The Not Too Far Distance

by hangthesilver

Barney has a gun. Robin is amused. Ted thinks they’re both out of their minds, and he never wanted half-Canadian babies anyway.

Title: The Not Too Far Distance
Rating/Word Count: G/ 4, 235
Timeline: Set after "The Leap"
Summary: Barney has a gun. Robin is amused. Ted thinks they're both out of their minds, and he never wanted half-Canadian babies anyway.

Author's Notes: I've been trying to get this story out of my head for months now. I wrote the beginning in May on a scrap of paper at work and the rest just all spilled out tonight. Don't really know what to say, except to me, at the end, it's going to be Ted and Robin, like it was at the beginning. Cheers.

---

"It's awesome," Barney said, and jumped up and down enthusiastically. Ted sort of rolled his eyes, looking nervously around the darkened lot. They were behind Barney's apartment; it was quietly nervewracking, especially considering what Barney was holding in his hand.

"I can't believe she dragged you into this," he said, looking forlornly at a glint of shattered glass underneath his shoe. Ever y instinct was telling him to run for it, escape, not get shot. It was a dark lot, full of half crumbled, shoddy buildings, in New York, and there were probably dead people underneath his shoes. He didn't know why he'd let Barney drag him into this. He was convinced they were going to be shot any moment, from any direction, probably about a million times each. Personally Ted wanted to go down in a much more dignified manner. He was pretty sure Barney wanted to go down in a manner that included some strippers and probably a case full of beer. Ted could jump on that train.

"You should try it," Barney said idly, taking aim. "It'll teach you how to leave."

Ted rolled his eyes again, wincing and nearly jumping out of his skin when he heard something explode a dozen yards away. Barney's gun glinted in the paltry light, and Barney glared at it. Barney had a silencer on the muzzle, and so Ted had only heard the muted coughing sound. It was illegal. Ted was pretty sure the entire gun was illegal, but Barney had brushed it off predictably.

"That's barbaric," Ted tried, "you might as well be hunting with a bow and arrow. Guns are just stupid, I mean, I know that the 2nd Amendment gives you your right and all, but you might as well be beating someone up with a stick and—"

"Shut up Ted," Barney advised, and then the gun coughed again and something else in the not too far distance exploded.

"Would you warn me before you do that?" Ted nearly yelled, and then immediately lowered his voice and hissed, "we could get caught!"

"Shut up Ted," said a voice from behind them, and Barney sqwauked and held up the gun with both his hands, shrieking, "I surrender!"

There was a derisive snort from Ted, and Robin stepped up to them in the shadows and crossed her arms, laughing, with a look on her face that was entirely unimpressed and completely amused. Ted shoved his hands in his pockets, and then on second thought took them out and held them up in a submissive fashion.

"I'm unarmed Scherbatsky," he said. "Don't hurt me, please don't hurt me."

"You oughta be armed around here, I saw at least two cops when I came in here."

"Think I should put this away?" Barney said, recovering from his embarrassment. "I mean, with these cops around here and all?"

"He just wants to show you his back holster," Ted said in a stage whisper.

"Ted, that's lunacy! A back holster, in a suit? Come on, I'm not James Bond here!"

In the darkness, Ted saw him pause, hold the gun in one hand down, and use his other to reach into his breast pocket. A second later Ted could see sunglasses appear on his face, and he was shifting, dragging up the fabric of his starched suit up. He struggled with it for a few moments, the fabric rustling loudly in the otherwise quiet night, and finally he snagged it in. He settled the suit, rested one hand on his hip, and raised the other to adjust his sunglasses slowly.

"Or am I?"

Robin and Ted shared a look, and then Robin started giggling.

"Laugh all you want," Barney said, still in his pose. "But I will tell you now, James Bond doesn't have anything on me. I have his car. I am obviously far better looking than that new putz they have in his place. And I score a lot more than he does, so, my fellows, please, tell me, who would you choose to save the universe? Me, or Mr. I'm a Loser Bond?"

Robin was quiet, and Ted thought a moment before he realized what the sudden problem was, and then he coughed and said loudly, "Well I, for one, choose Mr. Bond. Sorry Barney, I like my superheroes with accents. No, and that wasn't--!"

