fic:: feathered by the moonlight (change, change, change) [How I Met Your Mother]
I wrote this a few weeks back for 
trickortreatex - reveal was today.
fic:: feathered by the moonlight (change, change, change)
by Raven
6000w, How I Met Your Mother, Ted/Tracy, Robin/Barney, Marshall/Lily. Tracy's eleventh autumn in New York; or, robots, romance and all things yet to come.
"Memories," Tracy announces jubilantly, "are films, about ghosts."
"Honey," Ted says, swinging slightly to the left so she doesn't land on his feet, "that's a Counting Crows lyric."
"Doesn't mean it's not, you know. True." Step forwards, step back. They're on the roof and it's cold as fuck, though Ted has taken off his hanging chad costume so they can sort-of maybe waltz to keep warm, one, two, three, then back. The music's coming from Lily's iPod though maybe it's just in Tracy's head right now. Three, four, step and turn.
"Yeah, Counting Crows lyrics, though," Ted says, contemplatively. "They're all like, change, change, change, we can change. Also, I'm the king of the rain. And you're all like, yeah, for sure Adam Duritz, you're the king of the rain."
"Eight years ago, on this very rooftop" - this time Tracy does step on Ted's feet, but he's wasted too right now, he's got insulation, holy fuck, it's cold up here - "you made it rain. Kinda. Thought you did, anyway, because you can bend the laws of physics to your will, that's totally a thing."
Ted might be blushing in the dim light. "Robin told you about that, huh?"
"And Barney," Tracy tells him. "And Lily. They were like - they wanted to be sure I knew. What I was getting into with you. I mean, what kind of idiot you were."
"That's true love for you," Ted says with equanimity, and turns on his heel quite neatly, considering. Tracy's papier-mâché wings shudder and flutter in the breeze and he reaches up to touch them, eyes bright with wonder.
"Kinky," Tracy says, and puts her hand on his without pushing it away, so they're not dancing any more, just standing and holding each other under the clear night sky. "No, listen, Ted. Memories, films about ghosts. King of the rain. We can change. Change, change, change."
"Maybe we can," Ted says, after a moment. "Why are you green?"
"I'm an angel, Ted," she says. "Pay attention. I told you I'm gonna stay in New York, right?"
*
It is not because of Ted that Tracy is going to stay in New York.
It's nothing to do with Ted.
Okay, it's a little bit to do with Ted. It's a little bit to do with long walks in the park with Ted, carrying her yellow umbrella. (Ted has graciously admitted - on which graciousness Tracy calls bullshit, one of the two of them paid for that yellow umbrella with actual green dollars and it wasn't Ted Evelyn Kleptomaniac Mosby - that it is her, Tracy's, umbrella, and she has graciously permitted him to use it if he doesn’t let the wind turn it inside out or leave it hooked off the fire escape to dry, downstairs are still kinda pissed about that whole almost-being-perforated thing.) It's a little about Ted, and more about how this is the eleventh autumn Tracy has seen in New York, creeping through the cracks and frosting the cityscape, and this is the first one that has seemed to promise change. On this one perfect romantic Saturday morning - which, okay, everyone should have sometimes: with the leaves drifting past the window, the weekend New York Times, the lox and cream cheese, the whole works - Tracy's leafing through the business section, talking about the key determinative flaws in the methodology used to establish global austerity, and Ted's response is: “I don’t get what the big deal is.”
“You don’t,” Tracy repeats, “get what the big deal is” - so she goes through it for him, says some things about Reinhart-Rogoff false causation and post-WW2 growth forecasts. And it's not like this is the first time she and Ted have disagreed on something: like, on what kind of takeout they want, or whether Peter Jackson should have split The Hobbit into three movies, or whatever.
“But actually, what about…” - is how Ted begins whatever bullshit thing he says next, the thing that makes it abundantly clear that he thinks he’s explaining this to her, and she interrupts him to yell some things and he interrupts her to yell some other things, and Tracy slams a door for good measure after she storms out.
Ted opens the door. "Tracy..."
Tracy says, “I have a Master’s degree in economics from Columbia, you ignorant chauvinistic bastard” - and goes out to perch on the fire escape. She sits down too hard on the step and that's how the almost-spearing happens, which is Ted's fault for hanging the umbrella off there in the first place, and anyway he's a jerk and it's really nothing to do with him at all.
(Many years from now, she's going to tell Ted this: she's going to lean against the wall with her knees turning into jelly and say, "You remember back when we first knew each other, and we had that fight and you were a total dick" - and he's going to laugh and kiss her and buy her a giant glass of champagne and toast her into the dawn, because he'll know the story, of how the journey that ended with her standing before her viva committee, defending a doctoral thesis on the economics of growth and development, began in that furious moment, her hands itching for whiteboard markers to draw some graphs and then throw at Ted's head. She'll tell him that it was nothing and everything to do with him, that she became Dr. McConnell on her own hard work and determination, and because he loved her even when she was writing up, and insisted she stop to take showers.)
And of course at the time, none of that matters so much - Ted's a jerk and Tracy tells him so, and it takes him a couple of minutes and he does apologise - but at least it works out okay between them, like it's okay for them not to be perfect. Later, Tracy is walking down the street with her hands in her pockets, thinking about how she's going to word her email to her thesis adviser, and she looks up and sees him, waving her umbrella through the window because he's a jerk but he went downstairs to get it back. That's the night the first cold wind starts blowing off the harbour, smoky and salt-laden, and that's why Tracy is staying in New York.
*
"Like, maybe," Tracy adds, a little doubtfully, "if they say yes. If I can - you know. At Columbia."
"They'll say yes," Ted says confidently, pulling her close. "They'll be like - she's awesome and she's gonna change the world. Also she's super-hot. What's not to love?"
Tracy laughs. "I kinda think Columbia want more than 'hot' and 'awesome'. Though those are totally things that I am. Well-observed, Mosby. I'm just" - she sways a little, lets him catch her - "I just, I really want this, you know? I want to do this. I'm scared they'll be like… you know. No."
"Hey," Ted says, "they took Marshall" - and she swats him on the shoulder, and Marshall calls down from the roof ledge:
"Not cool, dude. Did you know you have green on you?"
"Uh, yeah," Ted says, pushing a paint-spattered hand through his hair and then regretting it. "Tracy. Uh, why are you…"
"Memories," Tracy reminds him. "Like - so, if Columbia say yes, and they're gonna say yes, 'cause I'm hot, and I'm awesome, and they took Marshall. Who is also hot and awesome! Yeah, you are."
Marshall bows, and wobbles slightly but doesn't fall off the roof. "Barney, another glass of punch for the lady."
It's a red plastic cup, not a glass, and Barney is kind of standing at two metres' safe distance to avoid getting green paint on him, but it's good. Tracy takes a deep draught of it and says, "It's a five-year doctoral programme. I'm gonna be here for a while, you know. Here in New York City. Even if not" - she breathes in and looks right up at Ted - "not, you know, in your life."
She feels him tense. "What?"
*
"What if Ted and I break up?"
"What?" Lily squeals, waves the brush wildly and both of them look up as a purple splatter appears on the ceiling. "Uh, we'll tell Marshall that Marvin did that, what do you mean, you and Ted are… what?"
