Disclaimer: I'm one week closer to owning HIMYM; my pocket lint is already worth .00000000000000000000000000001% more! Just a couple more centuries to go…
A/N: Seriously, you guys are awesome. Thank you so much for all of your reviews! Hopefully this chapter lives up to expectations.
Chapter Six
Future!Ted: "So what were Victoria and I up to while Barney and Robin were sucking face, you ask? Good question."
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"Huh," Victoria said. "So this is the second largest rubber band ball in the world."
"Yep," Ted replied. "It was created by John Baine in 1998 when he was working in a mail room at Skadden Arps in Wilmington, Delaware. This beauty took him over two years to complete."
"It's pretty cool," Victoria said, studying the ball in fascination.
Gazing at her adoringly, Ted said, "You're pretty cool."
"You're not bad yourself," Victoria said with a smile, leaning in to kiss him.
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Future!Ted: "Now as I told you earlier, Victoria and I had made a pact not to tell each other the 'L' word until we'd been together for six months; we'd both jumped into that part of the relationship too fast in the past and we wanted this time – this relationship – to be different."
Son: "Uh-huh."
Future!Ted: "It was a mutual agreement!"
Daughter: "Please, Dad. Everyone knows what a 'mutual agreement' means."
Future!Ted: "OK, fine, it was totally her idea. But it was a good one… at first. The problem was, it kept getting harder and harder not to tell her those three little words. In fact, I was about to break our pact just then…"
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They broke apart from their kiss and exchanged sappy smiles.
"Victoria," Ted said seriously, "I l –"
And then his phone rang.
From the ringtone (The Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be"), Ted immediately knew that it was Marshall. Marshall wouldn't call unless it was important.
"I'm sorry," he told Victoria. "I have to take this."
"Go ahead," she told him.
Giving her a quick smile of thanks, he opened his phone and said, "Hey, Marshall. What's up?"
As he listened to Marshall's story, his jaw dropped.
"Wait, you're where?" he asked.
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1 hour earlier:
After finally tearing themselves away from the footage of Barney and Robin at the Toronto Gay Pride Parade, Marshall and Lily had created an all-but-foolproof plan for breaking into Ted's apartment to steal his copy of A Christmas Story.
They were dressed in black from head to toe and ready to leave when:
"Hold on," Lily said. "What about Marvin?"
"Marvin!" Marshall muttered, slapping his forehead. "I knew we were forgetting something. Curse this sleep deprivation! Should we take him with us?"
"And risk him waking up mid-break-in to betray us with loud crying?" Lily said skeptically. "I don't think so."
"OK," Marshall said. "One of us will have to stay behind with him, then."
"This is a two-person job, Marshall!" Lily said. "Besides, it shouldn't take us too long. Maybe we could just leave him here?"
"And run the risk of him managing to suffocate himself?" Marshall retorted. "It's like you didn't read the baby books I gave you, Lily."
"Crap," Lily groaned. "We're screwed. And we haven't found a babysitter yet, either."
Marshall paused for a second, then said, "Wait, I have an idea! Let me try my new hypnosis skills on Marvin."
"Marshall, watching The Mentalist does not mean that you are capable of hypnotizing anyone!" Lily huffed.
"Uh, first of all, The Mentalist is awesome. Secondly… just let me try," Marshall said. "It's not like it'll harm anything."
"Fine," Lily said. "Fine."
Permission granted (however grudgingly), Marshall crept into a sleeping Marvin's room.
"Hey there buddy," he whispered. "Mommy doesn't think that I can hypnotize you, but we'll prove her wrong, right?"
Marvin blinked open his eyes and yawned. Then he opened his small mouth and began to cry. Loudly.
"Shhh, shhh," Marshall muttered frantically. "Uh… right. Hypnotism. Look into my eyes, Marvin. You are feeling calm and tired. So very calm and heavy and tired. You just can't find the energy to make noise. Sink back in the sand and listen to the waves go in… and out… and in… and out… Oh, I forgot to mention – you're on a beach right now."
Marvin's cries continued unabated.
"Shit," Marshall muttered. "There's gotta be something I can do…"
His eyes fell on a bottle of unopened wine from the baby shower sitting on the shelf.
"No, I couldn't…"
Marvin's cries turned into screams.
"Marshall?" Lily called.
Marshall exited the room hastily.
"I'm just gonna get Marvin his bottle," Marshall told Lily. "Clearly hypnosis doesn't work when the subject has an empty stomach."
Lily rolled her eyes, but relaxed back onto the couch.
