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Lily lets Robin and Ted take the rest of the cherry and pumpkin pies home, smuggling them out of the apartment under Robin’s coat while Marshall’s occupied with the dishes. Outside, Ted wraps a friendly arm around Robin’s shoulders and she leans into him out of habit. Not for warmth, because please, she’s Canadian, but it feels nice, familiar.

And also it helps hide the pies from view, in case Marshall happens to look down from the third floor. He’s not going to be happy about those going missing.

“I can’t believe we both passed up the chance to slap Barney,” Ted says once they’re in the cab, and Robin laughs, leaning her head on his shoulder. The ends of his scarf tickle her nose. She feels warm and happy and American Thanksgiving-y, and she’s really looking forward to pulling on her PJs and watching A Muppet Christmas Carol on the couch with Ted.

“Want me to make some hot chocolate and dig out the DVD while you change into pajamas?” Ted says, letting her through the door first.

It’s this one little sentence that looses the floodgates.

Feelings are suddenly erupting out of her in a hot, molten spurt of crazy and all of a sudden, Robin’s hurling the entire cherry pie at his head. Ted ducks just in time to watch it explode all over the door, staring at her with eyes the size of saucers. “Um, so that’s a no?”

“How could you say that you’re still in love with me?” she yells, in this voice that doesn’t even sound like her own. “How could you be that mean?”

“Robin,” Ted says, sounding flabbergasted, and even she doesn’t understand, not really. She just knows that it had hurt to hear Ted - Ted of all people - say those words without meaning them.

“I should have been happy with Barney,” she yells, her chest hitching, and oh God, she is not going to cry, Robin Charles Scherbatsky is not a crier. So instead, she throws the pumpkin pie this time, which splatters in exactly the same place. She’s always prided herself on her excellent aim. “If I was ever going to be happy with anybody, it should have been Barney! And then I keep coming home to you every night, making your damn hot chocolate and knowing what DVDs I want to watch - it should have been Barney!”

And what sucks is that she knows exactly why she wasn’t, she’s always known.

Barney was perfect for her, but Barney wasn’t Ted. Ted who hasn’t been her boyfriend for two years but still remembers that she likes butterscotch when she’s on her period, Ted whose dealbreaker was that they couldn’t really live together, except now, they’ve been doing it for almost a year. Ted who pronounces words in the douchiest way possible, Ted who’s the only guy she’s ever said ‘I love you’ to, Ted who she almost watched marry another woman. Ted who stepped aside and never said a word about Robin and Barney because if his friends were happy, he’d be happy for them.

Ted Ted Ted, always there in the background with his re-returning and his always looking out for her and his knowing her so well and his Tedness.

God, could he be any more obnoxious?

They’ve gone over this. They’ve been down that road. They don’t work. Robin is single and awesome and Ted, one day, is going to be married and awesome, and it won’t be to her, and she shouldn’t be freaking out this badly over Ted saying he’s still in love with her to win a stupid slap.

But wouldn’t that just be so like him if he was, though, loving her and watching her date Barney and never saying a word because he’s always actually, genuinely cared that she be happy -

Ted rests his hands on her shoulders, holding her steady, and that’s when she realizes she’s shaking, how badly her eyes sting. “Hey. Hey, Robin,” he says, softly. It’s a really weird time to think god, he really is going to be such a great dad one day, but she thinks it. “I’m sorry. Really.”

“What are you sorry for?” she snaps.

Ted pauses for a moment, then speaks carefully. “I’m sorry that I upset you,” he settles on, picking his words very deliberately. “That was a pretty crappy position to put you in.”

“So you’re not sorry for saying you love me,” she says icily, reading between the lines. She speaks Mosby by now. “So what, you are still in love with me? Because if so, that was so super douchey - ”

“I mean - you’re Robin,” Ted says, sounding helpless. “I’m always going to - oh God, please don’t shoot me.”

Maybe there is. Of course there is, that stuff doesn’t just go away, she’d told him, before they all thought he was marrying Stella. The words it was all right for her to think but never, never all right for her to say.

It’s so unfair. Isn’t it ever going away?

Maybe that’s why she kisses him.

Maybe that’s why he kisses her back, hands fluttering at her shoulders for a moment, like he can’t make up his mind, until she licks his lower lip and then his hands are tangling in her hair.

And maybe that’s why they spend yet another Thanksgiving having really desperate, crazy sex on the couch. Ted kisses all over her face, she clutches at his back, they find their rhythm so, so easily. It’s been less than a year since the last time she and Ted slept together, and she never forgets this, any of it. The way Ted looks at her like she’s the best thing he’s ever seen.

It always killed her to think of him looking at Stella like that.

The next morning, she wakes up with her face smushed against the red cushion and Ted’s arm draped loosely around her hip. There’s a fleck of dried pumpkin filling clinging to his cheek.