They’re in the apartment with all the windows open, painting a mural on Marvin’s bedroom wall. Lily has been planning this for a while, doing all these little pencil outlines of brontosauruses skipping across the page while Tracy absent-mindedly added things into the backgrounds, and that's how they've ended up here, doing Dinosaurs vs. Robots in bright acrylics and letting the sounds of the city in. Ted and Marshall are at work; Tracy's taking a break post-thesis and Lily's new kindergarten class hasn't begun yet, and there's something expectant in the air with the paint fumes: something like waiting.
"No!" Tracy says, waving her own brush, "no, like - no. But, I mean. What if we do - not that we are! But if we do, and Marvin gets a little older and says, hey, Mom, why do I have robots on my bedroom wall?" She waves at the teeny-tiny robot parade, which is starting to wind its way around the dinosaurs holding up tiny Metal Pride banners. "And you'll be like - oh, those are by some girl your Uncle Ted dated for a while?"
"Tracy," Lily says, very seriously, her tongue edging out of her mouth as she puts the spikes on a diplodocus, "if you want to break up with Ted, you should break up with Ted. But if you don't want to… well." She stops, stands up straight and uncracks her back. "I think you and he are…"
She trails off with a look Tracy has seen on her face before, and Marshall's. It's soft and knowing, full of love. "You know. You know."
And the worst part is that Tracy almost does, sometimes. That evening, Marshall comes in soaked with rainwater but he gets sent straight out again to pick up more paint and beer, and Lily's about to send Ted out for pizza when he shakes his head, throws down his jacket and sits down in front of the wall, reaching for a pencil. "Ted," Lily's scolding, "you know you can't draw faces, you make everybody look like Putin" - but Ted just shakes his head and doesn't turn around.
"Really?" Tracy asks. "Putin? Like, furry hats and oligarchs Putin?"
"Yeah," Ted says, half-distracted, and Tracy watches as he sketches in the background, the towers, trees and parks, distant horizons done in fine, confident lines. Lily grins, kisses the top of his head, and calls Marshall to ask him to please get takeout as well as beer. Tracy just stands there and watches Ted balancing on his knees, still with street dust and rainwater on his boots, sketching out a great city in freehand.
It's moments like that: quiet ones, undercut by the sound of the rain. Ted is drawing Zeppelin landing platforms on the tips of the towers; Tracy listens to the change in the weather.
*
"No," Tracy tells him, quickly as breathing. "No, God, no, no. You know… it's just. Lily and Marshall, and Robin - they just, they know you. Lily" - this over her shoulder - "how long have you known Ted?"
Lily's staring very intently at an inflatable skeleton. "Seventeen years," she tells it; Tracy has to twist around to look at her and accidently wing-butts Ted in the face. "Sorry. Oh, ick, you look like the thing from the lagoon." She grabs a napkin from the drinks table and starts to clean off some of the paint. "Urgh, gross."
Ted, standing still with his eyes closed, looks like he's actually enjoying himself. "Kinky," Tracy says, again. "Seventeen years, Lily."
"Yeah, but" - Lily gestures - "it's like, you should be glad you, uh, you haven't."
"Genuinely not sure if you're talking to the skeleton or to me, Lily." Tracy throws the first paint-soaked napkin at her and gets a clean one. "You're saying you wish you hadn't…"
"Aren't you dressed up like a slutty skeleton?"
"Nope. Angel."
"Slutty?"
"Green."
"How much shitty pink punch has she had?" Ted asks, of no one in particular, and then makes a noise like erk! as the paint napkin lands in his mouth. "Tracy!"
"Shut up, you totally deserved that," Tracy tells him. "Lily, do you regret it? Is that what you're saying?"
Reluctantly, Lily leaves the skeleton be, waves shakily at Marshall and comes out onto the middle of the rooftop to join them. The party's winding down; it's just people who live here, now, or who're dating the people who do, or who just really like punch that tastes like a colour, who knows. "I don't regret it! Ted, baby, I love you."
"You too, Lily," Ted says, opening his mouth as little as possible.
"It's just" - Lily gestures wildly so the pink punch splashes out of the cup - "I've seen you throw up in a bathtub. I've seen you after you've been left at the altar. I've seen you and Barney make out."
"Wait, you have?" Tracy asks. "Wait, I have. I mean. Kinda."
*
“Boys,” Lily’s explaining, as they stagger up the stairs, “they're such jerks. Always, me-me-me-me listen to me talk about stuff.”
“You married one,” Tracy points out, putting a steadying hand on Lily’s elbow, “you gave birth to one, also you’re wasted.”
“I did not,” Lily says, shifting out of her grip and having an intimate moment with the wall, “I did not, he’s my teeny-tiny baby, it’s not like I pushed a six-foot man-child out of my vagina. Why does the wall taste like pink?”
“Lily, don’t do that,” Tracy says, pushing her away and on towards the apartment door, “that’s disgusting, put your tongue away” - and then Lily’s key finally figures out what it’s for and they both fall halfway through the door into the darkened apartment.
“Oh my god,” Tracy says, “that’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The only illumination in the room is Marshall’s anglepoise lamp, casting a sharp-edged circle of light over Marshall’s hands and face, the brief he’s staying up late to read, and a small stack of constitutional law textbooks. “I know, right?” Lily says, and she's starting towards Marvin sleeping peacefully in a basket at Marshall’s feet, so Tracy takes Lily by the hand and leads her around the couch. Ted is asleep, rolled over on his side with his legs pulled up and his head on the armrest, which means he’s perfectly trapped Barney underneath him. Barney’s sitting bolt upright with his hands stuffed in his pockets and a distinctly pained expression.
“Tracy,” he’s saying, “it’s been, like, two hours, I have to pee, help - " - so Tracy throws off her heels and sits on the floor in front of them, and with both arms, lifts Ted off Barney and pulls him to her.
“Barney, you could’ve done this,” she points out, but Ted’s head has fallen to Tracy’s shoulder and he’s murmuring into, and then nuzzling, her neck, and Barney rolls his eyes.
“He,” he says, looking up at them both in fond disgust - “would have done that” - and stalks off still with his hands in his pockets, presumably to pee and also get himself pressed or whatever else it is Barney has instead of bodily functions.
“That would’ve been hot, though,” Lily says, "right, Tracy, oh, shit" - and lands on the couch with a thump. Barney's shuffling back into the room looking pained and Marshall's laughing and failing to be helpful and Tracy, with Lily’s drunk ass almost on top of her and Ted still mostly dead weight in her arms, is giggling a little, and kind of wondering how she got here on this couch in this city with these people, and - she's been drinking, and it's been a while since it's been this simple but - happy. Even when there's vomit.
*
"Wait, that was you?" Ted interrupts, and it's only by the luck of the Irish - the luck of the recently green, whatever - that he doesn't get more paint in his mouth. Lily and Tracy high-five. "I thought…"
"We know who you thought it was, sweetie," Lily says, and then gets an odd, thoughtful look on her face. "Uh - do we have… uh, a receptacle? That no one is, ah, using right now?"
"Fear not!" Marshall calls, ever the gallant and loving husband, holding the bucket they brought the ice up here in, and Ted and Tracy are alone again, still kinda slow-dancing, this time to the sound of - Tracy's pretty sure it's actual music and not in her head - the Dave Brubeck Quartet playing "Take Five". It must be; her inner voices can't do syncopation. They dance around a little, twirl and dip.
"Lily's right," Tracy says, after a while.
"Uh," Ted says, his face ghostly vivid in some distant searchlight. "What? Uh, what about?"
"You and Barney. It would've been hot," she says, grinning, and then, because she can't help herself: "Have you ever... you and Barney..."
