57Brienne crouched to stoke the fire back to its warm blaze, feeling it keenly against the hot blush already suffusing her cheeks. She was sure that her mind would be playing the past few minutes over and over again as soon as she closed her eyes – Tyrion's strange glances between her and Jaime until he suddenly declared her a virgin, her sudden attempt at flight (for to be considered undesirable is one thing, to have it announced in front of the man one was in love with was intolerable), Tormund's advances, subtle though they were by his standards. She was at least comforted by the fact that he had not referred to her as "the big woman" during their conversation, for she hadn't the faintest idea how Jaime would react to such a slight – his behavior lately was incredibly enigmatic, naming her a knight and fighting his way through a crowd of wights to save her one moment, teasing her about Renly Baratheon the next. As she tossed another log onto the fire, Brienne felt certain that if she'd met Jaime before Renly– she was startled out of her reverie by a persistent knocking at the door.
Fantastic. Assuming that it was Tormund Giantsbane come to entice her to bear his children once again, she flung the door open with a hard look on her face, straightening to her full height in an effort to menace the persistent Wildling. Her effort was wasted, though, as she opened the door to reveal Jaime, gazing at her with a look in his eyes she'd seen often since he'd arrived at Winterfell, but which she hadn't been able to place quite yet. He swept into the room, babbling some nonsense about how she hadn't taken a drink in Tyrion's (disgustingly biased) game, clutching a pitcher of wine in his golden hand. She defended herself as vehemently as the subject matter warranted, but in truth she was mesmerized by the play of the firelight on his skin, making him more golden than the hand he insisted upon wearing, the hand's filigree a poor comparison to the workmanship evident in the line of Jaime's jaw, the golden flecks in his emerald-green eyes.
Brienne watched as he sloppily filled the goblets with wine, pressing one towards her. Despite her protests that this drink was outside the scope of the game and therefore served no purpose, Jaime was insistent, so what could she do but take the proffered wine and drink? Somewhere in the Seven Kingdoms, there might be a woman who could refuse Jaime Lannister requesting something of her with those eyes of his, but that woman was certainly not Brienne of Tarth.
As deeply perplexed as she was in that moment, it was nothing compared to the amount of confusion that beset her as Jaime began pacing the room, complaining of the heat. An uncommon complaint in the North during winter, to be sure. She heard the sound of him pulling his leather jerkin off before she turned around. Unbidden, her thoughts turned to that bathtub at Harrenhal where she had seen Jaime's body, half a corpse and half a god. The thought of his body, dirty and worn though he had been, sent a sudden flush of heat through her body, and she wiped the resultant heat off her palms as she turned to face him. He had nearly pulled the thing off by the time she managed to control her voice long enough to respond with some drivel about how she'd learned to keep the rooms warm upon her arrival in the North.
Briefly, Brienne wondered whether or not she'd stepped into an alternate universe, or had frozen to death in her sleep one night, as Jaime hadn't made a single snide comment at her expense since his arrival. Either that, or he was deathly ill. As if on cue, he allayed her fears by mocking her apparent diligence, and she wondered if he would be normal now. She responded with a flippant "Piss off," that (she hoped) in no way reflected the fact that her heart skipped a beat when he turned back to her. She tracked him with her eyes as he sauntered over to her, gazing up at her in a way that made her feel absolutely small, despite the fact that she had a good half-inch on him.
As he continued to grouse about the North, it felt like a temporary return to their normal dynamic – he snarked and attempted to rile her, and she responded with as straight-faced a response she could muster. In the dim candlelight, however, without his armor or the depressed cynicism of their journey back to King's Landing, Jaime was infinitely more dangerous. She reminded herself that Cersei was the only woman that he would ever love, that he'd never even see her as a woman, repeating these facts to herself as she watched him pour out a yet another goblet of wine.
A woman who was not Brienne of Tarth might have surmised at this point that Jaime's continuous attempts to pull off his clothes was an awkward, albeit endearing attempt at seduction. As it was, the object of his affections had been affianced three times and summarily rejected in each instance, and was therefore rather loathe to believe that any man, let alone the most handsome man in the Seven Kingdoms, would be harboring romantic notions about her.
By the time Brienne had finished her internal flagellation, Jaime was accusing Tormund Giantsbane of growing on her, of all the ridiculous things to come out of his mouth that evening. At that moment, as if struck by lightning, the epiphany struck. She was barely able to whisper out her accusations of Jaime's jealousy, afraid to even hope for the hope of what that would mean.
She half-expected Jaime to laugh at her, to remark snidely on the improbability of him being jealous on her account, to leave her holding the tattered shreds of her heart once again. Instead, he agreed with her.
When he began pulling yet another layer off his body in response to the alleged heat, she understood his intent, confused as she was that this (whatever this was) was actually happening. He began tugging at his laces, biting at them in a display so completely uncharacteristic of the generally suave Jaime Lannister, that she batted his hand away and began to do it for him. She attempted to keep her face stoic, unmoved as she did so, desperately hoping that he couldn't hear her heart thundering in her chest from where he stood.
That hope, fleeting as it was, fled altogether as she felt his hands, warm and calloused at her laces, attempting to remove her shirt. She caught his hand, undoing her own shirt after she finished with his. Whatever happened here tonight, she needed him to know that this was her choice. That he had not despoiled her against her will, besmirched her honor and taken her maidenhead because she had let him. Brienne wanted him so badly she couldn't breathe with the force of it on her chest, and she couldn't help it any more - she pulled his shirt up, off his body, letting him discard it as her own shirt joined his.
I am ugly, I am bruised, I am broken. I cannot be-
Her moment of all-encompassing self-doubt was broken by Jaime, breathlessly declaring that he'd never slept with a knight before. She recalled his obsession with Tormund, the jealousy that had radiated off him in waves, and responded, "I've never slept with anyone before." Infuriatingly, Jaime chose to break the tension by quipping, "Then you have to drink, those are the rules." For the love of the Seven, this again? Brienne had only begun to respond, "I told you," before Jaime's lips were on hers, and it was like wildfire, burning, melting, consuming-
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