She feels happy and sleepy and safe, like it’s 2006 all over again. Too young to want to get married and too young to realize she was trading in something she was sure about for a wild hope.

She feels happy, and sleepy, and safe, like it’s 2006, and that’s why she slips out of his arms and into her own bedroom before he wakes up.

When she comes out later that afternoon, Ted’s cleaned all the pie off the door. He’s sitting at the table, working on his lesson plans, and for a few seconds, they just stand there awkwardly, staring at each other.

“Do you want some lunch?” he finally asks, sounding like it’s taking a lot of effort to keep his voice normal.

“Ted…” she says.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” he tells her. “It’s fine, Robin. Nobody needs to know.”

He doesn’t sound pissed. He sounds like - well, like this is about what he expected, which is completely fair. He knows what she’s like. He knows not to expect anything different, and she’s grateful.

“Is it really fine?” she asks. She can’t help it. Hurting Ted isn’t the same as hurting anyone else.

“Yeah. Of course it is,” Ted tells her. “Come on. Let’s get something to eat, the fridge is empty.”

They bundle up and head out into the New York chill, careful not to let their arms brush on the sidewalk as they head to the diner around the corner, and it’s another few weeks before they find out it’s not fine, it’s not fine at all.

Robin gets sick around the middle of December, which she attributes to the makeup crew probably not washing their hands well enough, especially with swine flu going around. The subway makes her queasy, and she’s taken to drinking 7-Up instead of scotch with the guys at MacLaren’s every night, since it’s like the only thing that settles her stomach.

“I’m really getting worried about you,” Lily says in January, once Robin hits week five of feeling rundown and nauseous. She reaches out and feels Robin’s forehead, frowning. “Seriously, this thing has been dragging for way too long.”

“I can’t afford any sick time right now, not right after the holidays,” Robin complains, swirling her straw around her glass. Her dumb, dumb 7-Up, but she’s not paying for a glass of delicious scotch if she’s just going to boot it up later.

“I don’t even know why we’re talking about this. I’ve already told you, the simple solution is to stop being sick and start being awesome,” Barney lectures her, but she doesn’t really have the energy to do more than kick him under the table. “Fine. If you people don’t appreciate the advice I have to give, maybe the redhead with the twin cannons will.”

“It’s just the winter flu,” Robin says once he’s gone off in pursuit of the redhead. “I’ll bounce back once I get some sleep this weekend.”

“I’ll pick you up some Saltines on my way home from class tomorrow,” Ted offers, and she smiles at him. They’ve been doing okay since Thanksgiving. He didn’t tell Marshall, she didn’t tell Lily, Barney’s never going to find out, and all of that is exactly the way it should be.

“Thanks, Ted,” she says. “God, it’ll be nice to stop throwing up at work every commercial break. The prop guy made me my own barf bucket. He put my name on it in puffy paint and everything. And he decorated it with pictures of little dancing viruses.”

“That’s awesome,” Lily says. “And also very disturbing.”

“But mostly awesome,” Marshall chimes in. “What color are the viruses?”

“No one cares, sweetie,” Lily tells him. “And Robin, I’m serious. Time to put the teacher foot down. You need to take the day off tomorrow and go to the doctor. If you’re still feeling this crappy, you’re either really sick or you’re knocked up.”

Robin scowls. “Please, keep rubbing it in. Feels good to get reminded that I’m not having sex, Lily, thanks.”

Ted laughs. “Yeah, I’ve been living with this one for months and she hasn’t put the Big Wang’s menu on the door since - ”

He cuts himself off immediately, staring at Robin across the table with a look of horrified comprehension dawning on his face.

Robin’s stomach gives a sudden lurch that has nothing at all to do with nausea.

Lily’s eyes go wide, one of her hands covering her mouth.

Marshall looks back and forth between them. “Since when?” he asks, happily oblivious to the heavy silence hanging over the whole table.

Lily gets a substitute for her class and comes to the gyno with Robin the next morning. Ted offered, but Robin can’t even bring herself to look at him right now.

She’s not talking much, because she can’t think of what to say, and Lily’s known her long enough not to push. She just sits in the chair next to the examining table while they’re waiting for the doctor to come back. After a second, she reaches for Robin’s hand.

“Lily, what the hell am I going to do?” Robin asks, squeezing her fingers. “I don’t even like kids.”

“Honey, we don’t know anything yet for sure, okay?” Lily soothes. “Try to just relax for now.”

Robin tries. She does, but it’s not happening. She’s not cut out for this, she already knows that. She doesn’t feel a warm maternal glow, doesn’t feel anything like attachment to this amorphous blob that’s possibly burrowing through her insides like the parasites from Alien. There’s nothing beautiful about pregnancy. She feels like her body’s been hijacked, it’s gross and uncomfortable and scary. She wants to drink margaritas and smoke cigars and eat massive quantities of sushi and horseback ride whenever she damn well feels like it. She’s been meaning to learn, okay?

