My Slumbering Heart

Chapter 11

Marshall checked his cell for missed calls for the seventeenth time that morning. It was only 8:12.

Where was she?

Robin had embarked on some secret adventure with Barney almost twenty four hours ago and she had been completely AWOL since. This was not good.

They could have been murdered. Or eaten. What if she took him hunting or something? Barney was not an outdoorsman. Crap. This was so very not good.

Wiping the sweat off his brow, Marshall tried to plaster on a cheery expression for his wife.

"Morning honey," he said.

"Hey," she replied distractedly. "Did we get any messages last night?"

"No."

"Oh."

They lapsed into worried silence. Marshall was still contemplating the bloodiest fates for his two friends when the phone rang. He and Lily both dove over the table to get it and Lily managed to wrestle it out from under him. They both paused for a moment and looked at each other inquisitively before shrugging it off and Lily answered the phone.

"Hello?" she said breathlessly. Marshall watched hopefully. "Oh, hi sweetie." Lily mouthed 'It's Ted' and Marshall turned back to his breakfast. At least Ted hadn't been eaten as well.

Lily was talking soothingly over the phone; apparently Ted and Katie had their first fight the night before, but Marshall could tell she was eager to escape the conversation. Finally Ted seemed to come around and they hung up. Marshall checked his phone again. Still nothing.

"Have you seen Barney at all?" Lily asked carefully.

"No. Have you seen Robin?"

"Not since the day before yesterday."

"You don't think they got into trouble, do you?" he asked, searching for reassurance that he was overreacting.

"No, of course not!" Lily said too loudly. "I mean, it's Barney and Robin. How much trouble could they…" she trailed off awkwardly and left them both to their increasingly wild imaginations.

xxxXXXxxx

Robin rolled over, slowly coming to. Her head was lying on a soft, warm pillow and she felt utterly content. She didn't want to wake up yet, to have to face yet another dull day of being unemployed. Then she heard a grunt from behind her.

Gradually opening her eyes, expecting to see a cranky Ted telling her to wake up, she became aware of her surroundings. She was in a dark room with completely bare walls. She was squeezed under a too small blanket. And she was not lying on a pillow. No, she was lying on a man's body. An extremely fit, well-sculpted body.

Shit.

Cringing, she turned her head to face what she knew was there already. Barney was sound asleep, snoring slightly, with one arm wrapped casually around her body. Her naked body.

Double shit.

Turning away from him, Robin rested her head back on his chest and tried to remember what had happened the previous night.

They had been at the mall, and then they were fighting over some guy, or some girl, and then they had been kissing and they had sex once. Twice. No, three times. And in the cab. And possibly at the Lusty Leopard. How had they even gotten there? And then another couple times here. And she vaguely remembered an alleyway. There was a chance a spring-loaded toilet seat had come into play at one point.

Triple shit. Or how ever many times that comes out to shit.

Alright, Sherbatsky. You know what to do next. Get out of bed, get dressed, and sneak out before he wakes up. No big deal. Except even as she thought it, she couldn't bring herself to get out of bed. It was really warm, after all, and she was naked. And that was the only reason. Not because he had his arm around her.

As she inwardly debated with herself (oh God, she really had gone insane, hadn't she?) she was interrupted by a moan.

Oh, fuck.

Barney was waking up. His fingers were tightening over her shoulder, and he would know that she had been enjoying this, so she had to do something, so she pushed him off of her swiftly.

That seemed to wake him up the rest of the way.

"Oh, sorry," he muttered.

Don't be sorry. Oh, please, God, don't be sorry.

She rolled off of him quickly and faced the ceiling. Déjà vu. They lay there awkwardly for a couple of moments as she tried to piece together something to say. Something that could possibly explain why they had just had sex repeatedly in one passionate, insane night. She had nothing.

"So…"

"So."

Good start. She cold feel his blue eyes boring into her. God, he was probably thinking about how to let her down easily. Or possibly wondering when she had gone completely insane and desperate.

"That was…" he started.

"Yup. It really was."