"Challenge—"

"—a challenge!" Ted glanced at Robin in the dark, and she saw her hands moving down, as she bent at the waist and pulled up her pant leg. She could hear her rustling with something there, something that sounded like Velcro.

"Er, Robin, what are you doing? We were going to go to McLaren's, remember?"

"If he gets to shoot stuff, then of course I have to shoot stuff too Ted," she said, and there was a cough and then he heard the crumbling of something in the not so far distance.

"Damnit Robin, you too? Where do you get those silencers from? I thought they were illegal!"

"Please," Barney said, still with those ridiculous sunglasses on his eyes, but he looked toward Robin, like a boy looks toward his mother to see if she was pleased.

In the dark Ted could see Robin wasn't all too pleased at all, and that she was ignoring him. Great. Great.

"I need some stress relief," she said shortly, and something else blew up.

"Huh, what's the matter? What's wrong Robin?"

"Oh, nothing James Bond, nothing at all." Her tone was plaintively icy, and then something else went down a second later.

"Are you mad? Hey, Robin, what's the problem?" Barney made a move toward her, but Robin swung the muzzle of her gun just over his left shoulder and pulled the trigger.

"Hey!" Barney jumped, took the sunglasses off his face, and glared at her. "Uh, hey, I'm standing right here, hello? Are you trying to hit me?"

"Not at all," Robin said reasonably.

"So what's the problem?"

"Oh, you know, just you scoring every which way and backward."

"Guys," Ted said measuredly. "Robin, I'm sure Barney didn't—"

"I'm standing right here!" Robin said, almost angrily as she lowered her gun. "I heard it!"

"Woah, woah, Robin, chill out. Hey. Robin!" Barney was trying to advance toward her, but he was looking warily down at the gun. "Hey… I didn't mean it. I mean.. like maybe in the past I meant it, but not now and—"

She was still glaring at him. "I thought we talked—"

Barney waved his hands above his head in a frenzy, shooting a desperate glance at Ted. Or at least, Ted imagined it would have been. Those damn, retarded sunglasses.

"Who wears sunglasses at night?"

"Shut up Ted!"

Ted backed up from the force of both of their voices, hands raised again. "Hey, fine, how about I go? I'll meet you guys at McLaren's, okay?"

"Fine," Robin said shortly.

"Alright bro, see you there," Barney said, and Ted heard the thin desperation in his voice.

"Don't kill each other, right? I mean, you both have guns but the money's on Robin and—"

"I'm not going to kill him," Robin said. Ted started to smile, and nod, and then she continued, "This is New York, not Canada, not enough space to bury him in."

"That's the spirit!" Barney said brightly.

Ted shook his head, and navigated out of the lot, onto the sidewalk, underneath a stuttering neon sign. He heard Robin shouting at Barney as he hailed a taxi, and Barney trying to stutter something intelligible back.

Ted shook out a deep breath in the cab, told the driver where he wanted to go, and pulled out his phone and texted Marshall what was going on.

Marshall texted back instantly, Aw, they're so cute.

Ted shook his head all the way back to the bar.

__

Ted didn't understand them a lot of the time. Love was different, to him. Barney's view of love was twisted. Robin's was somewhat normal, but then again, she was a commitment freak. So was Barney. He'd had trouble wrapping his brain around it in the beginning. It didn't seem possible for this to work out. He'd hung around Barney enough to know how Barney was, and how he couldn't leash himself off. They'd been friends for years, and it was hard to imagine his life without Barney—it was hard to imagine life without either of them, now.

Their views of love were all different. Ted aligned more closely with Lily and Marshall. They were his greatest inspiration, and what Robin and Barney had, well, Ted was wary of calling it love. It was convenient. It maybe made sense. The chemistry was there, had always been there, but love? Ted had struggled with it. Ted had given Barney his permission-for lack of a better word- for Barney to try but when Robin had actually reciprocated, well, he was confused. It had lessened greatly, but he'd had his own moments.

