Friends

"Barney?"

Robin's voice comes out of the darkness, disembodied, despite the warmth of her thigh pressed against his. "Mmph?" He replies, his voice muffled by the pillow.

"Can you promise me something?" She asks.

It's been a week since they "came out" to the group, only a day since they made their cheap declaration of coupledom to Lily. They've been happy all summer - just hooking up and having fun. Now this, whatever it is between them, is defined.

Boyfriend.

Girlfriend.

"Can you promise me something?" Her voice sounds tight, almost afraid. Robin Scherbatsky isn't afraid of anything so this spooks him.

"Should I be worried?" He asks, the tendrils of post-coital relaxation still clinging to him, making him drowsy.

"No..." She says with a nervous laugh. "I mean... we never really talked about this. I'm not talking about The Talk, but just talking-"

"Robin," he interrupts her. "I'm way too tired for this." His fingers drift over the back of her thigh to her dimpled butt.

"Okay," she says and takes a breath. "There's a million ways this could go wrong. We both know that. But I want- What I want is, to know... that if this goes off course, if we make each other crazy, or miserable, and we end up having to break up... Promise me..."

He waits for her to continue. In the darkness, it's like they're both floating; just voices in the night.

"Promise me," she says, and there's a crack in her voice. She pauses to take a breath. "If this goes wrong, we shake hands, say no hard feelings, and we go back to being friends."

"Robin Scherbatsky," he laughs. "Are you trying to slip me a pre-nup?"

She chuckles, but there's an edge to her voice. "Not exactly. More like an extended Lemon Law." Her hand drifts down until it finds his and then she laces her fingers through his, squeezing his hand. "You're my best friend, Barney. I can't lose you, not right now. Not ever. We're both sensible people. Neither of us is going to Ted out about this. If us, this thing, this relationship - Barney if this doesn't work, I don't want it to wreck our friendship. Promise me it won't? We can be mature. Even if it hurts a little, we can grin through the pain and pretend it doesn't, for each other's sake. We can walk away from the relationship but not from our friendship."

He wants to tell her she's crazy. Wants to tell her that when you open up your heart to someone you can't just walk away with only a little pain. When you open up your heart to love, love kills you. It takes everything.

He wonders if she made this sort of offer to Ted before she dated him.

And because he respects her as a Bro, he thinks carefully about her proposal. He gives it due consideration. She's right, in a way. Both of them are past masters at hiding their emotions, at deflecting, at ignoring. Both of them know how to run away from pain. She's just being cautious.

But the part of him that throws his soul into everything he does, the part of him that even survived Shannon, that survived ten years being suffocated by suits and booze and loose women, that part of him flinches. That part of him ignores her platitudes of "best friends", of her not wanting to lose him, and is wounded.

But she's right. And because both of them are really, really awesome at hiding their emotions, he agrees with her.

"I promise," he says, with as much sincerity as he can muster. The hug she gives him almost makes it worth it.

It's not exactly a lie. If this all goes to hell, he'll do anything not to lose her completely.