Author's Note: This plot bunny came around months ago and I immediately decided that it must be saved for Bonsoir's birthday, as she is the biggest HectorxFarina fanatic I know (and it's beautiful). Happy birthday, my Mannadon! Have some really cracky FE7 fic.

Chapter One: In Which Our Heroes Got Smashed

Farina awoke when noon sunlight filtered through the slats in the shuttered window, spearing under her eyelids. Her head felt like it was splitting open. Moaning slightly and clenching her eyes tighter, which made the pain worse, she rolled over to the warmth she felt at her back.

Someone had been lying against her, someone who took deep breaths and smelled like ale and leather. She burrowed her face in his broad chest, trying to hide from the faint light, and felt him stir and bury a hand in her hair. It wasn't until he moaned, just as she had, that she recognized the voice, hoarse but unmistakable:

Hector's.

"Hey!" she cried, pushing herself away from him hard and getting tangled in the thick blanket over them. "What's going on?"

"Shut up," he groaned as he rolled away and covered his eyes with a hand. "Head is killing me."

Despite how her temples were pounding, so hard that white blotches pulsed in her vision, she forced herself to sit up and take in her surroundings. They were in a room, which felt strange after weeks of sleeping in tents, and she vaguely remembered the army stopping at an inn the night before. It must have been his room, judging by the black breastplate and epaulets she saw leaning in the corner, and the fact that her bag was nowhere to be found. He'd been sleeping with an arm over her waist. The thirst she felt rubbed her throat raw.

And she had no idea why she was there, how it had happened, or why she was in so much pain. She couldn't remember a thing.

She drew her knees up to her chest, cradled her head in a hand, and contemplated Hector's back. They hadn't…gotten up to anything, had they? She couldn't say she'd never thought about it, what with his shoulders and the constant mischief in his eyes and the fact that he was filthy rich, but she knew her place. She'd never be so forward and she'd never allow him to be. Besides, despite being in bed they were both fully clothed, boots and everything. It didn't explain what she was doing there, though, or why they'd been curled up like lovers when she woke.

"Why am I here?" she demanded.

"What?" he turned his head a fraction to look back at her, still shading his eyes, blinking blearily. She watched him recognize where they were. "Better question: what the hell is going on?"

"I guess you don't remember anything, either," she said with a sigh.

"I remember we all went to that pub…and I'm assuming I drank myself into a stupor, since I feel like I got hit with a war hammer."

Right, the pub. The army had been so glad to stay in a town for a night, rather than making camp in the wilderness; so glad for hot food and mattresses; so glad for the pub, for a chance to relax, to forget that Dorcas had almost died in the last battle, that Priscilla had just recovered from being poisoned, that Wil had taken an arrow for his lady and gurgled blood, and only Hector himself had been able to drag Lyn back before she charged to the vanguard, armourless, in revenge.

Farina resisted the urge to collapse back down beside Hector and thought harder, and was rewarded with a sudden flash of memory:

She looked at the kegs of ale lined up behind the bar so neatly and slipped a hand into her pocket, clenching it around the little bag of gold she kept there. Lord Hector had paid her 20,000; surely she wouldn't miss just a couple pieces in order to enjoy the night? She liked how getting drunk felt, even if she knew it wasn't a good idea: everything was funny, she always felt more confident, and if ale made her mouth run more than usual, well, it made punches hurt less, too.

Still, the older she got, the harder it was to spend money on anything she didn't absolutely need. And she'd promised herself she'd save every bit of what she earned from Lord Hector, so she brought her hand out of her pocket with a sigh.

That was when she overheard her employer himself teasing Lord Eliwood, as they sat at a table in the corner: "I wish you cold hold your drink. If there's any night for a drinking contest, it's this one."

"There's never a good night for that," said Eliwood, looking a little indignant. "I don't understand why you'd want to make yourself sick."

"I won't get sick, not like you. Besides, I could drink anybody here under the table."

"While this is probably true, I don't think it's something to be proud of."

"And I don't think you're ever any fun."

"Hey, Lord Hector!" Farina blurted before she could stop herself. "I'll drink with you!"

Both noblemen stopped and looked at her. Eliwood seemed surprised but Hector smiled.

"Don't worry about it, Farina, it's not that big a deal. I wouldn't want you to regret it in the morning."

"You trying to say I can't take it?" she said, ruffled. She was always underestimated because of her size and sex, from mercenary work to drinking, but experience had proved to her that she was quite the heavyweight. She could barely feel what would make Florina pass out. Maybe it was because she'd drunk so often, in recent years, but she wasn't complaining. It made it easier to get out of a tight spot if she had to be sober fast.

