By the time Barney caught up with Robin -she made some impressive time in those kitten heels, and running with a baby was not good for baby or parent- she'd already claimed a swing for her own. Next to the baby swings. That had to be a good sign. Ellie wouldn't be ready for her own swing for a few more months yet, but the gesture still counted. Or Robin just wanted to sit down. He'd go with the considerate answer. His chances looked better that way.

Barney waved his customary greeting as he passed the knot of thirtysomething guys clustered on the edge of the basketball court. Only five guys on the basketball court tonight, three on two. Same guys as the last three Sunday nights, or most of them. Two cops, firefighter, rabbi, really-an-actor-but-tends-bar-sometimes, from what he'd picked up by eavesdropping. The dentist wasn't with them tonight. Either somebody had a tooth emergency or Mrs. Dentist finally got those Mets tickets.

Really-an-actor held out the ball and tilted his head back toward the court, the invitation clear.

Barney shook his head and mimed rocking Ellie to sleep. Really-an-actor shrugged and passed the ball to Rabbi. He continued on toward the swing set, his steps slow, and gestured to the empty swing next to Robin. "Is this seat taken?"

Robin glanced up from the dark screen of her phone, her expression blank.

Barney settled into the swing next to her, then set it into motion, the way Ellie liked, slow and smooth. She'd be asleep before too long. He stroked Ellie's hair and hummed to her, low enough to disguise the actual tune. He had to be Dad right now, even with Robin dragging her foot in the dirt. Even with the way she held herself too straight, as if that could hold her together by sheer force of will. She had Alberta to take care of these times for her now, whatever the cause. Hopefully, it wasn't him. Robin had an emotional support animal. He'd been replaced by a dog, which apparently did a better job. Look at which one of them she was cuddling. Still, there was that kiss. Hey, Ellie, go to sleep, okay? Daddy's tired and Aunt Robin is…she's here.

At last, Robin slipped the phone into her pocket. "I sent the driver home. We might be here a while."

"Cool." She could stay over, if she wanted, her and Alberta. They could make the walk back to the apartment together, slow and quiet, so Ellie wouldn't wake. Robin could come upstairs with them, walk right past the doorman like she'd done for three whole years, a lifetime ago. Put some water in a bowl for Alberta. Take off her makeup over the bathroom sink while he put Ellie to bed. Collapse onto the couch with him afterward. Fall asleep with her head on his shoulder, or, more likely, his head on her shoulder, Alberta between them. This wasn't the right time for any of that. "I'll make sure you get home."

"Thanks." Robin stared in the direction of the white shape of the play boat across from the swings, like she wanted to climb into it and sail away, just her and Alberta. Not Ellie. Not him. "Greg kissed me."

The force of her words, quiet as they were, hit Barney hard, square in the middle of his chest, with enough force to interrupt the rhythm of the swing. It skidded to a stop. "What?"

Robin gripped the chain of the swing with one hand, the other buried in Alberta's fur. "Greg kissed me. He came to the trailer to take pictures and he gave me a camera and we talked and we took pictures of each other and he," she drew in a ragged breath, her sight focused on something far off in the dark, beyond the boat, beyond the jungle gym and the fence, "he kissed me."

"Kissed you how?" With his mouth, duh. "Where?" Show me on Ellie's teddy bear. Not on her hand. She wouldn't be telling him if it were her hand. In this case, 'mouth' would be the most acceptable answer. "Did you put anything in your mouth after Greg's mouth and before my mouth?"

"Um, I finished my beer, and had some water in the car?"

"Okay." They'd been drinking. Great. Like alcohol made any of this better. "Thanks."

Robin twisted the swing, one quarter of her face in the yellow glow of the playground lights. "Thanks?"

Even that quarter of her face proved too much for him to take. He peered down into the sling, at the pale curve of Ellie's head, her cheek smooth, her mouth slack.. "What do you want me to say? There might at this moment be residual Greg spit in my mouth." Unless the alcohol in the beer killed it. Maybe. Depended on the beer, since alcohol content varied, but he wasn't about to ask. He anchored Ellie with one arm and rooted in his pocket for the packet of breath strips. "You kissed him and then you kissed me. That's more than an emotional tricycle. It's a time release devil's—"

"It is not a devil's," Robin's face moved halfway into the light, her brows pinched over Alberta's head. Her gaze flicked to the shape of Ellie inside the sling. "It's not a devil's anything. I didn't kiss Greg. He kissed me."