"Made out, you mean?" Ted pauses, as though he's attempting to gauge her reaction. "A couple of times," he admits, after a moment, "but, uh. I think I was there in place of someone else. Because he couldn't, with Robin…" - he waves an awkward hand - "and I had…"
"That's really fucked up." Tracy looks across the roof at Barney and Robin; they're slow-dancing, too, moving languorously in rhythm with the music. Actually, no, they're not dancing, they're - okay. She turns Ted around, so she's facing in the other direction. "Poor Barney."
"I know," Ted murmurs into her shoulder, and they move around again, forwards and back. "What about you?" he asks, after another minute. "Did you and Cindy ever…"
Tracy shakes her head. "Not after that one time. It was nice, though," she adds, shrugging. "I mean - after Max died, I didn't want anyone. It didn't matter if they were guys, or... not."
Ted nods in return. "I get that. I think."
They're silent for a moment, rocking back and forth in the dimness. "What's this," he says, very gently, "about us maybe breaking up?"
*
A couple of days from now, Tracy is going to meet Cindy for lunch: another thing she wants to tick off her list before she's spending all her time in the library again. Cindy is pregnant again but not showing yet; Tracy's got a hat half-knitted in her desk drawer. "I shouldn't have told you that," she says, the moment after she's mentioned it, "I know people are superstitious - sorry. Sorry."
"Only you," Cindy says fondly, "could apologise for knitting a baby an adorable yellow hat. I'm just assuming it's yellow," she adds, before Tracy can say anything. "Or maybe green. Because the only thing ruder than knitting my baby a hat is knitting them a gender-essentialist hat, right?"
The hat is actually red with a purple bobble. Tracy grins, and orders decaf coffee and herbal tea from a passing waiter. They've picked some place with outdoor seating near Union Station, looking along 14th Street, and there's just enough warmth in the fall sunshine for it to be nice rather than unpleasant. "I could unpick and start again pink or blue, if you want? Or rainbow colours?"
Cindy laughs. "Don't even. Baby's first pride bib is coming from the internet already. Hey, Ted."
"Hey, Cindy." Ted gives Tracy a quick kiss. "I forgot my phone - oh, here it is." He grabs it off the table and runs back down the street. Right now he's freelancing for a private firm uptown somewhere but still looks the madcap professor anyway, his coat flapping behind him as he darts across the street to the subway. Tracy shakes her head and watches him go.
"So," Cindy says, bringing her hands together and warming them on the tea, "how's that going?"
Tracy doesn't have to ask what she means; Cindy's eyebrows are knowing and she's licking her lips. "It's good," she says. "Ted, and me - sorry, is this weirding you out?"
"I'm the one who brought it up," Cindy says. "Also, he's the guy who turned me lesbian, come on."
"He didn't," Tracy says, suddenly cutting, "you turned lesbian all by yourself. You look good," she adds, sincerely. "You look happy."
"You too," Cindy says, matching that sincerity, and Tracy has a sudden flash of memory, of painting the mural: of Lily's soft, loving look.
"Lily and Marshall think I'm going to marry Ted," she says, suddenly. "They think I'm going to marry him and have kids with him and live happily ever after with him."
"And are you?" Cindy asks, unfazed.
"Maybe," Tracy admits - which isn't, observes the rational part of her brain, the part that can model economic populations, the same as no. Of course, it's not no. It's Ted. "But - it's kind of freaky, don't you think?"
"They know him," Cindy says. "Haven't you said before, they know him like…"
Like they're a part of each other, Tracy supplies, internally. Like they've seen him throw up in the bathtub. "Sure," she says. "But they don't know me. Not like that."
"I do," Cindy points out. "I know you. And I meant it. You look happy."
Tracy nods, finds herself smiling on this quiet day under this enormous sky. "I am."
"Well, there you go." Cindy grins. "Look, Tracy, Ted's in love with you. I know what that looks like, remember?"
"Yeah," Tracy says. "Yeah - I remember."
"But whatever happens" - Cindy waves an expansive hand at the busy city street, at the stoplights and smokestacks and subway gratings - "you still…" She pauses, again. "You made a leap. You did a thing. And maybe it's a good thing."
Tracy smiles at that, puts a hand on Cindy's. For a weird moment, she wishes for Lily - Lily, who would say something funny right now, and diffuse the odd tenderness of this moment. Lily, who has loved Ted for seventeen years: who is a part of him, and will be part of Tracy, too, if this is the thing that's going to happen.
"And maybe," Cindy goes on, "you can be ready for that, now. For good things to happen."
And whatever does, Tracy thinks, this is still a thing that has happened. Last night she went out for drinks with Lily and Cindy and Dong Nose; they ran into Barney in some dive bar in Hell's Kitchen and between them they sent Ted twenty-four drunk texts, each of them a separate thing that happened, each a thing that made her laugh uproariously into Barney's shoulder, in the dark. There's no going back to the other kind of darkness.
*
"That's not what I want," Tracy says, very gently, still dancing slowly across the roof with Ted, still keeping them in rhythm. The chill night air is sobering but they're still both drunk enough for this to be sweet and easy; the saxophone part comes in again and Tracy dips Ted, then brings him back up so his head, thrown back, occludes the stars. "It's not a thing. I don't want to break up with you. It's just - I was hiding in my apartment a long time, Ted. I won't go back in there, even if we do break up. I won't go back to how things were."
Ted doesn't say anything for a second, and she's wondering if he even heard when he says, still with his eyes closed: "Change, change, we can change."
"Yeah. Yeah, that." She laughs, and kisses him impulsively. He didn't have any of the punch and his mouth tastes pleasantly like single malt Scotch. "It's just… nothing ever disappears here, you know? You can't eat a hot dog in New York without remembering all the twelve dozen hot dogs you ate and fourteen more you threw up from that same cart."
"Did I ever tell you about the first burger Marshall ever ate in New York?" Ted asks. "He made us look for this one perfect burger place for years after that. Also Regis Philbin came. Kinda, uh, kind of a long story, actually."
"That's exactly it," Tracy tells him. "I'm not saying we will, but if you and I break up, all of this" - she waves over the rooftop, at the discarded decorations and jack o'lanterns, at Lily looking mostly recovered, though Marshall still has an arm around her, at Barney and Robin, and okay, how are they doing that, that doesn't look at all comfortable - "it won't disappear. It'll be… here."
There's a sharpness in his eyes, despite the alcohol, and she knows he gets it. They've both lived in this city for so many years, after all. So close together; so immediate to memory.
"You know," Tracy says, after a while, "speaking of vomit, you should tell Lily that throwing up in the bathtub isn't that bad. I mean, it sounds like you had the best of intentions."
"She was in it in the time," Ted says.
"Ewwww. Mosby, you're disgusting." Tracy grins.
"I was nineteen!" Ted protests, and that's it, Tracy thinks: that's what Lily regrets, except she doesn't, because how can you regret anything about a friendship that could survive that, and Lily's blessing is worth having. "I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was nineteen. Didn't you?"
"GPA of 4.0," she says, primly. "You?"
"Failing econ," he admits, and she snorts. "Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Sure, honey," she says.
"Why are you green?"
*
Barney and Robin invite them to come down to Central Park on a day so bright it hurts to look at. Ted has a site visit somewhere uptown and tells her to have fun, he'll see her later; Tracy thinks it might be weird, and maybe the invitation was for both of them, or just for Ted, but not just her - but she walks along the trees in the park, enjoying the solid weight of her winter boots on her feet, spots Barney jumping up and down and waving on the other side of the fountain, and it's okay.
