Extended Aftermath
Summary: AU season 7. When Robin is forced to go see Kevin in therapy, it's for the same yet markedly different reasons. "Life is just one extended aftermath of the day we were born." Robin has finally been forced to deal with the fallout of it all.
Warnings: This story goes into some detail about sexual and physical assault, but mostly about its aftermath. It also contains language, drug/alcohol use and other sexual content.
"Life is just one extended aftermath of the day we were born."
Robin Scherbatsky didn't need therapy.
Therapy was stupid and pointless, just something to sucker in repressed housewives and rein in the more trigger-happy teenage sociopaths. No matter what all her friends thought, she didn't need this. This was nothing but a waste of time and money. A bottle of scotch, a case of cigars and a day at the shooting range: that was her therapy.
Okay, so maybe that was the healthiest way to deal with her problems, but it worked. It had worked just fine for all these years, after all. Why change something that works? They didn't go around messing with the Colonel's recipe, and she didn't go around messing with her unique version of therapy.
The point was Robin Scherbatsky didn't need therapy. She could handle her own problems. Just like she didn't need some brave knight to save her from her tower, she didn't need some dick with a few fancy degrees telling her how to feel.
Of course, her friends hadn't agreed at all. She blamed their American upbringing.
They had staged a total of five interventions for the topic. It was certainly a new record for their intervention-happy group, and it completely blew out of the water Barney's record of three separate interventions for his more dangerous magic tricks, though that had been, admittedly, spaced out between a few months and not a few weeks like hers had been.
When the interventions didn't work, like some messed up form of the Five Stages of Grief, they each resorted to reasoning, begging, bribing, guilting and blackmailing to try to get her to agree. Marshall presented her with charts and bar graphs that showed the statistics and projections proving the reliability of therapy. Ted pulled out the sad puppy look that had once gotten her to agree to sleep with him. Barney bribed her with everything he could think of, from aged scotch to limited edition guns to ridiculous amounts of cash. Lily used the same patented techniques that 1950s sitcom mothers had perfected and milked her surrogate mother figure role for all it was worth. Katie threatened to reveal every dirty little secret she'd uncovered via her teenage diaries.
Still, she had remained steadfast in her refusal. Even under the combined weight of all their techniques, she'd still refused to go to see a therapist (a small, dark, terrible part of her wondered why she hadn't fought half as hard during assault itself, but she ignored that voice like she always did). She would stick to her guns, even if it was the wrong answer-especially if it was the wrong answer-just like a real American would (wasn't that right Barney? Maybe I'll finally become a real boy).
In the end, like always, she was her own worst enemy, her own downfall. Despite her best attempts, she'd ended up in therapy—court mandated therapy, at that—after she lost control in the worst possible way and physically assaulted some random guy at the bar.
Her friends had probably rejoiced when they found out what happened (they were nearly always just the right mix of drunk and crazy for that—they hung out at a bar day in, day out for a reason, and it definitely wasn't the food), even if they were nothing but gently supportive and sympathetic when they faced her (if she cared to think too deeply about it, that might've been worse—she could handle I told you sos and petty childish celebration; this muted, mature understanding just made her feel like an stupid underdeveloped twelve-year-old).
So here she was sitting directly across from some stranger she was supposed to spill out her guts to because she paid them (and seriously, how did no one else see how ridiculous that was?). Understandably, she wasn't exactly overflowing with happiness to be here.
"I hope you realize I'm only doing this because my friends made me." Robin told him flatly, not bothering with pleasantries. If she was going to be paying him to listen to her anyway, there was no real reason to pretend to be polite.
"Your friends must care about you greatly." He said, completely disregarding the venom in her voice.
Robin ignored the urge to look away, forced down the instinctual flinch at such direct eye contact.
"They worry too much."
"Why do you think that?" He asked, voice carefully neutral.
She wanted to hit him, because that was such a cliché therapist thing to say. But she didn't, because that was the whole reason she was here, wasn't it? She'd assaulted some guy because she couldn't control her emotions, because she couldn't control herself anymore. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't do anything right (she thought back to the bottle of sleeping pills she'd once swallowed whole but still managed to survive, all those years ago, and how the first thing her father had told her was what a disappointment she was).
"Why do you think your friends worry too much?" He repeated (gently, like he was afraid of startling her, and she hated him all the more for his kindness) when she still hadn't answered him.
"Because I don't need this," she answered honestly.
(and the small, dark, terrible part of her knew that it was because it was all too late)