After a few minutes, Barney whispers, "Isn´t it weird that we´re hugging like this without talking?"
"Oh my god, it speaks!"
"Haha, very funny", Barney breaks the hug and the left corner of his mouth twitches a little.
"I´m sorry. I´m so bad at the emotional stuff. I´m good as long as I don´t have to speak, but as soon as I open my mouth in emotional situations, I act weird."
"Yeah, you suck at that", he scoffs.
"I´m sorry", she smiles at him.
"You totally should be sorry. I mean you come all the way to my mother´s place to visit your laser-tag-player-friend. How rude is that? You should apologize some more.", he says in a sarcastic tone.
Robin smiles lightly and looks down, afraid to meet his eyes and initiate a talk about his mom and his brother. Obviously, Barney isn´t ready to talk about it either, so he suggests to go inside. They silently open the door, head to the kitchen for some water and sit down on the couch in the living room.
Robin finally breaks the silence, "So, how are you?"
"Fine. I´m fine.", his voice cracks a bit.
"Are you sure? It´s totally okay, you can talk to me, Barney!"
"I was sad. Really sad. But then I stopped being sad and now I´m awesome instead."
"You don't stop being awesome, just because you´re sad, Barney. Especially in a situation like that", she watches him intensely. When he doesn´t answer, she adds, "Hey. Look at me. It´s me. Robin. You can tell me how you feel."
When she sees a tear in his eyes, she tries to comfort him and gets closer, but suddenly he jumps up, "You really want to know how I feel? I feel awful. There. I said it. Some stupid possum screwed up my life. It ran across the street in the middle of the night, James saw it, wanted to stop the car and hit the brakes. He slowed down, but the street was so slippery and he lost control of the car. The car hit a stupid tree. They had to cut James and my mom out of the car and rushed them into the hospital", Barney takes a deep breath now and sits down again. A little bit calmer, he explains, "My mom broke her legs and has a massive wound on the head because she bumped it against the door, but James…" Barney lowers his head, "He´s in a pretty bad condition. My mom said he passed out immediately and in the hospital they put him into a induced coma because he has severe wounds and had an internal bleeding near his lungs. They could stop it, but he´s too weak now, so we can´t wake him up. We have to wait, god knows for how long. The doctors can´t tell, if he will wake up again and if he does, there´s always the possibility he won´t fully recover."
When Barney stops talking, Robin whispers, "I´m so sorry, Barney" and takes his hand into hers. He squeezed her hand lightly and started talking again, "On top of all that, I haven´t slept properly in days, I have barely eaten anything and when I ate some fries with ketchup I lost Cornelius!"
Robin looks startled, "Who is Cornelius?"
Barney looks at her in shock, lets go of her hand, takes his red tie and whispers, "He can hear you!" His mood suddenly shifts from a depressed and exhausted Barney into the lighter and more playful version of him which Robin is used to.
"What are you talking about?"
"Really? You can´t remember Cornelius? I´m so disappointed in you, Robin. He was there when we first met and won the competition with us and then we did that thing with him…you know."
"You´re not seriously talking about your tie right now, do you?", Robin gives him a baffled look.
"Who else would I talk about, Robin?"
Robin shakes her head, "Okay… weirdo. But, umm…"
"But what?"
"You just said you lost it-"
"Him", Barney corrected her.
"- lost him. But you didn´t. You are wearing it."
"Him"
"Fine. Him. You are wearing him."
"Robin, Robin, my dear, clueless friend. I´m not wearing him. I´m wearing his corpse."
Robin blurted out a laugh, "What? Are you going crazy now?"
"No, I don´t! I ate fries and some of the ketchup…", Barney stops, puts a fist in his mouth and lets out some crying. Robin knows, it´s not an emotional crying though and asks him amused, "What happened with the ketchup?"
"Some ketchup fell on Cornelius!"
"So? IT IS RED. You know that, right? I can´t see a stain."
"HE WAS red, Robin! I couldn´t save him."
"But you literally can´t see anyth.."
"I lost him!", he interrupted her again, "I tried to save him from the ketchup! And he was so close to retirement! Just this morning he told me he was too old for this sh…shirt."
Robin smiles, "You´re an idiot, you know?"
"And you… you are CANADIAN!"
Robin chuckled, "I´m glad, the old Barney is still in there"
In a much more serious tone Barney thanks her, "Thank you so much for coming. It feels good to laugh a little bit. And to see a friendly face."
"You´re welcome, Barney", Robin answers softly. "Do you need anything? Do you want something to eat or should we get this book and bring it to your mom? Or do you want to sleep? I could clean up a bit while you´re sleeping."
"Nah, it´s okay. I´m not going to sleep when you drive all the way here to see me."
"So you are not sleeping for quite a while, I guess. I´m staying."
"You´re staying? Overnight?"
"I´m not driving back all the way to the city and then back again. Haven´t you seen my big bag? Why would I need it for just one quick visit?"
"That´s very nice of you, but you don´t have to."
"I can look for a hotel or an inn or something, if that´s the problem."
"No, no, absolutely not. That´s not the problem. There´s no problem at all. I just don´t want you to sit around all day and get bored because I´m at the hospital all the time."
"I´ll go with you."
"Really? Despite last time?"
"I don´t think your mom cares about our last meeting at the moment. Sure, I was embarrassed, but I hope she won´t mention it any more."
"I´m sure she doesn´t. She likes you, I think. She always asks about you when I visit her."
"Wow. She must ask about me a lot then, little mama´s boy."
"What about work?", Barney changes the topic.
"Don´t worry about it. I´ve got it covered."
"Thank you again!"
"No problem. Can you show me my room now?"
Barney chuckles, "You can choose between a nice couch or an even nicer bed."
"What´s the catch?"
"There is this handsome, awesome, irresistible, blonde guy whose childhood bed is not that big and you would have to share it with said amazing guy", Barney says flirtatiously and raises a brow.
"I think I´ll have a look at the bed", Robin smiles and gets closer to him.
Before she even touches him, Barney´s phone rings. His face gets a worried expression as he sees the phone number. He takes the call, listens to the caller and ends the conversation with, "Okay. Thank you, I´ll be there as fast as I can!"
When Robin looks at him questioningly, he explains, "It was the hospital! James woke up from his coma."
