Chapter 14 - A Stupid, Stupid Dream
A/N: I am really sorry this took so long. Not only is it a long chapter, I had a lot of life get in the way. I am moving very soon. Worse, I even had a good section done. And there is still another shorter chapter left to write, and hopefully I will have time to write it soon.
Robin keeps the promise to herself of not talking about the dream. The blocking it out of her memory part, well, that's easier said than done.
It's not that she comes on to Barney on purpose the night of her date with Simon. She does come on to him, but it isn't intentional. Her thought at the bar isn't that she is going to take him back to her place for sex. She is just going to show him the video and leave it at that. But the things he says and the way he acts, is just so sweet and un-Barney like, and he just makes her feel so special, in a déjà vu kind of way. It just happens from there. She doesn't want to stop it. She doesn't remember the dream, in the heat of the moment, but she knows that he makes her feel different.
It isn't until the next morning, when she is lying in bed awake, regretting her decisions from the night before, and waiting for him to wake up, that it hits her. It hits her why this all matters. It is the dream. It happened the way he said it would in the dream. It's a month later, right before Ted's birthday, and they had sex. She wants to brush it off as a coincidence. And she would be able to, if she hadn't realized that he looked the same naked as he did in her dream. But then again, she realized that he didn't have the scars, so it really couldn't have been true.
So she tries to cover up the whole thing. She tells Barney that this was a bad idea and that they should pretend it never happened. He told her so himself in the dream. Not that she doesn't agree. It was bad decision on so many levels. Except for the sex part, of course.
They go their separate ways and she waits for it to all blow over.
It doesn't. It turns into a nasty fight with Ted, on his birthday no less, and she couldn't feel more guilty. But, with all the conflict going on, she forgets about the dream.
For another three weeks, that is.
When she sees Barney lying in the hospital bed, she cringes. She knows it's her fault that he's like this. If she had some semblance of self-control, they never would have had sex, and Barney and Ted never would have fought, and Barney wouldn't have been late to the hospital. He wouldn't have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She is a bit grateful that at least his pain isn't for naught. Ted finally forgives Barney for their stupid mistake. But after the make-up, after Ted leaves to find Stella, Marshall and Lily leave to get dinner, and she has had some time to think without other thoughts getting in the way, an even scarier thought occurs to her.
She notices it first on Barney's arm, when a nurse is changing his bandage. The jagged cut that is stitched up, it matches. It matches the scars he had in the dream. The memory of when she confronted him about it flashes before her eyes. That exact scar had been there, healed, but present, turning her on. She tries her best to remember all of the scars from the dream.
She watches intently as the nurse moves from wound to wound, changing the bandages, and the more she watches, the greater the horror she feels. Every single scar matches. Her dream had predicted this. She knew that Barney was going to go through this. He remembered it in the dream. It's why he didn't want to tell her. He didn't want to hurt her. And if all of that was true, well, she doesn't even want to think about what that means. She doesn't want to think about the possibility of what that could have meant at all. It was a dream. That's all it was. All she does know is that she is going to be physically ill, and no one, absolutely no one, is going to find out.
She tries for the rest of the summer to put it out of her mind, and for the most part, she does successfully.
It's the beginning of fall that throws her another weird moment. She ends up at an oddly date-like dinner alone with Barney, and on top of it, at the restaurant he told her they had their first date at. The way he acts, scares her to say the least. She doesn't know this Barney, this Barney that cares about her and encourages her. It's the Barney she had seen in her dream. She knows there is no way 'figment of her imagination Barney' could match real life Barney, because it wasn't real. It was a dream. It's all just some weird coincidence.
The problem is, well, it all keeps happening. She catches him staring on numerous occasions. He's nice to her. He supports her. His encouragement of her for the new job is part of what makes her want to quit Metro News One so badly. If he believes in her, she tells herself she has to be worth it. Of course she doesn't want to go to Japan, but she feels like she doesn't have a choice.
