. You must have seen it. Were you not giving me a hint? It was very shrewd of you. Are you a knight?”

It was as he expected: Sansa did not remember meeting him at King’s Landing. “No, my lady. Still a squire.” Sansa’s eyes narrowed. “I mean, I am a squire. I was squire to Lord Tyrion and now I serve Lady Brienne.”

Recognition crept slowly across Sansa’s face – she was still Lord Tyrion’s wife, after all – and Podrick felt a flush radiate inside his chest, which would soon turn his cheeks pink. To hide his traitorous face, he turned and nodded in the direction of Brienne, who had at last disentangled herself, red-faced and disheveled, from that outrageous kiss to approach her companions, with an equally red-faced but pleased-looking Jaime on her heels.

“Why is the Kingslayer— ?” Sansa quickly whispered, but then the two were upon them and she stopped.

“Lady Sansa of House Stark,” said Brienne, coming to kneel in front of her. She laid Oathkeeper on the ground in front of her. Jaime stood behind her, his own sword at his side. “I am Brienne of Tarth. As I pledged myself to your mother, Lady Catelyn, I now pledge myself to your service and offer you my protection. I will take you home, if that is your wish. I will give my life for yours if it comes to that. I swear it by the old gods and the new.”

Sansa’s eyes grew wider as Brienne spoke, and then she rose shakily to her feet. Podrick stood at once to steady her, if need be.

“I am sorry,” rasped Sansa. “My mother is dead. How can it be that you – ” But she could not continue as another coughing fit overtook her.

Brienne waited until Sansa had recovered, then told her quickly how she had come to be in Catelyn Stark’s service after the death of Renly. Sansa then gazed meaningfully at Jaime, and Brienne recounted the tale of how their two fates had become entwined at Catelyn’s order. She did not tell the young woman about Lady Stoneheart.

“Ser Jaime,” said Sansa at last. “You were fighting against my brother Robb when you were captured. Why should I believe that you are here to help me? Why should I believe that any of you – ” She began to cough again and seemed angry that she could not speak.

“My lady, my story of redemption is a long and meandering one, and hardly worthy of a campfire tale,” said Jaime, “but suffice it to say, I made an oath to Catelyn Stark and I intend to keep it.”

“As you’ve kept all your other oaths, no doubt,” said Sansa, raising her chin.

Jaime became somber. “The ones that mattered, yes.”

“Are you still of the Kingsguard?”

He hesitated. “That is … doubtful.”

“Then to whom have you pledged yourself?”

“Why, to the Lady Brienne, of course.”

Brienne shifted on her knees to look behind her at Jaime. He winked at her, though his face remained sober. When she turned back to face Sansa, her cheeks were red.

“You can trust Ser Jaime with your life, as I do,” said Brienne seriously. “No one believed in him less than I did, and I have been proven quite wrong. Repeatedly.” This last she said almost under her breath.

Sansa was silent for a long while as she regarded the two knights before her. She looked at Podrick as if hoping he had something to add that would make this inexplicable scene make sense to her.

At last she said, “It seems I have no choice but to take you at your word. Lady Brienne – or shall I call you Ser?”

“As you prefer, my lady,” said Brienne.

“Lady Brienne, I accept your pledge of service and protection. Ser Jaime, I expect no less from you. And Podrick …”

He looked at Sansa expectantly.

“Thank you.” She turned away from them and did not see the grin that spread across Podrick’s face.

Brienne stood, and she and Jaime began discussing how they would spend the rest of the night, and what their next steps would be in the morning. Podrick could not hear everything, but the word “Winterfell” rang through the crisp night air several times. While they spoke, Sansa made her way to the trunk of a soldier pine. She reached out for it with her uninjured hand, leaned against it, and slid down until she was on her knees again. Podrick ran to her.

“My lady?”

Sansa was shaking from her hair to her heels.

“Oh,” Podrick said. “Oh. My lady.”

He looked desperately at Brienne, then at Jaime, but they were too engrossed in discussion to pay him any mind. He looked back at Sansa, who was very pale indeed. He took her cold, shaking hands in his and massaged them. Then when she began to tip to one side, he caught her in his arms. He had heard of ladies fainting from sudden distress, and had seen men suffering from shock after the Battle of the Blackwater. He himself had vomited, after what he’d done there, and then again after rescuing Jaime and Brienne from the Brotherhood. He understood that a person’s body sometimes couldn’t keep pace with the changes it faced. So he held Sansa, and would continue to hold her, until she woke up.

To be continued … Chapter 2 – Brienne, Part 1

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Undressed

bratanimus — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:04:00 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: Undressed
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Brienne (implied Podrick/Sansa)
Prompt(s): In hiding, mirrors
Word Count: 3,526
Rating & Warnings: M for sexual content
Summary: Brienne, Jaime, and Podrick are escorting Sansa to Lady Stoneheart and Winterfell. When Jaime and Brienne enjoy their first night of privacy, Brienne finds herself more exposed than she ever thought she’d allow.
Author’s Note: This is a brief (and racy!) preview of a four-chapter piece to be posted soon. It is a continuation of The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons, but can be read on its own. This scene was posted at the gameofships Get Lucky Porn Battle. Many thanks to my beta, mrstater!

“Good night, Podrick,” Brienne said, taking a lamp and climbing the ladder. She and Jaime would leave the boy to clean up and take the first watch, as he usually did. Sansa was already nestled into the bed downstairs.

There was a small, half-circle window built into the wall of the sleeping loft of the dead miller’s house, a surprising extravagance to find in such a modest home. Heavy clouds hid the moon; but the ground, blanketed in snow, was so white that it seemed almost bright inside. A short table sat beneath the window, and Brienne placed the oil lamp on it and looked around. The straw mattress was well worn but clean, and a few personal items lay scattered about the perimeter: a comb, a broken mirror, an ancient baby’s rag doll propped in the corner, an empty chamber pot. The ceiling was low over their heads, forcing them to stoop to move about and to inspect the ticking upon which they would rest.

Jaime took the broken mirror and sat on the bed. He looked squarely at Brienne. “We need to remove your bandage.”

Brienne unconsciously brought her hand to her left cheek.

“It must be healing,” said Jaime. “You change the dressing every day. It may be time to leave it off and let it breathe.”

Feeling more vulnerable than she would ever wish to admit, Brienne could not bring herself to speak. But she knew Jaime was right. She had delayed removing the linen for long enough. She had not seen herself in a mirror yet and had been tending her wound by feel, or by letting Podrick be her eyes – but only when Jaime was otherwise occupied. She would avoid looking at Podrick’s face whenever he helped her, for she could not bear to see revulsion in his guileless eyes if her face looked as terrible as she feared.

Brienne sank onto the bed beside Jaime and he handed her the shard of mirror. She held it on her lap and fingered the edges delicately, as if it were a knife whose sharpness she could not estimate. Small shuffles and clinks from downstairs told her that Podrick was washing their dinner bowls and spoons, and Brienne tried – unsuccessfully – to place her mind there instead of on what she and Jaime were about to do. Jaime began to peel away the cloth while Brienne kept her eyes downcast. Neither word nor breath escaped Jaime’s lips as he removed the linen and set it aside on the table. His fingers found her face and moved from her cheekbone downward over her scarred cheek and onto her jaw and neck. “Can you feel that?” he asked.

Brienne cleared her throat. “My cheekbone and jaw. Less feeling, in between.”

“As I expected.”

Somehow Brienne could not bear to see herself in the mirror yet. She was surprised to realize that she wanted to see Jaime’s reaction to her disfigurement first, before she passed judgment on herself. Before she could consider otherwise, she looked at him. His gaze did not remain on her ruined cheek, but met her eyes at once. His mouth was a thin line, his jaw set.

“How is it?” she whispered.

Jaime’s throat worked. He looked from the wound back to her eyes. “You look even more formidable, my lady.” A wry smile started in his eyes and eventually worked its way down to his mouth, which quirked upward in a tight-lipped grin.

Brienne surprised herself with a breathy laugh, though her heart was thundering with dread. Do it! she told herself, and she brought the mirror up.

It was bad, but not worse than she had imagined. She thanked the gods that the wound was smaller than she’d thought it would be. But the scarring was pink and angry, a ragged, mouth-shaped brand. She could see the carvings those horrible teeth had dug down her cheek, like fingernails raked through dirt. Her breathing, already shallow in anticipation of the awfulness she would see, quickened in anger. Yes, she had scars all over her body, wounds she’d earned in battle fairly; but this was her face, her face, and Biter had done it purposely to violate her. She might have died if not for Gendry, but now she was saddled with the memory of that foul act for the rest of her days.

Tears sprang to her eyes and she cursed under her breath, for crying would make her eyes swollen and render her ruined face even uglier. Besides, she did not cry, would not cry. She set aside the mirror and cursed again, angry with herself for caring, so late in her life, for her appearance. And then she barked with laughter, realizing she hadn’t known what a gift an unmarred face, even hers, had truly been. But she had borne hardship in her life; she could bear this. She would bear it.

While she struggled inwardly, Jaime’s eyes followed her every shift in mood; and he seemed to be trying to assess whether he should speak or simply allow Brienne’s tide of emotion to roll in and crash wherever it may. His hand had somehow ended up resting upon her knee, and the calm assurance Brienne felt from the weight of it there was comforting. In that simple moment she saw Jaime once again restraining himself from trying to fix her, like nearly every other man she’d known had tried to do; she saw Jaime allowing her to be no more or less than who she was.

And at last she finally understood – knew it from her flushing skin inward into her very bones – that she loved him. She looked away, wondering if she could bear that, too.

Downstairs Podrick had finished cleaning up the dinner things and trod softly to where Sansa lay, probably still wide awake, on her small bed. Brienne heard him spread out a blanket and some furs on the floor. Then the whispering began. Brienne and Jaime raised their eyebrows and smiled at each other.

Jaime put on his sternest voice. “You have the first watch, Podrick, unless you’ve forgotten.”

Then ensued much scrambling and apologies and gathering of sword and wet cloak. Podrick had nearly reached the door when Brienne called out, “You may sit by the fire. Just stay awake and keep the door bolted.”

“Yes, my lady. Ser. I won’t. Fall asleep, I mean. I’ll stay awake.”

As Podrick settled into the chair Sansa had earlier vacated, Jaime and Brienne stifled their snickers and crawled under the furs together, and somehow that was the end of any discussion about the scars on Brienne’s face. Her heart pounded; after all, their little roost in this loft was the first place they’d had any semblance of privacy together. She wondered if Jaime kissed her – would he want to kiss her again, now that he’d seen her disfigurement? She batted the thought away – whether she could keep from sighing and moaning as she usually did when they reached for each other while Podrick and Sansa slept. She doubted that Sansa would sleep much tonight, if at all, and she didn’t relish the thought of the two downstairs hearing what she and Jaime got up to under their furs. Even so, she knew if he wanted her she wouldn’t resist his advances. There was a certain freedom in surrender, she realized. The Kingslayer’s whore she was, in name and probably quite soon in deed, and that was that.

As she lay back on the straw mattress, a sharp twinge caused her to hiss in pain. She sat up, rubbing her ribs where Jaime’s blow had landed during their practice today. Jaime silently rose with her and began, with his one hand, to pull her heavy woolen shirt and linen undergarment over her head. Like an obedient child, she helped him by lifting the other side until she was bare from the waist up except for the fabric binding her chest. Where was her modesty? How soon after she’d met Jaime had it fled? For there was no question that she would let him undress her to view these wounds, too. The light from the lamp and the bright snow outside gave her nowhere to hide, but she sat up straighter. There would be no shame in this.

Jaime’s own hiss escaped his teeth when he saw the purple bruises peeking from under the cotton binding that flattened and protected her small breasts. He untucked the edge and began to unwrap it, with Brienne helping to pass the fabric around her back until she was naked. She’d always thought that allowing herself to be disrobed by a man was fantasy, something that would never happen in her waking life; or, if it did, it would be part of some humiliating horror she was forced to endure for a man’s sport, as when she’d been forced to don a dress to fight a bear, or worse, if Vargo Hoat and his men had been crueler than they’d been greedy. So she was surprised by how captivated she felt when Jaime’s hand passed gently over her bruises, feeling her ribs with his fingertips.

“Take deep breaths in and out,” he whispered, bringing his ear to her lips. She obeyed and he listened, keeping his hand on her ribcage. He must be listening for a rattle, or wheezing, indicating fluid in her lungs from a broken rib; but they both knew her injuries couldn’t be as bad as that – she’d been wearing her boiled leather. Still, she had to acknowledge his thoroughness, and a smile stole across her face as she wondered about his other motives for undressing her. His eyes were downcast, probably eyeing her breasts, and he must feel the thundering of her heartbeat under his hand, which somehow embarrassed her more than being naked did. She looked away and tried to slow her frantic heart by imagining being examined by a maester; but it had been many years since she had submitted to any such prodding, and no maester had ever made her heart flutter like Jaime did. And his ear was right next to her mouth, begging to be kissed.

Jaime sat back and looked her in the eyes, exhaling in relief. “You’ll heal,” he whispered. His hand was still on her ribs. She nodded. Of course. She always did. They regarded each other silently. A sweet, sad longing churned deep between her legs. She placed her hand on top of his.

As always, Jaime would begin as a gentleman, or as much of one as he was likely to be. He barely breathed his next words. “Brienne, can you keep quiet if I do this?” Leaning forward, keeping his eyes open, and pressed his open mouth to hers, and the sudden, throbbing desire in her loins nearly made her whimper. He slid his hand upward until it cupped her right breast and he gave it a squeeze, and still, somehow, she didn’t make a noise. She reached for his hips, for they were too far away from her aching pelvis and the fire within. But he wouldn’t come closer, not yet, for there was her body to explore, at last, and as he pulled back his eyes seemed to feast on it. A small smile crossed his face and he hummed quietly, satisfied, and brought his mouth to her left breast, keeping his hand on the right and running his thumb over her nipple. Brienne’s eyes closed, and she bit her lip to keep from moaning. His tongue seemed somehow larger and yet more precise than it had been inside her mouth a moment ago, and she thought she might pass out from the thrill of it.

Jaime’s warm breath made her shiver as he slid his mouth up her breastbone and neck and across her jaw, right underneath her scars. “I want to feel you,” he breathed when he reached her mouth again. Grasping the hem of his woolen shirt, he tugged it deftly over his head, and slung it to the side, then did the same to the linen shirt underneath. He slid his hand down to her hip and reached behind her with his other arm. Sitting up on his knees, he pulled her firmly to him, and she felt his need, hard and insistent, between her legs and his muscular chest against her own naked breasts. She moaned.

Jaime stopped kissing her and his green eyes glimmered like emeralds in the lamplight. “Shhh,” he breathed into her mouth, but Brienne silenced the reprimand with her tongue. He quickly lowered her into the mattress and kissed her, grinding his manhood into her through their breeches, over and over again, until she thought she might have to beg him to take her, dignity be damned.

But Jaime had other ideas. Propping himself up on his elbow, he shifted so that his length was pressed into her thigh and he slid his hand down inside her breeches, beneath her smallclothes, until he found her sex. The wet heat he found there made him moan, and he pressed his forehead into hers, closing his eyes as if he were in a dream. “Shhh,” whispered Brienne, and Jaime kissed her to silence her cry as he pressed the warm heel of his hand against her sex and slipped a finger inside her.

Brienne’s maidenhead had probably been lost long ago from the physical exertion of riding horseback, and she’d given herself the widow’s comfort for years, knowing that no man was likely to give her any pleasure. But when Jaime slipped a second finger inside her and began to rub the nub of her desire with his thumb, her eyes fluttered shut and she surrendered to the knowledge of his hand. He started slowly, rolling her sex under his thumb with the practiced, undeniable rhythm of an ocean wave tumbling over itself to reach the inevitable shore. She turned her head to the side and they lay forehead to forehead as he silently ministered to her need. She bit her lip and furrowed her brow to keep from making a noise, tilting her hips upward to take his fingers in even deeper. Jaime’s breath shuddered in and out against her lips and she kissed him, feeling his own unrelenting want against her hip. At last he found the rhythm that she knew would bring her to her inexorable finish. She held her breath, daring not to make a sound as she felt her body’s yearning slowly building, building under his touch – and with a rush of exhalation it was released, pulsing and contracting around his fingers. Brienne whimpered, and Jaime thrust his tongue into her mouth, swallowing the sound. She ran her hands up over his jaw and into his hair, grabbing handfuls of it as she kissed him back, hard, and wondered with a certain amount of giddy wickedness what else this man was capable of doing to her.

Jaime slipped his fingers out of her and sat back, knees spread, and waited. Brienne sat up and unlaced his breeches. He released himself and, with her juices still on his fingers, grasped his length and began to stroke. Brienne could not take her eyes off of him. He must know she’d never touched a man, and in their nights of tussling under the covers, though she’d tentatively squeezed him through his breeches, she hadn’t yet reached for his naked manhood. Now, with the lamplight and the white light of the fallen snow making his angular face glow with an ethereal beauty – and despite purple and green bruises all over his shoulders, arms, and torso; despite lines on his face and dark circles under his eyes from too many nights with little sleep; and, yes, despite missing a hand – he looked like a god, beautiful and perfect, perhaps one that the Seven had cast away jealously in punishment for his physical splendor. While Jaime rubbed himself, he kept half-lidded eyes on Brienne as he watched her watching him. She sat up on her elbows and wondered how his manhood could fit into her, but it must be possible, and she knew now that it would happen. Perhaps not tonight – because she didn’t want to stop him, not until he’d shown her how best to pleasure him – but soon, soon, she promised herself.

Brienne watched Jaime’s movements for a while longer and, finally, drawing on a new sort of courage she hadn’t known she possessed, she knelt almost behind him, spreading her thighs around his right thigh and buttock. She pressed her sex into his hip and her breasts into his arm and ribs. She held his left hip with her hand, keeping him close. Then, as she tucked her chin on top of his shoulder – for once glad of her height, for it meant that she could watch – she reached for him with her right hand. He let go and she wrapped her fingers around his girth, thrilling at the soft moan she elicited from him, and at the new sensations of smoothness and rigidity under her fingers; and she began to slide her hand over him, as she’d seen him do. His warm, soft skin moved over the stiffness, and she found herself smiling. She kept at it, slowly, marveling at the wetness she saw gleaming on the tip of his manhood and wondering how soon she’d bring him to climax.

“Faster,” he commanded in a rough whisper. She obeyed, and almost immediately she was rewarded by his release. He produced a handkerchief to capture his seed instead of letting it spew onto the bedclothes, and his hips thrust involuntarily as she continued to stroke him. Brienne looked at Jaime’s face and felt a rush of satisfaction when she saw the utter abandon in his expression; his eyes were closed, brow knit, his mouth open in a silent sigh of ecstasy. His mutilated arm reached behind him to draw her even closer to him. It seemed right to continue to touch him until his shuddering had completely ceased, and so she waited until he’d turned to kiss her to release him.

Jaime folded the handkerchief neatly and handed it to her, and she gratefully accepted it and cleaned the rest of his seed from her fingers, grinning in what she was certain was a silly manner as she did so. She lowered her gaze, blushing and smiling. He pulled her to him and, placing his finger under her chin, tilted her face to his. He whispered, with a grin, “You’ve been holding back, my lady.” He kissed her again, his hand rough in her hair at the nape of her neck and his breath hot against her mouth. “I cannot wait to try that again.”

“You flatter me,” said Brienne, still blushing.

“Not at all. Flattery is what one resorts to when the truth is not an option.”

“Your moral code is interesting, Ser Jaime.” But she kept on grinning like a fool.

“Come and lie down with me, wench,” he whispered. And she did.

As they settled down beneath their covers and watched the white flurries through the windowpane, Brienne was grateful for the heat rising from the fireplace downstairs, and glad that they had one night of true shelter before they wound their way back to Lady Stoneheart. Soon Jaime turned his body toward Brienne, and she mirrored his position. His hand found hers and held it.

“We should sleep,” whispered Brienne. Jaime nodded. But they continued to look at each other. Brienne couldn’t begin to guess what Jaime was thinking as he gazed at her, but the intensity of his eyes made her feel somehow intriguing, desired, and even a little beautiful. It was confusing, for she had never been any of those things; but she was quickly growing addicted to the feeling that she might be, at least in his eyes. She wanted to talk about what they’d done, and tell him how bloody amazing he had made her feel, and how incredible the act of pleasuring him had felt to her … but somehow she couldn’t. It was almost as if she knew to speak of it would break the spell, and she had no intention of doing that. So she just looked at her lover and prayed to the Seven, all of them, to keep her from driving Jaime away.

“What will we do after Winterfell?” asked Jaime. He spoke almost casually, as if he were merely making conversation.

But Brienne’s heart leapt into her throat, for she wondered the same thing, every day and night. After Winterfell Jaime would return to King’s Landing, and she … she wasn’t certain where she would go. Perhaps a visit to her father, though he’d implied that his welcome would be warmest if she happened to bring home a promising candidate for her lord husband. So it would be a cold visit home. After that, she did not know.

But Jaime had said we. What will we do after Winterfell?

Brienne surprised herself by giving Jaime the truth. “Whatever you like.”

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Stitches

bratanimus — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 15:06:01 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: Stitches
Pairing: Jaime/Sansa
Prompt(s): Lyrics from Shiver
Word Count: 4,416
Rating & Warnings: T for sex, language
Summary: A long-lost companion helps Jaime and Sansa mend a new marriage that is already in tatters.
Author's Note: Written for the gameofships Stark Naked challenge.

Jaime watches Sansa sitting on a large rock, absorbed as always in her needlework, a childhood activity which she claims to have resumed in earnest only since their betrothal. She must focus, must never lift her face to look at her new husband in the eyes when to do so would result in bloody needle pricks. Sansa’s concentration is astounding. Her eyes have been downcast since their marriage ceremony a week ago, and she has no wounds on her fingertips. Jaime has never felt so alone.

“Will you not taste this fine venison stew?” says Jaime from his perch on a fallen tree. He waves the spoon enticingly before he pops the bite into his mouth. He did not spill any at all this time; perhaps his dexterity is improving. The stew is not, in fact, fine, cobbled together as it was by the servants who travel with them, but Sansa has not eaten since she broke her fast this morning.

Sansa’s fingers pause and she speaks down to them. “Thank you, but I am not hungry, my lord.” She resumes her stitching.

Jaime watches her for a moment longer, then stares off at the rolling foothills lumbering in the southwest. From his vantage point above the wooded valley, he inhales the brisk air that whispers through the pines surrounding the softly sloping hillock where they camp. Silvery clouds waft across a purple-red horizon. It will be dark soon. Time again to try and get his wife with child.

“She is likely frigid, perhaps barren,” goaded Cersei on the morning of Jaime’s wedding when she came to give him a cool kiss on the cheek, brazenly pressing her breasts into his doublet. “At least, I’m certain Tyrion never bedded her.” Jaime waited until Cersei had swept, laughing, from the chamber to wipe his cheek with the back of his hand, realizing – and vowing – that she would never kiss him again, in earnest or in mockery.

When the Queen Regent wishes never to look upon someone’s face, a trumped-up charge and a death sentence often can be the easiest way to dispose of the offending visage. But when the face belongs to the queen’s twin brother and former lover, marriage will also suffice quite nicely. People may smirk behind their wine goblets, but Cersei’s perverse command is how Jaime Lannister and Sansa Stark came to be married and journeying together in their small caravan along the Gold Road to Casterly Rock. “You rescued her. She’s your puppy now,” said Cersei, and Jaime had to agree that his sister had effectively killed two cubs with one arrow by wedding them. And so far Jaime’s marriage, such as it was, was proving easier to manage than enduring Cersei’s cold gaze every day, since everything unraveled with her. He cannot argue with rewriting history when it’s something that never should have happened.

The marriage was easy enough to arrange. Cersei stripped Jaime of his knighthood, annulled Sansa’s first marriage, and declared Tyrion dead – a detail which Jaime did not think was strictly necessary as no one knows for certain whether the dwarf lives or not. Cold fingers clutch his heart every time he imagines a world without his brother in it, so he tries not to. But of course whenever he tells himself not to think of Tyrion, he compulsively revisits his decision to tell him the truth about Tysha and curses himself for it. The horrified, helpless, enraged look on his brother’s face still haunts his dreams. Even if Tyrion were still alive, things between them can never be mended. How does every honorable thing Jaime attempts so swiftly turn to shit?

Jaime finishes his stew and regards his wife. Sansa’s nimble fingers thrust the needle through the fabric, down, up, down, up, over, down, up, down, up, over. He understands her need to escape. It must be easier for her to be somewhere else, even if it’s only in the pastoral scene she stitches on her own lap. From time to time, like now, she stops, the needle resting between her first two fingers and thumb like a tiny sword pointed at herself, and she looks up – not at him, or at anything, but just … away. Her blue eyes are blank. Jaime wonders what happened to the girl who used to live behind those beautiful eyes.

***

Jaime groans as he spills his seed into Sansa, his face buried in her neck, her arms around his shoulders and knees hugging his ribs. He kisses her cheek as he slips out of her, but she turns away and tugs the furs over herself, pretending to want to sleep. He knows from her breathing that she doesn’t sleep much. Lying on his back and trying to steady his own breath, he stares at the sloping roof of their pavilion as the wind whips it rhythmically. He idly strokes her creamy shoulder with backs of his fingers. She no longer pulls away from that small act of affection, which he sees as a good sign. But the ease with which she allowed him to bed her on their wedding night he took as a bad one. She will not speak of Petyr Baelish, but Jaime has his suspicions about Littlefinger’s attentions to Sansa. He is not sorry he killed the man.

