hey guyyyyssssss. SLIDES IN HERE GUILTILY.
long story short — i accidentally screwed up this story last chapter and had to do major revisions to my outline to get back on track. it's nothing that (hopefully) you guys will notice, but it made it really hard to figure out this chapter… and thus a month and a half went by. this chapter is also kind of transition-y, but next chapter should be a big one!
you know, if i remember to write it… :P
in all seriousness, this chapter was really difficult for me and i almost gave up on this entire story because of it! so i'd appreciate any and all feedback. :)
recap: last time, after the 2016 halloween party of doom, barney and robin almost, sorta, kinda hooked up after getting super drunk, barney later explaining to lily that it was all part of his master plan to get a revenge lay in, while also announcing that robin begged to be friends again. progress?
November 1st, 2016.
Manhattan, New York.
B Stinson
13:35 How's your head? [winking emote]
(Read 11/01/16)
She doesn't reply.
He checks his phone six times, tells Lily he's texting her, but she doesn't reply.
Which is cool. Which is fine. They're friends again, and if they're not than he got to have his revenge fuck, his — her sitting on his bed, elbows on her knees, eyes bright and dry — the memory distracts him, he checks his phone as he and Lily walk into court, queue for the metal detectors. Read, his phone reads.
Message read and ignored.
Whatever. He doesn't care.
He tosses his phone in the little tray with his wallet, and stands and watches Lily struggling to remove her coat and purse, snickering to himself, before she glares and he helps her. "Man, pregnant women are useless," he says. Lily smacks his arm.
"I am nine months of hormones and crankiness and this little bastard has been kicking for twenty minutes straight," she says in a low, threatening voice. "You're already on my last nerve, don't think I won't take it out on you."
"C'mon, Lil," he says as exasperated as he can, tossing her coat onto the conveyer and getting back in line for the metal detector. The security guard waves him through and waves Lily through a moment later, and he retrieves his stuff from the tray. No new texts.
"Don't c'mon Lil me," Lily grumbles. She drapes her coat over an arm and balances her purse on top of it. "You're messing everything up. You can't simultaneously pretend to be friends with Robin again —"
"I am friends with her again," he says petulantly, talking over her.
"— and brag about how you tricked her into sex. Which is gross. This is Robin, not some nameless skank no one cares about."
"Lily, that's just rude," he says, trying to ignore the hot coil of anger in his stomach. "Plenty of people care about skanks, and some of them even have names and families."
"You can't have it both ways! You're still hurt and she's still hurt and pretending —"
Barney is walking quickly towards Marini's office in hopes of losing Lily, but she's keeping up pretty well in the crowd. He slows down when he starts to hear her huffing; last thing he needs is for her to go into labor.
"Lily, I don't want to talk about it," he says, his tone final and his fingers clenched tight around his phone.
She drops it, but he's pretty sure it won't last: most of the cab ride had gone like this. You're making a mistake, Barney! You still have feelings for her, Barney! Blah blah blah, Barney! Whatever happened to the Lily who didn't lecture him and just let him live his life? Besides, she'd never said anything about Robin's feelings, which just struck Barney as kind of… unfair. Not that he cared about her feelings one way or another. But implying that he had them with Robin didn't was kinda… Obviously, neither of them had feelings. Anymore. Maybe ever.
Luckily, he's pulled out of this downward spiral of thoughts by the sight of Ross and the others, huddled up in a conference outside of the office.
"— We've lost on Lowe, her testimony is in," Marini is saying.
"Only as it pertains to Fisher and Stinson's relationship, surely," Ross asks, looking discomfited.
"All of it," she replies.
"What?" Barney asks, completely forgetting about his annoying Robin feelings.
"Mr Stinson, you made it," Marini says in a flat voice.
"You're a lawyer! You were supposed to keep her out of this!" Barney says, his voice kind of loud in his outrage.
