The day after the funeral, Lily comes by with tuna casserole and finds Ted curled up in the walk-in closet, dead to the world—okay, poor word choice—and wrapped up in one of Tracy's silk kimonos. He has his face pressed into the sleeve, fingers gripping the soft, slippery material tightly, as if it'll sluice away like rainwater should he open his hands even a little bit.
Lily creeps out of Ted and Tracy's bedroom to put the casserole in the microwave, and then heads back to check on Ted.
He hasn't moved, face still buried in Tracy's kimono. Lily crouches down, reaches out, and taps him gently on the shoulder.
"Ted," she whispers.
Ted blinks his eyes open blearily, head swiveling. He lets his eyes settle on her. "Lily? What are you doing here?"
"I brought you guys a tuna casserole for dinner," she says, offering Ted a smile she isn't sure comes off as sincere. "Figured you guys might be a little hungry."
Ted smiles back anyway, though, and rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes. "God, Lily, thank you so much. For everything."
"Don't be silly, Ted. No need to thank me." Lily gets a hand under Ted's arm and gently urges him to his feet. "How have you—" She looks at Ted, at his red-rimmed eyes and the creases on his cheek from the kimono's seams. "How are you and the kids holding up?"
"Honestly, we're doing okay," Ted says, allowing Lily to help him to his feet. He looks down at the silk robe in his hands. "Really."
Lily isn't sure she believes him, but this isn't the sort of thing you call your friend out on. "Right." She reaches for the kimono, but Ted jerks his hands away and she lets her arms fall to her sides. "C'mon. I'll warm up the casserole for dinner. The kids are in the den watching some TV."
"God, the kids," Ted says, mostly to himself. He glances at Tracy's robe again before letting it fall from his fingers to the closet floor.
Lily wraps a hand around his and leads him out the door and down the hall.
Every time he looks at that ukulele, all he can hear is Tracy, plucking the strings and singing to him. Sometimes, if he looks at it long enough, he can even see her, sitting in the wicker chair next to the bed, strumming away. She'll lift her head, her wet hair slipping behind her bare shoulder, and offer him a smile that makes his heart judder in his chest.
Ted puts Tracy's ukulele on the top shelf of the walk-in closet, where he won't ever have to see it.
One night, a few months after he loses Tracy, he goes to MacLaren's for a drink (which quickly turns into two, and then three, four, ten). He hasn't been out of the house in nearly as long, and it's not that he feels quite ready to be out in public. He's just so, so tired of being sad. Tired of being mopey and alone, and cooped up in that house with all those memories.
So, Lily and Marshall swing by to keep an eye on Penny and Luke for the evening, and Ted takes a taxi to MacLaren's and drinks until he can't feel feelings anymore.
At some point in the night, an apparition of Tracy joins Ted in the gang's old booth to knock back tankards of shitty beer with him.
"You left, you said you'd never leave," Ted accuses, pointing at her with his mug. He's being unfair, he knows this.
Tracy just shakes her head, smiling sadly at him. "When you gotta go, you gotta go."
"Not. Funny." Ted tosses back the last of his beer and slams the tankard down on the table with a wet thump.
"Oh, Teddy Bear," Tracy sighs, resting her chin on her hand. "You're a mess."
Ted opens his mouth to fire off a retort, but nothing comes out. She's right. The figment of his imagination—which means, a part of Ted himself, he supposes—is right, he's a disaster area. He should be covered in yellow caution tape.
"I... I've had better days. Months. Years," Ted says, smiling wryly.
"You think you have it bad." Tracy laughs. He's missed that sound.
Ted rolls his eyes. "She's got jokes."
"That's why you married me, isn't it?" Tracy asks.
"That, and you're good in bed." Ted pauses. "Were." He lifts his eyes to meet hers. After an interminably long silence, he says, "I miss you."
"I miss you too," Tracy says, laying a hand over Ted's.
Ted looks down, stares at her hand covering his. "Sometimes it just seems so unfair."
"It is. It's massively unfair." Tracy squeezes her fingers around Ted's. "But we have to make the best of it. Take what we're given and live each day like it's our last."
Ted remembers this speech. She gave this speech to him the night they came to the decision to end the treatments, take her off the machines, and let her come home to die. She passed in the guest bedroom a few days later, clutching her ukulele against her chest, surrounded by family.
When Ted lifts his head again, Tracy is gone.
A year later, Lily and Robin take the kids to the cemetery to put flowers on Tracy's grave.
Ted begs off, faking a cough, and crawls into bed for the day.
When Lily and Robin come back with the kids a couple hours later, Ted pretends he's asleep.
