Symphony Of Illumination
Robin's pregnant.
Barney doesn't know what to think, what to say, but he does know that – just like that – his chances with her went from slim to nonexistent. Because they only slept together once, and by now she must have slept with Kevin countless times, and she's carrying his child. Kevin's child. Kevin, who she already chose over him. Kevin who gets to live all the moments with Robin that should have been his. It's enough to make bile rise in his throat. It's enough to make him want to duck back out the window and find something to smash. It's enough to make him want to truly give up forever – on love, on the future, on ever finding any kind of happiness.
So he makes jokes, little quips about her gaining weight and her boobs not seeming to notice. And even as she keeps punching him for his rude insults he keeps making them, because at this point it's either laugh or cry and he's not going to fall apart in front of her. If he didn't before, he's certainly not going to now.
But when Robin swears Barney to secrecy he can't help but dig a little. He can't help but mention Kevin. He can't help but fish for what he really wants to know: if the luckiest man in the world has any idea how much luckier he just got.
That's when she tells him she never slept with Kevin. This baby she's carrying is his.
If I'm pregnant, you're the dad.
Her words keep echoing in his mind and he freezes for a moment, going stock-still, until all the joy comes bursting out. "That's…..wonderful."
And now it's Robin's turn to pass out.
He tends to her, gets her back up and on her feet, pampers her as discreetly as he can throughout the rest of the evening, and tries to keep at least a partial lid on his elation. After all, no one is supposed to know. He's supposed to be a man going through a heart-wrenchingly painful break up. And just a few hours ago he was. But now with one little Barnacle sperm penetrating – what up – her egg everything has changed, and it's almost impossible to hide his happiness. So much of what he's learned in the past hours is a total game changer.
After almost two months Robin hasn't slept with Kevin. Robin's sexual escapades are nowhere near his own, not even in the same ballpark, but she's always been free and open and in touch with her own sexuality – and he loves that about her. In the six plus years since he met her, she's been known to sleep with a guy on the first date, especially hockey players. She's had the occasional one-night stand with a guy she barely knows and will never call again. Sex can be just sex to Robin; she's like a dude that way. She likes it. She wants it. She was the only woman who could ever truly keep up with him. There is no way she would go out with a guy for almost two months and never have sex with him, not unless there was something seriously wrong in that relationship. And Barney's male ego can't help but be stroked at the very fact that she had stroked him. After two months Kevin couldn't get anywhere with her, but one shared cab ride all alone with him and the two of them are going to town on each other.
And now she's carrying his baby, their baby. It's a funny and curious concept. He'd only just begun to think about children recently – very recently. Once he met his father and made peace with all that, he'd started to think about changing, about settling down. Only one woman came to mind then and only one woman still comes to mind now. Then after he met Nora's father, after hearing the man speak of love and best friends and soul mates, he knew Robin was his. It was as simple as that. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And when he began thinking about that – about the two of them together in the future; thoughts of forever and marriage – thoughts of children naturally followed. Because isn't that what married people do? Live together, make babies. According to every functional example he'd ever seen, that's what's supposed to happen next.
Now that Robin is having his baby that means they're one step closer. Surely it means she'll have to break up with Kevin. There's no way the guy will stay in a sexless relationship with a woman who's carrying another man's child. And with Kevin gone and their baby on the way, it will be so much easier to win her back, so much easier to show her why it's worth trying again.
So the following Sunday at MacLaren's, when he has to wrestle scotch away from her, when she tells him she never wants to have kids – ever – including this baby, he has to make her see things differently. He understands where she's coming from, he really does. He knows next to nothing about kids himself. They can be a handful and, honestly, a nuisance – throwing up on Armani suits, wetting themselves, crying when you try to take them to laser tag, and under no circumstances would Barney Stinson ever touch poop – but babies can be cute, sometimes; their baby certainly would be. And eventually they grow up into older, more manageable children you can suit up and teach how to live. He knows Robin never wanted kids. He knows she's unhappy about this and he's to blame.
He'd never had unprotected sex in his life, but their night together was wild and passionate and he'd wanted to be inside her more than he wanted his next breath. He was so swept away by it, by her, that the thought truly never occurred to him. Now Robin's unhappily living with the consequences and he has to show her that this can be a good thing, for the both of them – for the both of them together.
But that plan backfires the moment he runs into Insane Dwayne at We B Babies. There is nothing insane about him anymore. He's a tired, haggard, broken shell of the man he used to be – and his wife looks even worse. Having kids literally ruined his life. There's no freedom. There's no fun. There's probably no sex other than the few times it took to make the little monsters. There's nothing but "playdates, preschool, and poop". And suddenly being just Uncle Barney and nothing more has never looked better to him in his life.