He was drinking his final beer when Robin finally sauntered into the bar. Marshall and Lily had taken off early; the excuse was that Lily needed Marshall's help to grade some papers, but Ted had pointed out that kindergarteners didn't even do papers. They'd smiled slow, secretive smiles at him and he'd waved them away. He had long expected both Robin and Barney by now here, and he was just about to give up the ghost on them when Robin came in, sans Barney.

"Hey," he said, with a smile. "I was just about to leave. What's up?"

Robin had a pleased kitten look on her face as she slid into the booth. "Hey. Sorry, got a little distracted. We didn't mean to run you out or anything."

Ted noticed the "we," very much so.

"Oh, it wasn't you two or anything," he said dismissively. "It was more the illegal firearms you both had on you at the time."

"Hey," Robin said defensively, always coming to the aid of her very cherished possessions. "They're not—well, the guns aren't illegal but—"

Ted waved his hand. "I'm joking Robin. I'm sure Barney has more illegal things in his possession than the Mafia bosses down on 6th. The gun's the least of your worries."

Robin smiled, as Wendy brought her a beer. She thanked her, and then took a long drink, setting it down on the napkin. She was looking at it very contemplatively, as though she had more to say.

"What's up?" Ted asked, trying to sound as casual as he possibly could.

Robin shrugged. "Nothing. Just been thinking a lot lately."

Not wanting to pry—or at least not wanting to look—like he was prying, Ted lowered his head. "Want to talk about it?"

She shrugged again, looking off into one corner of the bar. "This is kind of weird, isn't it?"

"The bar? Uh, no Robin, we've been coming here forever."

He was rewarded with a small smile. "Duh, stupid. I'm talking about Barney." She hesitated. "Me and Barney," she clarified, a second later, like it was still sort of foreign to her. Ted knew. It was still all kinds of foreign to him too.

"Sort of," Ted said agreeably, signaling to Wendy for another beer. Might as well, this conversation might take awhile. "He isn't coming?"

She shook her head. "No, it's late and I guess he has a meeting tomorrow. And he didn't, uh, feel like getting ready again," she said, and she was blushing.

Ted only laugh, taking his beer and taking a sip. "You don't have to hide it, I mean, it's Barney. And well, it's you. We know half the relationship is about sex anyway."

Robin immediately stopped blushing, now looking uncomfortable, and Ted knew exactly what she was thinking, and exactly what he shouldn't have said.

"I didn't mean that," he said, beat later than he should have waited.

Her eyes were distrustful as they came back to rest on him. "Are you sure? I ask myself the same thing a lot. I mean, I like him Ted. I like him a lot, don't get me wrong, but part of me still feels like it's weird. And I don't know if it's that, or if it's him, or if it's you, or if it's—"

"Hold up a second. Me?"

She nodded. "Yes, you. Why not you? I was with you for a year Ted. And I know you're okay with this and everything, but it still feels… weird. Like… I mean, I can't stop comparing you two."

Her mouth snapped shut a second later, but it was too late. Ted started laughing, couldn't stop it, couldn't keep it in. She was blushing scarlet again, but she was laughing too, swiping her hair out of her face and Ted couldn't help himself, she looked adorable.

"So tell me," he prompted, "tell me, Ms. Scherbatsky, who exactly wins? You know what I'm talking about." He raised his eyebrows at her, and then very deliberately looked down, keeping his eyes there for a second, before looking back up at her face. "Spill it. I solemnly swear I won't tell him."

She was still laughing, but she managed to finally shake her head. "Stop it Ted, I don't mean that. It's just that … it's really weird, you know." She finally stopped laughing, now looking down at her beer contemplatively yet again. "I mean, with you it was completely different. We were both sane, for starters." Ted smiled. "Second, I mean, I felt … I felt different with you. It was safe and predictable and you were awesome and we had so much fun together, you know? "

Ted had some vague, off tangent notion of where this was going, and so he nodded. She still looked so goddamn adorable, biting her lip, talking in stutters, like she was so sure what she about to say was going to rock his world.