“I can’t do that,” she says. “I can’t relax. I don’t like kids, I don’t want to get fat, I don’t want all my shoes to stop fitting, but on the other hand -- ”

Lily squeezes her hand. “On the other hand, it’s Ted’s,” she says, finishing the traitorous, treacherous, un-feminist words that have been swirling around in the back of Robin’s brain, and that’s when the doctor comes in.

“Congratulations, Ms. Scherbatsky,” she says, beaming.

Ted’s ordered way too much food by the time Robin gets home three days later. She’s been going into work like a zombie, she’s gone to the shooting range twice, she’s hidden in Lily and Marshall’s guest room and tried to sleep it off like a bad hangover, but she can’t leave Ted hanging forever. She’s still going to be pregnant no matter how many hours she stays under the covers with Marshall bringing her soup and Lily sitting with her, stroking her hair.

“I needed to do something,” Ted says, when she stares at the bags littering their counter, kitchen table, coffee table, and lining the floor in front of the TV. “So I just kept calling out for takeout. I have deli and Greek and Thai and burgers - ”

“I’m pregnant,” she says. “Like actually officially pregnant.”

“Okay,” Ted says calmly. “Okay. Come here.”

She’s avoided touching him since Thanksgiving, she’s stayed at Lily and Marshall’s for the last three days, and now she walks into his arms and clings to him as hard as she can. He lets her hang on for as long as she needs to, doesn’t do anything but stroke her hair and make soothing noises, and in this bright, blinding burst of clarity, she knows she’s never going to love anyone else this much, and that maybe it’s too late.

Maybe this was the very last way they could hammer the final nail in the coffin. She doesn’t see a way this won’t just screw it all up.

For once, Robin’s hungry enough to pick at the stuffed grape leaves and pull the cheese off a piece of pizza. Ted sits next to her, passing her napkins, making sure her glass of soda’s always full, and for hours, they talk about anything but the elephant in the room, the thing they need to talk about. It’s after midnight when they finally get around to it. On the TV, somebody’s hawking spray-on hair for men.

“I can’t believe I’m pregnant,” Robin says. “How the hell are we supposed to tell Barney that you got me pregnant?”

“Let’s table that issue for now,” Ted says. “I think there’s a couple other things we should talk about first.” He reaches for her hand. “I know kids were never part of your plan.”

She nods once, quickly. “They were always part of yours,” she says.

Ted swallows. “Robin. Look, we don’t have to lay all our options out right now. We can sleep on it, give it a few days.

“No. No, I don’t want to do that,” she says. “I’ve already avoided it enough. I can’t - I can’t spend any more time thinking about it or I’m going to go crazy. I want this hammered out now. What do you think about adoption?”

Ted is crushed and she watches him struggle to keep it off his face. “If you were leaning towards adoption, I would - I think I’d ask if I could keep him myself. You wouldn’t be responsible for anything,” he says, and Robin shakes her head.

“Him? Ted, it’s a blob right now, okay, it’s shaped like a fried egg. It doesn’t even have fingernails, probably.”

“Okay. Okay,” Ted says quickly. He’s trying so hard not to upset her, she knows, he’s trying to make it easy on her. “I’m just saying. If that was what you wanted, I would want to be a father to…it.”

“So adoption’s out. What about…” She can’t finish the sentence, even though it’s what she always told herself she would do, if this happened. There’s not any shame in it. It happens, it’s a fact of life.

Ted swallows. “Well. If that was what you wanted…” he begins, and she braces herself, waits for Ted to start shouting, yelling that it’s his kid, too, she can’t just do something like that, she knows he’s always wanted children and she’s being unfair, she’s being awful.

She’s been prepared to have Ted lose it at her.

She’s been preparing for Ted to walk out of her life forever ever since the second the doctor said congratulations.

“If that’s what you wanted, it’s your body, and that means it's your choice,” he says. Quiet - and sincere. “I’d be disappointed, I won’t lie about that. It'd be - okay, it would be hard, but it’s your decision, and I swear to God, Robin, I won’t give you any guilt about it and I won’t ever hold it against you. We never have to talk about it again if that’s what you decide.”

“I just don’t know if I’m ready to…” she says, voice cracking. “Ugh. I never wanted kids, I never knew if I’d ever be ready.”

Ted strokes her hair with one shaky hand. “I don’t know if anybody’s ever ready,” he says. “I mean, I’ve been talking about becoming a father for as long as you’ve known me, and I’m still - I’m blindsided as hell right now, Robin. This wasn’t how I ever thought it would happen, either.”

“Really?” she asks, wiping her eyes on a crumpled napkin. She’s so ready to be done with this crying BS, it’s ridiculous. “I thought you’d be psyched.”

