Disclaimer: I do not own How I Met Your Mother.
Disclaimer the second: Yes, I know this show is very problematic. For the purposes of this fanfic, we're pretending the characters aren't transphobic, misogynistic, etcetera. Barney still has a ton of sex, but he's less skeevy about how he gets it (he does do his acts, but he comes clean before it gets too far). Yes, I tend to pretend things aren't as problematic as they really are. It makes me happy.
She first noticed it on an evening like any other - the group was at McLaren's bar, sitting in their usual booth. They'd been there for a while already, and since he was the one sitting in the chair rather than the booth, Ted got up to refill their drinks.
"Nothing for me, thanks," Barney said, indicating his still-full glass. "I'm not done yet."
"Have you even touched it?" Robin asked, after Ted had nodded and wandered over to the bar.
"Of course I have!" he exclaimed, picking up the glass and sloshing it around. "Look at me touching it right now." He put the glass to his lips.
"You didn't drink anything, though," Marshal pointed out. "You just let it touch your lips so we'd think you drank something."
"If you're trying to stop drinking, you could just tell us," Lilly said. "Doesn't seem like you, but Ted could always get you something non-alcoholic."
"You guys are way over-reacting," Barney said. "I just don't feel like drinking much tonight." Lilly opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off. "Alcoholic or not."
It was then that Ted got back, and the conversation shifted. Still, Robin felt that something was off. She resolved to keep a closer eye on the man for the rest of the night, in case anything else was amiss.
About a week later they were all sitting at the booth once again, with the exception of Barney. Robin had asked the others to show up a little earlier, with the intention of discussing Barney's strange behaviour.
"Haven't you guys noticed anything?" she asked. "He isn't drinking or eating anything, and I haven't seen him actually hit on anyone in a while either."
"What do you mean, he isn't drinking anything?" Ted asked. "Less, maybe, but he's still drinking a little."
"That's what I thought, too," Robin said, "But then I started paying attention. You know how he is with sleight of hand, right?"
"The magic tricks?" Marshal groaned. "I still have a burn mark in my favourite shirt from that trick he tried to practice on me."
The others nodded in commiseration.
Robin nodded. "Yeah. Well, I saw him slipping a bit of his drink into Lilly's the other night."
"What?" Lilly did not sound pleased. "Why would he be trying to get me drunk?"
"I don't think he is," Robin said. "I saw him put some into mine too, and everyone else's. He just does it to whoever's next to him when he thinks we're not paying attention."
Lilly looked pacified, but no less confused.
"Why would he be doing that?" Ted asked. "Couldn't he just order soda or something? Although that would still leave the question of why he's trying to stop drinking alcohol."
"I don't know why he isn't drinking pop," Robin said, "But I think this goes a little deeper than alcohol. Like I said, I haven't seen him actually hit on anyone in a while either. Have any of you?"
"Of course I have!" Marshal said. "Just the other night, he told us he'd had sex-"
"He'd told us," Lilly said, realizing what Robin was getting at.
"Now that you mention it, I don't think I have seen him hit on anyone recently," Ted said. "Should we pull an intervention?"
"Let's try just asking him first," Lilly suggested.
"Asking me what?" Barney asked, sliding into the chair at the end of the booth.
"Nothing!" Lilly said, a bit too vehemently.
"Hey, would you get us some drinks?" Ted asked. "It's about your turn, isn't it? You haven't had the chair for a while."
To the others, it was fairly obvious that Ted was trying to buy them a little more alone time - at least enough to agree on how to ask Barney about his recent behaviour. They might have expected him to put up a fight, but none of them expected his actual reaction.
"Uh," Barney said, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. "Uuuuhhhh." He drew it out. "I could, sure, I totally could, but why would I? Ted's obviously way better at it."
Had Barney just said that Ted was better than him at something?
"Barney, just spill it," Ted said. "There's something up - you've been acting weird recently. Why?"
"Is it a girl?" Marshal asked.