Barney extracted a single breath strip and placed it on his tongue. Cinnamon. Extra strength. Good. He'd need it. "Did you want him to kiss you?" He extended the container to Robin, out of habit, lid still open.

"No!"

The basketball court fell quiet. Five heads turned in their direction. Cops One and Two moved toward the edge of the court, Firefighter behind them.

"We're good," Robin called to her would-be rescuers with a wave and a smile. "Nothing to see here. Play ball. Game on. Mind your own business." She laced that last bit with enough menace to get her point across.

Cop One and Firefighter returned to the court. Cop Two aimed a brief but pointed stare in Barney's direction, and lifted his chin, then followed the others.

"Sorry." Robin whispered her apology and took the container from him. She held the label under the light, away from Alberta's twitching nose, before she took a strip for herself and snapped the lid shut. "No," she said again, softer, this time, and handed the breath strips back, the smooth plastic warm from her touch. She turned the swing, now three quarters in the light. Her fingers curled around his, the container pressed between their palms.

The ball bounced against concrete, accompanied by the squeak of sneakers and a trickle of trash talk, too far away to distinguish actual words. Alberta's bright eyes fixed on Barney, the tip of her tongue pink against white fur.

The pad of Robin's thumb stroked against the back of Barney's hand, the same slow, idle sweep it had made a thousand times before. The metal links of the swing's chains clinked as she edged the seat closer. "I did not want Greg to kiss me. I told him no. Told him I'm still in love with you." Her hand gripped his for the briefest of seconds, a heartbeat before she let go and swung back into three-quarter darkness. "Greg had," she drew in a shallow breath. "He had all these reasons that me wanting to be with you again is a bad idea."

"Because of the divorce?"

Robin turned Alberta's collar so that the small silver buckle glinted in the light. "We got divorced for a reason." Her voice balanced on the edge of a whisper.

"But here we are." His words hovered in the space between them. "You're not at the party. I'm not riding the elevator with Ellie until one of us pukes and then cries themselves to sleep in a fetal position. FYI, I do not mean Ellie."

"Amazing Sleepless Baby, by Stinson. Patent pending?"

Barney reached into the sling and straightened the collar of Ellie's onesie, pale pink with fluffy white sheep jumping over fences, clouds of soft gray Z's all around them. Ellie had not yet picked up on that particular hint. "Patent granted. Ellie is and will remain one of a kind, at least on the Stinson side." Ellie's mouth fixed on his finger. She sucked twice, made a murmur of what he could only term disgust, and turned her head away. Eighteen years from now, her therapist would hear about this. She let out a sigh of resignation, and sucked, loudly, on her own fist instead. He set the swing back into sway. "That all Greg's got? That we're divorced? Please. Do you have any idea where I'm going to be on September fifth this year?"

Robin shook her head.

"I am going to be spending my entire Saturday at a mini golf course out on Long Island, crammed into a pink and orange striped tent, with a bunch of people I do not know, and/or wish I did not know, sharing in the joy of Stuart and Claudia's third wedding." He held up three fingers for emphasis. "Third. They're getting married for the third time, on a mini golf course. The invitation said casual attire. For a wedding. There is not only a singles table at this event; there is a single parents table. One divorce, like you and I have? Small potatoes."

"Stuart and Claudia are getting married again?" Robin pronounced each word all on its own, as though she had to think about how they all went together.

"Remarried again. That would make it re-remarried."

Robin pushed at the ground with her foot, and matched her swing's motion to his. "Think they're going to last this time?"

They'd had this conversation before. The first time, Robin had tucked her arm in his as she'd asked the question, her voice so low only he could hear her. They'd made their way, in the recessional, with the rest of the wedding party, groomsmen in light gray suits, bridesmaids in purple dresses, purple sparkly polish on their toes, along a path lit by paper bag luminaries, away from the semicircle of tiki torches on the beach by the water's edge. The lights of the reception hall beckoned at the other end of the path, DJ and cash bar primed and ready.

Stuart and Claudia had been husband and wife for the second time for a grand total of thirty-eight seconds. Barney hadn't been able to answer the way he'd wanted to, then, because the beach was, for the evening, according to the priest, technically church. Instead, he'd leaned in, laid his hand on top of Robin's, the wedding ring he'd been so damned proud of in plain sight, and said the same words that came to him as easily now. "They're Stuart and Claudia. Who else would have them?"

Then, same as now, Robin answered with a demure lowering of her lashes, a restrained curve of her lips. This time, though, her lips curved in the wrong direction. Down, not up. "I didn't even know they were back together."

