Ted rode in the ambulance with Barney while Lily and Marshall had to stay behind. There was not enough room in the ambulance for all of them and Ted had gotten into it first.

"What happened?" the emergency room nurse asked as soon as he saw them enter the hospital.

"We were just hanging out in a bar when he collapsed. He's been acting weird lately but still, this has never happened before."

"How much has he had to drink tonight?"

"A gin and tonic and a few scotches. Just a little bit more than he usually drinks."

"Anything else we should know?" he asked as he checked Barney's pupils.

"He threw up a lot before passing out. We couldn't wake him no matter what we tried. But what really made us decide to bring him in was his racing pulse."

"Shit! Let's get him to a room right away! I need a doctor over here!" The ER nurse said after checking his heart rate. Several people flocked into the room right away and hooked him up to a heart monitor and gave him an injection of some unknown substance. "Is your friend doing drugs or on any medication?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Has he been to this hospital before?'

"Yeah, he was in an accident this summer."

"Okay, then I need someone to bring me over his charts." As a nurse ran off to get them and they began drawing several blood samples, Barney began to stir slightly.

"What's going-" he whimpered.

"Shh, Barney it's okay," said Ted moving to where his friend could see him "You're at the hospital."

"Oh," he whispered before he went still and his eyes rolled back in his head

"We're going to have to call a trauma," shouted one of the doctors as she came back into the room and pushed some unknown charts into the other doctor's line of view.

"Page Dr. Oberlin!" Someone shouted in the sudden flurry of activity. "And get his friend out of here."

Lily and Marshall had been pacing around their apartment waiting to hear from Ted for a good hour before the phone finally rang.

"Ted? What's going on?" she asked.

"I-I don't know. We're still in the emergency room…. They won't let me in with him." He sounded terrible.

"Suppose it's because you're not family," she said, trying to sound reassuring. "Still you should stick around so you can take him home when-"

"No, that's not it," Ted interrupted. "I was allowed in at first but then they ran some tests or something and I was kicked out of the room. Now there's a bunch of people in there working on him. I can hear lots of panicked shouting but I can't…" His voice cracked and he went quiet.

Lily had suspected from the start that something was wrong. From the moment Barney had entered the bar he had looked ill; he was very pale and wretched looking. She had noticed a large bruise on the back of his neck and when he began sweating profusely he had unbuttoned the top few buttons on his shirt revealing another one on his chest. If Lily had to guess she'd say he'd recently been in a fight. But how would that explain what was happening now?

"Hold on, someone I recognize just came out of the room," Ted must have accidentally put his phone on speaker because she could still hear what was being said.

"Hey, could you please tell me what's going on?"

"I'm sorry sir but seeing as you're not his spouse or relative."

"I'm his best friend! He doesn't have any other family in New York."

"All I can tell you is that your friend is very sick. Once we get his condition stabilized we'll let you back in. Until then you'll just have to sit tight."

"Lily?" Ted sounded completely lost.

"I heard. Do you have any idea what could be wrong?"

"No."

"Would you like us to come and wait with you?"

"No point. I'm just sitting in a crowded ER waiting room with a bunch of people bleeding to death. I'll call you as soon as I hear anything more." The line went dead.

"What's going on?" Marshall asked as soon as she had hung up the phone. He had been in the bathroom during the entire conversation.

"Something is seriously wrong," was all she could choke out before bursting into tears and pulling him into a hug.

Barney was the person that they'd always make fun of and often wish they weren't friends with, he was their punching bag. Every once in a while they'd be reminded why they loved him like when he'd gotten Lily to come back to New York or right after the bus accident. But even with the latter the affects wore off quickly when it immediately became clear that he was going to be fine. The idea that anything bad could ever happened to Barney never really crossed their minds. Nor did they think about what they would do without him. He was always taken for granted.

The next day, Lily and Marshall sat with Barney during the visiting hours. Ted had gone back to his apartment for some much needed rest. He had spent most of the night in the hospital waiting for news on Barney's condition which hadn't stabilized until late in the morning. Oddly enough, he was admitted to his own private room after the doctors pumped out all the alcohol from his stomach.

