#library fic

At about two minutes to 6:30, Marcus is chattering about his teacher, Mrs. DeMarco, showing his class pictures of her dog, when the door slams open and Jane Boland rolls into the room like a fuckin’ NFL linebacker followed by a flustered, slightly out of breath Elizabeth, cheeks all pink from the cold.

She comes to a halt with an audible gasp and a wide-eyed gaze full of some combination of surprise and unease when she spots him.

Rio laughs out loud. Truly guffaws and slaps his knee. Because really? He can’t go to the fucking library with his kid without having to deal with her shit.

Seeming to reboot her brain in a matter of seconds, Elizabeth starts to corral Jane and shuffle to a table as far away from him as possible.

Avoidance. Typical.

Never one to pass up an opportunity to fuck with her, he slaps on his most charming persona and gives a quick up and down of her in her sweater and tight-ass mama jeans—for the sake of tradition.

“Ey, ma. You ready to build?” he chirps with his asshole-ish smirk on his face as he taps on the back of the chair next to him, signaling for her to sit down.

“I—uh,” Elizabeth starts and then clears her throat, eyes darting away from him as her cheeks and chest flush further.

“Something wrong?” Rio goads.

The pairs for the midterm project were picked at random in week 3 of the course. When Catelyn had said Brienne’s name immediately following Jaime’s, he’d poked her shoulder with one of her pilfered pens and said “Hey wench, that’s us!” She’d rolled her eyes and ignored him.

In week 4, Catelyn assigned subjects to the pairs, also at random, giving them four weeks to do the research and pull their project together. One pair was assigned a project on the fabled fashion of dragon-age armor. Another got assigned a project on the missing mythical weapons of Westeros - Excalibur and Oathkeeper, and the like. Still another got assigned a project on the mysterious death of King Renly Baratheon.

Brienne would have loved any of these, especially the latter. But it wasn’t to be.

Instead, Brienne and Jaime had been assigned the unknown fate of the lost maidens - following the trails of Sansa and Arya Stark.

Jaime had rolled his eyes, but Brienne being an excellent student had already marked out the necessary research periods on her calendar, and had reserved time in the restricted section of the library for her and Jaime. He dragged his heels and she had to pull him to the basement by the wrist, but they finally sat down and divvied up the project, taking over a large table at the far end. The library assistant for the restricted section was a bear of a man who glared at Jaime until he took his feet off of the table, but otherwise he was innocuous.

They’d been on the trail for two weeks (or rather, Brienne had) when they found a record of a person clearly matching Arya’s description disembarking a ship in Braavos. The harbormaster had even noted the presence of her narrow shortsword--

“Needle,” whispered Jaime, seemingly half-engaged.

Brienne looked up at him in surprise. She didn’t think he paid attention in class at all, but unless he’d been doing some independent reading, he couldn’t have known the name of Arya’s sword otherwise.

They had established from journals of the maester for the Night’s Watch that Arya had been secreted from the capital after her father the Hand’s execution, by a member of the Night’s Watch. He’d sent a raven ahead saying as much in code, yet neither Yoren nor Arya had made it. But the existence of those missives alone indicated that the Boltons had never possessed the real Arya, a fact that had long been argued in historical circles. Furthermore, there was slight evidence that she might have spent time in a prisoner camp at Harrenhall with some Braavosi, and it was that information that led them to examine the harbormaster’s ledger. She had most certainly not been present when her family was slaughtered at the Twins, else the Freys would have claimed it. The next logical step for her had been to go east.

Sansa had been a very different story - in some ways, she’d been easier to track. Unlike Arya, she would have been more inclined to trust the people around her, and that included people who were close to her family. The records from the Eyrie were incredibly brittle and Brienne didn’t like trusting them in Jaime’s hands, but he’d sworn to her and the library assistant that he would wear gloves and be gentle with the tomes. He kept this promise for three days by not touching them at all and instead playing a game on his phone. But then slowly he picked up the work.

In the middle of their second week working on the project, he met her outside the library with two coffees - one in hand which he gave her, and one clutched in his elbow which he shifted into his hand once it was free. She’d seen him fumble with books and such in his right hand before, but she’d also seen him playing the phone game with his right hand.

She didn’t think on it too hard, instead she thanked and then immediately admonished him for bringing coffee when he knew there was no food and drink allowed in the restricted section. He offered her a lopsided smile in return and just said “Sure, but isn’t it nice to catch up out here in the cold with something to warm you up before we go back to the basement?” She’d nodded reluctantly and thanked him again before swallowing a few gulps and then depositing the half-full cup in the trash by the door.

From that point on, he and Brienne pored over their separate books side by side, translating for one another when the words were too faded or obscure or, for Jaime, simply moving around on the page too much.

They had confirmation that Sansa had arrived in the Vale, but from there the trail seemed to go cold. There was mention of a girl about the same age, but the description was wrong. Brienne thought it unlikely that a maester would lie, but Jaime had never trusted maesters, so he kept digging. When the trail went cold, he wrote down a handful of words on a bright pink post-it and told Brienne he was going to go “look for something else.” She assumed that meant that he was going to go hide in the stacks and play his game again. It was no matter, really. They’d tracked Arya, and that was more than they’d expected - it would be enough to focus the project on her.

