XIX.

Barney woke up the next morning feeling an unusual amount of happiness. He wondered what to attribute this to.
The sun was shining. That was good, but no big deal.
He was in his own bed, not feeling hung over. That was good, although also not significant.

A girl was snuggled against him, head on his chest beneath the blankets. That was normal, although it hadn't happened ever since Robin had come back.

Wait a second – Robin! How would she feel when she knew he had slept with some random girl? And what kind of effect would this have on that kid? This was… this was bad…

Then he realized that he was extremely hung over and his head hurt like hell. That was also bad. It would make it harder to think of a decent way to get the girl out of his room before anyone else figured it out.

Hey, wait – Robin would also be angry that she had probably ended up sleeping somewhere else. Wasn't he supposed to be obediently spending nights on the couch while she got this bed?

"Mmmnghswwww," the girl clinging to him said. She yawned and stretched up to the pillow. He could see now that the girl was Robin.

"Fuck," Barney said.

She woke up. "Ahhh, what a wonderful—" She seemed to suddenly see him. "Oh, no," she said.

His head hurt even more. "Ohhh no," he said, putting his face into his hands. "Nonono…"

"Not again," she said. "Please not this again…"

"Great, now what? The last time we did this, I got hit by a bus, almost lost my bro, and actually caught feelings. What'll it be this time? My apartment burning down?"

"Ouch, I hope it's not that. It really sucked when mine did."
"Oh, yeah. Do you think I'd be able to save my suits if that happened?"
"Probably not many of them." There was a brief silence. "Wait a second…" Robin said. "You said something a couple seconds ago.

"Getting hit by a bus?"

"No, after that…"

"The bro-losing?"

"No, something else…"
"When I caught fe—" Barney suddenly realized what he was about to say and shut up. Robin turned to him, confused by his unexpected silence.

"Caught what?"

"Ah…. A fungal STD," he lied quickly.

Robin, however, was thinking. "No, that's not what you said…" It suddenly came to her. "Feelings! You said you'd caught feelings!"
"Oh, no," Barney muttered under his breath.

"Soooo," Robin asked, "who was this girl you 'caught' feelings for?"

"Uh…." He looked away.
Suddenly she seemed to put the pieces together. "Oh my god! You can't have – you didn't—"

"See, this is really bad. Now we don't just to have the awkward 'second-night-stand' talk; we have to have the 'yeah, I was kind of in love with you back in 2008' conversation and that will lead into the 'I still feel exactly the same way about you only even more awesomely' talk, which will usher in the subsequent 'we need to actually talk about certain things like what exactly our relationship is, what to tell our friends, and whether you're ever going to move out', and then I'll have to quote The Bro Code—"

He stopped for a moment to look at Robin. She was blinking repeatedly. After a moment, she said, "I didn't know you thought this much."

"Yeah, there are times when I use my brain – my awesome brain."
"…So what were you going to quote from The Bro Code?"
"Never mind, it's stupid."

"Come on…."
"No. I refuse, woman!"

Robin rolled her eyes, then suddenly let her jaw drop. "Wait a second, you said that you loved me in 2008 and still do. WHAT?"
"I most certainly did not," he countered.

"Did too."
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"….maybe."
Robin sighed. "This is… sudden." She looked at him. "Maybe we should have those talks you mentioned earlier."

"No, wait," Barney insisted.

She rolled her eyes. "I'll wait."

Several seconds passed before he said, "I, Barney Stinson, solemnly declare that I love Robin Charles Scherbatsky more than the earth, moon, sun, stars, Altrucell, suits, scotch, vodka, boobs, the United States, video games, Star Wars, money, and generally 83% of the objects in the known universe." He exhaled.

"What about the other 17%?" Robin asked.

"Oh, that's just all the other stuff it's impossible to love," he explained casually. "Homeless people, broccoli, Cana—"

She hit him. He hit her back. And then, for the first time that morning, they both laughed.

Of course, they did eventually have those talks. It turned out that they had time for three hours of conversation and half an hour to forty-five minutes of some other activity.

XX.

In the apartment which had once belonged to Ted, Lily, and Marshall, then Ted, then possessed Robin's towels for about three seconds, and had several collateral damages related to girl-fights, but finally became Lily and Marshall's, Stella and Marshall were playing cards against Ted and Lily. To everybody's surprise, the latter duo was winning.

"…I can't believe this," Ted said.

"This is the first time this has happened in over fifteen years of knowing him," Lily mused.

Marshall opened his mouth, then closed it.

"He's going to say Marshgammon," Stella whispered to Ted.

"…We should be playing Marshgammon," Marshall said very seriously.

"High five," Ted said to Stella.

Suddenly, there was the sound of somebody trying to kick down the door. Lily and Stella took their places in front of the couch and made sure the sealed letters were in place, while Ted got up to adjust the "INTERVENTION" banner over the fireplace. Marshall, meanwhile, rose to open the door.
"Where's the fire?" Barney cried, running inside. Robin was right next to him. "Hey…"

Ted and Marshall got into line with Stella and Lily and made sure they were looking appropriately solemn.

