Ted hadn't more than made his hasty announcement before Robin fled the room in tears, leaving a stunned trio in her wake. Lily was still standing by the front door, looking between the empty hallway where Ted had just stomped out and the newly slammed bedroom door where Robin was hiding. Her eyes were wide with confusion and fear. She and Marshall had been put in the middle of the fight the last time things had exploded between the three friends, and she knew that there was a good chance that they could find themselves right back there. It had been hard on their relationship the last time, when she was forced to choose Robin's side as her best friend and Marshall naturally sided with Ted. However, as monumental as the struggle between Ted and Barney had been last time, something in her bones told her that this time was even more epic.
Reaching for his wife's hand hesitantly, Marshal led Lily into the living room and sat down on the loveseat arranged opposite Barney's bed. They both watched the blonde carefully as he raked his fingers through his hair anxiously. He was known for being calm and collected for the most part, never letting anyone see a moment of weakness. However, the man that sat in front of them was completely vulnerable, and that was enough to leave Marshall feeling quite unsettled. He glanced sideways over at Lily. She had her free hand pressed to her mouth. She seemed just as spooked as he was. Finally, knowing that someone was going to have to say something some time, Marshall opened his mouth to speak. "Barney, what did we just walk in on?"
Barney lifted his eyes slowly to meet Marshall's. The two of them had become close friends out of circumstance. If it hadn't been for their mutual friendships with Ted, their paths would have likely never crossed. However, in the years that he had known Marshall, Barney had come to think of him as a brother just as much as he had Ted. He had been there for him many times when he had needed to enact the Bro Code. He'd played wingman on several occasions and had even been there the day that Barney got the worst news of his life. He had been a good friend, but he knew that this could destroy the careful balance Marshall had been able to create when it came to Barney and Ted.
"Robin's pregnant," he answered finally. His eyes moved over to Lily, whose jaw had dropped visibly. He managed to smile at the raven-haired beauty briefly to let her know that he was happy about it. Her eyes lit up with realization as she caught onto the insinuation. She had always been privy to more of Barney's emotional vulnerability than anyone else in the group, and he knew that she had long suspected that his feelings for Robin went far beyond the one-night stand. "Obviously, the baby is mine. We just told Ted, and that's what you guys walked in on."
Lily let go of Marshall's hand and crawled up on the bed beside Barney to wrap her arms around him. He turned instinctively to return the hug, happy that at least one of the friends would be happy for them. "Congratulations, Barn," she retorted softly as she pulled back. Her wide eyes met his. "This is good, right? You seem happy about it."
"We are very happy about it. I'm excited," he concurred before looking over her shoulder toward Robin's room. "Listen, Lil, I can't really go check on Robin on my own. Do you think that you could go in and see her? I don't know if she'll want to talk to anyone…"
"I'm on it!" she exclaimed willingly before scampering off the bed. She reached for Marshall's hand on the way by and squeezed it. He looked up at his wife for a long moment. He saw the urgency in her gaze. She didn't want another feud between the close group of five. She wanted only peace in what should be a very happy time for Robin and Barney. "I'll be right back."
Marshall nodded as Lily opened the bedroom door. Robin's cries were heard only briefly before Lily pulled the door shut again. Barney covered his face to hide the agony that he felt. He hated what this was doing to Robin. It didn't matter how he felt, but to know that she was in that much pain over everything killed him. He wasn't even that concerned about Ted. He got to choose how he dealt with the situation, and there was nothing Barney could do about it. Robin, on the other hand, was the woman that he loved, and when she was in pain, he was in pain. He wanted to go to her and envelope her in his arms until her tears subsided. For the first time since waking up for the accident, he regretted running after Ted. If he hadn't chased him, he wouldn't have ended up here, unable to comfort her.
"Alright, Marshall, let's get this over with. You go ahead and let me have it or whatever you feel like you need to do as Ted's best friend," Barney commented tiredly. He felt emotionally drained from everything that had happened in the matter of less than an hour. "It's okay; I understand that you have to defend him."
Marshall smiled slightly as he came over to Barney's bedside and took the chair Ted had occupied prior to his impromptu departure. "I'm not angry at you, Barney. It's not like you planned this," he sympathized. He knew firsthand how rash Ted could be. When he was hurt, it was impossible for the man to see any sort of real logic in a situation. He could be selfish and close-minded. "I just can't take sides. Robin is going to need Lily. I have to be there for Ted."
"It's okay, really. I'll have my brother and Lily to talk to when Robin is driving me crazy," Barney smiled. "I will say, though, that I don't think Ted really has the right to be angry. We both know how he doesn't think past himself when this kind of thing happens. I have apologized and apologized for hurting him. I wish that it hadn't hurt him like it did. However, I won't keep apologizing to him for what we did because it wasn't wrong. They have been broken up for months. He is engaged to someone else. Robin is free to sleep with whoever she wants."
"Come on, Barney, you know that's not why he is mad," Marshall grimaced. Barney was right. Ted really had no right to be angry, but they both knew exactly why he was. "You're going to get the life with Robin that he wanted."
"We're just having a baby," Barney argued. "It's not like we've had this storybook romance! I knocked Robin up after a one-night stand. We're not married, she's not in love with me. We're only even listening together because I'm an invalid who can't take care of myself. What is there to be jealous about? This isn't the life that Ted wanted with her. He wanted the fairytale."
