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Brienne had never given much thought to motherhood. After all, she hadn’t really known her own mother, and her father had never said anything about that sort of thing – he’d had children and almost all of them had died.
Parenthood was, it seemed, a lonely life.
Therefore, when she’d awoken in the middle of one particular hot night – winter was coming, after all, but it hadn’t come yet this time around – to the strangest feeling against her stomach, at first she thought that she had been poisoned.
She reached over to rustle Jaime awake, to let him know that there was a plot afoot. Someone was attempting to poison all of them and if she didn’t get to the bottom of it – well, it might be like a shadow slipping up behind them all over again. Like a musician playing each of their strings.
Brienne was sure she’d had her strings played enough times for a lifetime, and she was done with it.
Jaime yawned and tried to roll over, but Brienne stuck her hand between his shoulder and the bed to stop him. He was asymmetrical, after all, and with her force added he only tumbled forward and opened his eyes.
“Brienne? What?”
“Something’s wrong, Jaime.”
He rubbed at his eyes, then looked her up and down.
“You look fine to me, Brienne. Maybe it’s all just… hitting you.”
“What is hitting me, Jaime?”
He could be so frustrating sometimes, so short-sighted.
“The fact that we’ve… well, we’ve lost people. We’ve seen things. The world is at war. Maybe it’s creeping up inside your body and… I don’t know, showing itself there. I have pains, too. It happens.” Jaime flexed his wrist, as if to underscore the point.
Brienne rolled her eyes.
“You have no hand. Of course you’re going to have pain, Jaime. That isn’t in your head.”
But she did roll back over. After all, there was no one around. If anyone had poisoned her, it’d be Jaime, and he wouldn’t have the nerve.
***
They traveled, looking for Sansa Stark. Sometimes, Brienne was sure that she spotted her behind a tree, or in a huge group of people. At times, Brienne was sure that she saw her smiling, and other times, she seemed to have some kind of terror across her face that only Brienne could hope to save her from.
But it was never her, once Brienne got close enough. And Jaime would just shake his head, but not say anything.
At least he was good enough to hold back from saying anything.
***
As they traveled from town to town, all of the faces blurring together into one, Brienne felt something stirring that she couldn’t quite describe.
It wasn’t the pain she had felt at first; no, it was something else. It was as if the tip of her toes had begun to vibrate, first, and then it had moved up her spine and settled somewhere in her shoulders.
It was as if she was the sun, waking up, and exploding into shards of gold.
“Jaime,” she said, shaking him awake again. It was another tent, another day, another town – she couldn’t even remember where they had ended up this time, looking for Sansa. She would walk as far as she needed to.
If she ever found the girl, hell, she wasn’t even sure what she would end up doing then. She’d have to figure out some place to settle, and then… that was much scarier than anything else. She would have to figure out what she really wanted with Jaime, and what she really wanted with herself.
Jaime awoke, again, and gazed over at her.
“You look different in the moonlight,” he said, and Brienne smacked him in the shin.
“Jaime, I’m pregnant,” she said, “I don’t have time to listen to any of that romantic crap right now.”
Jaime blinked.
“How do you know?”
Brienne shrugged. How could she explain that she just knew? It was the only thing that made sense. And Jaime should have known, too. He had been through it all before.
Then again, Jaime seemed to always be off in his head.
“We need to get back on the road,” Brienne said with a sigh.
The only thing to do would be to walk.
***
“Can I take a look at you?” Jaime asked her, once, as they were heading up a mountain into the sky.
They had heard that Sansa had been spotted there, staying with her aunt Lysa Arryn.
“I don’t have time for that now, Jaime. If we aren’t careful heading up this cliff, it’s a long way down.”
“Are you sure you would do this? If you’re pregnant?” Jaime asked.
“Are you sure you should do this with one hand? Maybe I should leave you at the bottom and check back with you,” Brienne fired back. “And I’m quite sure of exactly what I want to do, Jaime. Have you ever known me not to do something I said I would?”
She gripped the stone in front of her and let out a hiss. Jaime had gone from mocking to overprotective somewhere in their courtship, and this might be just as annoying as he had been before, just in an entirely different way.
“I’m coming,” Jaime replied, “I just don’t know why we shouldn’t let them come down the mountain to us, you know, in order to avoid immediate death.”
“Because then they’re risking immediate death,” Brienne replied, and Jaime looked at her as if that hadn’t been obvious.
Brienne was going to have a lot of work to do to get Jaime ready to take care of a baby.
What was she thinking - she was probably going to have a lot to do in order to get Jaime to take care of himself?
“Look,” Brienne said, pointing, “If the goats can do it, so can we.”
Jaime stared at her.
“The goat’s not pregnant.”
“You don’t know that for sure.” Brienne leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Let’s go.”
***
Sansa hadn’t been up in the sky.
“The next place to check might be under the center of the Earth,” Jaime grumbled. He paused and looked at her, and his eyes seemed to be full of fire. “Can’t we just pause for a little while so you can actually… have this baby? Do we need to ride all around Westeros looking for somebody who we’re never going to find?”
“I made a promise, Jaime.”
Brienne didn’t want to talk about it. She couldn’t picture herself with a baby in her arms. What was she supposed to do, settle down and have a tiny little house for the three of them? Or go back to Tarth and present her father with a grandchild? What would he have to say about any of that?
“You could make another one,” he replied. He moved down the stone wall they had decided to make an impromptu-seat, moving closer to her. Brienne could almost see a trial by combat in his eyes – did he want this? Or had he run off with Brienne simply because he felt it was uncomplicated, because he wouldn’t have to make any commitments?
“I already have, Jaime,” she replied. “But swearing to one…” She reached over and pressed her fingers to her stomach. She had no idea what she was doing. Did she want this? She had no idea. But she had dealt with anything that had come her way so far – that was what a knight did. A knight always fought, and a knight never gave up. “Doesn’t mean forgetting your oath to someone else. At least for me – what about you, Jaime?” Her voice lowered. It simmered, almost, echoed off the mountains. There was something of an oath to that, too.
“I’ll go anywhere that you’ll go,” Jaime replied. His arm slung around her, and for just a second, the three of them could have been falling out of the sky – and she wouldn’t have cared one bit.