But even worse than feeling like she has to go for career opportunity, she feels even more alone emotionally than she ever had been in the group. Marshall and Lily are moving, and Ted, the man she always thought about as her backup husband, is getting married to a woman he barely knows. Barney's still Barney, and all she knows is that someday, she will now admit, she does sort of want a relationship thing with him. The two days with Barney in her dream, she'd give anything for that to happen again. But she's realistic. Barney is never going to want that. Never. And her next best thing is gone. That just sends her into a tailspin.
She spends many of the nights before leaving for Japan so drunk that she doesn't remember most of packing, and before she knows it, she's gone. She is in Japan, alone, seeking any guy she can for companionship, because she misses her friends. And if she's being totally honest, which she isn't because she doesn't go there, she misses Barney the most. She wants him. Plus, the job sucks. It's worse than Metro News One. By a landslide.
So when she gets a phone call from him about coming to the wedding, she doesn't have to think twice about it. She'll quit her job if that's what it takes. If Barney wants her there, she'll be there. She wants to see him more than anything. And maybe, just maybe, she'll bring a bottle of scotch and hang out in his room, and let things lead where they will.
One intercontinental flight later, her ponderings are squelched. Seeing that girl tied to his hotel bed is the splash of cold water she needs to get herself out of this stupid fantasy based on a stupid dream. Barney Stinson is not settle down material. He's not boyfriend material. He's not even fling material.
So she does what she always does and runs, runs straight off the island. Then she sees Stella and Tony together and wishes she hadn't run. She wishes she could just be a good friend for once.
The following three months confuse her even more. Being unemployed gives her entirely too much time to think, which in turn causes her to overanalyze the dream. Could Barney really be in love with her right now? She finds it impossible to believe. But if she wants to believe the dream is real, he would have to be.
Then one night at the bar, he makes the announcement that one of the bimbos is pregnant. She's confused by his reaction. He was always quite clear that he didn't want children, and yet, he doesn't seem to be freaking out. Almost like, one day, he might want one after all. But then it's all back to fun and games and creating confusing holidays when he finds out it's a pregnancy scare.
She's relieved, because she's got this really weird idea in her head, one that scares her so much. If he's going to have a baby, she wants to be the one to carry it. She's never wanted children before in her life, but staring at that baby sock, and thinking about all that's happened in the past week, both with Lily and Marshall as well as Barney, she realizes that someday, if someday is anything like that dream, maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
That realization, though, doesn't make her life any easier in the present. She's still down, wanting what she can never have, and even though she at least has a place to live now, the depression is what propels her towards hanging out with the woooo girls, sleeping with the naked man, and drooling over Barney in the fight. It isn't until Marshall finds her the Hoser Hut that she starts to feel more comfortable in her own skin again.
Yet, just a month later, she back to the self-wallowing, because she's hooking up with Ted. She regrets it. The moment it happens the first time, she wishes it wouldn't have. There are so many things wrong with the entire situation. Yes, it's sex. But it's just sex, and only halfway decent sex at that. She doesn't want halfway decent sex. She wants Barney. If she's going to have a friends with benefits thing with one of them, it should be Barney. But it's not like she can tell Ted that. So she keeps it up, and just pretends. She pretends it's Barney. It makes the sex slightly better.
She's surprised when Ted ends it, especially when he says that one of them is going to get hurt. It doesn't make any sense to her. She even tells Barney so. And yet, in the whole explanation, he says I love you. The tone nags at her brain, like it was straight out of the dream, but she simply can't process it at the moment. She resorts to her defense mechanisms and ignores it, as usual, because it's a lot easier.
Not long after, she ends up receiving a letter from immigration. She mentally prepares herself to go home. She knows a miracle is not going to happen, because miracles don't exist. She even tries Barney's ridiculous video thing, because she'll do anything at this point, and it still doesn't help. But low and behold, Barney never gives up. Barney shows he cares enough to keep searching, to get her a job, so that she doesn't have to leave. It makes her wonder. Does he really care about her more than she originally thought?
