FIC: Dealing With It (3/?)
9 Feb 2009 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
promethia_tenkTitle: Dealing With It, Part Three
Fandom: HIMYM, Barney/Robin
Length: ~1,600 words for this section, 5,300 total so far
Rating: PG-13/R-ish for pregnancy angst and sexuality
Spoilers: For all aired episodes. Set several years in the future. Slightly AU after "Not a Father's Day."
Summary: Robin gets pregnant and then unpregnant.
Disclaimer: If I owned HIMYM, the "Kokomo" bartending scene would have lasted the whole episode. Sadly, I do not.
AN: So, I owe everyone an apology for how *hideously* long it has been since I last updated this fic, especially since it's so jump-around-y. For anyone who still cares but forgets everything that's already happened, here's part one and part two. Either one or two parts left, depending, but I'm guessing two.
Where did you go? You know, after . . . ?
Robin’s words hung in the air. They stretched and spread in the silence that followed, becoming thin and brittle, shimmery and fragile and ready to break. They prickled Robin’s skin as she waited for a response.
“Vegas.”
The answer that finally came from the other room was leaden and flat. It fell through the tingling silence—shattered it—and landed heavily in the pit of Robin’s stomach. She nodded to herself (should have guessed that) and forced the breath she’d been holding out of her lungs. The guilt lapped at her throat with an acrid, chemical burn.
“Vegas . . . for about a week,” he admitted, “and then I went to see James and Tom.” Barney had re-appeared at the door. He leaned, half-hidden, against the frame.
“I got everyone’s messages. Well . . . I got their messages.” His words held an accusing edge, but his eyes had that wide, nervous look to them. His fingers trailed lightly up and down the jam without his apparent notice.
Robin looked down. What could she say to that? That she’d tried to call? She had tried to call—more times than she could count—and had stopped herself over and over. She’d picked up her phone just to put it down again. Dialed his number to listen to it ring: once, twice, three times . . . . She had never let it get to voicemail because she couldn’t have dealt with hearing his voice; she never would have called at all if she’d thought he’d actually pick up. She’d even lost her phone for a day—or so she’d told herself, told Lily—but after a night spent lying awake, staring at her stomach, she’d somehow known exactly where to find it. So she’d put on a face and played along. To Ted: I have no idea. To Lily: Voicemail every time . . . What are we going to do?! To Marshall: He just got up for some napkins . . . . To the clerk at Blockbuster: Oh, thank goodness! I’ve been looking all over the place.
She opened her mouth to give a lame apology and surprised herself with what came out instead: “Would it have made any difference?”
Barney’s lips parted slightly—she heard the soft intake of breath—and now it was his turn to look down. He patted a stretched palm against the doorframe, watching the slow movement, and his head tilted helplessly against the painted wood. “I . . . .” He twisted a single finger in the latch hole. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” echoed Robin, “I don’t know either.”
Barney moved on: “You didn’t tell them.” It wasn’t a question.
-------------
17 days earlier Barney had waved a dripping cheese fry under Robin’s nose, incredulously: “Are you really not going to eat any of these?”
Robin couldn’t face food just then. She couldn’t tell it if was the baby nausea, maybe upset by all the running and jostling, or the fact that she needed to tell him here, now, while they were still in public and had the buzz of conversation surrounding them. Like a buffer. Like a blanket. She’d invited him out for this very reason, but now Barney, flush with their victory and wanting to share his high spirits, was fumbling, a bit hurt and confused, over Robin’s return to brooding anxiety. Robin had never met a cheese fry she didn’t like, but as the gloopy load made another, taunting pass (and left a few orange blobs behind on the tabletop), Robin blanched and shook her head.
“Alright, what’s with you tonight . . . hmmmmm?” Barney raised his eyebrows and lowered his chin, gazing over the rims of non-existent glasses. “I have never seen you turn down anything loaded with processed cheese glop. And I didn’t want to badger you,” he continued, “but you’ve been weird all week. It’s like you’re half withdrawn and half elf on helium. Tonight you barely kept your end up in there! And us up against the Cooper twins, who—need I remind you?—you have had a personal vendetta against ever since the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of ‘09! It’s all starting to worry me, Robin. What up?”
Robin licked her lips and then pressed them together, avoiding eye contact.
“Spill, Scherbatsky.”
She flinched, blinked, and Barney instantly changed tactics. “Please?” His voice went very soft.
Robin stared carefully at the cheese blobs on the surface in front of her. She drew a shaky finger through one of them and streaked orange across the flecked green laminate. Do it already, she growled to herself—
“Barney, I’m pregnant.”