The fog finally starts clearing a little while after that, when Ted starts boxing up some of Tracy's clothes for Goodwill and Salvation Army and pulls the ukulele down from the top shelf in the closet. He holds it in his hands delicately, as if his big, clumsy mitts might turn it into kindling if he isn't careful.
"What's that, Ted?" Robin comes over, a cardboard box tucked under her arm, heels clicking on the hardwood.
"It—it's Tracy's ukulele." Ted looks up and meets Robin's gaze. "I guess I stuck it up there and completely forgot about it."
"That's what she said," comes Marshall's disembodied voice from down the hallway.
Ted rolls his eyes and looks back down at Tracy's ukulele. "I never learned how to play. She always tried to teach me, but two left hands and all."
Robin inches closer and runs a finger over the strings. "It's beautiful."
"They made beautiful music together," Ted says softly.
"You should keep it." Robin pulls back, wrapping her arms around the box and holding it against her chest.
"I can't play it, neither can the kids. It'd just collect dust."
"Take some online classes, then. You can't just give it away."
Ted sighs. He knows she's right. It's not his to give away, either. "I guess maybe I'll hang onto it for now."
"Attaboy, Ted."
Ted looks up online ukulele classes that evening and signs up Penny and Luke for lessons.
Robin starts coming by more and more after keeping her distance for a few years. It's nothing they talked about, nothing they ever even hinted about. One night, Robin just shows up with Chinese takeout, and she, Ted, and the kids sit in front of a roaring fire and catch up. Penny is a straight-A student and scarily proficient in math. Luke is really into model airplanes and old black-and-white movies.
Robin loves her job. She really, really, really, really loves her job. Really.
"Really?" Ted pokes skeptically at hunks of tofu with his chopsticks.
"Yes, really. I love my job. I'm married to my job." Robin grins at him; she looks like she's in pain, the corners of her eyes and mouth pinched.
"How long have you hated your job?" Ted asks.
"Oh, God." Robin slumps in her chair. "The last two years? Maybe longer?" She drops her head in her hands.
"Have you thought about quitting? Going back to school?" Ted pops a tofu square into his mouth and chews obnoxiously because he knows it makes Robin irrationally angry.
"Goddammit, Ted, if you do that thing with the tofu one more time—"
"Answer my question," Ted says, laughing at her. "Quit deflecting."
"I'm not going back to school, Ted. And I'm not quitting. I might hate my job, but at least I have a job, you know? It could be worse. It could be a whole lot worse," Robin says firmly, stabbing her tofu with her chopsticks for emphasis.
"Yeah, I guess I do," Ted says, thinking of Tracy. Tracy is never really off his mind.
Robin's eyes soften and she pushes the carton of tofu aside, wrapping her hands around Ted's. She squeezes hard, and the wedding ring he never took off pinches his skin.
Ted feels something break loose in his chest, a small but important piece of him. Scar tissue, he thinks.
He wishes he could say something profound, something wise, but he's drawing a blank. Ted just tightens his hand around Robin's instead.
When Penny comes downstairs to get a glass of water, she gives the two of them an odd look but doesn't say anything.
"And that, kids, is how I met your mother."
Robin disappears from the apartment window and a few seconds later, the front door starts buzzing. It's loud and grating, and it's the most welcoming sound Ted's heard in years.
Ted takes a deep breath, exhales, and pulls the door open.
Ted lifts his hand to knock on Robin's apartment door, but it swings open and then she's standing there, staring at him with big eyes, fingers twisted nervously in the scarf around her neck.
"Hi," Ted says.
Robin smiles. Her eyes are watery; Ted hopes those are good tears. "Hi." She pulls the door open a little bit more, but Ted stays put.
"Sorry for dropping in on you like this. Um, I walked here. There was rain in the forecast but I was an idiot and left my umbrella at home, so I had to make it quick and then I had to make a pit stop along the way—" Ted lifts the blue French horn.
He's rambling now and he's blowing it, like he's blown every other chance he's had with Robin, and if he doesn't shut up now she'll probably slam the door in his face.
Ted has no idea what the hell he's doing. He has no idea if Robin still even thinks of him that way, despite what the kids insist they've seen. Sure, maybe he and Robin fell so easily into that not-quite-completely-platonic routine they've always had, but it doesn't really mean anything. Does it? Can he really afford to make another play for Robin, after everything, and fall flat on his face again?
God, this is going to be such a disaster.
Ted is so grounding Penny and Luke for life. If there's an afterlife, he's grounding Penny and Luke for that too.
Robin tilts her head, smile widening just a bit. She reaches up and brushes the tears away from her eyes. "Ted, shut up and come in."
The whirlwind of doubt and self-deprecation in his brain comes to a complete standstill at that. Ted takes three deep breaths.
"Okay. Yeah. That sounds like a good idea." Ted tucks the blue French horn against his chest and follows Robin inside.