"But Barney, we're different. We're really different. I mean, he likes brunch just as much as the next person, and we like the same movies and we keep messing with each other and he is really just awesome but I still wonder, you know? I still feel like I'm waiting for it to not work. When I was with you, it wasn't like that. We had long term potential—I mean, not like long term," she added hastily, as though the word was on fire, "but I wasn't waiting for us to not work out. This, I kind of feel like everyday I'm holding my breath."

Ted didn't say anything for awhile. He thought about a few things, like blue horns and breakfast and Halloween and how Leia kissed her brother before she realized who Luke was. Robin was looking at him beseechingly, like she wanted him to validate something, needed him to validate something.

"Robin," he said, finally, carefully. "You keep talking about what it isn't, and like that's important."

"What are you talking about?" she interjected, before he could continue, like he was going down the path that she didn't want him speaking of.

"Robin," he started again, holding his beer, taking his fingers off it, putting them back on, feeling the cold. "Robin. You're talking about what it isn't, tell me about what it is."

She bit her lip again, in that goddamn adorable way, and raised her glass, as though she was about to drink. It froze there, inches away from her lips, and then she put it back on the napkin. "It's scary Ted,' she said, in a softer voice, faraway. "I… he makes me feel like I'm awesome. We see things eye to eye. He's scared of things, the same things I'm scared of. The commitment, the being tied down, the talking babies, all of it. He's my… he's my best friend. I want to tell him the happy things, the good things, I want to know about how he's happy, when he isn't happy, all that crap, I want to know it. But it's Barney and I know how he is and I mean, it isn't easy, because I knew him before, before this… before me. This relationship." She said the last word slowly, drawn out, distant.

"You're still not telling me what it is."

She looked up at him, confused. "I'm telling you exactly how it is Ted. Hello, I'm sitting here pouring my heart out to you, earth to Ted."

"No, you're not." He sat up a little straighter on the seat, pushed the near empty glass a little ways away from him. "Robin, tell me how it is. What aren't you saying?"

She was looking down, looking down at her glass, and she spoke to it directly now, as though she were afraid to look up at him. "I'm afraid he's going to find someone else. I 'm afraid he's not telling the truth. I'm afraid I'm like one of those stupid bimbos he likes. I'm afraid all this I'm feeling, it doesn't mean anything to him, that he's not telling the truth. I'm afraid I'm always going to compare him to you, that I'm always going to wonder, that this is just going to end one day and I'm wasting my time."

Ted didn't say anything for awhile, didn't say anything until she had drank another third of her cup, and then sighed, "That's not it, Robin."

She looked angry now. "What the hell are you talking about? That's it! I told you I'm afraid, and I know it's going to end one day, and I should just stop it now! Aren't you listening?"

"Robin," he said swiftly. "You love him, don't you?"

She started, opened her mouth, closed it. "Of course I love him," she mumbled. "Of course I love him."

"So that's what it is," Ted said, with an air of finality. He got up, surprising her, and then moved around, sliding in next to her, slinging his arm around her. She leaned into him a little and Ted smelled her, the clean scent, the telltale scent she'd taken a shower before she'd come back over here. She was wearing the butterfly necklace he'd gotten her on a whim, the cheap gold that had come out of a case in a department store. Her hair was still damp, all tangled up and soft and clean smelling, and she looked adorable.

"Robin," he said, raising his feet up on the other side of the booth. "I understand where you're coming from, I get it. But he loves you Robin. And you just told me you love him. So what's the problem?"

Her hair shifted against his arm as her words went back addressed to the beer. "It's hard Ted." The pleased kitten look was completely gone; she looked nothing more than confused now, confused and distressed. "I know you think love trumps all, but… it just feels like a disaster waiting to happen to me. I know I need to get over it myself, but part of me… well, part of me is just confused."

"We're all confused Robin," he said, as gently as he could. "You're just a little slower than others. He loves you Robin, you love him. He's loved you for a long time. I know you're scared, everyone's scared of the same thing. The fact that it's Barney makes it a little weirder than most but it's still pretty much the same situation. The most important thing is what is. And you're not running away Robin. That's what is. He's not running away either."

"So you really think," she said immediately after he was finished, "so you really think this is going to work?"