Though he dozes, the wind whipping their tent will make it a hard night for sleeping, Jaime can tell. He tries to let his mind relax and carry him into lucid dreams, something he used to do as a younger man when he was away from Cersei. Back then, his imagination always brought him to his sister’s side, and he reveled in scenes of past and future lovemaking, the vows they’d made and would make to each other, every simple moment between them – as if anything was ever simple with Cersei. Now, likely as not, his mind tortures him with regrets of things he’s done or, worse, left undone. But still, he goes there, because it’s better than listening to Sansa pretending to sleep.

He closes his eyes and tells his mind to carry him away, away, and this time it is to somewhere new …

His hand, his real right hand, as in all his dreams, is still part of him. It’s got a sword in it, and he slices a flat semicircle through the air toward Cersei’s neck. But then the sword is gone, replaced by his hand striking Sansa across the face, and she falls to the ground, hands splayed, elbows akimbo, spine heaving. Horrified by what he’s done, he kneels, reaching for her shoulder, but it’s armor he touches and Brienne who raises her blue eyes to his. She grasps his hand and presses her warm, full lips to it, and he feels a strange relief, like absolution. He turns away and knows at once that it’s Mother pulling against his hand, trying to keep him from running too closely along the edge of the cliffs jutting over the Sunset Sea. He turns and throws both arms around her, just catching a glimpse of her face before he buries his in her neck. But then it’s Sansa again and she pushes him away as she takes his hand in hers and looks down at his palm. Something shiny glints in her fingers; and as she begins to stitch into the flesh at his wrist – right along the line where a man’s hand might be severed from his arm, should he ever suffer that misfortune – she cries, and her tears tickle his hand where they drip onto it.

Jaime is awake. His missing hand is prickling, and Sansa is crying and whimpering next to him in her sleep. A wolf howls somewhere in the woods, not too far off. Jaime sits up on his elbow, wanting to comfort Sansa but not wishing to wake her, now that she finally sleeps. There is another howl. He’d better go and make certain the man on watch is awake. Leaving his golden hand where it lies next to his pillow, he wriggles into his breeches, a shirt, and boots before wrapping his heavy woolen traveling cloak around himself.

The watchman has a crossbow half-raised; he’s heard the howling, too. When he sees Jaime he lowers the crossbow, quickly bows, and says, “My lord,” before glancing down at Jaime’s stump.

Jaime nods and walks past him across the dead grass, deliberately not tucking his mutilated arm away. They are his servants; they must get used to him as he is. All around him, domestics and guards slumber under furs, in wagons or on the ground as close to their small cookfires as they can. The wind is cold, and he pulls the hood of his cloak up. The forest below the small hill on which he stands looms darkly; only the wind makes any noise as it rustles the needles of the soldier pines. Stars make pinpricks of light in the velvety black sky, and a full moon throws Jaime’s narrow shadow across the pale ground in front of him.

For some reason it seems right to kneel. Jaime sits back on his heels and watches the long, thin trees, their trunks made silver by the moonlight, swaying stiffly in the wind. He imagines the pines are an advancing army, just so he won’t feel quite so lonely or useless. While he’s at it, he imagines he has his hand again. And that his wife loves him.

Movement catches his eye. A fat, white creature waddles through the low bushes and scrub just at the edge of the woods. Jaime slowly and silently lowers himself to his elbows, lying flat on his stomach. Squinting, he sees it’s an opossum, foraging; perhaps it’s found some food scraps tossed down there by someone in their caravan. The animal’s eyes gleam weirdly in the moonlight as it turns its pointed face toward him and sniffs the air, but he is downwind.

Jaime’s heart lurches as suddenly a large grey shape streaks from the blackness of the forest, snatches up the opossum and shakes it, snapping its neck. The opossum dangles from the jaws of a wolf. No, not a wolf. Yes, a wolf, only … huge. Could it … can it be …?

“A direwolf,” Jaime breathes, amazed. He flattens himself to the ground to watch it feed. The animal’s foreleg muscles tense as it presses its paws down onto the opossum’s head to stabilize it while it eviscerates the belly. Over the wind, Jaime just catches the sounds of the direwolf’s jaws ripping apart the flesh and champing the bloody meat. The beast lowers itself to the ground, nosing into the carcass, tearing off great hunks of muscle and bone as it feeds. It is grisly work, and Jaime cannot help but imagine the scene at the Red Wedding; it is said that men chopped Robb Stark’s head off his body and sewed his direwolf’s head on in its place, nailing on the lad’s crown in scorn. Everyone knew the Stark direwolves never left their masters; the mutilation was a gruesome parody of that unbreakable bond.

“What are you doing here?” he whispers. Direwolves live in the North. They never wander this far south, unless …

Arya Stark. Sansa’s sister had a direwolf, hadn’t she? Everyone knew she’d driven the she-wolf away to protect her from Cersei’s justice after Joffrey was bitten. Jaime had no doubt that the animal was only protecting the Stark girl, but Joffrey himself was like a dog with a bone and would not rest until someone paid. It was Sansa’s own direwolf that had paid the price, but where had Arya’s gone? Could this be the very one?

Jaime slowly turns his head to look for the man on guard, but he is facing in the opposite direction, his crossbow still half-raised, searching in vain for the wolf whose howl they both heard. Oddly relieved that his discovery is his own, and that this magnificent creature is safe for now, Jaime turns back to watch, fascinated, until the she-wolf is sated and has begun to wander back into the forest, her lanky haunches undulating with each heavy step. Then he stands, shivering and with heart pounding, and goes back to the small pavilion he shares with his bride.

Thankfully, it’s warmer inside out of the wind, and he shrugs off his cloak after shutting the canvas flap behind him. It takes a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness as he feels his way to their makeshift bed and furs. Sansa sleeps quietly, facing him. Her skin is pale as alabaster in the dimness. As he settles in beside her, he sees that during her sleep she has clutched something to her breast, her fingers wrapped gently around it.

His golden hand.

***

“Wake up, Sansa.”

The sun is not up yet, but it will be soon, along with everyone else in their caravan.

Sansa sits bolt upright, as if expecting some horror, though her voice is measured as always. “My lord.”

“Get dressed. There’s something I want to show you.” If it’s still there.

He turns his back to her to give her privacy as she shrugs dutifully into a traveling frock and cloak. Their servants still sleep, which is exactly what he wants; hopefully no one but the guard on duty is awake. He retrieves his golden hand and tucks it under his arm.

Sansa bends to pick up her needlework, but Jaime takes her elbow before she reaches it. “Come.”

They exit the darkness of the tent into the grey stillness of pre-dawn. The wind is calm for the moment. Dew glistens on the dry grass beneath their feet, and the mountains in the distance are wreathed in mist, which softens their jagged peaks. Jaime greets the man taking the final night’s shift on watch, a new one who looks like he could be the first one’s cousin; this one keeps his sword sheathed at his side. Jaime steers Sansa through the cold campfires, and she must trot to keep up with him. She does not ask him where they go, or why. He wishes she would.

When they near the edge of the hill where he saw the direwolf, he beckons her to move slowly and quietly. They sit together, knees almost touching, Sansa on Jaime’s left. It is cold, but the thrill of anticipation makes Jaime feel almost warm. The chances of seeing the she-wolf again are slim, Jaime knows, but he cannot help hoping.

He positions his golden hand over his stump and begins to tighten the straps. It is awkward, though he has improved and can do it alone, given time. The muscles of his right forearm have atrophied, now that he has no fingers to flex and can no longer grip the heavy weight of his sword. His forearm looks as it did when he was a boy, skinny and innocent.

Sansa watches his efforts, her expression revealing nothing. But soon she leans forward and places a hesitant hand on the strap he’s tightening. “May I, my lord?”

He rests his good hand on his knee and looks into her face, wanting to give her a smile of thanks, but she will not return his gaze. She immediately begins working on the straps, fitting them snugly around his forearm as if she’s done this before. An image explodes into his mind from his dream last night – Sansa crying while she stitched his hand to his wrist – and his face flushes like a schoolboy’s. “Thank you,” he says, more curtly than he intended. He wants her to stop calling him “my lord” and to call him Jaime, but he cannot bring himself to ask it of her. Instead he says, as gently as he can, “Tell me about your sister.”

Sansa inhales sharply and looks directly at him, and he is shocked by the intensity of her gaze. But she quickly looks down again to finish the final strap, and she speaks in a low, cool voice. “Why do you ask, my lord?”

Why indeed? “I am … curious.” When she does not reply, he asks, “Have I upset you?”

Sansa lifts her chin and looks into the forest. “Not at all, my lord.”

“Then …?”

She sighs and blinks several times. “It’s only … I dreamed of Arya last night.” Was that why she was crying in her sleep? Jaime places his good hand over the golden one on his lap and waits. With nowhere to look but into the forest or at him, Sansa practically squirms. Possibly to fill the silence, she continues. “I heard her calling me, but I couldn’t reach her. I couldn’t even see her. She was alone. I had … I had her sword. I was supposed to protect her.” She frowns down at the hands in her lap, and rubs her thumbs across her fingers as if feeling something invisible there. A wrinkle forms between her eyebrows.

This is the most Sansa has said to Jaime during the entire seven days of their marriage. He wants her to keep talking. “You care for her.”

She nods, pressing her lips together but still not meeting his eyes. The sun is not up yet, but the promise of light is slowly bringing color into the world again. A gust of wind blows Sansa’s unbraided hair behind her like a banner of fire.

Jaime waits, but she does not go on. “I was supposed to protect my brother, too,” he says, and he cannot quite believe those words have just come out of his mouth, but it’s too late to take them back. He might as well admit it to someone. “I don’t think I did a very good job of it.”

Sansa is looking into the woods again, but she lowers her gaze slightly in his direction, and Jaime feels that she is somehow more with him than she’s ever been. He keeps talking. “We’re very different, Tyrion and I.” Sansa’s cheeks redden, and he reminds himself that she was Tyrion’s wife, too. They have never spoken of him, but Jaime thinks now that they should. “He was kind to you?”

Sansa’s flush deepens and she darts her eyes briefly to the front of Jaime’s cloak. “Most kind.”

I can be kind, too. “I am glad of it.”

Jaime believes that Tyrion didn’t force himself on Sansa. And if Littlefinger hadn’t ruined her, perhaps Jaime wouldn’t have expected to bed her, either. Not at first, anyhow. She is still so very young; and though she is courageous, it is the defensive strength of one who has been wounded too many times. But at their wedding they’d both had too much wine, and Cersei had raised a glass and toasted them with barbed words more times than Jaime cared to count. So, when the wedding revelers had shoved them naked into their bedchamber and slammed the door behind them, they’d reached for each other as if there was some sort of salvation to be found in each other’s arms.

“Arya and I are very different, too,” says Sansa, and for once the deliberate quality in her voice is replaced by something else – sadness, possibly, perhaps even regret. Jaime cannot fully qualify it yet, but he makes note of it all the same. “She would have preferred to be a knight, I think.”

Jaime thinks of Brienne, and a pang of emotion tightens his chest. “Knighthood isn’t everything they tell you it is.”

Her gaze flickers to his for a split second and she stammers, “I – I am sorry, my lord. I didn’t intend to mention – ”

She thinks I speak of myself, of the loss of my white cloak. “It’s all right. Go on.”

They sit in silence until the redness leaves Sansa’s cheeks. “I always wanted to be a lady. Even a queen.” Her gaze drops to her hands again, her expression darkening, and her tone is bitter. “Someone beautiful and good and important.”

Jaime does not know what to say about Joffrey. It must be true, what he’d heard about how the boy had abused Sansa. He shoves aside thoughts of his son and swiftly regroups. “I have learned over the years that beauty and goodness and importance are relative. And only sometimes are they perceived properly by the eye of the beholder.”

Sansa opens her mouth to speak, but closes it again. They are quiet for a time. Finally she asks, “Do you think your brother is alive?”

Jaime looks hard into Sansa’s placid face as she gazes into the forest. “I truly hope he is.” He swallows. “He must be.” He has to be. “With his wit, I think he is too cantankerous to die. I like to imagine that only a wordsmith greater than Tyrion himself could do him in. Mortally wounded by sharp, pointed words.”

Sansa smiles at that, but then the smile falters as she juts her head forward and narrows her eyes. Jaime follows her gaze and sees a flank of grey through the trees. Unable to believe their luck, he touches Sansa’s arm and gestures her to follow as he flattens himself to the ground. She mimics his position, her hands fisting the dry grass just beneath her shoulders.

And then the direwolf appears. She saunters just past the edge of the treeline and sits, licking her chops and sniffing the air. Jaime’s heart begins to pound, just as it did last night.

Sansa whispers, “Nymeria. ” Then she leaps to her feet with a tremulous voice. “Nymeria!”

Jaime stands with her, his heart swelling with gratification that the creature returned. He hadn’t known how much he’d needed the direwolf to show herself to Sansa until it happened. Sansa’s face seems about to split from the huge grin on it, and she reaches out with her right hand until she finds Jaime’s left shoulder. She grips it hard. Jaime places his hand on top of hers and squeezes. Aside from their wedding night, it’s the first time she has touched him without thinking about it first, and he finds himself grinning, too.

The direwolf has not bounded away yet; she seems to be waiting for something. She reaches out with her forepaws and yawns and stretches, haunches in the air. Then she stands on all four feet and yips several times in Sansa’s direction before turning and disappearing back into the trees.

Sansa looks at Jaime and smiles, her blue eyes alive for the first time; and it seems that, at that very moment, the sun rises over the horizon and bathes both of them in golden light. He smiles back and grasps her hand, squeezes it, and takes a step toward the forest, never taking his eyes off her. Her smile broadens and she nods.

Hand in hand, they run together after the direwolf.

Under the dim canopy of the trees, they follow the beast as she leaps over fallen trees and protruding roots, rustling through the pine needles and startling squirrels and birds from their foraging. The forest is alive with movement and sound, and the crisp morning air sears their lungs as they race after the direwolf. Jaime has a moment of panic as he remembers his sword is still in their tent; the she-wolf could turn and attack at any second and they would be defenseless. But what sort of protection could he offer Sansa anyhow with his left arm? His fear subsides, however, as he realizes the wolf only wants to escape, and they have already lost sight of her.

They slow to a walk, their heavy breathing making puffs of vapor in the sharp morning air. Sansa is still gripping his hand. “She lives.” Sansa laughs, a burst of happy surprise and certainty. “She lives!” Her laughter rings through the forest as she sinks to her knees on a bed of needles and pine cones; Jaime kneels with her, still holding her hand. “Arya lives, she lives, she lives, she lives!” Now her breath is hitching as tears begin to run down her face, and all at once she is sobbing. “She lives!” Jaime gathers Sansa into his arms and pulls her roughly to his chest. “She lives! My sister – my sister – ”

Jaime strokes his bride’s hair and rocks her in his lap for a long while until her tears cease. He is surprised by how deeply her tears move him, and by how grateful he is to feel useful to her – and needed by her – at last. Somehow he doesn’t doubt that Sansa is right, that Nymeria’s existence means that Arya must be alive, somewhere. He feels a jolt of sorrow that Sansa’s own direwolf was killed, and by his own blood. He squeezes her more tightly; Sansa may have lost her direwolf, but now she has a lion.

Birds chirp all around them, and soon the fresh scent of tree resin is joined by the savory smell of cookfires roasting rabbit and fowl and squirrel. When their servants go to their pavilion, they will be missed. Jaime does not want to let go, but he disengages an inch from their embrace and, with a finger, tilts Sansa’s face up to his. He wipes the tears from her cheeks and smiles, then places a tender kiss on her lips. He is about to rise and pull her up with him, but she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him soundly. After a moment his arms snake around her waist and he surrenders to her gratitude, her passion. Intertwined like this, he feels happier than he has felt in months, and he does not want this kiss to end.

But soon they hear the shouts of servants searching for their lord and lady. Reluctantly, Jaime gives Sansa one last kiss and stands, offering his hand for her to rise.

She takes his hand and looks over his shoulder to the campsite. “I suppose we must return, my lord.”

Is that disappointment in her voice? “Will you not call me Jaime?”

She flushes but nods, her eyes still shining and meeting his with confidence. “Jaime.”

With that single word, something he hadn’t even known was torn inside his heart mends. He smiles. “Shall we, Sansa?”

She takes his offered arm and they walk slowly back to the camp, their eyes on each other the entire journey.

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Be Here Now

bratanimus — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 18:45:50 GMT

Title: Be Here Now
Author: bratanimus
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Sansa
Prompt(s): Bleed for me, and photo of woman floating in water
Word Count: 2,386
Rating & Warnings: T for blood, postpartum complications, references to violence
Summary: Jaime finally has a wife and child he can call his own, but can he be there for them?
Authoer's Note: Written for the gameofships Shipwrecks Angst-a-Thon. Thank you to my excellent beta, mrstater!

The serving women sop up the blood, wipe her thighs, replace the bedclothes. There is every shade of blood, from a peculiar watery pinkness like apricot wine to thick gobbets of purple-red like a man’s innards once his belly has been sliced open, and an unfamiliar odor emits from all of it, though the servants have been good about removing the soaked bedclothes as quickly as they can. Who knew a woman could bleed so much, especially Jaime’s little bride, who is so tiny? He has tried to remain mildly but steadily drunk for the past several hours, after the baby’s birth, when the bleeding began. He knows he should be fully present; but how can he be here now, in the midst of this terror, when it’s Sansa, and when it’s the first child he can call his own and say it out loud? He’s seen blood, that’s nothing new, but this … this …

I’m on the battlefield and blood is in my eyes as I slice across a stranger’s face and then he’s dead. I am the angel of death. Everyone I hate and everyone I love will die.

There’s a word he cannot bear to think. A man needs his woman; perhaps he needs his more than most. Sansa cannot die. She cannot abandon him, because a woman deserting a man shouldn’t happen to a Lannister even once. But twice, three times counting his mother, would be unfathomable. Jaime again scolds himself to pull himself together because Sansa needs him more than he needs her for once, and the tiny babe is with the servants, somewhere else close by in the castle, crying for her mother …

They dashed out the brains of that Targaryen baby and I felt next to nothing when I heard of it, no pang of sympathy, no fear by proxy. Later, I didn’t have nightmares of it happening to Cersei’s – my – children. What kind of monster am I? One who shoves a child through a window and hopes he will die. Am I even fit to be a father? For that matter, Sansa’s husband?

“Come back,” Sansa would say, if she weren’t drifting in and out of consciousness. “Come back, my love,” she would whisper in the night when he was torturing himself, when the past loomed larger than the present. He’s gone again, he knows it, and he must come back. He hurls the drained goblet into the fireplace, and the flames sputter and rage as if offended by his childish offering. The midwife is still crouched between Sansa’s crimson thighs with her dark leathern satchel full of remedies, and Jaime hovers, not knowing what to do. The bloodstain between Sansa’s legs threatens to drown him again so he calls to mind something happier …

Sansa on our wedding day. Crimson and gold. Red braids and ringlets framing porcelain skin, blushing cheeks, such ruby lips, and the ever-downcast eyes. She never looks directly at me. The ones who titter behind their fingers think they know her, particularly the ones who know her least. She’s a child, she’s an idiot, a pawn, a traitor’s daughter; she’s a Stark, she’s a Tully. No. She’s a Lannister now, and she’s mine, for once, for the gods and all to see, and I cannot tell anyone that I think I’m already falling in love with her, because at last someone truly belongs to me, even if she cost me all the other things that I thought were mine.

Sansa’s face is waxen now, a deathly pallor with deep purple shadows under her gold-red lashes. Jaime moistens another clean rag in the basin next to the fireplace and presses the cloth to her cheeks and forehead. She sighs, but her eyes do not open. The thundering of the Sunset Sea under the castle echoes across the stone walls and down the corridors, and the lamps gutter even though there should be no draft in the bedchamber. Jaime shudders. He must do something more, so he crouches next to the dour old midwife – what is her name? Meryle? Merriwyn? – who still huddles at the foot of the bed. He begins his urgent whispering again. Squatting right on the floor, the healer crushes strange herbs and roots in a mortar, and she glares at him to give her space. He stands and paces from the mantel to the closed window, and in the glass he catches a glimpse of his own gaunt face. Suddenly he wonders where they took the child, the girl. His girl, his. She is his, he cannot forget that …

But Cersei never let me hold it, I mean him, him, her, that was always forbidden. Was that how she wanted it? So the children would be hers alone? They were practically strangers to me, and I to them.

The Stark clan were strangers all, the ones Sansa lost, and the ones Jaime wanted to kill, but somehow, and more desperately than he thinks possible, he wants them to be here for her now because she needs someone and Jaime is not enough, has never been enough, even though she tells him and shows him a hundred different ways that she thinks he is.

Whatever I did was never enough for Cersei, or father, even when I decided everything for our family by forevermore underlining my name in the blood of Aerys.

“Come back,” Sansa would say. Are all his memories horrors? No. Not since Sansa.

We have just begun our journey from King’s Landing heading northwest to Casterly Rock when I see the direwolf prowling in the night. At dawn I draw Sansa toward the top of the hillock where I last saw the animal, and we crouch down, hands in the dry, white grass. It is cold, but anticipation makes me feel almost warm. We wait, and wait, and wait, downwind of a copse of trees below us in a shallow valley. Then, miraculously, the she-wolf saunters out and sits on her haunches, licking her chops and sniffing the air. “Nymeria!” Sansa breathes, standing at once, and I am euphoric that my hunch was correct, that it was her sister’s wolf; what other direwolf would have wandered this far south? Sansa clutches my shoulder, the first time she’s touched me without thinking about it first, and I cannot tear my eyes from her face. But the direwolf bounds away, back into the forest. Sansa looks at me and breaks into a smile, her first real smile at me, and it’s like clouds have parted to allow the sun’s rays to flood the desolate earth. I grin back, grab her hand, and we run after the direwolf together.

They never caught up to Nymeria, but Sansa was certain the fact that the direwolf lived meant that Arya still lived, somewhere. Sansa’s Lady died years ago, yet another casualty of coming too close to Lannisters. What does that death mean for Sansa, if Arya lives because Nymeria does?

I am the angel of death.

Jaime shakes his head and comes back to his wife’s side, taking her limp white hand in his good one. The midwife brings a noxious-smelling concoction to Sansa’s lips and tilts the horn. Some of it dribbles darkly down Sansa’s chin and she coughs, but then her lips pucker to take another sip as the midwife mutters encouragement. Jaime grips Sansa’s hand tightly as she takes another sip, then another, and another. She begins to moan in pain. Jaime looks to the midwife, who sets the horn aside on a table and begins to massage Sansa’s belly roughly. Sansa groans, and her eyes flutter open for a moment, but then they close again.

Sansa’s legs lie limply around the bloodstain. Does Casterly Rock even have enough bedclothes for this river of blood? He cannot dare to hope, but they haven’t brought new ones to the bedchamber in what seems quite a while. The other serving women must be with the babe now, for it has only been the midwife and himself with Sansa for the past hour. His heart contracts in horror. Have they given up on the mother and decided to spend their energies only on the infant? Would servants dare to decide this without speaking to their lord? He begins to spin out punishments in his mind. But no, he cannot, he must be here now for the child, and for his little bride.

Even though you wouldn’t for Joffrey and Myrcella and Tommen. For Cersei. For Tyrion and Tysha. For Brienne. For Mother.

Stop it, he thinks. Now is what matters. Sansa, his Sansa, so fierce inside her small and quiet habitus, is a mother now, and there is one thing she needs. Shaking his head to try to clear the fogginess of the wine, he stalks from the bedchamber.

“WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?” he bellows into the empty corridor.

There is a quick scuffling, and a brown-haired girl peers from the doorway to the guest rooms at the end of the hall. “Just in here, m’lord,” the mousy servant replies. She steps into the corridor, wringing a cloth around her hands. “We were washing her. I’ll go and fetch her.”

But in long strides he is already there. Two other servants bending over the child’s cot back away as he lunges toward them.

The baby is swaddled already, and Jaime looks her over. She is pink and wrinkled, with faint traces of blood and some fatty substance still clinging to her lashes and in the folds around her tiny nose. She is roaring and growling with gusto, her eyes screwed up tight, perhaps trying to shut out this mad new world already; and Jaime actually laughs, feeling strange for doing so, but there’s nothing else he can do when he looks at her and sees her tiny, brave perfection. Without thinking, he picks up the infant in his mismatched hands, marveling for a moment that she weighs nothing, and begins to shush her, pressing his nose to hers. The girl quiets and opens eyes that are the deep metal blue of the sea that rages outside the open window.

An open window in the dead of winter? “Close that,” Jaime orders, and a servant obeys. It’s too cold for a newborn babe, shouldn’t these women know?

He can’t tear his gaze from the baby because it’s Sansa in miniature, in his awkward arms, her head aflame and her tiny fists grasping. He offers her his good pinky, which she squeezes at once. Then he turns from the cot and pads softly down the corridor back to his wife.

What was he thinking? What was all that nonsense about Sansa and the child being his? He is theirs.

Back in their bedchamber, the midwife is still massaging Sansa’s abdomen. Jaime deposits the infant on her mother’s breast and holds her there with his left hand. The baby starts rooting immediately, trying to find nourishment through the sweat-drenched dressing gown. The midwife moves to Sansa’s feet again. Jaime looks into Sansa’s pallid face, listens to her breathing. At a loss for anything else to do, he leans forward and kisses her pale lips.