Rubbing his hands over his face, Marshall tried to collect his thoughts. How could he make Barney see what was right in front of him? "Dude, I have seen the way you look at her. We all have. It's not just a one-night stand with the two of you," he countered. "There has been something brewing between the two of you for awhile, and it all came to a head the night you slept together. Now that it is weeks later and there is a definite connection between you, Ted knows that it's too late. You'll be forever tied together, and he won't get his chance."
"He shouldn't want a chance with Robin again if he asked Stella to marry him," Barney retorted hotly. The entire argument was ludicrous. "It shouldn't matter how I feel about Robin. Yeah, it's something more than a one-night stand. She is one of my best friends and one of the few women that didn't make me want to go running in the opposite direction the morning I woke up with her beside me. I care about her, and I care about this baby. I'm not going risk losing my chance at a family just because Ted's not happy."
"And you shouldn't!" Marshall agreed. "I'm not saying Ted is right at all. I'm just saying that in his mind, everything he is doing is justified. All he can see or feel is how hurt he is by all of this. He knows that the two of you are going to be a family, whether you want to say it or not to me. I know that you know it, too. You care about her."
"I more than care about her," Barney replied, his voice softer than before. "Marshall, I'm in love with her."
Meanwhile, in the quiet confines of her bedroom, Robin was curled up in a ball on the middle of her bed sobbing. Lily was at her side, quietly rubbing soothing circles on her back and murmuring reassurances in a vain attempt to calm her down. Though she had known it wasn't going to well, she hadn't thought that it was going to go that bad. She didn't really care how upset she felt. It just killed her to know that Barney could possibly be losing his best friend over a mistake that they made together. It wasn't fair to anyone that the night was coming back to haunt them all over again. Barney was the man that she loved, and when he was hurting, she was hurting. She wished that she could go back in the living room and hold him, but she didn't want him to see her like this.
Finally, Robin slowed her tears enough to form a few coherent sentences. "Okay, Lily, I know that you have to have a million questions. I don't want to put you in the middle of anything, so you don't need to feel like you have to be there for me," she told her best friend. She was tired and worn out. "You and Marshall shouldn't have to suffer because of the drama between the three of us."
Lily reached down and stroked Robin's dark hair affectionately. She had never seen the usually strong woman seem so broken. "Robin, I would never feel obligated to support you. It's not like you set out to hurt Ted," she reminded her. She knew how hard it could be to be on the receiving end of Ted's anger. Forgiveness wasn't an easy thing for him. "No matter what happens, I'm going to be by your side. Marshall will be there for Ted. You just need to focus on this baby."
"Lil, I'd be fine if you couldn't, I promise. Barney has been really great about this so far," Robin grinned through the tears. "I have to admit that I thought he would be a nightmare, but he wants to have this baby. We both know that he can be an amazing guy when he wants to be. This must be killing him. He has told Ted how sorry he was too many times to count. He kept telling me that Ted could choose how he dealt with it, but I know that it still hurts him. I just don't get why he keeps punishing us for this. He has Stella. We're supposed to be free to be with whoever we want."
"Robin, we both know that's not why Ted stormed out of here. I agree that he shouldn't get upset like this, but he can't help how he feels," Lily commiserated. "He thought of you as the great love of his life for awhile. Now, one of his best friends gets to have the life with you that he dreamt about."
"We're having a child together, not a life," Robin shrugged. "It's not like we exactly planned of this. I didn't meet him and instantly fall in love. We were both sad, and we sought comfort in each other. It wasn't supposed to go beyond that one night. Barney isn't in love with me. He's my friend, and he cares about me. There isn't anything to envy with us. We don't have what Ted wanted for us when we were together. We just have an impossible situation."
Cocking her head to the side, Lily looked at her friend directly in the eyes, and Robin knew that she saw through the lies. Her visage had worn very thin very quickly. "Sweetie, I see the way you look at Barney. He's not just some guy that you slept with," she called her out. "You care about him, that's allowed. Sex brings out all these emotions that we try to hide. Sometimes they fade, sometimes they don't. They haven't faded between you two, and Ted sees that. He knows that whatever was between you and him is gone because your heart and your head are elsewhere."
"What we had was gone a long time ago, and that shouldn't matter to him if he is really committed to spending the rest of his life with Stella," Robin sighed deeply. It just didn't make sense to her. "It shouldn't matter how I feel about Barney. Okay, fine, so there's more to this than just a random hook-up. We're good friends, and I feel like I can really be myself when I'm with him. He means a lot to me, and I'm glad he wants to be a father to our baby. I'm not going to let anything ruin what future the three of us have because Ted doesn't like where life has led us."
"Good for you!" Lily applauded. "Look, I know that Ted is totally wrong. I'm just trying to get you to see it from his point of view. He feels betrayed all over again, whether it's logical or not. Wasn't it hard for you to think of him having a family with Stella and her daughter? Well, however hard that is, imagine what it would be like to see him trying to do that with me. You're going to have a family with Barney. That's huge. You have to see that. I know you care about him."
"I more than care about him," Robin confessed, her eyes shining brighter than before. "Lily, I'm in love with him."