Barney let out a long breath and ran a mental tally. Stuart and Claudia, when did that get started again? After Claudia grabbed his ass in Ted and Tracy's kitchen on Luke's birthday, but before he'd met Number Thirty One, for sure. Before the perfect month. Early summer. "Almost a year now. Ever since Stuart got out of rehab. Maybe before. Claudia saw him a lot. Even took Esther the last couple times. Yeah, probably before he got out. He's sober again. Doing the work."

"Stuart's sober again." Robin repeated the words as a fact, not a question. "I did not know that, either. I have been away a long time." She slipped out of both shoes and nudged them out of the arc of her swing with one push of her red-tipped toes. "We've been divorced now longer than we were 've barely seen each other in all that time. Four years. A lot can happen in four years. You have a baby. I have an emotional support animal."

Barney forced himself to say the words he didn't want to hear. "You just broke up with your boyfriend."

Robin's face pinched into a scowl. "That was two months ago."

"If you need time," Barney thumbed open the breath strip container again and slipped a second strip onto his tongue. He'd be tasting cinnamon long past the point he'd like. Times like this called for a cigarette, not a breath strip, but he'd quit three years ago. He shoved the pack into his pocket. Stupid doctor's stupid medical advice. Family history and risk factors had nothing on times like this. He needed the flick of a flame, the orange glow of the burning tip on the dark. He could look at that, if he had it, when he couldn't look at her, focus on the taste of menthol when he inhaled. The concentration it took to form the perfect smoke ring always gave him time to think of the most effective words for the situation. "To, um, get," he definitely needed a cigarette, long and pungent and unfiltered. "Over," he drew in a breath of night air and the memory of smoke deep in his lungs. "Things."

Alberta flopped belly up in Robin's arms and let out the least intimidating growl in all canine history. Robin complied with the request for a belly rub. "Things with Greg were over before they were over."

"I'm not sure he got that particular email. Dude flew in from Barcelona to get you back." Alberta's grunt of pure satisfaction punctuated the statement. Not helping here, dog. If I did have treats, you would not get one.

"I didn't ask him to do that." Robin gave Alberta's belly one final scratch and set her on the ground, pink leather leash still connecting the two of them. Alberta sniffed at Robin's abandoned shoes, then embarked upon some serious personal hygiene, unaffected by the withholding of hypothetical treats. "If I was going to get all weird about this breakup, I would have done it by now."

Barney angled his swing, careful not to disturb Ellie. She wasn't asleep yet, but close enough. He craned his neck and swept Robin with an assessing glance. "No Cheetos in your hair. Good sign."

She brushed one hand over the crown of her head, as if checking to make sure she really was Cheeto-free. "I'm the one who broke up with him. I didn't get all sad and gross over the whole thing. Greg did not break my heart." But you did. Robin didn't have to say that for Barney to hear it. One bare toe traced a half circle in the dirt. "Greg and I didn't want the same things, that's all. We didn't have a future together. I made a mature, rational decision and I acted on it. I'm not having second thoughts."

"But he's in your head."

Robin's hands tightened around the chains of her swing. "He knows shit. He knows a lot," she drew out that lot, "of shit."

"How much shit?"

If this were winter instead of summer, he'd be able to see vapor trail into the dark when she let out a long breath, almost as good as smoke. "Pretty much all of it."

Barney rubbed at the trace of bristle on his chin. Long day, this one. "Yeah. Photography thing. Portraiture is a collaboration between photographer and model" He'd read about that, in the introduction to one of the four big, glossy photography books currently arrayed on his coffee table, courtesy of same day shipping.

"Greg and I were more than photographer and model, or teacher and student. He's divorced, too. Irreconcilable differences."

Spouse: Pamela Bloomer Jones. 2008-2014. The Jones came courtesy of Pamela's second, current husband, father of her three 'd been a picture of her in one of Greg's books. In Repose, nothing but people in beds, or the equivalents of beds. Hammocks, couches, pool floats, that sort of thing. Gregory John Randall most definitely had a type; gorgeous brunettes with legs for days. Couldn't fault him there. "Like us." Well, that was smooth. There wasn't anyone like them. Never had been. Never would be. He pretended to check the strap on the sling. Ellie's breathing had slowed to a deep, even rhythm. Sleep. Finally. Alberta turned around three times, snuffled, and curled into a black and white ball. Her sides rose and fell, black nose tucked beneath one paw. The girls are night is ours. Those were words for another life, one where he could close the door to a bedroom painted fifty shades of pink, and join Robin on the couch. They weren't for the here and now.

