Teammates

Her fingers tighten on white porcelain and a hot, fat tear rolls gently down her cheek to drip into the sink beneath her. Robin Scherbatsky looks up into the mirror and sees her own red-rimmed eyes reflected back at her, accusing and a little sad.

What the hell?

It's been two days since the breakup and she's been fine. Totally fine. Everything is back to normal and it feels like a breath she's held in for way too long has been released in a single exhale of relief.

So why is she hiding in the bathroom, crying?

Thing is, she's let herself be swept along by this thing, this thing with Barney. She was buffeted about, a leaf on the breeze, from the shock of his sudden declaration of love, to hooking up with him like he was a fix of a drug she didn't know she needed. Then suddenly she was dependent on him and their friends had forced them into a box marked "relationship" and before she knew it, Robin Scherbatsky had destroyed Barney Stinson completely.

Look at what she did to him, her best friend. She made him annoying and gross. She made him weak. She made him pathetic. She de-fanged the jungle cat while he smiled goofily and didn't make a whimper of protest.

And the trouble is, the whole time she was holding that breath, waiting for everything to crumble.

Or was she?

Maybe she was waiting for him to take the lead. Because that's what guys do in relationships, she was sure of it - take the lead. Guys ask you out on dates, guys ask you to move in, guys ask for your hand in marriage. The guy sets the pace, until the girl panics and takes the next exit ramp off the relationship freeway. Or until she forces him to.

At least, so her mom taught her.

Her father told her something very different, of course, although she was too young to understand it. Her father taught her about the power of respect, of being treated as an equal, of having worth, of being part of a team, with guys, and giving as good as she got. Her father taught her that you don't cross the line into the messy business of sex, not with your teammates.

Barney was her best friend, her partner in crime, the only other member of Team Awesome.

Robin can practically feel her father's withering disapproval.

It's been two days since the breakup and feelings that she never knew she had, that she's never had time to analyse, are bursting through her all at once, like a waterfall through a broken dam. It's been two days since she'd last smiled at him and kissed him and now everything burns and hurts and knocks her in the gut.

Every time she sees him it burns and hurts.

When she finds one of his ties under her bed, it knocks her in the gut.

Still having Barney as a friend, having never lost him, how is it that she misses him so much? It would be too easy to blame it on the sex, or lack-of, that she's been having, given that they'd been doing it at least three times a day all summer. But that had trailed off when she'd turned Barney into something that he wasn't.

Awesome cancels out awesome? Bull shit. He told her he was unhappy. He was trying to talk to her, in that diner, and all she'd heard was the words she'd expected from him all summer long.

It's over.

It's ended.

A breath she's held for months gets released.

But now she can't even look at him without feeling a scalding pain. Now she has to paint on a fake smile when he sits across the booth from her rather than taking the seat next to her. Now Robin Scherbatsky's shoulders feel cold without his arm slung over them. In a thousand tiny little ways she misses those things she'd take for granted, that had snuck up on her so incrementally that she didn't notice.

And the worst thing, the absolute worst thing, is the finality of it all. Now that she realizes that she's capable of hurt, capable of pain, capable of longing, it's too late to do anything about it. It's too late to talk or ask for help. It's too late to lean on her friends a little while she works this out. Because she's lost him forever.

Welcome back to normality.

Robin straightens her shoulders and wipes her eyes. She combs her hair and reapplies her makeup. She walks back into the bar with her head held high and his motto ringing in her ears.

What do we do when we feel sad?

We stop being sad and be awesome instead.

Team Awesome. Robin decides to fake her membership until she can feel it for real. But she suspects it'll take a lot longer than she first realized.