One Week Later

Part 1

Barney walked into MacLaren's, the booth was already occupied by Lily, Marshall, Ted and Victoria, he forced Ted over a little, sat on the bench, and thumped his forehead on the table.

"What's wrong buddy" Ted asked.

Barney doesn't move. Marshall shifted his attention back to Ted "So you were saying?"

"So we went back."

"To the wedding?"Lily asked.

"To the wedding?" Marshall exclaimed.

"To the wedding. Only how do you start a letter like that? The words wouldn't come to her.

"I just didn't want to be there" Victoria explained.

Ted continued "Then we ran into Corrine"

"My best friend."

"Her best friend. The maid of honor. She wanted to talk,"

"Of course" Lily and Marshall together.

"So they talked, and I wrote..." said Ted.

"You wrote!" Lily

"You wrote the Dear John?" Marshall

"Well Victoria started it off, and she added a few lines at the end as well, but I wanted to have a little heart to heart, give an explanation, seemed like a good idea at the time, Til we were caught again."

"By Klaus?" Lily asked,

"By her mom, and then his mom, and then a few of his aunts and one little uncle. So we

got out of there, before she could write more,"

Victoria looked a little distracted, she stared off to the side, she scooted over a little, and Ted quickly took over the extra space he was allowed.

"So we drove off into the sunset, got pretty far, almost left the state. We stayed at a little inn for a few nights, and went on walks, got caught up, it was romantic," Victoria was back with him, she was enjoying the closeness again. "But it was quiet. Way too quiet. It was time to be in the city again. So we came back"

"You've been here a couple days?" Marshall asked.

Barney stirs a little, he sits up, takes one of the drink on the table and downs it,

"Is it Quinn, where is she? What happened?" Lily interrogated.

Barney started babbling.

"So you've been here a couple days? Why didn't you call?" Marshall asked,

Barney started to make a little sense "Shee…she…she's preg"

"She's pregnant? Congratulations?" Marshall finished for him.

Everyone else started congratulating. Barney sat there with a dazed look on his face.

Fourteen hours earlier

Barney full dressed, went into the bedroom, and kissed Quinn good morning. She smiled, she had been awake, but liked to feign sleep until their morning ritual, she wrapped her arm around his neck and pulled him in closer, he stumbled a little, smiled and started to brush the hair from her eyes. He straightened up, and went to look to mirror to fix his tie "So what's on the agenda for today?"

"I'm going to paint my toes, and then go in for my blood test" She grins,

He smiled and turned around, "Shouldn't we do that together?"

"The doctor is an old friend, going to give me a complete physical"

He raised an eyebrow. "Why Mrs. Future-Stintson, trying to make me jealous."

Mrs. Future-Stintson grinned

"So where's his office?"

She shook her head.

He smiled, "See you there."

10:45 am

Quinn walked into Dr. Carp's office, looked around the waiting room, Barney wasn't there. She sighed a little in relief, but at the same time was a little disappointed he hadn't found her.

The bathroom door opened and Barney walked out, handed the key back to the receptionist and winked at her.

"How did you find me? Don't tell me you have a guy for this"

"GNS"

"Global Navigation System?"

"Great Network of Secretaries. I have secretaries, hard working ones, Had 6 ladies

working on it, took them 24 minutes".

"You're quite proud of yourself aren't you?"

"Quinn?" Receptionist called out

They made their way into the exam room and waited for quite a while. Barney started playing around with model of a heart, and continued to do so even after the burse came in.

"We're also going to want to xray your chest, is there a chance that you're pregnant?" The nurse asked,

"Um." Quinn responded.

Barney felt the blood rush to his feet. He woke up with the doctor crouched beside him, In fact a little too close for two men to be with each other.

"Whoa" He snapped to attention, "Don't try anything doc."

"First time you hear you got a girl pregnant is always the scarest."The doctor responded,

Barney laughed a little nervously "Doc, we're in high school anymore," A memory of the last time popped into his head, he shook it off. "Besides, this is good news?" Was he questioning it?

