This is set sometime around 'Little Minnesota,' and I'm not 100% happy with it, but, ehhhhy.

9 December, 2008

"And then the producer said to me, 'we're searching in a different direction,'" Robin says, the coke-and-rum leaving her hyped up, her frustration jangling in her veins, and she knows Barney is the worst person to talk to about things like this, but he was the only one in the booth when she'd come into the bar. "In a different direction? What kind of euphemistic bullcrap — what does that even mean? Are there different directions of news anchors that no one told me about?"

"Ethnic," Barney offers. "It's not enough that you're a chick anymore, now you have to be ethnic. Preferably foreign."

"I'm —" she says, and she's maybe a little drunker than she thought, because she actually pounds her fist on the table as she does; Barney raises a single finger to cut her off.

"No," he says, shaking his head. "Please. C'mon. Has there been a single time being Canadian has ever been a positive thing for anyone? Sure, there's the sympathy angle; it's the international equivalent of being a kid in the Make A Wish foundation…"

She laughs; she can't help it. He gives her this weird smile back, the one he does sometimes that makes her think, for some reason, of Ted: that whole cutesy bashful thing he used to pull out when they were dating, that's so out of character on Barney's face that she still doesn't know what it means. She drains her glass; the carbonation catches at her throat on the way down.

"It just… sucks," she says, waving for Wendy for another drink. "I've been back in the country for a month and this was only my second interview. Like, hah hah, I'm not 'ethnic,' but what the hell am I doing wrong here? What's the point? I almost want to just give up, get a job at McDonald's or something." Barney's kind of giving her a look, and she laughs wryly, taking a new rum and coke from Wendy. "And what am I doing, bitching to you about this?" It's Barney. Even if he's clearly in a weirdly good mood today, letting her complain like this, she knows he'd rather be hitting on that blonde in the low-rise jeans at the bar.

He kinda pauses for a second and then gets offended, in the kind of super dramatic Barney way she doesn't take seriously. "What does that mean? I'm an internationally recognized confidant, mentor to the unfortunate, confession-taker, and yes, I do mean that in the sacramental sense —"

"Ew," she says. "It's just." She pushes her hair out of her face, kneads her forehead with both hands. "I know you hate this crap. Hell, I hate this crap. But at least when I whine to Ted, he'll give me a pep talk about how great I am and I feel better about my shitty lack of career for ten seconds." Maybe it's because they used to date, and maybe it's a safety net Robin shouldn't take advantage of almost two years later, but… "and sometimes you just want that kind of dad pep talk, or for someone to lie about how great you are, you know?" and now she does laugh, to prove she's joking, but she's not one hundred percent sure she is.

"Not really," Barney says, frowning down at his gin and tonic.

"I guess I'm just not as awesome as you," Robin says, and she means for it to be a self-depreciating kind of joke, but it comes out weird.

"I'm sitting here, aren't I?" He moves his jaw, looks up at her again. "So — which one?"

"Huh?" she asks.

"Like I said, I'm great at mentoring poor lost souls," he says. "So which one? Blatant lies, or a pep talk?"

He really is in a good mood today. She smiles and takes a big gulp of her drink. "Surprise me."

She's about eighty percent expecting Barney to launch into a story that starts with the year was 1893, but he doesn't. "Hearing you bitch about your job hunt is seriously annoying," he says.

"Off to a good start."

He ignores; continues. "So you're not ethnic enough for some douchebag network? I'm not exactly seeing that as a great loss, since obviously anyone stupid enough to shut the door in Robin Scherbatsky's face would be awful to work for. You're awesome. You, giving up your career to flip burgers or show your boobs for money?"

"Wasn't one of the options," she points out, he looks briefly dejected; rallies as she chuckles.

"Quite frankly, people should be calling and begging you to host their dog-playing-the-piano stories."

"Or, you know, actual news," Robin interjects, but he has this whole fake-offended thing going and it's making her smile.

He waves his hand dismissively. "Cats playing the piano. The point is…" There's a brief pause as he, presumably, invents a point. He picks at the grain of the table. "I think you're awesome." His voice is quieter; almost a little hard to hear over the chatter of MacLaren's. "Really awesome. The most incredi — awesome. Incredisome. So you have nothing to worry about, because, trust me, I don't say that about just anyone." There's less bluster in his voice; she almost thinks he's serious, and Robin also has a kind of weird flashback to earlier this year, crying over Simon, sitting where Barney's sitting right now. Barney looks her in the eye, and she hadn't even noticed he was slouching until his shoulders straighten.

She smiles. "Thank you," she says, and means it. He smiles back, but it's different, not his usual shit-eating smirk; it makes her think of Ted again, and she doesn't know why her brain keeps making these associations, all her exes, because it's super weird. It's nice to see Barney acting nice like this, pretending to be sweet because she asked, but it's also weird. That's why she's thinking about… she looks down at her glass, takes another gulp.

"Hey," he's saying, and then he scoffs; "it ain't a thing." He's smiling a little.

She lifts her glass again. "Do you think I could get the pep talk, too?"

He frowns a little. "What?"

"I mean, you've got to know some people in television in your mysterious career, right?" Robin asks.

He's looking at her. "Sure," he says. "Right. That was me lying, and now you want the pep talk." He's still looking at her, and she gets that weird feeling again. He frowns, drains his glass. "I don't know anyone in television."

"Oh," she says. "Too bad."

"Yeah," he says, suddenly restless.

"But seriously…" Robin clears her throat. "Thanks. You've been really sweet, I know this isn't really your thing."

"Hey," he says. He scoots over to exit the booth. "If there's two things I know how to do, it's giving awesome advice, and lying. And if there's three things, it's getting the number of that chick you mentioned earlier."

She smiles, chuckles a little, because the sudden cocky bluster is funny. But as Robin watches him go off to hit on the blonde, she feels a weird sense of…

Something.

Whatever, she thinks, pulling out her phone. She has some applications to follow up on.