So the next day when Robin's doctor tells them it was all a false alarm, an epic happy dance MUST be performed.
Barney doesn't want a baby, not even with Robin. He doesn't want to be a father, not now that he's seen the cold, hard reality of it. But he still wants to be with her. He still wants that future with her that he's been imagining. And he knows, he's fully aware that now that there is no baby his chances with her went right back to what they'd been before, but he isn't giving up. That's why the next week, back at We B Babies – now free of the burden of parenthood themselves – Barney broaches the subject of the past few weeks and only half-jokingly introduces the idea of them as friends with benefits. He wants so much more but if sex is how he'll get her, he'll take her any way he can; that grew into a relationship before. It can happen again. So he's perfectly serious when he says, "We'll talk about it later", because their 'later' was eventually going to come. It had to.
No, you can't have a baby.
It's difficult for Robin to wrap her mind around why those words hit her so hard. She didn't – she doesn't – want a baby, so it shouldn't even matter to her that she can't have one. If anything it should set her mind at ease. No more false alarms like the one she and Barney just lived through.
But the thing is, she wants what she wants when she wants it. That's what freedom of choice is all about. And she likes to keep her options open, because what she wants today may not be what she wants tomorrow. You just don't know. Life is crazy that way. For years she swore she was wired wrong, that she simply wasn't the kind of woman who could ever fall madly, ridiculously, hopelessly in love. And then along came Barney Stinson. So maybe if someday she changed her mind – even if she couldn't ever see that happening now – she liked knowing that possibility was out there.
But now it wasn't. That door had been forever closed.
Robin hates the word 'never'. 'Maybe' and 'someday', that's what she thrives on. The hidden-most part of her heart always lives on the hope of those words. Maybe her father will learn to appreciate her as she is. Someday she will become a famous journalist. Maybe in the future she can tell Barney how she feels. Someday, maybe she'll find the courage for them to try again. And maybe they'll get married. Maybe years down the line they might want to have children, little creations all their own that are part him and part her, literally them, literally born out of their love.
Even now, just the week before, she'd hated the idea of being pregnant, hated the thought of raising a baby. But there was a definite part of her that really loved the idea of sharing something with Barney, something that forever tied them inexorably together.
As Robin sits in the park being pelted with snow, drowning her sorrows in spiked eggnog, watching her imaginary children with Barney forever fade away into nothingness, though the children are pretend the pain is real. She's grieving for something that never existed – that she never even wanted before – which is totally crazy, but there it is.
And she finds she still wants that imaginary life. She's had to say goodbye, had to forever let go of their suited-up blond son and brunette pop-singing daughter. But the rest of it….she still wants the rest of it. That's why it's the very last thing to fade away, that feminized Barney/Robin version of his apartment. Her mind and heart are most reluctant to let that go. But could Barney ever want that? He'd made a few subtle overtures to her, references to breaking up with Kevin, to being friends with benefits. But could he ever want that imaginary life without the son and daughter? He was so excited about the two of them having a baby, so clear about his desire to be a father – something which now she could never provide. Something which she realized she maybe perhaps might have given him someday way down the line – at least could have been open to a discussion – if it made him happy, but now the choice is no longer hers. And maybe that's the difference between being with him and losing him forever.
The thought makes her wish she hadn't run out of eggnog. The thought stabs her like a knife to the heart the entire walk home. But it doesn't matter now anyway, whether he would still want her, even without babies. If she'd been pregnant their child could have – would have – brought them back together; it was inevitable. There's no room for fear holding you back when another little human is growing inside you, a human the two of you made together. But she isn't pregnant. Will never be pregnant. With nothing to push her, nothing to force her, and now grieving the loss of something she never truly had, she's more lost than ever before. And she knows herself. She knows what she'll do. She'll go right on in fear and indecision and denial, keep everything bottled up, and continue to see Kevin because it's easier, it's safer that way. No one can get hurt that way, at least any more than they already are; than she already is.
And Barney will move on without her.
Though she said she doesn't want or need his cheering, Robin's glad beyond words that Ted is still there when she comes home. It's nice, it's necessary even, in that one moment to have someone to fall apart to. And she wants to tell him. She wants to tell someone, let someone help her sort this all out. But she can't. Like always – just like she knew she would – she keeps it inside and vows to handle this herself, because that's just what a Scherbatsky does.
AN: I have a holiday companion piece to this episode that takes up where 7.12 ends called, "Christmas Cheer".