Not too long after, she meets Loretta. Robin can tell she is the same woman. Not only had the dream managed to pick the right name, but she looks almost exactly the same, only younger. It creeps Robin out. It's why she spends most of the night with the young boy, and distances herself from the others. Every look just makes her feel a bit uneasy. Maybe she had seen a picture of Loretta before the dream, and that's why she recognizes her. Still, the thought doesn't make it any less scary.
The rest of the spring goes so well, she blocks the little things out again, forgetting the dream little by little. She is employed, and has less time to dwell on the dream as she had back in winter. Plus, her new sleeping schedule sure makes up for the time she spent doing nothing. She is exhausted most of the time.
But then, right before Ted's birthday, in what she wants to believe is a fit of exhaustion, she hears it. She hears Barney admit to wanting her, to liking her. She doesn't know what to think. She tries to remember what dream Barney told her. The problem is she can't quite remember. She knows that dream them dated, but really, is that what he wants? That can't be what he wants, and she second-guesses as always. Barney stinks at relationships, and so does she. He had been in one relationship in his entire life, and he swore he was never doing it again. At yet, it seemed like that's what he wants from her. But, is that what she wants? Can she trust him? Is a relationship with him for her?
She finally breaks down and asks Marshall and Lily, who are somewhat helpful, yet somehow, not really. They can't be when she hasn't shared the whole story. But she's never going to share the whole story. Why would she do that? Why would she open herself up to the ridicule? So she's left just as confused as before.
Once she and Barney are left alone in Ted's hospital room, she realizes that the spark that was once there, in the dream, is there, and it's on fire. Big time. There's no stopping whatever it is, but she doesn't want to anyway.
She remembers him talking about them being in a relationship for a few months, but for the first few weeks, it certainly doesn't feel like a relationship. It's all secret meetings and times off together when they know no one else is around. It's just about sex and nothing else. Like her dream, and the time before, the sex is amazing. She still can't help but wonder how he looks so much like he did in her dream. Now that the scars have healed, he looks just about the same as he did in the dream, except maybe a little younger. But she gets to a point where their secret meetings are so frequent, that she puts everything out of her mind and just enjoys him.
The longer things go on between them, the more serious things seem to get, even though they don't talk about it. She doesn't realize quite how serious things are, until she finally sleeps over and wakes up in his bed one morning. The experience is surreal.
She wakes up, sees Barney sleeping next to her, and in a trance, tip-toes out of bed. She's still quite tired from the night before, and figures since she is up, she should get the baby. She doesn't realize she's not in that reality until she opens the door to the would-be nursery and finds suits. It's quite a wake-up call for her, that she's letting this little fling get a little too serious. She's there, staring, until suddenly, he's behind her, whispering filthy things in her ear, and pushing her down on the suit room floor. It makes her forget about the dream, about every little worry she had before.
She gets used to waking up in his bed, being with him, and getting to know him. She enjoys finally knowing his bit of a sweet side, the real one this time. It's like the sweet side he had in the dream, but it's not nearly as refined, not nearly as focused on her. Regardless, it makes her feel things she forgot about. Feelings that she forgot she could have. She starts to fall in love with him all over again.
Still, she doesn't let herself get too attached, for many reasons. One, he still is Barney Stinson. No matter what might have happened over the past few months of them being together in secret, she does know him. He's not the settling down kind of person. And two, if she really wants to believe the dream was some sort of time travel reality, which she does and doesn't all at the same time, she would have to accept the fact that this current relationship isn't going to last. Dream Barney told her they were going to date for a while and break up. So either way, she has no reason to get her hopes up, to expect anything other than heartbreak.
