Author's note: I'd really like to continue this story, please give me feedback if you liked this part and if I should continue writing. It's my very first fanfiction story, and I have no idea whether it's good or bad, just tell me everything you liked, disliked or found horribly OOC.

„We're engaged." Quinn lift up her hand and showed the diamond ring that sparkeled on her left ring finger. Robin's smile froze. Her jaw dropped. It felt like someone had punched her in the stomach or as if her father had thrown her out of a helicopter again. This time she had forgotten the parachute.

„That's a ten! We got another ten!" Marshalls excited voice brought her back. She looked at him, half panic, half disbelief. Say something! an inner voice hissed. She turned back to Barney and Quinn again and faked a smile. „Wow, big day!" she managed to get out and Lily, being all thrilled, added: „Congratulation!" She hugged Quinn while Marshall followed her example and congratulated Barney. Robin stayed in the background, trying to sort her thoughts. She wouldn't hug them. She would just congratulate, go down to the bar and get drunk. Or maybe go home and get drunk there. She wasn't too eager to meet anyone of the gang or Quinn down there while she was crying her heart out. She knew he had every right to marry the woman he loved. She had let him down, rejected him for Kevin. Barney should be happy, it was her duty to let him be happy. But still, all she wanted was to let him know that she was in love with him.

Why did it hit her now? Barney was going out with Quinn for months, they even shared an appartment, but until this point she had successfully shut down her feelings. She had told herself over and over again, that she had moved on and so had Barney. Which was a good thing. They would have never worked out. Never. He needed to be happy. She knew her eyes were filling with tears and she took a deep breath to stay calm. „Ohhh, Marvin, you're about to hear your first love story!" Lily's happy exclamation made Robin look up. It took her a second to realise that it was only Barney standing in the living room, just a few steps away from her. As soon as Quinn disappeared to tell the amazing love story of how they got engaged, Barney smiled at Robin. „It's the last chance to run away together. Door's right there." She knew he was joking and she knew she had to go along with it. But when she said: „Yes! Start a new life." she meant it. She wanted to grab his hand and pull him away from his stripper-girlfriend – or, to be correct – stripper-fiancée.

But she couldn't. „Head for the border" Barney exclaimed. And Robin added „Canada!" A picture of her and Barney sitting in the morning sun in front of the huge stone house she grew up in, eating pancakes with maple syrup flashed through her head, but she shoved it away.

As to be expected Barney wasn't thrilled by this thought and suggested: „Nah, Mexico. Canada sucks." „Okay, well, you're one quarter Canadian, so by that logic you one quarter suck." Robin replied while the only thing she thought, was, that by that logic, she sucked 100%. His answer to that was so Barney that it wrenched her heart. „I'm a hundred percent awesome, and you know it." Yeah, she did. She felt like crying again, so she looked down. Her smile was bitter when she said exactly what she had thought. „Yeah, I do." It was the first honest thing she had said to him about her feelings in a long time, she realised.

He smiled at her in that sincere way, a smile she was sure she had never seen him smile when he looked at Quinn. It was his Robin-smile. She once had talked about it with Lily, in a time where her best friend wasn't completely blind and deaf for her feelings and thoughts and Lily had confirmed her that there was this special smile. The selfish inner Robin didn't want Barney to smile at Quinn that way, maybe he did, and she just had never seen him doing it, but deep down she still believed it was his special Robin-smile.

The smile broke her damaged heart. She had no idea what to say and therefore looked to the ground and cleared her throath. „Look, I hope this isn't weird or anything, because..." Barney trailed off. „Barney, I'm really happy for you." Inner selfish Robin screamed, but it was the only right thing to do. She had to let him go. Move on. And get drunk. Fast. Barney's face fell but she didn't see it. „Really?"

„Really."

She put „Practise fake smile" on her mental to-do list because she knew she was going to wear it a lot the next weeks or months. Or even years.

„Well, ahem, I really need to go, I-I have this meeting at work, you know. They need me to do this report on-on...but um, tell Quinn congratulation from me okay?" She took off the camera, placed it on the sofa table and looked for her coat. She tried to blink away the tears filling her eyes, but she knew they would burst out in the next minute, and Barney had to believe she was genuinely happy for him. „Here you are" Barney handed the coat to her. „Are you sure, you're okay with this?" „Yes, please, Barney, I'm fine. I just...I really need to hurry up." Without looking into his eyes, she stormed out.

She intended to call a taxi, but her feet brought her to their usual booth in McLarens all by theirselves. She ordered scotch, sat down and closed her eyes. The others wouldn't come down here in a while, Lily wouldn't want baby Marvin to be in the bar again and she also wouldn't let Barney and Quinn leave too soon. Robin was sure that Marshall and Lily were all chipper because there was going to be another married couple in the gang soon, which whom they could go apple picking in Vermont and play charade. Their kids would grow up together and marry and Robin would be the creepy aunt without kids forever.