"Hey, McConnell," Barney says, as she comes within earshot, and she bows formally in return.
"Stinson," she allows, and Robin chuckles.
"Tracy," she says, "I kinda don't think you and I are close enough yet for last-name terms. I mean, I just don't wanna rush into such a big step, you know?"
Tracy laughs, shoves her gloved hands into her pockets, and falls in step with them as they start walking. There are a fair few people around and some kids playing Frisbee, though the air is chilled, toothpaste-fresh, the trees making bleak outlines against the sky. Tracy wonders if she could paint this view, or if the point of it is that it's transitory. "So," she says, after a while, "what's up?"
"It's funny you should ask that, McConnell," Barney says, snapping his heels together smartly. "You are, you see, in the privileged - nay, unprecedented - position…"
"You're gonna go on top?" Tracy inquires sweetly, and she and Robin high-five.
"As I was saying," Barney says, unperturbed, "you shall be the first person to witness" - he snaps his fingers, and a deck of cards appears from nowhere - "this. Pick a card."
"You brought me all the way down here for this?" Tracy asks, but she's smiling.
"At the request of my beautiful wife," Barney says, still formally, and Robin rolls her eyes.
"Our entire apartment smells of gunpowder," she tells Tracy. "Gunpowder and cologne. And he won't let me shoot stuff in the house."
Tracy laughs, and Barney shakes his head impatiently. "McConnell, awesome awaits! A card, if you please."
Tracy picks a card from the proffered deck. It's the jack of hearts. She holds it in her hand and Barney just stares at her. "What, do I eat it or something?"
"No," Barney says, with gravitas. "Keep it. It's not that difficult, seriously." He shakes his head, and shakes the cards remaining in his hand. "Uh, could you just… for a minute…"
"Barney?" Tracy says, holding up her card. "Are you gonna… do something right now?"
Barney glares. "We're in beta-test right now, okay? Just talk amongst yourselves, ladies."
Tracy chuckles, and follows as Robin makes a resigned gesture; they walk on and leave Barney to stare angrily at the deck of cards, beginning a circumnavigation of the fountain edge. "I guess it's a complicated trick?"
"I don't know, I haven't seen it yet either," Robin says, seriously, and then adds, "So, I wanted to talk to you."
Tracy's not stupid. "You knew Ted couldn't make it today when you invited us."
Robin nods and doesn't deny it. The low winter sun lights up her face, picking up the highlights in her hair. She's so beautiful, Tracy thinks, even with a scarf bundled over her mouth and nose. "Tracy," she says, and pauses. "You and Ted - you're doing okay, right?"
"Yes," Tracy says, simply. They are - they're doing better than okay, maybe. Romantic, and silly, and real, and okay. "We're doing fine."
"Okay." Robin nods. "I just - I don't know what Lily and Marshall have said to you already, but Ted and I have been friends a long time, and…
"What?" Tracy asks, when she doesn't say anything else.
"Nothing," Robin says, her cheeks pink. "Just, forget I said anything."
"Okay," Tracy says, after a moment, "is this the shovel talk? Is this what this is, Scherbatsky?"
When Robin still doesn't say anything, she adds: "So Ted gets hurt, I wind up in an unmarked grave?"
"No," Robin says, entirely unconvincingly, and Tracy glares at her. "All right! Tracy - Ted is, he's, you know, what am I saying, you know what he's like."
"Robin," Tracy says, urgently, "Ted and I aren't - you know. We're not, it's not like we couldn't still break up."
Robin stops walking and looks at her. "Even if you did. Even if you do. Would you ever cheat on him? Start a website about how he's a jerk? Break up with him in the shower?"
Tracy stares back. "No, no, and what even."
"Okay." Robin starts walking again. "You'll do, McConnell."
"Damn right," Tracy says. Tentatively, she adds: "I'm going for my PhD. I mean - I'm writing up my dissertation proposal right now. I mean, I'm gonna be around in New York for a while."
"That's great!" Robin inclines her head. "I mean," she adds, tentatively in her turn, "I, ah, I travel a lot for work? But I always come back to New York. And Lily always says I should have more girlfriends."
Tracy just smiles. They've passed the halfway point of their circuit of the fountain, turning away from the glare. Above them, the stone tiers gleam in that low sunshine, water-spattered and warm with light.
"All right!" Barney says, as they come back up to him. "Tracy, pick a card."
Tracy glances at Robin, then pulls a card from the deck. It's the jack of hearts, just like the card she still has in her gloved hand. "Barney," she's complaining, "this is a trick deck" - but he waves her silent, impatiently.
"Hold it up to your eyes," he orders, and Tracy does, eye-to-eye with the jack of hearts' face on the card, then pulls it away when he snaps his fingers.
"Oh," she says. Above Tracy's head, bright sparks are rising through the curtains of water, darting upwards like St Elmo's Fire, moving along the statute's outstretched arms, to the tips of her wings and up into the brilliance of the sky. For a moment, there's only brightness and light and the Angel of the Waters, blessing the pool at Bethesda.
"Shit," Robin says, in wonderment, her hands dropping to her sides. The crowds of people are gathering at the feet of the angel alight with flame; small children are jumping up, trying to touch it while their parents stand still and look up. "Holy shit, Barney."
"I'm not allowed to make fireballs in the house any more," Barney says petulantly, and it's so clear right now how much Robin loves him. There are tears in Tracy's eyes, blurring the bright sky and the angel.
"Your move," she says, putting the cards into his hands, but Barney pushes them away.
"Look after him," he says, and there's nothing more to be said after this kind of benediction.
*
Ted just stares at her for a moment, after she's done telling the story. And then he runs across to say something to Barney, and then to Robin, and Tracy doesn't hear what he says, but she sees the light in Barney's face as he claps Ted on the shoulder. Robin kisses Ted on the cheek.
"It wasn't green, to begin with," Ted says, breathlessly, when he comes back to Tracy, and of course he knows that fun little factoid, he's such a nerd and she loves him. "It was the passage of time that did it, that tarnished the copper patina" - and then he's pulling her to him, crushing her against his heart so he's really covered in paint this time, green crap all in his hair and covering his face and his hands. "You're the Angel Bethesda."
"The Angel of the Waters," she corrects, and she thinks Barney might have heard her; he looks up for a moment from the other side of the roof, gives her a small smile, then dances softly to Robin and away.
"You know," she says, after a while, "we should go down there in the spring. It's beautiful then."
"It's beautiful even in the winter," Ted says, quietly. "Even under the snow. But we could go… more than once."
"More than once," she says, and feels like there's a wealth of something in those words. A promise, maybe, of what's to come: of the city's shift through the seasons; of Marvin sleeping in that little bed under the dinosaurs and the robots; of Cindy's new baby in her little pride bib; of pink drinks, of magic, of angels. Of the two of them, Tracy and Ted, whatever they are and whatever they will be, of this thing that's just change, change, change.
"You guys coming down?" Marshall calls, from the roof door. "Jesus, it's cold as balls. Are balls even cold? It's cold as things that are really fucking cold."
"In a minute," Ted calls back, and holds tight to Tracy for a minute, under the curve of those wings. They're both a mess of paint and even huddling close together for warmth they're still shivering, but they're both still out here, still breathing the heady, smoky, freezing air; because this is New York City, rich with ghosts of everything that's yet to come.
end.