Marini narrows her eyes at him. She's never liked him very much, Barney senses. She's not bad looking for a chick her age, but she also didn't respond to his good looks, charm, or flirting over the summer, so he'd written her off as a frigid bitch even if Ross tells him she's a great lawyer. "You're the one who turned this into a personal fight," she says. "I did everything I could to remove her as a witness."
"Let me talk to her," he says, reaching for his phone.
"You're not talking to her," says Ross. "Not now or ever." Barney opens his mouth to argue, but his handler raises a hand. "No, Barney. You almost blew the case for us last month."
"I was just saying hi," he grumbles.
"Who are we talking about?" Lily asks, pushing her way into the circle.
"Witness tampering," Marini sniffs.
Paula steps forward for the first time. "Mrs Aldrin! How are you feeling? Wow, you're ready to pop! Let's all move inside," she says, gesturing at the office. "Mrs Aldrin can sit down and Barney can change."
"I can change clothes?" he asks, brightening immediately. He shrugs out of his sporty fall jacket right there in the hall, starts undoing his polo shirt. Unlike Marini, Paula is great: his favorite member of the legal team by far. She's pretty hot, dyes her hair blonde which means she definitely is into some stuff, and although she has an awful fashion sense and is making him dress like a hobo or Ted, she's also — wait for it — a lesbian. With a wife! Even though Paula already told him no, he's still holding out hope for a threeway in his future.
Marini huffs into her office first, followed by Barney and Ross — he can see Ross trying to say something to him and tries to ignore it, pulling off his shirt and undoing his belt.
"Enough with the public stripping already," Lily says from behind him as Paula escorts her into the room.
"Please, you know you still want a piece of this," he says, sitting on one of the chairs to remove his shoes. Paula helps Lily onto the loveseat and then goes to the coat closet by the door: she comes back with a garment bag that Barney, now in his boxers, grabs eagerly.
Ross and Marini are at her desk with Foley, another lawyer on the team, who seems to be taken the sudden appearance of everyone in stride. They're bent over the table and speaking quietly — probably about this whole witness mess — he feels a coiled hot thing again and focuses instead on the garment bag.
On the suit.
It takes him three seconds to realize what's wrong. "This isn't a suit!"
"Of course it's a suit," Paula says. "Mrs Aldrin, can I get you something to drink?"
"Do you have any decaf?" Lily asks, settling into the sofa like she's never planning to leave.
"This isn't —" his fingers brush over the inferior fabric, the cheaply made tie, the stitching. "This is J-Crew!"
"It's Italian wool," Paula says serenely, heading towards the coffee maker.
"Come on Barney," says Lily, looking amused. "A suit is a suit, right?"
"Not right!" Barney unzips the bag and pulls out the clothes: charcoal grey suit, navy blue tie, white shirt… the belt, at least, is leather, although not anywhere near his usual standard. He starts to dress himself, the cheap fabric rubbing his skin and probably giving him a rash. "There's nothing right about this! I thought I was supposed to dress to impress in court, not dress like a middle manager of a box company."
"Marshall has a lot of suits from J-Crew," Lily says.
"My point exactly," he glowers, buttoning up his shirt.
"You are dressing to impress," Paula says, coming back over with a mug for Lily and a second that she puts on the coffee table. "Two sugars, splash of milk, right?" He nods reluctantly, not all that appeased that she made him coffee. "We want you to look approachable. Fisher's going to come in there in a twenty thousand dollar suit and Cartier watch; you're going to be the everyman figure."
"And let's face it," Lily pipes up, "Barney's about as far from everyman as you can get."
He senses she's teasing him but he rises above it. "That's right," he says, tying his tie. "I'm far superior to the average, poorly dressed, loser 'every man' type." He certainly doesn't feel like it, though. His head still aches in a distant way, and his stomach is empty and still a little queasy. He feels exhausted, and probably looks it. "I don't like this suit," he says, doing up the buttons of the jacket to try to hide the shirt underneath.
"You look great," says Paula.
He doesn't believe her, gives her a suffering look as he collapses back into his chair. He takes his coffee and has a couple of sips. It's hot and watery.