“Come back,” he says. He kisses her again. “Come back, my love.” Another kiss. “Come back to me, Sansa.”

Then Sansa’s lips meet his, though her eyes are still closed, and she returns his kiss once, twice, three times. Jaime sobs for a moment into her kisses, then kisses her more firmly; he must be strong for her now. Her eyes flutter open and one weak hand reaches up slowly to caress his jaw. “Where have I been?” she whispers. Jaime smiles and kisses her once more.

The midwife stands, knees cracking, and tells them, “Lady Lannister is no longer bleeding. Praise the Mother for providing herbs for a young mother in her time of need. Dorcas,” she says, speaking to the mousy servant who is now lingering in the doorway, “ask the kitchen to prepare meat and lentils and greens. Milk and mead for drink. My lady needs all her strength for the little one.” Dorcas hurries away.

“Thank you, Merriwyn,” Sansa says. Cradling the baby, she tries to sit up, but she blanches and falls back onto the pillow. Jaime touches her shoulder with his golden hand, still holding the baby with his left, and raises his eyebrows at her: Lie still. Sansa nods. “You were most kind,” she says, ever courteous as she turns her gaze toward the woman. The healer smiles at her lord and lady, curtsies stiffly, and goes to wash her hands in the basin of clean water. Jaime notices she keeps her eyes on her charge, and once her hands and forearms are clean, she sits on the wooden stool next to the fire. She isn’t leaving.

“Thank you,” Jaime says to the midwife. “I will not forget this.” The woman nods once more and rests her hands on the bloodstained folds of her skirts.

“Oh,” says Sansa as she stares at their baby. “She’s … she’s perfect.” Sansa looks at Jaime and smiles, and his heart thuds in response. He wants to shout and weep and thank all the gods he knows and even the ones he doesn’t, so he kisses his bride’s forehead and presses the baby closer. Sansa unlaces her dressing gown and the baby noses nearer to her breast. She and Jaime both watch in awe as the baby, with a little steering by Sansa, begins to nurse. They all are quiet for several minutes, except for the tiny satisfied noises from the feeding infant.

“Little Cate,” Sansa whispers.

Her mother’s name was the least he could allow, given that Sansa had relinquished Winterfell to the Iron Throne, become a stranger in a new home here at Casterly Rock, and lost her family. And, in an odd way, he owes today to Catelyn Stark. She’d given him a chance.

Jaime watches Sansa cooing over the child. Does she have any idea of how badly she’d frightened him? Probably not; she’s had other things on her mind for the past day and a half.

“She’s finally here,” says Sansa, breathless.

“Yes,” says Jaime, kissing the back of the nursing baby’s head and peering up at his wife. “Welcome home.”

***

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! I hope to write a longer one-shot of the flashback scene in which Jaime and Sansa see the direwolf, because that just won't leave me alone. ;)

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons

bratanimus — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 12:11:16 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: The Wrong Things for the Right Reasons
Fandom: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
Pairing: Jaime/Brienne
Prompt(s): Dishonor
Word Count: 3,162
Rating & Warnings: T for mild language, sexual situations, and implied violence and death
Summary: On what may be the last night of their lives, Jaime and Brienne discover that their actions and motivations are not so different after all.
Author’s Note: Written for the gameofships Shipwrecks Angst-a-Thon challenge. Many thanks to my beta, mrstater! Any mistakes you see are mine. ;)

Snow falls silently outside the stable, and the hush in the air is so complete that Jaime can feel his heart pounding in his ears. He smells the musky sweat and pungent dung of their horses in the adjoining stalls. He hears the horses’ nickering, as well as the steady crackle of the small fire outside and the occasional mutterings of the two men guarding the wooden structure. His fellow prisoner sits across from him against the wooden slats of their stall, her blond head bowed, hands clasped across bent knees.

Jaime muses that in the darkness he and Brienne could almost be mistaken for brothers. They both are long and sinewy, and they are dressed alike, in woolen breeches and shirts and leather boots. But their armor has been seized, along with their weapons, their horses, and Jaime’s golden hand. Their boots will likely be taken tomorrow morning, after they are hanged. Their captors will ride the horses, wear the boots and whatever armor fits, and sell the rest. They won’t fetch the price they should, particularly for the hand, not in these times. Perhaps they will sell it to a jewelsmith, who will melt it down. The thought of his hand transformed into something lovely adorning a lady’s throat makes his mouth quirk in a wry smile. It wasn’t long ago that he dreamed of it strangling Cersei.

Brienne begged Lady Stoneheart to release Podrick; but the woman turned her back on the two traitors, commanding that she and Jaime spend the night together in the stable, “to atone for such a wicked alliance,” before their hanging in the morning. Perhaps she was hoping they would freeze to death in the night, slowly.

Hours have passed since Jaime and Brienne were put in their little prison; now a full moon slices gashes of light through the decaying roof. When they were first shoved inside and the door was barred behind them, Jaime had paced their cell; but he’d found no way to escape, and Brienne had not tried. He’d cursed her for a craven, and she’d slumped down at his feet. She has not moved from the spot since then, save for a small shrug when he placed a horse blanket around her shoulders. She told him, when they arrived at the camp at dusk and were surrounded, that she did it for Podrick, that she and Jaime both deserved to die because they hadn’t kept their promises, and that Pod had done nothing wrong; she had to keep the boy from paying for her mistakes with his life.

Jaime had trusted her. He’s kept all his promises to her, and then some. And yet he cannot fault her. He did deserve to die, so many times over. He’d refused to die, time after time, when by all rights he should have. But he trusts Brienne; yes, he still does trust the wench, after all this. Perhaps she is right. Perhaps tomorrow is the day he should die. Who’s to say she is wrong? How many times can a man outrun the Stranger? Besides, Podrick saved Tyrion’s life in the Battle of the Blackwater; perhaps Jaime’s death would release his brother – wherever he was – from the boy’s debt.

And moreover, Jaime is too weary to remain angry with Brienne for bringing him here. It’s the dead of night, it’s freezing cold, and Brienne has lost hope, which frightens him more than he would ever admit aloud. After all, she kept him from giving up when he lost his hand; but now that it’s her turn to despair, he doesn’t quite know what to do with her.

They will don their nooses together in the morning, and Jaime does take comfort in the thought that he won’t be dying alone … but he doesn’t really wish it to be Brienne dying with him. She deserves better. Nevertheless, he crawls awkwardly through the dirty straw – with one hand, everything is awkward – and sits on the earthen floor next to her for warmth. He nestles under the blanket with her, and she stiffens.

“Oh, come now,” he whispers. Not a word has been uttered above a low murmur since their incarceration, because of the guards outside. “It’s our last night on earth. No need to be prudish. I’m cold, and so are you. I can see you shivering.”

Brienne does not reply, but as she inhales Jaime hears her teeth chatter.

“Not even a snuggle?” he prods, jostling her shoulder with his. When there is no reply, he sighs. “As usual, you’re too honorable for me.”

Brienne raises her head to stare at the wooden beams opposite them. “I’m too lots of things for many people.”

“Oh, and philosophical, as well? Tell me more.” He might as well have a thought-provoking conversation on the last night of his life.

Brienne merely darts a sideways glance at him, then fixes her eyes on her hands again.

It is so cold that Jaime’s stump feels prickly, and there’s an ache in the memory of his fingers. He tucks his right arm into his left armpit, but finds small comfort. After a moment, he snakes his left arm around Brienne, pressing the stump between them. They do not speak for minutes. Her body is rigid at first; but as they sit, it slowly relaxes. Though she is taller than he is, her waist is curved, like a woman’s, under the man’s breeches and shapeless woolen shirt. Who would have thought? His manhood stirs, which amuses him somewhat, as fucking should be the last thing on his mind. Perhaps facing certain death at sunrise does strange things to people.

“We have nothing to lose,” Jaime says, almost to himself. “We might as well be warm.”

She looks at him then, the bandage on her left cheek a faint gray in the moonlight. Her deep blue eyes look almost black in the dimness.

“You’re right,” she finally admits. And she scoots closer to him so that her right torso, hip, thigh, and calf are touching his left. He tightens his grip around her waist and she shivers, whether from the cold or embarrassment or something else he cannot tell.

The two guards – Jaime doesn’t know their names as Lady Stoneheart did not grant him the courtesy of an introduction – pace around the stable, one complaining to the other that the cold is going to freeze his hand to his cock when he takes a piss. At least Jaime and Brienne have a bit of shelter from the wind, although the men have a fire. Lady Stoneheart and her Brotherhood are camped in the warmth of the old stone farmhouse up the hill, probably enjoying a roaring fire in the hearth as they sleep the dreamless sleep of the blameless.

“Why don’t you kill me now?” Brienne whispers.

The question takes him utterly by surprise. “Why would I do that?”

“For the satisfaction of it. I betrayed you.”

Jaime is silent for a time. “We’ve both done wrong for the right reasons. At least – ” He swallows. “ – at least that’s how I see it.”

Brienne chuckles. It’s a quiet, breathy sort of sound, and it takes Jaime a second or two to recognize it as laughter because he can’t recall ever hearing her laugh. “Sometimes I wish I had your conscience,” she says.

“I wouldn’t wish it on you. It’s grown heavier of late.”

She looks at him and they both slowly smile, though the sadness does not leave her eyes. Underneath the anger and fear and despair, Jaime feels something strange. Is it shyness? Whatever it is, it’s something he’s not used to. He’s never been able to figure out what it is that Brienne has unleashed in him, what makes him dream of her in such odd and erotic ways. It’s not her beauty, and Jaime is fully aware that he is not skilled in looking much deeper than that.

Brienne turns away. “I will die a maiden,” she says suddenly, as if surprised by the realization. “I wonder if the Maiden or the Warrior will claim me.”

This time Jaime chuckles.

“Don’t laugh,” she says. “You don’t know what it is not to know what you are. You know the Warrior will meet you when you die.”

“Ah, but will he? I think it will be the Stranger. I’ve delivered so many souls to him – and some of them were quite important, from what I’ve heard – he probably wants to thank me personally.”

“You jape.”

“Do I?”

Brienne watches him carefully. “Quite often, yes.”

“Then I must be japing now.”

They fall silent again. Brienne’s shivering has subsided, and Jaime feels warmer. “Perhaps the Warrior will take me,” Brienne says, as if saying it will make it true.

“Do you really believe in the Seven?”

After a protracted silence, she sighs. “I don’t know. They’ve never guided my hand, never helped me succeed in protecting anyone I was sworn to protect. Except for Podrick, and I was never sworn to him. But the price for that is my death. And yours.” Her eyes flicker to his.

“Seems rather a steep price for one boy.”

Brienne tilts her head at him.

“If you ask me.”

“I wasn’t asking you.”

“My apologies, my lady.” He bows his head courteously and smiles. She looks at his mouth and then back to her clasped hands. Their breath steams in the cold air. Soon Jaime sees her eyes glistening in the moonlight. Tears? This is new, so he must ask. “What is it?”

She shakes her head, rubs a hand roughly over her eyes.

“Come on,” he whispers. “We die tomorrow. What can it hurt?”

“You – ” Her voice breaks, her hands clutch each other tightly. “You are the first person – ” She cannot go on.

Jaime’s heart pounds, insistent. With his left hand he reaches up and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. Brienne doesn’t pull away.

She inhales, lowers her chin, and squares her shoulders, determined to speak, though she still won’t face him. “At first I hated you mocking me. Calling me ‘wench.’ But somehow you have become the most – the most sincere person I know.”

Now Brienne looks at him, waiting for his response. Jaime has been called many things, but sincere? They regard each other solemnly, the exhalations from their nostrils creating puffs of steam between them as if they were two dragons about to fight or mate, and then Jaime begins to snicker. It grows into a chuckle, and before long it’s a full-out guffaw. Brienne’s face is crestfallen, but then, when the guards start rapping on the barred door and hissing that the Kingslayer ought to shut his cakehole, laughter bubbles up in Brienne.

And the sound is exquisite. Her laughter is girlish, perhaps the only girlish thing about her. It is light and musical and, for the first time since he’s known her, completely unguarded. It softens her features and she looks quite striking – almost feminine, perhaps even pretty – for a moment. Aside from a reprieve, nothing could have shocked Jaime more on this night. Again there is angry rapping on the door. Tears spring to his eyes as he cackles even harder, and he appreciatively gropes the curve of her waist, practically wallowing in the unexpected femininity he has discovered there. Brienne shrieks at his grasp and snorts with laughter. He is dimly aware that they are perilously close to hysteria.

“What is wrong with me?” she manages, wiping her eyes through hiccupped breaths. “I trust you more than anyone I’ve ever known. Am I insane?”

“You are beautiful,” he says in his delight.

Abruptly her laughter stops, her eyes become vulnerable. “Do not jape.”

He stops laughing, too, and angles his head to look straight at her. “I wouldn’t jape about that. Not tonight.”

“I’ve never been beautiful. And now look at my face,” she says, gesturing disgustedly at the dressing on her left cheek.

“I’ve never been trustworthy. And now look at my hand,” he says, brandishing his stump like a sword. “Serves us right.”

Brienne’s eyes widen and at once they are snickering again, this time more quietly, like children trying not to wake the parents, and Jaime feels that perhaps they both are insane; but at least they are happy lunatics. They might as well be, on the eve before their deaths.

After another minute, their laughter dwindles, and Jaime considers the notion that Brienne’s might well be the last laughter he ever hears. He speaks without thinking.

“I should very much like to kiss you, Brienne of Tarth.”

She becomes as still as stone and looks down at her hands. His heart is thudding as if he’s ridden onto a battlefield and is waiting for the first attack. He has just begun to wonder if she is ignoring the statement when she says, quietly, “If it please you, my lord.”

Certainty floods Jaime, and he moves at once. Brienne has turned her injured cheek away from him, so he leans closer and brushes his lips across the other, inhaling her sweat and finding the scent pleasant and somehow familiar. Though she remains still, she doesn’t resist, so he keeps kissing his way across her cheekbone down to the corner of her mouth, and little by little his kisses coax her to turn her head towards him. He hovers at her lips and they breathe together, making warm vapor between them, and he muses once again how beautiful her eyes truly are, especially now when there is an undeniable expectation in them, and then their mouths meet.

Her lips are not Cersei’s, not by any stretch of the imagination; they are rougher, fuller, and certainly less practiced. But there is something behind Brienne’s kisses – something that has been missing from Cersei’s for years, Jaime realizes – and he can only call it intention. And he is grateful, oh, so very grateful for it. When she finally reaches for him, her hands are surprisingly gentle on his unshaven jaw, and his own hand creeps up to caress her unmarred cheek. So soft. Their kisses grow more frantic and quickly they are on their knees together, their blanket falling to the ground. His good hand finds her hip and wrenches her against him, and she gasps – such a womanly sound, it makes his body thrum and his cock strain against his breeches – as her body feels him. She slides the inner portion of her right thigh up the outside of his left, planting her boot in the straw for balance, and he takes full advantage by grabbing a handful of her rump, reveling in its firmness, and pressing again into the heat between her legs. He is rewarded by a throaty whimper and the surprising plunge of her tongue into his mouth. He groans, and he gives her his own tongue gladly, feeling almost euphoric at how swiftly she is learning to kiss him.

On another day, this would be wrong, but the time for considering right and wrong is long past; and anyhow, by all accounts he’s never been a very good judge of the two. All he knows is that Brienne is the one person who seems to accept him for exactly what he is, and a Lannister always pays his debts.

A night of firsts, a night of lasts. Through desperate kisses he whispers, “If you wish, I can help assure that it is not the Maiden who meets you tomorrow morning.”

Brienne pulls away, sitting back on her heels as her hands slip down to clutch Jaime’s waist. The both are breathing hard as they look at each other. She does not reach for the laces of his breeches, though, and with a jolt, it dawns on him that he might have offended her. He touches her cheek once more to soothe her while he catches his breath and tries to find the right words. But Brienne’s expression contains something milder than offense; could it be … wonder? Her mouth opens and closes, and he feels the cheek he is cradling flush with heat. At last she says, “I … I think I would need longer than a night to … grow accustomed to the idea.”

Jaime vaguely registers the sound of snow crunching outside behind the stable as he ponders what he’s just offered, and her refusal. Sudden disappointment tightens his chest, and he feels stunned. “Do you abhor me so much?”

“I – no!” She rises to her knees again and places her hands on his chest. They are face to face, and he wraps his hand around her wrist, unsure whether he wants to pull her closer or push her away. “No,” she insists. “It has nothing to do with – what I mean is – ”

“Shh!” Jaime places his fingers over her mouth and turns his head, listening. That was definitely a grunt that he heard outside, and that – yes, that was the thump of a body falling onto the snowy ground. Brienne has heard it, too.

There is another thump, and Jaime and Brienne stand as one, legs braced, prepared to fight, though they are defenseless and a hand short. She steps in front of him, and before he can react and push her behind him, the iron bar, with a quiet rasp, lifts and the wooden door opens a crack.

A whisper. “My lady?” Silhouetted in the moonlight, Podrick’s snow-covered head appears through the opening. “I mean, Ser? Oh, and … and you as well. I mean, Ser. My lord.” He nods to Jaime. Oathkeeper, bloodied, is in Podrick’s hand, and Brienne rushes to take the weapon from him.

With a little more luck tonight, come sunrise they will not be meeting the Maiden or the Warrior or the Stranger, for near the fire two bodies lie facedown in the snow, dark blood staining the white drifts beneath their bellies. The farmhouse is far enough away that Lady Stoneheart and the others likely did not hear or see a thing. Jaime’s and Brienne’s horses wait inside the stable that was of late their prison. A cache of weapons and supplies, prepared by Pod, sits beneath a nearby pine, and golden fingers protrude from the top of a sack. Jaime shakes his head; the boy has yet another Lannister in his debt now.

Brienne grips the boy’s shoulder, looking him carefully in the face. Podrick nods firmly; his conscience is clear, and he has made his choice. Brienne turns to Jaime, her hand still on Pod’s shoulder, her blue eyes shimmering in the moonlight. Snow falls softly on her pale hair; and standing tall with Oathkeeper in her hand, she is again the heroine Jaime needs her to be. Her voice does not quaver when she asks quietly, “What was that you were saying about doing the wrong things for the right reasons?”

Is that a smirk on her face?

“Bugger that,” mutters Jaime with a grin. “Let’s go.”

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: Look Behind You (Ten Drabbles)

bratanimus — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 16:46:26 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Fandom: ASOIAF
Character(s): Jaime, Aerys, Brienne, Catelyn, Tyrion, Tywin, Robert
Rating: T for suggested sexual themes
Author's Note: Written for the Shippy Sea Shanty challenge at gameofships. My selected character was Jaime.

Rules:
1. Pick a character or a pairing.
2. Put your music on shuffle/random and start playing songs.
3. For each song, write something inspired by the song related to your selected character/pairing. No pre-planning and no writing after the song is over. No skipping songs, either.
4. Write for 10 songs and post your results (with applicable warnings and rating) in the comments with a link to the rest if the word limit gets you. Be sure to include the song/artist.

1. King’s Crossing, by Elliott Smith

Open your parachute and grab your gun
Falling down like an omen, a setting sun
Read the part and return at five
It's a hell of a role if you can keep it alive

***

For the first time, Jaime knows who he is. Sword in hand, he is nearly complete. Swinging that piece of metal behind his head and through a man’s throat, he can almost forget his sweet addiction. He prepares for death every day, because don’t they deserve it? In his sister’s arms, everything is right. Everywhere else, it’s wrong. On the battlefield, the blood blinds him and the sounds drown out every doubt. This is who he is. It must be enough.

2. Destroy Everything You Touch, by Ladytron

You only have to look behind you
At who's underlined you
Destroy everything you touch today
Destroy me this way

***

In the moment before he ends Aerys’s life, Jaime thinks there is time to back out. But he’s never backed out of anything, and so the blade sinks in ridiculously easily. What a tiny little man lies on the stones, blood burbling out of his thin lips, and for once no insane chatter issues forth from them. The mad king is dead, and Jaime looks over the body to see the dust the king’s cloak has set flying in the still air of the throne room. He thinks it odd, that this is the last effect Aerys will have on anything, anyone. Jaime has brought an end to a madman’s whimsy. He can’t hurt anyone ever again and Jaime feels powerful and empty.

3. Girl in the War, by Josh Ritter

But I got a girl in the war Paul her eyes are like champagne
They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain

***

Her body is shaped almost like his, her hair shorter, her lips thinner and more guarded. She never laughs. Sometimes he dreams he is fucking her but then she turns into the Hound and she is fucking him and he wakes up aroused and horrified. If he could make her laugh, she might almost look like a woman, because her eyes – he might as well admit it – are prettier than Cersei’s. Kinder, more vulnerable. Bluer. And here she is, a woman, carrying a sword like him, killing men like him, betraying people just like he would, though she doesn’t mean to. He is afraid to sleep because of how she appears to him. The Hound is one image. Her own strong, naked body is another. And he wants to touch it.

4. Between the Bars, by Madeleine Peyroux (originally Elliott Smith)

People you've been before that you don't want around anymore
That push, shove, won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still

***

Catelyn offers more than wine, Jaime knows this. Her eyes are cruel, but her words could almost be a balm, if he listened right. This is a way out, and better than a way out: a way to make things pure again, or as pure as a man like him is likely to get. He drinks and lets her little speeches wash over him, and he begins to believe that someone like him could be trusted by someone like her, a mother of a broken boy, the wife of a righteous man who would never, ever betray a king.

5. Paths of Victory, by Cat Power (originally Bob Dylan)

I walked down to the valley
Turned my head up high
Seen that silver linin'
That was hangin' in the sky

***

He’s still on the horse, lashed to the wench. He can’t remember her name, though she keeps telling him. All he sees is a washed-out sky full of pregnant clouds, with the stench of his hand, his hand, always in his nostrils. It’s as if he’s eating his own flesh with every breath, so he tries not to breathe, but the body is a stubborn thing. He almost laughs as he realizes that she’s smelling it, too. It’s a strange meal they share on this horse.

6. Siren Song, by Bat for Lashes

I was a heart breaker I loved you
The same way I do
But I've got so much wickedness and sin

***

Cersei never lays her head on Jaime’s shoulder after they’ve made love. She can never slow down long enough to rest, and he wonders if she ever sleeps, truly. He’s seen her with her eyes closed, but he doesn’t think her brain turns off. She gets up now and puts on a robe and sits at her desk, shuffling through papers and grumbling to herself, as if she hadn’t just been sweating underneath his body, as if she hadn’t just bitten her lip to keep from screaming his name. There was a time when she would stay, but now there are too many people who need to be dazzled. Jaime was impressed too long ago and he doesn’t need her complete attention or her full-lipped smile anymore. He must be satisfied to watch from his pillow.

7. Hang Me Up to Dry, by Cold War Kids

Careless in our summer clothes
Splashing around in the muck and the mire

***

They rush into the sea fully clothed, not caring about the washer women who will have to soak the salt out of their finery. Tyrion stays in the shallows and kicks water at them. Jaime tries to dunk his sister, but really, he’s grabbing her ass and slipping a thumb under her smallclothes in front until she gasps. He’s stronger now, after all the battles, and she can’t stop him. She doesn’t want to stop him. He laughs and Cersei dives under the water, not so gently biting his cock through his breeches, and this time it’s his turn to gasp. They rule the world today, and no one, not even Tyrion, can stop them from kissing when she surfaces.

8. Somebody More Like You, by Nickel Creek

I didn't hear you say you're sorry
The fault must be mine
I wish you all the best of luck
At finding somebody more like you

***

It didn’t happen all at once. Her body widened after the birth of the children, the hair thinned a bit, wrinkles gathered at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth where she frowned. Hell, his own body was riddled with scars, no longer smooth and hairless. He had his share of wrinkles, and even a few grey hairs hidden amongst the blond ones. And then there was his hand.

But those changes didn’t matter, not really. What changed and mattered was the coldness in her eyes, and the way her body no longer molded itself to his in perfect puzzle seamlessness. She was as rigid as a sword, one that he could no longer wield.

9. Dinner at Eight, by Rufus Wainwright

No matter how strong
I'm gonna take you down
With one little stone
I'm gonna break you down
And see what you're worth
What you're really worth to me

***

As Jaime stands over the stinking body, the lack of his sword hand creating a massive ache that distracts from the empty thudding of his heart, he thinks of all the things he never said to his father. Could he once have said he loved him, perhaps when he was a child? It was possible. It was possible that Tywin told him that was soft and craven and that boys didn’t experience such emotions, that love was for weak, stupid girls. But Tywin had loved their mother, hadn’t he? Why did he get to feel love and not Jaime? He feels like a child now, and yet so weary and old and alone. Even Tommen’s tears cannot soften the stone of his heart.

10. The King Is Half Undressed, by Jellyfish

The fool deserves the bed he's made
Where idiots slumber

***

Jaime stands next to Tyrion on their sister’s wedding day. Her hair is a glorious halo, her gown a soft green satin that matches her eyes perfectly. Her skin is pale and untouched by brutish hands, unscratched by a black-haired barrel of a chest. She is a whore being bought today, and she smiles at the pathetic clod who is paying the price. She will spread her legs and get a crown for it. Jaime’s hand twitches on the hilt of his sword, but there can be no heroics today. It was his last act of heroism that ensured his sister would be sold like chattel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Reviews are better than Lannister gold. :)

Game of Thrones/ASOIAF Fic: The Siren's Call

bratanimus — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:06:05 GMT

Author: bratanimus
Title: The Siren’s Call
Pairing: Jaime/Cersei
Word Count: 2,326
Rating & Warnings: T for references to underage sex and incest, mild language, mild violence
Summary: Newly-knighted Jaime visits his siblings in King’s Landing and discovers the cost of thinking for himself.
Author’s Note: Written for the gameofships Hear Me Ship: A House Lannister Contest challenge. See all the fabulous entries here!

