BECAUSE I NEEDED TO START ANOTHER STORY. i've been threatening to write this story for about a year now, and, well, TODAY IS THE DAY. to be clear, this is a hardcore no joke ALTERNATE UNIVERSE story (as the, you know, tracy/barney thing probably gives away). it starts mid-season 8 — everything up through Splitzville happened, as well as the flashback events in Platonish, but things go off course with Tracy and Barney's first meeting, and…
trails off dramatically…
I have no idea how long this story will be or how dramatic it'll get. This is completely a dumb self indulgence type of fanfic, and BTU totally owes me some cookies now. ;)
six days at the bottom of the ocean
Tracy brushes off the weird guy trying to hit on her, and goes back to looking at combs. She's replaying her conversation with Lewis in her head, Why don't you stay over versus her total inability to come up with a reason to say no, a reason besides meh or I don't know, I have an appointment with my sweats and Deadliest Catch, so she'd said Oh, I don't have … stuff and now she's at a pharmacy. She's trying to decide if it would be kind of gross to get deodorant, like, is that one of those things girls are supposed to pretend they don't do? He'd asked her what she needed and said he had an extra toothbrush anyway, so Tracy had gone uhh and lots of stuff, but now she doesn't know how to fake it. Fake stuff, and fake that she wants to do this.
She should want to do this. Lewis is her boyfriend. She really likes him, she thinks.
She shouldn't feel kind of hollow when she thinks about him. She thinks.
Tracy picks out a comb. She's paying and trying to work up some enthusiasm for her upcoming wild sleepover event and perfect hair — and suddenly the guy from before is back, still walking towards her as he asks:
"What do you mean, sad?"
(This much remains true.)
"I mean," Tracy says, taking her change back from the clerk and waffling a little bit, because the dude in the suit sounds kind of distressed and she doesn't know, really. Who hits on women in pharmacies?, she almost says, but that sounds sarcastic (if accurate) and it wasn't only the ridiculousness that had made her say it, made her grab him by the shoulders and look him in the eye and tell him to buck up, buddy. "If you're trying to pick up me, in, you know, here," she slides her comb into her jacket pocket with her change, "there's a couple of things in that equation that are sort of weird."
"Why?" Suit asks. "You married?"
She has to laugh at that idea. "No. No way." He doesn't stop her when she brushes past him, but she can hear him trail after her, so she stops them in front of a bleach display. "I mean, you don't look happy."
Suit frowns at her a little. "Just because I don't look happy doesn't mean I'm sad."
"You're picking up women after picking up diapers," Tracy points out, nodding at the package under his arm.
"Oh. These aren't for —" Suit frowns. "they're for a friend of mine."
"A little baby friend?"
"My godson," he says, "thanks."
"Aww, congrats," Tracy says, patting him on the arm. "Well, nice chatting, but I gotta…" she points her thumb over her shoulder. "Bye!"
He follows her again. "I'm not sad!" She makes a right outside the store, and he follows, easily matching her pace. "Lady, I am the least sad person on the planet. I am so not sad that I can't even remember the last time I was sad. When I start to feel sad, I just stop and get awesome. I'm not sad."
"Why are you trying so hard to convince me this?" she asks, which seems to trip him up a little because it stops his anti-sadness monologue for a few seconds. She stops at a crosswalk and so does he, and for a few seconds they just stand there, waiting for the light.
"Are we gonna —?" He gestures at a break in traffic.
"I don't jaywalk."
"You live in New York," he says, disgusted. "What are you, from Oklahoma?"
"Oklahoma?" The light turns, but Tracy is staring at him and misses it until he puts his free hand at her back to nudge her forward. "How long are you gonna follow me? Because I have a rule, it's creepy after two blocks." She nods up the street.
They pass a subway station, a bodega, and a photo development place. "Why do you think I'm sad?" he asks again.
They're approaching the end of the block. There's a bus stop without anyone waiting, and Tracy takes a deep breath and sits down at the bench, right in the middle of it. Suit hesitates for a second, looks at the intersection ahead of them, then sits down next to her.
Tracy looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time. He's maybe ten years older than her, although it's harder to tell in semi-dark than in the florescent light of the pharmacy. Wall Street looking suit, handsome face, even with the broad forehead; eyes she remembers as blue, now dark, with lines and shadows beneath. He's frowning at her. "I know what it looks like," she says. "I've been there myself."
"You're lonely?" Suit asks her.
Yeah, Tracy wants to say, but that isn't a good thing to say, because she has a boyfriend and good friends and no real reason to feel lonely or feel sad, none except for the usual reasons. But it sounds kind of ungrateful in her head. "Are you?" she asks, keeping the conversation on the stranger.
He leans against the bench and stares out at the traffic, his arms slung over the back of the bench. "I don't know. I just broke up with my fiancée," he says, but he says it thoughtful.
