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When it happened, it was more sudden but less life-changing than Barney had thought it would be. He was at his brother's wedding, playing with his nephew and watching Ted dance with Robin, and he just knew, though at the same time, he was irritated at how Ted-like the whole thing was: romantic setting, magic dress, bolt from the blue. Barney hated that he fell in love the way Ted always thought he would, when Ted himself hadn't.
He also knew that falling in love with Robin wasn't going to change his life in any way. It wasn't like someone else was going to marry her, or even that he was going to marry her and settle down and have dozens of kids. He didn't even want kids—there would be far too many other kids around him who would need to be carefully retaught. His brother's kids would need to be told of the wonderful world of heterosexuality, unless of course they were gay, in which case they'd still need to be taught how to be single, which James had already forgotten. Marshall and Lily's kids would need to be kept from coupling with the first person they met at college (please), and Ted and _____'s kids, wow, where to begin? Besides, Bob Barker had enough grandchildren already.
So Barney just filed this new bit of information away in his brain and went on with his totally awesome life. Then, about four years later, he was out at The Strip House (strip steaks, not strippers, but Barney liked the pun and Robin liked the decor) having a steak with Robin to get out from under the Mosby wedding insanity, and she said, "I'm moving to Morocco."
The only surprise Barney allowed himself to show was one raised eyebrow. "Oh? When?"
"Two months. I have to serve out my contract here."
"So, a month after the wedding."
"Yeah." She took a bite of creamed spinach.
"I didn't know Americans cared about what happens in Casablanca," Barney said.
"They don't, but Brits do. It's a BBC job."
"Oh, the BBC, excuse me."
"C'mon, Barney."
"At least it's a real country and not Canada." Barney shook his head. "Have you told anyone yet?"
"Well, I told Lily when I got the offer, but I haven't told her I accepted it yet."
"Wow, I'm the first to know?"
"Yeah. I mean, I just decided today, so—"
"I'm never the first to know anything!" Barney said, beaming.
"That's not true. You were the first to know Ted and I broke up."
"Whatever. So can I have your coffee table?"
"What?"
"Like you can bring all your stuff with you to the Casbah."
"The Casbah is in Algeria."
"Whatever. So can I have your coffee table?"
"God, what am I going to do with my stuff? And my 401K, I need to move all that, and there's six months left on my lease so should I sublet my apartment or break my lease? And what about the shows on my TIVO? How will I find out how Lost ends?"
"Come on, that show is never going to end."
"True."
"I have an idea. Do you trust me?"
"Of course not."
"No, I mean, like, with money and stuff."
"Oh, that, of course I do. Wait, is that what you do for a living?"
"Please." He took a drink. "What if you just put all of that into my hands, and I took care of it for you? Just pack what you want to bring with you, and I'll worry about the rest."
"You mean, put it in storage? Because I can—"
"No, no. I've been thinking about getting a bigger place, and I have my eye on this sweet duplex in TriBeCa. You'll need a place to stay when you're in New York, right? So we can just set up your own part of the duplex with all your stuff, like a home away from home."
"Oh. You know, that sounds kind of nice, actually."
"I know what I'm doing."
"Surprisingly!"
"And ... I think we should get married."
"Okay—wait, what?!"
"Not like that."
"Like what, exactly?"
Barney counted off his reasons on his fingers. "I won't need a power of attorney to move your money around, you can grow equity in the apartment, you're moving to a country where being a married woman will make things easier even if I'm not around, I'll have a place to say in Morocco or wherever the hell else you wind up, a mysteriously absent yet confident husband will make you even more intriguing to men, a mysteriously absent yet independent wife will make me even more appealing to women, we'll get a tax benefit, and you'll finally be able to get a green card."
"I already have a green card. I've been working in the States for six years."
"You'll get a better last name for television."
"Robin Stinson? It rhymes. Besides, then you'd have to call me Stinson."
Barney clicked his tongue. "Nah, you're right, you'd better stay Scherbatsky."
They ate in contemplative silence, Barney finishing the potatoes while Robin took care of the spinach. After their plates were cleared they were drinking the last of the wine and then Robin said, "It's not like I'm going to marry anyone else."
"Probably not," Barney said, signaling for the check. "Me neither."
Later, over coffee and a brownie sundae at French Roast, Robin said, "You made a lot of sense."
"About what?"
"Getting married."
"I know." He licked fudge off his spoon.
Robin fidgeted, tapping her spoon on the table.
"Come on Scherbatsky, out with it."
She smiled. "Ask me again."
"Wanna get hitched?"
"Sure," she said, laughing. "Wow, I wonder what the others will say."
"What is this, Victorian England?" Ted asked. "Who has marriages of convenience?"