“Seven save us, what are you reading?”

Salty wind whipped Jaime’s hair into his mouth as he spoke, and he tugged it out with a finger. The other hand held an apple, which he bit into and tasted the spray of the Narrow Sea on it – salt and sweet, his two favorite flavors. The sun shone warm and bright on Blackwater Bay, a few lazy clouds drifted across blue sky, and he was a man grown.

Tyrion shifted on a mossy rock, flipping the leather-bound book to its cover to show Jaime. “A Complete History of Dragons. When I have my own dragon – ”

Jaime closed his eyes to conceal their rolling.

“ – I’ll need to know how best to care for it. Otherwise what sort of dragon master would I be? It’s a well-known fact that dragons are more delicate than they look for the first six months, and then …”

Jaime feigned interest and kept his mouth busy with his apple as Tyrion went on. The dreams of a six-year-old shouldn’t be trifled with, but his brother had spoken of nothing but dragons since Jaime had arrived in King’s Landing yesterday morning.

That blasted book was larger than Tyrion’s lap, and as thick as Jaime’s upper arm. “Precocious,” their father had called Tyrion’s early reading. Jaime had never read anything nearly as cumbersome before he’d left Casterly Rock four years ago, and it was doubtful he ever would. “Unlike animals, we think in words, therefore language is thought,” his father had informed nine-year-old Jaime as he struggled with the letter-shifting treachery of the written word. “If you can’t learn to read properly, how can you learn to think?” Tywin’s voice had mesmerized him, soft yet persuasive, reeling him in like a fish that didn’t have the sense to struggle. But after that lesson, the sight of his father’s rigid spine as he strode from the library had frightened him. Jaime often felt exposed, and lacking, under his father’s pale blue gaze, but that day he learned that his back was more terrifying.

No more, Jaime told himself. He’d found his calling, and there was no disputing it. No matter that his father still couldn’t manage to murmur a word of approval.

Tyrion was now showing Jaime a schematic of dragon anatomy and rattling off facts from memory. Jaime gazed at his little brother’s huge cranium, which probably held a huge brain. Jaime was fifteen now, but perhaps Tyrion was already smarter than him. If the child was reading histories – big, fat histories like that one, even if it was about extinct creatures – he probably was. Jaime didn’t like to think of that, so he interrupted his brother’s soliloquy.

“Did I tell you yet how I defeated the Peacock in a tourney with a dinner fork?”

As he’d hoped, Tyrion closed the book.

The words tumbled out of him – the splintered lance, the injured horse, the Peacock’s pride, the feasting guests seated too close to the field. This was a ditty Jaime had sung to many a drunken squire, knight, lord, and lout. He could recite it in his sleep, and it would entertain the bedbugs. He sensed the familiar flush of satisfaction and wholeness he always felt when he thought about the one thing he did well, followed by a rush of affection for Tyrion for letting him entertain him; at the dinner table their father wanted only facts, not fables of glory and vanity. By the time he finished, crouching over his little brother and threatening his manhood with a twig he’d cast in the role of the fork, Tyrion was squealing with laughter.

“You tell the best tales!” he declared, one stubby-fingered hand protecting his crotch and the other batting away the twig.

“And all of them true,” said Jaime. He tossed the twig away and took another bite of his apple as he settled under a scrubby pine with Tyrion.

Yes, Jaime told a fine tale. He could speak perfectly well. Did that mean he could think? His flesh crawled as he stared again at his brother’s thick book. Tyrion still giggled while he reached into the leather satchel for the modest breakfast they’d pilfered from the kitchen. As the boy divided up the spoils on a napkin between them, Jaime saw movement in the water.

He sat up straighter. Far below their perch, in a small cove protected from the waves crashing against the rocks, was a woman. He stood and approached the edge of the cliff.

Cersei. Naked. Swimming on her back. Waving up at him.

Jaime’s heart began to hammer. He raised his hand in return, then lowered it and bit the apple again. She shouted something, but the wind carried her words away. Something about “baby” and “craven.” She seemed to be gesturing to him to come down and swim with her, and she was laughing. His mind returned to all the illicit swims they’d enjoyed together back home, the way they would secretly paw at each other underwater, learning with every touch a little more about each other’s bodies, and their own.

How had Cersei known where to find him this morning? She was still abed in her rooms when Tyrion had bounded into Jaime’s bedchamber, squawking for him to wake up. She resumed swimming again, giving Jaime a fine view of her rump as she turned in the water. Jaime’s manhood stirred, and he walked a few paces away from Tyrion to wait until it subsided.

The cliff faced south into the bay, and morning sunlight glistened on Cersei’s golden hair as she swam from one side of the cove to the other. It’s gotten so long, he mused again, remembering last night when she’d wrapped it around his cock – what made her think to do that? – and asked him to pleasure himself while she crouched in front of him and watched, her eyes flashing in the candlelight, burning into his. Then, when he was nearly satisfied, she’d told him she’d been drinking moon tea for him. He’d thrown her on her back and taken her, for the first time, and she’d bitten his shoulder to stifle her cries, and he’d tasted blood on her tongue as he spent himself inside her. He was a man grown now, and she was a woman, his woman. Jaime smiled, remembering, but felt worry crease his brow. It must show on his face, what they’d done.

“There she is again,” remarked Tyrion, who had waddled up next to Jaime and was nibbling on a hunk of cheese. “She goes there most every day since we discovered a way to get there from below.”

“Does she always swim naked?” Jaime didn’t like to think of other men seeing her.

Tyrion shrugged, which Jaime took as an affirmative. He chewed his way around the apple and stared at his sister’s glistening breasts as she floated on her back. She looked so tiny from here, a slim little siren using her body to call to him. How could he want her so badly, all the time? She was just a woman, and yet she was his master. And she was smart. She knew what to do about Lysa Tully and that absurd engagement.

“Did you hear what happened to Drunk Donal?” asked Tyrion with his mouth full of cheese.

“The old one or the young one?”

“The young one.”

“No.”

“He fell off the cliff. Right from this spot.”

Jaime looked at Tyrion and raised an eyebrow. Young Drunk Donal was seven-and-twenty, and a debauched Lannisport oaf for as long as he’d known of him. He and his father, Old Drunk Donal, had come to King’s Landing seeking better work shortly after Tywin had become the Hand of King Aerys. Old Donal was a carpenter who had made repairs to the Great Sept last year after burning candles had damaged one of the altars. Young Donal had helped. Jaime knew this from one of Cersei’s letters. Jealousy had surged hot and desperate through Jaime’s veins, but he’d told himself that Young Donal was a drunken, odiferous, bulbous-nosed foot-licker, because he was.

“Was he in his cups?”

“Most likely,” replied Tyrion. “I think he saw a mermaid and he wanted to go and fetch her.”

Jaime watched Tyrion, trying to measure in his mismatched eyes how much of this was something more than a drunkard falling off a cliff, but Tyrion turned his attention to balancing with one foot on a twisted tree root. Surely not, Jaime thought. She wouldn’t. He took a last bite and threw the apple core off the cliff. He couldn’t hear it splash, but the sea breeze was loud in his ears and it was a long way down, with many rocky outcroppings protruding from the side of the cliff. His heart was pounding, and his fingers found the bite wound Cersei had given his shoulder last night.

“Did he die?”

“No, he broke his back. He’s crippled.”

“He should have died. A cripple is a burden on his family and on society.” His father’s words spouted neatly from his mouth. “Think for yourself,” Tywin would say, but how could he when the smartest person in any room was his father? The best Jaime could do was agree with him.

Tyrion regarded Jaime for a moment and lost his footing on the root, stumbling awkwardly before catching himself. Jaime felt a pang of regret for saying what he’d said, for a dwarf wasn’t far from a cripple, in their father’s eyes. Tyrion was half a man and always would be, and now Jaime was a man grown, fighting in battles and getting knighted. His brother could never hope for half that much.

Tyrion rejoined Jaime and began watching their sister again. Jaime looked, too. Cersei was swimming fast and hard, her lithe arms cutting through the water like blades. Here, on Aegon’s High Hill, it felt almost like home. Jaime put his hand briefly on his brother’s shoulder and squeezed.

Suddenly Cersei went underwater and didn’t surface again for several long seconds. When she reappeared, Jaime could see that something was wrong. She was struggling. Then her shriek pierced the air, carried by the wind, mercifully, to his ears.

“Cersei!” he screamed. He lunged toward the edge of the cliff, but it was so far down, and Tyrion clutched his elbow. She went under again. “Cersei!”

She resurfaced with flailing arms. “JAIME!” Cersei’s terror was a dagger in his gut.

Think! Think! “How do I get down there?” he demanded, shaking Tyrion’s arm.

“It’ll take a good fifteen minutes to wind our way down from here – ”

He took off his boots and was removing his doublet when Tyrion’s alarmed voice cut through Cersei’s screams. “What are you doing? Lenna says we’re not to dive from here. Young Donal wasn’t the first, there was Will Waters last year, who died, and before that Eustace Woodwright, and – wait!”

Jaime ran away from the cliff’s edge to get a running start. He could do this. He was stronger and taller than Young Donal, not to mention sober. And damn it, it was Cersei. He’d just turned to sprint toward the edge when something heavy and hard struck him in the mouth, knocking him flat. Quickly rising to his elbows, he saw Tyrion’s enormous book on the mossy ground, and scuffed little boots standing before him. He reached up and slapped his brother across the face. Tyrion kicked him in the chest and then sat on him.

“Don’t do it, Jaime,” said Tyrion in a rush just before Jaime wrestled him to the ground and clambered to his feet, knocking Tyrion’s hands away from his ankles. “Young Donal has to piss and shit into a pan, and his old mother has to empty it behind the stables! I saw!”

Jaime turned his body toward the cliff’s edge for a running jump and heard … laughter. It came and went, garbled by the sea wind, but there was no mistake, it was a girl’s laughter. He slowly approached the stony ledge, barely registering Tyrion gripping his shirttail, and peered into the bay. There was Cersei, still naked, curled up on a rock with her feet tucked under her. She was wringing out her wet hair, and laughing, and shaking her head. She looked up and waved him off, as if to say, “Too late,” and tossed her hair behind her back. Then she blew him a kiss.

Jaime turned his back to her, his cheeks hot. He dragged the back of his hand across his sweaty upper lip and it came away bloody. “You little pignut,” he said to Tyrion.

“I had to stop you,” said Tyrion, whose nose was bleeding. “Don’t worry, you’re still prettier than me.”

“Wouldn’t take much,” muttered Jaime. He gathered up his boots and doublet and left the satchel for Tyrion to carry. He’d go back to the castle for his horse; a ride would make his heart stop its thrashing. Perhaps he’d return to his family later today, perhaps not. He didn’t like being made to feel stupid. And seven hells, a six-year-old had just saved his life. Now his legs were shaking just as they did after a fight; they felt watery, like they couldn’t hold him. But he didn’t have the afterglow of battle, only a deep sense of shame and embarrassment. He should’ve known Cersei would never drown; she was too good a swimmer. And her jokes had always run cruel, he knew that. When could he think for himself? Did he need her for that, on top of everything else? Damn her.

But there was fear, too, and that was something to which he was not accustomed at all. If he lost her …

As he climbed the hill to the Red Keep, Tyrion called after him; but the boy couldn’t keep up with him, and Jaime was glad of it.

***

Author's Note: This is my first GoT/ASOIAF fic. Any review would be much appreciated! :)

Twilight Fic: Home (A Change of Heart, Part 9) - COMPLETE

bratanimus — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:49:56 GMT

Title: Home (Part 9 of A Change of Heart) - COMPLETE
Author: bratanimus
Rating: PG-13 for this chapter, R for some others
Spoilers: This story, begun post-Eclipse, is my version of Breaking Dawn. First person Edward POV.
Warnings: Mild sexual innuendo
Pairings: Edward/Bella, all other canon pairings
Word Count: 3,965
Summary: Jacob had backtracked down the porch steps to the lawn, to put some distance between himself and the vampire who used to be his love … but it wasn’t far enough.
Author’s Note: This is the conclusion of my story, A Change of Heart. I’m so grateful to everyone who embraced this story as an alternative to Breaking Dawn. It’s sad to see this one end, but I’m very glad to have been able to share it with you. Thank you for your enthusiasm and your much-appreciated comments. :)

“Happily ever after” is a relative term. It’s truer for my kind than one might imagine. Was I grateful for what I had? Yes, oh, yes. I knew what I deserved, and I’d gotten so much more than I ever should have expected.

But as we stood on our doorstep, motionless with the morning sun shining on our backs and mist rising from the grass around us, our family finally all together and safe, I realized I wanted every bit of happiness I could hoard. I didn’t want to read the note that was slipped halfway under our door, because that could mean the beginning of the end of our time here in Forks. Now that I’d tasted it, this little bit of normality couldn’t be snatched from me. Here I was, being greedy as always, but I couldn’t help myself.

Alaska was always an option – we’d lived there before – and Bella and I would attend college there soon; but I wanted a place with longevity, a place to call home, for another few years, at least. Forks was as much a home as I’d ever had in my immortal life, and now it was bursting with memories of me and Bella and our heady, tumultuous romance. We’d fallen in love here. We’d battled for our lives here. We’d married here.

I couldn’t leave this place, never to return. My past would seem unmoored if I had to abandon all my memories in this town.

I wanted to be here in Forks at Christmas time with my wife and pretend things in our family were ordinary. I looked forward to watching snow pile up on the roads while people we knew went about their business after they’d shoveled off their cars and trucks. I longed to hear the familiar clipped, hard r’s of the locals’ speech as they shopped for holiday gifts in town. I needed to smell the nostalgic concoction of apple cider and cinnamon and cloves cooking on our stove, even if we wouldn’t drink it. There had to be a real Fraser fir in the living room, brightly decorated, a burst of colored lights, while Bing Crosby and Burl Ives crooned through our sound system. I would shower my bride with frivolous presents, wrapped in shiny foil paper under the tree. Most of all, Bella would feel like her new family was as good as her old one, the one she’d never get to see again.

I even had a silly, fleeting vision of Bella, after a hunt, leaving her father some nice venison on his front lawn and making him wonder if there really was a Santa Claus. But that was too dangerous. We couldn’t chance him seeing her now, or at Christmas, or ever.

Perhaps we should leave town after all; wouldn’t that be easier for Bella? I sighed. Things would never be simple for us.

Next to me on the doorstep, Bella – following a quick but crucial hunt after we’d arrived back in the States – seemed steady once more; but her eyes were riveted to the note under our front door. A single word glared up at us – Cullens – scrawled across the front of the envelope in heavy pen. Bella glanced around our group, sensing the tension and wondering why no one was touching the letter.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Everyone looked at me.

I cleared my throat and swallowed, searching for the right words. “When you were gone I … behaved rashly.”

“That makes two of us,” said Bella. She narrowed her eyes. “What’d you do?”

“I went to La Push, looking for you. I told them I changed you.”

Bella looked again at the letter, recognizing it now for what it was: a time bomb. “Oh,” she said. She glanced behind us as if she expected the pack to leap onto the porch and devour us in one piece, Big Bad Wolf style.

Carlisle reached down and picked up the letter. “Let’s go inside,” he said briskly.

Esme had barely shut the door behind us when Carlisle slid his finger across the seal and withdrew a sheet of plain, white paper. He scanned it quickly. His left hand pinched his lower lip, as it always did when he was thinking hard.

The rest of us remained quiet while Alice fidgeted. She didn’t like not knowing what the wolves had decided, but there was nothing she could do about that blank spot in her sight. I saw the note in Carlisle’s mind as he read it, and could hardly believe what my senses told me.

“Well?” prodded Esme.

Carlisle blinked, seeming to come out of a trance, and looked at all of us, his gaze lingering on Esme last. He looked down at the note again.

“‘Welcome home,’” he read aloud. “‘Our elders have agreed to meet with Carlisle Cullen to begin talks of possible renegotiation of the terms of our treaty. Your continued presence here may be mutually beneficial. We ask that Bella Cullen attend this meeting.’” Carlisle glanced at Bella before scanning the rest of the note. “They’re asking me to contact Sam to schedule a time and place.”

“Ah!” said Alice, laughing. “Yes! We get to stay!”

Carlisle raised his eyebrows and half-nodded; that was the impression the note had given him, too. Jasper felt the tension drain from the bodies around him, and his thoughts quieted. Esme clasped her hands together in front of her, her shining eyes locked on her husband’s. Finally, with an exhale of relief, Carlisle returned her smile.

Jasper draped his arm over Alice’s shoulder. “Bella, Bella,” he drawled, sounding, as he sometimes did, like he was still living in another era. “Who knew you’d turn out to be our lucky charm?”

Alice poked him gently in the stomach and ran to Bella, embracing her. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to us,” she whispered in her ear.

“I’m – I’m pretty sure I’m not,” Bella stammered over Alice’s shoulder.

“Okay, you’ve gotta learn how to take some credit,” said Emmett, pointing his finger at her.

Bella rolled her eyes, but grinned back at him.

“Why don’t we all unpack?” suggested Esme.

Rosalie was already halfway up the stairs with her bag, grateful and silent, for once. Perhaps, as I saw it more often, I could learn to appreciate this side of my sister. Our family separated, each couple going back to its room to get settled back in.

We were home.

Bella and I had just entered our bedroom when we reached for each other. Suddenly the emotion of the past couple of days came bearing down on me, and I had to have her. Bella cleaved to me as she wrapped her arms around my neck and threaded her fingers through my hair. I pressed against her and crushed my mouth to hers, tasting deer’s blood from our hasty hunt on her tongue as I kicked the door closed behind me. Her fingers trailed over my jaw, down the front of my chest to my hipbones. We wrestled our way to the bed, my hand already up her shirt and hers reaching for the button on my jeans. She smelled like the hunt, and suddenly I realized it was more tantalizing than she’d ever smelled in her human life.

I couldn’t get her clothes off fast enough.

But suddenly Bella stiffened. She sniffed twice and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?” I kept kissing her lips, her neck, while I straddled her narrow pelvis to unbutton her shirt.

She already had my jeans open, but now she half-rose and cocked her head, her upper lip curled and brow furrowed. She sniffed again. “Ugh! What is that? Smells like – ” She stood up and opened the bedroom door, buttoning her shirt as she went back downstairs.

I sighed, my hands resting on my thighs, head hanging. I’d have to get used to Bella’s ability to sense things more quickly and accurately than the rest of us. Reluctantly, I buttoned up and tried to compose myself, following her.

A few seconds later I sensed a mind whirling, as ever, in a cyclone of emotion. Shortly thereafter I caught the scent of dog, and there was a knock on the door.

“Bella! Wait!” I caught her hand as she was about to turn the doorknob. I mouthed, It’s Jacob.

Her eyes grew round as she realized that her friend was the source of the stench. She hesitated, probably unsure if I was comfortable with her seeing him. She started to speak, but stopped herself. Another rapping at the door, this time more insistent.

“He needs to see me. To see this,” she whispered, gesturing at her new self.

My old anxiety began to wail inside me, but I knew she was right. She’d have to do this sooner or later. She’d just fed, and she was strong. She’d be fine. I nodded and stood away from the door, trying not to imagine Jacob attacking her. Of course, I’d be there in a split second if she needed me …

With that, I realized I was more worried for her safety than I was about her feelings for Jacob. Somehow, at some point, without my noticing it, something inside me had lifted, and I felt lighter than I had in months.

I gestured for her to go.

Again Bella hesitated. Was she making sure I wasn’t upset about this? Was she scared?

He’s alone, I said silently. You’re safe.

Bella tilted her head and smiled at me, an odd twinkle in her eyes. I chuckled. I couldn’t believe that I, of all people, had just said that to her, either.

I waved her on with a stiff smile. I wasn’t elated he was here, but I wasn’t about to stand in the way. And I wouldn’t let Bella know how much Jacob still irritated me. What husband could ever be happy about his wife seeing an old flame, even if he trusted her? I had to trust her. Otherwise, what sort of marriage could we ever hope to have? In truth, it was Jacob I didn’t trust. As far as I was concerned, Jacob was and always would be a dog sniffing after Bella.

She kissed my cheek and opened the door. A fresh breeze wafted into the living room, caressing our skin. It was one of those rare days in Forks when the sun had come out late in the morning and would shine all afternoon. Light streamed into the entryway around her, and her halo blazed into my eyes just before she shut the door.

I was nearly flattened by the screaming of Jacob’s mind when he saw her. I leaned against the inside of the door and tried to take in what he was seeing. He’d backtracked down the porch steps to the lawn, to put some distance between himself and the vampire who used to be his love … but it wasn’t far enough.

Through his eyes I saw Bella, the monster.

She stood at the top of the porch steps, shimmering marble, perfect and cold, no longer soft and accident-prone – this was Bella, fearless and powerful all by herself. She could kill him, and he knew it. She descended the steps gracefully and he took a halting step backward – afraid, but too proud and angry to show it. He was thinking that he knew her but didn’t know her, didn’t want to know this new being. He regretted coming here. He was stunned that Bella was beautiful to him even now, in that unearthly way of the undead. She enticed him. She terrified him. He longed to run, but he wouldn’t. This had to happen. And yet it was the last thing he’d ever wanted.

Jasper, feeling what was happening, came to join me. Together we sat on the floor, forearms resting on knees, our backs against the front door. He shook his head, frowning, and I nodded in agreement. This was bad. I was grateful for his company. And he would help me, if Jacob became violent. Alice now crept into the room and sat on the piano bench. She knew she couldn’t predict Jacob’s behavior, but she wanted to be here anyhow, just in case.

Back on the lawn, Jacob couldn’t look Bella in the eyes; she was too much for him. He wanted to yell. He wanted to weep. A hundred questions clamored in his mind. Attacks, half-planned, swirled and kicked through his head, confusing him. He was ferocious and horrified and still in love, and it made him immobile. His breathing was fast and deep, almost panting, like a frightened puppy’s.

He stared at the ring on her finger, then the bracelet on her wrist, and the first thing he said was, “Where’s the wolf?”

She raised her hand and I noticed for the first time that the carved wooden charm was gone. My heart contracted. She must have removed it before she went to Italy.

“I’m married now, Jake,” Bella said quietly.

“That’s not all that’s changed.” Bitterness and accusation dripped from Jacob’s words.

“Yeah, well …” Bella shrugged. She dropped her hand, and the diamond on the bracelet shimmered in the sunlight. So did her hand.

“We were friends,” muttered Jacob.

“The wolf’s in my jewelry box,” said Bella. “Doesn’t change anything. You still saved my life.”

Jacob scoffed. For what? he thought.

“You were my best friend,” Bella went on. “We can still be friends.”

They were silent for a long while, with Jacob now watching Bella’s feet.

“No, we can’t,” said Jacob.

Bella didn’t speak.

“You made your choice,” he said.

Bella nodded. “Finally.”

Through Jacob, I saw the two of them in his room, their last goodbyes thundering through his mind, trampling all hope. I saw the ghosts of affection that Jacob had clung to in the time before our wedding, and all the real and imagined demonstrations of love Bella had shown him. I saw how he’d envisioned the future with her, and my heart broke for him.

It could have been me who’d been left behind.

Jacob half turned from Bella and looked off into the woods, but he couldn’t leave. He wanted to ask her what it was like, to be what she was. Then he decided he didn’t want to know.

The air was heavy with all the things they weren’t saying to each other.

“I’m so sorry, Jake,” whispered Bella.

Jacob’s head dropped and he watched his bare toes gripping the ground for a while. His skin looked dark and dull next to her luminescence.

“Bella …” He shook his head, and kept shaking it. All the things he’d wanted to say to her, to shout at her, were somehow meaningless, now that he’d seen her splendor, her remoteness, seen the ring on her finger.

At last he raised his head and looked into Bella’s clear crimson eyes. She regarded him with affection and familiarity. With her arms hanging loosely by her sides, she seemed confident and sad all at once. Jacob’s breath hitched. This was his Bella, but more beautiful than ever, now never-changing, out of reach like something heavenly. He wanted to hate her. He would try to hate her.

He turned quickly and walked, walked, to the edge of the forest. Then, under the cover of trees, the pine needles stabbing his bare feet, he began to run.

Bella stayed outside for another few minutes. When she came in, she gave a wan smile to Jasper and Alice, who quietly stood and went back upstairs. Then she looked at me.

I wanted to say that I was sorry, that goodbyes always hurt, that I understood what it was like to leave people behind. But before I could open my mouth, she ran to me and embraced me. I held her close and just whispered that I loved her, because, really, that was the only thing I could say, after all.

Later, up in our meadow, we had spread out Bella’s quilt, and now we lay there side by side, hands clasped, looking up at the gathering clouds. It was dusk, and would be dark soon. The waning light filtered through the cloud cover and sat still on our skin, giving the illusion that we were just another young man and woman lying here, simply happy to be alone in each other’s company. I thought of our wedding night and how we should have been here, together, learning each other’s bodies without the threat of death hanging over our heads.

