From the Ashes (ASOIAF) (Sandor Clegane x OC)

Chapter 6: Brienne

Brienne sat at the small council table. She always seemed to be the first one in this room for council meetings. In the beginning it was usually Tyrion, she thought he probably felt like he had something to prove back then. Crowning Bran had been his original idea after all, and while they didn't ever speak of it, the fact that his previous position as Hand to Daenerys Targaryen had ended with him concocting a plot to have Jon Snow kill her, was still in the back of everyone's minds. But as time went on Tyrion began to let himself relax into his role more. He was a good Hand, there was no denying it. He had a keen mind for politics and business, and he was excellent at thinking ahead and planning for all possible outcomes. If she had to guess, he was probably sitting in his office, which was behind the closed door just a few feet to her left, reading the last pages of some manuscript and collecting the documents he needed for this meeting.

The door at the far end of the room opened and Samwell Tarly entered wearing the long plain robes that designated him as Grand Maester. He gave her a small smile of acknowledgement as he took his place two seats down from her on the opposite side of the table.

"Have you been waiting long?" He asked.

"No, just a few moments." She responded.

The room lapsed back into silence. Brienne was never quite sure how to talk with Sam. She liked him well enough, he was a sweet and thoughtful young man, but their life experiences and interests were so vastly different that she found it almost impossible to find a topic on which they could converse. There was one tried and true stand by though. Something she knew Sam could never tire of talking about.

"I saw Gilly in the market the other day." Brienne said, "She's really coming along isn't she? Can't be long now."

At the sound of Gilly's name Sam's face instantly lit up and he grinned.

"About three more weeks until she's due, but Little Sam came early so really it could be any day." He said, and Brienne could hear the excitement in his voice.

"He's growing fast too isn't he? Not going to be able to call him Little Sam for much longer." Brienne said with a smile, she knew that giving Sam the opportunity to boast about his son would keep him talking for awhile.

"Did you know he's already saying twice as many words as most boys his age?" Sam said, the pride clear in his voice, "Gilly thinks I should start teaching him his letters. I told her it's a mark of how smart she is that he's learning so quickly. She went from barely knowing her letters when we left Eastwatch to reading half the books I'd brought with us by the time we reached Oldtown. She's forever saying how she's not as smart as I am but it's rubbish."

Brienne smiled at him. That was love, she thought to herself. The way Sam and Gilly never failed to believe in each other even when the other didn't believe in themself. She thought back to what Tess had said a few weeks ago. She was right, love changed you. Once you loved someone they became a part of you and you became a part of them, no longer an I, but a we. That was what hurt the most, if she thought about it, and she'd been thinking about it a lot more than she cared to as of late. She knew she'd never been that for Jamie. He had, what was the phrase Tess used? Cared deeply, that was it. Jamie had cared deeply for her, but he didn't love her, he loved Cersei. He hated Cersei, but he also loved her. It was ironic, thought Brienne, how often love and hate got tangled up in each other. She supposed they were two sides of the same coin really. She remembered the old Targaryen saying, 'When a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin." On one side was sanity, the other madness. Maybe love and hate were like that too, when someone came into your life that changed you completely, maybe it was just a flip of the coin. When it came to Jamie and Cersei it seemed like that coin was spinning in the air for most of their life, but Jamie had known which side it landed on in the end. He'd known, and so had Brienne.