"At least you don't have to worry about trying to make long distance work," Marshall said, "with the whole 'open' thing."
"Marshall, no one uses air quotes anymore," Barney said.
"I'm kind of not surprised," _____ said, and everyone turned to stare at her. "What? You are?"
"So, are you going to have sex?" Lily asked.
Robin almost spit out her beer. She looked up at Barney, sitting in his usual spot across from her at the end of the booth, but his face was blank.
"Oh my god," Ted said. "You didn't even talk about it?" He nudged Barney with his elbow. "You didn't talk about it?"
Barney shrugged. "I'm up for it. What about you, Scherbatsky?"
She smiled. "Yeah. Let's do it."
Barney tried not to notice Ted mouthing "wow" or Lily and Marshall's matching knowing nods, but when _____ said, "Over-the-Ted high-five!" he had to comply.
And so they were wed, after Ted and _____ got back from their honeymoon, in a simple City Hall ceremony with the other two couples as witnesses. Barney refused to allow Robin to wear a suit because "we aren't lesbians" and Lily insisted that black was bad luck, so she bought a new green cocktail dress and a hat that made her look like Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. They took pictures to send to their families in the small appliances section of J&R Music World, Robin holding a stick blender like a bouquet. The wedding dinner was at The Strip House, and then they all trooped to MacLaren's for drinks, where Marshall put "Fooled Around and Fell In Love" on the jukebox and made Barney and Robin dance to it as their wedding song. At closing time Robin and Barney got into a cab and everyone threw peanuts at them as they drove away.
"I'm exhausted," Robin said, slumping down in the seat and holding Barney's hand.
"No one does it on their wedding night," Barney said, staring out the window. "Don't worry about it."
"You know what I was thinking?"
"Mmm?"
"Let's wait until Morocco. In fact, let's only have sex outside the US."
He turned back to her. "Does that include Canada?" he asked, grinning.
"It is another country," Robin said. "But we can still kiss here."
"Good, because we already have," Barney replied, and leaned in to do it again.
Two days later Barney went with Robin to Morocco, staying for a week to help her get settled in. The first half dozen times they had sex—and he'd been right, she did like it dirty—they played each other's bodies like violins, trying to one-up each other with their virtuosity. But after that first day they calmed down enough to just have normal sex—amazing, dirty, normal sex—and still be able to leave the apartment to get dinner. It was romantic, which meant it wasn't real, which Barney kind of liked.
Over the next fifteen years the BBC sent Robin from Morocco to Greece to Japan, they relaxed their "outside the US" rule to "outside New York City" during a weekend visiting Barney's brother, Barney sold the TriBeCa place for an upper west side triplex with a park view, a lot of children were born but not to them, Robin ran CNN's Moscow bureau, and Barney moved them to another new place, this time a townhouse on the western edge of SoHo with a secret room for storing his porn and her guns.
Barney went abroad to see Robin once or twice a year, but they talked nearly every day. When Robin visited New York they'd have enormous catered dinners for all their friends and Barney would joke that they were no different than any other middle-aged married couple because they slept in separate rooms. Though when she did visit New York, Barney never seemed to have time to sleep with anyone else, either. For their tenth anniversary they met up in Bucharest—this was just after Robin started working in Moscow—and nearly caused an international incident, but luckily Marshall had a buddy with extensive knowledge of European decency laws, and Barney had been traveling under his Canadian passport.
And then, one day in early 2028, Robin called and said she had a job offer to run a news division in New York. She was moving home.
Barney went out to Moscow to help Robin pack up, as he had with all her other moves. She settled pretty easily into her floor of the townhouse, and for the first two weeks she and Barney had breakfast most mornings because they were home at the same time. Robin got home pretty late many nights, but Barney must have been keeping his conquests out of their place, which Robin felt oddly happy about. Not that she had any right, really; why should the openness of their relationship end just because she was back in New York?
One Friday she had lunch with Lily and _____. "Barney seems very happy that you're back," _____ said.
"Oh?" Robin replied. "I've barely seen him. You know, just for breakfast."
"Wait, you didn't change that rule?" Lily asked. "That sex rule you had?"
"We haven't really talked about it," Robin said. "I don't know why anything has to change in his life."
Lily said, "Maybe because it's different to have an open relationship with a wife on another continent than it is with a wife in the next room?"
"Why?" Robin asked. "Same old Barney."
_____ and Lily exchanged glances.
"What?" Robin asked.
"Remember when I lived with him for a while when Marshall and I were split up?" Lily asked.
"Yeah, but that was a long—"
"Where's the porn?"
"In the secret adult room with my guns."
"Uh-huh," Lily said, nodding. "Food in the house? That you didn't buy?"