But death was all around us, and always would be. I had no illusions about the Volturi leaving us alone. They’d grow their ranks again, re-think their strategies, find a way to confront us again. Jane would seek out Bella and try to kill her; I had no doubt about that. We could never let our guard down. Even if our negotiations with the Quileute tribe went well, we might have to leave Forks after all.

But for now, we had as much peace as we were likely ever to have again.

We lay there in silence, each of us thinking our own thoughts. I was beginning to realize that sometimes I relished the quiet I could enjoy in Bella’s company, without her mind intruding into mine as everyone else’s did. I used to think knowing her thoughts would help me to understand her, to trust her. But she told me everything I needed to know, in words and in actions, and it was up to me to have faith in her. Right now she was probably thinking about losing Jacob’s friendship, and that was only right.

I settled back into my dark thoughts about the Volturi, and about the narrow escape we’d managed in Italy. Things could have gone horribly wrong. I could have lost Bella, and my whole family. For that matter, I could have gotten myself killed when I went to La Push, if Jacob had been angry enough to shift into his wolf form and if his pack had followed suit instead of helping me. I squeezed Bella’s hand and thanked God for allowing two such reckless beings to survive another day. Then I smiled, thinking of what Carlisle would say if he knew I was talking to God again.

Bella sat up on an elbow, nestling her knees into my side and resting her other hand on my chest. Her hair tickled my cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said.

I tucked an arm behind my head and said, “For what?” But I knew. We hadn’t been able to talk about anything on the flight home. Somehow neither of us had wanted to have this intimate conversation near the unnaturally keen hearing of our family.

“For running off to Italy like that,” she said. “I thought I’d be quick enough. That I could talk to them before you’d even gotten on an airplane. But I could have gotten myself captured. Or killed.” She looked into my eyes. “I could have gotten you killed.”

“Bella – ”

“I wasn’t thinking. As usual.” She blinked rapidly, and I could tell she was trying not to cry. “I thought I was saving everyone. But I could have ruined everything.”

I clasped the hand that lay on my chest. “Yes.”

We looked at each other for a moment as the weight of my affirmation sunk in.

“But,” I admitted, “I probably would have done the same thing in your shoes. If I thought I could save you by sacrificing myself, I would do it.”

Bella’s voice was adamant. “I wouldn’t want you to do that.”

“And I didn’t want you to do it, either.”

Her brow knit and she was silent.

“But then again,” I said, “I endangered my own life by going and blabbing to the pack that I’d changed you. So I can’t throw stones.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“I thought – ” I didn’t want to say this, but I had to. “I thought you’d gotten cold feet. That you had run back to Jacob.”

Her face grew even more serious. “Edward.”

“I know. I can be a real idiot.” I sat up and faced her, still holding her hand. “Once I was there and knew you hadn’t gone to him, I had to have a reason for being there. And I figured they’d find out sooner or later about your transformation.”

“But you told them about my ability.”

I nodded.

“And because of that, we get to stay in Forks.” She scooted closer to me and sat cross-legged so that our knees were touching. “It worked out.”

“Kind of. We’re here,” I said, stroking her hair, “but you don’t get to see your dad.”

“True. I don’t.” She lowered her eyes and was lost in her own thoughts again.

I let her be for a moment, then I said slowly, “I’m not quite sure what the point is. Of our staying here now.”

For me, Forks was filled with mostly good memories – of falling in love with Bella. But I wondered if this place was full of painful memories for her. She’d lost her school friends, her best friend, and her family. Perhaps I’d ask her if we should leave permanently. Maybe we should go to college and just stay in Alaska. It would be sad to leave the city where we’d met; but wasn’t nurturing our love the most important thing now? And we could do that anywhere.

“We can protect him,” Bella said suddenly. “My dad. And everyone else here.”

When I saw the light in her eyes, I knew she was right. By staying here, her newfound power would keep her father safe from other vampires, even if he never saw her again. “Yes. We can do that.”

Bella smiled at me, but her eyes remained cheerless. I pulled her to me and held her. We stayed like that for a while, until she pulled away, trying to brighten her smile a little more.

“Do you want to talk about maybe delaying university for a while?” I whispered. “So we can stay here?”

“Let’s talk about it later,” said Bella.

I leaned in to kiss her, but Bella put a finger on my lips.

“One more thing,” Bella said.

I couldn’t resist: I licked her finger and wrapped my lips around it.

“No, Edward, I have to say this.” She pulled her finger from my mouth and I sat back to listen. “From now on, I promise I won’t do anything rash without talking with you first. You’re my husband. We’re a team. I need to get used to that.”

These were indeed words that needed to be said. “Me, too,” I agreed. “I promise. No more trips to La Push, or anywhere else where I might get ripped to shreds.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

Bella kissed me and murmured, “No more solo superhero escapades.”

I raised an eyebrow. “But will you still wear a cape for me?”

“Only if you wear the tights.”

We laughed as we kissed, our hums and sighs mingling in each other’s mouths, and the darkness descended in a purple hush. Birds in the trees muttered softly to themselves as they settled into their nests for the night. The air smelled clean and new, and a breeze lifted the hairs on the back of my neck as Bella and I worshipped one another’s bodies in the cool night air. Finally, our wedding night was here, as it should have been. We took our time, because time was ours to squander now. It felt like the beginning of something good, something permanent, something altogether ours. It felt like the beginning of “happily ever after.”

Author’s Note: Well, folks, that’s the end of this story. Thank you again for accompanying me on this journey. It’s been a wild ride, gratifying in all the nicest ways. I’m so pleased you liked my Edward and Bella enough to follow them all the way to the end. You’re the best. :)

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!!

bratanimus — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:06:45 GMT

Guess where I went last Monday? My best friend Elizabeth and I flew to Orlando, Florida, and went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!! Yes, we did, we did!! We totally wore our Gryffindor ties and everything (in the 90 degree heat, no less). Mr Brat was nice enough to keep Baby Brat for me, so it was ~~geeks~~ girls only. We flew down Sunday, went to the park Monday, and flew back Tuesday. I wish all my fellow HP fan LJ buddies could have been there, too. I know you would have loved it. :)

Want to hear all about it? Okay, needless to say, SPOILERS AHEAD. Also, lots and lots of pictures. :D

(ETA: I've posted this entry a second time here because LJ messed up my date of posting, grrr.)

As we walked toward the park, there was a security checkpoint where they peeked into our purses to make sure we had no weapons. Our security officer was a skinny old dude with white hair who, when he saw our Gryffindor ties, raised his fist and shouted, "GO, SLYTHERIN!" He then expounded on why it's silly to be a goody-two-shoes, that the bad guys have all the fun. "Look at Las Vegas, for crying out loud." LOL.

Here's the entry and some exterior shots. It was hot as blue blazes when we were there, but don't the rooftops look magical? The sign says, "Please respect the spell limits" (you can click on all these images once or twice to see a larger version).

The Hogwarts Express. It doesn't go anywhere, but isn't it cool? :)

On the left is Honeydukes, and on the right is the Owlery. In the center is a butterbeer cart. ;)

The Three Broomsticks and the Hog's Head were actually in the same building. Here are some shots of the Three Broomsticks. The sign says, "The Three Broomsticks - Fine Eating Establishment."

I love the way all the corridors and stairways overhead were asymmetrical. You can see a house elf's cleaning cart here.

Another shot of the house elf's cart.

I love this winding staircase. A cool thing that I was unable to capture was that occasionally a light would illuminate one of the walls and you'd see the moving shadow of a house elf cleaning, or an owl delivering a piece of mail. :D

I loved this sign in the Three Broomsticks! There was another sign (not photographed) which stated yesterday's specials, lol.

Here's a place to park your broomstick when you're coming in for a pint of butterbeer. It's one of the hallways that connects the Three Broomsticks (on the left) and the Hog's Head (to the right, which you can't see in this photo).

The Hog's Head. I was hoping it would be its own establishment with a rougher, tougher, snarkier staff, but oh, well; I guess they have to cater to the kids (though they DO serve beer). It was actually just a bar, and was connected to the Three Broomsticks. There was no Aberforth, and there were no goats (or goat smells). :( But we could hear "dishes" being thrown around and dropped "upstairs." A sign on the wall leading "upstairs" said "Guests of the inn only."

You can see the Three Broomsticks again through the open fireplace.

The hog's head on the wall would move and snort every once in a while! His blue eyes were actually pretty creepy. And the plaque on the wall next to the shrunken heads says that management is not responsible for your losing your head. ;) Note the doxy eggs in the bottle above. The attention to detail was pretty amazing.

For those of us who have written fanfic in which this stuff features prominently ;), here are photos of firewhiskey (lower left). Unfortunately, they don't/can't actually serve the stuff. Stupid fire code.

Yummy butterbeer is yummy. There's a creamy topping that is oh-so-buttery; the drink itself tastes like a cream soda. We kept our commemorative mugs.

Here's a photo of the Hog's Head beer, which was actually pretty tasty! We kept these mugs, too.

Past the Hog's Head were the "public conveniences." They didn't have a lot of ambience inside, but they did have Moaning Myrtle's voice piped through the speakers. You will forgive me for not taking a photo inside the bathroom. :)

Just past Zonko's (the red storefront) you can see Honeyduke's (in pink). Like the Three Broomsticks and the Hog's Head, Zonko's and Honeyduke's are actually connected inside. Here are some photos of Zonko's Joke Shop.

"Please do not walk on the walls."

I was very tempted to buy some U-No-Poo. ;)

Extendable Ears, which they had hanging from the ceiling (forgot to photograph those).

I really wanted to buy this t-shirt because I thought it was really cute. The cheapest shirts are $22, even kids' sizes. I did cave and buy myself a Cornish pixies shirt, which you will see later. :)

On to Honeyduke's!

We ran out of time and didn't even get to taste any pumpkin juice!!! :( But here's a photo, anyhow.

I always wondered what Cauldron Cakes look like.

Here's Ollivander's, which was connected inside to the Owl Post's interior. We didn't stand in line for the show because the line was always too long, and as I mentioned it was 90 degrees outside. Apparently they have a show where one child is singled out and the wand "chooses" that child. Sounds fun!

The owlery outside, with animatronic owls. Note the owl dung, lol. The overhead fans were much appreciated.

I loved the clock innards (you can see the clock face in one of the exterior shots at the beginning of this post).

More animatronic owls (and dung) inside the Owl Post. There were lots of "birthday wands" for sale, along with the wands of all the characters ($29 each). And of course you could buy Hogwarts stationery.

We somehow missed the Toad Choir performance. :( But here are the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students about to perform. The girl in Gryffindor robes introduced them, citing a spirit of magical camaraderie and cooperation as the reason for holding the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Then the guys did martial arts, jumps and somersaults, and quarterstaff fighting, followed by the girls doing their wand and ribbon dance. It was cute to watch the Durmstrang boys watching the French girls dance; the guys were all pretending they didn't want to be interested in them, but they totally were. ;)

There was, of course, lots of cool merchandise. I really wanted this Marauder's Map, but it was $50. (I found out later you can get it in the Noble Collection for $35 - which is still a lot, but better than $50). They had one of the maps on display under glass, and they projected some little footprints and name labels floating around, which was a very cool effect.

These are all fake storefronts. Love the formal wizards' robes at Gladrags.

Scrivenshaft's had a quill that was "writing" in the left window (you cannot see in this photo).

Wiseacres Wizarding Supplies and Potages Cauldrons.

Hogwarts! Here is proof that we did indeed wear our Gryffindor ties. That's me on the right; my friend Elizabeth is on the left. We saw a couple of teenage girls with eyeliner drawn into lightening bolt scars on their foreheads, and a couple of girls in their twenties wearing grey school uniform skirts and school ties, but that was it; everyone else wore shorts and t-shirts. If there was a geek contest, I guess we would've won first or second prize. ;)

Here we are in front of Hogwarts (I'm on the left). Plz to be ignoring the thumb of the nice lady who took our picture.

As you can see, the wait time for this ride was 60 minutes. Part of the time is near the greenhouses, and part of it is through Hogwarts itself.

Before we actually entered Hogwarts, we had to put loose items into a locker (so they don't fall out on the ride). I wish I'd kept my camera, because I could have taken photos inside Hogwarts and then just stuffed the camera into my pocket for the ride, which was called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. (FYI, I didn't ride the other two roller coasters - Flight of the HIppogriff, and the Dragon Challenge. My friend has motion sickness, and I'd heard the other two rides weren't as great as the Hogwarts one. I think you can see these rides on YouTube.)

The inside of Hogwarts was VERY COOL. The portraits of the founding wizards/witches talked to each other. We went into Dumbledore's office, where he stood on a balcony and talked about doing what is right versus what is easy. Then we went into the Defense Against Dark Arts classroom, where Harry, Hermione, and Ron told us they'd sneak us out for some Quidditch. All the images of the characters were filmed and shown on a scrim with real objects behind them in the background, so the effect was quite 3-D and realistic. I was impressed! Oh, I forgot to mention that Ron made it snow in DADA class, and my friend caught some and said it was cold! (Must have been shaved ice. Or magic. ;))

The ride itself was great fun. There were huge screens that made you feel as though you were flying over the Quidditch pitch, or over the towers of Howarts, and there were animatronic creatures, too. We went into the Forbidden Forest and got terrorized by acromantulas and dementors, and a dragon chased us into a tower, and we landed in the Whomping Willow at one point. I don't want to give too much away, but I will tell you I screamed and laughed like a little girl! It was quite awesome. :D

Here's all the stuff I bought. That's me in our kitchen at home holding a puppet of Norbert hatching out of an egg, which I bought for Baby Brat. He absolutely LOVES this puppet. :)

I bought myself a Marauder's Map mug. It doesn't do anything cool when hot coffee is added, though I've seen some mugs online that show footprints or say "Mischief managed" when hot liquid is poured in.

My Cornish pixies shirt. :)

Baby Brat's Marauder's Map shirt. It's too big for him right now, but it'll fit him before I know it.

Here's a slinky that I bought Baby Brat from Zonko's.

I didn't get anything for Mr Brat because he is definitely not a fan of Harry Potter. But he tolerates my fangirlishness quite well. ;)

And FYT, some cuteness. Can you believe Baby Brat is 20 months old now?? (That's Mr Brat next to Baby Brat.) This was the first time ever that I've been away from my son overnight (TWO nights, no less!), and I won't lie - it was a little tough at first. But Mr Brat had some vacation, so there was good Daddy time while Mommy was gone. :)

If all these photos were not enough, you can go to my public Photobucket page and see a few short videos of the theme park that I posted, along with these photos. I hope this was enjoyable and made you feel as though you were there. I wish I could have taken all of you with me!! We would've had a blast. :D

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!!

bratanimus — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:04:25 GMT

On to Honeyduke's!

We ran out of time and didn't even get to taste any pumpkin juice!!! :( But here's a photo, anyhow.

I always wondered what Cauldron Cakes look like.

Zombie Apocalypse + The Beatles = Told Ya

bratanimus — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:08:34 GMT

You may or may not know that I've always been a huge Beatles fan. By the age of twelve I had read every Beatles-related book I could get my hands on. I was quite fascinated by the "Paul is dead" hoax and, macabre as I was, I looked for even MORE clues of McCartney's dead-ness than fans in the 1960s had stumbled upon. (Yes, at age twelve I had way too much time on my hands.)

In seemingly unrelated news, I later watched all the zombie movies I could get my hands on. And had zombie nightmares about the zombie apocalypse. Still do, in fact.

And now THIS: Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion

Can I just say OMG I was so right? I totally bought this book today. No lie.

And for your musical edification,

Sweet dreams, everyone. o_O

Delirium on SYTYCD?

bratanimus — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 11:28:44 GMT

Howdy, Sandman fans! So, I was watching last week's So You Think You Can Dance, and this was the opening group number on elimination night. All I could think of was Delirium from Neil Gaiman's Sandman. What do you think?

(For some reason I can't embed the video.)

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

Twilight Fic: Family (A Change of Heart, Part 8)

bratanimus — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:56:47 GMT

Title: Family (Part 8 of A Change of Heart)
Author: bratanimus
Rating: R for this chapter
Spoilers: This story, begun post-Eclipse, is my version of Breaking Dawn. First person Edward POV.
Warnings: Mild language, violence, blood, death.
Pairings: Edward/Bella, all other canon pairings
Word Count: 9,863
Summary: My mind kept flitting back to Aro, when suddenly, though his predatory eyes … I saw Bella.
Author’s Note: This is part eight of my story, A Change of Heart. Because this story was conceived prior to the publication of Breaking Dawn, I have changed Alec’s special talent.

Thanks for reading and for your comments. :)

My sense of time was skewed, and I was powerless to alter that feeling. The hours seemed to go on and on, from the first flight leg out of Seattle, to the layover in Germany, and finally into the second leg heading into Pisa, Italy, the nearest city to Volterra.

Jasper and I huddled next to each other on the flights because no one else could have endured being so close to us in our ruined states – though, to be fair, everyone else in our family was nearly as miserable and fearful as we were. The two of us didn’t bother speaking aloud to each other, because what was there to say? Nothing the other couldn’t already sense, nothing the other wasn’t already thinking. Silent panic, like a wrecking ball, seemed to smash into and careen off of one another, knocking deeper fissures in the façades that contained our composures.

We’d lost our wives; we had no way of knowing where Alice and Bella were, if they were alone or together, or whether they were safe. I felt as though half of me was missing, and I knew Jasper felt the same way. He was very afraid.

And because of my visit with the Quileute pack, I’d quite possibly annihilated our chances of a return to our home in Forks. If we returned. For now, Carlisle had asked that we not discuss that part of our dilemma, the possibility that we might not have a home in Forks anymore. There were, as Emmett said, “bigger fish to fry.”

I closed my eyes, focused on the loud droning of the plane’s engine, and went over the turns of events in my mind for the hundredth time, trying to look for a solution that I hadn’t seen yet.

Alice couldn’t have run, though I’d suggested, in my panic, that she do just that. She’d always had a cooler head than I, and she realized there was, of course, nowhere she could go. Alone, what escape could she find in a public place, surrounded by humans and the Volturi’s minions?

Instead, she’d tucked her cell phone into her purse without ending the call, probably hoping to give me as much information about what was about to happen to her as possible. She’d managed to remain courteous as she was surrounded. They’d politely taken her. I’d heard them walking. Alice had tried to ask questions, anything to give me clues about their plans, but they hadn’t replied. Soon I’d heard the sounds of cars over their footsteps, which began to echo – had they gone into the airport parking garage? Then the phone’s signal was lost.

I’d raced home in alarm to tell my family – to tell Jasper – the horrible news.

He’d blamed himself, of course, for not keeping Alice home; he should have made her wait to travel with the rest of us. At least then they’d be together.

But he couldn’t have stopped her, not when an idea had bloomed in her head. Alice was as strong-willed as Bella, in her own way, though she always told Jasper ahead of time what she was about to do. It was almost a joke between them, except that now it wasn’t funny at all.

Bella, on the other hand, just snuck off and did it, whatever it was she had in her mind. I preferred Alice’s expression of free will.

Free will. I had to correct my old way of thinking. It wasn’t “free will” in the sense I’d been taught as a boy. “Will” had always meant the potential for sin or for virtue: free will was a gift from God, yes, but it was something that needed to be monitored and corrected by someone – a parent, a priest, God Himself. We couldn’t be trusted with our own free will. Since I wasn’t sure that God believed in me anymore, and therefore probably wasn’t keeping tabs on me, I’d come to believe that free will merely meant living one’s life, making one’s own decisions, and bearing the consequences oneself, whether they be good or bad.

Apparently Bella didn’t believe that I had faith in her. Perhaps I didn’t. It hurt to admit something that ugly to myself, that I didn’t always trust her choices, and, moreover, that I considered myself important enough to pass judgment. This epiphany bore further scrutiny, but I hadn’t the mental faculties for it at the moment. I turned my mind back to the immediate problem.

Back at home, Jasper had remained perfectly still, staring straight ahead at nothing as he perched on the piano bench during our family’s hurried discussion of the situation. His thoughts had lurched and staggered like a wounded but dogged hero, one who was determined to win the war despite the loss of a limb. Now and then he’d offered, in a dead voice, some helpful suggestion: he’d recommended we use false identification in hopes that we’d be able to sneak into Italy without the Volturi knowing immediately. This was Jasper, still thinking ahead in the face of doom, a steadfast soldier to the end. I hope this wasn’t the end.

What we knew: We knew Bella’s gift continued to affect Alice overseas, suggesting that physically touching Bella created a permanent aversion to human blood. This could be a powerful weapon for us, if we could find Bella before the Volturi got her. We had to assume Alice was still alive, at least to serve as a lure for Jasper; but we didn’t know that for a fact.

What we didn’t know: We didn’t know whether Bella had been captured. We didn’t know what the Volturi would learn from Alice, or what they’d assume about our plans. We didn’t know the Volturi’s intentions, though we could presume they meant to absorb us into their ranks. But certain knowledge of their purpose could inform our approach, dictating whether we should present ourselves peacefully or launch a surprise attack. On the phone, Alice hadn’t even had time to tell me if she’d gotten a better read on what the Volturi had planned for all of us when we arrived, as we were supposed to do tomorrow.

We’d booked our flights immediately, each of us using a false name, as Jasper had suggested, and packing the appropriate forged passport into a small travel bag. Perhaps we’d be able to locate Bella and rescue Alice, thereby strengthening our numbers before we faced the Volturi.

But there were more questions than answers, and if we were to escape with Alice and Bella in tow – if we were to survive at all – it would likely be more accountable to luck than anything else. When we stood before Aro and he laid hands on us – as he undoubtedly would do – he’d know our line of attack immediately. So there was hardly any point planning. The best we could do, Carlisle had said, was to plead for Alice’s and Bella’s safety, and our release. If we had a secret strategy for battle, Aro would know at once and the triumvirate would be able to parry quite easily. Aro’s mercy was our best hope, which wasn’t much of a hope at all.

And now here we sat after hours and hours of travel, at nearly eleven o’clock at night, a full day before we should have arrived with Alice and Bella alongside us, waiting for the “fasten seat belt” lights to go ding and allow us to escape the aircraft.

As we somberly gathered our bags and exited the plane, we all knew that we might not be able to leave the terminal of our own volition, in the two small rented cars we’d booked online under our false names. But we hoped.

Luckily my hopes had not been high, for they would have been dashed before we reached the immigration area.

There were the blank-faced Volturi foot soldiers, outnumbering us by four, dressed in phony airport security clothing and sporting dark glasses or contact lenses to hide their red irises. They waited for us, just as they had been waiting for Alice. The tall one in front – I gathered from his thoughts that his name was Vittorio, though I didn’t really care who he was at all – gestured for us to follow him, and we did.

I was curiously unafraid of them. After all, what could they do to me that would be worse than taking Bella from me? And until I knew whether or not she was safe, I had to be patient. If Bella was dead, I would kill as many of the Volturi as I could before they took me down.

But I wouldn’t fight here. There could be human casualties in the airport, for one thing. And our identities as vampires – or at least as creatures with superhuman strength – would be revealed, thus ruining any chance at negotiation with the Volturi. This was presuming that negotiation was even an option anymore. More than that, it would spell slavery or death for Alice, and possibly for Bella, if they had her, too. Death for them, and for the rest of my family. We’d all agreed that we would go quietly if the Volturi met us at the airport.

So we said nothing as they efficiently herded our group toward a side exit near the immigration lines. We padded down nondescript hallways, passing door after door, listening to the high-pitched scream of airplane engines and sharp Italian voices barking instructions over the airport’s intercom system.

Now they had us, which was what they’d wanted all along. They easily could kill us all, or force us to serve them by threatening to kill our spouses if we didn’t cooperate.

I scanned our captors’ thoughts. I sensed turmoil, some general chaos; but each vampire had been instructed to internally recite complex passages in foreign languages. It was difficult to read specific thoughts within the jumble of so many new minds intentionally scrambling themselves. Why all the barriers? Aro had the advantage; what could he want to keep from me? Unless Bella was already … no. She wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be.

With my mind I reached out again, this time to my family, grasping for answers.

In front of me, Carlisle walked silently beside Esme. They brushed knuckles now and then, a whisper of comfort each to the other. Carlisle’s mind was oddly empty, only taking in his immediate surroundings and our captors. I’d sensed this a few times before, his ability to wipe his mental slate clean, so to speak, particularly during moments of duress. Perhaps it was his age – his true age – that gave him this skill. I could only suppose he was emptying his mind purposely to make room for a solution, if one should arise.

Esme’s mind, by contrast, was top-full of every wonderful remembrance of the years she’d spent with Carlisle, and with all of her “children,” including Bella. Each scene was colored by profound sadness as she imagined that this would be the last time anyone would pay homage to this smile, that frown, those moments. Life is so fragile, she thought, even for us. Her memory shifted to my long, pale fingers playing the piano for her, for Bella. I couldn’t dwell there any longer, so I moved on.

Behind me was Rosalie. Back at the house I’d forgiven her for letting Bella slip away. How could I not? There was too much at stake for me to carry my anger with me here; we had to remain strong, united. Besides, Bella would have found a way out no matter what. But Rosalie was thrashing herself still. She and I had nearly destroyed our family when she’d rashly told me my all-too-human Bella was dead, because Rosalie hadn’t known the lengths to which my selfish grief would carry me. And now she was walking with our family into the lion’s den, and she had to blame someone, and for once she could find no one to blame but herself. If I’d had any emotion to spare, I would have pitied her.

Just behind Rosalie, bringing up the rear of our group, protector as always, strode Emmett. He was in a quiet rage, an animal cornered, kept in check only by watching his wife’s hair swing side to side as she stepped quietly in front of him. He was focusing on the scent of her shampoo as it wafted towards him in the stuffy hallway.

