AN: HEY HEY! I´m an awful person and I feel horrible. You guys sent me such sweet reviews and I haven´t updated in ages. It´s a dumb excuse, but I´m getting my bachelor´s degree soon and I was very busy. I know it´s a bad excuse, but I hope you´ll forgive me.

Anyway, thank you so so so much for your reviews! I really appreciate them so much and they always make my day. You guys keep me writing and gave me hope that the himym and swarkles fandom isn´t completely dead yet.

This chapter is pretty short and I´m not very confident about it, but I thought I´d post it cause you guys had to wait long enough now. I swear there is a longer chapter (with the complete new york tour) coming very soon (within the next days).

(I´ll also post a new chapter of "the Nanny" and the final chapter of "Now, it´s Robin´s turn" in a few days, of you are interested.)

Please stay tuned!

xx

„Hey! You´re finally here!", Ted shouts out, when he sees Robin walking in. He, Lily and Marshall are sitting in a café, where they were waiting for Robin to finally go on that New York tour with Robin. It´s saturday and 6 a.m., so Lily is still halfway sleeping and Marshall drinks loads of coffee.

„Hey, sorry. I don´t know why I´m always coming late, usually I´m pretty punctual."

„No problem. As you see, Barney isn´t here yet either.", Marshall assures her.

„Yes, I realized that. Where is he?"

„He said he´ll be here any second... That could mean he´s actually here any second or we´ll wait for him for hours.", Lily rolls her eyes.

Robin laughs, „I´ll see. Let´s hope it isn´t the second one."

„We don´t have to wait. He´ll find us. I think he´ll be pretty happy actually, when he misses as much as possible. So, I´d say, let´s go!", Ted says.

Robin suggests to wait for a few more minutes. She realizes, Ted isn´t too happy about this, but she thinks, it won´t hurt anyone to wait a little time. Robin tries to change the subject and asks Ted, „Which places do you intend to show me? What is our first stop?"

When Ted talks about going to Central Park first, then heading to some other places like the Statue of Liberty and Times Square and saving the Empire State Building for the end of the tour because he likes it best and wants to make it the highlight of a great day, suddenly Barney walks into the café.

„Hey, what´s up. Ready for the tour?", Barney smiles as if everything is as usual.

„What the hell are you wearing?", Robin is the first to ask.

„What do you mean?"

„Where is your suit?"

„Which one?"

„Any. You always wear suits, why don´t you wear any of them?"

„Because, my dear friend from the great white north, you may not know this, but New York is full of crazy tourists, sweating, smelling and not afraid of any body contact when it comes to shooting a great picture. And I don´t want their body fluids all over my suits. Can you imagine how expensive it is to have my suits cleaned? Plus, once they are contaminated, they´ll never be the same."

„So you don´t wear a suit, because you´re afraid of them getting dirty?"
„Exactly!"

„But... this can happen every single day. The tourists are everywhere."

„Yeah, I know, but on a tour in New York, especially when it´s one of Ted´s tours which will eventually lead to being stuck in the railway, it is too risky. Me and my suits can live with the everyday risk, but I don´t want to tempt my fate. And I don´t want to look like this every day, I really hope I´ll meet no one important."

Robin shakes her head, but can´t help herself and starts to grin. She kind of loves Barney´s weird logic. Sometimes he is creating his own little world, but he lets her be a part of that most of the time and she loves to be in this own world with him – their own little bubble. Robin also thinks Barney´s casual wear kind of fits him very well. He wears jeans and a simple v-necked t-shirt in blue with a mustache on it. Barney looks so...ordinary. She isn´t used to it, she has never seen without a suit before – well, she has seen him without a suit, but those times he isn´t wearing anything at all.

„So this means, we are just some unimportant people to you?", Robin mocks him. She knows him well enough by now to know he´s nothing like the unsensitive show-off he acts like. Though she is kind of attracted to the strong, self-confident and arrogant part he likes to play, Robin prefers him as the very fun, kind-hearted and caring man. As these thoughts go through her head, Lily eyes her suspiciously – first, she knows about Barney smoking cigars and now she notices that he´s not wearing a suit? Sure, the few times Robin has seen him, he has worn suits, but they haven´t met often enough for Robin to know he always wears suits. It might not be too obvious, the guys don´t seem to realize any of it, and she is still really tired, but Barney and Robin seem to know each other very well – far too well for two people who have known for about two weeks. Lily doesn´t say anything, but she will surely keep an eye on those two.