Barney scoffed. "No, it's not a girl, Marshal," he said. "Nothing's up. I'm fine. I'm more than fine - I'm awesome!"
"Then why don't you go get us some drinks?" Ted said.
"Uuuhhh," came the reply. "I gotta go. Bye!"
And with that, he got up and started walking towards the door. The others exchanged glances.
"Barney, wait!" Robin called. "Just let us talk to you!"
Barney hesitated, looking back at them. He seemed to be debating with himself over something.
And that was when it happened.
One moment Barney was just standing there, looking at them, and the next, someone walked through him. There was no, "Oh, I'm sorry, sir," or "Hey! What're you doing, standing in the middle of the bar like that?" or anything. They didn't bump into him, brush themselves off, and go on their way. They walked through him, literally, as though he wasn't even there.
Barney must have seen something on their faces, because he sighed and walked back over to the table, sitting down again in the chair.
Marshal was the first to speak. "Barney," he said, "Tell me honestly. Are you a ghost?"
"What?" Ted exclaimed. "Of course he's not a ghost!"
"I don't know, Ted, he's got a point," Lilly said. "Didn't you see what the rest of us saw?"
"Of course I did! But there's got to be a better explanation." He turned to Barney, who looked like he desperately wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else.
"What's going on, Barney?" Robin asked, softly.
Barney stared intently at an imaginary piece of lint on his suit. "What's happening is that, for once in his life, Marshal is actually correct." He sounded like he was going for cavalier, but it came off forced.
They all kept staring at him.
He sighed. "You remember when I got hit by a bus a while back? It may have ... killed me."
"This has got to be a prank," Robin said. "Ghosts aren't real! Everyone knows that!"
"Guys, it's real." Barney sounded frustrated. "Look, I'll prove it to you."
Robin watched as he swatted his hand through the table. Through the table. She was, somewhere in the back of her mind, waiting for Barney to smirk at them and say that his newest magic trick was a success, but knew it couldn't be.
"Oh my god," Ted said. "You're dead. How are you dead? We were there at the hospital!"
This time Barney did smirk, although it was a little shaky. "I have my ways," he said.
"No, really," Ted pressed.
He rolled his eyes. "I didn't die right away," he told them. "It was sometime after you ran off to find Stella. There was more internal bleeding than they thought there was, or something. Well, by that time you guys had gone home. The Doctor did try to call Ted, but I wiped the message as he left it." He grinned. "Turns out I can mess with electronics if I want to."
"What about your job?" Marshal asked.
"What about it?" Barney seemed to have relaxed a bit now, reveling in everyone's confusion. "Haven't you heard of computers? We have an agreement."
Since none of them knew what Barney actually did for a living, nobody could really contest it.
"Okay, so if you've figured everything out so well, how come you couldn't order drinks?" Ted asked, a challenge in his voice.
Barney sighed. "That's the problem. Only you four can see me. I think it has something to do with emotional connections or something."
Robin frowned. "I thought you had a brother? Couldn't he see you?"
"Probably," Barney admitted, "But what about his husband? Tom doesn't know me that well."
"That's a good point," Lilly said. "So it's just us? That's why you've been… not drinking or hitting on people?"
"Yeah," Barney said. "Besides, even if chicks could see me, it's a bit hard to, y'know, get physical with people, considering the amount of effort it takes to touch things."
"Why didn't you just tell us?" Marshal asked.
"Oh, I don't know." Barney cocked his head. "Maybe I was worried that you guys finding out I'm dead would make things awkward?"
"Is it awkward?" Marshal asked. "I think it's pretty cool."
"Yeah, it's a little awkward," Robin said.
"But we know that ghosts exist now!" Marshal exclaimed. "You gotta admit that's cool."
"Maybe," Ted agreed, "But this is Barney we're talking about."
"Uh, guys?" Barney interjected. "I think people are starting to notice this conversation, and while I don't have to worry about saving face, unless Ted wants to play it up to get laid, we may want to go elsewhere."
"Let's go to the apartment," Ted said.