“Are you kidding? I’m scared to death,” Ted tells her. “I don’t know anything about babies. But. If you want to do this, if that was even an option - if you wanted and you think we can do this, then I could learn. We don’t have to get married. We don’t even have to be a couple. But we could do this together. If you want to have this baby, if that’s really what you’d want and not just because you think it’s what I want, then I would…can I just…”

Ted reaches down and touches her stomach lightly, where it’s not even really rounded yet, just a bulge that looks like maybe she pigged out at craft services.

She sees the look on his face, this look of wonder that says I’m scared out of my mind, but that’s my kid in there, and nothing else is an option.

If she can make this work with anyone, it’s Ted. Jesus, if Rachel could make it work with Ross, then she can totally make it work with Ted, who has never in his life either cheated on anyone or attempted to play the bagpipes.

She’s got to stop watching so many 3AM reruns.

“Okay,” she says, shakily. “Then - okay. We can do this.”

And just like that, they’re having a baby.

It turns out that they don’t have to break it to Barney.

“Please,” he says. “You really thought Lily would be able to keep something like this to herself? Are you both new?”

Lily shifts guilty in her seat, avoiding Robin’s eyes. “I tried,” she whimpers.

Robin wants to reach for Ted’s fingers and to stop herself, shoves her hands in her pockets. “Barney…” she begins, not really sure where that sentence is going to end up.

Barney holds up a hand to stop her. “I’ve decided that I’m okay with this,” he says. “For one thing, it could have been worse. It could have been mine.”

You ain’t kidding, Robin does not say.

“And I’m prepared to offer you both my full and genuine, heartfelt congratulations.” Barney pauses for dramatic effect, taking a slow sip from his tumbler of scotch. “Pending three caveats.”

“Which are?” Ted asks warily.

“Ted, I’m so glad you asked,” Barney says. “One: as soon as the kid is able to hold up its own head, I’m allowed to use him/her as part of the Forlorn Single Dad pick-up scam.”

“Counsel for the defense motions for an addendum to the caveat,” Marshall immediately says.

“Marshall - ”

“I know what I’m doing, Ted.”

“I’ll hear the motion,” Barney says.

“You return the baby to one or both parents before any sex or sex-adjacent activity, including but not limited to foreplay, commences. Otherwise it’s just gross.”

Barney hesitates for a moment, then nods. “Addendum granted.”

“Told you,” Marshall says smugly.

“Two,” Barney continues. “Robin’s not allowed to name it after a hockey player. On second thought, she’s not allowed to give it anything remotely resembling a traditional Canadian name.”

“Done,” Ted says quickly.

“Hey!”

“That one was happening anyway, honey,” Lily tells Robin. “Sorry. Four against one.”

“And three: this doesn’t change the dynamics of the group. Instead of an awesome fivesome, now we’re an awesome sixsome, and I don’t want to hear anyone whining ‘Barney, we can’t bring the baby to a bar’. That’s just ridiculous.”

Robin exchanges a glance with Ted. As much as she’d like to promise that, because her social life is a pretty big concern to her, too, thanks, she’s realistic.

Babies change things. That’s why she’s never wanted to have one.

“That, or I get to slap Ted in the face as hard as I can and you name the kid after me even if it’s a girl,” Barney adds casually.

“Done,” Ted and Robin both agree, quickly, and finally, Barney breaks into a smile.

“Congratulations, you guys,” he says. “There’s gonna be a baby!”

Wendy the Waitress takes a picture of the five of them that night, squeezed into their usual booth. They all have glasses of champagne, except for Robin, and Ted’s arm is wrapped around her shoulders. Her boobs are starting to look pretty big, which is nice. Marshall is teary eyed, and everyone looks so happy.

It’s the first picture on the first page of their kid’s baby book which Ted, the giant sap, starts compiling that weekend.

It’s not so terrible.

Sometimes, when Robin thinks about what’s going to actual happen in a few months, she starts getting panicked, but sometimes it’s all right. Ted’s good at talking her down from the ledge.

She knew he was going to be involved, but the level of his involvement is - well, it shouldn’t surprise her, but it does. He signs them up for parenting classes, he’s always offering to rub her back. Sometimes, he reads to her belly, which Robin thought was the stupidest thing in the world, but after awhile, it’s a nice routine, a nice rhythm.

And it’s nice to be living with him. It’s nice that she never has to feel like a single mom, because maybe they’re not a couple, but Ted is so determined that they are in this thing together that it’s impossible not to feel like they’re a team, a pair, a something. She feels fat and disgusting and swollen and sweaty, but Ted is always around, telling her she’s impossibly beautiful, holding her hair back when she gets sick from the smell of coffee, bananas, laundry detergent, her own shampoo. Putting her sheets in the laundry when she sweats through them, letting her sleep in his bed while they’re cycling through the dryer, making her eat extra servings of grilled yellow peppers.