In the kitchen, Marshall grabbed Marvin's bottle of pre-pumped breast milk from the refrigerator. After hesitating for a few seconds, he pulled an open bottle of wine out as well. He nervously added a tablespoon's worth of the wine to the milk, then returned the wine to the refrigerator. After mixing it in thoroughly, he hurried back to Marvin.
Lifting Marvin out of his crib, Marshall proceeded to rock him back and forth.
"Are you hungry, little guy?" he asked the squalling infant. "Here's your bottle."
And with that, he guided the bottle to the baby's mouth.
"Shhh, there you go," he murmured, watching Marvin suck greedily at the bottle.
Temporarily silenced by the bottle in his mouth, Marvin gulped down every last drop of milk. Shortly after finishing it, his eyelids began to flutter and soon he was fast asleep in Marshall's arms, a small, limp deadweight.
Marshall sighed with relief and hurried back out to Lily.
"He should be out for a couple of hours," Marshall informed Lily. "If we put him in the harness, we can take him along."
Lily raised an eyebrow skeptically and asked, "So you hypnotized him?"
"Well… not exactly," Marshall admitted.
"Then he could still wake up and give us away," Lily pointed out.
"He won't," Marshall assured her.
Lily frowned. "And how exactly are you so certain?"
"Because… because… I tried a remedy of my mom's," he confessed in a rush.
"Marshall!" Lily said exasperatedly. "I thought we agreed to discuss 'remedies' before using them."
"Hey, Mom says that she used to put beer into my milk bottle all the time, and I turned out OK!" Marshall said defensively.
"You did what?" Lily asked in a deadly whisper. "Marshall Erikson, don't tell me that you gave our child beer!"
"No, of course not!" Marshall said.
"Thank god," Lily said, calming down. "It's bad enough that Marvin's first outing was to a bar, but –"
"I used wine," Marshall continued. "Much classier."
Lily opened and closed her mouth a few times silently. When she finally regained her voice, Marshall shrunk before her tirade.
"Maybe things are different in Minnesota, but here in New York we do not drug our children!" she screeched.
"I only used a tablespoon!" Marshall protested. "Barely enough to knock him out for our expedition."
"You're not helping your case, Marshall!" Lily hissed.
Marshall opened his mouth, closed it, and took a deep breath. When he finally spoke, his voice was carefully calm.
"Look, I won't put wine in Marvin's bottle again if it bugs you that much, but what's done is done," he told his wife. "Let's just get that DVD while he's still asleep, OK?"
Lily pursed her lips and said, "OK."
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Future!Ted: "Marshall and Lily's plan was a work of art. Add in the fact that they worked together like a well-oiled machine, and everything should have gone seamlessly. There was just one problem… they didn't know that I'd installed a new security system."
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Wheee-ooo! Wheee-ooo!
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
Wheee-ooo! Wheee-ooo!
"Shit, shit, shit!" Lily hissed, desperately pressing buttons in an attempt to stop the noise. "Ted must have put in a new alarm system!"
"Just grab the movie and let's get out of here!" Marshall replied, putting his hands over a miraculously still-sleeping Marvin's ears.
Ree-ooo-ree-ooo-ree-ooo!
"Are those police sirens?" Lily asked, now frantically searching for the movie.
"I don't know, baby, just hurry!" Marshall responded.
When Ted's DVD shelf didn't yield A Christmas Story, Lily started looking under couch cushions and in the refrigerator.
"Any luck?" Marshall asked.
"No!" Lily said. "You don't think he brought it with him on the road trip, do you?"
"Maybe," Marshall said. "A little taste of home away from home, you know?"
Ree-ooo-ree-ooo-ree-ooo!
"Whatever the sound is, it's getting closer!" he added. "To heck with the movie, let's just get out of here."
"No!" Lily said. "We've already come this far. I'm not leaving without that movie."
"We can buy a copy at Books & More," Marshall told her, tugging on her arm.
But it was too late.
"NYPD," a female detective barked, suddenly appearing behind them. "Hands in the air!"
Reluctantly, both Lily and Marshall obeyed the order.
"Look," Lily said, "this isn't what it looks like. This is our friend Ted's apartment and –"
"Stealing from a friend? That's cold," the detective said, handcuffing Lily and then Marshall. "And bringing a baby along?"
She shook her head in disgust, before adding, "You both have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney…"
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Future!Ted: "After being patted down and interviewed at the police station, Marshall and Lily were put in a holding cell until someone could provide them with bail. But I'll get back to that in a minute. In the meantime, back in Toronto…"
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Barney and Robin were still kissing when reality rudely intruded in the form of irritated parade-goers.
"Hey, lovers, you're holding up the parade!" Gladiator Guy yelled. "Go get a room somewhere, will ya?"
This served to dampen the mood as effectively as a bucket of cold water; Barney and Robin immediately broke apart.