She was shocked at how it sounded, spoken aloud like that. How controlled her voice was. How measured. Quiet. It almost sounded reasonable, like that. She glanced up, seemingly in slow motion, unsure of what to expect.
Barney’s face had . . . fallen open. She might have tumbled right in.
He looked young—impossibly young—with the familiar crinkles around his eyes smoothed out and his mouth stretched lightly, in surprise. Was he really almost 40? She forgot that sometimes. And he looked—
Christ, she was terrified.
Why did he do that? She couldn’t quite breathe and she needed to . . . something but he was all there with his eyes and maybe, maybe . . . and—
Terrified.
And maybe he was too (he looked . . . what?) but maybe, maybe too it was like something had finally slid into place, like something that had been waiting in the soft dark.
His face was open, and she might have fallen in.
But he had said something. She shook herself: “What?”
“Just . . . uh, wow.” His mouth had pulled together, but his eyes still held that look—impossible and soft (and something else—what was it?).
She couldn’t look at him any more. Robin brought her gaze back to the table—to her finger and the cheese glop and the green surface. She swirled the colors like finger paint and let the words tumble from her mouth:
“I’ve been trying to tell you, but I really couldn’t figure out how; it just never seemed like the right time, which is silly—I know—because it’s not like this changes anything, right? And it was all just an accident, I mean, usually I’m really careful and everything, but I guess I just got carried away here and oops! but I’m sure you’ve been through this before, it’s like, how can you not have? And of course I’ll go get an abortion—this, this is why we have abortions anyway—it’s just the responsible thing to do here, right? I mean, obviously we can’t have kids; that’s totally not who we are, and it’s like, I’m not Ted and you’re not Ted either, so—but this, this is who we are—“
Robin stopped to gesture around at the familiar surroundings of the snack bar. Somewhere in the middle of her speech her breath had gone very ragged, and rather than continue, she looked up at Barney for confirmation.
His eyes had turned flat, and his bottom lip stuck out ever so slightly. The background noise rushed back into Robin’s consciousness: sounds of middle schoolers running, laughing, screaming. The synthetic zap of laser shots.
Barney nodded: “Right.”
And Robin tried to smile at him.
“How long?” he asked.
“Maybe a month along—the doctor says.”
“How . . . how long have you known?”
Robin hesitated, swirled the cheese goo: “Four, five days.”
Barney followed her finger with his eyes. He seemed to be deciding something.
“Let me get you some napkins for that . . . .”
Robin went home alone that night.
-------------
The silence had returned—the tingle.
Robin shivered and realized it was her turn to speak: “No, I didn’t tell them.” She remembered Lily’s sobbing panic on the steps outside MacLaren’s, the wide-eyed incomprehension as she tried to hold Robin while fumbling through her purse and yelling for help. “I should have told them”—this barely audible.
“You should have,” Barney agreed, but without any recrimination. “You really scared everybody.” Still quiet, and now watchful, he stepped away from the door to reach into his pocket. Then drawing out his phone, he tapped the screen and held it out for Robin to listen. Lily’s voice came through the speaker, shaky and rough:
“Barney, you had better be listening to all these messages because you have to come home now.” There was a raggedy breath. “I—don’t quite know what’s happening, but Robin’s in the hospital. They’re saying she’s—that she was pregnant. Barney, she lost the baby, and I don’t—oh, I think she was . . . or she was thinking. . . there was a hat, but I . . .” Scuffles. Muffled noises and voices. “I have to go. So help me, Barney, if you are not here in two hours I will fucking kill you.”
The message cut off abruptly, and Robin winced. “So, then you came back?” she asked, because she didn’t have anything else to say. It sounded stupid even as she said it.
“Yeah.” Barney avoided her eyes and slid the phone back in his pocket.
“Did you tell James?”
“I did.” Barney turned half away and pointed out the door. “I need to call him. Tell him you’re alright.”
She nodded and curled back up around her hot water bottle. As she listened, however Barney’s retreating footsteps stopped. He called from the hallway:
“There was a hat?”
“Yeah.” Robin nearly smiled as she squeezed her eyes shut. “A hat. It was purple.” She chuckled very softly. “It had nubs.”
“Nubs.”
More footsteps. Slow. And then Robin felt the bed shift as he settled his weight on the corner.
Fandom: HIMYM, Barney/Robin
Length: ~1,600 words for this section, 5,300 total so far
Rating: PG-13/R-ish for pregnancy angst and sexuality
Spoilers: For all aired episodes. Set several years in the future. Slightly AU after "Not a Father's Day."