The doctor helped him to his feet and they went to the consultation room.

"So we think you should be around six weeks."

Six weeks, Barney grew nervous, six weeks of uninterupted, that's right. Quinn had trapped him into this, she had gotten pregnant so he would stick around, except she hadn't, he had proposed on all on his own, bought the ring on his own, even constructed the greatest proposal illusion of all time. He had signed up for all this, it just was happening a little fast.

Part 2

The last week for Robin been a whirlwind, John had started the conversation asking if she remembered him, she had just smiled, he seemed a little nervous and yet excited, and kept quickly glancing at her ring finger, she knew what he really wanted to ask her,

"It wasn't real"

"What wasn't?"

She plays with her finger a little suggestively. Why not?

"My friend was just trying to do an unsolicited favor."

"Unsolicited?"

They had carried on from there, He had been a private jet pilot and the owner of a small charter when she first met him, owned six of his own planes, business had picked up in recent years, and he no longer was required to cart around rich businessmen, he now had more luxury of time, overseeing some of the daily operations but also had enough time to travel a little,

"I've seen a lot of the world, well a lot of international cities, but right now, I kind of like really calling someplace home" But he wasn't tied to New York, and right now, Robin found that very appealing. He had been engaged for a while, but the distance and the difference in cultures had made it difficult. She was Swiss,

"I loved her, but just not the way she wanted me to, we didn't talk for a long time, but last year, my mother got very sick, suddenly her mind just deteriorated, and I just needed someone to talk to, someone who knew me really well.

"Will you tell her about me?" Robin asked.

"I've already told her about you, I'm a little embarassed to admit this but I've had a little bit of a crush on you for a while now"

Robin blushed, but John had been busy fiddling with his coaster and hadn't noticed.

"I actually know you're coming from I spent years living with one of my exes it was a simple relationship until it got complicated, more so for him", she clairified.

During the third hour that first night Robin let guard down more than she normally did in months with anyone, he made her nervous and comfortable all at the same time she had never felt this way before, found herself blushing a lot that night,

He kissed her during the fourth hour, and if she had to rate the kiss it would only be a 4 ot 5, it was a little sloppy but luckily for him, by the time he leaned in to kiss her, she was already his.

She never made it into work that day, or the actual bed that night and they both called in sick the next morning. fully intending on using the softer real estate, but instead somehow wound up asleep on the bed awkwardly head to toe.

They woke up at noon, and spent the day wandering Manhatten. Showing each other everything from where he grew up, to her to her preferred spot in the park, to his homeless friend Kyle, who sold something new everyday that John always bought,

She went into work the next day, and we she got off, he had a car waiting for her downstairs, that took her to all the way to a smal airport in New Jersey, where he was waiting for her, but instead of flying off somewhere, they had a little picnic in the tower and watched all the private planes take off.

The rest of the week was filled with little adventures like this, romanic and sweet, and not over the top, Robin just took advantage of all the pamper, soaking it in,

At the end of the week, they were at her place for another night, looking out the window as the city passed them by, Robin started buttoning her shirt and John stared at her and said, "I've never stayed in one place for too long, some places are worth a few days others a few months, what I'm trying to say is, I know this is a little crazy, we've only known each other a week but I'm going to be in Milan next month for a week, will you come with me?"

Robin continued to look at the city below, "It is soon, I have work, and there's still so much we don't know about each other,"

"Ok, I withdraw the question, it's too soon but will you, just on the side, try pitching something to your editor happening in Italy, next month. Just in case."

Robin started feeling her hands grow cold, and a slight buzz in her ear, but he started kissing her neck, and the feeling past.

Back at the Bar

"Barney? Barney? You ok? How far along is she?" Lily asked.

"Forget it, he's gone again," Marshall responded, To Ted "So why didn't you call? This is huge news."

"I called Robin," Ted answered, Barney stirred a little, "when I got in, she said she was going to be a little busy, but would met us tonight."

"Robin?"

"Barney are you back with us?" Barney shook his head.