So when the time does come, when they finally break up, she's not surprised. In fact, they had been hurting each other quite a bit. It is hard for her to believe they left it go as far as they did, but she knows it wasn't the ideal situation for either of them. They weren't the kind of couple that Lily and Marshall wanted them to be, and they never would be. The pressure was just too much.
And as much as she promised him they were going to stay friends, it is the most difficult thing for her to do. The presence of the playbook makes it even worse. It seems like he is going through women faster than he used to, and the thought of it makes her sick. But if anything, it shows her he didn't care about her like he said he did. It shows her that he doesn't have one ounce of remorse, and above all, it meant that the dream certainly wasn't real. That version of him cared so much. It hurts, but it makes her realize how much she needs to get over this dream.
The only reason that she lets Don happen is because she needs something. She needs something to forget how Barney is parading the multitudes of bimbos around her. She needs something to forget that she wants something with dream Barney.
If only dream Barney were real.
It isn't until she meets Anita the next week that things get even more confusing. Barney's been so annoying to her, so insensitive to her, that she wants to teach him a lesson. She wants him to learn what it's really like to be denied, to not get what he wants, to see what it's like to upset someone.
Sticking Anita on him works wonderfully, and she's pleased, at first. That is, until Barney decides this is a challenge he's just not giving up on. She loathes the way he parades Anita in front of her. It makes her feel sick, but she feels that it couldn't really get any worse.
Until it does.
When Ted tells her about the Superdate, something rubs her so wrong, she feels ill. She manages to hold it in until Ted leaves, but she's never felt so awful and emotional in her life. She can't even hide from the gang how upset she is, except she can never tell them why. She's the one that's supposed to go on a super date. That's for Barney to give HER. She's never felt less important to him than she does now. She just has to face the fact that maybe she never meant anything to him. Maybe she was never more to him than just sex, just a number on his list.
It hurts her so fucking much. All she wants to do is shoot, leave her aggressions out, leave it all go.
She feels like an idiot when Barney shows up, and yet she still lets him see what he's done to her. Even so, he seems remorseful, quiet, and not at all different from the Barney she saw in the dream. He's open and honest. He tells her she's not just another number to him, and the way he says it makes her believe him. He apologizes and tells her he's not going to do anything with Anita. She can't see him doing that, but then he gives her the Superdate. Even if she could have passed the name off as some sort of weird coincidence, the date itself, with everything so similar, she knows. She knows there is more to this dream than she'd like to acknowledge.
So she doesn't. She doesn't acknowledge that her feelings for him are still there, even though she's with Don. She doesn't acknowledge them when she meets Sam for the first time. She doesn't acknowledge them when he finds out about his dad. She doesn't acknowledge them when she gets the job at World Wide News. She doesn't acknowledge them when she finally meets Jerry, or when Lily and Marshall announce their pregnancy. And she certainly doesn't acknowledge them when Nora is back in the picture, and she's as jealous as hell.
All it takes for her to finally acknowledge it is one night. One night to send her crashing back into reality, into facing things head on. She slept with him. Again. Only this time, this time was even more of a mistake than before. This wasn't supposed to happen. None of it was. He never told her about them cheating together, so she panics. What if she screwed up the future? What if she can never be happy now, because they had sex again? She panics the whole day until she sees him again, and she can tell he's just as flustered as she is. But when he tells her he wants this to be the beginning of the rest of their lives, she knows she doesn't want it to be. Their beginning is supposed to start when he proposes to her. Yes, he may be "dating" her coworker, but she knows it's real. There was no pretending involved in that relationship. Besides, she doesn't see any sign of a proposal. He may seem honest, but it's not right, and she knows it.
And yet, going to the bar with Kevin later is one of the hardest things she's ever done. She doesn't want to crush him this way. She wants to be together, but with everything that's happened so far in her life that matches up to the prophecy she's somehow been given, she doesn't want to mess it up. She wants the dream to be reality. And for the dream to be reality, she has to stay on the same course, she can't let them be together until that proposal, no matter how much they both get hurt.