On the day of her first ultrasound, Ted cancels his class to meet her at the appointment. When Robin changes into the paper gown and slides her feet in the stirrups, she notices that he’s staring at her.

“What?” she asks, brushing her hair out of her eyes. It feels flat and greasy.

“Nothing. Just, you look…”

“Fat,” Robin says icily.

“I was going to say pregnant.”

“Well, whose fault is that, Sherlock?”

“Mine,” Ted says, and has the nerve to sound proud. Jackass. “Is it cool if I…”

He stretches her hand out towards her stomach, and she nods. He always asks permission, which she appreciates and all, but seems a little unnecessary at this stage of the game. He steps closer, one hand curved around her swollen belly, and without thinking, she rests her hand on top of his. “The little guy’s really in there, huh?” he says, and in spite of herself, Robin smiles.

When Dr. Patel finally comes in and gets this appointment rolling, like jeez, does she charge by the hour, because they’ve been waiting forever, all of Robin’s words die in her throat the second the baby appears on the monitor.

“There’s the head….there’s a foot….ten fingers, ten toes, everything looks excellent,” Dr. Patel says. Ted’s hand is squeezing Robin’s so tightly that she’s pretty sure her bones are going to snap. “Would you like to know the sex?”

Ted looks at Robin hopefully, and she laughs, he’s got such ridiculous puppy eyes. “You know, finding out that I was pregnant at all was really enough of a surprise for me,” she says. “Lay it on us, Doc.”

Dr. Patel smiles. “Congratulations,” she says. “You’re having a girl.”

“A girl?” Ted says. His voice cracks on the word. “A little girl?”

The doctor presses down on Robin’s abdomen, gliding through the warm, sticky gel to find another spot to view. There’s swirls of white and black on the monitor, making out something vaguely baby-shaped, and in another moment, a thump-thump-thumping noise fills the room. “There’s your daughter’s heartbeat. Very strong. Very healthy.”

Robin looks up at Ted, and every single smart-ass comment she was about to make leaves her brain when she sees the look on his face. The awestruck joy that’s written all over it, the way he’s blinking really, really quickly to hide the tears in his eyes.

He catches her looking and clears his throat. “Man, is it just me, or is this hospital filled with allergens?” he says.

“Oh, I thought that was maybe because we’re meeting our daughter for the first time,” Robin tells him, and he squeezes her hand again. For a moment, they just smile at each other like total idiots, the thump-thump-thumping ringing in her ears. She feels herself getting a little teary, too. Damn hormones.

Dr. Patel prints them out a couple of pictures. When they get home, Robin hangs one on their refrigerator. Ted is the worst influence ever.

Robin’s getting used to not being able to see her shoes and she can deal with the heartburn. She’s not going to miss having to pee every forty seconds and the sciatic pain. Still, the built-in excuse to eat anything that passes her field of vision is pretty sweet, even if it's like her tastebuds have undergone massive restructuring. She thinks lasagna is the most disgusting food of all time, and one night, Ted gets up for a glass of water and finds her in the kitchen, devouring an entire pan like she’s Garfield. She’s not even using a fork, which is slightly humiliating.

He doesn’t even comment, just pours her some chocolate milk, kisses the top of her head, and goes back to sleep.

They start getting the apartment ready when Robin rounds the corner on her seventh month. Lily throws her a baby shower, which she doesn’t hate, primarily because Lily was smart enough to realize Robin agreed to this only to score a bunch of free loot and thus didn’t do anything that would send Robin screaming, like hang up a bunch of pink streamers or organize really dumb ‘guess the baby food’ games.

Instead, Lily makes a ton of food, invites all the girls over, Robin opens presents, and then they watch the Mayweather v. Pacquiao fight on pay-per-view. It’s awesome and there’s enough extra guacamole to keep Robin happy for - well, for two hours before she’s making Ted run to the deli to buy her a king size Snickers bar, but still, it’s a good two hours.

They decide to put the changing table and the baby’s dresser in the living room, along with most of the toys that Barney keeps buying them. Barney can apparently no longer look at a stuffed animal without deciding that its destiny is to become his future goddaughter’s (“Marshall is the godfather,” Ted says, hopelessly) most treasured childhood companion. When Robin’s folding tiny tee shirts and onesies, rolling up socks that barely fit over her fingers, it seems impossible that there’s going to be a little person wearing these.

The tricky part is the bassinet. Once Ted has it assembled out in front of the TV, once he’s lined it with bumper pads and hung Clair de Lune mobile, it’s an unexpectedly awkward moment. Their daughter kicks sharply, like she’s telling Robin say something, you idiot.

You don’t talk to your mother that way, Robin thinks in irritation, rubbing her belly. “So…” she says.

