Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic by thatartsyreadergirl is a Love Freebie so I chose to share my favourite literary couples. Most of my picks are couples but some aren’t canon (yet!). I detest Valentines Day and everything it stands for but I like talking about my favourite ships so here we are!

1. Braime – Brienne of Tarth & Jaime Lannister, A Song of Ice and Fire

These two are so in love, they just don’t know it yet. They start out hating each other, Jaime is Brienne’s prisoner but she has been tasked with taking him safely home. Unfortunately they encounter horrible people along the way, they go through hell together and at the end they have genuine respect for one another. In the fourth book of the series they are apart, but not a chapter of their’s goes by without them thinking of the other. Brienne almost lets herself be executed to save Jaime’s life, Jaime risks everything to protect Brienne and ends up having his right hand chopped off. It’s a classic enemies to friends to lovers relationship, we’re just missing the last part!

“I dreamed of you.” – Jaime on why he went back to save Brienne from Harrenhal.

“In this light she could almost be a beauty, in this light she could almost be a knight.” – Jaime’s thoughts about Brienne.

“She went to sleep dreaming of the fight they’d had, and of Ser Jaime fastening a rainbow cloak around her shoulders.” – Brienne dreaming whilst on her travels to find Sansa.

2. Claire and Jamie Fraser, Outlander

I could not be more in love with these two, they’re so adorable! Their love stretches across time, they meet when Claire is on her honeymoon in Scotland in the 1940s and comes across a magical portal which takes her back in time to 1743. Through the choas of the time they find each other. They love each other so much and I just want them to be happy together but everything keeps getting in the way.

“Does it ever stop? The wanting you? Even when I’ve just left ye. I want you so much my chest feels tight and my fingers ache with wanting to touch ye again.” – Jamie

“I will find you,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you – then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest.'” – Jamie

“To be with Jamie was bliss, adventure and absorbtion.” – Claire

3. Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

My favourite classics couple, I love angst and these two have it in bucket loads. They remind me of Brienne and Jaime in that they don’t realise for ages how much they care about the other person. They meet when Darcy is still arrogant and broody and Elizabeth puts him in his place. Darcy actually realises he was in the wrong and tries to change his behaviour for the better.

“You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.” – Mr Darcy

“They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.” – The moment after Elizabeth finally admits her feelings for Darcy.

4. Minuette Wyatt and Dominic Courtenay, The Boleyn Trilogy

The Boleyn King is the beginning of a series in which history is changed and Anne Boleyn gave Henry VIII the son he wanted. Minuette and Dominic are childhood friends of Princess Elizabeth and Prince William. Their relationship is friendship for the most part until something sparks between them. Unfortunately the future king also has romantic feelings for Minuette and if they betray William and tell him of their feelings it could put their lives at risk. But through all the fear and stress of living in a Tudor court, their love sustains.

5. Fleur Delacour and Bill Weasley, Harry Potter

I love these two because everyone doubts them and their love for each other but that’s because they’re incredibly shallow and projected that onto Fleur assuming she was too. Bill and Fleur met at Gringotts Bank where they both worked, Bill has always been a complete individual, and I think Fleur liked that about him. They got married while their world was on the brink of war and fought together to protect their families.

“You thought I would not weesh to marry him? Or per’aps, you ‘oped?’ said Fleur, her nostrils flaring. “What do I care how ‘e looks? I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my husband is brave!” – Fleur after Bill was injured by a Death Eater and Molly assumes she doesn’t want to be with Bill anymore.

“While her radiance usually dimmed everyone else by comparison, today it beautified everybody it fell upon. And once Fleur had reached him, Bill did not look as though he had ever met Fenrir Greyback.” – Bill and Fleur’s wedding

6. Katniss and Peeta, The Hunger Games

My babies! They break my heart! I started shipping them in Catching Fire, the trauma they went through connected them and they were able to comfort and support each other. When they are separated in the last book, it was horrible and Katniss managed to break through Peeta’s conditioning and connect with him again. Their book at the end of the series is one of my favourite things, together they write about their lost friends and tell the stories to their children.

“To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed.“ – Katniss

“Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips.”

7. Cersei Lannister and Rhaegar Targaryen, A Song of Ice and Fire

A slightly out-there ship as we never see them together in the series. It’s more a pre-asoiaf ship. When Cersei was a child Tywin tried to arrange a marriage for Cersei and Prince Rhaegar but Aerys deemed the match unacceptable. I think Rhaegar would have been a far better match for Cersei than Robert ever was, we know that he was kind, creative and melancholic. If it had come to war for the Targaryens against the North and Stormlands then with the help of the Lannisters they would have won. More than that I think Cersei would have been much happier and really that’s all I care about!

“However bright a torch might burn, it could never match the rising sun.“ – Kevan Lannister wondering what would have happened if Cersei had married Rhaegar.

“Had any man ever been so beautiful? He was more than a man, though. His blood was the blood of old Valyria, the blood of dragons and gods.” – Cersei remembering Rhaegar

8. Lucette Courtenay and Julian Le Clerc, The Virgin’s Daughter

Lucie is the daughter of Minuette and Dominic who I spoke about earlier. Her and her siblings have grown up close to court and Elizabeth’s daughter Annabel. Lucie wants to escape and is tasked with spying on a dangerous French Catholic movement. She stays with the Le Clerc’s who have ties to her parents and both the brothers are suspects. But Lucie doesn’t know that Julian is also working for the English. At first they don’t like each other, but as they start to work together they realise their attraction and affection for each other.

“I want to be undone by you. I want to be the one to come to pieces in your arms, to forget there is anything in this world but the two of us.”

9. Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, Harry Potter

Possibly controversial but I thought these two would end up together. Ron and Hermione used to argue constantly but Harry and Hermione cared for each other and supported each other always. I have nothing against Ron, I just didn’t get it!

“Hermione turned around and beamed at Harry; her eyes too were full of tears.” – When Fleur and Bill are saying their vows Hermione turns to look at Harry.

“Hermione raised her wand, moved it in a circle through the air, and a wreath of Christmas roses  blossomed before them. Harry caught it and laid it on his parent’s grave. He put his arm around Hermione’s shoulders, and she put hers around his waist, they turned in silence and walked away through the snow, past Dumbledore’s mother and sister, back toward the dark church and the out-of-sight kissing gate.” – Hermione knows what Harry is thinking before he even mentions flowers, this is one of the most emotional and beautiful scenes in the books.

10. Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth, Persuasion

Another classics couple with angst! At the beginning of the book Anne hear’s Frederick’s name for the first time in years. She rejected his proposal some time ago and has come to regret it, they meet again when Frederick rents her family home and the sparks are still there. Like I said earlier, I love angst and because Frederick is still upset there is a lot of it.

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.” – Captain Frederick Wentworth