"Really," a woman holding a 'Gay and Proud' sign huffed, "there are children here. Take your perverted public display elsewhere, please."
"I don't have a problem with straight people as long as they act normal," another man chimed in loudly. "But there's no call for you folks to rub your heterosexuality in our faces!"
The crowd rumbled in angry agreement.
Robin turned to the crowd and, smiling nervously, called out, "Look, this is all just a big misunderstanding! We –"
"– have a right to do whatever we damn well please!" Barney cut in, adrenaline and endorphins combining to make him even more reckless than usual. "The First Amendment guarantees us the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And this, my Canadian friends, is a prime example of the pursuit of happiness!"
Robin grimaced, well aware that his words weren't going to go over well.
"Americans, eh?" Gladiator Guy called. "Come here to spoil our celebrations with your gun-slinging, loud-mouthed ways?"
"No!" Robin interjected hastily in her strongest Canadian accent. "We're out here to –"
"Are you saying that only straight people are allowed to be happy?" a hockey-jersey bedecked man asked belligerently.
Robin tried to explain. "That's not what –"
But it was too late. The crowd – already pumped-up – had turned on them.
"Get 'em!" a woman wearing a moose headdress hollered. "Let's teach these Americans a lesson they'll never forget!"
The crowd bellowed in agreement.
"Run," Robin muttered to Barney, grabbing his hand.
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Future!Ted: "Kids, your Aunt Robin and Uncle Barney ran eight blocks with a crowd of angry parade-goers in hot pursuit before they found an actual Mountie. After explaining the situation to him, the bemused Mountie put them in a jail cell overnight for their own protection."
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"Sorry about this," the Mountie said, locking them into a cell. "We're normally very friendly up here. Don't know what got into those folks, I'm sure. But they'll have calmed down by tomorrow; we're a peaceable people. Still, it's probably best that you leave the area for a bit, just in case."
"Our flight leaves tomorrow night," Robin assured him.
After the Mountie had departed, Robin turned to face Barney.
"So… this sucks," she said in as cheerful a tone as she could manage. "Oh well, at least we're getting a feel for the average Canadian jail, right?"
Barney shrugged.
"And at least the guy gave us some water bottles and energy bars," Robin continued, now rambling nervously. "I mean, it could be a lot worse."
"Whatever," Barney muttered.
"And this'll make for a good post on twitter," Robin said.
Barney frowned at the wall.
"OK, what's going on with you?" Robin asked. "You're acting like something crawled up your ass and died there."
Barney's gaze flew to hers.
"What's going on with me?" he scoffed. "What's going on with me? You seriously have to ask that, Robin?" It seemed he'd wanted to get this off his chest for a while. "You kissed me!"
"I did say I was sorry about that," Robin said timidly. With a hint of indignation, she added, "And it's not like you didn't participate! You could have stopped at any time, you know!"
"No, I couldn't have. And what's going on is that you push me away and then reel me back in and then push me away again!" Barney spat bitterly. "What's going on is that you keep sending me all these conflicting signals. What's going on is that you made bimbos and one-night stands lose their appeal. And just to round it all off, now I'm stuck with those meaningless one night stands, because no woman wants a man who'll always be in love with someone else!"
Robin couldn't have moved even if she wanted to. Barney's eyes were fixed on hers and she felt as though they were burning straight through to her soul.
No woman wants a man who'll always be in love with someone else!
Was he saying…?
Barney took a ragged breath, and continued. "I mean, let's face it, I was never exactly any quality woman's first choice, but now?"
He laughed derisively.
With a shrug, he added, "But that's my problem, not yours. Just… stop jerking me around, yeah? Bros shouldn't do that to each other."
"I…" Robin stammered, unsure of what to say. "… Barney…"
When she didn't add anything, Barney's shoulders slumped.
"I'm going to sleep," he informed her.
He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes again.
And despite the fact that he was only a few feet away from her, Robin had never before felt their distance so keenly.
Only…
You made bimbos and one-night stands lose their appeal.
No woman wants a man who'll always be in love with someone else!
Stop jerking me around.
For months, Robin – certain that she'd missed her chance – had been (poorly) coping with the fact that Barney was no longer interested in her. She'd been swallowing back her misery at the fact that they were growing farther and farther apart.
If there was even the slightest chance that this was a second chance (third chance? fourth?), she was going to grasp it with both hands. She wasn't going to be a coward anymore.
And even if this wasn't a second chance, Barney deserved some long-overdue explanations from her. That he could believe that he was the one that was lacking was more than she could bear.
So, steeling her courage, she opened her mouth and began to speak.
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[Commercial Break.]
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