“Yeeaaaah,” Ted says. “So.”

They have a two bedroom apartment and they’re about to become a three person residence.

“Well, hey,” Ted says, sounding forcedly cheerful. “She doesn’t need her own room right away, right? I think it’s fine.”

“It’s totally fine,” Robin agrees, just as bright, just as fake. “Let’s just put the bassinet in with me. You know, nighttime feedings.”

“Sounds good,” Ted says, carrying it towards her door, away from the conversation.

They’re going to have a child together, they’re going to be linked by that for the rest of their lives. From now until forever, they’ll be a family, and that won’t go away.

But they aren’t always going to live together. One day, they’re going to go their separate ways, one day, their baby will be big enough and self sufficient enough to need her own bedroom.

And unlike Robin’s wineglasses and Ted’s couch, their daughter won’t be something that they can clearly define as belonging to one person over the other.

When Robin goes into labor, it’s all extremely un-dramatic. Her maternity leave started three days ago, and Ted’s at class, so she’s hanging out with Lily and wondering why the hell she’s having these weird surges of pain every so often when her water breaks.

“Oh shit,” she says, staring at the carpet.

“Never mind, we can get it cleaned!” Lily says, beaming at her.

“That wasn’t why I was saying ‘oh shit’,” Robin tells her. Dr. Patel gave her a sheet last week called Everything You need To Know About Episiotomies that Robin successfully blacked out of her mind, and now all of a sudden it’s coming back. “Is it too late to change my mind about this whole baby thing?”

“Little bit,” Lily says. “Do you want a bath? Do you want to go to the hospital? Do you want - ”

“Ted,” Robin blurts. “Call Ted.” She suddenly feels staggeringly unprepared for all of this and he’ll know what to do, he always does.

While Lily’s on the phone with Ted, coordinating hospital plans, making sure he’ll get Robin’s overnight bag, Marshall gets busy aiming his video camera right in Robin’s face. “Say hi, Mommy!” he chirps brightly. “This is so exciting, Robin, we’re going to chronicle the miracle of a new life! You guys can watch this with her every birthday and remember how special today was for all of you!”

It’s so, so good that Marshall does this. Robin is so much more comfortable being angry than being scared.

Within ten minutes of getting to the hospital, Barney’s already scored dates with three nurses and Marshall’s tried to steal his video camera back from Lily’s purse twice.

For the first couple hours, Robin thinks man, American women are a bunch of wusses, I can do this labor thing no sweat, go Canada! She tells Dr. Patel that she doesn’t need drugs, because she’s awesome, she is doing this naturally because it is really not anywhere near the suck level she was expecting.

And then the contractions start coming. For real.

And then it’s too late for the epidural.

“You’re doing fine, you’re doing great,” Ted soothes, even though he looks all frazzled and wild-eyed himself.

“Ted - go - home,” Robin pants.

“Robin, there is no way I’m leaving - ”

“Go - home and come-back-with-my-gun,” she hisses. “Because if this gets any worse, I am going to shoot you. I am going to shoot your knees and your face and your ooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my God, I am going to shoot you in so many places!”

“She’s kidding,” Ted tells the nurses. “That’s our private joke, ‘oh, Ted, I’m going to shoot you!’ Isn’t that hilarious?”

He doesn’t leave. He doesn’t leave the whole time, while she’s screaming and sweating and straining, clutching his hand and begging him not to leave her even when she tells him one heartbeat later that she hates him.

“I can’t do it, I can’t do it anymore,” she sobs, exhausted. It’s been hours and she hurts and there is no way this can possibly be worth it. How in the name of God does anyone on the planet have siblings? “Ted, I can’t I can’t.”

“You’re Robin Scherbatsky,” he tells her, smoothing his hands through her sweat soaked hair. “You can do anything.”

“You do it instead.”

“Marshall says that in five to seven years, that technology could become available,” Ted says, kissing her temple. “So if we decide we want to do this again, I’ll take that hit, okay?”

“Robin, you’re going to need to push again,” Dr. Patel says, firmly, and Robin’s eyes start watering, she just wants to rest.

“Robin. Robin, look at me,” Ted says, and she turns her head up towards him. “Remember our first date?”

“What are you - ”

“I don’t know, I’m just talking,” Ted says, and she squeezes his hand. “Come on, you can push while I’m talking, you can do it.”

“Talk. Okay, okay, talk,” she says raggedly, and she pushes, hard as she can as he talks.

“I stole a blue French horn. I threw up on your welcome mat, you gave me a jar of olives. I told you I loved you." One of the nurses shoots him a look that seems to say and she actually slept with you? And then agreed to have your kid? “It didn’t happen in that order,” he says defensively.

“Ted,” Robin moans, agonized.

