Ted POV
'Does Robin usually work on a Tuesday night?'
'No, but she must've got called in.'
I walked back into the room with the beers but Barney ended up changing the channel. He looked so down all of a sudden, he was just fine a minute ago,
'Hey, what's wrong man?'
'I...Don't know really. Sorry I'm being such a downer, Ted maybe I should go.'
'Do you wanna talk about it?'
'No, no. I'm fine. Seriously.'
'You know it's ok to not be fine all the time, I'm here for you, Barn, anytime you know that.'
'Yeah I know that Ted, thanks anyway. Catch ya later, though?'
'Sure, See ya.'
When Barney left I decided to get an early night. I still didn't know how I felt about Rebecca being still sorta married to this doctor guy, it was a lot ot take in after all. She was supposed to be the one I end up with, I knew we'd only been seeing eachother for a few months but it felt like the real thing. I could be myself with her, and I didn't want to do what I did with Robin and say that I loved her too soon. I wasn't that crazy.
And as for her stepdaughter, did I really want to be the cause of her not seeing her? I was feeling so weird, I know I wanted to be with her but was I really worthy of her? She was so amazing and sometimes it felt as though I liked her more than she liked me.
Every night I had a hot chocolate and I didn't like my stupid little ritual to be messed with so right on que I made my drink and went to bed. I was even more tired than I thought and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Then I was woken up a little bit later.
I could hear noises coming from the kitchen and felt uneasy, I couldn't handle a burgular! I would totally get beaten up, I haven't worked out in like a year. Oh God, what if Rebecca and I live together one day and a burgular comes into our house? How am I supposed to protect her! I'd have to start working out again soon.
I grabbed the first thing I saw, bottle of deodourant, and crept out of my room into the living room.
The room was basically pitch black save the light streaming in from outside on the street. I could smell...pancakes? Very faintly.
There was a shuffling sound from the kitchen and I moved over slowly before kicking open the door and spraying the deodourant randomly all over the place.
'Ted!' The voice made me stop and I opened my eyes to see a very surprised looking Lily standing with a frying pan.
'Lily!'
'What the hell, Ted! I'll need to make more pancakes now, you've ruined them!'
'I thought you were a burgular!'
'And you thought what exactly, that you were going to deodourise them to death?!'
Then I burst out laughing and she joined in after a few seconds,
'Aw Lil, ' I went over and gave her a bear hug, maneuovering around the baby bump.
'You're such an idiot, man.'
'Whatevs, so why are you up at three am making pancakes? I'm not complaining but I mean it's not like you.'
'Can't sleep?'
'Yeah right.'
'Okay! I'm worried about the baby to be honest.'
'What have you got to worry about? You're gonna be a great mom.'
We sat at the table and ate at the pancakes Lily made, they were so awesome. Chocolate and she even had syrup.
'It's just going to be...hard. We've all had this little routine for years, what's it going to be like when theres such a change? We're going to change, we'll be parents. It was hard enough when Barney almost married Nora, now this.'
'Lil, trust me it's going to work out so perfect. Hey, I bet you five dollars things will work out great?'
'It's a deal,' Lily giggled, 'And hey, do you know anything about the whole Barney and Nora thing?'
'I don't really know to be honest, my guess is that she couldn't put him through a fake marriage for a greencard but it's hard to tell at the minute. They're talking and stuff, guess we gotta just wait and see.'
'Yeah, I suppose you're right. How's Rebecca?' Lily smirked,
'Ah, actually there's something I gotta tell you about her...'
The Next Day
Ever since I'd started to date Rebecca, her and Lily had got on pretty well together. They went shopping and had girlie nights when I had to work, but when I told Lily about her being married to the doctor guy, she immediately freaked out.
She called Rebecca every swear word she knew and got herself into a bit of a state, it took me like ten minutes to reason with her, I'd told her mine and Rebecca's plan to go and talk to this guy and make him see that I'm a good guy and that Rebecca has moved on.
But she still wasn't convinced.
This was just another problem in my list of problems, which I intended to shorten as soon as I possily could. Starting with this whole Rebecca and her ex husband situation.
I was running around the apartment trying to get ready as fast as I could, but I was getting distracted. Rebecca would be here in like ten minutes and I was still half-naked and un-showered.
I was doing my Darth Vadar impression in the mirror in the bathroom when I heard Rebecca calling me from the living room seeing if I was ready to go. I wasn't. Damn.
I ran at super speed from the bathroom to my room, trying to not let Rebecca see me, so she wouldn't know I wasn't even a little bit ready to go, but by the groan I'm guessing she saw me. I'd have to work on my ninja skills more.
'Ted! Goddammit, I saw you! Hurry up and get ready!'
'I'm just grabbing my jacket!'
I was swearing under my breath I struggled into a pair of jeans and mis-matched socks. I felt around the closet for a sweater and was out in the living room in two minutes looking fairly wind-swept and interesting.
She gave me that look.
'What? I'm ready!'
She gave me a dirty look but softened when I went and put my arms around her waist and rested my head on her shoulder . I felt her relax.