Barney sighed. "You disappoint me, Ted. I thought you knew the right answer by now. Consider how awesome it would be if I wingman'd you now! You could say you're psychic and I could knock stuff over, or something."
"Yeah," Robin said. "Or we could go upstairs."
"Fine."
Once they were all in the apartment, the rest of the gang turned to face Barney.
He threw up his hands. "Guys. Guys. How much more do you need to know? Can't we all just move on already?"
"Funny that you say that," Marshal said, looking to Lilly to finish the thought. It was one of those irritating couple-things again.
"Aren't you supposed to be moving on or something?" Lilly asked.
"What, and leave you guys without my awesomeness?" he asked. "Please."
"No, really, Barney," Robin said. "How long are you planning on staying like this?"
"I don't know," he said. "Until you guys get boring? I don't see any reason to go anywhere."
"So you're going to keep haunting us?" Marshal asked. "Sweet!"
Barney rolled his eyes. "Marshal, if you try to publicize this, I will make your life miserable."
Marshal groaned.
"Barney," Ted asked one night. "What did you do with your body?"
"Yeah," Marshal added. "Do you have a tombstone or anything?"
"Guys," Lilly hissed, "what are you doing?" They ignored her.
"No, I don't have a tombstone," Barney said incredulously. "I'm keeping up with my job, remember? Being dead kind of ruins that."
"You are dead," Robin pointed out.
"Well, yeah," he said. "But not legally!"
"So, where's your body?" Ted asked.
Barney scoffed. "Please. I have my ways."
For a while, things went well. Barney nagged Ted until he let him try the psychic gig (it worked) and Marshal tried to convince various TV shows to come to see Barney (that didn't work). Barney went with them to MacLaren's, sat at the booth, and was generally his usual self.
They all knew it couldn't last forever.
"Hey, everyone," Ted said, coming up to the table. "I'd like you to meet my new girlfriend, Lucy." He gestured to the others. "Lucy, this is Lilly, Marshal, Robin, and..." he trailed off when he got to Barney, who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
"And?" She asked. "Do you have someone else here?"
"I guess not," he said. "Take a seat?"
"Fine, I'll move," Barney said, scowling. He vanished for a few moments into the booth before reappearing atop the dividing wall.
He continued to make comments throughout the night, and even got Robin to laugh a few times (much to Lucy's confusion) but it was pretty evident to everyone that he was being mostly left out of the conversation. After all, how could they possibly include him?
After that, things got gradually more difficult. Ted had girlfriends over pretty frequently, even though he did try to keep them away sometimes for Barney's sake. Barney was nearly constantly nagging various members of the gang to do something, anything, with him.
"We could go to... the gun range, or something," Barney said. "Anywhere!"
Robin looked up from her book, to where Barney was standing a few feet away.
"You're really getting frustrated, aren't you?" she asked.
Barney sighed and sat down on a chair. "I can only do my job and screw around on the internet for so long before I need to interact with people," he said. "And I can't just hit up a club or something because you guys are the only ones who can see me!" He was quiet for a moment. "Being dead sucks," he said softly.
Robin wanted to comfort him, but she wasn't really sure how. Finally, she got up from her seat.
"What would you like to do?" she asked.
About two months after discovering Barney was a ghost (and three months after the accident), the gang was waiting for Barney when he showed up in the apartment.
"Guys?" he asked, taking in the intervention banner strung over the wall. "What's this for?" His uncharacteristically solemn voice told them that he already knew.
"Barney," Robin said, sharing a glance with the others. "It's for you."
"You're not happy like this, Barney," Lilly said. "You know you're not."
"You work more than you used to, and you're getting whinier and whinier when you're not working," Ted told him.
"You want things to never change," Marshal said, "because if they do, there'll be people around who can't see you."
"But Barney," Robin's voice was soft and sad. "Things can't stay the same forever. This is only holding you back." She took a deep breath. "It's time to move on."
Barney just stood there for a moment, absorbing it all. For a moment he looked almost like he was going to crack a joke and brush it all off, but he didn't. Instead, eyes wide and voice shaking a little, he spoke.
