Hey readers! I hope you guys have followed over from "The Long and Winding Road", or else this may get a little confusing. While you don't necessarily have to have read it… it definitely helps.

I'm especially hoping my reviewers have travelled over with me, and leave me lots of gorgeous reviews again (you guys rock). And I hope I get some new reviewers too! Don't be shy, I don't bite (ok, maybe once, but in my defense, I really wanted to).

Topaz-b

Ps- its the weirdest thing! I haven't seen any of those smelly markers in years, and then today I sit on the couch and there on the coffee table, shablam! Cherry scented and all! Weird huh.

Pps- finally picked the Beatles song that fit the best (to me anyway). And yes, I am in love with the Beatles (oh to be alive back then, sigh).

There are places I remember

All my life, though some have changed

Robin held Barney's hand as they walked up the stairs to her French apartment, swinging their hands slightly between them. He had flown back with her, to spend the next few days and then fly back. WWN had agreed to that she could go back to the New York Office, but she'd need to stay in France until they found her replacement.

They'd flown the long flight, adding a few new places to their ever extending list, airport bathroom, airplane bathroom, first class seat, coach seat (after they were sent back to where they'd come from) and French airport bathroom. Barney had laughed at her bright red scooter, still in the airport's long term parking, and cursed his luck when she went into a store and produced a duck bill-esque helmet for him to wear.

She opened the door, breathing in the not quite familiar smell. Barney stepped in behind her, pulling the door shut behind him.

"Ok, you have three choices Robin."

"Huh?" She turned to look at him, his trademark smug grin on his face.

"Floor, couch, or bed."

"For?" She grinned back as he stepped towards her, trailing a hand from her shoulder and down her arm.

"For the christening of your apartment." He breathed out the whisper before pulling her to his chest.

Lily sighed, leaning on her desk and watching her students color. She'd wanted to go with Robin too, just to get another taste of traveling before she was baby grounded. It wasn't in the cards though, between work, Marshall's job, and her re-found morning sickness. Between her frequent peeing and the vomiting, not only would she be less than pleasant to travel with, said Marshall, but she'd hold the bathroom up the entire flight.

She also knew that Robin and Barney needed this time, they'd maybe have a talk, a decent one hopefully.

She sighed and closed her eyes, and then reached on top of her desk for the cup of markers she kept there. Feeling the side, then the rim, then nothing, her eyes sprung open and panic set in. Her markers! Her beautiful, addictive markers! Where were they?

The class talked while they colored, and she realized what they were using. Her markers!

"Class, Mrs. Aldrin needs her markers back." She said shakily, hoping that none of them would bring up the lesson on sharing from that morning. They all turned and looked at her silently. She could almost feel their eyes judging her, markers in hand, the word hypocrite on their lips.

If they could pronounce it, that was, and knew what it meant. She cleared her throat.

"Class, please." A few started to move towards her, slowly. The others just looked at her dubiously again. "Now!" She yelled. The class jumped and ran at her desk, markers and children flying from all corners of the room.

She looked at the hodge podge of markers they'd given back, and her heart sank. Uncapped and sticky, they were a mess. The grape way dry, the cinnamon had been run through glue, the tip pushed in on licorice.

And her precious, precious cherry. It looked as though it had been attacked with scissors, glue, glitter, and renedered unrecognizable. Even the smell was gone.

She sighed, falling onto her hands on her desk, thinking about France, how she could have been there instead of here, and Robin and Barney.

They better be having one hell of a talk…

Barney and Robin fell out of her bedroom doorway, fumbling at each other's clothing. Her shoe was thrown at a plant pot, his tie at the TV, her jeans in a pile on the rug, his suit jacket immaculately placed over a kitchen chair. She reached for the buckle of his belt while they were in a tangle on the floor, unfastening it and kissing him hard as she pulled his shirt tails out of the waist of his pants, and then unbuttoned it, pushing it back over his shoulders.

He whipped her shirt up and over her head as they struggled to stand, his hands sliding down the sides of her body, refusing to lose their contact with her skin. She reached for his pants, unbuttoning them and letting them fall to the floor. He reached for her bra, undoing it with one twist of his finger. Grinning at him, she pushed him towards the couch. He hit it a bit too high, and tipped over the top and fell with a resounding thump. His head popped up as Robin rounded the side of it. She leapt at him, her arms and legs intertwining with his.

Marshall flipped through the file on his desk, sighing. He'd de-scrambled some of the bizarre code used in his office (He was proud of himself on it. He hadn't asked anyone about it, except Lily once and she didn't exactly help, just vaguely stared through him as he described it) and had jumped headlong into the first case put before him. His boss was impressed by his work ethic, and had thanked him by dumping 6 new files in front of him that morning.