Jasper and I marched side by side, between the two couples. He was counting his footsteps. Why? To have something to think about besides his worry for Alice? Was he numbering the steps to his death? Or was he trying to keep track of where we were within the airport? I decided the latter was more likely.

Just then he looked at me, his dark golden eyes penetrating mine.

Today is a good day to die, he thought. And then flashes of dozens of moments with Alice exploded in his mind like fireworks against a black sky.

I gave him a tiny nod. My emotions were overcome by memories of Bella, and I felt myself slipping into dreadful certainty.

All right, Jasper thought and looked ahead again, his jaw set.

Within the span of nine quick footsteps, we’d just agreed to battle the Volturi to the death for our wives.

I was alone in an underground room made of thick, white stone. They’d taken my small bag, with its phony passport inside, so I had nothing to look at in here except for one wooden chair. There was no light in the room, not that I needed it. The door was thick wood and iron, with a heavy bolt. Two vampires lurked just outside, and more dotted the hall, guarding other doors. Torches burned in iron sconces along the passage.

My hallway guards were chatting with each other in Italian about some Danish film they’d just seen last night, following Aro’s orders to keep talking so that their prisoner couldn’t read their minds. Although they both considered this a strange order, they followed it. This was a regular night’s work for them. It was possible they didn’t even know who they were guarding, or why.

I sensed the same chaos in my current guards as in our welcoming committee, though I still couldn’t tell what was causing it. But finally, as they ran out of things to say about the film they’d both seen, I was able to pinpoint the reason for the distress. They chose a new topic quickly – the human Pope, of all things – but it was too late. I knew what they were hiding.

The Volturi were upset, very upset indeed, that something had happened to their usual appetites.

I pressed my hands and forehead against the cool stone wall.

Bella was safe.

Her talent was the only thing that could cause such unrest.

I understood why Aro might want to hide any weakness from me, but he should have known I’d discover it sooner or later.

I silently thanked God for that small tidbit from the guards’ minds. Bella could be a captive here, like the rest of us, but she still existed. And so would I.

Edward.

It was Alice. Why hadn’t I searched for her mind immediately? I was distraught, but I should have remembered her.

I learned quickly through her thoughts, which she opened fully to me, that she was in a room like mine, and had been since they’d brought her here. She’d seen our arrival a few minutes ago and given the captors time to deposit us in our rooms before she reached out to me. To keep from pacing and drawing the attention of the guards, I knelt on the gritty stone floor and listened carefully.

I’m fine, they haven’t hurt me. Aro came to my room and touched me, so he knows about Bella’s gift. He’s very intrigued, which isn’t good.

I pursed my lips. No, that wasn’t good at all.

Bella isn’t here, but I know what she’s doing. She ran from the airport tarmac after her flight landed, faster than the humans could see, smart girl, so she wasn’t captured by the Volturi inside the terminal …

Now why hadn’t we thought to do that? I cursed my stupidity.

… and she stole a car to drive into Volterra, just like she and I did the last time we were here. She’s been evading the vampires somehow. Maybe she can sense their locations before they reach her, the way she sensed our family on the mountain before the hunt. Something about blood, or rather the absence of it, in our case. Anyhow, she knows where they are, and they can’t catch her.

Exultation surged through me like a drug. Perhaps they wouldn’t capture her. If Bella was safe, then it didn’t matter what happened to me. But the Volturi had the rest of the family, and they wouldn’t hesitate to hurt us to lure Bella here.

Alice’s mental voice cut into my whirring thoughts.

Everyone is going insane since Bella arrived in Volterra. No one can feed from humans, and most of them wouldn’t consider feeding from animals. Because Aro touched me, he, Caius, and Marcus know the blood aversion is because of Bella, but they aren’t telling anyone else the reason yet.

Interesting. I wasn’t sure what purpose it would serve, keeping the knowledge from their subjects.

And I had to give Bella credit. The longer she evaded the trackers, the deeper the Volturi’s followers would sink into confusion and fear over their loss of appetite. Perhaps that would be a good thing, something we could use.

Things are in quite an uproar, and the leaders aren’t sure what they want to do with Bella if they find her. They want to use us as collateral to get her. They want us to join them, or die. That part of their plan hasn’t changed. It’s what they wanted from the start.

Our chance of escape was looking grimmer by the minute. But I couldn’t consider that, because Alice had more to say.

I don’t think Bella even knew I was here, because she’d gone out with Rosalie when I decided to fly here alone. So I doubt she knows you and the rest are here, either; she was expecting us all to arrive tomorrow, as planned. Edward, she’s going to present herself as a sacrifice to the Volturi.

My heart shuddered, and I shook my head. This couldn’t be happening.

She wants to offer them her gift to use as they see fit, as long as they agree to leave the rest of us alone. She must not know they already have us.

It had been Carlisle’s suggestion to use Bella as a weapon, and she’d taken the idea and decided to offer the weapon to the Volturi, to try to steer them away from the rest of the Cullens. Stubborn to the bone. I was angry, and terrified, but I couldn’t blame her. I could see myself making the same choice to protect her if I’d been in her shoes.

I was still silent and on my knees. My fingers gripped the floor as though to keep me from sliding off it into oblivion. I stared at my hands, wondering how in hell any of us would get out of this.

As if Alice had heard my worry, she spoke again.

We’ll have to try to fight our way out when we face them, and fast. It’s the only thing I can think of. We can’t keep any other plan from Aro if he manages to touch us.

Then Alice’s thoughts turned to Jasper; she wished she could communicate with him as easily as she had done with me. She was sure, though, that Jasper – through his gift – could feel her love, so specific to him. I caught his thoughts and knew he was comforted. His Alice was still alive. There was hope.

Before I had a chance to absorb what Alice had said, her mind spoke to mine again.

Edward, Bella’s on her way here. She’s going to confront the Volturi NOW.

In a split second, I turned over in my mind the pros and cons of hurling my body at the door until it burst open and trying to kill all the guards in the hall so that I could free my family and have a small army to help me save Bella. I crouched to leap.

Don’t do that, Edward, thought Alice.

Of course, of course, she was right. Damn it all. They wouldn’t hurt Bella; Aro wanted her talent in his arsenal, Alice saw that. It took effort but I steadied myself, cursing, and began to pace the room like a caged lion. I knew that rash actions would spell doom for all of as quickly as if I’d dismembered us all myself. We were no match for the Volturi’s countless soldiers. I wished I could communicate with Jasper or Carlisle, who usually had the best sense of strategy. But, as Alice had said, even the most sophisticated tactics would be useless once Aro touched us and found out what we had planned.

We were helpless, consigned only to react to whatever Aro, Marcus, and Caius decided to do to us.

Lambs at the slaughter.

I reached out with my mind to Aro’s. Because of his age, he was very good at blocking an invading mind reader, and he must have known I’d try to pry. I sensed glee in the thoughts I could grip, and I was reminded once more of the thrill Aro gleaned from unusual circumstances. Anything that truly surprised him was delightful, a change from the doldrums of his usual existence; and he found enchantment in other vampires’ desperation, perhaps because it had been so long since he himself had felt any strong emotion. Now he adored playing the role of benevolent father figure, simply so he could shock his “children” with his rejections, his refusals, his death sentences. In that sense, he was the most metaphorical of all vampires, leeching energy from those who needed his help most of all.

Disgusted, I turned my thoughts from Aro toward Marcus, and then Caius, and likewise learned nothing new from them. I focused on my family members, each one isolated in a simple room like mine, each one without any more of a plan than I had.

Minutes dragged by, then half an hour. I paced. My mind kept flitting back to Aro, when suddenly, though his predatory eyes …

I saw Bella.

She’d been brought to face the three leaders inside a huge, sanctuary-like hall. The room was at street level, with glass set into high arched windows divided by wooden panes. Candelabras stood here and there, splattering golden, flickering light onto the pale stone floor, columns, and walls.

Bella waited. She looked so small, so alone. I ached for her.

Aro, with Marcus and Caius behind him, stood peering down at Bella from the top of four stone steps that spanned the width of the large room; if this were a church, they were standing on the altar area. There were numerous guards around the three leaders, and even more surrounding Bella. She stood apart from the guards who had escorted her inside, and I saw her shrug away from one who tried to steer her closer to the trio. Though she avoided his touch, she did as he wished and moved closer. By not touching that guard, she was making sure he could continue to feed from humans after she was miles away from him.

Bella was controlling her weapon. Good girl.

“Please release my family,” she said, and her musical voice rang in my ears.

“We do not – ” began Marcus from behind Aro’s right shoulder.

“They’re here.” Bella gestured behind her and below, as if she knew exactly where we waited in our cells. “I know they’re here.”

“Do you?” asked Aro, smiling.

Could she sense us, individually, as she had on the mountain? Perhaps that was why she was presenting herself to the Volturi at this moment; with her strange blood sense she had known that we’d arrived early, and that time had run out.

Bella’s expression remained hard as she stared into Aro’s eyes, even though it was plain that she was frightened. It was odd, as always, viewing her through another’s mind, but I was so overjoyed to see her that the sensation didn’t disturb me as it often did.

“I won’t talk until I see them all,” she said. “Safe.”

I sensed Aro’s delight with Bella’s vampire form, his curiosity about her ability.
He wanted to touch Bella, to determine if – now that she was a vampire – he could now read her thoughts. But he stopped himself, based on what he’d gathered from his reading of Alice: Bella’s touch would create in him a permanent aversion to human blood. He stepped backward an inch.

Aro nodded to the soldier Bella had avoided touching. “Have the Cullens’ guards bring them here.”

It was nothing more than curiosity that made him acquiesce to Bella’s demand. He wanted the stakes to be as high as they could be. He would reunite all the lovers and watch what happened as their family was devoured by his. His inward giggle made my stomach turn.

Bella turned her face away from Aro for a moment to watch the guard leave, and I noticed how filthy her clothes were. She must have had to do quite a bit of scurrying to avoid the Volturi’s trackers. When she turned back to Aro, her burgundy eyes – deepening toward black – told me she hadn’t fed again since our hunt together two nights ago. Her hands were shaking from her newborn’s need to feed, and her face was tight with fear. But her chin remained high.

“Bella, we are very pleased to see you,” said Aro, with a little bow, “and to learn that your transition is complete.”

Bella didn’t respond.

“We anticipate that your unusual ability will be the perfect addition to our little army of talent.”

Rage flitted across Bella’s face, but she said nothing.

“Of course, we’ve wanted Edward and Alice since their last visit, and I must say that Caius, in particular, is interested in Jasper’s talent, which Jane and Demetri witnessed on your wedding day.”

I realized then that Jane, Demetri, and Felix were in the room, skulking in the shadows on Bella’s left. Jane’s brother, Alec, stood at Jane’s side. His impatience made his thoughts bloody, and I wondered what his talent was. I hoped I wouldn’t find out.

Aro descended the stone steps and stood a body’s length from Bella, wanting to show her that he trusted her so that she would trust him in return. Pompous old man. Bella’s newborn strength enabled her to outrun me on our first hunt; she could thump him on the nose before he could even think the word, “Oops.”

Then again, Aro had us. So he knew Bella wouldn’t harm him.

“Your family is powerful. But you, my dear …” His voice was a papery whisper, full of ghastly promise. “You could do great things. Hmm.”

He studied her as if she were a particularly rare orchid.

Bella said not a word.

“As you wish,” said Aro, folding his hands in front of him, amused. “We will wait for the arrival of your family.”

Minutes rolled by as I watched Bella through Aro’s eyes, waiting for the guard he’d sent to our chambers to turn up. To her credit, she didn’t flinch under his gaze, or fidget; but she did dart her eyes about the room, so she’d know who surrounded her. I was sure she’d seen Jane and the others.

At last I heard Aro’s messenger giving orders to the guards on our hall. I stood away from the door so they wouldn’t feel threatened by me as they opened it. I had to keep calm until circumstances dictated otherwise.

I was glad to have my family around me again; but we had to march in single file, with a guard to either side of each of us, as we went to the great hall. I kept my mind inside Aro’s as we walked, so I’d know what was happening there. He and Bella merely looked at each other.

We climbed narrow stairs to an antechamber. Tall wooden doors opened for us with a dry, creaking sound, and there she was, already turning to face me. My Bella. Naturally, my pace quickened, but my two guards restrained me. I knew they would not let me embrace her, and I had to fight the instinct to shake them off of me and run to her.

Bella’s eyes locked onto mine, and the relief on her face at seeing me was a balm to my frightened heart. I’m sorry, she mouthed.

I love you, I mouthed back. It didn’t matter that she’d endangered her life, and ours. She was safe. We’d work out the rest of it when – if – we got out of this.

Alice was right behind me as we entered the room. Bella looked at Alice and mouthed, Did it work?

Alice nodded with pursed lips, her expression intense and satisfied. Alice knew that Bella wanted to know for certain whether Alice’s theory was correct – that a touch from Bella would create a permanent aversion to human blood.

Of course Aro and the others had witnessed this exchange, but they remained unthreatened. Aro casually approached Alice and patted her condescendingly on the cheek, as if she were a child. By touching Alice, he now knew what she had just communicated to Bella, but he saw no danger in it. He also knew we might try to fight our way out. But our guards were already close and ready to kill. To Aro, there was nothing to fear.

Bella gave me another look laden with emotion before turning back to face Aro, who slowly strode toward us. He surveyed us as though he were counting new heads of cattle that had fortuitously wandered onto his farmland.

A maelstrom of thought from my family nearly overwhelmed me, and I had to work to steady myself. Rosalie’s anguish was particularly insistent as her rape replayed in her mind. She was terrified, thinking of things that are unavoidable: of how you can stare, frozen, into the faces of your enemies and know that nothing you do or say can stop them. It’s just a matter of when, and how much it will hurt. Some things were worse than death.

Emmett strained to reach Rosalie, but his guards threw him to the floor with a stony crash. He glared up at them, then caught Carlisle’s warning look and composed himself before he rose. Not being able to fight was agony for him. His life would not end this way. Not this way.

Carlisle’s and Esme’s thoughts were practically identical in this moment. Their family was being ripped apart, and they were too weak to hold it together.

Jasper and Alice drank in the sight of each other, both desperate for escape now that they were reunited.

Then Aro spoke.

“Welcome, Carlisle. We are pleased that your family came promptly at our request.”

“You look well, as always,” Carlisle said, nodding at all three leaders.

Of course he was feeling as trapped as the rest of us, but he had to present a façade of decorum. Even the lowest criminal was expected to show the Volturi the respect they had earned. Carlisle’s history with them, in particular, demanded it.

“We wanted to wait until Edward transformed Bella before summoning your family here,” said Aro. “We would not have been surprised to see her change her mind at the last moment, hence our sending Jane and Demetri to ensure the transition. We can’t have – how does one say it? – loose ends.”

“Of course,” said Carlisle politely.

I quickly realized that this was a negotiation between two leaders: ours and theirs. A flare of resentment burst in me, and I could see Bella chafing to speak; but we both remained silent. I caught sight of Jasper and he shook his head slightly, thinking, Our time will come, Edward. Wait.

While Carlisle and Aro exchanged a few more phony pleasantries, my mind searched the other vampires in the room, whose thoughts were less opaque than those of our guards. What I found in the Volturi underlings was very interesting.

The vampires were highly distressed, naturally, not knowing why they couldn’t feed. But they were also angry with their leaders for not knowing why, or not telling them if they did know, or not fixing the problem if they could.

I glanced at Jasper again, wishing I could communicate this to him. But he could feel the anger and rebellion surging through the room and gave me a tiny nod.

My attention was drawn back to Aro as he spoke to Bella.

“My child,” he said. His smile looked for a grotesque moment as though he wanted to eat her, but then it settled into something more paternal. “As a welcome to you, and a congratulations on your wedding to Edward – ” Here his gaze rolled over me in a very proprietary way. “ – we wish to offer you a gift.”

Carlisle tensed, and his thoughts reached toward Bella.

Aro looked at a guard near a small wooden side door. “Bring in Gianna.”

What was this about? I tried to tune in to Carlisle; but as the human drew closer, the vampires in the room grew more and more agitated, their mental protestations like a thousand silver utensils clattering to a marble floor.

The human was here now, her frightened eyes searching the room until they lit upon Felix’s hulking form in the shadows. Her thoughts were confused, full of panic and dread. If Felix is going to change me, why is he way over there?

I remembered her now. Gianna was a receptionist of some sort, and Felix had flirted with her when Alice, Bella, and I had been escorted to the Volturi leaders the last time we were here. Gianna had wanted Felix to turn her.

A guard – who could barely stand to touch her, her blood repulsed him so strongly – held Gianna, and the vampires’ revulsion reached a fever pitch now that she was among us. Many placed their hands over their mouths and noses, or turned away from her as if that would lessen the stench. Gianna was the one human who had been allowed to remain on the premises since the outbreak of the blood revulsion yesterday; but even though they were used to Gianna’s scent, they hardly could bear it in such close proximity now. Gianna didn’t know why Felix and everyone else had been avoiding her for the past day, and their odd behavior now was almost more upsetting to her than if they’d tried to attack her.

My family felt the same nausea we’d felt when we’d encountered the bleeding hiker in the woods. My distaste for this girl’s blood was no greater than it had been for Charlie’s or the Quileutes’. But the Italian vampires had to restrain themselves from bolting from the room. Perhaps there was some sort of intensification of Bella’s gift around vampires who regularly drank human blood. Whatever the reason, my family was positively calm compared to the vampires who surrounded us.

All except for Carlisle, whose mind was a cyclone of despair.

“Please, Bella,” said Aro, gesturing to Gianna, “drink. I’m certain you’re thirsty.”

Gianna began to tremble and beg, the way most humans do when facing the executioner. She pleaded with Felix. He ignored her.

“Drink,” commanded Aro.

The shaking of Bella’s hands increased, but she said, “No, thank you.”

Don’t, I finally heard. Carlisle was desperate to speak to Bella aloud, but he didn’t dare. Don’t. It was a contract, an initiation; if Bella took what Aro offered her, she was agreeing to join his family. Carlisle had had to do the same. It was expected of all initiates. You accepted a gift, usually a blood gift, and then you swore your loyalty.

“Please,” insisted Aro.

Bella’s voice quivered. “I can’t.”

“Aro,” said Carlisle, “respectfully, I assure you this isn’t necessary.”

“And I assure you it is,” snapped Aro. “Alec. Bella needs some help.”

I turned as Jane’s brother Alec stepped forward from the shadows, but my eyes had barely taken in his face when I felt a terrible surge invade my body and take something from me. It thundered through the room like a tidal wave, and vampires fell to their knees all around me.

The most intense thirst I’d ever experienced raked my throat, left me as parched as if someone had drained every drop of sustenance from my body instantaneously. I felt like a carcass drying in the desert sun. I was burning, burning. I needed blood, more than I ever had or ever would again.

And yet, because of Bella’s power, the blood of the human Gianna still sickened me. I would not touch her.

Bella toppled to the floor and lay there in a fetal position, her hands fisted near her face as she convulsed. Alec’s power, apparently, did work on her; his ability must have been based on emotional control like Jasper’s, not cognitive control like mine, Jane’s, or Aro’s.

“Bella!” I shouted as I ran to her.

My guards were too incapacitated to move. They, like everyone else, wanted the human badly; yet her blood still repelled them. Emmett raced to Rosalie, and Esme clutched Carlisle. Jasper collapsed, hewn down by the devastating emotional tempest in the room. Alice cradled him.

“Bella,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around her small, shaking body. She whimpered. Her eyes fixed hungrily on Gianna, but she couldn’t take her blood. Vampires groaned and snarled all around us, sounding like inmates in an insane asylum.

It was a powerful gift Alec possessed, propelling vampires back to their basest, most primitive natures. Surely Aro used Alec’s talent often, to keep his minions in line and remind them of what they really were.

Somehow, perhaps because of their age, the three Volturi leaders maintained a degree of self-control, though their lips curled with the distasteful extremes of revulsion and thirst. Aro spoke gently, the hem of his robes only a few feet away from Bella as she shook in my arms. “Child, why won’t you drink?”

“She can’t!” I said through clenched teeth.

“Very interesting,” said Aro, and I watched the hem of his robes flutter as he stepped away. “This needs more study. Felix.”

Felix approached haltingly, like a zombie from a horror film, all his power and grace devoured by the warring hunger and revulsion in him. His nose wrinkled as though he were wading through the most repugnant filth at the bottom of a sewer. Gianna’s hopeful face was pathetic to see.

“Will you serve?” Aro asked pleasantly.

I didn’t understand the expression, but Felix did. He raised his hand and, with one quick slash of a fingernail, opened a slit in Gianna’s neck. Blood spurted from her jugular vein to the floor in a jet of regular heartbeats, fast as life. She tumbled to her knees, clutching her throat, still silently begging Felix. He turned his back on her and walked back to his position in the shadows. She fell forward, trying to support herself with one hand while the other remained clamped over her gushing wound.

Her blood would spill until she was dead, because no vampire was going to drink from her. I heard whines and groans from everywhere. The mental hysteria around me was intolerable. I held onto Bella’s stiff body, my own shuddering violently. Through the din I heard Alice whispering in Jasper’s ear to be strong, that it had to end soon.

“Such a waste,” said Aro lightly from above us.

Gianna’s forehead touched the stone floor, then her arm gave out and she lay prostrate facing Felix. Her eyes glazed over and in another few moments she was unconscious. At last the poor woman was dead, her blood pooling around her like a wet, sticky halo.

The panicked vampires could hardly contain themselves. There was blood, lots of it; but they couldn’t have it, didn’t want it. Jane groaned. I heard Alec gritting his teeth, and his power seemed to flicker on and off like a light switch as he battled his own nausea. Demetri hit the wall with one fist, sending stone and dust to the floor. Felix, his back still to Gianna, was wishing he could vomit.

And Carlisle was relieved. This was a test, and Bella had passed it.

“That’s enough, Alec,” said Aro.

Blessedly, the onslaught of intense thirst ceased. For several moments, all I heard were vampires rising to their feet again.

“Bella, I am sorry we could not tempt you with our offering,” said Aro.

As quickly as she was able, Bella rose to her feet. She wouldn’t stay on the ground, no matter how overcome she’d been seconds earlier. Shakily, I stood with her and wrapped my fingers through hers.

“Is there … something else you would prefer?” Aro smiled. “A male, perhaps?”

“My family only feeds on animals,” said Bella. “You know that.”

Jane hissed at Bella’s rudeness.

Aro’s eyes narrowed. “You two.” He indicated the guard who had brought in Gianna and the vampire next to him. “Dispose of that. And clean the floor.”

As the guards gagged through their macabre task – dragging Gianna’s limp body from the room and sopping up the blood smear with bleach-soaked rags – Aro continued talking as if they were merely wiping up spilled wine at a party.

Though they were glad the blood was being removed, the vampires around us remained confused and horrified by what they’d just endured. What had caused this revulsion? How could they reverse it? Could they ever feed again? Why were Marcus, Caius, and Aro being so calm about all of this?

“We three have discussed your situation, Carlisle,” said Aro, his tone suddenly brisk as he approached him. The analysis of the specimen and her effect on other vampires was over; it was time to talk business. “We cannot tolerate a coven of your size, even if you remain in North America. Vampires could flock to you, seeking asylum, or protection. Your numbers could grow, as would your power.”

“Yes,” said Carlisle, knowing it would be rude to disagree. “But understand that we have no desire to increase our numbers, or to compete with the Volturi in any respect.”

Aro touched Carlisle’s elbow as if he were merely greeting an old friend. He smiled when he saw that Carlisle was speaking the truth.

“I know, Carlisle.”

Aro stepped away and faced Esme, who regarded him levelly through her fear.

“But I also know that you value family above all else.” His smile at Esme was patronizing. “Could you turn someone away? You would defy us in the name of compassion. You must recall the newborn who was part of that unfortunate attack on your coven. If we hadn’t intervened, she would be with you still, all because she promised she’d join you and try to live as you do. Your family would grow, despite your good intentions.”

“Perhaps,” said Carlisle. “But even so, we will not challenge you.”

Aro smiled at Alice, who was still gripping the devastated Jasper’s hand. They both met Aro’s gaze steadily. “The future can change,” Aro said, “if you will pardon the expression, in a heartbeat. One little decision can alter everything. Alice knows this.” He stared at her until she reluctantly nodded.

Carlisle lowered his head. There was nothing he could say to convince the Volturi that we would never threaten their power.

“So,” Aro said brightly, as if the matter was settled, “the best solution is for your family to join our family. When you took leave of us years ago, Carlisle, we hated to let you go. But we were curious about your new … way of life. I will share a secret with you: we did not think you would survive for long.” Aro chuckled. “But we always welcomed your return. And now that we’ve met your talented children, I must admit our appetite cannot be satiated unless we have all of you.”

“No.” Bella loosened her fingers from mine and stepped toward Aro.

“Bella,” warned Carlisle, and I felt disaster buzzing in my stomach.

Aro turned, bemused, to face Bella. “No?”

“I came here to offer myself – myself alone – for you to use as you wish.” Her hands clenched into fists and her back straightened. “I’ve already sacrificed my human family. I won’t have my new one enslaved.”

Jane rushed forward, and I darted between her and Bella.