"Yeah, the fridge is pretty full, of breakfast stuff anyway, and late night snacks."
"Towels in the bathroom?"
"Well, we don't share a bathroom, but sure, there are towels, and a linen closet."
"Robin," _____ said, "he de-bachelored the townhouse for you."
"And by the way," Lily said, "when was the last time you had an affair?"
"Um," Robin said.
"Yeah, that would be Japan," Lily said. "Six years ago."
"It takes a lot of work to run a bureau, you know," Robin said.
"And when you were in Moscow you didn't come back to New York very often, either," _____ said. "We kept meeting up with you in Paris, or London ... "
" ... or you'd visit your parents," Lily said. "And Barney was always there with you."
"Not in New York," _____ added.
"So you were fucking," Lily said.
"So what if we were?" Robin said.
"Robin Scherbatsky," _____ said, "you are in love with your husband."
"Shit!" Robin said.
It took Robin a week to get the courage to say anything to Barney, and she'd had dinner with Ted and Marshall first, just to do a pathetic check. Anything those two advised her to do, probably far too girly.
She called Barney at work on Friday and said, "Hey, let's go get a steak tonight."
"Aren't you supposed to be watching your cholesterol?"
"No, that's you. Come on, one steak, our old place."
"Fine, but only because of the potatoes."
At the table they went into their usual routine, porterhouse for two, duck fat potatoes, black truffle spinach, and Cabernet, fighting over the rare bits in the center, and then Robin said, "I think we need to talk."
"Um, the whole point of the fake marriage, Scherbatsky, is that you never ever feel the need to say that to me."
"Marriage of convenience."
"Whatever."
"We can't keep going on the same way we have been now that we're not long distance."
Barney nodded, toying with a potato. "So you want a divorce?"
"No."
"Because the real estate—no?" Barney asked, looking up.
"No. I want to change the sex rule."
"To what?"
"I want to have sex in New York."
"Go ahead. I'm not stopping you."
"With you."
"Oh." Barney sliced off a piece of steak, chewed it for a bit. "Wouldn't that make us a regular married couple?"
"Yeah, about that. I think we should. I'm letting my hair go gray—"
"I really like that, by the way. You look like a cougar," Barney said, and growled.
Robin laughed. "Thanks! And we're going to be celebrating the 11th anniversary of your 39th birthday—"
"Can we not celebrate it?"
"Do you mean that? Because Ted wants to throw you a big party."
"Really?" Barney said, eyes wide. "A party for me?"
"Barney, Ted's your friend, of course he wants to throw you a party."
"All right. Wait, but what does that have to do with anything?"
"I took this job in New York and I'm going to be staying here. And we had a lot of adventures—"
"Yeah, I don't think Bucharest will let us back into the city."
"Well, Romania."
"Yeah."
"Still, there's no reason why we can't still have them."
"No, we can keep traveling."
"Yeah. And we can have them here, too."
"Of course."
"With each other."
"Oh. So you mean—"
"I want to have sex with you in New York City, in our house. And I don't want anyone else having sex with you."
Barney ran his fingers along the stem of his wine glass. "I haven't had sex with anyone else since Bucharest."
Robin put her hand on his arm. "Neither have I."
Barney looked up, sharply. "Then I guess we're married already," he said, and smiled.
"I think I owe you a hard core Battleship game," Robin whispered, running her hand up to his shoulder.
He signaled to the waiter. "Can we get the check, and can you wrap all of this up for us? Need to get the wife home."
Two months later, Ted and _____ and Marshall and Lily threw Barney a birthday party in the back room at The Strip House, packing it full of coworkers and old pals. James and Tom Stinson even came to town for the occasion.
"Did you give Ted my address book or something?" Barney asked, putting his arm around Robin.
"Maybe," she answered.
"And not a single five or zero anyplace. You have anything to do with that?"
Robin ran a hand through his hair, noting the gray he was no longer covering. "Definitely."
Barney nodded. "I could get used to this local wife thing."
"Good," Robin replied.
"Hey," he said, leaning in, "there is going to be a stripper, right?"
"No ... "
"Because I never got a bachelor party out of this marriage."
"Hey, you got Bucharest."
"Does that count? Because I was with you."
"And you haven't seen my present yet."
"Don't tell me."
"I know stripper poles are so 2005 ..."
Barney's eyes widened. "Where?" he squeaked.
"In the secret room, of course, where else?"
"God, Scherbatsky, you are ... okay, I know it's a present, but can I make a request?"
"Sure, but I was already going to wear the guns. I got a holster and everything. Unloaded, of course. Safety first!"
"Oh, man, it is on. This birthday is going to be legen—"
"Wait for it," she said, and kissed him.