"I'm sorry."
"I really liked her a lot," he says, still in that pensive, puzzled voice. "But I don't know, I'm okay with it."
"I believe you," she says.
"Yeah?"
Tracy shrugs. "It's not like I know you, so I kind of have to?" He chuckles. She thinks a little bit about Max, and then about Lewis, and how she'd feel if that ended, but that's kind of another mean, ungrateful thought she doesn't want to dwell on. "So if you're not heartbroken about her, what's been getting you down?"
"I'm not…"
She's a little surprised that all it takes is her raising her eyebrows for Suit to shut up. "You followed me two blocks. No one gets this obsessive over being called something they're not."
"Well played," he mutters. She chuckles this time. His jaw clenches and moves, then he huffs out a sigh. "I'm not… I'm kind of sad about Quinn," he says slowly, "but it's like…" he scratches at his eyebrow, frowning heavily and clearly struggling for words. "I was pretty sure I loved her. I definitely liked her. And bro, the sex was like you wouldn't believe —" He grins over at Tracy and she just sits there with her eyebrows raised, feeling grossed out, until he clears his throat. "So it sucks, kind of, but I'm not really that sad," he continues, looking more or less at Tracy's shoulder. "But I don't know if I have all that many other options."
"Well, I wouldn't start looking for new girlfriends in pharmacies," Tracy jokes, and he gives her a half smile and half chuckle in return. She raises one of her feet up onto the bench, hugs her knee. "It sounds like you were just settling, huh?"
He looks surprised, maybe offended, and then his expression sobers. "I… have not, historically, been great at relationships," he says slowly. He straightens the knot of his tie and clears his throat and looks at traffic. "I may, in fact, be a pretty terrible human being when it comes to the opposite sex."
He says it like a joke, but Tracy doesn't smile or laugh. He looks like he's sitting on something, he looks like his eyes aren't in on the joke. Eventually he adds: "There is… there was… this other girl."
Tracy's mouth twitches. "I'm guessing it didn't work out?" she asks quietly.
"We dated for a while, but…" He shrugs. "It ended really quickly."
"And you got engaged to someone else."
"Yeah, but that was years later." He clears his throat. "She wasn't interested."
"I get it," Tracy says, surprising even herself a little bit. He looks at her. She closes her eyes and counts to three. She doesn't want to talk about it, but she brought it up. "I mean… yeah, I don't know. I know what it's like to lose someone. And to feel like you have to… settle for second best." It's not the same, but maybe it is the same. Tracy can't judge or weigh her feelings and oceans of grief against his relationship and breakup, can't use Max as a weight or measure. But she can understand liking someone. Can understand wanting to like them more. And regret.
He nods at her, a few times, as if to say yes, I agree. "So… what about you?"
She rests her head sideways on her raised knee, smiles. "I'm supposed to be heading back to my boyfriend's place right now, actually."
"What's his name?" Suit asks, inexplicably, like it's something that matters in this.
"Lewis. Lewis Callahan." He nods at her again. "What's yours?" Tracy asks, impulsively.
"Barney Stinson," he says.
"Tracy McConnell," she says.
He hesitates, visibly, looking her over thoughtfully. "Is it gonna last, with you and Number Two?"
"You shouldn't call him that," Tracy says gently. "I don't know."
"You like him a lot," Barney prompts.
"But there's this other guy," Tracy finishes, with a sigh instead of a small smile to match his. She squeezes her eyes shut and thinks about Max, his smile, blurry in her memory, his dark hair, his bangs always falling over and brushed off his forehead, five, ten, fifteen times an hour. "He, uh, he passed away. A little while ago."
"Oh," says Barney. "Sorry."
"I do like Lewis," she insists.
"I really liked Quinn," he says. She isn't sure she wants to agree with the implication.
"Soo," Tracy sighs, sitting up again, shifting her shoulderblades. "I should probably get going. To see my boyfriend." She has a comb now and everything.
"Hey," Barney says. He's looking at her thoughtfully, and she stays put a second, as he reaches into his jacket, to an inside pocket, pulls out his wallet and then a business card. He hands it to her, and she reads:
BARNEY STINSON (that guy's awesome)
GOLIATH NATIONAL BANK
There's a couple of phone numbers and an e-mail address, and no actual job title. She flips it over. "The second number is my work cell," he says.
She looks up at him, and maybe looks a little surprised, because he cracks a smile. "You should feel fortunate. I don't give my number to just anyone I hit on. In fact, even telling one night stands my last name is usually gonna be a no go —"
"Right, because your first name is super common and blends right in," Tracy says, but she says it with some amusement, because she kind of is. "Look, buddy, I'm not looking for a one night anything."