"It's about the whole cohabitation slash secretly having a kid slash ignoring us slash unresolved romantic attraction slash not getting here till noon and making us play cards thing," Ted said. He suddenly noticed something. "Why is your hand on Robin's shoulder, Barney?"
"It's not," they both responded. Barney stuffed his hands (including the formerly-shoulder-touching one) into his pockets.

"I think you just seriously abused the word 'slash,'" Robin said.

"An Intervention? Seriously?" Barney shook his head. "I really thought that you guys wouldn't sink anywhere near this low."

"Maybe we should go on to the sealed letters," Lily suggested.
"Nose game," Ted called. Stella was last to put her finger on her nose.

"Darn," she said.

"And order is restored to the world!" Ted cried. Lily and Marshall cheered.

"They are so much less awesome than us," Barney whispered to Robin.

Stella unsealed her letter. "Dear Barney and Robin," she read."You two have more issues than my front office – probably literally, I haven't restocked that much lately and certain best friends of my husband like to steal them. I think it would be the best for all of us if you worked things out between yourselves."
Ted turned to Lily. "Okay, now it's rock-paper-scissors." He lost. "Barney, you have to my shock matured marginally in the eight years I have known you. No, I'm not surprised you hardly grew up – I'm surprised you did at all. Insert corny way of saying that Barney will grow up by entering into a relationship with – hey, I didn't finish this."

Marshall sighed and decided to read his letter to spare Lily. "It started that time you had sex," he began to read. The couple at the door blanched.

"I swear we'll never do it again!" Robin cried. "It was just the product of way, way too much Saint Patrick's Day alcohol!"

"And you can't call Bro Code on me this time, Ted!" Barney shouted. "It doesn't count now that you have a wife!"

The shock among the other four persons in the room was even greater than it had been when Marshall lost. "You…" Stella said. But there was still silence.
"How…" Marshall continued.

"Why…" Lily almost actually said.

"Raise your hand if you weren't expecting that," Ted said.

Everyone, even Barney and Robin, raised their hands.

"Why is this more shocking than you two reproducing?" Marshall asked.

Lily shook her head. "I should have predicted this."

After an awkward silence, Marshall continued his letter. "Then I realized that to Barney, Robin is apparently a giant boob in a suit of money which lactates scotch."
"That is a pretty good description of you," Barney said absently.

"Well, apparently you two are living together and have a son. Now admit that you love each other so we can move on. And know that if that kid ever touches my daughter, I still have my fifth slap."

Robin rolled her eyes. "I really don't see why this had to be an intervention, honestly. Are we abusing pyrotechnics or British – er, annoying British accents or Seussian hats?"

"Or like I'm totally rushing into an engagement which will completely ruin my bro-hood?" Barney added.

Lily frowned. "Something sounds odd about that last one, like maybe you're telling the truth or something."

"Nah," Ted said. "Barney and Robin would never do that. Sex, yes; children, maybe; cohabitation, perhaps; but marriage, never."

"…Okay, intervention's made its point, let's go back to playing cards," Lily said.

And with that, the six of them eagerly started arguing about what game they would play.

Robin smiled to herself and wondered when they would figure it out.

XXI.

About a week after the intervention, Robin and Barney had brought Bobby over to Marshall and Lily's apartment, not comfortable leaving him at home alone. After some chatter with Lily and Marshall, the latter couple had "left something" in their bedroom and departed the room, leaving them alone. So while Barney and Robin sat on the couch, Bobby went up behind Alice.

"A hundred dollars says that when you turn around…"
"What?" the little girl said excitedly, turning and abandoning her coloring book.

"Um, I don't know. I never heard Daddy say the rest."

"Oh." She seemed a little disappointed. "So, you're Bobby, right?"
"Yeah!" He thought for a second. "Wait, I think that saying 'a hundred dollars' is supposed to get you to tell me your name and your number."
"My name is Alice," Alice said, "but I don't know what my number is."

"Oh." Bobby frowned. The girl decided to do something to cheer him up.

"I know!" She picked up a blue crayon, took the back of his hand, and wrote the number '3' on it. "There! That'll be my number!"
"Thanks!" Bobby said, smiling.

Robin looked upon this scene happily. "Those kids are just so cute…" Barney, however, was watching in horror. She turned to him, confused. "Wait, baby, why are you so worried?"
"Don't you remember what Marshall said? Quote: 'If that kid ever touches my daughter, I still have my fifth slap.'"

"Oh my god," Robin said.

"I mean, what if in the future he inherits my awesomeness and nails her at Ted's stepdaughter's wedding when she's still seventeen? What then, Robin?"

"Are you taking this a little too far?"

"No."

The couple stared, terrified. Alice looked at them and said to Bobby, "Your parents are weird."
"I know," he replied.