Just to avoid confusion, the part of the story after the break is something of a flash-forward, with a little bit of foreshadowing for another, really fun flash-forward still to come. Thank you so much and happy New Year! Please enjoy.
He only has one rule. Don't change anything. Living in limbo, a world where time stands still and men don't age, where fleeting joys stretch into eternity.
An impossible feat. Walking the wire with no net, falling, falling without ever touching the ground. Because he learned long ago that bad things come in pairs and change is never good. People leave and dreams implode and eventually the ground comes rushing up to meet you with a gentle kiss goodnight. The solution is simple. Don't change anything. Defy death and time, gravity and physics.
He lives in a state of suspended animation. Suits and scotch and one night stands because they're comfortable and safe. No risk. No pain. No heartache. Fleeting joys stretching into eternity.
Until Lily topples his carefully erected edifice. Now he's falling, falling with no net to save him from the crushing grips of reality that race forward to meet him. Because in limbo he doesn't think, doesn't feel, goes through the motions and to hell with the consequences. It's not like they'll ever come to anything. He catches the wire just in time.
"You were supposed to be the vaccine, but you gave me the disease. You've got to go."
"Barney...I don't think you're mad at me. You're mad at yourself. You let your guard down and let someone in and it actually felt okay. And that terrifies you." His fingers are slipping, slick with Lily's truths and his doubts, with longing for a life outside limbo. But he can't let go, not now, with a yawning expanse of unknown looming in the shadows below and no one there to catch him.
"Uh huh. You've got to go."
He only has one rule. Don't change anything. Then comes the night she awakens something dormant within him and he's never wanted anything more than to escape from his prison outside reality. Hanging from the high wire, fingers slick with sweat and love and longing. She's waiting to catch him. But he just can't do it. He can't let go because he only has one rule and dreams implode and people always leave.
Eventually she does too. When he can't hold on any longer, it's not her but the ground that comes rushing forward to meet him in a sickening crunch of broken bones and shattered hearts. He drags around the pieces in a white plastic trash bag, lost and searching, explores a strange, shadowy new world to which he's never belonged. He stitches his heart back together, tries to re-mount the high wire and falls again, harder this time. But nothing breaks and nothing bleeds.
So he dusts off his suit, straightens his tie, and goes to wait beneath hers instead, standing sentinel. She's clinging to the wire like it's the only real thing left in the world, terrified of the yawning abyss that looms in the darkness, terrified of letting go. She's already hit the ground one too many times. She's broken and bleeding and she just can't do it anymore.
He only has one rule. Don't let go. And he breaks it, time and time again, breaks it until it breaks him too. Because she is the exception and this time he will be there to catch her when she falls.