Robin tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Actually, yes." Her voice faltered. "Greg can't have kids, either. Testicular cancer, when he was in college. He's okay now. The cancer's gone. He just can't," she took in a deep, ragged breath and closed her eyes for one complete back and forth of her swing. "He can't make babies." She swallowed. "That's why I went to Greg when Ted told me."

Went to Greg when Ted told me. No need for elaboration on that one. "I am sorry." Not for Ellie. He couldn't be sorry she existed, only that she wasn't half Robin and half him. "I couldn't face you. I couldn't do that to you, on top of everything else." Even now, he couldn't wipe away the image of the way her face would have crumbled, the quake in her voice as she tried to pretend everything was okay. That the mere fact he had reproduced with somebody else wasn't a slap in her face,or knife in her back. That it wasn't him delivering both at the same time. "I figured you'd hate me forever."

Robin turned her swing into three-quarter light. "I didn't hate you."

"I hated me." Still do, sometimes.

"Your face may have been on a few shooting range targets."

"Only a few?" His mouth slanted in a half-smile. "I kind of thought I'd be on all of them, and I don't mean only yours. I mean everybody's."

Robin looped Alberta's leash around the post of the swing set, slipped back into quarter light, and nudged her swing back with a small kick. "You were, for a while." Her hair lifted with the motion of the swing, then fell back onto her shoulders, dark against white.

"Did it help?"

"Nope. Really not a lot of precedent for this kind of thing, but I didn't hate you. Even when I wished that I could. Even when I tried." She planted both feet on the ground. The swing stopped. "You want to know how Greg's in my head? Really?"

No. "Yes."

Her shoulders flexed, the fabric of her shirt pale against the night around them. That was contrast, right? Full tonal range, if black and white were in the same image? Something from chapter one of Shadow and Light. "Greg asked what changed with you and me, that trying to get back together right now would be even remotely a good idea. We got divorced for a reason. We haven't been in the same room in years. I couldn't even meet your kid without my ex-boyfriend showing up out of nowhere, to try and get me back. The only thing that would have made that more awkward would be if it were your boyfriend and my baby."

"Nope, no boyfriends. No girlfriends, either. Just baby." Baby. Robin's baby, though,he didn't know how he'd have reacted to that. Robin's baby that wasn't his. A mini-Sherbatsky, without Stinson DNA, that would be a tough one. "That was not my favorite part of the day." If the photographer had been literally anybody else in the world - Lily, Annie Lebvovitz, that guy who dresses up Wiemerarners- the pictures would have been just pictures.

Robin turned back into the light, her face pinched. "What was I even thinking, meeting your daughter for the first time in public, with cameras around? That should have been private, just fam-" she clamped her lips together and fingered the wishbone charm on her necklace. "Just us."

Just family. Barney's fingers twitched. He liked the sound of that; their family. One cigarette wouldn't even be enough for this conversation. A whole pack, one they could split through the night, and a bottle of scotch, that's what they needed. No glasses, just one bottle they could pass between them until they'd worked this all out. Sneakers squeaked on the basketball court. At least two, maybe three of those guys had to have kids of their own. They'd know what to do. Hey, bro, want to watch my baby while I iron things out with my ex? Awesome. "You mean like now?"

Robin's mouth twitched at the corners. "Us and those guys." She tilted her head toward the basketball court. "Don't wake her, though," she added, her voice rushed.

"After what it took to get her down? Not a chance." Barney cradled Ellie's sleeping form, and nudged the swing barely enough to count as movement. "She'll be up again in a couple of hours, if you want to hang around. Four, tops."

Robin shook her head, retrieved both shoes, and slipped them on. "It's been a big day. I have to pack, for me and Alberta. All her stuff and her papers, so she can fly in the cabin with me."

"Are you," he shifted Ellie inside the sling They'd have to get up in a minute, make their way back home,and settle in for thsi part of the night. "Are you okay on planes?"

"It's not the planes." Robin tickled Alberta beneath her chin. Alberta stretched and lifted her head in a yawn. "But bringing a dog on a plane is pretty cool, right?"

Barney eased himself and Ellie from the swing. "Totally. Where does she-"

"Service animal bathroom. Means a connecting flight instead of direct, but it's worth it." Robin shook out Alberta's leash and hitched her purse onto her shoulder. Alberta's entire body wiggled in anticipation. Robin didn't move. "So…" She let the word dangle.

"So." Crap, he should say something here. "We still have a third date to plan when you get back?"