Earlier that day at noon,

Barney walked outside of the doctor's office, kissed Quinn, put her in a cab, and started walking back towards the direction of his office. He phone was out and he was texting. "CALL ME 911" he was about to send it to Ted, Marshall, Lily, Robin, James, his mom, his dad, and his guy guy, but stopped, deleted all the others and sent it only to Robin. He slipped the phone back in his pocket and crossed the street, across, he pulled it out again, she hadn't responded yet. It's ok, she'll respond soon enough. He calmed himself, But it didn't happen, 2 hours later when he still hadn't heard from her, he called, she didn't pick up. He didn't leave a voicemail, what could he say? Five minutes later he called again, and then again five minutes after that, he had called her a total of 23 times, she hadn't called back. Where was she? How long had it been since he had seen her, he had caught her on the news a couple times this week, but she hadn't been on assignment, he checked his TiVo at the office, she had been there all week, except it seemed Monday, she had been missing Monday.

Back to the bar,

"Robin?"

"Barney are you back with us?" Barney shook his head.

"Robin?" Barney repeated.

"Yeah?" she had walked in behind him.

They all turned to face her, "Where have you been?" The first legible sentence out of Barney's mouth that day.

Robin lifted her hand, there was another intertwined with it, they all looked up and saw John standing behind,

Everyone "Aah,"

"Everyone John, John everyone,"

"We were wondering what was going on, you'd barely get a couple sentences out over the phone all week." said Lily. "So how did you met?" She smiled,

Robin tilted her head back and looked at John, "It all started with tacky red cowboy boots." She looked down at Ted, to see the result of her slight jolt, then over at Barney for a little appreciation, but him seemed more interested in a watermark on the table.

"This is a big week for us as well, Marv says his first word." Marshall declared proudly.

"That wasn;t a word." Lily interupts.

Marshall continues "He said room,"

He said "Oo," Lily explained. "Wait I think I know you," Robin starts signaled Lily to cool it with her eyes. "You're secret crush guy"

John indicated to himself questioningly.

"She's had a thing for you for years now,"Lily said giving it all away, "We met you at a club once, when we first all went out with Barney's dad."

"Oh yeah," Confirmed Ted, "I rescued her from you once."

John "You're the two."

Ted "I am not a two," and looked at Barney for confirmation.

Barney "He's a two" as he indicated a guy by the restroom, "He's a four" to John, "You're a solid 5"

Ted "I'm an 8"

"Please, Lily's an 8, Marshall's a 6, and Robin's one of three 10s in the room."

"And the other 10s? You and... the girl by the bar" Barney shook his head, "Not the girl by the jukebox," Barney shook his head again.

Robin looked around the room "The guy trying to pick up the girl at the bar."

Barney smiled approvingly "We are always draw to our own kind." He locked eyes with Robin, and for a second she thought she saw something in them, despite the smile, they seemed scared, and maybe a little sad, it made her shiver and she wanted to look away, and for a second he dropped the smile, and it was all over his face,

"Let's go get a drink," Robin interrupted and yanked Lily out of the booth.

Victoria suddenly snorted, "What?" Ted asked with a smile.

Victoria "Their names, Robin Hood and Little John"

"More like Prince John"

Barney pulled out his phone to text Quinn he would be home soon, but found himself typing "i miss you, everyday" he shook it off, turned off the screen, and got, it was time he went home.

"I'm going to go, Quinn will be wondering where I am."

Lily "She doesn't?" Asked coming back with fresh drinks. "Go, oh and Barney when you want to talk about it, I'm here." Lily offered, Barney started walking away, and felt a hand on his arm. It was Robin "Talk about it?"

He touched her hand smiled without turning, and smiled only with his mouth, and said "She's pregnant." It was the first time he was able to say those words all day, he gently removed her hand from his arm and left, He had said it.

Robin felt the pain in her chest again, the one she had been blistfully without all week. He phone dinged with a text message, She turned on the screen, it said, "I miss you everyday."