Summary: Robin gets pregnant and then unpregnant.
Disclaimer: If I owned HIMYM, the "Kokomo" bartending scene would have lasted the whole episode. Sadly, I do not.
AN: So, I owe everyone an apology for how *hideously* long it has been since I last updated this fic, especially since it's so jump-around-y. For anyone who still cares but forgets everything that's already happened, here's part one and part two. Either one or two parts left, depending, but I'm guessing two.
Where did you go? You know, after . . . ?
Robin’s words hung in the air. They stretched and spread in the silence that followed, becoming thin and brittle, shimmery and fragile and ready to break. They prickled Robin’s skin as she waited for a response.
“Vegas.”
The answer that finally came from the other room was leaden and flat. It fell through the tingling silence—shattered it—and landed heavily in the pit of Robin’s stomach. She nodded to herself (should have guessed that) and forced the breath she’d been holding out of her lungs. The guilt lapped at her throat with an acrid, chemical burn.
“Vegas . . . for about a week,” he admitted, “and then I went to see James and Tom.” Barney had re-appeared at the door. He leaned, half-hidden, against the frame.
“I got everyone’s messages. Well . . . I got their messages.” His words held an accusing edge, but his eyes had that wide, nervous look to them. His fingers trailed lightly up and down the jam without his apparent notice.
Robin looked down. What could she say to that? That she’d tried to call? She had tried to call—more times than she could count—and had stopped herself over and over. She’d picked up her phone just to put it down again. Dialed his number to listen to it ring: once, twice, three times . . . . She had never let it get to voicemail because she couldn’t have dealt with hearing his voice; she never would have called at all if she’d thought he’d actually pick up. She’d even lost her phone for a day—or so she’d told herself, told Lily—but after a night spent lying awake, staring at her stomach, she’d somehow known exactly where to find it. So she’d put on a face and played along. To Ted: I have no idea. To Lily: Voicemail every time . . . What are we going to do?! To Marshall: He just got up for some napkins . . . . To the clerk at Blockbuster: Oh, thank goodness! I’ve been looking all over the place.
She opened her mouth to give a lame apology and surprised herself with what came out instead: “Would it have made any difference?”
Barney’s lips parted slightly—she heard the soft intake of breath—and now it was his turn to look down. He patted a stretched palm against the doorframe, watching the slow movement, and his head tilted helplessly against the painted wood. “I . . . .” He twisted a single finger in the latch hole. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” echoed Robin, “I don’t know either.”
Barney moved on: “You didn’t tell them.” It wasn’t a question.
-------------
17 days earlier Barney had waved a dripping cheese fry under Robin’s nose, incredulously: “Are you really not going to eat any of these?”
Robin couldn’t face food just then. She couldn’t tell it if was the baby nausea, maybe upset by all the running and jostling, or the fact that she needed to tell him here, now, while they were still in public and had the buzz of conversation surrounding them. Like a buffer. Like a blanket. She’d invited him out for this very reason, but now Barney, flush with their victory and wanting to share his high spirits, was fumbling, a bit hurt and confused, over Robin’s return to brooding anxiety. Robin had never met a cheese fry she didn’t like, but as the gloopy load made another, taunting pass (and left a few orange blobs behind on the tabletop), Robin blanched and shook her head.
“Alright, what’s with you tonight . . . hmmmmm?” Barney raised his eyebrows and lowered his chin, gazing over the rims of non-existent glasses. “I have never seen you turn down anything loaded with processed cheese glop. And I didn’t want to badger you,” he continued, “but you’ve been weird all week. It’s like you’re half withdrawn and half elf on helium. Tonight you barely kept your end up in there! And us up against the Cooper twins, who—need I remind you?—you have had a personal vendetta against ever since the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of ‘09! It’s all starting to worry me, Robin. What up?”
Robin licked her lips and then pressed them together, avoiding eye contact.
“Spill, Scherbatsky.”
She flinched, blinked, and Barney instantly changed tactics. “Please?” His voice went very soft.
Robin stared carefully at the cheese blobs on the surface in front of her. She drew a shaky finger through one of them and streaked orange across the flecked green laminate. Do it already, she growled to herself—
“Barney, I’m pregnant.”
She was shocked at how it sounded, spoken aloud like that. How controlled her voice was. How measured. Quiet. It almost sounded reasonable, like that. She glanced up, seemingly in slow motion, unsure of what to expect.