"I know," Barney says, putting his wallet away again, and standing up, picking up the diapers and paper bag he'd been carrying. "But…" He kind of hesitates, and then says with conviction: "I like you, Tracy McConnell." She doesn't know what to say. "And if you wanna …" He looks up, and looks away, and looks right at her, with a new, serious look. "If you ever break up with your number two, I think we could get along pretty well." He shrugs. "Think about it."
It sounds like just about the least romantic proposal in the world. Tracy looks down at the business card. "Sure," she says, because it's not a promise with commitment.
"See ya around, McConnell," Barney says, smirking a little, and doesn't wait for a goodbye before he heads back up the street.
It's been getting colder out, Barney thinks miserably, shuddering as he exits the cab and heads downstairs into MacLaren's. Not only that, but if he's honest with himself (which he tries not to be), lately he's been operating at far below peak levels of awesomeness. He isn't really sure why, but as he pushes the door to the bar open and sees Ted and Robin at the booth, he gets a sort of inkling.
It's been a couple of weeks since he… had that weird word vomit experience at Splitzville in front of Robin and her recent ex-boyfriend (whatever his name was — Barney has happily erased the chicken-legged loser from his memory). That whole memory still feels him with a pinchy sort of anxiety. Everyone believed him when he said he was lying for Robin's sake, and Robin hasn't said anything about it… which is good, infinitely good, because it was a weird out of body experience and Barney isn't even sure he wasn't just broing her out.
But for some reason, he's been jumpy around her since.
It doesn't stop him from placing an order at the bar and sliding into the booth. Ted has papers he's pretending to grade, and Robin has a half empty glass of vodka ice and a low-cut top Barney gives a three second glance-over to.
"Why shouldn't I host this year?" Robin is saying. She offers him a brief "'hey' without a second glance. She doesn't mention the Splitzville Incident. "Marshall and Lily hosted it last year, you — okay, Zoey — did Thanksgiving the year before, I wanna try."
"Robin, you can't cook," Ted says.
"I can cook!" Robin says, her voice going high. "I mean, it's just getting a bird and putting it in an oven, how hard is that?"
"I don't know, how hard is it to make toast?" Ted says, rolling his eyes. "Dude, back me up," he says to Barney.
"Robin, we love you, but we also love not getting food poisoning," he says at once. Then cringes in his soul, but no one else reacts to his accidental choice of words.
"Oh, like you can talk. You have a fake oven."
"For your information," Barney says, raising himself up to full height, "I bought a real one. State of the art."
"Why?" Ted asks incredulously. "Robin's right. All you have in your fridge is Red Bull and whipped cream."
"Damn straight," Barney smirks. "Why can't we just let Lil cook? She's good at that stuff."
"Yeah, but she and Marshall have the baby. Me and Ted thought it'd be kind of nice if we let them have this year off, you know, gave them a break" Robin explains.
Barney considers that, and mostly comes up with a jealous sort of twitch at Robin and Ted planning nice things together. Dammit. This is why he's so un-awesome lately, and he has no idea how to make it stop. He feels at loose ends, weird and kind of pointless. Not pointless in the gang, since obviously he's still the most awesome person in his friend's lives, and secondary leader after Lily, but just… pointless. Like just chasing bimbos isn't enough of a life goal anymore, but he doesn't have a formed backup plan yet.
Ted and Robin are now talking about maybe hosting a joint Thanksgiving, taking a sort of divide and conquer approach, which makes Barney prickle with annoyance again. "What about my mom?" he says. "Mom is making a big dinner this year and James and the kids are coming down too!"
"I don't want to spend Thanksgiving on Staten Island," Robin says.
"I don't know, Barn, it'd be pretty weird to spend it with your mom," Ted says.
"Why? You guys like my family," Barney says, honestly a little confused.
"It'd be weird," Ted insists.
Robin takes a sip of her drink. "Does your mom do Thanksgiving every year? You're always with all of us."
"Usually she goes to AC with her friends," Barney says. Some waitress who isn't Wendy (what ever happened to her? Not that he minds, since no one is poisoning his food anymore with her gone) brings him his scotch, and he takes a drink. "But this year she's all — you know, James and Tom have two kids now." And he was supposed to show up with Quinn, he suddenly remembers. His mom had made a big deal about it, both her boys all grown up and stuff. He takes another drink and tries not to feel weird anymore.
"Hey," says Robin, "maybe the three of us could throw something together? Ted can do the turkey, me and Barn can do the sides… bake a pie…"
Ted gives her a look Barney doesn't get. "Right, that'll work out well," he says, and Barney figures it's because Robin still can't cook.
"Oh, shut it," Robin says, clearing her throat and looking down at her drink.
"What am I missing here?" Barney asks.
Ted sighs loudly and pretentiously. "Maybe," he says. "Robin, how big is the kitchen at your place? My stove is pretty small, and Barney's is fake…"
"I told you, I bought one," Barney corrects idly. "Why don't we just hire a chef to do it for us?"