Jane’s fury capsized me, and I sank under the agony. Everything went white and my muscles seized. I couldn’t even scream. Like the last time, I had the feeling that this suffering was all I knew, all I had ever known, and it would never end. I felt Bella’s hands on my chest, but my neck had contracted backward so that I could only see Aro’s upside down feet. Bella was yelling for Jane to stop, stop it now. Please.

“My dear Bella,” Aro explained, as though no one were writhing in front of him, “your sentiment is charmingly unselfish, but I must point out one obvious fact. We already have your family. There is no negotiation.”

Alice gasped, and at the same moment Bella said, “Then you leave me no choice.”

Bella’s hands left me. The torture stopped. When I could focus my eyes, I could hardly believe what I saw. Bella and Jane stood above me, and Bella’s fingers were around Jane’s throat.

“How was your last supper, Jane?” Bella whispered into her face.

Jane shrieked, “Get her off me!” She shoved Bella away, and Bella skidded across the floor and hit the opposite wall. Bits of stone crumbled and fell to the floor.

I leapt to my feet, ready to rip Jane apart. Jane turned her fierce gaze on Bella, but she still couldn’t hurt her with her mental torture.

Bella was next to me in the blink of an eye and she laid a hand on my chest, shaking her head at me.

She turned to Jane again. “Let me tell you what has just happened to you, Jane, in case Aro won’t.”

Jane was about to torture me again; but, hearing Bella’s words, she touched her throat and waited. Aro’s expression was horrified, and he moved silently backward into a throng of guards. All the other vampires in the room waited.

“Being near me is what makes you unable to drink human blood,” Bella said, looking around her at all the vampires in the room. “Don’t worry; the effect will go away once I’m not around.”

She looked at Jane again.

“But once I’ve touched you, you will never, ever be able to feed from a human again. Even after I’ve gone.”

Jane quickly looked at Aro and saw at once that Bella was telling the truth.

Jane opened her pretty little mouth in a long, silent “o” as she scanned the faces of Marcus and Caius for further proof. Then she took a deep breath and screamed. Her shrieking went on for a full minute. All the vampires near her backed away, even Alec, as if they could somehow “catch” her disease. Jane ran toward Bella, as if to tear her apart with her hands; but Emmett rushed to my side, and the two of us pulled Jane away, still screeching and thrashing. We steered her toward two of the Volturi’s vampires, but they refused to hold her.

“Should I touch anyone else?” shouted Bella. She spread her arms like a witch ready to shoot lightening bolts from her fingertips. Everyone froze, staring at her. “No? Then my family and I are leaving now.”

“Jane!” hissed Aro. “If you could gather yourself for a moment and turn your energy toward the problem at hand …” Aro nodded at me, Carlisle, and the rest of our family.

To gain control of Bella, he was going to make Jane torture all of us, one by one.

Everyone in my family dropped to a crouch, circling Bella, our backs to each other. Jane couldn’t hurt all of us at once, but those of us not being attacked by Jane were likely about to be surrounded by other Volturi soldiers like Demetri and Felix. In fact, the two combatants were already poised to leap at our throats. Demetri had his eye on me; Felix had chosen Emmett. I snarled and prepared to fight.

Then Jasper’s power flowed through the room like a hot, dry wind. Dissent. Self-preservation. A deepening of the mistrust that was already present in all of Aro’s vampires. I was thrilled and impressed by the precision of his gift, which seemed to settle like dust on all the Volturi soldiers.

Jane then did what no loyal subject of the Volturi had ever done before: she refused to obey.

“You didn’t tell me what Bella could do!” she shrieked.

Aro’s eyebrows twitched; but he was master, not she. “You will not question my motives. It wasn’t for you to know at the time.”

“And now look at me!” Jane tore at her robes, her hair. “I’m a freak! I’m – I’m going to starve to death!”

“Take her outside!” Aro spat.

The two vampires near Jane stared, unwilling to touch the leper. “But – ” one of them began.

“NOW!”

The vampires hesitated – partially because they feared “infection,” partially because Jasper had sharpened their rebellion – and Jane shot out both hands and slapped them each on the face, apparently wanting to contaminate them, too, if it were possible. They lowered into a crouch and growled at her, and she countered with a couple of kicks.

“Oh, please,” muttered Emmett over the scuffle. “You can still eat bunny rabbits.”

Jane and the two vampires fought with each other through the side door, and the brawl continued outside as she turned her mental torture onto each guard in turn and then ran away, sobbing.

“Take them!” Aro ordered the remaining soldiers as he swept his hand toward our family.

Suddenly Bella leapt over Alice, so that she was outside our protective circle.

“Bella, no!” I said.

But she rolled her eyes at me, and I knew she was right. Besides having newborn strength and speed, she also knew that none of the Volturi wanted her touching them. She could merely tap someone and they’d be doomed to a life of “vegetarianism.” Bella was our fortress, and we needed to get used to living behind her.

Emmett roared at Felix; but Felix hesitated. So did Demetri, who faced me. Esme’s thoughts shot around the room as she tried to determine which vampire was going to strike first, and which of her children she’d have to defend; but no one leapt at us. Hope began to swell in Carlisle and Rosalie. And Alice, although still ready to fight, was positively jubilant, proud of her man and his work.

Jasper relentlessly fine-tuned all the fear, anger, and suspicion in the room, intensifying it into a single chorus of mutiny, until he was certain no one would do a thing Aro asked.

One by one, every vampire abandoned the three leaders – slowly at first, stepping out a side door or edging back to the main entrance, paying no heed to Aro’s orders to stay, not caring that they would lose their prestigious positions among the Volturi. Alec cautiously went after Jane. Demetri and Felix both stormed out the large main doors. After those three were gone there was a great exodus, and our family was alone with Aro, Marcus, and Caius.

The only sound was the guttering of the candles. We slowly stood up straight and faced our captors.

Caius descended the stone steps and murmured in Aro’s ear, “Well, aren’t we in a fine fix?”

For the fist time, I sensed that Marcus and Caius didn’t always agree with Aro; in fact, they’d wanted to tell their vampires about Bella Cullen and her gift as soon as Aro had seen the truth in Alice. But Aro had considered Bella’s talent a peculiar weapon that ought to be inspected before the full extent of it was divulged to the masses.

Aro glowered at Caius, but said nothing. This was beyond his imagination. Their closest circle had abandoned them.

I went to Bella’s side again, and immediately my family gathered near her. I took her hand, lacing our fingers together again. Alice grasped her other hand. One by one each of the family touched Bella somewhere – her shoulder, her waist, her hair.

“Here’s the deal,” said Bella to the three leaders. “If you or anyone else comes after me or my family, I won’t rest until I’ve contaminated all three of you. Just like Jane.”

They looked at her curiously, but I sensed in their thoughts that they believed her. And Jasper knew that they were afraid. Suddenly Alice saw that our escape was assured.

“Consider this a parting of the ways,” said Bella. “A permanent one.”

Carlisle cleared his throat, stunned but impressed by her boldness in the face of these ancient powers. It was up to him to say goodbye. “We’ll leave now,” he said, nodding at his three old comrades. “We won’t bother you again.”

“We trust you won’t,” said Marcus, still at a distance from us at the top of the steps. “We have no need for troubles such as these.”

“Indeed, you don’t,” agreed Carlisle. “Goodbye.”

Aro’s mouth dropped open as if to speak, but no words came out. Carlisle nodded to him once more, and we left.

No one spoke as we hastily passed through the antechamber and descended the narrow winding stairwell. We followed Carlisle through the maze of halls toward the doors that would take us to the main square. I left the frustrated thoughts of Aro, Marcus, and Caius behind me, focusing only on escape. Let them stew in their own juices, as Jasper would say. They would never have us.

As we passed what was once Gianna’s desk, we saw our small suitcases and duffel bags stacked behind the chair against the wall; our passports were still inside. Alice rummaged in the drawers of the desk and, amazingly, found her passport, as well. Bella’s was tucked all along in the back pocket of the dirty jeans she wore. Suitcases and identities in hand, we hurried outside, through a small alley toward the dark courtyard of Volterra. We’d have to find transportation to get us to the airport.

Bella and I moved quickly, as closely together as we could while walking side by side in the middle of the knot of our family. Now that we were free, I kissed her forehead, her cheek, in gratitude for her staying safe. She turned her face to mine and kissed me soundly on the lips. We stopped for a glorious moment, savoring the taste of each other, of continued life, until Emmett shoved us along, muttering about getting a room. Reluctantly our lips parted, we looked ahead, and followed Carlisle into the open space of the courtyard.

The ancient stonework shone in the moonlight, and the water in the fountain shimmered like a silver dollar in the middle of the space. The only people awake at this late hour were a handful of drunks and lovers dotting the square and passageways, and they paid us no attention. The stars winked at us overhead, perhaps congratulating us for our nerve, or our astonishing luck.

“I’m sorry,” said Bella, loudly enough that I realized she was apologizing to all of us, not just me. “I’m sorry for what I put you through. I’m an idiot.”

“Don’t worry, dear,” said Esme, running a hand through Bella’s tousled hair. “We wouldn’t have let you get away with that stunt anyhow. We’re family.” She squeezed her shoulder before she went to join Carlisle near the fountain. Carlisle embraced his wife fiercely.

“We’ll talk when we get home,” I said to Bella. “But no one is upset with you. Least of all me.”

“You should be,” she replied. She looked me in the eyes, daring me to contradict her.

“Listen, we do need to talk,” I said again. “But first we need to get out of here. Unless you want to hunt first?”

She shook her head firmly. “I want to go home.”

“Me, too,” I said quietly, wondering whether we had a home anymore at all, now that the Quileutes knew that I had changed Bella. That was another topic we needed to discuss, but now was not the time.

“You sure you don’t want to hunt?” asked Emmett as he sidled up to us. “Italian cuisine is supposed to be all fancy.”

Bella grimaced and shook her head.

Emmett squeezed her lightly on the arm, saying, “That was good action in there. I think you’re finally one of us.”

Rosalie joined him, and Bella stepped close to her. “Rosalie, I’m really, really sorry I did that to you. I mean running away, making you all worry. I wasn’t thinking. I thought I could – that somehow I’d – ” She sighed. “But I’m a big jerk.”

“No, you’re not,” Rosalie said harshly. “You’re just – ” She glowered at Bella, ten cynical retorts brewing in her mind. But then she surprised even me by grabbing Bella and hugging her tightly. The hug lasted for no more than two seconds, and she quickly walked away toward the fountain. Emmett, Bella, and I stood dumbfounded.

“Like I said,” whispered Emmett before he turned to join his wife.

Bella and I looked at each other, still at a loss for words. Alice darted past us and around the fountain toward a dark, hulking object that sat in one of the alleyways.

Jasper edged up to me and rocked on his heels, hands clasped behind his back. He looked drained, and I wondered what tonight’s emotional manipulation had cost him. “Luckily today wasn’t a good day to die, after all.” And he actually winked at us.

I smiled back at him just before his weary gaze followed his wife.

“Let’s go,” she called.

Alice leaned against the driver’s door of minivan large enough to carry us all – a Honda Odyssey. How had someone fit that behemoth into that narrow passage? The vehicle looked ridiculously overstated compared to the fashionable little roadsters and Vespas parked near it. But though it was not exactly Italy’s most sexy getaway van, it certainly would suffice.

Read on for the CONCLUSION ... Part 9

Author’s Note: One more chapter will tie up loose ends and reveal whether the Cullens have a home waiting for them in Forks, or if the Quileutes have decided to banish them. I’m so grateful to all of you who have adopted this story as an alternative to Breaking Dawn. Thank you for following this, and for your thoughtful comments. :)

Twilight Fic: Merit (A Change of Heart, Part 7)

bratanimus — Fri, 07 May 2010 19:33:44 GMT

Title: Merit (Part 7 of A Change of Heart)
Author: bratanimus
Rating: PG for this chapter, R for some others
Spoilers: This story, begun post-Eclipse, is my version of Breaking Dawn. First person Edward POV.
Warnings: Mild language, mild violence, references to sex.
Pairings: Edward/Bella, all other canon pairings
Word Count: 6,462
Summary: I had no idea how Jacob, in his rage, kept from phasing into his wolf form; but it seemed important to him to remain human right now, as unlike me as possible, while he tried to make me bloody, as bloody as he saw Bella in his mind.
Author’s Note: This is part seven of my story, A Change of Heart. Prior chapters and summaries:
Chapter 1 (Intention) – The Volturi crash Bella’s and Edward’s wedding day.
Chapter 2 (Consummation) – The wedding night and bite.
Chapter 3 (For Good) – Bella’s transformation.
Chapter 4 (Mastered) – Bella’s post-change gift.
Chapter 5 (Released) – Bella’s first hunt (and other urges).
Chapter 6 (Helpless) – Bella faces dark feelings about her new self.
And the latest, Chapter 7 (Merit) – Edward searches for Bella and discovers something unexpected.

Thanks for reading and for your comments. :)

I pressed the speed dial button on my cell phone, and upstairs in our room Bella’s phone rang. There was a sudden hollowness in my stomach. I stared into the hallway through Jasper’s bedroom door as if I could stop that damned ringing upstairs and somehow will the phone to be in Bella’s hand so I’d know where she was right now.

It rang until it went to her voice mail.

I put my phone in my pocket and ran a hand though my hair. With the onslaught of galvanic emotion in my gut, the room appeared to me as if through a fish-eye lens, distorted and far away. Jasper was saying something reassuring to me, but it may as well have been word salad spewing from his mouth.

Of course, Alice would know where Bella had gone; but Alice was in the air somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on her way to Italy to see how far Bella’s power would affect her. There was no way to contact her until the aircraft landed.

I’d have to go hunting for Bella myself.

Mentally, I was already halfway to Charlie’s house. This morning’s phone call with her father had ignited desperate feelings in her. She must have gone there, to the most familiar and loved person from her former life.

I sprinted toward the garage and peeled down the driveway in my Volvo by the time Jasper alerted Emmett, Carlisle, and Esme. In my rear view mirror I saw their open mouths, their raised hands, but I didn’t want their offers of help. Soon Emmett was calling me on my cell phone, and I threw it angrily into the back seat. I didn’t care to hear his rationalizations about Rosalie’s “honest mistake” in letting Bella somehow evade her. Irrationally, I hoped Emmett thought I was on my way to shake some sense into his wife right now.

As my car sped down familiar roads, I realized I wasn’t worried about Bella being alone with humans. We’d all seen how she’d resisted killing the bleeding hiker during our first hunt, a feat that should have been insurmountable for a newborn. We’d all felt the same sickness near that hiker, the nausea that kept us from even the smallest desire to taste his blood. Her gift was that powerful, keeping even her own instinct to feed in check. No, it wasn’t that I feared she’d attack a human.

It was worse than that.

I feared … I almost couldn’t let myself think it.

I feared she wanted away from me.

She’d had second thoughts, too late, too late. She wanted her old family back. She wanted her old self back. And there was no way she could have it. She felt trapped; I knew because I’d verified it in Jasper’s mind. She must be scurrying away even now from this unnatural un-life, from us … from me.

My car found its way practically by autopilot to Charlie’s place. I was on his street before I knew it, and I managed to slow the car to a reasonable speed as I parked in front of his house. His police cruiser was in the driveway.

I reached into the back seat to retrieve my phone and set it to “vibrate,” then put it in my pocket, just in case Bella called from a public phone. Then I glanced around the car’s interior for some excuse to be here without my bride. I could hear Charlie’s thoughts, but they were about tools; he was trimming bushes in the back yard and was aggravated that he’d left the pruning shears on the lawn one afternoon before it rained. Now the shears had rusted, and he was having trouble clipping the hedge. His thoughts were about as far from his daughter as they could be.

I’d have to face him to find out if he’d seen or heard from Bella today.

I grabbed a thin paperback book from my old school backpack and approached the front door. I had to knock first, because he couldn’t know that I was aware he was in the back yard. I knocked loudly. After thirty seconds I knocked again, trying not to scream at the absurdity of having to knock when I knew exactly where he was. Fortunately, just when I was about to stalk into the back yard anyhow, Charlie cursed – loudly enough for a human on the front porch to hear him.

I walked around to the back of the house.

“Good afternoon, Charlie,” I said, sounding calm even to myself. Vampirism has a few positive aspects; appearing cool in the face of disaster, I suppose, is one of them.

“Well, hey, Edward.”

Charlie lowered the rusted shears and dragged his other forearm across his sweaty brow. In the waning golden daylight he looked tired but vibrant, still youthful for his middle age. His familiar human scent saddened me, because Bella would never be able to see him again. He would get older and older, and for as long as he lived never again see his only daughter. It was wrong. The whole situation was wrong, and I knew it.

The scent of Charlie’s blood was unsettling to me in new ways, too, because of the effect of Bella’s power. At close range, his blood smelled somewhat sour. It was no longer sweet and inviting in that compelling way that always made my mouth water and my body tense.

“What brings you out this way?” He was brusque as always. He wouldn’t invite me into his home, even though he thought guiltily that he should.

“Bella’s out shopping for our – ” I almost said trip to Italy. “ – honeymoon. She wanted me to bring this book back to you. I think it’s yours.”

Charlie took the book from my steady hand and frowned at it. “Our Town? Not mine.”

We’d studied the Thornton Wilder play in English. “I thought it was this one,” I lied. “Sorry. I must not have looked where she was pointing.”

Charlie thrust the paperback back at me, and I took it. With the mention of Bella’s name, as I’d predicted, his thoughts turned toward his daughter, and I scavenged his mind.

I saw an image of Rosalie’s red car – Rosalie had told me on the phone that Bella had stolen it while Rosalie was paying for a dress. The BMW had driven slowly past Charlie’s house. Charlie had been standing in the kitchen taking a swig from a canned soda before going out to work in the yard, and his jaw had dropped when he saw the gorgeous creature driving the vehicle. The young woman had looked so much like Bella; but she couldn’t have been, he’d thought. A brief ray of sunlight reflected off the driver’s window, and it was hard to see clearly. But he saw well enough to judge that the girl in the car could have been a model. Not that his daughter wasn’t beautiful, he’d reminded himself, but this woman’s beauty was truly remarkable. The driver had stared into the kitchen window as if she could see him (and, of course, Bella could – my heart lurched at the thought of her torturing herself this way). Charlie could only gape as he’d watched the car turn the corner and disappear. He had shaken himself, feeling a little creepy for even thinking this woman was so stunning, because she really did look an awful lot like his daughter. He’d carried his can of soda to the back yard and busied himself with the mundane task of pruning.

So there it was: Bella had driven past her father’s house but she hadn’t stopped to speak with him. Then where had she gone? I was fairly certain I knew now, and I didn’t like it one bit. My old jealousy – that tiny, tormenting windmill – started churning within me again.

“You almost packed and ready to go?” Charlie was saying. He walked over to the back porch steps, grabbed his now-warm soda from the top stair, and took a long draught of it.

I couldn’t help reading his thoughts. To Charlie, I was still the bad guy, stealing his daughter and playing wicked mind games with her after I’d left her and broken her heart. I couldn’t blame him. A guilty look on my face spurred more negative thoughts and suddenly his feelings curdled. He doesn’t deserve her, he thought with certainty.

I forced my face once more into a neutral expression, then smiled. “Oh. Um, yes, nearly ready. Bella just wanted to do some last-minute shopping. We leave the day after tomorrow.” Be it Italy, honeymoon, or Timbuktu, I wasn’t going anywhere until I found Bella.

“Shopping, huh?” Charlie squinted at his soda and set the shears on the steps. “Doesn’t sound much like Bella.”

Those Cullens are rubbing off on her. She’s changing, he thought.

Charlie masked his despair quite well, like most men do. An image of Bella as a toddler running around the yard in a little white dress with red apples on it crowded his mind, and mine. The toddler’s smile was wide open, not the remote mask it had become – around Charlie, at least – in her teenage years. His jaw worked. “Bella never shops.”

I should have thought of that myself, before she and Rosalie left the house. Of course it didn’t sound like Bella, because it wasn’t. She was just looking for a way out. Escaping from Rosalie probably hadn’t been very difficult.

“No, it doesn’t, does it?” I admitted, trying to keep up my end of the small talk. If Charlie could do it, then so could I. “I’m afraid Rosalie is probably trying to talk her into buying some really uncomfortable high heels. Beauty knows no pain, I guess.”

Charlie forced a laugh while his eyes scanned his handiwork in the back yard, but everywhere he looked he saw memories of his daughter, from her summertime visits as a baby and child, to her reading on the lawn just a month ago. “Bella in heels?” he scoffed. “I almost feel sorry for your sister. I’ll bet Bella’s not much of a shopping partner.”

“It’s doubtful. Maybe I’ll buy her some nice walking shoes to wear on our honeymoon.”

“Don’t do that.” Charlie’s eyes finally met mine. They were level, and his voice was as gruff as usual, but I read the panicked thoughts in his mind. “Old wives’ tale. Don’t ever buy your woman shoes. She’ll walk out the door in them.”

I saw the old, scuffed red sneakers his ex-wife, Renée, had worn when she left him. Old wives’ tale or not, Charlie had indeed bought those shoes for her with his first paycheck from the police force. In his memory, one red sneaker disappeared up under the battered car door just before it slammed shut. Bella sat buckled fast in her baby seat in the back. Walking shoes, Charlie had thought helplessly. Then his whole world backed out of the driveway and disappeared.

“Old wives’ tale?” I managed. “Okay, I’ll skip the shoes, just in case.”

The superstitious warning had popped out of Charlie’s mouth, probably before he’d had a chance to monitor himself, but I appreciated the gesture all the same. Perhaps he didn’t truly bear me any ill will. Maybe there was some small part of him that wanted things to work out between Bella and me. I wasn’t sure that I really believed that, but I wanted to.

I had to find her. I had to find out if the happy ending Charlie missed was possible for me.

I stood in the middle of the road, just at the border of “our” land and “theirs.” I hung up my cell phone, and waited. I’d called Sam, not Jacob, because I figured Jacob would hardly want to see me right now, so soon after the wedding. Sam was bringing some of the pack along. Hopefully Jacob would be among them, but his presence wasn’t strictly necessary. I could probably learn what I needed to know from the minds of the others; since they shared that bizarre pack mind link, there were no secrets among them. If Jacob had seen Bella, I’d know it. I was sure she’d come here, and it made my gut twist.

I rehearsed all the different ways I could say what I was about to say to Sam. I considered what Carlisle and the rest of them would think about me doing this behind their backs. I was going to have to wing it, and I was taking a huge risk being here alone.

I could only hope that the pack’s feelings toward us would soften because we’d destroyed Victoria and her army of newborns together.

I glanced at my phone again, wishing that Bella would call me from wherever she was now. Fourteen calls and messages, all from various family members, awaited my acknowledgement. Thank goodness Alice was on an airplane en route to Italy, or my being here wouldn’t be any secret.

Why did I want to do this alone, in secret, anyhow? Even I wasn’t quite certain. On the negative side, perhaps it was because I felt responsible for Bella’s disappearance, for our continued residence in Forks, for the fact that the tribe had to keep worrying about us at all; who else should risk his life speaking with the pack than me? On the positive side, I might be responsible – however indirectly, through Bella, at least – for my family and the pack cooperating at all to face Victoria and her minions; so why shouldn’t I, by all rights, take the lead and talk with Sam now?

I didn’t know whether feelings of guilt or merit had brought me to Sam, but here I was.

Under a lone streetlight – it was dark now – I remained very still while I waited for the pack, even as my mind spun out ten potential terrible endings to our meeting. Number one was that Bella had come to see Jacob and didn’t want to see me.

I slid my cell phone into the back pocket of my jeans and became aware of several minds approaching me.

Seth. Good.

Sam, of course.

Paul. Embry.

Where was Jacob? Just as I wondered that, Sam’s thoughts reached out to him, commanding him to come. Though I was happy for the command, I wondered why Sam was forcing Jacob to face me; he wasn’t making Leah or Quil come along. Sam knew as well as I did – the whole pack knew – all about the pain and anger Jacob felt. And yet the rest of them, too, tugged at him with their thoughts. A deeper glimpse into Sam’s mind gave me the answer: Sam figured Jacob had some rights in any dealings with me, because I’d taken Bella away from him. Jacob should express his opinion, whether or not Sam agreed.

Sam grew in my esteem.

Seth arrived first, riding up on an old bicycle that was now too short for him. He seemed to have grown another three inches in the weeks since I’d last seen him.

“What’s up, Mr. Swan?” he grinned, and I smiled back. His short, shaggy hair looked an inky blue-black under the light of the streetlamp. He leaned the bike against the weathered wooden pole. “How was the wedding?”

“It was – lovely.” The ceremony was beautiful indeed, even if what ensued with the arrival of Jane and Demetri was not. “Bella and I were sorry that you couldn’t be there.”

“Yeah, well, you know …” Seth looked uncomfortable and shoved both hands deeply into his pockets as he sauntered over to me. “If I’d come, then Jake would’ve been there. More or less.”

“I understand.”

Jacob, of course, wouldn’t have come to our ceremony; but he would have seen Seth’s memories of it. Because Jacob didn’t want to be tormented by visions of our happy day, out of loyalty the other pack members hadn’t attended. I hadn’t truly expected them; but Bella had insisted, and I’d agreed, that we should invite them regardless. We’d been through too much together not to extend the invitation.

Thankfully Sam arrived then, in an old pickup truck with Paul and Embry, so that Seth and I didn’t have to chat about the wedding any longer. The three young men unfolded themselves, all arms and legs and muscles, and flanked Seth. Even after everything, Sam was perturbed that Seth had gotten here so quickly and let himself be alone with me. Seth chafed against Sam’s overprotection, as he saw it, and stepped slightly forward toward me. It was just a few inches, but it made his point.

