!VERY IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE!

SERIOUSLY, READ THIS!

This story is a collaboration between myself and Snowbound Mermaid. Kinda. The rules are as follows:

1. One of us will write a chapter.

2. The other will write the next chapter.

3. Then we continue alternating.

4. Neither of us will share with the other what we are writing until the chapter is posted, so I have no idea what Snowbound will write in response to this chapter and she doesn't know what I've written in here.

4.5. Updates will happen… when they happen. IDK. It's not exactly a high pressure situation.

The whole goal is to improvise and pass the baton back and forth. So chapters might be long, or short, or funny, or cliffhanger-y, or who knows. We agreed on a very basic story idea and that is literally all the planning we did and will do.

There also won't be much editing, quality control, whatever. The whole point of this story is to have fun and be a little ridiculous. It's a game in fanfic form.

Please enjoy!

(Or, the official Skype origin story version:

moeten: Let's do a dumb no editing round robin story.

moeten: It can be a round robin story about a round robin)

MAY, 2020

Kids, when you were young, something amazing happened.

I don't mean that in the commonly referenced definition — 'something startlingly impressive.' I mean that in the strictest definition, from the old English āmasian, 'amaze,' as in "an event that astonishes and causes great surprise."

And while I'm sure you guys agree that it did turn out to be a wonderful thing in the end, at the time?

Something amazing happened.

Ted sat in the shade of the back porch, keeping half an eye on Penny and Luke as they played in the grass and the rest of his attention on his crossword puzzle. Five letters, Dame's introduction…

He tapped his pen (other may argue, but only a man with true confidence dared use ink) against the newsprint. Five letters… "Sweetie, don't feed your brother dirt," Ted called out to Penny, who dropped her dirt clod and ran giggling towards the swings. Luke smashed his Poe Dameron action figure into the dirt, shrieking happily.

Ted smiled. Suddenly, the answer dawned on him: "Of course! Notre Dame!" He announced loudly, wishing Tracy was around to witness his puzzle solving prowess.

"Ted? Hey, TED!"

Rather than his beautiful wife's dulcet tones, Ted frowns slightly, recognizing the voice as…

"Dude, where the hell are you? Oh, hi, Ted!" Barney comes around the side of the house, looking nonchalant with his hands in the pockets of his suit and raising many questions in Ted's mental dialogue. Such as: What is Barney doing in White Plains? and he looks upset.

The latter was hard to tell if you didn't know Barney: his tie was slightly unknotted, his top buttons undone, his shirt less-than-perfectly tucked. On anyone else it'd look casual and relaxed, kind of an early summer look. Worse yet, he had an (expensive looking) overnight bag slung on his shoulder. Ted put down his pen. "Barney? What the hell? Is everything okay?" He frowned. "Did something happen?"

Barney drops his bag on the porch and sits down in the deck chair beside Ted. "Huh? Don't be stupid, Ted." He doesn't so much as glance at him, so Ted assumes he's right.

Ted sighs. "Dude, if you and Robin had a fight… you can crash here if you want to, but don't you think you should try to talk it out with her instead of hunkering down here?" He loves them both, but this wouldn't be the first, or second time Barney had tried to hide at his place or with Marshall and Lily when Robin was on the warpath.

"Really?" Barney asks, and Ted's about to be all of course, communication is the bedrock of relationships, but Barney keeps going, all loud and cheerful. "Awesome! I knew you'd let me stay with you! The movers should be here tomorrow, I can have the guest room, right? Oh, and I'll need your study for my suits. And have you thought about maybe converting the attic into a bar, because —"

"Holy crap!" Ted exclaims, sitting upright so fast he almost sends the table, his crossword, and his beer flying. "What happened? Did Robin — are you and Robin —" he can't even bring himself to say it. His whole body goes cold and kind of tingly. Barney is moving in? Are they… no, they can't be… even if they fight, just last week Barney sent out a newsletter updating friends and family on their latest sexual escapade (Rockefeller Center — "I know! It's weird we hadn't done it there already, right?") — Ted lunges for and grabs Barney's arm across the table. Barney tries in vain to escape. "I am here for you, buddy. You can stay here as long as you need. I love you both. We're going to get through this. Have you considered a marriage counsellor? Even a trial separation if things are really —"

"DUDE!" Barney yells, finally freeing his arm. "Me and Robin are fine! We're not getting a divorce! Jeez, what are you, on your period?" He fixes his jacket sleeve in a huff.

Ted's heart is still racing. He swallows. "So —"

"Me and Robin are totally cool. I just need to move in and live here for a while." Barney looks out at Penny on the swings, then squints and looks upward as he does the mental math. "Like… seven months. Seven and a half months. How many weeks is that? Thirty?"

"Something like that," Ted says, still staring wide eyed at his friend. He feels a little relieved, but also wary, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "What's going on? Is Robin leaving the country on a long assignment again?"

"Nah, she still has a year left in her contract," Barney says. "Do you have another beer?" He looks around.

"Dude," says Ted, who is starting to get the feeling that Barney is avoiding the subject.

Barney clears his throat. "I just, you know, wanna stay here until Robin stops being weird and hormonal and scary. Her gyno — gross, right? — says that'll be like, seven months, until the baby pops out —"

"WHAT?" Ted yells, loud enough that his children stop playing and just stare at the grownups in alarm.

"The baby. Oh, right, I should I have lead with that." Barney snaps his fingers. "Robin's pregnant. We're going to have it. I told her she should have my doppleganger, Doctor less-cool-than-me as a gyno, how funny would that be, but she said —"

"ROBIN IS PREGNANT?" Something about this whole thing was suddenly requiring all the boldface capslock.

"Yeah, Ted, keep up," Barney says with such exasperation that it makes Ted want to slap him. "Robin. Big. Huge. Scary. Baby come out. Seven months. Seriously, dude, what part of this aren't you getting?"