"Do you?" he answered immediately, some small, strung out part of his heart that was still hopelessly caught up in a whirlpool clutching onto that question.

There was silence, silence that stretched between here and now, and now and here, and between then and the not too far distance. She opened her mouth to speak, looked closely at the beer in front of her, and then raised her head, to look at him, closely too. "Yea," she said, slowly, drawn out, like she was hanging onto something, something dragging her between now and that distance. "Yea, I think it just might."

"Then that's what's important. Not what I think, not what Lily and Marshall think, and hell, not even really what Barney thinks. If you think it's going to work, then don't hang your stars on sinking ships. You have all the license to be afraid and whatever, but if you think it's going to work, then it is."

Her face was cloudy, eyes half shut like she was about to either cry or sing, and then she smiled and it was radiant and now and there was no distance. "Ted," she said, leaning into him. "You're kind of a great guy, you know?"

"Not all of us can be," he conceded, and they both laughed. "You're not bad yourself, Scherbatsky. Neither is Barney."

"No, I guess he isn't." She was quiet, and so was he, thinking again about blue bands and pasta and airplanes and Christmas. "I think," she said, startling him out of his quiet. He said nothing, and she seemed to think before she continued, "I'm going to tell you something, and you probably already know this, but I'm going to tell you anyway, because now seems the best time to let you know."

"If you're a dude then you should have told me that when we were dating Robin. I can't keep that from Barney, he is my bro, you know."

She punched his arm. "I'm not a dude, why do you guys always think I'm a dude?!"

"I think the hockey speaks for itself."

"That's not because I'm a dude, it's because I'm Canadian," she went on in a furor, and then stopped, smiling. "Okay, for real Ted. You meant a lot to me. You still do. Some part of me is always going to be in love with you, I think. Some part of me is always going to compare every other guy I go out with to you. Because you have a way of getting into peoples' heads, you know?"

"I know," Ted interrupted, his heart doing slow, long cartwheels up and down, up and down, in the distance and fading every day. "My poor heartsick, puppy dog story has that appeal."

Robin smiled, but it was tender. "Maybe it's that. But you just need to know that you mean to the world to me, no matter where I go, what I do, things like that. You're my best friend too. I can love you, and not be in love with you, but I can love you. I just think you needed to know that."

Ted didn't say anything for a second, tried to gather his thoughts, and smiled, and it was tender, too, as he hugged her. "I think some part of me is going to always be in love with you too Robin, but I think this arrangement is for the best. I mean, I couldn't have my kids being half Canadian anyway." She laughed, and he laughed, and his heart did that funny little cartwheel again, all slow, up and down. "I promise I won't marry anyone you don't approve of," he said, "and you do the same."

"You're still my backup spouse," she reminded him.

"I know," he said, grabbing his glass across the table and motioning to her to pick hers up too. "To… the future!"

She snorted. "Wow, did they teach you any creativity in architecture school at all?"

"Have I shown you my halls of meditation?"

"Ooh, that's a good one, I'm going to tell Barney. That is a pick up line if I ever heard it."

Ted hit his forehead with the hand not holding the glass. "Oh shut it Robin. To… well, to this. To my best friend."

Robin smiled, and it was adorable, like everything she ever did. "To my best friend," she said, and they drank, and when she put the glass back on the table, she jumped a little and reached into her pocket for her cell phone.

"It's Barney," she said, "I told him I'd call him when I got home. Better go take this."

"Tell him I said what's up, and that I'm wearing a suit and he missed it."

Robin nodded conspiratorially. "I'll make it convincing."

"Atta girl."

She got up and walked over the juke box. Ted got up and slid back into his seat on the other side of the booth, finally downing the last of the drink in his glass. He glanced back over his shoulder, saw her talking, saw her smiling, and he smiled too, feeling that funny ache in his heart, in his chest. He would always, he imagined, like he'd told her, be in love with her, at least in some marginal part.

Well maybe not always in love. One day he'd come to just love her, like he did now, but without always those questions. Or maybe he'd always have those questions. But that was between him and the not too far distance. Like it was between her and her distance, and now Barney.

She was his best friend. That, at the very least, would always be enough.