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trickortreatex - reveal was today.
fic:: feathered by the moonlight (change, change, change)
by Raven
6000w, How I Met Your Mother, Ted/Tracy, Robin/Barney, Marshall/Lily. Tracy's eleventh autumn in New York; or, robots, romance and all things yet to come.
"Memories," Tracy announces jubilantly, "are films, about ghosts."
"Honey," Ted says, swinging slightly to the left so she doesn't land on his feet, "that's a Counting Crows lyric."
"Doesn't mean it's not, you know. True." Step forwards, step back. They're on the roof and it's cold as fuck, though Ted has taken off his hanging chad costume so they can sort-of maybe waltz to keep warm, one, two, three, then back. The music's coming from Lily's iPod though maybe it's just in Tracy's head right now. Three, four, step and turn.
"Yeah, Counting Crows lyrics, though," Ted says, contemplatively. "They're all like, change, change, change, we can change. Also, I'm the king of the rain. And you're all like, yeah, for sure Adam Duritz, you're the king of the rain."
"Eight years ago, on this very rooftop" - this time Tracy does step on Ted's feet, but he's wasted too right now, he's got insulation, holy fuck, it's cold up here - "you made it rain. Kinda. Thought you did, anyway, because you can bend the laws of physics to your will, that's totally a thing."
Ted might be blushing in the dim light. "Robin told you about that, huh?"
"And Barney," Tracy tells him. "And Lily. They were like - they wanted to be sure I knew. What I was getting into with you. I mean, what kind of idiot you were."
"That's true love for you," Ted says with equanimity, and turns on his heel quite neatly, considering. Tracy's papier-mâché wings shudder and flutter in the breeze and he reaches up to touch them, eyes bright with wonder.
"Kinky," Tracy says, and puts her hand on his without pushing it away, so they're not dancing any more, just standing and holding each other under the clear night sky. "No, listen, Ted. Memories, films about ghosts. King of the rain. We can change. Change, change, change."
"Maybe we can," Ted says, after a moment. "Why are you green?"
"I'm an angel, Ted," she says. "Pay attention. I told you I'm gonna stay in New York, right?"
*
It is not because of Ted that Tracy is going to stay in New York.
It's nothing to do with Ted.
Okay, it's a little bit to do with Ted. It's a little bit to do with long walks in the park with Ted, carrying her yellow umbrella. (Ted has graciously admitted - on which graciousness Tracy calls bullshit, one of the two of them paid for that yellow umbrella with actual green dollars and it wasn't Ted Evelyn Kleptomaniac Mosby - that it is her, Tracy's, umbrella, and she has graciously permitted him to use it if he doesn’t let the wind turn it inside out or leave it hooked off the fire escape to dry, downstairs are still kinda pissed about that whole almost-being-perforated thing.) It's a little about Ted, and more about how this is the eleventh autumn Tracy has seen in New York, creeping through the cracks and frosting the cityscape, and this is the first one that has seemed to promise change. On this one perfect romantic Saturday morning - which, okay, everyone should have sometimes: with the leaves drifting past the window, the weekend New York Times, the lox and cream cheese, the whole works - Tracy's leafing through the business section, talking about the key determinative flaws in the methodology used to establish global austerity, and Ted's response is: “I don’t get what the big deal is.”
“You don’t,” Tracy repeats, “get what the big deal is” - so she goes through it for him, says some things about Reinhart-Rogoff false causation and post-WW2 growth forecasts. And it's not like this is the first time she and Ted have disagreed on something: like, on what kind of takeout they want, or whether Peter Jackson should have split The Hobbit into three movies, or whatever.
“But actually, what about…” - is how Ted begins whatever bullshit thing he says next, the thing that makes it abundantly clear that he thinks he’s explaining this to her, and she interrupts him to yell some things and he interrupts her to yell some other things, and Tracy slams a door for good measure after she storms out.
Ted opens the door. "Tracy..."
Tracy says, “I have a Master’s degree in economics from Columbia, you ignorant chauvinistic bastard” - and goes out to perch on the fire escape. She sits down too hard on the step and that's how the almost-spearing happens, which is Ted's fault for hanging the umbrella off there in the first place, and anyway he's a jerk and it's really nothing to do with him at all.
(Many years from now, she's going to tell Ted this: she's going to lean against the wall with her knees turning into jelly and say, "You remember back when we first knew each other, and we had that fight and you were a total dick" - and he's going to laugh and kiss her and buy her a giant glass of champagne and toast her into the dawn, because he'll know the story, of how the journey that ended with her standing before her viva committee, defending a doctoral thesis on the economics of growth and development, began in that furious moment, her hands itching for whiteboard markers to draw some graphs and then throw at Ted's head. She'll tell him that it was nothing and everything to do with him, that she became Dr. McConnell on her own hard work and determination, and because he loved her even when she was writing up, and insisted she stop to take showers.)
And of course at the time, none of that matters so much - Ted's a jerk and Tracy tells him so, and it takes him a couple of minutes and he does apologise - but at least it works out okay between them, like it's okay for them not to be perfect. Later, Tracy is walking down the street with her hands in her pockets, thinking about how she's going to word her email to her thesis adviser, and she looks up and sees him, waving her umbrella through the window because he's a jerk but he went downstairs to get it back. That's the night the first cold wind starts blowing off the harbour, smoky and salt-laden, and that's why Tracy is staying in New York.
*
"Like, maybe," Tracy adds, a little doubtfully, "if they say yes. If I can - you know. At Columbia."
"They'll say yes," Ted says confidently, pulling her close. "They'll be like - she's awesome and she's gonna change the world. Also she's super-hot. What's not to love?"
Tracy laughs. "I kinda think Columbia want more than 'hot' and 'awesome'. Though those are totally things that I am. Well-observed, Mosby. I'm just" - she sways a little, lets him catch her - "I just, I really want this, you know? I want to do this. I'm scared they'll be like… you know. No."
"Hey," Ted says, "they took Marshall" - and she swats him on the shoulder, and Marshall calls down from the roof ledge:
"Not cool, dude. Did you know you have green on you?"
"Uh, yeah," Ted says, pushing a paint-spattered hand through his hair and then regretting it. "Tracy. Uh, why are you…"
"Memories," Tracy reminds him. "Like - so, if Columbia say yes, and they're gonna say yes, 'cause I'm hot, and I'm awesome, and they took Marshall. Who is also hot and awesome! Yeah, you are."
Marshall bows, and wobbles slightly but doesn't fall off the roof. "Barney, another glass of punch for the lady."
It's a red plastic cup, not a glass, and Barney is kind of standing at two metres' safe distance to avoid getting green paint on him, but it's good. Tracy takes a deep draught of it and says, "It's a five-year doctoral programme. I'm gonna be here for a while, you know. Here in New York City. Even if not" - she breathes in and looks right up at Ted - "not, you know, in your life."
She feels him tense. "What?"
*
"What if Ted and I break up?"
"What?" Lily squeals, waves the brush wildly and both of them look up as a purple splatter appears on the ceiling. "Uh, we'll tell Marshall that Marvin did that, what do you mean, you and Ted are… what?"
They’re in the apartment with all the windows open, painting a mural on Marvin’s bedroom wall. Lily has been planning this for a while, doing all these little pencil outlines of brontosauruses skipping across the page while Tracy absent-mindedly added things into the backgrounds, and that's how they've ended up here, doing Dinosaurs vs. Robots in bright acrylics and letting the sounds of the city in. Ted and Marshall are at work; Tracy's taking a break post-thesis and Lily's new kindergarten class hasn't begun yet, and there's something expectant in the air with the paint fumes: something like waiting.