"I... I don't know how," he admitted. "It's not like there's a door or a bright white light or anything. It's just ... me. And I'm scared."
It was perhaps the first time he had admitted that to anyone in a long time. It was Lilly who answered him.
"You can do this, Barney. We love you, but you need to let go."
He sighed and nodded. "I don't want to leave you guys," he said. "You're my bros - all of you." He looked at his hands, running them through a vase of flowers sitting on the table. "I thought this could be like living," he admitted. "I thought that if I just pretended I was still alive, maybe I could be." He laughed bitterly. "I guess it didn't work out so well, huh?"
"We all got three more months together," Marshal said. "That's better than nothing."
"Yeah," Barney smiled for a moment before shaking himself and clapping his hands. "Well, this was fun, but I guess I've got to go." He winked at them. "As long as I can keep my suits in the afterlife, I'm sure it'll be legendary." Up until now he had looked completely solid, but now he started to fade, and for the first time he actually looked like a ghost.
"Hey, I can see through you, man!" Marshal exclaimed, breaking up the solemn atmosphere a little.
Barney grinned. "Oh, by the way," he said, "check the third drawer in the desk at my apartment. The key's inside the helmet of the stormtrooper." He waved at them, almost gone now. "I hope your lives are at least half as awesome as mine was."
And then he was gone.
They'd planned this, expected this, encouraged this, but it didn't stop any of them from crying.
"What do you think's in the desk?" Ted asked as they walked into Barney's apartment.
"It can't be porn," Lilly said. "He keeps - kept - that in a display rack."
It was strange, being in his apartment without him in it. Heck, it was strange just being in his apartment. Still, he'd asked them to do this, and they knew they had to oblige.
Marshal found the key in the stormtrooper helmet and opened the drawer, pulling out a manila envelope with the words "This is what you're looking for," written on it.
"What is that?" Lilly asked, stepping closer to Marshal to take a look.
He opened it and leafed through the envelopes within. "These are all titled too. Let me see. 'Will', 'My body and what to do with it', 'Funeral', and 'Loose ends'." He set all of the smaller envelopes on the desk and peered inside the larger one, pulling out a sheet of paper. "Also, there's this," he said, handing it to Robin. "It says you should read it."
"If you're reading this, I guess I must have moved on," she read. "I've been trying not to, but the way things are working out... Well, let's just say it wouldn't surprise me if I'm not here much longer. Or if you guys pulled an intervention (If I called that, I deserve an afterlife-five! What up?). Anyway, this would have been a video, but apparently I don't show up on videos anymore, since I'm a ghost and all. In this envelope I've enclosed all the documents and other information you may need to wrap things up, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get everything dealt with, even though these are unusual circumstances. I have my ways. Don't worry about my job - we have an arrangement. And guys - you know that I hate mushy stuff more than anyone, but it's now or never, right? So I just wanted to tell you all how much your friendship means to me - friendship has always meant more to me than romance, and you guys are my closest friends. Thanks for putting up with me."
Robin stopped reading, voice shaking and tears welling up in her eyes. She willed them to stay away, but she knew it was a losing battle. At least everyone else seemed to be losing just as badly.
She folded up the paper and put it in her pocket, not offering it back to Marshal. They stood there for a few minutes in silence before Ted spoke.
"Well," he said. "I guess we should deal with the ... body, and stuff. Y'know."
They all nodded. "We've got to read the rest of these papers," Marshal said. "Figure out what we need to do"
They nodded again, each of them trying to pull themselves together, to work things out.
The day of the funeral, they saw him again, standing with them in front of the casket as they lowered it into the ground. He was translucent, barely visible, but he was there.
They started to speak, to talk to him, but he raised his finger to his lips, shushing them. "Just came back for that high-five," he said, smiling. "You owe me."
They smiled through their tears, and all four of them reached up to slap Barney's waiting hand.
He grinned at them one last time, and was gone.