So she clings to Kevin, clings to Lily and Marshall, and keeps her distance.
Then it's three weeks later, and she's late. She's later than she's ever been. She's terrified. This is never what was supposed to happen. She does want a baby with him, but they are supposed it be married before she ever gets pregnant, not at all having a baby because they cheated on their respective significant others.
When she tells him, he's so excited. It's so much like dream Barney. He wants a baby with her. He's excited about being a dad, with her no less. Which means he's wanted this. He's wanted her. The. Whole. Time. There's no longer any confusion if he had really wanted her.
And it's confusing and amazing how he takes care of her. He's showing that side that she wants, the side that would make him a good husband and father, just like in her dream. But it doesn't change the fact that it's not supposed to happen like this. So she tells him she doesn't want it, and that it's not part of her plan.
When the doctor tells them later that week that it's a scare, it's cause for celebration. And celebrate she does. She mocks the teen pregnancy shows, smokes her cigars, drinks scotch, and thanks her lucky stars that someway, somehow, she didn't screw everything up.
She gets a call from the doctor to call back in. She expects the worst, that she is pregnant, and yet, it's even worse than that.
The diagnosis of her infertility sends her into tailspin. It's the first time she finds her life diverging so drastically from the prophecy of the dream, and she doesn't know how to deal with it. She pretends to be okay with it, with not having kids, because that's what she always said she wanted. But the more she thinks about it, the more she remembers holding that beautiful baby in her arms that was part her and part Barney. She can't help but feel depressed. She wants that. Wanted that, she reminds herself. It can never be now. She had given birth in the dream, so it couldn't have been real. So she imagines them. She imagines her and Barney's children; one of them Brianna and the other a boy that looks like Barney. It's the only thing that keeps her from going off the deep end, because life is nothing like she wants it to be. And worse, Barney doesn't seem to care about her anymore now that she's not carrying his child. She'll never have his baby, and on top of it, she's stuck as a researcher.
She breaks up with Kevin when he proposes, because it's not what she wants, and she knows it. Even though she convinces herself that the future she once saw with Barney can never happen, it doesn't change the fact that Kevin isn't the right guy. She turns down Ted because he's not it for her either. His guess of it being Barney does hit close to home, but she brushes it off. She never shares her feelings with Ted anyway.
But then Marshall tells her to move, and the downward spiral continues. She doesn't know what to make of her life. She certainly knows nothing of this part. All she knows from the dream is that she's was happy then. She was happy with things that now seem unattainable.
She meets Quinn just a few weeks later, and she's certain that it's over. Her life, the way she wanted to live it, is over. She's missed her chance. She should have chosen him that night over Kevin no matter what the dream said. In attempting not to screw it up, she made it even worse. It affects her so much. She's distracted everywhere. Her work suffers, and she figures she messed up the universe so much, that she's going to get fired on top of it. And if she gets fired, there is certainly no going back to World Wide News to be an anchor.
Her life has somehow gone miserably wrong.
And yet, just a few days later, the cloud seems to have a silver lining. She's suddenly offered the lead anchor position. The exact one she had in her dream, and for the first time in months, she has a bit of hope. Something is finally looking up. She even meets Nick, the crush guy she's been randomly meeting for years.
Then, Barney announces his engagement. If it weren't for Nick, she would lose it completely. Barney is off the table, and she knows it. She curses herself for ever believing in that dream. It was stupid from the beginning. It's not like Barney was ever going to settle down with her, or he was ever going to love her, or forgive her for what she did to him, or that she was going to be able to overcome her infertility to have his baby. It was all just a stupid dream.
A stupid, stupid dream.
She lets it go, finally, knowing she no longer has any hope for the future. She doesn't even care when he breaks up with Quinn. It's not like she has a chance anymore.