Lily looks at him appraisingly. "Is this really going to work? How many people can really tell the difference between a twenty thousand dollar suit and a five hundred dollar one?"
"I —" Barney starts —
"Besides weirdos like Barney," Lily adds. "I sure can't. Shouldn't he be dressing in whatever makes him comfortable?"
Barney perks up. "Yeah, shouldn't I be dressing awesome?" It had started out with blazers, but two weeks ago Paula had started giving him shopping lists and pre-planned outfits. He'd protested, obviously, but Ross had put his foot down. Ross has been his handler at the FBI since… well, since he was 23 and had walked into New York's FBI headquarters with a manila folder clutched in his sweaty hands and been directed to speak with Frank Ross about possible corporate fraud.
At the time he was just looking for a way to get Greg fired, had barely understood the file he'd smuggled out of AltruCell, and had thought once he handed it over to the authorities his work would be done. He was really stupid back then.
Ross was in charge, had been ever since that day. It wasn't like Barney would just do whatever he said, obviously. Any day now he was going to tell Ross what was what and show up in the most expensive suit he could find. He could call whoever he wanted and talk to whoever he wanted and do whatever he wanted. Who cares what Ross tells him? Or anyone?
He tells himself this, sitting in a chair in an inferior suit.
"No," Paula is saying with a little secret smile. "Actually, quite the opposite. Mrs Aldrin is probably right; most people aren't going to be able to tell what Barney is wearing. And frankly, it's not like a fashion designer is going to decide this case for us." Barney sighs as loudly and dramatically as he can, slouching in his chair. She's explained this before, and he found it just as stupid then. But Lily is listening intently. "But it does make Barney feel uncomfortable."
"You're doing this just to torture him?" Lily asks, sounding impressed.
"Lil," he whines.
"Respect," says Lily. "In that case, why not stick him in — does Costco make suits?"
"Lily!" he says again, scandalized.
Paula laughs. "The idea is to make him feel vulnerable, not torture him." Barney glares at her from his seat. It feels weird to be talked about like this, even if she's explained it to him before. It's total bullshit, that's what he thinks. "Greg Fisher is going to go up to the stand like a smarmy rich bastard, he's already dragging Barney through the mud. The worst possible thing we could respond with is Barney acting the same way back, turn it into a battle of egos. Let's face it, Fisher and Barney aren't completely dissimilar." That was because back when Barney was a kid, he thought Greg was…
He doesn't even let himself continue that thought. "Barney needs to win over the crowd, not with smarm, but by seeming like the kind of guy you can root for."
"Which isn't the easiest thing in the world," Lily says thoughtfully. Barney doesn't bothered retorting. "So you want him to feel uncomfortable so that he isn't on top of his game, so that he comes off as sort of vulnerable?"
"Pretty much," Paula says.
"It's stupid," he says. "No one roots for the pathetic loser. People want a winner. Someone awesome. A man the men wanna be and the women wanna do. What up. Dressing me like a cheap loser isn't going to do anything besides make people think I'm pathetic. And who cares about losers?"
"We're not all sociopaths," Lily says. He turns his head to glare at her, but she's looking at him thoughtfully. "I don't know, I see her point. You don't usually make yourself easy to love."
He feels something sharp in his chest, which is weird. "Whatever, you know you want this," he says, gesturing over his body.
"I mean, I love you," Lily says, and he feels weirdly warm but doesn't care. "But you're kind of an acquired taste. I'm pretty sure I hated you for the first couple of years we were hanging out. Opening up a little might actually help you."
"I proposed we do a counter media campaign," Paula says. "Really, Barney has a great background we could really spin. Single mother, mixed race family, growing up on food stamps on Staten Island — full scholarship to Cornell, accepted into the Peace Corp, dedicated his life to secretly serving his country…"
"It didn't happen like that," Barney says, feeling stung the way he always does when she starts going on about his background, like it's anything to be proud of. He's proud of his adult life. The life that Paula wants to totally ignore.
