The first thing Jaune realized he felt was that he in the midst of feeling a splitting headache, the sound of someone pacing the room and muttering to themselves worriedly filling his ears.

He groaned, forcing himself to get up after a few moments, and the sound stopped after abruptly after this, his blue eyes fluttering open to take in the scene in front of him.

"Weiss…?" He asked, seeing the young woman standing in front of him, her eyes widened in silent shock.

She stared silently at him, and he looked to her in turn, a few quiet seconds passing before Jaune realized that he laid naked in a bed he didn't recognize, covered only by a sheet.

"…!"

He immediately panicked, acting with instinct to cover his body up to his chest with the sheet.

"Uh, Weiss!" He exclaimed. "I'm sorry, I –"

His headache seemed to worsen at the sound of his own voice, and he audibly groaned to himself in pain as he grasped his head.

She seemed to show an amount of pain at his voice as well.

"Please… Don't yell." Weiss said, groaning.

"Sorry." Jaune said, blinking from the darkness of the room. "I didn't mean to end up here, however I… ended up here."

He tried thinking back, but gradually realized that he didn't remember anything.

His initial thoughts were jumbled, yet when his mind finally connected the dots, he was sent into a newly panicked state, the first quelled only by his hungover mind (he remembered that he tried drinking for the first time yesterday, out of curiosity more than anything else, but he was quickly learning how much he regretted this decision, like every other idiot move he made upon reflecting on it), but the second having no loud sounds to break his emotional state.

"U-Uh… Weiss?"

The woman looked to him slowly, seeming to struggle with concentration as much as he was in that moment.

"Do… Do you remember me coming inside of here last night?" Jaune asked softly.

Weiss frowned, and he tensed instinctively, continuing.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I just… I don't remember much from last night." Jaune said. "Everything's all jumbled up…"

Weiss' expression softened.

"I…" She averted her eyes, not meeting his. "I don't remember anything either."

"Ah."

Jaune was unsure what to say, him trying his best not to let his mind run afoul of what he imagined was happening.

"The most I remember is… me going to a bar to try drinking."

"Why were you over there to begin with?" She asked him.

"Honestly… I just had a lot on my mind lately, and part of me just wanted to see what it was like to drink. I don't really get the appeal though. It tasted sort of gross at first, when I wasn't used to it. It was like trying black coffee for the first time."

"Really?" Weiss asked, quirking an eyebrow, looking around. "Like... what exactly?"

"It's… Just how things have been since we got to Haven. I guess you probably don't get this right now, but things have been really hectic lately. After what happened to Professor Lionheart, and then us fighting Cinder and the others… It's made me think back to a lot of things. Like… How much I miss Pyrrha."

Jaune looked down at his lap, expression flickering with sadness.

He shook the thoughts from his mind, trying to think to the present situation, unaware of how Weiss' expression changed.

"Not only that, but I didn't want to spoil the mood for you, Ruby and Yang meeting Blake again." Jaune added. "I thought it'd just be better if I just… left."

"Well… Uh…"

"I don't know exactly what we did." Jaune said, mindful of his nakedness still. "Sorry if I did something you'd regret. You're probably fighting the urge to hit me right now."

Weiss glanced away, sighing.

"This is my life now." She muttered under her breath, before looking to Jaune. "Look… Jaune… We're both adults. We… probably did do… things last night." She crossed her arms, frowning still as she found herself at a loss for how she ended up in this situation. "There might be a little problem down the road, but… Let's just focus on the bigger thing right now."

"The… bigger thing?" Jaune asked, heart sinking as he thought about the idea of her getting pregnant, knowing that if the deed had been done that this was probably the last thing they needed, given everything that was going on right now.

He wondered if HE were the unlucky charm of the group instead of Qrow sometimes.

Weiss, meanwhile, couldn't meet his eyes at the moment.

"Look at your hand." She said to him.

Jaune blinked, then slowly did so, his eyes widening in shock at what he saw.

"O-Oh… OH." Jaune said, him looking down at the wedding ring around his finger, before looking up at Weiss. "You… you aren't wearing a ring, are you?"

Weiss hung her head slowly, then nodded.

"Yes. I'm wearing a ring." She said, holding her head with her left hand, and it was then that Jaune saw the ring, now that he knew to look for it.

"So… So we…?"

"Yes."

