"You almost married another girl?"

Kids, the story I'm about to tell you isn't a particularly good one. In fact, it's one that I'm kind of ashamed of. You remember Stella, don't you? Tall, blonde, left me at the altar? Well, that's a story I'm kind of ashamed of, too. So, I sort of… didn't tell your mother about it. I know, I know; it was a bad move on my part. Waiting almost six months into our relationship to tell your mother I almost married someone else was bound to end badly.

"It's not a big deal!" Ted cried for the umpteenth time as they both stood in the middle of the living room in Jessica's apartment. Jessica herself was on the verge of hysterics, pacing the room as her breathing shook.

"Not a big deal? Not a big deal? Ted, there's a movie about it!"

"A movie that got the entire situation all wrong!" he said defensively, shaking his head, and he started to speak again before she cut him off.

"It doesn't matter how truthful the plot is!" she cried, tears falling from her eyes as she stopping pacing to face him, her voice breaking as she spoke. "What matters is that we've been together for six months and you didn't tell me any of this!"

"It's not exactly something I'm proud of," he stressed, wishing she'd stop crying. He hated seeing her cry.

"Of course you're not!" she shouted, shaking as she spoke. "How could you be proud of that? But don't you trust me enough to at least tell me?"

Groaning with frustration, Ted put his face in his hands. This was all going wrong. No matter what he said, she retaliated, and nothing he did calmed her down. He should have known better than trying to keep this from her; secrets did nothing but tear a relationship apart. He felt like the world's biggest jerk right now; she'd been nothing but truthful with him from the start, and he'd kept her in the dark about his biggest piece of baggage. He knew he was the bad guy here.

So why couldn't he work up the courage to just admit it, so hopefully they could move on?

"I don't know!" he cried in response to her question, and she whimpered and dropped herself onto the couch, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes as she cried.

"What have I done to make you not trust me?" she asked him brokenly, and Ted frowned weakly, running a hand through his disheveled dark hair.

"I don't know," he said again, unable to form any other coherent sentences and she frowned as she met his eyes, almost looking angry at his inability to say anything else.

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" she snapped, clearly hurt and confused, "I don't know?"

She was putting him in a difficult position; all he could feel was guilt and conflict, and he was terrified to say anything in case it made things even worse. He was trying to fix this, and screwing it up royally.

"I don't-"

"Get out!" she shouted when he started to repeat his same statement, and she jumped when thunder rumbled outside, the storm that had started about an hour ago positively raging.

"Jessica-" he tried to stop her from making him leave, and she trembled, throwing a pillow at him.

"Get out!"

Just narrowly dodging the pillow, Ted slowly backed toward the door. He wasn't going to stay if he wasn't welcome, no matter how much it killed him to leave her when she was upset. "Fine; I'll go…"

"Good," she choked out as more angry and confused tears flooded her eyes. When she did nothing to stop him, Ted sagged with a broken frown and walked out the door.

… . … . …

The weather outside was brutal to say the least. It was pouring rain, and very few people were outside on the streets of New York. Streetlamps somewhat illuminating his path, Ted began to walk, not entirely sure of where he was going. When he came up for the weekend, it had been on a whim, and he'd planned to spend the entire time with his girlfriend. Now that she'd kicked him out, possibly forever, because he was too much of a coward to tell her about Stella, he didn't know what the hell to do.

He was getting soaked by the downpour, his hair plastered to his face and his jacket growing heavy on his shoulders. He felt like he deserved the discomfort, and he'd willingly take whatever illness he caught from staying outside in this weather.

He'd finally managed to get the girl of his dreams, and he blew it. What if she didn't take him back? Would he go back to his initial plan of selling the house and move permanently to Chicago? He knew one thing for certain: if he didn't fix things with Jessica, he was just going to give up. If the girl who was literally his perfect woman through and through wasn't the future Mrs. Mosby, then no one was.

"Are you happy, universe?" he shouted at random when his thoughts and self-loathing became too much to stand, looking up at the sky. "Things are finally back to normal! I, Ted Mosby, am miserable as hell and I just blew it with the girl of my dreams! Was this what you had planned all along? You gave her to me just to take her away?"

He was answered with what almost seemed like an angry bang of thunder overhead, and he jumped, sagging with defeat. That had to be a sign from the universe, telling him he was a huge asshole who deserved what he got. "You know what? You're right. Maybe I am just an idiot who doesn't deserve happiness. I'll just watch all my friends move on with their lives, and I'll become that bitter old college professor who couldn't do, so he taught."

There was nothing but more heavy rain to answer him as he cast his gaze back down and started walking again, pausing when a voice grabbed his attention.

"Ted…?"

"Destiny?" he shouted, clearly confused, looking up at the sky again, "You sound much more feminine than I expecte-"

"Ted."

Turning around, he froze, spotting Jessica standing a few feet away beneath her umbrella, her cheeks tearstained from makeup. She took a few hesitant steps toward him when he didn't move, stopping when the umbrella was shielding them both from the storm. She didn't say anything; clearly it was his turn to speak. She looked so hurt and heartbroken; he had to fix this.

"I'm so sorry," he finally made himself say over the rain as he placed his hands on her cheeks and wiped away the tear tracks with his thumbs. "I shouldn't have kept the truth about Stella from you. I guess I was afraid that it would change things."

"Change things?" she asked a bit breathlessly, more tears still falling, "Do you truly think this means that little to me? That I would just… throw it all away because you were in a serious relationship that ended badly? Ted, I love you…"

"And I love you," he assured her quickly, not wanting her to doubt it because he'd been a fool. "I know I love you… You've become my whole world. If I lost you, I don't know what I'd do."

"Do you trust me?" she finally asked him quietly, the question having been torturing her so badly that it had made her run after him in her pajamas of all things.

Ted frowned faintly at her doubt, wrapping his arms around her torso, his heart squeezing at how scared she looked. He didn't want to be the reason she had that expression on her face; he didn't want to become just another Louis who would do more harm to this incredible girl than good.

"I love you," he repeated, holding her to his chest as she held her umbrella over them both, "and love is built on trust. I didn't keep this from you because I don't trust you… I kept it from you because I didn't want you to make the connection about that stupid, horrible movie… You wouldn't be the first girl to think I'm actually like the idiot character that jerk based off of me…"

"Ted, I've known you for six months," she stated quietly, shaking her head, "I know you well enough to know that isn't the case…"

Sighing, he nuzzled his face into her hair, still afraid he'd blown it, forcing himself to ask his next question.

"Can you ever trust me again?"

She was quiet for a long time, and Ted felt like he might be sick if she didn't answer him soon. Finally, he exhaled when she spoke.

"I'm tired, cold and getting soaked out here… Come back home and let me think about it while you hold me…"

And that's exactly what we did. Your mother and I walked back to her apartment, and I just held her for a long time after we got dried off and changed into warm clothes. We didn't even say anything. To be honest, it was the most terrifying few hours of my life. At any moment, she could have said she couldn't trust me again, and asked me to leave. What would I have done then? Well, for starters, you kids wouldn't be sitting here today. Luckily for your old man, she decided to give me a second chance.

Sure, we still had the occasional fight, but nothing like the first one. That's probably because her one condition to her forgiving me was that I tell her every piece of baggage I had ever had, big or small. She fell asleep while I told her the pineapple story.

The moral of this story: don't try to keep secrets from your mother. It will just blow up in your face and leave you screaming at the universe during a rainstorm.

Well, maybe not for you two, but still.