"You went to Cornell?" Lily asks. "I thought you went to MIT. Or some magician school in New Jersey."
"I didn't go to Cornell," he says, staring up at the ceiling. He can still feel Lily's beady gaze boring into his soul, but pretends he can't.
"As I understand it," Paula says, "he was to attend Cornell in the fall of 1994, but at the last minute withdrew his application and attended CUNY Manhattan."
"Paula," he whines. "Can you just?" He feels Lily staring at him and hates it, feels something like anxiety or weakness or whatever leeching thing these clothes are supposed to be giving him working. If this is vulnerability, he hates it.
"But Cornell's a really good school," Lily says. "Ooh, did you not wanna leave home? Were you gonna miss your mom too much?" She's teasing, grinning at him, but he feels tight and cold.
"I met Shannon two months before I was supposed to start," he says, his voice tense. "She was going to CUNY."
He should have gone to Cornell. He should have taken his future self's example and dumped Shannon after a week, taken James's advice at the time ("girls are… weird. You should go to Cornell."), never thought about her again. He pulls his phone out and checks for texts, messages, e-mails, anything. There's a couple of texts from James; you and mom should come up for dinner, that kind of thing. Nothing important.
Lily says "Oh," in a quiet voice that he doesn't like, a pity kind of voice. If this is vulnerability he wants no part of it.
"He gave up his future for love and to serve his country," Paula says. It wasn't like that, he thinks bitterly. Uneasily, with a greasy feeling in his stomach. "Can you imagine the headlines? He'd have the public behind him in a second."
"Yeah, it's not happening," he says shortly, eyes on his phone. Paula doesn't argue; they'd had knock-down drag outs about it before.
"But without Barney's consent," Paula says, exasperation clouding her voice, "this wardrobe thing is the best I can do." It had taken a lot of arguing, but it was sort of their compromise, fake uncomfortable vulnerability and Barney no longer looking or feeling like himself instead of Paula arranging interviews with all the major news networks. WWN maybe. They're the only major network that isn't totally out to get him.
Maybe Robin…
Before he can stop himself, he's typing out a text message.
B Stinson
13:35 How's your head? [winking emote]
(Read 11/01/16)
14:48 Stuck at court. Super lame. You at work?
14:49 [penguin emote]
He waits and watches his screen for the sent to turn to read, but whatever Robin is doing, it's not checking her phone. She's probably working. Probably at WWN. He wonders: if he had gone along with Paula's stupid Barney the pathetic lady-feeling loser media plan, would they have gone through WWN? Had Robin interview him on the national news? That would have been — well, kind of hot.
But that doesn't make sense. They only hired Paula this summer, after he fucked Georgia and Ted had his stupid dad intervention and Ross had sat him down and told him to stop fucking up the case, blah blah sorry about the divorce but this is more important.
As it happens, Barney agreed with Ross. The trial is more important than some stupid divorce he doesn't care about.
Still, his mind wanders from his phone to the idea of Robin interviewing him on live TV, mixing with his memories of the night before… he shifts in his seat and tries to think of something else.
"So you know Barney's big secret backstory?" Lily is asking, looking to Paula for gossip.
"I'm not sure how secret it is, but Ross briefed me when I was hired, of course," she replies. That's the problem with Ross: since Barney's known him for so long, he knows way too much. Barney wasn't always as good at being cool as he is now.
"Can we stop talking about the nineties?" he groans, feeling his headache behind his eyes.
"Yes, let's," says Marini, approaching the group with Foley at her side. Ross, Barney sees when he turns around, is at the desk, typing up something on the computer there. "Stinson, we're due in court."
He thinks about it for half a second. "Okay," he says. It's some final hearing, the defense wants Bilson or someone to testify, and since Barney doesn't give a crap about that, they want him to sit in and look contrite or whatever. It seems a little backwards, that they only let him be around the witnesses he doesn't give a shit about, but whatever. "Did Arthur's testimony get in?" he asks, now that he's thinking about it. He likes Arthur.