However, his words at Splitsville change her right back to her hopeful self. It's not what he says, it's how he says it. It bores a hole straight into her heart, right into her soul. She doesn't believe him when he first walks in the door, but the way his words are bittersweet, she realizes maybe she hasn't been giving him enough credit all along. It's an unguarded moment that makes her think of dream Barney. This is the Barney she's wanted for years, the Barney she can have a future with. The only problem is, as soon as she's admitted this to herself, he's denying it. He's telling her it was all a play, even though she knows different. It leads to them almost kissing, but she doesn't care.
Things between quickly go back to their normal awkwardness after the phone call from Patrice, mostly because of her impending doom.
She ends up blurting out about her infertility to Barney a week later. She expects his reaction to be completely different from what it is. Again, she sees that side of him that no one else sees, the side she saw in the dream. He looks almost as upset as she did, but he hugs her and comforts her first. It just leads to more confusion, and she wonders just when dream Barney and real life Barney happened to merge, because somehow they have. She's hopeful for the first time in a year. Maybe she didn't screw it up as much as she thought.
Just a week later, her hopes get dashed again when he tells her he's done trying to get her. She goes insane. Literally. It can't be the end of their story. She wants the happy ending. She needs the happy ending. She needs him. All she needs is one more time to show him what it's like between them, and he'll be right back to chasing her again.
She's so confident it's going to work when she shows up at his doorstep in her sluttiest lingerie, that she doesn't even consider someone else being there. The fact that it's Patrice makes it worse. She storms off in a panic of tears and misjudgments. She's home in record time, drinking herself into a stupor in embarrassment.
Yet, she wakes up the next morning with the world's greatest clarity. In the dream, he pretended to date a coworker of hers, so she would be jealous and finally admit her feelings for him. She reasons that the relationship has to be fake. The whole thing has to be fake. She even tells the gang as such, but all they do is call her crazy. So she takes matters into her own hands, steals the playbook, and ends up witnessing them together. If anything, it makes her more jealous, like he said it would. But her crazy insistence that this isn't real, just winds her up in an intervention with the group. She wonders if she should tell them why she knows, but she figures that would only wind her up in the psychiatric ward.
And yet, when Ted tells her Barney's going to propose to Patrice, she doesn't know how to feel. It's supposed to be her he's proposing to out of the blue. She's supposed to be the one he loves. She argues with Ted that she can't possibly go stop this, because she's at a turning point. She doesn't want to face that she could be wrong, that the dream isn't real. But Ted knows her better than she thought, and he forces her there anyway.
It's a long agonizing climb to the roof. She wonders just what the future is going to hold for her. She remembers her first climb up to this roof when she was in the dream with Barney. She remembers the flash of red rose petals and candles she had seen that night. She can't help but wonder if that was from this night.
She opens the door to see exactly what she had in that memory flash. The entirety of the roof is covered in rose petals, candles, and the twinkling lights that normally grace the balcony.
And she doesn't know whether to feel angry or confused or happy. The rooftop is special to her, and while it seems he may be fulfilling the prophecy, tricking her into coming up here is just too much for her to handle.
She lets him have it, and he's still smiling, and she's still cursing him when he tells her to turn the paper over. Still, she has this nagging feeling, like she knows exactly what is going to happen next. She's shocked and she's not when she finally sees him on one knee, in front of her. This is the moment she's been waiting more than four years for, the one she never thought would come, the one she thought she was crazy wanting.
She finds the yes spilling out of her mouth faster than she ever thought it could at a proposal, because she doesn't have to think about it. She knows him. She loves him. She knows this is what is supposed to happen. She's supposed to marry him.
It all goes by in a blur from there. She relishes the moment, the feeling of being back in his arms. She doesn't even realize until the next morning that the ring and the dress match the dream. Regardless, she's incredibly happy. She's so happy she doesn't care anymore. She doesn't care about the dream. She could live this life with Barney forever, baby or no baby. She's just happy to be with him.
Within days, she's in the rush of wedding planning. Almost every day, it reminds her of the dream. Each and every decision, each and every detail, finds its way to relate to the dream. The location, the flowers, the meal. Everything.