"No!" Tracy says, waving her own brush, "no, like - no. But, I mean. What if we do - not that we are! But if we do, and Marvin gets a little older and says, hey, Mom, why do I have robots on my bedroom wall?" She waves at the teeny-tiny robot parade, which is starting to wind its way around the dinosaurs holding up tiny Metal Pride banners. "And you'll be like - oh, those are by some girl your Uncle Ted dated for a while?"
"Tracy," Lily says, very seriously, her tongue edging out of her mouth as she puts the spikes on a diplodocus, "if you want to break up with Ted, you should break up with Ted. But if you don't want to… well." She stops, stands up straight and uncracks her back. "I think you and he are…"
She trails off with a look Tracy has seen on her face before, and Marshall's. It's soft and knowing, full of love. "You know. You know."
And the worst part is that Tracy almost does, sometimes. That evening, Marshall comes in soaked with rainwater but he gets sent straight out again to pick up more paint and beer, and Lily's about to send Ted out for pizza when he shakes his head, throws down his jacket and sits down in front of the wall, reaching for a pencil. "Ted," Lily's scolding, "you know you can't draw faces, you make everybody look like Putin" - but Ted just shakes his head and doesn't turn around.
"Really?" Tracy asks. "Putin? Like, furry hats and oligarchs Putin?"
"Yeah," Ted says, half-distracted, and Tracy watches as he sketches in the background, the towers, trees and parks, distant horizons done in fine, confident lines. Lily grins, kisses the top of his head, and calls Marshall to ask him to please get takeout as well as beer. Tracy just stands there and watches Ted balancing on his knees, still with street dust and rainwater on his boots, sketching out a great city in freehand.
It's moments like that: quiet ones, undercut by the sound of the rain. Ted is drawing Zeppelin landing platforms on the tips of the towers; Tracy listens to the change in the weather.
*
"No," Tracy tells him, quickly as breathing. "No, God, no, no. You know… it's just. Lily and Marshall, and Robin - they just, they know you. Lily" - this over her shoulder - "how long have you known Ted?"
Lily's staring very intently at an inflatable skeleton. "Seventeen years," she tells it; Tracy has to twist around to look at her and accidently wing-butts Ted in the face. "Sorry. Oh, ick, you look like the thing from the lagoon." She grabs a napkin from the drinks table and starts to clean off some of the paint. "Urgh, gross."
Ted, standing still with his eyes closed, looks like he's actually enjoying himself. "Kinky," Tracy says, again. "Seventeen years, Lily."
"Yeah, but" - Lily gestures - "it's like, you should be glad you, uh, you haven't."
"Genuinely not sure if you're talking to the skeleton or to me, Lily." Tracy throws the first paint-soaked napkin at her and gets a clean one. "You're saying you wish you hadn't…"
"Aren't you dressed up like a slutty skeleton?"
"Nope. Angel."
"Slutty?"
"Green."
"How much shitty pink punch has she had?" Ted asks, of no one in particular, and then makes a noise like erk! as the paint napkin lands in his mouth. "Tracy!"
"Shut up, you totally deserved that," Tracy tells him. "Lily, do you regret it? Is that what you're saying?"
Reluctantly, Lily leaves the skeleton be, waves shakily at Marshall and comes out onto the middle of the rooftop to join them. The party's winding down; it's just people who live here, now, or who're dating the people who do, or who just really like punch that tastes like a colour, who knows. "I don't regret it! Ted, baby, I love you."
"You too, Lily," Ted says, opening his mouth as little as possible.
"It's just" - Lily gestures wildly so the pink punch splashes out of the cup - "I've seen you throw up in a bathtub. I've seen you after you've been left at the altar. I've seen you and Barney make out."
"Wait, you have?" Tracy asks. "Wait, I have. I mean. Kinda."
*
“Boys,” Lily’s explaining, as they stagger up the stairs, “they're such jerks. Always, me-me-me-me listen to me talk about stuff.”
“You married one,” Tracy points out, putting a steadying hand on Lily’s elbow, “you gave birth to one, also you’re wasted.”
“I did not,” Lily says, shifting out of her grip and having an intimate moment with the wall, “I did not, he’s my teeny-tiny baby, it’s not like I pushed a six-foot man-child out of my vagina. Why does the wall taste like pink?”
“Lily, don’t do that,” Tracy says, pushing her away and on towards the apartment door, “that’s disgusting, put your tongue away” - and then Lily’s key finally figures out what it’s for and they both fall halfway through the door into the darkened apartment.
“Oh my god,” Tracy says, “that’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The only illumination in the room is Marshall’s anglepoise lamp, casting a sharp-edged circle of light over Marshall’s hands and face, the brief he’s staying up late to read, and a small stack of constitutional law textbooks. “I know, right?” Lily says, and she's starting towards Marvin sleeping peacefully in a basket at Marshall’s feet, so Tracy takes Lily by the hand and leads her around the couch. Ted is asleep, rolled over on his side with his legs pulled up and his head on the armrest, which means he’s perfectly trapped Barney underneath him. Barney’s sitting bolt upright with his hands stuffed in his pockets and a distinctly pained expression.
“Tracy,” he’s saying, “it’s been, like, two hours, I have to pee, help - " - so Tracy throws off her heels and sits on the floor in front of them, and with both arms, lifts Ted off Barney and pulls him to her.
“Barney, you could’ve done this,” she points out, but Ted’s head has fallen to Tracy’s shoulder and he’s murmuring into, and then nuzzling, her neck, and Barney rolls his eyes.
“He,” he says, looking up at them both in fond disgust - “would have done that” - and stalks off still with his hands in his pockets, presumably to pee and also get himself pressed or whatever else it is Barney has instead of bodily functions.
“That would’ve been hot, though,” Lily says, "right, Tracy, oh, shit" - and lands on the couch with a thump. Barney's shuffling back into the room looking pained and Marshall's laughing and failing to be helpful and Tracy, with Lily’s drunk ass almost on top of her and Ted still mostly dead weight in her arms, is giggling a little, and kind of wondering how she got here on this couch in this city with these people, and - she's been drinking, and it's been a while since it's been this simple but - happy. Even when there's vomit.
*
"Wait, that was you?" Ted interrupts, and it's only by the luck of the Irish - the luck of the recently green, whatever - that he doesn't get more paint in his mouth. Lily and Tracy high-five. "I thought…"
"We know who you thought it was, sweetie," Lily says, and then gets an odd, thoughtful look on her face. "Uh - do we have… uh, a receptacle? That no one is, ah, using right now?"
"Fear not!" Marshall calls, ever the gallant and loving husband, holding the bucket they brought the ice up here in, and Ted and Tracy are alone again, still kinda slow-dancing, this time to the sound of - Tracy's pretty sure it's actual music and not in her head - the Dave Brubeck Quartet playing "Take Five". It must be; her inner voices can't do syncopation. They dance around a little, twirl and dip.
"Lily's right," Tracy says, after a while.
"Uh," Ted says, his face ghostly vivid in some distant searchlight. "What? Uh, what about?"
"You and Barney. It would've been hot," she says, grinning, and then, because she can't help herself: "Have you ever... you and Barney..."