"We decided not to seek him out," Foley says. "The defense doesn't want to use him, and your friendship won't serve much purpose for us."
"So… you're only letting people who hate me testify?" he grumbles.
"We're going to call Ted Mosby as a character witness," Marini says.
"Hey, I can be a witness too!" Lily pipes up. Everyone else has been standing, straightening clothes and getting ready to emerge in public; she alone has remained right where she is, has pulled a book out of her purse. "I mean, pregnant lady, that's gotta be sympathetic."
Marini actually smiles, which is weird. "You're at nine months, correct? With the trial starting next week, there might be a scheduling conflict."
"Okay, fine," Lily admits. "Marshall can be a witness."
"Ted's cool," Barney says, checking his phone one last time.
"We'll be there every day," Lily says.
"Will you?" Foley asks. "That's great. The more people we can show supporting Barney, the better."
"Please!" Lily scoffs. "Ted made Marshall and his fiancé Tracy take vacation time as soon as you guys announced the trial, and I'll be on maternity leave — besides, the Captain is pretty cool with that stuff. And James will be there too, right, Barney?"
"Yeah, sure," Barney says, putting his phone away. "At least a couple of days." With the kids and the commute and all, James had offered to come down more, but Mom had also wanted to come, and Barney doesn't really want his mom to be at the trial. James had gotten that, so he had offered to take care of Mom for the week.
"See? Ooh, and we can get other people. I bet Carl would come if we asked him. And Patrice! She likes you. And Stuart and Claudia, or maybe just one of them since they pretty much hate eachother now, and maybe Blitz is in town…"
"The more the merrier!" Marini says in this fake bright voice. "Shall we get going?"
"Will you be alright for a little while?" Paula asks Lily.
"Sure," she says at the same time that Ross speaks up from the computer:
"I'll keep an eye on her."
"Good luck, Barney," Lily says from the sofa.
"Sure," he says, touching the receipt he'd moved from the pocket of his old outfit to his new one. It hadn't escaped his notice that in Lily's list of supporters, she'd skipped right over Robin.
Apparently, it hadn't skipped Marini's notice, either, because as soon as they were out of the office, she put her hand on his arm. "Your ex wife," she says. His body kind of seizes up; they stop walking, Foley and Paula moving ahead towards the courtroom.
"What about her?"
"Is there any chance she would consent to appear as one of your supporters next week?"
He's at a total loss for words for a moment, unable to think of how to say yes or no or even consider the question. We're friends, we're friends again, she agreed and wrote a note. Lily telling him it was a mistake. Robin's eyes, wet in the dark of his bedroom. I'm sorry, she said.
I don't want — I don't want it to be, I didn't want it to be, but this was a mistake. A big mistake.
Then why did you just…? Robin, he'd said, confused and exasperated and drunk and his head and heart pounding in tandem, why is she acting like this why is she saying this why is she doing — come here, I give it back —
No! No, I — I wanted to make it up to you, but…
A pity fuck, he'd told Lily.
I don't care, he'd told Lily.
It wasn't even a fuck, not really.
He forces himself to focus, to remember Marini's question. She's elaborating, seeing his expression. "… could really use her implied support, especially as Fisher's defense has landed on using Lowe as they are. Your ex-wife is still in town, has been cooperative so far; could you ask her to appear in court?"
We're friends, she wrote a note. "No," he says. "There's no way she'd do that."
Marini sighs, her expression… something like pity, not surprise, I figured, of course she'd hate you. Of course she does. He's so sick of pity. "Well, it was worth asking," she says, resigned.
He feels that anger, that fury again. He leans against the cool marble wall of the courthouse and closes his eyes. The coolness feels good against his head. He takes a deep breath and three seconds, then straightens and follows her.
A few — not many — reporters hang around the courtroom door. Marini doesn't linger to speak to any of them; no cameras are permitted, these reporters are just taking a tally of who is or isn't attending. It's for them that Barney is really here, for the three seconds of coming and going and proving he's serious and vulnerable or whatever crap Paula spouts. He stands as straight as he can, makes himself as invulnerable as he can.