"It's just that you're so little," said Hector. "A contest between me and you wouldn't be fair."

"I can out-drink you and I'll prove it!"

He looked to Eliwood and raised his eyebrows.

"No," said Eliwood.

"Done," said Hector, turning back to Farina and ignoring his old friend's groan. "Let's do it. We can stop anytime, after all."

"Fine," she said as she put her hands on her hips, "but on one condition!"

"Let me guess. I buy your drinks."

"That's right," she said, and plopped down beside him.

She rubbed her temples and moaned, "A drinking contest? Did we actually do that?"

"I said shut up," he complained back. "My stomach hurts."

"You big baby." She lowered herself back down beside him. "What, you've never been hungover before?"

"Not like this."

Neither had she, really—she'd felt like death on plenty of mornings, but it'd never been so bad that she had a hard time even sitting up. She rubbed his back a little, wondering if he'd return the favour later since they were officially comrades in pain, and decided the best thing to do would be to go back to sleep until her head felt better.

She never got the chance. The door creaked open far louder than she thought a door could creak, and a woman's voice called brightly, "I trust you've both survived?"

Hector just groaned, probably because he recognized the voice faster than Farina did. She had to roll over to be sure, and found Lady Lyndis standing in the doorway with folded arms and a wide smile.

"You should probably stay out of Eliwood's way later, Hector," she said. "He's pretty angry at you. After throwing away your reputation in front of the whole army like that."

Hector's retort about exactly where Eliwood could stick his reputation was muffled by the pillow, but Farina covered her mouth with a hand and forced herself to sit up again. "Lady Lyn, what do you mean?"

"Hector punched Lowen right in the face," said Lyn, ticking off items on her long fingers, "you knocked into Kent and bumped him pretty good on the head, Hector fell over a chair and broke it, you spilled ale everywhere, and both of you were pretty…amorous, toward each other. Openly. All night." That last bit got three fingers, one for each sentence, so that in the end Caelin's lady was holding seven offenses in her hands.

Farina felt blood rush to her face, which only made her head hurt more. "No! All that can't be true!"

"Not all of it, no," said Lyn, and Farina saw the first glint of a joke in her green eyes. "But I won't tell you what's true and what's false. You both can figure all that out on your own; we'll make a game of it."

Hector called her something very offensive but she just ignored it: "Well you certainly owe Eliwood and I a little fun after all we had to clean up last night! Now get up and drink some water or something; lazing about will only make you feel worse."

She left and Farina hid her face in her hands.

"Lord Hector…what have we done?"

"We'll find out, I'm sure," he said, finally pushing himself up to sit beside her. Sure enough, she felt his hand touch her back, rubbing hers in return. She shivered. "If we wait long enough."

"I don't want to wait! We need to figure out what happened now!"

"Why? We've made fools of ourselves; that much is clear. Why know the exact extent of it?"

"I have to know. If anybody ever found out, I might never be hired again. I'd look so irresponsible." She felt so ashamed that she needed to cover it up, and only an insult would do: "At least we didn't sleep together. I don't think I could ever be drunk enough for that."

"That's not what I remember," he said, a little hotly.

"Oh, so now you conveniently remember something?"

He paused as if he actually did, and when she watched him she was surprised to see him flush, just a little bit, and absentmindedly touch his neck. "I know I remember feeling…affectionate. Somebody sitting in my lap. And I…"

He looked right at her chest, then, which made her glare and cross her arms so he couldn't see much. "It must've been some other woman!"

"I hope so," he said, flushing harder, which stung in an odd way. She turned away from him, half in rebuttal and half for some privacy, and pulled out the front of her dress so she could look down at her breasts. One had a bruise on the top that was undoubtedly a love bite. She made a strangled noise of horror.

"There's another on your neck," said Hector, who had the good grace to sound ashamed. "It's enormous."

"It wasn't you," she insisted as she clutched her collar tight around her throat. "I must've been with some other man while you were with some other woman."

It wouldn't have been right, otherwise. He was her employer, and a lord from a high house besides. And no matter how much she liked him, how much they made each other laugh, that wasn't going to change.

"Maybe we should find out exactly what happened," he told her.

She sighed heavily and forced herself to her feet, clutching the bedpost to keep the room from spinning. "What did Lady Lyn say first? You punched Sir Lowen? I guess we'll have to start with him."

Author's Note: Of course there will be more of this (right now it's looking like two more chapters). And a GeromexLucina, because GEROME. And LUCINA. I'll try to get it all up ASAP!