"Made out, you mean?" Ted pauses, as though he's attempting to gauge her reaction. "A couple of times," he admits, after a moment, "but, uh. I think I was there in place of someone else. Because he couldn't, with Robin…" - he waves an awkward hand - "and I had…"
"That's really fucked up." Tracy looks across the roof at Barney and Robin; they're slow-dancing, too, moving languorously in rhythm with the music. Actually, no, they're not dancing, they're - okay. She turns Ted around, so she's facing in the other direction. "Poor Barney."
"I know," Ted murmurs into her shoulder, and they move around again, forwards and back. "What about you?" he asks, after another minute. "Did you and Cindy ever…"
Tracy shakes her head. "Not after that one time. It was nice, though," she adds, shrugging. "I mean - after Max died, I didn't want anyone. It didn't matter if they were guys, or... not."
Ted nods in return. "I get that. I think."
They're silent for a moment, rocking back and forth in the dimness. "What's this," he says, very gently, "about us maybe breaking up?"
*
A couple of days from now, Tracy is going to meet Cindy for lunch: another thing she wants to tick off her list before she's spending all her time in the library again. Cindy is pregnant again but not showing yet; Tracy's got a hat half-knitted in her desk drawer. "I shouldn't have told you that," she says, the moment after she's mentioned it, "I know people are superstitious - sorry. Sorry."
"Only you," Cindy says fondly, "could apologise for knitting a baby an adorable yellow hat. I'm just assuming it's yellow," she adds, before Tracy can say anything. "Or maybe green. Because the only thing ruder than knitting my baby a hat is knitting them a gender-essentialist hat, right?"
The hat is actually red with a purple bobble. Tracy grins, and orders decaf coffee and herbal tea from a passing waiter. They've picked some place with outdoor seating near Union Station, looking along 14th Street, and there's just enough warmth in the fall sunshine for it to be nice rather than unpleasant. "I could unpick and start again pink or blue, if you want? Or rainbow colours?"
Cindy laughs. "Don't even. Baby's first pride bib is coming from the internet already. Hey, Ted."
"Hey, Cindy." Ted gives Tracy a quick kiss. "I forgot my phone - oh, here it is." He grabs it off the table and runs back down the street. Right now he's freelancing for a private firm uptown somewhere but still looks the madcap professor anyway, his coat flapping behind him as he darts across the street to the subway. Tracy shakes her head and watches him go.
"So," Cindy says, bringing her hands together and warming them on the tea, "how's that going?"
Tracy doesn't have to ask what she means; Cindy's eyebrows are knowing and she's licking her lips. "It's good," she says. "Ted, and me - sorry, is this weirding you out?"
"I'm the one who brought it up," Cindy says. "Also, he's the guy who turned me lesbian, come on."
"He didn't," Tracy says, suddenly cutting, "you turned lesbian all by yourself. You look good," she adds, sincerely. "You look happy."
"You too," Cindy says, matching that sincerity, and Tracy has a sudden flash of memory, of painting the mural: of Lily's soft, loving look.
"Lily and Marshall think I'm going to marry Ted," she says, suddenly. "They think I'm going to marry him and have kids with him and live happily ever after with him."
"And are you?" Cindy asks, unfazed.
"Maybe," Tracy admits - which isn't, observes the rational part of her brain, the part that can model economic populations, the same as no. Of course, it's not no. It's Ted. "But - it's kind of freaky, don't you think?"
"They know him," Cindy says. "Haven't you said before, they know him like…"
Like they're a part of each other, Tracy supplies, internally. Like they've seen him throw up in the bathtub. "Sure," she says. "But they don't know me. Not like that."
"I do," Cindy points out. "I know you. And I meant it. You look happy."
Tracy nods, finds herself smiling on this quiet day under this enormous sky. "I am."
"Well, there you go." Cindy grins. "Look, Tracy, Ted's in love with you. I know what that looks like, remember?"
"Yeah," Tracy says. "Yeah - I remember."
"But whatever happens" - Cindy waves an expansive hand at the busy city street, at the stoplights and smokestacks and subway gratings - "you still…" She pauses, again. "You made a leap. You did a thing. And maybe it's a good thing."
Tracy smiles at that, puts a hand on Cindy's. For a weird moment, she wishes for Lily - Lily, who would say something funny right now, and diffuse the odd tenderness of this moment. Lily, who has loved Ted for seventeen years: who is a part of him, and will be part of Tracy, too, if this is the thing that's going to happen.
"And maybe," Cindy goes on, "you can be ready for that, now. For good things to happen."
And whatever does, Tracy thinks, this is still a thing that has happened. Last night she went out for drinks with Lily and Cindy and Dong Nose; they ran into Barney in some dive bar in Hell's Kitchen and between them they sent Ted twenty-four drunk texts, each of them a separate thing that happened, each a thing that made her laugh uproariously into Barney's shoulder, in the dark. There's no going back to the other kind of darkness.
*
"That's not what I want," Tracy says, very gently, still dancing slowly across the roof with Ted, still keeping them in rhythm. The chill night air is sobering but they're still both drunk enough for this to be sweet and easy; the saxophone part comes in again and Tracy dips Ted, then brings him back up so his head, thrown back, occludes the stars. "It's not a thing. I don't want to break up with you. It's just - I was hiding in my apartment a long time, Ted. I won't go back in there, even if we do break up. I won't go back to how things were."
Ted doesn't say anything for a second, and she's wondering if he even heard when he says, still with his eyes closed: "Change, change, we can change."
"Yeah. Yeah, that." She laughs, and kisses him impulsively. He didn't have any of the punch and his mouth tastes pleasantly like single malt Scotch. "It's just… nothing ever disappears here, you know? You can't eat a hot dog in New York without remembering all the twelve dozen hot dogs you ate and fourteen more you threw up from that same cart."
"Did I ever tell you about the first burger Marshall ever ate in New York?" Ted asks. "He made us look for this one perfect burger place for years after that. Also Regis Philbin came. Kinda, uh, kind of a long story, actually."
"That's exactly it," Tracy tells him. "I'm not saying we will, but if you and I break up, all of this" - she waves over the rooftop, at the discarded decorations and jack o'lanterns, at Lily looking mostly recovered, though Marshall still has an arm around her, at Barney and Robin, and okay, how are they doing that, that doesn't look at all comfortable - "it won't disappear. It'll be… here."
There's a sharpness in his eyes, despite the alcohol, and she knows he gets it. They've both lived in this city for so many years, after all. So close together; so immediate to memory.
"You know," Tracy says, after a while, "speaking of vomit, you should tell Lily that throwing up in the bathtub isn't that bad. I mean, it sounds like you had the best of intentions."
"She was in it in the time," Ted says.
"Ewwww. Mosby, you're disgusting." Tracy grins.
"I was nineteen!" Ted protests, and that's it, Tracy thinks: that's what Lily regrets, except she doesn't, because how can you regret anything about a friendship that could survive that, and Lily's blessing is worth having. "I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was nineteen. Didn't you?"
"GPA of 4.0," she says, primly. "You?"
"Failing econ," he admits, and she snorts. "Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Sure, honey," she says.
"Why are you green?"
*
Barney and Robin invite them to come down to Central Park on a day so bright it hurts to look at. Ted has a site visit somewhere uptown and tells her to have fun, he'll see her later; Tracy thinks it might be weird, and maybe the invitation was for both of them, or just for Ted, but not just her - but she walks along the trees in the park, enjoying the solid weight of her winter boots on her feet, spots Barney jumping up and down and waving on the other side of the fountain, and it's okay.
