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English
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Published:
2026-07-14
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368
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1/1
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1
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22

Sometimes Things Change (And That's Okay)

Summary:

Waking up in bed with one of his best friends' exes was not on Barney's bucket list. What's almost worse is that they didn't even sleep together!

*****

Rewrite of the end of s2e5, World's Greatest Couple

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Barney yawned, slowly regaining consciousness. He felt an arm around him and turned. He screamed when he discovered whose it was. 

“Ahh!” Lily screamed back at him as she woke up.“Why are we in the same bed together?” 

“Isn’t it obvious Lily? It can only mean one thing: we had sex!” Barney said, horrified. He had nothing against Lily, of course, but he cared about her (and Marshall, and the Bro Code, of course) too much to have sex with her. 

“No, no,” Lily said, laughing nervously. “No, there’s no way that happened. Look, I’m still fully dressed and you still have pants on,” she said quickly.

Barney gasped. Lily was right. “I slept in the same bed as a woman and didn’t have sex with her?!” This was almost worse than having sex with her.

Lily looked at him, exasperated. “Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Yes! I’m Barney Stinson! You’re… you’re changing me!” Barney exclaimed, terrified. He back away from her. “First we redecorated my place. Then, we stayed in on a Friday night to watch Letterman out of all shows, and now we slept together and didn’t have sex. You- you have to go!"

“But did you really hate all those things? Do you really want to stop?”

“I-” Barney knew what he should say: yes. He should kick her out. He wouldn’t just change because he lived with a girl for a couple weeks.

As if she’d read his thoughts, Lily said “Barney, you're still the same Barney that we all know and love. You’re still out having sex with random women and casually flexing your wealth and being dramatic and you might not have gone to the bar today, but I’m sure you’ll go tomorrow. It’s okay to change a little sometimes.” 

“I-" Barney thought about it more. About living with Lily, really thought about it. "Okay, maybe I didn’t hate it completely. It’s almost been... kinda nice. Sometimes I get a bit lonely in this big apartment, all alone. I guess you can stay,” he said, looking away from her and putting on his shirt. “But we’re not sleeping in the same bed again!”

Lily laughed. “No complaints from me.”

Notes:

Halfway through watching season 4, I felt the inspiration to write a bunch of HIMYM fics. I have I think at least 5 in my drafts right now? A couple oneshots and two or three multichapter fics. Not to mention my doc of ideas. So stay tuned for more!

I ADORE Lily and Barney's friendship. I feel like World's Greatest Couple was such a missed opportunity because they would have been AWESOME roommates. Also, the fact that she's the first one he tells about his feelings for Robin, even knowing her reputation for keeping secrets? 🥹 Perfection. Just perfection.

I have a sequel fic to this fic already written, but I feel weird posting fics back to back after having basically never posted anything before, so I'll post that in like a couple days or a week ig.

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