“So I gave you a blue French horn,” he says, and she pushes, pushes. “I threw three parties just to get you to talk to me again, we waited for the slutty pumpkin together, we crashed a prom. I made it rain - ”

“It was the storm, you idiot!” she gasps, and Ted grins.

“I made it rain!” he insists, “I did, and if I can make it rain, you can do this, Robin, you can do this,” and she can, she can because she’s pushing and Ted glances down - she’s going to break in half - Dr. Patel’s saying something and Robin can’t hear her because she’s making this horrible, horrible pained groan that she’s never heard herself make in her life -

And then another cry joins hers, an angry, loud, what in the name of God are you doing to me shriek.

Baby.

A baby’s crying, a very pissed off baby is yowling in rage and when Robin opens her eyes, there she is. That’s what just came out of her. That’s their daughter, that’s their little girl.

“Oh my God,” she whispers, her voice cracking. Ted kisses her temple again. She can feel him shaking, and when they look at each other, they both smile, they can’t not, she can’t look at Ted and not smile at him right now because that’s what they did, they did that together, that little angry red slimy person is all theirs.

Ted cuts the cord, they weigh her and clean her up and wrap her in a blanket, and when Dr. Patel sets her on Robin’s chest, when Robin’s staring down into her squashed little face, her translucent eyelids and her little upturned nose, she feels…

She was so afraid it wouldn’t be here, that she’d feel nothing and would suddenly think it was all a big mistake.

Instead, she finds herself wishing Ted had brought her gun to the hospital. So she could shoot anyone who tries to take this little girl out of her arms.

“She’s perfect,” Ted says.

“She’s ours,” Robin says. “Duh.”

When they bring Maggie home for the first night, it’s quiet in the building. Everything feels different, like the whole world changed while Robin was in the hospital.

The bassinet is still in Robin’s room, and Ted lays the baby down in it. She smacks her lips a few times, but her eyes stay closed.

“I can’t stand the idea of leaving her,” he says, quietly. “Isn’t that stupid? I’m right down the hall and I can’t stand the idea of leaving her.”

Robin slides her hand on top of Ted’s. “Sleep in here tonight,” she says.

So he does.

That night, and the next night, and the one after, and pretty soon, it’s just routine. It just makes sense, since Maggie’s hardly on anything resembling a sleeping schedule, makes sense to have both of them there.

Some nights, it makes sense for her to sleep in between them, their hands linked just beneath her tiny feet.

Robin has seen Ted naked.

She’s seen him in his professor’s blazer, carrying his leather messenger bag. She’s seen him just out of the shower with a towel around his waist, in a suit and tie, in a tux, in this pair of jeans he has that just really, really work on him, and on one memorable occasion, an Indiana Jones hat.

Until now, however, she has never seen him with a baby strapped to his chest in a Snugli.

“Maggie’s gonna come for a little walk with her daddy,” Ted says, over the sound of Maggie screeching. “Give you a break for awhile.”

Robin clears her throat. “You sure?”

“Yeah, we could both use the air. She calms down a little when she’s moving,” Ted says, and as he starts to walk, Maggie does start to sound a little less like an air horn. “Why don’t you take a nap or something?”

Frankly, Robin’s surprised she has the energy to even notice that Ted looks really, really good right now. She’s so exhausted that if Ryan Reynolds offered to take her to a Canucks game, she’d tell him to go to hell. She can get pathetic over Ted once she sleeps for one whole glorious hour and maybe takes a shower for the first time in - actually, thinking about how long it’s actually been is just going to make her depressed.

It turns out that there’s some measure of truth to that whole “even if you don’t like other people’s kids, it’s different when they’re your own” thing. She really, really likes her kid.

Every time Robin successfully puts Maggie down for a nap, changes her diaper, gives her a bath, she feels like she’s done something monumental. She actually likes being a mother.

And it’s not that it’s not hard, because it is. There’s days when she thinks she’ll go insane from the screaming, when she can’t get Maggie to latch on for her feeding, when she’s sore and crabby and exhausted, when Maggie cries and cries and they can’t figure out what’s wrong.

It’s just that there’s also this overwhelming surge of love underneath it.

Some days it’s buried a little deeper than others. But when she sees Ted cradling Maggie in his arms, when Maggie falls asleep on her chest, snuggled in between her breasts. When they take her on walks through Central Park and Ted wraps an arm around Robin’s shoulders so easily, and she thinks, My family. My daughter.

And she’s determined not to screw up in all the places her parents did. Maggie is not ever going to record a music video, and if Marshall doesn’t stop singing “Let’s Go To The Mall” to her as a lullaby, then Robin is sorry for Lily and all, but the two of them will never be having children of their own.

There is one giant problem with Maggie, though, and Robin starts to realize it when she’s around six months old.

The three of them are at the grocery store, and Ted’s wearing the damn Snugli again. Amazingly, in the middle of all the hustle and bustle, Maggie’s fallen asleep, nuzzled against him. Robin bends to kiss her forehead, smooth some of her fuzzy hair down, and Ted smiles.