Barney’s face had . . . fallen open. She might have tumbled right in.
He looked young—impossibly young—with the familiar crinkles around his eyes smoothed out and his mouth stretched lightly, in surprise. Was he really almost 40? She forgot that sometimes. And he looked—
Christ, she was terrified.
Why did he do that? She couldn’t quite breathe and she needed to . . . something but he was all there with his eyes and maybe, maybe . . . and—
Terrified.
And maybe he was too (he looked . . . what?) but maybe, maybe too it was like something had finally slid into place, like something that had been waiting in the soft dark.
His face was open, and she might have fallen in.
But he had said something. She shook herself: “What?”
“Just . . . uh, wow.” His mouth had pulled together, but his eyes still held that look—impossible and soft (and something else—what was it?).
She couldn’t look at him any more. Robin brought her gaze back to the table—to her finger and the cheese glop and the green surface. She swirled the colors like finger paint and let the words tumble from her mouth:
“I’ve been trying to tell you, but I really couldn’t figure out how; it just never seemed like the right time, which is silly—I know—because it’s not like this changes anything, right? And it was all just an accident, I mean, usually I’m really careful and everything, but I guess I just got carried away here and oops! but I’m sure you’ve been through this before, it’s like, how can you not have? And of course I’ll go get an abortion—this, this is why we have abortions anyway—it’s just the responsible thing to do here, right? I mean, obviously we can’t have kids; that’s totally not who we are, and it’s like, I’m not Ted and you’re not Ted either, so—but this, this is who we are—“
Robin stopped to gesture around at the familiar surroundings of the snack bar. Somewhere in the middle of her speech her breath had gone very ragged, and rather than continue, she looked up at Barney for confirmation.
His eyes had turned flat, and his bottom lip stuck out ever so slightly. The background noise rushed back into Robin’s consciousness: sounds of middle schoolers running, laughing, screaming. The synthetic zap of laser shots.
Barney nodded: “Right.”
And Robin tried to smile at him.
“How long?” he asked.
“Maybe a month along—the doctor says.”
“How . . . how long have you known?”
Robin hesitated, swirled the cheese goo: “Four, five days.”
Barney followed her finger with his eyes. He seemed to be deciding something.
“Let me get you some napkins for that . . . .”
Robin went home alone that night.
-------------
The silence had returned—the tingle.
Robin shivered and realized it was her turn to speak: “No, I didn’t tell them.” She remembered Lily’s sobbing panic on the steps outside MacLaren’s, the wide-eyed incomprehension as she tried to hold Robin while fumbling through her purse and yelling for help. “I should have told them”—this barely audible.
“You should have,” Barney agreed, but without any recrimination. “You really scared everybody.” Still quiet, and now watchful, he stepped away from the door to reach into his pocket. Then drawing out his phone, he tapped the screen and held it out for Robin to listen. Lily’s voice came through the speaker, shaky and rough:
“Barney, you had better be listening to all these messages because you have to come home now.” There was a raggedy breath. “I—don’t quite know what’s happening, but Robin’s in the hospital. They’re saying she’s—that she was pregnant. Barney, she lost the baby, and I don’t—oh, I think she was . . . or she was thinking. . . there was a hat, but I . . .” Scuffles. Muffled noises and voices. “I have to go. So help me, Barney, if you are not here in two hours I will fucking kill you.”
The message cut off abruptly, and Robin winced. “So, then you came back?” she asked, because she didn’t have anything else to say. It sounded stupid even as she said it.
“Yeah.” Barney avoided her eyes and slid the phone back in his pocket.
“Did you tell James?”
“I did.” Barney turned half away and pointed out the door. “I need to call him. Tell him you’re alright.”
She nodded and curled back up around her hot water bottle. As she listened, however Barney’s retreating footsteps stopped. He called from the hallway:
“There was a hat?”
“Yeah.” Robin nearly smiled as she squeezed her eyes shut. “A hat. It was purple.” She chuckled very softly. “It had nubs.”
“Nubs.”
More footsteps. Slow. And then Robin felt the bed shift as he settled his weight on the corner.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 04:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 05:02 am (UTC)>"And everything's getting answered, and I like that. :)"
Give 'em answers when they're not expecting them--learned that one from Battlestar Galactica ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 05:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 03:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 06:02 am (UTC)Poor Robin
(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 11:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 06:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 11:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 07:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 11:14 am (UTC)>"Please keeping writing."