Both Ted and Robin object pretty strongly to that idea, which seems ridiculous to Barney, but he isn't invested enough to really care too much. After that, he drifts out of the conversation, which is mostly the two of them discussing kitchen stuff. He kills time scoping out the bar and checking out Robin's neckline. He's… bored. Or restless. Or something. He needs something, needs some plan or goal or super hottie to pursue… some sort of path, some sort of idea, now that Quinn is gone and it's almost winter.
Robin leans across the table towards him and Ted — she's arguing some point to Ted, jabbing her arm towards him, glaring but also smiling a little, fake arguing, looking great and … beautiful and sort of soft lit and glowey like she's the cover of a freaking romance novel. He kind of hates it. He keeps thinking about fucking Splitzville, and he knows why, but that doesn't mean he wants to. He was just kidding. He wasn't kidding. It makes no difference, either way.
When his phone vibrates in his pocket he's a little relieved, because he's restless and doesn't want to think about Robin, for a minute, for once in his life. Heedless of Ted and Robin's continued argument about sweet potatoes, he pulls it out and answers. "Barney Stinson's phone," he barks.
"Hello?" It's a woman. He doesn't immediately recognize the voice.
"Right," he says. "See, I said my name just now, so you don't have to hello like that." He pulls his phone away from his ear to check; it's his work cell, which is a little weird. He doesn't usually get calls after four. "Who is this?"
"Uhm, this is Tracy," the woman says. He immediately remembers, but she continues: "We met the other day in a pharmacy? You had diapers?"
"Oh! Tracy McConnell!" Barney says with actual delight. He doesn't often give his number to women, and he's kind of happy, for some reason, to hear from her. He isn't sure why, especially since she was kind of rude at the time. Ted glances over at him with raised eyebrows. "Wassup?" Barney asks.
"Uh, well…" Tracy heaves a huge sigh into the phone, which comes out as a burst of static. "I was wondering, do you wanna maybe meet up or something? I was kind of thinking about taking you up on your offer."
He hears her inhale a sharp, nervous breath, like she's afraid of what he'll say. He's not surprised: he had her type pegged within a few seconds of seeing her, the steady monogamy, 'I never do this' kinda girl.
"You broke up with your number two?" he asks. Both Ted and Robin are looking at him curiously now, their conversation dropped. He looks at Robin across the booth, her arms on the table, her mouth slightly open in puzzlement, her eyes dark blue and eyelashes long and dark.
"Yeah," Tracy is saying. "I mean, I don't know. I was thinking about what we talked about, and I was like, is it really fair? To be with him just 'cause I don't want to be alone? It's not fair. It's actually kind of mean. And it's like you were saying. I'm kind of sad, but I'm not… sad." She sighs. Barney looks across the table at Robin. She narrows her eyes in puzzlement, and he can her an echo of telepathy: What's going on? Everything okay? "And I don't know," Tracy is saying, her voice a thoughtful hum in his ear. "I might never get over him. I'm not even sure I want to." He looks at Robin and thinks about talking to her outside of Splitzville, and how she'd pushed him to make sure he was only joking, how quick she'd dropped the subject, how weird he felt and feels and how he's even thought of bringing it up again in random moments.
"…I know." Tracy is still talking, punctuating with a soft, quiet laugh, "this isn't exactly a great let's go out speech, and I'm not even sure that's what I'm asking here. But I haven't really ever let myself think about this stuff, and you're the first person I've met who maybe… feels a little bit the same."
"Yeah," Barney says, looking away from Robin, out towards the bar. "Totally. Let's meet up."
"Okay!" Tracy says, sounding relieved. "Wow. Okay. Where do you wanna meet up?"
"Do you know a bar called MacLarens?"
They make arrangements to meet up tomorrow for lunch — Barney promises Tracy that the food is really good and it'll be 'casual.' It's a brief conversation, and she tries to clarify herself about five times more during — I'm not saying let's go out, but — but he ignores that, feeling weirdly good about talking to her. When she says goodbye, she apologizes for her weird 'super unflirty' over explaining, and he lets her apologize, but he doesn't mind it. He actually kind of likes it. It's kind of neat, talking to someone who can talk about their feelings.
When he hangs up, both Ted and Robin are staring at him with open mouths. "What?" Barney asks, pocketing his phone.
"What was that?" Ted asks. "You're meeting someone on a lunch date?"
Robin doesn't say anything. Barney knows better, but he still checks to see if she looks miserable or jealous. She just takes a big gulp of her vodka. "Yeah," she says, frowning at Barney and then her empty glass. "What's going on?"
"Oh," Barney says. He doesn't know what he expected. (He does, and he hates it.) "Yeah. That was Tracy." He considers Tracy's apologies and backwards and forwards justifications. "My girlfriend."