Of all the details of her wedding planning, dress shopping proves to be the most difficult. For someone who swore they would never get married, Robin is quite obsessed with finding the perfect dress. Lily thinks she is crazy. They had been to five different boutiques already, including the famous Kleinfeld's. But everything Robin tries on, she rejects, because she knows it's not the dress from the dream. She saw pictures. Every time she asks for sleeves, they tell her that they can add them, but she knows it's not the same. If she's going to marry Barney the way the dream said, she's going to marry him in that dress and only that dress.
It's at that the sixth store that she finally finds it. Lily is confused, because she finds it on a clearance rack. Lily knows that both Barney and Robin have enough money that neither of them needs to shop on the clearance rack. She knows their budget. But the tears Robin gets when she tries on the dress convince Lily. It's the dress, despite where she found it, and Robin doesn't dare tell her why she had to go all across the city to find it.
It's about a week before the wedding when Lily bugs her about getting her something old, and she remembers the locket. Not only did Barney tell her that she wore it, but she saw pictures of her wearing it at the wedding. So she goes to find it, but all she gets is empty holes, just like she had seen briefly in the dream. Then Ted shows up, it starts to rain, and she's left in the middle of an awkward moment. She knows she needs the locket more than anything. It feels like a bad sign to her, since it was there in her dream, and she's left with no hope of finding it.
When the time comes for the wedding itself, she feels like she knows what is going to happen. There were things she expected because of pictures alone, like her mom's presence, to have the locket, and not to have pictures at the lighthouse. So she is reasonably upset when her mom calls to tell her she won't be there, because she saw her in the pictures. She just has to be there. She might not care as much had it not been for the dream.
Then there were the things she never saw coming. Ted moving to Chicago, and his reason why, is a shock. No one had said anything about him moving in the dream. And then Marshall took a job that would clash with his and Lily's year in Rome? She knew they were going to spend a year there, so he couldn't possibly take that job, especially behind Lily's back. At least the rehearsal dinner was a good surprise she didn't see coming.
Of all of the things she didn't see coming that weekend, her freak out is the one that surprises her the most. She knows she wants to marry Barney, that she is supposed to marry Barney, and yet her legs are carrying her away. It's when she's running that she realizes just how much he hid from her then, or didn't want to talk about, to protect her, and because they were a bit painful. This is probably another one of those things he hid. She wants to stop running, because she does want this. She's wanted this since she could remember. But the thought of taking this leap, knowing it could lead her somewhere else, somewhere that isn't that dream, but to the other terrifying dream she had, it scares her too much.
But then she falls straight onto the floor on top of a woman. One that she doesn't recognize until they are standing. Ted's wife. There is not a doubt in her mind that this is Ted's wife. Here she is, face to face with a woman she had met before. A woman she met only briefly, but she knows. Ever since she realized that the dream really meant something, she had been on the lookout for this beautiful girl. She knew that she had to make her appearance soon at this point, but she didn't know how it would happen.
The problem is that she still doesn't know how to deal with it. What is she supposed to do? Is she supposed to introduce them, or let fate and destiny be the one to do it?
Tracy calms her down, just like she did in the dream, but she's a bit surprised by her approach. She doesn't say things about believing in love and destiny, which is surprising, knowing just how perfect she is for Ted. She convinces her to go back nonetheless, in her calm voice that helped her change a baby all those years ago.
And she's glad she did. It's one of the happiest moments of her life.
It's later, when they are on the dance floor, that Barney realizes who Tracy is. It's the same girl that convinced him to go after her. She can't help but wonder just how long Tracy has been flitting in and out of their lives. It's knowing who she is in the future that makes her oddly quiet at Barney's introduction. She doesn't know what to say to her, both in the form of a thank you from earlier, and in a she doesn't want to ruin fate kind of way. She doesn't argue when Barney wants to introduce Tracy and Ted, but she's silent the whole time. He never gets the chance, for which she's a bit disappointed, and she's left hoping that she didn't screw it up, that she wasn't supposed to introduce them.