'Let's just get this over with, ok?'
''Kay, baby.' She swivelled around to kiss me and off we went out the door holding hands.
Rebecca owned her own car and the ride over was comfortably silent.
We figured the only way we would get her ex to talk to us was to actually make an appointment in his office, we ofcourse had to use fake names and pretend Rebecca was pregnant but you win some, you lose some. I didn't know how this was going to go, he wouldn't let Rebecca see Layla because he was aparently taking it bad that Rebecca was seeing somebody else so soon,I just hoped that we could make him see sense. And to do that we had to make me come across as a completely sane, nice, gentleman who was mature and could deal with kids.
Basically, we were screwed.
I was nervous as we went up the marble steps into the doctors office, oh way to show off your money. The woman at the reception desk had lipstick all over her teeth and a fussy, frilly collar. She gave us a look from under her glasses that kinda said 'What the hell do you assholes want?' and sighed.
'Hi appointment for Mr. and Mrs. Smith?'
I chose our fake names because it made me feel strangely bad ass to be Mr. and Mrs. Smith for a minute at least.
'You're late.' The receptionist said cooly and said nothing else as she went back to tapping away at her computer with stupid talons that were obviously supposed to be nails although I couldn't see the resembelence.
'Ah, yeah. Sorry about that. Can we still go in?' Rebecca asked politely but I could see her balling her fists at her side in frustration.
'You're just going to have to wait, you aren't royalty you know.' She woman smirked at her own stupid comment and didn't even look away from the computer screen.
We looked around at the completely empty waiting room and back at her.
'Um, the rooms empty.'
'Are you harassing me, Sir?'
'No, I just mean we're a few minutes late and there's nobody here. Can we go in, please?'
'How do you know there isn't somebody else seeing the doctor?'
'Is there?'
'Well, no.'
'So we can go in?' Rebecca asked hotly, she seriously was not the type of person to take this crap from anybody and the woman gave her the evillest of evil glares before nodding and gesturing her head in the direction of the office.
I was suddenly really, really nervous about this. I felt like I needed to impress this guy but at the same time, why should I? He should just grow the hell up and realise that people move on and that's life. But I couldn't show that in front of Rebecca, she was important to me and I didn't want to lose her, so for now she would be kept happy no matter what I thought.
I knocked at the door but Rebecca just went straight to the door handle,
'He never, ever answers the door right away. Lazy freakin' idiot.'
She went right on in and I follwed her kinda uneasily.
He was sitting at his desk watching a small T.V in the corner eating a salad. Douchebag.
He looked to us as the door shut behind us and a smirk slowly crawled onto his face as we sat in the chairs facing him.
'Ah, Rebecca. Should have known you couldn't keep away. Who's this, your entourage?'
'No,' She rolled her eyes, 'It's my boyfriend, Ted. We're here to talk about Layla. I see you dyed your hair.'
'Yeah the blonde really wasn't working for me, I prefer dark hair.' He looked right at me, 'And apparently so do you.'
'Look, man. We just want to talk about Layla-'
'I don't want to hear it, man.' He interrupted me, 'Now, please leave I'm watching my programmes.'
'Not a chance, we're fixing this right here, right now.' Rebecca cut in,
'Look, she's my daughter not yours, you can't make me let you see her.'
'That's why I'm asking,'
'Well I'm saying no.'
'Please, Mason. I love her, and she wants to see me!'
'And she's told you this?'
'Yes.'
'I don't want my daughter around strange men,'
He got up and turned off the T.V, I couldn't help notice how tall he was.
'Who you callin' strange, buddy?' Insult me? No chance in hell.
'Look, you'd understand if you had a daughter. I don't know you is all.'
'Trust me, he's a gentleman and he's great with kids.'
'I'm still not sure.'
'Ok, let her stay with me, just me, while you go to your stupid bar-'
'-It's not stupid, it's alternative.'
'Whatever. Go meet up with that stupid hussy you cheated on me with-
'She wasn't a hussy, she was perfectly classy and nice.' Man this guy was a complete asshole. It's bad enough he cheated on her but he had to rub it in aswell?
'Do you even hear yourself!'
'Fine! You can see her tonight. Your place at seven, without him.'
'Deal. For now.'
'Fine.'
'Good.'
'Awesome.' I added and received looks from both of them in doing so. What?
The receptionist said coldly as we left, 'Next time, don't keep Dr. Jude waiting so long.'
'Trust me, there won't be a next time sister.' Rebecca replied just as coldly.
We left the office silently and I slipped my hand into hers when were were safely out of the building. I didn't know what way I expected that to go but I guess it could have went worse. It also could have went way better.
When we were in the car I asked,
'So what's this 'Alternative', I air quoted the word, '-bar he goes to?'
'I don't know it's called The Square or something stupid like that, he used to go there all the time, now I know why. Cheating bugger.'
'I don't know why anybody in their right minds would cheat on you.'
She sent me a dazzling smile in return and now at least there was one problem I could safely check off my list.