"You know, maybe sometime, we could, I don't know," Barney was stumbling over his words and he actually sounded nervous, and where was he going with this? Did he actually want- "Maybe, do that again sometime?"

Oh. He just wanted more sex. She felt her stomach sink and Robin wondered why. After all, sex was all she had wanted from the beginning of this. Just a purely sexual relationship. Isn't that what she had told Marshall?

But for the first time, Robin thought she might understand what Marshall had been talking about. Why sex might not be such a great idea when she was in love with him. Oh God, she was in love with him. But he wasn't in love with her. And now her stomach ached and her eyes felt hot and she hurt all over.

Because he just wanted sex.

And she wanted more.

And now she knew why falling in love with Barney Stinson was such a bad, terrible, horrible, awful idea.

"Um, you know, I don't think that's such a great idea," she said, getting out of bed and searching for her panties.

Barney didn't respond for a long moment and Robin didn't dare look him in the eye. As long as she didn't look at him she could imagine that he was devastated. If she did, she knew she'd see complete and utter indifference.

And that terrified her.

"Oh," he whispered. He was probably disappointed. He wasn't getting any from her anymore. But he'd get over it. By that night he'd have recovered and found someone new to sleep with and it'd be like nothing had even happened. Her eyes stung some more and she felt like throwing up and she just had to get the hell out of there before he saw her face.

She couldn't take the pity.

And pity was what she would get. Because she was the fool dumb enough to fall in love with Barney Stinson. And even after she'd thrown herself at him, he still didn't see her as anything more than his close friend; his bro.

Finally remembering that she had lost her panties somewhere between the mall and the strip club she grabbed one of his button-up shirts off the floor and pulled it on.

"That's cool. One night stand. The Barnacle's favorite. Who needs all the trouble, right?" his voice was strained but Robin didn't notice. He was back. God, it didn't even take five minutes for him to get over her. She found her pants and yanked them up.

"Yeah. No big deal," she murmured, backing out of the room.

"So, I'll see you later?" Barney asked, hopeful, following her out.

"Maybe. Whatever." She practically dashed out his front door and slammed it shut behind her, unable to spare him even one last glance.

She stepped into the thankfully empty elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. As she waited she tried vainly to straighten her shirt and fix her mussed hair but it was useless. She just needed to get home, be alone, and she would be fine.

Twenty minutes later she burst through Marshall's office doors.

Marshall leaped up from his desk, immediately on guard when he saw his friend's puffy, tear-filled eyes.

"Robin?" he asked hesitantly.

"I think I screwed up," she whispered, desperately trying to maintain control over her traitorous tear ducts. Marshall was staring at her, clearly worried, and he was going to be so pissed off when she told him what had happened. She hiccupped sadly and in a moment he had wrapped his arms around her and was suffocating her in a huge bear hug.

For a moment she considered pushing him off, telling him not to be such a baby, but his arm was stroking her back and something inside of her cracked just a bit more and she let herself cry into his shoulder.

It was weird.

They were both standing up and he was sort of awkwardly hunched over her to comfort her and she couldn't stop thinking that she was going to get snot all over his rather inexpensive suit and wondering how long this could possibly last.

But he didn't seem to mind how long it took. He just held her tightly and let her cry in a way that her own father would have been ashamed to see.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she sniffled and found that she had no tears left to give. Slowly Marshall pulled back and looked her in the eye.

"What happened?" he asked kindly and Robin had never loved him more.

"This was all so stupid," she managed in between sniffles. Marshall led her to a chair and pulled one next to her.

"I can't make Barney fall in love with me. It's not possible. And it was just stupid to try. Because now he's going to know and he's going to feel bad for me, and it's so embarrassing."

"Okay. Calm down. What happened yesterday? I thought you guys were just going to hang out."

Robin laughed ruefully. "We were. It just didn't quite work out that way."

"Alright, well why don't you just tell me what happened?" he said slowly, in a soothing voice that normally Robin would've scoffed at but not today.