One reporter calls out to him as he enters the courtroom — a red-headed man Barney thinks he's seen around before. "Mr Stinson!"
The man has a press badge around his neck with the WWN logo on it. He slows his pace down to nearly a stop; the man pushes forward and offers Barney his hand. "Calvin Conners, WWN. I was wondering if you'd like to talk later today?"
WWN. He's a broad shouldered, athletic looking dude: wimpy red hair aside, Conners is probably Robin's type. Barney wonders if they know each other. He doesn't shake the reporter's hand, then Paula's voice echoes in his brain and he does, just once, squeezing really hard. "No," he says. And then awkwardly adds: "No thanks. Bye."
The inside of the courtroom isn't crowded, people standing and sitting and getting comfortable. The press takes up a full row, but Barney heads to the front where Marini and Foley are already seated. Paula isn't here; she probably went back to check on Lily or do her hair or something. Barney sits down in the row immediately behind him; he's the only one there. Across the aisle, Greg's douchey lawyer team are talking quietly; Greg isn't here, but he hasn't been. Barney once asked why he has to come to court every day when Greg's shown up like, one time, but Paula spouted some nonsense about showing his dedication. Like the past fifteen years haven't been enough.
Foley greets him again but goes back to talking with Marini. The judge isn't here; the jury box is, of course, empty. This is the last or second last hearing before the show really begins. He doesn't feel nervous. He doesn't feel much of anything.
He looks at his phone, texts a little bit with James, checks his other messages frequently, and half listens to his lawyers's whispered discussion about witnesses and spin and how do we make Barney look good? Put me in a better suit, he thinks. Heh. That was kind of funny.
The judge comes in after a couple of minutes. Barney puts his phone away but doesn't pay much attention to the hearing. He knows what it's going to be. Greg wants more witnesses to prove his Barney is the bad guy thing; the prosecution argues that that isn't the real issue here and the focus is on what a douche Greg is. Greg has a right to a defense; the US government has a right to throw him in prison. Blah blah blah. So far, Greg has won almost all of his arguments. The news from this morning is particularly bad…
His mind drifts.
Meeting Greg for the first time in the coffee shop, that stupid loser dumb video tape, interviewing at AltruCell, sitting at the bar and learning the gang's embarrassing stories — Victoria's had been awesome. Victoria had had nice boobs. Ted was stupid to dump her. But he'd dumped Victoria for Robin…
I hate that things are like this, she'd said.
I don't get it, I thought we were hooking up, he'd said, drunk and confused and feeling something he doesn't know how to name — different from the vengeful, petty anger at the party, when he'd heard her complaining to Ted, always Ted, forever Ted — that he'd forgotten soon after, but that was the alcohol, only alcohol, and she'd kissed him and he'd remembered he was mad and he'd remembered other things and they were in his apartment and then on his bed and he'd said the worst thing —
He hadn't known in that moment, if he was mad or if he missed her or what that hollow ache in his ribs was at all. He'd felt it a lot when it came to her, and the more time went on the more sure he was that it was a bad feeling, an unwelcome feeling, a sign of things to come. We were hooking up, he said. Her whole body went stiff. He'd said the wrong thing.
I can — he said, trying to fix it, sitting up and reaching for her; his fingers had brushed her side, her hip bone, her shirt bunched up still; she'd shied away and he'd felt the sting of it. Frozen where he was, unsure whether to pursue or shrink away.
I don't want to hook up. She'd rubbed her eyes. I thought I did, I wanted to, I wanted to right up until… She'd shrugged, laughed helplessly, bitterly. We can't just hook up.
Okay, he'd said. But you just…
I didn't want to string you along. I didn't want to run out and leave you hanging.