Ted told Marshall and Lily that if they hadn't instantly reacted to Barney passing out in time, he could have died. Lily decided to sit in Barney's room until he woke up to find out what exactly was going on and Marshall agreed to wait with her.

"What happened?" said Marshall as he hovered near the side of the bed. Lily had taken the chair.

Barney shrugged nonchalantly. "I drank too much. Not a big deal at all really. I'm fine, you guys should get back home. I'll be out in a while."

Lily rolled her eyes. "This is my bullshit meter," she gestured with one hand down low with palm level to the floor. "And this is it going off the scale." She raised the arm over her head. Marshall was nodding in agreement with her.

"Yeah Barney. You don't honestly expect us to believe you, of all people, wouldn't know your alcohol limit? Come on."

Barney snorted, folding his arms. "I'm fine. You guys are overreacting!"

"Over-reacting? I think it's justified with the way you were last night! You were so pale..." Marshall trailed off in thought.

"Hey kiddo." A kind-looking, middle-aged doctor entered the room. From Barney's expression, he seemed to know him well. "We need to talk about that stunt you pulled last night. You're lucky you didn't kill yourself. And I know that you're perfectly aware that you shouldn't have been drinking at all in your condition. What on earth was going through your mind last night?"

"Can we talk about this later?" he asked glancing, over at Lily and Marshall.

"No Barney, you're not," Lily snapped. "I think we deserve to know what's going on. Why shouldn't he be drinking?"

"Your friends don't know? Well I guess this sheds some light on the situation."

"We don't know what?"

"I can't tell you. Doctor-patient confidentiality."

"Go ahead, tell them," Barney grumbled pulling the covers over his head. "Just leave me alone and let me sleep."

Marshall made Robin and Ted call out of work because of a panicky message on their voice mails that couldn't really be understood because of how emotional he had been. He remembered saying something about Barney and the hospital but everything after that was rushed out in a garbled mess of words he didn't remember.

"Okay, what's the big emergency that you made us drop everything and come over here?" Robin asked slightly annoyed as she plopped down on Ted's couch. She had just gotten a new job at a news show and was anxious about having to skip. But she was beginning to get worried at how serious Lily and Marshall looked.

"Well we just got back from visiting Barney in the hospital" Marshall said after a moment. He was struggling for the next thing to say. Marshall didn't know how he could break this kind of news to anyone. He had no experience in dealing with a serious situation like this, especially when it was someone close to him. Even thinking about what he wanted to say tripped him up. All he could think of was how hard life was going to be and all the ways life could become more painful the moment he stated it. Saying something like this made it all seem more real and he didn't know if he could handle that pressure.

"Oh right, he got himself alcohol poisoning didn't he?" Robin said casually, relaxing.

"No. Well, his liver wasn't able to process all the alcohol Barney had drank. He was really sick because his body couldn't take it without his liver filtering it for him."

Robin sighed, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "You called me in a panic and stopped me from going to work because Barney drank too much?"

"This morning we spoke to his doctor...his oncologist," Marshall said slowly. He seemed to have caught their attention with the last word.

"He has leukemia!" Lily burst out, unable to keep it a secret any longer

"Wait, what?" Ted said, trying to process what was going on. "Since when? Why didn't he tell us?!"

"He found out a few weeks after the bus accident."

"Oh god," said Robin. "All this time…"

"What exactly happened last night?" Ted asked grimly.

"His spleen and liver are badly enlarged; he wasn't able to filter the alcohol from his body" Lily whispered. "Also all the chemotherapy he's been taking isn't supposed to mix with that stuff at all. It creates a bad reaction. He's lucky to be alive. No wonder he's been avoiding the bar. I never should have forced him to come; I could have killed him." Lily burst into tears.

"Hey Lily, it's not your fault" Robin wrapped her arms around her. "It's his fault for being such a douche and not telling us."

This only made Lily cry harder.

"How bad is it?" Ted said, starting to catch on.

"He, uh, has a type called Acute Myeloid Leukemia. I googled it as soon as we got home. The average five year survival rate is 30%"