Mr and Mrs Awesome

Nothing ever ends up like it should, and there it was the final papers about their divorce that they signed with an awkward smile on their lips. It wasn't that they didn't try, they tried oh so hard, but in the end they were fighting over stupid things, things that did not even matter in the grand scheme of things and behind all of that was the fact that they were not happy.

There were no bitter and spiteful comments, not asking for more money, no questioning who should have which apartment. Instead, there was just a sadness surrounding them even as they exited.

"You want to do one more for the road?" Barney said with such sadness in his eyes that Robin could not even look at it.

There was a sad shake of Robin's head as she smiled sweetly and smoothed out the front of his suit. "No…I have a plane to catch, but you can take off your ring now and hey I am sure that hot divorcee is a new play you can use."

"You still think I'm hot."

There was a laughter that came for her as she waved at him slightly before turning on her heels and walking away.

Time passed, as time often does, and the group of friends soon became strangers. Only meeting up for random affairs and hardly even knowing what was going on in each others life. At least that's how it would have worked in most cases, but every now and again Barney would get notifications of comments in his blog from a person called ursecretcanadian that would make him laugh, even when most of them where about how pathetic he was.

Then he would text that number that he still knew from memory and complain about this one person on his blog that kept commenting on things and not seeing his brilliance. Still, he would never tell her that he was kind of a lost cause without her, that he had gone back to sleeping with bimbos but not bringing them to his house because it had once been their house and that would somehow taint the memory of what they had.

No, he would never tell her that because they were better off as friends, they always were and thinking anything else would be ridiculous.

Barney does not even put a front for his friends, he wants them to stay and party with him but only because the thought of them having families to turn to drives him almost as insane as every night being with Quinn and knowing she was off stripping once did.

Still she puts up a front, the front to try and show them that he is happy even if he knows himself to be pathetic. Once he even considered making a play based on the ring that he still kept in his pocket, but the thought of it almost made him flinch. After an unsuccessful night at the bar in which he thought that his goal for the month would just be a memory he receives a text that makes him blink.

Hey, I'm in town for a night. Can't reach anyone else. Want to go out for a drink?

Barney had erased her number from his phone many years ago, but he still knows that number from memory. He also knows that if she's texting her she probably had a very bad day and looking at the clock is past two am. He really should go home.

Instead he texts back:

Is kind of late. Maybe we can just have a drink at my place?

It is one of the longest pause that he ever experienced before receiving a text. For a brief moment he kept re-checking his phone to make sure it actually sent and that he did not miss it.

Sure. Hoping into a cab right now.