On the return from their honeymoon, she's the least shocked of the gang, when they find out who Ted is dating. In fact, she's relieved. It seems as if everyone is on the right path, the path to the dream, the path to happiness, the path to the life she wants.
She wants that life now, more than she ever realized she had.
So when she gets the job offer for the overseas correspondent a few months into her marriage, she does exactly what she knows she has to do. She turns it down. Not because she doesn't want it. She does, even though it would be a step down from her anchor position. She would have loved it, and she's sure that she and Barney would have had epic travels around the world together. But it doesn't match. In some weird turn of events, she wants the baby more than she wants the career, as much as it surprises her. And if she takes the foreign correspondent position, she just might throw the universe out of whack, change the course of history, and end up without her baby, and god forbid alone, just like the scary dream she had about a month before their marriage. And she can't let that happen. She wants Barney; she wants a family with Barney. She doesn't want to be waiting on the sidelines alone, for Ted of all people. And even if she is infertile and the baby might never happen, she still wants it to happen.
Still, she tries not to get her hopes up. She expects it not to happen.
She doesn't want to believe Barney when he first points out the possibility that she's pregnant. One, because she doesn't want to get her hopes up, and two, because she thinks it's too late. She would already have to be pregnant to have her in February like she's supposed to.
But the doctor's visit proves otherwise. She is pregnant after all. And Ted and Tracy's announcement that same night doesn't surprise her in the least. The due date does, for sure, since she was told they were born the same day.
She knows, that first week in bed, that it's all meant to be. Everything makes sense. The dream is real. It doesn't make her bed rest all gum drops and roses, but it makes it easier to deal with.
As the pregnancy goes on, she spends a lot of time thinking. She thinks about the dream, and how far she's come, and how she really didn't see any of this future coming. But in 2008, the idea was foreign. Being married and having a baby with Barney was absolutely ludicrous at that time. She didn't think it was possible, it was that absurd. It seemed so real, though, and she now realizes that it's because it was, at least part of it. Everything that was told to her then, came true. Every single bit of it. It was only the parts he left out and didn't explain that threw her off. He avoided everything bad she did, everything that hurt her, everything that hurt him.
Still, no matter what she does, she can't explain the dream. She can't explain why it was all correct, how her brain could have imagined that, at least not with some divine intervention involved. And she wasn't sure she believed in those things. Not really. But all of it was inexplicable otherwise. The dream has to be the truth. But for now, she doesn't care. She's happy. She has everything she could have ever wanted, even if it means being a prisoner in her bed.
The name Brianna goes on her list because she remembers, and it's the only one on both their lists. She knows why, and yet she still doesn't share with Barney why she agreed so quickly.
Even when Brianna is born, she hopes that Ted and Tracy won't show up at the hospital, but she knows it's bound to happen. All she can hope is that Brianna is born first.
It's a whirlwind, but seeing Brianna again brings tears to her eyes. She's so much smaller than when she saw her last, but she's very much the same. She's incredibly perfect.
The longest period she doesn't think of the dream is between the time she gives birth and Tracy's invite for dinner. She knows the reason. She is living the dream. Literally. And living the dream means 2am feedings, dirty diapers, and loud cries. She can barely keep her head on straight, let alone think about the dream.
So when Bri is ten weeks old, and she actually does fall and hit her head at Tracy and Ted's house, she knows exactly what is going to happen to Barney for the next few days. On the way home, she tells Barney not to worry, that she will come back to him in a couple of days if he helps her. He tells her she's crazy, but she knows. She knows those few days with the real her gone will be ok, and she will be back with him soon.
She just doesn't know what it will be like for her. Maybe she would relive it again, maybe not. But it doesn't matter. She'll find out soon enough.