"Well we went to the mall and everything was going fine. We were having a lot of fun and we even made a Build-A-Bear thing which I think I left at his place which sucks because it was actually pretty cute and-"

"Robin. Focus."

"Right. Sorry. So we were having a great time until he started flirting with this stupid slut right in front of me."

"Well, doesn't he always do that?"

"Yeah, but this was different. I mean, we were supposed to be out just the two of us and then he was trying to pick up some stupid slut when I was right there, clearly being far more awesome than that dumb whore."

"Wow. So you got jealous."

"I-well, yeah. Fine. Call it whatever you want. Anyway, so then I tried to push it to the back of my mind and things were going fine until this really cute guy came up to me and started flirting. And I don't know, I just wanted to get back at Barney a little, make him feel as crappy as I had earlier, so I kissed him. And then Barney saw, freaked out, we fought for a while, and then we, er, had sex. Multiple times."

Robin paused in the story, waiting for Marshall's reaction.

"Okay, then what?"

Robin's mouth dropped. She had expected him to yell at her. But if he wasn't going to push the subject she certainly wasn't going to.

She quickly recounted the events of that morning, still burned fresh in her mind and then looked up to check his reaction.

"And so then I left because he clearly didn't feel the same way about me. And trust me, if last night didn't do the trick nothing will," she finished sadly.

Sometime during the story Marshall's expression had changed from kind father to slightly amused older brother.

"What? Aren't you angry?" she asked.

"No. Why would I be?" he responded innocently.

"Because we had sex. You told me not to do it and then I did and it turned out badly. Aren't you at least going to say 'I told you so'?"

"You really do love him, don't you?" Marshall said, ignoring her previous comment.

Robin paused a moment before nodding. "Yeah, I think I do."

Marshall just smiled back at her.

"What? What is so funny?"

"You know that expression, 'love is blind?'" he asked pointedly.

"Okay, but I don't think that's the problem here. I can see his flaws perfectly fine. Thus me coming in here crying…remember?"

"You really don't see it, do you? Robin, I think Barney is in love with you."

A long silence filled the air between them.

"Wow. You weren't listening at all were you? That's exactly what we just ruled out. Remember? Just wants the sex…any of this ringing a bell?" Robin's previous good will towards her friend was starting to evaporate due to how thick he was being now.

Marshall chuckled in a way that could only be described as condescendingly.

"Why did you kiss that other guy yesterday?"

Robin sighed exasperatedly. "Because I wanted to make Barney feel like I felt when he was flirting with that girl," she repeated dully.

"And why did you think that kissing another guy would make him feel like that?"

"I don't know. Because he acted so weird when Ted and I were sleeping together. I just figured he didn't like it."

"And why is that?"

"I don't know. Ask him."

"Honestly, Robin, he was jealous!" Marshall finally exclaimed.

Robin stared bemusedly at Marshall for a moment. "Dude, it's Barney. He doesn't get jealous."

"He does whenever you sleep with other guys. It's all making sense now, isn't it?" Marshall was starting to bounce up and down in his chair he was so excited. "And that's why he was so upset when you were moving to Japan! Dude, it's perfect. He's totally into you."

"No, that doesn't make sense. If he was in love with me then what about this morning? Why would he-"

"Ask if you wanted to spend more time together, with the possibility of sex? Robin, it sounds to me like he was asking you on a second date. And you totally blew him off."

"Oh."

Glass shattered in Robin's brain and suddenly things were starting to piece together. Why he had been so upset when she called him a slut, that weird quasi-date earlier in the year, how excited he had been when she visited him in the hospital…

"Oh."

"You said that already."

"Well, I'm sorry Marshall, but I think finding out that Barney may be in love with me qualifies for two 'ohs', don't you?"

Robin was starting to twitch a little in excitement.

"This is awesome!" she said. Suddenly that stomach ache disappeared and a weight felt like it was lifted off her chest. Barney liked her back. He didn't want just sex.

Though sex would be nice. Very, very nice.

"Now what?"

But Marshall wasn't listening to her.

"So, you guys went to the mall?"