"Hey, McConnell," Barney says, as she comes within earshot, and she bows formally in return.
"Stinson," she allows, and Robin chuckles.
"Tracy," she says, "I kinda don't think you and I are close enough yet for last-name terms. I mean, I just don't wanna rush into such a big step, you know?"
Tracy laughs, shoves her gloved hands into her pockets, and falls in step with them as they start walking. There are a fair few people around and some kids playing Frisbee, though the air is chilled, toothpaste-fresh, the trees making bleak outlines against the sky. Tracy wonders if she could paint this view, or if the point of it is that it's transitory. "So," she says, after a while, "what's up?"
"It's funny you should ask that, McConnell," Barney says, snapping his heels together smartly. "You are, you see, in the privileged - nay, unprecedented - position…"
"You're gonna go on top?" Tracy inquires sweetly, and she and Robin high-five.
"As I was saying," Barney says, unperturbed, "you shall be the first person to witness" - he snaps his fingers, and a deck of cards appears from nowhere - "this. Pick a card."
"You brought me all the way down here for this?" Tracy asks, but she's smiling.
"At the request of my beautiful wife," Barney says, still formally, and Robin rolls her eyes.
"Our entire apartment smells of gunpowder," she tells Tracy. "Gunpowder and cologne. And he won't let me shoot stuff in the house."
Tracy laughs, and Barney shakes his head impatiently. "McConnell, awesome awaits! A card, if you please."
Tracy picks a card from the proffered deck. It's the jack of hearts. She holds it in her hand and Barney just stares at her. "What, do I eat it or something?"
"No," Barney says, with gravitas. "Keep it. It's not that difficult, seriously." He shakes his head, and shakes the cards remaining in his hand. "Uh, could you just… for a minute…"
"Barney?" Tracy says, holding up her card. "Are you gonna… do something right now?"
Barney glares. "We're in beta-test right now, okay? Just talk amongst yourselves, ladies."
Tracy chuckles, and follows as Robin makes a resigned gesture; they walk on and leave Barney to stare angrily at the deck of cards, beginning a circumnavigation of the fountain edge. "I guess it's a complicated trick?"
"I don't know, I haven't seen it yet either," Robin says, seriously, and then adds, "So, I wanted to talk to you."
Tracy's not stupid. "You knew Ted couldn't make it today when you invited us."
Robin nods and doesn't deny it. The low winter sun lights up her face, picking up the highlights in her hair. She's so beautiful, Tracy thinks, even with a scarf bundled over her mouth and nose. "Tracy," she says, and pauses. "You and Ted - you're doing okay, right?"
"Yes," Tracy says, simply. They are - they're doing better than okay, maybe. Romantic, and silly, and real, and okay. "We're doing fine."
"Okay." Robin nods. "I just - I don't know what Lily and Marshall have said to you already, but Ted and I have been friends a long time, and…
"What?" Tracy asks, when she doesn't say anything else.
"Nothing," Robin says, her cheeks pink. "Just, forget I said anything."
"Okay," Tracy says, after a moment, "is this the shovel talk? Is this what this is, Scherbatsky?"
When Robin still doesn't say anything, she adds: "So Ted gets hurt, I wind up in an unmarked grave?"
"No," Robin says, entirely unconvincingly, and Tracy glares at her. "All right! Tracy - Ted is, he's, you know, what am I saying, you know what he's like."
"Robin," Tracy says, urgently, "Ted and I aren't - you know. We're not, it's not like we couldn't still break up."
Robin stops walking and looks at her. "Even if you did. Even if you do. Would you ever cheat on him? Start a website about how he's a jerk? Break up with him in the shower?"
Tracy stares back. "No, no, and what even."
"Okay." Robin starts walking again. "You'll do, McConnell."
"Damn right," Tracy says. Tentatively, she adds: "I'm going for my PhD. I mean - I'm writing up my dissertation proposal right now. I mean, I'm gonna be around in New York for a while."
"That's great!" Robin inclines her head. "I mean," she adds, tentatively in her turn, "I, ah, I travel a lot for work? But I always come back to New York. And Lily always says I should have more girlfriends."
Tracy just smiles. They've passed the halfway point of their circuit of the fountain, turning away from the glare. Above them, the stone tiers gleam in that low sunshine, water-spattered and warm with light.
"All right!" Barney says, as they come back up to him. "Tracy, pick a card."
Tracy glances at Robin, then pulls a card from the deck. It's the jack of hearts, just like the card she still has in her gloved hand. "Barney," she's complaining, "this is a trick deck" - but he waves her silent, impatiently.
"Hold it up to your eyes," he orders, and Tracy does, eye-to-eye with the jack of hearts' face on the card, then pulls it away when he snaps his fingers.
"Oh," she says. Above Tracy's head, bright sparks are rising through the curtains of water, darting upwards like St Elmo's Fire, moving along the statute's outstretched arms, to the tips of her wings and up into the brilliance of the sky. For a moment, there's only brightness and light and the Angel of the Waters, blessing the pool at Bethesda.
"Shit," Robin says, in wonderment, her hands dropping to her sides. The crowds of people are gathering at the feet of the angel alight with flame; small children are jumping up, trying to touch it while their parents stand still and look up. "Holy shit, Barney."
"I'm not allowed to make fireballs in the house any more," Barney says petulantly, and it's so clear right now how much Robin loves him. There are tears in Tracy's eyes, blurring the bright sky and the angel.
"Your move," she says, putting the cards into his hands, but Barney pushes them away.
"Look after him," he says, and there's nothing more to be said after this kind of benediction.
*
Ted just stares at her for a moment, after she's done telling the story. And then he runs across to say something to Barney, and then to Robin, and Tracy doesn't hear what he says, but she sees the light in Barney's face as he claps Ted on the shoulder. Robin kisses Ted on the cheek.
"It wasn't green, to begin with," Ted says, breathlessly, when he comes back to Tracy, and of course he knows that fun little factoid, he's such a nerd and she loves him. "It was the passage of time that did it, that tarnished the copper patina" - and then he's pulling her to him, crushing her against his heart so he's really covered in paint this time, green crap all in his hair and covering his face and his hands. "You're the Angel Bethesda."
"The Angel of the Waters," she corrects, and she thinks Barney might have heard her; he looks up for a moment from the other side of the roof, gives her a small smile, then dances softly to Robin and away.
"You know," she says, after a while, "we should go down there in the spring. It's beautiful then."
"It's beautiful even in the winter," Ted says, quietly. "Even under the snow. But we could go… more than once."
"More than once," she says, and feels like there's a wealth of something in those words. A promise, maybe, of what's to come: of the city's shift through the seasons; of Marvin sleeping in that little bed under the dinosaurs and the robots; of Cindy's new baby in her little pride bib; of pink drinks, of magic, of angels. Of the two of them, Tracy and Ted, whatever they are and whatever they will be, of this thing that's just change, change, change.
"You guys coming down?" Marshall calls, from the roof door. "Jesus, it's cold as balls. Are balls even cold? It's cold as things that are really fucking cold."
"In a minute," Ted calls back, and holds tight to Tracy for a minute, under the curve of those wings. They're both a mess of paint and even huddling close together for warmth they're still shivering, but they're both still out here, still breathing the heady, smoky, freezing air; because this is New York City, rich with ghosts of everything that's yet to come.
end.
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