“Let’s split up,” he suggests in a near whisper, which is really unnecessary, because if she’s sleeping through all this noise, his voice is really not going to wake her up. “Get the list done faster and get the princess here home.”

“Done,” Robin says, even though she has repeatedly told Ted not to call Maggie "princess", and wheels the cart over to the freezer aisle. She meets Ted in produce about ten minutes later. Where some hot blonde girl is cooing over her baby, but her eyes are on Ted, and really, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on here.

“So you’re a single dad?” the woman coos, and that’s when Robin bangs the cart into the back of her heel.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she apologizes, and yanks the oranges Ted’s carrying out of his hands, throwing them down into the cart. “Is our child who I squeezed out of my own personal vagina still asleep, Ted?”

“Like a log,” Ted agrees. “Nice to meet you, Alyssa.” The blonde leaves, looking disappointed, and Ted raises an eyebrow at Robin. “Uh, what was that all about?”

“You’re not supposed to be using the kid to pick up girls, Mosby,” Robin snaps. “I mean, Barney would be really pissed at you, that’s his thing.”

Ted has the nerve to smile the entire way home.

Robin said she was fine with Ted taking Maggie to the pediatrician without her. She is not going to be one of those mothers. She does not have to tag along for every little thing, she’s not going to hover, she trusts Ted, for God’s sake, so Ted agrees, bundles Maggie up, and meets Lily outside.

Robin lasts about five minutes before she imagines Maggie getting a shot, wailing in pain, and wondering why her mommy isn’t there to kiss it better.

She tears down the street, racing after them, and she’s almost caught up when she hears Lily say, “Seriously, Ted. When are you going to ask Robin to marry you?”

“Uh, never?” Ted says, bending down to adjust the hood of the stroller. “Because I don’t want her to take my daughter and flee to Canada.”

“You don’t think maybe she’s had a change of heart?” Lily presses. “It’s just so obvious - ”

Ted’s voice goes sharp. “Lily, stop. Okay? I promised her when she got pregnant that we didn’t have to be a couple to be parents. I promised her. I’m not tricking her into it.”

“Tricking her into it?” Lily says. “Ted. Jesus. Everything you guys thought you’d never be able to get over - I mean, really. What’s left to get over? You sleep in the same bed - don’t think we don’t all know about that - you‘re raising a baby together - ”

“I made a promise,” he says stubbornly.

“Yeah, you’ve said that. You know what you haven’t said? ‘Lily, I’m not in love with her anymore.’”

Robin’s heard enough. She ducks into a Starbucks on the corner, before they realize she’s been following them for two blocks like a creepy stalker. There are just - there’s too many things that she has to think about.

But when she asks herself like what?, it turns out that the list isn’t actually that long at all.

When Ted gets home from the pediatrician, Maggie out to Robin right away. There are tear streaks on her chubby little cheeks and a band-aid in the crook of her elbow.

“Oh my God, what did they do to her?” Robin says, snatching her out of Ted’s arms. “Are you okay, baby girl? Does Mommy need to go hurt somebody? Like Daddy, maybe?”

“She’s not talking yet,” Ted says. “And if she was, she’d be on my side.”

“Shut up.”

“They gave her a shot, Robin. Come on, we talked about this. You knew it was coming.”

“Poor baby,” she says, nuzzling her daughter's plump little cheek. “God, Ted. Have some emotions like a human.”

“Sorry, I’m too busy being a rational adult,” he tells her.

Robin’s cell buzzes with a text about forty seconds later. he cried more than maggie did.

“Not according to Lily,” she says smugly.

“She promised she wouldn’t tell!” Ted says, outraged.

“It’s Lily,” Robin points out.

Ted grumbles something indiscernible. “Do you want me to make you some hot chocolate?” he asks, banging around the kitchen.

“The last time you asked me that, I ended up pregnant,” she says, kissing Maggie’s cheek as she squirms a little on her lap. Ted smiles at her over the stove.

“And look how well that turned out,” he teases.

It’s not anything special.

The world doesn’t shake and there’s no sign and there’s not a feeling in her gut that tells her to do it. It’s just Ted, standing in the kitchen and smiling at. It’s Ted in her bed every night, who loves her and who won’t push her into something he thinks she doesn't want, even though she’s holding their baby on her lap. This is home. Wherever these two are, that’s her home.

“Ted, will you marry me?” she asks.

He drops the pot he’s holding.

It takes her a little while to convince him that she means it. Once she does, though, well, of course he says yes. Like she had any doubts. She’s Robin. She’s awesome.

Their son is born three years later. Because Marshall’s stupid internet-guaranteed technology isn’t even close to available, Robin’s the one who gets stuck going through labor. Again.

But it could be worse.