All in all, she was safe here for the next few hours. When she opened her eyes again she realised she was already crying. Someone had brought her the scotch and she finished the glass in seconds. She ordered another and burried her head in her arms on the table. It wasn't even 8 o'clock and there were a lot of people in the bar, but she didn't mind. She once cried under this table, the folks here were used to it.

She had ruined it herself. It could have been her and Barney who announced their engagement today. If she hadn't chosen Kevin. If she hadn't followed her head instead of her heart.

Robin thought back to the day she met Barney. The day a whole new chapter in her life began. She met the gang, she found people she could trust in this city. Still, it was the day she met Barney. Of course she'd first noticed Ted who stared at her with that look that screamed „Hopeless romantic thinks to have found his match" and he was really cute, but she had also noticed his handsome, blonde friend in a suit, who was the first one of the group to talk to her. Although he had just talked to her for seconds, she remembered that she had really liked his gorgeous bright blue eyes. She thought about their bro night, over seven years back when he told her that he'd thought about him and her for three seconds and that they made sense because they didn't want to commit or marry. They changed over the years. Today, they both were ready to marry. They both wanted to commit. But they still made sense together. They were awesome together.

She knew him for so long now and that spark was still there. She thought about all the times she couldn't stop laughing because of something he said, she thought of his pointless and complicated rules, his catch phrases, the way he was able to cheer her up when she needed it, she thought of every kiss, everything they had lived through in seven years. She loved every detail of him.

She knew she was torturing herself but she couldn't help it. She needed to say goodbye to the idea of her and Barney together. He was engaged now. He had made his choice. He was never going to be hers again, although she now painfully realised that he was all she wanted in a long time. Her third scotch seemed to have magically appeared in front of her, and she just couldn't stop crying. Carl looked over to her curiously. She felt too weak to bother. She wished she had some butterscotch sweets somewhere in her bag.

While she started searching for a kleenex, she suddenly heard someone approaching her booth and sitting down opposite to her. When she turned around, Marshall looked at her. „Oh hey Marshall." she sniffed, while trying to come up with a good idea to explain the situation. „I-I had a rough day at work, they wanted me to do a report on that...issue, but now the new ahm, journalist who just started to work at WWN, like, two days ago, got the job and..."

„Robin, am I supposed to believe anything of that?" Marshall seemed to have somehow copied his wife's annyoing ability to see though everyone. Maybe it was just too obvious. „Will they come down here soon, to celebrate?" she simply asked. Marshall shook his head. „ No, they've taken off a few minutes ago, to...celebrate a bit on their own. Lily's upstairs with Marvin. And god knows where Ted is, he announced via cell phone he drove off into the sunset with Victoria, so I suspect we're going to see him anytime soon."

Robin let out a little laugh. Now she was the only heartbroken one in this group. The only one who was alone. The tears began to run down her face once again and Marshall immediately switched over to her side of the booth to comfort her. „I don't want to lose him, Marshall." Robin whispered after she had cried for what seemed like hours. She was glad to have someone to talk to. „You know, Robin, if you truly love him, you have to let him go. Quinn is a special person and she and Barney get along well. It's undenyable that you two have chemistry, you always had. That's like denying that there is a monster in Loch Ness. But sometimes, chemistry isn't everything." Marshall said quietly. „It's up to you. There are three possibilities: You can avoid Quinn, but that means you will have to avoid us too and we will miss you. But you can also put a good face on the matter and try to get over it." Marshall said. Neither of those possibilities sounded great. „You said there were three possibilities?"

„Yeah, you can of course fight that bitch Quinn and win Barney back." Robin stared at him in disbelief. „But I thought you liked her? I thought I should let Barney go and let him be happy?" „You know, I like Quinn, but she is a stripper. Not the right person to be around while our son grows up. Not the right person to play charade with – not that you are – but above all, she is not the right person for Barney. Lily and I have agreed a long time ago, that you two are kinda perfect for each other. That is why there is no long-term bet about you two. We always had the same opinion on you as a couple. Even though you weren't ready the first time. We just waited and hoped that someday you would finally get it right."

Robin looked at him in astonishment. Marshall had never told her that he rooted for her and Barney. It was sweet, but definitely the wrong place and time to tell her. „I know" he added, I'm sorry that wasn't the right thing to tell you. I shouldn't get up your hopes." „Thank you Marshall. For being there for me." She had already decided what to do. „You're right. I have to let him go for good."