Thursday

"You see?" Ted said, as he was getting ready for work. "I told you."

"You should have gone inside to check!" Lily replied, trying to keep the edge of panic out of her voice.

"Lily, you've still got the spare key. What was I supposed to do? Barney's building supervisor is super-intimidating." Ted grinned, boyishly and Lily rolled her eyes.

Marshall had been very late home the previous night so Ted had gone to see Barney on his own.

"There were no lights on and I knocked on the door for, like, five minutes. He wasn't there. I told you, he's found himself a bimbo!"

"A three-day bimbo?" Lily asked, disbelievingly.

Ted shrugged. "Multiple bimbos, perhaps? A bimbo-spree? That's what it takes to get over Robin..." He chuckled. "I should know, after all!"

Lily punched him. "Ted! That's my friend you're talking about!" Right then, she wasn't quite sure if she meant Barney or Robin!

"Hey," Ted held up his hands placatingly. "My friend too. But we both know what Barney is and we both know what Robin's like. So... as if that was ever going to work!"

"Why not?" Lily countered, struggling to keep herself from shouting. "We also know that Robin's not into having kids or even a proper relationship. And she and Barney get on really well and he obviously adores her. Why couldn't they make it work?"

"Because Robin's not into him?" Ted argued.

"Robin's so into him! Those two flirt like it's going out of fashion!"

"Okay, because Barney's a complete womanizer!"

"Ted, Robin's not expecting monogamy."

"Yeah, but there's monogamy and there's Barney, you know?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Ted, you are such a woman."

"Am not," Ted said, pouting, making Lily laugh, even though a pang of guilt went through her. Suppose Robin and Barney had started dating? Would Barney still have kissed her? Would she have kissed Barney back? Lily bit her lip.

"Okay, you do have a point. And that's exactly what I said to Barney." She admitted.

"I can't believe you knew about this all along and didn't tell me!" Ted jibed her.

"After what happened last time? Anyway, I thought Barney had decided not to do anything about it." Lily said, aware that she didn't really need to defend herself. At least, not about that.

"Do you really think that, even if Robin had wanted some kind of twisted relationship with him, that Barney wouldn't have ended up hurting her, even if unintentionally?" Ted said, raising an eyebrow.

Lily cursed silently. Ted was probably right. "Maybe. But I assume that's why Robin said no, right?"

Ted nodded and Lily checked her phone, noticing the "new message" symbol had appeared while she'd been talking to Marshall. She quickly checked her messages while Ted was heading out the door.

There was just one new message, from Barney, saying "Sorry".

For some reason, this put Lily on the verge of tears.

*--*--*

Later that evening, Robin and Ted were already at their regular table in McLaren's when Lily arrived, exhausted from work.

"Hey, did anyone else get a text from Barney today?" Ted asked, looking pointedly at Robin.

"Yeah," She mumbled. "What of it?"

"Well, he texted me with 'Sorry' and that makes no sense. What has he got to be sorry for?" Ted asked.

"Jesus, Ted!" Lily exclaimed. "Robin's your ex-girlfriend. You know he has that weird code of conduct thing-"

"The Bro Code," Ted interrupted, "is not weird. Well, some of it is fairly weird…"

"Well, he probably thinks you'll be upset if Robin's upset?" Lily continued.

"I'm not upset!" Robin said, her aggressive tone totally belying her words.

"Well, anyway. Did we all get a 'Sorry' message?" Lily asked.

"You got one too?" Ted looked surprised.

"Sure! I'm Robin's best friend, after all!" Lily stuttered, guiltily.

"Oh," Ted nodded, seeming to believe her but Robin gave her a suspicious look. Lily glared at her right back. After all, if Robin had talked to her last night when she'd offered, her friend would know exactly what was on Lily's mind right now. And what the 'Sorry' message might really be about…!

At that moment, Marshall burst into the bar.

"Hey, anyone else get a 'Sorry' text from Barney?" He chirped. "What's he sorry about this time?"

"I think it's still this whole Robin thing," Ted concluded.

"Hey, right here!" Robin interjected. "Don't I get a say in this?"

"Have you spoken to him?" Lily asked, genuinely hoping that she had.

"Nope," Robin mumbled, the corners of her mouth turning down. "It's not like I haven't left him about six messages either."

Lily cringed. She had a feeling that if this was all about Robin then six messages would have been enough to bring even Barney Stinson out of his shell. She hoped to god that this whole thing wasn't about her. After all, It was only one kiss! One, stupid, drunken kiss! Well, half of it was drunken. What was her excuse?

"He's sulking," Ted offered.

"Then why did he send out all the 'Sorry' messages?" Lily replied. She was now starting to feel really worried.

Ted's phone began to ring and he answered it while Wendy came over and delivered their drinks.

"Hey James!" Ted beamed and nodded to the others. Marshall grinned and bobbed his head as if James could see him. "No, I haven't heard from Barney. Yeah, of course I can, when I next speak to him? Have you tried ringing him? Yeah, that is weird." Ted covered the phone for a second and mouthed to the others: "James got the 'Sorry' message too!"

"Yeah," Ted continued after a pause. "No. No I didn't- Ohmygod? Really? Well, that's a relief but- No! He didn't say anything. James, that's so- well, I'm glad he's out of the woods, but- Yes, of course I'll tell Barney. I'll see you later, okay?"

Ted put his phone down on the table and the others stared at him questioningly.

"James said that they had to take Sam into hospital on Sunday night - suspected meningitis."

"What?" Marshall stuttered.

"Yeah, poor little fella. Apparently Barney was with them all night on Sunday and James sent him home Monday to get some sleep. He hasn't seen or heard from Barney since."

"Is Sam okay?" Lily asked, her heart pounding like a hammer.

"Yeah, they say he's over the worst. It looks like he'll be fine. They'll be in hospital for a while though." Ted paused. "Did any of you know about this?"

There was silence at the table.

"We have to find Barney," Robin said.

There was a lot more silence.

"Well, anyone got any ideas?" She looked around the table, scowling at them as if they'd personally given poor little Sam meningitis.

Lily swallowed. "Guys, I think we ought to go to Barney's apartment." She said, her voice shaking. She felt sick.

Ted held up his hand, "Lily, I already-"

"Ted," She cut him off, using her best school-mistress tone. "On Monday, Barney was worried sick about his nephew, got drunk, told Robin that he loved her then-" She swallowed, biting the confession off so sharply that she almost caught her own tongue in her teeth. "Well, it must have been a pretty brutal evening. The whole 'Sorry' message thing has got me spooked. We need to find him."

Robin went pale. "Hold on, Lily, you don't think he could have- I mean, he wouldn't do something stupid would he?"

Lily took a deep breath. She didn't want to think about it but somehow she couldn't help it.

"Let's go find out." She replied.