"We got married." Jaune said, as though trying to tell himself.

"… Yes."

"… Hah." He forced a small laugh out, then looked up at Weiss. "I'm sorry, I keep dragging you and everyone down with dumb stuff."

Weiss shook her head.

"We can fix this." She said. "I just… try to get some rest, Jaune."

"But…"

"Please." Weiss' tone was firm, and Jaune fell silent. "I just… need time to think."

She turned without waiting for a response, leaving the room and leaving Jaune to himself.

"… Crap." He muttered to himself.

Outside the room, the illusion faltered the moment she closed the door behind her.

She released a heavy sigh, and in the next moment, Emerald plunked down on the floor in a large bunch of mental exhaustion.

"… Crap." She muttered, holding her head as she closed her eyes. "What do I do, what do I do…"

She had spent most of the morning after waking up before Jaune trying to figure out what to do about the situation she found herself in.

After quickly dressing herself up, she had paced the floors wondering what to do, what to tell Cinder when she woke up in the room next door, what to do when Jaune woke up and found he'd married Cinder's ally…

Fuck! she mentally cursed to herself.

"Where did I go wrong?" She muttered.

Despite her saying this, she knew full well the answer, how she'd gone to a bar to try and get her mind off the fact that she'd barely, barely saved Cinder from Raven when the fighting broke out at Haven, only to find herself drinking too much against her better judgement.

Did people even HAVE access to their better judgement when they were drunk?

She was too much of a mess mentally to know the answer, since the damage was done anyways.

"This is too much. I didn't sign up for all this when I joined up with Cinder."

Between the plan to get the Relic falling apart, her and Cinder getting separated from Mercury and Hazel, and now THIS…

The back of Emerald's head made a thunk-like sound against the door.

"… Crap." She repeated.

A/N: This is my take on the whole "Drunken Arc Marriage" thing that's sort of cropped up.

I sort of got tired of reading these stories and Jaune always ends up getting drunk in the first place because his friends usually go off on him about something, which usually doesn't align with the characters as far I can tell.

I prefer the idea of him getting drunk because he's trying to get his mind off of how Cinder tried to kill Weiss just to spite him, how in hindsight it could've been avoided if he kept his cool (something he got on Ren about before when they fought the Nuckelavee), how Lionheart was revealed to be a traitor, in addition to the other things that happened between Volume 4 and 5.

In relation to that bit I just mentioned, I like to imagine the night going something like Ren finding Jaune in the bar after a while of searching, and then they talk about how Jaune lost his cool when he saw Cinder, and how angry it made him about everything she did.

Understanding what went wrong, Jaune tries apologizing for his own hypocrisy in how he yelled at Ren to stop when he went ballistic trying to kill the Nuckelavee, with Ren not holding it against him because he understands just how easy it is to lose yourself in your anger.

Ren then goes on to say it's a lesson they both need to learn, not to lose their heads in those situations (especially when fighting powerful Grimm or people with Cinder's powers) and the two bros leave their little heart-to-heart with Ren asking Jaune if he wants him to walk him back home if he gets too drunk, but Jaune, for the sake of this fanfic's plot existing, tells him to go ahead, that he'd be fine.

Pfft.

We all know how THAT turned out.

As for Emerald's part, this takes place in a different world where Emerald followed after Raven, Vernal and Cinder without them realizing it (she strained her semblance to mask herself from both of their vision), and, in the climax of the Maiden fight, just before Raven kills Cinder, Emerald makes an illusion that she tricked Raven with while using her chain weapons to grab Cinder and swing her back to safety before hiding while Yang took the Relic and Raven left.

While cloaking them from Yang's sight on the elevator ride back, Emerald grabs Cinder (who by this point is knocked out from exhaustion) and tries making some type of getaway before Yang can get privvy to what she's doing and kill either her or Cinder (since, again, the latter's already heavily injured and Emerald doesn't think fighting Yang of all people in a small spaced elevator, when her fighting style isn't suitable for a place like that, while Yang's IS, is the brightest idea to begin with).

Also for the sake of this fic existing, Emerald tries using whatever lien she can pickpocket out to rent some type of room when she gets separated from Mercury and Hazel, and then, with everything that's happened leaving her REALLY stressed out, she tries going out to drink and ends up marrying a blonde dork knight in a drunken stupor.

Truly a night to remember.