Sam chose to ignore that little rebellion. “Edward,” he said flatly.

“Sam,” I replied, keeping my voice even, my hands still and at my sides. No need to make the dogs jumpy, especially since they outnumbered me four to one. “Thank you for meeting me.”

He folded his arms across his broad chest. “We’ll wait for Jake and then we’ll talk.”

I nodded. My hope was renewed a bit when I sensed none of the pack thinking immediately of Bella, which meant that Jacob possibly had not seen her today. If he had, his thoughts probably would have infected theirs.

While Sam and the others scanned the area for other vampires – even after fighting alongside us, they couldn’t shake their suspicion of us – I took stock of my surroundings.

I spotted an old, half-blind opossum waddling along the side of the road twenty yards away. I heard a few voices nearby, all members of the Quileute tribe. A man and woman were arguing loudly perhaps half a mile from here; the woman was crying and cursing, and a baby was squalling. All around me I breathed in the scent of dirt, and the plant life of late summer, along with motor oil and rust and someone’s clothes dryer sheets as their laundry hummed through its drying cycle a quarter of a mile down the road.

I smelled the Quileutes’ blood, the faint dog-ness of it, a stench I supposed I would never get used to, particularly now that its foulness was compounded by the bitter revulsion I seemed to feel around all human blood, thanks to Bella’s uncanny gift. In the darkness, downlit by the harsh overhead streetlight, the four young men looked gaunt and eerie, almost like a black-and-white portrait from an earlier era. I suppose I did, too.

Paul fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to another and kicking rocks on the road. Every now and then Embry studied his cuticles – a curiously nervous and delicate action, I mused, even though I knew him to be a robust fighter in his wolf form. Seth kept looking behind him at the road leading into the reservation, his thoughts anxious about the confrontation Jacob and I were surely about to have. Sam mostly just watched me.

A minute of silence was finally broken by the sound of a motorcycle droning up the road. Jacob’s thoughts buzzed more loudly than the engine, however, and I knew the pack could hear him raging all the way here.

Jacob made me tired. Around me, his inner vitriol never stopped. What was worse, I could not blame him. I steeled myself for the cyclone of his teenage mind, ready to scour it for any evidence of Bella.

Jacob pulled the bike up next to Embry and, before turning off the engine, revved it loudly just for good measure. I kept my face neutral. Jacob’s was dark with emotion. Under the streetlamp, the shadows created by his eyebrows masked his eyes. He lowered the kickstand and dismounted the motorcycle in one fluid movement. But his hands were fisted already, and the muscles of his forearms rippled.

“All right, what do we need to discuss?” asked Sam. He gave a silent warning – stay calm – to Jacob, who pretended to ignore it.

I didn’t have to ask: Jacob was already thinking of Bella – the brief kisses they’d shared, all the laughter, how she’d felt in his arms, the way she’d looked saying goodbye – but so far I had no impression that he’d seen or heard from her this day.

I sighed in relief; but I had to have a reason for being here, so I gave them a good one.

“The treaty,” I began. Sam lowered his arms and glared at me. He knew exactly what I was going to ask. When no one spoke, I continued.

“My family is going away for a short while, and we are prepared to move away from Forks as soon as we return.” If we return, I thought dismally. “But we’d like to stay, if we may. We would like for your tribe to consider rewriting the treaty, if you and the elders see fit. Before you make your decision, there have been some … unexpected developments … which might sway you in our favor.”

“Wait a minute.”

Of course, it was Jacob speaking, his panic rising already. He was no fool. Why would I be talking about leaving if it wasn’t dictated by the terms of the Quileute treaty? The only thing that would necessitate our departure would be if one of us had bitten a human – to the point, if I’d bitten Bella. They all expected it, but didn’t know when the horrible event would transpire.

Sam put up a hand. “Let him finish, Jake.”

Jacob deliberately turned his gaze away from me and studied the moths circling the streetlight overhead. Finally I saw his eyes, and they glittered with hatred.

All right, then, the good news first. “What would you say if I told you that, under certain conditions, it’s now physically impossible for any vampire in or near La Push or Forks to feed from a human?”

A whirlwind of confusion swept through the pack. Seth looked into my eyes, hopeful. The rest were wary, and Jacob’s look could have pierced my skin.

“Explain,” said Sam.

“As long as the Cullens remain here, all humans are safe.”

“Explain.”

Okay, now the bad news. “You saw how some of us have … abilities. I can read minds. Alice sees the future. Jasper controls emotions.”

“Right, right.” Sam was trying to hurry me along, sensing, as I did, the growing mistrust in some of his fellows.

“What if one of us had the ability to curb a vampire’s most basic nature – the need to drink human blood? And as long as that vampire remained here, that power would assure that no other vampire within roughly a fifty mile radius – whether a Cullen or a stranger – would be able to partake of a human’s blood?”

We hadn’t measured out the distance specifically, but my estimate would do for now.

“Which one of you can do this?” asked Sam. “And why haven’t you told us about it until now?”

I couldn’t help it. I looked at Jacob.

The air between us became heavy.

“No.” His eyes flashed, and whatever had kept him in check up until now snapped. The tempest of Jacob’s mind became a nuclear holocaust. “No. No. You didn’t. You – you weren’t supposed to – until after – until – ”

I spoke quickly. They didn’t need details. “Something happened, something that was beyond our control, and we had to do it sooner than we’d planned.”

“What?” Seth’s head whipped from me to Jacob and back again. “ Bella? Jake, he said he wouldn’t do it until – ”

“When?” Jacob growled.

No use lying. “The night of the wedding.”

I felt Seth and the others finally catch up – Bella is a vampire, Bella is a bloodsucker – and then Jacob was on me.

I let him tackle me, because there was no point in stopping it. Perhaps I even wanted it.

The air left my lungs as he landed hard on my torso. Gravel pressed into my back, and punches battered my face. Jacob was very strong, for a human, and one blow made me bite my tongue. Blood trickled into my mouth.

I had no idea how Jacob, in his rage, kept from phasing into his wolf form; but it seemed important to him to remain human right now, as unlike me as possible, while he tried to make me bloody, as bloody as he saw Bella in his mind. Imagined scenes of our wedding night poisoned him – nightmares of me having Bella in all sorts of beastly ways, smearing her in her own blood, making her beg me to kill her – and Jacob kept pummeling me, punching my kidneys, my gut, my mouth, my ears. He pulled my hair and slammed my head into the ground. Blood and sex, sex and blood were all he imagined, and he wasn’t exactly wrong.

The whole thing was surreal, and time seemed to stretch in odd ways, even though the experience only lasted eight or nine seconds. My body remained limp and I let him keep hitting me. Bella wouldn’t have wanted us to fight, but it was more than that keeping me from striking Jacob. Maybe it was guilt over what I’d done to Bella, or dread of now losing her forever, or certainty that I deserved to lose her. Whatever it was, I sank into despair for a moment, thinking oddly of Renée’s red sneakers, and of Italies past and Italies future, and throughout my passivity Jacob kept beating me.

But then I became aware of Sam’s mind. Stop the fight, help him. Help whom? Jacob, of course, their brother.

Something in me awoke.

If one or two of them transformed into their wolf forms to help Jacob, they might harm me, perhaps even kill me. Would I let that happen? Would I make Bella lose me twice, even if she wanted to be away from me now? Would I hurt her that way again, now that she was changed beyond repair, and all because of me, her maker? Would I give up when there was the slightest chance that she still wanted, still needed me?

No.

I shoved Jacob’s chest – not hard enough to hurt him, but simply to get him off of me – and in the same moment I realized what the pack was doing: Sam and Seth were pulling on Jacob’s arms, and Embry and Paul had his legs.

God only knew why, they were helping me, not Jacob.

With the force of my push combined with the pulling of Jacob’s pack brothers, all five flew backward into a heap of bodies. Jacob immediately leapt up, but Sam and Paul grabbed his arms and yanked him backward. Seth and Embry darted between Jacob and me and tried to calm him down. By this point Jacob was lunging and screaming at me, calling me a leech, a murderer, a bastard.

Now standing, I spat the blood out of my mouth, brushed at some oil stains on my sleeve, shook the gravel from my back. Jacob kept cursing me, and I listened and waited for him to stop.

“Calm down, Jake!” ordered Sam. Jacob slithered an arm out of Paul’s grasp and nearly got away from them, but Sam grabbed him. “Calm yourself – NOW.”

With that command, Jacob’s movements eventually slowed, though his breathing was still frantic. His face was turned from me, but I knew he was crying angry, frightened tears. His thoughts were a mess. He’d come back to his father’s house two days before the wedding, hoping against hope that Bella would have changed her mind, that she would come to him all contrite and asking sweetly for forgiveness, for reunion. Not only had that not happened, but I’d turned her into the one thing he despised above all else, weeks before it should have happened at all. Yet he still wanted to see her. She hadn’t come to him. He hadn’t talked to her in so long. He wanted to run away again. He wanted to kill me. He wanted to die.

I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? Waiting for this moment to pass, as all moments surely do, I stared at a droplet of my own blood on the cracked pavement. The drop looked black under the stark light of the streetlamp. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d bled.

Near me, Sam was speaking quietly to Jacob, telling him that they had to hear me out, that they needed to know if something the Cullens had to offer might benefit the tribe. Jacob shook his head. This went on for a while. Eventually Jacob regained some composure, though Sam and Embry stayed close to him. Jacob was torn between jumping onto his motorcycle to escape and getting more details about Bella’s change, turning the knife in his wound a little more, making it real, as much as he wanted to pretend it wasn’t.

Finally, in the silence, the crickets began their nightly chirruping once more, and I knew the worst was over.

This was out of my hands now. I had come here as an agent of my family, without their knowledge or consent, for the sole purpose of finding out if Bella had come to see Jacob today. She hadn’t. And now I’d gone ahead and opened the proverbial can of worms. Now we’d have to face the decision of the tribe. The best I could hope for was that they believed me about Bella’s gift.

“All right, Edward,” said Sam. “How does this power of Bella’s work?”

To listen to my response, Sam had to force an image of a pale and bloodthirsty Bella out of his horrified mind. I, in turn, tried to tune out Jacob’s relentless internal lament as I spoke. We all stood still, facing each other, though Jacob refused to look at me.

I told the group how we’d discovered Bella’s gift in the forest with the bleeding hiker; and I explained that, to the best of our knowledge, her gift extended about fifty miles for vampires who hadn’t touched her. I told them Alice had discovered that the distaste for blood would extend even farther for vampires who had physically touched Bella; she’d traveled a hundred miles to Seattle and still felt the effect. I informed them that Alice was now on her way to Europe to see if the repulsion would maintain itself over greater distances, and that we’d find out about eleven o’clock tonight when she landed; it would be morning in Italy.

It was time to speak plainly.

“I know I broke the treaty,” I said. “You knew I would. And we can leave right now if you want us to leave. But if you allow us to remain here, with Bella, even transient vampires won’t be able to harm the tribe, or anyone in Forks. Wherever Bella is, no vampire can drink from a human.”

Ironic. After all my assertions against the notion, I was using Bella as a weapon, just as Carlisle had suggested we do in Italy. But I didn’t have time to think about that now.

The pack was silent, weighing the possible advantages of our staying against the conditions of the treaty.

“Why?” asked Jacob. “Why so soon?” I knew he meant her transformation.

“I can’t tell you everything,” I said truthfully; humans couldn’t know about the Volturi. As Jacob opened his mouth to argue I went on. “Suffice it to say that the wrong vampires found out that a human knew about us. They … insisted … that the transformation happen immediately. We were lucky that was all they demanded.” So far, I thought.

“Lucky,” said Jacob. Sarcasm dripped from the word.

“It was going to happen anyway – ” began Seth.

“Just shut up, Seth,” muttered Jacob.

“Sorry.”

“And about Bella’s so-called power,” said Jacob. “You expect us to believe you?”

“No. But you’d believe Bella, wouldn’t you?”

His eyes darkened. “I don’t want to see her.” He didn’t mean it.

“Then you’ll never know.”

I turned to walk back to my Volvo.

“Edward.” It was Sam.

I faced him again. His expression was grim.

“We’ll talk with the elders. Tell them what you’ve said. We’ll let you know.”

I nodded, climbed into my car, and drove away, not sure where I was going next.

The night blurred past me, yellow lines whizzing next to the car like arrows on the black tarmac.

On my cell phone, voicemails and text messages reminded me of where I should be.

Rose feels rly bad. Was accdnt. No1 thoght Bella wd run 4 it again, after she ran out on Alice & Jasper in AZ & worried us all 2 death. That was a text from Emmett, of course.

“Edward, please come home,” pleaded Esme on my voicemail. “You’ve got to let us help you find Bella. Everyone’s out there now, searching, but we need your help. I’m at home. Come home. We’ll find her.” A pause as she reconsidered what she’d said. “She’ll come back.”

A single text from Jasper hit me the hardest. You’re doing it again.

I knew he meant isolating myself from them, the way I had when I’d left Forks, and Bella. I’d destroyed our family for a while. I sensed it from all of them when I’d returned, but most of all from Jasper, who’d felt it acutely from his soulmate. Alice would never tell me how badly I’d hurt her, but Jasper would, and did.

Still, I couldn’t go home yet.

I’d driven past some of Bella’s friends’ houses, but I couldn’t make myself knock on their doors. I sensed their thoughts – trivial ones, like planning dinner and making lists of what they needed to buy for a college dorm room. No one thought about Bella. I figured if they’d seen her, her notably changed image would still be lingering in their minds, if only subconsciously. Besides, Bella wasn’t exactly close to any of them; in my heart of hearts, I didn’t really think she’d gone to Angela’s or Mike’s house. It was Charlie and Jacob she cared about, and they had not spoken with her.

Now on Highway 101 I was speeding, not even bothering to send out feelers for policemen lying in wait to dole out speeding tickets. My thoughts whirred around my head like the dark scenery shooting past. The pine trees loomed like craggy, dark giants against the night sky. The clock in my car told me it was nearly eleven. I would have to call my family soon and let them know I was all right, and that I hadn’t found Bella. But first I had some thinking to do.

Something had happened to me tonight, something curious. Something necessary.

I had decided to fight for Bella.

Charlie’s regret, an open wound so many years after his wife left him, had planted a seed in me that Jacob’s pummeling had brought to fruition.

Would I be the man left behind, like Charlie? Not if I could help it. Would I be the one who didn’t deserve his wife, as Jacob thought? Hell, no.

I would fight to keep my wife.

It was peculiar, almost a letting go of control, even as I vowed to take action. For so long I’d wallowed in self-pity, not trusting the proof that Bella gave me, over and over again, that she loved me. She’d sacrificed her life, for God’s sake, to be with me, and I’d acknowledged her love then, in that horrific moment. I had reluctantly taken that sacrifice as the ultimate proof of her devotion. But now that she had disappeared, I was overcome by doubt once more, as if nothing she’d done for me, for us, had mattered a whit.

Another minute rolled by as I digested this. I was doing Bella a disservice by not trusting her. I needed to change.

Could I trust her love? I had to; there was no other choice. Could there be some other reason – besides my first assumption that she wanted to escape me – that made her leave the house without telling anyone why? Some other rationale for her feeling trapped? Of course, though I didn’t know her motive just now. This was Bella, after all; often, before full consideration, she would take matters into her own hands.

Taking matters into her own hands. Her own hands. The phrase niggled at my mind.

And then my phone rang.

It was Alice’s international cell phone. Her flight must have just landed.

I answered quickly, but Alice spoke over my greeting. “Why in the world is Bella on her way to Italy?”

I braked suddenly and pulled off to the side of the road. It was a moment before I found my voice. “What?”

“Hold on.” I heard her rustling with something; perhaps she was reaching into her purse for her passport. “I’m on my way to the immigration line.” The airport was noisy around her. I heard instructions in Italian being broadcast over a loudspeaker.

“Talk to me, Alice. What did you see?”

“She’s on the next flight here. Alone. Why?”

“I didn’t know. She was upset. She ran away from Rosalie this afternoon. I’ve looked all over for her. You’re telling me she’s on her way to Italy?”

“Yes. Her plans are murky, but I believe she thinks she’s going to handle the Volturi alone.”

My throat tightened.

“Edward?”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I wouldn’t. Not about something like that.”

My forehead fell into my free hand and I stared at my lap. The car’s engine droned patiently as my mind spiraled into frantic despair.

“Oh,” Alice went on, lowering her voice, “you can tell the family that I still don’t crave human blood. Bella’s power affected me all during the flight, and here in the airport, too. So that’s one good thing.”

It was. But at the moment I couldn’t muster a response.

“Come quickly,” she said unnecessarily.

“Of course,” I said at last. “Can you find her, before she … does anything?”

“I’ll try. My best chance is to wait here at the airport until her flight lands and then – ”

The silence was sudden.

“Alice? Alice?”

There was dread in her voice. “Oh, no.”

“Talk to me. ”

“They’re everywhere.”

“Alice?”

“Someone – someone contacted the Volturi about me. Maybe someone at the Seattle airport, some lackey of theirs who works for the airline, I don’t know. But they’re on the other side of the immigration line. They’re here to – to greet me.”

“Alice. Run.”

Read on ... Part 8

Author’s Note: Sorry for leaving you with another cliffhanger! Looks like there will be one or possibly two more chapters to find out what will happen to our hero and heroine. Will you stay tuned? Thanks again for reading, and for all your lovely feedback. :)

Happy Birthday!

bratanimus — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:37:24 GMT

Happy Birthday, duck_or_rabbit!

You are my triple-threat friend: brains, beauty, and boldness. Go forth and conquer!

I hope you have a special day, and a magnificent year. *hugs* :D

Twilight: A Parody

bratanimus — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:48:35 GMT

Has anyone heard of this?

*puts on Christmas list*

To Do List

bratanimus — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:16:36 GMT

My first meme in about a year, but it's high time I updated my "to do" list. Blame duck_or_rabbit for seducing me into it. ;)

1) List 5 celebrities you would have sex with without even asking questions.
2) Put all of them IN ORDER of your lust for them [5 - 1, 1 is the hottest].
3) Say which movie/show/thing it was that hooked you.
4) Supply photos for said people.
5) Tag five people. I hardly dare tag anyone, because I haven't responded to a tag in a very long time, lol. BUT if you want to do this meme, do it! Doooo eeeeeet. Participants might include (but are not limited to) mrstater, hrymfaxe, jdbracknell, gilpin25, godricgal, shimotsuki, javidan, vnfan, lillbet, and jadeddiva.

NOTE: Not sure why all these pics got small when I uploaded them. You might want to click on them, then click again, to see the full-sized versions.

5. James McAvoy. This is the only one who survived my LAST "to do" list. *happy sigh* I first fell in love with him in Becoming Jane and then in The Last King of Scotland. All I can say is, that man can have chemistry with a lamp post. He's just got that undefinable thing that sells lust and attraction in a scene. I have no idea how he does it, but he does. He's a keeper.

4. Neil Gaiman. The only author on my list of actors and models-turned-actors, he's got a brilliant and sexy mind. Read the novel American Gods and the series of graphic novels The Sandman if you haven't already. I love the way that man thinks, therefore would hop into bed with him, no questions asked. Besides, he looks like Dream. ;)

3. Chiwetel Ejiofor. You may not know who he is, which is your loss. He was in the film Serenity (based on the Joss Whedon TV series Firefly) playing the bad guy with the sword. But if you haven't seen David Mamet's film Red Belt, rent it now. That man can act, and his performance in Red Belt is a perfect blend of restraint and disclosure. A subtle and rare craft. I'd do him in a heartbeat. (Plus he reminds me of Robert Pattinson in some strange way. See the film and you might understand. Or I might be crazy, lol.)

2. Ian Somerhalder. He's the new guy on my block, playing Damon in The Vampire Diaries: wicked, funny, and sexy as all get-out, he has all the best lines and delivers them with droll perfection. He looks EXACTLY how I'd picture Sirius Black, too. (Sorry, Gary Oldman. ;))

1. Robert Pattinson. I have a feeling he's going to stay on this list for the rest of my life, lol. It was Twilight that made me notice him initially, but I think he's actually a good actor (see Bad Mother's Handbook). I look forward to seeing how his career develops. And OK, his looks. Besides the fact that I could take a bath in his hair, he's got the most amazing eyes I've seen in ages and an irresistible Marlon Brandon nose. I should also mention the worry lines on his young forehead that make a girl wonder how they got there. He laughs a lot and seems not to take himself too seriously, a quality I do appreciate in a man.

Hmm, I've just noticed that 4 out of 5 of these men are Brits (Ian is American). :D What do YOU think of this list? Let me know if you decide to do this meme, because I want to see your list. :D

Masterpiece Theatre: Men Not Afraid to Call a Hot Man Hot. Also, my New Moon review. :)

bratanimus — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:26:40 GMT

So, Mr. Brat offered to babysit Baby Brat Saturday so I could go see New Moon with a friend. Following is our discussion, which really deserves to be made into a play.

MEN NOT AFRAID TO CALL A HOT MAN HOT

Scene opens with Mr. and Mrs. Brat on the couch. A seemingly typical Saturday at home.

Mr. Brat (reading from the New York Times review of NM): "Jacob has secrets of his own that soon emerge, first in the form of some massive biceps." That's why I'M going to see it. That guy is HOT.

Brat laughs.

Mr. Brat: Every woman I work with says she's going to see this movie for Edward. And every guy I know says he's got to go see it with her. But they're really going to see it for Jacob.

Brat: What?

Mr. Brat: Well, he's been working out.

Brat: So let me get this straight. Men want to see New Moon for Jacob because he's been working out.

Mr. Brat: That and he looks like Raphael Nadal.

Brat: That's why you're in love with him.

Mr. Brat: Exactly.

Brat: I can see you, Jacob, and Rafa in a hotel room. Now THAT would be some fanfiction.

Mr. Brat: You mean fanFRICTION.

CURTAIN.

And here is my very random and sketchy review of New Moon. Watch out for spoilers!!

I cannot tell a lie: this film reminded me why I love ~~RPattz~~ the Twilight series.

Things I liked:

Chris Weitz. Overall I thought it was better directed than Twilight (sorry, Catherine Hardwicke!). More emotional truth in most of the scenes.

Jacob. That surprised me more than anyone. I actually liked Taylor's performance and finally bought that Bella might see him as a viable love interest. And yes, he has indeed been working out. Will say no more as he is still underage. ;) Also liked Quil and Embry; they were adorable actors, and the scenes with them were very funny.

Passion between Edward and Bella. Felt it. Very nice desire and restraint in the kissing scenes between Bella and Edward. I could FEEL the need and the frustration from both of them. YAY!!

New and improved Cullen vampire makeup and contact lenses. Loved that they actually looked otherworldly. Thought Edward was much more eerily handsome as opposed to pasty in this film, particularly when he's with the Volturi. Small issue: I'm guessing he has pale lips in that scene because he hasn't fed? If so, why are his eyes not black? Don't get me wrong, I love the pale amber lenses; they really make him look very un-human.

Victoria. I appreciated the reminder of why she was there (a problem in the book is that she's hardly a presence).

Vampire skillz. Liked the new way of showing Victoria's speed (no blurring motion at all as she ran through the forest, just really fast running) and Felix's strength (a sparing use of blurring into slow-motion precision).

Charlie. NGL, got a crush on that there daddy.

Jessica. When she and Bella leave the zombie movie she is so damn funny, and without sacrificing any of the realism of the scene. Love her.

Mike. Lord, that kid cracked me up. And great "sick" makeup. ;)

Alice. Adorable and gorgeous as always.

Jasper. Got a bit more of him in this film, and finally got to see his "gift" in action. And loved his delivery of his line when Bella calls for the vote at the end of the film.

The fight with the Volturi. THANK YOU, Melissa Rosenberg, for putting some ACTION into this relatively actionless climax!! And the humor throughout the entire film was well-placed.

Things I didn't like:

CGI wolves. I thought wolf!Jake's fight with wolf!Paul looked great from a choreography standpoint (snarling, rolling, flipping wolves). But anytime the wolves were relatively still, they looked kinda fake. Sorry, CGI people.

Lack of muscles in Quil and Embry. They were really cute guys (Embry especially); but when they had to run around shirtless, their bodies didn't match those of the other members of the pack. I guess it's hard to get it all when you're casting.

Jasper's ultra-upright posture. I think he was trying to reign himself in around Bella, and perhaps hearkening back to his Civil War officer posture ... but it looked affected to me. Sorry, Jackson.

Edward's droopiness. There should have been more of a contrast in Edward between pre- and post-birthday party disaster. Theatrically speaking, we need to see more of a high to appreciate the extreme low after the party. I know, in general Edward is waiting for the shoe to drop even before Jasper attacks. But theatrically it doesn't work. I blame Weitz for that. That said, I liked Rob's acting MUCH BETTER in this film. I think Hardwicke let him and KStew get away with a lot of indulgences that Chris Weitz did not.

Yep, Alice's vision of Edward and Bella running slow-motion in the woods. Wide shot (without slow motion) into extreme closeup shot (slow motion) of Bella's topaz eyes as she looks back at Edward would have been better, IMHO. It's just weird to see a random medium-wide shot of people running in fancy, old-fashioned clothes in slow motion. Also, Rob runs weird. Sorry, Rob.

I'm sure I'm forgetting more than I'm saying, but we can discuss, yes? And if the things I didn't like seem nitpicky, that's because they are. I actually did enjoy the film quite a lot. :D