Jaime had been gone for 10 minutes before Brienne realized that his phone was still sitting on the table - wherever he’d gone, he’d apparently gone in earnest. She got up and stretched her legs and decided to go in search of him.

After another 10 minutes she found him on the floor in one of the dustier corners amid some familiar volumes from the Night’s Watch, his knees bent, with what looked like a very heavy thick text propped up on them. The light here was dim, and he was squinting to read the words on the page. He heard her approach and looked up at her only briefly before patting the linoleum next to him. She walked over and sat down, bringing her knees up as well.

“How can you read back here, it’s so dark!”

He hushed her. “I think I found something.”

“Jaime I thought we agreed that Arya went to Braavos. We don’t know that she ever made it north.”

He looked at her wide-eyed with mischief, “We did. I’m not trailing Arya. I’m trailing Sansa. And I think she made it. I matched up the approximate time frames, and it’s all here. The girl that’s mentioned being at the Eyrie after Sansa - I would swear that it’s the same girl that’s described arriving at Castle Black.”

“Jaime, brown hair and blue eyes - that could be anyone. Gods, it could even be any one of Robert Baratheon’s bastards - it could be a literal white walker.”

“And there’s nothing about her chewing on anyone - pretty sure this was a living girl. And not brown, chestnut. The maesters at both the Eyrie and Castle Black use that exact word. Chestnut - it’s practically auburn. Sansa stark had red hair… they could have used some kind of dye to dim it but the red would have continued to show through.”

“Wasn’t the maester at the wall blind?”

“Yes!”

There was a loud shhing sound from a few stacks over.

“Yes,” Jaime whispered, moving closer to her, “This is what I’m talking about. Someone must have given the maester that description with purpose. Perhaps it was Sansa herself. Perhaps she used the same words that Petyr Baelish used in order to protect herself.”

Brienne wasn’t convinced. “It’s a stretch…”

“Wench, she was escorted by a knight.”

Brienne’s breath caught. “Well that’s unusual. A woman at the wall on its own is not unheard of especially during that time, but a knight for an escort?”

“A very tall knight. No other description. I thought - and you’ll probably think this is a stretch for sure - but I thought maybe it was that knight who’d shielded her in the capital. The dog one - the Hound.”

Brienne shook her head. “That is a stretch...but not impossible. There was another person looking for her at the time as well. Also quite tall. Fashioned themselves a knight but they weren’t one… I always wondered what happened...”

“If it were the Hound they might have mentioned his face.”

“If it were the heir to the Evenstar they might have mentioned she was a woman.”

Jaime’s lips curled up into a sly grin, and he swallowed. “You’re right… and I think they did. Later on - in the texts we looked at before - there’s mention of a woman sparring with the men. If it was her, that makes--”

“--a lot of sense, yeah. Holy shit, Jaime.”

He gave her a rueful smile and looked back down at the book.

“All that time we were looking at the Night’s Watch stuff I thought you were playing Candy Crush or something.”

He tilted his head like a dog and peered at her, the realization of what she meant coming startlingly across his face. “Oh, the phone!”

He brushed at his pockets.

“You left it on the table - that’s why I came back here, I figured maybe you were actually onto something.”

“Ah… I’m sorry, Brienne. I promise I wasn’t distracted, it’s not actually a game - not really.”

His use of her actual name should not have thrilled her as much as it did. “It doesn’t matter--”

“--no, no. It does to me - I want you to understand, I’ve been paying attention the whole time, but I have to keep at it. My physical therapist says that my grip might not improve but if I can work on my dexterity in my fingers then I should actually be able to get back to typing okay.”

“Your… what happened?”

“My sister. She… well there’s no nice way to say it, she had her giant boyfriend beat me up and then while I was on the ground, she ran over my hand with her car.”

“Oh my god!”

“Shhhhh,” said the faraway stacks.

“Oh my god, Jaime.”

“Yeah...she kinda sucks.”

He was easing the heavy book off his knees but she saw his right hand struggling, so she reached over and helped him lower the tome to the ground. Their faces were very close while she reached across him and he caught her start to blush bright strawberry in the dim fluorescent light before yanking her hand back to her side.

“So… does that mean… I don’t mind - being the one to type up the report and stuff.”

He grinned. “Actually the practice might be nice. Can we just do it together?”

“Yeah of course.”

“Cool.”

They sat staring at each other’s hands. Suddenly Brienne started, and grabbed his arm.

“Wait, Jaime - you found her! You found Sansa Stark. And maybe someone else, too. Someone really important. Oh my gods, Jaime - this is… this is very good.”

“Well we did it together, right?”

“I mean yeah but if you hadn’t… gods, Jaime I might just kiss you! I can’t believe you found her!” She froze then, and the strawberry blush was back. So was his sly grin.

He forced himself to look at her eyes and not her lips, and then he brought his right hand over and slipped his weaker fingers under hers on his arm, using the slightest pressure, like he was trying to squeeze it. “Maybe we can save the kissing for somewhere where we’re less likely to get asbestos poisoning.”

“Jaime, I--”

“We have a week to finish this project. Let’s get through it. If we haven’t killed each other by the time we turn it in, have coffee with me - finally - and then I might just kiss you first.”

His eyes were wild watching the tides churn in hers, but she pursed her lips and grinned, nodding.

He exhaled, coughing at the dust that had settled around them. “Let’s get out of here, wench. I’d really like to live to see next week.”