He'd felt that that was exactly what she'd done, that it was worse now, that if she'd run out the door and slammed it then that would have been better, but he was drunk and she was suddenly stone-cold sober and everything was twisting inside of him. Feet touch the floor, he'd thought. How many times now had she said that? How many times had they been together and she'd told him to forget it ever had? How many times had she gone to him and rejected him and tricked him into feeling stuff, wanting stuff, needing… stuff, and he'd sat on his bed half naked and confused and the room spinning around him. Well… you… did, he'd said slowly, tentatively. He'd been angry all night but it was gone now, the world spinning around him.
She'd squeezed her eyes closed. I know.
What did she know? He'd wanted to ask. He'd wanted to know so badly, what things she knew and regretted.
She said: Having sex wouldn't fix that. I mean… I … I screwed up. I screwed up again. I always…
Hey, he'd said. Nothing else. He didn't know what else to say, because he was pretty sure she was trying not to cry and he hated that, but also he agreed, she was right and he agreed. He'd touched her arm. Hey now.
I can't keep doing this. I, ten minutes ago I thought — but then you said — It's not fair to you that I keep — I hate that things are like this.
He hated it too. He didn't know how he wanted them to be, but he didn't want them like this — in his room in the dark, confused and hurting and watching her cry, ten minutes after she'd… They don't have to be like this, he'd said. We can just be friends.
No, we can't, she'd said. You were right. We're not friends. We can't…
Sure we can. We can be friends. It's easy. His hand had slid up her arm; he'd sat up more, moving closer to her. His hand slid across her shoulder, back, cupped around her other shoulder. Friends sit like this. I want — I don't want… He didn't want her out of his life. He didn't know how to say it. He was still high from the hormones, from the alcohol, from her touch, he'd pressed his lips to the side of her head and then her ear and then her neck, and she'd sat there and not pushed him away. We can be friends. I want to be friends. Let's be friends. Between every kiss and touch.
You said that you —
Stuff you say in bed doesn't count, he'd reminded her. His hand slid over her hip…
She'd turned to him and kissed him on the mouth; it was all hands and her fingers cupping his face and her eyes closed with concentration and her hair falling onto his face. He'd tried to pull her against him but she'd resisted, pulled away, looked at him with… something.
Sadness. We can't be friends, she said. He was lying on his back again, her hand on his sternum. He held it in place with both of his.
Sure we can, he said.
I just — I don't know, she'd said, trying to pull away. Not very well; she didn't remove her hand from his.
Stay, he said.
Please, he said.
She smiled. She did.
He was pathetic, Barney thinks in the courtroom. He is pathetic. He'd never begged for a woman in his life, and — and for what? A receipt in his pocket?
The hearing ends and he pulls himself out of his stupor. Marini and Foley are congratulating each other; he guesses things went well. That's nice. He feels stiff and sore from sitting unmoving on a bench for however long; he stands up and stretches and tells the lawyers good job because that's the kind of thing you have to do. As he does, he checks his phone.
B Stinson
13:35 How's your head? [winking emote]
(Read 11/01/16)
14:48 Stuck at court. Super lame. You at work?
14:49 [penguin emote]
(Read 11/01/16)
He says, "can I leave?"
Marini gives him a look he ignores. "We'll see you at nine tomorrow," she says.
"Thanks for coming in today," Foley says.
Conners tries to call out to Barney as he passes on his way to the door, but Barney ignores him. He's feeling restless and dazed and sick again, and he thinks his pain killers are wearing off since his headache is getting worse. He wants to get Lily and get out of here, his mood suddenly sour again.
She must want to leave pretty badly too: instead of on a comfy sofa in an office, she's standing in the courthouse hall not far from the door. "Hey, court was fine, let's go," he says in lieu of greeting —
Then he sees Lily's face, pale and stricken, and it gets his attention through the haze. "What's up?" He feels his heart clench. "Are you in labor?"
"No! No," she says. She holds out her cell phone, the screen black.
"Lil, what's going on?"
She meets his eyes, her own wide and frightened. "I was just texting Robin," she says. "She's at LaGuardia."
He looks at Lily.
"She's leaving for Hong Kong in an hour."
There are two splotches of color on Lily's cheeks.
"She says she's not coming back."