SPOILER WARNING for the end of How I Met Your Mother.

Trent paused the TV and looked over his family. Next to him on the couch sat his wife. Andrea wore her dark hair longer these days, but her various piercings were still visible; she loved the way they freaked out the other parents in the PTA. He chuckled, the constant cough from his youth gone since he stopped smoking years ago.

In the armchairs to either side sat his sons, Jean and Michel. The boys were identical twins, but you wouldn't know it by looking at them. Jean had much more muscle on him, from years of little league, soccer, and now middle school football. Trent and Andrea had balked when he had first showed interest in team sports, but now they were just proud of him.

Michel on the other hand was wiry like his father. Where his brother was athletic and popular, Michel was smart and withdrawn. He was constantly reading or doing something on the computer. He'd tried to explain what to Trent, but it tended to fly over his head.

"So," Trent said, "What did you guys think about the finale?" They'd just finished watching the last episode of How I Met your Mother. Trent and Andrea made a point of spending time with their boys, even if it was just watching TV.

"Kind of a cop out," Jean said, "I mean, the mom gets sick and dies and he's just saying all this so he can get with Robin? And Barney and Robin break up after they spent all the time on the wedding? It all kind of came out of nowhere."

Michel sighed. "Of course you'd miss it. They've been dropping hints she was going to die for months, and Barney and Robin never worked as a couple. Maybe if you worked out your brain, you'd notice these things."

"What did you say, you little—" Jean began, only to be cut off by his mother.

"Boys." Andrea said the single word firmly, with just a hint of threat. The twins sunk back into their chairs, instantly cowed. Trent tried not to smile, he never stopped being amazed at how good she was at getting the boys to stop bickering.

He was about to unpause the TV to do something about the tense silence quickly filling his living room, when Jean spoke up, "Hey Dad, how'd you meet Mom?"

"Um…" Trent stalled, looking to his wife. She caught his eye and after a moment gave a slow nod, encouraging him. He turned off the TV and looked at his boys. They were twelve now, it should be fine. "Well, it all started when I was visiting your Aunt Janey in Boston, before I moved out here. She wanted to go see an exhibit at the museum, so I tagged along.

"I looked around the exhibit hall. The art was really cool, bold I guess. I didn't really get it, but then I never really got a lot of art outside of your Aunt Janey's stuff." Trent chuckled. "Even then I sometimes had to get her to explain it."

"It was a Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit," Andrea interjected, sounding more amused than exasperated at her husband's lack of detail.

"Oh, yeah. That's where your names come from. He was a cool guy."

"We already know that Dad. You and Mom taught us all about him when we were kids," Michel said impatiently.

"Right, anyway. I was looking at the paintings when I saw a woman I thought I knew from somewhere. She had short dark hair and a lot of piercings, but that could have been a lot of people I knew I guess. Something about the way she carried herself though, confident but not giving a damn, reminded me of something and drew me in. Janey was completely lost in the paintings, so I decided to walk over and say hey. She was pretty cute after all—" Trent smiled and eyed his wife "—still is."

Andrea smirked back and shouldered him playfully. "You know I would have slugged you if you'd said that back then, right?"

"Yeah, you weren't exactly open to complements," Trent admitted. "I thought you were going to attack me when you turned around after I asked if I knew you from somewhere. I think you said 'Look, I'm here for the art not to get ogled by some scrawny weirdo.' It was actually the attitude that reminded me where I'd seen her before. She used to come to a club I'd play at when we both lived in Lawndale. Any guy who walked up to her ended up getting told off or limping home. She even knocked out the bouncer once."

Jean and Michel stared at their mother in shock. "I only knocked him down, and it was his fault for sneaking up on me."

Jean turned to his brother. "Remind me never to sneak up on Mom." Michel nodded in agreement.

"Anyway," Trent continued, "luckily for me your mom remembered me from Mystik Spiral and cooled down. We started talking about Lawndale, people from the Zōn, what we were doing now, stuff like that. We were having a pretty good time until your mom just stopped mid-sentence. I thought I'd said something stupid, until I noticed her staring behind me and heard the people around us start to murmur. When I turned around I… I saw…" Trent trailed off, staring into the middle distance. Andrea put her hand on his, bringing him back and giving him the strength to continue.

"Sorry," Trent said, his voice a bit hoarser than usual, "So, I turned around and everyone was staring at Janey. She was on the floor, spasming. Your mom was right there though, moving while everyone else just stared. She took off her jacket and lay Jane on her side, using the jacket as a pillow to keep her from hitting her head on the floor. She asked me if this had happened before and I just shook my head, I couldn't talk. After a minute she called an ambulance, and before I could figure out what was happening I was in the back on the way to the hospital with Janey."

"The next couple of days were crazy, but your mom kept us sane. She stayed with us whenever she wasn't working. I think Janey really appreciated her getting me out of the room from time to time. Those were our first dates I guess, eating in the hospital cafeteria. We got to know each other better over time. I learned she was an EMT and that was why she knew what to do, that she'd gone into it because her own mom was sick. She helped me get started on moving out to Boston so I could be there for Jane, even found me my first job in a music shop. You know the rest right?"

The boys were quiet, taking a moment to realize they were being addressed. "That's pretty crazy," Jean said, "So you two met because Aunt Jane had cancer?"

"That's kind of sick," Michel added, "in a cool way." Trent could see Jane's smile on his lips.

Hey,

This is another one from the challenge thread, or maybe the first if you're reading these in a different order than I'm typing them. Someone asked me to write something featuring Trent and Andrea with several restrictions. What you see is the result. Many thanks to him for the idea and for starting that thread.

Please review if it's not too much trouble. Much appreciated. As always, thanks for reading, regardless.