Will do. Thanks for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 11 Feb 2009 12:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 11 Feb 2009 12:34 am (UTC)Ha! I didn't even catch that--it was very late (actually, early) when I was reading it.
(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 08:20 am (UTC)And congratulations. With that, you broke my bloody HEART!
Awesome story.
(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 11:20 am (UTC)Mission accomplished . . . *ahem* I mean, glad you liked it :-)
That was my own personal tribute to the emotiveness of NPH--how do you capture that face in words? (Answer: you don't. You write around it and use lots of ellipses. You count on the reader to fill it in from memory.) But even more important to me was showing that Robin is not immune to *the face*. That's right, Robin, look away!
(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 10:17 pm (UTC)Christ, yes.... because he loves loves kids, but they're in the same breath, NOT for him.
it's a dichotomy!
(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 09:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 11:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 03:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14 Feb 2009 09:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14 Feb 2009 05:36 pm (UTC)>"be it crackfic or babyfic, and I'm never usually drawn to those themes at all"
Well, that makes two of us. Actually, who am I kidding? I love me some crackfic, and the weirder the better. But I'm still making apologies to myself and others about the babyfic. I can't believe the most important thing I've written is babyfic. *burries head*
(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 02:00 pm (UTC)This story is lovely, and I hope you update again sooner rather than later! =)
(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 03:45 pm (UTC)>"I was afraid she hadn't said anything to him."
Ach, that never even occurred to me! Wow, that would be cold.
>"This story is lovely, and I hope you update again sooner rather than later! =)"
Thank you so much. So do I =)
(no subject)
Date: 10 Feb 2009 10:16 pm (UTC)I totally pictured this, by the way, about a week ago.
I was like, what would happen if Robin got knocked up? It wouldn't be sappy happy baby fic. It would be... awful.
A part of her and a part of barney would want to keep it.
A part of her and a part of barney would NOT want to keep it.
If she got an abortion... they would both regret it.
If she DIDN'T get an abortion, they would both regret it.
you're handling this story REALLY well... I'm really REALLY intrigued.
(no subject)
Date: 11 Feb 2009 12:21 am (UTC)Why, thank you!
>"I totally pictured this, by the way, about a week ago. I was like, what would happen if Robin got knocked up? It wouldn't be sappy happy baby fic. It would be... awful."
Well, exactly! I was really shocked when I started posting this and people were like "OMG, what's going to happen!?!" And I'm like "wait, this is suspenseful in any way?" Well, ok, yes, I do get it, and I love that it sucked people in, but in the end: Barney + Robin + Baby = angst.
And what I just wrote sounds disingenuous, which I don't want to do--I really do care about this fic. I'm glad your internal sense of these characters is confirming my sense of the characters.
>" you're handling this story REALLY well... I'm really REALLY intrigued."
Again, thank you--really.
(no subject)
Date: 11 Feb 2009 12:31 am (UTC)precisely.
=)
(no subject)
Date: 25 Feb 2009 05:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 25 Feb 2009 10:40 am (UTC)>It's like, if HIMYM was a hour-long drama, this is exactly something that would happen on the show.
That's actually exactly how I think of this story. Or, as if our sitcom is a kind of cartoon-y version of an underlying reality (with cartoon-y characters because they're getting narrated to us), and this is the reality under it.
I'll try to get the next part out for you soon.
(no subject)
Date: 1 Mar 2009 12:14 am (UTC)New chapter soon I hope!
(no subject)
Date: 1 Mar 2009 05:37 am (UTC)>New chapter soon I hope!
*crosses fingers* I'm taking a brief fluff break to recoup my energies. Hopefully soon. But first I promised a friend I would kill Barney's mom ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 30 May 2009 11:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 31 May 2009 02:34 pm (UTC)>roland44 suggested I read this and she is a genius
Ah, roland is a dear friend, my #1 fic pimp, and made of awesome :-)
>how did i go so long without knowing this story and promethia-tenk existed in the wonderful world of LJ??!
I've been lying low because of the aforementioned real life suckitude. Pretty much posting nothing and only reading/commenting when I get the chance. I just saw, however, that you are the writer of The Trouble with Barney, which I loved and which I made a point of reading the whole thing! (I don't know if I commented on any of it, though. Sorry. The whole premise behind that was freaking brilliant, however, and so them. And I bow down before your dialogue skills.) Would you mind if I friended you?
(no subject)
Date: 31 May 2009 03:33 pm (UTC)Glad you liked Trouble with Barney and friend away! I'd be thrilled!
(no subject)
Date: 31 May 2009 03:39 pm (UTC)