He pulled out his highlighter and counting down 15 lines until he reached where, he'd stopped reading, started again. Reading his footnotes and scratching the bright blue across the words in front of him, he didn't realize when his boss came up.

"Marshall, I just want to tell you how impressed we are upstairs." He said, before sitting down in the chair across from him. "You're an excellent worker, and we're looking forwards to the work you're putting into your next case."

"Oh yeah, I can't wait to get started on this." He said, indicating the files in front of him.

"Hmm? Oh, this? This was for Lyle, not you." His boss scooped up the files in front of him, including the paperwork he'd just been highlighting. "This is yours." He placed 20 odd folders the Marshall hadn't noticed him holding before on his desk. They were rubber banded together, and looked as if they'd been passed around the office a few times. "I wondered why it was still on the mail trays."

"Oh, sir, I'd really rather finish the other, I'd already started"

"No worries my boy." He stood, crossing his arms and smiling widely. "Let Lyle handle the light work. You get right up there with the heavy hitters."

"Yes sir." He sighed and reached for the folders as his boss headed to the door.

"Oh, and Marshall?" His boss turned, his hand on the knob.

"Yes sir?"

"Hit a home run." He gave him a thumbs up and mimed swinging a bat at him, an action that looked comical, yet oddly terrifying.

"Hit a home run?" Ted said incredulously, looking across the pub table at Marshall. He nodded.

"Yup, and then he did this." Marshall mimicked his bosses actions from earlier, using the same jerky movements. "It wasn't anything like a home run Ted, more like a bludgeoning, or a blow to the side of the skull."

"You're over thinking again Marshall."

"Yeah probably." Marshall sighed. "But the case is horrible Ted! Every folder has someone else's notes on them! Someone has started the case maybe once a day for the last month or so, but no one has finished it."

"That's what they want you to do."

"Ted, it looks like an impossible case! Its like they want to break me!"

"To break you?"

"Definitely."

"You're overreacting." Ted said, and then pulled out the tube with the plans for his dream house out from under the table. "I have to show you this, I took these to class again, and I had the greatest idea." He flipped through the sheets until he hit the page he wanted. "Emergency basement door escape hatch."

"In case of zombies?"

"Well no, fire but..." Ted said, peering down at his plans. "I don't know, I think that's the opposite of what you'd need in a zombie outbreak, thats easy entry." Ted said. "But I could reinforce the door with steel, and…" He pulled a piece of scrap paper from his bag, rolling his plans back up. "And an airtight shutter seal over all the windows." He sketched them out roughly while Marshall watched.

"Oh, and you'd need a big steel place to slide down over the door." Marshall interjected, sliding his finger across the paper to indicatewhere it should go.

"And a drawbridge."

"Definitely a drawbridge."

"And we could stockpile the weapons here, by the door, so we could attack as they get stuck trying to cross the Drawbridge when its up."

"Ohh! Dibs on flamethrower."

"Aww I wanted the flamethrower."

"Ted, you have girly hands, you can't handle a flamethrower."

"Girly hands!"

"Yeah, and all that product in your hair would render you a flaming ball within seconds."

"Yeah, well…" Ted started and then paused. "Wait, what were we talking about?"

"I have no idea."

Robin and Barney lay on the floor behind the couch, her head on his chest and his arm around her, the other holding her hand in his. She smiled up at him, and, lifting their hands, kissed his fingertips.

"We are good." She said.

"Good, psssh! We're awesome." Barney said, pulling her tighter to his chest. "Sorry about the mirror though."

"I can replace it. Kudos on getting my shoe through it with only your toe."

"It's a talent. One of many." He nuzzled her ear softly, blowing it lightly.

"You are talented." She said. "Now, what do you want to do Barney? Sight see, go for a walk, pick through the shops?" She sat up, stretching. "Or should we stay in?"

"I want to take a tour."

"A tour?" She looked down at him over her shoulder. He grinned up at her.

"Yes. A guided tour." He pulled her by her shoulders back down on top of him, and then flipped them over, so he was straddling her, his hand slid down her cheek to her neck, then traced her collarbone softly. "Of the Scherbatsky skyline."

"Those guided tours are pretty in depth." She said, smiling up at him as his hand slide to her chest, tracing her nipples softly with his fingertips.

"Oh, I'm looking forwards to downtown." He winked and one hand left her chest, sliding down her stomach.